|
ALINGTON, Giles (1680-91) |
<p><strong><surname>ALINGTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Giles</strong> (1680–91)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1 Feb. 1685 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. Alington |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Oct. 1680, 2nd but 1st surv. s. and h. of William Alington*, Bar. Alington, and his 3rd w. Diana, da. of William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford and wid. of Sir Greville Verney, bt., of Compton Verney, Warws. <em>educ</em>. Eton. <em>unm.</em> <em>d</em>. 18 Sept. 1691.</p> |
|
|
<p>Alington was four years old when he succeeded to the title. Rather surprisingly, Alington was said to have been one of the Lords questioned by James II in 1688 after a copy of the Prince of Orange’s declaration was found.<sup>1</sup> He died of smallpox at Eton on 18 Sept. 1691, his mother having carried him to the school ‘to see him placed there, and left him dead before she returned’.<sup>2</sup> On his death the English title became extinct. He was buried with his father and grandfather at Horseheath on 22 Sept. 1691.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
ALINGTON, William (1634-85) |
<p><strong><surname>ALINGTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1634–85)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 20 Mar. 1660 as 3rd Bar. Alington [I]; <em>cr. </em>5 Dec. 1682 Bar. ALINGTON. |
|
Never sat. |
|
MP Cambridge 28 Mar. 1664-81 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 25 June 1634,<sup>1</sup> 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of William, Bar. Alington of Killard [I] of Horseheath, Cambs. and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Bt. of Helmingham, Suff. <em>educ</em>. Padua 1652. <em>m</em>. (1) Catherine (<em>d</em>. 19 Nov. 1662), da. and h. of Sir Henry Stanhope<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Ld. Stanhope, 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) lic. 30 July 1664, Julianna (<em>d</em>. 14 Sept. 1667), da. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 1da.;<sup>2</sup> (3) 15 July 1675, Diana (<em>d</em>. 13 Dec. 1701), da. of William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, wid. of Sir Greville Verney, of Compton Verney, Warws. 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. <em>d</em>. 1 Feb. 1685; <em>will</em>, 16 May 1684, pr. 6 May 1685.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. corps. 1662-3, foreign plantations 1670-2, trade and plantations 1672-4.</p><p>Col. of foot 1667, 1677, 1678-9, maj. gen. 1678; capt. indep. regt. foot in the Tower; constable of the Tower, Dec. 1678-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Dep. lt. Cambs. c. Aug. 1660-81; recorder, Cambridge 1679-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt., Tower Hamlets 8 June 1679-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt., Cambs. 9 Mar. 1681-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>The Alington family had held lands in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire since the fourteenth century, and several members sat in Parliament for Cambridgeshire, including two Speakers of the House of Commons.<sup>4</sup> Alington’s father was created Baron Alington [I] of Killard, County Cork, in July 1642, presumably to encourage his support for the crown. The family’s royalist credentials ensured their exclusion from office during the Interregnum. Giles’s brother (1633-60), the 2nd Baron Alington, was briefly implicated in royalist plotting in 1655.<sup>5</sup> William Alington was said to have been ‘bred in France and Italy’, and in January 1658 was reported as being gone to Germany.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Alington succeeded as 3rd Baron Alington of Killard, on 20 Mar. 1660, following the death of his brother Giles (1633-60). The construction of a grand house at Horseheath in 1663-4, designed by Sir Roger Pratt and described by Evelyn as ‘seated in a park, with sweet prospect and stately avenue’, cost around £20,000 and left Alington in debt for the rest of his life.<sup>7</sup> Pepys’s thought of him in 1667 as ‘a young and silly lord’ soliciting a posting in Tangier, and had ‘offered a great sum of money to go’; it was said that he would ‘put hard for it, he having a fine lady and a great man would be glad to have him out of the way’, though the identity of the man with designs on his second wife was not mentioned.<sup>8</sup> In his search for office, Alington’s widowed mother’s marriage to the much admired Sir William Compton<sup>‡</sup>, master of the ordnance and a commissioner for Tangier, may have been of some assistance, though Compton himself died in 1663; probably more helpful was his first wife’s mother, the countess of Chesterfield, who had been deeply involved in royalist conspiracy in the late 1650s, and her third husband, the quintessential Restoration courtier Daniel O’Neill. Alington in 1668 and 1673 requested a Tangier posting or anything similar from Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington.<sup>9</sup> Alington was also appointed to various commissions relating to foreign plantations, and to military and political offices within Cambridgeshire. In 1673 he advised the king on possible developments in the Dutch War and travelled to Cologne to join the forces under the Prince de Conde or Turenne, whoever was ‘likely to be first in action’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Alington was elected to Parliament for Cambridge in 1664, replacing his stepfather, Compton. His second wife having died in childbirth, Alington began to court his third wife, a daughter of the earl of Bedford, it being noted in April 1673 that ‘Lady Diana Verney will not yet have Lord Alington’.<sup>11</sup> Their courtship was presumably interrupted by his departure for the continent that summer. He was present at the siege of Maastricht, where it was noted that he received a slight wound (the source mistakenly attributing this to Arlington, with whom Alington was in correspondence at the time). Two years later, Alington and Diana Verney were married, his wife being accorded precedence as a daughter of an earl, rather than as the wife of a baron.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In debt and reliant on government handouts, Alington’s consistent support for the court throughout the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis received its reward in his appointment as constable of the Tower and lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire. In March 1679 it was rumoured that he would be part of the treasury commission which succeeded Danby.<sup>13</sup> His elevation to the English peerage, on 5 Dec. 1682, came shortly after the release of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, who had been so strongly supported by Alington’s brother-in-law, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, and was perhaps designed to underline the contrast with his own loyal service and support during the Exclusion Crisis. Alington, however, had no opportunity to take his seat in the Lords as there was no Parliament in being before his death on 1 Feb. 1685. He died suddenly of ‘an apoplexy’ at the Tower and was buried on 17 Feb. at Horseheath.<sup>14</sup> He left all his lands and goods to his son and heir Giles Alington*, 2nd Baron Alington. In September 1689, his widow responded to a query from Halifax about a self-assessment of her son’s personal estate with the comment that ‘my son being underage and I left sole guardian for his estate I believed it most proper for me to give you this assurance that my lord left his estate engaged for daughters’ portions. Therefore that being not yet paid I have no more to trouble you with’.<sup>15</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
ANNESLEY, Arthur (1614-86) |
<p><strong><surname>ANNESLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Arthur</strong> (1614–86)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Nov. 1660 as 2nd Visct. Valentia [I]; <em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 earl of ANGLESEY |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 10 Feb. 1686 |
|
MP Radnorshire 1647; Dublin (English Parliament), 1659; Carmarthen 1660 |
<p><em>b</em>. 10 July 1614, 1st s. of Sir Francis Annesley<sup>‡</sup>, Visct. Valentia [I], and 1st w. Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1624), da. of Sir John Philipps<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt. of Picton Castle, Pemb. and Anne Perrot. <em>educ</em>. private tutors; Hadley School, Mdx. (Mr. John Vade);<sup>1</sup> Magdalen, Oxf. c.1628-33;<sup>2</sup> L. Inn 1633, called 1640, bencher 1659; travelled abroad (Italy, Switzerland, France) 1634-6.<sup>3</sup> <em>m</em>. 24 Apr. 1638, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. Jan. 1698), da. and coh. of Sir James Altham<sup>‡</sup> of Oxhey, Herts., and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Richard Sutton, Acton, Mdx., 7s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 6da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 6 Apr. 1686; <em>will</em> 23 Feb., pr. 18 June 1686.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. Irish affairs 1645, 1647, obstructions 1648-9, trade Nov. 1660-72, plantations Dec. 1660-70, prizes 1666-?<sup>5</sup>, Union with Scotland;<sup>6</sup> Admiralty 1673-9, Tangier 1673-84;<sup>7</sup> pres. Council of State 25 Feb.-31 May 1660; PC 31 May 1660-85; v. treas. [I], Aug. 1660-7; treas. of the navy 1667-8; ld. privy seal 1673-82.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Commr. for oyer and terminer, Wales 1661; dep. lt. Carm., Pemb. and Rad. 1661-?74; bailiff, Bedford level 1665-6, 1669-<em>d</em>., conservator 1667-9; steward of crown manors, Rad. 1675-82; freeman, Oxford 1681.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Capt. of horse [I], 1661-aft. 1664.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Asst. R. Adventurers into Africa 1668-70;<sup>11</sup> FRS 1668-85.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, aft. J. M. Wright, c.1676, NPG 3805.</p> |
<h2><em>Civil Wars, Interregnum and the restoration of the monarchy</em></h2><p>The Annesleys were an important Anglo-Irish family, having left Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, for Ireland in the sixteenth century.<sup>13</sup> Annesley’s father was a client of Arthur Chichester<sup>†</sup>, Baron Chichester, the Ulster planter and lord deputy of Ireland and a victim of the Irish policies of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. He was sentenced to death by court martial in 1635, but the sentence was never carried out, although the legal consequences, which left the family deprived of their Irish estates, were not finally resolved until after the Restoration.<sup>14</sup> By the time Annesley was born on Fishshamble Street, Dublin, his father was already a substantial Irish landowner and political figure, as indicated by the choice of Chichester as his godfather.<sup>15</sup> Annesley was always a substantial figure in Irish politics and society. His marriage settlement referred to the property he held in 12 Irish counties, and by about 1675 he held an estimated 144,546 acres in Ireland, second only to James Butler*, earl of Brecknock, better known by his Irish peerage as duke of Ormond (and later also duke of Ormond in the English peerage).<sup>16</sup></p><p>During the Civil Wars, Annesley was initially supportive of Parliament. After election to the English House of Commons for Radnorshire in 1647, he subscribed to the National League and Covenant on 23 Feb. 1648, but was excluded from the House during Pride’s Purge. In 1659 he was returned for Dublin to the Parliament of Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> where he became an active member and argued for the ‘indispensable rights’ of the ‘old peers’ to be summoned to the Lords as an essential constituent part of the legislature. He also argued that although the constitutional positions of Ireland and Scotland were different, they had the same right as the people of England to hold a free parliament.<sup>17</sup></p><p>From the early weeks of 1659 Annesley had been in contact with the exiled Charles II. In March 1659 Charles II gave Annesley the authority to negotiate on his behalf with key political figures in England. With his knowledge and contacts in Ireland and England Annesley was in a pivotal position to influence political developments. He began working actively for the Restoration. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, referred to Annesley as the virtual leader of Ireland at this time, and recalled that Annesley was ‘very well contented that the king should receive particular information of his devotion, and of his resolution to do him service.’<sup>18</sup></p><p>After the Rump Parliament was restored in May 1659, Annesley was the chief protagonist for the return of the secluded members.<sup>19</sup> He was eventually reinstated, along with the other secluded members, in February 1660 after the intervention of George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle. Annesley was elected to the council of state and became its president, which placed him at the centre of political developments before and during the Restoration.<sup>20</sup> He was returned to the Convention for Carmarthen and was a particularly active member, being effectively leader of the Presbyterians in the House of Commons.<sup>21</sup> As such, in the months before and after the Restoration Annesley was either the chair or a member of every crucial Commons committee dealing with the impending settlement.<sup>22</sup></p><p>After the Restoration of Charles II in May 1660 the Annesleys’ Irish lands were legally reinstated; when his father died in November 1660 Annesley succeeded to his Irish honours and inherited estates in Ireland and England. He was also appointed to his father’s old office of vice-treasurer of Ireland, a key role reputed to be worth £6,500 per year.<sup>23</sup> On 1 June 1660 he was sworn a member of the Privy Council, the body that replaced the council of state, from where he counselled restraint and conciliation rather than revenge, and argued for freedom of conscience and toleration in church and state, proposing that the Declaration of Breda should become law. On 19 June 1660, Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> noted that Annesley ‘above most men’ was engaged to the families of Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich and his father-in-law, John Crew*, later Baron Crew, both Presbyterian servants of the previous regime.<sup>24</sup> He played a key role as a layman on the Presbyterian side in the Worcester House debates in October 1660, and was selected, with Denzil Holles*, later Baron Holles, to be one of two assessors to settle some of the outstanding points at issue.<sup>25</sup></p><h2><em>The early years of the Restoration 1661-5</em></h2><p>Annesley was created earl of Anglesey on 20 Apr. 1661. Although he sat on both 8 and 10 May, he was not officially introduced into the Lords until 11 May by Ormond and Algernon Percy*, 4th earl Northumberland. In the first part of the 1661-2 session (which ran until 30 July 1661), Anglesey attended on 62 days (95 per cent of the total). On 11 May, as would become customary, he was named to the usual sessional committees (privileges, petitions and the Journal) as well as a further 25 committees, reporting from one, on 27 May 1661, for the naturalization of Sir William Throckmorton and others. He reported the bill to repeal the act preventing persons in holy orders from exercising temporal jurisdiction or authority from the committee of the whole House on 18 June. He was listed on 11 July as being against the case of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the great chamberlaincy.</p><p>In the second part of the 1661-2 session (which began on 20 Nov. 1661), Anglesey attended on 121 days of the session (95 per cent of the total). He was named to a further 43 committees (excluding those mentioned below). On 7 Dec., he was appointed to manage a conference touching witnesses to be sworn at the bar in the Lords in the case of vacating fines levied by Sir Edward Powell. On 14 Dec. he was named to report a conference on the bill for confirming private acts passed during the Interregnum, and did so later in the day. On 19 Dec. he was named to a conference on the proper response to the fear of a plot against the government. He was appointed on 4 Feb. 1662 to manage a conference on the bill for the execution of attainted persons. He entered a protest on 6 Feb. against the passage of the bill restoring the estates of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl Derby. On 2 Apr. he chaired the committee on Bushell’s bill, reporting it on 4 April.<sup>26</sup> On 8 Apr. he was named to a committee to draw up a proviso (intended as a concession to the ejected clergy) for the bill of uniformity, which he duly reported on the following day. On 15 Apr. he chaired the committee on the bill confirming an award made by the king for settling the differences between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester and his son Charles Powlett*, the future 6th marquess.<sup>27</sup> He was appointed on 10 May to manage a conference on the bill confirming two acts and to give the Commons the reasons why they did not agree to the bill confirming the naturalization of Francis Hyde and others. On 13 May he was named to a committee of five to draw up a clause on the militia bill, and on the 14th this committee was named to manage a conference on the bill. Also on 14 May Anglesey was named to a conference on the Norwich stuffs bill, reporting from it later in the day. On 16 May he was appointed to prepare another proviso to the militia bill, and was named to a conference on the bill on 17 May, which he managed with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes and later earl of Radnor.<sup>28</sup> Also on 17 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill distributing money to officers who had served the king and to report from a conference on the highways bill and on the bill for the relief of the poor. On 19 May 1662 he was named to manage further conferences on the highways bill, the poor bill and the bill to restrain disorderly printing and he also entered his protest against dropping two provisos from the highways bill.</p><p>Anglesey’s knowledge of Ireland was particularly useful, and he was appointed to the standing committee of the Privy Council for Irish affairs. This, in turn, secured him a significant role in the Restoration settlement in Ireland.<sup>29</sup> He worked alongside Ormond and with his associates in Ireland, who included Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], Sir Charles Coote, earl of Mountrath [I], and Sir John Clotworthy, Viscount Massereene [I], to secure a settlement favourable to the Protestant interest. Throughout the early 1660s he sought to reassure Irish Protestant leaders as the process of discussion and decision continued and the legislation was drafted.<sup>30</sup> Charles II appointed Anglesey along with Orrery and others to a commission for the implementation of the king’s declaration for the settlement of Ireland, issued in November 1660, a role with a salary of £500 a year. Agents for the Irish Catholic interest complained to the king that Anglesey was both a judge and a party to the settlement; sentiments which the king apparently recognized, but Anglesey’s position was too strong to dispense with his services.<sup>31</sup> Ormond, the lord lieutenant, relied on Anglesey’s financial and legal expertise, especially in his role as Irish vice-treasurer.<sup>32</sup> When Ormond returned to Ireland in early 1662 Anglesey was ordered to stay at Whitehall until the Irish Act of Settlement was finalized.<sup>33</sup> He was certainly a beneficiary of that settlement and in a later assessment of Anglesey’s estate, ‘new purchases’ since the Restoration were estimated to be worth £2,400 per year, or approximately one fifth of his total estate.<sup>34</sup> Anglesey, with the help of Orrery (with whom he left his proxy for the Irish parliament in May 1662) and Sir James Shaen, obtained Irish lands that had been previously confiscated from rebels and was allowed to keep lands under the Act of Settlement, including the forfeited estates of the regicides Edmund Ludlow<sup>‡</sup> and John Jones<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>35</sup> All the regicides’ former Irish lands had been granted to James Stuart*, duke of York, and it was a measure of Anglesey’s political importance, and perhaps his personal connections, that James paid £1,000 per year from his Irish revenue to Anglesey, the same amount given to colonel Richard Talbot, later earl of Tyrconnell [I].<sup>36</sup> Anglesey also acquired land in England, including the manor of Farnborough, which appears to have been purchased shortly after the Restoration.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Anglesey was in Dublin by December 1662, and therefore absent from London during the discussions over the Declaration of Indulgence and the controversial bill to give effect to it that preoccupied the English Parliament when it met for the 1663 session on 18 February. Anglesey was excused attendance accordingly.<sup>38</sup> Anglesey was undoubtedly keen on moderating the religious settlement. His own religious observance is meticulously catalogued in his diaries. His regular practice was to attend an Anglican service on a Sunday morning followed by a service by his own chaplain (usually a Nonconformist minister) in the afternoon.<sup>39</sup> He always took time to prepare for receiving the sacrament which he did several times a year, and at least five times in 1673. However, his use of nonconformist chaplains was disliked by Anglicans like Clarendon, who criticized him in August 1662 for taking Edward Bagshaw to Ireland as his chaplain.<sup>40</sup> (Bagshaw had caused trouble earlier in the year with his controversy with George Morley*, bishop of Worcester: Bagshaw’s publications had been delivered to Anglesey’s house.)<sup>41</sup> Anglesey’s wife was much more openly committed to the dissenting cause. On 10 Jan. 1663 she informed her husband that ‘despite the declaration to favour tender consciences, [Edmund] Calamy is in Newgate for preaching once at his church and your Bagshaw is in the Gatehouse.’<sup>42</sup> Together with Anglesey’s step-mother she was noted as attending a conventicle in August 1664.<sup>43</sup> Nor did his wife’s zeal lessen over time for in January 1684 she was one of 19 people arrested for attending ‘the meeting that was formerly Dr Owen’s.’<sup>44</sup></p><p>Anglesey was not in good health while in Ireland, Ormond writing to Clarendon on 12 Mar. that he had ‘lately been very infirm’ and might even have to relinquish his office.<sup>45</sup> He had recovered sufficiently for Clarendon to write on 18 Apr. that he was ‘very glad all the alarums of your frequent indispositions are over, you had need of a very confirmed health, for you have many labours to struggle with, and of a more troublesome and exorbitant nature, then those difficulties we wrestle with here.’<sup>46</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, Clarendon saw the usefulness of Anglesey being in England, opining on 4 July 1663 that ‘I long for few things more than to see some good expedient for the … settlement of Ireland, and therefore must long for my Lord Anglesey’s arrival.’<sup>47</sup> Anglesey first sat in the Lords in 1663 on 22 July and attended on the last five days of the session, being named to a single committee. On 24 July he entered his protest against the passage of the bill for the encouragement of trade, legislation which included a prohibition on the import of fat cattle from Ireland, and on which he ‘represented as effectually as I could the mischiefs thereof’ to the king. Many hoped that Anglesey’s presence in London would strengthen the arguments being made from Ireland for this legislation to be amended in the next session.<sup>48</sup> Once Parliament was prorogued Anglesey became heavily involved in the Council’s work on Irish affairs, and particularly the bill of explanation relating to the Irish land settlement.<sup>49</sup> Not everyone appreciated his efforts: Sir Alan Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> wrote on 8 Aug. 1663 that the bill had been ‘so altered by Anglesey (who is naturally dishonest) that neither English nor Irish Papist nor Protestant will vote for it.’<sup>50</sup></p><p>Despite the failure of the 1663 bill of indulgence Anglesey was ever ready it seems to push the case for a more tolerant attitude to moderate, law-abiding dissenters. On 11 Aug. 1663 he noted some discussions with Clarendon on ‘extending such liberty as may be safe to men of peaceable spirits, though they differ in judgment. It’s to be doubted uniformity hath been pressed with too much earnestness, many ministers are subdued by it, but the people seem to be rather provoked than conquered.’<sup>51</sup> Nevertheless, Anglesey was comfortable in the company of the Anglican hierarchy: on 31 Aug. he attended the installation at Lambeth of Gilbert Sheldon*, as archbishop of Canterbury, being ‘nobly entertained.’<sup>52</sup></p><p>In the second half of 1663 Anglesey was also much concerned to protect Ormond’s position as lord steward from the projected retrenchment of expenditure in the royal household and was trusted by the duke to view his new property at Moor Park and to help negotiate the financing of it.<sup>53</sup> Ormond clearly appreciated Anglesey’s talents, describing him in July 1663 as ‘a man of worth and ability and of good use for the king’s service’, and ‘an extraordinary fit minister in his province’.<sup>54</sup> In October 1663 Anglesey noted that the bill of explanation, and attendant lobbying, would keep him in England longer than he had official licence for from Dublin. On 19 Dec. he wrote of the seemingly interminable discussions on the bill of explanation and his inability to influence them because ‘I hath not those evening opportunities and familiarities which others have and abuse.’<sup>55</sup> Ormond was unsympathetic, and despite their close working relationship by March 1664 there were signs of future strains. As the bill of explanation was debated at length in Whitehall Ormond told Clarendon that Anglesey’s relentless questioning did nothing to advance their cause and remarked that ‘nobody gains by delay but those that drive the trade of bribery’.<sup>56</sup> Only a few months earlier, on 26 Dec. 1663, Ormond had felt it necessary to warn Anglesey that the king and duke of York</p><blockquote><p>are, and have been, much unsatisfied with your deportment in Parliaments and Councils, and have observed that upon all questions wherein nonconformists are concerned, you have always inclined to their favour, and cast difficulties in the way to all means that have been proposed to reduce them to conformity, or to secure the peace of the kingdom against them.</p></blockquote><p>Ascribing Anglesey’s actions to ‘a charitable desire to do good offices, or from a belief that moderation and lenity is the likeliest way to gain Dissenters and to establish tranquillity’, he nevertheless noted that it ‘may also bear a worse construction … especially when you are single in the opinion, or supported by very few.’<sup>57</sup></p><p>In February 1664 Anglesey was afflicted with the gout, which severely restricted his outdoor activities, although he did manage to attend a Council committee meeting on Irish affairs.<sup>58</sup> A few days before Parliament met on 16 Mar. 1664, Anglesey received a letter from the disgraced George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, ‘enclosing one of submission to his majesty, sealed with a copy thereof for me to peruse.’ Anglesey rose from his sickbed, took it to the king and then returned it to Bristol unopened. Anglesey informed Ormond of this incident because he felt some people would use it against him, whereas the duke knew ‘what passed in the Lord’s house between me and my lord of Bristol, in your presence, [and] can easily judge whether I am likely to hazard my lord chancellor’s friendship for my Lord Bristol’s compliment.’<sup>59</sup></p><p>In the next session of Parliament, Anglesey’s attendance rate was over 94 per cent and he missed only two days of the session. He was named to the sessional committees and to nine other committees. On 22 Apr. he was named to a conference on foreign trade. He chaired a committee on 5 May on the hearth tax, and on five consecutive sitting days served on the subcommittee on the conventicle bill.<sup>60</sup> On 13 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill, reporting from it later that day. He reported subsequently from conferences on the bill on 14, 16 May (twice), when he also reported a proviso that had been drawn up, and on 17 May, the day on which Parliament was prorogued. He also attended the prorogation on 20 Aug. 1664.</p><p>When Parliament sat again, for the session which began on 24 Nov. 1664, Anglesey attended on 23 days (43 per cent of the total). He was again named to the sessional committees and to several select committees. He was absent from 20 Dec. 1664 until 18 Feb. 1665, without a recorded excuse. He chaired sessions of the committee on the bills to prevent delays upon extending statutes and to prevent arrests of judgment, reporting both bills on 1 March. Also on 1 Mar. he chaired the committees on Wildmoor Fen bill (which was adjourned with no discussion).<sup>61</sup> On 1 Mar. he was appointed to report a conference on the estate bill of Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet.</p><h2><em>Irish Cattle and the crisis of 1665-8</em></h2><p>By this date, it was clear that Anglesey was a man of business, prepared to take part in every day parliamentary activities and to undertake the onerous task of routine administration. His temperament appealed to an administrator like Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, who described Anglesey in December 1664 as ‘a grave and serious man’.<sup>62</sup> In February 1665, Pepys recorded the chaos of Privy Council committees, in which men came and went, noting that Anglesey had said ‘I think we must be forced to get the king to come to every committee, for I do not see that we do anything at any time but when he is here’.<sup>63</sup> When Parliament was prorogued on 1 Aug. 1665, in the absence of both Clarendon and a commission from the king, Anglesey was chosen Speaker for the occasion.</p><p>In mid-August 1665 Anglesey wrote to Archbishop Sheldon signifying his consent should an application be received for a marriage licence for his daughter Elizabeth and her future husband, Alexander Macdonnell, brother of Randal Macdonnell, earl of Antrim [I], a leading Catholic.<sup>64</sup> This was a significant match, and may have been a reward for Anglesey’s support for a clause favouring Antrim in the bill of explanation.<sup>65</sup> Later it would help to produce an impression that Anglesey was sympathetic to Catholicism. Indeed, if the marriage of one’s daughters is an indication of religious tolerance, it should be noted that his eldest daughter, Dorothy, was already married to the Catholic Richard Power, Baron Power, the future earl of Tyrone [I], whilst his widowed daughter Lady Frances Wyndham would marry the nonconformist sympathizer John Thompson*, later Baron Haversham, in 1668. Two later incidents reveal more about Anglesey’s religious sympathies. On the 10 Nov. 1672 he spent ‘two hours in the evening in dispute with Mr Holland the priest at Lady Waldegrave’s’, and on 19 Nov. he recorded the death of John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester as ‘a great loss to religion and learning’.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Anglesey’s usefulness in the king’s service probably explains the series of rewards he received around this time. A treasury warrant was issued to him for £400 for ‘secret services’ in May 1665, and in June he was given a patent confirming his lands in Ireland.<sup>67</sup> In August 1665 the king instructed Ormond to grant Anglesey lands in Ireland not appropriated by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation to the value of £500 per year fee-farm rent, and to enroll an additional pension to Anglesey of £600 per year for life out of the Irish revenue.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Anglesey was absent from the session of October 1665, being excused attendance on the 23rd as he was on the ‘king’s business’ in Ireland. His proxy had been registered with Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount Conway on 11 October. Ormond’s correspondence reveals that Anglesey was also in Ireland on business for York and on a mission to procure ‘his majesty’s bounty’ for Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington.<sup>69</sup> Anglesey returned to England probably in response to a plea from his recently widowed daughter, Lady Frances Wyndham, but also charged with reinforcing the views of the Irish ministers against the Irish cattle bill in the hope that the king would use his authority to prevent the bill’s passage.<sup>70</sup></p><p>At this date Anglesey seems to have been in the market for land in England.<sup>71</sup> During the course of the year Anglesey purchased Bletchingdon from Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond.<sup>72</sup> Only seven miles north of Oxford and close to Woodstock this was to prove a pleasurable summer or autumn retreat for Anglesey. By about 1667 Anglesey’s estate was estimated at £11,360 p.a.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Anglesey missed the first five days of the 1666-7 session, sitting first on 27 September. Overall he attended on 83 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was appointed to a further 22 committees. Anglesey was also the recipient of two proxies: that of Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans (24 Oct.) and that of Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper (22 Dec.). On 12 Oct. 1666 Anglesey was named to a committee to prepare reasons for a conference over the prohibition of trade with France, which he reported on the 15th. He then reported the resultant conferences on 17 and 23 October. On 29 Oct. Anglesey and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), were deputed to add the Lords’ concurrence to the Commons vote on the matter, which Anglesey reported. Finally, Anglesey reported the resultant conference with the Commons on the 30th, and was named as one of the peers to present to the king the joint address against the importation of French commodities.</p><p>Irish matters bulked large in this session of Parliament. Anglesey, with the backing of Ormond and his son, Thomas Butler*, styled earl of Ossory [I], and Baron Butler of Moore Park in the English peerage, was engaged in opposition to the bill to prohibit the importation of Irish cattle.<sup>74</sup> Anglesey was expected to ‘employ his interest with particular friends in both Houses.’<sup>75</sup> Indeed, Ormond and the Irish Privy Council had written to the king in August deputing Anglesey as one of the peers to lobby him over the matter.<sup>76</sup> As early as 29 Sept. Anglesey had correctly perceived that</p><blockquote><p>it is impossible to stop the torrent or rectify the mistakes that are in that House [of Commons], in this affair … and I see also that his majesty takes it for granted that the bill cannot be opposed in that house with any success but that we must beg for it in the House of Lords and at conferences, and in conclusion his majesty is well resolved against it.<sup>77</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 10 Nov. Arlington noted that he had dissuaded Anglesey from offering</p><blockquote><p>a proviso relating to free trade in that kingdom … assuring myself from the temper I observe in the House it will not be admitted, and will by consequence be offered with more disadvantage hereafter to his majesty when it shall be thought seasonable, and his Lordship seemed convinced by my reasons therein.<sup>78</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 17 Nov. Anglesey was named to the committee to draft a proviso to the bill stipulating the form in which the Irish offer of beef for the City of London in the wake of the Fire of London would be distributed. On 23 Nov. Anglesey entered his dissent to the passage of the Irish cattle bill. With thoughts moving on to how to block the bill altogether, on 27 Nov. Conway pointed out that although Anglesey ‘is a man of excellent parts … his interest at court is not answerable.’<sup>79</sup> On 14 Dec., when the bill was before the Commons, Anglesey was named to report a conference on the subject, which he did on 17 Dec. He was then named to prepare reasons to be offered at the next conference on the bill, reporting them on 29 December. He reported from further conferences on the bill on 3 and 12 Jan. 1667. On 14 Jan. Anglesey entered his protest against agreeing with the Commons on the Irish cattle bill, particularly objecting to the term nuisance. As he wrote to Ormond,</p><blockquote><p>yesterday unexpectedly proved a fatal day to Ireland by the passing of the bill against importation of their cattle, when we were generally resolved to have cast it out, and had certainly done so, if we had been left free to our own judgment ... The duke of York had that very morning expressed great resolution against it; and the archbishop of Canterbury, who had two proxies, came purposely to ... oppose it ... But his majesty met the duke at my lord chancellor’s, and ... as I understand, against my lord chancellor’s mind, it was resolved the Lords must yield to the Commons.’<sup>80</sup></p></blockquote><p>As was by now the pattern, Anglesey continued to be active in a wide range of other parliamentary business. He was involved in conferences on the poll bill and public accounts (22 Nov., 29 Dec. 1666, 3, 12 and 24 Jan. 1667), the Canary Company (19 Dec. 1666) the impeachment of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt (3 Jan., 4 and 7 Feb. 1667) and the plague bill (1 and 4 February). According to the diary of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, he was the chief manager for the Lords at the conference on 7 Feb. regarding Mordaunt’s impeachment.<sup>81</sup> The committee book shows that he was equally active chairing committees; he reported from the committee on the bill for the relief of poor prisoners on 1 Feb. and on 6 and 7 Feb. he chaired the adjourned committee on the bill settling taxes on Bedford Level, presenting a ‘draught of what shall be proposed’ to the committee on the 8th.<sup>82</sup></p><p>According to Ormond, at the beginning of April 1667 a bedridden, gout-suffering Anglesey was ‘not unmindful of the danger he supposes his interest may undergo by his absence from here,’ presumably demonstrating his unease over the investigations by commissioners into the Irish land settlement.<sup>83</sup> Anglesey had been quite ill, for on 4 May Lady Ranelagh had written to Burlington that he had ‘been nearer going into another world than to Ireland since you went … he is yet weak but mending and for Ireland when he is able.’<sup>84</sup></p><p>Anglesey remained a heavy presence in the Privy Council where he proved keen to absolve himself from any blame for the naval disasters against the Dutch, taking care to inform Ormond on 15 June 1667 that, nine months previously, he had argued in the king’s cabinet for a fleet to be put to sea and the consequences of not doing so.<sup>85</sup> In the debates in the Privy Council around 20 June, Anglesey was in favour of calling a new Parliament, but the views of Sheldon and Clarendon prevailed to the contrary.<sup>86</sup> On 24 June Pepys recounted an intervention at the Privy Council by Anglesey to the effect that their purpose in meeting was ‘to enquire what was or could be done in the business of making a peace, and in whose hands that was and where it was stopped or forwarded; and went on very highly to have all made open to them.’<sup>87</sup></p><p>By this date opposition to Clarendon and Ormond was increasing, chiefly orchestrated by Buckingham, assisted by Orrery. Pressure was exerted on Anglesey to join them through the threat of an investigation into the Irish treasury. Anglesey responded by obtaining the king’s reluctant permission to swap offices with the equally beleaguered treasurer of the navy, Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>88</sup> James Thurston thought that the exchange was a clever manoeuvre by which the king would respond to some of the demands insisted on in the last parliamentary session, one of which was Carteret’s removal as treasurer of the navy.<sup>89</sup> Pepys was pleased, noting at Anglesey’s first meeting of the navy board on 9 July: ‘he is a very notable man and understanding, and will do things regular and understand them himself, not trust Fenn [John Fenn, the navy paymaster] as Sir George Carteret did, and will solicit soundly for money.’ Others were not so sanguine, Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup> remarking that Anglesey was ‘one of the greatest knaves in the world’.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Anglesey attended Parliament on both 25 and 29 July 1667, a short session designed to allow the king to announce the conclusion of a peace. His administrative skills were utilized on 29 July when he was named to a committee of the Council charged with the retrenchment of expenditure.<sup>91</sup> He remained supportive of Ormond’s position, and kept Ormond informed throughout the autumn of 1667 on matters relating to the Irish settlement and Clarendon.<sup>92</sup></p><p>The 1667-9 session opened on 10 Oct. 1667, after Clarendon’s dismissal from office. Within weeks Anglesey had warned Ormond that he was now the focus of opposition.<sup>93</sup> Anglesey was characteristically active in the first part of this session (October to December) attending on 39 days, 76.5 per cent of the total. On 14 Oct. he was added to the committees for privileges and the Journal, having been absent when they were nominated on 11 Oct. and he was added to the committee on petitions on 31 October. Also on 31 Oct. he informed the House that a committee of the Commons on the miscarriages in the late war had desired him to provide them with information on the tickets given to seamen. After referral to the committee for privileges to examine precedents, on 12 Nov. Anglesey was given leave to do as he pleased in the matter. Presumably he cooperated, at least in part, because the Commons read a paper from Anglesey on 28 Feb. 1668, relating to the inconveniencies and abuses which occurred when mariners were discharged by tickets. He was named to a further 16 committees during this part of the session. The committee book again testifies to his activity, including his role chairing the committee on the estate bill of Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, on seven occasions in October and November 1667.<sup>94</sup> On 15 and 19 Nov. he was named to manage conferences over the commitment of Clarendon but on 21 Nov. he protested against granting another conference on the matter, in part because he viewed it as an invasion of the Lords’ privileges, and so was not named to manage it. The following day he was nevertheless named to draft heads of a conference concerning the procedures used during the discussions over Clarendon, and on 23 Nov. he attended and reported back from the subsequent conference. On 25 and 27 Nov. he was named to manage further conferences on Clarendon’s case. Pepys recorded that when the conference was held on 28 Nov. it was said that ‘my Lord Anglesey doth his part admirably.’<sup>95</sup> Other diarists noted that he and his fellow managers, Holles and Ashley, rejected the precedents advanced by the Commons and that Anglesey argued that the precedents should be disregarded as they were ‘new, and that new precedents were not so binding and authentic as those that were more ancient.’<sup>96</sup> Anglesey apparently believed that the Commons would yield to the Lords and when the Commons voted that the Lords had not allowed them justice by failing to commit Clarendon, he told Pepys that</p><blockquote><p>should the Lords yield to what the Commons would have in this matter, it were to make them worse then any justice of the peace (whereas they are the highest court in the kingdom); that they cannot be judges whether an offender be to committed or bailed, which every justice of the peace doth do. And then he showed me precedents plain in their defence.<sup>97</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 4 and 6 Dec. he was named to manage conferences on Clarendon’s ‘scandalous and seditious’ petition to the Lords. When, on 5 Dec., James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, introduced ‘a bill for the honour and privilege of the House and mercy to my Lord Clarendon’ Anglesey opposed it, arguing that mercy could only be shown under the law to those already convicted of a crime, but the bill, actually to banish Clarendon, was given a first reading.<sup>98</sup> Despite his opposition, he was added on 9 Dec. to the committee for the bill. On 14 Dec. he was named to draw up reasons why the Lords did not agree with the Commons’ address for a proclamation summoning Clarendon to his trial. On 24 Dec. Anglesey wrote to Ormond that the bill for banishing Clarendon,</p><blockquote><p>which went very bad from the House of peers was much amended in the House of Commons, and imports no more now but a summons to render himself to one of the secretaries or lieutenant of the tower by the first of February under pain of banishment with assurance of a trial in parliament if he come.<sup>99</sup></p></blockquote><p>Meanwhile, on 6 Dec. 1667 Anglesey had come under attack in the Privy Council for altering payments in course set by the council. According to Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, this was merely an excuse to seek revenge on Anglesey for his conduct over Clarendon. Just after Christmas, there were rumours at Whitehall that Anglesey would be removed from the Privy Council because he had resisted the king’s will against Clarendon, although York was intent on resisting such a move.<sup>100</sup> Anglesey summed up the situation on 4 Jan. 1668, writing of the ‘sad and declining state affairs are in; all confidence among men so broken, by late intrigues and cabals, that there are scarce any two that dare trust one the other’; instead of ‘love, and friendly converse; now, there is nothing but practice to undermine and supplant one another.’<sup>101</sup> Anglesey defended himself vociferously, Pepys recording on 5 Jan. an alleged conversation between Anglesey and one of his opponents, in which Anglesey asked the question:</p><blockquote><p>what are we to look for when we are outed; will all things be set right in the nation? … will you and the rest of you be contented to be hanged, if you do not redeem all our misfortunes and set all right, if the power be put into your hands? I and the rest of us that you are labouring to put out, will be contented to be hanged if we do not recover all that is passed, if the king will put the power into our hands and adhere wholly to our advice.<sup>102</sup></p></blockquote><p>Also in January 1668 Anglesey was critical of the new act setting up a commission of accounts, which he said the Lords had passed ‘because it was a senseless, impracticable, ineffectual and foolish act’, and ‘a thing that can do nothing considerable for all its great noise.’<sup>103</sup></p><p>When the 1667-8 session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668, Anglesey attended on 36 days, 55 per cent of the total. He was named to further eight committees. On 9 and 16 Mar. he entered his dissent to resolutions in the case of <em>Morley v. Elwes</em>. On 3 Mar., Anglesey had reported that the threat of impeachment proceedings against Ormond was receding but on 17 Mar. he noted that</p><blockquote><p>the extravagant petition of the Adventurers was read in the House of Commons yesterday. The petitioners are to be heard, at bar, upon it that day month. … Some here are countermining this design which would overthrow the Settlement, and make Ireland slave to England. ... The new arrow is aimed more at his grace, than at any else.<sup>104</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 1 Apr. Anglesey informed the House of a breach of privilege against him, by a summons in connection with a case in King’s Bench. The culprits were summoned to attend on the following day, but the Journal is silent on what happened. Having been added on 10 Apr. to the committee concerning the Hamburg Company and its creditors, on 23 Apr. he chaired the committee attempting to mediate between them.<sup>105</sup> On 24 Apr. he was named to manage a conference over the impeachment of William Penn, which he reported later in the day. On 29 Apr., ‘upon a speech of the earl of Anglesey’s’ the bill from the Commons for continuing the act suppressing conventicles was laid aside.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Anglesey was also involved in the most important constitutional wrangle of the session, the case of <em>Skinner v. the East India Company</em>. On 5 May he was named to a conference on the case.<sup>107</sup> On 6 May, in the committee for privileges, it was decided that Anglesey and Holles would draft the Lords’ case and that Anglesey would be one of the peers deputed to respond to the arguments offered by the Commons. On 7 May he offered ‘what his Lordship hath prepared by way of introduction for the conferences’ together with the relevant precedents and this was then reported to the House. He was then designated to speak ‘to modern records’ at the conference with the Commons on 8 May. Several accounts survive detailing his defence of the Lords jurisdiction.<sup>108</sup> Yet Anglesey failed to convince himself. He told Pepys that the</p><blockquote><p>Lords may be in error, at least it is possible they may, in this matter of Skinner; and he doubts they may, and did declare his judgment in the House of Lords against their proceedings therein, he having hinder[ed], a hundred original causes being brought into their House, notwithstanding that he was put upon defending their proceedings; but that he is confident that the House of Commons are in the wrong in the method they take to remedy any error of the Lords, for no vote of theirs can do it; but in all cases the Commons have done it by petition to the king, sent up to the Lords and by them agreed to and so redressed.<sup>109</sup></p></blockquote><p>This ties in with a comment of Sir Roger Twysden<sup>‡</sup> in June, that the counter-arguments of the solicitor general, Sir Heneage Finch*, later lord chancellor and earl of Nottingham, had proved so effective that it ‘put the earl of Anglesey, who was to reply to it, into some distemper.’<sup>110</sup></p><p>Anglesey was still a lynchpin in the government’s administrative machine. However, his activity could cause resentment as at the end of June 1668, when he offended York by complaining in the Council of disorders in the navy, rather than taking his concerns directly to the duke.<sup>111</sup> A document of September 1668 shows that Anglesey was a member of two standing committees of the Privy Council, one concerning the admiralty, navy, military matters, fortifications, and the other with trade, foreign plantations, Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Tangier, although he was omitted from the key committee for foreign affairs.<sup>112</sup></p><h2><em>Loss of office 1668-70</em></h2><p>Meanwhile, Anglesey came under attack for his role in the Irish administration. Once again the real target was Ormond and part of the purpose of the accusation was to pre-empt criticism in the next session of Parliament. The attack was led by Buckingham and Arlington, but caused tensions between the two. Arlington, it was said, ‘would like to ruin milord Anglesey, who is his enemy, and the best head there is in the council. But the duke of Buckingham, to whom this milord once showed partiality, will not consent to his downfall, and would very much like to acquire him.’<sup>113</sup> Ossory attributed much of the political manoeuvring to Orrery and this is confirmed by other accounts.<sup>114</sup> Anglesey was suspended as treasurer of the navy by the king acting in Council on 28 Oct. 1668.<sup>115</sup> On 7 Nov., he was also suspended from attending Council, probably because of his failure to acquiesce in the decision to hand over the administration of the navy treasurership to Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Osborne*, the future earl of Danby: ‘the former a creature of Arlington’s, and the latter of the duke of Buckingham’s.’<sup>116</sup> On 9 Nov. 1668 Colbert informed Louis that upon Anglesey’s loss of office and suspension from the Council ‘Milord Arlington rejoiced quite publicly, drinking the health of these commissioners and letting it be seen that this change could be attributed to him.’<sup>117</sup> Anglesey, who probably had the support of the duke of York, petitioned the king, arguing that he had ‘a legal estate’ for life in the office and making a barely concealed threat to raise it as a matter of privilege of peerage unless he were given an opportunity to argue his case before the council and the judges. The petition was rejected on 11 Nov. when the king replied that Anglesey was not prevented by the king’s actions from ‘taking the benefit from his laws’, but that ‘His majesty hath reason to suspect very great miscarriages in the management of that revenue which passed through the petitioner’s hands in Ireland to the damage of himself and his subjects there, and therefore doth not think fit to trust the treasure of his navy in the same hands, till he hath received better satisfaction’.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Anglesey petitioned the king again on 5 Dec. 1668 asking how he could give better satisfaction over his Irish accounts and hence return to exercising his navy office.<sup>119</sup> By the summer of 1669, the commissioners were able to report back to the king. They stated that initially they had had difficulty tracking down Anglesey’s detailed accounts but when they did they found they were ‘kept in so ill a method’ that anything could be concealed in their confusion and perplexity. Daniel Bellingham, an officer of the Irish treasury, had not been sworn in and considered himself accountable only to Anglesey and not to the king. They estimated that the king was owed approximately £34,000 but the current balance was only £7,150.<sup>120</sup> Despite these criticisms no further action was taken against Anglesey, perhaps because Ormond, who had been the key target, had been removed from office in February 1669 or because the king had no wish to open a legal battle with Anglesey when there were more important matters in hand. Nevertheless, Anglesey remained suspended from office.</p><p>Anglesey attended the adjournment of the House on 11 Nov. 1668 and the prorogation on 1 Mar. 1669. He attended on 34 days (94 per cent) of the 1669 session. On the opening day, 19 Oct., he was named to four select committees. On 21 Oct. Sir Heneage Finch revealed in a speech to the Commons something of Anglesey’s views on the issues raised by the Skinner case when he noted that ‘I am clearly of the earl of Anglesey’s mind that votes will not end this matter nothing but a bill can do it.’<sup>121</sup> On 15 Nov. a complaint was made that Sir Maurice Eustace had breached the privilege of the House by procuring a hearing of a cause against Anglesey, for which he was ordered to appear at the Bar on the following day. The House ordered a stop to proceedings, and Eustace was discharged at Anglesey’s request. Anglesey registered his protest on 25 Nov. 1669 and his dissent on 29 Nov. in the case of <em>Bernard Granville v. Jeremy Elwes</em>.</p><p>On 18 Nov. 1669 Anglesey took his case over the treasurership of the navy to the Lords, particularly alleging that the commissioners appointed to examine his Irish accounts were influenced extra-judicially.<sup>122</sup> The following day, it was referred to the committee for privileges, where Anglesey had the matter suspended.<sup>123</sup> On 24 Nov. he petitioned the king; he asked for the profits of his office, as a pledge that Charles II ‘has not cast me off.’<sup>124</sup></p><p>Anglesey was absent from the first two days of the next (1670-1) session. He first sat on 21 Feb. 1670, when he was added to the committees for privileges and petitions. He missed only one further day (11 Mar.), attending on 37 days of the session before the adjournment on 11 Apr., 93 per cent of the total of this part of the session. He was also on hand to support the divorce bill of John Manners*, Lord Roos, the future 9th earl of Rutland, whose sister was married to his son. On 22 Feb. he informed Roos’s mother that ‘now will be the time for your ladyship and my lord ... to come about my Lord Roos’s his business; all things going smooth in Parliament, and the two houses agreed this day’, a reference to the Skinner case.<sup>125</sup> He spoke and acted as a teller in favour of giving the Roos divorce bill a second reading on 17 March. At the third reading on 28 Mar. he offered a proviso allowing Lady Roos £400 p.a. maintenance, which was not allowed as the bill had already been read three times. However, Anglesey, Ashley and Roos’s father, John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, ‘undertook the substance of the proviso should be made good to her.’<sup>126</sup> As Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> concluded: ‘Anglesey and Ashley, who study and know their interests as well as any gentlemen at Court, and whose sons have married two sisters of Roos, inheritrixes if he has no issue, yet they also drive on the bill with their greatest vigour. The king is for the bill.’<sup>127</sup></p><p>On 21 Mar. 1670 he was named to draft an address to the king about the ancient freedom of peers from the impost on wines, which he reported the same day. He was named to a further 26 committees in this part of the session. On 26 Mar. he entered his dissent against the passage of the conventicle bill. As in previous sessions he was active in committee, chairing meetings of four committees on 30 Mar., one of which (the dean of St Paul’s bill) he reported later that day and another (the malicious burning of houses bill) on 4 April.<sup>128</sup> He was also named to manage several conferences: the Guzman et al. naturalization bill on 30 Mar.; the conventicle bill (reporting on 2 and 5 Apr.); repair of Great Yarmouth harbour (reported on 5 Apr.); and on 9 Apr. he was named to that for preventing the delivery of merchant ships (named 9 April). From 2 Apr. he held the proxies of both Rutland and Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu. On 11 Apr. he reported from the committee for privileges on the case of <em>Henry Slingsby v. William Hale</em><sup>‡</sup>. On 9 Apr. Anglesey had been named to a committee to consider grievances arising from the rules and practices that governed law suits. While the House stood adjourned Anglesey was an active member of a subcommittee on this subject.<sup>129</sup></p><h2><em>Return to favour 1670-78</em></h2><p>The adjournment of the House saw Anglesey’s political prospects rise. A newsletter writer noted on 19 Apr. that ‘Anglesey is restored to the council, he made an excellent speech in the House of Lords in behalf of the Lord Roos’s bill but I do not say that is the cause.’<sup>130</sup> Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> reported that he was also ‘in good esteem with the king, and is in no small hope of being restored to his office of treasurer of the navy, or compensation for it.’<sup>131</sup></p><p>Another indication of Anglesey’s return to favour, or at least a willingness by the king to use his talent for business, was his appointment as a commissioner for negotiating a union with Scotland, meetings of which took place between September and November 1670. Significantly, on 22 Sept. he was one of those named to a joint committee with the Scots charged with drawing up the intended articles of union. This committee met at Anglesey’s house on 23 Sept. and drafted the preliminary articles, which he reported back to the commissioners for England on the following day before they were considered by the full commission.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Anglesey was present on 24 Oct. 1670 when the House reconvened after the adjournment. He attended on 113 days, 90 per cent of the total. He was named to a further 44 committees during this part of the session, chairing several of them, and reporting from the committee on the Falmouth church bill on 21 Nov. and that on the bill against the malicious burning of houses on 22 November. He was active in committee in other ways too: on 10 Dec. the committee on the bill to prevent frauds in the export of wool accepted a clause he had drafted.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 11 Nov. 1670 Anglesey argued ‘mightily’ on behalf of Sir Robert Nugent in his complaint against Richard Talbot, whereupon the House ordered a hearing for later in the month.<sup>134</sup> On 1 Dec. he argued for granting relief to Ann Fry in her appeal from a chancery decree in favour of George Porter, but without success.<sup>135</sup> On 2 Dec. Anglesey entered his dissent against the passage of the general naturalization bill. As was by now usual he was deeply involved in managing and reporting conferences. These ranged from issues of national concern, such as the Commons petition to the king for the prevention of the growth of popery (reported on 10 Mar. 1771) and the additional excise bill (named 6 Mar.), to matters of more localized interest such as the Boston navigation bill (named 13 Mar.) and the bill to prevent abuses at Smithfield market (named 18 and 20 April). On 9 Mar. Anglesey protested against the failure to commit the bill concerning privilege of Parliament ‘because I conceive there is no colour of law to claim a privilege of freedom from suits; and for many other reasons’. He likewise entered his dissent against the failure to order the bill to be engrossed. On 15 Mar. he entered his protest against the suspension of judgment against John Cusack in the case against William Usher, ‘because the defendants were never yet summoned nor heard and are not parties to the judgment’. On the following day he entered his dissent against the suspension of judgment for two months.</p><p>Having been involved in the conference on preventing the growth of popery, Anglesey went on to chair the committee on the resultant bill. On 13 Apr. 1671 he was also named to the subcommittee ‘to draw up such a test or oath according to the debate of the committee this day which being taken, may obtain a mitigation of the penalties of the law following conviction to such recusants’.<sup>136</sup></p><p>In April 1671 Anglesey became involved in the controversy arising from the bill imposing an additional duty upon foreign commodities over the Lords’ claim to amend money bills. He reported on a conference on the bill and the general point about the upper House amending money bills on 22 April. The Commons’ refusal to accept the right of peers to amend financial legislation caused the bill to be lost and prompted Anglesey to write a widely copied manuscript tract, eventually published in 1702 as <em>The Privileges of the House of Lords and Commons Argued and Stated</em>.<sup>137</sup></p><p>With Ormond out of office in Ireland some of those patronized by him looked to Anglesey for assistance in 1670, especially as he was now active again in the Privy Council. The pro-French and ‘Catholic’ policy of the king and the Cabal had resulted in the reinstatement of the Catholic church hierarchy in Ireland. As a result Peter Talbot, titular Archbishop of Dublin, was able to use his position to persecute the clergy who had subscribed to the loyal oath promoted by Ormond and Father Peter Walsh in 1661.<sup>138</sup> In the summer of 1670 Anglesey was reading Walsh’s pamphlets and papers in order to understand the issue and present a petition to the Privy Council.<sup>139</sup> More generally, when Richard Talbot presented a petition to the king and council requesting a review of the Irish land settlement, Anglesey’s position was ambiguous. He had been an architect and beneficiary of the settlement but now agreed that it had been unjust in some respects towards Irish Catholics.<sup>140</sup> Anglesey was appointed to a commission to investigate the Irish settlement which was overwhelmed in hearings, recriminations and paperwork for the next few years.<sup>141</sup></p><p>From May 1671 Anglesey’s diary details his daily activities, revealing an extraordinary level of involvement in a range of governmental bodies, his commercial interests in the Gambia Company and Fen Corporation, and his religious life. It also demonstrates, albeit partially, his contacts with the main political players of the day. On 4 June, for example, Ashley, Buckingham ‘and others’ came to dine with him at Kensington, while on the 18th he dined with Lord Chamberlain St Albans at Windsor.<sup>142</sup> Anglesey’s diary also helps to explain the convoluted proceedings over his office of treasurer of the navy in the summer and early autumn of 1671. On 22 Sept. the king decided to appoint Osborne as the sole treasurer of the navy, in effect making Anglesey’s suspension perpetual. Negotiations continued for many months and at one point Charles II offered Anglesey the mastership of the rolls instead of the treasurership of the navy, ‘if I would accept it, and clear all for time past. I said I was willing to serve … and liked better to be among lawyers, as I was bred, than in any other course.’<sup>143</sup> After many delays on 5 Sept. Anglesey was granted the fees of the office from the date of his suspension until June 1672, and then £3,000 p.a. in lieu of his fees from the treasurership.<sup>144</sup> Even then there were further delays, and a fresh grant had to be issued on 14 October.<sup>145</sup> This settlement did not prevent Anglesey from continuing to press for justice over his accounts for the vice-treasurership of Ireland, claiming that if anything the king owed him money.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Anglesey was still being courted by other ministers. On 19 July 1671 he joined Ashley for dinner at Twickenham, the residence of John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, where Buckingham suggested that Anglesey was his preferred candidate for chancellor. By 25 Aug. Buckingham seemed to be suggesting Anglesey as lord president but the following day Berkeley assured him that only Osborne opposed him being lord keeper, and Ashley offered his support for the post.<sup>147</sup> On 11 Nov. Anglesey dined with Ashley, Lord Roos and others at the Sun Tavern in London.<sup>148</sup> From 3 Dec. until 9 Jan. 1672 Anglesey was bedridden with gout but on 2 Jan. 1672 he rose from his sickbed to attend an extraordinary council meeting where he failed to prevent the Stop of the Exchequer.<sup>149</sup></p><p>On 23 Jan. 1672 Anglesey had a long private meeting with the king, who told him ‘all his designs against the Dutch and for liberty [of conscience].’ From late February until mid-April 1672 Anglesey was ill of the gout, although he occasionally roused himself to attend council, as he did on 15 Mar., ‘where I spoke my mind freely to the Declaration offered by the king for indulgence; observing the Papists are put thereby into a better and less jealoused state than the dissenting protestants,’ and on the 17th when he ‘spoke my mind to the Declaration against the Dutch, and proposed the last treaty might be observed in not seizing of merchants’ goods’, but giving time to withdraw if war were judged necessary.<sup>150</sup> Anglesey had long been a supporter of liberty of conscience. His pamphlet on the subject, entitled <em>The King’s Right of Indulgence in Spiritual Matters, with the Equity thereof, asserted</em>, was published in 1688. It was not so much the Second Declaration of Indulgence therefore that concerned him in 1672, but the absence of Parliament, the general direction of court policy, war with Holland and developments in Ireland.<sup>151</sup></p><p>In June 1672 the mutual antipathy between Anglesey and Orrery boiled over. On 11 June, at the king’s command, Anglesey handed over to him a letter from Orrery about Ireland.<sup>152</sup> According to Conway, ‘Lord Orrery is totally ruined by a letter which he wrote to Lord Anglesey, who carried it to the king. I know not which is most condemned, the indiscretion of the one or the treachery of the other.’<sup>153</sup> By the same post Arlington wrote on the king’s behalf commanding Orrery to ‘moderate his zeal’ on security matters and to stop inflaming matters in the wake of the king’s declaration of his indulgence towards allowing the Roman Catholics to live in corporate towns.<sup>154</sup></p><p>On 25 Nov. 1672, Sir John Coplestone reported that Anglesey might be about to be made lord privy seal.<sup>155</sup> On 30 Nov. Anglesey recorded that the king had offered him encouragement which ‘I should quickly see by him employing me in some place of trust’. Arlington advised letting ‘things rest so keeping all private and all would go well,’ and so Anglesey bided his time. Meanwhile, Anglesey was working hard at the social aspects of power, accompanying first the new chancellor of the exchequer, Sir John Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> (23 Nov.), and then the lord treasurer Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford (5 Dec.) to be sworn in the exchequer. His care to attend the court saw him on hand to note on 25 Dec. that although the king received the sacrament, the duke of York did not.<sup>156</sup> Early in the new year, Anglesey was revealed to be one of the protectors (the other being Shaftesbury, as Ashley had now become) of Marvell’s <em>The Rehearsal Transpros’d</em>.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Anglesey was present when a new session opened on 4 Feb. 1673. He was excused attendance on 13 Feb. because of ill health, and was absent until he attended the committee for privileges on the afternoon of 24 February.<sup>158</sup> Otherwise he attended on 32 days of the session (78 per cent of the total), and was named to a further 15 committees. Throughout March he was deeply involved in the debates over the growth of popery. He was named to a conference on the matter on 6 Mar. and in response to the suggestion of the lord treasurer, produced a draft clarification of the king’s powers in matters ecclesiastical on 7 March.<sup>159</sup> On 8 Mar. when Shaftesbury announced the withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence with the king in attendance, and the House passed an address against popery, Anglesey recorded it as ‘a strange day in Parliament’.<sup>160</sup> On 15 Mar. he was named to a subcommittee to draw a clause for the Test bill.<sup>161</sup> On 24 Mar. he was named to a conference on the bill, reporting it later in the day. He was then named to prepare reasons against the clauses in the bill concerning the queen, which led to another conference on the 25th. On 29 Mar. he was named to report a conference on the bill for the ease of Dissenters, and to manage the resultant conference. As usual he also chaired committees on a variety of subjects.<sup>162</sup> On 28 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution dismissing the petition of James Percy, a claimant to the earldom of Northumberland. After the end of the session, on 8 Apr. 1673 Anglesey recorded his attendance at ‘the committee for the Lords Journal.’<sup>163</sup></p><p>Anglesey had undoubtedly helped the king to negotiate a difficult parliamentary session and was rewarded on 11 Apr. when the king informed him in private of his decision to appoint him lord privy seal.<sup>164</sup> On 21 Apr. he ‘found that some had been undermining me with the king and shaken him so far as that he told my Lord Arlington that it was not reasonable I should have my £3,000 pension and the privy seal both’, whereupon he went to the king and persuaded him otherwise.<sup>165</sup> A later assessment suggested that ‘the king being pressed by factions, and charged with introducing popery and arbitrary power, made him privy seal, as a man that had always been in opposition to both, and yet one he thought might be useful to him in the House of Peers, being very knowing in records and precedents of Parliament, of a good tongue and one who had an excellent faculty in writing.’<sup>166</sup></p><p>On 29 May 1673 Anglesey attended a committee of council to discuss the implications of the cancellation of the Declaration of Indulgence on 7 Mar. 1673, particularly that the licences were ‘snares’ to those that had taken them out, and that ‘somewhat ought to be signified for quietness sake till the Parliament met, yet with so much caution as neither to suspend the laws in force, nor give authority to the licences.’ An attempt to draw up a letter for the Privy Council in June 1673 proved beyond Anglesey’s powers of legal finesse, it being a ‘nice narrow patch that could hardly be hit.’<sup>167</sup> He was also responsible for the summoning of Oxfordshire justices before the council on 13 June. At Easter the justices had declared in quarter sessions that the penal laws were in force as the king had no power to suspend them.<sup>168</sup></p><p>Following York’s resignation from office, on 17 June the king informed Anglesey that he had ‘put me in the commission for the admiralty and depended chiefly on my care and skill therein’.<sup>169</sup> Although his commission was dated 9 July, his diary records entries on admiralty business from 26 June when he discussed the commission with the king. On 22 July Anglesey attended the committee for Ireland, ‘where I differed almost wholly about the rules of corporations in Ireland,’ and on the following day at the full council he ‘singly opposed the corporation rules’. On 20 Aug. 1673 Anglesey described being ‘in the junto council’, presumably a reference to the foreign affairs committee. He now carried sufficient weight to secure an Irish earldom for his son-in-law Richard Power, who was created earl of Tyrone in October. On 15 Oct. Anglesey recorded that he had spent three hours ‘at my Lord Arlington’s chamber, the king and most of the junto present upon great affairs.’<sup>170</sup></p><p>Anglesey attended the prorogation on 20 Oct. 1673, and attended all four sittings of the ensuing short session. On 31 Oct. during a debate on the king’s speech in the Commons he was attacked by Henry Powle<sup>‡</sup> as ‘the contriver’ of the Declaration of Indulgence, who had since been made lord privy seal, the third office in the kingdom, or as Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> put it, one who had ‘declared the declaration for liberty of conscience lawful’.<sup>171</sup> Despite references to the ‘juncto’ and being singled out for attack by the Commons, involvement in key meetings was rare for Anglesey. So much so that when he attended Parliament on 4 Nov., the day on which the king unexpectedly attended to prorogue Parliament, ‘I found the king there and many of the lords in their robes having no notice of it before I saw them.’<sup>172</sup> That month, following Shaftesbury’s dismissal as lord chancellor, Anglesey was said to be ‘much disappointed’ not to succeed him.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Anglesey was present on 7 Jan. 1674, when the next parliamentary session opened, attending on 28 days, 74 per cent of the total. On the opening day of the session, Verney reported that, together with Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, Anglesey spoke in vindication of Buckingham following a complaint about his conduct with the countess of Shrewsbury.<sup>174</sup> On 8 Jan., when he stayed until 3 p.m., Anglesey was one of three peers (the others being York and Northampton) to vote against an address to the king for the removal of papists from London during the sitting of Parliament.<sup>175</sup> From 13 Jan. to 3 Feb. he recorded ‘I was most of the time very ill of the gout and some days kept bed, yet other days went to the Parliament.’<sup>176</sup> On 14 Jan. Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, registered his proxy with Anglesey. That month, when the Commons attacked Buckingham and Arlington, Verney expected them to broaden their attack to question Anglesey, ‘who is the least beloved man in England.’<sup>177</sup> He was named to a further six committees of the House as well as to two conferences with the Commons, one on 3 Feb. relating to their address advising the king on a treaty with the States-General, and another on 11 Feb. on giving thanks to the king for response to the address. He chaired the committee for privileges, on the question of whether the sons of peers had privileges, reporting on 11 February.<sup>178</sup> He reported from the same committee on 18 Feb. on the claim of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, to the earl of Northumberland’s estate.</p><p>Anglesey must have been worried by the Commons debates in February 1674, which resulted in the appointment of a committee on 20 Feb. to inspect the state of the Irish revenue, the state of religion, and the militia and armed forces. It was perhaps this hostility in the lower House that prompted Verney to write on 12 Feb. of his belief that Anglesey was ‘much abated in his power’ of influencing appointments.<sup>179</sup> On 27 Mar., after council, Arlington attacked Anglesey for passing a grant for John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, saying that ‘I understood not the duty of my place; that he never looked for better from me, that by God I served everybody so, and would do so to the end of the chapter.’<sup>180</sup></p><p>Anglesey’s private life remained busy. On 7 Apr. 1674 his daughter, the countess of Tyrone, died and on 7 May another daughter, Philippa, married Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun. Meanwhile, Anglesey became entangled in a legal dispute over his title to Bletchingdon, from which he was only saved by the death of his opponent, Edward Lewis<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>181</sup> For most of October and much of November Anglesey was again ill with a severe attack of gout.<sup>182</sup></p><p>The religious settlement continued to play a prominent part in Anglesey’s political actions. On 29 Jan. 1675 he attended the council, ‘where the king communicated the proceedings at Lambeth for reformation [the meeting of the bishops with Danby and other councillors on 21 Jan.], which we debated a while but desired time if our advice was expected it being as I conceived a weighty affair.’ On 3 Feb. he was ‘was with the king long in private about the declaration’ (the declaration embodying the chief points originally agreed in the meeting in January, concerning measures against Catholics and nonconformists), and in council that afternoon ‘the declaration was mended and the day lengthened till the 25th of March and so passed with a proclamation.’<sup>183</sup> Verney reported these conciliar debates as being very warm, with Anglesey, Holles, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, ensuring that the proclamation would ‘contain very large directions for prosecution of papists. But concerning the Protestant dissenters there is to be nothing more or less than that the king (from Lady Day next) hath taken off his licences.’<sup>184</sup></p><p>Between 5 and 24 Mar. 1675 Anglesey was again ill. What aroused him from his sickbed was a family crisis which erupted on 25 Mar. when ‘false, bold, ungrateful daughter Decies went to Lord Ossory.’ Lady Decies was his barely teenage granddaughter-in-law and heiress to a large estate, who now claimed that she had been forced into a contract of marriage and had been ‘restrained and hindered from manifestation of my dislike and dissent’ to it. Despite seeking the king’s assistance and a referral to the council, Anglesey was unable to compel her return.<sup>185</sup> The following year, she married Edward Villiers, the heir of George Villiers, 4th Viscount Grandison [I], and cousin of the still powerful Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland.</p><p>Parliament reassembled for the 1675 session on 13 April. Anglesey was present on each of the 41 days that the Lords sat; he was named to 13 select committees. His name appears on several lists as a supporter of the non-resisting test in April-June 1675 but this disguises Anglesey’s more nuanced position. On 19 Apr. Anglesey attended ‘by the king’s command at lord treasurer’s where [there] was [the] lord keeper &c about the new test. ... I urged many arguments against the test or new oath.’ He spent most of the following day in Parliament ‘on the new test &c.’<sup>186</sup> On 24 Apr. Dr William Denton reported on the retention the previous day of the ‘Test bill’ or ‘no alteration oath’, by one voice, noting that Anglesey</p><blockquote><p>hath left this sting in the tail of it by a memorial openly in the House to the bishops of the reasons why they were cast out of the Lords’ House before, and how that this Parliament brought them in again so that they now sit not on any old foundation but by an Act of Parliament, and therefore did advise them to be cautious least they tricked themselves out of it again.<sup>187</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 Apr. Anglesey spent from nine in the morning to after nine at night in Parliament, presumably mainly for the debates on the test bill. On 30 Apr. he ‘spent the morning with good success in Parliament,’ when he chaired a committee of the whole on the test bill, and an amendment was passed that no oaths imposed on peers would result in them losing their seats, thereby reassuring those peers who were concerned that the oath proposed in the bill might constitute a breach of their privileges. He reported a further eight times from the committee, the last occasion being 31 May (on which day he recorded ‘being in the chair upon the test till near 12 at night’), before the bill was eventually submerged in a privilege dispute between the Houses.<sup>188</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on four days in April 1675 Anglesey chaired the committee on the bill explaining the act preventing the danger from popish recusants, reporting it on 4 May, and taking the resultant oaths on 31 May.<sup>189</sup> On 23 Apr. he reported from the committee of privileges concerning the manner in which the clerk had entered two votes from 13 Apr. in the Journal. On 5 May he recorded being at the committee of privileges, when the matter of <em>Dr Thomas Sherley v. Sir John Fagg</em><sup>‡</sup> was under consideration.<sup>190</sup> He chaired many other committees too, three of which he also reported: the bill vesting the site of St Trinity the Less in the trustees of the Augustine Protestant German congregation in London (31 May); the bill for the better payment of church duties, small tithes and other church duties (18 May); and that for the estate of William Lewis.<sup>191</sup></p><p>On 10 May 1675 he entered his protest against the resolution not to affirm the decree in the cause of <em>Dacre Barrett v. Viscount Loftus [I].</em> On 12 May he recorded attending Parliament all day until after nine in the evening, though quite what the business was that detained him so long is unclear.<sup>192</sup> On 14 May he entered his dissent (along with Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle) to the resolution of the House exonerating his son-in-law Mohun, who had forcibly taken a warrant of the Commons for the arrest of Dr Sherley. He was nevertheless named to a conference on the matter on 17 May, and presumably attended the subsequent conferences on the matter, reporting from one held on 21 May. On 26 May he was the sole peer to enter his dissent to the reversal of the judgment in the case of <em>John Streater v. Abel Roper et al</em>. On 27 May he was named to report a conference on the privilege dispute between the houses in the case of <em>Sir Nicholas Stoughton v. Arthur Onslow</em><sup>‡</sup>. The Lords’ insistence on restricting the subject matter of the conference, in order to protect their claim to judicature, led to the failure of the Commons to attend. Anglesey was then one of four peers nominated on 31 May to draw up heads for another conference on the matter, which he reported later that day. Privilege issues continued to be a concern for Anglesey, and on 1 June he was one of those peers appointed to draw up reasons for the release of the four counsel appointed by the Lords to defend Sir Nicholas Crisp in his cause with Thomas Dalmahoy<sup>‡</sup>, but who had been taken into custody by order of the Commons. Anglesey reported the resultant conference on 2 June and later in the day reported from a committee of the whole that a small committee should draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on the subject. On 3 June Anglesey reported from this committee and from the subsequent conference. On 5 June Anglesey ‘morning and afternoon sat in Parliament but did nothing the king having used us ill, the Lord prevent confusion. We did attend the king in the Banqueting House.’ On 11 June, after the prorogation, he spent the morning ‘at Mr Browne’s, clerk of the Parliament, to examine the Lords Journal.’<sup>193</sup></p><p>During July 1675 he noted that cousin ‘Pereg.’ (Peregrine Bertie) ‘assured me of lord treasurer.’ This intelligence was somewhat gainsaid on 7 Aug. when John Granville*, earl of Bath, ‘told me of [the] lord treasurer’s jealousy of me about telling the king of privy seals for secret service.’ On 17 Sept. Anglesey recorded that in the afternoon he was ‘at the junto till late.’ Similarly, on 11 Oct. he recorded a meeting of ‘the junto about preparations for the Parliament.’<sup>194</sup></p><p>When the next session of Parliament opened on 13 Oct. 1675, Anglesey attended on each of the 21 days on which the Lords sat and was named to a further nine committees. On 18 Oct. he registered the proxy of Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester. On that day he ‘was with them that met at [the] lord treasurer’s’, presumably to discuss the proceedings in the Commons on the king’s speech, when Danby’s allies had tried to get the lower House to prioritize religious matters ahead of supply.<sup>195</sup> He was active in the debates on the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, noting on 26 Oct. that ‘I satisfied the whole House in the morning about our judicature,’ and on the following day that he spent the morning in Parliament ‘to general satisfaction.’ On 4 Nov. he was the sole protester against the resolution of the House to order the hearing of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> for 20 Nov., noting that Bristol and Essex ‘would have had me to the bar for being of a different mind, but they did but show their teeth.’<sup>196</sup> On 10 Nov. Anglesey was named to a conference on a joint address to the king to renew the prohibition on soldiers serving in the French army, from which he duly reported. He also chaired several committees in November, including (on seven occasions) the committee investigating the publication of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country</em>. Some of the committees may have been for bills in which friendship played a part, such as those for the dowager countess of Warwick or that for settling the estates of William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard; others, like the revived bill on behalf of the Augustine Protestant German congregation, may reflect personal interests or previous expertise.<sup>197</sup> On 19 Nov. he was named to report a conference on preserving a good correspondence with the Commons. On 20 Nov., he was one of the chief speakers against the motion to address the king to dissolve Parliament, spending ‘all day till near nine at night in Parliament to prevent the dissolution.’ On the day after the prorogation he again recorded being present ‘at the committee for the Journal book.’<sup>198</sup></p><p>Anglesey was still deeply involved in the business and minutiae of patronage. One of those he assisted was Thomas Cartwright*, the future bishop of Chester.<sup>199</sup> At council on 28 Jan. he ‘spoke my mind freely, yet with submission, against the scheme of suspension or retrenchment.’<sup>200</sup> In Westminster Hall on 30 June, Anglesey was one of six peers to vote Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, guilty of manslaughter.<sup>201</sup></p><p>On 11 Aug. 1676, Anglesey began his summer journey to Bletchingdon. He returned to his house in Kensington at the beginning of October.<sup>202</sup> Although there is no record of the exchange in the Privy Council minutes, on 24 Nov. Anglesey recorded that he had given ‘a sound reprimand to the City for their petition to the King’, presumably that promoted at the end of October by Jenks and Player for the redress of grievances.<sup>203</sup></p><p>At the end of December 1676 Anglesey fell ill of the gout, which kept him bedridden until the parliamentary session began on 15 Feb. 1677. On the opening day he was carried to Westminster and stayed till seven at night. Thereafter, until 11 Apr. ‘he was carried or went to the Parliament most days, but sometimes was so ill of the gout I could not and some days went to the council table also.’<sup>204</sup> He spoke on 15 Feb. 1677 in support of the lord chancellor and the lord treasurer and against the view expressed by Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Wharton and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, that Parliament had been dissolved. Anglesey apparently then spoke for an hour against the move to bring those four lords to the bar, arguing that it would take away the freedom of Parliament to punish them for their opinions. He was then involved in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Salisbury to ask the pardon of the House. All four were sent to the Tower, at which Anglesey was reported to be ‘much troubled’, arguing that ‘this violence will make things worse to the king, but he was so ill and tired by Thursday’s attendance that he could not be there to moderate on Friday.’<sup>205</sup> He was then absent for the next five days. After a solitary day in attendance on 22 Feb., he was absent until 12 March. Thereafter, in the first part of the session (before the adjournment on 16 Apr.) he attended on a further 29 days of the session (making in all 63 per cent of the total) and was named to a further 18 committees.</p><p>Despite being absent from the House, on 2 Mar. 1677 Anglesey was able to defend his privilege as a peer and secure the release from custody of his servant Robert Meldrum. Back in the House, on 12 Mar. he was named to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on a joint address to the king for the preservation of the Spanish Netherlands, and was duly named on 13 and 15 Mar. to manage the resultant conferences. On 13 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution to engross the bill for further securing the Protestant religion, and on 15 Mar. he entered his dissent to the bill’s passage, noting on the latter occasion that he forbore to enter his particular reasons ‘in humble deference and submission to the major vote by which the bill was carried.’ On 4 Apr. he was named to a conference on the bill for the naturalization of the king’s foreign born subjects. On 13 Apr. he was named to a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill and was then named to the committee to draw up the heads of what was to be insisted upon at the next conference on the matter. On 16 Apr. he was named to draw up an address to the king, asserting the right of the Lords to amend supply bills, which he duly reported to the House. On 18 Apr. he helped to verify the entries in the Journal. When Parliament met again for five days in May 1677, Anglesey attended on each day, and again two days after the adjournment, on 30 May, to check the Journal.<sup>206</sup></p><p>Having spent the morning of 16 Oct. 1677 in the company of the Prince of Orange, on the 22nd Anglesey was one of the council appointed by the king to assist in drafting the articles for his marriage to Princess Mary.<sup>207</sup> Anglesey attended the adjournment of the House on 3 Dec., around which date Shaftesbury classed Anglesey as twice ‘worthy’ in his analysis of lay peers, an assessment perhaps coloured by Anglesey’s vain attempt to keep Shaftesbury out of the Tower in the previous session.</p><p>Anglesey was present on 15 Jan. 1678, when the king adjourned Parliament to 28 January. He was then afflicted by the gout, remaining in bed for the next few weeks, although it was reported on 27 Jan. that he had attended the entertainment following the consecration of Archbishop Sancroft.<sup>208</sup> He did not attend Parliament until 5 Feb., when ‘I was carried to hinder the horrid bill about Sir Ralph Bankes’s<sup>‡</sup> estate.’ Anglesey then chaired the committee on the bill on five occasions in February, as he did Sarah Clifton’s estate bill on three occasions in the same month, before reporting it on 15 February.<sup>209</sup> Missing again on 6 Feb. he then attended on the remaining 53 days of this part of the session (making 90 per cent of the total), being named to a further 17 committees. Once again he was active in chairing committees, including those on the countess of Warwick’s bill, restoring the title and dignity of Baron Audley to James Tuchet*, 13th Baron Audley and 3rd earl of Castlehaven [I] (reported 26 Feb.) and, on 17 separate days, the committee examining the security of prisons, which also considered the bill discharging poor prisoners for debt (reported on 15 and 27 Mar.) and the petition from the prisoners in the Fleet and legislation drafted by the chief justices. He also chaired committees on the bills to enable creditors to recover their debts from executors and administrators (reported 11 Mar.) and for fines and recoveries (reported 12 March).<sup>210</sup> On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee of privileges concerning the method of trying Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. Also on 6 Mar. he was named to present a resolution to the king on behalf of John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, reporting the fact on the following day. On 8 Mar. he was named to a conference on the bill for regulating fishing, which he reported on the 9th and 19th. He reported from committees of the whole House on the poll bill (11 and 12 Mar.) and on the address for war with France (16 and 18 Mar.). On 22 Mar he entered his dissent to the decision to hear the attorney general on Viscount Purbeck’s claim to the peerage. Later in the day he reported the conference with the Commons on the address for war with France. On 23 Mar. Anglesey presented the petition of his daughter, Lady Mohun, to the House, claiming a breach of privilege over a quarrel during a game of cards, but the case was subsequently thrown out and left to the law.<sup>211</sup> On 30 Apr. he was named to a conference called to consider the remedies for the growth of popery. On 4 Apr. Anglesey attended Pembroke’s trial, and was one of a handful of peers to find him guilty of murder. Outside Parliament, Anglesey accompanied several other ministers on 9 Apr. 1678 on a successful visit to ‘the common council to get money for the king’.<sup>212</sup> He also continued to be a regular attender at council.</p><p>Anglesey attended every day bar one of the session which began on 23 May 1678. He was missing on 29 May (the king’s birthday), ‘having been ill in the last night’.<sup>213</sup> On the opening day, he was named to the usual sessional committees and to a further 27 committees. Towards the end of the previous session, on 10 May 1678, Anglesey had ‘got Mr Cottington’s appeal read’ in the Lords.<sup>214</sup> This was an appeal from the court of delegates concerning the validity of Cottington’s marriage to Angela Margerita Gallina, which had been referred to the committee for privileges to determine whether the cause might be brought before the House. The case was again referred to the committee for privileges on 23 May. On 2 June, the day before the committee was due to discuss the matter, ‘Mrs Cottington came and spent an hour with me to inform me in her cause and beg my justice. We discoursed all the time in French and Italian. She seems a witty understanding woman. If her cause appears as just tomorrow she need not fear me.’ The case raised important and contentious constitutional issues, since the Lords had not established that its judicature extended to the spiritual courts, for which delegates wielded ultimate appellate jurisdiction. Anglesey attended the committee on 3 June, recording ‘a brave debate’. He attended again on 10 June, staying until nine in the evening. The committee reported on 12 June against hearing the appeal but the matter was reserved for a full debate, with the assistance of the attorney general, the judges and the keeper of the records, on 17 June. On that day the appeal was dismissed, Anglesey noting that ‘whilst I went to get a short dinner, leaving the House reading the precedents in Cottington’s case, a hasty vote was made and the House risen before I got back.’<sup>215</sup></p><p>On 28 May 1678 Anglesey noted that ‘the Lords gave an unjust judgment in favour of Sir Alexander Frazier’, a royal physician, when they dismissed the appeal from chancery of Frances Denyes; ‘I and many others were against it but the cause was laboured since it was heard last sessions’.<sup>216</sup> Anglesey reported from the committee for privileges on 30 May regarding the keeping of good order in the Lords and its surroundings. On 1 June he noted that ‘we saved the settlement of Ireland by dismissing Cusack’s cause’ – an appeal from the court of claims in Ireland.<sup>217</sup> He again chaired committees on a variety of bills, including that for burying in woollen (reported 3 June), the estate of Sir Trevor Williams<sup>‡</sup> (reported 4 June), Childes’ and Thoresby’s bills (reported 27 and 28 June respectively) and the measurement of keels (reported 9 July).<sup>218</sup> He attended the debates on the claim of Robert Villiers*, to be Viscount Purbeck, entering protests against proceeding as a whole ‘upon complicated and accumulative questions’ on 7 and 20 June. On 14 June he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill against the clandestine marriage of minors. On 25 June he reported a conference on the supply bill for disbanding the army and was named to draw up reasons why the Lords disagreed to the proviso about the timing of the disbandment, a committee which he chaired, reporting it on the 26th.<sup>219</sup> He then reported on four conferences on the matter held in the days following. He chaired the committee on the bill for the measurement of keels, reported it on 9 July, and was named to a conference on the bill on 13 July.<sup>220</sup></p><p>On 5 July 1678 Anglesey noted that ‘this day till six at night spent in Parliament judged Mr Darell’s case again.’<sup>221</sup> On 8 July, he opposed the appeal of Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham, against a decree in chancery in favour of Lewis Watson*, the future 3rd Baron Rockingham, and his wife. According to Finch, Anglesey ‘spoke so doubtfully that it was hard to understand on which side he was till he came to vote and then he voted for the defendant [Watson].’<sup>222</sup> After what appears to have been a contentious debate Feversham won his case, spurring Anglesey to enter protests against the judgment on 8 and 10 July. He protested with Northampton on 9 July against the passage of a vote to petition the king for leave for a bill to be brought in against Purbeck’s claims, writing the six reasons in his own hand. However, as lord privy seal he was one of those charged with delivering the petition to the king, and reported the king’s acquiescence on 11 July. Also on 11 July he was named to a conference on the bill for burying in woollen. On 13 July he was named to a conference on methods of returning bills between the Houses, which he reported later in the day. On 18 July, he introduced the agents from New England to kiss the king’s hand, apparently refusing a gratuity of 200 guineas from them.<sup>223</sup></p><p>Anglesey remained busy on a myriad of tasks outside Parliament, not least providing for his family. Doubtless as a result of his sterling work in trying to reconcile Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh and his wife, on 15 June 1678, Leigh’s uncle, the second son of the 1st Baron, proposed a match for his daughter with Anglesey’s second son, Altham. After attending the prorogation on 1 Aug. 1678, ‘being one of the commissioners for that end’, Anglesey left London on 6 Aug. with a promise from the king for an Irish peerage for Altham in view of his imminent marriage to a ‘lady of good estate,’ a promise he recorded as being fulfilled on 12 Jan. 1681, when ‘the king gave order for Altham’s barony.’<sup>224</sup></p><h2><em>The popish plot and exclusion 1678-80</em></h2><p>After his usual round of summer visits, dinners and entertainments, Anglesey set out for London again on 27 September. Later that day he attended the council and ‘had discourse with the king about the two Oxfordshire lords’, namely a commission to reconcile Rochester and his nephew, James Bertie*, Lord Norreys (later earl of Abingdon).<sup>225</sup> The following day Anglesey was ‘at council about the Popish Plot and the gout took me as before’, although he may well have missed the virtuoso performance from Titus Oates as he attended the christening of his grandson in the afternoon.<sup>226</sup> For the next few days Anglesey struggled to attend the council and the prorogation on 1 Oct., before succumbing to the pain and taking to his bed from 2 October.<sup>227</sup></p><p>Anglesey was still bedridden when the next session of Parliament opened on 21 Oct. 1678, being absent until the 24th, when he was added to the usual sessional committees as well as the committee to examine papers regarding the Popish Plot and Godfrey’s murder. Thereafter he attended on every day that the House sat. He was named to a further seven committees, excluding those relating to conferences. On 29 Oct. he was in Parliament, ‘where the duke of York was concerned upon Coleman’s examination taken by the Lords the two last days, but nothing was done’, and on 2 Nov. ‘was in Parliament morning and afternoon, the duke of York being moved against.’<sup>228</sup> On 2 Nov. he was named to a conference on the structural defects of both Houses, which he reported. He was also named to several conferences whose subject matter arose directly or indirectly from consideration of the Popish Plot: confirming the reality of the Plot (1 Nov.), administration of oaths to papists (11 Nov.), the address on the militia and the bill for disabling papists (both on 23 Nov.), the safety of the king and government (28 Nov.) and the refusal of the Lords to agree to an address for the removal of the queen from the king’s presence (29 Nov.). On 15 Nov. he voted against putting the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths. On 19 Nov. he was the sole dissenter from the resolution to commit Francis Smith*, 2nd Baron Carrington, into custody. After sitting in the Lords on the morning of 22 Nov. he spent ‘the afternoon at council and committee for sorting the evidence for Coleman’s trial.’<sup>229</sup> On 6 Dec. he entered his protest against agreeing with a joint address with the Commons to the king for a proclamation disarming all Catholics convicted of recusancy. On 9 Dec. he was named to prepare heads for a conference on the disbandment of troops before those from Flanders arrived, subsequently reporting from the conference. When the supply bill providing for the disbandment was amended by the Lords, Anglesey reported the resultant conference on 26 Dec., voted in favour of the Lords adhering to their amendment concerning the payment of the money into the exchequer, and on 28 Dec. reported the reasons for insisting on the amendment and reported the subsequent conference. He was then named to draw up a proviso for the bill, but it was rejected by the House, before the bill was lost at the prorogation.</p><p>As the attack on Danby gathered pace, on 23 Dec. 1678 Anglesey noted that ‘a new thing was done in the lord treasurer’s not being ordered to withdraw but sitting in his own case being accused by the Commons of treason.’<sup>230</sup> On 27 Dec. he voted against the motion to commit the impeached Danby. On 30 Dec. Anglesey recorded that ‘the king made a short speech and prorogued us to Feb. 4, by whose advice God knows’, incidentally revealing again his exclusion from the king’s inner counsels.<sup>231</sup></p><p>Worried by the implications of the Popish Plot for Ireland, on 20 Nov. 1678 Anglesey wrote to Ormond suggesting that he rebuild the strength of the Irish Protestant militia in order to protect the military strong points and avoid another Irish rebellion.<sup>232</sup> The committee of the Lords investigating the Plot was wound up on 12 Dec. but earlier in the month the Privy Council revived its own committee of ‘examinations’, which, for example, Anglesey attended on 7 Dec. before attending Parliament later in the morning.<sup>233</sup> On 31 Dec. the king declared he would have this committee sit daily, recommending it to the care of Anglesey, Bridgwater and Essex; Anglesey spent much time during January at the committee.<sup>234</sup> On 19 Jan., after the sermon at Whitehall, Anglesey ‘delivered a letter of humble advice to the King.’ If this referred to the dilemma of whether to dissolve Parliament, it may have had some effect, for at the council meeting on 24 Jan., ‘the king, without asking any advice, declared the Parliament dissolved and ordered writs for a new one’, for 6 March.<sup>235</sup></p><p>From 16 Feb. to 21 Mar. 1679 Anglesey was stricken by the gout, and as such missed all of the short parliamentary session of 6-13 March.<sup>236</sup> At the beginning of March Danby calculated that Anglesey was likely to be an opponent in any proceedings against him. He was still absent when the parliament resumed on 15 Mar. 1679, missing the first six days of the session, and first sitting on 22 March. He attended on 54 days of the session, 88.5 per cent of the total. The attendance lists in the Journal suggests that he missed only one further day (28 Mar.) but his diary recorded that he did attend that day.<sup>237</sup> On 22 Mar. he was added to the committee examining into the Plot and on 29 Mar. he was added to the usual sessional committees. He was appointed to a further 12 committees during the session. By this time Danby seems to have reassessed Anglesey’s position, recording him on one list as an unreliable opponent, and on another as doubtful. On 25 Mar. he entered his protest against the committal of the bill disabling Danby, because it went against ‘essential forms of justice’, and was ‘a dangerous precedent against all peers.’ Nevertheless, he voted in favour of the early proceedings of the attainder bill against him, speaking in favour of the bill on 2 Apr. as he could ‘see no ground against the committal of the bill for any exceptions that are made to it’, although he would ‘be glad to find him as innocent as the prince has said him to be’.<sup>238</sup> He voted for the bill on 4 Apr. and was then named to a committee to consider what to impart to the Commons at a conference on the bill, and to manage the conference, which he reported. On 8 Apr. he reported another conference on the Danby attainder bill, as he did on 10 Apr. (twice). He also voted on 14 Apr. to agree with the Commons in the attainder bill. He was then one of the peers deputed to ask the king to pass the bill quickly given the timescale in the bill for Danby to surrender himself, duly reporting back on 15 April.</p><p>On 3 Apr. 1679 Anglesey presented to the House, at the request of Lincoln’s Inn, a list of Catholics belonging to their society. On 9 Apr. he reported to the House that he was commanded by the king to complain of the reprinting of dangerous books written by William Prynne<sup>‡</sup>, now given new titles, the House ordering him to renew the motion on 12 Apr. (when nothing happened). On 17 Apr. he was one of the peers named to ask the king to instruct the lord lieutenant of Ireland to put the laws against papists more vigorously into execution, reporting the king’s consent on 22 April. On 24 Apr. he was named to a conference on the answers of the five Catholic peers to their impeachment. On 25 Apr. he chaired a meeting of the committee on the habeas corpus bill.<sup>239</sup> On 29 Apr., together with Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, he was appointed to ask the king for a pardon to quash the conviction of the countess of Portland for recusancy in 1674, reporting the king’s agreement on 7 May. Also, on 29 Apr., he attended ‘a very secret council’, presumably to discuss how the king should respond the vote of the Commons that the prospect of York succeeding to the throne had encouraged popish plotting.<sup>240</sup> Following the king’s offer to accept expedients to divert the Commons from the proposal for the exclusion of York from the throne he was named on 30 Apr. to thank the king for this speech. On 2 May he complained about the arrest of his servant John Fenn by the under-sheriff of Middlesex, and secured an order for his release. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the habeas corpus bill, which he reported on 5 May. Probably on 6 May he intervened in the debates on whether the bishops should be allow to try cases involving blood, defending their right to sit on the grounds that they were called by the same writ as temporal peers and ‘in point of law may judge as well as you. If you should vote they should not sit, it doth not conclude them. They may sit if they will.’<sup>241</sup> He was again active in managing and reporting conferences: the supply bill for disbanding the army (8 May); amendments to the habeas corpus bill (9 and 22 May); Danby’s petition (10 May). He was also involved in the negotiations over arrangements for the trial of the five Catholic peers, managing conferences on the subject on 8, 9, 10, 11 and 26 May, voting against the resolution to appoint a joint committee of both Houses on 10 May, being named on 11 May to a committee of Lords to consult with a committee of the Commons and reporting from the committee on the Journal concerning the trial on 22 May. On 14 May he entered his dissent to the passage of the bill regulating the trials of peers. On 15, 17 and 19 May he chaired a committee on the bill for confirming a conveyance made to trustees by James Scott*, duke of Monmouth and Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport, which never emerged from committee.<sup>242</sup> On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Anglesey’s response to the king’s decision to prorogue Parliament on 27 May 1679 was ‘God avert dangers by it.’ The following day he ‘opposed most of the first business at council about priests and the trials &c.’ Two days later, in the council ‘by many arguments I opposed bloodiness again.’ On 2 June he approached the king directly, armed with two proclamations from the reign of James I ‘for exile of priests, jesuits &c,’ as an alternative policy.<sup>243</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, by virtue of his office as lord privy seal, Anglesey had retained his place on the Privy Council following the dissolution of the old body by the king on 20 Apr. 1679, and the constitution of a new one. He was also named to the subcommittee dealing with Irish affairs.<sup>244</sup> Suspicions of Anglesey’s pro-Catholic sympathies were voiced by Thomas Bennett<sup>‡</sup>, Shaftesbury’s lieutenant in the Commons, who thought that the new council would not produce any good results as long as Anglesey and John Maitland*, earl of Guilford and duke of Lauderdale [S], were retained as members, implying that the former had masses said daily for him in Ireland.<sup>245</sup> Henry Sidney*, the future earl of Romney, recounted on 27 June that the business at the Privy Council was the (temporary) reprieve of the Catholic barrister, Richard Langhorne, noting that Anglesey ‘doth even plead for the Catholics; Lord Shaftesbury is the most violent against them.’<sup>246</sup> This ties in with Anglesey’s later recollection that he pleaded for clemency towards not only Langhorne, but also Archbishop Plunkett (executed 1681).<sup>247</sup></p><p>A desire to avoid judicial bloodshed did not equate to a disbelief in the Plot itself, and during the summer of 1679 Anglesey was much involved in the investigations, proving himself a tenacious interrogator of suspects.<sup>248</sup> He retained an impressive capacity for business. On 16 June Anglesey attended the council, ‘where all but I were mealy mouthed in duke Lauderdale’s concern,’ probably a reference to the political problems and the unrest in Scotland caused by attempts to enforce a religious settlement opposed by the majority Presbyterians. On 26 June Anglesey dined with Shaftesbury and Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester, after council ‘and after dinner we agreed on the justices of the peace for Wales.’ On 3 July Anglesey attended the council meeting at Hampton Court, where ‘weighty matters’, namely the dissolution, were debated. On 6 July he was sent for to Windsor by the king where he ‘had large discourse with him about the dissolution and opposed.’ Later in the day when the council convened he joined Arlington and Finch in arguing against the dissolution, the contrary point of view being put by Essex and Halifax. He attended the council again on the 10th when the dissolution was announced by the king. On 12 July he wrote to Ormond: ‘God send good success herein and guide the people to make a wise and moderate choice, or else I doubt we are out of the frying pan into the fire by a new Parliament.’<sup>249</sup></p><p>Anglesey remained anxious about the future, for on 17 July, he wrote to Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, the clerk of the Privy Council, to ask him to send word if it was true that the king had again dissolved the council.<sup>250</sup> On 6 Aug. he left London, taking a circuitous route to Bletchingdon, but when he learned of the king’s illness on 26 Aug., he raced back to Windsor and remained there or at nearby Farnborough until 1 September.<sup>251</sup> As usual there was much convivial activity, including Woodstock races and a visit from the newly elected Members for Woodstock.<sup>252</sup> On 11 Sept. Anglesey wrote to assist John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup> in his candidature for Radnor promoting him as ‘my old acquaintance, and having been several times of the House of Commons with him, I know him to be a wise and moderate man, and we need men of healing spirits in the present condition of the kingdom.’<sup>253</sup></p><p>Anglesey returned to London on 8 Oct. 1679 and on 13 Oct. went to visit York, who had returned to London on the previous evening.<sup>254</sup> At least one contemporary thought that Anglesey had been ordered by the king to inform York of his illness.<sup>255</sup> Anglesey attended the prorogation of Parliament on 17 October. For the next three weeks, until 9 Nov., he was afflicted with gout, ‘but went to the council in the evening, where I dealt very freely with the king and council as need required.’<sup>256</sup> Following the removal of Shaftesbury from the Privy Council in mid-October, it was rumoured that Anglesey would lose his place as well, but at the end of the month he was being touted by some as a replacement for Finch as lord chancellor.<sup>257</sup> On 1 Nov. Ossory offered his assessment of Anglesey’s recent conduct ‘which has been with all the vigour and steadiness imaginable in the House of Lords and elsewhere upon the occasion of the king’s service and the right of the crown and the lawful succession.’<sup>258</sup></p><p>Following Monmouth’s return to London on 27 Nov. 1679, Anglesey attempted to mediate between the king and his son. Having met Monmouth secretly on 29 Nov., the following day he ‘had long private discourse with the king in favour of the duke of Monmouth, wherein he was very open to me, after dinner, having the king’s leave, I went to the duke of Monmouth.’<sup>259</sup> The following evening Monmouth paid him a visit, but Anglesey’s efforts were in vain and Monmouth lost all his posts.</p><p>On 6 Dec. 1679, in the committee of council for Irish affairs, Anglesey helped to ‘cast out unanimously the Irish pretended bill of confirmation of estates, but really destructive to the English.’ He was in attendance on 10 Dec. ‘when the king against the full advice of his council declared that fatal and dismal resolution of proroguing this Parliament till November the 11th. The Lord save England.’<sup>260</sup> It was reported that even though Parliament stood prorogued, the Plot would nevertheless still be examined vigorously, with Anglesey named as one of the committee of the Privy Council charged with the responsibility to do so.<sup>261</sup> He attended the prorogation of Parliament on 26 Jan. 1680, arriving early to swear in about 100 Members before the prorogation was delivered and then ‘with great sadness’ attending a ‘committee of council’ in the afternoon.<sup>262</sup></p><p>During the winter Anglesey was kept busy by a multitude of concerns. On 18 Feb. 1680 he tackled Charles II about the payment of his salary, ‘laid plainly open my condition and ill usage desiring him I might be better dealt with after 20 years faithful service, he came not off so frankly as I had reason to expect and painfully deserved, but in the close said he would speak with the commissioners of the treasury about paying me and confessed I had pressed him least of any for money and served him well.’<sup>263</sup> On 20 Feb. he attended the committee for Irish affairs,</p><blockquote><p>in the business about the earl of Tyrone &c, where against my clear reasons and opinion the committee did mad and illegal work concerning two peers and some commissioners of Ireland, and contrary to the order of reference to them, and so without authority, which was only for them to examine and to report to his majesty in council.<sup>264</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 8 Mar. he ‘went with the countess of Warwick to Sir Francis Pemberton’s about her brother, the earl of Manchester’s [Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester] suit against her and to advise about one from her against him and others for discovery of the Warwick estate.’<sup>265</sup></p><p>On 13 Mar. 1680 Anglesey ‘went to see Totteridge, Sir Robert Atkyns’<sup>‡</sup> house and dined there.’ This presaged the purchase of the house, albeit in his son Altham’s name, it being conveniently situated a mere nine miles from Charing Cross while giving him easy access to such places as Hatfield.<sup>266</sup> He attended Parliament on 15 Apr., swearing in Members before acting as a commissioner to prorogue it. From late April to the beginning of June Anglesey had an attack of the gout so severe that he feared for his life. He was unable to attend the prorogation of the Parliament on 17 May, but attended on 1 and 22 July, on the second occasion noting there was ‘a very little appearance of both Houses.’<sup>267</sup> He left London in August, returning on 1 October.<sup>268</sup></p><p>During October 1680 Anglesey was one of the majority in council who argued that York should remain in England when Parliament sat. He recorded that on 16 Oct. the king ‘turned cat in pan’, that is reversed himself so that he could tell his brother that he had not favoured his withdrawal. On 19 Oct. Anglesey took his leave of the duke and duchess of York upon their departure for Scotland.<sup>269</sup> Two days later he was present at the opening of the 1680-1 session, arriving early to swear in Members.<sup>270</sup> On 23 Oct. he was named to the usual committees as well as the committee on the Plot. Also on the 23rd, when Halifax brought in a bill ‘against popery’, nobody said a word against it apart from Anglesey, ‘who was laughed at and sat down again.’<sup>271</sup> Anglesey missed only three days of the session (5 Nov., 21 and 22 Dec.), very little business being transacted on the first and last of these, and on all of which he had gout.<sup>272</sup> He attended on 56 days, 95 per cent of the total, and was appointed to a further eight committees during the session.</p><p>Anglesey’s perceived pro-Catholic sympathies brought allegations of complicity in plotting. In October 1680, in testimony before the Commons, Thomas Dangerfield accused Anglesey of ‘corresponding with and encouraging the lords in the Tower’ and Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> recorded that there were ‘many terrible accusations come in against Anglesey.’<sup>273</sup> On 4 Nov. Anglesey was in the Lords to hear the report and testimony concerning an Irish Plot. In the course of the day Hobert Bourke presented evidence against Anglesey’s son-in-law, Tyrone, and also testified that Anglesey and York were often prayed for at Catholic masses in Ireland. Further evidence on 6 Nov. also implicated Anglesey. Thomas Samson claimed to have seen letters from Anglesey to Tyrone saying that York was well pleased with their plans; John MacNamara recalled a meeting at which Anglesey was named as a ‘person of quality’ who consented to their scheme. It was said that Anglesey was to help prevent Parliament from prosecuting Roman Catholics.</p><p>Despite these allegations, on 8 Nov. Anglesey was named to a conference with the Commons on the Irish Plot, which he reported later in the day. He recorded in his diary that he had sat in the morning till late ‘and did good things’, which may have been a reference to moves in favour of Dissenters and against Catholics. He made the same comment on 11 November. On 15 Nov. he voted against the decision to put the question that the exclusion bill be rejected on first reading, voted against rejecting it, and for good measure signed the protest against its rejection. After this vote the House took information from Dangerfield which implicated Anglesey in dealings with William Herbert*, earl of Powis, and Mrs. Cellier. Anglesey simply noted: ‘all day in Parliament till ten at night ... The Lord help’ and on 21 Nov. that he spent the afternoon ‘drawing up my vindication’.<sup>274</sup> Daniel Finch*, the future 2nd earl of Nottingham, in a letter written two months later, ascribed Anglesey’s vote for exclusion to being ‘frightened into it by an accusation of him brought into the House of Commons by Mr Dangerfield for having had a hand in some of the Popish conspiracies.’<sup>275</sup> On the other hand, given Anglesey’s survival in office long after other exclusionists, and his ability to obtain further favours from the king during this time, one possible explanation is that he was able to explain away his vote as merely supporting the convention that bills from the Commons should not be rejected at first reading, as at least one peer explicitly noted in the protest.</p><p>On 8 Dec. 1680 Anglesey noted the arrival of Tyrone, which presaged more investigations into the Irish Plot.<sup>276</sup> On 4 Jan. 1681 Anglesey was the only peer to oppose the resolution that there was a Catholic conspiracy in Ireland.<sup>277</sup> Upon reading the depositions of MacNamara, Fitzgerald and Nash on 6 Jan., when it was again suggested that prayers were being said at Catholic masses in Ireland for York and Anglesey, the Commons impeached Tyrone for high treason.<sup>278</sup> They postponed consideration into their report on the Plot in Ireland, and Anglesey’s involvement until 8 Jan., and then to the 10th when Parliament was prorogued. Anglesey continued to give succour to Tyrone and when he was eventually released in November 1681, Anglesey acted as one of his sureties.<sup>279</sup></p><p>Contemporaries remained perplexed by Anglesey’s survival in office. One of Ormond’s correspondents wrote on 25 Jan. 1681 that Anglesey had ‘appeared for’ the exclusion bill, but also noted that the Commons on 7 Jan. had intended to remove Anglesey, Nottingham, Radnor, Halifax and Laurence Hyde*, the future earl of Rochester, as evil counsellors, but having began with the two latter ‘others were by accidental motions introduced against the sense of the managers, whereby the three first escaped’.<sup>280</sup> These Privy Councillors were attacked for advising the king to insist on the rejection of the exclusion bill. This suggests a further possible explanation for Anglesey’s survival in office after the vote on exclusion: that the king wished to avoid being seen as bowing to pressure from the Commons to dismiss his ministers.<sup>281</sup> Alternatively, as Ormond later opined, the reason for his longevity in office may have been that ‘nothing keeps him in so long, but competitions for his place’.<sup>282</sup></p><p>Anglesey continued to be active in the House during the session on a variety of business. On 16 Nov. 1680 he chaired a committee of the whole considering heads for securing the Protestant religion, reporting from it on 16, 17, 19, and 23 November. Thereafter the judges were ordered to draw up a bill based on the heads agreed to by the House. When the House considered the resultant bill, Anglesey again chaired the committee of the whole on it on 8 Jan. 1681, duly reporting some clauses for the judges to draw into legal form.</p><p>On 19 Nov. 1680 Anglesey was the sole peer to enter his dissent on the proceedings of the legal cause between Challoner Chute and Lady Dacres. On 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom. On 23 and 24 Nov. he chaired the committee on the Association, another of the expedients discussed following the loss of the exclusion bill.<sup>283</sup> On 25 Nov. he was the sole peer to enter his protest against the rejection by the House of another petition from James Percy, on the grounds that it denied him recourse to justice. On 26 Nov. he reported from the committee of privileges considering the method of proceeding in the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. On 30 Nov. was ‘at Lord Stafford’s trial most of the day’, as he was on the following days.<sup>284</sup> On 7 Dec. he voted for the attainder of Stafford, despite misgivings over the testimony of the witnesses.<sup>285</sup></p><p>During November 1680 Anglesey chaired the committee concerned with Protestant dissenters. Having heard the complaints of various Dissenters that the laws passed against papist recusants were being enforced against them, on 8 Dec. the committee decided that Anglesey should draft a bill to rectify this abuse. The bill was presented to the committee the following day.<sup>286</sup> Shaftesbury then presented it to the House later that day as the bill for distinguishing Protestant dissenters from popish recusants.</p><p>On 9 Jan. 1681 Anglesey attended a council in the evening ‘about proroguing the Parliament for a few days’. On 16 Jan. he ‘was with the king and argued hard for the Parliament’s sitting.’ Two days later, at council, Anglesey recorded that ‘his majesty declared without asking (yea refusing to take) their advice, his dreadful resolution of dissolving the Parliament and calling another to meet at Oxford.’ Anglesey spent the next day ‘melancholy’ at home. On 25 Jan. he was in attendance on the king when Essex presented a ‘bold’ petition to the king for the Parliament not to sit at Oxford.<sup>287</sup> On 5 Feb. 1681, Anglesey obtained the lucrative deanery of Exeter for his son, Richard. Rather ironically he then hosted a dinner for Monmouth, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, Henry Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, Thomas Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup> and other leading opponents of the court.<sup>288</sup></p><p>On 15 Feb. 1681 Anglesey recorded that he had been ‘with the king and gave him good advice.’ Six days later he succumbed to an attack of the gout which lasted until the middle of May, thus missing the brief Oxford Parliament.<sup>289</sup> His name did, however, appear on a pre-sessional forecast of 17 Mar. as one of those peers likely to be in favour of granting bail to Danby. Anglesey’s illness did not render him entirely inactive. At the end of April he sent the king a long missive concerning the dispute between Lord Colepeper and his siblings, which Anglesey, Ormond, Essex and Bath had attempted to solve five years previously, and which Colepeper had revived. Anglesey advised the king to let the matter take its course at law.<sup>290</sup> However, his prolonged absence did generate speculation that he would be replaced with Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> who was often touted as his successor.<sup>291</sup></p><p>Anglesey seems now to have been intent on acting as an intermediary between the court and its opponents. On 28 May 1681 he recorded visits to William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, and to Salisbury (Essex and Shaftesbury not being at home). Such fraternization did not prevent him from expecting royal favours. On 16 June Anglesey recorded that ‘on much importunity’ the king had finally acceded to his request for a Scottish viscountcy for his son-in-law Thompson, although the promise was never honoured. On 28 July Anglesey received leave to go into the country but in the early hours of 7 Aug. he was summoned back to Windsor, where, on the 10th the king ‘required my not being at the commission of oyer and terminer’ for the trial of Stephen College.<sup>292</sup> Presumably the court believed that Anglesey’s presence on the bench might derail the prosecution. By now it seems likely that York regarded Anglesey as one of his opponents: in August 1681, York’s chaplain Francis Turner*, the future bishop of Ely, referred to Anglesey as ‘entering into the faction against the duke’.<sup>293</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Anglesey was embedding himself into Oxfordshire politics. In 1679, according to Thomas Hearne, Anglesey had tried to buy ‘the great house standing in the entrance into Grampole over against the lower end of Christ Church,’ Oxford.<sup>294</sup> He certainly cultivated good relations with the corporation. On 23 Sept. 1681 Anglesey was visited at Bletchingdon by the mayor and aldermen, who offered him the freedom of the city.<sup>295</sup> According to Humphrey Prideaux this was due to the ‘sole contrivance’ of the dowager Lady Lovelace, as part of the townsmen’s struggle against Lord Norreys, and specifically as a counterweight to him at court. In return they allegedly promised him the recommendation to one of the city’s parliamentary seats. Prideaux stated that Anglesey took the honour, whilst insisting that he would not challenge Norreys’ interest.<sup>296</sup> Anglesey performed several important services for the corporation, including in January 1682 introducing the mayor to the king in order to present a petition.<sup>297</sup> Anglesey left Bletchingdon on 29 Sept. 1681 and arrived back at Drury Lane on the following day.<sup>298</sup></p><h2><em>Flirting with the opposition 1681-6</em></h2><p>Anglesey may now have been the most significant opposition sympathizer left in office. Throughout October and November 1681 he continued to see the king and to act at council. Yet during those months he was also regularly dining with Monmouth. His diary also records dining with Shaftesbury, Monmouth and Lord Herbert in March 1682.<sup>299</sup> On 29 Mar. Danby used a letter to Anglesey as one of his channels to the Privy Council in an attempt to secure his release from the Tower. According to Danby, Anglesey thought it would be legal for the king to release him.<sup>300</sup></p><p>At the beginning of April 1682 there were further rumours that Anglesey would be replaced as lord privy seal by Halifax or Seymour.<sup>301</sup> Nevertheless, Anglesey continued to play the part of the courtier assiduously. According to Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Longford [I], when York returned from Scotland in April 1682, Anglesey was the first to kiss his hand and was with the duke again on the following morning.<sup>302</sup> Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that Anglesey ‘met with a cold reception’, but Anglesey himself merely recorded kissing the duke’s hands on 11 Apr. and then being called into the king’s closet for a long discourse in which he was told that ‘my enemies in Parliament were the same still against me.’<sup>303</sup> Perhaps Anglesey’s real views were contained in a memorandum for Charles II penned on 27 Apr. 1682 (which he probably never showed to the king) in which he argued that it was ‘the perversion of the duke of York … in point of religion’, which was the ‘cause of all our mischiefs … and which, if not by wisdom antidoted, may raise a fire which will consume to the very foundations.’<sup>304</sup></p><p>In the middle of May 1682 Anglesey again fell a victim to the gout, which confined him to bed at both Totteridge and London until the middle of July. However, on 23 June he was forced to leave his bed to be ‘carried’ to the council ‘to defend myself against duke of Ormond as I did God assisting to his shame.’<sup>305</sup> This controversy had begun late in 1680 with the publication of <em>The Memoirs of James Lord Audley earl of Castlehaven, his engagement and carriage in the wars of Ireland, from the year 1642 to the year 1651</em>. Anglesey responded with <em>A Letter from a person of honour in the country written to the earl of Castlehaven</em>, which reviewed Castlehaven’s account of events in the 1640s, but in so doing cast aspersions on the role of Ormond and Charles I. Anglesey had encouraged Castlehaven’s literary enterprise, probably out of a desire to prove his own historical commitment to the Protestant interest in Ireland, and possibly to highlight Ormond’s role in the wars. Ormond responded with a critique of the work in November 1681, and ensured that the king saw a copy. Anglesey published it, together with a response, <em>A Letter from ... Ormond ... Printed from the original, with an answer to it</em>.<sup>306</sup></p><p>Ormond complained to the Privy Council on 17 June 1682, that Anglesey had printed ‘letters to his prejudice’ and that despite being friends for over 20 years, this had questioned Ormond’s loyalty to the crown and his Protestantism.<sup>307</sup> The potential danger to Anglesey in Ormond’s action was obvious to Longford, who noted on 17 June that ‘a man without the danger of being accounted a witch may presume to foretell, that the consequence will be that his lordship will be removed both from the council and his privy-seal’s place.’<sup>308</sup></p><p>On 23 June Anglesey presented a written response to the council. Longford reported that Anglesey had represented his merits in the Restoration ‘wherein he magnified himself that degree as if he had contributed much more to it then the late duke of Albemarle’ and that he denied Ormond’s assertions. Anglesey had tried to deny printing of the book and to deny certain passages which he said were not in his letter to Castlehaven, gave assurances of loyalty and requested time to answer. Meanwhile, Longford had tried to procure Anglesey’s original letter from Castlehaven, who could not find it.<sup>309</sup> This at least bought Anglesey time, for Ormond had written on 18 July ‘I presume it has been long resolved to ease my Lord of Anglesey of his privy-seal, and place in council’.<sup>310</sup> On 27 July Anglesey attended the council at Hampton Court ‘where I defended myself against Ormond but was unjustly used by the council.’<sup>311</sup> At that meeting Charles II declared Anglesey’s published reflections on Castlehaven’s memoirs and his reply to Ormond to be ‘scandalous and a libel on the late king’.<sup>312</sup> The consequence of the king’s opinion, according to Colonel Fitzpatrick, was that ‘it’s believed that by the next council he will be put out of all his employments’ but Longford accurately predicted that Anglesey would keep fighting.<sup>313</sup> Anglesey complained about the decision to vote his work a scandalous libel, for ‘I find no clauses whereon such judgment is grounded’, insisted that the council had no jurisdiction to try a peer for libel, pointed out that the passage which seemed to offend the king was not one of the particular charges he had been asked to answer, and queried the failure to censure Ormond for the ‘scandalous pamphlet which he owned at council to have published against me.’<sup>314</sup> He did not attend the council meeting on 3 Aug. but sent a letter instead which ‘was read in council but nothing done on it, but some fretted.’<sup>315</sup> That same day, William Douglas, marquess of Queensberry [S], noted that Anglesey was ‘certainly broke.’<sup>316</sup> Another commentator thought that ‘all things concurred to Anglesey’s ruin, for besides the strength of his enemies and his having no friends, the court wanted his privy seal for the Lord Halifax who had done it such service.’<sup>317</sup></p><p>On 9 Aug. Anglesey recorded that he had delivered up the privy seal, ‘The Lord be praised I am now delivered from court snares.’ He was now even more open to the blandishments of the opposition. On 25 July Longford had reported that ‘there is of late a great league between my Lord Anglesey and the earl of Essex, who have had several meetings within this fortnight.’<sup>318</sup> The day before he relinquished the seal, Anglesey found the time to dine with Monmouth.<sup>319</sup></p><p>On 29 Aug. 1682 Anglesey began his usual journey to Bletchingdon. During his sojourn in Oxfordshire, he attended the mayoral election at Oxford and dined with the former Member of the Commons, William Wright<sup>‡</sup>, a supporter of Monmouth. He left Bletchingdon on 26 Sept. 1682, but embarked on a series of excursions to dine with prominent opposition peers, including Monmouth.<sup>320</sup> Anglesey also sought to vindicate his reputation. On 13 Sept. 1682, John Brydall reported that ‘Anglesey since his discharge from the office of the lord privy seal for revenge sake, has attempted to expose some papers of his to the world, but his lordship was happily prevented, for all the papers were seized at the press, by a warrant from Whitehall.’<sup>321</sup> The publication concerned was <em>A True Account of the Whole Proceedings betwixt his Grace James Duke of Ormond and the Rt. Hon. Arthur Earl of Anglesey</em> which had reached the booksellers by October 1682.<sup>322</sup> Anglesey commenced a suit against Ormond for non-payment of debts, possibly in relation to the cost of the education of James Butler, Ormond’s illegitimate son for which Anglesey would later threaten another suit.<sup>323</sup></p><p>From the end of January to the end of April 1683, Anglesey was again bedridden, although ‘I did business often and received visits almost every day. In all this time I was carried out but once to take the air.’ By early May he was fit enough to commence a new round of dinners with leading opposition peers.<sup>324</sup> By this date the government was putting financial pressure on Anglesey. As early as August 1682, his grant of stewardship of manors and towns in Radnorshire had been revoked.<sup>325</sup> The government re-opened the investigation into his accounts as vice-treasurer in Ireland, whereupon Anglesey countered that the king owed him money, presumably a reference to his £3,000 p.a. In January 1683 he was ordered to be prosecuted in Ireland, and by June he had been declared a debtor to the king and some of his Irish estates seized.<sup>326</sup> On 5 June Anglesey attended the treasury ‘having been with Lord Rochester also in the morning, but though I cleared the remain of my account I could get no justice, nor so much as respite of the unjust proceedings in Ireland.’<sup>327</sup> However, on 12 June it seems that the case against him was suspended by the king.<sup>328</sup> As Roger Morrice noted after Anglesey’s death, his financial troubles were partly self-inflicted because ‘he might in several junctures of time for the 12 last years of his life had his quietus from the crown upon all accounts whatsoever, and he knew very well they did charge him with £22,000 about the Irish affairs, and some other sums but when he could have been discharged he was mindless of it, and when prosecution was revived he would have been discharged but could not.’<sup>329</sup></p><p>Anglesey paid a visit to London on 28-30 June 1683, ‘but found so many new plots and confusions that in the evening I returned to Totteridge without seeing the king, which I came to town purposely to do.’<sup>330</sup> Following the discovery of the Rye House Plot a warrant was on 1 July issued to search his house in Drury Lane for ‘persons mentioned in the late proclamations’, one of the targets being Monmouth.<sup>331</sup> As Anglesey recorded: ‘I understood next day that my house at London had been rudely searched at midnight and most of my doors broken open and papers, writings and books disordered and pendulum broken by warrant pretended from the king, but they would give no names nor copy of warrant.’ On 13 July he ‘was a witness at my Lord Russell’s trial, which I heard.’ He remained irked by his treatment from the king, recording on 9 Aug. that ‘this day was twelvemonth the king sent for the privy seal, the Lord incline his heart to do me right from this day for my long faithful service.’<sup>332</sup></p><p>On 21 Nov. 1683 he ‘was from 8 in the morning till near 7 at night at Mr [Algernon] Sydney’s trial and was a witness for him,’ to prove that Howard of Escrick had previously said that there was no plot and that Sydney was innocent.<sup>333</sup> On the following day he attended ‘my cousin Arnold’s trial’ for <em>scandalum magnatum</em>. Almost certainly in response to these trials, on 25 Nov. he ‘resolved of writing the sum of our laws and liberties and against the oppression of the times in causes of life members and liberties’, noting in particular for use the statute of ‘1 and 2 of Phil. & Mary cap. 3 &c., Magna Charta, the rights of Parliament, the freedom of members, the king’s legal title and prerogative wisdom, the gravity and moderation of former judges and the courage of learned council.’<sup>334</sup></p><p>Anglesey clearly had his doubts about the Rye House Plot, at least as far as it concerned his Whig friends. In early January 1684 he was called before the council for ‘charging the Lord Howard for accusing the duke of Monmouth falsely’<sup>335</sup> and for saying that Russell had been murdered. According to Roger Morrice, Howard had instigated the investigation in order to disprove Monmouth’s assertion that there had been no plot. Anglesey responded to questions about it by asking to be excused from revealing to any but the king alone, ‘a private discourse’, that was not penal or criminal and held in his own house.<sup>336</sup></p><p>Although increasing afflicted with gout, Anglesey maintained an interest in public affairs, especially relating to Ireland and the land settlement there.<sup>337</sup> By mid June 1684 a further reaction to the times had manifested itself in a resolution to,</p><blockquote><p>write a complete history of England ... to show in a continued discourse the bravery of the English monarchs and people how tenaciously they were always of their liberties even in popish times opposing the Romish tyranny and refusing to submit to that yoke, and in all my time and ever since the Reformation showing themselves zealous for the true Christian religion and freedom against popery ... and show the miserable end of those that have oppressed or betrayed their country or its well settled government or endeavoured to enslave them. That the clergy have been the worst in that kind in all times.<sup>338</sup></p></blockquote><p>Anglesey was assiduous in attending James II, following his accession to the crown.<sup>339</sup> Although he was absent from the opening day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685, he attended the next sitting on the 22nd, when he was again named to the usual committees. He attended on 27 days of the session up to the adjournment on 2 July, 90 per cent of the total, and was named to a further eight committees. On 22 May he was one of six peers who voted against the resolution that all impeachments fell by the dissolution of a Parliament.<sup>340</sup> He then entered his protest to the resolution that the order of the Lords of 19 Mar. 1679 should be annulled, which effectively dismissed the impeachments still hanging over Danby and the surviving popish peers. On 25 May he was the sole peer to enter his protest against the resolution not to proceed with the suit between Elizabeth Harvey and Sir Thomas Harvey, because it was a ‘heavy and an unprecedented obstruction to judicature and appeals.’ On 26 May he was excused attendance during a call of the House, being ‘not well.’ On 3 June he was the sole peer to enter his protest against the decision to engross the bill reversing Stafford’s attainder, there being ‘no defect in point of law alleged as a reason for the reversal of the attainder’, and he also entered his protest against the bill’s passage on the following day.<sup>341</sup> On 4 June he received the proxies of both Ormond and Lovelace. On 15 June, according to Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, Anglesey made ‘some small opposition’ to the bill attainting Monmouth of high treason ‘because the evidence did not seem clear enough for so severe a sentence.’<sup>342</sup> On 19 June Anglesey petitioned the Lords complaining of a breach of privilege by Anthony Philpot, ‘who hath vilified him in a scandalous manner’, by calling him ‘a base rogue’ for opposing the bill of attainder against Monmouth.<sup>343</sup> Philpot was ordered into custody and had to beg Anglesey’s pardon on his knees at the bar of the House to secure his release on 1 July, but only after offering sureties in the court of King’s Bench for his future good behaviour. Having chaired the committee on the bill for conveying fresh water to Rochester on 27 June, he reported it later in the day.<sup>344</sup></p><p>Anglesey attended the adjournment of the House on 4 Aug. 1685, and when the House resumed on 9 Nov. he was in his place. To do this he had been forced to borrow a horse, for the receiver-general of the hearth tax had distrained one of his coach horses at Bletchingdon. He duly complained to the treasury of a breach of privilege, prompting Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup> to ask ‘can any Member of Parliament have any privilege against the king when he is indebted to the king?’<sup>345</sup> Anglesey attended on each of the 11 days that Parliament sat before the prorogation on 20 Nov., being named to one committee. On 9 Nov. he supported William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, in promoting the petition to the House of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, complaining of his imprisonment, and suggested that the Lords answer the petition themselves without reference to the king.<sup>346</sup> On 14 Nov. he was the sole dissentient to the decision to affirm the decree in the case of <em>Eyre v. Eyre</em>. On 18 Nov., together with Bishop Compton, he was said to have seconded a sharp speech by Devonshire ‘about standing to the Test’, but this may be an error possibly confusing the events of 18 Nov. with those of the following day.<sup>347</sup> On 19 Nov., along with Halifax, he ‘vehemently’ seconded Devonshire’s motion that the king’s speech be taken into consideration, but only managed to secure an order for it to be considered on the 23rd, by which time Parliament had been prorogued.<sup>348</sup></p><p>On 26 Nov. 1685 Anglesey was examined as a character witness at the trial for high treason of Charles Gerard*, styled Lord Brandon, the future 2nd earl of Macclesfield.<sup>349</sup> On the same day it was reported to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> that the king having pardoned all the Roman Catholic officers in the army, ‘before the pardon was sealed my Lord Anglesey brought an action against Mr Bernard Howard (who is one of those officers) and intends to try to recover the fine they incurred by the Test Act, but of this I am not certain.’<sup>350</sup> A newsletter of the 26 Nov. also supported this statement, suggesting that Anglesey had acted the previous day.<sup>351</sup></p><p>Anglesey attended the prorogation on 10 Feb. 1686, the last day upon which he sat. On 8 Mar. Anglesey recorded a private meeting with Robert Spencer*, earl of Sunderland, and then a meeting with the king at William Chiffinch’s<sup>‡</sup> ‘who was very kind, free and open in discourse. Said, he would not be priest-ridden; read a letter of the late king, said I should be welcome to him.’<sup>352</sup> According to Luttrell and John Tucker he kissed the king’s hand on 16 Mar. 1686, although the latter expected Trumbull to be ‘surprised by the news.’<sup>353</sup> It was reports such as these that led to rumours of Anglesey’s return to favour and possibly high office.</p><p>Anglesey died on 6 Apr. 1686 of ‘a kind of quinsy’, or as Dr James Fraser put it ‘of a mixed distemper, betwixt the gout and squinary,’ and was buried at Farnborough on 14 April.<sup>354</sup> He was succeeded by his eldest son James Annesley*, 2nd earl of Anglesey. At least one report suggested that ‘Anglesey died of a sudden. They did not apprehend him in such danger a few hours before’.<sup>355</sup> It was widely reported that he had told Dr John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York, that ‘he ever was of the Church of England, and would die so, and said he was willing to receive the sacrament but could not swallow’.<sup>356</sup> Thomas Windsor*, earl of Plymouth, evinced surprise, writing to Halifax on 13 Apr. ‘that he declared himself to have been always of the Church of England is more than I did expect.’<sup>357</sup></p><p>Rumours abounded following Anglesey’s death, including one suggesting that he had desired to speak with the king and delivered up to him a bundle of papers. Another wrote that Anglesey ‘was become so great a favourite that he failed not to be at the king’s levee and … had [he] lived but one fortnight longer he been chancellor so that death proved a great disappointment to him.’<sup>358</sup> Even Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, in Dublin, picked up these rumours: ‘letters which bring the news of Lord Anglesey’s death, say, ’twas pity he died, for had he lived but a little time, he would have been a very great man, and have done much good for the poor Irish: Good God!’<sup>359</sup> Verney sombrely recorded ‘I am sorry for the death of my Lord Anglesey, he will be much wanted in the Lords’ House.’<sup>360</sup></p><p>Anglesey had composed his will on 23 Feb. 1686, when ‘of sound mind and memory … though weak and decaying in body’, and because he had ‘seen and considered the disquiets and unnatural differences that do arise and the ruin of families that doth follow upon the dying intestate or by the want of or imperfect or unadvised settlements of estates.’ His house in Drury Lane with its contents together with the ‘silk gold coloured bed and all the furniture of the room called the golden chamber at Blechingdon’ was bequeathed to his wife. He gave his daughter Lady Frances Thompson £1,500, with the significant proviso that his executrix ‘be not sued, molested or troubled’ for it by her husband. Another daughter, Lady Anne Wingate, received the £2,000 part of the portion of £4,000 still owing to her from her marriage. He also gave £1,100 with interest for the redemption of a mortgage for his late son-in-law, Lord Mohun, the money having been borrowed from Sir John Baber. The rest of his real estate in Ireland was to be divided into three parts and bequeathed to his three youngest sons Richard, Arthur and Charles, in remainder after the death of his second son Altham, at that time a widower without children. His executrix was encouraged to apply to the king for ‘those great sums which are due to me from the crown as the only rewards of long service,’ a reference to the sum of £3,000 p.a. for ten years ‘payable out of the inheritable part of the excise, for surrendering his vice-treasurership of Ireland’ to Sir George Carteret.<sup>361</sup> The need to raise money to pay debts may explain the auctioning of his library, reputedly the largest private library in England, consisting of 30,000 volumes, shortly after his death, which Andrew Marvell may have made use of in his own work.<sup>362</sup> His own memoirs, published in 1693 were generally regarded as more the work of Sir Peter Pett than himself.<sup>363</sup></p><p>In 1681 Anglesey had summed himself up as a man of ‘prudence and moderation’, whose consistent aim had been ‘a moderator between factions and parties, never addicted or enslaved to any but striving to make all one.’<sup>364</sup> Around the same time, in January 1681, he wrote to Laurence Hyde that he thought the government of England ‘so wisely and artificially framed that the pulling out or so much as altering any one pin but by common consent of Parliament may dissolve and overturn the whole fabric, in the preserving and upholding which I have now spent above fifty years with knowledge and industry.’<sup>365</sup></p><p>Anglesey has been described as ‘a kind of opposition figure within the inner circle of government, a cultivated but unlikeable figure.’<sup>366</sup> Burnet recalled him as ‘a man of a grave deportment’, with a ‘faculty of speaking indefatigably upon every subject: but he spoke ungraciously; and did not know that he was not good at raillery, for he was always attempting it.’<sup>367</sup> In the Lords his legal expertise, together with his intellectual and financial abilities, made him an important figure; but despite his links to prominent politicians like Holles and Shaftesbury he seems to have made no attempt to create a personal following or to promote himself as a factional leader. A man of business, his industry made him useful in the administration of the state and no doubt ensured his longevity in the public service. On the way, he made the most of his opportunities to advance his personal wealth and his family members.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
ANNESLEY, Arthur (c. 1678-1737) |
<p><strong><surname>ANNESLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Arthur</strong> (c. 1678–1737)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 18 Sept. 1710 as 6th Visct. Valentia [I], Bar. Mountnorris [I], 5th earl of ANGLESEY |
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1710; last sat 11 May 1736 |
|
MP Camb. Univ., 1702-10, New Ross [I], 1703-10. |
<p><em>b</em>. 27 Sept. 1678,<sup>1</sup> 3rd s. of James Annesley*, later 2nd earl of Anglesey, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1700), da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland; bro. of James Annesley*, later 3rd earl of Anglesey and John Annesley*, later 4th earl of Anglesey. <em>educ</em>. Eton, c.1693-7; Magdalene Camb., admitted 4 Feb. 1697, matric. 1697-8, MA 1699, fell. 1700. <em>m</em>. 7 Jan. 1702,<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>.1719), da. of Sir John Thompson*, Bar. Haversham and Frances Annesley, da. of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey. <em>d.s.p</em>. 31 Mar. 1737;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 18 Feb. 1735, pr. May 1737.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the privy chamber 1691; PC 1710-<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1 Aug. 1714-18 Sept. 1714.</p><p>Jt. v.-treas. and treas. at war [I], 1710-16; PC [I], 1710; gov. co. Wexford [I], Nov. 1727; high steward, Camb. Univ. 9 Feb. 1722-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>Annesley was baptized on 28 Sept. 1678, by his uncle Richard Annesley, the future dean of Exeter: his godparents were his grandfather, Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, Lord Chief Baron William Montagu<sup>‡</sup> and the countess of Warwick.<sup>7</sup> His marriage to his cousin, Mary Thompson, was evidently intended to alter the family settlements, for on the death (18 Jan. 1702) of his eldest brother James, it was reported that James had ‘given all his Irish estate which is about £6,000 p. annum to his third brother [i.e. Arthur], who lately married the Lord Haversham’s daughter, as he would have done his English estate too, which is about £1200 p. annum had he lived to the term to cut off the entail.’<sup>8</sup> This led to litigation with his older brother, John, and also with the widow of the 3rd earl, who claimed that Arthur Annesley, his brother John and Haversham had seized all the real and personal estate of her deceased husband. The dispute between the brothers was still unsettled in 1705.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Annesley was an active Member for Cambridge University 1702-10, and an associate of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, then secretary of state and a leading high church Tory. After Nottingham’s dismissal in 1704, he became a fierce critic of the ministry speaking out in support of the bill against occasional conformity and against the settlement proposed for John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. In popular literature he became a Tory caricature and in one poem his rhetorical style was compared to that of Billingsgate fish market.<sup>10</sup> He negotiated a reconciliation between Nottingham and Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, which smoothed relations between the high church and moderate Tories. Annesley opposed the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell and further attempts to elevate Marlborough, whom he described as a ‘man whose pride was already intolerable’.<sup>11</sup> His career in the Commons would have continued but for the untimely death of his brother in September 1710. The fourth earl’s wife was expecting a child at the time of his death and there was some talk that the birth of a son would raise questions regarding the peerage succession. The situation, however, did not arise and Anglesey was using the title when writing to Nottingham on 1 Oct. 1710.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Even before the death of his brother, Annesley was in line for preferment, his name being included on several of Harley’s memoranda, as he had been in 1708.<sup>13</sup> At the end of September 1710 Anglesey was given his brother’s office of vice-treasurer and treasurer at war of Ireland, estimated to be worth £6,000 a year.<sup>14</sup> On 3 Oct. he was listed by Harley as a likely supporter of the ministry, and on the 19th, together with Henry Hyde*, styled Lord Hyde, the future 2nd earl of Rochester, he was named to the Privy Council.</p><p>Anglesey took his seat in the Lords on 25 Nov. 1710, taking the oaths on that day. He attended on 99 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total sittings, and was named to 19 committees. On 16 Jan. 1711, John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerinoch [S], wrote that together with Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton [S], he had been with Anglesey about the case of James Greenshields, noting that Anglesey ‘was a very good speaker in the House of Commons but has not yet spoken in ours.’<sup>15</sup> On 24 Jan. Anglesey was keen to ensure that the action of Viscount Galway [I], in yielding the post of the queen’s troops to the Portuguese, was voted an act contrary to the honour of the crown, rather than merely derogatory to it.<sup>16</sup> On 5 Feb. he spoke in favour of the bill repealing the general naturalization act and entered his dissent to the resolution to reject it.<sup>17</sup> On 9 Mar. he was appointed to manage a conference with the Commons on the safety of the queen’s person. According to Swift, on 6 Apr. Anglesey joined in soliciting ‘admirably’ while lobbying the Commons against a bill imposing a duty on Irish yarn, and Swift attended him again on the same business on 9 April.<sup>18</sup> On 16 May a bill to enable Anglesey and Lord Hyde to take the oath of office for their Irish posts in England passed through all its stages in the Lords.</p><p>At the beginning of May 1711 Anglesey supported the land grants bill, an attempt by the Tories to reverse certain grants made by William III.<sup>19</sup> His influence in high church circles was demonstrated by the observation of the Rev. Ralph Bridges on 21 May that Anglesey persuaded Henry Compton*, bishop of London, to appoint Sir Thomas Gooch<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Ely, as his chaplain.<sup>20</sup> On 1 June Anglesey spoke in defence of Irish interests in the debate on the Scottish linen bill, part of which prevented the export of Scottish linen yarn, much of which was destined for Ireland.<sup>21</sup> Anglesey was identified as a Tory patriot during the 1710-11 session.</p><p>Anglesey was in Dublin by 7 July 1711, when he wrote a letter of introduction to Lord Treasurer Oxford on behalf of Thomas Keightly, Rochester’s brother-in-law.<sup>22</sup> On 9 July Anglesey (as Viscount Valentia [I]) and his cousin, Arthur (as Viscount Altham [I]) took their seats on the opening day of the session of the Irish parliament.<sup>23</sup> On 12 July he wrote to Oxford offering to collect evidence of the misdeeds of Thomas Wharton*, earl, later marquess, of Wharton, the previous lord lieutenant, in case such material could prove useful in curbing Wharton’s effectiveness as a politician in England.<sup>24</sup> His campaign against Wharton prompted Archbishop King of Dublin to write to Swift on 28 July, ‘you will observe several reflections that are in the addresses on the late management here [i.e. Wharton’s], in which the earl of Anglesey and I differed.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>Whilst in Ireland, Anglesey obviously made a favourable impression on some of the populace, being described in November 1711 as the ‘darling of the church party.’<sup>26</sup> On 5 Dec. 1711, Anglesey had not yet returned from Ireland, with the parliamentary session imminent.<sup>27</sup> However, he was back in the chamber for the opening day of session on 7 Dec., having ‘that morning travelled above 30 miles’. During the debate on the address he supported the need for peace, further suggesting ‘that we might have enjoyed that blessing soon after the battle of Ramillies, if the same had not been put off by some persons, whose interest it was to prolong the war,’ an obvious reference to Marlborough who responded to it.<sup>28</sup> Having spoken on the Tory side of the debate, as Nottingham noted when he revealed to his wife ‘his great grief’ that he and Anglesey ‘differ in the matter of the peace', he probably did not vote for the inclusion of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the Address.<sup>29</sup> However, on 8 Dec. 1711, when there was an attempt by the ministry to reverse that vote, Anglesey forced a division on whether the words should stand as part of the address and had been listed as one of those likely to do so. <sup>30</sup></p><p>Anglesey attended on 78 days of the 1711-12 session, 74 per cent of the total. On the issue of the rights and privileges of the Scottish peers, Anglesey was noted as having left the House on 19 Dec. 1711 when the question was put that no patent of honour granted to any peer of Great Britain, who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, entitled him to sit and vote in Parliament. Given this abstention, Oxford listed him on 29 Dec. as one of the peers to be contacted during the Christmas recess. Meanwhile, on 20 Dec. he had seconded Nottingham when the latter went to meet Members of the House of Commons to ensure that the committee added a penalty clause to the occasional conformity bill ‘without which the bill would have been certainly useless.’<sup>31</sup></p><p>By January 1712, there is evidence from Swift that Anglesey was of sufficient importance to be one of those invited to dine with Oxford on a Saturday, ‘his day of choice company’.<sup>32</sup> Family matters did, however, produce tensions with another Tory grandee: on 17 Jan. Anglesey and John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, exchanged ‘hard words’ in the Lords and almost came to blows over the guardianship and custody of the countess of Buckingham’s daughter by her first husband, Anglesey’s brother, James, 3rd earl of Anglesey.<sup>33</sup> The Lords found in favour of Anglesey in this case, the latest in a long series of lawsuits arising from the will of the 3rd earl.<sup>34</sup> A proxy was registered in his favour from William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, on 4 Mar. and from William North*, 6th Baron North, on 7 April. Anglesey registered his own proxy in favour of John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, from 21 to 28 May 1712 and again on 13 June 1712. On 12 Apr. Anglesey acted as a teller for the division on committing the bill restoring rights of Scottish ecclesiastical patronage. Also, on the 12th he reported to the House from the committee of the whole on the bill on behalf of Agmondisham Vesey. On 5 May he reported from committees on the bill for regius professors of universities and the bill uniting the parishes of Horndon and Ingrave in Essex. He was present on 28 May to support the ministry against the Whig attack on the ‘restraining’ orders given to Ormond, both speaking and voting in their favour.<sup>35</sup></p><p>On 12 Dec. 1712 Anglesey was reported to have told Gooch that ‘upon the sitting down of the Parliament, we shall have our peace.’<sup>36</sup> He attended the prorogation on 3 Feb. 1713, and in a list of mid-March to early April 1713, in the hand of Jonathan Swift with additions by Oxford, Anglesey was marked as expected to support the ministry. The day before the delayed session convened, Anglesey told Oxford that he had come to town to receive his commands, and he was duly in attendance when the session opened on 9 Apr.<sup>37</sup> In total he attended on 47 days of the session, 71 per cent. In or about mid-June 1713, Oxford classed him as likely to oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty, and his name appears on a list of 12 peers expected to desert the court over the issue. It was also noted that, if the bill had reached the Lords, Anglesey had already declared his opposition to it, as he had declared against it in the Lords on 17 June.<sup>38</sup> Indeed, following the bill’s defeat in the Commons on 18 June, some commentators ascribed its fate to Anglesey and Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup>, ‘which two had a consultation with several Members about it.’ Robert Monckton<sup>‡</sup> also ascribed the defeat of the French commercial bill to ‘the defection of Sir Tho[mas] Hanmer and a great number of the Tories instigated principally by my Lord Abingdon and Anglesey’. Certainly, Anglesey, Hanmer and Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, provoked anger on both sides by their whimsical behaviour.<sup>39</sup> L’Hermitage reported on 18 June that Anglesey was ‘determined to drive the lord treasurer to extremities, and has been, for some time, in strict connection with’ John Campbell*, duke of Argyll [S]. He continued, ‘this earl is one of the greatest Tories, and is not a good tempered man. He is very haughty, and very ambitious. He is one of the most active men in the world, and does not deviate an inch from what he hath once undertaken.’ L’Hermitage also linked Anglesey’s opposition to the Pretender to his possession of extensive Irish lands.<sup>40</sup> On 30 June Anglesey supported Wharton’s motion for an address requesting that the queen secure the Pretender’s expulsion from Lorraine.<sup>41</sup></p><p>However, this did not mean an irreconcilable break with the lord treasurer, and by the end of June 1713 Anglesey was attending Oxford’s levee, to ‘make his compliment.’<sup>42</sup> At this stage in his life Anglesey was considered to be a peer with significant influence, but it was unclear how he would use it.<sup>43</sup> His support for the Tories and his commitment to what he called the ‘Church interest’ was evident from his correspondence with Swift. He was being courted constantly by the Whigs, L’Hermitage noting on 4 July that ‘Anglesey unites himself more and more with the Whigs, and they concert measures together for promoting something in Parliament.’ To that end ‘he had an interview yesterday’ with Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, and others.<sup>44</sup> In September 1713 Nottingham outlined his hopes to Sunderland of having Anglesey’s assistance:</p><blockquote><p>the libel on him clearly instigated by the ministry, another bill of commerce, and the transactions abroad this summer should and I hope will incite him to exert himself to prevent some things which I know he fears, and if the majority of the commons should be such as he esteems his friends, as is very probable, he will be freed from some apprehensions which fettered him to the present ministry and he will have the greater honour.<sup>45</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 14 Sept. Sunderland wrote to Nottingham suggesting that in the forthcoming Parliament ‘a great deal will turn on the part Lord Anglesey, and Sir Thomas Hanmer will act; I don’t much doubt the first from his good sense, after what passed at the end of last session’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>On 4 Sept. 1713, in the middle of the election campaign, Anglesey was on his way to his ‘country house’ to dine with James Barry<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Barrymore [I], and Richard Shuttleworth<sup>‡</sup>, two of the Members over whom he was believed to exercise some influence.<sup>47</sup> Also in September 1713 the duchess of Marlborough commented on the rumours that Anglesey would succeed as lord lieutenant of Ireland: ‘I suppose it will please him, but how he can be made secure of his great estate in that country that belongs to so many Roman Catholics, I can’t imagine.’<sup>48</sup> At about the same time, William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, felt that the best card held by the incumbent lieutenant, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, was the threat of Anglesey being sent in his place if he failed, noting that Anglesey was ‘more of a party than is liked in that kingdom’, and that he had been ‘long intriguing for that government, tho’ he pretends an averseness to it, and at some time or other will certainly have it.’<sup>49</sup> Interestingly, in November 1713 it was reported that Argyll had referred to Anglesey as ‘the fittest man to be a prime minister, and he shall live to see him so.’<sup>50</sup></p><p>Anglesey was in Ireland before the opening of the parliamentary session in Dublin and attended on the opening day on 25 Nov. 1713.<sup>51</sup> He kept a close eye on events in England, writing to Oxford on 21 Nov.:</p><blockquote><p>I am extremely pleased to hear the treaty of commerce is likely to come to so fair a conclusion, and I doubt not that it is under your lordship’s eye, but that all objections which have been raised against it will be removed to the great satisfaction of all her majesty’s faithful servants.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>Anglesey came to the aid of the Irish lord chancellor, Sir Constantine Phipps, on 18 Dec. 1713 assisting in the passage of an address by the Irish house of lords that he had ‘acquitted himself with honour and integrity’, although Alan Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> noted of Anglesey’s contribution that ‘at the time of his speaking I observed a want of that vivacity and presence of mind which at other times appears in him’.<sup>53</sup> A newsletter at the end of December 1713 recorded that on this occasion Anglesey had ‘made a very excellent speech wherein he told them it was hard that so worthy a minister should be attacked and those who were concerned for the government stood silent and much more to that effect which words seem to point at another great person in that kingdom.’<sup>54</sup></p><p>On 5 Jan. 1714 Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, informed James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> that the British Parliament would sit on 16 Feb. and that the Parliament in Dublin would be prorogued before it ‘and our friend Anglesey be here’.<sup>55</sup> On 16 Jan. Anglesey informed Swift that he was preparing for his journey to England, assuring the dean that ‘steady and vigorous measures’ would strengthen their position both in Ireland and England.<sup>56</sup> In this he was encouraged by a long missive from Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, on 25 Jan. which urged him to return ‘as soon as possibly you can; your friends here are ready to concert freely and honourably with you; and I am persuaded that we may act, through the whole session as one man, and if we once find this art, the opposite faction is undone.’<sup>57</sup></p><p>If anything, Anglesey’s visit to Ireland seemed to bolster his support for the English ministry. On his return he felt able to rebuff all attempts by the Whigs and their allies to entice him into open opposition. In particular, he opposed Nottingham’s suggestion that measures should be concerted to invite George*, duke of Cambridge (the future George II), to reside in England, his presence being widely seen as enabling Anglesey to break with the court.<sup>58</sup> As the Hanoverian envoy, Schütz, remarked at the end of February 1714, Anglesey ‘is a great deal more cool than he was before he went to Ireland, and he declines hitherto, to enter into what our friends propose to him.’<sup>59</sup> The duchess of Marlborough found him quite a puzzle,</p><blockquote><p>… who I don’t know at all, I believe I have never seen him. He may have some talents but sure a man of judgment could not have done what he did in Ireland to support the chancellor and be, as I think he is really, against the P. of W. and yet the refusing to vote against the Popish decree is agreeable to his friendship to the Irish chancellor.<sup>60</sup></p></blockquote><p>Even after the Parliament met his position with respect to the court was still unsure.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Anglesey had arrived by the beginning of the session on 16 Feb. 1714. He attended on 63 days of the session, 83 per cent of all sittings and was named to 16 committees of the House. On 19 Mar. in the committee of the whole debating the state of the nation, Anglesey came to the aid of the ministry which was facing attack over the fate of their wartime allies, the Catalans. He observed that these proceedings had been initiated ‘merely out of spleen and envy’ and that the conduct of the previous ministry should be inquired into so as to be compared with the present one.<sup>62</sup> No doubt in connection with this, on 21 Mar. William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> reported to Oxford a meeting he had held the previous day at which Anglesey’s chief aim had been to ‘be furnished with materials to make good his challenge against the old ministry, being determined as far as he is able to support you in your administration. I think him very sincere in these assurances.’ Bromley hoped that a dinner with Oxford on the 23rd would allow Oxford to ‘be so explicit with him as may confirm and fix his resolutions to serve you.’<sup>63</sup> A memorandum written by Oxford on 22 Mar. may refer to this meeting: ‘Lord A - I have no views. I have and will do all I can. I will tell you when I cannot. I will attack, or not - will not vary, do not this because I want, for I desire to be out &c.’<sup>64</sup></p><p>By late March 1714 Anglesey seemed to be wavering in the face of Whig blandishments.<sup>65</sup> On 26 Mar. it was reported that Argyll ‘outdid himself’ in his attempts to influence Anglesey.<sup>66</sup> On 1 Apr. Anglesey met with Argyll, and the Hanoverian Tories, Nottingham, Hanmer and William Dawes*, archbishop of York, at which the chief article agreed was to concert measures with the Whigs to ensure the Protestant succession and the defeat of the Pretender.<sup>67</sup> Anglesey’s next parliamentary intervention was on 5 Apr. when he launched a vigorous attack on the ministry in which he was said to have ‘ripped up the peace’ and spoken ‘with the greatest violence and virulency imaginable’.<sup>68</sup> The Whig attack on the peace of Utrecht that day led to the Court proposing a motion that the Hanoverian succession was not in danger, to which Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, the lord chancellor, added the words ‘under her majesty’s administration’. As Robert Wodrow was informed, it was Harcourt’s amendment which provoked Anglesey to</p><blockquote><p>a flaming speech, in which he told the House that he had been drawn into the peace from the assurance he had that it was most honourable for Great Britain that satisfaction and security had been thereby obtained to our allies that we were to have a treaty of commerce, by which the nation would gain two millions per annum. And he appealed to their lordships whether one title of those things were true in fact. But on the contrary our allies abandoned and even what we had obtained for ourselves left to bona fide of the French king. No guarantee for the succession but the French king and the king of Sicily. That he was amazed at the words offered by the noble lord to be added to the question. Did the ministry want to be screened by these words (of her majesty’s government). Did they lie under an imputant of contributing to the danger of the Protestant succession that they want to be justified by a side wind. If they thought themselves reflected upon by the question as it was first moved, let them have a day to vindicate themselves from it but (said he) I will follow any minister, be who he will, from the queen’s closet to Tower Hill, that shall have done, or shall do any thing to weaken that Succession.<sup>69</sup></p></blockquote><p>In another account from a newsletter, Anglesey</p><blockquote><p>opposed it violently and fell a railing against all the proceedings of the peace. He said he had been one of those who was for vindicating the suspension of arms not for any reasons he had heard within doors but for some he was told without, viz, that there was a peace concluded advantageous to this nation and secure to all the allies, that the protestant succession was effectually secured by it and that we should have such a trade as would bring in 2 millions p.a. What there was of this that proved true their Lordships could now judge. He said a good deal more with a great deal of warmth and concluded that if the succession was not in danger before, this vote would make it so.<sup>70</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Court managed to add Harcourt’s amendment, but their majority sank to fourteen. Although the Whigs let the main question through, they passed several other votes for an address to the queen for a proclamation to apprehend the Pretender ‘dead or alive’ and for expressing their disquiet at the duke of Lorraine’s failure to expel him.</p><p>If Anglesey’s intention had been to force himself to the ministry’s attention, he certainly succeeded. On the evening of 5 Apr. 1714 he was invited to dine with Bolingbroke, and on the 7th he attended Oxford’s levee, leading some to conclude that he had been bought off by the promise of the lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>71</sup> He also had a lengthy interview with the queen.<sup>72</sup> The upshot of all this was that when the Lords came to consider the report of the address on the Pretender on 8 Apr. Anglesey and several other ‘straggling’ Lords returned to the ministerial fold and several amendments were passed which allowed the queen to decide when to issue the proclamation against the Pretender and to offer a reward for bringing him to justice not just for his head.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Anglesey was in the country and unavailable for consultation before Schütz asked Harcourt for a writ of summons for the duke of Cambridge. However, upon his return to London on the evening of the 12 Apr. he concurred with the plan.<sup>74</sup> On 13 Apr. when the House came to debate the queen’s answer to their address of the 8th on the Pretender, Wharton proposed a further address which was amended by the court. On the main amendment Anglesey narrowly failed to secure the rejection of the term ‘and industriously’ when referring to the fears and jealousies which had been ‘universally’ spread about the threats to the protestant succession. The insertion of these words was carried for the ministry by two proxy votes.<sup>75</sup> On 14 Apr. Anglesey acted as a teller on the committal of the place bill, and on 17 Apr. he acted as a teller in a division in the committee of the whole and as a teller on the motion to pass the bill. On 15 Apr., when the Commons debated the motion that the Hanoverian succession was not in danger, one contemporary recorded that those against the ministry included ‘all my Lord Anglesey’s interest.’<sup>76</sup> On 16 Apr. when the Lords came to consider the Spanish treaties, Anglesey was one of the ‘revolters from the Church Party … smoked out’ by voting against an address ‘in favour of the peace and the ministry’.<sup>77</sup> Interestingly, Henry Brydges recorded that on 21 Apr. he had met Anglesey at the home of Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester.<sup>78</sup></p><p>In a letter of 7 May 1714 to the Electress Sophia, Anglesey said he was obliged by duty, his own inclination and ‘the same principles of loyalty and obedience’ which made him a ‘faithful’ and ‘good subject to her majesty’, to be a ‘firm and zealous servant to the Hanoverian Succession’ and to ‘secure and preserve to these nations our invaluable constitution in Church and state’.<sup>79</sup> However, at the same time William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Cadogan, was enunciating his fears to Bothmer that unless the electoral prince was sent over, Anglesey, Dawes, Hanmer and their friends would ‘leave us soon, for they declare publicly enough that the succession cannot be secured but by the presence of the prince’.<sup>80</sup></p><p>On 22 May 1714, a correspondent of Lord North revealed the machinations going on in the ministry, with Anglesey suggested as a candidate to replace Bolingbroke, or that both Oxford and Bolingbroke would be removed and that ‘there is a party cooking up that would gladly rout the present set of ministers, the Speaker [Hanmer], and Mr Hill and Lord Anglesey are of that number, upon the dismission of the Parliament we shall see something done.’<sup>81</sup> At the end of May 1714, John Vanbrugh informed Marlborough that Anglesey was suspicious of the duke being in the Pretender’s interest.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Given Anglesey’s conviction that the Presbyterians posed one of the greatest threats to the constitution, in late May or early June 1714, Nottingham confidently predicted that he would support the schism bill. His assessment was correct: on 4 June Anglesey spoke in the debate for four hours which ended in an unopposed motion for a second reading of the schism bill.<sup>83</sup> He remarked that ‘the Dissenters were equally dangerous both to church and state’, making reference to their conduct under James II when ‘in order to obtain a toleration, they joined themselves with the papists.’ Furthermore, they were unworthy of the ‘indulgence’ granted them at the revolution because they had endeavoured ‘to engross the education of youth’ by setting up schools and academies ‘to the great detriment of the universities and danger of the established church.’<sup>84</sup> On 11 June he acted as a teller in favour of a motion that the committee of the whole on the schism bill be allowed to receive a clause extending its provisions to Ireland, a measure which Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Coningsby, later interpreted as part of a conscious design by the Church party to weaken the English interest in Ulster.<sup>85</sup> Peter Wentworth described it more triumphantly as carrying ‘a clause that the House of Commons did not think fit to send up to the Lords for fear of the loss of the whole bill.’<sup>86</sup></p><p>On 15 June 1714 Anglesey brought into the Lords a bill ‘against popery’, which aimed to make more effectual an act of James I’s reign against recusants and also an act of William and Mary to vest the presentation of benefices belonging to papists in the two universities.<sup>87</sup> On 30 June Anglesey defended the bill for examining public accounts at its first reading in the Lords, noting that ‘tho’ there had not yet been any considerable discoveries made, yet since it was probable there might be, and the burthen to the nation was but twelve thousand pounds, it was his opinion to be continued’, a view which the House narrowly endorsed.<sup>88</sup> On 5 July Anglesey was opposed to any censure of Bolingbroke during the debate on an address to the queen over naming the ministers who had advised the ratification of the articles of the Spanish commercial treaty, which was attributed by many to offers of high office on the fall of Oxford. On the following day Charles Ford was predicting Bolingbroke’s triumph and consequently Anglesey’s appointment to the Irish lieutenancy; rumours which had been current for some time.<sup>89</sup> On 8 July Anglesey moved the House to address the queen to thank her for the part of the asiento she had given to the South Sea Company, to which Nottingham added that what remained vested in her should be applied for the public.<sup>90</sup> The queen’s response on 9 July that she would dispose of it as she saw fit ‘put the House into the greatest fury’; her physician recorded that he had been told by William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper that her response had provoked Anglesey and Wharton to ‘hot speeches’.<sup>91</sup> In particular, Anglesey noted that he could not support an order for printing the address and the queen’s reply ‘there having never been known such an answer returned to that House’. Furthermore, he would have acquiesced if the queen had ‘given them a flat denial’. She had, however, prefaced her refusal by saying ‘she always regarded their addresses at the same instant that she did not regard them was what he could not let pass without taking some notice of a thing so strange.’<sup>92</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, in response to a legal opinion on the election of the lord mayor of Dublin delivered to the council on 16 July 1714, Anglesey was reported to be railing against Harcourt.<sup>93</sup> On 21 July James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> that ‘my Lord Anglesey, who was to have his share, is now in no great understanding with Bolingbroke and has broke with the chancellor [Harcourt].’<sup>94</sup> Although he was still reported to be angry with Harcourt on 24 July, this feeling did not extend to Bolingbroke.<sup>95</sup> Nevertheless, an antagonistic Anglesey was inconvenient for Bolingbroke as he plotted the dispositions of a new ministry.<sup>96</sup> Following the news of Oxford’s fall, on 29 July it was rumoured that Anglesey would be lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Anglesey had left for Ireland on 26 July 1714, charged with purging the Irish army of Whig supporters, ‘being dispatched thither by the new modelled juncto of the late ministry’ to remodel the forces there and bring in popery and the Pretender.<sup>98</sup> He had already embarked for Ireland before an express reached him informing him of the death of the queen on 1 August.<sup>99</sup> Having been named as a regent by George I, he was forced to return to London.<sup>100</sup> According to a memorandum by Oxford he was still absent on 10 Aug., but Charles Ford noted his arrival in London on that day.<sup>101</sup> He first sat on 13 Aug. and attended only four sittings of the session of August 1714, an attendance rate of 24 per cent. Nevertheless, he was keen to impress the new king, allegedly spending ‘three hours every morning learning French to tease him with.’<sup>102</sup></p><p>Despite rumours in October 1714 that he would be displaced as vice-treasurer of Ireland, Anglesey remained in place and was listed as one of the Tories still in office on 26 Jan. 1715.<sup>103</sup> However, as Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> wrote in early December 1714, Anglesey was one of those ‘hard pursued’ by the Whigs for their places, and Anglesey himself told Bolingbroke that war had been declared on the ‘whole Tory party’.<sup>104</sup> Eventually, he was replaced as vice-treasurer in March 1716 but retained his place on the privy council.</p><p>For the remainder of his career Anglesey remained a Tory loyal to Hanover, although over time his attendance on the House dwindled. He died on 31 Mar. 1737 and was buried at Farnborough.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
ANNESLEY, James (c. 1645-90) |
<p><strong><surname>ANNESLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (c. 1645–90)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1661-86 Ld. Annesley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 6 Apr. 1686 as 3rd Visct. Valentia [I] and 2nd earl of ANGLESEY |
|
First sat 10 May 1686; last sat 21 Jan. 1690 |
|
MP Waterford [I] 1666, Winchester 1679 (Mar.)-1681. |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1645, 1st s. of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and Elizabeth Altham. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church Oxf; <em>matric</em>. 4 Dec. 1661; travelled abroad (Italy) 1665. <em>m</em>. (settlement 17 Sept. 1669, with £9,000)<sup>1</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1700), da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, and Frances da. of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Bar. Montagu of Boughton, 3s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 1 Apr. 1690; <em>admon</em>. 6 June 1690.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. of horse [I] 1666-72;<sup>3</sup> col. militia ft. Hants ?1675-81.</p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Hants 1676-81; freeman, Portsmouth 1676,<sup>4</sup> Winchester 1677,<sup>5</sup> Oxford 1681;<sup>6</sup> dep. lt. Hants by 1680-1.<sup>7</sup></p><p>FRS 1663-82.<sup>8</sup></p> |
|
<p>Annesley was born in Dublin, probably in 1645, as he was 16 when he matriculated at Oxford in December 1661. By this date his father was a prominent politician having played a significant role in the restoration of Charles II, for which he received an English earldom. Annesley’s initial public role seems to have been in Ireland, where for a few months in 1666, before its prorogation, he sat as member for Waterford in the only Irish Restoration parliament. At some point around this date he received a commission in the Irish army ‘by resignation of his father,’ which had been disposed of by 1672. In 1667 he was undertaking commissions for his father in Ireland.<sup>9</sup> According to Lady Elizabeth Livingston he had courted her for three years before his father’s opposition to the match forced him to withdraw his affection.<sup>10</sup> In 1669 he married Lady Elizabeth Manners, who brought with her a substantial portion, although there appears to have been a problem in securing maintenance for the couple. In 1670 Annesley seems to have been granted £1,400 p.a. by his father, but money still seems to have been a problem as he was seeking to sell his troop of horse in April 1670.<sup>11</sup> At some point Annesley was settled on his father’s estate in Farnborough, becoming a justice of the peace for Hampshire in 1674, a militia colonel, deputy lieutenant, and custos in April 1676 (for which he had lobbied Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury in March promising that ‘I shall ever be a most faithful subject to my king, and a most obedient son of the Church’).<sup>12</sup></p><p>After several vain attempts to find a seat in the Cavalier Parliament, including the possibility of standing for Leicester and Radnorshire in 1677, Annesley was returned to the Exclusion Parliaments for Winchester.<sup>13</sup> His political fortunes in the Commons were wrapped up with those of his father, and as those declined so did Annesley’s.</p><p>Following his father’s death in April 1686, Anglesey was introduced in the Lords at the prorogation on 10 May 1686. In July 1687 Anglesey’s house at Farnborough was destroyed by fire.<sup>14</sup> It had not been rebuilt by September 1689 when, in response to a letter about self-assessment for taxation purposes, it was noted that ‘he hath no personal estate, not having so much as either coach or horse. And that his own house being burnt down his Lordship is obliged to remain at a neighbour’s till the same be rebuilt.’<sup>15</sup> While Parliament stood prorogued Anglesey’s name appeared on four lists compiled in 1687, all of which classed him as an opponent of James II’s policies, and, more specifically, of his attempts to repeal the Tests. Anglesey, like his father, was probably particularly opposed to the Irish policies promoted by Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell [I]. Anglesey subscribed the petition for a free Parliament presented to the king on 17 Nov. 1688, and his name appears on two lists as so doing.<sup>16</sup> During the crisis caused by the flight of James II, Anglesey attended the assembly of peers which acted as a provisional government on 12-15 Dec. and again on 25 Dec. and was even a signatory to some orders to the English navy.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Anglesey was absent from the beginning of the Convention, and was excused attendance for sickness on 25 Jan. 1689 (he seems to have inherited his father’s affliction of the gout). He first attended the Lords on 4 Feb., whereupon he was appointed one of the managers of a conference with the Commons to discuss the wording of the bill formally establishing the reign of William and Mary. The Lords could not agree with the wording proposed by the Commons and Anglesey voted against using the word ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’ with reference to James II’s actions. On 5 Feb. the same managers were appointed to the conference when the Lords set out the reasons why they could not agree with the Commons. Crucially, he stayed away from the Lords on 6 Feb. and was listed as absent when the Lords voted to agree with the Commons that the king had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was therefore ‘vacant.’ He took the oaths on 5 March.</p><p>On 15 Apr. 1689 Anglesey was ordered to attend the Lords the following day in order to hear the petition of his wife concerning the non-payment of a rent charge to her on lands at Bletchingdon. The question of whether she had breached the earl’s privilege in writing to one of the tenants concerning these rentals was referred to the committee of privileges on 16 April. The report from the committee on 18 Apr. left the issue of privilege to the House itself, which opted to appoint a group of peers to mediate between Anglesey and his wife. He again received leave of absence for ill health on 22 May, having only attended on one occasion between 18 Apr. and 29 July. On 30 July Anglesey voted to agree with the Lords proposal to reverse the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. In total, he attended on 27 days of the session, 17 per cent of sittings of the House, and was named to three committees. Neither Anglesey, nor his brother, Altham Annesley, Viscount Altham [I], attended James II’s Irish parliament in May 1689.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Reckoned an opponent of the court in a list drawn up by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen, between October 1689 and February 1690, in the second session of the Convention Anglesey attended on 12 occasions, 16 per cent of the sittings, and was named to three committees. Anglesey was absent from the opening session of the 1690 Parliament and was excused attendance on grounds of ill health on 31 March. He died the following day on 1 Apr. 1690, reportedly of an apoplexy.<sup>19</sup> At the time of his death Anglesey’s English and Irish estate was estimated at £4,000 p.a.<sup>20</sup> He left three sons who all inherited the peerage: James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey; John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey; and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, and a daughter, Elizabeth (1673-1725) who married Robert Gayer<sup>‡</sup> of Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire. His widow died on 7 Dec. 1700, leaving the bulk of her estate to her second son John, whom she made her executor. In a codicil of November 1700 she also bequeathed to John, Irish lands lately conveyed to her by her brothers-in-law Richard Annesley, 2nd Baron Altham [I] and Arthur Annesley, possibly following the death of Altham’s heir, James George Annesley.<sup>21</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
ANNESLEY, James (1674-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>ANNESLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1674–1702)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1 Apr. 1690 (a minor) as 3rd earl of ANGLESEY and 3rd Visct. Valentia [I]. |
|
First sat 22 Nov. 1695; last sat 24 June 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 July 1674,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of James Annesley*, 2nd earl of Anglesey and Elizabeth, 4th da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland; bro. of John Annesley*, later 4th earl of Anglesey and Arthur Annesley*, later 5th earl of Anglesey. <em>educ</em>. Dyer’s sch. at Chelsea, c.1680;<sup>2</sup> Christ Church, Oxf. 1690; travelled abroad (with Mons. de Rasigarde) 1692,<sup>3</sup> (Germany, Italy and France) 1696-8.<sup>4</sup> <em>m</em>. 28 Oct. 1699 (with £17,000)<sup>5</sup> Catherine Darnley, da. (illegit.) of James II and Catherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester, separated (by act of Parliament), 12 June 1701, 1da. <em>d</em>. 18 Jan 1702; <em>will</em> 14 May-9 Dec. 1701, pr. 13 Mar. 1702.<sup>6</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>As the heir to his grandfather, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, who possessed vast estates in England and Ireland as well as considerable personal wealth, Annesley was well placed to play a significant role in the political life of both kingdoms. He was baptized on 13 July 1674 by John Tillotson*, then dean of Canterbury and later archbishop of Canterbury, his godparents being his grandmother, the countess of Anglesey, John Manners*, Lord Roos, the future duke of Rutland and Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu.<sup>8</sup> On 19 Oct. 1677 the young Annesley was touched by the king, perhaps an early indication of poor health.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Anglesey took his seat in the Irish House of Lords in August 1695 where Henry Capel*, Baron Capell, reported that he was ‘perfectly embarked with the sole right men, and entirely in the interest of my lord chancellor [Sir Charles Porter<sup>‡</sup>]’. Capell also reported that Anglesey had proved to be something of a troublemaker: ‘he has been at the head of all the embroilments, and likewise in those that have [been], like to happen between the two Houses.’<sup>10</sup> Anglesey left Ireland for England towards the end of October 1695, possibly in response to his writ of summons to the English Parliament for which he was now eligible to sit. He was in attendance on the opening day of the session on 22 Nov. 1695 but was not formally introduced until the following day. He was present on 72 days of the session, 58 per cent of the total. On 4 Dec. he was named to a committee to draw up an address on the ill state of the coinage, which in turn served to manage a conference with the Commons on the same issue on the following day. On 9 Dec. he was reportedly involved in a duel in which the other principal, Sir John Dillon, was wounded, the dispute being about Anglesey’s adultery with Dillon’s wife.<sup>11</sup> On 9 Jan. 1696 he was named to draw up reasons for the Lords insisting on their amendments to the bill regulating the silver coinage. Some of these related to the rights of the peerage, and he was named as a manager of the ensuing conference which was held the following day. Surprisingly, in view of his own family history and his close association with Sir John Thompson*, later Baron Haversham, who urged that non-subscribers be expelled from the Commons, he refused to sign the Association on 27 Feb. despite being in the House on that day.<sup>12</sup> On 31 Mar. he acted as teller against agreeing to a clause in the committee of the whole on the recoinage bill and subsequently entered a dissent to the passing of the bill. On 14 Apr. he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for the Lords insisting on their amendments to the bill for continuing the acts prohibiting trade and commerce with France, but these proceedings did not result in a conference. He was named to a further ten committees during the session. On 30 Apr. 1696, just three days after the end of the session, he obtained a pass to travel abroad to study in Germany and Italy.<sup>13</sup></p><p>According to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup>, Anglesey was one of those who stood bail in October 1697 for Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, but he did not attend Parliament during the 1697-8 session, and it is not clear whether he had returned from his foreign tour.<sup>14</sup> He was in Paris in April 1698, where he was carefully watched by Mathew Prior<sup>‡</sup>, who informed Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, that Anglesey was mixing with people of Jacobite sentiments and emphasized that because Anglesey’s loyalty could go either way it would be necessary to ensure a favourable reception for him when he returned to the English court in order to win him over to the cause of William III.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Anglesey next attended the House on 3 May 1698 and was present almost every day of the remaining two months of the 1697-8 session, a total of 37 days, representing 27 per cent of the total. On 24 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference considering the bill for the more effectual suppression of blasphemy and profaneness and on 28 June as one of the managers of the conference considering the impeachments against John Goudet and others. On 1 July he acted as a teller against giving a second reading to the bill establishing the two million fund and settling the East India trade. Having lost the division he entered a protest at the decision. He was named to a further 12 committees during the session.</p><p>Anglesey attended the prorogation on 29 Nov. 1698 and was present when Parliament convened on 6 December. He attended on 53 days of the session, 62 per cent of the total, and was appointed to 14 committees. On 10 and 11 Feb. 1699 he acted as a teller in divisions on the case of John Fitch against the attorney-general. On 29 Mar. he entered a dissent to the resolution to request the king to send for the bishop of Derry in custody, a matter relating to a clash of jurisdictions between the English and Irish houses of lords. On 20 Apr. he was appointed one of the managers of the conference on the bill restoring Blackwell Hall and on 21 Apr. one of the managers for the conference on the Billingsgate Market bill. This committee then drew up reasons for adhering to their proviso on 25 Apr., and he was appointed to another conference on the bill on 26 April. On 27 Apr. he entered a protest to the passage of the supply bill providing for the disbandment, because of a clause tacked to it appointing commissioners to inquire into Irish land grants. On 3 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference considering the bill on the paper duty.</p><p>In October 1699 Anglesey added to his already considerable wealth by marrying Catherine Darnley, the illegitimate daughter of James II and Catherine Sedley, now countess of Dorchester. Despite the dislocation that must have been caused by her father’s exile, she was a wealthy young woman with a portion of £17,000 plus jewellery worth another £3,000.<sup>16</sup> Significantly, in February 1700 a certificate was issued under the sign manual that he had married with the sovereign’s consent.<sup>17</sup> The death of his mother in December 1700 saw her jointure fall to him.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Anglesey attended the opening day of the session of 1699-1700. He was appointed to the committee of privileges, and to a further six committees during the session. He was present on 48 days of the session, 53 per cent of the total. In February 1700 he was forecast as one of those peers who would support the East India Company bill. On 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning the House, so that it could go into a committee of the whole on the East India Company bill. On 4 Apr. he acted as a teller against a second reading of the land tax and Irish forfeitures bill and then protested on constitutional grounds against the decision to proceed with the bill. On 9 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the bill and was then appointed to draw up reasons for adhering to their amendments. Following several more conferences, on 10 Apr. he acted as a teller in favour of the Lords adhering to these amendments and then as a teller against passing the bill without their amendments. He then entered a protest against the resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill, having, as one observer noted, spoken ‘extremely pertinently’ on the rights of the peerage in these debates.<sup>19</sup> Anglesey attended the prorogation on 23 May 1700.</p><p>At the beginning of the 1701 session, Anglesey was recorded as being named to the committee for privileges on 10 Feb., although his name does not appear on the attendance lists until the 11th, when he also took the oaths. He was appointed to three other committees during the session. It was by now clear that the young peer was extremely ill; he was variously described as being ‘deep in a consumption’ and as suffering from ‘a complication of diseases’.<sup>20</sup> Despite his illness he managed to attend on 52 days of the session, some 48 per cent of the total. This was probably impelled as much by personal considerations as by political ones.</p><p>On 12 Feb. 1701 six people rushed into his house and kidnapped Anglesey’s wife. He reported this immediately to the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, only to discover that the kidnapping had been engineered by his wife in order to provide her with an opportunity to go before Holt and accuse her husband of cruelty. As a result of her accusations, Anglesey was bound over to keep the peace in a bond of £8,000. On 13 Feb. he reported this to the House and asked to be freed from the terms of the bond. The following day he demanded that the House issue a warrant to search for his wife and cancel the bond so that he could go abroad for his health. Holt told the House that he had not only received Lady Anglesey’s complaint in person but had seen her bruised arms. The House questioned Lady Dorchester who was waiting at the door to defend her daughter’s actions. She denied knowing her daughter’s whereabouts but took advantage of the opportunity to put Lady Anglesey’s case for some form of maintenance agreement. Clearly embarrassed at becoming involved in so personal an issue, the House dismissed Lady Anglesey’s petition for her husband to waive his privilege so that she could institute proceedings for a separation in the ecclesiastical courts and ordered that nothing should be entered in the journals.<sup>21</sup></p><p>If the Lords were hoping that the issue would go away, they were sadly mistaken. On 25 Feb. 1701 Lady Anglesey petitioned that her husband might waive his privilege, or for leave to bring in a bill to make it legal for her to live apart from him without fear of being forced to return and with an adequate maintenance. Significantly she did not ask for a divorce: several divorces had been sought by act of Parliament since the Roos case of 1670 but all had been brought by men alleging adultery by their spouses. Lady Anglesey’s case was very different. Despite her mother’s notoriety she was regarded as a modest and affectionate wife who had done nothing to deserve ill treatment at her husband’s hands. She was so frightened of her husband’s violence that she had lived secretly ever since leaving him as Anglesey’s insistence on his privilege prevented her from seeking redress in the ecclesiastical courts. Her bill simply asked Parliament to afford her the same protection as any other woman suffering from marital abuse. The House considered her petition on 25 and 27 Feb., refused to reject it and adjourned the matter on the latter date without answering it, while asking Anglesey to name some peers to mediate with her and ask her to return. Anglesey nominated four peers: Haversham, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, Robert Shirley*, Earl Ferrers, and John Somers*, Baron Somers. On 3 Mar. Rochester informed the House of her reasons for refusing to return to her husband. Anglesey was then heard in response. He did his cause little good by demanding that his wife be sequestrated to keep her from the influence of her mother for three or four days. Various motions were put forward to adjourn the debate and then to give leave for a bill and then that Anglesey guarantee her safety. Anglesey resolutely stood on his privilege, whereupon the House read her petition, and a motion to reject it was lost. Leave for a bill was given, with Haversham entering a lone and somewhat garbled dissent to the decision.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The bill was presented on 4 Mar. 1701 with the countess of Dorchester acting as an advocate for her daughter and ensuring that she was granted the protection of the House. The evidence that unfolded during the passage of the bill provided entertainment in abundance for society gossips. The king himself attended the House on 13 Mar. to get the story first hand.<sup>23</sup> The hearing of evidence and legal arguments was not completed until the end of April, with the countess being heard herself on 11 Apr. when a committee of the whole considered the bill. On at least one day (25 Mar.) the peers were kept in the House ‘fasting’ until 4 p.m.<sup>24</sup> Observers were left in little doubt that Anglesey was, in the words of Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, ‘a very barbarous fellow.’<sup>25</sup> Lady Anglesey had been locked up, kicked and pinched. According to one witness she had had to give birth in the dark because Anglesey did not want the midwife to see her injuries. A shocked Lord Chief Justice Holt, describing her bruises, declared that ‘I never saw the like before.’ Anglesey added psychological humiliation to physical abuse. Witnesses described how he had refused to allow his wife to have her hair dressed, saying that ‘it was sluttish and he would not have his lady such a slut’ and had insisted that ‘I will make my wife humble. She is a king’s daughter, but I will make her as humble as a kitchen wench.’<sup>26</sup></p><p>Haversham published his arguments against the bill. According to him Lady Anglesey’s allegations were nothing but ‘an artifice to procure a separation when my lord grew ill and consumptive.’ They ‘derived from nothing but a malicious fancy; my lady’s wishing my lord dead, that she might live at Tunbridge, and where she pleased’. Furthermore the bill created a precedent for ‘any designing wife’.<sup>27</sup> The bill passed the Lords on 29 Apr. and was then sent to the Commons, where the earl petitioned against it on 3 May. A committee of the whole considered the evidence on 22 May. Clearly believing that the countess had been barbarously used and that although the earl had waived his privilege he could resume it, they ‘easily went through the bill.’<sup>28</sup> It passed the Commons without amendment on 24 May, receiving the royal assent on 12 June. Referring back to Anglesey’s affair with Lady Dillon in 1695, Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> observed apropos the bill to allow Sir John Dillon to divorce his wife that ‘Lord Anglesey was the occasion of two divorces this sessions of his own from his lady by his barbarous and villainous ill usage and he was the man that first took my Lady Dillon from Sir John.’<sup>29</sup> Although he is listed as having been present in the House on 17 June 1701, Anglesey ‘being sick’ was excused attendance at the trial of Somers. He last attended the House on 24 June, the day it was prorogued.</p><p>Over the summer of 1701 Anglesey stayed at his house in Farnborough where he was visited daily by doctors and nurses. There is little doubt that he was genuinely ill, but there were also increasing suspicions about his mental state. In the course of litigation after Anglesey’s death Haversham insisted that Anglesey had been of sound mind and advanced his activity in the House of Lords in the spring and early summer of 1701 as evidence of this, but others expressed serious doubts about Anglesey’s mental capacity. Several of his servants testified that although he had been able to settle his accounts and even to keep court in his manor at Farnborough, he was ‘not right in his senses’ and that he was irrationally and unpredictably violent. He ascribed an imaginary smell to the presence of the devil who ‘followed him about to plague him’, accused a visiting timber merchant of being a devil because he had warts on his hands, and he beat his horse about the head with an oak stick because it nodded at him. He complained that ‘I have no friends’ and became increasingly dependent on Haversham who seems to have supplied a relative to act as Anglesey’s household chaplain.<sup>30</sup></p><p>By November 1701 Anglesey was reported to be ‘in a dying condition’ and to have given as much of his estate as he could to Haversham.<sup>31</sup> He was excused attendance at the call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702. He died on 18 Jan., apparently attended by his wife, who ‘some weeks be[fore] his death upon his desire she performed her last duty in attending him after a tender manner to his last breath, like a loving and virtuous wife.’<sup>32</sup> Anglesey left an estate of about £7,000 p.a. at his death.<sup>33</sup> A newsletter described his will:</p><blockquote><p>Anglesey has given all his Irish estate which is about £6000 p. annum to his 3rd brother [Arthur], who lately married the Lord Haversham’s daughter, as he would have done his English estate too, which is about £1200 p. annum had he lived to the term to cut off the entail, but that with the honour is all that his 2nd brother [John] has. He returned his lady her jewels which is valued at £4000 and has left his only daughter, a child, £12,000 for her portion for her education and £400 p. annum for her education and maintenance till her marriage.<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>His daughter’s £400 a year was to be used by Haversham, as guardian, with the specification that she was not to be permitted any contact with either her mother or her maternal grandmother and that Haversham need never account for its expenditure. Legacies of £1,000 were left to each of Haversham’s six younger unmarried daughters. Haversham, Arthur Annesley and Justice Coote were named as trustees and executors of the will. Since Arthur Annesley was also Haversham’s son-in-law, it was scarcely surprising that rumours that the two men had exercised undue influence emerged very quickly. A coloured print, on sale at two guineas, depicted the whole sorry story:</p><blockquote><p>His lordship is seated on a necessary stool, his younger brother [Arthur], is holding a bason to him with one hand, and picking his pocket with the other hand. His Lady is led in hanging sleeves and a slobbering bibb; Lady Haversham stands by Mr Annesley holding up her apron to receive the money he picks out of my Lord’s pocket. Sloane the counsellor, is making his will, and Lord Haversham stands looking over him and directing him what he shall write; the parson and Mrs Annesley are holding the door to hinder his brother [John] and sister [Elizabeth] coming to him.<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>The terms of the will led to extensive litigation. Lady Anglesey, who later married John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, complained that the brothers’ dispute over the estate prevented her from receiving the maintenance settled under the separation act.<sup>36</sup> Haversham’s daughters and other legatees complained that their legacies had gone unpaid.<sup>37</sup> Anglesey’s successor in the title, his brother John, claimed that the estate was his by virtue of an entail created by their grandfather, the first earl, and that without it he was unable to support the dignity of his peerage.<sup>38</sup> Aspects of the will were still unsettled in 1712 when Buckingham and Arthur Annesley, by then 5th earl of Anglesey, almost came to blows in the House over the guardianship of Lady Buckingham’s daughter.<sup>39</sup></p><p>In 1718 Anglesey’s daughter, Katherine (born about September 1700), clandestinely married William Phipps, son of the former Tory lord chancellor of Ireland, Sir Constantine Phipps, reportedly with £16,000 and the prospect of £100,000 should the 5th earl of Anglesey die without children.<sup>40</sup> The son of this marriage, Constantine Phipps, became Baron Mulgrave [I], in 1767.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
ANNESLEY, John (1676-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>ANNESLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1676–1710)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 21 Jan. 1702 as 5th Visct. Valentia [I], and 4th earl of ANGLESEY. |
|
First sat 3 Feb. 1702; last sat 18 July 1710 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 18 Jan. 1676, 2nd s. of James Annesley*, 2nd earl of Anglesey, and Lady Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 7 Dec. 1700), da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland; bro. of James Annesley*, later 3rd earl of Anglesey, and Arthur Annesley*, later 5th earl of Anglesey. <em>educ</em>. ?Mr. Dyer’s sch. in Chelsea c.1681.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 21 May 1706, Henrietta Maria (<em>d</em>. 26 June 1718), <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Strange, da. of William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, and Lady Elizabeth Butler, 1da. <em>d.s.p.m. </em>18 Sept. 1710; <em>will</em> 14 June 1708, pr. Sept. 1710.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 10 July 1710-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>V.-treas. [I], 1710; recvr. gen. and paymaster of HM forces [I], 1710.</p> |
|
<p>Annesley was baptized at the family seat of Farnborough. Little is known of his early life and education, although his grandfather, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, recorded in October 1681 that he and his elder brother, James ‘went to school’, presumably to Mr. Dyer’s establishment in Chelsea.<sup>5</sup></p><p>When Annesley became 4th earl of Anglesey in January 1702 he did not inherit all of his late brother’s estate. His brother had left all the estate he could to his younger brother, Arthur Annesley*, later 5th earl of Anglesey, who had married Mary, the daughter of his friend John Thompson*, Baron Haversham. As one newsletter put it the new earl had lost the family’s Irish estates worth about £6,000 p.a. but had retained the English estates worth about £1,200 p.a.<sup>6</sup> This resulted in a legal dispute in which the 4th earl claimed the bequest was illegal.<sup>7</sup> Interestingly, there is no record that the 3rd earl ever took his seat in the Irish house of lords.</p><p>Anglesey first took his seat in the Westminster House of Lords on 3 Feb. 1702. He was an active member from the outset, being present at 63 sittings in the session of 1701-2, 63 per cent of the total, and 83 per cent of those for which he was eligible to sit. Anglesey brought two cases of breach of privilege before the House on 25 Feb. 1702. One concerned the illegal possession of his house in Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire, for five days from 29 Jan. 1702 by Charles Barret ‘for Mr. Annesley, after the said earl was in quiet possession’, the second concerned Henry Cole’s demand for the payment of rent from Anglesey’s Irish tenants, after the earl had discharged them from so doing. Both these issues were related to Anglesey’s dispute with his brother Arthur.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In the session of 1702-3, Anglesey was present at 60 sittings of the House, an attendance rate of 90 per cent. Anglesey was appointed on 17 Dec. to manage a conference with the Commons on the bill to prevent occasional conformity. Following some discussion of the amendments to this bill, on 18 Dec. he was named to the committee to search for precedents of bills with penalties begun in the Lords and also of bills whose penalties had been altered by the Lords; William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, recorded him attending the committee on 23 December.<sup>9</sup> In about January 1703, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, predicted that Anglesey would support the bill to prevent occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. 1703 he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause in the bill, a Whig wrecking amendment. On 12 Feb. 1703 Anglesey acted as a teller against reversing the judgment in the case of Thomas Wharton*, 5th baron Wharton, v. Robert Squire.</p><p>In March 1703 the dowager countess was in litigation in chancery in order to secure her jointure of £2,000, during which she claimed that Anglesey, Haversham and Arthur Annesley had taken possession of her husband’s real or personal estate, the latter amounting to £30,000 made up of plate, cash debts and £14,000 of her own. She also claimed they had taken all the writings with intent to defraud her and that although the earl and Arthur Annesley were in dispute, they had both assured her that her jointure was safe.<sup>10</sup> This matter was accommodated in April 1703 following a hearing in Chancery.<sup>11</sup> Haversham claimed in a deposition that both Anglesey and his brother had gone to Ireland in 1702 to take possession of the Irish lands.<sup>12</sup> The dispute between Anglesey and his younger brother appears to have been settled in or before 1705.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Anglesey was absent from the beginning of the 1703-4 session on 9 Nov. 1703, attending first on 7 December. Nevertheless, he was present on 69 days, an attendance rate of 71 per cent. In or about November 1703 Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that Anglesey would favour the renewed attempt to pass the bill against occasional conformity, an assessment Sunderland reinforced in late November or early December. Anglesey duly voted for the bill on 14 Dec. 1703. On 18 Dec. he reported from the committee appointed to count the ballot for selecting peers to examine Bouchier and Ogleby over the ‘Scotch plot’. His name was included on a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704, which may indicate support for him over the plot. On 16 Feb. 1704 Anglesey acted as a teller on the question of whether to reverse the judgment in the case of <em>Hassell v. Knatchbull</em> and again on 25 Feb. on the question of whether to reverse the decree in the case of <em>Rowe v. Cockayne</em>. On 21 Mar. he acted as a teller on the question of whether to adjourn the proceedings on the recruiting bill, following which the bill was passed and Anglesey joined in signing the protest against it. On 24 Mar. he acted as a teller on a division on the motion that part of Sir John Maclean’s narrative relating to his examination on the ‘Scotch plot’ by Nottingham was imperfect.</p><p>Anglesey was absent from the beginning of the 1704-5 session on 24 Oct. 1704, attending first on 4 November. He attended 75 days of the session, which was 75 per cent of the sittings. Anglesey was listed as a likely supporter of the Tack in about November 1704.<sup>14</sup> On 15 Dec. he argued for giving the bill against occasional conformity a second reading, replying to a point made by Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, that Queen Elizabeth had discountenanced being hard on the Puritans, with the hope that ‘care would be taken that our religion might be transmitted to posterity <em>semper eadem</em>.’<sup>15</sup> He duly acted as a teller in favour of the bill’s second reading and on 27 Feb. 1705 was named to the committee to prepare heads for a conference with the Commons on the Aylesbury case. On the question of the succession in April 1705 he was thought to be ‘Jacobite’ in his views.</p><p>In the general election campaign of 1705, Anglesey wrote to James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in support of the successful candidate for Preston, his cousin, Francis Annesley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>16</sup> During the 1705-6 Parliament Anglesey attended on 70 days, over 95 per cent of sittings and was named to many committees, including the committee on 12 Nov. 1705 to draw up an address to the queen regarding progress towards an Act of Union with Scotland (which Nicolson recorded him attending on the following day).<sup>17</sup> On 15 Nov. he supported Haversham’s ‘Hanover motion’ for the heir presumptive to be invited to England.<sup>18</sup> He protested against the Lords’ decision on 30 Nov. not to give further instructions to the committee on the regency bill. On 3 Dec. he protested against the rejection of a rider to prevent the lords justices from giving the royal assent to bills for repealing laws against papists or a bill repealing the act for settling the succession to the throne. He spoke on 6 Dec. in the debate on the Queen’s speech to support the motion of John Sharp*, archbishop of York, that instructions be issued to the judges to enquire into the laws governing dissenting seminaries and duly protested against the resolution of the House that ‘the Church of England was not in danger’.<sup>19</sup> On 31 Jan. 1706 Anglesey acted as a teller on the regency bill, probably over whether to insert the word ‘repeal’ instead of ‘regulated and altered’ in the Commons’ amendment.</p><p>Anglesey attended on 53 days of the 1706-7 session, 62 per cent of total. He protested on 3 Feb. 1707 against the Lords’ decision to reject a motion for a bill to prevent dangers that could arise from popish recusants. On 15 Feb. he argued for the postponement of the first article of the Union because he felt he needed to know what the Union was to consist of before he agreed to it in principle and duly acted as a teller for that motion.<sup>20</sup> Also on the Union, on 4 Mar., Anglesey entered his dissent against the rejection of a rider that acceptance of the bill should not in any way be taken as an acknowledgment that the established Presbyterian Church of Scotland was the ‘true protestant religion’. He also entered his dissent against the passage of the bill. On 11 Mar. he acted as a teller on the second reading of the game bill.</p><p>Anglesey was also involved in legal proceedings in the House in this session, as a consequence of his marriage the previous year to Lady Henrietta Maria Stanley. This marriage involved Anglesey in litigation with her uncle, James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby. On 7 Feb. 1707 Anglesey’s mother-in-law, the dowager countess of Derby, petitioned the Lords relating to a legal dispute over her jointure and the current earl of Derby waiving his privilege. Bishop Nicolson commented on 10 Feb. 1707 that the ‘waiving of privilege was adjusted ‘twixt the earls of Derby and Anglesey’.<sup>21</sup> On 5 Mar. Anglesey, his wife and his sister-in-law petitioned that Derby not be allowed to resume his privilege, which Derby agreed on 8 March. The suit between the daughters and coheirs of the 9th earl and the current earl was heard in Lancaster in April 1707, with both Anglesey and Derby present.<sup>22</sup> In July Anglesey complained to the privy council about the use by Derby, as the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, of the duchy seal in the dispute between them.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In the short session of April 1707 Anglesey attended four of the nine sittings of the House, 44 per cent of the total. In the 1707-8 session Anglesey’s attendance in the Lords dropped to 31 days, 28 per cent of the total, and he was named to seven committees of the House. On a printed list of the members of the first Parliament of Great Britain in May 1708 Anglesey was noted as a Tory.</p><p>James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> in December 1708 referred to Tory leaders criticizing ministers: one of them was Anglesey, who when ‘speaking of augmentations and recruits said all was good for filling great men’s pockets’; however, it is not clear when he said this as he was not listed as attending the House until later in the session.<sup>24</sup> Anglesey was present on only four occasions in the 1708-9 session, sitting on four consecutive days in March, an attendance rate of 4 per cent. He first attended on 15 Mar. when he protested against committing the bill for the naturalization of foreign protestants.</p><p>Anglesey was again missing from the opening of the 1709-10 session, attending first on 1 Feb. 1710. He was present at 35 sittings, 34 per cent of the total. He protested on 16 Mar. against the question that the Commons had proven the first article of their impeachment against Dr Sacheverell. On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, duly protesting against the verdict. On 21 Mar. he protested against the sentence passed against Sacheverell. The Rev. Ralph Bridges listed Anglesey along with Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, and John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, as Tories who were critical of Sacheverell’s indiscretion, but believed that his actions did not merit an impeachment.<sup>25</sup> On 1 Apr. he acted as a teller on a motion to adjourn the House when it was considering the amendments made by the Commons to the bill for making more effectual the act for rebuilding Eddistone lighthouse, the failure of which led to the Lords declining to insist on their amendment to the bill.</p><p>Anglesey was a key player in the schemes of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, for a remodelled ministry, mainly as a means of satisfying the Tories. Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> picked this up in May 1710, writing that ‘anyone that had seen the fulsome joy and greatness that appeared between Lady Hyde and Lord Anglesey would have been sick’, and that he expected Sunderland to be replaced as secretary by Anglesey.<sup>26</sup> Ralph Bridges also picked up this hope among Tory sympathizers on 22 May.<sup>27</sup> Several of Harley’s memoranda drawn up during this period mention Anglesey: one dated 20 May asked the question: ‘Lord Anglesey can you do less to please them’?<sup>28</sup> John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, on 7 June was still pressing Harley very strongly on Anglesey’s behalf, pointing out that Harley had named him as a possible alternative to Poulett.<sup>29</sup> It was still being suggested on 18 June that Anglesey would succeed Sunderland, but this proved not to be the case, owing to opposition from the queen buoyed up by arguments from Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, Leeds and Buckingham.<sup>30</sup> William Legge*, 2nd Baron Dartmouth, thought that the Whigs were too averse to Anglesey for him to be appointed secretary at this time.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Anglesey’s appointment to the ministry was described by Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, on 9 July 1710 as ‘another very disagreeable alteration.’<sup>32</sup> He was appointed to the English Privy Council, replacing Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, Baron Coningsby [I], as vice-treasurer of Ireland and receiver general and paymaster of her majesty’s forces in Ireland, posts said to be worth £6,000 per annum.<sup>33</sup> As John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], wrote on 8 July, Anglesey’s appointment in place of Coningsby was ‘to make amends for his being baulked of being secretary, and a good equivalent it is.’<sup>34</sup> On 27 July Anglesey wrote to Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> to solicit his interest for Heneage Finch<sup>†</sup>, the future 2nd earl of Aylesford, and Sir Francis Vincent<sup>‡</sup> in the Surrey county election.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Anglesey, Harley and Poulett were summoned to the cabinet on 13 Aug. 1710, a crucial set of appointments which led to the cabinet being balanced owing to the absence of Wharton and John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, until Anglesey fell ill in September. He attended his last cabinet on 7 Sept. 1710.<sup>36</sup></p><p>At the end of August 1710 John Ward<sup>‡ </sup>expected Anglesey to be travelling to Ireland soon, presumably as Wharton’s replacement as lord lieutenant. The duchess of Roxburghe told her father, Nottingham, that Harley was triumphant at having brought both Anglesey and Dartmouth into employment rather than the leaders of the high Tories, Nottingham and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.<sup>37</sup> Anglesey had the advantage of being independent of these Tory chieftains, while retaining friendship with them. Indeed, White Kennet<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, later recorded being told by Thomas Gooch<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Norwich, that Anglesey would have been the chief minister in ecclesiastical affairs had he lived.<sup>38</sup> His death was undoubtedly a blow to Harley’s plans, as James Brydges*, later duke of Chandos, acknowledged when he noted that ‘for quickness of parts, solidity of judgment and all the improvements reading could give him [he was], inferior to none in the nation.’<sup>39</sup> Swift concurred, noting him ‘the great support of the Tories.’<sup>40</sup> However, George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> claimed that at the time of his death Anglesey was entirely in the interest of the Pretender.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Anglesey died unexpectedly at noon on 18 Sept. 1710 ‘of a very high fever, this being the 11th day’, and was buried at Farnborough.<sup>42</sup> He left only a daughter living, although as his wife was allegedly pregnant at the time of his death, his younger brother, Arthur, had to wait for confirmation of his succession to the earldom.<sup>43</sup></p><p>In his will Anglesey left his estate in England and Ireland to his brother Arthur, now the 5th earl, subject to the payment of £1,000 to his wife, £200 to his cousin Francis Annesley, £100 to Vincent Oakley of the Middle Temple and an annuity of £500 to his sister Lady Elizabeth Gayer. His widow subsequently married John Ashburnham*, earl of Ashburnham, in 1714, as his second wife.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
ARUNDELL, Henry (1608-94) |
<p><strong><surname>ARUNDELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1608–94)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 19 May 1643 as 3rd Bar. ARUNDELL of WARDOUR |
|
First sat 21 May 1660; last sat 24 Oct. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 23 Feb. 1608, s. of Thomas Arundell<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Arundell of Wardour and Blanche, da. of Edward Somerset<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Worcester. <em>educ</em>. Univ. of Padua 1658; G. Inn 1669 (hon. admiss.). <em>m</em>. (settlement c.1629),<sup>1</sup> Cicely (<em>d</em>.1676), da. of Sir Henry Compton KB of Brambletye, Suss. and Cicely, da. of Robert Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Dorset, wid. of Sir John Fermor of Somerton, Oxon. 2s. 1da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 28 Dec.1694; <em>will</em> n.d., pr. 12 Aug. 1695.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1686-9; ld. privy seal 11 Mar. 1687-8.</p><p>Dep. lt. Cornw. July 1688; ld. lt. Dorset July 1688.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, sold by Christies, 8 June 1995.</p> |
<p><em>Before the Restoration</em></p><p>Arundell of Wardour represented an ancient Catholic family whose extensive estates were based in the west country around the family seat of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire and extending into Somerset, Dorset and Devon as well as Hampshire and Middlesex. Even before the Civil War these estates were said to have been heavily encumbered.<sup>6</sup> During the Civil War he was an active royalist who was so dedicated to the king’s cause that after he recaptured Wardour Castle in March 1644 he destroyed it to prevent it being recaptured and used as a fortress by the rebels. It is possible, though, that he was grateful for the opportunity of doing away with a building that he may by then have been hard pressed to maintain. He subsequently moved the family residence to nearby Breamore on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border, a house owned by the Dodington family. The loss of his two sons as captives to the parliamentarians in 1643, threats to educate them at a dissenting academy in Essex and the need to negotiate their release from the custody of Sir Edward Hungerford<sup>‡</sup> as part of an exchange of prisoners in the summer of 1644, provided powerful incentives for him to secure his own rehabilitation with the Cromwellian regime, especially as he must have realized that the royalist cause was lost.<sup>7</sup> The threat of forfeiture of lands no doubt also concentrated his mind. An undated petition amongst his papers (probably drawn up as part of the proceedings in the Commons in the summer of 1652) reveals that he claimed to have been ‘only engaged one summer in the first war’ and stressed his good conduct towards the rebels including his ‘good fortune’ in saving the life of his opponent General Edmund Ludlow<sup>‡ </sup>at ‘the hazard of his own’. After a brief sojourn overseas he had returned to England where he lived ‘in a humble conformity to the government’. Arundell’s good offices towards Ludlow and his subsequent retirement from royalist activity appear to have provided the basis for his successful claim to be exempted from the act authorizing the forfeiture of lands to the Commonwealth.<sup>8</sup> Two manors in Oxfordshire that were forfeited were bought back on his behalf by his maternal aunt’s husband, Humphrey Weld<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Arundell was involved in at least one high-profile scrape during the Interregnum; he was convicted of manslaughter in 1652, after acting as second in a duel which led to the death of his brother-in-law Colonel Henry Compton (he appears to have been acting against Compton in the fray).The House of Lords having been abolished, he was refused privilege and had to fall back on benefit of clergy to save his life.<sup>10</sup> He, and his partner in the action, James Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 6th Baron Chandos, were in consequence subjected to the standard sentence of being burnt in the hand and imprisoned for one year.</p><p><em>From the Restoration to the Popish Plot, 1660-78</em></p><p>Arundell took his seat in the Convention on 21 May 1660. He was present on just over 94 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session prior to the September adjournment (79 per cent of the whole), but was appointed to only two committees. It is possible that he was present on a higher proportion of days than the attendance lists suggest. For example, although his name does not appear in the attendance list that day, on 19 June he was named to the committee to inspect acts and ordinances. Arundell clearly had personal reasons for participating in parliamentary business. On 30 June he obtained orders from the House to enable him to recover goods taken away during the wars. Later that same day he obtained an order specifically authorizing him to search the premises of Colonel Ludlow, Lady Hungerford, and Mr. Stroud, and to break open ‘any doors, trunks, chest, or box, that shall not be opened in obedience to this order’. During the session he also introduced a bill to restore him to his estates. The Journal notes a second reading for the bill on 30 Aug. but this is perhaps an error since no first reading is recorded. Arundell returned to the House following the September adjournment on 6 Nov. and was again assiduous in his attendance, being present on 80 per cent of all sitting days. Either the bill first introduced in the previous session for the restoration of his estates or a similar bill received a second reading on 6 Nov. and the royal assent on 29 December.</p><p>At the beginning of 1661 Arundell was noted as one of those peers yet to pay his contribution to the poll bill. He does not seem to have exercised any obvious interest in his native Wiltshire in the elections to the new Parliament. He took his place in the first session on 8 May and was then present for just over 91 per cent of sitting days. On 26 May he was entrusted with the proxy of fellow Catholic, Edward Vaux*, Baron Vaux, who had been granted leave of absence at a call a few days earlier.<sup>11</sup> On 21 June when the House intended to debate the sanguinary laws against Catholics, Arundell presented a paper from and on behalf of the Catholic community. The House then heard a recital of the statute of Elizabeth concerning the oath of supremacy and ‘fell into a long debate’. When the debate was resumed a week later, on 28 June, the House resolved ‘that nothing hath been offered to this House to move their Lordships to alter any thing in the said oaths’ and referred the question to a select committee. Although Arundell was named to the committee, along with other prominent Catholic peers such as George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, they were more than outnumbered by conventional Anglicans and Dissenting sympathizers, including Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, whose notes suggest that he had led the debate against Arundell.<sup>12</sup> Nevertheless, on 16 July Arundell was named to the committee to prepare a bill repealing certain parts of the penal laws against Catholics. The committee’s proposals, which would have brought a considerable measure of Catholic relief, were never implemented. According to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, they failed because of divisions amongst the Catholics; for their part the Catholics blamed Clarendon. The French ambassador agreed with them; so it seems did the king.<sup>13</sup> If a pamphlet that was circulated at this time can be identified with Arundell, it suggests that although he wanted toleration for Catholics his support for toleration for Dissenters was decidedly lukewarm, for the writer described Presbyterians as men ‘whose phrenetical [sic], giddy zeal, will be confined within no circle of order’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Despite the failure of the committee’s attempts to reform the penal laws, his participation in its work seems to have marked Arundell’s arrival as a parliamentary figure of some note. On 18 July he was named to the committee considering the bill for regulating corporations. Earlier that month he had been thought to be a supporter of the bid by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the great chamberlaincy.</p><p>Arundell returned to his seat in the House following the summer recess on 21 November. He may have been suffering from poor health as on 25 Nov., although he was present on the attendance list for that day, he was later noted missing at a call of the House. If he was sick, it did not impair his attendance significantly and he was back in his place the following day. On 24 Jan. 1662 he was named to the committee for drawing up a bill to repeal acts of the Long Parliament. Over the course of the whole session Arundell was named to over 26 committees, including those to consider bills for Sir Edmund Powell and Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby. Both bills sought to use the legislative power of Parliament to overturn earlier land sales. Presumably his voice was not always heard at committee, for on 26 Feb. 1662 he entered a dissent to the passage of Derby’s bill, arguing that it was wrong to use the law to overturn a valid and voluntary transaction. He chaired one session of a select committee on 1 Mar. 1662; he then chaired meetings of the committee considering Thomas Peck’s bill on 26 Mar. and 2 Apr., before reporting it on 9 April.<sup>15</sup> He was also named as one of the mediators in the bill to confirm the king’s award for composing the differences between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his eldest son Charles Powlett*, then styled Lord St. John (later duke of Bolton). On 26 Apr. he was added to the committee considering the distribution of £60,000 among commissioned officers who had served in the former royalist army. It was perhaps an indication of Arundell’s standing at court that some months after the close of the session, in October 1662, Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London, felt obliged to write to John Cosin*, of Durham, warning him that his ‘severity’ against Arundell’s son ‘will not well comply with the lenity of his Majesty’s government’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Arundell was present on just under 77 per cent of sitting days in the 1663 session. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to 11 other committees, including that to review and repeal acts of the Long Parliament and for the bill to compose differences between Winchester and his son (in which he was again named as one of the mediators). He was named one of the commissioners for the assessment of peers and was also appointed one of the mediators in the dispute between George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergavenny, and his wife. He held the proxy of the superannuated Thomas Brudenell*, earl of Cardigan, from 5 Mar. and that of Marmaduke Langdale*, 2nd Baron Langdale, from 12 March. The impetus to hold the proxies was probably related to the debates of that month over the king’s powers in ecclesiastical affairs – a subject about which Arundell’s detailed but undated notes still survive.<sup>17</sup> Later in the session Wharton thought that he intended to use the proxies in support of Bristol’s abortive attempt to impeach Clarendon.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Arundell was present on every day of the short spring session of 1664. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to three select committees considering the bills for transportation, for the sale of Sir William Armine’s lands in Lincolnshire and for the prevention of ‘deceitful, disorderly and excessive gaming.’ His attendance remained high during the following (1664-5 session) when he was present for 81 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committee for privileges and to five select committees for bills in which he may well have had a personal interest. They related to legislation promoted by fellow Catholic Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I], by Arundell’s kinsman, Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, and by his fellow anti-Clarendonian, Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>. One of the remaining two bills concerned a matter of local interest, the navigation of the River Avon. The only bill in which he had no obvious interest was that relating to Deeping Fen, although it is possible that this related to his activity in relation to the estate of Sir William Armine in which a fellow Catholic peer, Belasyse, certainly did have an interest. Arundell held the proxy of William Stourton*, 11th Baron Stourton, for the whole of the session. Stourton was not only his Wiltshire neighbour, he was a fellow Catholic and also an opponent of Clarendon.</p><p>Arundell attended only two days (though three sittings) of the autumn 1665 session in Oxford. He was then present on 70 per cent of sitting days of the following (1666-7) session during which he was nominated to the committee for privileges. He again held Stourton’s proxy for the whole of the session. He was also named to nine select committees: to naturalize the wife of Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, to prevent atheism and swearing, for Bedford Level (to which he was added on 5 Feb. 1667), for the rebuilding of London and for the estates of Leicester Grosvenor, Henry Mildmay (to which he was added on 8 Jan.) and Sir Seymour Shirley. He was also named to the committee to examine the French merchants and to wait on the king to represent the ‘sad condition’ of his kinsman Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, and his wife.</p><p>During the troubled session 1667-9, Arundell was present on 91 per cent of sitting days and was again named to the committee for privileges. He held Stourton’s proxy throughout. On 7 Dec. he was also added to the committees for privileges, and the Journal. The same day he was named to the committee for the bill for banishing Clarendon. Between the opening of the session in October and the end of the year he was named to 13 committees. Some, such as those to consider the Irish cattle bill, the banishing of Clarendon and public accounts were of major political importance; others may have reflected personal interests and alliances. On 9 Dec. he was one of five peers (four of them Catholic) to be added to the committee for Sir William Juxon’s bill. His nomination to the committee for adventurers in the fens may have reflected expertise gained on earlier bills. He was also nominated to the bill for Sir Richard Wiseman: Wiseman had entered Parliament on the recommendation of James*, duke of York; he drew up the heads of accusations against Clarendon; and was or was about to become a client of Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington. However, he was also nominated to the committee for the bill for William Palmes, who entered Parliament the following year and subsequently proved to be an anti-Catholic and a supporter of the Test Act. During 1668 he was named to a further 11 committees. Again some, such as the bills for the inspection of acts, additional hearth money and for the prevention of robberies, were of national importance. Others, such as Sir John Weld’s bill, probably had personal significance. Weld was a kinsman by marriage. He was also a Wiltshire neighbour, having bought the manor of Compton Bassett in 1663; he was a prominent Catholic with close ties to the impoverished Catholic peers, Stourton and Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley.<sup>19</sup></p><p>According to James II’s account, Arundell was present at a meeting on 25 Jan. 1669 to discuss what was to become known as the secret treaty of Dover. The reliability of this account has been called into question since although James claimed to have been present himself, another source suggests that he did not learn of his brother’s intentions until the following March.<sup>20</sup> Whatever the truth of the matter, Arundell was clearly deeply in the king’s confidence and was entrusted by him to negotiate with the French. His instructions made it clear that secrecy was all-important so that although Arundell travelled to France that autumn for preliminary negotiations, the true purpose of his visit was cloaked by his appointment as one of the commissioners for overseeing the winding up of the estates and arranging the funeral of the Queen Dowager Henrietta Maria.<sup>21</sup> He was not able to stay there long for fear of ‘giving a strong jealousy’ that would betray the secret.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Arundell was back in England in time to attend the opening of the 1670-71 session on 14 Feb. 1670. He was thereafter present on nearly 77 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions, to the committee to enquire into the plight of poor prisoners for debt and, when its proposals were incorporated in a bill, to the committee responsible for considering the measure. During the course of the session he was also nominated to 20 other select committees, including that to consider ways of preventing the growth of popery (to which all present were nominated) and two committees responding to the problems of poor prisoners. On 17 and 18 Mar. 1670 he entered protests against the passage of the Roos divorce bill and in May he was one of the signatories to the secret treaty of Dover. He again held Stourton’s proxy for the whole of the session. On 24 Oct., the day on which Parliament resumed after the summer recess, he joined with Arlington in introducing his co-religionist, Henry Howard*, as Baron Howard of Castle Rising (the future 6th duke of Norfolk).</p><p>Arundell again stood sponsor to a prominent new Catholic peer on 30 Oct. 1672 when he introduced Thomas Clifford*, as Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. When Parliament resumed in February 1673, attitudes towards Catholics, prompted by opposition to the declaration of indulgence, had hardened. Some moderate Catholics had foreseen just such a reaction. Together with Protestant opponents of the Declaration they blamed the king’s actions on the influence of Arundell and Clifford, who were too ‘furious’ in their pursuit of toleration.<sup>23</sup> Yet according to James II’s memoirs, his brother had used Arundell and Clifford as intermediaries in an attempt to persuade him to take the Anglican sacrament at Christmas 1672.<sup>24</sup> Arundell was present on nearly 78 per cent of sitting days. He was not named to the committee for privileges, though he was named to that for petitions. On 13 Feb. he was named to the committee for Sir Robert Berkeley’s bill and on 14 Feb. he was named to the committees for Sir Ralph Banks’ bill and for the bill for regulating the multiplicity of attorneys. On 28 Feb. 1673 the Commons voted in favour of an address to the Crown for the suppression of popery and for the preparation of a bill incapacitating all persons from public office who refused the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and who failed to take the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England.<sup>25</sup> A week later, on 5 Mar., in what must have seemed to have been a direct and deliberate retaliation, Arundell was named to the committee to prepare a bill of advice to the king in response to the Commons’ complaint over the Declaration of Indulgence. Arundell’s position of trust at court made him an obvious target for the anti-Catholic opposition and on either 15 (according to Grey’s <em>Debates</em>) or 17 Mar. 1673 (according to the Commons Journal) Robert Thomas sought to include ‘the hazard of the king’s person, by having the Lord Arundell of Wardour, Father Patrick, and Colonel Talbot near about him’ included in the Commons’ list of grievances.<sup>26</sup> Perhaps significantly, Arundell was named to no more committees that session.</p><p>Arundell was present for three of the four sitting days of the autumn 1673 session during which he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions; his attendance dropped to a little under 24 per cent in the 1674 session (nine days of a possible 38), but as he was present at the opening of the session he was again named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was named to just one other committee – that to consider the bill for encouraging manufactures. His enemies were clearly growing in confidence and began a prosecution against him for recusancy. Arundell was not present on 28 Jan. 1674 when the House ruled that as he was not a convicted recusant he was entitled to privilege and that any indictment brought against him should be brought before king’s bench by a writ of <em>certiorari</em>, in which event it was ordered, ‘the king’s attorney shall enter a <em>non</em> <em>pros</em>. upon the same.’ Belasyse’s proxy was registered to him on 14 Feb. but its use must have been limited as Belasyse was listed as present both on 14 Feb. and the next sitting day, Monday 16 February.</p><p>Arundell was present on all but two days of the sittings during the April-June 1675 session. On 29 Apr., although he was present on the attendance list, he was noted missing at a call of the House and he was also noted as one of the Lords yet to take the oath of allegiance. As usual he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was, though, named to no select committees at all. During the bad-tempered autumn 1675 session he was present on all but two sitting days and was again named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was named to two select committees: for the bills to prevent frauds and perjuries and for Alexander Davies. On 20 Nov. 1675 he voted in favour of the address to the crown to dissolve Parliament as the only solution to the impasse over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>.<sup>27</sup></p><p>During the 1677-8 session Arundell was present on every day. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to 16 select committees, including the committee to enquire into the authorship and publication of the pamphlet <em>Some Considerations upon the Question, whether the Parliament is dissolved by Prorogation for Fifteen Months</em> and for the bills concerning church rates, the prevention of incestuous marriages and Ledbury Vicarage. He held Langdale’s proxy from 10 Mar. 1677 for the remainder of the session. Not surprisingly Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, listed him as triply vile. On 4 Apr. he voted with the majority to find Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p><em>Arrest and imprisonment 1678-84</em></p><p>Arundell attended every day bar one of the May-July 1678 session. He was named to the committees of privileges and petitions and to seven select committees, including that considering the bill to prevent abuses in returning jurors. Arundell was then present for the opening of the autumn 1678 session on 21 Oct., when he was nominated to the committees for privileges and petitions. If he had hoped that his nomination to select committees in the previous session signalled the end of fears of his Catholicism, he was sadly mistaken. He continued to attend the House until his arrest on the evening of 24 Oct. on a charge of high treason, having been named by Titus Oates in information provided to the Commons the previous day as one of the chief conspirators in the Popish Plot. He also featured prominently in the testimony of Oates’s allies. According to Oates, Arundell was to be lord chancellor in the regime to be established after the king’s assassination. Bedloe later further elaborated that Arundell was to be one of five Catholic peers entrusted with the running of the country in the event of York refusing to accept the throne. Another informant emphasized how close Arundell was to York.<sup>28</sup> It was perhaps symptomatic both of the standing of the Arundells and of the generalized suspicions that were evoked by the depth of their commitment to Catholicism that Arundell now found himself the third generation of his house to be accused of leading a Catholic plot against the Crown.<sup>29</sup></p><p>The investigation into the Popish Plot had little difficulty in establishing that Arundell was in frequent contact with Edward Coleman and a search of his papers corroborated Oates’ allegation that Arundell’s grandson was being educated at St. Omer – a piece of information that was almost certainly already well known.<sup>30</sup> Exaggerated rumours spread very readily. ‘It is whispered’ wrote Dr. William Denton ‘that opening Lord Arundell of Wardour’s trunks the first thing they lighted on was a draft of an act of Parliament for the suppressing the Protestant religion.’<sup>31</sup> On 5 Dec. 1678 Arundell was formally impeached – a move that may well have been designed to wrong-foot the court. It certainly surprised Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), who had expected a trial in the court of the lord high steward on the indictment that had been returned by the Middlesex grand jury on 3 December.<sup>32</sup> The court of the lord high steward, consisting as it did of nominated peers, would have been far more amenable to royal pressure than a trial in the whole House. It could also be held when Parliament was not in session.</p><p>On 13 Jan. 1679, as a result of information provided to the committee examining the plot by Stephen Dugdale, Arundell was ordered to be kept a close prisoner. One of his servants, George Messenger, was also implicated as one of the supposed assassins. On 21 Jan. Arundell was examined in the Tower (as were the other imprisoned peers). Asked whether he knew the Jesuit, Ireland, he replied that he did but insisted that he had been in Wiltshire throughout September (when secret meetings were supposed to have taken place) and that having returned to London at the close of September he almost at once set out for Newmarket. Further evidence in his favour was provided by the imprisoned William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, who insisted that he was unlikely to be caballing with Arundell as they had been on poor terms since 1654 when Arundell had sided with Henry Howard*, who had since succeeded as 6th duke of Norfolk, against Stafford in a family quarrel.<sup>33</sup></p><p>After this brief flurry of activity, the progress of the impeachment slowed as the Commons had become convinced that it was necessary to deal with the trial of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) first. The dissolution of 24 Jan. 1679 would under normal circumstances have put paid to the impeachment process, but on 19 Mar. 1679 the House voted, contrary to former practice, that ‘the dissolution of the last Parliament doth not alter the state of the impeachments brought up by the Commons in that Parliament.’ By early May it was reported that ‘although every body is weary of this plot yet we cannot get rid of it’ and that the trials would go ahead, but when on 27 May 1679 Arundell and the other Catholic peers were brought to the House to take their trials, continuing disputes between Lords and Commons about procedural issues led instead to prorogation.<sup>34</sup></p><p>In November 1680 with the campaign for exclusion in full swing and as Arundell began the third year of his imprisonment, he was dismayed to learn of a threat to remove his four Catholic servants from him and replace them with Protestants. He petitioned the House to have some consideration for his old age – he was by now 72 – but the petition was not read and the fate of his servants remains unknown.<sup>35</sup> In the meantime the case against him continued to build as witnesses came forward prepared to testify that Arundell had offered them money to assassinate the king.<sup>36</sup> Nevertheless, Arundell retained considerable influence as exemplified by his correspondence in May 1682 with William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, recommending a candidate for promotion in the church.<sup>37</sup> Arundell made several petitions for release and although in one draft speech he claimed to be ‘a weak old man totally ignorant in the law and unskilled in the method and management of a defence of this nature’, his surviving papers demonstrate the contrary. The prospect of martyrdom for the Catholic faith (embraced by Stafford) clearly held no attractions and Arundell put together a careful and well-thought-out case for the defence. He drew up a detailed account of his whereabouts on every day between his departure from London on 29 July 1678 until his arrest. He also compared Titus Oates’ evidence as given on different occasions and produced a list of contradictions. A further extensive set of notes, amounting to a brief for the defence, lists point by point those facts that Arundell sought to prove (including Oates’ homosexuality) and the witnesses that it would be necessary to produce for the purpose. The notes also indicate the questions that he intended to put to Oates and include observations from counsel on issues to be proved at trial and how to prove them. There are several working drafts of the speech that he would make in his own defence, in which he stressed his past service to the Crown and the malice of his accusers (‘such obscure men whose faces I never saw nor whose names I never heard of but upon this occasion’). So complete was his case that it is difficult to believe that Arundell could have been found guilty. Yet he himself was far from confident of the outcome of the trial: the papers also include several versions of his dying speech.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Arundell’s prolonged imprisonment without trial, punctuated as it was by three dissolutions, raised important constitutional issues about parliamentary judicature in which the ordinary courts were clearly reluctant to meddle, but on 12 Feb. 1684 the then lord chief justice of king’s bench, George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, probably at the instigation of the government, admitted Arundell and the other impeached peers to bail. Arundell clearly knew in advance that bail would be granted and approached James Butler*, duke of Ormond, on 2 Feb. to stand as one of his sureties.<sup>39</sup> Perhaps he was refused for on the day his sureties were Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, John Granville*, earl of Bath, and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon.<sup>40</sup> All four were close to the court. Three months later, on 22 May, the House of Lords voted to overturn its previous resolution that impeachments were not vacated by dissolution, thus enabling the impeached peers to be discharged.</p><p><em>From the accession of James II to death, 1685-94</em></p><p>By now 76 years of age and barred from the House of Lords by the Test Act, Arundell might have been expected to have been content to retire into obscurity. Instead his friendship with York propelled him once again into public life. With the duke’s accession as James II in February 1685 his position as a trusted Catholic elder statesman was assured. In 1686 Arundell was in receipt of letters patent that enabled him, in common with other Catholics, to attend court without taking the oath of supremacy.<sup>41</sup> In July of that year he was one of four Catholic peers to join the Privy Council. It did not go unnoticed that all four had been under suspicion at the time of the popish plot. He was also a member of the ‘particular cabinet council’ that met under the auspices of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, every Friday to decide what matters should be debated before the king.<sup>42</sup> Rumour suggested that Arundell would be promoted still further. In November he was tipped to become deputy lord lieutenant of Ireland, and in December lord treasurer.<sup>43</sup> By January it had become clear that he would be appointed lord privy seal.<sup>44</sup> His role within government, however, was clearly contentious. On 28 Apr. 1687 he was named as one of the commissioners to prorogue Parliament, as were Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and Belasyse, whilst, equally controversially, some protestant peers in the Privy Council were left out of the commission. Some thought it fortunate that the three Catholic peers chose not to attend the House for the prorogation as it ‘would have occasioned some debate if they had been present or come to the House of Lords.’<sup>45</sup> During 1688 Arundell was one of the regulators of corporations and in June 1688 he presented an address from English Catholics thanking James II for his Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>46</sup> He was also present at the birth of the prince of Wales. The gossips referred to Arundell and Father Petre as Sunderland’s Catholic counsellors.<sup>47</sup> Arundell was more attuned than Father Petre to the political turmoil being created by James II’s catholicizing policies, though, and was listed amongst the ‘moderate Catholic lords of large estate and great influence’ who advised moderation over the case of the Seven Bishops in the summer of 1688.<sup>48</sup></p><p>With the deterioration in the political situation Arundell was ‘stepped aside’ in December 1688.<sup>49</sup> Not surprisingly he took no further part in government after James II’s flight. It must have been John Arundell*, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, rather than Arundell of Wardour who was intended in a list compiled of those peers who had voted against the motion that James had abdicated and the throne was vacant.<sup>50</sup> Arundell of Wardour’s last public act appears to have been in May 1691 when his evidence about the date on which a warrant in favour of Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I], was sealed established that Castlemaine might have a legitimate claim to a grant of plate worth some £4,000.<sup>51</sup> Arundell’s reputation as a staunch supporter of the now exiled king kept him under perpetual suspicion until his death shortly before his 87th birthday in December 1694.<sup>52</sup> Having settled his estates during his lifetime (possibly in a debt trust) his will was a short and simple one leaving generous legacies to two servants, £500 to his younger son Henry and the remainder of his property to his heir, Thomas Arundell*, who succeeded as 4th Baron Arundell of Wardour.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
ARUNDELL, Henry (?aft 1659-1726) |
<p><strong><surname>ARUNDELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (?aft 1659–1726)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Feb. 1712 as 5th Bar. ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. ?aft. 1659, s. of Thomas Arundell, 4th Bar. Arundell of Wardour, and Margaret, da. of Thomas Spencer of Ufton, Warws, wid. of Robert Lucy of Charlecote, Warws; <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. Aug. 1691 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1700), da. of Col. Thomas Panton of St Martin in the Fields, Mdx., gamester, and Dorothy, da. of John Stacy of London, 2s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 20 Apr. 1726; <em>admon</em>. 13 June 1726 to s. and h. Henry Arundell<sup>†</sup>, 6th Bar. Arundell of Wardour.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Arundell’s date of birth is unknown. A calculation based on a stray reference in a letter about his mother’s approaching death suggests that his parents married in or about 1659 so it is inferred that his birth was after that date.<sup>2</sup> Like his father he was a committed Catholic and hence barred from the House by the Test Acts. It is likely that he was a Jacobite sympathizer, but there is no evidence to confirm this. He is known to have supported the interests of the Tory, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, at Salisbury in 1713, but information about his political activities beyond this is non-existent.<sup>3</sup> He was granted a passport to travel to Spa on 27 July 1715 and is known to have been in Paris in November of that year.<sup>4</sup> He did not return to England until mid-November 1716.<sup>5</sup> It is unlikely therefore that he could have had any direct involvement in the 1715 Jacobite uprising.</p><p>By 1720, although he was at most only 60 years of age, he was suffering from dementia. He had lost his memory and was ‘uncapable of doing much business.’<sup>6</sup> By 1723 ‘my lord by reason of his age and infirmities is reduced to dotage’, and his son and heir, also named Henry Arundell, began proceedings to have his father declared a lunatic. He was warned that such a procedure would not necessarily protect the family estate since ‘commissioners of lunatics have no authority to commit waste or to meddle with the estate’, and such proceedings were in any case very slow.<sup>7</sup> Arundell of Wardour died on 20 Apr. 1726.</p> |
R.P. |
|
ARUNDELL, John (1649-98) |
<p><strong><surname>ARUNDELL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1649–98)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 7 Sept. 1687 as 2nd. Bar. ARUNDELL OF TRERICE. |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 6 June 1698 |
|
MP Truro, 2 Oct. 1666, 1685 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 1 Sept. 1649, o. surv. s. and h. of Richard Arundell*, Bar. Arundell of Trerice, and Gertrude, da. of Sir James Bagge of Saltram, and widow of Sir Nicholas Slanning<sup>‡</sup> (d. 1643); half-bro. of Sir Nicholas Slanning<sup>‡</sup> bt. <em>educ</em>. Wadham, Oxf. matric. 13 June 1667. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 10 May 1675 (with £8,000), Margaret (<em>d</em>.1691), da. of Sir John Acland, 3rd bt. of Killerton, Devon, sis. and h. of Sir Arthur Acland, 4th bt., 1s. 1da.; (2) 14 Feb. 1693, Barbara (<em>d</em>.1722), da. of Sir Thomas Slingsby<sup>‡ </sup>2nd bt. of Scriven, Yorks., wid. of Sir Richard Mauleverer, 4th bt. of Allerton Mauleverer, Yorks., 1s. <em>d</em>. aft. 6 June, bef. 21 June 1698; <em>will</em> 1 Dec. 1695, pr. 27 June 1698.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ensign, Pendennis Castle 1666-81, capt. lt. and dep. gov. 1681-7, gov. 1689-<em>d</em>.; lt. col. militia ft. Cornw. by 1679; capt. earl of Bath’s Regt. (later 10th Ft.) 1686-Apr. 1688.</p><p>Commr. assessment, Cornw. 1667-80, recusants, Cornw. 1675; alderman, Tregony and Truro 1685-7; freeman, Bodmin, Liskeard, Mitchell and Penryn 1685-Sept. 1688.</p> |
|
<p>Still a teenager when he was elected to the Commons following the death of his uncle Nicholas Arundell<sup>‡</sup>, John Arundell proved to be an inactive Member of that House. Apart from an occasional flash of independence he was considered to be a loyal court supporter and was consequently listed by Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury as triply vile. His major mark on public life was a personal matter. In 1673, in pursuit of a wife, Arundell found himself in competition over an heiress with a fellow Member of the Commons, Thomas Wharton*, the future 5th Baron and marquess of Wharton. Arundell won the subsequent duel but relinquished the lady to Wharton, allegedly because he was impressed that Wharton, unlike his father, who had acquired a reputation for cowardice at Edgehill, had had the courage to fight.<sup>2</sup> It is perhaps more likely that Arundell’s finances damaged his chances as a suitor. The settlement drawn up at the time of his first marriage indicates that the family estate was much encumbered by debt, thus obstructing the implementation of arrangements for a jointure and either delaying or preventing payment of the portion of £8,000 agreed by the Acland family.</p><p>The various lists of peers compiled in 1687-8 indicate that, as might be expected from a staunchly Protestant family, John Arundell and his father both opposed the catholicizing policies of James II. The family commanded considerable political influence in the West Country, but opposition to James II meant that most of Arundell’s military and local government offices were terminated in 1688. Arundell’s loss of favour may have been evident as early as the spring of 1687 when the king and his Privy Council refused to intervene on behalf of his father in a law suit resulting from the long running dispute over Sutton Pool; at his father’s death later that year neither he nor his half-brother, Sir Nicholas Slanning, were appointed to replace him as governor of Pendennis.<sup>3</sup> By late October 1688, John Granville*, earl of Bath, who was both anxious and angry about the changes being forced on him by the court, alerted Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, of the dangerous situation created by sidelining Arundel, warning that,</p><blockquote><p>should an enemy possess himself of it [Pendennis Castle], he would be absolute master of Falmouth Harbour and force a compliance of all the country west from Plymouth. Since Lord Arundell’s death it has been commanded by a private captain … which signifies very little towards its defence; and how little assistance so small an officer, being a stranger, is like to receive from the country.<sup>4</sup></p></blockquote><p>Arundell took his seat in the Lords on the first day of the 1689 Convention and then attended on 28 per cent of sitting days of that session, during which he was named to only two committees. His opposition to James II’s policies did not translate into automatic acceptance of the new regime. He voted in favour of a regency and against the resolution to declare William and Mary king and queen and refused to agree with the Commons that James II had ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’ the throne and that the throne was ‘thereby vacant’. His conscience was, nevertheless, easily assuaged and on 18 Mar. 1689 he took the oaths to the new monarchs. He was absent for much of April and almost the whole month of May, presumably through illness as he was excused for this reason at a call of the House on 22 May. He returned to the House on 31 May 1689 in time to vote against the bill to reverse the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates and in July voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen and later duke of Leeds, classified him as among the supporters of the court.</p><p>Arundell’s attendance dropped markedly in the following session when he was present on only 11 per cent of sitting days. He did not attend at all during the first three sessions of the 1690 Parliament. His next appearance in the House was on 4 Nov. 1692; he then attended 45 per cent of sittings that session. He supported the place bill and entered a protest on 3 Jan. 1693 against the Lords’ decision to reject it. A zealous Anglican, he was listed by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, as an opponent of the attempt by Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce his wife. On 19 Jan. 1693, following a conference with the House of Commons, Arundell dissented not only from the Lords’ decision not to refer their amendment to the land tax bill to the committee for privileges but also from their subsequent decision to withdraw the proposed amendment. His second marriage in February reinforced his Tory ties, although that same month he found himself in predominantly Whig company when he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>The 1693-4 session saw Arundell present on 48 per cent of sitting days. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted in support of the decision of the court of chancery to dismiss the appeal of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the Albemarle inheritance case, thus favouring his powerful west country neighbour, Bath. He did not attend the following (1694-5) session at all, covering his absence with a proxy to Ailesbury that was registered on 26 Dec. 1694, possibly for use in divisions on the treason trials bill in January 1695.</p><p>Arundell attended on 31 per cent of sitting days during the first (1695-6) session of the 1695 Parliament. Along with his friend Ailesbury and other prominent Tories in March 1696 he refused to sign the Association.<sup>5</sup> His attendance the following (1696-7) session was uncharacteristically high at 56 per cent. The early part of the session was dominated by proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Arundell consistently opposed them. On 15 Dec. 1696 he entered a dissent against the Lords’ decision to allow Goodman’s information to be read; on 18 Dec. he protested against the second reading of the bill and on 23 Dec. he both voted against the third reading and entered another protest at its passage.</p><p>Arundell’s attendance remained comparatively high, at 42 per cent, during the 1697-8 session. On 15 Mar. 1698 he appears to have voted against committing the bill for punishing the banker Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, although a mark on the list suggests he had initially been thought to have voted in its favour. Arundell’s last reported attendance in the House was on 6 June 1698; by 21 June he was dead. In his will he left lands in Newlyn as surety for his wife during her lifetime together with their house in St James’s, Middlesex and all his goods and chattels. He also directed the disposal of lands in Cornwall and Devon in order to raise a portion of £6,000 for his daughter, Gertrude Arundell. He was succeeded by his eldest son, also named John Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Trerice; his widow married Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, in September 1708.<sup>6</sup></p> |
A.C./R.P. |
|
ARUNDELL, John (1678-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>ARUNDELL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1678–1706)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 21 June 1698 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. ARUNDEL OF TRERICE |
|
First sat 11 Feb. 1701; last sat 30 Dec. 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Feb. 1678, s. and h. of John Arundell* 2nd Bar. Arundell of Trerice, and Margaret Acland. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. Jane (<em>d</em>.1744), 6th da. of William Beaw, bishop of Llandaff, and Frances Bowsie, at least 2s. <em>d</em>. 24 Sept. 1706; <em>will</em> 13 July, pr. 3 Dec. 1706.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Cornw. bef. 1702-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Arundell came of age in time to take his seat at the opening of the first session of the 1698 Parliament. He did not do so. He did not attend any sittings of that Parliament at all. He attended just four days of the first 1701 Parliament and a single day (the opening of the session on 30 Dec.) of the second 1701 Parliament. Whether his absences were caused by a lack of political ambitions and interests or poor health is unknown. Unusually for a peer he chose to marry a bishop’s daughter rather than a fellow aristocrat. Nevertheless, his death at the age of only 28 in 1706 was allegedly caused by self-imposed starvation resulting from his anguish when his mistress married another.<sup>3</sup></p> |
A.C./R.P. |
|
ARUNDELL, John (1701-68) |
<p><strong><surname>ARUNDELL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1701–68)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Sept. 1706 (a minor) as 4th Bar. ARUNDELL OF TRERICE. |
|
First sat 6 Dec. 1722; last sat 4 Apr. 1755 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 21 Nov. 1701, o.s. of John Arundell*, 3rd Bar. Arundell of Trerice, and Jane, da. of William Beaw*, bp of Llandaff. <em>educ</em>. Balliol Coll. Oxf. <em>m</em>. 2 June 1722 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1750), da. of Sir William Wentworth of Ashby, Lincs., sis. of Thomas Wentworth* earl of Strafford,<sup>1</sup> <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>bur</em>. 13 Aug. 1768.</p> |
|
|
<p>Arundell succeeded to the peerage shortly before his fifth birthday. His marriage in 1722, shortly after leaving Balliol, Oxford, to a woman ‘almost old enough to be his mother’ caused some amusement, he being 20 and she over 40 (the marriage certificate optimistically gave her age as 25). Otherwise, he appears to have made little impact and his death was not noted by the London newspapers until more than four months after his demise.<sup>2</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ARUNDELL, Richard (c. 1616-87) |
<p><strong><surname>ARUNDELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (c. 1616-87)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>23 Mar. 1665 Bar. ARUNDELL OF TRERICE. |
|
First sat 31 Oct. 1666; last sat 15 Feb. 1687 |
|
MP Lostwithiel Apr. 1640, Nov. 1640-22 Jan. 1644; Bere Alston 26 June 1660; 29 Jan. 1662-23 Mar. 1665. |
<p><em>b</em>. c. 1616, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John Arundell<sup>‡</sup> of Trerice (<em>d</em>. 1654) and Mary, da. of George Cary of Clovelly, Devon; bro. of John Arundell<sup>‡</sup> and Nicholas Arundell<sup>‡</sup>, bro.-in-law of John Trevanion<sup>‡</sup>, stepfa. of Sir Nicholas Slanning<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt. <em>educ</em>. L. Inn 16 Nov. 1633, called 18 Nov. 1640. <em>m</em>. c. 1645, Gertrude (<em>d</em>. 1691) wid. of Sir Nicholas Slanning<sup>‡</sup> of Marystow, Devon, da. of Sir James Bagge<sup>‡</sup> of Saltram, Devon, and Grace Fortescue, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. Sept. 1687;<sup>1</sup> <em>admon</em>. Anthony Trethewy, June 1688, Aug. 1692.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of horse to the queen mother by 1665–9.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Lt. col. of ft. (royalist) by 1646; col. of militia ft. Dec. 1660–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov. Pendennis Castle Sept. 1660–<em>d</em>.; commr. for assessment 1661–5; dep. lt. Cornw. 1662–<em>d</em>.; commr. for corporations 1662–3, loyal and indigent officers 1662, oyer and terminer, Western circuit 1665; stannator of Tywarnwhaile 1663; freeman, Plymouth 1684, Liskeard, Bodmin, Mitchell and Penryn 1685.</p> |
|
<p>The Arundell family had been resident at Trerice since the fourteenth century and generations of intermarriage meant that they had extensive kinship links within the local political elite. Before the civil wars the family owned lands in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, enabling them to exercise a degree of political influence throughout the west country, but with more immediate electoral interests in the Cornish constituencies of Truro, Mitchell, Penryn and Bere Alston.</p><p>As a younger son, Richard Arundell was originally intended for the law but the events of the civil wars changed his destiny. He, his father and his brothers all took the king’s side and were noted for their courage and loyalty to the crown. His older brother, John Arundell, was killed in January 1644, leaving Richard as the heir to the family patrimony. Richard Arundell was commander of the trained bands and the garrison at Pendennis Castle where his father was governor. It was from this royalist refuge, one of the last strongholds to fall to the Parliamentary forces, that the Arundells ensured the escape of Queen Henrietta Maria to France and Charles II to the Scilly Isles, services that would forever endear them to the crown.<sup>4</sup> The Arundells finally surrendered Pendennis in 1646. In 1650 they were declared delinquent and as a result Arundell and his father jointly compounded for the family estates at £10,000.<sup>5</sup> Arundell nevertheless continued to be active in royalist risings and conspiracies.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, described Richard Arundell as a ‘gentleman as well known by what he had done and suffered in the late time, as by the eminency of his family, and the fortune he was still master of after the great depredation’. He had apparently been promised a peerage as a reward for his and his family’s exertions on behalf of the king but, according to Clarendon, the actual grant was postponed until Arundell could recover sufficient wealth to support the dignity.<sup>7</sup> A courtier and ally of John Grenville*, earl of Bath, Arundell nevertheless occasionally found himself at odds with Bath’s other ally, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. Monck initially secured the governorship of Pendennis Castle for his cousin Sir Peter Killigrew<sup>‡</sup> and Arundell had to lobby for its restoration under the terms of an old royal patent.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Arundell also became involved in a long-running and expensive fight with the presbyterian-dominated corporation of Plymouth over the farm of Sutton Pool (Plymouth’s internal harbour), staking his own claim under the rights of the king as duke of Cornwall against a Commonwealth grant. The king’s decision to back Arundell and oppose the corporation not only sent a clear political message about Dissent but also had financial ramifications since it enabled Arundell to extract fees for the use of Sutton Pool.<sup>9</sup> Arundell won substantial costs against the corporation in 1664 but the dispute was still active in 1671 when he was forced to bring a case of breach of privilege of Parliament against those who still questioned his title.<sup>10</sup></p><p>As a key supporter of the crown’s west country interests, with a strategic military role as well as useful electoral influence, Arundell occupied a pivotal place in the chain of patronage. His own rewards included the rectory of Newlyn, as well as leases of Restormel Park, Tregeare and Burnere.<sup>11</sup> As governor of Pendennis Castle, he had control of large sums of money and lucrative supply contracts.<sup>12</sup> In July 1662, for example, he received £2,000 for payment of the garrison, although, like so many other courtiers, he struggled at times to secure payment from the Treasury.<sup>13</sup> Family, friends and clients also benefitted: John Clarke was granted the contract for the Plymouth and district postal service; Arundell’s stepson Sir Nicholas Slanning was appointed captain of Pendennis Castle and granted the governorship in reversion after Arundell’s death.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Following the Restoration, it did not take long for Arundell to recover his estates and financial position. Accordingly he informed the king that he was ready to ‘receive his bounty’ and in March 1665 was created Baron Arundell of Trerice.<sup>15</sup> He would have been eligible to take his seat during the brief October 1665 session but did not do so, waiting until the following session in 1666–7. He was introduced on 31 Oct. 1666 between John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, and Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, and placed next to John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, who had been elevated to the peerage a week earlier than Arundell. Frescheville and Arundell either were already or would soon become friends and political allies. They had much in common: both had served as royalist commanders in the civil wars, both had legal training and both were later allied to Frescheville’s nephew, Sir Thomas Osborne*, best known as earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). During this session, Arundell attended 79 per cent of possible sittings and was named to nine committees including, on 2 Jan. 1667, the committee for the act to restore Francis Scawen in blood. There was almost certainly a local interest here: the originating petition for the bill was presented by Arundell’s west country neighbour, Albemarle, and Francis Scawen was the son of Robert Scawen<sup>‡</sup>, a London attorney of Cornish origin. On 24 Jan. 1667 Arundell was also appointed a commissioner for public accounts.</p><p>The next (1667–9) session opened in the aftermath of Clarendon’s dismissal. Arundell’s attendance and workload increased significantly. He attended 93 per cent of sitting days and was named to a total of 23 committees. He was also named to the committee for privileges and the committee for petitions, and on 24 Apr. 1668 was appointed as one of the Lords’ representatives at a conference with the Commons on the impeachment of Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup>. A rare glimpse into Arundell’s spiritual life comes from a comment made in June 1668 by Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote that Arundell was a ‘person who hath eminently showed himself a true friend of the Church’.<sup>16</sup> (Hardly any family papers survive to illustrate his role as a loyal courtier and Anglican more fully.)</p><p>The brief autumn 1669 session saw Arundell present for 66 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the usual sessional committees as well as to three committees. In Jan. 1670, in what may have been an indication of financial problems as well perhaps as resentment at insufficient recognition, Arundell tried to surrender his lease of Sutton Pool. His offer was referred to the Treasury Commissioners ‘to hear any propositions of the petitioner, the king wishing to recognize his loyalty and good services’. A ‘free gift’ of £3,000 from the king to Arundell the following May in recognition of his services and suffering for Charles II and his late father probably resulted from this incident.<sup>17</sup></p><p>During the 1670–1 session Arundell attended only 27 per cent of sittings, his lowest attendance rate for any session of Parliament. He was again named to the usual sessional committees and to 13 others. On 28 Mar. 1670, in an otherwise rare indication of Arundell’s political activity, he joined the protest at the passage of the Roos divorce bill. His concern with local issues was apparent in his involvement in the opposition to the bill to make the recently built Falmouth church parochial. The bill was opposed by the inhabitants of Truro and Penryn, who resented the successful development of Falmouth by Sir Peter Killigrew into a rival port. It nevertheless passed, smoothed perhaps by Killigrew’s own relationship with the Crown and by his tactful decision to dedicate the church to King Charles the Martyr.<sup>18</sup></p><p>A further indication of Arundell’s financial difficulty came in Feb. 1671 when he was involved in a chancery case with Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I] regarding a bond of £5,000, entered into ‘for his majesty’s service’, which Arundell had failed to pay.<sup>19</sup> Meanwhile, throughout the spring he was involved in organizing the defences of the west country against the French fleet.<sup>20</sup> Later that year he opened negotiations for the marriage of his son to ‘a young lady of considerable fortune’, offering to provide a jointure of £2,000 a year.<sup>21</sup> The young lady in question was probably the west country heiress Elizabeth Cabell but the young John Arundell*, later 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, lost out to Thomas Wharton*, the future 5th Baron (later earl of) Wharton.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Arundell attended only 50 per cent of sittings of the February–October 1673 session and was named to only two committees. It seems likely that he opposed the Declaration of Indulgence but there is no evidence to confirm this. His son’s marriage prospects continued to be a matter of concern. The young Arundell now paid suit to Anne Lee, granddaughter of the dowager countess of Rochester. Once again he found himself pitted against Wharton, whose negotiations to marry Elizabeth Cabell had broken down. Anne Lee was said to prefer John Arundell but, in another indication of Arundell’s financial status, her trustees preferred the security of the Wharton fortune to the Arundell debts.<sup>23</sup></p><p>The very short session of October-November 1673 saw Arundell present every day. He also attended 92 per cent of sitting days in the equally short session of January-February 1674. His decision to do so was probably linked to the disintegration of the Cabal and the appointment of the future earl of Danby as lord treasurer in June 1673. Arundell was not only politically sympathetic to Osborne but also became a recipient of the latter’s much-needed financial largesse. In 1674 he was granted a pension of £1,000 for 21 years charged on the duchy of Cornwall, and appeared on Danby’s list of excise pensioners.<sup>24</sup> That such injections of money were crucial is suggested by the financial arrangements for his son’s marriage to Margaret Acland in or about May 1675, which declare that Arundell’s estate was ‘charged and encumbered for the payment of divers sums of money which for the present cannot be paid and satisfied without apparent prejudice and loss to the estate of the said Richard Lord Arundell’ and then go on to list debts of just over £11,000 that were to be settled before payment of the bride’s portion.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, as the next session of Parliament (the first of 1675) approached, Danby calculated that Arundell was likely to support the non-resisting test. Arundell attended 98 per cent of sittings and was named to 15 committees, including the routine sessional ones. His attendance was similarly high (95 per cent) for the second 1675 session, when he was named to eight committees of the Houses, again including the usual sessional committees. On 19 Nov., during the disputes over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, he was appointed as one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons on preserving a good understanding between the Houses. The following day he opposed the address for the dissolution of Parliament. Afterwards ‘some angry words’ passed between Arundell and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, causing the House to intervene and caution them to allow no ‘further proceedings’ in the matter.</p><p>When the next session of Parliament opened on 15 Feb. 1677, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, argued that the long prorogation amounted to a dissolution; Arundell seconded Freschville’s motion that Buckingham be called to the bar of the House and disciplined.<sup>26</sup> He was also involved in an attack on Shaftesbury alleging that the earl had spoken words ‘of a dangerous nature’ during his case before the king’s bench. Another of Danby’s allies, James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys, registered a proxy in favour of Arundell on 26 Feb. 1677, vacated at the end of the session on 15 July 1678. This proxy may have been used during crucial divisions in January 1678, when Arundell voted against the inclusion of a declaration against transubstantiation in the oaths and against Danby’s arrest. Not surprisingly, in Shaftesbury’s analysis of lay peers Arundell was referred to as ‘thrice vile’. In what was by far Arundell’s busiest session in the Lords, he attended 98 per cent of sitting days and was named to 39 committees, as well as the committee for privileges. His committee nominations included matters of high political moment such as the enquiry into the publication of <em>Some Considerations upon the Question, whether Parliament is Dissolved by Prorogation for Fifteen Months</em> on 16 Feb. 1677, as well as the defence of local interests as in the Stannaries bill on 9 Apr. 1677.</p><p>At this time, Arundell was also concerned with exploiting his relationship with central government for his own business and financial interests. He and one of his Cornish associates, Samuel Enys, discussed the merits of the proposed farm of the coinage duty, said to be worth £6,000.<sup>27</sup> When, in 1673, the king had farmed the whole excise of England and compensated the former farmers, Arundell (who seems to have had the farm of the excise in Cornwall) was overlooked. In October 1677 he petitioned that ‘he likewise may partake of his majesty’s bounty’.<sup>28</sup> On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted to find Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder.</p><p>After a short prorogation the next session of Parliament opened on 23 May 1678. With pressure mounting on Danby and the king, Arundell attended 93 per cent of sitting days in the Lords and was named to six committees, including the committee of privileges and the committee for petitions. Listed by Danby as a solid court supporter and presumably hoping to extract financial benefit from his allegiance, in Sept. 1678 he petitioned the lord treasurer for a lease of a ‘great waste or barren ground called Exmoor, or the Forest of Exmoor’, close to one of his manors in Somerset.<sup>29</sup></p><p>During the following session, which opened on 21 Oct. 1678 and was dominated by the Popish Plot scandal, Arundell held the proxies of William Ley*, 4th earl of Marlborough, from 28 Oct., and Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham, from 6 November. Both were vacated at the end of the session. Arundell maintained a high level of attendance, being present on 95 per cent of sitting days, and was named to the usual sessional committees. He continued to be a reliable supporter of Danby, opposing the inclusion of a declaration against transubstantiation in the new oaths. When the opposition linked disarmament and disbanding of the army to the supply bill, the strategic importance of both Arundell’s and Bath’s regiments in Pendennis Castle and Plymouth respectively was recognized and they were exempted.<sup>30</sup> Accordingly, in December 1678 Arundell was content to support the Lords’ amendment requiring the payment of money into the exchequer to fund the disbandment of the army.</p><p>When the short first Exclusion Parliament met on 6 Mar. 1679 Arundell’s support for the court and Danby remained solid. He attended every sitting bar one in the second session, beginning 15 Mar., and again held Nottingham’s proxy. On 21 Mar. when the Lords debated the Commons request for Danby’s arrest, Arundell and his allies Frescheville and Thomas Colepeper* spoke in Danby’s favour.<sup>31</sup> The following day he opposed the resolution to appoint a committee to prepare a bill for banishing and disabling Danby. By April 1679 Danby was in custody in the Tower but Arundell was still calculated to be a supporter and likely to vote against any proposal for his attainder. As predicted, on 1 April he was not content to agree with the Commons on Danby’s attainder and on 4 April he voted against it. Arundell may even have given Danby legal advice; he certainly forwarded a paper on a possible bail application to him.<sup>32</sup> On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>In the second Exclusion Parliament Arundell attended 98 per cent of sitting days; his support for the king and opposition to Exclusion remained firm. He was not content to appoint a committee to consider the state of the kingdom along with the Commons, and he was one of the few peers to vote William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason.<sup>33</sup> In the Oxford Parliament in March 1681 he attended 71 per cent of sittings. When James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys, presented Danby’s petition for bail to the king at Oxford on 24 March, Arundell spoke in support.<sup>34</sup></p><p>With the exclusion issue apparently resolved Arundell looked for his reward. His pension of £1,000 per annum was in arrears and in a letter to the king he stated that he had been ‘encouraged to make use of the pay for the soldiers in Pendennis Castle’ to make up the shortfall. With money still not forthcoming for his pension or to pay the soldiers at Pendennis, Arundell offered to surrender the patent for the pension if the king would only pay what was due to the soldiers. His request was ignored and in a subsequent letter Arundell claimed that the non-payment had been ‘not only his ruin but his disgrace’. He later offered to surrender his post as governor of Pendennis Castle, as well as his pension, if the king would take care of the garrison’s pay. The £1,200 offered to the garrison had been refused and the soldiers were mutinous. According to Arundell’s calculations he was personally owed over £4,800, which left him unable to pay the £2,859 he owed. Eventually he was ordered to disband the foot company under his command and the treasury commissioners, Thomas Starsmore and Giles Draper, were sent to pay off the soldiers.<sup>35</sup></p><p>In 1684, as the corporations were purged and new charters issued, Arundell was made one of the ‘first and modern free burgesses’ of the borough of Saltash, a freeman of Liskeard and a burgess of Penryn.<sup>36</sup> In the 1685 session of James II’s Parliament he attended on 80 per cent of sitting days and was named to the usual sessional committees and 12 others. On 19 May he and Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, introduced Ralph Stawell*, Baron Stawell. In January 1686 he was one of the peers summoned to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, although he appears not to have attended as he is not listed in the account in <em>State Trials</em>.<sup>37</sup> In the spring of 1686 problems over Sutton Pool again re-emerged. The corporation had been remodelled in 1684 and claimed that their new charter confirmed their jurisdiction and right to levy certain taxes on properties in Sutton Pool. Arundell challenged this by means of a quo warranto but the corporation appealed over his head to the king and Privy Council, who effectively tossed Arundell’s years of loyalty aside and, in consideration of ‘the loyalty of the present magistrates’, blocked his action by a <em>nolle prosequi</em>.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Although Arundell and his family had been staunch royalists, Arundell found himself in opposition to James II’s policies and opposed the repeal of the Test Acts. He did not live long enough to see his loyalty tested by the events of the revolution. He died in September 1687 and was succeeded by his son, also named John*, as 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice. James II’s refusal to assist Arundell over Sutton Pool had left him financially stranded. So great were the debts he had incurred in the course of a quarter of a century in defending the king’s rights that he was forced to mortgage his interest in Sutton Pool to Anthony Trethewy and it was Trethewy who took out letters of administration after Arundell’s death and gained possession of that and possibly other properties.<sup>39</sup></p> |
A.C./R.D.E.E. |
|
ARUNDELL, Thomas (1633-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>ARUNDELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1633–1712)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 28 Dec. 1694 as 4th Bar. ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1633, son of Henry Arundell*, 3rd Bar. Arundell of Wardour and Cicely, da. of Sir Henry Compton of Brambletye, Suss., wid. of Sir John Fermor of Somerton, Oxon. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. c.1659 Margaret (<em>d</em>. 23 Dec. 1704), da. of Thomas Spencer of Ufton, Warws., wid. of Robert Lucy of Charlecote, Warws., 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>). <sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 10 Feb. 1712.</p> |
|
|
<p>Like his father, Thomas Arundell, 4th Baron Arundell was a committed Catholic. Barred from the House of Lords by the Test Acts, he was widely believed to be a Jacobite sympathizer and was constantly under suspicion. Uncertainty about his loyalties was reinforced by memories of his father’s long public career and by the knowledge that his aunt had taken the veil. The events of the Revolution of 1688 brought even higher levels of suspicion. When he was arrested in January 1689 he was described as ‘a very active papist’, and for Roger Morrice, at least, his subsequent discharge raised worries about Catholic subversion even in the new government.<sup>2</sup> Arundell’s continued involvement in the Catholic community reinforced this distrust still further, especially after one of his younger sons died at the battle of the Boyne fighting for James II.<sup>3</sup> He received a substantial legacy from Cardinal Howard in 1694 and was again arrested in March 1696 in the aftermath of the Assassination Plot.<sup>4</sup> Ten years later a visit from Lady Powis (wife of William Herbert*, 2nd marquess of Powis), during a trip in which she allegedly made her way ‘cross the country from one papist’s house to another in a coach and six horses’, aroused fears that that all were involved in a conspiracy to promote a French attack.<sup>5</sup> The paucity of the family papers for this period makes it difficult to be sure how justified such suspicions were, though the survival of a copy of the confession of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and a report of the debate over his attainder in December 1696 suggests rather more than a passing interest in politics and the fate of at least one Jacobite conspirator.<sup>6</sup> Whatever his political and religious loyalties were, Arundell’s surviving ‘cellar book’ shows that he regularly entertained his Protestant neighbours, Sir John Hoby and Sir Giles Long, as well as the Catholic Bishop Gifford, Whig and Tory alike.<sup>7</sup> At his death in February 1712 he was succeeded by his son Henry Arundell*, 5th Baron Arundell of Wardour.</p> |
R.P. |
|
ASHBURNHAM, John (1656-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>ASHBURNHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1656–1710)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 May 1689 Bar. ASHBURNHAM |
|
First sat 4 June 1689; last sat 4 Feb. 1709 |
|
MP Hastings 1679 (Mar.)-1681, 1685-87 |
<p><em>b</em>. 15 Jan 1656, o.s. of William Ashburnham (<em>d</em>.1665) and Elizabeth, da. of John Poulett<sup>†</sup>, 1st Bar. Poulett. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1668-70; Peterhouse, Camb. 1670-1; travelled abroad (France and Switzerland) 1672-4.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 22 July 1677, Bridget (<em>d</em>. 12 May 1719), da. and h. of Walter Vaughan of Pembrey, Brec. and New Sarum, Wilts. 3s. 2da. <em>suc</em>. grandfa. John Ashburnham<sup>‡</sup> 1671, gt.-uncle William Ashburnham<sup>‡</sup> 1679. <em>d</em>. 21 Jan. 1710; <em>will</em> 7 Nov. 1709, pr. 6 Feb 1710.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Suss. 1685-May 1688, Brec. 1689-?<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Brec. 1702-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>The Ashburnhams were proud to claim descent from an Anglo-Saxon family established in Sussex from before the Norman Conquest. Their landholdings in the parish of Ashburnham can be traced back to the mid-twelfth century although there was a slight hiatus in the early seventeenth century when the family lands were lost. The setback proved to be temporary and the family fortunes were revived by a remarkable pair of brothers: Ashburnham’s grandfather John and his great uncle William. As a young man Ashburnham succeeded to both their estates, thus finding himself in possession of extensive properties in Westminster, Sussex, Bedfordshire and Hampshire. His good fortune was further enhanced by his marriage to Bridget Vaughan who possessed substantial estates in the West Country and in Breconshire, which seem to have been administered until then in trust by her mother’s second husband, William Ball of Gray’s Inn.<sup>3</sup> Ashburnham was careful to respect his wife’s interest in her patrimony. When making leases of properties that were previously hers, for example, he was always careful to do so in her name as well as his own even though he was not legally required to do so.<sup>4</sup> Ashburnham was undoubtedly a very wealthy man. He had extensive liquid assets, finding that in March 1687 the trustees who had been administering the family estates had £20,000 ‘lying dead’ in their hands’.<sup>5</sup> His Sussex estates alone were valued at over £2,600 per annum in 1690 and at just over £3,000 in 1703.<sup>6</sup> Surviving inventories show that his houses were comfortably furnished with an abundance of plate and jewels and on 17 Sept. 1689 as part of the peerage’s self-assessment exercise he acknowledged possession of a personal estate of £10,000 ‘in ready money and money at interest.’<sup>7</sup> He was still lending money in 1705, perhaps as much as £15,000 to Charles Bodville Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, in company with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Sir Thomas Powys<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup> Ashburnham also later lent substantial sums of money to Nottingham and Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup>, as well as to Peregrine Osborne*, the future 2nd duke of Leeds.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Ashburnham’s antecedents were decidedly royalist. His grandfather was a committed royalist who treasured a watch given to him by Charles I and he himself was a committed member of the Church of England. His family’s long residence in Sussex meant that he either knew or was related to all the leading local families: his diary for 1686-7 records social interactions with many of the leading notables.<sup>10</sup> In later life (in the course of an argument about being double rated by the vestry of St. Margaret Westminster) he referred to the constitutional role of Parliament ‘so jealous of all oppressions, so ready to redress’.<sup>11</sup> Perhaps the remarks were no more than heavy irony for although Ashburnham became a member of the Commons at the earliest opportunity, he appears to have taken little interest in its proceedings. His absence from the division on the first exclusion bill foreshadowed his future somewhat lacklustre opposition to the policies of James II. His surviving diaries and correspondence show that his major interest in life was the management of his estates and nurturing his financial affairs. In August 1686 he recorded without comment a report that several prominent local Catholics had sat on the bench at the assizes and that they were ‘very courteously received by the lord chief justice’.<sup>12</sup> In January 1687 he was taken aback to learn that the Pelhams had been left out of the Sussex commission of the peace. Abortive attempts to check the accuracy of this report eventually led him to the crown office where he discovered that he had shared in the Pelhams’ disgrace.<sup>13</sup> A half-hearted attempt to win him back to the court by using Sir John Gage to invite him to attend the king’s rising failed when Ashburnham told Gage ‘that I had nothing to say to the king but that if his majesty had any commands for me I was always ready to obey them.’ The following day Ashburnham resolved ‘not to speak with the king except he should send for me’.<sup>14</sup> In 1686-7 Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), listed him as a member of the opposition, possibly from personal knowledge as in May 1687 Ashburnham exchanged visits with Danby during his stay in London.<sup>15</sup> After being absent when the three questions were first asked in Sussex, Ashburnham later returned non-committal answers and was removed from his deputy lieutenancy.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Ashburnham supported the Revolution and was elected to the Convention. Despite his obvious distaste for the court and its policies there is little about his known activity that explains why Ashburnham should have been singled out for the reward of a peerage by William III so soon after the revolution of 1688. It has been suggested that the peerage might reflect his support for the toleration bill, or perhaps some undisclosed financial support for the new regime.<sup>17</sup> The timing of the grant, just one month after Danby’s elevation to a marquessate certainly fuels speculation about a reward for services rendered, and it is perhaps noteworthy that his patent of creation specifically mentions his love of his country’s liberties.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Merely a day after his writ of summons had been issued, Ashburnham took his seat in the Lords on 4 June 1689, being introduced by Charles North*, 5th Baron North, and Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. He was then present on 30 days of the session, 46 per cent of the remaining days, although he only attended six days in July and one day in August. He was named to seven committees, including the committee for privileges on 14 June. On 20 June he was named to report a conference on the bill appointing commissioners of the great seal, and to manage the subsequent conference on the 22nd. On 17 July, together with James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, he introduced Charles Granville*, Baron Granville, into the House.</p><p>Ashburnham was present on the opening day of the 1689-90 session, 23 Oct. 1689, and attended on 69 days of the session, 95 per cent of the total, being named to 22 committees. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed him among the supporters of the court. On 11 Jan. 1690 he acted as teller in opposition to North on whether to adjourn the hearing in <em>Fountaine v. Coke</em>. When, on 23 Jan., the House voted to omit the words ‘declared and were and are illegal’ in the bill to restore corporations, he signed a protest in which James II’s drive against corporations was described as ‘the most horrid action that King James was guilty of during his reign’. He was present when the session of March-May 1690 began on 20 Mar., attending on 40 days, 74 per cent of the total and being named to 19 committees. He attended the prorogation of 12 Sept. 1690. He was absent when the 1690-1 session began on 2 Oct., first attending on 27 October. After 31 Oct. he did not attend until 26 Dec. 1690, being present on 14 days of the session, 19 per cent of the total. He was named to six committees. He was absent from the beginning of the 1691-2 session on 22 Oct. 1691, first sitting on 18 November. He attended on 71 days, 73 per cent of the total and was named to 28 committees. On 17 Dec. he was named to report a conference on the treason trials bill. He held the proxy of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, from 23 Jan. 1692 until the end of the session. On 22 Feb. 1692 he was named to report on a conference on the small tithes bill.</p><p>Ashburnham was present on the second day of the 1692-3 session, 7 Nov., attending on 89 days, 87 per cent of the total and being named to 32 committees. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 he not only voted in its favour but entered his dissent when the bill failed. His attitude to the divorce bill promoted by Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, was unclear. On 17 Jan. he entered two dissents concerning the refusal of the House to entertain the claim of Nicholas Knollys to the earldom of Banbury. Two days later he entered another pair of dissents to the refusal of the House to refer its proposed amendments to the land tax bill to the committee for privileges and then to abandon those amendments. On 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. On 20 Feb. he acted as teller in opposition to Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, on a procedural motion that effectively secured the House’s agreement to the reading of the list of commissioners of lieutenancy of the City of London for 1690, together with the names of those added or omitted from the commission.</p><p>Ashburnham arrived in London on 14 Nov. 1693, a week after the 1693-4 session had begun, being absent from a call of the House on that day. He took his seat on 17 Nov. and was then present on 95 days, 74 per cent of the total and was named to 21 committees. On 22 Dec. 1693 he entered a protest against the decision not to call the judges to account over the duchess of Grafton’s case. On 16 Feb. 1694, together with John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, he introduced Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston (commonly known as earl of Arran [I]), into the House. On 17 Feb. he voted against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission of the appeal of Ralph Montagu*, earl of Montagu, in the long running Albemarle inheritance dispute. He travelled to his Ampthill estate on 22 Feb., returning to London on 2 Mar. and to the House on 5 March.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Ashburnham paid several visits to London during the early autumn of 1694 but was absent for the whole of the 1694-5 session. He was absent from a call of the House on 26 Nov. and again on 3 Dec., when the Speaker was ordered to write to him ordering him to attend on 18 Dec.: on that day two of his servants attended to explain that Ashburnham was too ill to attend and he was accordingly excused.</p><p>Although there is virtually no evidence relating to his activities during the general election campaign of 1695 (which may be explained by his sons being some way off their majority) his involvement in other electoral conflicts suggests that he would certainly have played some part. The Ashburnhams exercised considerable influence in Hastings, and it can scarcely be coincidence that Robert Austen<sup>‡</sup>, the successful candidate there, was one of Ashburnham’s business partners as well as a relative of Lady Ashburnham.<sup>20</sup> They also had influence in Breconshire and their support may have helped to secure the county for the Tory Edward Jones<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>When the first session of the 1695 parliament opened on 22 Nov. 1695 Ashburnham was absent. He first sat on the fourth day of the session, 2 Dec. 1695, and after sitting 12 days in December, he was absent after 19 Dec. until 29 Feb. 1696, when he signed the Association. Yet his absence did not prevent him from keeping a careful eye on proceedings in Parliament. His correspondence with his London agent included a request for a copy of the Coinage Act, and indicates that he monitored the progress of a bill affecting his interests in the Bedford Level promoted by Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington.<sup>21</sup> He did not sit after 20 Mar., having attended on 24 days, 19 per cent of the total and been named to four committees. Prompted by the success of the Scots, he wrote to his banker, Sir Richard Hoare<sup>‡</sup>, on 15 Apr. to enquire whether an act in favour of the East India trade had any chance of passing. He feared ‘that if nothing should now be done for us in this matter very probably the trade might be quite lost to England. I am the more inquisitive in what concerns this affair because I desire my self to be concerned in it in case an act of parliament should come forth to my liking.’<sup>22</sup> Over the summer he planned a journey to Wales, called for copies of the Coinage and Treason Trials Acts and fell ill with jaundice.<sup>23</sup> He also became involved in an acrimonious dispute with Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, over his plans to build a private gallery for his family in Ampthill church.<sup>24</sup></p><p>On 22 Oct. 1696 Ashburnham told Sir John Morton<sup>‡</sup> that having been in London for a week, he had needed a spell hunting in the country ‘to lay in health for the service of the House this winter’ and promised that ‘I shall be at Parliament before Xmas’.<sup>25</sup> His first attendance at the 1696-7 session was on 19 Nov., having been ordered on 14 Nov. to attend by the 23rd for the proceedings over the Fenwick attainder. An additional motive for his arrival at this time was his quarrel with Ailesbury over the gallery at Ampthill, which although it had been arbitrated in his favour by Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>, still had to receive the assent of James Gardiner*, bishop of Lincoln. Gardiner was expected to arrive in London on 18 Nov. when he would seek guidance from Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>26</sup> A further round of negotiation appears to have followed through William Lloyd*, bishop of Lichfield, and Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, as referees.<sup>27</sup> On 2 Dec. 1696 Ashburnham was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill remedying the ill state of the coinage. His last attendance of the session was 23 Dec., when he voted with the majority to convict Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. On 4 Mar. 1697 he registered his proxy in favour of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle. He had attended on 24 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total and been named to two committees. By January 1697 he was back at Ampthill and promising his and his wife’s support to Sir Edward Williams<sup>‡</sup> at the forthcoming by-election for Breconshire under the caveat ‘that when my son comes to be of age and that we shall desire your interest for him in the same nature in case he shall be a pretender to be chosen for the county ... you will be as cheerful and ready to promote his election as we now are to ascertain yours.’<sup>28</sup> Somewhat oddly considering that Williams was a Welshman aiming for a Welsh seat, Ashburnham also declared that he believed Williams to be ‘a good Englishman and one of good sense and capable to serve his country, and such are the persons that ought only to be elected.’<sup>29</sup> Ashburnham also backed Williams in 1698, when Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> won the seat, and then endorsed Gwynne in 1701. He then backed the victorious John Jeffreys<sup>‡</sup> in 1702, and seemed willing to back Williams in 1705, if Jeffreys would not stand.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Ashburnham attended the prorogation on 23 Nov. 1697 and was present when the session opened on 3 December. He attended regularly until 9 Feb. 1698 and then absented himself for the rest of the session, apart from two days early in June. He attended 34 days in all, 26 per cent of the total and was named to 12 committees. On 3 Dec. 1698, just prior to the meeting of the new Parliament, Ashburnham asked his London man of business, James MacBurnye, to send him pamphlets on the standing army controversy ‘for my diversion in the country’.<sup>31</sup> He was present on the second day of the 1698-9 session, 9 Dec., and last attended on the penultimate day of the session, 3 May, but these were rare attendances as, in total, he managed only 17 days, 21 per cent of the total. He was named to six committees including that to draw the address on the king’s speech (20 December). On 13 Mar. 1699 he was one of the peers ordered to be written to in order to attend the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, which was scheduled for 28 March. He was present on that day and on the following day for the trial of Lord Mohun. Ashburnham’s absence between 23 Feb. and 28 Mar. may perhaps be explained by his comment on 23 Mar. to Whitelocke Bulstrode, on his ‘being up and down in Wales, Bedfordshire, Sussex and Middlesex’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>During the 1699-1700 session Ashburnham was present a mere three days, 4 per cent of the total. On two of those days the business of the House included debate over the attempt of Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, to resume privilege in his fight against removal from office. On 4 Dec. 1699 Ashburnham was named to the committee to consider matters of procedure concerning the attorney general’s submission on the Watson case (his only committee during the session). Ashburnham wrote to Charles Davenant<sup>‡</sup> on 17 Feb. 1700, apologizing for not committing himself on the issue of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, which was before the House.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Although not noted in the attendance list, Ashburnham was present on the opening day of the next Parliament, 10 Feb. 1701 to take the oaths and be nominated to the committees for privileges and the journal. He was then present nearly every day until 22 Feb., but he was absent for the whole of March, not returning to the House until 1 Apr. when he was named to the committee to consider precedents for the impeachment of the Whig lords. He attended fairly regularly through the first two weeks of April, entering a dissent on 16 Apr. to the decision to ask the king not to pass censure on the impeached lords whilst the impeachments were depending. His final attendance of the session was on 25 Apr., a full eight weeks before the prorogation. He attended for 18 days in all, 17 per cent of the total.</p><p>In December 1700, Ashburnham had backed the candidature of Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup> at Hastings, as part of scheme whereby one of the sitting Members would come in at Lewes.<sup>34</sup> This may have been a device to keep a seat warm for his son, William Ashburnham*, the future 2nd Baron Ashburnham, who had recently come of age. Following the dissolution on 11 Nov. 1701, Ashburnham recommended his son, William, to Hastings, referring to his ‘stake in our English hedge’, and added on 5 Dec. the general observation that for England to be ‘settled and made happy, it must be done by councils of such who love their country and value their estates beyond anything else of any consideration whatsoever’.<sup>35</sup> Shockingly, at least to Ashburnham, the electors of Hastings chose instead John Mounscher<sup>‡</sup>, a Portsmouth ‘ropemaker’, described by Ashburnham as ‘a fellow that I believe such an one has not sat in the House of Commons since the Conquest, and that’s a bold word’. Ashburnham also sought to influence the Bedfordshire county poll, instructing to his agent in November ‘I would have you go round to such of my tenants as are freeholders’ in order to acquaint them ‘that I shall take it very well if they all appear and vote for my Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Gostwick<sup>‡</sup> on the election day as they all were so kind to do the last Parliament’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Ashburnham was absent from the opening of the 1701-2 session, first attending on 5 Jan. 1702, when he took the oaths, but he may have been present on 1 Jan. when the Journal recorded his signature to the address concerning the Pretender being owned by France (although he may have signed it later). He was recorded as present on 63 days, 63 per cent of the total and was named to 20 committees. On 6 Feb. he was also named as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on the bill to attaint the Pretender. Afterwards he was named to the committee to inspect precedents for adding clauses to such a bill, in order to provide reasons for insisting on their amendments, and as such was named to the conference on the 10th. On 27 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, on whether to adjourn in the case of <em>Ranger v. Ashmeade</em>.</p><p>During the summer of 1702 Ashburnham was appointed <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Breconshire. He appears to have believed that this would allow him to replace the clerk of the peace with a candidate of his own choosing but, on taking legal advice, soon discovered that he was wrong.<sup>37</sup> Although he secured the election of his son at Hastings, ‘with a general voice’, Southwell reported as to the second seat that ‘those who were there concluded if my Lord Ashburnham had proposed me or any other at the time of election, he would have lost it’.<sup>38</sup> Ashburnham also expended considerable time in support of Southwell at Rye, strengthening his position sufficiently for him to be seated on petition in December 1702.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Ashburnham first attended the 1702-3 session on 27 Oct. 1702, when he took the oaths. On 9 Nov. he was named to the committee to draw up the address to the queen on the recovery of Prince George*, and later he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston, on whether to adjourn the House for a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s. After 19 Nov. he did not attend until the House resumed after Christmas on 7 Jan. 1703, sending a proxy up to Nottingham on 9 December.<sup>40</sup> In January 1703 Nottingham forecast that Ashburnham would support the bill against occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clauses of the bill. In all, he was present on 40 days of the session, 47 per cent of the total.</p><p>Ashburnham attended the prorogation of 4 Nov. 1703 and was present when the next (1703-5) session opened on 9 November. During the session he was present on 49 days, 50 per cent of the total and was named to 23 committees. According to both assessments of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in November 1703, he was again expected to support the bill to prevent occasional conformity and voted in its favour on 14 Dec. 1703. Nottingham included him on a list of members of both Houses he drew up in 1704 which perhaps indicates support over the ‘Scotch Plot’. He was absent from the beginning of the 1704-5 session on 24 Oct. 1704 and attended only between 9 and 13 Nov. 1704, four days in total. He then entered a proxy on 14 Nov. in favour of Nottingham which remained in force for the remainder of the session. He was absent from a call of the House on 23 Nov. 1704. It was probably his name (rather than that of Hugh Cholmondeley*, Baron Cholmondeley) which was marked on what seems to have been a list, compiled in November 1704, of supporters of the tack. In April 1705 he was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.</p><p>Despite his inactivity in Parliament, Ashburnham was careful to keep his Hastings clients happy, acting as intermediary between the town and the admiralty in April 1705 in order to obtain protection and convoys for the townsmen during the mackerel fishing season and assuring them that whatever ‘you think fit to entrust to my affectionate care and concern for the good of your town shall be always performed to the best of my skill’.<sup>41</sup> His son was re-elected for Hastings on 12 May 1705, with the help of Ashburnham, who on 7 May began his journey into Sussex as an ‘absolute necessity’, and three days later fired off from Ashburnham some legal advice to the mayor of Hastings about his duties in the election.<sup>42</sup> On 21 May Ashburnham seemed to be coordinating the travel arrangements for a party of freeholders to accompany his son to the county poll in support of General Henry Lumley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir George Parker<sup>‡</sup>, and wrote personally to Lumley’s brother, Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, of his efforts in the election. The election over, he decamped to Bedfordshire.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Ashburnham may have been somewhat distracted during this period by his son’s marriage in October 1705. This brought a considerable estate ‘lying in sight from the windows of my house in this country’ near Ampthill into the family.<sup>44</sup> Unfortunately, it also brought an attendant dispute over the marriage settlement, particularly concerning which lands had been settled on his son, and which were part of his son’s mother-in-law’s jointure lands. He seems to have been delighted with his new daughter-in-law, but he was appalled by her mother’s financial laxity and did not hesitate to sour relations by making his views known and demanding interest for late payment.<sup>45</sup> Although Ashburnham was present on the opening day of the 1705 Parliament, 25 Oct. 1705, he then left London, and was absent until 22 Nov., his only other appearance before the Christmas recess.<sup>46</sup> He kept his eye on legislation, asking his London man of business, Martin Folkes, on 7 Dec. whether Sir Thomas Cave’s estate bill would affect the security of his loan.<sup>47</sup> However, he was present when the House resumed on 8 Jan. 1706 and sat regularly until 21 February. Although he was not listed as being appointed to the committee for a bill to naturalize William Lewis Le Grand on 14 Jan., he chaired the committee on the 15th and reported it to the House later that day.<sup>48</sup> Thereafter he sat for five days in March, the last being 9 Mar., on which day he entered a protest to the decision of the House to agree with the Commons that Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>&dagger</sup> pamphlet, <em>A Letter to Stamford</em> was a scandalous, false and malicious libel. In all he attended on 33 days, 35 per cent of the total. By 23 Mar. 1706 he was at Ampthill.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Although Ashburnham had announced from Ampthill on 23 Nov. 1706 his intention of being at the opening of the 1706-7 session on 3 Dec., he missed the opening few days, first attending on 9 December.<sup>50</sup> He then managed only two more days before Christmas. He was delayed on his return to Westminster after the Christmas recess, arriving at Westminster by 25 Jan. 1707.<sup>51</sup> He sat for nine days at the end of January and beginning of February. On 3 Feb. he entered a dissent to the failure of the House to insist on making the Test Act perpetual and unalterable and a fundamental condition of union with Scotland. He sat again for four consecutive sitting days 15-19 March. He last sat on 19 Mar., having been present on 16 days, 19 per cent of the total. He did not attend the brief session of April 1707 session. He was missing on the opening two days of the 1707-8 session in October but was present when the sessional committees were appointed on 6 November. He sat for nine days in November and on 11 Mar. 1708, 9 per cent of the total. Although some of his earlier activity in the Lords indicated Whiggish (or perhaps country) sympathies, by May 1708 his party allegiances were far clearer and he was unsurprisingly listed as a Tory. Ashburnham’s only appearances in the 1708-9 session were 3 and 4 Feb. 1709.</p><p>By mid April 1709, it was reported that Ashburnham had been ‘above three months in a consumptive, dropsy and asthma with a hectic fever.’<sup>52</sup> He drew up a will in November 1709, a careful and detailed document. He appointed Southwell, Hoare, Sir John Osborne and Richard Webb of the Inner Temple as trustees for his son and heir, William. He left £10,000 and £8,000 respectively to his two younger sons, provided portions of £5,000 apiece for his two daughters and made generous provision for his widow. He also made exceptionally liberal provision for friends, servants and the poor. He died on 21 Jan. 1710, ‘after a lingering and tedious sickness’, at his house in Bloomsbury, ‘the master of a very plentiful estate, the bulk of which, together with his title’ went to his son, William and then to his second son, John Ashburnham*, the 3rd Baron Ashburnham.<sup>53</sup></p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
ASHBURNHAM, John (1687-1737) |
<p><strong><surname>ASHBURNHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1687–1737)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 16 June 1710 as 3rd Bar. ASHBURNHAM; <em>cr. </em>14 May 1730 earl of ASHBURNHAM. |
|
First sat 27 Nov. 1710; last sat 20 Apr. 1736 |
|
MP Hastings 10 Feb.-16 June 1710 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 13 Mar. 1687, 2nd s. of John Ashburnham*, Bar. Ashburnham and Bridget, da. and h. of Walter Vaughan of Porthammel House, co. Brecon; bro. of William Ashburnham*, 2nd Bar. Ashburnham. <em>m</em>. (1) 21 Oct. 1710, Mary (<em>d</em>.1712), da. of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond and 2nd w. Mary Somerset, <em>s.p.</em>; (2) 24 July 1714, Henrietta Maria (<em>d</em>.1718), <em>suo jure</em> baroness Strange, da. and coh. of William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, wid. of John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, 1da. <em>d.v.p.</em>;<sup>1</sup> (3) lic. 14 Mar. 1724, Jemima, da. and coh. of Henry Grey*, duke of Kent and 1st w. Jemima Crewe, 1s. <em>d</em>. 10 Mar. 1737; <em>will</em> 17 Mar. 1733, pr. 24 Mar. 1737.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Guidon and maj. 1 Horse Gds. 1707, col. July 1713-15; col. of horse duke of Ormond’s Regt. Jan. 1713.</p><p>Dep. gov. and dep. warden Cinque Ports June 1713-14; capt. yeomen of the guard. Nov. 1731-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gent. of the bedchamber to Frederick<sup>†</sup>, Prince of Wales Dec. 1728-July 1731.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>As a younger son of a wealthy peer, it was always likely that Ashburnham would end up in Parliament; in April 1705 his father wrote, ‘my sons are both gone in to Sussex full of projects of elections for themselves’.<sup>4</sup> Ashburnham was underage at this point and was destined for a military career. Earlier in Anne’s reign, his father had approached John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, for the place of guidion in the guards, and once his son was 18 he recommended him again.<sup>5</sup> In May 1706 his father reminded Marlborough of ‘the hopes I had of my second son being made fit in his education for the queen’s service’, outlined his plan for Ashburnham to be guidion ‘in her first troop of guards’ and described him in June as ‘a pretty fellow both in language and exercises becoming his age.’<sup>6</sup> After further manoeuvring he was gazetted in January 1707.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Following his father’s death, and his older brother’s elevation to the House of Lords, Ashburnham took over his brother’s seat of Hastings but his time in the Commons proved to be brief. In the summer of 1710, the unexpected death of his brother from smallpox propelled him into the Lords instead.<sup>8</sup> By August his new found status was also pushing him towards matrimony, and it was reported that he was to be married ‘very quickly’ to Lady Mary Butler, youngest daughter of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, ‘as soon as the writings can be done’.<sup>9</sup> By 23 Aug. it was reported that ‘all matters are concluded for the marriage’, which Swift called the ‘best match now in England’, as Ashburnham had £12,000 a year and ‘abundance of money’.<sup>10</sup> Both his own and his wife’s family traditions suggested that he would have Tory sympathies, but his military background had drawn him into Marlborough’s orbit. Thus, in August 1710 Anne Clavering reported that John Poulett*, Earl Poulett (a distant kinsman), had spent an hour trying to win Ashburnham over to the new ministry headed by Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, only to be told that ‘may my estate sink under ground, my tenants be ruined, my family perish, and myself damned if ever I give you a vote.’ Lady Clavering was delighted with the ‘glorious young rogue’ and concluded her account by writing ‘is this not a tight Whig? Thank God his brother made room for him’.<sup>11</sup> Not surprisingly, in October 1710 Harley listed him as a likely opponent of the ministry.</p><p>Ashburnham took his seat on the second day of the 1710 Parliament (27 Nov.) and attended on 58 days of the session, 51 per cent of the total. He took a particular interest in military affairs and his attendances in January and early February of 1711 coincided with discussions of the war in Spain. On 11 Jan. 1711 he joined with a group of Whig peers and entered two protests relating to the conduct of the war. The first was against the resolution that the defeat at Almanza was the responsibility of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] and General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope. The second was against the decision to reject petitions from Galway and Tyrawley. The following day he entered another protest at the decision of the House to censure the conduct of ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. On 3 Feb. he entered two further protests; both effectively defended the previous ministry against allegations of incompetence in the conduct of the war. He covered a short absence from Parliament between 9 and 13 Feb. by a proxy registered in favour of fellow Whig Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. Ashburnham was absent from 17 Mar. to 19 Apr. 1711, probably due to ill health, as on 20 Mar. he was reported to be ‘dead or dying of a pleurisy.’<sup>12</sup> He was present, though, on 24 Apr. when the bill for repairing the highways between Dunstable and Hockley (Hockliffe) was considered in a committee of the whole before receiving its third reading, then on 9 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference on amendments to the bill.</p><p>Ashburnham soon developed a reputation as a man about town, thus on 27 Nov. 1711, Lady Strafford was speculating on the duchess of Shrewsbury being ‘very coquet’ with him, and on the likelihood of a new opera singer becoming his mistress.<sup>13</sup> That same month, Swift had charged him with spreading a false rumour in a coffee house that Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley, the future 2nd earl of Oxford, had married the Newcastle heiress.<sup>14</sup> Ashburnham attended the prorogations on 13 and 27 Nov., and was present on the opening day of the session, 7 Dec. 1711. Evidently, he supported the amendment to the address to include a reference to ‘No Peace without Spain’, and his name was listed on a forecast of those peers who would support the presentation of the address on the following day. He was also present at a celebratory dinner held on the 8th along with Ossulston and a host of other Whig peers.<sup>15</sup> On 12 Dec. he registered his proxy in favour of William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire. Ashburnham had been forecast on 19 Dec. by Oxford as an opponent of the attempt to admit Scottish peers as peers of Great Britain, but with a query, which probably denotes his likely absence. The proxy was vacated by Ashburnham’s return to the House on 14 Jan. 1712. Ralph Bridges thought it worthy of note that on 20 May he voted against the passage of the bill to appoint commissioners to inquire into grants made since 1688.<sup>16</sup> He registered a proxy on 24 May in favour of Devonshire, next being recorded as present on 30 May. Thus, he was not recorded as present on 28 May 1712, although a printed list includes his name among those voting against an address to the queen that his father-in-law, Ormond, should act offensively against France in order to obtain a safe and honourable peace, Devonshire being on the other side of the question.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Ashburnham’s presumed support for the ministry in this division list is made more interesting because he was the most likely intended recipient of Swift’s pamphlet, published on 31 May, <em>Some Reasons to prove that no Person is obliged by his Principles, as a Whig, to oppose her Majesty or her present Ministry. In a Letter to A Whig Peer</em>.<sup>18</sup> Ashburnham, like the recipient, did vote for the ‘No Peace without Spain’ amendment to the address on 7 Dec. 1711; his ‘neighbour’ in Sussex, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, had been pivotal in that vote, and he was in possession of a ‘great patrimonial estate’. Most interestingly, the pamphlet referred to the failed grants’ bill (20 May) and to the loss of ‘your vote’, ‘a few days ago’, when the Whigs had been so confident of success as to encourage people to hire places in expectation of ministers being sent to the Tower, a reference to the vote of 28 May.<sup>19</sup> Tantalizingly, given the purpose of the pamphlet, Ashburnham does appear to have switched sides, for he supported the ministry on 7 June in a vote on whether to add words to the address in response to the queen’s speech communicating the terms of the peace.<sup>20</sup> Ashburnham had attended on 70 days of the session, 65 per cent of the total.</p><p>On 2 Jan. 1713, Swift noted that Lady Ashburnham had died at her ‘country house’, or as Thomas Bateman reported on 5 Jan. ‘suddenly on the road out of Sussex’, she being ‘with child and having a cold, Sir D[avid] Hamilton was sent for, who to prevent miscarriage, administered somewhat, or other, and she fell into convulsions’.<sup>21</sup> Ashburnham was now clearly in the Tory camp, for when Ormond conversed with Swift on 5 Jan. he referred to the political repercussions of her death, noting that ‘he was afraid the Whigs would get him again’.<sup>22</sup> His return to the Whigs was forestalled by his appointment on 26 Jan. 1713 as colonel of Ormond’s regiment of horse. Ashburnham attended the prorogations of 3 and 17 Feb. 1713. Swift included his name as a supporter of the ministry in the list that he drew up before the new session. Ashburnham was present on the opening day of the 1713 session, 9 Apr., attending on 48 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total. He was named to a select committee on the bill allowing his wife’s uncle, Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston and earl of Arran [I], to take the oaths relevant to his Irish offices in England. He was also expected to support the ministry over the French commercial treaty. It was presumably to ensure Ashburnham’s continuing allegiance to the Tories that Ormond appointed him deputy warden of the Cinque Ports in June 1713. With Ormond’s regiment slated for disbandment, Ashburnham was accommodated in July 1713 when William Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl of Portland, agreed to sell him the colonelcy of the first troop of horse guards.</p><p>Ashburnham missed the first few days of the 1714 session, not arriving until 2 March. He attended on 44 days of the session, 58 per cent of the total and was named only to the committee for privileges. On 5 Apr. he joined with Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, and William Dawes*, archbishop of York, in opposing the motion that the Hanoverian succession was safe under the queen’s government.<sup>23</sup> His rebellion proved to be temporary, for on 8 Apr. he was one of the ‘straggling Lords’ who returned to the court in order to amend the address to the queen on issuing a proclamation and reward for the capture of the Pretender, so that it could be issued when she deemed fit.<sup>24</sup> However, on 13 Apr. when the House came to debate the queen’s answer to their address on the Pretender of the 8th, the Whigs proposed a further address which was amended by the court. On the main amendment, Ashburnham joined other Hanoverian Tories in opposing the insertion of the term ‘and industriously’ into the address when referring to the fears and jealousies which had been ‘universally’ spread about the threats to the Protestant succession, which was carried for the ministry by two proxy votes.<sup>25</sup> This does not seem to have presaged any move away from the court in general, for on 21 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of Ormond. This proxy may have been necessary for on 24 Apr. it was reported that ‘this morning Lady Betty Stanley died of the smallpox. I believe her fortune comes to [her sister] Lady Anglesey who is to marry Lord Ashburnham.’<sup>26</sup> The proxy was vacated on his reappearance in the House on 30 April. Ashburnham was missing from the House from 8 May until 1 June: again this may have been connected to his forthcoming nuptials as his prospective bride may also have fallen ill of the smallpox.<sup>27</sup> At the end of May or beginning of June Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, listed Ashburnham as a supporter of the schism bill.</p><p>The prorogation on 9 July 1714 was followed on 24 July by his marriage to Lady Anglesey in the royal chapel; this match reinforced his Tory links, she being the sister-in-law of the current earl of Anglesey, and the daughter of Lady Elizabeth Butler, Ormond’s sister. The couple then left London for Sussex, but the death of the queen brought Ashburnham back to London, where he attended on nine of the 15 days of the August 1714 session.<sup>28</sup> By the end of August, Ashburnham was preparing for the next election. His Ampthill neighbour, Charles Bruce*, Baron Bruce of Whorlton, was informed by a Captain Rolt that Ashburnham had already been written to, it being ‘pretty difficult to find him at home, that we may meet together by your appointments, as soon as we can’ in order to make plans to prevent the Whigs winning the forthcoming elections in Bedfordshire.<sup>29</sup> In November 1714 Ashburnham was actively campaigning in the forthcoming Sussex contest for his brother Bertram.<sup>30</sup> In January 1715 his name was included on a list of Tories still in office, and he was clearly seen as a potential recruit to the Whig cause. Eventually, he attained office in the household of Prince Frederick and was promoted to an earldom. He died on 10 Mar. 1737 and was succeeded by his son, John Ashburnham<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Ashburnham.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
ASHBURNHAM, William (1679-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>ASHBURNHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1679–1710)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 21 Jan. 1710 as 2nd Bar. ASHBURNHAM. |
|
First sat 4 Feb. 1710; last sat 18 Apr. 1710 |
|
MP Hastings 1702-21 Jan. 1710. |
<p><em>b</em>. 21 May 1679, 1st s. of John Ashburnham*, 1st Bar. Ashburnham and Bridget, da. and h. of Walter Vaughan of Porthammel House, co. Brecon; bro. of John Ashburnham*, 3rd Bar. Ashburnham. <em>educ</em>. M. Foubert military academy.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 16 Oct. 1705, Catherine (1687-1710), da. and event. h. of Thomas Taylor of Clapham, Beds. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 16 June 1710; <em>will</em> 11 June, pr. 15 July 1710.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Ashburnham was a Member of the Commons when he succeeded to his father’s barony. As the Member for the family seat of Hastings he had established a reputation as a moderate Tory and Church man. His succession to the peerage coincided with the heightened political tensions caused by the trial of Dr. Sacheverell. He attended the House throughout Dr. Sacheverell’s trial and entered dissents to the failure of the attempt to adjourn the House on 14 Mar. and to the resolution on 16 Mar. that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment. On the list of those voting in the division on Sacheverell’s guilt on 20 Mar. he was marked as absent although present at the trial. He returned the following day when he entered a dissent to the decision to censure Sacheverell. Overall he sat on 24 days of the session, 50 per cent of the total after he first sat and was named to seven committees.</p><p>Ashburnham died on 16 June 1710 during the smallpox epidemic of that summer, as did his widow a few weeks later on 11 July. His will made a few days before his death left the majority of personal estate to his wife, together with the use of his house in St. James’s Square, which he had ‘lately’ purchased from William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire. He gave £5,000 to his brother, heir and executor, who succeeded him as 3rd Baron Ashburnham.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
ASTLEY, Isaac (c. 1613-62) |
<p><strong><surname>ASTLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Isaac</strong> (c. 1613–62)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 27 Feb. 1652 as 2nd Bar. ASTLEY. |
|
First sat 14 June 1660; last sat 19 May 1662 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1613,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Jacob Astley, Bar. Astley and Agnes, da. of Henry Imple of Blomersham/Bloumerckem, Holland. <em>m</em>. 27 Dec. 1650, Anne, 4th da. of Sir Francis Stydolfe (Stydolph) of Mickleham, Surr. and Mary Altham. 2s. 1da. <em>d.v.p.</em> kntd. 23 Feb. 1643. <em>d</em>. Sept. 1662.</p> |
|
|
<p>Astley’s father had already had a distinguished career as a soldier in Holland and Scandinavia when in 1640 he inherited the estates of his ‘cousin’, Sir John Astley<sup>‡</sup> (whose children had all predeceased him), the son of the Elizabethan courtier John Astley<sup>‡</sup>. His Civil War service was rewarded with a peerage in 1644, and having been captured by the parliamentarians at Stow on the Wold in 1646 and given his parole, he seems to have sat out the rest of the war and Interregnum at his Maidstone home, where he died on 27 Feb. 1652.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Little is known of Astley’s youth, although, aged about 15, he was the eldest of four sons naturalized by act of Parliament in 1628. By the time of his father’s death these three brothers were dead, the youngest, Bernard, having perished at the siege of Bristol in 1645. A younger brother, Edward, and a sister Elizabeth were naturalized by act in 1656; Edward served as a soldier with the Dutch, before his death at Maastricht in 1676.<sup>3</sup> At his father’s death in 1652 Astley inherited lands in Maidstone, including Maidstone Palace, Alsford and Boxley, Kent. Whether he was actually in England to take possession of those lands is uncertain, for Astley and his wife had received a pass on 30 Jan. 1651 to travel into Holland, and a younger son, Francis, was born in Delph (Delft) in about 1654.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Having taken his seat in the Lords on 14 June 1660, Astley was then present on 99 days of the remainder of the session, 82 per cent of the total. He was present on 13, 16, 17 and 22 Nov. 1660 to see through a bill to naturalize his son Francis (his eldest son had been born in England). On each day the bill was either the first item of business or close to the beginning of the day’s agenda which suggests that he was either very lucky or on good terms with those who managed the business of the House. He was less fortunate when the bill reached the Commons where, despite a reminder, it was lost at the end of the session.<sup>5</sup> However, Francis was included in the naturalization bill which passed in May 1663.<sup>6</sup> Astley did not attend the first part of the opening session of the Cavalier Parliament and was absent from a call of the House on 20 May 1661. He was present when the House resumed after its summer adjournment on 20 Nov. 1661, and attended on 59 days of the remainder of the session, 47 per cent of the total. On 24 Mar. 1662 he was given leave to be absent ‘for some time’, duly returning on 6 May. He last sat on the day Parliament was prorogued, 19 May 1662.</p><p>Astley died in September 1662, being succeeded by his son, Jacob Astley*, 3rd Baron Astley. He left no will, but on 6 May 1663 his widow proved the will of his father, the first baron, in the local church court rather than in the prerogative court of Canterbury.<sup>7</sup> An inventory was taken of Astley’s goods in Maidstone Palace on 28 Jan. 1663, including his parliamentary robes (valued at £30), but the total value of goods and personal estate was only £682 18<em>s</em>.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
ASTLEY, Jacob (1651-89) |
<p><strong><surname>ASTLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Jacob</strong> (1651–89)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. Sept. 1662 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. ASTLEY. |
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1673; last sat 4 Mar. 1689 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 13 Jan. 1651,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Isaac Astley*, 2nd Bar. Astley and Ann Stydolfe. <em>educ</em>. St. John’s, Camb. 1669. <em>m</em>. bet. 13 Feb. 1677 and 23 Jan. 1678,<sup>2</sup> Frances (c.1660-92), da. and coh. of Sir Richard Stydolfe, 1st bt. of Norbury, Mickleham, Surr. and Elizabeth, da. of Sir George Stonehouse<sup>‡</sup>, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 21 Mar. 1689; admon. 8 May 1689.</p> |
<p>Freeman, Maidstone 1683.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Astley’s life and parliamentary career is almost as obscure as that of his father. His grandfather’s will of February 1651, left ‘Jacob Astley my grandchild £5 to buy him a sword to maintain the honour of the name’.<sup>4</sup> In August 1666, Sir Jacob Astley<sup>‡</sup> wrote to a kinsman, Dr. Herbert Astley, about Lady Astley’s need for £60 and remitting it to Maidstone, noting that James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, had been at her house in Maidstone and might stay a long time.<sup>5</sup> Astley studied at Cambridge, being admitted in January 1669, although in June 1670, William Saywell wrote to Dr. Astley that Lord Astley’s return was ‘daily expected. I saw my Lady at London three days before Whitsuntide when she told he should return presently after that great feast after a full half year’s absence within a fortnight. I should be glad to be serviceable to a nobleman of his hopes were his diligence equal to his parts.’<sup>6</sup></p><p>At the beginning of January 1673, Dr. Astley, now dean of Norwich, approached Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, to take Astley under his wing and present him to the king. He stressed the services of the young man’s grandfather to the king and noted that before Parliament was scheduled to meet he would have attained his majority and be able to appear more publicly, ‘his modesty hath somewhat hitherto concealed him.’<sup>7</sup> Although the new session opened on 4 Feb. 1673, his writ of summons was not issued until 14 Feb., possibly prompted by a call of the House on the previous day. He took his seat four days later. He was added on 20 Feb. to the committees for privileges and petitions. He then absented himself from the House until mid-March, after which he attended the House almost daily until the adjournment on 29 March. He also attended when Parliament was prorogued on 20 October. Overall he was present on 14 days, 36 per cent of the total. He also attended on one of the four days of the short session which began on 27 October.</p><p>Astley was missing when the 1674 session convened on 7 Jan., being excused attendance on the 12 Jan., taking the oaths on the 15th and being added on the 16th to the sessional committees. Overall he attended on 22 days of the session, 58 per cent of the total, the highest of his parliamentary career. He was present for the opening of the first session of 1675 on 14 Apr. and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was present on 19 days of the session, 46 per cent of the total, with his attendance tailing off markedly towards the end of the session. In all he was named to a further three committees. He attended on the opening day of the session of October-November 1675, on 13 Oct., and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. However, he was present on only one other day, out of a possible 21 attendances.</p><p>At some point soon after the death of Sir Richard Stydolfe in February 1677, Astley and James Tryon married Sir Richard’s two daughters and co-heiresses, Frances and Margaret, then aged about 15 and 16 respectively. Astley and Tryon had to pay Stydolfe’s debts but seem to have regarded the investment as worthwhile since as a result they gained properties in the then fashionable Westminster parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields and in Surrey. They also found themselves in dispute with their mother-in-law over Sir Richard’s personal estate. In the course of the dispute Astley and Tryon assured the court that the Stydolfe sisters had married with the full approval of their guardians; Lady Stydolfe was equally insistent that the marriages had been contracted against her ‘will and liking’ and without the consent of their guardians.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Astley was back in Parliament for the opening of the 1677-8 session on 15 Feb. 1677, when he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. After attending nine of the first 17 sittings, his attendance thereafter was negligible, totalling only 22 days, 19 per cent overall. He was named to a further three committees. Despite his poor attendance, his political views were clear to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, who listed him as vile in his analysis of 1677-8. Although Astley had attended the prorogation of 11 May 1678, he was not present for the session of May-July 1678, which began on 23 May. Nor was he present when the next session began on 21 Oct. 1678, first attending on the 29th. He was present on ten days of the session, 17 per cent of the total.</p><p>Astley was missing when the new Parliament met on 6 Mar. 1679, and missed the remainder of the abortive first session which ended on 13 March. Although during March 1679 the various lists prepared by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, mark him either as an opponent or as doubtful, another list of those absent on 12 Mar. 1679, labelled him as a court lord. After attending on 18 Mar., on 20 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of Danby’s supporter, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, a peer linked to the family as Herbert Astley had once been his chaplain. The proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 2 May. He was then absent again until 8 May. On 10 May he voted against the appointment of a joint committee to consider proceeding against the impeached lords. He again absented himself after 14 May, possibly leaving London.<sup>9</sup> Astley had returned by 26 and 27 May when the main business before the House was the conference concerning the impeached peers; on the latter day, he also probably voted in favour of the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. Nine out his ten attendances had been in May. He attended 16 per cent of all sitting days in the second session of the Parliament.</p><p>Astley was absent when the 1680-1 Parliament convened on 21 Oct., first attending on the 30th. He was present on 12 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total. Two surviving division lists indicate that he voted against rejecting the exclusion bill on its first reading on 15 Nov. 1680, but, confusingly, a third list puts him on the other side of the question. Even if this third list refers to the first question of the day, on whether to put the question that the bill be rejected, it still leaves Astley’s intentions unclear. His last attendance of the session was on 7 Dec. 1680 when he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty.</p><p>Astley failed to attend the Oxford Parliament in 1681, when Danby expected him to be neutral on the issue of his bail. In 1683 he was one of a group of local gentlemen and nobility who offered to become freemen of Maidstone after the surrender of the town’s charter, which suggests sympathy for the Tory reaction.<sup>10</sup> He was present when James II’s Parliament opened on 19 May 1685, and attended on nine days, 17 per cent of the total, being named to one committee. He did not attend after the adjournment in July 1685, although he was present at the prorogation on 15 Feb. 1687. By then his support for James II and his policies seems to have become problematic. Canvassing lists during that year variously mark him as uncertain, opposed and undeclared. Subsequent events suggest that Danby was correct in labelling him as one of James II’s opponents.</p><p>Although Astley was not present at the Guildhall when the peers met on 11 Dec. 1688, he did attend on 24 Dec. 1688 when they met at the House of Lords to discuss the flight of the king. He also attended on Christmas Day when the assembled peers signed the two addresses, one summoning a Convention and the other asking the prince of Orange to take over the administration until then.<sup>11</sup></p><p>He was present for the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions the following day. He was then absent until 5 Feb. when Parliament discussed whether or not James II had abdicated. Astley was content to agree with the Commons over the use of the word abdicated and that the throne was vacant on 6 Feb., a vote for which Ralph Montagu*, 3rd Baron (later duke of) Montagu, later took the credit.<sup>12</sup> He took the oaths to the new regime on 2 Mar., although it may be indicative of his standing that he was recorded as Isaac, Lord Astley. In all he attended on ten days of the session, before his death on 21 Mar. 1689, 22 per cent of the available sittings. Although his wife had been pregnant in 1680, he had no surviving children.<sup>13</sup> His estate passed to his cousin and namesake Sir Jacob Astley, but the peerage was extinguished. When Anne Astley, a daughter of Edward Astley, the deceased younger brother of Baron Astley, sought naturalization, Sir Jacob, anxious to protect his interests, prepared a proviso to the effect that nothing in the bill should deprive him ‘of any estate right title interest claim or demand out of in or to any manors lands tenements or hereditaments of Jacob Lord Astley’.<sup>14</sup> The Stydolfe estates passed to Lady Frances’s nephew Charles Tyron.<sup>15</sup></p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
BATHURST, Allen (1684-1775) |
<p><strong><surname>BATHURST</surname></strong>, <strong>Allen</strong> (1684–1775)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. BATHURST; <em>cr. </em>27 Aug. 1772 Earl BATHURST. |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 28 Apr. 1769 |
|
MP Cirencester 1705-12. |
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Nov. 1684, s. and h. of Sir Benjamin Bathurst<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1704) of Paulersbury, Northants. and St. James’s Sq., Westminster; bro. of Benjamin<sup>‡</sup> and Peter Bathurst<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (Abel Boyer); Trinity, Oxf., matric. 13 May 1700. <em>m</em>. 6 July 1704, Catherine (1688-1768), da. of Sir Peter Apsley<sup>‡</sup>, kt. 4s. 5da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1704. <em>d</em>. 16 Sep. 1775; <em>will</em> 28 Apr. 1767-8 Dec. 1774, pr. 30 Oct. 1775.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 13 July 1742, treas. to prince of Wales 1756-60.</p><p>Commr. for taking subscriptions to S. Sea Co. 1711; capt. gent. pens. 1742-4; treas. to Prince of Wales 1757–60.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: Marble bust on monument by J. Nollekens, St John the Baptist, Cirencester, Gloucs.</p> |
<p>A vivacious and colourful figure until well into his ninetieth year, Allen Bathurst took his seat in the House of Lords in January 1712 as one of 12 new peers created by the Tory ministry of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford. Bathurst had been raised in court circles, as his father was a household official to Queen Anne and his mother a childhood friend of both Anne and her sister Queen Mary.<sup>2</sup> At his father’s death in 1704 he inherited estates said to be worth £7,000 a year, mainly centred on Paulersbury in Northamptonshire and Cirencester Park in Gloucestershire. The Cirencester estate carried with it the electoral interest that his father had built up. His landholdings were further augmented by much of the Apsley estate, worth £4,000 a year, which his wife inherited on the death of her brother in 1708.<sup>3</sup> By the time of his death in 1775, he was able to bequeath not only his real estate but numerous annuities and cash legacies amounting to more than £3,000.</p><p>What Bathurst did not inherit was his father’s political discretion. A Tory who made no bones about his hatred of Whiggery, he supported the highflying religious politics of Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, voted against the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell in 1710 and presented the Tory address from Gloucestershire against the Whig ministry later that year. With the Tory election victory of 1710, it was rumoured that he would be elevated to the peerage as part of a general promotion ‘but it won’t be until they see what strength they have in the House of Commons’.<sup>4</sup> More loyal to Henry St. John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, than to his Tory rival, Oxford, Bathurst nevertheless figured in Oxford’s plans and in December 1711 appeared in an Oxford memorandum as one of a number of potential new peers whose votes would be required to secure ratification of the peace. Bathurst was one of four members of the Tory Saturday dining club (to be elevated at this time. The other three, George Hay*, Baron Hay, George Granville*, Baron Lansdown, and Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham, were almost certainly more favoured by Oxford; Bathurst was of the lowest precedence, but he met Oxford’s fundamental criteria: family connection with the Commons and high social status.<sup>5</sup> On 2 Jan. 1712 he received his writ of summons and was introduced to the House between Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, and Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway. Bathurst proved an utterly reliable Tory presence in the Lords and attended this, his first session, for nearly 74 per cent of sittings. On 15 May 1712 he received the proxy of Thomas Foley*, Baron Foley (almost certainly for divisions on the grants bill). The proxy was vacated on 27 May. On 28 May 1712 Bathurst supported the ministry in the division on the restraining orders.<sup>6</sup> He was present on 21 June 1712 when the session adjourned and during the summer of 1712 and spring of 1713, Bathurst attended the House on six occasions for formal prorogations.</p><p>In Cirencester Bathurst ensured that his younger brother, Benjamin, replaced him in the Commons, causing considerable inconvenience to his erstwhile partner, the Tory Charles Coxe<sup>‡</sup> who was forced to renounce an interest that he had cultivated for more than 15 years and had to be found an alternative seat.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In March 1713 Bathurst was listed as a reliable supporter of the Oxford ministry. On 9 Apr. 1713 he attended the House for the first day of the new parliamentary session and attended for nearly 70 per cent of sittings. In June 1713 he was estimated as a supporter of legislation confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Attending sporadically for the remainder of the session, he was present on 16 July 1713 for the prorogation.</p><p>On 16 Feb. 1714 Bathurst attended the House for the first day of the new Parliament and thereafter attended the session for nearly 75 per cent of sittings. Estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a supporter of the schism bill, he attended the House regularly throughout spring 1714. On 9 June 1714 he acted as teller in the division of a committee of the whole House on the resumption of the House. On 12 June 1714 he received the proxy of Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley (vacated on the 14th). The proxy was probably given in anticipation of the schism bill division.</p><p>Bathurst attended the brief August 1714 session at the start of George I’s reign for nearly half of all sittings (seven in total). On 23 Sept. 1714 he again attended the House for the prorogation. After the accession of George I, he hoped to be part of a loyal Tory opposition; alienated by the king’s partisan preference for Whigs, Bathurst turned Jacobite, supported the Old Pretender with financial assistance and consistently opposed the ministries of Robert Walpole*, later earl of Orford, and the Pelhams. A member of the Leicester House faction that gathered around Frederick<sup>†</sup>, prince of Wales, in the 1740s, he naturally gravitated to Frederick’s son, the future George III. He was raised to an earldom in 1772. His active parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in detail in a subsequent volume. At the age of 91, Bathurst died at Cirencester on 16 Sept. 1775. He was buried alongside his wife in the Church of St. John the Baptist in Cirencester and was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest surviving son, Henry Bathurst*, 2nd earl Bathurst. The second earl destroyed the bulk of his father’s surviving correspondence, allegedly to protect his father’s political reputation.<sup>8</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
BEAUCLERK, Charles (1670-1726) |
<p><strong><surname>BEAUCLERK</surname></strong> (<strong>BEAUCLAIR</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1670–1726)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>27 Dec. 1676 (a minor) earl of BURFORD; <em>cr. </em>10 Jan. 1684 (a minor) duke of ST. ALBANS. |
|
First sat 11 Nov. 1691; last sat 9 Apr. 1725 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 8 May 1670, illegit. s. of King Charles II with Eleanor Gwyn (<em>d</em>.1687). <em>educ</em>. privately (M. de Gachon); travelled abroad (France) 1685. <em>m</em>. 17 Apr. 1694, Diana (<em>d</em>.1742), da. of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, 9s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), at least 1da. (<em>d.v.p.)</em><sup>1</sup> KG 1718. <em>d</em>. 10 May 1726; <em>will</em> 19 July 1694, pr. 25 Aug. 1726.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of hawks 1675-?1702; chief ranger, Enfield Chase 1684; gent. of the bedchamber (extra) 1697-1702; registrar, chancery 1698.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Freeman, Winchester by 1701, New Windsor 1716;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. Berks. 1714-<em>d.</em>; high steward, New Windsor 1716.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Col. Princess Anne of Denmark’s Regt. of Horse 1687-92; capt. band of gent. pensioners, 1693-1712,<sup>6</sup> 1714-<em>d.</em></p><p>Amb. extraordinary to France 1697-8.</p><p>FRS 1722.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1690-5, Metropolitan Museum, New York; British school, watercolour, 1680-1700, Royal collection.</p> |
<p>The eldest son of Charles II and his mistress, Eleanor (Nell) Gwyn, Charles Beauclerk and his half-brother, Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, were both reckoned by John Evelyn to be ‘very pretty boys’ and to be possessed of ‘more wit than the rest’ of the king’s offspring.<sup>8</sup> A later assessment reckoned Beauclerk ‘every way <em>de</em> <em>bon</em> <em>naturel</em>, well-bred, does not love business.’<sup>9</sup> An apocryphal, but probably not inaccurate, story told how Beauclerk acquired his surname and initial peerage title of earl of Burford as a result of his mother summoning her ‘little bastard’ while in the king’s hearing. When Charles took exception to her language, she explained that he had given the youngster no other name by which she could call him. The omission was then swiftly rectified.<sup>10</sup> Richmond’s appointment as a knight of the garter in the spring of 1681 was said to have provoked Nell Gwyn’s wrath that her own son had been overlooked, but by the opening of 1682 it was reported that the king intended ‘all favour that the law can afford’ to his son.<sup>11</sup> A scheme proposed by Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, shortly before his death that Burford marry his illegitimate daughter, Ruperta, and have his garter was unsuccessful.<sup>12</sup> In 1684, shortly after the death of Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, Burford was promoted to the dukedom of St Albans. In May it was speculated that the king would marry him to the daughter of Sir John Cutler<sup>‡</sup>, whose fortune was rumoured to be £100,000.<sup>13</sup> Negotiations for the match had been in train since the winter of 1677, but this marriage also failed to transpire.<sup>14</sup> Early the following year Burford was granted the reversion of the office of master of the hawks, in spite of the claims of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, that the place belonged to him as one of his family’s perquisites.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Plans had been afoot in the winter of 1684 for St Albans to travel to France to complete his education, but it was not until after the accession of his uncle that he was able to make the journey, under the tutelage of a Huguenot, de Gachon.<sup>16</sup> He remained there until December 1686.<sup>17</sup> In the spring of 1687 his mother came under considerable pressure from the king to dismiss de Gachon and replace him with a Catholic. The king also insisted on the boy’s conversion.<sup>18</sup> The incident was said to have caused Gwyn such disquiet that she fell into an apoplexy from which it was thought unlikely she would survive.<sup>19</sup> With Gwyn apparently on the point of death, it was reported that St Albans was to quit England for Hungary to participate in the war against the Turks, where it was thought he would oblige his uncle by converting to Rome.<sup>20</sup> His mother’s death in November was said to have been the result of her ‘inexpressible grief’ at the enforced dismissal of de Gachon and the appointment of a Catholic named Wyvill as her son’s tutor.<sup>21</sup> St Albans was the principal beneficiary of her estate which was variously valued at £4,000 per annum, £30,000 or £100,000.<sup>22</sup> The inheritance of Nell Gwyn’s former home of Burford House in Windsor provided St Albans with an interest in the corporation for which several of his sons would later sit as Members of the Commons, although it was his half-brother, George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, who exercised the most obvious interest in the town as constable and high steward from 1701 until his death.<sup>23</sup></p><p>St Albans benefited from the king’s decision to purge his younger daughter’s household at the close of 1687 when he was appointed colonel of Princess Anne’s regiment of horse in succession to Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale.<sup>24</sup> The following year he travelled to the continent once more, where he was reported (inaccurately) to have converted to catholicism.<sup>25</sup> That summer (1688) he set out for Hungary and was present at the capture of Belgrade, serving with the Imperial army.<sup>26</sup> In his absence his regiment, under the command of Thomas Langston, was one of the first to desert to William of Orange.<sup>27</sup></p><p>St Albans seems at first to have remained outwardly loyal to his uncle, and in January 1689 it was noted that he had waited on the exiled king at Paris.<sup>28</sup> By the summer of that year he had returned to England when he approached Charles Talbot*, earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, for his assistance on behalf of one of his gentlemen of horse.<sup>29</sup> Marked underage at calls of the House on 31 Mar. 1690 and 2 Nov. 1691 (on the last occasion inaccurately), St Albans finally took his seat in the House on 11 Nov 1691, introduced between his half-brother, Northumberland, and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>30</sup> He was thereafter present on 56 per cent of all sitting days, and on 23 Feb. 1692 he subscribed two protests against the poll bill. He resumed his seat in the ensuing session on 4 Nov. 1692 after which he was present on almost 58 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to two committees. Absent for a few days towards the close of the month, on 28 Nov. he registered his proxy with Northumberland, which was vacated by his return to the House on 6 December. Although St Albans voted in favour of committing the place bill on 31 Dec., on 3 Jan. 1693 he appears to have changed his mind and voted against the measure. On 4 Feb. he voted with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>St Albans travelled to the continent again in May to take part in the summer campaigning season. On 29 July he was present at the battle of Landen, where it was reported inaccurately that he had been killed. On his return, in recognition of his military services, he was appointed to the captaincy of the gentlemen pensioners, vacant by the death of John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace. St Albans’ efforts to reform the pensioners met with spirited resistance, and the following year he was ordered to leave things as they had been under the former captain.<sup>31</sup> St Albans resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on 38 per cent of all sitting days. On 14 Nov. he introduced his half-brother, Richmond. The same month he appointed Henry Barnsley to act as receiver for his pension on the Irish establishment.<sup>32</sup> An account of the debates surrounding the passage of the triennial bill suggested that St Albans was one of a clutch of peers to lose interest in the affair early on as they were all said to have ‘gone off’ with the fate of the bill still in the balance.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Ten years after the first rumours had circulated of possible marriage alliances for St Albans, on 17 Apr. 1694 he was married to Lady Diana de Vere, daughter of the impecunious 20th earl of Oxford.<sup>34</sup> While the alliance promised little in the way of financial reward, it is easy to see how Oxford and St Albans may have been sympathetic to one another, both being committed soldiers. As if to confirm this, a little over two months after his marriage, St Albans again joined the campaign in Flanders, this time in company with James Hamilton*, styled earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and duke of Brandon).<sup>35</sup> Despite his apparently substantial inheritance from his mother, St Albans’ lack of landed estate and reliance on the income from offices meant that he was rarely able to support his status as a duke adequately.<sup>36</sup> In response to this, later that summer, the king and queen granted him an annuity of £2,000 ‘for the better support of his dignity’.<sup>37</sup> Almost drowned on his return to England in October, he returned to the House for the new session on 12 Nov. 1694 and the same day introduced John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, in his new dignity as marquess of Normanby.<sup>38</sup> St Albans was excused at a call of the House on 26 Nov. and resumed his seat the following day, after which he was present on approximately 43 per cent of all sitting days. Absent from the first few days of January 1695, on 12 Jan. St Albans registered his proxy with Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, which was vacated by his return to the House on 24 January.</p><p>St Albans again served abroad during the summer, but he returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov., after which he was present on just under half of all sitting days. On 11 Apr. 1696 he received his father-in-law’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. St Albans took his seat in the second session on 2 Nov., after which he was present for 55 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to two committees. On 30 Nov. he was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning the waiving and resuming of privilege, and on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of attainting Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. St Albans registered his proxy with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, on 19 Feb. 1697 which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 2 March. On 10 Apr. he was nominated a manager of the conference for the bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices.</p><p>In March St Albans succeeded to the offices of master of the hawks and registrar of the court of chancery, the reversion of which he had held since 1675, thereby adding a further £1,500 to his annual income. The following month he was appointed an extra gentleman of the bedchamber. On campaign again in the summer, on his return the king demonstrated his attachment to the duke by presenting him with a gift of spotted coach horses.<sup>39</sup> St Albans took his seat in the new session on 3 Dec., but the same month he was selected to undertake an embassy to Paris to compliment the French king on the recent marriage of the duke of Burgundy with the princess of Piedmont.<sup>40</sup> According to one report he was ‘kindly received’ but was not granted the same honour as his half-brother, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, had been on a prior occasion.<sup>41</sup> More suited to the life of a soldier than that of a diplomat, St Albans’ behaviour in France provoked complaints from his hosts, and he departed under a cloud at the close of January 1698 having failed to give the customary presents to the <em>introducteurs</em> and leaving his debts unpaid. He was also compelled to borrow £150 from Charles Paston<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Paston, to avoid having his baggage confiscated, which he then neglected to repay.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Having resumed his seat in the House on 9 Feb. 1698, St Albans was then absent for the majority of the following month, and on 4 Mar. he registered his proxy with Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle. When Albemarle also absented himself on 7 Mar., both his and St Albans’ proxies were registered on 10 Mar. with Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, brother-in-law of St Albans’ old comrade-in-arms, Lord George Hamilton, later earl of Orkney [S]. St Albans’ proxy was then vacated when he resumed his seat at the close of the month. Travelling to London from Richmond on 21 June, St Albans’ military bearing served him well when he narrowly avoided the fate of his brother, Northumberland, and a number of others who were robbed by highwaymen on Hounslow Heath. According to the report the assailants thought St Albans ‘too strong to attempt him’.<sup>43</sup> Present in the House the following day, on 30 June he received Jersey’s proxy which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>St Albans took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, but he attended just 28 per cent of all sitting days in the first session and was named to no committees. The following September he joined a number of predominantly Tory peers at a dinner hosted by Henry d’Auverquerque*, earl of Grantham.<sup>44</sup> He then resumed his seat in the second session on 16 Nov. 1699, and on 27 Nov. he appeared with Ormond, Richmond and Oxford in king’s bench to stand bail for Captain Kirke (probably his wife’s cousin, Percy Kirke, the future Lieutenant General Kirke), who stood indicted for the killing of Popham Seymour Conway in a duel. Despite the presence of three dukes and an earl, the judges refused Kirke bail.<sup>45</sup> Present for approximately a third of all sitting days in the session, St Albans again appears to have been a somewhat inactive Member, preferring to divide his time between attendance in the House and hunting parties in company with Richmond and Hugh Cholmondeley*, Viscount Cholmondeley [I], (also Baron and later earl of Chomondeley in the English peerage).<sup>46</sup></p><p>St Albans took a controversial part in the elections for Winchester in January 1701, where he had been elected a freeman presumably on the interest of the high steward, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton. Appearing with Richmond and Bolton on behalf of Lord William Powlett<sup>‡</sup> (Bolton’s brother) and George Rodney Brydges<sup>‡</sup>, the three dukes’ participation in the election became the subject of a petition in the Commons from the defeated candidate, Frederick Tylney<sup>‡</sup>. The latter protested that their interference was contrary to a Commons’ order barring peers from voting in elections (all three had exercised their rights as freemen and voted at the poll for Powlett and Brydges).<sup>47</sup> Although Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> reported that, ‘there was never a fairer cause’ than that of Tylney, Powlett and Brydges, the elections were permitted to stand.<sup>48</sup></p><p>St Albans took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Feb. after which he was present on approximately one third of all sitting days; but, having played such a prominent part in the elections he was again inactive during the session and was named to just one committee. On 17 June he voted in favour of acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers.</p><p>St Albans again formed one of a hunting trio with Richmond and Cholmondeley in the early autumn of 1701 before returning to the House for the second Parliament of that year on 30 December.<sup>49</sup> He was thereafter present for 39 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to eight committees. Missing at a call on 5 Jan. 1702, on 5 Mar. the House ordered the seizure of Benjamin Hardy and George Simpson for arresting one of St Albans’ servants contrary to his privilege.</p><p>St Albans took his seat in the new Parliament following the king’s death on 21 Oct. 1702. Absent for the following three weeks, on 4 Nov. he registered his proxy with Essex, which was vacated by his return on 12 November. He was then present for approximately a third of all sitting days and was named to six committees. On 9 Dec. he signed the resolution against tacking foreign material to supply bills, and in January 1703 he was estimated an opponent of the occasional conformity bill. In March St Albans again lost out to his brother, Northumberland, when he was disappointed in his efforts to succeed to the colonelcy of his late father-in-law’s cavalry regiment.<sup>50</sup> In advance of the new session Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, listed St Albans as one of those peers thought likely to absent themselves from discussions of the occasional conformity bill. Sunderland then listed St Albans as a doubtful opponent of the measure in a second forecast drawn up late in November or early December. Having taken his seat in the new session on 6 Dec. (after which he was present on just 26 per cent of all sitting days), St Albans voted against passing the occasional conformity bill on 14 December. Three days later he was present at a dinner hosted by Bolton at which were a number of other opponents of the bill, including Richmond, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, and Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>51</sup></p><p>St Albans was absent from the House on 4 Jan. 1704 and, with a number of other peers, was sent a letter requiring his presence on 12 January. He duly resumed his seat on that day and in February was one of those persons granted relief in the resumptions bill.<sup>52</sup> Absent from the opening of the new session St Albans was excused at a call of the House on 23 November. He took his seat on 10 Jan. 1705 but attended for just three days before quitting the session. On 27 Jan. he again registered his proxy with Godolphin, which was vacated by the close: a rare instance at this juncture of a Whig leaving his proxy in the hands of someone from another party.<sup>53</sup> In a list drawn up before the spring of 1705 St Albans was noted as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Oct. but was again infrequent in his attendance. Excused at a call on 12 Nov., in all he attended on just 18 days of the 96-day session. He returned to the House for the second session on 3 Dec. 1706 after which he was present on 22 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1707 he was present at a political dinner attended by Bolton, Ossulston, Wharton and a number of other Whig peers.<sup>54</sup> On 14 Mar. he registered his proxy with Cholmondeley (who had also been present at the February dinner), which was vacated by the close.</p><p>St Albans attended just one day of the new Parliament of Great Britain on 30 Oct. 1707. In November he was disappointed of his expectation of a substantial legacy from John Fitzgerald, 18th earl of Kildare [I], who was said to have promised to make St Albans his heir.<sup>55</sup> Kildare devised the majority of his estates instead to St Albans’ half-brother, Richmond.<sup>56</sup> Marked a Whig in a list of party classifications on c. May 1708, St Albans returned to the House for the new Parliament on 16 Dec. after which he was present for 21 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers and on 23 Feb. was named to the committee investigating affairs concerning his late would-be benefactor, Kildare.</p><p>St Albans’ attendance of the House improved slightly during the second session of November 1709, of which he attended almost 30 per cent of all sitting days, and on 20 Mar. 1710 he found Henry Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Marked doubtful by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, in advance of the new Parliament, St Albans took his seat on 25 Nov. 1710 but was thereafter present on just 12 days of the 113-day session. On 9 Feb. 1711 he was again present at one of the dinners hosted by Ossulston, and on 29 Apr. he registered his proxy with Richmond, which was vacated by the close.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Financial concerns continued to plague St Albans. During the summer his duchess took it upon herself to petition Harley (now earl of Oxford) for his assistance in ensuring the payment of arrears due to St Albans for his office of master of the hawks and of a grant made to him of the customs on logwood.<sup>58</sup> St Albans’ dependence on Oxford perhaps induced the treasurer, in December, to note the duke as a possible supporter and on 2 Dec. as one of those peers to be canvassed on the question of No Peace without Spain. St Albans was also one of those interviewed by Queen Anne in advance of the session in the hopes of securing his support for the government’s peace policy, but in spite of such attentions St Albans’ attendance remained relatively infrequent following his resumption of his seat on 7 Dec.: he was present on less than a fifth of all sitting days.<sup>59</sup> On 8 Dec. he was marked as an opponent of the court in an assessment of voting intentions concerning the presentation of the address containing the No Peace without Spain motion, and on 10 Dec. he was noted as one of those office holders who had defied the ministry on the issue. Present at one of Ossulston’s political dinners on 12 Dec., the same day St Albans registered his proxy with James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley, which was vacated by his return to the House on 14 Jan. 1712. On 14 Dec. it was reported that he and Cholmondeley were likely to be put out of office for their opposition to the ministry over the peace, and on 19 Dec. he was forecast as being opposed to permitting Hamilton to take his seat in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon.</p><p>As anticipated, St Albans was removed from his captaincy of the gentlemen pensioners in January 1712 and replaced with the reluctant Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort.<sup>60</sup> On news of his displacement St Albans assured William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, that he had ‘always endeavoured to perform his duty to her majesty and shall always acquiesce in her pleasure’ and that he would meanwhile ‘be contented to stay in the country and take care of his numerous family.’<sup>61</sup> St Albans received Berkeley’s proxy on 4 Feb., which was vacated by the earl’s resumption of his seat on 11 February. In spite of her husband’s loss of office, the duchess continued to petition Oxford for satisfaction of his arrears of pay during the summer of 1712, bitter at the way in which he was overlooked while his brothers’ claims were honoured: ‘we are nine quarters behind upon our several branches at lady day last, whilst the provision made for my lord’s brothers is duly paid every quarter.’<sup>62</sup> Absent from the House after 27 Feb., on 17 May St Albans again registered his proxy with Berkeley, and on 1 June he was listed by Oxford as a doubtful court supporter. The eventual payment of just half of the arrears failed to satisfy the duchess, who again appealed to Oxford for assistance in December. Throwing herself on his mercy she outlined the perilous state of the family finances, made the more pressing by St Albans’ poor health and the imminent departure of one of their sons into the navy.<sup>63</sup></p><p>St Albans was again included on one of Oxford’s lists of peers to be canvassed in advance of the new session in February 1713, but the following month, having presumably failed to win him over to the court, Oxford added his name to Swift’s assessment of those expected to oppose the ministry. St Albans took his seat in the House on 16 Apr. but attended just eight days of the session (approximately 11 per cent of the whole). In late May Oxford listed him as a peer to be contacted over the French commercial treaty, but in June he was again estimated as likely to desert the ministry over the measure.</p><p>St Albans was included in a list of poor lords thought likely to support the accession of the House of Hanover out of principle at the close of July. The same document recommended that he should be awarded a pension of £1,000 by the new dynasty. In August the duchess of St Albans again upbraided Oxford for his failure to ensure the payment of arrears, claiming that they had received only £300 and were still owed ‘upward of seven thousand pounds … which are almost the only provision which was granted by King Charles the second to support my lord’s honour and quality.’<sup>64</sup> Probably suffering from poor health once more, St Albans retreated to Bath in October where it was reported he proposed ‘to stay all the winter and follow the method he took the last’ by putting himself ‘at the head of a newly erected society of Whigs’ dubbed the Hanover Club.<sup>65</sup> The same month one of St Albans’ contacts, Daniel Burgess, was reported as having arrived in Hanover where it was speculated that he was ‘employed by some who are no friends to the ministry.’<sup>66</sup></p><p>Absent from its opening St Albans finally took his seat in the 1713 Parliament on 23 Feb. 1714 but attended just five days in all. On 12 Mar. he wrote to William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, enclosing his proxy, not doubting ‘the safety of it in your lordship’s hands’ and which he hoped Cowper would enter ‘when you judge there will be an occasion for it.’<sup>67</sup> The proxy was duly registered on 23 March. Forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as an opponent of the schism bill in late May or early June, St Albans returned to the House on 1 Aug., attending ten days of the brief 15-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death.</p><p>St Albans’ fortunes revived under the new dynasty. Restored to his captaincy of the gentlemen pensioners, in November 1714 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Berkshire while his duchess was made groom of the stole to the new princess of Wales.<sup>68</sup> On the death of his brother Northumberland in 1716, St Albans was also elected to the high stewardship of New Windsor.<sup>69</sup> Taking his seat in the first Parliament of the new reign on 17 Mar. 1715, St Albans continued to attend with slightly increased frequency than hitherto until 1725, sitting for the final time on 9 April. Details of the latter part of his career will be considered in the second phase of this work.</p><p>In poor health for the final few years of his life, St Albans died at Bath on 10 May 1726 and was buried at Westminster Abbey. Of his surviving sons, six served as Members of the Commons (four of them for New Windsor).<sup>70</sup> One of them, Vere Beauclerk*, was later promoted to the Lords as Baron Vere of Hanworth. A seventh son, James Beauclerk*, entered the church and rose to become bishop of Hereford. Administration of St Albans’ estate was granted to his widow following the death of each of the executors named in his will during his lifetime.<sup>71</sup> He was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, also Charles Beauclerk*, as 2nd duke of St Albans.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BELASYSE, Henry (1666-91) |
<p><strong><surname>BELASYSE</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1666–91)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 10 Sept. 1689 as 2nd Bar. BELASYSE. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 6 Aug. 1666, o.s. of Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>, KB of Worlaby, Lincs. and Susan, da. and coh. of Sir William Armyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. of Osgodby, Lincs. <em>educ.</em> travelled abroad (tutor, Sir John Lethcott).<sup>1</sup> <em>m.</em> c.1689, Anne, da. of Francis Brudenell, <em>styled</em> Bar. Brudenell, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. c. 21 Aug. 1691;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 11 May, pr. 13 Sept. 1691.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Henry Belasyse was the only son of Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup> who lost his life from wounds inflicted by his friend Tom Porter, a son of Endymion Porter<sup>‡</sup>, in a drunken duel in late July 1667.<sup>4</sup> Sir Henry’s widow was created in April 1674 <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Belasyse of Osgodby reputedly as recompense for desisting from her claims on James Stuart*, duke of York, who was said to have given her a promise of marriage.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Henry Belasyse succeeded to his grandfather’s peerage and adherence to the Catholic faith in September 1689 but never took his seat in the House, disabled from sitting by his religion. He was among those suspected Jacobite peers apprehended by the government at the time of the invasion scare of the summer of 1690, and bailed later that October.<sup>6</sup> He died, without heirs, on or just before 21 Aug. 1691, upon which the short-lived Belasyse barony became extinct.<sup>7</sup> His widow, chief legatee and executrix Anne, the daughter of Francis Brudenell, styled Lord Brudenell, the heir presumptive (before his early death in 1698) of Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, married within two years of Belasyse’s death Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BELASYSE, John (1615-89) |
<p><strong><surname>BELASYSE</surname></strong> (<strong>BELLASIS</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1615–89)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>27 Jan. 1645 Bar. BELASYSE. |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 1 Aug. 1678 |
|
MP Thirsk 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.)-6 Sept. 1642. |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 June 1615, 2nd s. of Sir Thomas Belasyse<sup>†</sup>, 2nd bt. (later Visct. Fauconberg) of Newburgh Priory, Coxwold, Yorks. (N. Riding) and Barbara (<em>d</em>. 18 Mar. 1619), da. of Sir Henry Cholmley<sup>‡</sup>, of Whitby, Yorks. (N. Riding); bro. of Hon. Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Camb.? admitted c.1627?;<sup>1</sup> ‘Acad. of Signior Arnolfen’, Paris, France, c.1633-5;<sup>2</sup> G. Inn, admitted 16 March 1641. <em>m.</em> (1) by 11 Feb. 1637, Jane (<em>d.</em> bef. 12 Dec. 1657), da. of Sir Robert Boteler, of Watton Woodhall, Herts., 3s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) c. July 1659, Anne (<em>d.</em>1662), da. and coh. of Sir Robert Crane of Chilton, Suff., wid<em>.</em> of Sir William Armyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. <em>s.p</em>; (3) by 18 June 1666,<sup>3</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1694), da. of John Paulet*, 5th mq. of Winchester, 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 9da. (5 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d.</em> 10 Sept. 1689; <em>will</em> 22 Apr.-1 May 1689, pr. 7 May 1690.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. gent. pens. 1667-72;<sup>5</sup> PC 17 July 1686-?;<sup>6</sup> first ld., of the treasury 4 Jan. 1687-30 Nov. 1688;<sup>7</sup> chan. (in common), duchy of Lancaster 1687-8.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Commr. array, Yorks., Lincs. 1642, sewers, Lincs. and Newark hundred 1660, 1664, Yorks. (E. Riding), 1664, 1666, Hull 1667;<sup>9</sup> corporations, Hull 1662;<sup>10</sup> ld. lt. Yorks. (E. Riding), 1660-73; high steward, Hull 1670-3.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Capt., coy of horse 1642-?; col., regt. of ft. (roy.) 1642-4; gov., York and lt. gen., Yorks. Jan.-Apr. 1644, Newark 1646; capt. gen., King’s Lifeguard of Horse, Sept. 1645-May 1646;<sup>12</sup> gov., Newark and lt. gen., Notts., Lincs. and Rutland Oct. 1645-May 1646;<sup>13</sup> col., regt. of ft. July-Oct. 1660, Jan.-May 1673;<sup>14</sup> gov., Hull 16 Aug. 1660-73;<sup>15</sup> gen., capt. gen. and c.-in-c., Tangiers 1665-7.<sup>16</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Gilbert Jackson, 1636, NPG 5948; line engraving by Robert White, aft. Sir Anthony van Dyck, late 17th century, NPG D29422; miniature by Samuel Cooper, Victoria and Albert Museum.</p> |
<p>John Belasyse was a younger son in one of Yorkshire’s leading gentry families, based primarily in the North Riding but with estates in north Lincolnshire as well. One of these, Worlaby, was settled on him upon his marriage in 1637, which gave him a lifelong interest in the Humberside region. John followed his father, Sir Thomas Belasyse<sup>†</sup> (Viscount Fauconberg from 1643) in becoming a Catholic royalist. He left the Commons in September 1642 and became one of the leading royalist commanders in the civil wars. He was defeated and captured by Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S], at Selby on 11 Apr. 1644 but was released from captivity in the Tower in January 1645 and upon his reunion with Charles I was created Baron Belasyse of Worlaby. In the autumn of 1645 Charles commissioned him captain general of the lifeguard of horse and governor of Newark-on-Trent. He belligerently and defiantly maintained this garrison, the last stand of the royalists, during a 26-week siege until the king, handing himself over to the Scots, ordered him to surrender it, which was effected 8 May 1646.<sup>22</sup></p><p>From the early 1650s Belasyse became a member of the ‘Sealed Knot’ and spent much of that decade under the suspicion of the council of state and imprisoned in the Tower.<sup>23</sup> Yet royalist leaders did not fully trust him; he did not appear in arms during any of the rebellions of the 1650s, and was not entrusted with a role in the rising of August 1659.<sup>24</sup> He may have been hesitant to act owing to his growing family and local connections with prominent members of the Interregnum regime. Fellow Yorkshireman Col. John Lambert<sup>‡</sup> procured overseas passes for him and protected him before the council of state.<sup>25</sup> At the Restoration, when the tables were turned and Lambert was arraigned and imprisoned, Belasyse held Lambert’s Yorkshire estates in trust for the benefit of his wife and children.<sup>26</sup> Belasyse’s nephew Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, son of his elder brother, Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>, married Mary, the daughter of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> in 1657. In 1659 Belasyse himself married as his second wife Anne, the widow of Sir William Armine<sup>‡</sup>, son and namesake of the leading Parliamentarian and member of the council of state, Sir William Armine<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>In early May 1660 Belasyse was among those peers who had been ennobled or promoted by Charles I after 1642 who demanded entrance to the Convention House of Lords from George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle. Monck rebuffed their request, telling Belasyse himself ‘that our desire had raised much noises’ among the Presbyterian peers already in the House.<sup>27</sup> Belasyse did not sit in the House for the first time until 1 June 1660, the day after the House agreed to admit the Oxford creations according to the king’ request. He was not prominent in the Convention, only attending just a little over a quarter of its meetings until the dissolution on 29 Dec. 1660. His absence was most likely caused by the responsibilities in Lincolnshire and Humberside that he took on in the first weeks of the Restoration. His influence in this region was quickly recognized and he was commissioned lord lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire on 26 July 1660 and governor of the garrison of Kingston-upon-Hull later in December. It was probably because of his intention to take up his lord lieutenancy that on 23 July the House granted Belasyse leave to be absent ‘for some time’. He registered his proxy with his fellow former royalist officer Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, two days later; it was not vacated until Belasyse’s return to the House on 13 Nov. 1660. Through his lieutenancy of the East Riding and local landholding Belasyse was able to exert electoral influence in the Humber region, and he almost certainly had a prominent role in the selection of his former subordinate officer at Newark and current lieutenant governor at Hull, Anthony Gilby<sup>‡</sup>, as Member for Hull in 1661.</p><p>Belasyse was more active and attentive in the first session, in 1661-2, of the Cavalier Parliament, when he came to 71 per cent of the sitting days, and most particularly in the early meetings of spring 1661 before the summer recess, when he was present at just over three-quarters of the meetings. He was there on 11 May 1661 when he helped to introduce George Booth*, as the newly created Baron Delamer. He took an active part in legislation concerning fen drainage, particularly in Lincolnshire, and on both 10 and 19 June 1661 chaired meetings of the committees dealing with bills for Lindsey Level, Hatfield Chase and the fenlands drained by Sir Anthony Thomas. He reported the bill on Lindsey Level to the House on 21 June as fit to pass with some amendments.<sup>28</sup> In the part of the session after the summer recess (when he attended 68 per cent of the meeting days) he was appointed on 4 Mar. 1662 to the committee for the bill to drain Antholne Level in Lincolnshire. At the prorogation, on 19 May 1662, the House appointed Belasyse as one of a delegation of four peers to attend the king to advise him to protect the works on Bedford Level, despite Parliament’s failure to pass an act concerning those works.</p><p>He was involved in other matters which had a Yorkshire and Humberside dimension to them. On 1 July 1661 he was placed on the committee to consider the former proceedings concerning the court of York for the northern counties and the petition submitted to revive that court, which he himself had signed.<sup>29</sup> Just before the recess he was placed on the committees for both the militia and the corporation bills and after the latter measure’s passage he was not surprisingly appointed a commissioner to enforce the terms of the act in Hull.<sup>30</sup> He was specifically added, on 6 Dec. 1661, to the committee for the bill concerning Trinity Church in Hull. He later chaired, on the two separate days 17 Feb. and 15 Apr. 1662, meetings of the committee on the bill to regulate cloth manufacture in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and he reported the bill as fit to pass with amendments the following day.<sup>31</sup> Belasyse also signed the protest of 6 Feb. 1662 against the passage of the bill to restore to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, lands he had legally conveyed during the Interregnum. Belasyse’s name appears in two contemporary manuscript lists of the protesters to this bill, though his signature was among those cut off from the original protest when the manuscript Journal was bound up in volumes, and consequently omitted from the official Journal when it was printed in the eighteenth century.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Belasyse only came to just over half of the meeting days of the session of 1663 and left the session early on 3 June 1663. Six days later he registered his proxy with Albemarle. Through this proxy Belasyse was considered by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, to be a supporter of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon in July. Belasyse was back in the House on 21 Mar. 1664 and came to all but three of the meetings of that short session. Among the four committees to which he was named was that for the bill to sell part of the lands of William Armine<sup>‡</sup> at Ingoldsby in Lincolnshire to raise portions for his two daughters. Belasyse took a keen personal interest in this bill as he was closely connected to the Armine family. As noted above, his second wife Anne had been Armine’s widow and in October of that same year Belasyse arranged the marriage of his only son from his first marriage, Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>, to his stepsister, Susan Armine, the younger daughter of Anne and the late Sir William. Susan Armine’s portion was at stake in this bill. On 21 Apr. 1664 Belasyse presented the committee considering the bill with a paper attesting to the consent of all parties involved.<sup>33</sup> In the following session of 1664-5 he came to 69 per cent of the sitting days and was named to four committees, including the bill for Deeping Fen. He last sat in the House in this session on 24 Feb. 1665 and on that day registered his proxy with James Stuart*, duke of York.</p><p>What prompted his departure and his royal proxy recipient was his appointment earlier in the year as captain general and commander-in-chief of Tangier. He received his formal instructions for this mission on 24 Feb. 1665 and set off almost immediately.<sup>34</sup> Belasyse, however, returned from Tangier seemingly prematurely, in late April 1666, leaving his lieutenant governor Henry Norwood<sup>‡</sup> in charge.<sup>35</sup> Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup>, prominent members of the Tangier Committee, thought that both the baron and Norwood were ‘men that do only mind themselves’ by which ‘the garrison will never come to anything’. Pepys had many dealings with Belasyse upon his return and considered him dishonest, rapacious and greedy, ‘as very a false villain as ever was born’, particularly when it also became evident that he was trying to sell his governorship to the highest bidder and procure illicit profits through prize ships.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Having returned from Tangier, Belasyse was able to sit in 84 per cent of the sitting days of the turbulent session of 1666-7. On 30 Oct. 1666 he was placed on a group of 12 members who were to join with a similar group from the Commons to present Parliament’s vote against the importation of French commodities to the king. The following day he helped to introduce into the House Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice. On 24 Nov. fellow Catholic Marmaduke Langdale*, 2nd Baron Langdale, registered his proxy with Belasyse for the remainder of the session. At this time, Belasyse’s son and heir Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup> was returned for the Humberside borough of Great Grimsby in a by-election on 6 Nov. 1666. Sir Henry was killed in a drunken duel in August 1667, leaving Belasyse without a direct male heir.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Belasyse’s early departure from Tangier did not sit at all well with Clarendon, York or Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington. They all reflected severely on him at a meeting of the Tangier committee in February 1667 but none of their criticisms, at least according to Pepys, appear to have troubled Belasyse at all.<sup>38</sup> A convenient way out of the impasse was provided by the old earl of Cleveland’s death on 25 Mar. 1667, by which Belasyse was able to take up the reversion of the captainship of the gentlemen pensioners which had been promised to him in 1660 and enabled him to resign his post at Tangier without loss of face.<sup>39</sup> He presented this in the best possible light to a sceptical Pepys on 7 Apr. when he boasted that the king had demanded he make a choice between his commission as commander of Tangier or his new post as captain of the gentlemen pensioners, ‘whereas I know the contrary, that they had a mind to have him away from Tangier … and I think he is as good a dissembler as any man else; and a fine person he is for person, and proper to lead the Pensioners, but a man of no honour nor faith I doubt’.<sup>40</sup> This view is echoed by the author (perhaps Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, who knew Belasyse well from Hull politics) of the satirical poem from 1673, ‘Advice to a Painter to draw the Duke’, where the painter is instructed to ‘Let Bellasis’s autumnal face be seen,/ Rich with the spoils of a poor Algerine,/ Who trusting in him, was by him betray’d,/ And so should we were his advice obey’d./ That hero once won honour by the sword;/ He got his wealth by breaking of his word’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Belasyse was diligent in the sittings of winter 1667 which saw the impeachment and eventual banishment of Clarendon, attending 80 per cent of them before the Christmas adjournment of 19 Dec. 1667. When the session resumed between February and May 1668, Belasyse came to 59 per cent of the sittings, and on 30 Mar. 1668 the House gave him leave to be absent for a fortnight, though he returned on 11 April. He was present for the adjournment on 9 May 1668 and then the prorogation, more than a year later, on 1 Mar. 1669 and was again in the House for all but three of the meetings of the short session of the winter of 1669.</p><p>A family issue preoccupied him in the first part of the following session of 1670-71, and he diligently attended the House throughout March and April 1670. On 12 Mar. 1670 the House gave a first reading to the bill for settling the estate of Susan Belasyse, the widow of Belasyse’s deceased son Sir Henry, and mother of Belasyse’s heir presumptive, his young grandson, also named Henry Belasyse*, later 2nd Baron Belasyse. This bill was committed two days later and Belasyse himself was made part of the committee to consider the bill, which appears to have sailed through committee relatively easily, for Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, reported the bill on 17 March and it was passed the following day. The bill received the royal assent on the day Parliament was adjourned for the summer, 11 Apr. 1670. Years later, on 1 Apr. 1674, Susan Belasyse, reputedly ‘a woman of much life and great vivacity, but of a very small proportion of beauty’, was created <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Belasyse of Osgodby for life, largely, at least according to Burnet, as recompense for desisting from her claims on the duke of York, who was said to have given her a signed promise of marriage.<sup>42</sup> Belasyse came to 78 per cent of the sitting days of that part of the session which met in October 1670 after the summer recess. He was named to 22 committees on legislation, one of which was for the bill to make the River Trent navigable around Boston in Lincolnshire. He chaired a committee meeting on this bill and was appointed a manager for a conference on 13 Mar. 1671 to discuss amendments.<sup>43</sup> The day after this conference John Granville*, earl of Bath, a close friend of the king, registered his proxy with Belasyse until the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1671.</p><p>Charles II, at this point in secret alliance with Louis XIV, evidently saw the Catholic Belasyse as a suitable envoy to the French king and only a few days after the prorogation Belasyse was dispatched to pay Charles II’s compliments to Louis at Dunkirk.<sup>44</sup> In March 1672 Belasyse resigned as captain of the gentlemen pensioners, replaced by his nephew Fauconberg, and perhaps with the promise that he would replace John Russell<sup>‡</sup> as colonel of the first regiment of foot guards. This promotion was not effected, but in early January 1673 Belasyse was given command of his own regiment of foot.<sup>45</sup> On 4 Feb. 1673, the first day of the session that met after the long prorogation, Belasyse helped to introduce to the House another military officer, Louis de Duras*, Baron Duras (later 2nd earl of Feversham). Belasyse proceeded to sit in all but two of the sittings in this session but in compliance with the first Test Act passed in March 1673 he resigned his remaining posts and offices. James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, was appointed lord lieutenant of the East Riding and governor and high steward of Kingston-upon-Hull in his stead, while James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, replaced him as colonel of his infantry regiment.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Belasyse could still sit in the House and he was present in the House at the prorogation on 20 Oct. 1673 when he helped to introduce to the House Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I], recently created Baron Butler of Weston in the English peerage.<sup>47</sup> Despite the increasing anti-Catholic mood of Parliament, Belasyse attended a little over three-fifths of the sittings of the session which met in the first months of 1674 to discuss the peace proposals to end the war with the United Provinces. He took the Jacobean oath of allegiance on 26 Jan. 1674 and the following day, after the House was informed that the Catholic John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester (father of Belasyse’s third wife), was being prosecuted for recusancy during time of Parliament, it ordered that Winchester, Belasyse and a number of other Catholic peers were to enjoy their privilege and be protected from any such proceedings. By this time Belasyse may have been seen as a spokesman for the English Catholic peers. From mid February 1674 Belasyse held the maximum of two proxies, and both were from Catholic lords: Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour (from 14 Feb.) and Christopher Roper*, 5th Baron Teynham (16 February). He did not have long to exercise these proxies, as the session was prorogued barely a week later, on 24 Feb. 1674.</p><p>Parliament did not meet again until April 1675, when Belasyse attended just under half of the sessions of that spring. During the session the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), introduced his controversial ‘non-resisting’ test bill. Danby believed that Belasyse would support this measure; Belasyse was not among those who strongly opposed it, for he was in the House during proceedings on the bill in April and May 1675 and did not put his name to any of the four protests against the progress of the bill, nor does his name appear among those opposing the bill in the <em>Letter from a Gentleman of Quality</em>. Yet in the subsequent session of autumn 1675, when he attended a similar proportion of sittings (52 per cent), he opposed Danby and the court by voting on 20 Nov. 1675 in favour of the address to dissolve Parliament. He did not, however, take the added step of subscribing to the protest against the close rejection of that motion. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, was also initially uncertain where to place Belasyse among the political groupings in Parliament. In his list of lay lords, drawn up in spring 1677, Shaftesbury initially considered Belasyse as ‘triply vile’, but it appears from the manuscript that he later altered this estimation to merely ‘vile’.</p><p>This change of mind may have come after a sympathetic visit from the Catholic baron, for on 11 Apr. 1677 Belasyse, who had been a regular attender of this session since its first day of 15 Feb. (at 65 per cent), received permission from the House to visit Shaftesbury and the other ‘country’ lords in the Tower. The session was adjourned five days later, on 16 Apr. 1677, and resumed on 21 May, when Belasyse again attended, although he did not come to any of the four remaining sittings of this short meeting of Parliament. He was present again when Parliament eventually met again for business on 28 Jan. 1678, though he only attended 37 per cent of this part of the session. He gave his proxy to his Protestant nephew Fauconberg, on 21 Feb. 1678, but this was cancelled when he returned to the House on 1 March. He probably came back in order to protect his property interests, for on the last days of February he and Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, complained to the committee considering a supplementary act for the draining of Deeping Fen that their privilege of Parliament had been infringed by the commissioners of sewers, who had made decrees which deprived Belasyse, Ailesbury and John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, of much of their land in Lincolnshire.<sup>48</sup> On 27 Mar. Belasyse was also placed on the committee to draft reasons why the House could not agree with the Commons in its address calling for an ‘immediate’ war with France. By this time Belasyse’s attendance in the House was declining steeply, and he only attended ten sittings of the subsequent session of spring and summer 1678; he last sat in the House at the prorogation of 1 August.</p><p>Belasyse’s reputation as an open Catholic and a military leader made him an obvious target for those who fomented allegations of a Popish Plot in autumn 1678. In their testimonies before the Privy Council and Parliament Titus Oates, William Bedloe, Stephen Dugdale, Miles Prance and others repeatedly claimed that Belasyse had been commissioned by the Pope to be general of the Catholic army that was to subdue England after the king’s execution, and that he had also supervised and directed the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey.<sup>49</sup> Belasyse and four other Catholic lords (William Herbert*, earl, later marquess, of Powis, William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre and Belasyse’s former proxy donor Arundell of Wardour) were arrested and incarcerated as early as 25 Oct. 1678, only a few days into the session, and formally impeached for treason by the Commons on 5 December.</p><p>The articles of impeachment against Belasyse and the Catholic peers were not delivered by the time of the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament on 24 Jan. 1679. However, by an order of 19 Mar. 1679, in the first days of the first Exclusion Parliament, it was resolved ‘that the dissolution of the last Parliament doth not alter the state of the impeachments brought up by the Commons in that Parliament’ and the proceedings were allowed to continue. The detailed articles of impeachment against Belasyse and the other Catholic lords were finally submitted to the House on 7 Apr. 1679. When the peers were summoned to the bar of the House two days later to hear and answer the articles against them, Belasyse was not present at all as he was ‘so ill and lame with the gout, that he is not able to stir’. He was allowed to put in his answer in writing, which was submitted to the House on 15 April. Here he defiantly refused to answer the charges against them, because they were so vague and imprecise, both in terms of the time in which Belasyse was allegedly conspiring for a Catholic overthrow of the government and the circumstances by which he was supposed to do it. The Commons not surprisingly found this answer ‘argumentative and evasive’ and Belasyse, despite his gout, was forced to appear personally at the bar on 25 Apr. to hear this reprimand and be given another chance to submit his plea. His second plea was short and terse, merely pleading his innocence of the charges against him while reserving to himself ‘all advantages and benefits of exception to the generality, uncertainty and other insufficiencies of the said articles, of which he humbly prays that notice may be taken’. Much of May 1679 was taken up by disagreements between the Houses over the procedures to be followed for the trials of the peers and the order in which they were to take place, arguments which led in part to the prorogation and ultimate dissolution of the Parliament on 17 July.</p><p>The trial of Belasyse proceeded no further in the following two Parliaments, but his fellow prisoner Stafford was found guilty before the House on 7 Dec. 1680 and was subsequently executed. Belasyse thus remained under arrest for just over five years, until Petre’s death on 5 Jan. 1684 prompted York to insist that the three surviving prisoners be brought before the next session of king’s bench to be bailed. Belasyse was bailed on 12 Feb. 1684, with Fauconberg, Ailesbury, Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland, and Sir John Talbot<sup>‡</sup> acting as sureties in £5,000 each.<sup>50</sup> On 22 May 1685, just a few months after York’s accession as James II, the House responded to a petition from the three surviving Catholic peers, by resolving to vacate the order of 19 Mar. 1679 allowing impeachments to continue from one Parliament to the next. This effectively ended proceedings in the House against Belasyse and his companions. A few days later James II followed this by entering a <em>nolle prosequi</em> to the prosecution in the ordinary courts.<sup>51</sup></p><p>As a Catholic, Belasyse could still not take his seat in the House, by the terms of the 1678 Test Act, but under James II he was soon returned to favour and influence. He was sworn to the king’s Privy Council on 17 July 1686 and was made first lord of the treasury in January 1687 when it was put into commission following the dismissal of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.<sup>52</sup> Despite his prominent position in James’s administration, Belasyse expressed and represented the moderate opinions of the older, more established, English Catholics, who were largely ignored by James in favour of the more zealous Father Petre and those of that circle. According to Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, Belasyse expressed his concerns over James’s policies after the king’s speech before the reassembled Parliament in November 1685 in which he spoke of his intention to dispense Catholic army officers from the provisions of the Test Act. ‘My dear Lord’, Ailesbury recounts Belasyse saying, ‘who could be the framer of this speech? I date my ruin and that of all my persuasion from this day’. Ailesbury also recommended Belasyse to James II as a suitable lord lieutenant of Ireland in place of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and in place of the king’s favourite, Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I]: ‘If your majesty will have a Roman Catholic, take an English one, with an English estate, and an English heart’. James II rebuffed this suggestion claiming, accurately, that Belasyse is ‘so afflicted with the gout that he cannot travel’. Ailesbury himself was surprised by Belasyse’s decision to head the treasury in 1687, ‘for his health was so bad, and to my knowledge he desired nothing but to live at ease and quiet, having so plentiful an estate and but four daughters to inherit’.<sup>53</sup> Belasyse resigned all his posts in the first days of December 1688, when James II attempted to placate the opposition by agreeing to dismiss his Catholic officers although just when his membership of the Privy Council can be said to have ended is difficult to establish as his resignation is not recorded in the council minutes. He had never been a particularly assiduous member and his last recorded attendance was at the extraordinary council meeting called to attest to the birth of the prince of Wales on 22 October.<sup>54</sup></p><p>When William of Orange’s followers were discussing, on 24 Dec. 1688, the expulsion of Catholics from the capital, William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, pleaded successfully for Belasyse’s exemption.<sup>55</sup> On 3 Mar. 1689 Belasyse confided to Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> that ‘he had been very averse (though a papist) to the measures used in that reign [James II’s], for promoting that religion … but his counsel was suspected as coming from a man that the hot party informed the King was old and timorous, and that having a good estate was in fear to hazard it.’ At this juncture Belasyse also doubted that James would be restored, there being ‘so many great men concerned in this revolt’. Belasyse’s ambivalence towards his Catholic king is suggested by the claim made by George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, that Belasyse refused to lend James £1,000 before he made his attempt to flee the country.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Belasyse died a few months after this conversation with Reresby, on 10 Sept. 1689. He died a very rich man and was able to bequeath to his wife and four unmarried daughters land and tithes in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire; houses and grounds in St James’s Square, Worcester Buildings and Great Queen Street in Westminster, in Newgate Street, Friday Street, Thames Street, Bread Street and Blackfriars in the City of London, and in Twickenham and Richmond in Middlesex; as well as the fee farm rents from the Great Level and from lands in Durham. Contemporaries estimated that he left £40,000 in total to his daughters and a jointure of £1,200 p.a. to his widow, the daughter of the Catholic marquess of Winchester (and sister of the Whig Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton).<sup>57</sup> The title and majority of estates were inherited by his grandson and heir Henry Belasyse*, 2nd Baron Belasyse.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BELASYSE, Thomas (1628-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>BELASYSE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1628–1700)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 18 Apr. 1653 as 2nd Visct. FAUCONBERG; <em>cr. </em>9 Apr. 1689 earl of FAUCONBERG |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 23 Dec. 1696 |
|
Mbr. of the ‘Other House’ 1658, 1659 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 16 Mar. 1628, 1st s. of Hon. Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup> of Newburgh Priory, Yorks. (N. Riding) and Grace, da. of Sir Thomas Barton of Smithells, Lancs. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 3 July 1651, Mildred (<em>d.</em> 8 May 1656), da. of Nicholas Saunderson, 2nd Visct. Castleton [I], <em>s.p.</em>; (2) 18 Nov. 1657, Mary (<em>d.</em> 14 Mar. 1713), da. of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, ld. protector, <em>s.p.</em> <em>suc</em>. fa. 20 May 1647. <em>d</em>. 31 Dec. 1700; <em>will</em> 14 Nov. 1699, pr. 26 May 1701.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. trade of Eng. and Scot. 1668-aft. 1674,<sup>3</sup> to treat with ministers of the Emperor, Spain and the Utd. Provinces 1678,<sup>4</sup> Tangiers ?1680-84,<sup>5</sup> abuses in hospitals 1691,<sup>6</sup> appeals in cases of prizes 1694-7;<sup>7</sup> capt., gent. pens. 1672-6; PC, 17 Apr. 1672-<em>d</em>., ld. of trade and plantations 12 Mar. 1675-15 May 1696.</p><p>Ld. lt. co. Dur. 1660-1, Yorks. (N. Riding), 1660-87, 1689-92; <em>custos rot</em>. co. Dur. 1660-1,<sup>8</sup> Yorks. (N. Riding) 1660-<em>d.</em>; commr. Corporation Act, York 1662.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of horse 1658-9, 1660;<sup>10</sup> capt. tp. of horse 1667.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Amb. extraordinary France 1658, Venice and Italian States, 1669-70.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on panel by M.D. Hout, 1651, sold at Sotheby’s 10 Apr. 2013; line engraving by A. Blooteling (after Mary Beale), 1676, NPG D28406; line engraving by Robert White, 1679, NPG D29520.</p> |
<h2><em>Cromwellian to royalist, 1653-60</em></h2><p>The Belasyse family’s rise to wealth and prominence in the north-eastern counties of England was cemented in the sixteenth century when they acquired their principal property of Newburgh Priory near Thirsk in the North Riding of Yorkshire.<sup>16</sup> Both the 2nd Viscount Fauconberg’s grandfather, Thomas Belasyse<sup>†</sup>, Baron Fauconberg (as he was created in 1627), and his father, Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>, were active in Yorkshire politics. Henry Belasyse was a Member for Yorkshire in both the Short and Long Parliaments of 1640, where initially he was prominent among the northern Members who complained of the burdens imposed on the region by the maintenance of the king’s forces. Despite their opposition to royal policy in the north, both Henry and his father Fauconberg joined the king during the Civil War.<sup>17</sup> Baron Fauconberg was promoted to a viscountcy in January 1643 for his military service, while Henry was less active and does not appear to have been involved in any of the fighting but instead worked throughout these years on various peace initiatives between the king and Parliament.<sup>18</sup> Henry Belasyse died intestate in May 1647 and his eldest son, Thomas, inherited the viscountcy on 18 Apr. 1653 at the death of his grandfather.</p><p>The Belasyse family had strong Catholic connections; many of the 2nd Viscount’s closest kin – his grandfather, uncle and brother – were of that religion. Fauconberg was only able to reclaim possession of his grandfather’s sequestered estate in 1653 once he was able to prove before the committee for compounding that he himself was a practising Protestant.<sup>19</sup> In 1657, though, he needed to assure Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> and the council of state that he was not a Catholic.<sup>20</sup> Later, Fauconberg was to support much of the anti-Catholic legislation of the 1670s, but he does appear to have remained on friendly terms with his numerous Catholic kin throughout his life, especially his uncle John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse. Accusations of being a Catholic, or at least a fellow traveller, dogged Fauconberg throughout his career.<sup>21</sup></p><p>As he had been out of the country during the Civil War, Fauconberg remained untainted during the Interregnum by the rest of his family’s adherence to the royalist cause, and was even regarded as ‘a neuter’ politically.<sup>22</sup> A young widower from 1656, he was seen, by John Thurloe<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> among others, as a suitable and advantageous match for Cromwell’s third daughter Mary. He was ambitious enough not to refuse the opportunity of marrying into the ruling family and he and Mary were wed on 18 Nov. 1657 in a lavish ceremony at Hampton Court.<sup>23</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, later described Lady Fauconberg as ‘a wise and worthy woman, more likely to have maintained the post [of Protector], than either of her brothers’.<sup>24</sup> At the time the Venetian ambassador was surprised at the match, for he considered Fauconberg a royalist who corresponded with the exiled court.<sup>25</sup> Nevertheless, after the marriage Fauconberg became a favourite of his father-in-law and prominent in the increasingly dynastic Protectorate regime. Although he failed in being appointed to the council, he was in July 1657 commissioned colonel of the regiment of horse previously commanded by John Lambert<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>26</sup> He was on 9 Dec. summoned to Cromwell’s ‘Other House’ and he and his fellow Yorkshireman George Eure*, 6th Baron Eure, were the only two of the old hereditary peerage predating the Protectorate who sat regularly in this ersatz House of Lords from the time it convened on 20 Jan. 1658. After the second Protectorate Parliament’s dissolution on 4 Feb. he served for a brief two-week period from 25 May as an extraordinary ambassador to France, greeting Louis XIV at Calais in the name of the Protector.<sup>27</sup> In the months before Cromwell’s death Fauconberg opposed the interests and influence of the Army officers Charles Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> and John Desborough<sup>‡</sup>. After September 1658 he was a loyal supporter of Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> as Protector and a frequent correspondent with Richard’s brother Henry Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, lord lieutenant of Ireland, in which he expressed his continuing distrust of the army officers and his wish to clip their wings. The feeling was mutual, as Desborough made clear his resentment of Fauconberg’s prominence. Fauconberg again sat, albeit intermittently, in the ‘Other House’ when Richard Cromwell summoned his new Parliament in late January 1659, but as the Protectorate crumbled Fauconberg protected his own interests and began to communicate with royalist agents at home and eventually the exiled court abroad. For the first half of April he absented himself both from his regiment and from the capital, ‘leaving nobody capable or loyal around the Protector’, although he had returned to attend the ‘Other House’ by 18 Apr. for the last few days of the third Protectorate Parliament, as Richard’s final confrontation with the army leaders took place.<sup>28</sup></p><p>When the Rump Parliament returned briefly to power in May Fauconberg was, not unsurprisingly, divested of his colonel’s commission. He was quickly recruited to join the royalist insurrection planned for August 1659 and after its failure he was confined and examined by the council of state in September.<sup>29</sup> He was free by 10 Feb. 1660 when he signed a petition of Yorkshire notables to his former Cromwellian colleague George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, calling for the return of the ‘secluded’ Members and the summoning of a free Parliament.<sup>30</sup> At the dissolution of the Long Parliament Fauconberg threw in his commission of Lambert’s old regiment, but shortly after, on 23 Apr. 1660, Monck appointed him colonel of the regiment of horse formerly commanded by the prominent republican Sir Arthur Hesilrige<sup>‡</sup>, which Monck considered ‘one of the best regiments of horse in the army’.<sup>31</sup></p><h2><em>Convention and Cavalier Parliament, 1660-6</em></h2><p>Fauconberg first sat in the Convention House of Lords on 1 June 1660, in the company of the large group of royalists returned from exile. On 27 June he was granted a general pardon by the king for his brief complicity in the Cromwellian regime.<sup>32</sup> Soon he was able to re-establish his position as one of the leading magnates in the North Riding of Yorkshire and the neighbouring county palatine of Durham. He was made lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of county Durham on 27 July and maintained that role until the installation of John Cosin*, as bishop of Durham in September 1661. Also on 27 July 1660, Fauconberg was also appointed lord lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire and he served in this post actively until 4 Apr. 1692, except for a brief period in 1687-9.<sup>33</sup> His tenure as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the North Riding was even longer lasting, from July 1660 to his death in 1700.<sup>34</sup> The day following these appointments Fauconberg was granted leave of the House to go into the country to take up these posts and on 30 July he registered his proxy with George Monck, now duke of Albemarle. Fauconberg also had a smaller part in the governance of Lancashire, as he had an interest in the estate of Smithells in that county, which came to the Belasyse family through his mother Grace Barton at her death in 1660. It was Fauconberg’s younger brother Sir Rowland Belasyse who settled at Smithells while Fauconberg concentrated his activity in the paternal estates of the North Riding and Durham, but Fauconberg still appears to have been placed on successive commissions of peace for the duchy of Lancaster from 1660 to his death.<sup>35</sup></p><p>He was present in the House on the first day of the Cavalier Parliament and on 13 May was one of the seven peers placed on the drafting committee for an address thanking the king for communicating his intention to marry. His local responsibilities in the far north probably summoned him again, for on 5 June 1661 he received leave of the House to go into the country and he last sat before the summer adjournment on 8 June; two days following he registered his proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath.<sup>36</sup> In his absence the petition of the nobility and gentry of the far northern counties calling for the re-establishment of the court of York, was presented to the House on 1 July. Fauconberg himself had subscribed, his signature appearing prominently among the first names of the petitioners.<sup>37</sup> Fauconberg returned to the House on 5 Dec., but on 24 Mar. 1662 he once again received leave of the House to be absent ‘for some time’, presumably once again on northern lieutenancy affairs. He left the following day but does not appear to have registered a proxy. In the 50 sitting days on which Fauconberg was in the House in the 1661-2 session he was nominated to only 12 committees on legislation and on 6 Feb. 1662 signed the protest against the passage of the bill to restore to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, the lands in north Wales he had conveyed to agents of the Interregnum regime by legal instruments during the 1650s.</p><p>He came to just under a quarter of the sittings of the session of 1663 and absented himself for several months after a week into the proceedings, on 27 February. After his return on 23 June he was named to only four committees on legislation. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton predicted that Fauconberg would support George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, in his attempt to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, when the matter was expected to come to a vote on 13 July. As lord lieutenant of the North Riding he was closely involved in the apprehension of the Farnley Wood plotters in the autumn of 1663, although he appears to have remained in the capital at the time and to have delegated duties to his deputy lieutenants in the north.<sup>38</sup> Fauconberg first sat in the following session on 23 Mar. 1664, and only attended a further eight sittings, during which he was not named to a single committee on legislation, until on 22 Apr. 1664 he was given leave of the House to go ‘beyond the seas, for his health’. He was back in the House on 16 Jan. 1665, and attended a further 13 sittings before leaving the House for the rest of the session on 13 February.</p><p>By August 1665 he was back in the North Riding and he and his militia were prominent in the reception of James Stuart*, duke of York, and his duchess on their visit to north Yorkshire, although Fauconberg’s Cromwellian past still had enough of an effect that the duke and duchess had to obtain the king’s permission before Lady Fauconberg, the Protector’s daughter, was allowed to wait on them publicly.<sup>39</sup> His duties in the north apparently prevented him from attending any of the sittings of the session held in Oxford in October 1665, and thus he could not be the ‘Mr ff’ who contributed to the debate on the ‘Five-Mile’ Bill on 30 October, as is sometimes alleged.<sup>40</sup></p><h2><em>War and diplomacy, 1666-73</em></h2><p>He was back in the capital in April 1666 for he attended the prorogation of 23 Apr. 1666 and a week later sat in the specially convened court of the lord high steward to try Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, whom he, like the majority of the peers, found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.<sup>41</sup> That summer George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, already lord lieutenant of the neighbouring West Riding of Yorkshire, was also commissioned colonel of a troop of horse to be stationed in the north. At a dinner held at York sometime in July insults were traded between Buckingham and Fauconberg and the duke challenged the viscount to a duel. According to Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, when the two opponents met, Buckingham, having ‘more mind to parley than to fight’ took ‘some verbal and superficial satisfaction of my Lord Fauconberg’ and the duel was called off, much to Reresby’s mortification for his patron Buckingham’s cowardice (and Buckingham’s enduring shame, as the incident was recalled many years later by his enemies).<sup>42</sup> This did not satisfy Fauconberg who in October of that year challenged and duelled with Buckingham’s ally (and his own half-cousin) Sir Thomas Osborne*, better known by his later title as earl of Danby, who seriously wounded Fauconberg in the thigh.<sup>43</sup></p><p>It was most likely that wound which kept Fauconberg away from the House for the early part of the session of 1666-7, but he was sufficiently recovered to take his seat on 8 Nov. 1666. Despite his late arrival he was able to sit in just under half of all the sittings of the session, and was named to five committees on legislation, including those for the bills for the lead mines in county Durham and for the bill to continue the act to prevent theft and rapine on the borders, in both of which he would have had a keen interest. From 13 Nov. to 3 Dec. he also held the proxy of Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex. His first involvement in the session was as a witness. The north Yorkshire peer Conyers Darcy*, 5th Baron Darcy (later earl of Holdernesse) had made complaint that the Irish peer (and Fauconberg’s kinsman) George Saunders<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Viscount Castleton [I], and the Scottish peer Henry Ingram, Viscount Irvine [S], had insisted on taking precedence over Darcy and other English peers during the visit of the duke of York to his namesake city in 1665. This matter was considered by the committee for privileges on 12 Nov. 1666, where Fauconberg, named by Darcy as a witness to these events at York, gave evidence corroborating Darcy’s account.<sup>44</sup> Two days later, upon the report from the committee, Fauconberg was once again called upon to testify before the House supporting Darcy’s claims, after which the House determined to address the king about this derogation of the honour of the English peerage.</p><p>It was proceedings on the Irish cattle bill which principally occupied Fauconberg during the winter of 1666-7. On 17 Nov. 1666 he was placed on the committee assigned to draft a proviso to the bill which would allow the Irish to send slaughtered and barrelled cattle to London as a charitable gesture after the devastation of the Fire. He chaired the committee that day, but it was principally Buckingham and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), two of the fiercest supporters of the bill and opponents of the Irish, who framed the proviso which, in effect, ‘aspersed the intention of the givers, and called the contribution a contrivance to mischief England’. Fauconberg reported this malicious proviso to the House on 19 Nov., but two days later the House appointed Fauconberg’s fellow northerner and former Cromwellian colleague Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, as well as Ashley and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, to amend the proviso further according to the House’s wishes.<sup>45</sup> On 20 Dec. Fauconberg was added to the committee that had been established three days earlier to draft reasons why the House insisted on the omission of the word ‘nuisance’ from the bill. On 29 Dec. these reasons were read before the House and he was named a manager for the ensuing conference, as well as for those on the poll bill and the bill for taking public accounts. On 2 Jan. 1667 he attended conferences on all three of these matters, while he managed others on the Irish cattle bill and public accounts bill on 9 Jan., and was at two more on the poll bill on 12 and 14 January. The proxy of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey was registered with Fauconberg on 12 Jan. 1692, albeit only for the space of five days. On 18 Jan. he was placed on a committee to draw up reasons to be presented to the Commons in answer to their complaints that the House had acted in an ‘unparliamentary’ way in addressing the king directly regarding the commission of accounts. On 24 Jan., when a committee of the whole considered the Commons’ bill for a commission of public accounts, Fauconberg’s name was inserted in the draft as one of the 24 peers who were to act as representatives of the House in the commission and later that day he managed the conference at which these reasons were presented.</p><p>By early March Fauconberg was back in Yorkshire, where he continued in his military duties and on 13 June was commissioned a captain of a troop of horse in the regiment commanded by Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, for the defence of England against Dutch or French invasion.<sup>46</sup> After peace was declared, he came to the House a week into the proceedings of autumn 1667, on 17 Oct. 1667, and proceeded to sit in 57 per cent of the sittings before the adjournment of 19 December. His stance on the impeachment and banishment of Clarendon cannot be exactly determined, as his name does not appear in connection with any of the protests or conferences on this matter. His principal involvement appears to have been a continuing concern with the import of Irish cattle, for on 9 Nov. 1667 he was named to the committee to consider reports of infractions of the Act passed in the 1666-7 session, and on 15 Nov. he chaired a meeting of this committee where evidence was heard of Welsh colliers evading the restrictions on Irish cattle.<sup>47</sup></p><p>On the last two days before the adjournment, 18-19 Dec. 1667, Fauconberg would have watched the rapid passage through Parliament of the bill to establish free trade between England and Scotland. He had a stake in this as well, for from mid January 1668 he was a reasonably assiduous member of the English commission to put this act into execution and soon struck up a friendship and a long correspondence with some of the Scots commissioners, particularly John Hay* earl (later marquess) of Tweeddale, which lasted well into the 1690s.<sup>48</sup> He resumed his seat when the session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668, on which day he helped to introduce his fellow Yorkshireman George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax. On 29 Feb. 1668 Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, registered his proxy with Fauconberg, who came to only 29 sittings of this part of the session, during which he was named to three committees on legislation, before he was given leave of the House on 6 Apr. ‘to go into the country for his health for some time’. He left the House that day, without apparently registering a proxy of his own, and Chesterfield’s vote was left untended until he himself returned to the House on 7 May. Fauconberg was back in the House after his long absence on 1 Mar. 1669, when he acted as one of the commissioners, sitting on a ‘form’ between the throne and the woolsack, who prorogued the long-adjourned Parliament until 19 Oct. He was present on that day as well and attended a little over three-quarters of the sittings of the short session of autumn 1669, where he was named to one committee on legislation and on 25 Nov. subscribed to the dissent from the resolution that the cause of <em>Grenville v. Elwes</em> was properly before the House even though, as the dissenters argued, chancery had not yet come to a final decree in this matter.</p><p>By August 1669 the common knowledge was that Fauconberg was ‘designed’ to be an ambassador extraordinary for Venice and other Italian city-states. The appointment was confirmed in November, but he did not set off until early January 1670.<sup>49</sup> He had his audiences at Florence and Genoa in May and arrived at his destination, Venice, in June.<sup>50</sup> During his embassy he successfully settled many outstanding trade disputes and returned to England in the autumn and had his audience with the king on 14 November.<sup>51</sup> Because of this embassy he missed the first part of the long session of 1670-1 entirely, but was back in the House on 7 Nov., shortly after the session had reconvened after the summer adjournment, and he proceeded to attend 82 per cent of the sittings in this part of the session. He was nominated to 22 select committees on legislation, including that for the bill to prevent the growth of popery. He appears to have been prominent on this committee for on 13 Apr. 1671 he was placed on a subcommittee of 15 members assigned to draw up an oath which could mitigate the penalties for those recusants willing to swear it.<sup>52</sup> On 9 Mar. he dissented from the two resolutions which in effect rejected the bill which aimed to restrict privilege of Parliament. In the last days of the session he acted as a delegate on 18 and 20 Apr. for two conferences on the House’s amendments to the bill to prevent abuses in selling cattle at Smithfield.</p><h2><em>Country peer? 1672-9</em></h2><p>On 10 Mar. 1672 Fauconberg replaced his uncle Belasyse as captain of the gentlemen pensioners and a month later, on 17 Apr. 1672, Fauconberg was also sworn of the Privy Council.<sup>53</sup> Both these moves may have been an attempt by Charles II to co-opt potential opponents to his recent policies and actions. Significantly Halifax, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater were also sworn of the council on the same day as Fauconberg.<sup>54</sup> His new prominence may account for his regular attendance in the House throughout 1673. He came to 82 per cent of the sittings in the session of February-March 1673, when he was appointed to seven committees, and on 24 Mar. he chaired a meeting of the committee on the bill to enable Henry Elwes to sell his entailed land in Yorkshire.<sup>55</sup> On 5 Mar. 1673 he was also appointed to the committee to draft an address to the king confirming that his recent referral to Parliament of the controverted Declaration of Indulgence was ‘good and gracious’, regardless of the complaints of the Commons. After the adjournment of 29 Mar. 1673 Fauconberg was present at the next sitting, the prorogation of 20 Oct. 1673, when he introduced to the House his former duelling opponent, Sir Thomas Osborne, as Viscount Latimer.<sup>56</sup> Fauconberg attended all but three of the sittings of the tempestuous session of January-February 1674, in which he was named to four committees on legislation. Within two weeks of the session’s opening York was complaining to the French envoy de Ruvigny that Fauconberg, Carlisle, Shaftesbury (as Ashley had become), James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, ‘and several others’ were regularly meeting at the house of Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles ‘where they concerted together the matters which were to be proposed in the lower House, where those lords had great influence’.<sup>57</sup> However, Fauconberg is not explicitly named as a mover of seconder of any of the motions of late January and early February 1674 restricting the right of a Catholic to rule as a sovereign which York found so offensive and memorable.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Fauconberg’s attitude towards popery during this period of heightened anti-Catholicism, especially considering his own Catholic upbringing and the adherence of so many of his close kinsmen to the old faith, cannot be precisely determined. He was apparently opposed to the projects of the lord treasurer Danby (as Viscount Latimer had become in 1674), in consultation with the bishops, to press from January 1675 for the full enforcement of the penal statutes against Protestant Dissenters and Catholics alike. York was equally concerned at the potential effect on his co-religionists and even approached Fauconberg and other of his foes from the 1674 session to work together on a policy that would give relief to both religious groups.<sup>59</sup> Fauconberg got himself into some trouble with the king for his opposition to Danby’s policy. Sometime in mid March 1675 Danby learned that Fauconberg was spreading the story that at a recent dinner Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, had laid the responsibility for the harsh measures against Dissenters in the order-in-council of 3 Feb. solely on the lord treasurer and had disavowed any involvement of the bishops. When at Danby’s request both Ward and Fauconberg appeared before the king to explain themselves the viscount could only make ‘a lame story of some discourse at the bishop’s table that imported nothing of that value’. The king ‘made bold to speak his mind freely to this lord’s disadvantage’.<sup>60</sup> Clearly at this time Fauconberg was seen as a prominent member of the country opposition. On 3 Feb. 1675 Shaftesbury, then in a brief retirement in Dorset, addressed a letter to Carlisle – with explicit instructions to convey its contents to Fauconberg, Holles and Salisbury – to reassure his colleagues that he was not about to abandon their campaign for the dissolution of Parliament in favour of the rumoured offer of high office under the Crown. This letter, quickly copied, printed and published, became notorious in its time, and contemporaries took it to be a public expression of Shaftesbury’s defiant attitude towards the court in the weeks before the next session of Parliament.<sup>61</sup></p><p>The king’s rebuke and Fauconberg’s own position at court as captain of the gentlemen pensioners may have cooled his country ardour for, despite this apparently high position in Shaftesbury’s confidence, Fauconberg did not subscribe to any of the protests against Danby’s non-resisting test bill in the session of spring 1675. His only recorded involvement in that session, of which he attended 81 per cent of the sittings, was his nomination to eight committees on legislation and his introduction of Francis Newport*, 2nd Baron Newport, as the recently promoted Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford) on the first day of the session on 13 Apr. 1675. He also held the proxy of William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele, from 21 May until the prorogation on 9 June 1675. He came to two of the three weeks of the short and bad-tempered session of autumn 1675, and on 20 Nov. 1675 he did join most of the other country peers in voting that an address should be made to the Crown requesting a dissolution of Parliament, and signing the protest against its rejection.</p><p>The vote of 20 Nov. 1675 may have been too much for the king after the events of earlier that year and in May 1676, during the long prorogation, Fauconberg was encouraged to surrender his commission as captain of the gentlemen pensioners, with a payment of £3,000 to make it more palatable.<sup>62</sup> He was very active in the first part of the long session of 1677-8, and came to 81 per cent of the sittings in 1677. He chaired the committee appointed on 12 Mar. 1677 to draw up heads for a conference on the Commons’ address requesting the king to preserve the Spanish Netherlands from French attack. The following day he reported the results, and managed the ensuing conference that day in which these reasons were presented to the Commons. He was again a manager for another conference on this address two days later, after which the House resolved to agree with the Commons and present the address.<sup>63</sup> Later on 13 Apr. he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons explaining the House’s adherence to their amendments to the supply bill for building warships. In this period of spring 1677 Shafesbury classified Fauconberg as ‘worthy’, despite his passivity during the debates of 1675.</p><p>When the session eventually resumed on 28 Jan. 1678 Fauconberg was present in the House, but only attended for a further 32 sittings, just over half of the sittings until the prorogation of 13 May. From 21 Feb. he briefly held the proxy of his uncle Belasyse until that baron returned to the House on 1 March. He was named to 11 committees on legislation and on 23 Feb. 1678 chaired one meeting of the committee on the bill for Deeping Fen.<sup>64</sup> In March he objected to the use of the word ‘immediately’ in an address to the king requesting a declaration of war against France. In this he supported Danby, who used Fauconberg’s interjection to convene a committee of the whole to discuss the war, and argued against those lords who supported an ‘immediate’ war, such as Shaftesbury, Buckingham and Halifax.<sup>65</sup> At about the same time, on 21 Mar., he was named to the commission, consisting of Danby, Bridgwater, Essex and the two secretaries of state, to treat with representatives of the Emperor, the Spanish king and the United Provinces with the aim of forging a military alliance.<sup>66</sup></p><p>He attended a little over half of the sittings of the following session of May-July 1678. On 20 June he managed a conference to acquaint the Commons with the recent dispatches from the peace conference in Nijmegen that both the Dutch and Imperial negotiators were anxious to learn from Parliament the state of the English army, and whether Parliament intended to disband it or not. On 8 July the House debated the appeal of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham against a chancery decree rejecting his claim to the promised portion of his wife, who had predeceased him before he had been able to fulfil the conditions placed on him by his marriage settlement. Fauconberg took Feversham’s side, arguing that the original articles of marriage had been ‘shuffled up in haste’ and thus should not bind Feversham.<sup>67</sup> In the last days of the session, on 11-12 July, he managed two conferences at which the House disputed the Commons’ amendments to the bill for burying in woollen, before agreeing to the bill on 13 July so that it could be passed at the prorogation two days later.</p><p>Fauconberg attended 55 per cent of the meetings of the autumn 1678 session. On 23 Nov. 1678 he was a manager for a conference to prepare an address to the king concerning the number of days the local militias could legally be mustered in peacetime. He was added to the House’s committee for examining the Popish Plot on 7 December and five days later he was similarly placed on the Privy Council’s own committee investigating this matter, in which he appears to have been reasonably active.<sup>68</sup> Fauconberg’s last major act in the Cavalier Parliament was to vote on 27 Dec. in favour of the commitment of Danby. The motion was ultimately defeated, but Fauconberg did not sign the dissent from its rejection.</p><h2><em>Exclusion Parliaments, 1679-81</em></h2><p>At the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament on 24 Jan. 1679, Fauconberg sought to influence the elections for Yorkshire and Thirsk. Fauconberg promoted his brother-in-law Sir William Frankland<sup>‡</sup>, and their mutual nephew Nicholas Saunderson<sup>‡</sup> for Thirsk, and Charles Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough and Henry Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Baron Fairfax of Cameron [S], for Yorkshire. All four were favoured for their country stance against government policies and their support for limitations on York’s succession. At the county level, Fauconberg and Frankland worked to convince a reluctant Lord Fairfax to declare himself a candidate with Lord Clifford and to circumvent the aspirations of Sir John Kaye<sup>‡</sup>, and Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer (Danby’s eldest son), to stand for the county. On 14 Feb. 1679 Frankland was able to report to Fauconberg that Fairfax had finally agreed to join with Clifford to stand for the shire and that they had been able to convince Kaye to step aside. Fauconberg was also able to reassure Clifford that he would be attended at York by a sufficient number of the viscount’s clients and followers ‘to make the name of Clifford sound as loud as formerly it has done in Yorkshire’.<sup>69</sup> Clifford and Fairfax were duly selected knights of the shire without opposition on 3 Mar. and were re-elected for the following three Parliaments. At Thirsk Fauconberg shared his electoral interest with William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, in whose manorial court the bailiff of Thirsk, who also acted as returning officer, was chosen. In late January Derby enquired whether Fauconberg still intended to share the nomination of Thirsk’s burgesses and Fauconberg wrote to persuade him to put his support behind both Frankland and Saunderson:</p><blockquote><p>Sir William Frankland, who lives within two miles of and served for the town of Thirsk this last parliament, has so great an interest there as would prevail though your lordship and myself should both oppose him. So as in truth it remains only who shall be his partner … though I should be very glad (if your lordship be not engaged) to recommend my nephew Saunderson, son to Lord Castleton, who, I am confident, would carry himself very honestly.</p></blockquote><p>Derby agreed to ‘send to whom I have at Thirsk that are at my disposal that they be for Mr Saunderson’. Frankland and Saunderson were selected without opposition for both this and the following Parliament, though Frankland edged Saunderson out in favour of a more enthusiastic country Member to partner him, Sir William Ayscough, for the 1681 Parliament.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Fauconberg attended 50 per cent of sitting days in the abandoned 6-13 Mar. session of the first Exclusion Parliament of spring 1679. On his first day, 11 Mar., he was placed on the committee to receive informations regarding the Plot. He was appointed to the equivalent committee in the more enduring second session, on 17 Mar., and on 21 Mar. he made two reports from this committee. He attended 85 per cent of sitting days in this session. He chaired the committee examining the ruinous state of the streets on 17 Apr. and that same day he and Bridgwater reported to the House with an address to the king.<sup>71</sup> Fauconberg was particularly active in the proceedings surrounding the impeachment of Danby. The former lord treasurer himself could not be sure how much he could rely on Fauconberg’s support, and the viscount did seem to take an ambivalent stance. On the one hand, on 21 Mar., when the House debated the demand of the Commons for the immediate commitment of the former lord treasurer, Fauconberg argued that as the House had previously made an order giving Danby a set time within which to submit his answers to the impeachment, it could not legitimately change its conditions without new specific charges being laid against the former lord treasurer: ‘without new matter assigned you cannot without derogation to your own honour make an alteration’.<sup>72</sup> On the other hand, the House deemed it appropriate on 22 Mar. to place Fauconberg on the committee of 13 members, including such prominent country members and enemies of the former lord treasurer as Shaftesbury, Halifax, Holles, Essex, Bridgwater, Wharton, Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, assigned to draft a bill to disqualify Danby from again ever holding office or attending the king. This group, including Fauconberg, were also managers for a conference held that day at which this bill was presented to the Commons. The Commons instead presented a bill that threatened Danby with attainder if he did not surrender himself and answer the articles of impeachment. On 4 Apr. Fauconberg voted for the amended version of the bill, which in effect changed it to a bill for Danby’s banishment rather than attainder. After it had passed the House it was decided to present it and its amendments to the Commons in conference instead of by message. Fauconberg was one of the four peers assigned to draft what was to be said to the lower House, and it appears he and Colepeper were last-minute substitutions for Halifax and Shaftesbury who were originally appointed to the committee. Fauconberg was also one of the eight peers assigned to manage the ensuing conference that day.<sup>73</sup> He was again a manager for a further two conferences on 8 Apr. where the Commons made clear their disagreement with the amended bill which they thought did ‘wholly alter the nature of it’. The lower House eventually had the better of the argument and on 14 Apr. Fauconberg joined with the majority of the House in voting through the attainder bill, largely in the form in which the Commons had originally intended it.</p><p>Fauconberg was involved in the four conferences from 8 to 11 May 1679 which discussed the proper methods and order of the trials of Danby and the five Catholic lords impeached for involvement in the Popish Plot. On 10 May he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses, and signed the protest when that motion was defeated in division. Fauconberg had a family interest in the trial of the Catholic peers as one of these was his own uncle Baron Belasyse. On 8 Apr. he informed the House that Belasyse was too lame of the gout to attend the House himself to answer to the articles of impeachment laid against him and on 24 May Fauconberg was granted leave of the House to visit Belasyse, for only one time, in the Tower.<sup>74</sup> Not surprisingly perhaps, Fauconberg signed the dissent against the resolution of 23 May to proceed to the trial of Belasyse and the other lords before that of Danby and on 26 May was appointed a manager for the conference ‘to preserve a good correspondence’ between the Houses where the Commons made clear their vehement disagreement with this decision. Fauconberg ended the session by voting on 27 May, the day of prorogation, against the motion to insist on the right of the bishops to remain in the House during the hearing of capital cases, and he was one of the signatories to the protest when that decision was upheld.</p><p>A privy councillor since 1672, Fauconberg was re-appointed to that body at the remodelling of the council in April 1679, probably to serve both as a representative of the viscounts and as a ‘moderate’ member of the country interest. At this point he appears to have been close to the duke of Monmouth, who on 22 Sept. 1679 appointed Fauconberg to be his deputy in the office of chief justice in eyre south of the Trent after he had been ordered to leave the country. His closeness to Monmouth was also evident when he was later used as an envoy between Monmouth and his father. It was through him that Charles II ordered Monmouth to leave the kingdom, once again, upon the young man’s unexpected and sudden return in late November 1679.<sup>75</sup> In the long months of prorogation Fauconberg took a remarkably sanguine view of the political situation and the forthcoming Parliament. Writing to his brother-in-law Frankland in the north on 13 Apr. 1680, Fauconberg thought that ‘as to public concerns, so great a serenity and quiet in the minds of men has not been seen this many years. Fair measures are taken at home, advantageous alliances pursued, which is hoped may produce a good effect in Parliament next winter’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Fauconberg was one of the seven privy councillors who advocated the duke of York’s departure to Brussels before Parliament finally did meet in the autumn of 1680.<sup>77</sup> He was present on the first day of the session, 21 Oct. 1680, and proceeded to sit in a little over two-thirds of its sittings. On 3 Nov. he was part of a committee consisting of Shaftesbury, Essex and Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, that heard evidence against the Catholic primate of all Ireland, Oliver Plunkett, and Richard Power, earl of Tyrone [I], which Shaftesbury reported to the House over the following days.<sup>78</sup> Fauconberg made an early contribution to the debate on the exclusion bill on 15 Nov., but took an ambiguous position on the matter. On the one hand he found the bill insufficient: ‘I desire a security for the king, lords and the Church, but how to find that in this bill I do not know’. On the other he did not subscribe to the Church’s rejection of exclusion on the basis of divine right and non-resistance: ‘I am not of the bishops’ opinion that by the laws of God it cannot be proved’. In the end he voted to reject the bill, and for him perhaps the clinching argument was the threat of war if the bill passed, for ‘it will draw the French and Irish’.<sup>79</sup> He also voted against the proposed joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation on 23 Nov. and that same day he was placed on a committee to draft a bill for a Protestant Association. He appears to have been involved in this since 16 Nov. at least, when following after the defeat of the exclusion bill, he was appointed by the committee of the whole House considering ways of securing the Protestant religion to a subcommittee of seven members (including Shaftesbury, Anglesey, Essex and Bridgwater) assigned to develop heads for bills. Fauconberg appears to have been engaged in this group, for the manuscript of the heads for a bill to protect the Protestant religion is endorsed ‘L. Fauconberg’s Paper’. He also chaired a meeting of this committee on 25 Nov., although admittedly it was only to adjourn it to the following day.<sup>80</sup> Later in the session, on 7 Dec. Fauconberg found the Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.</p><p>After the dissolution of the 1680 Parliament, and in the weeks preceding the Parliament summoned for March 1681 in Oxford, Danby predicted that Fauconberg would be among those peers standing neutral regarding his petition for release from the Tower. On 22 Mar. 1681, though, Fauconberg was still at his country house of Sutton Court in Middlesex, from where he wrote to Carlisle, who was trying to make his way to Oxford from Cumberland, with despondent views of the prospects for the forthcoming Parliament. Four lords in one coach, ‘with a great train after them’, had called in on Fauconberg on their way to Oxford and showed him a printed version of the king’s speech, ‘which is very brisk, and forbids meddling with the title of succession, but allows that another may be appointed for the administration’. He expressed the fear that if the Commons proceeded as they had done last Parliament, he and Carlisle would find their intended journeys to Oxford fruitless.<sup>81</sup> Fauconberg’s prediction was realized, as the Oxford Parliament was dissolved after a week. Carlisle was only able to attend one sitting and Fauconberg none at all.</p><h2><em>Tory reaction, 1681-6</em></h2><p>In the weeks following the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament the ‘report was warm’ that Fauconberg was about to be dismissed from his lieutenancy and from the Privy Council, to the extent that Fauconberg had to send an envoy to be assured by the king that the report was false, and was later reportedly ‘not a little delighted’ when the king conferred on him the honour of dining with him.<sup>82</sup> He professed a renewed loyalty to the crown and anxiously expressed to Sir William Frankland the hope that ‘our county [Yorkshire], will imitate the rest in their loyalty’, both through sending loyal addresses to the king and through choosing suitable Members for Parliament, which Fauconberg thought would be convened in the winter of 1681.<sup>83</sup> However, Fauconberg was reportedly one of only three members of the Privy Council who refused to countenance the arrest of Shaftesbury in early July 1681 and declined to sign the warrant for his committal.<sup>84</sup> This may have been more out of a fear of public disorder than through any sympathy for Shaftesbury, for he wrote to Frankland in November that Shaftesbury’s acquittal ‘was accompanied with unparalleled disorder, of shouts, ringing of bells, bonfires and such extravagances as I fear at long run produce ill effects, parties being more exasperated than ever, even to such a degree as discourages all hopes of an accommodation at our next meeting’. He was evidently still under the misapprehension that another Parliament would be summoned imminently.<sup>85</sup></p><p>In these years of Tory reaction Fauconberg maintained an appearance of loyalty to the court and its causes. Family obligation also led him to stand as one of the sureties, for £5,000, for his uncle Belasyse when he was finally bailed from the Tower in February 1684.<sup>86</sup> At the accession of James II in February 1685 Fauconberg continued to show himself an obedient subject of the new king, procuring a somewhat reluctant loyal address to James from the North Riding and successfully persuading Frankland, who had offended the new king by his advocacy of exclusion in the previous parliaments, to give over his seat for Thirsk to his son Thomas Frankland<sup>‡</sup>, partnered by the Tory Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>87</sup> Fauconberg himself was present at the first day of James’s Parliament 19 May 1685, when he helped to introduce to the House a number of new viscounts who had been created or elevated during the four years since the preceding Parliament: Horatio Townshend*, Viscount Townshend; Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth; and Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton. He sat in three-quarters of the sittings and was named to seven committees. He appears to have been among those peers opposed to the king’s planned dispensation of Catholic military officers from the provisions of the Test Acts, for in early November, his friend Chesterfield was once again considering assigning his proxy to Fauconberg, as he had done back in 1668, to represent their mutual opposition to these measures.<sup>88</sup> Nevertheless, shortly after the adjournment of 20 Nov. 1685 Fauconberg was summoned to the specially convened court of the lord high steward, consisting largely of courtiers and followers of the new king, to hear the crown’s case against Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) for treason in the recent insurrection of Monmouth. At the end of the presentation of evidence on 14 Jan. 1686, the lord high steward allowed the judges attending to withdraw to consider of the matters of law in the case, upon which Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham similarly moved that the lords themselves be permitted to withdraw. Fauconberg seconded this motion which was accepted. Upon their return, Fauconberg and the rest of the peers attending found that there was insufficient evidence on which to convict Delamer.<sup>89</sup></p><h2><em>Revolution and Convention, 1687-90</em></h2><p>By May 1687 Fauconberg was in touch with William of Orange’s agent in England Dijkvelt, through whom he sent a fulsomely admiring letter to William. Throughout 1687-8 he was consistently listed as one of the lords opposed to James’s policies and to the repeal of the Test Act.<sup>90</sup> He was one of those lord lieutenants who refused to put the Three Questions to his deputy lieutenants or justices of the peace, for which he was in November 1687 deprived of his responsibility in the North Riding, replaced in turn by the Catholic Charles Fairfax, 5th Viscount Fairfax of Emley [I], and then Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle.<sup>91</sup> At the trial of the Seven Bishops he, with Danby, stood as a surety for the bail of William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>92</sup> He also supported Danby in his plans for the seizure and occupation of York during the projected invasion by William of Orange, donating £500 to the project.<sup>93</sup> He was in or around the capital during the last months of 1688 and was one of those peers who followed Halifax and Nottingham in not signing the petition of 16 Nov. calling for a Parliament. He did not take part in the provisional government which met at Guildhall during the brief period of the king’s first flight but did appear with the rest of the peers summoned by William of Orange to give him advice on 21 December. At that meeting he disagreed with Halifax’s suggestion that the assembled peers should meet again in a number of days’ time in the chamber of the House of Lords, stressing instead the urgency of the situation, and moving that the next meeting take place the following day and not in the Lords’ chamber, as they were not assembling as a House of Lords. He was present at the meeting the following day held, against his advice, in the House of Lords, in order to discuss means of summoning a Parliament, and again at the meeting of 24 Dec. during which James’s second flight was revealed. Here Fauconberg was one of those peers, joining Williamites such as Colepeper and Charles Mordaunt*, 2nd Viscount Mordaunt (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), who spoke against spending the meeting’s time reading the letter, presumed to be of a private nature, which James II had left before his departure addressed to his secretary of state Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S].<sup>94</sup></p><p>Fauconberg was active from the first day of the Convention, 22 Jan. 1689. On that day he seconded the motion proposed by Mordaunt for Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, to be admitted to bail.<sup>95</sup> He took an active part in the debates and votes on the disposition of the crown, in which he acted as one of the small group of Danby’s followers, with whom he voted, and even abstained, consistently. The discovery of the division lists of these days compiled by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, has indicated that ‘Danby’s group’ consisted only of Fauconberg, his former proxy donor Lindsey and Henry Compton*, bishop of London. Fauconberg took part in the debate of 29 Jan. when the vote of the Commons declaring that James had ‘abdicated’ and that ‘the throne is vacant’ was brought up to the House. Danby was in the chair of the committee of the whole that debated the terms of the vote, and Fauconberg took a typically non-committal stance on this, arguing on one side that there was an ‘impracticability’ of James II’s continuing to govern, especially as hurried disposal of the great seal on his first flight, made his ‘dereliction’ clear. On the other hand, he felt the House was not ready for a question on the Commons’ vote until there had been more debate on whether there had been an abdication. The debate soon moved on to the question whether there should be a regency under Mary in James II’s name, and Danby’s group were instrumental in defeating this motion. The following day, the votes of Danby’s followers helped gain the majority for the substitution of the word ‘deserted’ for ‘abdicated’ in the Commons’ resolution. On 31 Jan. in another debate in a committee of the whole, Fauconberg voted with Danby in favour of inserting words in the Commons’ vote declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen of England and he did so again in the second division of the day, against declaring the throne ‘vacant’. Upon the report of the conference of 4 Feb. at which the Commons made clear their objections to the House’s changes, two more divisions were held, on whether to agree with the Commons in the use of the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is vacant’. Both Fauconberg and Danby abstained from the first of these votes and Ailesbury later recounted in his memoirs, written years after the events and thus confused in many of the details of these days, the curious story that at this division Fauconberg and Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham (who was not even present according to the attendance register for that day) ‘retired between the hanging [presumably one of the Armada tapestries, and the door next to the bishops’ room’ in order to abstain. He may have voted with Danby against the motion to agree with the Commons that ‘the throne is vacant’ and he was certainly in the House to be nominated to a committee to draw up reasons defending the House’s amendments which he helped to present to the Commons in a conference the following day. By the time another long and inconclusive free conference, for which Fauconberg was not appointed a manager, was held on 6 Feb., the mood had changed in the House owing largely to William’s forthright statement to a group of prominent peers, including Danby, that he would not settle for less than the throne in his name. Danby and his group deserted their former loyalist position by voting in favour of the motion of that day to agree with the Commons in the use of the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacated’. From there it was a short step for the House to pass a resolution declaring William and Mary king and queen.<sup>96</sup> Following this crucial vote Fauconberg was on 8 Feb. appointed a manager for a conference on the Declaration of Rights and, after the report the following day, was placed on the committee to draw up heads defending the House’s amendments. He chaired this committee on 11 Feb. 1689 and reported its reasons to the House that day, but these were rejected so Fauconberg and his committee had to withdraw to rework them.<sup>97</sup> The reasons once being settled, Fauconberg then helped to manage the three conferences on 11-12 Feb. that thrashed out the final text of the Declaration of Rights which was presented to the new monarchs at their proclamation in the Banqueting House the following day, 13 Feb. 1689.</p><p>Fauconberg’s activities in the House in support of William’s claim to the throne led to his re-appointment to the Privy Council on 14 Feb. 1689 and to the lieutenancy of the North Riding at the end of March. At the time of the coronation he was elevated in the peerage, as earl of Fauconberg. His patent of creation was dated 9 Apr. and he was introduced in the House under this title on 13 Apr., supported by other prominent adherents of the new regime Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield. William III also used him as his representative to try to convince Fauconberg’s friend Chesterfield, whom William of Orange had known since his childhood, to support the new regime and to take office; Chesterfield consistently refused.<sup>98</sup> Yet there is other evidence that in private William did not think very highly of Fauconberg. When in his role as a member of the subcommittee of the Privy Council dealing with the affairs of Ireland Fauconberg recommended that John Skeffington, 2nd Viscount Massereene [I], take part in the expedition to Ireland, William could only comment that Massereene was a fool, ‘and was recommended by a greater fool, viz. the earl of Fauconberg’.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Fauconberg, both as viscount and later earl, kept busy in the Convention in the months immediately following the proclamation of the new monarchs, and proceeded to sit in 69 per cent of the sittings before the prorogation of 21 Oct. 1689. On 14 Mar. he was appointed to the committees on the major pieces of ecclesiastical legislation of the Convention, the abortive comprehension bill and the more successful toleration bill. He chaired short meetings of the committee on the comprehension bill on 16 and 20 Mar., only to adjourn them to future dates, because during this time he was heavily involved, indeed perhaps the principal actor, in the proceedings on the bill for the abrogation of oaths. On 15 Mar. he was placed on the subcommittee formed by a committee of the whole to draw up a clause to remove the sacramental test from the bill and he chaired a meeting of this subcommittee the following day. With the House requesting the committee to ‘expedite’ consideration of this bill, he chaired another committee meeting on 18 Mar., though only to adjourn it to the following day. In the meantime the House ordered that consideration of the matter be resumed in committee of the whole House. Fauconberg took the chair of that meeting too on 19 March. He reported that the committee had, once again, committed the matter to a select committee, the same one as had been appointed on 15 March. Not surprisingly, he chaired the select committee on 20 Mar. as well and reported its conclusions to the House. The House rejected one clause produced by the committee and assigned the legal assistants to draw up the clause on the sacramental test. Over the following days the House continued to debate various amendments to the bill, and its final rejection of the clause for removing the sacramental test from the new oaths prompted a protest from a small number of Whig peers, in which Fauconberg did not join.<sup>100</sup> The bill was sent down to the Commons on 23 Mar. and in the meantime Fauconberg on 28 Mar. helped to draft and to present in conference the reasons why the House could not agree with the provisions against the queen dowager and her household in the Commons’ bill for the removal of papists from London.</p><p>On 16 Apr. the Commons sent back its amended bill for the abrogation of oaths, and the House in turn sent its changes to the amendments back to the lower House two days later. Thus began a long dispute and series of conferences between the Houses on the key point of the dispensation, favoured by the House, of members of the clergy from the abrogation of their old oaths. He did not take part in the first conference on 20 Apr., but was appointed a manager for the free conference two days later. Upon the report of this conference the House agreed to accept the Commons’ amendment enforcing the oaths on the clergy as long as it were left to the discretion of the king to allow no more than twelve nonjuring clergymen to enjoy the income from the ecclesiastical benefices. Fauconberg was assigned to manage the free conference of 24 Apr. in which this concession was made, and the Commons in turn agreed to these terms, allowing the king to give the bill for abrogating oaths his royal assent when he visited Parliament that afternoon.</p><p>Fauconberg continued busy in the House throughout May 1689. On 8 May he was a reporter for a conference on the bill for the disarming of papists, after which the House accepted the Commons’ objections to its amendment. The following day he was placed on a subcommittee established by the committee of the whole House to consider the Commons’ amendments to the bill for establishing commissioners of the great seal. On 22 May he was appointed a manager for a conference on the Commons’ amendments to the toleration bill, after which the lower House agreed to the Lords’ objections. On that day he also chaired and reported from a committee of the whole considering the Bill of Rights, which established a subcommittee to draw clauses for settling the succession in the House of Hanover and for forbidding any king from marrying a papist. He chaired the committee of the whole House again on 24 May when these clauses drawn up by the subcommittee were reported and approved.<sup>101</sup> That same day he was named to the committee to draft reasons why the House did not agree with the Commons in removing the clause in the additional poll bill which allowed for the peerage’s self-assessment, but he was not assigned to manage the conference on 27 May when these reasons were presented.</p><p>On 15 June he was assigned to the drafting committee for an address requesting the king to repair the derelict garrisons, to discourage papists and, potentially most embarrassing for Fauconberg and other members of the council on Irish affairs, to investigate the reasons for the miscarriages in Ireland. Fauconberg was also involved in the impeachments of Sir Adam Blair and Captain Henry Vaughan, and on 26 June Fauconberg was placed on a committee to examine the Journal for precedents of similar impeachments. The precedents were reported on 2 July and the House resolved to proceed with the impeachments, prompting a dissent from 21 peers. Fauconberg evidently wished to be among that group for the following day he explained to the House that he had been present at the previous day’s debate and had even spoken on the matter, but had been absent when the division on the question was put. He wished, nevertheless, to put his name to the dissent, but the House ruled against him, as he had missed the division itself, which ‘was against the rules and orders of the House’.</p><p>Fauconberg was placed on 24 July on the committee to devise an explanation why the House insisted on its controversial amendments to the bill to reverse the two judgments against Titus Oates and he helped to present these reasons to the Commons in conference two days later. He also, on 25 July, helped to draw up reasons for insisting on amendments to the bill for duties on tea and coffee. He was prominent in the committee on the bill for prohibiting trade with France and chaired its meetings on four occasions between 12 and 16 August. On 17 Aug. the House ordered him to report from the committee, which he duly did two days later, although the House did not accept all of the amendments suggested by the committee.<sup>102</sup> The following day, 20 Aug., the session was adjourned for over a month, and it did not meet again for serious or extended business until the prorogation of 21 October. When the Convention resumed in its second session two days later, Fauconberg was there, but only attended 44 per cent of the sittings and left the House on 14 Dec. 1689, well over a month before the session was prorogued on 27 Jan. 1690. The Convention was dissolved on 6 Feb. 1690.</p><h2><em>William III’s Parliaments, 1690-1700</em></h2><p>Fauconberg attended just over three-quarters of the sittings of the first session, in spring 1690, of William III’s first Parliament. Late in the session, in the debate of 2 May 1690 on the bill to enforce an oath of abjuration, Fauconberg spoke against the immediate rejection of the bill, as was argued for by many because of the bill’s potential divisiveness, and called for its commitment.<sup>103</sup> Eleven days later he signed the dissent against the resolution not to allow counsel for the City of London more time to be heard in their petition to have the City’s charter restored. He was present for the first day, 2 Oct. 1690, of the following session of 1690-91 and proceeded to attend two-thirds of the sittings. On his second day there, 6 Oct., he was named to the drafting committee for an address of thanks to the queen for her government of the kingdom in the king’s absence and also voted for the discharge of Peterborough and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury from the Tower.<sup>104</sup> On 29 Oct. he chaired the committee of the whole considering the bill to clarify the power of the admiralty commissioners and reported it as fit to pass without amendment. He then chaired, over the course of the period 17-29 Nov. 1690, six meetings of the committee of the whole considering the bill to reform abuses in chancery, in which the judges themselves were consulted as to their views on parts of the bill.<sup>105</sup> He was appointed to the drafting committee for an order to vacate written protections and reported the draft on 9 Dec., but the House recommitted the matter to a committee of the whole the following day. Later, on 27 Dec., Fauconberg subscribed to the dissent from the resolution to allow written protections to be given to the menial servants of peers. In the last days of December he continued to be active, particularly in committee of the whole House. He chaired three meetings of the committee of the whole on the bill for examining public accounts in 29-31 Dec., and on 30 Dec. he also chaired a committee on the bill for attainting those in rebellion against William and Mary.<sup>106</sup></p><p>He was present for about two-thirds of the sittings of the 1691-2 session. On 17 Nov. 1691 he acted as a reporter for the conference on ‘matters relating to the safety of the kingdom’, at which the Commons announced their determination to proceed with the investigation of the letters found on the person of Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], when his ship was boarded en route to France. On that same day he also reported from the committee assigned to consider the petition of George Hitchcock against Obadiah Sedgewick, in which he recommended the rejection of the petition. This advice was again ignored and instead the House ordered that counsel for both sides would be heard in four days’ time. A month later, on 18 Dec., he chaired the committee of the whole House when it determined that the book of ‘observations’ submitted to the House by the commissioners of public accounts would be considered each day at noon, no other business intervening. Between 18 and 29 Dec. 1691, Fauconberg chaired the committee of the whole House five times for its consideration of the observations. The committee formulated a set of questions to be posed to the commissioners, which he reported to the House on 30 Dec. 1691. The commissioners of accounts delivered their written answers to the House on 12 Jan. 1692 and four days later Fauconberg chaired the committee of the whole House again to consider these answers. The observations and the answers of the commissioners fell by the wayside in the busy weeks following, especially as the Commons shifted their focus of attention by bringing up a bill for another commission of accounts.<sup>107</sup> At the beginning of the new year, on 12 Jan. 1692, Fauconberg signed the protest against the decision to receive the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.</p><p>From the time of the 1692-3 session Fauconberg’s attendance steadily declined in the House and he never again came to more than half of the meetings of any session. In this session he came to only 38 (35 per cent) of its sittings, but he was present for the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, on 4 Feb. 1693, whom he, with the majority of the House, found not guilty of murder. But, having cast his verdict in Westminster Hall, he was found not to have returned with the other peers to the Lords’ chamber after the trial – one of only four such miscreants – and was consequently fined £100 which was to go to the poor of Westminster.<sup>108</sup> He was present at 37 per cent of the sittings of the 1693-4 session and on 15 Jan. 1694 was placed on the committee to draw up heads for a conference concerning the details of the timing when intelligence of the sailing of the French fleet from Brest was transmitted to the admirals the previous summer. However, he was not named a manager for the ensuing conference when these heads were to be presented. Nothing was heard from the Commons on this point for several weeks until on 7 Feb. 1694, in response to a request from the House, the clerks reported their findings of precedents of messages sent between the Houses to remind them of papers previously delivered. Fauconberg was then placed on a new committee of ten members to prepare further heads for a conference on the intelligence of the sailing of the Brest fleet, including a reprimand to the lower House for ignoring the Lords’ previous message to them on this point in the previous conference. This time he was appointed a manager for the conferences held on 8 and 12 Feb. when the House delivered its stern message to the Commons. He barely attended the last session of William III’s first Parliament, in 1694-5, at all.</p><p>He managed to come to 30, just under a quarter, of the sittings in the first session, of 1695-6, in the ensuing Parliament, where he contributed to debate in a committee of the whole on 4 Dec. 1695 on the state of the coinage and expressed concern for the health of trade if the coin were called in.<sup>109</sup> On another controversial topic, he was a manager for a conference on 14 Dec. on the address against the establishment of the Scottish East India Company. He signed the Association pledging loyalty to William III on the first possible occasion, 27 Feb. 1696. By this time age was clearly taking its toll on Fauconberg and he effectively retired from the House in late 1696. He attended only 13 sittings of the session of 1696-7, all in late November and December 1696. In one of his last interventions in the House, on 15 Dec., he signed the protest against the resolution to read Cardell Goodman’s information in the proceedings for the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and he was given permission to leave the House when that suspect testimony was read.<sup>110</sup> He was marked as present in the House on 23 Dec. when the final division on the bill for Fenwick’s attainder took place. His name does not occur in the division list for this controversial vote, either for or against, and once more he may have chosen to abstain.</p><p>That day was his very last in the House and by July 1697 he revealed his determination to withdraw from public life in a letter to his brother-in-law Sir William Frankland, himself dying: ‘for my own particular, that have seen all the vanities and acted an unhappy part upon all the scenes and stages of human life, it is more than time I should endeavour to get the taste and relish of this world out of my mouth by withdrawing from the noise and bustle of it to a more heavenly conversation’.<sup>111</sup> Fauconberg died at his house of Sutton Court in Chiswick on 31 Dec. 1700. He did not have any surviving children by either of his wives, and in his will of 14 Nov. 1699 he stipulated bequests and annuities totalling approximately £7,500 and divided his extensive estate in Yorkshire and Lancashire and his houses in Chiswick and King’s (i.e. Soho) Square between his wife, his sister, his nephew Sir Thomas Frankland<sup>‡</sup> and another nephew, the son of his younger brother Sir Rowland Belasyse.<sup>112</sup> This nephew, Thomas Belasyse*, unlike him in religion and politics, succeeded him as 3rd Viscount Fauconberg. The earldom became extinct due to Fauconberg’s lack of direct male offspring, until it was created once again for another Belasyse later in the eighteenth century.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BELASYSE, Thomas (1663-1718) |
<p><strong><surname>BELASYSE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1663–1718)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>uncle 31 Dec. 1700 as 3rd Visct. FAUCONBERG. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 11 Mar. 1663, 1st s. of Sir Rowland Belasyse, KB of Smithells, Lancs. and Anne, da. and h. of Humphrey Davenport of Sutton, Cheshire. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m.</em> bef. July 1698, Bridget (<em>d.</em>1732), da. of Sir John Gage , 4th bt. of Firle, Suss. 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 3da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 16 Aug. 1699. <em>d.</em> 26 Nov. 1718; <em>will</em> 26 Mar. 1714, pr. 7 May 1719.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. and lt. col. Coldstream Regt. of Ft. Gds. 1687-8.</p> |
|
<p>Thomas Belasyse, 3rd Viscount Fauconberg, was the eldest son of Sir Rowland Belasyse, KB, younger brother of the childless Thomas Belasyse*, earl of Fauconberg. Like much of his family – except for his elder brother Fauconberg – Sir Rowland was a Catholic and brought up his son to be one as well.<sup>2</sup> The earldom of Fauconberg was extinguished at the earl’s death in 1700, but the viscountcy was an older title and was able to descend to the earl’s nephew. The 3rd Viscount never sat in the House of Lords, disabled by his Catholicism, and at the time of the Hanoverian succession was closely monitored as a known Jacobite.<sup>3</sup> His only known involvement with the House was as one of the signatories to a petition submitted in June 1716 against the bill for the registration of papists’ estates.<sup>4</sup> At his death, in exile in the English Benedictine convent in Brussels, in 1718, the viscountcy passed to his eldest son, Thomas Belasyse<sup>†</sup>, 4th Viscount Fauconberg, who inherited his father’s estates in five northern counties and the copious debts run up by the extravagance of his mother.<sup>5</sup> By 1737 the 4th Viscount was ready to take the requisite oaths so he could sit in the House, and was in 1756 was created earl of Fauconberg.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BENNET, Charles (1674-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>BENNET</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1674–1722)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 11 Feb. 1695 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. OSSULSTON; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of TANKERVILLE |
|
First sat 12 Dec. 1695; last sat 31 Jan. 1722 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1674 o.s. of Sir John Bennet*, later Bar. Ossulston, of Dawley, Harlington, Mdx. and 2nd w. Bridget (<em>d</em>. 21 July 1703), da. of John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> (1625-79) of Langar, Notts. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. 3 July 1695, Mary (<em>d</em>. 31 May 1710), da. and h. of Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da. KT 28 Mar. 1721. <em>d</em>. 21 May 1722; <em>will</em> 31 July 1721-16 Apr. 1722; pr. 12 June 1722.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>C.j. in eyre, Trent S. 1715-<em>d.</em>; PC 6 July 1716-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. militia ft. Mdx. 1690-?95.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Charles Bennet had Whiggish antecedents and influences from many sides in his early development. In August 1690, when as a fifteen-year old he was made a colonel of militia in Middlesex, he was noted by Roger Morrice as being ‘prejudiced against King James who dealt severely with his father’, John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston.<sup>6</sup> James II had called Ossulston to account for peculation in his role as deputy postmaster general in the 1670s and had compounded with him ‘a little before his flight’ for the large sum of £12,000. On his mother’s side Charles Bennet’s uncles were the Howes—Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Howe [I]), John Grobham (‘Jack’) Howe<sup>‡</sup>, and Emanuel Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>—who were known for their Whiggish support of the Revolution settlement, and for their opposition to William III’s court in the later years of his reign. When Ossulston died on 11 Feb. 1695 Charles inherited his Whiggish principles as well as a great fortune and houses in Middlesex and St James’s Square.<sup>7</sup> The early 1690s had seen the young man linked matrimonially with a succession of wealthy heiresses. In July 1694 it was reported that he was to marry ‘Mrs Thomas of Wales, the greatest fortune in England, having £5,000 p.a. land, besides £50,000 in money’, and later that year he was said to be on the point of marrying the eldest daughter of John Crew*, Baron Crew, who possessed a similar dowry.<sup>8</sup> In July 1695 the new 2nd Baron Ossulston entered instead into an advantageous marriage that further cemented his relationship to the Whig hierarchy. His new father-in-law, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, had been promoted in the peerage as earl of Tankerville barely a month earlier.</p><p>On 12 Dec. 1695, now of age, Ossulston first took his seat in the House and began a long political career. At this point Tankerville was one of the leading spokesmen for the Whigs in the House of Lords. Although Ossulston appears to have been under the influence of his energetic and flamboyant father-in-law, he was not at this point an active member of the House. He diligently attended for the rest of December 1695 and the first week of January 1696, but then his attendance became sporadic; in total he came to only 28 sitting days of the 1695-6 session and was named to only two committees. He left the House on 13 Feb. 1696 and was absent when the Association was introduced in the House. He had to be summoned by a special letter addressed to him on 27 Feb. before he indicated his belief in William III’s ‘lawful and rightful’ rule with his signature to the Association on 14 March. He maintained the same attendance rate of just under a quarter of the sittings in the following session of 1696-7, when he was named to five committees. Ossulston voted on 23 Dec. 1696 in favour of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, in the passage of which Tankerville played a major role. Ossulston registered his proxy with his father-in-law on 1 Mar. 1697, and again on 12 Feb. 1698 in the 1697-8 session, when Ossulston came to just over a third of the sittings.</p><p>He probably used Tankerville as his proxy at other times during the succeeding Parliaments of 1698-1700 and early 1701, but the relevant proxy registers are now missing. For the Parliament elected in the summer of 1698, Ossulston took his seat on 9 Dec. 1698, but after this late start he attended regularly and came to 45 per cent of the 1698-9 session’s sitting days when he was named to 12 committees on legislation. His attendance dropped steeply in the following session of 1699-1700 when he came to only 16 sittings from 20 Feb. to 22 Mar. 1700. He may have been summoned specifically to take part in the debates surrounding the bill to continue the old, Tory-led, East India Company as a corporation, and on 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against the motion to adjourn into a committee of the whole House to discuss amendments that would further the bill’s progress through the House. He did not, however, join the many Whigs who signed the protest of that day against the bill’s passage.</p><p>His attendance dropped even further, to only 13 sittings, in the Parliament which met in early 1701. He first sat on 24 Feb. 1701, when he was named to a committee, and then absented himself until 26 Mar., whereupon he sat for five successive days until leaving the House again on 1 April, the day of his second committee nomination in that session. He did not return for over two months but was probably urgently summoned to return, for he sat again on 17 June, the day of the controversial trial of the impeached Junto peer John Somers*, Baron Somers. Over the next week he did his duty by the Junto and voted to acquit both Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. On the day after that latter vote, 24 June 1701, the earl of Tankerville died and bequeathed to his daughter, Ossulston’s wife Mary, a share of his property, including most notably the estate and manor house at Up Park in Harting, west Sussex.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Ossulston first sat in the following Parliament of the first half of 1702 on 9 Jan. 1702 and proceeded to come to exactly half of this Parliament’s sitting days and was named to 15 committees on legislation. He also acted as a teller on 23 Feb. 1700 on the question of whether to add a clause to the bill for the oath of abjuration providing that those clergymen who refused to take the oath by the deadline should nevertheless be allowed to retain their livings for another three months.<sup>10</sup> At the death of William III on 8 Mar. 1702, he was, along with the rest of the House, appointed a manager for a conference to discuss arrangements for the succession of the new queen.</p><p>He attended half of the sittings of Anne’s first Parliament of 1702-5, although he was more diligent in the first two sessions, coming to 63 per cent of the sittings of each, while his attendance slipped to 25 per cent during the 1704-5 session. He subscribed on 9 Dec. 1702 to the House’s resolution against accepting bills with ‘tacked’ clauses and showed the extent of his opposition to this tactic when he joined the Whig protest against retention of a clause in the bill to settle a revenue on George*, prince of Denmark (also duke of Cumberland) which stipulated that he could retain his place in the House and in the Privy Council even after the queen’s death, despite his foreign birth. The Whigs considered this clause to be an unnecessary ‘tack’ on a supply bill which could cast doubt in the future on the rights of a number of other peers of foreign birth, such as William III’s Dutch followers, to sit in the House.</p><p>Three days before this protest Ossulston cast his vote in favour of the Whig amendment to the penalty clause in the occasional conformity bill. In this and the following sessions Ossulston was closely involved in proceedings on this controversial bill. On 24 Feb. 1703 he dissented from the resolution that, in the wake of the bill’s defeat in the Commons because of the House’s amendments, the text of these amendments and of the reasons for their inclusion given during a conference should be printed and made publicly available. The household account book of the Junto leader Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, shows that Ossulston was present at a meeting of ten Whig peers at Wharton’s house on 29 Jan. 1703, most likely to discuss the strategy to take at the free conference on the bill which had been scheduled for 1 February.<sup>11</sup> Ossulston’s own social diary, which survives from November 1703 to December 1712, reveals that from at least late 1703 he was well acquainted with the members of the Whig Junto, and that they relied on his support to help defeat the bill when it came up before the House again in the 1703-4 session.<sup>12</sup> On 4 Dec. 1703, Ossulston recorded that his maternal uncle, the Whig comptroller of the excise Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Howe [I], delivered a blank proxy form for his signature at the specific request of the Junto leaders Wharton, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland and Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax (later earl of Halifax).<sup>13</sup> As the proxy registers for this session are missing we cannot know whose proxy the Junto leaders assigned to him, or even if one was registered to him at all, but it is noteworthy that Ossulston obediently started attending the House for the first time that session two days after receiving this letter. He was clearly there specifically for the purpose of acting against the bill, as he noted its delayed progress up from the Commons in his diary, and he voted against it on 14 Dec. 1703, most probably armed with the proxy of a fellow Whig. He even noted that it was thrown out by a majority of eleven.<sup>14</sup> Over the following days, Ossulston continued to meet with the Junto members and other Whigs at meetings in their houses or in eating establishments, meetings which were probably intended in equal part for socializing and political strategizing. For just one example, on 17 Dec. he had dinner at the house of Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, accompanied by Halifax, Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston, Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans and the Member ‘Mr. Morgan’, probably Anthony Morgan<sup>‡</sup>, the Whig burgess from Yarmouth. Later that evening Ossulston supped at the house of his London neighbour Sunderland (who lived at no. 31 St James’s Square) with an even larger number of fellow Whigs: Wharton; Halifax; William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire; Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset; Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun; Ralph Grey*, 4th Baron Grey of Warke; Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis; Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend; Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington; Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham; Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough; Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham; John Holles*, duke of Newcastle; and ‘some others I do not remember’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>He continued to attend the House regularly following the defeat of the occasional conformity bill. On the day of that vote, 14 Dec. 1703, his wife’s uncle Ralph, 4th Baron Grey of Warke, petitioned to bring in a bill to compound with various parties to settle the affairs of the troubled estate left to him by his late brother Tankerville. By the terms of the bill Ossulston was to receive a composition of £15,000 to release various estates in Northumberland and London in which his wife had a reversionary interest. Ossulston was absent from the House after 18 Dec. 1703, during the preliminary stages of Grey of Warke’s bill but was present on 12 Jan. 1704 when it was reported as fit to pass with amendments. On 13 Jan. Ossulston met with Grey of Warke ‘about our act of Parliament’ and the following day the bill was passed in the House. It received the royal assent on 24 Feb. 1704.<sup>16</sup></p><p>On 14 Jan. 1704 Ossulston also recorded that he called on his wife’s uncle Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley, to accompany him to the House ‘where there was a cause heard of a writ of error from the King’s Bench in a cause of an elector of Aylesbury in Bucks. The House did not rise till 9 of the clock’. He was on a committee to draw up an address to the queen concerning this matter, better known as the case of the Aylesbury men, as he noted for 15 Jan. that he was in Westminster although the House was not meeting, and ‘there was a committee to draw up a representation but it was adjourned till Monday’. That he had a part in this is suggested by his note three days later that ‘we carried the representation’ to the queen.<sup>17</sup> In this period Ossulston had almost daily meals taken after meetings of the House with a small group of peers who were his close friends and companions.<sup>18</sup> Ossulston also attended a number of sizeable gatherings hosted by the Junto lords to discuss political tactics. On 13 Feb. 1704 he was at Sunderland’s house in the evening with a large number of Whig peers, where ‘tea drunk and our discourse was only about the Scotch Plot [of] which the papers was before the House of Lords’.<sup>19</sup> Throughout the first half of March he recorded his regular attendance in Parliament during the hearings of the Scotch Plot, although he almost never stated the business of the day or his own views. Earlier, on 13 Jan. 1704 he had been appointed to a committee to draw up a representation to the queen objecting to the Commons’ complaint that the House was arrogating the royal prerogative to itself by examining witnesses and taking evidence in this case, independent of the Privy Council and officers of the crown. He noted in his diary the report on the address on 17 January.<sup>20</sup> Ossulton later recorded that on 1 Mar., a day when there was a debate on the Plot, he remained in the House until nine in the evening and that on 3 March,</p><blockquote><p>there was a report from a committee of seven lords that there was a man who would decipher the gibberish letters and a debate thereupon arose. I was against the man’s deciphering the letters only to the lords [of the committee established to examine the papers on the Plot] and not to the whole House.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Political meetings and dinners hosted at Sunderland’s or Somerset’s came in rapid succession in late March, perhaps especially as Ossulston and his dining companions were placed on the large committee established on 22 Mar. to draw up a statement for the queen of the many resolutions taken by the House regarding the discoveries made in their examination of the Plot.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Clearly by 1704 Ossulston was seen by the Junto as a key member of the House on whom they could rely to assist in prosecuting their political strategies. As the occasional conformity bill came up before the House again in the following session of 1704-5, Ossulston received a letter from Somers on 15 Dec. 1704 requesting his presence in the House that day to help throw out the bill on its first reading.<sup>23</sup> Yet Ossulston did not attend the House regularly until 5 Feb. 1705, and he only came to a quarter of the sittings of this session. On 26 Feb. Ossulston went to yet another gathering to discuss Whig strategy with Somerset at Northumberland House, ‘where there was a great many other Lords, none but Lords’.<sup>24</sup> This probably concerned the continuing dispute with the Commons over the case of the Aylesbury men, for the day following this meeting, Ossulston and many of these companions were placed on a large committee to consider heads for a conference regarding the continuing dispute. On 7 Mar. he was placed on a smaller committee of 18 members assigned to draw up a representation to the queen of the state of proceedings in the matter.</p><p>He came to 45 per cent of the sitting days of the following session of 1705-6, the first of the new Parliament elected in the summer of 1705, and first sat on 27 Nov. 1705. He is recorded as being in the House on 6 Dec. when he almost certainly voted in favour of the motion that the ‘Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration’, for five days after this vote he was one of 12 members appointed to a committee to draft an address to the queen asking her to punish those spreading such reports. When he left the House on 5 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of Sunderland, who held it for the remaining two weeks of the session. <sup>25</sup></p><p>Ossulston was in Bath during the summer between sessions, and there he first met William Johnstone*, marquess of Annandale [S], with whom he struck up a lifelong and close friendship. Their friendship was further cemented when they discovered they had a common interest in the borderlands of England and Scotland. On 20 June 1706, two weeks after the first mention of Annandale in the diary, Ossulston became a major landowner in the north through the death without heirs of his wife’s uncle Grey of Warke, whose estate of Chillingham (as well as property in Charterhouse Yard and elsewhere) fell to the Ossulstons.<sup>26</sup> Through his continuing friendship with Annandale Ossulston was to become acquainted with a great many Scottish peers, and he may have been one of the few English lords of Anne’s reign who maintained friendships with his peers from north of the border.</p><p>This may explain his renewed interest in the business of the House during the 1706-7 session which saw the passage of the Act of Union, and when he attended almost three-quarters of the sittings. Ossulston was active in the Whig strategizing for the debates on the Union, and throughout January and February 1707 was a regular member of several mealtime gatherings of peers and Members, consistently listed in detail in his diary, that inevitably would have discussed the proceedings of the House. On 24 Jan. he hosted a Whig dinner in his own house in St James’s Square.<sup>27</sup> On 19 Feb. 1707 Ossulston was a teller on a division in the House for the question that the ninth article, regarding Scotland’s proportion of the land tax, should be included among the articles of the bill. As the opposite teller was the resolute Tory William North*, 6th Baron North, Ossulston almost certainly told for the Whig side of the question.<sup>28</sup></p><p>The Act of Union having passed into law, Ossulston came to only 40 per cent of the sittings of the session of 1707-8, only sitting regularly from 16 Jan. 1708 until the last week of March. He returned to the House most likely to keep an eye on proceedings on the bill, first read on 23 Jan. 1708, of his former brother-in-law John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter, a measure which affected him. Exeter’s first wife had been Ossulston’s sister Annabella. She had brought a £30,000 dowry to the marriage, as well as a detailed marriage settlement involving her jointure lands. She died within two years of the wedding and after her death Exeter, then styled Lord Burleigh, quickly remarried. However, according to the terms of Annabella’s marriage settlement, if she died within five years of the marriage (as she did), £10,000 of the original dowry was to revert to the Ossulstons. Burleigh had entered into his second marriage on the understanding that he and his father John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, would take steps to revoke the terms of this settlement. The death of Burleigh’s father in August 1700 had delayed these proceedings, although it is not clear why it took seven years for the new earl of Exeter to bring a bill in Parliament to accomplish the revocation. Ossulston, only a week back in the House, was named to the committee on this bill on 24 Jan. 1708. Despite the threat to a portion of the large dowry originally bestowed at Annabella’s marriage, Ossulston does not appear to have objected to the bill, perhaps because the jointure lands would revert to him, for it went through both houses fairly easily and received the royal assent on 11 Mar. 1708.<sup>29</sup></p><p>His recent inheritance of the Chillingham estate gave Ossulston some electoral influence in Northumberland, which he determined to put to use in the elections of May 1708 when he supported the candidacy of his kinsman and man-of-business Sir John Bennet<sup>‡</sup> for a seat for Morpeth.<sup>30</sup> On 21 Apr. 1708 Ossulston wrote ‘letters to several people in Morpeth [to] set Sir John Bennet up to stand for Parliament man’ and on 11 May, two days before the election, it was reported that Edmund Maine<sup>‡</sup>, a Tory army officer and the incumbent of the contested seat, ‘has desisted at Morpeth to Lord Ossulston’s friend’.<sup>31</sup> Ossulston does not appear to have tried to influence subsequent elections at Morpeth, probably content to leave his political associate, neighbour at St James’s Square, and frequent dining companion, Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, who controlled the principal interest for that borough, to handle elections there single-handedly.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Ossulston maintained his association with the Junto and other Whigs during the Parliament of 1708, while also increasing his contacts with his Middlesex neighbour John Walker, the clerk assistant to the House of Lords, and with Scottish peers and Members in Westminster. He was present at 62 per cent of the sittings of the session in 1708-9, and first took his seat for continuous attendance on 11 Jan. 1709 (after a token appearance on the first day of the Parliament to take the oaths). That same evening he was at Devonshire House and recorded that ‘here there was a great many other Lords to consult about the Scotch election, as the duke of Newcastle and several other lords’.<sup>33</sup> Ossulston and a number of Whigs, such as his host William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, were apparently galvanized when the issue of the validity of the recent elections of the Scottish representative peers came to a head early in 1709. It may have been at this meeting of Whigs in the house of the new duke of Devonshire that plans were laid for the attack on the parliamentary alliance between the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, and the leading Scottish politician James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], for Ossulston returned to regular attendance on the House after this meeting, and on 21 Jan. joined the Junto and the Scottish ‘Squadrone’ in voting against the motion that Queensberry, created duke of Dover in the British peerage after the Union, had a right to vote in the elections of the Scottish representative peers. This would have gratified Ossulston’s friend and dining companion, Annandale, who was one of Queensberry’s fiercest enemies in Scottish politics.<sup>34</sup> On 26 Mar. Ossulston also reported to the House from committee with the amended estate bill of Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>, which was duly passed.</p><p>From early March 1709 Ossulston began to associate with the Scottish peers in Westminster and their allies, to the point where by 1710 they had become his principal dining companions. On 2 Mar. 1709 he was at dinner at the residence of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], where was also Annandale, Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], and the Scottish Member, Lord Archibald Hamilton<sup>‡</sup>; four days later Ossulston had the same company in turn over to his house for dinner. On 15 Mar. he was at Annandale’s residence in an even larger company of Scottish peers: Hamilton, John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], Thomas Livingstone, Viscount Teviot [S], as well as the English peer Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh.<sup>35</sup> Ossulston came to just over half of the sittings of the 1709-10 session and did not begin to sit regularly until 17 Jan. 1710, probably in order to take part in the proceedings against Dr. Henry Sacheverell. On 22 Jan. 1710 Ossulston dined at the duke of Somerset’s, ‘where there was a great deal of company, too many to enumerate’, and where the gathering most likely discussed the action to be taken against Sacheverell and his incendiary sermon.<sup>36</sup> Ossulston recorded on 27 Feb. 1710, with more than usual fanfare, ‘Monday the 27 was the first day of Dr. Sacheverell’s trial’, and his diary shows that he took a keen interest in the proceedings from that point. On 10 Mar. he noted that ‘the managers against Dr. Sacheverell made an end of the reply this night’, and he frequently recorded when he had spent ‘the whole day’ at the trial and on two occasions indicated that he was so involved in the proceedings that he ate his dinner in the House itself, with food that was brought to him from his St James’s residence.<sup>37</sup> On 14 Mar. he was a teller in the question whether to agree with the motion ‘that by the law and usage of Parliament’ it was not necessary to include the actual words supposed to be criminal in a written impeachment and six days later, on 20 Mar., Ossulston voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.<sup>38</sup></p><p>After the death of his wife in May 1710, and the sense of isolation it appears to have brought him, Ossulston became even closer with the Scots in London and from the autumn of 1710, when the political landscape was changing greatly with the dissolution of the Parliament and the breakup of the ministry of the ‘duumvirs’, Ossulston became a central member of what has been dubbed a ‘Westminster Anglo-Scottish dining group’. Between 25 Nov. 1710 and 26 June 1711, when Ossulston left London for his Northumbrian estates, he was at 136 mealtime meetings of this group, which had as its inner core the Scottish peers Annandale, John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerino [S], William Livingstone*, 2nd Viscount Kilsyth [S], William Keith*, 8th earl of Marischal [S], and Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], the Scottish Members John Montgomerie<sup>‡</sup>, William Cochrane<sup>‡</sup>, Sir James Abercromby<sup>‡</sup>, George Hamilton<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Hugh Paterson<sup>‡</sup>, and John Houston<sup>‡</sup>, and the English peer William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon.<sup>39</sup> It was clearly Annandale who was making these other Scottish contacts for Ossulston, who noted upon meeting Kilsyth, Marischal and Sir James Abercromby in November 1710, ‘They are gentlemen that I am not at all acquainted with, only upon Lord Annandale’s account’ and again upon meeting some new faces on 28 Jan. 1711, he remarked, ‘I don’t at all know any of ’em than drinking sometimes with ’em. They are Lord Annandale’s acquaintance’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Against this socio-political background, Ossulston attended 56 per cent of the sittings of the 1710-11 session, the first of the Tory-led Parliament elected in the autumn of 1710. He was this time a fairly regular attender from the first day of the session but on 2 Feb. 1711Ossulston registered his proxy with Dorchester for the following three days.<sup>41</sup> From 9 Feb. he was involved in a number of dinner meetings with Whig leaders, perhaps discussing moves against the attack on the previous ministry’s conduct of the Spanish war, and after such gatherings he frequently joined his Scottish friends Annandale and Kilsyth (as well as Hunsdon) in their favourite haunt, the British Coffee House, for supper.<sup>42</sup> Most of his companions among the Scots in Westminster were Tory, or in the case of Kilsyth and Balmerino, committed Jacobites. That he had frequent meetings, often in the same day, with both English Whigs and Scottish Tories, suggests that he could have been acting as a link between the two groups, a conduit through which the Junto Whigs—with whose policies he was always far more in sympathy—could sound out and approach the Scottish Tories in the House. This is suggested by a letter of June 1711 from Balmerino to Henry Maule in Scotland where, commenting on growing Scottish disenchantment with the Union, Balmerino added, ‘I find by Lord Ossulston that discourses of this kind are beginning to be common among the Whig Lords’.<sup>43</sup> So close was Ossulston becoming to his Scottish friends that in early August 1711, while he was at his estates in Northumberland, he briefly went over the northern border to visit Edinburgh—probably one of the only English peers to make this trip.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Ossulston was back in time to attend the 1711-12 session on its first day, 7 Dec. 1711, when he voted against the ministry of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, by supporting the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. On these first days of the session he followed his parliamentary activities with dinners with leading Whigs.<sup>45</sup> On the other hand, Ossulston on 20 Dec. 1711 voted against his Whig friends and in favour of the right of the duke of Hamilton to sit in the House of Lords as a British peer, under the title duke of Brandon. He was on the losing side here, and in protest at the House’s disenabling of Hamilton, many of the Scottish peers with whom Ossulston associated boycotted the House early in the new year. One day in late January 1712, when Balmerino and Annandale were refusing to enter the House, Ossulston and Henry Herbert*, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, did them the favour of leaving the chamber early and providing them with an account of that day’s proceedings, after which the two English peers went off to dinner with the two Scottish ones.<sup>46</sup> His diary, which ends on 19 Dec. 1712, records 23 meetings with the Anglo-Scottish dining club in 1712, but this is undoubtedly an underestimate: there are large periods in that year, usually during the parliamentary sessions, which are unaccounted for because the entries are in a now lost ‘London diary’. The diary for this period which survives is the diary maintained at his country residence, Dawley House. He was away from the House from 21 Feb. 1712, but his proxy (registered with Bolton on 28 Feb.) was vacated by his return to the House on 10 March.</p><p>The treatment of his Scottish friends may have alienated Ossulston temporarily from the Whigs. Ossulston’s closest companion among the Scots, Annandale, was so incensed by the vote of 20 Dec. that he and Hamilton himself continued their boycott of the House far longer than any of the other Scottish members of Parliament—. For a brief time in the latter stages of this turbulent session, Ossulston supported the Oxford ministry, and he may even have brought his friend Herbert of Chirbury, who had joined him in associating with the boycotting Scottish peers, over too. On 28 May 1712 Ossulston (and Herbert) surprisingly sided with the ministry by voting against the motion for an address to the queen over the ‘restraining orders’ issued to the captain general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>47</sup> Later on 7 June Ossulston and Herbert were two of the ‘young lords’ who ‘went off’ from the Whigs and voted with the ministry against the address to the queen urging her to work with the United Provinces in forging a ‘mutual guaranty’ to ensure the Hanoverian succession in Britain. As the parliamentary correspondent of William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), commented</p><blockquote><p>These [peers] had made a sort of agreement that the court should prevent a division, by which means they should not be discovered, but they were gudgeons, for the Court wanted not a majority, but a triumph, to show the people the disparity of numbers, and so they were caught like fools. A great deal of money and promises were spent to work this apostacy.<sup>48</sup></p></blockquote><p>This was certainly a triumph for the ministry, which had a majority of 45 in the Lords of this vote, one of the largest Whig defeats in the session and one which marked the end of concerted Whig opposition to the peace terms negotiated in Utrecht. The session was prorogued two weeks later, on 21 June.</p><p>Nevertheless, Jonathan Swift still considered Ossulston an opponent of the ministry in the months preceding the following session of spring 1713 when the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht were formally presented to the House. Ossulston came to half of the meetings of that session, when Oxford fully expected him to oppose the French commercial treaty, if it ever arrived in the House from the Commons. In the first session, in spring 1714, of the following Parliament, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, saw him as an opponent of the schism bill. Ossulston was present at less than a quarter of that session’s sittings and on 16 Apr. 1714 he registered his proxy with Somerset, but this was vacated two weeks later by his return to the House. He was present for much of the first half of June during the proceedings on the schism bill but did not sign the protest against it on 15 June, and then absented himself from the House for a period of two weeks after the bill’s passage. After returning briefly for one day, he registered his proxy with Bolton on 3 July, who was only able to hold it for a week before the Parliament was prorogued. Ossulston arrived in the House again on 1 Aug. 1714, the first day of the brief session charged with seeing a peaceful transfer of the crown to the elector of Hanover following the death of the queen, and sat in a further eight sittings of that session before the prorogation at the end of August.</p><p>In September 1714 Ossulston rented a portion of his townhouse on St James’s Square to the Hanoverian envoy Hans Caspar von Bothmer, and this favour to his representative, as well as Ossulston’s long allegiance to the Whigs, may have prompted George I on 19 Oct. 1714 to create Ossulston earl of Tankerville, his father-in-law’s old title.<sup>49</sup> Ossulston had been petitioning for this title since at least 1712 but had been blocked during the Oxford ministry by the counterclaims of the previous earl of Tankerville’s cousin, the staunch Tory, Lord North.<sup>50</sup> In November 1715 the new earl was given a further honour by being appointed chief justice in eyre south of Trent, an ancient and lucrative office which by this point was largely a sinecure. Nevertheless, Tankerville appears to have been active in it and generated a great deal of records, mostly licences for felling trees, during his tenure.<sup>51</sup> On 6 July 1716 he was sworn to the Privy Council.</p><p>Tankerville maintained his Whig loyalties in George I’s new Parliament. On 4 Mar. 1721, Tankerville received the green ribbon of the specifically Scottish Order of the Thistle, fittingly replacing his old friend Annandale, who had died in 1721. He was only the second English peer to receive the honour, which was a tribute to his long association with the Scottish nobility and political class.<sup>52</sup> Tankerville died on 21 May 1722. In his will of 31 July 1721 he bequeathed the entailed estate to his eldest son and heir, Charles Bennet<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Tankerville, but appointed trustees to raise from that estate portions of £8,000 each for his four younger children, including the unpaid part of the marriage portion of his daughter Bridget, wife of John Wallop*, Viscount Lymington (later earl of Portsmouth).<sup>53</sup> A dispute over the administration of the estate later led to a suit in Chancery, and all the first earl of Tankerville’s papers were submitted as exhibits. They are now in the National Archives, including the five volumes of his diary.<sup>54</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BENNET, Henry (1618-85) |
<p><strong><surname>BENNET</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1618–85)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>14 Mar. 1665 Bar. ARLINGTON; <em>cr. </em>22 Apr. 1672 earl of ARLINGTON |
|
First sat 21 June 1665; last sat 1 July 1685 |
|
MP Callington June 1661-14 Mar. 1665 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 6 Sept. 1618, 2nd s. of Sir John Bennet of Dawley, Harlington, Mdx. and Dorothy, da. of Sir John Crofts<sup>‡</sup> of Little Saxham, Suff.; bro. of John Bennet*, Bar. Ossulston. <em>educ</em>. Westminster; Christ Church, Oxf. 1635, BA 1639, MA 1642, DCL 1663; Camb. LLD. <em>m</em>. 16 or 17 Apr. 1666 (with at least £10,000),<sup>1</sup> Isabella (<em>d</em>.1718), da. of Lodewyck (Ludwig) van Nassau, Bar. of Leck and Beverwaert, 1da. kntd. Mar. 1657;<sup>2</sup> KG 15 June 1672. <em>d</em>. 28 July 1685; <em>will</em> 25 July, pr. 6 Nov. 1685.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Sec. to James*, duke of York, 1648-57; gent. of the privy chamber 1656-61; kpr. of the privy purse 1661-2; PC 15 Oct. 1662-<em>d</em>.; sec. of state (South) 1662-74; comptroller of prizes 1664-7; postmaster gen. (jt.) 1665-6 (sole) 1667-77;<sup>4</sup> commr. trade 1668-72;<sup>5</sup> Admiralty commr. 9 July 1673-14 May 1679; commr. Tangier 1673, 1680-4;<sup>6</sup> ld. chamberlain 1674-<em>d</em>.; ld. steward to Queen Catharine of Braganza 1680-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Resident amb. Madrid 1657-61; amb. extraordinary France and Low Countries June-July 1672; special amb. (jt.) Low Countries 10 Nov. 1674-7 Jan. 1675.</p><p>Commr. assessment, Mdx. 1661-5, Westminster 1663-5, loyal and indigent officers, London and Westminster 1662; freeman, Portsmouth 1665; gov. Charterhouse 1667; steward, Norwich Cathedral 1668; gov. Deal castle 1668;<sup>7</sup> alderman, Thetford by 1669-<em>d</em>.; steward of the manor of Higham Ferrers aft. Sept. 1669; high steward, Wallingford 1670-<em>d</em>.; Kingston-upon-Thames 1683-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em>. <em>rot</em>. and ld. lt. Suff. 1681-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Asst. Roy. Adventurers into Africa by 1664-7, 1669-71, Roy. Fishing Co. 1664, Roy. Africa Co. 1673; Grandmaster of freemasons, 1679-<em>d</em>.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Oil on canvas by P. Lely, c.1655-70, NPG 1853; oil on canvas by P. Lely, c.1676, Christ Church, Oxf and National Trust, Kedleston Hall.</p> |
<h2><em>‘A subtle courtier’</em></h2><p>Bennet was descended from solid gentry stock on his father’s side and was related to several peers on that of his mother.<sup>10</sup> He nonetheless never quite shook off the reputation of being parvenu. His rival, George Villiers*, duke of Buckingham, derided him as ‘an arrant fop’.<sup>11</sup> Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, found other reasons to dislike him and claimed that he ‘knew no more of the constitution and laws of England than he did for China.’ Equally dismissively (and equally inaccurately) Clarendon wrote that Bennet ‘believed France was the best pattern in the world.’<sup>12</sup></p><p>It was not to France but to Spain and the Dutch that Bennet looked principally for inspiration. Bennet’s early ambassadorial posting in Spain was to prove a crucial formative experience. The Spanish liking for ceremony appealed to him, and it was at the court in Madrid that he acquired his rather affected, grandiose manner and a lifelong interest in positioning England within a Spanish and (later) Hispano-Dutch sphere.<sup>13</sup> He may also have privately committed himself to the Catholic religion. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, for one, already thought in the 1660s that he was at least a crypto-Catholic.<sup>14</sup> If this was so, Bennet nevertheless conformed outwardly to the Anglican Church, and it was not until his final moments that he may at last have revealed his true beliefs, though this was denied strenuously by his widow.<sup>15</sup> He was also willing to act with a degree of circumspection about his foreign policy preferences and to assist the king with his entirely opposite agenda of a close alliance with France.<sup>16</sup> Genuinely cultivated, he enjoyed the trappings of social eminence but (at the beginning of his career) lacked the foundations on which such a lifestyle was based. This has been pointed out as one of the most significant reasons for explaining his malleability and reluctance to join other courtiers in opposition when his own schemes went awry. Having said that, it is easy to underestimate his achievement in rising through the ranks of nobility and in establishing himself as such a prominent patron of the arts and as a courtier of real significance.<sup>17</sup> As a minister he was more capable and influential than many of his better-known colleagues, particularly skilled at the art of collecting supporters through the exploitation of perks and offices. Pepys wrote in April 1667 of a conversation with John Evelyn, who told him (after they had discussed the apparently meteoric rise Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford) that ‘there is none that endeavours more to raise those that he takes into favour than my Lord Arlington’.<sup>18</sup> Arlington’s development of a significant interest in the Commons and management of Parliament in some ways anticipated that of Thomas Osborne*, later Viscount Latimer, earl of Danby and duke of Leeds. Although several of his clients later went their own way or took service with his rivals, at the height of his power he was able to command the allegiance of a significant bloc in the lower House. He was able to manage this group with the aid of his lieutenants Clifford and Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, as well as a number of kinsmen.<sup>19</sup> Bennet’s marriage into a Dutch family later extended his interest beyond the confines of East Anglia and the court. It helped to cement his close relationship with Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> and others close to William of Orange as well as with members of the Butler family.</p><p>Pragmatic and efficient, Arlington gained considerable notoriety for his willingness to adapt himself to the times and forge alliances with any number of competing factions. It did not, however, prevent him from resenting those who stood in his way or crossed him: the French ambassador at one point suggested that Arlington ‘would join with the devil to ruin an enemy.’<sup>20</sup> His power, though, rested on royal favour: John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham and Normanby, considered him to have been ‘rather a subtle courtier, than an able statesman; too much regarding every inclination of his master, and too little considering his true interest and that of the nation’.<sup>21</sup> For all his avowed interest in furthering a Spanish alliance as the best means of advancing English trade, this statement may provide the key to Arlington’s motivation.</p><p>Bennet was the second son of a substantial gentleman with estates in Middlesex and Suffolk. His most significant association came to be with the latter. It was here that he built his country retreat and also where his kinsman, William Crofts*, Baron Crofts, exercised his interest. Originally intended for the Church, Bennet soon found his <em>métier</em> in more political activities.<sup>22</sup> The Civil War interrupted his studies at Oxford, but although he served George Digby*, styled Lord Digby (later 2nd earl of Bristol), in a non-combatant role, he succeeded in acquiring a scar on the bridge of his nose while participating in a skirmish near Andover. He drew attention to the wound by sporting a black sticking plaster for the rest of his life.<sup>23</sup> This appears to have been the limit of Bennet’s participation in the conflict though it is possible, if unlikely, that he was the Henry Bennet noted as a major in Colonel Boys’s regiment.<sup>24</sup> Following the fall of Oxford, Bennet joined the royalist party overseas and by 1648 he was a significant figure in the court in exile, becoming secretary to James, duke of York. Despite this, he was never close to York and was from the outset considered very much the king’s man.<sup>25</sup> As such he was despatched to Madrid at the close of 1656 to fulfil the post of royal agent to the court there. His status was later upgraded to that of ambassador and he remained in post in Spain until after the Restoration.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>Secretary of state, 1661-5</em></h2><p>Bennet returned to England from Spain in the spring of 1661, too late to participate in the elections to the Cavalier Parliament. By this time he had aligned himself with his old patron, Bristol, against Clarendon. Clarendon was later to deride his young rival as being ‘without money, without friends, without industry or any one notable virtue.’<sup>27</sup> For all these apparent limitations Bennet was able to make progress at court and pressure was placed upon Clarendon to provide him with a safe seat in the House of Commons as soon as one became available. Accordingly, in June Bennet was returned for Callington in Cornwall. More courtier than Parliament man, though, and more at home in the fusty ceremonial of the Spanish court than in the rough and tumble of English politics, Bennet found aspects of Parliament unnerving. In 1664 he wrote to James Butler*, duke of Ormond (who then attended the House as earl of Brecknock), that ‘although there be safety (as Solomon says) in a multitude of counsellors, yet we cannot but think ourselves at ease when we are fairly rid of them’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>When in August 1661 Bennet was appointed keeper of the privy purse, a post that had been expected to go to one of Clarendon’s creatures, it encouraged Bennet and Bristol to persist in their attacks on the lord chancellor.<sup>29</sup> He was unsuccessful in his attempt to secure appointment as ambassador to France. His pretensions to that post appear to have been stymied in part by advice conveyed to Louis XIV by the French ambassador Estrades, who thought it inappropriate that someone he considered little more than a Spanish pensioner should be installed at the Paris embassy, and the post went to Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, who was generally assumed to be close to Clarendon.<sup>30</sup> Bennet’s appointment as secretary of state in October 1662, replacing Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, however, was generally regarded as a signal success for the opposing faction.<sup>31</sup> By mid-October, Pepys noted that ‘none in court have more the king’s ear now’ than Bennet, Sir Charles Berkeley*, later earl of Falmouth, and the king’s mistress, the countess of Castlemaine.<sup>32</sup> Bennet’s and Bristol’s influence was recognized not only in the creation of the Declaration of Indulgence, published at the very end of 1662, but also in the bill presented in the House of Lords by John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor, in February 1663 designed to give effect to the Indulgence. </p><p>The fall-out from Clarendon’s opposition to the Indulgence meant that Bristol and Bennet were reckoned to have virtually ousted Clarendon from Charles II’s favour, and by the early months of 1663 Pepys concluded that Bennet’s progress meant that things had ‘changed to the worse’. He noted that a number of other prominent courtiers were now ‘afeared of him’ and recorded that Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, had attempted to bribe him with a present of a gold cup, though Bennet had refused to be bought.<sup>33</sup> But Bristol’s partnership with Bennet became unstuck as Bristol overreached himself, demanding a position in Charles II’s counsels which the king was reluctant to concede; well before the farce of Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon, Bennet had been brought to a reconciliation with the lord chancellor and was seen to be operating in alliance with him against his former patron. Despite Bristol’s effective removal from the political scene, it was not a partnership to last, and by the close of the following year Bennet was said to be working closely with two other men hostile to the chancellor, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who sat in the House as earl of Guilford). With them he was at the forefront of those promoting a war against the Dutch in the expectation of acquiring easy spoils and in the hopes of gaining leverage over Clarendon.<sup>34</sup></p><h2><em>The fall of Clarendon, 1665-7</em></h2><p>At the opening of March 1665, shortly after the declaration of war against the Dutch, Bennet was raised to the peerage. The choice of title caused Bennet some problems. Although the warrant for creating him a baron noted that he was to be created Baron Bennet of Arlington, this was not the style on which he settled. He appears early on to have rejected all thoughts of using his surname, perhaps fearing that any future wife would be forced to share the title Lady Bennet with a well-known brothel keeper of the same name. Certainly this was the tale recounted by Wood, who also recorded a ditty featuring ‘Lord Benet and Bawd Benet and Knight Benet and Shite Benet.’ Bennet’s first choice of title appears to have been Colnbrook, while advice from Sir Edward Walker, garter king of arms, suggested that he might reasonably assume the titles of Bradston or Ingoldsthorp. Walker also noted the availability of St Amand and Dunsmore. Failing these, Walker suggested that ‘he might take one from some place in his possession as Dawley … or be baron of the place near Andover where he received his honourable scar.’ Bennet toyed with the notion of taking the title of Lymington, and also considered Paddington before eventually settling on Cheney, to which he pretended a remote claim.<sup>35</sup> A patent was drawn up accordingly creating Bennet Baron Cheney of Harlington in Middlesex.<sup>36</sup> Although the barony of Cheney was extinct, the remaining members of the family protested and Bennet was compelled to withdraw his pretension to that title and settle instead on Arlington, from the village of Arlington (or Harlington) of which his brother was lord of the manor and where it had originally been intended he was to have been the incumbent. It is indicative of the confusion that surrounded Arlington’s selection of title that in mid-March he was still being referred to by the French ambassador as Cheney and by at least one other commentator as Lord Blandford.<sup>37</sup></p><p>For all the confusion over his choice of title, Arlington’s promotion to the peerage served to underscore his continuing rise at court. In May it was reported that the king was to be seen each day supping with a cadre of close advisors, among them Lady Castlemaine, Arlington, Ashley and Lauderdale.<sup>38</sup> On 21 June 1665 Arlington took his seat in the House for the first time, introduced between his cousin, Crofts, and William Brydges*, 7th Baron Chandos. That summer, Arlington wrote to Richard Legh<sup>‡</sup> to assure him of having used his interest to secure the post of governor of Chester for Geoffrey Shakerley<sup>‡</sup>. This may have been indicative of his continuing effort to develop his party in the Commons, where he was also able to look to the helpful presence of his brother, John, and brother-in-law, Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>. Much of his contact with his various associates was coordinated by his secretary, Williamson.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Arlington was a visitor at Ashley’s seat at St Giles in Dorset in mid-September.<sup>40</sup> By the end of the month he was in Oxford for the meeting of Parliament that had been moved from London because of the plague. Although he was present in the city on 8 Oct. 1665 he failed to attend the opening day of the session on 9 Oct., waiting until the following day to take his place. He was then present on ten of the session’s 19 sitting days.<sup>41</sup> The following day he wrote to Ormond advising him of the impracticality of attempting to repeal the 1663 act restricting the importation of Irish cattle into England. Rather, he warned him that the mood of Parliament was such that a bill for a complete ban on Irish cattle was likely to be warmly received, and recommended that the Irish find another market for their livestock. On 12 Oct. he was named to the committee for privileges, and on 16 Oct. he was entrusted with the proxy of John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, which was vacated by the close. Two days later, Arlington wrote again to Ormond advising him to do what he could to gratify James Tuchet*, 3rd earl of Castlehaven [I] (who sat in the House as 13th Baron Audley). On 21 Oct. he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, which was vacated by the close. By 25 Oct. Arlington was able to assure Ormond that the numerous interventions to be expected in the House combined with the king’s reluctance to pass the measure and the brevity of the session would prevent any progress being made in passing the bill prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle.<sup>42</sup> Two days later he acquainted the House with the king’s resolution to prorogue the session by the following Wednesday at the latest. Named to two committees that day, Arlington was nominated to a further committee on 31 Oct. before the prorogation brought the session’s business to a close.</p><p>Arlington passed the Christmas holidays at the home of his kinsman, Crofts, in company with several other courtiers, including the man who would become a key rival, Buckingham.<sup>43</sup> Despite the ongoing war with the Dutch, by the middle of January 1666 rumours began to circulate of an impending match between Arlington and a Dutch noblewoman, Isabella van Nassau. Arlington’s prospective bride was a relative of the king’s nephew, William of Orange (later King William III), and was sister-in-law to Ormond’s heir, Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (later a member of the Lords as Baron Butler of Moore Park) and, according to Sir Philip Frowde, ‘a fine discreet lady personable and well shaped.’ Ormond was said to have been instrumental in bringing the match about, through the medium of the duchess of York. The affair helped to feed general rumours that ‘the court inclines to thoughts of peace.’<sup>44</sup></p><p>The plague was still rife in London in the middle of January 1666. At the beginning of the following month, though, Arlington returned to Whitehall, ‘whither the necessity of affairs brought his majesty’ and which was by then considered sufficiently free of disease for the court to be convinced of their safety.<sup>45</sup> Early in March, it was reported that Ossory and his wife had arrived in England to help with finalizing arrangements for Arlington’s marriage, and on 4 Apr. Arlington was granted a special licence to enable him to marry during Lent.<sup>46</sup> Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> in his <em>Second Advice to a Painter</em> castigated the match as the only achievement of the war:</p><blockquote><p>And with four millions vainly giv’n as spent,<br />And with five millions more of detriment,<br />Our sum amounts yet only to have won<br />A Bastard Orange for pimp Arlington.<sup>47</sup></p></blockquote><p>If Arlington was aware of such criticism it did not prevent him from spending the early part of the summer in ‘a jolly journey with his wife at my Lord Crofts’ house at Sarum’. Enjoyment of his new wife’s company may have been behind his remissness in watching over Ossory as Ormond had expected: in June he was upbraided by Ormond for having allowed Ossory to slip away to join the fleet.<sup>48</sup> For this omission, Ormond took ‘the boldness to tell you, you govern not as is expected, or he (Ossory) has not that deference to your advice which I recommended to him.’ By August Arlington was fretting about the threat of a French descent on Ireland, while Ormond worried about the renewed efforts that would be made to pass the Irish cattle bill in the new session of Parliament.<sup>49</sup> With such charged matters in prospect Arlington was said to be one of the ministers who had particular reason to fear the new session but the Great Fire of London (2-5 Sept.) forced the otherwise divided members of the council to put aside their differences for the while to respond to the crisis.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Arlington reluctantly left Moor Park, where he had sought a few days’ respite from the problems in town, to resume his place in the House at the opening of the new session on 18 Sept., though he expected that ‘both Houses would be very thin’. He joined with Crofts to introduce Ossory as Baron Butler of Moore Park, a further indication of his close relations with the Butler family. With the House as empty as Arlington had foreseen, the king then determined to adjourn proceedings until the following Friday.<sup>51</sup> Present on almost 87 per cent of all sitting days, on 24 Sept. Arlington was named to the committee for privileges, and he was thereafter named to a further five committees in the course of the session, including that for the bill for rebuilding the City of London. On 26 Sept. the House read Lady Arlington’s naturalization bill for the first time and, following its second reading the next day, it was passed on to a committee presided over by Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset.<sup>52</sup> The bill was passed and sent down to the Commons on 4 October.<sup>53</sup> It returned to the Lords with the Commons’ concurrence on 10 November.</p><p>Besides personal business relating to his wife’s naturalization, Arlington’s attention during the session was dominated by three problems. The first related to the aftermath of the Great Fire. On 29 Sept. 1666 Arlington joined Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, in taking a walk through the city ruins to see for themselves the extent of the devastation. The second concerned the proceedings surrounding the passage of the Irish cattle bill, which were overshadowed by the actions of Buckingham, and the third the usual preoccupation with persuading the Commons to vote adequate supply. Arlington was absent from the House for ten days in October, for which he had been granted leave by the king.<sup>54</sup> During his absence he was kept informed by his protégé, Clifford, who reported to him the proceedings of 5 Oct. which revolved around Buckingham’s motion for preventing abuses in the revenue and the Commons’ early consideration of the Irish cattle bill.<sup>55</sup> On 13 Oct., two days before he resumed his place, Arlington wrote to Ormond to advise him of the passage of the Irish cattle bill in the Commons. He took heart from the division, which saw the measure passed by 165 to 104 votes, ‘which I confess was a greater opposition than I thought it would have met with there, and such a one as perhaps will encourage the like in the House of Lords more successfully.’ Nevertheless, he wrote to Ormond a few days later to advise against ‘moving the king to improve supply to Ireland’ in order to compensate for the possible impact of the bill on Irish finances. He was embarrassed by the fact that one of those to carry the bill up to the Lords was his brother-in-law, Robert Carr, and was also forced to concede that the Lords appeared ‘as fond of’ the Irish cattle bill as the Commons had been.<sup>56</sup> Debates in the House proved to be quite as spirited as they had been in the Commons and on 26 Oct. Arlington had to come to the defence of his brother-in-law, Ossory, following Buckingham’s verbal assault on the intelligence of the Irish. According to Anglesey, Arlington argued back at Buckingham ‘a little too warmly and with some reflection took up the bucklers for my lord of Ossory,’ such that it was only through the House’s interposition that Arlington and Buckingham were prevented from coming to blows.<sup>57</sup></p><p>With Irish matters continuing to predominate in the session, Arlington hosted a dinner on 6 Nov. 1666 at which were, among others, Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington.<sup>58</sup> On 10 Nov. he reported to Ormond that the Lords had all but resolved to pass the bill and that it was thus high time that Ormond ‘bethought yourself of what his majesty may do for that kingdom in recompense of such a damage’, noting also that he had dissuaded Anglesey from proposing a proviso relating to free trade in Ireland, thinking that the temper of the House would be against it. Three days later Arlington reported to Ormond the proceedings following the committee report on the bill, underscoring his hopes that the clause describing Irish cattle as a ‘nuisance’ might yet be excluded. Despite Arlington’s apparent efforts on behalf of Ormond and his associates, the same day, Edward Conway*, Viscount (later Earl) Conway, reported to Ormond that he was ‘scandalized’ to discover that Arlington had acted against them with regard to the Scottish articles in the bill. By 20 Nov. Arlington admitted to Ormond that he had ‘but little comfort to send’ him concerning the bill.<sup>59</sup></p><p>At a meeting at the lord chancellor’s on 13 Jan. 1667, Arlington persuaded the king and other key members of the government to drop the government’s objection to the retention of the term ‘nuisance’ within the Irish bill. Even so, two days later, Arlington complained that the ministry’s concessions appeared not to be sufficient. Conway reported that Clarendon had laid the blame of the government’s decision to permit the passage of the bill squarely at Arlington’s door. Arlington, it was thought, was eager to allow the measure through as part of his effort to maintain satisfactory relations with the Commons.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Arlington’s eagerness to compromise over the cattle bill was the more understandable when set against his frustration at the slow progress made by the Commons over supply. Back in October 1666 he had complained to Sandwich how ‘our whole time and thoughts are taken up with the Parliament who have not yet agreed upon the way of levying the £1,800,000, it being not easy to do it without burdening the people over much.’ By the middle of November, with little more progress made, Arlington worried that the Commons appeared in too much of an ill temper to deliver what the ministry required in terms of supply.<sup>61</sup> Arlington was entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman, Crofts, on 17 December. By the time it was vacated on 8 Feb. 1667 he had been able to inform Sandwich with relief that ‘all our business in Parliament is at an end.’ Happy to be able to turn his back on the chamber for a while he complained ‘the truth is the Parliament ever since it sat has taken up our time so entirely that we have had none left to make compliments.’<sup>62</sup></p><p>Arlington was unsuccessful in his efforts to secure a seat in the Commons for his secretary Joseph Williamson at Dartmouth in January 1667. (The following year he was also frustrated in his efforts to create a vacancy for Williamson in Durham when the Commons rejected the bill for the county’s enfranchisement in March 1668. The failure was the more irritating as it had followed long and patient negotiation with John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, to give way to the notion.<sup>63</sup>) Shortly after the end of the session, in February 1667, in response to Buckingham’s leadership of the disruption of the previous session and recognizing the danger the duke posed to his own position, Arlington tried to have Buckingham disgraced. Tales of the duke having resorted to fortune-tellers to cast the king’s horoscope, which was a treasonable offence, were seized on (and very possibly elaborated) by Arlington in an attempt to have Buckingham removed from the scene permanently. At first the strategy appeared to work and Buckingham took himself into hiding for the ensuing few months to allow the hue and cry to abate. With Buckingham temporarily out of the way, Arlington was free to progress at court unrestricted.</p><p>In the middle of February, it was rumoured that Arlington was employing his contacts at Amsterdam to manage the peace negotiations with the Dutch.<sup>64</sup> At the same time he attempted to assure Ormond of his continued good intentions towards Ireland, undertaking to do what he could to promote a measure for the benefit of Ireland then before the council to compensate for the Irish Cattle Act.<sup>65</sup> In March rumours circulated that Arlington was to replace the sick Thomas Wriothelesley*, earl of Southampton, as lord treasurer, though Pepys dismissed them on the grounds that Arlington was ‘of too small an estate’. Such talk persisted, no doubt encouraged by Arlington’s own ill-disguised ambition to secure the place.<sup>66</sup> Later that month Arlington was involved in quizzing witnesses about the whereabouts of the missing Buckingham. He was even said to have employed torture against John Heydon, the man responsible for casting the horoscope.<sup>67</sup> The affair began to rebound against him, however, amid suggestions that he had suborned several people to testify against Buckingham. According to one witness, Arlington had paid £100 down with the promise of a further £500 to come.<sup>68</sup></p><p>In April, Arlington was so ill that he was ‘not to be visited much less solicited about business’.<sup>69</sup> By the middle of the month, however, he had recovered sufficiently to resume his correspondence with Ormond.<sup>70</sup> The death of Southampton in May renewed expectations that Arlington might replace him as lord treasurer, but once again the expected promotion failed to transpire and the treasury was instead put into commission.<sup>71</sup> The following month the Dutch raid on the Medway acted as a catalyst for the peace negotiations as support grew for bringing to a close what had proved to be a costly and unsuccessful conflict.</p><p>By the time the peace of Breda was signed in July 1667, Buckingham had re-emerged from hiding. He was subjected to a harsh interview by Arlington, but when he was brought before the council he was able to respond in kind by making a number of insinuations about the secretary to whom he was ‘most bitter and sharp, and very slighting.’ Buckingham’s rapid return to favour threatened Arlington, who was thereby compelled to patch up another hasty alliance with Clarendon and his associates.<sup>72</sup> By the close of September, following the dismissal of Clarendon, it was speculated that the new session of Parliament, primed by Buckingham, would be likely to turn its fire on Arlington, Clarendon and Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, who were, unsurprisingly, all said to be ‘ill at ease’ at the prospect.<sup>73</sup> Buckingham’s initial plan appears to have been to revenge himself on Arlington, and he was said to have had at least one meeting with Clarendon. In the end, however, perhaps because of Clarendon’s failure to co-operate, Buckingham decided on Clarendon’s destruction, and Arlington made little effort to prevent it. Ruvigny, concerned by Arlington’s close identification with the Spanish party, criticized him and Coventry roundly for their failure to back the chancellor, considering that they had ‘served their master badly in persuading him to please Parliament’ and also concluded that ‘the passion for bringing down the chancellor has blinded them to the extent that they have become dependent and their fortune is now ill-founded.’<sup>74</sup></p><p>Arlington took his seat in the House almost a month into the new session on 6 November. He was then present on just over three-quarters of all sitting days. Non-attendance up until that point does not mean that Arlington had not been engaged with the affairs then in hand. Late in October he had been required to submit papers concerning the mishandled attack on the Dutch fleet the previous year, and on 4 Nov. he had written to Temple excusing his failure to write on account of his involvement with the parliamentary inquiries into the management of the war.<sup>75</sup> A day after taking his seat he was named to the committee for the trial of peers bill. Named to a further five committees in the course of the session, on 9 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, which was vacated on 17 Feb. 1668. Later that month, on 28 Nov. 1667, he also received Crofts’ proxy, which was vacated by 11 Feb. 1668. On 20 Nov. Arlington voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ motion to commit Clarendon without a specific charge being assigned.<sup>76</sup> He then subscribed the protest when the Lords resolved not to do so. On 26 Nov. he wrote to Ormond complaining that ‘we are not at all advanced in the parliament about the earl of Clarendon,’ but the following day he was able to report that he had it ‘from a very good friend’ that Clarendon was soon to put an end to the impasse by withdrawing. On 28 Nov. he wrote to Sandwich, reporting the debates on privilege relating to the Clarendon impeachment and predicted that ‘tomorrow it is likely either of the Houses will accommodate to the other’s opinion or so finally adhere as the impeachment will fall to the ground between them.’<sup>77</sup> Following Clarendon’s flight, Arlington was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the paper presented to the House by Clarendon on 4 Dec. and five days later (9 Dec.), he acquainted the House with the king’s message concerning the adjournment.</p><h2><em>The succession to Clarendon, 1668-71</em></h2><p>Clarendon’s departure brought out into the open a struggle for succession to his position of dominance at court and in politics that had been latent for some years. Although the period has been referred to as ‘the ministry of Arlington’, with the king unwilling to place his complete confidence in any single minister the next few years were marked by an intense jockeying for position, in particular between Arlington and Buckingham. With Clarendon out of the way, at the beginning of 1668 Arlington was clearly unnerved by the prospect of attention turning once more in his direction, and perhaps troubled by rumours that he was one of a number of prominent individuals likely to be prosecuted for bribery over the importation of French wine.<sup>78</sup> The French ambassador believed at the end of November that Arlington may have been involved in a new alignment headed by Ashley and Anglesey in the hopes that they would be able to counterbalance Buckingham.<sup>79</sup> His advice to the king to order the enforcement of the penal laws against Catholics while showing a more lenient hand towards Protestant Dissenters indicated, however, a rejection of what was seen as the approach represented by Clarendon, shared by both factions.<sup>80</sup></p><p>The struggle for power was closely related to recovering England’s position as an international power after the disastrous defeat of 1667. Arlington, seen with intense suspicion by the French ambassador Ruvigny, was believed to favour alignment with Spain and the Dutch. Nevertheless, he continued to work with Buckingham on the king’s favoured scheme of a French alliance over the winter, carrying out joint visits to the French ambassador to remove all possibility of misrepresentation. <sup>81</sup> Ruvigny complained of his determination to ‘introduce someone from the Spanish faction’ into the negotiations, either Charles Howard*, then styled Lord Andover (later 2nd earl of Berkshire), or Sir Charles Littleton<sup>‡</sup>, ‘whom he has recently won over’.<sup>82</sup> Arlington, though, pulled off a spectacular success in early 1668, wrong-footing Louis XIV, with the so-called Triple Alliance of England, the Dutch Republic and Spain, designed to bring the continental war to a close.</p><p>Alongside his foreign policy success, Arlington moved to consolidate his influence at home, joining Buckingham at the close of the year to request from the king the removal from court of several people who had been closely connected to Clarendon. Among them were the lord chancellor’s sons, Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, and Henry Hyde*, then styled Lord Cornbury and later 2nd earl of Clarendon. The request reflected a belief that Parliament and the court would prove more tractable once it was freed from Clarendonian influence.<sup>83</sup> Arlington’s foreign policy success helped to encourage rumours that he was to be advanced in the peerage as earl of Cleveland.<sup>84</sup> He was thwarted, though, in his efforts to replace Secretary Morrice with his own supporter, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>. Morrice proved unexpectedly unwilling to sell his place, an about-face that left Arlington ‘very surprised’.<sup>85</sup> Arlington received Conway’s proxy in mid-January (though it was not registered formally until 14 February). It was vacated on 7 May. At the same time Conway advised Ormond to entrust his proxy to Arlington also, though Ormond appears not to have acted on this.<sup>86</sup></p><p>The Triple Alliance had both confirmed French suspicions of Arlington and led to a considerable cooling in the relationship between England and France. In negotiations with the French ambassador in January both Arlington and Buckingham were reported to be exasperated with French dilatoriness. In court politics Arlington was understood to be intent on preventing an alliance between York and Buckingham. His efforts were facilitated by Buckingham’s duel with Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, which left the duke once more in ill favour at court. Surprisingly, Arlington was said to have proposed Buckingham for the lieutenancy of Ireland, from which the king was eager to recall Ormond. This may well have been thought a useful way of both flattering and marginalizing the duke, though the report contradicts Arlington’s long-standing alliance with Ormond, suspicious though the latter may have been of the secretary’s commitment to it. The issue of Ormond’s future would hang in the air for the next year, and lead Ormond to question Arlington’s sincerity.<sup>87</sup></p><p>By early February 1668 Conway was convinced that, although Arlington ‘labours with all art imaginable not to be thought a premier minister, yet he is either so, or a favourite, for he is the sole guide that the king relies upon.’<sup>88</sup> If this was so, his position in no way protected him from the investigations in the Commons into the miscarriages of the war, particularly when they focused on poor intelligence-gathering. Unflattering comparisons were made between his information network and that of Morrice, not least as Arlington’s was known to cost considerably more to maintain.<sup>89</sup> When reported in mid-February, the investigation provoked a ‘sharp speech’ against Arlington by Marvell criticizing the manner in which he had acquired his peerage, among other things.<sup>90</sup> At the end of April, Arlington was involved in disputes with the northern magnates Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, and Thomas Belasyse*, Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, but the cause of the disagreement is not clear. They coincided with rumours that Parliament was preparing to bring charges against both Arlington and Sandwich although Ruvigny believed that it would be ‘a vain pursuit’.<sup>91</sup> Arlington may have wanted to engineer a dissolution — Ruvigny thought that Arlington had done ‘all he could to oblige the king his master to break Parliament’, but that he had been prevented by the interposition of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Arlington played host to the king at his as yet unfinished new seat, Euston Hall, during a royal progress through Suffolk in late May. The estate was perfectly situated close to the king’s preferred racing retreat at Newmarket. Despite his efforts, at the close of the month it was reported that the secretary was again fearful for his security amid rumours that the king intended to recall Clarendon.<sup>93</sup> Concern over the possible return of the former lord chancellor also left Arlington’s relations with Ormond unsettled until the middle of the summer, by which time the two men appear to have convinced themselves of each other’s sincerity.<sup>94</sup> Ossory declared himself pleased that his father, Ormond, had ‘so good an understanding with Lord Arlington’, which he begged him to maintain.<sup>95</sup> The duke’s wish to do so was put to the test with Arlington’s appointment as one of the commissioners for investigating miscarriages of government in Ireland alongside a number of Ormond’s sworn enemies, among them Buckingham and Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I]. This left Ormond doubting once more how far he could trust his former ally.<sup>96</sup> Arlington sought to reassure Ormond that he had no reason to question the king’s judgment and that he ‘should not oppose any way the king would take to be delivered out of his doubts concerning the administration of the revenue of Ireland.’<sup>97</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1668 Ruvigny was replaced as the French representative by Colbert de Croissy. Colbert’s instructions warned him that the secretary was by no means sympathetic to the French and that Arlington was ‘not only a good Spaniard, having conceived a strong affection for that country in a sojourn of several years at Madrid … but he is still more a good Dutchman, since he has married a Dutchwoman who has great influence over his mind.’<sup>98</sup> This being the case, Colbert was instructed to attempt to buy off Arlington with an offer of a pension of £2,500 as well as a down payment of £25,000, but the bribe was rejected, though whether out of care to avoid making himself vulnerable to attack or to avoid entanglement with France is uncertain.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Arlington suffered from poor health towards the end of August, but he had rallied by 24 Aug. when he dined at Teddington with the lord keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, and Clifford. The next day, he hosted a meeting of the committee for foreign affairs in his chamber, which was also attended by the king and York.<sup>100</sup> The following month he was closely involved in discussions with Buckingham over whether or not to permit Parliament to resume as planned in November. According to Colbert, Arlington feared that Parliament, irritated by maladministration, ‘might take this pretext not just to grant nothing, but to press those who have the greatest part in government to make resolutions prejudicial to royal authority’, including insisting on the passage of a triennial bill.<sup>101</sup> Despite such concerns, Pepys reckoned by then that either Buckingham, or Buckingham and Arlington together, ‘rule all’. Even so, Arlington prevented Buckingham from securing the secretaryship for Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> and ensured that the place went to his own follower Sir John Trevor instead.<sup>102</sup> By the close of September Arlington had added to his own interest by purchasing the governorship of Deal Castle.<sup>103</sup></p><p>By then, Buckingham and Arlington were once more at loggerheads; Lauderdale was also said to be on bad terms with Arlington.<sup>104</sup> The split within the council centred on disagreements over management of the treasury (then held in a commission headed by Albemarle). Many assumed that Arlington would be appointed lord treasurer. He was adamant that such rumours had been put about by his enemies and in the event the commission remained unchanged for the time being.<sup>105</sup> The dispute coincided with new moves against Ormond and Anglesey, with Arlington claiming to be eager to do all in his power to assist Ormond against the efforts being made by Buckingham to displace him as lord lieutenant.<sup>106</sup> By the end of the month the stand-off appeared to have been settled temporarily, with Anglesey’s office of treasurer of the navy put into a commission divided between members of Arlington’s and Buckingham’s factions. It was also reported, however, that a resolution had been taken without Arlington’s knowledge to remove Ormond from his post.<sup>107</sup> Although Arlington was not unaware of the speculation concerning Ormond’s removal, he was adamant when writing of it to Ossory that nothing was as yet ‘resolved in that point’. According to Colbert, however, by the beginning of November Arlington and Buckingham had both resolved to sacrifice both Ormond and Anglesey in order to maintain their own positions.<sup>108</sup> Within a week it was reported by Colbert that Arlington and Buckingham’s co-operation would not last, though they worked together to secure the appointment of John Wilkins*, as bishop of Chester, thereby thwarting the efforts of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, and Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, who had promoted the claims of William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Colbert’s view that Arlington would abandon Ormond in order to maintain his alliance with Buckingham remained unaltered throughout November.<sup>110</sup> By the close of 1668 Louis XIV thought Arlington ‘the absolute master of English affairs’; but Charles persisted in encouraging petty rivalries between Arlington and the other principal ministers and his determination to return to a French alliance coupled with Arlington’s anxiety not to be isolated, as well perhaps as genuine frustration with the progress of discussions with both the Dutch and Spanish to follow up the Triple Alliance, appears to have made him more willing to countenance French advances.<sup>111</sup></p><p>On 25 Jan. 1669 he was said to have been one of those present at the legendary (perhaps mythical) meeting where the king reputedly announced his conversion to catholicism. Charles was said to have made known his intention of proceeding with a French alliance in return for a number of safeguards from Louis, not least the controversial payment of £200,000 in recognition of his announcement of his conversion.<sup>112</sup> The French envoy’s concerns with his negotiations with other ministers led him more than ever to ‘cultivate this good disposition of milord Arlington, not only because I believe him to be more capable of bringing this matter to a good conclusion, but also because I do not see that all the fair hopes given me by Leighton [Buckingham’s factotum] are having any progress.’<sup>113</sup></p><p>Ormond’s eventual dismissal, in mid-February 1669, may have been related to the new turn in English policy represented by the meeting on 25 Jan., and was not, in the end, regarded as a victory for Buckingham over Arlington because his replacement, Robartes, was not one of Buckingham’s allies. By mid-March, Arlington was once again said to be the subject of the duke’s profound suspicion following a series of meetings conducted at Hampton Court attended by Arlington, Lauderdale, Ashley and Ormond, though both rivals were intent on bringing down the king’s confidant and well-known opponent of France, Baptist May<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>114</sup> Reports from the end of April suggested that the principal thing now uniting Arlington and Buckingham was their joint desire force the king to agree to a dissolution.<sup>115</sup> This may have been connected to discussions in the foreign affairs committee of the council in April concerning action to be taken against conventicles (following the lapse of the Conventicle Act the previous month), in which both men were said to have tried to convince the king (unsuccessfully) against renewing persecution.<sup>116</sup> In the middle of the summer it was suggested that both competing ministers ‘seem to be a little eclipsed and not so gracious as formerly’.<sup>117</sup> This state of affairs may have been the reason for Arlington casting about once again for new allies and determining on ingratiating himself with the king’s sister, Henriette Anne, duchesse d’Orléans, though she was steadily becoming a more significant figure in the negotiations between Charles and Louis XIV.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Arlington was confined to bed with an injured leg in August, though he had recovered by the end of the month. Arlington seems to have had renewed cause for concern about his position in the early autumn: he came under pressure to enter into an alliance with York and Lady Castlemaine, and William Denton thought that Arlington was now only kept in place through the interest of those opposed to seeing Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], replace him.<sup>119</sup> According to some it was Lauderdale that had intervened on Arlington’s behalf, being more fearful of Orrery’s potential influence as secretary than that of the current incumbent.<sup>120</sup> By the beginning of October Colbert had convinced himself once more that Arlington’s credit was in decline, and that he was ‘leaving no stone unturned to make himself indispensable to the king his master’ in an effort to cling onto power.<sup>121</sup> Another assessment, however, noted only that ‘some little cloud there was upon the Lord Arlington but it is said to be wholly blown over.’<sup>122</sup> Buckingham and Arlington were eventually reconciled once more, on the king’s orders, shortly before the opening of the new session of Parliament. While Colbert continued to indulge himself with the belief that Arlington’s credit was ‘diminishing every day’ the reality was that Arlington’s knowledge of the king’s private intentions relating to France and Catholicism made him all but unassailable; Buckingham, by contrast, was unaware of them.<sup>123</sup></p><p>Arlington took his seat at the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on just over 80 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had written to Lauderdale that all expected the divisions between the Houses to be ‘quickly awakened’: when he reported the opening manoeuvres to Temple, he noted the Commons’ intention of drawing up a bill to settle their differences, though he seemed doubtful of its success. He was also dubious about Lauderdale’s efforts to promote union with Scotland, suggesting that little progress was likely even though the only argument likely to be raised against the project was that ‘<em>la mariée est trop belle</em>’ (the bride is too beautiful). In the course of the session Arlington was named to just two committees, and it was rumoured that he would be despatched to Spain as ambassador to save him from the possibility of proceedings against him in Parliament.<sup>124</sup> Although no such proceedings transpired and a series of libels that had been circulated concerning various members of the administration were suppressed, the course of the session was dominated by Arlington and Buckingham’s fractious relations. Towards the end of October Colbert again reported further difficulties between Arlington and Buckingham, causing the king to commission Bishop Wilkins of Chester to attempt (once more) to bring them together.<sup>125</sup> On 10 Nov. William Denton noted the latest effort to make the two rivals friends, adding no doubt sarcastically, ‘and long it will last.’ Six days later, he recorded that they had fallen out again.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Set against such tensions Arlington continued to fulfil his duties in the House as well as overseeing his local interests. On 1 Nov. he was entrusted with Frescheville’s proxy, which was vacated by the close. Later that month he was approached by the corporation of Thetford to use his interest to secure a warrant from the king to enable them to limit the number of public entertainments in the town, which distracted the population from their work and which the authorities thus considered to be ‘a vain expense of their time and money.’<sup>127</sup></p><p>The closing months of the year found matters as fragmented as ever. Arlington joined with York and Ormond to put his support behind Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>, accused in the Commons of maladministration in Ireland. It was later rumoured that Arlington might even replace Carteret as vice-treasurer of Ireland.<sup>128</sup> His stance in support of Carteret once again set him at variance with Buckingham, whose supporters were suspected to be behind the allegations. Arlington meanwhile was behind an attempt to impeach Buckingham’s ally, Orrery, in the Commons. Orrery was able to swat away the charges brought against him, while Carteret was voted guilty of misdemeanours, although he escaped serious consequences and the king ultimately quashed further inquiry at the beginning of 1670.<sup>129</sup> The loss of the stabilizing presence of Albemarle at the same time left Arlington hoping ‘we may not need the wishing him alive again.’<sup>130</sup></p><p>By the close of January 1670 the court appeared deeply divided into two factions: one comprising York, Ormond, Arlington and their followers, and the other Buckingham, Orrery and those associated with them.<sup>131</sup> Nevertheless, the king’s decisive intervention over the allegations about Carteret’s financial mismanagement and his acceptance of action against conventicles resulted in an unusually successful session. Arlington took his seat in the new session on 14 Feb., after which he was present on almost 82 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to 14 committees, including those concerning the treaty of Union with Scotland and the bill for preventing the growth of popery. Having survived what he and other members of the court considered a day of crisis shortly after the opening as members divided over the employment of funds that had been voted for the prosecution of the war, Arlington was able to report to Fauconberg on 21 Feb. that ‘the Parliament met in the best humour that could be, and have exceeded our expectations in their first votes for an addition of seven years more upon the wine act, which together with the peace for one year longer, will put his Majesty at much ease.’<sup>132</sup> This optimistic appraisal continued through March, and when at the end of the month he wrote again to Fauconberg he told him ‘how happily the complexion of the Parliament is changed since your lordship left us, they having disposed themselves to do everything to his majesty’s mind and satisfaction.’<sup>133</sup> On 6 Apr. 1670 he registered his proxy with Ossory, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat two days later. As soon as the session was adjourned on 11 Apr. he accompanied the king to Newmarket, not returning to the capital until the close of the month.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Although at the close of March 1670 Buckingham was said to be more than ever Arlington’s enemy, by the end of the following month Arlington, malleable as ever, was reported once more to have realigned himself with the duke and his faction and to have cast off his friends, Ormond and Ossory.<sup>135</sup> That summer Arlington was one of those to sign the secret treaty of Dover. As such he proved himself once again to be both more at the centre of things than his rival and considered by the king to be more trustworthy: full details of the treaty were hidden from Buckingham and the majority of the rest of the council. During the visit of the king’s sister to Dover in the middle of May, when the treaty was signed, yet another formal reconciliation between Arlington and Buckingham was effected.<sup>136</sup> Remarking on the occasion to Temple, Arlington neatly avoided relating anything of consequence. He remarked disingenuously ‘I leave it to the gazettes and the common newsmongers to tell you how we passed our time at Dover; where the resort of so much company and so many nations cannot but furnish the world with relations of what passed.’<sup>137</sup> Arlington’s motivation in distancing himself from Ormond and embracing an alliance he supposedly disapproved of is at best obscure. The most likely explanation is that he was willing to fulfil his master’s desires if it offered him the chance of continued prominence at court while also enjoying the distinction of being at the heart of the scheme while Buckingham was kept on the fringes. He may also have concluded that this, like so many other systems, would soon unravel.</p><p>Although the Treaty of Dover had been completed, negotiations continued with the Dutch on cementing the Triple Alliance. In July 1670 Arlington was one of the participants in a conference involving Buckingham, Clifford, Ashley, Trevor and the Dutch minister, Van Beuningen, which was overshadowed by the beginning of rumours of a realignment of English policy towards France.<sup>138</sup> By the close of the month Arlington had retreated to the country, and he was still absent from town by the middle of the following month suffering from a ‘feverish distemper.’ His indisposition delayed a decision being taken about who was to succeed Fauconberg at Venice.<sup>139</sup> At the beginning of September, Arlington’s recall of Temple from his embassy at the Hague, and his cold reception of him on the 16th was the first formal sign of the change in policy.<sup>140</sup> Despite what must have been a preoccupation with preparations for war with the Dutch, as well as the enormous complication of the ‘catholicity’ clause in the Treaty of Dover (which necessitated discussions on the dispatch of an envoy to the Vatican) Arlington also participated in a meeting of the commissioners for the union of England and Scotland at Somerset House.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Arlington returned to the House on 24 Oct., the first day it sat following the adjournment. On that day he introduced Henry Howard*, later 6th duke of Norfolk, as Baron Howard of Castle Rising. The ensuing weeks were punctuated with events relating to his role in foreign affairs, in particular the signature of the <em>traité simulé</em> by Buckingham. The completion of it was, according to Colbert, greeted with joy by York, Arlington and Lauderdale.<sup>142</sup> Arlington took his seat again following the Christmas recess on 4 Jan. 1671 and ten days later was one of those named to the committee investigating the assault on Ormond. He was again entrusted with Crofts’s proxy on 3 Mar., which was vacated on 17 Apr., and during the remainder of the session he was named to a further six committees. For all the ministers’ apparent delight at the signing of the treaty with France, Colbert advised that the sullen disposition of Parliament caused them considerable concern and made them reluctant to appear too overtly pro-French. Buckingham took the opportunity to redirect criticism of his actions towards Arlington.<sup>143</sup> But apart from the loss of the bill authorizing increased customs duties as a result of a row between the Lords and the Commons (for which Buckingham was blamed), the session produced no major upsets.</p><p>Buckingham’s responsibility for the row in the Lords may have enhanced Arlington’s reputation, and shortly before the close of the session rumours began to circulate that he was to be promoted in the peerage as earl of Norwich; by the beginning of May it was speculated that he would also be created lord treasurer.<sup>144</sup> But such apparent dominance at court did not go unchallenged and the same month Arlington’s late candidacy for the place of chancellor of Cambridge proved unsuccessful. The distinction was awarded to Buckingham instead.<sup>145</sup> By the end of July Colbert related to Louis XIV that Buckingham and Arlington were ‘as well reconciled as your majesty could wish’. This did not prevent Arlington from continuing to champion the cause of his brother-in-law, Ossory, whom he recommended to Colbert for a command in France.<sup>146</sup> And in the middle of September, reports were current once more of renewed fractures within the ministry, with Buckingham, Lauderdale and Ashley now believed to be pitted against Arlington and the duchess of Cleveland.<sup>147</sup> Arlington’s prominent role in attempting to negotiate a new marriage for York may have been one of the reasons for subsequent reports that he and Buckingham were again engaged in bitter disputes, though Buckingham’s own explanation for their fractious relationship was Arlington’s opposition to the alliance with France, which Buckingham assured the French he (Buckingham) had always supported.<sup>148</sup> Alongside his efforts to promote a new match for York, Arlington’s struggle to underpin his position by promoting Louise de Kéroualle as a new mistress for the king appeared initially to have blossomed when he played host to the couple at Euston in mid-October 1671. Among those taking part in the festivities was another of Arlington’s protégés, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. Arlington later found himself disappointed in his efforts to manipulate Kéroualle as she proved utterly unwilling to co-operate with a man whom she considered to be little better than a pimp.<sup>149</sup></p><h2><em>The collapse of the ‘Cabal’</em></h2><p>Arlington persisted in his efforts to woo the factions at court by hosting a grand ball in London towards the close of the year, but he then promptly fell lame with gout and was confined to his bed for the following few weeks.<sup>150</sup> On 21 Dec. 1671 he wrote to Sunderland, for whom he had acquired a diplomatic posting to Madrid, excusing his continued indisposition.<sup>151</sup> He was nevertheless appointed at the end of the month as one of five commissioners named by the king to treat with the French as part of the final preparations for war against the Dutch.<sup>152</sup> The commissioners—Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale—were, according to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, ‘the junto about this grand affair’. They came increasingly to be known by their mnemonic: Cabal.<sup>153</sup> Despite his prominent role in the negotiations at this time, Arlington was still suffering from gout, complaining to Sir William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>, who had accompanied Sunderland to Spain and later succeeded him there as ambassador, that his sickness had ‘affected my head, though the gout has only been in my foot’.<sup>154</sup> By the middle of January 1672 he appears finally to have recovered amid reports that he and Clifford were now pre-eminent among the other ministers.<sup>155</sup> Arlington hosted the exchange of ratifications with the French in February in his lodgings.<sup>156</sup> Arlington had been involved in discussions with Dissenters in December, and in mid-March, Arlington was party to the decision in the committee for foreign affairs to issue the Declaration of Indulgence for Dissenters the day before a declaration of war against the Dutch. Arlington’s own cautious contribution to the discussion (perhaps reflecting his previous experience in 1662) seems to have been to insist that there should be a clear inquiry into the extent of the king’s powers under existing law.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Although Arlington remained unwilling to accept cash from the French in recompense for his services in bringing about the treaty, he was not so punctilious as not to allow his wife to accept gifts. Towards the end of March he waited on Colbert to let the ambassador know ‘how moved he is by the marks of esteem and distinction your majesty [Louis XIV] has shown him by the magnificent present you made to Madame Arlington.’<sup>158</sup> He appears then to have retreated to Euston briefly before returning once more to Whitehall. From thence he wrote to Sunderland on 15 Apr. 1672 (by which time war had formally been declared) to give directions for Sunderland’s move from the embassy in Madrid to that in Paris.<sup>159</sup></p><p>Having attended the prorogation day of 16 Apr., after which Parliament was further prorogued to October, Arlington was promoted in the peerage to an earldom. At the same time his former protégé, Clifford, was created Baron Clifford and Lord Ashley was promoted to the earldom of Shaftesbury. The French envoy reported that Arlington was now ‘all-powerful’. In mid-June Arlington was one of a small group of ministers to participate in negotiation with a Dutch delegation with peace terms at Hampton Court. Shortly afterwards he joined Buckingham on a diplomatic mission to France and Holland, in order to co-ordinate the allies’ response to the Dutch proposals.<sup>160</sup> Colbert advised his master, Louis XIV, that in sending Arlington, the king of England was sending ‘if one may be permitted to say it, another self, for this minister knows his most secret intentions.’<sup>161</sup> Arlington had returned to England by the beginning of August when his four-year-old daughter, Lady Isabella Bennet, was contracted to marry the king’s natural son, Henry Fitzroy*, later duke of Grafton, who was created earl of Euston to mark the alliance.<sup>162</sup> Later that month both Arlington and Buckingham were the recipients of further ‘magnificent’ gifts from the French.<sup>163</sup></p><p>By the beginning of September 1672, York appears to have concluded that Parliament ought to be allowed to sit at the end of October. Arlington took the contrary view and was successful in persuading the king to postpone holding another session until the following year.<sup>164</sup> In mid-October he joined the king at Newmarket, before returning to the capital to attend the prorogation day of 30 Oct., when he was introduced as earl of Arlington between John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby) and William Craven*, earl of Craven. Parliament was then prorogued once again to the following February.<sup>165</sup> In November rumours circulated of Arlington’s appointment as lord treasurer with Clifford succeeding him as secretary. The possible alterations kept the newsmongers guessing for the next few weeks. By the end of that month it was thought that Clifford rather than Arlington would be appointed to the treasury, though there were doubts as to whether Clifford would accept the post.<sup>166</sup> By the close of the year, with Clifford confirmed in office as lord treasurer to Arlington’s ill-disguised annoyance, and Shaftesbury as lord chancellor, Arlington’s star appeared once again to be declining. This seemed to be underlined when he failed to secure further promotion in the peerage, it having been speculated that he was to be made duke of Bury.<sup>167</sup> Arlington and the foreign affairs committee were preoccupied in late November with how to handle the forthcoming session of Parliament in February. At a meeting on 24 Nov. there was an extensive discussion of who should be put up for election as Speaker of the Commons, at which Arlington seems to have underlined the need for ‘honesty’ in a Speaker.<sup>168</sup> He hosted a further meeting on 21 Dec. at which Sir Job Charlton<sup>‡</sup> was decided on as the court candidate for the speakership. Arlington reported to Colbert the ‘great conferences with the foremost members of Parliament’ that he had conducted and how as a result he was confident that the king would be able to secure his demands. His optimism seems not to have been shared by the French ambassador.<sup>169</sup></p><p>The beginning of 1673 gave Colbert further grounds to be suspicious having heard rumours of a projected visit by William of Orange to seek terms with his uncle, the king, though Arlington attempted to assure him that he had put measures in place to dissuade Prince William from undertaking the journey.<sup>170</sup> Arlington was appointed one of the commissioners for reviewing the settlement of Ireland at the close of January.<sup>171</sup> He took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 4 Feb., after which he was present on 93 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to five committees. In advance of the session, he was entrusted with the proxy of Christopher Hatton*, 2nd Baron (later Viscount) Hatton, and on 7 Feb. he also received that of Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham (both proxies were vacated by the close of the session). Arlington predicted that the session ‘would not pass without tribulation’ but that the king would ultimately ‘be satisfied with his parliament.’ His prediction proved to be far off the mark. The new Speaker of the Commons, Charlton, lasted only two weeks before retiring with ill health, in part the result of the lower House’s tempestuous response to the Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>172</sup> Towards the end of the month Arlington was forced to admit to Colbert that ‘there was no expedient the king could bring to the conduct of parliament which would not be followed by great disadvantages.’ The withdrawal of the Declaration of Indulgence and the government’s perceived timidity in the face of spirited opposition to the king’s disinclination to adopt the Test was ascribed to Arlington’s counsel: Arlington was certainly much more cautious than others in the foreign affairs committee when it discussed trying to get the Lords to confront the Commons over its response to the Declaration: ‘w[ha]t if the H[ouse] of Lords should deceive expectations, and vote as the H[ouse] of Commons did?’—as indeed it did—he asked on 16 February. It was also by now well known that he and Clifford were no longer on friendly terms.<sup>173</sup> By the end of March Arlington was forced to admit to Colbert:</p><blockquote><p>that he could no longer guess what the outcome would be, that only two days ago he could have told his master the king that today he would have the act for the money which he has been promised, but at the moment tempers are so high that if the members of the two chambers do not find a way of appeasing the lower by passing the act against the Catholics in the terms it wants, he believed they would attack the treasurer next Monday, then the duke of Lauderdale and perhaps even all those who are privy to the secrets of their master the king.<sup>174</sup></p></blockquote><p>Besides these pressures, Arlington was also faced with the failure of his attempt to secure a match for York with the archduchess of Innsbruck.<sup>175</sup></p><p>The end of the session saw the beginning of the government’s efforts to withdraw from the war, and it marked the end of the period in which Arlington—closely identified with the war—was clearly the dominant voice in the king’s counsels. It was rumoured in May that Buckingham’s client, Sir Thomas Osborne, was to be promoted to the treasurership following the Catholic Clifford’s resignation as a result of the Test Act. Arlington’s name was also put about as a possible replacement though without nearly as much force. Arlington confided to Colbert that he now saw himself as ‘entirely excluded.’<sup>176</sup> By the close of June 1673 reports began to circulate of ‘stiff cabals in order to impeachments’ to be presented at the next session of Parliament. Arlington was thought to be at the head of the list of those expected to be attacked, though it was noted (with perhaps an implication that he was a crypto-Catholic) he had ‘the advantage of sticking close to the [Test] Act’ unlike Clifford. Information relayed to Hatton on the other hand suggested that Arlington was not in particular danger and that he ‘keeps his own very well.’<sup>177</sup> Even so, Arlington and Lauderdale were said to be completely at variance.<sup>178</sup></p><p>Clearly taken aback by the criticism directed against him and ‘weary of the fatigue of his place’, Arlington entered into negotiations with Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, to purchase the lord chamberlaincy from him so that he could withdraw from direct involvement in foreign affairs. This was expected to be just one of a number of alterations. Arlington was also said to be one of those in line to succeed Lauderdale in the bedchamber. Sir Joseph Williamson, it was assumed, would succeed his master, as secretary.<sup>179</sup> Talk of such alterations continued over the next few months and in August, following a sumptuous banquet for the king and members of the court at Goring House, reports circulated (once again) that Arlington was to be promoted to a dukedom.<sup>180</sup> For the time being, none of these changes came to pass. St Albans, for one, proved unwilling to relinquish his post.<sup>181</sup> Complaints, however, persisted. Disappointment with the conduct of the war led to an outpouring of hostility against the French at the beginning of September and with it opprobrious comments against Arlington ‘for having been bribed to sell the interests of the king and country alike.’ In spite of his eagerness to shield himself from further insult, Arlington appears soon after to have succeeded in winning the king to his view that Parliament should be recalled in the face of opposition from York and Lauderdale, dismissing concerns that it would react against the planned York-Modena match, and insisting that it would be possible to persuade Parliament to grant further subsidies for the war effort. By the middle of October his confidence appears to have evaporated once more, and he fretted that a new session might demand unpalatable expedients such as York’s banishment and the king’s divorce and remarriage to a protestant.<sup>182</sup></p><p>Arlington attended the House as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 20 October.<sup>183</sup> He took his place at the opening of the brief session of 27 Oct., on which day he was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions. He was then present on each of its four sitting days. In advance of the session he had been entrusted with the proxy of Henry Pierrepont*, earl of Dorchester, which was vacated by the close. Colbert noted the bad-tempered opening of the session and the abortive attempt driven by Sir Charles Littleton (one of Arlington’s supporters) to force the removal of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> (an associate of Osborne) from the Speakership.<sup>184</sup> The court also came under close scrutiny. After Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup> raised the question of the sums of money that had found its way into the hands of the duchesses of Cleveland and Portsmouth, it was expected that the House would turn its attention to the causes of the war and fall ‘severely’ on Lauderdale and Arlington. The sudden prorogation nipped any such plan in the bud.<sup>185</sup></p><p>Arlington was left despondent by the brief session, and troubled a return of ill health later in November.<sup>186</sup> The duke of York described him to Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, around this time as ‘almost dead with fear’.<sup>187</sup> There was speculation about both his own and York’s political survival. Early the following month Conway suggested that Latimer (as Osborne had since become) had now eclipsed Arlington in his standing with the king. Another observer assessed that the court was clearly divided into two factions. One comprised Ormond, Arlington, Shaftesbury and Secretary Coventry; the other involved Buckingham and Lauderdale, and was buoyed by the emergence of the new ministerial cadre dominated by Latimer, Seymour and Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham.<sup>188</sup> Such pressures appear to have persuaded Arlington to distance himself once more from the French alliance and to seek to realign himself with the Dutch and Spanish, a policy to which Colbert believed the king had also resigned himself.<sup>189</sup> It was also rumoured that Arlington was to go to Spain as ambassador to avoid the new session of Parliament.<sup>190</sup></p><p>Arlington was again entrusted with Hatton’s proxy early in December 1673, presumably in anticipation of the new session the following month. The proxy was again vacated by the close of the session. By the beginning of the year it was speculated that he and Ormond had forged an alliance with York. Arlington and Ormond were the only members of the council to raise objections to the king’s projected speech to the Parliament outlined in council the day before the opening of the new session. Arlington’s disquiet may well have been caused by the king’s (false) declaration denying the existence of a secret treaty with France. York soon came to the conclusion that he had ‘been abused by these men who had strongly assured him that Parliament had begun to soften towards him.’<sup>191</sup></p><p>Arlington took his seat in the House on 7 Jan. 1674. He was present on two-thirds of all sitting days in the session but was named to just two committees. Shortly after the opening he found himself the subject of investigation by the Commons along with Buckingham and Lauderdale. Addresses were voted requesting the king to remove both Buckingham and Lauderdale from his counsels on 13 and 14 January. Articles against Arlington, complaining of a series of abuses, including the encouragement of popery and of embezzlement, were presented to the Commons on the following day, 15 Jan., by Sir Gilbert Gerrard<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Charles Wheeler<sup>‡</sup> (who had been set to bring forward charges during the previous session). Unlike Buckingham, Arlington won praise for his handling of the situation. He was assisted in this by Gerrard failing to present the articles effectively but also by vigorous support from Members including Sir Robert Holte<sup>‡</sup>; Henry Capel<sup>‡</sup> and William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> (both attached to Arthur Capel*, earl of Essex) as well as Ossory. Essex had only a few weeks previously been described by Latimer of being ‘locked up in a box’ with Arlington. Certainly Essex accounted Arlington one of his friends at this point. On 15 Jan., the day on which the Commons considered the charges against him, Arlington sought the House of Lords’ permission (as well as that of the king) to offer to appear before the Commons to defend himself. After being made to wait for an hour in the Commons’ lobby he made ‘a very handsome speech in his defence’, which lasted an hour and a quarter.<sup>192</sup> Denying that he had been the author of the Declaration of Indulgence, he stressed that he had assumed at the time that it was in the king’s power to grant it, but that once he had been advised to the contrary, ‘I was the first man that persuaded the king against it.’ He rejected the accusation that he had worked to undermine the Triple Alliance and dismissed the suggestion that he was over-familiar with the French ambassador, insisting that he ‘only received him with good manners, and have used the same some time to Spain, some time to Holland, and they have all been angry enough with me since to have declared it if I had any pension from them long before now.’ He also neatly shifted the blame for the war onto Buckingham. Finally, he responded to the accusation that he had been in receipt of vast sums from the Crown. Admitting that he had ‘a very indulgent master’ he countered that ‘what I have is not half enough to support the honour and dignity the king has given me.’<sup>193</sup></p><p>Although most conceded that Arlington had acquitted himself very convincingly, the following day Coventry considered that Arlington was not yet secure.<sup>194</sup> Over the next few days the Commons continued to debate the matter but on 19 Jan. his supporters, now sure of victory, pressed for the projected articles of impeachment to be presented. They then carried a vote not to call for candles (thus refusing to continue their deliberations into the evening) by a margin of 197 to 97. The following day the motion to remove him from the king’s presence was defeated by 166 to 127 (not far off de Ruvigny’s report that the margin had been just 30 votes).<sup>195</sup> One of those most vigorous in pressing the prosecution was Clarendon’s heir, Cornbury, who acted as a teller for the ayes in the second division.<sup>196</sup> According to John Wynne, Arlington’s escape was owing to the presence of ‘many friends in the House else it had gone as hard with him as with the two dukes before him.’<sup>197</sup> Wynne’s assessment pointed to Arlington’s continued success in cultivating a following in the Commons. Sir Ralph Verney, however, attributed Arlington’s deliverance more to the divisions among his enemies than the strength of his friends, that he had ‘made a shift to divide the Presbyterian party and by that means got off.’ Whatever the reason, Walter Overbury writing to Williamson concluded that the future looked promising for Arlington. Buckingham and Lauderdale, on the other hand, were ‘defunct’. Nevertheless, some of those most determined to bring Arlington down persisted with their enquiries well into February. It was not until the middle of the month, coinciding with Arlington’s recovery from his latest attack of gout, that the diplomat Sir Peter Wyche reckoned that Arlington’s pursuers had at last been stymied by a ‘dry scent’.<sup>198</sup> In spite of his success in avoiding a censure by Parliament, some observers believed the affair indicated the end of Arlington’s influence.<sup>199</sup></p><p>Early in February 1674 Arlington advised de Ruvigny that the English could no longer delay making a settlement with the Dutch and that as a consequence Temple was on the point of being sent to The Hague to sign a peace treaty.<sup>200</sup> On 5 Feb. delegates from both Houses attended the king to proffer their advice for a swift conclusion to hostilities.<sup>201</sup> Such eagerness to see the war concluded no doubt encouraged Arlington’s assessment that it was the Dutch party in Parliament that now held the upper hand, and on 9 Feb. he joined with Finch, Latimer, Ormond and Coventry in signing the treaty bringing the war to a close.<sup>202</sup> Arlington was away from the House briefly early that month, but he covered his absence by registering his proxy on 5 Feb. with Ossory. The proxy was vacated by Arlington’s resumption of his seat six days later. By the middle of the month the council was said to be undecided on whether or not Parliament should continue to sit. Commentators were also divided on which ministers favoured which policy. According to one, Latimer, Finch and York were in favour of a prorogation while Ormond and Arlington preferred the session’s continuation; Arlington’s enemies, on the other hand, were eager to stress his role in arguing for an early close. Ruvigny considered that the resulting prorogation was designed to protect Arlington from further attacks in Parliament, though Sir Gilbert Talbot<sup>‡</sup> regretted that Arlington’s friends had not been given more time to clear him (as he was sure they would have done). Moreover, he feared that the same charges would now be revived in a future session strengthened by the imputation that Arlington had been responsible for the early prorogation.<sup>203</sup></p><p>Arlington’s experience of another turbulent session gave rise to renewed reports that he was to part with the secretaryship in return for appointment to the office of lord chamberlain. This it was hoped would enable him to remove himself ‘a little further from affairs or at least to put himself in a place which exposes him less when Parliament returns’.<sup>204</sup> Until such a place could be procured, he remained pivotal. This certainly appears to have been Ruvigny’s assessment, for though he was convinced that Arlington was committed to working with the Dutch and Spanish, Ruvigny resolved to persist in courting him as ‘we can only accomplish things by dealing with him’.<sup>205</sup> As further evidence of Arlington’s commitment to closer ties with the Dutch, both he and Ormond were said to be working hard to press forward the match between William of Orange and Princess Mary. York was resistant to the notion and opened negotiations with the French for a match between his daughter and the dauphin. William of Orange was similarly unconvinced at first. Ruvigny (reciting a by now familiar theme) considered that Arlington hoped that the marriage would serve to weaken York’s importance.<sup>206</sup></p><p>Arlington’s troubled relations at court in the spring of 1674 may have been reflected in reports that he had been involved in ‘a cruel dispute’ with Anglesey towards the close of March. Anglesey recorded in his diary the following day (28 Mar.) that he had informed York about Arlington during a meeting of the admiralty commissioners, which presumably referred to this episode.<sup>207</sup> More importantly, although the proceedings in the Commons in January had damaged his older rivals Lauderdale and Buckingham, Arlington now faced in Latimer a much more potent new rival, as well as in York a more assertive influence on the king who may have seen Arlington as too much in favour of the Dutch.<sup>208</sup> Absent from town through the late spring of 1674, by early May Arlington’s extended sojourn in the country was beginning to excite adverse comment, and it was thought that ‘foreign affairs are languishing and suspended by his absence.’ Arlington returned to London by the close of the month when he was again engaged in negotiations with the Dutch.<sup>209</sup></p><p>By the beginning of July 1674 it was expected that Arlington would be handed the lord chamberlain’s white staff imminently, but it was a further two months before he was finally confirmed in post.<sup>210</sup> By the middle of the summer, Ruvigny noted, ‘it should not be doubted that the earl of Arlington acts entirely in the interests of the prince of Orange, not only against those of France, but also against those of his master’ and that he was in frequent contact with ‘several rebels in Parliament of the intelligence he has with the Prince of Orange.’<sup>211</sup> Conflicting reports that Arlington had already received the white staff as lord chamberlain or that he was to take up the office as soon as agreement could be reached with the current holder (St Albans) circulated in August.<sup>212</sup> By the beginning of September he was once more prostrated with gout.<sup>213</sup> Shortly after, it was reported that he was travelling to Bath for his health. On 11 Sept. he was at last confirmed in post as lord chamberlain and succeeded in his former office by Williamson.<sup>214</sup></p><p>During his absence at Bath, Arlington suffered the loss of his London residence, Goring House, in a blaze that left little worth salvaging. One report estimated the loss at between £40,000 and £50,000, while Ossory commented how ‘all the furniture and rarities he has been these 14 years collecting’ had been destroyed. Later estimates set the losses at nearer £20,000. In spite of the extent of his misfortune, Arlington was said to have borne the loss of his home ‘with great evenness’. He remained away from the capital for the meantime and at the beginning of October retreated from Bath to his seat at Euston.<sup>215</sup></p><h2><em>Lord chamberlain 1674-9</em></h2><p>It would be a mistake to assume that Arlington’s translation from secretary to chamberlain spelled retirement for him. Rather, it offered him a more appropriate position at court from which he continued to exert his influence. In his new role he made a significant impact in refashioning the royal image at court but he also continued to exert his interest in more overtly political areas.<sup>216</sup> He remained closely involved in foreign affairs. His continuing influence caused some disquiet to the now Catholic earl of Berkshire (as Andover had since become), who wrote to York’s secretary, Edward Coleman, that if Arlington was among those selected to negotiate the peace, ‘then a rope for the Pope and long live the house of Nassau.’<sup>217</sup> The following month, Arlington and Ossory were commissioned to travel to Holland to engage in negotiations with William of Orange, though the purpose of their trip was officially said to be a private one and they were joined by their wives, who, it was put about, intended to visit their relatives in Holland.<sup>218</sup> Even so, Danby (as Latimer had since become) insisted that his son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup> (now styled Viscount Latimer) accompany the party, while others, among them York and Lauderdale, were said to ‘envy him (Arlington) the honour of this journey and do believe his lordship will carry himself so warily and honestly in this business that he will make himself the darling and favourite of the Parliament and kingdom.’<sup>219</sup> For all this, the mission proved to be unsuccessful. Ossory, charged with discussing the match between Prince William and Princess Mary, made little progress, while Arlington irritated his host by subjecting him to lengthy lectures and interrogating him about the source of his parliamentary intelligence.<sup>220</sup> By 20 Dec. the party’s imminent return from Holland was daily anticipated, but unfavourable winds kept them in Holland until the beginning of the following year.<sup>221</sup></p><p>Early in 1675 it was reported that Arlington was to be appointed to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland and replaced as lord chamberlain by Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. It is possible that the rumour arose out of the perception that the Holland trip had gone badly, but nothing came of it. Arlington returned to England in the first week of January.<sup>222</sup> The remainder of the month was dominated by discussion at court concerning the summoning of Parliament, which the French ambassador was eager to see delayed.<sup>223</sup> Some thought that a dissolution would make it impossible for Arlington to challenge the duke of York’s advice: the former would ‘dare not contest with the duke without that support.’<sup>224</sup></p><p>Besides involvement in the preparations for Parliament Arlington was also engaged in planning with Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> the arrangements for the interment in Westminster Abbey of the newly discovered remains of two children in the Tower of London, popularly believed to be those of the murdered princes, Edward V and Richard of York. It was not the only way in which Arlington employed his new office to develop a sense of royal heritage and the court’s artistic patronage. Extensive remodelling was undertaken at Windsor, in particular, where overt references were made to other medieval predecessors such as the Black Prince.<sup>225</sup></p><p>Towards the close of February 1675 it was rumoured that Arlington had altered his mind about the meeting of Parliament and that he had now joined with Danby and Lauderdale in supporting a further prorogation, even though it was considered that this course of action would ‘much displease the public’.<sup>226</sup> Aside from their agreement on this matter, Arlington, Danby and Lauderdale were said to be irreconcilably divided: Arlington was said to fear that the other two were working for his destruction.<sup>227</sup> Danby was said to have advised the king that ridding himself of Arlington would ensure a compliant Parliament.<sup>228</sup></p><p>Parliament did meet in April 1675, and Arlington took his seat on the first day, the 13th, after which he continued to attend on just over half of all sitting days. At the opening, Arlington and Ormond caused consternation by proposing that rather than thanking the king for his speech, the House ought rather merely to present an address thanking the king for the ‘gracious expressions’ within it.<sup>229</sup> By the middle of the following month Arlington’s credit at court was in severe decline. The king, it was perceived, paid him scant attention, irritated by his behaviour over the negotiations with William of Orange and suspecting him, according to de Ruvigny, of co-operating with dissident members of the Lords in combination with Ormond.<sup>230</sup></p><p>Arlington’s loss of interest with the king may have been reflected in his inability to prevail on Charles II to accede to a request by William Sancroft, now dean of St Paul’s, for permission to erect a temporary church until the cathedral, devastated by the Fire of London, could be rebuilt.<sup>231</sup> By the middle of June 1675 Arlington was reported to have all but retired from court, leaving the field to his rival, Danby.<sup>232</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 13 Oct., but he attended on just four days (19 per cent of the whole) before absenting himself for the remainder of the session. On 10 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House and on 12 Nov. he registered his proxy with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.</p><p>At the time of the handover to a new French representative the following spring there was little perceived change in Arlington’s circumstances. The advice offered to the new ambassador, Courtin, indicated that Arlington’s interest remained on the wane. He was said to have distanced himself from the French ‘and that his own inclination as much as the alliance he has through his wife with the Prince of Orange, pushes him towards Holland.’<sup>233</sup> A few months earlier, in December 1675, Temple reported to Danby Arlington’s role in having Sir Gabriel Sylvius sent to Holland to continue negotiations for the Orange marriage, though Temple was dismissive of Sylvius’s ability to make more progress with the prince than either he or Arlington had managed.<sup>234</sup> Alongside this, Arlington was said to be renewing his efforts to build up his interest in Parliament among those sympathetic to an alliance with the Dutch and Spanish. According to Ruvigny, his aim was then ‘to govern this court from Holland.’<sup>235</sup> Challenging this assessment, towards the end of May 1676, Arlington called on the new French representative to assure him that his interests remained those of the king and that he would consequently do all in his power to further his master’s wishes. It was also reported, contrary to claims that he was keen to work with the existing Parliament that both he and York desired to see it ‘broken up’.<sup>236</sup></p><p>At the close of June 1676 Arlington voted with the majority in finding Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of murder.<sup>237</sup> The occasion precipitated a dispute between Arlington as lord chamberlain and Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, as lord great chamberlain, over which officer possessed the responsibility for issuing out orders for preparing for peers’ trials. The dispute between the two men persisted into September, when Lindsey (who had voted with the minority in finding Cornwallis guilty of manslaughter) was ordered to come up to town along with his evidence to present his case.<sup>238</sup> At the beginning of July it was put about (once again) that Arlington was ‘making a retreat from court’, but there was little indication of this when he played host to the queen at Euston in September.<sup>239</sup> However uncertain his position at court, his reputation as a master of etiquette remained undiminished, and when Essex wrote to congratulate the duchess of York, who had recently given birth to a daughter, Isabella, he deliberately left the packet open so that his kinsman, Capel, could confer with Arlington ‘who understands these niceties of ceremony better than myself.’<sup>240</sup></p><p>Arlington was absent from the opening of the new session, though he ensured his proxy was again registered with Monmouth on 15 Feb. 1677. Arlington’s relations with the duke had only recently been decidedly cool following a dispute concerning two trumpeters formerly attached to the king’s horse (under the jurisdiction of the lord chamberlain) who had been transferred to the king’s guards (answerable to Monmouth as the unit’s captain). The ‘weighty controversy’ was referred to the king’s adjudication but had presumably been settled by the time Arlington made out the proxy.<sup>241</sup> Noted as being abroad at a call of the House on 9 Mar. he returned from his travels soon after and the proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 26 Mar. after which he proceeded to attend on 59 days in the session (approximately half of the whole). On 14 Apr. he was one of nine senior peers nominated to consider the case <em>Sir Scrope Howe v. earl of Rutland</em> (John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland). In May Arlington was listed as doubly vile by Shaftesbury.</p><p>Arlington returned to the House following the adjournment on 15 Jan. 1678. Excused at a call on 16 Feb., in April he joined the lord chancellor (Finch) and Danby at a meeting at the Guildhall, which resulted in the securing of a loan of £100,000 from the City authorities.<sup>242</sup> On 4 Apr. he attended the trial of Thomas Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, to vote him not guilty. Following the brief prorogation in May, Arlington took his seat once again at the outset of the new session on 23 May, after which he was present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. Named to three committees in the course of the session, on 21 June he hosted Anglesey at a dinner at his London home.<sup>243</sup> Arlington’s diminishing interest may have been one of the factors in persuading the duchess of Cleveland to put an end to the match between her son, Grafton, and Arlington’s daughter earlier that year, though personal antagonism may also have been behind her decision. As early as January 1678 it was rumoured that Cleveland was on the point of coming to England from France ‘to break the match’ and by June reports were circulating of the duke and duchess of Grafton being ‘divorced’ and of the duke being married to one of Louis XIV’s bastards instead.<sup>244</sup></p><p>The new session of October 1678 found Arlington once again present in the House. Having taken his seat on 21 Oct., he proceeded to attend on 77 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to three committees. Even so, he seems to have lost much of his former enthusiasm and have been suffering from poor health. Early in November Ormond was encouraged to come over from Ireland to assist as Arlington’s ‘relish to business is wonderfully blunted and his distemper lies heavily upon him.’ On 14 and 15 Nov. Arlington undertook routine duties in the House informing the Lords about the presentation of seven addresses to the king. On 15 Nov. he voted against disabling papists from sitting in Parliament in the division held in a committee of the whole. The following month, on 26 Dec., Arlington voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill relating to the payment of money into the exchequer. The next day, in spite of his poor relations with the lord treasurer, he voted against committing Danby, perhaps all too aware of how narrowly he had avoided a similar fate.<sup>245</sup> At least one member of Arlington’s household, however, seems to have resolved to protect his position by dealing with the other side. At the beginning of 1679 Arlington’s secretary, Cooling, was identified as ‘one of the greatest intelligencers’ Shaftesbury possessed.<sup>246</sup></p><p>Arlington failed to make much impression in the elections for the new Parliament. Although by the end of January 1679, it was reported that he was ‘very earnest’ in employing ‘all his interest’ on behalf of Sir Allen Apsley<sup>‡</sup> at Thetford, Apsley (who had represented the seat since 1661) was defeated at the poll by Arlington’s erstwhile supporter, William Harbord.<sup>247</sup> In February Arlington’s apparently weakening interest was further hinted at by rumours that he was to be put out as lord chamberlain and replaced by Sunderland.<sup>248</sup> It is indicative of quite how difficult Arlington often was to pin down that in advance of the new Parliament, Danby assessed him variously as a likely supporter who should be spoken to by the king, a probable supporter to be contacted by his son, Latimer, and as an unreliable supporter. In a further forecast of 3 Mar. Danby again reckoned Arlington as being likely to vote in his favour in the proceedings against him. Arlington attended four days of the abortive session of 6 Mar. 1679, during which no business was transacted. He then resumed his seat once more on 17 Mar. and was thereafter present on 62 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 30 Apr. he was one of the peers nominated to wait on the king with the House’s thanks. On 2 May he reported that he had waited on the king with the address concerning Edmund Warcupp, and on 8 May he entered his dissent at the resolution not to agree to the Commons’ request for a committee of both Houses to be established to consider the manner of proceeding with the impeached lords. Two days later he voted in favour once more of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the issue and dissented again when the motion was carried in the negative. On 23 May he dissented once more at the resolution to inform the Commons of the Lords’ resolution to proceed with the trials of the five peers in the Tower before that of Danby. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Arlington was one of a number of notables to attend a dinner hosted by Anglesey on 14 June 1679, among the other guests being his daughter and her half-brother-in-law, Charles Beauclerk*, earl of Burford (later duke of St Albans). On 6 July he was present at the council meeting at which he, Anglesey and the lord chancellor all argued against dissolving Parliament, in opposition to his former associate, Essex, and George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax. By the middle of the summer it was reported that the duchess of Cleveland had altered her previous opposition to the marriage of Bennet’s daughter Isabella with her son, and that she had summoned Grafton home to see it consummated (a formal confirmation of their ‘marriage’ which had been contracted when the pair had been significantly underage).<sup>249</sup> In November Grafton and Isabella Bennet took part in a marriage ceremony at Arlington House presided over by John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester.<sup>250</sup> By the close of the year Arlington was said to be suffering from gout in the hand.<sup>251</sup> He also continued to labour under the difficulty of poor relations with the duchess of Portsmouth. In September, although it was reported that the king had wished to see Arlington appointed to the new treasury commission, Portsmouth prevailed on him to appoint Essex in his stead.<sup>252</sup></p><h2><em>Final years 1680-5</em></h2><p>In spite of the duchess of Portsmouth’s interventions, Arlington enjoyed a gradual return to favour in the final years of his life. In February 1680 he was made steward to Queen Catherine, an office left vacant by the demise of Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles.<sup>253</sup> Three months later rumours circulated once more that Sunderland would replace Arlington as lord chamberlain, though it was said that Arlington would have £10,000 to pay off his debts.<sup>254</sup> The rumour proved to be inaccurate and evidence of his continuing good standing with the king is suggested by Charles’s decision to dine at Arlington’s country seat during one of his progresses towards the end of May.<sup>255</sup></p><p>Arlington had returned to London by the middle of June 1680 following a summons for him to be present at a case heard in chancery.<sup>256</sup> The death of his brother-in-law and close friend, Ossory, soon after seems not to have weakened Arlington’s association with Ormond; instead he found himself active in assisting with planning the education of Ossory’s heir.<sup>257</sup> Towards the end of August he proposed to the king a number of bills to be presented to the Irish parliament, but was taken aback to discover that the king demonstrated no inclination to call one (even though there had been no Irish parliament called for almost 20 years).<sup>258</sup> Between May and August Arlington attended four of the prorogation days before taking his seat in the new Parliament on 21 October. He proceeded to attend on 80 per cent of all sitting days, but although he undertook an active role in conveying reports to and from the king, he was named to just one committee concerning abuses in the post office. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of putting the question that the exclusion bill should be rejected at first reading.<sup>259</sup> He then voted in favour of rejecting the bill at first reading and on 23 Nov. voted against establishing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom. A fortnight later he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason.</p><p>Far from stepping back from his responsibilities, Arlington and his family continued to acquire offices. In February he was appointed lord lieutenant of Suffolk in place of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk (who had voted for the exclusion bill in November), for the duration of Grafton’s minority. The following month, it was reported that Lady Arlington was to replace Lady Suffolk as the queen’s groom of the stole.<sup>260</sup> Although Lady Suffolk was ostensibly removed on the grounds of her poor health and was compensated with a pension, it was reported that the move had been made in opposition to the queen’s wishes and at the king’s express order.<sup>261</sup></p><p>Arlington’s ambiguous attitude with regard to Danby persisted into the new year. In advance of the Parliament at Oxford, Danby assessed Arlington as one of those who would remain neutral if they did not vote for him. Arlington took his seat in the House on 21 Mar. 1681 and was then present on six of the session’s seven days during which he was named to the committee for receiving information concerning the Plot. According to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</em>, Arlington was one of only a handful of councillors to have been aware of the king’s intention of ending the session so suddenly.<sup>262</sup> While in Oxford, the king was said to have proposed holding a conference with Shaftesbury in the hopes of settling matters between them. Shaftesbury was reported to have agreed to the offer and to have suggested that they use Arlington’s lodgings as a venue, reasoning ‘first, that it was the most indifferent place in the world, because my lord chamberlain was neither good Protestant nor good Catholic; and next, because there was the best wine, which was the only good thing that could be had from their meeting.’<sup>263</sup></p><p>Following the session’s close, Arlington retreated to Euston once more, where he played host to the king in June.<sup>264</sup> On 2 July he was one of those to sign the warrant for committing Shaftesbury.<sup>265</sup> Later the same month he played host to the prince of Orange (though it was reported that the cost of the entertainment was charged to the king).<sup>266</sup> In early August Arlington and Grafton were among those present at the apprentices’ feast held in Sadlers’ Hall.<sup>267</sup> Arlington later wrote to recommend Stephen Upman, who had accompanied Grafton as tutor during his foreign tour, to be the new provost of King’s College, Cambridge. Upman was unsuccessful on this occasion. He was nominated to the place again after the Revolution by the king, but the college objected and Upman was forced to give way.<sup>268</sup> In spite of their long and by no means friendly rivalry, Shaftesbury turned to Arlington to present his petition to the king for his release from the Tower, writing in mid-October with an offer to retire to his plantation in Carolina.<sup>269</sup> Although Arlington agreed to present the request, the petition was initially brought before the council at the close of the month and Arlington advised that they should not meddle in it but refer it to the king.<sup>270</sup></p><p>The remaining few years found Arlington active in seeking suitable candidates to tutor Ormond’s grandson, James Butler*, styled earl of Ossory [I] (later 2nd duke of Ormond), as well as in employing his interest on behalf of the Suffolk-born diplomat, Edmund Poley.<sup>271</sup> At the close of the year he also intervened on behalf of Matthew Bankes, who was ‘personally employed in the king’s service’, to secure his exemption from being required to undertake duties in the city of London.<sup>272</sup> Arlington was actively engaged, too, in seeking to further the alliance between his family and that of Ormond by brokering a marriage between Ossory and Frances Bennet, daughter of his kinsman, Simon Bennet. Negotiations had been in train since at least May of 1681, but although by February 1682 an agreement appeared to be on the point of being reached, Arlington was clearly frustrated by the slow progress, which he seems to have blamed on his cousin. Complaining to Ormond of ‘the irresolution of the poor man’, Arlington resolved to take command of events at his end and to see ‘how high we can screw him as to the portion and your grace’s [role] must be to bethink yourself how you will have the marriage treated which is not a small affair, nor fit to be trusted but to well-chosen people.’ Although troubled by poor health at the beginning of March, which kept him from travelling with the court to Newmarket, Arlington remained eager to see the alliance completed and maintained a correspondence with Ormond informing him of the progress of the marriage treaty. In spite of all of Arlington’s efforts to keep negotiations on course, by May Ormond had lost patience with the proposal. He declared himself to be ‘quite off with Bennet’ and intent on looking elsewhere for a match for his grandson.<sup>273</sup></p><p>Arlington was again to the fore in council following rioting in the city of London in the late autumn of 1682, taking to task the city authorities and warning the lord mayor against allowing any further trouble.<sup>274</sup> In the spring of the following year he was engaged in a dispute over precedence at court after having been refused admission to the bedchamber ‘in a very rude manner’ by one of the officials of John Granville*, earl of Bath, the king’s groom of the stole.<sup>275</sup> It was perhaps as a result of his annoyance at this latest sign of disfavour that it was believed Arlington was looking to rid himself of the lord chamberlaincy, but rumours that he was to sell it to Feversham proved misplaced. Conway expressed the hope that Arlington would get the better of Bath in the dispute, ‘though I never expect to make my fortune by my pretences.’<sup>276</sup> The case persisted into the summer.</p><p>The winter of 1683 brought Arlington good news with the birth of a grandchild. He was said to be ‘so joyed’ with the infant that it was feared he would ‘smother it with kisses’. Meanwhile, his own health began to decline during the late autumn of the following year.<sup>277</sup> At the end of November 1684 Edmund Poley was informed that his patron had rallied sufficiently ‘to walk in his chamber, but does not yet go abroad.’<sup>278</sup> Following York’s accession as king, Arlington was confirmed in office as lord chamberlain, and he proved well enough to take his seat four days after the opening of Parliament on 23 May, after which he attended 19 of its 43 sitting days.<sup>279</sup> Named again to just one committee, he sat for the last time on 1 July. Six days later he submitted a list of disaffected inhabitants in his lieutenancy who had fled to the neighbouring county of Norfolk in the wake of Monmouth’s rebellion. Arlington’s health took a sudden turn for the worse towards the end of the month and, having lain speechless for two days, he finally succumbed on 28 July at his London residence, Arlington House.<sup>280</sup></p><p>Shortly after his death rumours circulated that Arlington had died a Catholic and that he had summoned a priest to his deathbed. These reports were dismissed angrily by Arlington’s widow and daughter; some speculated that Arlington had not been in his right mind at the end and that it was in this weakened condition that he had been prevailed upon to admit the priest. According to other reports the duchess of Grafton was later overheard confessing to the queen that her father had indeed recently converted. Throughout his career at court Arlington had been looked upon by some as a Catholic sympathizer, and many believed that he had converted while resident in Spain; although his long-term involvement with the Dutch aristocracy seemed to tell a different story.<sup>281</sup> Although he had been careful throughout his career to conform to the Anglican faith, like his former master, the king, he may have taken advantage of his final moments to embrace a religion to which he had long been drawn. It might be said to have been appropriate for a man who had built his career as both a minister and a diplomat on such flexible ground and who had made and broken so many alliances that even at the close it was impossible to know what his true beliefs had been.</p><p>In his will Arlington bequeathed the majority of his possessions to his daughter and son-in-law. He appears to have conveyed his London residence to Grafton some years before. In addition, Arlington left to his nephew, Henry Bennet, his remaining interest in various offices including that of clerk of the signet as well as the sum of £1,250 owed him by Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I]. He named his son-in-law, Grafton, as sole executor and requested that he should be buried ‘forbearing all pomp and ostentation’ in the vault he had had built in the parish church at Euston. Arlington left his estates in some disorder, amid rumours that he had left numerous debts unpaid in both England and Holland. In the absence of a son, his peerage descended, by special remainder, to his daughter and became subsumed within the dukedom of Grafton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BENNET, John (1616-95) |
<p><strong><surname>BENNET</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1616–95)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>24 Nov. 1682 Bar. OSSULSTON. |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 18 Jan. 1694 |
|
MP Wallingford 6 May 1663. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 July 1616, 1st s. of Sir John Bennet (<em>d</em>.1658), 2nd bt. of Dawley, Mdx. and Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1659), da. of Sir John Crofts of Saxham, Suff.; bro. of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington. <em>educ</em>. Pembroke, Oxf. 1635; G. Inn 1636. <em>m</em>. (1) 28 Oct. 1661, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1 Feb. 1672), da. of Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, earl of Middlesex, wid. of Edmund Sheffield<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Mulgrave, <em>s.p.</em>; (2) lic. 1 May 1673, Bridget (<em>d</em>. 14 July 1703), da. of John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> of Langar, Notts. 1s. 1da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1658; KB 23 Apr. 1661. <em>d.</em> 11 Feb. 1695; <em>will</em> 9 Oct.-28 Nov. 1694, pr. 18 Feb. 1695.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. pens. 1660-76, lt. 1662-76; treas., loyal and indigent officers’ fund 1663-9;<sup>2</sup> dep. postmaster 1666-72.</p><p>Commr. for assessment, Mdx. Aug. 1660-80, Westminster 1665-80, Lincs. 1673-80, Norf. 1673-9, Suff. and Yorks. (W. Riding) 1673-4, loyal and indigent officers, London and Westminster. 1662, recusants, Berks. 1675; dep. lt. Mdx 1662-bef. 1680.</p><p>?Ensign, coy. of ft. expedition against Scots 1640;<sup>3</sup> ?col. roy. army 1642-?<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by R. Phillips, Pemb. Oxf.</p> |
<p>John Bennet’s family first made its way in the world in the early seventeenth century through the exertions of his grandfather, Sir John Bennet<sup>‡</sup>, an ambitious civil lawyer who rose to prominence in the law courts of both York and Westminster, and who purchased the estates of Dawley and Harlington in Middlesex in 1607. Bennet’s father, Sir John Bennet, lived more the life of a country gentleman, most famous for the use of his house at Uxbridge as the meeting place for the abortive Uxbridge Treaty negotiations of February 1645. He died in 1658 and passed these Middlesex estates to his eldest son and namesake, an officer in the royalist army in the Civil War. A ‘Col. John Bennet of Uxbridge’ who petitioned the king for local office in 1660 and recounted his military service and sufferings for the Stuarts is almost certainly the subject of this biography.<sup>7</sup> Bennet rose to prominence after the Restoration, owing both to this lucrative inheritance, which endowed him with wealth and local influence and offices in Middlesex, and to the meteoric rise at court of his younger brother Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington. By his first marriage he became stepfather to the underage John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby). In 1662 Sir John was recommended by the king to the electors of the Berkshire borough of Wallingford as the replacement for their recently deceased burgess George Fane<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup> From 1664 he was involved with Sir John Monson<sup>‡</sup> in the consortium for providing alum from the northern mines of the young earl of Mulgrave, and when the farm of the mines was leased to other speculators in 1666, Bennet was granted £400 p.a. out of its rent.<sup>9</sup> From 1666 to 1672 he acted as deputy postmaster and assignee for five years of the profits arising from his brother’s ten-year lease of the office of postmaster general. His tenure was controversial as his bullying and high-handed manner elicited many complaints, and he often charged postage on proclamations and other official dispatches, which was unprecedented and opened him to charges of peculation.<sup>10</sup></p><p>By 1676 Bennet was gradually divesting himself of offices and responsibilities, shoring up his income instead with a number of shrewd and successful investments. In 1671 he joined a consortium to farm the customs and between 1672-4 he purchased many fee farm rents in a wide variety of counties – Suffolk, Norfolk (including the rents of the city of Norwich), Gloucestershire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire.<sup>11</sup> He maintained an interest in each of these far-flung counties, which may account for his appointment as a commissioner of assessment in so many of them during the 1670s. He, perhaps with his brother, had invested in a plot of land in St. James’s Square during its earliest development and by 1676 it was sufficiently inhabitable for him to reside in it and occasionally rent out for profit.<sup>12</sup></p><p>He sat in the Commons until the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. As a client of his brother and a courtier he was considered a government supporter for much of the time. By 1676, though, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) considered Bennet’s membership among his followers in the Commons uncertain, probably owing to Bennet’s loyalty to Arlington, who had been effectively removed from influence by Danby. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered Bennet ‘triply vile’ in 1677, and he was accused in an opposition pamphlet of this time, <em>A Seasonable Argument</em>, to have ‘got of the poor indigent Cavaliers’ money £26,000, and other ways £40,000’. In the weeks preceding the first election in 1679 he was numbered by the opposition among the ‘unanimous club’, but he did not stand for that election nor for any subsequent ones.<sup>13</sup></p><p>On 24 Nov. 1682, probably as a delayed gratification to his brother Arlington, Bennet was raised to the peerage as Baron Ossulston, named after the Middlesex hundred in which his manor of Dawley was located. He was one of 12 individuals whose creations and promotions passed the Great Seal in November and December 1682 as part of Charles II’s campaign to confer public marks of favour on loyal courtiers and converts from the opposition. Ossulston first sat in the House on the first day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685, introduced by William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget and Charles West*, 5th Baron De la Warr. He came to three-quarters of the sittings of that Parliament and was named to 11 committees on legislation. On his third day in the House, 23 May, he was placed on the committee for the bill against the clandestine marriage of minors, which committee he chaired on 27 May.<sup>14</sup> On 30 May, as a member of the subcommittee for the Journal, he signed his approval of the account of the proceedings in the House on 23-26 May. Of particular relevance to him, considering later events, was his nomination on 15 June to a committee of 25 members to consider the bill for consolidating the revenue owing to the king from the profits from the Post Office.</p><p>Ossulston was enough of a political cipher, seen perhaps as principally concerned with feathering his own nest, that none of the commentators, whether English, French, or Dutch, who in 1687-8 tried to analyse the attitudes of the peerage to James II’s proposed repeal of the Test Acts, could determine where he stood on this matter. However, he did turn against James II, fiercely, owing to the decision made in January 1687 by the lord treasurer Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, that Ossulston owed £12,375 for the postage that he as deputy postmaster had charged on official correspondence which should have been carried free. In the event a small reduction was allowed and Ossulston paid £12,000.<sup>15</sup> A few years later Roger Morrice was to attribute to this act the ‘prejudice’ of Ossulston’s son and heir Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville) against James II, ‘who dealt severely with his father’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Ossulston supported the prince of Orange during the invasion in 1688. He was one of the 19 members of the House who subscribed to the petition of 16 Nov. 1688 for a free parliament, and, after the king’s first flight, he signed the Guildhall Declaration to William of Orange on 11 December.<sup>17</sup> As a peer resident in the capital, he was a regular attender of the provisional government of 11-16 Dec., and signed many of the orders the lords meeting at Guildhall sent out to maintain civil government during the king’s absence. On 15 Dec. he was commissioned, with Charles North*, 5th Baron North and James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, to interrogate the lord chancellor George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, as to the whereabouts of the great seal and the writs for Parliament.<sup>18</sup> After William’s arrival at St. James’s Ossulston took part in the debate on 22 Dec. concerning measures to remove Catholics from the capital. Ossulston suggested that those Catholics who could not supply bail be committed to inns in the City, to be guarded by members of the trained bands. Later, discussing the threat of wandering Irish Catholic soldiers, he complained ‘that there are 2 or 300 of them at his house near Uxbridge; that he is told they are ready to give up their arms, and therefore [he] desires somebody may be appointed to receive them’.<sup>19</sup> He likewise contributed two days later, after James II had fled England for good, to the discussion on the whereabouts of the king and the proper methods of summoning a Parliament in his absence, but the exact nature and content of his intervention was not recorded by George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, in his notes.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Ossulston attended three-fifths of the sitting of the first session of the Convention. After being nominated on its second day, 23 Jan. 1689, to a committee to consider ways of removing papists from Westminster and London, and chairing that committee the following day, Ossulston was noticeably absent from the House in late January and February when all the controversial constitutional issues regarding the disposition of the Crown were debated and resolved.<sup>21</sup> Having avoided taking any contentious positions on this delicate issue, he returned to the House on 1 Mar. and took the oaths to the new monarchs the following day.</p><p>In late April 1689 the committee for privileges considered the many breaches of the privilege of the peerage perceived to have been perpetrated during the reign of James II. Ossulston brought to its attention on 30 Apr. the case of his dealings with Rochester and the exchequer over the postage he had embezzled as deputy postmaster general, and particularly the bond for £20,000 that he had been forced to submit as security for payment of any fine.<sup>22</sup> On 10 May he chaired one meeting of the committee on the bill to establish commissioners of the great seal, and at the end of that month, after having been added to the Journal committee on 17 May, he signed his name against the manuscript account of the proceedings of 22 March.<sup>23</sup> On 14 June he was placed on a drafting committee for an address requesting the king to forbid French papists from coming into Whitehall or St. James’s. July 1689 was a particularly busy month for Ossulston. On 10 July he joined a group of Whigs in dissenting from resolutions that would have disabled Titus Oates from being able to give testimony in court. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, later recorded that on 30 July Ossulston voted against the decision to adhere to this amendment in the face of the Commons’ continuing objections to it, even though Ossulston does not appear in the presence list in the Journal for that day. On 11 July Ossulston and John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, introduced to the House two eldest sons of peers who had been summoned by writs in acceleration: Charles Berkeley*, summoned to the House as Baron Berkeley of Berkeley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley) and Robert Sydney*, summoned as Baron Sydney (later 4th earl of Leicester). Ossulston was named to 23 committees on legislation in this session, and on 17 July he chaired a meeting of the committee to consider the bill to recover small tithes.<sup>24</sup> Six days later he was part of the group of the former servants to Charles II who petitioned against the bill for a duty on tea and coffee, on the grounds that their salaries and continuing pensions were charged on the revenue from these imposts which the bill wished now to vest in the Crown.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Ossulston’s attendance level during the second session of the Convention stood at 64 per cent and he was named to nine committees on legislation. Between 16 Nov. 1689 and 21 Jan. 1690 he acted as chairman on ten or so occasions (it is not always clear from the minute books who was chair) for the committee dealing with irregularities in the courts of Westminster Hall. This was a matter in which he took a personal interest as he used the opportunity of these committee meetings to pursue his complaints, earlier voiced in the committee for privileges, against the exchequer and his bond for £20,000.<sup>26</sup> Related to this concern with legal procedure, he protested on 23 Nov. 1689 against the rejection of a proviso in the bill of rights which would have required parliamentary approval for any royal pardon of an impeachment. He was also placed on the ‘committee for inspections’ investigating what were considered to be the judicial murders of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, and Algernon Sydney in 1683, as well as the other committee examining the subornation of witnesses under James II. An allegation that he had made disparaging remarks about a fellow member of the committee for inspections, Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, led him to beg the committee’s forbearance.<sup>27</sup> He was also, on 9 Dec. 1689, placed on the committee of 17 members assigned to draw up an address to the king requesting that the laws against papists be duly put into execution.</p><p>After attending 96 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the new Parliament in spring 1690, Ossulston’s attendance in the House dropped precipitously, probably owing to his age, as he was in his late 70s by this time. On 1 and 4 Apr. 1690 Ossulston chaired meetings of a committee that was investigating the high price of coal in the capital, and on 12 Apr. he also chaired the committee on the estate bill of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 2nd earl of Shaftesbury, which he reported to the House two days following.<sup>28</sup> Ossulston supported the right of the corporation of London to present its case against the surrender of its charter in the preceding reign, and he entered his protest on 13 May 1690 when the time allowed the City’s counsel was curtailed. He came to only a little over a quarter of the meetings of the 1690-1 session, and on the first day of the year 1691 he formally registered his protest against the passage of the bill incorporating the York Buildings Waterworks Company. He maintained the same attendance level for the 1691-2 meeting, and during this session his absence from a division on 24 Nov. was noted by a newsletter writer because he was one of those ‘who was against the party of my Lord Carmarthen’ (as Danby had become).<sup>29</sup> It was during this session that he registered his proxy for the first time, on 11 Feb. 1692 with the Whig, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, who had it for the remaining two weeks of the session.</p><p>In the following session of 1692-3, when his attendance stood at 36 per cent, he registered his proxy, on 23 Jan. 1693, with another Whig, John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, but this was vacated upon Ossulston’s return to the House on 9 February. On 27 Feb. 1693 he chaired the committee for the bill on buying and selling offices.<sup>30</sup> A week later, on 8 Mar., he protested against the rejection of a proviso to the bill to revive expiring legislation which would have allowed for a relaxation of the restrictions on publishing books without licence. He only came to 14 per cent of the meetings of the following session of 1693-4. On 2 Dec. 1693, while Ossulston was away from the House, counsel for Catherine, the queen dowager, presented a petition requesting the House demand that Ossulston waive his privilege so that a long-delayed cause over who had the right to the fee farm rights of the city of Norwich, which the queen dowager claimed as part of her jointure, could be heard in the courts. Ossulston, who had been away from the House since the beginning of the session in early November, appeared there on 8 Dec. and the matter was referred to the committee for privileges the following day, although there is no record of this case in the committee’s minute book.<sup>31</sup> On 10 Jan. 1694, Ossulston joined the Whigs in protesting against the resolution exonerating the Tory admirals from responsibility for the capture of the Smyrna fleet the previous summer. Eight days after this protest he sat in the House for the last time.</p><p>At his death on 11 Feb. 1695 Ossulston was able to leave his surviving family ‘a great estate’.<sup>32</sup> In his will, drawn up in late 1694, Ossulston gave all his personal estate and the house in Middlesex to his wife and assigned trustees to provide his daughter with a portion of £30,000. She married John Cecil*, styled Lord Burleigh (later 6th earl of Exeter) in 1697. To his son and heir Charles he bequeathed his real property, which he took the trouble to entail in the male line. The new Baron Ossulston also inherited an enduring prejudice against James II and a predilection towards the Whigs.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BENSON, Robert (1676-1731) |
<p><strong><surname>BENSON</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1676–1731)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>21 July 1713 Bar. BINGLEY. |
|
First sat 16 Feb. 1714; last sat 25 Mar. 1731 |
|
MP Thetford 1702, York 1705, 1708, 1710. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 25 Mar. 1676, o.s. of Robert Benson (<em>d</em>. c. July 1676) of Wrenthorpe, Yorks. and Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1696), da. of Tobias Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> of Grimston, Yorks. <em>educ</em>. Christ’s, Camb. 1691; travelled abroad 1693-4, Padua 1694. <em>m</em>. 21 Dec. 1703 (with £8,000), Elizabeth (c.1676-1757), da. of Heneage Finch*, Bar. Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford) 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 1da.; 1da. illegit. <em>suc</em>. fa. c. July 1676. <em>d</em>. 9 Apr. 1731; <em>will</em> 27 June 1729-9 Mar. 1730, pr. 13 Apr. 1731.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. treasury Aug. 1710-May 1711, building 50 new churches 1711-15, survey, Westminster and St. James’s manors 1712; chancellor Exch. 1711-13; PC 14 June 1711-Sept.. 1714, 11 June 1730-<em>d</em>.; treas. household 1730-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Dep. lt., Yorks. (W. Riding) and York city 1700-?;<sup>2</sup> freeman, York 1705; alderman, York 1705-15; ld. mayor, York 1707;<sup>3</sup> trustee, Yorks. (W. Riding) registry 1711.</p><p>?Capt., Sir Henry Belasyse’s<sup>‡</sup> Regt. of Ft. 1691.</p><p>Amb. extraordinary, Spain Dec. 1713-14.</p><p>Dir. S. Sea Co. 1711-15.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: watercolour on vellum (miniature) by Andreas von Behn, 1704, Victoria and Albert Museum, acc. no. P.189-1922; oil on canvas, c.1720, Bramham Park, Yorks.</p> |
<p>Robert Benson, Baron Bingley, was derided by his contemporaries for his lowly origins and for his rise up the Tory ranks through an advantageous marriage, and has been dismissed by more recent historians for an innocuous ‘moderate’ Toryism and a seemingly slavish devotion to Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford.<sup>6</sup> At the time of the change of ministry in 1710, before there was any thought of Benson’s becoming a peer, Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford) wrote of him and his origins:</p><blockquote><p>Mr. Benson is of no extraction. His father was an attorney and no great character for an honest man, and I think concerned in the affairs of Oliver Cromwell. He left him a good estate in Yorkshire of about £1,500 a year, and an old seat just by Wakefield. This gentleman has been a very good manager and has saved 5 or 6,000 pounds or more. He has lived very handsomely in the country without being a drinker, though very gallant amongst the ladies.<sup>7</sup></p></blockquote><p>Benson’s father held a succession of minor local offices during the Interregnum and rose to be clerk of the assizes in the northern circuit of Yorkshire from 1662 to 1673, when he was employed by Thomas Osborne*, the future earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), as a treasury official.<sup>8</sup> Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> described him as ‘the most notable and formidable man for business of his time, one of no birth, and that had raised himself from being clerk to a country attorney to be clerk of the peace at the Old Bailiff, to clerk of assize of the northern circuit, and to an estate of £2,500 p.a., but not without suspicion of great frauds and oppressions’. Reresby further sourly noted that Benson senior ‘had greatly ingratiated himself with my lord high treasurer under pretence to find out extraordinary ways ... to get the king money’.<sup>9</sup> When Benson senior died suddenly of apoplexy in July 1676, it was reported that, apart from the £1,500 p.a. in land recorded by Strafford, he also was also possessed of £120,000 in money.</p><p>His death came only four months after the birth in March 1676 of his only son Robert who was soon taken into the care of his mother’s new husband, Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>. In 1691 Robert Benson attended Christ’s College, Cambridge and then embarked on a tour of the continent in 1693, during which he appears to have studied at the university at Padua during 1694.<sup>10</sup> From about the time of his return in or around 1698 he was engaged in building his residence of Bramham Hall, northwest of Leeds, which took many years to complete.<sup>11</sup> His parliamentary career started in Norfolk where for the election of May 1702 his brother-in-law, Sir John Wodehouse<sup>‡</sup>, stepped aside to allow Benson to take his seat for the borough of Thetford while he tried his fortune (unsuccessfully) for the county seat.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Strafford believed that it was in Italy that Benson ‘had the good fortune to’ strike up a friendship with William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth. Dartmouth was married to Anne, a daughter of Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), himself a younger brother of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and through Dartmouth’s patronage Benson, although a commoner, married another of Guernsey’s daughters, Elizabeth. This marriage bound Benson to the extended Finch clan, and to the Tories in general, for many years to come; Dartmouth in particular remained an especial friend well into the reign of George I. For the 1705 elections Benson replaced his maternal uncle, Tobias Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, as a burgess for York, and he continued to represent that borough in all the succeeding Parliaments until he was raised to the peerage in 1713. Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, regarded his election in 1705 as a ‘loss’ for the Whigs and Strafford thought that it was largely through ‘the means of Lord Dartmouth’ that Benson ‘first came over to the Tory party’ and even then ‘he has been very moderate’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>By July 1710 the paymaster of the forces James Brydges*, later duke of Chandos, could tell a correspondent that Benson was ‘a very considerable gentleman’.<sup>14</sup> His position in political circles was no doubt helped by the appointment of his brother-in-law and friend Dartmouth as secretary of state in June. While John Drummond thought that an ambassadorial role would best suit Benson, ‘who speaks all languages, ... and knows the world very well’, Dartmouth, at least according to Strafford, ‘procured’ for Benson his appointment on 10 Aug. 1710 as the third of the treasury commissioners, along with Harley himself, replacing the ousted lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin.<sup>15</sup> He had the advantage, for Harley, of being a ‘moderate’; this was certainly how political opposites as Strafford and Addison perceived him.<sup>16</sup> His appointment also placed one of the more malleable and less difficult members of the extended Finch clan in the heart of government. Throughout the early months of 1711 Benson attended to treasury business and also supported the ministry in the Commons, as when he seconded a tax upon leather, and by April he was included on lists of both ‘Tory patriots’ and ‘worthy patriots’.<sup>17</sup> He was rewarded in June 1711, after the end of the session, when he was sworn to the Privy Council and was made chancellor of the exchequer after Harley’s creation as earl of Oxford and subsequent appointment as lord treasurer led to the disbanding of the treasury commission. Not everybody approved of his appointment to the exchequer, George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> complaining that ‘Mr Benson was one of the most confused speakers ever opened a mouth and was rather, or at least affected more to appear, a man of wit and pleasure than of parts and capacity of business’.<sup>18</sup> Abel Boyer, though, was later to praise Benson’s tenure as chancellor,</p><blockquote><p>which office he executed with remarkable exactness and dexterity, being a man of very great natural abilities and thoroughly versed in business as well as all kinds of useful knowledge and polite literature and always remarkable for a firm adherence to the true interest and fundamental constitution of his country.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>Jonathan Swift was impressed with other qualities, remarking that Benson ‘eats the most elegantly of any man I know in town’.<sup>20</sup> Benson was one of the leading and most effective spokesmen for the ministry in the Commons throughout this Parliament. In July 1711 he also became one of the first directors of the South Sea Company, subscribing £3,000 to the stock, and he was to remain prominent in the company’s affairs for several years.<sup>21</sup> He was also appointed in September as one of the commissioners for building 50 new churches, in which he was able to use the architectural knowledge he had gained in the construction of Bramham Hall.</p><p>Benson was removed from his important role in the Commons when he was raised to the peerage shortly after the end of the 1713 session. He took his title from the town of Bingley in the West Riding, close to Leeds and to Benson’s mansion at Bramham Hall. In telling his masters of this promotion, the Hanoverian agent Kreienberg noted that Benson ‘has always shown himself closely attached to the interests of the lord treasurer and is the one who has managed all this winter the affairs of the court in the lower House’.<sup>22</sup> Benson’s creation was not popular with all his colleagues: Henry St. John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, wished that Benson had stayed in the Commons and been made secretary of state to help Oxford’s troubled ministry.<sup>23</sup> Others objected to Benson’s lowly origins. ‘It was justly alleged in the late creation [of 12 peers in January 1712] that all of them were of ancient families; no one I have met with is much acquainted with the new lord’s pedigree, nor are his merits in the House from whence he is removed sufficiently known’, complained Dr William Stratford.<sup>24</sup> William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, thought that Benson’s elevation was further proof that ‘every year that House [of Lords] receives some great blow, that I am persuaded ... it is the interest of the public to have the dignity kept up’. Peter Wentworth gleefully related to his brother Strafford a story of how Bingley had been embarrassed by the heralds. The newly ennobled baron requested ‘supporters’ to accompany his new honour, but the heralds told him that they could not even find a coat of arms for his family. When he had the temerity to compare himself to the famous John Somers*, Baron Somers, whom he claimed had likewise had neither arms nor supporters until he had been made a lord, the heralds informed him that on the contrary, Somers had had the foresight (in implicit contrast to Bingley) to know that he would soon be made a peer and had taken the precaution of getting a privy seal from the king to give him arms well in advance of his creation.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Benson’s peerage was thought to be incompatible with his office of chancellor of the exchequer, and he was replaced there by Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup>. Oxford, Bolingbroke and Dartmouth instead tried to find a suitable ambassadorial role for him. Bolingbroke initially suggested France as a destination, as ‘his estate will bear it, and his obligations to the queen will, if she requires it, I suppose make him willing’.<sup>26</sup> By September he was also considering sending Bingley to Spain to negotiate a commerce treaty and sought Oxford’s help to persuade him, especially as Bingley seems to have feared such a complicated and thankless mission would keep him ‘in exile’.<sup>27</sup> Oxford succeeded and in December 1713 Bingley was formally appointed ambassador extraordinary to the court at Madrid.<sup>28</sup></p><p>After months of protracted negotiations between the ministers, the board of trade, the South Sea Company and the merchants trading to Spain, Bingley’s instructions for the trade negotiations he was to conduct in Madrid were finally ready in early June 1714.<sup>29</sup> In the event he never did leave for Spain, as the crisis within the Tory party and the illness and death of the queen in the summer of 1714 overtook his preparations. He took his seat in the House when the new Parliament convened on 16 Feb. 1714, being introduced that day between William Paget*, 8th Baron Paget (later earl of Uxbridge) and Thomas Mansell*, Baron Mansell.<sup>30</sup> He sat in 44 of the 79 sittings (56 per cent) of the session of Feb.-July 1714, but even when he was away for only a few days he was anxious to ensure his proxy was registered with a fellow supporter of the ministry. On 5 Apr. 1714 he was named to the drafting committee for an address requesting the queen to desire the Emperor and other princes to enter into a ‘Guaranty’ with her to ensure the protestant succession in Britain and 11 days after that he was involved in proceedings on another address to the queen. On that day, 16 Apr., he was a teller, probably for the contents, in the division on whether to put the question whether to deliver a controversial and highly partisan Tory address to the queen regarding the peace. He was then appointed to the committee, charged with drafting an address thanking her for saving Britain, ‘by a safe, honourable, and advantageous peace with France and Spain, from the heavy burden of a consuming land war, unequally carried on, and become at last impracticable’.<sup>31</sup> The previous day, 15 Apr., he had registered his proxy with Dartmouth, but he was in the House on 16 Apr. for these proceedings and this proxy may not have taken effect until 20 Apr., when Bingley was away from the House for a week, returning on 28 April.</p><p>By late May 1714 his kinsman by marriage, Nottingham, forecast that Bingley would be in favour of the schism bill and Bingley ensured that his proxy was properly registered during the few days he was absent in the House during the bill’s proceedings. On 3 June 1714 he registered his proxy with George Hay*, Baron Hay (later 8th earl of Kinnoul), Oxford’s son-in-law and one of the 12 peers created at the turn of 1712, but the following day he switched his proxy and registered it instead with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, for three days until he returned to the House on 7 June. Later, Bingley again entrusted his proxy to another of the 12 Tory peers created in 1712, registering it on 12 June to Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later Earl) Bathurst, who likewise held it for only two days. The day following his return, 15 June, Bingley was in the House to vote for the schism bill. On 30 June he was a teller in the division whether to set a date for the second reading of the bill to examine the public accounts. The session was prorogued in the first week of July just as hearings were about to commence concerning Bolingbroke’s suspicious dealings with the Spanish court over the negotiations for the trade treaty (the asiento), negotiations in which Bingley, in his role as putative ambassador to Spain and a director of the South Sea Company, could not help but be involved and implicated.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Bingley came to only two meetings of the session of August 1714, first sitting on 4 August. The following day he registered his proxy with Hay, with whom it remained until Bingley returned to the House on 21 August. In November Oxford used him as an intermediary with Bolingbroke to procure his assistance in defending the impeachment which was bound to be brought against him.<sup>33</sup> By this time, however, Bingley was a leading representative of a regime out of favour, and in September 1714 he was removed from the privy council by order of George I.</p><p>Bingley’s parliamentary career in the reign of George I can only be sketched here: in brief, until 1730 he stood in opposition to the court and the Whig ministry. In the early sessions of George I’s first Parliament a number of measures of the new ministry – such as the septennial bill in April 1716, the impeachment of Oxford in June 1717, and the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts in December 1718 – exercised him sufficiently to lead him to take public stances against the government through formal protests.<sup>34</sup> Even when he was not in the House, he continued to entrust his proxy with oppositional Tories, particularly with Dartmouth and members of Oxford’s group of 12 new peers from January 1712. As noted above Bingley had been one of the first directors of the South Sea Company in 1711. He continued to invest heavily in it over the intervening years, even when no longer a director after 1715.<sup>35</sup> He appears to have emerged relatively unscathed from the bursting of the Bubble, but was reportedly ‘not happy with it since so many are undone ... what concerns him the most of all is that the morals of the nation seem to be quite corrupted’.<sup>36</sup> The corruption he saw in government at the time of the Bubble only threw him further into opposition. In January 1730, though, he determined that the Tories in opposition were about as effectual as ‘a rope of sand’, and went over to the court by speaking in the House in favour of the Treaty of Seville.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Bingley died on 9 Apr. 1731, of a ‘pleurisy and a fever’. His only legitimate child, Harriet, inherited a reputed £100,000 in cash and her father’s property at Bramham Park in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He also left £7,000 to his illegitimate daughter Mary Johnson, whom he insisted should take his surname after his death, and gave an annuity of £400, and the lease of her house on Prospect Park, to Anna Maria Burgoyne, wife of John Burgoyne. This bequest has led some to suggest that Anna Maria’s son, John Burgoyne, the future military commander best known for his defeat at Saratoga in the American War of Independence, may well have been another of Bingley’s illegitimate children. Bingley had no male heir so his peerage was extinguished at his death, but it was recreated in 1762 for his daughter Harriet’s husband, George Fox-Lane.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BENTINCK, Hans Willem (1649-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>BENTINCK</surname></strong>, <strong>Hans Willem</strong> (1649–1709)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>9 Apr. 1689 earl of PORTLAND |
|
First sat 15 Apr. 1689; last sat 5 Apr. 1709 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 July 1649, 4th but 3rd surv. s. of Bernhard Bentinck (1597-1668), Ld. of Diepenheim [Overijssel, Utd. Provinces], and Anna (1622-85), da. of Hans Hendrik van Bloemendaal; <em>educ</em>. DCL (hon.), Oxford 20 Dec. 1670. <em>m</em>. (1) Feb. 1678 (with £2,000) Anne (?1660-1688), da. of Sir Edward Villiers, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.);<sup>1</sup> (2) 12 May 1700 (with £20,000)<sup>2</sup> Jane Martha (1672-1751), da. of Sir John Temple of East Sheen, Surrey, wid. of John Berkeley*, 3rd Bar. Berkeley of Stratton, 2s. 4da. <em>cr</em>. ld. of Drimmelen [Brabant, Utd Provinces], 15 Sept. 1676 [n.s.];<sup>3</sup> ld. of Rhoon and Pendrecht July 1683;<sup>4</sup> KG 19 Feb. 1697. <em>d</em>. 23 Nov. 1709; <em>will</em> 30 Apr. 1709, pr. 22 Dec. 1709.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Page of honour to William, Prince of Orange 1664-72;<sup>6</sup> ‘nobleman of the chamber’ (i.e. chamberlain) to William, Prince of Orange 1672-99;<sup>7</sup> verderer (<em>houtvester</em>), Holland and West Friesland, Utd. Provinces 1681-99;<sup>8</sup> PC 14 Feb. 1689-8 Mar. 1702; treasurer, privy purse c.1689-99; groom of the stole to William III, 1689-99; superintendent, royal gardens 1689-1702;<sup>9</sup> ranger, Windsor Great Park 1697-1702,<sup>10</sup> Windsor Little Park 1699-1702;<sup>11</sup> commr. appeals in prizes 1694, 1695, 1697.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Bailiff (<em>drost)</em>, Breda, United Provinces 1674, Lingen, Utd. Provinces 1675.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Cornet, lord of ’s Graevemoer’s coy [Dutch army], 1668-72;<sup>14</sup> capt., 1672-75;<sup>15</sup> coy in William of Orange’s own Regt. of Horse Guards 1675-99;<sup>16</sup> col. Regt. of Dutch Guards [Dutch army], 1674-1700;<sup>17</sup> sgt.-maj.-gen., Horse [Dutch army], 1683;<sup>18</sup> lt.-gen., Horse and Foot [English Army], 1690,<sup>19</sup> Horse [Dutch army], 1691;<sup>20</sup> gen., Horse [English Army], 1697.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Commr. to treaty for peace with Maréchal Boufflers June 1697, amb. extraordinary France Jan.-June 1698; plenipotentiary, to treat with the Emperor, France and the States General for a partition of Spanish Empire Aug. 1698;<sup>22</sup> to treat with the Emperor, France and the States General for a partition of the Spanish Empire July 1699,<sup>23</sup> to treat with France and the States-General for a partition of the Spanish Empire Jan. 1700.<sup>24</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, studio of Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1698-9, NPG 1968.</p> |
<h2><em>Companion to the Prince of Orange</em></h2><p>Born on 10 July 1649 Hans Willem Bentinck had little chance of inheriting his noble father’s title or estate, being one of the younger of nine children.<sup>26</sup> He made his fortune instead as a courtier of his contemporary William, Prince of Orange, beginning as a page of honour in 1664. He quickly became a close friend and companion of the orphaned young prince, only one year younger than him, who as early as 1668 promised him assistance, faithfulness and affection.<sup>27</sup> The war with France from 1672 to 1679 allowed Bentinck to rise with his prince. William of Orange was made captain-general of the armed forces in February 1672 and, upon the French invasion in June of that year, stadholder of the provinces of Holland and Zealand in the ‘Orangist revolution’. For his part, Bentinck quickly showed himself a brave warrior on the battlefield, and perhaps more importantly a skilled military organizer, administrator and staff officer. He rose from being a captain in the prince’s own regiment of Horse Guards in April 1672 to being the regiment’s colonel in May 1675. The numerous papers in his archive concerning the war of 1672-8 are testament to his close involvement in this struggle.<sup>28</sup> He was also made ‘chamberlain’, or the principal nobleman of the chamber, to the prince’s household as William increasingly relied on him for assistance, companionship and even nursing care, at least at the time of William’s dangerous attack of small pox in 1675.</p><p>Bentinck also became William’s principal diplomat. He first encountered members of the English elite when he accompanied William on a trip to England in the winter of 1670 to request, unsuccessfully, the repayment of debts owed to the prince by his uncle Charles II.<sup>29</sup> In June 1677 Bentinck came to Westminster by himself on a special diplomatic mission to Charles II to gauge the king’s attitude towards the possibility of peace between the United Provinces and France.<sup>30</sup> The embassy was successful enough for William to come to England in September, with Bentinck in his retinue, to further the work Bentinck had started and to engage in negotiations for his marriage to Princess Mary. Shortly after, in February 1678, Bentinck contracted a marriage to one of Mary’s childhood friends and member of her household, Anne Villiers, the daughter of Edward Villiers, the knight marshal.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Further honours, rewards and responsibilities were bestowed on Bentinck. In 1681 he was made verderer of Holland, in charge of the stadholder’s parks and gardens, an area of aesthetics in which Bentinck was keenly interested.<sup>32</sup> In 1683 he purchased the lordships of Rhoon and Pendrecht near Rotterdam for 154,000 guilders. His connection with England and the English political elite was strengthened by his marriage into the Villiers family and by his growing friendship with the English ambassador at the court at The Hague from June 1679, Henry Sydney*, later earl of Romney.<sup>33</sup> Bentinck returned to England in the summer of 1683, ostensibly to congratulate Charles II on his escape from the Rye House Plot but also to endeavour to detach the king from the orbit of Louis XIV by making clear to him, and to Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, the danger to European peace represented by French aggression.<sup>34</sup> In the face of continuing military danger from France, in October Bentinck was made sergeant-major-general of the cavalry in the Army of the States-General. He was again dispatched to England in July 1685 to assure James II that William had given no encouragement to James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, in the months preceding his expedition to England and of the prince’s loyalty and service. Bentinck also had instructions to negotiate with the lord treasurer, Rochester, for a closer Anglo-Dutch alliance against France.<sup>35</sup></p><h2><em>Revolution</em></h2><p>By 1687 Bentinck had become aware of the growing unrest in Britain against James II’s rule, especially from the large number of Scottish exiles at William of Orange’s court, such as William Carstares, Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, later earl of Marchmont [S], James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>, and Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury.<sup>36</sup> Burnet, at this point at least, thought highly of Bentinck, who was,</p><blockquote><p>bred about the prince, and he observed in him that application to business and those virtues that made him think fit to take him into his particular confidence, and to employ him in the secretest of all his concerns as well as the looking to all his private affairs. He is a man of a great probity and sincerity, and is as close as his master is. He bears his favour with great modesty, and has nothing of that haughtiness that seems to belong to all favourites. He is a virtuous and religions man, and I have heard instances of this that are very extraordinary, chiefly in a courtier. He has all the passion of a friend for the prince’s person, as well as the fidelity of a minister in his affairs, and makes up the defects of his education in a great application to business; and as he has a true and clear judgment, so the probity of his temper appears in all his counsels, which are just and moderate; and this is so well known, that though commonwealths can very ill bear any inequality of favour that is lodged in one person, yet I never heard any that are in the government of the towns of Holland complain of him; nor does he make those advantages of his favour which were ordinarily made by those that have access to princes, by employing it for those pay them best. I do not know him well enough to say much concerning him; but though I naturally hate favourites, because all those whom I have known hitherto have made a very ill use of their greatness, yet by all I could ever discern, the prince has showed a very true judgment of persons in placing so much of his confidence on him.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>From late December 1687 at the latest Bentinck began to receive detailed newsletters of developments in English politics from a number of correspondents in Britain, particularly Sydney and James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>38</sup> By mid-August 1688, after William had received the invitation from Sydney and other opponents of the king to invade England, Bentinck was appointed to organize the logistics of both the land and sea forces for the descent on England.<sup>39</sup> Burnet commented that Bentinck and the invasion fleet’s English admiral Arthur Herbert*, later earl of Torrington, ‘were for two months constantly at the Hague giving all necessary orders, with so little noise that nothing broke out all the while’ and that ‘Bentinck used to be constantly with the prince, being the person that was most entirely trusted and constantly employed by him; so that his absence from him, being so extraordinary a thing, might have given some umbrage’.<sup>40</sup> He supervised the embarkation of the troops on board the fleet and set sail with the fleet on 1 Nov. 1688. After the invasion force made landfall at Torbay on 5 Nov. Bentinck effectively oversaw the disembarkation of the troops over the space of 48 hours. He maintained a detailed diary and account of the march of William’s troops from the West County to London and also kept Herbert informed of the progress of the campaign.<sup>41</sup> Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, first encountered Bentinck shortly after he arrived at William of Orange’s camp at Hildon, near Salisbury, on 4 December. Bentinck had only just received the news of the death of his wife Anne back in The Hague, which affected him deeply. Nevertheless, he still had the presence of mind to reassure Clarendon that William had provided a ‘sincere’ account of the reasons for his invasion in his <em>Declaration</em> (which Bentinck had helped draft), ‘though there are not ill men wanting, who give it out that the prince aspires at the crown, which is the most wicked insinuation that could be invented’.<sup>42</sup> He played a prominent part as William’s ‘general’, principal adviser and intermediary when the commissioners sent from James – George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin – arrived at the camp at Hungerford and set forth James’s conditions.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Despite his earlier protestations to Clarendon, from the time of James II’s first abortive flight Bentinck began to sense that his master could perhaps gain more than a role as a protector through the evident disorder in James’s government. After the king had been ordered – via the intermediaries Halifax, Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury and Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) – to leave the capital, ‘for his own safety’, it was Bentinck who, at 5 o’clock in the morning on 18 Dec. 1688, wrote to Halifax to tell him that the prince accepted James’s request to reside in Rochester, from which the king more easily effected his escape in the early hours of 24 December.<sup>44</sup> During January 1689 Bentinck appears to have increasingly pressed William to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him and to insist on full regal power. Nicolas Witsen came to England in early January 1689 as part of a Dutch delegation to the prince and the Convention. He thought that while Dijkvelt had hoped to arrange for both the prince and princess of Orange to be proclaimed king and queen, Bentinck had strongly laboured to have only the prince elected: ‘Bentinck and Dijkvelt had laboured hard, the former with great vehemence’.<sup>45</sup> Burnet provided an account of a long conversation he had with Bentinck at about the time the plans for a regency were being debated in the Convention. He recounted how Halifax suggested that the crown should be given to the Prince of Orange alone, followed by the two princesses, Mary and Anne:</p><blockquote><p>How far the prince himself entertained this, I cannot tell. But I saw it made a great impression on Benthink [<em>sic</em>]. He spoke of it to me, as asking my opinion about it, but so, that I plainly saw what was his own. For he gave me all the arguments that were offered for it; as that it was most natural that the sovereign power should be only in one person; that a man’s wife ought only to be his wife; that it was a suitable return to the Prince for what he had done for the Nation; that a divided sovereignty was liable to great inconveniences: and though there was less to be apprehended from the Princess of any thing of that king than from any woman alive, yet all mortals were frail, and might at some time or other of their lives be wrought on. To all this I answered, with some vehemence, that this was a very ill return for the steps the princess had made to the prince three years ago: it would be thought both unjust and ungrateful: it would meet with great opposition, and give a general ill impression of the prince, as insatiable and jealous in his ambition … We talked over the whole thing for many hours, till it was pretty far in the morning.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bentinck evidently was keeping a very close eye on events in Parliament in the early days of February 1689 and gave William’s personal secretary Constantijn Huygens the younger a detailed breakdown of the vote of 6 Feb. 1689 which declared the throne vacant and William and Mary king and queen.<sup>47</sup> After Parliament had passed this vote, it turned to the matter of the Declaration of Rights. Here Bentinck also defended what he saw as the prerogative rights of his master, the new king. It was reported that Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> informed the Commons that Bentinck had told him that the prince was not happy with the restrictions and limitations they were putting upon the crown ‘and that if it had been left to himself he would have done better and more for their security’. This angered Nottingham in particular who said in the House ‘that the prince ought to consider that the crown of England with whatever limitations was far more than anything the States of Holland were able to give him’. Sydney was able to defuse the situation when he returned from the prince, who disowned Bentinck’s comments and ‘said such a thing was far from his mind’<sup>48</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention, 1689-90</em></h2><p>Bentinck was quickly rewarded for his faithful service. On 14 Feb. 1689, the day of the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen, he was sworn to the new king’s Privy Council, and over the following few weeks he was appointed keeper of the king’s privy purse, groom of the stole and first gentleman of the bedchamber. These positions put him closer than any other courtier to the person of the king; his favoured status was further emphasized when he was given apartments adjoining the king’s. For the next ten years or so Bentinck remained the closest adviser and secretary to the Dutch king and acted as his intermediary with the English, indeed the British, political nation. In effect he was the gatekeeper to the king’s presence, by which discretion he was able to wield a great deal of power and influence. As Burnet commented about the king’s appointments: ‘The king’s chief personal favour lay between Bentinck and Sydney: the former was made earl of Portland and groom of the stole, and continued for ten years to be entirely trusted by the king; and served him with great fidelity and obsequiousness: but he could never bring himself to be acceptable to the English nation’<sup>49</sup>.</p><p>Huygens reported as early as 29 Dec. 1688 that the English political class ‘already held a grudge against Bentinck because he had so much authority’ and a month later was told by Dijkvelt that ‘Bentinck already gave great jealousy to the English’, a view confirmed by the other ambassador Odijk.<sup>50</sup> Dijkvelt, with some of William’s other close Dutch companions, did not wish to become involved in English politics or be promoted as Bentinck was, knowing that ‘in England the manner was that the favourites and councillors were accused and punished when the kings had done some wrong’. Nor did they wish – at that point at least – to be made peers of the realm by the king, for then they would have to serve him in Parliament.<sup>51</sup> Such considerations do not seem to have preyed on Bentinck, and in early April, only a few days before the coronation, he and his children were naturalized by an act of Parliament (part of a string of naturalizations of many of William’s Dutch followers). The following day, on 9 Apr. 1689, he was made an English peer as Baron Cirencester, Viscount Woodstock and earl of Portland. The latter title may have been chosen because of the connection between the family of his late English wife, Anne Villiers, and the Westons, earls of Portland. The last of that line, Thomas Weston*, 4th earl of Portland, had died in 1688. Portland was also granted the park and house of Theobalds in Hertfordshire.<sup>52</sup> In early June he was made superintendent of the royal gardens and parks, an office especially created for him by William III so that Portland could continue in an office he had also fulfilled in the United Provinces.<sup>53</sup></p><p>As a new member of the English aristocracy, no matter how resented this may have been, the earl of Portland was introduced in the House on 15 Apr. 1689, between Shrewsbury and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester. This late entry into the House and his later absence on military and administrative duties in September and early October 1689 meant that in total he came to only 16 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the Convention. He was also not particularly prominent in the House’s affairs, and was named to only four very large select committees on legislation. Huygens reported that in May Portland was proposing a parliamentary bill so that the funds voted for the queen would be managed and disbursed through the privy purse, which he of course controlled, but this project does not appear to have gone very far.<sup>54</sup> Roger Morrice reported that when on 2 July the House considered the impeachment against Sir Adam Blair and the others who had distributed James II’s <em>Declaration</em>, Portland and Frederick Herman Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg – the only two of William’s continental coterie who had received English titles by that time – voted in favour of the impeachment, ‘and they two had not this sessions before ever been present at any division, nor at any time given either their contents or not contents’. Morrice likewise remarked on the absence of Portland and Sydney (now Viscount Sydney), two of the four ‘new lords’ recently created by William III, at the division on 30 July on whether to adhere to the House’s controversial amendment to the bill for reversing the judgments against Oates.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Portland was more often present in the short second session of the Convention which began in late October. He came to just under half of its sittings in the autumn and winter of 1689 but was named to only two large select committees on legislation. His lack of presence and activity in the House was explained to Huygens in the week before the autumn meeting, for ‘he was not a man who could do the king either great service or disservice, having no considerable estate nor following and credit in Parliament’.<sup>56</sup> This lack of a parliamentary interest rendered him susceptible to attack. In May Huygens noted the appearance of a scurrilous poem claiming that ‘The Lord Portland takes all’, and later that month one of his English informants complained ‘about the sale of all sorts of offices, most of which was done by Bentinck’ [as Huygens frequently named him even after his elevation]. Huygens’s informant confidently predicted that within nine months Parliament would attack Portland; in late July the English <em>accoucheur</em>, Dr Chamberlen, complained that Portland ‘had too much influence and that favour lay too much in his hands’.<sup>57</sup> As early as November it was thought that Portland would be caught up in the scandal surrounding the commissary John Shales, as there were rumours that the earl had been involved in Shales’s purchase of the office.<sup>58</sup></p><p>As Huygens’s comment suggests, Portland, though not a considerable figure in Parliament at this time, was at the very heart of William III’s government from its beginning. He acted as the conduit for the British political nation to the king. He was personally sent by the king in early September 1689 to Shrewsbury to try to convince him not to resign the secretaryship of state, as Shrewsbury so often threatened, and it was to Portland that Shrewsbury finally delivered up the seals of office in June 1690.<sup>59</sup> Almost all official correspondence for the king passed through his hands first, and the king increasingly delegated many areas of policy to him. In particular, Portland managed the complicated affairs in Scotland, where he took advice from the Presbyterian minister William Carstares, one of the many Presbyterian exiles who had taken refuge in the United Provinces during the 1680s.<sup>60</sup> Burnet believed that Portland ‘had that nation … wholly in his hands’, while Macky early in Anne’s reign commented that William III ‘gave him the absolute and entire government of Scotland’.<sup>61</sup> He remained the dominant ‘English’ figure in Scottish politics and policy-making throughout William’s reign.<sup>62</sup> In English matters, Portland was much more present and active in the Privy Council than he was in the House, and although the scarcity of sources renders it difficult to make definitive statements, it is most likely that Portland was also engaged in the embryonic ‘cabinet council’ being formed at this time. A French agent wrote in early July that ‘Dijkvelt who has as much power in the council as Bentinck in the cabinet gives complaints mightily here’ and both Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> and John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) also noted in early August that Portland was one of the five members of William’s ‘cabinet council’ dealing with naval strategy during the transport of troops to Ireland.<sup>63</sup> Portland was intensely involved in this campaign and left the House for several weeks in the late summer as he was dispatched to Chester to oversee the preparation and embarkation of the troops headed for Ireland under Schomberg.<sup>64</sup> The United Provinces also called his attention and his attendance on the House in the autumn 1689 was cut short when, on the final day of the year, he was given leave by the House to go to Holland in order to settle the growing unrest caused by the republican faction in the Holland States of the States General against their stadtholder’s new powers as king of England. On the same day he registered his proxy for the remainder of the session with his old friend Sydney.</p><p>Portland spent the next three months in the Netherlands, engaged in complicated negotiations with the anti-Orangist city fathers of Amsterdam who wished to appoint the town’s bailiffs (<em>schepenen</em>), without the advice or confirmation of William of Orange. These same anti-Orangist Amsterdamers also tried to deprive Portland of his seat as a noble (<em>ridderschap</em>) in the Estates of Holland, as he was now a naturalized subject of the English crown.<sup>65</sup> After several weeks of building alliances, and enlisting the help of the dukes of Brandenburg and Brunswick, Portland was able to take his seat in the States General and to effect a compromise between Amsterdam and their absent stadtholder on the appointment of the city’s officials and the payment of its quota to William’s war effort.<sup>66</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>While he was in the Netherlands, Portland learned from the king himself of the continuing party disputes over the bill of indemnity and other measures and of the surprise prorogation of 27 Jan. 1690. William recounted, perhaps with some glee, that ‘it seems the Tories are happy with it, but not the Whigs.’ Similarly, in informing his friend of the dissolution on 6 Feb., William could only comment, ‘the animosity of the two parties grows from day to day and causes me terrible problems’.<sup>67</sup> Portland returned from his mission in the Netherlands in time to sit in William III’s new Parliament on 24 Mar. 1690, only four days after it had first convened. He continued to sit for 54 per cent of the session’s sittings, though throughout this time he was named to only one select committee. In early April Portland, with Nottingham, Halifax, Shrewsbury and Thomas Osborne*, the former earl of Danby now marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), opposed the bill moved by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, which would ‘declare’ the acts of the Convention ‘to be of full force and effect by the laws of the realm’ and would ‘recognize’ William and Mary as ‘rightful and lawful’ monarchs. In this they followed the wishes of the king who was trying to court the Tories and was concerned that such claims would raise their ire. Portland preferred Nottingham’s compromise wording merely ‘confirming’ the acts of the Convention and the monarchs’ presence on the throne.<sup>68</sup> In late April he was ordered by the king to try to make clear to the Commons manager Sir John Lowther of Lowther*, later Viscount Lonsdale, ‘the prejudice that Holland would suffer by the prohibition of silk goods’ in order to block a bill banning their import.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Portland accompanied William on his expedition to Ireland in spring 1690, and he and his regiment of horse participated in the Battle of the Boyne. When William returned to England in early September he left Portland effectively in charge of the army in Ireland, making him a lieutenant-general of both the horse and foot in the English Army before he left.<sup>70</sup> Portland did not stay long in Ireland, as the government of that troubled country was entrusted to the lord justices Sydney (who left to take up one of the secretaryships of state in December 1690), and Thomas Coningsby<sup>‡</sup> (later earl of Coningsby [I]) and the military leader Godard van Reede-Ginckel (earl of Athlone [I] from March 1692). However, from this point Portland became closely involved in Irish affairs as well and received letters from Sydney, Coningsby and especially Ginckel discussing the course of the campaign against the remaining Jacobite army and the management of the government in the conquered areas. From October Portland held peace talks in London with John Grady, representing the Jacobite peace party. In his correspondence with Ginckel on campaign he urged that favourable terms be offered to the Irish Catholics so that the war could be wrapped up quickly.<sup>71</sup> The Treaty of Limerick of early October 1691, with its conciliatory terms extended to Irish Catholics, represented the policy he had been advocating to Ginckel. The terms of the treaty were later repudiated by the Irish parliament which met under the lord lieutenancy of Sydney in 1692, and held back supply until harsher anti-Catholic measures were taken – ensuring Portland’s continued involvement in Irish politics for many years.</p><p>Shortly after Portland’s departure from Ireland, Sydney and Coningsby addressed a long letter to him setting out their advice on how he and the king should manage the Commons in the forthcoming Parliament in England, for ‘it is without all question impossible for a king of England to do any considerable thing in a House of Commons without a formed management’. This is the first indication that, among his other duties for the king, Portland was also beginning to take on the role of parliamentary manager, or as a co-ordinator of the court’s other parliamentary managers. Sydney and Coningsby concentrated their analysis on the Commons, and insisted that the crown rely on ‘two or three men who have fair reputation in the House’ and were not allied to James II.<sup>72</sup> How much Portland himself took on this advice, which appears to have been unsolicited, and acted on it is difficult to determine, but he was in the House for the first day of the new session on 2 Oct. 1690; however, he was present for only 39 per cent of its sittings, during which he was named to four select committees. Carmarthen, the court’s principal manager in the House, also recorded that on 6 Oct. 1690 Portland was among those who voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from the Tower.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Shortly after the prorogation in early January 1691, Portland accompanied William to the Congress of Allies meeting at The Hague.<sup>74</sup> After an inconclusive summer’s campaigning in the Netherlands (for which he had been promoted to lieutenant-general of the Dutch horse), Portland returned to England in time for the 1691-2 session beginning in late October, in which he maintained his best attendance rate to that point – 58 per cent.<sup>75</sup> Despite his new-found assiduity, he was not named to a single select committee during this session. As the king’s principal adviser and policy-maker, he was, however, becoming increasingly concerned with the problems of parliamentary management, as first suggested by the project outlined to him by Sydney and Coningsby the previous year. Huygens recorded that at a meal at court Portland was assured by the goldsmith Sir Francis Child<sup>‡</sup> ‘that the Parliament will do your business’ regarding supply, to which Portland could only answer ‘I think they will not do the king’s but their own business’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Certainly the 1691-2 session proved difficult for the court and considerations of the management of the parties had to be taken into account after the disgrace of John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough in early 1692 and the vacancy in the secretaryship of state caused by Sydney’s appointment as sole lord lieutenant of Ireland in March 1692. From February 1692 Portland clearly became more involved in ensuring the smooth functioning of the government in England for the court’s interest by managing the parties and their expectations.<sup>77</sup> As part of this he consolidated his connections with a few key individuals and families among the English nobility – a strange decision as, at about this time, Huygens noted him as commenting that he wished to send his son back to the continent so that he would not learn English ‘debauchery’.<sup>78</sup> On 28 Feb. 1692, only a few days after the prorogation of Parliament, his eldest daughter Mary was married to Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, only recently come of age, the son of the ‘martyred’ opponent of the Stuart brothers Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex.<sup>79</sup> This match had been long rumoured and anticipated, and it was hardly a coincidence that only a few weeks afterwards the young groom’s uncle and guardian, the Whig Henry Capell*, was created Baron Capell of Tewkesbury.<sup>80</sup> Portland and Capell were to remain close friends and associates, bound in no small part by their mutual anxiety over the erratic and abusive behaviour of the young earl of Essex. Portland played an important role in ensuring that Capell was appointed a lord justice of Ireland in June 1693, and then the sole lord deputy there from May 1695, posts in which he was in constant contact with Portland discussing Irish and familial affairs until his death at the end of May 1696.<sup>81</sup></p><p>A third figure often mentioned in the correspondence of Portland and Capell was Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, James II’s disgraced former secretary of state who in 1691 had been allowed to kiss the king’s hand and even to take up his seat in the House. Feeling confident of his rehabilitation, and of the king’s desire for his advice, Sunderland addressed the first in what was to become a long series of letters to Portland on 5 May 1692. He welcomed Portland’s return to England, sent there to help the queen and the cabinet council deal with the threat of a French invasion. In his letters of May 1692 he urged the king’s immediate return as well and lashed out at the current Tory-based ministry, for ‘the considerable part of [the nation], do not care who are ministers of state, whether this man or that, so we may be safe and secure’ and that ‘it will be a very ill preparative to the persuading the Parliament to take care of the government next winter, to leave all at random this summer’.<sup>82</sup></p><p>The need for a reform of the ministry was further emphasized by the military failures of the Allies that summer. Following the victories of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, against the French invasion force at Barfleur and La Hogue in mid-May, Portland, with Sydney (about to be dispatched to Ireland again as sole lord lieutenant) and Rochester, went to Portsmouth to convene a council of war with Russell and the other admirals in order to plan an Allied ‘descent’ and invasion of the French coast. Shortly after these meetings Portland returned to the continent to take part in the campaign in Flanders, where he was one of the commanders who oversaw the disastrous defeat of the Allies at Steenkirk following the French capture of the fortress of Namur.<sup>83</sup> Similarly, the ambitiously planned invasion of France foundered through mismanagement and miscommunication, particularly between the Tory secretary of state Nottingham and the Whig admiral Russell. This was much to the frustration of the general of the land forces in the expedition Meinhard Schomberg*, duke of Leinster [I] ( later 3rd duke of Schomberg), and of Sydney. The latter’s passage to Ireland to take up the lord lieutenancy there was delayed by his continuing involvement in this matter, in which he was increasingly critical of Russell’s unwillingness to embark for the descent.<sup>84</sup></p><p>In this depressing international context Portland returned with the king in late Oct. 1692.<sup>85</sup> In the days before the session, scheduled to start on 4 Nov., Sunderland presented Portland with a long ‘memorial’ on the proper means to manage the Parliament, transmitted to Portland through Sunderland’s associate Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup> (for it is in his hand). Sunderland recalled that in his previous correspondence with Portland in May ‘we were of a mind in everything we talked on, and so I know we shall always be, both of us intending the same thing’, so ‘if you can believe my opinion of weight, you may make use of it as you please’. Sunderland stated his views straightforwardly, ‘without any kind of mincing’, that the country needed to be properly defended and that the king should maintain a constant presence there:</p><blockquote><p>That which will ruin the king, if not remedied, is, that every one thinks this Government cannot last, which makes, that many of those who wish well to it, have a mind to secure themselves, for the generality of mankind will ever intend that chiefly. … A good session of Parliament is necessary, which – as much as I can judge – is yet in the king’s power ... But if the foundation is not made good, that will not save us; for if the fears and discontents continue, though the Parliament doth give money, we shall be undone … People are possessed of a most dangerous opinion, that England is not taken care on; that must be cured, or all signifies nothing, which may be done, and the Allies supported to the height; but if it is not done, the confederacy will quickly be at an end.<sup>86</sup></p></blockquote><p>Portland, and through him the king, were ready to listen carefully and follow Sunderland’s advice at this time. Marlborough suggested to Halifax at about this time in the autumn 1692 that ‘Lord Sunderland had gained Lord Portland, and that he [Marlborough] was sure the king had a great mind to have him in employment’.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Others also expressed their fears to Portland of the danger to the confederacy from the forthcoming Parliament. Even before Portland’s departure from the continent, Dijkvelt had written to him recommending that Jean de Robéthon, the secretary of the Hanoverian envoy Schütz, should write a pamphlet aimed at Members of the English Parliament convincing them of the benefits of continuing the war.<sup>88</sup> Robéthon, who was later to go on to serve as secretary to Portland and then to William III, duly produced his <em>Letter to one of the Members of Parliament about the State of the Present War</em>, published early in 1693. An anonymous correspondent in England also warned Portland at length in early November, only a few days before the session was scheduled to start, of the attacks that were being planned against him, the king, the ministry, and the alliance in general:</p><blockquote><p>That there are many Members of Parliament that would do all they could to delay and hinder his majesty in his most generous and glorious acquirements your lordship can not be ignorant, and that they design to do the like now is too obvious. They resolve to spoil all business if possible and are upon several projects to make a division in this next session of Parliament. Some members are for impeaching your lordship as advising his majesty to keep up the Dutch confederacy and thereby expending the English blood and treasure beyond sea and doing no good therewith against the French: they also intend to make other articles against the bishop of Salisbury [Gilbert Burnet], looking on him as accessory to the same; and these men are churchmen and friends of my Lord Nottingham, though I cannot say his lordship knows of it. And they are for finding fault with the last summer’s expedition both by land and sea; and say they will call Admiral Russell to account for failures on his part; and will also have an account of the miscarriages beyond sea. All which things they are encouraged to by the many and great complaints made by some of his majesties officers who tell them, the English were sacrificed at Steenkirk, the Dutch would not fight, nor let the other English relieve them.</p></blockquote><p>This correspondent went on to recount at length allegations made by a kinsman of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> to Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup> about Portland’s refusal to allow James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, to march his troops to the relief of the hard-pressed English troops at Steenkirk. This, he predicted, would give Clarges a handle for refusing to promote supply for the continuation of the war. He further suggested Portland advise the king to adjourn Parliament for a further few days so that the government’s supporters could come up and make a ‘full house’, as there were rumours that Clarges and the ‘Country’ opposition were trying to muster their troops early for an attack at the beginning of the session.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Portland’s anonymous correspondent was not wrong. Almost immediately after the session had begun, the Commons, under the cover of offering ‘advice’ to the king, attacked almost every aspect of the government’s administration of the previous summer, particularly the management of the military effort, both at sea with the failed descent, and on land with the disaster of Steenkirk. As Sunderland later sarcastically complained when detailing to Portland all that went wrong with the management of the session of 1692-3, ‘The king in his speech at the beginning of the last sessions by the word advice gave a handle to the Parliament, which was well improved’. Portland was very concerned by these attacks. Among the few parliamentary papers in his surviving archive are fair copies of the debates in the Commons of 21-26 Nov. 1692 on the ‘advice’ to the king. Most disturbing would have been the attacks of country Whigs such as ‘Harry’ Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> on Nottingham on his conduct of naval affairs and on Portland, who was included in the motion that all general officers in the army should in future be ‘natives of their Majesties’ dominions’ (although the motion’s supporters were primarily aiming at Hendrik Trajectinus van Solms, Count Solms, for his perceived misconduct at Steenkirk).<sup>90</sup></p><p>To Portland’s discomfort the Lords took up the same theme against foreign-born general officers in the Army when they considered their ‘advice’ in late November and early December. This led to Huygens to record on the first day of December that Parliament was ‘lingering’ in its attacks against the ministers, and especially Nottingham and Portland.<sup>91</sup> In the House, Portland showed his renewed concern with management, and perhaps in defending himself, by coming to just under two-thirds of the sittings of the 1692-3 session, his highest attendance to that date. He was only absent for the last week of the session in March because he was struck down by a dangerous and life-threatening pleurisy.<sup>92</sup> He was more of a presence in Parliament as well where his main goal was to ensure the defeat of the Place bill. It may have been in the context of this bill that Portland had a list of officers and pensioners in the Commons drawn up for him as a way of calculating its potential damage to the court interest in the Lower House.<sup>93</sup> He engineered opposition to the measure by speaking at length in the House against the bill. Bonet, the ambassador for the Brandenburg court, gave his masters in Berlin a detailed account of the debates surrounding the bill. He singled out as the ‘principals’ among the bill’s enemies Portland, Carmarthen and Nottingham, joined by Godolphin and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (soon to be duke) of Devonshire, ‘very well informed of the intentions of his majesty’, and ‘to whom must be added Lord Sunderland as a good courtier’.<sup>94</sup> Portland also engaged in a more careful management of proxies and clients for vital votes on this bill. From 8 Dec. 1692 he held the proxy of John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, and was presumably able to use this in voting against the commitment of the Place bill on the very last day of 1692. His son-in-law Essex, recently made a gentleman of the bedchamber through Portland’s influence, also voted against the commitment as did Essex’s uncle, and Portland’s friend, Capell. Despite these votes, the commitment went through, and Portland and his court allies spent several days hurriedly canvassing votes for the bill’s defeat. On 3 Jan. 1693, when the bill was to come from committee to be read a third time, Essex registered his proxy with his father-in-law who, apart from speaking against the bill in the House, was now able to make use of the proxies of both Lovelace and Essex to help defeat the bill at its third reading; Capell also helped him by voting against the bill.<sup>95</sup> Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who had a long-abiding hatred of Portland as a grasping representative of the regime which had overthrown his master James II, noted in the division list he drew up on this agonizingly close vote of 3 Jan. 1693 that the Place Bill was ‘thrown out by two Dutch votes’, meaning that of Portland and Charles Schomberg*, 2nd duke of Schomberg. It was proxies, of which two were held by Portland against the bill, which determined the bill’s defeat.<sup>96</sup> Portland also wished to keep track of who had supported the bill and had a copy of the protest against its rejection, and its signatories, drawn up for him by the clerk from the Journal.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Portland’s management of the beleaguered court interest in the House did not end there. It may have been to ensure Portland’s ability to fight against the Triennial bill, another country measure opposed by the court, that Lovelace, who had returned to the House to vacate his proxy on 13 Jan., registered his proxy with Portland again on 21 Jan., the day the bill was sent down to the Commons.<sup>98</sup> Despite this, the Triennial Bill passed both Houses but was ultimately vetoed, perhaps on Portland’s advice and certainly with his approval, by the king at the prorogation on 14 Mar. 1693. In the meantime, Portland was divested of both his proxies – Lovelace’s and Essex’s – when both arrived back in the House on the same day, 31 Jan. 1693. Portland himself left the House for a week in mid-February and on 15 Feb. 1693 registered his own proxy with the lord steward and loyal court supporter Devonshire, who had helped him defeat the Place bill earlier that winter. Portland probably saw the necessity of entrusting his vote with a loyal adherent of the court, for on the following day, 16 Feb., the House embarked on a debate on the ‘heads of advice’ to be given to the king, including the request that foreigners such as Portland no longer be employed in the army and other important positions. Portland’s proxy with Devonshire was vacated when he returned to the House on 21 February.</p><p>Other evidence of Portland’s increasing involvement in the affairs of the House comes from his careful interest and participation in the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. His hurriedly written pencil notes – written in English with the occasional Dutch word or spelling – on the debate of 4 Feb. 1693 on Mohun’s guilt still survive among his papers.<sup>99</sup> They show he was paying careful attention to the arguments put forward by peers such as Rochester, Nottingham, Capell and Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, for Mohun’s guilt, and those of Halifax, Devonshire, Godolphin, Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), for his acquittal or conviction for manslaughter. His notes are interesting in that they reveal a fair amount of wavering and doubt among many of the peers, especially among those who felt that he was not guilty; even Halifax thought that Mohun should be treated as a kind of ‘lunatic’ in this case. It is probable that Portland took his notes to make his own mind up on the legal point of whether Mohun’s presence at the scene of the murder, actually committed by his companion, was evidence of ‘malice prepense’. He appears to have been more convinced by the arguments of the king’s ministers in the House, Rochester and especially Nottingham. Portland – and his kinsman and friend Capell – were among the small number of 14 peers who voted Mohun guilty of murder, against 64 who found him not guilty.</p><p>Following the prorogation of Parliament on 14 Mar. 1693, Portland in late April set out with the king to Holland for that summer’s campaigning.<sup>100</sup> It was to Holland that Sunderland addressed his increasingly detailed, and insistent, letters describing the measures that needed to be taken to secure a compliant Parliament for the forthcoming session and the actions he was taking towards this goal on behalf of the king.<sup>101</sup> Even before the king’s departure a first part of Sunderland’s project to strengthen the government by bringing in some of its Whig opponents was put into place, when Sir John Somers*, later Baron Somers, was made lord keeper and Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup> appointed a secretary of state to fill the vacancy left by Sydney’s dispatch to Ireland the previous summer. Even this step faced opposition from William’s Tory ministers but Sunderland was unrelenting in his criticisms of the ministry and its management of Parliament in the last session, as he made clear in a brief ‘memorial’ he drew up for Portland about the preceding session of 1692-3. He recounted the many things that went wrong in the 1692-3 session: the request for advice that backfired, the promise of a future descent on France for which supply was not forthcoming, the dispute between Russell and Nottingham over the previous summer’s abortive descent which turned into a battle both between the parties and between the Houses, and ‘the clamour concerning the miscarriages of Ireland, which was fomented by some who ought least to have done it’. Then he projected what should be done for the forthcoming session, and lamented the obstacles already put in the way:</p><blockquote><p>At the end of the sessions, that the next might be a good one, the advice, the business of Ireland, the Triennial Act, the descent, which the king would not mention his last speech, the Streights Fleet, and many other things were to be laid asleep, if possible, by care and good conduct against the winter, in order to which a keeper and a secretary were made and well chosen. But the clutter at their coming in, by the pressing of the ministers very much spoiled the good that was designed. Then the ministers were suffered to be insolent, who of all others ought to be least so. The king was accused of breach of his word by several … The descent is now carrying on, in most men’s opinion, without a possibility of success, at a time that there is not money for the subsistence of the army. The whole government is loose, no respect paid to it, no order in any of the councils, nor care of anything. It is pretty plain what good preparations these things are for next sessions, either of this or of a new Parliament. The king went away thinking he had done too much, because the ministers were ill pleased, who have little credit, and that is always wrong employed.<sup>102</sup></p></blockquote><p>In a long letter of advice to Portland of 20 June, Sunderland set out various measures required to secure the smooth running of Parliament, including acts needed to mollify certain influential members of the House and bring them over to the government.<sup>103</sup> Portland did as requested, and as a result, in spring 1694, after the end of the following session, Mulgrave was promoted to a marquessate (although, contrary to his demands, as part of a general promotion), and Charles Gerard*, who had recently succeeded as 2nd earl of Macclesfield, was given his own regiment of horse and made a major-general.</p><p>Sunderland’s projections for an easy parliamentary session were complicated by the military reverses of summer 1693 in which Portland himself was wounded. Sunderland expressed relief at the news that Portland was not badly hurt and, more importantly that, despite rumours, the king was still alive, but continued to fret about the next session. The last in the series of Sunderland’s letters to Portland of that summer, dated 21 Aug., suggests that Portland returned with the king to England shortly after that date.<sup>104</sup> He does not appear, however, to have been present at the celebrated meeting of 27 Aug. when Sunderland convened a conclave of leading Whigs and ministers – Russell, Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, and Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu – at his house at Althorp to discuss measures to secure the support of the Whigs for the following session, probably on the promise of future favour. Part of this ‘turn to the Whigs’ was undoubtedly the dispatch of Portland’s other principal political associate, Capell, to Ireland in July 1693 as one of the lord justices and, in effect, as Portland’s and Sunderland’s agent and associate there. In a letter of 13 June Sunderland had also given his advice on Irish affairs that ‘Nothing is more important than the putting off the parliament there till the spring’, for ‘our Parliament being to sit so soon will give all factious people encouragement both here and there to embroil all they can, which we know by letters from thence and by information here is laboured in both kingdoms’.<sup>105</sup> Two final steps taken in Sunderland’s scheme before the convening of Parliament were Admiral Russell’s restoration to favour and to command of the fleet and the consequent resignation, apparently sincerely regretted by William, of Russell’s enemy, the secretary of state Nottingham. Portland’s precise role in these changes remains murky, but as Sunderland used him as his principal personal advocate to William, it is likely that he strongly pushed the views of ‘the minister behind the curtain’ to the king.</p><p>Portland himself maintained the same level of attendance – 64 per cent – in the following session (1693-4). From 19 Dec. 1693 until 15 Jan. 1694 he held the proxy of John West*, 6th Baron de la Warr. Once again Portland was not frequently named to select committees, being appointed to only three (including a small one of ten members appointed by a committee of the whole to draft a clause for the Mutiny bill). Otherwise, he only appears in the pages of the Lords Journal for this session on 21 Dec. 1693 and 2 Jan. 1694 as the victim of a breach of privilege of Parliament after one of his menial servants had been arrested.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, he was undoubtedly behind the scenes managing Parliament and trying to maintain discipline in the court party. He was widely reputed to have been responsible for advising William to veto the Place bill in January 1694. Certainly Sir Thomas Clarges seemed to be thinking of Portland, William’s closest counsellor, when he moved on 26 Jan. 1694 ‘That the advisers of the rejection of this bill are enemies to the king and kingdom’<em>.</em><sup>107</sup> The final resolution of the Commons the following day had much the same target, praying ‘That your majesty would graciously be pleased to hearken to the advice of your Parliament, and not to the secret advices of particular persons, who may have private interests of their own, separate from the true interest of your majesty’.<sup>108</sup> Portland was probably consulting closely with Sunderland during this time. No written correspondence between the two survives from the time of the session: as they were both in the capital and in the House during the winter months, they probably communicated verbally and in private. Their growing closeness, and Sunderland’s clear return to favour, however, is suggested by the rumours circulating in mid-March 1694 that Sunderland’s son, Charles Spencer*, styled Lord Spencer, (later 3rd earl of Sunderland) was to marry one of Portland’s many daughters.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Shortly after the prorogation on 25 Apr. 1694, and before the king’s and Portland’s departure for the continent, a further step was taken in Sunderland’s project to build a loyal court party with a mass promotion of loyal court followers in the peerage. Nine followers of the court, who had worked for its agenda in the recent session, were either created peers or raised in the peerage, five of them – Carmarthen, Devonshire, Shrewsbury, William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, and John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare – being made dukes. With these rewards having been distributed, William, Portland and other military officers set off for the continent in early May for that summer’s campaign. While on the continent Portland received regular missives from Sunderland concerning his continuing efforts to ensure the smooth running of the king’s government. One matter in particular that summer concerned Sunderland. He had long insisted that the ‘cabinet council’, especially that entrusted to run the country during the king’s absence, should be small, ‘one fitted for business and not a ridiculous one’.<sup>110</sup> ‘A cabinet council of 12 or 13 men, of which no one takes himself to be particularly concerned in the general conduct of affairs, where there is neither secrecy, dispatch or credit, is a monstrous thing’, he had opined in the previous summer.<sup>111</sup> For the summer of 1694 he had persuaded the king to constitute an inner ‘war council’ consisting of the great officers of state. But the recently elevated marquess of Normanby (previously earl of Mulgrave) was now outraged that he was excluded from this inner council and was in danger of ‘infecting’ other peers. Sunderland reported to Portland his efforts, assisted by Shrewsbury, Somers and even the queen, to assuage Normanby’s ire but Normanby continued to make trouble throughout the summer and by August Sunderland could only conclude that he ‘will never be satisfied, therefore what is good ought to be done without considering what he or anybody else likes’. Sunderland also forcefully made clear to Portland, and through him to the king, on what basis the king’s administration should be established, despite his own (and the king’s) dislike of the individuals involved, ‘Whenever the government has leaned to the Whigs it has been strong, whenever the other has prevailed it has been despised’. Nevertheless, Sunderland was keeping channels open to all sides, ‘I still think all must be made use of’, and continued, ‘but in a manner not just as the king and you understand it’.<sup>112</sup></p><p>The king and his entourage stayed longer than usual on the continent and Sunderland was writing to Portland well into September with his views, making clear in a letter of 13 Sept. what the purpose of this ongoing correspondence was and Portland’s role in it: ‘I have not writ directly this year to his Majesty because I told him before he went away that what I had to say to him I would write to you and so you see I have always done’. Sunderland warned of the potential for trouble in the next session, but concluded that ‘It will be much easier this year than it was the last. The business is now in so good hands that nothing need to be done but to keep it so and to pursue the present track.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Once again ignoring Sunderland’s incessant urgings for a speedy return, the king and Portland did not return to England until 9 Nov. 1694.<sup>114</sup> A scant three days later Portland was in the House for the first day of the new session, where he came to three-fifths of the sittings. Again he appears rarely in the pages of the Lords Journal and was named to only two select committees, both of them in January 1695. One committee helped to consider the procession to be had at the queen’s funeral. Portland was strongly affected by the queen’s death. As he wrote to Capell in Ireland in January 1695, ‘our grief is too great to be silenced or to be expressed … what loss, good God, for the king, for the country, for the church, for me and my family’.<sup>115</sup></p><p>Portland’s surviving correspondence with Capell in Ireland is most plentiful in 1695-6 as the two friends and kinsmen had a great deal to discuss concerning the government of Ireland. Capell’s advocacy of summoning a new Parliament there and his efforts to negotiate with the recalcitrant leaders of the Irish Commons set him apart from his two fellow lord justices and met with the approval of the new secretary of state Shrewsbury, Sunderland and the king. It was Portland who in March 1695 was able to inform Capell that the king had decided to give him sole government over Ireland and its Parliament by making him lord deputy – a promotion Capell was to keep secret until it was formally announced in May 1695.<sup>116</sup> The new Irish Parliament first met under Capell’s government in August 1695 and proved to be harder work than the lord deputy or Portland had anticipated.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Perhaps as, or more, serious to both men was the continuing bad behaviour, always discussed in oblique terms, of the young earl of Essex. He was not obedient to the king’s wishes in Parliament where Portland had tried to guide him, even holding Essex’s proxy for two days between 21 and 23 Jan. 1695. On 2 May Portland complained to Capell that ‘there are so many occurrences where in the Parliament he distinguished himself against the wishes of all those who are for the present government’. In particular Portland lamented Essex’s vote against the Act of Grace which the king sent to Parliament on 29 Apr. 1695 and which was clearly seen by all to benefit the king’s principal adviser (after Portland), Sunderland. But Essex voted against the measure, one of the few to do so, as he continued to blame Sunderland for his father’s death in the Tower in 1683 which he regarded as murder. This, as Portland recounted, ‘seems extraordinary in someone who is a member of the royal household; everybody was surprised by it … I told him that I was very surprised by that, and particularly because my Lady Essex, his mother, and you wish to live in great friendship with him [Sunderland]’. He also stressed the potential risk to Essex if this behaviour was noted by Sunderland or, more dangerously, the king himself.<sup>118</sup> Portland’s and Capell’s concern over Essex’s behaviour continued for many months and was not mitigated by the birth of a daughter, Portland’s first grandchild, which did not seem to change the young father’s behaviour greatly.<sup>119</sup></p><p>Portland had long been resented for his influence with the king and the great wealth he was able to enjoy from that position, thought by many to have been gained by corruption and the sale of offices. He thus came to the attention of the House most noticeably towards the end of the session, during the hearings on bribery and corruption in the East India Company. On 27 Apr. 1695 both Sir Basil Firebrace<sup>‡ </sup>and a Mr. Tyssen testified before the House that Sir Josiah Child<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> had drawn up a note for £50,000 which was to be presented to the king if he would pass a bill advantageous to the old company, but that Portland, as the king’s intermediary, refused to accept this ‘gift’ or bribe, saying that ‘the king would not meddle with it’. Tyssen further denied accusations that he had made a similar offer to Portland himself, saying that ‘If he had [done so], he must never have seen his face more’. Portland at first looked on bemusedly at the corruption proceedings being played out in Parliament, comparing the hearings to ‘a party, who having got drunk together, quarrel, and separate with bloody noses’.<sup>120</sup> He became more concerned when his own name appeared in the East India Company proceedings but confidently asserted his innocence to Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, then envoy to Vienna,</p><blockquote><p>You will learn from other quarters that we are in expectation of great disclosures in our Parliament. I believe that they may very well reach some who will find it difficult to clear themselves; all that I fear is that it may delay the departure of the King for some days, otherwise I should be very glad that they should investigate this affair to the very bottom, particularly as there are malicious people who, judging me by themselves, think that it is impossible that I could be proof against £50,000, and have taken the liberty to make use of my name to hide their own knavery. It is annoying to be exposed to such an accusation here, where corruption is too general.<sup>121</sup></p></blockquote><p>However, any lessening of the resentment felt against him and his wealth because of his exoneration from the bribery allegations would have been undone shortly after. On 7 May William issued a warrant granting Portland extensive lands in Wales, the manors of Denbigh, Bromfield, Yale and Swaden, some of which were part of the hereditary estate of the Prince of Wales.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Portland and the king then left England for that summer’s campaign, but almost immediately upon his arrival Portland was greeted with a letter of 17 May from Sunderland’s associate Henry Guy recounting the strenuous opposition the grant was already facing in the treasury. Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, had purposely absented himself from the proceedings on the grant, Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> had already brought in a petition against it and Guy advised him ‘it will be best that the king do send for the report and afterwards declare to them, that he will have it done, for if it be delayed till you come back, I fear the opposition will get such strength, that it will hazard the passing it at all’.<sup>123</sup> This advice was not followed and as Guy predicted over the course of the summer petitions and resistance to the grant only increased. The first lord of the treasury Godolphin also intervened and told Portland of the objections of ‘above thirty gentlemen of the House of Commons that owned themselves concerned in this matter, besides many others whom they named that were not then in London’. He urged Portland and the king to abandon the grant, otherwise, he suggested, ‘it will be an occasion of sending up thirty or forty gentlemen to the Parliament as full of animosity and anger as one can imagine’.<sup>124</sup> Both Guy and Sunderland also kept Portland informed of the developing political situation in England and particularly Sunderland’s tentative reconciliation with the Whigs of the emerging ‘Whig Junto’, above all Wharton, Montagu and Russell, who all eventually agreed, ostensibly at least, to follow Sunderland’s parliamentary management. Another topic of conversation was the prospect for the forthcoming elections and the divisions between the country Whigs led by Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> and the court and Junto Whigs, especially the objectionable Montagu, which damaged the prospects for the king’s management of the new Parliament. The prospects for the Whigs, divided as they were, were not good, suggested Guy, and ‘the violent Whigs do now despair of a majority to come up fully to them in Parliament and therefore now discourse everywhere that this Parliament will be best’.<sup>125</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>Portland was closely involved in the allies’ triumphant retaking of the fortress of Namur in September and personally took custody of the French Maréchal Boufflers, arrested, despite the terms of the surrender, because Louis XIV had broken the terms of a previous agreement and had taken the garrisons of Deinze and Dixmuide. Portland maintained his usual attendance rate of around two-thirds of the sittings in the first session of the 1695 Parliament and held the proxy of the earl of Scarbrough from 10 to 13 Jan. 1696. As usual he was seldom named in the Journal in connection with the business of the House, but he was at the heart of one of the first altercations between the country Whigs led by the new Speaker Paul Foley and his associate Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and the court. As Godolphin had predicted many of the new members, particularly from Wales, came up to Parliament ‘full of animosity and anger’ against the proposed grant. On 17 Jan. 1696 the Commons agreed to an address to the king urging him to stop it from passing the great seal, because ‘such a grant is in diminution of the honour and interest of the crown, by placing in a subject such large and extensive royalties, powers, and jurisdictions, which ought only to be in the crown’.<sup>126</sup> William could only give a testy response to this overwhelming opposition:</p><blockquote><p>Gentlemen, I have kindness for my Lord Portland, which he has deserved of me by long and faithful services. But I should not have given him these lands, if I had imagined the House of Commons could have been concerned. I will therefore recall the grant, and find some other way of showing my favour to him.<sup>127</sup></p></blockquote><p>William was good to his word for on 21 May 1696 he granted to Portland less noticeable and controversial lands and estates scattered throughout England – in Lincolnshire, Cumberland, Chester, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Sussex – which had been Catherine the queen dowager’s jointure lands and together were worth £4,332 p.a. By the time of Portland’s death in 1709 their value had risen to £86,643 p.a.<sup>128</sup> As far back as May 1695, at the same time as he had made the grant of the Welsh estates, William had also intended to grant Portland £1,536 worth of fee farm rents, but by September the payment for these rents was still not forthcoming and met with further difficulties in the new year.<sup>129</sup></p><p>It was to Portland that the Jacobite conspirators Fisher and Pendergrass went in February 1696 to inform him and the government of the plans to assassinate the king at Turnham Green and a projected French invasion. Despite the king’s initial scepticism, Portland was able to convince him to stay away from danger and to round up the leading conspirators, including Peter Cook and Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Over the following weeks he was kept informed of their interrogations by James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>130</sup> Portland was shocked by the assassination plot and wrote to Lexinton that, ‘We were on the brink of a precipice and ready to fall, when, by a manifest interposition of providence, we were made aware of the danger which threatened us and all Europe’. He praised ‘the vigorous and energetic measures of Parliament on this occasion’, namely the Association, to which he subscribed on the very day it was passed, 27 Feb. 1696.<sup>131</sup> Indeed, to encourage more subscriptions to the Association Portland supported the compromise wording suggested by Leeds, which would substitute the confirmation of William as ‘rightful and lawful’ king with the less contentious affirmation of his ‘right by law to the crown of this realm’.<sup>132</sup> Other than his subscription his name does not appear in the Journal of the House in connection with business during this session, not even as a nominee to any select committee.</p><p>Portland joined William III on the continental campaign again in the summer of 1696 but was sent back to England in late July for the onerous task of raising £300,000 to enable William to continue the war, as funds were rapidly dwindling during England’s liquidity crisis. Portland arrived on 26 July and immediately sent an express to Sunderland and the lords justices to convene at Whitehall with him on the crisis; Somers’s hasty departure from a church service caused much comment and alarm about the nature of the crisis.<sup>133</sup> Thus back in England Portland could, for the first time in his English career, actually attend the House as a commissioner for the prorogation on 28 July, at a time when he and the lords justices were debating the feasibility of convening Parliament during the king’s absence to raise additional funds. It was decided that this was impractical, particularly given the continued divisions among the Whigs which were recounted to him in detail by Sunderland and others. Portland, Shrewsbury and Godolphin began negotiations with the directors of the new Land Bank. When these failed Portland and his colleagues turned to the Bank of England, which on 14 Aug. was able to provide £200,000 so that Portland could embark for the continent, ‘carrying with him bills for considerable sums of money’, enough to see the troops into winter quarters at the end of that campaign.<sup>134</sup> This incident further tightened the bond between Portland and the group now being called the ‘Junto’ – particularly Montagu, Somers, and Baron Wharton (as he had become in February 1696) – despite whatever misgivings the king may have had about them.</p><p>One result of this mission was Portland’s closer relationship with Shrewsbury, whom he praised to the king for his valuable assistance in this matter.<sup>135</sup> Complimentary letters passed between them and in one of 8 Sept. 1696, when Portland was back at Loo, he rejoiced in his new understanding with Shrewsbury and revealed a self-awareness of aspects of his own character which had previously caused him trouble in the English political world:</p><blockquote><p>Ever since I had the honour to know you, I have perceived a coldness and reserve towards me, which I wished not to deserve; but rather than attribute it to you, I have concluded that I was myself the cause of it, being sufficiently just to myself, to know part of my failings. But as we cannot control those which arise from nature, and which are born with us, I have deemed the evil incurable, and have merely paid to the minister and secretary of state, the respect which was due to him, without troubling myself farther. But as it is the will of fortune, that you should personally testify to me your approbation of my conduct, and express your satisfaction with it, I assure you, sir, that I shall return the same cordiality, and that this cold and reserved disposition, which I frankly avow, shall wholly vanish after the candour which you have had the goodness to promise me. I will request some indulgence in regard to my judgment, but none respecting my integrity; and I shall not solicit your friendship, until I shall have taken the first step to render myself worthy of it.<sup>136</sup></p></blockquote><p>This letter was almost certainly written after Portland, having returned to the king’s side in Flanders, was made aware of the allegations of Jacobite conspiracy made by Sir John Fenwick against Shrewsbury, Godolphin, Marlborough and Russell. The accusations which had been sent to William for his eyes only by the lord steward, Devonshire, who had received Fenwick’s written ‘confession’ in confidence on 10 August. These allegations were not new to William III, who had long known of his ministers’ shadowy negotiations with St Germain and decided to overlook them. To reassure the anxious Shrewsbury in particular he sent him a copy of the allegations with a covering letter affirming his continued support. Portland too on 1 Sept. quickly wrote to Shrewsbury to reassure him that ‘the little appearance of sincerity in that man is sufficiently manifest in his accusing persons, on whom the king has so much reason to repose confidence’.<sup>137</sup> Shrewsbury replied on 8 Sept. 1696 insisting that</p><blockquote><p>Sir John Fenwick’s story is as wonderful to me, as if he had accused me of coining. However I shall always acknowledge the king’s great goodness and generosity in the manner he has received the information, and your lordship’s friendship, in not permitting so foul a thought of your humble servant to receive credit one moment in your breast.<sup>138</sup></p></blockquote><p>Portland instead turned his ire towards Devonshire whom he thought had been too lenient and too apt to give credit to Fenwick. He felt that if it ‘had been possible to prevent access to him [Fenwick], he would have spoken quite another language’ and if Fenwick ‘had not unfortunately addressed himself to Lord Devonshire, and if from the beginning he had been spoken to as he ought to have been, I think he would not have had either leisure or inclination to invent the tales which he has told’. Throughout September it was Portland who managed the Fenwick affair from the king’s side and it was to him that Shrewsbury addressed his letters detailing the prisoner’s repeated promises of further allegations and the insistence of his wife that her husband be heard by Devonshire alone. To Portland, all this smacked of a deliberate attempt by Fenwick to delay his trial by making unfounded accusations, and always promising more. ‘I hope that no more delay will be allowed him, and that he will be tried before the arrival of the king’, Portland commented on 24 Sept. – at the same time that Fenwick had procured another postponement of his trial with a confession targeting better-known Jacobites.<sup>139</sup></p><p>After Portland’s return with the king in early October 1696 he was immediately thrown into discussions with the ministers and the Junto on how best to deal with Fenwick’s claims.<sup>140</sup> In particular, he consulted with the lord keeper, Somers, and James Vernon, who was acting in the capital as Shrewsbury’s agent. Shrewsbury himself was incapacitated and unable to come to London.<sup>141</sup> This development greatly concerned both the king and Portland, as they saw Shrewsbury’s presence as vital to rebuff Fenwick’s allegations; his absence could be, and was, interpreted as an admission of guilt. To make matters worse, Shrewsbury chose this time of his illness to tender his resignation as secretary of state once again; a decision from which Portland strenuously tried to dissuade him.<sup>142</sup> A central issue for Portland and the Whig ministers was whether the king should hear what Fenwick had to say; however, the king and his ministers were still convinced that Fenwick was merely trying to postpone his trial and that the further information he was offering was unlikely to be of any value. The disappearance of a vital witness confirmed their view. It became imperative that the allegations against Shrewsbury and others be discredited and ministers concluded that the best way to effect this was through the drastic measure of a bill of attainder against Fenwick. This became the most controversial business in the parliamentary session that opened on 20 Oct. 1696. Portland attended a full two-thirds of this session and was named to four select committees. He acted as a manager in the House to see the bill through, despite his colleague Sunderland’s own reservations against the move. On 26 Nov., the day after it had passed the Commons and was on its way to the Lords, Portland told Vernon that, after examining a list of the lords in the house, he and his fellow ministers ‘judged the bill would pass by a majority of about fifteen, not including the bishops, where there would be a majority for it likewise’. Portland was also taking steps to ensure that the king would be present at the debates in the House on the bill.<sup>143</sup> Vernon soon after reported that ‘my Lord Portland is very hearty and industrious in this matter, and does not stick to speak to any one my lord keeper [Somers] desires’ concerning support for the bill, and on 1 Dec. he expressed ‘a better opinion of the bill’s passing than yesterday’. <sup>144</sup> Despite this confidence, it was not a smooth passage for the bill. Portland voted in favour of the close division at its third reading on 23 Dec. 1696, when even some government ministers such as Devonshire and Godolphin opposed it.<sup>145</sup> Portland appeared tangentially in the further evidence regarding the interference of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), in the proceedings against Fenwick. Evidence given on 9 and 15 Jan. 1697 revealed that part of Monmouth’s scheme for Fenwick’s defence was for him to demand that intercepted letters from James II and Mary of Modena to Godolphin be laid before the House and that Portland and Romney be summoned to give evidence on the rumours of ‘great presents’ sent from people in England to the former queen in France. Monmouth had also been patronizing an importunate informer, Matthew Smith, who was prepared to charge Shrewsbury with stifling his reports of Jacobite activity in England. Portland had also been trying to manage Smith and to get him out of the country to silence him.<sup>146</sup> To forestall these further allegations against Shrewsbury, the king gave Portland permission to present to the House the letters Smith had sent to him and the king, and on 18 Jan. 1697 he was named to the large committee entrusted to examine these papers – one of his few committee nominations of the session. <sup>147</sup> On 20 Jan., with Fenwick executed and Smith’s letters discredited, he was able to write with relief to the still absent Shrewsbury, ‘all is now finished, entirely to your advantage … I could not delay congratulating you’.<sup>148</sup></p><p>On 10 Feb. 1697 Portland’s rival Arnold Joos van Keppel*, was raised to the peerage as earl of Albemarle. This marked the pinnacle of the rapid rise in favour of this young, handsome and sociable Dutchman at William’s court. Particularly after the death of the queen, William turned increasingly to the pleasant, diverting company of Keppel for solace – which inevitably gave rise to allegations of more illicit activities between them among William’s enemies. William’s grant to Portland of the Welsh estates in May 1695 had most likely been an attempt to assuage Portland’s growing jealousy of this rival at court. In May 1695 Albemarle was promoted to the mastership of the robes, replacing another of William’s childhood companions and veteran Dutch followers, William Henry van Nassau van Zuylestein*, who in compensation for his removal was himself created earl of Rochford. <sup>149</sup> The rivalry and animosity between Portland and Albemarle caused by William’s clear preference for the younger and more affable man became increasingly open and bitter and almost led to a duel between them in November 1696 in the king’s presence.<sup>150</sup> Gilbert Burnet watched this growing feud between the two Dutch favourites with some surprise, ‘they being in all respects men, not only of different, but of opposite characters: secrecy and fidelity were the only qualities in which it could be said that they did in any sort agree’. To Burnet, Keppel ‘was not cold nor dry, as the earl of Portland was thought to be; who seemed to have the art of creating many enemies to himself, and not one friend: but the earl of Albemarle had all the arts of a court, was civil to all, and procured many favours’.<sup>151</sup></p><p>Keppel’s elevation to an earldom was too much for Portland, and in March 1697 he asked to resign from William’s service. The king implored him to desist from ‘the cruel resolution they have told me that you have asked to leave my service’ and, invoking ‘the good and faithful services you have done for me during the thirty-three years you have been with me’, insisted that if Portland really was intent on this resolution he should serve him for at least another year, to which Portland apparently agreed.<sup>152</sup> To soften the blow and perhaps dissuade him from his resolution, William showered Portland with more honours, grants and offices. Perhaps as a direct counterweight to Keppel’s elevation into the peerage, on 19 Feb. 1697 Portland was nominated a knight of the garter, ‘to show that he is still preferred a step above [Albemarle]’, Vernon commented to Shrewsbury.<sup>153</sup> In early March the king made Portland ranger of Windsor Great Park, an office worth £1,500 p.a. with the Windsor Great Park Lodge included, which quickly became Portland’s favourite residence, away from the court which he was beginning to find so distasteful.<sup>154</sup> The king also set in motion the procedures to grant Portland the large forfeited estate in Ireland of the Jacobite Donough McCarthy, 4th earl of Clancarty [I], which consisted of about 135,000 acres and was estimated to be worth about £25,000 p.a. as well as the reversion of the Irish estates of James II’s former mistress, the countess of Dorchester<em>. </em>Furthermore, at this time Portland engaged in negotiations with Somers on the matter of fee farm rents which had been promised to them both. Through May 1697 Portland and Somers haggled, very politely, over their competing claims, but Somers was always at pains to insist that Portland had priority and that he did not wish to displease the king or his most trusted servant and delayed accepting his own grant until the matter was settled.<sup>155</sup> In June, as the summer’s campaign was underway, Portland was also made general of the English horse, even though he was seriously ill and away from the front at Brussels at the time.<sup>156</sup></p><p>Despite this wealth of honours, Portland was still disgruntled with the king’s favour towards Albemarle. As he made clear to the king in a letter of 30 May from his sickbed in Brussels, it was not for his own sake and feelings of jealousy that he wished to leave William’s service but:</p><blockquote><p>it is your honour which is close to my heart, and the favour which your majesty shows to a young man and the manner by which it appears to justify his liberties and his pride, makes the world say things which it shames me to hear …. I believed that it was only the malicious in England who fabricated these bloody [<em>sanglantes</em>] things but I have been struck as if by thunder when I saw that The Hague and the Army spread [<em>fournissoit</em>] the same stories and tarnished a reputation which has never been subject to such attacks.<sup>157</sup></p></blockquote><p>Similar rumours and allegations of homosexuality had long been levelled by the regime’s enemies against the king and Portland. That Portland was so shocked by them and so concerned for the king’s reputation, and that the king in his angry answer to Portland’s letter could also expressed outrage at such allegations of ‘criminal’ acts, suggests that there is little foundation to the claims by the regime’s enemies – or by later historians.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Portland agreed to serve William for another year, as the king had asked him to do in March.<sup>159</sup> It was an important decision because in the following weeks Portland entered into perhaps his most important, and certainly most renowned, service for the king, for which he gained an international reputation. With the long-running peace talks at Ryswick between the allies and France having stalled, throughout the month of July Portland, as a personal representative of William, met secretly in a series of conferences with Louis XIV’s agent, the French marshal Boufflers. They hashed out some of the outstanding points regarding Louis XIV’s recognition of William III as king of England and the continuing residence of James II on French soil.<sup>160</sup> With these problems settled, the formal negotiations could make progress, with Portland now taking an active part in them. The Treaty of Ryswick was signed by France, England, the United Provinces and Spain on 10 September.</p><p>Portland was widely praised internationally, and especially by his colleagues in England, for being ‘so successful an instrument in the effecting’ the peace of Ryswick.<sup>161</sup> He returned to England, in advance of the king on 19 Oct. 1697 and immediately set about preparing for his next assignment, as England’s ambassador to France.<sup>162</sup> He still had some time to indulge in a little parliamentary and political management. He had arrived in England in mid-October with ‘directions about the sitting of Parliament’ and chivvied the perennially indisposed John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, to attend the session, emphasizing that ‘the presence of such an honest and capable man as you is so necessary here during this session which will be concerned with nothing less than to establish this peace’.<sup>163</sup> In November he was setting out a project to maintain a peacetime army of 30,000 troops, in the face of increasingly vocal opposition from the country Members in the Commons.<sup>164</sup> He was also involved in trying to convince the eternally reluctant Shrewsbury to take up the office of lord chamberlain, peremptorily and unilaterally vacated by Sunderland on 26 December.<sup>165</sup> Portland attended only four meetings of the new session of Parliament in December 1697 before he was dispatched to France, in January 1698 as England’s first ambassador to France since the war.<sup>166</sup> Before his departure he registered his proxy on 8 Jan. 1698 with Somers, created Baron Somers just before the start of the session. Somers’ promotion may have been delayed because of the confusion over their competing claims on the fee farm rents. To resolve this matter, as some of the fee farm rents granted to Portland were found to be insolvent, the king, shortly after Portland’s departure, signed a warrant to grant to his ambassador various lands in St Anne’s parish Westminster then worth £9,800 annually – although the property significantly increased in value by the time of his death ten years later.<sup>167</sup></p><p>In Paris Portland became a respected and admired figure. Luttrell reported shortly before Portland’s public entry in Paris on 20 Feb. 1698 that ‘most of the French nobility have been to compliment the earl of Portland’ and that ‘no ambassador before ever received so much civility from the French court as his lordship’.<sup>168</sup> The French courtier Saint-Simon, usually so cynical of others, found Portland ‘courteous to others, faithful to his master, [and] skilful in negotiation’.<sup>169</sup> Portland’s ambassadorial retinue was lavish – estimated to have cost about £40,000 – and large, a symbol of the importance William placed on relations with France. Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> was secretary to the embassy, and Portland was accompanied by many young nobles, including his own heir Henry Bentinck*, styled Lord Woodstock (later duke of Portland) as well as George Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings (later 8th earl of Huntingdon) and Charles Paston<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Paston. The latter two had both detached themselves from fathers who were Jacobite sympathizers, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon and William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth respectively, to accompany Portland.<sup>170</sup> Portland returned from his French embassy in June 1698. He first sat in the House, vacating his proxy to Somers, on 22 June but went on to sit only a further nine times before the session was prorogued and then dissolved in early July. In this short time he was named to two select committees and even had his full share of proxies for the last six days of the session when on 29 June both Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk, and Yarmouth registered their proxies with him.</p><p>After Parliament’s dissolution on 7 July 1698 Portland returned with William to the United Provinces. He was asked by the king to continue negotiations which he had informally commenced during his formal embassy in Paris, and which the French ambassador Tallard had continued with William when he arrived in England in March, to ensure a peaceable partition of the Spanish Empire after the apparently imminent death of Carlos II of Spain. Not sure of his position in these negotiations, Portland at The Hague in August wrote to the new secretary of state James Vernon asking whether he and their other Whig colleagues in England – such as Somers, Shrewsbury, Montagu and the earl of Orford (as Edward Russell had become) – approved of his taking over this role. More importantly, and controversially, he and the king requested that Somers, as lord chancellor, send over a commission to appoint negotiators, complete with the great seal but with the names blank to be filled in later by the king. In addition, all these proceedings were to be kept absolutely secret and only known to Vernon, Somers, Shrewsbury and that small circle; not even the other lord justices were to know the details. Portland’s name was inserted in the blank commission as chief plenipotentiary for these negotiations. The terms of the Partition Treaty were communicated in August from Portland, via Vernon, to Somers, Montagu, Orford and Shrewsbury who, despite raising some concerns on the terms, signified their acceptance of the treaty as a <em>fait accompli</em>.<sup>171</sup> Portland and Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, as a plenipotentiary of the king under the blank commission sealed by Somers, signed this Partition Treaty on 14 Sept. 1698, but Portland’s role in the negotiations, their secrecy, the little consultation he had with his ministerial colleagues in England, and the blank but sealed commission to him would later come back to haunt him.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1698</em></h2><p>He was back in England in time for the first day, 6 Dec. 1698, of the new Parliament but came to just less than half of the sittings and left the House early on 12 Apr. 1699. Despite the worsening international situation, Parliament was intent on disbanding most of the Army; prominent among their targets were William’s own Dutch Guards. Portland’s regiment of Horse Guards left England for the last time in March 1699.<sup>172</sup> This must have been a blow to him, but even worse were developments in his relationship with Albemarle. Albemarle had become closely connected to some of Portland’s enemies at court, in particular Elizabeth Villiers, the countess of Orkney [S], the king’s former mistress and a frequent political intriguer, and her brother Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey.<sup>173</sup> Although these two were Portland’s in-laws by his marriage to Anne Villiers, their sister, relations between them had never been harmonious, especially as it appears that Portland had earlier opposed Elizabeth Villiers’ liaison with William.<sup>174</sup> Albemarle, Orkney and Jersey had taken advantage of William’s absence in Paris in early 1698 to make approaches to the Junto Whigs who were becoming increasingly restless under the tutelage of Sunderland and Portland, particularly after Wharton was blatantly passed over as secretary of state upon Trumbull’s retirement in December 1697. Upon his return to England Portland found, much as he had feared, that whatever his international diplomatic reputation, his place at the court of William III had been seriously eroded or usurped by Albemarle – although he could admittedly still claim a few victories against the young upstart, such as the appointment of one of his clients as a secretary to the king.<sup>175</sup> Portland’s resentment and sense that his power and influence was crumbling grew so great that in early May 1699 he resigned all his court offices – groom of the stole, keeper of the privy purse, and superintendent of William’s houses and gardens in Holland – despite all the king’s best efforts to dissuade him.<sup>176</sup> Leeds informed his daughter in April 1699 that ‘the feud’ between Portland and Albemarle had now made it difficult for both of them to serve William. The king, he wrote, ‘was willing to permit Portland’s retreat rather than Albemarle’s, but would have had Portland to have continued in his service if he could have prevailed with him’.<sup>177</sup></p><p>At the same time Portland’s resignation can be seen as just one in a series of resignations that led to the weakening and ultimate demise of the Junto Whig ministry established by Portland and Sunderland in 1693-4. Sunderland had resigned as lord chamberlain in December 1697 and his client Trumbull as secretary of state that same month. The other secretary of state, Shrewsbury, was finally able to leave his office officially in December 1698. Albemarle’s client Jersey, a Tory, replaced him in April 1699. In this changing balance of power, Portland’s resignation of his offices was followed that same year by resignations by Montagu from both the exchequer and the treasury and Orford from the admiralty. Out of office Portland retired to the warden’s lodge of Windsor Great Park, and continued to live as a country gentleman. He maintained his position as ranger there and had also been made ranger of Windsor Little Park in January 1699 <sup>178</sup></p><p>Portland, however, did not ‘exit’ from the scene, nor was Albemarle fully triumphant in ousting his rival from public life. William still consulted with his old adviser; they remained close and more importantly, Portland, having removed himself from the English court, and from Albemarle’s hated presence, remained active in less publicly visible roles for his old master. As L’Hermitage wrote to his masters at the States-General, ‘This earl says that the plan he has formed to rid himself of his charges does not hinder him, should the king have need of his services, to busy himself with the same zeal and attachment he has always had’.<sup>179</sup> The summer of 1699 saw another round of diplomacy, this time to revise the first Partition Treaty which had become redundant by the death of the prince elector of Bavaria in January 1699. The negotiations for a second Partition Treaty were conducted between Portland and the French ambassador Tallard in the spring of 1699 but ratification of its terms was delayed for many months because of opposition from the States General.<sup>180</sup> It was not until February 1700 that he and his fellow plenipotentiary for the English crown, Jersey, were ready to sign the second Partition Treaty with Tallard in London. Portland also continued to serve the king, and his own rank, by attending the House. However, he did not sit in the session of 1699-1700 until 11 Dec. 1699, perhaps held up by the continuing negotiations, and he came to only 44 per cent of the sittings of this session. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning into a committee of the whole to consider further amendments to a bill to maintain the ‘old’ East India Company as a corporation, and he further showed his opposition to this measure, and to the old company, by signing the protest against the passage of the bill. Portland was the largest single investor among the peerage in the new, Whig-based, East India Company, having invested £10,000 in the company upon its initial subscription in 1698.<sup>181</sup></p><p>Portland was also personally affected by the Irish Grants Resumption bill which caused so much anger between the Houses, and between Parliament and the king, in April 1700. Portland, having learned his lesson with the Welsh land grants in 1695-6, had taken steps to ensure that Clancarty’s forfeited estates, awarded to him by the king in 1697, would be formally granted to the less visible target of his son, Woodstock. He also tried to defuse local opposition by arranging that a parliamentary bill confirming the grant of the estate to Woodstock was passed by the Irish Parliament in its session of autumn 1698.<sup>182</sup> Portland was thus, as could be expected, opposed to the attempt by the Commons to ‘resume’ the forfeited Irish estates, which was brought up to the House as a ‘tack’ on the Land Tax Bill, a vital supply bill, in early April 1700. At first William was opposed to the measure, and it was rumoured that Portland, with Albemarle and Lady Orkney (all three grantees of Irish land) were ‘supposed to have hardened the king against the bill’, for which advice Vernon thought Portland and Albemarle would be threatened with impeachment.<sup>183</sup> Portland, Albemarle and Jersey voted for the second reading of the bill on 4 Apr. 1700 perhaps, Vernon thought, with a view to protecting their own interests through amendments which would wreck the bill in the Commons.<sup>184</sup> However, the session descended into stalemate as the two Houses argued over the Lords’ changes to what the Commons considered an unamendable supply bill, and William, apparently advised by Jersey, sought to convince the Lords to allow the bill to pass without the controversial amendment. While Portland continued to agitate against the bill in the Lords until the very last moment and voted to adhere to the amendments on 10 Apr., the courtiers Jersey and Albemarle let it be known in the House that the king preferred the bill to pass. The House’s vote to adhere caused great anger in the Commons and ‘some young member’, apparently William Cavendish*, styled marquess of Hartington (later 2nd duke of Devonshire), moved to impeach both Portland and Albemarle. Vernon and the ministerialist Whigs were against this and hoped for an adjournment but Vernon told Shrewsbury:</p><blockquote><p>it seems some of our own people had a mind to have a fling at the foreigners, so they carried it by eleven for proceeding. Then my Lord Hartington grounding his own motion upon the forwardness the foreigners had shown to embroil them with the Lords, proposed an address for removing them his majesty’s councils. It was afterwards added, that they should be removed from the councils, both in England and in Ireland, which was done to comprehend my Lord Galway [Henri Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I]]. In the English council, your grace knows that there is only the duke of Schomberg [Meinhard Schomberg, 3rd duke of Schomberg], and the earl of Portland. Though this last never comes thither, yet it was done for his sake. The vote passed, he having been very busy in stirring up the Lords to reject the bill, and persisted in it to the last …</p></blockquote><p>The king had made preparations to come to assent to the land tax and Irish resumption bill that day, 10 Apr. but arrived after the House had risen. ‘If he had come as soon as that bill was passed, it would have prevented the address about my Lord Portland and Lord Galway, which you may be sure he dislikes’, Vernon continued to Shrewsbury. Instead he came early on 11 Apr. to prorogue Parliament and to prevent ‘any more angry votes in the House of Commons’. Significantly, he could not bring himself to give any thanks to the Commons ‘for a bill he had such exceptions to’. <sup>185</sup></p><p>Shortly after the end of the parliamentary session, and perhaps as a further signal of his entry into private life, Portland remarried, after over 11 years of life as an, admittedly very busy, widower. There had long been speculation of Portland’s remarrying. In 1692 there had been talk of a match between him and Lady Arabella Cavendish, a daughter of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, who later went on to marry Sunderland’s heir Charles Spencer, then styled Lord Spencer (later 3rd earl of Sunderland).<sup>186</sup> In May 1700 he married Jane Martha Temple, a daughter of the Irish attorney-general and a former Speaker of the Irish house of commons, Sir John Temple and, probably more importantly for Portland, a niece of the diplomat Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>, who had been so supportive of the Dutch cause for so long. She was herself a widow, having been married to John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, the Whig naval officer and groom of the stole to Prince George*, of Denmark. She reputedly brought £20,000 to the marriage. While Portland was concentrating on his domestic life with his new wife, William III spent much of 1700 in the Netherlands, away from an ungrateful and troublesome England. Having already dismissed the lord chancellor, Somers, in late April for his ineffectiveness in not stopping the passage of the Act of Resumption, he turned away from the Whig Junto ministry and worked to form a mixed ministry which could work with a new and hopefully cooperative Parliament.</p><p>International affairs were greatly complicated that summer by the death, on 21 Oct., of the Spanish king Carlos II who had bequeathed the entirety of the Spanish Empire to Louis XIV’s grandson the duke of Anjou contrary to the terms of the (second) Partition Treaty. In this dangerous international situation, with war with France seeming inevitable, William returned to England late in the autumn, brought more Tories, particularly Rochester and Godolphin, into the ministry and on 19 Dec. 1700 dissolved his unmanageable Parliament.</p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1701</em></h2><p>Portland came to three-quarters of the meetings of the new Parliament, which first met on 6 Feb. 1701, far more than usual as the fate of his Irish lands was again in the balance. In mid-March he became the central figure in the controversial proceedings surrounding the Tory-dominated Commons’ investigation into the Partition Treaties. The second Partition Treaty had been made public in July 1700, after the end of the previous parliamentary session, and had almost immediately caused consternation, because of its terms, the secrecy in which negotiations for it had been conducted and the lack of consultation with members of the English political nation. On 14 Mar. 1701 when the House took into consideration the second Partition Treaty, Nottingham and Normanby condemned both the terms of the treaty and the manner in which it had been negotiated, signed and ratified. Nottingham reported ‘the matters of fact’ concerning the treaty on 15 Mar. when many of the peers ‘loudly expressed their disapprobation’ of the treaty, ‘which they wholly laid at the earl of Portland’s door’. Portland in turn had been given license by the king to provide details on the negotiation and was at pains to point out that he had convened a meeting of a number of leading English ministers – Somers, Jersey, Lonsdale, Marlborough, Baron Halifax (as Charles Montagu had recently become), Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke and James Vernon – at his house in February 1700 to consider the terms of the treaty. On 17 Mar., the peers named by Portland (except for Lonsdale, since deceased) all confirmed before the House that they had been at this meeting and had seen a draft of the treaty. But they insisted that it was Portland alone who had drawn it up in French, that they had raised several objections to its terms, which were subsequently ignored by Portland who presented the treaty as a <em>fait accompli</em>, and that ‘as for themselves, that they had neither given, nor refused, their consent to it, because the treaty was never communicated to the Privy Council’.<sup>187</sup></p><p>The Lords’ address was presented to the king on 24 Mar. 1701 on which day the Commons drafted their own address condemning the second Partition Treaty. On 29 Mar., when the Commons took up the matter of the second Partition Treaty again, John Leveson Gower*, later Baron Gower, argued that the treaty was very prejudicial to trade and commerce ‘and that the making of it was a great crime and misdemeanour’. Leveson Gower ‘named the Lord Portland to be the maker of it’, and the question was put that Portland ‘by negotiating and concluding the Treaty of Partition, which was destructive to the trade of this kingdom, and dangerous to the peace of Europe, is guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour’. After Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup> had unsuccessfully tried to include the English lords consulted by Portland, probably aiming at Somers in particular, the motion against Portland was passed, ‘nobody speaking one word for him’. This prompted John (‘Jack’) Howe<sup>‡</sup>, a frequent critic of Portland and the lavish grants bestowed on him, to enter into a philosophical disquisition on the transience of fortune, remarking how:</p><blockquote><p>he could not but reflect upon the instability of human affairs that that great lord that so lately had so many obeisances from the gentlemen of this House, so many respects paid him that even gentlemen of good quality thought it a high honour to drink chocolate with his footmen, and that now this great man had not one friend to speak for him.<sup>188</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the end of that day’s session the Commons went into a committee of the whole to consider the treaty further, during which Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup> continued to insist that ‘if this was such a wicked treaty there must be more than this Lord, this stranger, concerned in it, and that the putting the great seal was an illegal and dangerous thing to our constitution and so he moved after his usual harangue to put the same question upon John, Lord Somers’. The Tories were so enraged against Somers that they almost wished to exonerate Portland in attacking the lord chancellor, arguing that</p><blockquote><p>the Lord Portland was a poor stranger ignorant of our laws and customs a friend to his own native country, to be rather pitied and excused than punished, that my lord chancellor was an Englishman knowing in our laws and customs, that they were sorry that he had committed so great [a] crime but that it must be for the precedent’s sake censured.</p></blockquote><p>Despite these urgings the question for a motion censuring Somers failed and Portland remained – at that time – the sole target of the Commons’ anger. <sup>189</sup></p><p>Thus on 1 Apr. 1701 Leveson Gower* came to the bar of the House to impeach Portland for high treason and misdemeanours, with the assurance ‘that the Commons will in due time exhibit particular articles against him’.<sup>190</sup> William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, recounted how the next day ‘Lord Jersey came to me from the king, who was highly provoked at the Whigs, for having brought their own minister off [i.e. Somers] and his upon the state’. William wished to defend his old friend and had</p><blockquote><p>told Lord Jersey he knew I lived in great intimacy with Lord Berkley of Stratton, who had married Lady Portland’s sister [William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, married to Lady Frances Temple]; therefore desired I would aggravate Lord Portland’s treatment to him, and try if he could prevail with him to take his revenge (which he had it very much in his power to do), and I was authorized to assure him the king would be pleased with his so doing. Lord Portland seemed willing, but was afraid of the Whigs, who he thought would ruin him, and did not think the Tories were either able or willing to protect him: which put an end to that negotiation.<sup>191</sup></p></blockquote><p>Portland only further complicated matters and implicated some of the previous ministers who had so far escaped by inadvertently revealing the secret negotiations for the first Partition Treaty in 1698. On 3 Apr. 1701 Portland read from a paper he had prepared setting out what he had said before the select committee on his role in the negotiations. Portland thus told the House his memory of the events surrounding his involvement in the Partition Treaty negotiations:</p><blockquote><p>At the beginning of the summer of the year [16]99, when I was in Holland at my country-house, and when the King would have me be concerned in the negotiating of this Treaty with the Emperor, the French King, and The States; being very unwilling to meddle with business again, from which I was retired; before I would engage myself, I advised with my friends in Holland, and writ into England, to Mr. Secretary Vernon as my particular Friend, whether it was advisable for me to engage in any business again; to which Mr. Vernon answered in Substance, “That this would not engage me but for a little while; that I being upon the place, and generally acquainted with the foreign ministers, it would be easier for the King, and properer for me to be employed in it than any body else, that must be otherwise sent for on purpose”.<sup>192</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somers was aware that he was potentially implicated in this testimony and received permission from the House to ask Portland directly whether his own name was mentioned in the letter he received in reply from Vernon. Portland declared ‘That, if he had remembered any such thing in the letter, and had not inserted it in the paper which he had delivered to the House, he should have thought he had deceived the House’.<sup>193</sup></p><p>Unfortunately for himself – and for Somers – Portland had ‘deceived’ the House, although unwittingly, in that in his paper submitted to the House he was actually remembering the correspondence with Vernon of August-September 1698 at the time of the first Partition Treaty, not of 1699 as he stated. Secondly, Somers had actually appeared in almost all the letters between Portland and Vernon of that time, as he was a principal figure in this affair, entrusted with sending over the blank commission for appointing plenipotentiaries for the discussions and for commenting on the contents of the treaty in its final stages. Vernon, ordered by the Commons to deliver in the letters mentioned in Portland’s statement, was resistant and in ‘great confusion’ because, in order to match Portland’s account, he had to produce the correspondence of August 1698 on the hitherto secret first Partition Treaty. These letters were first laid before the Commons on 12 Apr., Portland’s letters in French were ordered to be translated and all of them read before the House on 14 April. The resulting anger was now fully turned on Somers for having signed, sealed and sent a blank commission for the negotiations, without having formally consulted either the lord justices of that summer or the Privy Council.<sup>194</sup> At the end of that day’s session, despite an impressive speech by Somers himself before the Commons to exonerate himself, the lower House moved to impeach Somers, Orford and Halifax.<sup>195</sup></p><p>The impeachments of the Whig lords were brought up to the House the following day and quickly led to a rancorous breakdown in relations between the two Houses. The Commons had also addressed the king on 15 Apr. to remove the impeached lords from his counsels, but this was almost immediately countered the following day with an address from the Lords asking the king not to impose any censure or prohibition on the peers while their charges were still pending.<sup>196</sup> Over the following weeks, it became clear that the Commons were principally after the English Junto ministers Somers, Orford and Halifax, while the Lords were keen to protect their fellow peers in what became a largely partisan battle. Several contemporaries commented on the highly selective nature of the impeachments, as lower-level figures in the ministry such as Vernon and Sir Joseph Williamson, who had also been involved in the first Partition Treaty negotiations, were not targeted. In this struggle Portland, although the first to be impeached, was largely left alone. The House sent frequent messages to the Commons reminding them that articles against Portland had still not been delivered to the upper House – five in total between 5 May and 16 June. This badgering clearly irritated the Commons, who felt it ‘without precedent and unparliamentary’ that they as prosecutors should be rushed into presenting the charges.<sup>197</sup> Significantly, though, it was to Orford, Somers and Halifax that they first addressed themselves upon receipt of these reminders, and charges were sent up against those three peers during the course of May. The Commons never did get around to producing articles against Portland, the first one charged. This may have been in part because of a change in opinion among some Members of the Commons. As Sir Godfrey Copley<sup>‡</sup> argued when the Commons was debating how to respond to the House’s reminders to send up the charges against Portland,</p><blockquote><p>when my Lord Portland was first impeached it was because he did being a foreigner make treaties to the prejudice of England without consulting English council and so it did then appear. But looking further into matters upon these other impeachments it does appear he has acted nothing but by and with the direction and advice of English councils, so that it does appear that he is not so guilty as at the first we had reason to believe him.<sup>198</sup></p></blockquote><p>The ‘breach of that good correspondence between the two Houses’ warned of by the Commons only grew wider throughout late May and June. Members of the Commons stayed away from Westminster Hall when Somers was acquitted by a majority of his peers, including Portland, on 17 June 1701, to be followed six days later by a unanimous acquittal of Orford.<sup>199</sup> On 24 June the House dismissed the impeachment against Portland, ‘there being no articles exhibited against him’ and Halifax, as no further prosecution had followed from the articles belatedly laid against him.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued that day in rancour and an atmosphere of intractable partisan division. Initially, the king hoped to stay the course and maintain the ministry and the Parliament. But under the advice of Sunderland and Somers, and in the light of James II’s death in September 1701 and Louis XIV’s unexpected recognition of the Pretender as king of England, he was persuaded once more to trust Whig support and to dissolve Parliament, as he did, much to the surprise of many of his cabinet, on 11 Nov. 1701. Following the elections of December 1701 the parties were more evenly balanced in the Commons and, given the growing threat of war, it was likely to be less hostile to William and his former ministry. Portland attended the first day of the Parliament, on the penultimate day of 1701 and went on to attend three-fifths of the session’s sittings. On 3 Dec. 1701, and then again in the first two days of January 1702, he was placed on committees to draft addresses to the king, the first to condemn Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender and the second to assure the king that the House would help him resist the ‘exorbitant power of France’. The final illness and death of William III on 8 Mar. 1702 marked a principal turning point in Portland’s career. Burnet wrote of final farewell between the two old friends and how the king on his deathbed ‘called for the earl of Portland, but before he came his voice quite failed, so he took him by the hand and carried it to his heart with great tenderness’.<sup>200</sup></p><h2><em>The New Reign 1702-9</em></h2><p>William’s death and the queen’s accession removed the personal link between Portland and the government. Anne had never liked Portland, associated as he was with William III, the Villiers family and with the disgrace of Marlborough in 1692 and took some delight in reducing his power and influence. He was quickly removed from his last remaining positions in England – privy councillor, superintendent of the royal gardens, and ranger of Windsor Park, the latter of which she gave to Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>. Portland’s favourite residence of Cumberland Lodge went to her own favourite and groom of the stole, the countess of Marlborough.<sup>201</sup></p><p>Early in Anne’s reign Macky provided his contacts at the Hanoverian court with a character sketch of Portland now,</p><blockquote><p>turned of fifty years old ... [and] supposed to be the richest subject in Europe, very profuse in gardening, birds and household furniture, but mighty frugal and parsimonious in everything else; of a very lofty mien, and yet not proud; of no deep understanding, considering his experience; neither much beloved nor hated by any sort of people, English or Dutch.<sup>202</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Tory Jonathan Swift later annotated his copy of Macky’s character with the judgment that Portland was ‘as great a dunce as ever I knew’, and even Sunderland, who had relied so much on Portland’s patronage, was said to have ‘had a very mean opinion of the earl of Portland; and said upon Keppel’s being sent to him by the king upon some business, “This young man brings and carries a message well; but Portland is so dull an animal, that he can neither fetch nor carry”’.<sup>203</sup></p><p>Portland during Anne’s reign remained an important figure in both England and the United Provinces, acting as an informal intermediary between the States General and the English government during the renewed war. In just about every year from 1702 he stayed at his Dutch estate of Sorgvliet during the summer months. Narcissus Luttrell’s<sup>‡</sup> many notes of his departures and arrivals from the continent suggest that he was also involved in diplomacy and furthering the war effort while abroad. In October 1702 he returned bringing ‘the good news of the surrender of Ruremond’. In July 1703 he accompanied Algernon Seymour<sup>†</sup>, styled earl of Hertford, later 7th duke of Somerset, to Hanover, and returned with Marlborough with news of the arrival of the archduke Charles. In July 1704 he went to confer with the States General about Portugal and the Camisard revolt.<sup>204</sup> After Blenheim, Portland and Marlborough buried their past differences (which largely originated from Marlborough’s resentment of the lock Portland and other foreign officers had on military office during William’s war) and became regular correspondents in pursuit of their common goal. Portland also often acted as an intermediary between Marlborough and the pensionary, Anthonie Heinsius. ‘Pray let me hear from you some times, and let me have your own thoughts, which I promise you shall be known to nobody but myself’, Marlborough encouraged him in a letter of July 1705.<sup>205</sup></p><p>Portland came to 55 per cent of the sittings of the first session of Anne’s Parliament in 1702-3, similar to his attendances on the House in the mid-1690s. But now no longer a minister or seen as the ‘favourite’ of the monarch, he was treated much more as an ordinary working peer. Whereas during William’s reign he was almost never appointed to select committees, perhaps because of his ‘alien’ Dutchness and his perceived role as an agent in the House for the king, he was now, like most other peers in the House, appointed to just about every select committee – especially the very large ones dealing with private legislation or committees of inquiry and inspection. Portland reached his highest attendances in the House in the following two sessions – 83 per cent (his highest rate of attendance ever) in 1703-4 and 76 per cent in 1704-5. His support for the war against France was again assumed when he was placed on a slightly smaller drafting committee, of only 27 members, assigned on 24 Oct. 1704 to compose an address on the first day of the 1704-5 session congratulating the queen on the recent military successes and particularly Marlborough on the victory at Blenheim. Likewise, in 1705-6 he attended over three-fifths of the sittings and was named to almost every select committee established.</p><p>Portland protested to the dowager electress of Hanover in 1706 that ‘I do not ever want to be Whig or Tory’ but insisted that circumstances, and particularly the war effort and the maintenance of the Protestant Succession impelled him to side with the Junto Whigs, among whom he counted many old friends and frequent correspondents.<sup>206</sup> In 1702-3 he was an opponent of the occasional conformity bill. On 19 Jan. 1703 he signed the protest against the decision to include a clause in the bill to settle a revenue on George of Denmark specifying that he would still be able to sit in the Privy Council and the House after the queen’s death, despite his foreign birth. The clause appeared to call into doubt the right of other foreign-born peers such as himself to hold similar positions without such a parliamentary dispensation.<sup>207</sup> A frequent correspondent with the dowager electress Sophia, he was also a supporter of the Hanoverian Succession. <sup>208</sup> In December 1705 he voted to agree with the motion that ‘the Church is not in danger’ and in favour of the Regency Bill.<sup>209</sup> His continuing correspondence with Carstares suggests that he supported the plans for a Union, because ‘it comprises the [Protestant] succession, that it is to the advantage of both nations, because it prevents all the future differences, it will cut the roots of a good part of your domestic divisions, and it will remedy bit by bit the shortage of money from which Scotland suffers’. <sup>210</sup></p><p>Yet he was not in the House for most of the proceedings on the Union he advocated. From 1706 he increasingly devoted more time to his new life as a country gentleman, with a growing brood of children from his second marriage. After the first session of the 1705 Parliament his attendance on Parliament dropped sharply. He only attended a further 32 sittings between 13 Feb. 1707 and his last appearance in the House on 5 Apr. 1709. Shortly after that appearance he set off for Holland in the company of Marlborough and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, most likely to act as an unofficial presence at the negotiations for the Barrier Treaty.<sup>211</sup> This was Portland’s last important piece of diplomacy, acting as an informal mediator between England and the States-General in the complicated negotiations for this agreement.<sup>212</sup></p><p>He was back in the autumn at his house at Bulstrode in Buckinghamshire, where it was reported on 19 Nov. 1709 that he ‘lies dangerously ill of a pleurisy’.<sup>213</sup> Four days later he died, only a month after the birth of his youngest daughter, Barbara. He died a fabulously rich man, perhaps even, as Macky thought him, ‘the richest subject in Europe’. An inventory of his personal and real estate, his investments, his income (or sale price) of offices and honours made up after his death valued them all at the staggering amount of £992,212; £850,150 of this came from his English possessions and investments alone.<sup>214</sup> Each of his five unmarried daughters received a portion of £10,000. His widow received a pension of £2,000 p.a. for the rest of her life, the use of Sorgvliet and his townhouse at The Hague. She later pursued a notable life at the English court, acting as governess to the daughters of George, the Prince of Wales, in 1718, and was re-appointed to that post when he succeeded to the throne as George II. Portland split the bulk of his estate between two of his three surviving sons, representing in effect the split Anglo-Dutch nature of his own life. Although there were later disputes between the two branches over the huge inheritance, particularly between the dowager countess and her Dutch son-in-law the Baron van Wassenaar-Duyvenvoorde (who was actually married to a daughter by Portland’s first wife), in general the two branches maintained cordial relations and assisted in future Anglo-Dutch relations. To his second Willem, born in 1704, Portland bequeathed his Dutch possessions.<sup>215</sup> Willem was later to follow in his father’s footsteps, as a member of the order of <em>Ridderschap</em> in the States of Holland, under the title Lord of Rhoon and Pendrecht, and as a principal advisor of William III’s heir the stadtholder Willem IV, for which he became known as ‘the Grand Tribune’.<sup>216</sup> Yet by the end of his own life Portland was established enough in his adopted home of England to ensure that his eldest and adult son Lord Woodstock should inherit all the English estates and possessions and found a dynasty there; he was made a duke in 1716 by George I, grateful for his father’s support of the Hanoverian Succession. Indeed, in total nine of Portland’s children married into English (or more properly British) noble or gentry families, while only two had spouses from Dutch noble families. The family founded by Hans Willem Bentinck in England in later years produced a prime minister (the 3rd duke of Portland), several statesmen and leading national figures, as well as a famous eccentric and recluse in the 5th duke.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BENTINCK, Henry (c. 1682-1726) |
<p><strong><surname>BENTINCK</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1682–1726)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1689-1709 Visct. Woodstock; <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Nov. 1709 as 2nd earl of PORTLAND; <em>cr. </em>6 July 1716 duke of PORTLAND |
|
First sat 9 Dec. 1709; last sat 7 Mar. 1722 |
|
MP Southampton 1705-8, Hants 1708-23 Nov. 1709 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1682, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Hans Willem Bentinck*, later earl of Portland, and 1st wife Anne (<em>d</em>.1688), da. of Sir Edward Villiers of Richmond, Surr. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Italy, Germany; tutor, Paul Rapin de Thoyras) 1701-3.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 9 June 1704 (with £60,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1737), da. and coh. of Wriothesley Baptist Noel*, 2nd earl of Gainsborough, 2s. 3da. <em>d</em>. 4 July 1726; <em>will</em> 9 Aug. 1722, pr. 14 Feb. 1728.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1717-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Freeman, Southampton 1705.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Capt. 1st tp. and brev. col. Life Guards 1710-13; gov. Jamaica 1721-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>Henry Bentinck was the heir of William III’s principal Dutch favourite, Hans Willem Bentinck*, created earl of Portland in April 1689. From that time the young man was styled by his father’s subsidiary title of Viscount Woodstock. In January 1698 Woodstock accompanied his father on his embassy to Paris. Later that year William III presented a bill to the Irish Parliament to convey to Woodstock 135,820 acres of the forfeited Irish estates of the Jacobite army officer Donough Maccarty, 4th earl of Clancarty [I].<sup>7</sup></p><p>Woodstock embarked on a grand tour from 1701-3, under the tutelage of the Huguenot historian Paul de Rapin de Thoyras and shortly after his return married (under the name ‘William Henry Bentinck’) the English heiress, Lady Elizabeth Noel, one of the coheirs of Wriothesley Baptist Noel*, 2nd earl of Gainsborough. She was rumoured to have brought with her to the marriage a fortune of £60,000 and the Titchfield estate in Hampshire. At the same time his father settled on him an income of £10,000 p.a.<sup>8</sup></p><p>He first stood for Parliament for Southampton on the Noel interest in 1705, for which election he spent £500.<sup>9</sup> Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, considered his victory a gain for the Whigs, and he was again classed as a Whig on two separate lists at the time of the 1708 election, in which he was returned for both Southampton and Hampshire. He chose to sit for the county.<sup>10</sup> On 23 Nov. 1709, shortly after the beginning of the second session of the Parliament, Woodstock succeeded to the earldom.</p><p>The new earl of Portland came into a substantial inheritance. His father had left the principal Dutch estates to a younger son (by his second wife) but the 2nd earl of Portland came into the family’s English estates. He gained possession of the principal seat in Bulstrode in Buckinghamshire and estates in Cheshire, Cumberland, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Sussex, Westminster and Yorkshire, worth in all about £850,150. <sup>11</sup> Unlike his younger brother, Portland made his career and settled his family in Britain.</p><p>Portland first sat in the House on 9 Dec. 1709, less than a month after the session had started, and continued to sit for 46 per cent of its meetings. During this period he was also trying to wrap up the outstanding affairs of his father’s estate, and he kept in close correspondence with the family’s trusted friend and agent in the Netherlands, Mr. d’Allonne, who had also served in England under the first earl of Portland as secretary for Dutch affairs. Throughout 1710 Portland wrote to d’Allonne on family matters and with news of British politics, especially regarding the war and Britain’s increasingly tense relation with its leading ally the United Provinces. On 27 Jan. he reported a long conversation he had had with John Somers*, Baron Somers, concerning the state of the war. Both had agreed that it would help if the United Provinces could provide an example for Britain to emulate by its own vigorous prosecution of the war – although Portland was at pains to point out that the Dutch were already stretched to their limit. On parliamentary matters he informed d’Allonne on 10 Feb. 1710 of the debate the previous day on the Commons bill to secure the ‘freedoms of Parliament’ by limiting the number of crown officers who could sit in the Commons. ‘The Lords rejected the act’, he reported, ‘without the slightest hesitation, which, as I can imagine, greatly pleased the court’. Most of his time from the end of February was taken up with the trial of Dr Sacheverell, which, as he made clear to d’Allonne, he saw as an onerous chore. ‘I would be very pleased if it had already finished’, he wrote on 28 Feb. but ‘those whom the lower house have named to prosecute the accusation have done it with such good arguments, and such eloquence, that I do not know when it will end’. He, along with the majority of the House, was named to a number of very large select committees concerning the impeachment, and on 17 Mar. he complained to d’Allonne that, the night before, proceedings in the House had lasted until 11 at night – and had taken up all of that day as well. On 20 Mar. 1710 he joined the Whigs in voting the Doctor guilty and reported to d’Allonne that ‘we gave him a very light sentence; he did not expect to have one so favourable. I hope that others will not be encouraged by that to preach the same doctrine’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Portland was only too happy to have Parliament prorogued: he could then finally devote himself entirely to matters regarding his father’s estate. His letters to d’Allonne of the summer of 1710, however, which largely concern domestic matters, go through a transformation as Portland went from absolute certainty that, despite the rumours, there would be no change to the ministry to an increasing concern that Britain’s known penchant for political instability would lead to a disastrous overturning of the political order.<sup>13</sup> One change of this summer directly benefited him when he was made brevet colonel of the Life Guards on 26 July 1710.<sup>14</sup> The previous colonel, Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, had been appointed to the post in 1699 as part of his inexorable rise in William III’s favour which had led the first earl of Portland to resign all his English posts. By 1710 Albemarle was firmly settled in the Netherlands once again and requested to hand in his commission. Portland’s appointment in his place could be seen as the first earl of Portland’s retrospective revenge on his rival, but it is difficult to explain why Anne, working with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and a rising political group which was soon to show itself so hostile to Dutch interests, would have replaced one resented Dutch follower of William III with the son and heir of an even more hated follower of the late king.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Portland was later accused of ‘over-meddling in elections’, but there is little direct evidence on his involvement in the elections of the autumn of 1710.<sup>16</sup> In later years he does appear to have been engaged in electioneering in Buckinghamshire, where his principal seat of Bulstrode Park was located. Nevertheless, any role he played there for the unsuccessful Whigs in the 1710 elections was overshadowed by his very active colleague Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, and has left no trace.</p><p>In the weeks preceding the new Parliament, Harley considered Portland an opponent of the new ministry, and so he proved to be as and when he took part in parliamentary proceedings. For although Portland attended the new Parliament from its first day, he sat in just fewer than half of the meetings of the first session. In committee of the whole House on 12 Jan. 1711 he acted as a teller for the majority contents on the question whether to agree to address the queen for permission to hear evidence from members of her cabinet council on the events leading to the battle of Almanza in 1707.<sup>17</sup> His letters to d’Allonne show a lively concern for the continuing prosecution of the war against France, but surprisingly Portland did not sign any of the protests against the resolutions condemning the former Whig ministry’s conduct of the war in Spain.<sup>18</sup> Later, on 9 Mar. 1711, he was appointed one of 28 managers for a conference on an address concerning the recent assassination attempt on Harley. From 17 Apr. Portland held the proxy of his brother-in-law William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron, for the remainder of the session. He briefly held his full complement of two proxies when, on 2 May, George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], also registered his proxy with him, but this was vacated a week later upon Orkney’s return to the House.</p><p>As the heir to one of William III’s principal Dutch ‘favourites’ and an advocate of the Dutch alliance, Portland was a target for the Tories in the Commons. On 24 Apr. 1711 a bill was brought up from the Commons which directly threatened him by proposing the resumption for public use of all the grants of lands made by William III. This may have been particularly aimed at Portland, who was one of the most conspicuous recipients of the forfeited Irish lands. The Lords threw the bill out on its first reading on 13 May, allowing Portland to write with relief two days later to d’Allonne of ‘the good success that we have had in the House of Lords in regard of the act concerning the grants, or gifts, of the late king. Although I was not very alarmed by it, nevertheless it is a great happiness to see it have an end such as we would wish’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Portland came to even fewer meetings of the following session (1711-12), with an attendance level of only 42 per cent. On the key issues concerning the peace, he acted against Oxford, but on other issues not directly affecting the war he was less determined. Oxford noted that Portland voted in favour of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the address to the queen on 9 Dec. 1711. He later forecast that Portland would vote against James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], on the question whether he could sit in the House as a British peer, but on 20 Dec. 1711, Portland instead ‘went out’ of the chamber rather than cast a vote. Two days later, on 22 Dec., he was appointed to a small select committee of 17 peers assigned to draw up an address to the queen requesting her not to make a separate peace with France and to find a means to preserve a union with the Allies.</p><p>Portland controlled the proxy of his brother-in-law Byron from 5 May 1712, and at about the same time Portland was threatened by another attempt from the Commons to ‘resume’ his grants of Irish land. On 6 May William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, a moderate Tory, reported to Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, at The Hague, that ‘some warm men’, disappointed at the failure of the resumption bill in 1711, now planned to tack it on to the lottery Bill that was then making its way through the Commons. This would have made a convulsion in the House of Lords, and the court ordered the Commons manager to send up the two bills separately. Berkeley, who was closely connected to the dowager countess of Portland, the 2nd earl’s stepmother (she was Berkeley’s sister-in-law both by his late brother, her first husband, and by his own wife, her sister), commented that ‘the chief aim is at my Lord Portland, who hath provoked a set of people, by his over-meddling in elections, for the sake of those who would give him up at the first opportunity’.<sup>20</sup> In this session the resumption bill made it past a second reading in the House but was once again rejected by the House at the third reading on 20 May 1712. A week later, on 28 May 1712, Portland voted with the Whigs in favour of the address requesting the queen to lift the ‘restraining orders’ she had placed on her new commander-in-chief James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, prohibiting him from engaging in battle with the French.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Portland was most likely seen as a member of the second rank of Whig peers, on whose support the Junto relied in difficult situations. In February 1712 the Whig leader Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, hosted a ‘great consult’ at his house at which Portland was present. Other attendees were Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, Henry Grey*, duke of Kent, Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, Talbot Yelverton*, 2nd Viscount Longueville (later earl of Sussex), along with five other peers, as well as the Tory renegades Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford).<sup>22</sup> On the other hand, the Tory satirist Jonathan Swift placed Portland among the members of the ‘Calves-Head Club’, reputedly (if it even existed) a group of extreme Whigs who gathered annually to celebrate the execution of Charles I. Swift described the transforming effect of inebriation at these meetings, where ‘wine can give Portland wit’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>The following session of spring 1713, when the Treaty of Utrecht was presented to the House, was Portland’s most poorly attended to date. He came to only 39 per cent of its 77 sittings. The absence of the proxy register for this session precludes knowing whether he gave or even received any proxies during this session. Oxford predicted that Portland would vote against the French commercial treaty, a measure that was voted down by the Commons even before it reached the Lords to face the Whig opposition. On 7 July 1713 just before the session ended, and perhaps in protest against the Utrecht treaty, Portland resigned his colonel’s commission in the Life Guards to be replaced by John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Ashburnham, who had previously been passed over in preference to him.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Portland took a prominent part in the contested Buckinghamshire election of 1713. A Tory account reveals Portland’s involvement for the Whig candidates Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Edmund Denton<sup>‡</sup> against the Tories John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fermanagh [I], and John Fleetwood:<sup>‡</sup>,</p><blockquote><p>We Tories carry the elections, everywhere, but the Buckinghamshire election has given occasion of the most talk and triumph. The Whigs there put wool in their hats, saying ’twas all going into France, and they resolved to keep some on’t, before ’twas all gone. Lord Wharton, Lord Bridgwater [Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater], Lord Portland and Lord Essex [William Capell*, 3rd earl of Essex], were all at the head of them with wool in their hats: and Lady Wharton with her own fair hands made up several cockades for the country fellows. The Tories had oaken boughs in their hats, and these jokes in their mouths against their adversary that their wits were gone a wool gathering, and that they looked very sheepish, and baa’d them out of the field.<sup>25</sup></p></blockquote><p>Portland was more than usually attentive to the first session of the new Parliament, which did not meet until February 1714; he came to over half of its meetings (57 per cent). On 14 Apr. 1714 his wife’s cousin Baptist Noel*, 3rd earl of Gainsborough, registered his proxy with him, but it was vacated only three days later by Gainsborough’s death. Portland was still seen as an important second-tier Whig. On or about 7 May, as Oxford was engaged in negotiations with the Junto to shore up their support for him against the increasing rivalry of Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, he summoned a meeting, ‘from 7 till 10’, of influential Whigs to garner their assistance. Interestingly, this group of Whigs is almost identical to the group which Oxford noted had met with Halifax in February 1712 – Somerset, Kent, Portland, Longueville, Cholmondeley and Guernsey among them, as well as Portland’s soon to be brother-in-law Evelyn Pierrepoint*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston).<sup>26</sup> In the House itself, Nottingham forecast that Portland would oppose the schism bill, but when the bill was passed by the House on 15 June Portland did not sign the protest against it, even though he was marked as present on the day. Indeed, Portland’s name does not appear on a single protest or dissent in the entire period of Tory dominance in 1710-14, despite the many votes and resolutions with which he probably disagreed. Portland left the House on 25 June and on 28 June registered his proxy with William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire. The proxy was vacated on his return at the end of June, and he continued to sit in the House for the final week of the session. There was some speculation that he left the House at that time to settle the marriage negotiations of his sister Isabella to Dorchester, for Dorchester registered his proxy on the same day, and he and Portland left the House together.<sup>27</sup> Portland attended the House on 1 Aug. 1714, the first day of the session following Anne’s death, but the following day, the day of his sister’s marriage to Dorchester, he assigned his proxy to the earl of Sunderland who held it until Portland’s return to the House on 13 August. After that Portland was absent from the House for the remainder of the session.</p><p>In the autumn of 1714 Portland became involved in the complicated negotiations conducted by Wharton and other Whig leaders to make an agreement with the Tories for the division of seats for Buckinghamshire. Portland acted as an intermediary between Wharton and the recalcitrant Whig, Richard Hampden, who threatened to upset the delicate negotiations. Meetings between Wharton and Hampden took place at Portland’s house in St James’s Square, and Hampden eventually deposited his proposals for a settlement with Wharton in Portland’s hands.<sup>28</sup> A new compromise was reached, whereby Hampden was returned for the county, while Wharton’s original candidate, Richard Grenville<sup>‡</sup>, was returned for a borough seat in Hampden’s control.</p><p>Portland received greater favour under George I than he had under Anne. Portland’s father had been an early advocate and supporter of the Hanoverian Succession, and Portland himself had spent much time at Hanover and Celle while on his grand tour of 1701-3.<sup>29</sup> As a reward for his family’s long service to the Hanoverians, he was created duke of Portland on 6 July 1716, and a gentleman of the bedchamber the following year.</p><p>He continued to act as a Whig in the House. He supported the impeachment of the earl of Oxford, voted for the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts, and remained close to Dorchester, who was himself rewarded with the dukedom of Kingston-upon-Hull in August 1715.<sup>30</sup> The two frequently exchanged proxies. On two occasions Portland also received the proxy of his other brother-in-law, Byron.<sup>31</sup> A detailed account of his activities in the House and in elections after 1715 will appear in the volumes on the House 1715-90.</p><p>Portland lost a great deal of his substantial fortune through over-investment in the South Sea Company stock, and he accepted the post of governor of Jamaica in 1721 to earn some badly needed income after the bubble burst. He arrived there at Christmas time 1722, a few months after a hurricane had ravaged the island.<sup>32</sup> His tenure as governor saw him on a fruitless quest to have the local Jamaica Assembly vote a ‘permanent revenue’ for the king. He died on 4 July 1726 at Spanish Town from a fever. His body was returned to England and was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the vault of the dukes of Ormond.<sup>33</sup> His short will, written on 9 Aug. 1722, merely made his wife executrix. His eldest son William Bentinck*, succeeded as 2nd duke of Portland.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BERKELEY, Charles (1630-65) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1630–65)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>14 July 1663 Visct. Fitzhardinge [I]; <em>cr. </em>17 Mar. 1665 earl of FALMOUTH. |
|
Never sat. |
|
MP New Romney, 1661–17 Mar. 1665. |
<p><em>bap</em><em>.</em> 11 Jan. 1630, 2nd s. of Sir Charles Berkeley (<em>d</em>. 12 June 1668) and Penelope, da. of Sir William Godolphin, bt.<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of Sir Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, later 3rd Visct. Fitzhardinge [I], and John Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, later 4th Visct. Fitzhardinge [I]. <em>educ</em><em>.</em> privately (Hugh Cressy), MA Oxf. 1663; travelled abroad (Italy) 1644–8. <em>m</em><em>.</em> c. Sept. 1664,<sup>1</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 12 Sept. 1679), da. of Hervey Bagot, Pipe Hall, Warws. 1 da. kntd. 30 May 1660. <em>d</em><em>.</em> 3 June 1665; <em>will</em> 21 Apr., pr. 29 June 1665.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of the bedchamber to James Stuart*, duke of York, 1656–62; groom of stole to duke of York 1660–2;<sup>3</sup> kpr. of the privy purse, 1662–<em>d</em>.; cttee. on Tangier 1664;<sup>4</sup> special envoy to France Nov. 1664.</p><p>Commr. Ireland 1663; commr. to manage estates of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Cornet, regt. of George Digby* (later 2nd earl of Bristol) (French army) 1652–6; capt. duke of York’s 2nd Life Guards 1657–8, 1661–<em>d</em>.; capt. Sandown Castle, Kent Dec. 1660–1661; lt. gov. Portsmouth 1662–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Freeman, Portsmouth 1662.</p><p>Asst. Royal Adventurers to Africa 1665.</p> |
|
<p>Berkeley was born in 1630 at the family home in Bruton, Somerset. His tutor, Hugh Cressy, was a former chaplain to Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, and Lucius Cary<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Viscount Falkland. Cressy renounced protestantism in Rome in 1646 while accompanying Berkeley on a European tour. The Berkeley family were committed royalists throughout the civil wars and Berkeley was later sent to Europe to serve the Stuart court in exile. His uncle Sir John Berkeley*, later Baron Berkeley of Stratton, governor to the duke of York, secured him a commission in 1652 as cornet in the earl of Bristol’s regiment of English guards, serving under York’s command in the French forces of Turenne. In 1657 he received a commission as captain of the duke’s own Life Guards in the service of the Spanish crown.</p><p>Berkeley’s loyal service was acknowledged after the Restoration, and in May 1660 he was among the first to be knighted by Charles II. His loyalty to York led him to claim to have been Anne Hyde’s lover and the father of her child, in an attempt to allow York to disclaim paternity and avoid a marriage.<sup>6</sup> The incident did not prevent Berkeley from becoming a great favourite of both the king and York. Various grants and office in York’s household followed, as did army commissions and even a diplomatic mission on behalf of York to congratulate Louis XIV on the birth of the Dauphin.<sup>7</sup> He was returned to the Commons as the court nominee for New Romney in 1661. He was unpopular with many of the king’s ministers and courtiers, being described by Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> as a ‘vicious person’ whose ‘greatness is only his being pimp to the king and my Lady Castlemaine’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In June 1663 it was reported to Louis XIV that the king was ‘very fond’ of ‘young Berkeley’, and in July he was raised to the Irish peerage, with a special remainder in favour of his father.<sup>9</sup> In October of the same year, now Viscount Fitzhardinge, he was granted forfeited estates in Ireland worth £2,000 per year.<sup>10</sup> Berkeley was also heavily involved in the Irish land settlement, being one of several ‘grandees’ named in the Irish Act of Explanation to receive Irish estates.<sup>11</sup> Much correspondence followed with James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (and earl of Brecknock in the English peerage), the lord lieutenant of Ireland, concerning the implementation of this grant and other aspects of the Irish land settlement.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In September 1663 Fitzhardinge was described as ‘the towering favourite’, with many lampoons circulating about him and ‘the maids of honour’.<sup>13</sup> These later appeared rather prescient, when Sir Thomas Osborne*, the future earl of Danby, noted that on 5 Nov. 1664 Fitzhardinge had owned his marriage of two months to Mary Bagot, one of the maids to the duchess of York.<sup>14</sup> No sooner had his marriage been made public then he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Louis XIV to discover the French monarch’s attitude to the war that Charles II was planning against the Dutch.<sup>15</sup> Fitzhardinge himself seems to have thought that the king did not have enough money to prosecute the Dutch war.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Fitzhardinge’s promotion to an English earldom seems to have been known for several months before the letters patent were issued. In January 1665 it was reported that he ‘grows daily more potent, opulent, and I had almost said, formidable in the Court. For he hath been lately regaled with new titles and £3,000 p.a. land to maintain them.’<sup>17</sup> In April, news of his elevation saw it predicted that he ‘will be duke of Portsmouth ere long, for he grows greater daily, even to a prodigy’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>On 16 Apr. 1665 Falmouth departed post to join York as a volunteer in the fleet, ‘something he told us he would never do until the Dutch put to sea’.<sup>19</sup> On 21 Apr. he made his will in which he made provision for his unborn child: if a daughter she would have a portion of £8,000, while his father would receive his Irish lands (as he would then inherit the Irish title). His wife was named executor. She was to receive his personal estate, his house in Rutland, revenue from his grant of mooring chains on the Thames and his personal estate.</p><p>During the battle of Lowestoft on 3 June, a canon shot killed Falmouth and others who were standing beside the duke of York on board the <em>Royal Charles</em>. One eyewitness suggested that Falmouth’s brains were splattered all over the duke’s face.<sup>20</sup> Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, in his <em>Second Advice to a Painter</em>, wrote of Falmouth,</p><blockquote><p>His shatter’d head the fearless Duke distains,<br />And gave the last first proof that he had brains.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Charles II was deeply affected by his death, Louis XIV being informed that the king had ‘wanted to keep [him] by him, but who preferred duty to fortune’. More significantly, for France, Falmouth ‘was the only Englishman in whom we could place our trust’ in the absence of Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, ‘and as it seemed to us, he wished nothing more passionately than to see the king his master in perfect agreement with your majesty’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Pepys wrote that ‘the king, it seems, is much troubled at the fall of my Lord of Falmouth’, adding uncharitably that ‘I do not meet with any man else that so much as wishes him alive again, the world conceiving him a man of too much pleasure to do the king any good or offer any good office to him’. Pepys did admit, however, that Falmouth ‘is confessed to have been a man of great honour, that did show it in his going with the duke, the most that ever any man did’.<sup>23</sup> The king told his sister, ‘I have had as great a loss as ’tis possible in a good friend’; the duchess reciprocated, revealing ‘her sorrow at the death of poor Lord Falmouth, whom I regret as much for the sake of the friendship you felt for him, and which he so justly deserved, as for his goodness to me’.<sup>24</sup> Falmouth had been the chief messenger between them.</p><p>Falmouth may have seen himself as an important player in the politics of the court. In late June 1665 William Lloyd*, the future bishop of Worcester, was told that Sidney Godolphin*, later earl of Godolphin, had said that Falmouth</p><blockquote><p>did resolve to fix for himself a real interest by obliging worthy men and that if you were but willing to take the mere title of his chaplain and no more, he would undertake within a very short space, you should be provided with some good dignity, or any other ecclesiastical preferment you could expect … But since this, you know what is fallen out, by which these thoughts are vanished.<sup>25</sup></p></blockquote><p>Falmouth was given a hero’s funeral and buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey on 22 June. His English peerage became extinct at his death, but his father succeeded to his Irish honours by special remainder. In 1674 his widow married Charles Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst, the future 6th earl of Dorset.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
BERKELEY, Charles (1649-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1649–1710)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1679-98 Visct. Dursley; <em>accel. </em>6 July 1689 Bar. BERKELEY of BERKELEY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 14 Oct. 1698 as 2nd earl of BERKELEY. |
|
First sat 11 July 1689; last sat 28 Mar. 1710 |
|
MP Gloucester 1679 (Oct.), 1681. |
<p><em>b</em>. 8 Apr. 1649, 1st s. of George Berkeley*, later earl of Berkeley and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of John Masingberd (Massingberd) of London. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1662; fell. comm. Trinity Coll., Camb. 1663; travelled abroad 1664-7.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. lic. 16 Aug. 1677, Elizabeth, da. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden, 4s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 3da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). KB 23 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 24 Sept. 1710; <em>will</em> 9 Mar. 1709, pr. 25 Nov. 1710.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 3 May 1694-<em>d</em>.; ld. justice [I], 1699-1700.</p><p>Commr. assessment, Glos. 1673-80, 1689-90; freeman, Gloucester 1679;<sup>3</sup> dep. lt. Glos. 1689-94, <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. 1689-<em>d</em>., Surr. 1699-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Glos. 1694-<em>d</em>.; high steward, Gloucester 1695-<em>d</em>.; col. of militia horse, Glos. by 1697-?<em>d</em>.; constable of St Briavel’s Castle and warden of the Forest of Dean 1697-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. of ft., regt. of Henry Somerset, mq. of Worcester, 1673.</p><p>Envoy to Madrid 1689 (did not go),<sup>4</sup> Hague 1689-94.<sup>5</sup></p><p>FRS 1667; mbr. of cttee. Levant Co. 1678-9, E.I. Co. 1699-1705.</p><p>Gent. of the bedchamber to Prince Cosmo de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany 1675.</p> |
|
<p>Returned to Parliament for Gloucester in the second Exclusion Parliament, unlike his father Charles Berkeley forsook the court for opposition in the 1670s.<sup>6</sup> His apparently unexpected support for the exclusion of the duke of York from the throne earned him the distrust both of his sponsor during the election, Henry Somerset*, marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), and of the corporation of Gloucester. Although Berkeley (from 1679 styled Viscount Dursley following his father’s promotion to the earldom of Berkeley) was re-elected in 1681, they resolved to offer his seat to Thomas Thynne*, later Viscount Weymouth, at the next election, though this was forestalled by Thynne’s promotion to the Lords in 1682.<sup>7</sup> The same year (1682) Berkeley travelled abroad and he did not stand in the ensuing election in 1685.<sup>8</sup> Dursley’s absence may have been connected with a dispute with his father-in-law, Campden, over a legacy bequeathed to him in Lady Campden’s will, which had been left to the arbitration of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and Dursley’s father.<sup>9</sup> He had returned to England by 1688 when, in contrast to his father who was prominent in the debates at the time of the Revolution in insisting on fair treatment for James II, Dursley supported William of Orange, for which he was amply rewarded the following year. On 7 May a warrant was granted for his allowance as envoy extraordinary to Madrid (though in the event he appears not to have taken up the post), and in July he was made <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Gloucestershire.<sup>10</sup> The same month he was summoned to the Lords in his father’s barony of Berkeley of Berkeley (though outside the House he continued to be styled by his courtesy title of Dursley).<sup>11</sup></p><h2><em>Ambassador, 1689-94</em></h2><p>Dursley took his seat in the Lords on 11 July 1689, introduced between John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston. In spite of his father’s long campaign to achieve precedency over De la Warr, Dursley was placed immediately below him on the barons’ bench, apparently without question. He was less quiescent in other matters and lost no time in registering his first protest, objecting to the amendments to the bill for reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates on 12 July. Thereafter he sat for much of the remainder of July and August (approximately 15 per cent of all sitting days in the session). On 18 July Dursley was added to the committee for privileges and he proceeded to be named to a further six select committees in the course of the session. His activities in the House were curtailed by his appointment as envoy extraordinary to the States General in September, a role that was later expanded to encompass duties as plenipotentiary at the congress at The Hague.<sup>12</sup> On 13 Sept. he registered his proxy with Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, who by virtue of his former marriages to the countess of Falmouth and Lady Mary Compton was related to Dursley twice over.</p><p>Dursley arrived at his new posting on 3 Oct. 1689, but by 21 Oct. he was complaining in despatches penned for him by his secretary, William Aglionby, that he was ‘so very ill’ that he was unable to write: an indisposition that incapacitated him for the greater part of the month.<sup>13</sup> Dursley appears to have suffered from chronic poor health (gout seems to have run in the family), but by December matters had improved and he was able to assure Charles Talbot*, 12th earl, later duke of Shrewsbury, that ‘I am extremely well used for my master’s sake and much kindness shown to me from every body, which together with the perfect recovery of my health makes my stay here much more to my satisfaction that it was at first.’<sup>14</sup> One matter that remained unresolved was the nomination of a plenipotentiary for the forthcoming congress. In February 1690 Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, advised the king that he believed Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, was unfavourable to Dursley’s appointment.<sup>15</sup> Dursley himself warmly recommended his friend Dorset as a suitable candidate.<sup>16</sup> Despite these doubts, Dursley was appointed and if Nottingham (who later described himself as being ‘an old friend’ of Dursley’s) was unfavourable, he evidently disguised his attitude effectively.<sup>17</sup> Writing to him during the elections of 1690 Dursley offered to lend his interest in Gloucestershire to ‘anybody that your lordship [Nottingham] has any inclination for,’ declaring himself to be:</p><blockquote><p>heartily glad to hear from all hands that there is so kind a correspondency betwixt his majesty and the Church of England, I hope such members will be chosen as are true sons of that Church for the ensuing Parliament, the happy union which that will cause at home, will have a very good influence on our affairs abroad. <sup>18</sup></p></blockquote><p>It was presumably on Nottingham’s recommendation that Dursley undertook to use his interest on behalf of James Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, brother of Dursley’s old rival Weymouth, as he wrote enthusiastically on 25 Feb. assuring Nottingham that the family’s steward, ‘an honest Church of England man … will heartily bestir himself for so worthy a person as Mr Thynne.’<sup>19</sup> Despite this, and the additional support of Dursley’s father Berkeley and of Beaufort, Thynne failed to gain the seat. He complained that in spite of their promises, ‘Lord Berkeley’s and Lord Dursley’s friends and tenants were all against me.’<sup>20</sup></p><p>Financial concerns were a constant refrain in Dursley’s correspondence. He found his foreign posting an increasingly costly one, and on 18 Mar. 1690 in anticipation of the congress at The Hague, he appealed to Nottingham for additional funds:</p><blockquote><p>I have nothing to give your lordship an account of, but shall again recommend my additional allowance upon my new character, if I live like others of the same degree there will be a considerable increase of my expenses in every thing, as liveries, furniture, table, gentlemen servants, I refer it wholly to your lordship’s representation to the king and shall be contented with whatever the king and your lordship shall determine, not desiring to pocket up any thing, if I may have the liberty of naming any sum £300 present money will be absolutely necessary, and truly my lord considering the increase of my family £3 a day more during the time of the congress and no longer, I suppose your lordship will not think too much.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>The funds were duly awarded and Dursley’s continuation in post at The Hague meant that he was absent from the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690. On 31 Mar. he was excused at a call of the House, and he was probably absent for the entirety of the first session (the Baron Berkeley noted as attending for ten days in May was almost certainly John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton). News of the poor conduct of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, in the naval action fought with the Dutch against the French off Beachy Head in June provoked an angry mob to besiege Dursley’s residence in The Hague the following month.<sup>22</sup> William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> was despatched as ambassador to the United Provinces to quell Dutch unease, but before his arrival it was left to Dursley ‘to represent so ill a thing’ in the best possible light.<sup>23</sup> Dursley annoyed Nottingham when he had one of Nottingham’s letters condemning Torrington’s actions translated into Dutch and printed.<sup>24</sup> Equilibrium at the embassy was further unbalanced when William Aglionby retired on grounds of ill health in September 1690. The same month Dursley also sought permission to return to England to attend to his estate.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Dursley may have been present in the House for one day (7 Oct.) of the subsequent session, which commenced on 2 Oct. (but again the Baron Berkeley recorded on the attendance list was probably Berkeley of Stratton). Dursley was then absent from the House for the following 12 months. An intention to register his proxy his favour of Dorset appears to have miscarried as no proxy was recorded, despite Dursley’s evident determination that Dorset should have his voice:</p><blockquote><p>If your lordship does not send me the form of a proxy to sign, I doubt Mr Smith and I have not law enough to form one here that will be valid, but if it be once sent me it will be good as long as this parliament lasts. When your lordship has possession of my voice I shall sleep with a quiet conscience being certain that it will be made use of for the good of the king and kingdom.<sup>26</sup></p></blockquote><p>Concerned at finding a suitable replacement for Aglionby, Dursley complained how he was ‘afraid of recommendations at a distance, for commonly people do not mind how fit a man is for his place provided he be their friend.’<sup>27</sup> He then proceeded to acquiesce in the appointment of Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> merely on Dorset’s recommendation.<sup>28</sup> Dursley’s initial reaction to his new secretary was unenthusiastic. Writing to Sir William Colt, his counterpart at Hanover, on 16 Nov. 1690 Dursley described Prior as ‘an ingenious young man’ but warned Colt that:</p><blockquote><p>you must not expect such letters as Mr Aglionby used to write for this young man is wholly unacquainted with the business he is in, I hope he will learn, but in the meantime I have double trouble, which cannot be helped, and I hope my friends will have patience as well as myself.<sup>29</sup></p></blockquote><p>Two days later Dursley was once again unwell, ‘in bed having taken physic’, writing to Colt with Prior as amanuensis.<sup>30</sup> Dursley’s poor health continued into the new year.</p><p>In December 1690 he found himself embroiled in a family drama as a result of concerns that his godson, Sir Berkeley Lucy, was on the point of converting to catholicism.<sup>31</sup> Meanwhile financial concerns added to his disquiet at remaining at The Hague. Writing to Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney), on 6 Jan. 1691, Dursley complained that:</p><blockquote><p>the truth is I am in a very honourable post but without health, pleasure or profit, though I must needs say the king has been very kind to me in an extraordinary allowance, and I am better paid than these things have been formerly … and yet not altogether so well neither as is necessary for a man who has a father alive.<sup>32</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite such concerns, Dursley remained at The Hague without interruption until the following October, when he was again granted leave of absence.<sup>33</sup> He took his seat in the House at the opening of the third session of the 1690 Parliament on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days and was named to eight committees. On 2 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers in a division held in committee of the whole House debating the clandestine marriages bill on the motion that the ages 16 and 18 should be retained in one of the clauses. The motion was rejected by five votes. On 20 Jan. 1692 he acted as a teller on the question of whether to agree to the Commons’ amendment to the trials for treason bill. Despite earlier speculation that he was to relinquish his post, the same month he was once more preparing for departure to Holland.<sup>34</sup> On 19 Feb. he received his father’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session on 24 Feb. and on 22 Feb. he again acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to adjourn into a committee of the whole during consideration of the judges’ commissions and salaries bill. The same day he told on the question of whether to adjourn to the following day.</p><p>Dursley had returned to The Hague by August 1692.<sup>35</sup> He seems still to have been there in mid October but his stay proved to be of shorter duration than previously, and he returned to the House for the opening of the fourth session of the 1690 Parliament on 4 November.<sup>36</sup> Present for 80 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to all three sessional committees and a further three committees during the course of the session, including that considering the bill for preserving fishery in the river Severn, in which he may have had local interest. On 31 Dec. he voted against committing the place bill and on 1 Jan. 1693 he was estimated to be opposed to passing the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 3 Jan. Dursley acted as a teller for a series of divisions in a committee of the whole concerning proposed amendments to the place bill. He then acted as teller again on the question of whether to pass the bill, which he also opposed. Dursley continued to be prominent in the House during the remainder of the session. On 25 Jan. he acted as teller for the not contents on the question of whether to commit the disaffected persons bill, and on 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>Dursley returned to his posting once more after the conclusion of the session on 14 Mar. 1693. By August he appears at last to have earned Nottingham’s approbation. Nottingham wrote praising his latest despatch, which he concluded ‘was so very good that I have read your letter more than once with great satisfaction.’<sup>37</sup> The same month Dursley’s uncertain health intervened to interrupt his mission again and in October he was once more granted leave of absence.<sup>38</sup> Renewed speculation that he was to be replaced was rife in November, when it was also rumoured that he was to be made secretary of state, but the latter failed to transpire and it was not until June 1694 that Dursley formally relinquished his post as envoy.<sup>39</sup></p><h2><em>Gloucestershire and the House of Lords, 1694-98</em></h2><p>Dursley’s health improved back in England, such that he was able to attend the House for the prorogation day on 3 Oct. 1693. He was present once again at the opening of the fifth session of the 1690 Parliament on 7 Nov, after which he attended approximately 69 per cent of all sitting days. On 10 Jan. 1694 he subscribed the protest at the resolution that the admirals had done well in executing their orders in the last campaign, and on 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the case between Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and John Granville*, earl of Bath. In April he was prominent in the debates about the tonnage bill, speaking with John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby) and Carmarthen (as Danby had since become) in favour of retaining the bank scheme as part of the bill rather than reopen a dispute with the Commons over the Lords’ right to amend supply measures.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Dursley was appointed lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire in May 1694.<sup>41</sup> The same month he was replaced at The Hague by Anthony Carey<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Viscount Falkland [S], whose death almost immediately after his appointment left the post vacant for the ensuing year.<sup>42</sup> Present in the House for the prorogation day on 18 Sept., Dursley took his seat at the opening of the sixth session on 12 Nov. but he was not named to the committee for privileges. The reason for the omission is unclear. On 26 Nov. his name was omitted from the attendance list, but as he was not one of those marked absent at a call of the House it seems likely that he took his seat at some point later during the day, after which he was absent until 20 December. Marked present for less than half of all sitting days, he was named to nine committees in the session. The dissolution in May 1695 finally offered Dursley an opportunity to exert his influence as lord lieutenant in Gloucestershire, which he did with mixed results. In advance of the elections in October he was honoured at Gloucester, where he was appointed high steward for life, but two Tories were returned for the city at the election.<sup>43</sup> At Tewkesbury, Dursley intervened successfully in opposing Sir Francis Winnington<sup>‡</sup>, who had sought to be named as recorder in the town’s new charter.<sup>44</sup> The subsequent election was predictably ill-tempered, but the result was a compromise with Dursley’s candidate, Richard Dowdeswell<sup>‡</sup>, being returned along with the slighted Winnington.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Dursley took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695. He was present on almost 72 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to ten committees. In June 1696 he was one of those recommended to the king as a lord justice of Ireland but no further progress was made in this business at that time.<sup>46</sup> Dursley took his seat in the second session on 20 Oct., and attended on approximately 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Dec. he found in favour of passing the bill for attainting Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>47</sup> Dursley registered his proxy with Normanby on 15 Feb. 1697, which was vacated by his return to the House on 25 February. On 10 Apr. he was appointed one of the managers of the conference for the bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices. That month it was again rumoured that he was to be appointed one of the lords justices of Ireland but this once more proved to be premature.<sup>48</sup> The following month he was given additional responsibilities in his locality with his appointment as constable of St Briavel’s castle and keeper of the Forest of Dean but the appointment was delayed while the lords justices considered a claim made by Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, for the office.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Following the prorogation on 16 Apr., Dursley was present on each of the six prorogation days throughout the summer and autumn. He then took his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 December. That day, with Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, he introduced John Somers*, Baron Somers. He was present for 72 per cent of all sitting days and named to 39 committees. On 13 Jan. 1698 he may have been one of those appointed managers of the conference concerning the Lords’ amendment to the bill for continuing the imprisonment of those involved in the assassination plot (though again it is possible that the Lord Berkeley mentioned in the Journal refers to Berkeley of Stratton), and on 21 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole House considering the bill to explain the malt act. That month Dursley was one of a number of people to put themselves forward for the post of ambassador to Constantinople, which had been left vacant by the death of Sir James Rushout<sup>‡</sup>, who was to have succeeded William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget.<sup>50</sup> Dursley swiftly gained the king’s approbation, though it was reported that the Levant Company preferred James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, in spite of the fact that Dursley’s father had served as governor of the company for more than 20 years.<sup>51</sup> In the event Dursley proved ‘very acceptable’ to the Company and the following month it was reported that he was preparing his equipage.<sup>52</sup> Still active in the House, on 15 Mar. Dursley voted in favour of punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he probably entered his dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the case between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], but the presence in the House that day of both Dursley and his father, Berkeley, make definite identification difficult. On 17 Mar. he registered a further dissent against a second resolution in Bertie’s favour, and on 6 May he reported from the committee for the Gloucester highways bill. Dursley may have presented a petition to the Lords from the East India Company on 28 June, following the first reading of the two million fund bill (though this may have been done by his father shortly before he retired from the House), and on 1 July, in support of the ‘old’ company, he entered his protest at the resolution to establish the fund and settle the East India trade.<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>Earl of Berkeley and Ireland 1698-1701</em></h2><p>Dursley’s son, Charles Berkeley, was one of three pages appointed to the household of Princess Anne’s son, William, duke of Gloucester, in September 1698. Dursley took his seat a month into the new Parliament on 27 Sept. but was then absent until 6 December. His absence may have been on account of business resulting from his succession to the earldom in October.<sup>54</sup> Prior noted his satisfaction that, ‘old Methusalem is sleeping with his fathers, and that our Dauphin Dursley reigns in his stead,’ but the death of the old earl raised doubts about the likelihood of Berkeley (as he was now known) taking up his embassy at Constantinople.<sup>55</sup> Taking his seat in the House as 2nd earl of Berkeley on 6 Dec., Berkeley was thereafter present for approximately 70 per cent of all sitting days in the session during which he was named to 13 committees. On 19 Jan. 1699 when the disbanding bill was brought up from the Commons, Berkeley proposed the next reading should be put off for a fortnight, ‘which’, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> concluded, ‘was a strange motion.’<sup>56</sup> It is not clear why Berkeley wanted consideration of the bill delayed but his motion was not heeded and the bill received its first reading on 24 January. Excused from attendance at the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, on 28 Mar. on the grounds of sickness, Berkeley was also absent from Mohun’s hearing the following month. He returned to the House on 17 Apr. and on 29 Apr. he was named one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning amendments to the Richard Legg naturalization bill.</p><p>Confusion over the succession at Constantinople continued until April 1699 when Berkeley finally requested to be excused from taking up the position.<sup>57</sup> In May he was given additional cause to wish to remain at home when his heir, Dursley, died from smallpox.<sup>58</sup> Prior’s response to this personal tragedy was even more eccentric than his reaction to the death of the earl, writing to his former master that, ‘I should condole with you for the loss of my Lord Dursley, but … (to say the truth of things) little Jacklin [James Berkeley*, later 3rd earl of Berkeley] will make a better Lord Dursley than him we have lost.’<sup>59</sup></p><p>Berkeley was soon offered alternative employment to the Constantinople embassy when he was at last appointed one of the lords justices of Ireland at the end of May.<sup>60</sup> The post was a potentially lucrative one commanding an allowance of £6,953 6<em>s</em>. 8<em>d</em>. p.a. (shared between the three justices) as well as £1,000 for equipage.<sup>61</sup> Vernon noted on 3 June how ‘My Lord Berkeley, though a melancholy mourner for his son, kissed the King’s hand on Thursday, for his being in the Irish commission,’ while Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], continuing in his position as one of the lords justices, professed himself ‘pleased with the choice of Lord Berkeley; I admit that the news of another lord justice caused me great apprehensions until I heard his name.’<sup>62</sup> Matthew Prior complimented Berkeley on his appointment and declared that he was ‘infinitely more pleased with your going to Ireland than I was with your intended voyage to Constantinople’.<sup>63</sup> Writing to Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, from his post in Paris, Prior adopted a more patronizing attitude to the appointment and remarked that:</p><blockquote><p>I am glad for my own private interest that my poor Lord Dursley (for I shall call him so till he dies) is got into that government; but, my lord, this is giving the whole power to Crop [Galway], and setting up at Dublin as absolute a monarch as him to whom I paid my adorations yesterday.<sup>64</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his belief that Galway would dominate affairs in Ireland, Prior approached Berkeley in July seeking his support in his long-running dispute with the government over his dual role as secretary to the embassy in Paris and as deputy to the lords justices in Ireland.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s departure for Ireland was delayed while he attended to his private business and the settlement of the Gloucestershire lieutenancy in his absence.<sup>66</sup> Landing at Waterford on 19 Aug. 1699, he almost immediately precipitated a crisis within his own household when he appointed a local civil servant, Arthur Bushe, as his secretary, to the great indignation of Jonathan Swift who had accompanied Berkeley to Ireland (as he thought) in the dual roles of secretary and chaplain.<sup>67</sup> Swift lost no time in penning a series of vituperative attacks on Berkeley. In one he lampooned his master with the lines:</p><blockquote><p>When wise Lord Berkeley first came here,<br />Statesmen and mob expected wonders,<br />Nor thought to find so great a peer<br />Ere a week past committing blunders.<sup>68</sup></p></blockquote><p>In more scatological vein, he exploited Berkeley’s personal hygiene, discoursing how, ‘My lord on fire amidst the dames,/F[ar]ts like a laurel in the flames.’<sup>69</sup> Remarkably, despite these unkind outpourings and Swift’s evident disdain for Berkeley, the disgruntled cleric remained in post as chaplain for the duration of Berkeley’s time in Ireland and the pair were on amicable terms for the rest of Berkeley’s life.<sup>70</sup> After his death it was to Swift that Berkeley’s relatives turned for an epitaph for his tomb.</p><p>Tragedy struck the family once more within a month of their arrival in Ireland with the sudden death of Berkeley’s daughter, Lady Penelope Berkeley, causing a grief-stricken Berkeley and his family to retire to the country to mourn.<sup>71</sup> Berkeley’s health also declined in the wake of his daughter’s death, and although he had recovered by November, he was plagued by mounting financial difficulties, which added to the strains of office.<sup>72</sup> Writing from Dublin Castle on 14 Nov. he complained how:</p><blockquote><p>besides difficulties in public matters, which I fear will every day increase, as things are between England and Ireland, the great business I designed by this employment was to pay my debts; but the expenses are so great and the profits so small that it’s well if I don’t increase them here.<sup>73</sup></p></blockquote><p>Another aspect of the posting that caused Berkeley particular irritation was the absenteeism of one of the three justices, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton. Bolton continued to draw his allowance without suffering any of the costs of the position, but the notoriously prickly duke’s absence had its advantages, as Berkeley confessed in a letter to Prior noting that, ‘between you and I after all I had rather suffer this than have his grace’s company here.’<sup>74</sup></p><p>Absent from the House for the entirety of the second session of the 1698 Parliament, which opened on 16 Nov. 1699, on 13 Feb. 1700 Berkeley wrote to Arthur Moore<sup>‡</sup> from Dublin seeking his support in the Commons over the bill to remove duties from exported woollen goods. That month he invited further attacks from Swift when he recommended Dr. Bolton rather than Swift to the vacant deanery of Londonderry, but Berkeley was in no doubt that he had made the right choice and boasted to the lord chancellor of Ireland, John Methuen<sup>‡</sup>, of the commendations he had received from the bishop of Derry for his role in selecting Bolton.<sup>75</sup> On 28 Mar. the prospect of an alteration in the Irish establishment encouraged Berkeley to revive the divisive issue of Bolton’s continuing absenteeism, suggesting that:</p><blockquote><p>It were much more reasonable if such third person would content himself with his salary and leave the perquisites to those who by residing here are at all the trouble as well as charge of the government. I might say danger too; for if any thing should happen amiss in this ticklish post, ’tis the residing and not the absent governor that must answer for it.<sup>76</sup></p></blockquote><p>The following month, it was Berkeley’s turn to come under attack as he received severe criticism for the state of the militia in Gloucestershire. Defending himself, Berkeley insisted that:</p><blockquote><p>if the militia of Gloucestershire has not been sufficiently taken care of since my being in Ireland, it is the fault of Sir Ralph Dutton<sup>‡</sup> and of the rest of the deputy lieutenants … You know that I was commanded away with all expedition, so that I allowed myself but ten days in Gloucestershire, in which short stay my own affairs were more neglected than the public.<sup>77</sup></p></blockquote><p>Increasing criticism of the third lord justice, Galway, reinforced rumours of an impending alteration in the government of Ireland with Berkeley reluctant to accept a new commission if the absentee Bolton was to be continued in office. On 24 Apr. 1700 he wrote to Jersey requesting that he ‘would be pleased to represent to his majesty as far as it may be consistent with his service … that such alteration one way or another may not be to my prejudice.’<sup>78</sup> In May another ally, Lord Somers, was removed from office, eliciting a sympathetic letter from Berkeley who protested that:</p><blockquote><p>it is a sad thing to live in a time when the greatest abilities and the greatest integrity are unpardonable faults, of which as a brother peer I must find you highly guilty upon my honour.<sup>79</sup></p></blockquote><p>The following month, Berkeley sought the advice of the lord president, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, over continuing problems concerning his Gloucestershire lieutenancy. Having received a list of those deputy lieutenants and justices of the peace put out for failing to take the Association, Berkeley questioned whether it was intended that these were to be restored to their offices and warned of the consequences if they were:</p><blockquote><p>I cannot but think that if these men be restored to their commissions, not only every individual member of parliament will be chosen of their party and principles for the future; but it will have an influence too in all trials wherever the king is concerned.<sup>80</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although he was marked among the Whig lords in a list of the following month (possibly as one of those expected to support the Junto), in December Berkeley took the opportunity both to congratulate and seek the interest of the new Tory lord lieutenant of Ireland, Lawrence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, in representing to the king his continuing financial woes:</p><blockquote><p>I cannot but extremely rejoice in the happiness this country is like to have in so wise and just a Governor as your lordship. This upon my word my lord is no compliment, but a truth that I have owned to every body since the first report of your coming hither … I shall with great pleasure and satisfaction resign the sword into your lordship’s hands not in the least doubting but that in the mean time you will be so kind to take an opportunity to represent to the king that the shortness of my stay here has made this post rather a prejudice than an advantage to me, and to move his majesty, if he approves of my services, to fix me in some suitable employment at home.<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>Berkeley was indisposed with gout again in January 1701, while he and Galway awaited instructions for handing over the government of Ireland to the new administration.<sup>82</sup> Berkeley was still waiting to ‘get rid of my share’ two months later. To add to his woes, a bill for stripping officials of unwarranted gifts threatened to deprive him of the perks he had been awarded in the Forest of Dean. On 6 Mar. 1701 he wrote to Arthur Moore asking that he would employ his interest on his behalf in the matter. Berkeley hoped that there were ‘very few members of the House so prejudiced against me as to think that I have not deserved the small and only recompense I have had for my services’ and that in spite of Moore’s failure to be elected at the recent election, he retained sufficient interest to ensure that Berkeley would be excepted out of the bill’s provisions:</p><blockquote><p>I am quite ruined if the small recompense that I had for my services must be taken away by act of Parliament, not but that I am willing to submit to that too for the good of my country, if all people were obliged to pay the same proportion out of their estates, according to what they possess. Certainly the gift that I have of £6,000 out of the weeds of the Forest of Dean is as much my property as any part of my estate, and honestly acquired as any thing any man has, by industry and labour made him master of. … If they judge others may have had gifts without any desert, it is very hard the innocent should be punished with the guilty.<sup>83</sup></p></blockquote><p>Berkeley and Galway finally received instructions for the handover of the administration at the end of March, and on 5 Apr. they announced their intention of quitting Ireland at ‘the first opportunity.’<sup>84</sup> Having missed the first two months of the new Parliament, Berkeley resumed his seat on 24 Apr. after which he was present for approximately 35 per cent of all sitting days. On 26 May he reported from the committee for Lady Bulkeley’s bill and on 17 June he voted in favour of acquitting his old ally Somers of the articles of impeachment against him. He voted similarly to acquit Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, on 23 June.</p><h2><em>The reign of Queen Anne</em></h2><p>Berkeley presented the Gloucester address at Whitehall in his capacity as high steward of the city on 21 October.<sup>85</sup> His interest there was also evident in the second general election of the year that saw his heir, James, now styled Viscount Dursley, returned as one of the city’s Members.<sup>86</sup> Berkeley took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701, after which he attended on 64 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1702 it was rumoured that he was to return to Ireland as a lord justice but nothing came of it.<sup>87</sup> Following the death of King William, Berkeley was confirmed in office as lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire and constable of St Briavels, and on 28 Apr. 1702 he presented a second county address to the queen, the first (presented by John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup>) having been rejected for its criticism of the late king.<sup>88</sup> It was probably at this time that Berkeley was compelled to defend his actions as head of the militia and in a letter to Arthur Moore he denied strenuously the allegation that he had purposely removed officers to damage Howe’s chances in the forthcoming election:</p><blockquote><p>I am entirely of your opinion especially (considering the great station Mr Howe has at court) that it would be very absurd to turn anybody out of commission for giving him their voice and I desire any hot headed informer to prove that I have ever done it, even before this government in the late reign, because it is against my principle. I would have no man be the worst for giving his vote according to his conscience.<sup>89</sup></p></blockquote><p>The elections of that summer saw Berkeley active on behalf of Maynard Colchester<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Guise<sup>‡</sup>. In spite of his expostulations, he was the subject of bitter complaints made by Howe to Nottingham in July who claimed that ‘my Lord Berkeley is rather more zealous and violent against me this than last election.’<sup>90</sup> Despite Berkeley’s efforts Howe was returned with Colchester.</p><p>Berkeley was absent from the opening of the new Parliament. He took his seat on 13 Nov. after which he was present for almost 55 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He was estimated by Nottingham to be an opponent of the occasional conformity bill on 1 Jan. 1703 and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Berkeley probably resumed his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 9 Nov. (he was omitted from the attendance list but was named to the sessional committees so presumably took his seat after it was taken) after which he was present for approximately 48 per cent of all sitting days. Estimated by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, to be opposed to the occasional conformity bill in two November forecasts, on 14 Dec. Berkeley again voted against the bill. On 5 Jan. 1704 Berkeley dined with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), and several members of his family, and on 14 Jan. he accompanied Ossulston to the House during the debates over the case of the Aylesbury men.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Berkeley took his seat one day after the opening of the third session on 25 Oct. 1704, after which he attended 67 per cent of all sitting days. In March 1705 his heir, Dursley, was summoned to the House as Berkeley of Berkeley. Writing to Moore with the news on 1 Mar., Berkeley requested that he might use his interest to ‘quicken the warrant’, noting that the lord keeper had ordered Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> to draw it up though Berkeley himself ‘should rather have chosen Harley’ (Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford).<sup>92</sup> James Berkeley was duly summoned to the House four days later. The following month Berkeley was, unsurprisingly, noted as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.</p><p>In October 1705 Berkeley was absent at the opening of the new Parliament and on 12 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. He took his seat on 14 Jan. 1706, after which he attended for approximately 26 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Feb. he reported from the committee for John Sands’ bill and the following day from that considering Guy’s bill. He returned to the House for the following session on 30 Dec., of which he attended 42 per cent of all sitting days. He was then present for four of the nine days of the brief third session, which was prorogued on 24 Apr. 1707.</p><p>After several years of retirement from major office, Berkeley appears to have begun once more to agitate for a foreign posting. In September 1707 he wrote to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, informing him of his desire to return to his former posting at The Hague, flattering himself ‘that my long experience may make me useful in that country.’<sup>93</sup> His offer was not taken up and Berkeley took his seat at the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct., after which he attended 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 7 Feb. 1708 he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill for completing the Union, and on 11 Mar. he reported from the committee for privileges recommending acceptance of the claim of William Ferdinand Carey*, a distant relation of Robert Carey* 7th Baron Hunsdon, to be admitted to the House as Baron Hunsdon. Berkeley renewed his petition to be employed in April.<sup>94</sup> Marlborough referred him to the lord treasurer (Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin) on whom, Marlborough assured him, he could depend for ‘a favourable answer’. At one point it was rumoured that Berkeley was to return to The Hague as he desired.<sup>95</sup> The following month it was rumoured that he would replace Sir Philip Meadowes<sup>‡</sup> who was to be recalled from Vienna, though Berkeley reputedly made this more difficult by demanding an allowance of £10 a day.<sup>96</sup> Berkeley was again noted as a Whig in a list of party classifications in May. He reported from the committee considering the Bath highways bill on 28 June and, soon after, in August, it was confidently reported that Swift was to travel to Vienna as the queen’s secretary and to be followed by Berkeley in the spring.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Having spent the previous few months petitioning for a place, Berkeley appears to have changed his mind about pursuing office by the beginning of 1709, perhaps on account of renewed ill health.<sup>98</sup> His countess’s efforts to secure a cornet’s commission for one of his sons had also proved unsuccessful, the queen rejecting the petition as being ‘very inconsistent with a man of business, which is what this young man’s father designs to breed him to.’<sup>99</sup> Disappointed in his ambitions for himself and his family, Berkeley returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he attended approximately 40 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scottish peers with British titles to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. Resuming his seat in the second session on 16 Dec. 1709, he sat for 22 days before attending for the final time on 28 Mar. 1710. That month, to the surprise of a number of commentators, he was mistakenly reported to have been one of nine peers to support Henry Sacheverell.<sup>100</sup> In reality, as expected, he found the doctor guilty.<sup>101</sup></p><p>In June 1710 it was widely reported that Berkeley was to be replaced as lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire by his local rival, Beaufort.<sup>102</sup> The same month Berkeley was said to be dangerously ill.<sup>103</sup> In July, ‘old and infirm’ he appealed to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, for his interest in enabling him to resign his lieutenancy to his heir, pointing out that but for one exception, ‘none of the family of Beaufort ever was lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire’.<sup>104</sup> He was disappointed in his request. His appeals for Swift to come to him at Berkeley were also rebuffed and on 24 Sept. he died from an attack of dropsy.<sup>105</sup> In his will Berkeley bequeathed an annuity of £100 to his heir, Dursley, annuities amounting to £220 4<em>s</em>. 8<em>d</em>. to his younger son, Lord Henry Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, and annuities totalling £154 to his third son, Lord George Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>. He was buried in the church at Berkeley, where a memorial was later added with a fulsome Latin epitaph composed by Swift; Swift wrote though in his copy of Macky’s <em>Memoirs</em> that he was ‘intolerably lazy and indolent and somewhat covetous’.<sup>106</sup> Berkeley was succeeded in the peerage by his son, Admiral Lord Dursley, as 3rd earl of Berkeley.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BERKELEY, Charles (1662-82) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1662–82)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 28 Aug. 1678 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. BERKELEY of Stratton. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 June 1662, 1st. s. of John Berkeley*, Bar. Berkeley of Stratton, and Christiana (1639-98), da. of Sir Andrew Riccard of St. Olave’s, Hart St., London; bro. of John Berkeley*, 3rd Bar. Berkeley of Stratton, and of William Berkeley*, 4th Bar. Berkeley of Stratton. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 6 Mar. 1682;<sup>1</sup> <em>admon</em>. 11 Apr. 1684 to his mother.</p> |
<p>Vol. RN, 1678, lt. bef. 1681, capt. 1681-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Charles Berkeley’s father, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, looked to his young sons to further his ambitions. He had already acquired some notoriety in the 1660s for building Berkeley House, a splendid and extravagant townhouse on the north side of the developing region of Piccadilly, as well as for purchasing Twickenham Park in that royal manor in Middlesex.<sup>4</sup> His eldest son and heir Charles temporarily played a role in his father’s further plans. In 1672 Berkeley entered into an agreement whereby, in exchange for a payment of £5,000, Mary Davies, the young heiress of the Ebury estate abutting onto Berkeley’s land in the west of the capital, was to marry Charles as soon as she reached her 12th birthday in 1677. The deal ultimately fell through as Berkeley was unable to settle the £3,000 of land on Mary stipulated in the agreement; she later went on to marry Sir Thomas Grosvenor<sup>‡</sup>, and her inheritance became known as the Grosvenor Estate, or Mayfair.<sup>5</sup></p><p>On his father’s death in August 1678, Charles was still underage but ‘taking an especial delight in the art of navigation, and for his better improvement therein’ was already serving as a volunteer by royal order in the navy.<sup>6</sup> By the time of his premature death from smallpox on 6 Mar. 1682 the 2nd Baron Berkeley of Stratton had still not reached his majority but had been captain of the man-of-war <em>The Tiger</em> since July 1681 and was then cruising in the Mediterranean.<sup>7</sup> His body lay in state at his mansion of Berkeley House and was conveyed for burial to the parish church of his father’s other principal estate at Twickenham, ‘two troops of his Majesty’s horse marching in front of the proceedings through Westminster to Knightsbridge’.<sup>8</sup> He died unmarried and intestate, and his estate was put under the administration of his mother while the title passed to his younger brother John, who was also starting his own career at sea.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BERKELEY, George (c. 1627-98) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (c. 1627–98)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Aug. 1658 as 9th Bar. BERKELEY of BERKELEY; <em>cr. </em>11 Sept. 1679 earl of BERKELEY |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 30 June 1698 |
|
MP Gloucestershire 1654, 1656 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1627, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of George Berkeley<sup>†</sup>, 8th Bar. Berkeley and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudbury, Suff. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1640. <em>m</em>. 11 Aug. 1646, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1708), da. and coh. of John Masingberd (Massingberd) of London, merchant, 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 6da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). KB 1661.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 14 Oct. 1698; <em>will</em> 20 Sept., pr. 19 Dec. 1698.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1678-9, 1685-9.</p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Glos. 1660-89, Surr. 1675-89, 1689-<em>d</em>.; kpr. Nonsuch palace 1660-?<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> freeman, Gloucester 1674.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Mbr. cttee. E.I. Co. 1660-<em>d</em>.; FRS 1663; mbr. Royal African Co. 1663-88, asst. 1674-6, 1679-81, 1684-6; gov. Levant Co. 1673-96; mbr. Soc. of Merchant Adventurers 1674;<sup>5</sup> elder bro. Trinity House 1680-<em>d</em>., master 1680-1;<sup>6</sup> stockholder, Hudson’s Bay Co. 1680-5; asst. Skinners’ Co. 1685-?<em>d</em>.; gov. Charterhouse 1687-?<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by David Loggan, NPG D21578.</p> |
<h2><em>A poor inheritance</em></h2><p>One of the oldest noble families in the country, the Berkeleys claimed descent from both Saxon and Danish notables.<sup>11</sup> As holders of Berkeley castle they possessed one of the most ancient family seats also, though tenure of the castle had not been uninterrupted and Berkeley’s father, the 8th Baron, (known as ‘George the traveller’) had been brought up away from his Gloucestershire estates leaving them to be managed by his agent, John Smyth of Nibley.<sup>12</sup> During this period the Berkeleys acquired significant additional lands in Surrey and Middlesex, and it was not until after the Restoration that the 9th Baron returned his family to their Gloucestershire seat. Despite their illustrious family tree, the Berkeleys’ wealth had been dissipated over the years and Berkeley spent much of his life attempting to rebuild the fortune squandered by his forebears. His impecuniousness was presumably the cause of his own relatively humble marriage to the daughter of a prosperous London merchant. He was unusually active in commercial ventures, a regular attendant of the court of directors of the East India Company, highly influential in the Turkey Company and closely involved with several other trading companies. Such mercantile activities did not, however, prevent him from taking great pride in his status as one of England’s premier barons.</p><p>As a descendant of Mary Carey, sister of Queen Anne Boleyn, Berkeley possessed a claim to the Irish earldom of Ormond held by their father, Sir Thomas Boleyn<sup>†</sup>, earl of Wiltshire and Ormond [I]. He was also a kinsman of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, of William Feilding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh, and of the Howard dukes of Norfolk. To add to this pre-eminence, members of two cadet branches of the family were ennobled in the period (Sir John Berkeley*, as Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and Sir Charles Berkeley*, as earl of Falmouth).<sup>13</sup> Although Falmouth’s peerage died with him in 1665, by the 1690s, when Berkeley’s son, Charles Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), was summoned to the House by a writ of acceleration, three Berkeleys were present in the Lords: George, earl of Berkeley, John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and Dursley sitting as Baron Berkeley of Berkeley. This proliferation of Berkeleys makes definite identification on occasion extremely problematical.</p><h2><em>Restoration, 1660-70</em></h2><p>Although Berkeley had sat in Parliament for Gloucestershire in 1654 and 1656, by the time of the Restoration he was active in the king’s interest. He visited James*, duke of York, at Brussels and such activities may have given rise to a later claim that he was to have been promoted in the peerage as earl of Segrave prior to the king’s return.<sup>14</sup> In March 1660 Berkeley was noted as being present at a meeting at Warwick House along with other notables active in planning the king’s return, among them his kinsman, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, Sir Dudley North<sup>‡</sup> and ‘Lord Fiennes’ (possibly Nathaniel Fiennes<sup>‡</sup> who had accepted a peerage in Cromwell’s ‘Other House’).<sup>15</sup> He later wrote jubilantly of 29 May, the official date of the king’s resumption of his throne:</p><blockquote><p>This day is an holiday, a day of congratulation upon a double account; first, of the king’s birth, secondly, of his restoration. The first was great cause of rejoicing. … The second was the greatest, that his majesty, after so much unjust suffering and banishment by his father’s murderers and his rebellious subjects, should by the miraculous providence of God Almighty be restored to his own dominions by the unanimous consent of all his subjects.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his powerful interest in the county, Berkeley’s plans for the elections for Gloucestershire in the spring of 1660 do not appear to have proceeded as expected. Putting aside the traditional rivalry of the Berkeley and Somerset families, Berkeley announced his intention of appearing in support of his neighbour Henry Somerset*, styled Lord Herbert (later duke of Beaufort), and Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup> for the county, proclaiming that, ‘he must want modesty and policy that opposes either’. He refused to countenance a rumour that another candidate called Overbury (possibly Sir Thomas Overbury), had secured the backing of his agent, Smyth, but although Overbury appears not to have stood, in the event Herbert was still beaten into third place.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Berkeley responded promptly to his summons and took his seat in the House (with a <em>salvo</em> <em>jure</em>) on 27 Apr. 1660. The same day he was named to the committee for privileges and to the committee for settling the nation. He thereafter attended approximately 39 per cent of sitting days in the first session. Named to the committee appointed to draw up a reply to the king’s letter on 1 May, two days later he was one of the peers nominated to convey Parliament’s reply to the king at The Hague. He was also noted as being ‘very active for the king in the House and the first that moved for a present supply to be sent him’. The same day (3 May) ‘by the advice of very many of his friends in the House’ he introduced a petition concerning his precedency, which he disputed in the first instance with Charles West*, 5th Baron De la Warr.<sup>18</sup> At the heart of the case was Berkeley’s contention that as the holder of a barony by tenure antedating that of De la Warr he should be granted precedence over him, but the matter was complicated by the fact that De la Warr’s ancestors had been summoned to Parliament as barons before Berkeley’s.<sup>19</sup> The problem was referred to the committee for privileges to be examined ‘when the House is a little more at leisure.’<sup>20</sup> On 9 May Berkeley was named to the committee for settling the militia after which he was then absent until the end of the month while abroad with the commissioners. On his return, with his kinsman Oxford, Berkeley was appointed by the House on 29 May to wait on the king to determine a time for Parliament to attend him. On 26 June the committee for privileges concluded its first report on Berkeley’s claim for precedence over De la Warr recommending that counsel for both lords’ should be heard at the bar.<sup>21</sup> Despite this, the case was put off for a further fortnight on 24 July, and although it was ordered on 8 Aug. that the case should be heard on the Tuesday immediately before the next session, this does not appear to have happened. Berkeley was warmly supported in what was apparently a separate cause in which he was involved in August. The duke of York, with whom he was to be closely associated in a number of commercial ventures, wrote on his behalf to Sir Andrew Riccard, governor of the Levant company, recommending Berkeley to Riccard’s ‘friendship and to your particular kindness assuring you that he is the first person of my family in my esteem so I shall make it my principal care to assist him with all such improvements of honour and advantage as shall render him yet more considerable.’<sup>22</sup></p><p>Berkeley took his seat at the opening of the second session on 6 Nov. 1660 (having undertaken to do so ‘God willing’ so that he would be able to wait on Manchester to discuss arrangements for the burial of Manchester’s aunt at Cranford).<sup>23</sup> On 10 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the claim of another kinsman, Thomas Howard*, earl of Arundel (later 5th duke of Norfolk), to be restored to the dukedom of Norfolk. On 1 Dec. the House once more ordered that the dispute between Berkeley and De la Warr should be heard, but on 7 Dec. it was put off again. The case continued without resolution for the ensuing 12 years. Berkeley’s name was omitted from the attendance list on 27 Dec. but the same day he was named to the committee for the Paston vicarage and rectory bill, so he had presumably taken his seat after the roll had been taken.</p><p>The elections for the Cavalier Parliament found Berkeley eager to exercise his influence in Gloucestershire once more. On 18 Mar. 1661 he wrote to his agent, John Smyth, communicating his intention of engaging his interest ‘as far as I may’ for his cousin, Sir Baynham Throckmorton<sup>‡</sup>. Poor health prevented him from attending the assizes or the county’s gentry meeting in person, but he excused himself claiming that he was not</p><blockquote><p>convinced I can do the country much service by being at the assizes especially considering I have been solicited by Mr Howe [John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup>], as well as by Sir Thomas Stephens [of Sodbury, a connection of the Stephens of Lypiatt], and Sir Baynham Throckmorton. It is impossible to assist all three and therefore not being willing to disoblige any interest I shall only declare for Sir Baynham Throckmorton.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>Throckmorton appears to have been eager to enter the contest in association with Lord Herbert and in opposition to Howe but in the event he did his partner a disservice, as it was Throckmorton and Howe that were returned leaving Herbert in third place once again.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Berkeley took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May and three days later was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. Present for more than 60 per cent of all sitting days during the first session, on 13 May he was named to the committee appointed to prepare an address to the king concerning his intention to marry, and he was thereafter named to a further 17 committees during the course of the session. An attempt to circumvent the House and appeal to the king directly over the question of his precedency merely resulted in Berkeley’s petition being referred back to the Lords on 17 May. On 30 May counsel was heard in the dispute, which was ordered to be considered further on 7 June, when the disputants agreed to persevere with the debate among themselves while the Lords appointed another day to continue their deliberations. The following week (14 June) the House was informed that although Berkeley had been willing to meet with De la Warr, the latter had refused to do so, at which the Lords ordered that if De la Warr’s counsel had not met with Berkeley’s by 20 June the House would proceed to a hearing at the bar ‘and make such end as their lordships seem meet.’</p><p>Berkeley opposed his cousin, Oxford, over the great chamberlaincy in July, presumably preferring the claim of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey (father of Berkeley’s brother-in-law, Robert Bertie*, styled Lord Willoughby de Eresby, later 3rd earl of Lindsey). In October he was involved in another dispute, this time with Robert Whitehall over appointments to the living at Cranford.<sup>26</sup> Berkeley was present at a session of the committee considering the bill for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament on 24 Jan. 1662.<sup>27</sup> The following month he appears to have been numbered among the opposition to the bill for restoring property to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, though he did not sign the resulting protest.<sup>28</sup> On 15 Apr. he reported from the committee for the butter bill, which was passed without amendment, and three days later he also reported from the committee for the bill concerning silk throwing. Following some alterations he reported the bill again on 19 Apr. when it was passed. Berkeley’s name was not recorded on the attendance lists in the session after this date and on 21 Apr. he registered his proxy with his kinsman, Berkeley of Stratton. The proxy seems to have been vacated by 7 May when he was named to the committee for the bill for preventing stoppages in the streets of Westminster, which indicates that he was present in the House at least on that occasion.</p><p>Berkeley played host to the king, queen, York, Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, the diarist, John Evelyn, ‘and an abundance of noble men’ at Durdens in September.<sup>29</sup> He took his seat in the second session of the Cavalier Parliament on 18 Feb. 1663 and was present on almost 83 per cent of sitting days. Named to the committees for privileges and petitions, on 6 Mar. he was again nominated to the committee considering the bill for preventing stoppages in the streets of Westminster and over the course of the session to a further 18 committees. On 5 June he received the proxy of ‘his lifelong friend’ Leicester Devereux*, 6th Viscount Hereford, which was vacated by the close of the session.<sup>30</sup> Between 2 and 18 July Berkeley chaired numerous sessions of committees for trade and subsidy bills.<sup>31</sup> On 18 July he reported from the committee for the temporalty subsidy bill, and he reported back from the same committee two days later. The same day he reported from the committee for the gaming bill and on 23 July he reported from the committee for the bill for the encouragement of trade. In the midst of this activity, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed Berkeley (perhaps unreliably) as being a likely supporter of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Berkeley returned to the House for the ensuing session on 21 Mar. 1664 during which he was named to four committees. Over the summer he was engaged with his official responsibilities as keeper at Nonsuch.<sup>32</sup> Absent at a call of the House early in the following session on 7 Dec., he resumed his seat two days later after which he was named to five select committees. He failed to sit in the brief fifth session. In 1666 he published anonymously a small volume of <em>Meditations</em> discoursing on his religious and political convictions, which was reprinted on a number of occasions during his lifetime. Acknowledging his own commercial interests, Berkeley advised against concentrating too much on worldly gain, emphasizing how ‘rich merchants make a rich kingdom: but let the great traders have a care lest, while they enrich themselves with worldly treasure, they neglect to labour after the gaining eternal riches.’<sup>33</sup></p><p>In April 1666 Berkeley was one of the peers nominated to stand in as a replacement for two of the triers (who had been granted leave of absence) of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, but as he was out of town at the time and the trial imminent he was not summoned after all.<sup>34</sup> It was thus not until 21 Sept. that Berkeley returned to the House for the sixth session. Named to nine committees, he was added to the committee for privileges on 7 Jan. 1667 and the same month he undertook to present a petition to the House on behalf of the East India Company during their dispute with Thomas Skinner.<sup>35</sup> On 14 Jan. he entered his protest at the resolution to agree with the Commons that the importing of cattle from Ireland should be classed as a public and common nuisance, and on 23 Jan. he protested again at the resolution not to add a clause granting the right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes over houses burnt in the Great Fire.</p><p>Present at the opening of the following session on 10 Oct. 1667 (of which he attended 80 per cent of all sitting days) Berkeley was again named to a number of committees, and on 16 Oct. he chaired a session of the committee concerning trade between England and Scotland. On 25 Nov. he was again given Hereford’s proxy, which was vacated on 28 Apr. 1668. Two days later (27 Nov.) he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning Clarendon’s commitment and on 7 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill for banishing Clarendon. In advance of the session a Lord Berkeley had been noted as being ‘not a little pleased with this disgrace of my lord chancellor’ but this probably referred to Berkeley of Stratton, who subscribed the protest of 20 Nov. at the resolution not to commit Clarendon until his treason had been proved.<sup>36</sup> On 12 Dec. Berkeley made his support for Clarendon explicit by entering his protest at the resolution to banish the lord chancellor.</p><p>Berkeley was named one of the reporters of the conference with the Commons on Sir William Penn’s impeachment on 24 Apr. 1668. In October it was discoursed that he was to be made one of five commissioners to succeed Ormond in the government of Ireland, but this failed to transpire and it is possible that although the report was explicit in naming Berkeley, the true prospective commissioner was Berkeley of Stratton.<sup>37</sup> Berkeley was granted a licence to travel to France with his wife and servants in July of the following year, but he had returned by 19 Oct. 1669 when he resumed his seat in the House.<sup>38</sup> Named to the committee considering the decline in trade on 25 Oct., on 9 Nov. he was named to that considering the papers submitted by the commissioners for accounts. The same month (10 Nov.), Berkeley and Bristol were the only two peers to vote in favour of the bill concerning the peers’ judicature.<sup>39</sup> On 1 Dec. he was nominated along with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), to select witnesses to appear before a committee of the whole considering the lowering of interest money.</p><h2><em>The 1670s </em></h2><p>Berkeley returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670, thereafter attending approximately 56 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the committees for privileges and petitions, on 8 Mar. he joined a number of peers in objecting to the precedence claim submitted by Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter. On 25 Mar. he was nominated to the committee considering the bill for a treaty of union and the following day he entered his dissent at a clause in the conventicle bill imposing a £100 penalty on any justice of the peace failing to enforce the measure. On 5 Apr. he was named to the committee for the bill for rebuilding London. Following the adjournment Berkeley sought to revive his case with De la Warr by petitioning the king once more, but his petition was again referred back to the Lords. On 19 Dec. the House again took into its consideration Berkeley’s claim, in which he stated that he ‘conceiveth himself (through mistake) not to be in such place of precedency as a baron and peer of this realm in parliaments, and all other assemblies of his peers, as of ancient time did belong to his ancestors from whom he is descended.’<sup>40</sup> Ordering that Berkeley’s counsel should be heard again the following year, after a series of postponements Berkeley’s lawyers were finally able to state their case on 14 Feb. 1671.<sup>41</sup> Their arguments provoked interventions from De la Warr and from Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, on behalf of his kinsman, Norfolk. In response to the latter, Berkeley insisted that his claim only concerned De la Warr, James Tuchet*, 13th Baron Audley (3rd earl of Castlehaven [I]), and George Nevill*, 12th Baron Abergavenny, and not Norfolk as Baron Mowbray, but once again the case was adjourned so that De la Warr’s counsel could be heard on 14 April. Berkeley entered his protest on 9 Mar. at the resolutions not to commit or engross the bill concerning privilege of Parliament. On 13 Apr. he was named to the subcommittee considering the bill to prevent the growth of popery.<sup>42</sup> The following day, his case with De la Warr was again postponed while De la Warr sought more time to prepare.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Berkeley attended one of the two days interrupting the prorogation on 16 Apr. 1672. He had returned to London by the beginning of January 1673 and then resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 4 February. Named to the committees for privileges, petitions and to the subcommittee for the Journal, he attended 78 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 18 Feb. his case with De la Warr was again interrupted when his opponent failed to appear. The House resolved to give judgment in the matter on 3 Mar., but on application from De la Warr, who was noted as ‘sick in the country’, this date too was put back to 11 March. On 25 Feb. a bill to enable the dean and chapter of Bristol to exchange the living of Berkeley in Gloucestershire with that of St Michael, Sutton Bonnington in Nottinghamshire, which was owned by Berkeley, received its first reading, and on 1 Mar. Berkeley reported from the committee considering a bill concerning the estate of the late Sir Robert Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> (a very distant relation), which was ordered to be engrossed with some amendments. Berkeley was appointed one of the managers of a conference with the Commons on the address against popery on 6 Mar., and the same day Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, reported from the committee for Berkeley’s bill with the dean and chapter of Bristol. The bill was passed the following day, but judgment in the case with De la Warr was postponed yet again to 26 March. Berkeley’s commercial experience may have been the reason for his selection as one of the peers nominated to mediate with the parties concerned in <em>Cholmley v. the Grocers’ Company</em> on 21 March. Five days later (26 Mar.) his case with De la Warr was put off again until the ensuing parliamentary session.</p><p>Berkeley returned to the House for the brief session of October 1673, attending three of its four days, but no mention was made of his complaint over precedence. Resuming his seat five days into the ensuing session on 12 Jan. 1674, his attendance remained high, being present for approximately 79 per cent of all sitting days, but it was not until 9 Feb. that he was added to the standing committees for privileges and petitions and he was only named to half of the select committees in the session. Once again no more progress was made in his dispute with De la Warr.</p><p>Berkeley retreated to Bath in July 1674, but by the end of the following month he was once again in London for meetings of the court of directors of the East India Company. In January of the following year he stood godfather to one of his Feilding relations along with Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> and the countess of Desmond.<sup>44</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 13 Apr. 1675, attending approximately 76 per cent of all sitting days, but he was named to just one select committee. Once again he combined his attendance in the House with attendance of the East India Company court of directors, perhaps one explanation for his failure to be nominated to more committees in the Lords.<sup>45</sup> In August an announcement appeared that ‘Lord George Berkeley’s elephant (but five feet four inches)’ – presumably a curio from one of his commercial ventures – was to be sold ‘by the candle at the East India House’. Resuming his seat on 13 Oct. 1675, Berkeley’s attendance declined slightly in the new session. Present on 14 of the 21 days of the session, he was named to just four committees besides the sessional committees, but his continuing importance at court was underlined when he played host to the king once more at his Surrey home, Durdens.<sup>46</sup></p><p>East India Company affairs again dominated Berkeley’s activities in the spring of 1676. On 24 Apr. he reported to the directors that he and other members of the committee had waited on the king to inform him why they were unable to comply with his request not to re-elect two directors for the ensuing year as the votes had already been submitted. Three days later he reported again that he had conveyed the company’s thanks to the king ‘for his continued grace and favour.’<sup>47</sup> Given his precedence and position in the voting list, it must have been Berkeley rather than Berkeley of Stratton who was amongst the minority of peers to find Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, guilty of manslaughter in June.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Berkeley returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 15 Feb. 1677 when he was named to the standing committees, and the following day he was named to the committee enquiring into the author and printer of the pamphlet questioning whether Parliament had been dissolved by its lengthy prorogation. Present on approximately 88 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to a further 25 committees in the course of the session, and on 13 Apr. he was appointed one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons on the supply bill. No doubt reflecting Berkeley’s continuing close relations with the court, particularly with York in their joint commercial ventures, on 1 May Shaftesbury marked him thrice vile. Following the lengthy recess, interrupted only by two days in July and December 1677, Berkeley resumed his seat on 15 Jan. 1678. On 28 Jan. Berkeley was appointed along with his rivals for precedence in the House, Audley (Castlehaven) and De la Warr, to wait on the king to discover when the House should attend him. The following day, he entered his dissent at the resolution to address the king for the release of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who had been imprisoned on a charge of blasphemy. Berkeley was named to the committee appointed to prepare an answer for the Lords’ failure to agree with the Commons over the address to the king for a war with France on 23 Mar. and two days later was entrusted with the proxy of Robert Shirley*, Baron Ferrers (later Earl Ferrers), which was vacated by the close of the session. On 4 Apr. he voted Pembroke guilty of murder.</p><p>Berkeley’s attendance declined in the subsequent session, which opened close on the heels of the previous one on 23 May 1678. Present for approximately 53 per cent of all sitting days in the session, in July he spoke in the House during the appeal brought concerning the case in train between Lewis Watson*, later earl of Rockingham, and his brother-in-law Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, over the inheritance of the estate of George Sondes*, earl of Feversham.<sup>49</sup> The same month (July) Berkeley was named to the Privy Council.</p><p>News of the discovery of the Popish Plot reached Berkeley at about the same time that he heard of the death of his son-in-law Sir Kingsmill Lucy<sup>‡</sup>, ‘one of our nearest and dearest relations and one of the best men in the world.’<sup>50</sup> Unable to dwell on his loss, Berkeley took a close interest in the efforts to force York into exile, and he was one of the majority of the council to vote against ordering York to quit the kingdom in October 1678.<sup>51</sup> He then resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. after which he was present for almost 92 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the standing committees on the first day, on 23 Oct. he was also named to the committee appointed to examine papers concerning the Plot. Berkeley’s retainer, Edward Smyth<sup>‡</sup>, son of his agent John Smyth, was later to prove a central figure in lending credence to Oates and Bedloe’s testimony. On 15 Nov. Berkeley voted against disabling papists from sitting in Parliament in a division taken in a committee of the whole, and on 28 Nov. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning the safety of the king and government. On 26 Dec. he was named a reporter of the conference on the supply bill and the same day he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the measure. The following day he voted against committing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), and on 28 Dec. he was again appointed to report a conference on the supply bill.</p><p>Elections in early 1679 to the first Exclusion Parliament in Gloucestershire appear to have been uncontested, with Sir John Guise<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Ralph Dutton<sup>‡</sup>, returned presumably with Berkeley’s acquiescence.<sup>52</sup> Berkeley attended six days of the abortive session at the beginning of March and then took his seat once more at the opening of the second session on 15 March. Present on 87 per cent of all sitting days, he was reckoned to be a supporter by Danby at the beginning of March 1679, and on 25 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution to commit the bill for Danby’s banishment. Prior to this, on 19 Mar, he had participated in a debate concerning the continuation of impeachments from one Parliament to another, remarking that the precedent of John Mortimer, who was proceeded against under King Henry VI for conspiring the death of King Henry V, which had been cited by Shaftesbury, was an ‘ill’ one and that the House should consult the printed record.<sup>53</sup> Berkeley voted against the bill of attainder on 1 April. The following day he spoke in defence of Danby again, arguing that ‘what this lord did was by the king’s command and where the thing is not directly against law, that command is a full justification.’<sup>54</sup> He then voted against the bill once more on 4 Apr., entering his dissent following its passage. Berkeley continued his opposition to the attainder on 14 Apr., voting against agreeing with the Commons that the bishops should be required to leave the chamber.<sup>55</sup> The same day he entered a further dissent against the resolution to agree with the Commons’ amendment to the bill. On 2 May Berkeley subscribed the protest against rejecting an amendment to the bill for clearing London of papists, and on 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. He was then nominated one of the reporters of the conferences held with the Commons on 10 and 11 May concerning the impending trials. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>The elections in Gloucestershire of the late summer and early autumn 1679 proved more difficult than the previous undisputed contest. Edward Smyth was put up in opposition to Guise, who had voted against exclusion, triggering a three-day poll ‘when they did not expect an hour’s work.’<sup>56</sup> Given that Smyth was so closely associated with his family, it seems likely that Berkeley supported his candidature, though Guise and Dutton were returned again. The poll in Gloucester, where Berkeley’s son stood, also proved troublesome, and although the Berkeley interest prevailed, Berkeley lamented that it had ‘been at so much charge.’<sup>57</sup></p><h2><em>Earl of Berkeley, 1679-88</em></h2><p>Partly as a reward for his loyalty to the court and in part as a way of addressing at last the still unresolved dispute over precedence with De la Warr, in September 1679 Berkeley was advanced to an earldom. Reports of the expected promotion had been in circulation since late August, and it may have been in connection with this that Berkeley had been assured by York of his support for his ‘very reasonable’ request.<sup>58</sup> At about the same time Berkeley offered not only to advance money to free English captives in Algiers but also to travel to North Africa in person to oversee their release.<sup>59</sup> While there was undoubtedly a philanthropic aspect to his offer, it may be that he was also eager to distance himself from the political uncertainties at home. In the spring of 1680 rumours circulated that he intended to succeed Sir John Finch as ambassador at Constantinople. There ensued some confusion between Berkeley, the king and the Levant Company over the method of appointing an ambassador to that post.<sup>60</sup> In the event it was James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, who secured the embassy. At about the same time, however, Berkeley was elected master of the Trinity House, one of only two peers associated with the corporation at this point.<sup>61</sup> Affairs in London presumably kept Berkeley away from the summer assizes in Gloucester, but he was able to rely on his son, Charles Berkeley (now styled Viscount Dursley), and the redoubtable Smyth to oversee events. Thanking Smyth for his assistance, Berkeley declared:</p><blockquote><p>It appears now I have not only will but power and interest enough to contest with and have the better of hotheaded and unreasonable men who would (if they prevailed, which God forbid) put us all in disorder.<sup>62</sup></p></blockquote><p>Berkeley returned to the House on 22 Oct. 1680, a day after the opening of the new Parliament when he was introduced in his new dignity between his kinsman, Denbigh, and John Granville*, earl of Bath. Present for approximately 79 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 15 Nov. he spoke in the debate on the reception of the exclusion bill and then voted in favour both of putting the question that the bill be rejected at first reading and, once that had been carried, of rejecting the bill at its first reading. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason.</p><p>Active in the elections of 1681 in Gloucestershire, Berkeley again lent his support to Edward Smyth for the county, though one report suggested that Shaftesbury was the true force behind Smyth’s nomination.<sup>63</sup> Despite the challenge, Guise and Dutton again secured both seats.<sup>64</sup> Berkeley also found himself under pressure within the Levant Company where an attempt was made to replace him as governor. In the event he retained his place with a commanding majority.<sup>65</sup> His success was welcomed by York who complimented Berkeley on having fought off ‘those turbulent spirits’ and for serving the king ‘so faithfully and boldly.’<sup>66</sup></p><p>A pre-sessional forecast compiled by Danby in March 1681 assessed Berkeley as one of those likely to support the former lord treasurer’s efforts to be bailed. Berkeley was also noted in Danby’s private instructions as one of those to whom Danby’s agents ought to apply particularly for support.<sup>67</sup> Berkeley took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 Mar. after which he was present on each of its seven days. On 24 Mar. he spoke in favour of permitting Danby to be bailed for his health but the attempt was thwarted by concerted opposition.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Berkeley also suffered from poor health later that spring, but he had recovered sufficiently by 7 May to be one of a number of peers to attend the proceedings in King’s Bench for Fitzharris’ trial and on 15 May he presented the address of the corporation of Trinity House to the king.<sup>69</sup> In June a dispute between his heir, Dursley, and Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, over payment of a legacy of £2,000 left to Dursley’s wife (Elizabeth Noel) by Juliana, Lady Campden, was referred to the arbitration of Berkeley and Danby. Berkeley had already had cause to thank Danby for writing to Campden in May presumably in an attempt to forestall the dispute.<sup>70</sup> Berkeley’s support for Danby continued in the absence of Parliament and in June 1682 he was present as one of Danby’s supporters in king’s bench. Two months later Berkeley’s own family was embroiled in a series of scandals. First, one of Berkeley’s younger daughters, Lady Henrietta, eloped with her brother-in-law, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville) in what by the standards of the day was considered an incestuous relationship. Soon after, news emerged that another daughter, Lady Theophila Lucy, widow of Sir Kingsmill Lucy, had converted to Rome and converted her daughter as well (also called Theophila).<sup>71</sup> Mary, countess of Northampton, reported that Lady Berkeley was ‘so afflicted’ by Lady Henrietta’s action ‘that my sister believes it will kill her.’ A month after the elopement the family were still none the wiser about her whereabouts, leading them to ‘proffer £200 to whomsoever can discover where she is.’<sup>72</sup> Attempted interventions by the family’s long-standing friend, John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, to secure Lady Henrietta’s repentance and Lady Theophila’s return to the Church of England both failed.<sup>73</sup> Grey was eventually brought to trial at king’s bench for absconding with Lady Henrietta, thereby causing her ‘to live in continual whoredom’, but Berkeley and his countess did not escape criticism in the business.<sup>74</sup> During bad-tempered and at times undignified proceedings in king’s bench, in which at one stage Berkeley had to be requested to sit down, Grey claimed that Lady Henrietta had come to him for protection. Despite Grey’s ultimate conviction, Lady Henrietta still refused to return to her father claiming that she had married one William Turner, described in some sources as one of Grey’s servants and elsewhere as son of Sir William Turner of Bromley. George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, claimed to know the man well and stated that he was already married.<sup>75</sup> The family received more encouraging news from Lady Theophila Lucy whose reformation was secured by her marriage to the theologian, Robert Nelson, nephew of Sir Gabriel Roberts and a friend of Tillotson. One report suggested that the marriage was originally to have been between Nelson and Lady Arabella Berkeley, ‘the plainest of all that earl’s children’ and that the eventual match was much against the wishes of Nelson’s family.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Berkeley was one of the peers to subscribe the petition in support of Danby’s release on bail in February 1684.<sup>77</sup> Two months later his influence in commercial circles was underlined by his appointment as one of the commissioners for discussing the affairs of Bantam (modern Banten) with representatives from the United Provinces.<sup>78</sup> His senior position within the Levant Company was also presumably why Lord Chandos, ambassador to Constantinople, wrote to him in March 1685 appealing for his assistance in rescuing him from disgrace, which he claimed was brought about by ‘the irregular and undue combination and practices of ambitious men.’<sup>79</sup> Chandos had earned the distrust of both king and company at the time of his appointment in 1680 and had clearly failed to mend his ways during his tenure of the post.</p><h2><em>The reign of James II and the Revolution, 1685-90</em></h2><p>Given his close relations with James II, then duke of York, it seems unlikely that the new king’s accession gave Berkeley any particular cause for concern over his continuing interest at court and in the mercantile community. He returned to the House for the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 after which he was present for approximately 77 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to half a dozen committees. An account of the proceedings on the first day of the session recorded inaccurately that he was one of a number of peers to have been introduced in the Lords, presumably having confused him with John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, who took his seat for the first time that day.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Although Berkeley’s support for the king continued without significant variation, he was one of the peers to find in favour of exonerating Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), in January 1686.<sup>81</sup> An assessment of January 1687 proved another rare example of Berkeley being associated with opposition to James when he was marked as an opponent of repeal of the Test, but on 17 Jan. he was elected governor of the Charterhouse and in May he was listed as being in favour of the king’s policies. The same month his younger son, George Berkeley, who had been brought up in Tillotson’s household, was appointed a prebend of Westminster.<sup>82</sup> Less positively, Berkeley was involved in a dispute with Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, that summer over rights in Nonsuch Park, of which Berkeley was the ranger. One of Berkeley’s servants was convicted of assault when he barred Grafton from attempting to take possession.<sup>83</sup></p><p>A further assessment of likely attitudes to repeal of the Test in November 1687 continued to note Berkeley as being in favour of the policy, and he was again thought to be a supporter of repeal in January of the following year. In May 1688 Dominican friars established a new chapel in a house which they had purchased from Berkeley, though there is no suggestion that he was in any way tempted to convert to catholicism and in June Berkeley was one of only two members of the council to refuse to sign the warrant committing the Seven Bishops to the Tower.<sup>84</sup> Present at the meetings of the provisional government held at the Guildhall, Berkeley signed the declaration to the prince of Orange on 11 Dec. but he continued active in the ‘loyalist’ camp throughout the crisis.<sup>85</sup> On 13 Dec. he and Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, ignoring an order that the man should not be questioned, left the chamber to quiz Thomas Liniall, the messenger who had brought the news of the king’s seizure at Faversham; and later that day Berkeley seconded a motion by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), that the king should be rescued from the rabble in Kent. Berkeley added that ‘some persons of quality’ should also be sent to wait on him. The same afternoon following further revelations about the king’s whereabouts, Berkeley again moved for his rescue, adding that he believed the king was in danger.<sup>86</sup> On the king’s return to London, Berkeley was one of eight members of the Privy Council to be present at a session presided over by James held on the evening of 16 December.<sup>87</sup> The king’s second flight altered the complexion of things, but on 24 Dec. Berkeley was again prominent in the debates moving to enquire what had become of James and suggesting that Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who had been at Rochester, might be able to offer some explanation.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Berkeley took his seat in the House at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he attended on approximately 39 per cent of all sitting days. The presence in the House of his kinsman, John Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, who was also frequently recorded by the clerk as simply ‘Berkeley’, makes identifying both men’s activities problematic, but given Berkeley’s clear support for the king in December it seems likely that he was the ‘Lord Berkeley’ noted as being in opposition to the Commons’ interpretation of James’s actions. This did not prevent him being a stickler for correct procedure, and on 25 Jan. he drew to the House’s attention the presence of several peers who had not been formally introduced, in particular Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, one of King James’ last creations, which provoked a number of other peers to demand that Griffin withdraw.<sup>89</sup> On 29 Jan. Berkeley voted in favour of a regency and on 31 Jan. against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen. The same day a Lord Berkeley (presumably Berkeley of Stratton) entered his dissent at the resolution not to agree with the Commons in inserting the words ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. On 4 Feb. Berkeley voted against agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ and on 6 Feb. he again opposed the Commons’ use of the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He then registered his dissent at the resolution to concur with the Commons.</p><p>Despite his evident dissatisfaction with the Revolution, Berkeley took the oaths on 7 Mar. 1689. He was present for just one day in April and excused at a call of the House on 22 May, but he resumed his seat on 30 May and the following day he voted against reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates. Following debate in the House the previous day, on 10 July he acted as teller for the not contents on the question of whether the House should proceed in considering the reversal of judgments against Oates (which was resolved in the negative by 41 to 35). The following day Berkeley’s son, Dursley, (who had supported the Revolution) was introduced into the House as Baron Berkeley of Berkeley (adding further possible confusion between the three lords Berkeley sitting in the House). Berkeley was nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning the bill for raising duties on coffee and tea on 25 July, and on 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the reversal of perjury judgments against Titus Oates.</p><p>Berkeley took advantage of a series of exceptions to declare that he was in possession of no personal estate in his response to the self-assessment of September 1689.<sup>90</sup> Absent from the opening of the second session of the Convention, he took his seat on 24 Oct, but four days later he was absent again and excused at a call of the House. He resumed his seat once more on 6 Nov. after which he attended without significant interruption until the close of January 1690 (approximately 49 per cent of all sitting days). Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed him as among the supporters of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and January 1690, and added that he was ’to be spoken to at the House’. On 3 Dec. 1689 he reported from the committee considering the bill to enable Edward Devereux*, 8th Viscount Hereford, to make a marriage jointure as fit to pass without amendment, and the same day he chaired a session of the committee for privileges considering the petition of Nathaniel Reading in an action against Simpson and Wood. Curiously, when the committee was called over, it was discovered that Berkeley had not in fact been named to the privileges committee, so all business was terminated.<sup>91</sup> No attempt appears to have been made to add him to the committee subsequently, but on 17 Dec. he chaired the committee again without comment and on the following day he reported back to the House again from the privileges committee considering the petition of Sir Roger Harsnett. The same month Berkeley was involved in a case in chancery with his son-in-law, Charles Boyle*, Baron Clifford, over the repayment of part of Arethusa Berkeley’s wedding portion.<sup>92</sup> On 15 Jan. 1690 he acted as teller for the not contents in the division on rejecting the bill for making void conveyances made by Thomas Colepepper*, 2nd Baron Colepepper, to his natural daughters by Susannah Willis.</p><h2><em>After the Revolution, 1690-8</em></h2><p>The general election of March 1690 found Berkeley again attempting to employ his interest in Gloucestershire, but his efforts and those of his son and neighbour Beaufort on behalf of James Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, brother of Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, failed to secure Thynne’s election and the disappointed man rounded on those whom he considered had betrayed him, foremost among them Berkeley and Dursley. Writing in Berkeley’s defence, Weymouth declared that, ‘I am sure my Lord Berkeley’s stewards were very hearty’, but Thynne maintained that their assistance had been negligible and he vented in another letter that ‘Lord Berkeley’s and Lord Dursley’s friends and tenants were all against me.’<sup>93</sup></p><p>Berkeley returned to the House shortly after the opening of the new Parliament on 14 Apr. but he attended only 28 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Although he was marked present on the attendance list on 7 May, the same day he registered his proxy in favour of Ferrers, which was vacated when he resumed his seat the following day. Present on 7 July when the session was prorogued, he attended on the single sitting day on 12 Sept. but his attendance in the second session later that year also proved to be uncharacteristically low (just under 32 per cent of all sitting days). It is possible that he was distracted by another family controversy concerning his grandson, Sir Berkeley Lucy, whose sister, Theophila Lucy, had procured a privy seal requiring his return home from Rome where he was then living with his mother and stepfather, Robert Nelson. The ostensible reason for this recall was Theophila Lucy’s concern that her brother was in danger of being converted to Roman Catholicism and was associating with Jacobites, but it seems more probable that she had been put up to it in an effort to acquire control over the Lucy inheritance. Dursley seemed to suggest that his father was not entirely innocent in the matter, informing Sir Berkeley that ‘my father does not wash his hands of it’ and that he had admitted sending a messenger to persuade him to return to England. Berkeley’s own interpretation was somewhat different. Writing to his grandson, Berkeley professed to have known nothing of the privy seal until after it had been passed and undertook to supplicate for its reversal. In another letter he described Theophila Lucy’s action as ‘a very fine prank’ but maintained that he ‘knew nothing of it until it was too late to prevent it’ and described his attempt to procure the assistance of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in reversing it. Concerns over the Lucys continued well into the next year with Tillotson again acting as an intermediary. In October 1691 Theophila Lucy married William Ingoldsby (great niece of the regicide Sir Richard Ingoldsby), and in December Lady Berkeley expressed concerns that the Ingoldsbys and other members of their circle, the Knoxes, had designs on Sir Berkeley Lucy’s life.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s attendance in the House declined steadily during the remaining years of his life, with him rarely present on more than a third of all sitting days in each session. His affairs during this period were apparently dominated by family disputes and continued interest in his trading ventures. Present at the opening of the third session on 22 Oct. 1691, in December he was included in a list compiled by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as someone Derby believed would support his bill for the recovery of lands lost during the Interregnum.<sup>95</sup> Berkeley attended for just over a quarter of all sitting days in the session before registering his proxy with his son, Dursley, on 19 Feb. 1692, which was vacated by the prorogation. Berkeley was present on the single sitting day of 24 May 1692. He then took his seat again shortly after the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1692, but this time he managed to attend barely 20 per cent of all sitting days. In the following session of November 1693 his rate of attendance declined still further to just 14 per cent of the session.</p><p>Declining activity in Parliament did not mean that Berkeley had opted for retirement in general. On 10 Jan. 1694 he was one of nine peers to subscribe the protest at the resolution to exonerate the admirals who had commanded the fleet during the previous summer. Trade continued to dominate his interests.<sup>96</sup> Family difficulties also loomed large and in March 1694 Lady Berkeley interceded on behalf of her niece, Arabella, Lady Rivers, with Robert, earl of Lindsey, to enable her to receive £10,000 in lieu of her portion, as the money was not strictly payable until after Lindsey’s death.<sup>97</sup> Problems with Lady Theophila and her husband, William Ingoldsby, came to the fore again in May 1695 with the beginnings of a case in chancery, which continued beyond Berkeley’s death three years later.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Having attended two of the single sitting days of September and October 1694, Berkeley took his seat at the opening of the final session of the 1690 Parliament on 12 Nov., after which he was present on a third of all sitting days. He does not appear to have employed his interest in Gloucestershire in the November 1695 general election, which saw the sitting members returned.<sup>99</sup> Berkeley took his seat a fortnight after the opening of the new Parliament on 3 Dec. 1695, after which he sat for a mere 16 per cent of all sitting days and was named to just one committee. He pleaded sickness as an excuse not to sign the Association in February 1696, though he had been well enough to be present at meetings of the East India Company’s court of directors throughout January and February and was again present at a meeting when it was resolved that the committee should attend the Lords in relation to the company’s stock.<sup>100</sup> It is not clear whether Berkeley accompanied the other members of the committee on this occasion. On 10 Apr. he registered his proxy with his brother-in-law, Lindsey, which was vacated by the session’s close a fortnight later.</p><p>Absent at the opening of the ensuing session, Berkeley’s letter desiring leave to be excused was read on 23 Nov. 1696 as a result of which he was granted a week’s grace for his appearance. He resumed his seat accordingly on 30 Nov., after which he was again present on 17 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 15 Dec. he was one of five peers to be given leave to withdraw on account of ill health and he was again excused on account of sickness on 17 December. He resumed his seat the following day and on 23 Dec. he was one of those to vote against the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. On 23 Feb. 1697 he registered his proxy in favour of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, which was again vacated by the close of the session. He resumed his seat in the third session on 3 Feb. 1698, but attended for just five days of the whole. On 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he may have been one of those to enter a dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the case between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], concerning property bequeathed to Bertie’s wife (though it is more likely that the protester on this occasion was his son, Dursley, sitting in the House as Baron Berkeley).<sup>101</sup> On 25 Mar. he registered his proxy with Lindsey once more, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 27 June. Berkeley may have presented a petition from the East India Company to the House following the first reading of the two million fund bill on 28 June (though it is again possible that he was confused here with his son).<sup>102</sup> He sat for the final time on 30 June and the following day registered his proxy with his kinsman, Berkeley of Stratton.</p><p>Berkeley was noted as being ‘very ill’ on 6 October. He died eight days later on 14 October.<sup>103</sup> Berkeley’s will, dated 21 Sept. 1698, was composed in an unusual style, lacking any of the conventional phraseology, which may have given rise to doubts about its validity. On 1 Dec. two witnesses swore that the writing was Berkeley’s, enabling probate to proceed. Berkeley left his entire estate to his son and heir, Charles, Viscount Dursley, requesting only that his debts be paid and that ‘something considerable’ might be given to some poor Christians. An inventory of his possessions at Cranford in Middlesex and Durdens in Surrey listed goods valued at approximately £1,300, but his total wealth was certainly much greater than this.<sup>104</sup> He was buried at Cranford, where a monument was erected, matching one for his father and celebrating his ‘affability, charity and generosity’. He was succeeded by Dursley as 2nd earl of Berkeley.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BERKELEY, James (c. 1680-1736) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (c. 1680–1736)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1699-1710 Visct. Dursley; <em>accel. </em>5 Mar. 1705 Bar. BERKELEY of BERKELEY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Sept. 1710 as 3rd earl of BERKELEY. |
|
First sat 7 Mar. 1705; last sat 14 May 1735 |
|
MP Gloucester 1701 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1680, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley and Elizabeth, da. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden; bro. of George<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. ?Savoy sch.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. c. 13 Feb. 1711, Louisa (<em>d</em>.1717), da. of Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, 1s. 1da. KG 31 Mar. 1718. <em>d</em>. 17 Aug. 1736; <em>will</em> 23 May 1735, pr. 23 Sept., 4 Oct., 20 Oct. 1736.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1714-27; first ld. of Adm. 1717-27; PC 17 Apr. 1717; ld. justice 1719, 1720, 1726, 1727.</p><p>Freeman, Gloucester 1701; ld. lt., Glos. 1710-12, 1714-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Surr. 1710-<em>d</em>.; high steward, Gloucester 1710-12, 1714-<em>d</em>.; warden, Forest of Dean and constable of St. Briavel’s Castle 1711-12, 1714-<em>d.</em>; v-adm. of the coast 1715-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Vol. RN 1695, lt. 1699, capt. 1701, v.-adm. Jan. 1708, adm. Dec. 1708; v.-adm. of Great Britain 1718-<em>d</em>., adm. of the fleet and c.-in-c. 13 Mar.-15 Apr. 1719.</p><p>Elder bro. Trinity House 1715-<em>d</em>., master 1715-19.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, oils, 1710, NPG 3195; oil on canvas by P. Monamy and Sir G. Kneller, oils, 1720, NMM.</p> |
<p>Described by Horace Walpole*, 4th earl of Orford, as ‘a boisterous zealous Whig seaman’, as a younger son, James Berkeley was bred for the sea.<sup>3</sup> His education probably reflected this, although it is possible that he was the ‘son of Lord Dursley’ referred to as attending the Jesuits’ short-lived non-denominational school founded at the Savoy in 1687. At the age of 15 he embarked on his naval career as a volunteer aboard the <em>Centurion,</em> and in March 1699 he was gazetted as a lieutenant on board the <em>Boyne</em>. In June of that year, though ‘little Jacklin’s’ prospects were altered dramatically with the death of his elder brother, Charles Berkeley, styled Viscount Dursley, from smallpox. Despite his change in expectations, the new Lord Dursley continued to pursue his naval career, warmly supported by his father, and in April 1701 he was given his first command as captain of the <em>Sorlings</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Dursley was returned for Gloucester in the second (December) election of 1701 (presumably on his family’s interest). Although Dursley’s election was noted as a gain for the Whigs by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, he proved an inactive member and, as he was soon back at sea, he did not stand again.<sup>5</sup> In January 1703 it was rumoured that he was to marry Lady Bridget Bertie. The report recorded (inaccurately) that Berkeley was underage and that an act of Parliament was to be drawn up ‘to make him of age so as he may sit in the House of Lords’: both points proved to be unfounded. Later that year he was again on active service under the command of his mentor Sir Clowdesley Shovell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>6</sup> Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, congratulated him for his services that summer and assured him of his interest, ‘As an old friend of your father’s I am concerned in all that relates to you.’<sup>7</sup> Dursley returned to his old ship the <em>Boyne</em> in March 1704 and in August he was a prominent participant at the battle of Malaga.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Dursley transferred to the <em>Devonshire</em> in December, but on 5 Mar. 1705 he was summoned to the House by a writ in acceleration in his father’s barony of Berkeley of Berkeley (though outside the House he continued to be styled Viscount Dursley). He took his seat on 7 Mar. introduced between Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, and Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax. The wording of the writ emphasized his service to the country at sea but the precise reason for his promotion at this time is uncertain.<sup>9</sup> Perhaps an attempt to bolster the Whigs’ presence in the House to the detriment of those in favour of the Tack, it is also possible that his summons owed something to the interest of Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, Dursley’s overall commander as lord high admiral. Dursley attended just one day before absenting himself from the House on 8 March. He attempted to cover his absence by registering his proxy with Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, but the same day, curiously, Essex (who was also absent that day) registered his proxy with Dursley. Administrative confusion seems to be the only explanation and, technically, this ought to have invalidated both proxies, but entries in the proxy book suggest otherwise. Dursley resumed his seat on 9 Mar. thereby vacating his proxy, while Essex’s was marked vacated by his resumption of his seat on 13 March. The most likely reason for both peers being so eager to ensure their absences were covered was the discussion in the House on 8 and 9 Mar. of the militia and mutiny bills, both of which were passed with minor amendments.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Dursley may been meant as the ‘Lord Berkeley’ noted as being in favour of the Hanoverian succession in April, though this may as easily have referred to his father (both were supporters of the house of Hanover).<sup>10</sup> Absent at the opening of the new Parliament, on 12 Nov. Dursley was excused at a call of the House but he took his seat two days later. Present for just under half of all sitting days in the session, on 8 Mar. 1706 he registered his proxy with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, which was vacated by his return to the House the following day. He then attended on four more days. He was at sea during the summer of 1706 and again in 1707, when he served at the siege of Toulon, narrowly escaping disaster when his ship was one of several in the returning fleet to be badly damaged off the Scilly Isles on 22 October.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Displaying notable sangfroid, Dursley took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Oct., just a few days after his escape, after which he attended on approximately 52 per cent of all sitting days. Shovell and numerous other officers had been drowned and their loss may have assisted in Dursley’s rapid promotion to vice-admiral in January 1708, advancement for which the Whigs were said to be ‘very pressing’.<sup>12</sup> Dursley was probably the ‘Lord Berkeley’ who subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for completing the Union on 7 Feb. 1708 (though the presence in the House that day of his father makes definite identification difficult). Marked as a ‘Whig’ in an analysis of the peerage of May, in December he was promoted again, to admiral of the white.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Dursley was present for just two days of the 1708 Parliament (4 and 19 Feb. 1709), presumably because of his naval duties. In November 1709 he was promoted once more, this time as admiral of the red.<sup>14</sup> Present for a single day in the second session of the 1708 Parliament (17 Jan. 1710) Dursley retired from active service in May. His retirement may have been in part the result of the alterations in the ministry that spring and summer, which caused him considerable disquiet. In August he was described as being ‘enraged’ at the news that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, was to be appointed first lord of the admiralty and he remained a firm opponent of Harley’s administration throughout its existence.<sup>15</sup></p><p>It was in such inauspicious circumstances that Dursley succeeded his father as 3rd earl of Berkeley. Before the 2nd earl’s death, rumours had circulated that he was to be put out as lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire, thereby encouraging his Tory rival, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, to lobby hard for the office.<sup>16</sup> To Beaufort’s profound disappointment it was the new earl of Berkeley who was appointed in his father’s stead, ‘by whose influence,’ as one newsletter writer opined, ’tis hoped the Church party in Gloucester will be relieved from the hardships they groan under by the bare-faced bribery of men in power in that place.’<sup>17</sup> Berkeley was also chosen by the city of Gloucester to succeed his father as high steward.<sup>18</sup> Beaufort, unsurprisingly viewed Berkeley’s appointment as an unmitigated disaster, and he complained openly about it to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and to Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, griping to the latter of the misfortune the county would suffer being led by someone ‘whose expression in a public assembly was that he would have such representatives chose for that country as would nick the addressers’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Berkeley took his seat in his new dignity at the opening of the 1710 Parliament on 25 Nov., and attended for approximately 52 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 11 Jan. 1711 he probably registered two protests, first at the resolution to reject the petitions of his father’s old colleague in Ireland, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], concerning the conduct of the war in Spain and second at the resolution that the defeat at Almanza had been occasioned by the opinions of Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope. In all probability he subscribed a further protest the following day at the resolution to censure the conduct of ministers in approving an offensive war in Spain, presumably as a demonstration of solidarity with other members of the armed forces (the presence in the House on the same day of William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, makes definite identification difficult). On 5 Feb. Berkeley registered his proxy with Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, which was vacated by his return to the House on 26 Feb. (though the entry in the proxy book suggests that it was not vacated until the following day). The reason for Berkeley’s two-week absence from Parliament was his marriage to Lady Louisa Lennox.<sup>20</sup> Although he had not yet met the new countess, Jonathan Swift’s assessment of Berkeley’s chosen bride was scathing and he held out little hope for the success of the marriage suggesting that ‘she’ll be fluxed in two months, and they’ll be parted in a year… the chit is but seventeen, and is ill-natured, covetous, vicious, and proud in extremes.’ When he did meet her, Swift commented merely that she was not, ‘near so handsome as she passes for.’<sup>21</sup> His dire predictions of the marriage’s likely failure seemed to be proved right by gossip circulating in December of ‘a great quarrel’ between the earl and his countess over ‘one Captain Smith’s wife.’<sup>22</sup></p><p>Berkeley resumed his seat after his marriage celebrations and on 31 May 1711 received the proxy of his father-in-law, Richmond, which was vacated on 4 June. On 7 June Berkeley registered his own proxy with Richmond, which was vacated by the close of the session. Berkeley took his seat at the opening of the second session on 7 Dec. 1711, on which day he was noted among the Whigs dining with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>23</sup> Present for approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 12 Dec. he received the proxy of Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St. Albans, which was vacated on 14 Jan. 1712. Berkeley probably supported the presentation of the address over ‘No Peace without Spain’ and on 10 Dec. he was included in a list of office holders who had defied the ministry on the issue. The same month he was forecast as being opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 5th duke of Hamilton, to sit in the House by virtue of his British peerage of Brandon. On 20 Dec. he voted accordingly in favour of the motion barring Scots peers from sitting by virtue of British peerages. Berkeley was absent from the House between 31 Jan. and 11 Feb. 1712, covering his absence from 4 Feb. by a proxy to St. Albans. Berkeley was again given Richmond’s proxy on 14 Feb., which was vacated by Richmond’s resumption of his seat on 15 February. On 28 Feb. 1712, following debate on the bill to limit officers in the House of Commons, Berkeley acted as teller for those in favour of reading the bill a second time (carried by 63 to 42). Berkeley was absent again in March, but his proxy was held by John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, from 4 to 20 March. He received Richmond’s proxy again on 28 Mar., which was vacated on 1 April. Berkeley registered his own proxy with his kinsman, William Villiers*, 2nd earl of Jersey, on 26 Apr., vacated on 5 May, and on 17 May he also received St. Albans’ proxy. He received Richmond’s proxy again on 26 May, which was vacated at the close of the session. Two days later (28 May) he voted with the opposition in favour of overturning the restraining orders imposed on James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and on 7 June he subscribed the protest against the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s opposition to the ministry, and a desire on the part of the government to win over a by now thoroughly disgruntled Beaufort, resulted in him being put out as lord lieutenant of Gloucester in 1712, though affairs in the county continued to be closely balanced between the Berkeley and Beaufort interests.<sup>25</sup> Berkeley also seems to have come under pressure in the navy and it may have been his removal from office in Gloucestershire that inspired rear admiral Robert Fairfax<sup>‡</sup> to approach Oxford (as Harley had since become) to ask to be restored to his former position, ‘which his lordship has so long possessed to my unspeakable prejudice.’<sup>26</sup> Berkeley took his seat in the third session on 9 Apr. 1713, during which he was present for approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days, and in June was estimated by Oxford as being opposed to confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty.</p><p>Despite the upsets within the lieutenancy, at the election of September 1713 the seats in Gloucestershire were, once more, shared between the Whigs and Tories.<sup>27</sup> Berkeley took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present for approximately two-thirds of all sitting days. On 28 Feb. he registered his proxy with Wharton, which was vacated by his return to the House on 2 March. On 1 Apr. he received the proxy of Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston), and on 27 May he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham to be opposed to the schism bill. On 2 June he received the proxy of James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, which was vacated on 7 June, and on 11 June he acted as teller for the not contents on the question of whether to adjourn during debates on the schism bill (which was carried against by 57 to 51). Berkeley registered his protest on 8 July at the resolution not to make a representation to the queen describing how the asiento contract had been obstructed by the efforts of some individuals to obtain personal advantage. He took his seat on 1 Aug. 1714, but attended just five of the 15 days of the session before departing for Hanover in command of the squadron that was to escort the new king to England.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Berkeley flourished under the new regime. He was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber aboard the yacht that brought King George to England, reappointed lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire and from 1717 until the king’s death he occupied the post of first lord of the admiralty. Advanced a knight of the garter on the death of his kinsman, Shrewsbury, in 1718, the following year it was rumoured that he was to be promoted in the peerage as duke of Berkeley.<sup>29</sup> Despite this, Berkeley’s interest declined towards the end of the 1720s. He was an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Orford, and had earned the enmity of the future George II when he was associated with a plan to deport him. In 1725 it was rumoured that he was shortly to be removed from office and, unsurprisingly, he was put out soon after the new king’s accession in 1727.<sup>30</sup> Details of the latter part of his career will be examined in the next phase of this work.</p><p>A sufferer from chronic gout (a family affliction), Berkeley’s health proved a constant problem and in 1735 he quit England for France in company with his (perhaps unlikely) friend and distant relative, Henry St. John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, to recuperate.<sup>31</sup> He spent the following year between Bolingbroke’s home and that of his brother-in-law, Charles Lennox<sup>†</sup>, 2nd duke of Richmond, at Aubigny, where he died on 17 Aug. 1736 leaving behind his heir, Augustus Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley ‘alone in the house without a friend to comfort me.’ Berkeley’s death provoked feverish activity from his sister, Lady Betty Germain, who was eager to save the young earl from the influence of Bolingbroke (to whose house he retreated). Her opinion of Bolingbroke, she confided to Richmond, was ‘as bad as your grace’s can possibly be.’<sup>32</sup> Lady Betty’s concerns proved to be unfounded. Before departing for France Berkeley had composed his will in which he named Richmond, Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, earl of Wilmington, James Brudenell<sup>‡</sup> and his brother George Berkeley as trustees to his young heir. One sizeable bequest of £1,000 was made to his friend William Chetwynd (presumably William Richard Chetwynd<sup>‡</sup>, one of Berkeley’s former colleagues at the admiralty and a friend of Bolingbroke) but the residue of the estates passed to Dursley, who succeeded his father as 4th earl of Berkeley.<sup>33</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BERKELEY, John (1607-78) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1607–78)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 May 1658 Bar. BERKELEY of STRATTON. |
|
First sat 4 June 1660; last sat 27 May 1678 |
|
MP Heytesbury 1640 (Apr.) |
<p><em>bap</em>. 1 Feb. 1607, 5th s. of Sir Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> of Bruton, Som. and Elizabeth, da. of William Killigrew of Hanworth, Mdx. <em>educ</em>. Queen’s, Oxf. matric. 1623, BA 1625; travelled abroad (Low Countries, Germany) c.1626.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. bef. 1662, Christian (Christina) (<em>d</em>.1698), da. and h. of Sir Andrew Riccard, of St Olave’s, Hart Street, London., gov. and treas. E.I. Co., wid. of John Gayer (Gayre, Geare) of Stoke Poges, Bucks., and of Henry Rich, styled Ld. Kensington, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 1da.<sup>2</sup> kntd. 27 July 1639. <em>d</em>. 26 Aug. 1678; <em>will</em> 21 Jan. 1672, pr. 2 Oct. 1678.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. to James*, duke of York, 1648-50, 1652-60;<sup>4</sup> comptroller of household to duke of York 1652-60, steward 1660-?68;<sup>5</sup> extraordinary commr. Navy July 1660-Jan. 1665;<sup>6</sup> commr. trade Nov. 1660-72, plantations Dec. 1660-70, for Tangier 1665, 1673<sup>7</sup>, prize appeals 1666,<sup>8</sup> for estates of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, 1665-70;<sup>9</sup> ld. pres. of Connaught 1661-73;<sup>10</sup> PC 17 June 1663; 1st commr. office of master-gen. of Ordnance Oct. 1664-May 1670;<sup>11</sup> PC [I] Jan. 1668-70;<sup>12</sup> ld. lt. Ireland Feb. 1670-May 1672; cttee. for trade and May 1675-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Amb., Sweden Jan.-July 1637, France Oct. 1675-Oct. 1676; plenip. congress at Nimeguen Oct. 1676-June 1677.</p><p>Capt. tp. of horse by 1639-41; maj. gen. horse (roy.) 1642; commissary gen. of horse 1642; col. gen. Cornw. and Devon 1644; gov. Exeter Sept. 1643-Apr. 1646; capt. tp. of horse [I] c.1662-73;<sup>13</sup> lt. gen. militia forces Suff., Cambs. and Isle of Ely June-Aug. 1667;<sup>14</sup> gov. Galway and const. Athlone Castle 1661.</p><p>Ld. prop. Carolina 1663-<em>d</em>.;<sup>15</sup> prop. Virginia 1649-<em>d</em>.,<sup>16</sup> New Jersey 1664-76.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Mbr. Royal Adventurers into Africa 1661-72; Royal Fishing Co. 1664.<sup>18</sup></p> |
|
<h2><em>Servant to the duke of York</em></h2><p>Berkeley was the youngest son of a wealthy Somerset family, a cadet branch of the Barons Berkeley of Berkeley. His great-grandfather, Sir Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, had established and raised the family’s standing in the eastern quarters of Somerset during the course of a long and successful career under the Tudors. Berkeley spent the beginning of his career in spells of foreign travel and military service and soon established a foothold at court. His entrée there was greatly assisted by the vice-chamberlain of the queen’s household, his kinsman Henry Jermyn*, later earl of St Albans. Berkeley and Jermyn would later work together on behalf of French interests at court, particularly in the early stages of the Restoration. Another newcomer at the court in 1633 was Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, with whom Berkeley struck up a close friendship. Clarendon always believed that the knighthood which Berkeley received in 1639 was a reward both ‘for all the services he had done, or could ever do’, and had ‘corrupted his nature’ making him believe that he was both capable of and deserving of much more.<sup>20</sup></p><p>During the Civil War Berkeley saw service as a royalist commander in the West Country, earning the gratitude of the queen when he facilitated the escape of the infant Princess Henrietta to France. In later life Berkeley, ever boastful of his achievements, was in the habit of embellishing his role in the abortive negotiations that took place between the king and the parliamentarian chiefs after the surrender at Exeter. Berkeley’s involvement in the king’s bungled flight to the Isle of Wight in November 1647 also became a heroic deed in his own telling (his own account was published in 1699 as <em>Memoirs of Sir John Berkeley</em>). In the early summer of 1648 he was (presumably through Jermyn’s influence) sent by the queen to The Hague as York’s governor as a temporary replacement in the absence of Richard Byron<sup>†</sup>, Baron Byron. On Byron’s death in August 1652 Berkeley, without waiting for royal word, declared himself ‘<em>intendant des affairs de son altesse royale</em>’, and assumed control over the duke’s finances. It was at about this time that Berkeley’s relationship with Hyde began to sour. The final breach in 1653 was caused by Berkeley’s solicitations for the recently vacant post of master of the wards which he claimed had been promised him by Charles I, and which carried an <em>ex officio</em> place on the council. The king refused the request; Berkeley believed that the advice had come from Hyde.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In 1656 (against the king’s wishes) Berkeley and his royal protégé joined the exiled court in the Spanish Netherlands. Sir Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, acting in league with Hyde, was able to persuade the king that Berkeley was covertly in contact with Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>. Berkeley does appear to have been approached by Cromwellian agents who were intent on creating a breach between the duke and his brother the king. The king’s dismissal of Berkeley and his associates from the court provoked James’s own swift and wrathful exit from the Netherlands in January 1657, forcing Charles to seek a reconciliation. Berkeley was reinstated in the duke’s service and at about this time James procured for Berkeley the promise of a peerage, despite, as Clarendon later wrote, his having ‘no pretence of any one acre of land in the world, nor being worth the clothes he wore’.<sup>22</sup> In spite of critical comment from other courtiers, the patent creating him Baron Berkeley of Stratton, commemorating one of his Cornish victories during the Civil War, was issued at Brussels on 19 May 1658. As Clarendon observed, it ‘served only to whet his appetite, and for an argument to the king to confer an estate … upon him’; it was wholly characteristic that he should jib at the payment of fees to the clerk who had drawn the patent.<sup>23</sup></p><p>During these final years of the royal exile Berkeley succeeded in placing himself in the first rank of royal retainers. Aware of his own unassailability, Berkeley threw himself into further meddling and intrigue, especially against Hyde. In the spring of 1659 one of Hyde’s informants reported that ‘Lord Berkeley’s party’ was busily engaged in prejudicing Henry Carey<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Falkland [S], against Hyde; while Hyde informed Secretary Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> in September that ‘he has a thousand projects without head or foot’.<sup>24</sup> Berkeley’s links with Catholics and his favourable attitudes towards the roman church also drew disapproving comment during the mid and later 1650s, though despite the pro-Catholic tendencies, he later evinced in relation to his Irish interests that there was never any talk of his having actually converted. The ambiguity of his religious stance was, though, sufficiently pronounced to cause Ormond to make enquiries about his views in the early days of the Restoration.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Berkeley returned to England at the Restoration as a senior fixture within York’s circle. Not unnaturally, he expected a significant and lucrative position in the reconstructed government. According to Clarendon, James had by this stage grown ‘very weary’ of him, but for the sake of their old connection felt obliged to continue to satisfy Berkeley’s unending demands.<sup>26</sup> Berkeley now devoted his energies to the aggrandizement of his aristocratic status. The first of a long string of posts which he was to acquire during the 1660s came in July 1660 with his appointment as a navy commissioner, but as Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> later commented, this was done only ‘for want of other ways of gratification’.<sup>27</sup> Initial thoughts of making him lord deputy of Ireland had quickly evaporated.<sup>28</sup> Clarendon saw him as a hindrance as well as a liability whom it was necessary to marginalize as much as possible. Pepys, who encountered Berkeley in his professional capacity at the admiralty, remarked of his performance at a meeting of the Royal Fishing Company in 1664 that he ‘is the most hot, fiery man in discourse, without any cause, that I ever saw’.<sup>29</sup> Throughout the 1660s, certainly as long as Clarendon remained in office, Berkeley’s involvement in government office was confined to membership of various administrative boards and councils – the navy, the ordnance, trade and plantations – where the burden of work was shouldered by others. The powerful streak of self-obsession in Berkeley’s character had the effect of distancing him from the leaders of political factions at Charles II’s court. According to Clarendon ‘he had no friends who heartily esteemed him ... all men of parts who ever had a good opinion of him retired from it quickly, and threw him quite off, or lived with a dry formality with him’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>It was a frequent complaint that the subject of his past deeds or his idiosyncratic opinions often filled his invariably impassioned discourse. His military vanity was boundless. Clarendon stated that he ‘valued himself in that profession as if he had been lieutenant general to Julius Caesar’; Pepys was warned of Berkeley’s fondness for boasting that he had fought on more battlefields than any man in England.<sup>31</sup> His deeply ingrained military outlook played a strong part in shaping his attitudes to post-Restoration government. To the end of his life he remained contemptuous of civil government, bemoaning the fact that England’s social elite did not give prominence to ‘the art and discipline’ of war in the manner of her rivals, the French. He was especially critical of what he saw as the corrosive influence of lawyers upon the royal prerogative and was convinced that if Charles II had been ‘restored by the sword’ he would have had no difficulty in resuming the ‘ancient prerogative’ of his forebears.<sup>32</sup> His admiration for French absolutism was evinced in 1663 in the approval he showed of penalties lately decreed by Louis XIV against French nobles who had falsely assumed titles.<sup>33</sup></p><h2><em>Ireland and the House of Lords, 1660-70</em></h2><p>Although Clarendon gives the impression that James wanted to be rid of Berkeley and that his personal attachment to him had waned, Berkeley was one of several ‘military’ retainers who helped to give weight to the duke’s following. The extent of Berkeley’s control over the duke’s financial affairs (as well as the scope it allowed for his unscrupulous financial behaviour) was hinted at in the early summer of 1663 and again in gossip circulating in the late 1660s. On the latter occasion it was suggested that Berkeley was wringing healthy profits from his administration of the wine licence grant which the duke had been given in 1661.<sup>34</sup> According to Clarendon, James also gave Berkeley generous financial support on his marriage. In January 1661 at James’s behest, Berkeley was appointed to the highly lucrative office of lord president (or governor) of Connaught in Ireland for life. The king acquiesced, so Clarendon states, only because he believed he would be rid of Berkeley who initially undertook to execute the office in person, the better to exploit perquisites which included a yearly pension of £1,200 and a sizeable income from rents.<sup>35</sup> The grant of £1,000 given him ‘for the king’s service’ in October 1661 may well have been in connection with his assumption of this office.<sup>36</sup> It was typical, however, that Berkeley should remain in Ireland only long enough to lease the office at a ‘good yearly rent’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s penchant for ‘projects’, and his love of money-making, involved him in several major colonial ventures during the 1660s. By virtue of his brother, Sir William Berkeley’s, position as governor of Virginia, he had since 1649 been a proprietor of a large stretch of Virginian lands, a grant which was renewed in 1667.<sup>38</sup> It was largely through the Berkeley connection that his friend and former comrade-in-arms, the Barbadian planter Sir John Colleton (whose baronetcy Berkeley had obtained from the king in 1661), secured the duke of York’s support for a project to open up the mainland Carolina area of North America for plantation. This resulted in 1663 in a group of proprietors, headed by Clarendon, Colleton and his kinsman George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, and Berkeley, receiving a royal grant of the vast Carolina lands extending from Virginia southwards to Spanish Florida.<sup>39</sup> On Albemarle’s death in 1670 Berkeley became senior proprietor and ‘palatine’ of Carolina.<sup>40</sup> In June 1664 James made Berkeley and Berkeley’s close associate on the navy board, Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>, sole proprietors of a large portion of the province of New Netherland (renamed New York). Berkeley subsequently sold his ‘western’ share of New Jersey to a group of English Quakers in 1676.<sup>41</sup> In 1661 he had also joined other leading courtiers in becoming a major shareholder in the newly chartered Royal African Company.</p><p>Berkeley combined attention to these varied concerns with often assiduous attendance of the House of Lords, though the presence of his kinsman, George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley of Berkeley (later earl of Berkeley), makes for some confusion in identifying his activity. He seems to have addressed the House only infrequently. Clarendon’s observation that he had ‘a very obscure and troubled expression in debate’ perhaps explains why.<sup>42</sup> His preferred area of contribution, it seems, was in the select committees to which he was a regular nominee.</p><p>Berkeley appears to have taken his place for the first time on 4 June 1660, when he was added to the committees for privileges and petitions. It was not, though, until the following day that he first featured on the attendance list. Assuming that he was present on 4 June, he attended in all 35 days of the session prior to the September adjournment. On 23 Aug. he was one of five peers nominated to mediate between the freemen and corporation of Exeter. He resumed his place on 6 Nov. and attended approximately 60 per cent of the remaining days of the Convention. He was missing from the attendance list on 24 Nov. but appears to have taken his seat later in the day as he was subsequently nominated to the committee considering the bill for arrears of assessments. Alongside his attendance of the Lords he acted as agent for his master, York, in negotiations with the French envoy, Bordeaux. Berkeley and St Albans (as Jermyn had since become) were also at pains to refute accusations that Bordeaux had been involved with trying to persuade Monck to set himself up as protector.<sup>43</sup></p><p>The scandal of York’s marriage to Anne Hyde also involved Berkeley and St Albans as they attempted, in alliance with the princess royal, to devise a solution to the crisis. The king’s response was an insistence on expedients being found ‘on condition that they did not violate divine law’. Berkeley was said to have had suggested one expedient far from keeping with ‘divine law’: namely, to kidnap Anne Hyde and her son and throw them both into the Thames. He was also one of those to insist on having been one of Anne Hyde’s other lovers.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Berkeley returned to the House for the opening of the Cavalier Parliament and on 19 June he was entrusted with the proxy of John Crofts*, Baron Crofts. He received that of his kinsman, George Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Berkeley, the following year on 21 April.<sup>45</sup> On 10 July he was nominated to the committee for the bill for regulating the navy, a matter in which he had considerable interest as one of the commissioners at the admiralty. Six days later, although again omitted from the attendance list, he was named to the committee for drawing up a bill concerning penal laws against Catholic priests. Following the summer recess, and perhaps underlining Berkeley’s fondness to be identified as a capable soldierly upholder of the regime, he was one of a committee of 12 peers nominated to meet with a corresponding group from the Commons to consider rumours of a plot believed to be in agitation.</p><p>In August 1661 Berkeley had been one of three to be awarded some of the estates formerly belonging to Cromwell. The following March, the same three were granted estates of two other regicides in trust for York.<sup>46</sup> Following the close of the parliamentary session in May 1662 Berkeley returned to his duties in Ireland. He had been expected to set out with the lord lieutenant, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] and earl of Brecknock, in mid July but at the last moment resolved to delay his departure, according to the French envoy, ‘to see how the Catholics of that kingdom would react to the arrival of the viceroy’. In the event it was not until the middle of the following month that he finally set out for Ireland, arriving eventually in company with Ormond’s son Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I] (later Baron Butler of Weston in the English peerage).<sup>47</sup> Within a few months, however, serious differences had emerged between himself and Arran’s father concerning Berkeley’s wish to spend most of his time in England and have his nephew Sir Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> act as his deputy in the Connaught presidency. Berkeley’s previous relations with Ormond, which had been amicable enough for him to loan money to the cash-strapped duke, now came under strain as Ormond communicated his complaints about Berkeley’s intended absenteeism to Clarendon, thereby exacerbating the old tensions between Berkeley and the lord chancellor.<sup>48</sup> Ormond may well have felt his authority slighted when Berkeley obtained royal permission to depart from Ireland in January 1663.<sup>49</sup></p><p>On 18 Feb. 1663 Berkeley resumed his regular attendance of the House, taking his seat at the opening of the new session. He was thereafter present on 81 per cent of all sitting days. At the end of April Ormond requested that Berkeley return to Ireland to resume his duties in Connaught, which Berkeley refused to do; once again he suggested that his nephew be allowed to deputize for him. Towards the end of June Bennet and Ormond were corresponding about the unsuitability of the post being held by deputy, with Bennet assuring Ormond that the king now had the matter in consideration. By the beginning of July Ormond was demanding that Berkeley be replaced. He was told by Clarendon that Berkeley would never part with the office ‘but for a valuable consideration’; Clarendon, nevertheless, solemnly pledged to do what he could.<sup>50</sup> Word of the lord chancellor’s politicking perhaps filtered through to Berkeley, and on 13 July he voted, no doubt with considerable pleasure, in support of the unsuccessful attempt mounted by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. On 22 July, perhaps reflecting his perennial interest in trade, Berkeley was added to the committee for the herring fishery bill.</p><p>Berkeley had been loath to fall out with Ormond, having complained in June that Daniel O’Neill<sup>‡</sup>, an associate of Ormond’s, had done him ‘ill offices’ to the duke. Berkeley took care to notify Ormond of the prorogation of Parliament on 28 July, and his wish that members of both Houses ‘will return [as] men with their wanted zeal and affection to his Majesty’s service improved’ expressed a further hint to Ormond that his political responsibilities in England must take precedence over those in Ireland.<sup>51</sup> Four days before the close of the session Berkeley had shown solidarity with like-minded high Anglican peers, including his patron York, in subscribing the protest against a proposed amendment to the Act of Uniformity which would have helped to make the measure more acceptable to nonconformists. Although the king may well have instructed his privy councillors, of whom Berkeley was one, to assist in ameliorating the severity of the act, Berkeley enjoyed the luxury of being unfettered by any such constraint on his actions through the protection of his close association with the king’s brother. He may also have relished taking a further swipe at Clarendon, who was still exploring options for moderating the laws against Presbyterians.</p><p>Berkeley did not return to Ireland after the close of business in July 1663. He had been sworn a member of the privy council in June and could now insist that not only had his presence in London become imperative, but that his appointment gave Ireland an additional voice at the council table. Ormond probably did not welcome his input, complaining in a letter of July how he had been unable to ‘soothe him [Berkeley] in his belief of his infallibility’.<sup>52</sup> Berkeley became a regular participant in deliberations on Irish business, but his comments were not always calculated to support the lord lieutenant’s administration. In May 1664 Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, felt compelled to warn Ormond that Berkeley was broadcasting his opinion that ‘the army of Ireland was so rotten and bad that the king could have no assurance of them’, but that Ormond had refused to sanction the ejection of ‘dangerous men’ from Berkeley’s own troop.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s almost daily attendance in the Lords during the session of March-May 1664 and continuing high level of attendance in that of November 1664-March 1665 was devoid, it seems, of noteworthy occurrence. Only weeks after the end of the latter session, as war loomed with the Dutch, he was telling Pepys of the urgent need for a recall of Parliament in order to meet the government’s serious shortage of money. He proposed a general excise, or a toll levied on every ‘city incorporate’, similar to the payments made annually by towns and cities on the continent.<sup>54</sup> Shortly before Parliament assembled once more at Oxford in the autumn of 1665, he wrote optimistically to Ormond reporting news of the Dutch fleet being dispersed by a storm. This, he hoped, would prove auspicious for the new session.<sup>55</sup> When Parliament did reconvene in October, it was not the financial crisis which roused him from his customary silence in the House, but Ireland and Ormond’s conduct. At the second reading of the Irish cattle bill in the Lords a forceful case against it was made with reference to Ormond’s achievements in Ireland by one of the duke’s old Irish adherents, James Tuchet*, 13th Baron Audley (3rd earl of Castlehaven [I]). Berkeley joined in eulogizing the duke. Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, reported afterwards to Ormond that he ‘was very cordial and zealous … he doth not often speak in the House, yet he did acquaint them with the contents of a letter lately received from your Grace, for which he expects your thanks’.<sup>56</sup> As a result of this onslaught, the cattle bill was dropped for the time being. Another success of the session was the passage of the bill for granting £120,000 to York. Shortly before the end of the year Berkeley was one of the duke’s officials to order payment of £10 to James Noble and the other doorkeepers of the House of Lords as a gift following the bill’s passage.<sup>57</sup></p><p>The matter of the lord presidency of Connaught was finally settled in the spring of 1666 with the appointment of a resident Irish peer, John King, Baron Kingston [I], as ‘joint-president’ with Berkeley.<sup>58</sup> The arrangement was evidently advantageous to Berkeley, for after the latter’s death in 1678 Kingston’s brother complained to the English treasury that whereas Kingston had borne the ‘charge’ of the presidency, Berkeley had ‘reaped the profit’.<sup>59</sup> In April Berkeley was appointed one of the triers of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley. He found with the majority and concluded that Morley was guilty of manslaughter.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Berkeley took his seat in the new session on 18 Sept. 1666 after which he proceeded to attend on 81 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Jan. 1667, he registered his dissent over the bill to establish a court of judicature to handle property disputes in the aftermath of the Fire of London, complaining that plaintiffs at law were to be denied adequate rights of appeal to the king and the House of Lords. This was of course wholly in keeping with his all-round contempt for lawyers and their engrossment of judicial power, particularly at the expense of the Lords.<sup>61</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1667 he shouldered at his own expense the command of the militia forces in East Anglia that had been mustered to thwart the Dutch forces upon their landing in Suffolk. The reality was less than impressive. Berkeley was able to raise few militiamen, while Pepys thought his ‘young hectors’ were more eager to ‘debauch the countrywomen thereabouts’.<sup>62</sup> It was hardly surprising that he was angered a few months later on hearing of accusations in the Commons from Sir Edward Spragge<sup>‡</sup> that the Dutch had been greatly assisted by the dilatoriness of the ordnance chiefs, of whom Berkeley was one.<sup>63</sup> In the opening weeks of the next session, he was conspicuous in the impeachment proceedings against Clarendon. Prior to the opening it had been reported that Berkeley was one of those ‘not a little pleased’ at Clarendon’s disgrace.<sup>64</sup> By the time Parliament convened he appears to have taken on the mantle of one of Clarendon’s chief tormentors: Conway informed Ormond on 5 Nov. that Berkeley was acting as the disgraced lord chancellor’s ‘grand prosecutor’. On the 20th he and other peers registered a protest, signifying their agreement with the Commons’ wish that Clarendon be committed.<sup>65</sup> Not satisfied with taking a lead in the public proceedings, Berkeley also seems to have been keen to destroy Clarendon’s reputation with his former friends. Towards the end of the year, Clarendon’s heir, Henry Hyde*, styled Viscount Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon) complained that Berkeley ‘very industriously spreads abroad a rumour’ that Ormond had broken off all ties with the disgraced lord chancellor. Ormond was at pains to assure Cornbury that there was no truth in it and that Berkeley ‘could have no ground for the report’.<sup>66</sup></p><p>In the midst of the assault on Clarendon, it was reported that both Berkeley and his wife had laid down their offices in the York household. On 21 Nov. the rumour was corrected. Lady Berkeley, the duchess’s groom of the stole, it was said, had resigned her position (worth £1,000 p.a.) but Berkeley had yet to quit his old patron. A newsletter some days later offered a further explanation that the duchess of York ‘had in great anger turned away’ Lady Berkeley, presumably in response to Berkeley’s prominent role in attacking the duchess’s father.<sup>67</sup> Perhaps significantly, not long before this when the House ordered a deputation of peers to wait on the indisposed York to enquire after his health, Berkeley was one of those nominated but it fell to another to report the effect of the meeting.</p><p>Alongside his efforts against Clarendon, Berkeley was also one of those named as commissioners to negotiate a commercial treaty with the French.<sup>68</sup> The early months of 1668 also found Berkeley taken up with a personal disagreement. On 10 Feb. the House was informed that one of his servants (Richard Harris) had been arrested at the suit of John Seldon. The following month Philip Harris informed the Lords that he had served their order on Seldon to appear at the bar, but that Seldon had ‘slighted’ the summons and ‘pished of it’ and had yet to appear to explain himself. Towards the end of April it fell to Berkeley to demonstrate his charity towards Seldon, by now a prisoner of the serjeant of arms. Berkeley interceded on Seldon’s behalf and secured his release.</p><p>Berkeley attended the three prorogation days of 11 Aug. 1668, 10 Nov. and 1 Mar. 1669. In August he received the king and his entourage at his country estate at Twickenham Park, which had been purchased the previous year.<sup>69</sup> He had also commissioned a palatial residence in Piccadilly, subsequently known as Berkeley House, on which work had begun in 1665 and which was completed in 1672 at a total cost, it was reckoned, of £30,000. John Evelyn, who in later years acted as Berkeley’s man of business, wrote that it was an ostentatious Palladian showpiece of bad, if not the worst, conception: ‘there are no water closets, all are rooms of state’.<sup>70</sup> This expenditure on property and building underlines the rate at which Berkeley accumulated his immense wealth during the 1660s. As early as 1663 he had boasted that he had made £50,000 since the Restoration, and it is clear that this was no idle exaggeration.<sup>71</sup></p><p>During the course of 1669 Berkeley’s relations with the York household continued to fracture as he became increasingly associated with George Villiers*, duke of Buckingham. Although Berkeley was not involved in the duke’s factional intrigues, their association had certain common elements at its heart. Their military background was one of these, but more immediate was their mutual hatred of Clarendon, and dislike of Arlington. In March Berkeley’s name was mentioned as a possible treasury commissioner (a gain for Buckingham over York). That autumn it was reported that he had been put out of a place in York’s household thought to have been worth £600 a year. This may well have been the comptrollership, which he had held since 1652.<sup>72</sup></p><h2><em>Lord lieutenant of Ireland and after, 1670-75</em></h2><p>Shortly before news of his discomfiture circulated, Berkeley returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on all bar one of its sitting days. He was present once more at the opening of the subsequent session on 14 Feb. 1670 but attended just 32 days before leaving. The reason for his sudden departure was a renewal of responsibilities in Ireland. Berkeley had begun to feature as a member of the subcommittee of the Privy Council directed ‘to retrench the charge of Ireland’ in 1668, a role which early in 1670 led to his appointment to the premier Irish office itself, the lord lieutenancy.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s appointment to Ireland through Buckingham’s agency had been discoursed as early as March 1668. By the autumn of that year Berkeley was himself talked of openly as one of those jostling for the place and by January 1670 his imminent appointment was publicly acknowledged, though there was some confusion as to whether he was to go as lord lieutenant or merely as a deputy.<sup>74</sup> In February it was reported that Berkeley had received £3,000 ‘advance money’. Buckingham’s long-serving henchman Sir Ellis (or Elisha) Leighton, who it was suggested was ‘generally reputed a papist’ accompanied Berkeley to Ireland as his secretary. Leighton remained closely associated with Berkeley over the next few years. <sup>75</sup></p><p>Berkeley finally set out for Ireland early in April 1670.<sup>76</sup> His term of office began well enough as he pursued the safe expedient of seeking ‘popularity on the duke of Ormond’s account’.<sup>77</sup> In accordance with his instructions, he found no difficulty in maintaining the pro-Catholic policy of his predecessor John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, but was unable to avoid a course that by the end of 1671 had caused him to alienate all shades of Catholic opinion. His efforts to deal with Ireland’s epic fiscal problems were equally ill-fated, as he found himself undercut by reckless counter-interventions by the king.<sup>78</sup> He was also early on embroiled in disputes with Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), over the abduction of Windsor’s niece, an Irish heiress, in which Berkeley appears to have colluded, and also over Berkeley’s apparent failure to honour a promise whereby Windsor was to have a military command in Ireland. In June 1671 it was reported that Windsor had sent Berkeley (at that point back in England) a challenge for the affronts but the result was a spell in the Tower for Windsor after Berkeley complained to the king.<sup>79</sup> Although the king stood by Berkeley on this occasion, in December the lord lieutenant was said to have been chid for taking the part of disgruntled Irish soldiers and by January 1672 Charles had decided to replace him.<sup>80</sup> Even so it was not until April that he was recalled. His appointment was formally revoked in May, but he did not return to England until August.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Back at court Berkeley was unable to avoid a backlash from his term of office. He had quarrelled bitterly over religious policy with the Irish lord chancellor, Michael Boyle, archbishop of Dublin, who now furnished Arlington with reports which appeared to amplify earlier (and plausible) accusations against Berkeley of financial misconduct.<sup>82</sup> Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], formerly a well-wisher to Berkeley, but whose military power Berkeley had attempted to curtail in Ireland, had lost no time in aspersing him to court friends such as Conway.<sup>83</sup> Moreover, the rapid success in Irish administration of Berkeley’s successor, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, not only cast a shadow over Berkeley’s competence but, ironically, resulted in his being made to share in the fate which the ministers in London had decided upon in order to reduce Orrery’s troublesome sway in Ireland. In August 1672 Orrery’s office of president of Munster was formally abolished, and before the end of the year moves were afoot to do away with the parallel suzerainty exercised by Berkeley over Connaught.<sup>84</sup> Berkeley’s loss of this immensely lucrative source of income may have been made to seem administratively necessary following the dismantling of Orrery’s jurisdiction, but it is likely that it was done at Arlington’s instigation, as an act of hostility towards Berkeley. For several months Berkeley endeavoured to make the surrender of his patent conditional upon an assurance that he would receive an income commensurate with the proceeds of his former office.<sup>85</sup> Such an assurance was not forthcoming. It was an indication of how thoroughly Berkeley’s reputation in certain areas of Ireland was tarnished that in September 1674, when it was rumoured that Berkeley may be about to stage a return to the province, Lord Kingston noted that the news was ‘hot and terrible to this part of Ireland. I pray God avert that judgment’. The rumours persisted but Berkeley attempted to put an end to them by letting it be known at the beginning of 1675 that it would not be ‘convenient for him’. He remained, nevertheless, one of those believed to be responsible for attempting to destabilize Ormond at every turn.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s departure for Ireland in April 1670 had occurred a few days before Parliament was adjourned until October that year. He entrusted his proxy to Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, but on two subsequent occasions when the House was called over, on 14 Nov. 1670 and on 10 Feb. 1671, he was excused as being on the king’s service. He resumed attendance at Westminster at the opening of the next session early in February 1673, and was present at every sitting bar three until the adjournment at the end of the following month. At the beginning of March he chaired a committee on a bill concerning the estate of one of his deceased distant relations, Sir Robert Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1656). He chaired and reported two further bills on 25 and 26 Mar., one enabling the king to make leases from the duchy of Cornwall lands, the other for rebuilding the navy office and other property destroyed in the Great Fire of London.<sup>87</sup> Berkeley’s assistance in getting these minor court measures on to the statute books during the busy final days of the session was evidently intended to give some demonstration of his continuing attachment to the court in the face of the hostility shown him by several of its senior figures. A little earlier in the session, according to Burnet, he and the duke of Buckingham not only aligned themselves with the lord treasurer, Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, and John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (earl of Guilford), in urging the king to stand his ground over the Declaration of Indulgence, but also offered to the king that ‘if he would bring the army to town, they would take out of both houses of Parliament the members that made the opposition’.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Berkeley was present on each day of the session of January and February 1674. Having attended the prorogation day on 10 Nov. he then returned to the House at the opening of the subsequent session on 13 Apr. 1675. Again his attendance was high, at just under three-quarters of all sitting days. In spite of his earlier attachment to Buckingham, he was forecast in April 1675 as a supporter of the lord treasurer’s (Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later duke of Leeds) controversial proposal for a ‘non-resisting test’. On 15 May, though Berkeley was not noted as present, the House was informed of a breach of his privilege relating to a court case that had been brought against one of his servants in the Michaelmas term of 1673. The case was referred to the committee for privileges.</p><h2><em>French embassy and death, 1675-7</em></h2><p>Berkeley took his place once more on the opening day of the next session, 13 Oct. 1675, but attended just five days before quitting the Lords, presumably to prepare for his forthcoming embassy to France. His departure was then delayed by a serious bout of poor health, Evelyn reporting how he had collapsed while on the way to a council meeting with a suspected fit of apoplexy. Initial reports of his death proved mistaken but the doctors were then divided on the most suitable treatment for him: some advocating bleeding, Dr. Fraser a vomit. The latter prevailed. Subsequent gossip that the episode had rendered him unfit to undertake the embassy were hushed by threats of being proceeded against for <em>scandalum magnatum</em>.<sup>89</sup> This fresh instance of royal favour emboldened him to petition the king to continue his Irish pension of £1,200 p.a. for the duration of his wife’s life, a request perhaps prompted by his recent brush with death.<sup>90</sup></p><p>It is not clear precisely when Berkeley finally set out for France but on 20 Nov. it was noted that his proxy had been wielded by John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, in the division on the address to the king for a dissolution of Parliament (voting against the motion).<sup>91</sup> Berkeley was in Paris by the middle of December. The Venetian envoy noted that he enjoyed the ‘complete confidence’ of the king and that fears that his age and ill health might not be conducive to rapid progress in negotiations were offset by the presence of Leighton as his secretary, ‘a man of great abilities’. Berkeley’s tenure of the post proved controversial. During his time away it was reported that his wife had converted to Catholicism. He also proved as eager for a return on his services as ever. In December he sought assurance that he would be recompensed for the costs he was undergoing; he repeated the request in March 1676, and in April he addressed the king directly asking somewhat testily for prompt payment of his ambassadorial expenses reminding Charles, not for the first time, of his many years of service to the Crown. An account drawn up in June revealed that he had already received over £6,000 but was demanding an additional £4,000 for extraordinaries and to cover his travelling expenses.<sup>92</sup> Berkeley also demonstrated his habitual pompous pride in his station. He was reported to have received both Francis Seymour*, 5th duke of Somerset, and Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, sitting and with his hat on. When Shrewsbury mimicked his behaviour Berkeley informed the younger man that he had affronted him. Shrewsbury replied in kind, underscoring that in England he was a better man than Berkeley (a mere baron).<sup>93</sup> In October he proceeded to the peace congress at Nimeguen. Although Berkeley led the English delegation, the lion’s share of the work was borne by another of the plenipotentiaries, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>As preparations were made for a new parliamentary session early in 1677 Berkeley was prompted by Secretary Sir Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> towards the end of December 1676 to nominate a proxy ‘that may have the same zeal and real intentions for his service as you have’; once again he chose Frescheville, who had also briefly acted for him around the time of his departure for Paris, though when asked, Frescheville claimed to know nothing about it.<sup>94</sup> By May 1677, with Berkeley’s health beginning to fail, he returned home.<sup>95</sup></p><p>During the remaining year or so of his life Berkeley was preoccupied by the condition of the English nation: his old prejudices reawakened by his favourable observations of government and society in France. He committed his thoughts to paper in an unpublished tract, ‘A Treatise about Government’.<sup>96</sup> Addressing the possibility of war in the near future, he contrasted France’s social and economic bias towards ‘military virtue’ with England’s manifest inability to confront the French in their bid for ‘universal monarchy’ in Europe. He blamed the nature of England’s constitution, and in particular, the dominating power of the ‘body of the law’. Although he also struck a passing blow at the Church, much of his paper was given over to an attack on lawyers and the manner in which their insidious activities had gradually demolished most of the ‘props and supports of the prerogative royal’. He was perplexed that judges had invaded ‘all the judicial power of the House of Lords by declaring with much confidence and little truth … that they are only a court of appeals’, and that through the connivance of lawyer peers the method of proceeding there was so circumscribed that ‘none but madmen will appeal’. Berkeley was evidently conscious that his days were drawing to a close and that these pages would stand as a personal testament. In his opening lines he was unable to refrain from the sort of self-seeking artifice that Clarendon had seen him use so often, of condemning those in power on account of the ‘unequal dealing’ he had received from them, while at the same time professing himself ‘of a temper that would rather receive many injuries than do one’.</p><p>Berkeley was sufficiently well to attend the Lords for a few days in March 1678. The previous month it had been noted that he was one of those to have been ‘ousted from the possession of lands in the fen’ following a decree of sewers.<sup>97</sup> Having taken his place on 4 Mar. he was present for ten days, just under nine per cent of the whole. He was then present on just three days of the subsequent session, attending for the final time on 27 May. He died at Twickenham a few months later on 26 Aug. and was buried at the nearby parish church on 5 September. The barony and estates were inherited by his eldest son, Charles Berkeley*, 2nd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and subsequently in turn by his two other surviving sons, John Berkeley*, and William Berkeley*, 3rd and 4th Barons respectively. His daughter, Anne, married a Suffolk squire, Sir Dudley Cullum<sup>‡</sup>.</p> |
A.A.H./R.D.E.E. |
|
BERKELEY, John (c. 1663-97) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1663–97)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 6 Mar. 1682 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. BERKELEY of STRATTON |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 20 Feb. 1697 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1663, 2nd s. of John Berkeley*, Bar. Berkeley of Stratton and Christiana (1639-98), da. of Sir Andrew Riccard of St. Olave’s, Hart Street, London, gov. of E. I. Co.; bro. of Charles Berkeley*, 2nd Bar. Berkeley of Stratton and William Berkeley*, 4th Bar. Berkeley of Stratton. <em>educ</em>. matric. Christ Church, Oxf. Aug. 1677. <em>m</em>. 8 Mar. 1692, Jane Martha (1672-1751), da. of Sir John Temple of East Sheen, Surr., att. gen. [I], 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 27 Feb. 1697; <em>will</em> 25 Apr. 1696, pr. 15 Apr. 1697.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of stole to Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, 1690-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Maj. Life Gds. 1684-91; lt. RN 1685-6; capt. 1686-8; rear adm. 1688-90; lt. col. 3rd tp. of Life Gds. 1691-2; col. 4th regt. of horse 1692-3, 2nd Marines 1693-<em>d</em>.; v. adm. 1693-4, adm. 1694-6.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Godfrey Kneller, c.1696 (joint portrait with Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston and Charles Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later 2nd earl of Burlington)), English Heritage, Chiswick House, Mdx.</p> |
<p>John Berkeley was about one year younger than his brother Charles Berkeley*, 2nd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and like him took to a seafaring career from an early age. He was a volunteer ‘by king’s letter’ in the Navy during the first half of the 1680s, and he appears to have still been a minor when he succeeded to the barony at the death of his elder brother on 6 Mar. 1682. He received favour from the court and was royally pardoned in May 1684 for the murder of a publican who had offended him.<sup>3</sup> He was commissioned, albeit as a low-ranking officer, in both the land and sea forces in 1684-5. In July 1686 he was promoted to captain of the <em>Charles Galley</em>, part of the fleet that was sent to patrol the Mediterranean under Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, where he proved himself a brave and somewhat reckless commander.<sup>4</sup></p><p>By this time he had reached his majority, for he was summoned to James II’s Parliament and first took his seat on its first day, 19 May 1685. He was nominated to two select committees and was named as one of the conservators in the bill for Deeping Fen, which was lost at the adjournment on 2 July.<sup>5</sup> Otherwise he did not make much of a mark on this Parliament as he came to only 15 of its meetings: only four when it commenced in May, and then all 11 sittings in November 1685 before the Parliament began its long series of prorogations. In the years following both English and French observers considered him a client of the king dependent on him for future promotion in the navy, and they therefore assumed he would support the king’s policies to repeal the Test Act and penal laws. Yet when Berkeley returned from his tour of the Mediterranean and was placed in command of the <em>Mountagu</em> on 30 Aug. 1688, part of the fleet under George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, he quickly revealed himself to be one of the leaders of the Williamite conspiracy, ‘one of the most factious and disaffected officers of the navy’, as James II later considered him. He helped to turn the fleet against Dartmouth and persuaded the admiral not to venture forth to intercept William of Orange’s large transport fleet.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Berkeley’s role in preventing the English fleet from engaging William of Orange was quickly rewarded, and on 14 Dec. William made him rear admiral, ‘to the great satisfaction of the fleet’, according to Morrice.<sup>7</sup> From this point began his long career of service to the Williamite regime, so much at odds with the predictions confidently made about his loyalty to his former patron James II in 1687-8. In the Convention in late January and early February he took part in all the important votes on the declaration of the disposition of the Crown, and consistently voted in favour of accepting the words ‘vacant’ and ‘abdicated’ and signed the protests of 31 Jan. and 2 Feb. when this wording was rejected by the majority of the House.<sup>8</sup> On 6 Mar. 1689 he further protested against the passage of the trial of peers bill. In total he came to only 44 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the Convention, and was named to two committees (both on the same day, 21 March). He had to divide his time there with military duty, as he served as rear admiral of the blue under Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, at Bantry Bay and then moved on to defend Dublin Bay against possible French invasion during May 1689. He returned at the very end of the month in time to vote against the motion to reverse the punitive judgments against Titus Oates on 31 May and sat in the House again the following day before absenting himself from proceedings for the remainder of the session to return to sea.</p><p>From this point it becomes increasingly difficult to determine Berkeley of Stratton’s activities in the House, or indeed in public life. Even before that date there were two Lord Berkeleys who appear in the parliamentary records, Berkeley of Stratton himself and his distant kinsman George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley. To further complicate matters, on 11 July 1689 the earl of Berkeley’s son and heir Charles Berkeley*, styled Lord Dursley, was summoned to the House during his father’s lifetime as Baron Berkeley of Berkeley and continued to sit under that title during the remainder of Berkeley of Stratton’s career in the House, making it often impossible to distinguish between the two, sometimes three, Lord Berkeleys who appear in the House’s records.</p><p>This problem is slightly alleviated by the knowledge that for much of the next few years Berkeley of Stratton was principally occupied by his military duties and seldom attended the House. From October 1689 he commanded a fleet cruising the Channel, at one point threatening the coast of France, and was absent for almost the entirety of the second session of the Convention.<sup>9</sup> He came to the House on 22 Jan. 1690, where he sat for a further two days before the Convention was prorogued on 27 January. He was removed as rear admiral of the red a few days after this, to the bewilderment of Roger Morrice: ‘I suppose it is for some personal prejudice that somebody of interest has taken against him for he was as right disposed for present purposes’.<sup>10</sup> He still came to only 12 sittings of the session of spring 1690, perhaps preoccupied with further developments that only bound him tighter to the court. When Prince George of Denmark*, decided to accompany his brother-in-law William III on his campaign to Ireland, two of the prince’s servants, Edward Hyde*, styled Lord Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon), his master of horse, and Anthony Cary<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Viscount Falkland [S], his groom of the stole, refused to go with him and were consequently dismissed. In their place Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, became the prince’s master of the horse and Berkeley was appointed groom of the stole. Both accompanied the prince on the Irish campaign.<sup>11</sup> After his return, Berkeley did come to 36 meetings (47 per cent) of the House in the last three months of 1690, when he was placed on five committees. From January to October 1691 he acted as captain of the <em>Saint Andrew</em>, on which ship Prince George intended to sail as a volunteer before William III’s prohibition prevented it.<sup>12</sup> Berkeley was able to serve the prince and princess again when in April 1692 he leased his family’s grand house on Piccadilly to their use after they were driven from Whitehall by queen Mary’s antagonism towards her sister and her servants. Princess Anne and Prince George remained in Berkeley House until 1695 when William III gave them the use of St. James’s Palace. During these years, when Berkeley was not at sea, he remained in the princess’s old lodgings at the Cockpit.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Berkeley appears to have been in England for all of the months of the 1691-2 session, although he only came to 47 per cent of the sittings and was named to no committees. A ‘Lord Berkeley’ was a teller in a number of divisions over these months – on the clandestine marriages bill (2 Nov. 1691), the treason trial bill (20 Jan. 1692) and the judges’ commissions and salaries bill (22 Feb. 1692) – but this probably refers to the Baron Berkeley of Berkeley, usually more involved in parliamentary affairs than his namesake.<sup>14</sup> It was definitely Berkeley of Stratton – for he signed himself ‘Berkeley, S.’ – who subscribed to the protest of 16 Feb. 1692 against the decision that proxies could not be used during the proceedings on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. In March 1692 he further cemented his allegiance to the court by marrying the daughter of the Irish attorney general and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons Sir John Temple, and a maid of honour to the queen. Deprived of his naval command (and thus precluded from participating in the victories of Barfleur and La Hogue), he spent most of the 1692 campaign on land in Flanders, leading the 4th Regiment of Horse whose command he had been given in January 1692.<sup>15</sup> He was back in England to attend just over half of the sittings in the session of 1692-3. Here he followed the court’s lead in opposing the place bill, voting against both its commitment and its eventual passage on 1 Jan. 1693. In February he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. From this session Berkeley became a more assiduous attender of the House and sat in at least half of the sittings of each subsequent session of the House until his death. Regardless of his increased attendance he never became a major participant in the House’s business. It was almost certainly Berkeley of Berkeley and not Berkeley of Stratton who was the ‘Lord Berkeley’ who on 1 Jan. 1693 acted as teller in a series of six divisions in the committee of the whole on the place bill and later told against the passage of the bill. Berkeley of Stratton was not named to a single select committee in any of the three parliamentary sessions between 22 Oct. 1691 and 25 Apr. 1694 and even when he came to two-thirds of the sittings in the 1694-5 session (the highest attendance rate of his career) he was still only named to five committees.</p><p>He was after all principally a military officer and in late January 1693 he was returned to naval service. He was made vice-admiral of the blue squadron and, after the death of the admiral Sir John Ashby in June, was promoted to full admiral of the blue in early July. This appointment was controversial as it overlooked more senior officers such as Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> and it was reversed in late August 1693, when Rooke took over as admiral of the blue and Berkeley was dropped down once again to being vice admiral.<sup>16</sup> Fortunately for him, this meant that he was not involved in the Smyrna fleet disaster, and he escaped unscathed from the House’s examinations in the session of 1693-4, into the naval miscarriages of the previous summer. He attended exactly half the sittings of this session. At one point in January 1694 he was called upon to give his expert opinion on a naval matter under discussion and on 16 Feb. 1694 he helped to introduce to the House his fellow soldier Charles Butler*, as Baron Butler of Weston (already earl of Arran [I]).<sup>17</sup> He profited from the disgrace of the joint admirals. He was given command of the admiral Henry Killigrew’s<sup>‡</sup> regiment of marines in December 1693 and in April 1694 was finally promoted to admiral. That summer he acted as admiral of the blue under Edward Russell* (later earl of Orford), and led the naval forces supporting the attack on Brest. He was in the thick of the fighting at Camaret Bay on 8 June 1694 before being beaten off by the French batteries. Throughout the rest of June and July he coasted in the Channel, constantly threatening and bombarding the French Channel ports of Dieppe and Le Havre, although he did have to come ashore briefly at the end of July to account to the Privy Council for his actions in the summer’s campaign.<sup>18</sup></p><p>On 27 Aug. 1694, illness forced him to give up his command to spend the winter in London. Consequently, he was able to attend two-thirds of the sittings of the 1694-5 session and he was involved in the investigation conducted in February 1695 into the state of the fleet. On 11 Feb. the House ordered him to submit a copy of the exact instructions he had received from Admiral Russell for the attack on Camaret Bay and over the following three days it further interrogated the admiralty commissioners on the size and composition of the fleet Berkeley had had with him during the campaign.<sup>19</sup> During that summer’s campaign he was back at sea as admiral of the blue, participating in various naval actions. He came to 56 per cent of the meetings of the 1695-6 session. He was named to only one committee and was appointed to manage a conference on 14 Dec. 1695 on the address against the Scottish East India Company. On 16 Mar. 1696 he signed the Association. He took over as commander-in-chief of the fleet in May in place of Sir George Rooke, leading in July 1696 a series of raids on the French coast in the hope of diverting French forces from Flanders.<sup>20</sup> But he was increasingly ill with his personal affairs in some disarray and after incessant requests to be given permission to return to London he was finally allowed to leave the fleet in August 1696, never to return to command it again.</p><p>The principal trouble concerning him was the disposition of Berkeley House, which he had been trying to sell since Princess Anne and Prince George had vacated it in 1695. Berkeley appears to have agreed to sell it to both John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), and to William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire. These two peers fought out their conflicting claims to the house in chancery; Berkeley and his promises were naturally at the centre of the dispute. During the 1696-7 session, Berkeley attended 41 per cent of the sittings but was not named to a single committee. Meanwhile the dispute over Berkeley House came to a head when Normanby petitioned the House on 6 Nov. 1696 that Devonshire be made to waive his privilege in this matter. The matter rumbled on for most of the month until on 9 Dec. all three peers agreed to relinquish their privilege in the cause. Devonshire was eventually able to claim possession of Berkeley House, which later became the site of the celebrated and more long-lasting Devonshire House.<sup>21</sup> On 23 Dec. 1696 Berkeley also voted in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>By the end of February 1697 Berkeley was incapacitated by illness. On 20 Feb. the select committee considering the state of trade and plantations summoned Berkeley, as one of the proprietors of Carolina and the Bahama Islands (ownership of which he had inherited from his father) to attend the committee in two days time. On that same day Charles Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later 2nd earl of Burlington), assigned his proxy to Berkeley. Berkeley, however, was too ill to attend the committee on the 22nd and in turn registered his proxy that day with Clifford of Lanesborough, who consequently returned to the House. Both the proxy and any hope of his appearance before the committee were obviated by Berkeley’s death from pleurisy on 27 Feb. 1697.<sup>22</sup> Berkeley left behind no surviving children and the title and estate, such as it was after the sale of both Berkeley House and his other house of Twickenham Park, passed to his younger brother William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, the last of the sons of John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. The third baron’s widow made an advantageous match shortly after his death, marrying in May 1700 Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, and after his death in 1709, she went on to serve as governess to the daughters of George II until her own death at an advanced age in 1751.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BERKELEY, William (c. 1664-1741) |
<p><strong><surname>BERKELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1664–1741)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 27 Feb. 1697 as 4th Bar. BERKELEY of STRATTON |
|
First sat 9 Apr. 1697; last sat 9 Mar. 1741 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1664, 3rd s. of John Berkeley*, Bar. Berkeley of Stratton and Christiana (1639-98), da. of Sir Andrew Riccard, of St. Olave’s, Hart Street, London, gov. of E. I. Co.; bro. of Charles Berkeley*, 2nd Bar. Berkeley of Stratton and John Berkeley*, 3rd Bar. Berkeley of Stratton. <em>educ</em>. I. Temple 1695. <em>m</em>. c. April 1696, Frances (<em>d</em>. 16 July 1707), da. of Sir John Temple of East Sheen, Surr., att. gen. [I], 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 24 Mar. 1741; <em>will</em> 2 June 1737, pr. 20 Apr. 1741.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Master of Rolls [I] 1696-1731; PC [I] 1696-1731; chancellor, duchy of Lancaster 1710-14; PC 21 Sept. 1710-<em>d</em>.; first ld. board of trade 1714-15.</p> |
|
<p>The youngest of the three sons of John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and born with apparently little chance of inheriting the title, William Berkeley’s early life is largely unknown. Unlike his two elder brothers, in turn the 2nd and 3rd Barons Berkeley of Stratton, he did not choose a naval career and instead studied law at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1695.<sup>4</sup> He then devoted his attention to Irish affairs through his connections with the Temples, a family that had provided Ireland with administrators since Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> first emigrated there in 1597 and had subsequently became provost of Trinity College. His grandson Sir John Temple, Irish solicitor general from 1660 to 1689, speaker of the House of Commons there from 1661 to 1667 and attorney general from 1691 to 1695, cemented the Berkeleys’ relations with the Temples and with Ireland with a double marriage. In March 1692 Sir John’s elder daughter Jane Martha, a maid of honour to the queen, married the naval commander John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, while only a few years later, in early 1696, his youngest daughter Frances married the Baron’s younger brother William. In late April 1696, undoubtedly through the influence of his father-in-law, Berkeley was appointed master of the rolls in Ireland, in succession to Sir John Temple’s older brother, the diplomat and statesman Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup> William Berkeley succeeded to the peerage less than a year later, at the unexpected death of his older brother.</p><p>The new Baron Berkeley of Stratton first sat in the House on 9 Apr. 1697, perhaps delayed from sitting earlier by his journey from Ireland; he sat for only a further three sittings before that session was prorogued. He was more attentive when Parliament met again in the session 1697-8, when he attended 80 per cent of the meetings. It is difficult to distinguish many of his activities during this session as there was another Baron Berkeley present in the House throughout, Charles Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Berkeley (better known as Lord Dursley), who had been summoned to the House in July 1689 in a junior barony of his father George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley. It was most likely Berkeley of Berkeley, a more established figure in the House at this time, who was appointed manager on 13 Jan. 1698 for a conference on amendments to the bill to continue the imprisonment of those implicated in the assassination plot and who entered two protests against decisions of 16 and 17 Mar. 1698 to grant relief to the appellants in the case between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S].</p><p>A protest of 1 July 1698 against the second reading of the bill to settle the East India trade was signed by both Berkeley of Berkeley (who wrote himself as such) and, most likely, his father the earl, making his last impact on the session before leaving the House for good for that session. Admittedly the earl is not marked as present on that day, but he was probably around the House, for the proxy registers make it clear that on that date George, earl of Berkeley registered his proxy with his distant kinsman Berkeley of Stratton before leaving Westminster. The clerk of the House did generally distinguish between Berkeley of Berkeley and Berkeley of Stratton when drawing up committee appointments, and it is clear that Berkeley of Stratton was appointed to 32 select committees during this session, including ones considering the methods to receive appeals from the court of chancery in Ireland (7 Jan. 1698), to restrain the expense of legal suits (17 Jan.), and to consider the practice of exchequer bills (23 Mar.), all of which would have had relevance to his legal practice, particularly in Ireland.</p><p>Identification of Berkeley of Stratton’s activities in the House becomes much easier from 14 Oct. 1698, when Berkeley of Berkeley succeeded to his father’s title as 2nd earl of Berkeley, leaving Berkeley of Stratton the only Baron Berkeley in the House (until 1705). He also helpfully took to signing his protests and other interventions as ‘Berkeley of Stratton’. Although the new Parliament first convened on 24 Aug. 1698, Berkeley of Stratton did not appear in the House until 29 November. He came to 81 per cent of the sittings of the first session, in 1698-9, of the new Parliament, during which he was nominated to 20 select committees. He was nominated to two committees set up to consider the petition of the London Society of the Ulster Plantation against William King, bishop of Derry [I], (on 11 Feb. and 24 Mar. 1699), an issue that would have been pertinent to his legal work in Ireland, and on 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against the motion to assist the king in retaining his Dutch Guards and clearly signed his dissent as ‘Berkeley S.’ when that motion was passed. In the 1699-1700 session, of which he attended 70 per cent of the sittings but was named to only four committees, he supported the bill to retain the ‘old’ East India Company as a corporation in a vote of 23 Feb. 1700.</p><p>In the early summer of 1700 Berkeley’s status was given a boost by the marriage of his widowed sister-in-law, Jane Martha, dowager Baroness Berkeley of Stratton, to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, one of the most powerful and richest men in the kingdom. She was a prominent courtier from this time, even after Portland’s death in 1709, and was more than willing to assist the interests and ambitions of her brother-in-law.</p><p>In the Parliament of early 1701 Berkeley was present for 82 per cent of the sittings and was named to 14 committees. Among these were three large committees to consider precedents and methods for the impeachments of the Junto lords and in the week of 17-23 June he voted for the acquittal of both John Somers*, Baron Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. In the following Parliament of early 1702, 71 per cent of whose meetings he attended, he was named to 16 committees, signed the address of 1 Jan. 1702 against Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender as king of England and on 8 Mar. was named a manager to the conference on the death of William III and the accession of Anne.</p><p>He was present at 62 per cent of the sittings of the first session of her first Parliament, in 1702-3, and on 19 Jan. 1703 he signed, as ‘Berkeley of Stratton’, the protest objecting to the decision to retain a clause in the bill settling a revenue on Prince George*, of Denmark (also duke of Cumberland) which appeared to cast doubt on the right of the many Dutch peers to sit in the House. Three days previously he had also voted in favour of the wrecking amendments to the occasional conformity bill, and on 14 Dec. 1703 when the bill came to the House again in the following session of 1703-4, 61 per cent of whose sittings Berkely attended, he once again voted to reject it. He came to two-thirds of the meetings of the 1704-5 session, but from 7 Mar. 1705 identification of his activities once again becomes complicated as on that day the 2nd earl of Berkeley’s son and heir James Berkeley*, the future 3rd earl of Berkeley, first sat in the House by a writ in acceleration as Baron Berkeley of Berkeley, thus introducing again another ‘Baron Berkeley’ into the Journal’s records. Even taking into account the possibility of misidentification between the two Baron Berkeleys – and Berkeley of Berkeley, a naval officer, was absent from the House during long periods – Berkeley of Stratton made little impact on the proceedings of the House during the 1705 Parliament. In its first session of 1705-6, when he attended exactly half of the sittings, he voted with the ministry to agree with the motion in the committee of the whole that the Church was not in danger under the present administration.<sup>6</sup> He attended 69 per cent of the sessions of both 1706-7 and 1707-8.</p><p>Yet despite Berkeley of Stratton’s relative inaction in the House, contemporaries, and some modern historians, still attempted to classify his political views. A ‘Lord Barclay’ was marked as a supporter of the Hanoverians in an analysis from mid 1705, but unfortunately this vague indication could equally refer to Berkeley of Berkeley or even the earl of Berkeley. In or about March 1710 an annotator of a printed list of the peerage marked Berkeley of Stratton as a Whig. Certainly his scant record from 1701 – against the impeachment of the Junto peers, against the occasional conformity bill, against ‘the Church in Danger’ – were Whig positions, some even going against the wishes of the ministry. However, at precisely the time that this analysis was drawn up Berkeley of Stratton was undergoing a shift in allegiance which has allowed most modern historians to see him as a ‘court Tory’.<sup>7</sup> Certainly he could be considered as such from 1710, but to what extent he can be considered either a courtier or a Tory before then is doubtful.</p><p>Berkeley sided with the Whigs and against the ministry of the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, in the 1708-9 session of the new Parliament, when he was present at 45 per cent of the sittings. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against the motion that Godolphin’s ally James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], had a right to vote in the election for the Scottish representative peers, even though he had recently been created a peer of Great Britain as duke of Dover. There was probably personal disgruntlement against Godolphin and his fellow minister John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, in this vote, for since at least February 1708 Berkeley of Stratton had been relying on these ministers to provide him with further advancement. To make his case he relied on the influence of his sister-in-law, the countess of Portland, with Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, both of them married to husbands highly involved in the Dutch war effort. In the course of her letters the countess of Portland took to soliciting for a further office for her brother-in-law through the duchess’s influence with both Marlborough and Godolphin. The duchess was initially happy to comply. In February 1708 she offered some ‘honourable’ position which nevertheless the countess thought would not be ‘agreeable to my Lord Berkeley’s quiet way of living’. Lady Portland insisted instead on a post in the commission of trade. She was sure, however, that ‘in whatever business he [Berkeley], was engaged in, he would give satisfaction in the discharging it’. These solicitations did not result in any concrete or acceptable offers and on 20 Feb. 1709, a month after Berkeley had shown his disgruntlement with Godolphin by his vote against Queensberry, the countess wrote again to the duchess reminding her of Berkeley’s need: ‘I am sure if he and I are so lucky as to gain any success in our desires we shall neither of us be of the number of those that are ungrateful to you’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Nothing came of these continual reminders and by the time of the 1709-10 session, when he came to 64 per cent of the sittings, Berkeley may have given up searching for promotion from the duumvirs, and the Whigs on whom they relied. He instead seems to have pinned his hopes on the rising opposition centred around Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. This may explain his opposition to the prosecution of Dr. Henry Sacheverell throughout March 1710, shown by his subscription to three protests entered on 14 and 16 Mar. against resolutions that furthered the impeachment hearings, his vote of not guilty on 20 Mar. and another protest that day against the verdict. Marlborough was shocked by this unexpected betrayal. Writing to the duchess on 24 Mar., he included Berkeley among the nine peers whose voting he could not account for: ‘I should have thought all these would have been on the other side’.<sup>9</sup> Harley hastened to encourage Berkeley’s defection by including him among the peers who were to be ‘provided for’ as he prepared for the change of ministry in September 1710. By 15 Sept. it was widely known that Berkeley was going to replace the Whig, James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which Godolphin saw as a portent of ‘other removes of greater consequence, in order to the dissolution’.<sup>10</sup> This appointment was made official on 21 Sept. and on that same day Berkeley was sworn on to the privy council and the Whig-dominated Parliament was dissolved. The replacement of the Whig and local grandee Derby by Berkeley, a stranger to the region, was a clear partisan move by Harley, but Berkeley himself did not act with party zeal in discharging his duties. Almost immediately after taking up his office he informed the Member for Wigan, Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>, at that point trying to trim his political sails to the new ministry, that his ‘chief aim, all parties laid aside, is to find out the fittest men for their offices, and that will do the best service to the country’.<sup>11</sup> Although his first commission of the peace sealed as chancellor reinstated many Tories who had been left off the bench by Derby, one historian has judged that in his role as chancellor Berkeley of Stratton ‘pursued a policy of unspectacular but steady recruitment [of Tories], without significant purges [of Whigs]’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Harley’s prediction that Berkeley would follow the new ministry’s line in Parliament proved to be accurate, and by the end of the first session of 1710-11, where Berkeley attended 77 per cent of the sittings, he was included in a list of ‘Tory patriots’ who had acquitted themselves well in the Parliament. He seems to have had a personal interest in the peace treaty with France. From at least late 1711 he was a close friend of the diplomat Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, and during Strafford’s mission to negotiate the Treaty of Utrecht in December 1711 he served as one of his most assiduous informants of political and social news in London.<sup>13</sup> On 27 Nov. 1711, a day of prorogation, Berkeley also helped to introduce to the House Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle of Marston (better known as 4th earl of Orrery [I]), a diplomat like Strafford and envoy to Brussels. On 10 Dec. 1711 he sided with the ministry in the motion to defeat the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the address to the queen, but did not follow the ministry whole-heartedly in the peerage case of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton (and duke of Brandon in the British peerage); he abstained (‘went out’) at the division on 20 December. On 2 Jan. 1712 he helped to introduce to the House one of the 12 new peers created at the turn of the year, Thomas Mansell*, Baron Mansell.</p><p>So it was that on 6 Jan. 1712 he was able to report to his friend Strafford in Utrecht the beginning of ‘a new world’: ‘the duke of Marlborough out of all his places, ... twelve new lords, at which some take offence, others laugh, though nobody can deny their being well chosen, at least most of them, for their estates and families’. He also reported to his friend the reception to the visit of Prince Eugene of Savoy and the pretensions of Hamilton ‘and his countrymen’ to make an address to the queen ‘about their being excluded the House of Lords’, and that ‘they flatter themselves with bringing that matter over again, but it is to be hoped that cannot be done’.<sup>14</sup> Over the following months he continued to keep Strafford informed of events in the House and at court, but he was mostly concerned with the progress of the peace and reporting to Strafford the negative reactions in Westminster to the peace terms, which he feared would give the malcontented Whigs further reason to complain and be obstructive – ‘However, a peace is necessary’, he concluded.<sup>15</sup> Perhaps for that reason he was present in the House on 28 May 1712 when he voted against the motion to present the queen with an address against the ‘restraining orders’ preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging in offensive actions against the French.<sup>16</sup> On that same day he began his long-running relationship with the secretary of state (and later lord privy seal) William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, as a proxy recipient. In the last weeks of the session Berkeley of Stratton registered his proxy with Dartmouth no fewer than three times – on 28 May, 2 June and 10 June – sometimes for absences as short as three days. All told he had come to two-thirds of the meetings of this session of 1711-12. Berkeley of Stratton’s attendance at virtually every single one of the prorogations of Parliament from July 1712 to March 1713, and the frustration he expressed in his letters to Strafford over these constant postponements of Parliament and the halting progress of the peace negotiations, suggests that he was keen to participate in discussions of the final settlement when it at last came before Parliament in April 1714.<sup>17</sup> Yet after Parliament did finally convene on 9 Apr. 1713 Berkeley proceeded to sit for only 57 per cent of the meetings, although his running commentary on proceedings in the House to Strafford in Utrecht suggests that he was paying close attention to events in Westminster.<sup>18</sup> Oxford still predicted that he would support the French commercial treaty if it ever came to the House, and the commerce bill did take up much of his attention, even though he was forced to admit to Strafford on 14 June 1713 that ‘my head is so full of the business of trade, with hearing of nothing else, within and without the House of Lords, that it puts out all other thoughts, and yet [I], know so little of it, that I should get no credit with speaking of it’. In this affair he also had to give some grudging admiration to the Whigs, who were ‘elevated’ at the divisions among the Tories over the bill and ‘must have this justice done them, that they observe better discipline, but the others all think themselves fit to govern’. After the bill’s defeat in the Commons, Berkeley had to admit to Strafford, ‘I do not know what to say to you about the trade business, being stunned to find people so ready to divide upon every occasion, which must give a great advantage to another set, better regulated and united’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>As the partisan frenzy increased between and within the parties in the last year of Anne’s reign, Berkeley of Stratton retired into a stance of moderation. He wrote to Strafford on 16 Mar. 1714 that he was impressed with recent statements of the electress of Hanover that she hated the names of Whigs and Tories, ‘invented only by ill designing people, but ought to be detested by all honest men, as well as by princes’.<sup>20</sup> During the session of spring of 1714 in the following Parliament, when he came to 62 per cent of the meetings, he showed himself highly doubtful of the wisdom of the schism bill, even though Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham predicted he would be in favour of it, as ‘it will alarm the sectaries, and my humble opinion is that nobody should be made uneasy if it can be avoided, but I doubt it is designed to inflame the high Church against those of the ministry who do not appear zealous for this bill’.<sup>21</sup> He left the session on 28 June 1714 and on 1 July registered his proxy yet again with the moderate Tory, Dartmouth, now lord privy seal, who retained it for the remaining three days. He was not present at all in the short session of August 1714 following the death of the queen and he made over his proxy on 6 Aug. 1714 to John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, for the remainder of the session. He admitted to Strafford on 3 Aug. 1714 that ‘I am so stunned with all that hath happened within this week that I can hardly fix to do anything, after the melancholy scene at Kensington’. But, he continued, ‘my first thought after coming to Richmond was to write to your lordship’ and indeed during August and the following tense months Berkeley carefully reported to Strafford the various changes in court personnel and in party strength and alignments antecedent to the arrival of George I.<sup>22</sup></p><p>By early October 1714, Berkeley looked upon himself as out of favour. He was dismissed as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in early November, which he admitted to Strafford he found ‘rather a pleasure than an affliction, for I should have had more squabbles about elections and other vexations than I could have borne with patience’. Yet the king and his ministers assured him that his dismissal ‘was not with any design to discountenance me, or from any dislike’, and the secretary of state Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, offered him instead the post of first lord of the board of trade when the commission was overhauled in December 1714. Berkeley was also resworn onto the new Privy Council, and in January 1715 he was included in a list of Tories still in office in the new regime. However, the Whigs in the ascendant could not stand his tenure for long and by early January 1716 he was no longer serving on the board of trade. He appears to have been expecting as much. As early as November 1714 he had admitted to Strafford that he was not looking forward to working with his Whig colleagues and did not think he would last long there, ‘for I cannot alter my opinion of things, nor of persons neither’.<sup>23</sup> Nor, as a Tory loyal to Anne’s last ministry and the peace negotiated by his friend Strafford, did he show a great deal of enthusiasm for the politics in the House during the new Whig regime. He took a more oppositional stance than he had in previous Parliaments, putting his name to more protests during George I’s reign than ever before.</p><p>Berkeley of Stratton resigned his Irish posts (the mastership of the rolls and its concomitant seat on the Irish Privy Council) in October 1731 and spent his last years at his house in his grandfather Berkeley’s ancestral manor of Bruton in Somerset, where he died on 24 Mar. 1741.<sup>24</sup> His will, written in 1737, reveals a definite preference for the younger of his two surviving sons, Charles, who was constituted sole executor and was bequeathed the reversion of the Bruton estate, after Berkeley of Stratton’s trustees, Poulett and his brother-in-law Henry Temple, Viscount Palmerston [I], had sufficiently used the estate’s rents to provide for his eldest surviving daughter Jane. The manor was entailed on Charles, who duly took possession of it, but he died without issue in 1765 and was succeeded in the estate (according to the terms of the will) by his elder brother John Berkeley*, who had already succeeded to the title at his father’s death as 5th Baron Berkeley of Stratton.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BERTIE, James (1653-99) |
<p><strong><surname>BERTIE</surname></strong> (<strong>BARTIE</strong>), <strong>James</strong> (1653–99)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>mo. 24 Mar. 1657 (a minor) as 5th Bar. NORREYS (NORRIS); <em>cr. </em>30 Nov. 1682 earl of ABINGDON |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 2 Aug. 1699 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 16 June 1653, 6th s. of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, being 1st s. with 2nd w. Bridget, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Norreys, da. and h. of Edward Wray of Rycote, Oxon.; bro. of Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, half-bro. of Charles<sup>‡</sup>, Peregrine<sup>‡</sup>, Richard<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey. <em>educ</em>. Magdalene Coll., Camb. (matric. 1667). <em>m.</em> (1) 1 Feb. 1672 (with £8,000),<sup>1</sup> Eleanor (1658-91), da. of Sir Henry Lee, 3rd bt. of Quarrendon, and Anne Danvers, 6s. 3da.; (2) lic. bp. of Lond. 15 Apr. 1698, Katherine (<em>d.</em>1742), dowager Visctss. Wenman [I], wid. of Richard Wenman<sup>‡</sup>, Visct. Wenman [I], da. of Sir Thomas Chamberlain, 2nd bt. and Margaret Prideaux, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 22 May 1699; <em>will</em> 27-28 July 1683, pr. 3 Feb. 1700.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>High steward Oxford 1687, 1688-?<em>d.</em>;<sup>3</sup> ld. lt. Oxon. 1674-87, 1689-97, <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. 1689;<sup>4</sup> c.j. Trent S. 1693-7.</p><p>Col. Oxon. militia ft. 1687-9.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by M. Dahl, 1682, Oxford Examination Schools; oil on canvas by circle of John Riley, Oxford Town Hall.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>A sufferer from ‘the black jaundice’ (an archaic term for Weil’s disease or leptospirosis) and various other unpleasant sounding maladies, Norreys succeeded to the barony at the age of four.<sup>9</sup> Prior to sitting in the House he acquired some experience of Parliament as a result of involvement in several estate bills.<sup>10</sup> In the winter of 1670 he was concerned in a bill to permit him to settle a jointure of £2,500 on anyone he might marry while he remained in his minority.<sup>11</sup> In January 1672 it was reported that his bill had at last passed both Houses, which coincided with the completion of negotiations for his match with Eleanor Lee of Ditchley, notwithstanding some ‘underhand’ opposition from some who had appeared ‘very much for it’.<sup>12</sup> One of those probably opposed to the Norreys-Lee match was the new Lady Norreys’ brother-in-law, Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton. The marriage brought the two men into conflict over a disputed inheritance and this animosity was later reflected in consistent political rivalry.</p><p>Unlike Wharton, Norreys and most of his immediate kin were staunch royalists. For much of his career Norreys was able to overcome the handicap of cripplingly poor health to uphold diligently the court and later Tory interest in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire.<sup>13</sup> He proved to be a loyal associate of his brother-in-law Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), with whom he enjoyed a particularly close relationship. He also stood at the head of a significant parliamentary grouping comprising, among others, his brothers Charles, Henry and Peregrine. In partnership with his kinsman, Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, Norreys succeeded in dominating Oxfordshire politics in the 1680s, ousting temporarily the local Whig magnates: Wharton and John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace. After the Revolution he was also able to expand his area of influence into Buckinghamshire in direct rivalry with Wharton.<sup>14</sup> Wharton in return challenged Norreys’s interest in Oxford and Woodstock.<sup>15</sup></p><h2><em>Danby’s lieutenant in Oxford, 1674-81</em></h2><p>Early on marked out for preferment, in 1674 Norreys succeeded James Fiennes*, 2nd Viscount Saye and Sele, in the Oxfordshire lieutenancy.<sup>16</sup> That autumn he received a writ of summons to attend the Lords, but he did not take his seat until the following year. The reason for his failure to attend is not known.<sup>17</sup> He finally took his seat in the House for the first time on 13 Apr. 1675, but he was thereafter present on just eight more days in the session (21 per cent of the whole). On 23 Apr. he registered his proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath, which was vacated by the close. Norreys then failed to attend the subsequent three sessions. On 12 Oct. he again registered his proxy with Bath and on 20 Nov. Bath wielded it to vote against the opposition-inspired motion to address the king for a dissolution of Parliament.</p><p>The turning point in Norreys’ career seems to have come in the summer of 1676 when he played host to Danby at his seat of Rycote. The visit proved the beginning of a long friendship and Danby professed the two to be ‘so in love with one another that we are both unwilling to think of parting.’<sup>18</sup> At the same time efforts were made to bring to a close the simmering legal dispute between Norreys and Wharton. Although Norreys insisted that he was willing to try for a friendly resolution he anticipated little chance of success.<sup>19</sup></p><p>In spite of his friendship with Danby, Norreys appears to have been no more inclined to attend Parliament over the next few years and in February 1677 he once more sought to cover his absence by registering his proxy. On 14 Feb. he was recorded as having registered it with both Bath and Lindsey. It seems likely that he registered it initially with Bath only for it to be transferred to Lindsey when Bath was found to be in possession of too many proxies. The proxy was then vacated when Lindsey registered his own proxy with Bath on 22 February. Four days later Norreys registered his proxy anew with Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice (the proxy book records that the proxy was transferred to Arundell from Lindsey).</p><p>Norreys again played host to Danby in the summer of 1677.<sup>20</sup> By the beginning of 1678 he seems to have lost patience with the continuous lawsuits involving his wife’s estate and sought the assistance of Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> to help to resolve them.<sup>21</sup> Friendship with Verney may have contributed to reports that Norreys and Wharton had agreed to set up Verney for the vacant seat at Westbury in the early spring of 1678 but in the event Norreys put his weight behind his brother, Henry, instead.<sup>22</sup> Norreys played host to his neighbour, Anglesey, in September, possibly as part of his ongoing cultivation of his interest in Oxfordshire.<sup>23</sup> The same month he was involved in a quarrel with another neighbour (and kinsman) John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester. There was initially some confusion about the parties involved, an early report suggesting the dispute may have been with his local rival, Lovelace. Danby seems to have interposed between the two and it was afterwards reported that the court was likely to seek the intervention of the lord privy seal (Anglesey) to resolve the matter.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Norreys was again missing at the opening of the new session. On 23 Oct. 1678 he registered his proxy with Bath once more, which was vacated when he finally took his seat on 19 December.<sup>25</sup> His delayed return to the House may have been related to a request that he investigate the activities of one of his deputies who appears to have been over-zealous in searching houses for arms.<sup>26</sup> He also seems to have been once again distracted by ongoing attempts to resolve disputes over the inheritance of his wife’s estates, particularly relating to a resolution of the terms of the will of Sir Francis Henry Lee.<sup>27</sup> Norreys’ eventual return to the Lords was probably in response to the assault on Danby, but his attendance remained lacklustre and he was present on just six days in all before once more retiring for the remainder of the session.</p><p>In stark contrast to his behaviour in the House, Norreys was active in the elections for the new Parliament in espousing Danby’s interest, ‘wherever he has influence.’<sup>28</sup> He was also a firm opponent of the exclusion from the throne of the duke of York, and he proved to be a vigorous persecutor of exclusionists within his lieutenancy. His stance made him fierce enemies. Although it was reported that his interest at Malmesbury or Westbury in Wiltshire ought to prove sufficient to secure the return of Sir Ralph Verney, his efforts on Danby’s behalf earned him a good deal of harsh treatment in Oxford, where his authority was challenged by the upsurge in popularity of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, eagerly encouraged by Lovelace and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. Norreys was said to have been ‘hooted out of the town’ and it was reported elsewhere that he had ‘very much lost his credit in that country’. As a result his candidate at Oxford, Sir George Pudsey<sup>‡</sup>, was rejected in favour of the exclusionists, William Wright<sup>‡</sup> and Brome Whorwood<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>29</sup> The county seats were divided between an exclusionist, Sir John Cope<sup>‡</sup> and one of Norreys’s kinsmen, Sir Edward Norreys<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Norreys took his seat shortly after the opening of the new Parliament on 19 Mar. 1679, after which he was present on just under 82 per cent of all sitting days. Absent for ten days mid-session, Norreys ensured that his proxy was registered with Bath on 15 Apr. which was then vacated by his resumption of his seat on 24 April.<sup>30</sup> Back in his place, Norreys undertook to speak on behalf of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, who sought the House’s agreement not to compel him to attend, though Robert Bertie warned Montagu that his brother had advised him that ‘the House will be so strict as to receive no answer but what is sworn by two of the disability of your coming up.’<sup>31</sup> On 2 May he introduced John Manners*, then styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) as Baron Manners, and on 9 May he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the method of trying the impeached lords. The latter part of the session proved the occasion of an inglorious (though perhaps apocryphal) incident in Norreys’ career. During the debate in the House on 27 May 1679 whether to grant a free conference to discuss the Habeas Corpus Amendment Act, Norreys, acting as teller for those opposed to granting the conference, ‘being a man subject to vapours’ was said to have failed to notice his opposite number, Ford Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), counting one especially obese member as ten. Grey was said to have seen no reason to amend his jest allowing the Whigs to carry the vote by 57 to 55.<sup>32</sup> On the same day he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Following the close of the session, discussions continued between Norreys and the other parties in the dispute over the Lee estates. It was said that his wife had begun to take a close interest in the affair too, ‘much concerned at her being kept out of her estate being now of age.’ By the close of July matters seemed close to a resolution, though it was not until the following year that Norreys and Wharton seem at last to have reached an agreement.<sup>33</sup> The following month, in response to reports that George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley of Berkeley, was on the point of being elevated to an earldom, Danby petitioned the king from the Tower for a similar award for Norreys, his estate being ‘very great and his family on all sides eminent both for birth and their services to the crown.’<sup>34</sup> For the time being he was denied the hoped-for promotion.</p><p>Norreys’ interest in Oxfordshire remained under assault during the second general election of 1679 which saw the return of two country candidates, Thomas Horde<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Cope for the county seats. The city was also carried by exclusionists, though Norreys’ nominees increased their showing on the previous poll. He also enjoyed only mixed success at Westbury, where his brother Henry was returned but then removed on petition. To add to his travails Norreys also appears to have been the loser of many hundreds of pounds as the result of the death of one of his debtors, Thomas Whorwood (probably the younger brother of Norreys’s bête noire in Oxford, Brome Whorwood), in the summer of 1680.<sup>35</sup> Norreys took his seat just over a week into the new Parliament on 29 Oct. 1680 of which he continued to attend just under 47 per cent of all sitting days. On 12 Nov. he registered his proxy with Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat the following day. On 7 Dec. he divided with the minority in finding William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason.<sup>36</sup></p><h2><em>Oxford politics, 1681</em></h2><p>Following the dissolution of Parliament, Norreys was contacted by John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, in anticipation of the forthcoming elections:</p><blockquote><p>Your lordship’s early care herein for the elections of this county is worthy your self and that station which you hold among us: and I hope your authority and counsel will prevail not only for the choice of fit persons, but that animosities … may be prevented in the election of them. The country I presume is so well satisfied with your lordship’s recommendation of a knight upon the last vacancy that they will readily hearken to your directions in this greater one.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>Fell’s reference to Norreys’ former recommendation presumably referred to Sir Edward Norreys<sup>‡</sup>, who had been returned at a by-election in 1675 following the death of Sir Anthony Cope<sup>‡</sup>, though Sir Edward had declined standing in the previous election. The decision to hold the new Parliament at Oxford gave much greater significance to Norreys’ position as lord lieutenant but contrary to Fell’s hopes, his authority in the county remained as uncertain as ever. Oxfordshire was traditionally split between the two parties.<sup>38</sup> The north was generally reckoned to be sympathetic to the opposition (later Whig) cause, while the south was largely loyalist (Tory). The city of Oxford itself was divided between Tory university and Whig town, giving rise to frequent brawls between townsmen and students, and lively electoral encounters. The prospect of an unruly competition between the supporters of the court and the opposition persuaded Fell to propose that Lovelace and Norreys should hold a meeting of the local gentry in an attempt to limit the number of candidates and the potential for damaging public arguments. Fell wrote to Norreys again, following a meeting with Lovelace, in which he attempted to show:</p><blockquote><p>the mischiefs of having many candidates set up, which as it would be [expensive] to them, would occasion trouble & divisions in the country; would also teach the populacy an ill lesson, by showing them their strength, and making them arbitrators of the differences between the nobility & gentry among themselves.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote><p>In spite of all this the results were hardly encouraging for Norreys. The county election saw the return of the sitting member Horde with a challenger from the previous contest, Sir Philip Harcourt<sup>‡</sup>; Sir Edward Norreys ended bottom of the poll. The city went to both the sitting members. New Woodstock offered better news for the embattled Norreys and demonstrated that Fell’s engagement with Lovelace had had some effect as Henry Bertie was returned with Nicholas Bayntun<sup>‡</sup>, the latter on Lovelace’s interest.</p><p>Pressure on Norreys was not confined to dealing with the elections. He was also appealed to by Danby, who hoped to engage his kinsman’s support in his continued efforts to be released from the Tower. Danby acknowledged the particular trouble the event was likely to pose for Norreys but appealed nevertheless for his assistance:</p><blockquote><p>The being of the court at Oxford gives your Lordship so much a greater share of trouble than to any other lord there, that it would not be justifiable to give you this were my concern of less consequence than to get some little show of liberty. But as my case stands I hope you will not only forgive me, but give me leave to rely upon you as one of my principal pillars.<sup>40</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 17 Mar. Danby noted Norreys accordingly as one of those on whom he expected to be able to rely in the anticipated division on bailing him from the Tower. Having worked tirelessly to ensure the city was prepared for Parliament, Norreys was present on each day of the brief session and on 24 Mar. 1681 he dutifully presented Danby’s petition to the House.<sup>41</sup> His efforts on Danby’s behalf were frustrated, though, when the session was brought to an unexpectedly early close.</p><p>Divisions within Oxford continued to trouble Norreys following the dissolution. The anticipated demise of the town clerk that summer and the ensuing campaign for electing a new one resulted in heated exchanges between the factions as Norreys gave his support to Thomas Baker in opposition to the Whigs’ choice, Edward Prince.<sup>42</sup> Norreys’ explanation for his hostility to Prince emphasized the latter’s disloyalty to the king rather than his enmity to Norreys:</p><blockquote><p>when it was proposed in the Common Council to complement his lordship with a freedom of their town, Prince made a saucy rude speech against it, but this, my lord told him, being personal, he did forgive him; secondly, that when the address to the king was proposed in Common Council he likewise opposed that with a speech altogether as saucy and rude, and this, his lordship told him, he could not forgive.<sup>43</sup></p></blockquote><p>The election became a heated affair. Norreys entered into a furious argument with the local burgess, Brome Whorwood, calling him an ‘old knave’ and beating him about the head with his stick. Whorwood responded by dubbing his assailant a ‘young rogue’.<sup>44</sup> The argument may have been in part occasioned by Norreys’ frustration at being unable to secure repayment of money still owed to him by Whorwood as Thomas Whorwood’s executor. Whorwood later brought a charge of battery against Norreys at the assizes in March 1682, while Norreys brought one of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> against Whorwood. In the event the affair was settled by the mediation of Bishop Fell, who gained a certain currency in the town for his handling of the dispute.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Norreys’ efforts on behalf of Baker proved unequal to the task of overcoming the Whig majority in the city and Prince was elected despite a majority supporting Baker in the common council. Norreys complained of the behaviour of Lovelace and Whorwood and the whole ‘clan’ that had ‘stickled with all violence for Prince’ and recommended to Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> that if possible the election should not be confirmed.<sup>46</sup> The selection of Prince was subsequently vetoed by the king and Baker was finally installed in office two years later. The election brought Oxford to the Privy Council’s notice, and was one of the factors in a <em>quo</em> <em>warranto</em> being brought against the city charter.<sup>47</sup> The affair also persuaded the city fathers to retreat from their reliance on the increasingly unpopular Buckingham. In his stead they courted Anglesey, as an alternative to Norreys. Anglesey seems to have proved a poor choice as he refused to interfere with Norreys and was said to have visited him at Rycote to assure him of his good intentions, though no mention of such a visit is made in Anglesey’s diary.<sup>48</sup> Anglesey may not have been willing to cross Norreys but his refusal in no way altered the inclinations of the Oxfordshire electors and at the beginning of September it was reported that ‘if a Parliament should now be chosen, both the county and city of Oxford would send the same members as the last time.’<sup>49</sup></p><p>Alongside his efforts to manage the town clerk’s election, Norreys was presented with a third challenge in the summer of 1681 with the trial of Stephen Colledge at Oxford for offences committed while Parliament was sitting. Colledge had originally been arraigned in London but when the London grand jury refused to indict him, it was proposed that he be tried again in Oxford, where a more sympathetic jury could be guaranteed. Secretary Jenkins wrote to Norreys at the beginning of July communicating the king’s desire that he see to the formation of ‘a good, honest, substantial grand jury’ consisting ‘of men rightly principled for the church and the king.’ Jenkins also pressed that the judges of the Oxford circuit should ‘be present and assisting each other on the crown side’.<sup>50</sup> Despite the odds being stacked against Colledge, due process was seen to be done and when one of the jury members expressed himself publicly against the defendant, he was removed by the high sheriff.<sup>51</sup> Such minor victories availed Colledge little and at the close of August he was found guilty and executed in Oxford. The execution gave Norreys one last problem to oversee. Fearful of the potential for public disorder if Colledge was dragged through the main thoroughfares to the scaffold, Norreys arranged that the condemned man’s final journey was through back streets.<sup>52</sup></p><h2><em>Earl of Abingdon, 1681-8</em></h2><p>Norreys’ efficiency in ensuring College’s conviction earned him the esteem of a number of ministers. Over the next few months rumours circulated that he was one of two peers soon to be promoted to earldoms. By February 1682 it was said that this would happen around Easter but that Norreys was vexed by reports that Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, was to be advanced to an earldom before him. Over the next few weeks the two men fought a rather undignified battle at court in the hopes of pipping the other to the post.<sup>53</sup> For all this, it was not until the close of the year that Norreys was finally rewarded with promotion to the earldom of Abingdon, being one of an ‘abundance of new lords and alterations’ made at that time. His promotion was marked by the lighting of celebratory bonfires in Oxford and Bicester.<sup>54</sup> In securing the promotion he was indebted to Danby’s eager petitioning on his behalf, though it was also said that he owed his advancement to the interest of George Savile*, marquess of Halifax.<sup>55</sup> In the intervening period he continued to exert his authority in the area and in early summer he entertained the Moroccan ambassador at Rycote.<sup>56</sup> Norreys’ interest was also sought by Danby’s son, Peregrine Osborne*, styled Viscount Dunblane (later 2nd duke of Leeds), who was engaged in a case before the court of delegates over his elopement with Bridget Hyde.<sup>57</sup></p><p>By 1683 Abingdon’s star was firmly in the ascendant. In May of that year he and his countess played hostess to the duke and duchess of York during their progress through Oxfordshire.<sup>58</sup> In August it was reported that although the king refused to accept an address from the city of Oxford, he received the county address presented by Abingdon ‘very graciously’ though a minor disturbance then ensued when Abingdon passed out having been refused leave to kiss the king’s hand.<sup>59</sup> In the wake of the Rye House Plot Abingdon was actively engaged in hunting down exclusionists such as Brome Whorwood. In doing so he responded to his brief with characteristic vim and sent a flurry of reports to Secretary Jenkins revealing likely conspirators.<sup>60</sup></p><p>In spite of the opposition of Whig magnates such as Lovelace, in 1684 Abingdon was able to persuade Oxford’s town council to surrender their charter, having previously promised them that they would lose nothing from the old charter and benefit from the addition of several new grants.<sup>61</sup> Wrangling over the new charter involved Abingdon in running disputes both with the town authorities and with the university, which was particularly concerned over aspects of security. The town objected to the university’s apparent dominance and resented the prospect of a nightly curfew from nine at night, which they complained was ‘clearly against law & such a slavery that none of his Majesty’s subjects any where do or can endure.’<sup>62</sup> The process clearly took its toll on the fragile Abingdon and although he was assured of the king’s continuing favour by his half-brother, Lindsey, and that the conclusion should be to his satisfaction, Abingdon seems to have shared the city’s disgust at the shortcomings of the new charter. He considered the settlement to be ‘so ill that he told his majesty that he had thereby put him out of all capacity to serve him any further in that country.’<sup>63</sup> The whole experience caused Abingdon to complain that ‘I have had more trouble [over this business], than in any other in all my ten years’ service in that county.’<sup>64</sup></p><p>However discontented he was by the city charter affair, by 1685 Abingdon’s interest in Oxford was effectively unrivalled. On Charles II’s death, despite his misgivings about James II’s Catholicism, Abingdon oversaw the proclamation of the new king in Oxford.<sup>65</sup> He also assured Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, of his unswerving loyalty to the new king.<sup>66</sup> The elections of that year demonstrated both Abingdon’s willingness to uphold the court and the strength of his interest in the area.<sup>67</sup> He was able to rely on loyal agents such as John Cary to establish his nominees and he also made use of his relation, the dowager countess of Rochester, though she professed that she had ‘no power’ being ‘already a dead woman.’<sup>68</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament when he was introduced in his new dignity between Rutland (as Manners had since become) and Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon. Present on 60 per cent of all sitting days in the session, his attendance of the first half of the session was brought to an early halt by Monmouth’s Rebellion which necessitated his return to Oxford to marshal the local militia. On 18 June he registered his proxy with Carnarvon, which was vacated when he resumed his seat following the adjournment on 9 November. Punctilious in mobilizing the forces in Oxford, Abingdon oversaw the raising of new troops from the university, including a troop placed under the command of his 13-year-old son Montagu Bertie, later Venables Bertie*, styled Lord Norreys (the future 2nd earl of Abingdon).<sup>69</sup> Other members of the Bertie clan also made a fine display in the ranks of militia officers with Charles Bertie commenting to Rev. William Moore that ‘I see my br[other] Abingdon defended with a life guard of his two brothers & if you want another officer I desire to have the honour to serve as the 3rd brother under Lord Abingdon’s command.’<sup>70</sup> Abingdon himself was frustrated at the king’s command that he remain in Oxford to secure the city, and he complained to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, that ‘it was a great satisfaction to me to think I should be by my brothers in this action so I hope his Majesty will not think fit to coop me up here longer than till the place is secured.’<sup>71</sup> Abingdon’s assiduous rooting out of Quakers (and presumably other Dissenters) before 1685 meant that when he was ordered to imprison all nonconformist preachers during the crisis, he reported that he could find none.<sup>72</sup> His efficiency in the face of national crisis was thrown into sharp relief by the panic evident in some quarters of the government. Clarendon complained ‘how ill it looks that his Majesty’s enemies can give such exact accounts of the rebels when we who are his servants can speak nothing certain.’ Bureaucratic muddling resulted in Abingdon’s new militia bands being equipped with matchlock muskets from the arsenal at Windsor, but with no match.<sup>73</sup> Reports that the rebels had been defeated on 1 July were later proved false but in response to the tidings Abingdon provided an entertainment for the mayor and members of the corporation, ordered a bonfire to be made at Carfax and for the bells to be rung.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On the death of Abingdon’s half-brother, Richard Bertie, in 1686, Lindsey proposed his son, Philip Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, for the now vacant seat at Woodstock through Abingdon’s interest, ‘that it may be more for your honour and interest to have one of your own name and family, who will absolutely depend upon your advice then a stranger or a country gentleman who will not bee so much at your devotion.’<sup>75</sup> Rather than his nephew, Abingdon sought to secure the seat for his son Norreys despite the fact that the boy was only 13 years old. He approached the dowager countess of Rochester for her help in obtaining Lichfield’s support for the scheme.<sup>76</sup> In the event the seat remained unfilled until after the Revolution at which time Norreys was successful in securing one of the Berkshire seats, although still significantly underage.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Abingdon’s loyalty to James II was steadily undermined by the king’s policy of toleration for Catholics. Early in 1687 he was assessed as being opposed to repeal of the Test. In May he was included among those in opposition to the king’s policies and he continued to feature in similar lists in November and January of the following year. He was one of those to be subjected to private interviews with the king to press him to change his views but he proved unwilling to do so or to put the king’s three questions to the Oxfordshire gentry.<sup>78</sup> In August he was dismissed from his lieutenancy, despite initial indications that the king was minded to leave him in post. He was replaced by Lichfield.<sup>79</sup> Although out of office, Abingdon remained outwardly on close terms with the king. In September he expressed his gratitude for the king’s enquiry after his health following yet another illness and took the opportunity to assure George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, of his continuing loyalty.<sup>80</sup> The same month it was related that the king had personally come to Abingdon’s assistance while visiting Banbury by shooting dead a bulldog that was worrying Abingdon’s horse. This may have been the same incident referred to by Dunblane when he noted his relief at Abingdon’s survival after a fall considering that ‘such an accident to his bulk might [have], proved dangerous.’<sup>81</sup></p><p>Despite such professions of loyalty, removal from office undoubtedly affected Abingdon’s willingness to serve, while his intransigence clearly riled the king. Following the removal of the Protestant fellows of Magdalen, Abingdon earned a reprimand for sending to the displaced scholars that he wished ‘he had preferments for ’em all, but since he had not, that they should be welcome at his house to beef & mutton.’<sup>82</sup> The Catholic landlord of the <em>Mitre</em> Inn responded even more intemperately and provoked a riot by declaring that he wished to wash his hands in Abingdon’s blood. Ironically, it was his perceived unpopularity at court that had encouraged his election as high steward of Oxford earlier in the year. He was greeted with an address by his former adversary William Wright describing him as the ‘darling of this city.’<sup>83</sup></p><blockquote><p>We… have sought & gained… the protection of one of the greatest men, a person who for his temperate zeal for the established religion his firm adherence to the laws of England & his steady & unshaken loyalty to the crown is deservedly the glory of the present & will be the wonder as well as the example of all succeeding generations.<sup>84</sup></p></blockquote><p>In response, in January 1688 the Privy Council ordered 31 city councillors, most of them adherents of Abingdon, to be removed.<sup>85</sup> Abingdon himself seems to have had his election as high steward overturned by the king and he was replaced (briefly) by Lichfield.</p><h2><em>Revolution, 1688-99</em></h2><p>Encomiums in his honour by Exclusionists like Wright proved only to be the beginning of Abingdon’s unexpected transformation into a focus for opposition. In the autumn of 1688 he found himself aligned with his old rivals Lovelace and Wharton in working to further the invasion of William of Orange. Earlier that year Abingdon had been the recipient of a letter lauding Prince William’s qualities as the man ‘designed by fate to rescue Europe from the yoke of popery.’<sup>86</sup> Such propaganda seems to have done its work effectively. Following the news of the prince’s landing, Abingdon was one of those to respond to the king’s summons to attend a meeting of leading peers but he almost immediately afterwards beat his way westwards to join the prince’s army.<sup>87</sup> Other members of his family (with the exception of Lindsey who for the while sat on his hands) were equally forward in espousing the invasion and Abingdon’s decision also seems to have encouraged a number of his neighbours in Wiltshire to follow suit. Just as important no doubt was a sizeable contribution for Prince William’s war chest of £30,000.<sup>88</sup> Abingdon’s abandonment of James II was a severe blow to the regime. Cumulatively, the loss of men of his stamp along with Sir Edward Seymour, and the king’s own nephew, Edward Hyde*, Viscount Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon), helped to persuade the king that he had no option but to flee. For the prince, Abingdon’s defection was as welcome as it was upsetting for James as he was known to be in close contact with both Danby, then heading the revolt in the north, and Clarendon.<sup>89</sup></p><p>For all his disappointment with James’s regime, at no stage did Abingdon support moves to replace the king with his nephew. His intention seems always to have been the summoning of a free Parliament to secure the Protestant religion and the majority of the Bertie clan took the same view.<sup>90</sup> In September 1688 Abingdon’s heir, Norreys, had treated the Oxfordshire gentlemen to ‘a noble feast’ to help secure the selection of his uncle, Henry Bertie as one of the candidates in the anticipated new Parliament.<sup>91</sup> Having returned to London towards the end of December, Abingdon took his seat at the opening of the Convention, after which he was present on approximately 39 per cent of all sitting days. In the grand committee chaired by Danby on 29 Jan. 1689 considering the Commons’ proposal that King James be declared to have ‘abdicated’ his throne, Abingdon and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, were reported as making ‘several sharp speeches’ which ‘made the bishops a little uneasy.’<sup>92</sup> He then joined with Danby in voting in favour of establishing a regency. Two days later in a division held in a committee of the whole he voted against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted once more against concurring with the Commons’ use of the term ‘abdicated’. He voted the same way on 6 Feb. and then subscribed the protest against the Lords’ eventual decision to accede to the Commons’ motion.<sup>93</sup> On 3 Apr. he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, which was vacated by Ailesbury’s resumption of his place on 15 April. At the close of May he voted against reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates. Abingdon was absent from most of the remainder of the session after 7 June. On 10 June he registered his proxy with Carnarvon and on 30 July Carnarvon exercised the proxy to vote in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing Oates’s perjury conviction.</p><p>Despite his opposition to the adoption of King William and his own misgivings about the wisdom of accepting a place under the new regime, Abingdon was restored to his Oxfordshire lieutenancy, to which was joined the office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum.</em><sup>94</sup> His authority in the county was questioned by one John Westmoreland, who criticized that ‘the safety of the kingdom is not looked after in Oxfordshire as it ought to be when the Lord Abingdon is lord lieutenant.’<sup>95</sup> Such a view reflected the criticisms of men such as Robert Pawlin, former assistant to the mayor of Oxford, who made much of Abingdon’s <em>volte</em> <em>face</em> in deserting James II and rallying to William of Orange: ‘pray don’t mistake, it is not men’s early going into the prince that can compensate for their former wickedness … It appears by some persons’ discontent since that they went in because it was not safe to do otherwise.’ <sup>96</sup> Pawlin had reason to dislike Abingdon. Having lost his place at Oxford, he had been committed to prison on Abingdon’s order, from which his friends extricated him by a writ of habeas corpus.<sup>97</sup> With considerable opposition ranged against him and a number of other influential peers in the county willing to exercise their interest to his detriment, Abingdon was unable to dominate in Oxfordshire quite so completely after 1688 as he had in the years immediately before the Revolution. He remained, nevertheless, a significant figure both in the country and at court where he was reported to be a favourite of Princess Anne.<sup>98</sup> He was also able to use his interest to secure a royal pardon for two local men, William Gilman and William Dyche, despite satisfaction in the vicinity that they had been justly convicted.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Abingdon resumed his seat for the final day of the first session of the Convention (thereby vacating his proxy). He then took his seat at the opening of the second session on 23 Oct. 1689 after which he was present on approximately 41 per cent of all sitting days. He was classed by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) as a court supporter in a list of October 1689 to February 1690. On 12 Nov. 1689 he appears to have attempted to avoid voting on the question of the validity of the patent for an English peerage claimed by Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston, by joining three other peers in quitting the chamber before the question was put, but all four swiftly thought better of their actions, resuming their places and voting with the rest of the House in favour of declaring the patent null and void.<sup>100</sup> Three days later Abingdon acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to recommit the clandestine marriages bill (which was carried by 24 votes to 15). On 3 Dec. he requested the House’s leave to go into the country, though it was noted by Carmarthen that he had not sought the king’s leave to do so. He continued to attend for a further fortnight but was then missing from the attendance list for the remainder of the session.<sup>101</sup> On 20 Dec. he again registered his proxy with Carnarvon. This may have been vacated on 23 Dec. on which day it was reported that he was involved in an exchange in the committee for examinations with Macclesfield, over the ‘murder’ of Stephen Colledge. In response to Macclesfield’s motion that the murder should be looked into, Abingdon was said to have insisted that the trial had been managed ‘with all the fairness and equity possible’ and that anyone claiming Colledge to have been murdered must dub him (Abingdon) a liar. Macclesfield then allowed the matter to drop. Abingdon’s outburst was considered by some ‘very undue language’ and emphasizes his sense of insecurity at the time.<sup>102</sup></p><p>By the beginning of 1690 Abingdon appears to have lost patience with the new regime and he considered resigning his places. He was dissuaded from doing so by Clarendon, who feared that his ally would be replaced by Lovelace.<sup>103</sup> News of the imminent dissolution prompted Abingdon’s neighbour, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, to approach Abingdon about preparing for elections in Wiltshire, where Weymouth undertook to offer his ‘ready concurrence’ to whatever Abingdon proposed.<sup>104</sup> Clarendon sought Abingdon’s interest on behalf of his son, Cornbury, for one of the county seats in Wiltshire but in the event Abingdon and his son, Norreys, left the management of the Wiltshire poll to their agents and removed to Oxfordshire to oversee the family interest there.<sup>105</sup> In mid February Carmarthen wrote to Abingdon commending his efforts in balancing ‘the interest of those ill men who would otherwise over-power most of the elections both in Oxfordshire and Berkshire’ as well as acknowledging a complaint made by Abingdon and echoed by many others that his post was being opened. Carmarthen assured him that the king had been informed though ‘whether any thing will be done in it I know not.’<sup>106</sup> The Oxfordshire poll proved heated, with both Norreys and Sir Robert Jenkinson<sup>‡</sup> facing fierce opposition, but in the event both were returned with substantial majorities.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat in the new Parliament on 31 Mar. 1690. Present on 72 per cent of all sitting days, in April he entered his protest against the passage of the recognition bill and also dissented when it was resolved to expunge the protestors’ reasons from the Journal.<sup>108</sup> He returned to the House a few days after the opening of the second session, on 6 Oct., when he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. He then proceeded to attend on just 12 days (16 per cent of the whole) before quitting the session. On 31 Oct. he registered his proxy with Carnarvon once more, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>The death of Lady Abingdon in the summer of 1691 was ‘much bewailed’ and resulted in a paean in her praise by the poet John Dryden. Within a matter of weeks rumours circulated that Abingdon was to remarry but reports at the end of July and into early August that he was on the point of making Mrs Jephson his new countess proved inaccurate.<sup>109</sup> Abingdon did not allow his grief to prevent him from continuing to attempt to further his family’s interests and in September Carmarthen approached the king on behalf of Henry Bertie for the post of commissioner of prizes, which he was sure Abingdon would welcome as ‘a favour to himself.’<sup>110</sup> His attendance also improved in the subsequent session of October 1691, of which he was present on 58 per cent of all sitting days. At the close of November Carmarthen was said to have dragged himself ‘semi-sick’ to Parliament to participate in the debate arising from the case between John Danvers and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough) relating to the manor of Dauntsey in Wiltshire, because Abingdon had ‘an interest in the confiscated goods’.<sup>111</sup> In spite of this Monmouth achieved a narrow victory and was able to secure his rights in the estate. Towards the end of the year William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, noted Abingdon among those he expected to support his efforts to secure restitution of property alienated from his family during the 1650s.<sup>112</sup> Abingdon was absent from the final days of the session and on 1 Feb. 1692 he registered his proxy with Lindsey, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>In advance of the new session, Abingdon was appealed to by Carmarthen not just to attend himself but also to ensure that as many others as he could persuade would also make a point of being present. Absentees, Carmarthen warned, ‘will be very particularly remarked by his majesty.’<sup>113</sup> Abingdon took his seat accordingly once more on 22 Nov. 1692, after which he was present on 41 per cent of all sitting days. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of passing the measure. He then registered his dissent when it was rejected. The following month, on 4 Feb. he voted with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. Two days later he registered his proxy with Lindsey again, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Abingdon spent much of the summer at Rycote, prompting a complaint from Weymouth about ‘how melancholy’ Wiltshire appeared in his absence and hoping that he would soon take up residence there again.<sup>114</sup> Lovelace’s death that summer encouraged Carmarthen to approach the king to confer the now vacant chief justiceship on Abingdon, which was granted to him a few weeks later.<sup>115</sup> Abingdon took his place in the subsequent session on 21 Nov. 1693, of which he attended just under 23 per cent of all sitting days. Early in December his brother, Lindsey, asked him to interpose with the House to excuse his absence owing to an attack of gout and to assure the Lords that he had sent up his proxy. The proxy was registered with Abingdon shortly after on 18 Dec. and vacated by the close.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Abingdon’s own health took a turn for the worse midway through the session and he was consequently absent for much of January 1694. On 9 Jan. it was reported that he was ‘much out of order’ suffering from ‘a great stoppage of his lungs’.<sup>117</sup> His condition clearly improved over the next few weeks and he was able to resume his place on 31 Jan. after which he was present for a further eight days of the session. The spring of 1694 found Abingdon involved with family matters again as various members of the Bertie family struggled to mediate between Lindsey and his son, Robert Bertie*, styled Baron Willoughby d’Eresby (later duke of Ancaster and Kesteven).<sup>118</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat in the new session on 18 Dec. after which he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days. The death of Queen Mary ten days later created problems for a number of Tories who had relied on her to lend legitimacy to the regime and on 21 Jan. 1695, in alliance with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Abingdon moved the House for a day to consider the state of the nation.<sup>119</sup> Two days later he acted as one of the tellers in the division concerning an amendment to the treason trials bill. The following month Abingdon was perhaps unsurprisingly one of several peers to take a close interest in the attempt by Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to secure a writ of summons and he joined with Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, in opposing Rochester’s motion that abeyant baronies should not be revived without the king’s declaration.<sup>120</sup> Abingdon failed to attend for the entirety of April but on 10 Apr. he registered his proxy with Carnarvon once more, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 1 May. His return to the House proved fleeting and he was again missing from the attendance list after 2 May though he does appear to have attended the House at least once more in the session as the following day he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning Leeds’ impeachment. In this matter he seems, unsurprisingly, to have been active on his kinsman’s behalf.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Abingdon spent the early part of the summer of 1695 engaged with overseeing his responsibilities as chief justice in eyre and in July he set out on a tour of the forests under his jurisdiction in company with Sir Edward Seymour.<sup>122</sup> Their progress was commended by Weymouth who pointed out that they were indulging in ‘the only innocent hunting because they break no hedges nor spoil corn.’<sup>123</sup> Attendance to his new role did not prevent him from continuing to take a close interest in affairs in Oxford and in September he was congratulated by the duke of Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become) for his successful handling of the mayoral election, which Leeds hoped would be ‘a good prognostic of your power for Parliament men’. Leeds then continued to recommend Sir Francis Child<sup>‡</sup> to Abingdon’s notice as one of the candidates at Devizes.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Despite such high profile backing, Child was unsuccessful at Devizes in the general election. Elsewhere, Abingdon’s interest was also sought in Berkshire where Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> intended to stand as one of the shire knights.<sup>125</sup> Abingdon complimented Trumbull on his resolution not to stand in the county ‘without the general consent of the gentlemen’, which he hoped would be forthcoming if a meeting could be arranged. He later undertook to support Trumbull’s candidacy for Oxford University when Berkshire proved difficult. Abingdon enjoyed an easier time of it in Oxford and at Woodstock where the return of his second son, James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> met with little opposition.<sup>126</sup> He was able to assist at the county poll for Buckinghamshire as well, where Leeds’ son-in-law, James Herbert<sup>‡</sup> faced fierce competition from candidates backed by Wharton. Wharton and Abingdon had also gone head to head earlier in the summer over the election of a new mayor at Oxford. The election was said to have left ‘the candidates’ purses bleeding pretty freely’ but once again Abingdon was able to demonstrate his greater interest in the city over his kinsman and secure the return of his nominee.<sup>127</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat a month into the new Parliament on 27 Dec. 1695, after which he was present on 55 per cent of all sitting days. His delayed return to the capital may have been connected with his role in presenting the mayor and aldermen of Oxford to the king on his visit to the city early in November, which coincided with the appointment of Leeds and other peers as doctors of law.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Unlike a number of other Tories who baulked at subscribing this latest declaration of loyalty to King William, Abingdon responded to news of the Assassination Plot by signing the Association in March 1696.<sup>129</sup> Abhorrence of the plot in no way altered Abingdon’s essentially Tory outlook and five days after he had taken his seat in the new session on 23 Nov. 1696 he registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the Whig-inspired coinage bill. He then turned his attention to opposing the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. On 15 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to read Goodman’s information and three days later dissented again at the resolution to read the Fenwick attainder a second time. On 23 Dec. he voted against passing the bill and then subscribed the ensuing protest. The role of Abingdon and several of his kinsmen in opposing the king’s policies in the previous session provoked an exasperated complaint from William the following April (1697) in which he vented how ‘the whole family of Berties’ had been in opposition during the session. It was in part this that led to Abingdon’s dismissal from his Oxfordshire lieutenancy and his post of chief justice in favour of Wharton during the year.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat in the new session on 3 Dec. 1697, after which he proceeded to attend on 55 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1698 he was involved in a family suit resulting from the marriage of his younger son, James Bertie, to Elizabeth Willoughby. According to the will of her great-uncle, in the event of Elizabeth Willoughby refusing to marry Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, her inheritance was to pass to her kinsman, Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S] (later titular earl of Falkland in the Jacobite peerage). Although the court of chancery concluded in Falkland’s favour, Abingdon resolved to challenge the judgment in the Lords.<sup>131</sup> It was presumably in relation to this that he appealed the following month for Weymouth to travel up from Longleat to take his seat in the House but Weymouth declined, pleading poor health, as did Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, who appeared disinclined to rally to Abingdon’s cause.<sup>132</sup> In spite of this on 17 Mar. James Bertie was successful in overturning the judgment, though the conclusion was thought by at least one commentator to be ‘a strange sentence’ and one that ‘will be treasured up against a time when it shall be thought proper to find fault with the Lords’ judicature.’ Abingdon and his sons were also fortunate to escape serious censure for the paper that had been circulated by Robert Bertie<sup>‡</sup> in support of his brother’s case.<sup>133</sup> Even so, Abingdon was compelled to offer his submission to the House on Robert’s behalf or, as Sir Miles Cooke phrased it, ‘a sacrifice of the father for the sin of the son’.<sup>134</sup> The same month, Abingdon joined with those voting against committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe.<sup>‡</sup> On 11 Apr. he was entrusted with the proxy of James Tuchet*, 15th Baron Audley, which was vacated by Audley’s resumption of his seat on 3 May, and towards the end of the session he moved for an address to be presented to the king to use his influence with the king of France to stop the persecution of Protestants. In this he was supported by Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, and by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, but the motion attracted significant opposition and was rejected.<sup>135</sup> On 7 May he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to appoint a date for the next sitting after the adjournment. Four days later he registered his proxy with Leeds, which was transferred to Carnarvon on 22 June. The reason for this switch is not clear as Leeds continued to attend beyond this date and seems not to have been in receipt of any other proxies at the time.</p><p>That summer, Abingdon was again active in canvassing for those in his interest during the elections for the new Parliament. Towards the end of July 1698 he was at Ailesbury in company with Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) and Carnarvon in support of William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Cheyne (later 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S]).<sup>136</sup> Fears that his interest might come under sustained assault in Oxfordshire proved misplaced, though he narrowly avoided fighting a duel with the disappointed Sir John Cope<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>137</sup> Abingdon took his seat in the new Parliament on 29 Nov. but he sat for just ten days (12 per cent of the whole) before attending for the last time on 8 Feb. 1699. On his final day in the House Abingdon voted against accepting the committee recommendation to assist the king to retain his Dutch guards. Later that month he was one of several peers excused attendance at the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick and Holland, on the grounds of ill health. This time, he failed to rally. In the middle of March he was described as being ‘very lame’. Two months later he was struck down with ‘an ague and a most violent fever’.<sup>138</sup> By the middle of May 1699 it was thought that he had succeeded in shaking off this latest attack but on 18 May his heir was sent for; Abingdon died four days later.<sup>139</sup></p><p>A year before his death, Abingdon had married for the second time (reports of the expected alliance had circulated from the autumn of 1697).<sup>140</sup> The new countess brought with her a substantial dowry but perhaps more significantly for the ailing Abingdon who had had nine children with his first wife, the former Lady Wenman was described as ‘a very excellent housewife and manager.’<sup>141</sup> For all his activity as one of the most vigorous local enforcers in Oxfordshire, Abingdon had always suffered from poor health. The Grey of Warke episode of the 1670s indicated the extent of his vulnerability. The fact that he was able to overcome this to become, in alliance with Leeds, the leader of one of the most significant parliamentary groupings is testimony to his energy and ambition.</p><p>Abingdon’s demise was greeted by Arthur Charlett as ‘not surprising though very afflicting news’, while Francis Gwyn regretted prosaically that Abingdon’s death had ‘deprived him of a whist player.’<sup>142</sup> Others took a more dramatic line and one lengthy panegyric in his honour appealed to Dryden to accord to Abingdon the same distinction he had made to Abingdon’s first countess in composing a funeral eclogue.<sup>143</sup></p><blockquote><p>O Dryden! Quick the sacred pencil take,<br />And rise in vertue’s cause for vertue’s sake;<br />Of heav’n’s the song, and heav’n-born is thy muse,<br />Fitting to follow bliss which mine will lose.<sup>144</sup></p></blockquote><p>Abingdon lay in state at his London home in Deans Yard, Westminster before being carried to Rycote for burial.<sup>145</sup> He was succeeded as 2nd earl of Abingdon by his eldest son, Norreys.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BERTIE, Montagu (1608-66) |
<p><strong><surname>BERTIE</surname></strong> (<strong>BARTIE</strong>), <strong>Montagu</strong> (1608–66)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1642 Ld. Willoughby of Eresby (Willoughby d’Eresby, Willoughby de Eresby); <em>accel. </em>3 Nov. 1640 Bar. WILLOUGHBY d’ERESBY; <em>suc. </em>23 Oct. 1642 as 2nd earl of LINDSEY |
|
First sat before 1660, 11 Jan. 1642; first sat after 1660, 16 May 1660; last sat 23 Oct. 1665 |
|
MP Lincolnshire 1624; Stamford 1625-6. |
<p><em>b</em>. by 7 May 1608, 1st s. of Robert Bertie<sup>†</sup>, 14th Bar. Willoughby de Eresby (later earl of Lindsey), and Elizabeth Montagu. <em>educ</em>. Sidney Suss. Camb. 1623. <em>m.</em> (1) 18 Apr. 1627 (with £10,000), Martha (<em>d</em>.1641), da. of Sir William Cokayne, of Broad St., London, wid. of John Ramsay<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holdernesse, 5s. 3da.; (2) c.1650, Bridget (<em>d</em>.1657), <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Norreys, da. of Edward Wray<sup>‡</sup> of Rycote, Oxon., wid. of Edward Sackville of Wytham Abbey, Berks., 3s. 1da. KB 1616, KG 1661. <em>d</em>. 25 July 1666; <em>will</em> 6 Aug. 1663-23 July 1666, pr. 31 July 1666.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of privy chamber 1634-43, bedchamber 1643-9; ld. gt. chamberlain 1642-<em>d</em>.; PC 1643-6, 1660-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Warden, Waltham Forest, Essex 1626-46, 1660-<em>d</em>.; freeman, Boston, Lincs. 1634, high steward by 1660; commr. swans, Lincs. 1635, 1664; <em>custos</em>. <em>rot</em>. Lincs. 1640, 1660-<em>d</em>.; commr. sewers, Bedford gt. level 1662, Herts. Mdx. and Essex 1663, Westminster 1664; kpr. Woodstock Park, Oxon. 1644-6, 1660-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Lincs. 1660-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. of ft. (Dutch army) by 1626; col. Life Gds. 1639-46; col. of horse 1662-6, capt. 1666-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: miniature, watercolour, by Samuel Cooper, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambs.</p> |
<p>Members of the Bertie family had sat in Parliament since the mid sixteenth century. Through a judicious marriage to the de Vere heiress they inherited the barony of Willoughby of Eresby (otherwise known as Willoughby d’Eresby or de Eresby) and with it a claim to the hereditary office of lord great chamberlain and to the earldom of Oxford. Although the earldom was settled in the male line, in 1626 Robert Bertie, 14th Baron Willoughby, was confirmed as hereditary lord great chamberlain and compensated with the earldom of Lindsey. In 1640 his heir, Montagu Bertie, then styled Lord Willoughby, previously in Parliament as the underage member for Lincolnshire and then Stamford, was summoned to the Lords in his father’s barony. Unflinchingly loyal to Charles I, Willoughby served alongside his father at the battle of Edgehill, where he allowed himself to be captured so that he could tend to the mortally wounded earl, who had been taken prisoner by the Parliamentarian army.<sup>3</sup> Following a period of imprisonment in Warwick Castle, Lindsey (as Willoughby had become on the death of his father) was released as part of an exchange of prisoners. He proceeded to serve in the royalist army for the duration of the conflict, including a spell as commander of the detachment defending Woodstock. Following the king’s trial he was one of four peers to offer themselves for punishment in the king’s stead, and he was then one of the principal mourners at the king’s funeral at Windsor.</p><p>Lindsey was treated severely both by the terms of his compounding, for which he was fined £4,360 (later increased to £5,372 13<em>s</em>. 6<em>d</em>.) and by the decimation, through which he was compelled to pay £1,200 to save his estate.<sup>4</sup> By 1654 he was involved with royalist plotting, for which he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower, and the following year he was placed under house arrest.<sup>5</sup> For the greater part of the Interregnum, though, he appears to have eschewed political activity. He was primarily concerned with defending his rights in the Lindsey Level, the subject of frequent attacks by disgruntled locals, while his marriage in about 1650 to Bridget, Baroness Norreys, brought him new interests in Oxfordshire, Hereford and Worcester.<sup>6</sup> The marriage in 1659 between Lindsey’s heir, Robert Bertie*, styled Lord Willoughby (later 3rd earl of Lindsey), and Elizabeth Wharton, daughter of the parliamentarian Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, was probably of more significance to the Whartons, signalling their growing distance from the Cromwellian regime, than evidence of any shift of loyalty on the Berties’ part. In March 1660 when Wharton compiled his list of peers and their allegiances, Lindsey was firmly attributed as a lord with the king, and the following month Lindsey was at the head of the signatories of the declaration of the nobility, knights and gentry of Oxford welcoming the king’s return and undertaking to ‘disclaim, and with perfect detestation disown, all purpose of revenge, or partial remembrance of things past.’<sup>7</sup> Lindsey was also identified by John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, as one of the leaders of the royalist peers seeking to negotiate with George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle.</p><p>In spite of his prominent role as a supporter of the Restoration, Lindsey was not among the first of the ‘young lords’ to take his seat in the restored House. This may have been the result of him being distracted by a challenge to his right to the hereditary office of lord great chamberlain made by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, which served to revive the dispute that had been settled in favour of Lindsey’s father during the previous reign.<sup>8</sup> Before Lindsey was able to take his place in the Lords, Oxford submitted his petition for Lindsey’s execution of the office to be suspended, but the case was allowed to rest for a few months during which time Lindsey continued to officiate. It was thus with the matter still unresolved that Lindsey took his seat in the restored House on 16 May, after which he was present on 55 per cent of all sitting days. The following month it was rumoured that either he or William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele, were to be appointed to the lieutenancy of Oxfordshire. The suggestion prompted Henry Carey<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Falkland [S], to stress his opposition to both candidates. In the event Falkland secured the lieutenancy for himself, while Lindsey was compensated with the arguably more onerous lieutenancy of his native Lincolnshire.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Lindsey was ordered to wait on the king along with George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, on 13 July to convey the House’s thanks for his conferring the dukedom of Albemarle on George Monck, and three days later he was named to the committee for the bill to nominate commissioners for sewers, a cause in which he was closely interested through his drainage activities in Lincolnshire. On 27 July in his capacity as lord great chamberlain, Lindsey introduced James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I], as earl of Brecknock, and on 18 Aug. he was nominated to the committee considering the ultimately unsuccessful claim of Edward Somerset*, marquess of Worcester, to the dukedom of Somerset. On 6 Sept. Lindsey was named to the committee for the bill for the increase of shipping and navigation and the following day he was nominated one of the commissioners for disbanding the army.</p><p>Lindsey’s role as the senior royal officer in the palace of Westminster dominated his activities for the remainder of his career in the House. At the beginning of September 1660 he directed a letter to the surveyor of the king’s works ordering the construction of a writing room for the use of the Lords, one of a series of alterations and improvements that were made to the decaying fabric of the palace over the ensuing years.<sup>10</sup> Lindsey resumed his seat following the adjournment on 6 Nov. on which day he introduced Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, as Baron Hyde. He was thereafter present on 25 of the 45 days of the session and on 12 Nov. he was nominated to the committee for appointing receivers and triers of petitions. The following month Oxford revived his case for the lord great chamberlaincy by appealing to the king, who referred the matter back to the Lords.<sup>11</sup> Oxford’s pretensions encouraged others to request the office too and on 28 Dec. the House received petitions claiming the great chamberlaincy from Oxford, Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, and Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor.<sup>12</sup> In response, Lindsey launched a counterclaim for the earldom of Oxford but having read the petitions the House adjourned discussion of the matter to the fourth day of the following Parliament.</p><p>Lindsey was closely involved at Westminster with preparations for the king’s coronation during the elections to the Cavalier Parliament. His interest in Lincolnshire came under fierce assault from George Saunderson<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Castleton [I].<sup>13</sup> Lindsey’s heir, Willoughby, was thwarted in the county, prompting Lindsey to criticize him for mismanaging his campaign and not giving him an opportunity to strengthen his interest.<sup>14</sup> Willoughby was forced to settle for the borough seat at Boston instead, while Lindsey’s second son, Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, was also unsuccessful, being beaten into fourth place at Stamford (though he eventually secured the seat at the by-election in October 1665 triggered by the death of William Stafford<sup>‡</sup>).<sup>15</sup> Despite his loss of interest in his home county, Lindsey retained his influence at court, and in May he was awarded the garter after Hyde recommended Lindsey receive the distinction rather than himself, Hyde noting how Lindsey’s father had fallen at Edgehill wearing his garter: Lindsey, Hyde wrote, ‘ever lived with great civility towards the chancellor to his death’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Lindsey took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 11 May 1661. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions as well as to the subcommittee for the Journal and was thereafter present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 13 and 16 May discussion of Oxford’s claim to the lord great chamberlaincy was again put off. On 16 May Lindsey was named to the bill for draining the Lindsey level and on 24 May he was named to that for the bill for preserving the king’s person. Discussion of the claims to the lord great chamberlaincy resumed on 8 June but was again put off to a later date still unresolved, prompting Oxford and Derby to submit further petitions on 15 June desiring that the matter be debated once more. On 25 June Oxford’s petition was read again after which it was ordered that a day should be set aside for hearing the claim, though a resolution that the words ‘or new matter’ should be appended to the order was rejected after the votes (with proxies) were found to be even and therefore determined in the negative. Legal advice, based broadly on that presented during the previous dispute in 1625, encouraged the Lords to continue the status quo. They resolved to support Lindsey’s claim to the great chamberlaincy as heir general of Henry de Vere<sup>†</sup>, 18th earl of Oxford, but rejected his claim to the earldom of Oxford on the grounds that even were the present earl to die without heirs the peerage would not descend to Lindsey but rather be rendered extinct.<sup>17</sup> On 11 July Oxford’s counsel was appointed to draw up the errors insisted on by him and to present them to the House on the following Monday (15 July) but no consideration was given to the matter on that day and the affair was then allowed to drop again until after the adjournment.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Lindsey resumed his place following the recess on 20 Nov. and on 26 Nov. he was nominated to the committee for the heralds’ bill. During the remainder of the session he was named to a further nine committees, including that for drawing up a bill for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. On 16 May 1662 Lindsey was again named to a committee in which he was closely interested, that for the bill confirming the acts for draining the fens. A close friend of Albemarle, Lindsey’s connection with the duke’s family was presumably reflected in his invitation to attend the funeral of Albemarle’s younger brother, Nicholas Monck*, bishop of Hereford, in December 1661.<sup>19</sup> Following the close of the session, Lindsey wrote to Clarendon (as Hyde had since become) thanking him for his kindness and advice, ‘which smoothed the storm of importunate pretences’, presumably a reference to Clarendon’s support for Lindsey against the claims of Oxford, Derby and Windsor.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Lindsey took his seat at the opening of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663. On that day he acquainted the House that during the indisposition of black rod, Sir John Ayton, the office would be executed by his deputy, Sir Edward Carteret. Present on 74 per cent of all sittings days in the session, on 20 Feb. Lindsey was one of four peers appointed by the House to draw up an order concerning protections. Excused at a call of the House on 23 Feb. Lindsey resumed his seat two days later when he was nominated to the committee for petitions. On 19 Mar. he was added to the committee for the heralds’ bill and again to that for the bill for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. On 2 Apr. he was entrusted with the proxy of Wingfield Cromwell*, 5th Baron Cromwell, which was vacated by the close of the session. Lindsey was one of those present at a riotous evening hosted by Oxford in May, ‘where there was high words and some blows and pulling off of periwigs,’ before order was eventually restored by ‘Lord Monck’ (Albemarle) who confiscated the quarrelling lords’ weapons and called out the watch to restrain them.<sup>21</sup> Tensions between Lindsey and Oxford may have contributed to the fracas but the French envoy attributed the incident to high spirits and too much alcohol and was at pains to stress that although blows were struck by some of the company, this was done ‘in quite a friendly way.’<sup>22</sup> When not brawling, Lindsey remained active in the House’s business. He was named to a further seven committees during the session. On 13 July he was noted by Wharton as being doubtful on the question of the attempted impeachment of Clarendon and on 18 July he was nominated one of the commissioners for assessing the peers.</p><p>Lindsey entrusted one of his sons to Ormond’s service in the summer of 1663, insisting in his letter of recommendation that his son’s ‘observance to your grace shall be the measure of his duty to me.’<sup>23</sup> He took his seat in the following session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on 94 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the committees for privileges and the Journal, on 23 Mar. he was named to the committee for petitions and on 21 Apr. to the committee for the bill against gaming. On 26 Apr. in company with Albemarle and Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, Lindsey was appointed to wait on the king to discover when the House might attend him, and on 9 May Lindsey was appointed to the committee for the bill to prevent the delivering up of merchants’ ships.</p><p>Reporting on the condition of Lincolnshire during the previous session, Lindsey was able to conclude that the sectaries were ‘more modest and less frequent in their meetings than formerly’ thanks to ‘the checks that have been given them’ by his robust leadership.<sup>24</sup> It was, thus, presumably with a degree of confidence that he returned to the House for the following session on 25 Nov. 1664 when he was again nominated to the committee for privileges (though he was omitted from the other sessional committees). Present on almost 72 per cent of all sitting days, Lindsey was named to nine further committees in the course of the session, a number of which concerned navigation schemes. At a meeting of the privileges committee held on 1 Dec. it was resolved that Lindsey should give orders ensuring that the doors to the Lords’ chamber were closed during debates to prevent non-members from overhearing their deliberations.<sup>25</sup> Early in 1665 he was actively involved in assisting with the Yarmouth fishery bill promoted by his nephew, Sir Robert Paston*, later earl of Yarmouth. Paston commended him for taking ‘as much pains in my business as an horse’ and Lindsey later in the proceedings saw to it that he took ‘a great many home with him’ to help ensure a substantial turnout at the committee considering the measure. When the bill came to be discussed before the committee, which its chairman, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, noted was ‘a fuller committee than was ever observed’, and an amendment was suggested, Lindsey ‘stood up and said he would be bound [Paston] should perform whatever [he] said.’<sup>26</sup> The bill also received warm support from the king, who instructed Dorset to let it be known that he would not prorogue the House until the bill had been passed. When Paston pushed himself forward at the prorogation in the hope of a word with the king, Lindsey joked that if he had his vote again he would give it against him for ‘crowding so hard.’<sup>27</sup></p><p>Lindsey was absent from the House on 21 June which necessitated the Lords delegating to the lord chamberlain his responsibility in undertaking the introduction of Henry Bennet*, as Baron Arlington. He was absent again in August, but towards the end of September he gave orders to the surveyor of the king’s works for preparing rooms in Oxford for holding the ensuing session of Parliament there.<sup>28</sup> Lindsey was excused again on account of poor health at the opening of the new session on 9 October. Although he took his seat in the House in its temporary home on 23 Oct., he attended on just that day before quitting the chamber for the final time.</p><p>One of Lindsey’s servants, Captain Edward Christian, was involved in a dispute with the warden of the Fleet prison in May 1666 over the right to install scaffolding in Westminster Hall for the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle. There is no evidence that Lindsey took much interest in the affair and the warden’s pretensions in his capacity as hereditary housekeeper of the palace were supported by Clarendon acting as lord high steward for the trial, who threatened to ‘lay’ Christian ‘by the heels if he meddled any more’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>A newsletter of 24 July reported that Lindsey lay ‘a-dying’ in Kensington, where he had been brought for a change of air.<sup>30</sup> He died the following day at the London home of his son-in-law, Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden. His body was then returned to Lincolnshire to be buried in the family vault at Edenham. In his will, qualified in his final years by numerous codicils, Lindsey divided his estates not already settled on his heir between his remaining sons, Peregrine, Richard<sup>‡</sup>, Vere, Charles<sup>‡ </sup>and James*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), Henry<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Bertie, the first four of whom were named executors. Guardianship of the younger sons was entrusted to Peregrine and Richard Bertie and to Lindsey’s daughter, Elizabeth, Viscountess Campden. Provision was also made for raising a portion for his younger daughter, Lady Mary Bertie. To his ‘noble friends’, Albemarle and Campden, to whom he entrusted oversight of the terms of his will, Lindsey bequeathed his best (and second best) horses. He was succeeded by his eldest son from his first marriage, Robert, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, as 3rd earl of Lindsey.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BERTIE, Robert (c. 1630-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>BERTIE</surname></strong> (<strong>BARTIE</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (c. 1630–1701)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1642-66 Ld. Willoughby de Eresby; <em>suc. </em>fa. 25 July 1666 as 3rd earl of LINDSEY |
|
First sat 18 Sept. 1666; last sat 11 Apr. 1700 |
|
MP Boston 1661-6 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1630 1st s. of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, and 1st w. Martha Cockayne; bro. of Peregrine<sup>‡</sup>, Richard<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>; half-bro. of James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1647-52.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) Dec. 1654, Mary (<em>d</em>. aft. 1655), 2nd da. and coh. of John Massingberd of London, 1da.; (2) 1659, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1669), da. of Philip Wharton*, 4th Bar. Wharton, 5s.;<sup>2</sup> (3) c.1670, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1719), da. of Thomas Pope, 2nd earl of Downe [I], wid. of Sir Francis Henry Lee, bt. 1s. 1da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 8 May 1701; <em>will</em> 8 Feb. 1688, pr. 13 Feb. 1702.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. gt. chamberlain 1666-<em>d</em>.; PC 1666-79, 1682-5, 1685-<em>d</em>.; gent. of the bedchamber 1674-85.</p><p>Ld. lt. Lincs. 1666-1700; warden of Waltham forest 1666?-<em>d</em>?;<sup>5</sup> recorder, Lincoln 1684-8, Stamford 1685-8, Boston Sept.-Oct. 1688; dep. lt. Lincs. 1700-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Capt. Earl of Lindsey’s Horse 1666-7.</p><p>FRS 1666.</p> |
|
<p>Heir to one of the staunchest of cavalier houses, on the death of his father Lindsey succeeded not only to the earldom but also to the hereditary office of lord great chamberlain. With these he inherited one of the principal interests in Lincolnshire. The marriage of his sister to Sir Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds, linked Lindsey to the foremost politician of the period and, together, the Bertie-Osborne interest developed into one of the most significant in Parliament. Despite this, Lindsey suffered from continual poor health that kept him from the House for long periods and from frequent challenges to his authority from rival magnates, notably from the Manners, Cecils and Saundersons and most particularly prior to 1683 from Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup></p><h2><em>1666-85</em></h2><p>Lindsey took his seat at the opening of the new session on 18 Sept. 1666 and was thereafter present on almost 77 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 15 committees in the course of the session, on 14 Nov. he reported from the committee for privileges considering a complaint made by Conyers Darcy*, 6th Baron Darcy (later earl of Holdernesse) concerning the rights of English peers to precedence over foreign (i.e. Scots and Irish) nobles. Two days later he reported from the committee for privileges again detailing the report of the committee of both Houses examining the public accounts. On 17 Dec. Lindsey received the proxy of Henry Hastings*, Baron Loughborough, with whom his father had served at Edgehill as a cavalry commander. The proxy was vacated by Loughborough’s death a few days later on 10 Jan. 1667 (though it was only noted as being vacated in the proxy book the following day). On 22 Dec. 1666, possibly in his role as lord great chamberlain, Lindsey presented the petition of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, lamenting that he had ‘fallen into the displeasure of this supreme court’ and desiring to be restored to favour. Absent from the House for a little over a week from 11 Jan. 1667, Lindsey ensured his proxy was registered with Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, on 12 Jan, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 17 January.</p><p>Lindsey was present in the House on the two prorogation days of July 1667 and then took his seat in the new session on 10 Oct., after which he was present on approximately 69 per cent of all sitting days. On 24 Oct. he was added to the committee examining the bill providing for the better execution of laws concerning the pricing of wines, and he was thereafter named to a further 14 committees in the course of the session. On 4 Dec. he was ordered by the House to oversee improvements in the painted chamber for holding conferences, following which Lindsey moved on 9 Dec. for the House to order the setting up of a rail in the chamber so that the reporters from the Commons were not disturbed by the press of people. Lindsey again reported from the committee for privileges on 19 Dec. concerning the case of Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, at the time a minor, recommending that Mohun’s guardians ought to be granted privilege of Parliament in their case with Dawes Wymondsall.</p><p>Lindsey was absent between 19 Dec. 1667 and 6 Feb. 1668. On 11 Feb. a report from the committee for privileges referred to him (in his capacity as lord great chamberlain) responsibility for ensuring that when the king attended the House none should be present in the chamber before him other than peers, their eldest sons and other ‘necessary attendants’. The demand reflected a continual preoccupation of the House to ensure that its proceedings were not infiltrated by strangers. On 15 Feb. the House ordered the attachment of three individuals for participating in the destruction of banks protecting Lindsey’s land at Saltfleet Haven in Lincolnshire from the sea: the malefactors having then compounded their crime by ‘using contemptuous words’ against him. The three were discharged on 14 Mar. following Lindsey’s intercession on their behalf. On 24 Feb. Lindsey joined with Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, and Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, in petitioning the House over rights to the manor of Hedingham in Essex, then in the possession of his cousin, Brien Cokayne, 2nd Viscount Cullen [I]. Lindsey was granted leave to go into the country on 16 Mar., but when he returned on 1 Apr. the three peers’ case against Cullen had been dismissed.</p><p>Lindsey took his seat in the following session on 19 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the committees for privileges and petitions, on 25 Oct. he was named to that considering the decline in trade and fall of rents, and he proceeded to be nominated to a further two committees during the remainder of the session. He took his seat in the ensuing session on 14 Feb. 1670, of which he attended approximately 61 per cent of all sitting days. During the session he was named to 23 committees, including that considering the bill for his half-brother, James Bertie*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). On 24 Mar. Lindsey was ordered to take care to ensure that no one should enter the House during its debates except those authorized to be in attendance. Two days later he reported from the committee considering the bill for a treaty of union, recommending it as fit to pass. It was probably during the adjournment between April and October that Lindsey married for the third time. In August he petitioned Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> successfully on behalf of Isaac Watson, who had been found guilty at the Oxford assizes of highway robbery. Lindsey explained that Watson was related to one of his wife’s servants and hoped that his sentence might be commuted to transportation as it had been his first offence.<sup>9</sup> He resumed his seat on 24 Oct. and on 31 Mar. 1671 he was named one of the reporters of the conference concerning the act for ascertaining the measures of corn and salt. He then reported the effect of the conference later the same day.</p><p>Present in the House for the prorogation day on 30 Oct. 1672, Lindsey took his seat in the following session on 4 Feb. 1673 and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. The next day he was ordered to wait on the king to present the House’s thanks and over the course of the session, of which he attended just over half of all sitting days, he was named to a further seven committees. On 14 Mar., having obtained the king’s permission and undertaken to fund the project out of his own pocket, he instructed Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> to see to the construction of an additional building adjoining his chamber in the palace ‘for the better conveniency of the execution of my office.’<sup>10</sup></p><p>A rumour that Lindsey’s daughter, Lady Arabella Bertie, was to marry John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), circulated in April; in the event no match resulted and Lady Arabella eventually married Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers, instead. Lindsey was present on all four days of the brief session of October 1673. He then took his seat at the opening of the following session of January 1674, after which he was present on 55 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the committees for privileges and petitions, on the same day (7 Jan.) he was ordered to wait on the king to discover when the House might present its address. On 20 Jan. Lindsey was ordered to move the king to order the windows in the court of requests to be glazed and on 24 Jan. he was again ordered to wait on the king to enquire when the House might present their thanks. Lindsey undertook similar duties on 3 and 11 Feb. and towards the end of the session was also named to four committees.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In March Lindsey purchased the place of gentleman of the bedchamber from Buckingham for the reputed sum of £6,000.<sup>12</sup> It was also reported that Lady Lindsey was to be honoured with a place in the queen’s bedchamber but this failed to transpire.<sup>13</sup> Lindsey was reported to have been in Scotland in the summer of 1674 taking part in talks with members of the administration there.<sup>14</sup> By August he had returned to Grimsthorpe where, despite his improved position at court, he complained of his poor health, lack of money and loss of interest in Lincolnshire.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Lindsey rallied his spirits to return to Parliament for the session of April 1675 but he does not appear to have been particularly active. Although he was present on over 83 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to just one committee on 31 May, and on 4 June he was ordered to wait on the king to request the nomination of a new sergeant at arms. Noted in advance of the session as a supporter of Danby’s non-resisting test (the forerunner of which Lindsey had opposed while in the Commons), on 15 Apr. he presented the bill to the House.<sup>16</sup> On 21 Apr. he received the proxy of Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham, which was vacated by the close of the session, and five days later (26 Apr.) that of his brother-in-law, Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, which was also vacated by the prorogation.</p><p>Lindsey took his seat in the following session on 13 Oct. 1675 (of which he attended all bar two days) when he was again entrusted with Campden’s proxy. The following day he also received that of Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, which was vacated on 4 November. On 20 Nov. (still holding Campden’s proxy) he voted against addressing the crown to request a dissolution.</p><p>During the year’s interval in between the two sessions, Lindsey attempted to distance himself from a possible dispute with the lord chamberlain over the right to erect scaffolding in Westminster Hall for the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. Convinced that precedent dictated that the right did not lie in the office of lord great chamberlain if Parliament was not sitting, he protested to Danby in mid June 1676 that he ‘would not for all the world engage your lordship in a business which I could not go through in … And to make a great bustle for a thing of that small importance and to be worsted in it too I am afraid would very much reflect upon my judgment’. In spite of Lindsey’s declared intention of not pressing the point, a committee of the Privy Council was shortly after appointed to consider the matter following which Lindsey was requested to produce evidences supporting his claims.<sup>17</sup> By this time he had joined with Danby and four other peers in finding Cornwallis guilty of manslaughter in defiance of the majority of the triers who voted to acquit.<sup>18</sup> In addition to his involvement in these proceedings, Lindsey was also engaged in promoting his kinsman, Henry Noel<sup>‡</sup>, for the by-election at Stamford necessitated by the promotion of William Montagu<sup>‡</sup> to the bench. Reporting to Danby he assured him of having:</p><blockquote><p>taken all the pains I could in a certain borough for my friend who if I may judge according to human success will carry it and by that I am to observe to you how powerful a conjunction of families are and how ridiculously insignificant they make themselves when upon all occasions they do not express a high concern one for another.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lindsey returned to the House at the opening of the subsequent session on 15 Feb. 1677, in advance of which he received the proxies of his half-brother, Norreys, and brother-in-law, Campden. Norreys later transferred the proxy to Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice, while Campden’s was vacated by his resumption of his seat. Present on almost 79 per cent of all sitting days, on 17 Feb. Lindsey was again required by the House to make efforts to prevent non-members from inveigling their way into the House and between 20 and 22 Feb. he was named to four committees. Absent for the last few days of February, Lindsey registered his own proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath, on 22 Feb, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 5 March. His absence from the House at that time was the result of his attendance at the Stamford poll, whence he was ‘sent for down by his party’ to support Noel, who comfortably carried it against the challenge of John Hatcher<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>20</sup> Having resumed his place, Lindsey was named to a further dozen committees, including that for the Deeping Fen bill in which he had a particular interest.</p><p>From the spring of 1677 Lindsey began active canvassing for the seat at Grantham. His robust use of the militia to support his agents generated vigorous complaints from his opponents and no doubt contributed to his being assessed as triply vile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. Although Lindsey was said to have received ‘very good satisfaction’ from the king when he complained about the activities of his arch-rival Sir Robert Carr in Lincolnshire, his upholding of the court and proximity to Danby appear to have made him a target for opposition retaliation.<sup>21</sup> By October it was predicted confidently that there would be a ‘great contest at Grantham’ between the followers of Carr and Lindsey.<sup>22</sup> Moves by the opposition to stifle Lindsey led to a bewildered response at the close of the year by his kinsman, Robert Paston*, Viscount Yarmouth, who wondered ‘what my Lord Lindsey should act capable of an impeachment: if the king suffer his lord lieutenants to be used so none will be safe’.<sup>23</sup> Despite Yarmouth’s concerns, no such effort appears to have been launched against Lindsey at this time, though in December Lindsey appealed to his neighbour, John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to be in town in advance of the session ‘to consult our affairs and to fortify’ against an attempt by Carr, and Sir William Ellis to bring a complaint before the Commons.<sup>24</sup></p><p>The maintenance of the Bertie interest in the town of Stamford was ensured by the return of Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> in February 1678 following the death of Noel. On 1 Feb. Lindsey received Yarmouth’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. Absent at a call on 16 Feb., Lindsey took his seat three days later, and on 26 Feb. he was entrusted with the proxy of Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, which was vacated by Hatton’s resumption of his seat the following day. In March a heated contest at Grantham resulted in Lindsey’s candidate, Sir Robert Markham<sup>‡</sup>, being returned but only after Lindsey had once more resorted to turning out the militia. A subsequent appeal by Markham’s opponent, Ellis, supported by Carr failed to overturn the result.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Lindsey took his seat in the House once more on 23 May 1678, on which day he again received Yarmouth’s proxy (which was vacated by the close). Despite being present on over 58 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to just one committee during the session. Having attended the single sitting day of 1 Aug. he took his seat on 21 Oct. 1678, after which he was present on almost 60 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to two committees. In the interval between the sessions he had once again been involved in overseeing improvements to parts of the palace of Westminster.<sup>26</sup> Lindsey suffered the loss of one of his daughters in the first half of November but this failed to distract him from his continued attendance of the House.<sup>27</sup> On 15 Nov. he voted against making the declaration against transubstantiation to be under the same penalty as the oaths and on 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill. The following day, predictably enough, he voted against committing Danby.</p><p>Canvassing for the general election found Lindsey once more at loggerheads with Carr in Lincolnshire. He complained to Danby how ‘a great part of the world are apt to believe that those who are in office are in favour and so consequently think they act not contrary but with the court’.<sup>28</sup> Lindsey’s difficulties were exacerbated when Markham withdrew from Grantham so that he could contest Newark, leaving the borough free to be carried by Carr’s candidates, Ellis and Sir John Newton<sup>‡</sup>. Lady Lindsey experienced similar difficulties in Woodstock, where she found previously loyal tenants deserting to support the candidates put forward by John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace. Ellis and Newton’s success at Grantham may have been assisted by Lindsey once more falling prey to poor health. In March 1679 it was rumoured that he was at the point of death if not already dead.<sup>29</sup> These proved to be premature and towards the end of March he was expected to be sufficiently well to make the journey to London. He had previously been noted as an absent supporter by Danby (the word ‘absent’ subsequently scratched out) and thereafter he featured regularly in Danby’s forecasts of his likely supporters in the House.</p><p>Lindsey was not reappointed to the new Privy Council in April. On 1 Apr. he voted against the early stages of the Danby attainder bill and on 4 Apr. he voted to reject the bill, registering his dissent when the motion was carried. Ten days later he voted against concurring with the Commons over the attainder. Missing at a call on 9 May, Lindsey resumed his seat the following day when he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. In all, he attended 34 per cent of sittings in the 61-day session.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Lindsey was involved in a dispute with Lady Wynn (his son, Willoughby’s mother-in-law) over the fulfilment of the terms of Willoughby’s marriage contract.<sup>30</sup> Although he was expected back in town in October, it was predicted that Lindsey would ‘not come at the Parliament’ and from the close of the first Exclusion Parliament to the end of the reign, Lindsey remained absent from the House, largely it would appear on account of cripplingly poor health.<sup>31</sup> He was not so sick as to be unable to attend an entertainment for James*, duke of York, at Stamford while the duke was <em>en</em> <em>route</em> to Scotland.<sup>32</sup> In October 1680 Lady Lindsey complained of a ‘new fever’ that had not only incapacitated her husband but 19 members of the family, and the same month Lindsey wrote to Black Rod explaining that he was ‘so powerfully seized upon by this general new fever’ that he was unable to be present at the opening of the new session. He was not so unwell, though, to overlook ordering Black Rod to see to it that the usual searches of the palace were carried out prior to the opening or to make provision for a deputy to officiate at the introduction of new lords.<sup>33</sup> With his immediate duties dispensed with, Lindsey was able to retreat back to his sick bed. Although it was reported on 27 Oct. that Lindsey and his countess were expected in town, on 30 Oct. he was excused at a call of the House, predictably enough, on the grounds of poor health.<sup>34</sup> He was consequently absent from the exclusion vote on 15 Nov. and in December he continued to excuse his failure to attend because of sickness. Writing to Danby he presumed ‘the House of Lords has had by this time the same account by my servants as to my inability of coming up as they had from my Lord Campden’s’ and he explained how he had attempted to ‘harden myself by taking the air in the coach and sometimes walking in my stable and my gardens. But I have been recompensed for my rashness with quotidian fits.’ As the session drew to a close in January 1681 Lindsey, still incapacitated, comforted himself in a further missive to Danby that ‘it is improbable that one vote will be of that importance to weigh the scale of one side or the other,’ and thus, ‘there will be no occasion of my coming up this session.’<sup>35</sup></p><p>Danby’s hopes that Lindsey, who he still viewed as one of his principal supporters, would rally in time for the Oxford Parliament in March and that he would present his petition to be bailed failed to be realized.<sup>36</sup> In Lindsey’s absence it was left to his kinsman, Norreys, to present Danby’s petition. Lindsey’s ill health did not prevent him from launching a suit against one of his old family retainers, Edward Christian, for a debt of £300. Lindsey had previously brought an action against Christian, at the time of his accession to the peerage, over disputed leases to certain properties on his estate.<sup>37</sup> Christian, who was also being prosecuted for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> by Buckingham, complained that Lindsey’s heir, Willoughby, ‘has told persons of honour that I have cheated his grandfather and father.’<sup>38</sup> In July Lindsey, whose health had presumably improved markedly by that point, hosted a magnificent entertainment at Grantham to help secure signatures to the county’s loyal address.<sup>39</sup> Among the guests were Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, who reported to Danby, ‘if good meat and drink will make men loyal (which used to be a good argument with Englishmen) my lord spares no cost to effect it in his lieutenancy.’<sup>40</sup> For all the expense of the Grantham entertainment, Lindsey was unable to win over the grand jury at the Lincoln assizes, which refused to give the address its approbation.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Although Lindsey was spared the responsibility of overseeing a new Parliament for the remainder of the reign he continued to exercise his responsibilities in the palace and in November 1681 he granted permission for the establishment of a new coffee house in part of the former court of wards.<sup>42</sup> Lindsey was in London in June 1682 to oversee his ‘affair in law’ (probably relating to a dispute with his heir, Willoughby, though it could have been any one of a number of suits in which he was involved at that time) after which he was expected to travel to Windsor.<sup>43</sup> Before quitting London he was one of those present in the court of King’s Bench to support Danby’s continuing efforts to secure his release.<sup>44</sup> On 29 June Lindsey was reappointed to the Privy Council (for which he paid fees totalling £26) and early in July it was reported that he and Willoughby had at last come to terms, though accommodation had not been achieved ‘without some difficulty.’<sup>45</sup> He had returned to Grimsthorpe by August from which he wrote to Danby, still confined in the Tower, expressing his hope that ‘the ministers will be encouraged to call a Parliament leading to your release’ while conceding that he could not blame Danby’s opponents ‘for making hay whilst the sun shines, for if they are not happy in the constant esteem and good opinion of their master being always hated by the people, they run great hazards.’ By the close of September Lindsey was engaged in another dispute, this time with his neighbour at Belvoir Castle, which it was hoped Danby might be able to use his interest to compose. In November Lindsey signed the latest petition for Danby’s release, which he considered to be ‘admirably drawn’ but in spite of such efforts the king’s failure to summon Parliament left the former lord treasurer languishing in the same predicament.<sup>46</sup></p><p>The following year Lindsey employed his interest on behalf of Dr. Price for a vacant prebend’s stall at Lincoln, assuring William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, how he had ‘made it my business, not only to observe amongst the clergy and laity who is most active to promote the king’s interest and the public good of the church, but also have endeavoured to have them encouraged and gratified’.<sup>47</sup> Lindsey responded energetically to the clampdown that followed revelations of the Rye House Plot. In July 1683 he was actively engaged in seizing arms from suspected persons in Lincolnshire, among them Sir William Ellis<sup>‡</sup>, ‘the head of all the Presbyterians in the county’ and believed to be closely involved with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>48</sup> The following year Danby was at last successful in securing his release from the Tower, the latest petition for his release once again bearing Lindsey’s name at the head of the list.<sup>49</sup> In April 1684 it was Lindsey’s turn to be grateful, on this occasion to his half-brother Abingdon, for his kindness to his youngest son, Philip Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, then a student at Oxford, and he requested that he might ‘send him [Philip] a warrant for a buck out of Rycote park so that he might pleasure some of his friends at the university’.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Lindsey and his countess returned to London in May. They made a point initially of living privately at lodgings in Essex Street, though they were expected to ‘own themselves to their friends’ later in the month.<sup>51</sup> Having been excused from waiting on the king in mid-May, Lindsey was engaged with his duties at court at Windsor in June before making a brief stay at his residence at Chelsea.<sup>52</sup> There negotiations were undertaken for the match between Lindsey’s daughter, Lady Arabella, and Earl Rivers, which was solemnized in August. With this business settled, Lindsey left London for a spell at Woodstock before returning to Grimsthorpe for the remainder of the year.<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>1685-1701</em></h2><p>In January 1685 Lindsey was replaced as one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber by Thomas Bruce*, styled Lord Bruce (later 2nd earl of Ailesbury). The death of Charles II not long after, offered Lindsey a fresh opportunity to re-establish his credentials at court. The late king had never thought very highly of the earl and Lindsey had at one point accused him of laying ‘a new indignity upon me by not sending me a letter as to other lord lieutenants’, and of putting out his friends and appointing his enemies as justices. Lindsey had found Charles II’s preference for Carr particularly galling.<sup>54</sup> Doubtless, he hoped that the new king would prove more amenable and that his unambiguous support for James during the exclusion crisis would help him to curry favour with the new regime. Although he admitted ‘I never saw the gentleman in my life’, he dutifully communicated the king’s request that Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup> should be returned for Grantham to his neighbour, Rutland. Lindsey apologized for being unable to attend in person and assumed that as recorder Rutland would face no difficulty. In the event Graham stood for Windsor instead.<sup>55</sup> Lindsey appears to have been similarly compliant in assisting with the court’s desire that Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup> be returned for Lincoln.<sup>56</sup> He was then occupied with overseeing the election at Stamford, where he was delighted to be able to secure a minor revenge with ‘the exclusion of the excluder’, following which Lindsey was expected back in London accompanied by his family in mid March.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Lindsey took his seat in the new Parliament on 19 May 1685. Present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days, he was named to six committees in addition to the usual sessional committees. On the opening day he joined with a number of Danby’s friends in moving for the lord treasurer’s case to be treated in the same way as that of the Catholic lords who had been imprisoned in the wake of the Popish Plot.<sup>58</sup> Curiously, having been named to the committee for petitions on 22 May he was then added to the same body three days later (presumably the result of a clerical oversight). Lindsey took advantage of the Monmouth rebellion to imprison a number of Lincolnshire nonconformists in Hull and was notable for keeping such prisoners interned for longer than any other lord lieutenant. His excuse for doing so was that they had not been ‘more mannerly’ in requesting their release.<sup>59</sup> His support for the Deeping Fen bill earned both him and his family still greater disfavour in Lincolnshire. Sir John Brownlow<sup>‡</sup> commented that, ‘all the Berties have lost their esteem in the country very much by voting for the drainers which has done my Lord Lindsey an injury and made him not to be respected amongst the gentry.’<sup>60</sup></p><p>Having attended the House on 4 Aug. 1685, Lindsey was absent for the remainder of the Parliament. In October it was reported that he had been bitten by a mad dog, which presumably explains his absence and the report that he had sent his proxy to the king to be conferred on whoever the king chose: it was registered subsequently with the lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys.<sup>61</sup> The same month it was reported that Lady Lindsey had converted to Rome.<sup>62</sup> Her decision was not mimicked by other members of Lindsey’s family, who subsequently fell foul of their refusal to toe the new line. In December Lindsey’s heir and two other kinsmen were put out of their places for voting contrary to the king’s wishes.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Lindsey excused himself from attending the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), at the opening of 1686, pleading ‘shortness of the time and distance of places’ for his absence.<sup>64</sup> The death of his brother, Richard Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, in January prompted Lindsey to approach Abingdon to recommend his son, Philip, to the now vacant seat at Woodstock but in the event no by-election ensued and Philip Bertie was compelled to wait until 1694 before he could secure a place in the Commons.<sup>65</sup> Detachment from affairs in London may have helped exacerbate ongoing disputes between Lindsey in his role as lord great chamberlain and the lord chamberlain (Mulgrave) and the earl marshal (Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk) and in February a hearing was appointed to determine the disagreement, though once again Lindsey failed to attend, this time on the grounds of poor health.<sup>66</sup> In March the king ordered a further day to be put aside for the disputants to be heard but it was not until the following month that Lindsey finally put in his answer. The dispute was eventually settled broadly in favour of Mulgrave.<sup>67</sup> While his interest at court appeared to be in question, Lindsey was also embroiled in family disagreements involving his wife and his heir, Willoughby. Lindsey complained that his wife’s conversion had upset his already compromised interest in Lincolnshire, and in June arguments over this and the disputed settlements reached such a pass that it was reported that he had resorted to turning his wife out of doors. Lady Lindsey denied that any such thing had occurred and after this public humiliation the pair were reconciled. Later the same month it was reported that Lady Lindsey had returned to the Church of England.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Despite Lindsey’s apparent discontent at his wife’s brief conversion, at the beginning of 1687 it was rumoured that Lindsey himself was on the verge of converting to Rome but there seems little reason to credit the report.<sup>69</sup> He appears to have been disinclined to treat other nonconformists with any great leniency, and in March he was ordered by the king to see to it that the persecution of Quakers by the justices in Holland in Lincolnshire was halted.<sup>70</sup> By the summer he was noted among those opposed to the king’s policies. This presumably explains the report that circulated soon after that he was to be removed from his lieutenancy.<sup>71</sup> A renewed bout of ill health incapacitated Lindsey in the autumn, the severity of which caused him to despair of his own life. Writing to Danby he apologized for his long silence, but asserted that:</p><blockquote><p>I have been in such a condition that I never thought to have had the honour of seeing your lordship any more in this world, occasioned by a strain in the hip, and the gout falling upon that part converted it to a violent sciatica, which is a torture equal if not superior to the stone, and will sooner persuade a man to the choice of death than a continuance in a pain past all possibility of description.<sup>72</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although it was again rumoured in November that Lindsey would join his half-brother, Abingdon, in being put out as a lord lieutenant, he survived the cull.<sup>73</sup> The same month he was noted among those thought to be in favour of repealing the Test Act, an assessment that was repeated in January 1688.</p><p>The expected invasion of William of Orange initially found Lindsey divided from his usual allies. In September he replaced his son, Willoughby, as recorder of Boston and he was one of several peers to offer to raise forces for the king out of their own pockets.<sup>74</sup> The following month he turned out the militia for Lincolnshire. Although he was pleasantly surprised to find them ‘in a much better posture for his majesty’s service than I could reasonably have expected’, by December when it was clear that the king could not survive, Lindsey adroitly rejoined Danby, whose ‘great name’ he assured his brother-in-law, ‘has a powerful influence to make the gentry follow such an heroic example’.<sup>75</sup> Other members of the Bertie family (including Willoughby) had been present among the ranks of the northern rebels since November, which presumably aided Lindsey’s seamless change of loyalty.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Lindsey was in London for the final week of December 1688. On 24 Dec. he took his place in the meeting of the provisional government convened in the Lords.<sup>77</sup> Having seconded the motion of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, that the letter said to have been sent from King James to Middleton should be sent for, he then pressed that Ailesbury (as Bruce had since become) should provide an account of what was of public import in the letter.<sup>78</sup> Lindsey’s absence from Lincolnshire at the time of the election to the Convention in January 1689 was believed by some of the local ‘sages’ to have cost his heir the county seat and Willoughby had once more to be content with representing Boston.<sup>79</sup> Present at the opening of the Convention, on 29 Jan. 1689 Lindsey was noted among those in favour of establishing a regency. He subsequently followed Danby’s lead and on 31 Jan. altered his stance to support the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen.<sup>80</sup> On 4 Feb. he voted against concurring with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ but two days later performed another <em>volte</em> <em>face</em> and voted in favour both of the term ‘abdicated’ and the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. His timely changes of heart no doubt ensured Lindsey was continued in office as lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire by the new regime. He was also named to the new Privy Council. Lindsey subscribed the protest of 6 Mar. against the resolution to pass the bill for better regulating the trials of peers, perhaps conceiving it to be harmful to his perquisites as lord great chamberlain. On 31 May he voted against reversing the perjury judgments against Oates and on 30 July he divided in favour of adhering to the lords’ amendments to the reversal of the perjury judgment. The following day Lindsey received the proxy of Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Despite his apparently successful alignment with the new regime, by July Lindsey was dismayed to find himself ‘so unfortunately fallen into his majesty’s displeasure as not to enjoy those perquisites which belongs to my office as well as the rest of his majesty’s subjects … who have all long since received their fees according to their allowance.’ Lindsey’s complaint probably stemmed from his failure to be awarded furniture from the coronation. Venting his frustrations to Carmarthen (as Danby had become) he lamented that he had ‘so often mentioned this affair to his majesty and have been so unsuccessful in that attempt that I can scarce think it good manners to give him any more trouble in it.’ He beseeched Carmarthen to use his interest with the king and, for his part, offered to accept an alternative fee, ‘though to the prejudicing my own right’ if it should be more to the king’s satisfaction.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Lindsey was absent from the opening of the second session of the Convention and on 28 Oct. 1689 he was excused at a call of the House. His absence may have been the result of the deaths in quick succession of his niece and daughter-in-law the previous month.<sup>82</sup> He arrived in London towards the end of November and took his seat on 25 Nov. after which he was present on just under a third of all sitting days. In a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690, Carmarthen classed him as among the supporters of the court. Active in the Lincolnshire elections, Lindsey’s heir, Willoughby, was again returned for Boston in February and, on his promotion to the Lords in April, the seat was taken by Lindsey’s younger son, Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Incapacitated by gout, Lindsey was absent from the opening of the new Parliament, having been advised by his physicians to undergo a ‘purge and clear the relics of that distemper that so I may be freed from the danger of a relapse’, but he was ‘confident to be in Parliament before anything of moment can be transacted’.<sup>83</sup> In his absence he was advised by Black Rod (Sir Thomas Duppa) of the ruinous state of much of the furniture in the chamber, but Duppa left it to his judgment whether replacements should be ordered from the lord chamberlain’s department, so that ‘the fault may not lie at your lordship’s or my neglect.’<sup>84</sup> Lindsey took his seat on 4 Apr. 1690 but was able to attend just 18 days of the fifty-four-day session. Four days after he took his seat it was reported that he had no sooner arrived in London than he was again seized with gout forcing him to be carried to the House in a chair.<sup>85</sup> He returned to the House for the opening of the following session on 2 Oct. 1690, and attended 41 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower.</p><p>In April 1691 his attention was dominated by lieutenancy affairs. Finding that no lords within his county were prepared to muster their horses without an order from the House he informed John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, that he would insist on the same privilege as regarded his obligations in Bridgwater’s lieutenancy.<sup>86</sup> Lindsey was absent from the opening of the subsequent session and he was once more excused at a call of the House on account of sickness on 2 November. He returned to town towards the end of the month and took his seat on 23 Nov. 1691. He was present on approximately 41 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>87</sup> At some point between December and January 1692 Lindsey was assessed by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as being a likely supporter of Derby’s efforts to recover lands lost in the period before the Restoration but Derby’s bill was rejected on second reading.<sup>88</sup> On 1 Feb. 1692 Lindsey received the proxy of his brother, Abingdon, which was vacated by the close of the session, and the following day he registered his dissent at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ reasons against the lords’ amendments over the appointment of commissioners of accounts.</p><p>Lindsey returned to London in preparation for the meeting of Parliament in early November 1692. He took his seat in the session on 4 Nov., and was present on approximately 53 per cent of all sitting days. Early in December he was joined by Lady Lindsey, whose absence from town the previous month had been remarked upon but whose delayed arrival may have been connected with the birth of Lindsey’s nephew about that time.<sup>89</sup> On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill. Four days later he voted in favour of passing the measure and subscribed the dissent when it was rejected. The same month he was forecast as being opposed to the Norfolk divorce bill, which he voted against reading on 2 January. On 17 Jan. 1693 he entered two dissents in response to the rejection of Charles Knollys’ claim to be recognized as 4th earl of Banbury, and two days later (19 Jan.) he dissented once more at the resolution not to refer consideration of the lords’ amendments to the land tax to the committee for privileges. Lindsey found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder on 4 February. Two days later he again received Abingdon’s proxy.</p><p>Lindsey was beset with family troubles once again during the summer when he fell out with his son, Willoughby, over the felling of trees on the Grimsthorpe estate. Willoughby insisted that the money raised by selling the timber should have gone towards payment of his sister, Arabella Bertie’s (Countess Rivers) marriage portion rather than into the earl’s pocket, but the disagreement was symptomatic of a broader dispute within the family over the terms of Willoughby’s marriage settlement.<sup>90</sup> Absent for the entirety of the ensuing session of Parliament, towards the end of October it was reported that neither Lindsey nor his countess intended to be in London that winter.<sup>91</sup> On 14 Nov. 1693 Lindsey was marked as sick at a call and on 2 Dec. he informed Abingdon of his inability to attend. He asked Abingdon to hold his proxy, which he promised to send by the next post, offering him <em>carte</em> <em>blanche</em> for using it as he pleased, ‘for I dare say neither of our votes will alter the course as affairs now stand.’ On Abingdon’s acceptance, Lindsey emphasized that he should ‘by no means … oblige you to an attendance or the giving it any way than according to your own mind’.<sup>92</sup> The proxy was duly registered on 18 Dec. and the following month Willoughby was ordered to officiate as lord great chamberlain during Lindsey’s continued absence.</p><p>Lindsey was one of several peers mentioned in a letter conveyed to the exiled king at the beginning of 1694 (or perhaps 1695) who were said to be sympathetic to James’s cause but besides this there seems not to be any particular evidence that he was engaged in Jacobite endeavours.<sup>93</sup> Further difficulties with his heir, Willoughby, preoccupied both Lindsey and his countess that spring and he failed once again to attend the opening of the following session, although it was thought that he might return to town soon after.<sup>94</sup> Lindsey was excused at a call on 26 November. By then he may have been distracted by the contest of his younger son, Philip Bertie, for the seat at Stamford left vacant by the death of the former member, William Hyde<sup>‡</sup>. Lindsey’s brother, Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> questioned ‘not but your interest will help him to carry it’, and the following day he underlined the importance of Lindsey’s support emphasizing that his nephew was ‘in no very good posture to carry on such an election without yours and my Lord Willoughby’s help.’<sup>95</sup> Having successfully dissuaded Sir Pury Cust from contesting the seat, who declared himself unwilling to stand against ‘so great a family’, Philip Bertie was duly returned on the family interest, but only after expending some £250 on his election.<sup>96</sup> Lindsey took his seat in the House finally on 21 Jan. 1695, and was present on 39 of the remaining days of the session (approximately one third of the whole).</p><p>Lindsey appears to have failed to make an impact on the county electorate for the 1695 poll and the sitting members, Castleton and Sir Thomas Hussey<sup>‡</sup>, were returned having faced little opposition. The family interest held firm at Boston and Stamford, though, and in the latter both seats were secured by Berties.<sup>97</sup> Lindsey took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, after which he was present on almost 38 per cent of all sitting days. On 10 Apr. he received the proxy of George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, which was vacated by the close of the session. He then took his seat in the second session on 12 Nov. 1696 and on 18 Dec. he subscribed the dissent at the resolution to read the Fenwick attainder a second time. On 23 Dec. he voted against passing the attainder, signing the protest when the bill was passed.</p><p>Lindsey returned to the House on 3 Dec. 1697, after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and on 25 Mar. he received Berkeley’s proxy again, which was vacated by Berkeley’s return to the House on 8 June. Towards the end of June the House deputed him to wait on the king to request an order for the building of scaffolds in Westminster Hall for the forthcoming trials of several French merchants.<sup>98</sup> Following the trials Lindsey successfully claimed his perquisites as lord great chamberlain and was granted leave to remove the scaffolding for his own use.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution, the Berties appear to have suffered a setback at Boston, where neither of the sitting members, Peregrine Bertie and Sir William Yorke<sup>‡</sup>, contested the seats, which were taken by Richard Wynn and Edmund Boulter. Peregrine Bertie’s withdrawal may have been indicative of divisions within the Bertie family but it is possible that Lindsey countenanced Wynn, who may have been remotely connected to the family through his connection to the Massingberds. Elsewhere Lindsey had greater success and he was able to employ his interest in Buckinghamshire in alliance with Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, in support of William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S] (more usually styled Lord Cheyne), who came top of the poll.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Advancing age and declining health appear to have combined to limit Lindsey’s activities in the final years of his life. He was absent at the opening of the new Parliament in August 1698 and failed to take his seat until 22 Dec., after which he was present on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1699 he was presumably involved in dealing with problems in his home county of Lincolnshire, which was the scene of mass rioting when a mob of over 1,000 people attacked the drainage works on the Deeping Level. In March responsibilities in the palace again predominated as he was required to erect a court in Westminster Hall for the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick.<sup>101</sup> In the summer reports of the imminent demise of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, precipitated reports that Lindsey expected to succeed to the earldom, though rumours that Oxford’s son by Hester Davenport might be legitimate threatened again to stymie the Berties’ efforts to acquire the title.<sup>102</sup> Absent again at the opening of the second session in November, Lindsey returned to the House on 4 Mar. 1700 but sat for just 16 days before the close on 11 April. That year his heir, Willoughby, was appointed lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire in his stead, no doubt reflecting Lindsey’s increasing frailty as well as his distance from the administration’s political composition.</p><p>Lindsey died in May of the following year. Throughout his career he appears to have struggled to balance his duties at court against the demands of overseeing a large and challenging county and the problems of genuinely poor health. He also seems to have found it difficult to keep in line his more ambitious heir. It is thus perhaps telling that he constituted his widow sole executrix of his will. He was succeeded in the peerage by Willoughby, as 4th earl of Lindsey.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BERTIE, Robert (1660-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>BERTIE</surname></strong> (<strong>BARTIE</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (1660–1723)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1666-90 Ld. Willoughby de Eresby; <em>accel. </em>19 Apr. 1690 Bar. WILLOUGHBY de ERESBY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 8 May 1701 as 4th earl of LINDSEY; <em>cr. </em>21 Dec. 1706 mq. of LINDSEY; <em>cr. </em>26 July 1715 duke of ANCASTER and KESTEVEN. |
|
First sat 21 Apr. 1690; last sat 10 Apr. 1723 |
|
MP Boston 1685–90; Boston and Preston 1690. |
<p><em>b</em>. 20 Oct. 1660, s. of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, and his 2nd w. Elizabeth Wharton; bro. of Albemarle<sup>‡</sup>, Peregrine<sup>‡</sup> and Philip Bertie<sup>‡</sup>; half-bro. of Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1678.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 30 July 1678 (with £3,000 p.a.),<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 1689), da. of Sir Richard Wynn<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 6 July 1705, Albinia (<em>d</em>. 1745), da. of Maj. Gen. William Farrington of Chiselhurst, Kent, 4s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 26 July 1723; <em>will</em> 23 May 1719–8 Dec. 1722, pr. 1 Apr. 1724.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chancellor, duchy of Lancaster 1689–97; PC 19 June 1701–<em>d</em>.; ld. gt. chamberlain 1701–<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1715.</p><p>Freeman, Denbigh 1679; recorder, Boston 1685–?<em>d.</em>;<sup>4</sup> dep.-lt. Anglesey 1685–8; ld. lt. Lincs. 1700–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. of horse 1685.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: monument by H. Scheermakers, St Michael and All Angels, Edenham, Lincs.</p> |
<p>Willoughby (as he was styled from his father’s succession to the earldom of Lindsey in 1666) seems to have been a belligerent man: he was likened by one of his relatives to ‘one of the battering rams of our family’ (an allusion to the Bertie coat of arms).<sup>8</sup> In spite of this abrasiveness, the alliance of the Bertie and Osborne families by the marriage of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), to Willoughby’s aunt Bridget Bertie meant that from an early age Willoughby was marked out for political advancement. Connection with the family of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, on the other hand, seems not to have been so significant for his career. At the age of 18 Willoughby was married to the heiress Mary Wynn, through the mediation of Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup>. The following year, he was proposed as a candidate at Merioneth in the second election of 1679, possibly also at Meres’ behest, making use of his interest in the area as inheritor of the Wynn estates, but he seems not to have stood on this occasion.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Having returned from his continental tour, Willoughby was quick to reveal his combative persona. He weighed in against the family retainer Edward Christian in the summer of 1681, accusing him of cheating both his father and his grandfather.<sup>10</sup> Three years later, Willoughby was reported to be on the point of fighting a duel with his neighbour John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland. Although it is not clear what the cause of the dispute was or whether the bout ever came to pass, it may have been connected with a former disagreement between the two men over Rutland shutting his gates against Willoughby.<sup>11</sup> On that occasion their contretemps was defused by the mediation of Willoughby’s uncle Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>12</sup></p><p>The following year (1685) Willoughby was elected for Boston on the family interest. This followed on from his appointment as recorder of the town but he soon fell foul of James II and in December he was put out of his military command, along with two of his brothers, for joining in the opposition protest at the management of the elections.<sup>13</sup> Two years he later, in 1687, he was also removed as a justice of the peace. That year Willoughby assisted Danby in drawing up a list of those peers believed to be opposed to the king’s policies to be sent to William of Orange.<sup>14</sup> The outbreak of the revolution of 1688 found Willoughby at Danby’s side at York. There his impetuous nature once more drew him into a quarrel, this time with Richard Lumley*, Baron Lumley (later earl of Scarbrough), which was only patched up through the mediation of several of the other gentry in arms. Willoughby excused his rebellion against the king, arguing that ‘it was the first time that any Bertie was ever engaged against the crown, and it was his trouble; but there was a necessity either to part with our religion and properties or to do it’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Despite his forwardness in the Revolution, in marked contrast to his father, who remained loyal if inactive until the very last moment, Willoughby failed to secure his return for Lincolnshire for the Convention and had once more to be content with representing Boston. He was rewarded early on, though, by being appointed to the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, a position formerly held by the family’s arch-rival, Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>16</sup> He was also one of three candidates put forward to the king by the attorney general to command the militia in North Wales, where he had ‘a good estate in two counties’.<sup>17</sup> Although he was elected to both Boston and Preston in March 1690, in the latter Willoughby faced a fierce contest, which threatened to overshadow his supposedly dominating interest in the borough as chancellor of the duchy.<sup>18</sup> The following month he was called to the Lords by a writ of acceleration to help bolster Danby’s following in the upper House and, during the ensuing five years, he was a steady supporter of the court interest.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Willoughby’s early career in the Lords was unremarkable. He took his seat on 21 Apr. 1690, a month into the session, and was thereafter present on 21 sitting days (approximately 39 per cent of the whole), and was named to one committee. He then returned to the House for the second session on 2 Oct. and was present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days and was named to seven committees. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. During a fortnight’s absence from 7 to 23 Oct. he registered his proxy with Carmarthen (as Danby had since become). Following the adjournment, Willoughby officiated as lord great chamberlain in his father’s absence at the introduction of Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers (later earl of Jersey), on 31 Mar. 1691.</p><p>In the following session that commenced that winter, Willoughby was present on 81 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to 14 committees. Having attended the prorogation day on 24 May 1692 he then took his seat in the ensuing session on 4 Nov., was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days and was named to six committees. In December he voted against committing the place bill, which he then voted to reject on 3 Jan. 1693. That month he was assessed by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, as a likely supporter of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 2 Jan. Ailesbury’s prediction was confirmed when Willoughby voted in favour of reading the bill. On 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. Absent from the remainder of the session after 20 Feb. 1693, Willoughby again ensured that his proxy was lodged with Carmarthen.</p><p>The summer of 1693 saw the beginnings of a dispute between Willoughby and his father over damage caused to the estate at Grimsthorpe by over-felling of trees, something from which Wharton had attempted to protect the estate during negotiations with the earl on his marriage to Wharton’s daughter, Elizabeth. Willoughby later estimated that his father had felled timber worth in excess of £4,589 and the earl’s actions proved to be the basis for a series of legal actions that lasted well into the ensuing decade. Willoughby insisted that the money should have gone towards payment of the £4,000 portion for his sister, Arabella Bertie (Countess Rivers), rather than into his father’s pocket.<sup>20</sup> During the year, Willoughby was also an active participant in the passage of the Million Act, subscribing £5,000 to the total in September.<sup>21</sup></p><p>The autumn of 1693 found Willoughby frustrated in his efforts to employ his interest as chancellor of the duchy to secure the vacant seat at Clitheroe for his brother Philip.<sup>22</sup> In the midst of this, he took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 (he had previously been present on the prorogation days of 2 May and 26 October). He was thereafter present on approximately two-thirds of all sitting days, and was named to three committees. During his father’s enforced absence from the House in January 1694, Willoughby officiated as lord great chamberlain and he undertook the role again on four further occasions between February and the close of the session on 25 April. On 17 Feb. he voted against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the case <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>.</p><p>In August 1694 Willoughby was again unsuccessful in his efforts to employ his interest, this time on behalf of one Captain Finney for the office of provost marshal of Barbados. The ‘aged and very infirm’ incumbent, George Hannay, appears to have ultimately been replaced by a relative.<sup>23</sup> Willoughby returned to the House for the final session of the Parliament on 12 Nov. 1694, when he introduced Henry Herbert*, as Baron Herbert of Chirbury, after which he was present on just over three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to 17 committees. Once again he officiated on several occasions as lord great chamberlain. Absent from the House from 27 Mar. 1695 until 9 Apr., on 3 Apr. Willoughby again covered his absence by registering his proxy with Leeds (as Carmarthen had now become). On 29 Apr. Willoughby received the proxy of John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, which was vacated on 18 June.</p><p>Willoughby took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 15 committees. On 14 Feb. he was nominated to that appointed to prepare a report concerning the claim entered by Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, for a writ of summons, and the following day he was one of six peers delegated to wait on the king with the report. Willoughby may have been eager to protect his family’s interests in the case as Verney, who had been unsuccessful in petitioning for a summons as Baron Brooke, and now sought to be recognized as Baron Willoughby de Broke, a title close enough to Willoughby’s own to excite his interest. Private concerns were presumably overtaken by the news of the assassination plot and the subsequent drawing up of the Association in February 1696, which divided the Bertie family: the sons of James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, in the House of Commons refusing to sign, while Willoughby and his brothers, Charles, Peregrine and Philip, all concurred in putting their signatures to it.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Willoughby took his seat in the second session on 23 Nov. 1696 (attending approximately 69 per cent of all sitting days and being named to eight committees). Despite his earlier signing of the Association, by the winter of 1696 his support for the court, along with that of a number of his kinsmen, had begun to wane and in December he joined his father in voting against the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>25</sup> His determined opposition (and that of several of his kinsmen) attracted the king’s displeasure, who complained that ‘the whole family of Berties’ had been ranged against him in the session.<sup>26</sup> In April 1697 Willoughby was put out of office and replaced as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster by Thomas Grey*, earl of Stamford.<sup>27</sup> Deprived of his place, Willoughby continued to oppose the court and, having taken his seat in the House on 23 Dec. 1697 (after which he was present on 66 per cent of all sitting days), in March 1698 he voted against committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 29 June he received the proxy of Peregrine Osborne*, who sat under a writ of acceleration as Lord Osborne (later 2nd duke of Leeds), which was vacated by the close.</p><p>Absent at the opening of the new Parliament, Willoughby returned to the House on 13 Dec. 1698, after which he attended on 69 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1699 he opposed concurring with the resolution to offer to assist the king to retain his Dutch guards, which no doubt further alienated him from William’s good graces. Willoughby took his seat once more on 9 Jan. 1700, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation in February, and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into a Committee of the Whole to discuss amendments to the East India bill.</p><p>Despite opposition to the court, Willoughby was appointed lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire in 1700, replacing his now sickly father, though his appointment was more an indication of the continuing strength of the Bertie interest in the county than of a change of tack on Willoughby’s part. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days, and in June he voted against acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers. Lindsey (as he had become on the death of his father in May) was successful in championing the sitting members for Lincolnshire, Charles Dymoke<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Thorold<sup>‡</sup>, in the second election of the year and was ‘very zealous in encouraging loyal addresses to his Majesty from all the corporations’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Lindsey was present for the prorogation days of 7 Aug. and 18 Sept. prior to taking his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. In advance of the session he was also noted as having been ‘very zealous’ in promoting the composition of loyal addresses from Lincolnshire in response to the French king’s recognition of the Pretender.<sup>29</sup> Having taken his seat, he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days. The accession of the queen offered Lindsey a fresh opportunity to assert his position as a household officer. In May 1702, eager as ever to safeguard his perquisites as lord great chamberlain (however petty), he wrote to William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, to point out that he had not as yet ‘received the two towels with which her majesty washed her hands in Westminster Hall on the day of her coronation’ and requested that they be conveyed to him by return.<sup>30</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Dec. 1702, attending for 43 per cent of all sitting days. Estimated as a supporter of the second occasional conformity bill in January 1703, on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause.</p><p>The death of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in 1703 prompted a renewal of Lindsey’s pretensions to the now defunct earldom and in March he entered a caveat against alienating the title from his family.<sup>31</sup> Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, once more noted him as a supporter of the Occasional Conformity bill in a series of forecasts compiled in November. On 14 Dec. Lindsey was recorded in one list as having supported the bill by proxy (though no record of proxies survives for this session). Another simply noted him as one of the 59 peers who voted in favour of passing the bill but, as he failed to take his seat in the session until the following January, it is clear that his vote must have been made by proxy.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Having attended the prorogation day of 22 Apr. 1703, Lindsey returned to the House for the new session on 12 Jan. 1704, and was present on just under half of all sitting days in the session. During the year his attention continued to be taken up with family concerns. In May his heir, Robert Bertie, styled Lord Willoughby, died while staying in Wolfenbüttel and later that summer he became embroiled in a lengthy dispute with his stepmother, the dowager countess, over payment of her dowry.<sup>33</sup> Lindsey countered a suit brought by the countess before the court of common pleas with his own bill in chancery in July, complaining that she had taken possession of family muniments, which she refused to yield up.<sup>34</sup> Absent at the opening of the new session of October 1704, he was excused at a call of the House on 23 November. On 20 Dec. the dowager Lady Lindsey petitioned the Lords that she might be permitted to continue her suit in spite of Lindsey’s privilege. Lindsey finally took his seat on 10 Jan. 1705 (and was present on just under 42 per cent of all sitting days) and, following debate on 16 Jan., the House rejected the petition submitted by his stepmother.</p><p>Lindsey’s success in the House may have been connected with his gradual political realignment. By February 1705 it was commented that he had ‘taken up the profession of a Whig’ but two years later he was compelled to resort to law again to attempt to secure an account of his father’s estate from his stepmother.<sup>35</sup> Lindsey’s change of political heart gained him the interest of John Manners*, styled marquess of Granby (later 2nd duke of Rutland), who urged his father (Rutland) to lend his support to Lindsey’s candidates for Lincolnshire in the forthcoming election.<sup>36</sup> Lindsey’s brother Albemarle Bertie was accordingly returned for the county, along with George Whichcot<sup>‡</sup>, but in spite of his very public move to the Whigs, in April 1705 Lindsey was still assessed (without foundation) as a Jacobite in a list of peers’ political allegiances.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Lindsey took his seat in the new Parliament on 27 Oct. 1705, but he attended just 17 days of the 95-day session and he was again excused at a call of the House on 12 November. In spite of his infrequent attendance and apparently fluctuating loyalties, in December he was granted a step up in the peerage, taking his seat as marquess of Lindsey on 10 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on 56 per cent of all sitting days of the 1706-7 session. In January 1707 he became involved in a dispute with Henry Grey*, marquess (later duke) of Kent, over their respective pretensions as lord chamberlain and lord great chamberlain to the right to lead royal processions.<sup>38</sup> The dispute was later referred to a committee of the Privy Council, which reported in May.<sup>39</sup> The progress of the Union treaty also caused Lindsey and a number of other holders of hereditary offices to seek protection for their rights and in February Lindsey seconded a motion of Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, over the preservation of hereditary offices within the treaty.<sup>40</sup> The following month he introduced his brother Albemarle and George Whichcot to the queen with the Lincoln address.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Lindsey attended just four days of the 107-day session of the first Parliament of Great Britain. Assessed once more as a Whig in a list of the peerage of May 1708, he was successful in securing the return of George Whichcot along with his heir, Peregrine Bertie*, styled Lord Willoughby (later 2nd duke of Ancaster), for Lincolnshire, in spite of Willoughby’s Tory sympathies. Lindsey took his place in the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, and was present on 27 per cent of all sitting days in the session. The following January he voted against permitting Scottish peers with British titles to vote in elections for Scottish representative peers. In April he failed to persuade the House to commit a bill for confirming his rights in Havering Park, which had previously probably been managed through the Commons by his brother Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Lindsey failed to attend the second session of the Parliament and was marked sick at the time of the Sacheverell vote in March 1710.<sup>42</sup> This was in spite of the confident predictions of certain members of the countess of Lindsey’s legal team, who were still attempting to reach an agreement with him, that the trial would force him to return to town. Lindsey’s absence allowed a number of peers the freedom to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by the trial and it was noted that they ‘have mightily entrenched upon the lord great chamberlain, and not only appoint themselves such a number of tickets by their own authority, but attempt to contract my lord’s own box into a narrow compass, yet it seems my lord cannot be prevailed upon to come up to defend his own right’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Lindsey was marked doubtful in an assessment of potential supporters of his new ministry compiled in October by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. Having at last taken his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, he attended just over a fifth of all sitting days. He was absent from 10 Mar. 1711, registering his proxy two days later with his kinsman Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, but vacating it by the close. In May 1711 he was compelled to defend his rights once again on two fronts: first during the ongoing negotiations over the Lindsey level bill (though he was not present in the House at the time) and second over Harley’s intention to take the title of earl of Oxford. Lindsey’s son Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> warned Harley of his father’s likely opposition, pointing out that it was ‘what was done by himself and Lord Abingdon when this duke of Bucks [John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham and Mulgrave], had thoughts of that title’. Harley’s family reckoned Lindsey’s opposition to be the result of the encouragement of Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, who no doubt took pleasure in inflicting any discomfort he could upon Harley.<sup>44</sup> Lindsey’s efforts to procure a caveat noting his family’s claim to the title came to nothing, though a minor compromise was achieved when Harley adopted the title earl of Oxford and Mortimer rather than holding out for the earldom of Oxford alone. In addition, Harley was at pains to stress that neither Lindsey, ‘nor none of your family … should take it ill of him, since it was not his seeking’.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Lindsey undertook to employ his interest on behalf of his brother Philip Bertie at the by-election at Boston in November 1711 but, despite ‘being resolved to bring him in if money will do it’ and entertaining the town royally, Bertie was outpolled by a London merchant, William Cotesworth<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>46</sup> The same month, Lindsey’s second wife was the subject of scandal when it was widely reported that she had become pregnant ‘and the town says if she knows the father it is Lord Lumley [Henry Lumley<sup>‡</sup>]’.<sup>47</sup> Such family dramas aside, Lindsey believed that he would be unlikely to attend the opening of Parliament and so requested that his kinsman Abingdon would officiate as lord great chamberlain in his stead.<sup>48</sup> He then registered his proxy with John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. His decision to lodge the proxy with Marlborough rather than Abingdon was the occasion of comment in Lincolnshire, where it was believed that he had taken the proxy from his kinsman to convey it to the duke. This, it was relayed to Burrell Massingberd, then absent on the continent, ‘gives birth to many reports, one is that there will be a schism in a certain county’. However, it seems unlikely that Lindsey’s conveyance of the proxy to Marlborough was intended as a snub to Abingdon, particularly as he had only just requested that his kinsman would undertake his duties as chamberlain.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Lindsey took his seat on 20 Dec. (thereby vacating the proxy) after which he was present on 22 per cent of all sitting days. Although forecast as being in favour of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon on 19 Dec., the following day Lindsey voted against allowing Scottish peers from sitting in the House by virtue of British peerages created since the Union. On 28 May 1712 he divided with the ministry in voting against the Whig motion to overturn the ‘restraining orders’ preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from mounting an offensive campaign against the French.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Indicative of his perhaps borderline attachment to the Whigs, Lindsey was listed by Oxford as a peer to be contacted in advance of the session of March 1713. In spite of his decision to back the ministry on the question of the restraining orders, however, he appears to have remained unconvinced by the peace policies. Thus, although he failed to attend a single day of the session, on 13 June he was estimated as being opposed to the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty. He took his seat in the new session on 16 Feb. 1714, and attended just 13 days of the 76-day session. On 17 Apr. he registered his proxy with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 28 April. The following month Nottingham estimated Lindsey as an opponent of the schism bill and Lindsey’s alignment with ‘Dismal’s’ grouping was confirmed when he registered his proxy with Nottingham again on 11 May, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Lindsey failed to attend the House for the brief session that met following Queen Anne’s death in August. In spite of earlier estimates of his hostility to the Hanoverian succession, he proved a firm adherent of the new regime, a stance that ensured his continuance in office. To confirm this, in July 1715 he was advanced another step in the peerage as duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. He flourished under George I and in May 1719 he was appointed to the bedchamber.<sup>51</sup> Details of the latter part of his career will be considered in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Ancaster continued to attend the House until 10 Apr. 1723. He died just over three months later. In his will of May 1719 (which was augmented by a series of codicils) he stipulated that the cost of his funeral should not exceed £300 but he also requested the erection of a monument to his memory at a cost of no more than £500. He made provision for the raising of £10,000 for portions for his daughters by his first wife, Elizabeth and Eleanora (though the former appears to have suffered from some form of mental illness). To his only daughter by his second marriage, Louisa Carolina, he bequeathed an annuity of £50 until the age of 12 and thereafter of £100 per annum until marriage, at which time he stipulated that she should receive a portion of £3,000. He nominated his brother Albemarle Bertie, Sir Edward Betteson, Sir Thomas Farrington and Colonel John Selwyn as his executors. His distant kinsman Sir John Vanbrugh was appointed a trustee.<sup>52</sup> Ancaster was succeeded in the peerage by his second but eldest surviving son, Lord Willoughby, as 2nd duke of Ancaster, who was already a member of the House by virtue of a writ of acceleration of March 1715.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BLOUNT, Charles (Thomas) (1634-75) |
<p><strong><surname>BLOUNT</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles (Thomas)</strong> (1634–75)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 20 Mar. 1675 as 3rd earl of NEWPORT. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 10 Jan. 1634,<sup>1</sup> s. of Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport and Anne da. of John Boteler<sup>‡</sup>, Bar. Boteler. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. ?May 1675.</p> |
|
|
<p>There is some confusion about the name of the 3rd earl of Newport, who, like his brothers suffered from some congenital intellectual impairment. The Newports buried a child named Charles in 1631, but nearly three years later the same forename was given to another child, born at the family home, Newport House in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in January 1634.<sup>2</sup> There is no evidence that this Charles also died in infancy as stated in <em>Complete Peerage</em>. On the contrary, this Charles was still living in February 1666 when financial provision was made for his care and support. He is clearly named as Charles in his father’s will, and as Charles in Collins <em>Peerage</em>.<sup>3</sup> The 3rd earl is believed to have died at Weyhill, near Andover in Hampshire, where an entry in the burial register recorded the death of ‘Thomas Dominus Blount Comes de Newport’ on 4 May 1675. This appears to be the first mention of Thomas rather than Charles Blount and to be the source of subsequent confusion.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The 3rd earl of Newport probably held the title for no more than a few weeks and he made no impact on the business of the House. He was succeeded by his younger brother Henry*, as 4th earl of Newport.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
BLOUNT, George (c. 1628-66) |
<p><strong><surname>BLOUNT</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (c. 1628–66)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1628-66 Ld. Mountjoy; <em>suc. </em>fa. 12 Feb. 1666 as 2nd earl of NEWPORT. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1628, s. of Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport and Anne, da. of John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Boteler. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. Mar. 1675.</p> |
|
|
<p>George Blount, Lord Mountjoy, was the eldest of three ‘incapable’ sons of Mountjoy Blount, earl of Newport. Although the <em>Complete Peerage</em> refers to him as Mountjoy Blount, his father’s will clearly names him George. Despite being well over 30 years old when he succeeded to the title in 1666, he was deemed underage by the House of Lords at six calls of the House between October 1666 and February 1673. This was clearly their response to the congenital ‘weakness’ to which the 1st earl referred in his will.<sup>1</sup> A similar condition afflicted his maternal uncle William Boteler*, 2nd Baron Boteler. Neither the 1st earl nor the House of Lords used the term ‘idiot’ to describe George Blount or his two brothers; the implications (particularly for property ownership) of those legally designated ‘idiots’ were too draconian to be used lightly.<sup>2</sup> The financial arrangements that were to enable the 2nd earl and his brothers to receive all necessary care and support were entrusted to their father’s close friends, William Legge<sup>‡</sup>, John Ashburnham<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick.</p><p>The 2nd earl of Newport never took his seat in the House, and there is no evidence that he ever used his proxy. He died in March 1675 and was buried in St. Martin-in-the-Fields on 20 Mar. 1675.</p> |
B.A. |
|
BLOUNT, Henry (1641-79) |
<p><strong><surname>BLOUNT</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1641–79)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. May 1675 as 4th earl of NEWPORT. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 4 Mar. 1641, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 3rd. s. of Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport and Anne, da. of John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Boteler of Brantfield. <em>m</em>. 1678, Susanna, da. of John Briscoe of Grafton, Kent and wid. of Edmund Mortimer of Derbys., <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. Sept 1679.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>In his father’s will, Henry Blount was recorded as the third of three surviving sons suffering from a congenital mental handicap.<sup>2</sup> Yet he married a widow in 1678, an option that was not open to a person legally defined as an ‘idiot’.<sup>3</sup> At calls of the House on 10 Nov. 1675 and 16 Feb. 1678, he was excused attendance, and there is no record that he ever used his proxy or played a part in the life of the House. The peerage was extinguished at his death, which according to Chester Waters’ genealogical studies took place in 1679 at Great Harrowden in Northamptonshire (the seat of the Vaux family who were linked to the Blounts through the marriage of the earl’s aunt, Lady Isabella Blount and Nicholas Knollys*, <em>soi disant</em> 3rd earl of Banbury). Collins <em>Peerage</em> suggests instead that he died in 1681 but there appears to be no evidence to support this.<sup>4</sup></p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
BLOUNT, Mountjoy (c. 1597-1666) |
<p><strong><surname>BLOUNT</surname></strong>, <strong>Mountjoy</strong> (c. 1597–1666)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1618 Bar. Mountjoy of Mountjoy Fort [I]; <em>cr. </em>5 June 1627 Bar. MOUNTJOY of Thurveston; <em>cr. </em>3 Aug. 1628 earl of NEWPORT. |
|
First sat 20 Mar. 1628; first sat after 1660, 14 May 1660; last sat 31 Oct. 1665 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1597, 1st. of 3 illegit. s. of Charles Blount<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Devonshire and Penelope, Lady Rich, da. of Walter Devereux<sup>†</sup>, earl of Essex and w. of Robert Rich<sup>† </sup>(later earl of Warwick). <em>educ.</em> G. Inn 5 Aug. 1624; MA (Cantab) 1629. <em>m.</em> 7 Feb. 1627, Anne (with £2,000),<sup>1</sup> da. of Sir John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Boteler of Brantfield; 3s. (3da. <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 12 Feb. 1666; <em>will</em> 8 Feb., pr. 26 Feb. 1666.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>PC Sept. 1638; gent. of the bedchamber to Charles I, bef. 1642 and to Charles II, 1661-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. tp. of Horse at La Rochelle 1627; rear adm. in command of the <em>St. Andrew</em> 1628; col. regt. of ft. 1639; gen. of artillery in the North 1639; lt. gen. in the north 1642.</p><p>Master Gen. of Ordnance, 1634-61; mbr. Council of York, 1639; constable Tower of London, 1641.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by A. Van Dyck, oils, c.1635-40 (with Bar. Goring), National Trust, Petworth House, West Suss.</p> |
<p>Mountjoy Blount was the eldest offspring of the celebrated (and scandalous) love match between Elizabethan courtiers Penelope, Lady Rich (traditionally believed to be the ‘Stella’ of <em>Astrophel and Stella</em> by Philip Sidney<sup>‡</sup>) and Charles Blount, earl of Devonshire. As such, Mountjoy was endowed with a colourful personal history, wealth, and an extensive and complex web of kinship and social connections. He was said to have succeeded to estates worth between £3,000 and £4,000 a year.<sup>4</sup> One property alone boasted silver mines worth £1,000 p.a.<sup>5</sup> He was also responsible for developing the Soho area of London known as Newport Market.<sup>6</sup> It seems unlikely that he wielded a great deal of electoral control. During the Interregnum he sold the borough of Bere Alston, where his family had once exercised influence, although he may have retained some lands there.<sup>7</sup> In the initial stages of the disputes between Charles I and Parliament, Newport flirted with the parliamentarians, but by 1642 he had thrown in his lot with the king, so much so that on 11 May he was ordered to attend the Lords as a delinquent, although he probably never did so.</p><p>Newport took his seat in the Convention on 14 May 1660, some three weeks into the session. Eight days later he was amongst those peers given leave to attend the king. On 10 July his previous experience was acknowledged when he was added to a committee concerning deeds belonging to peers which had been in the hands of the trustees for ministers. His main activity in the House after the Restoration related to metropolitan local government. On 10 Nov. 1660 he was named to the committee for repairing highways in Westminster, and on 22 Dec. to the bill to make Covent Garden parochial.</p><p>Newport’s importance as a courtier was evident on 22 Apr. 1661 when he carried the mantle in the king’s procession from the Tower to the Banqueting House.<sup>8</sup> He attended for the first day of the Cavalier Parliament and thereafter attended the House regularly, never attending a session for less than three-quarters of its sittings. On 11 July it was predicted that he would vote with the majority against the case of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the great chamberlaincy. His pattern of activity again reflected his interest in the metropolitan area where he now held a large acreage of prestigious real estate. On 28 June 1661 he was named to the committee for the Westminster streets bill, on 5 July 1661 to the bill to relieve the poor in London, Westminster and Southwark, on 29 July 1661 to the committee on the repair of streets in Westminster, on 9 Jan. 1662 for legislation on sales and pawns in London and Westminster, and again on 25 Mar. 1662 to the committee for repairing Westminster streets. His other committee activity included the bill to relieve maimed royalist soldiers, the committee on sheriff’s accounts, and the Northern Borders bill. In May 1662, when the Act for repairing the highways and sewers, and for paving and cleaning streets in London and Westminster became law, Newport was appointed one of 21 commissioners.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Newport attended the February 1663 session on its first day; he was named to the committee for privileges and to 14 other committees. It seems likely that he was present on 27 Mar. 1663 at a meeting of the committee on London streets, highways and the poor, which decided that the 21 commissioners appointed under the Paving Act were too few for the efficient conduct of local government. Newport chaired a subsequent meeting of the select committee on 12 May 1663. When the committee reconvened, Newport proposed a supplementary Act on highways, paving and sewers. Further debate in committee took place on 20 June 1663 and the commissioners, with an eye to law and order, agreed that the justices of the peace should be joined to the commission. A further meeting on 26 June 1663, again chaired by Newport, discussed the deployment of finance raised under the original Act, and inserted an urban planning clause in the proposed new legislation to prevent ‘multitudes of new buildings’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Back in the House on 10 July 1663, Newport was present when George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, attempted to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Newport was listed as a likely supporter of Bristol. In the brief session from March to May 1664, Newport attended on almost a daily basis. This pattern was repeated at the following session when he was named to seven more committees.</p><p>Newport was now an important figure representing the interests of the capital within the House and at court. A meeting of the mayor of London and justices of London, Middlesex, Kent and Surrey passed an order asking Newport and William Craven*, Baron Craven, to petition the king that ships carrying coal should not dock for any purpose other than to supply the ports and the City.<sup>11</sup> Newport and the other commissioners for Westminster highways and sewers resumed their committee activity in January 1665. Their hope for additional legislation to improve London’s urban space was continually delayed by the parliamentary timetable and when the committee next met, Newport proposed that the separate commissions be streamlined into one body to regulate streets and hackney carriages.<sup>12</sup> With the outbreak of plague in the summer, Newport and Parliament abandoned London for the cleaner air of Oxford. He attended the three-week-long session for 15 sittings, was named to the committee for privileges and to six committees including the additional bill to prevent plague which met on the afternoon of 20 Oct. 1665, to debate measures to combat the epidemic.<sup>13</sup> He did not return to London. Taken ill with an attack of ‘the stone’, he died in the Oxford parish of St. Aldate’s.</p><p>Newport’s will reveals that his daughters Anne (married to Thomas Porter, 4th son of Endymion Porter, groom of the bedchamber) and Isabella (married to Nicholas Knollys*, self-styled 3rd earl of Banbury) had already died, leaving him with three ‘incapable’ sons, each needing special care and financial provision. For this purpose, he had entered into a tripartite agreement with John Ashburnham<sup>†</sup>, William Legge<sup>†</sup> and Sir George Savile*, (later earl of Halifax) to sell lands in Fotheringhay, with £2,000 of the proceeds to be invested for the care of his sons. Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick, were named trustees of the interests of his granddaughter, Lady Ann Knollys.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The widowed countess of Newport subsequently married Thomas Weston*, 4th earl of Portland. Newport’s three sons succeeded in turn as the 2nd, 3rd and 4th earls but each died childless and the title became extinct at the death of Newport’s youngest son, Henry, in 1681.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
BOOTH, George (1622-84) |
<p><strong><surname>BOOTH</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1622–84)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 Bar. DELAMER (DELAMERE). |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 26 Nov. 1680 |
|
MP Cheshire 26 Feb. 1646–6 Dec. 1648, 1654, 1656, 1660; Lancs. 1659. |
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Dec. 1622, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of William Booth<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>. 1636) of Dunham Massey, Cheshire, and Vere (<em>d</em>. 1629), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Egerton<sup>‡</sup> of Ellesmere, Salop. <em>educ</em>. I. Temple 1637. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 30 Nov. 1639, Katherine (<em>d</em>. 5 Aug. 1643), da. of Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, 1da.; (2) lic. 14 Dec. 1644, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 4 Jan. 1691), da. of Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, 7s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. grandfa. 24 Oct. 1652 as 2nd bt. <em>d</em>. 8 Aug. 1684; <em>will</em> 1 Aug. 1671, pr. 19 Sept. 1684, 22 Sept. 1698.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. militia, Cheshire and Lancs. 1648, Mar. 1660, Cheshire 1655; <em>custos rot</em>. Cheshire 1660–73; dep. lt. Cheshire c. July 1660–Apr. 1661.</p><p>Col. of ft. (parliament) by 1644–1646.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir Peter Lely, c. 1645–7, National Trust, Dunham Massey, Cheshire; ink and gouache by John Bulfinch after Sir Peter Lely, NPG D29970.</p> |
<p>The Booths of Dunham Massey, a cadet branch of the Booths of Barton, Lancashire, had been prominent in Cheshire affairs from at least the reign of Elizabeth I. The young George Booth became the ward of his grandfather and namesake, Sir George Booth, an active <em>custos rotulorum</em> and deputy lieutenant in Cheshire, after the early death of his father, William Booth, in 1636 left the young man an orphan.<sup>2</sup> Booth’s marriage to Katherine Clinton linked him to the circles of puritan opposition to the religious policies of Charles I and Archbishop Laud. When civil war broke out, he joined his grandfather in leading the Cheshire puritans on the side of Parliament. By 1644 he was serving as a colonel of an infantry regiment in the service of Parliament. In that same year, his wife Katherine having died in August 1643, he contracted an even more politically astute marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of the Parliamentarian leader Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, and sister of the future regicide Thomas Grey<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Grey of Groby. Booth resigned his military commission so that he could take his seat in Parliament for Cheshire as a recruiter in February 1646, but he was excluded from the Commons at Pride’s Purge.</p><p>On 24 Oct. 1652 Booth’s grandfather died and he inherited the baronetcy and the powerful Booth family interest in Cheshire. Seen as the county’s natural leader, he was a consistent member of the county’s commissions for the peace, assessment and militia throughout the Interregnum, and was elected for the shire in the first Protectorate Parliament in 1654.<sup>3</sup> He was chosen again for the second, but was one of those denied his seat owing to the council of state’s suspicions of his disaffection to the government. He was chosen, this time for Lancashire, for the third Protectorate Parliament in January 1659. After this was dissolved and Richard Cromwell’s Protectorate abolished, he made contact with those plotting for the overthrow of the Commonwealth and the restoration of the king.</p><p>Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, saw Booth’s value to the royalist movement at this time, judging him ‘a person of the best fortune and interest in Cheshire, and, for the memory of his grandfather, of absolute power with the Presbyterians’.<sup>4</sup> In late July 1659 Charles II appointed him commander-in-chief of all the forces in Cheshire, Lancashire and north Wales which were to be involved in the projected nationwide rebellion.<sup>5</sup> Booth’s forces were the only ones to have any measure of success during the rising of early August, when they captured the county town of Chester, and because of this the abortive uprising is usually referred to as ‘Booth’s Rebellion’. He and his followers were quickly defeated by John Lambert<sup>‡</sup> and Booth was captured while trying to flee the country. His estates were sequestered and he was kept imprisoned in the Tower until his fellow excluded Members released him on 22 Feb. 1660, the day after they had been readmitted to the reconvened Long Parliament.<sup>6</sup> He almost immediately resumed his position in Cheshire and in March and April 1660 was appointed a commissioner of the militia, a justice of the peace and elected a knight of the shire for the county.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Booth was thus a hero of the Restoration and was well rewarded for his efforts of 1659. He was a prominent member of the Commons during the Convention, and his name appears first among the 12 members delegated on 7 May 1660 to present Charles II with the Commons’ reply to the Declaration of Breda. On 30 July the Commons requested that he be amply rewarded ‘for his eminent services and great sufferings in the public cause’ and the Lords concurred in this decision, ordering on 3 Aug. that he be given £10,000 from the excise revenue. Both Houses also hurried through his private bill which would allow him to sell parts of his estate. It was first read in the House on 30 Aug. and received the royal assent on 13 Sept. 1660. Booth resumed and added to his local offices, being appointed <em>custos rotulorum</em> and a deputy lieutenant of Cheshire in the summer of 1660. At the coronation in April 1661 he was one of those late converts to the restoration of the king who was raised to the peerage, and he took his title – Baron Delamer of Dunham Massey – from the royal forest near his Cheshire lands. His behaviour in the Commons during the Convention, however, did not suggest that he had been converted to an ideological royalism. He had stated in 1659 that he wished to place conditions on the king’s return, and even in the Convention he revealed his sympathy for a comprehensive church settlement and for the ‘Good Old Cause’ for which he had once fought.</p><p>Delamer first sat in the House on 8 May 1661 and came to a further 78 sittings of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament (two-fifths of all its meetings), where he was seldom named to committees, being nominated to only eight during all his sitting days. He stopped coming to the House after 20 Jan. 1662 but on 25 Feb. his recently passed estate act was joined with a similar private act of Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, in a bill to confirm private legislation passed by the Convention, which received the royal assent on 19 May 1662. He does not appear to have been suffering financially at this time and in 1663 his Cheshire lands were valued at an income of £1,212 p.a., more than any other peer with landholdings in the county.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Delamer did not attend the House at all between 20 Jan. 1662 and 29 Dec. 1666. The diary of the Cheshire nonconformist minister Henry Newcome makes clear that for much of 1662 Delamer was ill.<sup>9</sup> He was a patron and close friend of Newcome, judging by the number of laudatory entries about the baron which appear in the minister’s diary and later autobiography, which also give an indication of Delamer’s high standing in Cheshire nonconformist circles. Delamer was present at Newcome’s last sermon before his ejection from his ministry on 31 Aug. 1662; in the days following Newcome consulted him on his future ‘and he gave me a very affectionate answer’ and ‘answered me I might bind upon what lay in his power … I bless God much for the kind answer’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On 23 Mar. 1664 Delamer registered his proxy with an old colleague from the days of the Protectorate, the Presbyterian Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), for the entirety of the session of that spring. Yet it was principally his strongly Anglican and royalist brother-in-law Robert Bruce*, 2nd earl of Elgin [S] and 2nd Baron Bruce of Whorlton (later earl of Ailesbury), to whom Delamer entrusted his business at Westminster.<sup>11</sup> In April 1664 he solicited Bruce to use his influence to provide time for the Cheshire opponents of the bill for making the rivers Mersey and Weaver navigable to make their case to the Commons. The following month, when the first Conventicle Bill was being debated in the House, Delamer openly referred to himself as a Presbyterian when he wrote to Bruce begging him to be ‘merciful to us Presbyterians and at least give us leave to play innocently at bowls’. <sup>12</sup> Despite this friendship with Bruce, it was Ashley to whom Delamer continued to entrust his proxy. The proxy registers for the 1664–5 session do not record the recipient of Delamer’s proxy (by which his absence was excused at a call of the House), but on 22 Nov. 1666 he again entrusted his proxy with Ashley, who held it until Delamer reappeared in the House on 29 Dec. 1666.</p><p>After his return to the House at the very end of 1666, Delamer proceeded to sit for another 27 meetings, totalling 30 per cent of the 1666–7 session. He probably came back to the House to lend his personal support to the Irish Cattle bill, which he considered ‘for the good of England’, as he told the earl of Ailesbury (as Bruce of Whorlton had become) in a letter chiding him for his ‘absence from London when the Irish bill was yet unfinished’. In another letter to Ailesbury he tried to persuade him to support the bill, warning him,</p><blockquote><p>that now the Irish bill wherein all Englishmen are so much concerned is debating your Lordship will adventure to have the value of your land from a pound to a penny. We country gentlemen are much scandalized at it, and for my part I intend very suddenly myself to come and chide.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>His enthusiasm for the bill is further suggested by his choice of proxy up until his return to the House, as Ashley had been one of the most forceful advocates of the bill throughout 1666.</p><p>Delamer himself diligently attended all but four of the sittings of the long session of 1667–9. It is not known what part, if any, he played in the impeachment and banishment of Clarendon; his name does not appear on any of the protests signed in the lord chancellor’s favour. He did come more to the fore in the committee established on 9 Nov. 1667 to examine infringements of the Irish Cattle Act. He was named to this committee, and on 3 Mar. 1668 he presented before it letters he had received from Thomas Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup>, an associate who had sat with him for Cheshire in the Convention, detailing abuses of the act in Cheshire and Flintshire and the prosecution by illegal importers of a local constable trying to stem the trade. The committee reported this to the House which thereupon ordered Delamer to tell Mainwaring to be prepared to present his information at the next assizes at Shrewsbury.<sup>14</sup></p><p>It was from this session that Delamer began his parliamentary career in the House in earnest, as he rarely missed any of its sittings for the next several years. Over the period 10 Oct. 1667–24 Feb. 1674 he averaged an attendance level of 96 per cent and was absent for only 13 sittings throughout. His rate of committee nominations still remained relatively low, and he was named to only 73 select committees over this long period, but as the 1670s progressed he found himself slowly being placed on more. In early 1671 he was involved in a number of bills that concerned family members. In January he gave his consent before a select committee to a bill which would allow Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, the underage nephew of Delamer’s deceased first wife, Lady Katherine Clinton, to settle a jointure on his prospective bride. On 2 Mar. 1671 Delamer introduced into the House a bill that would enable his son and heir apparent, Henry Booth* (later earl of Warrington), still a minor, to settle the family estates independently of his father in consideration of his recent marriage. Over the course of the next few days, Delamer argued the merits of the bill before the committee appointed to consider it. It went through both Houses easily within the space of two weeks, receiving the royal assent on 22 Apr. 1671.<sup>15</sup> Delamer was clearly grooming his son as his successor and from almost the moment the young man reached his majority in early 1673, Delamer resigned his office of <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Cheshire to him.</p><p>From the early 1670s Delamer became more strongly aligned with the burgeoning Country movement in the House. When the second conventicle bill passed the House on 26 Mar. 1670, he added his name to the protest against it. Later that same afternoon he was also one of only four who voted against the passage of the bill for a treaty of union between England and Scotland.<sup>16</sup> On 9 Mar. 1671 he joined many other members of the nascent Country opposition in dissenting from the resolutions not to commit or engross the bill concerning privilege of Parliament, because ‘there is no colour of law to claim a privilege of freedom from suits’. By the session of spring 1675, during which he was only absent one day and was named to eight committees, he was clearly seen as a member of this group and he played a leading role in the concerted opposition against the Test bill introduced by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby. Almost immediately Delamer marked out his opposition to the court by registering his dissent, on the first day of the new session (16 Apr.) from the resolution to thank the king for his speech, especially as it made frequent reference to the necessity to prosecute nonconformists. He subscribed to all four of the protests against Danby’s Test bill on 21, 26 and 29 Apr. and 4 May, and the author of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country</em> singled him out for praise, ‘whose name is well known, as are also his worth, piety, and learning’. The author continued with a criticism of a court which did not recognize Delamer’s true worth: ‘I should mention his merits too, but know not whether that be lawful, they lying yet unrewarded.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>Delamer also acted as a recipient of proxies for his fellow Country lords for this and the following sessions. He received the proxy of Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh – who like Delamer signed all four of the protests against Danby’s bill – on 24 May 1675 for the last few days of the session before it was prorogued. William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele, registered his proxy with Delamer on 26 Oct. 1675 near the beginning of the following short session (of which Delamer missed only five sittings but was named to every select committee established on the days he was there), while Denbigh again entrusted his vote to Delamer on 20 November. There was almost certainly calculation in Denbigh’s decision, for a vote on whether to address the king for the dissolution of Parliament was held that day, and through his vote for the motion, with his two proxies, and his protest against its rejection, Delamer clearly showed his support for this principal objective of the Country group.</p><p>He furthered his campaign for the dissolution of Parliament in the following session of 1677–8, when he and his nephew Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, were among the few peers in the House who endorsed the argument of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, that the Cavalier Parliament had been dissolved by the long prorogation of 1675–6.<sup>18</sup> His overall attendance rate in this session was 89 per cent, but he was most assiduously in attendance during the period from 15 Feb. to 16 Apr. 1677, missing only one sitting. At the beginning of the session Delamer was barely nominated to any committees at all, but from the end of March until the adjournment he was named to every one established while as a member of the subcommittee for the Journal he frequently subscribed his name to the official record of the House’s proceedings throughout March and April. He was also active in the committee for privileges, where on 29 Mar. he presented (under the chairmanship of his brother-in-law Ailesbury) various precedents, culled from old texts, regarding the privilege of the peerage.<sup>19</sup></p><p>From 28 Feb. 1677 Delamer was in possession of Stamford’s proxy and, armed with this, he continued to press for the rights of the four peers imprisoned in the Tower for their insistence that Parliament was dissolved: Buckingham, Shaftesbury (as Ashley had become), Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury. He was given permission to visit the imprisoned lords on 7, 15 and 20 Mar., according to a correspondent of Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> (the proceedings in the official minutes were excised in 1680). Delamer argued that the four peers ‘were confined upon a punctilio only, and that if the House would be pleased to release them, it would be acknowledged as a favour’, a motion which ‘caused a long debate in the House, insomuch that Lord Delamer had like to have been sent to them’.<sup>20</sup> Not surprisingly, Shaftesbury marked this advocate and frequent visitor as ‘triply worthy’ in his analysis of political friends and enemies drawn up while he was imprisoned.</p><p>Stamford’s proxy with Delamer was vacated upon the earl’s return to the House, after a long adjournment, on 21 May 1677, but Delamer was not present at any of the five meetings in May 1677, before Parliament was adjourned again. When the House convened again for the first five months of 1678, he came to all but four of its meetings, was named to 14 committees and reported from one, on 26 Mar. 1678, on a private bill regarding charitable uses. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. On 8 May 1678 Delamer was granted permission to leave the House for the country on account of his health, and he did not appear in the House again until 29 Nov. 1678, well into the hearings on the Popish Plot. He was then only able to attend for a further 13 days before Parliament was prorogued and ultimately dissolved. He was active in the tumultuous debates of the Cavalier Parliament’s final days and from 23 Dec. 1678 held the proxy of Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, for the Parliament’s final week. On 26–27 May 1679 he endorsed, through his votes and protests, the proposals that the money raised for disbanding the army should be placed in the chamber of London rather than the exchequer, and that Danby should be committed to prison while the charges levelled against him were being drawn up. Danby accurately counted him as an enemy in his political calculations preceding the Parliament of spring 1679.</p><p>Delamer diligently attended all but one meeting of the first Exclusion Parliament, where he was named to most of the few select committees established. He consistently acted in April to further the bill for the lord treasurer’s attainder and, after Danby had turned himself in to obviate the attainder, to prosecute his impeachment. He also worked in concert with other members of the Country party against Danby’s leading supporters, the bishops, protesting on 7 Apr. against the rejection of John Sidway’s testimony against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely and, on 13, 23 and 27 May, signing four protests against the bishops’ right to sit as judges in capital trials. On 20 Mar. he was made a member of the committee to investigate the ‘late horrid conspiracy’ of the Popish Plot, and on 2 May he protested against the bill for the removal of papists from the English capital, fearing that the oaths demanded would catch out ‘honest Dissenters’ instead. He was involved in the proceedings against the Catholic peers accused of involvement in the plot, both as a member of the subcommittee of the Journal who signed his approval of the official record of the impeached lords’ answers to the charges against them and as a member of the committee appointed to consider the Commons’ objections to those answers.</p><p>Delamer was one of the signatories to the petition to the king of 6 Dec. 1679 calling for the new Parliament to be summoned, but when that Parliament did finally convene in October 1680 he attended only 22 of its meetings (just 36 per cent), in marked contrast to his perfect attendance in the preceding Parliament. He first sat about a week after the Parliament opened and on 15 Nov. voted and protested against the motion to reject the exclusion bill on its first reading. Eight days later he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation. He entered his dissent when this latter motion was rejected. Delamer left shortly after these defeats, on 26 Nov. 1680. This was to be his last appearance in the House, for, although he signed the petition of 25 Jan. 1681 requesting the king to convene the next Parliament at Westminster and not Oxford, and Danby somewhat surprisingly thought that Delamer would stand neutral regarding his application for bail from the Tower, Delamer did not appear at all at the Parliament of March 1681.<sup>21</sup></p><p>By this time he was growing old, and the mantle of leader of the Cheshire nonconformists and Whigs had passed to his even more extreme and partisan son Henry, who had first been elected for Cheshire at a by-election in 1678 and had been returned uncontested for the first two Exclusion Parliaments. Delamer seems to have been involved in the return of his son to the Commons in early 1678, having apparently ‘resolved’ with ‘the country’ in late September 1677 that Booth would succeed the deceased Member, Sir Fulk Lacy<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup> Delamer had relinquished his last local office, <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Cheshire, to his heir apparent in 1673 and it was Henry Booth himself who most strongly exercised the Booth electoral interest through his control of the county bench.</p><p>When Booth and his partner for Cheshire, Sir Robert Cotton<sup>‡</sup>, were challenged by the local loyalists in the election of February 1681, Booth was reportedly prepared to spend £3,500 in order ‘to let the king see that all the Cheshire gentry are not able to baffle the mighty Booth and Cotton interest’ and the two sitting exclusionist members won by a wide margin.<sup>23</sup> In the succeeding years Booth became more extreme and infamous in his attempts to prevent James Stuart*, duke of York, from succeeding to the throne. He was at the forefront of the celebrations that met the Protestant James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, upon his arrival in Chester in September 1682 and was also seriously suspected of involvement in the Rye House Plot of 1683. Hostile Tory commentators were apt to conflate father and son in these schemes, but it is difficult to know to what extent Delamer shared his son’s enthusiasm for or involvement in these ventures. The Tory memorialist Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, Delamer’s nephew, later suggested that Delamer lamented to him ‘the trouble that his son’s conduct gave him’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Henry Booth succeeded his father on 8 Aug. 1684, when Delamer died at his house in Dunham Massey. His will, written in August 1671, begins with a lengthy and devoutly Calvinist preamble, in which he confidently proclaims himself one of the elect. He bequeathed only £5 to each of his three daughters and six sons alive in 1671 and all his personal estate to his widow, Elizabeth. Interestingly, he felt the need to explain and justify the reason for these bequests, and particularly the small sums left to his many younger children. As late as the 1740s his grandson George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, was still fiercely critical of Delamer’s management of the estate and of his treatment of his younger children, which he saw as the cause of the family’s financial ruin that he was so much at pains to rectify. Warrington, in his memorials on the sad condition of the estate, insisted that Delamer, when still only a baronet, had already piled up mortgages of £9,000 by the time of the Restoration, debts which he was able to pay off by the gift of £10,000 he received from the Commons in 1660. Warrington calculated that only a few years after this unexpected windfall the new Baron Delamer had already racked up similar debts and had to sell a third part of the estate – probably including the lands settled on his wife, which led him to bequeath all his personal estate to her at his death. ‘He was all his life long in the straits which naturally accompany careless management and affectation of popular living, and at his death had not laid up one shilling towards provision for his many younger children, nor left one foot of land that had not some great charge laid on it’, Warrington further fumed. He explained this neglect by his grandfather’s</p><blockquote><p>unaccountable oddness of humour having so little regard to his younger sons that when they’ve come here from school at Holy-day times, after just a formal asking his blessing, they must immediately go out of his sight again, and be kept so while they stayed here, as though his natural affection like as in brute animals were confined to the act of generation … very amazing in a Man esteemed to be both Wise and Conscientious!<sup>25</sup></p></blockquote><p>As Warrington’s final comment suggests, Delamer’s character was a topic of contemporary comment, often coloured by the more radical behaviour of his heir. Charles II could not help but be slightly wary of a man who could raise a large force of Cheshire Protestants for armed insurrection in 1659 – even though that uprising had been for his own benefit. He had honoured and rewarded Booth at the time, but by the end of his reign the king may have regretted elevating such a renowned and activist nonconformist family into the English peerage. Delamer’s fiercely Tory and Jacobite nephew Ailesbury, however, could still later write of this hero of the Restoration that ‘although at Court he was not well thought on … yet I knew him to be not only a most worthy man, but a good subject besides’.<sup>26</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOOTH, George (1675-1758) |
<p><strong><surname>BOOTH</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1675–1758)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1690-94 Lord Delamer; <em>suc. </em>fa. 2 Jan. 1694 (a minor) as 2nd earl of WARRINGTON. |
|
First sat 26 Oct. 1696; last sat 15 Nov. 1754 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 May 1675, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Henry Booth*, Bar. Delamer (later earl of Warrington) and Mary (<em>d</em>. 23 Mar. 1691), da. of Sir James Langham<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt.; bro. of Hon. Langham Booth<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. private (tutor, Mr. Delaheuze).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 9 Apr. 1702 (with £24,000),<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 3 Apr. 1740), da. of John Oldbury of London, 1da. <em>d</em>. 2 Aug. 1758;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 22 July 1754-8 Sept. 1757, pr. 17 Aug. 1758.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. sewers, Lancs. and Cheshire 1706.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Dep. lt., Lancs. 1714-?<sup>6</sup></p><p>Freeman, Chester 1689-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. Godfrey Kneller, 1700-10, National Trust, Lanhydrock, Cornwall; oil on canvas by Michael Dahl, 1720-30, National Trust, Dunham Massey, Cheshire; oil on canvas by Michael Dahl, 1727, National Trust, Tatton Park, Cheshire.</p> |
<h2><em>A troubled inheritance</em></h2><p>When the nineteen-year-old Hon. George Booth, styled Lord Delamer, inherited the Warrington title and estate on 2 Jan. 1694 it was in a dire condition.<sup>10</sup> His father had been notorious as one of the most extreme Whigs of the revolutionary period of 1685-90, a violent opponent of James II who had led a small personal army from Cheshire to London in support of William of Orange’s invasion in November 1688. In the last weeks of October 1688, aware of the danger of the expedition on which he was about to embark, he drew up his will and with it some notes concerning his debts, as they stood at that time. He calculated that the costs of his political activities (and the incarcerations he had three times suffered on account of them), the portions and legacies to his younger siblings laid on him as executor of his own father’s will and other expenses had indebted him to the tune of £24,315. More recent historians have calculated his debts in 1688 to have reached as much as £50,000. He was further encumbered by an additional £1,183 he had to provide in annuities. Hardly offsetting this was his personal estate, which he calculated at £5,000, debts owed to him of £1,287 and an estate which barely earned £2,000 p.a.<sup>11</sup> He made his son George sole executor of this own will of October 1688 which only added more charges to the troubled and indebted estate, assigning his heir to provide for numerous small legacies, portions of £5,000 apiece to his two sisters Lady Elizabeth and Lady Mary and annuities of £200 to his two younger brothers Langham and Henry – all of which were to be raised out of those few lands not already mortgaged.<sup>12</sup></p><p>When drawing up his will the first earl was clearly counting on promises made by Sarah, dowager duchess of Somerset (widow of John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset), maternal aunt of his wife Mary Langham, that she would leave substantial legacies for his daughters’ portions and the maintenance of his younger sons. He was bitterly disappointed when, after the duchess’s death in 1692, it transpired that her provisions for her great-nieces and -nephews were not as extensive as she had assured him they would be.<sup>13</sup> He also factored into his calculations the second instalment of £10,000 of his wife’s portion, which was to be paid after the death of his father-in-law Sir James Langham. The 2nd earl later had to engage in a legal struggle, which eventually came before the House of Lords, to receive this payment, and even then only a part of the principal was paid, 14 years after Langham’s death in 1699, and none of the accruing interest, by which Warrington calculated that he had lost in total £10,950.<sup>14</sup></p><p>When the first earl’s extravagant will was discovered three weeks after his death in a box of scrap paper tucked away in a corner of a room at Dunham Massey in Cheshire, the new earl of Warrington took steps to conceal its existence from his siblings. It certainly put him at a disadvantage with its generous bequests, without adequate provisions, and he expressed doubts, based on the location in which it was found (among scrap paper) and its date (October 1688, more than five years before the first earl’s death) as to whether it was indeed the final will of his father. The first earl would not have been so foolish (or so the new earl of Warrington claimed) as to have so heavily charged an estate whose dire condition he himself knew only too well. For the following several years Warrington’s sister Elizabeth and uncle Cecil Booth (who was given a small annuity by the will’s terms) challenged him, sometimes in the courts, to produce the will and when, in July 1698, the prerogative court of Canterbury found the October 1688 will valid, Warrington reluctantly, but obediently, tried to execute its conditions.<sup>15</sup></p><p>This troubled financial legacy haunted Warrington from the moment of his inheritance and he devoted the rest of his long life – he died in 1758 aged 83 – to putting the Booth estate back in order. This goal affected all his activities and influenced his political outlook, for he was convinced that his forebears’ involvement in national and local politics had caused them to neglect the estate and to run up excessive expenses. Warrington was determined not to fall into that trap, despite the urgings of his younger brother Henry that he should live more extravagantly to make himself ‘popular’ in the county. In two letters of 1715 and 1722 Warrington recounted to Henry in detail the privations he had undergone as a young boy growing up in the financially strapped household of the great Whig leader Henry, 2nd Baron Delamer. Warrington remembered how ‘I have seen my father several times the year before the Revolution fall aweeping at the greatness of his debts’ and recalled in horror the dingy outmoded furniture in the family house of Dunham Massey, all very much in contrast to his father’s public image. The first earl’s situation was so dire that after 1691 he ceased keeping open house for his tenants and would go to the nearest taverns to meet his followers, rather than endure the expense of hosting them in his own house. Warrington was determined not to repeat this humiliation and avoided embroiling himself in the expense of keeping up a high local profile.</p><p>He was evidently considered the natural choice to replace his father as lord lieutenant of Cheshire in 1694 and the appointment of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers in that role in May 1695 was initially seen as a stopgap measure until Warrington reached his majority.<sup>16</sup> Rivers, though, continued in that office after Warrington came of age and although Warrington was again considered a candidate for the county leadership when Rivers was removed from his post in 1703, the young earl was passed over, either at his own request or because of the court’s distrust of his family’s long-standing Whiggery, in favour of Hugh Cholmondeley*, Baron (later earl of) Cholmondeley.<sup>17</sup> This position allowed Cholmondeley to become an increasingly dangerous local rival to the Booths and by the Hanoverian period they were the dominant force in Cheshire politics. Warrington, on the other hand, held no local positions of any great importance, although he did receive a commission as a deputy lieutenant, under Cholmondeley, at the time of the Hanoverian succession.<sup>18</sup> Nor did Warrington seek national or court office. In March 1703 Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that the young man had been made a gentleman of the bedchamber of Prince George*, of Denmark, but there is no corroborating evidence for this assertion.<sup>19</sup> Warrington never felt the need to ingratiate himself at an ungrateful court for, as he asked his importunate brother, how long did either their grandfather (George Booth*, Baron Delamer) or father, each of whom had raised troops in Cheshire for the Restoration and Revolution respectively, ‘continue in favour when they would not be servile courtiers?’<sup>20</sup></p><p>Despite his constant complaints of poverty Warrington still had enough resources, both financial and in local influence and prestige, to act independently of partisan affiliations, and if a label must be attached to his political views and activities, it would be as a country Whig, reflecting a distance from, and disenchantment with, the goals and agenda of the central government and its ‘servile courtiers’.</p><h2><em>Under William III, 1696-1702</em></h2><p>In the early days of his earldom Warrington was not as divorced from politics and its ancillary socializing as he was later to claim. The diary of James Brydges*, later duke of Chandos, which does not commence until 1 Jan. 1697, reveals that in the last years of the seventeenth century the young Warrington was a man about town in London, or at least was very much in Brydges’s wide social circle (they were also kinsmen through the Langhams, Brydges being married to a granddaughter of Sir James Langham).<sup>21</sup> Warrington, having reached his majority, first sat in the House on 26 Oct. 1696 and proceeded to attend 84 per cent of the meetings of the 1696-7 session. At this stage, Warrington followed in his father’s footsteps by supporting the vigorous prosecution of those suspected of involvement in Jacobite plotting. In February 1696 the lord great chamberlain, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, approached Warrington to solicit the young earl’s support for his kinsman Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who was heavily implicated in the recent revelations of Jacobite plotting against the king. Warrington frostily replied that ‘I shall be very glad to serve my cousin when it relates not to the king’s service’, to which the angered Lindsey reportedly shot back ‘My Lord, this is the first time I ever spoke to you, and, by God, it shall be the last’.<sup>22</sup> Warrington voted for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> on 23 Dec. 1696 and then, with his kinsman Henry Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, his Lancashire neighbour Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield and ten or so other Whigs led by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, fought against the House’s order for the commitment of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough) for his attempted manipulation of Fenwick’s testimony before the House.<sup>23</sup> On 19 Mar. 1697 Warrington entered his protest, with Stamford and two other Whig peers, against the Lords’ insistence upon their amendments to the bill prohibiting wrought silks and calicos. Ten days later the petition of Susannah Harrington requesting to be able to sue her husband John, despite a protection from Warrington as his solicitor, was rejected by the House.<sup>24</sup> This was followed the next day, 30 Mar., by the petition of Cecil Booth praying that the House require his nephew Warrington to waive his privilege so that Booth could pursue him in law for his suspect dealings involving the first earl’s will. Warrington submitted his answer to the petition on 7 Apr. but the cause between Booth and Warrington was still unresolved when it was lost at the prorogation of Parliament nine days later.<sup>25</sup> Warrington came to just less than half of the sittings of the 1697-8 session. On 15 Mar. 1698 he opposed the commitment of the bill to punish the exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He registered his proxy with Macclesfield on 20 Apr., but this was vacated upon Warrington’s return to the House on 3 May.</p><p>The following session of 1698-9, the first of the 1698 Parliament, was Warrington’s busiest ever, with an attendance rate of 88 per cent (his highest) and 25 nominations to select committees. Here he began increasingly to show his country attitude and exhibited a divergence from the court Whigs and especially from the Junto. On 8 Feb. 1699 he protested against the House’s offer to William III to retain his Dutch guards. He also signed the protest of 27 Apr. 1699 against the passage of a supply bill which established commissioners to investigate William III’s grants of forfeited Irish lands through an objectionable ‘tacked’ amendment. Warrington himself submitted an appeal, read before the House on 8 Mar. 1699, against the dismissal of his chancery bill suing for an advance from his grandfather Sir James Langham of the remaining £10,000 of the marriage portion of Warrington’s mother, which Warrington feared Langham would repudiate as he had recently remarried and acquired a new family. Counsel for each side was not heard until 1 Apr. and the lord chief justice was ordered to report, but the hearing of his report was successively postponed on three occasions throughout the month. The manuscript minutes for 1 May 1699 note that Warrington and Langham had come to a settlement outside of the judicature of Parliament. Warrington, however, never did receive the full £10,000 due to him.<sup>26</sup> In other matters, Warrington on 31 Mar. 1699 reported from the select committee considering the bill for augmenting the livings on certain vicarages and on 29 Apr. managed a conference on amendments to a naturalization bill.</p><p>His attendance was low in the following session of 1699-1700, down to 37 per cent. In late February 1700 he opposed the Tory attempts to maintain the ‘old’ East India Company as a corporation. Following the breakdown of relations between the Houses in April 1700 surrounding the bill for the resumption of the royal grants of forfeited Irish lands, William III dissolved the Parliament and sought to form a new ministry in time for the ensuing Parliament that would be less dependent on the Junto. A contemporary list and forecast placed Warrington among those Whig lords who would probably support the new ministry and were not loyal to the Junto. Warrington came to just over three-quarters of the meetings of the new Parliament of early 1701. He chaired and reported from the select committees on the naturalization bill of Adrian Lofland (7 Apr.) and on the estate bill of Peter Trevisa (11 June).<sup>27</sup> He told twice, on divisions concerning an amendment to Box’s divorce bill (10 Apr.) and an address requesting a commission of review in the case of the suspected bigamist Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick (21 June). As predicted, he showed a hostility to the Junto by vigorously opposing the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, on 17 June 1701. Warrington was diligent in his attendance at the Parliament of early 1702, and came to 87 per cent of the sittings. On 21 Feb. 1702 he was a teller in two divisions concerning the instructions which were to be given to the committee of the whole considering the oath of abjuration. Three days later he subscribed, alongside a large group of Tories, to the protest against the passage of the bill ‘for the succession of the Crown’ which enjoined this new oath.<sup>28</sup> Yet despite his protest, on 11 Mar. 1702, three days after the death of William III and Warrington’s own involvement in a conference on the accession of Anne, Warrington took the new oath of abjuration. In March 1702 he also took the chair of select committees on 12 separate occasions and reported seven bills to the House, most of them in the last ten days of the month.<sup>29</sup> A week before the prorogation, on 18 May, he told in a division regarding the commitment of Elizabeth Wandesford’s bill.</p><h2><em>Under Anne, 1702-10</em></h2><p>In the early years of Anne’s reign John Macky wrote of Warrington that ‘this gentleman makes no great figure in his country, Parliament, or person’.<sup>30</sup> Granted that in his character sketch Macky was explicitly comparing Warrington to the more famous exploits of his notorious father, this dismissive assessment is still largely accurate regarding Warrington’s activities during the reign of Anne. On the local level he had been trying to exert some electoral influence but it was more often than not ineffectual. His independent political attitude was evident in the ambivalent and hesitant support he gave in the elections of December 1701 and August 1702 to the Whig candidates, and particularly to Sir Robert Cotton<sup>‡</sup>, whom he suspected of growing too close to the court after his appointment as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Denbighshire in 1699. For a time in late 1701 Warrington was suspected of having abandoned the Whig candidates Cotton and Sir John Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup> altogether, but Warrington dismissed this rumour with a public letter clarifying his endorsement of them.<sup>31</sup> In 1702 his growing opposition to Cotton, and his inability to guarantee his tenants’ presence at the poll or to guarantee their votes for the other Whig candidate Sir Willoughby Aston, hampered the Whig interest and the Tories Sir George Warburton<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Roger Mostyn<sup>‡</sup> topped the poll. Three years later Warrington more successfully united with the other Whig leaders in the county to ensure the return of his own brother Langham Booth<sup>‡</sup> and John Crewe Offley<sup>‡</sup> as Whig knights of the shire; they were also returned, unopposed, in 1708. Warrington, though, was a secondary figure in Cheshire politics, particularly after 1703 when the lord lieutenancy of the county went to Cholmondeley who, despite the court Whiggery he displayed at Westminster, consistently supported the Tories in Cheshire against the slowly waning Booth interest.</p><p>For much of Anne’s reign Warrington may have been preoccupied with his unceasing efforts to resurrect the estate and with the troubles caused by his infelicitous marriage. Warrington had been linked with various heiresses since 1694 at least, but in April 1702 a settlement was finally hammered out by Warrington’s uncle George Booth for the marriage of the earl to Mary, the daughter and coheir of the London merchant John Oldbury, who was said to have given his daughter a portion of £40,000 (although it was more likely around £24,000).<sup>32</sup> She assigned over her portion to him for the payment of his debts, but this welcome infusion of funds was offset by the bad relations between the couple, and after the birth of their only daughter Mary in 1704 they lived virtually separate lives albeit in the same house. This eventually led Warrington in 1739 to pen a tract in support of divorce on account of incompatibility of temper.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Warrington’s attendance in the House was generally lower in the Parliaments of Anne’s reign than they had been during William’s, though he still managed to come to half of the sittings of the opening session, in 1702-3, of Anne’s first Parliament. In January and February 1703 he chaired committees and reported to the House on three private estate bills (on 22 Jan. and 4 Feb.).<sup>34</sup> He was a teller on two occasions, on 13 Jan. in a division on the second reading of the bill for the navigation of the River Derwent and on 22 Feb. regarding the commitment of the bill to set out the requirements for land-holding on potential Members of the Commons. That same day he subscribed to the protest against the decision not to commit the bill.</p><p>Surprisingly, he voted against the Whig amendments to the first occasional conformity bill on 16 Jan. 1703, an inexplicable choice, as he otherwise appears to have taken the Presbyterian and nonconformist religious upbringing of his family to heart.<sup>35</sup> Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland thought that Warrington would support the same bill when it came up again in December, but Warrington, whose attendance stood at only 38 per cent in the 1703-4 session, was not present, perhaps purposely, for the vote on 14 December. He was present on 18 Mar. 1704 to chair and report from the committee of the whole on the bill for accountants to be charged with the interest money received by them and on 21 Mar. he dissented from both the decision not to give a second reading to a rider to the recruitment bill and the passage of the bill itself. He came to only 21 per cent of the meetings of 1704-5. He assigned his proxy to his fellow Cheshireman the Earl Rivers on 28 Nov. 1704, but this was vacated on 9 Dec. when Warrington appeared in the House. He was in the House on 15 Dec. when he opened the debate on the occasional conformity bill, at its third appearance in the House, giving his reasons, ‘weak enough’ according to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, for his new-found opposition to the bill, ‘though the last session he had been for it’.<sup>36</sup> After this he proceeded to sit in only a further 19 meetings before leaving the House for that session on 22 Jan. 1705, registering his proxy with Howard of Escrick on 3 February. Five days before his departure, on 17 Jan., Warrington protested against the resolution to give the estate bill of William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, a second reading despite the objections of John Granville*, Baron Granville of Potheridge.</p><p>In the short period when he returned to the House from 21 Jan. to 26 Feb. 1706 in the 1705-6 session, the first of the new Parliament elected in the summer of 1705, Warrington on 20 Feb. reported from the select committee, one of the 20 to which he was nominated, considering the private bill of John Ballet. He came to only 14 of the sittings in 1706-7, in February and March 1707, but his attendance was more frequent thereafter and in the session of 1707-8 he told once, on 3 Mar. 1708, and resumed his activity in select committees, chairing and reporting from four – on two private estate bills (10 and 12 Mar. 1708), one highway bill (23 Feb.) and a bill to make the French privateer <em>Ambuscade</em> a free ship (2 March). He came to 35 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the 1708 Parliament, in 1708-9. On 28 Mar. 1709 he signed the protest against the decision not to give a second reading to a rider to the bill to improve the Union that would require that those accused of treason be given a copy of their indictment before trial. His attendance in the following session of 1709-10 was slightly better, as he came to 44 per cent of the meetings and reported on 13 Mar. 1710 from the select committee dealing with the sale of the tenements of his kinsman and friend James Brydges. He also was a teller in a question concerning James Greenshield’s petition on 16 Feb. and on 25 Mar. was placed on the committee to draw up objections against the Commons’ amendments to Edward Southwell’s marriage bill and two days later was a manager for the conference where these reasons were presented. Warrington was in attendance for most of the trial of Dr. Henry Sacheverell and during it frequently dined with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, and William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon; all of these peers, along with Warrington, voted Sacheverell guilty. Westmorland became one of Warrington’s principal proxy partners after 1715.<sup>37</sup></p><h2><em>The Oxford Ministry, 1710-14</em></h2><p>In the autumn of 1710 Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, rightly saw Warrington as an opponent of his new ministry. Perhaps disheartened by his brother Langham’s coming bottom of the poll in the Tory sweep in the Cheshire elections of October, Warrington was aware that Whig power in Parliament was diluted and assured his uncle George Booth that, though he doubted that ‘the Whigs may be so strong as that one vote would be of service to them’, he would still make sure to send his proxy to Westminster by the time the new Parliament convened.<sup>38</sup> Warrington’s proxy registrations in favour of Whigs, even former Junto Whigs, are his only discernible involvement in the House in the first two sessions of the 1710 Parliament, when he attended only 60 meetings between November 1710 and June 1712. He may have been equally conscientious in assigning his proxy in the previous sessions between April 1707 and April 1710 (as well as between December 1698 and June 1701), but the proxy registers for those sessions do not survive. Warrington was in the House when the Parliament first met on 25 Nov. 1710, but he only stayed until 14 Dec. and four days later registered his proxy with his cousin Stamford, who held it until Warrington’s return on 15 Feb. 1711; thereafter Warrington was in the House for most of February and March before he left on 27 Mar. 1711. Three days later he once again entrusted his proxy to Stamford for the remainder of the session. In total he was present at only 29 per cent of the meetings of 1710-11. He showed the same concern with his ‘one vote’ in service of the Whigs in the following session of 1711-12 when he attended just under a quarter of the sittings and gave his proxy twice to Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, first between 9 Dec. 1711 and 14 Feb. 1712, on which day Warrington sat first in the House for that session, and then again after his leaving the House from 7 Apr. 1712 to the end of the session.</p><p>By that time, in April 1712, the earl of Oxford, as Harley had become, was anxious to bring the independent-minded Warrington over to his side in order to shore up his faltering support in the House.<sup>39</sup> Warrington’s name appears frequently in the many scrappy memoranda and working lists that Oxford drew up in 1713-14. Just before the crucial session on the peace starting on 9 Apr. 1713 Oxford was successfully able to make approaches to Warrington through the intermediary of the earl’s brother-in-law Russell Robartes<sup>‡</sup>, younger brother of Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor.<sup>40</sup> Robartes was a Whig but, like Warrington, constantly in financial difficulties (partly because Warrington himself had never paid in full the portion of £12,000 promised to Robartes on his marriage to the earl’s sister) and he had gone over to the ministry’s side when it helped him to succeed to his uncle’s lucrative office of teller of the exchequer in October 1710. Perhaps through Robartes’s exertions, Warrington was present in the House for the first week or so of the session of spring 1713. At the end of April he had to leave the House to go into the country and from Dunham Massey on 11 May he wrote to Oxford apologizing that he had left his proxy ‘not to your liking, which if I had apprehended I would have been very cautious of, for it has always been my desire as I know it is my duty to do whatever were in my way as I thought for her majesty’s service, and have never tied myself to any sort of persons, but considered things to the best of my small reason’.<sup>41</sup> As the proxy records for this session are unfortunately missing we cannot tell who the undesirable recipient of this proxy was – most likely either of Warrington’s previous proxy partners, Stamford or Halifax, or another Whig. Warrington’s claims of political independence notwithstanding, he was now clearly currying favour with Oxford in the expectation of some benefit. Warrington returned to the House on 5 June and on that same day he met with Oxford when the lord treasurer assured him that the queen intended to pay Warrington the arrears of his father’s pension of £2,000 p.a., which had been granted in 1690 but which had only been paid up to Michaelmas of that year. Despite Warrington’s own solicitations to William III, this pension had not been renewed after his father’s death in January 1694, but Warrington calculated that there was still three and a quarter years of arrears, amounting to £6,500, owing to him in the name of his father.<sup>42</sup> To Warrington this amount was only what was due him and he insisted then, and later, that he had not seen Oxford’s offer as a bribe to bind him permanently to the ministry. The lord treasurer, though, was not in the habit of giving away money for no political benefit and he exacted from Warrington a promise that in exchange for the arrears he would support the ministry in the forthcoming controversial vote on the Malt Tax, opposition to which threatened to undermine the ministry’s plans and even dissolve the Union. Warrington was good for his word and the vote on the Malt Tax scraped by in favour of the government 76 to 74 on 8 June, only three days after Warrington’s return to the House and his meeting with Oxford. Warrington’s vote was crucial – if the votes had been equal the bill would have been lost – and he was later singled out as one of three who had surprisingly ‘come into the bill on the Malt’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Warrington remained a consistent attender of the House for the remainder of the session and Oxford appears to have thought that he had Warrington’s vote for any future divisions. He predicted that Warrington would support the ministry in the vote on the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty in June, although the bill never made it past the lower House. In the weeks that followed Oxford was either unable or more likely unwilling to provide Warrington with the promised arrears. As Oxford was in the habit of holding back pensions and other grants from necessitous peers in order to make them more dependent on the ministry, it is likely that he was employing this tactic with the proudly independent Warrington. Warrington was anxious to return to Cheshire and in the latter days of the session in July 1713 emphasized to Oxford that he was only reluctantly staying in Westminster to have an opportunity to wait on the lord treasurer to receive the money promised him. He made it clear that in his view his vote on the Malt Tax was a special, unique favour to the government for the arrears of a pension which was in any case morally and legally owing to him. He insisted that he did not ask for this ‘favour’ but was in fact approached first by Oxford and that he had performed the requested task, ‘which I did very heartily … and hope I did a service as that matter stood, and in which I met with some very pressing endeavours to have drawn me off’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>In the winter of 1713, when Warrington was back in the capital ‘to fix the matter’, and attended the prorogation of 10 Dec., Oxford tried to placate him with a payment of £1,000 and the promise of the remainder in two more instalments after Christmas. Warrington’s patience was growing thin, and Robartes himself warned Oxford that unless Warrington was quickly satisfied, all of his endeavours ‘to continue him still firm to the present administration’ would be for nought.<sup>45</sup> Warrington continued to address letters reminding Oxford of his obligation throughout the first months of 1714, even in desperation reducing his demands to a one-off payment of £4,000 if delivered immediately, and still, perhaps naively, continued to appeal to Oxford’s sense ‘of conscience and honour’, feeling that ‘it’s impossible it could enter your breast to make me that promise only to gain my vote in a matter where you wanted it’.<sup>46</sup> By the spring of 1714, as Oxford now tried to avoid payment by claiming that more of the arrears had been previously paid than Warrington had first admitted to, Warrington became more forthright in expressing his disgust at Oxford’s naked political manipulation, as it was clear to him that the lord treasurer had not made his offer in order to fulfil a debt from the late king, but in order to ‘encourage me in serving [the queen], particularly on that present occasion … And I believe your lordship would gladly that morning have given double that sum and paid it down to have been sure of carrying that bill at that time’.<sup>47</sup> He had heard that Oxford had been saying he was withholding payment because Warrington had not fulfilled his further obligations to the government. Warrington made it clear that that had never been part of the deal, as Oxford had never explicitly requested any further ‘particular’ favours from the earl and Warrington had interpreted Oxford’s refusal to pay the arrears as a sign that the lord treasurer no longer needed his services. He ended with a warning that Oxford should not so thoroughly alienate a potential vote, particularly in such a troubled time for the ministry and his own career: ‘My Lord, my poor service was once wanted, and may be so again, neither your Lordship nor I know the future’.<sup>48</sup> In June 1714 Warrington had learned to his great shock that the queen herself knew nothing of the promises long made to him in her name and that month he ended his long correspondence with Oxford on this matter with a statement which summed up his mixed feelings of destitution and independence and the anger he felt at his (relative) poverty being so cynically used: ‘I did not ask it [the arrears], of your Lordship, nor do I want it to buy my bread. Your Lordship promising it was a great surprise to me, and the conclusion is no less so, for I can’t guess why you are pleased to treat me thus, or of what use it can be to yourself’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Perhaps because of his attempts to resolve this issue as well as the problems caused by his uncle George Booth, Warrington was more than usually attentive during the session of spring 1714, the first of the new Parliament, and was present at just less than two-thirds of its sittings.<sup>50</sup> On 2 Apr. 1714 George Booth presented to the House his petition for the reversal of decrees made against him in a suit brought by Warrington before chancery in 1711 which accused Booth of fraud in his dealings as Warrington’s agent in the marriage negotiations with John Oldbury in 1701. After some delay, as Booth claimed on 20 Apr. that he could not prepare his case in time, counsel for both sides was heard before the House on 28 April. The following day the judges reassured the peers that Warrington’s bill had been properly brought before chancery in 1711, despite the long period of time which had elapsed since the actual cause of fraud, in 1701-2, and that the Statute of Limitations did not pertain in this case. Booth’s petition was dismissed on 29 Apr. and he was still required to repay Warrington the money he had defrauded him of, with interest.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Warrington reported on 16 Apr. from a select committee on a private estate bill and on 11 May from a committee of the whole considering the Dunstable Road Bill.<sup>52</sup> Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham considered him a certain opponent of the schism bill, but Warrington left the House on 10 June 1714, before the vote, entrusting his proxy the following day with Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, who was one of the signatories to the protest against the passage of the bill on 15 June.</p><h2><em>The Hanoverian Succession, 1715-53</em></h2><p>By the time of the accession of George I Warrington had been able to repay £55,548 worth of mortgages and debts, both principal and interest, on the estate. He looked on this achievement with pride, emphasizing to his brother Henry, anxious that the Booths reassert their local position by extravagant display, that ‘it must be believed that such a debt could not be paid without a great deal of care and pains’. He had a rental income of £2,769 and £1,419 from fines for renewing leases but subtracting the remaining charges on his estate and his other expenses left him with a balance in his favour of only around £600 p.a. at most, which was supposed to be sufficient for the necessary repairs to Dunham Massey and its outbuildings. Thus he continued to lament to his brother the ‘great straights and difficulties’ he found himself in, owing to the disgraceful selfishness and improvidence of their father, but most especially of their grandfather, the first Baron Delamer, whose behaviour Warrington censured in strong terms.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Yet despite all these querulous arguments for the need to refrain from politics and ‘popularity’, Warrington came back to Westminster, with its expense of lodging and housekeeping, in March 1715 more engaged in Parliament than ever. Some of the highest attendance rates of his career were attained in the sessions of George I’s first Parliament. From 1715 to 1729 he largely supported the Whig government and was in frequent contact with the secretary of state, Sunderland, regarding his proxy. He limited his circle of proxy partners to three peers who supported the government – Stamford (until his death in 1720), Westmorland and Maurice Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham. He also corresponded with him about the fate of the Whigs (represented by his brother Langham Booth<sup>‡</sup>) in Cheshire elections.<sup>54</sup> He began to receive a government pension of his own of £1,000 p.a. from March 1715, later raised in 1717 to £1,500 p.a.<sup>55</sup> Payment of this pension very quickly fell into arrears as well and his anger at the government’s effective termination of it in May 1729 led him into opposition to the ministry of Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Orford).<sup>56</sup> Throughout he continued his busy work in the day-to day-business of the House.</p><p>From the 1730s Warrington was principally engaged in renovating and rebuilding Dunham Massey and arranging the portion of his only daughter Mary, who in 1736 married her kinsman Harry Grey<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Stamford.<sup>57</sup> Warrington died on 2 Aug. 1758 at the age of 83 as a relatively wealthy man, with assets, other than land, totalling £25,580, which was sufficient to pay for the many legacies in his will of 22 July 1754.<sup>58</sup> At his death the estate passed to his daughter, Mary, and through her to his son-in-law the 4th earl of Stamford. The titles held by the Booths went separate ways, the barony of Delamer going to the next surviving male descendant of the first Baron Delamer, Warrington’s first cousin Nathaniel Booth*, 4th Baron Delamer, while as the first earl of Warrington had no surviving male heirs that title became extinct, although it was revived in 1796 when the second earl’s grandson George Harry Grey<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Stamford, was created earl of Warrington.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOOTH, Henry (1652-94) |
<p><strong><surname>BOOTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1652–94)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Aug. 1684 as 2nd Bar. DELAMER (DELAMERE); <em>cr. </em>17 Apr. 1690 earl of WARRINGTON |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 18 Dec. 1693 |
|
MP Cheshire 4 Mar. 1678, 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.), 1681 |
<p><em>b</em>. 13 Jan. 1652, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir George Booth*, 2nd bt. (later Bar. Delamer) and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 4 Jan. 1691), da. of Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford; bro. of George Booth<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 7 July 1670 (with £20,000), Mary (<em>d</em>. 23 Mar. 1691), da. and h. of Sir James Langham<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. of Cottesbrooke, Northants. 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. <em>d</em>. 2 Jan. 1694; <em>will</em> 16 Oct. 1688, admon. 1 Mar. 1694 (revoked), pr. 15 July 1698.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 14 Feb. 1689-<em>d</em>.; chan. and under-treas., exch.1689-90; commr. treasury 1689-90.</p><p>Commr. recusants, Lancs. 1675, wharves, London 1690; <em>custos rot</em>. Cheshire 1673-80, 1681-2, 1689-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Cheshire 1689-<em>d</em>.; alderman, Chester 1689-<em>d</em>., mayor 1691-2; master forester, Quernmore, Mirescough, Amounderness, Bleasdale and Wyersdale, Lancs. (‘the five forests’) 1690-<em>d</em>.; steward, Quernmore, Myerscough, hundred of Amounderness, Lancs. 1690-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. regt. of horse 1688-90.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1690, Government Art Collection.</p> |
<h2><em>Overview and assessment</em></h2><p>Throughout his career Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer and earl of Warrington, showed a strong puritanical streak both in his personal life and his politics, where he distinguished himself as an uncompromising (and self-righteous) Presbyterian of entrenched country views unfalteringly opposed to the catholicizing and absolutist policies of Charles II and James II. He has strong claims to be considered the most intransigent opponent of James II among the peerage. Suspected throughout the 1680s of conspiracy against the crown, he was the first to declare openly for William of Orange as the country’s new ruler (as opposed to calling merely for a free Parliament or condemning James II’s ‘evil counsellors’) and to raise a substantial number of troops in his support. His statements in the campaign to place William on the throne in the turbulent weeks of late 1688 and early 1689 were blunt and harsh against the deposed king, and he hardly bothered to consider the legal complexities of the situation which exercised the minds of Tory loyalists. When William III turned increasingly towards the Tories in the early days of his reign and discarded many of his Whig adherents, Delamer turned violently against the new king as well, almost to the point of considering a Jacobite restoration. He divided contemporary opinion fiercely. Roger Morrice, writing of his exploits at the Revolution, praised his ‘prudence, courage and forwardness in this design together with his exemplary carriage’, which gained him ‘such a great interest about Derbyshire’ (not even his principal county) that ‘every sixth man round about would follow him’. He thought him among the three people in England who were ‘the most serious in religion, and give most countenance to it, and are most entire to the prince for the promoting of the reformed religion universally’, and wrote that in the Convention he ‘always spoke with great vigour and strength in all debates in the Lords’ House, on the Protestants’ side’.<sup>3</sup> On the other hand, Delamer’s own cousin Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, was ‘on the worst terms imaginable’ with him and thought he was ‘a person of an implacable spirit against the king and the crown, and of a most sour temper of mind’, while the poet and wit Arthur Maynwaring, who started his writing career as a Tory, wrote a scurrilous mock-heroic poem about him in 1690, <em>The King of Hearts</em>, in which he portrays him as a treasonous, but ultimately buffoonish, populist and rebel: ‘Of a dark spirit, turbulent and proud /Rude to superiors, fawning to the crowd;/Prompt to revenge, and treacherously base/ Plotting when in private, blustering when in place … Stiff for religion, which he ne’re profest / A modish zealot, with bad morals blest / Lewdly profane, and wicked like the rest’, and so on in a similar vein for close to 150 couplets.<sup>4</sup></p><h2><em>Exclusionist Member for Cheshire, 1678-85</em></h2><p>Maynwaring, despite his obvious hyperbole, was right to emphasize that Delamer (the title by which he was best known) was a ‘zealot’, for he was born into a strongly and sternly Presbyterian, if not Puritan, family. In 1659, when he raised the abortive royalist rising which is still known by his name, his father George Booth*, Baron Delamer, had been ‘a person of the best fortune and interest in Cheshire, and … of absolute power with the Presbyterians’ there.<sup>5</sup> His mother was the daughter of the Presbyterian and parliamentarian leader Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, and sister of the regicide Thomas Grey, Baron Grey of Groby<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Henry Booth started his political career young. In 1672-3, when barely of age, he was made a justice of the peace and commissioner of assessment for both Cheshire and Lancashire, and in May 1673 his father resigned his local office of <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Cheshire in favour of his heir. Booth was appointed a commissioner to examine the activities of recusants in Cheshire in 1675, and in a by-election of March 1678 the young man was returned to Parliament as a knight of the shire for the county. He sat for Cheshire in the following three Parliaments as well and the journal he kept of his own activity in the Commons between March 1678 until 28 March 1681 shows that he was a vocal partisan for the impeachment of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), for the exclusion of James Stuart*, duke of York, from the succession, and for the disbandment of the standing army.<sup>6</sup> Some of his speeches from this period and later were collected and published shortly after his death. They show that already by 1678-81 he was expressing the political and religious views that were to guide him throughout his career.<sup>7</sup> To him ‘popery’ was the unquestioned fount of evil, and the persecution of Dissenters by the bishops of the Church of England a sure way by which popery would be introduced in England; indeed, it was part of the Catholic master plan to weaken England by fomenting disagreements between the country’s Protestants.<sup>8</sup> His views on the monarchy were radical; in a number of works he denied that monarchy was a divine institution but was instead created by humans to provide a fit governor for themselves. In 1679 and thereafter he denied that the crown of England was hereditary, advocating an elective monarchy and popular control of the succession through Parliament: ‘If Kings were good men an absolute monarchy were the best government, but we see they are subject to the same infirmities with other men, and therefore it is necessary to bind their power’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Such views expressed in Parliament did not endear him to the court. Booth had been removed from the commission of the peace in both Lancashire and Cheshire and as <em>custos rotulorum</em> for the latter county by November 1680, although he was briefly reinstated in all these about the time of the election of March 1681.<sup>10</sup> He was divested of these local offices and responsibilities yet again in 1682 following his activities that September in support of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and his claim to the throne, when he was one of the leaders of the enthusiastic reception the duke received during his progress through Cheshire.<sup>11</sup> He was committed to the Tower in July 1683 following revelations of the Rye House Plot, but was released on bail of £6,000 in November 1683 and then discharged owing to lack of evidence in February of the following year.<sup>12</sup></p><h2><em>Trial, acquittal and opposition to James II, 1685-9</em></h2><p>On 8 Aug. 1684 Booth became the 2nd Baron Delamer upon the death of his father, and this Whig and exclusionist firebrand first sat in the House at the opening of James II’s Parliament. He only sat for 13 meetings in May and June 1685 before he was committed to the Tower again under suspicion of involvement in Monmouth’s Rebellion.<sup>13</sup> Delamer’s petition for his release was presented to the House when it reconvened on 9 November. He had a champion in his former Whig colleague from the Commons, William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire. Devonshire laid the petition before the House and then in the ‘considerable’ debate that followed was ‘very hot’ against George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and argued, aided by Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, that the Lords themselves should answer the petition without consulting the king. In the end the lords with positions in the royal household were delegated to enquire of the king why Delamer was detained from sitting in the House and the following day, after the lord treasurer Lawrence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, had reported that the king had explained that Delamer was imprisoned on suspicion of treason, another debate arose ‘whether his Majesty’s answer were to be acquiesced in’, but the debate was quickly adjourned to the following week. When the debate was taken up again on 16 Nov., the lord chancellor George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, reported that, in order to show the lords his seriousness in prosecuting Delamer, and because of the jurisdictional problems posed by Cheshire’s status as a county palatine, the king had sent a commission of oyer and terminer into Cheshire, where Delamer had committed his offence, to indict him for treason.</p><p>Delamer was bailed on 28 Nov. but when the indictment against him was finally returned from Chester on 14 Dec. he was taken from his house early in the morning and again committed to the Tower.<sup>14</sup> His trial was set for 14 Jan. 1686, and James II’s decision to prorogue Parliament on 20 Nov. 1685 may have been influenced in part by his dissatisfaction with the Lords’ obvious disgruntlement with the concurrent arrest and prosecution of two peers, Delamer and his cousin Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. With Parliament out of session James would be able to select those peers who were to try Delamer in a specially convened court of the lord high steward. The king issued writs to a total of 30 peers, nearly half of whom were prominent court supporters. Twenty-seven appeared when the trial convened in Westminster Hall on 14 Jan. 1686 and Ailesbury noted that this body ‘consisted of all the officers of [the king’s] household, and army, and lord lieutenants’.<sup>15</sup> In addition the lord high steward appointed to preside over the trial was the lord chancellor, Jeffreys, who was a long-standing enemy of Delamer. Whilst serving as chief justice of the palatine court of Chester in 1680-3, Delamer had denounced Jeffreys in Parliament as behaving ‘more like a jack-pudding than a judge’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Despite these careful preparations, the trial went badly for the government. Charged with high treason ‘for levying war against the king this last summer’ – various conspiratorial activities in Chester in April and June 1685 – Delamer delayed the proceedings by raising several questions concerning his privilege as a peer. Then the attorney general was able to produce only one positive witness, ‘a person of a very infamous life’, whose testimony Delamer was easily able to refute. The other witnesses against him, the Whig turncoats William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, and Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, could only give general evidence about the Whig conspiracies against Charles II in late 1682. Howard even ended his testimony by stating that he had nothing at all to say about either Delamer or a rising in Cheshire. Even hostile commentators had to admit that Delamer was ‘well skilled in our laws and withal a good spokesman [who] gave all the advantage to his cause and good entertainment to his auditors’. In the end the peers in attendance unanimously acquitted Delamer of the charges against him. Ailesbury, who in his memoirs presented the trial and Delamer’s escape from judgment as an example of James II’s mercy and observance of the rule of law, was convinced of his cousin’s guilt and ‘the whole number of lords was of the same sentiment … [but] men of honour and conscience could proceed no otherwise by the strict rules of the law’. The trial and its surprising outcome captured the attention of the nation and was seen as a victory for the Whigs while the embarrassed court investigated ‘who advised the trial of this peer when the evidence was so incompetent’. Much of the blame was placed at the door of Jeffreys, especially as he had annoyed the peers by his manner and had had to be pulled up short by Nottingham on a point of law and privilege.<sup>17</sup></p><p>A few days after his acquittal Delamer was permitted to kiss the king’s hand and the king ‘was pleased to give him warning as to his future behaviour’, advice which the baron ignored. Over the next two and a half years he was consistently included in lists of the king’s enemies and showed his solidarity with his beleaguered colleagues Stamford and Devonshire by posting bail for them in their own confrontations with James’s courts.<sup>18</sup> He was closely linked with those two peers in the preparations in September 1688 for William of Orange’s invasion, and Stamford even assured Henry Compton*, bishop of London, that regarding the invasion he would ‘do as the Lord Delamer did’.<sup>19</sup></p><h2><em>Williamite leader in Cheshire, 1688-9</em></h2><p>On 15 Nov., having exacted a promise from the lord lieutenant of Cheshire, William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, that he would not interfere, Delamer mustered his tenants and followers on Bowden Down in support of William of Orange, assuring them in a printed address that ‘I see all lies at stake, I am to choose whether I am to be a slave and a Papist, or a Protestant and a freeman, and therefore the case being thus, I shall think myself false to my country, if I sit still at this time’.<sup>20</sup> Delamer was later to complain that ‘the nation had been rid so long, that little of the old English spirit was left, and most who declared for the Prince of Orange proceeded with so much caution, that they showed more cunning than courage’ in their calls merely for a free Parliament or the punishment of James’s evil counsellors. He and his men ‘did not mince the matter, but spoke plain English of King James and of our condition, and thereby animated the country as they marched’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Delamer and his forces, numbering 300-400 men, joined Devonshire at Nottingham on 21 Nov., but he quickly became dissatisfied with Devonshire’s caution and left Nottingham on 24 Nov. with Stamford to engage on a long march south to join William, the course of which was closely monitored by contemporaries.<sup>22</sup> These forces on the move alarmed James II and his advisers and gained a reputation, probably inflated by fear and hearsay, both for their religious zeal and rebellious disorder. A correspondent of John Ellis in Ireland informed him on 24 Nov. that</p><blockquote><p>of all the men that have appeared in arms and declared for the Prince none have done more zealously than those who began the dance in Cheshire who gather weight like a snow ball, and as many affirm, do plunder as they go … The chief officers of the body are affirmed to be old Oliverians that have long lain lurking about Chester and Cheshire, in expectation of a day of plunder.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Morrice at first heard that they numbered ‘several thousands’ (later corrected to 300). Arthur Maynwaring described Delamer’s men as ‘a shirtless band of Northern rabble’, while Halifax was later regaled with stories of the ‘multitudes’ who had followed Delamer and how in their leisure they would amuse themselves by taking target practice at pictures of the Pope, Father Petre, and of two of James II’s appointees to the episcopate, Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids.<sup>24</sup> Delamer, Stamford and their troops finally joined William at Hungerford on 7 December. Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, recorded that it was reputed that the peers came with 400 horse, but he had heard from his agent that ‘they were not above half that number [and that] they were very shabby fellows, pitifully mounted, and worse armed’.<sup>25</sup> Delamer naturally was of a different view and in an essay, <em>Reasons why King James ran away from Salisbury</em>, portrayed himself and his march to William’s army as the primary cause of James’s flight, for the sight of a mass armed uprising of the English people (in contrast to mealy-mouthed declarations and the defections of solitary peers and military officers) struck fear in James’s cowardly heart and tipped him over the edge into despair.<sup>26</sup></p><p>At Hungerford and then during the march on London, Delamer openly argued for the overthrow of James II. At the meeting held at Windsor on 17 Dec. 1688 to determine what action to take after James’s return from Faversham he opened the debate by moving that the king be incarcerated in the Tower, arguing that his abortive attempt at flight amounted to a dissolution of his government. When this decision was challenged by Clarendon, Delamer angrily (‘a little thing puts him into a passion’ Clarendon observed) remonstrated that ‘he did not look upon him as his king, and would never more pay him obedience; and that he ought not to be like a king in one of his own houses, and earnestly pressed that he might be directed to go to Ham’. William more diplomatically wanted James to be ‘advised’ to go to Ham, but still chose Delamer, with Halifax and Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, as the delegates to attend James II at Whitehall with this message. Delamer later gloated that, without ‘the least grain of courage’, the defeated king ‘meanly’ accepted this order to vacate the capital, which action led to his permanent exile.<sup>27</sup> William rewarded Delamer for his services in his cause by commissioning him colonel of a troop of horse based in Cheshire which, under its former colonel Robert Werden<sup>‡</sup>, had begun to march on London in support of James II before the disbandment of the army.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Halifax recorded, in his sketchy notes of the meeting held on 24 Dec. 1688 to discuss methods to summon a new Parliament, that Delamer said that ‘nothing can be done but by the body of the people in their representatives’, by which he was probably arguing that sovereignty resided in ‘the people’ and that a Convention could be summoned in their name without the formality of issuing royal writs, a view he was to repeat later in 1690.<sup>29</sup> He was highly active in the Convention throughout its first few months. In the first two days, 22 and 23 Jan. 1689, he was placed on committees to draw up the response to William’s letter to Parliament and to examine the death of Arthur Capel*, earl of Essex (later on 5 Feb. he was placed on a secret committee of four peers to deal with this case) and he opposed the motion that Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, be released from the Tower on bail.<sup>30</sup> Clarendon recorded that Delamer was ‘most violent’ in opposing the admission of Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, on 25 January. Griffin’s patent was dated as recently as 3 Dec. 1688. Then, in a surprising <em>volte-face</em>, Delamer and John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, relented and these two peers themselves formally introduced Griffin to the House. Clarendon ascribed this change to the realization by ‘the violent party’ that if they refused to introduce Griffin, the right to sit of other new peers such as George Carteret*, Baron Carteret, ‘of whom they were sure’, could also be questioned. Five days later Delamer did indeed help to introduce the more reliable Carteret to the House.<sup>31</sup> By the summer Griffin had deserted the House and was in communication with James’s court at St Germain, and on 27 July Delamer took part in framing the House’s proclamation summoning him to the House so that he could face the wrath of his peers.</p><p>Delamer’s principal concern during these first days and weeks after the Revolution was to ensure the transfer of the crown to William and Mary. When the House first took up the debate on the vote of the Commons that James had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’ on 29 Jan. 1689, Delamer, according to Danby’s notes, was the foremost speaker against James’s claims and responded to Clarendon’s doubts with the blunt dismissal that the king had fled ‘because he dared not to stay the justice of the nation’ and asserted that the king was merely a ‘trustee’ of the people’ and may therefore be ‘called to an account’.<sup>32</sup> During the debate two days later on whether to declare the prince and princess of Orange monarchs, Delamer said that ‘it was long since he thought himself absolved from his allegiance to King James; that he owed him none, and never would pay him any; and if King James came again, he was resolved to fight against him, and would die single, with his sword in his hand, rather than pay him any obedience’.<sup>33</sup> In the first week of February Delamer vigorously supported the Commons in the wording of their vote that James II had ‘abdicated’ and had rendered the throne ‘vacant’. After that wording had been adopted on 6 Feb. Delamer seconded a motion to declare William and Mary king and queen and the next day was appointed to a subcommittee of the committee of the whole assigned to draw up oaths to the new monarchs.<sup>34</sup> In the period 8-12 Feb. he was involved in a series of conferences to frame the proclamation of the new monarchs and on 12 Feb. he reported from the meeting in which the Commons agreed to the House’s amendments. For his efforts in securing the throne for William, Delamer was made a privy councillor on 14 Feb. 1689.<sup>35</sup></p><p>He remained involved in the Convention’s busy schedule during the spring of 1689. He registered his protest against the passage of the treason trials bill on 6 Mar. (legislation which must have had a personal relevance to him), on the grounds that it infringed the privilege of peers and ‘nothing ever was, or may be, put into an act of Parliament, that can reflect so much upon the honour of the peerage as this will’. The previous day he had been a reporter for the conference on the Convention’s address to the king pledging their lives and fortunes to his cause, while on 8 Mar. he was made part of the delegation to present the king with the thanks of the House for his reply to this loyal address. From March to early May he was named to 14 select committees on legislation, and on 9 Mar. he reported from the committee on the bill for reversing the attainder of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell. He had already made clear his view that the bill should pass by publishing at about this time a brief examination of the case, with an exoneration of Lord Russell.<sup>36</sup> He was heavily involved in proceedings surrounding the bill for abrogating the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and on 21 Mar. entered his protest against the rejection of the clause that would repeal the sacramental test. The following day he submitted his own clause, which later became part of the final act, which removed from the new oaths that part of the declaration in the Act of Uniformity which stated that under no circumstances was it legal to take up arms against the king.<sup>37</sup> Throughout late March and early April Delamer was the principal chairman of the committee considering the bill for the commissioners of the Great Seal, reporting from it on 25 Mar., when the bill was recommitted with further instructions from the House, and reporting again on 4 Apr. with a version of the bill which was accepted.<sup>38</sup></p><h2><em>Office under William III, 1689-94</em></h2><p>On 9 Apr. 1689 Delamer was made chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer and a commissioner of the treasury board. <sup>39</sup> This new responsibility may help explain his involvement in a number of bills concerning supply. On 29 Apr. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for preventing doubts concerning the public revenue, while on 9 May he reported from the select committee on the bill for an additional poll tax. Delamer apparently was not satisfied with this new responsibility and, according to Halifax’s recollections of his conversations with William III, Delamer told William that ‘he would not value all the king could give him’ unless he could also have the lord lieutenancy of Cheshire. The obvious candidate would have been Derby, whose family had held that position for generations, but Delamer had effectively poisoned William’s mind against his local rival, insisting that he had not showed enough enthusiasm for William at the time of his landing, a charge which Derby’s man of business Roger Kenyon<sup>‡</sup> was at pains to refute. Although Halifax claimed that the king was reluctant to give Delamer such responsibilities, letters patent were issued on 12 Apr. making him lieutenant of Cheshire and in mid July, in a further snub to Derby, he was reinstated as <em>custos rotulorum</em>.<sup>40</sup> Assigning his proxy to Devonshire on 10 May 1689, Delamer left London to take up his new duties in a tumultuous procession, accompanied by a body of 600 horse, which drew the mockery of Maynwaring.<sup>41</sup> He entered Cheshire in triumph to an enthusiastic reception, whereupon he set about ordering the militia and preparing Chester for its role as mustering ground and embarkation point for the military expedition to Ireland.<sup>42</sup> Over the following years he remained a major force in county politics – as lord lieutenant, <em>custos rotulorum</em> and an alderman and later mayor of Chester. He was the undisputed leader of the Cheshire country Whigs, undoubtedly influential in securing the selection of John Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup>, lieutenant colonel of Delamer’s troop of horse, and Sir Robert Cotton<sup>‡</sup>, Delamer’s old partner and fellow Exclusionist from the Parliaments of 1680 and 1681, as knights of the shire for both the Convention and William III’s first Parliament.<sup>43</sup> At the same time he maintained some influence in Lancashire as a justice of the peace there from 1689.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Delamer returned to the House on 20 July and immediately threw himself into the business of the House, attending conferences with the Commons and lending his support to the bill for reversing the punitive judgments against Titus Oates. On 30 July he voted and protested against the decision to adhere to the House’s amendments to the bill which deprived Oates of certain rights and liberties and which cast doubt, according to Delamer and the other protesters, on the veracity of the Popish Plot. He, Stamford and Charles North*, Baron North and Grey, were the self-appointed tribunes for the disgruntled weavers who marched on Parliament on 14 Aug. 1689 to petition against the bill for wearing woollens. The sight of these peers, especially the rebels Stamford and Delamer, acting as populist and demagogic leaders of ‘the mobile’ provided endless material for Tory satirists such as Maynwaring.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Delamer was present for all but five sittings of the second session of the Convention, during which he was named to 11 select committees, acted as a teller on 15 Nov. and reported from the committee of the whole House five days later. In a debate on the Bill of Rights on 23 Nov. 1689 he told, presumably for the contents, in a division whether to include a proviso that would invalidate all royal pardons upon impeachments which did not have the concurrence of both Houses of Parliament, and joined with 11 other peers to sign the protest when this amendment was rejected. He was named to the committee for inspections, established on 2 Nov. 1689 to search into the misdeeds of the Tory reaction. He was also personally concerned in the proceedings of the subcommittee (to which he was not named) established on 7 Dec. to hear the evidence of Robert Cragg, one of Monmouth’s agents in the spring of 1685, about the attempts of James II’s government to suborn him after his arrest into testifying against Delamer, Stamford, Devonshire and other associates of Monmouth.<sup>46</sup> On 23 Jan. 1690 he dissented from the decision to remove from a clause in the bill to restore corporations the statement that the surrendering of charters to Charles II and James II had been illegal, for ‘the putting out those words seems to be the justifying of the most horrid action that King James was guilty of during his reign’. Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed him as an opponent of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690.</p><h2><em>Neglect and disillusionment, 1690-4</em></h2><p>By the time of William III’s first Parliament in the spring of 1690 Delamer’s extreme and unyielding Whig views, so important in helping to effect the Revolution and the transfer of the crown, were looking less attractive to a government increasingly bent on bringing moderate Tories into the ministry. Delamer’s ineffectiveness as a military leader and at the exchequer and treasury board (where his attendance stood at only 48 per cent), and his constant bickering with the first lord of the treasury, Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), all further harmed his reputation at court.<sup>47</sup> Concerning his rabble-rousing appeals to the populace, Maynwaring warned him, ‘thy exploits make thee the public sport / scour’d by all parties, pissed upon at court’.<sup>48</sup> Delamer was decisively edged out to the political sidelines during the spring of 1690, first having his military commission revoked sometime in late 1689 and then on 18 Mar. 1690 being replaced at the exchequer and treasury board by Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>49</sup> The court tried to compensate for this loss by raising him in the peerage to the earldom of Warrington and making him the steward of the five royal forests in Lancashire. His son George Booth*, later 2nd earl of Warrington, was later to assert that his father, aware that his estate could not support the new dignity, had refused to accept his new title in the peerage until William had also promised him a pension of £2,000 p.a., ‘though afterwards ill paid’.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Warrington was angered by the neglect shown him and expressed his resentment to the lord president of the council, Carmarthen, of ‘the small regard which the king has given to my advice and opinion’ when he had ventured so much for the king, especially when ‘preference is shown to those who justly rendered themselves suspected as the king’s opponents’.<sup>51</sup> His objections to William’s increasing reliance on the Tories and the Church party were articulated in his essay <em>Of the Interest of Whig and Tory; which may with most safety be depended on by the Government</em> where he stated that</p><blockquote><p>I was and am of opinion that the king made a very wrong step when he employed so many of that party [Tories], because it would unavoidably abate the zeal of many of his friends, and I fear it has had this further bad effect, to make those people believe that either he is afraid of them, or that they are necessary to him.</p></blockquote><p>He further argued that country Whigs such as himself, who had the Protestant religion and the interests of the nation at heart, were the king’s true friends, as opposed to the Tories and to the growing band of court Whigs, whom he also distrusted.<sup>52</sup> He went even further in his musings in an unpublished manuscript among his papers which lamented that</p><blockquote><p>King William does now so much endeavour to depress the reputation of all men that are of that principle [the Whigs], and to baffle the doctrine that kings hold their crowns upon condition, that it looks more like a fault than merit to have been a sufferer in the late times, whilst at the same time he chiefly employs men of a contrary opinion.</p></blockquote><p>Here he even put forth the previously unthinkable position that a reconciliation between the Whigs and James II might be possible, and even preferable, in the light of William III’s unwarranted betrayal of his most fervent and active supporters.<sup>53</sup></p><p>In the session of spring 1690, where he came to all but two meetings and was named to 11 select committees, Warrington was still primarily concerned with the stability of the new regime in the face of the perceived Jacobite threat, regardless of what he may personally have thought of William’s actions. On 5 Apr. 1690 he entered his protest against the rejection of an amendment confirming the acts of the Convention in the bill for recognizing William and Mary as sovereigns. Throughout the first two weeks of May he was closely involved in the proceedings surrounding the bill for the oath of abjuration, which he saw as a means ‘that it might be known who [is] for King James and who not’. On 5 May he told in the division on the motion that there should be no penalty in the bill disabling any person refusing to take the oaths from sitting or voting in Parliament, and a week later he was named to a committee assigned to draw up a clause for the bill which would set out the terms by which the requirement that all civil and military officers take the oaths would be enforced.<sup>54</sup> That same day, 12 May, he was appointed a manager for a conference to meet the following day on the bill to appoint Queen Mary regent during the king’s absence. After attending that conference he told in favour of the motion, both when originally proposed in a committee of the whole and then when put to the question before the House, that counsel for the City of London be given more time to present their case for restoring the City’s old charter, and he subscribed his name to the protest when this motion was defeated.</p><p>Warrington came to just over two-thirds of the meetings in 1690-1, when he was named to 24 select committees and continued to be involved in legislation designed to distinguish the Revolution’s friends from its enemies. On 6 Oct. 1690 he voted again against the discharge of Peterborough and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment ‘he would not lose his lieutenancy which supports his popularity’.<sup>55</sup> On 28 Nov. 1690 he reported from the committee of the whole discussing the bill for indemnity for those who acted for William and Mary, then on 1 Jan. 1691 he chaired another committee of the whole on the bill to attaint rebels against the crown. In December 1690 he was a teller three times, and on 5 Jan. 1691, the final day of the session, he was a manager for a series of four contentious conferences on the bill for the suspension of part of the Navigation and Corn Acts during the war with France. He reported on 23 Dec. 1690 from the select committee considering the private bill of his close colleague, the Cheshire Whig Sir Thomas Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup>. In the following session of 1691-2, where his attendance was down to 43 per cent and he was named to 20 select committees, he chaired and reported from other committees on private bills – the estate bills of Thomas Kennersley (which he also chaired and reported when it was debated in a committee of the whole on 29 Dec. 1691), of Charles Pelham and of John Keeble.<sup>56</sup> In that session he was a reporter for a conference on the treason trials bill on 17 Dec. 1691 and was named to the committee assigned to draw up heads for insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the bill. When the public accounts were read before the House on 15 Dec. 1691, Warrington objected that his name was included among the recipients of secret service money when any payments he had received were part of his public pension of £2,000 which, he further complained, was in arrears. This interjection led Halifax to decide to allow each lord to stand up and justify to the House any monies received if his name appeared in the accounts.<sup>57</sup> On 12 Jan. 1692 Warrington registered his proxy with his cousin Stamford for the remainder of the 1691-2 session.</p><p>He was in the House for just over two-thirds of the sittings in the following session of 1692-3, where he was named to 22 select committees and 30 Nov. 1692 was appointed to a subcommittee appointed to draw up a clause for the Bill of Indemnity. He subscribed to the protest of 23 Dec. against the decision to reverse the decree in <em>Leach v. Thompson</em> and throughout December chaired committees on a number of private estate bills and on the bill to confirm the charters of Oxford University.<sup>58</sup> During these months, however, Warrington was most preoccupied with the proceedings on the king’s request to Parliament to provide him with advice for the safety of the realm, following the invasion scare of the previous summer. This had already provided Warrington with material for one of his longer essays, <em>A Persuasive to Union upon King James his design to invade England in the year 1692</em>, in which he once again emphasized the threat of a Jacobite fifth column within the country; such men ‘cannot pretend to the name of Protestants and Englishmen’.<sup>59</sup> When these matters came before Parliament in the winter Warrington on 7 Dec. protested against the House’s resolution not to establish a joint committee with the Commons to consider the perilous state of the nation. Three days later he was named to the House’s own committee assigned to provide advice to the king based on the papers regarding the state of the navy submitted to the House and on 20-21 Dec. he was a manager at conferences on this matter. On 21 Dec. the Commons’ representatives surprised Warrington and the other managers by using the conference to read a vote of their House praising the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, quite extraneous to the matters formally under discussion and without providing reasons for their vote. Warrington was named to the committees established on 22 and 29 Dec. to determine whether this vote followed parliamentary procedure, and on 30 Dec. he reported to the House that the committee had found that the Commons’ action was unprecedented. He was then one of those appointed a manager to make this case to them in a free conference. He was a manager for all subsequent conferences on this matter, including that of 4 Jan. 1693 when the dispute appears to have been resolved.<sup>60</sup> At the turn of the year Warrington defied the court to follow his country Whig proclivities and support the place bill. He was, according to the Brandenburg envoy, among those who most ‘harangued’ the House for the bill, and he voted both to commit and then pass it and subsequently entered his protest against its rejection.<sup>61</sup> On 2 Jan. 1693 he also followed the general Whig line and voted for the second reading of the bill for the divorce of the Protestant Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, from his Catholic duchess. On 19 Jan. 1693 he entered dissents from the resolutions not to refer to the consideration of the committee for privileges the House’s amendments to the land tax bill and to recede from these amendments. On 24-25 Jan. 1693 he was involved in committees and conferences concerning the anti-Williamite libel <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em> and chaired and reported from the select committee on the bill for taking special bail for actions heard in Westminster Hall.<sup>62</sup> He was appointed to the committee to consider methods for the forthcoming trial for murder of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, on 20 Jan., and at the trial on 4 Feb. Warrington argued (judging by the sketchy notes made by Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland) that Mohun’s ‘design’ to kill his victim Montfort was premeditated.<sup>63</sup> He was then one of only 14 peers to vote Mohun guilty of murder.</p><p>Initially, Warrington showed the same enthusiasm and diligence in the House during the 1693-4 session. On 14 Dec. 1693 he chaired a long committee meeting which heard counsel for both sides debating the Gardiner estate bill, but he last sat in the House four days later, on 18 Dec. 1693, after only 24 days of attendance.<sup>64</sup> He died on 2 Jan. 1694 having, by one account, caught a cold, which rapidly grew worse, while listening to legal debates in Middle Temple Hall concerning two peers. Another report suggested that Warrington fell ill from drinking bad wine at a tavern.<sup>65</sup> A will signed by him and dated 16 Oct. 1688 was found a few weeks after his death. In it Warrington settled on his two daughters portions of £5,000 each and on his two younger sons annuities of £200 p.a. This was a burdensome legacy for his eldest son, heir and executor George Booth, 2nd earl of Warrington, who found the estate already overburdened with debts of £24,315 and annuity charges of £1,183.<sup>66</sup> The new earl spent the next several years contesting this will with his siblings and kin, arguing that it could not be his father’s final considered wishes, as it was impractical considering the condition of the estate and had furthermore been found in suspicious circumstances among a mass of scrap paper in a corner of his father’s study.<sup>67</sup> Warrington’s political legacy was equally contested. His many papers – speeches, letters, essays and other writings – were collected and published within a year of his death, and formed a potential rallying point for radical Whigs and Dissenters in the years to come. They still stand as a testament to the popularity and influence of this peer among the more Puritan and republican segments of the population.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOTELER, William (d. 1664) |
<p><strong><surname>BOTELER</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (d. 1664)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 27 May 1637 as 2nd Bar. BOTELER. |
|
|
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. unknown date, ?2nd but first surv. s. of John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Boteler and Elizabeth, da. of Sir George Villiers of Brokesby, Leics. <em>bur</em>. 13 Aug. 1664;<sup>1</sup> <em>admon</em>. 8 Oct. 1664 to sisters Jane, countess of Marlborough, and Ellen Drake.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>At his father’s death in 1637 an inquisition post mortem found that William Boteler was ‘an idiot and fool man’ and had been so since birth. It seems likely that he suffered from the same congenital defect that afflicted his nephews, Mountjoy Blount*, 2nd earl, Thomas Blount*, 3rd earl, and Henry Blount*, 4th earl of Newport. Custody was awarded to his brothers-in-law, Francis Leigh<sup>†</sup>, then Baron Dunsmore (later earl of Chichester) and Endymion Porter but transferred in November 1646 to another brother-in-law, the parliamentarian sympathizer Edward Howard*, Baron Howard of Escrick.<sup>3</sup> Boteler’s exact date of death is not known. He was buried on 13 Aug. 1664.</p> |
R.P. |
|
BOYLE, Charles (1639-94) |
<p><strong><surname>BOYLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1639–94)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Visct. Dungarvan [I] 1643-94; <em>styled </em>1665-94 Ld. Clifford of Lanesborough; <em>accel. </em>28 Jan. 1663 Visct. Dungarvan [I]; <em>accel. </em>16 July 1689 Bar. CLIFFORD OF LANESBOROUGH. |
|
First sat 18 July 1689; last sat 23 Apr. 1694 |
|
MP Tamworth 28 Mar. 1670; Yorkshire Mar. 1679, Oct. 1679, 1681, 1685. |
<p><em>b</em>. 17 Nov. 1639,<sup>1</sup> 1st surv. s. of Richard Boyle*, Visct. Dungarvan [I] (later 2nd earl of Cork [I] and earl of Burlington), and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 6 Jan. 1691), da. and h. of Henry Clifford<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Cumberland. <em>educ</em>. privately (tutor, Pierre du Moulin); Christ Church, Oxf. 1656–8 (tutor, John Locke);<sup>2</sup> travelled abroad (France) (tutor, Walter Pope) Mar. 1659–Aug. 1660;<sup>3</sup> M. Temple 1669; G. Inn 1675. <em>m</em>. (1) 7 May 1661 (with £8,000), Jane (<em>d.</em> 23 Sept. 1679), da. of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset,<sup>4</sup> 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 6da (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>);<sup>5</sup> (2) 26 Jan. 1688, Arethusa (<em>d</em>. 11 Feb. 1743), da. of George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, 1da. <em>d</em>. 12 Oct. 1694;<sup>6</sup> <em>admon</em>. 23 Feb. 1695 to a creditor.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Col. of militia ft, Yorks. (W. Riding) 1682?–c.Oct. 1688.<sup>8</sup></p><p>FRS 1664–85.</p> |
|
<p>The young Viscount Dungarvan [I], as Charles Boyle was styled after his father inherited the earldom of Cork [I] in September 1643, was sent to Oxford in the mid-1650s, where he was under the tutelage of John Locke and also came under the wing of his uncle, the natural philosopher Robert Boyle.<sup>11</sup> ’The latter’s first major published natural philosophical work, <em>New Experiments Physico-mechanicall touching the Spring and Weight of the Air</em>, in many ways the emblematic work of the ‘New Science’, was published in 1660 in the form of a long letter to Dungarvan, supposedly in response to queries the young man had addressed to him while conversing with natural philosophers in Paris. Dungarvan returned from his tour of France and the continent in August 1660, and his wealth and prominence in Restoration England were shortly after emphasized by his marriage on 7 May 1661 to Lady Jane Seymour, with a settlement on the couple of £12,000 a year.<sup>12</sup></p><p>His parliamentary career began in the Irish House of Lords, to which he was summoned in January 1663 by a writ of acceleration. However, his attention turned to England in 1665 after his father was created earl of Burlington in the English peerage. From this point he was almost exclusively referred to, in English sources at least, by the courtesy title Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, a barony which had been conferred on his father by patent in 1644. In 1670 he entered the English House of Commons following a 1669 by-election for the borough of Tamworth. He had no personal connection with the region and gained his seat largely through the interest of his mother-in-law, the dowager duchess of Somerset.<sup>13</sup> He was initially listed as a government supporter, but by 1675 had gone over to the country party and was in close contact with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, who classed him as ‘triply worthy’ in the analysis of the Members of Parliament which he drew up in spring 1677.<sup>14</sup> In the final session of the Cavalier Parliament, Clifford of Lanesborough supported the impeachment of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), and on 23 Dec. 1678 acted as messenger to the Lords requesting a conference on the Houses’ disagreement over the bill for disbanding the army.</p><p>From the time of the long prorogation of 1675–7, there were plans that Clifford of Lanesborough, ‘who is really an excellent patriot’, would take one of the seats for the county of Yorkshire, as his family’s principal seat in England, Londesborough Hall, lay in the East Riding of the county. Through the local influence and support of his father, Burlington, the incumbent Member, Conyers Darcy*, later 2nd earl of Holdernesse, and the local worthies George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax, and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, he proceeded to sit as knight of the shire for the three Exclusion Parliaments, joined by Henry Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Baron Fairfax of Cameron [S].<sup>15</sup> He voted for the Exclusion bill in the Parliament of spring 1679, but was a reluctant candidate for the next Parliament and, despite having the support of ‘the sectaries and fanatics’ and receiving an address urging him to prosecute exclusion further, he had rejoined the court by the winter of 1680.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In 1687–8 he signalled his opposition to James II’s policies by standing as surety for the appearance of William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, at his trial in king’s bench in May 1687, and by joining the crowd of supporters at the acquittal of the seven bishops.<sup>17</sup> That he was seen as a key supporter of the Revolution and William of Orange was also confirmed by his summons to the House of Lords by a writ of acceleration in July 1689. His writ, dated 16 July, was addressed to ‘Carolo Boyle, de Lawnsburgh’, and he was introduced to the House two days later as ‘Lord Boyle’. The Journals continued to name him as ‘D[ominu]s. Boyle’ from 22 July to 10 Aug. 1689, even though that was not one of his father’s baronies. By 10 Aug. the mistake had been noticed, perhaps flagged up by Clifford himself, and on that day the House was notified that the king had issued a warrant for a new writ to be made out for Charles, Lord Clifford of Lanesborough. The clerk was to surrender up the old and incorrect writ. From 12 Aug. the Journals only note the presence of ‘D[ominu]s. Clifford’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>This mistake having been rectified, Clifford of Lanesborough apparently saw little reason to remain in the House and he last sat in the first session of the Convention on 20 Aug. having been present for 18 of its sitting days since his first attendance. Classed by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) as among the supporters of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, he came to a full three-quarters of the sittings of the second (winter 1689-90) session, during which he was named to 11 committees. On 14 Jan. 1690 was a teller in the division on the motion concerning the treason trials Bill, ‘That it is the ancient right of the peers of England to be tried only in full Parliament for any capital offence’.<sup>19</sup> He was even more assiduous in the following session of spring 1690, the first of William III’s new Parliament. He came to just over four-fifths of the meetings during the session, was named to eight committees and on 13 May 1690 signed the protest against the decision not to allow more time for the counsel for the corporation of London to be heard in its case for reversing the <em>quo warranto</em> against it.</p><p>Clifford of Lanesborough was present at 64 per cent of the sittings in the 1690–1 session and was nominated to 22 committees. His, and indeed the Journal’s, use of the title Baron Clifford without the suffix ‘of Lanesborough’ brought up a long-standing dispute between the different branches of the Clifford family, which came to a head in this session. On 27 Nov. 1690 the petition of his distant cousin Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, was read before the House, in which he argued that the ancient title of Lord Clifford, a barony created by writ in 1299, descended to him as the sole male heir general, after it had been held in abeyance among female heirs general from 1605 to 1676. Clifford of Lanesborough’s mother, Lady Elizabeth Clifford, countess of Burlington, submitted her counter-petition on 2 Dec. claiming the Clifford barony through her father, Henry Clifford<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Cumberland, who had been summoned to the House in 1628 by a writ of acceleration addressed to him as Lord Clifford. It was much later (in 1737) adjudged that the writ summoning Henry Clifford to Parliament in 1628 had been done in error and in effect created a new barony by writ, another Lord Clifford. At the time, though, there was still much doubt in peerage law about the position and heritability of baronies by writ and it was probably in order to clear up this uncertainty and to give a firmer base for claims to the Clifford legacy that Richard Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan [I], had been created Baron Clifford of Lanesborough by patent in 1644.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued on 5 Jan. 1691 without resolving this issue and the countess of Burlington died the day following the prorogation. Perhaps secure in his own possession of the barony of Clifford of Lanesborough, and confident that he would soon be inheriting the earldoms of both Cork [I] and Burlington, Clifford of Lanesborough assured the House on 8 Dec. 1691, in the following session of 1691–2, that he would ‘not obstruct the said claim’ of Thanet to the Clifford barony. Four days later the Committee for Privileges resolved that Thanet ‘was the sole lineal and right heir to Robert de Clifford and that the title and barony of Lord Clifford doth of right belong to him’.<sup>20</sup> Nevertheless, the Journal continued to name Clifford of Lanesborough merely as ‘D[ominu]s Clifford’ and under this name he attended 60 per cent of the sittings of this session and was named to seven committees.</p><p>He resumed his regular attendance in the 1692–3 session, being present at almost three-quarters of the sitting days and named to ten committees. This was, however, only one-fifth of the committees established on the days on which he was in the House and by this point the frequency of his nominations was declining sharply. On 4 Mar. 1693 it was proposed that he be added to the committee assigned by the committee of the whole House considering the state of the nation to draw up an address on the state of Ireland, yet even with his Irish background this fell through and his name does not appear in the list of committee members provided in the Journals.<sup>21</sup> At the same time he took more definite and visible stances in this session than previously, stances which suggest, if a party label must be attributed to him, that he leaned towards country positions. He supported the place bill, voting for its commitment on 31 Dec. 1692 and putting his name to the protest on 3 Jan. 1693 when it was rejected by the House. On 19 Jan. he joined in the formal dissent from the decision not to refer the House’s amendments to the land tax bill to the committee for privileges, but he did not join in the dissent from the ensuing resolution to recede entirely from the amendments. He was one of a group of only 14 peers who found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder on 4 February.<sup>22</sup> He came to 38 per cent of the sitting days of the 1693–4 session, during which he was named to eight committees and subscribed his name to the protest of 10 Jan. 1694 against the resolution exonerating the Tory admirals from the debacle of the attack on the Smyrna fleet the previous summer.</p><p>Clifford died intestate at Londesborough on 12 Oct. 1694 and a few months later his estate was put into the administration of a creditor, while his father assigned many of the Irish lands which reverted to him to trustees to pay his son’s remaining debts. <sup>23</sup> Clifford of Lanesborough had already raised enough controversy in the House with his use of the Clifford title, and his early death, before that of his father, generated another problem. After some deliberation it was decided on 20 Nov. 1694 that Clifford’s title created by his writ of acceleration of 1689, and with it the right to a summons to the House, was heritable by his son, Charles Boyle*, who first sat in the House as Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, before succeeding as 2nd earl of Burlington.<sup>24</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOYLE, Charles (1666-1704) |
<p><strong><surname>BOYLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1666–1704)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 12 Oct. 1694 as Bar. CLIFFORD OF LANESBOROUGH (by resolution of 20 Nov. 1694) and Visct. Dungarvan [I]; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 15 Jan. 1698 as 3rd earl of Cork [I] and 2nd earl of BURLINGTON |
|
First sat 21 Nov. 1694; last sat 26 Feb. 1703 |
|
MP, Appleby 1690–12 Oct. 1694 |
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Oct. 1666, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Charles Boyle*, styled Ld. Clifford of Lanesborough, and Jane, da. of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset; bro. of Henry Boyle*, Bar. Carleton. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad, 1683–6.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 26 Jan. 1688, Juliana (<em>d</em>.1750), da. and h. of Hon. Henry Noel<sup>‡</sup> of North Luffenham, Rutland, 1s. 6da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>2</sup> <em>d.</em> 9 Feb. 1704; <em>will</em> 4 Feb. pr. 26 Feb. 1704.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. treas. [I] 1695–<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> PC [I] Apr. 1695–<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> gent. of the bedchamber 1697–1702; PC 8 Jan. 1702–<em>d.</em>; commr. union with Scotland 1702.</p><p>Gov. co. Cork 1691–<em>d</em>.; ld. high steward and constable, Knaresborough, Yorks. (N. Riding) 1698-<em>d</em>.; bailiff, Staincliffe and liberty of Knaresborough, Yorks. 1698–<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> warden, preservation of game, Lanesborough, Yorks. (E. Riding) and Bolton Abbey, Yorks. (W. Riding), 1699-<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> ld. lt. Yorks. (W. Riding) and city and ainsty of York, 1699–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot.</em> Yorks. (W. Riding) 1699–<em>d</em>., Yorks (N. Riding) 1701–<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Yorks. 1702–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by G. Kneller, 1680–5, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.; oil on canvas by G. Kneller, Hardwick Hall, Derbys; oil on canvas by Michael Dahl, c.1696 (joint portrait with Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston, and John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton), Chiswick House, Mdx.</p> |
<p>Charles Boyle was born on 30 Oct. 1666, according to his grandmother, into one of the most prominent families in English and Irish society. He had among his great-uncles the natural philosopher Robert Boyle and the statesman Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I]. Most immediately he was the grandson of the wealthy and well-connected Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork [I], and, after his father’s premature death on 12 Oct. 1694, he was direct heir to the immense fortune deriving from the Boyle estates in Munster in Ireland and his grandmother Elizabeth Clifford’s lands in Yorkshire. A great deal of expectation was thus placed on him from an early age and he was shipped off for three years of foreign travel in April 1683. In January 1688, shortly after his return from abroad, Boyle married the 15-year-old Lady Juliana Noel. Contemporaries estimated that the young Juliana could bring £1,500 a year to Charles Boyle and the Boyle clan.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Boyle first entered Parliament as a burgess for Appleby in 1690, to which Westmorland seat he was elected on the interest of his kinsman Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet. Boyle’s father had sat in the House of Lords since 18 July 1689 as Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, by means of a writ of acceleration. When Clifford predeceased his father on 12 Oct. 1694, the House was presented with a thorny issue. On 12 Nov. 1694, the first day of the new session, the House ordered the Committee for Privileges to consider the question ‘whether if a lord, called by writ into his father’s barony, shall happen to die in the life-time of his father, the son of that lord (so called) be a peer, and hath right to demand his writ of summons’. The Dutch envoy l’Hermitage wrote to his masters in the States-General that the House was then adjourned for a week solely in order that the Committee could determine this matter.<sup>10</sup> The lord president, Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, reported on 20 Nov. that the Committee could find no precedent in this case, whereupon the House, after debating the matter, resolved that ‘the said Charles, now Lord Clifford, by virtue of his father’s writ, hath right to a writ of summons to Parliament, as Lord Clifford of Launsburgh’. The following day, Charles Boyle first took his seat in the House, the Journal stating for 21 Nov. 1694 that ‘This day Charles, Lord Clifford of Launsburgh, sat first in Parliament, upon the death of his father Charles, late Lord Clifford of Launsburgh’, the phrasing that is used for noting a succession to a heritable title.<sup>11</sup></p><p>The new Lord Clifford of Lanesborough sat in a little over four-fifths (81 per cent) of the meetings of his first session in the House (1694–5) and was named to 21 committees. He maintained the largely independent and ‘country’ stance he had adopted in the Commons. On 23 Jan. 1695 he joined his grandfather Burlington and his uncle Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, in protesting against the government motion to postpone the implementation of the treason trial bill to 1698. The following day he was one of seven dissenters, the rest largely Tories, to the decision to add a clause to the bill allowing the process in treason trials to be questioned only through a writ of error submitted to the House after the trial.</p><p>The question of precedence of those sons (or even grandsons) of peers summoned to the House by a writ of acceleration was considered again by the House on 20 Mar. 1695. The decision of 20 Nov. 1694 was read and it was moved to place Clifford of Lanesborough in precedence as if his title dated from 1644 rather than from 1694. In the presence lists in the Journals for these years Clifford of Lanesborough does indeed appear in the list of barons as if his honour dated from 1644.<sup>12</sup> At the latter end of the session he was involved in the proceedings against Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> and other East India Company merchants suspected of corruption. On 11 Apr. 1695 he was appointed to the committee to examine two of the suspects in this affair and two days later he was chosen a manager for a conference at which the Commons handed over papers of Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> regarding the recent payments by the Company. On 16 Apr. he was placed on the large committee to draft a bill to indemnify Cooke if he agreed to give evidence.</p><p>Along with his English title of Clifford of Lanesborough, Charles Boyle the younger was deemed to have also ‘inherited’ the title Viscount Dungarvan [I], by which his father had sat in the Irish House of Lords under a writ of acceleration. This gave the younger Charles Boyle the same right to sit in the Irish House. His grandfather the 2nd earl of Cork [I] had long been lord treasurer of Ireland, and in March 1695 he resigned the office and its concomitant membership of the Irish Privy Council to his grandson.<sup>13</sup> As Viscount Dungarvan, Clifford of Lanesborough was in Dublin during the autumn of 1695, where he was a frequent attender in the Irish House of Lords from his introduction on 13 Sept., as lord treasurer of Ireland, to his departure for England in November.<sup>14</sup> He never sat there again, and from 11 Nov. 1695 until the prorogation of 3 Dec. 1697 was represented in the Irish chamber by a proxy. He was kept informed of events in the Irish House throughout the session of winter 1697 by his correspondent William King, bishop of Derry [I]. King was particularly anxious that Clifford, and his younger brother Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton, should participate more actively in Irish politics:</p><blockquote><p>I hope your Lordship will be convinced that it is necessary that both you and your brother should be here. I assure your Lordship everybody that wishes well to the country are of this opinion and your lordship will find in effect both houses at your direction. … As for the House of Lords we found your lordship’s [presence] of so great use to us that we were more sensible of the want of it … and I hope your lordship will be prevailed for so public a good, to give us the honour to see you here on the next occasion.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>Clifford evidently did aspire to further high office in Dublin. After the death of the lord deputy Henry Capell*, Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, at the end of May 1696, it was rumoured that Clifford was going to put himself forward as a lord justice for Ireland.<sup>16</sup> His failure to be further promoted may account for his effective retirement from Irish politics by late 1697; when the Irish Parliament resumed after a long series of prorogations on 27 Sept. 1698 his proxy was vacated, although at a call of the House on 24 Oct. it was reported that he was sending over a fresh proxy. Nevertheless, by April 1699 there were still unfounded rumours that he would be made lord lieutenant of the kingdom.<sup>17</sup></p><p>From his return to England by mid-November 1695, Clifford of Lanesborough devoted himself to the English House, attending 77 per cent of the session of 1695–6, the first of the new Parliament elected in the summer of 1695. From the session’s early days he was involved in the proceedings in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the nation, and in the first ten days of December 1695 was named to a number of committees assigned to draft addresses to the king on the matters discussed there, such as coin-clipping and the Scots East India Company. At the turn of 1695–6 he was also appointed to the large committees established to examine evidence and papers submitted to the House regarding naval affairs. He subscribed to the protest of 9 Jan. 1696 against the rejection of a clause to the Coinage Bill that would have required all coin (and not just that intended for the revenue) to be examined for its true value. That same day he was placed on a committee to draw up reasons to be presented in conference why the House had adhered to some of the other amendments objected to by the Commons. Later, on 31 Mar. 1696, he signed another protest against the passage of the bill to encourage the submission of plate to the Mint for recoining.</p><p>In between these two protests, the House was shaken by news of the assassination attempt against William III, and Clifford of Lanesborough was among the first group of peers to subscribe to the Association on 27 Feb. 1696.<sup>18</sup> He also acted as a teller on 3 Apr. in the division on whether to agree to the motion to reverse the original judgment in the cause of <em>Jones v. Shakerley</em>. In the session’s final days he was named on 14 Apr. to a committee to develop reasons to be presented to the Commons why the House insisted on its amendments to the bill to prohibit trade with France. Throughout the session he was also named to 12 committees dealing with pieces of legislation.</p><p>Clifford of Lanesborough was present at 65 per cent of the sitting days of the session of 1696–7, during which he was named to seven committees on legislation. In its first days of business he chaired the drafting committee for the House’s response to the king’s speech, from which he reported on 27 Oct. 1696.<sup>19</sup> On 23 Dec. he joined his grandfather Burlington, his uncle Rochester and many other peers in signing the protest against the bill for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He was a teller on 23 Jan. 1697 in the division on whether to commit the Elections Regulations Bill. Near the end of February he and the Whig naval commander John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, exchanged proxies in what turned out to be the final days of Berkeley’s life. On 20 Feb. Clifford registered his proxy with Berkeley, but then, perhaps because of Berkeley’s illness, Clifford returned to the House on the 22nd, at which point he took possession in turn of Berkeley’s proxy, which was vacated five days later by Berkeley’s death. Later, on 18 Mar. Clifford’s own grandfather Burlington, himself an ailing man in his eighties, registered his proxy with the young man, who held it for the remainder of the session. On the penultimate day of the session, 15 Apr. 1697, Clifford of Lanesborough was a teller in two divisions regarding an amendment to a clause in the bill against brokers and stock-jobbers. He felt very strongly about this amendment for he was among the nine peers who protested against the decision to reject it, arguing that without the disputed wording the bill had a retrospective power.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The final session of the 1695 Parliament, in 1697–8, saw great changes to Charles Boyle’s situation. He was present on its first day, 3 Dec. 1697, as Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, and proceeded to sit in a further 12 meetings with that title until 8 Jan. 1698. A week later his grandfather the earl of Cork and Burlington died at the age of 86. This brought to Clifford of Lanesborough earldoms in both England and Ireland and an estate reportedly worth £22,000 p.a., with enough left over to provide an income of £4,000 p.a. for his younger brother, Henry Boyle.<sup>21</sup> He also inherited his grandfather’s prestige, local influence and offices. He had already been made a gentleman of the bedchamber in 1697, with an annuity of £1,000, which office was probably an attempt to bind him closer to the court interest.<sup>22</sup> This annuity, and whatever ties to the court it entailed, quickly paled into insignificance compared to his inheritance, and it was in the northern theatre of Yorkshire, where much of his English estate lay, that he rose to prominence. Burlington became constable and warden for life of the honour of Knaresborough through the reversionary interest in a patent granted to his grandfather in 1663. In the summer of 1699 William III stripped the ailing duke of Leeds of his lieutenancies in Yorkshire, and made Burlington both lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the West Riding.<sup>23</sup> In the same summer there were unfounded rumours that he would also be elevated to a dukedom.<sup>24</sup> In the following years the earl gained further local offices – <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the North Riding in 1701 and vice-admiral of the Yorkshire coast in 1702. Shortly before William III’s death he was also appointed to the English Privy Council and his place at the Council was reaffirmed by Anne upon her accession.</p><p>Boyle first sat in the House as Burlington on 9 Feb. 1698, about a month after he had last sat there as Clifford of Lanesborough. In total, under both titles, he came to 56 per cent of the sitting days of 1697–8 and was named to 16 committees on legislation. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against the commitment of the Junto-inspired bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and the following day he dissented from the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the cause of <em>James Bertie v. Lord Falkland</em>. He remained involved in this latter cause, on 24 Mar. being named a manager for a conference to discuss a recent libel that had been published concerning this dispute. William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, registered his proxy with him on 29 Mar. and Burlington maintained it for his votes for the remainder of the session. Near the end of the session, on 9 June, he was placed on a committee to draw up a statement of the House’s view of the proper procedures to be taken in the trial of the French merchant Goudet, to be presented to the Commons in conference.</p><p>Burlington attended three-fifths of the meetings of the 1698–9 session of the new Parliament elected that summer. He was placed on nine committees considering legislation and on 4 Feb. 1699 was also named to the drafting committee for the address of thanks for the king’s speech. Irish matters loomed large for him in this session, and throughout 1698–9 he was involved in, or at least nominated to, a number of committees of the English House of Lords dealing with Irish affairs. In his last days as Clifford of Lanesborough he had, on 7 Jan. 1698, been placed on a large committee to consider methods of dealing with appeals from subjects in Ireland. On 30 Mar. he had also been nominated to a committee entrusted to consider the state of trade between Ireland and England. In the 1698–9 session, he was, on 11 Feb. 1699, made part of the committee dealing with an appeal brought before the House from the Irish House of Lords. The most explosive matter was the petition of the Ulster Society of London to the English House of Lords complaining that their legal opponent William King, bishop of Derry, had submitted a petition and appeal to the Irish House of Lords, despite the English House’s earlier resolution that they had jurisdiction over such appeals from Ireland. On 24 Mar. 1699 Burlington was placed on the large committee appointed to consider this petition and five days later he defended his old correspondent and colleague Bishop King, dissenting from the resolution that he should be brought in custody to Westminster to answer for his appeal to the Irish House. This matter had long troubled King who in his letters to Clifford as far back as late 1697 had expressed his concern that the London Ulster Company’s attempt to have their case against him heard by the English House of Lords was a breach of the Irish Parliament’s privilege.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Burlington attended a similar number of sitting days, 57 per cent, in the following session of 1699–1700, but was named to only four committees on legislation. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted in favour of the House’s adjourning into a Committee of the Whole to discuss amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and in March he opposed the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, by subscribing to the protests against both its commitment (8 Mar.) and its passage (12 March). His name appears nowhere in the Journal for the proceedings on the bill for the resumption of grants of forfeited Irish lands in April 1700, despite his obvious interest in the matter as an Irish landowner, either as a manager for the many conferences with the Commons or in the protest against the House’s last-minute decision to withdraw from its wrecking amendment on 10 April.</p><p>Burlington came to only one-fifth of the sittings of the first Parliament of 1701. His low attendance may have led him to register his proxy with another peer for a time, but the disappearance of the proxy register for this Parliament, and indeed for both sessions of the 1698 Parliament, precludes certainty on this point. He was present for the session’s first few days and on 12 Feb. 1701 was placed on the drafting committee for the House’s response to the king’s speech, five days later being appointed a manager for the conference to achieve the Commons’ concurrence with the address. He was principally appointed to drafting committees on the many addresses of that Parliament. On 14 Mar. he was assigned to help formulate the address on the Partition Treaty and on 5 May he was to help with another address concerning the impeached former ministers of the Junto. On that matter Burlington was added on 6 June to the joint committee discussing the procedures for the trial, and he later went on to vote for the acquittal of the Whig lords on 17 and 23 June.</p><p>In the elections in the winter of 1701, following the surprise dissolution of 11 Nov. 1701, Burlington as lord lieutenant of the West Riding supported the candidacy of Arthur Ingram<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Irwin [S], for knight of the shire, writing to him assuring him of his support as Irwin’s ‘character agrees so well with my principles, that I can never serve a fitter man to represent our county’.<sup>26</sup> Irwin won after extensive politicking with the local aristocracy and gentry, and was joined by Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Fairfax [S]. Burlington himself came to only a quarter of the sittings of the Parliament of the first half of 1702, during which he was named to four committees on legislation. At the death of William III on 8 Mar. 1702, Burlington, along with the rest of the House, was appointed a manager for a conference to arrange for the accession of Anne and the summoning of a new Parliament. He took his duties at this point seriously, and on 26 Mar. apologized to his agents in Ireland for his neglect in attending to their letters, excusing himself by emphasizing his involvement in the press of public business since the death of the king.<sup>27</sup> Near the end of the session, in late May 1702, he was named to two drafting committees for addresses, one to the Commons and one to the queen, setting forth the House’s views on the bill to encourage privateers.</p><p>Burlington lost his place in the royal bedchamber at the death of William III, but he was in effect replaced there by his wife, Juliana, who was appointed one of the ladies of the queen’s bedchamber in May 1702, largely through the patronage of Sarah, countess (later duchess) of Marlborough. The duchess later reminisced, or claimed, that she did Burlington a great service in effecting this appointment, as Anne was, for some unstated reason, ‘angry’ with Burlington, ‘at which he was so much concerned that he writ a letter to [her] I think of four sides of paper’.<sup>28</sup> Whether or not the duchess’s account is true, the appointment of his wife to the bedchamber did not necessarily draw Burlington closer to the court interest, and in the Yorkshire county elections for Anne’s first Parliament he threw his weight behind the short-lived and unsuccessful candidacy of Thomas Watson Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>, the favoured candidate of the Whigs.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Burlington came to only a quarter of the meetings of the 1702–3 session in Anne’s first Parliament, where he was placed on a number of drafting committees in its first days. He was also present on 16 Jan. 1703 to vote in favour of the wrecking amendments to the Occasional Conformity bill. At another attempt to pass the bill in the following session of 1703–4, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, was certain that Burlington would again oppose it and recorded that he voted against the measure on 14 Dec. 1703 by proxy. Burlington was certainly absent for that session, for he had stopped attending the House entirely from 26 Feb. 1703, probably because of ill health, but the recipient of his proxy for this vote cannot be determined as the proxy register for the session is missing.</p><p>Burlington appears to have been sickly from an early age.<sup>30</sup> From 1693, the letters of his brother Henry to their sister Mary, duchess of Queensberry, are full of news of Charles’s constant illnesses and his many visits to Bath to recover.<sup>31</sup> In July 1700 it was rumoured that he was dead of an apoplexy and a year later it was reported that ‘My Lord Burlington’s sickness has lasted long’.<sup>32</sup> By 1701 his health had declined seriously, reflected in part in his decreased attendance in the House from that time, while he sought cures for his ill health. In November 1701 he was able to tell his kinsman Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, in a letter otherwise concerned with their co-operation in the Yorkshire elections then underway, that his health was improving ever since he had moved to Chiswick, whose air he thought was better than the waters at Bath.<sup>33</sup> He did make a brief recovery at that time, but on 8 Feb. 1704 it was reported that he was ‘so dangerously sick that his life is despaired of’. He died the following day ‘after a long indispostion’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>As far back as June 1693 the patriarch of the family, the first earl of Burlington, had been frustrated by his sickly grandson Charles’s lack of ‘the knack of getting sons’.<sup>35</sup> At his death Burlington left behind him four daughters and just one son and heir, a minor at ten years old. He also left behind him a mountain of debts, and rumour had it that in his final days ‘the sense of what he had done struck him so severely for the great wrong he had done his family, that he could not die in peace before he had obtained their pardon’.<sup>36</sup> His brief will of 4 Feb. 1704 put his estate in trust to pay for the settlements of his debts, with any residue left over to be used to provide for £500 to each of his four daughters. On 14 Mar. 1705 a bill which allowed his widow to sell part of the estate to pay off her late husband’s creditors received the royal assent. The heir, Richard Boyle*, 3rd earl of Burlington, was, however, still able to inherit enough of the estate in England and Ireland to finance his grand architectural and cultural ambitions as ‘the architect earl’ and patron of eighteenth-century English Palladianism.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOYLE, Charles (1674-1731) |
<p><strong><surname>BOYLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1674–1731)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 24 Aug. 1703 as 4th earl of Orrery [I]; <em>cr. </em>5 Sept. 1711 Bar. BOYLE of Marston |
|
First sat 27 Nov. 1711; last sat 6 May 1731 |
|
MP, Charleville [I] 1695, Huntingdon Jan. 1701, Nov. 1701, 1702 |
<p><em>b</em>. 28 July 1674, 2nd surv. s. of Roger Boyle (1646-82), (later 2nd earl of Orrery [I]) and Mary (1648-1710), da. of Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset; bro. of Lionel Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Orrery [I]. <em>educ</em>. Sevenoaks sch.; St Paul’s sch. (tutor Thomas Gale); travelled abroad (Holland, France) 1685-6; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1690, BA 1694. <em>m</em>. 30 Mar. 1706 (with £4,000), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1708), da. of John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, 1s. 2s. 2da. illegit. with Margaret Swordfeger (<em>d</em>.1741). KT 30 Oct. 1705. <em>d</em>. 28 Aug. 1731; <em>will</em> 6 Nov. 1728-1, July 1730, pr. 3 May 1732.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Recvr. gen., alienations office 1699-1717; PC 9 Feb. 171-June 1727; gent. of the bedchamber 1714-17.</p><p>Ld. lt., Som. 1714-15; <em>custos rot</em>., Som. 1714-15.</p><p>Col., earl of Orrery’s Regt. of Ft. 1704-7, 2nd duke of Argyll’s Regt. of Ft. 1707-10; 21st Regt. of Ft. (Royal Scots Fusiliers) 1710-16; brig. gen. 1709-10; maj. gen. 1710-16.</p><p>Envoy extraordinary and plenip., United Provinces and Spanish Netherlands (Council of State) 1711-13.</p><p>FRS 1706.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Charles Jervas, 1707, NPG 894; oil on canvas by Thomas Forster, c.1710, Christ Church, Oxf.</p> |
<p>Charles Boyle was born of a family illustrious for its multifaceted activities throughout the seventeenth century.<sup>4</sup> His great-uncle was the natural philosopher Robert Boyle and his grandfather was the soldier-statesman-playwright Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I]. In his own many interests as classical scholar and poet, bibliophile and literary patron, scientific virtuoso and dilettante, military officer, diplomat, courtier (briefly) and statesman, Charles Boyle tried to emulate the achievements of his forebears. In his prickly sense of his own worth as a nobleman from a famous house he epitomized the polite, cultured and proud English ‘milord’ of the eighteenth century. Yet despite his efforts he was never able to match the achievements of his ancestors and was in the end largely reduced to basking in the reflected glory of those he patronized – most notoriously Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, but more positively the Quaker George Graham, the deviser of the astronomical instrument which still bears the earl’s name.</p><p>His family was indeed a troubled inheritance for him. Despite all his public appearance of pride, his branch of the Boyles was in decline by the time he came to the Irish earldom of Orrery in 1703. His possession of an Irish title was deceptive as Boyle had little or no ties to the country so closely connected with his grandfather and his great-grandfather Richard Boyle<sup>†</sup>, earl of Cork. In 1675, the year after his birth, his parents separated permanently. From 1677 Charles was raised at Knole, the Kentish seat of the Sackvilles, by his grandmother the dowager countess of Dorset, while his elder brother Lionel Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Broghill [I] from 1679 (later 3rd earl of Orrery [I]) and sister Mary stayed at the home of their aging paternal grandfather.<sup>5</sup> Undeniably proud of his Boyle patrimony, Charles Boyle was actually raised more as a Sackville in Kent, and it may have been from his maternal uncle, Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset that he developed his interest in poetry and penchant for literary patronage.</p><p>As a young and intelligent nobleman Boyle was groomed as ‘the great ornament of our college’ by the dean Henry Aldrich when he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in June 1690. Aldrich and Boyle’s tutor, Francis Atterbury, encouraged him in his studies of the classical authors, to the point where in May 1694 Boyle was the first scion of a noble house for 30 years to proceed to a BA at the college. In early 1695 Boyle published his translations of the ‘Epistles’ of the (reputedly) sixth-century BC Sicilian tyrant, Phalaris. In the introduction to this work Boyle made acerbic comments about the keeper of the royal library, and noted classicist, Richard Bentley. This sparked off a famous literary exchange between Bentley, who launched an attack on Boyle and the historical authenticity of the ‘Epistles’, and Atterbury and his fellow ‘wits’ at Christ Church, who published, under Boyle’s name, their skilful and witty ripostes to Bentley’s serious and scholarly allegations. In the years following his graduation from Oxford, Boyle was concerned with maintaining his status as a man of letters, frequenting John Dryden’s coffee house Wills, publishing verse, epigrams and a comedy ‘As You Find It’ (1703) and even resurrecting a stage tragedy written by his grandfather (which the first earl of Orrery may have left unpublished for good reason).<sup>6</sup></p><p>Apart from its importance in intellectual history, there was a political dimension to the Phalaris feud as Atterbury and his Christ Church colleagues were closely identified with the Tories and Bentley and his defenders with the Whigs. For the next few years Boyle was to be associated with the Tories. He began his political career in Ireland, where he was elected to the Irish parliament for the family borough of Charleville in 1695 but was absent for much of the parliament’s sittings.<sup>7</sup> In October 1699, he was made receiver general of the alienations office, an ancient (and by that time largely redundant) office, from which he received an annuity of £160.<sup>8</sup> He was returned as a Tory for the borough of Huntingdon in the election of February 1701, standing on the interest of his second cousin Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich and, more importantly, of the earl’s strong-willed and high Tory wife Elizabeth, a daughter of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester. His opponents, the Whig candidates John Pedley<sup>‡</sup> and the town recorder Francis Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, were both put forward by Sandwich’s uncle, and the principal trustee of his estate, Sidney Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup> (Francis's father). On 15 Feb. 1701 the defeated candidate Pedley petitioned that intimidation had been used against his electors during the poll and Boyle made his maiden speech defending himself and casting aspersions not on Pedley but on his own fellow Member for Huntingdon, Francis Wortley Montagu.<sup>9</sup> The two fought a duel in which Boyle was so badly wounded that he was unable to take part in proceedings in the Commons for many months, although he was healthy enough to be returned again for the borough in the two subsequent elections.</p><p>Boyle did not stand in the election of 1705, perhaps because his ambitions were raised upon inheriting the earldom of Orrery following the death of his elder brother on 24 Aug. 1703. The Irish estates attached to his illustrious earldom were in bad condition. In 1706 they barely yielded £2,000 p.a., far less than their nominal value of £4,000 p.a.<sup>10</sup> Orrery was able to supplement this in 1706 by contracting a short-lived but lucrative marriage, with a portion of £4,000, to Lady Elizabeth Cecil, sister of John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter. She died in 1708. In March 1704 Orrery bought a colonel’s commission for a regiment of foot on garrison duty in Ireland, which he seems to have rarely visited. Despite this neglect of his responsibility, he somehow gained the support and patronage of two of the leading military figures of the age – James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] and, from 1705, earl of Greenwich in the English peerage. Through Argyll’s influence Orrery, an Irish peer, was made a knight of the thistle in October 1705. In February 1707 Orrery took over the regiment previously commanded by Argyll when the Scottish peer was made colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Foot. From this time Orrery was actively involved in the campaigns in Flanders and his regiment appears to have taken part in action or sieges at Oudenarde, Lille, Tournai, Malplaquet and Mons.<sup>11</sup> In August 1709 Orrey was made a brigadier general, with the full blessing of his commander-in-chief John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. Yet throughout 1709-10 Orrery joined his friend Argyll in his feud with Marlborough, which became increasingly bitter after Malplaquet, which Argyll, Orrery and others saw as an unnecessarily bloody encounter. After returning to England for the winter in October 1709 Orrery began to act as the emissary to Argyll for Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and he became increasingly drawn into Harley’s political schemes. Harley appears to have assigned Orrery the difficult task of convincing Argyll to vote in the House for a full acquittal of Henry Sacheverell, even though Argyll had already publicly condemned the minister and stated that he merited some sort of reproof. Orrery was eventually able triumphantly to report that Argyll was prepared to vote against the severe punishments for Sacheverell proposed by the Junto and that he would furthermore be able to bring Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, along with him on this vote. In a sense Orrery’s work in persuading Argyll to abandon the more extreme projects of the Junto was an important step in the downfall of the Whigs, helping to lead to the change of ministry in the autumn of 1710.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Back in Flanders from April 1710 Orrery continued to supply Harley with missives lauding Argyll and his brother Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S] (later 3rd duke of Argyll [S]), and condemning Marlborough. He told Harley that he and Argyll had no wish to have any communication with Marlborough, ‘further than the duty of our posts obliges us to’. For his part Marlborough felt the same way, ‘considering the temper [Argyll and Orrery] are in at this time’.<sup>13</sup> In August 1710 Harley, and perhaps more importantly Orrery’s friend Henry St John*, (later Viscount Bolingbroke) forced through Orrery’s promotion to major general over the bitter opposition of Marlborough. With the queen’s special permission Orrery and Argyll returned from the front in late September 1710, and Orrery took an active role in assisting Argyll, Ilay and John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], to manage the Scottish elections for Harley’s interest. He also drafted plans for St John for a reform of the army, in which he envisaged a further diminution of Marlborough’s authority. All commissions were to come directly through the queen, instead of through her commander-in-chief, and there was to be a separate committee of the privy council consisting of all the general officers on the council, as a counterbalance to the Marlborough-influenced board of general officers.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Orrery demanded to be rewarded for his work in securing the new ministry and in November threatened to retire to private life ‘if I had not soon some mark of the queen's favour’.<sup>15</sup> Harley was able to satisfy only some of Orrery’s long list of requests. In December 1710 he was made colonel of the 21st Regiment of Foot, later known as the Royal Scots Fusiliers, replacing a Whig colonel who had been cashiered for toasting to the confusion of the new ministry. He was sworn of the privy council on 9 Feb. 1711, about a month after he had accepted the post of English envoy to the council of state in Brussels, the provisional government in the Spanish Netherlands established after the allied conquest of large parts of that territory. He arrived on the continent on 23 Feb. 1711 and spent the next eight months serving in both Brussels and then briefly in the summer at The Hague, temporarily replacing Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford) there.<sup>16</sup> He may have agreed to this posting on the promise of further reward and as early as 7 May he wrote to Harley that ‘now the sessions is so near an end you must give me leave to put you in mind of my peerage’ and St John’s correspondence with Orrery in June assured him of the impending honour.<sup>17</sup> It was not until 5 Sept. 1711, however, that Orrery’s patent creating him a peer of Great Britain, as Baron Boyle of Marston (his family’s principal English estates in Somerset), was sealed.</p><p>Orrery returned from his embassy sometime in October and was introduced as Baron Boyle in the House on 27 Nov. 1711, a day of prorogation. Although he sat in the House as Baron Boyle, he was best known, then as now, by his senior Irish title of Orrery and he will continue to be referred to by that name in this biography. Orrery dutifully sat in 83 per cent of the meetings of the tumultuous session of 1711-12. Throughout December he was a loyal supporter of the ministry, voting against the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the address to the queen on 7 Dec. 1711, supporting the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House under his British title as duke of Brandon on 20 Dec. and helping to introduce five of the 12 newly created Harleyite peers to the House on 2 Jan. 1712. On 25 Mar. 1712 he reported from the committee of the whole that the mutiny bill was fit to pass without amendment, and on 3 May 1712 he assigned his proxy to George Hay*, recently created Baron Hay (later 8th earl of Kinnoul [S]) but this was vacated when Orrery returned to the House nine days later. On 28 May Orrery supported the ministry by voting against an address condemning the ‘restraining orders’ which had been issued to Ormond.<sup>18</sup> Near the end of the session, on 7 June, he was named to a committee assigned to prepare an address thanking the queen for providing the House with details of the terms for peace, after the attempt by the Whigs to add the ‘Guaranty Clause’ to the peace treaty had been defeated. Orrery further showed his attachment to the ministry, or at least a portion of its personnel, when on 13 Dec. 1711 he was inducted into the Society of Brothers, the exclusive society St John had founded in the summer, which quickly became a meeting place for supporters of the Tory ministry and St John in particular.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Orrery, nevertheless, has been dubbed by leading historians of the period ‘a court Whig who supported Harley 1710-13’.<sup>20</sup> This categorization probably derives from Orrery’s close and abiding association with Argyll. As Argyll slipped further into opposition in 1713, spurred on particularly by his disgust at the malt tax, Orrery joined him. Orrery’s politics, however, were not ideological but largely influenced by his own self-interest, particularly his constant feeling that he was insufficiently rewarded for his status and achievements. His growing opposition to Oxford (as Harley had become in May 1711) was born out of both loyalty to Argyll and his own personal dissatisfaction. From February 1712 to the end of the year he constantly badgered Oxford for the arrears of his pay as a general officer and as ambassador in Brussels, his requests becoming more importunate as Orrery prepared in the autumn to resume his diplomatic tasks in Brussels.<sup>21</sup></p><p>He was once again based on the continent from November 1712 to June 1713, struggling to extricate Britain during the Utrecht negotiations from the expensive morass of the Spanish Netherlands.<sup>22</sup> Away in Brussels, he was not able to participate in the first three months of the parliamentary session of spring 1713, but Bolingbroke (as St John had become) still considered him a reliable prop to the ministry and in January 1713 sent him a number of blank proxies, to be signed and returned to be used by the ministry as the need arose in divisions.<sup>23</sup> Unfortunately the proxy records for 1713 are missing, so the recipient(s) cannot be determined. Oxford also still considered him a court supporter in June 1713 when he listed him as a supporter in the vote on the French commerce bill. He was, however, quickly apprised of Orrery’s true feelings when Orrery returned to the House on 2 July. Orrery sat in only a further 11 meetings until Parliament was prorogued on 16 July but that was enough time for Oxford to assess, as he later stated in his ‘Account of Public Affairs’, that in the session beginning 4 April 1713 ‘a combination was set on foot against’ him and the ministry by Shrewsbury, Argyll, Orrery, Ilay, Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey; Bolingbroke, Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡ </sup>and others.<sup>24</sup> Orrery’s relations with both Oxford and Bolingbroke continued to deteriorate over the remainder of 1713 as he made clear his dissatisfaction with the growing violence of partisan strife and what he saw as their failure to reward sufficiently his services, or even to pay the arrears owing him from his diplomatic service.<sup>25</sup> In the autumn Orrery, desirous to be ‘out of the way’ of the tumults in Westminster, was clearly hoping to be appointed as ambassador to the States General in the place of the earl of Strafford (as Raby had become), but Bolingbroke had to tell his friend that in the post-Utrecht world the queen intended to assign only a lowly envoy, and not an ambassador, to The Hague, a foreign policy with which Orrery disagreed.<sup>26</sup> By December 1713, still angling for the ambassadorial post, his letters to Oxford had become curt and plaintive, showing how ‘mortified’ he was ‘to find myself so unkindly neglected as you, upon reflections, I’m confident, must agree I have been’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>By 1714 Orrery had joined his old friend Argyll and had turned his back on Oxford and Bolingbroke, wholeheartedly supporting the Hanoverian succession. In February 1714 Baron Schütz was able to report to his Hanoverian masters that ‘Oxford has done everything in his power to be reconciled with the duke of Argyll, and entreated Lord Orrery to be always his [Oxford’s] friend … but both the one and the other continued firm, without giving him the smallest hopes’.<sup>28</sup> Orrery attended all but ten of the 79 meetings of the session of the new Parliament which began on 16 Feb. 1714. He probably moved even further into opposition when Oxford humiliatingly dismissed Argyll from all his military offices on 4 Mar. 1714. Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, later reminisced of this period that ‘The duke of Argyll is flaming against the ministry [and] Lord Orrery is entirely broke with them’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>From 3 Mar. to 12 Apr. 1714 Orrery held the proxy of Thomas Windsor*, Baron Mountjoy (more commonly known as Viscount Windsor [I]), one of the five new peers he had introduced to the House at the beginning of 1712 but who by June 1713 started maintaining a ‘strict connection’ with Argyll. William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, wrote to his friend, Strafford, in Utrecht that by this proxy Strafford’s ‘friend’ Windsor had effectively ‘ranged himself among the malcontents’.<sup>30</sup> On 11 Mar. 1714 Orrery used this proxy when voting against the ministry and in favour of additional words to an address which expressed concerns that Jonathan Swift in his libel <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em> ‘pretends to know the secrets of your Majesty’s administration’. Their contemporaries especially took note when on 5 Apr. Orrery (with Windsor’s proxy), Argyll and the Hanoverian Tories Anglesey and Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, were among those lords who ‘have gone over to the Non contents’ and voted against the motion that ‘the Protestant Succession is not in danger under her Majesty’s government’. The ministry won this vote by a scant majority of 12.<sup>31</sup> Ralph Bridges thought that the division of 16 Apr. in favour of an address thanking the queen for delivering Britain ‘by a safe, honourable, and advantageous peace … from the heavy burden of a consuming land war’ effectively ‘smoked out’ the ‘revolters from the Church party’, amongst whom he included Abingdon, Anglesey, Argyll and Orrery.<sup>32</sup> Orrery himself registered his proxy with Argyll on 14 June 1714. Orrery may have expected Argyll to cast his vote against the schism bill. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, predicted that both Orrery and Argyll would vote against this measure. Proxies were used and Argyll did sign the protest against the bill’s passage on 15 June. The proxy was vacated by Orrery’s return to the House on 17 June, but Argyll in turn entrusted Orrery with his proxy on 30 June for two days until his return to the House on 2 July. On 30 June Orrery was a teller in the division on the previous question whether to read the bill for the examination of public accounts a second time.<sup>33</sup> He was also frequently named to committees to draw up addresses: to desire that the Emperor and other princes be encouraged to guarantee the Protestant Succession (5 Apr.); to thank the queen for offering a reward for the capture of the Pretender if found in Britain and to request that the laws against recusants and non-jurors be put into effect (24 June); and to represent to her the difficulties of conducting trade according to the terms of the treaty of commerce with Spain recently ratified by the ministry (5 July).</p><p>Argyll and Shrewsbury played leading roles in the machinations in the Privy Council at the time of the queen’s fatal illness but Orrery does not appear to have been in London at that time, although he was in the House on the day following her death, 2 Aug. 1714, and continued to attend for another eight sittings before Parliament was prorogued on 25 Aug. 1714. Upon the new king’s arrival Orrery was rewarded for his support of the Hanoverian succession with court and local posts. He was made a gentleman of the bedchamber on 16 Oct. 1714, kept his place on the new king’s revamped Privy Council and in early December was appointed lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Somerset, where he had just inherited the Orrery lands and manor house at Marston upon the death of his widowed sister-in-law the dowager countess of Orrery. He was recommissioned a major general and placed on a new Board of General Officers.<sup>34</sup> He probably owed these military and court appointments to his old patron Argyll, who was high in the king’s favour at the beginning of his reign. Early in 1715 John Perceval<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Perceval [I] (later earl of Egmont [I]), included him in a list of Tories who had been ‘continued or on whom Honours and marks of favour are conferred’, alongside his old allies, Anglesey, Abingdon and Windsor.<sup>35</sup> Orrery’s own political trajectory continued to follow that of Argyll. Both men became adherents of the rival court of George*, prince of Wales (later George II), and Orrery lost his offices (except for his place on the Privy Council) and military commissions shortly after Argyll’s dismissal from all his posts in June 1716.</p><p>For the remainder of his life Orrery was a permanent member of the parliamentary opposition against the prevailing Whig ministry, moving further and further into the Tory camp. In addition, he had many Scottish contacts through Argyll and one of them, perhaps the earl of Mar, approached him in the summer of 1717 to act as an emissary between the court of St Germain and Argyll. From this point he began a regular, though infrequent, correspondence with the exiled court. The extent and timing of his conversion to Jacobitism is still a hotly debated topic, but it is clear that by 1720 he was in close contact with the Pretender and his ministers and actively worked for a Stuart restoration.<sup>36</sup> He pounded away repetitively in his own letters to St Germain on the same themes – that a return of the Stuarts to the British throne was dependent on the assistance of large numbers of foreign troops and trustworthy assurances from the Pretender of his commitment to the protection of the Protestant religion. Sterner and more committed Jacobites were dismissive of his caution and, though trusted and respected by the exiled court, he stood outside the inner circle of Jacobite councils. A fuller account of his political career under the Hanoverians will appear in the ensuing volume treating the years 1715-90.</p><p>Orrery’s final years were marked by a growing estrangement from his son John Boyle*, styled Lord Boyle (later 2nd Baron Boyle, 5th earl of Orrery [I] and 5th earl of Cork [I]). This was in part caused by Orrery’s long-term liaison with Margaret Swordfeger, wife of his own secretary (who was probably complicit in the arrangement) and the existence of their four illegitimate children. In 1728 Lord Boyle married Henrietta, daughter of George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], and his countess, Elizabeth Villiers, sometime mistress of William III. Lady Orkney, despite her own chequered past, objected to Orrery’s domestic arrangements and forbade her daughter to associate with her new father-in-law. Furious at this snub, Orrery redrafted his will on 6 Nov. 1728, with a codicil of 1730, granting Margaret and her children £10,000 in bequests and annuities, the latter coming from the interest of £6,000 invested in South Sea Company bonds.</p><p>A reconciliation between father and son was effected before Orrery died on 28 Aug. 1731, but Orrery had not been able to revise his will in time and its controversial legacies were dutifully fulfilled by the new earl, who appears to have tried his hardest to help his illegitimate half-siblings, despite their conversion to Catholicism.<sup>37</sup> In his will Orrery also gave rings and gold watches inscribed with his arms to his old friends Uxbridge and Windsor, but the greatest beneficiary was his old college, Christ Church, Oxford, which received Orrery’s library of over 10,000 volumes, valued at £8,000, as well as his collection of scientific instruments. Rather than his early attempts at classical scholarship or his eccentric and largely unsuccessful political career, Orrery’s most significant and lasting legacy is this bequest, still guarded by the college, coupled with his patronage early in the eighteenth century of craftsmen who built for him a clockwork mechanism designed to show the celestial motions of the heavenly bodies, an astronomical model which quickly became popular among the virtuosi and which was, in his own lifetime, named after the earl in his honour.<sup>38</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOYLE, Henry (1669-1725) |
<p><strong><surname>BOYLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1669–1725)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 Bar. CARLETON |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1715; last sat 10 Mar. 1725 |
|
MP Tamworth 8 May 1689; Cambridge University 21 Nov. 1692, 1695, 1698, 1701 (Feb.), 1701 (Dec.), 1702; Westminster 1705, 1708., MP co. Cork [I] 1692-3. |
<p><em>b</em>. 12 July 1669, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Charles Boyle*, Visct Dungarvan [I] and Bar. Clifford of Lanesborough, and 1st w. Jane (<em>d</em>. 1679), da. of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset; bro. of Charles Boyle*, 3rd earl of Cork [I], and 2nd earl Burlington;<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Westminster, travelled abroad 1685-8, Padua Univ. 1685, Trinity, Camb. 1692, MA 1693, DCL, Oxf. 1720; <em>unm</em>.; <em>d</em>. 14 Mar. 1725; <em>will</em> 3 Apr. 1723, pr. 17 Mar. 1725.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr, Treasury 1699- 1702, union with Scotland 1706; kpr, royal garden, St James’s Palace 1701; chan., Exch. 1701-8; PC 27 Mar. 1701-<em>d</em>.; ld treas. [I], 1704-15; sec. of state [N] 1708-10; PC [I] 30 Sept. 1714-<em>d</em>.; ld pres. of council 1721-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld lt and <em>custos rot</em>., Yorks. (W. Riding) and city and ainsty of York 1704-15, <em>custos rot</em>. Yorks. (N. Riding) 1704-15; v.-adm., Yorks. 1704-15.</p><p>Cornet, Queen’s Horse (later 1 Drag. Gds) 1685-8; coronet and maj., 2 Life Gds by 1691-2.</p><p>Commr. Q. Anne’s bounty 1704; trustee, Dr Busby’s charity by 1724.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1703, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.</p> |
<p>Henry Boyle was the younger of the two surviving sons of Charles Boyle, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, and was thus well placed to make a successful political career. Aided by a host of aristocratic relations and a natural urbanity and affability, he also possessed a high degree of competence, which ensured that he became a trusted and effective member of any administration.</p><p>Boyle sat in the English House of Commons in every session from the time he was returned at a by-election for Cambridge University on 21 Nov. 1692 until the change of ministry in autumn 1710. From 1697 he aligned himself with the court and in the last years of William III’s reign he was adept at shifting with the changing political currents, gaining in the process a number of important, and lucrative, posts. During the reign of Anne he remained one of the ministry’s principal spokesmen in the Commons, and was particularly close to Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, to whom he stayed loyal as one of the ‘lord treasurer’s Whigs’ during the attempts to oust the minister in 1707-8. As a reward he was appointed secretary of state in 1708 to replace Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, but Boyle later refused to join the new Tory-leaning ministry formed by Harley in the autumn of 1710.</p><p>For his support of the Hanoverian Succession while in government, and his steadiness to the Whigs when out of office after 1710, Boyle was created Baron Carleton as part of George I’s coronation honours on 19 Oct. 1714. He thus became a nominal member of the House during the period covered by these volumes, but he did not sit until the first day of George I’s new Parliament, on 21 Mar. 1715. His activity in the House, and in the Privy Council of which he was president from 1721, will be covered in the succeeding volumes of this series. He died in March 1725.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOYLE, Richard (1612-98) |
<p><strong><surname>BOYLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1612–98)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1620-43 Visct. Dungarvan [I]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Sept. 1643 as 2nd earl of Cork [I]; <em>cr. </em>4 Nov. 1644 Bar. CLIFFORD OF LANESBOROUGH; <em>cr. </em>20 Mar. 1665 earl of BURLINGTON |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 8 Jan. 1697 |
|
MP Appleby 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.)-10 Nov. 1643 |
<p><em>b</em>. 20 Oct. 1612, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork [I], and Catherine (<em>d</em>. 16 Feb. 1630), da. of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, sec. of state [I]; bro. of Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, Bar. Broghill [I]. <em>educ</em>. Oxf., 1629-30; travelled abroad (France) 1632-3;<sup>1</sup> G. Inn (hon. adm.) 10 Mar. 1676. <em>m.</em> 3 July 1634, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em> 6 Jan. 1691), da. of Henry Clifford<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Clifford (later 5th earl of Cumberland), 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 5da. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>2</sup> <em>Kntd.</em> 30 Aug. 1624. <em>d.</em> 15 Jan. 1698; <em>will</em> 28 Aug. 1697, pr. 10 Feb. 1698.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gov., Youghal, co. Cork 1641, 1663,<sup>4</sup> Halbouling, co. Cork 1662;<sup>5</sup> ld. treas. [I] 1660-95; PC [I] 1660–95;<sup>6</sup> <em>custos rot</em>., Cork and Waterford [I] 1661-?;<sup>7</sup> Yorks. (W. Riding) 1679–88; commr. Act of Settlement and arrears of ’49 officers [I] 1662, 1675, remedy for defective titles [I] 1684,<sup>8</sup> mitigation of forfeited recognizances [I];<sup>9</sup> ld. steward, Knaresborough, Yorks. (W. Riding), 1664-<em>d</em>.; bailiff, Staincliffe and Knaresborough, Yorks. (W. Riding), 1664-<em>d.</em>;<sup>10</sup> ld. lt. Yorks. (W. Riding) 14 Mar.-1 Nov. 1667, 1679-88; recorder, York, 1685-8.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Capt., tp. of horse 1639-40 (in Bishops’ Wars), 1642-3 (against Catholic Confederacy).<sup>12</sup></p><p>Gov., corp. for linen manufactures in Ireland 1690;<sup>13</sup> mbr. soc. of the roy. fishery in Ireland 1692.<sup>14</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas aft. Sir A. van Dyck, c.1640, NPG 893; oil on canvas by J. Richardson (aft. A. van Dyck), National Trust, Knole, Kent.</p> |
<h2><em>Earl of Cork [I], 1642-60</em></h2><p>Dungarvan was one of 15 children, and had a formidable set of siblings.<sup>16</sup> Three of his younger brothers received Irish titles, while his youngest brother Robert became a famous natural philosopher. His sisters Katharine, Lady Ranelagh [I], and Mary, countess of Warwick, were celebrated in their own right. The marriages of some of his sisters – to George Fitzgerald, 16th earl of Kildare [I]; David Barry, earl of Barrymore [I], Arthur Jones<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh [I], and Robert Digby, Baron Digby of Geashill [I] – connected him to a number of prominent, or rising, Irish families. He gained in-laws within the English peerage through the marriages of his brother Lewis Boyle, Viscount Kinalmeaky [I], to a daughter of William Feilding<sup>†</sup>, earl of Denbigh, of his other brother Roger Boyle, Baron Broghill [I] (later earl of Orrery [I]), to a sister of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, and of his sister Mary to Charles Rich*, third son of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick, and himself later 4th earl of Warwick. On 3 July 1634 Dungarvan himself married Elizabeth Clifford, daughter of Henry Clifford, Baron Clifford and later 5th earl of Cumberland, a match which brought the young man into a prominent clan with large estates in Cumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire and, through the Cliffords’ multitudinous kinship connections, gave him an easy entrée to the English court, where he quickly became a favourite of Henrietta Maria.</p><p>Dungarvan raised a troop of horse for the Scottish wars in 1638-9 and was, through the Clifford interest in Westmorland, selected for Appleby in both April and November 1640, although he spent much of 1642 helping his father and brothers defend their Munster possessions against the Catholic insurgents. On 15 Sept. 1643 the earl of Cork died and Dungarvan inherited his title and estates. On that same day the ‘Irish Cessation’, the truce between the royalists in Ireland and the Confederate Catholics who had been in rebellion, was signed. About a month later, because of his support for the Cessation, Cork was disabled from attending the Commons at Westminster, and his estates in England and Ireland were ordered to be sequestered. On 11 Dec. 1643 the 5th earl of Cumberland died and Cork’s wife Elizabeth, as Cumberland’s only surviving child, inherited the Clifford estates in Yorkshire as well as a claim, contested between cousins for the next several decades, to the ancient barony of Clifford, allegedly created by a writ of summons in 1299. In recognition of Cork’s substantial English interests and as a reward for his faithfulness to the royalist cause, and perhaps in part to recognize and strengthen his wife’s tenuous claim to the Clifford barony, Charles I in Oxford created him, on 4 Nov. 1644, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, after his principal northern estate, Londesborough in the East Riding. Henceforth the subject of this article, as it concerns the English House of Lords, shall be referred to by his titles in the English peerage, Clifford and later Burlington, even when he is being discussed in an Irish context where he would have been known by his older Irish title as earl of Cork.</p><p>Clifford returned to England in 1650 after a number of years’ exile (in Caen among other places) undertaken after the fall of Oxford. After paying the remainder of his composition fine of £1,631, he moved with his family first to Londesborough and then to Ireland, where he arrived in May 1651.<sup>17</sup> Through the influence of his brother Roger, Baron Broghill, Clifford was able to recover fully his Irish estates by an order of the parliamentary commissioners of 11 Apr. 1653. After 1653, Broghill and Clifford allied themselves with the Protectorate and especially with the Protector’s son Henry Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, who was in Ireland from mid 1655 and was appointed lord deputy in November 1657.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Clifford received dispatches from his sister Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, describing the uncertain political situation in England throughout 1659, but he did not come over to England himself until the end of that year and arrived in the English capital on 2 Dec. 1659. From the beginning of 1660 he began calling on many of the nobility – such as his brother-in-law, Warwick; Warwick’s brother-in-law Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester; Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester; and Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport – to discuss the developing political situation. During these first few months of 1660 Clifford continued to wait cautiously upon events, but increasingly supported the actions of George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle. He celebrated in his diary for 21 Feb. the re-admission of the secluded Members and, on 16 Mar., the dissolution of the Long Parliament, with the hope that ‘God grant that the next [Parliament] may repair the breaches which since their sitting have been made in these miserable nations, by a part of them’. He resented that only those peers ‘as did sit there in ’48’ were permitted to meet as the Convention House of Lords on 25 Apr., while ‘the rest were by those endeavours to be kept out upon pretence that the general and the army would disapprove of us’. His journal exulted in the Declaration of Breda on 1 May and, on 4 May, with other ‘Oxford’ peers he petitioned Monck to be allowed into the House of Lords. The following day Monck, dining with Clifford and John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, asked them to desist from their controversial demands. On 6 May Clifford heard for the first time, and ‘to my great comfort’, public prayers for the king, and he recorded that the official proclamation of the king in London was done ‘with the greatest joy and clamour that I ever observed’. At this same time he was busy composing and dispatching memoranda to Charles II and Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, on Irish affairs, and particularly the settlement of the thorny land issue in Ireland.<sup>19</sup> Clifford later travelled down to Dover to receive the king at his landfall on 25 May.<sup>20</sup></p><p>On 1 June 1660, with a large group of the returned royalists, he first took his seat in the Convention House of Lords as Baron Clifford of Lanesborough – although in his own diary he dates his first appearance as 8 June and further notes that ‘at the same time came those lords that were made at Oxford, the lords sitting in the house till the king declared himself therein opposing it’. Having been forced to miss the first month of the Convention, he came to just less than half of its sittings in total. His diary is laconic about his attendance in the House, both during the Convention and throughout his career, and usually merely records his presence there. However, he was concerned enough by the progress for the bill of indemnity to record proceedings on it, including on 1 Aug. when ‘we continued to set down such as should be added as guilty of the king’s murder’. He recorded the bill’s passage on 10 Aug., which he may have considered significant because on that same day Dorchester introduced a bill on behalf of Clifford ‘for reparation upon those who contrary to the articles of York [at its surrender] had seized my goods’. Dorchester also chaired the committee on the bill established on 18 Aug. and reported the bill fit to pass with some amendments on 28 August. But, perhaps because of the emphasis in the House on ‘indemnity’ during this time, this measure was thrown out on its third reading on 1 September.<sup>21</sup></p><h2><em>Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, 1661-5</em></h2><p>Clifford’s diary shows him to have been an assiduous courtier during the early months of the Restoration and among other events, provides a long and detailed account of the coronation of Charles II. His time in London, or at least what he bothers to record of it, appears to have been one long round of ‘waiting on’ the royal brothers and their mother and visiting, and negotiating marriage settlements with, other members of the nobility. On 7 May 1661, only one day before the first session of the Charles II’s first Parliament was to meet, was celebrated the marriage of Clifford’s son and heir Charles Boyle*, styled Viscount Dungarvan (later summoned to the House by a writ of acceleration as Baron Clifford of Lanesborough) and Lady Jane Seymour, daughter of William Seymour*, the late 2nd duke of Somerset, with a settlement on the couple of £12,000 a year. Less than two weeks later Clifford’s widowed daughter Frances Courtenay married the poet Wentworth Dillon, 2nd earl of Roscommon [I], who received the £4,000 dowry which was to have been paid to her first husband before his early death.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Despite his connections with the upper echelons of the court, Clifford never received the high national offices in England to which his wealth – he was commonly referred to as ‘Richard the Rich’ – and social prominence would normally have entitled him. Even in Ireland he was only entrusted with largely honorific (and frequently non-remunerative) posts, such as lord treasurer of Ireland, a post his father had held and to which he was appointed on 28 June 1660.<sup>23</sup> It was a little short of a year before he arrived in Ireland to take up this post and on 17 May 1661, as he was preparing for his departure, he also acquired from the king a patent for the command of the first troop of horse in Ireland to become vacant. He was, however, to spend the next several years unsuccessfully trying to obtain this commission.<sup>24</sup> He entrusted his proxy on 20 May with his Irish colleague James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (also earl of Brecknock), ‘enjoining him’, as he recorded in his diary, ‘to give my vote when the bill came in for the restoration of the bishops to their seats in the Lords’ house’. The proxy appears in the register for 21 May, but Clifford himself last sat in the House before his departure on 25 May, having attended only nine sittings of the session which had begun 17 days previously.<sup>25</sup> On 24 June 1661 he was first introduced in the Irish house of lords as the 2nd earl of Cork [I], an event which he also duly recorded in his journal. He attended the Irish parliament and council board (as lord treasurer) intermittently until the parliament was adjourned on 11 October.</p><p>He was back in the English capital, after spending some time in his Yorkshire estates, on 23 Nov. 1661, just after the second part of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament had commenced. He was present at 53 per cent of the sittings until the prorogation of 19 May 1662. His diary, usually so terse, becomes more detailed about matters in the English House in 1662, particularly those that involved him as a northern landowner. On 17 Jan. 1662 he noted the first reading of the bill to reinstate the council of the north and the presidency of York in the northern counties, and he continued to record its passage through the House, even noting on 25 Jan. the details of a ‘difference … between the duke of Buckingham [George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham] and my Lord Northumberland [Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland], which grew to high words’ and required their withdrawal from the House. On 15 Feb. Clifford noted his part in a large delegation of northern lords and gentry which called on the lord chancellor, Clarendon, to argue against the bill. On another matter he recorded his dinner on 26 Feb. 1662 ‘with the duke of Buckingham and several northern lords at the Sun in Westminster, where we consulted about making application to his Majesty about the patent of royal mines, which we conceived gave the patentees power to dig up any of our grounds’.</p><p>Other matters affected him as an Irish peer and grandee. He recorded, though made no comment on, the introduction of the bill to reverse the attainder of his father’s inveterate enemy Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, on 23 Jan. 1662. Some of the vituperative comments about the Irish made in the meetings of the committee for privileges in late February and early March concerning the precedence of ‘foreign’ peers stung him sufficiently for him to record them and their speakers – principally Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury) and Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun.<sup>26</sup> He was so fascinated by the ‘great heats between the chancellor and Lord Bristol [George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol]’ over the government proviso to the uniformity bill that would have allowed the king to grant dispensations ‘to such of the Presbyterian ministers as had been instrumental in bringing in the king’ that he recorded the altercation twice in his diary, once for 19 Mar. and then again for 6 May 1662 (the correct date is 19 March). His diary records the press of business in Parliament during the final days of the 1661-2 session; for 17 May he noted that the House sat discussing bills until one in the morning and for 19 May he wrote that while the king had intended to prorogue the session at noon, ‘it was past seven a clock at night before the bills could be perfected’.</p><p>After the session’s end, Clifford made preparations to return to Ireland and, as he recorded, landed in Cork harbour on 9 Sept. 1662 before arriving in Dublin on 19 December. For the next year he performed his duties at the council board and house of lords in the Irish capital. He entrusted his proxy in the English House of Lords to Clarendon, and it was registered on 4 Feb. 1663, two weeks before the commencement of that session. Clarendon would have maintained it as one of his two proxies throughout the session, yet on 12 Mar. Clifford’s brother Roger Boyle, now earl of Orrery [I], wrote to Clarendon enclosing Clifford’s proxy for John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater.<sup>27</sup> This proxy, though, was never registered and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, marked Clarendon as Clifford’s proxy holder when he recorded Clifford as an opponent of Bristol’s attempt to accuse Clarendon of high treason in mid July 1663. Clifford returned to London on 6 Dec. 1663 and was more than usually active in the following short session of spring 1664, missing only seven of its 36 sittings.</p><p>During the first few days of the session in late March 1664 he recorded the eccentric and fugitive behaviour of Bristol, consequent to his proscription by the king for his attempt to impeach the lord chancellor.<sup>28</sup> Clifford had already had dealings with Bristol, for in November and December 1661 abortive negotiations had been on foot for the marriage of Clifford’s daughter Elizabeth to Bristol’s heir John Digby*, styled Lord Digby (later 3rd earl of Bristol). These came to naught, for as Clifford bluntly told Bristol (through the medium of his sister Lady Ranelagh) he had ‘received some advertisements concerning the young lord, which made me decline a treaty’.<sup>29</sup> On 11 Apr. 1664 Elizabeth instead married, with a portion of £10,000, Nicholas Tufton*, styled Lord Tufton, who barely a month after the wedding, on 7 May 1664, became 3rd earl of Thanet upon the death of his father. This marriage had added advantages for Clifford’s economic and social ambitions as Thanet was the grandson and heir of Lady Anne Clifford, dowager countess of Pembroke, who had earlier successfully taken possession of the major portion of the Clifford lands in Cumberland and Westmorland and the previous year, on 30 May 1663, had submitted a petition to the House setting forth her claim to the 1299 barony by writ of Clifford, to which Cifford of Lanesborough’s wife Elizabeth also had a claim. The marriage of Elizabeth to Lord Tufton was seen by all parties as a means of uniting the divided estates and the warring branches of the Clifford family.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Tufton’s marriage to Lady Elizabeth Boyle had been conducted privately, without the knowledge of his parents, and the dowager countess of Thanet appears to have extracted from him, as a condition of her consent, his agreement to provide maintenance for his five younger brothers. The act for confirming a deed of settlement between the earl of Thanet and his younger brethren was given its first reading on 28 Jan. 1665, well into the 1664-5 session, of whose sittings Clifford attended 79 per cent. The proceedings on the bill were to show that despite the marriage, all was not well between the two branches of the Clifford family. The dowager countess of Thanet complained that Clifford of Lanesborough was referred to as ‘Lord Clifford’ throughout the bill, without the addition of ‘Lanesborough’ to distinguish between the various Clifford baronies. Clifford of Lanesborough was initially conciliatory, but when he discovered that the new earl of Thanet had, without consulting him first, told a committee of the Commons considering the bill that Clifford of Lanesborough had agreed to remove the offending term ‘Lord Clifford’ from the bill he flew into a rage against his son-in-law. Telling him he ‘would rather suffer the act to miscarry than to suffer such an injury’, he insisted that he continue to be referred to as ‘Lord Clifford’ in the bill, but agreed to have the distinguishing addition ‘of Lanesborough’. He consented to this on condition that Thanet formally sign an engagement before the attorney general that his styling himself ‘Clifford of Lanesborough’ would not prejudice him in case he ever chose to claim the ancient honour. Clifford of Lanesborough’s peers in the House agreed to this alteration when the bill was returned from the lower chamber on 27 Feb. and the lord privy seal John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), led the committee which set out reasons to justify this change to the Commons. In the free conference on 1 Mar., Robartes and the House’s managers were able to convince the Commons to accept the amended wording, just in time to allow the bill to receive the royal assent at the prorogation of Parliament the following day.<sup>31</sup></p><h2><em>Earl of Burlington and Clarendonian 1665-73</em></h2><p>Probably to remove any further confrontation over what was obviously a contested title, Clifford of Lanesborough was created earl of Burlington on 20 Mar. 1665, on the recommendation of his patron from his youth, Henrietta Maria, the queen mother. He chose his title from the port (Bridlington) near Londesborough at which she had disembarked in 1643 bringing supplies from France to her husband.<sup>32</sup> Throughout the spring of 1665 negotiations were carried on for the joining of his youngest daughter Henrietta to Clarendon’s younger son Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester. This union had royal backing, having been initially proposed by Hyde’s sister, the duchess of York, and in April Burlington received assurances from her husband James Stuart*, duke of York, and from the king himself that if Clarendon himself could not provide the marriage settlement requested by Burlington, the royal brothers would supply the shortfall. Burlington left for Ireland, arriving there on 28 May, before the marriage was solemnized and entrusted his wife to oversee the wedding on 29 June.<sup>33</sup> The marriage confirmed the friendship between Burlington and the family of the heir to the throne. York had already expressed his regard for Burlington’s second son Richard, who was killed while standing next to the duke on the flagship at the Battle of Lowestoft on 3 June. The duke and duchess of York later descended on the countess of Burlington at Londesborough Hall, while the earl was still away in Ireland, during their visit to the north in the summer of 1665.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Like all significant Irish landowners Burlington was concerned by the Irish cattle bill. He returned to Londesborough on 5 Oct. 1665 but, afflicted by gout, did not manage to attend the session at Oxford in late October 1665 when the bill was first introduced. Nevertheless, his youngest brother, the natural philosopher Robert Boyle, represented the Irish interests of the family by petitioning against it there.<sup>35</sup> Burlington returned to Dublin on 25 May 1666 and there, on 15 Aug., the Irish privy council of which he was a member addressed a petition to the king against the bill and delegated ‘some members of the Board being persons of honour and interest in both kingdoms’ – Burlington; Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I], (soon after created Baron Butler of Moore Park); Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey; and Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway – to represent to the king the many arguments against the measure.<sup>36</sup> Burlington returned to London on 12 Oct. 1666, and first took his seat as earl of Burlington three days later. Having missed the first 13 days of the 1666-7 session he then proceeded to attend every sitting thereafter, and was especially concerned with the proceedings on the Irish cattle bill. In his journal he lamented the course of the debate on the bill of 23 Oct.: ‘This is the 2d time an unhappy day for Ireland on which day the rebellions broke out Anno 1641’. On 10 Nov. he informed Ormond of the almost inevitable passage of the bill, despite the exertions of the agents assigned to foil it, and from 16 Nov. he had the proxy of his brother-in-law Warwick to help him. Even with this additional vote, the bill was passed by ten votes on 23 Nov. and Burlington recorded that ‘we that were against it had liberty to enter our dissents, which we did the next day’. In the event, only the four representatives earlier delegated by the Irish privy council – Burlington, Ossory (sitting in the House as Butler of Moore Park), Anglesey and Conway – signed the dissent which appears in the Journal.<sup>37</sup> In December Ormond in Dublin, realizing that his former proxy Charles Weston*, 3rd earl of Portland, had died in June 1665, hurriedly wrote to his ally Clarendon, instructing him that, as ‘it should seem that in many cases votes are more necessary, and more wanted, than arguments, I therefore think it fit to put mine into such hands, as you shall choose, either into my Lord Burlington’s or my Lord Conway’s, or to any other peer’s, as they have room for it, and are most like to attend’.<sup>38</sup> Clarendon acted on these instructions and on 3 Jan. 1667 Ormond’s proxy (under his English title of Brecknock) was registered with Burlington, who fulfilled the requirement by attending every single sitting of the session. Burlington took his duty as Ormond’s proxy seriously and kept him informed of events in the English Parliament throughout January and February 1667, informing Ormond not only of the progress of the Irish cattle bill, but also of the impeachment proceedings against John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, as well.<sup>39</sup> Even with the two proxies he had, which he held until the end of the session, Burlington was not able to defeat the resolution of the House on 14 Jan. to agree with the Commons’ amendment that the importation of cattle from Ireland was a ‘nuisance’, and he entered his name in the protest of eight peers against this motion that day, reporting to Ormond in a long, gloomy letter about the unfortunate conclusion of ‘two months debate ... and I heartily wish it may not be the beginning of more’. He further recommended that Ormond compose an address from the Irish government asking for dispensations and concessions ‘as may in some measure keep from us total despair’.<sup>40</sup> On 8 Feb. Parliament was prorogued, and the following day Ormond and the Irish privy council dispatched the address against the bill and once again assigned Burlington, with his Irish colleagues Anglesey and Conway, to present it and its arguments to the king. <sup>41</sup></p><p>He attended at court again in early March when the king personally conferred on him the lieutenancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire, which had been previously exercised by the currently disgraced Buckingham.<sup>42</sup> Burlington was largely unknown in the West Riding, as his main base of influence was the East Riding, where he had sat in a number of local commissions for the past several years. Buckingham, meanwhile, had surrounded himself with loyal supporters in the West Riding, especially the prominent militia colonels and deputy lieutenants Sir Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds, and Sir George Savile*, later marquess of Halifax, who refused to serve under the new lord lieutenant.<sup>43</sup> Burlington arrived in Londesborough on 13 Apr., distinctly nervous about the reception he would have in the West Riding, which could not have been eased by Lady Ranelagh’s news from London that ‘several of your predecessor’s deputies have waited upon him out of his lieutenancy by throwing up their commissions’. Burlington was, though, heartened by the positive greeting he received at York on the 25th when he began issuing commissions.<sup>44</sup></p><p>By the middle of 1667 Burlington held high office and lucrative landholdings in both Ireland and Yorkshire, was a favoured figure at court and was tied by marriage and political sentiments to Clarendon. So close was he to Clarendon that he decided to build his own grand new London residence next to Clarendon House, and it was the lord chancellor who led the negotiations throughout the summer of 1667 for the marriage of Burlington’s daughter Anne to Edward Montagu*, styled Lord Hinchingbrooke (later 2nd earl of Sandwich).<sup>45</sup> His fortune, though, declined with Clarendon’s in the latter part of the year. After Buckingham’s surrender and readmission to favour in the late summer, Burlington waited on the king on 20 Oct. 1667 and volunteered to resign his lieutenancy, fearing that the king ‘might be in some constraint as to this which I knew the duke did much desire to repossess’. He recorded in his journal that on 25 Oct. he received a peremptory order from Henry Bennet*, Baron, later earl of Arlington, to surrender his commission appointing him lord lieutenant, which he decided instead to keep ‘for my own justification’. He was formally replaced by Buckingham on 1 November.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Before the opening of the following session on 10 Oct. 1667 Burlington consulted with Clarendon about preparing a defence against the charges that would be levelled against the lord chancellor.<sup>47</sup> He was heavily involved in the proceedings against Clarendon and attended 86 per cent of the sittings in the last three months of 1667 which saw Clarendon’s downfall and exile. On 15 Oct. he, with York, Bridgwater and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, physically left the House rather than vote on the motion to thank the king for his promise no longer to employ Clarendon, ‘for’, as Burlington explained in his journal, ‘we did conceive the giving thanks for that was a kind of prejudging my lord when no crime was laid to his charge’. On 9 Nov. Thanet, who did not attend any of the sittings of this session, registered his proxy with his father-in-law, and Burlington would have been able to use it in the proceedings on the impeachment of Clarendon, which began shortly afterwards. Unsurprisingly, Burlington’s name is not among the protesters against the resolution of 20 Nov. that Clarendon could not be committed without more specific charges of treason being brought against him, He appears to have abstained from the division on 19 Dec. to agree with the Commons’ amendments to the bill for Clarendon’s banishment, which allowed the king to give the bill his royal assent later that afternoon. Burlington recorded in his diary for that day that ‘the bill for banishing of the earl of Clarendon was past in our house at the which I was not present’, even though the Journals clearly mark his presence in the House that day. One advantage of Clarendon’s flight did accrue to Burlington. By the original marriage settlement of Henrietta Boyle to Laurence Hyde, Burlington had accepted from the lord chancellor a mortgage on Clarendon House, in lieu of jointure lands for his daughter. Upon his flight Clarendon was no longer in a position to pay the mortgage and by late December Burlington took possession of his friend’s house, although it was sold in 1675 to Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle.<sup>48</sup></p><p>The attacks against the followers of Clarendon continued when the session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668 after the enforced Christmas recess. Burlington may have kept a low profile as he had been one of the former lord chancellor’s principal allies, and he attended only 46 per cent of the sittings of this part of the session. His journal gives little indication of his activities or concerns in the House in this period, but he was affected by the attacks led by Buckingham and his allies on one of Clarendon’s closest associates, the duke of Ormond. Burlington’s own relationship with Ormond probably reached its lowest point in 1668 when for his own reasons the earl was fuming at what he considered the lord lieutenant’s purposeful snubs to his honour and advancement – the failure to pay his daily salary as lord treasurer, omitting his name as lord treasurer in a commission to inspect the Irish accounts and passing him over for the long-promised command of a troop of horse.<sup>49</sup> Ormond may have turned against Burlington because of the attacks he was then subject to from Burlington’s brother Orrery, president of the Irish province of Munster, who was agitating for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland himself and had made common cause with Buckingham to oust Ormond. Ossory, for one, doubted Burlington’s, and indeed Orrery’s, professions that they had no ‘design of prejudice’ against his father Ormond.<sup>50</sup> Buckingham’s campaign was ultimately successful and Ormond was dismissed from his office in late April 1669, but was not replaced by Orrery but by Robartes instead. Burlington came, holding from late October an unfortunately undated proxy from Thanet, to all but five of the 36 sittings of the House during the session of autumn 1669. In this session his brother Orrery, after having succeeded in removing Ormond for his coveted post, saw himself brought before the Commons on charges of maladministration in Munster. Burlington recorded, with some pride and satisfaction, that on 1 Dec. 1669 Orrery ‘sitting in his place (the gout not permitting him to stand) he answered every article of the charges which consisted of ten, and gave so much satisfaction to the house that upon a division of it, it was carried by three voices ... that those articles should be dismissed’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>In the years after Clarendon’s fall Burlington’s diary reveals that he maintained close connections with fellow Clarendonians and some of his most frequent visitors and dining companions were bishops such as Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, and particularly George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, who may have been his colleague in preparing Clarendon’s defence before the autumn 1667 sittings.<sup>52</sup> He continued to act as a friendly confidant of York and on the day before her death on 31 Mar. 1671 the duchess of York roused herself from her sickbed to pay a final farewell visit to Lady Burlington.<sup>53</sup> His diary, however, becomes increasingly sketchy from this time, and is entirely silent for the months of February-April 1670, when he came to all but six of the sittings of the 1670-1 session before the adjournment of 11 Apr. 1670. In this part of the session, perhaps following the lead of York and his friends among the episcopate, he signed the dissent of 28 Mar. 1670 against the passage of the bill to allow John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to remarry after his divorce. He came to 72 per cent of the sittings after the session resumed on 31 Oct. 1670 but as his diary entries become even more erratic and terse from this point they do not provide a guide to his activities and concerns, apart from his frequent attendance in the House.</p><h2><em>A ‘country’ peer? 1673-81</em></h2><p>The same is true of Burlington’s recording of the session, long delayed, of early 1673, of which he attended 71 per cent of the sittings. Indeed his diary entries stop completely after 9 May 1673, and his final entries detail his opposition to the schemes put forward to allow Catholics to be placed on Irish commissions of the peace, a proposal which he vigorously denounced as ‘extraordinary and in my opinion illegal’.<sup>54</sup> With his Protestant Irish background, Burlington undoubtedly felt uneasy with Charles II’s increasingly pro-French and pro-Catholic policies, as well as York’s open conversion of the duke of York to Catholicism, and he began to distance himself increasingly from the Stuarts and the court from this point, although the break with his kinsman York, his daughter’s brother-in-law, could never be absolute. Burlington did not attend any of the sittings of the session of autumn 1673, but was present at 73 per cent of those of the session of the first months of 1674. The proxy of Charles Stanhope*, 2nd Baron Stanhope of Harrington, was entered in Burlington’s name from 19 Dec. 1673, well before the commencement of that session, while the proxy of John Crew*, Baron Crew, was registered with Burlington on 7 Feb. 1674; both were maintained by Burlington for the entire session. Burlington attended all but one of the meetings of spring 1675 and Crew, who had stopped attending the House in April 1671, once again entrusted him with his proxy, entered in the register on 14 Apr. 1675, the second day of the session. Danby (as Thomas Osborne had become) fully expected Burlington to oppose his proposed ‘non-resisting’ test bill. This is corroborated by the author of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, which lists Burlington among ‘those great lords’ who gave their ‘countenance and support to the English interest’ by their opposition to the bill.<sup>55</sup> Burlington’s opposition to the bill may have come from a concern for the potential damage its provisions would do to freedom of debate in the House, but it may also have been tinged with personal animus. As an ally and friend of the late earl of Clarendon (who had died in 1674) Burlington was likely to remember the part Danby played in his late friend’s impeachment and banishment. However, Burlington, shying away from controversy, did not put his name to any of the protests against the passage of the measure. On 5 May 1675 William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, son of the former lord deputy of Ireland, formally complained to the House about a pamphlet that had been published that impugned both the earl and his father by claiming that the first earl had illegally cozened the barony of Shelalagh, with its valuable forest, and castle of Carnow (both in co. Wicklow) out of William Eyre’s father-in-law, Calcot Chambres, and that the second earl was still in illegal possession of the land. The matter was on 11 May referred to the committee for privileges, and on 3 June Burlington, supplied evidence to the committee in favour of both Strafford and his proxy donor Crew, one of the trustees of the estate who was also attacked in the pamphlet.<sup>56</sup> In the following session of autumn 1675 Burlington stopped attending on 18 Nov., after coming to only six sittings in total. A list of those taking part in the division two days later on the motion for an address urging the dissolution of Parliament placed Burlington among those peers ‘absent and sick who have attended this session’ and who it was thought would most likely have voted in favour of the address if they had been present.</p><p>By the spring of 1677 Burlington had become so distant from Danby and the court that Shaftesbury could consider him ‘twice worthy’ in his political analysis of the peers. Burlington himself was principally preoccupied during the sittings of 1677, of which he attended 61 per cent, in pursuing his claim of a breach of privilege against a Mr Dury Deane, who tried various means to obstruct Burlington’s entering into full possession of the Essex manor of Nazeing. In a petition to the House of 7 Apr. 1677 Burlington claimed that years previously he had purchased the reversion of Nazeing from his brother-in-law Colonel George Goring<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Goring, and that upon the death of the last claimant to the property in December 1676, he had come into full possession of the estate. Most of the tenants accepted his ownership, but Deane refused to, claiming that he was the proper heir to Lord Goring, and impounded the cattle of Burlington’s new tenants. The House duly ordered on 9 Apr. the attachment of Deane and others and most of them had made their submission and had been discharged by 14 April. Deane remained at large though and the case became more complicated when one of Burlington’s agents impounded the goods of Dury Deane’s brother who, as it transpired on 16 Apr. was a servant of Buckingham and had a protection from him. Deane later involved the widow of Goring’s younger brother, Charles Goring*, 2nd earl of Norwich, and convinced her to claim that the manor properly belonged to her. Burlington himself was not even attending the House on 23 May 1677 when his petition against the dowager countess’s attempt to block his legal proceedings against her by claiming privilege of peerage was read before the House. The House quickly decided that she had no claim of privilege and left her to the law. Legal proceedings between Burlington and Deane continued throughout 1677, but on 29 Jan. 1678, after the House had reconvened following the long adjournment from 28 May 1677 to 28 Jan. 1678, Deane finally made his submission to Burlington and the House and was released.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Burlington was present at 85 per cent of the sittings of this latter part of the session in the first five months of 1678. In May 1677 Ormond had been reappointed as lord lieutenant of Ireland and Burlington’s letters to Ormond in Ireland from this time were, as usual with Burlington, filled with complaints of unpaid salaries and of other perceived snubs, but in a more collegial manner he also took it upon himself to inform the lord lieutenant of the proceedings in Parliament from 1678 until 1681.<sup>58</sup> On 9 Feb. 1678 he told his friend of the formal submission their mutual enemy Buckingham had made to the House for his insistence the previous year that the Parliament had been dissolved by the 15-month prorogation, and of the duke’s careful ingratiation, once again, into the king’s favour. Ormond professed not to be worried about the re-emergence of the man who had forced his first departure from his Irish post: ‘I serve a master who knows us both’, he wrote, perhaps over-confidently.<sup>59</sup> On 4 Apr. Burlington voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. On 11 May 1678, two days before the prorogation, Burlington wrote Ormond that ‘the weather grows very hot here and the humours of some keep temper with the season’, while Ormond replied that unless there was a ‘better correspondence’ between the Commons and the king it could be 1641 all over again. ‘Your Lordship and I cannot possibly live over again so many ill years as we have done, nor did I believe you were very fond of eating champignons at Caen’. In early June 1678, near the beginning of the first session of that year Burlington was encouraged, perhaps misguidedly, that ‘much moderation and compliance is now observed to be in those whose temper was somewhat late discomposed’.<sup>60</sup> Burlington stopped attending this session on 19 June and in total came to only 48 per cent of its sittings. For the session of autumn 1678 Burlington entrusted his proxy, entered in the register on the first day of the session, 21 Oct. 1678, to Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon who held it for the entire session, as Burlington absented himself from this tumultuous final session of the Cavalier Parliament altogether.</p><p>In the weeks preceding the meeting of the new Parliament summoned for spring 1679 Danby consistently listed Burlington as a probable opponent. There were good reasons for Burlington to desire the downfall of Danby, who was a principal rival in Yorkshire and had snatched from Burlington the lieutenancy of the West Riding when it had once again been removed from Buckingham in 1674. Burlington was more than usually attentive during the first Exclusion Parliament; he first took his seat on 13 Mar., the last day of the abortive first session, and then came to 93 per cent of the sitting days of the 61-day second session. Throughout he voted to facilitate the progress of the impeachment proceedings against the former lord treasurer. On 14 Apr. 1679 he voted in favour of the version of the bill threatening Danby with impeachment if he did not surrender himself to face the charges against him. Danby’s disgrace and imprisonment did benefit Burlington locally, as he replaced him as lord lieutenant of the West Riding on 8 May 1679 and was able to remain in that position until 1688. Burlington remained involved in the debates surrounding the trials of Danby and the Catholic peers, apparently reluctantly according to a letter of 30 Apr. to Ormond in which he complained that he had intended to go to Ireland that summer, ‘but the House of Peers are so stout on the point of permitting their members to stir from their attendance that they … resolve to imprison and fine every peer that shall not appear at the trial of the lords, which moves so slowly that I doubt it will be near Midsummer before those trials will be finished’.<sup>61</sup> On 10 May he voted in favour of the motion to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider procedures for the trials and, with a large number of country peers, signed the dissent when this motion was rejected. On 23 May, after the House had relented and had decided to have a joint committee with the Commons, Burlington objected, as signified by his subscription to the dissents, against the instructions to the House’s representatives that they were to inform the Commons’ commissioners that the House insisted that the Catholic peers would be tried before Danby and that the bishops could attend the trials, despite the possibility that a sentence of death would be determined. On this latter issue he may have changed his mind by 27 May, the day of prorogation, for on that day he probably voted to insist on the House’s previous resolution regarding the bishops’ right to assist at the trials.<sup>62</sup> Through Burlington’s influence in both the East and West Ridings, his son and heir Charles Boyle, Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, had been elected a knight of the shire for Yorkshire, and during this Parliament he too voted in favour of Danby’s impeachment and even for the Exclusion Bill when it passed the Commons.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Ossory could report to his father in January 1680 that ‘I find my Lord of Burlington very kind to you, though some would inflame him’, presumably thinking of Orrery who at that point was again at the forefront of those accusing Ormond of a laxness in prosecuting Catholics in Ireland suspected of involvement in the Popish Plot.<sup>64</sup> However, in the new Parliament which eventually convened on 21 Oct. 1680, and of whose sitting days he attended just under two-thirds, Burlington served diligently with such country stalwarts as Shaftesbury and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, on the subcommittee assigned to examine the evidence of Catholic conspiracy in Ireland, particularly surrounding the Catholic primate of Ireland, Oliver Plunket. The results of the subcommittee’s deliberations were reported to the House by Shaftesbury on 4 Nov. 1680 and were used to further damn Ormond for complacency.<sup>65</sup> Burlington’s conviction of the Plot’s reality is further suggested by his finding William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason on 7 December. ‘A weaker defence I have not observed then was made by his lordship’, he commented to Ormond on this trial, ‘nor evidence better ordered than was that of the House of Commons … Many are of opinion that nothing can save his life but a full discovery of the Plot’.<sup>66</sup> Burlington drew the line at exclusion, though, and on 15 Nov. voted for throwing the bill out at its first reading.<sup>67</sup> He also signed the dissent from the resolution of 7 Jan. 1681 not to put the question whether Lord Chief Justice Scroggs should be committed upon the articles of impeachment against him submitted by the Commons, although his name did not appear in the Journal.<sup>68</sup> In the weeks before the Parliament scheduled to meet at Oxford, Danby again considered Burlington as a potential enemy, one who would not countenance his proposed petition to be bailed from the Tower. In the event, Burlington did not attend any sittings of the week-long Parliament in March 1681.</p><h2><em>‘A cautious man’, 1681-9</em></h2><p>A large part of Burlington’s continuing stature at court during the ‘Tory reaction’ in the first part of the 1680s relied on the influence of his daughter Henrietta and her husband Laurence Hyde, an intimate of the Stuart brothers and a leading Tory, who was created earl of Rochester in November 1682. Burlington himself was considered for elevation at that same time when, at the death of Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, it was rumoured that he was going to have that peerage conferred on him in order to emphasize his connection with his late father-in-law Henry Clifford, 5th earl of Cumberland.<sup>69</sup> Both Henrietta Hyde and her mother the countess of Burlington were trusted confidants of Mary of Modena who, from her exile in Scotland in 1681, wrote to the countess that Henrietta was ‘without exception, the dearest friend I have’.<sup>70</sup> Burlington cemented his position among the great families of Ireland through the marriage in July 1682 of his granddaughter Lady Anne Hyde to Ormond’s grandson, James Butler*, styled earl of Ossory [I], from 30 July 1680 and later 2nd duke of Ormond. Burlington later added a Scottish title to his family when in December 1685 another granddaughter, Mary Boyle, daughter of Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, married James Douglas*, earl of Drumlanrig [S] (later 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and duke of Dover).<sup>71</sup></p><p>Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, governor of York from April 1682, commented that as lord lieutenant of the West Riding Burlington ‘was looked upon above as a cautious man, that had no mind to venture too far for fear of his great estate, and so seemed to carry fair with all parties’.<sup>72</sup> A desire to avoid controversy was a distinguishing characteristic of the earl, but Reresby is hardly an impartial judge. As governor of York, Reresby had a long-running feud with Burlington over their respective spheres of jurisdiction in the city. He was in addition a client of the marquess of Halifax, another local rival of Burlington who, as lord privy seal, was closer to the circles of power.<sup>73</sup> At the time of the discovery of the Rye House Plot the gentlemen of the county, led in part by Reresby (despite his protestations of innocence), managed to snub Burlington by requesting that Halifax present their loyal address to the king. In general, Reresby regarded the marquess as a more forceful personality in representing the needs of the county.<sup>74</sup> If not inspired or particularly forceful, Burlington does appear to have performed his duties in the West Riding diligently throughout the 1680s, and in August 1685 was further rewarded with the recordership of York when the new charter for that city was drawn up.<sup>75</sup> He attended 70 per cent of the sittings of James II’s Parliament in 1685 but did not take a noticeable stance on the king’s desire in November to dispense his Catholic army officers from the provisions of the Test Act. Burlington was considered enough of a follower of the court to be summoned to the special court of the lord high steward to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) outside time of Parliament, but he did not appear at the trial on 16 Jan. 1686 and did not take part.<sup>76</sup> Throughout the late 1680s political observers were doubtful as to where he stood on James II’s religious policies, aware of the strong family ties that bound him to the king and his ministers. While some observers thought he would stand against the proposed repeal of the Test Acts, Danby did not include him in his list of the king’s opponents, and a careful analysis of the peerage’s political sentiments drawn up by the French agent in late 1687 considered him as yet ‘undeclared’. James II, however, considered Burlington too staunchly Protestant to implement his policies and in March 1688 deprived him of the recordership of York and of the command of the West Riding, replacing him in the latter with the Catholic Lord Thomas Howard.<sup>77</sup> This insult may have turned Burlington more firmly against the king. He was proposed by Henry Compton*, bishop of London, as a potential surety for Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely at the trial of the seven bishops in June 1688.<sup>78</sup> He withheld his active support for the king upon William of Orange’s invasion, and Reresby later included him among those lords ‘who had all been active to bring in the Prince’.<sup>79</sup> Burlington subscribed to the petition presented to the king on 17 Nov. 1688 calling on him to summon a ‘free parliament’ and after the king’s first flight, he attended the first meeting of the provisional government of the peers on 11 Dec. and subscribed to the Guildhall declaration that day. He only attended again two days later when news reached the provisional government of the king’s apprehension at Faversham. If Burlington himself did not take an active role in the Revolution both his grandson Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton, and grandson-in-law the earl of Drumlanrig [S], did defect to the prince of Orange in November 1688.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Nor was Burlington highly visible in the Convention. He attended for the first few days and does not appear to have voted in favour of the regency on 29 Jan. while two days later he voted in a division in a committee of the whole against inserting words declaring William and Mary king and queen in the text of the vote brought up from the Commons. At this point his caution appears to have overtaken him and he began to regret his initial support for the Revolution. According to Reresby, he ‘and some other lords who had all been active to bring in the Prince [began to] speak in another strain. Some said the thing was gone further than they expected, others that they never believed the prince would contend for the Crown; and all were of opinion the Crown ought to be set upon the princess’s head, and is to descend in its right course’.<sup>81</sup> Burlington appears to have abstained from the vote on 4 Feb. on whether James II had ‘abdicated’ and, perhaps fearing further constitutionally contentious votes on this point, absented himself from the House from 5 Feb. until the matter had been settled; he returned to the House a week later. In March and April he would have been present for the proceedings in the committee for privileges which decided in his wife’s favour against her kinsman James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury. She had complained to the House on 16 Mar. that the earl had secretly conveyed his two younger brothers, who had been entrusted to the countess for their Protestant education, to France to be raised as Catholics like himself.<sup>82</sup> Burlington left the House again on 23 July when he registered his proxy to the Tory Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, who a week later cast Burlington’s vote in favour of the House’s punitive amendments to the bill for reversing the judgments against Titus Oates. The proxy was not vacated until 20 Aug., when Burlington returned briefly to the House. Overall Burlington sat in just less than half of the sitting days of the first session of the Convention.</p><p>He maintained the same attendance rate, at 47 per cent, in the winter session of the Convention and from that point his attendance in the House continued to decrease until his death in 1698. He still felt some responsibility to his parliamentary duties, but age and infirmity, and his crippling gout, may well have prevented him from coming more often. He explained to one of his agents in Ireland in a letter of 17 May 1692 that he would not be able to make his long-intended visit to Ireland because ‘this day sevennight the parliament is summoned to sit here, upon which account it would have been very unfit for me to be going away before that meeting’.<sup>83</sup> He did sit at a number of meetings in the latter part of 1690, and on 6 Oct. voted against the release from the Tower of his kinsman Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough.<sup>84</sup> In a list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) reckoned him to be an opponent of the court.</p><h2><em>Old age, 1690-8</em></h2><p>The sessions of 1690-1 and 1691-2 saw the culmination in the House of the long-simmering family dispute over the barony of Clifford, although Burlington himself was not much involved at this point. As discussed above, Lady Anne Clifford, the dowager countess of Pembroke, had long claimed the barony of Clifford as the heir general of Roger Clifford, allegedly created Lord Clifford by a writ of summons addressed to him in 1299. This claim had long been equally contested by the countess of Burlington, who claimed the title through the male heir, her father Henry Clifford, 5th earl of Cumberland. Lady Anne Clifford had died in 1676 but her claim to the barony was maintained by her heirs, and particularly by her grandson Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, who had succeeded to his title in March 1684.</p><p>This issue had come up again when Burlington’s heir, Charles Boyle, first sat in the House on 18 July 1689, under a writ of acceleration, as Lord Clifford of Lanesborough. This undoubtedly spurred Thanet to promote his own claim to be <em>the</em> Lord Clifford. In the elections of February 1690 for William III’s first Parliament Thanet had ensured the election for his borough of Appleby of Burlington’s grandson, Clifford of Lanesborough’s son and heir, Charles Boyle*, later 2nd earl of Burlington. This was perhaps to help smooth relations with the Boyles and thus help to ensure the passage of the petition he submitted to the House on 27 Nov. 1690 to the Clifford barony. The countess of Burlington put in her own counter-petition on 2 Dec., and it may even have been submitted by Burlington himself, as he was present in the House that day, one of only 36 sittings he attended in 1690-1. However, Parliament was prorogued on 5 Jan. 1691 before it could hear counsel for either side, and to further complicate matters Lady Burlington died the following day.</p><p>The matter thus stood in abeyance when the session of 1691-2 convened, with Burlington present, on 22 Oct. 1691. However, perhaps still recovering from the loss of his wife, he only sat for a further six sittings in that session and did not attend again after 20 November. He was thus absent when his son Clifford of Lanesborough, who had the much grander titles of Cork and Burlington to look forward to, assured the House on 8 Dec. that he did ‘not obstruct the said claim’ of Thanet. Four days later the committee for privileges resolved and reported that the 1299 barony of Clifford did of right belong to Thanet, which was agreed upon by the House.<sup>85</sup></p><p>Shortly after this decision Burlington, having been absent from the House for over two months, registered his proxy with his son-in-law Rochester on 27 Jan. 1692. He did not attend any of the meetings of the following session of 1692-3 and entrusted his proxy with Rochester again on 19 Jan. 1693. He was absent for the entirety of the session of 1693-4 without, apparently, assigning a proxy. He did appear in the 1694-5 session on 23 Jan. 1695, when he subscribed to the protest against the passage of the amendment postponing the implementation of the treason trials bill from 1695 to 1698. In the following session of 1695-6 he did not sign the Association until 20 Mar. 1696, but this was probably because of his advanced age, as he came to only three meetings of the House in that session. Throughout December 1696 in the 1696-7 session he did make a determined effort to be at the proceedings concerning the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and he had to apologize to his agents in Ireland that he was not able to give sufficient attention to their letters because the House was keeping him occupied for ten to 12 hours a day.<sup>86</sup> He opposed the bill of attainder, and subscribed to all three of the protests which sought to impede its passage through Parliament, those against the decision to hear the suspect testimony of Cardell Goodman (15 Dec. 1696); against the resolution to read the bill a second time (18 Dec.) and against the passage of the bill (23 December).</p><p>He maintained a distant but equally concerned involvement in Irish politics at the same time. From the time of the summoning of the Irish Parliament in 1692 (the first in 25 years) he sent detailed instructions to his agents there on how to manage the election of his preferred candidates for his Cork and Waterford boroughs. His own grandson Henry Boyle was the target of much of the old man’s hopes and expectations, and he sorely disappointed Burlington when he rejected the safe seat of Youghal for a more prestigious English parliamentary career which was eventually to lead to his appointment as a secretary of state under Queen Anne.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Burlington last sat in the House on 8 Jan. 1697, and on 18 Mar. 1697 registered his proxy with his grandson Charles Boyle, who sat under a writ of acceleration. It was this grandson who inherited the estate, estimated by contemporaries to be worth at least £26,000 a year, and titles as 3rd earl of Cork [I], and 2nd earl of Burlington when Burlington died, aged 87, on 15 Jan. 1698, having been predeceased by all but one of his seven children.<sup>88</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BOYLE, Richard (1694-1753) |
<p><strong><surname>BOYLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1694–1753)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Feb. 1704 (a minor) as 4th earl of Cork [I] and 3rd earl of BURLINGTON. |
|
First sat 26 Apr. 1715; last sat 19 Mar. 1747 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Apr. 1694, o. s. of Charles Boyle*, 2nd earl Burlington and Juliana (1672-1750), da. and h. of Hon. Henry Noel<sup>‡</sup> of North Luffenham, Rutland. <em>educ</em>. privately, travelled abroad (Low Countries, France, Italy) May 1714-Apr. 1715.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 21 Mar. 1721, Dorothy (1699-1758), da. and coh. of William Savile*, 2nd mq. of Halifax, 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.). KG 18 May 1730; <em>d.</em> 3 Dec. 1753. <em>will</em> 6 Mar. 1751; pr. 15 Dec. 1753.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC [I] 30 Sept. 1714-<em>d</em>.; ld. treas. [I] 1715-<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> PC 15 May 1729-<em>d</em>.; capt., gent. pens. 1731-3.</p><p>Ld. steward, Knaresborough, Yorks. (W. Riding), 1704–<em>d</em>.; bailiff, Staincliffe and Knaresborough, Yorks. (W. Riding), 1704-<em>d</em>;<sup>4</sup> gov., co. Cork [I],1715-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>., Yorks. (W. Riding) and city and ainsty of York 1715–33,<sup>5</sup> Yorks. (E. Riding) 1715-21; <em>custos rot.</em> Yorks. (N. Riding) 1715-33; v.-adm., Yorks. 1715-33.</p><p>FRS 1722; FSA 1724.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas by J. Richardson, c.1717-19, NPG 4818.</p> |
<p>At his death on 9 Feb. 1704 the 2nd earl of Burlington, left behind him four daughters and just one son, Richard, aged ten. The new earl of Burlington did not come of age until 25 Apr. 1715 and his initial interest in politics is indicated by the fact that he first sat in the House the day after he reached his majority. Indeed he returned from his Grand Tour on the continent specifically to take his place among his peers. At that time he also took over many of the Boyles’ quasi-hereditary local roles – lord treasurer of Ireland, governor of county Cork, lord lieutenant and vice-admiral of Yorkshire – which until that time had been exercised in trust during his minority by his uncle the court Whig Henry Boyle*, from October 1714 Baron Carleton.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In October 1713 it was reported to Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, that both Richard Lowther*, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale (an intended husband for Burlington’s sister before his death later that year), and Burlington, the latter described as ‘a good-natured, pretty gentleman’, were in the ‘ill hands’ of the Whigs.<sup>7</sup> Burlington is consequently usually seen as a Whig nobleman, but some scholars have argued strongly that Burlington’s purportedly educational grand tour of 1714-15 was actually a covert mission to make contact with the Pretender and that Burlington thereafter remained a committed and active Jacobite, carefully obfuscated by his self-presentation as an aesthete and amateur architect.<sup>8</sup> These views and interpretations of Burlington’s active engagement in politics in the period 1715-33, will be discussed in detail in the following volumes of this series.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BROWNE, Francis (1610-82) |
<p><strong><surname>BROWNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1610–82)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Oct. 1629 (a minor) as 3rd Visct. MONTAGU. |
|
First sat 15 Dec. 1640; first sat after 1660, 23 May 1660; last sat 29 Nov. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 July 1610, o. s. of Anthony Maria Browne<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Visct. Montagu, and Jane, da. of Thomas Sackville<sup>†</sup>, earl of Dorset. <em>educ</em>. ?Eton, c.1621;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (Spain, Italy), 1622–5.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (lic. 6 July 1637), Elizabeth, da. of Henry Somerset<sup>†</sup>, mq. of Worcester, 2s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 26 Oct. 1682; <em>will</em> 15 May 1677, pr. 29 Nov. 1682.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>The Browne family had been established at Cowdray since the mid-sixteenth century, when Sir Anthony Browne<sup>‡</sup> inherited the estate from his half-brother Sir William Fitzwilliam<sup>†</sup>, earl of Southampton, and added it to his own, already extensive, holdings in Sussex and elsewhere. Browne was well connected, several of his sisters marrying well, including Mary, who married Robert Petre<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Petre, in 1620. The family remained resolutely Catholic and the 3rd viscount suffered severe financial penalties during the civil wars since he was both a recusant and a royalist. Although his debts were extensive he was nevertheless solvent, and in 1672 he was able to buy out rents which had been reserved to the crown in the original grants.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Montagu was one of the last of the Catholic peers to take his seat in the Convention Parliament, first sitting on 23 May, but thereafter he was present on 35 days before the adjournment on 13 Sept. 1660, amounting to 37 per cent of the remainder of the session; he was absent from a call of the House on 31 July 1660. He signed the address of the Sussex gentry to the king in June 1660.<sup>5</sup> He possessed a strong interest in the constituency of Midhurst through his ownership of burgages, but any influence had to be exercised discreetly. In 1661 he was able to return his distant cousin Adam Browne<sup>‡</sup>, although Browne chose to sit for Surrey.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Montagu was not present when the session resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, first sitting on the 13th. In all he attended on 29 days, 64 per cent of the total. On 13 Dec. he entered a protest against the vacation of Sir Edward Powell’s fines. He attended on the opening day of the new Parliament, 8 May 1661, being present on 43 days (two thirds of the sittings) before the adjournment on 30 July. He was expected to vote on 11 July 1661 in favour of the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of lord great chamberlain. Six days later he entered a second protest against the vacation of Sir Edward Powell’s fines. Montagu was not present when the session resumed on 20 Nov. 1661, being listed as ‘sick’ at a call of the House on 25 Nov. and first attending on 5 December. In total he was present on 28 days (22 per cent). He was absent when the 1663 session convened on 18 Feb., being excused as sick on the 23rd but attending two days later. He sat on 26 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total. His absences between 2 Mar. and 6 Apr. 1663 were covered by a proxy in favour of Charles Howard*, Baron Howard of Charlton (later 2nd earl of Berkshire).</p><p>Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed Montagu as likely to support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. After 7 July 1663, Montagu attended on every day of the session, bar 10 July, a crucial day in the proceedings against Clarendon. On 18 July the committee considering the bill on subsidies named him as one of the assessors of peers. He attended on the second day of the 1664 session, 21 Mar., and was then present for 24 days, 68 per cent of the total. He missed the opening of the 1664–5 session, first attending on 28 Nov. and sitting on 25 days, 52 per cent of the total. He did not attend the brief session held in October 1665, and was absent when the 1666–7 session convened on 18 Sept., being excused attendance on 1 Oct. and attending just ten days of the session, between 9 and 23 Nov., 9 per cent of the total.</p><p>Montagu was in London in June 1667, when he asked Dudley North*, 4th Baron North, for a buck for the use of Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup> at the Bury St Edmunds assizes.<sup>7</sup> He was present in the House on both 25 and 29 July 1667 when the king called a short session to proclaim the peace. He was also present at the opening of the 1667–9 session on 10 Oct. 1667, and on 21–22 Oct., but on 29 Oct. was once again excused attendance and did not return to the House until 9 November. He was present on 29 days before the adjournment on 19 Dec., nearly 48 per cent of the total. He was absent when the session resumed on 6 Feb. first sitting on the 14th. Thereafter he was present on 28 days (one-third of all sittings) before the adjournment on 9 May, sitting for the last time on 7 May. He returned to the House for the opening of the 1669 session on 19 Oct. and attended on 14 days, 41 per cent of the total.</p><p>Montagu was present on the third day of the 1670–1 session, 21 Feb. 1670, but after a further two days in attendance he then absented himself until 4 April. From 4 Mar. to 4 Apr. his proxy was held by his nephew, William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre. He was present for a further three days in April, making just six days in total before the adjournment on 11 April. He was not present when the session resumed in October 1670. On 11 Nov. he asked Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, to present his excuses to the House on account of gout, promising to attend ‘as soon as ever I am able’, and was duly excused on 14 November.<sup>8</sup> He attended for three days in mid-December, for five days in January 1671 and seven days in the first part of February. From 10 Mar. he was rarely absent until the end of the session on 22 Apr., missing only two days. In this part of the session he was present on 49 days, 43 per cent of the total.</p><p>Montagu attended on the second day of the 1673 session, 5 Feb., and 14 days in all (37 per cent). He did not attend the short session of October–November 1673. He was, however, present on the opening day of the 1674 session on 7 Jan., attending on seven occasions. On the last day he attended, 27 Jan., he obtained the protection of the House against prosecution for recusancy. However, he probably found the situation threatening because on 21 Feb. 1674 he received a pass to travel abroad.<sup>9</sup> Further, in May 1674, he entered into a debt trust to cover debts amounting to £20,000, a move which probably reflected a need to reassure creditors at a time of heightened anti-Catholic agitation.<sup>10</sup> Two of the trustees, John Caryll and William Roper, were also members of Catholic families, and the third, William Yalden, was a neighbour. Montagu’s relationship with the Roper family was also a personal one, as around 1674 his daughter, Elizabeth, married Christopher Roper*, 5th Baron Teynham.</p><p>Montagu appears to have been at Newmarket in March 1675, where he had a horse running.<sup>11</sup> He missed the opening week of the session of April–June 1675, first attending on 20 Apr. and being present on 17 days, towards 42 per cent of the total. He was excused attendance on 29 April. He attended just three days of the session of October–November 1675, being excused attendance on 10 November. In March 1676 and again in October and December he was engaged in horse-racing at Newmarket.<sup>12</sup> In about May 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury listed him as worthy, a not uncommon designation for those also marked as papist. Montagu was absent from the House when the 1677–8 session began on 15 Feb. and was excused attendance on 9 March. He was present only on 10–12 Apr. before the adjournment on the 16th. He then attended on the first two days when the session resumed on 21 May. He was absent when the session resumed on 15 Jan. 1678, first attending on the second day, 28 Jan., and sitting on 38 days, 62 per cent of the total for this part of the session.</p><p>Although there was only a prorogation of a week, Montagu missed the first three days of the session which began on 23 May 1678, first sitting on the 27th. He sat on 21 days, 49 per cent of the total. In the same year he petitioned the king against the assumption of the title of Viscount Hereford by the descendants of Sir Walter Devereux, which would deprive the Montagus of the right to be regarded as premier viscounts of England.<sup>13</sup> This petition was referred to Parliament by the king and Montagu was present on 30 May 1678 when it was received by the House, which put off consideration until Leicester Devereux*, 7th Viscount Hereford, came of age (he being only about five at the time); as he died in 1683, the next opportunity for the House to consider the issue was in connection with a private bill concerning the marriage of Edward Devereux*, 8th Viscount Hereford, presented in 1690.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Montagu also attended the prorogation of 1 Aug. 1678. He was present on the opening day of the 1678 session, 21 Oct., and attended on ten days of the session, 17 per cent of the total. Not surprisingly, on 15 Nov. 1678 he voted against the declaration against transubstantiation in the Test bill, the inclusion of which effectively barred him from Parliament. On 29 Nov. Cary Gardiner reported that Montagu had told his sister that the Commons’ address for the removal of the queen would not pass the Lords.<sup>15</sup> He did not attend after 29 Nov. and on that day he was granted a pass to go abroad, in the company of his wife, son and daughter-in-law; by 5 Dec. he had left for France.<sup>16</sup> His second son, Henry Browne*, the future 5th Viscount Montagu, received a pass to travel abroad on 19 Jan. 1679.<sup>17</sup> Montagu was allowed to compound for £20 a month, rather than lose two-thirds of his lands under the recusancy legislation.<sup>18</sup></p><p>On 20 Dec. 1681 the attorney-general agreed to a petition of the previous May from the bailiff and burgesses of Midhurst for a renewal and confirmation of their privileges, with a grant of markets and fairs specifically to Montagu and others in trust for the inhabitants.<sup>19</sup> On 20 Mar. 1682, Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, at Newmarket, wrote to his fellow secretary, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, for a licence from the Council for Montagu to attend the king at Newmarket for ten days.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Montagu died on 26 Oct. 1682, and was buried at Midhurst on 2 November.<sup>21</sup> At his death he owned lands in Sussex, Surrey and Kent; he also possessed a personal estate valued at £5,000.<sup>22</sup> Even after payment of his debts he anticipated that the lands he bequeathed to his younger son, Henry, would enable him to raise portions of £2,000 for any daughters he might have. His will of May 1677 made bequests to such poor people as attended his funeral and provided generously for Henry. The remainder of his property passed, subject to a life interest in Cowdray House and Park for his widow, to his son, Francis Browne*, 4th Viscount Montagu. His executors were all prominent Catholics with the exception of his servant, John Tourner, who was presumably also Catholic.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
BROWNE, Francis (aft. 1637-1708) |
<p><strong><surname>BROWNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (aft. 1637–1708)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 26 Oct. 1682 as 4th Visct. MONTAGU. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. aft. 1637, 1st. s. of Francis Browne*, 3rd Visct. Montagu and Elizabeth Somerset; bro. of Henry Browne*, 5th Visct. Montagu. <em>m</em>. (pre-nuptial settlement 10 Jan. 1676<sup>1</sup>) Mary (<em>d</em>.1744), da. of William Herbert*, earl of Powis, wid. of Richard Molyneux, <em>s.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 12 Apr. 1708; <em>will</em> 1686-12 Feb. 1708, pr. 12 July 1708.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Suss. 1688-9.</p> |
|
<p>Barred from Parliament because of his catholicism, Montagu had little opportunity to engage in public life, although he did spend time in London. Household accounts for April-July 1685 suggest that he spent April 1685 in the capital then moved to his estate at Cowdray, Sussex, in the first week in May, before the commencement of the parliamentary session. Similarly, he was in London in January 1686, but left the capital in mid February.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Montagu’s marriage to Mary Molineux cemented his links to the Catholic community. Not only was she a member of a prominent Catholic family, but one of her trustees (William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre), was a Catholic, and another (Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester, the future duke of Beaufort), was a former Catholic. The third was William Craven*, earl of Craven. Connections apart, the marriage brought little reward. Mary Molineux’s sole assets were her jointure of £1,000 a year from her first husband’s estate and a reversionary interest in an annuity worth £200 a year. Both were subsequently sold and the proceeds used towards the payment of Montagu’s debts. The arrangements Montagu put in place to compensate his wife became the subject of acrimonious litigation after his death. Montagu’s younger brother, the 5th viscount, who had no incentive to underestimate, later stated that the net income of the estate during his brother’s lifetime was £6,000 a year.<sup>4</sup></p><p>As a Catholic, a major landowner and with a considerable interest over the parliamentary borough of Midhurst, it was perhaps only to be expected that the accession of James II would bring Montagu more firmly into public life. In the event he seems to have had little involvement in either county or borough politics until his appointment in February 1688 as lord lieutenant in the place of Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset. Even then, Powis was named to deputize for him while Montagu was absent in France ‘on private affairs’, having been granted a pass to go abroad with his wife in March 1687.<sup>5</sup> According to the borough regulators in 1688, Montagu had a ‘good interest’ at Midhurst and ‘may secure the election of Mr. [John] Lewknor<sup>‡</sup> and Mr. John Mitchell [Michell<sup>‡</sup>], or who his Lordship shall think fit’.<sup>6</sup> In July 1688 he was one of the peers written to by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to assist the king’s election agents.<sup>7</sup> Yet what little is known of his activities as lord lieutenant suggests that he was probably conciliatory rather than confrontational. Although John Alford<sup>‡</sup> returned unsatisfactory answers to the three questions, Montagu nevertheless ensured his restoration to the commission of the peace and made him a deputy lieutenant.<sup>8</sup> He seems to have been sensitive to the increasing hostility to Catholics, and in August 1688, like his father before him, he responded by entering into a debt trust to reassure his creditors.<sup>9</sup> Unlike his uncle Christopher Roper*, 5th Baron Teynham, he had no need to flee the country at the Revolution of 1688. However, on 18 Sept. 1690, his wife, Mary was granted a pass to return from France, and she was indeed detained for a time by the zealous officials of Rye corporation upon her return in March 1691.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Presumably Montagu’s low profile explains why he was listed as underage when the House was called on 28 Oct. 1689 and 31 Mar. 1690. Virtually nothing is known of his activities during the 1690s, apart from a brief involvement in a petition against the wording of a private bill on behalf of Edward Devereux*, 8th Viscount Hereford. His concern stemmed from the recognition implicit in the bill of the Devereux claim to be recognized as the premier viscounts of England.<sup>11</sup> The extent to which he actually exercised his electoral influence over Midhurst remains obscure. Given the predominately Tory inclinations of the Lewknor family with whom he shared control of Midhurst, he may not have cared to exercise pressure at all. Montagu’s electoral influence became noticeable only in 1701, when his client Laurence Alcock<sup>‡ </sup>replaced Sir William Morley<sup>‡</sup> as the second Member.<sup>12</sup> Montagu himself was said to have been increasingly frail in body and mind. He died on 12 Apr. 1708, being succeeded by his younger brother, Henry. In July 1710 his widow married as her third husband, Sir George Maxwell of Orchardtown, whereupon she became involved in an extensive legal dispute with the new viscount. This centred on her management of the estate as the 4th viscount had been ‘a man not very mindful of his affairs, and very much under the influence of his said lady’. He had become ‘very much indisposed and infirm for many years before his death’ so that she was able to undertake the ‘whole management of the estate’, and ‘managed it so that the annual expense was only £1,000 a year; therefore a surplus which she put out in her own name or concealed under other persons' names’. Not content with loading debts on to her husband’s estate, when her husband was ‘insensible’ she procured a codicil to his will adding £500 p.a. to her bequest.<sup>13</sup></p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
BROWNE, Henry (bef. 1641-1717) |
<p><strong><surname>BROWNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (bef. 1641–1717)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 12 Apr. 1708 as 5th Visct. MONTAGU. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. bef. 1641, 2nd s. of Francis Browne*, 3rd Visct. Montagu; bro. of Francis Browne*, 4th Visct. Montagu. <em>m</em>. bef. 1685, Barbara (<em>d</em>. 23 Nov. 1723), da. of Thomas Walsingham of Little Chesterford, Essex and Anne, da. Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk, 2s. 6da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 25 June 1717.</p> |
<p>Commr. customs 1687-8.</p><p>Dep. lt., Kent 1688.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Browne was left the manor of Lenham, Kent by his father, an outlying property purchased by his grandfather, the 2nd Viscount, and which he disposed of soon after he inherited the title from his brother.<sup>3</sup> This estate explains his appointment as a deputy lieutenant in February 1688. He was clearly perceived as a loyalist by James II, being named to the new customs commission in February 1687 (which was superseded in December 1688). Following the Revolution Browne chose to go into exile with James II, and presumably was the ‘Mr. Brown’, ‘the late Montagu of Cowdray’s brother’, who was listed in 1689 as in France with King James with an estate of £2,000 p.a.<sup>4</sup> He subsequently served as secretary of state at St. Germains in 1690-1.<sup>5</sup> Browne seems to have returned to England after the peace of Ryswick. In January 1698 a warrant was issued for a licence for his wife and three daughters, who had gone into France after the Revolution, and in May 1699 he was probably the ‘Henry Browne’ who was given leave to return from France.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Montagu inherited the peerage in April 1708, but he was barred from the Lords by his Catholicism. His name appeared on one parliamentary list, of those voting on Sacheverell’s guilt in March 1710, but this was to note that he was a Catholic. It was probably soon after he assumed the viscountcy, that Montagu petitioned the queen for permission for his son, Anthony Browne<sup>†</sup>, the future 6th Viscount Montagu, to return to England, he ‘having been formerly in France, has for these last three years constantly resided at the duke of Lorraine's court at Luneville.’ Now he wanted to come home and had reached Rotterdam by using a pass from John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Montagu seems to have taken no role in the politics of Midhurst, possibly because he was not in possession of Cowdray House and Park, in which the dowager retained a life interest. His lack of interest in electioneering was made clear when in 1711 he sold several burgages to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, who had been attempting to build up an interest in Midhurst since 1709. In 1709, as the only surviving trustee of the settlement for his Roper cousins (daughters of Christopher Roper*, 5th Baron Teynham) he was negotiating with the commissioners of customs for the sale of land on the Isle of Grain.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Montagu’s inheritance was much circumscribed by the terms of his brother’s will and his debts which amounted to some £20,000 at his death.<sup>9</sup> One outstanding question, a debt trust created in 1688, which had been rendered void when John Carryll (one of the trustees) was outlawed for treason, was sorted out by the enactment of a private bill which authorized that part of the trust vested in the Crown (by virtue of Caryll’s attainder) should be vested in the surviving trustee, Henry Arundell, thereby allowing the sale of two of the Montagu manors in order to fulfil the trust.<sup>10</sup> Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, was approached by Sir Richard Onslow<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Onslow, and subsequent purchaser of the lands for nearly £25,000 in July 1712, who presented him with a case on 14 Feb. 1711.<sup>11</sup> The treasury referred the petition for a bill to the attorney general on 19 Feb. 1711, and following a favourable report, on 23 Feb. William Lowndes<sup>‡</sup> was ordered to signal the Crown’s consent to the bill.<sup>12</sup> On 24 Feb. a petition was received by the Commons for a bill, and royal consent was confirmed on the 26th. The bill was presented to the House on 28 Feb., and managed through the Commons by ‘Mr. Onslow’, presumably Thomas<sup>‡</sup>, a son of Sir Richard, passing on 7 April. The bill was given a first reading in the Lords on 9 Apr., whereupon John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, informed the House that the queen had given her consent for the bill to be passed. Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, reported the bill without amendment on 1 May and it passed two days later.</p><p>Montagu challenged the other dispositions of his brother’s will, alleging that his sister-in-law had taken advantage of his brother’s fragile mental health in order to improve her personal financial position at the expense of the estate, including obtaining an annuity by means of a fraudulent codicil to his will. His charges were vigorously defended by the dowager viscountess and her husband, Sir George Maxwell, whom she had married in July 1710. An agreement between Montagu and his sister-in-law was drawn up in December 1710 but seems not to have been implemented.<sup>13</sup> In November 1711 they commenced what was to become an acrimonious series of actions and cross actions in chancery. In 1716 the court found in favour of the dowager. Montagu’s appeal to the Lords resulted in the overthrow of the disputed codicil on the grounds that the 4th Viscount was not of ‘sane memory’ at the time he signed it, but otherwise brought little advantage.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Montagu died on 25 June 1717 and was succeeded by his son. He acquired posthumous fame in the story that he was responsible for the murder of a local priest and had to live out his years in hiding, a legend for which there is no contemporary evidence.<sup>15</sup></p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
BRUCE, Charles (1682-1747) |
<p><strong><surname>BRUCE</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1682–1747)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1685-1712 Ld. Bruce; <em>accel. </em>29 Dec. 1711 Bar. BRUCE of Whorlton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 16 Dec. 1741 as 3rd earl of AILESBURY and 4th earl of Elgin [S]; <em>cr. </em>17 Apr. 1746 Bar. BRUCE of Tottenham |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 1 Aug. 1746 |
|
MP Great Bedwyn 7 Dec. 1705, 1708; Marlborough 1710–29 Dec. 1711. |
<p><em>b</em>. 29 May 1682, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Thomas Bruce*, <em>styled</em> Ld. Bruce (later 2nd earl of Ailesbury), and Elizabeth (1655–97), da. of Henry Seymour (1626–54), <em>styled</em> Ld. Beauchamp. <em>educ</em>. privately; academy at Brussels, 1698. <em>m</em>. (1) 7 Feb. 1706 (with approx. £45,000), Anne (<em>d</em>. 18 July 1717), da. and coh. of William Savile*, 2nd mq. of Halifax, 2s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 2 Feb. 1720 (with £10,000),<sup>1</sup> Juliana (<em>d</em>. 1739), da. of Charles Boyle*, 2nd earl of Burlington and 3rd earl of Cork [I], <em>s.p</em>.; (3) 18 June 1739, Caroline (<em>d</em>. 17 Jan. 1803), da. of John Campbell<sup>†</sup>, later 4th duke of Argyll [S], 1da. <em>d</em>. 10 Feb. 1747; <em>will</em> 15 May 1746, pr. 15 Apr. 1747.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Burgess, Bedford 1711; recorder, Bedford 1711–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. Sir G. Kneller, c.1720, sold at Sotheby’s, 14 Apr. 2011.</p> |
<p>Charles Bruce, styled Lord Bruce, had great responsibility thrust on him at a young age after his father fled to the continent in February 1698 to escape prosecution as a Jacobite. Lord Bruce and his younger sister, Lady Elizabeth Bruce, joined their father in Brussels, Ailesbury’s adopted city, in August 1698, and Bruce ‘rode’ at the Academy there for some months. After about a year Ailesbury sent him back to England to head the family’s interest there. Thus while still underage Lord Bruce was charged with managing the family’s far-flung estates in Yorkshire, Bedfordshire and Wiltshire, ably assisted by his uncle, Ailesbury’s younger brother, Robert Bruce<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Lord Bruce assumed full responsibility for his family’s affairs when he came of age in 1703. He provided for his father out of the income of the Bedfordshire and Yorkshire estates, while the Wiltshire estates centred around Savernake Forest were made over to Bruce so that he could dispose of them for his own maintenance. From 1705 Bruce and his uncle Robert were deep in negotiations with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, for a marriage with Lady Anne Savile, which promised to bring to the Bruce family a portion of potentially £45,000 from the wills of the bride’s two grandfathers.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Bruce and his uncles saw the marriage as an opportunity to re-establish the Bruces as a leading family among the English peerage. To further cement their position Bruce felt that it was necessary for his sister (who had remained with her father on the Continent) to come back to England, so that she could be properly married and rescued from the Catholic influences prevailing in Brussels, ‘being so young and having for so long a time neither had a governess of her religion nor a chaplain in the family’. Lady Elizabeth returned to England in June 1705, but a year later definitively told Bruce that she was a Roman Catholic. Bruce enlisted William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), to try to convert her back to the national church, and he embarked on this seemingly futile task throughout the winter of 1706–7. An apparent resolution was reached in the spring of 1707 when Elizabeth was matched with George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan. Cardigan came from an old Catholic family, but Bruce nevertheless considered him ‘universally esteemed here and very well known in the best company’, and approved of the marriage. As part of the marriage settlement Cardigan formally agreed with Bruce and his uncles that he and his wife would adhere to the national Protestant church. Wake still strenuously objected to the marriage, but this did not prevent him from maintaining friendly social relations, and frequent visits, with Bruce well into the reign of George I.<sup>7</sup></p><p>At around the same time in 1707, Bruce abandoned the family’s traditional residence of Houghton House in Ampthill, telling his father that, although he had tried to ‘bring my affairs to such a compass that I might have been able to have continued in this place [Ampthill] … I find it impossible to support my manner of living here … all this will force me to leave a place I very much love’.<sup>8</sup> Bruce left the costly ancestral home and retired to a less grand house slightly closer to the capital, Henley Park, near Guildford, which he rented from Sir Richard Child<sup>‡</sup>, before, ten years later, settling at Tottenham Park in Savernake in Wiltshire, part of the lands inherited by the family in 1676 through his mother, Lady Elizabeth Seymour.</p><p>There was a concomitant geographical move in the concentration of the Bruces’ political and electoral influence. Bruce’s father and his grandfather (Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury) had served as lord lieutenants of Bedfordshire, although both had had difficulties in exerting their influence in an infamously Whiggish county, where Russell influence was strong. By the time of the 1705 elections Bruce declined to stand as knight of the shire for Bedfordshire and instead he and his uncles increasingly looked to the Seymour lands in Wiltshire as the most fertile ground for exercising electoral influence. With the inheritance of the Tottenham and Savernake estates in the east of the county, the Bruces had also acquired the lordship of the nearby manors of Marlborough and West Bedwyn, which gave them a predominant interest in the parliamentary boroughs of Marlborough, Great Bedwyn and, to a lesser extent, Ludgershall.</p><p>In the vacuum left by Ailesbury’s flight in 1698 the Bruce electoral interest came under considerable pressure from Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, but the family had ensured that its client Charles Davenant<sup>‡</sup> was elected for Great Bedwyn in 1698 and January 1701; Bruce’s uncles, Robert and James<sup>‡</sup>, were returned for Marlborough and Great Bedwyn respectively at the 1702 election. Bruce’s effective and energetic electoral agent, Charles Becher, was, however, forced to report to Bruce before the elections of 1705 that the voters in Marlborough were ‘very mercenary’ and had ‘resolved to serve the highest bidder, for they had no sort of honour and conscience, being now grown as corrupt as any other borough’. Sure enough, Somerset’s bribes coupled with Tory disarray in the corporation ensured the return of Somerset’s client, the Whig Edward Ashe<sup>‡</sup>, against Robert Bruce. Lord Bruce himself and his uncle James stood at Great Bedwyn but were defeated by ‘interlopers’ from outside the borough, Nicholas Pollexfen<sup>‡</sup> and Admiral Sir George Byng<sup>†</sup>.<sup>9</sup></p><p>The bribery and corruption in this election had been so blatant that from the autumn of 1705 Becher was assiduous in collecting evidence and witnesses (two of them ‘very rogues who must be carefully managed’) for the petition which was brought before the committee for elections. As a result of an agreement probably hammered out in order to avoid further embarrassing scrutiny, Byng opted in November to sit for Plymouth, another seat for which he had been returned. Bruce withdrew his petition and was returned at the ensuing by-election without opposition. At the election of 1708 Bruce was returned again at Great Bedwyn by a crushing majority at the poll, while he placed James Bruce burgess for Marlborough (not without opposition from Somerset and a very close poll), and Robert was returned for Ludgershall. Two years later Bruce was elected at both Marlborough and Great Bedwyn, but eventually chose to sit with his uncle Robert for Marlborough, while his candidate, Thomas Millington<sup>‡</sup>, was returned at the ensuing Great Bedwyn by-election in 1711.<sup>10</sup></p><p>All three Bruces inclined to the moderate wing of the Tory party and Lord Bruce in particular was anxious to stay in the court’s favour as he continued to work for the return of his father from exile. When there was a hope that Ailesbury could return under the terms of the queen’s Act of General and Free Pardon in April 1709, Bruce intended to make doubly sure by addressing a petition to the queen asking for the grant of a special licence for his father’s return.<sup>11</sup> The petition was granted and a licence issued on Lord Bruce’s birthday of 29 May, but Ailesbury, through illness and then the sudden death of his second wife, did not take advantage of it and instead remained on the Continent until his death in 1741.<sup>12</sup> In the Commons, Bruce and his uncle opposed the prosecution of Dr Sacheverell, who had been born and bred in Marlborough.<sup>13</sup> At the beginning of the 1710 Parliament Bruce was classed as a Tory in the ‘Hanover list’ and later among the ‘worthy patriots’ who in the first session had detected the mismanagements of the previous ministry and had helped to buttress the ministry of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, over the terms of the peace preliminaries with France.<sup>14</sup> There was consequently recognition of his importance to the new ministry: after Bruce was passed over as lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire in May 1711, he was at least appointed recorder of the borough of Bedford a few months later in the place of Paulet St John*, 3rd earl of Bolingbroke, who himself had taken over the office from Ailesbury at the Revolution.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Most prominently, Bruce was one of the first of the 12 Tory peers put into the House by Harley, now earl of Oxford, to shore up his ministry. Oxford noted him as a ‘loyal’ member who should be gratified for his vote against the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion in the House on 10 Dec. 1711, despite the fact that Bruce was still sitting in the Commons at the time. It was principally Bruce’s brother-in-law Cardigan and his uncle Robert who acted as the middlemen and facilitators of this acceleration. On 27 Dec. 1711 Robert wrote to Bruce at Henley Park informing him that he, Cardigan and an unnamed person – probably either Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, or William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth – had met at White’s Coffee House, where Cardigan had asked Robert ‘whether it would be agreeable to [Bruce] to be called to the House of Lords’, promising him that if Bruce so agreed, it ‘might immediately be done’. The mysterious unnamed other person also encouraged Bruce to take up the honour. The queen signed the warrant for Bruce’s writ of acceleration on 28 Dec. but he was not the first of ‘Oxford’s dozen’. The writ of acceleration of another heir of a peer, James Compton*, later 5th earl of Northampton, summoning him as Baron Compton was issued on 28 Dec.; Bruce’s writ had to wait until the next morning, possibly because Dartmouth had had to take time to ascertain the proper title of the English barony in the Bruce family.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Ailesbury later claimed in his memoirs that as early as 1705 he had suggested to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, then visiting the earl in his exile in the Netherlands while on campaign, that the queen could enjoy a more compliant House of Lords through a mass creation of cooperative peers. He included his own son in his list of candidates for this honour, but warned Marlborough that Bruce would at heart always prefer to sit in the Commons, ‘so very good a school’, and would only accept the new honour ‘by obedience’.<sup>17</sup> Whatever Bruce’s true feelings about his elevation, he proved a dutiful and conscientious member of the House for the ministry. The first task for the 12 peers was to appear in the House on 2 Jan. 1712 and vote for an adjournment until mid-January, which would give Oxford and the ministry time to regroup before pushing through measures for the peace. It appears from the correspondence of ministers of state about the new peerages in late December 1711 that one of the principal virtues of choosing Bruce was that he was near at hand, in Henley Park in Surrey, and could be expected to arrive in time to be in the House only a few days after receiving his summons. Dartmouth and Robert Bruce both emphasized to Bruce in letters of Friday, 28 Dec., and even more urgently on Sunday, 30 Dec. that Bruce needed to be in Westminster on Monday night or Tuesday at the latest in order to kiss the queen’s hand in time to sit in the House on 2 January. Bruce fulfilled this duty and was present in the House on the stated day, when he and the other 11 new peers voted through the adjournment.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Bruce sat in the House for most of the rest of January, but left on 15 Feb. 1712, after having registered his proxy with Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, on the 7th (Rivers appears to have been a close personal friend).<sup>19</sup> Bruce returned on 28 Apr. and in May voted against the Whig motion for an address against the ‘restraining orders’ issued to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>20</sup> He came to just over two-thirds of the meetings of the session of spring 1713, and Oxford included him among those who would have voted for the French commercial treaty if it had been sent up to the House. Bruce also joined Nottingham in petitioning on 21 Apr. 1713 to bring in a bill to enable trustees to sell Halifax’s estate for the payment of debts. The bill did not have its first reading until 8 May but received the royal assent on 6 July. Bruce came to 59 per cent of the meetings of the spring of 1714 and whenever he was absent from the House registered his proxy with either his brother-in-law Cardigan (9–17 Mar., 10–13 and 24–29 Apr.) or Compton (6–26 May and 21–30 June). Nottingham forecast that Bruce would vote for the Schism bill, and its vote did take place during one of the periods he was in the House. Bruce came to only four of the meetings of the session held after the death of Anne, and on 5 Aug. assigned his proxy to Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Bruce was undoubtedly most useful to the Oxford ministry for his electoral influence. On 18 July 1713 he wrote to Oxford to reassure him that he was about to go to Bedfordshire ‘to take care of the elections there’. He promised the lord treasurer ‘two good members’ both for the county and for the borough (although he was not quite so positive about the latter), and also promised him the election in Wiltshire of four loyal members ‘upon my own interest’.<sup>21</sup> His confident prediction of the numbers of the voting ‘bloc’ he could bring to the service of Oxford were well founded: the Tory candidates John Harvey<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Pynsent Chernock<sup>‡</sup> were returned for the county of Bedford, while in the borough the one Tory candidate, Samuel Rolt<sup>‡</sup>, stood against two Whigs and won the second seat. Bruce’s candidate Henry Skyllyng<sup>‡</sup> did not prevail in Ludgershall, but the electors of Great Bedwyn returned the sitting members, and those of Marlborough elected Robert Bruce and the other Bruce nominee, Gabriel Roberts<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The Marlborough election came in the middle of a sharply partisan crisis in the government of the borough that closely involved both Bruce and his rival, Somerset. The borough was bitterly divided between an oligarchic Whig council, in the pay of and supporting the Somerset interest, and the majority of the burgesses, who increasingly showed Tory, or at least anti-Somerset, leanings. In 1711 the outgoing Whig mayor, Roger Williams, stacked the corporation’s council with his political followers and then, following an Elizabethan by-law of the corporation charter, proposed three of these Whig councillors as candidates for mayor. When the burgesses overwhelmingly voted for the solitary Tory councillor, Abraham Kimber, Williams rejected the choice on the grounds that Kimber was not a qualified candidate and installed his preferred candidate, John Horner, as mayor instead. This high-handed action helped to ensure the defeat of Somerset’s candidate in the by-election to find a replacement for Bruce in January 1712.</p><p>Somerset redoubled his efforts for the mayoral elections of August, which were to be even more controversial because Kimber and the Tory burgesses had been able to force through the repeal of the by-law which restricted the nomination of mayoral candidates to the three councillors set forth by the incumbent. Thanks to the determined counter-bribing of Bruce’s electoral agent, Kimber beat his nearest Whig rival for the nomination. In response, Williams and the other Whig councillors withdrew themselves from corporation business, even taking one of the town seals with them, but did set up another candidate in the mayoral election on 14 Aug. 1713, only 12 days before the parliamentary elections. Bruce’s task was made simpler in the latter by the self-destruction of the Marlborough Whigs at the mayoral election, when a minority of 14 councillors and burgesses walked out to elect their own mayor, while Kimber and 17 burgesses stayed behind in the corporation hall and voted ‘Wat’ Shropshire in as mayor.</p><p>The Whigs were in such disarray, having lost the election both numerically and morally, that Somerset did not even propose a candidate for the ensuing national election. Robert Bruce and Gabriel Roberts were both returned unopposed. The split within the Marlborough corporation, with separate mayors and councils each claiming legitimacy, continued into 1714, when there was another divided election which the Bruce candidate John Fowler won and which the Whig ‘mayor’, and Somerset ally, Roger Williams refused to recognize. In December Somerset threatened <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings against the current and previous Tory mayors, arguing that the old by-law which had been at the centre of the first contested mayoral election had not been properly repealed.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Bruce vigorously pursued his competition with the Seymours over control of Marlborough well into the reigns of the first two Georges, particularly after Somerset consigned the Marlborough interest to his heir Algernon Seymour<sup>†</sup>, styled earl of Hertford (later 7th duke of Somerset), in March 1715. By 1736 Somerset could write of his rival that ‘Lord Bruce hath established his interest very effectually … in Marlborough upon so firm a foundation that it is not to be shaken’.<sup>24</sup> Bruce remained an active Tory partisan after the Hanoverian Succession and, despite his frequent periods of absence from the House, he was at the heart of the Tory organization to sway crucial votes and to exchange proxies. Sometime in 1715–16 he corresponded with John Leveson Gower*, 2nd Baron (later Earl) Gower, to work with him on corralling as many of ‘their friends’ – 17 lay lords and 4 bishops – for the ‘next meeting’ as possible.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Baron Compton was Bruce’s most frequent proxy recipient in the period 1715–20, holding it for five different periods in 1715–16, but Bruce also exchanged proxies several times with his brother-in-law Cardigan, as well as with a number of other Tory peers. Bruce also came to the House for important votes and debates and was often on hand to subscribe to Tory-driven protests. Not only did he vote and protest against the Septennial Bill and the bill to forfeit the estates of Jacobite ‘traitors’ in the wake of the 1715 uprising, but he also compiled lists of the different sides in divisions on these bills, on 14 Apr. and 22 June 1716 respectively.<sup>26</sup> He signed a series of three protests against the articles of impeachment against his old patron Oxford and worked to ensure a strong Tory presence at Westminster at the time of Oxford’s trial in June 1717.<sup>27</sup></p><p>At about that time, Bruce’s first wife, Lady Anne Savile, died and from the time of his remarriage, in February 1720, to his second cousin Lady Juliana Boyle, his closest political and social connections were oriented to the extended Boyle family. He frequently used his wife’s uncle Henry Boyle*, Baron Carleton, and particularly his new brother-in-law and second cousin, Richard Boyle*, 3rd earl of Burlington, as his proxies. A more detailed discussion of his activities in the House and as election manager for the Wiltshire boroughs after 1715 will appear in the subsequent volumes of this work.</p><p>In December 1741 Bruce inherited his father’s titles upon the aged 2nd earl’s death but, with only two surviving daughters, he was faced with the possibility that the earldom of Ailesbury would become extinct upon his own death. In April 1746 he was further created Baron Bruce of Tottenham, with a special remainder in the patent bequeathing the title to his nephew, Thomas Brudenell<sup>†</sup>, the youngest son of his deceased sister the countess of Cardigan. He also intended to make Brudenell heir to his lands. Less than a year later, in February 1747, he died at Tottenham Park. After providing for a substantial dowry for his young daughter and for other bequests, his will placed the residue of the estate in the hands of trustees to guard it for his heir, who added the surname Bruce to his own to signify his inheritance. The Scottish barony of Bruce of Kinloss and the earldom of Elgin went to a distant kinsman, Charles Bruce, 9th earl of Kincardine [S], and the Scottish barony of Kinloss lay dormant for several decades, but the English barony of Bruce of Whorlton and the earldom of Ailesbury were extinguished until Thomas Brudenell Bruce<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Bruce of Tottenham, was created earl of Ailesbury in 1776.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BRUCE, Robert (1626-85) |
<p><strong><surname>BRUCE</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1626–85)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1633-63 Ld. Bruce; <em>suc. </em>fa. 21 Dec. 1663 as 2nd earl of Elgin [S] and 2nd Bar. BRUCE of Whorlton; <em>cr. </em>18 Mar. 1665 earl of AILESBURY. |
|
First sat 16 Mar. 1664; last sat 2 July 1685 |
|
MP Beds. 1660, 8 May 1661-21 Dec. 1663. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 19 Mar. 1626, o.s. of Thomas Bruce*, 3rd Bar. Bruce of Kinloss [S], (later earl of Elgin [S], and Bar. Bruce of Whorlton) and Anne (c.1604-27), da. and h. of Sir Robert Chichester, KB, of Raleigh, Devon. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France, Italy, Switzerland) 1642-6; L. Inn 1672. <em>m</em>. 16 Feb. 1646, Diana (<em>d</em>. 8 Apr. 1689), da. of Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, 8s. (5 <em>d.v.</em>p.), 9da. (3 <em>d.v.</em>p.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 20 Oct. 1685; <em>will</em> 1 Dec. 1684, pr. 15 Dec. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. earl marshal (jt.) 1673-84; PC 18 Oct. 1678-21 Apr. 1679, 26 Jan. 1681-<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> ld. of trade and plantations 1678-9, 1681-<em>d</em>.; ld. chamberlain July 1685-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. militia and c.-in-c., Beds. Mar. 1660, loyal and indigent officers, Beds., London, Westminster and Yorks. 1662; col. militia horse, Beds. Apr. 1660; ld. lt., Beds. (jt.) 1660-Mar. 1667, (sole) Mar. 1667-<em>d</em>., Hunts. 1681-<em>d</em>., Cambs. Feb. 1685-<em>d</em>.; freeman, Bedford 1661; constable, Tutbury Castle 1663-7; steward, honour of Leicester 1667-<em>d</em>., honour of Ampthill 1671-<em>d</em>., Bedford 1684-<em>d</em>.,<sup>4</sup> Kingston-upon-Thames Aug. 1685-<em>d</em>.; recorder, Godmanchester 1679-<em>d</em>.,<sup>5</sup> Bedford 1684-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Beds. 1681-<em>d</em>., Hunts. 1681-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1663, Council 1669, 1670, 1674, 1675<sup>6</sup>; steward, Royal Artillery Co. 1682;<sup>7</sup> gov., Charterhouse Sept. 1685-<em>d</em>.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by J. Smith, after Sir P. Lely, 1687, NPG D7181; line engraving by W. Faithorne, c.1664-80, NPG D22626.</p> |
<h2><em>A young royalist, 1654-9</em></h2><p>Robert Bruce was the only son of the Scots peer Thomas Bruce, 3rd Baron Bruce of Kinloss [S], whose compatriot James I granted him the stewardship of the royal honour of Ampthill in Bedfordshire in 1613. Bruce and his descendants based themselves there from that time.<sup>11</sup> In June 1633 Kinloss was elevated in the Scots peerage by Charles I to the earldom of Elgin [S], and from this point his young son Robert, raised in the grand residence of Houghton House near Ampthill, took the courtesy title of Lord Bruce. To confuse matters, in July 1641 Charles I, hoping to shore up his support in the English House of Lords, gave Elgin an additional English title, making him, Baron Bruce of Whorlton. Thus the Baron Bruce in the English House of Lords had a son styled Lord Bruce in the Scots peerage.</p><p>Lord Bruce missed most of the fighting of the Civil Wars while on a grand tour.<sup>12</sup> His father Elgin had wavered in his adherence to the king and remained in the House of Lords throughout the wars, where he sided, albeit reluctantly, with the Presbyterian peers who sought a negotiated settlement. In 1646 Lord Bruce, having returned from the continent, married Diana, a daughter of the Parliamentarian general Henry Grey, earl of Stamford, sister of the radical army leader and later regicide, Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Grey of Groby, and sister-in-law to the leader of the Presbyterians fighting for Parliament in Cheshire, Sir George Booth*, later Baron Delamer. His father’s compromised loyalty to Charles I, and his new parliamentarian family connections may have raised doubts about Bruce’s loyalty but they did not convert him. Throughout the Interregnum and then the Restoration he distinguished himself by unwavering loyalty to the crown and the principle of the hereditary monarchy, despite the exclusionist sympathies of the various in-laws and nephews gained through his marriage. Yet he always showed a loyalty to these family connections. He worked to further the careers of his Grey brothers-in-law and maintained a friendly correspondence with Delamer, despite the latter’s Presbyterian leanings.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Throughout his career Bruce remained a strong and dedicated follower of the Church of England. This may reflect the influence of Robert Frampton*, later bishop of Gloucester, who served ‘the very religious and noble earl of Elgin’ as chaplain from the late 1640s until 1655, and who appears to have converted Lord Bruce from a hedonistic young man to a pious devotee of Anglicanism.<sup>14</sup> An even greater influence in forming Bruce’s loyalty to the monarchy and the established church was his paternal aunt, Christian, dowager countess of Devonshire, the widow of the late William Cavendish<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Devonshire and mother of William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire. Bruce maintained a frequent correspondence with both mother and son throughout the 1650s and thereafter.<sup>15</sup> From 1646 she lived with her brother Elgin at Ampthill and there encouraged her young nephew in his royalist views and later maintained and strengthened them through letters to him after her move to Roehampton in 1650. Bruce’s involvement in the various schemes to bring back the king is murky, but by the spring of 1659 he was certainly in touch with royalist agents such as his brother-in-law Sir George Booth and John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse (described in one letter as Bruce’s uncle, although it is not clear how) and in May 1659 brokered a donation of £1,000, probably from his aunt the dowager countess of Devonshire, to the exiled Charles II. This donation was intended to assist in the projected uprising of that summer led by Booth, in which Bruce was involved.<sup>16</sup> He was arrested before he could raise Bedfordshire for the king as planned and was brought before the council of state’s committee for examinations in August 1659, but revealed nothing under questioning and was granted bail for £20,000.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>The Restoration, 1660-5</em></h2><p>Bruce was made commander-in-chief of the Bedfordshire militia, and a colonel of a troop of militia horse, by the reconstituted Long Parliament and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, aware of Bruce’s services to the exiled king, specifically instructed him to stand for knight of the shire of that county.<sup>18</sup> He was returned to the Convention without opposition, where he was one of the 12 members of the Commons deputized to go to the Netherlands to invite Charles II to return. From this point Bruce became the foremost county leader and agent of the crown in Bedfordshire. In the summer of 1660 Bruce, although still only a commoner, was made a joint lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire with the largely ineffectual peer Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, who was ‘almost doting with age’.<sup>19</sup> He became sole lord lieutenant of the county upon Cleveland’s death in late March 1667, by which time he himself was a peer.<sup>20</sup> He fulfilled a number of other local administrative roles in the county and the county town of Bedford from this time – principally justice of the peace and commissioner of assessment. In August 1660 his father successfully petitioned to be restored to the office of steward of the royal honour of Ampthill in Bedfordshire, but owing to Elgin’s compromised loyalties during the Civil War it was to Lord Bruce that the crown entrusted the actual management of the honour and its game.<sup>21</sup> In June 1670, and after much petitioning and negotiation, Bruce, now earl of Ailesbury, procured the hereditary stewardship of Ampthill, entailed to the heirs male of his family.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In early 1661 Bruce was returned once again as knight of the shire to the Cavalier Parliament. In the first two sessions of the Parliament he was very busy in committees. He played the predominant role in the campaign to reward and assist old cavaliers and deprive of office those who had fought against the king and was made a commissioner for loyal and indigent officers in Bedfordshire, London, Westminster and Yorkshire (where he also had estates).<sup>23</sup> He was also active in committees on religious legislation to enforce conformity to the English church.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Lord Bruce inherited the Scottish earldom of Elgin and the English barony of Bruce of Whorlton upon his father’s death on 21 Dec. 1663, and he was further raised to an earldom in the English peerage as earl of Ailesbury, on 18 Mar. 1665, one of a series of eight creations or promotions which the king conferred on his closest followers in that month. Ailesbury’s heir Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, later recounted the family story that this honour, as well as a place as gentleman of the bedchamber and the lord lieutenancy of Bedfordshire, had been designed for Lord Bruce from the earliest days of Charles II’s return, but:</p><blockquote><p>my father humbly begged that my grandfather might be [made an earl], (he fearing the consequences) and the King flatly denied him and replied he had reasons; and my father had the same for to beg of the king to suspend it during my grandfather’s life. A main reason for my father’s precaution and what was most solid [was that], my grandfather and the flatterers were bitter enemies to my mother and not much less to my father.</p></blockquote><p>The old earl of Elgin, distrusted by the court and out of favour for his chequered Civil War career, evidently felt resentful towards his favoured son Lord Bruce and could still withhold his maintenance and inheritance. Thus only the joint lord lieutenancy of Bedfordshire with Cleveland materialized as evidence of the king’s favour in 1660 and ‘the place of the bedchamber my father never had, and happy for him, for the Court was not then proper for a sober man’.<sup>25</sup> Bruce was wise enough to defer his promotion in the peerage while his envious father was alive, and he was raised to the earldom of Ailesbury less than two years after his death. Ailesbury became one of the most active and engaged members of the House, and always acted to serve the king and the court interest, even through all the shifts of policy. His primary activity was as a chairman of select committees, and one historian has calculated he chaired 57 separate committees during the reign, making him the fifth busiest chairman of select committees during the reign of Charles II.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Ailesbury was also involved in parliamentary affairs outside of the House, in elections in his county of Bedfordshire and elsewhere. Bruce of Whorlton (as he then was) had supported the candidacy of Sir Henry Chester as his replacement for the county seat upon his inheritance of the title and worked to move the poll for the by-election to Ampthill from Bedford, where it had originally been placed by Bruce’s fellow lord lieutenant, Cleveland, and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, lord lieutenant of the neighbouring county of Buckinghamshire, both of whom supported Chester’s opponent Sir John Napier<sup>‡</sup> (who was also Bridgwater’s nephew).<sup>27</sup> Two days before Bruce was further raised in the peerage as earl of Ailesbury, a knight of the shire for Derbyshire, Sir John Frescheville*, had been created Baron Frescheville. Ailesbury took an interest in the campaign to replace him in the Commons and recommended his brother-in-law Anchitell Grey<sup>‡</sup>, at that point a deputy lieutenant of the county, to the Derbyshire lord lieutenant, his first cousin Devonshire. Devonshire was more than willing to agree with Ailesbury in this regard, but Grey made clear to Ailesbury and Devonshire that he would rather stand for the borough of Derby, one of whose sitting members, Roger Allestry<sup>‡</sup>, was on the point of death.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>First steps in the House, 1665-70</em></h2><p>It took a little time before Ailesbury became a busy member of the House, though even from the beginning of his parliamentary career, he was a diligent attender, missing only six meetings of the House across his first two sessions, those of spring 1664 and of 1664-5, in which he sat as Bruce of Whorlton. He appears in the official records as a nominee to only 16 select committees, but his correspondence suggests he was active in helping to frame legislation. He was solicited in the spring of 1664 by Delamer to use his influence in the Commons, ‘which they are sure is sufficient’, to delay the passage of the bill to make the Rivers Mersey and Weaver navigable until a delegation of gentry from Cheshire could come up to argue against it.<sup>29</sup> On 9 May 1664 the chairman of the committee on the Malvern Chase bill, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, received a letter written at Bruce’s instance asking that the committee be adjourned until the following morning, at which time Bruce would be able to attend.<sup>30</sup> Bruce chaired his first select committee on 20 Jan. 1665, on the estate bill of Francis Leigh, and in late February he acted as an intermediary with some of the parties at dispute on behalf of the committee for the bill of Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>31</sup> In late February 1665 the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Sir Thomas Ingram<sup>‡</sup>, treated Bruce as a committee chairman when he wrote to him asking him to convey a copy of the bill which would allow him to take affidavits within duchy territory to the lord chancellor so he could examine it before Bruce reported it.<sup>32</sup> In early 1665 the corporation of Bedford saw fit to express to him its thanks for his efforts ‘for promoting the navigation’ of the river Ouse, running through Bedford, through his support for the act ‘for making rivers navigable’, which received the royal assent on 2 Mar. 1665.<sup>33</sup> That day also saw the passage of the act for the drainage of Deeping Fen, confirming Bruce’s ownership of land in that reclamation project, which he had probably acquired through his connection with the Grey family. Over successive years he maintained a close watch on his interests in that region.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Less than two weeks after his creation as earl of Ailesbury on 18 Mar. 1665, he acquired a pass so that he and his household could travel to the continent to take the waters at Spa, and he remained there until early June 1666, thus missing in its entirety the session of October 1665.<sup>35</sup> It was not until the second day of the following session, 21 Sept. 1666, that Ailesbury was introduced to the House as a new creation, between his local rival William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, but he then stayed away until mid October and in total came to 85 per cent of the sittings of this session. He was a follower of Clarendon and his circle and appears to have been very close to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I]. He probably befriended Ormond through his cousin Devonshire, as Ormond was father-in-law to Devonshire’s son William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire). In June 1666 both Devonshire and Ailesbury agreed to enter into a bond for a debt owed by Ormond.<sup>36</sup> The two earls later hosted him in turn at their houses at Ampthill and Chatsworth in August 1670 as the lord lieutenant made his way to Ireland.<sup>37</sup> Clarendon for his part considered Ailesbury a reliable enough supporter of the interests of the crown to name him in late December as one of the six peers to sit on the royal commission for public accounts.<sup>38</sup> On 23 Jan. 1667 Ailesbury sought further to promote the royal prerogative by dissenting from the House’s decision not to add a clause to the bill for establishing a judicature for losses caused by the Great Fire of London which would have granted a right of final appeal to the king and the House. On 20 Dec. 1666 he was added to the committee of six peers charged with drawing up reasons why the House could not agree with the Commons’ term ‘nuisance’ in the Irish cattle bill, although he was not named a manager for the ensuing conference. It may have been concern at Ailesbury’s closeness to the court, and particularly to Ormond, that led Delamer to try to persuade him to support the controversial bill, which he insisted ‘concerns the good of England’.<sup>39</sup> On 7 Jan. 1667 Ailesbury was also added to the committee for privileges, and only two weeks later he chaired it for the first time.<sup>40</sup> Ailesbury was nominated to 16 select committees on legislation and played a prominent role in several. He was chairman on two occasions of the committee, established on 7 Dec. 1666, on the bill that would allow Elizabeth, dowager Baroness Abergavenny, to control the estates of her late husband John Nevill*, 10th Baron Abergavenny, and she wrote to Ailesbury desiring his ‘charity in getting the committee to meet’ in the afternoon rather than the morning so that her counsel could be heard. She continued to keep closely in touch with Ailesbury during the committee’s proceedings.<sup>41</sup> Lady Cholmley expressed her thanks to Ailesbury for his care of the interests of her husband, Colonel Edward Cooke, one of Ailesbury’s most frequent correspondents, in the proceedings in early February 1667 on the bill to settle the estate of James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), of which estate Cooke was one of the trustees.<sup>42</sup> The countess of Rutland praised Ailesbury for his support of her bill to make illegitimate the children recently born to Anne, Lady Roos, the estranged wife of her son John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland).<sup>43</sup></p><p>Ailesbury attended the last day of the brief five-day session of July 1667 and came to only 35 of the 51 sitting days of the meetings of autumn 1667 which saw the fall of Clarendon. He was part of the delegation assigned on 11 Oct. to present the king with the thanks of the House for his speech in which he had announced the dismissal of the lord chancellor. Whilst it can be assumed that he opposed the proceedings against Clarendon, there is no record concerning his precise involvement in this matter. After the long Christmas recess, Ailesbury did not appear in the House again until 7 Mar. 1668, a month after the Parliament had reconvened, and he only came to 45 per cent of the sittings before the session was adjourned on 9 May. He was named to nine select committees, and chaired one meeting of the committee on a private bill.<sup>44</sup> He may have travelled again to France in the summer of 1669.<sup>45</sup> He first sat in the House in the following session of autumn 1669 on 4 Nov. and missed seven of its 36 meetings. He sat in the 1670-71 session from its first day, 14 Feb. 1670, until 24 Mar., and from 16 Mar. held the proxy of his cousin Devonshire. This was vacated on 24 Mar. when Ailesbury registered his own proxy with Essex and was given permission by both the House and the king ‘to go drink the waters of Bourbon for his health’. Ailesbury had returned from the continent by mid July but did not return to the House to vacate his proxy until 10 Nov. 1670. From that time until the prorogation on 22 April 1671 he attended 86 per cent of the sittings.</p><h2><em>A busy chairman, 1670-4</em></h2><p>It was from about this time, the unsettled and politically shifting period of the early 1670s and government by the so-called Cabal ministry, that Ailesbury became heavily involved in parliamentary and political affairs. His son Thomas Bruce later portrayed his father in his memoirs as:</p><blockquote><p>of a noble spirit, ready to lay down his life for his king, but at the same time a true patriot, and manifested it greatly in Parliament in opposition to pernicious projects of double-dealing ministers, retaining at the same time a most dutiful behaviour towards his sovereign, who highly esteemed him, but was kept back from rewarding him by most false representations, which no ways affected him, having a plentiful fortune and great family, and the pleasures of the country and his studies amusing him much more than a court life could do during the intervals of parliaments; and during the sessions he continually employed himself, and with no small pains, to look over precedents and records for to furnish matter in the debates; and to his eternal honour he was always bent to support the prerogative of the crown, jointly with the good of the country – and the latter was little to the taste of time-serving ministers, who then had the good king’s ear too much.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>The 2nd earl also recounted that the key member of the Cabal, John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S], (later earl of Guilford) ‘being asked one day why he hated so much the earl of Ailesbury, replied that he was a friend to the duke of Ormond’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>In the period of the session from October 1670 to April 1671 Ailesbury was at his busiest to date with committees. He was nominated to 32, and effectively took charge of six, from all of which he eventually reported. Some were easier than others, such as the bills for the underage Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury and for the maintenance of ministers in London, which only needed one meeting each before he was able to report them to the House and have them passed.<sup>48</sup> By contrast three of the bills which he thought he saw through committee successfully – the private estate bills for the underage Baron Norreys and Sir William Clarke and the bill to take accounts of the money donated to indigent former Cavalier officers – were recommitted by the House upon his first report, though with each he was later able to present a version acceptable to the House.<sup>49</sup> Almost all of this busy committee work took place in April 1671, as the session was winding down. At that time he was also placed on a small subcommittee of the select committee on the bill against the growth of popery which was to draw a test oath for Catholics ‘which being taken may obtain a mitigation of the penalties’.<sup>50</sup> In other matters on 9 Mar. 1671 he subscribed to the protest against the House’s rejection of the bill for privilege of Parliament.</p><p>Ailesbury and his family benefited from one measure passed in this session, the bill to allow Lord Roos to remarry during the lifetime of his, now divorced, wife, whose children had already been declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament. As early as August 1668 Ailesbury had been making overtures for a marriage of his daughter Diana, the widow of the recently deceased Sir Seymour Shirley, to Lord Roos – if the bill permitting his remarriage could get through Parliament. After the bill’s passage on 11 Apr. 1670 Ailesbury embarked on negotiations; on 10 Nov. 1671 the marriage between Lady Diana Bruce and Lord Roos was solemnized.<sup>51</sup> It proved to be short-lived as the new Lady Roos died in childbirth on 15 July 1672 and the son born to her did not survive for long either.<sup>52</sup></p><p>A few months later, on 30 Oct. 1672 (a prorogation day), Ailesbury and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, helped to introduce to the House Henry Howard*, as the newly promoted earl of Norwich (later 6th duke of Norfolk) and earl marshal of England. Perhaps to return the favour, the Catholic Norwich, falling foul of the Test Act, on 20 June 1673 appointed Ailesbury and Carlisle as two of the seven deputies entrusted to exercise the office of earl marshal in his place. Over the succeeding years Ailesbury emerged as one of the foremost of these deputy earl marshals.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Ailesbury attended all but three of the sittings of the session of February and March 1673 which saw the passage of the Test Act. He was nominated to 19 select committees and chaired nine of them on a total of 26 occasions. He was most prominent – as he was to be for several successive years – in the committee considering means to encourage the manufacture of textiles in England and he led this committee on eight occasions. On 26 Mar. 1673 he reported the address which requested the king himself and members of his court to confine their apparel to English goods. He was also part of the delegation entrusted the next day with attending the king with this address.<sup>54</sup> He was particularly busy in the last days of the session, and between 22 and 29 Mar. 1673 chaired 13 meetings of committees on matters such as the prohibition of new buildings in London and Westminster, the disputes between the Grocers’ Company and the Hamburg Company and their creditors and the address for the wearing of English apparel, and he reported to the House from committee on five occasions.<sup>55</sup></p><p>He did not attend any of the meetings of the short four-day session of late October 1673 but did come to all of the following session in the first months of 1674, when he held the proxy of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, for the session from 10 Jan. 1674. The Journal records that he was appointed to only eight select committees, but the committee minute book makes clear that he was involved in far more than that, for he led seven different committees – not all of them those to which he was formally nominated in the Journal – on 25 occasions. He was principally involved once more in directing the proceedings for the bill to prohibit foreign imports and to encourage English manufacture and was its committee’s sole chairman on 11, often long, meetings. This committee heard the arguments in favour of the bill from the Weavers’ Company and others and against it from the commissioners of customs who feared the bill would damage the revenue from import duties. It also tried to settle the dispute between the potters and Robert Paston*, Viscount (later earl of) Yarmouth, over Yarmouth’s patent to take a portion of the duties on the import of earthenware and stoneware.<sup>56</sup> Other matters with which he was concerned were the bill to suppress atheism and swearing, and those for the regulation of servants and for setting the poor to work.<sup>57</sup> The only legislation he was able to bring to the House from committee was the private bill for Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, which Ailesbury reported on 20 Jan. 1674.<sup>58</sup></p><h2><em>Committees and Court politics, 1675-9</em></h2><p>Ailesbury was similarly attentive to the session of spring 1675 and came to all but one of its meetings. Although he was later to become a firm supporter of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), even Ailesbury could not approve of some of the ramifications of the test bill put forward by Danby in this session. He signed two of the four protests entered during its proceedings – that of 21 Apr., against the provisions of the bill that would deprive peers of their seats in the House, and that of 29 Apr., which objected to the resolution that the protest of 26 Apr. reflected upon the honour of the House, which Ailesbury and his fellow protesters saw as a derogation of the right to enter protests in the House. The <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em> claims that Ailesbury was among ‘those worthy earls … men of great worth and honour’, who supported the motion ‘that there ought to be an addition of the Oath for preserving the freedom of debates in Parliament’.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Otherwise Ailesbury was involved in committee work. He was formally nominated, according to the Journal, to 11 committees, and he seems to have managed almost all of these at least once, for he chaired seven different committees for a total of 24 times. He helped to guide the bills against frauds and perjuries in legal trials and for selling the estate of Charles Cotton successfully through committee.<sup>60</sup> Once again, he was primarily involved with the committee on the bill against the import of foreign manufactures.<sup>61</sup> On 3 June 1675, after seven long meetings, the committee ordered this bill with its amendments ready for the House’s consideration, but it was never reported to the House, presumably lost in the conflict over<em> Sherley v. Fagg</em>. On that day he also chaired the committee for privileges considering the complaint of William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, against a libellous pamphlet written against him by William Eyres in Ireland. The committee ordered that Ailesbury, with Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, were to try to effect some sort of reconciliation between Strafford and Eyres before a report be made to the House.<sup>62</sup></p><p>He maintained his almost perfect attendance rate in the session of autumn 1675, again missing only one sitting. Devonshire assigned his proxy to Ailesbury on 14 Oct. 1675 for the entire session. He was named to nine select committees, and chaired seven of these on a total of nine occasions. He chaired the committee on the bill against foreign manufactures, left over from the previous session, twice before he reported it on 17 November. Over the following three days he reported three more bills from committee. Ailesbury played a key role in the dramatic vote for an address to the king advocating the dissolution of Parliament which closed the session on 20 November. Of the peers present, those voting for the motion were in a majority but the not contents held more proxies and, those being added to the total, the division was found to be exactly equal at 48 votes each. At that point Ailesbury suddenly came into the House and, although he had heard nothing of the debate, it was left to him, still holding Devonshire’s proxy, to cast the deciding votes. His adherence to James Stuart*, duke of York, who on this occasion was making common cause with the country lords for the motion, might have been expected to tip him in that direction but he used his two votes against it, giving Danby and the court a razor-thin victory.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Late in 1675 negotiations began in earnest between Ailesbury and his friend Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), for the marriage of Ailesbury’s heir Thomas Bruce, styled Lord Bruce, to Worcester’s step-daughter Lady Elizabeth Seymour, the daughter and only surviving child of Henry Seymour, styled Lord Beauchamp, who in 1654 had predeceased his father William Seymour*, marquess of Hertford (and from 1660 2nd duke of Somerset). Lord Beauchamp’s widow, daughter of the royalist hero Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Baron Capell of Hadham, had married Worcester in 1657. By a bit of legal legerdemain engineered by Worcester on the will of John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset, Lady Elizabeth in early 1676 inherited most of the Seymour estate, against the apparent wishes of the late duke of Somerset himself, and to the anger of his two sisters, Frances, dowager countess of Southampton and Jane, Lady Clifford of Lanesborough. Many potential husbands were presented to Lady Elizabeth but she preferred Lord Bruce and negotiations ensued. Worcester, however, thought ‘that match as the fortunes stand cannot be a convenient one’ and wondered ‘whether it be not best handsomely to break off, with her consent’.<sup>64</sup> By 9 Feb. 1676 Ailesbury was lamenting to his friend, and now one of Worcester’s servants, Colonel Edward Cooke, that ‘I am sorry you think this affair will require so much time’.<sup>65</sup> These marriage negotiations, already difficult, slow and often ill-tempered, were further complicated when the dowager countess of Southampton and Lady Clifford of Lanesborough heard about the terms and sought to preserve their portion of the Seymour inheritance, particularly their annuities which were charged on the estate.<sup>66</sup></p><p>The lengthy and detailed marriage settlement was ready by 15 Aug. 1676 and a little over a week later the marriage between Lord Bruce and Lady Elizabeth Seymour was solemnized.<sup>67</sup> The settlement granted to trustees (Lady Worcester’s brothers, Essex and Henry Capell*, later Baron Capell of Tewkesbury) the use of much of Lady Elizabeth’s estate in order to pay the debts and legacies of the late duke of Somerset and to provide for Lady Worcester’s jointure and the annuities to the two Seymour sisters. Lady Elizabeth’s jointure was to be £1,500 p.a. secured on the Ailesbury properties, while Ailesbury himself was to receive the £9,000 portion, in order to help him provide dowries for his own numerous daughters.<sup>68</sup> The marriage settlement was, and continued to be, controversial, and relations between the Bruces, both Ailesbury and his son, and the Somersets, particularly the wilful marchioness of Worcester, broke down over the following years as disagreements arose over the constraints imposed on Bruce’s use of the Seymour properties.<sup>69</sup></p><p>While this family drama was proceeding, on 30 June 1676 Ailesbury was a member of the court of the lord high steward summoned for the trial of Baron Cornwallis for murder. Ailesbury was one of the minority of seven who found him guilty of manslaughter, while the majority found him not guilty.<sup>70</sup> Ailesbury missed only two meetings of the long session of 1677-8 and throughout this turbulent session he held the proxy of his absent cousin Devonshire, who had registered his proxy with him on 9 Feb. 1677, shortly before the session had even begun. Devonshire did not appear at all in that session to vacate the proxy, and to this Ailesbury for a time was able to add the proxy of his new kinsman by marriage for on 12 Feb. 1677, at the request of Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, Worcester sent to the secretary of state in Westminster a blank proxy with the request that it be registered in the name of Ailesbury.<sup>71</sup> This proxy was vacated on 12 Mar. 1677, when Worcester first attended the House in person.</p><p>Worcester may have entrusted his proxy to Ailesbury to help facilitate the passage of Ailesbury’s private bill, introduced in the House on 19 Feb. 1677, to vest a portion of his lands in trustees so they could perform some of the conditions of the marriage settlement during the minority of Lord Bruce. The following day this bill was committed to 54 peers, including Ailesbury himself. William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, was chairman of the committee’s two recorded meetings, on 22 Feb. and 1 March. On that latter day the committee ordered counsel for Ailesbury and for the dowager countess of Southampton and Lady Clifford of Lanesborough to meet to settle the differences between them.<sup>72</sup> There are no further proceedings on this bill recorded either in the committee minutes or in the Journal, but on 3 Mar. Lady Bruce wrote to her mother, the marchioness of Worcester, telling her that her aunts, the two Seymour sisters, ‘are now very busy doing what they can to hinder the passing of the bill in the House of Lords’ and that but for them it would already have passed a week previously. Her uncles Conyers Darcy*, the husband of the dowager countess of Southampton, knight of the shire for Yorkshire (and later 2nd earl of Holdernesse) and Charles Boyle*, styled Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, Member for Tamworth (and later raised to the House as Baron Clifford of Lanesborough) were threatening to hold the bill up in the House of Commons as well, though Lady Bruce thought that for all of Darcy’s ‘vapouring’, he had insufficient interest there: ‘They say they fancy that this Act of Parliament is to settle some part of my estate that else may come to them’. She hoped that Worcester would be able to come to Westminster soon, as ‘his interest in both houses would do us a great deal of good’, but otherwise she was confident that ‘with your Ladyship’s help and my uncles’ [i.e. Essex and Capell], I intend to defeat them’.<sup>73</sup> This opposition from her Seymour aunts and uncles prevented further progress with the bill until the session’s adjournment in mid April. Lord Bruce came of age in September 1677 rendering the bill unnecessary.</p><p>Ailesbury very quickly became involved in the larger public controversies of the session. He contributed to the debate on 15 Feb. 1677 surrounding the claim made by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, that the Parliament was automatically dissolved by the long prorogation of 15 months, but with George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester and others he took a middle ground. While he ‘argued a good while that the Parliament was not dissolved’ he was also unwilling to go as far as either Baron Frescheville in demanding that Buckingham be called to the bar ‘to be proceeded with as should be thought fit’ or James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury in insisting on an absolute right of free debate in the House.<sup>74</sup> It is perhaps for this relative moderation, as well as his previous opposition to the 1675 test bill, that in the spring of 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, could still consider Ailesbury ‘doubly worthy’, a calculation increasingly at odds with Ailesbury’s support for Danby throughout this session and thereafter. There does appear to have been some mutual regard between the two peers and at one point, perhaps around this period, Shaftesbury still thought he could ‘turn’ Ailesbury. The 2nd earl of Ailesbury later recalled that Shaftesbury, with his father’s fellow deputy earl marshal, the earl of Carlisle, and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, a family friend to the Bruces,</p><blockquote><p>at a distance and by little and little would have brought him into fears and jealousies, and the dangers that might arise from a successor to the king of a contrary religion to what was established … [but], that noble subject, and good patriot besides, told them plainly that he had nothing to say to them on such a subject so odious to him; and he from that day was quit of them, save the duke of Monmouth, who was ever to us both a noble and good friend.<sup>75</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ailesbury was most heavily involved as sole chairman of the select committee established on the second day of the session, 16 Feb. 1677, to inquire into the publication of the ‘libels’ produced arguing for the dissolution of Parliament. From 19 Feb. to 9 Apr. Ailesbury chaired the committee for a total of 17 meetings, and he reported from it twice.<sup>76</sup> On 1 Mar. 1677 he reported at length on the intensive interrogations by the Privy Council and by the king himself of Dr. Nicolas Cary for his role in trying to have published <em>The Grand Question concerning the Prorogation of this Parliament</em>, and his refusal to name positively Baron Holles as the actual author of the tract.<sup>77</sup> Four days later he likewise reported that the committee found the two principal printed works – <em>Some Considerations upon the Question, whether the Parliament is Dissolved </em>and <em>The Long Parliament Dissolved</em> – ‘seditious and scandalous’, with which the House agreed two days after that and ordered the works to be publicly burned by the common hangman. Ailesbury and the committee spent another ten meetings investigating the identity of the authors and publishers of these works. Even as that committee wound down in early April, he renewed his engagement in this same issue by chairing on three occasions the committee on the bill against unlicensed printing.<sup>78</sup></p><p>The period of February to April 1677 may well have been Ailesbury’s busiest in select committees. He was named to 35 committees in total and, apart from his principal committee examining the ‘scandalous books’, he chaired 11 committees dealing with items of legislation on a total of 22 occasions, and reported from seven with bills fit to pass. In March he reported from committee another bill for the prohibition of foreign manufactures, one for the collection of small tithes, and two private estate bills.<sup>79</sup> In late March and early April Ailesbury chaired two meetings of the committee for privileges which considered, in turn, the fees due to Black Rod for taking into custody members of the peerage, the rules of precedence for the eldest sons of the younger sons of peers and the procedures for swearing peers on to juries. Ailesbury’s brother-in-law Delamer was prominent in these hearings, presenting evidence and precedents on these subjects for the committee.<sup>80</sup> It was, however, only on the first matter, Black Rod’s fees, that Ailesbury reported to the full House on 3 April. In the first week of April he also reported from the committee on the private bill of Thomas Needham, 6th Viscount Kilmorey [I], and from that for the bill concerning William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby and the tenants of the manor of West Derby. Four days before the adjournment on 16 Apr. he reported the bill against unlicensed printing and publishing, so closely related to his work against scandalous publications.<sup>81</sup></p><p>This session also saw Ailesbury’s first involvement as a participant of conferences with the Commons. On 13 and 15 Mar. he was a manager for conferences on the House’s amendments to the Commons’ address against the growing power of Louis XIV and ‘his progress in the Netherlands’. He was one of the five managers for the conference on 4 Apr. in which the House made clear its disagreements to the Commons’ amendments to the bill for naturalizing the children of English subjects born abroad. On 14 Apr. he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons to be presented in a free conference why the Lords adhered to their amendments to the supply bill for building warships. As such he attended the bad-tempered free conferences on 14 and 16 Apr. which closed the session. A contemporary account of the free conference on the morning of 16 Apr. recounts that the lord chancellor Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham) was the primary spokesman for the Lords, who warned of the danger of the bill’s failing because of the Commons’ refusal to accept the Lords’ right to amend money bills. After the lord chancellor had finished, however, ‘several of the other lords the managers’, such as Ailesbury, Halifax, Bridgwater, and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, ‘argued with great sharpness to show the impossibility that the Lords could at this time comply’ – although in this case it was ultimately the Lords who backed down in order to see the supply bill pass.<sup>82</sup></p><p>After the long adjournment of the second half of 1677 Ailesbury returned to the House in January 1678 and attended every sitting bar one until the prorogation on 13 May. He was nominated to 20 select committees and chaired eight of them on 13 occasions. No committee occupied his attention above all others as in previous sessions, and he mostly dealt with private bills, three of which he reported after at most two committee meetings each.<sup>83</sup> His other committee appointments had wider public import. Ailesbury was a reporter for a conference on 22 Mar. in which the Commons explained their disagreement with the Lords’ amendment to the address calling for an ‘immediate’ declaration of war against France, and he was then placed on the subcommittee of 14 delegated by a committee of the whole considering the conference report to draft an answer to the Commons’ reasons. Ailesbury chaired this committee, and copies of the report he made on 27 Mar. 1678 in which the committee explained its opposition to the word ‘immediate’ by pointing out that treaties of alliance with the United Provinces and Austria were still pending were widely circulated.<sup>84</sup> With Baron Belasyse, with whom he had been associated since the royalist plotting of the 1650s, he complained on 28 Mar. to the select committee considering a supplementary act for the draining of Deeping Fen that the commissioners of sewers for that region had, during time of parliament, made decrees which deprived Ailesbury and Belasyse of much of their land in south Lincolnshire.<sup>85</sup> At this point he chaired the committee for privileges for two meetings, one on the standing orders regarding peers’ right to grant protections, on which he reported on 8 Feb. 1678, and the other on the procedures to be followed during the trial for murder of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, delivered to the House on 22 March.<sup>86</sup> At that trial on 4 Apr. Ailesbury joined the majority of peers in finding Pembroke guilty of manslaughter.<sup>87</sup> He was also a reporter for the conference on 30 Apr. to consider the danger from ‘the growth of popery’. On 11 May he chaired a committee of the whole for the first time, on his perennial interest, the bill to encourage wearing woollen manufactures. Ailesbury came to all but four of the meetings of the following short session of May-July 1678, in which he was named to 20 select committees, chaired five of them on nine occasions, and reported two to the House, on a private bill and on the bill for burying in woollen, on 30 May. The latter bill was recommitted but eventually passed a few days later when reported by Anglesey. Ailesbury was later named one of the managers for the two conferences held on the Common’s amendment to this bill on 11-12 July 1678 after which the House agreed to the Commons’ version. Ailesbury in this session also signed the protest of 5 July 1678 against the decision to provide relief to the petitioner in the case of <em>Marmaduke Darrell v. Sir Paul Whichcot</em>.</p><p>On 18 Oct. 1678, just before the session of autumn 1678, Ailesbury was sworn on to the Privy Council, a long-overdue honour for such a steadfast supporter of the court.<sup>88</sup> He took his seat on 21 Oct. (the opening day of the session), and the following day received Devonshire’s proxy, which he retained for the remained of the session, having in all attended 57 out of a possible 59 sittings. From this point his activity in select committees declined sharply and he was named to only eight, most of them established to investigate aspects of the Popish Plot, but he neither chaired nor reported from any. At the same time his role representing the House in conferences increased considerably. On 1 Nov. 1678 he was made a reporter for the Commons’ address condemning the ‘damnable and hellish plot’ against the king. On 15 Nov. in the debates on the test Bill he opposed the motion for a clause placing those refusing to make the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalties as those refusing the oaths, and from 23 to 27 Nov. he was involved in all four of the conferences on the Lords’ amendment which would allow a certain number of Catholic servants in the royal households. He was a reporter on 28 Nov. for another conference at which the Commons, ‘in amazement’ at the testimony of Oates and Bedloe concerning the queen’s alleged involvement in an assassination plot, presented an address calling for her removal from the king’s presence, but he was not involved in the conferences following the House’s rejection of it.</p><p>He was also heavily involved in the proceedings on the disbandment bill and the impeachment of Danby which brought the session to a close. He chaired three committees of the whole on the bill over 18-20 Dec. 1678, and on that last day he reported from the committee a long series of amendments, including those which sought to place the money raised for disbandment in the exchequer instead of the chamber of London. On 26 Dec., after the Commons had expressed their opposition to these amendments, Ailesbury joined the majority of the House in voting to adhere to them and was appointed to the committee of 14 entrusted to draw up reasons to be presented at a conference. The following day he also voted against the Commons’ request to commit Danby to the Tower pending his charges of impeachment. As a member of the committee assigned to justify the House’s amendments he helped to manage the two inconclusive conferences on 28 Dec. 1678 which effectively brought the session, and eventually the Cavalier Parliament, to a close.</p><h2><em>The Exclusion Parliaments, 1679-81</em></h2><p>An exclusionist libel of early 1679 ranged Ailesbury among the duke of York’s ‘twelve disciples’ who ‘sit at the helm of the council to steer as they please’.<sup>89</sup> Among such political opponents were his Bedfordshire neighbours, the Russells of Woburn, who spread the allegation among the country gentry that Ailesbury ‘did not give credit’ to the allegations of the Popish Plot and whose long-dormant electoral interest was, by the time of the elections following the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament, ‘like a spring tide at full moon’. Ailesbury’s candidate for the county, his own son Lord Bruce, was defeated at the poll in February 1679 by the partnership of the future Whig martyr, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, son of the earl of Bedford, and Sir Humphrey Monoux<sup>‡</sup> – at a cost of £6,000, by only 500 votes and to the great fury of the defeated candidate’s father. The king continued to insist that Ailesbury and Bruce try to make an interest against the Russells in Bedfordshire, but Bruce in the two subsequent elections found a safer and easier seat in the Wiltshire borough of Marlborough, part of his wife’s Seymour inheritance. ‘It was not in my father’s power nor mine to bring it up near a majority of votes’ in Bedfordshire in the Exclusion Parliaments, Bruce later lamented.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Danby relied on Ailesbury as an ally in his attempts to shore up his position at court and to counteract his enemies.<sup>91</sup> Ailesbury did prove to be highly committed to Danby and the court in the Parliament of spring 1679, whose every meeting he attended without fail. In the debate of 21-22 Mar. on whether Danby was to be secured to answer the pending articles of impeachment, Ailesbury took the view of most peers that the vote of 27 Dec. 1678 in the previous Parliament against the commitment of the lord treasurer still stood and did not need to be altered.<sup>92</sup> Ailesbury was appointed one of the managers for the conference of 22 Mar. at which the House discussed with the Commons the matter of the lord treasurer, the charges against him, and the measures needed to bring him in from hiding. Ailesbury appears to have been working behind the scenes, with Danby’s own son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, to collect evidence and testimony for Danby’s defence and a refutation of the charges against him in case the matter came to trial.<sup>93</sup> In the House he was one of only three peers who on 26 Mar. signed the protest against the passage of the House’s bill to banish Danby, and he later vigorously opposed the Commons’ much stronger bill calling for the attainder of the lord treasurer if he continued in hiding. Ailesbury began the debate on this bill on 2 Apr. by arguing that the bill of attainder ‘is upon the same articles upon which you thought not fit so much as to commit him’ in December 1678, and that the Lords’ own bill to banish Danby, ‘which you judged adequate to the crime’, had been peremptorily thrown out by the Commons and now ‘you have already given a greater respect to this than they did to yours’.<sup>94</sup> He voted and protested against both the passage of the bill in the House on 4 Apr. and then, ten days later, on the motion to agree with the version of the bill brought back from the Commons which set a deadline of 21 Apr. for Danby’s surrender.</p><p>Danby surrendered himself before this deadline was reached, and Ailesbury continued to defend him by participating in the campaign to delay his trial, or at least to ensure he was properly defended. On 3 May Ailesbury was a reporter for a conference on the House’s amendments to the Habeas Corpus bill, but a week after that he managed a conference concerning the petition Danby had submitted to the House requesting free access to his counsel. On that day, 10 May, he also voted with the majority against the motion to have a committee of both Houses meet together to consider the method of trial for the impeached peers, and the following day he was one of the 12 managers for two free conferences in which this issue was thrashed out, Ailesbury, Finch and Anglesey being noted as the only three lords who spoke at the conferences. In the end the House decided to concede to the request to form a joint committee to discuss the trials, and despite his evident opposition, Ailesbury was appointed one of the 12 peers chosen to meet with a similar committee from the lower House.<sup>95</sup> He took his role seriously enough to take notes at the meetings of the joint committee and on one occasion his record of the precise words said helped exonerate his fellow committee member Shaftesbury from Anglesey’s charge that he had cast aspersions on the king.<sup>96</sup> Ailesbury also defended the right of the bishops to sit in judgment in capital cases. Against Shaftesbury’s objections to their presence made in a debate of 6 May, Ailesbury argued, basing himself on John Selden<sup>‡</sup>, that the presence of bishops was necessary for a trial in the House to be valid.<sup>97</sup> His friend Colonel Cooke listed him as one of the foremost and most learned proponents of the right of the bishops to sit at the trial in a debate in the House on 19 May.<sup>98</sup> With relations between the Houses breaking down over this and other matters, Ailesbury was appointed on 26 May a reporter for a conference called by the Commons to preserve ‘a good correspondence’ between the houses, at which the lower House made clear its many complaints of the House’s delaying tactics in the matter of the trials. The following day Ailesbury probably voted to adhere to the House’s earlier resolution confirming the right of the bishops to sit in judgment in capital cases. With the two Houses in stalemate, Parliament was prorogued, and later dissolved.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Ailesbury initially suffered for his commitment to Danby and the court, as he was removed from the Privy Council in April 1679, newly remodelled so as to include more of the king’s critics among the country party.<sup>100</sup> Ailesbury’s son over 50 years later recounted that Charles II explained that he had removed Ailesbury from the council for his own good in troubled times:</p><blockquote><p>Oh, I am sure he would die at my feet; I know him so well, Doth he imagine I left him out because I did not love him? He was to be left out because I do love him. God’s fish! they have put a set of men about me; but they shall know nothing.<sup>101</sup></p></blockquote><p>There were moves as early as November 1679 to remove many of the mistrusted Whig councillors and to reinstate Ailesbury among other faithful servants.<sup>102</sup> In the long period during which the second Exclusion Parliament (to which Lord Russell and Monoux were again returned unopposed for Bedfordshire) was continuously prorogued, Ailesbury wrote to his friend Ormond in April 1680 that ‘I have had no little share of the calumnies that have been laid of late on those who endeavour to keep things in the old frame both as to Church and State’.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Ailesbury missed only three of the meetings of this Parliament after it finally convened for a working session on 21 Oct. 1680, and he was there on its first day to act as earl marshal at the introduction of George Savile as the newly elevated earl of Halifax. He did not receive his usual proxy from the ever-absent Devonshire, which caused concern ‘when so important affairs are depending’.<sup>104</sup> Ailesbury’s opposition to the Exclusion bill was sufficiently well known to lead another court supporter, Norreys, to register his proxy with him on 12 Nov. 1680, only three days before the introduction of the bill in the House. This may have been intended as an insurance measure, in case Norreys found himself for any reason unable to be present for the vote on the bill, as the attendance lists in the Journal show Norreys present, despite his proxy, on 12 Nov. and succeeding days, including the day of the bill’s introduction and rejection. The scrappy notes made by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, suggest that Ailesbury spoke at least twice in the debate of 15 Nov., and once at length. He argued that the bill was invalid as it had not been first proposed by the king or his ministers and did not have his approval. Near the end of debate, after one of Halifax’s famous and influential speeches against the bill, Ailesbury again intervened to advocate that the House ‘throw out the bill as unparliamentary’. He argued that the danger of passing a law ‘against the law of God and nature’ was more dangerous than being ruled by a prince of a different religion. Moreover, there were examples throughout Europe of successful and peaceable rule by princes of a different religion from their subjects. There was even the possibility, as there was ‘no defect in his person or understanding’, that York might convert upon coming to the throne, as Henry IV of France had done. Ailesbury repeated Halifax’s central argument by holding out the prospect of ‘more insecurity from wars’ if the bill passed, caused by what would be York’s inevitable attempt to reclaim his rightful throne by force. While thus never denying or even defending York’s religion, Ailesbury concluded, ‘I would not do an illegal thing to preserve my whole estate’ and he voted with the majority to throw out the bill.<sup>105</sup> He was later named to the group of five peers appointed on 27 Nov. 1680 to join with a committee of ten from the Commons to discuss the procedures for the trial of Viscount Stafford. Apparently, he was opposed to the notion of a joint committee – as he had been earlier with that for Danby’s trial – but he was absent from the House when it was established and was unwittingly placed on it in the place of Shaftesbury who surprisingly declined the nomination.<sup>106</sup> Ailesbury later found Stafford not guilty at his trial on 7 December. In this session Ailesbury also chaired a select committee on the question whether the fines imposed on delinquents, such as the publisher of a libellous tract who had petitioned the House, were excessive – the first time he had chaired a select committee since June 1678.<sup>107</sup></p><p>After the defeat of the Exclusion Bill, Charles II began to take his revenge, and in December 1680 Essex, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> were all removed from the Privy Council. Their replacements were the former councillors Ailesbury and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford and the newcomer to the board Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, all of whom were sworn on to the Privy Council on 26 Jan. 1681.<sup>108</sup> Ailesbury’s duties in governing local counties was also increased. In early March 1681 a commission was drawn up to make Ailesbury acting lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Huntingdonshire during the absence in France of the long-term convalescent Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Sandwich (himself replacing as lord lieutenant the ousted Whig Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester ), and in late April 1681 the king removed Oliver St John*, 2nd earl of Bolingbroke as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Bedfordshire and placed Ailesbury in that role as well.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Ailesbury was present at every meeting of the brief Oxford Parliament of March 1681 and on its first day, 21 Mar., he acted as earl marshal at the introduction of Edward Noel*, the new Baron Noel (later earl of Gainsborough). Danby instructed his son Viscount Latimer to apply himself to Ailesbury as one of his leading supporters in Parliament who could be relied on to promote his petition for bail, and Ailesbury was also singled out by Danby as one of the seven peers who would be willing to act as his security for bail.<sup>110</sup> On 24 Mar. Danby’s kinsman Norreys first presented the petition, and both Roger Morrice and Latimer, coming from very different viewpoints, concur in listing in particular Ailesbury, Frescheville, George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle and Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice as Danby’s ‘old friends’ who ‘stuck close to him’ and who ‘never [went], off the business without a question’.<sup>111</sup> Ailesbury himself reassured Danby that ‘there wanted nothing in my endeavours yesterday [24 Mar.], in your Lordship’s affair’, but that the matter had been put off to the following Monday, before which day the Parliament was suddenly and unexpectedly dissolved.<sup>112</sup> On its last day, 26 Mar., Ailesbury was also named a reporter for the conference called by the Commons on the methods of passing bills, and particularly the matter of a bill not being presented for the royal assent during the previous Parliament.</p><p>Ailesbury did not abandon the struggle for Danby’s liberty at that point and throughout his incarceration Ailesbury maintained a friendly and supportive correspondence with the former lord treasurer.<sup>113</sup> In the weeks following the dissolution of Parliament Ailesbury even delayed his much-anticipated trip to the waters at Spa in order to stay behind in England to pursue, apparently alone, a fruitless campaign before the Privy Council for Danby’s bail, on grounds of his deteriorating health in the Tower.<sup>114</sup> He was present at the hearings on Danby’s plea of <em>habeas corpus</em> on both 27 May and 29 June 1682.<sup>115</sup> In early January 1683 he was one of the signatories to an address to the king for Danby’s bail.<sup>116</sup> He also helped Danby’s dynastic ambitions by supporting the legality of the marriage of his second son Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount of Dunblane [S], (later 2nd duke of Leeds) to the heiress Bridget Hyde, in his roles both as a privy councillor and as a member of the court of delegates assigned in 1682 to consider her disputed marriage to John Emerton – although he does appear to have been absent when the delegates gave their sentence on 24 Apr. 1683, a narrow victory for Dunblane.<sup>117</sup> When Danby and the remaining Catholic peers were finally bailed in February 1684 Ailesbury stood as one of the sureties for £5,000 for Belasyse, with whom he had long been associated through, among other things, their common interest in Deeping Fen.<sup>118</sup></p><h2><em>The Tory revenge, 1682-5</em></h2><p>Ailesbury was involved in other politically tinged matters during the long period of the early 1680s between Parliaments. In March 1682 he was concerned, largely on behalf of his friend and kinsman Devonshire, with the behaviour of that earl’s heir William*, then styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire) and particularly the rumours that Cavendish had challenged the count of Königsmark to a duel for his role in the murder of Thomas Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, husband to Lady Elizabeth Percy, sole heiress to the estates of the Percy earls of Northumberland. As deputy earl marshal Ailesbury was able to extract a promise from Cavendish not to give or receive any challenges to Königsmark; throughout the spring of 1682 Ailesbury and the secretaries of state kept a close eye on Cavendish and this potentially explosive situation.<sup>119</sup> Ailesbury became more involved in the turbulent politics of the City of London at this time. On 12 July 1682 he was among the ‘several great lords’, including Ormond, Halifax and Laurence Hyde*, Viscount Hyde (later earl of Rochester) who dined with the lord mayor of London, Sir John Moore<sup>‡</sup>, no doubt to show their solidarity and approbation of his efforts to secure Tory victories in the London shrieval elections of that summer.<sup>120</sup> At that time he also appears to have been a member of a Tory political club ‘at the Warder within Ludgate’, of which Lord Bruce was one of the first dozen members, but as he later recorded ‘the Club gathered like a snowball in very few weeks’ and ‘the duke of Ormond, my father, and a great number of the nobility came in to us’.<sup>121</sup> In November 1682 Ailesbury joined the duke of York at a dinner at the Royal Artillery Company, where he and his fellow peers Ormond and Sunderland were made stewards of the company.<sup>122</sup> From about April to late July 1683 Ailesbury was in France with his wife, two younger sons Robert Bruce<sup>‡</sup> and James Bruce<sup>‡</sup> and two unmarried daughters, Lady Charlotte and Lady Henrietta, but was back at Ampthill by 1 Aug. to assist the secretaries of state in the investigation of the Rye House conspiracy and organized the loyal address delivered to the king in November.<sup>123</sup> In the months following his return, Ailesbury was a recipient of the favour shown to royalists during what has become known as the Tory Reaction. The borough of Bedford, near his house at Ampthill, was under suspicion for not being zealous in its loyalty at the time of the conspiracy. Ailesbury engineered the corporation’s surrender of its charter on 8 Jan. 1684 and replacement by a new one, which gave the king the right to remove any member of the corporation at will and instituted Ailesbury himself as the town’s recorder, displacing the long-standing, but more suspect, Bolingbroke from that office.<sup>124</sup> In early 1685 his heir Lord Bruce became a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II, which the king claimed, according to Bruce, was an attempt to compensate Ailesbury for the relative neglect and paucity of offices he himself had suffered at court.<sup>125</sup> Lord Bruce quickly became a favourite of the king and was present at the first signs of the king’s final illness only two short weeks after his appointment, and the care and solicitude he showed to the stricken king may have further increased his family’s reputation for loyalty to the Stuarts.</p><p>In February 1685 a clause was drawn up in the commission constituting the absent earl of Sandwich lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire empowering Ailesbury ‘to execute the office in the absence of the earl of Sandwich beyond the seas’, and Ailesbury thus governed the three adjoining eastern counties of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire in time for the elections to James II’s Parliament.<sup>126</sup> Aided by his influence, eight court candidates were returned in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, while Ailesbury’s greatest triumph was in his own county of Bedfordshire, where ‘there was opposition, but our interest carried it clear from that of the Russells, so triumphant in the late troublesome times’, as the 2nd earl of Ailesbury later exulted, and the gentry ‘were generally for us’ and ‘chose the two gentlemen we set up’, William Boteler<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Villiers Chernock<sup>‡</sup>, against Monoux and another of Bedford’s sons, Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup>. ‘And the same for the town of Bedford’, the 2nd earl added as an afterthought.<sup>127</sup> Ailesbury also wrote to his former son-in-law the 9th earl of Rutland (the former Lord Roos), lord lieutenant of Leicestershire, asking ‘who you think [are] the most proper persons to serve in Parliament for both the town and country Leicester, that I may join my interest with yours’. Ailesbury strongly recommended Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Baron Sherard [I], and John Verney<sup>‡ </sup>for the county, both of whom were ultimately returned. He later advised his former son-in-law to come to Westminster to greet the king, ‘as most persons of your quality have done’.<sup>128</sup></p><p>He came to every single meeting of the first part of James II’s Parliament, before the adjournment of 2 July 1685, and from 23 June 1685 he also held Rutlands’ proxy. Due to the long period of over four years between Parliaments 20 new or elevated peers had to be introduced on the first day, 19 May 1685, and three of these were introduced to the House by Ailesbury – Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield; Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham; and Thomas Windsor*, earl of Plymouth. Ailesbury was a key member of the Tories who now found themselves dominant in Parliament and the country, and he was intensely busy in the first part of James II’s Parliament in his capacity as a committee chairman. He was named to 15 select committees on legislation and chaired four of them on ten occasions and reported from three. On 18-19 June 1685 he reported from committee both the bill for the export of leather and that for the rebuilding of the house of William Herbert*, earl (later marquess) of Powis.<sup>129</sup> He was also involved in the committees for privileges and for petitions, from which bodies he reported three times over two days, 22 and 23 June, on respectively, a scandalous libel against Danby, the very long history and precedents in the case of the claim to the earldom of Banbury, and the petition in the case of Fountaine and Coke against Guavas.<sup>130</sup> Just before the adjournment of 2 July, he chaired the committee on the bill for improvement of tillage, reported it on 30 June only to have it recommitted, but the following day brought back a version which the House was able to pass.<sup>131</sup></p><p>He briefly reached his apogee of honour in this period of adjournment between sittings when, on 30 July 1685, upon the death of the incumbent Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, Ailesbury was made lord chamberlain of the household. But he was not to enjoy this honour for very long. Having requested leave from the court ‘for to divert himself at his home in the country’, he died on 20 Oct. ‘of an acute fever’ at Houghton House.<sup>132</sup> His son Thomas later eulogized his father in his memoirs as ‘the best subject, patriot, husband, father and master that ever lived’.<sup>133</sup> At the time of Ailesbury’s death, the new earl wrote to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, that his father ‘left this world with the satisfaction of being in the good opinion of your Grace and the whole body of the Church, whose interest he asserted his whole time to the utmost of his power.’<sup>134</sup></p><p>By his will of December 1684 Ailesbury left generous bequests to the ministers and poor of a wide variety of parishes with which he was associated in Bedfordshire, Yorkshire and London and made his widow executrix to manage the unentailed estates for the benefit of his younger underage sons Robert and James and to raise portions for his three as yet unmarried daughters. He explicitly stated his regret that he could not add any additional estates or provision to his son and heir Thomas Bruce, apart from what had been given to him in the marriage settlement with Lady Elizabeth Seymour. This son, the 2nd earl of Ailesbury, did inherit his father’s local roles as lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire and his father’s commitment to the hereditary principle and the Stuart line. The 2nd earl of Ailesbury later purported to recall that his father’s last prophetic words to him from his deathbed, made just before James II’s Parliament reconvened for its second stormy sitting, were ‘Dear son, you will see melancholy days; God be thanked, I shall not’.<sup>135</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BRUCE, Thomas (1599-1663) |
<p><strong><surname>BRUCE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1599–1663)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. Aug. 1613 as 3rd Bar. Bruce of Kinloss [S]; <em>cr. </em>21 June 1633 earl of Elgin [S]; <em>cr. </em>30 July 1641 Bar. BRUCE of Whorlton. |
|
First sat 5 Aug. 1641; first sat after 1660, 1 May 1660; last sat 10 May 1661 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 Dec. 1599, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Edward Bruce, Ld. Kinloss [S], and Bar. Bruce of Kinloss [S], and Magdalen (<em>d</em>. aft. 1638),<sup>1</sup> da. of Sir Alexander Clerk, of Balbirnie, co. Fife, Scotland. <em>educ</em>. MA, Oxf. 31 Aug. 1636. <em>m</em>. (1) 4 July 1622 Anne (c.1604-27), da. of Sir Robert Chichester, KB, of Raleigh, Devon. 1s.; (2) 12 Nov. 1629 Diana (c.1601-54), da. and coh. of William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Exeter, wid. of Henry de Vere<sup>†</sup>, 18th earl of Oxford, <em>s.p.</em> KB 20 May 1638. <em>d</em>. 21 Dec. 1663; <em>will</em> 6 Apr. 1647-1 Nov. 1663, pr. 11 Jan. 1664.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Steward, royal honour of Ampthill, Beds. 1613-<em>d</em>.,<sup>3</sup> forest of Gillingham, Dorset 1631-<em>d</em>.,<sup>4</sup> park of Byfleet, Surr. 1631-<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> commr., Dorset cttee. 1644, Western Association 1644, levying money Yorks. 1645, militia Beds. 1660.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Commr., regulating excise 1645, foreign plantations 1646, exclusion from sacrament 1646, bishops’ lands 1646, Oxford appeals 1647, indemnity 1647, Navy and customs 1647.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving, W. Faithorne, 1664 (NPG D22720)</p> |
<p>Thomas Bruce’s father, Edward Bruce, was a Scottish lawyer who was rewarded in 1603-4 for helping to smooth the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne by being given land (Whorlton and the site of Jervaulx Abbey in the North Riding of Yorkshire) and a title (Baron Bruce of Kinloss [S]). In 1613 the 3rd Baron was made steward of the royal honour of Ampthill in Bedfordshire. Thereafter he and his descendants were based in that county and particularly in the large residence of Houghton House.<sup>9</sup> His mother’s second husband, Sir James Fullarton<sup>‡</sup>, first gentleman of the bedchamber, was granted the stewardship of the forest of Gillingham in Dorset, and of the park of Byfleet in Surrey in 1625. After Fullarton’s death in January 1631 these offices were conferred on Baron Bruce and his mother, Lady Magdalen.<sup>10</sup> Throughout the 1630s Bruce remained a favourite of the king. He accompanied Charles I on his trip to Scotland for which, in 1633, he was created earl of Elgin in the Scottish peerage.</p><p>In July 1641 he was created Baron Bruce of Whorlton in the English peerage, and was introduced into the English House of Lords on 5 Aug. 1641. He will be referred to as Elgin, even though he sat in the House as Baron Bruce, in order to avoid confusion with his son Robert Bruce*, later earl of Ailesbury, who was known by the courtesy title of Lord Bruce throughout his father’s lifetime. Elgin was undoubtedly created an English peer to serve the king’s cause in the House, but he never joined Charles at Oxford and only intermittently attended the House of Lords throughout the 1640s until its proscription in 1649. He was most in attendance between early 1645 and summer 1647, during which time he voted consistently with the group of ‘Presbyterian’ peers centred around Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex, who supported a negotiated settlement with the king and opposed the army and the Independents in Parliament.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Many years later, sometime in 1726, Elgin’s grandson Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, penned a letter to his own son Charles Bruce*, styled Baron Bruce (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury), in which he recounted many of the family anecdotes about Elgin, and particularly the shame his failure to attend the royalist Parliament in Oxford (1644) had brought to the (later) ultra-loyalist Bruce family. He placed the blame on Elgin’s second wife, Diana, the widow of Henry de Vere<sup>†</sup>, 18th earl of Oxford:</p><blockquote><p>My worthy grandmother-in-law’s [i.e. step-grandmother’s], memory ought to be respected by us and she showed her goodness by her dispositions. Else she had no good inclinations to the crown. She was beautiful and rich and gave an answer to a poor prince on the Rhine that made court to her, I think a Palatine, that it was too much honour for her but that she had rather be a great lady in England then a poor princess in Germany. And preferring my grandfather before all other pretenders, it so endeared him as to occasion his false step. I have been told he was putting on his boots to go to Oxford where the nobles were convoked and she fell on her knees weeping, ‘My dear’, said she ‘will you reduce me to milk a cow?’</p></blockquote><p>This plea apparently stopped him in his tracks. There were, however, other explanations for Elgin’s half-hearted involvement in politics. The minister who delivered his funeral sermon in 1664 explained that he was,</p><blockquote><p>a person enriched with great endowments and abilities of mind … [and] a deep judgment fit for the managery of the highest affairs, had not the depressions and infirmities of a consumptive body indisposed him for the public, especially in such times of broils and confusion as were altogether unsuitable to the calmness and peaceableness of his temper. Yet even then he bore his part, and whilst others were wallowing in blood, he was wrestling in prayer and melting in tears. … He would often comfort himself … that he was free from the blood of all men.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sir Philip Warwick<sup>‡</sup> wrote more pithily in his <em>Memoirs</em> that Elgin was ‘of very good understanding, and of a pious, but timorous and cautious mind’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Elgin does appear to have been renowned for his piety and his support of those churchmen who continued to use the liturgy of the Church of England. It was probably through his connections with Gillingham that he first came into contact with Robert Frampton*, (later bishop of Gloucester), who served ‘the very religious and noble earl of Elgin’ as chaplain from the late 1640s until 1655.<sup>14</sup> Elgin’s house at Ampthill also became a resort for active royalist supporters and plotters, especially during the residence there of his sister, the countess dowager of Devonshire, and his son, Robert, Lord Bruce, from about 1646.<sup>15</sup> Elgin most likely condoned his family’s royalist sentiments, but he does not appear to have taken any active part in their intrigues himself. Later his grandson, the 2nd earl of Ailesbury, commented that ‘I am assured there never was a year that cost my grandfather less then £1,500 in charity towards sequestered bishops and to other clergy and royalists’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Elgin first came to the restored House on 1 May 1660, and attended only 11 meetings until 1 June, during which time he was not named to a single committee. He then appeared in the House for only the first two days of the Cavalier Parliament and stopped attending the House entirely thereafter, even though he continued to live until December 1663. Nevertheless, the House was still concerned with his privilege as a peer and on 17 June 1661 ordered the arrest of Leonard Robinson and others for illegally entering into the Yorkshire lands of the earl of Elgin, Henry Carey*, 2nd earl of Monmouth and Conyers Darcy*, 6th Baron Darcy.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Elgin’s very low attendance in the House can be explained by the evident disfavour with which he was viewed by the restored king and his court, especially as it was so easy to compare his inaction to the vigorous loyalty of his son Lord Bruce. His grandson Ailesbury later recounted:</p><blockquote><p>For upon the Restoration the king designing to make my father [Lord Bruce], an English earl with those made preceding the coronation, my father humbly begged that my grandfather might be [made an earl], (he fearing the consequences) and the king flatly denied him and replied he had reasons; and my father had the same for to beg of the king to suspend it during my grandfather’s life.</p></blockquote><p>The ‘reasons’ that Bruce had for deferring his earldom during the life of his father arose from what Ailesbury hinted was a strong enmity between the embittered old lord and his son, so favoured at court. It was spurred on, Ailesbury suggested, by ‘flatterers’ amongst his grandfather’s servants. ‘A main reason for my father’s precaution and what was most solid [was that], my grandfather and the flatterers were bitter enemies to my mother and not much less to my father’. They threatened to cut off their allowance and impede their claim to the estate. Ailesbury claimed that Elgin’s secretary even put in a <em>caveat</em> against the king’s plans in 1660 to make Lord Bruce an earl, a gentleman of the bedchamber and lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire. As to the lord lieutenancy, ‘they after acquiesced and my father was joined with the earl of Cleveland [Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland], almost doting with age’, in the summer of 1660. ‘But the place of the bedchamber my father never had, and happy for him, for the court was not then proper for a sober man’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>His grandson later commented that Elgin ‘lived after that two years and a little more’ and ‘was besides hypochondriacal’ and ‘eaten up with a deep consumption’. Elgin finally succumbed to the ‘infirmities of a consumptive body’ in December 1663 at Ampthill and left behind him a pious will, though it was later mocked by Ailesbury (‘read by the will and I defy you not to laugh, and by those items you may perceive the poor man’s temper and weakness’).<sup>19</sup> He left numerous bequests to family members, servants, and £370 to the poor of the parishes which lay within his estates in Bedfordshire, Yorkshire and Middlesex. At his death, he was succeeded as 3rd earl of Elgin [S], by his long-suffering only son Lord Bruce, who, once free from his father’s resentment, could be made an English earl by the king, as earl of Ailesbury, in April 1665.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BRUCE, Thomas (1656-1741) |
<p><strong><surname>BRUCE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1656–1741)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1663-85 Ld. Bruce; <em>suc. </em>fa. 20 Oct. 1685 as 3rd earl of Elgin [S], and 2nd earl of AILESBURY |
|
First sat 9 Nov. 1685; last sat 16 Dec. 1697 |
|
MP Marlborough 1679 (Oct.), 1681; Wilts. 19 May-20 Oct. 1685. |
<p><em>b</em>. 26 Sept. 1656, 5th but 1st surv. s. of Robert Bruce*, <em>styled</em> Ld. Bruce (later earl of Ailesbury) and Diana (<em>d</em>. 8 Apr. 1689), da. of Henry Grey* earl of Stamford; bro. of Robert<sup>‡ </sup>and James Bruce<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. private (tutor, Joseph Arrowsmith) c.1670; travelled abroad (France) 1673-4. <sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 24 Aug. 1676 (with £20,000?),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 12 Jan. 1697), da. of Henry Seymour, <em>styled</em> Ld. Beauchamp, 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 27 Apr. 1700 Charlotte Jacqueline, <em>suo jure</em> comtesse d’Esneux [Brabant] (<em>d</em>. 13 July 1710), da. and h. of Louis Conrad d’Argenteau, comte d’Esneux [Brabant], 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 16 Dec. 1741; <em>will</em> 2 Mar. 1730-29 Dec. 1739, pr. 29 Jan. 1742.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 23 Jan.-6 Feb. 1685, 23 Oct. 1685-23 Dec. 1688.</p><p>Dep. lt., Beds. 1679-85, Hunts. Apr.-Oct. 1685, Cambs. Apr.-Oct. 1685;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>., Beds. 1685-9, Hunts. 1685-9; steward, honour of Ampthill 1685-1730,<sup>5</sup> Bedford 1685-9, Huntingdon 1686-8; recorder and town clerk, Bedford 1685-9. <sup>6</sup></p><p>Capt., ind. tp. of horse June-July 1685,<sup>7</sup> tp. of horse, Henry Mordaunt* 2nd earl of Peterborough’s Regt. of Horse 1685-6.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by F. Harrewijn, 1738, sold at Sotheby’s 14 Apr. 2011; line engraving aft. Harrewijn, NPG D7182.</p> |
<h2><em>Lord Bruce, 1673-85</em></h2><p>Thomas Bruce was the eldest of only three surviving sons out of eight born to Robert Bruce, later Baron Bruce of Whorlton and earl of Ailesbury. From the time his father inherited the Scottish earldom of Elgin in December 1663, Thomas was known as Lord Bruce, through a subsidiary barony in that earldom. He remained Lord Bruce when his father was created earl of Ailesbury in the English peerage in March 1665, as the junior title in that English earldom was also Baron Bruce. In his later memoirs Bruce regretted the paucity of his early education:</p><blockquote><p>God Almighty endowed me with common reason and understanding for to jog on with in the world, and as for learning, my good father was too indulgent and never permitted me to go to the schools and after to the university, and he, dividing his time between his study and sports, he allowed me too much of the latter, which naturally pleased me much in those tender years, the most proper time for to inure young persons: and when I became sensible of the error that was committed, I was sent to Paris to do my exercises, and not long after I was married, when I seriously reflected on all past errors committed. It grieved me much that I had so mis-spent my time, and at an age proper to improve myself with literature.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lord Bruce imbibed and internalized from an early age the royalist attitudes of his father,</p><blockquote><p>a good father of a noble English spirit, ready to lay down his life for his king, but at the same time a true patriot, and manifested it greatly in Parliament in opposition to pernicious projects of double-dealing ministers …. my father often lamented, and before me, then so young (but endowed with a good memory) the pernicious counsels those ill-designing men gave the king, and they one and all were in the French interest.<sup>14</sup></p></blockquote><p>In December 1675 negotiations began in earnest between Ailesbury and Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort) for the marriage of Lord Bruce to Worcester’s step-daughter Lady Elizabeth Seymour, the daughter and only surviving child of Henry Seymour, styled Lord Beauchamp. The marriage was ostensibly a highly advantageous one. Beauchamp had predeceased his father William Seymour*, marquess of Hertford and from 1660 2nd duke of Somerset; his widow, the former Lady Mary Capell, married Henry Somerset in 1657.<sup>15</sup> Lady Elizabeth’s only brother, William Seymour*, became 3rd duke of Somerset in 1660 upon the death of his grandfather. When he died in December 1671, the entailed Seymour estates in Wiltshire and Somerset devolved to their uncle John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset. In early 1675 he was near death and Lord and Lady Worcester persuaded Somerset’s solicitor (who had a dependency on Worcester) to word the will so that the extensive Seymour estate passed to Lady Elizabeth, against the apparent wishes of Somerset himself, and to the anger of his two sisters, Frances, the countess dowager of Southampton and Jane, Baroness Clifford of Lanesborough.</p><p>After several months of painstaking, and often ill-tempered negotiations, the lengthy and detailed marriage settlement was ready by 15 Aug. 1676 and a little over a week later the marriage between Lord Bruce and Lady Elizabeth Seymour was solemnized. The settlement initially placed the estate in trustees (Lady Elizabeth’s maternal uncles Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex and Henry Capell*, later Baron Capell of Tewkesbury) in order to pay the numerous debts and legacies of the late duke of Somerset and to raise money to purchase the annuities of Lady Elizabeth’s paternal aunts, Lady Southampton and Lady Clifford of Lanesborough, and for her own mother, the marchioness of Worcester, who had an annuity of £1,600 charged on the estate. The settlement also stipulated that failing any issue of this marriage a moiety of the estate would go to trustees to dispose of as directed, while the other half would descend to Lady Elizabeth’s half-brother, and Worcester’s heir, Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Herbert of Raglan (and later styled marquess of Worcester).<sup>16</sup> This became a highly controversial part of the settlement, as Lady Elizabeth later claimed that her agreement had been coerced by her step-father Worcester, in order to benefit his own family.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In the elections of spring 1679 Bruce stood as knight of the shire for Bedfordshire, where his father was lord lieutenant, but to his surprise, and his father’s anger, was beaten by William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, son of his father’s local rival William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford.<sup>18</sup> Fortunately, Lady Bruce had brought with her to the marriage the Seymour electoral interest of the Wiltshire boroughs within the orbit of Savernake Forest – Marlborough, Great Bedwyn and Ludgershall – and in the two subsequent elections of autumn 1679 and early 1681 Bruce found a safer parliamentary seat in Marlborough.</p><p>By the early 1680s the couple’s financial situation was becoming perilous through the couple’s extravagant lifestyle, Lord Bruce’s fondness for gaming, and his need to maintain an electoral interest.<sup>19</sup>. On 11 July 1684 an indenture was signed whereby Bruce could lease various of the Seymour estates to purchase the annuity of the duchess of Beaufort (as the marchioness of Worcester had become in 1682) and to discharge the arrears of the annuities to Lady Southampton and Lady Clifford. The agreement did not give Bruce full power to make leases but only on limited terms and only with the consent of the duke and duchess of Beaufort and the duchess’s brother-in-law Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon until a total of £25,000 was raised to purchase the annuities and discharge the arrears, after which time Ailesbury would have unfettered power to grant leases in reversion.<sup>20</sup> Ailesbury tried to raise this money quickly, too quickly according to his mother-in-law, for he cut down timber and ploughed up land in some of the remaining parkland on the Somerset estate.<sup>21</sup> This and other disagreements over the trust settlement kept relations between the Ailesburys and Beauforts fraught for the ensuing years.</p><p>Bruce’s fortunes were temporarily improved, by his appointment in January 1685 as a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II at a salary of £1,000 p.a.<sup>22</sup> Lord Bruce by his own account quickly became a favourite of the king, and was present at the first signs of the king’s final illness only two weeks after his appointment, and treated the dying monarch with great care, solicitude and affection. To the end of his days he spoke of the king whose death he witnessed with great reverence and affection (‘my good and gracious king and master, Charles the Second, and the best that ever reigned over us’), as his benefactor and patron and the model of a truly royal king who also knew how to inspire obedience from his followers through his open, generous, nature – something which Ailesbury, always loyal as he was, thought lacking in James II. After the king’s death Bruce was not initially given a place at the court of the new king, a purposeful exclusion he attributed to the enmity of the Hyde brothers, Clarendon and particularly his brother Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, which he thought had been stirred up by their kinswoman the duchess of Beaufort.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Bruce could still serve the court in Parliament, and was easily returned to James II’s Parliament as knight of the shire for Wiltshire, with Clarendon’s son, Edward Hyde*, later 3rd earl of Clarendon but then styled Lord Cornbury, as an unwanted (and expensive) partner. He was also able to return a number of court supporters from the Wiltshire boroughs of Marlborough and Great Bedwyn ‘by an entire interest’. He later claimed that the new king had sufficient trust in him to appoint him to manage the Commons for the Crown, and that he convened and led a pre-sessional meeting of ‘upwards of two hundred and fifty’ court Members of the Commons in which he proposed that Parliament should vote the new king revenues for life and proposed Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup> for Speaker.<sup>24</sup> Perhaps he hoped that ingratiating himself at court in this way would facilitate the passage of a bill to enable him to make leases of the Seymour estate upon reversion without the consent of the duke and duchess of Beaufort, even though he had not yet paid off the annuities stipulated in the agreement of 1684.<sup>25</sup> The bill was introduced on 5 June 1685 but was dropped in response to the emergency created by the invasion by James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. Bruce always considered Monmouth a close family friend and considered his rebellion and execution to be a great tragedy.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>Succession and courtier to James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>Bruce’s situation and fortunes changed again when his father Ailesbury died on 20 Oct. 1685, only a few months after he had finally attained a prominent court position as lord chamberlain. His last prescient words were, at least according to his son and heir, ‘Dear son, you will see melancholy days; God be thanked I shall not’.<sup>27</sup> With the title, the new earl of Ailesbury inherited many of his father’s responsibilities. Within a few weeks he replaced his father as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, recorder, steward and town clerk of the corporation of Bedford and steward of the royal honour of Ampthill, the latter a hereditary office. There were rumours that he would replace his father as lord chamberlain.<sup>28</sup> That office went instead to John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), a man whom Ailesbury never liked and always mistrusted. It may have been Mulgrave’s aggressive steps to procure this office that first created tension between the two men. Ailesbury did regain his place as a gentleman of the bedchamber, but this was only effected after a personal interview with the king where he successfully disabused the monarch of the false impressions that Rochester (at this point apparently remorseful of his previous enmity) had spread about him and his bill.<sup>29</sup> In early 1686, when the new charter for the borough of Huntingdon was granted, Ailesbury was also named high steward of the town, to oversee the Crown’s interests there.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Ailesbury took his seat at the first opportunity, when Parliament reconvened on 9 Nov. 1685 and continued to attend all of the House’s sittings until the adjournment of 20 November. Ailesbury, who himself converted to Catholicism when in continental exile after 1698, had grave misgivings about the king’s pro-Catholic policies, not because he had any animus against Catholics or Catholicism <em>per se</em>, but because James relied on belligerent and misguided Catholics such as Father Petre and Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I], instead of the old, moderate, Catholic landed families of England such as his friend and kinsman John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, William Herbert*, earl (later marquess) of Powis or Thomas Arundell*, 4th Baron Arundell of Wardour. The real target of his anger throughout the reign of James II were Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland ‘and his shadow [Father Petre]’ who ‘began to lay the axe to the tree, by framing the king’s speech so contrary to the sense of the old and landed Roman Catholics’. Despite his own later conversion to Catholicism, during this time (at least according to his memoirs) Ailesbury resisted attempts to convert him, so wished for by the queen herself, and expressed nothing but contempt for Sunderland’s own opportunistic conversion. In his memoirs, he presented himself as a staunch churchman throughout James II’s reign. ‘To this hour’, he wrote, ‘I respect all the most orthodox and primitive clergyman of the Church of England – what I call the old Church of England’, and above others he singled out for praise, ‘that unparalleled, original, and heroic great prelate, and my dear friend, Dr Sancroft*, Archbishop of Canterbury; put into the Tower by the king, and one year after turned out of his archbishopric.’<sup>31</sup> He was indeed close to Sancroft, and was pleased to write to the archbishop only two days after the death of his father that the old earl of Ailesbury had ‘left this world with the satisfaction of being in the good opinions of your grace and the whole body of the Church, whose interest he asserted his whole time to the utmost of his power, and at his death … he expressed himself the same as he professes in his whole course of his life, praying for the prosperity of the Church of England in which communion he died’.<sup>32</sup> Ailesbury was to continue this veneration for the established Church of England and its episcopate throughout his life, even after his own conversion to Catholicism.</p><p>Ailesbury first signalled his discomfort with the regime in June 1686 by resigning his commission as captain of a troop of horse, although this may also have been owing to his general dislike of his colonel Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough, James II’s groom of the stole and ‘a man of a hot and fiery temper’. Ailesbury thought Peterborough coveted his lieutenancies and later argued with him over a matter of precedence as the court made its way to Salisbury in November 1688.<sup>33</sup> He was also highly reluctant to impose the three questions on his deputy lieutenants in Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, and when Sunderland asked him for the names of new deputies to replace those who had not answered according to the regime’s wishes, Ailesbury had the temerity to resubmit the names of the existing deputy lieutenants, claiming that they were the only suitable candidates. Ailesbury did issue commissions to the new men chosen instead by Sunderland, but he appended a note to each informing the recipient that he was doing so by the king’s will but that he wanted no social contact with him, for he believed that Sunderland’s nominees were unworthy for their responsibilities.<sup>34</sup></p><p>These misgivings were counterbalanced by an inherent and unshakeable loyalty to the idea of hereditary monarchy and the Stuart line in general: ‘I sucked in with my milk a principle I can never swerve from, to stand by my king with my life and fortune’. He was consequently seen, perhaps mistakenly, by almost all contemporaries as a supporter of the king’s policies. After the disagreement with Sunderland over the deputy lieutenants, even Ailesbury ‘expected every hour to be turned out, and I was full weary’ as ‘all the cities and towns corporate were regulated’ and purged by the court’ and ‘I … was become very insignificant in the counties where I was lord lieutenant’. In the late summer of 1688 he decided reluctantly to resign his commissions as lord lieutenant. James II’s master of the horse, George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, initially tried to dissuade him, telling him that the king had ‘assured me that all should be put on the old bottom very soon’. The king was more successful in turning Ailesbury from his decision, for, probably at the instigation of Dartmouth who knew Ailesbury’s intentions, he told Ailesbury of William of Orange’s planned invasion. This imminent threat to the throne and the English royal line was sufficient to make Ailesbury abandon his resolve to quit and to pledge himself, more fulsomely than previously, to James’s service in the forthcoming conflict. ‘I esteem this of the king’s preventing me one of the happy moments of my life, for had I given up, the king in the first place might have suspected that I was associated with those that deserted him, and little to their honour’.<sup>35</sup> For the few remaining months of James’s reign Ailesbury acted as his loyal deputy, and was assigned to promote the court’s candidates for both the county and borough of Bedford and Huntingdon.<sup>36</sup> His task was made easier when James II backtracked and allowed Ailesbury to restore his old colleagues in the lieutenancy and commission of peace of his counties.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Ailesbury believed that his brother-in-law James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond (married to Ailesbury’s wife’s half-sister) was under the malign influence of James Douglas*, then styled Lord Drumlanrig (later 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]). In August 1688 Ormond thought to persuade Ailesbury to join the Orangist conspiracy, but was dissuaded from his project by warnings that ‘you will put him [Ailesbury] into the greatest struggle imaginable between his loyalty on one hand and his honour on the other, and I know his family too well not to believe that the former will entirely sway him’. Ailesbury provided a detailed account of his involvement in the turbulent months of the Revolution in his memoirs.<sup>38</sup> He waited upon the king as a gentleman of the bedchamber in Whitehall during the first week of December, after James’s ignominious return from Salisbury, and on the evening of 10 Dec. tried unsuccessfully to dissuade the king from taking flight.<sup>39</sup> He attended the first meeting of the provisional government convened at the Guildhall that morning of 11 Dec. and signed, much against his will, the Guildhall Declaration requesting William of Orange to come to London to maintain order in the realm in the king’s absence.<sup>40</sup> When news reached the provisional government on 13 Dec. that James had been detained at Faversham, Ailesbury immediately volunteered to go to the king. With other courtiers he was ordered to set off to the Kentish coast ‘to entreat and persuade’ James II to return to his capital.<sup>41</sup> Ailesbury was part of the party that accompanied James II on his rapturous return to the capital, and from that point Ailesbury was in constant attendance on the king and was present when the various delegations from the Dutch army and eventually George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) and Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, came to James to persuade him, supposedly for his own safety, to remove himself from Whitehall. Ailesbury was one of the small party of gentlemen of the bedchamber who accompanied the king, escorted under Dutch guard, to Rochester.<sup>42</sup> Once again, as in James’s first attempt at flight, Ailesbury was merely in the adjoining room in the early hours of 23 Dec. when the king slipped out the back to make his way to the boat taking him to France.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Ailesbury returned to London the following day and was present in the gathering of peers meeting with William of Orange on 24 December. He quickly found himself a central figure in the lords’ discussion as all his peers looked to him to tell them of his last hours with the king. George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, first moved to inquire from Ailesbury the whereabouts of the king, and was supported in this by Ailesbury’s Williamite second cousin William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire. Ailesbury ‘gave an account there was a letter writ by the king to the earl of Middleton [Charles Middleton‡, 2nd earl of Middleton [S]], which was not fit to be seen’. He refused to say positively whether the king had abandoned the country or had merely gone into hiding, saying only that he was not in his lodgings in the morning, nor would he comment on the contents of the letter to Middleton, although his memoirs make it clear that he was present when Middleton opened and read it. The peers eventually decided not to continue to press Ailesbury on this matter and moved on to debate whether, ‘the king withdrawing himself’, they could summon a Parliament. The end result was that the gathered peers addressed William to take on himself the governance of the country and to issue writs for a Convention.<sup>44</sup></p><h2><em>A loyalist in the Convention, 1689</em></h2><p>At first it was thought that Ailesbury would follow James II into exile but instead he used the forty-day period between the issue of the writs and the meeting of the Convention to confer with those of his peers, both spiritual and temporal, who ‘wanted to be rightly instructed’ about the king’s final hours.<sup>45</sup> Together with Clarendon he joined a group of five bishops – William Lloyd*, of St. Asaph; Francis Turner*, of Ely; Thomas Ken*, of Bath and Wells; Thomas White*, of Peterborough; and John Lake*, of Chichester – who met at Lambeth Palace under the eye of Archbishop Sancroft a week before the first meeting of the Convention to discuss plans for instituting a regency. John Evelyn, who was present at this gathering, was worried by what he saw as a lack of unity among the loyalists and the wide divergence of their plans, but at least the bishops ‘were all for a regency, thereby to salve their oaths, and so all public matters to proceed in his majesty’s name’. <sup>46</sup> Ailesbury also claimed he was surprised to have been able to convince Thomas Barlow*, of Lincoln to support the claims of James II, because Barlow was, according to Ailesbury, ‘against prelacy … he being a downright Calvinist’, but Barlow ‘made all good in the House of Lords, and most strenuously opposed the question whether King James had abdicated and deserted’. <sup>47</sup></p><p>In the Convention itself Ailesbury was a leader of the group of loyalists who fought for the continuing right of James II to rule as king. On the first day he was confronted, as his allies Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey and Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, had warned him he would be, with an attempt by ‘the other party … to interrogate me as to the particulars of the king’s going away from Rochester’ and ‘to ensnare me by cross questions’. He himself admitted that he was not prominent in debate – ‘The speaking in so great and honourable an assembly was never my genius, and a timidity ever overawed me’ – but he claimed to have ‘furnished others that had that talent with subject matters to enlarge on, and which were well accepted of; each lord that spoke in that house exerted his talents – some with great force, some with less’. Among those whom he felt used his arguments ineffectively were Clarendon (‘spoke much and somewhat in a peevish strain, and incensed the prince of Orange, the more for his having gone into and so soon leaving him’), Rochester (‘exerted himself most well, but with too much passion’), and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham (‘spoke long, but most lawyer-like, and had too much of his father’). By his own account Ailesbury had also convinced, or strengthened the resolve of, ‘my good friend and kinsman’ Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, who, when delivering his reasons why he could not vote for the motion that James had abdicated, claimed that he had been convinced by ‘a noble lord of this House’. When the other peers demanded that he name this peer, Chesterfield was ‘in great perplexity’ and Ailesbury voluntarily called out ‘Name me, my Lord’, upon which Ailesbury was summoned to give his reasons. ‘I delivered not my reasons with elocution, but with much truth and sincerity, and, as I said, I loved not to speak in public’.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Ailesbury voted for Clarendon’s motion for a regency on 29 Jan. 1689, and strenuously fought against the Commons’ wording in their declaration stating that James had ‘abdicated’ by ‘deserting’ the throne. He took part in the three conferences on 4-6 Feb. 1689 which debated these terms, voted consistently against agreeing with the Commons in their use and was even part of the committee assigned to draw up reasons against them. He told for the Not Contents on the final division of 6 Feb. on whether to agree with the Commons in their wording of the declaration, but enough of William’s supporters had been persuaded to come to the House to tip it for the Contents, including Ailesbury’s old rival Mulgrave.</p><p>Ailesbury’s own account in his memoirs of the numbers and personnel voting in this division is flawed, as he seems to confuse the two divisions of 4 and 6 Feb., as well as to misremember the numbers in the protest against the vote on 6 Feb., and makes the division on that day far closer than it actually was (he says they lost by one vote; the official record says the Contents had a majority of twenty).<sup>49</sup> The division list he drew up at the time (or shortly after) as teller of the actual vote of 6 Feb. is more accurate and his records of this division, as well as of those for declaring William and Mary king and queen (31 Jan. 1689), and on whether to agree with the Commons in the use of the words ‘deserted’ and ‘abdicated’ (4 Feb., which his side the Not Contents, won), provide some of the most detailed records of the forces and parties at work in the House of Lords in this important period of the Convention. Indeed, his division lists of these three votes, and of seven other divisions in the period 1689-94, all found in the commonplace books he kept, provide some of the few, as well as some of the most important, division lists for the House of Lords that survive for the period 1660-1715.</p><p>On 9 Mar. 1689 Ailesbury reluctantly took the oaths to the new monarchs, which he considered ‘like to a garrison one, for it was my opinion that he, being declared king (although I did in Parliament do all that lay in my power to obstruct it) he was to protect the kingdom, and that those that desired protection ought to take some oath’.<sup>50</sup> However, he made it clear to William that he would not accept any position under his regime, and he was consequently removed from all his local offices in Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire. He continued to sit regularly throughout the Convention, attending 79 per cent of its meetings, and was named to 21 select committees. On 15 Mar. 1689, less than a week after taking the new oaths, he was placed on the subcommittee established by a committee of the whole House considering the Bill for the Abrogation of Oaths assigned to draw up a clause that would remove the Sacramental requirement from prospective office-holders. Over the following months he was placed on a further two subcommittees established by committees of the whole (on 15 June and 14 Aug. 1689).</p><p>In one twelve-day period of absence from 3 Apr. 1689, when he was given leave of the House to go into the country, Ailesbury registered his proxy – according to the proxy register books – to both John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, and James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon. It is most likely that Ailesbury transferred his proxy from his original choice, Bridgwater, to the more politically sympathetic Abingdon, as his neighbour Bridgwater, lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, was rapidly proving himself to be one of William’s most faithful and busiest lieutenants in the House. Bridgwater would have been a strange proxy for Ailesbury, as from the time of Ailesbury’s return on 15 Apr. the two peers frequently found themselves telling on opposite sides in key divisions. For Ailesbury’s most frequent activity in the House was as a teller and, apart from his role telling for those against the Commons’ words ‘abdicated’ and ‘deserted’ on 6 Feb., he was a teller in nine other divisions in this first session of the Convention. On 27 May he told, with his cousin Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on the other side, against the motion to agree with the select committee’s amendments to the bill to suspend habeas corpus. But his most frequent opposite teller was Bridgwater, and against this earl he told, on 23 Apr., against putting the question whether to agree to a resolution which allowed the king to make provisions for the 12 non-juring clergy exempted from the Bill for the Abrogation of Oaths, and, on 10 May, against dismissing the appeal in the cause <em>Agutter v Collins</em>.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Ailesbury also told in divisions on the bill for duties on coffee, tea and chocolate (24 July 1689) and on the bill for the recovery of small tithes (17 August).<sup>52</sup> Four of the divisions for which he told concerned the campaign to repeal the judgments against Titus Oates in 1685, a cause in which Ailesbury expended almost as much energy as he had against declaring William and Mary king and queen. Ailesbury’s memoirs make clear his fascinated horror in the character of Oates, whose testimony in the Popish Plot he likened to ‘the barking of a dog’. His interest in this bill arose from having been present at (and having taken copious notes of) Oates’s two trials for perjury in 1685, in which Oates ‘was most legally convicted of the greatest perjuries that can be expressed by pen’. He took a consistent stance against Oates’s petition and appeal to the House to have the judgments against him reversed. When Oates appeared at the bar of the House on 30 May to make his submission for a breach of privilege in publishing a pamphlet aspersing the lord president, Thomas Osborne*, formerly earl of Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), Ailesbury insisted that he remove the appellation ‘doctor of divinity’ from the text of his petition begging the House’s pardon. Oates refused to do so ‘out of conscience’ and was returned to prison.<sup>53</sup> The following day, 31 May, the House heard the judges’ opinion that, on point of law, the judgments against Oates were erroneous, illegal and cruel, but the lords still showed themselves unwilling to take off the judgments, which would have allowed Oates to testify in a court of law again. Ailesbury was teller for the two divisions that day, first against even putting the question whether the judgments against Oates should be reversed, and then, that division having been resolved in the affirmative, against the main question, in which division his Not Contents were in the majority by 12 voices. The peer telling against him on both these divisions was once again the loyal agent of the government, Bridgwater.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Having failed in the Lords, Oates turned to the Commons and a bill for the reversal of the judgments against him was shortly thereafter introduced in that House. On 2 July 1689, Ailesbury signed the protest against the resolution to proceed with the Commons’ impeachments against Adam Blair, Henry Vaughan, and others who accused the new monarchs of usurpation, and when the Commons’ bill for the reversal of Oates’s judgments arrived in the House on 6 July, Ailesbury resolved to oppose that measure as well. On 9 July he told against the motion, John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle) being the other teller, that the House be put into a committee of the whole to discuss the bill and the following day he told against Bridgwater again in a division on whether to put the question whether to agree with part of the preamble of the bill as drafted by the committee of the whole.<sup>55</sup> On 12 July amendments were added to the bill to prohibit Oates from ever testifying in court again, to which the Commons immediately objected and called for a conference, held on 22 July, to which Ailesbury was appointed a reporter. On 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the amendments, and he was able to bring to this vote the proxy of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, who had registered it with Ailesbury on 15 July. Ailesbury was concerned enough by this issue to compile detailed division lists on the question of 31 May 1689, for which he had been a teller, and that of 30 July, for which he did not tell, on adhering to the amendments. During this controversy, Ailesbury was also involved in the debates between the Houses surrounding the bill to turn the Declaration of Rights into a statute. Between 12 July and 31 July 1689 he was involved in four conferences on this bill, particularly after he was named to the small group of 15 assigned to draw up reasons justifying the House’s clause in favour of the Hanoverian Succession, a position with which he was almost certainly unsympathetic.</p><h2><em>William III’s first Parliament, 1690-95</em></h2><p>That first session of the Convention, in which he had tried so hard to preserve his master James II’s claims to the throne, was the high point of Ailesbury’s parliamentary career under William III. In no subsequent parliamentary session did he attend more than 68 per cent of the sittings, and in the second session of the Convention he came to just two-thirds. His activity in the House fell as well; in no other session was he nominated to nearly the same number of committees, and his involvement as teller also dropped. In the second session in the last months of 1689 he was a teller only once, on a procedural matter, and was named to only five committees, of which two were the large committees, comprising almost all the peers in the House, assigned to investigate the perpetrators of the various ‘crimes’ and judicial murders of the previous two reigns, an enterprise about which Ailesbury would not have been enthusiastic. Apparently there had been some hopes earlier in 1689 that Ailesbury would have a constructive relation with William of Orange, and he enlisted the services of his friend Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney), who had been a fellow courtier under Charles II,</p><blockquote><p>to assure the Prince [of Orange] that if I would act in the House of Lords contrary to his sense and interest that he would not imagine that it was through ill will or want of respect, for that in the House of Lords I answered only to God almighty for my actions there, and that he would assure his Highness that if he was in the same state as King James my master was in then, that I would do the same in favour of his Highness.</p></blockquote><p>This message seemed to have been well received by William: ‘I knew from this gentleman [Sydney] and others that the Prince esteemed me much more than those he had advanced for their leaving their old king and master, and I had signal proofs of it on several occasions, and from queen Mary to the highest degree’. In a list drawn up between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen classified him as among the supporters of the court, though he added that he was to be spoken to. However, by the winter of 1689-90 Ailesbury was rapidly alienating himself from the new regime. He maintained a conventicle of non-juring priests at his private chapel in his house at St. John’s Clerkenwell, and in February 1690 acted as bail, stumping up £5,000, for the Catholic adherent of the old regime Roger Palmer<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Castlemaine [I].<sup>56</sup></p><p>William’s initial friendliness and forbearance was already beginning to deteriorate by early 1690 until his ‘graciousness towards me on several occasions turned afterwards into a personal hatred’, stoked, Ailesbury suspected, by his ‘favourite’, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, whom Ailesbury always accused of coveting his estate.<sup>57</sup> Ailesbury himself did not help matters when he refused to take the oaths at the convening of William III’s first Parliament in March 1690 and did not attend any of that session’s sittings, not even appearing when the House ordered him on 12 Apr. 1690 to account for the ‘protections’ he had signed for Dr. Nathaniel Johnson. In July 1690 his name appeared on the proclamation calling for the apprehension of adherents of the old regime during the invasion scare that followed the naval defeat off Beachy Head.<sup>58</sup> He escaped capture and went into hiding for a time. <sup>59</sup> Eventually he sent his wife to consult with Queen Mary, who always looked kindly on Ailesbury, whom she had known as a young child at the court of Charles II, and she arranged that he could be bailed under nominal conditions. He surrendered himself in late July, was briefly heard before the Privy Council, and then almost immediately bailed ‘for form’s sake’, ‘or as most say upon his own parole’, before he was graciously welcomed at court by the queen herself.<sup>60</sup> He was quickly discharged and there were further indications of William’s and Mary’s continuing favour to Ailesbury during that summer of 1690, but ‘this sunshine also lasted not long, and when on the king’s part he became cold and dry, I then retired by little and little’.<sup>61</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1690 he finally took the oaths to William and Mary in the new Parliament and was able to take his seat in the House. He was subsequently present in the House for most of that month, less than one-third of the session’s total sittings, and was there primarily to oversee the passage of his private bill, introduced on 8 Dec. 1690, that would allow him to raise money for the payment of debts by making leases in reversion of the Seymour lands, despite the restrictive conditions on his control of the estate in the 1684 trust settlement. This bill was introduced in the context of an ill-tempered exchange of letters of the autumn 1690 between the countess of Ailesbury and her mother the duchess of Beaufort, in which Lady Ailesbury castigated the duke for the coercive and restrictive settlements he had forced on the young couple, and particularly for that part of the settlement which left the estate, in default of issue, to his heir Charles, by then styled marquess of Worcester, ‘I do assure you if it were to do again I would burn them [the settlements] all before I would sign one of them.’ The duke of Beaufort did not respond directly to his step-daughter’s harangue, leaving it to his duchess to reply to her daughter’s ‘false and unjust slanders’. She replied to her daughter in kind – and then some: ‘Hell itself’ she concluded, ‘is hardly capable of more malice or unnaturalness than you in this have showed to me.’ The duchess was convinced that Ailesbury’s bill would enable him to avoid making provision for his wife and children, all for the sake of his gambling addiction (as she saw it). She believed that her daughter was foolishly and besottedly ruining her own and her children’s futures by supporting him. She enlisted her kinsmen, including her brother Sir Henry Capell, her brother-in-law Clarendon (at that point not sitting in the House) and his brother Rochester, in her cause. They all tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade Ailesbury from presenting the bill, promised the duchess all their efforts to obstruct it, and were reasonably confident that the session would be prorogued before it could possibly pass both Houses. They also assured her that the House would give her sufficient time for her case against the bill to be heard fully, and her counsel was heard on 16 Dec., on which day the bill was committed. Beaufort’s steward, Godfrey Harcourt, thought that Ailesbury’s ‘coming to court at this time’ by taking the requisite oaths after so long an absence ‘gained him a great many friends in both houses’, such as, surprisingly, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, who was Ailesbury’s ‘great stickler and never missed being at the committee’. Against the bill were Mulgrave (who once ‘took [Burnet] up very short and silenced him’ in committee), and of course Rochester. Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset ‘was against the bill’ as it interfered with his own interest in the Seymour estates, ‘but did not say much’. Halifax reported the amended bill from committee on 20 Dec., but it was recommitted two days later, although already engrossed, after Harcourt had raised some scruples by insisting that the bill had never received the duchess’s consent, despite Halifax’s claim to the contrary in his report. After one of the amendments was left out, it passed the House and was sent down to the Commons on 23 Dec., where Harcourt and Capell hoped to have it defeated. Their cause was undermined, as each individually attested, by the appearance of Lady Ailesbury before the committee. She testified her unforced and enthusiastic support for the bill, contradicting the allegations of the duchess and her supporters that Ailesbury had threatened to leave his wife unless she countenanced the bill against her own better judgment. The bill received the royal assent on 5 Jan. 1691.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Ailesbury was even more diligent in his attendance in the following session of 1691-2, when he was present on the first day of the session and attended just over two-thirds of the sittings. Again he was there for his own concerns, as on 2 Nov. 1691 he introduced in the House a bill to ensure that the twelve-year lease of his own property he had made to trustees would continue for that full period of time, even in the eventuality of the Ailesburys’ premature deaths. This would ensure that the earl’s debts could be paid. The duchess of Beaufort was once again outraged by this bill. She later recounted in detail what caused her such concern:</p><blockquote><p>as to her [Lady Elizabeth’s] jointure out of his [Ailesbury’s] estate that is put by these previous Acts in trustees’ hands for 12 years to pay his play money for. For her debts which was the pretence, they were paid at least eight or nine years before these acts were endeavoured. … The third part of the [Ailesbury] estate which was entailed in consideration not only of the estate she brought him (but of much more than the £20,000 which his father and mother had with her) and ought upon his death to fall to his son, this wretched act joins with her jointure and puts it in trustees’ hands for twelve years and allows till that son [reaches] 21 years but £700 p.a. and at the same time takes away an estate from him of £500 p.a. and a sum of money which would have been raised upon it during his younger years.<sup>63</sup></p></blockquote><p>She enlisted the same personnel as before to defeat it. They (and presumably Rochester in particular) were able to ensure that the duchess was given enough time for her counsel to be heard at the bar.<sup>64</sup> On the day scheduled for the hearing, 19 Nov. 1691, Ailesbury’s counsel did not appear and he was fined £5, ‘for her costs in attending with counsel this day’. Counsel were heard the following day, when the bill was committed. Rochester informed the committee on 21 Nov. that he had received two letters from the duchess of Beaufort, ‘wherein she expressed a great dislike to the bill’, but Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, countered this with a letter of consent from Lady Ailesbury. William Craven*, earl of Craven, reported the bill as fit to pass without any amendments that same day.<sup>65</sup> Sir Henry Capell once again exerted himself to have it thrown out in the Commons, but without success. He lamented to his sister that, ‘I wish I could have served you better, but the current of the times, and the many bills the houses let daily pass for payment of debts, makes it much more difficult to be heard in defence of minors, or remainders, than when first I had the honour to sit in Parliament’. Capell did achieve some success at the time the bill received the royal assent on 24 Dec. 1691. According to Capell the king reluctantly assented to it and only because he could not ‘conveniently deny it after it had been passed by both Houses’. Capell was able to persuade Ailesbury to promise the king ‘to trouble him no more with such bills of his debts … And the king at the same time replied to him, “My lord, and I assure you I will pass no more such bills”’.<sup>66</sup></p><p>In December 1695, when Ailesbury made attempts, through the intermediary of Clarendon, to come to some reconciliation with his mother-in-law, the duchess was still incensed by ‘those two unjust acts of Parliament … such as even Sir E[dward] Seymour<sup>‡</sup> (who assisted him in the getting them) told Sir J[ohn] Trevor and others were such unjust ones as never passed any Parliament’. She further insisted to Clarendon ‘I am very willing to look forward but do desire that he will now to you and your brother Lord Rochester engage upon his honour not to endeavour to get any Act of Parliament to sell land either his own or his wife’s nor to make any further spoil upon her estate or his own for the future, as he has hitherto done and that he will satisfy you both as well as me in what manner he has secured her a maintenance in case he die during the term this Act is in force and whether they have as they bragged (when I opposed the Act ) they would make a maintenance for their daughter’. <sup>67</sup></p><p>After his bill had passed at the end of 1691 Ailesbury turned his attention to other matters in Parliament. On 12 Jan. 1692 he subscribed to the dissent from the House’s decision to receive the bill for the divorce of the Whig Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He was interested in this case, and appears to have taken notes of Norfolk’s allegations against his wife.<sup>68</sup> Ailesbury was to become even more closely associated with the opposition to this bill when it was reintroduced the following session. He was also consistently opposed to the Commons’ attempts to renew its commission of public accounts, and he showed his opposition to the very idea of the bill by protesting against various stages of its controversial passage through both Houses. The Houses first fell out over this bill when the Lords made an amendment providing for some of their number to sit on the commission, even though the Commons wanted it to be confined to members of the lower House. On 26 Jan. 1692, even though he was not listed as present that day, Ailesbury was one of the ten peers assigned to scrutinize the secret ballot to elect peers to the Lords’ delegation. On 2 Feb. 1692 when the House voted to adhere to its amendments which would place these peers on the commission, Ailesbury signed the protest against the House’s rejection of the Commons’ arguments against lords’ being members of the commission. It is likely that in this case Ailesbury was objecting to the idea of the bill itself, rather than to the specific point whether members of the House should be on the commission. When the bill was lost the Commons tried to secure the same end by ‘tacking’ it to the poll tax. Unwilling to obstruct supply on 23 Feb. 1692 the Lords accepted the measure but tried to make its disapproval of the tack clear by moving to make an entry in the <em>Journal</em> condemning the Commons’ tactic. Ailesbury protested against the passage of the bill and was then a teller for the question regarding the proposed entry in the <em>Journal</em>. When the motion passed he entered his dissent from what he saw as an ineffectual and fruitless step against an offensive bill.</p><p>Over the summer of 1692 he was suspected by government ministers of being complicit in the plans for a French invasion. According to his own account, he was once again saved by the favour of Queen Mary. His name was initially placed first in the proclamation of those to be committed in the weeks preceding the feared invasion, but when Mary questioned this, Nottingham, for whom Ailesbury showed scant respect throughout his memoirs, told her that orders from the king to the lords justices insisted that a set number of names of suspected Jacobites be included in the proclamation. Mary insisted that Ailesbury’s name be replaced by that of Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale – ‘if titles please you, there is an earl for an earl. What is sauce for one is sauce for another’, she remarked. When Nottingham insisted that there was no evidence against Scarsdale, Mary replied ‘just as much as against my Lord Ailesbury, and I will have it so’.<sup>69</sup> Ailesbury only learned of this after Mary’s death; in the summer of 1692 itself he took the precaution of lying low, out of the public eye, always concerned that he would be arrested.</p><p>Ailesbury re-emerged after the naval action at La Hogue, but he still came to only just over half of the meetings of the 1692-3 session. On 21 Nov. 1692 he told in a division on whether to vacate the protections of Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln.<sup>70</sup> He brought a case of breach of privilege of Parliament before the House on 17 Dec. 1692, which was not resolved until the last day of the year. By that time he was already heavily involved in some of the more controversial measures of the session. In the partisan battle between Nottingham and Admiral Edward Russell*, (later earl of Orford) over the naval miscarriages of that summer, it appears, judging by Ailesbury’s later memoirs, that he held the Whig admiral responsible for the failure to destroy the French fleet at sea and even withheld his praise for Russell’s burning of a few great French warships at La Hogue, which he attributed instead to the vice-admiral Ralph Delaval<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>71</sup> On 7 Dec. 1692 Ailesbury protested against the rejection of the proposal for a joint committee with the Commons to consider the naval miscarriages. Not having a position at court himself, he vigorously supported the place bill in this session, in the face of strong opposition from William III and the court interest; he voted and told in favour of the bill’s commitment on 31 Dec. 1692, once again against his frequent opposite teller from 1689, Bridgwater. He later voted (without being a teller) for its passage on 3 Jan. 1693 and duly registered his protest when it was rejected.<sup>72</sup> The lists of those peers for and against the bill’s commitment which survive in his papers may well be the original working papers from his role as teller, or even manager, of the bill’s supporters. They reveal his careful observation of the extremely close voting patterns of the House on this controversial bill, and his marginal comment on his division list that the bill had been ‘thrown out by two Dutch votes’, most likely referring to the votes against the bill cast by Portland and Charles Schomberg*, 2nd duke of Schomberg, gives a further indication of his intense dislike of the Dutch courtiers surrounding William III which is so evident throughout his memoirs.</p><p>Ailesbury also used the lists he drew up as a teller on this issue to forecast another division in which he also felt a strong engagement – whether to accept the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill, against whose introduction Ailesbury had already protested in the previous session. He further recorded the peers involved in the division of 2 Jan. 1693 which threw out the bill at its second reading. He may have drawn up these lists in his role as manager for those in the House opposed to the bill, for his memoirs recount that a few years later he approached the duchess of Norfolk’s lover, John Germain, with a request for a favour on the grounds of ‘friendship, and also by way of gratitude for a service of importance I had rendered him’.<sup>73</sup></p><p>After this flurry of activity, Ailesbury was absent from the House from 5 Jan. 1693 and registered his proxy with James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, on 11 January. He reappeared briefly in the House on 27 Jan., when his proxy may have been vacated, but was entirely absent for the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun on 3 Feb., despite the House’s commands that all peers were to be present, on penalty of a fine of £100. On 6 Feb. the House resolved that the still-absent Ailesbury was to be fined this amount, and when he finally appeared in the House the following day the House debated the matter only to confirm its original decision. Yet when Ailesbury brought his £100 to the House on 13 Feb. the House once again fell into debate on the matter and, after a series of divisions, in which Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, told for the motion in Ailesbury’s favour and Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, against, the House decided that Ailesbury’s fine was to be remitted. On 8 Mar., about a week before the session was prorogued, Ailesbury was given leave to go into the country for his health.</p><p>On 11 Nov. 1693 Huntingdon registered his proxy with Ailesbury for the 1693-4 session. Ailesbury took is seat three days later, on 14 Nov., and attended 64 per cent of the sittings. Huntingdon himself did not sit in the House until 10 Jan. 1694, when his proxy with Ailesbury would have been vacated. During that period, Ailesbury on 22 Dec. 1693 subscribed to the protest against the resolution allowing the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> to withdraw their petition concerning the cause of <em>Bridgeman v Holt</em>. Ailesbury took an interest in another legal matter before the House, the ongoing cause of <em>Montagu v Bath</em>, in which he sided with John Granville*, earl of Bath, in opposing the appeal of the Whig Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu and for which he compiled another list recording the division. On 3 Apr. he was appointed to the committee to draw up reasons why the House disagreed with the Commons’ amendment to the bill for the debts of the late John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, and he was named a manager for the conference on the matter held on 5 April. On the penultimate day of the session, 24 Apr., together with a number of other Tories, he entered his dissent against that part of the supply bill which sought to incorporate the Governor and Company of the Bank of England.</p><p>Ailesbury came to just over three-fifths of the meetings of the final session of William III’s first Parliament and from 4 Dec. 1694 held, once again, Huntingdon’s proxy, this time for the entirety of the session. From 26 Dec. 1694 he held his full complement of two proxies when John Arundell*, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, likewise registered his proxy with him for the remainder of the session. At the end of the session, on 18 Apr. 1695, he continued his vendetta against the marquess of Normanby (as Mulgrave had become) by protesting against the House’s resolution that Normanby had committed no act worthy of the censure of the House concerning his questionable activities in promoting bills advantageous to the Corporation of London. More prominently, in this session he became further involved in other ‘Country’ reform measures similar to his support for the Place Bill in 1692-3. Ailesbury was one of only four who protested against the passage of the Triennial Act on 18 Dec. 1694, not because he agreed with William III’s own opposition to this infringement of his prerogative, but because the bill did not terminate the current Parliament quickly enough; he favoured a clause that would have dissolved the Parliament automatically in 1695. On 24 Jan. 1695, Ailesbury was one of the seven Tories who signed the protest against the inclusion of a clause, proposed by the committee of the whole House, to the treason trials bill, which would prevent treason trials being thrown out on the basis of minor grammatical mistakes or misspellings in the Latin text of court documents, unless those objections were raised before evidence was given in court.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695 and the Fenwick affair, 1695-8</em></h2><p>Ailesbury took his seat for the 1695-6 session, the first session of the new Parliament on 23 Nov. 1695. One matter stood out for him at the beginning of this session, the bill for regulating trials for treason, with which he had been involved the previous session and which was read for the first time in the House on 18 Dec. 1695. The tortuous course of this bill over several years is the only instance of his involvement in a parliamentary matter, apart from the vote on abdication in early 1689, to which Ailesbury devoted significant space in his memoirs. Unfortunately his account is confused, both chronologically and in other details (such as his allegation that the bill was ‘tacked’ on to a supply bill), but the attention he affords to it is an indication of his close engagement in this bill between December 1693 and its eventual passage on 21 Jan. 1696, and his explanation of his motivations and the personnel involved is particularly revealing:</p><blockquote><p>The king was too prodigal in giving titles to Dutchmen and others not natives, that we began to look about us, not knowing where it would end. So I consulted the earl of Rochester, and he others, in order to bring in a bill for to regulate trials for treason, and what most particularly regarded us was, that out of the sessions of Parliament, the crown nominates a number of thirty, under or over by reason to have a casting voice, and, as I said, Dutch lords came in so thick, and the crown not being limited, it was a melancholy prospect for us English peers. So it was proposed, and leave was given, to bring in such a bill, and where it was to be enacted that, on the trial of peers all should be present, although there was no session of Parliament. … I cannot name the sessions when the king refused to pass this Act, and twice it was recited [in 1693-4 and 1694-5], which made us most industrious to bring in the Bill for the third time [in 1695-6]; and having reason to suspect that this third bill might have the same fate as the others, we stretched a point and, I may say, much against my will, for I was always for giving the crown its just prerogatives, and even in this reign more often than many great lords that were in high employments at court, but we thinking all our lives at the mercy of base counsel and Dutch lords mingled with English ones that would sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, this being for our all, made us exert ourselves and stretch a point, which was by tacking this bill to the money bill. … The king came to the House in hopes to awe many lords, and, contrary to the custom of the two former kings, he sat under the throne, which was never seen before, at least in my time, and ancient lords assured me that it was without example. When the king is with his robes that is understood. He sat pensively with his hat almost over his eyes, and seemed much out of humour. Many experienced lords and that spoke well exerted themselves, and none with more vigour and better grace than the duke of Shrewsbury, reciting all the great advantages the subjects would obtain by this bill, and added that he knew lords present that in former reigns would have even given their right hand for to have obtained then such a bill, and that he could not but wonder to see them now of so contrary a sentiment, and that little became true Englishmen.. … So the king not being able to go over to his army without the subsidies, he was forced to pass that bill tacked to the other; and I had the honour to be instrumental in all this, for I spared nothing but my lungs, for, as I have hinted before, it was not my talent, speaking in the House, occasioned by a natural timidity which I could never overcome.<sup>74</sup></p></blockquote><p>His colleague Huntingdon was very active as a chairman of the committee of the whole House throughout December 1695, including one dealing with the treason trials bill. When he left the House at the end of that month, he registered his proxy again with Ailesbury, on 30 Dec. 1695, the day after the bill had been passed by the House and sent down to the Commons. Huntingdon’s return to the House on 9 Mar. 1696 was probably prompted by the crisis for Jacobites such as him and Ailesbury caused by the revelations of the Assassination Plot and the ensuing Association framed by Parliament. Ailesbury from the first possible day, 27 Feb. 1696, made clear that he would refuse to take the Association declaring William III rightful and lawful king.<sup>75</sup> The Dutch envoy L’Hermitage was not surprised, ‘for, although he has taken the oaths, he has always been known to lean towards the other side’.<sup>76</sup> With his protectress Mary now dead, he had little protection at court, especially when he was linked to the Jacobite circles and intrigues connected to the Assassination Plot.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Although he had avoided arrest in 1690 and 1692 through Mary’s forbearance, the government had been right to suspect him; Ailesbury had long been involved in Jacobite circles, if not in outright conspiracy. In his later memoirs and in a 1703 petition to Queen Anne he insisted that he was always detached from the internecine factional fighting between the ‘Middletonians’ and ‘Melfortians’ and refused to implicate himself by being informed of their detailed plans for insurrection. Yet in the summer of 1693, he made a surreptitious journey to France to consult with both James II and Louis XIV on his own plans for a French naval descent on England. This was to be accomplished with the complicity of the Tory admirals, his good friend Sir Ralph Delaval (whom Ailesbury was able to get returned for Great Bedwyn in 1695) and Henry Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>78</sup> Ailesbury later insisted that he ceased all active plotting after his own plan was rejected by Louis XIV.<sup>79</sup> The contemporary evidence suggests otherwise. Throughout 1694-5 Ailesbury remained involved in Jacobite circles in London, and it cannot be coincidence that he was often in the same place at the same time as such disreputable and untrustworthy conspirators as Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, Robert Charnock, Cardell Goodman and George Porter.<sup>80</sup> On 21 Mar. 1696 a warrant was issued for Ailesbury’s apprehension, and he was quickly taken up and committed to the Tower of London. <sup>81</sup> Ailesbury’s second cousin Devonshire reported this to the House on that very day. Devonshire may have taken some delight in Ailesbury’s fall, as the two men were engaged in an unseemly family argument. In his garrulous later memoirs, Ailesbury, a trustee of the entailed Cavendish estate, always presented himself and his father as the financial saviours of his profligate and rebellious cousin.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Ailesbury’s situation was made worse when he emerged as a principal character in the plot described by Fenwick to his interrogator Devonshire in his second confession of 23 Sept. and presented to the Commons on 6 Nov.1696. Fenwick presented Ailesbury as the leader of the Jacobite conspirators, who hosted most of their meetings at his London residence and who kept James II informed about the state of the navy. Fenwick averred that ‘the last letter I saw of King James’s was to my Lord Ailesbury of the 4th of February [1696]; all that I remember significant in it was that the Toulon Fleet would sail the 22nd and what they would do next he could not tell’, showing that Ailesbury’s involvement in Jacobite correspondence was ongoing up to the time of his arrest.<sup>83</sup></p><p>The Whig ministerialists initially hoped that Fenwick would give further evidence against Ailesbury and his fellow Jacobites such as William Herbert*, styled Viscount Montgomery (later 2nd marquess of Powis). When Fenwick refused to target the known Jacobites, the Junto decided to make an example of him. Fenwick continued to hope that Ailesbury would save his life by corroborating his account, but assured his wife that ‘my death will be but the prologue to his’.<sup>84</sup> The main obstacles to Ailesbury’s prosecution were the lack of the requisite number of witnesses and the potential difficulty of prosecuting a well-connected and well-liked nobleman before his peers. Nevertheless, when Ailesbury’s heavily pregnant wife heard the sound of cannon being fired on 12 Jan. 1697 and was told that it was to mark the king’s royal assent to the Fenwick attainder bill, she, out of apprehension that her husband would be next, ‘fell backwards in her great chair and never spoke more’, went into premature labour and ‘about 12 at night … was delivered of a daughter in the eighth month and then expired. … No man ever had such a wife, and endowed with all the most rare qualities that ever woman enjoyed’.<sup>85</sup></p><p>With this blow his health, already fragile, continued to deteriorate, until he was bailed from the Tower on 12 Feb. 1697 for health reasons, his sureties for £5,000 each being Chesterfield, Weymouth, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, and Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers.<sup>86</sup> He did not sit in the House again until 13 Dec. 1697, but only attended the following two sittings before he left the House for good, never to return. His departure both from the House and from England itself resulted from the act against corresponding with James II or his adherents which was passed by Parliament in the wake of the Treaty of Ryswick. The act created several new categories of treason, one of which applied to all persons who had gone to France since 11 Dec. 1688 without royal licence. Offenders were given until 1 Feb. 1698 to leave the country or face prosecution. Ailesbury left it to virtually the last minute before abandoning England for what he thought would be a short exile until a change of government would give an opportunity for his return.</p><h2><em>Exile, 1698-1741</em></h2><p>What he initially thought would be a short period of absence in Brussels turned out to last the remainder of Ailesbury’s long life, until his death at the age of 85 in 1741. William’s regime remained hostile to the idea of his return, and the rumours swirling in February 1701 that Ailesbury’s son and heir Charles Bruce*, (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury) was to marry one of Portland’s daughters may (if true) have been part of a campaign on Ailesbury’s part to curry favour with the ‘Dutch favourite’ he hated so much and whom he always blamed for his misfortunes.<sup>87</sup></p><p>For his part Ailesbury settled quickly into a new life in the Spanish Netherlands but with some potentially compromising consequences. He converted to Catholicism, sometime in 1698 or 1699, but kept this secret from his family and his English contacts, often with great difficulty, for the rest of his life. It was only revealed by the language and bequests of his will of 1730.<sup>88</sup> This rapid conversion suggests that he may have been a crypto-Catholic before his exile, but there is no evidence from which to derive a definitive conclusion. In his memoirs he insisted that he always remained a faithful son of the Church of England. He also married a young Brusseloise countess and heiress in 1700 by whom he had a daughter to tie him to that city. His second wife’s grand house in the Place du Grand Sablon in Brussells allowed him, initially at least, a comfortable life.</p><p>The death of William III, accession of Anne and the renewal of war with France and Spain in May 1702 tranformed Ailesbury’s situation. He and his new countess had to leave Brussels, capital of the French-controlled Spanish Netherlands, and, until the Allies recaptured it, they resided in towns such as Liege or Aix-la-Chapelle, either neutral or controllwed by the allies. Cooped up in these towns and constrained by the warfare around him, he looked to the new queen to allow his return to England. Early in 1703 Ailesbury’s son Lord Bruce interceded with Queen Anne on his behalf, but was rebuffed by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin.<sup>89</sup> Later that year Ailesbury sent the duchess of Marlborough a long, rambling, and self-justificatory petition for his return which he hoped she would present to the queen. She would be aided in doing so, he advised, by his first wife’s kinsman Sir Edward Seymour, whom he thought ‘would do his utmost to serve me for the sake also of my late wife and would be glad the world thought he did it entirely by his interest at court’. In addition, he told the duchess that ‘in the council I have not six that would be averse to me and in the House of Lords I have many friends and relations’.<sup>90</sup> On the other hand, in his petition to the queen he tried to forestall opposition by naming those he knew would be against him and trying to explain away their opposition. Apart from Portland, that ‘great man’, who had by this time retired to the continent, there were two dukes against him. The duke of Somerset ‘is only angry with me for having by my late wife carried away the estate of the family, and for that reason is implacable’. Ailesbury did not explicitly name the other duke ranged against him, but described him as one who</p><blockquote><p>hath ever had such an aversion for me thinking it was me that exposed in the last reign some steps he had made before the Revolution which showed him to be a man not fit to be trusted in any government. That ungrounded suspicion occasioned his venting his malice on all occasions and especially in 1690 and 1691 when I had a private bill to pass which went both times through both houses unanimously save his vote both times, which plainly showed his malice.<sup>91</sup></p></blockquote><p>It is most likely that this figure was Ailesbury’s old enemy Normanby who, in March 1703, only a few months before this petition was submitted, had been created duke of Buckinghamshire and Normanby. The duchess assured Ailesbury that ‘her majesty is most satisfied with your conduct and pities your condition, and she will certainly recall you when she can do it without prejudice to her immediate service’.<sup>92</sup> That promised time never came; during her reign it was always hinted that Ailesbury would have to wait until the end of the war to make his return.</p><p>Ailesbury turned to the duchess of Marlborough for help because one of the few connections to England that he was able to maintain in the war-torn Netherlands was through her husband, the captain-general of the Allies, John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. Throughout the conflict he was diligent in maintaining a correspondence and personal contact with Marlborough who proved to be his principal link with England.<sup>93</sup> Ailesbury even claimed to have advised Marlborough on English politics. In his memoirs of 1727-30 and also in a 1714 letter to the British ambassador to the United Provinces, Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, he recounted a conversation in 1703 when, in response to Marlborough’s complaints about the difficulties of managing the House of Lords, he suggested the promotion of William Beveridge*, and George Hooper*, to bishoprics. This was quickly effected upon Marlborough’s return to England in 1704, Beveridge being given the see of St. Asaph and Hooper that of Bath and Wells. Ailesbury claimed that he further gave Marlborough a list of commoners of good families who should be raised to the upper house <em>en masse</em>, either with new creations or by writs of acceleration – as was done in 1711-12 (though not then to Marlborough’s benefit). He also recommended adding ‘to the pensions given to the poor peers who had come to the title by entail without any estate but the little they had before’, singling out in this Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, ‘then my neighbour in Bedfordshire where he lived in an obscure manner for want of what to support him in his dignity; else a person altogether unknown to me’.<sup>94</sup> Marlborough for his part was able to perform some signal services for Ailesbury’s family interest, both in England and the continent, but was unsuccessful in effecting his return.</p><p>Ailesbury’s last campaign to return to England was in 1709 when the queen’s Act of General Pardon appeared to extend to him. Upon his petition Anne granted him a licence to return on 29 May. Having finally received his long-sought right to return, Ailesbury delayed, for by this time he had his own life on the continent. He wrote to Marlborough explaining he could not leave while a lawsuit and other family affairs were pending, and in addition he was concerned that, despite the formal licence, his presence in England would not be welcome to the queen. In addition, he was incapacitated by a resurgence of the stone and in 1710 devastated by the unexpected death of his young wife. As time slipped by and illness and tragedy intervened the likelihood of Ailesbury’s taking advantage of the queen’s licence became more remote.<sup>95</sup> In October 1712, as a peace which would allow him to return seemed increasingly likely, he wrote to one of the framers of that peace, Strafford, that:</p><blockquote><p>To tell you the truth this what I have related [continuing suspicions in England that he is an active Jacobite] and the Queen’s desire formerly that I would not think of coming over until the peace, makes me resolve to stay in these parts where I am suffered by all that are most esteemed here. I live as comfortably as I can under a severe melancholy and with but an indifferent health. I can live handsomely for half of what I can in England, my fortune being so impaired by my long banishment not being permitted to come into England only for a month or two on my son’s coming to age and on his marriage to my unspeakable prejudice and never to be repaired. All these considerations make me resolve to live here rather than live in England as a suspected person. I own ’tis very hard; my heart is brimful but now I have had the satisfaction to open myself to a person I esteem so much and for so many and great reasons I find myself more at ease.<sup>96</sup></p></blockquote><p>Strafford became one of Ailesbury’s regular correspondents from the time of his arrival as ambassador to the States General in 1711. Ailesbury, previously so solicitous and intimate with Marlborough, was quick to join with Strafford in the Tory backlash against the former captain-general and the Whigs and the Dutch in general. His letters to Strafford are full of his relief at finally being able to throw of the restraints in behaviour necessary to keep in the Marlborough-Godolphin ministry’s good favour.<sup>97</sup> He ‘confessed’ to Strafford in October 1712:</p><blockquote><p>that during the Whig ministry I was silent or submissive and gave my interest in making members to no side because I could not give it to a Whig. Since the happy change it lay in my power to render the queen great services … for not only the States Deputies … and those of the council of state … were much satisfied with what I told them, for they all came to me … imagining the new ministry either would not or could not carry on the war.<sup>98</sup></p></blockquote><p>He was exultant at the peace of Utrecht and what he saw as the justified humbling of the Whigs – particularly those who had taken up residence with him in the Netherlands such as Marlborough and William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Cadogan – and their Dutch allies:</p><blockquote><p>The washing a blackamoor white or a Whig is equally practicable. The consternation [among the Whigs] is great; even here it is visible by their looks and some cannot keep their fear to themselves. As for the Dutch they have brought in on themselves by a boundless ambition. … A person asked me what party I was. I answered him that of the Queen’s.<sup>99</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ailesbury’s principal agent in England, and particularly in negotiating his licence to return in 1709, was his only surviving son, Lord Bruce. At the end of 1711 Bruce was, as Ailesbury had suggested to Marlborough in 1703, called to the House in his father’s junior barony as Baron Bruce of Whorlton. Lord Bruce was a vital element in Ailesbury’s successful exile. Together with Ailesbury’s practical and efficient younger brother, Robert, Lord Bruce took care of the Bruce political interest and managed the estate sufficiently well to keep the absent Ailesbury living a life suitable to his station. There were sacrifices in the complicated arrangements that had to be made to maintain Ailesbury on the continent, most notably the Bedfordshire property of Houghton House near Ampthill, which Lord Bruce increasingly neglected as he concentrated his electoral interest and estate management on his Seymour mother’s Wiltshire estates. In 1738 the property was sold to John Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th duke of Bedford, much to Ailesbury’s regret.</p><p>Lord Bruce was a Tory and kept the political legacy of his exiled father alive. He also convinced his father to set down his ‘memoirs’ of his role in the courts of Charles II and James II. Ailesbury had been at the heart of the courts of both kings and had the melancholy honour of being present, in the very room itself as it were, at the effective demise of both reigns. This long, verbose, and often undigested work was written in c.1728-30 as strictly a private family ‘domestic diary’ (as Ailesbury named it) and was not printed until the late nineteenth century. It is still, for all its inaccuracies, conflations, lacunae and self-justifications, one of the principal first-hand accounts, and one of the few from the ‘losing’ side, of the people and events of the reigns of Charles II and James II and of the Revolution that ended that world.</p><p>The manuscript of these memoirs was one the chief legacies of Ailesbury when he died in 1741.<sup>100</sup> Although his body was buried in the Church of the Brigittines in Brussels, Ailesbury did, in effect, finally return home, for his heart was removed and buried in the Bruce family mausoleum in Maulden near the old Houghton House. He was survived by only two children, both by his first wife: Lord Bruce who succeeded his father as 3rd earl of Ailesbury and a daughter, Elizabeth, who (with Marlborough’s assistance) married George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan, in 1707.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BRUDENELL, George (1685-1732) |
<p><strong><surname>BRUDENELL</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1685–1732)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1698-1703 Ld. Brudenell; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 16 July 1703 (a minor) as 3rd earl of CARDIGAN |
|
First sat 12 Jan. 1708; last sat 7 May 1731 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1685, 1st surv. s. and h. of Francis Brudenell, <em>styled</em> Ld. Brudenell (<em>d</em>.1698), and Frances, da. of Thomas Savile<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sussex; bro. of James Brudenell<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Italy) 1703-6;<sup>1</sup> LLD Cantab. 1728. <em>m</em>. 15 May 1707 (with £10,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1745) da. of Thomas Bruce* 2nd earl of Ailesbury, 4s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 5 July 1732; <em>will</em> 10 Nov. 1730, pr. 2 Nov. 1732.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p><em>Custos rot</em>. Northants. 1711-15.</p><p>Master of the buckhounds 1712-15.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: portrait by Michael Dahl.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>The heir to one of England’s most prominent Catholic noble families, George, Lord Brudenell (as he was styled from his father’s death until his succession to the earldom), was also first cousin to one of the kingdom’s foremost Protestant converts, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury. With Robert Constable, 3rd Viscount Dunbar [S], Shrewsbury was entrusted with the upbringing of both Brudenell and his brother, James, on the death of their father. It was under Shrewsbury’s care while Brudenell and his brother were in Rome that they were said to have turned their backs on their former religion and embraced the Church of England.<sup>6</sup> It was there too that Brudenell learnt of the death of his grandfather, Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, in July 1703 and of his succession to the earldom.<sup>7</sup> With the peerage, Cardigan succeeded to a considerable estate based at the family home at Deene in Northamptonshire, and at other lands in Rutland, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, the whole valued at between £9,000 and £10,000 per annum.<sup>8</sup> Eager to maintain a lifestyle commensurate with his new quality, Cardigan demanded an increase in his allowance. Both he and his brother led a notably dissolute existence during the remainder of their extended tour of Italy and Germany. Their behaviour caused Dunbar considerable qualms, and in 1705 he urged that they should return to England. Dunbar’s request was ignored, and his fears were apparently confirmed by Cardigan’s notorious liaison with a superannuated Italian mistress. She accompanied him to England on his return in 1706 but to the relief of his family was rapidly discarded.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Although Cardigan in all probability underwent his conversion to Protestantism in Rome, it was not until 1708, some two years after his return from his foreign tour, that he formally abjured his former faith by taking the oaths and receiving communion in the Church of England.<sup>10</sup> The reason for this formal acceptance of Anglicanism was in part due to his marriage the previous year to Lady Elizabeth Bruce. William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), had voiced his concerns at the match and advised the Bruces against it, convinced that it ‘could not be expedient, and to me [Wake], seemed (he being a Papist, though inclining to change his religion) to be unlawful.’<sup>11</sup> Uncertainty as to Cardigan’s religion was even more significant as Lady Betty, as she was known, had already caused her family considerable unease about a possible conversion to Rome before her marriage.<sup>12</sup> She had excited still greater misgivings by entering into a clandestine relationship with the Catholic Thomas Howard*, 8th duke of Norfolk, a liaison that her brother, Charles Bruce*, Baron Bruce (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury), was quick to condemn when it was discovered, declaring that he would ‘never give my consent she should either have him or any one of that persuasion’.<sup>13</sup> It was consequently of great importance that Cardigan was able to assure his new relations that his own convictions were firmly protestant. His suit was nevertheless welcomed, and Bruce was able to inform his father, Ailesbury, formerly a close friend of Cardigan’s father, Lord Brudenell, that Cardigan was ‘universally esteemed’.<sup>14</sup> The interposition on his behalf of both Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, no doubt further helped convince the family of his fidelity and enabled the marriage to proceed.<sup>15</sup></p><p>After the riotous days of his youth abroad, once settled in England, Cardigan’s principal interests centred on country pursuits.<sup>16</sup> A keen foxhunter, his obsession with pursuing his quarry cut across party boundaries and led him to forge close partnerships with Whig hunting neighbours such as John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland, and his brother, James Brudenell, to whom he entrusted the care of his hounds. Indeed, despite their differing political views, there is no indication that this ever caused any animosity between the brothers; on occasions, Cardigan employing James on matters of business.<sup>17</sup> Cardigan demonstrated clear concerns for his tenants and took great interest in the maintenance of his woodland. This aspect of his estate triggered frequent disputes with his neighbours, Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu (and after his death John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu) and with William Hatton*, 2nd Viscount Hatton, though here too Cardigan strove to ‘act the part of a true friend and good neighbour’, a sentiment recurrent throughout his correspondence.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Cardigan formally abjured Roman Catholicism on 11 Jan. 1708 and took his seat in the House on the following day. His renunciation of his former religion gave rise to hopes that Norfolk might do the same.<sup>19</sup> He sat for the majority of the remainder of the session (approximately 33 per cent of the whole). His close relationship with Shrewsbury was perhaps the cause of a rumour that he was to be appointed lord chamberlain, but if his appointment to the office was ever truly considered, the post failed to materialize.<sup>20</sup> On 7 Feb. Cardigan subscribed the protest at the passage of the bill to complete the Union. Although throughout his career Cardigan was unfailingly Tory in his sentiments, an estimate of 1 May 1708 listed him as a Whig, an assessment that was perhaps the result of his brother’s undoubted Whiggish inclinations and Shrewsbury’s continued influence on his thinking.</p><p>Cardigan resumed his seat for the new session on 26 Nov. 1708, but sat for just three days before absenting himself for the ensuing two months. He returned to the House on 1 Feb. 1709 and was thereafter fairly regular in his attendance, although he was only present for approximately 37 per cent of the total number of sitting days. On 25 Feb. he missed a visit by Bishop Wake, being still in bed, but he roused himself in time to be recorded on the attendance list that day.<sup>21</sup> Cardigan appears to have troubled the ministry with petitions during the summer relating to unrest in Northamptonshire.<sup>22</sup> In August Cardigan’s apostasy was, in the eyes of his Catholic critics, punished when Lady Cardigan gave birth to a stillborn child following the incompetent intervention of Dr Shadwell. Cardigan was reported to have been so irate at the doctor’s bungling that he let it be known he intended to ‘stab him whenever he meets him.’<sup>23</sup></p><p>Perhaps kept busy by local business, Cardigan failed to return to the House for the session that began in November 1709. From October to December he was taken up with the case of John Wheatley, who was under sentence of execution, and for whom he was seeking a pardon.<sup>24</sup> He remained in the country for the duration of the Sacheverell trial in 1710.<sup>25</sup> Despite his close connection with Shrewsbury, by then restored to office as lord chamberlain, Cardigan was marked among those thought ‘doubtful’ to support the new administration of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, in October 1710. Cardigan dined Shrewsbury at Hampton Court on 19 Oct. and finally resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710.<sup>26</sup> Far more regular in his attendance, Cardigan was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Although he was absent for a month from 19 Feb. 1711, he ensured that his proxy was registered the following day in favour of the chronically unwell country Whig, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury; the proxy was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 20 Mar. 1711.</p><p>In spite of early concerns about his reliability, Cardigan appears to have gradually benefited from his close connection to ministry. At the beginning of 1711 he was appointed to the office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Northamptonshire, and in June it was reported (inaccurately) that he was to replace Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, as treasurer of the household.<sup>27</sup> Present at the October sessions in Northamptonshire in his new county office, in November he wrote to Oxford to thank him for his assistance in securing the preferment of a Mr Johnson.<sup>28</sup> The same month, he assured Shrewsbury that he would be in town in time for the new session of Parliament.<sup>29</sup> He was included in Oxford’s list of probable supporters in or about December 1711 and took his seat at the opening of the 1711-12 session after which he was present on almost 45 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>30</sup> On 8 Dec. he registered his protest at the resolution to present the address to the queen, and on 10 Dec. he was included on a list of office-holders who had remained loyal to the ministry on the question of no peace without Spain. On 19 Dec. a forecast of voting intentions suggested he would support the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, but when the vote was taken the following day Cardigan ‘went out’, i.e. abstained. That month, Cardigan was closely involved in the negotiations that resulted in his brother-in-law, Bruce, being summoned to the House in his father’s barony as one of Oxford’s twelve new peers. He and Robert Bruce<sup>‡</sup>, Bruce’s uncle, were together at White’s Chocolate House on 27 Dec. when Cardigan (presumably on Oxford’s behalf) requested that Robert Bruce approach his nephew about the prospective honour.<sup>31</sup></p><p>However significant his role may have been in persuading his brother-in-law to accept a peerage, Cardigan’s attendance declined in the immediate aftermath of the mass creation, and he was absent for over three months in the spring of 1712. He registered his proxy with his kinsman, Shrewsbury, on 7 Feb., which was vacated by his return to the House on 12 May. On 13 June he received Shrewsbury’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. Later that month, on 28 June, he was appointed master of the buckhounds, an office that reflected his interests and natural abilities.<sup>32</sup> The appointment was undoubtedly through Shrewsbury’s influence, who had recommended Cardigan for the place believing ‘he would fill it very creditably’. Shrewsbury had also assured Oxford that he would thereby be sure to ‘depend upon his [Cardigan], being gratefully your servant’.<sup>33</sup> Having sent a letter to the justices of Northamptonshire in July recommending a loyal address, Cardigan found himself at odds with some of the gentry in wishing to have Dunkirk mentioned within the text, which Sir Robert Clarke considered ‘not at all proper.’<sup>34</sup> The rejoicing occasioned by the birth of an heir to Cardigan and his wife on 26 July was dampened by Cardigan being taken ill the same day, and his sickness prevented him from being present when the address was presented to the queen at Windsor.<sup>35</sup> The same year an edition of the correspondence of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, with Sir Richard Bulstrode was dedicated to Cardigan, a distant relative of Bulstrode’s, by the compiler Edward Bysshe.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Cardigan was forced to write to Oxford on at least two occasions in the autumn and winter of 1712 to remind him about signing the warrant appointing him master of the buckhounds. He also took the opportunity to ask Oxford to advise when he should return to town for the opening of the new Parliament and assured him that he would do so.<sup>37</sup> He was subsequently included in a list compiled by Dean Swift in March or April 1713 of those thought likely to support the ministry. He resumed his seat on 9 Apr. and was present for approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 17 May he introduced his brother, James, and William Elson<sup>‡</sup>, who presented the queen with the Chichester address.<sup>38</sup> On 4 June, in company with the lord lieutenant, Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup>, Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup>, he presented the Northamptonshire county address to the queen.<sup>39</sup> On 13 June he was listed by Oxford as being likely to support the bill for confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French treaty of commerce.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Cardigan returned to the House for the ensuing session on 16 Feb. 1714, of which he attended approximately 60 per cent of all sitting days. On 9 Mar. he received a proxy from his brother-in-law, Bruce, which he held until Bruce returned 8 days later. He received Bruce’s proxy again on 10 Apr., vacated three days later, and again on 24 Apr., vacated on Bruce’s return to the House on 29 April. In early summer Cardigan was listed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being a likely supporter of the schism bill, but the same day he registered his own proxy with Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, which was vacated by his return to the House on 25 June. He continued to sit until 9 July and then resumed his seat for just 3 days of the brief fifteen-day session that was convened on the death of Queen Anne. On 6 Aug. he registered his proxy again with his cousin, Shrewsbury.</p><p>Active in the elections during the autumn, Cardigan was instrumental in persuading Sir Justinian Isham to stand again for Northamptonshire, concerned at the consequences for the Tory interest should he not do so.<sup>41</sup> In January 1715 Cardigan was included in a list of Tories still in office, having been continued in post as master of the buckhounds following the king’s accession, though he was compelled to petition the new regime for the arrears of his salary, unpaid since Christmas 1713 which amounted to over £1,404.<sup>42</sup> On 9 July he acted as one of the tellers on the motion to commit Oxford to Black Rod and then entered his dissent when the resolution was carried. The same day a bill for confirming the sale of the manor of Darington in Yorkshire by Cardigan to Theophilus Shelton was passed. Cardigan registered his proxy with Shrewsbury again on 15 Aug., which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 5 September. Absent for the remainder of the year, he again registered his proxy with Shrewsbury on 8 Dec., which was vacated by his return to the House on 16 Apr. the following year.</p><p>Although Cardigan remained loyal to the Tories for the remainder of his career and on friendly relations with Oxford’s family, he also maintained close connections with a number of Whig magnates.<sup>43</sup> Hunting was undoubtedly one bond, but according to Wriothesley Russell*, 3rd duke of Bedford, he was respected for being ‘a good natured man, a good ombre player and an honest voter in Parliament.’<sup>44</sup> Relations with his Bruce in-laws were at times strained by his continued friendship with the dissolute James Bruce<sup>‡</sup> but these disputes too appear to have been amicably resolved.<sup>45</sup> A series of disputes over rights in woodland shared by Cardigan and Montagu and a later similar dispute with Hatton threatened at times to upset relations, but Cardigan retained his authority in the area and continued to exert his interest to return candidates for several seats in the two counties.<sup>46</sup> Indeed, he appears to have exerted his influence more following the Hanoverian accession than he did during the reign of Queen Anne. In February 1724 both he and Lady Cardigan were said to have been ‘very busy’ in the by-election for Lincolnshire.<sup>47</sup> The latter part of his career will be dealt with in detail in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Cardigan died at his brother-in-law’s seat of Tottenham Park, while on his way home from Bath in 1732.<sup>48</sup> In his will of 1730 he bequeathed sums in excess of £6,000 to his wife, children and executors. The remainder of his estate was bequeathed to his eldest son, George Brudenell<sup>†</sup>, who succeeded his father as 4th earl of Cardigan (later duke of Montagu). Two of Cardigan’s younger sons, James Brudenell<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Brudenell<sup>‡</sup> both sat in the Commons.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BRUDENELL, Robert (1607-1703) |
<p><strong><surname>BRUDENELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1607–1703)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1661-63 Ld. Brudenell; <em>suc. </em>fa. 16 Sept. 1663 as 2nd earl of CARDIGAN |
|
First sat 16 Mar. 1664; last sat 23 Nov. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 5 Mar. 1607, 1st. s. of Thomas Brudenell*, later earl of Cardigan, and Mary (<em>d</em>.1664), da. of Sir Thomas Tresham<sup>‡</sup>, of Rushton, Northants. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1626. <em>m</em>. (1) Mary (<em>b</em>. c.1609; <em>d</em>. bef. Apr. 1661), da. of Henry Constable, Visct. Dunbar [S], <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>; (2) 20 Apr. 1661, Anne (<em>c</em>.1630-96), da. of Thomas Savage<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Savage, and Elizabeth, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Countess Rivers, 1s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 16 July 1703; <em>will</em> 3 June 1702, pr. 26 July 1703.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
<p>Likenesses: Sir G. Kneller, oils, Goodwood House, Suss.</p> |
<p>Heir to one of the most prominent Catholic families in the country, Brudenell spent much of his life abroad. In 1626 he was captured by the Spanish while travelling to France.<sup>3</sup> His ransom caused the family considerable financial difficulties but such accidents do not appear to have deterred him.<sup>4</sup> Although he passed the majority of his time from 1641 until the Restoration in France, leaving active participation in the Civil War to his younger brother, Edmund, he did return home on a few occasions on account of family troubles.<sup>5</sup> Brudenell was in England in 1645 to add his voice to attempts to achieve his father’s release from the Tower, and in 1650 he was involved in a chancery dispute against his father and Henry Parker<sup>†</sup>, 14th Baron Morley and Monteagle, arising from the unpaid debts of his cousin, Sir William Tresham.<sup>6</sup> Five years later he was in England again arranging affairs between his father and Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The Restoration brought with it an improvement in the family’s fortunes. Brudenell’s father was elevated to the earldom of Cardigan in 1661 while the return of the family estates meant that Brudenell stood to inherit one of the most substantial positions in Northamptonshire society: the family lands in Northamptonshire alone were valued at some £1,006 a year in 1662.<sup>8</sup> Brudenell was closely connected to a number of Northamptonshire notables, among them Christopher Hatton*, later Viscount Hatton.<sup>9</sup> Despite this, he appears not to have exercised much local political influence and was not appointed to any great local offices, though he may have been one of the officers in the Northamptonshire volunteer troop under the joint lord lieutenant, Westmorland.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On 1 July 1661 a private act was presented to the House for naturalizing Brudenell’s son, Francis Brudenell, and his daughter, Anna Maria (later countess of Shrewsbury), who had both been born in France during the Interregnum. The act received the royal assent towards the end of the same month.<sup>11</sup> In February 1663 Brudenell and Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle, petitioned the king for a concurrent grant of rights in several manors, which Morley had lost in the Civil War but had later redeemed with money borrowed from Brudenell. Now unable to repay Brudenell, Morley sought to sell the manors, which brought the two peers into conflict with George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. Albemarle, who wished to purchase the manors, delayed the proceedings, being convinced that the king had a claim to them. In April of the following year they were granted to Brudenell.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Brudenell succeeded to the peerage in September 1663 and received his writ of summons in March 1664.<sup>13</sup> He took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 16 March. Although Cardigan was present on 94 per cent of all sitting days in the session, he was named to just three committees. His subsequent attendance at the House proved to be sporadic, as he continued to divide his time between his English homes and France. He attended only four sittings of the following session (1664-5) and was absent for the entirety of the short fifth session (October 1665). Nevertheless, he guarded his privileges as a peer jealously, and in February 1665 ‘several persons’ were brought to the bar of the House for arresting one of his servants.<sup>14</sup> In the same year Cardigan concerned himself closely with the trial of his cousin, Morley. Both peers were involved with a lengthy and increasingly ill-tempered attempt to sell the manor of Hallingbury to Sir Edward Turnor<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>15</sup> Poor health prevented Cardigan from attending Parliament to assist his cousin, but he maintained close contact with Turnor asking that he do all in his power on Morley’s behalf.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Cardigan attempted to assert his influence in the 1666 by-election for Peterborough occasioned by the succession of the previous member, Charles Fane*, as 3rd earl of Westmorland. In spite of the Brudenells’ close association with the Fane family, and Westmorland’s subsequent marriage to one of Cardigan’s daughters, Cardigan appears to have offered his support to William Fitzwilliam, 3rd Baron Fitzwilliam<sup>‡</sup> [I], in preference to Westmorland’s half-brother, Sir Vere Fane*, later 4th earl of Westmorland. Cardigan wrote to Fitzwilliam to forewarn him of a horse race held the day of the ballot that would ‘take away several interested persons’ and promised to be at Peterborough himself to attend him.<sup>17</sup> In the event a third candidate, Edward Palmer<sup>‡</sup>, was returned, though the following year Fitzwilliam successfully petitioned to have that decision overturned.<sup>18</sup> In the summer of 1666 Cardigan was unwittingly instrumental in enabling his daughter, the wife of Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, to begin her notorious affair with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. She abandoned her husband the following year.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Having attended the single sitting day of 23 Apr. 1666, Cardigan took his seat in the new session on 1 Oct. after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. He was absent from the House from 21 Nov. until 11 Dec., during which time he entrusted his proxy to Charles Howard*, then styled Viscount Andover (later 2nd earl of Berkshire) who sat under a writ in acceleration as Baron Howard of Charlton. On 22 Dec. Cardigan was added to the committee considering the bill for lead mines in the palatinate of Durham and on 4 Jan. 1667 to that for the bill for naturalizing Dame Mary Frazer. Relations with his daughter’s lover must have become increasingly frayed early in the year as Buckingham championed the cause to ban imports of Irish cattle. Cardigan was one of a number of peers who relied on income from fattening Irish beef for market in England. He joined with Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, and the other Anglo-Irish peers in mounting the opposition to the bill, and on 14 Jan. 1667 he entered his protest at the imposition of the ‘nuisance’ clause. On 23 Jan. he subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to annex a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill for houses burnt in the Great Fire.</p><p>Cardigan’s absence from the earlier part of the session may have been in part owing to negotiations then in train between him and John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, over a projected marriage alliance between Cardigan’s heir Francis Brudenell, styled Lord Brudenell and Lady Dorothy Manners. Brudenell’s religion proved a sticking point. Writing to the countess of Rutland, Edward Mountagu argued that, ‘If the young lord was a strict and a grounded papist there was some danger my lady Dorothy might be perverted, but considering all things there is no danger and so I am told by honest protestant divines.’<sup>20</sup> The family’s Catholicism proved a problem in other areas too and the same month, Brien Cokayne, 2nd Viscount Cullen [I], asked Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> whether he should search Cardigan’s house as part of the general investigation of known recusants.<sup>21</sup> In May of the following year, with the marriage still unsettled, Cardigan attempted reluctantly to answer some of Rutland’s concerns:</p><blockquote><p>Far be it from me – my lord – to enter into dispute with your lordship in matters of religion, considering we are both fixed to die in that we now live in; but give me leave to undeceive your lordship, that conceives that I hold all damned in that profession you are of…<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>Cardigan’s efforts clearly failed to satisfy Rutland and in July 1667 the matter was dropped.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Cardigan attended the House on two days in July and then resumed his seat in the new session on 7 Nov. 1667, after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to eight committees, including that considering a bill relating to his daughter-in-law, Lady Frances Savile. By that time more dramatic family issues had come to the fore as tensions between Shrewsbury and Buckingham reached crisis point. A duel between the two left Shrewsbury seriously injured; he died two months later. Charles Talbot*, the new earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, was entrusted to the guardianship of Cardigan, Mervyn Tuchet*, later Baron Audley, and his Talbot relations. Over the next five years Buckingham’s cohabitation with Lady Shrewsbury seems to have caused no further obvious ruptures within the family.<sup>24</sup></p><p>During this time Cardigan continued to attend the House. He resumed his seat in the new session on 25 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on just under 92 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to two committees during the session, and on 25 Nov. he subscribed the protest against the resolution relating to the cause <em>Morley v. Elwes</em>. He then registered a further dissent concerning the same business four days later. Cardigan returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 14 Feb. 1670, of which he was again present on just under 92 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to 29 committees. On one of the few occasions when he was absent he entrusted his proxy to his Northamptonshire neighbour Westmorland. On 2 Mar. 1670 he was named to the committee considering Lady Lee’s bill: a measure with a prominent Northamptonshire connection.<sup>25</sup> Perhaps most significant was his presence on the committee chaired by Ailesbury considering a bill introduced by the guardians of his grandson, Shrewsbury, in January 1671.<sup>26</sup> On 9 Mar. he registered two dissents at the resolutions neither to engross nor commit the bill concerning privilege of Parliament.</p><p>Cardigan attended the prorogation of 16 Apr. 1672 but was then was missing from the opening of the eleventh session the following year. He informed the House on 13 Feb. 1673 that he had sent in his proxy. There is no record of this but Cardigan resumed his seat (thus vacating the proxy) shortly after on 27 February. Present on 59 per cent of all sitting days, on 5 Mar. he was named to the committee appointed to draw up a bill of advice to the king. Cardigan was absent again throughout the twelfth session, but in the winter of 1673 he returned to London in advance of the following session.<sup>27</sup> He took his seat at the opening on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on 89 per cent of all sitting days. The same day his son, Lord Brudenell, Mervyn Tuchet and four other relatives of the deceased earl of Shrewsbury presented a petition to the House against Buckingham and the dowager countess in which they complained of the earl’s killing and of Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury’s ‘open and scandalous way of living together, and the public interment of their bastard.’<sup>28</sup> The timing of the petition appears to have been driven largely by the Talbots in an effort to counter Buckingham’s assault on Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington.<sup>29</sup> Cardigan’s role is unclear. He was absent from the House on 15 Jan. the day on which it was ordered that the petitioners should be heard, but the business was then delayed by a series of postponements. In any case, he had his own problems to consider as in the midst of these events he faced proceedings for recusancy. On 27 Jan. the House having been informed of his predicament (and of a number of other peers in a similar situation), it was ordered that he should enjoy privilege of Parliament. Cardigan used the opportunity of the 31 Jan. debate on the Talbot petition to speak up for his daughter, explaining that he had received a ‘letter of submission’ from her and begged that ‘she might not be made desperate.’<sup>30</sup> The matter was then postponed once more to 6 February. In the event, Buckingham escaped serious repercussions, though both he and Lady Shrewsbury were ordered to enter into recognizances of £10,000 to guarantee their future good conduct, and a committee was appointed to finalize the conditions chaired by Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh.<sup>31</sup> The nature of the securities to be offered was discussed and then the committee adjourned to the following week when Cardigan’s presence was requested. Although the prorogation on 24 Feb. prevented the committee from reporting its findings to the House, Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury were forbidden from any future association.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In the aftermath of the scandal, Cardigan acquired a pass for himself and his daughter to leave the country. The dowager countess was left in France at Pontoise and the young earl of Shrewsbury was also sent abroad, arriving in Paris in June 1674.<sup>33</sup> Cardigan spent the greater part of the following year across the Channel.<sup>34</sup> His influence over his grandson waned over the years. Shrewsbury renounced his Catholicism but his conversion was a long drawn-out affair, involving lengthy theological discussions both with his protestant mentor John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and his Catholic grandfather.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Having failed to attend the first session of 1675, Cardigan took his seat in the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 13 October. He proceeded to attend all bar one of its 21 sitting days, and on 20 Nov. he voted in favour of addressing the crown to request a dissolution. He was present at the opening of the next session on 15 Feb. 1677, of which he attended 84 per cent of all sitting days; in May he was assessed by Antony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, as a ‘worthy Papist’. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. Cardigan was again in attendance for the opening of the following session on 23 May 1678, though his record of attendance then declined to just 37 per cent of the whole. He was present on both prorogation days of 1 Aug. and 1 Oct. before taking his place once more at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. 1678. Unsurprisingly, Cardigan opposed the Test. He voted against making the declaration against transubstantiation liable to the same penalty as the oaths in a division held in a committee of the whole on 15 Nov., and on 20 Nov. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the measure. He withdrew from the House permanently after its adoption.</p><p>Cardigan was briefly brought under investigation during the Popish Plot, but in November 1678 he obtained permission to quit the country and once more retreated across the Channel.<sup>36</sup> His son, Lord Brudenell, who was also under suspicion, was less fortunate and it was not until January of the following year that he was eventually released on bail.<sup>37</sup> In a list drawn up in about March or April 1679 Cardigan was listed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) as a doubtful (as well as absent) supporter of his efforts to secure bail. By August Cardigan was rumoured to be actively working against Danby through the influence of the dowager countess of Shrewsbury, but his cession from the House meant that he was unable to bring any direct influence to bear over Danby’s impeachment.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Almost 80 years old in 1685, Cardigan’s age made it unlikely that he would gain much from James II’s accession, though he was dispensed from taking the oaths.<sup>39</sup> Age notwithstanding, he seems to have enjoyed some interest at court. One of his daughters, Catherine, was married to the new secretary of state, Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], and in 1686 Cardigan was reckoned by Roger Morrice to be one of the lay leaders of the anti-Jesuitical faction.<sup>40</sup> In other respects Cardigan’s situation was increasingly bleak and escalating debts forced him to make over his estates to his son Brudenell in return for an annuity of £1,000.<sup>41</sup> A series of assessments of the likely attitudes of peers to the repeal of the Test Act compiled between 1687 and 1688 all listed Cardigan, predictably enough, as a Catholic. In December 1688 he was exempted from having troops quartered on his retreat at Twickenham, but the progress of the Revolution ensured that his influence remained minimal.<sup>42</sup> In 1689, writing in response to a demand for all peers to provide an assessment of their personal estates, Cardigan requested that the House might ‘excuse the scribbling of an old man’ before proceeding to declare that he was in possession of but £100 while owing ten times that amount.<sup>43</sup> The deaths of his heir, Francis, daughter, Anna Maria, and second wife further blighted his final decade while the changed political situation added to his troubles. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 1692, and two years later his name appeared on a list of possible suspects to be investigated as part of the ‘Lancashire Plot’.<sup>44</sup> In 1699 Cardigan had another narrow escape when part of his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields collapsed during a violent storm. The falling debris narrowly missed the old earl who had to be cut out from the wreckage.<sup>45</sup></p><p>In spite of such reverses and his earlier declaration, Cardigan’s fortune remained sizeable. His granddaughter, Frances, was given a portion of £12,000 on her marriage to the Jacobite, Charles Livingston<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Newburgh [S], in 1692.<sup>46</sup> Cardigan also made provision for a portion of £10,000 for another granddaughter, Mary Brudenell.<sup>47</sup> Following Newburgh’s early death, his widow married Richard Bellew<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Baron Bellew [I], an Irish Catholic, who later converted to Protestantism. Wrangling over the terms of the new marriage settlement involved Cardigan in a divisive chancery case during his final months.<sup>48</sup> Shortly before Christmas 1702 he was reported to be so unwell that his life was ‘despaired of’.<sup>49</sup> He rallied to live for a further seven months but succumbed finally to advanced age in July 1703 aged 96 (at least two reports described him erroneously as being in his 98th year).<sup>50</sup> He was buried at Deene, having requested in his will that his funeral be conducted ‘without pomp or unnecessary charge.’<sup>51</sup> He was succeeded by his grandson, George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BRUDENELL, Thomas (1578-1663) |
<p><strong><surname>BRUDENELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1578–1663)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>25 Feb. 1628 Bar. BRUDENELL; <em>cr. </em>22 Apr. 1661 earl of CARDIGAN |
|
First sat 4 May 1640; first sat after 1660, 23 July 1660; last sat 18 Mar. 1662 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1578, 1st s. of Robert Brudenell, and Catherine, da. of Geoffrey Taylarde. <em>educ</em>. Huntingdon g.s.; Kirby Bellairs sch.; <sup>1</sup> Caius, Camb. 1593. <em>m</em>. 1605 Mary (<em>d</em>.1664),<sup>2</sup> da. of Sir Thomas Tresham<sup>‡</sup>, of Rushton, Northants. and Muriel Throckmorton, 2s. 1da. bt. 1611. kntd. 1612. <em>d</em>. 16 Sept. 1663; <em>will</em> 3 [Mar.] 1662, pr. 20 Oct. 1663.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Northants. 1627.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Michael Wright, oils, 1658.</p> |
<p>The head of an old recusant family, over the course of his long life Brudenell succeeded in acquiring a clutch of honours in spite of his Catholicism. He inherited the family’s extensive estates spread across eight counties. Brudenell did much to improve his inheritance and by 1635 his income was estimated at some £5,500 a year. The extent of his wealth was reflected in his ability to give his daughter a dowry of £7,000 on her marriage to John Constable, 2nd Viscount Dunbar [S], in 1635.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In 1628 Brudenell was raised to the peerage through the influence of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham.<sup>7</sup> Bridges recorded fancifully that the award was made for ‘his general knowledge in literature, and other accomplishments.’<sup>8</sup> More prosaically Brudenell secured his barony by paying a fee of £6,000 along with a £600 bribe to his patron.<sup>9</sup> He took his seat in the House during the Short Parliament and he was also present in the House during the early stages of the Long Parliament. At the Restoration Brudenell was eager to emphasize his service in the king’s cause during the Civil War, but it is unlikely that he played an active role in the conflict.<sup>10</sup> Tales of the sixty-four year old Brudenell riding to the relief of Newark at the head of his troops are probably apocryphal.<sup>11</sup> Brudenell’s later emphasis on his war service contrasted starkly with his petition to Parliament in the mid-1640s in which he insisted that he had, ‘never raised any regiment or marched at the head of any regiment’ and explained his presence at Newark as being entirely accidental.<sup>12</sup> Nevertheless, Brudenell’s estates were sequestered for delinquency and recusancy. He was also excepted from pardon by Parliament.<sup>13</sup> Refused permission to compound, Brudenell later claimed to have lost £50,000 in the king’s cause.<sup>14</sup> In 1648 he was promised an earldom in return for £1,000 to help fund Charles I’s escape from Carisbrooke, but the escape failed and the king’s death robbed him of the coveted title.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Already an octogenarian by the time of the Restoration, Brudenell’s active political life was effectively over long before 1660. Thus, although a regular attender during the latter stages of the Convention and the first session of the Cavalier Parliament, his role in the House’s proceedings appears to have been limited. Noted a papist in an assessment drawn up by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, before the Convention, Brudenell took his seat on 23 July 1660, the day on which the names of those excepted from the Act of Oblivion were debated. He then retired for the remainder of the session. On 26 July he was granted permission to go to Bath for his health, and he was given leave of absence at a call of the House on 31 July. He resumed his seat following the adjournment on 6 Nov., after which he was present on 27 sitting days (60 per cent of the whole) and was named to two committees. On 13 Dec. he entered his protest along with a number of other peers over the House’s decision to pass an act vacating fines levied by Sir Edward Powell. Brudenell remained eager to see his own possessions restored to him, and on 24 Aug. he was granted an order authorizing him to search for goods estimated to be worth some £10,000.<sup>16</sup> He also took advantage of his improved circumstances to undertake further improvements on Deene Park, spending perhaps as much as £900 on the house.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Resolute in his desire to see Charles I’s promise of an earldom fulfilled, Brudenell petitioned the new king to honour his father’s promise, securing the intercession of the king’s younger brother, Prince Henry*, duke of Gloucester.<sup>18</sup> Brudenell’s request that the patent be forwarded to him before the coronation was ignored, and he was compelled to present himself in person to receive the award. Cardigan also made a contribution of £300 to the peers’ subscription to the king.<sup>19</sup> Cardigan took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, but it was not until 11 May that he was introduced formally as earl of Cardigan, between Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, and Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. Present on 39 per cent of all sitting days in the session, at some point (the precise date is not recorded) he was entrusted with Shrewsbury’s proxy. On 28 June he was named to the committee considering the bill for cleaning the streets of Westminster, the only committee to which he was named during the session. The following month, on 3 July, he was present in the House for the reading of the naturalization bill for his grandson, Francis Brudenell. The bill was passed on 6 July and gained royal assent at the end of the month.</p><p>Cardigan failed to sit after 18 Mar. 1662, but he ensured that his proxy was entrusted to his co-religionist, Henry Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Wardour. On 13 July he was noted by Wharton as being likely to support (via his proxy) the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Cardigan died on 16 Sept. 1663 and was buried at Deene Park. In his will he bequeathed an annuity of £5 to his kinsman, Lawrence Taylard, ‘being the last of his name and fallen into poverty’. He was succeeded by his son, Robert Brudenell*, as 2nd earl of Cardigan.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BRYDGES, James (1642-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>BRYDGES</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1642–1714)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 22 Aug. 1676 as 8th Bar. CHANDOS |
|
First sat 15 Feb. 1677; last sat 4 June 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. Sep. 1642, o.s. Sir John Brydges bt. of Wilton Castle, Herefs. and Mary Pearle. <em>educ</em><em>. </em>St John’s, Oxf. (matric. 1657); travelled abroad (France) 1657.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. bef. 1673, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 16 May 1719), da. and coh. Sir Henry Barnard, mercer and Turkey merchant, of St Dunstan-in-the-East, London and Bridgnorth, Salop, 3s. 5da. (14 other ch. <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 21 Feb. 1652. <em>d</em>. 16 Oct 1714; <em>will</em> 3 June 1713, pr. 4 Dec. 1714.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Amb. to Turkey, 1680-7.</p><p>Sheriff, Hereford, 1667-8.</p><p>Dir. E.I. Co. 1679-80, 1688-91;<sup>3</sup> freeman, Levant Co. 1679-<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> gov. Mines Co. 1693.</p> |
|
<p>James Brydges, 8th Baron Chandos, was descended from a younger son of John Brydges, Baron Chandos<sup>†</sup>, who had settled at Wilton Castle in Herefordshire in the sixteenth century. Wilton Castle appears to have been rendered uninhabitable during the Civil War and Chandos seems to have lived nearby in either Dewsall or Aconbury. His social and political allegiances were very different to those of his predecessor. He possessed estates in Herefordshire and Shropshire but seems to have been more interested in commercial than landed wealth and was deeply involved in the financial world of the City of London. Although he was described by one contemporary as ‘a worthy gentleman’, so many of those with whom he was closely connected had a reputation for shady dealing that it is difficult to be sure of his probity. His mother had allegedly secured the Pearle estate by seizing custody of the mentally incapacitated heir and embezzling the records. She remarried in 1655. Her second husband was William (Hinson) Powell<sup>‡</sup> who had been party to the notorious conveyance of the lands of Lady Powell in 1651.<sup>5</sup> At or about the time of Chandos’s succession to the peerage his wife’s sister married the financier, Josiah Child<sup>‡</sup>. Chandos’s son and heir James Brydges*, (later duke of Chandos) enriched himself in a process that has been described as ‘an undeviating narrative of opportunism and corruption’.<sup>6</sup> Chandos himself was clearly sensitive to suggestions that he had misappropriated funds bequeathed by John Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Scudamore [I], for the employment of the poor of Hereford which he managed in conjunction with Scudamore’s ‘chief agent’, Thomas Geers<sup>‡</sup>, and was at pains to refute them in his will. It is tempting to wonder whether it was the need to rebut allegations of this kind that led in 1701 to a duel between his son and James Morgan<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>7</sup></p><p>It is difficult to estimate the value of Chandos’s Herefordshire holdings: his house was leased out during his stay in Turkey for £115 a year, which Chandos later claimed was a deliberate undervaluation.<sup>8</sup> His holdings, even if not large, did give him some influence in the county. Further influence came from his kinship network. Chandos’s niece, Rebecca Child, married Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, heir apparent to Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort). Sir Thomas Williams<sup>‡</sup> owed much of his interest in Herefordshire to his marriage to Chandos’s half-sister, Mary Powell, in 1675. Their son, Sir John Williams<sup>‡</sup> was touted as a candidate for Chandos and the ‘Church party’ at the 1693 election.<sup>9</sup> Chandos was also related to another more significant local family, the Scudamores. He was on good terms with John Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Scudamore [I] and even fought a duel in1695 with Scudamore’s opponent Thomas Coningsby*, Baron Coningsby [I], later earl of Coningsby, after a quarrel arising from a dispute over the office of high steward of Hereford.<sup>10</sup> His estates in Herefordshire naturally brought him into contact with the Harley family, a connection that may have been reinforced by Nathaniel Harley’s career in the Turkey trade. Scattered references in the Harley correspondence show both that relations between the two families were cordial rather than close, and that the Harleys thought his interest well worth cultivating.<sup>11</sup> Chandos’s main electoral influence was in Hereford itself, where he was said to have ‘half the town’ but, nevertheless, had to resort to extensive bribery to secure the election of his son in 1698.</p><p>Chandos’s other sources of wealth are equally difficult to estimate. Towards the end of his life Chandos was deemed one of the ‘poor lords’ who would welcome a Hanoverian pension. His acquisitive son complained that Chandos ‘used him hardly’. Yet his electoral activity in Herefordshire and his shareholdings in the East India Company (said to be worth £9,550 in 1689 and £7,800 in 1692) suggest considerable resources.<sup>12</sup> Chandos had married into a prosperous City family (his mother-in-law paid for the erection of the family vault in Aconbury Church), and he had little difficulty in securing a rich wife for his son and heir. His will does not indicate great wealth but neither does it indicate great poverty. He bequeathed £2,000 and a life interest in a manor to each of his two surviving younger sons, an income of £600 a year to his widow, generous legacies to his servants and friends, and £50 to finish the improvements that he had already begun to the church at Aconbury ‘as a small instance of my devotion to the house of my God’.</p><p>Described in <em>The Complete Peerage</em> as having ‘acted with the Tories’, a close examination of Chandos’s parliamentary career suggests a far more complex picture. Chandos’s deeply held anti-Catholic and ‘country’ beliefs involved him in a series of shifting political allegiances that defy easy labelling. He took his seat as soon as Parliament reconvened after the long prorogation of 1675-7 and, with the exception of one session, maintained his attendance at a very high level until he left for Constantinople early in 1681. During the 1677-8 session he was present on just under 90 per cent of sitting days; for the May to July 1678 session on just over 88 per cent; for the October-December session on nearly 41 percent; for the first Exclusion Parliament 95 per cent (additionally attending on five of the seven prorogation days); and nearly 76 per cent for the second Exclusion Parliament.</p><p>For most of this period he was associated with the opposition group led by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, who marked him as worthy in his May 1677 list. On 5 July 1678 Chandos entered a dissent to the resolution in the case of <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em>. Between 23 Oct. and 30 Nov. 1678 his proxy was held by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). Yet he was scarcely one of Danby’s most trustworthy allies. On 20 Dec., along with other Shaftesbury associates, he signed the two dissents against the supply bill, having voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment which would have required the payment of money into the exchequer, and Chandos voted for Danby’s committal in December 1678. By February 1679 he was involved with Child in an attempt to reconcile Danby and Shaftesbury by means of a set of proposals aimed at securing a Protestant succession and apparently concocted by a group meeting twice weekly at a coffee house in the City ‘where coffee clubbers like we discourse public matters.’<sup>13</sup> In March and April 1679 Danby listed him as a supporter; in April Chandos voted against Danby’s attainder. On 2 May Chandos protested against the resolution not to amend the bill to remove popish inhabitants from London and Westminster, and on 10 May he voted against a joint committee of both Houses to consider the impeachments against the ‘popish lords’. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Despite his apparent rapprochement with Danby, at the Essex election of August 1679 he (together with Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, later earl of Tankerville) led the country opposition against the court candidate.<sup>14</sup> His involvement in this election is somewhat puzzling since he is not known to have had any property in the county. It seems likely that he was acting on behalf of his brother-in-law, Josiah Child, who was building up a substantial Essex estate. In September Chandos was said to be interested in becoming ambassador to Turkey, a position that was usually filled on the nomination of the Levant Company.<sup>15</sup> He also demonstrated his belief in the allegations of Titus Oates by joining Shaftesbury and other opposition peers at the trial of Knox and Lane in November 1679. Alongside Shaftsbury, he was also a member of the group of peers who dined together once a week at the Swan Tavern in Fish Street in order to plan a mass petitioning movement to persuade the king to recall Parliament.<sup>16</sup> Chandos was not only one of the signatories to the subsequent address to the king in December 1679; he was also one of the smaller group of peers who presented it to the king in person.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In January 1681 Chandos was still said to be ‘a great friend and entirely in the interests of my lord Shaftesbury’.<sup>18</sup> Shaftesbury’s ability to rally, ‘All those who in any way dissent from the government’ to vote for Chandos was said to have been a crucial factor in securing him the Levant Company’s nomination as ambassador to Turkey.<sup>19</sup> Securing the king’s approbation of the appointment was another matter. Chandos was forced to appear before the committee of foreign affairs in April. There he had to face the king’s disfavour and was forced to repudiate his actions ‘and beg his majesty’s pardon for the same, alleging for his excuse that he did not know it was contrary to his majesty’s pleasure, and did then think it might have been for his majesty’s service.’<sup>20</sup> Not unnaturally his recantation, which was widely publicized, upset many of his erstwhile supporters in the Levant Company who were expected either to overturn his appointment or to punish him by reducing the ambassador’s ‘annual present’ as a result. A rumour that Chandos had publicly disowned the recantation then upset the king still further. The upshot appears to have been that Chandos, ‘as a disaffected person’ was forced to serve ‘at an under rate.’<sup>21</sup> Even so, it was a lucrative posting; when he finally left Turkey in 1687, it was said that, ‘Few have made more of the place than he hath. He has doubtless raised his estate considerably by it.’<sup>22</sup></p><p>Chandos’s name appears in the House of Lords attendance list for 15 Nov. 1680 when the crucial exclusion vote was taken. According to Daniel Finch*, the future 2nd earl of Nottingham, Chandos was still ‘a great friend and entirely in the interests of my lord Shaftesbury’.<sup>23</sup> One might have expected him therefore to have been a determined exclusionist, although his subsequent difficulty in accepting the 1688 revolution suggests that there were limits to his willingness to implement his anti-Catholic prejudices. Equally, his recent experiences may have made him reluctant to oppose the king so publicly. In the event the evidence of the surviving division lists for that day are simply confusing. He is listed as having voted against putting the question that the bill be rejected at its first reading but also as having voted for its rejection. In December 1680 he voted for the attainder of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. His last recorded attendance at the House of Lords before leaving for Turkey was on 7 Jan. 1681; given the regularity of his attendance this almost certainly means that he either left the country shortly after that date or was preparing to do so, although he did not arrive in Constantinople until 22 July.<sup>24</sup> His failure to sign the address to the king in January 1681 therefore probably indicates an inability to sign through absence rather than a reluctance to sign at all.</p><p>James II attempted to recall Chandos at his accession in 1685. Chandos was in no doubt that this represented a loss of favour and implored help ‘against the irregular, and undue combination and practices of ambitious and unkind men, that altogether unprovoked on my part seek to make me a sacrifice to the rising sun.’<sup>25</sup> Problems about appointing a successor meant that Chandos did not arrive back in England until February 1688.<sup>26</sup> Before his return his name was being included on various lists as an opponent of James II’s policies in general and of the repeal of the Test Act in particular. Roger Morrice was not quite so sure; he noted that Chandos ‘was of Shaftesbury’s party but now is otherwise minded’. Nevertheless, it was reliably reported in March that Chandos was indeed opposed to the repeal of the Test Act and William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, was confident that he would be prepared to act as bail in the Seven Bishops’ case, although in the event he was not in court to do so.<sup>27</sup></p><p>On his return Chandos again took up the threads of commercial life in London. He resumed his directorship of the East India Company and became an exceptionally active member of its committee, attending 41 of 42 possible meetings in 1688.<sup>28</sup> In August 1688 he dined with Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, who noted that the talk had been of elections and that Chandos ‘will adhere to the Prince’s interest and steer as Sir E[dward Harley<sup>‡</sup>] will desire.’<sup>29</sup> In November 1688 Chandos subscribed his name to the petition for a free Parliament, and in December he signed the declaration to the prince of Orange and was one of the peers who met at Guildhall and Whitehall.<sup>30</sup> Together with Charles North*, 5th Baron North, and John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston, he interrogated George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, about the whereabouts of the missing Great Seal of England.<sup>31</sup></p><p>He resumed his seat at the first sitting of the Convention Parliament and was present for 77 per cent of the first session, but only 49 per cent of the second session. His long years of opposition did not make it easy for him to accept the revolution and henceforth Chandos was increasingly identified with the Tories and supporters of the Anglican Church. In January 1689 Chandos voted for a regency and against declaring William and Mary to be king and queen. In February he voted against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’, entering a dissent on 6 Feb. when the resolution passed. His faith in Titus Oates and the reality of the Popish Plot was shaken; in May he voted against reversing Titus Oates’ conviction for perjury and in July voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill. That same month he appears to have been seeking a fresh ambassadorial appointment.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Chandos may not have been living in Herefordshire, as he had leased his house at Dewsall for 21 years in 1680, and the absence of his name from discussions of what sums it was appropriate for local gentlemen to offer towards the expenses of the prince of Orange in December 1688 suggests that he was still living elsewhere at that date.<sup>33</sup> Nevertheless, he was classed by Carmarthen as among the supporters of the court in a list of October 1689 to February 1690, and he was regularly consulted on local electoral issues. At the general election of 1690 he promised his support to Sir Edward Harley and intervened to prevent a rival from standing.<sup>34</sup> His attendance recovered to just over 79 per cent in the first session of the 1690 Parliament. His continuing unease with the new regime was demonstrated yet again on 10 Apr. 1690 when he entered a protest against the razure of the reasons for the protest of 8 Apr. concerning the recognition of William and Mary as rightful and lawful sovereigns and to confirm the acts of the Convention, and on 11th he told n the question as to whether the previous day’s vote should be entered in the journal as they were read without any Alteration. He also acted as a teller on the question of whether to refer the state of the London militia to a select committee. He seems to have been seeking a further term of office overseas: in February 1690 he was said to be angling for the post of governor of Jamaica, and not long afterwards he was soliciting for the post of ambassador to Turkey in place of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>35</sup> His somewhat grudging support for the new regime did not prevent the queen from endorsing his appointment in August to command a troop of horse raised by the East India Company to counter a possible French invasion.<sup>36</sup></p><p>The 1690-1 session saw him present on 69 per cent of sitting days. In October he was involved in local discussions over the proposed Wye and Lugg navigation bill.<sup>37</sup> On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. In November 1690 Chandos braved ‘a most tempestuous night’ to attend the meeting of the Commons’ committee that deliberated on the return of Robert Harley as Member for New Radnor Boroughs, even though as a peer he had no vote to cast.<sup>38</sup> His attendance over the 1691-2 session dropped slightly to 66 percent but he acted as a teller on two occasions, on the question of <em>Brown v Wayte</em> (30 Nov.) and a bill for preserving prize salt for the use of the navy (14 December). His attendance recovered in 1692-3 to just over 82 per cent, when he acted as a teller once more on a legal matter pertaining to the grammar school in Birmingham. Not everyone was convinced of his loyalty. Writing to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, an anonymous (and alarmist) correspondent predicted disruption of the 1692-3 session by disgruntled Tories and Jacobites. Amongst other details he described how Chandos had ‘sat up all night a gaming and got drunk and in his drink run round the table like a mad man saying god damn me, I am a Jacobite, I am a Jacobite, and hope to see King James here again in a short time: with other reflective words’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Three times in January and once in February 1692 Chandos had acted as teller in divisions in proceedings concerning the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. When the bill was revived in January 1693, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, listed Chandos as a possible opponent and he did indeed go on to vote against it. In December 1692 and again in January 1693 he voted in favour of the place bill; it may have been for this purpose that he held Ailesbury’s proxy from 11 to 27 Jan. 1693. In February 1693 he became involved in a quarrel, cause unknown, with John Sheffield*, earl of Mulgrave, (later duke of Buckingham). The House issued an injunction against them on 18 Feb. in order to prevent a duel. That month he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun not guilty of murder, and also became involved in supporting William Walcot’s attempts to secure a statute renewing his patent for a machine to freshen seawater. Chandos may well have had a financial interest in this scheme. He was distantly related to the Walcots; his daughter subsequently married William Walcot’s nephew, Charles; another nephew, Humphrey Walcot<sup>‡</sup>, set up a company to exploit the desalination process in 1701 in which Chandos was the first and most prominent shareholder.<sup>40</sup> On 6 Mar. he invoked privilege of Parliament to protect his footmen from arrest. On 13 Mar. 1693 Chandos chaired the committee on the Salwarpe river navigation bill.<sup>41</sup> The following day he was one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prohibit all trade with France and for the encouragement of privateers. In the meantime, throughout the early months of 1693, he was active in securing the success of Sir Edward Harley at the by-election for Herefordshire.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Chandos was then absent from the House for the next two sessions. Despite explaining on 18 Dec. 1694 that his absence at a call of the House was involuntary and solely attributable to problems with his horses, he did not resume his seat until 10 Feb. 1696, well into the 1695-6 session.<sup>43</sup> Perhaps he was distracted by yet another commercial scheme: in June he was appointed governor of the Company for Digging and Working Mines in England, a project that involved an eclectic mix of Whigs, Tories, country supporters and courtiers.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Chandos’s political outlook seems to be summed up in the letter that he sent to Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup>, Speaker of the Commons, in the autumn of 1695. In it he declared himself to be ‘for sober men that would support the public incorrupt and against necessary expense, and withal he was for neighbourhood, friendship and relation.’ These apparently straightforward ‘country whig’ sentiments masked continuing scruples about the legitimacy of the new regime that were pushing him towards Jacobitism – albeit as an armchair Jacobite rather than an active plotter. His return to Parliament in February 1696, just days before the discovery of the Assassination Plot, may well have been linked to the recent successes of Foley and Harley in the Commons and rumours of the imminent appointment of Nottingham, as lord chancellor.<sup>45</sup> Equally it may have had a more prosaic reason, the debate on 11 Feb. over the question of the East India Company’s charter. He remained to the end of the session, marking himself out as an enemy of the government by refusing to sign the Association.<sup>46</sup></p><p>He was again absent at the beginning of the 1696-7 session. On 30 Nov. 1696 as part of the preparations for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> the House voted to attach those members who did not attend; Chandos complied on 4 Dec. following. During that month he entered two dissents over the conduct of the trial, voted against the attainder and protested against Fenwick’s conviction. If the government needed any further proof of his Jacobite leanings, his possession from 12 Mar. 1697 of the proxy of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, must have confirmed it. His attendance overall for the session was a mere 18 per cent.</p><p>It remained low for the following (1697-8) session: just under 38 per cent. In February 1698 Chandos was again angling for appointment as ambassador to Constantinople.<sup>47</sup> In March 1698 he opposed the bill of pains and penalties against Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Between 19 May and 15 June, and again between 29 June and the end of the session, he registered his proxy to John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr. At the general election of that year Chandos promised his support for Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> though it was noted that ‘none of his creatures will promise’.<sup>48</sup> Chandos’s son, James Brydges, was returned at the top of the poll. Politically ambitious, Brydges, made much of his determination to distance himself from his father’s Jacobitism, but Chandos continued to put his electoral influence at his son’s disposal, and father and son remained on affectionate terms.<sup>49</sup> In reality it seems likely that since both shared country sentiments and financial interests, their political outlook was very similar, even though their ambitions for office were not.</p><p>Chandos failed to attend the first session of the 1698 Parliament but was present for just over 46 per cent of sitting days for the second (1699-1700) session; his attendance remained at a similar level for the first and second Parliaments of 1701. Like his son, who was by now acting as one of Harley’s undermanagers in the Commons, Chandos supported the bill for continuing the East India Company in February 1700. Despite his own poor attendance, he still seems to have taken a considerable interest in interest in parliamentary elections: it was at a meeting at Chandos’s London house in November 1701 that Robert Harley joined with other Herefordshire gentlemen to support the candidature of Sir John Williams.<sup>50</sup></p><p>The death of James II in exile followed by Anne’s accession to the throne may have helped reconcile Chandos to the regime, for in September 1702 he was again being tipped for an appointment as ambassador, this time as ambassador to Hanover ‘to negotiate some affairs of consequence’.<sup>51</sup> Nevertheless, he remained deeply suspicious of the ministry and his attendance at the House was lacklustre: from the 1702 Parliament to the end of the 1710 Parliament it generally hovered between 33 and 38 per cent, although it fell to 28 per cent in the 1704-5 session, and to 23 per cent in the first two sessions of the 1705 Parliament. Throughout 1703 Chandos was listed as a supporter of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. In the disputes over the Scotch Plot, he supported Nottingham by entering a dissent on 3 Mar. 1703 to the resolution that the key to the gibberish letters be made known only to the queen and the (Whig) committee of investigation. In November of the same year he was listed as a likely supporter of the tack. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to the committee to consider the heads for a conference on the Aylesbury men. In March 1705, when he realized that a general election was imminent, he wrote immediately to James Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Scudamore [I], urging him to stand for Herefordshire and assuring him that discussions with Robert Harley had indicated that no opposition was to be expected.<sup>52</sup> In an analysis of the peerage in relation to the succession (April 1705) Chandos was described as a Jacobite. On 6 Dec. his protest at the resolution that ‘the Church … is now … in a most safe and flourishing condition’ further underlines his alliance with the Tory opposition. In Harley’s abortive plans for a new ministry in 1708, Chandos was expected to receive office.<sup>53</sup> In the spring of 1710 he consistently opposed the trial of Dr. Sacheverell and voted to acquit him.</p><p>In October 1710 Chandos was listed by Harley as a supporter (like his son) of the new ministry. Chandos was also included on a list of lords to be canvassed on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. He was present on the day of the division (7 Dec. 1711) and was also present on 8 Dec. when the ministry tried to overturn the previous day’s vote, but there is no record of what he actually did. Perhaps significantly his next attendance was not until 20 Dec. – when he voted with the ministry in favour of the claim of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and duke of Brandon, to sit in the House as an English peer. Harley (now earl of Oxford) was either uncertain of Chandos’s continuing allegiance or determined to retain it. He listed Chandos as one of the ‘lords to be contacted during the Christmas recess’. Meanwhile, Bothmar included his name (with a suggested pension of £600) in the list of ‘poor lords’ that he sent to Hanover early in January 1712.</p><p>Oxford’s attentions did not encourage the elderly Chandos to attend the House more assiduously. During the 1710-11 session he was recorded as being present on 29 occasions; during the 1711-12 session he managed only 13 attendances, and then (on 16 May) gave his proxy for the remainder of the session to the lord chancellor, Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount Harcourt). He was similarly present on just 12 sitting days in the 1713 session. His name appeared again on ministerial lists of supporters drawn up in the spring of 1713, and in the summer he was present during the difficult debates on the union with Scotland (1 June) and the Malt Tax (5 and 8 June). Although no division lists survive for these votes, Chandos almost certainly voted with the government, for Oxford was confident that he would vote for the bill to implement the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Oxford could not, however, count on Chandos’s support on all issues. Bolingbroke’s schism bill was the subject of debate on the day of Chandos’s last recorded attendance at the House, and despite Oxford’s equivocation towards it, Nottingham predicted that Chandos would vote in favour. Chandos then gave his proxy to De la Warr, another of Oxford’s ‘poor lords’, for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Chandos drew up his will in June 1713. Although no Puritan he directed his funeral to be performed ‘with great privacy and frugality … declaring … that immoderate expenses in burying the dead is a very unaccountable vanity and too often proves a lamentable occasion of grievous immoralities profaneness and sin among the meaner sort that usually frequent such solemnities for very ill purposes’. He attended the House for ten days in April and May 1714 but in September was reported to be dangerously ill. He died the following month and was buried, as he had directed, with his parents-in-law in the family vault at Aconbury.</p> |
R.P. |
|
BRYDGES, James (1674-1744) |
<p><strong><surname>BRYDGES</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1674–1744)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 16 Oct. 1714 as 9th Bar. CHANDOS; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of CARNARVON; <em>cr. </em>29 Apr. 1719 duke of CHANDOS |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1715; last sat 9 Dec. 1743 |
|
MP Hereford 1698-16 Oct. 1714 |
<p><em>b</em>. 6 Jan. 1674;<sup>1</sup> 4th but 1st surv. s. of James Brydges*, 8th Bar. Chandos of Sudeley and Elizabeth (1643-1719), da. and coh. of Sir Henry Barnard (<em>d</em>.1680), of St Dunstan-in-the-East, London, and Bridgnorth, Salop.; <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1686, New Coll., Oxf. 1690-92, Wolfenbüttel acad. 1692-4, L. Temple 1710; <em>m</em>. (1) 27 Feb. 1696 Mary (<em>d</em>. 15 Dec. 1712), da. of Sir Thomas Lake of Canons Park, Stanmore, Mdx, 6s. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. <em>d.v.p</em>., (2) 4 Aug. 1713 Cassandra (<em>d</em>. 16 July 1735), da. of Francis Willoughby of Wollaton, Notts. and Middleton, Warws., sis. of Thomas Middleton, Bar. Middleton, <em>s.</em>p., (3) 18 Apr. 1736 Lydia Catherine (<em>d</em>. 18 Nov. 1750), da. of John van Hatten of St Swithin’s, London and wid. of Sir Thomas Davall II<sup>‡</sup> of Ramsey, Essex, <em>s.p</em>.; <em>d</em>. 9 Aug. 1744; <em>will</em> 14 Apr. 1742-13 July 1743, pr. 4 Sept. 1744.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. public accounts 1702-3, subscriptions to S. Sea Co. 1711; mbr., council of ld. high adm. 1703-5; paymaster-gen., forces abroad 1705-13; jt. clerk of hanaper (in reversion) 1714; PC 11 Nov. 1721-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>., Herefs. 1721-41, Rad. 1721-<em>d</em>.; steward, Cantremeleneth, Rad. 1721; chanc., St Andrews Univ. 1724-<em>d</em>.; ranger, Enfield Chase c.1728-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1694; freeman, Old E.I. Co. 1700; gov., Levant Co. 1718-36, Charterhouse by 1721-<em>d</em>., Foundling Hosp. 1739.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Herman van der Myn, bef. 1726, Beningbrough Hall, NPG 530; oil on canvas by Michael Dahl, c.1719, Berger Collection, Denver Art Museum.</p> |
<p>As a relentlessly ambitious and unscrupulous young man, James Brydges, the heir presumptive of the Tory James Brydges, 8th Baron Chandos, linked his fortune to that of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. Marlborough ensured his appointment in 1705 as paymaster general for the forces abroad. Brydges exercised this office until the end of the war, growing extravagantly wealthy in the process by methods which even contemporaries considered underhanded. Owing to his role in the successful war against France, Brydges thought himself overdue for some mark of royal favour at the Hanoverian succession. He was able to procure from George I a warrant to make his ailing and aged father earl of Carnarvon, so that Brydges would succeed to a higher-ranking title. The plan was frustrated by his father’s death on 16 Oct. 1714 before the warrant for his elevation could be executed, and Brydges had to settle initially for succession as 9th Baron Chandos. His desired promotion was however quickly conferred on him when he was created earl of Carnarvon three days later, among the coronation honours of 19 Oct. 1714. He was later raised to be duke of Chandos on 29 Apr. 1719.</p><p>Brydges thus became a nominal member of the House of Lords during the period covered by these volumes, but he did not actually take his seat until the first meeting of George I’s Parliament on 21 Mar. 1715. His political career under the Hanoverians will thus be covered in more detail in the succeeding parts of this series.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
BRYDGES, William (1621/2-1676) |
<p><strong><surname>BRYDGES</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1621/2-1676)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>br. 7 Feb. 1655 as 7th Bar. CHANDOS |
|
First sat 1 May 1660; last sat 12 Nov. 1675 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. in 1621 or 1622, 2nd s. of Grey Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 5th Bar. Chandos and Anne, da. of Ferdinando Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Derby. <em>educ</em>. priv. tutor (Peter Allen of Christ Church, Oxf.).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. Susan (<em>d</em>.1672), da. and coh. Garret Kerr (Carr) of London, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 3 da. <em>bur</em>. 22 Aug. 1676; <em>will</em>, none found.</p> |
|
|
<p>William Brydges’ forebears had established themselves in Gloucestershire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Many served in Parliament and his direct ancestor Sir John Brydges<sup>†</sup> was created Baron Chandos in 1554. Little is known about the 7th Baron Chandos. Even his date of birth has to be guessed using a calculation derived from the dates of his older brother’s birth and his father’s death. He inherited a depleted estate that had been encumbered with debt by his brother, George Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 6th Baron Chandos, in order to provide portions for his many daughters and to pay his composition to Parliament. William Brydges received an annuity of £150 a year during his brother’s lifetime but when he inherited the peerage he expected to acquire the family estates in Gloucestershire and Middlesex as well. He was horrified to discover that instead he had received ‘an honour without any provision to support it’ because his brother’s will, drawn up shortly before his death, left him an income of only £250 a year. The entire estate went to the 6th Baron’s widow, Jane, daughter of the impoverished John Savage<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Earl Rivers.</p><p>The will surprised others too. The 6th Baron’s first wife, Susan Montagu, daughter of Henry Montagu<sup>†</sup>, earl of Manchester, had brought him a portion of £5,000 and goods said to be worth a further £2,000; his second wife’s portion had never been paid. Under the circumstances the 6th Baron might have been expected to have made better financial provision for his two daughters by his first marriage than for those of the second marriage. Instead, he had disinherited them. The will was challenged by the 7th Baron as well as by the Montagus, on the grounds that it had been obtained either fraudulently or under undue influence. They clearly believed that John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace, was a party to the fraud and that a legacy to him of £500 under a codicil drawn up just days before the 6th Baron’s death was effectively a bribe from Lady Chandos.<sup>3</sup> The circumstances under which the will was drawn up while the 6th Baron was dying of smallpox in Lovelace’s house at Hurley certainly invited suspicion, but all attempts to overturn the will failed and the 6th Baron’s wealth, including the ancestral estate at Sudeley in Gloucestershire, passed to his widow and eventually to her third husband, George Pitt<sup>‡</sup>. The 7th Baron was left struggling to maintain his aristocratic status: Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, commented that Chandos’ house in Ruislip was ‘a pitiful place’.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Chandos’ kinship network brought him into a potentially close alliance with the court. His cousin John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, was associated with Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, while his daughter Rebecca married Thomas Pride, nephew of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle (and grandson to the regicide of the same name).<sup>5</sup> Chandos took his seat on 1 May 1660, and attended over 93 per cent of the remaining sittings of the year. Between 1660 and the end of 1665 his attendance never fell below 92 per cent of sitting days. Between 1666 and the end of 1671 it was slightly lower, but was never less than 82 per cent. Yet he made little impression on his contemporaries: Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> described him in passing as ‘my simple Lord Chandos’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>One of Chandos’ first recorded acts was to revive his dispute about the ownership of Sudeley by obtaining a restraining order from the House on 22 June 1660 against George Pitt’s attempts to fell timber there. Since Pitt had already won a chancery case against the Montagus in a similar cause, Chandos’ action was perceived as both unjust and high-handed by Pitt’s colleagues in the Commons, who required little encouragement to take the issue up as a matter of privilege. In 1661 Chandos opposed the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of great chamberlain. In 1663 Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton listed him as an opponent by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol to impeach Clarendon. Whether this indicated genuine support for the chancellor or Chandos’ fear of the king’s displeasure is a moot point: when the countess of Bristol offered him her husband’s petition in March 1664, he was said to have ‘leapt back [and] swore he would [not] touch the paper for forty pound’.<sup>7</sup> The following year he was rewarded, through Bridgwater’s influence, with a pension of £200 for the education of his only son, also named William Brydges.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Chandos was regularly, but not frequently, named to committees. In 1664, a year in which he was present on every sitting day, he was nominated to a mere 15 committees. These included the sessional committees, a committee on an abortive transportation bill, and another concerned with the duchy of Cornwall; the remainder involved a series of estate bills. On 21 Nov. 1667 Chandos entered a protest against the Lords’ resolution to grant the Commons’ request for a conference on the impeachment of Clarendon. He chaired a committee on a naturalization bill on 17 Dec. 1667.<sup>9</sup> On 16 Mar. 1668 he entered a dissent to the reversal of the chancery decree in <em>Morley v Elwes</em>; and on 23 Mar. 1670 he was appointed to the committee that was to oversee the razure of the records of <em>Skinner’s case</em>. The following year, on 15 Mar. 1671, he dissented to the suspension of the judgment in <em>Cusack v Usher</em>, a case that raised tricky questions about the right of the House of Lords to hear appeals from the court of claims in Ireland.</p><p>On 16 Mar. 1671 Chandos was awarded a pension of £200 a year from the crown ‘during pleasure’.<sup>10</sup> It seems likely that his only son had died at about this time and that this was simply a continuation of the pension granted in 1664. Like the earlier pension, this too was obtained through the influence of Bridgwater, who may also have paid Chandos a personal allowance.<sup>11</sup> After Chandos’ death the pension was paid to his daughter Rebecca Pride, until it was discontinued after the revolution of 1688.<sup>12</sup> The pension was said to be a reward for services rendered by the Brydges family during the civil wars. It cannot have been understood as a bribe to secure Chandos’ future attendance and support in Parliament, for he did not attend at all during the 1672, 1673, or 1674 sessions; since he was excused at the calls of the House in February 1673 and January 1674, it seems likely that he was genuinely unable to attend. There is no record of his having entered a proxy at any time in his parliamentary career.</p><p>Chandos returned to the House at the beginning of the 1675 session, perhaps in response to pressure from Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), who had included him as a potential supporter of the non resisting test in a pre-sessional list. He was almost certainly ill; a letter written at about this time describes him as being ‘in a miserable condition, for he has lost his memory, and has parted with all his estate to his daughters’.<sup>13</sup> At his death, which was probably in August 1676, the title passed to his third cousin, James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos.</p> |
R.P. |
|
BUTLER, Charles (1671-1758) |
<p><strong><surname>BUTLER</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1671–1758)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>23 Jan. 1694 BUTLER OF WESTON; <em>cr. </em>8 Mar. 1694 earl of Arran [I] |
|
First sat 16 Feb. 1694; last sat 30 Apr. 1756 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Sept. 1671, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Thomas Butler*, Bar. Butler of Moore Park, and Amilia, da. of Lodewyk van Nassau, Herr van Beverweerd; bro. of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. <em>educ</em>. privately (tutor, Nicolas Fatio of Duillier);<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad, Paris 1686, Low Countries, Switzerland, Italy 1687–8.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 3 June 1705, Elizabeth, 4th da. and coh. of Thomas Crew*, 2nd Bar. Crew, s.p. <em>d</em>. 17 Dec. 1758; <em>will</em> 19 Jan. 1757, pr. 17 Jan. 1759.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Maj. 1st tp. Life Gds. 1689; col. Horse regt. 1694–7; col. 6th Horse (now 5th Drag. Gds.) July 1697–1703; 3rd tp. Horse Gds. 1703–15; brig.-gen. 1702, maj.-gen. 1704, lt.-gen. 1708; master of ordnance [I] 1712–14; lt. gov. Dover castle 1713–14.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Gent. of bedchamber 1699–1702.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Ranger of Bagshot Park 1706–<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> chan. Oxf. 1715–<em>d</em>.; high steward, Westminster, 1716–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, by James Thornhill, 1727, Examination Schools, University of Oxford.</p> |
<p>The death of his father in 1680 meant that the main decisions in Butler’s early life were taken by his grandfather, James Butler*, duke of Ormond. Ormond ensured that provision was made for his younger grandson in the family settlements of 1681, 1683 and 1685, specifying that he was to have the proceeds of the estate of Barishool in Ireland, and, after her death, the jointure of £1,000 currently being paid to his aunt, the countess of Longford (d. 1697), the widow of Ormond’s youngest son, John Butler, earl of Gowran [I].<sup>7</sup></p><p>Part of Butler’s education took place in Paris.<sup>8</sup> In May 1686 Ormond opined that ‘my grandson at Paris, I am sure, profits in all things I expected; but he is not come of a book-learned race. The court and the camp he shall be as well fitted for as his natural parts with so little learning will permit.’<sup>9</sup> In August, Ormond thanked Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, the English ambassador in Paris, for his civilities towards his grandson, who would now be proceeding to Brussels ‘that he may look a little into the exercise of the profession [that of a soldier] he is like to undertake’.<sup>10</sup> In September, Ormond expressed concern that the provision he had made would be insufficient while his daughter-in-law, the countess of Longford, was alive.<sup>11</sup> Butler’s further education was interrupted by an outbreak of the smallpox, in late July 1687, while he was at Harwich waiting to embark for the Continent and an intended tour of Italy.<sup>12</sup> He was only briefly delayed from an extensive tour accompanied by a tutor and a companion. He arrived back in London in late September 1688 and soon came to the attention of Roger Morrice, who wrote in November that he was aged ‘about 15 or 16 years of age [and] has a command in the king[’s] army’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>By this date it was imperative that Butler secure some employment because, after the death of his grandfather earlier in 1688, he was dependent upon his cash-strapped brother, the new duke, for payment of his maintenance, set by his grandfather at £1,000 p.a. until Lady Longford’s jointure fell in.<sup>14</sup> As he later recounted, Butler served in every campaign undertaken by William III, working his way through the ranks.<sup>15</sup> Not that his contribution went unnoticed, as a draft patent for his peerage makes clear, referring to his service in four campaigns as cornet and lieutenant in the first troop of Guards, during which he had ‘performed the part of an expert commander, before he was arrived at the age of man’.<sup>16</sup> Given his father’s close relationship with the king, and his brother’s military commands, he was able to secure promotion through royal favour during the war. From late November 1693, there were reports that Butler would have a commission to raise a regiment of horse, and this was granted in February 1694.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Military advancement went hand in hand with promotion into the ranks of the English and Irish peerage, both warrants being ordered on 15 Jan. 1694.<sup>18</sup> Butler first sat on 16 Feb., being introduced by John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham. His title in the attendance lists varied from Butler to Butler de Weston or simply Weston. Shortly after his creation as a peer of England he was created earl of Arran in the Irish peerage and, outside the House, was generally known by that title. He was present on 26 days of the 1693–4 session (one-fifth of the total) and was named to two committees. His newly acquired status did not solve his financial predicament. An account of about the end of November 1694 shows that he was owed nearly £3,000 by his brother for his maintenance, even allowing for the payment of over £500 for his ‘patents of honour’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Arran was present on the opening day of the 1694–5 session, 12 Nov. 1694, and attended on 89 days of the session (70 per cent of the total), being named to 12 committees. He was present again on the opening day of the 1695–6 session, 22 Nov. 1695, and attended on 75 days of the session, 60.5 per cent of the total. He was named to five committees. On 25 Nov. he introduced Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby, into the House and he signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696.</p><p>Arran was once more present on 20 Oct. for the opening of the 1696–7 session, and attended on 88 days of the session (three-quarters of the total), and was appointed to 18 committees. On 23 Dec. he voted in favour of the passage of the Fenwick attainder bill. This session also saw the passage of legislation concerning the Ormond estates, which included provision for Arran to make leases of his Irish lands. The royal assent was given on 8 Mar. 1697. Arran was alert to other possibilities of augmenting his income. He petitioned for the grant of the crown’s share of the prize ship <em>St Peter</em>, specifically so that he could equip himself for the forthcoming campaign, noting in June 1697 that he had left the matter unresolved in order to cross the Channel at short notice when Ath was besieged by the French.<sup>20</sup> His influence was apparent when, with the end of the war in sight, he was able to secure the colonelcy of an older regiment, and thereby avoid the likelihood of being disbanded. Some further financial security was gained by the death, in November 1697, of the countess of Longford, which released her jointure of £1,000 p.a.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Arran was present on the opening day of the 1697–8 session, 3 Dec. 1697, and attended on 95 days, 69 per cent of the total. He was named to 24 committees. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of the committal of the bill punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he registered his dissent over the resolution to grant relief to the appellants James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and his wife, in a cause against Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], although he did not join the dissentients to a further vote in favour of the appellants on 17 March. Arran attended the opening day of the next session, 6 Dec. 1698, and was present on 38 days of the session (45 per cent of the total). He was named to six committees. In February 1699, he succeeded his brother as a gentleman of the bedchamber, thereby ensuring his continued presence close to the centre of power.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Arran was present as usual on the opening day of the 1699–1700 session, attending for 52 per cent of the sittings. He was appointed to four committees. He was thought likely to support the East India Company bill in a forecast of February 1700 and voted against adjourning during pleasure on 23 Feb., which was in effect in favour of the Lords going into committee to consider two amendments to the bill. In July he accompanied the king to The Hague, returning with William in October 1700.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In attendance as normal on 10 Feb. 1701, the opening day of the new Parliament following the January elections, Arran sat on 63 days (58 per cent) of the session and was named to 11 committees. He signed a protest on 16 Apr. against a resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address asking the king not to punish the four Whig lords until their impeachments had been tried. When the House voted to expunge the reasons for the protest from the <em>Journal</em>, he also signed the protest over this action. The last business of that day was a petition from Arran and his brother for a bill to enlarge the powers given by the act of 1697 towards the discharging of debts on the Butler estates. He signed the protest on 17 June following the resolution of the House to go into Westminster Hall to proceed with the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers, but he did not sign the second protest over the trial later that day. Present again on the opening day of the 1701–2 Parliament on 30 Dec. he attended on 42 days of the session, and was appointed to 11 committees. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address promising the king the assistance of the peerage against the Pretender.</p><p>Arran’s military duties probably explain why he was unusually absent from the beginning of the 1702–3 session.<sup>24</sup> He first attended on 30 Nov. 1702 and was present for 34 per cent of all sittings. In January 1703, he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to support the bill to prevent occasional conformity, duly voting on 16 Jan. against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause. At the beginning of March Arran purchased the 3rd troop of Guards from Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, paying him with £3000 in cash and his horse regiment, which Rivers subsequently sold for a further £3000.<sup>25</sup> Most of Arran’s share of the purchase money seems to have been borrowed from Adam Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Arran attended on 11 Nov., the third day of the 1703–4 session, and in all was present on 54 (55 per cent) of its sittings. In November 1703, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, marked him as likely to support a bill to prevent occasional conformity. Sunderland repeated this assessment when he made his second forecast in late November or early December. Arran’s name appears on both lists of those peers voting on 14 Dec. in favour of the bill and he signed the protest against the resolution not to give the bill a second reading, as well as that against the bill’s rejection.</p><p>Arran first attended the 1704–5 session on 7 Nov. and was present on 51 days of the session, 51.5 per cent of the total. In November 1704 he was listed on what was probably a forecast of likely supporters of the Tack. At the start of 1705 there were rumours of a match between him and Lady Mary Churchill, daughter of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, although it had long been assumed she would marry the son of Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu.<sup>27</sup> Despite such rumours, Arran was presumably already in negotiations for his marriage to Elizabeth Crew, a major role being taken by Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, his new wife’s stepfather. The marriage settlement was drawn up in May and the wedding took place the following month at Oatlands, just to the east of Weybridge, Surrey, and in fairly close proximity to Bagshot Park, where Arran was to take up residence.<sup>28</sup></p><p>At the end of August 1705, Arran wrote to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, that Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], had informed him that Portland’s lease of Bagshot had run out in May.<sup>29</sup> Arran now wanted to take possession, having purchased Ranelagh’s interest in the existing lease.<sup>30</sup> In November 1705 Arran petitioned the treasury for a grant for three lives of Bagshot Park, and a lease was duly granted in April 1706, although legal wrangles may have delayed him taking legal possession until 1709.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Arran first attended the 1705–6 session on 31 Oct. 1705 and was present on 39 days of the session, 41 per cent of the total. He was excused attendance on 12 Nov. 1705 and next attended on the 15th. On 6 Dec. he voted for the resolution that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration. Arran’s marriage also necessitated a private act during this session, for which he and his brother petitioned the Lords on 29 Jan. 1706, to settle fee-farm rents in Co. Tipperary pursuant to an agreement upon Arran’s marriage. He was present when the 1706–7 session began on 3 Dec. 1706, and attended on 27 days (30 per cent). According to the presence list in the Journal, Arran was absent from the House between 10 and 28 Feb. 1707. A report of proceedings on 24 Feb. in the committee of the whole considering the articles of Union and the act ratifying and approving the treaty, nevertheless recorded that ‘Arran moved that the judges’ opinion might be asked what laws would be repealed by this Union, and what would remain in force, but that motion was rejected’.<sup>32</sup> Arran also attended one day of the short session of April 1707.</p><p>Arran was present when the 1707–8 session started on 23 Oct. 1707; thereafter he attended on 45 days (42 per cent). In an analysis of the first Parliament of Great Britain, compiled in about May 1708, he was classed as a Tory. He was again present when the new Parliament opened on 16 Nov. 1708, sat on 41 days (43 per cent) and was named to ten committees. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted to agree with the resolution that Scottish peers with British titles be permitted to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers.</p><p>Arran did not attend the 1709–10 session until 10 Dec. 1709. He was then present on 48 days (47 per cent). On 16 Feb. 1710 he protested against the decision not to send for James Greenshields and the magistrates of Edinburgh to be present at a hearing before the Lords. Later the same day he protested against the failure to adjourn the House before it agreed to the address requesting Marlborough’s immediate departure for Flanders, although he did not join the protest against the address itself. On 14 Mar. he protested against the decision not to adjourn the House before it had agreed to a resolution concerning procedure in impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanours, although he did not protest against the resolution itself. On 16 Mar. he made yet another protest against the resolution to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of the Sacheverell impeachment. The following day he protested against the resolutions that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth articles of the impeachment, and on the 18th he protested against the resolutions limiting peers to a single verdict upon all the articles of the impeachment. Two days later he voted Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours and signed the protest against the resolution confirming the verdict.</p><p>In his analysis of 3 Oct. 1710, Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, placed Arran among those expected to support the ministry. Arran was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 25 Nov. 1710, and attended on 58 days (51 per cent) of the session. On 25 July 1711 he petitioned the queen for his arrears of £1,250 due to him as a gentleman of the bedchamber: he stressed that he had served in all the campaigns in Flanders until the peace of Ryswick, and had afterwards purchased the command of a troop of Guards, for which he was still in debt.<sup>33</sup> This may have been the memorial, or a related paper, that Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup> referred to when writing to Lord Treasurer Oxford in June on Arran’s behalf.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Arran attended the prorogation on 27 Nov. 1711, when he introduced Charles Boyle*, earl of Orrery [I], as Baron Boyle of Marston. His name also appears on Oxford’s canvassing list of 2 Dec. for the vote on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. He was present on the opening day of the session, 7 Dec., and attended on 63 days (56 per cent). His name appeared on the forecast of 19 Dec. in favour of the pretensions of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, and on the 20th he voted against the motion that ‘no patent of honour, granted to any peer of Great Britain, who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, can entitle such a peer to sit and vote in Parliament’.<sup>35</sup> On 2 Jan. 1712, together with Orrery, he introduced three of the new peers, Thomas Trevor*, Baron Trevor, George Granville*, Baron Lansdown, and George Hay*, Baron Hay. On 28 Feb. he was elected to Jonathan Swift’s dining club, known as the Society.<sup>36</sup> On 28 May he supported the ministry over the ‘restraining’ orders given to his brother in Flanders.</p><p>The death of Lieutenant-General Ingoldsby in January 1712 had given rise to reports in March that Arran would succeed him as master of the ordnance in Ireland and he was appointed in late November.<sup>37</sup> This appointment necessitated a private act to enable Arran to take the requisite oaths of office at the exchequer in Westminster; it passed the Lords in July 1713. On a pre-sessional list of 1713, compiled by Swift and Oxford, Arran was noted as likely to support the ministry. He was present on the opening day of the session, 9 Apr. 1713, and attended on 25 days (32.5 per cent). He was named to two committees. He was listed by Oxford on about 13 June as likely to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Arran first attended the 1714 session on 2 Mar., when he was named to his only committee; although he was present on 41 days (52 per cent) of the session. At the end of May or beginning of June, Nottingham forecast that he would be one of those peers likely to support the Schism bill. Arran attended on just three days (18 per cent) of the August 1714 session that followed the death of Queen Anne. In December 1714, he was removed from his office in the Irish ordnance but was appointed to the board of general officers. He was listed on 26 Jan. 1715 as a Tory who was still in office. In February 1715 he was replaced as captain of the 3rd troop of Horse Guards.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Arran’s career after 1715 will be described in the second part of this work. At the death of his older brother, Ormond, it is possible that Arran succeeded to the Irish dukedom of Ormond, but he never used this title, apparently believing that his brother’s attainder by the Westminster Parliament in 1715 effectively extinguished his Irish peerages as well as his English ones. Nor did he style himself duke of Arran, a title conferred on him in 1721 by the Pretender. After a long career, Arran died at his lodgings next to the Tilt Yard, Whitehall, on 17 Dec. 1758, and was buried on 23 Dec. at St Margaret’s, Westminster.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
BUTLER, James (1610-88) |
<p><strong><surname>BUTLER</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1610–88)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1619-33 Visct. Thurles; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 24 Feb. 1633 as 12th earl of Ormond [I]; <em>cr. </em>30 Aug. 1642 mq. of Ormond [I]; <em>cr. </em>20 July 1660 earl of BRECKNOCK; <em>cr. </em>30 Mar. 1661 duke of Ormond [I]; <em>cr. </em>9 Nov. 1682 duke of ORMOND |
|
First sat 27 July 1660; last sat 15 Feb. 1687 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 19 Oct. 1610, s. of Thomas Butler, styled Visct. Thurles [I] (?1596-1619), s. of Walter Butler, 11th earl of Ormond [I] and Elizabeth (c.1588-1673), da. of Sir John Poyntz of Iron Acton, Glos. <em>educ</em>. sch. in Finchley (Mr Conyers) 1620-22;<sup>1</sup> privately in household of George Abbot<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury, 1622-26. <em>m</em>. 25 Dec. 1629, Elizabeth (1615-84), <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Dingwall [S], da. of Richard Preston, 1st earl of Desmond [I] and Lord Dingwall [S], and Elizabeth da. of Thomas Butler, 10th earl of Ormond [I] 8s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KG 18 Sept. 1649. <em>d</em>. 21 July 1688; <em>will</em> 8 Apr., pr. 8 Aug. 1688.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC [I] 1635-47, 1661-<em>d</em>., PC 1651-<em>d</em>., PC [S] 1661-<em>d</em>., 1661; ld. steward 1660-<em>d</em>.; gent. of bedchamber 1660-66; ld. lt. [I] 1643-7, 1649-50, 1662-69, 1677-85; commr., prizes 1665,<sup>3</sup> 1672,<sup>4</sup> trade 1668-72, plantations 1671-2, trade and plantations 1672-4, 1675-<em>d.</em>; admiralty 19 July 1673-14 May 1679, Tangier 1673-84.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Cllr. New England 1632; ld. lt. Som. and Bristol 1660-72; kpr. Exmoor forest 1661; gov. Duncannon 1661,<sup>6</sup> Passage, co. Waterford 1664;<sup>7</sup> high steward, Bristol 1661,<sup>8</sup> Westminster 1671,<sup>9</sup> Winchester by 1672<sup>10</sup>-?<em>d</em>.; freeman, Dublin 1662,<sup>11</sup> Preston 1682;<sup>12</sup> steward honour of Tutbury, 1674-83,<sup>13</sup> Needwood Forest 1674-1686;<sup>14</sup> chief butler of Ire.; ld. of the regalities and liberties of the county palatine of Tipperary 1662-<em>d</em>.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Capt. of horse 1631; lt. gen. of horse 1638; col. of horse 1640; lt. gen. of army [I] Mar. 1640-May 1641; c.-in-c. Oct. 1641; royal commr. 1643; col. of ft. (Spain) 1656; capt. and col. of foot [I] 1660-85;<sup>16</sup> capt. of horse 1660-<em>d</em>.; col. of horse [I] 1660-85.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Chan. Univ. of Dublin 1645-53, 1660-88, Oxf. 1669-<em>d</em>.; DCL Oxf. 1669, LLD Camb. 1670; gov. Charterhouse by 1674-<em>d</em>.,<sup>18</sup> Dublin Hosp. 1683.<sup>19</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after Sir P. Lely, c.1665, NPG 370; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, 1678, National Trust, Kedleston Hall; oil on canvas, by W. Wissing, c.1680-85, NPG 5559.</p> |
<h2><em>Civil wars and Restoration</em></h2><p>Ormond had a troubled childhood. His grandfather, the 11th earl, lost out in the machinations of royal policy when the death of the 10th earl in 1614 left the heir to his estate, his daughter, Elizabeth, vulnerable to royal pressure to marry James I’s favourite, Sir Richard Preston, the future Baron Dingwall [S], and earl of Desmond [I]. The 11th earl was incarcerated to prevent him protesting. In 1619, while Ormond’s grandfather was in the Fleet prison, his father, styled Viscount Thurles [I], died at sea. Ormond was taken from the Catholic school he attended at Finchley and from his grandfather in the Fleet and put in the care of George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, who raised him a Protestant. His mother remained a devout Catholic and was remarried, to George Mathew (<em>d</em>.1636) of Thurles, providing Ormond with a number of half-siblings. As Ormond was later to remark, ‘my father and mother lived and died papists and bred all their children so. Only I, by God’s merciful providence, was educated in the true Protestant religion from which I never swerved towards either extreme, not when it was most dangerous to profess it and most advantageous to quit it.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>The family estates were reunited by the marriage in 1629 of the young heir to the earldom of Ormond to the heiress of Desmond, whose wardship had been granted to Henry Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holland, an arrangement which cost his grandfather £15,000. This merely added to the family debts caused by the long incarceration of the 11th earl, and the extravagance of Desmond, who left debts of between £15,000 and £20,000. When Ormond succeeded his grandfather in 1633, his debts may already have reached as much as £45,000, while his Irish estates were estimated to yield only £8,000 in 1641.<sup>22</sup></p><p>As the chief royalist commander in Ireland, during the civil wars Ormond faced the dual threat posed by a Catholic insurgency and by the Presbyterian supporters of Parliament. He surrendered his vice-royalty to Parliament in June 1647 and retired to England, moving to the continent in 1648. Ormond was back in Ireland in 1649 rallying the royalist cause. Military defeat saw him sail into exile again in December 1650. There he remained one of the leading counsellors of Charles II and a key adviser during the negotiations that led to the Restoration.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Following the Restoration, Ormond was an important supporter of the new chief minister, his fellow exile, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon from 1661.<sup>24</sup> He was named to the king’s Privy Council, but, with George Monck*, soon to be duke of Albemarle, taking the lieutenancy of Ireland, Ormond was made lord steward, a post with much patronage at his disposal. Although, as Sir George Lane, Ormond’s longstanding secretary and the future Viscount Lanesborough [I], told one suitor, the multitude of ancient officers ‘that pretended for employment’, prevented him from satisfying all the requests submitted to him.<sup>25</sup> Ormond remained one of the king’s inner circle of advisers, serving on the committee of foreign affairs which considered the king’s affairs ‘before they came to a public debate.’<sup>26</sup> However, the friendship forged during his exile with Hyde was balanced by the enmities which developed with Richard Talbot, the future earl of Tyrconnel [I], and with James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>27</sup></p><p>In the faction-ridden English court of 1660, Ormond was seen as an ally of Hyde, and an opponent of the French and Catholic influences focused on the queen mother, Henrietta Maria. As early as June 1660 Mazarin’s English agent suspected Hyde and Ormond of ‘sowing the seeds of dissent between the two courts in order to avoid the danger in which the presence of the queen would put them’.<sup>28</sup> Ireland, though, would be the biggest source of contention. In August Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> was informed that ‘there was like to be many factions at court’ between Ormond, Albemarle (as Monck had become) and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), ‘about the business of Ireland.’<sup>29</sup> The main cause of contention over Ireland though was the preliminary discussions over the complex Irish land settlement which resulted in the provisional, and impractical, Declaration of 30 November. </p><p>Ormond was not an English peer at the Restoration, a fact soon remedied by his creation as earl of Brecknock. He was introduced into the House on 27 July 1660 by the lord great chamberlain, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford and William Wentworth*, earl (later 2nd earl) of Strafford. He attended on 78 days of the 1660 session (48 per cent of the total, although since he missed the first 76 days, 95 per cent of possible sittings). His elevation coincided with legislation to restore Ormond to his Irish estates. Following its rapid passage through the Commons the bill was brought up to the Lords on 23 July by Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Baron Aungier [I] (later earl of Longford [I]), and passed through the Lords with equal speed, receiving the royal assent on 28 July. By this act Ormond was restored to all the land, honours and rights in Ireland of which he was possessed on 28 Oct. 1641. Such legislation must have proved welcome to the duke, whose debts in 1660 have been variously estimated at around £130,000 or £154,000.<sup>30</sup> Moreover, he was already strapped for money, writing on 12 June 1660 that his money was ‘at an end, my place yields me yet nothing nor have I any other way to put my self into modest equipage and to eat but by having it from the king’.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Ormond’s important position in the royal household ensured that he would often be used by the upper House as a conduit of messages and information between peers and the monarch. On 15 Aug. he was appointed to manage a conference on the amendments to the bill of indemnity. On this issue, his influence helped Henry Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> in retaining his land after the Restoration, probably in recognition of his assistance to the duchess during Ormond’s exile.<sup>32</sup> On 3 Sept. Ormond was one of the commissioners named in the poll bill to consider putting the bill into execution so far as it concerned peers. On 7 Sept. he was named as a commissioner to join with the nominees from the Commons in disbanding the army. He was named to four committees before the adjournment on 13 Sept. 1660.</p><p>During the recess, Ormond was nominated to a commission of 34 to try the regicides, which began its proceedings at Hicks Hall on 9 October.<sup>33</sup> On 22 Oct. he was one of the laymen present at the Worcester House conference, which drew up the declaration between the Anglicans and Presbyterians which was published three days later.<sup>34</sup> During the conference, when ‘Mrs Hyde [i.e. Anne Hyde] fell in labour’, both the duke and duchess were among those despatched to ‘interrogate’ her as to whether York was the father of her child.<sup>35</sup> Ormond sought to boost his financial solvency by claiming what was owed to his family by the crown for previous royal service and in December Charles II ordered the Irish lord justices to issue a commission under the great seal of Ireland for the examination of the debts contracted by Ormond in the service of the king or his father. The total sum came to £71,916.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In the second part of the Convention, after Parliament reassembled on 6 Nov. 1660, Ormond was appointed to a further eight committees. On the 19th he was one of the peers named to wait on the king to discover his pleasure concerning the passage of the bill restoring Thomas Howard*, 23rd earl of Arundel, to the dukedom of Norfolk, to which the king duly agreed. On 13 Dec. Ormond signed a protest against the passage of the bill voiding Sir Edward Powell’s fines. On 20 Dec. he was added to the commissioners for assessing peers for the poll tax.</p><h2><em>The opening years of the Cavalier Parliament, 1661-2</em></h2><p>Ormond remained busy following the dissolution of Parliament. On 29 Dec. 1660 he attended the interment of Princess Mary of Orange in Westminster Abbey.<sup>37</sup> On 1 Feb. 1661 he was named to a standing committee of the Privy Council concerning the affairs of the prince of Orange, Charles II’s young nephew.<sup>38</sup> His search for financial security was a major preoccupation. In the same month, Ormond informed Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], that he had purchased the prizage from Sir William Waller<sup>‡</sup>, partly ‘to have a foundation of credit, which an Irish estate is not’, although Waller appears to have retained his grant.<sup>39</sup> The marriage of his daughter, Mary, also required his attention. On 4 Mar. 1661 a ‘kind of contract’ was sealed between Mary and William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish, the future 4th earl, and later duke, of Devonshire, ‘the king joining their hands, and the friends and parents of each party being present, they are not to marry this year and a half, she being but young and little.’<sup>40</sup> The marriage eventually took place on 26 Oct. 1662 at Dunmore in Ireland.<sup>41</sup> Following his elevation to an Irish dukedom in March 1661, on 15 Apr. Ormond was installed as a knight of the garter, having been nominated in September 1649 during Charles II’s exile at St Germain.<sup>42</sup></p><p>The Irish land settlement was expected to be enacted by the Irish Parliament, due to open at the same time as the English, in May 1661. Given his place at the apex of Irish society, the land settlement there was inevitably going to have a profound impact upon Ormond. He was astute enough to realize that not all parties could be accommodated, noting that ‘if the adventurers and soldiers must be satisfied, to the extent of what they suppose intended them, by the Declaration [of 30 Nov. 1660]; and if all that accepted and constantly adhered to the Peace of 1648 must be restored’, then there must be ‘discoveries made of a new Ireland, for the old will not serve to satisfy these engagements.’<sup>43</sup> Over the summer Ormond would receive regular reports of the progress of discussions from Ireland, and was closely involved in the examination in London of the result.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Ormond was also closely involved in proceedings in the English Parliament. In May, when his son, Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (later Baron Butler of Moore Park), was seated for Bristol after a double return, Ormond approached Robert Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Bulkeley [I], in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the vacant seat at Beaumaris, which had been promised to Ossory, for Sir George Lane.<sup>45</sup> Ormond attended the opening day of the Parliament on 8 May 1661, where he carried the sword of state. He attended on 127 days of the session, 66 per cent of the total sittings. On 11 May, Ormond, together with Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, introduced the lord chancellor into the House under his new title as earl of Clarendon. The same peers introduced Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and later in the day Ormond joined with Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, to introduce John Granville*, earl of Bath. Ormond was named to 15 committees, including on 10 July 1661 to the committee on the bill for regulating the navy, which he reported to the House on 12 July, and on 16 July to draft the sanguinary laws concerning priests. On 11 July Ormond voted for Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in the case of the great chamberlaincy, and on 17 July he signed a protest against the passage of another bill for vacating the fines of Sir Edward Powell. According to Thomas Carte, Ormond, Clarendon and Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton were responsible for the clause in the act for the safety and preservation of the king which made it <em>praemunire</em> for any person to say that the king was a papist.<sup>46</sup></p><p>When the House resumed on 20 Nov. 1661, Ormond and the lord chamberlain, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, were appointed to thank the king for his speech. The following day, Ormond reported that they had done so. Also on the 21st he was appointed to attend the king to ask for a proclamation sending suspicious persons out of London. Having done so, on 22 Nov. Ormond and Manchester informed the House that he had appointed that afternoon for the House to wait upon him.</p><p>In response to a message from the king on 19 Dec. Ormond was named to a conference with the Commons to consider the peace and security of the kingdom. He was also appointed to report a conference with the Commons on the bill regulating corporations. He was appointed to a further nine committees during the session, including on 24 Jan. 1662 that to prepare a bill repealing some of the 1641-2 legislation placing limitations on the crown. On occasion Ormond was absent from the Lords due to other duties, such as on 16 Jan. when he accompanied York to Deptford.<sup>47</sup> On 6 Feb. Ormond signed a protest against the passage of the bill to restore the estates of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby. In March the Lords passed a bill confirming, amongst other acts, the act restoring Ormond to his estates passed in the Convention. On 18 Mar. Ormond was on hand to support Clarendon’s contention, in contradistinction to George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, that it was the king’s own policy to allow the crown to dispense with provisions in the Act of Uniformity.<sup>48</sup> Ormond last sat during the session on 19 Apr. 1662, his absence thereafter being explained by his duties as a courtier in welcoming the new queen upon her arrival in England. Although perceived by the French as pro-Spanish, and therefore as an opponent of the Portuguese match which had been promoted by France, Ormond’s loyalty to the king outweighed any misgivings he might have had over the affair.<sup>49</sup> He registered his proxy with Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, on 25 Apr. 1662.</p><h2><em>Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1662-7</em></h2><p>With Ormond heavily involved in the debates in the English Privy Council on the Irish settlement bill that dragged on from late August, the king decided, according to Clarendon, at the prompting of the duke of Albemarle, to appoint him lord lieutenant. Ormond’s patent for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, announced in council on 4 Nov. 1661, was sealed on 21 Feb. 1662.<sup>50</sup> The post was of more significance to him than mere prestige – his income from fees allowances and military pay for the year to 3 Nov. 1662 was to be calculated at almost £11,000.<sup>51</sup> A further financial boost occurred on 4 Mar. 1662, when the Irish House of Commons addressed the lords justices to prepare a bill for raising £30,000 for his use, ‘as a testimony of the just and grateful sense entertained by his majesty’s good subjects of this kingdom for the duke of Ormond’s extraordinary merits and public services.’<sup>52</sup> On receiving news of this, Ormond was quick to ensure the king’s agreement and that nothing should ‘interrupt the transmission of the bill’ to England, and it was duly sent over to the secretary of state, Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, on 9 Apr. 1662.<sup>53</sup> Upon its return, the bill passed the Irish House of Commons on a single day on 1 May 1662, receiving the royal assent on 14 May.<sup>54</sup> In a telling comment on Ormond’s financial woes, Orrery wrote in February 1663 that all this money had been spent before Ormond left London, and that he paid ‘interest or worse on £80,000’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>In April 1662 Ormond informed the lords justices in Dublin that the king and Privy Council had finally agreed to the Irish settlement bill, and had appointed seven commissioners, the court of claims, for its execution.<sup>56</sup> The bill was duly returned to Ireland and passed by Parliament there (although work was immediately begun on a bill of explanation, addressing some of the many problems with the complex land settlement). The Act of Settlement received the royal assent in June 1662. Ormond himself was mentioned in 16 clauses of the act, including the grant of forfeited land in satisfaction of the debt accrued in royal service.<sup>57</sup> It soon became clear, however, that the work of the commissioners would not be easy, and that a new act ‘of explanation’ would have to be considered.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Ormond arrived in Dublin on 28 July 1662.<sup>59</sup> He was keen to create a good impression in Dublin, and his daily routine was designed to do so: he was ‘vigilant, industrious, moderate … never sits up late, rises always early, constant at council twice a week. No debauchery obtains the least countenance’.<sup>60</sup> Ormond was well aware of the problems caused by the political tensions of the land settlement, the poverty of the Irish government and its inability to maintain an effective army, and the threats posed especially by Protestant nonconformity and radicalism. He knew that the most important decisions regarding Ireland would be taken in England. As he opined to Clarendon in September 1662, ‘our quietness here depends very much upon yours there, for those that would disturb us take heart, or discouragement, from the hopes they receive thence.’<sup>61</sup> He was keenly aware, too, of the interaction between Ireland and England, and indeed Scotland (he supported the establishment of episcopacy in Scotland, the better to support the Church in Ireland).<sup>62</sup> In response, Clarendon acknowledged the reports that Ormond was known to ‘drudge hourly and wonderfully for the public’, although not every commentator has associated this diligence over detail with any sense of a strategic overview.<sup>63</sup> As the Irish court of claims began its work its rulings began to cause unease and then anger, particularly at the restoration of some Irish Catholics to their lands, and resulted in a backlash within the Irish Parliament in early 1663 as well as a growth in conspiratorial activity among radical Protestants.</p><p>In the meantime, Ormond was worried by the replacement of Nicholas as secretary of state by Henry Bennet*, the future earl of Arlington, so much so that in October 1662 he requested that he be allowed only a public correspondence with the new secretary. Bennet, a man of sharp political antennae, was soon attempting to smooth relations with Ormond. Later in October, Clarendon referred to Ormond’s desire for ‘a cypher’ by which he would be able to impart anything of secret to the king, ‘which, at parting, you told him you would still do by me; and I am sure will still, when you think it best.’ Ormond’s main conduit of influence in England remained Clarendon, especially as regards the vexed question of Irish legislation laid before the Privy Council. On 15 Nov. Clarendon laid down what he thought was the way he should deal with them: ‘when any bills or letters are sent from Ireland hither … I shall conclude, if you say nothing of them to me of your judgment or wishes, that it is all one to you what becomes of them; and therefore I am not at all solicitous in the ‘bill of explanation’, which I do not at all understand.’ No doubt Ormond was reassured by Bennet’s report at the end of December 1662 that the king had expressed his unwillingness to sign papers relating to Ireland without first knowing the duke’s opinion.<sup>64</sup></p><p>In 1663 Ormond purchased Moor Park, Hertfordshire, a house and park near Uxbridge and within convenient reach of London, although he had to ‘leave part of my estate still in pawn, to be redeemed by the rest, in time’, in order to pay for it.<sup>65</sup> The purchase did not initially include the manor, and in November Ormond had to borrow £5,000 from Sir Thomas and Robert Vyner, in order to pay the second instalment.<sup>66</sup> In July 1664, the property appears to have been mortgaged for £6,000 and the mortgage was subsequently assigned to John Warner*, bishop of Rochester. Clearly a financial encumbrance, in May 1670 the property was conveyed to James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, the king having paid £13,200 for the house and furniture.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Ormond missed the entire 1663 session of Parliament, being excused attendance on 23 Feb. 1663 because of his absence in Ireland. According to Orrery, writing from Dublin on 12 Mar. 1663, Ormond had sent his proxy to Portland.<sup>68</sup> Following Portland’s death on 17 Mar. 1663, Clarendon suggested that John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater would be a proper recipient of his proxy, but none is extant.<sup>69</sup> Ormond’s economic and political interests ensured that he kept a wary eye on matters under discussion at Westminster. He was alarmed at the resolution of the Commons on 7 Apr. 1663 that ‘a higher custom be laid upon all cattle that shall be brought over from Ireland into England’ between 1 June (later 1 July) and 20 December. To Ormond this measure ‘would indeed amount to a prohibition. This would disappoint all our payments ... so ... that a constant supply must be sent out of England.’<sup>70</sup> The resultant bill, for the advancement of trade, was introduced into the Commons on 8 May. Ormond continued to criticize the measure as the bill passed through the Commons and then the Lords. He even harboured hopes that the king would not pass the bill owing to ‘the ruinous consequences of the impositions on Irish cattle.’<sup>71</sup></p><p>Ormond had another spat with Bennet in April 1663 over allegations that Bennet had told the king that Ormond was ‘not kind to him’. As a result Ormond felt that ‘a letter from the king, upon which depends the redemption of my fortune and posterity from ruin... brought upon them by my service and engagements to and for the Crown, is, notwithstanding it has been often promised, still kept from me.’ To this, Bennet responded by pointing out that this proceeded not from the ‘enmity of the writer, or to lack of kindness in the king, but to the conduct of the Parliament’, and its hostility to the expenditure of money on Ireland.<sup>72</sup> Eventually, relations were made up, no doubt helped by the dispatch of the king’s order to pay Ormond over £70,000.<sup>73</sup> However, distrust of Bennet remained, and in December 1663, Anglesey cautioned Ormond about the need to write regularly to the king, and to use an alternative route than his official letters to Bennet, because the latter revealed their contents to too many people.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Ormond wanted to be kept abreast of political developments in England and complained when this was not the case. On 20 June 1663 Daniel O’Neil<sup>‡</sup> thought that in ‘not knowing all the results of our juncto and council, you are not friendly nor fairly dealt with. I can with some confidence say, it’s not the king’s sense nor his desire you should be made a stranger to the secretest of his counsels and resolutions.’ Clarendon was not remiss in sending to Ormond in July 1663, the particulars of the articles of high treason and misdemeanours charged against him by Bristol, ‘to which, the good lord averred that you are one of his principal witnesses.’<sup>75</sup> In August Ormond was informed of the plan to retrench the expenditure of the royal household, which threatened to reduce his patronage by abolishing a number of posts and also the traditional largesse of the court.<sup>76</sup> Ormond responded with a defence of the traditional establishment, which had acquired so ‘much veneration amongst the people’ that it had become ‘a considerable part in the government and greatness of the state’ and a constant reminder ‘to the people of the power and majesty of the king and of the duty and obedience they owe him.’<sup>77</sup></p><p>At the beginning of October 1663, Ormond hoped Clarendon was ‘busied’ with the consideration of the new draft Irish bill for explanation, designed to overcome the problems with and the opposition caused by the original Act of Settlement. The new legislation, he emphasized, was absolutely necessary for the security and settlement of the people and the good order of the realm.<sup>78</sup> At the end of the month, he added that if the bill of explanation was looked upon as his work, ‘they do his skill in law too much honour.’ That he held the bill as capable of amendment was shown by the fact that he had already offered some suggestions for the king’s consideration.<sup>79</sup></p><p>There were intense pressures within the English court on the Irish settlement, including the concerted campaign waged by the queen mother on behalf of Randal MacDonnell, marquess of Antrim [I].<sup>80</sup> Ormond was exceptionally nervous about these. At the beginning of January 1664, he asked the king to be careful with whom he advised upon the land settlement, and to ensure that he read and kept his letters howsoever he may otherwise dispose of them.<sup>81</sup> This fear over the Irish settlement may well have prompted Ormond to mention in a letter to Clarendon on 9 Jan. his desire to return to England, leaving Ossory in charge.<sup>82</sup> Both Anglesey and Clarendon appear to have concurred with Ormond’s judgment, as apparently did the king and York.<sup>83</sup> On 20 Feb. he opined to Clarendon his desire ‘to see and freely confer with you’, and his belief (referring to the possibility of a revival of the earl of Bristol’s attack on Clarendon in the forthcoming session of Parliament) that an ‘accident may happen at the first meeting of your Parliament, as may make me (who have been removed from any direct part in affairs there) of some use; and that if I did no good, I shall do no hurt.’<sup>84</sup></p><p>Ormond could not be spared from Ireland immediately, so he did not in the end get to the session held in March-May 1664. Absence had its compensations, however, as he was able to write to Bennet on 25 Mar., of his relief that he was removed from all part in the ‘garboyle’ in which Bristol had embroiled himself, having been ‘so long his friend and servant, that it would have been some trouble to see him successful in the disturbance he designs, or miserable for the attempt.’<sup>85</sup> On 4 Apr. Ormond was excused attendance in the Lords. By 25 Apr. Ormond was still asking with some urgency for a reply to his request for leave to visit England.<sup>86</sup> Bennet duly sent him informal notification of the king’s permission on 3 May.<sup>87</sup> Clarendon was of the opinion that the bill under discussion in the council relating to the Irish land settlement would pass much more easily with Ormond present.<sup>88</sup> Anglesey predicted that ‘upon the first news of your coming (which yet is kept very private), the race of whispering informers will so vanish that there will be no footsteps of them left.’<sup>89</sup> Ormond received notification of his leave to return on 18 May 1664.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Ormond was preceded by the duchess, who arrived at Chelsea on 19 May 1664, and immediately received visits from ‘most grandees of the court’.<sup>91</sup> Leaving Ossory as lord deputy, Ormond left Ireland on 31 May, ‘having arranged his equipage as best he could so as to appear with more show’, but also delaying his arrival ‘so as to have time to be perfectly informed by his friends and emissaries of the state of the court and of matters against which he needs to take measures.’<sup>92</sup> He made an appearance at court on 11 June ‘conducted by the greatest part of his majesty’s Privy Council and the nobility in town, who paid this honour out of a respect they bear to the merits of so eminent a personage’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Apart from the many questions of Irish policy requiring his attention, Ormond also initiated negotiations for the marriage of his son, Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I], the future Baron Butler of Weston, to Lady Mary Stuart, niece, and potentially heir, of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. No sooner had these been completed in September, than in October plans were under discussion for the marriage of Ormond’s youngest son, Lord John Butler, the future earl of Gowran [I], but the negotiations faltered and were finally called off in January 1667.<sup>94</sup></p><p>In mid-June 1664 Ormond informed the archbishop of Dublin that although much of his time had been spent in visits and in receiving civilities, this had allowed him the opportunity of setting right mistakes on Irish affairs that had taken place by misinformation. Apart from the explanatory bill, he was engaged in promoting a number of draft bills sent for approval in England.<sup>95</sup> He was able to call to his assistance the members of the Irish Privy Council resident in England. An order of the Irish Privy Council of 29 July 1664 authorized them to meet to review what had been already deliberated in London ‘in and concerning the affairs of Ireland, and prepare and offer such expedients as they shall think fit.’<sup>96</sup> This body met on 1 Aug. and continued deliberating until 26 May 1665.<sup>97</sup> The English Privy Council agreed to the act of explanation in July, and it passed the Irish Parliament in December 1665.<sup>98</sup></p><p>In order to facilitate the revision of the land settlement as proposed in the bill of explanation, Ormond gave up his interest in forfeited lands which he was due to receive as compensation for his losses in the royal service, originally estimated at over £70,000, in return for a payment of £50,000, payable within two years.<sup>99</sup> Eventually, this was converted into a payment of £5,000 p.a. over ten years. Obtaining payment for this sum was to preoccupy Ormond in the following years and contribute significantly to souring his relationship with those politicians responsible for the Irish revenue. Delays while the settlement was worked out left Ormond strapped for cash; in March 1665 he was forced to ask Sir Daniel Bellingham, a Dublin alderman, if he would be willing to accept the payment of further interest on his mortgage of £10,000, as he was unable to repay the capital owing to his long stay in England, occasioned by difficulties in the dispatch of the Act of Settlement.<sup>100</sup></p><p>On 20 Aug. 1664 Ormond was present at the prorogation of Parliament, and although his return for Ireland was originally planned for October, it was soon delayed.<sup>101</sup> In advance of the 1664-5 session, on 2 Nov., William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire, registered his proxy with Ormond. Ormond attended on 27 days of the ensuing session (51 per cent of the total) and was appointed to one committee. On 26 Nov., Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, registered his proxy with Ormond.<sup>102</sup> On 3 Dec. 1664 Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, wrote to ask Ormond to accept his proxy, and Ormond’s papers contain a copy or draft of the proxy, dated 12 December.<sup>103</sup> The registration of the proxy on 2 Dec. would appear to be the day upon which it was dated.<sup>104</sup></p><p>Ormond’s ambitious plans for Arran received a setback with the public acknowledgment of the marriage of ‘Northern Tom Howard,’ brother of Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, to the dowager duchess of Richmond, Buckingham’s sister. That the marriage had taken place before her daughter, Lady Mary Stuart, had married Arran, clearly perturbed Ormond.<sup>105</sup> His response was to ask Buckingham to safeguard Arran’s interest by settling his estate on Lady Arran. Buckingham refused saying (as was reported) ‘that if his sister have a son (and by the way she is with child), he thought it more reasonable that should inherit his estate, as well as it will do his honours … I heard one say it was the only thing had gone cross to the duke of Ormond’s grandeur since his return from abroad.’<sup>106</sup> Nor were relations with Buckingham improved in April 1665 when Ormond wrote to him concerning Buckingham’s will, which had originally favoured Lady Arran, but which he had apparently altered in view of what he perceived to be Ormond’s failure to act according to the professions of friendship which he had previously made, a reference perhaps to Ormond’s perceived failure to back a revival of the council of the north.<sup>107</sup></p><p>According to a memorandum produced by the French court in March 1665, Ormond, Clarendon and Southampton were against a war with the Dutch. In May, the French diplomat Hugues de Lionne thought that the Spanish were ‘counting’ on Ormond and Albemarle ‘being entirely in their interest’. Another assessment, sent to Lionne in May, portrayed Ormond as ‘an enemy to Madame Castlemaine, and his interests are linked to the chancellor, from whom he will not separate at this time when they are trying to regulate the affairs of Ireland, because he has much property which was given him through confiscation, and whose owners are demanding its return.’<sup>108</sup> At the beginning of June, Louis XIV was informed that as Ormond had ‘more to lose than any of the subjects of the king of England, none … desires peace and quiet more passionately than he’.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Ormond spent some part of the summer of 1665 at Moor Park, a useful bolt-hole from the plague.<sup>110</sup> In August, after reporting the death of his brother-in-law, Donough Maccarty, earl of Clancarty [I], ‘the only person in the world from whom he never did, and never would, conceal the greatest and most important secret of his soul’, Ormond left Moor Park, finally making his way to Ireland via Bristol (where he settled the militia).<sup>111</sup> Consequently, he missed the short session of October 1665.</p><p>Almost immediately upon his arrival in Ireland early in September 1665 Ormond wrote to Clarendon bemoaning the financial shortfall which would make it impossible to meet governmental expenditure ‘unless the freedom of trade (for such it is), be restored to us’, a reference to the restraint placed on the Irish cattle trade by the act of 1663. It was his constant refrain that the financial concerns of Ireland must be heeded in England for there was insufficient money to pay the taxes that were needed to cover the costs of defence.<sup>112</sup> However, on 11 Oct. 1665 Arlington quickly disabused Ormond of any notion of relief from Parliament: ‘nothing will be less practical in this session of Parliament than the repeal of the bill against importation of Irish cattle.’ He continued, that Clarendon, Southampton, attorney general Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup> and solicitor general Heneage Finch*, the future earl of Nottingham, ‘all assure me that according to their observation a total prohibition will be insisted on.’<sup>113</sup> Some observers felt that Ormond’s best hope was to get the Lords or the king to veto the measure. Although the bill fell at the prorogation at the end of October, Ormond was not under any illusions that this was anything but a temporary reprieve, informing George Legge*, the future Baron Dartmouth, that ‘it is well we have time to look about us, before the next assault.’<sup>114</sup></p><p>Ormond was now working on the details of the land settlement as provided for by the Act of Explanation, which he complained would condemn him to a great deal of drudgery.<sup>115</sup> While in Ireland he arranged for the disposal of his bedchamber place to Ossory, using Arlington as an intermediary with the king.<sup>116</sup> Arlington’s marriage, in April 1666, to Ossory’s sister-in-law, saw a further improvement in relations between the two men. Ormond continued to badger his correspondents in England over the restrictions on Irish trade.<sup>117</sup> Arlington’s response in mid-August 1666 was to warn him that the political momentum behind the campaign for prohibition had not declined.<sup>118</sup> In return, Ormond argued that the king should exert his authority against its passage, and if that failed (thinking of the impact on his own personal finances), obtain a proviso for the ‘chief governor’ to license a certain number for the king’s use, ‘my aim being by this means to make money of some part of what my tenants can give me for rent.’ Not that Ormond intended to rely exclusively on the king, for he was simultaneously urging Anglesey to use his interest with his friends in both Houses against the bill.<sup>119</sup> In August Ormond and the Irish Privy Council had petitioned the king over the bill, employing Richard Boyle*, 2nd earl of Cork [I], and earl of Burlington, Ossory, Anglesey and Conway to offer to the king ‘some of those many reasons, which we humbly conceive may incline your royal heart to protect this your kingdom from being so abandoned to misery and ruin ... the restraint on importation of cattle will only depress the Irish revenue even further’.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Despite the threat to the Irish economy posed by the bill, Ormond remained in Ireland for the whole of the 1666-7 session and was excused attendance on the Lords on 1 Oct. 1666. He did deem it advisable to protect himself from attack while in Ireland and on 15 Oct. he was granted a free and general pardon by the king.<sup>121</sup> Anglesey informed him in late November that ‘I find your grace nibbled at by vermin in the dark, for though I have hunted for them none will appear openly against you.’<sup>122</sup> Several of Ormond’s allies attributed the agitation against Irish cattle to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Lord Ashley (the future earl of Shaftesbury), the duke of Buckingham and John Maitland*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Lauderdale [S], and their personal hostility towards him.<sup>123</sup> On 13 Nov., when Conway was reporting to Ormond on the bill against Irish cattle, he ended with a reminder, ‘we do very much want your grace’s proxy, I beseech you to send it with speed for whensoever the bill passes, it will be but by a few voices’, a point reiterated by Anglesey.<sup>124</sup> This no doubt prompted Ormond on 17 Dec. to write to Clarendon pointing out that when he took his leave from the lord chancellor at Salisbury, he had forgotten that the holder of his proxy, Charles Weston*, 3rd earl of Portland, was dead, and so he needed his advice on a replacement, suggesting either Burlington or Conway.<sup>125</sup> Having dispatched a blank proxy, on 3 Jan. 1667 it was duly registered with Burlington. Later in January, Ormond wrote to Burlington asking him to bestow his proxy as he would his own vote.<sup>126</sup></p><p>When the bill passed the Commons 165-104 on 13 Oct., Arlington thought that the size of the minority vote would encourage opposition in the Lords, and soon afterwards Allen Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> offered Ormond some hope that the king would veto the bill.<sup>127</sup> Ormond sought some political advantage by supporting a subscription in Ireland to send over Irish cattle for the benefit of those left destitute by the Fire of London, but the proposal was rejected in the Commons. <sup>128</sup> The most controversial clause of the bill declared illegal imports to be a ‘nuisance’ – a provision intended to prevent the king from using his prerogative to grant licences for individuals to import Irish cattle, as Ormond was hoping to do.<sup>129</sup> Arlington hoped that the term would be omitted in the Lords, creating a loophole. However, the king eventually agreed to the bill in January 1667 with the ‘nuisance’ clause retained in order to ensure the passage through the Commons of the poll bill, persuading several peers not to continue in their opposition to it.<sup>130</sup> Ormond’s reaction was to declare ‘God send he may always find them as ready to obey him when he would have his prerogative supported by them’.<sup>131</sup> He did, however, remember to thank Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, for his assistance in opposing the bill.<sup>132</sup></p><p>A prospective marriage between Kelme Maccarty, 3rd earl of Clancarty [I], and a niece of Orrery’s demonstrated Ormond’s religious position in January 1667. His sister, the dowager countess of Clancarty, had been ‘made to believe she cannot consent it should be by a priest of our church without sinning, and my Lady Elizabeth [Boyle], is as much persuaded she shall offend if she shall consent to be married by a popish priest’. Ormond, evidently asked to intervene, wrote that ‘I am not able to remove the scruple from my sister and I am not willing to endeavour to do it with Lady Elizabeth.’<sup>133</sup></p><p>At the end of March 1667, Anglesey, believing that court politics might be coming to a critical point, suggested that Ormond should come over to England.<sup>134</sup> Ormond may have found a visit useful for several reasons. He was in a negotiation with Albemarle over the purchase of the latter’s office of the mastership of the horse, which he intended for Ossory.<sup>135</sup> There was also the political pressure on his old ally, Clarendon, which had Ormond at the beginning of July 1667 regretting that being tied to Irish affairs he could not journey to England to serve him. When, after Clarendon’s fall at the end of August, some members of the former chancellor’s family felt that he had not done enough to help him he justified his absence, pointing out that to have travelled to England without the king’s leave ‘would be running himself into a greater crime than the lord chancellor will be found guilty of.’<sup>136</sup></p><h2><em>Under attack, 1667-9</em></h2><p>Ormond was aware that Clarendon’s dismissal showed the ascendancy at court of politicians likely to be unsympathetic towards him, and that as a consequence he might find his own position under attack.<sup>137</sup> The king wrote to Ormond on 15 Sept. 1667 to reassure him that his former friendship with Clarendon would be no prejudice to him ‘because it is very probable that malicious people may suggest the contrary.’<sup>138</sup> In London, Ossory, too, had picked up intimations that Ormond might be attacked in the forthcoming parliamentary session, but had to confess in September 1667, that he could ‘learn neither the particular persons that contrive the thing; nor upon what grounds they will move’ in it.<sup>139</sup> Anglesey and Sheldon also agreed that an attack was likely.<sup>140</sup></p><p>One avenue of attack on Ormond concerned the land settlement in Ireland, with the appeal of William Barker to the Privy Council over a judgment made in Ireland the possible vehicle for it. The council confirmed the judgment on 11 Oct. 1667 after a long debate. Sir Thomas Clifford*, the future Baron Clifford, Anglesey, Lauderdale, Bridgwater, Arlington and York spoke ‘very well to the thing’ in question, whilst Carlisle, Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, Buckingham, and some others, supported the appeal.<sup>141</sup> Barker subsequently petitioned the Commons on 31 Oct., ‘touching some wrongs done in Ireland’, and it was referred to the committee of grievances, but there is no evidence of subsequent proceedings on it. This may have been the opening move in an attempt to use Ormond’s Irish land transactions as part of a future impeachment.<sup>142</sup> Although the petition was unsuccessful, Ormond worried about it provoking many more complaints from Ireland, which would mean that ‘the Parliament will not want work for some months, even if they should have no other.’<sup>143</sup></p><p>When Parliament met on 10 Oct. 1667, Ormond was necessarily absent, and on 29 Oct. he was granted leave from attendance on the Lords. With an impeachment against Clarendon in the offing, Ormond prepared to defend his conduct in Ireland, anticipating complaints that the quartering of the army was against the law, although as he pointed out ‘either the king must, by raising the pay of the soldiers, enable them to pay for lodgings; or they must have them free; or there must be no army’. His tactics in the face of accusations were that ‘particulars of all sorts will be best answered, when they are judicially objected, and the weaker the objection is, the less it should be answered beforehand. For the answering of one weak or ill-proved accusation discredits all the rest.’<sup>144</sup> Ossory in London was aware of Orrery’s ‘artifices to diminish your reputation’, but could not find any positive proof, only that ‘all his friends find faults within your management of affairs and at the same time extol his.’<sup>145</sup> By 15 Oct. 1667, Conway had uncovered more concrete evidence of an attack. He informed Ormond that solicitor general Finch had discovered that certain members of the Commons had privately drawn up 12 articles of impeachment against him.<sup>146</sup> Anglesey later added to this by reporting that Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, ‘in his accusation of the earl of Clarendon, among other bribes, charged him with the sum of £50,000, received from Ireland; and made a transition, how fit it would be for the Commons to take into consideration, in due time the state and management of affairs in that kingdom’.<sup>147</sup> By November Orrery thought it certain that Ormond would be recalled and impeached, and had sent for the ‘heads of the articles’ against him, and Pepys had heard of a possible impeachment, to be brought in by Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>148</sup> Ossory added a few days later that he believed the design to have been promoted by Seymour, Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, William Garraway<sup>‡</sup>, ‘and others of the same cabal’.<sup>149</sup> According to York this attack ‘was chiefly managed by the duke of Buckingham, at the instigation of the earl of Orrery’.<sup>150</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, saw Ormond as opposed by a combination of Orrery and Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount (and later earl of) Ranelagh [I], on one hand and Talbot on the other.<sup>151</sup></p><p>By 12 Nov. 1667, Ormond had access to a copy of some of the main accusations against him.<sup>152</sup> At the same time, Ormond expressed to Anglesey his view that the heads of the accusation were either ‘drawn by some friend, or by a very ignorant enemy. There is not one of them true, as they are expressed. Some, if they were true, are no crimes. And some are impossible to have been done, by anybody.’<sup>153</sup> On 22 Nov. Ormond sent to Conway materials that would help refute one of the allegations against him, namely the quartering of troops in Dublin.<sup>154</sup> No impeachment proceedings were instituted in the Commons before the adjournment on 19 Dec., possibly because of the conflict between the Houses on how to proceed in their proceedings against Clarendon.</p><p>Ormond was aware that a successful attempt to remove him from his government in Ireland ‘at this time and conjuncture of my private affairs, would be to my irreparable inconvenience and damage, and may be to my utter ruin in my fortune, if the remove should be otherwise, than by appointing one or more governors, and that only in my absence.’ The only means left to redeem his estate from the weight of debt that lay upon it was the £50,000 allocated to him under the Act of Explanation, ‘which will hardly be brought in, but by my own presence or the great friendship of the chief governor, and may be utterly lost under the discountenance of any other kind of remove, or by the coldness of a successor’.<sup>155</sup> At least the Adventurers (those who had acquired forfeited land in Ireland under the terms of a 1642 Act) had failed to ‘overthrow all that has been a-doing this seven years towards the settlement of this kingdom by petitioning the Parliament for the benefit of the acts of 17 and 18 of the last king, which, they suppose, no acts passed in this kingdom could alter or repeal.’ When their petition was presented to the Commons on 10 Dec. 1667 it ‘was laid aside without question’.<sup>156</sup> Ossory had feared that rather than a direct attack on his father, the petition would have been used to initiate a more general discussion of Irish matters.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Despite Anglesey’s view, following Clarendon’s flight at the end of November 1667, that although ‘whispers go still up and down’ the danger to Ormond had been averted, Ormond was increasingly inclined to protect his position by a visit to England.<sup>158</sup> To do so he needed to ensure that Ossory was in Ireland ready to act as his deputy. And he had to be careful of the timing, for, as Arlington made clear, a visit while proceedings against Clarendon were in progress would be interpreted much to Ormond’s prejudice.<sup>159</sup> By 11 Jan. 1668, Arlington had obtained the king’s consent for Ormond’s return.<sup>160</sup> Ormond probably did not intend to attend the Lords until after the proceedings against Clarendon had been completed.<sup>161</sup> With this in mind Conway suggested on 14 Jan. that he leave his proxy with Arlington, ‘for I know not whether your danger will come this way or some other, though I am confident the affairs of Ireland will be brought into Parliament this session, at least I have been told so, by the considerable men of both Houses.’<sup>162</sup> Two further concerns inclined Ormond to a visit: financial insecurity and his need to ensure his retention of the lord steward’s staff.<sup>163</sup></p><p>With Parliament due to resume on 6 Feb. 1668, on 25 Jan. Ossory reported that Ormond’s position was still under threat because the king was under pressure to comply with the undertakers in Parliament, ‘who being creatures of the duke of Buckingham are consequently unfriendly to you’. Not that Ormond lacked for influential supporters: on 1 Feb., when Ossory told him about the report to the Privy Council of the committee examining into Irish affairs, he went on to extol the efforts of York ‘who took occasion to speak of you in the most favourable terms that could be when the Irish business was under consideration’. On 17 Feb. Ormond was again excused from attending the Lords. On the following day Ossory reported that Buckingham and his party continued ‘in their malice and intentions of accusing you’, although some of the charges they had concocted ‘for executing mutineers, and for permitting popery’, were ‘so evidently frivolous’ that they would be left out, ‘lest they should discountenance other charges’.<sup>164</sup> Ormond was aware that Buckingham’s ascendancy made it difficult for him to visit England in complete comfort because of his refusal to concur in the latter’s ‘expedients to gratify the worst part of the Parliament, at the irreparable charge of the crown and the Church.’ Either Buckingham ‘and his undertakers will succeed, or fail: if the first, I am well pleased to have no part in the honour; if the last, his and their credit with the king and the world will soon vanish’, which it should do given ‘all the indulgences (to say no worse) offered as the price of a supply’.<sup>165</sup></p><p>At the end of February 1668 Edward Cooke reported on a ‘confederacy offensive and defensive’ concluded between Buckingham and Albemarle, to whom Ormond was ‘a kind of a common enemy’. Ormond’s position had been so undermined that at the end of February 1668, Ruvigny reported, that his erstwhile ally, Arlington, had attempted ‘to regain’ Buckingham by offering either ‘the office of viceroy of Ireland or that of grand master, both of which are the duke of Ormond’s’.<sup>166</sup> On 7 Mar. Arlington referred to an ‘indiscreet and unreasonable’ reflection, thrown upon Ormond by Sir Charles Wheeler<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons, effectively suggesting that Ormond’s £50,000 be used for the public.<sup>167</sup> Another petition from the Adventurers, which had been expected as early as 12 Feb., was presented on 14 Mar. but although there were proceedings during April and May, they failed to reach a conclusion.<sup>168</sup></p><p>Conversely, Ormond saw the attack of Edward Brabazon, 2nd earl of Meath [I], as opportune because it had alerted his friends to his arguments against him.<sup>169</sup> Meath had arrived in London with complaints he wished to present to the king, but Buckingham had declined to countenance him.<sup>170</sup> At the end of April 1668 Ruvigny still thought that Ormond would be attacked ‘there being much evidence against him … it being a question of 300,000 pounds sterling which he costs the king his master every year, which are to his profit and to that of several individuals.’ However, he continued, Arlington was endeavouring to keep the matter out of Parliament, and it was one reason why he was pressing for an adjournment.<sup>171</sup></p><p>Consultations with Ossory upon his return to Ireland seemed to leave Ormond uncertain, but by 12 Mar. 1668 he was edging towards a decision to visit England.<sup>172</sup> He arrived in London on 6 May, in time to attend the last three days of the session.<sup>173</sup> In this he may have been following Arlington’s advice to delay his arrival because ‘complaints are reviving again very warmly in the House of Commons’.<sup>174</sup> He left Ossory as his lord deputy, an indication that he remained in favour with the king.<sup>175</sup>Orrery was soon reported to be following Ormond over to England ‘between whom there is great [clashing]’.<sup>176</sup> At the beginning of May 1668, Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup> had told Pepys that if the Parliament continued then Ormond must fall, through the enmity of ‘some great men’ including Orrery, ‘and that this will try the king mightily, he being a firm friend to my lord lieutenant.’<sup>177</sup> On 19 May Ormond wrote that ‘if the faction against me should prevail in the Parliament, it is not sure, but it must upon him [the king]’.<sup>178</sup></p><p>The summer of 1668 saw reports of reconciliation between the various protagonists. In June Theobald Taaffe, earl of Carlingford [I], reported a ‘new-settled friendship’ between Ormond and Buckingham.<sup>179</sup> That same month, George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, was the main means by which Ormond attempted to secure a reconciliation with Burlington, upset at perceived snubs from Ormond over the non-payment of his salary as lord treasurer, omission from a commission to inspect the Irish accounts and ignoring him when a long-promised troop of horse became available, which was effected early in July.<sup>180</sup> In June Ormond attended ‘a private council’, held at the home of the lord keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, where it was resolved to call an Irish Parliament as soon as the commissioners had finished their work on the Irish land settlement.<sup>181</sup> Nor did he neglect his defence; a paper was drawn up on 18 June, entitled ‘A Memoir on the Services, and on the Losses, of James, Duke of Ormond as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland’, specifically referencing the articles against him ‘sent out of England’.<sup>182</sup></p><p>Ormond was also weighing up the reliability of Arlington as an ally, ‘whenever my Lord Buckingham and I should come to declared enmity’. At the end of June 1668 he had concluded that Arlington would endeavour to prevent an attack from Buckingham, or failing that he would give reasonable notice of it and would assist with all the interest he had in Ormond’s defence.<sup>183</sup> Another potential source of conflict with Buckingham arose at the beginning of July 1668, when the countess of Arran died with her portion of £5,000 still unpaid. Ormond was sufficiently affected by her death to retire to Moor Park.<sup>184</sup></p><p>Ormond was still under threat, for as was said in July 1668 ‘Orrery works covertly not openly. My Lord Meath and others prosecute it, but the duke of Buckingham is [Ormond’s] great enemy’.<sup>185</sup> Orrery’s greatest asset was his perceived financial acumen, which could be employed, seductively, to suggest that, if properly managed, Irish finances could meet governmental expenditure.<sup>186</sup> That same month, while at Moor Park, Ormond received information that Buckingham and Orrery, amongst others, had been appointed to examine ‘the malversations of the government and revenue of Ireland’, a worrying development which he could not bring himself to believe had been sanctioned by the king.<sup>187</sup> On reflection, Ormond felt that Anglesey was the intended target of any investigation into the revenue, and that the king intended no prejudice towards himself.<sup>188</sup> The commission had resulted from a conference between Buckingham and the lord keeper.<sup>189</sup> Buckingham claimed that he had no thoughts of prejudicing Ormond ‘howsoever he takes me not to be his friend, or to have dealt well with him in the marriage of his niece.’<sup>190</sup> Nevertheless, on 3 Aug. Ormond announced his intention to remain in England until the spring in order to defend himself from any accusations.<sup>191</sup> There followed a struggle over the nomination of Sir Thomas Osborne*, the future earl of Danby, to the commission on the Irish revenue, with Ormond objecting to his presence as a ‘great confidant’ of Buckingham, but Osborne’s name was inserted back in the commission by the king when it was opened on 20 August.<sup>192</sup> On the positive side, Ruvigny reported at the end of August 1668 that Ormond had received the support of his old enemy, Lauderdale, whom, it seemed, had fallen out with Buckingham over the attack on Ormond.<sup>193</sup></p><p>Financial concerns still played an important part in Ormond’s calculations. Money was required to keep both him and the duchess in England until the spring. He planned to find it ‘out of rents and entertainments, and if neither of these ways will serve, then by mortgage’, since the ‘vast sums’he was expecting to receive as a result of the land settlement would not obtain credit of even £500.<sup>194</sup> Retention of office was essential if he was to secure the money owing to him from the crown. In mid-September Ormond was again concerned to ensure that the new vice treasurer, Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>, had been instructed to remove a recent prohibition on ordering the payment of that part of £50,000 now due from the crown.<sup>195</sup></p><p>On 12 Sept. 1668 the duchess reported that Ormond had gone to wait upon the king, while Arlington had gone into the country ‘to put preparations on foot when the court returns to prosecute all the designs that are laid against my lord and the lord of Anglesey; so as a very little time will make a full discovery of what my lord’s enemies are able to do against him.’<sup>196</sup> Ormond remained pessimistic: ‘all that can be said of the public is that discontent and despondency were never more high or universal; nor was ever any court fallen into so much contempt, or governed with so little care to redeem itself. ... The meeting of the Parliament is become dreadful to those who taught it to fly upon ministers of state’.<sup>197</sup></p><p>Buckingham was still hankering after the dismissal of Ormond at the beginning of October 1668, but in this he was opposed by Arlington.<sup>198</sup> A possible compromise was mooted when Osborne informed Buckingham of the lord keeper’s view that Ormond should not return as lord lieutenant, but that ‘it might be best for some time at first to send justices into Ireland, whereof he would have my Lord Ossory to be one, for the more easy and fair parting with my Lord Ormond.’<sup>199</sup> Ormond interpreted this manoeuvre as a design ‘first to unfasten me and then to lay me totally aside.’<sup>200</sup> Attack and counter-attack continued for several months. Arlington’s support became increasingly questionable, for, as the French ambassador Colbert pointed out, ‘whatever desire Milord Arlington may have to save him, he will be obliged to abandon him so as not to break with the duke of Buckingham.’<sup>201</sup> For his part Buckingham was convinced that Ormond’s disgrace was the one thing that would demonstrate his credit with the king.<sup>202</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Ormond continued to command attention regarding Irish affairs, attending the treasury in August, October and November 1668 concerning proposals for the farm of the Irish revenue.<sup>203</sup> On 10 Nov. he attended the further adjournment of Parliament. On 19 Nov. he had a meeting with ‘Mr Treasurer’ and Arlington to discuss the government of Ireland. They again put forward the idea of lords justices with Ormond retaining the lieutenancy, but Ormond countered that in his view this ‘would be understood to proceed from the king’s dissatisfaction with my service, would inevitably bring ruin and disgrace upon me, would be matter of triumph to my enemies and of dejection to my friends’. Indeed, he knew ‘nothing, fit for the king to do in Ireland, that I am not as well able to do, as any he can employ’. Ormond continued that he did not think he could be held responsible for Anglesey’s shortcomings and told Arlington that ‘my removal did not arise from my conduct in Ireland but here’. Arlington told him in reply that Ormond was seen as too close to Buckingham’s real targets, namely York and Sheldon.<sup>204</sup> Ormond clung on, and in mid-December 1668 sought reassurance from the king over his position as lord lieutenant, and seemed satisfied by the answer he received.<sup>205</sup></p><p>Early in February 1669, according to Colbert, Ormond was sufficiently confident of his position to risk speaking ‘to the king very heatedly against the duke of Buckingham; that he [Buckingham] had treated him [Ormond] as a traitor and a rascal, and that this might not happen without blood being spilt’.<sup>206</sup> However, on 13 Feb. Ormond received intimation that the king would announce a change in the government of Ireland, and on the next day, at the committee of foreign affairs, the king announced Ormond’s replacement by Robartes.<sup>207</sup> In itself this appointment was a defeat for those of his rivals who had attempted to supplant him, especially Orrery.<sup>208</sup> Ormond’s subsequent deliberate insults to Orrery and Buckingham led to fears ‘that the affair will end in bloody quarrels’ at court.<sup>209</sup></p><h2><em>Out of office, out of favour, 1669-73</em></h2><p>Ormond was now in a quandary, given his precarious financial position. He had already told Arlington that he could not live in England.<sup>210</sup> But before he could contemplate withdrawal, Ormond needed to secure his finances. There remained £48,000 owing to him under the Irish Act of Settlement and the more recent Act of Explanation. Ormond proposed to give up his interest in this sum for a payment of £5,000 p.a. from the exchequer, or secured on a reliable part of the revenue, preferably the Irish quit rents, which was agreed in May 1669.<sup>211</sup> Actually getting paid was another matter.</p><p>While Ormond negotiated about his personal finances, he continued to engage in public affairs, attending regularly at the committee for foreign affairs, and at the treasury when Irish matters were under discussion, especially the Irish farm.<sup>212</sup> On 1 Mar. 1669 Ormond attended the prorogation of Parliament. He retained his suspicions of Buckingham, being ‘confident he not only undervalues but hates the king’s person, and his brother’s; and has designs apart, – if not aimed at the ruin of them both.’<sup>213</sup> The duchess returned to Ireland, departing from Beaumaris on 12 May 1669.<sup>214</sup> The purpose of her visit was to look into Ormond’s Irish affairs, which would then allow him to make a settlement on Ossory. She returned at the beginning of July. <sup>215</sup> Ormond met her at Oxford, where on 15 July he was made a DCL, as a prelude to being chosen chancellor of the University on 4 Aug. at the recommendation of Sheldon.<sup>216</sup></p><p>Ormond had also decided to deal with the earl of Meath, whose touting of articles accusing him of various misdeeds had been a thorn in his side for months. On 9 July, Ormond petitioned the king asking that Meath be summoned before the Privy Council to substantiate the allegations he had made against Ormond in his conduct as lord lieutenant. Meath refused to do so for fear of a suit of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>.<sup>217</sup> Ormond clearly believed that Buckingham and Orrery were behind Meath’s accusations. He felt vindicated when on Meath’s refusal to bring his charge against him before the Privy Council, he was banished the court and turned out of the Irish Privy Council.<sup>218</sup></p><p>Ormond expressed uncertainty at the end of July 1669 about the new lord lieutenant’s measures, an important consideration given that he would play a significant role in any investigation of Ormond’s conduct as viceroy. He took it for granted that he would experience continuing enmity from Orrery. He thought that when Parliament met as scheduled in October, difficulties in managing it and continuing disputes between the Houses would force a dissolution. Such things, he wrote, were ‘doubtless’ the subject of ‘frequent consultations held at my Lord of Orrery’s’, where Buckingham, Osborne and John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester ‘make their cabal.’<sup>219</sup> Ormond was present on the opening day of the session on 19 Oct. 1669 and attended on every subsequent day (36 in all). Also on 19 Oct., he was deputed by the House (with Arlington) to give the thanks to the king for his speech. He was named to five committees during the session. It seems likely that the proxy given to Ormond by Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, filed amongst those granted in 1667, but with a smudged date, belongs to 1669, when Ormond was present in the House and St Albans absent. On 21 Oct. John Ellis<sup>‡</sup>, who would later be Ormond’s secretary, rather optimistically considered that Ormond’s reputation ‘increases so much amongst the Commons that the torrent begins to turn, or at least, to lose much of its violence.’<sup>220</sup> On 4 Nov. Ormond was one of three peers named to attend the king to discover when he would receive their thanks for his proclamation against conventicles. On 15 Nov. he reported that the committee for privileges could not proceed any further in preparing a bill concerning privilege and judicature in Parliament until the House had decided whether there should be a clause inserted relating to the trial of peers, which they resolved in the affirmative. Ormond introduced the bill on the following day.</p><p>On 20 Nov. 1669 it was reported that ‘there is talk of an impeachment coming in’ against Ormond, and ‘some say another against the earl of Orrery. Things begin to grow high.’<sup>221</sup> According to Colbert on 25 Nov. ‘the friends of the duke will not spare Milord Orrery, or even the duke of Buckingham.’<sup>222</sup> The Church and cavalier party were determined to ‘adhere to the duke of Ormond against all opposition’, and to prosecute Orrery as an enemy to their principles. A motion for Orrery’s impeachment passed the Commons on 25 November.<sup>223</sup> On 2 Dec. Colbert reported that Orrery had been reprieved by the Commons by two votes (the king not being happy at his prosecution) and that the king had made Buckingham and Orrery ‘give him their word that they would not take any proceedings, direct or indirect, against the duke of Ormond’.<sup>224</sup> No impeachment was brought in against Ormond, and the committee of grievances of the House of Commons refused to receive a petition from Meath.<sup>225</sup></p><p>According to Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, on 10 Dec. 1669, at a late night meeting ‘of the king and junto’, Ormond was one of those, along with York, Arlington and Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, who carried a vote for the prorogation of Parliament. At this date Buckingham was trying, but failing, to prise Arlington away from the Ormond faction, which consisted of ‘the duke of York’s friends, the Church, the old cavaliers, and the Clarendonians.’<sup>226</sup> At the end of December 1669 Colbert described the two competing ‘factions’ at court, one led by York, Ormond and Arlington and the other by Buckingham and Orrery.<sup>227</sup></p><p>Having missed the opening two days of the 1670-1 session, Ormond first sat on 21 Feb. 1670. He attended on 35 days of the session, before its adjournment on 11 Apr. 1670 (87.5 per cent of the total). He was named to ten committees, including a small subcommittee to prepare a clause for the conventicles bill (23 March).<sup>228</sup> On three occasions (10, 21, 24 Mar.), Ormond (as steward) was deputed to wait upon the king with messages from the House. He opposed the bill permitting John Manners*, then styled Lord Roos, later duke of Rutland, to remarry, signing protests against its passage on 17 and 28 March. On 30 Mar., 2 and 5 Apr. he was named to report conferences with the Commons on the amendments made to the conventicles bill. Towards the end of the session, on 21 Mar. 1670, Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> thought that at court ‘all regard my Lord of Ormond’s interest as much strengthened and amended’.<sup>229</sup> Certainly, during March Ormond continued to attend meetings at the treasury concerned with Irish financial matters, as he did in May and July.<sup>230</sup> In July he intervened to recommend Bristol’s son, to Sir Richard Rainsford<sup>‡</sup> for the vacant seat at Northampton, ‘his friendship for that family being long and great’.<sup>231</sup></p><p>Following the sale of Moor Park, Ormond moved his main residence to Clarendon House in late June 1670.<sup>232</sup> The lack of a country retreat meant that he led a more peripatetic existence when away from London. It was while on a visit to Gorhambury (seat of Sir Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup>) on 22 Aug. that he penned a letter to the Irish lord lieutenant, now Lord Berkeley, defending himself from a ‘false information’ which had suggested that Ormond was censorious of his proceedings in Ireland concerning the ‘Remonstrants’ (those supporters of the remonstrance to the pope).<sup>233</sup> The next day Ormond was at Ampthill, the seat of Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, en route for Derbyshire. He moved on via the earl of Bedford’s, Northampton and Leicester before arriving at the earl of Chesterfield’s. From there he intended to visit Chatsworth, and by 16 Sept. he was at Hardwick, writing to ask the king whether he wished him to attend the commission into the Irish revenue in London, or the king himself at Newmarket, ‘being prepared for either attendance’.<sup>234</sup> On 25 Sept. he wrote from Kimbolton (Manchester’s residence in Huntingdonshire), stating that he was returning to Newmarket, after being absent from court for a month.<sup>235</sup> In early October he was at Euston with Arlington and the queen.<sup>236</sup></p><p>Ormond was in attendance on the opening day of the adjourned session, on 24 Oct. 1670, attending in all on 105 days, 84 per cent of the total. He was missing on 14 Nov. when he was excused attendance following a call of the House, but was present on the following day. His rate of attendance must be considered even more impressive considering that the bulk of his absences were the result of his abduction on 6 Dec. by a gang of men led by Thomas Blood.<sup>237</sup> Ormond was able to free himself relatively unharmed, but the assault was the subject of an investigation by a committee of the Lords appointed on 14 Jan. 1671, which reported on 9 Mar., and led to a bill being brought in to convict the perpetrators of the crime unless they surrendered themselves. It was widely thought that either Buckingham or the duchess of Cleveland was behind the attempt.<sup>238</sup></p><p>The removal of his official responsibility for Ireland freed up more of Ormond’s time for parliamentary duties. He was named to 27 committees during the session. His committee work included chairing on 21 Mar. 1671 the committee investigating the printed version of the notorious speech on supply delivered by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, in February. In the committee on the bill to prevent the growth of popery, on 13 Apr., Ormond was named to a subcommittee to draw up the test and oath according to the debate in the committee, but it appears not to have met. On 14 Apr. he took the chair of two committees for the purposes of their adjournment, on the bill taking account of the money paid to loyal, indigent officers and on the bill preventing the planting of tobacco in England and for regulating the plantation trade.<sup>239</sup></p><p>On 3 Mar. and again on 10 Mar. 1671 Ormond was appointed to a conference on the petition to the king against the growth of popery. He was then appointed to find out from the king when the two Houses could present their petition and address to him, reporting back on the following day. On 13 Mar. Ormond signified to the House that the bill allowing the guardians of the duke of Norfolk to make leases of Arundel House had been agreed to by the king. He was then nominated a reporter the conferences on the Boston-Trent navigation bill and the bill to prevent merchant ships being delivered up to pirates. On 15 Mar. he entered his dissent against a resolution to suspend the judgment against John Cusack in the case of <em>Cusack v. William Usher</em>, an appeal against a decree in the Irish court of claims, and on the following day he was one of four peers to enter his dissent against the resolution to suspend it for two months. On 27 Mar. Ormond informed the Lords that the king intended a recess of Parliament on 8 Apr. (although the House continued to sit until 22 April). On 17 Apr. he was ordered to ask the king when he would receive the joint address of both Houses for the encouragement of wearing domestic manufactures, reporting back on the 20th, and being deputed on the 22nd to thank the king for his favourable response.</p><p>Meanwhile, Ormond was busy in defence of the Irish land settlement, in a manner which eventually impinged upon Parliament. In January 1671 Ormond opposed a petition presented to the Privy Council by Richard Talbot on behalf of the Catholic nobility and gentry against the land settlement, which was referred to a committee including Ormond on 18 January.<sup>240</sup> On 1 Feb. attorney general Finch, who was ordered to report on the petition, recommended maintaining the settlement.<sup>241</sup> Nevertheless, a new committee was appointed on 4 Feb., which excluded Ormond. On 20 Feb. Colbert reported that Ormond,</p><blockquote><p>who has the greatest interest in this inquiry, and has seen it as being strongly supported by his enemy the duke of Buckingham, has moved all the friends he has in Parliament to attack the whole religion, and by this attack, so agreeable to the people of England, to divert all the harm with which the Irish affair could threaten him. His intrigue has produced a committee in the lower chamber which has proposed the renewal and execution of the most severe penalties against Catholics, and above all against the priests.<sup>242</sup></p></blockquote><p>This was a reference to the report, on 17 Feb., of the Commons committee on the growth of popery which contained several resolutions about Ireland. Despite several other committees of council being named to deal with Talbot’s petition, nothing conclusive was proved against Ormond’s management and the affair petered out in 1673, amid renewed pressure from the Commons in support of the existing land settlement.<sup>243</sup></p><p>Perhaps because of all this activity around the land settlement, Ormond adopted a relatively low profile. He did participate in the usual ceremonial rituals, such as the installation of a new batch of Garter knights in May 1671.<sup>244</sup> However, when Dr William Denton was discussing political alignments in mid-September, he added ‘but I hear nothing at all of Ormond.’<sup>245</sup> By early October 1672, Ormond had ‘taken J. Speaker’s [Sir John Lenthall’s<sup>‡</sup>] house at Burford for the health of his lady’ from whence on 2 Dec. he wrote that ‘there has seldom been a conjuncture of affairs whence greater alterations could reasonably be expected.’<sup>246</sup> Finances were still a problem and his duchess considered that Ormond ‘must resolve either to betake himself to live in the country here or go into Ireland, for impossible it will be for him to subsist at London.’<sup>247</sup></p><p>Ormond spent much of February 1673 engaged in correspondence with the representatives of the Stanley family, working towards a marriage between the young William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, and Ormond’s granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth Butler.<sup>248</sup> Ormond became Derby’s legal guardian on 26 June, and the marriage took place on 10 July.<sup>249</sup> This alliance led to fresh complications, for soon Ormond was involved in a dispute over the portion to be paid to John Murray, 2nd earl and future marquess of Atholl [S], husband of Derby’s aunt.</p><p>Ormond attended on the opening day of the 1673 session, 4 February. He did not attend between 5 Feb. and 8 Mar. and was excused on 13 Feb. but even so he was present for 22 days of the session, 54 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. On 8 Mar. Ormond was named to ask the king when the House could wait on him to give thanks for his speech earlier in the day. On 19 Mar. Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, registered his proxy with Ormond. On 24 Mar. Ormond was named to report a conference on the bill against popish recusants. On 26 Mar. he was one of those delegated to ask the king when the committees of the two Houses should wait on him to ask him to wear English manufactures and on the following day he was nominated to attend the king on the matter. On 29 Mar. he was appointed to report two conferences on the bill for the ease of Dissenters. Ormond took the sacrament at St Martin’s on 6 Apr. to qualify under the Test Act.<sup>250</sup> In June, Ormond was involved in marriage negotiations for his son, Lord John Butler (the future earl of Gowran [I]).</p><h2><em>Return to favour, 1673-7</em></h2><p>The weakening of the Cabal saw the return to influence of Ormond. By June 1673 he had returned to the cabinet council.<sup>251</sup> According to Ranelagh, this was ‘intended only as a feather in the cap.’<sup>252</sup> However, by July a correspondent of William Williamson<sup>‡</sup> referred to Ormond’s ‘greatness in the management of affairs’, and Colbert wrote of his reunion with Arlington and admission into ‘la jonte’ (the junto) and the king’s secrets.<sup>253</sup> In July Ormond was attending the committee of the council dealing with Irish affairs, and coming into conflict with Anglesey at the full council.<sup>254</sup> Ormond appears to have been in a constant battle of wits with Ranelagh over the payment of what was due to him under the Irish land settlements, with Ranelagh questioning further payments in September and again in December 1673.<sup>255</sup></p><p>Ormond attended the prorogation on 20 Oct. 1673. Around this date, but before the start of the 1673 session on 27 Oct., Ormond, Shaftesbury (as Ashley had become), Arlington and Secretary Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> advised the king to send York away from the court.<sup>256</sup> According to Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> on 25 Oct. ‘Ormond is in great credit with all parties and firmly principled for religion and against the war, and so is Prince Rupert, but, for the rest, engaged in no parties.’<sup>257</sup> When Parliament resumed Ormond attended on the opening day of the new session, 27 Oct. 1673, and on each of the four days it sat. Also on 27 Oct. Ormond was one of those peers appointed by the House to give the king thanks for his speech. He was named to three committees. On 30 Oct. Colbert explained the attack on Speaker Seymour in the Commons as being promoted by Arlington’s friend Littleton, and by the interests of Shaftesbury and Ormond.<sup>258</sup></p><p>According to Colbert, on 10 Nov. 1673, Ormond, Prince Rupert and ‘all their cabal witnessed by their sad countenance the displeasure they had at the disgrace of their friend’, Shaftesbury, following news of his dismissal from the chancellorship.<sup>259</sup> In Ormond’s case this unusual expression of empathy with Shaftesbury may have been due to a belief that his dismissal had been accomplished by French influence.<sup>260</sup> Relations between Ormond and the new lord lieutenant of Ireland, Essex, were cordial and in December 1673 Ormond wrote approvingly of Essex’s policy towards the Irish Catholics, although he also felt that Essex should exercise more of an oversight over Irish revenue matters.<sup>261</sup></p><p>Relations among other ministers were not so good, however, and the decision to let Parliament sit in January 1674 in an attempt to extricate England from the war with the Dutch made the divisions among them even worse. On 6 Jan. 1674 in council Arlington and Ormond opposed the ‘proposition’ the king wanted to make to Parliament on the following day, presumably a reference to allowing a small parliamentary committee to inspect the treaty with France.<sup>262</sup> Ormond attended on the opening day of the 1674 session, 7 Jan., when he was named to thank the king for his speech. He attended on all 38 days of the session, being appointed to three committees. Also on 7 Jan., he was variously described as speaking ‘heatedly’ or in ‘plain English’ concerning Buckingham’s dalliance with the countess of Shrewsbury.<sup>263</sup> On 8 Jan. he was named to attend the king to find out when the House should attend him with their address for the removal of papists from London. A rumour that he would face impeachment proved to be unfounded.<sup>264</sup> On 10 Jan. 1674 Conway informed Essex that Ormond faced impeachment in the Lords, while Arlington would suffer the same fate in the Commons.<sup>265</sup> Although an attempt was made to impeach Arlington, albeit without success, no move was made against Ormond. It was testimony to the difficulty of keeping track of the constantly changing factional alliances at court that whilst on 1 Jan. 1674 Ruvigny was confident that Ormond and Arlington had ‘got the duke of York on their side’, by 11 Jan. he was equally confident that York had turned against them. York now believed that they had deceived him into joining against Buckingham, holding out the hope that it would soften Parliament’s view of him, but that instead he would be attacked and not protected.<sup>266</sup> On 12 Jan. Ormond was named to attend the king to ask when the Houses should attend him with their petition for a fast. When Buckingham appeared before the Commons on 14 Jan., he named Ormond and Arlington as having procured vast grants from the crown, in Ormond’s case £500,000 ‘which was upon record’.<sup>267</sup> On 19 Jan. Ruvigny reported that Arlington’s fate lay in the balance, but that he was being supported by ‘the cabals of the court, of the duke of Ormond, of the Spanish and of the Dutch’.<sup>268</sup></p><p>On 24 Jan. 1674 Ormond was named to ask the king when the House could wait upon him to give thanks for his speech communicating the letter and articles of the States General for a peace. On 29 Jan. Ormond reported from the committee of the whole on the bill regulating the trial of peers. On 3 Feb. Essex registered his proxy with Ormond. That day Ormond was named to report on the conference on giving advice to the king about a treaty with the States General and was then one of those named to ask the king when he would receive the joint address of the Houses on the matter. On 6 Feb. he was one of the peers named to consider the conditions under which Buckingham and the countess of Shrewsbury were to give £10,000 security to abide by the order of the House that they not converse or cohabit together. On 11 Feb. he was one of the peers deputed to ask the king when the House could attend him with their thanks for his speech that day on the peace. On 16 Feb. Ruvigny reported that Ormond and Arlington preferred to continue Parliament, rather than prorogue it as was favoured by York and Danby.<sup>269</sup> On 18 Feb. Ormond reported progress from the committee of the whole considering the security of Ireland. According to Ruvigny the Lords had asked Ormond, amongst other things, to prepare memoranda to explain the state of Ireland, but the committee did not meet again before the sudden prorogation on 24 February. Ruvigny believed the secrecy and surprise with which the prorogation was carried out may have been to prevent the delivery of a report into Arlington’s activities, also supposed to contain accusations of ‘capital things’ against Ormond.<sup>270</sup></p><p>At the beginning of March 1674 Verney reported that Ormond would be travelling to Ireland to inspect his estates, ‘but not with any public character’.<sup>271</sup> Such a report did not prevent rumours that Ormond’s real intention was to replace Essex in Ireland. Some reassurance was offered to Essex by the king but William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> nevertheless told Essex that he needed to maintain the animosity between Ranelagh (who was much in the king’s favour) and Ormond; ‘for though Ormond be more a man of honour, yet he is very desirous to my knowledge to go into Essex his place, and did employ Carlingford to [the] duke [of York], for that purpose.’<sup>272</sup> Ormond intended to travel to Ireland in about mid-May, but before he went he held three meetings at the treasury with Danby and Lord Keeper Finch.<sup>273</sup> By 1 July he had arrived at Kilkenny, where he remained apart from a brief visit to Dublin to wait on Essex, receiving an ‘obliging’ reception.<sup>274</sup></p><p>Ormond expressed some doubts as to whether his removal into Ireland would actually improve his private affairs, but he also believed that there was no need of him in England, where Ossory could keep a watching brief over his affairs and give him ‘timely notice’ if his presence in England were required.<sup>275</sup> He was worried, though, over his retention of the lord stewardship. In November 1674, Lane reported rumours that Buckingham’s friends were taking advantage of the absence from court of both Ormond and Ossory to reconcile him to the king, which would result in Ormond’s replacement by Buckingham as lord steward.<sup>276</sup> In January 1675 Ormond was perturbed by the marriage of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, to the sister of the duchess of Portsmouth and the influence it might allow him, given that the Herberts had previously held the lord stewardship. At the same time he was pondering the acquisition of a higher English title, now that Lauderdale had received an English earldom (of Guilford), although he feared that Lauderdale’s power might be able to block it.<sup>277</sup></p><p>By mid January 1675 Ormond was contemplating a sojourn at Bath for his health, and Lane was encouraging his return to England for the parliamentary session in order to defend himself against Lauderdale’s ‘malice’, and other opponents such as Berkeley of Stratton and Orrery.<sup>278</sup> By mid-February he was asking his steward, James Clark, to consult Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> on keeping the lord steward’s table during a Parliament, but with due economy, as the duchess would be remaining in Ireland.<sup>279</sup> On 10 Feb. 1675 Essex was so uncertain about Ormond’s intentions to attend Parliament that he wrote to Secretary Coventry to find out upon whom he should bestow his proxy.<sup>280</sup> This may indicate a cooling of relations, but overall Ormond’s relations with Essex were much better than with his predecessors, even if occasionally Essex felt it necessary to express jealous misgivings about Ormond’s financial rewards.<sup>281</sup> There were some, though, like Conway, who were trying to undermine the relationship. Conway told Essex that he had told Danby that the way to unite the court behind Danby’s Anglicanism, while sacrificing the Presbyterians and papists, was to remove Ormond and Arlington. Danby had asked him why Essex ‘would not write to him his apprehensions of Ormond, the danger of his interest in Ireland and the insecurity to all by reason of Arran’s regiment, that if he would write to him but one word of it, it should be all removed.’<sup>282</sup></p><p>Ormond arrived back in London on 12 Apr. 1675, the day before Parliament sat.<sup>283</sup> By this date Ormond was perceived as in the opposite camp to Danby. On 13 Apr., in the debate on the Address, two alternative questions were proposed. The motion for thanks to be given to the king for his speech was carried. Ormond and Arlington were apparently for the alternative proposal which would thank the king only for the gracious expressions in his speech rather than the speech itself. They did not sign the ensuing protest but their actions nevertheless caused ‘great wonder that two such officers as they, with two principal white staves, should act at that rate’.<sup>284</sup> Ormond was then ordered to attend the king with the vote of thanks. He was named to seven committees during the session. On the 14 Apr. St Albans registered his proxy with Ormond, but it was cancelled a week later. On 29 Apr., Ormond was excused attendance on the Lords. This was one of the few days on which he failed to attend, being present on 39 days of the session (95 per cent of the total). Ormond’s disaffection from Danby was perhaps further reflected in Ruvigny’s report in mid May that Arlington and Ormond had sometimes voted with ‘the quick-tempered cabal in the upper chamber’.<sup>285</sup></p><p>During June 1675, when the dispute between the House over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> was at its height, Ormond was named to report two conferences, both on questions of the Lords judicature: <em>Stoughton</em><em> v. Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup></em> (2 June) and <em>Crispe v. Thomas Dalmahoy<sup>‡</sup></em> (3 June). On 4 June he was one of the peers named to address the king to appoint a new serjeant at arms to attend the Commons, following the Lords’ action in ordering Serjeant Topham into custody. He was then ordered to present the vote of thanks and address to the king to remove the lieutenant of the Tower for refusing to deliver up to the Lords the prisoners sent there by order of the Commons.</p><p>Ormond made a somewhat ill informed intervention into Lancashire politics following the death of Sir Gilbert Ireland<sup>‡</sup>, member for Liverpool in April 1675. He originally recommended a Mr Fleetwood (probably Edward<sup>‡</sup>), only to backtrack in May once he found out that William Banks<sup>‡</sup>, another client of the Stanleys, had a much better claim to the seat.<sup>286</sup> Ormond was in contact with Derby again over another vacancy at Liverpool, following the death of Banks in early July 1676, particularly over the wisdom of backing the candidature of Thomas Savage, styled Lord Colchester (<em>d</em>.1679) if success seemed doubtful.<sup>287</sup></p><p>By the summer of 1675, Essex was coming into increasing conflict with Ranelagh over the Irish revenue. Harbord was of the opinion that if Ormond were in London he would do Essex ‘some good and no harm’ on the issue.<sup>288</sup> In July Ormond took the opportunity to ask the king to investigate ‘the performance or failure of my Lord of Ranelagh and his partners’ undertaking’, because ‘use was made of that undertaking as of a strong argument to prove that the revenue was ill managed in the time of my government.’<sup>289</sup> The possibility of being vindicated delayed Ormond’s return to Ireland after the prorogation. The king finally put an end to this controversy in May 1676, by declaring in council that he was ‘entirely satisfied with the conduct of’ Ormond and Ossory ‘as to the good management of the revenue during their government’.<sup>290</sup></p><p>On 4 Sept. Ormond wrote to Arlington that his plans to return to Ireland had been changed because his presence was required to secure his £5,000 p.a., which the new farm of the Irish revenue might bring into ‘an inconvenient state of uncertainty.’<sup>291</sup> Ormond attended on the opening day of the session, 13 Oct. 1675. He attended on 11 days of the session (52 per cent), and was named to two committees. On 14 Oct. he registered the proxy of his son, Arran, which was cancelled on 15 Nov., when Ormond entered his own proxy with Ossory. On 8 Nov. he was named to the committee to enquire into the publication of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country</em>. On 10 Nov. he was absent for the first time during the session, but was not listed as absent at the call of the House on that day.</p><p>With relations between Ormond and Ranelagh at least patched up by the king in May 1676, there was a concomitant rapprochement between Ormond and Danby.<sup>292</sup> The ever suspicious Harbord presumed from this that ‘Ormond is in great hopes of succeeding Essex’. The lord treasurer ‘works upon this fable that way, for he is come into him; and [the] treasurer [Danby] doth desire [the] king to make a good understanding between him, Arlington and Secretary Coventry that so all may join to get money. And there is no manner of care or art wanting to win men to it.’<sup>293</sup> However, in the accompanying debate over whether or not to dissolve Parliament, Ormond pressed for a dissolution, only to lose the argument to Danby and his allies.<sup>294</sup> Orrery still thought the news of a friendship between Danby and Ormond was ‘but talk’, although the town discourse was that Danby would allow Ormond to be lord lieutenant both to ‘ruin’ him and ‘send him away’ from London. Williamson recorded more than one meeting in June 1676 ‘about the preparations for the Parliament’ involving Ormond, Finch, Danby and Lauderdale.<sup>295</sup> Orrery, too, referred to a meeting between Finch, Danby, Ormond, Coventry, and Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, which ‘is like to come to nothing’.<sup>296</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 30 June 1676 Ormond found Cornwallis not guilty of murder at his trial by the court of the lord steward.<sup>297</sup> By August another crisis was brewing over the Irish revenue, with Sir Henry Capell*, the future Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, writing to Ormond of the failure of Ranelagh and his partners to make the specified payments and Essex’s response in letters to the council. Capell thought that Ormond’s ‘counsel and assistance’ to Essex was now important.<sup>298</sup> As Anglesey reported to Essex on 8 Aug. 1676, ‘Ormond hath spoken plain English’ against Ranelagh.<sup>299</sup> In November, the Irish revenue farmers appear to have resumed payment of Ormond’s money which had been stopped at Michaelmas.<sup>300</sup></p><p>Ormond attended on all 49 days of the session of 1677-8, before its adjournment on 16 Apr. 1677. Essex registered his proxy with Ormond on 13 Jan. 1677, cancelling it on 3 Dec., and St Albans registered his proxy with Ormond on 10 Feb. 1677, cancelling it on 12 March. On the opening day of the session, 15 Feb., following the debate upon whether Parliament was dissolved, Ormond supported Danby’s suggestion that the House consider how to proceed against those peers that had asserted the dissolution, by moving that his old enemy Buckingham be questioned. On 17 Feb. it was Ormond who moved that Buckingham should be sent to the Tower.<sup>301</sup> Over the course of the session, he was named to 30 committees, chairing several, including the last meeting on the bill to augment small vicarages, which he reported on 2 Mar.; the bill for the better payment of church rates and small tithes (2 Mar); the estate bill of Sir Trevor Williams<sup>‡</sup> (17 and 20 Mar.), which he reported on 22 Mar.; and the bill for encouraging seamen and ordering watermen on the Thames (28 and 29 Mar.), which he reported on 29 Mar. as not to be proceeded with.<sup>302</sup> By the end of February 1677 Ormond wrote to the Irish lord chancellor, Michael Boyle, archbishop of Armagh, ‘it is plainly observable that since the commitment of the Lords and the prosecution of the pamphlets which asserted that this Parliament was dissolved, the nonconformists of all sorts have been disappointed in their expectations, and that a proportionable dejection of spirit has seized them, and we have a very hopeful prospect of a good session in Parliament’.<sup>303</sup> Ormond seemed to be maintaining good relations with Essex, for the latter wrote to thank Ormond on 6 Mar. 1677 for ‘the good character which his grace has been pleased to give to the writer, upon occasion of the debates relating to the affairs of Ireland,’ referring to events which took place in council in February.<sup>304</sup></p><p>On 1 Mar. 1677 Ormond confirmed to the House details of the account given by Danby of the interrogation by the king of Dr Nicholas Carey concerning the publication of <em>The Grand Question concerning the Prorogation of this Parliament</em>. Ormond was lobbied by Justin McCarty to secure an exemption from the bill for recalling troops from French service, which subsequently was lost in the Lords.<sup>305</sup> On 12 Mar. Ormond was named to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on the address sent up by the Commons on the need to preserve the Spanish Netherlands, and was then named as a manager of the conference on the 13th and 15th, the second of which he reported back to the House. The upshot of this conference was a joint address to the king, Ormond being one of those appointed to attend the king on the matter. On 20 Mar. his report from the committee for privileges resulted in a resolution that ‘noblewomen and widows of peers ought to enjoy the privilege of Parliament’. Also on the 20th he was named to mediate between the parties in the dispute between the Howards and Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester.<sup>306</sup> On 3 Apr. he was named to a conference on the bill for the naturalization of the king’s subjects born abroad during the late ‘troubles’. Also on 3 Apr. he was named to mediate between Lady Leigh and her husband, Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh. During April he was named to the several conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill for building 30 men-of-war. The last of these took place on the 16th, when Charles Hatton recorded that ‘Ormond was a manager but spoke not.’<sup>307</sup> The Lords did not insist upon their amendments but appointed a committee, which included Ormond, to draw up an address to the king explaining that this was due to their ‘duty and fidelity’ to him, and that, for his service, they had ‘laid aside for this time so great a right’. On 14 Apr. he was one of the peers appointed to mediate in the dispute between John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland and Sir Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, in the hope of producing a settlement before the House considered the case.</p><h2><em>Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1677-85</em></h2><p>Sir Cyril Wyche<sup>‡</sup> informed Essex in March 1677 that the two parties contending to replace him in Ireland had cancelled each other out: ‘Ormond labours hard for himself, but is hindered by Ranelagh’, who in turn favoured Monmouth, with Conway as his deputy. Danby and the duchess of Portsmouth were also against Ormond, although others thought that ‘the services of Ormond this session to treasurer and party must be rewarded with that government’, especially because he was ‘now very well with’ the duke of York. Ormond was, though, victorious in the battle to succeed Essex. He attempted to smooth things over with his predecessor, writing to him on 20 Apr. 1677 that ‘there has been so much contrivance during the time of your government to do me ill offices with your excellency that I cannot doubt but on your leaving it and my succeeding at least the same art will be continued.’<sup>308</sup> A conciliatory Ormond also accepted the king’s attempts to reconcile him with Ranelagh, thinking himself ‘sufficiently vindicated against his papers and orations,’ and expecting that the lord chancellor and lord treasurer would examine the accounts so that they could be eventually closed.<sup>309</sup> Despite his apparent triumph, Essex’s brother seems to have continued to believe that Ormond might be thwarted in his quest for the lieutenancy, particularly because Danby and Ormond had come into conflict over claims that the lord treasurer had set the farm of the excise at too low a rate, at £30,000 p.a. Both York and the king both encouraged the reconciliation during May.<sup>310</sup> Claims that it was successful and that ‘all are friends’ proved to be an exaggeration, for on 21 Aug. Ranelagh acknowledged that ‘though my lord of Ormond and I parted with great professions, yet I have more than a little reason to conclude he will lose no opportunity to destroy me’.<sup>311</sup></p><p>Ormond attended on all of the five days on which the House sat between 21 and 28 May 1677. On the 29th, the day following the adjournment of the House to the middle of July, James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury asked for Ormond’s advice and assistance in procuring his release from the Tower, which was effected shortly afterwards.<sup>312</sup> Despite announcing his intention to leave London on 5 July, Ormond was still in London on the 16th when he attended the further adjournment of Parliament, following which it was reported that he would ‘very suddenly begin his journey for Ireland’.<sup>313</sup> One of the reasons for the delay was undoubtedly the vexed question of the Irish revenue, with Ormond attending the treasury on four occasions in July 1677.<sup>314</sup></p><p>At about this date Shaftesbury classed Ormond as thrice vile; despite this indication of his firm value to the court in Parliament, and although in December 1677 Danby had asked the king if he would command him to attend the ensuing session on 15 Jan. 1678, Charles II thought that he would be more useful in Ireland.<sup>315</sup> Thus, on 16 Feb., Ormond was excused attendance on the Lords, having sent in his proxy to Essex. He kept a close eye on manoeuvring in London, noting in February of Buckingham’s return to favour that ‘I shall attend the consequences, until they show themselves, with as little disturbance as any man on either side of the water, though I have had the fortune, good or bad, not to be in his grace’s favour’.<sup>316</sup> More practically, also in February 1678, Ormond was corresponding with Danby on English complaints about the export of Irish wool.<sup>317</sup> At the end of March, Ormond was still intent on building bridges with Danby, in case of further inquiries into his management of Ireland:</p><blockquote><p>In such a conjuncture I am not ignorant how useful and obliging your interposition may be to prevent early and disadvantageous impressions, that they take no place till a fair disinquisition of the matter shall be allowed, that then it may appear whether private interest or discontent, or the king’s service is the true ground of information.<sup>318</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ormond’s political philosophy was summed up in April 1678 by his comment to Southwell that he ‘does not ridiculously affect to swim against a strong tide; neither does he give himself to be carried away with it. If fixed principles fail him now; better that, than departure from them.’<sup>319</sup></p><p>The summer of 1678 saw some preparations for a Parliament in Ireland, especially a bill of confirmation for the Irish land settlement. Ormond regarded this as essential, although he expected it to be attacked by those interests adversely affected by it.<sup>320</sup> However, Ormond was ‘so far from thinking myself concerned in the defence of every part of it that I really profess that I do not understand it, but did and do rely so far upon the honesty and ability of the king’s learned counsel and judges – all Protestants, and I think all concerned in some new interest – that I do not believe they would draw a bill for the destruction of it.’<sup>321</sup> In December, Ormond was critical of Orrery, who had repeatedly complained that the bill for confirmation of estates favoured the Irish. Orrery had not endeavoured directly and openly to amend the bill, but had sent his objections to members of the Commons in England, with the intention of increasing the apprehensions of the English and to create distrust of Ormond.<sup>322</sup></p><p>During the second half of 1678 enquiries were made, via Ormond’s sons, Arran and Ossory, about his willingness to part with the lord stewardship. Ossory suspected the intended beneficiary was probably the king’s illegitimate son (and Danby’s son-in-law) Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth.<sup>323</sup> Then in January 1679 the king broached the same subject, forcing Ormond to point out that his removal would be taken as a mark of the king’s displeasure which he could ‘very ill support and very hardly dissemble.’<sup>324</sup></p><p>Ormond was much exercised by the problem of security during the Popish Plot, but was keen not to overreact and thus create the disturbance he was trying to avoid. He spent much time reassuring the English in Ireland that they were not in danger.<sup>325</sup> By early November 1678 Southwell thought that the situation in England merited Ormond’s presence, ‘not only to play his own game, but that of the king who very probably will ere long be in some puzzle and distraction who to trust’. On 30 Nov. Southwell reported that both he and the earl of Longford [I] (as Aungier had become), had shown in the Commons Ormond’s ‘late proclamation for purging out revolters from the army of Ireland, and for removing of fairs and markets from towns believed to be in dangerous condition’, which, he wrote, ‘give great satisfaction.’ He also suggested drawing up an account of what had been done in Ireland under Ormond’s administration in order to contrast the state of the kingdom, especially in matters ecclesiastical, with what it was during the administrations of Robartes and Berkeley.<sup>326</sup> On one of the major issues of the session, that of removing Catholic peers from the Lords, Ormond later (1683) wrote that had he been in England he would have opposed the measure on grounds of conscience, because opinion ought not to be the cause of taking away a man’s birthright and because it is not for the House of Lords to show the way of turning one another out by a majority of votes.<sup>327</sup></p><p>With a new Parliament due to be elected in England, Ormond no longer saw the time as propitious for calling a new Parliament in Ireland.<sup>328</sup> Instead of worrying about Irish legislation, Ormond now had some electioneering to consider. He supported the candidacy of the solicitor general, Heneage Finch*, later Baron Guernsey and earl of Aylesford, for Oxford University.<sup>329</sup> On 1 Mar. Ormond gave his optimistic assessment of the election and forthcoming Parliament: ‘the elections are not so bad as we feared, nor so good as some hoped. I think monarchy will not be struck at the root, but I fear it will be very close lopped. I am in hope the duke has found his error and will return to our Church. He has admitted the conversation of some of our bishops, as it is said upon that point, and I believe so, for I know not what other business he could have with them.’<sup>330</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, given the furore over Catholic influence at court, Ormond was concerned about being labelled pro-Catholic. He was particularly worried about the inference drawn from his taking Catholics into his closet, which he claimed was the common policy of all chief governors and essential ‘if they hope to [obtain] good intelligence or to keep that people from uniting themselves generally against our government and religion’.<sup>331</sup></p><p>The new English Parliament assembled on 6 March 1679, and by the end of the month Ormond certainly felt he had much to complain about, particularly the manner in which all his measures for the security of the crown and the Protestant interest had been misconstrued.<sup>332</sup> Early in the session Strafford, ‘set on by my Lord Halifax’ [George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax], spoke of his fears for the safety of Ireland to the committee examining into the Plot, leading Shaftesbury to speak gravely of his own misgivings of the management of affairs there. Strafford had previously, towards the end of the Cavalier Parliament, accused Ormond of minding nothing but ‘playing at cards, dancing and revelling,’ and spoken of the insolence of the Catholic clergy, causing Ormond to worry that ‘an ill impression might be left with the Lords of me in a particular very subject to misconstruction, especially of one in my condition and station’.<sup>333</sup> On 25 Mar. Shaftesbury made a widely-reported speech in the Lords, generally interpreted as in part an attack on the present government in Ireland and its perceived favour to Catholics. Ossory reported that there were suspicions of Ormond because many thought that he owed his place to York, and that he had been seen in conversation with Henry Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Wardour, one of the accused Catholic peers, although Ossory felt that Ormond’s past service ought to shield him from attack on that score.<sup>334</sup> At the end of the month Ormond responded that Shaftesbury did not like the management of Ireland, and probably never would while he remained in the government. ‘He was of the same opinion once before, but for a quite opposite reason. Then I was not Frenchman enough, nor satisfied with the commission set on foot by Colonel Talbot’s negotiation in favour of the Irish Papists and to the ruin of the English Protestant interest in Ireland’. Shaftesbury had been one of the commission, ‘and of all the council I only opposed till the Parliament thought fit to address against it.’ The reference was to Shaftesbury’s support for the proclamation to let Catholics into corporations issued under Berkeley’s lieutenancy in 1672.<sup>335</sup></p><p>Discussion of Irish affairs in the Lords continued into April, though Shaftesbury denied to Ossory that any of it was aimed at Ormond personally, and rather more towards Col. John Fitzpatrick, Ormond’s brother-in-law. They resulted in an address to the king, agreed on 15 Apr., to instruct the lord lieutenant to take firmer measures against Catholics.<sup>336</sup> Towards the end of April 1679 Ossory detected rumours that Ranelagh ‘is getting up articles to present to the ... Commons against you’. Ormond correctly predicted a rehash of the complaints made by Meath and Peter Talbot nearly ten years before.<sup>337</sup> Nor was he unduly worried by the rumours , for as he wrote to Coventry, he could not remember a session, from which he was absent, ‘which did not bring hot alarms from his friends of preparations to accuse him.’ However, he did consider coming over to England and leaving Ossory in his place as lord deputy.<sup>338</sup></p><p>About March-April 1679, Danby noted Ormond’s absence when estimating his voting strength among the Lords. At the beginning of May Ormond seemed willing to dispose of his steward’s place to Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton), for £10,000, but only if the king approved, and only for ready money, preferably to be deposited in Holland. On 21 May Ormond made an interesting point about his office, which made the sale of it more attractive: if the succession were changed by Parliament, it would require oaths from office-holders to make it effectual. He was, he wrote, ‘somewhat tender in the point of oaths. The matter must be true in my opinion, just in what they bind to, and compatible with other lawful oaths formerly taken by me, or else I shall refuse them, cost me what it will.’ Winchester, however, declined the deal in July.<sup>339</sup></p><p>In mid-May 1679 Henry Coventry concurred with Ormond’s decision to remain in Ireland: to come over to England now ‘would but precipitate those designs of your enemies by giving them the alarm.’ Whereas before, he suggested, Ormond’s danger lay at court and his strength in the Commons, now the prevailing interest in the lower House lay with men of different principles.<sup>340</sup> Following the advice of his friends, on 25 May Ormond wrote to congratulate Shaftesbury on his assumption of the lord presidency, although he left it to his friends to decide whether to deliver the missive.<sup>341</sup> He did not receive a reply.<sup>342</sup> York, even in exile, remained a supporter, noting in May 1679 that Scotland and Ireland would remain loyal if the king would continue Lauderdale and Ormond in office.<sup>343</sup></p><p>Over the summer of 1679 Ormond’s friends reminded him of the need to respond to the address of the Lords of 17 Apr. relating to Irish security and warned him that Shaftesbury and others continued to question his governance in Ireland, particularly his failure to nurture the Protestant interest. For Ormond the most difficult issue related to the ‘guardianship of the children of papists, wherein we are bound in £10,000 to see young Aylmer [?Sir Gerald Aylmer of Balrath] educated a Protestant, which has been neglected and the boy is in France, but I will do the best I can to have him suddenly brought over’.<sup>344</sup> Now that Essex was a member of the treasury commission, and involved in Irish revenue matters, there was a significant cooling of his relationship with Ormond, though his participation in the attacks on the Irish administration in March and April had already brought some bitterness.<sup>345</sup> In late September 1679, Ossory, expecting a meeting of the new Parliament, was anticipating an impeachment against Ormond, but the Parliament elected in August and September did not meet until October 1680.<sup>346</sup> There was, however, no let-up in the pressure against Ormond. In April 1680 he was said to be being attacked by Essex and Shaftesbury ‘with an ingenuity equal to that of Sir William Waller, Oates, and Bedloe.’ Bedloe was now in Ireland and Ossory warned against him, although Ormond does not seem to have needed any warnings when it came to dealing with informers.<sup>347</sup> When the Irish informers left for England at the end of April 1680, Ormond was confident that much skill would be needed to make anything material out of their narratives and as much indulgence to make them creditable witnesses.<sup>348</sup> He was correct to be suspicious of them, for when they reached London, it was reported on 11 May that ‘Shaftesbury hath got great light from these men, for ‘articles’ against my lord lieutenant.’<sup>349</sup></p><p>Ossory’s death at the end of July 1680 had a profound effect on Ormond, who was ‘extremely afflicted’ by it.<sup>350</sup> Many people at court questioned his resolve to continue in office, but there was no consensus about a successor. Lyttelton had heard that ‘the king says he will be firm to him’ but others thought that Ormond could be pushed out by Parliament and that an impeachment was intended on the grounds of his failure to deal with the Plot in Ireland. Ormond’s response was to note that ‘if they had gone further and charged me with conspiring with the Great Turk or Mogul I doubt not but witnesses might be found to prove it, but I can never suspect either the justice or prudence of four or five hundred English gentlemen so much as to be greatly alarmed at it.’<sup>351</sup></p><p>Ormond was excused attendance on 30 Oct. 1680 and was absent when the bill for Exclusion was defeated on 15 November. On 11 Nov. the informer William Hetherington appeared before the Commons; he did not explicitly link Ormond to the Plot, but rather informed them about the miscarriages of his government. To Arran, the obvious inference was that Hetherington’s testimony was preparing the ground for an address to secure Ormond’s removal. Arran felt the threat was increased by the failure of Exclusion, but others correctly perceived that there were more immediate targets, such as Halifax.<sup>352</sup></p><p>On 20 Dec. Ormond received a series of articles alleged against his government, mostly relating to his favourable treatment of Catholics, to which he responded by pointing out that his aim in working with Catholic clergy, such as Peter Walsh, had been to ‘work a division amongst the Romish clergy. I believe I had compassed it to the great security of the government and protestants, and against the opposition of the Pope and his creatures and nuncios, if I had not been removed from the government’ in 1669. He noted that such opinions would have cost Walsh his life were he to come under the Pope’s jurisdiction.<sup>353</sup> At the beginning of January 1681 Ormond took notice of and vigorously refuted another accusation that he had ‘been seen to receive the sacrament in the Romish way’, at his sister Lady Clancarty’s, which ‘if it get into a narrative, thousands will swallow it as truth’.<sup>354</sup> It was with this in mind that Ormond thought that Arran should attend the Parliament in Oxford, for otherwise whatever Shaftesbury said upon the ‘falsest information touching affairs of Ireland, will pass for current truth; and hasty resolves may be made upon it.’<sup>355</sup></p><p>In February 1681 Ormond ridiculed Anglesey’s remarks on the <em>Memoirs concerning the Wars of Ireland</em> written by James Tuchet*, 3rd earl of Castlehaven [I] (and 13th Baron Audley). He nevertheless set out to refute it, collecting documents and evidence to bolster his case against Anglesey’s interpretation of history.<sup>356</sup> On 31 Mar. he noted that what he intended to publish ‘in answer to my Lord Anglesey is here finished; but cannot come forth to be made use of’ unless the session proved to be a long one.<sup>357</sup> Ormond noticed with relief the calmness with which the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament had been greeted in the City, and also the hope this gave that the affairs of Ireland, chiefly revenue matters, and especially the settlement of the accounts of Ranelagh and his partners, would be given adequate consideration in London.<sup>358</sup> The dissolution led to some immediate release in the tension that surrounded Irish affairs. On 22 Apr. 1681 the king reassured Ormond that the rumours of his recall from Ireland were ‘the pure invention of your enemies and mine.’<sup>359</sup> In July Ormond took time out from grappling with the complexities of a new proposal for farming the Irish revenue to remark that the proceedings against Shaftesbury (who had been arrested on 2 July) would have a good effect in Ireland whatever their result in England, but ‘there must be a steady and bold uniformity in all things and towards all persons, in matters of that nature’. But he was aware that Shaftesbury still had his supporters. In October, he was suspicious that the examination and committal of an Irish priest in Dublin ‘was contrived, and timed, for my Lord of Shaftesbury’s service; and that copies of the information were sent over in haste, to come forth in print before his Lordship’s trial.’<sup>360</sup> He predicted that Shaftesbury’s acquittal in November ‘will raise the spirits of his faction here, but it shall in no degree lessen my watchfulness over them, or gain them better countenance.’<sup>361</sup></p><p>In February 1682, Ormond alerted Arran to his plans to spend part of the summer in England. His departure was delayed by the death of his sister, Lady Clancarty, and he did not arrive in London until 10 May, being attended by 27 six-horse coaches, and about 300 horse, having been ‘very splendidly entertained all the way on the road hither from Chester.’<sup>362</sup> He was clearly in good standing at court, no doubt as a reflection of the ‘profound quiet’ to be found in Ireland, which Southwell, and probably others, attributed to Ormond’s long experience and deep understanding of Ireland and the Irish.<sup>363</sup></p><p>Whilst in London Ormond took the opportunity to complain to the Privy Council concerning his continuing dispute with Anglesey over Castlehaven’s memoirs.<sup>364</sup> He took some satisfaction from Anglesey’s removal from office in August.<sup>365</sup> Another reason for Ormond’s visit to England was the marriage of his grandson, James Butler*, then styled Lord Ossory, the future 2nd duke of Ormond, a matter which had been exercising minds as different as Arlington (who favoured a distant cousin, Mrs Bennet), other family members, assorted nobles, and even the king.<sup>366</sup> Ormond succinctly summed up his dilemma in providing a bride for his grandson: ‘where there is birth and an unblemished family, there is but little money to be had, £10,000 is the most that can be expected in such cases. Where money is to be had ... neither birth nor alliance is to be expected.<sup>367</sup> A match was concluded in July 1682 with the daughter of Laurence Hyde*, Viscount Hyde (later earl of Rochester). Its political significance was pointed out by John Hay*, styled Lord Yester (later 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), shortly after the marriage: ‘these interests, by the late match, are joined, and very great, but they will meet with their enemies as well as other people. … My Lord Halifax had his eye upon the government of Ireland, which now, ’tis concluded my Lord Ormond will have as long as he lives, and it may be his heirs after him.’<sup>368</sup></p><p>Ormond, a talisman of Anglican and royalist orthodoxy, found himself being used to bolster government support. On 22 July 1682, in the midst of the contest for the City launched by Shaftesbury’s supporters, Ormond dined with the lord mayor in order ‘to keep him fixed’.<sup>369</sup> On 9 Aug. Ormond attended another political dinner, the ‘Tory feast’ at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in the City, the apprentices choosing Ormond one of the stewards for the following year.<sup>370</sup> On 28 Nov., Ormond dined with York at the Artillery Company at Merchant Taylors’ Hall where he was also chosen a steward.<sup>371</sup></p><p>Already by the first week in August 1682, Ormond was waiting only for the conclusion of discussions over the new farm of the Irish customs’ duties before going over to Ireland.<sup>372</sup> However, he was pressed to remain in England during the winter, and in August the king commanded Ormond’s attendance.<sup>373</sup> To an Ormond loyalist such as Longford, the Whigs were ‘vexed to the soul at his grace’s stay in England, because his presence gives reputation to the king’s affairs’.<sup>374</sup> The stay also condemned Ormond to a rather peripatetic – and costly – existence. In August, his steward, James Clark, remarked, ‘we have no house yet, nor there is none under £500 for six months. God send us over once again, for this will prove expensive.’<sup>375</sup></p><p>Although Ormond was willing to believe the king, York and Hyde when they suggested that his reputation, especially with the ‘old loyal party,’ was of use in the present conjuncture, his political antennae had also picked up that ‘there is not so perfect a friendship, and so entire a confidence, betwixt those that govern, as is needed’, and too much jockeying for position between ministers.<sup>376</sup> He undertook many social and political tasks during his stay, including acting as godfather to York’s daughter, Charlotte Maria, on 15 Aug. 1682, and as a member of the court of delegates in June which dealt with the long-running case of Bridget Hyde and John Emerton, a matter of some delicacy considering that it involved Danby’s son, Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Dunblane [S], the future 2nd duke of Leeds.<sup>377</sup> Ormond voted in favour of Dunblane on 19 Oct. 1682, when the vote was tied, and again on 20 Apr. 1683 when the dispute was concluded.<sup>378</sup></p><p>Ormond’s high standing was further emphasized in the autumn of 1682 when it became known that he was to receive an English dukedom, an honour that had long been intended, and that could now be attributed to Hyde’s influence.<sup>379</sup> For Ormond, ‘Hyde is the best and honestest minister amongst us’. With a new title, the question of a permanent London residence became more acute. In late November 1682 Ormond posed a series of financial questions to his brother-in-law Mathew concerning the purchase of the house he was renting in St James’s Square; ‘one of the best in London and fit for my quality, and if I should remove into Ireland it is probable I may set it again at no loss.’<sup>380</sup> Arran approved of the purchase, considering ‘how ill it would look now you are an English duke to have no house there’, and it was completed in December.<sup>381</sup> However, the house inevitably involved extra expense: in May 1683 Ormond had temporarily to move to Hampstead while his house was ‘better fitted’, than Lord St Albans left it.<sup>382</sup></p><p>A further potential drain on his finances was the projected marriage of his granddaughter, Lady Betty Stanhope, which raised the probability that her father, Chesterfield, ‘may expect the payment of the money I owe him, which must be got for him if he do.’<sup>383</sup> No marriage took place, and although Ormond was evincing concern about the lack of progress in finding a husband for her in December 1684, in July 1685 Chesterfield was claiming that Ormond or his duchess had turned down several advantageous matches.<sup>384</sup></p><p>In January 1683, Ormond surveyed the political landscape, criticizing the fact that ‘those the king owns to be his children, their mothers, and their dependents are so many; so over-dignified (being so numerous); and so insatiable’, so that ‘the enemies of the government are gratified and assisted, by those that subsist’ by the government. He also noted that ‘at home… we are now under the three denominations of Tories, Whigs and Trimmers, the first and the last have the patronage of the court’. The language of the last was ‘moderation, unity and peace, in joining with the Whigs in the care of religion and property and with the Tories for monarchy and army and legal prerogative… If we have good luck, we shall be all Tories, if we have bad, we shall not be all Whigs’.<sup>385</sup></p><p>Anticipating that he would not be allowed to return to Ireland until the question of the charter of the City had been settled, and that a possible sitting of Parliament would certainly detain him in England.,<sup>386</sup> by the beginning of February Ormond was feeling the financial strain of his stay in London, perceiving ‘the weight of a divided, numerous family and the necessity that lies upon we alone to support the charge of a chief governor of Ireland and the hospitality incident to a lord steward for which latter I have no sense of allowance.’<sup>387</sup> Ormond remained involved in Court politics, Strafford reporting that when Halifax and Rochester (as Hyde had since become) clashed over the latter’s financial management, Ormond ‘sided much as might be expected’ with his grandson’s father-in-law.<sup>388</sup> There was also some unfinished business to be attended to concerning allegations made against him apropos the Plot in Ireland, for which Ormond was awarded £10,000 in a case of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against William Hetherington, who had suborned witnesses to give evidence against several major figures involved.<sup>389</sup></p><p>By staying in England, Ormond was on hand to witness the fallout from the Rye House Plot. On 3 July he wrote of his employment in taking examinations relating to the Plot, which led him to the conclusion four days later that there seemed to have been two plots, ‘yet those crimes are so near akin and the time of consulting for them both almost the same, and some of the persons in it at both, that nothing but the monstrousness of the ingratitude of such a parricide’ in such as Monmouth, William, styled Lord Russell<sup>‡</sup> and Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville) ‘can leave a doubt but that it was all one entire plot, though consisting of two parts.’ He expressed similar views in December, noting that it was ‘hard to believe’ Russell, Salisbury, Essex and Grey of Warke ‘could have any part in the assassination .... but if they had no inkling of that impious treason, they were very negligent or ill befriended in their own party.’<sup>390</sup> The result was to confirm Ormond’s distrust of men of unsound principles. He wrote in July ‘if one who takes the oaths, frequents the Church and receives the sacrament just as far and no further than will serve his secular ends, if this man... shall have his chief conversations with fanatics, shall evidently countenance and protect them or shall talk discontentedly and factiously, he ought not to be continued in office or trust.’ Ormond remained in England over the summer and into the autumn and winter, though he was far from idle, apologizing in November for a tardy reply to a letter, citing ‘feasting in the City and attendance on councils and committees’ as his excuses.<sup>391</sup> His absence from his charge offered a new line of attack to his enemies, whom he discerned in December had hit upon a more subtle line of attack by questioning Arran’s competence and then saying that Ormond could not be spared from England, nor was he able to govern Ireland at so great a distance, ‘whence the natural consequence will be that another must be sent’.<sup>392</sup>In May 1684 Sir Robert Reading pithily delineated Ormond’s dilemma: ‘if he stays here his own fortune suffers, if he goes the whole kingdom will’ adding that ‘upon the whole there is no appearance of his stirring this year.’<sup>393</sup></p><p>On 15 June 1684 Ormond finally learnt that he was to return to Ireland, and to that end he recalled his grandson from France so that they could take the journey together. At this stage Ormond did not detect his position to be vulnerable, referring on the 26th to his return as ‘by somewhat more than the king’s approbation’.<sup>394</sup> The death of his duchess on 21 July may have detained him somewhat but he was in Dublin on 19 August.<sup>395</sup> Just as he returned, however, the king was deciding to change the government of Ireland. On 6 Sept. 1684, Ormond’s daughter, Lady Mary Cavendish, informed Arran that Rochester had a promise to succeed Ormond in the Irish lieutenancy, although the king did not confirm this until 19 October.<sup>396</sup> When Rochester wrote to Ormond on 23 Oct., he claimed to have tried to hinder the change. Ormond wrote on 3 Nov. thathe hoped to remain in Ireland through the winter and then to hand over to Rochester, especially if Rochester kept the change secret until he began preparations to travel to Ireland.<sup>397</sup> On 6 Nov. Arran, having just arrived in London, wrote that the king had informed him of the change in the government of Ireland, and ‘that great reformation is intended both as to civil and military affairs and therefore my Lord Rochester who fears no odium is chosen for that purpose.’<sup>398</sup> Ormond’s response was to express disappointment that his suggestions ‘for the king’s service there, and for the lasting security of the Crown’, were to be ignored.<sup>399</sup> On 12 Nov. Arran told his father of his resentment at the situation and noted that the king had held out ‘a great while’ against the importunities of York, Rochester and Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland. On 20 Nov., however, Ormond wrote that as the king had resolved upon his removal before selecting a successor, this absolved Rochester of all charges of plotting against him.<sup>400</sup> This would seem to refute the contention of Thomas Wyndham<sup>‡</sup>, written to Weymouth on 22 Nov., that ‘the lieutenancy of Ireland hath excited such a feud between my lord of Rochester and the family of Ormond [as was] never to be reconciled,’ at least in so far as it included the duke himself.<sup>401</sup> According to Colonel Fitzpatrick, the king was heard to say that Ormond had ‘grown old and peevish; nothing will content him’, to which Ormond replied that he felt no discontent, public or private, until it pleased God to take away his wife, and that ‘grief and peevishness are not the same things, though the one may produce the other’. Other criticisms referred to ‘my age, my sloth, my aversion to Roman Catholics, my negligence in the choice of such as I have recommended to be placed in the king’s service’, in particular John Ellis, the secretary to the Irish revenue commissioners.<sup>402</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1684 Ormond wrote to Rochester worrying about plans to make an ‘almost total change in all the changeable part’ of the Irish government.<sup>403</sup> On 4 Dec. Arran thought it looked ‘odd’, that York ‘should have interest enough to put Lord Rochester into the government, and not have it hinder you from being turned out, if he had pleased. But, by the most prudent conjecture I can make, your countrymen are the cause of your removal and they govern much now.’<sup>404</sup> This alluded to Richard Talbot and his influence with the increasingly assertive York; it was (Arran implied) their determination to intrude Catholics into civil and military office, and to overturn the land settlement, both of which had been opposed by Ormond, that had led to his replacement.<sup>405</sup> For good measure Arran added that nobody is ‘so great with my Lord Rochester now as my Lord Ranelagh is, I knew the time when matters were otherwise between them’.<sup>406</sup> Ormond remained perplexed by the need to change men and measures in Ireland. On 8 Dec. 1684 he wrote to Rochester that despite having</p><blockquote><p>been so long suffered to mistake what was, or what was not, for the king’s service, or what he thought was, or was not so … I confess I am at this time more confounded in my notions then ever I was, not from the report we have of almost a total change in all the changeable parts of the government of this kingdom, but from what the king himself was pleased to intimate to me to the same purpose; for which alteration … there neither is, nor can be any necessity, or good reason at this time … and therefore … I hope that intention will, at least, again be considered before it be put in execution.’<sup>407</sup></p></blockquote><h2><em>Reign of James II 1685-8</em></h2><p>Rochester was not appointed as lord lieutenant before Charles II’s death put an end to the prospect of his transfer to Ireland. Ormond proclaimed the succession of James II, though with, as he told Southwell, ‘dismal sadness’ in his heart.<sup>408</sup> Shortly afterwards Rochester was promoted to the treasury and a commission issued for two lord justices in Ireland instead.<sup>409</sup> Ormond quickly received leave to return to England (18 Feb.), and arrived in London on 31 Mar., being attended into town by ‘above 40 coaches’.<sup>410</sup> He kissed the king’s hand on the same day, and the following day was sworn to the Privy Council.<sup>411</sup> More importantly, he was continued in office as lord steward.</p><p>In a rather ironic tone, Ormond wrote to William Stewart, Viscount Mountjoy [I], in April 1685, that</p><blockquote><p>it is no new thing to me to be calumniated sometimes for a papist, at least a favourer of popery, and at other times for a persecutor of Catholics and the greatest enemy they had. This has alternatively been my lot for above 40 years and yet I thank God I have stood firm to my principles without wavering so much as in my thoughts. It is now the Roman Catholics’ turn to asperse me. Yet I shall not wish to see them persecuted unless they will needs have it persecution not to be in power to persecute others. From that I will do my part to keep them. Let them call or think it what they will, but still with that loyalty and duty I have always shown to my king and master be he what religion and temper it shall please God to make him.<sup>412</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ormond was on hand to play a significant role in the coronation on 23 Apr., and as Southwell reported, to bring to fruition plans to marry the widowed Ossory to the eldest daughter of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort.<sup>413</sup>He was present at the opening of James II’s Parliament on 19 May 1685, when he was introduced as duke of Ormond by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle. He was named to eight committees, including that on the bill enabling his grandson, Ossory, to make a jointure to his future wife, which passed the Lords on 4 June. Perhaps significantly on that day, Ormond registered his proxy with Anglesey, even though he was present on most of the remaining days of the session. The choice of Anglesey was somewhat surprising considering their conflict in 1682, and also Anglesey’s institution on 16 Dec. 1682 of a chancery suit against Ormond, for debt. Moreover, in May 1685 Ormond was considering suing Anglesey in a debt of £800 concerning the education of Sir James Butler, the duke’s natural son, and plans were still afoot in October for Ormond to pursue the matter.<sup>414</sup> On 27 June 1685 Ormond reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to encourage the building of ships in England. He attended on 28 days before the adjournment on 2 July (90 per cent of the total), missing only three days. Including the November meeting, his attendance rate was 93 per cent.</p><p>On 3 Aug. 1685, Ormond was at Badminton for Ossory’s marriage.<sup>415</sup> Badminton was to be one of his favourite residences in his declining years. Following the death of Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> at the beginning of September 1685, Ormond forwarded a letter from Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, to John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, supporting Mews’ recommendation (if Fell approved it) for the vacant seat for the University.<sup>416</sup> Ormond was also keen for Chesterfield to play his full part in political affairs, although Chesterfield thought this was primarily because Ormond ‘hath a mind to have his grandchild [Elizabeth Stanhope] in town, is so violent against my retirement that I am confident he would employ all his interest to keep me in an employment that he knows I do extremely desire to be handsomely rid of.’<sup>417</sup></p><p>When the Parliament reconvened on 9 Nov. 1685, Ormond was on hand to introduce Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, into the House. He attended on each of the 11 days of the session. On 18 Nov. Ormond was ordered to erect a court in Westminster Hall for the trial of Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, due on 1 Dec., as he was officiating as lord great chamberlain in the absence of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey. The trial never took place.<sup>418</sup> A similar order was issued to him for the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington).<sup>419</sup> Although called to attend this trial, on 14 Jan. 1686 he was noted as absent, almost certainly because his son Arran was on his deathbed.<sup>420</sup> On 16 Dec. 1685, Ormond was one of the throng who escorted Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, out of London on his journey to Ireland as the new lord lieutenant.<sup>421</sup></p><p>Arran’s death almost certainly fuelled rumours at the end of January 1686 that John Sheffield*, earl of Mulgrave, would replace Ormond as steward.<sup>422</sup> Roger Morrice noted that Ormond had been ‘moved to resign up his place of lord high steward,’ but quickly corrected himself, adding that he ‘is desirous to resign up nothing being in years till he resigns up life altogether.’<sup>423</sup> Chesterfield had also picked up Ormond’s momentary wavering, when he wrote on 5 Feb. that ‘in his affliction for his son’, Ormond was ‘going to live at Cornbury.’<sup>424</sup> Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> thought it would ‘grieve him’ to part with the white staff, ‘delighting as he does in a court life.’<sup>425</sup></p><p>When Southwell visited Ormond in March 1686 he reported that Ormond ‘spends his time in exercise or in reading as the weather will allow, and I suppose has little thoughts of any other kind of life.’<sup>426</sup> According to Morrice, in November 1686, at the council meeting when James II personally undertook the regulation of English justices of the peace, ‘Ormond and all the Church Tory Lords stood together all the while by the fire.’<sup>427</sup> In mid-November 1686 it was reported that Ormond ‘though no favourite has ventured to lay down many reasons to induce the king to continue my Lord Clarendon in his place’ as lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>428</sup> Clarendon was replaced by the earl of Tyrconnell [I] (as Richard Talbot had become) in January 1687.</p><p>That month, Morrice noted that at an election at Charterhouse, the lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, had attempted to use the king’s recommendation to secure a place for a Catholic, but was out-voted by Danby, supported by Ormond, Halifax and William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury: Morrice also reported a similar case under July 1687.<sup>429</sup> In February 1687, Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> reported that Ormond had been closeted by James II concerning his attitude to the repeal of the Test and penal laws, although he was unable to discover the duke’s response.<sup>430</sup> Morrice corroborated this report, suggesting that ‘all his life long he has done as he has been bid’, and that Rochester had influenced him in the matter.<sup>431</sup> Carte believed that he did not answer the king in the affirmative, but was indulged because of his long service to the crown.<sup>432</sup></p><p>Ormond attended the prorogation of Parliament on 15 Feb. 1687. From Cornbury on 12 Mar. Ormond expressed his disappointment that Clarendon would no longer be privy seal, but was pleased that his ‘old friend’ Arundell of Wardour was likely to be his successor.<sup>433</sup> In May 1687, Morrice evinced the Presbyterian distrust of Ormond by remarking of the Irish land settlement that rich papists had paid large sums of money to be declared innocent, and that Ormond and Anglesey ‘did greatly enlarge their estates by contracts of that kind.’ Although John Hough*, later bishop of, in turn, Oxford, Coventry and Lichfield and Worcester, had served Ormond as a chaplain for seven years, until 1685, there is no evidence that Ormond played any role in his election as president of Magdalen College, Oxford in April 1687.<sup>434</sup></p><p>On the crucial issue of the repeal of the Test Act, Ormond was assessed as an opponent of repeal on four lists dating from 1687 and January 1688. This was consistent with what Southwell reported following one of his visits, that although Ormond thought depriving Catholic peers of their seats in the Lords a ‘hardship and injustice’, yet he now felt that the danger of disposing of the Tests was ‘now so visible’ that no man could justify being absent from the Lords if they came into question.<sup>435</sup> Morrice remained suspicious, recording at the beginning of November that he had ‘concurred to all intents and purposes, which no man ever made any doubt of that knew him, but it will not keep him in.’<sup>436</sup></p><p>In December 1687, Lord Yester reported that Ormond was ‘very unwell’ in Dorset.<sup>437</sup> He continued to be ill during the winter, and in late March 1688 he had a severe fever.<sup>438</sup> He died on 21 July 1688, at Kingston Lacy, ‘in a chair as he was going into his coach to take the air’.<sup>439</sup> He had made a short will in April, appointing his grandson executor, and giving ‘a few legacies to some servants, and appointed to be buried with his wife and two sons, and as privately as possible.’<sup>440</sup> He was thus conveyed to London and buried on 4 Aug. in Westminster Abbey, Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester and dean of Westminster conducting the service.<sup>441</sup> His will referred to a power in the settlements made upon his grandson’s marriage to raise £20,000, which he directed to be used for the payment of his debts, as well as his personal estate which was also bequeathed to his grandson. This was a necessary provision given that a list dated 1 May 1689 of ‘the debts due from the late duke of Ormond upon mortgages and bonds’ totalled £86,572 10<em>s</em>. (£39,545 owed in England and £47,027 10<em>s<em>.</em></em> in Ireland).<sup>442</sup> Another estimate of 1690 gave a figure for his debts of over £150,000, set against a gross rental of £24,439 in 1688, which modern research suggests was closer to £18,000.<sup>443</sup> As Ormond himself had said in September 1667, his ‘faculty is known to lie another way than that of thrift’.<sup>444</sup></p><p>Reactions to Ormond’s death were mixed. One correspondent of John Ellis referred ‘the greatest man and best of subjects… who hath had the honour to outdo all the subjects in Europe, by his gallant actions and constant loyalty and integrity to his Prince for above fifty years together.’<sup>445</sup> Morrice rather unsympathetically wrote of him as ‘a ready and obsequious tool he had been all his life ready to do whatsoever he was bid, and at last doing whatsoever he was bid would not serve his purpose, for he had done so much to help to bring in arbitrary power and Popery that they needed his service no longer, but thought they could do it themselves without him.’<sup>446</sup> More sympathetic accounts referred to Ormond’s loyalty and stoicism. Another contemporary noted that ‘he loved splendour when it could be come at. Yet when crosses rushed upon him and [he] could not prevent it, he bore them with a talent to be admired.’ Others noted that ‘he wanted the small arts of familiarity and caressing which men of many designs could not be without.’<sup>447</sup></p><p>Ormond has similarly divided historians; their assessments have ranged from regarding him as a ‘mettlesome hero’ to a ‘venal traitor.’<sup>448</sup> Ormond himself possessed an acute awareness of his place in history: Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup> recorded him saying that ‘however ill I may stand at court, I am resolved to lie well in the chronicle.’<sup>449</sup> His power and influence came from the sheer size of his acreage, Pepys describing him as ‘the greatest subject of any prince in Christendom, and hath more acres of land than any’. Modern research has estimated his holdings at about 256,000 acres (with the duchess holding an additional 30,000 acres) c.1675.<sup>450</sup></p><p>There is no doubt that Charles II valued Ormond as an ‘instinctive loyalist’, and that he was willing to put up with a certain amount of administrative inertia, of which Strafford had remarked in 1682: ‘I should have been ashamed not to have done more in four years than a certain person, I am not much obliged to, has done in fourteen’.<sup>451</sup> Ormond’s identity was clear, at least to himself: in January 1668 he wrote, ‘I have been strangely mistaken these 40 years and upwards, if I am not by birth, education, religion, and affection, a perfect Englishman. If having a good estate in Ireland change the case, many English are, and more would, become Irish.’ <sup>452</sup> This may explain, too, his less than positive reaction to his client Dryden’s encomium in the preface of his <em>Lives of Plutarch</em> (1683), with at least one contemporary reckoning that he was ‘nettled’ by being made an Irishman.<sup>453</sup> More to his taste was Dryden’s portrait of Ormond as Barzillai in <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em> (1681), where his loyalty to the king and his father was extolled with lavish praise.<sup>454</sup></p><p>In religious matters Ormond was a pragmatist; as he wrote to Southwell in November 1678, ‘I am taught by nature and also by instruction that difference in opinion concerning matters of religion dissolves not the obligations of nature, and in conformity to this principle I own not only that I have done but I will do my relations of that or any other persuasion all the good I can.’<sup>455</sup> Ormond’s Catholic Mathew relations were often useful to him, particularly in the management of his estates. Thus, in February 1675 Ormond told Southwell: ‘it is my great grief that my brother Mathew, and many other of my relations, are Papists. I would go far, and do much, to make them other, but in the mean time differences of opinion cannot remove our relation... and I think ought not to abate natural affections.’<sup>456</sup> For all his sympathy towards them, many of his most trenchant critics were Catholics, epitomized by Bishop French, who characterized Ormond as ‘a high fig-tree bearing great leaves of vanity and no fruit, sucking up the fat and sap of the earth and starving all the plants around him.’<sup>457</sup> Perhaps the last word should be left to Burnet, who described him as ‘a man every way fitted for a court: of a graceful appearance, a lively wit, and a cheerful temper: a man of great expense, decent even in his vices; for he always kept up the form of religion. … He was firm to the protestant religion, and so far firm to the laws, that he always gave good advices: but when bad ones were followed, he was not for complaining too much of them’.<sup>458</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
BUTLER, James (1665-1745) |
<p><strong><surname>BUTLER</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1665–1745)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1665-80 Lord Butler; <em>suc. </em>fa. 30 July 1680 as Bar. BUTLER OF MOORE PARK; <em>styled </em>1680-88 earl of Ossory [I]; <em>suc. </em>grandmother 24 July 1684 as Bar. of Dingwall [S]; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 21 July 1688 as 2nd duke of ORMOND |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 1 June 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 29 Apr. 1665, 2nd but 1st surv. son of Thomas Butler*, Bar. Butler of Moore Park, styled earl of Ossory [I], and Amilia, da. of Lodewyk van Nassau, Herr van Beverweerd; bro. of Charles Butler*, Bar. Butler of Weston. <em>educ.</em> travelled abroad (Orange, France) 1678;<sup>1</sup> Christ Church, Oxf. 1679, MA 1680, DCL 1683; MA (Dublin) 1680, LLB and LLD 1681; M. Temple 1683. <em>m.</em> (1) 20 July 1682, Anne (<em>d</em>. 1685), da. of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, 2da. (<em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 3 Aug. 1685, Mary (<em>d</em>. 1733), da. of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, 1s. (<em>d.v.p.</em>), ?4da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>); 1s. illegit.<sup>2</sup> KG 1688–1715. <em>d</em>. 5 Nov. 1745.</p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1685–8, 1689–99; ld. high constable 1689; PC [I], 1690–?1715; PC 9 Apr. 1696–Sept. 1714; ld. lt. Ire. 1703–7, 1710–13.</p><p>Freeman, Preston 1682;<sup>3</sup> steward, honour of Tutbury 1683–92;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. Som. 1691–1714; ld. lt. Norf. 1713; high steward, Westminster 1688–1715; high steward, Bristol 1688–1715;<sup>5</sup> high steward, Exeter 1697–1715;<sup>6</sup> constable Dover Castle and ld. warden Cinque Ports 1713–14.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Col. of horse [I], 1683, 1703–13; col. Ft. Gds. 1686;<sup>8</sup> col. 2nd tp. Lifeguards 1689–1712; col. 1st Ft. Gds. 1712; major-gen. 1692; lieut.-gen. 1694; gen. of horse 1702; c.-in-c. and capt.-gen. 1712.</p><p>Chan. Oxford 1688–1715; chan. Dublin 1688–1715; gov. Charterhouse 1688–1715.</p><p>Mbr. Bristol Society of Merchant Venturers 1685.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by or after M. Dahl, NPG 78; oil on canvas by W. Gandy, National Maritime Museum; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, National Trust, Hardwick Hall; mezzotint by J. Smith, after Kneller, NPG D3778; mezzotint by J. Smith, after Kneller, NPG 5727.</p> |
<h2><em>An apprentice peer, 1660–88</em></h2><p>Butler was a scion of the leading Anglo-Irish family in the seventeenth century. Family tradition marked him out as the proponent of an old-style Cavalier ethos: Protestant, open and generous. As well as a distinctive High Church Tory political style, he inherited crippling financial troubles, which his vast expenditure made worse. On his mother’s side, he also had an entrée into Dutch society, which placed him in a position to gain considerably from the Orangeist Revolution of 1688, albeit at some cost to his loyalist reputation. He maintained a dual role in the Augustan polity, as a soldier and a courtier politician, serving twice as lord lieutenant of Ireland. Eventually, the pressure of events was to force him into exile, and a long association with the Jacobite cause.</p><p>As early as 1678, Butler’s grandfather, James Butler*, duke of Ormond, was taking a keen interest in the education of his grandson, and likely eventual heir. His concern in moving him from Orange to France and then to Oxford was to make him ‘a good Christian, a good and useful subject and an honest man’. He was settled in Oxford by late February 1679, under the watchful eye of John Fell*, bishop of Oxford. Likewise, the old duke made plain his opposition to an early marriage for his grandson with Lady Elizabeth Percy, the Northumberland heiress. After the death of his father, Butler, now styled earl of Ossory, became the direct heir to the Ormond patrimony and his grandfather’s interest intensified. The old duke became even more concerned with securing the family’s future, and hence heavily involved in the negotiations surrounding his grandson’s marriage. In May 1680, the fortune offered by the younger daughter of Simon Bennet of Buckinghamshire was under consideration. Bennet was a relative of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, and had the advantage of offering a large cash sum with his daughter.<sup>10</sup></p><p>In September 1680, the daughter of the recently deceased John Poulett*, 3rd Baron Poulett, was offered as a possible spouse by her uncle Colonel Edward Cooke, as was Lady Catherine Cavendish, one of the daughters of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle.<sup>11</sup> Meanwhile, Ormond decided to take a closer look at his grandson, sending for him into Ireland in September 1680, with the intention that Ossory spend the winter there. At the beginning of January 1681, Ormond seems to have rejected the Bennet match and to have resolved to keep his grandson with him until an appropriate governor could be retained for an overseas tour. Both the Bennet and Cavendish matches continued to be considered well into 1682, especially the first when Arlington was able to show the king an agreement he had made with Bennet in February 1682, on the pretext of asking if the king had anyone else in mind for Ossory.<sup>12</sup> In the event, Ossory married Lady Anne Hyde on 20 July 1682 in the chapel at Burlington House. This was a favourable match, both politically and financially. She was the daughter of the future earl of Rochester, a rising politician and the brother-in-law of James Stuart*, duke of York, who had initially suggested the alliance to Ormond.<sup>13</sup> She commanded a portion of £15,000, which was higher than originally thought possible by the Butlers.<sup>14</sup> The marriage produced two daughters (assuming that the child christened Mary, who was buried in the Hyde vault in Westminster Abbey in February 1688, was the daughter of his first wife), who both died young.<sup>15</sup></p><p>As Ossory proceeded towards his majority, honours were bestowed upon him. In August 1682 he was allowed the rights of precedency due to the son of a duke of Ireland, and in September 1682 there was some talk of him succeeding to the garter of John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale.<sup>16</sup> He was admitted a freeman of Preston in September 1682, along with his grandfather and brother, and to the Middle Temple on 9 Feb. 1683, along with his grandfather.<sup>17</sup> Ossory was also much in society, joining York’s train in a tour of Oxfordshire houses in May 1683.<sup>18</sup></p><p>An adventurous voyage to Calais in one of the yachts of Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Dumblane [S], the future 2nd duke of Leeds, in late March 1684 may have persuaded Ormond in April to allow Ossory to attend the French campaign, ‘to remove him from a very idle, slothful way of life’, although he thought joining other nobles at the camp of the French army likely ‘to be more chargeable to me than instructive to him’.<sup>19</sup> Ossory returned to England in the second week of July, preparatory to accompanying his grandfather to Ireland, and by the middle of August he was resident in Dublin.<sup>20</sup> At least one writer believed that the ‘chief cause of the duke’s going is to fix the young family in that country’.<sup>21</sup> This was a particular responsibility of the young Lady Ossory, who had to take over the management of family affairs from the recently deceased duchess of Ormond.<sup>22</sup> By the death of his grandmother, Ossory became baron of Dingwall in the Scottish peerage, a title he seems to have taken little cognizance of until after the Union.</p><p>By October 1684, Charles II had come to a decision to replace Ormond as the lord lieutenant of Ireland with Rochester.<sup>23</sup> While the exact timing of Rochester’s take-over and arrival remained unclear, Ormond suggested that Ossory and his wife remain in Dublin when he returned to London.<sup>24</sup> Such plans were disrupted by the death of Ossory’s wife, in Dublin on 25 Jan. 1685, followed in February by the death of Charles II. The latter event necessitated Ormond’s presence in London, and he duly sailed with Ossory for England on 20 Mar. 1685.<sup>25</sup> Their smooth progress to court was curtailed when Ossory was struck down with smallpox at the end of March and had to be left to recuperate at Knowsley, the Lancashire residence of his brother-in-law William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The accession of James II did not alter Ormond’s political position, although his replacement in the viceroyalty was not Rochester but the latter’s brother, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon. Ossory continued to rise to positions in keeping with his social rank. He was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber on 16 May 1685. He was also issued with a writ on 14 May to attend the Parliament called following the accession of James II. As Baron Butler of Moore Park he duly attended on the opening day of the session on 19 May, aged 20, and took the oaths. When the Lords next sat, on 22 May, Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport, successfully proposed a motion that all the peers under the age of 21 should be ordered to withdraw until they had obtained their majority, and this brought his attendance to an end for that session.<sup>27</sup> He had sat for just one day.</p><p>As Ossory was now a young widower, without a male heir, attempts were soon underway to find him another wife. As early as February 1685, Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> had been engaged in a project to marry him to the duke of Beaufort’s daughter, Lady Mary Somerset.<sup>28</sup> The Butlers made use of the parliamentary session to procure an act to enable Ossory to make a jointure should he marry again. The bill received its first reading on 27 May 1685 and was reported by Clarendon, on 1 June, with two amendments. The Commons then passed the bill without amendments and returned it on 13 June, by Sir James Butler<sup>‡</sup>, a member of the extended Butler family, and a client of Ormond. This was clearly a precursor to Ossory’s second marriage at Badminton on 3 Aug. 1685. The couple had at least five children, but only one son, who died in February 1689.</p><p>When the 1685 Parliament resumed on 16 Nov. 1685, Ossory was excused attendance because he was still underage. The death of his uncle the earl of Arran, Richard Butler*, Baron Butler in the English peerage, in January 1686 occasioned some dispute over his will, and the estates which fell to Ossory. One assessment of Arran’s estate suggested debts of just over £16,800, with an income (optimistically forecast) of £4,450 p.a. With interest and other payments of just over £2,000, this left an annual income due to Ossory of about £2,437.<sup>29</sup> However, there was considerable uncertainty, probably occasioned by the debt. Legal opinions were collected about the implications of Arran’s will from Richard Nagle, Lord Chief Justice Keating and others.<sup>30</sup> Ormond was reported to have devolved all his right and title in Arran’s estate to Ossory, but ‘how far Lady Arran will agree to an administration of his choosing, is doubtful’.<sup>31</sup> The agreement apparently worked out was that, apart from £800 p.a., most of the estate would be applied to the payment of Arran’s debts, Ossory being the ultimate beneficiary of the estate.<sup>32</sup></p><p>On 29 Jan. 1686, Ossory received a commission to be colonel of a regiment of the Irish foot guards, in succession to his uncle Arran, an appointment received with general satisfaction according to Clarendon.<sup>33</sup> Despite this evidence of royal favour, Ossory now spent a considerable amount of time in attendance on his new wife and his ageing grandfather. Indeed, in April 1686, one of the correspondents of John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> thought that Ossory ‘grows more shy than before of the court’, and in June Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> remarked that he was ‘so wedded to the country and his lady, that we seldom see him here’ in London.<sup>34</sup> This was perhaps understandable as the young countess of Ossory was pregnant. Their son, Thomas, was born on 24 Sept. 1686, and baptized at St James’s with Ormond and Beaufort as godfathers.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Ossory, having now attained his majority, attended the prorogation on 15 Feb. 1687. He continued to divide his time between waiting on the king and retreating back to his family in the country, although he did attend James II during his tour of the north-west in the autumn of 1687.<sup>36</sup> This may indicate unease with the politics of the court because in about November 1687 Ossory was listed as an opponent of the repeal of the Test Act, and at around the same time Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, listed him as an opponent of James II in the Lords. Further evidence of his position on the political spectrum comes from June 1688, when Henry Compton*, bishop of London, suggested Ossory as a surety for William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, one of the seven bishops.<sup>37</sup></p><h2><em>Revolution 1688–9</em></h2><p>Ossory succeeded his grandfather on 21 July 1688, and steps were taken immediately to ensure that his political position was secured. The dean and chapter of Westminster were approached to choose the new duke as their high steward, and duly did so, although ‘other Lords were put up in competition with him but none of the rest had above one third of the voices’. Similarly, the University of Oxford moved rapidly to choose Ormond as their new chancellor, on 23 July, before the king could send a mandate imposing someone more sympathetic to his religious objectives. In this case he defeated Halifax by 188 votes to 45.<sup>38</sup> Rochester was then despatched to the king to secure royal acquiescence, and Ormond was duly installed at a specially summoned convocation held in Northumberland House on 23 August.<sup>39</sup> The king having allowed both the Westminster and Oxford elections to stand, on 8 Sept. Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, informed Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I], that Ormond’s election as chancellor of Dublin University was also confirmed.<sup>40</sup> On 13 Sept. he was chosen a governor of Charterhouse, with both Clarendon and Rochester among the electors.<sup>41</sup> Other offices that had been held by his grandfather were not handed down to Ormond, including the lord stewardship. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, thought this one of the reasons for Ormond’s actions later in 1688. One of Ellis’s correspondents thought that the old duke’s garter would be withheld from his grandson as ‘a sort of rod over the young gentleman’s head, and his merit in next Parliament shall get or lose it’.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Ailesbury later recollected that it was in about August 1688 that Ormond had almost let him into the secret of the design against James II, only to be dissuaded from confiding in him by the more cautious Thomas Maule, groom of the bedchamber to Prince George*, of Denmark. As well as disappointment over office, Ailesbury attributed Ormond’s involvement to the promptings of the zealous James Douglas*, styled Lord Drumlanrig, the future 2nd duke of Queensberry.<sup>43</sup> Ormond’s involvement is confirmed by George Byng<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Torrington, a prominent conspirator in the navy, who recorded meeting Ormond in London in order to discuss the recruitment of men to their cause.<sup>44</sup> In any event, Ormond had many links with the prince of Orange, through his mother, a member of an illegitimate branch of the House of Orange, and his father, who had been a great favourite of the prince.<sup>45</sup></p><p>James II’s turn to the Tories in the autumn of 1688 saw reports that Ormond would inherit his grandfather’s garter, Roger Morrice noting that he ‘has been educated by the Tories, and is looked upon as a very principal pillar of that party’. He was among those Tories who subscribed the petition for a free Parliament on 16 Nov. 1688. Ormond then deserted from the army, together with Prince George, Drumlanrig and Henry Boyle<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Carleton, joining Prince William on 24 Nov. 1688, and causing Tyrconnel to brand him as the ‘first rebel of your family’.<sup>46</sup> On 21 Dec. Ormond attended the gathering of peers in the queen’s presence chamber, when the prince of Orange addressed them on the procedures needed to call a free Parliament. He was also present at meetings of peers held in the Lords on 22, 24 and 25 Dec. 1688.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Ormond attended on the opening day of the Convention, 22 Jan. 1689, and was appointed to attend Prince William in order to ascertain when both Houses of Parliament could present him with their joint address of thanks. On 25 Jan. Ormond and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, introduced George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, into the House. Nevertheless, Ormond was not such a convinced supporter of the Williamite Revolution as his early support for the prince might suggest. Ailesbury had noted the influence of his former father-in-law, Rochester, on the young duke, even though Ormond had remarried.<sup>48</sup> He was also connected, through Prince George, to the court of Princess Anne. Thus, on 29 Jan. 1689, he voted for the resolution that a regency was the best way to preserve the Protestant religion and the nation’s laws, a motion carried by only three votes. Morrice reported that Ormond had voted that way, ‘though he had received such badges of respects from the Prince’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Ormond remained consistent in his attitude, voting on 31 Jan. 1689, in the committee of the whole House, against declaring William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons in using the word ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’, and was appointed to draw up reasons for a conference on the matter. On 5 Feb. he was named to manage the resultant conference; the following day he voted against agreeing with the Commons that James II had ‘abdicated’ the throne, and was noted as a dissentient. The king was not deterred by these votes from further favouring Ormond and at the end of February 1689 he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber.<sup>50</sup> Furthermore, according to later accounts, his secret service pension of £2,500 p.a. was paid from 13 Feb. 1689.<sup>51</sup> He took the oaths on 2 March. On 5 Apr. he was installed as a knight of the garter, and on 11 Apr. he acted as lord high constable at the coronation of William and Mary.</p><p>Back in the House, on 9 Apr. 1689 Ormond and Beaufort introduced Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, into the House, and on the 20 Apr. Ormond performed the same duty with Somerset for the duke of Cumberland, the title under which Prince George took his seat. On 22 Apr. 1689, George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, registered his proxy with Ormond. On 22 May Ormond was excused attendance following a call of the House. On 31 May he voted against reversing the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. He was granted leave to go beyond the sea on the king’s service on 3 June and sat for the last time that session on 6 June, depositing his proxy with Rochester on the following day, and reportedly leaving for Flanders on 8 June.<sup>52</sup> Rochester duly cast his proxy on 30 July 1689 in favour of the Lords adhering to their amendments to the bill reversing the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. In total, Ormond attended on 57 days during the 1689 session (35 per cent of the sittings) and was named to nine committees.</p><p>Meanwhile, proceedings in the Commons proved to be of great interest to Ormond. At the report of the committee appointed to consider the distressed condition of Irish Protestants on 16 May 1689, it was noted that Ormond had not been included in any of the lists compiled of such people, and consequently it was resolved that the committee appointed to draw up the resultant address be instructed to ask the king to take particular notice of his plight. On 22 May, the address reported from the committee included a paragraph asking the king to favour Ormond owing to his ‘great merits and sufferings’. After being recommitted twice, this address was finally agreed on 15 June, complete with the special recommendation of Ormond. The king’s response, on the 19th, was to promise his assistance when the House furnished him with the means so to do.</p><p>By mid-July 1689, Ormond was on campaign, attracting the favourable notice of Prince Waldeck, and in August distinguishing himself at the battle of Till.<sup>53</sup> He was at The Hague by the end of October, and back in London at the end of the first week in November 1689.<sup>54</sup> His military duties had seen him excused attendance following a call of the House on 28 October. He first attended the 1689–90 session on 6 Nov. 1689, and in all was present on 29 days, nearly 40 per cent of the total, and was named to two committees. In a list drawn up between October 1689 and February 1690, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen classed him as among the supporters of the court. Again, the Commons may have interested Ormond more than business in the Lords. On 31 Dec. the lower House ordered a clause to be added to the bill attainting those in rebellion in Ireland, vesting in Ormond ‘all estates made by him, or his ancestors, to any tenants, and all monies issuing out of, or mortgages, charges, or encumbrances upon, the said duke’s estate, to any person, who are in rebellion against their majesties’. A draft clause was prepared, but the bill never emerged from committee.<sup>55</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of William and Mary 1690–4</em></h2><p>Ormond attended on the opening day of the 1690 Parliament, 20 March. He was present on 26 days during the session (48 per cent of the sittings) and was named to three committees. He was excused attendance on 31 Mar. 1690 following a call of the House. Ormond accompanied King William to Chester in June 1690, embarking with him for Ireland, and serving during the campaign.<sup>56</sup> On 19 July the king and the court dined at Kilkenny, after Ormond had travelled there and ‘found his house unrifled, by the particular order of count Lausun’, the French commander.<sup>57</sup> Ormond was back in London in time to be present on the first day that Parliament sat, 2 Oct. 1690, and attended on 38 days during the session, 50 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharged of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. He was appointed to the Irish Privy Council on 6 Nov. 1690.</p><p>The gains to be made – or in Ormond’s case, the losses to be recouped – again focused his attention on Irish forfeitures. In particular, he was keen to exercise his right under his county palatinate jurisdiction to the forfeitures of rebels in co. Tipperary. To this end, he approached the king, who referred his request to the commissioners for forfeited estates; they denied that they had the power to determine the matter, so at the beginning of December 1690 Ormond petitioned the Irish lords justices for an order permitting his officers to seize the goods and estates forfeited within his county palatine, and for the commissioners to restore what they had seized. They promptly passed on his petition to the judges to consider and report, which presumably they did, for there is evidence that Ormond successfully protected his rights.<sup>58</sup> The need for a decision in his favour was made clear by the proceedings in the Commons, which was considering a bill for attainting persons in rebellion in England or Ireland, and for confiscating their estates for the use of the war. To Ormond’s advisers, this meant that there was a need to safeguard his rights under his county palatinate jurisdiction. This bill passed the Commons on 23 Dec. 1690, and on 3 Jan. 1691 Sir John Temple<sup>‡</sup> wrote a letter advising that Ormond should attempt to obtain a proviso in the Lords safeguarding his rights.<sup>59</sup> However, the bill failed to pass in the Lords.<sup>60</sup> Meanwhile, at the end of the session on 5 Jan. 1691, a warrant was signed for Ormond to replace Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge [I], as lord lieutenant of Somerset, an office he retained until December 1714.<sup>61</sup></p><p>The background to all this activity was Ormond’s deteriorating financial position, which the Irish campaign made much worse through his inability to collect any rents. First, there was the debt inherited from his grandfather, which in May 1688 stood at £98,500 and required interest payments of £6,000 p.a.<sup>62</sup> A broader overview of September 1690, taking into account money owed to the old duke’s other grandchildren and other liabilities, extended the debt to almost £160,000, which required just over £12,000 to service. Then there were the debts of Ormond himself, which in September 1690 were calculated at about £30,000. So, in September 1690 Ormond’s total debts were calculated at £188,637 9<em>s.</em> 5<em>d.</em> and yearly outgoings at £21,116 10<em>s.</em> 7<em>d</em>.<sup>63</sup> His commitments now also included financial support for his brother, Charles, and two sisters, Emilia and Henrietta.<sup>64</sup> His rental income in March 1692 was estimated optimistically at just over £24,000; but the receivers’ accounts for 1690–1 revealed an income of just over £17,000 p.a.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Having regained control of his estates, Ormond was faced with how to manage them effectively, given that he was essentially an absentee owner. As Israel Feilding wrote in November 1691, ‘I could heartily wish that the duke of Ormond would take a little more of himself on this side, for I fear his fortune under a very negligent way of management.’<sup>66</sup> At the end of 1691 Ormond appointed a commission, headed by Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Longford [I], to manage his estates.<sup>67</sup> This marked a reversion to original arrangements once adopted by the first duke, who had eventually found this system wanting and instituted management by a single person.<sup>68</sup></p><p>In late May 1691 Ormond was reported to be going to Flanders, where he served in the campaign.<sup>69</sup> He attended the Lords on 56 days during the session of 1691–2 (55.5 per cent of the total) and was named to three committees. On 11 Nov. Ormond and Northumberland introduced Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans, into the House. Meanwhile, at the end of October Ormond was rumoured to be in competition with Rochester and Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>70</sup> In Ailesbury’s view Ormond wished to be lord lieutenant principally for financial reasons, noting that he had been persuaded to stay in the army only by his sister, the countess of Derby, now serving as groom of the stole to the queen, who provided the finance for his equipage.<sup>71</sup></p><p>On 9 Feb. 1692, George Rodney Brydges<sup>‡</sup> presented a clause to the Commons on Ormond’s behalf to be added to the Irish forfeitures bill.<sup>72</sup> This clause enabled the king to grant him any of the estates forfeited by the act within Ormond’s county palatine, and alluded to the enduring problem that Ormond faced after being deprived of his estate in Ireland, which had rendered him ‘in a great measure uncapable to discharge the great encumbrances whereunto his estate is liable, all his estate being and lying within that kingdom’.<sup>73</sup> Despite passing the Commons, this bill also fell in the Lords when Parliament was prorogued.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Ormond’s close relations to Prince George were highlighted in February 1692, when he was one of those who paid a visit to Princess Anne at Sion House. This friendship was also used by the king, who got Ormond to convey to the princess of Denmark a peremptory message that she should remove the countess of Marlborough from her house. Towards the end of March 1692 Ormond left England to join the campaign, arriving in Flanders at the beginning of April.<sup>75</sup> The limits to the power of some of Ormond’s honorific posts were revealed while he was abroad. He sent a recommendation to the dean and chapter of Westminster that they choose Sir Charles O’Hara as head bailiff of the city, but they opted for a Mr Knipe instead.<sup>76</sup> This decision seemed to irk Ormond considerably, while the duchess expressed her disappointment at not being informed earlier, believing ‘I would have been quick enough for my Lord Rochester, if I had known it.’<sup>77</sup></p><p>In May 1692, Longford, one of Ormond’s trustees for managing his estates, again put forward the idea that Ormond obtain a grant of ‘all forfeitures within his own estate’, in order to forestall other applicants, or indeed the grants being blocked once their value had been ascertained. Another of Longford’s schemes for maximizing Ormond’s income revolved around the patent that had been granted by Charles II to his uncle Arran for coining farthings, the profits of which appeared to have been diverted by the nominal grantee, Sir John Knox, and his executor, Roger More. In June 1692 Longford favoured obtaining a fresh grant and applying the profits to pay off Arran’s debts.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Ormond returned to England with the king in October 1692, and received a sobering analysis of his finances from Longford. For the year ending in May 1693, Ormond could expect rental income of just over £21,000 (excluding the butlerage and prizage, assigned to Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup>), of which deductions for ‘my wife’s jointure and the list of interest for your debts, pensions and annuities’ amounted to just over £8,000, leaving a shortfall of just under £12,900. He then issued a warning of the dire consequences of defaulting on his interest payments to his creditors.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Ormond attended on 25 days during the session of 1692–3, 23 per cent of the total, and was named to two committees. His prolonged absence between 22 Nov. 1692 and 11 Jan. 1693 was partly covered by the issue of a proxy, to Rochester, on 6 Dec. 1692. Rochester duly cast his proxy on 3 Jan. 1693 against the motion to pass the place bill. Ormond was back in the House to vote Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder on 4 Feb. 1693.</p><p>The duke came gradually to see the virtue of a single person taking charge of his affairs in Ireland. In March 1693 he reorganized the management of his estates, appointing a former baron of the exchequer in Ireland, William Worth, the sole manager, and thereby superseding the commission he had set up following his grandfather’s death.<sup>80</sup> At the end of March, Ormond’s dissatisfaction over his failure to be made governor of the Isle of Wight, or to receive a promotion in the army, saw him offer to surrender his commission, using the excuses that the campaign would be a great charge to him, and that his affairs required his presence in Ireland. After the king asked him to reconsider, Ormond relented and joined him on campaign.<sup>81</sup></p><p>He embarked at Gravesend with the king on 31 March 1693.<sup>82</sup> Wounded and captured at the battle of Landen, he was exchanged for James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick.<sup>83</sup> He recovered quickly from his wounds and was able to return to England with the king in October 1693.<sup>84</sup> He attended the Lords on 49 days during the session of 1693–4, just over 37 per cent of the sittings and was named to three committees. Ormond again spent the summer of 1694 on campaign with the king, landing back in England in November 1694.<sup>85</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of William III, 1695–1702</em></h2><p>Ormond attended the Lords on 48 days of the 1694–5 session, 38 per cent of the total, and was named to one committee. On 12 Nov. 1694 he and Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg, introduced both the duke of Leeds (the former Danby) and William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, into the House. On 25 Feb. 1695 the Lords read for the first time a bill for vesting certain manors, lands and tenements belonging to Ormond, in Ireland, in trustees, to be sold, and enabling him to make leases for raising money to discharge the debts and encumbrances of his grandfather, for raising portions for any younger daughters and for securing the duchess’s jointure of £2,000 p.a. However, no further progress was made on the bill.<sup>86</sup> February 1695 saw the first of several attempts by Ormond to secure a grant of part of the bailiwick of Westminster for 99 years, which appears to have been unsuccessful. He was more successful in renewing his lease to the crown of butlerage and prizage. His initial proposal was for a rent of £1,600 p.a. covering five years, which was altered by the Treasury in April into a grant of £1,500 p.a. for seven years.<sup>87</sup></p><p>In April 1695 Ormond wrote to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, asking for a response from the lords of the treasury to his request for a patent for the coining of pence and two-pence pieces in Ireland.<sup>88</sup> This had been a longstanding interest of the Butlers, dating from the patent issued to Ormond’s uncle Arran. The king had forwarded the petition to the treasury, who in turn had referred it to the lord deputy in Ireland.<sup>89</sup> The report came back from Ireland in January 1696. Despite Luttrell reporting that a patent had been issued ‘granting the duke of Ormond the sole benefit of coining half-pence and farthings in Ireland’, the issue then seems to have been returned to the lord deputy by the king, who was anxious about the economic implications of granting a licence to coin the money.<sup>90</sup></p><p>As usual, the summer of 1695 saw Ormond in the Low Countries with the king.<sup>91</sup> In August it was reported that the duke and duchess were coming to reside in Ireland in the winter, which may possibly explain why on 7 Sept. William Blathwayt<sup>‡</sup> reported to James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> that he had the writs ready for calling Ormond, among others, to the Irish parliament.<sup>92</sup> In the event Ormond did not travel to Ireland, although it would have made sense for him to attend the parliament, given that it would be dealing with several pieces of family business.</p><p>In October 1695 Worth reported that two bills relating to Ormond’s county palatinate jurisdiction had been despatched to London for approval by the Privy Council, and that Ormond’s estate bill had arrived back from England following its approval there, it having been sent from the Irish parliament to the Privy Council for approval in September 1695.<sup>93</sup> The secretary of state, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, instructed his office to expedite the estate bill after it had passed the great seal, ‘the duke of Ormond being very desirous to have no time lost in getting that passed which relates to him’, and Robert Rochfort, speaker of the Irish House of Commons, reported that it had passed ‘with great respect’ in November.<sup>94</sup> The bill appears to have been designed to accomplish the ends of the failed legislation in the English Parliament earlier in the year: it vested lands in Ireland in trustees (including Worth and Sir Richard Cox) to be sold, enabled the duke to make leases for raising money to discharge the debts and encumbrances of his grandfather, raised portions for any future daughters and secured his wife’s jointure.<sup>95</sup> The duchess referred to the act’s essential point as allowing the ‘letting leases and taking fines, as well as the selling part of his estate’.<sup>96</sup> The bills for granting tales (alternate jurors) on trials to be had in the court of the county palatine of Tipperary before the seneschal, and concerning fines in the county palatine, were eventually despatched by the Irish parliament in the course of a couple of days in December.<sup>97</sup> That same month Henry Capell*, Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, the lord deputy in Dublin, was critical of some of Ormond’s followers in the Irish parliament, whom he accused of acting in concert with the supporters of the Irish lord chancellor Sir Charles Porter, in an attempt to delay the money bills, until they knew the fate of the bills already despatched to the Privy Council.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Just prior to the next parliamentary session, Ormond played host as chancellor on 9 Nov. 1695 during the king’s visit to Oxford University, despite prior warning from Shrewsbury that the visit would be of such a short duration as to preclude a formal dinner. <sup>99</sup> Ormond was present on the opening day of the session, 22 Nov., subsequently attending the Lords on 54 days during the 1695–6 session (nearly 44 per cent of the sittings) and being appointed to one committee. He signed the Association in the Lords on 28 Feb. 1696. On 18 Mar. he acquainted the Lords that Beaufort was absent by virtue of a fall from his horse, but to little avail as his father-in-law was ordered to attend by 31 March.</p><p>In March 1696 Ormond petitioned for a lease of some lodgings adjoining Whitehall for 42 years at some small rent, which the crown would be able to resume on payment of £1,800, the amount expended by the petitioner on the premises. This was probably granted, as Ormond still had lodgings in Whitehall at the time of his attainder in 1715. In May 1696 he petitioned for a grant of several leases and mortgages worth about £4,000, which were held under him and his grandfather in Ireland and which had become forfeit to the king. This was a variant to the parliamentary requests, and for the same reason, in consideration of the great damage that his estate had received by the late troubles in Ireland. This petition was renewed in November 1696, presumably to no effect.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Ormond again spent the campaigning season of 1696 in Flanders, following which it was reported in October that he had brought over all his equipage in anticipation of the Peace.<sup>101</sup> Upon his return there were rumours that he would be made lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>102</sup> He attended the Lords on 53 days during the 1696–7 session, 45 per cent of the sittings, and was named to three committees. On 18 Dec. 1696 he voted against admitting Goodman’s evidence in the trial of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, but still voted for the bill’s second reading. However, on 23 Dec. he voted against the passage of the bill, somewhat to the surprise of James Vernon, who noted Ormond as one of those peers who had ‘renounced their former vote’.<sup>103</sup> On 12 Jan. 1697, his sister Lady Henrietta Butler married, with a portion of £10,000, her cousin Henry d’Auverquerque*, the eldest son of Hendrik van Nassau-Ouwerkerk. D’Auverquerque (whose sister was Lady Ossory) was William III’s master of the horse, and was subsequently created earl of Grantham.<sup>104</sup></p><p>On 22 Jan. the Lords gave a first reading to a bill to enable Ormond to raise money by the sale of woods, to make leases of lives renewable forever, for the payment of debts, and for encouraging the English plantation in Ireland. Under the management of Rochester this bill passed rapidly through the House, being amended to include in its provisions Ormond’s brother, Arran. The Commons also dealt with the matter quickly, under the management of Francis Gwyn, and it was returned to the Lords with minor amendments on 12 Feb. 1697, receiving the royal assent on 8 March. In essence this amended the Irish act of 1695, probably because the duke did not wish to alienate land permanently through sales. Under the operation of this act over £115,000 was raised in fines.<sup>105</sup></p><p>While Ormond travelled to join the camp of William III in May 1697, his duchess was preparing to travel to Ireland.<sup>106</sup> Unfortunately, a miscarriage delayed her trip, and it was not until 29 May that a cavalcade, including the duchess’s two brothers, Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, marquess of Worcester, and Lord Arthur Somerset, escorted her to Bristol from Badminton.<sup>107</sup> She finally arrived at Waterford on 21 June.<sup>108</sup> Meanwhile, Ormond was en route back across the Channel, arriving in England at the end of August, with the intention of joining his duchess in Dublin and of staying in Ireland throughout the winter.<sup>109</sup> Although he gave the impression to Southwell that he only waited for the signing of the articles of peace with France to set out for Ireland, he enjoyed a somewhat leisurely progress through the West Country, stopping at Exeter, to receive the office of high steward of that city on 9 Oct., and possibly also at Bristol.<sup>110</sup> Ormond then took up residence in Clancarty House, which he rented at £40 a quarter.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Ormond took his seat in the Irish House of Lords on 10 Nov. 1697, much to the trepidation of the lords justices, who feared that the duke would attack some of the grants of forfeited lands made to Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney, in Tipperary, and revive his claim to them under his palatine jurisdiction.<sup>112</sup> The Irish lord chancellor, John Methuen<sup>‡</sup>, echoed their concern as to ‘how far the duke of Ormond will endeavour to show his power’, particularly as there was discontent among the disbanded army officers in the lower house.<sup>113</sup> Thomas Medlycott<sup>‡</sup> later claimed that he had been instrumental, following a request from Rochester, and ‘by the interest of the duke of Ormond’s friends’, in preventing the passage of the outlawries’ bill, which contained clauses detrimental to Princess Anne, whose rights to her father’s Irish estate were precluded by it.<sup>114</sup> Ormond certainly evinced some opposition to the plan to retain the Huguenot regiments on the establishment.<sup>115</sup> All in all, Methuen thought that Ormond’s actions in Ireland, and, indeed, his somewhat regal manner of travelling there, would harm his relations with the king.<sup>116</sup> Moreover, Ormond then left his proxy with Henry Hamilton-Moore, 3rd earl of Drogheda [I], who promptly cast it against the bill for the security of the king’s person.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Ormond left the duchess in Dublin around 21 Nov. 1697, and landed at Chester.<sup>118</sup> He took his seat in the Lords on 17 Dec., attending on 48 days of the 1697–8 session (nearly 35 per cent of the total), and was named to six committees. Once there he evinced a concern to protect Irish interests, particularly from the power of the English Commons. It was at Ormond’s London house that a meeting was convened on 26 Jan. 1698 to consider how best to thwart the English woollen interest, perhaps by promoting an Irish linen bill.<sup>119</sup> Pulling in the opposite direction on the issue, in March the Exeter corporation lobbied him, as their high steward, in favour of the bill to encourage the ‘woollen manufacture’ in England and to restrain the export of woollens from Ireland into ‘foreign parts’, and to prevent the export of English wool into Ireland, which had passed the Commons and was now before the Lords.<sup>120</sup> On 15 Mar. Ormond voted to commit the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he registered his dissent over the resolution to grant relief to the appellants James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and his wife, in a cause against Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], although he did not join the dissentients on 17 March.</p><p>In keeping with a more Irish orientation to Ormond’s affairs, no doubt necessitated by the need to both maximize his income and reduce his expenditure, as early as January 1698 it was reported that representatives of Count Tallard, the new French ambassador, were in negotiations to rent his house in St James’s Square.<sup>121</sup> Luttrell reported in February 1698 that Tallard was to rent it for three years, and two days after his arrival there on 19 Mar., Ormond entertained him to a dinner.<sup>122</sup> In July, Ormond sent a letter of recommendation to the University of Oxford in favour of John Ellis, ‘his long and affectionate services to me and my family, having procured him a particular regard from me’.<sup>123</sup> However, Ellis did not contest the parliamentary seat.</p><p>Peace and renting out his London house probably determined Ormond to try another period of residence in Ireland. On 2 Aug. he was reported to be intent on spending some time there, and he travelled to Ireland via Chester, arriving in Dublin about 16 Aug. and attending the Irish parliamentary session.<sup>124</sup> He left on 26 Oct. while the parliament was still sitting, ‘having given the greatest opposition he could to all our business’, which according to one Irish member continued after his departure.<sup>125</sup> Vernon, too, had referred to Ormond and ‘several of the opposing party’.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Ormond arrived back in London on 3 Nov. 1698.<sup>127</sup> He took his seat in the Lords on 6 Dec. 1698, attending on 39 days of the 1698–9 session (45 per cent of the sittings), and was named to four committees. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against agreeing to the committee resolution offering to assist the king in retaining the Dutch guards, and then registered his dissent. Perhaps significantly, on the previous day Ormond had resigned his place in the bedchamber in favour of his brother, Arran.<sup>128</sup> On 29 Mar. he dissented from a resolution to agree with a committee charged with examining the case of the <em>London</em><em> Ulster Society v. the bishop of Derry</em> to address the king that the bishop and several officers of the Irish House of Lords be sent for in custody for their behaviour in relation to the case. This was a further example of his sensitivity to Irish political opinion; the case concerned appeals from Ireland to the Lords at Westminster and the vexed question of the autonomy of the Irish parliament.</p><p>On 10 Apr. 1699, Ormond was reported to have given up ‘his commission of the command of the Guards on a point of command’ between Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, and himself.<sup>129</sup> His resignation was occasioned by the king’s appointment of Albemarle to command the 1st troop of guards, and hence to a position of authority over Ormond. Initially, Rochester’s intervention on his behalf failed to change the king’s mind and Ormond was left proclaiming that he was ‘resolved to travel this summer into Italy’.<sup>130</sup> However, the quarrel was patched up, the king taking both men in his coach to the Easter service.<sup>131</sup> Command of the guards was to be determined according to seniority of commission, reportedly after George Clarke<sup>‡</sup> had discovered a previous order of the king’s on seniority and given it to Rochester to show to the king.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, reported from Dublin on 1 May 1699 that the duchess of Ormond was sailing for England the next day.<sup>133</sup> This probably indicated that Ormond’s experiment of a permanent Irish residence had been abandoned for the time being. Ormond was certainly involved in the usual summer round of social visits, but with a political edge. At the end of June, he, Rochester, Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], and James Kendall<sup>‡</sup> paid a three-day visit to Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, at Chippenham.<sup>134</sup> In August, Ormond was reported to be moving into the house in St James’s Square vacated by Count Tallard, and on 24 Aug. he was present at the prorogation of Parliament, delivering ‘an elegant speech to both Houses.<sup>135</sup></p><p>Ormond attended the Lords on 49 days during the 1699–1700 session, nearly 54 per cent of the sittings, and was named to two committees. In February 1700, he was forecast as likely to support the bill continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 22 Mar. he was one of the nobility reported to be accompanying the king to Newmarket and on Easter Sunday he attended the king to the chapel royal.<sup>136</sup> On 1 Apr. at the third reading in the Commons of the land tax and Irish forfeited estates bill, a clause was offered on his behalf. As Luttrell reported, on 8 Apr. one of the two saving clauses added by the Lords to the bill was ‘to set aside the Commons’ provisos on behalf of those who had not grants under the great seal of England, [such] as the duke of Ormond’. These clauses were agreed to by 46 votes to 26.<sup>137</sup> As these were amendments to a supply bill, the Commons rejected them and offered this as their reason for so doing at a conference on the 9 April. Later that day, the Lords resolved to insist upon their amendments and drew up their reasons, which were delivered to the Commons at a conference on 10 April. After this conference the Lords gave way, and passed the bill without amendment. On 11 July it was reported that ‘Romney is likely to sell his house at Greenwich to the duke of Ormond’, which suggests that Ormond was already on the lookout for the country villa he eventually found at Richmond.<sup>138</sup> He was present at the prorogation of Parliament on 1 Aug. and attended the duke of Gloucester’s internment on 9 August.<sup>139</sup></p><p>Ormond attended the Lords on 59 days during the 1701 session (just over 54 per cent of the total) and was named to four committees. He signed a protest on 16 Apr. against a resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address asking the king not to punish the four impeached Lords until their impeachments had been tried. The protest was subsequently expunged from the Journal, and Ormond then joined in signing the protest over this action.<sup>140</sup> On 16 Apr. he and Arran had a petition read for a bill to enlarge the powers of their act of 1697 for discharging their debts. This bill was introduced the following day, entitled a bill for the more speedy payment of the creditors of the late and present dukes of Ormond. Again managed by Rochester, the bill was sent to the Commons on 6 May, where it was managed by Sir Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, and returned with minor amendments on 30 May, although a petition on it and a resultant saving clause were rejected. This bill appointed more trustees, including Harcourt, Rochester, Francis Annesley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Stephen Fox (a significant creditor).<sup>141</sup> By its provisions the sum of £6,386 was raised between 1701 and 1704.<sup>142</sup></p><p>Ormond was present at the prorogation of Parliament on 7 Aug. 1701, and again on 18 Sept. according to the <em>Post Boy</em>, although his name was not recorded as being present in the Journal.<sup>143</sup> During the 1701–2 session he attended the Lords on 19 days, 19 per cent of the total, and was named to four committees. He also signed the address on 1 Jan. 1702 on the Pretender being owned by France. He was given command of the land forces designed to go with the new lord admiral, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke.<sup>144</sup> Rather intriguingly, Ormond was noted in January 1702 as having given a dinner to the Junto Whigs Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, and John Somers*, Baron Somers, with Orford only absent through illness.<sup>145</sup> He was present at the deathbed of William III, and was named to the conference committee on 8 Mar. on the death of William III and the accession of Queen Anne.<sup>146</sup> In April 1702 the duchess of Ormond was named a lady of the bedchamber, allegedly at the instance of the duchess of Marlborough so that ‘her Lord and his family would use her much better’.<sup>147</sup></p><h2><em>Early years of Queen Anne, 1702–10</em></h2><p>By 1702 Ormond’s rental had been reduced to about £15,733, and he was still energetically searching after alternative sources of revenue.<sup>148</sup> Chief among these was the money that he could raise from leasing the collection of butlerage and prizage to the crown. Shortly before the king’s death, Christopher Carleton, an Irish revenue official, in correspondence with Ellis, had suggested that a rent of £2,000 p.a. for seven years would be a good deal given the likelihood of a war, noting that ‘the last seven years produced £2,323 p.a. … which may be a ground for demanding the same’.<sup>149</sup> Following the king’s death, Ormond did indeed attempt to negotiate better terms for the lease (the seven years’ lease for £1,500 p.a. having recently expired), hoping for an increase to £2,500 p.a. based on rising receipts, and the overplus of over £5,700 which the crown had received during that period.<sup>150</sup> The treasury appears to have ordered the direct collection of the duties, which would then be paid to Ormond, because the uncertainties of war made any estimate of the receipts unreliable.<sup>151</sup></p><p>Further evidence of Ormond’s association with Rochester occurred early in the new queen’s reign, when Marlborough became apprehensive about Ormond’s demands concerning the expedition to Cadiz: ‘I shall explain the matter more at large to Lord Rochester and such others as her majesty shall think fit to entrust.’ In the summer Ormond commanded the land forces during the assault on Cadiz, the unsatisfactory nature of which saw him contemplate a complaint against Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, the admiral in charge of the fleet. When Marlborough heard in November 1702 that Ormond was likely to complain about Rooke, he counselled caution, regarding all parties to the expedition as culpable in its failure.<sup>152</sup> Solicitor-General Harcourt, Ranelagh and others were despatched to persuade Ormond to drop his complaint, but too late to prevent him from instigating it.<sup>153</sup> The Whigs in the Lords then used the enquiry to attack Rooke.</p><p>Ormond attended the Lords on 29 days during the 1702–3 session (32 per cent of the sittings) and was named to seven committees, reporting from one, a naturalization bill, on 13 January. On 12 Nov. 1702 he attended the queen to St Paul’s for the public thanksgiving for the previous year’s campaigns, carrying the sword of state.<sup>154</sup> The following day he took his seat in the Lords, after which he received the thanks of the House from Lord Keeper Wright, ‘for the great services done by him to her majesty and this kingdom’. Ormond responded by thanking the House for the great honour done him, noting ‘that the officers and soldiers, in the late expedition at Vigo, behaved themselves with the greatest bravery imaginable’. The House then addressed the queen that the instructions given to Ormond and Rooke relating to the previous summer’s expedition be laid before the House, and further asked that Ormond lay before the House a written account of the whole expedition. Ormond delivered this to the House on 30 November. Proceedings then disappeared into committee for some time, although William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, recorded proceedings in the grand committee on 11 Feb., which saw Rooke’s Tory defenders object to the tenor of the intended report.<sup>155</sup> Bolton reported on 16 Feb. 1703, and the report was considered on the following day, when criticisms of Rooke were rejected and a favourable resolution adopted. The view of Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, was that Ormond’s appointment to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland had effectively muted his criticism so that ‘he came not to the House, when it was brought to a conclusion’.<sup>156</sup> On the forecast of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, compiled in about January 1703, Ormond was listed as likely to support the occasional conformity bill, duly voting on 16 Jan. against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause.</p><p>On 4 Feb. 1703, Ormond was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland in place of Rochester, ‘being an honour which he had a considerable time aimed at’.<sup>157</sup> The Hydes claimed the credit for his elevation into the cabinet but this was not widely believed, although some Irish officials thought that it was worth applying to Rochester for his influence on the new viceroy.<sup>158</sup> Burnet thought that Ormond ‘was the better received, when he went to that government, because he came after the earl of Rochester; till it appeared that he was in all things governed by him’, and alluded to one of his faults, that ‘being a man of pleasure, he was much in the power of those who acted under him, and whose integrity was not so clear’.<sup>159</sup> Ormond’s long-term client John Hartstonge, bishop of Ossory, noted the universal pleasure in his appointment and saw him as ‘a proper person to accommodate all our piques and divisions here’.<sup>160</sup> While John Isham noted the joy with which Ormond’s appointment was received in Dublin, he added a note of caution, saying that ‘unless he has some better heads about him than he usually converses with, I much question whether he will govern this kingdom long to the satisfaction of England’.<sup>161</sup> Ormond also received £3,000 towards his equipage and travel to Ireland.<sup>162</sup> However, this was unlikely to solve his financial problems: in June 1703 Marlborough wrote that ‘the vanity of 33 [Ormond], is what he can’t help, and I believe it is out of his power to do his family any more hurt, so that it must be poor tradesmen that must suffer when he dies’.<sup>163</sup></p><p>On 20 Feb. 1703 Ormond submitted a memorial to the lord treasurer, setting out his purchase from John Latten of a lease of 31 years on Richmond Lodge, which he now wished to surrender in return for a lease of three lives. He secured a lease for 99 years by December of that year.<sup>164</sup> On 24 Feb. he was one of the peers responsible for the rejection of the bill to enable the queen to settle the lands and revenues of the recently dissolved Savoy Hospital to charitable and public uses, because of the implications for universities of ‘annihilating a Charity in a summary way’.<sup>165</sup> On 22 Mar. Ormond was a pallbearer at the interment of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in Westminster Abbey.<sup>166</sup> He attended the prorogation on 22 Apr., when he introduced John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham and Normanby, into the House. Ormond set out for Ireland around 20 May 1703 and, after a leisurely progress (caused by the extent of his train) to Chester, arrived in Dublin on 4 June.<sup>167</sup></p><p>Ormond came into conflict with Marlborough over military appointments to Irish regiments, and particularly over the new regiment which he was given leave to raise in September 1703, despite it being against policy for a viceroy to command a regiment in Ireland.<sup>168</sup> As Isham pointed out, such patronage provided Ormond with ‘an opportunity of obliging a great many gentlemen that went over with him’.<sup>169</sup> The Irish parliament met from September to November 1703, and January to March 1704, so that Ormond was unable to attend the 1703–4 session at Westminster, although he seems briefly to have considered visiting England during the recess.<sup>170</sup> Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, duly marked him in an analysis drawn up around November 1703 as an absent peer, who would have been a supporter of the bill to prevent occasional conformity.</p><p>In the 1703–4 session, the Irish parliament promoted a bill to prevent the further growth of popery, one particular provision of which threatened Captain George Mathew, a relative of Ormond, upon whom he depended for the smooth running of his estate at Kilkenny. Ormond declined to remove this clause, ‘to avoid what people are so apt to call here favour to papists’.<sup>171</sup> Instead, he instructed Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup> to write to Nottingham to use his influence to have the clause omitted in England. He did, however, procure an act confirming the sales, fee-farms and leases made by himself and his brother, Arran, and extending the period for making fee-farms until Michaelmas 1705, after having prepared the ground for its favourable reception by the Privy Council by writing to Nottingham to desire his ‘favour in the matter of a private bill now going over, concerning Lord Arran and myself’.<sup>172</sup></p><p>Thwarted of his recessional break, Ormond made plans for a quick departure from Dublin following the end of the Irish parliamentary session. He landed back in England on 21 Mar. 1704, and set out from Chester to London on the 22nd, leaving his wife and daughters in Ireland once more.<sup>173</sup> During his time in England, he attended the Treasury on at least three occasions, usually on matters pertaining to Ireland.<sup>174</sup> In the summer, he also managed to negotiate a new lease of the prizage and butlerage. Following discussions among his advisers in the previous autumn, in May 1704 Ormond had petitioned for compensation for the loss he had sustained by consenting to a lease of the prizage and butlerage on wines for seven years at £1,500 a year, and proposing a further seven years lease to the crown, with an increase in the annual payment from the crown to £3,500 p.a.<sup>175</sup> On 10 June 1704 he gained an agreement with the treasury for ‘a lease for seven years at £3,500’, for which he received a great seal in August.<sup>176</sup></p><p>Ormond departed from London in October, landing in Dublin on 15 Nov. 1704.<sup>177</sup> He was again absent from the 1704–5 English parliamentary session. On the opening day of the session, 24 Oct. 1704, his proxy was registered with Lord Treasurer Godolphin, and on 23 Nov. he was excused attendance following a call of the House. His name appears on what was probably a forecast of those likely to support the Tack in November 1704 and as a Hanoverian on an analysis of the peerage drawn up on 13 Apr. 1705 in relation to the succession.</p><p>Ormond’s time in Ireland was spent anxiously watching English parliamentary proceedings over the linen industry and the effects that this would have on the Irish bill promoting the export of linen and on the session over which he was presiding.<sup>178</sup> Similarly, he was concerned about his political position, believing that the changes ‘much talked of’ would be delayed ‘until they see which way the elections will go’.<sup>179</sup> Certainly, Tories in Ireland were alarmed by the prospect of a Whig victory in England, and the possibility that Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton, would replace Ormond. The Irish session of 1705 also provides an indication of how Ormond could operate, politically, in England. In April, his secretary, Ben Portlock, wrote to Ellis concerning a bill that had been sent over to the English Privy Council, to inform him that Ormond</p><blockquote><p>wishes the bill may never come back, but you know how improper it is for him to interest himself on these accounts during his government, and therefore he desires you would serve and assist him with all privacy and speak to the solicitor general [Harcourt], on his behalf and who else you think fit.<sup>180</sup></p></blockquote><p>Edward Southwell reported on 22 June 1705 that Ormond ‘is preparing for England next week’. He landed at Chester on 26 June, arriving in London on the 29th.<sup>181</sup> He made use of his house at Richmond (no doubt showing off the many improvements he had made to it) to treat, among others, Lord Treasurer Godolphin on 21 Sept., three days before he attended at the Treasury on Irish business.<sup>182</sup> At the end of the month it was rumoured that his commission as lord lieutenant would be renewed for three years, thus combating rumours, current since at least March, that he would be replaced and become master of the horse instead.<sup>183</sup> Ormond made a constant round of visits, waiting on William Cowper*, the future earl Cowper, upon his appointment as lord keeper in October 1705.<sup>184</sup></p><p>Ormond attended the Lords on the opening day of the session, 25 Oct. 1705, and for 38 days altogether, nearly 40 per cent of the total. He was excused attendance on 12 Nov. following a call of the House, but he was present on the 15th when he introduced Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu, into the House. In the division on 6 Dec. he was listed as voting that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration. In December the bishop of Kildare recounted how he had been in discussion with ‘the new manager’ of Ormond’s estates, upon which he described the situation as ‘very bad, the expedients of raising money for want of it in the kingdom fail and should they take place, all would not do without the continuance of the government for a considerable time longer’, which perhaps gave an extra edge to the various rumours surrounding Ormond’s continuance in office.<sup>185</sup></p><p>On 29 Jan. 1706, a petition was read in the Lords for a bill enabling Ormond and Arran to settle fee-farm rents in co. Tipperary, pursuant to an agreement upon Arran’s marriage. The bill was duly given a first reading on 7 Feb. and reported, by Rochester, on the 15th. It was returned from the Commons with some amendments on 28 Feb. and passed. In April it was reported that Ormond would be retained in the lieutenancy of Ireland, ‘because of a competition among the Whigs who should have his place’, Wharton, Bolton and Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl of Kingston, being in contention.<sup>186</sup> However his return to Ireland was repeatedly postponed, amid continual speculation about potential successors. By October Robert Johnson had heard that Ormond designed to stay in London during the winter ‘to make all secure and safe in the rear and to leave it so, well fixed behind you, when you come over in the spring’.<sup>187</sup> Following the passage of the Regency Act in 1706, Ormond was named as one of the electress of Hanover’s regents.<sup>188</sup> He attended the prorogation of the House on 22 Oct. 1706.</p><p>Ormond attended the Lords on just 13 days of the 1706–7 session, 14 per cent of the total. However, he attended the cabinet four times in December 1706, five times in January 1707 and four times in February.<sup>189</sup> There is some evidence that his absence from the House between 7 Feb. and 4 Mar. was occasioned by ill-health and he did not attend the cabinet again until 8 March.<sup>190</sup> On 14 Mar. 1707 he left his proxy with Lord Mohun, although he was listed as attending twice more during the session, on 25 and 26 Mar., and he attended the cabinet on 16 and 26 Mar. and 10 April.<sup>191</sup> He did not attend the short session of April 1707. In February he was granted a new lease of the lodge within Richmond Old Park, and in April he extracted from the Treasury an extension of their lease of prizage and butlerage for £3,500 p.a. for ten and a half years from 29 Sept. 1701.<sup>192</sup> Ormond was finally removed as lord lieutenant in April 1707, and affected to be content with ‘his private way of life’ in Richmond, although General Henry Lumley‡ also noted, ‘I wish he may so settle his affairs as to be perfectly easy.’<sup>193</sup> Sir Richard Cox added, ‘I am glad his grace is retrenching. I wrote twice on that subject.’<sup>194</sup></p><p>In July 1707, the Irish parliament considered ‘heads of a bill to revive powers granted to his grace by former acts of Parliament’, which was another extension of the legislation of 1701. Ormond’s appointee as Irish lord chancellor, Cox, managed it through the council in August, so that it was ready to be despatched to London for approval. When it was returned to Ireland, the bill passed the Irish House of Lords in November 1707, ‘as fast as the forms would allow it’, receiving the royal assent as an act enlarging the time for executing several powers and authorities given to Ormond and Arran, by several former acts of parliament, and for making effectual and confirming the bargains, sales, fee-farms and leases made by them.<sup>195</sup></p><p>The death of the lord steward, Devonshire, in August 1707 prompted speculation that Somerset would succeed him, and that Ormond would step into Somerset’s office as master of the horse, but the office went to Devonshire’s son.<sup>196</sup> Ormond was present on the opening day of the 1707–8 session, 23 Oct. 1707, attending on 50 days, just over 46 per cent of the total. Following the presentation of the University of Oxford’s address to the queen on 18 Mar. 1708, a sumptuous dinner was given by the chancellor.<sup>197</sup> He was classed as a Tory on an analysis compiled in about May 1708 of the British Parliament and he was also named to the new Privy Council of Great Britain.<sup>198</sup></p><p>Ormond first attended the 1708–9 session on 19 Nov., when he introduced Queensberry as duke of Dover. In all, he was present on 33 days of the session, nearly 35 per cent of the total. At the beginning of January 1709, Marlborough wrote, ‘I am told that 33 [Ormond], is desirous of parting with his employments, but I hope at this time her majesty will not allow of it, since it must turn to her disservice.’<sup>199</sup> This wish had apparently been prompted by Wharton’s appointment to the Irish lord lieutenancy because Ormond did not wish to come under his command. This also led to rumours concerning his selling his company of guards. Peter Wentworth thought Ormond’s reasons a little specious, as he would <em>not</em> come under the lord lieutenant’s command, and Ormond did not in the event sell his regiment.<sup>200</sup></p><p>Interestingly, given that he was a Scottish peer and a long-term associate of Queensberry, on 21 Jan. 1709 Ormond voted in favour of the motion that a Scots peer with a British title had the right to vote in the election for Scottish representative peers. His supporters continued to harbour thoughts of his return to office in Ireland, and Wharton’s secretary, Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup>, at least, felt that some of the current opposition in the Irish parliament was propelled by the hope that making the government there appear to be in difficulty might lead to Ormond’s return; he referred to the ‘Ormond and Rochester party’ in August 1709.<sup>201</sup> Wharton may have made life a little more difficult for Ormond, by referring back to the Irish revenue commissioners a request from Ormond for an extension of the term of his contract for butlerage and prizage. They had reported favourably upon it in July 1709, and saw no reason to change their view, so it was duly granted in September. In fact, Ormond waited until December 1710 before petitioning to reclaim the exchequer fees he had paid on his duties.<sup>202</sup></p><h2><em>The Oxford ministry, 1710–15</em></h2><p>Ormond was present on 15 Nov. 1709, the opening day of the 1709–10 session, attending in all on 40 days of the session, nearly 39 per cent of the total. On 30 Nov. he acted as a pallbearer at the interment of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland.<sup>203</sup> James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> noted in December that ‘Wharton and Halifax seem to be out of the secret of the Junto and great court is made to the Duke of Ormond’, a comment which may reflect the tensions between the members of the Whig Junto over Irish policy which had surfaced earlier in the year.<sup>204</sup> On 14 Jan. 1710, Ormond and James Hamilton*, duke of Brandon and 4th duke of Hamilton [S], introduced Charles FitzRoy*, duke of Southampton, as 2nd duke of Cleveland. On 16 Feb. Ormond joined the protest against the resolution not to require James Greenshields and the magistrates of Edinburgh to attend the Lords before Greenshields’ appeal was received. Later that day he protested against the resolution not to adjourn the House following the receipt of the Commons address commending Marlborough and requesting that he be sent to Flanders. However, he did not sign the protest on the address subsequently agreed asking the queen to ensure Marlborough’s early departure for Flanders.</p><p>On 14 Mar. Ormond dissented from the decision not to adjourn before the House considered precedents concerning impeachments, but did not protest against the actual resolution that in prosecutions by impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanours the particular words supposed to be criminal are not necessary to be expressly specified. Two days later he protested against the resolution to put the question that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment against Sacheverell. He protested again on the following day, against the resolutions that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth resolutions of the impeachments. On 18 Mar. he protested against the resolutions limiting peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty upon all the articles of impeachment. On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, and duly entered his dissent.</p><p>According to Bishop Compton’s chaplain, Ralph Bridges, on 1 May 1710, a little while previously Ormond had attempted to reconcile Rochester and Leeds.<sup>205</sup> Perhaps because of this political manoeuvring, Ormond was not initially an integral part of the plans of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, to reconstruct the ministry in the summer and autumn of 1710, at least not for Ireland. However, the death of John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, on 18 Sept. opened the way for Ormond’s re-appointment as lord lieutenant on 19 October.<sup>206</sup> The prospect of his advancement may explain the report on 22 Sept. that his levee had been attended by 150 people.<sup>207</sup> Some Tories had considered him as a plausible candidate for the post of master of the horse, should Somerset be forced out, especially as he had ‘the character of a generous, fine gentleman, and not one that would set up for politician, those that are in possession of the queen’s ear could have suffered him near there without any jealousy’.<sup>208</sup></p><p>On 6 Aug. 1710, Ormond acted as a pallbearer at the interment of his aunt, the dowager duchess of Devonshire, in Westminster Abbey.<sup>209</sup> The same month saw the Irish parliament pass an act ‘for rendering more effectual the several provisions made by former acts for the payment of the debts of [the] late duke of Ormond and present duke, and for other purposes therein expressed’, yet another extension of the legislation attempting to deal with his debts.<sup>210</sup> The trustees appointed by this act included Rochester, Fox, Charles Fox<sup>‡</sup>, William Robinson, John Ellis, Archibald Hutcheson<sup>‡</sup> and William Sloper<sup>‡</sup>. They instituted a thorough plan of reform by consolidating Ormond’s debts, mainly into loans by two Dublin bankers, Henry and Sir Alexander Cairnes. However, plans for retrenchment failed and Ormond’s debts had risen to £110,500 by 1715.<sup>211</sup></p><p>On 21 Oct., before the opening of the 1710 Parliament, Ormond’s daughter Lady Mary Butler married John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron Ashburnham, who had recently succeeded his brother to the title. Matters had been under negotiation in August and, according to Swift, this was ‘the best match now in England, twelve thousand pounds a year, and abundance of money’.<sup>212</sup> In his analysis of English Lords of 3 Oct. 1710, Harley expected Ormond to support the ministry. The same month, in preparation for his journey to Ireland, Ormond was allowed £3,000 towards his equipage and travel costs. However, in November the order to pay him the usual allowances of the lord lieutenant ensured that the lords justices could deduct £100 per month each.<sup>213</sup> At the beginning of November, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], was hopeful that Ormond would send his proxy, possibly to Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], for use in the election for Scottish representative peers.<sup>214</sup> Ormond duly sent it, for it was cast by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], ‘but it was disputed until the records of Parliament were read and determined in his favour’.<sup>215</sup> On 13 Nov. Ormond was again a pallbearer, this time at the funeral of John Thompson*, Baron Haversham.<sup>216</sup></p><p>Ormond first attended the 1710–11 session on 27 Nov., being present on 53 days of the session, just under 47 per cent of the total. On 29 Nov. Mohun (nominally a Whig) registered his proxy with Ormond, further evidence of the campaign waged by Harley to convince Mohun to take a place on the admiralty board.<sup>217</sup> On 16 Dec., Northumberland’s proxy was also registered with Ormond. On 4 Dec., Ormond, his wife and Anne, countess of Coventry (the duchess of Ormond’s sister), put in their answer relating to the cause of the dowager duchess of Beaufort (his mother-in-law) versus Lady Granville (widow of the duchess’s son, the marquess of Worcester) over the will of his deceased father-in-law, the duke of Beaufort. The decree was reversed on 18 Dec. 1710. On 22 Dec. Ormond was named a commissioner for passing bills.</p><p>Ormond again sought to defend Irish interests in February 1711, when Scottish interests attempted to promote a bill in the Commons to tighten the laws prohibiting the export of flax from Scotland to Ireland. In alliance with Whig lords, he was able to guarantee Irish exports access to the colonies for a further six years, and effectively destroyed the prohibition of Scots flax exports to Ireland.<sup>218</sup> Interestingly, there was some doubt as to his rights as a Scottish peer, for on 8 Jan. 1711 Mar wrote that the only obstruction to his name being placed in the roll of Scottish peers was that it was not known where exactly he should be placed.<sup>219</sup> On 2 Mar. the Lords were informed that Ormond was Lord Dingwall [S], and ought to be placed in the list of the nobility of that kingdom. The matter was referred to the committee of privileges, where it seems to have languished until revived on 7 July 1714, when some papers relating to the precedency of the title were ready to be produced. The Lords duly agreed to the title being added to the roll of Scottish peers established at the union on the following day.</p><p>On 5 Mar. 1711, Sir Alexander Cairnes, now a member of the Irish commons, petitioned for a bill to establish a purchase deed made with Ormond of some lands in Ireland. As this bill had the consent of Arran, the judges had no grounds to object to it, and it was managed rapidly through the House of Lords by Rochester, being sent to the Commons on 16 Apr., where it was managed by Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> and returned to the Lords with only minor amendments on 16 May, before receiving the royal assent. Ormond was present at the meeting of the cabinet on 8 Mar. when Guiscard stabbed Harley. Once overpowered, Guiscard begged Ormond to kill him, presumably counting on his Ormond’s previous acquaintance with his kinsman the comte de Gusicard, who had ensured his recovery from his wounds at the battle of Landen, to guarantee him a quick end.<sup>220</sup> Ormond did not oblige, though Guiscard died of his wounds shortly afterwards. Ormond’s name appeared on a list of Tory patriots during the 1710–11 session. On 17 Mar. he was one of the commissioners for passing bills in the queen’s absence, being ‘on the bench’, as Bishop Nicolson put it, as he was again on 26 March.<sup>221</sup> On 6 Apr. 1711 Swift noted another example of Ormond’s commitment to the Irish lobby. Ormond hosted a meeting of ‘all the Irish in town … to consult upon preventing a bill for laying a duty on Irish yarn’, at the conclusion of which the group ‘all went to the lobby of the house of Commons, to solicit our friends, and the duke came among the rest’, although the committee of ways and means was then put off until Monday.<sup>222</sup></p><p>When Rochester died on 2 May 1711, Ormond’s closeness to his former father-in-law was emphasized by his appointment as chief mourner at Rochester’s funeral on 10 May.<sup>223</sup> Ormond then left London on 14 June en route for Ireland, arriving in Dublin on 3 July.<sup>224</sup> One of his major political headaches was his continuing dispute with the city of Dublin, Swift reporting on 20 Sept. 1711 that ‘Ormond is censured here by those in power for very wrong management in the affair of the mayoralty [of Dublin]’.<sup>225</sup> Swift also wrote that ‘He is governed by fools; and has usually much more sense than his advisers, but never proceeds by it.’<sup>226</sup> The importance to Ormond of his office-holding, and other income from the state, was underlined by Archibald Hutcheson in August, when he noted to Cox that ‘with all the present great incomings of his grace his debts, instead of lessening, are upon the increase … and if in the present prosperity things run thus, how swift must the destruction be when the tide shall turn.’<sup>227</sup></p><p>Ormond arrived back in London on 7 Dec. 1711, just in time to attend the opening day of the session.<sup>228</sup> He supported the ministry over the ‘No Peace Without Spain’ motion and consequently on 10 Dec. he was listed as a loyal peer. He attended on 35 days of the session of 1711–12, just over 31 per cent of the sittings. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support Hamilton’s pretensions to vote as a British peer and on the 20th was duly listed as voting against the right of Scots peers holding post-union British titles to sit and vote in Parliament under their British titles. He then signed the protest against this resolution. Ormond’s name appears on Oxford’s list of 29 Dec. 1711 of Lords to be contacted during the Christmas recess. At the end of 1711, he was elected to membership of Swift’s dining or drinking club, known as ‘the Society’, attending his first dinner on 26 Jan. 1712.<sup>229</sup></p><p>Ormond was the major beneficiary of Marlborough’s dismissal from all his posts, being named to replace him as colonel of the Grenadier Guards and shortly afterwards as commander-in-chief of the queen’s forces in Great Britain.<sup>230</sup> Towards the end of February 1712 he was named commander-in-chief in Flanders.<sup>231</sup> Somerset’s removal as master of the horse also revived speculation about Ormond as his successor, coupled with the duchess as groom of the stole, rumours which did not abate when the place was left vacant and then in June executed by commissioners.<sup>232</sup></p><p>On 28 Jan. 1712, Swift reported a meeting with Ormond and the prolocutor of convocation, Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, concerning a lobbying matter delegated to Swift by Lord Treasurer Oxford ‘to contrive some way to keep’ John Sharp*, archbishop of York, ‘from being seduced by Lord Nottingham’, an important matter given that ‘there is but a slender majority in the house of Lords; and we want more’. On 31 Jan. Ormond was one of the commissioners named by Queen Anne to pass the malt bill, as he was again on 3 and 25 March.</p><p>Ormond’s appointment as general led to some disquiet, Swift noting in March 1712 that ‘his friends are afraid the expense of this employment will ruin him, since he must lose the government of Ireland’.<sup>233</sup> Others, like Thomas Burnet, noted the duke’s extravagance in having 18 aides-de-camp and observed that ‘he will have the honour of running farther into debt by being made a general’.<sup>234</sup> He was awarded £5,000 for his equipage, and £600 a month for extraordinary charges.<sup>235</sup></p><p>On 7 Apr. 1712 Ormond deposited his proxy with Oxford, in preparation for his journey to Flanders to take command of the army. He had already taken the precaution of conveying his house in St James’s Square to Arran, in trust to sell it to pay his debts.<sup>236</sup> He left London on 9 Apr. and arrived at The Hague on the 14th, along with Hanmer and John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S].<sup>237</sup> At this time, Prince Eugene penned the following assessment for the court of Vienna:</p><blockquote><p>Ormond is the finest Cavalier and most complete gentleman that England bred, being the glory of that nation, of so noble spirit that he would sacrifice all for his Church and sovereign, very popular, his great affability winning the hearts and affections of all people; yet [I] cannot say his grace is much concerned in the ministry, because he acts most by direction, and has no great sway in the cabinet.<sup>238</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 19 May 1712, Harcourt informed Oxford that Ormond’s bill ‘enabling to sell his palatinate to the queen’ was ready, and asking whether there should be a clause in it remitting the crown and quit rents out of Ormond’s estate, the act of resumption making these rents inalienable. On the 25 May he added that the bill had been settled by the attorney-general, Sir Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup>, and was ready to be brought into the Commons. The issue of the quit rents was still threatening to delay the bill, possibly until the following session, and on 26 May Harcourt wrote asking for authority to allow Northey leave to offer the bill to the Commons ‘this morning’.<sup>239</sup> The bill was duly ordered by the Commons that day and passed rapidly under the management of Francis Annesley. It was managed through the Lords by Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, with an amendment rejected by the Commons, relating to the keeping of the records from the Tipperary courts, being re-inserted, which was then agreed to by the Commons. This act remained in reserve and was never brought into force: the county palatine jurisdiction was eventually extinguished by Ormond’s flight and attainder, although, as Archbishop King of Dublin noted on 7 Oct. 1715, ‘the duke himself was weary of it, it being a considerable charge and a mere feather of no value in itself’.<sup>240</sup></p><p>Ormond may have felt considerable discontent at being ordered not to engage the enemy, under the so-called ‘restraining orders’, which had occasioned a set-piece debate in the Lords on 28 May 1712. Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, almost acknowledged the point in late August when he explained to Ormond why he had to remain with the army until the end of the campaign and Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>, at Fountainbleau, informed Oxford at the beginning of September that ‘Monsr. Torcy judges the duke of Ormond’s stay in Flanders absolutely necessary’.<sup>241</sup></p><p>The death in London on 27 May 1712 of William Keith*, 8th earl of Marischal [S], necessitated a by-election for the vacancy among the Scottish representative peers. In July, William Cochrane<sup>‡</sup> put Oxford in mind of the need to mobilize the votes on behalf of the court, specifically noting ‘the duke of Ormond’s proxy as Lord Dingwall’s’, although in the event the election of James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], was unanimous. In October the failure of William Delaune to obtain an Irish bishopric, despite being backed by Ormond among others, demonstrated the limits of Ormond’s ecclesiastical patronage in Ireland.<sup>242</sup> Nor did he have much success shortly afterwards when he was heavily involved in soliciting the vacant bishopric of Hereford for his long-term associate John Hartstonge, bishop of Ossory.<sup>243</sup></p><p>Ormond arrived back in London on 3 Nov. 1712 and waited on the queen the following day.<sup>244</sup> On 5 Nov. Queen Anne wrote to Oxford that, upon seeing Ormond, ‘I fancied at first he seemed a little uneasy, but after talking some time he came into good humour; he comes of a solicitous family, therefore care must be taken that he makes no unreasonable request.’<sup>245</sup> In January 1713, the death of his daughter Lady Ashburnham ‘occasioned great affliction to the duke of Ormond’s family’, and was also a matter of some political significance, Ormond being ‘afraid the Whigs would get him [Ashburnham], again’.<sup>246</sup> In early February it was reported that Ormond had given his Irish horse regiment to Ashburnham.<sup>247</sup></p><p>Ormond was present on 26 Mar. 1713 at the prorogation of Parliament. On 10 Apr. it was reported that he had been appointed lord lieutenant of Norfolk, in place of Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>248</sup> Ormond attended the opening day of the 1713 session, 9 Apr., being present on 30 days of the session (39 per cent of the sittings). On 10 June and 6 July he was a commissioner named by the queen for passing bills. His name appears on Oxford’s list, drawn up about 13 June 1713, of those peers expected to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Despite more rumours suggesting that he would become master of the horse, in June 1713 Ormond was made lord warden of the Cinque Ports, with Ashburnham as his deputy.<sup>249</sup> He was soon at work replacing the officers under him with his own nominees, preparatory to the general election, although too late sometimes to influence the outcome, as at Dover, where his secretary, Henry Watkins<sup>‡</sup>, was defeated.<sup>250</sup> He was more successful in nominating Archibald Hutcheson at Hastings. Ormond also interested himself in the Bedford election, in behalf of an Irish army officer, Brigadier Waring, by approaching the lord treasurer, through Thomas Harley<sup>‡</sup>, for the interest of Thomas Trevor*, Baron Trevor, in the borough.<sup>251</sup></p><p>In July 1713, Ormond received a grant on the Irish revenue of a pension of £5,000 p.a. for 15 years,</p><blockquote><p>in consideration of many good and faithful services as well in the beginning of our reign in the hazardous and successful undertaking at Vigo (particularly acknowledged by both Houses of Parliament) and as captain general of our forces in Flanders the last year, by which and in many other former services to the crown we are fully satisfied you have much lessened and impoverished your own estate.<sup>252</sup></p></blockquote><p>This was not, however, to be paid while he remained lord lieutenant of Ireland. Sir Stephen Fox thought that this grant ‘may presently give ease to his affairs, if his grace will follow the advice of his trustees’.<sup>253</sup> That same month, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, was keen to utilize his relationship with Ormond (his uncle through marriage) to try to gain a better office from Oxford, referring to Ormond as ‘having undertaken as a guarantee between his Lordship and me’.<sup>254</sup> In August Ormond played a more pivotal role, in persuading his friend Hanmer to become more involved with the ministry, helping to cajole him up to London for meetings with Oxford and William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, and even attending them himself.<sup>255</sup> In October Ormond voted in the election for Scottish representative peers, using Rosebery as his proxy, it being ‘allowed by the peers, although not formerly in the rolls of Parliament’.<sup>256</sup></p><p>Ormond was also in contact with the Jacobite court from October 1713, and, owing to the perceived failings of other Tory ministers, he was increasingly courted from the turn of the year.<sup>257</sup> George Granville*, Baron Lansdown, told the Jacobite Thomas Carte in 1724 that Louis XIV (through Pontchartrain and Torcy) was dealing with Ormond in the last months of his life, to support a Stuart restoration.<sup>258</sup> However, Ormond was not always a partisan figure: as chancellor of Oxford, he was on hand to protect Charles Aldrich, the nephew of his former tutor, Dr Henry Aldrich, in the summer of 1713, from his High Church opponents.<sup>259</sup></p><p>Ormond first attended the 1714 session on 2 Mar., being present on 41 days of the session, nearly 52 per cent of the total, and was named to one committee. On 17 Mar. Banastre Maynard*, 3rd Baron Maynard, registered his proxy with Ormond, and on 21 Apr. Ashburnham did likewise. Ormond’s name appeared on Nottingham’s forecast, drawn up between 27 May and about 4 June, of those likely to support the bill to prevent the growth of schism. In May he was one of the peers in a symbolic vote for the Catholic heir against a Protestant claimant in an appeal before the Lords.<sup>260</sup> On 11 and 28 May, and 5 and 25 June 1714 he was a commissioner for passing bills.</p><p>Ormond was given a key personal and political role following Beaufort’s death in May 1714. According to a newsletter, he was to be named as the acting lord lieutenant of Hampshire and Gloucestershire during the minority of Henry Somerset*, 3rd Duke of Beaufort, and he was given a supervisory role over the young man in the duke’s will. In July he was deeply involved in the ministerial manoeuvrings, although it was not always clear to observers where exactly he stood. On 1 July, Dr William Stratford wrote in disbelief that Ormond was leaning towards the Bolingbroke faction within the ministry.<sup>261</sup> The most common reason given for Ormond’s political stance was disillusionment with Oxford over patronage matters and particularly the army. Certainly, Oxford’s failure to purge the guards must have grated on Ormond. Ormond had also wanted £10,000 ‘to make the matter easy to those officers who were to succeed’, but this money was not forthcoming, despite Oxford’s promises.<sup>262</sup> According to Carte, recounting evidence given years later by Lansdown, Ormond ‘insisted that the officers turned out should be paid for their regiments and posts, which they had purchased with their blood, which the new officers proposed were not able to do, nor could the exchequer then supply £150,000 which was the least it amounted to’.<sup>263</sup></p><p>Ormond signed the proclamation for the accession of George I but he was not one of the regents previously named by the new monarch under the Act of Settlement.<sup>264</sup> He sat on two days of the short August session held after the death of Queen Anne, taking the oaths on 3 Aug. 1714 and being named to one committee. The remainder of Ormond’s career will be dealt with elsewhere, detailing his loss of office and the events which led to his flight from England and consequent attainder in 1715. He died at Avignon on 5/16 Nov. 1745. His body was returned to England and he was buried in the Ormond vault in Westminster Abbey on 22 May 1746.<sup>265</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
BUTLER, Richard (1639-86) |
<p><strong><surname>BUTLER</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1639–86)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>13 May 1662 earl of Arran [I]; <em>cr. </em>27 Aug. 1673 Bar. BUTLER OF WESTON. |
|
First sat 20 Oct. 1673; last sat 20 Nov. 1685 |
|
MP Wells 1661-27 Aug. 1673. |
<p><em>b</em>. 15 June 1639, 5th s. of James Butler*, duke of Ormond and Elizabeth, <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Dingwall [S], da. of Richard Preston, earl of Desmond [I]; bro. of Thomas Butler*, Bar. Butler of Moore Park and earl of Ossory [I]. <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad (France and Holland) 1648-52, 1657-60; Académie del Campo, Paris 1649-50; G. Inn 1660. <em>m</em>. 13/14 Sept. 1664<sup>1</sup> (with £20,000), Mary (<em>d</em>. 3 July 1668),<sup>2</sup> <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswold, Hunts., da. of James Stuart<sup>†</sup>, duke of Richmond, and h. to her bro. Esme Stuart*, 2nd duke of Richmond, <em>s.p.</em>; (2) June 1673 (with £12,000), Dorothy (<em>d</em>. 30 Nov. 1716), da. and coh. of John Ferrers of Tamworth Castle, Warws., 4s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 2da. 1s. illegit.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 25 Jan. 1686; <em>will</em> 7 Jan. 1678, pr. 13 Jan. 1687.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>PC [I] 1663-<em>d</em>.; aulnager [I] 1666-1717;<sup>5</sup> ld. deputy [I] 1682-5.</p><p>Col. of Gds. [I] 1662-<em>d</em>., Irish horse by 1684<sup>6</sup>-1685;<sup>7</sup> marshal of array [I] 1684-<em>d</em>.</p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Co. Carlow [I] 1682-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov. of Dublin 1666-<em>d</em>.,<sup>8</sup> Isle of Arran 1666,<sup>9</sup> Dublin hospital 1683-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, National Trust, Hardwick Hall.</p> |
<p>As a younger son, Butler chose the army as a career, exploiting his extensive contacts to secure preferment. He was appointed to the guards in 1662, and the following year his father used his influence with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, to ensure that he was named to the Privy Council of Ireland.<sup>10</sup> From 1662, he was known by contemporaries by his title of Arran, which, as his father explained to a resentful William Douglas-Hamilton, duke of Hamilton (who held the Scottish title of that name), was ‘belonging to Ireland’, it ‘having long been the inheritance of my family, as I hope it shall shortly be my son’s.’<sup>11</sup> Arran also had a theoretical income of £3,000 p.a. bestowed upon him by his father.<sup>12</sup> Needless to say, this sum was not always forthcoming due to the financial difficulties of his father.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Arran’s arrival in London in January 1664 prompted Sir Nicholas Armorer to joke to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, ‘if you can find him a rich wife and send him back soon it will be kindly done.’<sup>14</sup> He was certainly in the marriage market, for the following month Anglesey reported that Arran ‘flies at a fair game, and none shall more wish and assist his good success than myself.’<sup>15</sup> This may refer to Arran’s courtship of the duke of Richmond’s daughter. After their marriage his wife’s status was confirmed by a royal declaration that she continue to be placed as the daughter of a duke.<sup>16</sup> The attractiveness of the match was summed up by Thomas Carte, ‘if she had left issue, her child would have inherited all the duke of Richmond’s estate in Scotland, and would have been heir-at-law to the duke of Buckingham’s estate in England.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>The Butlers were keenly aware of their residual interest in Buckingham’s estate, and anxious to protect it. Thus, upon the duchess of Richmond’s marriage to ‘Northern Tom Howard’ in November 1664, and the reports that she was with child, Ormond suggested to Buckingham that he settle his estates on Lady Arran.<sup>18</sup> This concern also explains Arran’s sudden dash across the Irish Sea to London in March 1667, following Buckingham’s arrest, in order to ensure that if his offence proved capital, leading to a forfeiture, the king could be swiftly reminded of his wife’s ‘innocence, and of the merit of her father and of his family.’<sup>19</sup> Another consequence of his marriage was the conveyance by his mother-in-law, the dowager duchess of Richmond, of her unexpired rights to the aulnage in Ireland.<sup>20</sup> Arran then procured a grant from the king of the same for 61 years, upon surrender of his previous patent in September 1666.<sup>21</sup> This was just one of a number of financial expedients which attracted Arran as he struggled to live within his means.</p><p>Arran was in England when his wife died in Ireland on 3 July 1668.<sup>22</sup> This prompted Arran to return there to settle his affairs and discharge his debts. He intended to return to England and keep a watching brief on his father’s affairs in Parliament, but Ormond was of the opinion that Arran would be better able to serve him in Ireland than elsewhere, particularly as the intentions of the new lord lieutenant, John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes were so uncertain.<sup>23</sup> Financial troubles continued to plague him, for when he wrote to William Legge<sup>‡</sup> in October 1670 to proffer his excuses for not attending the Commons, he opined that the real reason for his continued stay in Ireland was that he was unable to raise the money for the journey unless all the rents owed to him were paid.<sup>24</sup></p><p>In April 1671, when it was rumoured that James Scott*, duke of Monmouth would replace John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, in Ireland, Arran was named as one of his possible deputies.<sup>25</sup> Court politics remained very much part of Arran’s role, even when his father was out of office. In May 1671, it was reported that ‘Lady Clanbrassil is coming over with the lord lieutenant’, as a calculated ploy to entice the king away from Nell Gwyn.<sup>26</sup> As Edward Conway*, the future earl of Conway, wrote, ‘you cannot imagine how my Lord Arran and many others do value themselves upon the account of managing Lady Clanbrassil on this affair.’<sup>27</sup> Military service also attracted Arran. In February 1672 his mother wrote that he was going to sea with James Stuart*, duke of York, and in June 1672, he saw action, as a volunteer, in the naval engagement of Southwold Bay.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>Baron Butler 1673-80</em></h2><p>At the beginning of 1673 rumours were circulating of new peerage creations, Arran being mentioned as ‘earl of Leighton in Huntingdonshire, where he hath £1200 a year by his wife’. This grant was stopped because of Lady Catherine O’Brien’s claim to the barony of Clifton of Leighton Bromswold.<sup>29</sup> She petitioned the crown in October 1673 over the matter, and then on 8 Jan. 1674 petitioned the Lords, who decided in her favour on 7 Feb. 1674. In June 1673 Arran married Dorothy Ferrers, who came from ‘one of the best and ancientest families of England, formerly earls of Essex. The portion is £12,000, and but one sickly young man, her brother, between her and £3,000 a year after her father’s decease.’<sup>30</sup> The rumours of new peerage creations resurfaced in August 1673 when Dr. William Denton wrote: ‘we talk of four new Lords’, including Arran.<sup>31</sup> Arran was summoned on 17 Oct. 1673, as Baron Butler of Weston, ‘a manor of his own’, and took his seat at the prorogation on 20 Oct., being introduced by Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, and John Belasyse*, Baron Bellasyse.<sup>32</sup> He then attended on all four days of the short session held a week later, being nominated to two committees.</p><p>Arran attended on 33 days of the 1674 session (87 per cent of sittings) and was named to two committees. He did not attend the session that began in April 1675, and was excused attendance on the 29th. Nor did he attend the short session held later that year, depositing his proxy on 14 Oct. 1675 with his father (which was cancelled when Ormond entered a proxy for himself) and was excused attendance on 10 November. While in Ireland Arran was left to sort out the affairs of his brother, John, earl of Gowran [I], who died in April 1676, which included his substantial debts and the outstanding part of the portion due to him from his marriage to Lady Anne Chichester, who subsequently married Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Baron Aungier [I], later earl of Longford [I].<sup>33</sup> In England by 30 June 1676, he found Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis not guilty of murder.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Arran wrote from Dublin on 4 Sept. 1676, ‘I find the whole matter concerning Lord Ranelagh’s [Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>] miscarriages is left to be tried by his excellency here, which I am afraid will signify little as long as the other stays in England, and has such countenance given him there.’<sup>35</sup> When Arran arrived in London on 18 Nov., he brought with him the concerns of the lord lieutenant, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, over Ranelagh’s financial mismanagement.<sup>36</sup> As Ranelagh himself wrote on 25 Nov., ‘Lord Arran is here and the thundering representation against me came over with him, but it is as yet kept asleep.’<sup>37</sup> Arran attended on 35 of the 49 sittings between February 1677 and the adjournment on 16 Apr., 71 per cent of the total, and was named to 14 committees. He then attended on four of the five days in May. There was little doubt about his political position, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury classifying him as ‘twice vile’ on his list of lay peers dating from 1677-8.</p><p>Following Ormond’s reappointment as lord lieutenant, Arran accompanied his father to Ireland in August 1677. He did not stay long, Ormond reporting on 8 Jan. 1678 that Arran was about to embark ‘for England to do his duty in the House of Peers.’<sup>38</sup> He carried with him memorials on various topics of interest to the lord lieutenant, such as the Irish revenue (and Ranelagh’s accounts), the army, forts and Roman Catholics and nonconformists. Arran arrived in London on 13 Jan. 1678 although he saw little prospect of bringing ‘the affair of the Irish revenue under consideration notwithstanding this adjournment’, because of the current preoccupation with the prospect of a war. He immediately began a whirl of social visits. Regularly corresponding with his father, Arran was keen to discover Ormond’s attitude to the vexed question of whether to allow the Irish parliament to be called, even asking his father to ‘let me have some private instructions how to discourse upon that subject when it falls in my way.’ Ormond, in turn, advised Arran on how to put himself into a position to influence the king and the duke of York, by attending not only at the drawing rooms, but also at their rising, and, especially, at their retiring. Arran seems to have consulted Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, on many matters, but he noted that on Irish affairs, and particularly the problem of Ranelagh’s accounts, Arlington was excluded from the discussions at the treasury.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Arran attended on 57 days of the session that resumed in January 1678 following adjournments the previous May, July and December (93 per cent of the total, and an attendance of 83.5 per cent for the session as a whole). He was named to a further seven committees. One major matter of concern to Arran, as elucidated in a letter from Ormond, was the parliamentary outcry over the export of Irish wool to England’s competitors, for which Ormond blamed the corrupt practices of English customs’ officials. To combat these, Ormond sent his own ideas to Arran in the hope that they would be adopted.<sup>40</sup> He instructed Arran to consult Danby first, because the matter concerned the king’s officers, and then he was to introduce the ideas into the Lords’ committee, if one had been appointed to deal with the export of wool from Ireland. If necessary, in the Commons, Sir Cyril Wyche<sup>‡</sup> was to be used to perform the like task. Arran continued to enjoy a full social life, attending a ball on 4 Feb. 1678 at the house of Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, where the duke and duchess of York ‘danced with us until four o’clock this morning,’ before attending the proceedings in the Lords on 5 Feb. concerning Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke.<sup>41</sup> On 16 Feb. he accepted the proxy of William Feilding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh. On 4 Apr. he voted Pembroke guilty of manslaughter. However, matters did not go smoothly for Arran; his brother, Ossory, took umbrage at not being consulted over Arran’s interventions in Irish affairs, although Ormond pointed out this was a natural development considering Ossory’s absence abroad, and his imminent departure to the continent again.<sup>42</sup></p><p>With a Parliament likely to be called in Ireland to sit in May, in March 1678, Arran made the revealing comment that his wife ‘had as lief go to Jamaica as Ireland.’ On 7 May 1678 Ormond wrote of his desire to have Arran in Ireland as soon as he could ‘get off’, but the prospect of a new parliamentary session in England made that unlikely.<sup>43</sup> Arran attended on 33 days of the session of May to July 1678, 77 per cent of the sittings, plus the adjournment on 1 Aug. 1678. He was named to two committees. In June 1678, Arran provided an unofficial conduit for Ormond to suggest to the king a way in which he could put troops disbanded in England on to the Irish establishment. He left for Ireland on 7 Oct. 1678, although both Longford and secretary of state, Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> both urged his quick return, because he was thought to be a useful prop for Ormond’s interest, ‘being very well with the king and duke, and in good esteem with all men here.’<sup>44</sup></p><p>At the end of March 1679, Longford again suggested to Ormond that he should immediately send Arran back to London: as ‘an eye-witness of all transactions’ in Ireland, Arran would be able to ‘give a more authentic state of things’, better indeed than anyone else by virtue of the ‘place he has in the House of Lords, and a title to be with the committee [perhaps the committee of examinations, investigating the Popish Plot] when he pleases.’ At the end of April Ormond even considered asking leave to come over to defend himself in person, leaving Ossory as lord deputy, or Arran and the lord chancellor [Michael Boyle, archbishop of Armagh], as lords justices.<sup>45</sup></p><p>In March-April 1679, Danby listed Arran as doubtful in his calculation of likely voting intentions in the proceedings against him, probably because he was likely to be absent, and on 12 Mar. Arran was listed as a court lord who was absent from the House. His name also appears on a list of about April, which indicated his likely opposition to the early stages of the attainder bill against Danby. He was excused attendance on 9 May because he was attending to his duties in Ireland. At the end of January 1680, Arran was still ensconced in Dublin, writing to Secretary Coventry about Irish matters, while his father recuperated from an attack of the gout.<sup>46</sup></p><h2><em>Ormond's lieutenant, 1680-6</em></h2><p>The death of his brother Ossory at the end of July 1680 saw an increased role for Arran, as his father’s chief lieutenant in political and family affairs. Longford immediately recognized this, referring on 5 Aug. to Arran as the only one in the family that could do the king active service. He thought that Arran had ability, courage and integrity, but that he lacked industry owing ‘to his too great inclination to good fellowship.’<sup>47</sup> Further pressure was put upon Ormond to sanction Arran’s return to England, Longford arguing in early September that his ‘being here when the Parliament meets may be of importance, for he has good interest in my Lord Russell [William Russell<sup>‡</sup>], who will be the leading man in the House of Commons, and his lordship can himself represent the true state of affairs in the House of Lords.’<sup>48</sup></p><p>Arran arrived in London on 29 Oct. 1680. The following day he waited on the king, who took him ‘into an inner room and there discoursed with him (after he had shut the door himself) near half an hour.’ As Arran noted, ‘I am very sorry that I brought not some narrative along with me, for it would have been of great use to us’, and that ‘I should have delivered an account first, and not let your adversaries begin’, for John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace had already told the committee for examinations that he ‘knew a person of great quality and estate in the kingdom of Ireland who would inform them, he being lately come over, of the miscarriages of the government since the discovery of the Plot.’<sup>49</sup></p><p>Arran first attended the Lords the same day, 30 Oct. 1680, and was present on 45 days of the 1680-1 session, 68 per cent of the total. Despite the advice of the clerk of the Parliaments that he could sit in the House after taking the Test, he was forced to withdraw when someone pointed out that no writ had actually been issued to him. On the next day’s sitting, 3 Nov., now armed with a writ, he was added to the committee examining the Plot, where Ormond’s ‘enemies hope to pinch’ him. He was named to a further two committees. According to his later testimony, Arran intervened (probably on either 4 or 6 Nov. 1680) to justify the actions of Sir John Davies, the Irish secretary, in dealing with information proffered to him about the Irish Plot: ‘I am sure if I had not answered for him in the House, that he would come over upon my intimation of what was then moved in the House, he had been sent for by order of their Lordships, and that perhaps in custody.’<sup>50</sup></p><p>Longford was sure that Arran’s arrival in London had made Ormond’s enemies pause for thought and that ‘since he took his place in the House of Lords there has not been one public flirt at your grace, whereas before it was every day’s entertainment.’ Nor was Arran’s impact limited to the upper House, for he was arranging for copies of documents useful for Ormond’s vindication to be circulated among Members of the Commons. Longford thought Arran ‘so dextrous in everything he undertakes here that all the rest of your grace’s servants are become useless to you, for he leaves nothing for us to do.’ On 9 Nov. 1680 Arran intervened unsuccessfully in an attempt to get the Lords to read the relevant documents presented to them on Ireland, but he did manage to get them referred to the Commons, where Ormond’s friends could make another attempt to use them. He was also able to intervene in the committee examining the Plot to inform the chairman, Shaftesbury, that in Ireland ‘all the depositions taken in relation to the Plot were as impartially taken as ever his Lordship took any, to which he made no reply, neither has he ventured to have a fling at you since my being in the House, and I thank God I have overcome the awe of speaking there.’<sup>51</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, in October 1680, Lady Arran was thinking of returning to Ireland, even though her doctors advised against it, since she was probably pregnant.<sup>52</sup> Arran may have given part of the reason for this hazardous move, when he wrote on 9 Nov. that his wife had spent £1,200 in four months, ‘which is no small inconvenience to me; but she is so very sensible of her fault in it that I have not been so severe as perhaps another would have been in my place.’<sup>53</sup></p><p>On 15 Nov. 1680, Arran’s name was included on all three of the contemporary lists of peers who voted to reject the exclusion bill at its first reading. Arran’s main concern at this time was that Ormond would be moved against as a perceived friend of York, and either addressed against or impeached.<sup>54</sup> On 19 Nov., Ormond sent Arran a paper explaining why he had issued a proclamation for disarming Protestants, and that it had been done with the advice and approbation of a numerous council.<sup>55</sup> On 4 Dec. Arran remained uncertain about the outcome of the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, noting that despite the peer’s ‘weak’ defence, Oates, Dugdale and Turberville, the three witnesses against him, ‘are not thought so credible witnesses by some of the Lords as the managers of the evidence would have them pass for.’ On 7 Dec. he voted Stafford not guilty of treason. In late December Arran was still concerned to discover the potential charges against Ormond, sending them over to Ireland on 1 Jan. 1681 so that they could be refuted.<sup>56</sup></p><p>On 3 Jan. 1681 he acquainted the Lords that Sir John Fitzgerald, Colonel Peirce Lacy, and Lieutenant Colonel Bradley, who had been sent for out of Ireland, were now in custody and attending at the door, but that Theobald Bourke, Baron Brittas [I], had fled. The Lords then ordered them to be examined by the committee looking into the Popish Plot. On 4 Jan., although the House voted that there was a plot in Ireland, Arran intervened in the debate on Ireland to challenge the assertion ‘that papists were better armed in Ireland than the Protestants, but I cleared that point and satisfied the House to the contrary’. On 8 Jan. Arran excused his failure to write a long letter with reference to the long sitting of the House that day. On 10 Jan. he reported a conversation with Essex, in which Arran had challenged him as the source and promoter of the articles against his father, and even threatened to reveal some of Essex’s miscarriages in the government of Ireland.<sup>57</sup></p><p>On 15 Jan. 1681, Arran wrote, ‘I have so much work upon my hands now and have nobody to help me,’ a reference to his continual round of engagements relating to Irish affairs, particularly the revenue. On 22 Jan. he reported that the king had commanded his attendance at the Parliament called for Oxford in March, although he had some thoughts of a rapid visit to Ireland. Unfortunately, such a visit might be of limited value for ‘whatever you may conclude on that side, matters may so alter when my back is turned as may make those measures you may prudently take impracticable when I return.’<sup>58</sup> An indication of Arran’s role as a key political associate of his father can be seen in Ormond’s comment that unless Arran stayed for the Oxford Parliament, ‘whatever Lord Shaftesbury shall say, upon the falsest information touching affairs of Ireland, will pass for current truth; and hasty resolves may be made upon it’. Interestingly, Arran also offered Ormond the opportunity to respond in print to any matter relating to Ireland or himself, ‘I can get it put into one of those news books by the favour of an active justice of the peace here.’<sup>59</sup></p><p>In February 1681 Arran informed his father that some members of the grand jury of Middlesex had intended to indict both of them as recusants, together with York and the queen, but that the witnesses refused to swear against them. On 15 Feb. Arran ‘assisted at the debate’ in the committee of council appointed to look into the posture of affairs in Ireland. On 8 Mar. Arran wrote to Ormond, ‘I find you judge very right, for the court is in such a hurry that there will be no time to mind the affairs of that country [Ireland].’ On 17 Mar. Danby grouped Arran among those peers ‘such as I conceive will be for my bail if they are there’. Arran travelled to Oxford in the company of Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield (his former brother-in-law), and attended every day of the 1681 Parliament. He was named to two committees. According to Arran, the ‘Commons having run so very high in their votes upon our not admitting of the impeachment against Fitzharris, I suppose was the reason that made his majesty dissolve this Parliament very abruptly this morning, for the Lords had no summons to be in their robes.’ Back in London, on 1 Apr. he informed his father that unless the king commanded the contrary he would begin to plan his return to Ireland. Even so, ‘the clearing myself from this place will take me up some time, though I could not without shame live at a lower rate than I have done.’<sup>60</sup></p><p>On 16 Apr. 1681, Arran wrote that the king had directed him to apply, in Irish matters, to Laurence Hyde*, soon to be created Viscount Hyde (later earl of Rochester), Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> and Lord Conway, but Ormond thought that he should not exclude the secretary, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> from his routine applications.<sup>61</sup> The chief Irish business before the king was the vexed case of the Irish revenue, and whether to accept the offer to farm it.</p><p>On 9 June 1681, Arran was called as a witness for the defence at the trial for treason of Edward Fitzharris in Westminster Hall, although he appeared to be of little help to the defendant.<sup>62</sup> As Arran recounted, ‘by his first question [Fitzharris], would have had me own the seeing that damnable libel the day I dined with him; but he got nothing by it, for I said indeed he would have read a libel to me but I told him I would not hear it’, and further that ‘if he took such courses he would bring himself to the mischief he was now in danger of.’<sup>63</sup></p><p>From June 1681 onwards Arran attended regularly at the treasury, where the vexed question of the farm of the Irish revenue took up many meetings. At the end of July Arran came to London to attend the prince of Orange, opting on 4 Aug. to dine with the prince rather than join the ‘apprentices’ treat for the statesmen,’ which he had not been commanded to attend. Also in August, Arran was involved in discussions over whether the Irish informer, William Hetherington, should be prosecuted for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against Ormond, an action revived in November when Hetherington found himself lodged in the Compter prison. Later in August Arran was considering a short visit to Ireland, ‘to discharge the family I have at Dublin and put off the house, which is a great charge to me,’ even if he had to return to England for the winter. However, his trip was continually postponed, and he was still in London in March 1682.<sup>64</sup> Meanwhile, following Ormond’s decision to visit England, Arran was named as lord deputy in March 1682.<sup>65</sup> On 3 May, shortly after his arrival in Ireland he was sworn lord deputy. According to Primate Boyle, ‘my lord deputy puts himself to no difficulty for the discharge of his government. He is his father’s son, and does his work with as much ease as if it were natural and came to him by descent.’<sup>66</sup></p><p>On 3 July 1683 Ormond reported to Arran the current criticism of his government, namely that ‘military commands and civil offices’, were being sold; that many army officers, magistrates and justices of the peace were disaffected, and that ‘disaffected persons are countenanced’.<sup>67</sup> Arran spent the summer of 1683 in Dublin, as advised by his father, so as to maintain a close watch on Protestant nonconformists.<sup>68</sup> In November Ormond reported renewed criticism of Arran’s style of government. The complaints may be divined from Arran’s missive to his father on 17 Nov. in which he wrote that in order</p><blockquote><p>to divert myself from the trouble that many very crabbed businesses gave me, I did go to sup abroad often, and sat up with the ladies at cards longer than I am convinced was proper for one in my station, and by that means did not rise very early; but though I do not give audience so early as others in this employment have done, yet I must boast that persons have suffered as little delay under my government, as in any of my predecessors.<sup>69</sup></p></blockquote><p>He had now given up such behaviour to avoid giving ammunition to his enemies.</p><p>The king’s insistence that Ormond return to Ireland in the summer of 1684 caused Arran some surprise: ‘I despair of ever having a regular family, since there are always fresh occasions given for probable pretences to keep it divided. In the mind I am in, I am for sending directions to my wife not to prepare for coming over, not knowing where to live with her.’ There was also the familiar refrain about his debts; on 9 July 1684 he sent over a servant to England ‘to take a particular account of mine and my wife’s debts ... and though I believe we may owe more than we guess, I am not afraid to look into them, and doubt not but to get the better of them within a twelve months’ time.’<sup>70</sup></p><p>With Ormond safely ensconced in Dublin, Arran set out for London, arriving on 5 Nov. 1684, just when it was being ‘briskly reported’ that Rochester was to be lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>71</sup> He carried with him Ormond’s letters to the king, together with other accounts of Irish business, but on 6 Nov. the king ‘having owned to me that he had written his mind to you about your removal, and the sending my Lord Rochester in your place, I had the less discourse with him upon the subject.’<sup>72</sup> Arran harboured some resentment about his father’s removal; when Ormond’s letter to Rochester of 3 Dec., in which he was somewhat sharp in his opinions, appeared in public, he was suspected of having leaked it. Ormond was deeply embarrassed explaining that Arran ‘being in the place where my chief and last concerns of that nature are transacted, I thought it needful he should be informed of all that had passed, or should pass, relating to my remove from this government, and therefore sent him a copy of that letter, not with the least imagination that he could possibly think it fit for him to impart it or the contents of it to any man, or so much as to own to your Lordship that he had it.’ Fortunately, Rochester sought to play down the incident, which was just as well as Arran appeared unrepentant.<sup>73</sup> No doubt this attitude prompted Ormond to renew his criticism of Arran’s mode of living, writing to him on 10 Dec. to chastise him for eating and drinking too much in the company of inferiors, like John Ellis<sup>‡</sup>, which would ensure he was not taken seriously, or entrusted with important information.<sup>74</sup></p><p>The intention was still that Arran would serve as lord deputy in Ireland, and then hand over the lieutenancy to Rochester.<sup>75</sup> According to Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup>, Arran left London on 19 Jan. under something of a cloud, ‘his majesty’s displeasure is grounded on the behaviour of Mr. Ellis an industrious ta[l]ker who has been too much countenanced.’ He hoped to be at Chester on 24 Jan. 1685.<sup>76</sup> The arrangements for Arran’s lord deputyship were then overtaken by the death of Charles II: Rochester was appointed lord treasurer, and a new set of lords justices were named by James II. With a new monarch to pay their respects to, Arran joined his father in travelling to England, reaching London in April 1685. One consequence of the new regime was that Arran lost his regiment of horse, but he appears to have received some compensation for this.<sup>77</sup></p><p>In the Parliament called following James II’s accession, Arran attended on 45 days of the 1685 session, 94 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. On 19 May 1685, he introduced Richard Lumley*, Baron Lumley, Ralph Stawell*, Baron Stawell, and John Churchill*, Baron Churchill. He also successfully moved that Richard Power, earl of Tyrone [I], be called to the bar. Tyrone had been imprisoned (like the popish lords and Danby), but had been released in 1684, though bound to appear at the next sitting of Parliament. He was ordered to attend until the House considered the case.<sup>78</sup> Arran’s military experience was used in June 1685, when he was appointed to command the Irish troops ordered to England in the wake of Monmouth’s rebellion.<sup>79</sup></p><p>According to Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, on 14 Jan. 1686 Arran attended the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, and, as the lowest peer in rank, was the first to give his verdict of not guilty.<sup>80</sup> Ailesbury was mistaken because Arran was not called to be part of the lord high steward’s court.<sup>81</sup> His presence was also unlikely because on 9 Jan. he had been taken ill ‘in great torture with a pain like a pleurisy and fever’. The illness worsening, he took the sacrament from Dr. Thomas Tenison*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and suffering more ‘tormenting agonies’, he died on 25 Jan. 1686.<sup>82</sup> He was buried two days later in Westminster Abbey.<sup>83</sup></p><p>The countess of Arran apparently showed little distress at the demise of her husband and seemed keen to challenge the nomination of Longford as the executor of the will, which had been made on 7 Jan. 1678, just prior to a hazardous winter crossing of the Irish Sea.<sup>84</sup> In it he named Longford and Sir James Cuffe as his executors, and referred to a settlement of April 1673, and the powers therein contained, for raising money to pay off his debts, the predominant theme of the will. Cuffe having died in 1678, Longford was left as the sole executor, a responsibility he seemed desirous to avoid, being willing to act as the nominal executor, while the real work was to be done by someone else, preferably a nominee of Ormond’s.<sup>85</sup> In April 1686, it was noted that Ormond had devolved his rights to his grandson, James Butler*, then styled earl of Ossory, later 2nd duke of Ormond, and ‘how far Lady Arran will agree to an administration of his choosing, is doubtful.’<sup>86</sup> This led to considerable debate among the lawyers, with several being canvassed for their opinions.<sup>87</sup> Eventually, in August, Gerald Bor was named as executor to administer the will, upon the recommendation of the lord chief justice, Sir John Keating, although steps had to be taken for both Longford and the countess to renounce their executorships.<sup>88</sup> According to one calculation, Arran left debts of £16,825; the total was still over £16,000 in 1691.<sup>89</sup> The ultimate beneficiary of the estate was his nephew, Ossory. A final assessment may be left to the historian of the Ormond family, Thomas Carte:</p><blockquote><p>though no man was more active, more eager, and more intrepid in danger, he did not much care for business of another nature. This indisposition did not arise from any want of parts or capacity (for his were very good, and his best friends complained of him for not exerting them, as he might for his own honour and the support of his family), but from a fondness for pleasure. It was this indisposition which drew him into some excesses in point of drinking; though this was owing in a great degree to another quality, which is too amiable to be abused, as it too often is, by the importunity of others; for he had an infinite deal of good nature.<sup>90</sup></p></blockquote> |
S.N.H. |
|
BUTLER, Thomas (1634-80) |
<p><strong><surname>BUTLER</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1634–80)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1634-42 Visct. Thurles; <em>styled </em>1642-80 earl of Ossory [I]; <em>cr. </em>14 Sept. 1666 (by writ) Bar. BUTLER OF MOORE PARK |
|
First sat 18 Sept. 1666; last sat 1 July 1680 |
|
MP Dublin University [I], 1661-2; Bristol 16 May 1661-14 Sept. 1666 |
<p><em>b</em>. 8 July 1634, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of James Butler*, duke of Ormond, and Elizabeth (1615-84), <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Dingwall [S], da. of Richard Preston, earl of Desmond [I] and Lord Dingwall [S]; bro. of Richard Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, earl of Arran [I]. <em>educ</em>. privately, tutor Thomas Page;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (France and Holland, 1648-52, 1657-60); Académie del Campo, Paris 1649-50;<sup>2</sup> DCL Oxf. 4 Feb. 1667.<sup>3</sup> <em>m</em>. 7/17 Nov. 1659, (with £10,000), Amilia, (<em>d</em>.1688), da. of Lodewyck (Ludwig) van Nassau, Bar. of Leck and Beverwaert, 6s. (4 <em>d.v.p.)</em>, 6da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>4</sup> KG 30 Sept. 1672. <em>d</em>. 30 July 1680.</p> |
<p>Jt. farmer of wine and brandy licences [I], Aug. 1660-?65;<sup>5</sup> PC [I], Dec. 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> mbr., council of Munster, 1660;<sup>7</sup> lord deputy [I], 1664-5, 1668-9; gent. of bedchamber 1666-<em>d</em>.;<sup>8</sup> PC 1666-79,<sup>9</sup> Apr. 1680-<em>d</em>.;<sup>10</sup>commr. of trade 1668-72; mbr. committee of Privy Council for trade and plantations, 1675-79; commr. of admiralty 26 Sept. 1677-14 May 1679; ld. chamberlain to Queen Catherine of Braganza Nov. 1676-<em>d</em>.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Envoy extraordinary to France Nov.-Dec. 1672; special ambassador to Low Countries, Nov. 1674-Jan. 1675.</p><p>Col. of ft. July-Oct. 1660, 1661;<sup>12</sup> col. and capt. of ft. [I], Dec. 1660;<sup>13</sup> col. and capt. tp. horse [I], Dec. 1661-<em>d</em>.;<sup>14</sup> col. of ft. (Dutch army) 1678-<em>d</em>.;<sup>15</sup> lt. gen. of horse [I], 1661-74;<sup>16</sup> lt. gen. [I], 1665-<em>d</em>.;<sup>17</sup> lt. gen. (Dutch service) Jan.-Aug. 1678; gov. Tangier July 1680-<em>d</em>.; capt. RN 1666 (marines); rear-adm. of the blue 18 Apr. 1673; rear-adm. of the red 14 Aug. 1673-74; adm. of the fleet Sept. 1673.</p><p>Freeman, Bristol 1661,<sup>18</sup> Dublin 1670,<sup>19</sup> Portsmouth 1675;<sup>20</sup> commr. assessment, Bristol 1661-3;<sup>21</sup>; elder bro. Trinity House 1673, master 1675-6.<sup>22</sup></p><p>MP [I], 1661-2.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, studio of Sir P. Lely, c. 1678, NPG 371.</p> |
<h2><em>The young courtier</em></h2><p>Ossory was a man of great public reputation to contemporaries. To Anthony Hamilton, Count Grammont, a relative through his mother, he was a man ‘of the most liberal sentiments, and of great probity.’<sup>23</sup> To Burnet, he was ‘a man of great honour, generosity, and courage.’<sup>24</sup> As early as 1656, Richard Talbot, the future earl of Tyrconnel [I], had described Ossory as ‘a complete courtier and most understanding man.’<sup>25</sup> Liberality may have been a major flaw in his character, for as early as 1659 it was remarked ‘that I know [not] whether it be fate or misfortune or generosity or a false persuasion prompting his honour to certain expenses which no gentleman besides himself holds himself obliged to.’<sup>26</sup> Such an attitude unsurprisingly led to chronic indebtedness.</p><p>During his exile in Holland, Ossory met Lord Beverwaert, governor of Sluys, and went on to marry one of his daughters, despite his mother’s reservations.<sup>27</sup> One of the attractions of his marriage into the Dutch aristocracy was the attendant settlement which apparently provided him with £2,000 p.a. and made provision to pay his debts.<sup>28</sup> Ossory’s links with the Dutch proved to be one of the most important elements of his public career. Following the Restoration, Ossory’s wife was naturalized by an act of Parliament that received the royal assent on 13 Sept. 1660. Friendship with James Stuart*, duke of York, was another important feature of his career. Ossory was a witness to the secret marriage of the duke on 3 Sept. 1660 to Anne Hyde. By virtue of his presence at the ceremony, Ossory made an affidavit to that effect on 18 Feb. 1661 before the Privy Council.<sup>29</sup> His connection to the court enabled him to gain a series of grants from the Crown.<sup>30</sup></p><p>At the 1661 general election Ossory was returned for Bristol, being allowed to take his seat even though it was the subject of a double return. Later in April, the coronation caused a dispute between Ossory and Jocelyn Percy*, styled Lord Percy, the future 5th earl of Northumberland. Percy was able to rebut Ossory’s claim to precedence, because he was the eldest son of an English earl of an earlier creation than Ormond and because Ossory’s counter-claim as the eldest son of an Irish duke was deemed not relevant to the case.<sup>31</sup> Charles II informed Ormond in June 1662 that Ossory was to be called to the Irish upper House where he took his seat on 8 Aug. 1662.<sup>32</sup> Ossory was a significant Irish figure in his own right, possessing over 5,000 acres in about 1675 and as such, an obvious choice as lord deputy when Ormond visited England in May 1664.<sup>33</sup> He seems to have taken his duties seriously, being described as ‘vigilant, careful, and very wary’. It was during his time in charge of the Irish administration that Ossory revealed something of his views on the state’s role in religious life. In a letter of 30 July 1664, forwarding to London the Irish bill for bringing up the children of deceased Catholic parents in the protestant religion, he referred to his dislike of the bill, accounting it ‘a force’ to take children out of the hands of their nearest relatives, and to breed them up in another faith, and that it was a harsh, if not an unwarrantable, way of propagating religion, which would be counter-productive as religious opinions were only strengthened by persecution.<sup>34</sup></p><p>When Ormond landed back in Ireland on 3 Sept. 1665, Ossory was relieved of his official governmental duties.<sup>35</sup> In January 1666, Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington, was keen for Ossory to return to England to help in the negotiations concerning his marriage to the sister of the countess of Ossory.<sup>36</sup> By 3 Mar. Ossory had arrived at Moor Park, the Butlers’ new residence in Hertfordshire.<sup>37</sup> With the negotiations complete, Ossory witnessed Arlington’s marriage there on 17 April.<sup>38</sup> Thereafter Ossory and Arlington were to be close political allies. It was not only Arlington who offered Ossory a warm welcome in England. On 20 Feb. 1666, Michael Boyle, the archbishop of Dublin, wrote to Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, asking that when Ossory waited upon him, he should be received favourably as ‘a perfect friend and patron he was to this poor Church during his government here; he supported us against all oppositions, and some times interposed his power where persons would not be silenced by reason.’ <sup>39</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Arlington’s ability as a political operator was put to work in facilitating the transfer of Ormond’s place in the bedchamber to Ossory.<sup>40</sup> Through Arlington’s ‘contrivances’, Ormond resigned his bedchamber place ‘to make room for his majesty’s favour to’ Ossory. In so doing, Ormond made plain his motives: the bedchamber was ‘a more steady station than a ship’, a reference to Ossory’s preference for service in the fleet.<sup>41</sup> On 24 May 1666 a warrant was issued to pay Ossory £1,000 p.a. as a gentleman of the bedchamber, ‘notwithstanding the general stay of pensions’.<sup>42</sup> Both the duke and duchess of Ormond were consistent in their opposition to Ossory going to serve in the fleet, but Ossory was a match for them in his determination to fight. According to Arlington’s later account, Ossory, his wife and the Arlingtons were on the way into Suffolk, when news of the Dutch fleet’s activity reached them, whereupon Ossory and Sir Thomas Clifford*, the future Baron Clifford, made a dash for Harwich and joined the fleet. The ensuing ‘Four Days’ Fight’ saw Ossory win ‘so much honour and advantage to his reputation’, that Arlington felt the duke would approve of his actions, especially as Ossory was willing to promise that he would not volunteer again.<sup>43</sup> His letter crossed with one from Ormond that made clear his displeasure at his son ‘breaking loose’ and attempting to reach the fleet, and his conviction that Arlington was not governing his son as he expected.<sup>44</sup> Among contemporaries Ormond’s reaction was untypical. On 2 July 1666, Sir John Birkenhead<sup>‡</sup> described Ossory as the ‘most beloved and honoured of Lords, great or small. ... Whenever he pleases to try the strength of the people’s affection to him... you will know what ground he has got upon the whole body of the gentry and subjects here.’<sup>45</sup> Nevertheless, despite the widespread acclaim his actions had engendered, a frustrated Ossory was forced to bow to the wishes of his parents and sit out the battle of St James’s Day on 25 July 1666 from the safety of Tunbridge Wells, from whence he could hear the battle in progress.<sup>46</sup></p><p>On 14 Sept. 1666, a warrant was sent to the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, to issue a writ for Ossory to attend Parliament as a baron of England, being the son and heir apparent of Ormond.<sup>47</sup> The intention seems to have been to call him up in his father’s barony of Lanthony, but in effect it created a new title of Butler of Moore Park.<sup>48</sup> This together with the acceleration of his Irish earldom also created confusion after his death. On 14 Aug. 1680, Richard Mulys wrote ‘we are here at a loss not knowing whether my Lord’s title of earl of Ossory were by creation, and consequently we know not how to style our young Lord.’<sup>49</sup> His elevation to the Lords also came at some financial cost to Ormond. As Arlington wrote on 16 Oct. 1666, Ossory acknowledged the receipt of £4,000 from his father in eight months, but argued that his expenses in setting up house had been extraordinary.<sup>50</sup></p><h2><em>In the Lords 1666-8</em></h2><p>Ossory first sat on 18 Sept. 1666, the opening day of the 1666-7 session, being introduced by William Crofts*, Baron Crofts, and Arlington. He attended on 79 days of the session, nearly 87 per cent of the total, and was named to four committees. One of Ossory’s roles in the Lords generally was as a spokesman for the Irish interest and in this session, specifically, as an opponent of the bill to prevent the importation of Irish cattle into England. On 29 Sept. Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, wrote to Ormond that he had been in close consultations with Ossory concerning how best to oppose the bill.<sup>51</sup> Indeed, such was Ossory’s commitment to the Irish cause that he ended up in serious trouble with the House. On 26 Oct., George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, reported to the Lords that Ossory had challenged him to a duel following the previous day’s debate in the committee of the whole on the bill, which he conceived to be a breach of privilege. Ossory had apparently taken exception to Buckingham’s characterization of the bill’s opponents as having either ‘an Irish interest or an Irish understanding, which is as much as to say he is a fool’.<sup>52</sup> Ossory’s challenge was thwarted when, after waiting for three hours in Chelsea Fields, he was confronted, not by Buckingham, but by Louis de Duras*, the future earl of Feversham, and a guard, sent by the king to detain him.<sup>53</sup></p><p>On 29 Oct. 1666 the House took into consideration Buckingham’s complaint that Ossory had challenged him because of words said in the House. Ossory denied this, claiming other matters outside the House had occasioned the challenge. Buckingham then attempted to prove his account, which Ossory countered by attributing his actions to a quarrel of longer duration, occasioned, as Arlington reported, by ‘some sharp railleries, and unhandsome reflections the duke made upon his relations and called me for a witness, how often he had resented them, and resolved to fight him.’<sup>54</sup> Arlington backed Ossory up, and even called upon York to corroborate his own fears that a quarrel was brewing. After a debate both Ossory and Buckingham were ordered to withdraw, and a further debate ensued as to the punishments to be inflicted on the two men. Ossory’s friends endeavoured to obtain an equal punishment, but failed. Ossory was committed to the Tower, after admonishment by the lord chancellor, whilst Buckingham was ordered into the custody of black rod. Arlington drew up a petition on Ossory’s behalf, which he showed to the lord chancellor, who advised that York be approached to present it. On 31 Oct. Ossory petitioned for his discharge, as did Buckingham, and both men were released and ordered to attend on George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, and Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, in order to be reconciled. Ormond’s response to Arlington’s account was to write on 5 Nov. 1666 that ‘the House of Lords hath proceeded with great justice and prudence such as I hope will prevent their being frequently diverted from more important affairs by interpositions of that nature.’<sup>55</sup> Such incidents did not harm Ossory’s reputation, especially at court, where he was as an adept courtier. He was welcome at the apartments of the countess of Castlemaine, and hence in the king’s company. According to Edward Conway*, 3rd viscount Conway, in October 1667 Ossory had agreed with him ‘to go halves there this winter’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, when proceedings on the Irish cattle bill resumed, Ossory again fell foul of the House. On 19 Nov. 1666, during the debate in committee on the bill, he attacked both Buckingham and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, for which he was ordered to be admonished by the lord chancellor and forced to apologize. Ossory had accused Ashley of speaking like a member of the council of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, a telling debating point, but one for which Ashley was covered by the Act of Indemnity. Buckingham was merely told that something he had said was untrue.<sup>57</sup> As Anglesey put it on 20 Nov. 1666 Ossory had shown ‘stern resentment’ of Ashley’s expressions reflecting on Ormond and the other promoters of the gift of Irish cattle to the distressed people of London.<sup>58</sup> To Conway, writing on 27 Nov., these proceedings against Ossory were ‘unkind and absolutely unjust,’ because Ossory ‘did not transgress the written rules and standing orders of our House, but they would overrule those orders to make him criminal.’<sup>59</sup> Not surprisingly, on 23 Nov. Ossory dissented when the Irish cattle bill passed the House.</p><p>On 29 Dec. 1666 Anglesey was able to inform Ormond that Buckingham’s latest quarrel, this time with Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, had resulted in his imprisonment, which ‘makes my Lord of Ossory pass for the more peaceable man.’<sup>60</sup> On 23 Jan. 1667 Ossory chaired the committee on the bill for settling the moiety of the manor of Iron Acton on Sir John Poyntz, reporting it on 25 January.<sup>61</sup> This was a familial duty, Ormond’s mother being Poyntz’s aunt. Meanwhile, Ormond’s fear of an attack on Ireland saw him write in urgent terms to Arlington on 13 Jan. to ensure that Ossory ‘return at once to his charge here.’<sup>62</sup> Such a summons had its effect; Ossory landed in Ireland on 9 February.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Ossory’s search for an income sufficient to maintain his quality continued, while Ormond worried about him becoming involved in dangerous military exploits. On 16 Apr. 1667 Arlington reported to Ormond progress on a proposed purchase for Ossory of the office of master of the horse from Albemarle. Ormond had delegated the negotiations to Arlington, being adamant that he ensure that Ossory ‘go upon no such causeless adventures’ as may lose him ‘his money in a moment.’ The king refused Albemarle’s request for leave to deal with Ossory, but Ormond remained interested in securing the office for his son. He also wanted Ossory to ‘put a period to those excursions’ which Ormond viewed with apprehension.<sup>64</sup> Ormond’s worries were understandable, as on 3 June 1667 Arlington reported that Ossory wanted to join the campaign in Flanders against the Dutch.<sup>65</sup> Not surprisingly, the news of the Dutch incursion up the Medway shortly afterwards found the duke in difficulties persuading Ossory to remain in Ireland in case of a French invasion.<sup>66</sup> When on 25 June Arlington opined that Ossory’s presence in England was desirable, Ormond gave in. On 2 July Ossory left Dublin, his principal instructions from his father being to serve the king and then the chancellor, Clarendon.<sup>67</sup></p><p>On 20 July 1667 Ormond wrote further about his attempts to purchase the mastership of the horse for Ossory, and of Clarendon’s apparent opposition to Ossory commanding a ship. According to Ossory, however, Clarendon was supporting his pretensions to a military command. Ossory attended the Lords on 29 July, one of the two days on which Parliament sat before being prorogued. During August Ossory discovered that the king objected to his purchase of the mastership of the horse, a position different from that which Clarendon had led him to believe. Ossory also discussed with Charles II the possibility of serving Spain in Flanders but seems soon to have abandoned the idea, although at the end of November, the French ambassador reported that Ossory had ‘a treaty with them [the house of Austria], to command the corps of English infantry which will be sent to the aid of Flanders in the event of an alliance of England and Holland with Spain’, to force Louis to make peace.<sup>68</sup></p><p>In September 1667 Ossory’s wife left her husband in London and went to Ireland.<sup>69</sup> Ossory’s decision to stay in England may well have been influenced by the political situation. In a letter of 21 Sept. he described the general talk that Ormond ‘will be pushed at this next session’; he could, though ‘learn neither the particular persons that contrive the thing; nor upon what grounds they will move’ in it. Ossory attended on seven days of the resumed session of October to December 1667, just under 14 per cent of the total, being named to one committee. Although his attendance was sparse, Ossory did keep his father informed of parliamentary events and matters pertaining to Ireland. Thus, on 26 Oct, he thought it advisable for Ormond to obtain letters patent to appoint a deputy in case it should become necessary to travel to England to defend himself, an idea which his father rejected. On 29 Oct. he was excused attendance on the House, although he attended on the following day. One reason for his irregular attendance may have been a desire to avoid the proceedings against Clarendon. Certainly the duchess of York believed that Ossory was one of the first to desert her father, a charge he denied, imputing her ill opinion, of him and of Ormond, to the malice of Lady Ranelagh (daughter of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork [I], and sister of Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I]).<sup>70</sup></p><p>Ossory remained alert to the possibility of an attack on his father. On 13 Dec. 1667 he was able to reassure Ormond that Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> was inclined to ascribe any miscarriages in the affairs of Ireland to others, rather than to the duke. Ossory also commented that Clarendon’s address and petition presented to the Lords on 3 Dec. was ‘so mean and extravagant’, that it was likely to prejudice other ministers who might also be accused, presumably including his father. On 21 Dec., two days after the adjournment of the session, Ossory informed his father that an indisposition would prevent his planned journey to Ireland but that his father should write to the king upon Irish affairs, chiefly the revenue and the charges on the Irish establishment. In January 1668 Ossory continued to inform Ormond about Irish business in London and the possible threats to his position. On 14 Jan. he informed him of the offer made by Charles Howard*, styled viscount Andover, the future 2nd earl of Berkshire, to mediate between Ormond and Buckingham.<sup>71</sup> Ossory also attended at the treasury when Irish matters were under discussion in January and February 1668.<sup>72</sup></p><p>On 7 Feb. 1668, the king wrote a letter to Ormond appointing Ossory as lord deputy during his intended absence in England.<sup>73</sup> Thus, when the session resumed in February 1668, Ossory sat for only a further five days. On 17 Feb. he was excused attendance. He sat for the last time on 19 Feb. and on the 24th he was granted leave of absence, as he was going ‘speedily’ into Ireland on the king’s business and intended to leave his proxy. On that very day his proxy was registered with York. Back in Ireland by the time of Ormond’s departure for England on 24 Apr., Ossory was sworn lord deputy, and for the next few months he kept up a stream of letters informing his father of developments in Ireland.<sup>74</sup> In particular, Ossory was concerned that his father maintain a good relationship with Arlington, and on 22 Aug. 1668 he evinced some relief that Ormond had a good understanding with his brother-in-law. He advised his father to preserve this friendship as it had been steady in the duke’s absence from England, and especially as it was so dear to Ossory himself.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Now in England herself, Ossory’s mother discovered how extravagant he had been during his stay in London. On 22 Nov. 1668, she wrote rather scathingly to Ormond’s half-brother, George Mathew, that Ossory was ‘indebted to many tradesmen here, who complain of him to be a bad paymaster.’ Worse than that, neither Ossory nor his countess knew how much and to whom they owed money. She ended, despairingly, ‘I know not what course of life they can propose unto themselves if they run out of all compass, after all the help they have had from us both in Ireland and here.’<sup>76</sup> When Ormond advised Ossory on 6 Dec. that he should ‘attend, with more than ordinary diligence, his charge; to be just, and soberly affable, to all,’ Ossory responded with a plea on 9 Jan. 1669 that his father promote his employment under the Spanish crown should overtures for his military service be renewed.<sup>77</sup></p><h2><em>Military aspirations 1669-75</em></h2><p>There had been much speculation over whether Ormond would be replaced as lord lieutenant in the winter of 1668-9, and on 3 Feb. 1669, Ormond, feeling the king’s confidence in him to be slipping away, rather revealingly counselled Ossory in Dublin not to let the impertinence or insolence of any person provoke him into losing his temper. By 13 Feb. Arlington was already discussing the implications of a change in the government of Ireland both in general and on Ossory, offering him residence at Goring House, where ‘methinks a little would suffice’ to live on. On 23 Feb., following his father’s confirmation of a change in the government of Ireland, Ossory again expressed a desire to serve abroad, possibly in command of the king’s regiments in Flanders. Ormond reminded him on 14 Mar. that he was not serving as the deputy of John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, but as the king’s.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Ossory worried about his finances, perhaps constrained by Ormond’s loss of the lieutenancy. The duchess noted on 31 May 1669, he would be discontented at any retrenchment of his allowance in favour of his brother, Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I], and Baron Butler of Weston. On 12 June Ormond stressed that he was not obliged to pay him an annual allowance of £4,000 although the following month Ormond wrote that the duchess had satisfied him that he could charge his estate with £3,000 for Ossory’s allowance.<sup>79</sup> However, a few years later Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, recorded that Ossory did indeed have £4,000 a year.<sup>80</sup></p><p>On 18 June 1669 the duchess wrote to her husband that she thought Ossory had been convinced that his scheme for a military command in Flanders was impracticable, but she felt that he wished to establish his family in London and go off himself into Italy, a plan of which she did not approve. On 20 June she added that Ossory seemed determined to leave Ireland, ‘where he might live so nobly’ whilst preserving both the duke’s and his own interest. She blamed Arlington for his attitude.<sup>81</sup> On 13 July Sir Nicholas Armourer joined the debate about whether Ossory should stay at Kilkenny or travel to England. He thought the duchess amenable to Ossory coming over to attend Parliament, and hoped that Arlington would be enlisted to help to persuade her, so that they ‘may not bury a brave gentleman in a corner of the world where he can neither serve himself nor friends, and have only the conversation of his own lady and children.’<sup>82</sup></p><p>Ossory stayed in Ireland until the arrival of Robartes. He left Dublin in September 1669, attended by a vast array of nobility and gentry. He arrived in London in time to attend the opening day of the 1669 session, on 19 October.<sup>83</sup> He attended on 31 days of the session, a little over 86 per cent of the total and was named to four committees. He also attended the treasury (with his father) on 26 Jan. 1670, when matters pertaining to the Irish revenue were under discussion and did so on eight further occasions in February, March, May and July 1670.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Ossory clearly planned to stay in England, the duchess remarking in January 1670 that she feared he and his family ‘will not be able to live within the compass of their allowance, though he has gotten settled upon him since his coming over a thousand a year for his salary, as he is a gentleman of the bedchamber, which will be well paid him.’<sup>85</sup> Ossory attended on 31 days of the first part of the session of 1670-71 (February-April 1670), 77.5 per cent of the total. On 28 Mar. he dissented to the passage of the divorce bill of John Manners*, Lord Roos, the future 9th earl of Rutland. On 6 Apr. he received proxies from Arlington and Sandwich, which were vacated on 8 Apr. and 27 Oct. respectively. In May 1670, Ossory waited on the king to Dover, where the king’s sister, the duchess of Orleans was engaged in the diplomacy which led to the secret treaty of Dover.<sup>86</sup> Another of Ossory’s duties was to bring the prince of Orange over to England for a visit, which was the beginning of their friendship.<sup>87</sup></p><p>When the parliamentary session resumed on 24 Oct. 1670, Ossory sat on 56 days, a little under 45 per cent of the total, and was named to two committees. Following the attempted kidnapping of Ormond on 6 Dec., Ossory accused Buckingham of being behind the plot, and in the presence of the king, vowed to shoot Buckingham if a violent end should befall his father.<sup>88</sup> On 10 Feb. 1671 he was excused attendance on the House and on 13 Feb. he left London to escort the prince of Orange back to Holland.<sup>89</sup> On 1 Apr., the duchess informed Mathew that Ossory was not yet returned from Holland and Flanders, and that he intended ‘to see France as I hear, but to what purpose unless to spend money I know not, and to satisfy a vaulting and unsettled humour which he still retains.’<sup>90</sup></p><p>Ossory continued his efforts to find gainful employment in one military field of action or another. In late August 1671, the French envoy, Colbert, reported to Louis XIV an approach by Ossory with an offer to serve in the armies of the French crown. Arlington, ‘his brother-in-law and intimate friend,’ as Colbert called him, supported his approach in case Buckingham declined to command the troops earmarked for French service.<sup>91</sup> In October or November 1671 Ossory’s assistance was sought by the prince of Orange in gaining the king’s permission to raise 3-4,000 troops for service in the United Provinces.<sup>92</sup> Ossory also played a full role in the life of the court. At the start of October 1671, he was in attendance, as gentleman of the bedchamber in waiting, on the king and queen during their visit to Norwich.<sup>93</sup> On 11 Jan. 1672 John Evelyn reported his own and Ossory’s attendance at a dinner with all five members of the Cabal.<sup>94</sup></p><p>With Ossory’s ambitions in the army seemingly thwarted, at the start of January 1672 Colbert reported that Ossory had taken a naval commission ‘preferring service at sea to that on land’. According to Arlington, Ossory had only taken command of a ship ‘because his father did not give him enough money to appear in France with as much brilliance as’ James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>95</sup> Ossory was slightly wounded at the battle of Sole Bay on 28 May, being bruised on both legs by a splinter.<sup>96</sup> Ossory was nominated for a garter on 30 Sept. 1672, probably as a reward for his naval services, and installed on 25 October.<sup>97</sup> Ormond had to provide him with £500 towards his expenses. On 16 Nov., a worried duchess wrote to Mathew that Ossory ‘has contracted great debt by his going to sea, and yet runs further inconveniencies of a like nature, neither he nor his lady regarding the ruin that is like to fall very suddenly upon them, which is a great trouble to me that am under difficulties of a like kind by helping him.’<sup>98</sup> On 1 Dec. Ossory and three others were granted an annuity of £2,000 p.a. during the life of William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, orders for which were still being issued in July 1678.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Ossory attended the opening of the 1673 session on 4 Feb., was present on 35 days (84 per cent of the total) and was named to three committees. Again, he seemed under-employed, writing in April to Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, that he would probably visit Ireland in the summer because he was free of foreign engagements.<sup>100</sup> That he did not do so was somewhat fortuitous. While visiting the fleet in May, he found it lacking a rear-admiral, a vacancy he volunteered to supply, and which the king accepted.<sup>101</sup> As he wrote to Arlington on 19 May: ‘you will hear before this of my not being able to resist the temptation of supplying a vacant flag. Believe me it proceeded most from my desire of expressing my gratitude to so kind a master, and next that I feared the world might unjustly think that having had a signal mark of favour I would sit down with that honour and afterwards manage myself, a meanness I shall never be guilty of.’<sup>102</sup> Consequently, he saw action at the first (28 May) and second battles (4 June) of Schooneveld.<sup>103</sup> Having tasted action, Ossory ‘returns to sea with the prince, and cannot be persuaded out of it’, a correspondent of Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> reported on 20 June.<sup>104</sup> On 28 June he arrived back at the fleet.<sup>105</sup> In the midst of all this activity, on 10 July 1673, his daughter married William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, an important alliance for the family. On 11 Aug. Ossory performed heroics at the battle of Texel, and on 14 Aug. Prince Rupert*, commander of the fleet, made Ossory his vice-admiral.<sup>106</sup> Ossory was keen ‘to fight a second battle’, but by 26 Sept. the Venetian ambassador reported that he had returned to port on hearing that the Dutch fleet had retired for the winter.<sup>107</sup> At this point he was at the height of his popularity, as Armourer reported on 23 Sept.: ‘Ossory came up from the Fleet; he is the joy of the Court, City and Country. Good folks are fond on him, and bad thinks it safest to let him alone.’<sup>108</sup></p><p>Ossory attended the adjournment on 20 Oct. 1673, when Parliament was prorogued. He then attended on each of the four days of the session held in October-November 1673, being named to two committees. Ossory was keen to protect his military reputation, complaining in a petition to the king in October 1673 about the omissions and misrepresentations made by vice-admiral Sir John Kempthorne<sup>‡</sup>, the result of a dispute about the conduct of the battle of the Texel.<sup>109</sup> On 18 Nov. Ossory was despatched to Dover by the king to greet the new duchess of York upon her arrival.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Ossory attended on every day of the 1674 session which opened on 7 Jan., with the exception of 10 Feb., and was named to two committees. On 12 Jan., together with Francis Newport*, 2nd Baron Newport, he introduced Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, into the House. When Arlington was impeached by the Commons and sought to defend himself, Ossory showed his support for his brother-in-law on 15 Jan. by accompanying him to the door of the House.<sup>111</sup> On 5 Feb. Ossory received Arlington’s proxy, which was vacated on 11 Feb. when Arlington returned to the Lords.</p><p>On 28 Feb. 1674 the prince of Orange wrote to Ossory of his joy at the conclusion of the peace and his hopes of seeing Ossory in Holland.<sup>112</sup> Certainly the pull of loyalty to Orange was noted by contemporaries: on 2 Mar., the French ambassador Ruvigny reported to Louis XIV Ossory’s respectful refusal of employment under the French crown, citing Ormond’s need whilst in Ireland for ‘his son to remain at court during this time to prevent his enemies doing him harm’, however, he continued, ‘the true reason is no doubt his attachment to the prince of Orange and the honour he has from being in familiarity with him.’ He added further that only Monmouth’s representations to the king had prevented Ossory from visiting the prince, which was thought an ill example to others.<sup>113</sup> On 6 Apr., the Prince wrote again to solicit Ossory’s aid in gaining the king’s permission to raise troops in England, especially as the French had been allowed the privilege. He also thanked Ossory for declining on his account to serve in the French army.<sup>114</sup></p><p>On 17 June 1674, Ormond, on the verge of departing to Ireland, wrote an illuminating letter to Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup>, which revealed the weakness of leaving Ossory as his chief protector in England, namely his lack of attention to detail. In July Ormond was also critical of Ossory’s continuing indebtedness.<sup>115</sup> On 31 Oct. 1674, William Harbord<sup>‡</sup>, Essex’s secretary, reported that all of Ormond’s friends were acting well towards Essex, and ‘particularly Ossory’, who had spoken to the duchess of Portsmouth on his behalf, so he should ‘let the world see the good understanding that is between you.’<sup>116</sup></p><p>The rejection by William of Orange of the French peace proposals in the autumn of 1674 led Charles II to send Arlington and Ossory on a mission to change his mind. Ossory was also to endeavour to get the prince to ask for the hand of Princess Mary, but was not to propose it formally. Ossory, Arlington and Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, departed on 10 November.<sup>117</sup> In public it was noted that they ‘are not ambassadors, nor have any character or commission, but they have instructions under the king’s hand, but what they are, is not known.’<sup>118</sup> On the question of marriage to his cousin, the prince preferred to wait until after the war, but Ossory wrote a carelessly worded report, as he put it, ‘by making a comma instead of a full stop, the critics would infer, that I had made the offer first.’<sup>119</sup> On his return to England, Ossory told his father that his role in the marriage negotiations was to deal with matters for York, while Arlington handled negotiations for the king. As Ossory correctly noted the king was the driving force behind the match and York ‘liked not the thing from the first’. A further benefit of the visit was the offer by the prince to Ossory of a military command, although by the end of February 1675 this idea had been laid aside.<sup>120</sup></p><h2><em>Final years 1675-80</em></h2><p>On 30 Jan. 1675, while in the drawing room at Whitehall, Ossory was challenged by Henry Bulkeley‡, a younger son of Thomas Bulkeley, viscount Bulkeley [I], for which Bulkeley was committed to the Tower.<sup>121</sup> The cause of the challenge was probably Bulkeley’s wife, Sophia Stuart, a maid of honour to Queen Catherine. In due course Bulkeley was released and forced to beg Ossory’s pardon.<sup>122</sup> In March 1675 Ossory was involved in a dispute with Anglesey, over the fate of Katherine Fitzgerald, daughter of John Fitzgerald of Dromana, co. Waterford and heiress to a large estate, known as the ‘Decies’. Ossory was one of the trustees of her estate, as was Richard Power, earl of Tyrone [I], who had originally been granted the estate by the Crown before the grant was vacated.<sup>123</sup> Tyrone’s plan was to marry her to his own heir, John, with the consent of her guardian, Anglesey (who was also Power’s grandfather), but she was unwilling to marry him and took refuge with Ossory.<sup>124</sup> On 25 Mar. Anglesey requested her return, and when Ossory refused, on 31 Mar. he petitioned the Privy Council.<sup>125</sup> Ossory’s response that she ‘came voluntarily to him and desired him to be her guardian’ was backed up by the young lady herself.<sup>126</sup> She subsequently married Edward Villiers, the then heir of George Villiers, 4th viscount Grandison [I].</p><p>Ossory attended on 28 days of the session of April-June 1675, nearly 67 per cent of the total, and was named to two committees. He attended on 17 days of the session of October-November 1675, 81 per cent of the total, and was again named to two committees. On 10 Oct. Ossory received the proxy of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, which was vacated on 8 November. On 15 Nov. Ossory received his father’s proxy, which remained in force for the remainder of the session. On 20 Nov. he was one of the Lords who argued against the motion for an address to the king in support of the dissolution of Parliament. His name appeared on a list of those opposing the address.<sup>127</sup></p><p>On 4 Mar. 1676 the king granted Ossory £14,000 in consideration of his losses and charges in the royal service, with the money to be paid out of the Irish revenue over a period of 6 years.<sup>128</sup> On 30 June 1676 Ossory attended the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, and found him not guilty.<sup>129</sup> On 8 July and 13 Aug. Evelyn mentioned dining with Arlington, and on both occasions Ossory was also present.<sup>130</sup> In November Ossory was appointed chamberlain to the queen; his diligence in office led to rumours that he consoled the queen over her husband’s infidelities.<sup>131</sup></p><p>The 1677-8 session began on 15 Feb. Ossory attended on 44 days of the first part of the session up to the adjournment on 16 Apr. 1677, nearly 90 per cent of the total, and was named to 16 committees. At around this date Ossory was marked as ‘twice vile’ on Shaftesbury’s list of lay peers. After the end of the session, Ossory was keen to facilitate his father’s accession to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland in place of Essex.<sup>132</sup> Ossory, too, gained from the political changes, his name being included when a warrant was issued for a new commission of the admiralty on 19 May, although the commission itself was not issued until late September.<sup>133</sup> Ossory then attended on all five days of that part of the session held 21-28 May 1677. He attended the adjournment of the House on 16 July 1677, and that night set out to ‘compliment’ the prince of Orange then on campaign.<sup>134</sup> The prince was trenchantly criticized by his Spanish allies for the abandonment of the siege of Charleroi in August: they suspected Ossory of delivering orders from Charles II not to fight.<sup>135</sup> Ossory had certainly issued advice not to fight through Alexander Colyear, the prince’s Scottish adjutant general, though William denied that it was the reason for his deciding to lift the siege.<sup>136</sup> On 6 Oct. Ossory was at The Hague, and expected back in England with the Prince of Orange, who was to marry Princess Mary on 4 November.<sup>137</sup></p><p>Two days after the marriage, on 6 Nov. 1677, Ormond sent a detailed letter to Ossory concerning the latter’s desire to serve as head of the English forces in the United Provinces. Following the prince of Orange’s departure on 19 Nov. Ossory spent part of the following day with Southwell getting to grips with the Irish revenue accounts sent over by Ormond.<sup>138</sup> On 30 Nov. (or possibly 1 Dec.) Ossory fought a duel with Henry Bulkeley, for which he was sharply rebuked by the king.<sup>139</sup> The occasion was, as in 1675, a chance encounter at court, and the reason ‘the old quarrel about Mr B’s.’<sup>140</sup> Ossory attended the adjournment of the House on 3 Dec. 1677.</p><p>On 1 Jan. 1678, Coventry informed Ormond that Ossory had received leave to visit Holland.<sup>141</sup> On 5 Jan. Ormond wrote, ‘I am fully satisfied with my son Ossory’s voyage and design,—which I cannot say of all he has laid and taken’, although, as he wrote to Arran, ‘I gave your brother [Ossory], the best advice and the most pertinent caution I could, but I fear his haste to be in action will transport him beyond his prudence.’<sup>142</sup> The purpose of Ossory’s visit was to negotiate with the Dutch for the use of English troops.<sup>143</sup> According to Daniel Finch*, the future 2nd earl of Nottingham, Ossory had adjusted the terms for English troops in the Dutch service so as to gain them an extra penny a day, with himself as commander-in-chief.<sup>144</sup> Parliament met again on 15 Jan., having been adjourned since April. Ossory attended for 10 days of the renewed session which lasted until May 1678 (just over 16 per cent of the total), last sitting on 14 February. He was reported to have gone that day for Holland.<sup>145</sup> On 18 Feb. he landed in Holland, where he delivered a letter from York to the prince.<sup>146</sup> On 22 Feb. Laurence Hyde*, the future earl of Rochester, reported that Ossory ‘was much dissatisfied with the account he found here of that part of the army he is general of.’<sup>147</sup> Ossory’s journeys into Holland prevented him from being an effective advocate for his father in Whitehall, a task which fell to his brother Arran. Ossory was resentful at not being consulted, but as the duke pointed out ‘your motions must depend on the king of France’ and as Arran and Secretary Coventry ‘will show you all they receive from me… you may take what part you please.’<sup>148</sup> In March 1678 Ossory wrote to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, from Bonn concerning the need to establish a perfect understanding between Danby and his father, a topic he had talked to the lord treasurer about the day before he left London, and to which his father had responded favourably.<sup>149</sup></p><p>On 15 June 1678 Arran wrote that Ossory having lately come over he had consulted him about business, but he had left it to Arran to deal with. On 22 June Ormond wrote to Ossory expressing his reservations about his proposed service with the Dutch army, though accepting that ‘if a considerable body of the king’s subjects shall be kept on foot it may be proper enough for you to accept the command of them’, provided that the king and York approved and the expense did not leave him out of pocket. Meanwhile, Arran informed Ossory of discussions about Irish affairs in council ‘and therefore you should do well to be frequently there.’<sup>150</sup></p><p>Ossory attended on 17 days of the session that ran from May-July 1678, 39.5 per cent of the total, and was named to four committees. He made his first appearance on 14 June and his last on 8 July, the day on which he registered his proxy with York. On 10 July Ossory, ‘going into Holland to command the English forces’, took his leave of Evelyn. By mid July he was at Middelburg in Zealand. He saw action at the battle of Saint-Denis on 4-5 Aug., it being reported that ‘the English under Lord Ossory, who had the vanguard, have the honour of a great share of this victory’.<sup>151</sup> He was briefly back in England in August 1678 but soon returned to the continent for by 30 Aug. 1678 he was waxing lyrical from The Hague about the relative merits of becoming a hermit as opposed to soldiering.<sup>152</sup> Favourable views of Ossory’s conduct continued. In September Dr Francis Turner*, the future bishop of Ely, wrote of Ossory’s services to the Church during his command in Flanders:</p><blockquote><p>this noble Lord set up as zealously for his own religion as they for theirs. He brought over a discreet, learned and devout man as his chaplain ... He set up daily prayers in the field and it was a brave sight to see the duke of Ormond’s eldest son kneeling with his blue Garter in the dirt. He gave an excellent good example by coming himself to communion. And now within this fortnight he has gained this point, that not one papist or Irish (which hardly need be distinguished) shall be put into any vacancy as commands fall void.<sup>153</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ossory and Laurence Hyde (who was ambassador to The Hague) returned to England in September 1678. As Ormond wrote to the Irish lord chancellor, Michael Boyle, on 21 Sept., if Ossory stayed at court, ‘we shall have all the assistance he can give us’ in the struggle over another bill to confirm the Irish land settlement.<sup>154</sup> However, Ossory did not remain at court, as later that month he was designated to act as ‘governor’ to the duchess of York and Princess Anne on their visit incognito into Holland and duly conveyed them across at the beginning of October.<sup>155</sup></p><p>Ossory had returned by 20 Oct. 1678, and attended the Lords on the following day. In all he attended on 57 days of the October-December 1678 session of the Cavalier Parliament, nearly 92 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. On 23 Oct., Ossory told his father that, as he put it, ‘upon my giving the House the occasion, falling out naturally upon a motion relating to Ireland, of your banishing priests and disarming Romanists’, Strafford had said that the Papists were ‘strangely insolent in several places of the kingdom, namely Waterford and Dublin’, claiming that ‘proclamations were pulled from the posts after they had been a second time set up; my reply was that what link-boys did (such I suppose those actors were if any) was not worth minding.’<sup>156</sup> The occasion for this defence of his father was probably the motion for an address to banish papists from the royal palaces, London and Westminster.</p><p>Ossory was also fulfilling the role of his father’s advocate in Whitehall and at the treasury. With this in view Ormond suggested on 26 Oct. 1678 that ‘when you have a mind to be informed of the affairs of this place you must take pains to be it sufficiently, and not venture your interposition in them without full information; if you do you will be under great disadvantage, and some will be glad to find you so.’ Ormond recommended consulting Coventry, Southwell and Sir Cyril Wyche<sup>‡</sup>, for</p><blockquote><p>I know you are not apt to undertake the reading of volumes, and of such consist what has been transmitted hence concerning the revenue, the bills, the Lord Ranelagh’s accounts, the difference betwixt the farmers, and the matters relating to the Plot. But your way will be to single out what you most affect to be perfect in, and from these persons you may have satisfaction.</p></blockquote><p>On 29 Oct. Ossory wrote to Ormond that ‘we are so taken up with either the House or committees as I have scarce time to think of anything else,’ although he was keen to know whether his father would part with his office of lord steward and his views about the promised English dukedom.<sup>157</sup> On 15 Nov. he voted against the motion that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths. On 16 Nov. he noted the twin calls on his time when he wrote ‘I have very little time by waiting on the House and queen.’ On 23 Nov. he was nominated to report from a conference on the bill disabling Papists. On 26 Nov. he protected his father’s back by telling the king how active Orrery was in ‘alarming all persons in Ireland and here with his informations of the dangerous posture of affairs by the desperate condition the Protestants and English took themselves to be in by the multitude and evil designs of the Irish.’<sup>158</sup></p><p>As chamberlain to the queen, Ossory had a minor official role in the aftermath of the revelations of the Popish Plot. On 8 Nov. 1678 Ossory and Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, were ordered by the Lords to search the queen’s residence at Somerset House for arms, papers and suspicious persons. On 9 Nov. they reported their somewhat meagre findings to the House, whereupon several suspected persons were discharged. In a letter to his mother on 30 Nov., Ossory was able to note that he and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, had caught Titus Oates in ‘a manifest lie’, as signified in the report presented to the Lords on 29 Nov. of their visit to Somerset House in the company of Oates. That same letter recorded his feelings on the Lords’ debates of 29 Nov. where he stated that although he had been in actions of importance, he had never been more troubled than he was the previous day while the Lords were debating on whether both Houses should join in an address to the king to remove the queen from the king’s presence.<sup>159</sup></p><p>On 17 Dec. Ossory revealed the usefulness of his bedchamber post when he wrote to his father: ‘this morning I happened to discourse of many things with the king when we were both in bed, it being my turn to wait in the bed-chamber. I told him my intentions of visiting the command I had in your army when things here could permit, which he approved.’<sup>160</sup> On 26 Dec. the Lords had before them the examination of Miles Prance, taken by Monmouth and Ossory by order of the Privy Council two days before, on Godfrey’s murder and the Plot. Also on 26 Dec. Ossory voted to insist upon the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill relating to the payment of money into the Exchequer and on 27 Dec. he voted against the motion to commit Danby.</p><p>Ossory made a short visit to Ireland early in 1679, but was back in Whitehall on 8 February.<sup>161</sup> On the following day, after the monarch had dined at the duchess of Portsmouth’s lodgings, Ossory took the opportunity to deliver to the king a letter from Ormond and to talk about Ormond’s office of lord steward. On 15 Feb. Ossory was able to report that the king had promised to do nothing about Ormond’s post without further consultations with Ossory. Rumours at that time had earmarked the post as a retreat for Danby, should he be forced to quit the treasury. On 22 Feb. Ossory reported a further conversation with the king, aimed at alerting him to the efforts of Ormond’s enemies, and a long discourse with Danby on Ireland, coupled with an offer by Ossory to join in any prosecution against their mutual foe, Buckingham. Ossory attended on five of the six days of the short March 1679 session, just over 83 per cent of the total and was named to three committees.</p><p>Ossory attended on all but two days of the session of March-May 1679 (he missed 27 Mar. and 11 Apr.), just over 97 per cent of the total and was named to three committees. Ossory’s name appeared on four lists of those peers likely to support Danby in about March-April 1679. On one list Danby’s son, Peregrine Osborne*, the future 2nd duke of Leeds, was deputed to lobby him. Another probably listed those peers that had voted against the early stages of the Danby attainder bill. On 4 Apr. he voted against the passage of the bill and on 14 Apr. he voted against agreeing with the Commons on the attainder bill. On 20 Mar. 1679 Ormond wrote to Ossory about the libels circulating against his conduct of the Irish government. He was deputed to ask the king to ensure that his servants provided Ormond with some protection, at least until he could be heard in person. Meanwhile, Ossory was doing his best to defend his father in the Lords. On 22 Mar. he reported the events on 20 Mar. at the committee examining the Plot, where Strafford had spoken of the dangerous condition of Ireland, an attack encouraged by George Savile*, Viscount Halifax, and by Shaftesbury. Although not present at that meeting, Ossory noted that being named one of the committee, ‘I have attended, and will continue to do so both morning and evening.’<sup>162</sup></p><p>On 25 Mar. 1679 Shaftesbury made a speech dealing with Scotland and then Ireland, which ended with a motion that the Lords fix a day for taking into consideration the state of Ireland.<sup>163</sup> Although Shaftesbury later maintained that this speech was aimed at John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S], Ossory perceived it as concerning Irish security. He responded that the duke of Monmouth, as general, should provide an answer, ‘as I averred he undertook that all the officers and soldiers were Protestants and had taken the oaths’, and that as to other things relating to the security of the kingdom, he would provide them with an account.<sup>164</sup> The House then ordered a committee for 31 Mar. to inquire into the state of Ireland and Ossory was told to ‘bring into this House such orders as are come to his hands relating thereunto.’<sup>165</sup> Ossory duly took advice from several friends, including Southwell, Wyche, Colonel Edward Vernon, and Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Baron Longford [I]. Wyche seems to have been minded to ask the Lords for time for Ormond to send over his own ‘perfect narrative, which will at once satisfy their Lordships and clearly answer all those scandalous libels or false reports or malicious interpretations which have filled the town.’ Ormond, too, was sceptical of the efficacy of Ossory’s actions, being unsure as to what exactly he had committed himself to produce: ‘if it be put in writing it is exposed to the objections of witty men resolved to mislike it beforehand, and for a discourse it must be too long’ (although he was impressed by the document actually produced, writing on 7 Apr. that it ‘could not be composed to more advantage, nor anything added to it but what has been lately done, of which Mr Secretary Coventry has an account from me and the council’).<sup>166</sup></p><p>On 31 Mar. Ossory duly presented to the House an account of the government’s actions in Ireland. During the ensuing debate in a committee of the whole Ossory launched a defence of his father and an attack on Shaftesbury. After recounting his past services in Ireland and for the protestant cause, including rescuing the young Henry Stuart*, duke of Gloucester, from the clutches of Queen Henrietta Maria, Ossory outlined what he had <em>not</em> done. The speech was in effect an attack on Shaftesbury: ‘he never advised the breaking of the triple league. He never advised the shutting up of the exchequer. He never advised the declaration for toleration. He never advised the falling out with the Dutch, and joining with France. He was not author of that most excellent position, <em>Delenda est carthago</em>, that the interest of England should be destroyed’.<sup>167</sup> The speech (translated into Dutch) and the paper that Ossory had presented to the House on 31 Mar. were both printed. On 12 Apr. Southwell explained to Ormond that the printing, ‘is hitherto only restrained by the caution of printing that which may be now called a proceeding in that House. But this is only a stop till others advise the leaping over it,’ a problem quickly surmounted by the Butlers’ Dutch contacts, as Southwell confirmed on the 15th when he wrote that ‘I have been this afternoon with my Dutch friend and committed to his care the printing that extract’ that Ossory had presented.<sup>168</sup> On 22 Apr. the prince of Orange to wrote to congratulate Ossory on it.<sup>169</sup> Shaftesbury later complained that Ossory had mistaken the object of his criticism; it was Colonel Fitzpatrick, Ormond’s Catholic brother-in-law, rather than Ormond whom he meant to attack.<sup>170</sup></p><p>Ossory was also active in attempting to defend his father informally, as he did when dining with Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester, on 25 Mar. 1679. On 12 Apr. Ossory was also able to assure Ormond that he had inserted in the <em>London Gazette</em> ‘those things done in Ireland in order to let the world see your care for preventing any mischief from the Irish’.<sup>171</sup> On 15 Apr. 1679, in the committee of the whole on the state of Ireland, Shaftesbury produced a copy of Colonel Fitzpatrick’s grant, ‘casting many reflections upon it and upon the person’. In response Ossory ‘promised to inquire how the matter stood, and would speak of it with... Longford, in whose name this grant for Fitzpatrick passed.’ Ossory also asked his father for information of instances of his endeavours to procure Protestant tenants and assured the duchess of his support for Fitzpatrick but that ‘so violent and unjust were the proceedings of some, that no opposition could be made’. Furthermore, he had shown Shaftesbury ‘a reference favourable enough in behalf of Fitzpatrick when his lordship was one of the treasury’, assuring the earl that he would ‘make no ill use of it if he would not more persecute this gentleman, and that if he would give us fair quarter we would live upon good terms.’ Ormond endorsed this approach, noting that if Shaftesbury was not satisfied they were no worse off than before.<sup>172</sup></p><p>On 17 Apr. Ossory was one of seven peers deputed by the Lords to attend the king to ask him to order Ormond to put the laws into execution for disarming papists, and to help in arming the Protestants there so as to defend their religion, and for enforcing other anti-papist legislation. He was left out of the remodelled Privy Council instituted in April 1679, although, as Ossory put it, the king made ‘very kind excuses’ that he was not included in the new body.<sup>173</sup> In late April 1679 Ossory alerted the king to rumours that Ranelagh was promoting articles of impeachment against his father.<sup>174</sup> He also sought further information from his father to enable him ‘to stop the mouths of such who exclaim against vast gifts, though obtained by the most legal ways and honest grounds’.<sup>175</sup> On 10 May Ossory voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached Lords. On 14 May he dissented from the resolution that the bill regulating the trials of peers should pass. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Ossory was not free from concerns on the domestic front either. His daughter was having difficulties with her husband, Derby, to whose ‘brutality and ill-usage’, Ossory referred in a letter to his father. He continued to feel uneasy at the political situation. On 23 July, when the king held a conference with Arlington, Essex, Sunderland, Clarendon, and Halifax on the queen’s affairs, Ossory was excluded. He thought this resulted from the ‘king’s complaisance not to mingle me with company unto which I was not acceptable’, although Arlington affected to believe it was merely an oversight by William Chiffinch<sup>‡</sup> in neglecting to call him as the king had asked for him to be present.<sup>176</sup></p><p>Ossory’s shaky finances were threatened by plans to retrench expenditure in the royal household. As he wrote on 28 June 1679: ‘the loss I receive is more than anybody’s of the court, having considerable salaries in the king’s and queen’s service.’ He was more sanguine on 5 July, when he wrote to his father of his hopes of being chosen to compliment the Spanish king on his marriage, remarking that ‘if about October things absolutely necessary does [sic] not require my being here, I should not be sorry to have a just cause of absence’ from Parliament. Ormond was sceptical that his plans would provide any financial reward and feared that not even his expenses would be covered given the increasingly frugal atmosphere at court. Arlington pitched in with his view that by carrying a jewel to the new Spanish queen, the king’s niece, Ossory would gain honour from such a task, and Ossory continued to keep this project in mind during the autumn, even writing in September that ‘my Spanish journey is resolved and I am promised money to support it.’<sup>177</sup></p><p>In July 1679 Ossory was relieved at the acquittal of Sir George Wakeham, the queen’s physician, believing that this would discourage attempts to bring charges against the queen.<sup>178</sup> By 9 Aug. 1679 his mind had turned to preparing Ormond’s defence against a possible attack in the forthcoming Parliament: in particular an answer was necessary to the addresses made by the Lords in the preceding session relating to Ireland. One matter, in particular, was looked upon as difficult, the lax manner in which, in at least one case, that of ‘young Aylmer’, Irish youths had been allowed to be brought up as Catholics, especially as Ormond and Ossory had been bound for £10,000 to ensure he was educated a Protestant. By 20 Sept. Ossory had had further thoughts on the forthcoming Parliament (still scheduled to sit in October), warning his father that ‘you may be sure that those who wish ill to the government will endeavour all they can against you’, although ‘they may have so many things on their hands, as that you may not this session whether short or long be troubled.’ He also mooted the suggestion that Ormond should sue out his pardon as Monmouth and Lauderdale were doing, even if this might encourage his enemies. Three days later he was alarmed by rumours of an intended impeachment against Ormond.<sup>179</sup></p><p>On 21 Oct. 1679, Ossory, together with Feversham, accompanied York when he dined with the Artillerymen at Merchant Taylors’ Hall.<sup>180</sup> That month plans for Ossory’s Spanish trip appeared to have been revived, but by 11 Nov. the king seems to have changed his mind.<sup>181</sup> With the prospect of Parliament sitting in January 1680, on 29 Nov. Ossory returned to the subject of preparing for the session, gathering material to show how the Irish government had responded to the addresses of the Lords relating to Ireland presented to the king in the previous session.<sup>182</sup> In December 1679 he failed to pay Monmouth the compliment of visiting him out of respect to the king, a position made potentially trickier by the rumours that Monmouth had returned to England on the advice of the prince of Orange. Ossory did not believe this story and in this he proved to be correct.<sup>183</sup></p><p>On 13 Dec. 1679 Ossory was reporting on the debates in the Irish committee of the Privy Council on the Irish bill of settlement, and the activities of Essex therein to undermine Ormond. Ossory had to admit that he had not read the act, but would ‘endeavour to inform myself of it by a breviate promised me.’ Similarly, Ossory was uneasy over the potential embarrassment his father might face over the promotion of Thomas Otway, bishop of Killala, confessing on 6 Jan. 1680, ‘I have a horror for a man in holy orders that has imbrued his hands in blood,’ a reference to the cleric ordering the death of an Irish tory captive in his house.<sup>184</sup> In the early months of 1680, Ossory was seeking a commission in the Dutch forces.<sup>185</sup> Money as ever posed a problem. On 31 Mar. Ormond succinctly summed up Ossory’s dilemma: the prince of Orange’s ‘passionately obliging’ letter made it difficult for Ossory to quit his service, but he nevertheless ‘ought to find some fit means to let him know how much the world is mistaken in the opulence of your family and that such sums as must be spent answerable to your quality and post do incommode you.’<sup>186</sup></p><p>With Parliament prorogued, and some prominent politicians going into overt opposition, it seemed that Ossory’s political prospects at home were picking up. Humphrey Prideaux, the future dean of Norwich, wrote on 24 Feb. 1680 that Ossory ‘will now come in play again, for they say the king hath declared that he will have a court of his own.’<sup>187</sup> As part of the political crackdown, in March, at Newmarket, Ossory had the delicate task of forbidding his brother-in-law, William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish, the future duke of Devonshire, from coming into the king’s presence for refusing to kiss York’s hand.<sup>188</sup> Ossory had been the channel through which York had sent a conciliatory message to Cavendish, but Cavendish had ignored it and courted Monmouth.<sup>189</sup> On 2 Apr., Sir William Waller<sup>‡</sup> waited on Ossory, claiming that neither he nor Shaftesbury ‘had said anything that might anyways reflect upon him as being concerned in the Irish Popish Plot so much talked of, and that they were both sorry the town should name them the authors of so scandalous a report.’<sup>190</sup> Ossory was particularly annoyed by the attendant coffee house rumours that he and his father were intent on betraying Ireland to France, and was consulting lawyers to see if he could obtain redress.<sup>191</sup></p><p>On 4 Apr. 1680 Ossory again wrote to Arran to say that he had no thoughts of parting with his Dutch employment. However, he was also keen to alert his brother to the manoeuvres taking place against their father, orchestrated by Shaftesbury and Essex, and backed up by Irish informants.<sup>192</sup> On 10 Apr. Ossory warned his father that if it were decided to hold a Parliament in Ireland it would provide further opportunities for an attack by Essex.<sup>193</sup> Ossory attended the prorogation on 15 Apr. 1680 and on the 17th he informed his father that he had been recalled to the Privy Council.<sup>194</sup> At this point it was the intention that Lady Ossory would travel to Ireland, with Ossory following her after the council had dealt with the Irish bills.<sup>195</sup> However, as Ormond pointed out, it might take the council a long time to go through them, especially with Anglesey, Radnor and Essex involved, and although Ormond doubted Ossory’s ability to scrutinize legislation, ‘there may be so many other good uses of your being at court that I desire you would not quit it till you and I are agreed of the time.’<sup>196</sup> On 15 May Ossory noted that ‘I do constantly attend the council, and whenever it meets, as sometimes it does on the sudden, I immediately repair from hence unto it.’<sup>197</sup> He also attended the prorogation on 17 May.</p><p>The coming to maturity of his eldest son, James Butler*, the future 2nd duke of Ormond, presented Ossory with an opportunity to rescue his increasingly parlous finances by means of an advantageous marriage. Finances, too, may have played a part in his response, on 25 May, to Laurence Hyde’s information that both the king and York favoured Ossory to command the grenadier guards. He had declined, ‘thinking it was not decent for one of my quality that had served, to get by money a military employment, were I rich enough to do it.’<sup>198</sup> He was, however, still involved in securing a Dutch commission. On 5 June 1680, Ossory wrote that ‘I hear the States General have ordered my commission of general, but I cannot learn what they have done as to my appointments, in which, if I find not satisfaction to some reasonable degree, I shall soon return it unto them again.’ He was also having trouble with his eyes.<sup>199</sup> Ossory was one of 15 privy councillors ordered to attend the court of chancery on 15 June, as a witness to the king’s declaration that he had never been married to anyone but the queen.<sup>200</sup></p><p>On 24 June 1680 it was reported that Ossory would command the expedition to Tangier.<sup>201</sup> Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> noted that a force of 4,000 foot and 600 horse had been ordered to accompany the new governor. However, Ossory believed this to be inadequate to the task. He attended the prorogation on 1 July, the last day upon which he sat. The king signed the commissions for raising the men for Tangier on 13 July. About four days later, Ossory fell ill of a fever, ‘with a latent malignity’. Initially, Arlington felt relieved that this meant that Ossory could not command at Tangier, and that this would be welcome to him for ‘never man was put upon a thing so against his mind, as being of so hazardous an event in point of reputation (as he thought and not without reason).’ Evelyn also noted Ossory’s fears that the forces allocated to him were insufficient.<sup>202</sup> After long periods of delirium, in which he appeared to be obsessed by the difficult task facing him in Tangier, Ossory died on the evening of 30 July.<sup>203</sup> According to the post-mortem his ‘brain was found full of blood and water, insomuch that the white part of it was discoloured, his lungs was very black ... but they and all the entrails were sound.’<sup>204</sup> Evelyn was left to lament the loss of ‘a sincere friend, a brave soldier, a virtuous courtier, a loyal subject, an honest man, a bountiful master, and good Christian.’<sup>205</sup></p><p>One newsletter referred to Ossory being ‘very much lamented in court, being a person every way accomplished for valour and of unsuspected integrity both to his prince and country.’<sup>206</sup> Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup> perceived Ossory’s death as a blow to both Ormond and Arlington, ‘whose interest he did both mightily support; for he was in very good credit at court, as he was everywhere else, which makes his loss the more to be lamented.’<sup>207</sup> Ormond was devastated by Ossory’s death, referring in a letter to Arlington of 9 Aug. to the confidence and reliance he placed upon him. To Lady Clancarty, he prayed for forgetfulness, the memory of Ossory only generating anguish in him.<sup>208</sup></p><p>Ossory’s body was laid temporarily and ‘very privately’ in the duke of Monmouth’s vault in Henry VII’s chapel in Westminster Abbey.<sup>209</sup> It was not until 13 Nov. 1680 that a proper burial service was held, conducted by Stephen Crespion, confessor to the royal household.<sup>210</sup> Ossory did not leave a will. During his illness he had expressed a desire to make one, but Arlington had diverted him, arguing that it was unnecessary because all Ossory needed to do was ‘to recommend your wife and children to your father, and to him likewise the payment of your debts and gratification of your servants, and this, if you choose, I will do in your name; which he seemed very well to accept of, and never more mentioned it.’ Arlington also cited Ossory’s practice before embarking on campaign, of leaving ‘a short paper to me which contained the same things in effect’, and particularly beseeching Ormond to increase his wife’s jointure.<sup>211</sup> On 21 Aug. 1680, Mulys wrote to Mathew to suggest that Ormond write to Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> ‘to concern himself in getting in such money as is in arrear’ and due to the countess from ‘public funds.’<sup>212</sup> The countess of Ossory would have considerable difficulty in ensuring that she received all that was due to her from the state.<sup>213</sup></p><p>In March 1693, a draft of the patent for Ossory’s son, Charles Butler*, earl of Arran [I], to be Baron Butler of Weston referred to Ossory as being ‘particularly known to us [the king], esteemed and loved by us as our friend, for his signal affection and services to us, wherefore we are the more pleased to see that those virtues which the world seemed to be deprived of by his untimely death, are revived and flourish in his sons.’<sup>214</sup> His virtues were eulogized and immortalized by John Dryden in <em>Absalom and Achitopel</em>.<sup>215</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
BYRON, Richard (1605-79) |
<p><strong><surname>BYRON</surname></strong> (<strong>BIRON</strong>), <strong>Richard</strong> (1605–79)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. Aug. 1652 as 2nd Bar. BYRON. |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 27 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1605, 2nd s. of Sir John Byron (1583-1625) of Newstead, and Anne, da. of Richard Molyneux of Sefton, Lancs. <em>educ</em>. Oxf. MA 1642. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1629, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1651), da. of Gervase Rossell, of Ratcliff-on-Trent, wid. of Nicholas Strelley, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 5da. (?4 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) by 1661, Elizabeth, da. of Sir George Booth, bt., of Dunham Massey, <em>s.p</em>. Kntd. 1 Oct. 1642. <em>d</em>. 4 Oct. 1679; admon. 3 Nov. 1679-30 Apr. 1680.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. Newark and Appleby Castle 1643-6;<sup>2</sup> maj. and capt. tp. of horse, earl of Lindsey’s regt. 1662;<sup>3</sup> capt. tp. of horse, 1666.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>The Byrons, according to tradition, were the descendants of a family living at Beuron near Nantes, who came over with the Conqueror. In 1086 Ralph de Buron was recorded as holding land in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire; by the 15th century the family had extended their estates into Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Newstead Priory was acquired following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540 and became the principal family seat, while Sir John Byron<sup>†</sup> (later Baron Byron), further consolidated the Lancashire holdings by purchasing the manor of Rochdale in 1638.<sup>6</sup></p><p>One of the seven Byron brothers ‘bred up in arms’ to fight for the king during the Civil War, Sir Richard Byron was overshadowed by his more flamboyant elder brother, Sir John, and his more accomplished younger brother, Sir Thomas Byron, both of whom proved themselves able military commanders.<sup>7</sup> Despite his less obvious talents, Sir Richard Byron was made governor of Appleby Castle in Westmorland and of Newark in Nottinghamshire in 1643, the same year that his elder brother was raised to the peerage as Baron Byron of Rochdale.<sup>8</sup> He compounded in 1646, being fined £120 at the rate of one tenth.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Following the death of the 1st Baron without heirs in 1652, Sir Richard Byron succeeded to the peerage under a special remainder. He inherited an estate heavily reduced through sequestration, the total value of his wealth estimated at £1,200.<sup>10</sup> Having been previously content to remain on the sidelines, Byron now displayed a determined, if ineffectual, commitment to the royalist cause. The Restoration put an end to his incompetent plotting. On 1 June he took his seat in the House after which he was present on almost 58 per cent of all sitting days and was named to three committees.</p><p>Byron spent much of the remainder of his career both in and out of the House desperately attempting to rebuild his fortunes: the extent of his precarious financial situation perhaps indicated by his decision to sell his estate at Royton in Lancashire in 1662.<sup>11</sup> On 23 June 1660 a petition of his son, William Byron*, later 3rd Baron Byron, seeking the reversal of a decree in chancery was referred to the committee for petitions, and on 13 Aug. Byron himself petitioned successfully for the restitution of tithes and glebes in the rectories of Rochdale and Saddleworth, which had originally been let to his mother by William Juxon*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>12</sup> The following day he was added to the committee considering the bill for his Nottinghamshire neighbour, William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle. In October Byron petitioned for several manors in Hampshire and Wiltshire, formerly belonging to the regicide John Lisle<sup>‡</sup>, and the following month he submitted a further petition for the revival of an office granted by Charles I to rectify abuses in the silk dyeing industry.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Byron resumed his seat for the second session on 6 Nov., after which he was present on 77 per cent of all sitting days and he again named to three committees. On 14 Dec. the House issued a further order referring to his property in Rochdale and Saddleworth, instructing that any money still in the hands of the former trustees should be made over to him.<sup>14</sup> On 20 Dec. Byron complained that one of his servants had been arrested contrary to privilege, and the House ordered that the offender, Charles Blackamore, should be brought to the bar to explain his conduct.</p><p>Byron took his seat at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament in May 1661. Named to the sessional committees for petitions and privileges, he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days. His high rate of attendance was reflected in his nomination to 39 committees during the session, the majority of them concerning private bills, or measures involving improvement in trade. Byron opposed Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his attempts to secure the office of great chamberlain in July 1661, presumably preferring the claims of his Lincolnshire neighbour Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey. In December an order was made for Byron to be paid £600 out of fines on goods forfeit for non-payment of customs. Byron chaired a session of the committee nominated to consider the bill for curates’ allowances on 13 Feb. 1662, but when the committee met again on 22 Feb. Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, took over the chairmanship.<sup>15</sup> On 19 May he protested against the resolution to agree with the Commons in dropping two provisos suggested by the Lords from the bill for mending common highways.</p><p>Byron returned to the House for the second session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on almost 91 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to 18 committees. Byron’s assiduous attendance of the House may have been on account of his keen interest in the progress of a bill of his own. On 18 May a bill for supplying the loss of certain evidences in the time of the late troubles belonging to Byron received its first reading. On 21 May the bill was heard before a select committee chaired by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater. Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, raised objections to the bill, concerned that the interest of his niece, wife of Byron’s son William, should not be compromised. The committee ordered that William Byron and Lady Campden should be notified of the bill and at a subsequent hearing on 30 May Byron assured the committee that his son had consented to the measure. Sir John Colladon, the queen’s physician, speaking on behalf of Byron’s creditors, was heard and gave his consent on 1 June, enabling the committee to recommend that the bill be returned to the House.<sup>16</sup> Two days later Bridgwater reported back from the committee, recommending the bill as fit to pass, but the same day Sir Daniel Harvey<sup>‡</sup> petitioned to be heard in the matter and on 11 June the bill was recommitted. Following a lengthy consideration of Harvey’s objections, the bill was again recommended as fit to pass with the addition of a proviso and eventually sent down to the Commons for their approval on 6 July.<sup>17</sup> The same day Byron’s chaplain, Samuel Withers, petitioned the House to be freed from custody in Norwich, where he had been imprisoned for debt. Order was given for Withers’ release two days later. That month Byron, one of a number of former royalists who now opposed the lord chancellor, was listed as being a doubtful supporter of the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.</p><p>Byron was missing at the opening of the new session, and he was excused at a call of the House on 4 Apr. 1664. He resumed his seat on 2 May, after which he attended 39 per cent of all sitting days, but he was named to only one committee: that of 10 May considering the bill to continue the act for regulating the press. On 12 May Byron was subjected to the indignity of having a number of his goods in Nottingham, including a bedstead valued at £60, seized by the sheriff in satisfaction of a debt of £100 still owing from Byron for the voluntary gift to the king.<sup>18</sup> The House ordered their restoration. Byron resumed his familiar attendance pattern during the following session, sitting from 24 Nov. 1664 until 2 Mar. 1665, approximately 75 per cent of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to nine committees. He failed to attend the brief fifth session later that year, perhaps again preoccupied with financial troubles. In May 1665 Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> noted that Byron still owed Sir John Colladon £4,000 and that he was able to ‘give only promises, and no assurance’ for the sum.<sup>19</sup> In April 1666 Whitelocke’s agent, James Pearson, attempted a more direct approach, writing to discover whether Byron would pay any of the money owing having heard of ‘some considerable sum to be lately raised by the sale of timber in Newstead’ but Byron remained immoveable.<sup>20</sup> Byron’s financial embarrassments ought perhaps to have been alleviated by a decision made in May 1665 to accept timber from his estates in Nottinghamshire for the navy, and during the following years Byron petitioned frequently to be leased ships to transport his wood to the dockyards.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Byron resumed his seat and regular attendance pattern for the 1666-7 session. He attended 80 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to nine committees. On 19 Dec. he registered his proxy in favour of John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), which was vacated at his return to the House on 17 Jan. 1667. The same month, on 23 Jan., Byron dissented from the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords in the bill for resolving disputes concerning houses destroyed during the great fire. In June Byron was commissioned into the non-regimented troop of horse commanded by Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Byron took his seat almost a fortnight after the opening of the 1667-9 session, after which he was again conscientious in his attendance; he was present on 101 of the 122 sitting days and was named to at least 18 committees. Having aligned himself with those in opposition to Clarendon in November, he protested against the failure to impeach the disgraced lord chancellor on 20 Nov. 1667. On 7 Dec. he was named to the committee considering the bill for banishing Clarendon. On 29 Feb. 1668 Byron was added to the committee for petitions. On 24 Apr. another of his servants, Samuel Selwood, petitioned for his release from incarceration in Newgate, to which he had been conveyed notwithstanding Byron’s protection.</p><p>Byron returned to the House a few days after the opening of the brief session of October 1669, attending 31 of the 36 sitting days. Despite this, he was named to only two committees during the session in addition to the sessional committees to which he was added on 26 October. On 9 Nov. the House received information that John Filewood was engaged in suing one of Byron’s servants, declaring openly that he did not care about Byron’s protection. Filewood was ordered to appear before the House the following day, but failed to do so.</p><p>Byron resumed his seat in the House for the new session on 14 Feb. 1670, attending almost 88 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to at least 50 committees. His signature on 19 Mar. confirms that he was an active member of the Journal committee, but in the midst of the session Byron’s attention was increasingly taken up with a protracted dispute with Sir William Juxon (nephew and heir to the archbishop) over the rectories of Rochdale, Saddleworth and Butterworth. Byron first complained of a breach of privilege by Juxon in November 1670, Juxon having continued to collect tithes and having threatened any tenants who attempted to pay their rents to Byron’s agents.<sup>23</sup> Although Byron was restored to possession the following month, the case continued into the next year. In March 1671 Byron complained again that Juxon had ignored a further order concerning his rights. Unable to resolve the matter, on 14 Mar. the House referred the dispute back to the court of chancery.</p><p>Byron returned to the House on 4 Feb. 1673, and was again conscientious in his attendance, sitting on 93 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the sessional committees for petitions, privileges, and the sub-committee for the Journal, during the course of the session he was named to a further 18 committees. Presumably in response to his constant petitions for restitution of his wartime losses, in April 1673 Byron was granted an annuity of £500.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Byron attended just two days of the following session in October and November 1673 but resumed his normal attendance pattern in the next brief (1674) session, attending 82 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to three committees. Byron was present for almost 79 per cent of the first 1675 session, during which he was named to the sessional committees as well as five other select committees. In April 1675 he was noted as one of those thought likely to support the non-resisting test. He resumed his seat for the October session of 1675, attending 17 of the 21 sitting days. On 14 Oct. Edward Ward*, 2nd Baron Ward, registered his proxy in Byron’s favour; it was vacated by the close of the session. In November Byron may have been among those peers to vote against the address to the Crown requesting a dissolution, but as the list states simply ‘L B’ a definite identification is not possible.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Byron returned to the House on 15 Feb. 1677 for the 1677-8 session, attending some 70 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to 44 committees. At the beginning of May he was noted triply vile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. He was present at the opening of the ensuing session on 23 May 1678, when although he was named to a dozen committees, he attended less than half of the session before retiring. He returned on 2 Nov. for the second 1678 session and was present for almost 76 per cent of the session. Although Byron was not nominated to any select committees during this session, on 6 Nov. he was added to the sub-committee for the Journal of which he appears to have been an active member, signing off the record on at least four occasions. On 15 Nov. he voted against including the declaration against transubstantiation in the Test Bill and the following month, on 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the bill for disbanding the army. The same day he was added to the committee for examinations, and the following day (27 Dec.) he voted against committing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>In or about March 1679, before the opening of the new Parliament, Danby assigned Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> to canvass Byron about his attitude to Danby’s attainder. It was presumably as a result of information provided by Bertie that Danby included Byron in his list of likely supporters in the coming session. Noted in favour of the disgraced former lord treasurer in subsequent forecasts, Byron took his seat at the opening of Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679. On 12 Mar, although he was recorded as present in the Journal, Byron’s name was included in a list of absent court lords. He resumed his seat at the start of the second session of the Parliament on 15 Mar., after which he was present on every sitting day. At the beginning of April he was listed among those who had voted against the early stages of the bill of attainder, and on 4 Apr. he again voted against it, registering his dissent against the resolution to pass the measure. Ten days later he voted against agreeing with the Commons on the issue. The following month, on 10 May, he opposed appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the method of trying the impeached peers, and on 14 May he entered his dissent at the passage of the bill for regulating the trials of peers. Byron sat for the last time on the final day of the session on 27 May, when he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during consideration of capital cases. He died later that year on 4 October. He was buried at Hucknall and succeeded in the peerage by his only surviving son, William Byron, as 3rd Baron Byron.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BYRON, William (1636-95) |
<p><strong><surname>BYRON</surname></strong> (<strong>BIRON</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1636–95)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Oct. 1679 as 3rd Bar. BYRON. |
|
First sat 30 Nov. 1680; last sat 2 May 1695 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1636, 1st s. of Richard Byron*, 2nd Bar. Byron, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1651), da. of Gervase Rossell, wid. of Nicholas Strelley. <em>educ</em>. Nottingham c.1642.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 18 Oct. 1661 (lic. 5 Oct. 1660) with £11,000,<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (1632-82), da. of John Chaworth, 2nd Visct. Chaworth [I], 5s. (4 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 6da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); (2) 25 June 1685, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1703), da. of Sir George Stonhouse<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Radley, wid. of Sir Richard Stydolph, bt. of Norbury, Surr.,<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>.<em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 13 Nov. 1695; admon. 12 Dec. 1696.</p> |
<p>Bowbearer, Sherwood Forest 1662; commr. army tax Notts. 1667;<sup>4</sup> dep. lt. Notts. 1692, 1694-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>Byron succeeded to the peerage following a difficult period in the immediate aftermath of the Restoration, during which time he found himself heavily in debt (and at one point outlawed by his creditors).<sup>7</sup> His impecuniousness presumably stemmed from confiscations dating from the Interregnum, as he had become heir to his half-brother’s estate of at least £1,800 prior to the king’s return, which ought to have secured his future.<sup>8</sup> It was perhaps these financial strictures that led to his settling much of his remaining estate on his future wife, Elizabeth Chaworth, in 1660.<sup>9</sup> The match allied him with a substantial neighbouring Nottinghamshire family, and with Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, Elizabeth Chaworth’s uncle.<sup>10</sup> Byron’s sister, Catherine, had previously married Sir William Stanhope<sup>‡</sup>, another prominent Nottinghamshire magnate.<sup>11</sup> Despite these connections, Byron does not appear to have wielded any great influence in the county.</p><p>During the two decades that passed before his inheritance of the peerage, Byron and his family lived at Bulwell Wood Hall. Between 1660 and 1668 he was involved in a legal wrangle with Dorothy and Mary Balston and with George Weldon. The dispute dated back to 1652 and arose from the purchase of Strelley Park by Nicholas Strelley. The Balstons and Weldon sought recovery from Byron of the profits from the coal mines at Strelley which they claimed amounted to £1,955 11s. 8d. Byron petitioned the House on two occasions to obtain the reversal of a decree in chancery awarded against him. On the second occasion, in April 1668, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, presented the petition on Byron’s behalf. The matter was referred to the committee for petitions, but the House refused to agree to the committee’s recommendations that Byron’s petition was fit to be heard at the bar of the House.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Byron succeeded to the peerage in October 1679, but it was not until April 1680 that he finally took up residence at Newstead Abbey, following the completion of the administration of his predecessor’s estate.<sup>13</sup> He did not receive a writ of summons to the House for more than a year after his succession. His existence went apparently unnoticed until he was at last recorded as being missing without excuse at a call on 30 Oct. 1680. On 15 Nov. the lord chancellor was ordered to send Byron a writ; he took his seat a fortnight later on 30 November. Even Byron’s first sitting was not minuted by the clerk; it was perhaps overshadowed by the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. On 7 Dec. Byron found Stafford not guilty of treason. He continued to sit until 7 Jan. 1681, having attended approximately 23 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He resumed his seat for the new Parliament at Oxford on 21 Mar., on which day he introduced his kinsman, Edward Noel*, later earl of Gainsborough, as Baron Noel. He attended for five of the seven sitting days and was believed likely to be a friend of the embattled Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds).<sup>14</sup></p><p>In December 1682, Lady Byron died, but she was not interred in the family vault at Hucknall until June of the following year.<sup>15</sup> The reason for the delay may have been on account of Byron’s own indisposition as he also appears to have been prostrated by a severe sickness during that winter, though this did not prevent him from recommending Abel Dureden, formerly chaplain to his father, to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>16</sup> He may also have had financial troubles as the manor of Newstead was mortgaged at that time.<sup>17</sup> In 1684 Byron became involved in a legal dispute with the widow of his cousin, George Strelley, and the same year saw him embroiled in a further protracted case inherited from his father involving Sir William Juxon, executor of William Juxon*, archbishop of Canterbury, over the advowsons of various rectories and chapels in Lancashire.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Byron resumed his activities in the House with the summoning of James II’s first Parliament, attending a quarter of the session from May to July 1685. On 25 June he married again. His second wife was a daughter of the former Member for Abingdon, Sir George Stonhouse, a cousin of John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, a sister-in-law of Jacob Astley*, 2nd Baron Astley, and widow of a prominent Surrey landowner.<sup>19</sup> Byron resumed his seat four days after the wedding but attended on only two further days.</p><p>In 1687 Byron’s attitude to repeal of the Test was considered to be uncertain. By November he was still undeclared on the issue, and in January of the following year he was listed as absent. Byron’s activities at the time of the Revolution are unknown, but it seems reasonable to speculate that he may have joined his neighbours in rallying to Princess Anne at Nottingham.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Byron was absent without explanation at a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689, but he resumed his seat on 28 Jan. after which he attended approximately 35 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen, and the same day he dissented from the resolution not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. he agreed with the Commons use of the word ‘abdicated’ and subscribed the protest when the House rejected the Commons’ vote. Although he voted in the same fashion on the same issue two days later, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, (presumably mistakenly) appended Byron’s name to a list of those protesting against the resolution to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant.<sup>21</sup> Byron’s more conspicuous attendance in the House may explain his nomination to several committees during the session. On 19 Apr. he was named to the committee considering the effects of simoniacal promotions, and on 17 May he was added to the sub-committee for the Journal.</p><p>Byron maintained his renewed interest in the House in the ensuing (1689-90) session, attending approximately 77 per cent of sitting days. In a list compiled by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690 he was classed among the supporters of the court. On 22 Nov. a duel with his cousin, Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas of Shenfield, was averted by the House’s intervention. The most likely cause of the quarrel was an embarrassing legal tussle then in train between Byron, his heir and other members of the family. Byron claimed that in October 1689 a ‘confederacy’ of his son, daughters, sister and others had attempted to fool him out of his estates, ‘by surprise and circumvention and more particularly by intoxicating your orator with strong and other liquors’ whereby at the sealing of the indenture Byron ‘was deprived of the exercise of his senses or understanding and did not really know what he did.’ Throughout Byron’s petition to the court of exchequer, Lucas’ name was included as one of the confederates, and he was said to have been responsible for luring Byron to the Tower (where Lucas was governor) so that he could be plied with alcohol; on each occasion the name was later scratched out. The case continued until at least July 1690 when Byron was still attempting to secure access to materials relevant to his case.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Byron resumed his seat for the first 1690 session on 20 Mar., after which he was present on 46 of the 54 sitting days. On 28 Mar. he was one of a number of peers to be given notice concerning protections that had been granted to servants, and on 12 Apr. it was ordered that he (and two other peers) should give a further account about the servants who claimed to be in receipt of their protections.<sup>23</sup> Financial pressures led him to enter into a £5,000 mortgage with his brother-in-law, Stanhope, in January 1691 and in October he mortgaged Bulwell Park for £1,000.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Excused at a call of the House on 2 Nov. 1691, Byron resumed his seat on 9 Nov. and sat for a little under half of the winter session of 1691-2, during which he was named to 25 committees. In May 1692 he entered into a further mortgage agreement with William Lewin for £3,300 secured on the manor of Hucknall Torkard in Nottinghamshire.<sup>25</sup> The same year Byron’s daughter, Katherine, married Sir Arthur Cole, who represented Inniskillen in the Irish house of commons.<sup>26</sup> Byron’s attendance in the House declined after 1692, and he was absent for the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, in January and February of the following year. Absent again in November 1693 he registered his proxy with his cousin Lucas, with whom relations had presumably been patched up; it was vacated by the close of the session. Byron was excused at a call of the House on 26 Nov. 1694 and once more registered his proxy with Lucas, who held it until the end of the session. Byron attended just 27 of the 127 days of the 1695 session, during which he was named to five committees. Poor health may explain this sudden decline in his activities. He sat for the final time on 2 May 1695. He died on 13 Nov. and was buried in the family vault at Hucknall. The following year, as part of the administration of his personal estate, an inventory of his goods within the province of Canterbury, listed only a set of parliament and coronation robes worth £15.<sup>27</sup> He was succeeded by his son, also William Byron*, as 4th Baron Byron.<sup>28</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
BYRON, William (1670-1736) |
<p><strong><surname>BYRON</surname></strong> (<strong>BIRON</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1670–1736)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Nov. 1695 as 4th Bar. BYRON. |
|
First sat 21 Jan. 1696; last sat 15 May 1735 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Jan. 1670, 4th but 1st surv. s. of William Byron*, 3rd Bar. Byron, and 1st w. Elizabeth (or Penelope) Chaworth. <em>educ</em>. Cambs. DCL 1705.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) Feb. 1703 (with £11,000),<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 11 Apr. 1703), da. of John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>; (2) 19 Dec. 1706 (with £10,000),<sup>3</sup> Frances Wilhelmina (<em>d</em>. 31 Mar. 1712), da. of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, 3s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.) 1da. (<em>d.v.p)</em>;<sup>4</sup> (3) 3 Dec. 1720 (with £6,000),<sup>5</sup> Frances (<em>d</em>.1757), da. of William Berkeley*, 4th Bar. Berkeley of Stratton, 5s. 1da.<sup>6</sup> <em>d</em>. 8 Aug. 1736; <em>will</em> 17 Apr. 1725-4 Dec. 1735, pr. 19 Oct. 1736.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Notts. 1702-?<sup>8</sup>; ld. warden Sherwood Forest 1711-?14.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Gent. of the bedchamber to Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland 1702-08.<sup>10</sup></p> |
|
<p>As the fourth son of the previous holder of the peerage, Byron cannot have expected to inherit the barony. He appears to have been more interested in art and music than politics, acting as both pupil and patron of the Flemish artist Pieter Tillemans and as an amateur composer of some ability.<sup>12</sup> While little is known of Byron prior to his succession to the Lords in November 1695, in 1689 he and other members of the family appear to have attempted to wrest control of the family estates from his father, whom they had intoxicated ‘with strong and other liquors’ to force him to sign an indenture conveying the property away from him. The case continued to be disputed until at least the summer of 1690.<sup>13</sup> The reason for this action was presumably the 3rd Baron’s financial mismanagement. Heavily indebted at the time of his death an inventory of his goods recorded items worth just £15.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Having succeeded to this depleted inheritance, Byron took his seat in the House on 21 Jan. 1696, after which he was present on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Despite this promising beginning, he was nominated to no committees, and he was absent from the opening of the next (1696-7) session. On 30 Nov., anxious to secure maximum attendance for the Fenwick attainder, the House ordered that he and seven other peers should attend within a limited time or face arrest by the sergeant at arms. Byron duly returned to the House on the designated day, 7 Dec., after which he attended approximately 34 per cent of the whole session. On 18 Dec. he entered his dissent at the second reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and on 23 Dec. he voted against the third reading and entered his dissent to its passage. Beyond this, Byron’s activities within the House appear to have been negligible. He was named to just four committees during the session, including that appointed to consider the state of trade on 10 Feb. 1697. Resuming his seat at the opening of the third session on 3 Dec. 1697, he was present for almost half of all sitting days and this time was named to six committees during the course of the session. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, and the following day he entered his dissent at the Lords’ resolution in favour of James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of George Willoughby*, 7th Baron Willoughby of Parham, in their cause with Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], over the settlement of the Cary estate. Byron’s opposition to the Berties was presumably rather an expression of family support for his kinsman, Falkland, than of any political opposition to Bertie, with whom Byron concurred on a number of issues, notably the Fenwick attainder. Absent from the House after 10 June 1698, on 15 June he registered his proxy with Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, which was vacated by the dissolution.</p><p>Byron was again absent at the opening of the new Parliament in August 1698, not taking his seat until the end of November. Present for just 30 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to four committees in March 1699 and was then abroad in Flanders during the summer.<sup>15</sup> In the late summer of 1699 he was daily expected in Paris.<sup>16</sup> He remained there until at least 18 Nov. when he participated in the public entrance by Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, as ambassador to France.<sup>17</sup> He returned to England in time to take his seat in the House on 29 Nov. shortly after the opening of the 1699-1700 session. He was again present for just under a third of all sitting days and was named to just one committee during the session. In February 1700 he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and on 6 Apr. he acted as teller for those opposing the resolution that a clause in the land tax bill should stand apart. In May he found himself in dispute over his family’s traditional rights to fell timber in Sherwood Forest and was forced to argue his case before the forest court.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Byron resumed his seat four days after the opening of the 1701 Parliament on 10 February. He continued to attend until 24 June, being present on almost half of all sitting days. On 20 Feb. he was named to the committee appointed to consider the state of the fleet and to three further committees during the session. On 17 June, although no friend of the Junto, he supported the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers. He returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. Named to 14 committees in the course of the session, he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days until May 1702. The accession of Queen Anne improved Byron’s prospects for preferment, and in September he was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Byron returned to the House two weeks into the new Parliament in November 1702 and was again present for a little under half of all sitting days. Estimated a supporter of the occasional conformity bill in or about January 1703, on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. His marriage to Lady Mary Egerton shortly after forged an alliance that promised to improve his financial position and perhaps influenced his appointment as a gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark in March, but the marriage proved short-lived as Lady Byron died of smallpox six weeks later.</p><p>Byron returned to the House for the opening of the new session on 9 November. He was named to the sub-committee for the Journal, but curiously he was overlooked for the sessional committee for privileges. Present for half of all sitting days over the ensuing two months he was again estimated as a supporter of the occasional conformity bill. Byron may have been one of those thought likely to support the Tack in November 1704 (though the mark on the list on which his name appears may refer to John Vaughan*, Baron Vaughan, better known as 3rd earl of Carbery [I]).<sup>20</sup> He resumed his seat in the new session on 6 Dec. 1704, after which he sat for approximately a third of all sitting days. In spring 1705 he was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He took his seat for the 1705-6 session on 23 Nov. and was again present for about a third of all sitting days. In 1706 he married Lady Frances Wilhelmina Bentinck, daughter of his Whig Nottinghamshire neighbour, Portland. He resumed his seat in the House two days after the wedding, maintaining his regular attendance for the remainder of the session. He attended just one day of the third (1706-7) session.</p><p>Byron returned to the House at the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain in October 1707, after which he was present on almost 56 per cent of all sitting days. In an analysis of the peerage of 1708, he was listed, unsurprisingly, as a Tory. He was present at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 and attended 65 per cent of all sitting days in the session. In January 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections of Scottish representative peers. Despite his Tory allegiances, on 15 Mar. he was one of a number of court peers to dine with the Whig, Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>21</sup> He resumed his seat again at the opening of the 1709-10 session, after which he was present for about 54 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1710 his wife’s older sister, the recently widowed Lady Essex, approached Byron to use his interest with the Junto Whig, William Cowper*, Baron (later earl) Cowper, to secure the lieutenancy of Hertfordshire for her barely teenage son, William Capel*, 3rd earl of Essex.<sup>22</sup> The following month Byron voted with the Whigs to find Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.</p><p>In October 1710 Byron was listed by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as a doubtful supporter of the new ministry. Byron resumed his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov., after which he was present for 45 per cent of all sitting days in the 1710-11. On 3 Feb. 1711 he acted as teller in a division concerning the state of the war in Spain in a committee of the whole. He retired from the session on 16 Apr., some two months before its prorogation, but the following day registered his proxy with his Whig brother-in-law, William Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland. He resumed his seat for the second session on 7 Dec. 1711. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being in favour of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon and voted accordingly the following day. On 2 Jan. 1712, Byron acted as one of the supporters of Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham, (one of Oxford’s ‘dozen’) at his introduction to the House.</p><p>Byron suffered the loss of his second wife in April 1712; according to contemporary gossip she died as the result of a distemper he had given her.<sup>23</sup> He was absent from the House for the next two years but registered his proxy with Portland again on 5 May 1712. On 29 May he wrote to Oxford complaining of his unwillingness to compensate the loss of his place as lord warden (presumably of Sherwood Forest) with a pension. Stressing his past loyalty, Byron urged his case warning that,</p><blockquote><p>I have never been troublesome to the Queen or your lordship before. I have always been ready to serve you. I think I’ve done nothing to disoblige you and I hope you will not let me have just reason to say hereafter you have not been a friend to him.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>Byron’s pleading clearly worked as during the year he was awarded a government pension of £300.<sup>25</sup> Yet his loyalty remained suspect. He may have resented Oxford’s efforts to establish a rival interest in Nottinghamshire when, following the death of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, he married his son, Edward, styled Lord Harley*, later 2nd earl of Oxford, to the Holles heiress.<sup>26</sup> Whatever the reason, Oxford viewed Byron’s support as doubtful and in February 1713 listed him as one of those to be contacted in advance of the session. Unwilling to support the government, on 13 June Byron was estimated as opposed to the bill for confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Byron resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he attended 30 per cent of all sitting days in the ensuing session. He registered his proxy with Masham on 17 Apr., which was vacated by his return to the House on 1 May. He then sat for a further three days before quitting the House for the remainder of the session. On 25 May he registered his proxy with Masham once more, and on 27 May he was listed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a supporter of the schism bill.<sup>27</sup> He attended just one day of the brief second session in August 1714.</p><p>The accession of George I appears to have caused little change to Byron’s pattern of attendance. He continued to sit in the House sporadically for the remainder of his life, registering his proxy with Portland and his Nottinghamshire neighbour Evelyn Pierrepont*, duke of Kingston, to cover his absences. The death of his heir in July 1720 forced Byron to think of marriage once again, and in December 1720 he married for the third time. Lord Berkeley viewed Byron’s marriage to his daughter, Frances, sanguinely as ‘a disproportionable match as to their ages, but marriages not offering every day, I would not miss an opportunity, though attended with never so many inconveniences’.<sup>28</sup> As a supporter of the Hanoverian regime, Byron was rewarded with an annual pension of £1,000 in 1729, and the following year George II stood as godfather to his youngest son, George Byron.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Towards the close of 1735 Byron was noted as having set out for Bath in the hopes of recovering his health; by February of the following year he was dangerously ill.<sup>30</sup> He died six months later on 8 Aug. 1736 and was succeeded by his eldest son, William Byron*, as 5th Baron Byron. In his will he left £200 to his widow in addition to her jointure. Lady Byron, Kingston, and his father-in-law, Berkeley of Stratton, were named guardians to his young children.<sup>31</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CAMPBELL, John (1680-1743) |
<p><strong><surname>CAMPBELL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1680–1743)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1689-1703 Ld. Lorne; <em>suc. </em>fa. 25 Sept. 1703 as 2nd duke of Argyll [S]; <em>cr. </em>26 Nov. 1705 earl of GREENWICH; <em>cr. </em>27 Apr. 1719 duke of GREENWICH. |
|
First sat 4 Dec. 1705; last sat 1 June 1742 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Oct. 1680, 1st s. of Archibald Campbell, <em>styled</em> Ld Lorne, later duke of Argyll [S], and Elizabeth da. of Sir Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Bt., of Helmingham, Suff., sis of Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Dysart[S]; bro. of Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S]. <em>educ</em>. privately (Walter Campbell, John Anderson, Alexander Cunningham); travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1699–1700. <em>m</em>. (1) contract 30 Dec. 1701, Mary (<em>d.</em> 15 Jan. 1717) da. of Thomas Browne of St Margaret’s, Westminster, sis of Thomas Duncombe (formerly Browne)<sup>‡</sup>, of Duncombe Park, Yorks., <em>s.p.</em>; (2) 6 June 1717, Jane (<em>d</em>.1767) da. of Thomas Warburton of Winnington, Chesh., 5 da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). KT 4 Feb. 1704–22 Mar. 1710; KG 22 Mar. 1710. <em>d</em>. 4 Oct 1743; <em>will</em> 3 Dec. 1741, pr. 31 Oct. 1743.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Col. Argylls. Highlanders 1694–8, regt. of ft. (Dutch service) 1702–Sept. 1706, 4th tp. Horse Gds. 1703–14, regt. of ft. Sept. 1706–Feb. 1707, 4 Ft. (the Buffs) Feb. 1707–1711, R. Horse Gds. (the Blues) 1715–16, 1733–40, Feb.–Mar. 1742, 3 Horse 1726–33; brig.-gen. 1704, maj.-gen. 1706, lt.-gen. 1709, gen. 1711, field marshal 1736; c.-in-c. British forces in Spain 1711–12, forces in Scot. 1712–14, Sept. 1714, c.-in.c. forces Feb.–Mar. 1742; gov., constable and capt. coy. of ft. Edinburgh castle 1712–14; gov. Minorca 1712–Apr. 1714, Oct. 1714–1716, Portsmouth 1730–42.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Hered. grand master Household [S] (life), 1703; PC [S] 1703–8; extraordinary ld. of session 1703–8 [S]; ld. high commr. to parl. [S] 1705; PC [GB] 1709–<em>d</em>.; amb. extraordinary and plenip. to King of Spain, 1711–12,; ld. justice Aug–Sept. 1714; groom of stole and commr. for household to prince of Wales 1714–16; ld. steward of Household 1719–25; master-gen. ordnance 1725–30, Feb.–Mar. 1742.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Hered. sheriff, Argylls. 1703; hered. justiciar, Argyll and the Isles, 1703; burgess, Edinburgh, 1704, Glasgow 1716;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. Surr. 1715–16, Argylls. and Dunbartons. 1715–43.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by W. Aikman, c. 1709, R. Coll., Holyroodhouse; oil on canvas by W. Aikman, c.1720, National Galleries of Scotland, PG692; oil on canvas by W. Aikman, c.1720–25, NPG 737; oil on canvas by T. Bardwell, 1740, NPG 3110; monument by L. Roubiliac, 1748, Westminster Abbey.</p> |
<p>His celebrated family history, and his own achievements, civil and military, invested Argyll with a public reputation that was at odds with his private character. A fellow Scottish Whig, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, wrote that ‘his family will not lose in his person, the great figure they have made for so many ages ... [he] having all the free spirit, and good sense natural to the family’.<sup>6</sup> But, as a political enemy, the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, observed, Argyll’s personality was more suited to military rather than political life: he had a ‘cheerful, lively temper’, was incapable of dissimulation, and was ‘extremely forward in effecting what he promoted and designed’, qualities which could make him a formidable parliamentary debater, but which could also make him arrogant, irascible and quarrelsome. He was also said to be ‘entirely led by his ambition’, which vaulted beyond his abilities.<sup>7</sup> Moreover, in times of crisis he allowed himself to be guided by his brother Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay, which proved a mixed blessing. Ilay was more astute, but, being equally hot-tempered and, if possible, even more greedy and ambitious, was likely to commit the family to rash decisions. In consequence, the political course that Argyll followed was unpredictable: he zig-zagged between parties, made alliances and then discarded them. In matters of statecraft, although he was steadfast to the Protestant succession, he was not so firm in his commitment to Union. Manifold English connections made him a unionist by temperament. He was always anxious to play a part on a wider, British, stage, and contemptuous of expressions of narrow Scottish patriotism, but at the same time he was conscious of his Highland roots, and was a vociferous critic of the failure of English ministers to discharge their responsibilities to North Britain.</p><p>At the age of only 14, at his father’s request, Lorne (as Argyll was styled before inheriting the dukedom) was given the colonelcy of the regiment raised by his family after the Revolution. In 1696 and 1697 he and his tutor were granted passes to travel to Flanders, possibly to enable Lorne to spend time with his troops.<sup>8</sup> Once the regiment was disbanded following the peace of Ryswick, he embarked on a European tour. He was commissioned again in the army in the War of the Spanish Succession, serving with distinction in the campaigns of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and gaining a reputation for bravery if not for talent as a strategist. At the beginning of the war Marlborough reported that he had given ‘great assurances of his duty to the queen, and that he shall always desire to be governed by me’. Lorne was overseas at the time of his father’s death but arrived back in England toward the end of October. A later newsletter remarked that the deceased duke was the ‘first of three descents that has died in his bed’.<sup>9</sup> After succeeding to the dukedom, and its hereditary offices, his father’s place as an extraordinary lord of session and colonelcy of the Scots Guards, Argyll took his seat in the Scottish parliament in July 1704.<sup>10</sup> In that session, he gave general support to the queen’s business, and especially the settlement of the Hanoverian succession, though he showed little sympathy for the ‘new party’ (later known as the Squadrone Volante, or Squadrone for short) headed by the commissioner John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], and spoke loudly against them (his violence being put down to inexperience).<sup>11</sup> His concern for the succession was undoubtedly genuine (a Jacobite agent reported him to be ‘absolutely sold to the English’), but his support for government was also driven by aversion towards other magnates in opposition.<sup>12</sup> Despite his youth, the family’s prestige and extensive connections made him an obvious choice to succeed Tweeddale as commissioner when the ministry was reconstructed over the following winter, given the political undesirability of other candidates. Typically, he made a number of demands, relating to appointments and dismissals, before he would accept, the burden of which was the exclusion of the Squadrone. Even afterwards he pushed for more for himself, including an English peerage.<sup>13</sup> In November 1705 it was rumoured that he was to be made earl of Bristol, though it was also acknowledged that this might be challenged by members of the Digby family and in the event, Argyll was granted the earldom of Greenwich instead.<sup>14</sup> He now found himself working with James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], whom he hoped to supplant as leader of the ‘old court party’.<sup>15</sup> His instructions were to settle the succession, and, if a treaty of Union with England were agreed, to ensure that the nomination of commissioners be left to the queen.<sup>16</sup> The parliamentary arithmetic, and especially the hostility shown towards Argyll by the Squadrone, worked against a settlement of the succession, which at first so exasperated the duke that he contemplated resignation, but it was decided to concentrate instead on securing union. Eventually, as a result of the shifting positions of factional interests, and in particular a crucial intervention by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], Argyll was able to secure not only agreement for a treaty but for the nomination of the Scottish commissioners to be left to the queen.<sup>17</sup></p><h2>Earl of Greenwich and the Union</h2><p>Though his success as commissioner was largely owing to the advice of the lord chancellor, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), and the solid support of Queensberry’s faction, Argyll ignored their contribution. He accepted at face value the praise showered upon him, and the reward of an English peerage, though he did not get the post of commander-in chief in Scotland which he had requested. <sup>18</sup> He therefore remained in his customary state of dissatisfaction, anxious in particular that Queensberry should not usurp his position at the head of government in Scotland.<sup>19</sup> He took his seat at Westminster as earl of Greenwich on 4 Dec. 1705, and was only recorded as absent from the Lords on seven occasions before the end of the session. In all he attended on 63 per cent of sitting days. His numerous committee nominations, besides a raft dealing with private bills, included the committees enquiring into the state of the navy, and the keeping of public records; and to prepare addresses to the queen concerning ‘scandalous rumours’ about the safety of the Church of England, and naval manpower. In February he was noted as attending the levee of the Junto lord, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton.<sup>20</sup> Once the session was over he returned to his regiment, seeing action at Ramillies in June, in which he ‘acquired a great deal of honour’. According to one report he was ‘the second or third man who with his sword in his hand broke over the enemy’s trenches’ while commanding the Scots brigade. Argyll’s gallantry on the battlefield came after he had been replaced as parliamentary commissioner by Queensberry, and his brother omitted from the treaty commission, a double provocation; so, when he received a letter from Queensberry’s political lieutenant John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar, suggesting that he return to Scotland to assist in promoting the treaty, he proved hard to persuade. Marlborough was deputed to convince him to undertake the mission but warned the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, that Argyll was ‘so very fickle, that should he go with a resolution from hence to go thither, it is great odds, but his mind would change on the road’.<sup>21</sup> Argyll unsurprisingly put his objections somewhat differently holding out for some promise of further promotion. He declared himself surprised that the lord treasurer ‘should think of sending me up and down like a footman from one country to another without ever offering me any reward’, and would return when ‘justice’ was done him. Thus it was only in September, having been promoted major-general at Marlborough’s behest, that he ‘promised to ... serve the queen in the affair of the Union’.<sup>22</sup> Even then he was reported to have a raft of further demands: according to the Squadrone Member of the Commons, George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, these included:</p><blockquote><p>his regiment for his brother, the pay of major-general (for he has only the name), the [governorship of] the castle of Edinburgh, and command of the forces [in Scotland], £1,000 a year quit rents here, that is £1,500 to support the charge of earl of Greenwich; and is very angry with the answer he got, that nothing of that nature could be done until after the Parliament opens ... many says it is uncertain which part he’ll act.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>In fact matters were resolved with a single concession: an earldom for Archibald (Ilay), who, it was thought, had been stoking up his brother’s discontent for his own purposes.<sup>24</sup> Once the patent was granted Argyll ‘did his part very well indeed’ in support of the Union, though showing some concern for the maintenance of the security of the Presbyterian establishment.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Argyll left Edinburgh in February 1707, still discontented. He was said to be ‘not in good humour’ with the court party, though disinclined to join up with any other group. He was also concerned as to whether, as the holder of an English title, he would be permitted to vote in the election of representative peers. If not, ‘he would either be an English duke before the Union or quit the queen’s service’. He was also angry that Queensberry and his friends ‘would not concert a list of the 16 peers to be chosen for the first Parliament of Great Britain and go soon into the election, and there to seclude the Squadrone or a part of them’. However, he was able to ensure the selection of three of his nominees, including his brother.<sup>26</sup> On 12 Feb. 1707 he took his seat at Westminster, in time for the start of proceedings on the treaty, and he was named to the committee of 6 Mar. to draw up an address of thanks to the queen for the Union. Subsequently he was named to eight private bill committees. He was present in all on 37 per cent of all sitting days, but only attended four times between 25 Mar. and the dissolution, quitting the session early on 2 Apr., possibly because he had been detailed by the queen to carry to Hanover a copy of the Act of Union. When he returned to his regiment, Marlborough was wary of him, having been warned by his duchess about Argyll’s character.<sup>27</sup> In the analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] of 1707 he was described as ‘for the Revolution by interest if a court lead him not off’; he could, it said, be expected to influence William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], John Gordon* 16th earl of Sutherland [S], Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair and Ilay in the Lords and John Campbell<sup>‡</sup> and Daniel Campbell<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons.</p><p>Argyll took his seat in the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct. 1707. He was present a week later for the queen’s speech, and was named to the committee of privileges. In all, he attended 86 per cent of sitting days in the session. To many people’s surprise, he supported the Squadrone’s bill ‘for rendering the Union ... more ... complete’, which among other things abolished the Scottish Privy Council, a <em>volte-face</em> that Mar ascribed to his ‘anger at the Court for not providing his brother immediately’.<sup>28</sup> However, he quickly reversed his position, apprehending a threat to his heritable jurisdictions.<sup>29</sup> He attended for the first and second readings, and on 5 Feb. 1708, in committee stated ‘his dislike of the bill’, but ‘used some words that occasioned [Laurence Hyde*,] the earl of Rochester to pass a gentle censure upon ’em as tho’ they were too rough for that place’. In response, Argyll assured the House that ‘he could not forbear delivering his opinion when he thought the good of the nation was concerned in it’.<sup>30</sup> He protested against the passage of the bill as a breach of the Union. This marked a general shift back towards co-operation with Queensberry, and Argyll’s uncle, John Campbell<sup>‡</sup>, reported that the duke was afraid that in retribution the ‘Squadrone intends to lay him low’.<sup>31</sup> Argyll continued to attend regularly until the very day that Parliament was prorogued: he was appointed to eight private bill committees and to the committee which prepared an address of loyalty on the news of an imminent Jacobite invasion of Scotland. </p><h2>The 1708 Parliament</h2><p>Argyll was noted as a Whig in a printed list of party classifications from the beginning of May 1708. Because he was with his regiment at the time of the peers’ election in June Argyll voted by proxy for the court party ticket. The Squadrone protested against his proxy, on the grounds of his English peerage title, and the more technical issue of the way the document had been prepared.<sup>32</sup> Although the Lords began their proceedings on the protests as soon as the new Parliament met, Argyll did not take his seat until 21 Jan. 1709, the day of the crucial vote on whether Queensberry was entitled to participate in the election following the grant of a British dukedom. Argyll, probably conscious of the potential implications for the validity of his own vote, divided with the minority for Queensberry. Concern for his personal position was to prove redundant, since the enquiry did not follow up this issue. His attendance during the remainder of this session was more erratic than usual, with him present in all on just 45 per cent of sitting days (though he was still named to 15 private bill committees). At the beginning of February Argyll was commanded to attend the Privy Council to be sworn a member.<sup>33</sup> His parliamentary activity focused on the proposed extension of the English treason laws to Scotland in another bill for ‘improving the Union’. In a committee of the whole on 19 Mar. he spoke against the insertion into the bill of the relevant English statutes and three days later, again in committee, proposed that, as in Scottish law, defendants in treason trials should receive a list of the witnesses against them 15 days in advance of their trial. In the debate the number of days was reduced to five or two, the Scots supporting the longer period, which was carried against the court on a division. The lord treasurer (Godolphin) and two leading members of the Whig Junto then successfully ‘moved for the throwing out the whole clause, as making a dangerous change (at this juncture) in the laws of England’.<sup>34</sup> On 26 Mar. the Tory Francis North*, 3rd Baron Guilford, proposed a further amendment in committee that prisoners be given a list of witnesses five days after a bill was found by the grand jury’, but despite support from ‘all the Scots’, including Argyll, this was rejected. <sup>35</sup> Then on 28 Mar., when the bill was reported, a rider was offered in the same form as North’s amendment: Argyll protested at the refusal to read the rider a second time and again when the bill passed its third reading. It was left to the Commons to amend the bill, among other things to give prisoners 10 days’ notice of the witnesses. These changes were considered in the Lords on 14 Apr., when the Whigs proposed delaying the implementation of the new clauses until the death of the Pretender, Argyll and his fellow Scots voting against.<sup>36</sup> Argyll attended the House for the last time on 19 Apr., the day before the prorogation.</p><p>Argyll again served with the army in the summer of 1709 and fought at Malplaquet, with conspicuous gallantry.<sup>37</sup> In the immediate aftermath, Marlborough (temporarily reassured of Argyll’s ‘friendship’) recommended him to the queen for the order of the garter, a mark of favour which would obviously have been of political advantage to the ministry.<sup>38</sup> The queen wrote to Marlborough in mid-October conveying her approbation, though asking that Argyll should not as yet be informed of his prospective honour. Shortly after, when the queen informed Argyll herself that he was to have the next vacancy in the garter, she enjoined him to secrecy. It was not until March 1710 that Argyll was eventually installed.<sup>39</sup> In the meantime Marlborough infuriated both Campbell brothers by refusing to allow Ilay to exchange one regiment for another. When Marlborough antagonized the queen by requesting the captain-generalship for life, Argyll, who was trying in vain to ingratiate himself with her, poured fuel on the flames, suggesting to her, among other things, that should Marlborough retire, there were those at hand (such as himself) who could easily replace him. Marlborough now felt that ‘I cannot have a worse opinion of anybody else’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Argyll resumed his parliamentary seat on 17 Nov. 1709, but made little contribution to this session beyond the proceedings on the Sacheverell impeachment. In February he was noted as the only Scots peer present to decline to vote in the first division relating to the Greenshields case, though he then seems to have joined with the rest of his compatriots in voting in favour of sending for the minutes.<sup>41</sup> The focus of the session, though, was on Sacheverell. Argyll was included in the committees of 15 Dec. to consider methods of proceedings on impeachments; of 18 Feb. 1710, to allocate tickets for Sacheverell’s trial; of 1 Mar. to enquire into the public disorder surrounding the case; and of 13 Mar. to inspect precedents for impeachments. When several Junto members (as well as Godolphin) sought the arrest of Judge Powell for bailing one of those engaged in the night of rioting, Argyll spoke in Powell’s defence, a stance that provoked a heated exchange with Wharton. A letter of 8 Mar. also credited Argyll with being one of those to ‘have hindered the pushing of several things’ aimed at by the Junto.<sup>42</sup> On 14 Mar., though, Argyll and his brother joined the Junto in voting that impeachments need not specify ‘the particular words supposed to be criminal’. Argyll justified his decision to vote with the majority on this matter as being that ‘he would have impeachments easy, since that was the only way of reaching some Great Men above any other method of law’. In the debates of 18 Mar. Argyll was to the fore in insisting that the Lords should be asked to vote whether Sacheverell was guilty or not guilty, rather than expressing their vote (as the Junto wanted) in the form of content or not content. He voted Sacheverell guilty, having earlier in the proceedings delivered a characteristically blunt speech in which he declared that ‘the clergy, in all ages, have delivered up the rights and liberties of the people, and preached up the king’s power ... and therefore they ought not to be suffered to meddle in politics’.<sup>43</sup> By this time he was in contact, through intermediaries, with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to whom he explained that he had to vote Sacheverell guilty for several reasons: because he had publicly stated the sermon ‘deserved censure’; because he was fearful of ‘promoting a High Tory scheme’ rather than simply undermining the ministry; and because he was afraid that by not doing so ‘he should prejudice his interest in Scotland’. But he was willing to oppose harsh penalties, such as the denial of ecclesiastical preferment while Sacheverell was under suspension. Argyll also hoped that in return for pressing a mild censure he might be rewarded with a dukedom, for which he believed Hamilton was also angling, a proceeding that left him ‘a little uneasy’. At the same time, he recognized that the promotion of Scots peers to British dukedoms might create difficulties for the queen, so appears to have concluded it was best that the matter ‘rest as it is’.<sup>44</sup> When Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, proposed to the House that Sacheverell should be suspended from preaching or holding ecclesiastical preferment for seven years, and subjected to three months’ imprisonment in the Tower, Argyll countered this by suggesting that Sacheverell should only be sentenced to a year’s deprivation.<sup>45</sup> Argyll’s desertion of the Junto over the question of Sacheverell’s censure, along with his brother and two other English peers, was credited by Marlborough as the principal reason for the administration’s defeat on the matter.<sup>46</sup> It was presumably in an effort to retain his support that Argyll was at last granted a garter. The grant upset Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, who certainly saw it as a ploy ‘to bring him into humour again’.<sup>47</sup> If this was so it did not work. He was recorded as attending on four more occasions before Parliament was prorogued, after which he rejoined his regiment. Godolphin now thought him an ‘inveterate’ enemy, as did Marlborough, and before long Argyll was corresponding with Harley directly.<sup>48</sup></p><h2>The 1710 Parliament</h2><p>Because of his own lack of discretion, Argyll’s involvement with Harley’s intrigues against the Godolphin ministry became common knowledge during the summer. By the beginning of October he was regarded in Scotland as having become ‘a grand Tory’.<sup>49</sup> He certainly welcomed Godolphin’s fall and it seems to have been towards the end of August of this year that he wrote to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, congratulating him for Godolphin’s removal, by which he considered ‘the queen and her subjects had regained their liberty’. He also noted Somerset’s pivotal role in bringing the change about. After the dissolution on 21 Sept. he was appointed general of foot. He was apparently furious on hearing a rumour that the governorship of Edinburgh castle was to be given to Hamilton, but this came to nought.<sup>50</sup> Ilay co-ordinated election preparations with Hamilton and Queensberry’s representatives on his behalf. The Squadrone boycotted the election, so the agreed slate was carried unanimously. Argyll not only participated but took it upon himself to direct proceedings, ‘producing a list, and openly telling the peers, the queen would have these men chosen’. <sup>51</sup> Taking his seat in the Lords two days after the session opened, he was named to the committee to prepare the loyal address. On 28 Nov. he ‘violently’ and successfully opposed the motion to give the thanks of the House to Marlborough, who, he said, ‘deserved none either as plenipotent[iary] or general, for that he had played away the best troops of the army against the walls of a few insignificant towns’.<sup>52</sup> The animosity between the two generals was such that Argyll fought a duel with one of Marlborough’s <em>aides-de-camp</em>, who had declared in public that he had ‘forsaken his old friends’ and in particular had ‘proved ingrate to Marlboro[ugh]’.<sup>53</sup> But, although Argyll hoped to replace Marlborough as captain-general, he was instead made commander-in-chief of the allied forces in Spain, upon which he sold his foot regiment for a reported £7,000, and was given an annuity of £3,000 a year ‘as a mark of royal grace and favour’, which continued to be paid until 1714.<sup>54</sup> Nevertheless, he was still said to be ‘full of disappointments’, both on his own account, disliking his new posting, and on his brother’s, who coveted the post of secretary of state for Scotland.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Following the allied defeat at Brihuega, the Tories launched an enquiry into the previous conduct of the war in Spain, especially the campaign of 1707 which had culminated in the disaster at Almanza. On 9 Jan. 1711, in a committee of the whole, Argyll displayed impatience at what he felt were prevarications by witnesses, and crossed swords with Whig speakers.<sup>56</sup> He and the other Scottish peers helped to pass a resolution vindicating the conduct of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough. When two of the generals charged with advising an offensive war and thus contributing to the defeat, Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> (later Earl Stanhope), petitioned the House on 11 Jan., Argyll made several hostile interventions, criticising Tyrawley, Stanhope and Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and defending Peterborough.<sup>57</sup> The petitions were rejected and the Lords then resolved, on a division, that Tyrawley, Stanhope and Galway had been responsible for the military failures, ‘all the Scots’ voting with the majority.<sup>58</sup> The next day the spotlight was turned on the ministers, who were said to have ‘approved and directed’ the offensive. In a debate attended by the queen, <em>incognita</em>, Argyll first clashed with the Junto Lord Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, over the phrasing of the question, and then answered Marlborough’s attempt to justify the way the war in Spain had been prosecuted, adding a criticism of the decision to give command in Spain to the Huguenot Galway rather than Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, ‘as for what related to the Earl Rivers, it was certainly a fault to prefer an unfortunate foreigner before a peer of Great Britain.’<sup>59</sup> Lockhart noted that the speech had disappointed the Whigs, who hoped that Argyll’s discontents would incline him to their side.<sup>60</sup> When the question was put, ‘all the Scots’ voted that the ministers in 1707 bore responsibility for the failures in the Spanish theatre. <sup>61</sup> Argyll exploited the moment to propose that the House ‘pass a compliment’ on Peterborough for his ‘great and eminent services’ under ‘difficulties and discouragements’. He was said to be ‘busy mortifying the late ministry’ and ‘mighty zealous for the new ministry’.<sup>62</sup> In relation to Scottish issues, however, his Presbyterian loyalties meant that he was awkwardly placed, as he showed when opposing the petition presented to the House by the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against a conviction for using the liturgy of the Church of England.<sup>63</sup> Argyll did his best to forestall debate, allegedly offering Greenshields ‘£200 and Irish preferment for his dropping it’.<sup>64</sup> On 5 Feb. he also abstained in a division on a bill sponsored by English High Tories, to repeal the General Naturalization Act of 1709, which enabled Whig and Court peers to throw it out.<sup>65</sup> His last appearance in the Lords this session was on 19 Mar., after which he travelled to Spain as ambassador extraordinary as well as commander-in-chief. He added little to his reputation either as a general or a diplomat, though he explained his failures by complaining of a lack of resources.<sup>66</sup> As early as June 1711 he was begging to be recalled, or, as he put it, released ‘from the galley in which I am chained’, a position he reiterated with such vehemence (combining complaints of the difficulties of the post with grievances at having missed opportunities for promotion), that Oxford (as Harley had since become) began to be concerned that Argyll was becoming his ‘enemy’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Argyll returned to England in March 1712.<sup>68</sup> He took his seat in the House on 24 Mar. and was in all present on just under a quarter of all sitting days in the session. Although he had previously given assurances that ‘misunderstandings’ between himself and Oxford (since promoted lord treasurer) would not give any advantage to the latter’s enemies, and had boasted that he was to be ‘made easy’, on 22 May he opposed the land grants resumption bill, a move interpreted by some observers as a sign that he was tacking towards the Whigs.<sup>69</sup> Six days later he spoke and voted with the court in the debate over the ‘restraining orders’ recently issued to Marlborough’s successor as captain-general, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, but he probably saw this simply as another opportunity to strike at Marlborough.<sup>70</sup> In a meeting of Scottish peers he was said to have reacted angrily when some of his compatriots regretted not being able to do more for ‘toleration and episcopacy in Scotland’, and to have ‘put his hand to his sword, and swore that he would fight against episcopacy in Scotland as well as against the duke of Marlborough in England’. He opposed both the toleration (episcopal communion) bill and the bill to restore patronages.<sup>71</sup> In the case of the latter he secured an amendment in the Lords insisting that only Presbyterians were to be presented to livings. When it was objected that this was understood by the phrase ‘qualified ministers’ in the bill, he commented, ‘that after the steps taken since the Union with respect to the Church of Scotland, they behoved to have all things clearly expressed, and nothing could be depended on that was implied’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Argyll embarked for the Mediterranean again in August 1712, with instructions to wind up the British war effort there. In the meantime he had been appointed as commander-in chief of the forces in Scotland, and governor of Edinburgh castle: promotions insufficient to assuage his disappointment at being passed over for the captain-generalship. In conversation with the Whig journalist Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, an intimate of the duchess of Marlborough, he declared his contempt for the ‘rascals’ about the queen, and his fears for the safety of the Protestant succession: ‘the family of Stuart owed his family two heads, which they had taken from it; and he neither could nor would serve any of them, except the queen’.<sup>73</sup> He then started back in December, by a route which took him to Paris, on ‘the queen’s business’, and was afforded a ‘private audience’ by Louis XIV.<sup>74</sup> But he soon began to show a different face to the Tory ministry. In February 1713 he became involved in a heated dispute with the secretary of state, Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, before the queen in Cabinet. Bolingbroke had taken exception to amendments put forward by the Dutch to the Barrier Treaty, upon which Argyll told him ‘how much Britain was obliged to the Dutch and that Britain and the States of Holland were under God the great bulwark of the Protestant religion’. When Bolingbroke proposed an amendment to the treaty to replace the words ‘her Majesty’s heirs being Protestant’ by ‘the heirs of her Majesty’s own body being Protestants’, Argyll observed ‘that he acted rather like the minister of the Pretender than like a minister of Queen Anne’s and that if there were not a man in Britain to impeach him of high treason he would do it’. He further said ‘that he would do it in a more public place for he knew his transactions in France and that he could condescend upon time and place when he had his private conferences with the Pretender’. The matter dropped, but when it became public knowledge, Argyll’s ‘free and bold speaking’ served to ‘animate the Whigs’ and to make Argyll ‘very popular so that he is huzzaed ... by the mob’.<sup>75</sup> But a Jacobite agent reported that he ‘begins to be obstreperous’ and that he had declared he would do no more for Oxford until given the deceased duke of Hamilton’s place (either master-general of the ordnance or ambassador to Paris).<sup>76</sup></p><p>Argyll took his seat in the Lords at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713 after which he was present on 79 per cent of all sitting days and attended regularly as a crisis unfolded in Anglo-Scottish relations over the bill introduced into the Commons to extend the malt tax to Scotland. The Scots were infuriated at what they considered yet another violation of the Union treaty, and Argyll attended a meeting on 26 May of Scottish members in both Houses to discuss their response. He led the chorus demanding a move to dissolve the Union, and was despatched with Mar and two members of the Commons to acquaint the queen of the decision of the meeting to move for a bill for this purpose. The next day another meeting agreed that the motion would be made in the Lords. Argyll was ‘for beginning instantly to let the court see they could and dared to oppose them’. Lockhart reported that Argyll and Ilay ‘roar and exclaim bloodily against the Union, and seem very positive that the Whig Lords would join to dissolve if our peers would help in the meantime to stop the ministry’. Argyll was said to be ‘night and day with the [Whigs]’. Lockhart’s explanation was that ‘the two brothers, finding that their court decays, are making this noise and opposition to force the ministry into their ways’.<sup>77</sup> On 1 June Argyll supported the motion for a bill to dissolve the Union, speaking ‘very handsomely, long and violently’, or, as another Scottish observer put it, ‘like an angel’. <sup>78</sup> His first concern was his own vindication. He noted that ‘he was by some reflected on as if he was disgusted and had changed sides, but that he despised those persons, as much as he undervalued their judgments’. He also conceded that ‘it was true he had a great hand in making the Union: that the chief reason that moved him to it was the securing the Protestant succession; but that he was satisfied that might be done as well now, if the Union were dissolved’. Speaking as a peer both of England and Scotland, ‘he believed in his conscience, it was as much for the interest of England as Scotland to have it dissolved; and if it were not, he did not expect long to have either property left in Scotland, or liberty in England’. He concluded by attacking the malt duty as unjust and unequal: ‘if this tax were collected in Scotland, it must be done by a regiment of dragoons’. Later in the debate the subject of the Pretender was raised, and Argyll remarked that he ‘knew not what name to call him by, his name being now as uncertain as his parents’. <sup>79</sup> After the motion was rejected there was no attempt to revive the proposal to dissolve the Union. Argyll then unavailingly opposed the second reading of the malt bill, speaking ‘very well’ in committee on 8 June, before signing the protest which condemned it as a violation of the Union and an unfair burden on Scotland. <sup>80</sup> As expected, he also opposed the French commercial treaty, declaring that he would ‘hazard all his posts rather than consent to that is so destructive to his country’.<sup>81</sup> He was drawing ever closer to the Whigs, and encouraging others, such as the Hanoverian Tory Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, to follow his example. It was rumoured in Scotland that he was about to resign all his offices and perquisites, but he was persuaded out of such a precipitate step by his brother Ilay.<sup>82</sup></p><h2>The 1713 Parliament and after</h2><p>In preparation for the forthcoming Parliament Argyll spoke to the queen about the election of representative peers and the danger posed by the likely inclusion of several ‘avowed Jacobites’ on the court list. He added that ‘he suspected even some persons about her Majesty’. But he failed to convince, nor did he receive encouragement when he asked directly for an employment for his brother. Ilay’s failure to secure election as a representative peer completed the family’s break with the ministry. In November 1713 Argyll was assuring the Hanoverian envoy, Schütz, that Oxford ‘could not be depended on; that he knew him better than anyone, from his own experience; and that he was very sure, that he exerted himself with all his might against the succession, and for the Pretender’. He also said that:</p><blockquote><p>he constantly spoke to the queen about the succession; but, however frequently, could never obtain any answer from her ... he was not well received by her Majesty. He ascribed the cause of this, to the malicious reports which had been made to her of his conduct, and he entreated her to let him know what he was accused of, that he might exculpate himself by informing her of the truth; but having never been able to obtain that favour, he conjured her to compare the freedom and the boldness, with which he always told her his opinion concerning affairs in general, and concerning his diffidence of some persons who had the honour of approaching her frequently with the manner in which they spoke to her, in order to judge who acted most honourably to her. But still he had no answer.<sup>83</sup></p></blockquote><p>Argyll took his seat in the Lords on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on over 85 per cent of all sitting days. He quickly emerged as one of the leading critics of the ministers, working closely with the Whigs.<sup>84</sup> On 2 Mar. he was named to the committee to prepare an address offering a reward to discover the author of the pamphlet, <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs </em>(widely known to be the work of Swift). When the committee reported, ministers and their friends said nothing of authorship, but Argyll ‘turned himself towards my lord treasurer’, and said, ‘that noble lord was well acquainted with him [the author] and that himself had frequently dined with him at the earl’s table nay had been drunk with him there’.<sup>85</sup> He signed a protest after the defeat of a further Whig amendment to the address. During a debate on 17 Mar. on the peace with Spain, he made ‘a very fine speech’ criticising the government’s failure to safeguard the interests of the Catalans, who, he said, ‘were a people possessed of as great privileges, as any in the world, and not less than ours. They had a parliament which only had the power of raising money, and they could call their ministers to an account for the misapplication of it’. Tyranny was ‘an infectious weed, and spreads. Scarce any nation have their liberties left but our own, and certainly it is our interest to establish, or to restore liberty wherever we can’.<sup>86</sup> He distinguished himself again on 5 Apr. when the House considered the danger to the Protestant succession. To a remark by Oxford that the peace had been the most advantageous possible, he responded by denouncing the ‘shameful’ desertion of the allies, and exposed the weak condition of France, where he himself had lately seen ‘marks of a general desolation’. As for the Hanoverian succession, he ‘firmly believed’ it to be ‘in danger from the present ministers, whom he durst charge with maladministration, both within these walls, and without’. He offered to prove that Oxford ‘had yearly remitted £4,000 to the highland clans of Scotland, who were known to be entirely devoted to the Pretender, in order to keep them under discipline, and ready for any attempt’. Likewise the recent remodelling of the army, and the dismissal of officers known to be loyal to the Protestant succession ‘were clear indications of the designs in hand’. It was ‘a disgrace to the nation, to see men, who had never looked an enemy in the face, advanced to the posts of several brave officers, who, after they had often exposed their lives for their country, were now starving in prison for debt, for want of their pay.’ Naturally he voted against the motion that the Hanoverian succession was not in danger. He was then named to the committee to prepare an address calling for a proclamation of a reward to anyone apprehending the Pretender, and on 8 Apr. he supported a Whig motion that the House inquire into the money paid to the Highland clans.<sup>87</sup> Outside the House, he was also doing what he could to bring Hanoverian Tories into outright opposition.<sup>88</sup> Such behaviour inevitably resulted in dismissal from all his posts, though he was able to raise £10,000 by the sale of his Guards commission.<sup>89</sup> He confirmed his alienation from the Tories on 15 June by signing a protest when the schism bill passed its third reading. The day before the prorogation he subscribed another protest at the Lords’ refusal to address to the queen complaining that the benefits of the <em>Asiento</em> had been ‘greatly obstructed, by unwarrantable endeavours to gain private advantages to particular persons’.</p><p>When he heard of the queen’s deteriorating health on 30 July Argyll, accompanied by the duke of Somerset, presented himself at the Privy Council without being summoned, and insisted that the queen be examined by her physicians so that they could give an account of her illness in writing. The intervention of the two dukes proved instrumental in helping precipitate a solution to the power vacuum left by Oxford’s dismissal a few days before. Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, was appointed lord treasurer and, on a motion of Somerset and Argyll, ‘it was agreed, that all Privy Councillors, in or about London, without distinction should attend; which the ... friends to the house of Hanover, did that very day’. After the queen’s death Argyll was found to have been named as one of the lords justices to govern the country until the arrival of the new king. He attended the Lords on five occasions during the brief session called in the wake of the queen’s death, including 25 Aug., the day Parliament was prorogued. Restored by George I as commander-in-chief in Scotland and governor of Minorca, he was soon observed at Marlborough’s levee, the two men acting as if there had never been any quarrel between them; but the rapprochement did not last long.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Argyll was raised to a dukedom in the British peerage in 1719. The remainder of his political and parliamentary career will be dealt with in the second part of this work. He died on 4 Oct. 1743, at Sudbrook, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His brother Ilay succeeded him in the dukedom of Argyll.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
CAPELL, Algernon (1670-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>CAPELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Algernon</strong> (1670–1710)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1670-83 Visct. Malden; <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 July 1683 (a minor) as 2nd earl of Essex |
|
First sat 29 Dec. 1691; last sat 23 Dec. 1709 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Dec. 1670, 5th but 1st surv. s. of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex and Elizabeth, da. of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland. <em>educ</em>. ?Foubert’s Academy 1680;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (Italy, Geneva, France, Low Countries) 1687-9.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 28 Feb. 1692 (with £10,000),<sup>3</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>.1726), da. of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, and 1st w. Anne, da. of Sir Edward Villiers, 1s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 10 Jan. 1710; <em>will</em> 2 Aug. 1709, pr. 20 June 1710.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1691-1702; PC 1708-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt. Herts. 1692-<em>d</em>., Tower Hamlets 1707-<em>d</em>; high steward, Tewkesbury1698;<sup>5</sup> freeman and free burgess, Tewkesbury, 1699;<sup>6</sup> constable of the Tower 1707-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Col. dragoons 1693-<em>d</em>.; brig.-gen. 1702; maj.-gen. 1704; lt.-gen. 1707.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas after Sir G. Kneller, c.1700, NPG 143; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1705, NPG 3207.</p> |
<p>Very little is known of Lord Malden’s early years, although he spent some of his childhood in England while his father was serving as lord lieutenant of Ireland: in May 1676 he was at the family’s house in Cassiobury, Hertfordshire.<sup>9</sup> His education is also unclear, although in April 1680, John Evelyn recorded that he was ‘a hopeful son, at the Academy’, possibly a reference to Foubert’s establishment, although he would have been only nine at the time.<sup>10</sup></p><p>There is little evidence of the effect upon him of the violent death of his father, in suspicious circumstances, whilst under arrest in the Tower. The king, acutely aware of the sufferings of his grandfather in the royalist cause, acted to ensure that the young man did not suffer materially, for what was officially, at least, a suicide and therefore subject to forfeiture of property. A newsletter of 21 July 1683 reported that the young earl waited on the king, who ‘out of his royal clemency received him with all the marks of love and kindness bidding him follow the steps of his grandfather and take heed of disloyalty which brought him [his father] to his untimely end and then assured him he would be a friend to him and love him.’<sup>11</sup> It was reported on 26 July that Essex was ‘often brought to court by’ Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, his uncle by marriage.<sup>12</sup> Thereafter he seems to have remained in court circles, Evelyn recording his attendance at a dinner with Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland and others on 27 June 1684.<sup>13</sup> As a minor, Essex was excused from calls of the House on 26 May and 16 Nov. 1685.</p><p>The most important man in his childhood was his uncle, Sir Henry Capell*, the future Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, who was able to arrange for the young earl to complete his education with a grand tour. With this end in mind, he was granted a pass to travel abroad on 25 April 1687.<sup>14</sup> Capell had arranged extensive financial support for his nephew and travelling companions, including several French speakers.<sup>15</sup> As Essex was still a minor on his return to England his political role was limited but it is likely that he kept a close eye on proceedings as the Convention launched an inquiry into the circumstances of his father’s death. Various witnesses were summoned and a few people arrested, but the whole affair petered out following increasingly public disavowals of allegations of murder by the countess of Essex and others.</p><p>On 7 Apr. 1690, the Lords gave a first reading to a bill to enable Essex to make a jointure and to raise £6,000 to make up his sister Anne’s portion, following her marriage in 1688 to Charles Howard*, then styled Viscount Morpeth, the future 3rd earl of Carlisle. The bill was reported from committee without amendment on 10 Apr. and passed the following day. The passage of this bill coincided with a rumour that Essex would marry the only daughter of Sir John Garrard<sup>‡</sup>, but this proved to be inaccurate. Essex at this time gives the impression of a young man waiting to attain his majority and find a role for himself. In February 1690 he had been accounted one of ‘the lewdest young men of the town.’<sup>16</sup> In July he was given permission to raise an independent troop of volunteer horse, in the wake of the threat of a French invasion.<sup>17</sup> The war promised the most obvious outlet for his energies. On 24 May 1691 Essex was one of group of noblemen that embarked for Flanders to serve as volunteers in the army, arriving back on 20 October.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Essex first sat in the Lords on 29 Dec. 1691, the day after the Christmas recess, which was also the day after his 21st birthday. On 16 Feb. 1692 Essex entered his protest against the resolution that proxies would not be allowed in the proceedings on the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill. Altogether he attended on 37 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total, and was named to one committee. Now of age, Essex was able to reclaim the local offices held by father. As early as 2 Jan. 1692, the secretary of state, Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, ordered a warrant for Essex to be <em>custos</em> of Hertfordshire and St Albans, and on 13 Jan. a warrant for the lord lieutenancy of Hertfordshire followed. The next step was marriage, and in November 1691 it was reported that a match had been concluded with the eldest daughter of the king’s Dutch favourite, Portland.<sup>19</sup> A few days after the marriage, Essex was granted a pass to accompany the king to Flanders.<sup>20</sup> He returned again in early May, although a couple of weeks later he went back to Flanders to serve as a volunteer in the army.<sup>21</sup> On 22 Sept. 1692, Essex accompanied by Portland, left Loo for one of the family’s residences in order to consummate his marriage.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Essex was in attendance when the 1692-3 session opened on 4 Nov. 1692. Strangely, he was not listed either as present or noted as absent when the House was called over on 21 November. On 31 Dec., he voted against the committal of the place bill. On 3 Jan. 1693, he was again listed as voting against the bill, this time by proxy (registered that very day with his father-in-law Portland). The proxy was necessitated by illness, which probably explains his absence from the Lords between 2 and 31 January.<sup>23</sup> On 3 Feb. Essex voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.<sup>24</sup> Altogether Essex attended on 51 days of the session, 48 per cent of the total, and was named to three committees. Over the following summer he served in the military campaign and in October he was reported to be with the king at The Hague, preparing to return to England.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Essex attended the Lords on the opening day of the session of 1693-4, 7 November. It was probably near to the beginning of this session that Baron Capell wrote to John Somers*, Baron Somers, to ask ‘if nephew Essex behaves himself in the House of Peers, like the son of his father, and grandfather. He has promised me, in his last, that he will, and that no consideration of place or relation shall make him deviate from the principles I have given him.’<sup>26</sup> On 17 Feb. 1694 Essex voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the Albemarle inheritance case and then entered his dissent when the judgment was confirmed, dissenting to a further order in the case on 24 February. On 24 Apr. he entered his dissent against the passage of the supply bill which incorporated the Bank of England. He had attended on 82 days of the session, 62 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees.</p><p>Essex again went over to Flanders in May 1694 to serve in the campaign. He wrote to his brother-in-law Carlisle for his assistance in persuading the dowager countess of Essex to let him have Cassiobury, his mother not being happy with his initial offer of £110 p.a.<sup>27</sup> This exchange suggests that Essex was labouring under the conditions imposed upon him by the family’s settlements and particularly of his mother’s jointure. Further trouble occurred on the domestic front, when, in a letter of 20 Nov. 1694 to Capell, Portland indicated more familial strife, presumably relating to Essex.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Essex attended the Lords on the opening day of the session of 1694-5, 12 November. Again, he was not recorded as either present or absent on 26 Nov., when the House was called over. On 12 Jan. 1695, Essex received the proxy of Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans. However, on 25 Jan. 1695 he registered his own proxy with Portland, although he does not appear to have been absent for a prolonged period. On 16, 23 Feb. and 15, 20 Apr. 1695, he was named to report or manage conferences on the treason trials bill. On 18 Apr. he entered his protest against the resolution that John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby, had committed no act worthy of censure in relation to bills that had passed during the session. Essex had attended on 78 days during the session, 61 per cent of the total, and been named to eight committees.</p><p>On 30 Apr. 1695, the king sent to the Lords an Act of Grace, pardoning all felonies and treasons committed before that date. One of the beneficiaries was Sunderland, and as such, it aroused the opposition of Essex, who regarded him as responsible for his father’s murder, no doubt because the chief suspect had been a servant of Sunderland’s.<sup>29</sup> This caused much embarrassment to his mother (a friend of the countess of Sunderland), his uncle Capell, and his father-in-law, Portland.<sup>30</sup> In April Portland and Capell were expressing serious concerns over the ‘unacceptable’ personal conduct of Essex, who they felt was in danger of losing honour, but who refused to listen to advice.<sup>31</sup> In May Portland thought that Essex and his wife had embarked ‘on the road to ruin’, and Capell acknowledged the need to make ‘several amendments and alterations in the course and manner of my nephew’s living.’<sup>32</sup> Shortly after this Essex joined the campaign in Flanders, his wife also travelling to Flanders, where she gave birth to a daughter (Elizabeth) and apparently showed signs of ‘mending her ways’.<sup>33</sup> Essex presumably returned to England in October with the king. However, the concerns of Portland and Capell remained unassuaged, the latter writing on 10 Dec. of Essex’s mismanagement of his private concerns. The tenor of their correspondence continued through the early months of 1696 until Capell’s death.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Essex attended the opening day of the session of 1695-6, 22 Nov. 1695. On 20 Feb. 1696, together with Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, Essex introduced William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford into the Lords. On 27 Feb. he signed the Association. On 6 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the privateers’ bill. On 14 Apr. he was named to the committee to draw up reasons for a conference on insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the bill continuing the acts prohibiting trade with France. He was named to a further 16 committees during the session, having attended on 89 days of the session, 72 per cent of the total. In June the death of his uncle, Capell, saw moves to ensure that Essex was named in his place as high steward of Tewkesbury in the new charter intended for the borough.<sup>35</sup> Portland, it was hoped, would help to facilitate the passage of the new charter.<sup>36</sup> Orders were duly despatched from the king for Essex’s name to be inserted the charter in July 1696, but various legal wrangles delayed the charter until March 1698.<sup>37</sup> Meanwhile, Essex was as usual on campaign, returning to England with the king at the beginning of October 1696.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Essex attended on the opening day of the session of 1696-7, 20 October. On 23 Dec. 1696, he voted in favour of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, although Fenwick had initially hoped for support from Essex because of their mutual connections to the Howard earls of Carlisle.<sup>39</sup> On that day he had asked for and been granted leave of absence for a week or ten days, but the House then substituted an order for all peers to have leave until 7 Jan. 1697.<sup>40</sup> Altogether, he attended on 67 days of the session, 57 per cent of the total and was named to 11 committees.</p><p>Essex again travelled to Flanders for the campaign, leaving on 18 May 1697 and returning at the end of August.<sup>41</sup> It was reported on 14 Aug. that Essex had ‘given up all his places at court and it’s presumed not without his father-in-law’s allowance, which makes many reflections.’<sup>42</sup> According to Sydney, now earl of Romney, who talked to Essex when he came to London at the end of August, Essex had felt slighted by the king not making him a brigadier-general.<sup>43</sup> Wiser counsels evidently prevailed and Essex retained his posts. Indeed, by 14 Sept. Essex was asking Portland if his newly born son might be named after the king (and his father-in-law), and in October he duly received a gift of royal plate as a christening present.<sup>44</sup> Essex remained in London attending the prorogation on 20 Sept. 1697. At the beginning of October it was reported that he had leave to accompany Portland on his embassy to France, one of his recommendations being his ability to speak French.<sup>45</sup> This was still being reported in December, but he did not join Portland in January 1698, although he did attend him upon his departure from London.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Essex attended the opening day of the session of 1697-8, 3 Dec. 1697. On 15 Mar. 1698, Essex voted in favour of the committal of the bill to punish Sir Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, and entered his dissent when the bill was not committed. On 16 Mar. he entered his dissent against the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the cause between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S]. On the following day he entered his dissent against another resolution relating to the case. He had attended on 71 days of the session, 51.5 per cent of the total, and been appointed to 11 committees. Essex clearly remained in the king’s favour, entertaining him twice in April and accompanying him to Flanders in July.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Essex returned to England in mid November and attended the opening day of the session of 1698-9 on 6 Dec. 1698. On 4 Jan. 1699, together with his uncle Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, Essex introduced Henry d’Auverquerque* [1757], earl of Grantham, into the House. On 8 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the resolution offering to assist the king in retaining his Dutch guards and entered his dissent when the House agreed to the resolution. He was named to ten committees during the session, and attended on 51 days in total, 59 per cent of the total. Essex himself did not suffer in the general disbandment of the army, his regiment of dragoons surviving the cull.<sup>48</sup> He again attended the opening day of the session of 1699-1700, on 16 November. On 23 Feb. 1700 Essex voted against the motion to adjourn during pleasure, which would have allowed the House to proceed into a committee of the whole on the bill continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and entered his dissent against the passage of the bill. He had attended on 58 days of the session, 64 per cent of the total and had been named to 12 committees.</p><p>The replacement of Portland as groom of the stole by Romney did not adversely affect Essex’s position. Indeed, in July 1700 Essex was one of those in attendance on the king as he went for Holland: Essex, it was reported, ‘the king took at his word when he only thought to make a compliment in offering his service.’<sup>49</sup> Around this date, after the formation of a new ministry, Essex was assessed in a list of Whig peers, as one who might be willing to support the new ministry as opposed to the Junto, suggesting again a more court-oriented than party Whiggery. Essex was not present at the opening of the 1701 session, first attending on 11 Feb. 1701. On 17 June he voted in favour of the acquittal of Somers, and on 23 June voted likewise to acquit Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. He attended on 65 days of the session, almost 60 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. He also found time at the beginning of June to attend his brother-in-law Carlisle when he sat in court as deputy earl marshal.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Essex attended the opening of the 1701-2 session on 30 December. He signed the address of 1 Jan. 1702 resenting the recognition by the French of the Pretender. In January Essex had designs on becoming the captain of the yeomen of the guard, upon which it was intended that he would surrender his regiment to Mohun, but the place went instead to William Cavendish*, styled marquess of Hartington, the future 2nd duke of Devonshire.<sup>51</sup> On 8 Mar. Essex was named to the conference on the death of King William and the accession of Queen Anne. In all he attended on 76 days of the session, 76 per cent of the total, and was named to 22 committees. John Macky’s assessment of Essex at about this time described him as ‘a good companion; loves the interest of his country; hath no genius for business, nor will ever apply himself that way; is a very well bred gentleman’.<sup>52</sup> As Macky also noted, the Queen continued him in his employments.</p><p>Essex attended again on the opening day of the session of 1702-3, 20 October. On 4 Nov. he registered the proxy of St Albans. On 19 Nov. he was named to draw up an address on the votes of the Commons pertaining to William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester. On 9 Dec. Essex signed the Lords’ declaration against tacking. On 17 Dec. 1702 and 9 Jan. 1703 he was named to manage conferences on the bill to prevent occasional conformity. In about January 1703, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast him as likely to oppose the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. Essex voted to adhere to the Lords’ wrecking amendment. On 19 Jan. he entered his protest against the clauses relating to grants in the bill to settle a revenue on Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, should he survive the queen. Altogether, he had attended on 69 days of the session, 76 per cent of the total, and had been named to 30 committees.</p><p>The rise to power of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, had implications for Essex both in terms of his military profession, and for his lord lieutenancy of Hertfordshire, which covered St Albans, an area in which the Churchills wielded some political influence. As early as February 1703, Essex and Marlborough were in discussions as to the latter’s suggestions for additions to the deputy lieutenancy. Adam de Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Marlborough on 25 Feb.:</p><blockquote><p>I delivered last night the list of the gentlemen to be added to lieutenancy of Hertford to Mr Secretary [Charles] Hedges<sup>‡</sup>, who tells me this evening that my Lord Essex, upon his giving it to him from your grace, made some scruple at the number, and said he should speak to your grace of it at your coming to town, so that Mr Secretary thought it best to defer for a day or two telling his lordship that it was the queen’s positive commands.<sup>53</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 4 Mar. Hedges wrote to Essex that as Marlborough had now departed for Holland, ‘I presume you told him what you intended in regard to the persons whose names I gave you at the House of Lords to be deputy lieutenants for Hertfordshire. Pray let me know what you have decided therein that I may acquaint the queen’.<sup>54</sup> On 9 Mar. Hedges wrote to the duke that Essex intended ‘the reasons he has to object against some of these gentlemen shall be laid before the queen, and your grace is like to have a letter from his lordship on that subject.’<sup>55</sup> Clearly, Essex was aware of the need to protect at least his nominal authority. Essex did not serve in Flanders in the 1703 campaign, Marlborough politely declining his assistance on the grounds that ‘there are those in England, who are actually major-generals already that would be very uneasy at it, besides that our campaign would be near at an end before your lordship could be with us with your equipage.’<sup>56</sup> However, in August, with his regiment already bound for embarkation to Portugal, it was rumoured (falsely) that he would be serving under Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg, in that theatre of the war.<sup>57</sup></p><p>On 9 Nov. Essex attended the opening day of the session of 1703-4. He was present on 71 days of the session, 72.5 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He figured in both of the lists compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as an opponent of an occasional conformity bill, and as predicted voted against the bill on 14 December. On 17 Dec., Essex was one of a group of peers, including Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston, Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, St Albans and Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, who dined with Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, presumably after the parliamentary sitting which included the Queen’s speech on a Scottish plot, and possibly in preparation for the committee on the address scheduled for the following day.<sup>58</sup> On 24 Mar. 1704 Essex entered his protest against the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir J. Maclean was imperfect. On 27 Mar., Essex dined at the Queen’s Arms with Ossulston, Mohun, Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, and Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>59</sup> In April Essex wrote to Marlborough pointing out his claims to be a major-general, with which Marlborough agreed, and his commission was backdated to the beginning of the year.<sup>60</sup></p><p>On 24 Oct. Essex attended the opening of the session of 1704-5. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to a committee to consider the heads of a conference with the Commons regarding the Aylesbury election case, but he was not named as one of the conference managers. On 8 Mar. Essex and James Berkeley*, 11th Baron Berkeley, exchanged proxies. He attended on 62 days of the session, 63 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 24 committees. After the close of the session, on an analysis of 13 Apr. 1705 relating to the succession, Essex was classed as a supporter of Hanover. Discussions between Essex and the Marlboroughs over local politics in Hertfordshire again took place in the run up to the election. In April 1705 Marlborough had informed his wife that ‘about a year ago I did endeavour to persuade my Lord Essex to model the justices of peace so as I thought was for his and the queen’s service’, but nothing had occurred. Major changes to the Hertfordshire bench had to await the appointment of William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, another Hertfordshire landowner, as lord keeper. Essex must have played his hand skilfully, because he managed to remain on friendly terms with the duchess. Indeed, Sarah was particularly solicitous in pushing for his appointment as constable of the Tower in place of her local political foe, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon. As she wrote to Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu, on 21 May 1705:</p><blockquote><p>Lord Essex being my neighbour, and having very little to do, he has done me the favour to come twice to St Alban’s; I think he has as good a heart as one can wish in any person, and I believe that helps to make his circumstances uneasy, which would be something mended by being governor of the Tower. I should think a man that is a soldier has a better title to an employment of that nature than Lord Abingdon.<sup>61</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax, on being acquainted with Sarah’s plans wrote flatteringly, ‘you could not do a more generous thing, you will oblige a man of as much honour, and as well disposed, as any in England, and show a just disdain’ for Abingdon.<sup>62</sup> Sarah was prompted to act partly by the St Albans’ election, partly by Essex’s sister, the countess of Carlisle, and ‘partly because he was in want.’ However, even with Sarah’s backing Essex had to wait. He had approached Marlborough on 27 May about the post, and although Abingdon was dismissed in September 1705, no replacement was immediately forthcoming. Marlborough objected to Essex on the grounds that the current lieutenant governor, his brother, Charles Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, was of a higher rank than Essex.<sup>63</sup> Eventually, Churchill was given the governorship of Guernsey, and after a suitable delay, Essex was made constable of the Tower on 29 Apr. 1707, a post worth £1,000 p.a. On 23 May 1707 Essex was commissioned to replace Abingdon as lord lieutenant of Tower Hamlets.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Essex maintained his presence in Parliament and at court. On 23 Aug. 1705 Essex was one of the peers who accompanied the queen to the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s.<sup>65</sup> He even had a choice of London residences, the doorkeepers of the House of Lords in the 1705-6 session recording addresses in both Whitehall and Pall Mall.<sup>66</sup> On 25 Oct. Essex attended the opening of the session of 1705-6. On 6 Dec. he voted that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration.<sup>67</sup> On 7, 11 and 19 Feb. 1706 he was named to conferences on the regency bill. As he was recorded as present on 11 Mar. 1706, he was probably named to two conferences on the letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. He attended on 74 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total, and was named to 35 committees. He also attended the prorogation on 21 May.</p><p>Active military service at last beckoned for Essex in the Spanish theatre of the war. In June 1706 Essex was named as one of those to accompany the forces under the command of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers.<sup>68</sup> This expedition was originally intended to incite the Cévennes into revolt against France, but poor weather saw the forces switched to Spain where disagreements and contradictory orders caused Essex and Rivers to return to England, landing at Falmouth on 20 Apr. 1707.<sup>69</sup> Essex was consequently absent from the entire 1706-7 session, nor did he attend the short session in April 1707.</p><p>On 28 Oct. 1707 Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> approached Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, on behalf of Nicholas Lechmere<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Lechmere, for Harley’s assistance in obtaining a letter from Essex for use in the next election at Tewkesbury, where Henry Ireton<sup>‡</sup> would be his competitor, noting that what passed between the earl’s grandfather and Ireton’s father ‘lays my Lord under no great obligation to him.’<sup>70</sup> In the event, when the election took place in 1708 Lechmere was elected elsewhere and Ireton was returned for Tewkesbury. Essex first attended the 1707-8 session on 30 Oct. 1707. He attended on 79 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total and was named to 27 committees. On 5 Feb. 1708 he acted as a teller in a division on whether to put the House into committee on the bill for a Union with Scotland, and then voted that the Scottish Privy Council should be dissolved on 1 May 1708, which was the key issue of the debate.<sup>71</sup> On 3 Apr., Arthur Maynwaring informed the duchess of Marlborough that ‘Lady Fitzhardinge says my Lord Essex’s treat will be the end of next week, and hopes your grace will keep your promise,’ noting on 6 Apr. that ‘the day of the treat won’t be fixed till your grace comes to town, only ’tis wished it may be the end of this week, or beginning of the next.’<sup>72</sup> Essex attended the prorogation on 13 Apr., and that same month he was named among those major generals to be promoted to lieutenant general, presumably backdated to 1707, the official date of his promotion.<sup>73</sup> On an analysis of about May 1708 of the post-Union House, Essex was unsurprisingly marked as a Whig. On 20 June Marlborough wrote to the duchess that he thought the error of leaving John Gape<sup>‡</sup> as a justice within St Albans lay with Essex, as lord lieutenant, in not ensuring his removal from the borough as well as the county, although it may just have been an administrative muddle.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Essex attended the opening of the session of 1708-9 on 16 November. He attended on 62 days of the session, 65 per cent of the total, being named to 19 committees. On 21 Jan. 1709, Essex voted against permitting Scottish peers with British titles to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. On 26 Jan. he acted as a teller on the question of whether to call in counsel on this matter. On 14 Feb. he registered a proxy with Cornwallis, although he was not absent until 19 Feb. and returned again on 4 March.<sup>75</sup> On 17 Mar. Essex dined with Ossulston and other peers, including Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>76</sup> On the following day he acted as a teller in the committee of the whole House on whether to add a list of the statutes relating to treason to the bill improving the Union. On 28 Mar. Essex acted as a teller at the third reading of the same bill on whether to read a rider for the second time. Essex attended the prorogations on 19 May and 6 October.</p><p>Essex attended the opening of the session of 1709-10, on 15 November. He attended on 17 days of the session up to the Christmas adjournment on 23 Dec., 16.5 per cent of the total sittings in the session, and was named to three committees. On 5 Jan. 1710 it was reported that Essex was so sick of a fever that the doctors had little hope of his recovery.<sup>77</sup> On the day that the Lords reconvened, 9 Jan. 1710, he lay ‘dangerously ill, and little hopes of his life,’ having, according to a newsletter, ‘contracted his distemper by hard drinking of bad wine.’<sup>78</sup> Essex died at the Portland lodgings in Whitehall on the evening of 10 January. He left his real estate in trust to his two executors, Carlisle and Peter Walter<sup>‡</sup>, to pay his debts, with Walter seemingly taking on most of the burden, for it was he who received the money owing to the estate for his time as constable of the Tower.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Essex was said to have been ‘so obliging and showed so much good nature to every body that he’s generally lamented’. His wife was said to be going with her children to her brother, Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl of Portland.<sup>80</sup> His death provoked a political crisis over the disposal of his posts, particularly his regiment, which the Queen gave to John Hill<sup>‡</sup>, brother of her favourite Abigail Masham, without consulting Marlborough. Essex was buried at Watford on the 19 January. His widow married Sir Conyers Darcy<sup>‡</sup> in 1714. Essex’s son, William Capell*, 3rd Earl of Essex, told his uncle, Carlisle, in 1718, that his own aim in political life was to be an ‘honest man’, like his father and never to be ‘a slave to any ministry’.<sup>81</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
CAPELL, Arthur (1632-83) |
<p><strong><surname>CAPELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Arthur</strong> (1632–83)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Mar. 1649 as 2nd Bar. CAPELL OF HADHAM; <em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 earl of ESSEX |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 28 Jan. 1632, 1st. s. and h. of Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Capell of Hadham, Essex and Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir Charles Morrison<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Cassiobury, Herts. <em>educ</em>. privately (Abraham Woodhead) 1648-52.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 19 May 1653, Elizabeth (1636-1718), 5th da. of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, and 1st w. Anne, da. of William Cecil, 2nd earl of Salisbury, 6s. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. <em>(1 d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 13 July 1683; <em>will</em> 28 Feb. 1681, <em>pr</em>. 4 Apr. 1684.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Herts. 1660-81, Wilts. 1668-72; <em>custos rot</em>. St. Albans ?1660-82.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Amb. extraordinary to Denmark 1669-70; PC 1672-81; ld. lt. Ireland 1672-77; cttee of the privy council for trade and plantations 1675-81; first ld. treasury Mar.-Nov. 1679; commr. Tangier 1680-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Freeman, Merchant Adventurers’ co., 1670.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by Sir P. Lely (double portrait with his wife) c. 1655-60, NPG 5461; oil on canvas, circle of Sir P. Lely, 1672, Watford Museum.</p> |
<p>Much of Essex’s early life was coloured by the civil wars, where his father’s active involvement in the royalist cause led to his execution following the siege of Colchester. Indeed, the young Capell may have spent some time in the Tower with his incarcerated father, prior to his execution.<sup>8</sup> Between 1648 and 1652 his education was under the supervision of Abraham Woodhead, a former Oxford fellow and a distinguished Latinist, who subsequently converted to Catholicism. Following his marriage in May 1653, Capell went to reside with his father-in-law Northumberland and his second countess, that ‘devil of a woman,’ as William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> later called her, at Petworth, Sussex.<sup>9</sup> He was clearly perceived as a royalist, for on 8 June 1659, one of the king’s agents complained that Essex was one of many of the king’s friends left in ignorance about his plans.<sup>10</sup> At the Restoration, Essex was restored to his Hertfordshire estates, including the family seat at Cassiobury Park, which had been forfeited during the Civil War and granted to Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex.<sup>11</sup> Essex also owned estates in other counties, including land in Essex to the value of £1,128p.a., according to a return of 1662-3, as well as in Suffolk, Norfolk, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.<sup>12</sup></p><h2><em>From the Restoration to the fall of Clarendon: 1660-7</em></h2><p>Capell was one of eight peers who attended at Westminster on 27 Apr. 1660 ‘ready to attend the service of this House having never sat in Parliament since the death of their ancestors’, and who were admitted to take their seats. Given the fate of his father, this was a very significant act of reconciliation.<sup>13</sup> At or around this date he was classed as one of the ‘lords whose fathers have been in arms’ by Philip Wharton*, 4th baron Wharton, on his analysis of their probable attitude to ‘Presbyterian’ peers. On his first day in the House Capell was named to a committee to draw up heads of a conference with the Commons on how to heal the divisions in the kingdom, which was overtaken by the king’s letter and declaration from Breda. On 4 May the order of 20 July 1642 debarring his father and eight other peers from sitting in the House was annulled. In all, Capell attended on 64 days of the first part of the 1660 session (just over 54 per cent of the total) and was named to four committees.</p><p>With the monarchy restored, the death of Capell’s father became an issue during the discussions of the indemnity bill. On 18 June 1660, Capell’s mother had petitioned the Lords concerning her husband’s execution, the matter being referred to the committee for privileges. On 7 July it was reported from the committee that Capell had been ‘put to death, contrary to the articles of war for the surrender of Colchester, without any authority from any legal power,’ and that the judges and signatories should be brought into custody.<sup>14</sup> No doubt as a result of these proceedings, on 7 Aug. the committee on the indemnity bill reported that the four judges who had sat on the trial should be exempted from the bill.</p><p>When the House resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, Capell attended for the first time on 15 Nov., being present on a further 20 days, a little over 44 per cent of the total. He was named to four committees in December 1660. On 13 Dec. he signed a protest against the passage of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell. Just prior to the coronation, on 20 Apr. 1661, Capell was created earl of Essex, the warrant making explicit that this was ‘for the extraordinary merits, services and sufferings of his father.’<sup>15</sup></p><p>Essex attended on the opening day of the new Parliament, 8 May 1661, attending 34 days of the session before the adjournment on 30 July, some 52 per cent of the total. He was introduced into the House as earl of Essex by Northumberland and Suffolk on 11 May. He was named to only three committees during this part of the session. On 11 July he voted against the case of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the great chamberlaincy. When the House resumed on 20 Nov. 1661, Essex was absent until 7 Dec., being excused attendance on 25 November. He attended on 65 days of the session that lasted until the prorogation on 19 May 1662, some 51 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. On 6 Feb. 1662, Essex again signed a protest against the passage of the bill restoring Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to his estate in Flintshire. On 19 May he signed a protest against dropping the two provisos added by the Lords to the bill for mending common highways, which the Commons had objected to as ‘assessing the Commons,’ the protest making reference to the need to assert the privileges of the House.</p><p>Essex attended on 16 days of the 1663 session, nearly 19 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. He was a better attender in the 1664 session, when he attended on 33 days of the session, nearly 92 per cent of the total and was named to five committees. He did not attend the session of 1664-65 at all, and was excused attendance on the House on 7 Dec. 1664. Nor did he attend the short session of Parliament held in October 1665. He may well have been abroad at this time. He was certainly in France by 1666, when a newsletter of 7 Apr. noted that Essex had gone post from Paris for England via Calais, upon the incorrect news of the death of the earl of Northumberland.<sup>16</sup> On 16 Apr. 1666 Essex was granted a pass to travel to France for two years for health reasons, but he returned to England in September.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Essex attended the opening two days of the 1666-67 session, on the second of which, 21 Sept. 1666, he and William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, introduced Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, into the House. He was then absent for the next 10 sittings, being excused attendance on 1 October. From 12 Oct. 1666 he attended on most days. On 15 Oct. Essex and William Craven*, earl of Craven, introduced Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, into the House. On 29 Dec. he was appointed to report from the conference with the Commons on the impeachment of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt. On 23 Jan. 1667 he entered his dissent from the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and the Lords to the bill for the fire court. On 24 Jan. he was named by the Lords as one of their commissioners in the bill for examining the public accounts. Altogether, Essex attended on 58 days of the session, nearly 64 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He also attended the Lords on 29 July 1667, one of the two days of the short session called so that Charles II could inform Parliament of the peace with the Dutch.</p><p>Essex attended on 45 days of the first part of the 1667-9 session, some 88 per cent of the total. He intervened in the committee on 30 Oct. 1667 investigating the abuses among colliers, woodmongers and butchers to point out that the corporation of oastmen at Newcastle, under a patent of Elizabeth, ‘would not suffer any ships to pass out of the harbour but by their licence and regulation,’ but the committee never reported to the House. On 15 Nov. he was named to manage a conference about committing Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. This led to his appointment to manage or report further conferences on this matter on 19, 21 and 27 November. On 24 Nov. his father-in-law, Northumberland, registered his proxy with Essex, vacating it on 26 November. On 14 Dec. Essex was named to a committee to draw up the reasons why the Lords dissented to the vote by the Commons asking the king to issue a proclamation for Clarendon to appear by a certain day and for his arrest. On 16 Dec. he chaired the committee on the bill for settling lands on Sir Richard Wiseman<sup>‡</sup> and John Plot to enable them to perform a trust, reporting it on the following day. On 16 Dec. he also chaired the committee on the bill for the taxing and assessing the lands of the adventurers within the Great Level of the fens, when a sub-committee was appointed, including Essex, to hear the parties concerned and to present proposals to the committee.<sup>18</sup> He was named to a further 19 committees during this part of the session.</p><h2><em>Marking time, 1668-72</em></h2><p>Essex benefited from the fall of Clarendon, a warrant being issued on 22 Feb. 1668 for Essex to replace him as lord lieutenant of Wiltshire, a place he retained until his appointment as lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>19</sup> When the session of 1667-9 resumed in February 1668, Essex attended on 47 days, some 71 per cent of the total and was appointed to a further 11 committees. He again chaired the committee on the bill for the taxing and assessing the lands of the adventurers within the Great Level of the fens on 27 Feb. 1668, which Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset reported on 2 March. On 24 Feb. he was added to the committee on Leventhorp’s estate bill, chairing the committee on 27 and 28 Feb., but not reporting it to the House.<sup>20</sup> On 2 May he chaired the first session of the committee for privileges on Skinner’s case, when the petition of the East India Company to the Commons was voted a ‘scandalous libel.’<sup>21</sup> In the afternoon John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, took over the chair of the committee, and continued to share this role when the committee met on 4, 5 and 7 May.<sup>22</sup> On 7 May Essex reported a long list of precedents concerning the case, and he was named to conferences on it on 5 and 8 May.<sup>23</sup> On 8 May the committee for privileges minute books reveals that Essex was listed as second to speak at the conference to take place the following day.<sup>24</sup> On 4, 5 and 6 May 1668 Essex chaired the committee on the bill for the increase and preservation of timber within the forest of Dean, taking over from Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, but the bill was never reported.<sup>25</sup></p><p>On 13 July 1669 Essex was reported to be preparing for his embassy to Copenhagen, but he repeatedly delayed.<sup>26</sup> He was still in England when Parliament convened for the session of October to December 1669, of which he attended on 33 days, nearly 92 per cent of the total, and was named to eight committees. On 7 Nov. 1669 Essex wrote to Richmond: ‘I find the House apt to grow into heats’ on both the ‘bill sent from the Commons to divest us from the power of judging in original causes’ and the report from the commissioners of accounts. As such he was looking forward to his employment abroad, not knowing how to ‘carry himself prudently’, and acknowledging that a wise man would not be ‘over forward to put his finger into the fire if he may avoid it.’<sup>27</sup> Despite these misgivings, on 17 and 18 Nov. Essex reported progress from the committee of the whole on the bill for limiting of certain trials in Parliament, and on the 19th he reported the committee’s amendments. On 24 Nov. he reported from the committee appointed to consider the decay of trade, as he did also on 1, 3 and 9 December. On 25 Nov. he reported from the committee for privileges on the case of Nicholas Knollys, who claimed the earldom of Banbury, and the manner in which notice was to be given to a Member of the Commons, Richard Harrison<sup>‡</sup>, so that he could answer an appeal in the Lords. Also on 25 Nov. Essex entered his protest against the resolution that the House was able to give directions to chancery in the cause between Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup> and Jeremy Elwes. On 3 Dec. he reported the complaint of the committee that was considering the report of the commissioners of accounts that few of its members attended for business. The House responded by directing that the peers attend more diligently. On 9 Dec. Essex chaired a committee of the whole on the need for a bill registering lands.</p><p>Essex was still in England for the start of the next parliamentary session, and attended on 34 days of the first part of the 1670-1 session, before its adjournment on 11 Apr. 1670, 85 per cent of the total. He was appointed to 20 committees during this part of the session. On 22 Feb. 1670 he chaired a committee of the whole on the vexed question as to whether the House should erase their proceedings in <em>Skinner’s case</em> to restore relations with the Commons, and voted against the successful motion that they do so.<sup>28</sup> On 8 Mar. Essex reported from the committee for privileges on the claim of Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, to precedency amongst the barons. On 10 Mar. he chaired the committee on Richard Beckham’s estate bill, reporting later that day.<sup>29</sup> On 17 Mar. Essex spoke in favour of giving a second reading to the divorce bill of John Manners*, Lord Roos, the future 9th earl of Rutland. Essex intervened again in favour of this bill, on 28 Mar., in the debate on the third reading, noting that a</p><blockquote><p>marriage bond was broken (like as peace between Princes) not when the fact was committed, but when the injured party makes his claim to the judge, who cannot deny justice being asked it. So that the act of adultery does but put the husband in the advantage to take the forfeiture, if, and when, he pleases. … The inconveniences are cured when it shall be restrained to the relief by particular bill in a Parliament and no general law made in the case ... It may prevent the growing of the foreign practice of poisoning and killing wives.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 18 Mar. Essex reported from a committee of the whole on the bill for advancing the sale of fee farm rents that they needed legal advice, so the bill was referred to a select committee. On 22 Mar. he was added to the bill on the Brandon and Waveney navigation bill, effectively also adding him to committee on the bill for improving tillage, which he chaired on 23 Mar. and reported on 25 March. He received the proxy of Ailesbury (24 Mar., vacated 10 Nov.) and of William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire, (25 Mar., vacated 9 April). On 26 Mar. Essex entered his dissent against the passage of the bill to prevent and suppress seditious conventicles. On 30 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on a naturalization bill. He was also named to report the conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the conventicles bill on 30 Mar. and 4 April. On 31 Mar. Essex chaired the first of six meetings to consider the additional bill for the rebuilding of the City of London, before reporting it on 8 April.<sup>31</sup> Also on 8 Apr. he entered his dissent against the passage of the supply bill setting an imposition on brandy.</p><p>Essex finally set out on his embassy on 22 Apr. 1670, returning to England in late August.<sup>32</sup> The death of his brother-in-law, Jocelyn Percy*, 5th earl of Northumberland, in May 1670 prompted the observation that if his daughter, the young Lady Elizabeth Percy were to die, then Northumberland’s half-sister, Lady Essex, would inherit.<sup>33</sup> This residuary interest prompted at least one legal suit which came before the Lords on 5 Feb. 1674, in which Essex claimed parliamentary privilege. Essex, as a trustee under the will of the 4th earl of Northumberland, was in possession of land charged with various sums, including £20,000, to which his wife was the residual heir. He had been disturbed in his possession by several men, claiming to have a lease from James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>34</sup> This dispute rumbled on with Harbord informing Essex on 2 Feb. 1675 that ‘there is a bill exhibited in the exchequer in order to a trial at bar against the young Lady Percy, and your excellency is made a party.’ Depositions were entered into the exchequer in 1676. <sup>35</sup> The dispute re-entered the parliamentary arena when Essex petitioned on 16 Feb. 1678 complaining of a breach of privilege committed by proceedings in common pleas concerning a suit brought by Monmouth. The House ordered that Essex be granted quiet possession of the estates during the privilege of Parliament and on 19 Feb set aside a rule of the court made on 9 February.</p><p>Having returned from his embassy, when the House resumed in October 1670, Essex sat on 110 days of the remainder of the session of 1670-1, 88 per cent of the total. He was named to 39 committees during this part of the session. As in previous sessions he was an active member of committees. He reported from the committee for petitions (11 Nov.) and during December chaired committees on bills to prevent the export of wool, to prevent frauds and abuses committed by servants (reported 10 Jan. 1671), for the discovery of those who had defrauded the poor of the City of London of the monies given for their relief after the Plague and the Fire. He chaired this last on 12 further occasions, preparing fresh clauses for the bill, before reporting it on 13 Apr. 1671. During January 1671 he chaired the committees examining into the Hamburg Company (reported 14 and 20 Jan.) and investigating the petition of poor prisoners for debt. On 26 Jan. he was named to report a conference on the bill against maiming and wounding, and on 3 Feb. to prepare reasons for adhering to the Lords’ amendments. He was then appointed to manage the resultant conferences on 6, 8 and 11 February. On 14 and 15 Feb. he chaired the committee on the bill for re-vesting the power of granting wine licenses in the king, reporting it on the 15th.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Essex played a major role in the proceedings in the Lords following the delivery of the Commons petition for an address against the growth of popery on 21 Feb. 1671. He was named to the committee to consider the three clauses to which the House disagreed, reporting the following day (2 Mar.) and being appointed a manager of the ensuing conferences on 3 and 9 March. Later in the session, on 13 Apr., Essex was named to a sub-committee to ‘draw up the test and oath’ according to the debate in the committee to prevent the growth of popery, to which the additional bill to prevent seditious conventicles was also committed.<sup>37</sup></p><p>On 28 Feb. 1671 Essex reported the subsidy bill from a committee of the whole and on 2 Mar. he reported a conference with the Commons on the bill. On 6 Mar. he was named to report a conference on the bill for an additional excise upon beer, ale and other liquors; that day he also reported from the committee on the bill for exporting beer, ale and mum.<sup>38</sup> On 9 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution of the House not to commit or engross the bill concerning the privilege of Parliament. On 13 Mar. he reported Hackett’s estate bill as fit to pass the House. On 15 Mar. he dissented from the decision of the Lords to suspend the execution of the judgment against John Cusack. On 30 Mar. Essex reported from the committee for privileges concerning the insertion of a clause concerning brandy into the bill on additional impositions despite there being a bill concerning brandy currently depending between the two Houses. This led to the proceedings of the Commons being deemed unparliamentary and dangerous.</p><p>During April, Essex reported on the estate bill of Robert Houghton (7 Apr.) and the bill for determining differences touching burnt houses (15 April). On 13, 14 and 15 Apr. Essex chaired the committees on the bill to prevent the planting of tobacco in England, and to regulate the plantation trade, and on the ‘additional’ bill to prevent the export of wool.<sup>39</sup> He was also involved in several conferences. On 20 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the bill for vesting certain fee farm rents in trustees. Much of the month was taken up with negotiations with the Commons on the bill for additional impositions. On 10 Apr. Essex was named to manage a conference with the Commons on their amendments to the bill and to desire their concurrence in an address to the king to encourage domestic manufactures by his own example. The answer of the Commons on 11 Apr. prompted the Lords to debate whether this answer was unparliamentary. Conferences were held on 11, 12 and 15 Apr., the last being reported on 17 Apr., on which day the Lords resolved that they had the right to amend money bills, and the committee was ordered to prepare for a conference. After the conference on 22 Apr. Essex was presumably one of the peers who was then directed to draft a further response on the subject. Earlier that day he had acted as one of the managers of the conference on the bill concerning wool.</p><h2><em>Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1672-7</em></h2><p>Although Essex’s land holdings in Ireland were limited (amounting to 1,109 acres in or about 1675), compared to those of James Butler*, duke of Ormond, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, or even William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, it made him a candidate for the lieutenancy in place of John Berkeley*, baron Berkeley of Stratton.<sup>40</sup> As early as 18 Jan. 1672, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, reported that ‘’tis believed Lord Essex shall be in Berkeley’s place though the king hath not yet declared it publicly.’<sup>41</sup> Further, on 12 Mar., Nicholas Morice<sup>‡</sup> reported that there were rumours that Essex was to be made a Privy Councillor.<sup>42</sup> The rumours were confirmed on 17 Apr. when Essex was appointed one of four new Councillors, and the king declared at the same time that he was sending Essex to Ireland as lord lieutenant.<sup>43</sup> Meanwhile, Essex attended the prorogation on 16 Apr. 1672, his last appearance in the House for over three years. He set out on his journey to Ireland on 22 July, arriving in Dublin on 5 August. One of the first results of his appointment was to deprive Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], of the power, but not the allowances, of the presidency of Munster.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Soon after his arrival Essex fell seriously ill, leading to speculation that he would be forced to return to England.<sup>45</sup> Essex nevertheless retained sufficient sense to congratulate Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, upon his appointment as lord chancellor. Shaftesbury replied on 13 Dec.: ‘I cannot but apprehend that I have been represented from hence to you as one that hath spoken against your lordship or some of your proceedings. If so, give me leave to say, your intelligence out of England is not so good as your excellency ought to have. For I am sure the direct contrary is only true.’<sup>46</sup> As late as 14 Dec. Essex described his recovery as ‘not yet so perfect as to enable me to undertake a thorough consideration of those affairs which have been committed to me,’ and he was unable to use his own hand in writing on the same day to his brother-in-law, Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester, to ask how ‘my case stands in England, and who are my friends there.’<sup>47</sup> By the beginning of January 1673 his recovery was assured.<sup>48</sup></p><p>When Parliament next sat, Essex was excused attendance on 13 Feb. 1673, as being ‘in the king’s service’. On 19 Mar. his proxy was registered with Ormond. Essex’s lieutenancy was also clearly having a favourable impact on Anglican circles. On 17 Feb. 1673, Bishop William Fuller* of Lincoln, forwarded to Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, a request from the Irish lord chancellor, Archbishop Boyle, that Sheldon take notice of Essex’s ‘great justice, and friendliness to our Church there; and that you would be pleased in the behalf of the bishops of Ireland to give him your acknowledgement of his favours to them.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Essex was soon facing the perennial problem of an Irish viceroy, attempting to govern a kingdom when real power was retained in England. In the spring of 1673, Essex was much vexed by reports that Phoenix Park, adjourning Dublin Castle, would be granted by the king to the duchess of Cleveland and her sons. Essex vehemently opposed this, even if the grant were only to become operational after he had relinquished the office of lord lieutenant.<sup>50</sup> He was aware of the potential consequences of such an attitude, writing to Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, on 19 July 1673, that ‘I know very well the disadvantage any person that is absent has.’ At the beginning of September Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>, reported that Ormond ‘knew you were a man of justice and honour, and twas for that reason he believed there had been heaving at you, but he thought that was left off for the present.’<sup>51</sup> On 24 Jan. 1674 Harbord wrote reassuringly that ‘the differences among the great ones increase daily; and Essex gets ground in the opinion of all good men, and everybody will have him treasurer, as in sick bodies so in sickly governments change is desired.’<sup>52</sup> On 3 Feb. Essex’s proxy was registered with Ormond. On 24 Mar. Harbord assured Essex that the king was ‘abundantly satisfied’ with his conduct of the government of Ireland, and that as for the rumours of his being recalled, the king had said the purveyors of this news were rogues. Uncertainty about intentions at court nevertheless continued.<sup>53</sup></p><p>The death of the dowager duchess of Somerset on 24 Apr. 1674 (Essex’s sister, Mary, had been married to one of her sons, Henry Seymour, styled Lord Beauchamp) saw Essex interested in the possible purchase of her London residence, Essex House.<sup>54</sup> Essex calculated that he could afford to pay £7,000 over the course of a year if he remained in office, even though it would delay the completion of his building work at Cassiobury.<sup>55</sup> It was to help in this purchase that on 2 Mar. 1675 a warrant was issued for Essex to receive £13,000, as a mark of royal favour.<sup>56</sup> In the event his plans were thwarted by the purchase and development of the site by the speculative builder Dr. Nicholas Barbon<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>On 28 Jan. 1675 the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, reassured Essex that rumours naming various successors to him, were merely ‘idle reports’, which had given the king an excuse to express ‘the value and esteem he had both for your person and service.’ With Parliament due to sit in April 1675, Danby was keen that Essex would ‘by your letters influence as many of your friends as you can … to assist the making this next session a quiet and calm one.’<sup>57</sup> Still in Ireland, Essex was unable to attend the session of April to June 1675, so on 10 Feb. he asked George Coventry*, 3rd Baron Coventry, to enquire of the king with whom he should place his proxy ready for the next session, as he was unsure whether Ormond, his usual nominee, would be present. The king having left it to Essex’s discretion, he enclosed it in a letter of on 2 Mar. to Danby, whereupon, under that date, it was duly registered with the lord treasurer.<sup>58</sup> It was no doubt in recognition of Essex as a government supporter that Danby listed Essex as likely to support the non-resisting test.</p><p>On 24 Apr. 1675, Essex asked his secretary, William Harbord, for a punctual account of ‘how matters in Parliament proceed’. His knowledge of what was going on in Westminster no doubt prompted Essex to write to Shaftesbury about the case of <em>Barrett v. Loftus</em> depending before the Lords. He had examined this case himself, with the help of two judges, and thought Loftus’s agent would show him the resultant report of August 1674.<sup>59</sup> Shaftesbury may have received this letter by the time he entered a protest about the case on 10 May. Receiving parliamentary intelligence was clearly a matter of some importance for on 11 May, Essex complained that ‘Mr. Petyt does fail in sending the journals of the House of peers; there hath been but one of them come since the sitting of the Parliament, but those of the House of Commons have constantly been transmitted.’<sup>60</sup> These were probably part of ‘the Parliament rolls and journals’, which John Evelyn noticed in Essex’s ‘large and very nobly furnished library’ on a visit to Cassiobury in April 1680.<sup>61</sup></p><p>By May 1675, Essex thought it necessary to visit England. Primarily, he seems to have been worried about the Irish revenue farm, and felt that the only way to prevent abuses was to attend personally on the king and the lord treasurer. There had also been some debate as to whether an Irish Parliament should sit in September and the necessary preparations would detain Essex in Ireland.<sup>62</sup> Some pretenders to the lieutenancy thought that Essex would not return, hence Strafford’s rather plaintive refrain on 14 July 1675 that he now understood that Essex ‘was not to remove from Ireland as had often of late been reported.’<sup>63</sup></p><p>Essex left Ireland on 9 July 1675 for London, where he had arrived by 24 July. He was confident that his stay would be short.<sup>64</sup> On 9 Aug. he left London for Bath with a ‘very great equipage’ in order to consult Danby and other ministers there.<sup>65</sup> On 28 Sept. Essex reported the conclusion of the negotiations for the Irish revenue farm, and his instructions, and expected to return to Ireland in mid October. However, he was delayed by wrangling over the new settlement of the revenue.<sup>66</sup></p><p>This delay meant that Essex was on hand for the session of October and November 1675, of which he attended on all 21 days, being named to 10 committees. The king also used him for other purposes. Thus, on 3 Nov. Essex was one of the Lords named by the king after a hearing in council to mediate between Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd baron Colepeper, and his siblings, a dispute which was still rumbling on years later.<sup>67</sup> On 4 Nov., according to Anglesey’s diary, Essex and George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, ‘would have had me to the bar for being of a different mind, but they did but show their teeth,’ presumably because they objected to Anglesey’s views on the <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> case, in which he was the lone protester against setting a date to hear the cause.<sup>68</sup> On 9 Nov. Essex was appointed to a four-man sub-committee to put the vote brought from Commons on 25 Oct., for recalling such of the king’s subjects as were serving in the army of Louis XIV into a joint address from both Houses. On 10 Nov. Essex, Shaftesbury and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, were deputed by the House to compose the differences between Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, and his mother. On 19 Nov. he was named to manage a conference on preserving the good understanding between the two Houses. On 20 Nov. he was one of the chief speakers in favour of an address to the king to dissolve Parliament. He voted for the address but did not sign the protest after the rejection of the motion.</p><p>On 23 Nov. 1675, Essex referred to rumours that he would not be returning to Ireland, but noted that the king had told him the previous day ‘to prepare speedily for my journey.’ On 7 Dec. he felt was confident enough of his impending departure to suggest he would leave London on the 13th but he was again delayed by the uncompleted business of the Irish revenue.<sup>69</sup> On 17 Jan. 1676 Essex and Anglesey spent the morning ‘about several businesses’ relating to Ireland, including a petition from Anglesey which had been referred to him. They held another meeting on 1 February.<sup>70</sup> As Essex wrote to Sir John Temple on 22 Jan., the chief reason for his continuance in London was to protect the Irish revenue from being appropriated by Richard Jones, 3rd Viscount Ranelagh [I] or Danby for use in England, rather than for the Irish army or civil list.<sup>71</sup> Such was the delay that at the beginning of February Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> seemed to doubt whether Essex would actually go for Ireland at all.<sup>72</sup> On 6 Apr., Dr. William Denton reported that ‘Essex is gone to Newmarket and from thence to Ireland if he meet with no rub there.’<sup>73</sup> In fact he returned to London for it was there on 24 Apr. Anglesey took his leave of Essex.<sup>74</sup> He arrived in Dublin on 4 May.<sup>75</sup></p><p>On 2 Jan. 1677 Essex responded to a letter from Secretary Coventry of 26 Dec. 1676 concerning the next session of Parliament by informing him that his secretary, Sir Cyril Wyche‡, would be writing to English Members ‘acquainting them with his majesty’s pleasure’ and ordering them to be present for the beginning of the next parliamentary session. As Coventry had opined that Essex send his proxy ‘and put it into hands well inclined to his majesty’s service’, he added that he would send his proxy with Wyche, ‘and place it in such hands as his majesty shall approve.’ Wyche appears to have left Dublin on 13 Jan. 1677, and this was the date under which the proxy was registered with Ormond.<sup>76</sup> Essex did not attend the first part of the 1677-8 session, held between February and April 1677, being excused on 9 Mar. 1677.</p><p>Essex was recalled in April 1677 but elected to remain in Ireland to hand over the sword of state personally to Ormond.<sup>77</sup> This meant that he was unable to attend the short May 1677 session of Parliament. On 13 June he wrote to Danby concerning his grant from the king of £13,000, which had been agreed more than two years before: ‘this money as it would very much accommodate my own private occasions, so coming in the manner it does upon my leaving this government, as a mark of his majesty’s favour and of his approbation of my management of the affairs which have been under my charge it does more than double the value of the thing’.<sup>78</sup></p><h2><em>The Popish Plot, Exclusion and its aftermath, 1678-82</em></h2><p>Back in England Essex divided his time between his London residence in St. James’s Square and Cassiobury.<sup>79</sup> Relations with Ormond remained cordial and on 4 Oct. 1677 Essex wrote to him from London to assure him that ‘as any affair concerning Ireland shall come in debate … I shall most readily give my utmost assistance therein.’ On 15 Oct. Essex ‘presented his majesty in council’ with an account of his financial management while in Ireland, showing his frugality, although the council showed little interest in his ‘short narrative of the state of Ireland’.<sup>80</sup> Essex attended at the treasury on Irish business on a number of occasions over the autumn and winter, on 17 and 27 Oct., 2 and 19 Nov., 21 Dec. and 21 and 26 Jan. 1678.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Essex attended the adjournment of the House on 3 Dec. 1677, upon which day his proxy was vacated. When the second part of the 1677-78 session began, on 15 Jan. 1678, Essex was in place. He held Ormond’s proxy, Ormond ‘having had his in the same case’, which was dated 15 Jan. in the register but actually, according to Essex registered on 16 January.<sup>82</sup> Essex attended on 56 days of the session, 92 per cent of the total, and was named to 20 committees. On 31 Jan. and 4 Feb. he chaired the committee of privileges when it discussed standing orders relating to protections.<sup>83</sup> Irish business ran parallel to his parliamentary activity. On 12 Feb. Secretary Coventry mentioned Essex’s contributions in debates in Council about the advisability of an Irish Parliament and the methods of raising revenue. Consideration of the latter was remitted to a committee of council that included Essex. On 14 Feb. Essex supported the petition presented to the House by George Savile*, Viscount Halifax, on behalf of Shaftesbury, for the latter’s release from the Tower. The result, as Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> reported on 2 Mar., was a rumour that Essex ‘was in some disfavour on account of his bearing up so stiffly against my lord treasurer in the quarrel of the Lord Shaftesbury. ’Tis said he is no more summoned to the cabinet, yet I believe not the discourse that he should be discharged the council.’<sup>84</sup> It is perhaps indicative of his change in political position that at some point during Shaftesbury’s sojourn in the Tower in 1677-8 Essex had been classed as twice ‘worthy’ on his analysis of lay peers.</p><p>On 5 Mar. 1678 Essex reported from committee on Shalcross’s bill. On 8 Mar. he was named to a conference on the Commons’ amendments to the bill for the better regulation of fishing and was appointed to another conference on the bill on 19 March. On 16 Mar., when the Lords considered whether to concur with the Commons in a joint address to the king asking for an immediate declaration of war against France, Southwell reported that Essex opened the debate ‘taking notice how universally the people were bent that way’, and that ‘resolutions of this nature must depend on such preparations as had been thought of’ by the king’s ministers, which brought Danby to reply. Three days later Southwell expanded on his account to note that ‘no man more vigorous than the earl of Essex to push it on, and admiring while the danger abroad was so apparent and the whole tide of the nation set in so strong that anybody could advise the contrary.’ When the Lords resumed the debate on the 18 Mar., Essex was apparently convinced by Danby’s plea not to declare war before due preparations had been made and so the address was altered from an immediate declaration of war to one with all possible speed when occasion allowed. Following this, at the Council on 20 Mar., Essex, Danby, Bridgwater and the two secretaries were commissioned by the king to meet the Dutch ambassador and the Spanish and Imperial envoys to treat about the terms of a possible alliance.<sup>85</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. On 30 Apr. he was named to report a conference requested by the Commons on the dangerous growth of popery.</p><p>On 17 Apr. 1678, the council again considered the Irish revenue. The preceding day an order had been drawn up against Ranelagh by Anglesey, Essex and Secretary Coventry, but this was challenged by Danby, and the matter was expected to be heard again, whereupon Essex was supposedly willing to charge Ranelagh with a debt of almost £100,000. Irish revenue matters, and especially Ranelagh’s accounts, continued to concern Essex throughout the summer, more discussion taking place in June 1678.<sup>86</sup></p><p>The Lords met again on 23 May 1678, with Essex in attendance on 38 days of the session that lasted until 15 July, 88.4 per cent of the total and was named to 24 committees. On 1 June he reported from the committee on the bill to continue the act for settling the estates of intestates, reporting it again on 6 June, along with a report from the bill to prevent delays of suits. Also on 6 June he reported from the committee on the bill to enable creditors to recover debts of the executors and administrators of the executors. On 12 June he reported from the committee for privileges that the appeal of Charles Cottington from the court of delegates did not come properly before the House, which the House ordered to take into consideration on 17 June. On 15 June Essex reported from committee the estate bill of the deceased Sir Thomas Cave. On 17 June, the lord chancellor had to intervene in a quarrel between Essex and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, over some words in a debate, in order to ensure the matter went no further. On 25 June together with Shaftesbury, Wharton and two others he entered a dissent to the decision not to agree to the proviso offered by the Commons to the bill for disbanding the forces. On 27 June Essex reported a draft of an order from the committee for limiting a time for bringing in appeals from inferior courts, but the House ‘thought not fit to do any thing therein.’ On 5 July 1678 he dissented from the decision to relieve the petitioner in the case of <em>Marmaduke Darrell v. Sir Paul Whichcot</em>. On 8 July Essex reported from the committee on the bill for naturalizing John Schoppens and others. Also, later on 8 July, he spoke in the debate upon the appeal of Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham, against a decree in chancery in favour of Lewis Watson*, the future 3rd baron Rockingham, and his wife, noting that ‘there are without doubt some cases relievable here which are not relievable below, else we must take patterns from the courts below who ought to take patterns from us’. In this case he thought there ought to have been relief below, but he was fully answered by Shaftesbury and the decree was reversed.<sup>87</sup> On 11 and 12 July Essex was appointed to manage conferences with the Commons on their amendments to the bill for burying in woollen. On 13 July he reported an order, drawn up by the committee for privileges, limiting the time for bringing in writs of errors and petitions, which was agreed to by the House. Later in the day he was named to a conference on the method of returning bills between the Houses.</p><p>Essex attended on 57 days of the session held between October and December 1678, nearly 92 per cent of the total and was named to 11 committees, including one on 23 Oct. to examine into the Popish Plot, which he chaired on 24 occasions in November and December.<sup>88</sup> There seems little reason to doubt Essex’s sincere belief in the Plot, as he told the privy council in 1679, ‘the apprehension of popery made him imagine he saw his children frying in Smithfield.’<sup>89</sup> He was named t several committees associated with the Popish Plot hysteria: to draw an address for banishing papists from London and Westminster (23 Oct. 1678 ); to examine Edward Coleman and others (26 Oct.) and to examine the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (31 October). On 29 Oct., Essex and Shaftesbury were the only peers to dissent from the decision of the Lords not to communicate to the Commons papers concerning the Plot. On 1 Nov. he was named to report a conference requested by the Commons on the preservation of the king and the safety of the government and religion. On 2 Nov. he was one of five peers appointed to examine the Lords imprisoned in the Tower for treason. Having reported on 2 Nov. on the insecurity of the House, Essex was one of the peers nominated to manage a conference with the Commons on his findings, particularly on the ill state of the roof. Also on 2 Nov., Essex was one of the peers who supported Shaftesbury’s failed motion that York be removed from the king’s counsels.<sup>90</sup></p><p>On 14 Nov. 1678 John Lovelace*, 3rd baron Lovelace, registered his proxy with Essex, vacating it on 21 November. Throughout November and December he was deeply involved in committees and conferences relating to the Plot. On 15 Nov., in a committee of the whole, Essex voted to include the declaration against transubstantiation as part of the Test. When York was exempted from the provisions of the Test on 20 Nov., he was heard to remark that Monmouth ‘affected popularity and was great with the earl of Essex and Lord Wharton, and had reason to believe there was no ill understanding betwixt him and my Lord Shaftesbury.’<sup>91</sup> Some of his activities may have been influence by personal and family considerations. On 2 Dec. 1678 Essex reported from the committee appointed to take examinations relating to the Plot, that Richard and John Vaughan be examined at the Bar. This was part of Bedloe’s evidence of a Welsh Plot, which initially put Worcester's connections under suspicion. However, Worcester was a staunch protestant, and married to Essex’s sister, and thus these allegations got nowhere.<sup>92</sup> On 9 Dec. he was appointed to draw up reasons for and to manage a conference on disbanding the forces in England before other forces arrived from Flanders.</p><p>On 10 Dec. 1678, Southwell offered this assessment of the opponents of the Court, naming Halifax and Charles Powlett*, 6th marquesss of Winchester, as Shaftesbury’s seconds before adding ‘but none so close, so constant, and so relied upon by him as the earl of Essex.’<sup>93</sup> His activities in relation to the Plot did not detract his involvement in wider concerns. On 20 Dec. he dissented from the Lords’ resolution to agree with the amendments to the supply bill for disbanding forces from abroad. On 23 Dec. he dissented from the negative vote passed on the motion that Danby should not withdraw from the House. Around this time an undated memorandum considered Essex and Ormond as enemies of Danby ‘upon Ranelagh’s account’, a reference to the continuing importance of Irish affairs in English politics.<sup>94</sup></p><p>On 26 Dec. 1678 Essex was listed as voting against the decision of the Lords to adhere to their amendment to the supply bill for disbanding foreign forces, relating to the payment of the taxes into the exchequer. He entered his dissent to the decision. He was then named to prepare reasons for a conference with the Commons on the bill. On 27 Dec. he voted to commit Danby following his impeachment by the Commons. On the following day he informed the House that he had received ‘out of the country’ information from Stephen Dugdale on the Plot, which was read, whereupon Essex and Bridgwater were sent by the House to the Tower to examine William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, upon it, reporting back to the House later in the day. Also on the 28th, after a deadlocked conference on the disbanding bill, Essex was one of three peers appointed to draw up a proviso for preserving the king’s right in the militia, which was debated but not decided before the prorogation on 30 December.</p><p>On 31 Dec. 1678 at the Privy Council, the king appointed Anglesey, Bridgwater and Essex to the quorum of a committee to meet daily, Sundays excepted, at 9 a.m. to examine into the Plot.<sup>95</sup> Essex also remained busy on Irish matters. On 25 Feb. Ormond wrote to his son, Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I], that Essex had stated matters correctly as to the Irish revenue farm, and asking him to convey to Essex his assurance of the value he placed on Essex’s assistance on matters pertaining to the government of Ireland.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Essex was present on each of the six days of the short session of 6-13 Mar. 1679, being named to three committees. Early in March 1679, Sir William Temple (newly returned to England) thought that Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and the duchess of Portsmouth had joined with Monmouth, Essex and Shaftesbury to ruin Danby.<sup>97</sup> Danby concurred in so far as to regard Essex as a likely opponent in the proceedings against him. A little later, in either March or April, Danby refined his analysis: he still thought Essex a likely opponent, but had added the word ‘unreliable’ to his name. He confirmed Essex’s likely opposition in a further list of about this date. Essex’s name also appears on a list that was probably of those peers that voted for his attainder in the early stages of the bill. In the event, Essex also voted on 4 Apr. for the passage of the attainder bill, and, again on 14 Apr. when the Lords agreed to the Commons’ amendments to the bill.</p><p>Essex attended on 60 days of the session of March to May 1679, some 98 per cent of the total, missing only the fast day on 11 April. He was named to 11 committees during the session, plus the one on Danby noted below. On 18 Mar. Essex reported from the committee for privileges on the state of appeals and impeachments from the last Parliament, recommending that they should be proceeded with as they stood at the dissolution of the last Parliament, without beginning anew. They also found the dissolution did not alter the case of the five Lords in the Tower under a general impeachment. On 20 Mar., in the committee of the whole, Essex offered a proviso to the bill for the discovery and conviction of popish recusants exempting certain named individuals crucial to the king’s escape after the battle of Worcester.<sup>98</sup> On 21 Mar., Essex spoke in the debate occasioned by a message from the Commons requesting that Danby be secured. He suggested that because the Lords had, the previous day, allowed Danby a week to answer the articles against him, ‘that unless you have new matter, you are in some sort engaged in honour to preserve him in the same state till his answer be in, it deserves consideration, therefore if you please allow a little time till tomorrow morning’, which was tantamount to supporting the adjournment of the debate.<sup>99</sup> On the following day, after an intervention from the king, the Lords voted to prepare a bill to disqualify Danby from office, to which committee Essex was named, and he was also appointed to manage a conference with the Commons on Danby.</p><p>On 24 Mar. 1679 Essex was one of three peers ordered to examine the Lords in the Tower concerning matters mentioned in a French pamphlet about the Plot. On the same day he reported from the committee appointed two days before to draft a bill disabling Danby, after the presentation of which Danby was ordered to be taken into custody. Essex then chaired at least one session of the committee of the whole on the bill on 26 March.<sup>100</sup> On 25 Mar. Ossory informed Ormond that although ‘Essex is doubted for his sincerity with that party, and that the king has spoken severely on him, yet I believe his aim is to succeed you.’<sup>101</sup> This may well have been a possibility but, as Ormond pointed out in response, Essex’s appointment as first lord of the treasury on 26 Mar., in the commission that replaced Danby, ‘is such a step … that I think he will not quit it for this government at such a time as this’, especially as he was now the treasury’s spokesman and advisor to the king.<sup>102</sup> On 27 Mar. Essex was deputed by the House to ask the king that £100 be made available at the discretion of the Lords to reward discoverers of the Plot, a task he performed again on 23 April 1679. On 29 Mar., William Ley*, 4th earl of Marlborough, registered his proxy with Essex (vacated by his death in May 1679). On 31 Mar. Essex was one of three peers deputed by the House to ask the king to place restrictions on the movement in Ireland of Colonel Fitzpatrick, a leading Irish Catholic associated with the Butlers.</p><p>On 2 Apr. 1679 Essex spoke in favour of the committal of the bill to attaint Danby: ‘I agree the bill is too severe in being upon the former articles only. Yet I was last Parliament for a commitment of this case because you may as well commit for misdemeanour as for treason, it’s in your judicature. And there’s no reason to refuse committing this bill unless any will say it cannot be mended’.<sup>103</sup> On 4 Apr. he was named to a conference on amendments by the Commons to the Danby attainder bill. He also managed a second conference on 8 Apr., and was named to draw up arguments to be offered at a third conference on the bill.</p><p>On 7 Apr. Essex ‘made a self denying motion’ for leave to bring in a bill ‘to inhibit all future lord treasurers or commissioners of the treasury to make directly or indirectly, by sale of under offices or otherwise, any other benefits or advantages than their mere salaries.’<sup>104</sup> On 8 Apr. Essex brought in the bill, extending it also to the chief governors of Ireland. He chaired a committee on it on 15 Apr., but no further action was taken.<sup>105</sup> On 8 Apr. Henry Coventry wrote to Ormond that Essex was not only a treasury commissioner, but also ‘of the cabinet council and seemeth to be in very good grace.’ On 15 Apr., in a committee of the whole on the state and condition of Ireland, Essex ‘very vigorously’ seconded Shaftesbury when the former ‘brought into the House a copy of Colonel Fitzpatrick’s grant.’<sup>106</sup> Bridgwater then reported that the king be addressed to order Ormond to seize such papists as he deemed fit. A sub-committee, including Essex, was also named to consider which ports and forts should be inserted in the bill for freeing Dublin and other places of popish inhabitants.<sup>107</sup> This led on 17 Apr. to Essex being named as one of the peers deputed to ask the king to order the lord lieutenant to put into force a series of measures for securing the Protestant religion in Ireland. No doubt interpreting the attacks on Fitzpatrick as aimed at Ormond, Ossory considered Essex as ‘one of the bitterest enemies my father has.’<sup>108</sup></p><p>Essex was a supporter of Sir William Temple’s plan to remodel the Privy Council into a more compact body of 30, and not surprisingly, given his prominence and his treasury office, he was named on 22 Apr. to the reorganized body.<sup>109</sup> He also pressed for the inclusion of Shaftesbury.<sup>110</sup> As Southwell noted on 24 Apr., Essex was included on the new council committees concerning ‘intelligence, which will be for secret affairs’, and for Ireland, as well as continuing on the committee for trade and plantations.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Charles II’s speech to Parliament on the 30 Apr. 1679, wherein he reiterated his support for reasonable limitations on any popish successor, was preceded on the 29th by a three-hour debate in the privy council, and was probably influenced by the views of Essex, Sunderland and Halifax who were emerging as the king’s most important counsellors.<sup>112</sup> Indeed, at this time Southwell thought that Essex aimed at being made lord treasurer.<sup>113</sup> On 8 May Essex was appointed to report a conference on the trials of Danby and the Catholic lords in the Tower. Afterwards he dissented from the decision to refuse to have a committee of both Houses consider the manner of the said trials. He was also appointed to report the conference on the supply bill for disbanding the army. On 10 May Essex was named to report another conference on the manner of holding the trials of Danby and the Popish Lords. Following this conference he voted for the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and again entered his dissent over the refusal of the House to do this. He was named to another conference on this matter on 11 May, and then to a joint committee with the Commons to consider ‘of propositions and circumstances’ of the trials. On 13 May Essex dissented from the resolution that the bishops had a right to be present in capital cases until such time as judgment of death was to be pronounced, although, according to some notes submitted to Danby, he had apparently told the House that there was no blood in the case because there was no treason or felony contained in the articles against Danby.<sup>114</sup> This may have been the occasion of an intervention by Essex in which he stated that ‘if the bishops would not vote in the pardon [of Danby], both the trials might be appointed in one day.’<sup>115</sup> The vote on 13 May was explained the following day as the right of the bishops to sit until the Lords came to vote on their guilt. Interestingly, on 27 May, although he voted against the House maintaining this position, Essex was not among the large number of Lords who protested.</p><p>On 3 May Conway had reported that Halifax would succeed to the Irish lieutenancy ‘by the consent and assistance of’ Monmouth, though Essex ‘contests it mightily’.<sup>116</sup> However, on 13 May, one of Ormond’s correspondents identified three competitors for the lieutenancy – Essex, Halifax and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes – noting that ‘two have still mutually joined against the third; which occasions that neither succeeds in his pretensions.’ On 16 May, Essex supported Anglesey’s motion that a date be fixed for the trial of the five Catholic peers, on the grounds that their crimes were far more heinous than Danby’s, as they ‘sought the murder of the king, the change of religion, and subversion of the government’, an opinion contrary to Shaftesbury’s belief that Danby should be tried first.<sup>117</sup></p><p>In council on 27 May, following the Commons’ vote to give a second reading to the exclusion bill a few days earlier, Essex, Sunderland and Halifax supported a prorogation.<sup>118</sup> Southwell, at this date, saw Sunderland, Halifax and Essex as the king’s most important councillors.<sup>119</sup> The question of whether the Parliament should be dissolved dominated debates in council and at cabinet in early July. Essex, Sunderland and Halifax supported dissolution and their views prevailed.<sup>120</sup> The dissolution was announced to the council by the king on 10 July. According to Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, the king had convinced Essex and Halifax to support a dissolution. In council they had argued that a new Parliament was essential as the king was ‘fixed in his resolutions’ concerning Danby’s pardon and against Exclusion. Burnet also noted that Essex ‘bore the censure of the party more mildly’ for his advice, ‘as he was not apt to be much heated’, and was confident that his good intentions would be acknowledged in the end.<sup>121</sup> Certainly, Southwell on 5 July wrote of Sunderland, Halifax and Essex having a ‘monopoly’ of the king, and of Shaftesbury’s bad temper as a result.<sup>122</sup></p><p>In June Southwell reported that in a committee of the council Essex had ‘appeared passionately concerned as touched in a point of honour’ over a sum of about £13,000 that ought to have been paid by Ormond, ‘for which a letter was given him from hence, and made the only request at parting’. Southwell continued, ‘from this and some other passages the bystanders observed there is a good store of discontent lodged in that breast.’ Henry Coventry similarly wrote of Essex’s resentment over the issue. As usual, Ossory was again concerned about his father’s position, writing on 22 July that both Essex and Halifax were being touted as candidates to succeed Ormond, and further that the former, rather than getting on with the examination of the accounts, ‘defers that and insinuates things tending to his being dissatisfied with expenses lately made.’<sup>123</sup></p><p>Essex clearly continued to be an important adviser to the king. On 23 June 1679 along with Arlington, Sunderland, Halifax and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, he was summoned by the king to discuss ‘the queen’s affairs’.<sup>124</sup> In July, York wrote from Brussels that the new Privy Council (dominated by Halifax, Essex and Sunderland) were turning his brother into ‘a duke of Venice’, and that ‘I have long looked on the two first as men that did not love a monarchy, as it was in England’.<sup>125</sup> He was sure that the ruling triumvirate were determined to prevent his return to England for the time being.<sup>126</sup> On 8 July 1679 Ossory wrote that Shaftesbury was ‘not satisfied, nor pleased with the growing interest of my lords of Essex and Halifax.’<sup>127</sup></p><p>Essex continued to take an active part in all aspects of government business. On 8 July 1679 he spoke (unsuccessfully) in council in favour of the complaints by the Scottish lords against the government of John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S].<sup>128</sup> Temple noted about this time that ‘Monmouth had broken all measures with Lord Essex’ and that it was Essex who was ‘most instrumental’ (though assisted by himself, Halifax and Sunderland) in breaking the scheme whereby Monmouth would command a troop of 200 gentlemen for the king’s protection.<sup>129</sup> On 21 July Essex had warned the king that the proposal was likely to cause popular distrust and fears of a standing army.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Robartes, as reported by Danby, noted early in August 1679 the conflict between the king’s wish to make good Danby’s pardon but also to ‘be principally advised by my Lord Halifax and Lord Essex’, who opposed it. Essex was also using his tenure at the treasury to blacken Danby’s reputation: as Danby put it, he was ‘under the blackest malice of those who are entrusted with greatest power; especially my Lord Essex, who affords me not the usage of a gentleman in the liberty he takes daily of reproaching me in the treasury with expressions neither becoming him or me’.<sup>131</sup> Attempts to control royal finances, especially by instituting economies, were crucial to the king’s ability to survive without recourse to Parliament and as Southwell had realized by 30 Sept., while Essex’s ‘parsimony’ at the treasury was favourable to the king, it was upsetting to his former allies, like Shaftesbury, who hoped that financial necessity would force the king to concede their demands. By this date Southwell also thought that Essex would not succeed in his ambition to be lord treasurer, and that, even with Halifax, he ‘cannot carry some points that would be popular’.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Halifax and Essex were among those who advised York to return to England when the king suffered a serious illness on 21 Aug., although they wanted him to retire again when the king recovered.<sup>133</sup> In September Essex seemed to be conducting much of his treasury business from his house in St. James’s Square, a practice that continued into October, perhaps for reasons of secrecy.<sup>134</sup> No doubt there were also many political dinners such as that recorded by John Evelyn on 14 Sept., when Essex dined at Sunderland’s with Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth, Laurence Hyde*, the future earl of Rochester, and Sidney Godolphin*, the future earl of Godolphin.<sup>135</sup></p><p>In October, Essex was implicated in the Meal Tub Plot.<sup>136</sup> Temple saw it as a significant cause of the growing discontent with the court exhibited by Essex and Halifax that they were left out of the ‘secret examinations’ into it.<sup>137</sup> Thomas Dangerfield implicated Essex in the conspiracy.<sup>138</sup> At the beginning of November, Essex was reportedly at Cassiobury to discuss with his wife her belief that he should quit his office.<sup>139</sup> On 4 Nov. Southwell considered Essex to be ‘most zealously prone’ to press for Parliament to meet, and on 8 Nov. to be ‘at his wits end to know what will become of matters; and as a good expedient grows very keen in the matter of the plot.’<sup>140</sup></p><p>At the Privy Council on 9 Nov. Essex was one of those to argue argued that Parliament should sit as originally planned on 26 Jan. 1680. The king, however, would not allow a debate on the matter.<sup>141</sup> No doubt this was a major reason why Essex resigned his place on the treasury board on the evening of 16 November. His decision to resign may have been why on 15 Nov. Henry Sydney*, the future earl of Romney, had found Essex ‘apt to laugh and despise the treasury’.<sup>142</sup> Explanations for his conduct were many and various. Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> attributed his resignation to either ‘the apprehension of the public danger or of his own or out of some private pique.’<sup>143</sup> Another expressed the opinion that ‘the meanness of touching French money to be the reason that makes my Lord Essex squeasy stomach, that it can no longer digest his employment.’<sup>144</sup> He retained his membership of the Privy Council, according to Burnet, at the king’s earnest desire.’<sup>145</sup> Southwell, on the other hand, thought that Essex had resigned to demonstrate his support for the sitting of Parliament, and that after consulting Shaftesbury, he had been advised to remain on the Council.<sup>146</sup> Essex continued to oppose the king’s decision to prorogue Parliament, seconding Temple in the council on 10 Dec. by noting that financial exigency required supply.<sup>147</sup> Southwell, on 13 Dec., thought that Essex was so incensed by the prorogation ‘that were not Ireland in his head the privy council would not longer hold him.’<sup>148</sup></p><p>According to Temple, Essex was keenly involved in the debates in council concerning Irish affairs, in part at least because he wanted to return to Ireland as lord lieutenant.<sup>149</sup> Ossory too was convinced that Essex desired the lord lieutenancy. This was why, he thought, in December 1679 Essex did ‘very maliciously inveigh’ against the bill sent over from Ireland for confirming the land settlement there. The following month Ossory told his father that ‘Essex makes it his work to catch hold of anything that may prejudice you, especially in what relates to the late Irish bill.’<sup>150</sup></p><p>When, on 28 Jan. 1680, the king told the council that he had allowed York to return, Shaftesbury issued an appeal to some of the council to resign, including Essex.<sup>151</sup> Essex chose to remain on the Council, although his brother, Sir Henry Capell*, the future Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, together with William Cavendish*, then, styled Lord Cavendish, the future duke of Devonshire, William Russell, styled Lord Russell<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Powle<sup>‡</sup>, resigned.<sup>152</sup></p><p>When Shaftesbury revealed the Irish Plot to the council on 24 Mar., Essex apparently took it seriously and was named to a committee to consider information about the plans of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, and his clergy, to deliver the kingdom to the French.’<sup>153</sup> He may have wavered briefly for on 17 Apr. Burnet wrote that Shaftesbury now ‘complains mightily’, of Essex, ‘who was at first very much possessed with a belief of it, and did of a sudden fall from it.’ However, on 15 May, Burnet thought that Essex had been convinced by the Irish informer, David Fitzgerald.<sup>154</sup> Ormond, on the other hand, was scathing about some of the Irish witnesses, referring on 12 Apr. to ‘Essex’s tool’ as a ‘silly drunken vagabond’. So wrapped up in it did Essex become that in May the king was overheard referring to ‘my Lord of Essex and his plot.’<sup>155</sup></p><p>On 16 Apr. 1680, the dowager countess of Sunderland thought Essex ‘as much at court as if he had more employment than a Privy Councillor, and I believe he repents he is not, now he sees the king does not do irregular things, which perhaps they did fear.’<sup>156</sup> Essex attended the prorogation of Parliament on 15 Apr. 1680, before leaving on 18 Apr. for a visit to Cassiobury with John Evelyn; his guest noted that ‘being no friend of the D[uke of York he] was now laid aside; his integrity and abilities being not so suitable in this conjuncture.’<sup>157</sup> On 26 Apr., at a council meeting, Essex was ordered to interrogate Colonel Roderick Mansell about rumours of the black box which supposedly contained evidence of the king’s marriage to Monmouth’s mother.<sup>158</sup> On 5 June Essex, as one of those present at the council when the king made his solemn declaration of being married to none but the queen, was summoned to swear to this fact in chancery on 15 June.<sup>159</sup></p><p>On 18 May 1680 Ossory reported from London concerning initiatives for Irish bills from London, noting that proposals for a test to exclude Catholic peers from the Irish parliament had been made by Essex who ‘will rest satisfied with having been the promoter.’<sup>160</sup> During the summer of 1680, Essex remained busy. On 9 June, Sir Edward Dering<sup>‡</sup> referred to Essex as being present at a meeting at the treasury over the excise farm, and in July he was one of those named to the court of delegates to review the decision on the Hyde-Emerton marriage.<sup>161</sup></p><p>The death of Ossory on 30 July 1680 gave Essex fresh hopes for succeeding Ormond in the lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>162</sup> John Locke, writing to Shaftesbury on 5 Aug., also thought that Ormond would be recalled, though he thought it ‘hard to conceive it shall be to make way for my Lord of Essex, though he be a man of known merit.’<sup>163</sup> In August and September, Essex was still being called to assist the king and council on Irish matters.<sup>164</sup> According to Temple, after six months of pursuing his aim of a return to Ireland through various ‘engines’ at court, Essex changed tack and ‘began to fall into a new commerce with Lord Shaftesbury’, the latter promising to make him lord lieutenant if he joined him.<sup>165</sup></p><p>Essex was one of the most prominent peers advising the king that York should return into exile before the Parliament sat.<sup>166</sup> On 12 Oct. 1680, Essex, in the company of Sunderland, Halifax and Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), waited on York to ask him to retire voluntarily.<sup>167</sup> As Dr. Denton reported on 13 Oct., York had been told by Essex, among others, of ‘his danger, and withal that they must secure the Protestant religion without respect of persons’. York left for Scotland the day before Parliament sat.<sup>168</sup></p><p>Essex attended on the opening day of the session of 1680-1, on 21 Oct., when, together with James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, he introduced Halifax, newly promoted to an earldom, into the House. He sat on 58 days of the session, nearly 88 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees during the session, including the committee to receive information on the Plot, which he chaired between 4-21 Dec. and 5-8 Jan. 1681.<sup>169</sup> On 1 Nov. 1680 Essex was noted as attending a meeting of the ‘committee for Irish affairs’ held at Burlington’s house.<sup>170</sup> On 8 Nov. Essex moved the House successfully for the clerk of the parliaments to transfer to the treasury all the records in his possession relating to the estates of Jesuits executed for treason, such estates being forfeit to the crown. Essex was one of those peers who oversaw the order of 13 Nov. to erase from the Journals the proceeding of February 1677 against Buckingham, Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Wharton. On 15 Nov., Essex was amongst those who ‘were zealous and violent for’ the Exclusion bill.<sup>171</sup> Not surprisingly he voted against putting the question that the bill be rejected after its first reading, against its rejection, and entered his dissent when the bill was rejected.</p><p>On 16 Nov. 1680, when the Lords proceeded to discuss other measures for securing the succession, Essex proposed ‘that an association should be entered into to maintain these expedients’ and the House agreed to consider one based on the precedents of Edward III and Elizabeth.<sup>172</sup> It was also reported that Essex had moved for a clause that the strategically important governorships of the Tower, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Hull be disposed of only to those approved of by Parliament.<sup>173</sup> Essex was named to the sub-committee to draft the proposal, presenting head of a bill which the committee adopted.<sup>174</sup> The House agreed to draw up a bill on 23 Nov. 1680, but it was never presented to the House. On the same day Essex voted for the motion to appoint a committee to join with the Commons ‘to debate matters concerning the state of the kingdom,’ and entered a protest when the motion was defeated. On 27 Nov. he was one of five peers appointed to a committee to adjust with the Commons the methods and circumstances of Stafford’s trial, reporting from it on 30 November. On 7 Dec. Essex voted Stafford guilty of treason.<sup>175</sup></p><p>On 13 Dec. 1680 Essex reported from the committee examining the Plot, on the exemplary services of William Southall, coroner of Staffordshire, which resulted in a request for a reward to him from the king. On the following day he reported from the same committee on the activities of several ‘papists’, and also on the discoveries made by Oates of the estates of the Jesuits: the latter was referred to the barons of the exchequer to be proceeded upon by law. On 16 Dec. Essex reported on the proceedings against Francis Dowdall, who had claimed privilege as a servant of the Spanish ambassador, and who was ordered to return to Brussels. On 21 Dec. Essex joined Monmouth and Salisbury in attacking two of York’s most prominent supporters, Laurence Hyde and George Legge*, the future Baron Dartmouth. He joined in a renewed attack on York on 23 Dec., when the House debated the king’s speech of 15 December.<sup>176</sup> Essex also took a severe attitude towards the duchess of Portsmouth who had been favouring exclusion, telling the Lords ‘plainly at last, that the kingdom would neither suffer popish favourites or popish ministers, and that like Samuel he must ask, what meant the bleating of that kind of cattle? To which he hoped the king would make the same answer with Saul, that he only kept them with his other evil councillors to be offered up in sacrifice, to please the people.’<sup>177</sup></p><p>On 4 Jan. 1681, Essex reported from the committee examining into the Plot some information relating to Ireland, which resulted in the House voting that there had been a plot to ‘massacre the English and subverting the protestant religion.’ On 7 Jan. he entered dissent against the failure of the Lords to put the question as to whether Lord Chief Justice Scroggs should be committed upon his impeachment by the Commons and, later, against the decision not to put the question for an address to the king to suspend Scroggs from his place.</p><p>Early in January 1681, Essex denied allegations that he had been involved in drafting articles of impeachment against Ormond. When the king declared in council on 18 Jan. his intention to dissolve Parliament, Essex was said to be one of those who would have spoken against this decision had the king allowed any debate on the matter.<sup>178</sup> On 24 Jan. he was discharged from attending the council, along with Sunderland and Sir William Temple.<sup>179</sup> That evening a group of peers, ‘the protesting Lords’, presumably including Essex, dined at Clare House and drew up a petition that Parliament should sit at the time appointed, but in London not Oxford, which was presented to the king on 25 Jan. by Essex and 15 other peers.<sup>180</sup> In his speech before the king, Essex alluded to various historical precedents for holding parliaments outside London, all of which had had deleterious consequences for the monarchy.<sup>181</sup> The speech earned him the thanks of the Middlesex grand jury and of the City of London.<sup>182</sup> It was less well received at court: he was removed from the lieutenancy of Hertfordshire and on 19 Feb. the lord chancellor was sent instructions to remove his name from all the commissions of the peace of which he was a member.<sup>183</sup></p><p>Before the 1681 session, Danby included Essex amongst those ‘Lords as I conceive will be against me’, in the ensuing Parliament and on 24 Mar. Essex was one of the Lords that opposed a motion for Danby to be granted bail.<sup>184</sup> Essex attended on each of the seven days of the session held in Oxford in March 1681 and was named to four committees. According to Ford Grey*, 3rd baron Grey of Warke, Essex was one of the lords who ‘kept a public table, to which we every day invited several of the House of Commons, and by that means had often opportunities of discoursing with them.’<sup>185</sup> On 21 Mar. Essex accompanied Shaftesbury to wait on the king about the case of Edward Fitzharris.<sup>186</sup> On 26 Mar. he was named to report a conference with the Commons on the constitution of Parliament and the method of passing bills. Later in the day, he protested against the decision to proceed against Fitzharris by means of common law rather than impeachment. Grey also reported a meeting on the day before the dissolution (27 Mar.) with Monmouth, Shaftesbury and Essex about continuing to sit after the king had dissolved Parliament.<sup>187</sup></p><p>Essex attended the proceedings relating to Fitzharris in the king’s bench on 4 and 7 May 1681; he and Salisbury asked the king to allow them access to Fitzharris to discover what he knew concerning Godfrey’s murder. The king instead ordered the judges to examine him.<sup>188</sup> On 8 June, Essex, together with Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, were denied access to the king; he told them to attend him at Windsor on the following day, in full knowledge that they would be present at the trial of Fitzharris at that time.<sup>189</sup> When Essex appealed for the king to pardon Archbishop Plunkett, who had been tried on the same day as Fitzharris, declaring that from his own knowledge the charges against him could not be true, the king declined to do so, replying, ‘be his blood on your conscience’.<sup>190</sup></p><p>On 2 July 1681, Shaftesbury was arrested, apparently asking ‘if they had no warrant for some body else, particularly for the Lord of Essex; to which they gave no answer.’<sup>191</sup> Richard Mulys and Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> both reported rumours around this time that Essex would also be arrested.<sup>192</sup> Essex was in attendance on 8 July 1681 when the grand jury at the Old Bailey threw out the presentment against Stephen College, and he was present and willing to offer bail when the judges refused Shaftesbury’s application for release.<sup>193</sup></p><p>In late September 1681, Essex, together with Monmouth and Russell, was named by the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, as being behind the somewhat belated opposition to the London mayoral candidacy of Sir John Moore<sup>‡</sup>, who was deemed too moderate in the Whig cause. At the same time Jenkins had heard that there was talk of ‘petitioning’ again, presumably for a Parliament, and that Essex, Salisbury and Bedford had been sent for to town.<sup>194</sup> On 25 Oct., Longford thought that Essex was in favour of the attempts of the Dutch ambassador, Van Beuninghen, to obtain a promise of a declaration of war from the king against France, in the hope that it would necessitate calling a Parliament.<sup>195</sup></p><p>On 24 Nov. 1681 Essex attended the Old Bailey when the grand jury was considering the bill for high treason against Shaftesbury, which they subsequently found <em>ignoramus</em>. In December it was reported that Essex, William Howard*, 3rd baron Howard of Escrick, Sir Patience Ward<sup>‡</sup> and others were ‘taking informations daily against those that promoted the Presbyterian sham plot, which they intend to prove in Parliament by undeniable witnesses.’<sup>196</sup> Meanwhile Secretary Jenkins reminded the lord chancellor on 11 Feb. 1682 that the king wished to remove Essex as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the liberty of St. Albans.<sup>197</sup> Essex was uncowed. During March and April he participated in a round of political dinners in the City.<sup>198</sup> He was also one of ‘many persons of quality’ with tickets to attend the Whig inspired feast of the ‘loyal protestant nobility, gentry, clergy and citizens’, that was planned to follow an anti Catholic sermon on 21 Apr. but which was suppressed by order of the king.<sup>199</sup> On 25 July Longford reported that Essex had met with Anglesey (who had recently lost office), presumably in an attempt to enlist his support for their cause.<sup>200</sup></p><h2><em>The Rye House Plot</em></h2><p>On 5 Sept. 1682, when Monmouth left London for his tour of Cheshire, Essex was one of the ‘numerous train’ that escorted him out of the city.<sup>201</sup> Upon Monmouth’s return on 23 Sept. Essex and Shaftesbury immediately paid him a visit.<sup>202</sup> In between, on 15 Sept., Shaftesbury, accompanied by Locke, met other Whig leaders at Cassiobury to consult on political strategy.<sup>203</sup> On 7 Oct. ‘a deep consult’ was held there, ‘amongst the high-flying malcontents’. Even Shaftesbury, who had gone into hiding, was rumoured to have been present.<sup>204</sup></p><p>According to Lord Howard of Escrick’s evidence at the trial of John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, Essex was present at a meeting held at Hampden’s house in mid-January 1683.<sup>205</sup> The first mention of plotting involving Essex made by Grey of Warke, in his later evidence, related to February 1683, when Grey recounted being told at Chichester by Monmouth that together with Essex, Howard, Russell, Algernon Sidney<sup>‡</sup> and Hampden (the so-called council of Six), he (Monmouth) had ‘been contriving insurrections in several parts’, although Monmouth expected disagreements with Essex, Sidney and Hampden because they ‘intended a commonwealth, which could not be without the destruction of the king.’<sup>206</sup> In April 1683, Essex missed a key meeting of the conspirators, according to Grey of Warke, because he arrived too late from the country, despite John Locke being despatched to fetch him to London on 24 April.<sup>207</sup> Essex was however at a later meeting, a week or ten days later, according to Grey of Warke (who was absent from it), when Essex and Sidney were deputed to draw up a declaration of their aims.<sup>208</sup></p><p>Essex was arrested at Cassiobury on 9 July 1683.<sup>209</sup> He was carried to London by a sergeant-at-arms and conducted to Feversham’s lodgings. On the following day, he was examined in the king’s presence and committed to the Tower. Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup> noted that ‘the king is very displeased with him. He is charged, as I hear, to have signed an association.’ On the 12 July having spoken to Clarendon, he ‘made protestations that he knew nothing of any design to murder the king, but he said nothing to vindicate himself from being in other designs upon the government’.<sup>210</sup></p><p>Essex was found with his throat cut on 13 July, leading to speculation as to whether this was a case of murder or suicide. Although suicide seems likely, the length and depth of the wound sustained suspicions of foul play.<sup>211</sup> His fate, had he survived, is uncertain but Evelyn, for one, felt that the king harboured ‘no severe intentions against him’, and that ‘he owed him a life’, a reference to Essex’s father.<sup>212</sup> A verdict of suicide meant that Essex’s personal estate was technically forfeit to the Crown but the king waived his rights so it went instead to the executor, Sir Henry Capell, for distribution to Essex’s son and heir, Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex.<sup>213</sup> Essex was buried on 18 July 1683 in the chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula at the Tower, but his body was soon removed to Watford.<sup>214</sup> A newsletter of 21 July recounted that it was embalmed and ‘privately placed in the vault of his ancestors without the ceremony or solemnity of the Church.’<sup>215</sup></p><p>Contemporary opinion on Essex remained divided. Francis North*, Baron Guilford, on reflection, thought that</p><blockquote><p>his anguish of mind was so great considering the disappointment of his ambitious designs, the stain of ingratitude that lay upon him, for conspiring to make trouble against the king that had been so bountiful a master, and the past happy condition which he had changed for so the worse, when he deserted the king’s service, that I believe he could take no rest and his life was burthensome to him.<sup>216</sup></p></blockquote><p>But, as Evelyn put it, few believed that Essex and Russell had ‘any evil intention against his majesty or the Church, and some that they were cunningly drawn in by their enemies, for not approving some late councils and management of affairs in relation to France, to popery, to the prosecution of dissenters.’<sup>217</sup></p><p>For the next few years the death of Essex continued to resonate in the public mind. Periodic prosecutions occurred following the publication of tracts vindicating Essex from the crime of suicide, and accusing York of being behind the foul deed.<sup>218</sup> An attorney, Laurence Braddon, continued to make enquiries into his death, and to publish inflammatory pamphlets, until silenced by the courts. In his declaration of 1685, Monmouth referred to James II ‘hiring execrable villains to assassinate the late earl of Essex,’ and, according to John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, one of the things promised by the prince of Orange was that the murder of Essex would be investigated.<sup>219</sup> Once the Convention met, the Lords appointed a committee on 23 Jan. 1689 to inquire into his death, which became a smaller ‘secret’ committee on 5 February. Several people were arrested and detained for several months. The committee’s enquiries seemed to have been suspended in May 1689 and those in prison released on bail the following month.</p><p>The controversy eventually died down. Roger Morrice recorded an unidentified knight say that he was convinced of the suicide ‘because his lady said upon her best enquiry she could see no ground to make further search after his death’.<sup>220</sup> Ailesbury was similarly also doubtful that it was homicide once he heard the story of how Essex had commended Henry Percy<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Northumberland, for committing suicide the morning of his execution in 1585, a story Evelyn also picked up.<sup>221</sup> Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I] and Baron Butler of Weston, made a similar point, but with reference to the suicide of Alderman Mark Quinn of Dublin in or about November 1674, while Essex was lord lieutenant: ‘I do not much wonder at the manner of it, for I and other persons of quality here heard him say, when Alderman Quinn cut his throat with a razor, that he thought it was an easy kind of death’.<sup>222</sup></p><p>On 2 Nov. 1689, the Lords revived the committee appointed on 5 Feb. to examine Essex’s death, but again the enquiry petered out.<sup>223</sup> This was probably due to the intervention of the dowager countess, who had summoned Bishop Burnet and some other Whigs to tell them of her own belief in her husband’s suicide.<sup>224</sup> Eventually, she and Burnet utilized the <em>London Gazette</em> to disown some of Braddon’s claims.<sup>225</sup> In April 1680 John Evelyn had described Essex as ‘a sober, wise, judicious and pondering person, not illiterate beyond the rate of most noblemen in this age, very well versed in our English histories and affairs, industrious, frugal, methodical, and every way accomplished.’<sup>226</sup> This seems to have been a widely held view, with Ailesbury referring to him as ‘my wife’s uncle, a most ingenious and sweet-tempered man as ever lived.’<sup>227</sup> Burnet noted that when Charles II was asked to solicit Essex and Holles in the Lords over a judicial matter the king declined because ‘they were stiff and sullen men’, meaning by that that they acted by their conscience’.<sup>228</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
CAPELL, Henry (1638-96) |
<p><strong><surname>CAPELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1638–96)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>11 Apr. 1692 Bar. CAPELL OF TEWKESBURY |
|
First sat 9 Nov. 1692; last sat 2 May 1693 |
|
MP Tewkesbury 1660–Mar. 1681; Cockermouth 1689–90; Tewkesbury 1690–11 Apr. 1692 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 6 Mar. 1638, 3rd s. of Arthur Capel<sup>†</sup>, Baron Capell, of Hadham, Essex, and Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir Charles Morrison, 1st bt.<sup>‡</sup>, of Cassiobury, Herts.; bro. of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex. <em>m</em>. (settlement 16 Feb. 1659), Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1721), da. and coh. of Richard Bennet of Chancery Lane, London, and Kew, Surr. <em>s.p.</em> KB 23 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 30 May 1696; <em>will</em> 8 Sept. 1692, pr. 4 Jan. 1697.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [I], 1673–85, 1693–<em>d</em>.; ld. of admiralty 1679–80; PC 21 Apr. 1679–31 Jan. 1680, 14 Feb. 1689–<em>d</em>.; ld. of treasury 1689–90; ld. justice [I], 1693–May 1695; ld. dep. [I], May 1695–<em>d</em>.; commr. appeals in prizes 1694–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Steward of Ogmore, Glam. 1662–92; chief steward, manor of Richmond 1690–<em>d</em>; high steward, Tewkesbury by 1695–<em>d</em>.; dep. lt. Glos. 1660–?81, 1694–<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> freeman, Dublin 1695.</p><p>Gov. Soc. of Mineral and Battery Works 1689–<em>d</em>.; mbr. Soc. of Mines Royal 1690.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: miniature, watercolour on vellum by John Hoskins, c.1655, NPG 5703; oil on canvas by Sir Peter Lely c.1659, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.</p> |
<p>Capell sat in the Commons throughout the reign of Charles II, becoming an influential figure, office-holder and advocate of exclusion. His support for the 1688 Revolution was also crucial in determining his future conduct. In his will, made in September 1692, he portrayed himself as having ‘steadily endeavoured to assert the true protestant religion, the rights of the crown and those of the people giving entirely my assistance and consent to this revolution as the only means to support the same’.</p><p>Having served in the first post-revolution Treasury commission, Capell lost office in March 1690, but his fortunes changed early in 1692. As reported by Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, the marriage of his nephew Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, to the daughter of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, on 28 Feb. 1692, was clearly linked to the news which emerged two days later that Capell was to be raised to the peerage.<sup>3</sup> Capell’s elevation prompted Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> to comment that the Commons would be deprived of ‘a most useful member’.<sup>4</sup> Capell’s relationship to Portland may also explain why, in May 1692, he was seen as a candidate for the post of treasurer of the chamber, vacated by Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Capell was introduced into the House on 9 Nov. 1692 by James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, and Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. On 29 Dec. he was named to inspect the Journals for precedents concerning whether the resolution of the Commons delivered on the 21st, approving the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, was according to the usual proceedings in Parliament, and to consider heads of a conference with the Commons. He was then named on 4 Jan. 1693 to manage the actual conference. He voted on 31 Dec. against the committal of the place bill and against the bill’s passage on 3 Jan. 1693. At the end of December or the beginning of January, he was forecast by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, as likely to support the Norfolk divorce bill.</p><p>On 24 Jan. 1693 Capell was named to a committee to draw up a resolution on the book <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em>, which had been ordered to be burnt, and later in the day he was named to manage a conference about the resultant resolution, and presumably was a manager the following day when another conference was ordered on the matter. Capell’s absence from the Lords on 2 Feb. is perhaps explained by reports that on that day the king dined with him ‘nigh Richmond’, presumably meaning his residence at Kew.<sup>6</sup> On 4 Feb. he was one of the minority of 14 peers who voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder, apparently regarding the evidence of the coachman as vital and accepting that since two men attacked a man who died, both of them were guilty of the murder.<sup>7</sup> On 9 Feb. he put in an answer to an appeal being considered by the Lords in the case of <em>Boevey v. Smith</em>, but only in his role as a trustee for one of the parties.<sup>8</sup> On 1 and 3 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions. He had attended on a further 45 days of the session of 1691–2, nearly 43 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 13 committees. He also attended the prorogation on 2 May 1693.</p><p>Shortly after this, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, informed Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, that Capell, Sir Cyril Wyche<sup>‡</sup> and William Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> were to replace him as lords justices. Warrants were issued for their appointment on 19 June.<sup>9</sup> Capell had been mentioned as a possible lord lieutenant of Ireland as early as January 1693, following the sudden prorogation of the Irish parliament by Sydney.<sup>10</sup> Capell was clearly not well, even before his departure, for on 1 June he wrote to John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, ‘I am informed that you have the best preparation of steel that is in England. I have taken it lately in substance but with no agreement to my stomach. There is no physic so proper for me’, and asking for some of his cure.<sup>11</sup></p><p>With Sydney expected in London at the beginning of July 1693, Capell and Duncombe stayed for his arrival.<sup>12</sup> One of the topics of discussion while they waited was the advisability of calling a parliament in Ireland for later in 1693, or the following spring, given the troubles experienced by Sydney in 1692.<sup>13</sup> Capell left London on 10 July, departing from Kew on the 11th with a plea to Nottingham that ‘without our credit here in what relates to the public we can have none there’. He arrived in Dublin on the 27th.<sup>14</sup></p><p>That his brother Essex had served as lord lieutenant to general approbation in the 1670s induced optimism in some Irish politicians. Capell’s whiggery was also seen as a positive attribute, especially as the king was beginning to turn to the emerging Whig Junto to form the backbone of his ministry in England. That Capell was clearly seen as an associate of the forces shaping the administration was shown by the comment of Henry Boyle<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Carleton, on 6 Sept. 1693 upon his own departure to Ireland: ‘I suppose it will not be long before we know what our great statesmen have agreed upon at Althorp. I am sure my Lord Capell is too wise to tell me, if he knows’ – a reference to the conclave held there in late August.<sup>15</sup> Capell was critical of the refusal of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, to accept the secretaryship after Nottingham’s removal, noting to Russell in terms which indicate a shared outlook,</p><blockquote><p>we have often been blamed as men contented with nothing: and if the church, the law, the fleet, the army (in regard to [Thomas] Tollemarche’s<sup>‡</sup> great station), and the offering of both seals to be in the hands of our friends (the obstacle to common safety, my Lord Nottingham, being removed), will not give content, what must, nay, what will the world say of us?<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>While in Ireland, Capell was granted leave of absence from Parliament on 14 Nov. 1693 and 26 Nov. 1694, being noted on both occasions as out of the country. He did not register his proxy while abroad, nor was he keen to allow Irish peers to vote by proxy in the Irish House of Lords, fearing that it would reduce royal influence.<sup>17</sup> In February 1694 he was too ill to sign letters with his fellow lords justices. However, by the end of the month it was being reported that he had recovered from his indisposition.<sup>18</sup> On 14 Mar., upon receiving notification of Shrewsbury’s reappointment as secretary of state, he wrote to James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, ‘if we lose the king a second time, I think I may say our friends are bunglers in politics as well as in court behaviour’.<sup>19</sup> Capell and Shrewsbury were soon in discussions as to the merits of calling an Irish parliament, the latter suggesting in April 1694 that Capell’s ‘prudence and popularity’ would enable him to manage affairs in order to avoid the ‘heats’ of the previous session. Certainly, there was a political affinity between the two men, Shrewsbury referring to ‘that principle which you and I have been ready to own’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>At the end of May 1694, news reached Whitehall that ‘Lord Capell is dead, which gains the more belief because our last advices from Ireland said he was very ill.’<sup>21</sup> This proved not to be the case, but news of his illness had also reached the Dutch envoy, L’Hermitage, who wrote on 25 May that Capel was ‘very ill and in great danger’.<sup>22</sup> Common reports suggested that he had dropsy.<sup>23</sup> He had recovered by the beginning of July.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Following his recovery, it became clear that Capell differed from his two fellow lords justices in advocating the calling of a new parliament in Ireland.<sup>25</sup> Unlike Wyche and Duncombe, Capell exuded optimism, expressing the view that ‘all heats will be laid aside’, albeit with the caveat that ‘no man can be sure what a parliament [will] or will not do, when they come together’. In the event, an Irish parliament was delayed because of the desire to avoid the simultaneous sitting of both the English and the Irish parliaments. Capell remained committed to an Irish parliament, seeking an acknowledgment in October 1694 that it would meet in order to facilitate work on the bills to be sent to the Privy Council in England, and also ‘considering the business of Ireland has seldom a quick dispatch there, there must be allowed several months for a perfect dispatch of all bills, besides other necessaries to be done before the opening of a parliament, wherein the king’s pleasure must be known’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Capell was negotiating with the leaders of the opposition in the Irish parliament of 1692, to ensure a smooth parliamentary session. A compromise began to emerge whereby the crown would gain a supply by sending over just one minor piece of financial legislation, which the Irish Commons would allow, and thereby preserve the royal prerogative. The leaders of the Commons would no longer insist on their ‘sole right’ to initiate financial legislation, but would provide for most of the crown’s supply by producing heads of bills for transmission to London. In return the crown would allow the Commons to legislate for the security of the Protestant interest with a series of penal laws against Catholics. There was also a change in personnel, with many of the opposition of 1692 being given office and some of the judiciary replaced.<sup>27</sup> As early as 15 Nov. 1694 Capell had outlined to Shrewsbury the changes he thought necessary, and most of them had been agreed before Capell’s appointment as lord deputy on 5 May 1695, the appropriate warrants being ordered a few days later. <sup>28</sup></p><p>Capell’s appointment as lord deputy was also essential for the scheme to work. He had been beset by doubts about the security of his position as he was a long way from London and the centre of political power. His relationship with Shrewsbury survived a minor scare in late October 1694, when Capell came to believe that the latter was intent on supplanting him, but Shrewsbury was able to use their mutual friends, John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Ralph Montagu*, earl of Montagu, to assuage his fears.<sup>29</sup> Similarly, Portland reassured him on 20 Nov. 1694 that Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Coningsby, and a former Irish lord justice, had not threatened his position while in Holland with the king.<sup>30</sup> More to the point was the need to defeat plans to join another justice with him in the government. As Capell wrote to Shrewsbury in late December 1694, this threatened his tacit agreement with some of the parliamentary leaders, who were</p><blockquote><p>contented to waive the sole right, yet they did it in hopes of a lasting settlement and good laws, which they expected from me, in whom they had a confidence, but if this hope was taken away, and another added to me, they did not think it reasonable I should expect they should continue in the compliance I had brought them to, when … it may not be in my power … to make the returns they assured themselves of.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>Capell was able to succeed in his plans because of support from the emerging Whig Junto and also at court, where he was backed by Portland and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. On 21 May 1695, the lords justices in England asked Capell to begin preparing bills for consideration in an Irish parliament, and to send them over to England.<sup>32</sup> This was the start of a legislative programme which resulted in a financial settlement for the crown and a series of penal laws to enhance Protestant security, namely the bills ‘for disarming Irish papists, for preventing them from keeping horses … [and] for restraining foreign education’, as Capell had characterized them as early as July 1694 when he sent the secretary of state, Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup>, a putative legislative programme. On 18 June 1695 he informed Shrewsbury that he had sent over to England the first tranche of bills, with a long exposition as to how to maintain the king’s prerogative over the ‘sole’ right by sending over only one money bill to be tendered in turn to the Irish Commons.<sup>33</sup> Capell’s scheme was for a bill for an additional excise (which would raise only £14,000) to retain the king’s right to initiate financial legislation, and for the Commons to produce heads of bills to raise the remaining funds. The Irish lord chancellor, Sir Charles Porter<sup>‡</sup>, feared that this scheme depended upon no opposition being raised, which, if it touched on the question of ‘sole right’ would hamstring the session.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Capell still worried about the English political situation, support in England being important for his chances of success. On 15 Aug. 1695 he wrote to Vernon of his concern about Russell’s replacement by Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>: ‘I apprehend it is the beginning of breaking that chain of ministry that is now reasonably in the possession of the Whigs.’<sup>35</sup> Once the Irish parliament met on 27 Aug. 1695 there followed a stream of upbeat assessments of progress from Capell to Shrewsbury. When the Irish Commons considered the state of the nation, there was some criticism of the previous regime, but Capell made efforts to keep Sydney (now earl of Romney) and Coningsby off ‘the stage’, while suggesting that Porter’s supporters were strong enough to protect him, which eventually proved to be the case, despite several of Capell’s managers being involved in the attempts to impeach him.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Capell would have liked to engineer the removal of Porter, not least because of a differing political outlook, and to assuage his allies in the Irish parliament. On 6 Oct. 1695, while reporting some success in limiting the ‘heats’ against Romney and Coningsby, he offered the comment that ‘the most considerable gentlemen … as to estates and credit in the country, vote against him [Porter], looking upon him as a man of no integrity, being verily persuaded he is not true to the king’s interest’. Indeed, Capell thought that giving vent to the Commons’ hostility to Porter had actually helped to facilitate supply.<sup>37</sup> Nevertheless, Capell would not move openly against Porter: ‘I keep myself unconcerned, refusing my lord chancellor to be of his side, but giving a freedom to everyone to vote as they please.’<sup>38</sup> Porter viewed his stance differently, noting at the end of October that Capell had ‘concerned himself against me’ and that this had increased the numbers voting for his impeachment, which was rejected by 122 votes to 77.<sup>39</sup> Others, such as John Freke, agreed, believing that ‘the lord deputy is content to appease the rage of the Irish gentlemen by suffering the chancellor [Porter] to be a sacrifice and thereby save the other two [Romney and Coningsby]’.<sup>40</sup> Meanwhile, on 1 Oct. Capell wrote to Portland in an attempt to get the king to prevent Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, setting up the Irish chancellor, Philip Savage, ‘a person that really lies so across the King’s affairs that I do not see any man like him in the House of Commons here’ for Colchester.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Following the adjournment of the Irish parliamentary session on 28 Oct. 1695, Capell faced the possibility that the attack on Porter would be transferred to Westminster, no doubt to the annoyance of the king, who did not want anything to disrupt the forthcoming parliamentary session.<sup>42</sup> On 17 Nov. he wrote to Somers regarding Porter: ‘I have had great difficulty to bring the gentlemen not to prosecute this business in the Parliament of England. But I think they will not break their words with me, and therefore this and your Parliament in England will be quiet this session.’<sup>43</sup> Soon after the Irish parliament reconvened, Capell wrote an assessment of its proceedings to Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon: ‘they soon fell into measures necessary for their own preservation and what was legally due to the crown in the business of the sole right’, and a supply of £163,000 had been granted. He had also prevented the attempt to renew the impeachment of Lord Chancellor Porter in England.<sup>44</sup></p><p>The end of the session in Ireland on 14 Dec. 1695 did not end the sniping between Capell and Porter. On 11 Jan. 1696 Capell wrote to Shrewsbury of his own civility towards the lord chancellor and the fact that he ‘never interposed to his prejudice’ during the parliamentary session. He went on to question Porter’s proceedings towards him and his loyalty to the government. Needless to say, the discovery of the Assassination Plot presented Capell with an opportunity to reassert this point, in the hope that it would make the king consider whether he should continue to employ ‘persons who are esteemed dubious to your interest, and easy to be reconciled to the late king’s’.<sup>45</sup></p><p>By April 1696 Capell was ill again. Porter wrote on 22 Apr. that he could not get out of his chair</p><blockquote><p>without the help of two men, nor can he walk when he is up without being supported … his voice is very much sunk, his legs wasted to skin and bone and he has no stomach, nor has he the benefit of nature without the help of the apothecary. And yet he seems not sensible that he is in any danger.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>By the end of the month, Capell had come round to the need to appoint lords justices to administer the kingdom until he had recovered and, having retired out of Dublin to Chapelizod, he wrote on 3 May naming Murrough Boyle, Viscount Blessington [I], and Brigadier William Wolseley ‘justices during my sickness’.<sup>47</sup> John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡ </sup>of Capell’s ‘strange illness’ and of his surprise at the nomination of Blessington and Wolseley, and the ‘wonder’ at the fact that ‘so many of the nobility, as well as my lord chancellor [Porter], who is first in commission here’, had been passed over. He expected Porter to challenge the nominations.<sup>48</sup></p><p>On 14 May 1696 it was reported that Capell ‘was yesterday pretty well, and abroad both in the morning and afternoon in the garden to take the air, but last night presently after he went to bed he fell ill, and had two convulsion fits, he is come again to himself, but there is little hopes of his recovery’.<sup>49</sup> This assessment proved to be accurate: Capell died at Chapelizod on the evening of 30 May.<sup>50</sup> Ironically, the Irish Privy Council then chose Porter as one of the lords justices until the king’s further pleasure was known.<sup>51</sup> When Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton, was mooted as a successor, he was described as bearing the character ‘of a hot, loose, lewd man, a temper very remote from that of Lord Capell’s’.<sup>52</sup> After his death, Capell’s body was brought back from Ireland, for burial at Hadham, as directed in his will (the codicil about being buried in Ireland was ignored), in a vault which would hopefully be made for his father ‘so loyal and great a man’.<sup>53</sup> Capell was finally buried at Little Hadham on 8 Sept. 1696.</p><p>As if to confirm Capell’s party identity, Shrewsbury wrote on 23 June 1696 that if both Lord Chancellor Porter and the earl of Drogheda [I] were named to a commission of three lord justices, ‘it will put the party that was Lord Capell’s into more despair and rage, than may be advisable in the circumstances of that kingdom’.<sup>54</sup> Indeed, in July 1697 John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Shrewsbury of ‘my Lord Capell’s friends, as they are still called’, and repeated the phrase in August.<sup>55</sup> Capell’s widow was left a handsome jointure by his death, as was reported on her death in June 1721, the ultimate beneficiary being her nephew William Capell*, 3rd earl of Essex.<sup>56</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
CAPELL, William (1697-1743) |
<p><strong><surname>CAPELL</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1697–1743)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1697-1710 Visct. Malden; <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Jan. 1710 (a minor) as 3rd earl of ESSEX. |
|
First sat 11 Nov. 1718; last sat 4 May 1742 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1697, s. of Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, and Mary, da. of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. <em>educ</em>. LLD Cambs. 25 Apr. 1728. <em>m</em>. (1) 27 Nov. 1718 Jane (<em>d</em>. 1724), da. of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester (later 4th earl of Clarendon), 4da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 2 or 3 Feb. 1726 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1784), da.of Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 4da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> KT 1725-38; KG 1738. <em>d</em>. 8 or 9 Jan. 1743;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 16 May 1740, pr. 26 Jan. 1743.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber to George*, prince of Wales 1719-27, to George II 1727-<em>d</em>.; envoy, Turin 1731-2, amb. Turin 1732-37; PC 12 Feb. 1735; capt. Yeomen of the guard 4 Dec. 1739-<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Herts. 1722-<em>d</em>.; ranger, St James’s Park 1727-39,<sup>5</sup> Hyde Park 1728-39.<sup>6</sup></p><p>FRS 17 Nov. 1737.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. to G. Knapton, c.1735, Watford Museum.</p> |
<p>Essex succeeded to the title while probably just short of his thirteenth birthday. Soon after achieving his majority he was appointed to the household of the prince of Wales and in later life he served as a diplomat in Italy. He probably died on 8 or 9 Jan. 1743, though one contemporary newspaper dated 10 Jan. gave his death as having occurred the previous Saturday (5 January).<sup>9</sup> He was succeeded in the title by his second son by his second marriage. His career will be considered in detail in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CAREY, Henry (c. 1580-1666) |
<p><strong><surname>CAREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1580–1666)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 17 Apr. 1617 as 4th Bar. HUNSDON; <em>cr. </em>6 July 1621 Visct. ROCHFORD; <em>cr. </em>8 Mar. 1628 earl of DOVER. |
|
First sat 30 Jan. 1621; first sat after 1660, 19 May 1660; last sat 31 Jan. 1662 |
|
MP Suss. 2 Nov. 1609, Herts. 1614. |
<p><em>b.</em> c.1580, 2nd but o. surv. s of John Carey<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Hunsdon and Mary, da. of Leonard Hyde of Throcking, Herts., wid. of Richard Peyton of Little Chesterford, Essex. <em>educ.</em> Camb. M.A. 1607; travelled abroad 1612; Oxf. DCL 1642. <em>m.</em> (1) 4 Feb. 1607, Judith (<em>bur</em>. 1 Nov. 1629), da. of Sir Thomas Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Laughton, Suss. 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 4da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 6 July 1630, Mary (<em>d.</em> 24 Dec. 1648), da. of Richard Morris of Eastcheap, London, wid. of Sir William Cokayne of Broad Street, London, ld. mayor 1619-20, <em>s.p</em>. KB 2 June 1610. <em>bur</em>. c. 13 Apr. 1666.</p> |
<p>Commr. Forced Loan, Herts. 1627, array, Herts. 1642, defence, Oxford 1645.</p><p>Vol. life gds. (horse) 1642; col. regt. of foot (roy.) 1644-6.</p><p>Mbr. Guianna Co. 1627.</p> |
|
<p>Henry Carey succeeded his father as 4th Baron Hunsdon on 17 Apr. 1617.<sup>2</sup> From the time of his succession to the outbreak of the Civil War he maintained a prominent place in the administration of the many counties with which he was connected through his own family and that of his wife’s, serving in the local government – as a justice of the peace and a commissioner of oyer and terminer, gaol delivery, highways, sewers and even swans – in Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Essex. He attached himself to George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, marquess (later duke) of Buckingham by whose favour he was created Viscount Rochford ‘for services done or to be done’. He later protested to Buckingham that ‘I would willingly wade in blood at any time to manifest myself yours’. He was a commissioner to collect the forced loan in Hertfordshire in 1627 and, perhaps with this service in mind, Charles I created him earl of Dover in 1628. By 1630 he was still ‘very much indebted’ and hard pressed to make suitable portions for his daughters. He temporarily found some relief by making a financially advantageous second marriage, solemnized in July 1630, barely eight months after the death of his first wife, with Mary, widow and heiress of the wealthy former lord mayor of London, Sir William Cokayne. This match brought him houses on Broad Street in the heart of the London and at Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey, another south-eastern county where in the period just before the outbreak of Civil War he began to play some part in local administration.</p><p>Dover sided with the king in 1640-42 and the summer of 1642 had joined Charles I in his travels. He was impeached by the Commons in July for deserting Parliament and barred from further sitting in the House of Lords.<sup>3</sup> He fought for the king at Edgehill in October, where his son and heir John Carey*, styled Lord Rochford (later 2nd earl of Dover), fought on the opposing side.<sup>4</sup> Throughout the remainder of the first Civil War Dover was with the king at Oxford, where he served in Charles I’s Parliament and council of war, and was commissioned to command a regiment of Oxford scholars and gentlemen.<sup>5</sup> He was in Oxford until its fall, after which the House of Lords made an order on 6 July 1646 that Dover could safely reside in the Cokayne houses in London and Surrey that he had acquired through his wife. These houses passed to his stepson and fellow royalist Charles Cokayne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Cullen [I], after her death at the end of 1648. Adherence to the king’s party led to his near ruin, for in the early 1650s both he and Cullen had to sell property – Cullen his houses in Kingston-upon-Thames and London, and Dover the grand Hunsdon House, sold to William Willoughby*, later 6th Baron Willoughby of Parham – in order to settle the compositions they reached with the parliamentary commissioners.<sup>6</sup> He was also indicted at Hertfordshire assizes in 1653 for counterfeiting the coin of the Commonwealth, and it was undoubtedly to these reverses that he was referring when he claimed in 1660 that he had ‘suffered want and long and sharp imprisonment for the late king’, and that he was ‘so worn out by the late troubles as to be incapable of any favour’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, not surprisingly marked Dover as a ‘lord with the king’ when drawing up his list of potential members of the House of Lords in the Convention, but Dover could not sit in the House at all when it first reassembled on 25 Apr. 1660 because the order of 20 July 1642 barring those who had fled to Charles I was not revoked by the House until 4 May 1660. The House sent a letter to Dover on 18 May requesting his attendance and he took his seat in the House the following day. He went on to attend 38 per cent of the meetings of the Convention until its adjournment on 13 Sept., but he only attended six meetings of the Convention in the autumn months of 1660 after it resumed. He came to almost three-quarters of the sittings of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament between 8 May 1661 and the summer adjournment on 30 July. Yet even when attending the House so regularly, he did not take an active part in its proceedings. Wharton recorded that Dover apparently left the House before the vote on the lord great chamberlaincy on 11 July 1661. After Parliament resumed in the autumn Dover was recorded as sick at a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661 and he did not appear until 2 Dec. and then came to only three more sittings until he stopped coming to the House entirely after 31 Jan. 1662. On 10 Apr. 1662 the house gave Dover leave to be absent, and on that same day the earl’s proxy was registered with Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, for the last few weeks of that session. He continued to be excused at successive calls of the House and he did not register another proxy until after Portland’s death, when, perhaps on 26 Nov. 1664, and certainly by 30 Dec., he entrusted it to John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater.<sup>8</sup> While he was attending the House in 1660-1 he was not nominated to a single select committee, perhaps a recognition by his peers of his great age, almost eighty years old.</p><p>Dover’s only discernible activity in Parliament after 1660 was his effort to save the estate of William Heveningham<sup>‡ </sup>from the provisions of the legislation against the regicides. In 1655 Dover’s granddaughter had married Heveningham, one of the judges at Charles I’s trial, although not a signatory to the execution warrant, and at the Restoration this regicide was in danger of losing both his life and his estate, estimated to be worth £2,500 a year. The marriage most likely reflected the wishes of Dover’s son, Rochford, who had sided with Parliament and had sat in the House of Lords by a writ of acceleration as Lord Hunsdon from 1640 until it was abolished. Dover was nevertheless eager to have access to the income of the regicide’s estate, and on 5 Sept. 1660 the House moved to support both Dover and Hunsdon in their request to the king to show mercy to Heveningham, ‘in favour only to the preserving his blood from an attaint’. Dover does not appear to have been greatly concerned with saving Heveningham’s life, but he was concerned with the property, and he requested that the estate be granted outright to him in consideration of his services to the royalist cause.<sup>9</sup> By May 1661 it was reported that Heveningham’s life and estate were to be spared by means of the efforts of Hunsdon and Dover, who were to divide £1,000 a year from his lands between them, although Dover himself claimed at about the same time that he should receive an initial £2,000 with an annuity of £800 thereafter.<sup>10</sup> Dover died in April 1666, probably intestate. He was buried at Hunsdon, the family manor he had sold in 1653.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CAREY, Henry (1596-1661) |
<p><strong><surname>CAREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1596–1661)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1626-39 Ld. Leppington; <em>suc. </em>fa. 12 Apr. 1639 as 2nd earl of MONMOUTH |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 7 May 1670; last sat 28 May 1661 |
|
MP Camelford 1621, Beverley 3 Mar. 1624, Tregony 1625, St Mawes 1626, Grampound 1628 |
<p><em>bap.</em> 27 Jan. 1596, 1st s. of Sir Robert Carey<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Monmouth) and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Hugh Trevanion, kt. of Caerhayes, Cornw.; bro. of Thomas Carey<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> privately (tutor, Henry Burton); Exeter, Oxf. 1611 (BA 1614); travelled abroad (Low Countries, France, Italy) 1614-16. <em>m</em>. c. 26 Feb. 1620, Martha (<em>d</em>. 10 Apr. 1677), da. of Sir Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Middlesex, of Wood Street, London and Chelsea, Mdx. 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 8 da. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KB 3 Nov. 1616. <em>d</em>. 13 June 1661; <em>will</em> 21 July 1659, pr. 20 June 1661.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. array, Herts 1642.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: miniature by Samuel Cooper, 1649, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; line engraving by William Faithorne (after S. Cooper), 1656, NPG D22870; oil on canvas (portrait of 1st earl Monmouth with his family), attrib. Paul van Somer, c. 1617, NPG 5426.</p> |
<p>Sir Henry Carey was the heir of Sir Robert Carey<sup>†</sup>, himself the youngest of ten sons born to Henry Carey<sup>†</sup>, Baron Hunsdon, Elizabeth I’s first cousin and a favoured courtier. Sir Robert was made chamberlain to the prince of Wales in 1617 and was created Baron Carey of Leppington in 1622, with a grant of land in the East Riding of Yorkshire and a lease of Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. At the coronation of Charles I, Carey of Leppington was made earl of Monmouth and soon after he purchased the park and mansion of Rickmansworth on the Middlesex-Hertfordshire border.<sup>3</sup></p><p>From 1603 Sir Robert’s eldest son Henry was raised in the atmosphere of James I’s court, but his formative years appear to have been those spent travelling abroad, where he developed the fluency in French and Italian that was to be important for his future career. He took up residence at Kenilworth Castle in 1625, when the lease to his father was finally confirmed, and began to take part in local government and society by serving on the commissions of the peace for the areas where his family had their principal residences and landholdings – Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex.</p><p>Sir Henry, styled Lord Leppington from 1626, sat in the last Parliaments of James I and those of the first years of Charles I for a variety of Cornish boroughs, reflecting the Cornish background of his mother. In the Commons he often opposed Charles Stuart, both as prince and king, and his favourite George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham.<sup>4</sup> He took his seat in the Lords in April 1640 but was impeached by the Commons on 16 June 1642 for joining the king at York.<sup>5</sup> Although he was made a commissioner of array for Hertfordshire, Monmouth did not take an active role in the Civil War, except for his battle with Parliament to maintain control over his rights in Kenilworth, a 60-year lease of which had been bestowed on him in November 1641.<sup>6</sup></p><p>According to Anthony Wood, Monmouth was ‘noted for a person skilled in the modern languages, and a general scholar; the fruit whereof he found in the troublesome times of rebellion where by a forced retiredness he was capacitated to exercise himself in studies’.<sup>7</sup> Indeed, he is largely known a translator of historical works from the Italian, and Wood attributed to him ten published volumes of translations, some of them substantial. Monmouth’s contemporaries held his efforts in high esteem, or at least his publishers relied on his reputation in trying to sell their editions of his works. In a posthumous 1663 edition of his <em>History of the Wars of Italy from 1613 to 1644</em>, translated from the original of Pietro Capriata, the publisher in his epistle to the reader wrote of ‘the ever to be honoured Henry, earl of Monmouth’ who ‘made so many excellent Italian pieces speak English with an industry seldom found in the nobility of our nation’, and concludes that ‘the translation cannot be ill rendered, because the earl of Monmouth did it, who was master both of the English and Italian tongues’.</p><p>Although probably still working on his translation of Priorato’s <em>History of France</em> (which was left unfinished at the time of his death), Monmouth re-entered political life at the Restoration with some enthusiasm. He attended almost two-thirds of the sittings of the Convention from his first sitting there on 7 May 1660, only three days after the decision to readmit those peers who had supported the king in early 1642. He was, however, seldom appointed to committees, apart from the large sessional committees for privileges and petitions, and appears to have been largely inactive in the House. On 15 and 16 June 1660, however, he was the leading witness against Robert Danvers*, whom the House had summoned and hoped to try as the 2nd Viscount Purbeck, a title Danvers himself rejected. Monmouth claimed that Purbeck had said ‘that it was a very commendable and just action to put the last king to death’ and ‘that rather than the late king should want one to cut off his head, he would do it himself’. Another witness testified that Danvers’s son had said many blasphemous things, such as denying the immortality of the soul and scoffing at the idea of the last judgment, to the earl’s sister, Lady Philadelphia Wharton, widow of Sir Thomas Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, in Monmouth’s London residence in Queen Street.<sup>8</sup> Lady Philadelphia’s son, and Monmouth’s nephew, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, may have been involved in some way in introducing a noted radical like Danvers into the house of the orthodox Monmouth, who in his will insisted on his funeral service being conducted ‘by some orthodoxical minister of the Church of England according to the book of common prayer’.</p><p>Monmouth barely attended two sittings in the House in late May 1661 before he died on 13 June. He still appeared in the House’s records posthumously: four days after his death, on 17 June, it was reported to the House that Leonard Robinson had illegally entered into and taken possession of land in Yorkshire belonging to Monmouth and a number of other northern peers and this breach of privilege was taken up by the committee for privileges in July 1661.<sup>9</sup> In his will Monmouth desired to be buried among his parents and deceased daughters in the parish church of Rickmansworth, where he also requested a monument to be erected. However, he appears to have sold his last holdings in that manor in 1655, some four years before the will was composed.<sup>10</sup> He bequeathed to his wife and surviving daughters £600 and his remaining property in Westminster, Lincolnshire, and the East Riding. Monmouth died without male heirs, both his sons and his grandson having predeceased him, so at his death the earldom of Monmouth became extinct. In March 1662 the crown granted to three of his surviving daughters the lease of the manor and castle of Kenilworth, ignoring the petitions for it from John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt.<sup>11</sup> The title itself was revived two years after the earl’s death and granted to Charles II’s illegitimate son James Scott*, who became duke of Monmouth.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CAREY, John (c. 1608-77) |
<p><strong><surname>CAREY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1608–77)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1628-66 Visct. Rochford; <em>accel. </em>3 Nov. 1640 Bar. HUNSDON; <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Apr. 1666 as 2nd earl of DOVER. |
|
First sat 27 Nov. 1640; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 27 Mar. 1677 |
|
MP Hertford 28 Jan. 1629 |
<p><em>b.</em> c.1608, 1st s. of Henry Carey*, later earl of Dover, and Judith, da. of Sir Thomas Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Laughton, Suss. <em>educ.</em> St. John’s, Camb. 1624. <em>m.</em> (1) 9 May 1628, Dorothy (<em>d.</em> 28 June 1628), da. of Oliver St. John<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bolingbroke, <em>s.p.</em> (2) 2 Dec. 1630 (with £5,000), Abigail (<em>d.</em> 10 Feb. 1688), da. of Sir William Cockayne, of Rushton, Northants. 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KB 1 Feb. 1626. <em>d.</em> 26 May 1677; admon. June 1681.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Speaker, House of Lords 1-5 Aug. 1647, 23-30 June, 3-4 July, 2-8 Aug, 1-20 Sept, 10 Oct. 1648.</p><p>Commr. advance of money by Nov. 1643-July 1644, exclusion from sacrament 1646, sale of bps. lands 1646, appeals, Oxf. Univ. 1647, indemnity complaints 1647, great seal 1-5 Aug. 1647, scandalous offences 1648.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. milita, Yorks. 1648.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of horse (Parl.) 1642-3; maj. gen. 1642.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>As the scion of a family of courtiers and royal servants, it would have been expected that Sir John Carey, styled Viscount Rochford from 1628, when his own father Henry Carey*, was created earl of Dover, would maintain this tradition of loyalty to his sovereign. Rochford married Abigail Cockayne, the youngest daughter of the wealthy London merchant Sir William Cockayne, in December 1630, only a few months after his father had married Sir William’s widow, Mary. These matches brought both father and son valuable lands and houses, and a host of future royalist connections. Among Rochford’s new brothers-in-law were Charles Cockayne<sup>‡</sup>, later Viscount Cullen [I], the heir to Sir William Cockayne; Montague Bertie*, later 2nd earl of Lindsey; and Thomas Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup>, later Viscount Fanshawe [I]. These family connections, and the political attitudes that were assumed to accompany them, may explain why on 3 Nov. 1640 Rochford was summoned to the House of Lords by a writ in acceleration as Baron Hunsdon, the barony of his father Dover.</p><p>Any expectation that he would assist the beleaguered king soon proved to be misplaced. Hunsdon sided with Parliament, albeit in an inconsistent manner, throughout the Civil War. He was one of only two sons of peers whom Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, recorded as fighting for Parliament against their royalist fathers at Edgehill.<sup>6</sup> Hunsdon’s commitment to Parliament was lukewarm. On 12 July 1644 the Commons impeached him for treason and he was sequestered from the House because, in the aftermath of Marston Moor, incriminating letters in which he made peace offerings and professions of loyalty to Charles I had been found in the deserted camp of William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle. On 15 and 19 July Hunsdon submitted petitions to the House requesting that his case be dealt with speedily, primarily because he found the charges of his imprisonment ‘insupportable to him in respect of his weak estate, that if he should be long detained, that alone will ruin him, without any further punishment’, especially as he feared that the local county committees were proceeding to expropriate his goods from Hunsdon House and Cockayne House.<sup>7</sup> The House resolved to readmit him on 9 May 1646 as the Commons had never produced articles of impeachment against him.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Throughout the remainder of 1646 and into 1647 he opposed the growing power of the army and the independents and was one of the seven peers who supported the Presbyterian uprising in London in July 1647. After the army had reinstated control the Commons attempted to impeach him and he was again sequestered from the House. Hunsdon was permitted to rejoin the House on 6 June 1648 when the charges against him were finally dropped.<sup>9</sup> He was present when the House unanimously rejected the ordinance for the King’s trial on 2 Jan. 1649 and a week later he sat for his last time in the Long Parliament.<sup>10</sup></p><p>He was not politically active in the 1650s and probably spent most of it trying to husband his own estate, damaged as it was by his royalist father’s and brother-in-law’s ruinous compositions.<sup>11</sup> Perhaps to shore up his decaying economic and political fortunes Hunsdon in 1655 married his sole surviving child and heir, Mary, to the regicide William Heveningham<sup>‡</sup>, whose estate was reckoned in 1660 to be worth £2,500 a year.</p><p>Both Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, thought that Hunsdon, one of the peers who was still sitting in the House in 1648, would join the Presbyterian peers and be allowed to sit in the Convention House of Lords.<sup>12</sup> Hunsdon was indeed one of the small group of nine peers who gathered together on the morning of 25 April 1660, the Convention’s first day. He attended just 87 per cent of the sitting days of the Convention, mostly in the first few months between its commencement and its long adjournment in September. He was particularly busy in its first weeks. On the first day he was assigned to be part of the delegation of eight peers who attended George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, with an address of thanks for his role in summoning the Convention. On 1 May, Hunsdon was placed on the committee to draft a letter of thanks to Charles II for his Declaration of Breda, and the following day he was put on the committee to draw up an ordinance to make Monck captain general of the realm. Over the next few weeks he was placed on many committees concerned with preparing and settling the realm for the king’s return: disbanding the army and settling the militia (9 May), finding the monarch’s jewels and goods (9 May), determining which Interregnum ordinances to keep (15 May) and raising an assessment of £70,000 (21 May). On 26 May, the day after Charles II’s landfall in England, Hunsdon was the only peer to enter his dissent against the House’s order that Thomas Bushell be released from his imprisonment in order to attend the committee of petitions. He was nominated to far fewer committees after the return of the king – 12 in total from 1 June until the end of 1660, the same number to which he had been appointed in the month of May 1660 alone.</p><p>A matter which concerned Hunsdon greatly during the latter part of the Convention, and on into 1661, was the threat to except his regicide son-in-law, William Heveningham, from the general pardon in the bill of indemnity. Heveningham himself petitioned strenuously for his own life, arguing that although present at the trial, he had not signed the death warrant for Charles I and that he had been the first to surrender himself (on 9 June 1660) following the king’s proclamation promising clemency. On 5 Sept. 1660 Hunsdon and his father, Dover, petitioned for the House’s assistance and support in their supplication to the king that Heveningham not be attainted in blood and that his estate be granted to them outright instead. By May 1661, when it was finally determined that Heveningham would remain alive but imprisoned and his estate intact, Dover and Hunsdon appear to have been granted an annuity of £1,000 each from its income.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Shoring up his own financial situation occupied much of Hunsdon’s attention in the Convention and the early years of the restored monarchy. He fought against the passage of the bill abolishing the court of wards and terminating tenure by knight’s service, as much of his income was derived from his tenants in the manor of Conisborough in the West Riding of Yorkshire who held land from him by knight’s service. When the House passed the bill on 20 December 1660, Hunsdon apparently extracted from both the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde, and the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, assurances that they would represent the state of his diminished income to the king so that he could grant some sort of satisfaction. It is not certain that they ever did so, for it was not until 1672, and after more petitioning, that Hunsdon (by that time 2nd earl of Dover) received regular compensation for his loss of income.<sup>14</sup> This important property in Yorkshire gave him an interest in that county, and on 15 Feb. 1662 he was part of the delegation of northern lords led by Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, that visited the lord chancellor to express their opposition to the projected re-establishment of the council of the north, ‘as believing it not for the service of the king or good of the county’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Hunsdon, who most often appears in the papers of his contemporaries under his courtesy title of Viscount Rochford rather than his seldom-used parliamentary title of Baron Hunsdon, became 2nd earl of Dover on 13 Apr. 1666 upon the death of his father. Under both his titles he was one of the most constant members of the Cavalier Parliament. He attended well over 90 per cent of the meetings of the House between May 1661 and his last attendance on 27 March 1677, two months before his death. During that same period he was named to just over two-thirds of the committees established on his days of attendance. He was nominated with increasing frequency as his career progressed, until by the early 1670s he was being placed on nearly every committee set up to deal with legislation. Of the 11 separate bills for which he chaired committee meetings, the majority come from after 1671. He was also one of the more frequent chairs for the committees for petitions and was also involved with the committee for privileges and its subcommittee for the Journal, on many occasions subscribing his name to approve the Journal’s record of the day’s proceedings.</p><p>Hunsdon was present at 93 per cent of the sitting days of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in 1661-2, missing only nine days in the first part of the session before the summer adjournment of 1661 and then being absent for only three meetings in the latter part of this session. Throughout this session he was named to 46 committees established on the days he was present. On 3 July 1661 he chaired both the select committee considering Sir Anthony Browne’s bill and the meeting of the committee for privileges considering the privilege of Dorothy, dowager Lady Dacre.<sup>16</sup> In that month he was also predicted to oppose the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of great chamberlain, against the incumbent, Hunsdon’s own brother-in-law, Lindsey. The greater number of his committee nominations, 36 in total, came in the 1661-2 part of the session after the summer adjournment. In late January 1662 Hunsdon reassured the House that the former postmaster general Charles Stanhope*, Baron Stanhope, who did not attend the House after the Restoration, would waive privilege of peerage in his ongoing dispute with George Porter, a former deputy postmaster, about the profits of the office over the last few years.<sup>17</sup> Hunsdon ended this session with a flurry of work in select committees. On 10 Apr. he reported from committee the bill for Francis Tindall as ready to be passed. On 12 and 18 Apr. 1662 he chaired meetings of the committee on the bill for the manufacture of Norwich stuffs, and reported the bill to the House on 22 April.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In the second session, in spring 1663, Hunsdon was present at all but seven of the 86 meeting days and was named to 31 committees. He brought to the attention of the House on 12 Mar. 1663 his complaint that his signature had been forged on a protection being used by Thomas Shercliffe. The committee for privileges spent much of its time on this matter in late March and early April 1663, and reported on 11 Apr. that it needed to hear the further testimony of Francis Bird, who had sold the counterfeit protection to Shercliffe for 40<em>s</em>. As Bird could not easily be found, the matter was allowed eventually to drop.<sup>19</sup> In mid July, near the end of this session, Wharton predicted that Hunsdon would vote to support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Future events in 1667 suggest that Dover could be included among the enemies of the lord chancellor, perhaps owing to the delay in the promised compensation for his loss of income through the abrogation of tenure by knight’s service.</p><p>Hunsdon’s attendance dropped in the session of spring 1664 to only 61 per cent, but he resumed his usual high attendance in the following session of 1664-5, when he came to all but four of the 53 business days. On 1 Mar. 1665, the day before the prorogation of this session, the House considered the report of a conference on the bill to prevent delays in extending statutes, at which the Commons had made clear their objections to a proviso proposed by Hunsdon, ‘because they know not whether there were such a statute as the proviso mentions, nor whether the Lord Hunsdon were enabled to extend it’. The House concurred and rejected Hunsdon’s proviso.</p><p>After coming to 89 per cent of the sitting days of the short session at Oxford in October 1665, the 2nd earl of Dover, as he had become on 13 Apr. 1666, was even more than usually active in the session of 1666-7, where he missed only two days and was named to 24 committees. In mid October 1666, he brought to the attention of the committee for privileges a complaint from Conyers Darcy*, 6th Baron Darcy (later earl of Holdernesse), that the ‘foreign’ peer George Saunders<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Castleton [I], had insisted on taking precedence over him and other English barons during the entry of James Stuart*, duke of York, into York in the summer of 1665. The committee reported on 14 Nov. that a bill should be drawn up asserting the precedence of English peers before all foreign nobility.<sup>20</sup> In the first months of 1667 Dover subscribed to a number of protests. On 23 Jan. 1667 he dissented from the House’s rejection of any provision for the right of appeal to the king or the House in the bill establishing a judicature to hear disputes caused by the Fire of London, and then was one of only four to protest against the eventual passage of the bill that day, and the only one to state explicitly the reason for his objection – ‘the unlimited and unbounded power given to the judges in this bill without any appeal’. He was the only peer to protest on 7 Feb. against the bill for rebuilding the City of London, objecting again to ‘the exorbitant and unlimited powers’ given to the Corporation of London to dispose of landlords’ property. At this same time, he supported the Commons’ impeachment of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, protesting on 5 Feb. (and once again being the only peer to state his reasons in a written explanation) – against the House’s decision not to convene a conference with the Commons to discuss the case against him.</p><p>Like so many other peers, he did not attend any of the meetings of the short five-day session in mid July 1667 where the peace with the United Provinces was to be announced, but he was very attentive to the tumultuous session beginning in October 1667. He missed only five of the sitting days in that part of the session held in the last months of 1667, when he was also named to 16 committees; he was then absent for only one meeting, and was placed on 11 committees, when the House resumed from 6 Feb. to 9 May 1668. In November 1667 Dover joined in the larger attack against Clarendon, signing the protest of 20 Nov. 1667 against the decision not to commit the lord chancellor pending the submission of specific charges, and later, on 7 Dec., being placed on the committee for the bill to banish and disable him. He also, on 6 Nov. 1667, reported to the House as fit to pass the bill to confirm an exchange of land in Norfolk involving Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend. At this point he was probably allied with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in his attacks against Clarendon, for later Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, listed Dover as one of four peers of ‘Buckingham’s party that appeared’ in the short session of winter 1669, all of whose meetings Dover attended. The main issue of this session was the confrontation between the houses over <em>Skinner v. East India Company</em>, and Dover showed his jealousy of the House’s privileges against the Commons’ claims by joining with four others in protesting on 22 Nov. 1669 against the passage of the bill to limit certain trials in Parliament, arguing ‘that privileges of Parliament and peerage are so fundamental as we ought not to part therewith’.</p><p>He came to 90 per cent of the sitting days of the 1670-71 session, and was most engaged in the first part of the session, before the adjournment from April to October 1670. In this period he was named to 26 committees. He also signed the protest against the passage of the second Conventicle Act on 26 Mar. 1670 and on 5 Apr. defended the privilege of peerage yet again by objecting to the House’s agreement to a Commons’ clause in that bill which would allow peers’ houses to be searched and their persons attached. The previous day he had reported to the House the bill to make Shadwell church parochial as fit to pass with only a proviso added. When the session resumed on 24 Oct. after the recess over the summer, he came to 87 per cent of the meeting days and was named to 39 committees. He was especially busy with committees in the latter part of this session, in the spring of 1671. On 14 Mar. 1671 he chaired a committee considering the bill to give power to the guardians of Thomas Howard*, 5th duke of Norfolk, to make leases on Arundel House, which he reported to the House as fit to pass the following day.<sup>21</sup> On that same day, 15 Mar., he also protested against the resolution to suspend the judgment, originally decreed in the Irish courts and confirmed by king’s bench in England, against John Cusack in the case brought against him by William Usher. Between 7 and 10 Apr., as the session was entering into a stalemate between the Houses on the issue of the House’s right to amend the bill for impositions on foreign commodities, Dover chaired three committee meetings on the bill for the preservation of game.<sup>22</sup> He did not have a chance to report it before the session was prorogued on 22 April.</p><p>On 22 July 1672, a full eleven and a half years after it had initially been promised to him, he finally received a grant of £600 a year for three years and then £500 a year thereafter in compensation for his losses of income incurred by the statute abolishing tenure by knight’s service.<sup>23</sup> Dover maintained his busy schedule in select committees in the following session of Parliament in February-October 1673, when he attended all of the 38 sitting days and was nominated to all but one of the committees established. He also took the chair for a number of committee meetings and reported to the House a number of bills: to confirm agreements between Sir Ralph Banks and Sir John Hanham (21 Feb. 1673); to confirm the articles of marriage of Sir William Rich (14 Mar. 1673); for the naturalization of Philip Lloyd (22 Mar. 1673); and to sell part of the estate of Sir William Hanham to settle his debts (25 Mar. 1673).<sup>24</sup></p><p>Hunsdon maintained his usual high attendance level in the succeeding two sessions: he attended every day of the four-day session in the autumn of 1673 and 97 percent of sittings in the session of early 1674. It dropped to 88 per cent in the succeeding session of spring 1675 where, if he had formerly been a follower of Buckingham, he now did not join with the duke or his allies in protesting against the divisions in support of the non-resisting test bill of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, nor does he appear as one of the bill’s opponents in <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em>. He was present for 90 per cent of the sitting days in the session of autumn 1675, when despite his high attendance and his apparent presence in the House on 20 Nov. 1675, his name does not appear in any of the existing lists on the division on that day on whether to present the king with an address calling for the dissolution of Parliament.</p><p>He remained involved in parliamentary business to the end. In the five and a half weeks that he attended the House in the session beginning on 15 Feb. 1677, he was nominated to 19 committees and on 23 Feb. 1677 he chaired the committee on the bill for Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, which he reported as fit to pass on 26 February.<sup>25</sup> He last sat in the House on 27 Mar. 1677. He died on 26 May, and was buried five days later in Westminster Abbey.<sup>26</sup> Sometime in spring 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, incarcerated in the Tower, marked Dover as ‘worthy’ in his political analysis of the lay peers, but later made a note of his death and the extinction of the title in the margin of his list, for Dover died intestate, in debt and with no male heir. Thus the earldom of Dover was extinguished, but the older barony of Hunsdon, created in 1559, passed to a distant relative, Robert Carey*, 6th Baron Hunsdon.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CAREY, Robert (c.1640-92) |
<p><strong><surname>CAREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (c.1640-92)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 26 May 1677 as 6th Bar. HUNSDON |
|
First sat 28 May 1677; last sat 30 Nov. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1640, o. s. of Sir Horatio Carey, of Sockburn, Yorks. and Petronilla, da. of Robert Harrington, of Durham. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. c.1660 Margaret (<em>bur</em>. 14 Feb. 1698), da. of Sir Gervase Clifton<sup>‡</sup>, bt., of Clifton-on-Trent, Notts., wid. of (1) Sir John South (<em>d</em>. Nov. 1648) of Kelstern, Lincs. and (2) Sir William Whichcote (<em>d.</em> c.1657) of Dunstan, Lincs., <em>s.p.</em>; kt. bef. 31 Jan. 1671.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. bet. 29 May-6 June 1692. <sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Marshall, King’s Bench prison 1686-8;<sup>3</sup> commr. inquiry into recusancy fines, City of London 1687-8;<sup>4</sup> dep.-lt. Essex 18 June-Dec. 1688.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Capt., Col. Fitzgerald’s Rgt. of Ft. 1672-7;<sup>6</sup> lt.-col., ‘Holland’ Rgt. of Ft. 1685-8; col. 12th Rgt. of Ft., 30 Nov.-11 Dec. 1688.</p> |
|
<p>At the death of John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover, in May 1677, the earldom of Dover became extinct, but his other peerage, the barony of Hunsdon, passed to Sir Robert Carey, the next male heir of Henry Carey<sup>†</sup>, the first Baron Hunsdon. Sir Robert’s great-grandfather, Sir Edmund Carey<sup>‡</sup>, fought for the United Provinces and started his family’s long association with that country. Sir Edmund’s grandson Horatio returned to England in 1638-9 to fight for Charles I and his son Robert was born at or about this time.<sup>7</sup> Through his parents, Robert had interests in Yorkshire and Durham, and in February 1671, as ‘Sir Robert Cary, son of Sir Horatio Cary’, he was granted a reversionary interest as customer of Newcastle, indicating that he had been knighted by that time.<sup>8</sup> It is often difficult to distinguish him from another Sir Robert Cary, of Devonshire, but it is most likely that the future Baron Hunsdon was the ‘Sir Robert Cary’ commissioned in March 1672 as captain in Col. Fitzgerald’s infantry regiment based at Yarmouth. This Robert Carey later used his position in the East Anglian port to recruit soldiers for service in the United Provinces and in June 1684 Baron Hunsdon petitioned for a grant of Crown land near the corporation of Yarmouth.<sup>9</sup></p><p>With his Dutch background it is difficult to account for Carey’s strong and firmly held Roman Catholicism. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, after noting in his analysis of peers the extinction of the earldom of Dover at the death on 26 May 1677 of the ‘worthy’ 2nd earl, described Hunsdon as ‘triply vile’ and a papist. Hunsdon first took his seat only two days after his cousin’s death, on 28 May 1677, when Parliament was adjourned. He dutifully attended the two days of adjournment in July and December 1677 before Parliament was resumed again for business on 28 Jan. 1678. He sat in all but five of the 60 meetings of the House in spring 1678 and was named to 18 select committees, just over three-quarters of the committees established in that session. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted with the majority of the House in finding Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.<sup>10</sup> He sat in all but three of the meetings of the next session of May-July 1678, during which he was named to 16 select committees and subscribed to the protest of 20 June 1678 against the decision to address the king for leave to bring in a bill barring Robert Villiers from making any claim to the viscountcy of Purbeck. He also subscribed his approval to four entries in the <em>Journal</em>, including approbation of interlineated text in an order concerning Villiers. He diligently attended the beginning of the session of winter 1678 and initially came to all of its sittings. He was placed on the large committee to investigate the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, but soon found the proceedings of this zealously anti-Catholic session alarming. He was opposed to the Test Bill and on 15 Nov. voted against the motion to place the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Five days later he signed the protest against the passage of the Test Bill and absented himself from the House entirely after 30 Nov., the day the Test Act received the royal assent.</p><p>Hunsdon remained firm in his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, which barred him from the House, and at a call of the House on 9 May 1679 he was marked as a recusant. Yet according to the presence list he was somehow allowed entry to the House on 17 Oct. 1679, a day of prorogation when no business was done. In February 1680 he even risked indictment through his continuing resistance to the oath of supremacy, and on 30 Oct. 1680, when Parliament had finally convened again for business he was again marked as absent at a call of the House because of his recusancy.<sup>11</sup> Hunsdon submitted a petition on 3 Nov. 1680 complaining of a breach of privilege of Parliament by the arrest of one of his menial servants. The House does not seem to have questioned his entitlement to privilege of Parliament for it ordered the offenders to attend and answer the complaint. No further proceedings have been traced. To add to his political ostracism Hunsdon had financial concerns, not aided by the paltry and heavily embarrassed estate he had inherited from Dover. In May 1680 he attempted to improve his condition by suing the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham) and his sons for a Warwickshire estate which he claimed had been entailed by Elizabeth I to the first Baron and his heirs.<sup>12</sup> This argument did not work, and throughout the 1680s he continued to be reliant on a government pension of £500 p.a. granted to him at his succession ‘for his support and in consideration of the loyalty of his family’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>His military background and Catholicism led him to become a member of the circle of James Stuart*, duke of York. In November 1680 in the midst of the Exclusion crisis it was reported that ‘Lord Hunsdon is like to be in some trouble for drinking (at the Devil Tavern) confusion to all that were for passing the Bill against the Duke of York’.<sup>14</sup> In May 1682 he told Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, that he had personally attended the duke and duchess of York from Gravesend to Whitehall on their return from Scotland.<sup>15</sup> He appears to have been closely connected with Albemarle and various petitioners asked Hunsdon to act as their intermediary and agent in dealing with the duke.<sup>16</sup> By summer 1684 Hunsdon felt confident enough of the favour he was shown in court circles to request that, in lieu of the arrears of £3,000 that he claimed were due from his pension, he be provided with a grant of houses built on Crown land near Yarmouth, although the corporation claimed that the lands in question fell within its charter.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Hunsdon’s star rose further once James came to the throne. The new king commissioned him lieutenant-colonel of the Holland regiment of foot in October 1685, perhaps as an appreciative reference to Hunsdon’s forebears and their military service in the Low Countries.<sup>18</sup> Hunsdon was included in James’s lists of those to be dispensed from the requirements of the Test Act, and the king intended to grant him the marshalcy of King’s Bench prison in May 1686, but Hunsdon had to wait until November for a chancery decree confirming him in the office.<sup>19</sup> By September 1686 Hunsdon was clearly enjoying the new-found prominence of Catholics in the king’s government and confidently told Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, that ‘he had sitten formerly in Parliament as a peer, and hoped to do it again this winter’.<sup>20</sup> He was seen as one of James’s leading followers, belligerent in his cause, and in early 1687 observers and newsletter writers thought him a likely candidate to take over regiments whose commanders were either removed or resigned because of their opposition to the king’s policies.<sup>21</sup> None of these rumours of 1687 came to fruition, but when James II was remodelling the counties’ administration late in 1688, he made Hunsdon a deputy-lieutenant in Essex, and on 30 Nov. 1688, with the crisis of William of Orange’s invasion fully upon him, the king promoted him to replace Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, as colonel of the 12th regiment of foot..<sup>22</sup> Hunsdon’s new command was short-lived and he quickly dropped out of sight after the Revolution.</p><p>It is difficult to be certain of his whereabouts in the first months of 1689. He was probably in Ireland with James II, for he was initially included among those to be marked for attainder in the Commons’ Rebellion Act, for which he was named in a proclamation of 30 July granting him clemency if he surrendered himself by the end of September. On 19 Aug. 1689, the Lords deemed that they were unable to state definitely if he had continued in arms against William III in Ireland even though two witnesses claimed they had seen him there. His name was therefore dropped from the attainder bill.<sup>23</sup> He did not take up the offer of pardon and in October was indicted for rebellion in Ireland along with a number of other prominent Jacobites such as William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, and James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick, and like them was, presumably, liable to outlawry when he failed to appear to answer the charge.<sup>24</sup> He remained with his king in exile, and continued to fight for his claim to the throne. He apparently died at, or after, the battle of La Hogue in early June 1692.<sup>25</sup> Outlawry amounted to an attainder, but it may be that his death took place before the formalities could be completed as the title passed, apparently without trouble, to his first cousin and namesake, Robert Carey*, 7th Baron Hunsdon.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CAREY, Robert (c. 1645-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>CAREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (c. 1645–1702)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 24 May 1692 as 7th Bar. HUNSDON |
|
First sat 26 Sept. 1692; last sat 19 Mar. 1702 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1645, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Col. Ernestus Carey (<em>d</em>.1680) of Great Shelford, Cambs. and 1st w. St. John (<em>d.</em>1649), da of Thomas Salveyn of Croxdale, co. Dur. <em>educ</em>. unknown (apprenticeship?). <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 11 Sept. 1702.</p> |
<p>Capt., coy of foot ?-1692.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
<p>Robert Carey’s father, Ernestus Carey, was born in the Netherlands where his father was fighting in the service of the United Provinces. Ernestus and his elder brother Horatio came to England as boys and both were naturalized in 1620 and later fought for the king during the Civil War.<sup>2</sup> At that time Ernestus was settled in the manor of Grandsham (Granhams) in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, which he had inherited through his distant kinsman, Valentine Cary<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Exeter. Having to compound with Parliament for £229 in November 1646, he sold this property (reserving to himself a rent charge of £60 on it) and at his death in 1680 was recorded as residing in St Leonard’s, Middlesex.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Robert was Ernestus’s third son and probably grew up in London and its suburbs. Abel Boyer claimed in his obituary notice of the 7th Baron that, coming from a family of middling resources, he ‘was put apprentice to the mean trade of a weaver; but then considering the possibility of his becoming one day Lord Hunsdon, he betook himself to a military life; and having rode some time in the guards, as a private gentleman, he had got a commission before the honour devolved on him’.<sup>4</sup> Upon the death abroad of his Jacobite cousin Robert Carey*, 6th Baron Hunsdon, following the action at La Hogue on 23-24 May 1692, ‘Capt. Carey, now in Ireland’ was suddenly hurtled from obscurity to a barony and the House of Lords.<sup>5</sup> He was ill-equipped financially for his new role as he did not have any personal wealth to bring to the already depleted resources of the barony. ‘His small estate was supplied by a pension from court’, added Boyer, and from 1692 to 1702 Hunsdon received an annual pension of between £100 and £200, and on one occasion £400, as royal bounty from the secret service funds to maintain him in his honour.<sup>6</sup></p><p>He first sat in the House upon his succession on 26 Sept. 1692, a day of prorogation, and when Parliament met for the 1692-3 session on 7 Nov. 1693, Hunsdon was again there and proceeded to attend 78 per cent of the session’s sitting days, during which he was named to 32 committees. He voted to commit the Place Bill on 31 Dec. 1692, but Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, recorded that Hunsdon, probably aware of his royal benefactor’s strong opposition to the bill, was one of the six lords who left the House before the final division on 3 Jan. 1693, thus helping to secure its defeat. The previous day he had voted against the second reading of the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 17 Jan. he entered his dissent against the resolution that Charles Knollys had no right to the earldom of Banbury, and on 4 Feb. he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. He further signed on 8 Mar. the protest against the rejection of a rider intended for a bill to extend the Licensing Act (among other legislation) that aimed to reduce the power of the government censor.</p><p>He was present at 89 per cent of the sitting days of the following session of 1693-4 when he was named to 25 committees. In the Albemarle inheritance case he supported the claims of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, against those of John Granville*, earl of Bath and voted on 17 Feb. 1694 to reverse chancery’s earlier dismissal of Montagu’s petition in this case. When the chancery judgment was upheld by the House, he signed the protest against the decision and a week later, on 24 Feb. 1694, he entered another protest against the House’s dismissal of another petition from Montagu in this matter.</p><p>By 1695 Hunsdon’s impoverished state was well known, and he and his fellow ‘poor lords’ were figures of amusement among their more wealthy peers. In May 1695 Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, was reportedly keeping open house at ‘Hell’, a tavern immediately abutting Westminster Hall, offering free roast beef and ale in order to ‘debauch’ Hunsdon, and other ‘mumpers’ (slang for genteel beggars), such as Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and John Colepeper*, 3rd Baron Colepeper. Presumably Leeds was trying to gain their support in opposing the allegations of corruption that he was then facing in Parliament.<sup>7</sup> In that same month Mary, wife of William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, wrote to her father Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, about the seven lords justices recently appointed by William III, then bereft of his usual regent Mary II, to rule the country during his continental absences. She noted that they had not yet appeared in state because they had discovered that if they were to do so the sword of state must be carried before them by a peer, ‘and they could think of but two that would do it, my Lord Colepeper and my Lord Hunsdon, and always them two would not look well so they resolved to meet privately and never to appear together’. Perhaps because of this embarrassing connection with these two notoriously impecunious lords, the lords justices ‘have had great variety of names given them but the most lasting one is the overseers of the poor’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Without possessing any of the other trappings of aristocracy, such as wealth, land or political interest, Hunsdon appears to have thrown himself wholly into the life of the House in order to emphasize his noble status. He attended the House diligently and throughout the three Parliaments of 1695, 1698 and 1701 he maintained an attendance rate of between 85 and 95 per cent in each session. He was particularly assiduous in the first (1695-6) session of the 1695 Parliament which met in November 1695 and which saw his highest attendance rate of 95 per cent, missing only five of its 124 sitting days. Hunsdon signed the Association on the first day possible, 27 Feb. 1696. This was one of the last occasions when he let any considerations of obligation to the king for his continuing pension affect his vote, for thereafter, and with growing confidence, he consistently opposed the measures of William’s ministry, increasingly coming under the influence of the Whigs. He opposed the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and signed the protests against hearing the testimony of Charles Goodman (15 Dec. 1696), to read and commit the bill of attainder (18 Dec.) and to pass the bill (23 Dec.). He fought against the Junto’s bill to punish the cashier of the Exchequer, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, and subscribed to the protest against the second reading of that legislation on 4 Mar. 1698. He was nominated to almost every committee established on his days of sitting and was occasionally named to manage conferences as well - on the Greenland trade bill on 25 Apr. 1696 and on the bill for the Alverstoke waterworks on 20 June 1698.</p><p>He continued this trend of opposition in the Parliaments of 1698 and 1701. On 8 Feb. 1699 during the 1698-9 session, he voted and signed the protest against the resolution to offer assistance to the king in maintaining the Dutch Guards in England. In that session he was also appointed a manager on 3 May 1699 for a conference on the bill for a duty on paper. On 23 Feb. 1700 he was in favour of the motion to adjourn the House into a committee of the whole House to further discuss the Tory-inspired bill for continuing the old East India Company as a corporation. In the Parliament of 1701 he protested on 20 Mar. 1701 against the decision not to send the address condemning the secret negotiations surrounding the Partition Treaty to the Tory-dominated Commons for their agreement. He pushed for the impeachment of the Junto ministers and in June 1701 fought a rearguard action to prevent the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, by protesting first against the reasons the House intended to present to the Commons in conference in answer to the lower House’s message concerning the impeachments (3 June 1701), and then against the resolutions to conduct Somers’s trial in Westminster Hall and then to put the question for his acquittal (17 June 1701). Hunsdon not surprisingly voted against the Whig minister’s acquittal that day.</p><p>In August 1701, Luttrell noted that ‘the Lord Hunsdon is dangerously ill of a cancer under his tongue’. He was not active in the Parliament of early 1702, and stopped attending entirely shortly after William III’s death and Anne’s accession.<sup>9</sup> He did register his proxy with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, on 11 May 1702, but Weymouth was only able to exercise it for two weeks before Parliament was prorogued. Hunsdon died unmarried and apparently intestate in September 1702 when the Hunsdon peerage once again passed to a distant and obscure cousin, this time to a man who had spent most of his life in the Netherlands, William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CAREY, William Ferdinand (1684-1765) |
<p><strong><surname>CAREY</surname></strong>, <strong>William Ferdinand</strong> (1684–1765)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 11 Sept. 1702 (a minor) as 8th Bar. HUNSDON. |
|
First sat 22 Mar. 1708; last sat 12 May 1748 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 14 Jan. 1684, o.s. of William Carey (<em>d</em>. 7 Nov. 1683), capt. Army of the States General, and Gertrude (<em>d</em>.1688), da. of Cornelius van Oudtshoorn, heer van Oudtshoorn-Gnephoek, chief burgomaster of Amsterdam. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 11 Jan. 1718, Grace (<em>d</em>. 9 May 1729), da. of Sir Edward Waldo, of Pinner, Mdx., wid. of Sir Nicholas Wolstenholme (<em>d</em>.1717), 4th bt., of Forty Hall, Mdx. <em>s.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 12 June 1765; <em>will</em> 23 Apr. 1763, pr. 15 Aug. 1765.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>William Ferdinand Carey’s grandfather was the third son of Robert Carey, whose first two sons, Horatio and Ernestus, had moved to England from the Netherlands before the outbreak of the Civil War. Robert’s youngest son Ferdinand remained in the Netherlands and maintained the family tradition of military service to the Dutch republic, serving as a colonel of a regiment of the Dutch army garrisoned at Maestricht. He married a Dutch woman, and from that point this branch of the Careys were as much Dutch as English. Ferdinand’s son William was a captain in the Dutch army in the Maestricht garrison; he died in November 1683, and his posthumous child, William Ferdinand Carey, was born the following January. William Ferdinand’s mother died in 1688, when her son was only four years old.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The young William Ferdinand was taken in hand by Pieter van Reede, heer van Reede tot Nederhorst, a fellow captain in the Maestricht garrison and husband of William Ferdinand’s maternal aunt, Maria van Oudtshoorn. Under van Reede’s instructions, William Ferdinand was taken to England in August 1689 by Abraham van Uylenbroeck, commissioner of the Orphans’ Chamber in Amsterdam. The objective was to secure a bill for his naturalization so that his distant claim to the English barony of Hunsdon would not be complicated by issues of foreign allegiance. This was an opportune time, as at that time Dutch influence in English political life was becoming paramount. Through his connection with van Reede, William Ferdinand was related to a number of Dutchmen prominent in English politics. Pieter van Reede was the nephew of the diplomat Johan van Reede, heer van Renswoude, who had been created a baron of England by Charles I in 1644. A more distant, but more influential, kinsman was Godard van Reede, heer van Ginkel, later created earl of Athlone [I] for his military service to William III in Ireland. William Ferdinand’s naturalization bill, which went through both Houses quickly and received the royal assent on 3 May 1690 states that at that time William Ferdinand was about five and a half years old.<sup>5</sup></p><p>That he did not remain in England after receiving his naturalization is suggested by the evidence of Robert Carey*, 7th Baron Hunsdon, who sometime during his tenure of the barony (1692-1702), informed his servant ‘that all his own brothers were then dead without issue … but there was a young youth of a moderate estate of his name and nearest in blood … who was born and bred in Holland that was in a just legal and lineal descent’, and he instructed this servant to write to this heir to invite him to England so that he could make good his claim.<sup>6</sup> By early 1708 William Ferdinand, now of age, was in England and laid claim to the barony of Hunsdon through a petition to the queen. There appears to have been a rumour that the proper heir was then in the West Indies, but when Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, presented Carey’s petition to the House on 25 Feb. 1708 Carey had accumulated, with the assistance of the Norroy king-at-arms Peter Le Neve, a wealth of evidence documenting his legitimate and sole claim to the barony.<sup>7</sup> The case was referred to the committee for privileges and witnesses were quickly summoned. At the committee meeting on 8 Mar. the solicitor general raised the objection that, despite Carey’s act of naturalization, his foreign-born father William had only been denizened, and ‘the question is whether he can claim by descent through his father who was but a denizen’. The heralds attested that the registering of William Ferdinand’s pedigree ‘restores the blood as well upwards as downwards’. At a subsequent committee meeting on 11 Mar. the judges declared that ‘his naturalization makes him free to all intents and purposes’ and that the statute that enacted that English subjects could inherit from foreign-born ancestors, was made specially for such cases and concluded that ‘This gentleman is as capable of the honour as if he had been born in England’. Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley, reported to the House that same day that the committee found that Hunsdon had fully proved his pedigree and right to the title. A writ of summons was then issued to him and he first sat in the House on 22 Mar. 1708. He did not sit again until the prorogation of 1 Apr., two weeks before the Parliament was dissolved.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Like his cousin and predecessor in the barony William Ferdinand was a ‘poor lord’ with no land or income to rely on to maintain his new status. Almost immediately after receiving his writ of summons he enlisted the help of Peter Le Neve to find him a wealthy wife or benefactor. In April 1708 he inquired about the situation of a Mrs. Rivers, ‘not only what she might be worth but how much she has every year’ and was encouraged by the news ‘that old Madam Cary who liveth about Bloomsbury is a dyeing, and they say that I am the next heir’. He submitted a bill in chancery to reclaim possession of the lands in Rood, Northamptonshire, originally granted to the first Baron Hunsdon and long since alienated and encroached upon by its tenants. He even dug up an old indenture of 1646 whereby his great-uncle Ernestus Carey, in selling the manor of Grandsham (Granhams), Cambridgeshire, had seemingly entailed a rent-charge of £60 p.a. from the estate for the use of his heirs male.<sup>9</sup></p><p>None of these attempts to provide for himself came to fruition. It was not until January 1718, when he married Lady Grace Wolstenholme, and acquired her family’s properties in Pinner, Middlesex, that he achieved some level of financial security.<sup>10</sup> For much of his life he was dependent on pensions from the Crown. Unlike his predecessor in the barony he did not follow an independent political path regardless of his source of income, but obediently supported the ministry in government at any given time. He dutifully attended the first Parliament of Great Britain on its first day of 16 Nov. 1708 and came to just over half of the sittings in the first session of 1708-9. On 21 Jan. 1709 he backed the ministry of Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, against the attempt of the Junto Whigs to prevent James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and recently created a peer of Great Britain as duke of Dover, from participating in the election of the Scottish representative peers. On the last day of the session, 21 Apr. 1709, he was also appointed a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to continue the coinage acts. He followed the ministry again in the final session of the Parliament in 1709-10 (when he attended 68 per cent of the sittings) and on 20 Mar. 1710 voted that Dr. Sacheverell was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.</p><p>Hunsdon was then able to use the fragility of the new Tory ministry to his own advantage. Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, listed Hunsdon as a government supporter from the beginning of his ministry in the autumn of 1710 and although Hunsdon’s activity in the House in the 1710-11 session, when he attended two-thirds of the sittings, was unremarkable, he was almost certainly in receipt of a pension from Harley to ensure his support for the ministry. In January 1711 the Hanoverian agent in England, Bothmer, reported to his masters that Hunsdon would not have been able to survive without a pension and a year later John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, used Bothmer to suggest to the elector that Hunsdon be provided with a pension of £400 in order to win and secure his opposition to a separate Anglo-French peace. A hastily scrawled note among Oxford’s papers suggests that in early July 1711 Hunsdon was among a number of peers who received a bonus of £200 for their services during the recently prorogued session.<sup>11</sup></p><p>By the time of the session of 1711-12 (when he had an attendance rate of 71 per cent) Hunsdon had ingratiated himself with the Tories to the extent that Lady Strafford reported seeing him playing cards with ‘Jack’ Howe<sup>‡</sup>, no friend to the Dutch in England, at a soirée in late November 1711.<sup>12</sup> William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, later told the queen’s physician Sir David Hamilton that after the Oxford ministry had lost the vote on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause by one vote on 7 Dec. 1711 they ‘fixed their thoughts on making up that one’ and ‘thought to have got Lord Hunsdon, who would not unless they doubled his pension’.<sup>13</sup> Oxford, in dire straits in the House, acquiesced, and on 15 Dec. Hunsdon received £1,000 from as bounty from the queen. The receipt still exists among the minister’s papers.<sup>14</sup> Hunsdon may have withheld his important vote on 7 Dec. to achieve this very end, and this is probably the episode to which Jonathan Swift alludes in his <em>Enquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen’s Last Ministry</em>, when, reflecting that ‘the greatest events depending frequently upon the lowest, vilest and obscurest causes’, he provides the example of ‘the stupidity or wilfullness of a beggarly Dutchman, who lingered on purpose half an hour at a visit when he had promised to be somewhere else’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>On 20 Dec. 1711 Hunsdon voted against the measure to disable James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House under his recently granted British title as duke of Brandon. Hunsdon also signed the protest against the resolution disabling Hamilton. This stance may have been owing in part to his new-found, and remunerated, loyalty to the ministry, but it is likely that it was also born out of sympathy and friendship with the Scots. At about this time Hunsdon was a key member of what has been termed a ‘Westminster Anglo-Scottish dining group’, which had at it inner core the Scottish peers William Johnstone*, marquess of Annandale [S], John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerinoch [S], William Livingstone*, 2nd Viscount Kilsyth [S] and William Keith*, 8th earl of Marischal [S], the Scottish MPs John Montgomerie<sup>‡</sup>, William Cochrane<sup>‡</sup> and Sir James Abercromby<sup>‡</sup>, and the English peer Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville). It is through the diary kept by Ossulston that the existence of this group is known.<sup>16</sup> Unfortunately the entries on Ossulston’s social activities with Hunsdon and his Scottish friends at the time of the controversy surrounding Hamilton are in a volume of his diary no longer extant. Hunsdon’s last appearance in the diary with this group was on 7 June 1712 and shortly after this date the diary breaks off.</p><p>From the end of the 1711-12 session Hunsdon frequently registered his proxy with other peers, even during the briefest of absences. His earlier proxies cannot be known as the registers for 1708-1710 are missing. For 20-22 May 1712 his proxy was held by the Scotsman George Hay*, Baron Hay, who, surprisingly, does not appear among his and Ossulston’s Scottish dining companions. On 28 May Hunsdon was in the House to vote with the ministry against the motion to address the queen expressing disquiet about the ‘restraining orders’ which prohibited the captain general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging in offensive action against the French.<sup>17</sup> The following day Hunsdon registered his proxy with John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, until his return on 3 June 1712. He again used De la Warr as a proxy from 20 June until the end of the session on 8 July. The ministry may have assigned Hay and De la Warr as Hunsdon’s proxies, for both of them were court supporters, and Hay had been created a British peer in the lifetime of his father, Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoul [S], in December 1711 specifically to provide Oxford with more votes in the House.</p><p>For the session of April-July 1713, both Oxford and Swift counted on Hunsdon’s support, particularly in the matter of the controversial French Commerce Treaty. Hunsdon, however, barely attended this session of Parliament at all. He came to 23 per cent of the sittings and effectively left the House for that session on 28 May, without registering a proxy. In the first session of the following Parliament in the spring of 1714 Hunsdon attended just less than three-quarters of the sittings and left the House on 28 May 1714. On that day he did register his proxy with De la Warr. In his forecasts, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, included Hunsdon among those who would vote for the schism bill, and Hunsdon did return to the House on 7 June, during the debates on that bill, and continued to attend regularly until the end of the session. His name does not appear in the protest against the passage of the bill on 14 June, so Nottingham’s prediction may well have proved accurate. Hunsdon came to the first four sittings in the brief session of August 1714 following Anne’s death and then appeared only once more, on 21 August, four days before the prorogation.</p><p>Hunsdon regularly attended the House for the first few months of George I’s Parliament until 22 Sept. 1715, when the new king signed a warrant granting him a pension of £600 p.a.<sup>18</sup> Perhaps because he now had a secure income independent of his political behaviour, Hunsdon’s attendance in the House dropped steeply and continued to be erratic and inconsistent for the remainder of the reigns of the first two Georges. A more detailed account of his parliamentary activities during those years will be provided in the 1715-90 volumes of this series. He stopped sitting in the House entirely after May 1748, and it may be from this date, almost 20 years after the death of his English wife, that he moved back permanently to the Netherlands. There he died, at his seat at Alphen on the Rhine on 12 June 1765. He had not turned his back entirely on England and in his will of 1763 he assigned executors to manage the ‘sundry effects, stocks in the public funds and other goods and credits’ remaining to him in England. He died childless and with his death peerage was extinguished.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CARTERET, George (1667-95) |
<p><strong><surname>CARTERET</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1667–95)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1681 (a minor) Bar. CARTERET |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 10 Dec. 1694 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. July 1667, 1st s. of Philip Carteret (<em>d</em>.1672) and Jemima (<em>d</em>.1671), da. of Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich; bro. of Edward Carteret<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1681-7.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (lic. 15 Mar. 1675) Sept. 1687, Grace (<em>d</em>.1744), da. of John Granville*, earl of Bath, 3s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 1da.<sup>2</sup> <em>suc</em>. grandfa. 13 Jan. 1680 as 2nd bt. <em>d</em>. 22 Sept. 1695; admon. to Grace, Lady Carteret 6 Nov. 1695.</p> |
|
|
<p>Carteret’s family originated in Jersey, a cadet branch of the de Carterets of St Ouen’s Manor, one of the most prominent families on the island. Carteret’s grandfather, Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>, had made the move to England following his resolute service in the royal cause during the Civil War and Interregnum. Although he ended his career under a cloud following investigations into financial mismanagement, Sir George was rewarded shortly before his death in 1680 with the promise of elevation to the peerage.<sup>4</sup> He died before the patent was drawn up but the king insisted that the award stand. The following year Sir George’s grandson and heir, also George Carteret, was created Baron Carteret, as ‘a lasting mark of his [the king’s] esteem, upon the family of Sir George Carteret.’<sup>5</sup> The widowed Lady Carteret was granted the precedence of a baroness as if her husband had indeed lived to receive the honour.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Despite his grandfather’s reputed wealth, Carteret appears to have succeeded to a comparatively modest estate.<sup>7</sup> During his absence abroad, a legal action was initiated by his grandmother in an effort to determine the extent of his inheritance, which had been conveyed to his mother’s father, Sandwich, his wife’s father, Bath, Thomas Crew*, 2nd Baron Crew, and others during his minority. Lady Carteret’s complaint made mention of lands lying in at least five counties; in 1689 in response to a request for a self-assessment Carteret declared that he had ‘no land that is not tenanted, nor money more than just to keep me out of debt.’<sup>8</sup> His grandfather’s personal estate had been estimated at £2,151 4<em>s</em>. 9<em>d.,</em> and Carteret inherited estates in the family’s native Jersey but the island of Alderney and Sir George’s rights in New Jersey had been placed in a debt trust.<sup>9</sup> The new baron’s principal holdings thus appear to have comprised various properties in Bedfordshire which, with the rentals from his other estates, amounted to little more than £1,012 after the deduction of an allowance of £244 to his grandmother.<sup>10</sup> Carteret was connected to several influential families, most notably the Montagus. In 1687 his marriage to Lady Grace Granville, which had been initiated when the couple were just eight and six years old respectively, was consummated formally.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In 1687, possibly while he was still abroad, Carteret was marked doubtful in a list of peers and their likely attitudes to James II’s policies. At the revolution he rallied to Princess Anne, who journeyed via Carteret’s manor at Hawnes in Bedfordshire on her way to Nottingham.<sup>12</sup> On 21 Dec. 1688 he was one of those present in the meeting of the Lords in the queen’s presence chamber. The following day, he was present at the assembly held in the Lords, which he also attended on 24 and 25 December.<sup>13</sup> Carteret took his seat in the House at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, and the following day he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. Curiously, he was not introduced formally until 30 January. The reason for the delay is unknown. It may have reflected a belief that the Convention was not a regular meeting of Parliament, but nomination to sessional committees prior to being introduced was technically a breach of procedure. The hiatus appears to have led to the House agreeing to recognize the validity of James II’s patent (probably issued on 3 Dec. 1688) creating Edward Griffin*, as Baron Griffin in an effort to prevent the deposed king’s adherents from questioning Carteret’s rights.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Carteret was close to his father-in-law, Bath, whose political allegiances up until the moment of revolution had been solidly Tory. In the aftermath of revolution, however, Bath switched his allegiances, and the young Carteret followed his lead. He voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen on 31 Jan., and the same day he entered his dissent to the Lords’ refusal to declare the throne ‘vacant’. On 4 Feb. he again voted in support of the Commons’ employment of the term ‘abdicated’ and the same day dissented once more when the House failed to concur with that, or with the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant.’<sup>15</sup> Two days later he again voted in favour of the Commons’ resolutions. Carteret was named to seven committees in March and April, but having attended just 39 per cent of all sitting days, he left the House after 7 June and was then absent for the remainder of the session. On 12 July he registered his proxy in favour of Bath, who employed it on 30 July to vote against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates. The reason for Carteret’s absence from the House is uncertain. On 27 July, in a despatch to the king, Frederick Herman Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg, pointedly commended the French minister, Monsieur de Seignelay’s zeal and veracity over that of ‘Carteret’ and Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup> at the admiralty, opining, ‘I much regret that your Majesty is so ill served.’<sup>16</sup> It seems likely, though, that this was a scribal error for John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan and 3rd earl of Carbery [I] as Carteret held no official post there.</p><p>Still absent at the opening of the second (1689-90) session of the Convention, Carteret was excused at a call of the House on 28 Oct. 1689. He took his seat two days later but was thereafter present on just 27 of the 73 sitting days, during which time he was named to five committees. He resumed his seat for the new Parliament on 27 Mar. 1690, after which his level of attendance improved. He was present on 74 per cent of all sitting days and was named to just four committees. On 13 May he protested at the resolution not to allow the Corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel during the debates over the bill to restore the City’s charter. He resumed his place four days after the opening of the following session on 6 Oct. 1690. On that day, he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. Carteret’s attendance thereafter declined dramatically, with him present on a mere four days during the 76 day session.</p><p>Carteret’s attendance increased during the 1691-2 session. Present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to seven committees. Towards the end of the year he was included in a list compiled by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as one of those peers who had opposed Derby’s previous attempt to be restored to various lands in Wales sold during the Interregnum. Carteret had been abroad and underage at the time so perhaps the list was indicative of Carteret’s intentions towards Derby’s renewed proposal, which was thrown out at second reading in January 1692.<sup>17</sup> On 9 Feb. Carteret was entrusted with the proxies of both his father-in-law, Bath, and his brother-in-law, Charles Granville*, styled Viscount Lansdown, who sat under a writ in acceleration as Lord Granville. Bath’s proxy was vacated at the close of the session; Granville’s by his return to the House on 17 February. Carteret’s attendance declined again during the 1692-3 session, when he was present for less than 20 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to just one committee. In spite of this he was again given his father-in-law’s proxy on 14 Jan., which was vacated two days later. Carteret did not attend the opening of the 1693-4 session and was excused at a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1693; he arrived a few days later on 27 November. His attendance thereafter was again sporadic; he was present for just 35 days out of the 132 day session. He was present, though, to vote against reversing the court of Chancery’s dismission in the Albemarle inheritance case (<em>Montagu v. Bath</em>) on 17 Feb. 1694, in which, through Bath, he had a personal interest.</p><p>Carteret resumed his seat for the 1694-5 session on 7 Dec. 1694 but he attended a mere three days before quitting the session and the House for the last time. He died intestate the following year on 22 Sept. 1695 aged just 28 and was succeeded by his young son, John Carteret*, as 2nd Baron Carteret (later earl of Granville).</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CARTERET, John (1690-1763) |
<p><strong><surname>CARTERET</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1690–1763)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Sept. 1695 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. CARTERET; <em>suc. </em>mo. 1744 as 2nd Earl GRANVILLE |
|
First sat 25 May 1711; last sat 13 Nov. 1761 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 22 Apr. 1690, 1st s. of George Carteret*, Bar. Carteret and Lady Grace Granville, later <em>suo jure</em> Countess Granville. <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1700–5; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 15 Jan. 1706, DCL 1756. <em>m</em>. (1) 17 Oct. 1710 (with £12,000), Frances (<em>d</em>.1743),<sup>1</sup> da. of Sir Robert Worsley<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. of Appuldurcombe, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 5da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 14 Apr. 1744, Lady Sophia Fermor (<em>d</em>.1745), da. of Thomas Fermor*, earl of Pomfret, 1da.<sup>2</sup> KG 1749. <em>d</em>. 2 Jan. 1763; <em>will</em> 19 Sept. 1757–8 Sept. 1762, pr. 7 Jan. 1763.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1714–21; PC 1721; amb. Sweden 1719–21, France 1724 (did not go); sec. of state (South) 1721–4, (North) 1742–4; ld. lt. of Ireland 1724–30; ld. pres. of the Council 1751–63.</p><p>Palatine of the Carolinas 1695–1744;<sup>4</sup> bailiff of Jersey 1715–<em>d</em>.; seigneur of Sark 1715–20; ld. lt. Devon 1716–21.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, studio of W. Hoare, c.1750, NPG 1778.</p> |
<p>Described by the Oxford antiquary Thomas Hearne as ‘a subscriber to Homer and a great proficient in Greek and all polite learning’, Carteret succeeded to the peerage when he was just five years old.<sup>6</sup> He was broadly acknowledged in his lifetime to be a man of remarkable scholarly abilities and was similarly fortunate in his extensive and influential family connections. Through his mother, he inherited a claim to the estates of the Granville earls of Bath, a pretension that involved him in the tortuous wrangling over the settlement of the Albemarle inheritance. Through his paternal family, he enjoyed hereditary rights in the Channel Islands, interests in Carolina and relation to the Montagu family.<sup>7</sup> A friend of Edward Harley*, later 2nd earl of Oxford, with whom he was contemporary both at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, during his long political career Carteret migrated from the Harleyites to association with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and the Hanoverian (‘Whimsical’) Tories. He ended up an ally of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, and an undisputed Whig.<sup>8</sup> In his novel <em>Humphry Clinker</em>, Tobias Smollett concluded that ‘there was no minister in this nation worth the meal that whitened his periwig’. Despite this, and despite commanding a number of great offices of state under the first two Hanoverian monarchs, Carteret’s reputation has suffered at the hands of later commentators, who have tended to conclude that he did not live up to his early promise.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Before he attained his majority, Carteret’s fledgling political influence was noted in a list of clergy thought likely to vote in the 1705 election for Bedfordshire, where he was recorded as the patron of Mr Leith, incumbent of the parish of Bedford (though it was also noted that Leith owed some allegiance to John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, a relatively new force in the county).<sup>10</sup> The same year saw the opening of what was to prove a protracted tussle involving Carteret and other members of the Granville family over the settlement of the Bath estate, when Lady Carteret brought a chancery action against her cousin John Granville*, Baron Granville of Potheridge, for non-payment of bequests owing to her and to her children out of the estate of John Granville*, earl of Bath, who had died in 1701. Still unsatisfied, Lady Carteret brought a further action two years later.<sup>11</sup> A separate action contested unsuccessfully against one Chapman in the court of exchequer resulted in Lady Carteret bringing in a writ of error before the Lords in December 1708, but the House failed to uphold her petition and on 4 Feb. 1709 resolved instead to affirm the court’s original judgment.</p><p>Carteret was noted as underage in a 1708 list of party classifications and again at the time of the Sacheverell trial two years later. From March 1710 he was believed to be actively courting Frances Worsley, granddaughter of Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth.<sup>12</sup> Carteret’s developing alliance with Weymouth’s family was made even more apparent when Weymouth recommended the young man to Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, in September.<sup>13</sup> The marriage to Frances Worsley was celebrated the following month.</p><p>In the spring of 1711, while still technically underage, Carteret began to exert his interest in the West Country as a rival to his kinsman, George Granville*, Baron Lansdown, putting himself forward as one of the contenders for the vacant lieutenancy of Cornwall. Although Lansdown professed to have ‘as much tenderness for him as anybody can have’, he succeeded in impressing on Harley the dangers of humouring Carteret on this point, as ‘it would be making the queen take part in a private cause and give a decision which I am sure can otherwise never be in his favour’.<sup>14</sup> Harley was warned off successfully and the post was given instead to Lansdown’s proposed alternative, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester.</p><p>A little over a month after his 21st birthday, Carteret took his seat in the House in the closing stages of the first session of the Parliament that had commenced the previous November. He was present on 11 of the remaining days (his first sitting coinciding with Robert Harley’s introduction as earl of Oxford). That summer he was employed by Oxford as an intermediary with his father-in-law, Weymouth, whose support Oxford wished to ensure with the offer of a step in the peerage. Weymouth proved unwilling to accept the proffered earldom. He was also said to have declined promotion to a marquessate some years earlier.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Carteret suffered the death of an infant daughter within days of her birth in the early autumn but, despite his loss, he assured Weymouth of his intention of being at the opening of Parliament, being unwilling to ‘sneak the first day’. Further disagreements with Lansdown also occupied his attention at this time over the presentation to one of the family’s West Country livings. Carteret wished to give the place to a school acquaintance but Lansdown had already promised it to a kinsman, Chamond Granville, whom Offspring Blackall*, bishop of Exeter, had proved ‘exceeding hasty’ in installing in the parish.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Carteret joined his father-in-law (whose ‘council and direction’ he openly professed to rely on during this period) in taking his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present on almost 84 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>17</sup> His continuing friendship for Edward Harley was reflected in a letter to Harley from a mutual acquaintance (Robert Friend, master of Westminster) shortly after the session commenced, reporting Carteret’s eagerness ‘to have you in the world’ and how he ‘wonders why you were not in this Parliament’.<sup>18</sup> Loyalty to Edward Harley in no way precluded Carteret from acting against Harley’s father’s administration, however, and on 8 Dec. Carteret was included in an assessment of peers thought likely to oppose the ministry over ‘No Peace without Spain’. Three days later he received his father-in-law’s proxy, which was vacated by Weymouth’s return to the House on 2 Jan. 1712. On 19 Dec. Carteret was forecast (with a query) as being opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House as duke of Brandon. The following day he voted as expected in favour of preventing Scots peers at the time of Union from sitting in the House by virtue of post-Union British peerages.</p><p>Despite his early association with Oxford, by the beginning of 1712 (presumably through his father-in-law’s influence) Carteret had drifted away from the lord treasurer and into Nottingham’s orbit. On 2 Jan. he joined with Nottingham and Weymouth in voting against the ministry’s motion to adjourn, though the ministry carried the vote through the employment of Scots votes and those of the newly created peers.<sup>19</sup> On 9 Feb. Carteret joined Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, at a dinner hosted by Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, to whom Carteret had been introduced by Jonathan Swift the previous year.<sup>20</sup> Carteret’s alliance with Anglesey and the Hanoverian Tories commenced at about this time and may have been reflected in his chairing the committee for Anglesey’s estate bill, which had been committed nine days after their dinner at St John’s and which he reported to the House shortly after, on 4 Mar. 1712. A further indication of his move away from Oxford’s ministry may be perceived in his selection as teller on 29 Feb., almost certainly for those in favour of delaying adjourning the House into a committee of the whole until the following day, to consider the Place bill. The other teller was Oxford’s loyal supporter Samuel Masham*, newly ennobled as Baron Masham. The motion was narrowly defeated when proxies were added.</p><p>Three weeks later Carteret chaired the committee considering the Van Homrigh estate bill, which he reported to the House on 25 Mar., and on 19 May he again acted as teller for the division on the question of whether the land grants bill should be committed. On this occasion the ministry (opposing the motion) was defeated by the narrowest of margins and it proved necessary to count the proxies twice, as the tellers were not in agreement after the first tally. The final reckoning was 74 in favour and 73 against the motion.<sup>21</sup> At the close of the month Carteret sided with the ministry again in voting against the opposition address to have the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from waging an offensive campaign against the French.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The death of Carteret’s young kinsman William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, in 1711 proved the catalyst for further divisions within the family and led to Carteret, his mother, his cousin John Gower*, 2nd Baron Gower (later Earl Gower), and another cousin, Katherine Peyton (for whom Carteret acted as guardian), bringing an action in queen’s bench against Lansdown in October 1712 for failing to divide the Bath estate among the heirs. Lansdown maintained that he was the sole heir as the only direct male descendant of the first earl.<sup>23</sup> Although Lansdown appears to have indicated willingness to comply with distributing the personal estate, thought by Swift (who was a friend of both Carteret and Lansdown) to be worth either £6,000 or £9,000 a year, the following year he brought his own counter-case in chancery against Carteret, Gower and Peyton, insisting again on his sole rights to the remaining property.<sup>24</sup></p><p>In the midst of these family disputes, Carteret continued to be actively involved in the heated political debates of the closing years of Anne’s reign, but, in spite of his consistent opposition to Oxford’s ministry the previous year, in March 1713 Swift assessed him as a likely supporter of the government in the forthcoming session. He took his seat on 9 Apr., after which he was again present on approximately 84 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 May he was noted among ‘3 or 4 Tory lords’ to have been the only objectors to the passage of the commissioners of accounts’ bill.<sup>25</sup> On 28 May he reported from the committee considering the bill enabling the sale of the manor of Morley to satisfy the debts of the late William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax (of whose estate Nottingham was one of the trustees), and on 31 May he was listed among those whom Oxford wished to contact over the French commerce bill. Although Carteret was once again ranked among those against the ministry in showing early opposition to the imposition of the malt tax on Scotland, John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], noted him as one of those who deserted ‘to the enemy’ in the course of the long debate in the committee of the whole held on 8 June, thus assisting in securing the government’s victory by the margin of 64 to 56 votes.<sup>26</sup> Carteret’s return to the ministerial fold on this occasion was short-lived and on 13 June he turned away from the government once more over the ratification of the French commercial treaty. On 25 June he may have been among those peers named to the committee appointed to examine the port books since the Restoration, though there is a discrepancy between the record in the Journal, in which his name appears, and that in the manuscript minutes, where it does not.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Carteret was missing from the opening days of the new Parliament but he returned to the House a week into the first session on 23 Feb. 1714. He was present thereafter on 77 per cent of all sitting days, during which he again chaired a committee for a private estate bill (that of Richard Coote, 3rd earl of Bellomont [I]). Absent from town over the Easter period, Carteret was expected to return on Easter Monday, after which he persisted with his association with the whimsicals.<sup>28</sup> On 5 Apr. he divided with the Whigs, in company with several other Hanoverian Tories, against the ministry on the question of whether the Hanoverian succession was in danger under the present government. His defection was considered particularly important as he was ‘one of the darling champions of the high Church’.<sup>29</sup> Three days later he was one of the ‘straggling lords’ who returned to the ministry’s side, voting in favour of two amendments to the Whig address asking for a bounty to be placed on the Pretender’s head, recommending rather that there should be a reward for bringing him to justice should he attempt to invade and leaving the timing of the declaration to the queen’s discretion.<sup>30</sup> Nottingham forecast Carteret as a likely supporter of the schism bill towards the end of May and Carteret accordingly voted in favour of the measure on 15 June, for which he also acted as one of the tellers.</p><p>Although he had at one stage been one of Bolingbroke’s dining companions, Carteret’s warm support for the Hanoverian succession prevented him from backing the secretary in his manoeuvrings against Oxford.<sup>31</sup> He attended just three days of the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death in August, but his constant support for the new dynasty meant that he was swiftly picked out for promotion. In October he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber and in November he finally concluded an agreement with Lansdown over the settlement of the Bath estate, which he recommended to Lord Gower, explaining stoically that ‘the surest points of law don’t always prevail’.<sup>32</sup> Carteret’s association against Lansdown had been weakened by the deaths of his brother, Philip, and his ward, Katherine Peyton, but he emphasized in presenting the details of the settlement to Gower that ‘we shall get if this agreement takes place … considerably more than our original pretension was’.</p><p>The agreement also held a further incentive, which was that it simplified matters with regard to the ongoing parallel dispute between Bath’s heirs and Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu, over the Albemarle inheritance.<sup>33</sup> Resolution of the dispute and favour under the new regime was further demonstrated when, the following month, a warrant was passed creating the dowager Lady Carteret Countess Granville in her own right, leaving the title of Bath available for Gower to claim. Carteret undertook to do all he could on Gower’s behalf, having in his previous letter protested that he himself lacked any ‘vanity … in relation to title’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Carteret continued to thrive under both George I and George II, who valued his intellect and interest in foreign affairs. Through his loyalty to the dynasty he acquired a reputation as being unusually pro-German but he failed to achieve the kind of dominance of domestic politics demonstrated by the Pelham brothers or Robert Walpole*, later earl of Orford.<sup>35</sup> Details of the later and arguably more important chapter of his career will be dealt with in the next phase of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CAVENDISH, Henry (1630-91) |
<p><strong><surname>CAVENDISH</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1630–91)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1659-65 Visct. MANSFIELD; <em>styled </em>1665-76 earl of Ogle; <em>suc. </em>fa. 25 Dec. 1676 as 2nd duke of NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. |
|
First sat 15 Feb. 1677; last sat 26 May 1685 |
|
MP Derbyshire 1660, Northumberland 1661-76. |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 June 1630, 4th but o. surv. s. of William Cavendish*, earl of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and 1st w.; bro. of Charles Cavendish<sup>‡</sup>, Visct. Mansfield. <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad 1644-7. <em>m</em>. c.1652, Frances (<em>d</em>. 23 Sept. 1695), da. of Hon. William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> of Thoresby, Notts., 4s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 5da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> KG 17 Feb. 1677. <em>d</em>. 26 July 1691; <em>will</em> 26 May 1691, confirmed 1694.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of the robes 1660-2; gent. of the bedchamber 1662-85; PC 15 June 1670-Dec. 1688; gov. Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1666-?74,<sup>3</sup> Berwick 1666-86;<sup>4</sup> commr. for sewers, Hatfield Chase Aug. 1660, ?for recusants, Derbys. 1675, for Tangiers 1680;<sup>5</sup> steward of roy. manor of Newark, 10 Aug. 1670.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Northumb. (jt.) 1670-6, (sole) 1676-89, Notts. 1677-89, Yorks. 1688-9; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Northumb. 1675-89, Derbys. and Notts. 1677-89; c.j. in eyre (Trent North) 1677-89;<sup>7</sup> recorder, Nottingham, 1682-8,<sup>8</sup> Berwick-upon-Tweed 1685-6,<sup>9</sup> Newcastle upon Tyne 1685-8,<sup>10</sup> East Retford 1685-8.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Capt. indep. tp. 1666; col. of ft. 1667, 1673-4,<sup>12</sup> 1688-9.<sup>13</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Oil on canvas, attrib. to Mary Beale, 1676, English Heritage, Kenilworth Castle.</p> |
<p>The relationship between the first duke of Newcastle and his son, who before his succession to the peerage was styled variously Viscount Mansfield and later earl of Ogle, does not seem to have been a close one. Nevertheless, Mansfield appears to have been greatly influenced not only by his father’s staunchly Cavalier political sympathies but also by the first duke’s profoundly conservative perception of society and politics.<sup>15</sup> Mansfield’s father had believed in the need to maintain the social and political eminence of the greater aristocracy, in which group he naturally numbered himself.<sup>16</sup> Mansfield shared this vision and contemporaries noted that he was ‘very much fixed upon making his family great’. After his succession to the peerage it was noted that when he travelled he did so ‘like a great prince, with three coaches and about 40 attendants on horseback.’<sup>17</sup> He also took great care to guard against anything he regarded as infringing upon either his interest or his honour.<sup>18</sup> Indeed, Mansfield was extremely thin-skinned on such matters. This, combined with a certain artlessness of nature, undermined the pretensions he at one time harboured to share the national political stage with his brother-in-law, George Savile*, Viscount (ultimately marquess of) Halifax. Mansfield’s loyalty to first Charles II and then James II could not hide the fact that his talents never merited appointment to great office. This was clearly demonstrated during the Revolution of 1688 when he was humiliated by the northern supporters of William of Orange’s invasion.</p><h2><em>Early career 1660-76</em></h2><p>Mansfield owed his place as heir to the dukedom of Newcastle to the death of three older brothers, the last of whom, Charles Cavendish, who had also been styled Viscount Mansfield, died in the early summer of 1659. After the Restoration, Mansfield represented first Derbyshire and then Northumberland in the Commons. His election to Derbyshire had been subject to a challenge and Mansfield’s life was threatened by one of his competitors. Mansfield’s father sought the assistance of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in ensuring that justice was done to his son.<sup>19</sup> In the Commons Mansfield was initially an adherent of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, but over time their connection was weakened by Buckingham’s increasing association with the opposition. In 1665 when his father was advanced in the peerage as duke of Newcastle, Mansfield noted with pleasure that his father was the only new duke made at the time.<sup>20</sup> From this point until his succession to the dukedom he adopted the courtesy title of earl of Ogle. That summer he was at the head of the gentry delegation to greet James*, duke of York, on his progress through the Midlands.<sup>21</sup> He was also said to have been involved in a quarrel with Buckingham at Welbeck.<sup>22</sup> That December he entered into an engagement not to remarry for as long as any of his sons by his present wife remained alive and to settle his property on his present family as soon as his father died.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In January 1666 it was rumoured that Ogle was on the point of being summoned to the House of Lords, though it was not specified whether this was by writ of acceleration or by virtue of a new barony to be conferred on him. The report encouraged Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, to propose his heir for Ogle’s seat in the Commons but in the event Ogle remained where he was.<sup>24</sup> He responded uncertainly to news of the fall of Clarendon. While expressing his regret at the earl’s displacement he was in two minds whether to make the journey to London for the opening of the new session of Parliament. He appeared heartened by news of Buckingham’s return to favour, predicting approvingly that the duke would be ‘active’; a similar assessment was made of his friend Thomas Osborne*, best known by his later title as earl of Danby, whom he thought would be ‘a great man in business.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>At the opening of 1670 Ogle was able to negotiate a highly advantageous marriage for his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, with the heir of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle.<sup>26</sup> Albemarle’s death soon after left Ogle and his father-in-law, William Pierrepont, charged with overseeing the duke’s estate as joint executors of Albemarle’s will. Ogle reputedly urged the new duke to practise ‘frugality’, though his son-in-law appears to have been disinclined to heed the advice, conceiving that ‘his father lived thriftily that his son might live the better.’<sup>27</sup> Three years later, Ogle was said to have been gratified by the news of the death of his eccentric stepmother, whose foibles had long entertained society: ‘for had she outlived her duke, it was thought she would have much ruined that estate.’<sup>28</sup> The summer of 1675 found Ogle engaged with efforts to dispose of his second daughter to the teenaged Robert Sutton*, later 2nd Baron Lexinton. He was constrained to seek his father’s agreement and the match failed to transpire.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>Duke of Newcastle 1676-85</em></h2><p>Ogle succeeded to the dukedom on Christmas day 1676. Soon after inheriting the peerage he promised his support to Danby (as Osborne had become) in employing his interest at Berwick on behalf of Danby’s son, Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Dumblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds).<sup>30</sup> Alongside of this, he was engaged with settling his father’s affairs and making arrangements for the funeral, which the late duke had desired should be ‘done with all privateness possible.’ The only people invited to the event were family members.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Newcastle took his seat in the upper House on 15 Feb. 1677, the first day of the new session. He had previously appealed to Danby for financial assistance, lauding him as someone who had ‘been much more than his father to him.’<sup>32</sup> His attendance of the House proved to be infrequent (just under 24 per cent of all sitting days) and it may be that his journey to the capital owed more to his approaching installation as a knight of the garter than any enthusiasm for the proceedings of the Lords.<sup>33</sup> That said, between 6 Mar. and 21 May he held the proxy of William Widdrington*, 3rd Baron Widdrington, and he continued to attend the House on occasion for over a month after his installation on 19 April.<sup>34</sup></p><p>At the beginning of July Newcastle set out for his northern estates.<sup>35</sup> That parliamentary business was not his first priority is suggested by his failure to return when the session resumed in December or indeed to turn out for either of the remaining sessions of the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>36</sup> Local matters, such as his responsibilities for the royal forests as chief justice in eyre, appear to have occupied more of Newcastle’s attention. He may also have been concerned with an ultimately aborted attempt to settle the marriage of another of his daughters.<sup>37</sup> In November he requested that his son-in-law would make his excuses for his absence. He also undertook to entrust Albemarle with his proxy, which was registered accordingly on 14 January.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Family preoccupations continued to dominate Newcastle’s affairs into the early months of 1678. In February it was rumoured that his son, Henry Cavendish, now styled earl of Ogle, was either about to or had already married the Percy heiress. In the event the marriage was not settled until the spring of the following year.<sup>39</sup> In March 1678 Newcastle responded to a summons to attend the next session by insisting that he was ‘no more able to go up now than he was before’. His duchess approached their daughter, the duchess of Albemarle, to persuade her husband to speak on Newcastle’s behalf so that he would not have to rely on his servants swearing at the bar of the House.<sup>40</sup> Financial concerns may also have influenced Newcastle’s disinclination to make another expensive stay in London. On the opening day of the new session (23 May 1678) he wrote to request payment of his salary as justice in eyre.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Newcastle’s absence from both court and Parliament did not prevent him from being labelled triply vile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. As a long-standing friend of Danby’s, the reason for such a classification is readily apparent. Given the relationship between the two men it appears at first surprising that Newcastle made so little effort to rally to his friend’s support after the lord treasurer’s fall.<sup>42</sup> He assured Danby that he remained ‘a devoted servant to the court though I am in the country’, but declined the earl’s request that he attend the final session of the Cavalier Parliament, citing ill health.<sup>43</sup> Pressure on his northern lieutenancies made by the incursions of groups of Dissenters from Scotland no doubt also made it more difficult for him to contemplate abandoning his post. In response to this threat, Newcastle emulated his father’s active suppression of conventicles and proved energetic in pursuing those suspected of disaffection during late 1678.<sup>44</sup> Although unwilling to appear in the House in person, Newcastle ensured that his proxy was once more entrusted to his son-in-law, Albemarle, on 19 Oct. 1678.<sup>45</sup> Newcastle assured Danby in mid December that though ‘very sickly, as long as I can crawl I will venture my life to serve your lordship’, but a week before the close of the session the House accepted Newcastle’s latest excuse relayed by two of his retainers that he was so incommoded by ‘griping of the guts’ that he was in no state to attend.</p><p>News of the dissolution in January 1679 brought further requests from Danby that Newcastle would employ his interest on behalf of suitable candidates in the elections. He hoped that Newcastle would promote his heir, Ogle, as one of the county members for either Nottinghamshire or Northumberland, not least as he hoped it would bring father and son to London in time for the new Parliament. Newcastle proved once again disinclined to heed Danby’s renewed requests for his assistance.<sup>46</sup> He was listed by Danby on several occasions as a probable, though absent, opponent of the bill of attainder brought against him. If the former lord treasurer was disappointed or irritated by his friend’s failure to support him in his hour of need these feelings may have been aggravated when, on 15 Apr. the Lords refused to accept Newcastle’s latest claim that he was too ill to attend the House.<sup>47</sup> Newcastle had already been ordered to London to be sworn a member of the reconstituted Privy Council.<sup>48</sup> He arrived in the capital towards the end of the month, taking his seat in the House at last on 26 April. Thereafter he attended on 23 days (38 per cent of the whole). On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to remain in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Despite his extensive territorial interests in the Midlands and the north, Newcastle took little discernible part in the elections to the second Exclusion Parliament. This should not, however, be taken to indicate a lack of concern for his duties as lord lieutenant of Northumberland and Nottinghamshire. He responded swiftly to an order for raising Northumberland’s militia to oppose the Covenanters’ Rebellion, for which he received the thanks of the king.<sup>49</sup> His concern for the detail of local administration, not to mention his pride, was also evident in the summer of 1680 when he expressed his dismay that a man he had appointed to the Nottinghamshire bench had been removed in the recent regulation of the magistracy.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Such matters appear to have remained of greater importance to Newcastle than parliamentary business. In October 1679 he wrote to Danby of his unwillingness to attend the new Parliament, asserting that he was ‘so crazy, I am fit for no place but what is very private and retired’.<sup>51</sup> Crazy in this context meant sick, but he was not so ill as to be unable to play host to the duke and duchess of York at Welbeck during their journey northwards that autumn.<sup>52</sup> Newcastle’s attention seems once again to have been taken up with family matters during the summer of 1680 when he was engaged in an acrimonious dispute with his ward, Sir William Clifton<sup>‡</sup>. Clifton’s mother had been eager to see the young man married to Lady Catherine Cavendish but Newcastle took against the arrangement and ensured that no marriage resulted.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Newcastle’s health appears to have improved by August 1680. Towards the end of the month he wrote to Danby assuring the former treasurer that, although he did not expect the new Parliament to last longer than ten days and that he would prefer not to make the journey, he would ‘most readily go and do your lordship all the service that shall lie in my power’.<sup>54</sup> This time he proved more willing to exert himself and he took his place in the Lords at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 October. Present on 17 days in the session (approximately a quarter of all sitting days), just over a week after the opening he was devastated by the news of the death of his heir, Ogle. His loss left Newcastle, according to Halifax, ‘of all men living at this time the most to be pitied’. His concern was not just for the demise of his only surviving son but also for the associated financial losses, much money having been expended in settling Ogle’s marriage. Even so, the disaster to the family failed to distract him from the business in hand in Parliament.<sup>55</sup> He was, thus, in his place when the exclusion bill came before the Lords on 15 Nov. and he both spoke and voted against the measure.<sup>56</sup> His support for York at this juncture earned him the duke’s favour, though Newcastle was later at pains to stress that his concerns were more for the succession in general rather than for any particular heir.<sup>57</sup> Newcastle was not present in the House four days later when one of his chaplains, John Moore, was examined over an allegation that another of Newcastle’s chaplains, John Wyatt, had been arrested earlier in the year by the undersheriff of Gloucestershire and the duke’s letter of protection destroyed by the bailiffs. After further enquiry Moore admitted that Wyatt was not in fact one of the duke’s ‘domestic chaplains’ and the House resolved not to interfere in the matter.<sup>58</sup> Newcastle resumed his place on 22 Nov. and the following month he was present in the House to witness the proceedings against William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. He divided with the minority in voting Stafford not guilty.</p><p>In January 1681 Newcastle was summoned to a meeting with the king which Newcastle anticipated would lead to an offer of one of the great offices of state, possibly one of the secretaryships. Newcastle’s prediction appears to have been correct but even so he declined the king’s offer. This was perhaps due to his belief that he would be accorded only minor influence in the king’s counsels when compared with Halifax and to the fact that, as he confided to his friend Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> during their journey from London in February, ‘he liked not the measures then on foot, and thought the times but slippery’. Newcastle appears to have been increasingly envious of Halifax and resented the fact that his former friend had not warned him of the imminent dissolution. Danby, on the other hand, had advised Newcastle that Parliament was shortly to be dissolved, thereby helping him to retain Newcastle’s loyalty to his cause.<sup>59</sup> Tension between Halifax and Newcastle was also apparent during the protracted negotiations between the two men over a projected match between Halifax’s heir, William Savile*, styled Lord Eland (later 2nd marquess of Halifax), and one of Newcastle’s daughters. According to Reresby, Newcastle was ‘not averse to the match’ but he was unhappy with the proposed terms. After much wrangling the marriage failed to transpire.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Newcastle took his seat in the new Parliament at Oxford on 21 Mar. 1681 and proceeded to attend on each of the brief session’s seven days. When approached shortly before the opening to support Danby’s attempt to secure bail, Newcastle not only offered to act as surety, but also desired to be allowed to introduce Danby’s petition for bail into the Lords.<sup>61</sup> Though this request was denied, Newcastle supported Danby’s unsuccessful attempt to obtain bail, and was one of those who spoke in his favour after the petition was presented by James Bertie*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). He also related an account of the day’s events to Danby, noting which lords had spoken on his side and emphasizing that he had not been responsible for the calamitous decision to allow the Lords to adjourn putting off further discussion to the next week.<sup>62</sup> He remained a regular correspondent of the former lord treasurer until Danby’s release in 1685. He professed himself at one point ‘extremely troubled to see how ill used your lordship is by the judges’ and in November 1682 and again in February 1684 he was one of those to sign petitions for Danby to be released.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Aside from his commitment to Danby’s cause, Newcastle’s attentions were increasingly dominated by overseeing affairs in the counties where he had influence. The summer of 1681 found Newcastle noted among those thought likely to sign the Derbyshire address. His efforts to recommend the Northumberland address to the local magistrates and deputy lieutenants, though, met with opposition and a rival address was penned by Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Such actions served to encourage Newcastle’s conviction that his position was being undermined and he pointed to Halifax as one of those he believed to be working against him. He was later to complain that his lack of interest at court prevented him from nominating a sheriff of his choosing.<sup>64</sup> Nevertheless he persisted in pushing his interest. In April 1682 he proposed Reresby as successor to John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, ‘my noble friend’, in one of the wardenships of Sherwood Forest. He did not succeed; Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Latimer, lord warden of the Forest, resolved to keep the place for himself.<sup>65</sup> In the spring of 1683 Newcastle was engaged in an angry dispute with his wife’s kinsman, William Pierrepont*, 4th earl of Kingston, over felling timber in the Forest. This prompted legal action between the two magnates and promised to spill over into the local factional disturbances. Newcastle was concerned that he could see, once again, the hand of his former friend Halifax behind the escalation but by the close of the summer he and Kingston appear to have arrived at an amicable settlement.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Newcastle’s earlier inauspicious correspondence with Latimer did not prevent an attempt to unite the two families with the marriage of Latimer to one of Newcastle’s daughters. Latimer himself seems to have been unimpressed by the scheme and dismissed his would-be bride, Lady Frances, as ‘both sickly and peevish’. His father, Danby, was more disposed to press on with the alliance, provided that Frances Cavendish could have children. By the end of August Latimer appears to have been subjected to a beauty parade of all of Newcastle’s unmarried daughters. He remained unpersuaded but in the event the negotiations seem to have faltered because of the resolution of one of Newcastle’s daughters not to marry (or not to marry Latimer) and of the others being unavailable.<sup>67</sup> One of the latter was presumably Lady Catherine, for whom Newcastle was engaged in negotiations at the same time as result of a proposal brokered by his kinsman, William Cavendish*, 4rd earl of Devonshire, on behalf of Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I] (who attended the Lords as Baron Butler). Once again, Newcastle’s unwillingness to part with ready money and preference for a settlement based on expectations once he was dead brought the discussions to a close.<sup>68</sup> The prospects of marriages were reduced further at the close of 1682 when he was troubled by the first public intimation that his eldest daughter, the duchess of Albemarle, was afflicted with some form of mental instability. By the following spring he had determined that she was not mad, though driven to distraction by her own follies. ‘Our fondness to our children’ he concluded ‘brought us in to this misery.’<sup>69</sup> He rejected another marriage proposal, this time from Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton) on behalf of one of Winchester’s sons later in the year explaining his decision on the grounds that ‘disinheritances’ were ‘commonly unfortunate’.<sup>70</sup></p><h2><em>Tory reaction 1682-5</em></h2><p>If Newcastle struggled to cope with his family’s travails, he proved far more assured in his support for the court in the aftermath of the Exclusion Crisis when he became an active agent of the Tory reaction. His political influence was greatest in Northumberland and Nottinghamshire and it was in these counties that he chose to concentrate his political efforts. In the summer of 1682 he was in close contact with Carlisle over the appointment of a sheriff in Northumberland and in September he was ordered to take up residence at Nottingham Castle to help quell disorders in that city.<sup>71</sup> He assisted in the quashing of opposition groupings in both Berwick-upon-Tweed and Nottingham, and went on to play an important part in securing the surrender of these boroughs’ charters, for which he received careful advice from Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>72</sup> He interceded on behalf of one Sanderson to be excused from being pricked sheriff of Nottingham, Sanderson having an income under £100 a year and being ‘devoted to his majesty’s service.’ Newcastle was also on hand to assist with the surrender and regranting of Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s charter in late 1684 and early 1685.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Newcastle’s concerns extended beyond these boroughs to the general state of the two counties of which he was lord lieutenant, most notably at the time of the revelations of the Rye House Plot when he took a leading role in organizing the response of Nottinghamshire and Northumberland.<sup>74</sup> His concern for the interests of Nottinghamshire was evident when a delay in printing the county’s address in the <em>London Gazette</em> prompted him to write to the secretary of state complaining that ‘we have little encouragement for our loyalty’ and threatening ‘to give over all public employment’.<sup>75</sup> However, the affairs of Northumberland appear to have absorbed more of his energies as he found himself drawn into a bitter factional dispute among the county’s political elite.<sup>76</sup> Newcastle, who in 1683 wrote that ‘I reckon myself more of Northumberland than of any country, because we were there before the conquest’, appears to have been wearied by this conflict as it prompted another threat to resign from public office.<sup>77</sup> His health may also have been an issue. In March 1683 he had written to Danby wondering that ‘I am alive labouring under such great afflictions as I do.’<sup>78</sup> Nevertheless, Newcastle remained so diligent in his approach to his duties in the localities that the secretary of state complained in 1683 that the duke’s letters were so frequent that ‘I confess myself unable to correspond with you’.<sup>79</sup></p><h2><em>James II, the Revolution and after, 1685-91</em></h2><p>After the failure to settle matters earlier, the final year of Charles II’s reign found Newcastle engaged with finalizing details of a marriage settlement between his daughter, Catherine, and Thomas Tufton*, earl of Thanet. This was completed by the end of the summer.<sup>80</sup> Newcastle excused his failure to wait on the sickly king at the beginning of February 1685 fearing that to do so would have been ‘impertinent’.<sup>81</sup> Following the king’s death shortly after, he was rumoured to be one of those likely to be reappointed to the new king’s bedchamber, but in the event he chose to resign the position (presumably on account of his health). As he confessed to Halifax, ‘a quiet life is all I desire.’<sup>82</sup> Despite this, he was punctilious in his approach to the general election occasioned by the new king’s accession. He was one of a number of men to receive letters from Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, requesting them to assist in the election of ‘persons of approved loyalty and affection to the government’. Though Newcastle persisted in his complaint that ‘I am so sickly I fear I shall not be able to be at any election’, he nevertheless strove to meet Sunderland’s request.<sup>83</sup> Nottinghamshire was the main focus of Newcastle’s efforts and, in addition to playing an important role in the election of court candidates at East Retford, Newark and Nottingham, he also stepped into the breach to assist with the county election when the danger arose that one of the seats would fall into the hands of a Whig candidate. He professed himself particularly grateful to Kingston who by his actions had ‘suppressed the factious to that degree that they durst not offer to oppose’ the court candidates.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Newcastle supported two Tory candidates at the Derbyshire election and also seems to have encouraged Reresby to contest York, but his role in the return of members for Northumberland is more obscure.<sup>85</sup> He appears, in the aftermath of the factional disputes of the early 1680s, to have stood aside from the county election. Although he had been appointed recorder of both Berwick-upon-Tweed and Newcastle-upon-Tyne he met with little success in his attempts to nominate one Member for the latter borough and there is no concrete evidence that he played a significant role in the election for the former either.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Though active during the elections, Newcastle was (typically) reluctant to attend the meeting of the new Parliament. He wrote to Halifax in February that ill health would prevent him from travelling to London. By April he had altered this resolution and though ‘hardly able to creep’ was determined not to seek permission to absent himself. Even so, he reckoned that he would struggle to attend many sittings ‘I am so very infirm.’ He waited on the king later that month and took his seat at the opening of the 1685 session.<sup>87</sup> On 26 May he registered his proxy with Albemarle, which was vacated by his return to the House on 1 June, but this proved to be the final occasion on which he sat.</p><p>Having returned to his estates much of Newcastle’s time was occupied by continuing negotiations for settling the affairs of his remaining unmarried daughters, who by the loss of his son were now coheirs to his considerable fortune.<sup>88</sup> In November 1686 Reresby recorded finding the household at Welbeck in turmoil following a serious falling out between duke and duchess over the latter’s efforts to settle their daughters’ marriages without reference to the duke. One such scheme involved the marriage of Lady Margaret Cavendish to Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury. Newcastle seems not to have objected to Shrewsbury but to the portion on which the duchess was insisting. He also objected to the way in which he was being ‘hectored’ by his wife about the business.<sup>89</sup> Alongside disagreements over the sums involved in the daughters’ portions, Newcastle insisted that his grandsons should bear the name of Cavendish as well as their fathers’ surnames. He remained unrepentant about the upset the dispute caused within the family, concluding simply ‘I can do this without anybody’s assistance.’<sup>90</sup></p><p>As a distraction from his tempestuous family life, Newcastle continued to undertake those duties associated with his offices in the Midlands and north east over the next two years. He took steps to secure Nottinghamshire and Northumberland at the time of the Monmouth Rebellion and took an interest in the corporate politics of Newcastle and Nottingham.<sup>91</sup> Newcastle’s enthusiasm for such activity appears, however, to have been on the wane. When a by-election for one of the Nottinghamshire seats had seemed in prospect in the summer of 1686 he somewhat disingenuously wrote to Halifax that ‘I am a poor man, and pretend to no interest in choosing Parliament men’.<sup>92</sup> This seemed to be confirmed by the actions of the corporation of Retford, of which he was recorder, which sought to settle the nomination of one of their Members towards the close of 1686 without reference to him. Newcastle was offended by his exclusion from the decision and although he had no objection to the candidate, he resented the manner in which the selection had been undertaken.<sup>93</sup> Shortly before this he requested, and was granted, permission to vacate the post of recorder of Berwick-upon-Tweed, to which he had only recently been appointed. He insisted that he had previously asked not to be given the post, citing both a disinclination to be burdened with the place and concern that he had not been granted the governorship as his reasons.<sup>94</sup></p><p>It may be that a combination of personal pique and concern over the direction of affairs under the new monarch explains Newcastle’s declining enthusiasm for local politics. Reresby noted that upon meeting Newcastle in September 1685 the duke ‘made … free of his discourse in relation to affairs at court, and declared positively that he would not repair thither any more, and should be glad to be out of all manner of public employment’. This may indicate a degree of concern on Newcastle’s part as to the intentions of James II and his ministers, but Reresby also recorded that Newcastle’s freedom of expression was rooted at least in part in the ‘neglect’ he believed he had suffered when last at court, and in the failure to promote his soldier son-in-law, Albemarle. In another conversation with Reresby in August 1686 the duke made it clear that ‘he was very sensible of the king’s going on very fast in the promoting of his own religion, but [he], did resolve to be very loyal, and yet firm to his religion’.<sup>95</sup></p><p>It may be that it was an awareness of the potential conflict between his loyalties to the king and to the Anglican church which prompted Newcastle to take a step back from political activity, though his declaration to Halifax that ‘I resolve never to go to London. No Parliament can bring me there’ probably reveals little more than his usual unwillingness to attend the House of Lords.<sup>96</sup> As usual his preoccupation with the state of his health was also a factor and at the opening of 1687 he informed Halifax that he did not expect to live another six months. The ongoing dispute with his duchess and daughter, Margaret, also increasingly preoccupied Newcastle, not least as he considered that they were determined to ‘publish me to be the very rogue in the world.’ By the beginning of 1687 the duke and duchess were living in separate establishments.<sup>97</sup> Despite this, suitors continued to angle for a match with Lady Margaret, among them the king’s bastard son, James Fitzjames*, later duke of Berwick, and Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham (the first supported by Newcastle and the latter by the duchess).<sup>98</sup> The suit of James Hamilton*, earl of Arran (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S]) failed after Arran disgraced himself while in his cups.<sup>99</sup> Feversham’s suit appeared likely to succeed though Newcastle looked set to agree to it only with an extremely bad grace. He made it known that he believed the match was the result of intrigue between Halifax and his duchess. In the event neither suit prevailed. After the Revolution Lady Margaret married her cousin, John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle).<sup>100</sup></p><p>Contemporaries clearly believed that any concern that Newcastle experienced regarding James II’s plans to repeal the penal laws and test acts would be over-ridden by his loyalty to the crown. During 1687 Newcastle was included in three lists forecasting the likely attitude of peers to James II’s campaign. Two of these classed the duke as a likely supporter of James and only one expressed any doubts as to his sympathies. This was reflected in a report from November 1687 of Newcastle’s message to his deputies in Nottingham that he intended, as he always had, to comply with the king’s desires.<sup>101</sup> Similarly, during the first half of 1688 Newcastle was active in furthering James’s policies in those parliamentary constituencies where he had an influence, and in carrying out a regulation of local officeholders in line with the court’s wishes.<sup>102</sup> He also led Nottinghamshire’s celebrations of the birth of the prince of Wales in June 1688.<sup>103</sup> However, other aspects of his behaviour at this time may suggest a certain amount of continuing uncertainty about James II’s policies. In March 1688 it was reported that Newcastle had resigned his places. His effort to lay down his posts, if sincere, could be attributed to concerns as to royal policy, dismissed as little more than attention seeking, or once again the result of his ongoing concerns about his health. In the event, he retained his commands.<sup>104</sup> More instructive is the concern he showed at the removal of loyalists from corporate office in Nottingham, and his response to the acquittal of the Seven Bishops in July 1688.<sup>105</sup> At the same time that he was threatening reprisals against those who had lit a bonfire in celebration of the release of the bishops and promising further regulation of Newark’s corporation should the borough not agree to return the court candidates at the anticipated general election, Newcastle was privately drinking the health of the freed prelates.<sup>106</sup></p><p>If Newcastle did harbour private reservations as to the precise goals of James’s policies, his loyalty to the Stuart monarchy won out during the events of late 1688. In October he was one of those to offer to raise a force out of his own pocket. He was retained in his posts of lord lieutenant of Northumberland and Nottinghamshire and, following his offer, was also authorized to raise a new regiment.<sup>107</sup> To these responsibilities was added the lieutenancy of all three ridings of Yorkshire.<sup>108</sup> He initially set about preparing the defences of the north and Midlands with some vigour but once William of Orange had landed in Torbay, Newcastle adopted a less active approach.<sup>109</sup> By doing so he left himself unprepared to face the challenge mounted by his old friend Danby and his kinsman, Devonshire. Newcastle and Danby’s altered relations were already apparent in October when they disagreed over the granting of commissions to Catholics and once the rebellion was underway, Newcastle was out-manoeuvred by Danby in Yorkshire. Having lost the support of his militia there and bungled affairs in York itself, falling out with Reresby in the process, he retreated to Welbeck, where he continued to face wrangling within his family to add to his woes.<sup>110</sup> Even though he was then able to prevent Nottinghamshire’s militia from being raised in support of Devonshire’s pro-William force, he found himself effectively under house arrest. He even suffered the indignity of having all arms removed from Welbeck by Devonshire’s supporters.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Assessments of Newcastle’s behaviour at this time have been critical, though it has also been pointed out that a change of stance might have seriously affected his credibility.<sup>112</sup> What is unquestionable is that the Revolution marked the end of his active political career. When Reresby visited Newcastle at Welbeck in January 1689 he found the duke:</p><blockquote><p>very loyal and firm to his master the king, and consequently as angry against the earls of Danby and Devonshire, and such others as had been the actors in those parts for the Prince of Orange. He said he would be loyal to the king, firm to his religion, and act always according to law … He told me he had received a letter of summons to be at the Convention, but that he would not go nor act in that assembly; that he had offered to surrender the commission of his lieutenancies into the king’s hands before he went, but the king would not receive them; and that he would act so long as he might do it by them, but would not take any commissions from the prince or any such authority.<sup>113</sup></p></blockquote><p>Newcastle accordingly resigned his offices and declined a summons to attend the Convention. In November 1689 he undertook to send two servants to testify to his inability to attend, ‘the truth being he is a dying body.’ Even so he survived for long enough to refuse the oaths to the new regime in 1690. He also declined involving himself in the early stages of the dispute arising out of the Albemarle inheritance dispute.<sup>114</sup> Besides this he appears to have played no further political role, though his name was on occasion mentioned in connection with Jacobite conspiracy.<sup>115</sup></p><p>Newcastle spent the remainder of his life in retirement at Welbeck, where he died on 26 July 1691.<sup>116</sup> He was buried at Bolsover the following month on 12 August. The majority of his extensive, though heavily indebted estate (believed to be worth in the region of £9,000 p.a.), was left to his third daughter Margaret, countess of Clare. The duke’s will, composition of which had already involved him in disagreements with his four surviving daughters and their spouses (Frances, Lady Glenorchy having died in 1690), was disputed by the earl and countess of Thanet who contested that the duke had been <em>non</em> <em>compos</em> <em>mentis</em> at the time of composing it. Clare and Thanet even resorted to a duel to settle the issue. Despite this, Newcastle’s last wishes were eventually upheld and the Thanets’ suit dismissed in February 1694. Fuller details of the dispute are contained in the biography of the 4th earl of Clare. Contrary to rumours that circulated soon after Newcastle’s death, his marquessate did not pass to his kinsman, Devonshire, and in 1694 the dukedom of Newcastle was revived for Clare.<sup>117</sup></p> |
R.D.H./R.D.E.E. |
|
CAVENDISH, William (1593-1676) |
<p><strong><surname>CAVENDISH</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1593–1676)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>29 Oct. 1620 Visct. MANSFIELD; <em>cr. </em>7 Mar. 1628 earl of NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE; <em>cr. </em>27 Oct. 1643 mq. of NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE; <em>cr. </em>16 Mar. 1665 duke of NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE |
|
First sat 30 Jan. 1621; first sat after 1660, 1 June 1660; last sat 25 Aug. 1660 |
|
MP East Retford 1614. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 16 Dec. 1593, Handsworth, Yorks., 2nd but 1st surv. s. and h. of Sir Charles Cavendish<sup>‡</sup>, of Welbeck Abbey, Notts. and Katherine (later <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Ogle), da. and coh. of Cuthbert Ogle<sup>†</sup>, 7th Baron Ogle; bro. of Sir Charles Cavendish<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. household of Gilbert Talbot<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Shrewsbury; St. John’s, Camb. MA 1608; embassy, Savoy 1612.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) by 24 Oct. 1618, Elizabeth<sup>2</sup> (<em>d</em>.1643), da. and h. of William Bassett of Blore, Staffs., wid. of Hon. Henry Howard, s. of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Suffolk, 6s. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 4da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.);<sup>3</sup> (2) Dec. 1645, Margaret (<em>d</em>. 1673), da. of Thomas Lucas of Colchester, Essex, sis. of John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, <em>s.p</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 4 Apr. 1617. KB 2 June 1610; KG 12 Jan. 1650, installed 15 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 25 Dec. 1676; <em>will</em> 4 Oct. 1676, pr. 24 Feb. 1677.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Constable and high steward of Pontefract ?1626–44; jt. ld. lt. Derbys. 1628–38, ld. lt. Notts. 1626–42, 1660–<em>d</em>., jt. ld. lt. Northumb. 1670–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Northumb. 1628–44, Derbys. and Notts. 1640–4, 1660–<em>d</em>.; steward and warden of Sherwood forest 1641; c.j. in eyre, north of Trent 1661–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov. to Prince of Wales 1638–41; PC 29 Nov. 1639, Apr. 1650–<em>d</em>.; gent. of the bedchamber 1660–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. Prince of Wales tp. of horse 1639; gov. Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1642; col. of horse, ft. and dgns. (roy.) 1642–4;<sup>5</sup> cmmdr.-in-chief armies north of the Trent (roy.) 1643–5.<sup>6</sup> Commr. oyer and terminer, Midland and Oxford circuits 1626–42,<sup>7</sup> for supply of lead Derbys. 1627.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after W. Dobson, Kirklees Museums and Galleries; engraving by G. Vertue after painting by Sir A. van Dyck, NPG D 28179.</p> |
<p>According to the memoir of his life published by his wife in 1667, Newcastle was so taken aback by his first sight of London in May 1660 after 16 years in exile, that he urged a companion to ‘jog him and awake him out of his dream, for surely, said he, I have been sixteen years asleep, and am not thoroughly awake yet’. Having arrived in the capital ‘his supper seemed more savoury to him, than any meat he had hitherto tasted; and the noise of some scraping fiddlers he thought the pleasantest harmony that ever he had heard’. However, within six months Newcastle had taken his leave of the court and returned to his midlands estates.<sup>9</sup> He visited London on only a handful of occasions thereafter and, after 25 Aug. 1660, never again took his place in the House of Lords.</p><p>That Newcastle had welcomed the Restoration so emotionally is unsurprising given his devotion to the house of Stuart. During the 1630s he had served as governor to the then Prince of Wales and, during the Civil War, he had wholeheartedly thrown himself into the royalist war effort. Though his shortcomings as a general became obvious during the course of the conflict, there was no doubt of his personal courage or of his absolute commitment to the cause of the Stuarts.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On the eve of the Restoration, Newcastle’s concern to ensure that Charles II never suffered the fate of his royal father prompted him to pen a letter of advice to his former charge, offering his thoughts on how best to re-establish monarchical government in England.<sup>11</sup> Newcastle began his advice modestly enough. He stated of his letter that ‘there is no oratory in it, or anything stolen out of books, for I seldom or ever read any, but these discourses are out of my long experience’. He then proceeded to address a wide range of subjects, profoundly conservative in content, though whether truly Hobbesian in nature has been questioned.<sup>12</sup> His advice emphasized the need for a strong monarch, in control of both the army and the militia, supported by an episcopal national church. He believed that ‘every body politic’ was composed of civil and ecclesiastical states and that both ‘popery and presbytery’ inevitably led to clashes between civil and ecclesiastical authority. Only episcopacy, ‘instituted by the apostles, received and approved by the primitive Christians, established by the princes, and parliaments, of our own kingdom, [and] pretending to no power over the king at all’, was compatible with the avoidance of civil strife. Newcastle regarded Parliament as a natural part of the constitution, but he emphasized that parliaments ‘should be kept within their bounds, which every body knows, for your Majesty gives life or death to bills’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>The main concern of Newcastle’s letter was to ensure that no repetition of the events of the 1640s would be possible under the restored Stuarts. To this end he repeatedly harked back to the perceived golden age of the Elizabethan polity and highlighted the errors of both James I and Charles I. He drew particular attention to the neglect of ceremony, stressing the need to maintain the correct order and precedences of the peerage and the gentry as ‘when the lower degrees strive to out brave higher degrees, it breeds envy in the better sort, and pride in the meaner sort, and a contempt by vulgar of the nobility – which breeds, faction, and disorder, which are the causes of a civil war’. He argued that the ennobling of ‘buggerly people’ unable to maintain the proper dignity of the peerage had led to the decrying and pulling down of ceremony. For Newcastle, the consequences of this were obvious: ‘noblemen were pulled down, which is the foundation of monarchy, and monarchy soon after fell’. Newcastle also warned Charles of the dangers of repeating his grandfather’s and father’s expansion of the peerage. He opined that prior to the civil wars this practice had encouraged faction and division first in the Lords and at court, and then in the Commons.<sup>14</sup> It is difficult to know what, if any, influence Newcastle had upon Charles II, but his letter of advice undoubtedly evinced a deep conservatism which was shared by many Royalist peers on the eve of Restoration.</p><p>Shortly before Charles II set sail for England in 1660, Newcastle had visited him hoping to secure for himself the post of master of the horse. Newcastle’s passion for horse breeding and training was of long standing, and his efforts in the Royalist cause during the Civil War no doubt encouraged him in his pretensions to this post. The financial cost of his devotion to the royal house had been considerable. Taking into account compound interest, his duchess reckoned his losses amounted to £941,303.<sup>15</sup> The exact figure is difficult to establish though the estimate provides some indication of the extent of Newcastle’s losses in the royalist cause. Consequently, Newcastle’s claims to the office of master of the horse appeared strong, not least on account of his deserved fame as an equestrian of particular skill. The post had, however, already been requested by George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, and Newcastle was left disappointed. One of the errors of James I and Charles I that Newcastle had highlighted in his letter of advice was that they had ‘rewarded their enemies, and neglected their friends’.<sup>16</sup> It may be that the rebuff of his request for office influenced his decision to retire from political life in the autumn of 1660.</p><p>Though he was present in London from the beginning of May 1660 Newcastle exhibited no great interest in the proceedings of the Lords. He did not take his seat until 1 June and was thereafter present on just 15 additional days before sitting in the House for the final time on 25 August. It is perhaps significant that on a number of the days upon which he attended, business relating to Sherwood Forest was before the House, though he was not present on 22 June when an order was made to end the cutting of timber in his parks in Sherwood. He was in attendance on 6 Aug. when a bill for the restoration of his estates was proposed by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and again the following day when the bill was read for the first time.<sup>17</sup> He was not present later in the month, however, when his brother-in-law, Lucas, managed the bill through the Lords, nor when the bill received the royal assent on 13 September. At the opening of the new Parliament the following year (May 1661), Newcastle registered his proxy with Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and his presence in the chamber thereafter was managed by a series of proxies.</p><p>In July 1663 Newcastle was reported to be one of the royalist peers disenchanted with the failure of the Restoration to produce a promised land for royalists, and was said as a result to have supported Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon.<sup>18</sup> The previous October, however, relations between Clarendon and Newcastle were sufficiently cordial for Newcastle to ask the lord chancellor to approach the king concerning the Nottinghamshire militia.<sup>19</sup> Moreover, he registered his proxy with Clarendon on 18 Feb. and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that the proxy would be cast in opposition to the attempted impeachment. Wharton’s assessment may have been the more accurate as Newcastle continued to register his proxy with the lord chancellor on several subsequent occasions (10 Mar. and 14 Nov. 1664, 2 Oct. 1665 and 13 Sept. 1666). Thereafter, the recipient of Newcastle’s proxy seems to have been determined by kinship. It was entrusted to his son-in-law John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, on five occasions between 14 Oct. 1667 and 15 Dec. 1673. Following a letter from Thomas Osborne*, Viscount Latimer (later earl of Danby and duke of Leeds), relaying the king’s request that Newcastle ‘place his proxy in some good hand’, Newcastle entrusted it to the court peer John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, on 9 Apr. 1675. He registered the proxy with Frescheville again later that year on 21 September.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Rather than the pursuit of office or attendance upon court and Parliament, Newcastle’s priority for the remainder of his life was the restoration of his estates. Prior to the civil wars he had possessed considerable estates in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Northumberland, in addition to lesser holdings in other counties. The private act he had obtained in 1660 was only the start of re-establishing his position as one of the nation’s leading landowners. The process involved not only the recovery of those lands lost during the 1640s and 1650s but also the restoration of his eight parks in the midlands.<sup>21</sup> It may be that it was Newcastle’s determination to restore his finances that led to conflict with the treasury in the late 1660s and early 1670s over alleged encroachment into royal forests in the midlands. Though he was unable to recover all of his pre-war estates, and was forced to sell estates worth over £50,000 in order to settle debts, Newcastle’s position had recovered sufficiently for him to estimate in 1667 that his yearly rental amounted to £14,000. Though this figure compares with his wife’s claim that his estates were worth £22,000 p.a. before the civil wars, the accuracy of the estimate can be questioned and Newcastle had certainly effected a substantial recovery in his fortunes.<sup>22</sup></p><p>One indication of this recovery was conspicuous consumption. In 1665 the duke and his duchess ‘splendidly entertained’ the duchess of York on her return from a sojourn in the north, an echo of the lavish entertainments which Newcastle had provided for members of the royal family in the 1630s.<sup>23</sup> Two years later, one traveller passing through the midlands described the Newcastles as ‘the Queen of Sheba and her more considerable prince’.<sup>24</sup> The duke’s fortunes also enabled him to renovate both Welbeck and Bolsover, and to purchase and develop Nottingham Castle at a cost of £14,000.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Though re-establishing his estates was the main preoccupation of Newcastle’s final years they were not his sole interest. He continued to write plays and verse, and acted as patron to a number of noted writers, such as Dryden, Shadwell and Flecknoe.<sup>26</sup> His love of horse-breeding and -rearing also remained strong, and he established a racecourse and meeting at Welbeck.<sup>27</sup> A preference for the country and country pursuits is clearly evident from his decision to visit London on only two occasions after 1660. The first of these visits was occasioned by his elevation to a dukedom, an honour that Charles II had resolved to bestow on Newcastle following the marquess’s request in June 1664 but which was not conferred until the following year.<sup>28</sup> Newcastle arrived in the capital ‘with a princely train’ in May 1665 to attend the court, but left London soon afterwards.<sup>29</sup> He returned two years later, presumably to attend the London performance of his play <em>The Humorous Lovers</em>, when his presence in the capital appears to have slipped by almost unnoticed by contemporaries fascinated by the eccentricities of his wife, who shortly after published her biography of the duke. The duchess’s work – like her dress – attracted some ridicule, notably from Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>. Pepys was equally rude about the duke’s play.<sup>30</sup> Newcastle in 1665 confided to a friend ‘what a rude country clown I am grown – but I cannot help it’.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Though personal matters bulked large in Newcastle’s later years he nevertheless continued to take an active role in local affairs. He employed his interest in the election of knights of the shire for Nottinghamshire and Northumberland and in the return of members for the Nottinghamshire borough of East Retford.<sup>32</sup> He appears moreover to have been a diligent lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. In 1662 he was one of the Corporation Act commissioners who attempted to have John Holles*, 2nd earl of Clare, removed from the office of recorder of Nottingham.<sup>33</sup> The following year he assisted in securing those suspected of disaffection, though exercising a degree of restraint a little at odds with the perception of him as an archetypal cavalier.<sup>34</sup> He undertook similar action in 1665.<sup>35</sup> His concern to fulfil his duties appears to have remained strong until virtually the end of his life.<sup>36</sup> As late as January 1676 he was still taking a keen interest in such matters as the appointment of Nottinghamshire’s deputy lieutenants.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Newcastle died at Welbeck on 25 Dec. 1676. His demise had been reported prematurely in September of the previous year.<sup>38</sup> He was buried on 22 Jan. 1677, according to his wishes, ‘without any funeral solemnity’, next to his wife in Westminster Abbey.<sup>39</sup> In his will he instructed that £2,000 a year should be set aside from his personal estate to fund the completion of his building works at Nottingham Castle. He was succeeded in his estates and titles by his only surviving son, Henry Cavendish*, who was named sole executor and who also took his father’s place in the order of the garter.<sup>40</sup></p> |
R.D.H./R.D.E.E. |
|
CAVENDISH, William (1617-84) |
<p><strong><surname>CAVENDISH</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1617–84)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1626-28 Ld.Cavendish; <em>suc. </em>fa. 20 June 1628 (a minor) as 3rd earl of DEVONSHIRE. |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 21 May 1660; last sat 29 Aug. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Oct. 1617, 1st s. of William Cavendish<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Devonshire, and Christian (1595–1675), da. of Edward Bruce, Ld. Kinloss [S], and Baron Bruce of Kinloss [S]. <em>educ</em>. St John’s, Camb. matric. 1631–2, MA 1637; travelled abroad (France and Italy, with Thomas Hobbes) 1634–7.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 4 Mar. 1639, Elizabeth (1619–89), da. of William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da. KB 1 Feb. 1626. <em>d</em>. 23 Nov. 1684; <em>will</em> 25 July 1683–21 Nov. 1684, pr. 10 Apr. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. Board of Trade 1669–72.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Derbys. 1638–42, 1660–<em>d</em>.; commr. array, Leics. 1642; steward, Tutbury, Derbys. 1660–<em>d</em>., High Peak, Derbys. 1661–<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>FRS 1663.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas, Anthony Van Dyck, 1638, Chatsworth, Derbys.; oils on canvas, studio of Peter Lely, c.1660, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.</p> |
<p>William Cavendish inherited the earldom of Devonshire, with its extensive estates in Derbyshire, as a minor, when his father, a notorious rake and spendthrift of the Jacobean and Caroline court (as well as the first pupil of Thomas Hobbes), died young from, as it has been delicately expressed, ‘indulgence in good living’. At his death the Devonshire estate was in tatters. It, and the education of the ten-year-old 3rd earl, were entrusted to the care of the dowager countess, Christian Bruce. During her long widowhood until her death in January 1675, she managed to put the estates back in order for her son and became renowned for her hospitality and patronage of men of letters, as well as for her fervent royalism.<sup>7</sup> The young earl remained devoted to her throughout his life and it was commented in the 1650s (admittedly by a hostile writer) that ‘everyone perceives that he dares not eat or drink but as she appoints’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>The young earl reached his majority in 1638, when he returned from the continent, and was promptly appointed lord lieutenant of Derbyshire; he married the following year. He first sat in the House in the Short Parliament, but in the spring of 1642, after having been ousted from his office of lord lieutenant by the Militia Ordinance, he left Parliament to join the king at York, where he was one of the signatories of the declaration that the king did not intend to make war on his Parliament.<sup>9</sup> On 9 July 1642 Parliament ordered his arrest and imprisonment for his intention to put the commission of array into effect, and eleven days later he was formally expelled from the House of Lords. Upon this, and in contrast to his younger brother, the royalist war hero Charles Cavendish, Devonshire fled the country, and his lands were sequestered by Parliament. He returned in 1645, compounded with Parliament for £5,000, and had his delinquency and sequestration of estates discharged by the House of Lords on 10 Dec. 1645. He spent the remainder of the 1640s and 1650s lying low and managing his estate, first from his house at Latimers, Buckinghamshire, and then from Roehampton House in Surrey, which his mother had purchased in 1650.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, considered Devonshire to be one of the ‘lords with the king’ when drawing up his list of members of the Convention House of Lords, but the earl was not able to take his seat until the ordinance of 20 July 1642 expelling him from the House was vacated on 4 May 1660. Even then, it was not until 21 May that he first sat in the House again, after an absence of almost 20 years. He came to 46 per cent of the meetings of the Convention and was named to only two select committees, one of which was that established on 26 May to consider means to ensure the safety of the restored king.</p><p>In the summer interval Devonshire was given back his old post as lord lieutenant of Derbyshire, and was also made steward of Tutbury and High Peak. Throughout the remainder of his life he was more active in his local role, with an interest which could stretch into south Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, than he was in Westminster politics.<sup>11</sup> He exercised a considerable influence over the Derbyshire elections for the Cavalier Parliament, and he was able to ensure that his eldest son, William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire), was selected to represent the county, as well as his close friend the former royalist commander John Frescheville*, later Baron Frescheville.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Devonshire came to 78 per cent of the sittings of the first two sessions (1661–2 and spring 1663) of the Cavalier Parliament, and was named to 11 select committees across the two sessions. On 9 June 1661 his uncle Thomas Bruce*, Baron Bruce of Whorlton, registered his proxy with him for the remainder of the session. Devonshire failed to distinguish himself sufficiently to allow Wharton to predict what side he would take in the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in July 1663. He was present at all but four of the meetings of the brief session of spring 1664, but was not appointed to any committees. He was then absent for the entirety of the next four sessions from November 1664 to July 1667, although he did register his proxy with James Butler*, earl of Brecknock (and duke of Ormond [I]), on 2 Nov. 1664 for the session of winter 1664–5. Two years previously he had established a close friendship and connection with the Irish lord lieutenant when Cavendish had married (with a £6,000 portion) Lady Mary Butler, Ormond’s daughter.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Devonshire took part in the first few weeks of the session of autumn 1667, then left the House before the debates over the impeachment of Clarendon were under way, but returned to attend regularly in early 1668, when he was named to 11 committees. He first sat in the House for the following session on 4 Nov. 1669 and proceeded to attend another 25 of that session’s 36 sittings, during which he was named to two committees, one of them the large one considering the decay of trade. On 13 Nov., about a week after he first sat, Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, registered his proxy with him.</p><p>Devonshire was in the House for the first few weeks of the session of early 1670, when he was appointed to six committees, but on 16 Mar. 1670, after he had been away from the House for two days, he registered his proxy with his cousin and friend Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury. This was vacated on 22 Mar. when Devonshire returned to the House for that one day. By this time Ailesbury himself was not sitting in the House, and on 25 Mar. Devonshire registered his proxy with Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex. This in turn was vacated when Devonshire returned to the House on 9 Apr. 1670, only a few days before the summer adjournment. After the session had resumed later that year, he did not appear again until 21 Feb. 1671, to attend only eight sittings in late February and early March 1671 before leaving the House for the session.</p><p>Devonshire’s erratic attendance can probably be attributed to his frequent illnesses, and in February 1672 it was confidently reported that ‘Lord Devonshire is very likely to die’.<sup>14</sup> He put the lie to such predictions (as he was often to do) when he proceeded to sit in 90 per cent of the meetings of the House, with 17 nominations to select committees, in the first session of spring 1673, but then he was absent again for the entirety of the following two sessions of autumn 1673 and early 1674, and at a call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674 was formally excused because he was ‘sick’. He soon recovered again, and for the controversial session of spring 1675 he was in the House for all but one of its meetings, and was nominated to four select committees. He may have come out of concern over the Non-Resisting Test bill, for the author of <em>A Letter from a Gentleman of Quality</em> singled him out as one of ‘those great lords’ who gave ‘countenance and support … to the English interest’ by opposing the bill (although his name does not appear on any of the protests signed against that measure).<sup>15</sup></p><p>Devonshire was absent for the autumn 1675 session, but registered his proxy with Ailesbury on 14 Oct. 1675. Despite his absence, he played a key role in the dramatic vote on an address to the king requesting the dissolution of Parliament which closed the session on 20 November. Of the peers present that day, those voting for the motion were in a majority but the not contents held more proxies; when those were added to the total the division was found to be exactly equal, at 48 votes each. At that point, Ailesbury suddenly came into the House and, although he had heard nothing of the debate, it was left to him, still holding Devonshire’s proxy, to cast the deciding votes. His adherence to James Stuart*, duke of York, who on this occasion was making common cause with the Country lords for the motion, might have tipped him in that direction, but in the end he brought his two votes against it, giving the court a thin majority of two.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Devonshire was present in Westminster again in the summer of 1676 and was summoned to the court of the lord high steward for the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, whom he found not guilty.<sup>17</sup> He was again absent for the long session of 1677–8, registering his proxy with Ailesbury on 9 Feb. 1677. He did manage to come to 72 per cent of the sittings of the session of May–July 1678, with 13 committee nominations, and his last ever sitting in the House was on a day of prorogation, 29 Aug. 1678. For the last session of the Cavalier Parliament, in the autumn of 1678, he registered his proxy with Ailesbury again, on 22 October.<sup>18</sup> On 27 Dec. 1678 two of Devonshire’s servants formally attested to the House that Devonshire ‘being lame of the gout, is not able to take so great a journey as to come up’, and from that session onward Devonshire was consistently excused from the business of the House because of his gout and other illnesses.</p><p>Just because Devonshire was now too ill to attend the House does not mean that he was politically disengaged. He was kept informed of events in Westminster and abroad by regular newsletters delivered to him at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. Over 100 of these newsletters, from a variety of different sources and in many different hands, survive in the Chatsworth archive, and there are also over 75 handwritten copies of the texts of various votes, orders and addresses emanating from Parliament. Significantly, they all date from after September 1678, precisely the time when Devonshire stopped travelling to Westminster himself.<sup>19</sup> Both Francis Bickley and the <em>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</em> characterize Devonshire as politically inactive and write of his ‘political indifference’, yet it would appear from his existing archive that during the tumultuous years of 1678–81 he was avidly consuming newsletters of foreign and domestic news every two or three days.<sup>20</sup> His sources included both paid official newsletter-writers, such as Richard Allsop, and his own friends and colleagues based in Westminster, such as Sir John Gell<sup>‡</sup>, Devonshire’s receiver of rents for the honour of Tutbury.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In addition, from as early as 1665 Devonshire may have been leaning on his Derbyshire associates in Parliament – John Milward, Anchitell Grey, Sir John Gell and John, Baron Frescheville – to provide him with detailed notes of proceedings in the houses during his frequent bouts of illness and incapacity. It is highly probable that the two principal parliamentary diaries of debates in the Commons during the reign of Charles II – those of John Milward<sup>‡</sup> for 1666–8 and of Anchitell Grey<sup>‡</sup> for 1667–94 – were collected (at least initially) for Devonshire. Both Milward and Grey were members of Parliament for Derbyshire constituencies (Milward for the county and Grey for the borough of Derby, both returned at by-elections in 1665) and were also deputy lieutenants under the leadership of Devonshire. Milward was close to Devonshire, and compiled a letter-book in his role as deputy lieutenant which reveals that Devonshire frequently consulted him on the administration of the county. The letter-book may even have been made for the benefit of Devonshire himself, as it bears on its spine the title ‘Earl of Devonshire’s Letter Book, 1660–66’, although the compiler was clearly Milward.</p><p>Anchitell Grey appears to have had a favoured status with Devonshire as a trusted deputy lieutenant, and as early as October 1660 Grey was expressing to his brother-in-law Lord Bruce (Bruce’s wife was Grey’s sister) that his business in the county was ‘to attend my Lord Devonshire’s commands’ and that ‘the noble favours his lordship has heaped upon me, [oblige] me to a great acknowledgment’. Devonshire strongly urged Grey to stand for knight of the shire when a vacancy in the country representation arose in 1665, but Grey made it clear that he would rather stand for the borough of Derby, one of whose sitting members, Roger Allestry<sup>‡</sup>, was on the point of death.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, marked Devonshire as ‘worthy’, but this view was probably belied by Devonshire’s constant reliance on Ailesbury as his proxy. Ailesbury voted consistently with Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and the court throughout the last months of 1678. In one of his working lists Danby appears to have included Devonshire among ‘opposition lords’, but in other lists calculating his supporters and opponents during his impeachment hearings in 1679, and for his petition for bail in the Parliament of 1681, the lord treasurer included him among his absent supporters, and in 1679 appears to have assigned Devonshire’s friend Frescheville to win him over more firmly to Danby’s cause.<sup>23</sup> Frescheville, one of Danby’s most constant supporters in the House, was a former royalist and a Derbyshire landowner, deputy lieutenant and justice of the peace, who in 1680 was to sell the reversion of his own estate of Staveley to the earl for £2,600 and to whose widow Devonshire was to leave a bequest in his will.<sup>24</sup> He may have added to the earl’s steady stream of newsletters with his own thoughts on parliamentary proceedings. One letter of his from 13 Mar. 1677 survives, in which Frescheville promised that through him Devonshire would have ‘a better account’ of the House’s debates surrounding the address to the king for war against France ‘than any other absent Lord’. Frescheville ended his letter by beseeching Devonshire not to ‘believe anything which is written to you from the duke of Ormond or your cousin Ailesbury concerning my lord’, a comment which concisely reveals Devonshire’s other major political correspondents at this time.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Devonshire bequeathed Ailesbury £1,000 in his will and the two cousins do appear to have been particularly close. Their link was Christian, dowager countess of Devonshire, Devonshire’s mother, who from 1646 lived with her brother Baron Bruce of Whorlton at his house at Ampthill and there encouraged her young nephew in his royalist views, later maintaining and strengthening them through letters to him after her move to Roehampton in 1650. Lord Bruce, later earl of Ailesbury, maintained a frequent correspondence with both Christian and her son Devonshire throughout the 1650s and thereafter, in which the cousins exchanged gossip as well as advice on how to run a county as a lord lieutenant (as Ailesbury was lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire).<sup>26</sup> For his part, Ailesbury constantly encouraged Devonshire to take a more active political role, and in a letter of 24 Feb. 1677 reproved him for predicting (incorrectly, as it transpired) his own imminent death and wished that ‘God grant you health and strength to make many journeys to serve your King, your country and your friends. Without flattery I must say that the life of such a person as yourself is a national concern.’<sup>27</sup> Ailesbury was anxious for Devonshire’s involvement in Parliament in the more fraught days of 1680, when Devonshire had not registered his proxy, and wrote to him on 6 Nov. 1680, just before the House’s vote on the Exclusion bill, that ‘Your Lordship is wanted much here. Although the Lords upon the call of the House were pleased to excuse you, yet they will surely require the attendance of their members, when so important affairs are depending.’<sup>28</sup></p><p>The marriages of Devonshire’s two surviving children, Anne to John Cecil*, styled Lord Burghley (later 5th earl of Exeter), and William, Lord Cavendish to Mary Butler, daughter of the duke of Ormond, brought him into marriage alliances with both the Cecil and the Butler houses. Although Devonshire was already married to another Cecil, Elizabeth, daughter of the 2nd earl of Salisbury, this family connection does not appear to have played as important a role in his life as that with Ormond. The close friendship between Devonshire and Ormond is suggested by numerous incidents. In June 1666 Devonshire and Ailesbury agreed to enter into a bond for a debt owed by Ormond.<sup>29</sup> The two earls later hosted him in turn at their houses at Ampthill and Chatsworth in August 1670 as Ormond made his way to Ireland.<sup>30</sup> Devonshire also offered his house at Chatsworth as the place for a tense meeting between Ormond and his fellow Irish grandee Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, to discuss the bad relations between Ormond and Burlington’s brother Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I].<sup>31</sup> On another occasion Ormond stayed for a period at Chatsworth while en route to Ireland to take up the lord lieutenancy there, and Devonshire then accompanied him to his embarkation at Chester.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Another peer who appears to have been close to Devonshire was his second cousin Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle. When Newcastle’s heir, Henry Cavendish, styled Lord Ogle, died on 1 Nov. 1680, Ailesbury condoled the loss with Devonshire, assuring Devonshire that ‘I am sure none next to his nearest relations hath a greater sense of the noble lord’s loss’.<sup>33</sup> In 1682 Devonshire acted as the middleman trying fruitlessly to negotiate the terms of a proposed marriage between Ormond’s grandson James Butler*, 2nd Baron Butler of Moore Park (better known as Lord Ossory [I], and later 2nd duke of Ormond), and Catherine, one of Newcastle’s daughters.<sup>34</sup> Ailesbury, Ormond and Newcastle were the three ‘noble friends’ to whom Devonshire made special bequests in his will of 1683.</p><p>Ormond and Devonshire were bound by their shared concern over the behaviour of William, Lord Cavendish, who is probably ‘my lord’ mentioned in Frescheville’s letter of 1677. By that year Cavendish had become, according to a foreign observer, ‘the most dissolute man in London’.<sup>35</sup> He was also one of the foremost members of the Country party in the Commons, taking positions against the court and James Stuart*, duke of York, which appear to have perturbed both Devonshire and Ormond. Cavendish and his partner William Sacheverell<sup>‡</sup> were returned for Derbyshire for all three Exclusion Parliaments without opposition, but it does not appear that Devonshire exerted himself in these elections on his son’s behalf. Indeed in September 1680, just before the convening of the second Exclusion Parliament, Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> and Sidney Godolphin*, later earl of Godolphin, hatched a plot whereby the king would press Devonshire to pay Lord Cavendish’s mounting debts and increase his allowance so that Cavendish would be tempted to return ‘to his duty … to the king as well as to his father’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In September 1681 Devonshire wrote to Ormond telling him that he had paid one of his son’s debts of £1,500, but that that still did not seem to satisfy the young rake, who would not provide his father with a statement of his other debts:</p><blockquote><p>I wish he would apply himself to what your Grace intimates, the providing for his family and to serve his King and country. He acquaints me not at all with his intentions, and I humbly beseech your Grace to enquire whether I have omitted anything to obtain his good opinion …. I am sure his ill behaviour towards me gives me greater grief and trouble than my infirmities can bear.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>Devonshire was alarmed when he heard the following year that Ormond was proposing to pay £6,000 of Cavendish’s debts,</p><blockquote><p>which I will never suffer to be paid by any but myself, and humbly beg my lord not to assist him till he make an entire submission and pay me thanks for what I have done already, and renew his last engagement, which is the least I can expect of him.<sup>38</sup></p></blockquote><p>Cavendish never did submit to any of his paternal figures – father, father-in-law or king – and was later a leading promoter of William of Orange’s descent on England in 1688 and one of William III’s principal courtiers and supporters. That was when he was already 4th earl (and soon to be duke) of Devonshire, for the 3rd earl, plagued by illness since the late 1670s, finally succumbed and died in his mother’s old residence of Roehampton House in Surrey on 23 Nov. 1684. His will, originally written in July 1683, but with codicils composed right up to the time of his death, assigned his wife, the earl of Ailesbury and his son-in-law as his executors and further appointed Cavendish and Ormond to be overseers. He bequeathed about £28,000 in individual bequests, provided for about £3,000 in annuities, and gave to his wife, children and grandchildren 2,500 ounces of plate and numerous paintings and pieces of jewellery. The main beneficiaries were his widow, Elizabeth, his daughter, Anne, countess of Exeter, and his numerous grandchildren by both Lady Exeter and Lord Cavendish, particularly Cavendish’s daughter Elizabeth (a portion of £10,000) and his younger son Henry, who received estates in Leicestershire. His own heir, Lord Cavendish, is virtually unnamed among his bequests in this extensive will, apart from a stern injunction to provide for his younger sons and not to sell the jewellery that Devonshire intended as heirlooms. This may reflect the falling-out that the two had suffered over Cavendish’s political activities and mounting debts in the last years of Devonshire’s life, but it is more likely to be due to Cavendish’s existing secure position, amply provided for by the inheritance of the entailed Devonshire estates, which the 3rd earl had protected, consolidated and expanded so effectively during his life.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CAVENDISH, William (1641-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>CAVENDISH</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1641–1707)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1641-84 Ld. Cavendish; <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Nov. 1684 as 4th earl of DEVONSHIRE; <em>cr. </em>12 May 1694 duke of DEVONSHIRE |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 24 Apr. 1707 |
|
MP Derbyshire 1661, 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.), 1681 |
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Jan. 1641, 1st and o. surv. s. of William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire and Elizabeth (1620-89), da. of William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Salisbury; <em>educ</em>. privately (tutors, Dr Henry Killigrew, Henry Oldenburg, Francois du Prat),<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1657-60,<sup>2</sup> MA, Oxford 28 Sept. 1663, LLD, Cambridge 16 Apr. 1705; <em>m</em>. 26 Oct. 1662 (with £6,000)<sup>3</sup> Mary (1646-1710), da. of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da.;<sup>4</sup> 5ch. (of which 2da. surv.) illegit. with Mary Heneage; ?ch. (of which 1da. surv.) illegit. with Katharine Jones; 1da. illegit. with Mary Anne Campion;<sup>5</sup> KG 3 Apr. 1689; <em>d</em>. 18 Aug. 1707; <em>will</em> 15-17 Aug. 1707, pr. 28 Oct. 1707.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>PC 22 Apr. 1679-31 Jan. 1680, 14 Feb. 1689-<em>d.</em>; ld. steward 1689-<em>d</em>.; commr. reforming abuses in the army 1689,<sup>7</sup> inspection of hospitals 1691,<sup>8</sup> appeals in prizes 1694, 1695, 1697,<sup>9</sup> relief of Vaudois 1699,<sup>10</sup> union with Scotland 1706;<sup>11</sup> ld. justice 1690-1701.</p><p>Steward, honour of High Peak ?1685-<em>d</em>, Tutbury (Needwood Forest) 1692-<em>d</em>.<sup>12</sup> Kingston-upon-Thames 1689-<em>d</em>.;<sup>13</sup> ld. lt. Derbys. 1689-<em>d</em>., Som. (jt.) 1690-91, Notts. 1692-94; <em>custos rot</em>. Derbys. 1689-<em>d</em>.; c.j. in eyre (north of Trent) 1690-<em>d</em>.; recorder, Nottingham 1690-<em>d</em>.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of horse (later 7th Drag. Gds.) 1688-90 <sup>15</sup></p><p>FRS ?1660-85.<sup>16</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by John Michael Wright, 1660s, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.; oil on canvas by Godfrey Kneller, 1690s, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.; oil on canvas by John Closterman, 1697, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.</p> |
<h2><em>‘The most dissolute man in London’, 1661-88</em></h2><p>One of the ‘Immortal Seven’ of Whig hagiography, Devonshire cut quite a figure in late Stuart England. John Macky informed his Hanoverian contacts in 1702-3 that he:</p><blockquote><p>Was always a firm assertor of the liberties of his country, and the protestant religion, for which he met with several hardships in King James’s reign. … He hath been the finest and handsomest gentleman of his time; loves the ladies and plays; keeps a noble house and equipage; is tall, well made, and of a princely behaviour. Of nice honour in everything but the paying of his tradesmen.<sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>In most aspects of his life he was as flamboyant, ‘princely’ and indeed as baroque as the great palace of Chatsworth whose rebuilding he oversaw in the wilds of the Peak District. A renowned duellist, womanizer, gambler, and leader of society in London, Derbyshire and Newmarket, he was also an active politician. As one of the key figures in the opposition to James Stuart*, both as duke of York and as James II, and a principal follower of William of Orange, he founded one of the great Whig aristocratic dynasties of Britain. He has been venerated by subsequent Whig historians but to many of his contemporaries, at least to the scurrilous poets of Grub Street, Devonshire was seen primarily as a courtier, a sycophantic lord steward to both William III and Anne, and a willing participant, if not a leader, in the ostentatious sexual debauchery of court life. Even one of his more recent biographers sees him, in the period after the Revolution, as primarily an idle courtier, arguing that the lord stewardship was ‘a ministerial position of no great administrative importance but one which provided good opportunities for profit and political patronage’. He concludes that ‘the trappings of power and position aside, Devonshire does not emerge as a major player in the politics of the later Stuart era’.<sup>18</sup> A closer examination of Devonshire’s activity in the House of Lords in particular, where he was at the forefront in a number of campaigns, even in the last years of his life, reveals that this is an oversimplified judgment. Whilst never a member of the Whig Junto, who were so eager for office and power, he remained active at the heart of politics, at court and in office, throughout his long and eventful career.</p><p>As the eldest son and heir of the 3rd earl of Devonshire, he was styled Lord Cavendish from the time of his birth in 1641. His father took advice from his own former tutor and retainer Thomas Hobbes on his son’s education. Cavendish was well educated and enjoyed an extended continental tour 1657-60, during which he developed tastes in art and architecture which were later expressed in his rebuilding of the family seat of Chatsworth. After his return Cavendish was married to Lady Mary Butler, who brought with her a portion of £6,000. His father ensured the young man’s return, while still underage, to the Cavalier Parliament as knight of the shire for Derbyshire. Cavendish did exercise some local influence despite his increasing time spent in the capital. Throughout his career in the Commons he was consistently placed on the commissions established by Parliament to collect the assessment in Derbyshire and in 1662 he was also put on the commission to relieve the royalist ‘loyal and indigent officers’ in the county.<sup>19</sup> Cavendish himself may have initially envisaged a military career – he was said to have displayed great courage when he joined the fleet as a volunteer under the duke of York in the second Dutch War.<sup>20</sup> However his ambitions were thwarted when in 1672 he was passed over for military preferment. Commentators such as Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, later claimed that the sense of personal grievance over this initial disappointment contributed to his opposition to the court.<sup>21</sup> By 1677 Cavendish had reputedly become ‘the most dissolute man in London’, conducting an extra-marital liaison with the actress Mary Heneage, frequently duelling, and racking up further large debts in the capital.<sup>22</sup> He had also emerged as one of the foremost members of the ‘country’ faction in the Commons, taking strong positions against the French-influenced court, the Catholic duke of York and the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby ‘by which’, as his first biographer affirmed, ‘he exasperated a court party to the last degree’.<sup>23</sup> The court initially attempted to co-opt him by placing him on the remodelled Privy Council in April 1679 and its sub-committee dealing with trade and plantations. Nevertheless, he continued to support country positions throughout the Exclusion Parliaments, and even voted for exclusion in November 1680. Perhaps pressure from his father-in-law Ormond, who took it upon himself to pay off Cavendish’s large debts, had an effect, for in early October 1681 Cavendish formally reconciled himself to the king and there is no evidence that he had any role in the Whig plots against the Stuart brothers of the early 1680s.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Behind this superficial reconciliation, Cavendish never did fully submit to any of his paternal figures – father, father-in-law or king – before the death of the 3rd earl in 1684. Now earl of Devonshire, he inherited the entailed estates which the 3rd earl had protected, consolidated and expanded so effectively during his life.<sup>25</sup> He arranged for his father to be buried in a ceremony appropriate for a duke, as a rebuke to Charles II that he had not adequately rewarded this faithful servant.<sup>26</sup> The king withheld from him the Cavendish family’s principal local office of lord lieutenant of Derbyshire, conferring it instead on Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale.<sup>27</sup> Devonshire attended every single day of James II’s Parliament in 1685. On the second day of business he was one of only six peers to vote in favour of continuing the impeachment charges against Danby and the Catholic peers, although he did not sign the protest against the rejection of this motion. On 17 June the old Presbyterian peer Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, registered his proxy with Devonshire, which the earl retained for the remainder of the Parliament.</p><p>When the House reconvened on 9 Nov. 1685, Devonshire laid before the House the petition of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer for his release from the Tower. In the ‘considerable’ debate that followed, Devonshire, aided by Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, argued that the Lords themselves should answer the petition without consulting the king, and was ‘very hot’ against George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, who thought that the king should be informed.<sup>28</sup> It was Devonshire who first moved on 19 Nov. that the king’s speech advocating the dispensation of Catholic army officers from the Test Acts be considered by the House, sarcastically noting that ‘thanks were due to the king, for discovering his intentions so plainly’ (although this remark has also been attributed to Halifax).<sup>29</sup> The motion was ‘vehemently seconded’ by Halifax and Anglesey but opposed by John Dolben*, archbishop of York and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, on the grounds that it was not the scheduled order of business for the day.<sup>30</sup> Opposition to the king’s measures became so clear during the ensuing debate that James II had little choice but to prorogue Parliament the following day.</p><p>During the long prorogation Devonshire remained a highly visible and flamboyant figure, involved in some notable, if not notorious, events of James II’s reign. In early January 1686 he held a sumptuous ball at Montagu House, which he was then renting from Ralph Montagu*, 3rd Baron Montagu. A few days later Montagu House was burned to the ground. Montagu launched a legal action against Devonshire in an attempt to recoup £30,000 in compensation but voluntarily withdrew his suit on 21 Apr. 1687 when Devonshire’s witnesses established that Montagu’s own servants had been responsible for the fire.<sup>31</sup></p><p>More serious problems arose for Devonshire from his dispute with Thomas Colepeper, an army officer and engineer who had eloped in 1662 with a daughter and co-heir of Devonshire’s neighbour John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville. Colepeper always maintained that the Derbyshire estate of Staveley, which Frescheville had sold to Devonshire in 1680, should have gone to his wife as Frescheville’s heir.<sup>32</sup> The two men were involved in a brawl in July 1685 within the precincts of the palace of Whitehall. Under the statute of 33 Hen. VIII, c.12, an assault occasioning bloodshed in any royal palace was an aggravated offence with severe penalties. Colepeper was sentenced to the loss of his right hand and life imprisonment.<sup>33</sup> He was pardoned in December 1685. The two met again at Whitehall in April 1687 but this time Devonshire proved the more violent. He struck Colepeper with his cane when the ‘colonel’ did not appear sufficiently contrite for his earlier assault. As this attack was also in the confines of the palace and actually took place in the royal presence, Devonshire was committed to the Tower. On 27 Apr. he was bailed for £10,000 to appear in king’s bench. When he appeared there on 6 May, his claim for privilege of Parliament was overruled by the judges. On the first day of the new term, 27 May, he pleaded not guilty, which surprised some observers as he had all but admitted the assault in his many petitions to the king. However, he objected to the terms of the information against him, which suggested he had assaulted Colepeper ‘maliciously and seditiously’ as an ‘affront designed to his Majesty’. He surprised contemporaries even more when at his next appearance on 7 June he unexpectedly announced that he would plead guilty, not wishing to ‘dispute with the king’. A week later a swingeing fine of £30,000 was imposed and he was confined to the king’s bench prison until it was paid. This exorbitant amount was seen as an act of revenge by the king against one of his opponents. Numerous ‘persons of quality’ sympathetic to his political views visited the incarcerated Devonshire in a show of support for him and even the queen dowager continued to intercede for him.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Devonshire refused to pay his fine or even to remain incarcerated and in a show of defiance managed to leave the prison to return to Derbyshire for the summer. In a provocative letter sent to the secretary of state Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], he insisted that he was not ‘escaping’ prison, as he was still paying for his lodging there, and insisted strongly on the right of the peerage not to be imprisoned for debt.<sup>35</sup> In Derbyshire he embarked on the renovation of the family mansion of Chatsworth, tearing down and reconstructing the south front of the old mansion, a defiant gesture ‘as if his mind rose upon the depression of his fortunes’. Rebuilding Chatsworth was to occupy Devonshire for most of the remainder of his life and the house remains a lasting monument to his regional and national power. It was lovingly described by his later eulogist White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough in 1708: ‘the glorious house seems to be art insulting nature’.<sup>36</sup> Efforts by the marshal of the prison to recapture the earl proved futile; Devonshire remained free in Derbyshire and had returned voluntarily to the capital by the autumn. Although he continued to insist that a peer could not be imprisoned for debt, through the intercession of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and the queen dowager he was allowed to enter into a bond for the £30,000 for his freedom and was formally reconciled to the king.<sup>37</sup> Roger Morrice interpreted this, and the submission of the fellows of Magdalen College, as ‘two very significant occurrences’ in the growing power of Catholicism and arbitrary rule in England. He doubted that Devonshire, ‘the only man that had reputation enough to have been a back to the peers in [the House of Lords]’ would have agreed to the bond if he did not wish to comply with James’s policies.<sup>38</sup> The French ambassador Bonrepaus may have had the same opinion when he listed Devonshire in late 1687 among ‘those who have not yet declared’ their stance on the king’s policies – the only one among the five such lists drawn up in James II’s reign that considers Devonshire as anything other than a foe of the king.</p><h2><em>Revolutionary leader, 1688-9</em></h2><p>Both Morrice and Bonrepaus were wrong, for the heavy bond of £30,000 hanging over him only strengthened Devonshire’s opposition to the king and increased his communications with William of Orange’s agent Dijkvelt and eventually with the prince himself.<sup>39</sup> At the trial of the Seven Bishops in June 1688 he was considered as a potential surety for the bail of Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Bristol, but he was not chosen because of the fine hanging over him.<sup>40</sup> In mid-June Devonshire finalized the marriage of his heir William Cavendish*, the future 2nd duke of Devonshire, styled Lord Cavendish, to Rachel Russell, one of the three surviving children of Devonshire’s great friend in the Commons, William Russell<sup>‡</sup> styled Lord Russell, who had died a martyr’s death in the Whig cause in 1683. Kennett in his funeral sermon recounted an apocryphal story, since repeated many times, that Cavendish as he then was, had devised an elaborate scheme to effect Russell’s escape on the eve of his execution.<sup>41</sup> Apart from a dowry of £25,000, the marriage was a very public signal of the Cavendish family’s political allegiances at this time of crisis.<sup>42</sup> Devonshire then took the momentous step on the last day of June of signing the letter ‘inviting’ William of Orange to come to England with an armed force to ensure the calling of a ‘free Parliament’ and to protect the people’s ‘religion, liberties and properties’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Devonshire spent much of the autumn in Derbyshire consulting and preparing for the intended invasion. Under the encouragement of one of his co-signers of the invitation, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Devonshire had a series of meetings with his old adversary Danby (another signatory) in October 1688. Together they plotted to co-ordinate risings for William in the north. After William’s landing in Devon on 5 Nov., Devonshire entered Derby with a troop of about 200 horse, then moved on to Nottingham on 20 Nov., where he met the Leicestershire peer Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and two days later was joined by Delamer. A split between Delamer and Devonshire quickly appeared, as the firebrand Cheshire peer was dissatisfied with Devonshire’s caution and secrecy, ‘for the earl minded his pleasures too much, and had kept his purposes for the prince within himself, and had not communicated them to such noblemen and gentlemen before he came thither… nor did he suddenly publish them after he came thither’. Delamer and Stamford quickly marched with their troops to join William’s army, leaving Devonshire in control of Nottingham. Over the following days Devonshire’s ‘army’ swelled to about a thousand as other local peers and gentry brought into Nottingham their own followers, but the most significant, and unexpected, arrival in the town was James II’s daughter, Princess Anne. Devonshire now had to turn his attention to protecting the princess. The situation was complicated by the arrival of the prickly loyalist Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, who came with the express purpose of protecting Anne, but showed little enthusiasm for the larger project of rebellion. All the peers present in the town agreed to accompany Anne to the safe haven of Oxford but tensions quickly erupted between Chesterfield and Devonshire. After reaching Oxford, Devonshire and his entourage almost immediately turned to march to London, upon learning of William’s arrival on the outskirts of the capital.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Devonshire arrived in London with the princess on or about 19 Dec. 1689 and immediately joined William’s coterie in the delicate negotiations of that period.<sup>45</sup> Having been one of those summoned to attend by William, at the meeting of the peers in the queen’s presence chamber on 21 Dec. Devonshire seconded Wharton’s motion to thank William of Orange for pursuing the aims and goals set out in his Declaration. He further confirmed his allegiance to William by signing the Association – although he had probably already signed it in Nottingham.<sup>46</sup> By Christmas Eve, when the peers met to discuss how a Parliament could be summoned to settle the country, James had fled the country and the terms of the discourse were radically changed. Devonshire was active in debate, starting that day’s proceedings by moving that the aged Catholic John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, be excused from the order made to expel Catholics from the capital. Devonshire’s first biographer, Kennett, later claimed that Devonshire had always shown indulgence towards individual peaceable Catholics. He recounted that late in 1688 or early in 1689, Devonshire felt the need to remind William that he had originally said he had come to England to defend the Protestants, and not to persecute Catholics. Kennett asserted that ‘those Roman Catholic gentlemen who lived near him in the country peaceably and quietly, he treated as neighbours and friends, and they bore a great respect to him’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>During the long debate on 24 Dec. 1688 on whether the assembly of peers could be allowed to see the letter James had written to his secretary of state Middleton before his flight, Devonshire cast doubt on its usefulness, as it was intended as a private letter. He suggested instead that the peers ask James’s gentleman of the bedchamber (and Devonshire’s second cousin) Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, what he knew of the king’s departure. In the discussions on how to summon a Parliament or convention in the absence of the king, Devonshire frequently repeated the central question of the Williamites’ argument: ‘whether the king’s withdrawing and absenting himself from the government, and leaving all things in this confusion, be a demise in law?’ Clarendon, in his account of these deliberations, placed Devonshire at the head of ‘those who were most bitter and fierce’ against James, along with Montagu, Delamer and Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. When it was finally decided that the Prince of Orange would be addressed to summon a convention by means of circular letters to be directed to the counties and boroughs and to take on the ‘administration’ of the realm in the interim, Devonshire further moved that only Protestant peers should be admitted to the proposed convention and that the king be requested to take over the administration of both England and Ireland, as well as of the public revenue. The address was accepted by William the following day.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Devonshire was present on the first day of the Convention, on 22 Jan. 1689, when he was appointed to a committee of 14 assigned to draw up an address of thanks to William for his message of that day. He became a key figure and manager in the protracted debates which led to the passage of the resolution of the crisis and the crowning of William and Mary. It was Devonshire who on 25 Jan. skilfully engineered a delay in the debate on the state of the nation and the disposition of the crown, arguing that the House should wait until the Commons had first deliberated. It was he who devised the resolution of 28 Jan. that ensured the House would not take up the matter until the following day. In this he was supported by Halifax and Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester, but opposed ‘with great warmth’ by Clarendon, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester and others ‘with great reflections upon Devonshire’s motion, as if the Lords were only to take aim from the gentlemen below’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>The delay allowed the Williamites to take the initiative. In the four crucial divisions in the committee of the whole House over 29-31 Jan. 1689, Devonshire told on behalf of William’s supporters in opposition to Clarendon. Thus, on the 29th he voted and told against the regency; on the 30th he told for the majority in favour of retaining the words ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’ in the motion; on the following day he voted and told for the losing side in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary to be king and queen, and told in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ words declaring the throne ‘vacant’. Devonshire additionally signed the protest against the defeat of the latter motion. On 4 Feb. he told for the minority in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ and he later subscribed to the protest against the rejection of the word ‘vacant’ as well. Ironically, he was subsequently added to the committee assigned to draw up reasons for the House’s rejection of the Commons’ wording to be presented at a conference on 6 February. On that day he voted with the majority that James had abdicated and that the throne was vacant. He was one of those who seconded Winchester’s motion that the prince and princess of Orange be declared king and queen of England.<sup>50</sup> He was named as a reporter for the conference on 8 Feb. about the Commons’ subsequent declaration for the prince and princess of Orange to be king and queen and the new oaths. The following day Devonshire told, against Nottingham, for the minority against the insertion of the words ‘and quartering soldiers contrary to law’ in the article in the Declaration of Rights concerning James’s military rule, and he was appointed to the ensuing committee to draft reasons justifying the House’s amendments.<sup>51</sup></p><p>While involved in ensuring William and Mary’s accession to the throne Devonshire was involved in another project to discredit the rule of the Stuart brothers. On 23 Jan. 1689, the second day of the Convention’s business, he was named to a committee of ten to examine and report on the alleged murder of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, in 1683. He quickly became its leading member and between 23 Jan. and 4 Feb. he chaired three meetings of this committee in which extensive evidence was heard implicating Sunderland in Essex’s death. On 5 Feb. Devonshire moved that a smaller group of the original committee be appointed to continue examining the case. Devonshire, not surprisingly, was one of this ‘close committee’, along with his fellow Williamites Delamer, Charles Mordaunt*, 2nd Viscount Mordaunt and William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, his son’s father-in-law. This committee continued to meet and gather evidence throughout the first weeks of the Convention.<sup>52</sup></p><h2><em>Courtier and parliamentary manager, 1689</em></h2><p>Devonshire was quickly rewarded for his exertions to secure the throne for the new monarchs. On 14 Feb. 1689 he was sworn to William’s Privy Council, where he quickly took a place in the council’s sub-committees on Ireland and on trade and plantations.<sup>53</sup> At about the same time he was made lord steward of the household. Through this office he became a member of the inner, or ‘cabinet’, council that developed as a ministerial institution under William III. More immediately, he acted as lord high steward for William and Mary’s coronation on 11 April.<sup>54</sup> In the House he acted in the interest of the court he now served. On 7 Mar. 1689 he reported from a committee of the whole that the bill to suspend <em>habeas corpus</em> was fit to pass. Later that month he supported his fellow ministers Nottingham and Danby in the effort to retain the sacramental test in the bill for the new oaths and even insisted that recipients kneel at the sacrament.<sup>55</sup> On 28 Mar. he helped to draft the reasons for the House’s objections to the Commons’ provisos to the bill for removing papists from London and was a manager for the ensuing conference, while on 8 May he reported from a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill for convicting and disarming Catholics. As lord steward he played an important role as a messenger and intermediary between the House and the court. On 7 May he was part of a delegation of three to attend the king to express the House’s support for the declaration of war against France, and three days later he reported to the House news of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, whose brothers had been sent to France to be raised as Catholics.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Devonshire also used the House for his own advantage. In April the committee for privileges took into consideration ‘the great injury done to the privileges of the peers’ by the judgment for £30,000 levelled against him in the previous reign. On 22 Apr. the committee’s resolution that the proceedings against Devonshire had been ‘a violation of the privileges of peers’ was reported to the House. The judges of king’s bench involved in the case came before the House on 6 May, when the House further resolved that the court, in overruling Devonshire’s initial plea of privilege, ‘did thereby commit a manifest breach of the privilege of Parliament’, and that the fine of £30,000 was ‘excessive and exorbitant, against Magna Charta, the common right of the subject, and the law of the land, and that no peer of this realm at any time ought to be committed for the non-payment of a fine to the king’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Devonshire was soon further rewarded with posts of responsibility. He was, perhaps belatedly, made lord lieutenant of Derbyshire, in the place of James’s man, Scarsdale. He was also appointed one of the commissioners assigned to inspect the state of the army in their quarters before the campaigns that summer.<sup>58</sup> In preparation for his departure on this mission, Devonshire on 22 May reported to the House the examinations that had been compiled over several weeks concerning Essex’s death. The same day he and his fellow army commissioners Delamer and the earl of Monmouth (as Mordaunt had become), who were also the principal members of the Essex committee, were formally excused from attendance on the House. Devonshire registered his proxy with Bedford, the fourth member of the committee, on that day, while Delamer had already registered his own proxy with Devonshire on 10 May. Although Devonshire was closely linked at this time with both Delamer and Monmouth, Burnet drew an important distinction between them. Whilst Delamer and Monmouth ‘were infusing jealousies of the king into their party, with the same industry that the earl of Nottingham was, at the same time, instilling into the king jealousies of them’, Devonshire instead endeavoured ‘to stop the progress and effects of those suspicions, with which the Whigs were possessed.’<sup>59</sup></p><p>Devonshire returned to the House on 9 July 1689. On 15 July he added to Delamer’s proxy (vacated on 20 July) that of William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, which was vacated on 2 August. On 12 July he was first appointed a reporter for a conference on the Bill of Rights, as it came to be known, and consequently took part in two more, on 20 and 31 July. In the first week of the following month he was a manager for two conferences on the bill for attainting people deemed to be in rebellion. The bill for the reversal of the judgments against Titus Oates took up much of his attention. On 11 July he was placed on a sub-committee to devise the controversial amendment to the bill which aimed to ensure that Oates could never testify in court again.<sup>60</sup> Two weeks later he was placed on another committee to draft reasons why the House insisted on this amendment and was a manager for the conferences of 26 and 29 July on this disagreement. On 13 Aug. he was placed on another committee to seek precedents for the House’s granting a conference to the Commons after it had already delivered its reasons for adhering to the amendment in a previous one. The following day he was placed on a drafting committee for an address to the king concerning the rights of former servants of Charles II, who felt threatened by the passage of the act for repaying the States General for William’s expedition (much of the money for this purpose was to come from farms and revenues previously granted as acts of favour by Charles II to his courtiers). Devonshire attended the House until the adjournment on 20 Aug. 1689. He spent much of the remainder of the summer on the more social life of a courtier. An aficionado of horse-racing, he entertained the king and many of his fellow peers at the races at Newmarket.<sup>61</sup> His long absences from the House through his role as a courtier and official meant that Devonshire came to only 54 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the Convention, and was named to only eight select committees on legislation. He had nevertheless already marked himself out as a key political figure in the new regime.</p><p>Devonshire missed the first few days of the session which began on 23 Oct. 1689, first attending on the last day of October. He sat for just under three-quarters of it and was named to eight select committees. Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed him as among the supporters of the court in a list of October 1689 to February 1690. In late November Devonshire was instrumental in introducing a rider, ultimately defeated, to the Bill of Rights which would have prevented the monarch granting pardons to those under impeachment.<sup>62</sup> The investigation into the death of Essex was continued under the terms of reference given to the large ‘committee for inspections’ formed with Devonshire as a member on 2 Nov. widened to include the executions of Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>, and other dubious legal measures of the Stuart brothers. Devonshire did not chair this committee but as lord steward on 9 Nov. he reported the king’s positive response to the committee’s request of three days previously for further documents. On 7 Dec. the committee established a sub-committee (of which Devonshire was not a member) to hear in more detail the evidence of Robert Cragg, an agent of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth in the spring of 1685. Cragg had testified the previous day about the attempts of Sunderland, Rochester and George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, to suborn him into testifying against Devonshire and others for their reputed connections with Monmouth (with whom Devonshire had actually never been associated).<sup>63</sup> While it was busy hearing Cragg’s testimony on 9 Dec. Devonshire was placed on another committee to draw up an address to the king to put the laws against Catholics into execution. On 2 Jan. 1690 the House resolved that the testimony collected by the committee for inspections should be presented to the Commons at a conference; Devonshire was placed on a committee to inspect the <em>Journal</em> for precedents regarding information taken by the House and communicated to the Commons. He attended the last day of the session, when Parliament was prorogued on 27 Jan. 1690.</p><h2><em>On the Council of Nine, 1690</em></h2><p>In the elections following the dissolution of 6 Feb. 1690, Devonshire does not appear to have been very active, possibly because his sons were as yet too young to participate. He was present on the first day of the new Parliament on 20 Mar 1690 and proceeded to sit in all but five of the first session’s 54 sittings, during which he was named to eight select committees. On 26 Mar. he joined other ministers, such as Halifax, Nottingham, Carmarthen and Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, in arguing against the bill brought in by the duke of Bolton (as Winchester had become) that recognized William and Mary as ‘rightful and lawful’ king and queen. Such a formulation was bound to upset the delicate alliance with the Tories that William had been at pains to establish.<sup>64</sup> On 24 Apr. the House ordered Devonshire as lord steward to move the king to negotiate for a prisoner exchange with France, so that the Protestant Irish military commander William Steward, Viscount Mountjoy [I], could be released. Two days later Devonshire brought into the House the bill that would vest the government of the realm in the queen and her council during the king’s absence in Ireland.<sup>65</sup> On 2 May he argued for the commitment of the bill ‘for securing their majesties against the late King James’, which imposed an oath of abjuration so that the adherents of King James might be identified.<sup>66</sup> Devonshire’s sudden departure with Shrewsbury for Newmarket in May led to rumours that they were about to resign because of their discontent with the king’s reliance on the Tories. On 5 May they both entered proxies in favour of Monmouth. Devonshire returned to the House on 8 May and five days later he subscribed to the protest against the decision of the House not to give the corporation of London more time to present its case against the <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings of the previous reign</p><p>Following the adjournment of 23 May 1690, Devonshire was appointed one of the council of nine who were to assist the queen in governing the realm during the king’s absence on campaign.<sup>67</sup> William had long trailed the idea (now backed by statute) of entrusting the government of the country to the queen, advised by a council of nine. In its earliest formulation drawn up in February, it included Lord Steward Devonshire, who it was reported at this time would be one of the three lieutenant-generals entrusted with the command of the army left in England.<sup>68</sup> So prominent had Devonshire become in the monarchs’ inner circle that he was entrusted with the lieutenancy of Somerset from 24 June, which he held jointly with Carmarthen and Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, until the single command of the county was entrusted to Devonshire’s nephew, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormonde, on 3 Feb. 1691.<sup>69</sup> Devonshire was present in the House for the prorogation of Parliament on 7 July 1690 and on 12 Sept. he ordered Black Rod to summon the Commons to the House to be informed of the prorogation to 2 Oct. 1690.<sup>70</sup></p><p>The rule of the council of nine became notorious for its disunity and in-fighting, particularly between the Whigs and Tories. Mary did not think a great deal of any of her councillors, as she made clear in her own memoirs, where she described Devonshire as one whom ‘the king had … recommended as … might be trusted and must be complimented, but … I found weak and obstinate, made a mere tool by a party’.<sup>71</sup> She also wrote dismissively to her husband that the ‘lord steward, you know, will be a courtier among ladies’.<sup>72</sup> Devonshire’s actions at the time of the Battle of Beachy Head suggest, however, that there was more substance to him than just courtier-like emollience. Upon the first news from the admiral of the Anglo-Dutch fleet, Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, of the approach of the larger French fleet in the Channel, Devonshire told the queen and council ‘that he believed it very dangerous to trust Lord Torrington with the fate of three kingdoms … and that he was absolutely of opinion, that some other should be joined in commission with him’. He was later part of the small group in the council that supported Monmouth’s request to join Torrington in that command. Torrington’s conduct during the confused battle of 30 June 1690 was widely condemned and on 3 July Devonshire and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, the first lord of the Admiralty, were dispatched by the queen to Portsmouth, to investigate and to bring the disgraced Torrington up to London to account for himself before the queen and council.<sup>73</sup></p><p>The council was then confronted with the question of who was to command the fleet in Torrington’s absence. It was decided that the command should be put in commission, led by a peer with the assistance of two experienced seamen. Fearful that in the continuing uncertainty Devonshire would put himself forward for the command, Mary decided to nominate the two seamen first, Sir Richard Haddock<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Ashby. In this matter, Devonshire showed that he was not shy of directly opposing the queen to support the partisan goals of the Whigs, which may have been what led her to brand him a ‘tool’ of that party. On 22 July the commissioners of the admiralty, led by the Whig Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup>, took the initiative and in a meeting with the queen insisted that they would not sign a commission that included the Tory admiral Haddock. The queen’s anger was made worse when the next day Devonshire came to her to excuse and justify Lee, arguing that the selection of Haddock was ‘a concerted thing’ done by the Tories who had ‘imposed’ him upon the king against the wishes of the Whigs. ‘I was very angry’ wrote Mary, ‘at what Sir Thomas Lee said yesterday; but this is to make me more so, since I see ‘tis not reason, but passion, makes [him] speak thus’. Devonshire still did not give up and ‘complained that people were too much believed that ought not to be so, and we could not agree’.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On another occasion Devonshire angered the queen when he and Monmouth remonstrated with her after she had decided that it was not necessary for her to attend a meeting of the full Privy Council.</p><blockquote><p>They were very pressing; and lord steward told me, there were many there who absolutely told him they would not speak but before me; that they were privy councillors, established by law; and did not know why they should be refused my presence. I answered them at first as civilly as I could, and as calmly, but being much pressed, I grew a little peevish, and told them, that between us I must own I thought it a humour in some there, which I did not think myself bound to please. … But all I could say would not satisfy them; and had not Lord Nottingham come in, I believe they would not have left me so soon.</p></blockquote><p>Again, in early August, Devonshire and Monmouth, surprisingly confident of the certainty of Whig electoral success, urged on Mary the dissolution of Parliament: ‘for this one he is sure will do no good … I see it is a thing they’ (undoubtedly meaning the Whigs) ‘are mightily set upon’, Mary commented to William.<sup>75</sup></p><h2><em>Court Whig, 1690-93</em></h2><p>Devonshire’s pleas were to no avail and the Parliament was not dissolved. During the 1690-1 session he came to 58 per cent of the sittings and was nominated to six select committees, including that on 20 Oct. 1690 to draft a resolution confirming that Torrington’s commitment, like Devonshire’s before the Revolution, was a breach of privilege.<sup>76</sup> In November he was made chief justice in eyre north of the Trent, a position which had been held by his Cavendish cousins, the dukes of Newcastle, from the time of the Restoration.<sup>77</sup> On 11 Dec. he was placed on a committee to draft two new clauses for inclusion in the bill preventing the export of bullion. At about this time it was decided that Devonshire would be part of William’s retinue in the congress of the allies to be held at The Hague in the first months of 1691. It was even rumoured that Devonshire and Nottingham were to be the king’s ‘two commissioners or plenipotentiaries to treat there upon any business about the League’.<sup>78</sup> Devonshire was kept busy in the final months of 1690 as lord steward preparing for the transfer of William’s court to The Hague.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Devonshire returned with the king to England in April 1691 and on 1 May he helped to interrogate Matthew Crone and Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], and other recently-apprehended Jacobites. Embarrassingly Preston claimed in his wide-ranging confession that his colleague William Penn had told him that Devonshire, Dorset, Shrewsbury and other leading Whig adherents of William III were also in contact with St Germain and ‘well affected’ to James II. Carmarthen tried to use these allegations to damage his enemies, including Devonshire, but there is no evidence beyond Preston’s hearsay account to suggest that Devonshire had made approaches to the Jacobite court and William did not countenance this line of attack. When the king left shortly afterwards in mid-May to return to the continent for that summer’s campaigning, Devonshire was once again named to the small cabinet council entrusted to assist and advise the queen in the government of the realm. He also had thoughts of promotion in the peerage. The death of his kinsman Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, without male heirs in late July spurred talk that the loyal Devonshire would be further rewarded with the now extinct dukedom of Newcastle.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Devonshire appears to have remained in the capital on cabinet business until about 9 September.<sup>81</sup> He returned to the House on 27 Oct. 1691, three days after the Parliament had reconvened, on which day he was placed on the committee of ten members assigned to draft an address of thanks for the speech from the throne, and specifically to the queen for her governance of the realm that summer. He was also placed on a drafting committee for the bill for regulating the aulnage. He sat in two-thirds of the meetings of the session and was nominated to a further five select committees. On three occasions he was also placed on drafting committees established in response to reports by a committee of the whole House. He was a reporter for the conference on 17 Nov. which discussed Jacobite conspiracies and on 4 Jan. 1692 he was a manager for a conference on the bill against corresponding with the Jacobite court. On 2 Feb. he was named to the committee entrusted with drawing up the reasons why the House adhered to its amendments to the public accounts’ bill and was involved in managing the three conferences on the subject held on 5, 8 and 10 February. Indeed, on the 8th he ‘spoke and insisted on the Lords having the naming commissioners to take the public accounts’.<sup>82</sup> Devonshire also signed the protest against the resolution on 2 Jan. 1692 not to send for the original record of a precedent cited during a debate on the Commons’ vote of 18 Dec. 1691 regarding the East India Company.</p><p>Devonshire was again placed on the regency council to advise the queen during the king’s absence on campaign that summer. In early May 1692 he was also appointed lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, a position that had been vacant since the early death of William Pierrepont*, 4th earl of Kingston in September 1690. The summer saw another invasion scare which led to the apprehension and commitment of suspected Jacobite sympathizers such as Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and John Churchill*, earl of Marlborough. Devonshire was among those councillors who refused to sign the arrest warrant for Marlborough and, after the crisis had been dissipated by the allied naval victories at Barfleur and La Hogue, Marlborough looked to him for help in procuring his bail.<sup>83</sup> Devonshire also became involved in the disagreements between Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, and Nottingham over the abortive plans for Russell to follow up the naval victories of that summer with an armed descent on France. He was part of a delegation dispatched to Portsmouth in early August to query the sudden and unexpected return of the fleet and ‘to consult with the admiral and general what measures are most proper to be taken in this juncture’.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Devonshire was present in the House on the opening day of the next session, 4 Nov. 1692, and attended over three-quarters of the total sittings. He held the proxy of Derby from 10 Nov. for the remainder of the session. He was placed on the drafting committee for the address of thanks on 17 November. That day also saw him appeal, together with John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, against a chancery decree in a suit with the executrix and creditors of Philip Warwick (son of Sir Philip Warwick<sup>‡</sup>), which appeal was rejected on 12 December.<sup>85</sup> Devonshire was involved in the proceedings and committees on the House’s ‘advice’ to the king regarding military and naval matters and on 29 Nov. 1692 he was named part of the delegation of three officers of the court to attend the king with the address urging him to employ only English officers in the army.</p><p>In the partisan conflict between Russell and Nottingham over the failed descent on France that summer, Devonshire at first opposed the latter. On 7 Dec. 1692 the House divided on a motion to form a joint committee of both Houses to examine the papers submitted by Nottingham in his defence. This motion was rejected by a majority of 12 but Devonshire sided with Nottingham’s opponents Shrewsbury, Monmouth and John Sheffield*, 3rd earl Mulgrave in voting for it.<sup>86</sup> On 10 Dec. Devonshire was named to the House’s own committee to examine the papers and a week later it was resolved to pass the papers and the committee’s report on to the Commons. Although he was not named to manage the conference on 21 Dec. at which the Commons took the unusual step of using the meeting merely to deliver their vote praising Russell, the following day he was named to the committee to investigate whether there were any precedents of conferences of this kind.</p><p>Devonshire’s role as a court Whig entrusted to espouse the king’s interest in the House came into stark relief over the debate on the place bill in late 1692 and early 1693. The measure had long been strenuously opposed by William and the ministry. On the last day of 1692 Devonshire voted against the motion to commit the bill, and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted against its passage. Bonet, the ambassador for the Brandenburg Court, gave his masters a detailed account of the debates surrounding the bill and singled out Carmarthen, Nottingham and Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, as the ‘principals’ among the bill’s enemies, ‘to whom were joined three considerable Whigs, but all three of the cabinet council, and very well informed of the intentions of his majesty’ – these were Devonshire, Dorset and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin – ‘to whom must be added Lord Sunderland as a good courtier’.<sup>87</sup> On 16 Jan. 1693 the committee of the whole House considering the triennial bill discussed amendments relating to annual sessions and ‘a set time for the determination of this Parliament’. Devonshire was a teller on the question of whether to resume the House, which having been agreed upon, he was placed on the committee to draw up the appropriate clause.<sup>88</sup> The following day Devonshire brought in a bill for a detailed oath abjuring fealty to James II, which received so much opposition that it was effectively dropped for the session after its committal on 25 January.<sup>89</sup> His kinsman through marriage, Bedford, registered his proxy with Devonshire on 19 Jan. 1693, but that extra vote was vacated by Bedford’s return to the House on 27 January. Devonshire on 24 Jan. was named to the drafting committee for a condemnation of the libel <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em> and was subsequently named as a manager of a conference on the subject. On 11 Feb. he was placed on a sub-committee to form the ‘Heads of Advice’ agreed upon in the committee of the whole into a coherent address to the king. He held the proxy of William’s chief confidant, Portland, during a six day absence starting 15 Feb. 1693 during which the House considered the ‘advice’ that foreigners such as Portland should no longer be employed in the army and other positions about the king.</p><p>Not all of Devonshire’s involvement in the House involved his promotion of the court’s interest. On 2 Jan. 1693 he voted against the reading of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. Perhaps, as Burnet suggested, the infamous womanizer Devonshire, with many illegitimate children already to his name, opposed the bill in solidarity with the adulterous duchess of Norfolk.<sup>90</sup> On 19 Jan. he was named to the committee assigned to draw up reasons why the House had, controversially and far from unanimously, decided to recede from its amendments to the Commons’ land tax bill.<sup>91</sup> He probably approached the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun with some sympathy, as an old rake and duellist himself, and perhaps with some sense of responsibility, for Mohun’s father, Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, had died (while the 4th Baron was still an infant) of wounds incurred when acting as a second for Devonshire in a duel in November 1676.<sup>92</sup> Devonshire signed the protest of 31 Jan. 1693 against the decision not to proceed with the case of Mohun that day, and on 3 Feb. he proposed a set of questions to be asked the judges in Westminster Hall which had a common subject, to establish whether Mohun was or was not an accomplice to murder. The sketchy notes on the trial made by Portland on 4 Feb. suggest that Devonshire argued ‘that Lord Mohun would have delivered up his sword if he would have taken it, [which] shows no malice or design’.<sup>93</sup> Not surprisingly, Devonshire voted Mohun not guilty of murder or manslaughter.</p><p>Devonshire was again part of Queen Mary’s council to help govern the realm after the king departed in April 1693. He was a member of the delegation of six sent to Portsmouth in May which made the disastrous decision to assign the main allied fleet to accompany the Turkey merchant ships which resulted in the loss of the Smyrna fleet.<sup>94</sup> In late August he, with Shrewsbury, Montagu (now an earl), Godolphin, Edward Russell and Marlborough met at a conclave at Althorp, Sunderland’s country house, to discuss ways of furthering the Whig interest in the ministry and in Parliament.<sup>95</sup></p><h2><em>‘The turn to the Whigs’ and a dukedom, 1693-5</em></h2><p>Devonshire came to the House for the 1693-4 session on its first day, 7 Nov. 1693, and a week later was entrusted with the proxy of Derby which he held until that earl’s return to the House on 13 Mar. 1694. Devonshire sat in just over two-thirds of its meetings, where he continued to obstruct the country measures the king disliked so much. William having vetoed the triennial bill at the end of the previous session, Monmouth brought in an identical bill in early December 1693. Devonshire proposed a rider, most likely as a wrecking amendment, which stated that a session might be considered to have been held even if no act or legal judgment were passed. The bill, with Devonshire’s rider, passed the House and even made headway through the Commons before being defeated in late December.<sup>96</sup> Devonshire also protested on 13 Dec. 1693 against the resolution that the Tory Simon Harcourt<sup>‡</sup> (1653-1724) was still clerk of the peace of Middlesex, as it was deemed his appointment, which was to be ‘on good behaviour’, did not necessarily end on the dismissal from office of the <em>custos rotulorum</em> who appointed him, John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle). Devonshire had a personal as well as political interest since Clare’s replacement as <em>custos</em> was Devonshire’s kinsman, Bedford, who wished to appoint his own clerk.<sup>97</sup></p><p>The matter which took up most of Devonshire’s, and the House’s, attention during the winter of 1693-4 was the investigation into the loss of the Smyrna fleet. The king’s failure to respond to a request for papers meant that on 29 Dec. 1693 the House ‘intimated’ to the lord steward specifically that they expected the king’s answer immediately. Devonshire reported on 2 Jan. 1694 the king’s answer that the papers were then being considered by the Commons, but would be laid before the House after the lower chamber was finished with them. On 8 Jan. he also reported the king’s positive response to the address requesting the further papers. Two days later, after hearing copious evidence from the admirals, the House resolved that ‘the admirals who commanded the fleet the last summer have done well in the execution of the orders they received’. Devonshire joined in the protest against this resolution. Both the vote and the protest had a strongly partisan edge for the two admirals thus exonerated – Sir Ralph Delaval<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Killigrew<sup>‡</sup> -- were associated with the Tories, whilst most of the protesters were Whigs. On 15 Jan. Devonshire was a manager for a conference about the Privy Council’s proceedings with the admirals; he was also named to a committee assigned to draft heads of the arguments to be offered at another conference on the lack of intelligence on the Brest fleet, but was not then named as a manager for this second conference. As late as 15 Feb. he was still involved in this matter, as he served as a teller, against Marlborough on the other side, on a division over whether to put the question on a motion that Nottingham and the Privy Council should have sent intelligence on the Brest fleet to the admirals. On 22 Feb. Devonshire introduced a private estate bill to allow him to sell or mortgage part of his entailed estate so that a higher maintenance could be provided for his middle son Lord Henry Cavendish<sup>‡</sup>. Devonshire’s old friend Cornwallis reported the bill fit to pass with some amendments on 28 February. The bill was rejected at a third reading in the Commons on 9 Apr. by 100-85 votes.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Devonshire was also heavily involved in the mutiny bill. On 2 Mar. he reported from the committee assigned to draw up a clause for the bill that they had ‘found difficulty in the case’ and had ‘not come to any conclusion’, whereupon the committee of the whole House took over. The bill passed the Lords on the following day, and when it was returned by the Commons on 6 Mar. Devonshire was named a manager for a conference on the bill. On the 7th he was appointed to a committee to draw up the reasons for the Lords’ insistence on their amendments. This committee was revived on 22 Mar. although this was not formally noted in the Journal, and then again on 27 March. After a further conference on 29 March, for which Devonshire was also named as a manager, the Commons receded from its objections to the amendments.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Shortly before William’s departure for the continent in early May 1694 he signed warrants for creations and elevations of various of his most faithful ministers and courtiers.<sup>100</sup> Devonshire was promoted to be duke with the same title, while the Newcastle dukedom that had often been associated with him was instead given to the late duke of Newcastle’s son-in-law, Clare, the wealthy Nottinghamshire peer, who soon replaced Devonshire as lord lieutenant of that county.<sup>101</sup> The two were to remain political colleagues but local rivals for many years to come. Devonshire’s position in the queen’s cabinet council in this summer of 1694 was endangered by a new scheme suggested by William before he left England. The larger council was to be replaced by a much smaller group consisting of the great officers of state while other members of the council would be called on to attend on an ad hoc basis, ‘sometimes one, sometimes another, as they should be judged most proper for the business they were to advise about’. The marquess of Normanby (as Mulgrave had become in the honours of that May) took umbrage at his exclusion and it was feared he would influence Devonshire to be equally dissatisfied. Sunderland was happy to report that ‘such care has been taken even with [the queen] and by my means … that [Devonshire] likes everything very well and [Normanby] will be alone by himself’. Shrewsbury (who had also become a duke that summer) was similarly confident that Devonshire’s ‘taking it so right, will have a good effect upon others, who cannot reasonably complain, if he be satisfied’. But, he added, ‘I cannot answer that it will have that good effect upon the marquess of Normanby, but rather believe the contrary’. Indeed, so satisfied was Devonshire with this new arrangement that he was away from the capital for much of the summer while important decisions were being taken in the reduced council.<sup>102</sup></p><p>Devonshire was present on the first day of the following session, 12 Nov. 1694, when he was introduced as duke of Devonshire between his nephew, Ormond and Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg. The following day he and Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, introduced the new duke of Newcastle to the House and on 8 Dec. he performed the same function for his kinsman Bedford, also created a duke, this time assisted by Bolton. With this new honour Devonshire was more than usually active and came to three-quarters of the sittings of this session. He signed a protest on 10 Dec. 1694 against the resolution to reverse the judgment given in king’s bench in favour of Arthur Bury against Robert Phillips and two days later he received the proxy, for the third time in as many years, of Derby, which was eventually vacated by Derby’s return on 26 Feb. 1695. On 18 Dec. 1694 he joined three other normally Tory peers – Halifax, Ailesbury, and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth – in signing a protest against the passage of the Triennial Act. It is almost certain that his protest derived more from his general opposition to this bill itself, as seen in previous sessions, than to the specific reason given in the protest – the failure to move the terminal date of the current Parliament from 1696 back to 1695. At the death of the queen on 28 Dec. 1694, he was named to the committee to draft the address of condolence to the king and to the delegation to ask William when he would be ready to receive the address. It was Devonshire himself who the following day told the House that the king would receive the House and its address in two days’ time, on the last day of the year.</p><p>On 11 Jan. 1695 Devonshire was placed on the committee of ten members to draw up an address to the king on the claim of Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to that barony. On 19 Jan. he joined seven other peers in protesting against the decision not to engross the bill to make perjury a felony in some cases. On 26 Feb. the House presented an address to the king calling for the papers concerning the naval expedition of the previous summer to be laid before the House; Devonshire and Dorset appear to have been the court officials deputed both to deliver the address and to report the king’s answer.<sup>103</sup> On 6 Feb. Devonshire was appointed to draft a bill to prevent coin clipping. On 8 Feb. during the hearing of evidence about the ‘Lancashire Plot’ it was alleged that John Lunt had initially placed Devonshire among his list of purported Jacobites, but even Lunt’s colleagues did not believe the allegations against the lord steward.<sup>104</sup> Newcastle registered his proxy with Devonshire on 18 Feb. which he held for the remainder of the session. Two days later he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons why the House insisted on some of their amendments to the treason trials bill and on 2 Mar. reported to the House the king’s answer that he would soon be able to receive the House with its address on the state of the Navy (to whose drafting committee Devonshire had been appointed the previous day).</p><p>Devonshire was involved in the investigations of bribery and corruption of April and May 1695 which brought William’s second Parliament to a close. On 13 Apr. he was named as a reporter for the conference on the bill to compel Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> to account for money disbursed out of the treasury of the East India Company, and four days later he was placed on the committee of seven members to draw up heads for this bill to be offered to the Commons at a further conference, which he helped to manage. When the Commons brought up its articles of impeachment against the duke of Leeds (as Carmarthen had become) on 29 Apr., Devonshire was named to the committee entrusted to inspect the Journal for precedents. On the penultimate day of the session, 2 May, he was named as a manager for the conference on the House’s objections to the Commons’ amendments to the bill to imprison Cooke for malfeasance.</p><p>Devonshire was appointed one of the seven lords justices entrusted with the government of the realm during the king’s absence on the continent but he appears most prominently in the letters of that summer (as in so many previous years) not as a minister but as a courtier and social figure at the races at Newmarket or in the social life of the capital and Derbyshire.<sup>105</sup> Shortly after the king’s return the Parliament was dissolved. Devonshire had long been preparing for this and had already solicited the support of his neighbour Newcastle for the election for Derbyshire of his eldest son, William Cavendish, known by the courtesy title of marquess of Hartington, who had only recently come of age. Devonshire declined to interfere in the selection of the second seat ‘because he would not disoblige the country gentlemen’ and the freeholders choose as Hartington’s partner one of the incumbents, Sir Gilbert Clarke<sup>‡</sup>. Devonshire also oversaw the election of his second son Lord Henry Cavendish for Derby, though he was successful only after a poll. The elections were expensive and Devonshire refused in the end to pay all the expenses, insisting that his sons themselves pay for part.<sup>106</sup> Thus from the Parliament of 1695 there was a significant Cavendish interest in both Houses of Parliament, though the sons did not always vote the way their father may have wished.<sup>107</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695-8</em></h2><p>Devonshire himself was present on the first day of the new Parliament, 22 Nov. 1695, and went on to attend just under two-thirds of the session. From that first day he also held the proxy of Bedford, which was not vacated until Bedford’s arrived in the House on 2 Jan. 1696. On 30 Dec. he was named to a committee charged with amending clauses to the bill for reforming the coinage. After the bill was passed by the House on 3 Jan. 1696 the same members were deputed to manage the conference at which the bill was returned to the Commons. Devonshire was similarly named a reporter for the conference on 7 Jan. where the Commons stated their objections to the Lords’ amendments; two days later he was placed on committee to draft the reasons for the House’s insistence on its amendments, which were presented at a conference on 11 January. Devonshire subscribed to the protest of 17 Jan. against the resolution to hear the petition of Sir Richard Verney on his claim to the barony of Willoughby de Broke, because ‘the petitioner’s case has been already heard and adjudged in this House upon his former petition’. On 27 Jan. he reported the king’s answer to the address concerning the East India Company’s petition which he had been deputized to deliver four days previously. He was appointed to the large sub-committee established on 7 Feb. to draft new clauses relating to the encouragement of privateers to be added to the bill to continue the act prohibiting trade with France.</p><p>Devonshire was placed on the committee assigned on 24 Feb. 1696 to draw up an address expressing the House’s relief for the king’s escape from the assassination plot and was named as a manager of two conferences at which the address was agreed upon with the Commons. He signed the Association on the first day subscription was possible, 27 February. A contemporary newsletter writer claimed that it was Devonshire himself who brought in the finished text of the Association and presented it to the House, while L’Hermitage wrote to his masters in the States-General that in the ensuing debate over the wording of the Association, Devonshire supported some compromise wording put forward by Leeds about whether William III was ‘rightful king’.<sup>108</sup> Devonshire reported to the House on 21 Mar. 1696 that his second cousin Ailesbury, who was heavily implicated in the testimony of the interrogated Jacobite conspirators, had been committed to the Tower under suspicion of high treason.<sup>109</sup> Devonshire may have taken some delight in Ailesbury’s fall, as the two men were engaged in a long-term family squabble. In his memoirs Ailesbury, a trustee of the entailed Cavendish estate, presented himself and his father (Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury) as the financial saviours of his profligate, spendthrift and rebellious cousin.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Devonshire, once again a lord justice during William’s absence in 1696, was involved in the interrogation of one of the chief Jacobites involved in the plot, Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, who was apprehended and sent to the Tower on 19 June 1696. Fenwick specifically asked to see the lord steward, who first visited him in the Tower on 7 July and found him willing to make a confession of Jacobite conspiracy – for William’s knowledge only – in exchange for a pardon and the promise that he would not be forced to appear as a witness in future trials. Upon orders from the king, Devonshire interviewed Fenwick on 10 Aug. when the prisoner accused some of the king’s leading ministers and courtiers – Shrewsbury, Godolphin, Marlborough and Edward Russell in particular – of negotiating, or ‘compounding’, with St Germain. Throughout this long affair of many months Devonshire showed a good deal of solicitude in his dealings with Fenwick and his wife, Lady Mary (a distant kinswoman through their mutual connection to the Howards), in contrast to the vituperation directed towards Fenwick by the king and his other ministers. Devonshire was himself shaken by Fenwick’s revelations and he sent a copy of his evidence to William, without showing it to any of those who had been implicated.<sup>111</sup> The king told Devonshire that the confession contained nothing new, reassured Shrewsbury and refused to postpone Fenwick’s trial unless he produced more pertinent information.<sup>112</sup> Fenwick promised to make good his allegations, prompting Devonshire and the secretary to the lords justices, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, to arrange another delay to the trial. On 23 Sept. Fenwick produced new information against active Jacobite conspirators, including Ailesbury and William Herbert*, 2nd marquess of Powis (usually referred to as Viscount Montgomery) and his trial was put off once again.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Despite Devonshire’s assurances of secrecy, news of Fenwick’s confession quickly leaked out and wild speculation gripped the capital in the late summer about who exactly had been named. Fenwick and his supporters blamed Devonshire himself for this. Thomas White*, the former bishop of Peterborough, felt that Fenwick had ‘hearkened too much to the charms of Lord Devonshire’s honour’, only to be deceived by him. Yet Devonshire himself strenuously denied that he had let the information slip out.<sup>114</sup> At the same time, Devonshire’s ministerial colleagues blamed him for what they saw as his gullibility in believing Fenwick’s allegations, his lax handling of the affair in allowing the rumours to spread and his unwillingness to warn them of the accusations against them. Portland believed that if Fenwick ‘had not unfortunately addressed himself to Lord Devonshire, and if from the beginning he had been spoken to as he ought to have been, I think he would not have had either leisure or inclination to invent the tales which he has told’.<sup>115</sup> Edward Russell, one of those charged by Fenwick, spoke to Vernon with ‘some resentment’ against Devonshire, thinking, like Portland, that he had given too much credit to hearsay when accepting Fenwick’s confession and dispatching it to the king. Russell, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton and the lord keeper, John Somers*, Baron Somers became convinced that Fenwick’s damaging allegations had to be refuted publicly.<sup>116</sup></p><p>In what Vernon considered ‘another unaccountable step’, Devonshire left the capital at the end of September 1696 and he had not returned by the time Parliament reassembled on 20 Oct. 1696. His continued absence further complicated matters as it was thought proper that he should be present at any interview between Fenwick and the king, but Wharton, Somers, and Russell were able to persuade William to interview the suspect himself. This he did in Council on 2 Nov., the day before the lord steward’s intended return. The king turned a deaf ear to Fenwick’s pleas that he be allowed to consult with Devonshire, who had promised him that his testimony was only for William’s ears. As Fenwick refused to say anything more before the full council, William in turn refused to delay his trial any further and dismissed him. Devonshire appears to have cut a chastened and derided figure when he finally arrived in the capital, being snubbed by the king and having his apology and explanation rebuffed by Russell.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Devonshire took his seat for the 1696-7 session on 6 Nov. but even with this late start he still managed to attend 69 per cent of the sittings. Despite his close involvement in the proceedings against Fenwick, the immediate reason for his return to the House on that day was personal, a petition to the House by Normanby against Devonshire’s claim to privilege in a Chancery case depending between them concerning the sale of Berkeley House in Piccadilly. Hearings in this cause were constantly postponed in the House until 10 Dec. when Devonshire declared that he would not insist on his privilege.<sup>118</sup> The case rumbled on in Chancery for several months and the interminable hearings were frequent fodder for news and gossip in the capital. In January 1698 Lord Chancellor Somers finally determined the case in Devonshire’s favour and he acquired possession of the London residence which he, and his descendants, transformed into one of the showpieces of opulent aristocratic Whig power in the capital, renaming it Devonshire House.<sup>119</sup></p><p>In the first weeks of November 1696 Devonshire presented to the House the excuses of John Manners*, 9th earl of Rutland.<sup>120</sup> Rutland’s Derbyshire residence Haddon Hall was a stone’s throw from Chatsworth and his heir John Manners* later 2nd duke of Rutland, now known as Lord Roos, was brother-in-law to Hartington, through their marriages to the two daughters of Lord Russell. On 30 Nov. 1696 Devonshire held the proxy of Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford, which became operative when Bradford stopped attending the House between 4 and 13 December. On 2 Dec. Devonshire was appointed a manager for a conference on the bill for reforming the coinage. The session soon, however, came to be dominated by the proceedings against Fenwick. After the loss of the vital second witness against Fenwick a normal trial became impossible and the ministry turned to the drastic measure of a bill of attainder as the only way to discredit and silence him. The bill, having originated in the Commons under Russell’s guidance, was read for the first time in the House on 1 Dec., when Devonshire, on the king’s orders, laid before the House Fenwick’s two confessions. Some of the Tory peers, led apparently by Normanby, also pressed to see Devonshire’s own letters to the king, in an attempt to expose his mismanagement of the interrogation. Devonshire also fell foul of the insistence of the House that all peers attend the proceedings. He was absent when the House was called on 15 Dec. so black rod was ordered to take him into custody so that he would be forced to appear the following day. The motion was strongly supported by Normanby and Rochester.<sup>121</sup></p><p>According to Vernon’s later comments, it seems clear that Devonshire voted for the second reading of the attainder bill on 18 Dec. 1696. When Fenwick appeared before the House on 22 Dec. he refused to testify further without a guarantee of a general pardon for his own actions and a binding assurance that his evidence could not be used against him in other courts and claimed that Devonshire had agreed to this. Devonshire denied it and, demanding that Fenwick be interrogated on his behalf, eventually extracted from the prisoner the admission that no explicit promises had been made; Devonshire had merely not raised objections to Fenwick’s request and assured him he would acquaint the king of his conditions. Fenwick wrote to his wife suggesting that Devonshire and Normanby were taking their dispute about Berkeley House into this other matter, for he implied that Normanby was trying to persuade him to testify that Devonshire explicitly promised him a royal pardon, ‘and they two were like to quarrel about it’. However, Devonshire seems to have become uneasy about the controversial nature of the proceedings. When it became clear that Fenwick would not confess further without guarantees, Devonshire at first moved to change the penalty in the bill from loss of life to perpetual imprisonment, which was seconded by Rochester, an unusual collaboration. That motion having been defeated, on 23 Dec. 1696 Devonshire surprised many contemporaries by voting against the Fenwick attainder bill at its third reading, although he did not subscribe to the subsequent large protest against its passage. In this rejection of the bill he joined, as Vernon put it, ‘all the lords justices who had voices’.<sup>122</sup></p><p>In the last days before his execution on 28 Jan. 1697, Fenwick became increasingly convinced that Devonshire had acted in bad faith and had deserted him, and he put in a last damaging dig against the lord steward in a paper he delivered before his death to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. He mentions in this account that when he delivered to Devonshire (‘a great man who visited me in the Tower’ as he obliquely refers to him) his first confession against Shrewsbury and the others, Devonshire had assured him that William ‘had been acquainted with most of those things before’ – which was tantamount to claiming that the allegations were true and that Devonshire was involved in a ‘cover-up’.<sup>123</sup> Thomas White, the non-juring former bishop, who attended Fenwick in his last hours, himself expressed surprise at the relative moderation of Fenwick’s accusations towards Devonshire in this final paper. For his part, White admitted he would have been much harsher towards ‘that great man who pawned his honour to Sir John for his security, and yet dropped it so patiently, that a man would think he valued it as little as his creditors do’.<sup>124</sup> Devonshire, however, was still incensed – he ‘stamps and frets’ – at Fenwick’s insinuation and the ministry was more than a little irritated at the need to limit the damage caused by his purported words (which were probably accurate, as William himself had made much the same comment to Shrewsbury) when composing its official refutation of Fenwick’s allegations and vindication of the drastic procedures against him.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Devonshire was also involved in the proceedings against Monmouth, who had interfered in the Fenwick affair by delivering to him, via Lady Fenwick and the duchess of Norfolk, papers advising what Fenwick should say, and lines of defence to take, when questioned before the House. According to Vernon, Devonshire, on 15 Jan. 1697, was the first to propose the Tower as a suitable punishment for the wayward earl, ‘but he would have assigned some indiscretion for the cause, which the duke of Leeds and others did not think a reason for sending peers there’.<sup>126</sup> On 19 Jan. Devonshire reported the king’s thanks for the address the House had composed on the matter and the ‘consideration’ it had thus shown to him.<sup>127</sup> On 5 Mar. he was appointed a manager for, and reported from, the first conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to prohibit the import of East India silks. The House considered Devonshire’s report on 9 Mar. and established a committee to draw up reasons for insisting on its amendments; Devonshire reported from the conference on 13 Mar. at which these reasons were given to the Commons. On 17 Mar. the same committee was deputed to consider the arguments to be presented at a further conference the following day, although Devonshire was not listed as attending on that day, nor did he play a noticeable role in the further proceedings on the bill, before it was lost over a ‘wrecking amendment’ relating to a penalty clause.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Following the prorogation on 16 Apr. 1697 Devonshire was one of the nine lords justices appointed to govern the realm while the negotiations for the treaty of Ryswick were being hammered out on the continent. Rumours soon abounded that Devonshire and Montagu were to be sent joint ambassadors to France following the peace, but nothing came of these.<sup>129</sup> Devonshire was back in the capital from Chatsworth to attend the first day of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697, when he was also appointed to the committee to draft the address of thanks to the king for his speech on the peace. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> recorded that it was Devonshire who reported the speech to the House on 6 Dec., although the Journal has Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron Ferrers as the reporter.<sup>130</sup> From 11 Dec. Devonshire held Bedford’s proxy, which he was able to retain for the entirety of the session. Between 10 and 13 Jan.1698 he was named as a manager for two separate conferences over the space of four days: one concerning the House’s amendments to the bill against corresponding with James II, the other on the amendments to the bill for continuing the imprisonment of the conspirator Stephen Counter. On 14 Feb. he was placed on the committee assigned to draw up an address to the king for the encouragement of English manufactures. Although he attended diligently at the beginning, Devonshire missed most of the sittings of March and April 1698 and over the course of the whole session came to only 54 per cent of sittings. He began to sit regularly again from mid-May, and on the 14th he was one of only five members of the House who supported the bill to punish John Knight for making false endorsements on Exchequer bills, which was thrown out that day at its second reading.<sup>131</sup> On 10 June he reported to the House the king’s answer to the address on the woollen manufacture in Ireland. He was heavily involved in the proceedings against John Goudet and other French merchants and on 15 June he managed and reported from the conference on the Commons’ request to have more ‘convenient’ space for their counsel in the House’s chamber to make their case against Goudet. Devonshire, having made this report from the conference, was then one of only three peers (with Stamford and John Thompson*, Baron Haversham) to sign the protest against the House’s ensuing resolution that members of the Commons could not pass beyond the bar of the House, insisting that the House’s judicature would not be lessened if the Commons’ counsel was allowed to do so. Devonshire was not named to the committee assigned to draft reasons for adhering to this resolution or a manager for the ensuing conferences, but when the managers for the conference of 21 June did report the next day, Devonshire was placed on a committee of 15 assigned to search for precedents of how to proceed in such a matter after a free conference.</p><h2><em>Court or Country peer, 1698-1702 </em></h2><p>In the summer of 1698 Devonshire was again named as a lord justice. During the election his sons Hartington and Lord Henry Cavendish were again returned.<sup>132</sup> Devonshire returned to London in time for the first day of the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698 and he was a diligent attender throughout its first session, coming to just over three-quarters of the sittings. In the session’s early weeks he was placed on two drafting committees for addresses to the king (on 20 Dec. 1698 and 4 Feb. 1699), and on 27 Jan. 1699 was appointed a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to prohibit the export of corn. Most controversially, he emerged as a supporter of the measures taken to disband the army. At the disbanding bill’s first reading on 24 Jan. 1699 he took issue with a point of fact in the speech against the bill made by Haversham but, embarrassingly, ‘he was mistaken about the matter in dispute, and Lord Godolphin came to his relief, by saying that this was not at present the point in question’.<sup>133</sup> More seriously, on 8 Feb. he voted and protested against the resolution for the retention of the king’s Dutch Guards. This protest, following on from his refusal to vote for the Fenwick attainder, marks the second time in short succession that Devonshire, previously seen as an archetypal courtier, openly defied the stated wishes of the king. It suggests that he had not completely abandoned many of his ‘old Whig’ and country ideals – such as opposition to a standing army in peacetime – and may have been increasingly distancing himself from the ministerial Whigs of the Junto. Both of his sons voted for the disbanding bill in the Commons and Hartington in particular was prominent in opposition to it. When William berated his lord steward for the disloyalty shown by the young Cavendishes, Devonshire could only defend them, saying that ‘they had advanced nothing but what was reasonable, nothing but what he would have said himself if he had been in their place’. Louis XIV’s envoy in England, Count Tallard, suggested to his master in late April that because of these reproaches Devonshire was ‘discontented’ and was contemplating resigning as lord steward.<sup>134</sup></p><p>In the event, Devonshire continued in office and remained active in Parliament. On 21 Apr. 1699 he reported from a conference the Commons’ disagreement with the House’s amendments to the bill for Billingsgate Market. Four days later he was placed on the committee to draft reasons for the House’s adherence to the amendment, and consequently managed the ensuing conference on 27 Apr., after which the Commons withdrew their opposition to the House’s clause. In one of the last acts of the session, Devonshire was placed on the committee of 13 on 4 May that decided that an entry noting the Commons’ refusal to respond to a request for a conference that day should be placed in the Journal. Following the end of the session, Devonshire was again appointed a lord justice of the realm during William’s time on the continent but, as in previous summers, he spent much of it at Chatsworth, where he also had to work to maintain his position, both as ranger of Needwood Forest against the competing claims of Stamford, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, (an acrimonious dispute which had its origins back in 1698), and as chief justice in eyre north of Trent in face of the rivalry of the duke of Newcastle, the warden of Sherwood Forest.<sup>135</sup></p><p>Devonshire was back in the capital for the opening of the next session of Parliament, on 16 Nov. 1699, and in total came to 58 per cent of that session’s sittings. He was absent for all of January 1700. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted and protested against the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation. At the time of the bill, Devonshire was highly involved in the East Indian trade, being one of only three peers with stock in both companies. He had holdings of more than £2,000 in the old company and an even higher commitment to the new one, having subscribed £6,000, the third largest subscription among the peerage. Shortly afterward he was confronted with a petition from one of his disgruntled workmen on the building works at Chatsworth, Benjamin Jackson, who complained that Devonshire refused to pay him and his workmen and then tried to block legal measures for payment by claiming privilege. Devonshire asked the House on the day the petition was submitted, 11 Mar., that he be allowed to maintain his privilege and the matter was referred to the committee for privileges, in which no further proceedings are recorded.<sup>136</sup></p><p>Vernon noted that Devonshire was opposed to the provisions for the resumption of the Irish land grants ‘tacked’ on to the land tax bill, when the bill’s second reading was debated on 4 Apr. 1700.<sup>137</sup> However, Devonshire was not involved as manager for any of the conferences on the House’s amendments to the bill before the king ordered his followers to abandon their resistance in order to secure supply. Devonshire may have kept a low profile during these proceedings, as Hartington was one of the leaders in the Commons of the attack on Irish land grants and on those who had benefited from them.<sup>138</sup> At about this time even Devonshire was beginning to express doubts about the prominence of foreigners in the ministry and the king’s counsels. In July 1700, after the death of the duke of Gloucester threw the issue of the succession into turmoil, Vernon reported that Devonshire had ‘particular notions about the succession’. While on one hand he ‘makes no scruple of coming up to anything that may put an exclusion upon King James and the prince of Wales, and he does not care how soon, and how strongly that is done’, on the other he nevertheless thought ‘the nation will not submit to any more foreigners’.<sup>139</sup> Thomas Carte later recorded in his notebook the anecdote that at about this time the ‘old duke of Devonshire’ was ‘infinitely averse to the settling of the crown of England on the Hanover family, and said the inconvenience of a foreigner were terrible’. He ‘pressed the finding out of an Englishman to give it to, and maintained that it was more eligible to set it on long Tom’s head’ (the earl of Pembroke).<sup>140</sup></p><p>When the king left for the continent in late June 1700 Devonshire was again appointed as one of the lords justices.<sup>141</sup> In a marked printed list of the Whig nobility from that summer Devonshire was indicated as a Whig willing to work with the new ministry, rather than a diehard member of the ousted Junto. Since at least 1696 there had been differences between him and the Junto leadership, suggesting that he would not have been greatly perturbed by the creation of the new mixed ministry. In the general election of January 1701 Devonshire’s third son Lord James Cavendish<sup>‡</sup> replaced his late elder brother Henry, who had died the previous May, as candidate for Derby and was returned without a contest. The relative tranquillity of the borough election was in stark contrast to the contention and high partisan feeling in the county. Hartington had fallen out with his Tory partner, Thomas Coke, over a number of issues, and late in the day he announced that his new electoral partner would be Lord Roos. Coke and the Tories refused to stand aside and in a bitterly contested poll, Hartington and Roos were only narrowly returned.<sup>142</sup></p><p>Devonshire attended 71 per cent of the sittings of this brief Parliament from its second day, 10 Feb, to the prorogation of 24 June 1701. On 17 Feb. he was named as a manager for a conference on the address of thanks and on 20 Mar. he joined the protest against the resolution not to communicate the House’s address on the partition treaty to the Commons. Devonshire was, however, most involved in the attempt to halt the Commons’ impeachment proceedings against Portland and the Junto lords. Whatever his personal relations with individual members of the Junto may have been, these impeachments from the Tory-led Commons were an attack both on the king’s right to choose his own ministers and on fellow members of the peerage. On 16 Apr. Devonshire reported from the committee on the address requesting the king to refrain from punishing or removing the accused peers from office until they had been suitably tried, and, with Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney (the two of them ‘greatly in the king’s interest’ as one commentator noted), he was delegated to attend the king with it. Romney reported to the House the following day that the king had received the address without making an answer to it, an unprecedented act ‘at which the House of Lords were somewhat piqued, and thereupon appointed a committee to enquire, if there was any precedent of the king’s silence upon the like occasions’, to which committee Devonshire was appointed.<sup>143</sup> On 5 May Devonshire reported from the committee assigned to draw up a message to the Commons reminding them that the House was still waiting impatiently for the actual articles of impeachment.</p><p>The impeachments came to a head in early June 1701, with Devonshire to the fore in the campaign against them. On 6 June he reported to the House from the conference at which the Commons’ representative Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, suggested that the differences between the Houses on the conduct of the trials could be resolved by a joint committee of both houses. The already-established committee to consider the method of proceeding with impeachments, to which Devonshire was added on 7 June, was assigned to draw up reasons against the establishment of a joint committee. Stamford reported to the House the reasons on 10 June, but it was Devonshire who managed and reported from the conferences on that day and three days later. This latter was the most tumultuous to date, as Devonshire himself reported to the House, for as Harcourt and Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup> were explaining why the Commons could not agree to the House’s arguments, the mercurial Haversham ‘used some expressions, at which the Commons, taking exceptions, abruptly broke up the conference’. Attempts were made to placate the Commons, but they for their part sent their own account of what Haversham had said and insisted he be charged before the House. The House assigned the managers of the conference to draw up a statement of what had happened and to search for precedents of how similar incidents had been settled. Devonshire, as principal manager and reporter of the conference, chaired the committee and reported from it on 14 June, although he and the committee perhaps disingenuously claimed not to remember the offensive words Haversham had allegedly used. At the same time the House continued to insist on its resolution not to allow a committee of both houses and charged ahead in its determination to try Somers and Orford – with or without the cooperation of the Commons. Devonshire was, not surprisingly, one of those who acquitted them at their ‘trials’ on 17 and 23 June respectively.<sup>144</sup></p><p>By this time relations between the two houses had deteriorated so badly and in such acrimony that the king had no choice but to prorogue Parliament on 24 June. Only four days after the prorogation William convened a meeting of the Privy Council, where he once again commissioned Devonshire as one of the lord justices.<sup>145</sup> Devonshire was one of only three ministers (the others being Pembroke and Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury) who served as a lord justice on each of William III’s seven absences from the realm after the queen’s death. Yet he remained at the periphery of this council whilst Somers and Sunderland attempted to persuade William to discard his ineffectual ‘mixed’ ministry, call a new Parliament and reinstate the Whigs in office.</p><p>In the second general election within a year, held in November, the Cavendish interest had its most severe test yet. The election at Derby was described as ‘the nearest poll was ever seen’ in the borough, and Lord James Cavendish squeaked in by one vote. The county election was similarly close-run but did not end well for Devonshire and his heir. Elements of the Derbyshire gentry had shown a resentment at being represented by two young noblemen and this was exploited by Coke and his new partner, John Curzon<sup>‡</sup>. Although the Cavendish and Manners interest lavished money on the election, Roos suffered a comprehensive defeat and took Hartington down with him. Following Hartington’s defeat, Devonshire was heard to say that his son having lost in his county he should not stoop so low as to pick up a seat in a borough. He took steps to rectify this humiliation to the family, ordering his agents to take copies of the poll books and search for fraudulent voters in view to a petition. Hartington, ignoring his father’s strictures, managed to return to the Commons through ‘picking up’ the borough seat of Castle Rising in Norfolk.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Devonshire himself was present for the first day of the Parliament, on 30 Dec. 1701 and on the last day of the year he was placed on the committee to draw up an address on that part of the king’s speech which took note of Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender as king of England. Early in the new year of 1702 he signed the House’s address condemning this and pledging continued loyalty and support to William. On 6 Feb. 1702 he reported from the conference on the bill for the Pretender’s attainder the objections of the Commons to the inclusion of Mary of Modena in the bill. Devonshire and the other conference managers were assigned to search for precedents to amendments to bills of attainder and to draw up reasons in their defence to be presented in subsequent conferences, which Devonshire helped to manage on 10 and 12 February. On 2 and 7 Mar. 1702 Devonshire was one of the officers of state commissioned by the dying king to give the royal assent to that and other bills passed by both houses.<sup>147</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of Queen Anne, 1702-7</em></h2><p>On the day of the king’s death, 8 Mar. 1702, Devonshire appears to have chaired the committee appointed to draft the statement to be offered to the Commons at a conference, as he reported the committee’s order for an immediate proclamation of Queen Anne and later reported the conference itself. On 9 and 13 Mar. he reported the new queen’s responses to addresses and requests sent to her from the House. In a debate on 11 Mar. the Whig Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, was ‘smartly replied’ to by Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys and Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, among others, for some comments he made about the queen. Devonshire made a sufficiently ‘mollifying speech’ on Carlisle’s behalf to calm tempers and to avoid the earl being censured.<sup>148</sup></p><p>As a faithful servant and officer of William III, Devonshire was prominent at the late king’s funeral in early April, he and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset ‘supporting’ the chief mourner Prince George*, duke of Cumberland. The burial of William in Westminster Abbey formally ended Devonshire’s tenure as lord steward of the household. He ceremoniously broke his white staff but Anne almost immediately reappointed him. She gave further indications of her continued favour towards the Cavendish family when she retained Hartington as captain of the yeomen of the guard and made his wife one of her ladies of the bedchamber. Devonshire served as lord high steward for her coronation on 23 Apr. 1702.<sup>149</sup></p><p>On 4 May 1702 Devonshire first reported from the drafting committee for the address of thanks for the declaration of war against France and then together with other officers of the late king assigned to search through his papers he reported that they had not found anything that prejudiced the queen or her accession to the throne. The House thereupon declared the many rumours about the existence of such papers, ‘groundless, false, villainous and scandalous’.<sup>150</sup> On 9 May Devonshire was placed on the committee to draft a motion on the publication of the proceedings of the House in <em>The History of the Last Parliament</em>. He remained busy until the prorogation of 25 May in conferences on measures for the defence of the new regime against its enemies. He reported from the conference on 7 May on the House’s amendments to the bill to alter the oath of abjuration. A week later, on 15 May, he was placed on the committee to draw an address calling for all correspondence between the allies and France to be stopped and on 18 and 20 May he managed conferences on this address. On 20 May he was also a manager for another conference at which the Commons presented their objections to the House’s amendments to the bill for the encouragement of privateers. Five days later, before the prorogation, he reported the queen’s answer to an address on the subject. In the elections on July Lord James Cavendish did not contest Derby, while Hartington took refuge in Yorkshire as knight of the shire.<sup>151</sup></p><p>Devonshire was more than usually assiduous in his attendance of the first session of the new queen’s first Parliament, attending on its first day, 20 Oct. 1702, and continuing to sit in 82 per cent of the meetings. On the second day, 21 Oct. he was placed on the drafting committee for the address in response to the queen’s speech; he chaired and reported from the committee with the completed address on the following day and was one of those deputed to enquire when she would be ready to receive the House and its address.<sup>152</sup> On 11 Nov. he reported her reception of the address (which he had been assigned to help draft two days previously) congratulating her on the safe recovery from illness of Prince George. On 19 Nov. he chaired and reported from the drafting committee on an address concerning the Commons’ vote condemning William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, for his interference in that summer’s elections and he was again delegated to present it to the queen. He was one of the first to sign the House’s resolution against the Commons’ practice of ‘tacking’ alien matters on to money bills, on 9 December.</p><p>From mid-December 1702 Devonshire became one of the principal actors in the House in the campaign against the occasional conformity bill. On 17 Dec. he was the principal manager for the conference in which, as he later reported to the House, the Commons disagreed to some of the Lords’ amendments. The following day the House charged the conference managers with drafting reasons for the House’s insistence on their amendments and to search for precedents to refute the Commons’ principal complaint, that the House could not initiate bills with pecuniary penalties in them and could not alter such penalties in bills from the Commons. Devonshire, according to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, subsequently moved that all the lords present in the House when the committee was established be added to it. He himself chaired this busy committee on six occasions over the course of the winter; he presented the committee’s very long report to the House on 8 Jan. 1703 and was a manager for the consequent conference the following day.<sup>153</sup> The matter rested there for several days while the Commons considered the points raised by the House. On 11 Jan. the bill to settle a revenue on Prince George was read a second time. It included a controversial clause allowing him to remain in the House and the Privy Council after the death of the queen despite his foreign birth. Devonshire and the others considered that this clause would effectively disqualify the Dutch born peers. To resolve this matter, Devonshire suggested that a separate declaratory bill be introduced to explain that neither the prince nor any of the foreign peers in the House at the time of the Act of Succession were covered by its clauses incapacitating foreign-born peers from office or grants of land from the crown. Though ‘warmly’ espoused by other Whigs such as Richard Savage*, 4th earl of Rivers, the proposed bill failed to gain sufficient support. On 19 Jan. Devonshire continued to speak against the offending clause and subscribed to the protest against the decision to maintain it in the bill.<sup>154</sup> </p><p>Devonshire was the principal manager and reporter for the Lords at the turbulent and pivotal conference of 16 Jan. 1703 on the occasional conformity bill, where the Commons continued in their disagreement to the House’s amendments. After a long debate, Devonshire was one of those who voted to adhere to the amendments, which motion squeaked through by two votes.<sup>155</sup> On 29 Jan. Devonshire reported from the committee on precedent and procedure that the bill, with its amendments, should be delivered to the Commons at another free conference. Devonshire himself managed and reported from this conference on 1 February. This conference effectively marked the demise of the bill as the Commons continued to refuse the Lords amendments.<sup>156</sup> Devonshire also chaired the committee assigned to draw up an account of the proceedings of that final conference and he worked away until he was able to deliver a long report to the House almost a month later on 24 February.<sup>157</sup> On that day he was also placed on the committee to oversee the printing of both the failed bill and his own report on the conference.</p><p>Apart from preparing this report, Devonshire was also in the first week of February 1703 involved in drafting an address thanking the queen for the small number of licences granted to people to come from France and calling for a proclamation for the apprehension of all unlicensed persons arriving from thence.<sup>158</sup> Having already clashed with the lower house over the occasional conformity bill, he became embroiled in another controversy with the Commons, over the ‘Observations’ of the Commons’ commissioners of accounts, in which Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax was accused of malfeasance in office. On 5 Feb. the committee entrusted to examine the ‘Observations’ (of which Devonshire was a member), reported that the Commons’ commissioners had failed to appear before it despite being summoned. The House then voted to agree with the committee and to exonerate Halifax. Devonshire was a manager for the ensuing conference on 17 February. The ‘unparliamentary’ language used by representatives of the Commons at that conference led to the formation of another committee from which Devonshire reported on 22 February. He was the principal manager for another conference held that day at which he delivered the Lords’ resolution condemning their expressions. He likewise managed the conference requested by the Commons on 25 Feb. and was able to report to the House that he and the other managers had ‘endeavoured to maintain their resolutions delivered at the last conference’. Not surprisingly, with relations this far deteriorated, the queen prorogued Parliament the following day.<sup>159</sup></p><p>The lord steward was back in the House for the next session on its first day, 9 Nov. 1703, and went on to attend just over two-thirds of the sittings. As usual he was named on the session’s second day to the drafting committee for the address of thanks and the following day he was appointed to a small committee of seven members to consult with the surveyor-general Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> ‘to propose remedies for keeping off the crowd when the queen is present’. He spoke against the occasional conformity bill when it came before the House again and voted to reject it at its second reading on 14 Dec. 1703. That day also saw his first involvement in what was to become his main preoccupation for the next few months, the House’s investigation into the ‘Scotch Plot’. The principal target of the investigation, the Tory secretary of state Nottingham, identified Devonshire and Somerset as the leaders of the attack against him and as his principal enemies in the Cabinet, even insisting at one point on their dismissal as a condition of his continued service.<sup>160</sup> The two dukes may have been the instigators on 14 Dec. of the House’s examination into the government’s handling of the conspiracy.<sup>161</sup> Devonshire reported the following day the queen’s assurances that some of the captured Jacobite agents would be sufficiently secured but on 16 Dec. he conveyed the queen’s more negative response that she wanted the principal suspect, Sir John Maclean, to be examined by Nottingham rather than at the bar of the House. Distrust of the Tory ministry was amply demonstrated when Devonshire on 18 Dec. topped the secret ballot to choose members of the seven-man committee of the House assigned to interrogate the Jacobites Boucher and Ogleby. Devonshire appears to have chaired this committee for he delivered a report of its findings to the House on 21 Dec. and he and Somerset were assigned to present the queen with the House’s address for the prosecution of Boucher for high treason.<sup>162</sup></p><p>On 13 Jan. 1704, shortly after Parliament had reconvened after the Christmas recess, the House passed two resolutions asserting its ‘undoubted right’ to order people into custody and to commit them by its own authority, a response to a Commons’ address of 21 Dec. 1703 which had complained that the House was contravening the queen’s prerogative by conducting its own examination of the Jacobite suspects. After Somerset reported the long address stating the House’s rights on 17 Jan. 1704, Devonshire was paired with him to attend the queen to ask when she would receive the address. At the end of January Devonshire also reported the queen’s irritated answer to a hectoring address from the House urging her government to hasten the prosecution of Boucher.<sup>163</sup> Devonshire’s involvement in the examination of the Scotch Plot continued well into February and March, as the investigating committee of seven Whigs originally established in December 1703 was from 19 Feb. 1704 reconstituted as a committee to examine ‘farther into the Scottish conspiracy’, once the queen had relented and laid before the House more papers in the case, particularly the ciphered ‘gibberish’ letters. After Somerset had delivered the committee’s report to the House on 20 March, on the following night some of the leading Whigs, including Devonshire, met at Sunderland’s residence in St James’s residence to plan further attacks on Nottingham.<sup>164</sup> With this concerted campaign against him Nottingham resigned the seals as secretary of state shortly after the session’s prorogation on 3 Apr. 1704. Devonshire ended the session with another dispute with the lower house. On 27 Mar. he managed and reported from the conference where the Commons made clear their disagreements to the House’s amendments to the public accounts bill.</p><p>Devonshire was late in arriving at the next session of Parliament; he first sat on 4 Nov. 1704, over two weeks after the commencement of the session. He probably arrived specifically to supervise his complaint of a breach of privilege, as the House heard that day that one of his menial servants had been arrested during the time of Parliament.<sup>165</sup> On 14 Dec. Devonshire registered his proxy for four days with Newcastle before he returned to the House on 18 December. Despite these absences were not long in total the lord steward attended two-thirds of the meetings of this session. On 24 Jan. 1705 he reported to the House the queen’s positive response to a request that the ship <em>Judith</em> be stopped from sailing and on 3 Feb. he again reported her willingness to receive the House with an address. Principally, he was concerned in these early weeks of 1705 with seeing through Parliament an estate bill which would allow him and Hartington to mortgage part of the entailed estate to pay debts. It was first read on 1 Feb., was reported from committee with only one amendment four days later, and went through the Commons almost as quickly; it received the royal assent on the day of prorogation, 14 March.</p><p>It was only in late February and early March 1705 that Devonshire became closely involved in some of the more controversial matters between the Houses. Between 28 Feb. and 9 Mar. he was named as a manager for three conferences on the dispute with the Commons on the Aylesbury men. He was placed on a committee to draft a statement of this case as it stood between the Houses and to request the queen to allow two of the petitioners to bring in their writs of error before the House. On 7 Mar. he was also a manager for a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill to prevent traitorous correspondence, while on 12 Mar. he was again a manager for a conference on the amendments to the militia bill. That same day he registered his proxy with Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend and left the House for the final two days of the session.</p><p>With the general swing to the Whigs in the election of that summer the Cavendish interest saw victory in Derby, where Lord James Cavendish and the town’s recorder, the Whig Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Macclesfield, defeated the sitting Tory members.<sup>166</sup> Devonshire was an early patron of Parker, and it was apparently on his recommendation that Parker was made the queen’s serjeant-at-law only a few weeks after he had been returned for Derby.<sup>167</sup> Parker was later named an executor of Devonshire’s will. Hartington retained his seat for Yorkshire.</p><p>The first session of the 1705 Parliament saw one of Devonshire’s lowest attendances for many years, as he came to only 36 per cent of the sittings. He first sat on 31 Oct. 1705. On 20 Nov. on behalf of the queen, he laid before the House five letters and papers regarding the forthcoming negotiations for a union with Scotland. Devonshire was at the forefront of those opposed to the Tory-led motion of 15 Nov. 1705 to invite Sophia, dowager electress of Hanover, to England during the life of the queen.<sup>168</sup> White Kennett later claimed that Devonshire ‘distinguished himself’ in the debates on the resolution that the Church under Anne was not in danger but there is no other evidence for his involvement in these debates which took place on 6 Dec. 1705, during one of Devonshire’s long periods of absence from the House.<sup>169</sup> He is not recorded in the presence lists of the Journal between 21 Nov. 1705 and 31 Jan. 1706 and no account of the ‘Church in danger’ debate, even that in Kennett’s own papers, nor the division list for that day, features the duke.<sup>170</sup> Having returned to the House on 1 Feb., Devonshire took a prominent part in the debates about the place clauses the Commons wished to insert in the regency bill. He was named as a manager of a conference on the bill on 7 Feb. and reported back later in the day on the Commons’ objections to the House’s amendments (which effectively nullified the force of the Commons’ place clause). He was then placed on the committee to draw up reasons justifying the House’s insistence on these amendments and was appointed a manager for the ensuing conferences on 11 and 19 February. At the latter meeting the Commons receded from their objections. He was also involved in the dispute with the Commons over the House’s amendments to the private bill of Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway. On 28 Feb. 1706 he was placed on the committee of ten members assigned to draw up reasons in defence of the amendment and he was a manager for the conferences on 28 Feb. and 2 March. On 9 Mar. he was placed on a committee of nine assigned to draw the address condemning the publication of the letter, purportedly by Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, to Stamford arguing in favour of the dowager electress Sophia’s residence in England. Two days later, all those present (including Devonshire) were named as managers for two conferences on this address. On the last day of the session, 19 Mar. 1706, Devonshire managed and reported from a conference on the bill for the amendment of the law, after which the House agreed to the changes made by the lower House in order to see the bill through.</p><p>In April 1706 he was one of the prominent Whigs appointed as commissioners to negotiate the union with Scotland, along with his son Hartington.<sup>171</sup> Devonshire had shown his support for the Union in a letter he wrote on 23 Jan. 1705 to Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], saying that ‘the measures the Parliament here are now taking’ (the appointment of commissioners), would lead to the ‘securing the succession in the Protestant line, and also remove the jealousy of the ancient right and liberty of that kingdom being given up, for it there be an union the right of both kingdoms will stand upon the same foot’.<sup>172</sup> The notebook of John Clerk<sup>‡</sup> of Penicuik, one of the Scottish commissioners, does feature Devonshire as a participant in the proceedings, such as at the debate of 12 June 1706 on the relative apportionment of Scottish representatives in the Commons, although Clerk thought that Devonshire was but a ‘very indifferent man’ whose views did not have to be taken seriously.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Devonshire reverted to his usual attendance levels for the 1706-7 session, coming to 62 per cent of its sittings. On its first day, 3 Dec. 1706, he was placed on the drafting committee for the address of thanks, while 11 days later he was assigned to a drafting committee for an address requesting the queen to allow a bill to be introduced to settle and continue the titles and honours of the duke of Marlborough through the female line. He was present in the House as the treaty of Union was being debated, and he played a prominent part in chairing the drafting committee for the address of thanks to the queen for her royal assent to the Act of Union and her speech in its praise on 6 Mar. 1707, which was reported to the House on the following day.<sup>174</sup> Devonshire left the House on 27 Mar. and did not return until 24 Apr. 1707, the last day of the brief ten-day session of April 1707, and his last sitting in the House.</p><p>Devonshire was still able to attend a meeting of the cabinet council on 13 July 1707 but on 16 Aug. it was reported that he was ‘dangerously ill of the stone and strangury, and has made his will, and received the sacrament’. He died in the morning of 18 Aug. of ‘suppression of urine’.<sup>175</sup> His son Hartington inherited the office of lord steward (despite numerous other suitors for the office), and all of his father’s (unentailed) real and personal property, including Chatsworth in Derbyshire and Devonshire House in Piccadilly.<sup>176</sup> Devonshire was generous in his will bequeathing jewels or substantial bequests to his three surviving legitimate children, as well as providing for a number of surviving illegitimate daughters by his many mistresses. Henrietta, one of his natural daughters by his long-term mistress Mary Heneage had recently entered the minor Scottish nobility by marrying Lionel Tollemache, styled Lord Huntingtower, the only son and heir of Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup> 3rd earl of Dysart [S].<sup>177</sup> Another young daughter, Elizabeth, was the issue of his liaison with Katharine Jones whose mother, Lady Elizabeth Jones (sister of Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I]) had already caused family scandal by marrying a footman. Hostile contemporaries and Devonshire’s own will suggest that Lady Jones heaped further opprobrium on herself by effectively pimping her daughter to the duke. Devonshire kept going until the end and in 1704, at the age of 63, ‘with one foot in the grave’, he took up with the young actress and singer Mary Anne Campion, ‘a pretty young creature’, who bore him a daughter before she died in 1706 at age 19. He took especial care to erect a lavish and fulsome funeral monument for the young actress in the family vault and to provide for this infant daughter who was still at nurse within Devonshire House at the time he made his will.<sup>178</sup> </p><p>Within a few months of Devonshire’s death, White Kennett, at that point a royal chaplain at Windsor, had laid down the first marker in the battle over the late duke’s posthumous reputation when he delivered a laudatory funeral sermon, and accompanied this with a ‘memoir’ of the family of Cavendish in its printed version. He was rewarded with the deanery of Peterborough, largely through the patronage of the new duke. But Kennett’s flattery did not go unanswered and his claims about the late duke’s piety and religion were quickly countered by <em>The Hazard of a Death-bed Repentance Fairly Argued</em> which, while reserving judgment on Devonshire’s political activities, took great delight in refuting Kennett’s praise of Devonshire’s probity by going into detail about his many mistresses and illegitimate children and generally impugning his moral character. Enemies, particularly Tories, quickly picked up on these aspects of Devonshire’s character. Thomas Hearne likewise condemned Kennett’s book ‘in praise of that notorious debauchee and rebel the late duke of Devonshire; such is the spirit of these prickeared, starch, sanctified fellows that … they will cry up the greatest villains for saints’.<sup>179</sup> Devonshire’s contemporary Bishop Burnet gave perhaps one of the more sophisticated and ambivalent views of the duke, in which he contrasted his evident self-interest and egotism with his patriotism, his courtier-like sycophancy with his courage to stand on principle. When first drafting his <em>History</em> Burnet wrote that Devonshire ‘was an ambitious and revengeful man; but had the courage of an hero, with a much greater proportion of wit and knowledge than is usual in men of his birth. He had a softness in his exterior deportment to which there was nothing within that was answerable.’<sup>180</sup> Perhaps the last word should be given to Devonshire himself, who showed his own view of himself and how he wanted to be remembered in the funeral inscription he himself ordered in his will: ‘ <em>Willielmus Dux Devon bonorum principum fidelis subditus, inimicus et invisus Tirannis</em>’ (William duke of Devonshire, a faithful subject of good princes, an enemy to tyrants, and hated by them).</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CAVENDISH, William (1672-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>CAVENDISH</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1672–1729)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1684-94 Ld. Cavendish; <em>styled </em>1694-1707 mq. of Hartington; <em>suc. </em>fa. 18 Aug. 1707 as 2nd duke of DEVONSHIRE. |
|
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 6 May 1729 |
|
MP, Derbys. 1695, 1698, 1701 (Jan.); Castle Rising 2 Feb. 1702; Yorks. 1702, 1705-18 Aug. 1707. |
<p><em>b</em>. 1672, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire) and Mary, da. of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (and earl of Brecknock); bro. of Lord Henry Cavendish<sup>‡</sup> and Lord James Cavendish<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad (Austria, Germany, Low Countries, Italy) 1690-1; Camb. LL.D 16 Apr. 1705. <em>m</em>. 21 June 1688 (with £25,000), Rachel (1674-1725), da. of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> KG 22 Mar. 1710. <em>d</em>. 4 June 1729; <em>will</em> 8 Jan. 1726-5 Sept. 1727, pr. 12 June 1729.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Capt., yeomen of gd. 1702-7; commr. union with Scotland 1706; ld. steward 1707-10, 1714-16; PC 8 Sept. 1707-<em>d</em>.; ld. pres. 1716-17, 1725-d.; ld. justice 1714, 1720-5, 1727.</p><p>Freeman, Beverley 1703, Winchester by 1701; ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>., Derbys. 1707-11, 1714-<em>d</em>.; c. j. in eyre, north of Trent 1707-11; steward, honour of Tutbury 1707-<em>d</em>., High Peak 1708-<em>d</em>., Derby by 1712.</p><p>Col. regt. of horse (10th Horse) 1688-90.</p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1727-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by G. Kneller, c<em>.</em>1710-16, NPG 3202.</p> |
<h2><em>Member of the Commons, 1695-1707</em></h2><p>William Cavendish, styled Lord Cavendish from 1684, appeared destined from an early age to take his place among the firmament of Whig grandees. He was the eldest surviving son of William Cavendish, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, one of the ‘Immortal Seven’ who formally invited William of Orange to intervene in English affairs to save Protestantism. About a week before signing this invitation the earl of Devonshire had more publicly nailed his Whig political colours to the mast in another manner by overseeing the marriage, on 21 June 1688 at Southampton House, of his son Lord Cavendish to Rachel Russell, a daughter of the Whig hero and martyr (and Devonshire’s close friend) Lord Russell, who had been executed in 1683 for his alleged complicity in the Rye House Plot.<sup>4</sup> Almost immediately after this marriage laden with political significance, Lord Cavendish was sent out of the country. His movements over the next few years are difficult to trace, although he nominally commanded his father’s troop of cavalry from late 1688 and was serving as a volunteer in Flanders by May 1692.<sup>5</sup> It was probably during this extended residence on the continent that he developed his love of art and began collecting the drawings and pictures which later became renowned at the family’s residence of Chatsworth in Derbyshire.</p><p>After an abortive attempt to secure a seat in the Commons at a by-election in 1691, Hartington (as he was styled after his father’s elevation to a dukedom) began his long parliamentary career in 1695, when he was returned for the county of Derbyshire, where his father was lord lieutenant. From the spring of 1698 Hartington increasingly acted in Parliament as a Whig, but in the subsequent Parliament of 1698, for which he was again returned for Derbyshire, he also espoused country measures, such as the disbandment bill in 1699, which often put him directly in opposition to the court.<sup>6</sup> He supported the ‘tack’ of a place clause to the land tax and Irish grant resumption bill in spring 1700 but also defended the Junto leader John Somers*, Baron Somers, from the attacks levelled against him during these proceedings.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Returned again for Derbyshire in the election of January1701, with his brother-in-law John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later 2nd duke of Rutland), Hartington was closely involved in some of the key issues of the session, concerned to ensure the Protestant Succession and to defend the Whig members of William’s previous ministry, particularly Somers and his own wife’s uncle Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, from the impeachment proceedings against them. He and Roos lost in Derbyshire at the following election, but he was recompensed by a court anxious to draw him closer with the captaincy of the yeomen of the guard in late January 1702 and he even managed to be returned for Castle Rising at a by-election in February 1702, where he partnered the rising Whig politician Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Orford), and quickly became his close and trusted friend.</p><p>The accession of Queen Anne brought important changes for Hartington. His position at court was enhanced when his wife was made a lady of the new queen’s bedchamber, a position she kept, despite Hartington’s own changes in political fortunes, until Anne’s death.<sup>8</sup> Hartington for his part switched his electoral interest to Yorkshire and sat for that county in the queen’s first two Parliaments. Macky described him in the early years of Anne’s reign as a man who</p><blockquote><p>hath for many years made a considerable figure in the House of Commons: A gentlemen of very good sense, a bold orator, and zealous abettor of the liberty of the people. … He is one of the best beloved gentlemen, by the Country Party, in England; … one who makes a great figure in his person.<sup>9</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>A Whig moderate, 1707-8</em></h2><p>On 18 Aug. 1707, shortly after the formation of the Union, Hartington inherited not only his father’s title and lucrative estates, but also most of his offices, such as lord lieutenant of Derbyshire and chief justice in eyre north of the Trent. Most prominently, less than three weeks after his father’s death, he was made lord steward of the household and a member of the Privy Council, and shortly after was admitted into the inner ‘cabinet council’. He first appears in the minutes of cabinet meetings kept by the secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, on 17 Oct. 1707, and appears fairly consistently thereafter until Sunderland’s own dismissal in June 1710.<sup>10</sup> John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough wrote to his wife Sarah, that he was pleased with Devonshire’s new role in the councils of government, ‘for I think him a very honest man, and that he will prove a useful man’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>The new duke of Devonshire took his seat on 23 Oct. 1707. However, after the third day of the session on 6 Nov., he was absent for the entirety of the following month until he resumed his seat on 10 Dec. 1707, only to depart again nine days later. In total he came to just under half of the meetings of this session. He thus missed the early stages of the contentious examinations conducted in the committee of the whole into the mismanagement of the naval war effort and of the land war in Spain. These examinations saw the emergence of a temporary alliance between the ‘hotter’ Whigs of the Junto and the Tories in both Houses against ministry’s policies that would have threatened to ruin the government but for the refusal of Whigs like Devonshire, John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset and John Poulett*, earl of Poulett, to be drawn into such partisan measures, declaring ‘that they would never come in to press the queen and the ministry to measures so unreasonable in themselves’.<sup>12</sup> For the brief period of nine days in December 1707 when Devonshire was in the House he was involved in these controversial proceedings. On 16 Dec. 1707 he reported to the House that the queen would give the necessary orders to comply with the committee of the whole’s request for copies on the orders which had been sent to the generals leading the Spanish campaign. Devonshire was also part of a move by some of the Junto leaders in the House, such as Somers, to recede from some of the more damaging consequences of these obstructionist tactics and over the two days of 18 and 19 Dec. 1707 he was named to two small committees assigned to draw up the addresses to the queen thanking her for her speech to the House in support of further funds for the Spanish campaign and insisting that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’, a motion pushed through by Somers himself.</p><p>He returned to the House on 7 Jan. 1708 and attended fairly consistently from then until leaving the House again on 13 Mar., a month before the session was prorogued. At the time of his return the investigations into naval matters and their management by Marlborough’s brother George Churchill<sup>‡ </sup>and the council of the prince consort George*, duke of Cumberland, were in full swing, and Devonshire as lord steward was kept busy throughout the remainder of the session attending the queen with the addresses from the House. Between 8 Jan. and 13 Mar. he was ordered to attend the queen, as one of the lords with white staves, on 11 occasions with addresses or requests of the House and he reported her response to seven of these delegations, mostly concerned with the House’s investigations into the navy.</p><p>Devonshire may have been included in the ‘scheme’ drawn up between the secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and Marlborough and Godolphin for a reconstituted ministry of moderates to exclude the Junto, but when relations between the duumvirs and Harley broke down irretrievably in early February 1708, Devonshire sided with the ministers and joined them in asserting that he would not serve in a ministry that included Harley.<sup>13</sup> He was thus indirectly responsible for Harley’s fall from office. On 9 Feb. 1708, the same day that the queen agreed to dismiss Harley in order to keep Marlborough in the government, Devonshire was appointed to the committee of ten members assigned to count the number of ballots cast to determine the seven peers who were to constitute a committee to examine the treasonous activities of Harley’s clerk William Gregg. Upon opening up the balloting glass Devonshire discovered that he himself had been chosen one of those peers. This group of Whigs – himself, Somerset, Somers, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend – later became known in Harleyite propaganda as ‘the Seven Lords’ who, according to Jonathan Swift amongst others, used undue pressure and methods akin to torture to persuade Gregg to implicate his employer Harley in his conspiracy.<sup>14</sup></p><p>This committee occupied Devonshire for the next several weeks and he appears to have been a major figure in it, as he reported its request to examine a prisoner in Newgate to the House on 13 Feb. 1708, and it was Devonshire himself who presented the committee’s final report on 10 March. During the month when he was working in this committee he was appointed to five committees on private legislation, and on 11 Feb. he reported from one with a bill ready to be passed. On 1 Mar. he reported to the House the queen’s agreement to hear that day the final report from Bolton’s select committee on the failings of the convoy system, which was highly critical of her husband the prince consort’s council.</p><p>Shortly after that report another crisis engulfed the nation, as the queen informed her Parliament of the intelligence regarding the planned invasion of Scotland by the Pretender and the French. Devonshire was heavily involved in taking measures against this danger. On 4 Mar. 1708 he was appointed to a drafting committee for an address thanking the queen for laying before Parliament the information on the invasion, and on 10 Mar. he chaired and reported from a committee of the whole which rapidly went through a bill ‘for the better security of her majesty’s person’. The following day he was placed on another drafting committee for an address thanking the queen for keeping the Houses informed of Admiral Sir George Byng’s<sup>‡</sup> movements against the French fleet, and he reported from the committee on 12 Mar. with an address which not only condemned the French and Jacobites, but also all those who were trying to cause disunity in the nation by casting aspersions on the queen’s true supporters, meaning the Whigs, and the measures they had taken to secure the realm. He last sat in the House for that session on 13 Mar., and was thus absent for the presentation of the committee’s reports on Gregg’s treason in an address to the queen on 18 March. His absence from this time can almost certainly be attributed to an attack of gout, as in early April Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> reported that ‘the duke of Devonshire could not go up stairs, one of his legs was so very weak, and therefore he went for some days to Newmarket, which he thinks will do him good. It is a great deal of pity that he has such ill health, for there are but very few such honest men’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>He appears to have recovered sufficiently to have attended the queen on the evening of 21 Apr. 1708 when, with the duke of Newcastle, he pressed her to make Somers lord president of the council and, failing that, suggested that Somers be admitted into the cabinet without being given any office at all. Even Marlborough and Godolphin, now seeing an alliance with the Whigs as a necessity, strongly supported the two dukes in their arguments, but the queen refused to admit any more of the Junto into government at this point.<sup>16</sup> Marlborough wrote to the duchess after the failure of the dukes’ embassy, that Devonshire ‘is a very honest man, and has had opportunities to know the pains Godolphin and Marlborough have often taken with the queen, to no purpose, so that I dare say he will do justice to them upon all occasion, for as much as I can observe, he governs himself by reason. I wish I could say so of all our acquaintance’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Devonshire’s closest involvement in the elections of May 1708 was not in his own county of Derbyshire (where the Tories kept the two county seats), but in Scotland, in whose affairs he had taken an interest since his appointment as a commissioner for the Union. After the election of the 16 Scots representative peers in June 1708, members of the defeated Squadrone sought to contest the eligibility of several of the electors and their votes, and enlisted their English allies among the Whigs in this cause. As early as 30 June 1708 one of the defeated Squadrone peers, Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], wrote to Devonshire with a memorial setting out his case against the right of those Scots peers with English titles or with British titles created after the Union to vote for the representative peers. Marchmont pursued his campaign and by mid July had had copies of his memorial and ‘scheme’ for a challenge to the election of the court peers distributed to Devonshire, Sunderland, Wharton, Somers, Halifax and the leader of the Squadrone, John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S].<sup>18</sup></p><h2><em>Moving towards the Junto, 1708-10</em></h2><p>By the summer of 1708 Devonshire seems to have allied himself to the Junto further than he had the previous winter. It was clear to Marlborough that in the forthcoming Parliament his brother George Churchill, the principal target in the attack on the prince’s council the previous winter, could not expect to escape through splits among the Whigs, ‘for there is so little likelihood of their being divided again in your favour, that even the duke of Devonshire and some others that used to be the most moderate, are now entirely for sticking to their party’, which would call for Churchill’s dismissal.<sup>19</sup> Even the possible resignation of Churchill was dismissed by Wharton as insufficient. He insisted, on behalf of the Junto, that they would settle for nothing less than Prince George’s own resignation and ‘that unless they can be satisfied in this point they will not come into the measures of the court, not so much as in the first step of choosing a Speaker, [and], that the duke of Devonshire and Lord Townshend have given them fresh assurances that they will not divide from them, even in that point of a Speaker’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>This political crisis about the composition of the prince’s council was unexpectedly resolved by the death of the prince himself on 28 Oct. 1708, slightly over a week after Wharton had been discussing the possibility of his dismissal. The prince’s death dealt a blow to the queen’s long resistance to the importunities of Devonshire and the Junto and she soon after gave in and appointed Somers lord president of the council and Wharton lord lieutenant of Ireland. The prince’s death also delayed the opening of the Parliament and on its first three days, 16-19 Nov. 1708, Devonshire was one of her principal officers who acted in commission to conduct proceedings in her name. After that Devonshire did not attend the House again for many weeks.</p><p>Devonshire was probably impelled to resume his seat when the issue of the validity of the elections of the Scots representative peers came to a head. On 11 Dec. 1708 Devonshire hosted a political conference to plot strategy between the Junto peers (except Halifax), with a number of their closest lieutenants (such as Townshend and Bolton), and five representatives of the Squadrone, plus the Tory and Jacobite James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S].<sup>21</sup> Another meeting was held at Devonshire’s house on 11 Jan. 1709, with a larger array of Whigs, including Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), Newcastle ‘and several other lords’ ‘to consult about the Scotch election’.<sup>22</sup> It may have been at this meeting that plans were laid for the attack on the alliance between Godolphin and James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], for Devonshire returned to the House after his long absence only six days after this meeting, on 17 Jan. 1709, and four days later joined the Junto and Squadrone in voting that Queensberry, created duke of Dover in the new British peerage, had no right to vote in the elections of the Scots representative peers. After this vote, Devonshire continued to attend the House sporadically throughout the session and only attended 29 per cent of its sittings in total. Nor is there much sign of any further significant activity in the House beyond chairing and reporting on 30 Mar. 1709 from a committee of the whole on a bill for regulating the wool trade in Yorkshire.</p><p>By early February 1709 Marlborough’s previously positive opinion of Devonshire was slowly shifting, as he commented to his wife that ‘Devonshire is certainly a very honest man, but Orford has too much power with him. His ill nature and pride will make him troublesome. Walpole who I agree is a very honest man, may be of use in the keeping of Devonshire and Townshend in good humour’.<sup>23</sup> Devonshire’s closeness to both Orford, his wife’s uncle, and Walpole, his old friend from Castle Rising, was revealed during the summer of 1709, when he was involved in the continuing agitation to make Orford, the last of the inner core of the Junto without office, lord high admiral in the place of Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. Maynwaring feared that if Orford was left out of office it would disquiet his relations, ‘some of which are very considerable, such as the duke of Devonshire’.<sup>24</sup> Devonshire and Walpole represented Orford in negotiations with Godolphin over Orford’s demands for the office and, after Orford formally entered into the office on 8 Nov., Devonshire went on to campaign that his uncle be given the garter after the death in late November of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Devonshire attended 59 per cent of the sittings of the 1709-10 session – his highest attendance to that point – and sat consistently for its first few days in late November 1709 before absenting himself for the entire month of December, only returning to the House on 9 Jan. 1710. His increased attention may be attributed to a number of crises the Whigs and the ministry faced from January 1710 as their relations with the queen deteriorated. Devonshire was closely involved in managing the crisis of 14-23 Jan. 1710 when Marlborough removed himself from court and cabinet and threatened to resign from his military command in protest at the queen’s wish to gratify the pretensions of John (‘Jack’) Hill<sup>‡</sup>, brother of her Tory favourite at court, Abigail Masham. On 16 Jan. 1710 Devonshire, Sunderland and Orford held a meeting with the Marlboroughs’ agent Arthur Maynwaring at Devonshire’s house on Piccadilly at which they ‘unanimously agreed that they would support Marlborough to the utmost’; at a later meeting there that same day the more moderate Whig Newcastle was also brought in, who ‘did declare himself very zealously for supporting Marlborough’. During these frantic days of mid January Devonshire’s house continued to be used as the central meeting place for conferences between the Junto, Godolphin and Maynwaring and through these intense meetings hosted, and perhaps presided over, by Devonshire, the crisis was defused and Marlborough returned to the queen’s service, at her own request.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Devonshire was also present at a meeting on 24 Jan. 1710 at Sunderland’s house, where he and the Junto peers (except for the absent Halifax) met with four Whig members of the episcopate to confer on tactics for the following day when Dr. Henry Sacheverell was to answer the articles of impeachment laid against him.<sup>27</sup> Devonshire was involved throughout February in the trial of Sacheverell as lord steward delivering addresses to the queen and reporting her answers (on 6-7, 17 and 25 February). He made his own views clear on 10 Mar. 1710 when, as the House was debating the questions to be addressed to the judges in Westminster Hall, ‘words passed’ between Devonshire and the Tory supporter of Sacheverell, Peregrine Osborne*, the future 2nd duke of Leeds, who then sat in the House as Baron Osborne. Both men were reprimanded. On 20 Mar. 1710 Devonshire voted in favour of Sacheverell’s impeachment. A few days after that vote, on 25 Mar., Devonshire was named to the committee to draft reasons why the House could not agree to the Commons’ amendment which would make Edward Southwell’s private bill a public act, and he was a manager of the conference on that matter held two days later, a week before the session was suddenly prorogued on 5 April.</p><p>By June 1710 when the Godolphin-Marlborough-Whig ministry was in turmoil over the queen’s threat to remove Sunderland from office, Devonshire was one of the few Whigs who tried desperately to convince her to retain him. A delegation from the City, led by Sir Gilbert Heathcote<sup>‡</sup>, attended Devonshire and Newcastle asking them to assist the delegation in representing to the queen the financial damage Sunderland’s removal would do, but Devonshire fell ill on the crucial day when he was to introduce the representatives from the City to the queen and they did not get to meet with her until 15 June, the day after Sunderland had been removed from office.<sup>28</sup> Godolphin for his part had fruitlessly tried to impress upon the queen that Marlborough, then on the continent, would be humiliated abroad if his son-in-law were sacked in England. On the same day that the seals were finally taken from Sunderland (14 June), Devonshire, with the five Junto peers, Godolphin, Newcastle and William Cowper*, Baron (later earl of) Cowper, addressed a letter to Marlborough begging him to stay on in government and in his military command despite this insult to his family.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>Out of office and in opposition, 1710-12</em></h2><p>In early September Maynwaring assured the duchess of Marlborough that having dined with Devonshire and the disgraced Sunderland, he found them ‘the honestest men I know, according to my apprehension’. Harley on the contrary felt that ‘the duke of Devonshire’s behaviour is so peevish and so very distasteful to the queen that she will bear him no longer’.<sup>30</sup> With such friends, and such enemies, his fate was certain and on 20 Sept. 1710 both Devonshire and Somers were dismissed from their posts, while at a Privy Council hurriedly scheduled for that afternoon the dissolution was announced.<sup>31</sup> Sunderland’s replacement as secretary of state, William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, was assigned to visit Devonshire to take his staff of office from him, ‘which he [Devonshire], parted with in more passion than became him, but I was too much his friend to represent it to the queen’; Harley also reported that he had heard ‘that when Lord Dartmouth brought the message to the duke of Devonshire he was in the greatest rage imaginable’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>The prospect of a dissolution had been in the air throughout the summer and already in August Devonshire had been making efforts to affect the forthcoming elections, both for English constituencies and for the Scots representative peers.<sup>33</sup> On 14 Sept. 1710, one week before Parliament was dissolved, Maynwaring told the duchess of Marlborough, that ‘Devonshire is almost as sanguine as Sunderland upon the next elections, which I was glad to find, because naturally he is not so much of that temper’.<sup>34</sup> This calculation turned out to be disastrously wrong; the elections returned a strongly Tory House of Commons</p><p>From the time the new Parliament met Devonshire was in opposition to Robert Harley’s ministry. He was there from the first day of the session, 25 Nov. 1710, and on 27 Nov. helped to introduce into the House Henry Grey*, recently created duke of Kent. He came to 45 per cent of the session’s meetings, sitting in the House throughout the winter months, and it was not until the spring of 1711 that he began to absent himself for extended periods of time. Furthermore, the 1710-11 session is the first during Devonshire’s career in the House for which the proxy registers survive, through which the proxy networks of which he was a part may be traced.</p><p>His busiest period was in the first half of January 1711 when he took part in debates to defend the previous ministry’s war policy in Spain from attacks by the Tories as directly responsible for the disastrous battle of Almanza in 1707. On 11 Jan. 1711 he defended the right of two of the generals of the Spanish campaign, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] (his wife’s first cousin once removed) and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], to submit petitions to be heard in their defence before the House and he signed the protests against the rejection of these petitions and against the resolution that the defeat of Almanza had been occasioned by their advocacy of an offensive war. The following day it was Devonshire who first raised objections to the motion proposed in the committee of the whole that blamed ‘the ministers’ for ‘contributing to all our misfortunes in Spain’, pointing out that the motion as first proposed the previous day put the blame on the ‘cabinet council’ rather than the imprecise, and more personal, term ‘ministers’. He reminded the committee that many of the peers who were now so vociferous against an offensive war in Spain had been in favour of it only a few years previously, and he singled out Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, who had advocated sending twenty battalions from Flanders to Spain. He signed the protest, and his name appears at the head of the list of signatures, against the resolution condemning the ‘ministers’ for the defeats in Spain and he continued to sign all the remaining protests against the Tories’ attack on the war policy of the former ministry: against the resolutions on 3 Feb. that regiments in Spain were not adequately supplied and that this failure of provisioning was a sign of the ministers’ neglect; against some of the wording in the address of 8 Feb. on the Spanish campaign and against the decision to present it to the queen; and against the three resolutions of 9 Feb. which expunged the final two paragraphs of the reasons given for the protest of 3 February.<sup>35</sup></p><p>On 24 Jan. 1711, in the midst of these proceedings, Devonshire was given the proxy of his kinsman Baptist Noel*, 3rd earl of Gainsborough, a distant cousin, through many removes of marriage, of Devonshire’s Russell wife. Devonshire held this proxy until the end of the session, and on 5 Feb. 1711 he was able to add to it that of his brother-in-law Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, thus holding his full complement of two proxies until Bedford vacated his proxy only a week later by his return to the House. On 5 Mar. 1711 Devonshire and Bedford together introduced to the House their mutual brother-in-law, John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland. These three brothers-in-law exchanged proxies with each other throughout the latter months of the 1710-11 session: Devonshire’s to Bedford from 26 Mar. to 3 May; Rutland’s to Bedford from 28 Mar. to 3 May; and Devonshire’s to Rutland from 6 June to the prorogation six days later. He no longer had the option of Bedford as a proxy recipient by this time as the young man of 31 years had unexpectedly died on 25 May 1711, to be followed at the end of October by Rutland’s wife Catherine Russell, which left Devonshire’s wife Rachel the only surviving child of the Whig martyr William, Lord Russell.</p><p>In the three weeks following his return to the House on 3 May 1711 Devonshire was made a manager for the conferences on the amendments to the bill for the preservation of pine trees in the American colonies, and on the procedural difficulties over the Commons’ amendment to the bill for making perpetual the bill for preservation of game. Following the first conference on this latter matter Devonshire was named to the committee to draw up reasons to be presented to the lower House in another conference, and he was involved in a further committee meeting and two more conferences on this disagreement on 17 May and would have been named for another conference scheduled for 31 May, except that he had already left the House for that session by that time, last sitting on 22 May.</p><p>Local matters occupied Devonshire in the summer months of 1711. Devonshire’s colleague, but local rival, the duke of Newcastle had been the only Whig to remain in the new ministry, as lord privy seal. This was in part owing to his long personal friendship with Harley and it was Newcastle who urged the queen to create Harley earl of Oxford and Mortimer in late May 1711. In return for this support Newcastle demanded from the earl of Oxford the grant of the office of chief justice in eyre north of Trent, held at that time by Devonshire, but which Newcastle had long coveted, arguing that it properly belonged to the Cavendish dukes of Newcastle (from whom he derived his title) rather than the Devonshire Cavendishes. In May 1711 the office was revoked from the more resolutely Whig Devonshire and given to Newcastle.<sup>36</sup> Having suffered this indignity, Devonshire was further divested of his last remaining major office later that summer, when in early September he was removed as lord lieutenant of Derbyshire and replaced by Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale. In late May and early June he was also drawn into an acrimonious dispute provoked by the efforts of John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol (later bishop of London), to transfer the presentation of the living of Cleasby in Yorkshire, where Devonshire was lord of the manor and a principal landowner, away from its patron and into the hands of the dean and chapter of Ripon.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Five days before the next session convened on 7 Dec. 1711, Gainsborough once again registered his proxy with Devonshire for the session, three-fifths of whose sittings Devonshire attended. From the outset Devonshire sided with the increasingly strong and well-organized Whig opposition in the House. He almost certainly took part in the negotiations with Nottingham in which the Whigs secured the earl’s opposition to the peace terms proposed by Oxford in exchange for an agreement to support Nottingham’s bill against occasional conformity. Thus on the first day of the session Devonshire spoke and voted in favour of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause moved by Nottingham to be added to the address to the queen.<sup>38</sup> The duke also attended a dinner at the <em>Queen’s Arms</em>, perhaps to plan further strategy on this motion, with Wharton, Bolton, Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston) and John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan (and 3rd earl of Carbery [I]).<sup>39</sup> On 12 Dec. John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Ashburnham registered his proxy with Devonshire (vacated on 4 Jan. 1712), and Devonshire may have used it when he voted on 20 Dec. that the duke of Hamilton [S], was unable to sit in the House under his British title as duke of Brandon. On 22 Dec. 1711 Devonshire reported from the committee assigned to investigate into a libellous pamphlet mocking Nottingham’s oration arguing for ‘No Peace without Spain’, and he was also named to the drafting committee for an address based on Nottingham’s motion requesting that the queen’s agents negotiating the peace work with the ministers of the Allies to ensure that there would be no separate peace with France. On that day as well Devonshire made a stir by moving to bring in a bill which would make George Augustus*, the heir to Hanover and future George II, who had been created, duke of Cambridge in December 1706, the first peer of Britain, with precedence over all other dukes. This was an attempt by the Whigs to show their zeal for the Hanoverian Succession, which they aimed to contrast with the ministry’s apparent ambivalence towards Hanover. However, at the third meeting of the House after the Christmas recess on 17 Jan. 1712, Oxford, having already tipped the balance in the House towards the ministry by creating 12 new peers, pulled another coup against the Whigs by bringing in his own bill to forestall and trump Devonshire’s. Oxford’s bill would settle the precedence of the entire house of Hanover over all British peers and even over the archbishop of Canterbury. The bill, now presented as a government measure with the explicit backing of the queen, went through both Houses and was passed in only two days, with the backing of Devonshire and the Whigs, who could hardly do otherwise.<sup>40</sup></p><p>In February 1712 Devonshire’s most noticeable involvement was as one of the foremost actors in the bill to enable trustees to manage the Russell estate during the minority of Wriothesley Russell*, 3rd duke of Bedford, following his father’s death the previous May. Devonshire appears to have led the select committee on this bill, in which he was named one of the trustees, and on which he reported to the House on 27 Feb. 1712.<sup>41</sup> He remained involved in Scots matters and moved that a petition of William Carstares against the bill to confirm and extend the rights of the Episcopalian Church in Scotland might be read; in this he was seconded by his colleagues Somers and Cowper.<sup>42</sup> Marchmont implored Devonshire, Somers and Cowper to be present when the case of John Hamilton’s appeal against a decree obtained against him in the Scottish Lords of Session by Lady Cardross, mother of David Erskine*, 9th earl of Buchan [S], came before the House and to enlist as many of ‘our friends’ as possible, such as Rutland, Sunderland, Godolphin, Wharton and Halifax, in this cause.<sup>43</sup> Devonshire was also part of a network of Whig proxy exchanges. He held the proxy of: Vaughan (14 Feb.-21 June); Ashburnham (10-20 Mar. and 24-30 May); and Sunderland (9-21 June). His closest proxy partner was Townshend and throughout April and May the two peers, in a complicated series of proxy exchanges, evidently tried to ensure that at no point were both of them absent from the House. That this system was intended to provide a lookout to forestall any unpleasant surprises in the House is suggested by Townshend’s letter of 1 May 1712, written only a few days after he had returned to the House and vacated his proxy with Devonshire, in which he alerted Devonshire, having left the House to go to the races at Newmarket with their Whig colleagues, that there was a prospect that the answers of the French ministers at Utrecht to the peace proposals would be imminently presented before the House. ‘I am persuaded your grace and our friends at Newmarket have the affair of the peace too much at heart to be absent at this critical juncture and that we shall have the happiness of your company here on Sunday next at farthest’, he wrote in a panic. Devonshire, and five other of the Whigs at Newmarket, obeyed this summons and in another extraordinary piece of Whig organization, were back in their seats in the House by the following Monday, 5 May, although Townshend’s anxiety turned out to be a false alarm.<sup>44</sup> Later that month, Devonshire voted in favour of the addresses against the ‘restraining orders’ sent to his first cousin James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and for a ‘mutual guaranty’ with the Allies in peace negotiations, and entered his protest against the rejection of both of these addresses.</p><h2><em>The Peace and the Hanoverian Succession, 1713-29</em></h2><p>Perhaps owing to his frustration at the nature of the treaty that was finally negotiated, Devonshire barely attended any of the sittings of the session of spring 1713 at which the Peace of Utrecht was presented to the House. He came to only 12 sittings, a scant 15 per cent of the total, and his only sustained attendance came at the very end of the session, during the first two weeks of July. His opposition to the peace in all its aspects was clear to all, and Oxford forecast in early June, when Devonshire was not even in the House, that he would oppose the French commerce treaty if and when it came to the House. He may have returned to the House on 30 June for a specific purpose, for on that day Wharton moved that the duke of Lorraine be requested to expel the Pretender from his territories and Devonshire was named to the resulting drafting committee for the address to the queen.</p><p>Devonshire was much more diligent in the session of spring 1714, the first of the Parliament elected in autumn 1713, and came to just over two-thirds of the sittings. After the opening day he was absent until 2 Mar. 1714, and may have been summoned to appear that day to lend his support to a Whig cause, for in the House he seconded Wharton’s motion to condemn Jonathan Swift’s pamphlet <em>The Publick Spirit of the Whigs</em>. A week later Devonshire was placed on the drafting committee for the address requesting a proclamation offering a reward for information on the author of this libel and on 11 Mar. he signed the protest against the House’s rejection of an additional clause to the address.<sup>45</sup> Devonshire was named to many other drafting committees during the session, most regarding addresses putting forth Whig arguments and demands against the peace: exhorting the queen to defend the Catalans and their rights in any peace settlement (2 Apr.); and requesting her to issue a proclamation promising a reward for any information on the Pretender if he should land in England and expressing regret that the duke of Lorraine had not expelled him from his territories (5 April). On 16 Apr. he was also placed on the drafting committee for the address thanking the queen for ‘delivering England by a safe, honourable and advantageous peace with France and Spain, from the heavy burden of a consuming land war, unequally carried on, and become at least impracticable’ (16 April) – this being an inflammatory Tory address which Devonshire most likely opposed in its many debates and divisions through the House.</p><p>This offensive (to him) address went through, upon which Devonshire left the House for two weeks until 30 Apr., after having first registered his proxy with his uncle Orford. In late May Nottingham forecast that Devonshire would oppose the schism bill and indeed, following the commitment of the bill on 4 June, Devonshire presented a petition on behalf of some Dissenting ministers for counsel to be heard against the bill, which was rejected ‘by three votes and three proxies’. Devonshire voted and protested against the passage of the bill on 15 June.<sup>46</sup> In the final week of June, following this vote, Devonshire was entrusted with the proxies of two fellow opponents of the bill: Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg, from 23 June until the end of the session; and Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland, for a brief period between 28 and 30 June. During these final weeks of the session he was nominated to the select committees assigned to draft the addresses calling for a reward for the apprehension of the Pretender and seeking the support of the allies for the Hanoverian Succession. He was also placed on the committee for the address representing to the queen the problems of the new Assiento contract and treaty of commerce with Spain. Following Anne’s answer to this representation, a motion to address the queen again to emphasize that the benefit of the Assiento contract had been ‘obstructed’ by individuals seeking their own profit – an allegation aimed at Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke – was rejected by the House, and Devonshire joined many of his fellow Whigs in protesting against this decision..</p><p>When the queen died on 1 Aug. 1714 the Privy Council met to open the letters from George Ludwig, the Elector of Hanover, in which he, according to the terms of the 1706 Regency Act, was able to name his own choice of regents to govern the realm while he made his way to Britain to claim the crown as King George. Among the 18 named, largely Whigs or Tory supporters of the Hanoverian Succession, was Devonshire, but not his Junto associates Wharton, Sunderland or Somers.<sup>47</sup> A sparsely attended emergency meeting of Parliament convened on that same day, but Devonshire himself did not appear in the House until 5 Aug., on which day he was seated among others of the lords justices, on a bench before the throne, from which the Members of the Commons were summoned to hear the formal proclamation of George I as king and the order to draw up an address of congratulations. On only three more occasions in this short session, on 13 and 25 Aug. and 23 Sept., did Devonshire attend the house, and on each of those he served as a lord justice and oversaw the summoning of the Commons to the bar of the House to hear the king’s initial response to the address of congratulations and the prorogations of Parliament, first to 23 Sept. and then to 21 October.</p><p>Devonshire, not surprisingly benefitted from the Hanoverian Succession he had long promoted, being restored to the two principal offices he had lost in 1710 – lord steward of the household and lord lieutenant of Derbyshire – in the autumn of 1714. As a principal member of the Walpole-Townshend circle of Whigs he was moved on 6 July 1716 from the office of lord steward to that of lord president of the council, but he joined his colleagues Walpole and Townshend in resigning from his office and from the ministry in June 1717. During the ensuing Whig schism he acted as the nominal leader in the House of the opposition ‘Walpolian Whigs’ as well as a supporter and friend of the prince of Wales. A fuller and far more detailed account of his activities in the House and in central politics after the accession of George I will appear in the 1715-90 volumes of this work.</p><p>Devonshire, having in 1725 resumed his office as lord president of the council, died at Devonshire House on 4 June 1729. Walpole was reported to be inconsolable at his old ally’s passing, as Devonshire had been ‘always steady to his party and constant to his friends’.<sup>48</sup> During his lifetime Devonshire had established the Cavendish Devonshires as one of the premier Whig aristocratic houses, a position which it was to maintain throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth. To the political boldness of his father the first duke, who loved the grand dramatic gesture, whether in architecture or politics, the second duke added a more plodding, but more consistent and loyal, attachment to party. He may have been a courtier for many years, but he was above all a party man, and twice gave up office rather than compromise his loyalties to his Whig friends. His activities as an art collector, one of the greatest of the period, further added a lustre to Chatsworth and Devonshire House which only increased the cultural stock and standing of the family. The second duke of Devonshire was survived at his death by three sons and three daughters and the Devonshire title and estate passed to his eldest surviving son William Cavendish*, 3rd duke of Devonshire, who followed his father in his position as a Whig grandee and in his friendship and closeness to Walpole in particular.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CECIL, James (1646-83) |
<p><strong><surname>CECIL</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1646–83)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1659-68 Visct. Cranborne; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 3 Dec. 1668 as 3rd earl of SALISBURY |
|
First sat 25 Oct. 1669; last sat 26 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Herts. 4 Apr.-3 Dec. 1668 |
<p><em>b</em>. bef. 27 Mar. 1646, 1st s. of Charles Cecil<sup>‡</sup>, Visct. Cranborne and Diana, da. and coh. of James Maxwell, earl of Dirletoun [S]. <em>educ</em>. St John’s, Camb.? <em>m</em>. 1661 (with £9,000 or £11,000),<sup>1</sup> Margaret (<em>d</em>. Aug. 1682),<sup>2</sup> da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, 5s. 5da.<sup>3</sup> KG 31 Aug. 1680. <em>d</em>. 24 May 1683; <em>will</em> 1 July 1675-9 Apr. 1683, pr. 2 May 1687.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>PC 3 Jan. 1679-18 Jan. 1681.</p><p>High steward, Hertford 1668-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1681, Hatfield House, Herts.</p> |
<h2><em>Viscount Cranborne and 3rd earl of Salisbury, 1660-75</em></h2><p>Salisbury’s grandfather sat as a Member in the Commons in the Rump and Protectorate Parliaments despite being a peer. His father did not take part in the Interregnum governments and throughout the 1650s found himself embarrassed by debt. By 1658 his debts stood at £15,200 and to avoid his creditors he fled to France, where he died at Montpellier on 14 Sept. 1659, his deathbed wish to his own father being that he would settle his debts.<sup>6</sup> At his death his teenage son James became the heir apparent to the earldom and was styled Viscount Cranborne.<sup>7</sup> In 1661 his grandfather and guardian settled the terms for Cranborne’s marriage to Lady Margaret Manners. It is not clear when the marriage actually took place. A licence was taken out in September 1661, but the ceremony was probably delayed for a number of years, perhaps to 1665, owing to the youth of the couple. Certainly the families were united by around this time and over the following years the parents of the couple developed a close friendly relationship and the earls of Salisbury and Rutland corresponded frequently, mostly about hounds and hawks.<sup>8</sup> The marriage also tied Cranborne further into a large kinship network of peers, as Rutland’s many daughters married into some of the most prominent, or at least politically active, noble families of the realm. His eldest daughter, Frances, had long been married to John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, Cranborne’s cousin through their common ancestor William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, Baron Burghley. At about the same time as Cranborne’s marriage, his sister-in-law Grace was joined to Patrick Chaworth, 3rd Viscount Chaworth of Armagh [I]; she became a frequent correspondent on political news with her brother, Cranborne’s brother-in-law John Manners*, styled Lord Roos and later duke of Rutland. The year 1669 saw the marriages of Rutland’s daughters Elizabeth and Dorothy to, respectively, James Annesley*, styled Lord Annesley (later 2nd earl of Anglesey) and the weak-minded Anthony Ashley Cooper*, (later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury). These marriages connected Cranborne, later 3rd earl of Salisbury, to the leading statesmen Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury).</p><p>Cranborne was returned as a knight of the shire for Hertfordshire, where his family owned the majority of its landholdings, including the grand Jacobean residence of Hatfield House, at a by-election on 4 Apr. 1668. Throughout his career he maintained a prominent role and influence in Hertfordshire government and politics. He was, however, never entrusted with major offices such as the lord lieutenancy or <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the county, which were exercised instead by Arthur Capel*, earl of Essex. Salisbury did inherit from his father the high stewardship of the county town of Hertford, which he held until his death. Salisbury himself added regularly to his landholdings in the county and its surrounding areas. In 1675 he purchased the manor of Le Mote in Cheshunt and in 1680-82 the Hertfordshire manor of Bygrave and other estates at a cost of £15,614.<sup>9</sup> The Salisbury estate also included the London town house of Salisbury House on the Strand in Westminster, which gave him an interest in that area as well. However, the family’s fortunes were under severe strain throughout the 1660s and 1670s, if not later. The 3rd earl had racked up debts of £18,840 by the time of his death, and this was further compounded by the generous annuities and portions provided for in his will and the need to provide for the jointures of both the dowager countess of Salisbury and the dowager Lady Cranborne.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Cranborne kept his seat in the Commons for barely over a month as the session was adjourned on 9 May 1668, and he succeeded to the earldom of Salisbury, at the age of 22, upon his grandfather’s death on 3 Dec. 1668. He first took his seat in the House a week into the following session, on 25 Oct. 1669. On that first day he was added to the committee on the bill to prevent frauds in the export of wool and to the large committee to consider the decay of trade and fall of rents. He was also placed on the committee established on 6 Nov. 1669 to examine the report and papers submitted by the commissioners of accounts. He attended four-fifths of the sittings of the session but was named to only one further committee, on the estate bill of John Bill, before the prorogation of 11 Dec. 1669. For the following long session of 1670-1, he arrived at the House one week into parliamentary business on 21 Feb. 1670. He attended only 16 per cent of sittings as he was almost entirely absent, coming to only eight sittings after the session resumed on 24 Oct. 1670 following the summer recess. Throughout he was named to seven select committees, including that established on 19 Mar. 1670 for the bill to allow his brother-in-law, Lord Roos, to remarry after his divorce. Doubtless Salisbury would have supported this bill, which sought to give Roos an opportunity to have a legitimate male heir to his estates and honours, but there is no definite evidence of his activities, apart from his absence from the protests against its passage. During this period he was also placed on the committees on the bills for: establishing and clarifying the jurisdiction of the lord high admiral, James Stuart*, duke of York (established on 14 Mar. 1670); preventing the malicious burning of houses and killing of cattle (24 Mar.); nominating and authorizing commissioners to negotiate a treaty of union between England and Scotland (25 Mar.); making the Rivers Boston and Trent navigable (26 Nov.); as well as two private bills. He attended the session for the last time on 2 Dec. 1670, missing the last four months of business, and at a call of the House on 10 Feb. 1671 he was formally excused attendance.</p><p>Parliament remained prorogued from April 1671 to February 1673 and in those months Charles II issued his Declaration of Indulgence and began a renewed war against the United Provinces. In 1672 Baron Ashley was also raised to an earldom as Shaftesbury and became lord chancellor. Shaftesbury was to have a notable influence on Salisbury’s career in the succeeding years. Salisbury attended the House when Parliament resumed on 4 Feb. 1673 for the first day of the new parliamentary session and proceeded to sit in every sitting of this turbulent session. He was named to seven select committees on legislation – those on the bills for: preventing frauds in the export of wool (established on 14 Feb.); for taking duties of alien merchants (22 Mar.); to confirm the marriage articles of Sir William Rich<sup>‡</sup>, a distant kinsman by marriage (12 Mar.); as well as four other private bills. He was also nominated to the committee of the House assigned on 5 Mar. to draw up a ‘bill of advice’ to the king regarding his dispute with the Commons over the use of the royal prerogative and suspending power in the Declaration of Indulgence. In addition he was placed on two further committees of investigation, those to consider the multitude of attorneys in Westminster Hall (established on 14 Feb.) and to mediate the dispute between the Hamburg Company and its creditors (22 March).</p><p>On a far more personal matter, on 10 Feb., Salisbury’s own bill to allow him to lease his property on the Salisbury estate in upper St Martin’s Lane received its first reading in the House. It was committed three days later, without him being named to the committee; a petition against the bill from Sir Thomas Leigh, read before the House on 18 Feb., complaining that the bill claimed title to tenements which he insisted were rightfully his, was referred to the committee. Over the following week counsel for both sides hammered out an agreement, by which Salisbury had to buy out Sir Thomas’s claim for £32,000. On 27 Feb. the bill was reported with amendments by Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, and passed by the House on 1 March. Steered through the Commons’ committee by William Monson<sup>‡</sup>, a Member for Lincoln and deputy lieutenant of Hertfordshire, the bill was returned to the House, with some amendments, and agreed to by the House on 15 Mar.<sup>11</sup> Salisbury also tried to improve, and profit from, his estate in Westminster when he submitted, on 19 Mar., a proviso to the bill to prohibit the construction of new buildings in London which would allow him to build on the grounds of Great and Little Salisbury House in the Strand. He had already knocked down Little Salisbury House and created a new street, Salisbury Street, with tenements in its place and had also carved up the large Great Salisbury House into 12 self-contained houses.<sup>12</sup> The bill did not receive the royal assent in this session, but his own bill did, on 29 Mar. 1673, on which day Parliament was adjourned until 20 Oct. 1673. In the intervening months, Salisbury’s prominent place among the nobility was suggested by his position as an official mourner at the funeral of Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, on 20 September.<sup>13</sup> Salisbury dutifully attended when Parliament resumed on 20 Oct., only for the session to be prorogued until the following week. He came to all four days of the abortive session that began on 27 Oct. 1673, during which he was named to only one committee on legislation, that for the bill to encourage English manufactures, on 30 Oct.</p><p>After this tumultuous and short-lived session, Shaftesbury was dismissed as lord chancellor and became a leading spirit of the band of ‘malcontent’ peers concerned by the growth of French and Catholic influence at court, which was represented most tellingly by the public conversion of the heir, James Stuart*, duke of York. Salisbury soon became a leading member of this group which sought to impose limitations on the future Catholic monarch. He was present on 7 Jan. 1674 for the first day of the next session and attended all of its 38 sittings. On 12 Jan. a report had it that Salisbury was named as one of a committee of six members of the House, to join with six representatives from the Commons, to inspect the treaty with France.<sup>14</sup> The following day, 13 Jan., Salisbury registered for the remainder of the session the proxy of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, brother of his mother-in-law, Lady Rutland. On that same day, Salisbury, in the company of many other peers, took the Jacobean oath of allegiance. According to the Venetian ambassador, Salisbury himself had an important role in this new procedure, as he had moved in the first days of the session that, according to the spirit of the Test Act of 1673, all peers should have to take the oath of allegiance before entering the House, ‘a proceeding at variance with the privilege which their lordships thought to enjoy of never being bound to take any oath’. Yet a precedent for this requirement was discovered and the motion to impose the oaths duly carried on 13 January.<sup>15</sup> He was named to five committees on legislation in this session, including those on the bills for: preserving wood and timber (established on 7 Feb.); preventing illegal imprisonment (17 Feb.); and preventing frauds and perjuries (20 February). He was also named on 16 Feb. to the committee for the bill for governing servants and apprentices which was also authorized to prepare a clause that would deal with slaves.</p><p>He most clearly distinguished himself in this session as one of the prime movers of measures against the duke of York and the succession of a Catholic monarch. On 24 Jan. 1674 Salisbury, supported by Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, moved for the introduction of a bill for the Protestant upbringing of York’s children. This was one of the ‘heads’ discussed in a series of committees of the whole between 10 and 21 February. Salisbury, Shaftesbury, and George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, made up the core of a subcommittee appointed by the committee on 14 Feb. to draw up these proposals into two bills, one confined to the heads concerning the royal family and another dealing with the heads touching Catholics in the general population. This bill was introduced by Shaftesbury and received its first reading on 21 Feb., but was lost at the prorogation three days later.<sup>16</sup> York may have had something to do with the session’s peremptory prorogation for, according to the French ambassador, the duke was increasingly angry at the ‘pernicious designs’ of Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Carlisle, and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, who all met frequently at the home of Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, to organize Commons’ business and promote anti-Catholic legislation, and the duke was thus ‘of a mind to break up Parliament in good time’.<sup>17</sup> After the session’s prorogation, Sir Gilbert Talbot<sup>‡</sup> observed to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> that both Houses of Parliament had ‘pressed fiercely and avowedly’ against York and that a group of ‘hotspurs’ in the upper House (Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Halifax and Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare) were ‘the most forward’ and had worked in alliance with a number of ‘discontented and turbulent Commons’ to place limitations on the duke of York and to prevent ‘the growth of popery’ in the realm.<sup>18</sup></p><h2><em>Country peer, 1675-9</em></h2><p>Salisbury was prominent enough in Shaftesbury’s circle to be mentioned in his open letter to Carlisle, written and widely distributed in the months before the session of spring 1675. In this letter Shaftesbury affected an unwillingness to involve himself in the king’s government as long as Parliament was infrequently summoned, kept in perpetuity without fresh elections, and largely ignored. Nevertheless, he stated that he would deign to come up to Westminster to resume business if he were explicitly summoned by Salisbury, Carlisle, Fauconberg and Holles.<sup>19</sup> Salisbury and his allies at this time were piqued that the king was heeding the counsel of the bishops and of the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). Danby’s Anglican policies were also alienating York. Following the February 1675 order in council to enforce the penal laws against Catholics in advance of the parliamentary session, Salisbury was one of the peers targeted in York’s attempt to bargain with the country opposition. York hoped that toleration for Catholics could be part of a general toleration for nonconformists which he would help to promote – as long as country peers such as Salisbury did not question his right of succession.<sup>20</sup> Salisbury was known to be sympathetic to nonconformists, even Quakers. He spent more than two hours visiting George Fox in prison in 1674, taking notes on the errors in the indictment of the Quaker leader.<sup>21</sup> Salisbury also formed a firm friendship with John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, who was later to be named in Salisbury’s will as a trustee of his estate. Both Tillotson and Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, were heavily involved with Richard Baxter in 1675 in drafting bills for the comprehension of nonconformists and were supported in their endeavours by Salisbury’s country colleagues, Carlisle and Halifax.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Salisbury maintained an almost perfect attendance record in the parliamentary session that began on 13 Apr. 1675, when he missed only one sitting. Even on that first day he showed himself adverse to the court and to Danby’s ‘Church party’ by signing the protest – one of only ten peers to do so – against the House’s rejection of the opposition’s counter-proposal to thank the king only for some ‘gracious expressions’ in his speech, rather than for the speech itself. Throughout the session he was named to seven select committees, those on the bills for: preventing frauds and perjuries (established on 15 Apr.); preventing the ruin of highways by four-wheeled carts (8 May); enforcing the payment of church rates and small tithes (8 May); augmenting the income of small vicarages (18 May); and three private bills. He was most heavily involved in opposition to Danby’s bill to prevent dangers to the government by ‘disaffected persons’, which sought to impose an oath on all members of Parliament not to seek to make any alterations in church or state, which Salisbury and his fellow country peers thought entrenched on the birthright of the peerage to sit in the House and freely debate. He was one of the ten peers who signed each of the four protests of late April and early May – on 21, 26, 29 Apr. and 4 May – against the progress of Danby’s bill in the House and the measures the court sought to take against those opposed to it. According to Richard Baxter, Salisbury, with Shaftesbury, Holles, and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, were the ‘chief speakers’ against the bill, and they spoke so well that ‘the debating of this test did more weaken the interest and reputation of the bishops with the nobles than anything that ever befell them since the king came in’, while Shaftesbury in the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em> described how Salisbury ‘stood like a rock of nobility and English principles’ in answering the arguments of the lord keeper Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham) in debate.<sup>23</sup> The Houses soon descended into a dispute over their respective privileges in the cause of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> and Salisbury attended the last day of the session on 9 June 1675 when the king peremptorily prorogued Parliament.</p><p>He was in the House again on 13 Oct. 1675 and proceeded to attend all the sittings of this short session, during which he was named to seven select committees, those on the bills for: explaining the previous bill against Popish recusants (established on 14 Oct.); augmenting the income for small vicarages (12 Nov.); preventing frauds and perjuries (12 Nov.); discouraging the import of foreign manufactures (13 Nov.); prohibiting the erection of new buildings in London (17 Nov.); and two private bills. On 20 Nov. 1675 he received the proxy of his political ally Holles, and he quickly used it on that same day to vote in favour of the address to the king to dissolve Parliament.<sup>24</sup> He subsequently joined 21 other peers in signing the protest against the rejection of the motion. Parliament was now in disarray once again, and was prorogued two days after this abortive motion for dissolution.</p><p>The king kept the unco-operative Parliament under prorogation for over a year. As the new session scheduled to start on 15 Feb. 1677 approached it was clear that Salisbury’s role as one of Shaftesbury’s lieutenants and a leading member of the country opposition had not changed. The perennially invalid Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, wrote to Shaftesbury two weeks before the session was scheduled to start, begging him to accept his proxy rather than compel his presence at Westminster, and specifying that if Shaftesbury already had his complement of proxies, his was to go to Salisbury.<sup>25</sup> There were also rumours that Salisbury and Halifax would be placed in the Treasury commission as a way of bringing them closer to the court and blunting their opposition.<sup>26</sup> When the session did assemble on 15 Feb. 1677, Salisbury was there, but his actions quickly resulted in his committal to the Tower for several months and he attended only six sittings of the entire session. On that first day Buckingham delivered a long speech asserting that the Parliament had in fact been legally dissolved because statutes passed in the reign of Edward III purportedly prohibited prorogations of more than twelve months. When John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, moved that Buckingham be called to the bar to be punished for his suggestion, Salisbury retorted that such actions and threats effectively took away the freedom of debate in the House and that the ancient laws were intended to preserve the rights of Parliament. Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, tried to take a moderate course by censuring both Buckingham and Salisbury, but Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice, seconded Frescheville in his attempt to punish Buckingham. Other country peers such as Halifax and Holles strongly defended Buckingham’s right to argue his point without fear of punishment or censure, but only Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, both defended Buckingham’s freedom of speech and his central contention about the dissolution. A motion that the four peers insisting on the dissolution withdraw so that their treatment could be decided was passed by a majority of 23 and while these peers were in the lobby, Buckingham made his escape. Salisbury, on the other hand, according to a contemporary newsletter writer, stayed and ‘had a behaviour, look and discourse becoming a resolute person’, in contrast to his two colleagues Shaftesbury and Wharton, who ‘seemed more apprehensive of their condition’. <sup>27</sup> Burnet, too, described Salisbury in this debate as ‘a high-spirited man, who had a very ill opinion of the court’. Nevertheless, the House saw Buckingham and Shaftesbury as the ringleaders of this attempt to have Parliament dissolved and devised a lesser punishment for Salisbury, who was only meant to stand in his place in the House (as opposed to kneeling before the bar) and admit his offence.</p><p>The following day, 16 Feb., Salisbury was the first to be asked to submit, as Buckingham was still absenting himself. Despite the moderate punishment intended, Salisbury instead ‘resolutely asserted all he had said’. Shaftesbury and Wharton did likewise and all three were, by a unanimous decision of the House, committed to the Tower, which decision Salisbury ‘made but a jest of’. He also further offended the king, by requesting, perhaps at the prompting of Shaftesbury who made the same demand, that his own personal cook attend him during his confinement, ‘which the king resented highly, as carrying with it an insinuation of the worst sort’. The House further ordered on 17 Feb. that the four peers were to be, ‘kept severally and apart and ... not suffered to meet together, unless it be at church and … no person … suffered to visit them without the leave of the House’. Salisbury’s sister-in-law, Lady Chaworth, recounted that the four peers spent most of their first church service in the Tower talking instead of attending to the ceremony, after which it was decided to remove even that privilege from them. In a contemporary lampoon, Salisbury appeared as ‘soft Cecil’ who allowed Buckingham to lead him ‘by the nose’. The House may well have agreed. Salisbury, like Wharton, was held not to have asserted that Parliament was dissolved but to have maintained that the prorogation was illegal. Accounts of these proceedings of 15-17 Feb. 1677, any record of which was expunged from the formal Journal of the House by a subsequent order of 13 Nov. 1680, fortunately survive in a number of manuscript collections and they were also later published by John Hatsell as an appendix to his collection of parliamentary precedents.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Growing unease over the imprisonment was perhaps evident as the House increasingly was pressed to grant licence to members of the House who wished to visit the lords in the Tower. A particularly assiduous visitor was George Booth*, Baron Delamer, who requested, and was granted, permission to visit the imprisoned peers on both 7 and 15 Mar. 1677. He became their principal spokesman and on 20 Mar. moved the House, seconded by Halifax and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, that the four were confined ‘upon a punctilio only’ and pressed for their release.<sup>29</sup> In April 1677 Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Buckingham (Wharton at that point being under ‘house arrest’ owing to his illness) jointly petitioned for their release; the king having indicated that a joint petition was unsatisfactory, they then petitioned individually.<sup>30</sup> Early in June Salisbury’s ill health and his wife’s advanced pregnancy secured his parole, although only for a month. The success of his application was attributed to the support of his wife’s distant kinsman, the impoverished Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, who ‘solicited and finished that affair’. Lady Salisbury then wrote to Lady Danby in an attempt to influence the earl of Danby, referring tantalizingly to ‘the obligation we have received from his Lordship’s favour in this business’ and sent a letter of support from her doctor who stated that her ‘vapours and faintings’ were such that returning Salisbury to the Tower before her delivery was likely to endanger her life. Salisbury was then further paroled on condition that he remained at Hatfield.<sup>31</sup> He was in no doubt that he owed his freedom to Danby and approached him again on 19 July, asking him to present yet another petition to the king.<sup>32</sup> He was released a few days later after begging the king’s pardon and expressing ‘his extreme trouble for having offended the king and the House of Peers by what he owns to have unadvisedly said concerning the late prorogation’. A private recantation was not enough; the king insisted that he must also submit to any requirements of the House.<sup>33</sup> By the end of July only the recalcitrant Shaftesbury, of the four peers originally imprisoned, remained in the Tower, where he compiled his lists of the political attitudes of members of both houses of Parliament. Not surprisingly, he listed his fellow prisoner Salisbury as ‘triply worthy’.</p><p>Parliament was resumed on 28 Jan. 1678. Salisbury arrived at the House on 4 Feb. 1678 to make his formal apology. After waiting at the doorway, he was called to his place and informed that the House would accept his submission from his seat without his being called to the bar.<sup>34</sup> He left the House for the remainder of the session, which was prorogued on 13 May 1678, on 7 February, having been nominated to only committee, on 5 Feb., on a private bill. He had not altered his political perspective and on 23 Feb. 1678 was writing to Shaftesbury for advice on how to dispose of his proxy. Never having registered one before, he carefully followed Shaftesbury’s instructions and prepared his proxy to be received by their colleague Halifax, who could be relied upon to support Shaftesbury’s own petition for release. Evidently Shaftesbury was able to organize proxy distribution even from the Tower and Salisbury’s proxy with Halifax was duly registered on the same day as his letter, 23 Feb, 1678.<sup>35</sup> Salisbury did not attend the following session of May-July 1678 either, nor did he register a proxy for this session. He may have removed himself from Parliament for most of 1678 because of a continuing disgruntlement at his previous treatment by the House. He was also preoccupied with concerns in Hertfordshire where he was heavily involved in a local dispute with the inhabitants of Baldock. A verdict against him at the Hertford assizes in early March 1678 angered him and caused him to look for other counsel to represent him. He again pressed his wife into service; she wrote on his behalf to the wife of the judge, Timothy Littleton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>36</sup></p><p>An ‘enthusiastic’ believer in the Popish Plot in the autumn of 1678, Salisbury had been involved with the magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey for at least two years previous to his murder, as Salisbury’s accounts for 1676 reveal payments to Godfrey of £93 6<em>s</em>. and a bond of £105 17<em>s</em>. 6<em>d</em>.<sup>37</sup> The Plot certainly contributed to Salisbury’s renewed commitment to Parliament. He arrived at the House on 8 Nov. 1678, two weeks after the start of business. He attended a little less than two-thirds of the sittings of this session and was named to four committees on legislation, principally on bills against Catholic recusants, such as that for disabling them from exercising trades (established on 7 Dec. 1678) or for hindering the Catholic education of their children (12 December). In general, he was closely involved in the anti-Catholic agenda of this session. On 11 Nov. 1678 he was one of a group of peers ordered to inspect ammunition found in a residence in the Savoy and to report back to the House. Four days later he was present at the debate in the committee of the whole on the Test bill and voted in favour of the motion that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. On 26 Nov. he was also placed on the committee for the bill to raise the militia for 42 days by parliamentary authority, seen in many quarters as a breach of royal prerogative. However, with such activities, he almost certainly would have surprised contemporaries by his votes on the last days of the session – if indeed they were recorded correctly by Wharton, who quite surprisingly included Salisbury among the ‘court lords’ who voted on 26 Dec. in favour of the amendment to the supply bill which would place the money raised in the coffers of the Exchequer and on 27 Dec. against the commitment of Danby, then under impeachment by the Commons. There is no alternative evidence either to corroborate or to dismiss these uncharacteristic votes, but Salisbury was appointed a manager for two conferences held on 28 Dec. on the disputed amendment to the supply bill and very few of his eight fellow managers could be considered convinced members of the country opposition.</p><p>These votes may have been cast in the context of Salisbury either seeking or being offered royal favour, for on 3 Jan. 1679, only four days after the troublesome session had been prorogued, Salisbury was sworn of the Privy Council, ‘which marks of great kindness towards him’ as one contemporary saw it, and probably represented an attempt to bind him closer to the court.<sup>38</sup> There were also rumours that Salisbury would be honoured with the garter and that either he or Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, would replace the dismissed and disgraced Danby as lord treasurer. One contemporary thought Salisbury would be the popular choice, ‘he being a man of a great estate and a good husband, one who knows how to manage his own estate and consequently fit to be employed in the Treasury’.<sup>39</sup> On 8 Jan. he was placed on the committee of the council charged with examining William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, about this alleged involvement in the Popish Plot.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Charles II dissolved the Cavalier Parliament on 24 Jan. 1679 and called fresh elections for a new Parliament meeting in March. Salisbury’s interest played some role in the elections in Hertfordshire, but the principal electoral patron was the lord lieutenant, the country peer and regional magnate Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex. Nevertheless, Salisbury could not have been disappointed in the result of the county election which saw the return to two country candidates, Silius Titus<sup>‡</sup> and William Hale<sup>‡</sup>. Salisbury’s interest was more pronounced in the borough of Hertford, where he had acted as high steward, almost a hereditary office within his family, since his succession to the title, but even here his role is uncertain in the election of the moderate country members Sir Thomas Byde<sup>‡ </sup>and Sir Charles Caesar<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>41</sup></p><h2><em>Exclusion Parliaments, 1679-83</em></h2><p>The indications of Salisbury’s growing closeness to the court may account for Danby initially considering Salisbury a potential supporter in the impeachment proceedings he would undergo in the forthcoming Parliament. Yet shortly after the compilation of this first list, Danby reconsidered and placed Salisbury on two similar lists of his probable opponents, a forecast which turned out in the event to be more accurate. Salisbury attended every sitting of the one-week session of the first Exclusion Parliament in March 1679, and on 11 Mar. he was placed on the committee to receive information on the Popish Plot. When Parliament met again for business on 15 Mar., a scant two days after the prorogation, rumours were again rife that the disgraced Danby would be replaced by a treasury commission that included Salisbury and Essex.<sup>42</sup> Salisbury attended the House for its first day and attended 93 per cent of sitting days. He was again placed on the committee to receive information concerning the Plot and was named to six committees on legislation (the bill for members of Convocation to take the oaths, established on 20 Mar., and five estate bills) and to the committee set up on 24 Apr. to consider the Commons’ objections to the answers of the five impeached lords. On 22 Mar., despite attending the House, Salisbury was not, unlike his political allies Shaftesbury, Essex, Holles and Fauconberg, named to the committee to prepare legislation to disqualify Danby from holding office again or attending the king. Nevertheless, during the first fortnight of April he voted repeatedly for all forms of the bill which threatened Danby with punishment if he did not surrender himself to face impeachment proceedings – both the House’s amended bill for his banishment and the harsher Commons’ bill which envisaged the lord treasurer’s attainder, the version which eventually passed on 14 April.</p><p>Salisbury retained his place on the Privy Council at the time of its remodelling on 22 Apr. 1679; he and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater remained as the representative earls on the council. He was also placed on the subcommittee dealing with the affairs of Ireland.<sup>43</sup> During May 1679, he remained heavily involved in the House with the proceedings surrounding the trials of the impeached lords. He supported the Commons’ suggestion for a joint committee of both houses assigned to determine the procedure of the trials. On 8 May he registered his dissent against the first rejection of this request, and two days later was a reporter for the conference at which the House explained their objections. Salisbury himself reported on 10 May the effects of this conference, including the Commons’ repeated insistence on a joint committee, and he again voted in the motion’s favour and signed the dissent against its rejection. The following day he was a manager for a further two free conferences on this dispute, at the end of which the House relented and appointed a committee of six members, of which Salisbury was one, to confer with the Commons on trial procedure.<sup>44</sup> This committee reported to the House on 13 May with the request from the Commons’ committee that the bishops not be allowed to attend the trials in Westminster Hall because they could involve capital punishment. Salisbury supported this motion and subscribed to the protest when the House rejected it. On 22 May 1679 Salisbury, Bridgwater and James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton attended the king to know when the two Houses should wait on him to present an address on the militia of Middlesex and London. Salisbury was named as a reporter for the conference requested by the Commons on 26 May ‘to preserve good correspondence’ between the Houses, and the following day, upon the report of this conference, he again registered his dissent from the House’s resolution to insist on its earlier vote in favour of the bishops’ presence at capital trials. With the chambers again in deadlock, Parliament was prorogued the following day and dissolved weeks later on 12 July.</p><p>In the elections of autumn 1679 Salisbury appeared more active for exclusionist candidates. As high steward of Hertford he already had in that borough a reliable ally in Sir William Cowper<sup>‡</sup>, who rented Hertford Castle from Salisbury on a long lease, was a trustee, and perhaps even a kinsman, of their colleague Shaftesbury, and was also a member of the Green Ribbon Club. Salisbury undoubtedly helped to ensure the return of Cowper in the election for the borough, although Cowper was also greatly aided by the Dissenting vote in the strongly nonconformist town; he even had a Quaker as his political agent. Cowper was joined by the sitting Member Sir Thomas Byde, who returned to stand for the borough at the last minute after attempting an unsuccessful bid for the county. The earl was less successful at the county level. Admittedly an exclusionist Sir Jonathan Keate<sup>‡ </sup>was returned, but he was partnered by the incumbent Sir Charles Caesar<sup>‡</sup>, elected by ‘the gentlemen of the country’ in opposition to the recommendation of ‘the Earls of Essex and Salisbury and Master of the Rolls [Sir Harbottle Grimstone<sup>‡</sup>]’.<sup>45</sup> Salisbury could not have displayed more overt political sentiments than when he snubbed the duke of York on 27 Oct. by vacating Hatfield as the duke and duchess arrived <em>en route</em> to Scotland. Since Salisbury had left ‘not a bottle of wine or anything but beds, not so much as a candle’, York obtained supplies in the village and, declaring his ‘unwillingness to be burdensome to so poor a lord’, left Salisbury eight shillings for their lodgings.<sup>46</sup> However, during the long period of prorogations in 1679-80 by which the new Parliament was successively postponed, Salisbury does not appear to have been personally involved in some of the more radical and theatrical activities of the Green Ribbon Club and the conclave of Whig peers who met with Shaftesbury at the Swan Tavern. He himself was not one of the signatories to the petition of December 1679 calling for a speedy summoning of the long-delayed Parliament, but the two Members for Hertford, Cowper and Byde, did in the first days of January 1680 present a petition from Hertfordshire protesting the delay, which must have been submitted with Salisbury’s knowledge.<sup>47</sup> Similarly, Salisbury himself was not part of the group which on 26 June 1680 sought to indict York for recusancy, but his Hertford client Cowper joined Shaftesbury in this attempt.<sup>48</sup> The king, perhaps seeing an opening in Salisbury’s relative passivity, made what was probably another bid to bring the previously fiery opposition peer closer to the court and on the last day of August 1680 Salisbury reached the pinnacle of status when he was elected a knight of the Garter. At that time there were further rumours that he would also be made lord treasurer.<sup>49</sup></p><p>When the second Exclusion Parliament assembled on 21 Oct. 1680, Salisbury attended for the first day of business and, with Essex, introduced Halifax, under his new title as earl of Halifax, to the House. Salisbury attended every sitting but one. He was named to only two committees on legislation, those for the additional bill for burying in woollen (established on 21 Dec.) and the estate bill of Sir Charles Hoghton (3 Jan. 1681). He was involved in the continuing investigations into the Plot and was placed, on 23 Oct. 1680, on the large committee to investigate information about the Plot. He probably joined with Shaftesbury in encouraging evidence and testimony in this committee regarding a putative plot in Ireland and when on 8 Nov. the House held a conference with the Commons to deliver to them the transcripts of the proceedings of this committee, Salisbury was appointed a manager. About this time a ‘noble lord’ argued in the House that the imprisonment of Salisbury and his three fellow prisoners in the Tower in 1677 had been a serious breach of privilege, and that the record of these proceedings ‘may prove fatal to the dignity and privileges of this House ... [and] cast a great blemish upon the honour and justice of this House’.<sup>50</sup> Consequently, on 11 Nov. 1680 the House ordered the record of these proceedings to be examined by the committee for the Journal and two days later, following the report from the committee, ordered that all record of these actions against the four lords be expurgated from the official record.</p><p>In the debate on the Exclusion bill on 15 Nov. Salisbury made his views very clear. He first argued, according to the brief notes made by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, that ‘The happiness of [the] king and kingdom depends on it. It is the only way left to secure the Protestant religion and the king. No security without it to [the] king and kingdom. He [York] is but a subject and his right may be concluded’, and then replied to objections to both the morality and practicality of the bill with the assertions that, ‘It is not doing evil that good may come of it if it secure the king’s life and government. No summons is necessary it being notorious he [York] is a papist and besides in legislative capacity it may be done’. Unsurprisingly, Salisbury voted against the rejection of the bill and subsequently signed the dissent against this vote.<sup>51</sup> Two days after the defeat of the bill, he seconded the motion put by Shaftesbury that the king should divorce and marry a Protestant in order to leave the crown to his legitimate and protestant issue.<sup>52</sup> On 19 Nov. he moved for a prorogation to allow the Exclusion bill to be reintroduced in a new session, part of a scheme then underfoot to offer the king supply of £600,000 in exchange for acquiescence to the bill.<sup>53</sup> On 23 Nov. Salisbury voted to appoint a committee to consider, in conjunction with the Commons, the perilous state of the kingdom and registered his protest when this motion was rejected. Later that same day he was added to the committee for the bill to form a Protestant Association and his colleague Essex presented to a committee of the whole House the heads he had drawn up for the bill for securing the Protestant religion. On 27 Nov. he was chosen as one of five members of the House delegated to meet with a similar committee of the Commons to discuss the procedure for the trial of Viscount Stafford, and Salisbury reported two days later from this joint committee that the Commons wanted sight of the House’s commission for appointing the lord high steward. The perceived Catholic threat continued to dominate parliamentary business, and on 2 Dec. Shaftesbury informed the House that a ‘considerable prelate and three other persons of the Church of Rome’ would make further statements regarding the Popish Plot as long as they had the king’s pardon. Up to that point, so he claimed, he was the only one who knew the names of these important witnesses, but he asked permission of the House to communicate their identities to Salisbury and Essex. Five days later Shaftesbury further informed the House that he had information that Catholics had concealed arms in their houses and that he would reveal to Salisbury the name of the person in whose house they were stored. As a consequence, the Lords ordered Salisbury and Shaftesbury to organize a search for enemy arms and to report back to the House. The House then adjourned to Westminster Hall for the trial of Stafford, where Salisbury voted the viscount guilty of treason. On 18 Dec. Salisbury was appointed by the House (with Anglesey, and William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford) to address the king for leave to bring Stafford before the Lords, so that he could provide more information on the Plot.<sup>54</sup> On that same day Salisbury subscribed to the dissent against the decision to reject a proviso added by the Commons to the bill for regulating the trial of peers, which would exempt from the provisions of the bill all trials of peers upon impeachment.</p><p>On 21 Dec., Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Essex launched a political attack on two of York’s prominent supporters: Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, first commissioner of the Treasury and the duke’s brother-in-law, and Colonel George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth, governor of the strategically important Portsmouth garrison. In the Lords, Salisbury moved that Legge be dismissed as lieutenant general of the ordnance because of his ‘too great addiction to the duke’.<sup>55</sup> Salisbury further signed the two dissents of 7 Jan. 1681 on the refusal of the House to put the questions whether the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs, should be committed or even suspended pending the impeachment proceedings against him. Unsurprisingly, Salisbury’s bill from the bookseller that year included a vindication of Shaftesbury’s political behaviour and a copy of the <em>Papists’ Bloody Aftergame</em>.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Salisbury’s career in central government came to an end when on 18 Jan. he argued strenuously in council against the king’s decision to dissolve Parliament. The king silenced him, saying arguments would be of no avail, and in protest Salisbury begged leave to resign from the council. The king readily agreed and Salisbury’s name was removed from the council register that same day.<sup>57</sup> One week after the dissolution, Salisbury was one of 16 peers to present a petition to the king against holding the next Parliament in Oxford.<sup>58</sup> In the elections for the Parliament of March 1681 Salisbury was again able to see the return for Hertford of the exclusionist incumbent Members Cowper and Byde. He was less effective in the county where Silius Titus<sup>‡</sup>, the candidate preferred by him and the lord lieutenant of Essex, was rejected by the gentry in favour of the court candidate, the sitting Member Charles Caesar<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>59</sup> In the weeks before Parliament met, he was on the receiving end of Danby’s blandishments in the latter’s attempt to secure bail. Danby forecast that Salisbury would be opposed to his petition for bail to be presented at the Parliament and correspondingly entrusted Edward Griffin*, later Baron Griffin, with letters to be given to a number of the ‘enemy lords’, as he dubbed them – Salisbury, Clare, Bridgwater, and Huntingdon – in which they would be solicited to give him assistance in his application for release.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Danby’s blandishments were to no avail, for Salisbury clearly showed that he was still well-integrated among the Whigs opposed to Danby, York and the king. He travelled to Oxford for the Parliament in the company of Shaftesbury and a company of 200 horsemen. When they stayed overnight at Wycombe they were so suspicious of a royal attack that they were guarded by 60 cavalrymen.<sup>61</sup> He was present in the Lords’ chamber at Oxford from the first day, 21 Mar. 1681, and on 24 Mar. when Danby’s petition was presented before the House he, with Shaftesbury, Halifax, Essex and Bridgwater, among others, made their opposition clear, arguing that it was submitted at the wrong time, when there was so much other business to transact. In addition, they argued that Danby should have petitioned for a speedy trial rather than for bail itself. They managed to get consideration of the petition postponed for another four days.<sup>62</sup> Danby made clear his disgust at this development, and particularly that Halifax, who had split with the Whigs over the Exclusion bill, was now siding with them again: ‘I am sorry to find my Lord Halifax joined with Lord Essex, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, etc. as men who he thinks now ready to promote the king’s business’.<sup>63</sup> The following day marked Salisbury’s final attendance in the Lords. He was named as one of the managers of the conference concerning the method of passing bills and registered his protest against the resolution to proceed against the conspirator Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than upon the impeachment of the Commons. Parliament was suddenly and unexpectedly dissolved when it met again two days later, on 28 Mar., but Salisbury, perhaps having advance notice, was not present for the dissolution.</p><p>In May 1681, Salisbury was one of many signatories to a petition to the king which successfully requested a pardon for Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, once again accused of murder after a drunken binge and this time facing the death penalty even if convicted on a lesser charge of manslaughter.<sup>64</sup> Meanwhile, he continued to act as a senior member of the opposition. In April he and Bedford had pressed for a summons of the London common council so that they could present an address opposing the points in the printed royal declaration justifying the dissolution.<sup>65</sup> In the first two weeks of May he was part of ‘a very numerous auditory’ of peers, largely Whigs, who diligently attended the court of King’s Bench to hear the preliminary proceedings in the trial of the conspirator Edward Fitzharris. Upon Fitzharris’s request, Salisbury and Essex asked the king for permission to see the prisoner in the Tower, so that they could hear his long-promised information about the Plot, but this request was denied and the attorney general was sent to the prisoner instead.<sup>66</sup> On 8 June, the day before Fitzharris’s scheduled trial, Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Essex and Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, attempted to speak with the king in council at Whitehall, in order to try for another delay so that Fitzharris could give his testimony, but the king again refused them, and told them they should attend him instead at Windsor at nine the following day, ‘a time he knew they would not be with him because of hearing Fitzharris’s trial. So this is a slight to their whole party’. Salisbury was certainly part of the ‘great concourse of persons of quality’ attending Fitzharris’s trial the next day, where the hapless informer was found guilty and sentenced to death.<sup>67</sup> He also attended the grand jury hearing at the Old Bailey when charges against Stephen College were thrown out.<sup>68</sup> Within hours of Fitzharris’s execution on 1 July, Shaftesbury too was arrested and in the Tower, and it was rumoured that Salisbury and Essex would soon be following him there.<sup>69</sup> Salisbury appears to have lain low for the next year or so, and was perhaps preoccupied by his wife’s increasing ill health. In August 1682 the two travelled to France, in a splendid equipage of three coaches, six horses, and 30 horsemen, so she could take the waters at Bourbon. Barely had they arrived at Paris that month when she was taken seriously ill and died, prompting his quick and grieving return to England.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Salisbury was later implicated in the Rye House Plot. William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, claimed in his statement at the Privy Council that the conspirators had sent Essex and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, to Hatfield to engage Salisbury. Essex confirmed that Salisbury had indeed been involved.<sup>71</sup> James Butler*, duke of Ormond, later maintained that it was unthinkable that Salisbury would have been involved in an assassination plot, but if he, Essex and the others accused had ‘no inkling of that impious reason, they were very negligent or ill befriended in their own party’.<sup>72</sup> Salisbury could not have been actively involved in the arrangements, if at all, for by 23 Apr. 1683 he was dangerously ill ‘if not dead’.<sup>73</sup> He deteriorated after a relapse in May supposedly brought on by a surfeit of buttermilk.<sup>74</sup> At the age of only 37, Salisbury died on 24 May at Hatfield. He had revised his will no less than four times since its original drafting in July 1675, most recently in the weeks prior to his death. Its generous terms to his ten surviving children – five sons and five daughters – caused serious difficulties for his trustees as they tried to provide for all of the children out of an already encumbered estate. In its last recension he provided for legacies of £10,000 to each of the five daughters, as well as annuities of £150 p.a. before their marriages, and of £6,500 to each of the five sons. He also granted miscellaneous life annuities totalling £350 p.a. and others of £200 p.a. to each of his three trustees including John Tillotson. The cash legacies to the children amounted to £78,600, and the annuities totalled £2,600 p.a., while he also had outstanding personal debts of £33,918. At his death it was estimated that the estate enjoyed a gross annual income of £12,200 p.a., while Salisbury’s personal estate was worth £11,093, hardly sufficient to cover the specified legacies.<sup>75</sup> Tillotson and the other trustees were forced to sell parts of the Cecil estate to fulfil the bequests. They also had to deal not only with extensive litigation between the eldest son, and principal heir, James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and his brother Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup> over the will, but also with the great complications, legal and familial, caused by the 4th earl’s conversion to Catholicism.<sup>76</sup> Salisbury, having left the family fortunes in disarray, was buried with his ancestors at Hatfield, in a ceremony costing an economical £236 (‘which must have been one of the meanest funerals ever accorded to a seventeenth-century earl’ according to one historian). He was eulogized by the Dissenter and Whig Roger Morrice, who commented that ‘his death makes a great breach’, while another contemporary thought his death was ‘a great loss to the nation’.<sup>77</sup></p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
CECIL, James (1666-94) |
<p><strong><surname>CECIL</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1666–94)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1668-83 Visct. Cranborne; <em>suc. </em>fa. 24 May 1683 (a minor) as 4th earl of SALISBURY. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 26 Sep. 1666,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury and Margaret, da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland; bro. of Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. St John’s, Camb. 1682; travelled abroad (France and Italy) c.1683-8.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 13 July 1683 (with £20,000),<sup>3</sup> Frances (<em>d</em>. 8 July 1713), da. and coh. of. Simon Bennet of Beachampton and Calverton, Bucks., 1s. 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 24 Oct. 1694; <em>will</em> 22 Dec. 1692-2 Sept. 1694, pr. 6 Nov. 1694.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 29 Nov.-24 Dec. 1688.<sup>6</sup></p><p>High steward, Hertford 1684-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Capt., tp. of horse 27 Sept.-5 Nov. 1688; col., regt. of horse 5 Nov.-14 Dec. 1688.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses:, group portrait with sister Catherine Cecil, oil on canvas by John Michael Wright, c.1668, Hatfield House, Herts.; two portraits, oil on canvas, by William Wissing c.1685, Hatfield House, Herts.</p> |
<p>As a member of one of the most politically significant families of the Tudor and early Stuart periods, James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury, had a prestigious name and title, as well as the grand residence of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire to add physical display to his prominence. Yet upon the death of his father James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, on 24 May 1683, the Cecil estate was in a perilous state, caused largely by the extravagant generosity of the late earl to his ten surviving children. In the last of many recensions of the will the 3rd earl provided for legacies of £10,000 to each of the five daughters, as well as annuities of £150 p.a. until the age of 18 or their marriages, and legacies of £6,500 to each of the four younger sons, as well as annuities of £300 p.a. to the three youngest. The cash legacies to the children and others amounted to £78,600, and the annuities totalled £2,600 p.a., while the earl left outstanding personal debts of £33,918. At his death it was estimated that the estate enjoyed a gross annual income of £12,200 p.a., while Salisbury’s personal estate was worth £11,093, which was hardly sufficient to cover the vast expenditures Salisbury had set out in his will.<sup>9</sup></p><p>The trustees appointed by the 3rd earl’s will, including John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, immediately sought a rich heiress for the new 17-year old earl, and quickly settled on the 13-year old Frances Bennet, one of two co-heiresses of Simon Bennet, a merchant of substantial City wealth. Frances was the heir to a landed estate worth £1,800 p.a. and a further £1,100 p.a. in reversion.<sup>10</sup> She could also bring with her a portion of £20,000 from her father’s personal estate. However, only half of that promised portion was to be disbursed if Frances married before the age of 16. Salisbury and his advisers could not wait and sought to effect the marriage immediately. They exacted an agreement out of John Bennet<sup>‡</sup> of Abingdon, the husband of the other remaining daughter and co-heiress, Grace Bennet, that he would not contest the full payment of the £20,000 portion despite the breach of the terms of the will. The marriage took place on 13 July 1683.<sup>11</sup></p><p>It has been calculated that in the 1680s Salisbury’s wife’s income brought him more than £1,500 p.a. and the Cecil estate enjoyed a gross revenue of about £5,000 p.a.<sup>12</sup> This was still, however, a situation that called for economizing and austerity, but legal squabbles and Salisbury’s own character quickly got in the way of this project. Almost immediately after the death of the 3rd earl, his second son, Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup>, commenced suits in Chancery against his eldest brother concerning the terms of the will; suits which were to occupy Salisbury and the trustees and executors of the will in acrimonious litigation over the next several years.<sup>13</sup> In addition, John Bennet almost immediately went back on his promise to Salisbury’s guardians and used the courts in an attempt to reduce payment of the portion to £10,000.<sup>14</sup> Furthermore, shortly after his marriage Salisbury set out on his travels on the continent, as it had been arranged that his marriage with Frances Bennet would not be consummated until she was 16 years old. While abroad Salisbury made matters worse by lavishly gambling and spending his way across the continent.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Worse was to follow and by late April 1686 the rumour was rife in England that the earl had converted to Catholicism.<sup>16</sup> A lampoon <em>Cecil the Wise</em>, contrasted the 4th earl’s obesity, rumoured conversion to Catholicism and adventuring on the continent with the ‘wise’ statesmanship and protestantism of his illustrious forebears William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, Baron Burghley, and Robert Cecil<sup>†</sup>, earl of Salisbury.<sup>17</sup> Communications between his estate managers confirm that the earl had definitely converted to the Church of Rome in May 1686. Throughout 1687 political commentators consistently reckoned Salisbury as a Roman Catholic politically sympathetic to James II and supportive of a repeal of the Test Acts.<sup>18</sup> This dating from correspondence counters the common Whig version of events that has it that Salisbury converted out of political expediency only months before the invasion and revolution of November 1688.<sup>19</sup> Despite his portrayal as a cynical pragmatist and political dupe, Salisbury does appear to have harboured a genuine personal and ideological attachment to James II and Catholicism.</p><p>Salisbury returned to England some time in the last days of December 1687, upon which he promptly attended the king, by whom he was well received.<sup>20</sup> Throughout 1688 Salisbury willingly participated in the king’s catholicizing policies. Locally, he began to build a Catholic chapel at Hatfield, heard a Jesuit preach at the Hertford assizes (while the Protestant divines took themselves off to the parish church) and was specifically named as that borough’s high steward (an office which he had held since coming to the title) when its new charter was granted in August.<sup>21</sup> By July 1688 he was touted for high office, when it was rumoured that either he or his fellow Catholic Robert Carey*, 6th Baron Hunsdon, would be made lord chamberlain.<sup>22</sup> It was only on 27 Sept. that his brief military career began, when he was commissioned captain of a troop of horse. He spent some £1,000 to equip them at his own charge; they exercised before the king in October in red cloaks lined with orange.<sup>23</sup> With the news of William of Orange’s landfall, he was promoted to be colonel of a troop of horse on 5 Nov. and appointed gentleman of the bedchamber at the very end of that month, as James’s regime slowly crumbled.<sup>24</sup> On 4 Dec., with the prince’s army approaching ever nearer to the capital, a royal pardon exempting Salisbury for all offences relating to his recusancy passed the Great Seal.<sup>25</sup> Nevertheless, on 7 Dec., the Middlesex grand jury at Hicks Hall presented Salisbury, as well as Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, as guilty of high treason for converting to Rome. The jurors were faced with ‘such powerful mediations and persuasions’ that they agreed to let the presentment drop for the law term.<sup>26</sup> Salisbury and Peterborough accompanied the queen and the prince of Wales on their escape from the capital to the Kentish coast on 10 December. The following day, after the departure of the king himself, the provisional government at the Guildhall ordered the sheriff of London to search the earl’s London house for arms.<sup>27</sup> Salisbury and Peterborough were detained in Kent on 11 Dec. and confined at Canterbury. On Christmas Eve 1688, the provisional government ordered their commitment to the Tower on charges of high treason.<sup>28</sup> They had to be brought up from Kent first and were not incarcerated until the first days of 1689; Salisbury’s detention in the Tower was noted at a call of the House during the Convention on 25 Jan. 1689.<sup>29</sup> Within weeks Salisbury was rumoured to have reconverted to Protestantism, ‘being regained per the great pains and piety’ of Tillotson, who had long been involved with the 4th earl as one of the trustees of his father’s will. This rumour was unfounded, for by February his reconversion to the national church was still a favourite project of many divines.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On 12 Mar. 1689 the new secretary of state Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, relented sufficiently to grant Salisbury the liberty of the Tower.<sup>31</sup> Almost immediately afterwards an issue arose that would only have worsened his reputation and standing with the crown and Parliament. On 16 Mar. Elizabeth, countess of Burlington, wife of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, and the guardian, by the terms of the 3rd earl’s will, of Salisbury’s younger brothers William and Charles Cecil, presented a petition in the House against Salisbury for removing his brothers from Eton and sending them to France for a Catholic education. The House ordered that Salisbury be interviewed in the Tower. On 25 Mar. Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, who had apprehended Salisbury in Kent and brought him back to the capital, reported that at the interview Salisbury claimed that his brothers had gone of their own volition to visit James II in France. A committee was quickly established to consider his answer and to take the testimony of others involved with the Cecil family, such as Tillotson and the estate steward, Ebeneezer Sadler. After these witnesses were sworn on 27 Mar., testimony was heard from the master of Eton, and on 3 Apr. the House decided that Salisbury had indeed taken his brothers away from that school without Lady Burlington’s consent and he was ordered to return them to her care before 15 May.<sup>32</sup> Passes were quickly drawn up for an agent of the earl to go to France to retrieve the boys, but he was taken ill at Dover and was unable to travel so on 11 May the House extended the deadline for the boys’ return to 1 June.<sup>33</sup> The boys still had not been returned by 11 June, whereupon the House, in exasperation, ordered that a writ of <em>de homine replegiando</em> be brought against Salisbury for failing to obey the House’s orders.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Salisbury’s Catholicism was now a major factor in the ongoing dispute over the Cecil patrimony. On 17 Aug. 1689 a bill intending to attaint those Catholics and ‘disaffected to the government’ who refused to take the requisite oaths was brought up from the Commons, including a last-minute clause, added by the Commons at the third reading, ensuring that any of Salisbury’s estates forfeited were to go directly to the trustees of the 3rd earl for the payment of his debts and the legacies and annuities intended for the younger, Protestant, children. The bill was brought up just days before the adjournment of 20 Aug. and was eventually lost at the prorogation of 21 October.<sup>35</sup> Meanwhile, Salisbury remained in the Tower. On 26 Oct. 1689, Salisbury appeared at King’s Bench on a writ of <em>habeas corpus</em> but was refused bail. On that same day, 26 Oct. 1689, only four days into the following session of the Convention, Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> came from the Commons to inform the House of the impeachment of both Salisbury and Peterborough on charges of high treason, ‘in departing from their alliance, and being reconciled to the Church of Rome’.<sup>36</sup> Two days later, Salisbury was brought from the Tower and kneeling at the bar of the House, gave his terse answer to the charges against him: ‘I went abroad young, and was seven years out, and did not return a year before I was committed. As for my religion, when I come to defend it, I will defend myself as well as I can. I hope this honourable House doth not expect I should accuse myself’. This response, perceived as arrogant, did little to aid his cause, and he was immediately recommitted to the Tower, although he was granted liberty to walk abroad within the prison and to visit his ailing wife as he was conveyed to the Tower.<sup>37</sup></p><p>The articles of impeachment were never delivered and Salisbury had to spend the next several months in the Tower. On 10 Feb. 1690, with the Convention dissolved, he stood before the court of King’s Bench in a last-minute attempt to be bailed before the end of the law term but was instead recommitted by the court, with Peterborough, because of the pending articles of impeachment.<sup>38</sup> Salisbury’s estate managers were glad to announce that he and the countess, then with him in the Tower, remained in good health and were ‘content’ but were dismayed at the effect of the earl’s behaviour on both the estate and his dependents. This ‘unhappy self-willed man has put fair to undo himself, his relations, friends’, leaving them all in a ‘ruinous’ condition.<sup>39</sup> As a result of the Act of General Pardon passed in the first session of William III’s 1690 Parliament, the prospects for Salisbury’s release from the Tower were more favourable. Certainly, Salisbury had sight of a letter of 26 May 1690 from the secretary of state Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to the attorney general specifying that as Peterborough and Salisbury had not been excepted from the general pardon and that it was the king’s desire that they be released.<sup>40</sup> Salisbury again appeared before King’s Bench on both 30 May and 20 June 1690, expecting to be discharged on the basis of the Act of General Pardon, but each time the court, despite the king’s apparent wishes, was unprepared to discharge him, ‘being an inferior court to that which impeached and committed him and that legally still sitting.’ While several other prisoners incarcerated for actions against William III were released under the Act of General Pardon in the late summer of 1690, Salisbury remained imprisoned, as he was ‘there upon other accounts’. It was clear that he would have to apply to Parliament itself for his release.<sup>41</sup></p><p>On the first day of the 1690-91 session, 2 Oct. 1690, Salisbury submitted a petition to the House for release on the grounds that he had been a prisoner for a year and nine months, despite and the Act of General Pardon, and that in addition the Convention which had originally impeached him had since been dissolved. On 6 Oct. the judges gave their opinion that both Salisbury and Peterborough fell under the terms of the Act and should be released. After ‘a long debate’ the House, nevertheless, resolved not to discharge either Salisbury or Peterborough, though only by a majority of eight (29 to 21). The lord president of the council, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), intervened and was able to get the House to vote that the two peers could be bailed rather than set at liberty. On 7 Oct. 1690 Salisbury was brought before the House to be bailed. His first choice of a surety, Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, was rejected as he was himself under bail. Instead, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, and Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntington, came forward each standing surety for him to the amount of £5,000, while Salisbury himself put up a remaining £10,000.<sup>42</sup></p><p>This still left unresolved the central issue: whether impeachments remained in force from Parliament to Parliament. The House established a committee to inspect precedents in this matter on 6 Oct., as it was discussing the fate of the two Catholic earls. The report from the committee, with a long series of precedents, was heard on 30 Oct., after which the House resolved that Salisbury, Huntingdon and Thanet, should be discharged from their bail and recognizances and the earl released unconditionally. The vote prompted a protest from eight peers, who objected that the two peers were not discharged by the royal Act of General Pardon because their offence was under parliamentary jurisdiction, an impeachment submitted by the Commons (who had not been consulted in this decision to release them), and their impeachments had not been specifically pardoned in the Act.<sup>43</sup></p><p>When Salisbury gained his release from the Tower, the dispute over his father’s will entered a new phase in his siblings’ attempt to obtain private legislation against their eldest brother and his management of the estate. On 22 Oct. 1690, the House heard the first reading of Robert Cecil’s bill which sought to prevent his brother Salisbury from cutting off the entail and disposing of the estate as he wished. In the preamble to the first draft of the bill, Cecil made clear the reasons he was submitting the bill and his concerns. He claimed that Salisbury:</p><blockquote><p>still continuing a Papist and persisting in his zeal for that party, and having conceived a very great prejudice against and hatred unto your suppliant for no other reason in the world but your suppliant being a Protestant and zealous for their Majesties’ service and the present government, doth intend (as your suppliant is credibly informed and hath just reason to believe) to suffer several other common recoveries of all the residue of the said estate on purpose to bar your suppliant of the said remainder and with a design to settle the said estate upon some person of his own religion, or convey the same to the use and service of the Romish party, he, the said now earl, having seriously and publicly declared that he would leave your suppliant a poor earl and disinherit your suppliant of all he could.<sup>44</sup></p></blockquote><p>Counsel for both Cecil, who had the reversionary interest in the entailed estate, and Salisbury were heard on 27 Oct. and Salisbury, through his counsel, objected strongly to the legislation, particularly on the question of his popery and hatred and malice to his brother as stated in the preamble, which he challenged Cecil and his counsel to prove.<sup>45</sup> The bill was committed to a large committee of 65 members of the House and from 29 Oct. to 10 Nov. Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, chaired nine intense meetings of the committee. The wording of the preamble caused concern and it was determined to postpone its consideration and leave it to the House to decide what to do with it.<sup>46</sup> Rochester reported the bill, with several amendments and provisos added by the committee, to the House on 10 Nov. and the House agreed to excise an offending part of the preamble. They still recommitted the bill and assigned the lord chief justice, Sir Henry Pollexfen<sup>‡</sup>, to draw up a special clause for the bill to bind the tenant-in-life of the entailed estate to pay the legacies and annuities of the two youngest Cecil brothers (those spirited away by Salisbury to France and whom he had never summoned back despite all the orders of the House) who were now apparently ‘in rebellion’ and convinced Catholics. This, Robert Cecil’s counsel objected, seemed to go against the wishes of Parliament which was then considering measures to prevent Catholics from inheriting; in addition, the remaining Protestant brother did not seem to be provided for by the clause. The committee deferred a decision on this clause to the House and when it was reported the following day, 11 Nov., the House rejected it by a majority of seven. On 12 Nov. one last addition was made to the bill at the table and then it was read a third time and passed and sent down to Commons.<sup>47</sup> Throughout this procedure the Cecil estate managers commiserated over the miserable state of ‘our great family’ and the ‘great storms and animosities’ caused by the bill which, they believed, had now created an irreconcilable rift between the older brothers.<sup>48</sup> There was, indeed, continuing bad blood between the brothers. On 20 Nov., with his bill still under consideration in the Commons, Robert Cecil and his siblings petitioned the House to prevent Salisbury from insisting on his privilege in the ongoing chancery dispute, ‘he having once waived his privilege when it was for his advantage and now takes it up again when he perceives the causes are likely to go against him’. On 24 Nov., when the House was to hear counsel and witnesses on this matter, the Speaker Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup> read a letter from Salisbury in which the earl insisted that he had previously waived his privilege in such causes, prompting the House to order that he should not insist upon his privilege in the future.<sup>49</sup> A few weeks later, on 17 Dec. 1690, the bill to limit the power of Salisbury to cut off the entail on his estates was returned from the Commons, with some amendments. Debate on these was postponed to the following day, when the House agreed to two of the new provisos but felt the need to amend the third and called for a conference with the lower House to present their own amendments. On 19 Dec. the Commons returned the bill with the message that they agreed to the amendments made by the House and the bill received the royal assent the following day. This was not the last time the family’s internal squabbles were dealt with in Parliament in that session. On 30 Dec. 1690 the committee of the whole House considering the bill of attainder for those ‘in rebellion’ against William and Mary, and the forfeiture of their estates, heard several petitions and provisos in mitigation of the bill’s harsh conditions, among them one to exempt the two youngest Cecil brothers, in case they received a royal pardon from the king and provided due evidence that they had received the sacrament in the Church of England. The proviso was debated again before the committee on 1 Jan. 1691 when it was accepted, but the bill in its entirety was lost at the prorogation four days later.<sup>50</sup></p><p>By the following spring, Salisbury’s pessimistic estate managers concluded that Cranborne and the other estates put in trust to raise money to fulfil the 3rd earl’s legacies ‘will unavoidably go to pot’ and they saw ‘already the vultures and ravens falling on us after the slaughter of a battle’. One matter gave them a glimmer of hope, Lady Salisbury’s pregnancy: ‘the little great belly is thus far safe, about Easter we shall expect delivery’.<sup>51</sup> It was actually not until June 1691 that Salisbury’s sole son and heir James Cecil*, styled Viscount Cranborne from birth (later 5th earl of Salisbury) was born, which in one swoop undid the complicated and acrimonious legislative effort of Robert Cecil’s act.<sup>52</sup> In March 1691 Salisbury’s hopes of preserving a Catholic dynasty among the Cecils was given a grievous blow when one of his younger brothers – the objects of so much parliamentary concern – was killed by the other one after a midnight argument.<sup>53</sup> In July, when dining with Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, Salisbury argued with a fellow guest when discussing the hunting prowess of James II; he appears to have interpreted a comment on James II’s bad aim as having a wider political meaning. Both men were ‘confined’ by their friends to their houses to prevent a duel.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Although he was not eligible to sit in the House, Salisbury was still a frequent point of conversation in the session of 1691-2, just as he had been in the previous one. On 2 Nov. 1691, John Bennet and his wife Grace appealed to the House against a chancery decree of 1 May 1691 in favour of Salisbury and his countess in the matter of the contested marriage portion. Salisbury was given until 13 Nov. to submit his answer and, after hearing counsel for both sides, on 20 Nov. the House dismissed Bennet’s petition.<sup>55</sup> On 9 Dec. 1691 Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, reported from the committee for petitions that a proposed bill ‘for the better securing the portions, debts, and legacies given and owing by James, late earl of Salisbury’ was fit to be received by the House. It received its first reading the following day and on 11 Dec. was committed to a committee of 37 members. After committee meetings on 16 and 18 Dec. its chairman, Rochester again, reported the bill on 21 Dec. with several amendments, which were quickly approved by the House. The engrossed bill was passed on 31 Dec. and sent to the Commons in time for the new year. It was returned from the Commons on 25 Jan. 1692 with one further amendment, to which the House agreed and the bill received the royal assent on 24 Feb. 1692.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Suspicions of Jacobite activity continued to surround Salisbury in these fraught years. In the winter of 1691-2 he was mentioned in the testimony of William Fuller, as a correspondent with the exiled court at St Germain.<sup>57</sup> He was also presented in early 1692 for recusancy at the Hertfordshire assizes.<sup>58</sup> When a more serious and real Jacobite threat than that envisaged by Fuller was afoot with the possibility of a French ‘descent’ in the summer of 1692, Salisbury was one of the many suspects rounded up and committed to the Tower by order of the Privy Council, and again charged with high treason, on 6 May. Initially he was a ‘close’ prisoner, but the queen quickly relented and allowed him visitors and the ‘liberty of the leads in the Tower’.<sup>59</sup> When it shortly after transpired that Salisbury’s name had been forged on the document produced by the informer Robert Young which appeared to implicate him in a treasonous association, he was bailed, for £5,000, on 18 June.<sup>60</sup> It was not until 18 Nov. 1692, or shortly after, that Salisbury was discharged from his bail and released, the decision to do so (and the delay) being in the context of the debates in the House throughout November on the commitment of Salisbury’s fellow peers and prisoners of spring 1692, Huntingdon and John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, who were not discharged from their bail by order of the House until 18 November.<sup>61</sup> Salisbury faced suspicions of Jacobitism for the rest of his life. In June 1694 James Lunt saw fit to include Salisbury, albeit tangentially, in his list of those sympathetic to the spurious plans of a Jacobite assassination of William III which became infamously known as the ‘Lancashire Plot’.<sup>62</sup></p><p>In September 1694 Salisbury fell ill with ‘black jaundice’ and rumours of his death were widespread. He died on 24 Oct. 1694 at his lodging in Gerrard Street, Soho.<sup>63</sup> Salisbury, whose only experience of the House of Lords had been to be on the receiving end of its judicial and legislative activities, was buried in the family vault at Hatfield after being carried ‘in great state’ from London, though one commentator could not resist noticing that the coffin was ‘a yard deep’ owing to the earl’s infamous obesity.<sup>64</sup> Salisbury left the Cecil estate in even worse condition than he had found it. During his 11 years as earl his average annual expenditure had been £9,757, on a disposable income of only about £4,000 p.a. as most of the income, including the windfalls of the Bennet portion (eventually adjusted between the contending parties to £17,000) and sale of land totalling £36,000, had to go towards paying the legacies intended by his father. He left behind him his own debts of £52,000, to add to those of his father still outstanding. By his will and its codicil he left various bequests to his estate and business managers, £200 to his sister, Lady Mary Forrester, wife of Sir William Forester<sup>‡</sup>, and an annuity of £300 p.a. to his sister, Lady Frances Holford (but excluding her husband Sir William Holford who had been an active Whig conspirator against James II). He also left his sister, Frances, £3,000 for portions and the education of her children. With the outstanding charges and legacies from the wills of both the 3rd and 4th earls, the guardians of the heir and successor, three-year-old James Cecil, 5th earl of Salisbury, had, on average, about £2,240 p.a. disposable income by which to maintain the household of the young man in a manner fitting for an earl – and to pay over £50,000 of debts. The settlement of the 4th earl’s will took some 50 years to effect, despite the extreme youth of the successor which allowed a programme of austerity to be implemented within the estate during his prolonged minority.<sup>65</sup></p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
CECIL, James (1691-1728) |
<p><strong><surname>CECIL</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1691–1728)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1691-94 Visct. Cranborne; <em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Oct. 1694 (a minor) as 5th earl of SALISBURY. |
|
First sat 9 June 1712; last sat 8 May 1728 |
|
|
<p>b. 8 June 1691, o.s. and h. of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Frances (d.1713), da. of Simon Bennett, esq. of Beachampton, Bucks. educ. Christ Church, Oxf., matric. 1705, cr. MA 1707. m. 12 Feb. 1709, Anne (1693-1757), da. of Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, 1s. d. 9 Oct. 1728; <em>admon</em>. to wid. 23 Oct. 1728.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>High steward, Hertford, 1694-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Herts. 1712-14.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by John Smith aft. Sir G. Kneller 1696, NPG D31109; mezzotint by Pieter Schenk aft. Sir G. G. Kneller 1695 NPG D4152.</p> |
<p>Born into the politically weighty Cecil dynasty to the accompaniment of ‘sack and claret plenty’, James Cecil succeeded to the earldom of Salisbury as a young child and inherited an estate encumbered with legacies and debts.<sup>2</sup> He remained under the guardianship of his mother while his lands, manors and advowsons were administered by trustees appointed under his father’s will, including Ebenezer Sadler, agent to the 4th earl.<sup>3</sup> The Cecils’ election interests in both Hertford and the county (but not that of Salisbury’s Whiggish uncle Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup>) were also maintained by Sadler and his subordinates during the earl’s minority.<sup>4</sup> By the time Salisbury went up to Oxford, he was regarded by his tutor as ‘a gentleman of excellent parts, principles and temper ... intent in observing our little rites and ceremonies’.<sup>5</sup> His sixteenth birthday was celebrated in Oxford with week long festivities attended by 28 ‘merry Hertfordshire gentlemen’, including the Tory Charles Caesar<sup>‡</sup>, Commons Member for Hertford.<sup>6</sup></p><p>A stalwart Tory Anglican whose tutors ensured his orthodoxy, Salisbury nevertheless took an interest in both protestant and Catholic nonconformity; he purchased books on a wide range of religious topics and in 1706 he gave a guinea to ‘Bugg the Quaker’.<sup>7</sup> In fact by 1700 Francis Bugg (1640-1727) had deserted the Society of Friends and begun a campaign of abuse directed against Quakers, and it is possible that Salisbury was helping to fund Bugg’s stream of vitriolic publications. Salisbury’s care to steer a steady Anglican course was evident in 1708 when a non-juror dedicated a doctrinal treatise to the young earl; Salisbury ‘having not been desired this favour, and thinking to patronize a non-juror would be taken ill by the government, refused to accept it, and it was returned back.’<sup>8</sup></p><p>At the May 1708 election for Hertford, Salisbury’s agent laid out numerous sums in electioneering expenses, including the entertainment of two Hertford freemen the night before the election.<sup>9</sup> Fourteen shillings were spent on engaging votes for the Tory Charles Caesar ‘by my lord’s order’.<sup>10</sup> With the Whig Junto in the ascendancy in central government (and William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, as lord chancellor purging the Hertfordshire bench of Tories), Caesar and the Tory, John Dimsdale, were defeated in a contested election, but the Tories retained their grip on the county.<sup>11</sup> The county elections of 1705 and 1708 for Hertfordshire also involved Salisbury (still a minor) in expenditure at ten different locations, including Hertford, Hatfield and St Albans.<sup>12</sup> Despite his minority, it is clear that he was regarded as a standing political influence; on 14 Feb. 1708 he was contacted by the Tory George Smalridge*, later bishop of Bristol, about election matters. Smalridge hoped that the Salisbury interest would ‘receive considerable strength by the return of some able gentlemen to their former friends: they meet with a very cheerful reception, and will, it is believed, join heartily in promoting that cause in Parliament which they found they could not serve at court, and therefore left it.’<sup>13</sup> By May 1708, secretary of state Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡ </sup>learned that ‘Church people’ were overjoyed at their success in the Hertfordshire election despite Cowper having promoted ‘the Whigs’ interest.<sup>14</sup> Salisbury and his mother continued to enjoy the bounty of the Salisbury estate but to Ebenezer Sadler’s dismay, ‘scattered all the fat bucks abroad before the season was half over’, leaving the stock so diminished that the countess refused to spare venison for hospitality or to buy in new stock and ‘checked’ the young Salisbury’s demands for a buck to entertain friends at Oxford.<sup>15</sup></p><p>By January 1709 the society gossips were busy with news of the imminent marriage of the 18-year-old Salisbury to the daughter of the earl of Thanet.<sup>16</sup> The marriage took place the following month in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel.<sup>17</sup> In December 1709 Salisbury was admitted a member of the Board of Brothers, a Tory dining club under the presidency of Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort.<sup>18</sup> His religious sympathies were made apparent by his offer of the next vacancy of the living of Hatfield (worth £800 a year) to Dr. Sacheverell.<sup>19</sup> With the dissolution of Parliament in September 1710 and a fiercely contested general election, Salisbury’s interest in Hertfordshire was pressed home. The Tories Caesar and Richard Goulston<sup>‡</sup> were returned for Hertford borough, but the county candidate, Ralph Freman<sup>‡</sup>, forewarned Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, that Cowper’s appointment as lord lieutenant of the county would lead to Salisbury feeling neglected ‘and … as the greatest support of a different interest, that we were now in hopes would be lessened.’<sup>20</sup> The Hertfordshire electorate, nevertheless, followed the national pattern, and Ralph Freman<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Halsey<sup>‡</sup> were subsequently elected for the county. On reaching his majority Salisbury replaced Cowper as lord lieutenant of Hertfordshire (only to lose the position to Cowper in 1714).</p><p>The young peer’s finances were precarious and made all the worse by his extravagance. He benefited from significant loans from Trumbull but stopped paying interest on them in or about the spring of 1710.<sup>21</sup> Sadler despaired of him; in 1711 he told Trumbull that,</p><blockquote><p>there appears no prospect of matters mending with us unless some extraordinary course be taken. Your principal debtor takes as little care or notice of the debts upon his estate as if he were no way concerned with them. His study seems to be how to spend only, and his expenses since his marriage (tho he had a year’s board gratis) have more than doubled his income. … I am the only person living that have remonstrated and laid these matters plainly before him, so miserable is his case that not one relation, one person of quality, not one friend in all the world, will admonish or advise him. And in truth he has put it out of their power by abandoning all acquaintance and conversation with people of quality & consuming his time and money among little scoundrel officers and scandalous rakes, who draw him into daily excesses & mad motions to the hazard of his life every day he rises.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>By December 1711 the debt (capital plus interest) amounted to some £10,000. Correspondence about the debt and arrears continued for some two years, despite Salisbury promising to sell lands in order to pay Trumbull as soon as he came of age. The negotiations over repayment later resulted in attempts to obtain a private bill.<sup>23</sup> It was not until the death of the dowager countess released £6,000 a year to the earl in the summer of 1713 that Trumbull eventually got his money.<sup>24</sup></p><p>On 9 June 1712, the day after Salisbury’s twenty-first birthday, he took his seat in the House. His parliamentary career proved to be lacklustre. In his first parliamentary session, Salisbury attended 12 per cent of sittings; his subsequent attendance levels barely scraped above a quarter of all sittings in any session before 1715. During his absences from the House, he always entered his proxy in favour of his friend and fellow member of the Board of Brothers, Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale. In February 1713, Oxford, who had been kept informed of the movements of the underage Salisbury through Ebenezer Sadler, made a note that he should contact Salisbury before the start of the session. Once Salisbury attained his majority, he began to use his own interest with Oxford for favours for family members.<sup>25</sup> He arrived at the House on the first day of the April 1713 parliamentary session and attended 27 per cent of sittings – a relatively high level for him which may reflect his interest in securing the passage of the bill that would enable him to sell property and pay Trumbull. On 13 May the judges reported on Salisbury’s petition to bring in the bill and the House ordered its first reading. On 2 June John Somers*, Baron Somers, reported from the committee, and the House ordered the engrossment of the bill without amendments. It was steered though the Commons by Ralph Freman, the Tory member for Hertfordshire who had stood on the earl’s interest. Dealing with Salisbury was clearly somewhat difficult; one of Trumbull’s correspondents referred to Salisbury as ‘that odd creature’; another remarked that Salisbury was neither ‘tractable’ nor ‘punctual’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>On 13 June 1713 Oxford estimated that Salisbury would support the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He missed the last four weeks of parliamentary business up to the dissolution of August. During the elections for Hertford borough, Salisbury’s agent again laid out various sums for beer, wine and brandy in support of Caesar and Goulston, and he made a number of financial gifts and loans for the same purpose. He also paid the travel expenses of Hertford voters to travel to the county elections the following month.<sup>27</sup> All of Salisbury’s candidates were successful.</p><p>Salisbury arrived at the House on 9 Mar. 1714, nearly four weeks into the next session, together with his distant cousin, John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter. He attended 15 per cent of sittings. On 15 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of the earl of Scarsdale (vacated 11 May). It was almost certainly given for the support of the ministry in the divisions of April on the danger to the Protestant Succession. On 27 May, Salisbury was forecast by Oxford as a supporter of the schism bill. He attended only sporadically over the passage of the bill and on 3 June, 28 June and 6 Aug. again registered proxies in favour of Scarsdale (vacated on 4 June, 4 Aug. and the end of the session respectively). He was not present for the division of 11 June on extending the bill to Ireland but attended the House on 15 June when the measure passed the Lords by an eight vote majority.</p><p>In August 1714, Salisbury attended only two sittings of the brief first Parliament in the reign of George I. On 20 Oct. he carried St Edward’s staff at the king’s coronation. The following spring, he arrived at the House nearly three weeks after the start of the session. His parliamentary career up to 1728 will be examined in the next phase of this work (1715-90). Like his father, Salisbury died young. Aged only 37, he died on 9 Oct. 1728 and was buried at the family seat of Hatfield House nine days later.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
CECIL, John (1628-78) |
<p><strong><surname>CECIL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1628–78)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1640-43 Ld. Burghley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 18 Apr. 1643 (a minor) as 4th earl of EXETER. |
|
First sat 4 May 1660; last sat 5 Apr. 1670 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. aft. July 1628, <em>bap</em>. 26 Oct. 1628, s. of David Cecil, 3rd earl of Exeter<sup>†</sup> (c.1604-43) and Elizabeth, da. of John Egerton<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bridgwater. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) 8 Dec. 1646, Frances (d.1669), da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, 2s. (1<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 1da; (2) 24 Jan. 1670, Mary (1639-81), wid. of Francis Palmes, da. of Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, ?<em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 1 Feb. 1678; <em>will</em> 23 Dec. 1677, pr. 20 Mar. 1678.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. high almoner 1661.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Kpr., West Hay Walk, Rockingham Forest 1660;<sup>3</sup> recorder, Stamford 1660-76; <em>custos rot</em>. Rutland, Peterborough 1660;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt., Northants. (jt.) 1660-6, (sole) 1666, (jt.) 1666-73, E. Northants. 1673-8.</p> |
|
<p>Described both as ‘totally undistinguished’ and as ‘one of the most worthy persons of the nation’, Exeter’s own assessment echoed the first and he reckoned himself perhaps overly modestly to be ‘an insignificant creature.’<sup>5</sup> Such a reputation appears undeserved when considered in the light of his holding the lord lieutenancy of Northamptonshire uninterrupted from the Restoration until his death 18 years later. For the majority of the time the lieutenancy was held jointly, but the county was a particularly troublesome one for the king, being host to a sizeable Dissenting population and this, rather than any lack of confidence in either lieutenant, explains the decision to appoint two peers to manage it.</p><p>Exeter’s father had opposed the king in the early stages of the Civil War, but at the Restoration the 4th earl appears to have escaped any adverse reaction to his father’s disloyalty. For all his self-deprecation, he commanded significant interest in Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, with his estates in the former being valued at over £1,200 a year in 1662.<sup>6</sup> Exeter’s family had traditionally enjoyed strong influence over the town of Stamford which adjoined their Burghley estates and in April 1660 Exeter’s kinsman, Francis Wingfield<sup>‡</sup>, was returned as one of the burgesses.<sup>7</sup> When Wingfield chose not to stand in 1661 Exeter was able to secure the return of another of his nominees, William Stafford<sup>‡</sup>, in his stead. The Cecil interest was underpinned by powerful kinship ties. In addition to his connection to the Manners family, the 4th earl was closely related to John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, as well as being brother-in-law to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later earl of Shaftesbury, who from 1667 rented Exeter House in the Strand as his London residence.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Exeter took his seat in the Convention on 4 May 1660 and was thereafter present on 58 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had been assessed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of those Lords whose fathers had sat. He was shortly after added to the committee for privileges and that preparing the bill creating George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, captain general. On 22 May he was appointed <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Rutland and Peterborough, though he was replaced later in the year by Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden. Four days later, he was named to the committee for the king’s safety. On 10 Aug. 1660 Exeter entrusted his proxy to his cousin Bridgwater after which he was absent for the remainder of the session. His absence may have been owing to his involvement the following month with a protracted legal case over the draining of 14,000 acres of Lincolnshire fenland to which he laid claim.<sup>9</sup> Exeter returned to the House shortly after the opening of the second session of the Convention. He sat until 22 Dec. (having attended 44 per cent of all sitting days) but was named only to two committees.</p><p>Exeter failed to attend the coronation after he was granted a dispensation from the king permitting him to remain in the country.<sup>10</sup> His absence from the coronation did not prevent him petitioning to be recognized as hereditary high almoner by virtue of his holding the barony of Bedford. Although Sir George Carteret fulfilled the role during Exeter’s absence, his right to the office was confirmed.<sup>11</sup> He returned to London in time to take his place in the House at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May. On 16 May he was named to the committee considering the Lindsey Level bill in which he had a personal interest. His involvement with the bill may have brought him into conflict with a local rival, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey. In spite of this, Exeter was noted as an opponent of the attempt made by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to secure recognition as lord great chamberlain, presumably preferring Lindsey’s claim to the office. On 2 July Exeter was entrusted with Rutland’s proxy. In November of that year Exeter was himself absent at a call of the House. He returned to the chamber in early 1662 and on 6 Feb. entered his protest over the resolution to pass the bill submitted by Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to be restored to a number of estates sold during the Interregnum. Soon after, Exeter absented himself once more and did not return to the House until midway through the following session in April 1663.</p><p>The summer of 1662 proved troublesome for Exeter. Lieutenancy duties occupied his attention in the first half of the summer when he joined Westmorland in overseeing the destruction of the walls of Northampton.<sup>12</sup> The pair received £50 from secret service funds for their trouble, which it rapidly became apparent was insufficient to cover the amounts expended.<sup>13</sup> There was also some suggestion that his relationship with his partner, Westmorland, was not entirely harmonious, though ill health may explain some of the difficulties experienced during the shared lieutenancy. At one point Exeter sent for his hounds to provide the workers with welcome entertainment.<sup>14</sup></p><p>More dramatic was the breakdown in Exeter’s marriage, which came to a head shortly after. In August, increasingly fractious relations led to Exeter’s estrangement from his countess amid claims that he had mistreated her. Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, anxious to assure Exeter that it was only by the king’s direct command that he sought to intervene in so delicate an affair, was deputed to effect a reconciliation or find a way of the pair living ‘charitably asunder’.<sup>15</sup> Exeter, recovering at the same time from a bad fall from his horse, strenuously denied the countess’s allegations insisting that rather than being guilty of mistreating her, he had been ‘a long time used to the harshness of her tongue.’ He also claimed that the reason for her complaints was that she had been set on by her friends in the hopes of obtaining an allowance from him. To this he insisted that he would ‘never give her an allowance to live’ apart from him unless he was compelled to do so by law. He promised Clarendon to wait on the king to seek a solution as soon as his health would permit, though he feared that it would be some time before he would be well enough to do so.<sup>16</sup> Exeter and his countess remained estranged for the ensuing five years.</p><p>Poor health appears to have dogged Exeter throughout his life. He was excused at calls of the House on 23 Feb. 1663 and, having taken his seat on 2 Apr. he attended on just seven days before retiring for the remainder of the session. The following year, he was excused again on 4 April. Having taken his seat on 19 Apr. 1664 he proceeded to attend on 64 per cent of all sitting days but he was thereafter absent for the following two years. He was excused once more on 7 December.</p><p>Absence from the chamber did not necessarily imply political inactivity. Following Westmorland’s death in 1665, Exeter was confirmed in post as lieutenant of Northamptonshire, though the commission was again divided and he was joined by Henry Mordaunt*, earl of Peterborough. An informal arrangement divided the county into western and eastern divisions, a division that was formalized in 1673. Any suggestion that Exeter was an ineffectual lord lieutenant, though, is dispelled by the evidence of William Goffe who petitioned Sir Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, in October 1665 following his imprisonment on suspicion of being a ‘disturber’ at Exeter’s direction.<sup>17</sup></p><p>After an absence from Westminster of almost two years, Exeter responded to the summons to attend the trial of Robert Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle, at which he joined with the majority in finding Morley guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.<sup>18</sup> He was absent from the House again at the beginning of October 1666 when he was excused on the grounds of ill health. He took his seat once more on 6 Nov., after which he was present on just under half of all sitting days. On 14 Nov. he was named to the committees considering the enclosure bill and that to illegitimate Lady Roos’s children.</p><p>The following May Exeter’s reconciliation with his countess proved the occasion for lavish festivities with ‘sack possets and stockings thrown and the other vanities not omitted.’<sup>19</sup> Improvements in his domestic arrangements made no difference to Exeter’s continuing poor attendance of the House. In October 1667 he was missing at a call without explanation and on 17 Feb. 1668 he was again excused attendance.</p><p>In April 1668 Exeter was involved with brokering the marriage between Lady Dorothy Manners and his nephew, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury.<sup>20</sup> That autumn he was sufficiently fit to participate in a horse race involving the king and James*, duke of York, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and Oxford. The following month, Exeter was still racing at Newmarket, where he was beaten by one of the grooms of the bedchamber called Elliot.<sup>21</sup> The temporary improvement in Exeter’s health also seems to have been reflected in his application to business in his lieutenancy and other areas where he held interest. In May 1667 he had referred to the council concerns about rioting in the Lincolnshire fenland.<sup>22</sup> In the spring of 1669, in response to the king’s request to know the extent of ‘scandalous meetings’ held in the diocese of Peterborough, he turned his attention to controlling the local nonconformists. His actions gained him the warm approbation of Joseph Henshaw*, bishop of Peterborough, who commended his suppression of a local conventicle and committal of ‘the ablest’ of its members to gaol.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Exeter’s health took a turn for the worse later that year and on 26 Oct. 1669 sickness once more prevented him from attending the House. In December the countess of Exeter died.<sup>24</sup> Their reconciliation had clearly been fragile as it was reported almost immediately afterwards that by his wife’s death Exeter was now free to marry ‘the lady he has so much courted.’<sup>25</sup> Shortly afterwards, Exeter married as his second wife one of the daughters of his former colleague, Westmorland. Exeter was excused his attendance of the House twice in 1670, but he managed to rally sufficiently to take his place in the spring session on 10 Mar, though he proceeded to attend just 18 days in all (11 per cent of the whole). On 19 Mar. he was entrusted with the proxy of his brother-in-law, Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland, which was vacated six days later and on 25 Mar. he was named to the committee considering the bill for a treaty of union with Scotland. Exeter sat for the final time on 5 April. The following day he registered his proxy with Horatio Townshend*, Baron Townshend*, who held it for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Exeter’s continual absence from Parliament may have given rise to rumours current in January 1672 that he was dying.<sup>26</sup> Certainly, his activity in the House was managed entirely by proxy after 1671. On 4 Feb. the proxy was held by his brother-in-law, Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury was given the proxy again on 28 Oct. of the same year, and he held the proxy for a third time on 27 Dec. 1673 in anticipation of the opening of the thirteenth session.</p><p>Exeter’s poor health meant that his dominance in Stamford came under increasing pressure from Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey and Lindsey’s relative, Campden.<sup>27</sup> Exeter’s identification with Shaftesbury’s grouping may also explain his failing influence in the face of the united Bertie-Noel alliance, while in August 1676 the countess of Exeter was mentioned as being a member of a conventicle meeting in Great Russell Street.<sup>28</sup> That September, Exeter was dismayed by Lindsey’s lavish entertainments in the town in preparation for the by-election triggered by William Montagu<sup>‡</sup> accepting office, and which threatened to obscure his interest. Exeter’s preferred candidate, John Hatcher<sup>‡</sup>, chose to accept being pricked sheriff rather than contest the seat in the face of such fierce opposition and in December, to add to his woes, Exeter was turned out of his place as recorder in favour of Campden. Exeter protested in vain at his displacement and his son, John Cecil*, styled Lord Burghley (later 5th earl of Exeter), fought a duel with one of Campden’s sons (possibly Henry Noel<sup>‡</sup>) over the issue.<sup>29</sup> At the same time it was rumoured that the dowager countess of Shrewsbury was attempting to exert her influence over her brother-in-law Westmorland to prevent him from working in partnership with Exeter.<sup>30</sup> Having lost Hatcher, Exeter (under, it had been said earlier, his wife’s direction) transferred his interest to William Thursby<sup>‡</sup> but he too desisted prior to the poll when it was clear that he stood no chance of catching Noel.<sup>31</sup> Hatcher was left to make a late entry to the contest (in spite of his office) but the result was predictable and Noel returned with ease.</p><p>Shaftesbury noted Exeter doubly worthy in his assessment of May 1677. Despite his loss of the recordership and the humiliation of the by-election, in June Exeter approached Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> on behalf of the Stamford corporation, following rumours that it was to face <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings. Coventry assured Exeter that no such proceedings were in hand.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Exeter’s steady loss of influence in the final years of his life appears reflected in his response to a letter from a potential client shortly before his death. He protested himself ‘incapable of serving you in any capacity except you had a son that was in a way of being a clergy man.’<sup>33</sup> Exeter died at Burghley on 1 Feb. 1678 and was buried at St. Martin’s, Stamford. In his will of December 1677 Exeter left legacies of £100 each to his trustees: Bridgwater, Townshend, and the unsuccessful candidate for Stamford, William Thursby. By the time of his death, Exeter had lost control of Stamford. It was left to his heir to restore the family’s fortunes in the area.<sup>34</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CECIL, John (1674-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>CECIL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1674–1721)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1678-1700 Ld. Burghley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Aug. 1700 as 6th earl of EXETER. |
|
First sat 28 Mar. 1701; last sat 11 Mar. 1714 |
|
MP Rutland 1695-1700. |
<p><em>b</em>. 15 May 1674, 1st s. of John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, and Anne, Lady Rich, da. of William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire. <em>educ</em>. privately (Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>); travelled abroad 1692-3 (Holland).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 9 Feb. 1697 (with £30,000) Annabella (<em>d</em>. 1698), da. of John Bennet*, Bar. Ossulston, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>; (2) 19 Sept. 1699 (with £10,000 and £1,200 p.a.) Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1723), da. and coh. of Sir John Brownlow<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., of Belton, Lincs., 5s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 1da. <em>d</em>. c.21 Dec. 1721;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 20 Jan. 1719 -27 Aug. 1721, pr. 13 Apr. 1722.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ch. almoner at coronation of Queen Anne, 1702.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Freeman, Stamford, 1697-d, recorder, Nov. 1697-<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. Peterborough by 10 Mar. 1697-?, 27 Oct. 1712-26 May 1715;<sup>6</sup> ld. lt. Rutland, 1712-15, <em>custos rot</em>., 1712-15.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by W. Wissing, Burghley House, Lincs.; mezzotint by J. Smith, aft. Wissing, NPG D30681.</p> |
<p>A consistent opposition member in the Commons under William and Mary, Burghley, as he was styled before acceding to the title, followed in his non-juror father’s footsteps by making a lengthy foreign tour, though it was curtailed when his governor embarked on a disastrous love affair.<sup>7</sup> Although he was able to make two lucrative marriages, Burghley’s own experience was not without its difficulties. The negotiations with the family of his first wife proved tortuous and almost came unstuck and after the death of Lady Burghley in 1698 the money from that match had to be returned.<sup>8</sup> His second wife was one of the five daughters and coheirs of Sir John Brownlow, who had committed suicide a few years before.<sup>9</sup> Although she brought less money than his former wife, she still contributed a substantial dowry to the Cecils’ coffers.<sup>10</sup> In 1721 Exeter estimated the annual value of his estate to be £9,000, not including revenue from Burghley itself and several other lands in his own possession, but his apparent wealth was substantially diminished by debts and annuities chargeable on the estate, which took account of more than half of his supposed receipts.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Exeter’s former tutor, Matthew Prior, had few illusions about the new earl. He described him to Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, as ‘an obstinate mule’, though he conceded that the advantage of his personality was that once he had been shown the right way, ‘he will go in it to his journey’s end.’<sup>12</sup> As well as being mulish, Exeter was proud and easily offended. With the peerage he inherited the substantial Cecil interest in Stamford and Northamptonshire. He succeeded his father as recorder of Stamford in 1697 and employed his interest on behalf of Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup> during the elections for Northamptonshire in 1701.<sup>13</sup> Despite this he frequently failed to make the most of his influence by standing aloof from natural allies when they failed to offer him suitable obeisance.</p><p>Having succeeded to the peerage the previous August, Exeter took his seat in the House almost two months into the new Parliament on 28 Mar. 1701. He then sat for only four days before absenting himself for the remainder of the session. In all, he attended the House for just 13 days during the entirety of his 20 year career in the Lords. On 5 Jan. 1702 he was noted as missing at a call of the House. Later that year, Exeter officiated as chief almoner at Queen Anne’s coronation. This perhaps indicated an easing of relations with the court after his years of opposition during the previous reign, though it was later discovered that he was awarded only half of the usual fee of 300 ounces of gilt plate by mistake.<sup>14</sup> Exeter’s unpredictable behaviour in the elections of that summer led some Tories to worry that ‘nothing but a slackness’ on his part would lose it for them, though other reports suggested that he had ‘acted very honourably in espousing’ the interests of Isham and Cartwright.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Although Exeter was estimated to be a supporter of the moves to prevent occasional conformity, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, expressed uncertainty as to whether he would even ‘come up’ for the session.<sup>16</sup> In the event he attended on just one day in December 1703. Another estimate that month recorded Exeter as being likely to employ his proxy in support of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, but there is no record of proxies registered during that period. He was on a list of Members of both Houses drawn up by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in 1704, which may indicate support over the Scotch Plot.</p><p>Exeter did register his proxy in favour of his brother-in-law, Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, on 26 Oct. 1704 and on 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. In April 1705, Exeter was listed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage and during the election of that year he again put his interest behind Isham and Cartwright. Exeter’s support for the pair was tempered by their failure to wait on him.<sup>17</sup> Their collective <em>faux</em> <em>pas</em> brought out the worst in a man extremely sensitive of what was due to him:</p><blockquote><p>The clerk of the peace told me he heard Lord Exeter say the last week that if he had had the favour of a visit from either of the old knights he would have done the utmost service by sending to every one of his freehold tenants a positive order to vote for them, whereas he has at present only made a general declaration in their favour.<sup>18</sup></p></blockquote><p>Exeter’s prickly response appears to have compelled someone in the Isham-Cartwright interest to wait on the disgruntled peer, as shortly after it was reported that a reinvigorated Exeter had commanded ‘his servants to ride from town to town through all the soke for your service and has put new life into our cause.’<sup>19</sup> Despite such activity, Exeter again failed to follow it up with attendance in the House and on 12 Nov. he was again excused at a call.</p><p>In May 1706 Exeter revived his father’s dubious fraternity, the Order of Little Bedlam. Assuming the role of Grand Master (lion), he was joined by his cousin, William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire (leopard), Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh (tiger), Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton (lamb), and Baptist Noel*, 3rd earl of Gainsborough (greyhound), each of whom was depicted along with his familiar at Burghley.<sup>20</sup> In September, he was noted as being ‘very firm’ for Isham and Cartwright’s interest, in spite of the efforts being made in the county by Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, to draw Exeter’s support away.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Exeter was again marked absent at a call of the House on 29 Jan. 1707. In November he submitted a petition to the House for leave to bring in a bill revoking his first marriage settlement. At the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Brownlow, Exeter’s father’s affairs had not permitted the previous settlement to be formally laid aside and the Brownlow marriage had proceeded on the understanding that it would be attended to once the 5th earl returned from his foreign tour. His death overseas had evidently created a hiatus in proceedings but it is not clear why it took a further seven years for Exeter to settle his affairs. Although Exeter and his wife excused their inability to attend the committee stage on account of ill health the bill passed without any difficulty.<sup>22</sup> With his marriage at last settled, the following year, Exeter was said to have been promoting a match between his Whig rival Bennet Sherard*, 3rd Baron Sherard [I] (later earl of Harborough), and one of his wife’s sisters but no such alliance appears to have resulted.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Exeter was said to have been expected in town to vote with the ‘right side’ in company with John Manners*, duke of Rutland, and Richard Verney*, 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, for the Sacheverell trial in February 1710, but he never appeared.<sup>24</sup> Exeter joined with Nottingham in support of the Tory candidates, Daniel Finch<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Finch (later 8th earl of Winchilsea and 3rd earl of Nottingham) and ‘Mr H.’ (probably Richard Halford), at the election for Rutland that October.<sup>25</sup> The same month, he was listed by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as a likely supporter of the new ministry.</p><p>In early December 1711, Exeter was one of a handful of peers sent to by Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, to join him in returning to the House for the new session.<sup>26</sup> In the event Exeter once again failed to turn out and instead registered his proxy with Guilford again on 18 Dec. 1711. In spite of his lacklustre performance, the following year he was appointed lord lieutenant of Rutland in place of Sherard. The appointment was generally welcomed in the county but it clearly riled Sherard’s supporters, who ambushed and assaulted a group of musicians from Stamford who had been performing at Burghley in celebration.<sup>27</sup></p><p>In mid-December 1712, having submitted a list of deputies to be appointed for Rutland, Exeter assured Oxford of his willingness to return to town ‘upon the shortest notice’ should his appearance in the House prove necessary.<sup>28</sup> Listed again as a likely supporter of the ministry, in June 1713 Exeter was also estimated to be in favour of passing the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. His rivalry with Sherard was evident once more at the general election that year when Exeter made use of his interest as lieutenant to support the candidature of Richard Halford again only for Halford to be beaten into third place by Sherard and Lord Finch.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Exeter attended the House for the final time on 11 Mar. 1714. Six days later he registered his proxy in favour of Oxford. Reputedly suffering from chronically poor health, Exeter’s lengthy absence from Parliament can perhaps be imputed in part to a refusal to recognize the Hanoverian succession, though this did not prevent him from applying to officiate as chief almoner at the coronation.<sup>30</sup> His petition was ultimately rejected and the office was performed by George Blundell.<sup>31</sup> Unwilling, or unable to attend the House himself, Exeter was still able to employ his interest successfully on behalf of his brother, Charles Cecil<sup>‡</sup>, at Stamford in February 1715.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In the closing months of his life, Exeter was described by one observer as being ‘the patriot of the sphere wherein he moves, of all that are men of true honourable principles and lovers of their country.’<sup>33</sup> In 1721 Exeter involved himself actively in promoting a match between his heir, John Cecil<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Burghley (later 7th earl of Exeter) and Lady Katherine Tollemache, daughter of the suspected Jacobite, Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Dysart [S]. Despite warm support for the alliance by Dysart, Burghley and Exeter, Lady Katherine decided against the marriage. Her decision left Lady Exeter distraught at the loss of her preferred daughter-in-law.<sup>34</sup> While matters were still being resolved between the two families, Exeter succumbed to his final sickness. There is some uncertainty about the precise date of his death. Some sources suggest 31 Dec., others 24 Dec., while a letter from Charles Kirkham to the earl of Dysart of 25 Dec. records his death as having occurred on 21 December.<sup>35</sup> The last seems most likely. Without question Exeter was dead by the close of the year. He was buried at St Martin’s Stamford. In his will, he asked to be buried ‘with as much privacy and as little expense as may be consistent with my quality.’ Charles Bertie was named an executor along with Sir Thomas Mackworth<sup>‡</sup>, bt. (another Little Bedlamite), Joshua Blackwell, Exeter’s brother Charles Cecil, and his countess. He was succeeded by his son, Burghley, as 7th earl of Exeter.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CECIL, John (c. 1648-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>CECIL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1648–1700)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Ld. Burghley 1648-78; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1 Feb. 1678 as 5th earl of EXETER. |
|
First sat 16 Mar. 1679; last sat 11 Mar. 1689 |
|
MP Northants. 1675-78. |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1648, 1st s. of John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, and Frances, da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland. <em>educ</em>. Stamford g.s.; St John’s Camb. matric. 18 June 1667; travelled abroad (Italy) 1679, 1683. <em>m</em>. lic. 4 May 1670 (with £16,000),<sup>1</sup> Anne, Lady Rich (<em>d</em>.1703), da. of William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire, wid. of Charles Rich, Ld. Rich, 4s. 4da. <em>d</em>. 29 Aug. 1700; <em>will</em> 15 July 1699, pr. 2 May 1701.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chief almoner at coronation 1685.</p><p>Commr. assessment, Northants., Rutland 1677-8; recorder, Stamford 1682-5, 1688-97.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, n.d., Burghley House;<sup>4</sup> mezzotint by R. Tompson after Sir P. Lely, 1678-9, NPG D36617.</p> |
<p>In theory, Exeter’s family connections ought to have made him one of the most influential peers in the midlands counties of Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland. Related to the families of Manners, Egerton and Ashley Cooper, Exeter enhanced this network further by his marriage alliance with the Cavendish family of Derbyshire. The previous earl’s relative lack of political aplomb meant that it was left to his son to rebuild the family interest. Reluctant to involve himself too deeply in the remote county of Lincolnshire, Exeter concentrated his efforts on the comparatively central territory of Northamptonshire. The Cecils had long wielded the dominant influence in the town of Stamford in Lincolnshire, but as a result of his father’s lethargy, the town had become increasingly vulnerable to the joint interest of the Noels and Berties.<sup>5</sup> The implosion of the latter’s influence through their own neglect offered Exeter an opportunity to resume control there, but for the most part he preferred to concentrate on the arts.<sup>6</sup> During his life he acquired a reputation as a considerable scholar and patron, and amassed a vast collection of works by Lely, Wissing, Kneller, Grinling Gibbons and Verrio.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Although Parliament was in session when he inherited his peerage, Exeter demonstrated little interest in attending the House. On 16 Feb. 1678 he was excused attendance, then on 23 Feb. he registered his proxy in favour of his cousin John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, which was vacated by the close of the session. Eager to simplify the settlement devised by his father on his marriage, in August Exeter entered into an agreement to increase Lady Exeter’s jointure to £2,500 p.a. in return for a reallocation of estates in order to make the collection of her rents less ‘troublesome.’<sup>8</sup> Exeter failed to attend either of the 1678 sessions. He entrusted his proxy to Bridgwater again on 30 Oct. 1678, and it was not until 6 Mar. of the following year that he finally took his seat in the House. Given the rivalry between the Cecils and Berties in Stamford, it is perhaps not surprising that Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), listed Exeter as a likely opponent in a series of assessments compiled in or about March 1679. However, Exeter again registered his proxy with Bridgwater on 15 Mar. 1679 having attended for just five days. Excused at a call of the House on 9 May, the proxy was vacated when he resumed his seat the following day. He sat for a further five days, during which time he was noted as being in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and on 10 May he entered his dissent at the resolution not to do so. On 27 May he voted against adhering to an earlier vote that the lords spiritual had the right to stay in court in capital cases until judgment of death came to be pronounced. At the general election that year Exeter wielded his interest at Stamford successfully on behalf of William Hyde<sup>‡</sup>, but he showed little inclination to continue his involvement in the heated political climate of the times and instead secured a pass to travel abroad.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Exeter was recorded as being abroad at a call of the House on 30 Oct. 1680. He was still absent overseas at the time of the vote on the exclusion bill and for the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. He returned in 1681 but showed more interest in engaging with building works at Burghley than with political life either in London or the country. The same year scandal enveloped Exeter’s family when his sister, Lady Scudamore, eloped with Thomas Coningsby<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Coningsby [I], only to be abandoned by her paramour and compelled at gunpoint to effect a reconciliation with her cuckolded husband.<sup>10</sup> Thereafter Exeter appears to have retreated to the country, dividing his time between Chatsworth and Uffington in 1682.<sup>11</sup> The same year he was noted as being likely to employ his interest on behalf of exclusionists in any new Parliament, but in 1683 he again opted to travel overseas in company with William Hyde<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Fitzwilliam<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>12</sup></p><p>On his return in 1684 Exeter founded a curious secret society known as the Order of Little Bedlam. Its activities and function are obscure, but it seems to have been a drinking club with vague political overtones.<sup>13</sup> Following the accession of James II, Exeter served as chief almoner at the king’s coronation, an office claimed through his tenure of the barony of Bedford. An assessment of early 1687 noted Exeter as being likely to oppose repeal of the Test, a prediction that was repeated in May and November.</p><p>In January 1688 Exeter was noted by Danby as one of those peers in opposition to the king, and he was again listed as being opposed to repeal of the Test. Perhaps swayed by his brother-in-law, William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, Exeter joined the northern rebellion and then rallied to Princess Anne at Nottingham.<sup>14</sup> In January 1689 he was included as a member of the Privy Council in a list of potential office-holders for the new regime compiled by Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, but he soon proved to be at odds with those eager to replace the king and sided instead with those pressing for a regency.<sup>15</sup> The same month he voted against declaring William and Mary king and queen, and in February he voted against concurring with the Commons in the use of the word abdicated and of declaring the throne to be vacant. On 6 Feb. he registered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the Commons on both points.</p><p>Exeter retired from the House permanently after 11 Feb. 1689. He was said to have retired to the country, and he was noted as missing at a call on 22 May.<sup>16</sup> Later the same month he was summoned along with several other peers including Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Edward Howard*, 2nd earl of Carlisle and William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth, to appear before the House to explain himself.<sup>17</sup> In June he made a point of staying at Lufton to avoid an awkward meeting with his brother-in-law, Devonshire, and the same month he was in regular communication with Clarendon to co-ordinate their refusal to take the oaths.<sup>18</sup> On 6 June Exeter’s letter to the House explaining that his absence had been ‘owing to ill-health, sciatica, and very urgent affairs at home’ was read. His failure to appear was excused, but at a call on 28 Oct. he was again absent without explanation.<sup>19</sup></p><p>The death of the countess of Devonshire in January 1690 was reported to have made Lady Exeter ‘rich’.<sup>20</sup> During that year, as one of the executors of his father-in-law, Exeter was involved with Devonshire in a legal dispute with the trustees of John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, over the manor of Staveley in Derbyshire.<sup>21</sup> In February, in spite of his retirement from Westminster, Exeter was again successful in securing William Hyde’s return for Stamford.<sup>22</sup> His interest was also sought in Northamptonshire by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, through the medium of Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, on behalf of the moderate Tory Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>23</sup> Whether or not Exeter stirred on Montagu’s behalf, both county seats were secured with ease by Whig candidates.<sup>24</sup> Having refused to take the oaths, Exeter’s loyalty became suspect. In June 1690 his name was mentioned in association with reports detailing the activities of ‘factious people’ in Yorkshire, leading Sir Robert Southwell to recommend that he deserved ‘to have a strict eye kept over his actions.’<sup>25</sup> Towards the end of September it was reported that Exeter intended to travel abroad again in the following spring, but in May 1691 he was again implicated in reports concerning the malcontents in Stamford and Yorkshire, who were making use of cockfights as cover for their political activities.<sup>26</sup> In December he was one of a large number of peers and gentry accused by William Fuller of seeking a French invasion on behalf of the exiled king.<sup>27</sup></p><p>In November 1692 Exeter was compelled to petition the House over the ongoing dispute over Staveley. He sought the reversal of a decree in chancery ordering him to pay £6,000 and interest of £700 to the late earl’s creditors. The case was heard on 12 Dec. when the House ordered that the decree be upheld.<sup>28</sup> On 26 Nov. the House was moved on his behalf to strike out several protections, which he claimed he believed already to have expired.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Exeter was granted leave to travel to Holland in July 1693.<sup>30</sup> He had returned by the winter of 1694 when the death of William Hyde triggered a by-election at Stamford. His refusal to set up his heir, John Cecil*, styled Lord Burghley (later 6th earl of Exeter), allowed the seat to be taken by Philip Bertie<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>31</sup> In the general election of October 1695, though, Exeter was successful in bringing his interest to bear on Burghley’s behalf at Rutland.<sup>32</sup> The following month he caused considerable comment when he absented himself from Burghley House at the time of the king’s visit.<sup>33</sup> Exeter was in town in December to negotiate a match between his son and Annabella Bennet, daughter of John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston, but the slow progress of the discussions irritated him as he was ‘impatient of being in the country.’<sup>34</sup></p><p>In 1696 his name appeared on a list compiled by Renaudot of peers supposedly committed to King James’s cause and prepared to rise in the event of an invasion.<sup>35</sup> Probably unwilling to take the Association, Exeter stood down as recorder of Stamford in 1697.<sup>36</sup> Even so, he was still able to wield considerable influence. His interest was sought once again by Nottingham for the Northamptonshire election the following year, and in August 1698 his younger son William Cecil<sup>‡</sup> was returned for Stamford in partnership with Charles Bertie.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Exeter was granted leave to travel abroad again in 1699.<sup>38</sup> His intention was to travel through France and Italy to attend the papal jubilee in Rome.<sup>39</sup> Before departing he began the process of settling his estate, no doubt as a result of his heir’s marriage that summer to Elizabeth Brownlow, but he was unable to complete the arrangements.<sup>40</sup> A number of other notables joined Exeter at Rome, including Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, and Winwood Montagu, styled Lord Monthermer, but he seems to have been eager to remain aloof from such people.<sup>41</sup> According to one account he made sure ‘when he was to have seen any person of quality that he had the gout in his foot or shoulder so that none but painters and antiquaries were admitted.’<sup>42</sup> Exeter’s indisposition may initially have been diplomatic, but having originally intended to be away for three years, he was forced to cut his foreign sojourn short on account of ill health. The English ambassador in France hinted that he expected Exeter to wait on the Jacobite court in exile during his homeward journey.<sup>43</sup> Before he could do so he fell sick again and died at Issy on the outskirts of Paris on 29 August.<sup>44</sup> Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> recorded the cause of death as being from ‘a surfeit of fruit’:</p><blockquote><p>which alone was the occasion of all that has befallen the earl of Exeter’s family, in the death not only of himself and of one or two more of his train, but the endangering all the rest, by a bloody flux; from which my lady herself and her son Mr Cecil have but hardly escaped.<sup>45</sup></p></blockquote><p>Pepys’ dramatic account was not universally accepted and elsewhere the cause of the earl’s death was said to have been peritonitis, while Luttrell believed it to have been on account of a bowel ulcer.<sup>46</sup> Exeter’s remains were brought back to Stamford, where a monument was erected in the church according to the stipulations of his will. He also left £8,000 towards his daughter’s portion and annuities of £400 apiece to his younger sons Charles<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Cecil. Of a £4,000 bequest outstanding from Devonshire’s will, £3,000 was left to Charles Cecil and £500 each to Edward and Elizabeth Cecil. Strict instructions were laid down to prevent Exeter’s heir, Burghley, from squandering his inheritance, but Exeter left his son considerable debts with which to wrestle. Exeter’s death was marked with an elegy, praising him as ‘our country’s darling.’<sup>47</sup> He was succeeded by his eldest son, Burghley, as 6th earl of Exeter.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CECIL, William (1591-1668) |
<p><strong><surname>CECIL</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1591–1668)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Visct. Cranborne 1605-12; <em>suc. </em>fa. 24 May 1612 as 2nd earl of SALISBURY |
|
First sat before 1660, 7 Apr. 1614; first sat after 1660, 1 May 1660; last sat 18 Dec. 1666 |
|
MP Weymouth 12 June 1610; King’s Lynn 8 Sept. 1649; Herts. 1654, 1656. |
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Mar. 1591, o.s. of Robert Cecil<sup>†</sup>, earl of Salisbury, and Elizabeth (1563-97), da. of William Brooke<sup>†</sup>, 10th Bar. Cobham. <em>educ</em>. Sherborne Sch. 1600; St John’s, Camb. matric. 1602, MA 1605; incorp. Oxf. 1605; G. Inn 1605; travelled abroad (France, Italy, Germany, Low Countries) 1608-11. <em>m</em>. 1 Dec. 1608, Catherine (<em>bur</em>. 27 Jan. 1673), da. of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Suffolk, 8s. (3 d.v.p.), 5da. (3 d.v.p.). <sup>1</sup> KB 6 Jan. 1605, KG 13 Dec. 1625. <em>d</em>. 3 Dec. 1668; <em>will</em> 2 Jan. 1665, pr. 23 Dec. 1668.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr. council for New Eng. plantations 1620, High Commission, Canterbury prov. 1629-41, Assembly of Divines 1643, cttee. of Both Kingdoms 1648; PC 22 July 1626-5, Mar. 1642; commr. knighthood fines 1630, fisheries 1630, poor relief 1631, transportation of felons 1633, ct. martial 1644, treaty of Uxbridge 1645, provision for New Model Army 1645, regulating excise 1645, propositions for relief of Ireland 1645, Admiralty 1645-8, abuses in heraldry 1646, plantations 1646, exclusion from sacrament 1646, Great Seal July-Oct. 1646, sale of bps.’ lands 1646, indemnity complaints 1647, managing assessment 1647, navy and customs 1647, scandalous offences 1648, treaty of Newport 1648, removing obstructions to sale of bps.’ lands 1648, indemnity 1649, security of Lord Protector 1656; capt., gent. pens. 1635-42; cllr. of state 1649-51, 1652-3.</p><p>Ld. lt., Herts. 1612-42 (jt. with Charles Cecil<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Cranborne 1640-2), 1642-5, Dorset and Poole 1641-2, 1642-5; high steward, Hertford 1612-<em>d.</em>;<sup>3</sup> ranger, Enfield Chase, Mdx. 1612-49, 1660-1; <em>custos rot</em>. Herts. 1619-42, 1653-60; commr. defence Wilts. 1644, establishing Western Assoc. 1644, appeals Oxf. Univ. 1647, militia, Dorset 1659, Herts. 1660; mbr. co. cttee. Dorset 1644, Hants 1645; gov., Charterhouse 1644, Westminster sch. 1649.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by George Geldorp, 1626, Hatfield House, Herts.; oil on canvas by Peter Lely, 1654,<sup>4</sup> Burghley House, Lincs.; etching by Wenceslaus Hollar, 1637-44, NPG D16814.</p> |
<p>William Cecil was born on 28 Mar. 1591, the only son of Robert Cecil, secretary of state to both Elizabeth I and James I. He was created a knight of the Bath on 6 Jan. 1605 and four months later, when his father was created earl of Salisbury, became known by the courtesy title of Viscount Cranborne. As the only heir to the earldom he lived an indulged and privileged life, heavily promoted at court by his father, who was growing increasingly rich throughout the two decades at the turn of the century through the various perquisites of the many offices he held.<sup>5</sup> On 1 Dec. 1608 he married Catherine, the daughter of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Suffolk, the lord chamberlain. Through his father’s influence he served as one of the bearers of the king’s train at the ceremony for the investiture of the royal heir, Henry, as prince of Wales on 4 June 1610.<sup>6</sup> His father was also instrumental in assuring that only a few days after this ceremony the Dorset corporation of Weymouth returned Cranborne, at that point only 19 years of age, as one of their burgesses in Parliament, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of the sitting Member, Thomas Barfoot<sup>‡</sup>. His time in the Commons was brief, as he left to travel on the continent in September 1610, from which he returned in May 1611 to take up a place at the court of the young prince of Wales.</p><p>Cranborne inherited the earldom of Salisbury upon his father’s death on 24 May 1612. The death of his father and of his patron Henry, prince of Wales, in November of that year cut short the new earl’s assured rise at court, and he did not receive further advancement under James I. Instead he turned to taking up a prominent role in local administration. The family’s centre of power was Hertfordshire and was centred around Hatfield House, the grand Jacobean residence which the first earl of Salisbury had built on the site of the former royal palace there which he had received after exchanging his hunting lodge of Theobalds Palace with James I. The Cecil family’s townhouse of Salisbury House on the Strand in Westminster gave Salisbury a base close to Parliament and also an influence in the governance of the capital, both in Westminster and Middlesex. Salisbury also owned, through an earlier grant to his father, the manor of the dissolved Cranborne priory in Dorset (hence the earldom’s courtesy title).<sup>7</sup> After his succession to the title in 1612, and having barely reached his majority, Salisbury was appointed lord lieutenant of Hertfordshire, high steward of the county town of Hertford and ranger of Enfield Chase in Middlesex; he was later, in 1619, also made <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the county. From this point he also served in a number of other roles – as justice of the peace and a member of a number of commissions – in Hertfordshire (and particularly the liberty of St Albans, so close to Hatfield), Middlesex, Westminster and the other Home Counties. Salisbury’s copious local offices and responsibilities in the first half of the seventeenth century, before the Restoration, are set out and discussed in much greater detail in his entry in the volumes treating the Commons in 1604-29. Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, writing from the vantage point of defeat and exile after the Civil War, was later to comment on Salisbury that, as lord lieutenant and Charles I’s representative in Hertfordshire:</p><blockquote><p>he continued so obsequious to the court that he never failed in over-acting all that he was required to do. No act of power was ever proposed which he did not advance, and execute his part, with the utmost rigour. No man so great a tyrant in his country, or was less swayed by any motives of justice or honour. He was a man of no words, except in hunting and hawking, in which he only knew how to behave himself. In matters of state and counsel he always concurred in what was proposed for the king.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote><p>Indeed, by 1621, after the fall of Sir Francis Bacon<sup>†</sup>, Viscount St Albans, there was no competitor to Salisbury among the nobility in Hertfordshire either in wealth or authority. Salisbury thus also acted as the leading electoral patron in Hertfordshire throughout the elections of the 1620s and perhaps even in 1640. Salisbury also had a strong interest in the parliamentary borough of St Albans, located near his house at Hatfield, and he and the governors of the corporation negotiated before each election about how many burgesses Salisbury had the right to nominate. The franchise of the county town of Hertford had lapsed after 1376, but its corporation, supported by the town’s high steward Salisbury, lobbied for its re-enfranchisement, a petition which was supported by the crown and granted before the election of 1624. For the remaining elections of the decade Salisbury had the nomination of at least one burgess for that constituency and his interest, and that of his family, in the county town was further strengthened when Charles I granted him the castle and manor of Hertford in 1630. The Cecils, both as earls and later marquesses of Salisbury, continued to act as high stewards of the town for the following two centuries at least. Salisbury also had a claim to electoral interest in Old Sarum through his possession of the castle and warren there. His interest was disputed by William Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Pembroke, but after Pembroke’s death in 1630 Salisbury entered into a more co-operative relation, indeed a friendship (which was to have important consequences), with the new earl, Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke, and by 1640 the two had agreed to divide between themselves the nomination of candidates for Old Sarum.<sup>9</sup></p><p>After the accession of Charles I, Salisbury initially received a few prominent marks of royal favour. His inability to progress further in Charles’s favour may have been owing to the dislike of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, and to Salisbury’s own patronage of radical puritan clerics, who found a favourable reception at Hatfield House during the 1630s. In the early days of the Long Parliament he was initially indecisive about what position to take, but by March 1642 the parliamentarians trusted him sufficiently to make him lord lieutenant of both Hertfordshire and Dorset.<sup>10</sup> Perhaps key to his siding with Parliament were his personal connections. His daughter Anne married Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, in 1629; another daughter, Catherine, married Philip Sydney*, styled Viscount Lisle (later 3rd earl of Leicester). His association and friendship – much noted by the hostile Clarendon – with Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke, also probably played a role.<sup>11</sup> From 1645, if not earlier, Salisbury voted consistently with Northumberland and Pembroke in the principal divisions of the House, as part of the group of peers advocating support of the army and an anti-clerical and ‘independent’ church settlement.<sup>12</sup> It is not surprising then that Clarendon gave a damning verdict of Salisbury’s record in the Civil War, in which he suggested that Salisbury and Pembroke – so frequently linked by commentators in this period – were ‘so totally without credit or interest in the Parliament or country, that it was no matter which way their inclinations or affections disposed them’ and that their chief motivation in siding with the ruling faction in Parliament was to save their own estates and houses, which ‘they both believed to be the highest point of prudence and politic circumspection’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>After the execution of the king and the abolition of the House of Lords, Salisbury was persuaded by Pembroke to accept and support the Commonwealth. He was elected to the Council of State and quickly became integrated in the ceremonial intended to legitimize the Commonwealth. He and Pembroke, with Edward Howard*, Baron Howard of Escrick, were the only members of the peerage to take advantage of the provision in the 1649 ordinance for the abolition of the House of Lords that allowed them to stand for the Commons. He voted in favour of offering the crown to the Protector on 25 Mar. 1657, but surprisingly he was not nominated to Cromwell’s ‘Other House’ in November, despite already being a peer. He attended the Commons again at the reconvening of the Rump in May 1659 following the fall of the Protectorate. Here he was joined by Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, the son and heir of his friend and colleague the 4th earl, who had died in 1650 and had appointed Salisbury one of his executors.<sup>14</sup> A personal loss afflicted Salisbury at this time when in late September 1659 his son and heir, Charles Cecil<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Cranborne, died in France, leaving as his heir apparent Salisbury’s young grandson James Cecil*, now styled Viscount Cranborne and later 3rd earl of Salisbury.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In drawing up his list of the potential membership of the Convention House of Lords, Salisbury’s colleague from the 1640s, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, placed him and Pembroke at the head of his brief list of ‘lords who sat in both houses’ during the previous 20 years. There was no suggestion here that Salisbury would be unable to sit in the Convention and he resumed his seat in the House on 1 May 1660. However, other contemporaries were sure that Salisbury’s involvement with the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and particularly his membership in an assembly, the Rump, which had voted through the abolition of the House of Lords, would not go unpunished. Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, assured the king and Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> on 4 May that Salisbury and Pembroke would be ‘put out’ and ‘cashiered’ from the restored House, but had to backtrack two days later upon being informed of Salisbury’s successful and unhindered entrance into the House.<sup>16</sup> Salisbury proved to be a reasonably diligent attender and came to 56 per cent of the Convention’s sitting days, his highest attendance rate for any session after 1660. In these early days of the assembly he still maintained some prominence and on 9 May was added to the committee for the reception of the returning king and on 26 May, the day after the king’s landfall, was named to the committee to arrange the placing of servants at Whitehall to ensure the king’s safety.</p><p>After the influx of royalist peers in the House from 1 June 1660, the rumours that he would be ‘degraded’ resurfaced. His previous activities became an issue from 11 July when the House considered the Indemnity bill, from which it was thought Salisbury would be excepted because of his role in the Rump. On 18 July, though, Salisbury was conveniently granted the king’s pardon for all his offences of the past 20 years.<sup>17</sup> As thanks for his pardon, on 24 Aug. Salisbury entertained the king lavishly at Hatfield, spending in excess of £40 on sweetmeats, white wine and 65 gallons of canary.<sup>18</sup> Although Salisbury retained his peerage and his seat in the House, he was not particularly active there and was named to only four select committees throughout the Convention, those on the bills for: draining the Great Level in the fens (nominated on 30 Aug.); confirming marriages (9 Nov.); restoring Thomas Howard*, 23rd earl of Arundel, to the dukedom of Norfolk (10 Nov.); and establishing an excise on beer and ale (18 Dec.). Nor was he entrusted with any significant local or national office after the Restoration, except for that of ranger of Enfield Chase, which position he regained at the time of the king’s return. He, nevertheless, neglected his duties as ranger, destroying the wood in the chase and allowing the buildings to fall into disrepair so that by May 1661, he was forced to forfeit the office to one of the king’s favourites, Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield).<sup>19</sup></p><p>Salisbury was instructed to attend the coronation of April 1661, ‘furnished and appointed’ suitable to his rank and quality.<sup>20</sup> His compromised past, however, may have affected his influence in the elections to the Cavalier Parliament. The election for Hertfordshire saw the return of Sir Richard Franklin<sup>‡</sup>, who had not held office in the Interregnum, and the zealous royalist Sir Thomas Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup>, shortly to be created Viscount Fanshawe of Dromore [I]. It is not known whether Salisbury supported either of these candidates, or indeed any others, but the note in the Hatfield accounts that almost £71 was spent on ‘Mr Pritchard at the Bell in Hertford for his lordship’s proportion of the expense at the choosing of knights of the shire to serve in Parliament’ suggests that Salisbury was involved in the election, and was probably present for the hustings in the county town. Salisbury exercised no discernable influence in the 1661 elections for St Albans. The royalist Fanshawes of Ware Park were preponderant at Hertford, and Thomas Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup>, the son of the Member for Hertfordshire, was returned for one of the borough’s seats. In 1660 Salisbury had put forward his son, Algernon Cecil, as a candidate at Old Sarum, but he had received only ten of the slightly over 50 votes held by the burgage-owners there, a lack of support which Salisbury blamed on Pembroke whom he felt had not acted sufficiently in Cecil’s interest. Consequently, Salisbury did not make a nomination for that borough at the elections for the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>21</sup></p><p>On 8 May 1661 Salisbury was present in the House for the first day of the Cavalier Parliament and thereafter attended 46 per cent of sittings of that session. He only came to a little more than one third of the sittings in the first part of the session in spring 1661. On 15 June 1661 the House ordered his wife, the countess of Salisbury, to be summoned before the committee for privileges in the matter of the peerage claim of Nicholas Knollys*, 3rd earl of Banbury, whose family was intermarried with her own family of the Howards. On 28 June Salisbury was named to the committee to consider the bill to clean the streets in Westminster, a measure in which he would have had a personal interest as the owner of Salisbury House on the Strand. The following day Salisbury’s parliamentary privilege was employed to halt legal proceedings involving an ejectment from Brownsea Island in Dorset, part of Salisbury’s property in that county. On 11 July 1661 he opposed the claims of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the office of great chamberlain against those of the incumbent Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey. He did not return to the House immediately when it resumed on 20 Nov. 1661. At a call of the House on 25 Nov. he was recorded as sick, but at this time Salisbury was also preoccupied with the arrangements for the marriage of his grandson and heir Cranborne to Margaret, the daughter of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland. Rutland promised a portion of £9,000 with his daughter, but the marriage did not take place until 1665, presumably owing to the youth of the couple, both well below their majorities.<sup>22</sup> Salisbury returned to the House on 9 Dec. 1661 and attended half of this second part of the session, during which he was named to five committees on legislation. Most of these nominations were in March 1662 and were on bills such as those for: preventing the importation of foreign wool-cards (established on 5 Mar.); directing the prosecution of those who were accountable for prize goods (21 Mar.); and cleaning and repairing the streets of Westminster (25 Mar.); as well as two bills on private estate legislation. Salisbury left the House for the session on 7 Apr. After his departure he was kept up to date with events in Parliament by letters from his son-in-law, Northumberland, which kept him informed in particular of the progress of the bill to declare as illegitimate the male child born to Anne, Lady Roos, the estranged and adulterous wife of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), the son and heir of Rutland and brother to Salisbury’s prospective granddaughter-in-law. Salisbury had, not surprisingly considering his friendship and alliance with the Manners family, long been concerned by this domestic scandal which threatened to compromise the descent of the earl of Rutland’s lands and titles, and when the matter was before Parliament Northumberland encouraged the elderly peer to hasten to Westminster in early May 1662 to give his voice in support of the bill.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Salisbury was present for the first day of the 1663 session and attended 35 per cent of the sittings. He was named to two committees, for the bills concerning abatements of writs of error (established on 21 Mar.) and for the improvement of Ashdown Forest (11 Apr.). On 13 Apr. the House heard the claims of a breach of Salisbury’s privilege, in which the deputy lieutenants of Somerset had allegedly over-assessed Salisbury for his moiety of the rectory of Martock, and in February his tenants there were levied £20 in lieu of the horse and arms charged on the earl. The House referred the matter to the committee for privileges, but it does not appear that the matter was ever reported back to the House. Salisbury attended the House for the last time that session on 14 Apr. and on that same day registered his proxy with his old parliamentarian colleague Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. Wharton forecast that Manchester would use Salisbury’s proxy to add to his own vote on 13 July in support of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. There has been a misapprehension among some historians that at the time of Bristol’s impeachment of Clarendon, the elderly Salisbury was writing detailed letters on its proceedings to Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, then still in his minority, and with whom Salisbury had no known family or regional connection. This claim arises through a misreading of the name of Huntingdon’s actual newsletter correspondent, Thomas Salusbury. It must be noted that the earl of Salisbury was not present in the House to witness or comment on these proceedings.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Salisbury was in the House again on 16 Mar. 1664, the first day of the new session, and he attended 11 of the sittings, 31 per cent of the total, but was not named to any committees. He last sat in the House for the session on 5 Apr. and eight days later again registered his proxy with Manchester. He did not attend either of the following two sessions, that of 1664-5 nor that convened in Oxford in October 1665. Salisbury had other matters to occupy him. In 1665 the marriage of Viscount Cranborne to Lady Margaret Manners was finally celebrated, and over the following years Salisbury continued to develop his close relationship with both the earl and countess of Rutland, while the countess of Salisbury looked to the countess of Rutland for a loan of £200, news of which was to be kept strictly secret from her husband Salisbury.<sup>25</sup> In the spring of 1666 a fire at Hatfield caused £1,000 worth of damage, but was extinguished with the assistance of local men.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Salisbury attended the autumn 1666 session for only 15 sittings, 17 per cent of the total. He first sat on 22 Nov. 1666, two months after the start of business, and six days later, on 28 Nov., he was named to two committees on legislation, one for the bill to allow Sir Richard Franklin<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Hertfordshire, to sell part of his estate, and the other to unite some parish churches in Southampton. On 3 Dec. he attended the ceremony at Whitehall where the infant James Stuart, duke of Cambridge, was installed as a knight of the Garter.<sup>27</sup> Salisbury attended the House for the last time that session on 18 December. This was also his last sitting in his career. He was clearly ailing by this point, although on 20 July 1667 Laurence Hyde*, (later earl of Rochester) wrote to his mother-in-law the countess of Burlington from Whitehall that he had waited on Salisbury and ‘should not have thought him ill, if I had not been told so, for I never saw him look better and he is so much better that he intended to go into the country again today’.<sup>28</sup> At calls of the House on 29 Oct. 1667 and 17 Feb. 1668, in the subsequent session of 1667-9, he was recorded as being sick and excused attendance.</p><p>He nevertheless maintained, and even renewed, his electoral interests. In 1666 and 1668 he was involved in by-elections in both the county of Hertfordshire and the borough of St Albans. The spring of 1668 was particularly busy, and expensive, for Salisbury, for there were concurrent by-elections in both Hertfordshire and St Albans. In April 1668 he helped to secure the election of his grandson Viscount Cranborne at Hertfordshire, apparently with the help of the Quakers, who feared Cranborne’s opponent, a rigorous Anglican high churchman. The by-election at St Albans in May 1668 saw the return of Samuel Grimston<sup>‡ </sup>of Gorhambury, perhaps with the aid of Salisbury, for the earl’s agents recorded on 14 May, the day before the return was sealed, that ‘our rotten election at St Albans cost us near £1,200, and without extraordinary supplies will starve us before Michaelmas’.<sup>29</sup> Salisbury was declining, ‘near death’, throughout the autumn of 1668 and died on 3 Dec. at Hatfield.<sup>30</sup> He left the estate in a precarious position. Salisbury’s gross annual income for 1662 had been calculated at £9,000 and in that same year his estates in Northamptonshire were assessed at £1,617 p.a. and those in Essex at £539.<sup>31</sup> By the time of his death the Cecil estates had a total gross income of under £12,500 p.a., but out of that the estate was charged by his will with £3,420 p.a. of legacies and annuities, including an annuity worth £1,800 to the dowager Viscountess Cranborne and annuities totalling £920 p.a. to his younger children. In addition, Salisbury died with debts of £18,840, and the estate also had to provide for the jointures of both the dowager countess and dowager viscountess, which together totalled £4,000 p.a., and had to be provided for until the last of the two died in 1675. Salisbury, by his short will written in January 1665, made his grandson and heir James Cecil, now 3rd earl of Salisbury, sole executor of this troubled situation, and especially charged him with paying some of the large debts from the income of the estate of Ruislip in Middlesex.<sup>32</sup></p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
CHOLMONDELEY, Hugh (c. 1662-1725) |
<p><strong><surname>CHOLMONDELEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Hugh</strong> (c. 1662–1725)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 May 1681 as 2nd Visct. Cholmondeley [I]; <em>cr. </em>9 Apr. 1689 Bar. CHOLMONDELEY; <em>cr. </em>27 Dec. 1706 earl of CHOLMONDELEY |
|
First sat 15 Apr. 1689; last sat 27 May 1723 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1662, s. of Robert Cholmondeley, Visct. Cholmondeley [I], and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of George Cradock of Caverswall Castle, Staffs; bro. of George Cholmondeley<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Cholmondeley. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1678; travelled abroad (France) 1681.<sup>1</sup> unm. <em>d</em>. 18 Jan. 1725; <em>will</em> 21 Jan. 1724, pr. 12 Feb. 1725.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. N. Wales 1702-13, 1714-<em>d.</em>, Cheshire 1703-13, 1714-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Cheshire 1703-13, 1714-<em>d.</em>; freeman, Chester 1703;<sup>3</sup> v.-adm. Cheshire coast 1703-<em>d.</em>; gov. Chester 1705-13, 1714-<em>d</em>.</p><p>PC 1705-25; comptroller of the Household 1708; treas. of the Household 1708-13, 1714-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>On the face of it Cholmondeley’s political career seems full of inconsistency. A critic of King James II and early supporter of William of Orange, Cholmondeley straddled the party rivalries of the day. His natural political metier was that of a Whig courtier, but he used his interest in Cheshire to further the aspirations of Tory candidates and was even accused of encouraging Catholic tenants to bolster his interest at the polls.<sup>5</sup> The head of a numerous and influential Cheshire family, his interest in hunting provided Cholmondeley with a further foundation for friendships both social and political with Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans, Charles Boyle*, 3rd earl of Burlington, and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester.<sup>6</sup></p><p>On his succession to the viscountcy in 1681, Cholmondeley inherited an estate reckoned to be worth about £6,000 per annum.<sup>7</sup> While his lands lay principally in Cheshire, based around Cholmondeley Castle near Nantwich, there were other smaller estates in Somerset. He also possessed an interest in North Wales, and in the Droitwich salt works, which was to prove an occasionally troublesome inheritance.<sup>8</sup> Despite the family’s Irish viscountcy, they do not appear to have exercised any notable interest in Ireland, while in Cheshire the prior dominance of the Whig Booths (earls of Warrington) seems to have been the determining factor in leading Cholmondeley to employ his interest there on behalf of the Tories.<sup>9</sup> Family loyalty may also have played a part; his kinsmen, the Cholmondeleys of Vale Royal, were consistent Tories as were his cousins the non-juring Leghs of Lyme. Despite his undoubted influence in the area before his elevation to the Lords, Cholmondeley played no part in Parliament. Although it was suggested that he was considering standing for Cheshire in February 1685, it was his cousin, Thomas Cholmondeley<sup>‡</sup>, who contested the county with Sir Philip Egerton<sup>‡</sup> that year, defeating the Whig candidates Sir Robert Cotton<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup>.<sup><sup>10</sup></sup></p><p>An opponent of James II’s policies, Cholmondeley was one of the first members of the nobility to rise in favour of William of Orange in 1688, leading a detachment from Cheshire to the rallying point at Nottingham.<sup>11</sup> He later complained that his ‘expenses in this late affair’ had been ‘very large’ and responded to the request for a self-assessment of his personal estate in September 1689 that it was ‘much short and far inferior to the real debts I stand charged and incumbered with.’<sup>12</sup></p><p>Cholmondeley was approached ‘by several of my friends’ to stand for the Convention in January 1689, a request with which he seems to have been more than ready to comply, asking that his interest be employed on his own behalf in alliance with his kinsman, Sir Philip Egerton.<sup>13</sup> Any aspirations to the Commons were supplanted by his elevation to the Lords in April. Instead it was the Whigs, Cotton and Mainwaring, who were returned for the Convention.</p><p>Cholmondeley was introduced on 15 Apr. between William Maynard*, Baron Maynard, and Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton. The following day he was named to the committee considering the bill for abolishing the hearth tax. He was named to a further 13 committees during the course of the session. In May, Cholmondeley was incapacitated by a fall from his coach when leaving Hampton Court, breaking his arm when the carriage turned over.<sup>14</sup> His injuries kept him away from the House for the remainder of May. That same month he was engaged in a dispute with his local rival, Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), over the continued employment of the militia in Cheshire.<sup>15</sup> Cholmondeley returned to the House on 28 June and was thereafter regular in his attendance through July and the first half of August, attending in all approximately a third of all sitting days in the session. In September he visited his non-juring cousin, Francis Cholmondeley<sup>‡</sup>, who was a prisoner in the Tower.<sup>16</sup> He resumed his seat in the Convention’s second session on 23 Oct. 1689, following which he attended with little interruption until 27 Jan. 1690: some 90 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>Tensions within Cheshire continued during the 1690 election. Cholmondeley ordered that his tenants should appear for Egerton, (presumably unaware that Egerton was a non-juror).<sup>17</sup> Attempts to pair Egerton with a Whig candidate were unsuccessful and Cholmondeley’s interest once more proved insufficient to secure Egerton a seat. He had better success at Chester where Sir Thomas Grosvenor<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Levinge<sup>‡</sup>, who had been unsuccessful the previous year, were both returned following a bitter contest with George Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup> and Roger Whitley<sup>‡</sup>. His brother, George Cholmondeley, was returned for Newton on the interest of his cousin, Peter Legh of Lyme.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Following the election Cholmondeley took his seat in the new Parliament on 24 Mar. 1690 after which he was present for approximately 85 per cent of all sitting days and was named to nine committees. He returned for the second session on 18 Oct. 1690, again sitting consistently until the close of the year. Named to 20 committees besides the sessional committees to which he was added on 7 Nov., Cholmondeley’s attendance declined markedly after December. He attended just two days in January 1691, after which he was absent until returning for a single day in May.</p><p>Cholmondeley’s attendance improved during the 1691-2 session, when he was present for a little more than 70 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 25 committees. On 12 Jan. 1692 he entered his dissent at the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He was absent at the opening of the 1692-3 session and was excused at a call on 21 November. He arrived three days later and was named to the committee for Ralph Macclesfield’s bill. Named to a further nine committees during the session, on 7 Dec. he registered his protest at the resolution not to propose to the Commons a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. He voted in favour of committing the place bill on 31 Dec. but appears to have been absent for the division on the issue on 3 Jan. 1693, returning to the House too late to vote but in time to register his dissent at the resolution to reject the bill.<sup>19</sup> Cholmondeley found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder on 4 Feb., and on 6 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to communicate information concerning Ireland taken at the bar of the House to the Commons.</p><p>During the 1693-4 session he was present on approximately 56 per cent of all sitting days. After the session, in July 1694, Cholmondeley was embroiled in a quarrel with the queen’s vice chamberlain, Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, at the Chocolate House in Pall Mall. Although early reports suggested that a duel had been averted, a few days later the two men met behind Arlington House where Cholmondeley succeeded in disarming his opponent.<sup>20</sup> The quarrel may have been symptomatic of Cholmondeley’s increasingly frosty relations with the Tories. Divisions within Cheshire came to the fore that year when Cholmondeley’s kinsman, Peter Legh, was accused of Jacobitism. Cholmondeley’s failure to intervene on his behalf caused George Cholmondeley to be dropped as Member for Newton at the election the following year.<sup>21</sup> More significantly, Cholmondeley appears to have made a deliberate decision not to intervene on the Tories’ behalf for the remainder of the decade. The consequence was three successive elections where the Whigs, Cotton and Mainwaring, stood unopposed in Cheshire.</p><p>The 1694-4 session saw Cholmondeley present for approximately 76 per cent of sitting days. On 10 Jan. 1695 he was named to the committee considering the procession for Queen Mary’s funeral and during the course of the session he was named to a further 17 committees. On 18 Apr. he protested against the resolution not to censure John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), over his behaviour during the session, and on 3 May he was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning the impeachment of Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds.</p><p>Cholmondeley returned to the House at the opening of the 1695 Parliament. On 23 Nov. he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and the Journal. He was named to a further 16 committees during the 1695-6 session and was present on 74 per cent of all sitting days. On 29 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association, and on 6 Apr. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the privateers’ bill. During the course of the year he distanced himself from the Tories and high churchmen in Cheshire still further in the wake of the assassination plot, convinced that both the Jacobites and Catholics, if not aware of the assassination, knew of the planned invasion.<sup>22</sup></p><p>During the 1696-7 session Cholmondeley was present on approximately 63 per cent of all sitting days. During the debates on the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡ </sup>on 18 Dec. 1696 Cholmondeley joined with John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, in moving that Fenwick should be asked whether he had made the promised explanations of some parts of his original confession, and on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of passing the bill of attainder.<sup>23</sup> On 23 Jan. 1697 he protested against the resolution not to read, a second time, the bill to regulate parliamentary elections further, and on 10 Apr. he was named a reporter of the conference concerning the bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices.</p><p>Cholmondeley attended over 75 per cent of sitting days in the 1697-8 session. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, entering his dissent when it was resolved not to do so. The following day he entered a further dissent at the resolution in favour of James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> in his cause with Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S].</p><p>Cholmondeley was present for almost 77 per cent of all sitting days in the first (1698-9) session of the 1698 Parliament. On 2 Mar. 1699 he was named a manager of the conference concerning the bill to prevent the distilling of corn, and on 27 Apr. he protested against a clause in the supply bill appointing commissioners for forfeited estates in Ireland. During the course of the year he became involved in a dispute with his estate stewards over their alleged mismanagement and apparent inability to pay him his rents. In or about May 1699 Cholmondeley was compelled to protest that he would be unable to leave town until he had received the expected funds, expostulating that,</p><blockquote><p>I may truly say never any one [<em>sic</em>], rent has been so ill pay [<em>sic</em>], as mine have been this year though to my certain knowledge tenant never sold every thing at so high rates as they do now, and I am resolved to know where the fault lies when I come down for I will not be served at this rate any longer.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>Cholmondeley’s attendance declined in the 1699-1700 session to just under half of all sitting days, and he was named to just two committees. On 9 and 10 Apr. 1700 he was named a reporter of the conferences considering amendments to the land tax and forfeited estates in Ireland bill. In a list of Whig lords compiled in July 1700 he was marked O (possibly indicating his willingness to support the new ministry), but in November, with a general election in the offing, he backed the Tory candidates, Sir George Warburton and Sir Roger Mostyn. When it was revealed that Warburton had not taken the oaths, Cholmondeley withdrew his support, leaving Cotton and Mainwaring unopposed once more.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Taking his seat at the opening of the first parliament of 1701, Cholmondeley was present on approximately 61 per cent of all sitting days. On 16 Apr. he entered a protest at the resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address asking the king not to punish the four impeached lords until their impeachments had been tried. On 3 June he subscribed two further protests, complaining of the resolutions concerning the impeachment of the Whig lords. On 17 June he protested at the resolution to adjourn to Westminster Hall for the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers.</p><p>During the summer Cholmondeley experienced further difficulties with his estate steward, William Adams, over the management of his Cheshire lands and the payment of his rents.<sup>26</sup> The dissolution in November 1701 provided Cholmondeley with a distraction from his immediate financial concerns, and that month he again lent his interest to Mostyn and Warburton.<sup>27</sup> Continuing doubts over Warburton’s willingness to take the oaths caused Cholmondeley to demand that Adams find out from Warburton’s ‘own mouth’,</p><blockquote><p>whether he has so capacitated himself for so I have already writ him word in my letter to him … that only on those terms could my interest be for him; nor can he wonder at my scrupulousness after what Sir Philip Egerton served me. If he has taken the oaths I desire you would be very stirring to do him the best service you can … since if I once appear for him the credit or discredit will in some measure come to me as he succeeds or fails. I hope my good friend Sir Roger Mostyn will yet stand with him which I think will make the thing much more feasible and easy for both …<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>For all Cholmondeley’s care the election witnessed a revival of the bitter contests of the early 1690s and Cotton and Mainwaring once more topped the poll.</p><p>Disappointed in his ambitions, Cholmondeley arrived in town towards the close of December to discover that his steward, Laroche, had been poached from his employment by Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle. Albemarle implored him not to block his servant’s departure and was offered ‘the king’s promise of the first place that falls’ as recompense.<sup>29</sup> Cholmondeley took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. During the ensuing (1701-2) session he was present on 59 per cent of sitting days and was named to 12 committees. On 1 Jan. 1702 he subscribed the Lords’ address to the crown expressing their resentment at the French king’s recognition of the Pretender as James III. On 8 Mar. Cholmondeley was present in the House and was thus named one of the managers of the conference occasioned by the death of William III.</p><p>Although he was displeased with Adams, in February 1702 Cholmondeley undertook to employ his interest (and to secure that of Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford) on behalf of Adams’ son-in-law. His generosity was not returned in kind, and the following month he criticized Adams and the ‘unexcuseable’ neglect of another of his servants, Houlbrook. The forthcoming election gave Cholmondeley an additional source of grievance against his incompetent agents; on 17 June John Eaton warned Adams that Cholmondeley would be ‘extremely angry’ if he discovered that his agents had failed to make interest for Mostyn and Warburton with sufficient zeal. Incapacitated by poor health, which prevented him appearing in Cheshire in person, Cholmondeley sent gifts of venison to his Egerton relations to help woo the voters.<sup>30</sup> In spite of his initial misgivings, Cholmondeley saw Tory successes elsewhere mirrored in Cheshire. Assisted by disarray in the Whig ranks, Mostyn and Warburton were returned for the county, despite a brief upset caused by accusations that Cholmondeley’s Catholic tenants had been permitted to vote. In Chester there was similar success with Peter Shakerley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Henry Bunbury<sup>‡</sup> returned for the city.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Notwithstanding his triumph at the polls, Cholmondeley was absent at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702. He took his seat on 7 Dec. and was then present on almost 44 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Jan. 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be in favour of the occasional conformity bill, and on 11 Jan. he spoke in the debate on the bill for Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland.<sup>32</sup> On 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause attached to the occasional conformity bill, and on 22 Feb. he subscribed the protest at the refusal to commit the bill for the landed qualification of members of Parliament.</p><p>Cholmondeley’s careful balancing act at court and in Cheshire was rewarded with his appointment as lord lieutenant of Cheshire and vice admiral of the Cheshire coast; he had been appointed to the lieutenancy of North Wales the previous year. Absent from the opening of the new session on 9 Nov. 1703, that month he was again estimated to be in favour of the occasional conformity bill in two forecasts compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, though the second, of 26 Nov., suggested that Cholmondeley’s support for the measure might be doubtful.</p><p>The expense of life in London appears to have been one of the reasons for Cholmondeley’s delayed return to the House. He told Nottingham that,</p><blockquote><p>I am endeavouring to obey your lordship’s commands and attend you in town, but we country gentlemen are not able to come to the price of Margerita’s voice with out doing penance whole months in the country first, to raise a fund sufficient to defray the expense; however I hope to kiss your lordship’s hands by the Christmas holidays, and shall then readily throw in my mite to advance any project that may bring a new relish and gusto to your lordship’s pleasurable part of your life …<sup>33</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sufficient funds presumably having been secured, he attended on 21 Dec. 1703, after which he was present on a little under a third of all sitting days, although he was absent again for just over a month from 17 Feb. until 24 Mar. 1704.</p><p>Cholmondeley failed again to attend the opening of the new session of October 1704, and he was still absent, excused, at a call of the House on 23 November. Perhaps included in a list of 1 Nov. of likely supporters of the Tack, it seems far more probable that the mark on the page indicating support and lying midway between two names, refers to John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham. Cholmondeley took his seat on 18 Dec. and was named to the committee for Lockhart’s bill, and that considering the bill for preventing the export of wool to Scotland. The same month he instructed his agents once again to make interest for Warburton in the forthcoming election, but relations with Sir Roger Mostyn had deteriorated to the extent that Cholmondeley ‘refused to countenance him’. Accordingly, he instructed Adams to, ‘take care to keep out Sir Roger by all means, and then do what service you can for Sir George. Keep this to yourself.’<sup>34</sup> Both Warburton and Mostyn had voted for the Tack, which may in part explain Cholmondeley’s displeasure, though Mostyn had presumably offended him more particularly. Some electors clearly failed to discern the distinction. John Twemlow wrote to Houlbrook during the course of the campaign in protest at being asked to vote for Warburton, though he did undertake to wait on Cholmondeley in person to discover his reasons.<sup>35</sup> To make matters worse, Warburton decided to stand with Mostyn, a decision that elicited an aggrieved missive from Cholmondeley to Adams in January 1705, bemoaning that manner in which the local gentry had set up the two candidates, ‘without any application or taking any notice of me in it’, but,</p><blockquote><p>more especially by the story you remember was told of my cousin Legh and other non-jurors meeting last summer about it, which is now told and bandied about the town to my great discredit, as if I was to be led by the nose by them or as if I had no interest of my own; and more especially the unkind proceedings of Sir George Warburton, who I told in the country I would be for but not for Sir Roger Mostyn, and yet he has since joined with him without giving me notice but within these three weeks things make it impracticable for me to stir in it, without the [least?], scandal to myself.<sup>36</sup></p></blockquote><p>Faced with such insubordination, Cholmondeley concluded that he would not appear himself, nor countenance his tenants supporting either Warburton or Mostyn. The following month Cholmondeley was provoked into lodging another complaint against one of his agents, Brescie, who had continued to make interest for Warburton and Mostyn: ‘This to be done by one of my own servants without any order from me looks as if I was a tricking and said one thing whilst I was underhand acting another thing.’ Matters failed to improve, and the following week Cholmondeley’s indignation embraced Adams too, leading him to threaten, ‘when I come down I shall endeavour to put [my business], into some honest man’s hands who I hope will serve me better than you two do.’<sup>37</sup> The resulting election was predictably bad-tempered. With the Cholmondeley interest in tatters both Mostyn and Warburton were beaten down by the Whig challengers Langham Booth<sup>‡</sup> and John Crewe Offley<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Cholmondeley was absent at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, perhaps away in Ireland.<sup>38</sup> He was excused at a call of the House on 12 November. He arrived three days later, after which he was present on approximately 61 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 7, 11, 14 and 17 Dec. he was named one of the reporters of the conferences considering the Church in danger dispute, and on 31 Jan. 1706 he participated in the debates on the regency bill, commenting waspishly that ‘the Lord Haversham acted as honestly and honourably when in office, as out of it.’<sup>39</sup></p><p>The 1706-7 session saw Cholmondeley present for more than three-quarters of all sitting days. On 27 Dec. he, along with a number of other peers including Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, was raised to an earldom, but financial constraints continued to plague him. Michael Laroche (who seems to have returned to his service), complained to the unreliable Adams that funds intended for ‘house keeping, stabling and pocket money’ had been used to redeem pawned plate and to pay for taking out the patent for Cholmondeley’s earldom. The situation was so dire that,</p><blockquote><p>we have not one single farthing in the house … nor do we know where to have it … My lord is in such constant passion about this matter that it is really uneasy for me to come near his lordship without being able to answer something for you all, he believing it a general combination amongst his agents in the country to blast his reputation.<sup>40</sup></p></blockquote><p>When Adams submitted a new lease to Cholmondeley, it was rejected out of hand; the embattled Laroche explaining to Adams delicately that, ‘I won’t tell you all the rest he says: he is so angry.’ Cholmondeley voiced his own frustrations in no uncertain terms shortly after, demanding Adams provide answers ‘without any trick or delays.’<sup>41</sup></p><p>Cholmondeley continued to be an active participant in the parliamentary session. On 3 Feb. 1707 he played host to Wharton, St Albans, Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, Charles Powlettt*, 2nd duke of Bolton, and Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston, at a dinner at his London home.<sup>42</sup> On 8 Mar. Cholmondeley was noted by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, as being one of the few lords present in the House that day, though his name does not appear on what otherwise appears to have been a relatively full attendance list.<sup>43</sup> On 14 Mar. he received St Albans’ proxy, which he held for the rest of the session. On 22 Mar. anticipating the imminent prorogation, Cholmondeley let loose another intemperate missive to Adams at Cholmondeley Castle, enquiring ‘what condition the house at Cholmondeley is’ and whether it was ‘as full of dirt and rubbish as when I left,’ speculating that if things were as bad as he imagined them to be there was little point in his attempting to live there.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Present for half of the brief session of April 1707, Cholmondeley took his seat two weeks into the first Parliament of Great Britain on 6 Nov. 1707, after which he was present for almost 79 per cent of the 1707-8 session. On 7 Feb. 1708 he protested at the resolution to pass the bill for completing the Union. In April 1708 he was appointed comptroller of the Household then, in November, treasurer of the Household in succession to the recently deceased Bradford.<sup>45</sup> Cholmondeley’s appointment to these posts, which commanded salaries of £1,200, underlines his reputation as an ‘assiduous courtier’ as well as his desperate need for cash.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Predictably enough, Cholmondeley was assessed as a Whig in a printed list of May 1708. In the election of that summer Booth and Offley were returned for Cheshire unopposed.<sup>47</sup> Cholmondeley was present for a little under half of all sitting days in the 1708-9 session. Towards the close of December 1708 he was involved in ‘an odd kind of debate’ in the House over the motion to draw up an address congratulating the queen on the recent successes in the war, making particular mention of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene. In his speech Cholmondeley ‘took notice of endeavours without doors to diminish the character of the duke of Marlborough’ but then appears to have become rather lost in his own rhetoric and needed to be rescued by the intervention of Wharton.<sup>48</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scottish representative peers and in February attempted to secure Marlborough’s interest on behalf of a client who had pretensions to be promoted major general.<sup>49</sup> Cholmondeley dined at Ossulston’s in March.<sup>50</sup></p><p>He took his seat at the opening of the 1709-10 session. The early months of 1710 were dominated by divisions over the Sacheverell affair. In contrast to his Tory allies in Cheshire, Cholmondeley opposed the embattled cleric, finding him guilty of the charges brought against him. Cholmondeley’s opposition appears to have stemmed from his fundamental dislike of the kind of partisanship that Sacheverell represented. That summer he mused to Matthew Prior:</p><blockquote><p>these times are as dangerous and uncertain for those that set their hearts upon holding places as perhaps ever were … . And for one that has neither superstition nor more religion than is absolutely necessary, a quiet mind is better than to embroil, plague and trouble myself amongst the kn[ave]s and fo[o]ls about either Church or State.<sup>51</sup></p></blockquote><p>The electors of Cheshire showed themselves to be far less reasonable. Support for Sacheverell in the county meant that the elections of 1710 saw a resumption of the heated religious divisions apparent in 1705, and the Whig members found themselves opposed strenuously by Warburton and Cholmondeley’s kinsman, Charles Cholmondeley<sup>‡</sup>. Despite his own opposition to Sacheverell, Cholmondeley rebuffed Godolphin’s request to support the Whigs.<sup>52</sup> He lent his interest to the Tory challengers, reinforced by Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury. In the face of such overwhelming odds, the Whigs were again displaced and Warburton and Cholmondeley returned.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Cholmondeley took his seat three days into the new Parliament on 28 Nov. 1710. In a pre-sessional forecast compiled by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, he had been marked as a possible supporter of the ministry, but in the early months of 1711 he defected from the court. He protested on 3 Feb. at the resolution to agree with the committee that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of the battle of Alamanza were not properly supplied and at the resolution to agree with the committee that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament for the war in Spain amounted to a neglect of the service. He justified his defection by suggesting that ‘he would be loath to see the present ministry condemned on such evidence.’<sup>54</sup> On 8 Feb. he acted as teller for the contents on a division concerning the state of the war in Spain.</p><p>Despite his disloyalty during the previous session and reports that he had been replaced as treasurer of the Household by Shrewsbury’s nephew, George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan, Cholmondeley was assured over the summer that he would not be put out of office.<sup>55</sup> He returned to the House for the 1711-12 session during which he was present on over two-thirds of sitting days. On 8 Dec. he was included among those expected to oppose the ministry by supporting the presentation of the address containing the no peace without Spain motion, and on 10 Dec. he was again included on a list of office-holders who had rebelled against the ministry on the question of no peace without Spain. This, and his opposition to the occasional conformity bill, led to further talk (in spite of earlier reassurances) that he and St Albans were to be put out of office; to add to his woes, Cholmondeley was also the victim of a practical joke played on him by Buckingham, who insisted on presenting Cholmondeley to the queen as if they had not met before, which ‘put his lordship much to the blush.’<sup>56</sup> Although he was forecast on 19 Dec. as being possibly opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon, the following day Cholmondeley fell into line and voted in Hamilton’s favour. Even so, on 21 Dec. and again on 1 Jan. 1712, reports circulated that he was to be replaced as treasurer of the Household.<sup>57</sup> Cholmondeley’s performance in the House on 4 Jan. 1712 earned him further unflattering press. Peter Wentworth<sup>‡</sup> described how he spoke, ‘for the adjournment in a manner remarkable enough’, telling the House,</p><blockquote><p>that he was let into no secret of either, nodding his head this side and that side, saying neither of this side nor that side, so he was an impartial man, and in pure respect to her majesty should be for complying with her majesty’s desire especial [sic], when she had given them so good a reason as that she had matter of importance to communicate to both houses.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>Cholmondeley’s increasing unreliability no doubt helped to fuel further rumours that he was to be put out of office.<sup>59</sup> In March he employed his interest covertly on behalf of one of his kinsmen, Lloyd Bodvel, who was facing prosecution by Richard Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Bulkeley [I] ‘for no other reason I can hear but because he is not in the Lord Bulkeleys’s interest and therefore is called a Whig’. Bulkeley’s animosity towards Bodvel was founded on far more than this and was no doubt the reason for Cholmondeley being at pains to stress to Adams that, ‘I don’t desire to have my name made use of in this matter for some reasons I shall tell you when I see you.’<sup>60</sup></p><p>Cholmondeley’s remarkable longevity in office earned him a line in a satire of June 1712, which stated that ‘Cholmondeley, when drunk, can never lose his wand’.<sup>61</sup> His political malleability was nevertheless insufficient to prevent divisions re-surfacing in Cheshire over the loyal address of July. Cholmondeley refused to present it, as it lacked any reference to the Hanoverian succession and he warned that the recorder of Chester’s role in its drafting meant that, ‘he shall find in a very little time that I don’t forget the villainous trick he puts upon me’.<sup>62</sup> When the gazette mistakenly reported that Cholmondeley had done so, he instructed Adams to,</p><blockquote><p>let the recorder of Chester or anyone else know how my lord Bolingbroke (Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke) introduced the Cheshire address … especially since the opinion I had of it makes me much better pleased he should have the credit of it than myself.<sup>63</sup></p></blockquote><p>In anticipation of the 1713 session Swift estimated that Cholmondeley would oppose the ministry; his continued insubordination resulted in his dismissal from office in April 1713.<sup>64</sup> Admitting that he did not know the precise details, Peter Wentworth reported that, ‘I have heard that in council he did not approve of some part of the queen’s speech, and that he has talked of this himself.’<sup>65</sup> Out of office Cholmondeley continued to oppose the ministry. On 13 June he was listed by Oxford as one of those expected to vote against confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French treaty of commerce. Yet following the dissolution in August, together with Rivers, he was again active in Cheshire on behalf of Tory candidates.<sup>66</sup> He resumed his seat for the new Parliament a few days after the opening on 23 Feb. 1714. On 11 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to amend the address for a proclamation for the discovery of the author of <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>. Although it was noted in the Journal, a few days later he was reported to have moved an address to the queen for encouraging the officers of the army as a way of securing the succession.<sup>67</sup> On 5 Apr. he was teller for the contents on the question of whether to add words to the address on the Protestant succession. On 7 May he received the proxy of the Junto Whig, Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. Forecast by Nottingham as opposed to the schism bill in May, on 2 June Cholmondeley received Manchester’s proxy, and on 14 June he was teller for the not contents on the report whether to agree to the schism bill amendment. Absent from the session after 17 June, on 22 June he registered his proxy with William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper.</p><p>Cholmondeley attended eight of the 15 days of the August 1714 session. At the accession of George I he was restored to office as treasurer of the Household and to the lieutenancy of Cheshire. During the elections for the new Parliament Cholmondeley again combined his interest in Cheshire with that of Rivers in favour of Warburton and Charles Cholmondeley.<sup>68</sup> The campaign was dominated by disagreements over the Weaver navigation bill; Charles Cholmondeley, the only candidate to oppose the bill, was beaten into third place by Warburton and Langham Booth.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Cholmondeley took his seat at the opening of Parliament on 17 Mar. 1715. Between 5 Apr. and 3 May he held the proxy of Francis Godolphin*, 2nd earl of Godolphin. Briefly absent from 13 to 19 July, Cholmondeley registered his own proxy with Cowper. On 2 Sept. he was named one the managers of a conference concerning the bill for relief of sufferers by fire and in November was active in securing Cheshire from the threat of rebellion.<sup>70</sup></p><p>The remainder of Cholmondeley’s parliamentary career will be covered in the next phase of this work. He died 18 Jan. 1725 and was succeeded under the terms of a special remainder by his brother, George Cholmondeley<sup>†</sup>, who had been raised to the peerage as Baron Newburgh in 1716. In his will he named his nephew, George Cholmondeley*, later 3rd earl of Cholmondeley, and his kinsman, Sir John Bridgman, Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> and Randle Wilbraham as executors. His estate was left to his brother and nephew.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CHURCHILL, John (1650-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>CHURCHILL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1650–1722)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>21 Dec. 1682 Ld. Churchill of Eyemouth [S]; <em>cr. </em>14 May 1685 Bar. CHURCHILL; <em>cr. </em>9 Apr. 1689 earl of MARLBOROUGH; <em>cr. </em>14 Dec. 1702 duke of MARLBOROUGH |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 5 Dec. 1721 |
|
MP Newtown I.o.W. 1679 (Mar.-July) |
<p><em>b</em>. 26 May 1650, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Winston Churchill<sup>‡</sup> (1620-88) and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1698),<sup>1</sup> da. of Sir John Drake<sup>‡</sup>, of Ashe, Musbery, Dorset; bro. of Charles<sup>‡</sup> and George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Dublin free g.s. 1662; St Paul’s c.1664. <em>m</em>. c. November 1677,<sup>2</sup> Sarah (1660-1744), da. of Richard Jennings<sup>‡</sup>, of Sandridge, Herts., 2s. (<em>d.v.p.</em>), 5da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>); 1 da. illegit. with Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland.<sup>3</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 1688. KG 1702. <em>d</em>. 16 June 1722; <em>will</em> 19 Mar. 1722; pr. 6 July 1722.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Page to James*, duke of York, by 1667, groom of bedchamber to York 1673-78, master of wardrobe to York 1677-85; envoy extraordinary, Denmark 1683, ambassador extraordinary, Paris Feb.-Apr. 1685; gent. of bedchamber 1685-88, 1689-92; PC 14 Feb. 1689-23 June 1692, 19 June 1698-30 Dec. 1711, 1715-<em>d</em>.; master of horse and gov. to duke of Gloucester 1698-1700; ld. justice 1698-1700; amb. extraordinary and plenipotentiary to The Hague 1701-11; master of the Ordnance 1702-12, Oct. 1714-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ensign 1st Ft. Gds. 1667; capt. of ft. Admiralty regt. 1672, lt.-col. 1675-83; lt.-col. 2nd R. English regt. (French army) 1674-7; brig. of ft. 1678; col. 1st Drag. Gds. 1683-5, 3rd Horse Gds. 1685-8 (later 7th Ft) 1689-92 (24th Ft.) 1702-4, 1st Ft. Gds. 1704-11, 1714-<em>d</em>.; maj.-gen. 1685; lt.-gen. Nov. 1688; c.-in-c. English forces in the Netherlands 1690-2, allied forces 1701-11; capt.-gen. 1702-11, 1715-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Dep. lt. Dorset 1685-88; high steward, St Albans 1685-<em>d</em>., Woodstock, 1705;<sup>5</sup> ld. lt. Oxon. 1706-12.</p><p>Freeman, Merchant Adventurers, Hamburg 1683,<sup>6</sup> East India Co. 1687;<sup>7</sup> gov. Hudson’s Bay Co. 1685-92,<sup>8</sup> Chelsea Hosp. 1715-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by ?J. Closterman aft. J. Riley, c.1685-90, NPG 501; oil on canvas by M. Dahl, c.1702, National Army Museum; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, Royal Hospital, Chelsea.</p> |
<h2><em>Before the Revolution</em></h2><p>Marlborough’s formative experience was that of a courtier.<sup>9</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, described him as</p><blockquote><p>a man of noble and graceful appearance, bred up in a court with no literature: but he had a solid and clear understanding, with a constant presence of mind. He knew the arts of living in a court beyond any man in it. He caressed all people with a soft and obliging deportment, and was always ready to do good offices.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>In his early manifestation as a courtier, ‘no expectations were given of the accomplished officer and soldier. His complexion was fine and delicate, the whole fabric of his body… indicated nothing like strength and vigour’. His initial appointments at court, as a page and as an ensign were almost certainly due to the influence of his elder sister, Arabella, the duke of York’s mistress.<sup>11</sup> As Churchill ‘had no fortune to set up on, this set him on all the methods of acquiring one’, he undertook various military and diplomatic postings as he attempted to establish himself, possibly serving in Tangier, and accompanying Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup> on an embassy to Savoy, serving at the battle of Sole Bay in 1672, and with the French army at the siege of Maastricht the following year.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Churchill’s uncertain prospects partly account for his prolonged courtship of Sarah Jennings; his parents wished him to marry Katherine Sedley, daughter of Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup> and another of York’s mistresses. He avoided the match by joining with his father in breaking the entail to the family’s estates, so that his father could pay his debts, and provide for his younger children. Meanwhile, the death of Sarah’s brother, Ralph, in the summer of 1677, made her a co-heiress to the family’s estates, and therefore a much better prospect. The date of Churchill’s marriage is unknown, but was probably shortly after the marriage of Princess Mary to the Prince of Orange in November 1677. It was not publicly acknowledged until May or June of the following year, and the first official document mentioning the fact was a deed of 15 June 1678.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Churchill strove to improve his position. In November 1677, he paid Ned Villiers £2,000 for the post of master of the robes to York.<sup>14</sup> In March 1678 he was sent to Bruges to plan for the arrival of the army. He then went to The Hague to negotiate a convention with William in the company of Sidney Godolphin*, the future earl of Godolphin, the man destined to be his closest friend. In February 1679 he was elected to Parliament, but on 1 May he received leave of absence for the whole session, allegedly to recover his health, but in reality to join York, in exile in the Low Countries. In August 1679, Churchill was in England when Charles II fell ill, being sent to bring York back to London.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Churchill and his wife were particularly close to York’s younger daughter, Princess Anne. When Churchill’s daughter Anne (the future countess of Sunderland) was born in February 1683, the princess was one of her godparents. In June, Churchill (by now a Scottish peer, Lord Churchill), was one of those dispatched to bring over Prince George*, the future duke of Cumberland, to England for his marriage to the princess. Following the marriage Sarah Churchill was employed in the household of the princess, first as a lady of the bedchamber and then as groom of the stole. Henceforth, both Churchills were important members of her household, and Sarah’s friendship with the princess became the key to his future career.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In the winter of 1684 the Churchills moved into the Cockpit, part of Princess Anne’s lodgings in the palace of Whitehall.<sup>17</sup> By the time of the accession of James II in February 1685, Churchill was a trusted servant of the new king, as well as a confidant of Princess Anne. James II despatched Churchill to France as extraordinary ambassador to Louis XIV. He left on 16 Feb., returning for the coronation in April.<sup>18</sup> Whilst in Paris he told the Protestant, Henri de Ruvigny, the future Viscount Galway [I], ‘that if the king ever was prevailed upon to alter our religion, he would serve him no longer, but withdraw from him’.<sup>19</sup> It was expected that Churchill would stand for election to the new Parliament for St Albans on the Sandridge interest, which had seen Sarah’s father and grandfather returned to the House of Commons. He was named as high steward in the new charter delivered to the town on 19 Mar. but on that day John Verney reported that ‘Lord Churchill sets up his brother, by which I guess his Lordship may be by that time the Parliament sits of the peers.’<sup>20</sup> George Churchill was elected at the end of March and Churchill was raised to the English peerage on 14 May, five days before Parliament met.</p><p>On 19 May 1685 he was introduced into the House by William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, and Richard Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, more commonly known as the earl of Arran [I]. In all he attended on five days of this part of the session, and was named to three committees. He last attended on 12 June, thereafter he was engaged in the suppression of the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. When the House resumed on 9 Nov. Churchill attended on each of the 11 days. Over the whole session, he attended on 16 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total.</p><p>At the end of December 1685, Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> suggested that Churchill was part of the faction led by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Lord Chancellor George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, rather than that of the king’s brothers-in-law, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon. This was probably accurate, given Churchill’s suspicion of the Hydes.<sup>21</sup> In January 1686 he was selected as one of the 30 peers to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, and, as the most junior baron present, he cast the first not guilty vote of what was to be an unanimous verdict.<sup>22</sup> He attended the prorogation on 10 Feb. 1686.</p><p>By the end of Charles II’s reign the Churchills were already able to invest surplus income.<sup>23</sup> In the new reign Churchill continued to invest the profits of royal service, some of it in non-landed enterprises, such as the East India Company.<sup>24</sup> According to L’Hermitage’s report of 22 June 1694, Churchill subscribed £10,000 to the Bank of England. His name does not appear on the printed list of subscribers sent to Berlin by the Prussian envoy, Bonet, on 6 July 1694, which suggests it was invested under another name.<sup>25</sup> He subscribed £20,000 to the Bank in 1709, so that in 1710 he was listed with those holding over £4,000 worth of stock.<sup>26</sup> Not that investment in more liquid assets militated against the acquisition of land.<sup>27</sup> A further source of income was an annuity he bought from George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, although this caused some difficulty following the death of William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, in securing payment from his trustees.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Although Churchill prospered, there is evidence of his continued concern over the direction of royal policy. On 29 Dec. 1686 Princess Anne wrote to her sister that Churchill ‘will always obey the king in all things that are consistent with religion – yet rather than change that, I daresay he will lose all his places and all that he has’. Churchill acted as Anne’s representative in discussions with Everard Dijkvelt in March 1687, whom William had sent to observe the political situation.<sup>29</sup> On 17 May 1687, Churchill himself wrote to William: ‘I being resolved, although I cannot live the life of a saint, if there be ever occasion for it, to show the resolution of a martyr’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Despite any misgivings that Churchill may have had over the direction of royal policy, he continued in the king’s service.<sup>31</sup> In November 1687, possibly as a way out of his dilemma of serving the king, he asked to command the English regiments in Dutch service. The various parliamentary lists of 1687-8 show that commentators regarded Churchill’s closeness to the king as indicating agreement with his religious policies. However, a closer observer of the court, the French ambassador, Paul Barillon, revealed in a dispatch of 5 Dec. that Churchill had refused to vote for the repeal of the Tests. This was confirmed by a newsletter of 12 Jan. 1688, which recorded that ‘Lord Churchill swears he will not do what the king requires of him’.<sup>32</sup> Nevertheless he continued to extract favours from James II. In May 1688, Churchill was quick to seize upon the lapsing of the archdeaconry of St Albans to secure the presentation to it of John Cole.<sup>33</sup> Perhaps deliberately, Churchill was absent at the military encampment when James’s son was born on 10 June.</p><p>In December 1687, Churchill revealed a certain sense of insecurity when he conveyed Sandridge to the family lawyer, Anthony Guidott.<sup>34</sup> In the course of 1688, he became actively involved in the plotting against the king, specifically undermining his control of the army.<sup>35</sup> On 27 July Churchill protected his estate by conveying £7,000 to Sarah and putting his property into trustees for the benefit of his wife and children.<sup>36</sup> On 4 Aug. he wrote to William that he was ‘resolved to die in that religion that it has pleased God to give you both the will and power to protect’.<sup>37</sup> Following the Dutch invasion the newly promoted lieutenant general Churchill marched with James II’s army to Salisbury. There he joined with Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, and others in advising an accommodation with William, although when a council-of-war was held, Churchill was the sole dissenter against a retreat, his advocacy being later seen as a manoeuvre to make his defection easier.<sup>38</sup> On the night of 23-24 Nov. he deserted to William, explaining in a letter to the king that his actions ‘could proceed from nothing but the inviolable dictates of my conscience, and a necessary concern for my religion’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. Churchill told Clarendon that the king was mistaken in thinking he would have betrayed him to William if he continued his advance, adding that ‘he had never left him, but that he saw our religion and country were in danger of being destroyed’. On 8 Dec. Churchill was one of those consulted about the response to the commissioners sent from James, and one of those reporting their conclusions to the prince. He said very little on the contentious matter of whether to supersede the writs already issued for calling a Parliament.<sup>40</sup> On 14 Dec. he brought a message to the council of peers in London that the prince ‘would not advance further than Windsor till the king’s resolutions were known as to his proposals’.<sup>41</sup> On 17 Dec. Churchill was one of the dozen peers consulted by William at Windsor on the news of James’s return to London. Both Churchill and Grafton argued against sending the king to the Tower, and eventually all agreed that he should be sent to Ham House. Having been summoned by William on 20 Dec. he attended a meeting of the Lords at the presence chamber in St James’s on the following day. He also attended on the 22nd, 24th and 25th and probably on the 27th as well.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Churchill was soon at the centre of the new regime.<sup>43</sup> He was chiefly active in preparing the army for war, following the disruption caused by James’s order to disband his forces. George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, was informed on 3 Jan. 1689, that in army affairs ‘Churchill is the greatest man next to’ Frederick Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg.<sup>44</sup> Indeed, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, heard from Schomberg that ‘the army is now modelling, and all done in the prince’s closet... My Lord Churchill proposes all, I am sent for as to say the general consents, and Monsieur Bentinck [Hans Willem Bentick*, the future earl of Portland], is the secretary for to write all’. He then continued, ‘the harvest my Lord Churchill made by this was vast, for all was sold’.<sup>45</sup> It was the reorganization of the army and its concomitant the selling of commissions, which reputedly cemented Churchill’s fortune.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Churchill was present on the opening day of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689. Rather diplomatically, given his long service to James II, on 29 Jan. he was listed as absent with ‘some indisposition’ from the vote on whether a regency would be the best way to preserve the protestant religion and the nation’s laws.<sup>47</sup> Roger Morrice confirmed his absence, noting that he had ‘hurt his leg’.<sup>48</sup> Two days earlier Clarendon had put an even worse construction on his absence at St Albans, linking it to widespread rumours that Churchill had undertaken to persuade Princess Anne to give up her right to the throne should Princess Mary predecease her husband without producing an heir. Burnet had apparently peddled this rumour, which Churchill denied, but Clarendon feared that Churchill’s absence would allow the rumour currency. On 31 Jan. Churchill voted against declaring William and Mary, king and queen. However, on 4 Feb. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in using the term ‘abdication’. On 5 Feb. Clarendon again expressed his suspicions to the princess. He indicated that Churchill had told Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Bristol, that she had written to Clarendon not to ‘say anything in the House from her’, despite having told Clarendon and others that she would do nothing to the prejudice of her rights.<sup>49</sup> Churchill and Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, carried a message from Princess Anne to the Lords, while they were at a conference with the Commons on 6 Feb., praying that concern for her interest should not hinder the two Houses from coming to an agreement because she was willing to submit to whatever they should conclude for the good of the kingdom ‘which hastened the conclusion and they returned and made report’. The Lords then voted to agree with the Commons that James II had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was vacant.<sup>50</sup> Churchill voted with the majority in this division. Not only was his vote crucial in this respect, but behind the scenes he helped persuade Princess Anne to relinquish her right to the throne. Ironically, the closeness of his relationship with the princess meant that William was wary of bestowing his full trust on him. As the king remarked to Halifax, ‘Lord Churchill could not govern him nor my lady, the princess his wife, as they did the prince and princess of Denmark’.<sup>51</sup></p><h2><em>After the Revolution, 1689-92</em></h2><p>Despite William’s distrust, Churchill’s role in the Revolution and its aftermath brought him advancement. At the end of February 1689 he was named a gentleman of the bedchamber. On 9 Apr. he was created earl of Marlborough, choosing that title because of his mother’s distant relationship to the wife of James Ley<sup>†</sup>, earl of Marlborough.<sup>52</sup> On 13 Apr. he was introduced into the House by Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield. He last attended on 7 May, it being noted that ‘Lord Churchill [<em>sic</em>], is very suddenly to go for Holland’.<sup>53</sup> On 22 May he was excused attendance on the House, having registered a proxy with Shrewsbury on 12 May. His absence on campaign meant that he attended only 22 per cent of the session, comprising roughly half the sittings available to him, and was named to four committees. While on campaign his public standing was emphasized, following the birth on 15 July 1689 of Mary Churchill (future duchess of Montagu), when Prince George, Queen Mary and the countess of Derby agreed to be her godparents.<sup>54</sup></p><p>William III’s suspicion of Marlborough’s closeness to Princess Anne was probably exacerbated by the question of an independent income for the princess, which the king opposed. The Commons grappled with the issue during the second half of 1689, eventually agreeing an address which was presented to the king on 23 December. On 30 Dec. the king’s reply was reported to the House: ‘whatsoever comes from the House of Commons, is so agreeable to me, and particularly this address, that I shall do what you desire of me.’ This victory for the princess and her court was bought at some cost. As Sarah later recalled, she ‘had taken a vast deal of pains to compass’ this settlement, and that this ‘was the true cause of King William’s and his queen’s anger against me’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Marlborough was absent when the next session of the Convention convened and on 28 Oct. he was excused attendance, being abroad. He arrived back on 4 Nov. and attended for the first time on 6 November.<sup>56</sup> He attended on 45 days of the session, 62 per cent of the total and was appointed to five committees. Classed by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (and later duke of Leeds) as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding that he was to be waited on, Marlborough was one of those who supped with the king at Shrewsbury’s on 6 Jan. 1690, part of the king’s attempts to improve relations with key members of the Lords.<sup>57</sup> On 25 Jan. Marlborough acted as a teller in opposition to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, concerning an address to the king to defer taking any resolution about going into Scotland or Ireland until the House had offered their advice. Ever willing to act as the royal servant, Marlborough was utilized by the king in attempting to persuade Godolphin to remain at the treasury, a post he relinquished in March 1690.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present at the opening of Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, attending in all on 47 days, including the adjournment on 7 July, 87 per cent of the total. On 2 May Clarendon recorded that Marlborough ‘went away and gave no votes’ on the bill for the better securing King William and Queen Mary against the Jacobite threat.<sup>59</sup> On 12 May he was named to manage the conference on the bill providing for the queen’s regency during William’s absence on campaign. He was then named to a committee to draw a clause for the abjuration bill. He was named to a further ten committees during the session. </p><p>In May Roger Morrice reported that Marlborough had lent the king £10,000, which may tally with a Jacobite report of 9 May that ‘Lord Churchill is raising as much money as he can upon his estates’.<sup>60</sup> He was named in June to the Council of Nine to advise Queen Mary and as commander of the army in England. The queen seems to have valued his advice, for following his suggestion Parliament was prorogued when it met following an adjournment on 7 July.<sup>61</sup> Not that the queen reposed full confidence in Marlborough, writing that he ‘can never deserve either trust or esteem’.<sup>62</sup> In this it seems she was in agreement with her father, for in July Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, the secretary of state, received information that in James II’s last pardon ‘none are excepted but the earl of Marlborough’ and Henry Compton*, bishop of London.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, on 7 July the queen wrote that Marlborough was much with Carmarthen and Nottingham, and ‘loses no opportunity of coming upon all occasions with the others [the Council of Nine]’.<sup>64</sup> He attended most of the council’s meetings until mid-August, and the prorogation on 18 Aug. after which he went to Portsmouth to supervise his Irish expedition. His relative inexperience in military matters provoked some sniping. The queen reported to the king on 22 Aug. that Carmarthen had said that if George Churchill had a flag, ‘he will be called flag by favour, as his brother is called the general of favour’. Marlborough left London on 26 Aug. for Ireland where he was instrumental in the capture of Cork and Kinsale.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s service in Ireland meant that he was absent when the 1690-1 session convened, not attending until 29 Oct. 1690. On 27 Dec. he entered his dissent against the resolution allowing written protections to be given to menial servants. In all, he attended on 43 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total and was named to six committees. Meanwhile, his prestige was sufficient for rumours to circulate that he would be made master of the Ordnance and a duke, possibly taking the title of Albemarle, although his ambitions may have been restricted to the garter and a military command to accompany the ordnance.<sup>66</sup></p><p>When William went to The Hague early in 1691 for a military conference, he did not take Marlborough. The perception that Marlborough had grievances was picked up by Jacobite agents and in January 1691, Henry Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup> made contact with the earl in the hope of preying upon his disillusionment.<sup>67</sup> On 17 Feb. Marlborough wrote to the king of his frustrations: ‘I am tired out of my life with the unreasonable way of [the], proceedings of the lord president [Carmarthen]; for he is very ignorant of what is fit for an officer, both as to recruits, and everything else as to a soldier’. His interference meant that ‘business is never done’, and made Marlborough wish the king would soon return, after which ‘I shall beg never to be in England when you are not’. Despite these frustrations, Marlborough persevered. On 27 Feb. Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, wrote to William that ‘Marlborough behaves himself much better than he did at first after your going away; he is now pretty diligent and seldom fails the committees’.<sup>68</sup> He also attended the adjournment on 31 March. On 23 Apr. Marlborough attended the council, following which he was one of those who dined with William at the house of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu.<sup>69</sup> Marlborough was not appointed to the council to assist Queen Mary in the summer of 1691, because he accompanied William on campaign.<sup>70</sup> In August both Princess Anne and Prince George pressed for Marlborough to be given the garter, but without success.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Marlborough continued to be dissatisfied with his professional prospects. Important army commands had been given to Dutch and German officers like Godard van Reede Ginkell (later earl of Athlone [I]) and Solms, and he was only one of several lieutenant generals appointed in December for the next campaign in Flanders.<sup>72</sup> He found that William favoured the English and Scottish officers who had served in the Dutch brigades and he did not get on well with the king’s Dutch favourite, Portland.<sup>73</sup> This led to his involvement in agitation in Parliament to force the king to part with his foreign officers, where he may have used Princess Anne as a rallying point for the disaffected.<sup>74</sup> Some of this discontent may have given way to Jacobite intrigue. In evidence to the Commons on 9 Dec. William Fuller named Marlborough among more than 40 ‘persons of quality and others that had signed an address to the French king to desire him to send an army into England’.<sup>75</sup> Whatever stress may be placed on the testimony of such an inveterate schemer, Marlborough was in touch with Jacobite agents and in December he mediated a reconciliation between Princess Anne and her father by persuading her to write a ‘penitential letter’ to him.<sup>76</sup></p><p>On 20 Jan. 1692, without warning, Marlborough was dismissed from all his offices.<sup>77</sup> Various explanations were offered for the king’s actions. Marlborough was recognized as having been discontented and as having spoken disparagingly of the king’s conduct and of the Dutch. He was also accused of alienating Princess Anne from the queen and of becoming a Jacobite.<sup>78</sup> The king seemed to hold a real sense of personal grievance; Robert Harley*, future earl of Oxford, and Bonet both reported that the king had said that Marlborough’s conduct had been such that were he not king he would have sought a duel.<sup>79</sup> Whatever the role played by the quarrel between the royal sisters, Princess Anne stood by Marlborough, refusing to dismiss the countess from her service, with the result that she was effectively banished from court.</p><p>Marlborough was in attendance at the beginning of the 1691-2 session, 22 October. On 12 Jan. 1692 he entered his dissent to the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 9 Feb. he registered his proxy to Godolphin, but he continued to attend the Lords until the adjournment on 23 February. Although one newsletter remarked on 2 Feb. that ‘Marlborough is present in the House of Peers daily’, he attended only 62 days of the session, 64 per cent of the total and was named to five committees.<sup>80</sup></p><h2><em>Out of favour, 1692-4</em></h2><p>In April 1692 Marlborough was excepted from James II’s pardon, although Portland had obtained information early in May that Marlborough had received a pardon by ‘his own promises to engage a great part of the army’.<sup>81</sup> Dalrymple suggested that Marlborough and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, had been excepted at their own request ‘the more effectually to conceal their secret connections’.<sup>82</sup> In May, when an informer named Young concocted a plot implicating Marlborough and others, during the French invasion scare, the earl was committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason.<sup>83</sup> Lyttelton noted that the princess’s court at Sion was ‘melancholy’ upon hearing the news, but that the earls of Macclesfield and Montagu had refused to sign the order for Marlborough’s commitment’.<sup>84</sup> Moreover, William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, Montagu, Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport, and Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Ranelagh [I], had refused to sign the arrest warrant.<sup>85</sup> This cannot be confirmed from the Privy Council minutes as no presence list is given for the relevant day (3 May), nor is a list of signatories given for the arrest warrant, though the implication is that it was identical to the preceding entry, which does include Devonshire. There were 26 signatories to the order of commitment, dated 5 May, including Devonshire, Macclesfield, Montagu, Ranelagh and Newport.<sup>86</sup> Marlborough was sufficiently worried about his fate to write to Carmarthen for protection against forged documents being presented to the grand jury.<sup>87</sup> When the threat of an invasion had eased following the battle of La Hogue, Marlborough, perhaps prompted in part by the death of his son Charles, petitioned for release.<sup>88</sup> However, the judges when consulted on 28 May refused a writ of habeas corpus.<sup>89</sup> By 10 June Nottingham had admitted to Portland that ‘the business of Mr. Young will come to nothing’, the witnesses having being convicted of forgery, and that the prisoners would be bailed on the 15th.<sup>90</sup> Marlborough was prepared for this eventuality having approached Halifax to stand bail for him when his counsel petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus.<sup>91</sup> On 15 June he was bailed by Halifax, John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan and 3rd earl of Carbery [I], Shrewsbury and Henry Boyle*, future Baron Carleton, for £6,000.<sup>92</sup> He was removed from the Privy Council on 23 June, along with Halifax, Shrewsbury and Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington.<sup>93</sup> Marlborough’s dismissal and subsequent arrest had caused disquiet among his friends. As Sydney noted, Godolphin was ‘angry upon my Lord Marlborough’s account’ and Edward Russell*, future earl of Orford, ‘hath liked nothing ever since my Lord Marlborough was in disgrace’.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Believing that the government was planning his destruction, Marlborough became more openly critical in Parliament and began to figure more prominently in Jacobite correspondence. Nottingham continued to collect intelligence, including an affidavit from Dr. Richard Kingston, affirming that Marlborough had said that King William ‘exercised a more arbitrary and tyrannical power than King James did’, and that ‘every good man ought to lay his helping hand to put an end to it’. Marlborough retained the support of Princess Anne, and socialized with various opponents of the ministry, including Bishop Compton*, of London, Russell, Shrewsbury, Montagu, Carbery, Godolphin, Henry Boyle and Thomas Felton<sup>‡</sup>. Nor was he lacking support among government officials: Nottingham was informed that Sir John Werden<sup>‡</sup>, a customs’ commissioner, had made a speech at the board ‘in commendation of the Lord Marlborough’s carriage in the House of Lords’.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present when the 1692-3 session convened on 4 November. On 7 Nov. the House took into consideration the cases of Marlborough, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, all of whom were still under bail in the king’s bench, and ordered the matter to be brought before the committee for privileges. On the 9th, the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, was quizzed in a committee of the whole about his refusal to bail the accused. Upon hearing that such an action was not lawful, Marlborough asked for the protection of the House.<sup>96</sup> The committee of the whole resolved on 14 Nov. that the judges had a duty in pursuance of the Habeas Corpus Act to admit a prisoner upon bail, if committed for high treason, unless it was made to appear upon oath, that there were two witnesses against the prisoner. On 15 Nov. the House spent some time in an inconclusive debate about discharging Marlborough and Huntingdon. On the 18th, the Lords were informed that both Marlborough and Huntingdon’s bail had been discharged and that therefore there was no occasion for further proceedings.</p><p>On 21 Nov. 1692 Marlborough acted as a teller in opposition to Ailesbury on the motion to vacate protections granted by Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln. On 7 Dec. he entered his protest against the failure of the House to agree to a committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. On 8 Dec. he acted as a teller in opposition to Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, in a division concerning the ordnance. On 20 and 21 Dec. he was named to manage a conference on the naval papers brought to the Lords by Nottingham. In a follow-up to this, on 29 Dec. he was named to prepare reasons for a conference on whether the vote delivered from the Commons approving Admiral Russell’s conduct was according to the usual manner of proceedings, and was then one of the managers of the subsequent conference on 4 Jan. 1693. On 31 Dec. 1692 and 3 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of the place bill, signing a protest against its rejection on 3 January.</p><p>At about the turn of the year, Ailesbury forecast Marlborough as a likely opponent of Norfolk’s divorce bill; he voted against it on 2 Jan. 1693. On 17 Jan. he entered his dissent against the resolutions concerning the failure of Charles Knollys’ claim to the earldom of Banbury. On 19 Jan., following the report of a conference with the Commons, he entered two dissents to the resolutions concerning the failure of the Lords to insist on their amendments to the land tax bill. On 24 and 25 Jan. he was named to manage conferences on the recently published libel, <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em>. On 4 Feb. Marlborough voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. When the House considered the heads of advice to be offered to the king on 11 Feb. he acted as a teller on two occasions in opposition to John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, who reported the heads to the House. Both men were then named to draw up the resultant address.</p><p>On 6 Mar. 1693 Marlborough dissented to the resolution not to communicate to the Commons information concerning the state and condition of Ireland. Two days later he entered his dissent to the expiring laws bill. On 10 Mar. he was named to report the conference on the bill concerning the duchy of Cornwall, and then named to draw up reasons for the Lords insisting on their amendments to the bill. On 13 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Feversham at the report stage of the bill to prevent the false and double return of Members. On 14 Mar. he was named as a reporter to the conference on the bill to prohibit trade with France and for the encouragement of privateers. In all he was present on 95 days of the session, 93 per cent of the total, and was named to 25 committees. Clearly, his presence must have been pervasive, and a reminder to the government that he might be better off employed rather than left to foment opposition.</p><p>During August 1693 Marlborough took part in the political manoeuvring aimed at securing a reconstruction of the ministry. On the same day Charles Hatton affirmed the importance of Marlborough to the discussions when he wrote that ‘Lord Churchill’ had effected a reconciliation between the two royal sisters. The crucial summit of ‘great men’, at Althorp included Shrewsbury, Montagu, Godolphin, Marlborough, Russell and Thomas Wharton*, future marquess of Wharton; another meeting was hosted by Montagu at Boughton. The intention was to replace Nottingham with Sunderland; Sydney was to carry ‘the scheme of this great new settlement’ to the king and according to Anne Nicholas ‘if he will accept of them they will give him four hundred thousand pounds’.<sup>97</sup> Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> rather sceptically told Harley that if Marlborough ‘came into a play it is strange’, and all came to nought when William failed to countenance any of the changes.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present when the 1693-4 session opened on 7 November. He attended on 103 days of the session, 81 per cent of the total. On 4 Dec. he acted as a teller for a division on the triennial bill. In the debate which followed about what constituted holding a Parliament, he offered the word ‘assemble’ as part of the definition. On 8 Dec. he backed Devonshire’s amendment defining a session as being held even if ‘no act or judgment’ should pass. On 21 Dec. Marlborough moved that the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> be allowed to withdraw their petition in the cause of <em>Bridgeman v. Holt</em>, the duchess having agreed the matter with the lord chief justice. The matter was adjourned, ‘some Lords thinking such a failure of justice should not go without some censure.’<sup>99</sup> Presumably, one of those Lords was Marlborough for on 22 Dec. he entered his dissent against the passage of the resolution.</p><p>On 3 Jan. 1694 Marlborough was named to manage a conference about the proceedings in council concerning the admirals who had commanded the fleet the previous summer. On 12 Jan. he suggested that the Lords adjourn until the House receive a more satisfactory answer from the king. He was named to further conferences on the conduct of the admirals on 15 Jan. and 8, 12 February. On 15 Feb. he acted as a teller concerning the same issue. On 5 Jan. Marlborough was named to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the place bill. On 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in <em>Montagu v Bath</em>. On 26 Feb. he spoke in support of the Commons’ bill for the reform of treason trials, which was lost without a division. On 14 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the bill for the easier recovery of small tithes. In all he was named to a further 20 committees during the session.</p><p>Marlborough was not an opponent of the government out of conviction; he still sought a return to office. He had helped convince Shrewsbury to return to office as secretary at the beginning of March 1694, in part to secure his ‘own peace’.<sup>100</sup> On 4 May Marlborough executed a settlement, in accordance with the will of Sarah’s mother that her estate of Agney, Kent should be beyond his control, to vest it in trustees for her sole use.<sup>101</sup> It may have been coincidental that this settlement occurred at the same time as his possible betrayal to the French of the English attack on Camaret Bay, although at worst it merely confirmed what the French already knew.<sup>102</sup> On 22 June, Following this military disaster, Marlborough tendered his service to the king, through Shrewsbury, which William declined.<sup>103</sup> This may account for Sunderland writing to Portland in July of Marlborough’s ‘extraordinary desire to be again employed’. He continued to attend political gatherings. Wharton and Felton intended to meet Marlborough and Godolphin at Sunderland’s on 14 Aug. 1694, where ‘some suspect there is a project to reconcile Sunderland and Lord Rochester’. Sunderland confirmed a meeting saying on 5 Aug. that in the next week he was expecting to see Marlborough, along with Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup>, Dr. John Radcliffe<sup>‡</sup>, Romney (the former Sydney), Felton, and Wharton.<sup>104</sup></p><h2><em>Rehabilitation, 1695-8</em></h2><p>Marlborough was present at the opening of the 1694-5 session, 12 November. On 22 Nov. he acted as a teller in a vote concerning stamp duty on parliamentary records. The death of Queen Mary on 28 Dec. opened the way towards Marlborough’s rehabilitation as it emphasized the need for a reconciliation between William and Princess Anne. As Shrewsbury observed on 29 Jan. 1695, Marlborough had ‘no small credit’ with Princess Anne and seemed ‘very resolved to contribute to the continuance of this union, as the only thing that can support her, or both. I do not see he is likely, at present, to get much by it, not having yet kissed the king’s hand, but his reversion is very fair and great’.<sup>105</sup> Charles Hatton had already noted he had begun to abandon his opposition stance in the Lords. Marlborough, he wrote, had been previously ‘very zealous for passing the treason bill; but last Tuesday [8 Jan.], he absented himself from the committee, where it was carried by seven votes that the treason bill should not commence till 1698’, rather than 1695, a concession to the court.<sup>106</sup> On 22 Jan. Marlborough acted as a teller twice in divisions on the treason trials bill. At the report stage on 23 Jan. when Rochester renewed his attempt to have the bill commence immediately, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> reported that ‘Marlborough took upon him to answer him that our security was not so slender if it depended only on those three lives’, namely the king, Princess Anne and the duke of Gloucester.<sup>107</sup></p><p>On 19 Mar. 1695 Marlborough acted as a teller in a division on the descent of baronies by writ. On 13 Apr. he was named as a reporter of the conference with the Commons concerning Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> and the East India Company. He was named to the committee to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on the matter, and was named as a manager on the 17th. On 18 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the expiring laws bill. On 22 Apr. he was elected (with 26 votes – the joint lowest total), as one of the peers to serve on a joint committee with the Commons in the examination of Cooke; he also served as the manager of a conference about it on the 24th.<sup>108</sup> On 26 Apr. he reported back from the committee of both Houses that the report was not yet ready and asked for an early sitting on the following day. On 30 Apr. he reported from the committee appointed to inspect the Journals for a series of precedents relating to the method of proceeding in cases of impeachments for misdemeanours. In all he attended on 97 days of the session, 81 per cent of the total. He was named to a further 38 committees, reporting from the Whitchcot estate bill.</p><p>Meanwhile, Marlborough’s slow rehabilitation continued; he kissed the king’s hand on 29 Mar. 1695, and it was reported that he would serve as a lieutenant general in Flanders.<sup>109</sup> When Princess Anne took up lodgings in St James’s Palace in December 1695, so did Marlborough, where he remained until the spring of 1711.<sup>110</sup> Marlborough was also concerned about elections to the Commons, but on a personal level. On 7 July 1695 he wrote from St Albans to give Sir Benjamin Bathurst<sup>‡</sup> warning that a new Parliament was likely, it being ‘for the Princess’s service to have you of the House’. He added that ‘it would be a great mortification to me’, if John Howe<sup>‡</sup> ‘should meet with any assistance from such as you may have power over, he having used me not as one gentleman ought to use another; and yet impossible for me to take notice of, as I might have done in another place’.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Having attended the prorogation on 8 Oct. Marlborough was present on the opening day of the 1695-6 session, 22 November. On 5 Dec. he was named to manage a conference on the coinage. On 6 Dec, in the committee of the whole on the state of the nation, he supported moves to investigate the naval failings of the previous summer, noting that ‘whether by a negligence or treachery the losses of the merchants did arise’. On 14 Dec. he was named to a conference on the address against the Scottish East India Company. On 23 Dec. in committee of the whole on the treason trials bill, he supported making the statute effective from the year 1695, and not postponing it. He also wished to draw the definition of the crime against the king to include ‘any violence, hurt or mischief of the king’.<sup>112</sup> On more mundane legislative matters, Marlborough received a letter from Lady Jane Blount dated 23 Dec. giving her consent to Blount’s estate bill, which suggests he was active either in managing the bill or in the committee considering it.<sup>113</sup></p><p>On 3 and 7 Jan. 1696 Marlborough was named to manage conferences on the bill for regulating the silver coinage, which had been extensively amended by the Lords. On 9 Jan. he entered his protest against the resolution that the House not insist upon a clause allowing, for a limited time, the export of coin; acted as a teller in on the question of whether to insist upon the Lords’ amendment about the Mint receiving gold in the coinage bill; and entered his dissent against the resolution that the House not insist upon a clause requiring that the deficiency on all clipped coin be made good. He was then appointed to the committee to prepare reasons for the Lords insisting on some amendments to the bill; and what should be offered, concerning the Commons denying the Lords a right of inflicting pecuniary penalties. He was then named on 10 Jan. to manage the ensuing conference. Also on 9 Jan. Marlborough acted as a teller on the question of whether to read the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, the future 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke. On 24 Feb. he was named to the address committee following the king’s speech alerting the Lords to the Assassination Plot, and to the resultant conference with the Commons. He signed the Association on 27 February. In all he attended on 101 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total and was named to a further 48 committees, reporting on the Wye and Lugg navigation bill.</p><p>Marlborough continued to seek advancement. On 23 May 1696 Sunderland wrote to Portland about a successor to Henry Capell*, Baron Capell, as lord deputy in Ireland, that there were ‘many pretenders and none more pressing than Marlborough’.<sup>114</sup> In June Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> had been arrested and over the next few months made unsubstantiated allegations about the involvement of Marlborough, Godolphin, Shrewsbury and Russell in the Assassination Plot. By the end of September rumours were rife that Fenwick had implicated Marlborough in Jacobite activity, but the king discounted Fenwick’s evidence.<sup>115</sup> Marlborough continued to socialize extensively: in September, both he and Godolphin appear to have left Wharton’s Buckinghamshire house to visit Sunderland at Althorp.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present when Parliament convened on 20 Oct. 1696. On 6 Nov. the king informed the Commons that the information given by Fenwick contained allegations against ‘several persons of quality’, including Marlborough. Fenwick was sent for and questioned by the Commons, and given the opportunity to substantiate his charges. Following the inadequacy of his answers, the Commons voted that his information was ‘false and scandalous’, and ordered a bill of attainder to be brought in against him. In these debates Charles Montagu*, future earl of Halifax, distinguished himself, doing ‘great right’ to Russell, Shrewsbury and Marlborough, ‘by name, showing how improbable this fiction was, as to any of you’.<sup>117</sup> Vernon reported on 17 Nov. that at the second reading of the Fenwick attainder bill, Marlborough’s brother in law, Charles Godfrey<sup>‡</sup>, ‘moved the questions in behalf of my Lord Marlborough’. There seems little doubt that Marlborough promoted the attainder bill. On 24 Nov. Vernon reported that he was ‘very hearty in this matter and as if he would push it’.<sup>118</sup> On 1 Dec., after Fenwick’s papers were delivered into the House and read:</p><blockquote><p>Marlborough first stood up, and spoke… that he did not wonder to find a man in danger, willing to throw his guilt upon any other body; that he had some satisfaction to be owned in such good company; but that he assured their Lordships that he had no sort of conversation with him, upon any account whatsoever since this government.<sup>119</sup></p></blockquote><p>Marlborough informed Shrewsbury on 2 Dec. that ‘it all went as well as you could wish’, and that ‘Rochester has behaved himself on all this occasion like a friend’.<sup>120</sup> Yet on 10 Dec. John Somers*, Baron Somers, told Shrewsbury that Rochester had made a proposition to Marlborough ‘to get a vote in the House [of Lords], upon the paper’ [of Fenwick’s], which he felt was ‘to make this matter help towards the rejecting of the bill’. He elaborated on 24 Dec. noting that Rochester’s plan was ‘judged wholly improper at the time he proposed it, and designed principally to obstruct the passing of the bill, by dividing some who were likely to be earnest for it’.<sup>121</sup> On 18 Dec. Marlborough acted as a teller for the second reading of Fenwick’s attainder bill. On 23 Dec. he was listed as voting in favour of the bill’s third reading, and succeeded in getting Prince George to vote for it as well.<sup>122</sup> On 24 Dec. Vernon indicated that Fenwick’s supporters had intended to embarrass Marlborough by asking him ‘the reasons the king had to part with him, and what had followed upon his discontent’.<sup>123</sup></p><p>On 5 Jan. 1697 Somers wrote to Shrewsbury that Marlborough and Russell would be with him the next day concerning the machinations of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, over the Fenwick affair. On 9 Jan., Marlborough and Godolphin ‘spoke in behalf of themselves’ and of Shrewsbury when the Lords considered the papers which Lady Mary Fenwick had produced upon the order of the House (of 22 Dec.) about how Fenwick should behave at his trial. On several occasions this advice to Fenwick mentioned using the evidence which had led to Marlborough’s committal to the Tower in 1692 by contriving to have it laid before the House. On 15 Jan., when the Lords debated these papers and Monmouth’s role therein, Marlborough, together with Godolphin, and others, ‘all pressed that they could not but look upon him as the contriver of those papers, and the judgment of the House ought to be formed accordingly’.<sup>124</sup> Monmouth was then sent to the Tower and Marlborough was one of those named to the committee to draw up a representation to the king on the matter.</p><p>Marlborough was involved in other business during the session. On 30 Nov. 1696 he was named to manage a conference at which the Commons communicated their resolution on the privilege of Members. His skills as a mediator were called upon in an attempt to resolve disputes involving peers. On 4 Dec. he was one of seven peers appointed to compose matters between Devonshire and John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby, over the purchase of Berkeley House.<sup>125</sup> On 21 Jan. 1697 he was one of six peers appointed by the House to mediate between Huntingdon and his son, George Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings, future 8th earl of Huntingdon. On 1 Feb. he acted as a teller in a division on the bill for the recovery of debts from peers and Members of the Commons. On 26 Feb., Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, registered his proxy with Marlborough, but he continued to attend. On 5 Mar. Marlborough was named to manage a conference on the bill prohibiting the import of wrought silks, being named on the 9th to the committee to draw up reasons for the Lords insisting on their amendments. On 18 Mar. Bradford and Sandwich registered their proxies with Marlborough. On 15 Apr. Marlborough entered his protest to a clause in the bill to restrain the number and ill practices of stock-jobbers because the House rejected an amendment to it to ensure the legislation was not retrospective. In all he attended on 98 days of the session, 86 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 32 committees.</p><p>Peace brought with it the prospect of ministerial changes, and Marlborough was very much part of the political speculation that spring and summer. In April 1697 John Locke was informed that Sunderland was being cultivated ‘and ’tis buzzed about that he is bringing the Lord Rochester, Marlborough and Godolphin into play’.<sup>126</sup> On 31 July Marlborough was at Tunbridge Wells, where he hosted a dinner for Sunderland, Romney, Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, Baron Coningsby [I], the future earl of Coningsby, who were staying with Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester, at Penshurst. The following day Marlborough, Godolphin and George Churchill returned the visit.<sup>127</sup> On 2 Nov. one of Harley’s correspondents reported that Marlborough and Godolphin had been reconciled to Rochester.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present on 3 Dec. 1697 when the next session opened. Vernon reported on 6 Jan. 1698 that when Bartholomew Burton was examined by the Commons about the false endorsement of exchequer bills, he ‘gave some occasion to think of it by saying he had contracted with some gentlemen to pay their subscriptions, they laying down half the money should have the benefit of the whole sums’ naming Marlborough among others, ‘but those present denying it, and he being called in again it appeared that he very ill explained himself, for besides the half deposited he had the party’s bills to negotiate for the rest and they were to bear the discount’.<sup>129</sup> In mid-session, reports again surfaced of Marlborough’s return to office, Vernon noting on 14 Feb. that he had been told ‘an exchange is negotiating’, whereby Marlborough would become lord chamberlain, and Shrewsbury governor to the duke of Gloucester. Vernon could not vouch for the veracity of this rumour, but revealed that ‘Marlborough is frequently with the king, and therefore I hope they are well together’.<sup>130</sup> On 5 Mar. Marlborough was named to prepare for a conference aimed at discovering the ground on which the Commons had proceeded in the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, and was also one of those appointed to manage the ensuing conferences on 7 and 11 March. On 15 Mar. he was noted as supporting the committal of the bill and listed as voting in favour of it.<sup>131</sup> The adjournment of 20 Apr. until 2 May provided a convenient window for the marriage on 28 Apr. of his daughter, Henrietta, to Francis Godolphin*, later 2nd earl of Godolphin.</p><p>On 6 May 1698 John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> informed Galway that the Irish interest had ‘been much frighted about the woollen bill, but I have at last engaged my Lord Godolphin, Rochester and Marlborough to secure it for this session and they kept their words, and have put it off a week in such manner that I hope we shall certainly gain our point’.<sup>132</sup> This may be a reference to the delaying tactic of the committee on the bill requesting to see some papers in the hands of the clerks of the council. On 7 May Marlborough acted as teller on the question of appointing a date for the next sitting of the House. On 10 May he was appointed to manage a conference on the Colchester hospitals and workhouse bill. On that day Sandwich again registered his proxy with Marlborough. On 7 June in what was probably a reference to the bill brought into the Commons for raising annuities and incorporating the new East India company, Vernon informed Shrewsbury that as a result of what the House had done ‘there is a prospect of an accommodation between the Old Company and the new subscribers; if it succeed, the two millions will be raised with greater certainty and much less clamour. I believe my Lord Godolphin and Lord Marlborough have mediated it’.<sup>133</sup> On 15 June Marlborough was appointed to manage a conference on the impeachment of Goudet, and then to a committee to prepare reasons for the Lords insisting on their resolution on how the impeachment should be managed. He was appointed to manage the resultant conferences on the matter on 16, 21, 23, 28 June and 2 July. He attended on 123 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, being named to 55 committees.</p><h2><em>Return to office, 1698-1701</em></h2><p>By 11 June 1698 Vernon had heard that ‘Marlborough is to be one of the cabinet council; he will be a very fit man to be one of the lords justices, there being a want of such.’ The king declared this and Marlborough’s appointment as Gloucester’s governor at the cabinet on 12 June, and on 16 July Marlborough was declared one of the lords justices.<sup>134</sup> There followed a quarrel over minor appointments to Gloucester’s household, which Marlborough smoothed over with the assistance of Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle.<sup>135</sup> On 19 Aug. Vernon informed Portland that Marlborough, Orford (as Russell had become), Godolphin and Charles Montagu were to attend Quainton races near to Wharton’s residence at Winchendon, where Shrewsbury was to meet them, although Marlborough does not seem to have been let into the secret of the partition treaty which was communicated to Shrewsbury at this gathering.<sup>136</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present when the 1698-9 session opened on 6 December. On 29 Dec. Somers wrote to Shrewsbury of the king’s intentions to abandon the country in the wake of the votes on the army, noting that the king ‘had spoken of it to my Lord Marlborough (which one would wonder at, almost as much as the thing itself)’.<sup>137</sup> On 21 Jan. 1699 Sunderland wrote to Marlborough for advice on how to answer a summons to attend the House.<sup>138</sup> On 10 Feb. Marlborough acted as a teller for the petition in <em>Fitch v. attorney-general</em>. On 21 Mar. he was a teller on the appointment of a date to hear Captain Desborrow’s petition. On 25 Apr. he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for the Lords insisting on the proviso they had added to the bill making Billingsgate Market a free market for fish, and on the 26th appointed to manage the ensuing conference. On 3 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill laying a duty upon paper. He attended on 59 days of the session, 72 per cent of the total, and was named to 35 committees.</p><p>Marlborough was named a lord justice by the king on 30 May 1699.<sup>139</sup> On 3 June Marlborough wrote to Shrewsbury, chiefly to criticize Orford, who had resigned from the admiralty: ‘he said with great peevishness, where he thought it might hurt me, and that was that Lord Sunderland governed everything, and that I acted nothing but as influenced by him. This is the unjuster, for he can’t but know the contrary’.<sup>140</sup> During the summer Marlborough was involved in the usual round of social and political engagements.<sup>141</sup> At the beginning of October Marlborough was hopeful that his brother, George, would succeed Sir Robert Rich<sup>‡</sup> at the admiralty, although ‘there are some who dislike it’, including Orford, who was ‘a good deal out of humour upon Mr. Churchill’s being in the admiralty’.<sup>142</sup> George Churchill was appointed at the end of the month. Following the king’s return to England, on 18 Oct. Marlborough was one of the many attending his levee the next day.<sup>143</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present at the opening of the 1699-1700 session on 16 November. Vernon reported that on 8 Dec. the Commons considered the state of the debt owing to the Prince George, and that although Marlborough ‘has bestirred himself… some of the leading men were not to be prevailed with.’<sup>144</sup> On 13 Dec. when an address was proposed in the Commons for the removal of Burnet as preceptor to the duke of Gloucester, ‘Marlborough showed a great concern for the bishop, suspecting it would come on’.<sup>145</sup> On 19 Dec. Vernon expected Marlborough to leave town the following day, to receive Sunderland at St Albans ‘and intends to stay there all the holidays’. This was the prelude to the marriage on 2 Jan. 1700 of Marlborough’s daughter to Sunderland’s heir. As Vernon informed Shrewsbury on 16 Feb. this had led to ‘as great jealousies of my Lord Sunderland as ever, which my Lord Marlborough and Lord Godolphin are involved in’.<sup>146</sup> Also in February Marlborough was forecast as likely to support the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of allowing a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to the bill. On 2 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the bill for taking off duties on woollen manufactures.</p><p>On 5 Apr. 1700 William III wrote to Portland to get him to encourage the lord privy seal, John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, in his opposition to the Irish forfeitures bill, adding ‘I did so myself yesterday evening; but Milord Marlborough who dogs his footsteps certainly intimidates him. If the bill does not now fall in your House, I count all lost’.<sup>147</sup> On 9 Apr. Vernon noted apropos the land tax and Irish forfeited estates bill that Marlborough ‘went away on Saturday [6 Apr.], before the question; I believe he has not been at the House since’. Meanwhile the Lords amended the bill and adhered to their amendments. The king intervened to ensure that sufficient Lords altered their view, presumably including Marlborough, who on the 10th ‘came to the House that day, who had not been at any question before’, and helped ensure that the Lords did not adhere to their amendments.<sup>148</sup> He attended on 64 days of the session, 81 per cent of the total and was named to 33 committees.</p><p>By the end of the session ministerial changes were being openly discussed even before Somers was dismissed in May. As ever, Sunderland ‘struck up a new scheme’, involving Marlborough, Godolphin and Rochester.<sup>149</sup> Marlborough’s position was unclear as he seemed to be suffering for some unspecified offence done to the king. On 13 Apr. Vernon reported that neither Sunderland nor Marlborough had ‘been seen of late, but I hope calmer thoughts will now take place’. He followed this on the 16th with the observation that Sunderland and Marlborough ‘will have much to do to set themselves right with’ Somers and the Whigs, possibly over the Kidd affair.<sup>150</sup> Marlborough wrote to Shrewsbury on 11 May: ‘the king’s coldness to me still continues… to have friends and acquaintances unreasonably jealous and the king at the same time angry’.<sup>151</sup> By 25 June Vernon thought ‘the cloud that has been hanging over my Lord Marlborough is clearing up’ and on the 27 June he was named as one of the lords justices.<sup>152</sup> With the king abroad and the ministry in a state of flux, Marlborough also seems to have been engaged in the negotiations attempting to entice Godolphin back to the treasury.<sup>153</sup></p><p>On 30 July Gloucester died of smallpox, bringing the issue of the succession into sharp focus, and by implication enhancing Marlborough’s importance as the leading counsellor of the heir to the throne. On 5 Sept. Guy intimated to Harley that Marlborough had been instrumental in patching up a disagreement with between Godolphin and Rochester adding on the 24th that Sunderland, Godolphin and Marlborough ‘do positively say that the king must and will go on, and that without doubt Harley will have a summons, and that he must be positive and bold and rely upon his strength, for that will be sufficiently able to do it thoroughly’.<sup>154</sup> Thus, Marlborough played a role behind the scenes in preparing for a Parliament to secure the Protestant Succession.<sup>155</sup></p><p>On 22 Sept. Marlborough was reported to have arrived at St Albans from Althorp, having elicited from Sunderland that he had no designs to visit London that winter.<sup>156</sup> Marlborough attended the prorogation on 24 October. On 31 Oct. James Brydges*, future duke of Chandos, confided to his diary that he had found Marlborough, in company with Godolphin, Guy and Coningsby, and had been told by him ‘he believed the Parliament would not be dissolved, and that for secretary of state the king had not disposed of it, not denying it might be given to himself’. L’Hermitage, too, on 1 Nov. felt that Marlborough would be made secretary.<sup>157</sup> However, at a ‘great council’ at the Cockpit on 5 Nov. the office was given to Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>158</sup> That same month, with the death of Carlos II of Spain and Louis XIV’s acceptance of his grandson, Philip of Anjou, as his successor, the context of international affairs changed, and again emphasized the value to the king of Marlborough’s military and diplomatic skills.<sup>159</sup></p><p>Marlborough attended the election held at St Albans on 15 Jan. 1701 in support of his brother, George, while remaining aloof from the struggle for the second seat. He missed the opening of the 1701 session on 10 Feb., first attending on 21 February. On 14 Mar. he was named to draw the address on the partition treaty. On 15 Mar. Portland revealed that the treaty had been shown to a group of leading royal servants, including Marlborough, before the ratifications in late February 1700. Having obtained the king’s permission to respond, on 17 Mar. Marlborough informed the House that he had seen a rough draft of the treaty during a meeting at Portland’s, but never been formally consulted on it as the Privy Council had never discussed it. As Leeds (the former Carmarthen) perceived it, those including Marlborough named by Portland ‘to have been the Lords before whom the treaty hath been considered’, had all ‘had the king’s leave to declare their parts in it, and have all them shew’d their particular dislikes to several parts of it, and so have left it at the king’s door’. As Marlborough was not one of the men ‘struck at’ nothing was said against him.<sup>160</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 12 May 1701, Brydges recorded in his diary that the Marlboroughs ‘came to see me and left Lady Tyrconnel’s petition’, presumably the petition from her surviving trustees, Sir John Temple and Anthony Guidott, relating to Irish forfeitures, which was presented to the Commons on 19 May.<sup>161</sup> On 15 May Marlborough was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the bill for regulating the king’s bench and fleet prisons. On 3 June he acted as a teller in a division relating to the impeachment of the Whig Lords and protested when it was carried. He also protested against the resolution that the Commons ‘will be as careful not to do anything that may tend to the interruption of the good correspondence between the two Houses’. On 6 and 10 June he was named to conferences on the impeachments. On 9 June he entered his protest against the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with a Commons’ committee regarding the impeachment, because it would be an obstacle to the trial. On 17 June he entered his protest against the resolutions that the House proceed with the trial of Somers, and against his acquittal and the dismissal of the impeachment. He was duly listed as voting against the acquittal of Somers. He attended on 75 days of the session, 71 per cent of the total, being appointed to a further 26 committees.</p><h2><em>Commander-in-chief, 1701</em></h2><p>On 31 May Marlborough was appointed commander-in-chief of the English forces abroad. The following month, on 26 June, the king also appointed Marlborough ambassador-plenipotentiary to be England’s chief negotiator for the new treaty of grand alliance. On 1 July Marlborough and the king left for Holland. Once there Marlborough paid some attention to domestic politics: on 8 July he asked Godolphin how Sunderland ‘has behaved himself’ to Rochester and Godolphin as the king ‘has not named him since we have been here’. Marlborough also noted that Albemarle had told him the king had said that Sunderland was ‘very unreasonably dissatisfied with’ Marlborough. The earl certainly feared Sunderland’s influence noting on 6 Aug. that ‘it’s already said in England’ that Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, ‘is come over to turn all things into another channel by his means’.<sup>162</sup> On 29 July Marlborough sent Vernon the draft treaties between the king, the States and the Emperor, the final version of which Marlborough signed on 27 August.<sup>163</sup></p><p>Marlborough was keen to have the allocation of forces to be supplied by each party to the alliance agreed by Parliament. As he wrote to Vernon on 3 Oct. 1701 ‘if the king should be prevailed upon to settle this by his own authority… we shall never see a quiet day more in England, and consequently not only ruin ourselves, but also undo the liberties of Europe’.<sup>164</sup> His clearest exposition of this point came in a letter to Godolphin on 24 Oct. in which he pointed out that if the king prevailed with the cabinet to send him instructions to complete the numbers before Parliament sat ‘I am so persuaded that the doing of this by his majesty’s authority would prove so fatal to himself and the kingdom that I should desire to be recalled’.<sup>165</sup> Marlborough’s arguments proved persuasive and they were approved without a division by the Commons.<sup>166</sup></p><p>Marlborough favoured an early meeting of the existing Parliament to take advantage of the change in political opinion caused by Louis XIV’s recognition of James III, abrogating the treaty of Ryswick.<sup>167</sup> However, before Marlborough was able to return to England, the king signalled his intention to dissolve Parliament and Godolphin resigned on 10 November.<sup>168</sup> Marlborough thought his friend had acted hastily, as the Tories thought themselves likely to obtain a majority in the new Parliament.<sup>169</sup> Bonet noted a marked mistrust of Marlborough among Tories, who believed that he would accommodate himself to the king’s wishes in order to maintain his lucrative employments.<sup>170</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present when the 1701-2 session began on 30 December. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address of support for William III attendant upon the recognition of the Pretender by France. On 3 Jan. Sandwich registered his proxy with Marlborough. On 5 Jan. he laid before the House the treaties which had been signed with England’s allies during the summer and autumn of 1701. On 9 Jan. Marlborough wrote to the grand pensionary of Holland, Anthonie Heinsius, to inform him that the Commons had unanimously agreed to furnish 40,000 men for the war, suggesting that this as clear evidence that ‘the gentlemen of England are entirely in the interest of Holland’. He then added a request that ‘your prints may make no party distinctions’. This was one of many letters to Heinsius in which he interpreted events in Parliament. On 20 Jan. he added that when the estimate for the 40,000 troops was laid before Parliament on the following day it might ‘occasion some angry speeches, but pray be not alarmed, for I dare assure you that the quota of forty thousand will be made good to you’.<sup>171</sup></p><p>On 25 Jan. 1702 Godolphin wrote to Speaker Harley upon Rochester’s ‘dismissal’ that he and Marlborough would wait on him at his house the following evening.<sup>172</sup> On 26 Jan. the king sent Galway to Marlborough ‘to attend him presently’ and he was ‘a considerable time in private with his majesty upon what subject is not known’, although it was allegedly to reassure Marlborough that reports of his removal from the general command of English forces in Flanders and replacement by Ormond were groundless.<sup>173</sup> On 27 Jan. the Dutch envoy noted that Marlborough, Godolphin and Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> had met at the house of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>174</sup></p><p>The king’s fatal illness saw Marlborough, Godolphin and Harley in consultation, with Godolphin arranging a meeting for the evening of 6 Mar. 1702.<sup>175</sup> On 8 Mar. Marlborough was named to the conference on the death of the king and the accession of Queen Anne. William’s death was quickly followed by indications that Marlborough would be the key military and diplomatic agent of the new monarch. On 9 Mar. he was made captain-general of the land forces and commander-in-chief of forces to be employed in Holland in conjunction with the allies, and on 14 Mar. master-general of the ordnance.<sup>176</sup> On 13 Mar. Vernon noted that Marlborough was to be dispatched as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the States General.<sup>177</sup> This was the last day he attended the Lords for several weeks, as he left London on 14 Mar. embarking at Gravesend on the following day.<sup>178</sup> In this particular instance, Marlborough was like an ‘ambassador general’, who could give instructions to other ministers abroad, but such authority was only temporary ‘on this occasion… as the exigency of affairs shall require’.<sup>179</sup> L’Hermitage remarked that Marlborough was hardly leaving the queen, as his wife would remain in close attendance, but with the queen’s accession, Sarah’s role changed, there being no longer any need for her to act as a channel of communication between Anne, Marlborough and Godolphin.<sup>180</sup> Marlborough again attended the Lords on 10 April.<sup>181</sup></p><p>During the early months of the new reign there was discussion about the extent to which Marlborough and Godolphin would be free to take a moderate course. Rochester and the Tories desired ‘a more entire change, to be carried quite through all subaltern employments’. Burnet added that Marlborough had assured him that the mainly Tory ministry was appointed ‘upon the promises they made to carry on the war, and to maintain the alliances: if they kept these, then affairs would go on smoothly in the house of Commons; but if they failed in this, the queen would put her business in other hands’.<sup>182</sup> On 21 Apr. Marlborough informed Heinsius that the queen was ‘resolved very quickly to shut the door upon any other alterations; and I may assure you that when she has done all that she intends, there will be at least six Whigs for one of the other party’.<sup>183</sup> Not that Marlborough’s views went unchallenged. At the cabinet held on 1 and 2 May to approve the formal declaration of war, he faced fierce opposition to his strategy for full English involvement in the continental campaign from Rochester.<sup>184</sup> Marlborough may have prompted the unsuccessful motion in the Commons on 2 May for an address that ‘no person be an officer, in England or Ireland, in her majesty’s new-raised forces, but such as were born in England, Scotland or Ireland, or the dominions of thereunto belonging, or of English parents, unless they were before in half-pay’. Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> noted that Marlborough desired it ‘for there are some that had promises from the late king that Lord Marlborough cannot put off any other way’.<sup>185</sup></p><p>Marlborough was one of five peers named by the queen to inspect King William’s papers, following which they declared to the Lords on 4 May 1702 that they had not found anything ‘tending to the prejudice of the queen, or her succession to the crown’. Marlborough was absent through ill health, but according to Burnet he confirmed the findings ‘to some peers who were sent by the House to ask him the same question’.<sup>186</sup> The effect was to stifle rumours that William III had plotted to supersede Anne with the house of Hanover.<sup>187</sup> Marlborough was not present in the Lords between 20 Apr. and his last attendance of the session on 9 May. He left London for The Hague three days later.<sup>188</sup> He had attended on 41 days of the session, 41 per cent of the total and, as was now customary, was named to committees whenever he was present.</p><h2><em>The Session of 1702-3</em></h2><p>As early as 23 July 1702 Marlborough was thinking of the next Parliament: hoping that it might meet to do business early in October. On 28 July he felt the need to reassure Heinsius about the results of the general election: ‘by the elections that are come, they seem to be more of the Church party than Whigs, but I beg you to be assured that whatever sort of men are chosen they will be all zealous for the common cause’. On 10 Aug. he asked Heinsius to ensure that when the Danish ambassador to London, Christian von Plessen, passed through The Hague he knew that Marlborough was fully supportive of the claims of Prince George to command the allied forces: ‘I take him to be an honest man, but he is imposed upon by my Lord Rochester’. Also on 10 Aug. he told Godolphin that Rochester ‘will always be endeavouring to give mortifications’ to them, and that if he continued ‘disturbing underhand the public business’, the queen would have to intervene to ensure he took up his Irish lieutenancy in person. Once on campaign, Marlborough faced pressure from Godolphin for his return to England at the earliest opportunity in order to assist in the planning of the war and the resultant parliamentary business. Marlborough found it ‘morally impossible’ for him to be in London two weeks before the parliamentary session.<sup>189</sup> On 7 Sept. Nottingham informed him that Parliament would not sit before 20 Oct. thereby allowing Marlborough ‘to tell us something of the measures designed for the next year, which will be useful in order to her majesty’s resolutions about the things to be proposed to the Parliament.’<sup>190</sup></p><p>By 14 Sept. 1702 Marlborough’s thoughts had turned to the queen’s speech at the opening of Parliament, so that he could provide the Pensioner with some idea of its contents. On 6 Oct. he informed Heinsius that as he could not be at The Hague ‘time enough to discourse you concerning what the queen may say to the Parliament, if there be any particular thing you could wish she should put in her speech, that may be good for the common cause, I desire you will let me know it’. By 8 Oct. he had received the heads of the speech but since he was not able to be at The Hague in time to send the Pensioner’s thoughts on them before the opening of the session, he did not make use of them, apart making a suggestion that something should be said in the speech about the Cadiz expedition, which was done.<sup>191</sup> Also on 8 Oct. Marlborough had asked that Benjamin Sweet ensure that by the time he arrived at The Hague ‘the accounts for the 40,000 men for this year should be in a readiness to be laid before the Parliament at their first meeting’.<sup>192</sup></p><p>Godolphin clearly expected a political boost from Marlborough’s arrival, ‘from a very much applauded campaign, for himself and the reputation of the queen’s government, will easily have influence to disperse those clouds and a great many others of the same nature’.<sup>193</sup> Henry St John*, future Viscount Bolingbroke, had similar high expectations, albeit with a significant caveat, ‘he has the most glorious field to range in, that ever subject had, and it lies in his power to make himself the darling of good men, and a terror to others. Should he do otherwise, he dances on a rope, and many have fallen who were better fixed.’<sup>194</sup> Although Marlborough left on 15 Nov. 1702, adverse weather delayed his arrival at St James’s until the 28th. He attended the Lords on that day and was given the thanks of the House for his services during the campaign; to which he replied that the success was ‘chiefly to be imputed to God’s blessing upon her majesty’s happy conduct, and the great bravery of her troops and those of her allies’. Marlborough had taken advice from Godolphin on the wording of his answer, having had early notice of Ormond’s reply to a similar vote before he left for England.<sup>195</sup></p><p>As early as 22 Oct. 1702, first Godolphin and then the queen had intimated to Sarah that she wished to raise Marlborough to a dukedom. Marlborough was able to counter his wife’s arguments against the honour with reference to Heinsius’s arguments in favour.<sup>196</sup> On 29 Nov. the queen informed the cabinet of her intentions, together with a pension of £5,000 p.a. for life. Marlborough wished to have the grant in perpetuity, confirmed by act of Parliament. Despite some positive hints from senior Tories like Musgrave and Seymour to Marlborough himself, members of the Commons baulked at a grant in perpetuity. Godolphin crafted a solution; an address to the queen ‘showing an uneasiness for not complying… from the inconvenience of the precedent and at the same time a satisfaction in Lord Marlborough’s services’, a course adopted on 16 December. Meanwhile, on 15 Dec. Marlborough had let it be known that ‘the queen’s kindness to him might be waived; rather than be displeasing to any one single Member’.<sup>197</sup> Marlborough’s entourage, and perhaps the duke himself, may have been ‘a little chagrined’ by this disappointment, while the queen described it as being ‘so maliciously hindered in the Parliament’, that she offered an extra £2,000 p.a. from the privy purse, which ‘can draw no envy, for nobody need know of it.’<sup>198</sup> John Evelyn thought it ‘a bold and unadvised request’, given Marlborough’s ‘considerable estate, above 30,000 pounds per ann. in places and employments, with 50,000 pounds at interest’. Then there was Sarah ‘engrossing all that stirred and was profitable at court’.<sup>199</sup> Marlborough was introduced into the Lords as a duke on 18 Dec. by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Ormond.</p><p>In keeping with Marlborough’s long service to the queen, he was involved in cajoling the Lords to accept the bill settling £100,000 for life on Prince George. In the committee of the whole on 11 Jan. 1703 there was a debate on a clause exempting the prince from the clause in the act of settlement excluding ‘strangers, though naturalized’ from English offices and peerages after the Hanoverian succession.<sup>200</sup> Some thought that to enact such a clause would question the rights of other ‘foreigners,’ a point which divided legal opinion. ‘After some heats on this debate by the duke of Marlborough’ and others it was suggested that a separate bill be introduced explaining the act of settlement on this point to avoid it being seen as a tack to a money bill. On 14 Jan., before this new bill was read a third time, Marlborough favoured hearing the judges on the question of the ‘foreign’ peers. The bill was passed, but was rejected by the Commons. On 19 Jan. the House considered the main bill in favour of the prince. Marlborough ‘opened the cause with an earnest request that, since their Lordships had been unanimous in passing a bill … in favour of all the foreign lords, they would be as much one in showing their respects to the prince’. There followed a long debate on the clause in favour of the prince alone, which was eventually lost.<sup>201</sup> On 19 Jan. the queen wrote to Sarah, ’I am sure the Prince’s bill passing after so much struggle is wholly owing to the pains you and Mr. Freeman [Marlborough] has taken’.<sup>202</sup></p><p>At the third reading of the bill against occasional conformity on 19 Dec. 1702, Marlborough was one of those peers that had argued that although ‘the thing was just in itself’, it was ‘unseasonable’.<sup>203</sup> Clearly that was not perceived as outright opposition for in about January 1703 Nottingham thought that Marlborough was likely to support the bill. This was true in that Marlborough would vote for it, but would not lobby for it, and wished to see it defeated. As he wrote to Sarah, ‘I must be careful not to do the thing in the world which my Lord Rochester would most desire to have me do; which is to give my vote against this bill’.<sup>204</sup> On 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause, which saw the bill lost in a dispute between the Houses. On 2 Feb. Marlborough informed Heinsius that ‘Parliament being entered into inquiries will occasion their sitting ten days longer than I thought’, and therefore ‘I shall order my own affairs so that as soon as the Parliament shall be up, I shall stay for nothing but her majesty’s leave’. One of these events was the marriage on 9 Feb. of his daughter, Elizabeth, to Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl of Bridgwater.<sup>205</sup> Marlborough last attended on 17 Feb. having been present on 40 days of the session, 47 per cent of the total. His absence after the 17th was occasioned by the illness and death of his son. After a short spell in St Albans, during which he sent instructions to Anthony Guidott for drawing up a new will, Marlborough came to court on 28 February.<sup>206</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s local power base in St Albans often led to delicate negotiations with the nominal head of Hertfordshire society, the lord lieutenant, Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex. Of particular importance was the make-up of the lieutenancy and at the end of February 1703 Adam de Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> delivered Marlborough’s list of the gentlemen to be added to the lieutenancy to Secretary Hedges. When Hedges showed it to Essex, he ‘made some scruple at the number and said he should speak to your grace of it at your coming to town’.<sup>207</sup> Essex persisted in his opposition to the nominations but was still awaiting a reply from Marlborough on 20 March.<sup>208</sup> Relations between Marlborough and Essex were complicated by the latter holding a military commission, so that Marlborough had to tread warily when putting Essex off from joining the campaign: on 24 May he acknowledged that he would be glad to have Essex’s company, but that there were major-generals in England ‘that would be very uneasy at it’, and that it was a little late for his equipage to be sent over that year.<sup>209</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s powers of patronage reached even to the peerage itself. On 14 Mar. 1703 Lady Hervey wrote a letter thanking Sarah for her ‘kind mediation’ through which her husband, John Hervey*, was raised to the peerage as Baron Hervey.<sup>210</sup> Marlborough in response to Hervey’s letter of thanks dwelt on his desire to employ his interest ‘in behalf of such as are most zealous for the interest and support’ of the queen’s government.<sup>211</sup> Years later, Sarah bitterly recalled that the Herveys’ ‘first title, which I got, was for the sake of Sir Thomas Felton, and to keep my word’, Lady Hervey being Felton’s daughter.<sup>212</sup></p><p>The one field of patronage in which Marlborough’s powers were of limited reach was the Church, but that did not prevent him from trying to advance his favoured army chaplains; on 24 May 1703 he proposed Dr. Knightly Chetwood for the vacant see of St Asaph, but to no avail. More serious were the patronage concerns relating to the ordnance in which he was bedevilled by disputes at Carlisle involving the earl of Carlisle on one side and the Musgraves on the other.<sup>213</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s letters during March 1703 evinced some concern with Tory manoeuvring. On the 16th he wrote of Rochester’s ‘passion and faction’, and that ‘the more submissive 19 [Rochester] is, the more care must be taken that he may not have to do with any business that may concern 85 [the queen], for he is not capable of having anything but revenge in his heart’. Similarly, on the 26th, he wrote that if Buckingham (as Normanby now was) ‘continues being so impertinent’ as to join with Seymour and others ‘to obstruct business’, it would be ‘better to be plain with him, than to suffer him to go on in that way. For, by that he will be much abler to do mischief, than if he were out, and I am very much mistaken if he will care to part with his place’.<sup>214</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s prestige also placed the marriage of his remaining unmarried daughter, Lady Mary Churchill, in the spotlight. As early as May 1703 the duke evinced some concern that a marriage proposal from Montagu on behalf of his heir John Montagu*, the future 2nd duke of Montagu, was ‘very good if the young man were some years older’.<sup>215</sup> His misgivings were overcome and in July news broke of an intended match.<sup>216</sup> Montagu’s proposal was renewed and accepted in the summer of 1704; part of Lady Mary’s portion was her parents’ ability to secure the reversion of Montagu’s office of master of the great wardrobe to his son, and a dukedom for Montagu, plus £10,000 from the queen.<sup>217</sup> The marriage took place in March 1705.<sup>218</sup></p><p>Marlborough remained concerned about Tory plotting, his anxieties centring on Rochester, Musgrave and Seymour. A visit from the two latter to the former was interpreted by him in June 1703 as flattering Seymour into doing ‘such mischiefs as they dare not openly own’. Upon Sarah urging a purge of Tory office-holders, he reflected that even if some were fit to be removed, such as Jersey and Buckingham, there were no obvious replacements. Instead, he felt Rochester should be spoken to by the queen, for if his influence ‘be strong enough to declare which way the war shall be managed, they may ruin England and Holland at their pleasure, and… do it in a manner as may not at first be unpopular, so that the people may be undone before they can see it’. The Scottish parliament and the succession was also becoming an issue. Somewhat naively, on 3 June he wrote to the duchess, ‘I do not understand the Scotch affairs, but I should think the settling of the Succession can’t but be good’. By 14 June he told Godolphin, ‘methinks the Scotch affairs do not go well’.<sup>219</sup></p><p>Marlborough was perennially distracted while abroad with requests for his early return home. He wrote to Heinsius on 31 July 1703, ‘I am already so pressed to be early in England, that my stay at The Hague can’t be long’. Nor was he willing to compromise his neutral stance between the parties; on 29 Aug. he told the duchess ‘that I shall always continue in the humour I am now in, which is to be governed by neither party, but to do what I think is best for England, by which I know I shall disoblige both parties’. He continued to be worried by Tory machinations, telling the duchess on 9 Sept. that he agreed with Godolphin that Seymour ‘will not be his nor my friend this winter, but play the knave and fool as he did last winter’. On 27 Sept. he added that Buckingham’s impertinence came naturally to him, and that ‘I dare say you will find him the most troublesome this winter’, and ‘if possible’, a more violent party man than Nottingham.<sup>220</sup></p><h2><em>The Session of 1703-4</em></h2><p>On 29 Sept. 1703 the secretary at war, William Blathwayt<sup>‡</sup>, made several salient points to Marlborough as he looked forward to the parliamentary session: how far, he asked, was the duke willing for military success to ‘be taken notice of as there shall be occasion at the next meeting of the Parliament’ and he requested that he would ‘be pleased to inform such as are fittest for the direction of such a matter’. Further, he asked that Cardonnel ‘transmit such a scheme’ as Marlborough judged proper ‘to be laid before the House of the additional charge of this last year and of the whole in all particulars for the year to come’. Blathwayt added that this should be sent as soon as possible in case Marlborough ‘should be detained by contrary winds or otherwise on the other side, as the last year, after the opening of the session’. On 30 Sept. Marlborough outlined his fears that ‘if both parties agree that the war must not be offensive in this country… the Dutch will not think themselves very safe in our friendship’. By saving the Dutch ‘they must preserve us from the arbitrary power’ of Rochester and the Tories. He hoped ‘the heats that continue between the two parties’ could be overcome by the management of Godolphin and Harley.<sup>221</sup></p><p>Marlborough arrived in The Hague on 16 Oct. 1703.<sup>222</sup> While there, he showed again an appreciation of the political implications of army patronage. John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (later earl of Greenwich in the English peerage), might ‘have reason to take it ill’ if he was not offered command of the troop of guards commanded by his father. As a result he had written to Godolphin to prevail with James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S] (later duke of Dover), that the queen should give him that command, ‘which will fortify him in the good intentions he has for her majesty’s service’. Marlborough landed back at ‘Tower wharf’ on 30 October. When Godolphin’s scheme for managing Parliament was revealed to Harley on 4 Nov., he added, significantly, ‘it is necessary above all the rest that the duke of Marlborough and you and I should meet regularly, at least twice a week if not oftener, to advise upon everything that shall occur’, starting on the 6th.<sup>223</sup> Marlborough was present at the opening of the 1703-4 session on 9 Nov., even sending the queen’s speech to Heinsius. He suffered from indifferent health at the start of the session, and this may have been responsible for him missing some sittings in November, especially when little business was transacted in the upper House. Also in November Sunderland forecast him as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity and on a second forecast made between 26 Nov. and 8 Dec., he maintained his view. On 14 Dec. Marlborough was listed as voting for the bill and he entered his protest against the failure of the House to give the bill a second reading and against its rejection. Meanwhile, Marlborough was quietly satisfied, informing Heinsius on 26 Nov. of the votes of the Commons (in the committee of supply), whereby ‘all the designs of some few ill affected people are quite disappointed, for the House of Commons have dispatched more business this day than they used to do in a fortnight’.<sup>224</sup></p><p>On 25 Dec. 1703 Marlborough journeyed to Petworth, where on the following day he met Archduke Charles, the Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne.<sup>225</sup> Marlborough attended the Lords on 13 Jan. 1704, but left London on the following day, for military and diplomatic discussions with the allies. From The Hague on 25 Jan. he wrote one of his missives which showed that he viewed the proceedings of Parliament through the lens of a practising diplomat. He had received news that the Commons ‘are very likely to be angry [over the <em>Ashby v. White</em> case], which ought to be avoided at all times, but much more at this, when almost all our allies take their measures from what we do in England’. On 1 Feb. he reiterated the point: ‘the disputes that appear in print between the two Houses have a very ill effect here’. That same day he wrote to Godolphin, ‘I found the enclosed proxy this day in my pocket. If you should have no occasion of making use of it, you may burn it’, which is presumably what occurred as no proxy was registered.<sup>226</sup></p><p>Marlborough sailed from Rotterdam on 12 Feb. 1704, landing at Gravesend and attending the Lords on the 15th.<sup>227</sup> On 22 Feb., it was stated in the Lords in William Keith’s narrative of the Scotch Plot that Marlborough ‘knew everything that passed at St Germain’, through a correspondence with his nephew, James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick. On 16 Mar. Marlborough entered his dissent against the resolutions of the committee of the whole on the public accounts bill. On 25 Mar. he entered his dissent to a decision on the previous question and the following resolution that the failure to pass a censure on Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the enemies of the crown. This would seem to question the identification of Marlborough as the peer ‘M’, said in one report as being absent along with Godolphin and several other peers, on the first question. Godolphin joined Marlborough in protesting against the substantive question, and the report noted that Godolphin and ‘M’ ‘laboured mightily to oppose the vote by which the cabinet was censured though not concerned.’<sup>228</sup> Having attended the last day of the session on 3 Apr., Marlborough embarked at Harwich on 6 Apr. and arrived at The Hague on the 10th.<sup>229</sup> He had attended on 56 days of the session, 57 per cent of the total, and been named to 16 committees. In his parting shot to Godolphin from Harwich on 8 Apr., he passed on intelligence he had received of Nottingham’s machinations in which he</p><blockquote><p>tells his party that the queen is desirous to do everything that would give them satisfaction, but that she is hindered by you and me; that he is so convinced that we shall in a very short time put all the business into the hands of the Whigs, that if he can’t get such alterations made in the Cabinet Council as he thinks absolutely necessary for the safety of the Church, he would then quit.</p></blockquote><p>Nottingham had then suggested tacking the bills against occasional conformity and reviving the commission of accounts to the land tax bill.<sup>230</sup></p><h2><em>The Blenheim Campaign and the Session of 1704-5</em></h2><p>On 9 June Marlborough responded to the news that ‘matters are not like to go well’ in Parliament and that Wright and Buckingham would act with ‘all the ill that is in their power’, by leaving matters to Godolphin, who as he was ‘upon the place is best judge of what measures ought to be kept with them. I employ my own thoughts so entirely of succeeding in what I am a doing that till this is over I am not capable of helping in any other matter’. This did not prevent him from proffering the advice on 25 June that Queensberry should be sacrificed if he should ‘oppose the queen’s business’, or on 2 July that ‘since the liberties of Europe will depend upon the Parliament being in good humour this next winter, so that I entirely agree with 46 [Harley], that everybody ought to be spoke to very plainly’. On 16 July Marlborough suggested that Buckingham’s ‘intentions are to be troublesome the next winter … for he is governed by nothing but self-interest’. On 30 July Marlborough agreed with his wife on the desirability of Parliament sitting ‘as early as possible’, as he had told Godolphin before he left London. Following the battle of Blenheim (2 Aug.), the need to replace the men lost in battle became an additional imperative for Parliament’s early meeting. With that in view on 10 Aug. Marlborough was already thinking of taking an account on oath from every regiment ‘so that the Parliament may provide for it’.<sup>231</sup></p><p>The Emperor celebrated Blenheim by making Marlborough a prince of the Empire. Vernon rather perceptively hoped that ‘Marlborough will overcome envy as well as the common enemy; but as dangers decrease from abroad, they may strengthen at home, if there be not great prudence used to prevent it’.<sup>232</sup> Again there were pressures for an early return to England: on 12 Sept. Hedges wished to see Marlborough ‘here before we sit down to business, that measures may be concerted, and the scheme for the next year, beforehand.’ On 17 Oct. Hedges reiterated the point when bemoaning that he was likely ‘to be detained so long on that side’, as he believed that Marlborough had ‘given some light for a scheme for the next year’s service, otherwise we may be at some loss if the Parliament should be disposed to go on cheerfully, as there is reason to believe they will.’<sup>233</sup> On 15 Sept. Marlborough promised to send to Godolphin ‘a true state of the recruits… so that it may be laid before the Parliament… for the 20,000 pounds allowed by Parliament was not sufficient when we had no battle, and now that we have had two, it will fall very short’. Also on the 15th he opined that if Godolphin and Harley thought Buckingham should be removed, ‘I do not doubt but he will give them occasion enough to put it in execution’. On 11 Oct. he forwarded abstracts of ‘what men will be wanting to complete the foot’.<sup>234</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, the duchess sent him a stream of letters on the position of the remaining Tories in the ministry and their penchant for trouble-making. On 9 Oct. 1704 he had to fend off criticism that he was favouring Tory designs: ‘my pretending to be of no party is not designed to get favour, or to deceive anybody, for I am very little concerned what any party thinks of me’, and ending with a desire to retire to a country that did not know ‘the detested names of Whig and Tory’. On 23 Oct. having been further nagged by Sarah, he returned to the position of Buckingham, who he felt was ‘in measures’ with Nottingham and Rochester to ‘give all the obstruction that is in their power to the carrying on the public business with vigour this sessions’. To allow him to retain his post would encourage others to obstruct business. For a replacement Marlborough suggested John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, who had long been favoured by Harley.<sup>235</sup> Instead of a quick return to England, Marlborough decided that diplomatic considerations necessitated a visit to Berlin and Hanover in November and December. He made a favourable impression on Princess Sophia, who recorded that he was ‘a man who knows how to move so easily, so freely and so courteously. He is as skilled as a courtier as he is a brave general’. From Hanover on 21 Nov. Marlborough told Heinsius that ‘the letters from England, which I found here at my arrival, presses me very much to hasten for England’, so that his stay at The Hague would be short.<sup>236</sup></p><p>Although he was destined to be absent from Parliament until mid-December 1704 (he was excused attendance on 23 Nov.), Marlborough maintained a close watch on proceedings. On 5 Dec. he returned to the matter of recruits, telling Godolphin ‘for God’s sake let the House of Commons be pressed to help in the getting of men early, for I think the success of the next campaign depends upon which shall get first into the field’.<sup>237</sup> Hence the recruiting act which passed in the session increased the legal powers of justices in an attempt to ensure that constables recruited more efficiently.<sup>238</sup> On the same date he wrote to Harley that ‘nothing has been offered yet, nor any care taken by the Parliament for recruiting the army… it is of that consequence for an early campaign, that without it we may run the hazard of losing in a great measure the fruits of the last’. Marlborough wanted Harley ‘to advise with our friends if any proper method can be thought of, that it may be laid before the House immediately, without staying for my arrival’.<sup>239</sup></p><p>The Tories seemed intent on stirring up trouble for the ministry. In their Address on 25 Oct. the Commons coupled Marlborough’s success at Blenheim with Rooke’s at Malaga. In about November, Marlborough’s name appeared on a list, which may be a forecast of those thought likely to support the Tack. His views were unequivocal on the issue. On 5 Dec. he wrote to Harley welcoming the defeat of the Tack: ‘when I reflect on the dangerous consequences the obstinacy of some people might have produced, I cannot but think this happy turn as great a victory with reference to England as any advantage we have had since I saw you’.<sup>240</sup> On 8 Dec. he elaborated in a letter to the duchess: ‘if they had succeeded it is what must have disturbed everything, for not only in England, but here also [The Hague], they would have been so out of heart, that they would have advanced no monies, so that all our preparations must have stood still’. More generally, Marlborough’s view appears to have been that if Parliament ‘went on vigorously this year with their supplies, that all necessary preparations might be made in due time for the next campaign, he was confident the queen might prescribe the terms of peace by next winter’.<sup>241</sup></p><p>Marlborough embarked from Rotterdam on 11 Dec. 1704, arriving at Greenwich from whence he went to St James’s on 14 December. He attended the Lords for the first time on 15 Dec., when he received the thanks of the House. He spent Christmas at St Albans, and then Windsor Lodge, returning to London on 2 Jan. 1705 having spent ten days in the country. On 3 Jan. the standards captured at Blenheim were paraded in Westminster Hall. On the 6th he attended a dinner in his honour at Goldsmiths’ Hall paid for by the lord mayor and aldermen. Not everyone was convinced of Marlborough’s military prowess, some preferring to give the credit to Prince Eugene: as his once prospective bride, Katherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester put it, ‘Dr. Radcliffe and I can cure a fever’.<sup>242</sup> On 8 Jan., the Commons appointed a day ‘for taking into consideration the great services that have been performed’ by Marlborough. On the 11th they unanimously agreed an address to the queen ‘to consider of some proper means to perpetuate the memory of the great services performed’ by him. In response, the queen proposed granting the manor of Woodstock to Marlborough and his heirs, and a bill was ordered to give effect to her grant.<sup>243</sup> It was introduced into the Commons on 25 Jan., managed by the chancellor of the exchequer, Henry Boyle, and sent up to the Lords on 3 February. The bill passed the Lords on the 5th without any amendments, Sunderland serving as the chair of the committee of the whole House. The queen also let it be known that she would pay for the construction of a house on the site but this was not acknowledged publicly. Feeling more secure financially, around this date Marlborough transferred the remainder of the inheritance of his wife’s estates into her name.<sup>244</sup></p><p>As before, meetings to manage parliamentary affairs were regularly held between Marlborough, Godolphin and Harley. Messages between the two latter often demonstrated Marlborough’s initiative in such matters; for example, ‘Marlborough desires the gentlemen of the House of Commons may be summoned to meet at Mr. Boyle’s tomorrow night’.<sup>245</sup> Similarly, on 25 Jan. 1705 Godolphin wrote to Harley that ‘having had an account’ at Marlborough’s ‘just now, how things passed today in the House, he desired me to ask the favour of you... that you would come to us, this evening at his lodgings, soon after nine, that we may think a little what is next to be done.’<sup>246</sup> This probably related to the amendments reported to the Commons from the committee of the whole on the bill securing England from the Scottish acts of security. Likewise, the case of <em>Ashby v. White</em> saw Godolphin write to Harley on 24 Feb. after the Commons had resolved to address the queen on the issue:</p><blockquote><p>this and the other business will make her majesty be early tomorrow night at the Cabinet Council. I therefore wish that after you have dined you would come tomorrow to my house that we may have a little the more time, and I will endeavour to get the duke of Marlborough to meet you there.<sup>247</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 2 Feb. 1705 Sandwich registered his proxy with Marlborough and on the following day William North*, 6th Baron North, did likewise. On 7 Feb. Marlborough, Godolphin ‘and the courtiers’ spoke against the second reading of the place bill, which was committed ‘yet such amendments were ordered to be made to it as tis thought will hardly be complied with by the Commons,’ which proved to be an accurate assessment.<sup>248</sup> Marlborough was absent from the Lords 11-18 Feb. and also 25 Feb.-1 Mar. latterly travelling to Woodstock via Windsor.<sup>249</sup> He attended the Lords regularly from 2 Mar. to the last day of the session, 14 March. He had been present on 39 days of the session, 39 per cent of the whole, and had been named to 13 committees.</p><p>Interestingly, Marlborough did not feel the need to interpret parliamentary events to Heinsius during this session, limiting his comments to assessments of when Parliament would rise and therefore when he could be expected in Holland. Before Marlborough went on campaign he was involved in facilitating a ministerial change. On 23 Mar. he was reported to have ‘just now spoken with’ Buckingham, ‘who is not very easy with it’, presumably the idea of taking the position of lord privy seal away from Buckingham, and offering him the position of lord keeper (albeit in commission), replacing Wright, instead. On 24 Mar. Godolphin wanted to see Harley at his home ‘if it were only to take leave of the duke of Marlborough’, and also to discuss the ‘matter of the great seal’.<sup>250</sup> Buckingham was removed as lord privy seal, a change by which Portland thought the ‘liaison is thoroughly effective’ between the Whigs and Marlborough and Godolphin.<sup>251</sup> However, the queen could not easily be persuaded to discard Wright, although, on 27 Mar. James Lowther reported that Marlborough ‘expects alterations in the lieutenants and justices of peace and also in some offices’.<sup>252</sup> On 25 Mar. Marlborough was still at St James’s, but on the 27th George Clarke<sup>‡</sup> reported that he had gone to Harwich.<sup>253</sup> Marlborough embarked on 29 Mar. but was driven back by contrary winds, eventually sailing again on 1 April.<sup>254</sup></p><h2><em>The 1705 Election and the Session of 1705-6</em></h2><p>With a general election in progress, Marlborough defined a good Parliament as one in which ‘neither party might have a great majority, so that her majesty might be able to influence what might be good for the common cause’. He now had a parliamentary interest to defend at Woodstock, through his nominee, William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Cadogan. Cadogan was allegedly set up ‘contrary to all assurances and promises’ made to Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, previously the dominant interest in the borough. Marlborough even wrote to St John and James Craggs<sup>‡</sup> to insist on a poll, even if defeat was certain, and asked St John to get Sir Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, to appear for Cadogan. The election at St Albans also proved difficult with both seats only being gained after a petition against the Tacker, John Gape<sup>‡</sup>, even though the duchess was present in person to support his opponent, Henry Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>255</sup> Sarah was also active by letter, writing on 17 Apr. that ‘John Tombs who keeps my Lord Marlborough’s courts at Sandridge has an interest in the town of St Albans: I give you the trouble of this to desire you will speak to him from me, to use it in promoting Mr. Killigrew’s election as well as my brother’s [George Churchill].’ Other candidates sought the reflected glory of the duke’s prestige. St John informed Marlborough that Sir Henry Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> had been making use of the duke’s name in the Westminster contest, claiming that ‘your grace left positive directions in his favour’ which ‘I never heard any thing one way or other from your grace relating to any such thing’. A series of letters were exchanged with John Howe<sup>‡</sup> following the loss of his Gloucestershire seat. On 29 June Marlborough promised to write to Godolphin ‘to make use of my name, and such interest as I have with Mr. Boscawen, that we may not be deprived of the benefit of your zeal and affection to her majesty and the government this winter in Parliament’. However, he delayed his letter until 30 July and told Godolphin ‘at this distance I know not what is good or bad, otherwise I should think a man in his place would be useful in the House. But in this matter I pray do just what you please’. Despite further appeals, Howe was not found a seat.<sup>256</sup> More pleasantly, Marlborough was able to congratulate St John on his election and to hope that ‘we shall meet in the winter in a temper wholly inclined to promote the public service’.<sup>257</sup></p><p>The Whig victory at the polls in 1705 posed a managerial problem for the duumvirs: to ensure support for the ministry in Parliament required concessions to the Whigs, which the queen seemed unwilling to grant. On 25 May Marlborough suggested that the queen ‘advise with [the] lord treasurer what encouragement may be proper to give them’.<sup>258</sup> A month later Marlborough wrote a letter to Godolphin for him to read to the queen, in which he asked her to ‘advise early with you what encouragement might be proper to give the Whigs, that they might look upon it as their own concern to beat down and propose all such proposals as may prove uneasy to her majesty and government’. Marlborough feared that parliamentary difficulties might encourage the Dutch to promote what he considered to be an unsafe peace and that in this they would be abetted by Rochester and Nottingham. In another letter to Godolphin intended for the eyes of the queen, on 6 July, Marlborough commented that the election had resulted in neither party being able ‘to carry any point against the other by their own strength. One sort of gentlemen have behaved themselves so, that there remains very little room for debate which the queen should make hers’. Godolphin was ‘the only man in England capable of giving such advice as may keep you out of the hands of both parties’. On 23 July Marlborough told Sarah, ‘you sometimes use the expression of my Tory friends. As I will never enter into party and faction… I will have no friends but such as will support the queen and government’.<sup>259</sup></p><p>Marlborough was increasingly the target for pamphleteers, a most unwelcome development given his sensitivity to criticism. Already in July 1703, he had written to the duchess of his being ‘named in a libel [<em>The Prophecy</em>]. I beg you will send it me, for if I should not see it, I shall think it worse than maybe it is.’ Now came James Drake’s <em>Memorial of the Church of England</em>, which Marlborough thought ‘the most impudent and scurrilous thing I ever read; for if such liberties may be taken of writing scandalous lies without being punished, no government can stand long’, even though he was able to laugh at its depiction of Buckingham and Jersey as pillars of the Church.<sup>260</sup> William Stephen’s <em>A Letter to the Author of the Memorial of the Church of England</em> followed. When the cabinet discussed intelligence on the author of this tract on 17 Jan. 1706, there was disagreement on whether to send it to the House of Commons. Marlborough, however,</p><blockquote><p>found out a mid-way; only to acquaint the House that the discovery was in great part made, but because [it] reached some of the servants of their Members, and might [reach] some of their Members, the queen thought fit to lay it before the House that she had made such a progress in it; but not the informations themselves, unless asked for; the Secretary to be instructed to say, if the House inclinable to call for ’em, he had leave to lay them before the House.<sup>261</sup></p></blockquote><p>The following day Harley informed the Commons of developments. On 22 Jan. Godolphin wrote to Harley about the prosecution of Stephens, understanding that the duke would ‘have him prosecuted in both your names or in neither’. On 3 Feb. Stephens approached Harley to facilitate his ‘humble submission’ to the duke for publishing ‘those false and malicious reports of him, which with too great credibility I have received’.<sup>262</sup> Marlborough thought that Stephens ‘ought not to be forgiven before sentence’, but hoped that he would be before it was carried out. Having received his wish, he added that ‘I should have been uneasy if the law had not found him guilty, but much more uneasy if he had suffered the punishment upon my account’.<sup>263</sup> Stephens was suitably grateful, writing on 24 July to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, of ‘the unparalleled favour of the duchess of Marlborough who interceded with the queen to pardon my corporal punishment to which I was justly sentenced,’ and the duke’s satisfaction with her efforts to secure a pardon for him.<sup>264</sup></p><p>Towards the end of the campaigning season, Marlborough faced a dilemma, which he summed up on 3 October. Portland ‘thought my going to Vienna was necessary, but at the same time he told me that my being at the opening of the Parliament might prevent heats’. In the end Marlborough decided on Vienna, but this did not prevent him from proffering advice to the queen: she should follow Godolphin’s advice in order to carry on the war as the only other course of action was to rely on Rochester and Nottingham, which would encourage party warfare. In the event, the queen yielded to their entreaties and replaced Wright as lord keeper with William Cowper*, the future Earl Cowper, at the end of September. From Vienna Marlborough demanded from lieutenant general Thomas Erle<sup>‡</sup> that ‘no care will be wanting in laying the proper estimates before the Parliament, and making the necessary demands for the service of the Ordnance’. Nor did he neglect the contribution of army Members to the parliamentary arithmetic, informing Godolphin on 9 Oct. that he would ‘send over all the Parliament men before I leave the army, except Cadogan, who cannot well come before me’. On 3 Nov. he regretted the heats engendered by the struggle for the speakership of the Commons, hoping that a large majority would make the queen’s business ‘easy, for I think Europe must be saved by England’. Even in Vienna, Marlborough was capable of considering the demands of Parliament, writing to Harley on 3 Nov. that he ‘had taken care that Mr. St John may be instructed to answer as well as he can any demand the Parliament may make as to the state of the quotas furnished by the allies this campaign’.<sup>265</sup></p><p>Marlborough was excused attendance on the House on 12 Nov. 1705. On 15 Nov. John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, made a motion for an address inviting the electress of Hanover to reside in England, a delicate matter given the queen’s inveterate opposition. Marlborough thought it would be easy to convince the elector that it was ‘unseasonable and may be prejudicial to his interest’, to condone such a move. On 18 Nov. he was able to forewarn Godolphin of a proposal to lend the emperor £250,000, a loan to which Marlborough eventually subscribed £10,000.<sup>266</sup> Marlborough sailed for England on 27 Dec. and arrived in London on 30 December. He went into the country, arriving back in London on 5 Jan. 1706.<sup>267</sup> On 6 Jan. Marlborough was present at dinner at Harley’s, the purpose of which was to reconcile Somers and Halifax with Harley. Marlborough attended the Lords on 8 Jan., the first day after the Christmas recess. On 11 Jan. he dined with Cowper, Bradford (as Newport had become), Somerset, Shrewsbury and ‘several other Lords’, and on the 12th, he dined with the same company with the addition of Wharton.<sup>268</sup> After attending on 18 Jan., he was next present on the 29th, spending some of the intervening period at Woodstock.<sup>269</sup> The grant of Woodstock, and the building of Blenheim, had expanded Marlborough’s local interest into Oxfordshire. On 5 Feb. a warrant was signed for Marlborough to replace Abingdon as lord lieutenant, with a new lieutenancy commission being issued on 5 April.<sup>270</sup> Even then he had to smooth over the ruffled feathers of Francis North*, Baron Guilford, who sent back his commission as a deputy lieutenant, Marlborough noting that it had been sent to him inadvertently and that he did not take its return ‘in ill part’.<sup>271</sup> On 7 May St John wrote that ‘Craggs, I suppose, gives your grace an account that care has been taken in the manner you directed of the deputations for Oxfordshire’. On 10 May he wrote again:</p><blockquote><p>after we had agreed to send the deputations into the country and had answers from most people, whom we took care to sound, I heard that Reeves was appointed clerk of the lieutenancy. I wish this trifle be not sufficient to sour some people. It’s a nice matter to bring that county into humour; when they are once so, a little care will maintain it.</p></blockquote><p>On 14 June St John wrote ‘the commissions of lieutenancy are sent into Oxfordshire, and I intend to be in that country as soon as this embarkation is over’.<sup>272</sup> Similarly, Marlborough had responsibility for the bench; on 18 May Cowper wrote to Marlborough ‘I have not yet received the papers which contain your grace’s pleasure in relation to the commission of the peace for Oxfordshire. I believe it very seasonable to do something in that matter if your grace thinks fit to give me some order in it.’<sup>273</sup> In the event, 26 men were added to the bench.<sup>274</sup> Relations with Abingdon continued to be difficult. On 14 Sept. Chetwood reported a conversation with Abingdon, where the earl said ‘with some emotion, that the demands you made of him seemed to imply a desire you had to break with him’. Chetwood defended the duke saying that:</p><blockquote><p>the true occasion of these misunderstandings… was the occasional conformity bill, which as it was unseasonably set on foot, was so unwarrantably prosecuted, that it might give just grounds to suspect that something else was aimed at besides the bare passing of that bill. That when designs were formed against the lord treasurer, the laws of friendship, as well as the queen’s service, obliged you to make what interest you could for his preservation. That not your grace but the e[arl], of N[ottingham], and Sir E. S[eymour], were to be blamed, who made that conduct which displeased him, unavoidable.<sup>275</sup></p></blockquote><p>By March 1707 Marlborough was working to ensure that his son-in-law, now styled Viscount Rialton, would be chosen knight of the shire at the next election. Opposition was expected at the assizes, Shrewsbury writing that ‘he will meet with a greater opposition than I could have imagined an heir of the duke of Marlborough recommended by him could have found’. Marlborough engineered a reconciliation with Abingdon and Rialton was elected unopposed.<sup>276</sup></p><p>Marlborough took part in several other debates during the 1705-6 session. On 21 Feb. he was one of those peers that spoke successfully against Rochester’s motion to dispense with the standing order of allowing 14 days after the commitment of a private bill.<sup>277</sup> On 9 Mar. he was named to draw up an address for the discovery and prosecuting the author, printer, and publishers, of <em>Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> Letter to the earl of Stamford</em>, which had been voted ‘a scandalous, false, and malicious libel’. Marlborough had intervened in the debate when Rochester ‘would have diverted the House from passing the censure by saying it appeared very likely that it was published by the authority of the court of Hanover’, showing ‘that was impossible because matters of fact were affirmed in the letter which the electress knew to be false’.<sup>278</sup> As he was present on the 11th, he may have been named as a manager of the two conferences on this subject. On 10 Mar. Godolphin left with Marlborough ‘a draught of a speech for the queen to make at the close of the session… for your correction’.<sup>279</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 19 Mar., having attended on 29 days of the session, 31 per cent of the total, and being named to a further two committees. As he told Heinsius on that day, the session had ‘most certainly been the best that ever was in England, for we are already as good as masters of all the money that has been given for this year’s service’. He embarked at Greenwich on 12 Apr. leaving Godolphin to grapple with Whig demands which were ‘not all so reasonable as is certainly necessary for their own sakes as well as for everybody else’.<sup>280</sup></p><h2><em>Ramillies, the Union and the Session of 1706-7</em></h2><p>Despite Marlborough’s victory at Ramillies on 12 May 1706, he thought that ‘France is not yet reduced to her just bounds, and that nothing can be more hurtful to us on this occasion than seeming over-forward to clap up a hasty peace’.<sup>281</sup> By the end of June Marlborough was already thinking of the next session, writing to Harley, ‘I am impatient of having your thoughts upon the methods for the making the queen’s business go easy in the winter’. On 27 Sept. he added, ‘as the Parliament grows near, I beg at your leisure, I may hear as often as may be’.<sup>282</sup> Since the end of the previous session Godolphin had been under pressure from the Whigs to replace Secretary Hedges with Sunderland. During the summer Marlborough was roped in by Godolphin in an attempt to persuade the queen of the necessity of this change. He duly sent a letter on 27 June, to which the queen replied on 9 July opposing the idea. At this stage Marlborough thought that Sunderland ‘and his friends ought not to take it unkindly; for as she is every day sensible of the undutiful and unkind usage she meets with from the greatest part of 8 [the Tories] will bring her to what I am afraid she is yet uneasy at’. Godolphin’s threatened resignation in August brought a rebuke from Marlborough that such a step ‘you could not justify to God nor man; for without flattery, as England is divided, there is nobody could execute your place with success’. Simultaneously, he was writing to the duchess ‘I would have everything that is reasonable done to satisfy 14 [the Whigs], of which I think 91 [Godolphin], is the best judge’.<sup>283</sup></p><p>On the related question of the Union with Scotland, Marlborough advised Godolphin on 29 July that ‘care must be taken against the malice of the angry party, and notwithstanding their malicious affectation of crying the church may be ruined by the Union, the Union must be supported.’ To this end Marlborough was willing to write to James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>, even though he had ‘very little interest’ with him. On 29 Aug. Marlborough related to Johnston his view that nothing could tend towards the ‘public good’ than ‘the union of the two nations’, and asking him to use his interest with John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], to get him to support the project. On 12 Oct. Johnston reported that he had received a letter from Marlborough ‘earnest for the Union’, although his reply made Marlborough think that ‘as far as I can judge by it he has no opinion of the Union, nor will meddle so as to be of any use’. Further Marlborough agreed to persuade Argyll to take leave of absence from the campaign to promote the Union.<sup>284</sup> Sir David Nairne told John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar [S], that the duke had got Argyll into ‘a very good humour on making him or promising to make him major-general, upon which his grace has promised to go to the Parliament and serve the queen in the affair of the Union’.<sup>285</sup> All this is in keeping with the view of the French agent, Guénin, who wrote that the Union had given ‘much satisfaction’ to Marlborough, who had ‘really done more than anyone to put it through, although he has not seemed to have played much part in it’.<sup>286</sup></p><p>With no progress having been made towards accommodating Whig demands for office on 26 Sept. 1706 Marlborough revealed to Godolphin the gist of a letter he had written to the queen:</p><blockquote><p>I am not for putting yourself into the hands of either party. But the behaviour of Lord Rochester and all the hot heads of that party are so extravagant, that there is no doubt to be made of their exposing you and the liberties of England to the rage of France, rather than not be revenged as they call it. This being the case, there is a necessity as well as justice of your following your inclinations in supporting lord treasurer, or all must go to confusion. As the humour is at present, he can’t be supported but by the Whigs, for the others seek his destruction, which in effect is yours.</p></blockquote><p>As he affirmed to the duchess on 30 Sept. Rochester and the tackers ‘are not for carrying on the war, and consequently not in the true interest of the queen and kingdom’.<sup>287</sup> On 7 Oct. Marlborough was getting ready to send over army officer Members for the parliamentary session, observing that ‘they never finish their money matters in Holland till the Parliament has made their first votes’. On 10 Oct. he wrote to Godolphin that having ‘been so very much mortified at seeing the little effect my letters of late’ had had on the queen, ‘I was resolved to write no more, but at my arrival to have spoke my mind with all submission and duty, very freely, after which I should have given no more trouble’. However, he wrote again on 13 Oct. giving Godolphin unequivocal backing. Godolphin was reduced to hoping for Marlborough’s swift arrival as ‘I find plainly nothing will be set right with 83 [the queen], as it ought to be till then’. On 29 Oct. he returned to this theme. Marlborough was wanted ‘for several things which ought necessarily to be done before the Parliament. And your being here before their sitting down, must needs have a very great influence toward hastening their preparation for next year’. A fresh problem now arose as Godolphin sent intelligence to Marlborough that Harley and his associates were proposing to solve the ministry’s political problems by forming a party of the court against the Junto. On 29 Oct. Marlborough thought that Harley ‘must not be suffered to go on in the project… and by gaining him you will govern the others without taking any pains with them’. Marlborough landed at Margate on 16 Nov., arriving in London on the 18th, ‘where notwithstanding his grace had deferred his arrival till the dusk of the evening, and endeavoured to enter as privately as possible, the common people of Southwark discovered him, and immediately giving the alarm to their brotherhood in the city, attended him with huzzas and acclamations to the court’. On 20 Nov. Marlborough and Godolphin met with Harley and the latter was forced to comply with their wish to bring Whigs into the ministry. On 23 Nov. Marlborough dined with Halifax and scotched rumours that he was soon to return to Holland to negotiate a peace. At the end of November he went to view the building work at Blenheim.<sup>288</sup></p><p>On the eve of the parliamentary session, the queen finally gave in and appointed Sunderland to the secretaryship. Marlborough was present on the opening day of the session, 3 Dec. 1706, noting to Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford), that ‘the proceedings today in Parliament… gives us the prospect of a very happy session’. On 13 Dec. he wrote to Heinsius that ‘everything goes in Parliament as could be wished’.<sup>289</sup> On 17 Dec. Sunderland’s son, Charles Spencer<sup>†</sup>, the future 3rd duke of Marlborough, was baptized with Marlborough as one of the godparents.<sup>290</sup> On 19 Dec. Marlborough dined with the lord mayor and aldermen at the Vintners’ Hall, with the trophies of the campaign on display.<sup>291</sup> On that day Cardonnel wrote to Shrewsbury that John Smith<sup>‡</sup> had ‘acquainted my Lord duke himself with your grace’s having sent him up your proxy,’ which appears to have been dated 3 December.<sup>292</sup> Marlborough himself replied to Shrewsbury on the 26th that ‘if anything should happen, wherein I may have the least thought, that we might differ in opinion, you may be sure I shall not make use of it without your grace’s advice and direction, but rather be governed by your better judgment’.<sup>293</sup> On 30 Dec. Shrewsbury replied: ‘I think it much more sure to vote for the public good, than were I present to give it’, and that ‘in any Parliament, I have had the honour to sit with you, I cannot recollect that we ever differed’.<sup>294</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on the 4 Dec. 1706 the House ordered thanks to be given to Marlborough when he was ‘in his place’, which took place on the following day. Marlborough was now in a strong position to bring to gestation plans to exploit his success for the purpose of establishing his family. On 14 Dec. Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, moved successfully for an address to the queen to allow Marlborough’s honours to be passed by act of Parliament through the female line.<sup>295</sup> Following the queen’s assent to the address on the 17th, Marlborough gave his thanks to the House, adding that he had requested that Woodstock and Blenheim might go along with the titles, and hoped that after his wife’s death ‘upon whom they are settled in jointure, that estate and house may be limited to go always along with the honour’. The judges were ordered to bring in the requisite bill, which was presented on 18 Dec. and passed both Houses on the 20th.<sup>296</sup> Not to be outdone, on 7 Jan. 1707 the Commons voted for an address to the queen in which they signalled their willingness to enable the queen to ‘make some provision for the more honourable support of his dignity in his posterity’. The queen’s response was to make perpetual the duke’s £5,000 p.a. pension on the Post Office. On 14 Jan. John Netterville surmised to Harley that Marlborough’s grant ‘was a managed matter by some of his friends and favourites; his grace privy to the design all along’. This may also have been the reason why Marlborough attended a meeting at the home of Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), with several peers on 18 Jan. 1707. Solicitor-general Harcourt introduced the bill on 14 Jan. and managed it through the Commons. It passed the Lords on 22 January. Perceptively, Robert Raworth recorded ‘great is the man, and great have been his actions, but all these favours create enemies’.<sup>297</sup></p><p>On 24 Jan. 1707 Marlborough informed Albemarle that the Union had passed in Scotland and ‘is like to meet with some struggle here, though I make no doubt but it will have a happy issue’.<sup>298</sup> On 29 Jan. he attended a meeting at Sunderland’s house in company with Godolphin, Wharton, Orford, Halifax, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, and John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, to put the final touches to the draft of a bill for the security of the Church of England, which had been promoted by Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, and was designed to pass before the Union. The bill was duly brought in by Tenison on 31 January. Marlborough was not present on that day, presumably taking advantage of the convenience of St Albans for a short visit, as he informed Heinsius on 4 Feb. that he had been ‘in the country’. On 15 Feb., Marlborough spoke against amending the articles of Union. On the 17th he informed Heinsius that he was going ‘for five or six days into the country’, and he next attended on 27 February. He last attended on 14 Mar. having been present on 32 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total. Marlborough left London for Margate on 21 Mar. and sailed on 2 Apr. 1707.<sup>299</sup></p><h2><em>Harley and the Session of 1707-8</em> </h2><p>On 7 Feb. Marlborough had successfully approached Bishop Compton for a prebend of St Paul’s for his chaplain, Francis Hare<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Chichester.<sup>300</sup> Other ecclesiastical matters were not so easily resolved. From February, the struggle to fill the vacant bishoprics Chester and Exeter, and the regius professorship of divinity at Oxford precipitated a political crisis because the candidates favoured by the Whigs were blocked by the queen’s preference for promoting two Tory divines, Sir William Dawes*, the future archbishop of York, and Dr. Blackall*, the future bishop of Exeter. Marlborough’s interest in this was the advancement of his protégé, John Potter<sup>†</sup>, the future archbishop of Canterbury, to the regius chair. More generally, the imbroglio had serious political implications as the Whigs could not understand why their candidates were not being preferred. The death of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, at the end of May, allowed some leeway in that his replacement by Bishop Moore left three bishoprics vacant. Finding the queen intransigent, Godolphin on 8 June seemed ‘resolved to use all his endeavours to keep them vacant till he can have Mr. Freeman’s [Marlborough’s] assistance in those spiritual affairs which seem to grow worse and worse’. Marlborough at this stage was somewhat perplexed, writing on 12 June ‘I find something is doing by way of promotions in 171 [the Church], that makes 89 [the Whigs], uneasy. I do assure you I am very sorry for it, but you know I have very little to say in those matters’. Having long championed Potter’s promotion, ‘if he has not the professor’s place, I will never more meddle with anything that may concern Oxford’. Having read Godolphin’s missive of 8 June, he reacted with more alarm: if the queen’s ‘prejudice to some people is so unalterable, and that they will be disposing of the preferments now vacant to such as will tear to pieces her friends and servants, that must create distraction’. On 23 June Marlborough noted that whatever pleased John Sharp*, archbishop of York, ‘can’t be for the service of 42 [the queen]’. He advised Godolphin to write ‘very plainly what he thinks is wrong and send it to 42 without offering to quit, or expecting any answer but as in duty bound to leave it to her consideration’.<sup>301</sup> Still the queen refused to budge, despite warnings of an impending attack on the conduct of the admiralty in the next parliamentary session. On 25 Aug. she wrote to Marlborough:</p><blockquote><p>as to what you say that I must either put my business into the hands of 4 [Harley], or follow 10 [Godolphin’s] measures, I should be glad you would explain yourself a little more on that, for I know no measures 10 has but what were laid down when 40 [Marlborough], was here, and I do not know I have broken any of them, for I cannot think my having nominated Sir William and Dr. Blackall to be bishops is any breach, they being worthy men, and all the clamour is raised against them proceeds only from the malice of 18 [the Whigs].</p></blockquote><p>She rejected the charge that Dawes and Blackall had been recommended to her by Harley: ‘I do assure you these men were my own choice.’<sup>302</sup> The situation was eventually resolved in January 1708 when Dawes and Blackall were confirmed in the sees to which Anne had promised them; Trimnell replaced Moore at Norwich and Potter obtained the regius chair.</p><p>Given the opposition which Marlborough and Godolphin had encountered at court, typified by the time-consuming battles with the queen over appointment of Sunderland and the Whig bishops, they cast around for its source. On 22 May 1707, Marlborough wrote to Sarah, acknowledging receipt of a letter in which she had revealed her suspicions that Abigail Masham had been speaking of business to the queen. This in turn pointed the finger at her distant relative, Harley. On 30 June Marlborough advised Godolphin to find a way to speak plainly to Harley ‘for if he continues in doing ill offices upon all occasions’ to Somers, Sunderland and Halifax, ‘it will at last have so much effect upon 239 [the queen], whose inclinations are already that way, it must occasion that no measures will be followed’. To the queen on 7 July he wrote that the ‘interest of the Whigs obliges them to be more governed by you than that of the Tories’. Blaming ‘the malice of their chiefs, and the behaviour of the greatest part of the clergy’, he told her that if the Tories were in charge, ‘they would not carry this war on with vigour, on which depends your happiness and the safety of our religion’. In conclusion, he advised that the queen ‘lose no time in taking such measures with [the] lord treasurer as may make the next sessions of Parliament cheerfully enable you for the carrying on of this war, without which all must run to ruin’.<sup>303</sup></p><p>Whilst Marlborough recognized the need to appease the Whigs, he also valued Harley’s managerial qualities. On 4 Aug. 1707 he told the duchess that ‘there is no possibility in my opinion of acting otherways than making use of him, so that there should not only be pains taking in possessing 42 [the queen] of a just character, but also of convincing 199 [Harley]’. He also warned her that if the Whigs ‘mortify’ the court, it would dishearten Godolphin and then Harley would have ‘the power and credit of doing what he pleases’. To Godolphin the ‘timely remedy’ to the influence of Abigail and Harley was for Marlborough to join him in ‘speaking very plainly at the same time to Mrs. Morley [the queen] both of 199 [Harley] and a great many other things, and settling a rule for preventing (before it is too late) all those uneasinesses for the future’. To accomplish this Marlborough needed to be in England before the Parliament met. Marlborough appears to have taken this on board for on 1 Sept. he asked Sarah for her thoughts on ‘what you think best for the service and quiet of 38 [Godolphin], for whatever it be I think it ought to be put in practice before the meeting of the Parliament.’<sup>304</sup></p><p>Other matters of concern to Marlborough while on campaign were the repercussions of the failure of the attack on Toulon, and the machinations of the Tories at Hanover in promoting an invitation to Princess Sophia, which the Whigs threatened to support. On 20 Aug. Marlborough offered Godolphin advice on how to deal with Peterborough (the former Monmouth): ‘you must do no step in that matter but in conjunction with’ Halifax, Somers, Sunderland, and if possible Wharton.<sup>305</sup> On 29 Aug. Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> wrote that Peterborough’s actions in Spain and the failure at Toulon presaged ‘a warm session, but we are still in hopes the duke of Marlborough will come to our relief and set things right again as he has done formerly when affairs were in a more desperate posture’.<sup>306</sup> On 4 Sept. Marlborough wrote to the queen that if she would:</p><blockquote><p>not let those that have the honour to serve you govern your affairs agreeable to the circumstances of the time, your business must inevitably run to confusion, and consequently make it impracticable for 10 [Godolphin] to continue in his employment. For if he be thought to have the power and do not govern, both parties will be angry with him, but when once out of service both will admire and be his friends. If I were with you I believe I could better let you see the trouble and distraction you are like to be in this winter, which you must prevent before the meeting of the Parl[iament], or it will be too late.<sup>307</sup></p></blockquote><p>In a more practical vein, he informed Godolphin that he would write to St John shortly about ‘what ought to be laid before the Parliament concerning the troops. For if I take time for my doing what is necessary on this side the water, they will have met above a fortnight before I can be in London’. If Parliament ‘at their first meeting should not act with vigour, it must add to our misfortunes abroad.’<sup>308</sup></p><p>With the need to settle matters before Parliament met, Godolphin suggested on 22 Sept that Marlborough return to England for a fortnight while Parliament ‘passed all their votes and taken their resolutions for carrying on the war’, and then go back to The Hague to finish concerting measures with the allies. On 25 Sept. Godolphin informed Harley that he had asked Marlborough to be in London four or five days before Parliament met. Marlborough could not agree to this as he was already committed to a journey into Germany, but on 27 Sept. he suggested delaying the meeting of Parliament for two weeks. On 7 Oct. Godolphin thought that would be difficult, but that ‘nothing is fixed here to make 88 [Parliament] succeed, nor can 38 [Godolphin] do anything so shameful as to abandon 42 [the queen] but upon a joint measure with Mr. Freeman [Marlborough]’. He hoped Marlborough would ‘hasten’ over ‘so that nothing very material may be decided finally before you come’.<sup>309</sup> In the event Parliament was prorogued until 6 Nov. by which time Marlborough’s arrival was imminent. As Harley put it: ‘it has been thought proper to adjourn the Parliament (after the Speaker was approved) until Thursday next [6 Nov.], in hopes of either seeing, or hearing, from your grace before that day.’<sup>310</sup></p><p>Cadogan reported that Marlborough was ready to embark for England on 28 Oct. 1707, awaiting only a ‘fair wind’. He embarked on 4 Nov. arriving in London on 7 November.<sup>311</sup> He first sat on 10 Nov. and in all attended on 74 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total. Marlborough’s arrival clarified the outstanding issues: on 11 Nov. Johnston wrote to Trumbull. ’You hear no doubt, that after much noise, the court yielded and the Place Act takes place. Had they stood it out, they would have had but one third of the Scotch Members for them. I suppose the admiralty and the bishops will be yielded too’. Even though Peterborough’s affair was still not settled, it was likely Marlborough ‘will quiet him’. Everything had awaited Marlborough’s arrival, ‘all as it were in a storm and nothing less than a dissolution was threatened, but now there is a great calm.’<sup>312</sup> Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, also gave the credit to Marlborough: ‘before the duke’s coming over, the ministry seemed to be much undetermined, but now it is generally understood that they are fixed in the right way and that we are to have bishops, a secretary and an admiral to content.’ He thought ‘some assurances have been given’, having observed several men ‘who are not to be satisfied or won over by any considerations but what are public and honourable’ now to be ‘very zealous for the ministry’, who had been of a very different opinion the week before.<sup>313</sup> On 29 Nov. Marlborough wrote to Heinsius that the address of the Commons showed ‘the sense of the nation as to the carrying on the war’. He added that naval ‘misfortunes’ were ‘likely to occasion inquiry and consequently uneasiness, but you may be assured will give no delay to the dispatch of public business, so that in all likelihood it will end in giving trouble to some few private persons which will no ways affect the public’. Of more concern was the need to augment the troops available for the campaign; Marlborough wrote to Heinsius again on 5 Dec. saying there was little hope of increasing the provision from the British side, unless the States General could offer assurances that they would ‘likewise do their part’.<sup>314</sup></p><p>On 9 Dec. 1707 Vernon told Shrewsbury, ‘I don’t think you can expect to see the duke of Marlborough [in the country], very soon, for our House is now upon enquiries relating to the war’.<sup>315</sup> On 19 Dec. the Lords debated the Spanish war in the presence of the queen. Nottingham, ‘with a great show of respect’ towards Marlborough, advocated transferring a considerable force from Flanders to Spain. In this he was seconded by Rochester, ‘who dropped some expressions’ that occasioned several exchanges with Marlborough, in which the latter was noted for the ‘warmth’ with which he expressed his opinion. Marlborough argued that due care was being taken to relieve Spain, but that Flanders was of even more concern, for if that theatre of the war was denuded of troops, the French might use their superior forces to overrun the Dutch and force them to make a separate peace. He also observed that:</p><blockquote><p>the ministry had been reflected on by some Lords during the session and therefore desired they would speak out who had anything to say and if there was any misconduct that it might be laid before the House: and without dealing in general terms desired the Lords that were dissatisfied to mention the actions and persons that were to blame. His grace showed at the same time how bad it was for the ministry to be schooled on all occasions when any member of the House thought fit to do it whether there were any reason given or not, and acquainted the Lords with several particulars relating to the last campaign and that which is to come that they say were fully satisfactory and took away all occasion of complaint.<sup>316</sup></p></blockquote><p>Following the adjournment of the House on 23 Dec. Brydges summed up the situation: ‘by the steadiness of my Lord Marlborough, &c we have all been preserved from the violence of the Whigs’.<sup>317</sup></p><p>On 22 Dec. 1707 Marlborough went ‘to pass the holidays at Blenheim’, returning on the 30th.<sup>318</sup> In the absence of Sarah, Marlborough kept Shrewsbury up until past midnight discussing Harley’s scheme of moderation.<sup>319</sup> On 31 Dec. Marlborough was one of those councillors deputed to examine William Greg, a clerk in Harley’s office, who had admitted sending regular accounts of Parliament to the French minister, Michel de Chamillard.<sup>320</sup> In January 1708 the recruitment bill ran into difficulties in the Commons, presaging a shortage of manpower for the army, with the ministry suffering a defeat in the Commons and a watered-down version passing the Commons in late February.<sup>321</sup> On 23 Jan. Marlborough apologized to Heinsius for his failure to write by the previous post, which was because he had been ‘so very weary at the House of Commons not doing what I thought was best for the getting recruits for this year’s service’. The question was lost by seven ‘and it is thought if gentlemen had not been afraid of hurting their elections this summer, we should have carried it by a great many’. On 13 Feb. he added that ‘I hope our recruit-bill will enable us to get the men,’ despite the failure of legislation instituting conscription based on quotas for parishes and counties.<sup>322</sup> Meanwhile, Marlborough had tangled with Peterborough on 15 Jan. over the conduct of the Spanish campaign. When Peterborough made ‘an excursion into some other subject’, Marlborough intimated that he thought it would be for his Lordship’s service to clear one point before he proceeded to another: and that therefore he believed his Lordship would do well to explain the money affair [the allegations of misappropriation of public funds] first and then go on to the other points’.<sup>323</sup></p><p>At this point, the divisions between the leading ministers as to how to manage Parliament reached a crisis. Discussions had been ongoing between Marlborough, Godolphin and Harley over the idea of strengthening the ministry by bringing in some moderate Tories to join those moderate Whigs who had supported the ministry in December, and who were likely to support the lord treasurer over the admiralty, the Scottish Privy Council and the conduct of the war in Spain. However, Harley appears to have gone too far, albeit with the queen’s backing, and attempted to negotiate with Tories such as William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> who had been the ministry’s vigorous opponents. In effect, Harley presented Marlborough with the option of abandoning the lord treasurer and joining a new scheme of government, one with which he had some sympathy given his natural inclination towards moderation and his fear of Junto domination. The alternative was to stick with Godolphin and his plans to reconstruct the ministry by admitting more Whigs into office. Marlborough only backed Godolphin after being convinced that moderate Whig opinion would not join Harley’s scheme.<sup>324</sup> In this battle for Marlborough’s support, Harley tried to convince him not only of the efficacy of his scheme, but of his essential trustworthiness. On 28 Jan. 1708 Harley wrote to Marlborough that having attended the queen, `I had been represented to your grace to have said something which had given your grace dissatisfaction’. Therefore, he wished to wait on the duke to ‘clear myself’, while assuring him of his ‘utmost regard and affection’ for Godolphin. Harley wrote again on 1 Feb. in an attempt to gain an opportunity to explain himself to Godolphin. On 6 Feb. he tried to obtain an audience with Marlborough to ‘restore me to his Lordship’s favour and to that end give me an opportunity of speaking freely to your grace what perhaps may deserve your grace’s attention for one quarter of an hour any time you will please to command.’ To which Marlborough replied on the 7th, `I have been very exactly informed of all the transactions for some days past; and particularly what was said under the sanction of a message yesterday morning.’<sup>325</sup></p><p>Once Marlborough had made his decision to remain loyal to Godolphin, he informed the queen around 6 Feb. 1708 that:</p><blockquote><p>since all the faithful service I have endeavoured to do you, and the unwearied pains I have taken for these ten days to satisfy and convince your majesty’s own mind, have not been able to give you any such impression of the false and treacherous proceedings of Mr. Secretary Harley to lord treasurer and myself, but that your majesty is pleased to countenance and to support him to the ruin of your own business at home. I am very much afraid it will be attended with the sorrow and amazement of all Europe as soon as the noise of it gets abroad. And I find myself obliged to have so much regard to my own honour and reputation, as not to be every day made a sacrifice to falsehood and treachery, but most humbly to acquaint your majesty that no consideration can make me serve any longer with that man.<sup>326</sup></p></blockquote><p>The brief power struggle which followed was essentially resolved at the cabinet meeting on 8 Feb. before which Godolphin, Marlborough and his wife all threatened to resign, whereupon a number of lords indicated their refusal to serve with Harley by declining to do business in their absence. In response, on the 9th the Commons let the supply bill lie on the table and in the Lords, ‘after a warm report that the queen was not to be prevailed on by the duke of Marlborough and lord treasurer’s united requests to part with Secretary Harley’, Wharton ‘made a motion to enquire into the matter of [Harley’s office clerk] Greg’s condemnation’.<sup>327</sup> The resultant committee, packed with Harley’s enemies, was what probably persuaded the queen to accept Harley’s resignation. She sent for Marlborough on the 9th and ‘at his coming back to the House of Lords it was soon spread abroad that the seals would be sent for’.<sup>328</sup> Addison succinctly summed up: Marlborough and Godolphin had ‘refused to sit any longer in council with so wily a Secretary and would have laid down themselves if he had not been removed’.<sup>329</sup> Meanwhile, on 7 Feb. Marlborough entered his protest against the passage of the bill to complete the Union, which included the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, a measure which Somers felt ‘was no little ingredient towards making the changes which have since happened’. On 5 Mar. Marlborough went to St Albans, ‘for two days retirement from the crowd of business’. He was back in the Lords on the 8th. On the 9th he wrote that he dared not leave the kingdom while there was uncertainty as to the fate of the Jacobite invasion in Scotland. He last sat in the Lords on 25 Mar. having been named to 12 committees. Early on 29 Mar. he left London for Margate, reaching The Hague on the 30th.<sup>330</sup></p><p>No sooner had Marlborough departed than Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Orford, wrote to him on 30 Mar. of difficulties in the Commons over army recruitment. Nor did the duke obtain much respite from Godolphin, who as early as 5 Apr. was reminding him of his plans to return for a short visit later in the month. The exigencies of the war demanded a visit to the Elector of Hanover instead.<sup>331</sup> Sunderland’s Cabinet minutes of 11 Apr. record that ‘the queen did depend upon the duke of Marlborough coming back, when she gave him leave to go so early, and therefore leaves it to him to judge.’<sup>332</sup> Godolphin probably hit the nail on the head when he opined on 13 Apr. that his trip made it look as if ‘any place is more agreeable than England’. For Marlborough, without a trip to Hanover, ‘we should have begun this campaign without any project’. However, his visit soon gave rise to rumours that he would bring the electoral prince, George* [588], duke of Cambridge, back with him to England.<sup>333</sup> Much as Marlborough wished to avoid the entanglements of English politics, since Harley’s challenge he could no longer hope to stay aloof from the parties, seeking, as Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> put it in April, to ‘temper their violence’ and trying to ‘reconcile them’.<sup>334</sup></p><h2><em>The Election of 1708 and the turn to the Whigs</em></h2><p>The implication of Maynwaring’s analysis was clear: a turn to the Whigs was necessary, and to most observers this meant an office for Somers. Maynwaring was relieved to find that Marlborough was not blocking his return to office: ‘I am very glad to find so plainly that there is nothing imputed to my lord duke upon the business of Lord Somers, because I will endeavour to convince some people of that’.<sup>335</sup> As before, the chief stumbling block was the queen. On 22 Apr. she gave Marlborough an account of a visit from Newcastle and Devonshire, ‘in which they proposed my taking Lord Somers into the cabinet council, without giving him any employment’. On 28 Apr. Marlborough replied ‘as for England I do not doubt but care is taken to incline your majesty to believe that the Tories will have this next Parliament a majority in the House of Commons.’ It was, he told her, unlikely that after the French backing for the Pretender, and with most Tories ‘suspected either to have known or at least to have wished success to the attempt’, that the people of England would choose ‘such men as they believe would ruin all that is dear to them.’ He also asked her to consider ‘the consequences of refusing the request’ of Newcastle and Devonshire, ‘since it will be a demonstration, not only to them, but to everybody, that [the] lord treasurer and Lord Marlborough have no credit with your majesty but that you are guided by the insinuation of Mr. Harley.’<sup>336</sup></p><p>With electioneering in full spate, Marlborough told the duchess on 25 Apr. 1708 that he ‘liked so well’, Defoe’s <em>Advice to the Electors of Great Britain</em> that ‘I have read it twice’. At St Albans, George Churchill was narrowly defeated for the second seat by Joshua Lomax<sup>‡</sup>, while Gape topped the poll. Marlborough was no doubt ‘vexed’ by the failure of his brother to be returned (although he was elected for Portsmouth), and by the failure to remove Gape from the Hertfordshire bench, for which he blamed Essex. However, he had resolved ‘to meddle as little as possible’ in the election, and not to spend any money.<sup>337</sup> His name appears on a list of the first Parliament of Great Britain in about May 1708, with markings that suggest he was perceived as a court Whig.</p><p>As a peer of Scotland Marlborough was entitled to participate in the election of representative peers and he was canvassed for his vote. On 27 Apr. 1708 he informed Godolphin that he had promised Lady Orkney to endeavour to get her husband, George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney, elected, and asked him to speak to Queensberry, Sunderland, Boyle and Cowper to help effect it. By virtue of being on campaign, Marlborough had to exercise his rights by proxy; on 7 May James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], wrote a detailed letter of instruction to ensure that he followed the correct form in disposing of his proxy.<sup>338</sup> On 20 May Marlborough sent it to Mar, reserving votes only for two army officers, Orkney and John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S].<sup>339</sup> Mar received it on 29 May, and on 31 May he acknowledged receipt of Marlborough’s instructions: ‘I shall obey your commands as to those two Lords and shall name the rest as I think most for the queen’s service’. Mar then made public that he had received Marlborough’s proxy, ‘that it might be known how 163 [the court], would declare’. To counteract this impression Sunderland intervened in support of the Squadrone, creating problems for Marlborough later with the queen. On the day after the election Mar informed Marlborough of the Lords he had voted for, which seemed to have been allowed, although Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], protested against Marlborough voting on the grounds that he was a peer of England.<sup>340</sup> The queen was unhappy at Sunderland’s action, noting on 18 June that ‘there is no wonder opposition should increase when one of my own servants are at the head of it’. She reiterated her displeasure on 22 June noting that although Sunderland had ‘neither directly or indirectly made use of my name’, he ‘owned he had writ his own thoughts about the elections to some lords of the Squadrone’, and that this had had the same effect ‘for whatever comes from one in such a post, on such a subject must be looked upon as done by my approbation so that I cannot but still resent this usage very much’. Although she had not yet dismissed him, she reminded Marlborough ‘of the promise you made to me when I first took this person into my service, which was that if ever he did anything I did not like or something to yet purpose you would bring him to make his leg and take his leave.’<sup>341</sup> On 8 July Marlborough asked the duchess and Godolphin for their comments, before replying (in a letter drafted by Godolphin) asking her not to remove Sunderland, but to follow Godolphin’s advice.</p><p>The election had returned a clear Whig majority, and Godolphin’s apprehensions of the forthcoming Parliament should the queen not include more Whigs in office, meant that as early as 13 June, he had written to Marlborough to request his arrival at least 15 days before it sat.’<sup>342</sup> Marlborough was sufficiently aware of the need to manage Parliament that even on campaign he was able to pay remarkable attention to the minutiae of politics. On 27 May 1708 he wrote to the duchess about the election of William Guidott<sup>‡</sup>, marked on a parliamentary list as a Whig, but ‘if pains there be not taken with him… I fear he will be found otherwise. When you see him, you may speak as your not doubting of his being for the carrying on the war, till a safe peace can be had, by which you will see his inclinations.’<sup>343</sup> Whigs such as Halifax now felt ‘the game’ was not difficult to play; all the duumvirs had to do was ‘to carry on the administration by such measures, and in such hands, as you declare to like’. Their enemies were too weak ‘to disturb you. And there is an inclination, and a disposition among those that have the majority to support, to assist you, and to do everything that is reasonable to please you’. Marlborough’s response on 15 July was to affirm his willingness to join with Halifax and his friends ‘to encourage those who are for supporting the present government and carrying on the war with vigour, so that we may have a speedy and lasting peace which is my chief ambition.’<sup>344</sup></p><p>Given the struggle to obtain the appointment of more Whigs to office, Marlborough continued to affirm to the queen his desire to be free of domestic politics, ‘to serve you in the army, but not as a minister’.<sup>345</sup> The queen was unwilling to recognize the distinction: ‘tho you say you will serve me as a general, but not as a minister, I shall always look upon you as both, and never separate those two characters, but ask your advice in both capacities on all occasions.’<sup>346</sup> On 12 July Marlborough told the duchess that ‘you may depend upon my joining with 89 [the Whigs], in opposition to 84 [the Tories], in all things’. He also had advice for Sunderland: there was ‘no necessity of his saying anything to 42 [the queen] that she will take ill, but on the contrary that he would endeavour to please as much as is consistent with his opinion, for it will be very mortifying to me… if she should persist to have him removed’. On 15 July he wrote to her again that he was sure the Tories would ‘endeavour all they can to vex me, but I hope 89 [the Whigs] will support me in this war’.<sup>347</sup> On 22 July Marlborough wrote to the queen about how her letters had caused him some discomposure; he was pleased, however, that ‘the impressions’ the queen had of Sunderland making use of her name in his letters to Scotland ‘had been so far set right, by the assurances he gave you, as to let you see all possible endeavours had been used from thence to incense you against him’. In return Marlborough had been spared ‘so great a mortification in the face of all Europe, at a time when I was so zealously endeavouring to serve you’. On a more strategic level, he continued,</p><blockquote><p>it is utterly impossible for you ever to have more than a part of the Tories, and tho you could have them all, their number is not capable of doing you good, no more than their inclination, they can do you hurt by making the Whigs jealous and uneasy, and that is their great aim, for they know that must have the consequence of dividing the Whigs, and by that means, enabling them to cast the balance on the side of those who are and will always be, in opposition to your majesty’s administration and government.<sup>348</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 22 July Marlborough wrote to Sarah that ‘I will always be in the interest of 89 [Whigs]’, but ‘at the same time, for their sakes and that of the public, as well as my own reputation, I must be master of judging of my actions towards 39 [the queen]’.<sup>349</sup></p><p>Although Marlborough believed that the Tories had got possession of the queen through Mrs. Masham, the queen was not to blame other than ‘by being too fond’ of her, ‘who imposes on her’. The queen of course refused to acknowledge such an influence, writing on 6 Aug. ‘I am very sorry to find you persist in your resolution of not advising me concerning my home affairs… there being nobody but 40 [Marlborough], and 10 [Godolphin], that I do advise with nor can rely on’. On 27 Aug., with a scheme of parliamentary management becoming urgent, the queen put it to Marlborough that ‘I think things are come [to the point] whether 17 [the queen], shall submit to the five tyrannizing lords [the Junto Whigs Orford, Sunderland, Halifax, Somers and Wharton], or they to me… let me know your thoughts of what may be the best expedient to keep 17 from being thrown into the hands of the five lords.’ Meanwhile, Marlborough was tactfully attempting to prevent his wife from making the situation worse: hoping that since she had observed that the queen ‘is not capable of being changed by reason’, so ‘you would be quiet till the time comes in which she must change’. As he re-assured his wife in November, so long as the queen was governed by the cabinet in ‘affairs of consequence’, and Godolphin was ‘well with the queen’, then Masham could only ‘vex, but never do mischief’.<sup>350</sup></p><p>To maintain the pressure, the Whigs signalled their intention to attack the admiralty, and specifically Marlborough’s brother, who was thought to influence Prince George and hence the queen. Marlborough remained loyal to his brother, but under no illusions as to his political failings as ‘a very indiscreet’ Tory, with ‘so little judgment that he is capable of any indiscretion’, although ‘I am very sure he would not say or do anything that he thought might prejudice the queen’.<sup>351</sup> On 8 Oct. Marlborough wrote to his brother that if he did not ‘take an unalterable resolution of laying down that employment’ before Parliament sat, ‘you will certainly do the greatest disservice imaginable to the queen and prince, the greatest prejudice to me, and bring yourself into such inconvenience as may last as long as you live, and from which it is wholly impossible to protect you’.<sup>352</sup> By mid-October Godolphin was reduced to deflecting Whig importunities with the promise ‘that when Lord Marlborough comes all will be set right’. As Marlborough’s return was not expected much before Christmas, the Whigs threatened to disturb the ministry at the opening of Parliament by opposing the court’s choice of Speaker, ‘for that they had no other way left to let the world see, and all their friends, that they were upon a different foot’.<sup>353</sup> On 19 Oct. Maynwaring urged the duchess to intervene by persuading the Whigs that ‘Marlborough has done his best, and so prevail with them at least to suspend their wrath till they see what turn he will take when he comes home’. In late October, Maynwaring was still trying to convince them that Marlborough ‘had acted a very sincere part in endeavouring to bring Lord Som[ers], into the council’.<sup>354</sup> On 24 Oct. Godolphin was still hoping that Marlborough would be back in England before the Parliament met on 16 Nov., somewhat later than usual. He even used the death of Prince George on 28 Oct. to reinforce his argument that Marlborough should hasten over.<sup>355</sup> In the event Marlborough continued the campaign well into the winter and remained absent from Westminster when Parliament sat on 16 November. Possibly he found remaining with the army to deal with intransigent logistical problems a plausible excuse for avoiding the turmoil of British political life.<sup>356</sup> In his absence rumours abounded about the state of his health. On 24 Dec. Johnston wrote: ’I do not hear that the duke of Marlborough comes over for some time. It’s like he’ll first make the matter sure. It’s whispered that he has a diabetes. It’s certain his health is breaking very fast for Cardonnel writes it’.<sup>357</sup></p><p>Despite his absence, Marlborough maintained a close watch on one of the topics of perennial interest to him, namely the legislation governing the recruitment of soldiers. Heavy losses had led to an urgent need to augment the number of troops, especially as his plans for the following campaign involved the invasion of France.<sup>358</sup> On 22 Nov. 1708 Marlborough emphasized to Walpole that the long campaign had delayed the dispatch of recruitment officers to England and hence the time available for them to operate, so that it was more important than ever ‘to think of some measures of raising recruits by act of Parliament on the parishes or hundreds. Pray discourse the matter with the gentlemen of the House of Commons, and use your utmost endeavours to bring it to pass, since nothing can conduce more to the public service’. Further, there was likely to be a need for ‘latitude [to] be allowed in the funds given in Parliament for defraying it.’ He also approached Boyle in favour of a bill ‘levying men upon the counties as has been formerly proposed’ and Brydges to ‘join in your utmost endeavours to procure an act of Parliament for levying of men in the respective counties’. On 9 Dec. he was encouraged by the replies of both Walpole and Boyle to hope that Parliament would come into ‘proper measures for recruiting the army’.<sup>359</sup> Henceforth, he received regular reports on the progress of the legislation until it passed the Commons on 24 Jan. 1709.<sup>360</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 13 Dec. Bromley had shown ‘as much malice as he could’ while disparaging Marlborough in the Commons in support of a vote of thanks to general John Richmond Webb<sup>‡</sup> for his role in the victory at Wynendael. Marlborough was ‘uneasy’ at this ‘barbarous proceeding’, believing the promoters of the motion were encouraged by Mrs. Masham.<sup>361</sup> Godolphin appealed to Marlborough at the start of January 1709 over the claims of the Whig-backed James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], for the post of Scottish secretary and the queen’s preference for Queensberry, being ‘in a great perplexity’ and asking him ‘to hasten over’.<sup>362</sup> Marlborough thought Queensberry, who was appointed on 3 Feb., a ‘knave’, whom he would do ‘all that is in my power to hinder his coming into so dangerous a place’. As he told the duchess: the principles of the Whigs were ‘for the good of England’, while the Tories would destroy both England and ‘the liberties of Europe’. Hence, he would ‘always govern my actions by joining with such as are for the good of England, but will never be a slave to either party, and consequently not expect favour from either’.<sup>363</sup></p><p>On 24 Jan. 1709 Marlborough wrote to Heinsius concerning the address of the Commons for information regarding the number of effective troops in Spain and Portugal, ‘the ill affected intending to take advantage of being angry at the seven regiments now at Antwerp, they being part of those establishments’.<sup>364</sup> On 2 Feb. Marlborough wrote an official letter in response to the vote of thanks of the Commons of 22 January. At the same time he wrote to Coningsby thanking him for his letter by which he saw ‘how great a share my Lord Wharton has had in the honour that is done me’.<sup>365</sup></p><p>Marlborough left Brussels on 24 Feb. and arrived at London on 1 March.<sup>366</sup> He first attended the Lords on 2 Mar. and was commended by the House for his eminent services. Interestingly, on 21 Mar. Bishop Wake explained apropos the resolution of the Lords that peers of Scotland made peers of Britain after the Union could not vote in the election for Scottish representative peers that the ‘great thing urged was that this was allowed by the last winter’s act to such as were peers of Scotland and England. The answer to which was that this was indulged to the interest of the duke of Marlborough and Lord Greenwich [Argyll]; but plainly against the Scots act’.<sup>367</sup> Marlborough last attended on 24 Mar. having attended on 12 days of the session, 13 per cent of the total.</p><h2><em>Malplaquet, Mrs Masham and Sacheverell, 1709-10</em></h2><p>Marlborough’s plans to return to Holland may have been disrupted slightly by family concerns. The death of the duke of Montagu on 9 Mar. 1709, coupled a few hours later by the birth of a son to the new duchess saw Marlborough ‘stopped for a few days upon this occasion’.<sup>368</sup> One matter requiring discussion was guardianship of the lunatic dowager duchess which was eventually split between her brothers-in-law, Newcastle and Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet. On 18 Mar. Johnston wrote that if Marlborough ‘goes he returns quickly and our House is it seems to sit on. He’s very high and speaks but to whom he pleases. He and the Junto are junckating it about. However the Junto are not easy.’ Marlborough embarked from Deal on 27 Mar., arriving at The Hague on 29 Mar., in order to keep a watching brief on Dutch-French negotiations. On 18 Apr. Marlborough was at The Hague, ready to ‘embark the very first fair wind’. He arrived back at St James’s on 21 Apr., the day that Parliament was prorogued and, as Bishop Nicolson put it, ‘nobody doubts but he brings home with him the glad tidings of peace’. On 25 Apr. Marlborough went to view Blenheim, returning on the 28th.<sup>369</sup> On 29 Apr. he wrote to Heinsius that he was awaiting only a ‘fair wind’ to bring over himself and Townshend and that ‘the preliminaries I acquainted you with… are by many not thought sufficient, for they would have had Newfoundland and Hudson’s Bay as well as our treaty of commerce’. On 3 May, Marlborough left for Margate, arriving at The Hague on the 7th.<sup>370</sup></p><p>It was probably during one of his sojourns in England early in 1709 that Marlborough first asked to be made captain-general for life. On 20 May Craggs reported an unsuccessful search among government records for a precedent and the lord chancellor’s opinion that it was ‘a new instance and liable to a malicious construction’. Cowper confirmed the absence of precedents himself in a letter of 23 June. Undaunted, Marlborough tried again in September, only to be rebuffed.<sup>371</sup> William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, later suggested that Somers was responsible for thwarting Marlborough’s efforts to obtain the captain-general’s post for life by informing the queen of the danger of such a grant.<sup>372</sup></p><p>On campaign in the spring and summer of 1709, Marlborough had to deal with not only with military matters and the linked negotiations for a peace and a Barrier Treaty for the Dutch, but with growing pressure from the Junto for the admission of Orford to office in order to facilitate parliamentary management in the next session.<sup>373</sup> On 24 May he thought what was proposed for Orford ‘impossible for anybody to prevail’ with the queen. That being the case Godolphin should consult Somers, Sunderland and Devonshire on the ‘best methods of settling the sea business. If that were well done I should hope everything might go well’. Marlborough was somewhat sceptical about employing Orford, questioning whether ‘he would answer his friends’ expectation, for if I do not mistake very much you would see in two sessions of Parliament that he would take some pretext to quit’.<sup>374</sup></p><p>Towards the end of May the French rejected the peace preliminaries, relieving Marlborough, who bemoaned the ‘good-natured turn of some of my countrymen’. Maynwaring and Sarah agreed on Marlborough’s dilemma: ‘if he should have ill success in war, it will be said that he might have had a good peace, and if he had made any other peace than what was proposed, it would have been said that he might have had a better’. In August Marlborough made clear his objection to the Barrier Treaty: ‘as soon as they [the Dutch], have obtained their desires in the Barrier, they can have no other thoughts or interest but that of making peace as soon as possible’. On 18 Aug. he explained that its promoter, Townshend, was ‘a very honest man, but he has not been long enough in 110 [Holland], to judge of their tempers, so that he will certainly mislead 5 [Somers]’. Marlborough thought that the cabinet should take responsibility for the treaty, and refused to acknowledge any role in its negotiation, leaving Townshend to sign it alone in October.<sup>375</sup></p><p>Even victory in the ‘very obstinate’ battle of Malplaquet, on 31 Aug. did not enable Marlborough to feel secure.<sup>376</sup> On 29 Sept. he wrote to the queen that</p><blockquote><p>I have for some time, with the greatest mortification imaginable, observed your majesty’s change from Lady Marlborough to Mrs. Masham, and the several indignities Mrs. Masham has made her suffer, of which I am much more sensible than of any misfortune that could have befallen myself, which has made me take the resolution of retiring as soon as this war shall be ended. I was assured last winter of what I am convinced is true, that Mrs. Masham has assured Mr. Harley and some of his wretches that let my services or successes be what they would from thence forward I should receive no encouragement from your majesty, which she was very confident must oblige me to resign. In order to know how far your majesty’s inclinations were with this project, I acquainted you with the desire I had of desiring that mark of your favour that my commission might be for my life. You were pleased to judge it not proper.</p></blockquote><p>On 25 Oct. the queen defended the decision as her own, and blamed Sarah for his criticisms of Abigail, noting that ‘I believe nobody was ever so used by a friend as I have been by her ever since my coming to the crown. I desire nothing but that she should leave off teasing and tormenting me and behave herself with that decency she ought both to her friend and queen, and this I hope you will make her do, and is what I am sure no reasonable body can wonder I should desire of you’.<sup>377</sup></p><p>Marlborough remained committed to changing the admiralty, writing on 22 Sept. that ‘I am very desirous that 104 [the admiralty] should be changed entirely to the satisfaction of 89 [the Whigs] and consequently that 15 [Orford], should be at the head of it’. As early as 27 Sept. Godolphin informed Marlborough that Parliament was due to sit on 15 November. Marlborough was being pressed to remain at Brussels until relieved by Prince Eugene, but to Godolphin this was ‘wholly impossible if you would have anything go on here… all is undone if you don’t come over as soon as your campaign is ended’. On 10 Oct. Marlborough anticipated being in England ‘sometime before the meeting of the Parliament’, adding that Cardonnel would ‘bring with him an exact account of the extraordinaries of the last year and of this, so that you may take just measures of what you are to lay before the Parliament’. On the same day he discussed with the duchess tactical considerations in the Lords, noting that if Sunderland and Somers could ‘have the power with’ Somerset ‘to make his mob as you call them, to act with their friends, it would very much help the carrying everything’ in the House’.<sup>378</sup> Although Godolphin and Marlborough may have been sceptical of the efficacy of Orford’s appointment to the admiralty, Whig strength in Parliament saw them at length press the queen in the matter, and Orford was appointed on 8 Nov. 1709.<sup>379</sup></p><p>By 4 Nov. Marlborough was at The Hague awaiting ‘only a fair wind’ to embark for England. He landed at Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on the 8th and arrived at St James’s on the 10th, where he dined with Godolphin.<sup>380</sup> On 8 Nov. James Craggs<sup>‡</sup>, the younger, had written tellingly to James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope, that the ministers wanted Marlborough in London to ‘authorize whatever measures they will take’ in Spain, and he wished him there personally because ‘I find much more facility in treating with him, and that he enters with more earnestness and detail in all these affairs than anybody else, for our ministers at home are so taken up with domestic considerations.’ Marlborough missed the first few days of the 1709-10 session, travelling to Woodstock on the 14th. He first attended on 21 Nov. whereupon Lord Chancellor Cowper gave him the thanks of the House. Also on the 21st Marlborough and Rochester stood as godfathers to one of Hamilton’s sons. When more than £6m was voted for the war, Marlborough wrote on 25 Nov. to Count Maffey, the Savoyard envoy, that ‘our parliamentary business goes on wonderfully’.<sup>381</sup></p><p>Marlborough left London again for the country on 1 Dec., returning on the 5th. On 10 Dec. it was reported that he had been admitted ‘extraordinary to the Kitcat Club’ at Sir Henry Furnese’s<sup>‡</sup>. Shortly afterwards, on 20 Dec. it was reported that ‘some time since’, the impeachment of Sacheverell had been decided upon at the Kitcat, ‘where my Lord Marlborough himself they say was present, assented to it, and has actually entered himself a member of that detestable society’.<sup>382</sup> In fact Marlborough had attended the feast held to celebrate Furnese’s induction into the Club and never formally joined. On 16 Dec. Craggs again reported that Marlborough had gone into the country for a few days, which at least partly explains his absence between 11-18 December.<sup>383</sup> On 23 Dec. Johnston noted that Marlborough ‘complains that he feels a sinking and lowness of his spirits that he knows not what to think of’. Plans were being considered for the duchess to accompany him abroad, ‘whether to be there or not to be here I know not, but I think rather not to be here’, as there had been ‘more than ordinary pains this winter to bring matters betwixt her mistress [Queen Anne], and her at least to a fair appearance, but it seems even that will not do.’<sup>384</sup> Marlborough spent the Christmas recess at Woodstock.<sup>385</sup></p><p>A political crisis erupted over filling the places of constable of the Tower and the colonelcy of dragoons left vacant by the death of Essex on 10 Jan. 1710. Rivers requested the post of constable from Marlborough, who referred him to the queen, confident that she would consult him, and that he would then be able to appoint his favoured candidate. Instead the queen appointed Rivers. To compound matters, she also promised the regiment to John Hill<sup>‡</sup>, Abigail’s brother. The disposition of these posts brought into question Marlborough’s authority in the army, and when he asked the queen to reconsider, she refused. An enraged Marlborough retired to Windsor on 15 Jan., to consider how to retrieve the situation.<sup>386</sup> Options canvassed included forcing Abigail from office and another attempt to gain the captain-generalcy for life and so protect his authority for the future.</p><p>Some of the more zealous Whigs, such as Maynwaring, were pleased that the queen remained obstinate because her ‘monstrous folly and stupidity’ would force Parliament to enquire why Marlborough was absent and call him back by removing those who obstructed him.<sup>387</sup> Moderate figures, such as Somers, were more conciliatory. On 16 Jan. Somers had an audience with the queen in which he attempted to put Marlborough’s case that he was being undermined; the queen replied that ‘there was nobody durst attempt to do you ill offices with her, and if they should it would only turn upon themselves’. She promised to reassure him of this in person, ‘and then she did not doubt but you would let her know that upon reflection you had changed your opinion, and that you thought that was not unreasonable she had proposed to you’. Another audience with Somers followed on 19 Jan. during which the queen ‘owned she could not but be surprised so great offence was taken at a recommendation of this kind, that when your grace came to her she would endeavour to show you that her friendship was as entire for you as could desire’. Given this, Somers thought Marlborough should return to London to ‘perfect this inclination by personally speaking with her and satisfying any difficulty that may perhaps remain’.<sup>388</sup> On 16 Jan. Cowper also had an interview with the queen in which he apprized her of his opinion that the appointment of Hill would ‘weaken your authority in the army, where the public service so much required it should be supported’.<sup>389</sup> On 18 Jan. Marlborough told Coningsby ‘now is the time or never for getting rid… Mrs. Masham’. This was taken by some to mean a parliamentary address for Abigail’s removal. Sarah had already made her opposition to such a move clear as it was ‘unreasonable to ask the Whigs to press her remove when she was so insignificant’, not least because it would stiffen the queen’s resolve.<sup>390</sup> On 19 Jan. Maynwaring apparently suggested to Somers and Sunderland that such an address be promoted in the Commons, but this was deemed imprudent by most Whigs, and it certainly annoyed the queen when she heard of it.<sup>391</sup> Maynwaring was still advised that Marlborough should insist on the removal of Abigail, using the threat of not serving in the next campaign. More moderate counsel prevailed, much to the annoyance of Maynwaring who fumed against Godolphin’s advice that Marlborough ‘must truckle to Abigail to prevent the ruin of England.’ In the event Marlborough only asked to be allowed to retire if Hill obtained the regiment. Eventually, a compromise was patched up, with the queen backing down on the regimental appointment. Marlborough returned and had an audience with the queen on 23 January. On 24 Jan. Cardonnel informed Henry Watkins<sup>‡</sup> that ‘our bussle here at Court’, was over, it being about ‘whether Mrs. Masham and her party should have the disposal of all vacancies in the army and, by degrees, of everything else’.<sup>392</sup></p><p>Marlborough had complained to the queen about those who had tried to persuade her that an attempt was being made to get the Commons to address for Abigail’s removal; ‘he had moved it to her majesty as what he thought would be for her service, and for the ease of her ministry, but it never entered into his thoughts to stir up Parliament to prescribe to her what servants she should keep about her person’. The contrary was, though, widely believed, possibly because although against an address, Sarah was in favour of a confrontation, believing the long-term consequences of leaving Abigail in post to be fatal; ‘everything is hazarded, nay sure to be lost, if this evil is not cured’.<sup>393</sup></p><p>Marlborough attended on 26 days of the session, 28 per cent of the total, being named to two committees. He last attended on 16 Feb. 1710, on which day the Lords agreed to join the Commons in addressing the queen for the duke’s immediate departure for Holland, in order to assist in any peace negotiations and to hasten the preparations for an early campaign. This was sponsored by the Whigs in accordance with Marlborough’s wishes, for he wanted to avoid involvement in further political battles.<sup>394</sup> Marlborough duly left for Harwich on 19 Feb. arriving at The Hague on 25 February.<sup>395</sup> He was thus absent from the Sacheverell trial. As early as 9 Jan. Marlborough had expressed doubts about the wisdom of prosecuting Sacheverell, apparently telling Wharton that he had had ‘continual solicitations from all the Church party’: ‘the whole body of the inferior clergy espouse his interest’, he said, and he was believed to have expressed ‘some apprehensions of carrying things too far’.<sup>396</sup> He was sincere in writing on 8 Mar. of his hope ‘that you will have happily finished the trial of Sacheverell. The tumults and disorders it has occasioned make a great noise here, even to the prejudice of the public’. On 20 Mar. Marlborough was marked as ‘employed abroad’ on a list of those voting on Sacheverell’s guilt.<sup>397</sup> By 24 Mar. he had received a voting list from the trial, digested it, and remarked to the duchess that he could not see how nine of the Lords had been influenced to be for Sacheverell. Tellingly he noted that Shrewsbury would only have done so if he had known the inclinations of the queen. He was worried by the trial and its aftermath confiding to the duchess on 3 Apr. that ‘the present humours in 108 [England] gives me a good deal of trouble’. In particular he was alarmed by the presentation to the queen of the first address promoted by the Tories assuring her of their loyalty to crown and Church. On 17 Mar. Marlborough informed Godolphin that he hoped to be able to give the queen the option of ‘laying the whole before the Parliament’, so that they could give their opinion on the peace negotiations. For this reason, on 21 Mar. Marlborough urged that Parliament should continue sitting or be prorogued for only a short period so that it would be able to advise upon any concessions made to the French in the peace negotiations ‘for should it be refused, or granted without the knowledge of Parliament I fear it might cause very great uneasiness’.<sup>398</sup></p><p>Although abroad, Marlborough remained engaged in local politics. On 8 Mar. he wrote to the duchess, ‘I am more concerned at our want of interest in Oxfordshire’, than worrying about Somerset’s designs, ‘for I had much rather end my days quietly with my neighbours than be great at court, where I desire no more power, than that of being able to persuade 42 [the queen] not to hurt themselves [sic]’.<sup>399</sup> This was a reference to a by-election held on 22 Feb. where ‘the Oxfordshire gentlemen’ had chosen Sir Robert Jenkinson<sup>‡</sup>, ‘in opposition to my Lord Marlborough’s interest, by a majority of 160’. Not that defeat dented his commitment to extending his landholding in the county. At the end of March William Guidott was negotiating with Abingdon and Sir John Walter<sup>‡</sup> for the purchase of two estates ‘convenient for Blenheim’, although the sellers wished to have 23 years’ purchase while Marlborough, characteristically, offered only 20.<sup>400</sup></p><h2><em>The 1710 Election and the dismissal of Godolphin</em></h2><p>Marlborough was not consulted before the appointment of Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain on 14 Apr. 1710. He was disconcerted, fearing that Shrewsbury came in at Harley’s instigation, and that it signified ‘that they have another scheme than what would be approved on by us’. In response, ‘the chiefest care’ should be to maintain the current Parliament, ‘for if that can’t be obtained, which I very much doubt, nothing will be worth the managing. Of all things 89 [the Whigs] must be sure to be of one mind’.<sup>401</sup> On 24 Apr. he wrote to Orford of his ‘surprise’ that ‘Shrewsbury should come into play at this juncture. He must be very much altered since we knew him, if he holds it long’.<sup>402</sup> Similarly, he wrote to Heinsius on 27 Apr. that ‘as to what effect the change in England may have as to the common cause, God only can tell, but to you as a friend I will own very frankly that I do not like it’. His long-standing friendship with Shrewsbury led him to write to the duchess on 8 May that he approved of the Whigs living with Shrewsbury: ‘but if he should act against their interest, I would not be in friendship with him’. On 11 May he asked Sarah not to ‘show any uneasiness’ to Craggs, Walpole or Maynwaring, from whom he obtained much of his political intelligence.<sup>403</sup></p><p>The general promotion of army officers proposed by Marlborough in advance of the 1710 campaign stopped short of John Hill among the brigadier-generals and Samuel Masham*, the future Baron Masham, among the colonels. The queen insisted on their inclusion, and although Walpole defended Marlborough’s decision on the grounds that ‘to take in the whole year would make it a very great promotion and more than I thought your grace designed’, he felt that the queen had been primed being ‘very ready about the affair of Colonel Masham, and asked me how many more would be affected with the order about brevets besides him… She was of opinion at first that they should all be made brigadiers, but I prevailed with her to let me write to your grace first’. Given all this, Walpole felt the matter not worth disputing ‘especially now ’tis put in this method to come from your grace.’ Marlborough complied, being fully aware that stopping Hill’s promotion gave a ‘great handle’ for Rivers and Somerset to disparage him to the queen.<sup>404</sup> On 18 May, Marlborough explained that the ‘true’ reason for stopping the promotions was not only ‘from the numbers and confusion it must have occasioned among the queen’s subjects, but also [it would have] given great dissatisfaction to all the foreigners, this army being composed of eight different nations’, unity being a prerequisite of military victory.<sup>405</sup></p><p>In May 1710 a memorandum by Harley indicated the line of argument he employed with the queen against Marlborough; the ‘temper’ of the duchess and ‘victories’ of the duke had ‘made them intolerable.’ ‘Their pride, avarice, insolence and falsehood’ had rendered them ‘odious and unpardonable’.<sup>406</sup> Marlborough realized that the weak point in the ministry was the position of his son-in-law, Sunderland, whom the queen disliked and ‘when the time may be proper for the taking off the mask, his being put out will be the first step’. He reacted to hints that Sunderland’s removal was being contemplated by concentrating on the effect that his dismissal would have on the allies’ perception of his own power, and the encouragement it would give to France. When this argument was put to the queen, she said ‘it is true indeed that the turning a son-in-law out of his office may be a mortification to the duke of Marlborough but must the fate of Europe depend on that’?<sup>407</sup> Nor could Marlborough prevail on her to delay Sunderland’s dismissal until the end of the campaign.<sup>408</sup></p><p>Though faced with the ‘dismal prospect’ of affairs in England’, Marlborough reassured Godolphin on 1 June 1710 about future prospects, at least ‘as long as I am obliged to be at the head of this army, that you will struggle with the difficulties and not quit, and I shall follow your directions of not being provoked’. He also observed that ‘the noises made in England of the great changes that are to be made, are more likely to encourage the enemy to continue the war than to make reasonable offers of peace’. Even before the dismissal of Sunderland on 14 June, Marlborough had warned the duchess that matters would not rest there, ‘for the ruin of 89 [the Whigs], and a new 88 [Parliament], is most certainly the scheme’. Godolphin urged him not to resign and was supported by a veritable barrage of letters arguing the same point. A joint letter signed on 14 June by Godolphin, Cowper, Somers, Newcastle, Devonshire, Orford, Halifax and Boyle summed up the attitude of the Whig ministry, and other persuasive letters were sent by Townshend, Heinsius, and the Emperor. Marlborough complied with their wishes, although he felt that it would not prevent Parliament from being dissolved. He also warned his wife to ‘be careful of her behaviour, for she is in a country amongst tigers and wolves’. As he wrote to Godolphin on 24 June: ‘I hope she will not be prevailed upon to come to town; for in my opinion the intercourse of letters between 42 [the queen] and herself has no other end than making things worse’. A month later he wrote to advise her that she ‘should keep yourself in the country, and quiet as much as is possible till my return. For whatever you say or do, will in this unjust time be turned to your disadvantage’.<sup>409</sup></p><p>Marlborough hoped to retrieve his situation in two ways. There was always the chance of military successes, and the failure of the peace talks at Gertrudenberg suggested that he might retain his command.<sup>410</sup> As Marlborough told Brydges on 6 July, ‘we should be very happy if they could contribute to the quieting and calming the ferment at home, which otherwise may unravel whatever it is possible for us to do on this side’. The other hope was that opinion among the allies would deter the queen from making more changes to the ministry or dissolving Parliament; hence his plea to Heinsius: ‘for Godsake make Monsieur Vrijbergen [the Dutch envoy in London] talk boldly on this subject, for our all depends upon it’. Despite this intervention provoking an adverse reaction from Queen Anne, on 13 July Marlborough wrote to Vrijbergen that having received an account of his audience with the queen, he was ‘sensibly obliged to you for the fresh instances of your friendship to me, as well as of your zeal for the public good’. Simultaneously, he wrote to Heinsius that the reception of the resolution delivered by Vrijbergen from the States showed that if Shrewsbury ‘can by this advice hinder the allies from being concerned for those who act for the good of the common cause, he will quickly have it in his power to make the king of France universal monarch’.<sup>411</sup> Marlborough also approached Prince Eugene, who wrote to the Emperor, who in turn wrote to the queen and ordered Count Gallas, his envoy in London, to act in concert with Eugene and Marlborough.<sup>412</sup> Meanwhile, Marlborough concentrated on the campaign, stressing to Godolphin the need to maintain public credit, ‘for nothing can encourage the enemy more for the continuing of the war than the knowledge of the credit beginning to fail’. However, he was sufficiently perturbed by Coningsby’s replacement by John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, to write to Heinsius on 15 July that Anglesey was ‘thought one of the greatest Jacobites in England’.<sup>413</sup></p><p>The dismissal of Godolphin on 8 Aug. presented Marlborough with a stark choice: either to resign or find a way of reconciling himself to the ministerial changes. He was not short of advice, particularly from Sunderland, who intimated that he should ‘for the sake of the whole, have yet patience, tho I believe nobody’s was ever more tried’, and continue in command of the army.<sup>414</sup> On 17 Aug. Marlborough wrote to Heinsius ‘I am so mortified at this removal of the best of men, that the wisest thing is to say no more’. To Godolphin himself he wrote ‘I have taken the resolution of troubling my head as little as is possible with politics, but applying my thoughts wholly how to finish this campaign to the best advantage’. The uncertainty of affairs saw Marlborough ensure that he kept money due to him in cash ‘for I think everything looks very dismal’.<sup>415</sup> On 26 Aug. Harley recorded that Marlborough ‘had written a most submissive letter to the queen’.<sup>416</sup> Marlborough wrote encouragingly to Brydges: ‘I cannot but approve of your resolution of continuing in your employment’, despite his concern at Godolphin’s removal: ‘you may guess by it what mine must have been, not only from the friendship and intimacy that has been so long between us, but more particularly for the sake of the public, which ought always to be our chief care’. On 28 Aug. he wrote to Heinsius that Parliament was so sure to be dissolved that officers were seeking leave to return to England to ‘take care of their elections; some are already gone’ and on 2 Sept. he told Halifax he was ‘mortified and afflicted at so unexpected a blow’ as Godolphin’s dismissal. He stated that he was ‘hourly expecting the dissolution of Parliament, which must put the kingdom in a very great ferment’. On 4 Sept. he wrote to Heinsius that the new ministers ‘have so entirely the power that they can make whatever removes they please. This is so melancholy a prospect that I am afraid France is encouraged by it so much that they will not make any new offers till they first see the behaviour of the new Parliament’.<sup>417</sup></p><p>As early as 5 Aug. 1710 Marlborough’s own thoughts had turned to local electoral politics. He wrote to the duchess that ‘there be no alteration made in the election of Woodstock’. As he expected Cadogan and Stanhope to assist him by their presence in the Commons he asked her to inform Godolphin so as to ensure Stanhope got a seat. As an afterthought, on 4 Sept. he mentioned to Godolphin ‘to fix’ Boyle a seat in the Commons, ‘for if such men will not act, how is it possible to expect any good success?’<sup>418</sup> Although the duchess believed that it was not in Woodstock’s interest to disoblige the duke, she endangered the election by ordering a stop to all the work at Blenheim. On 8 Oct. Samuel Travers<sup>‡</sup> was able to report to Marlborough that both Cadogan and Sir Thomas Wheate<sup>‡</sup> had been elected unopposed after he had ordered money to pay off the labourers there.<sup>419</sup> Matters went differently at St Albans. Although Gape expected great opposition from the duchess, ‘who now makes all the interest she can possibly against me’ on behalf of William Grimston<sup>‡</sup> and Lomax ‘and they stick at nothing to gain their ends, besides making use of my lord duke’s name in telling the voters how much they will oblige him in serving them,’ Marlborough ensured that she did not attend the poll. Gape and Grimston were returned unopposed.<sup>420</sup></p><p>As for Marlborough’s role in the election for Scottish representative peers, as early as 21 Aug. 1710 he had promised Godolphin that he would send his proxy to Seafield. His chosen agent was Stair, who had a letter from him for Seafield, ‘who will take measures with the said earl, as to the elections.’ On 4 Sept. Godolphin informed Marlborough that as well as himself, both Stair and Orkney, ‘having taken the oaths in Parliament, and being abroad in the queen’s service… are qualified to give your proxies as soon as you hear the proclamation is out’.<sup>421</sup> On 13 Sept. Godolphin reported to Seafield that Marlborough was ‘procuring all the proxies of those in the army to assist you’ in the Scottish peerage elections.<sup>422</sup> He entrusted his proxy to Stair, recommending Seafield, Orkney, John Lindsay*, 19th earl of Crawford [S], and John Murray*, 2nd earl of Dunmore [S], Crawford having solicited for his vote as early as 24 July. On 1 Oct. Seafield reminded Marlborough about his proxy, who replied on 29 Oct. that he had given it to Stair, who ‘will concert with your Lordship and agree with you as I desired him, to make the best use of it for the public, in order to have a good Parliament… since we had never more need of it to calm our unnatural heats’. On 26 Oct. Stair acknowledged receipt of the proxy. In the event, though, he did not cast Marlborough’s proxy because the election of 10 Nov. was held under the auspices of the opposing party and victory for them was assured.<sup>423</sup></p><p>Having retained his command at the unanimous desire of the Whig leaders, and having approached the elector of Hanover at their behest, Marlborough was ‘resolved of doing nothing but in concert with them’, so that he would not act with the Tories. He maintained a watching brief from the campaign, but wrote to Walpole on 25 Sept. that ‘you may believe our chief attendance is on what is doing on your side’. Nor did the new ministry wish to provoke a precipitous departure, Shrewsbury using Craggs in September as an intermediary to advise Marlborough not to resign.<sup>424</sup> On 3 Oct. Harley listed Marlborough among those considered certain to oppose the new ministry. Marlborough preserved the outward show of working with the new ministers; on 5 Oct. he congratulated St John on becoming secretary, being ‘glad to renew and cultivate our former friendship upon all occasions’. However, he was under no illusions. On 7 Oct. he wrote to Heinsius that ‘the turning out of Mr. Cardonnel [as secretary of war], is a declaration that I must not serve’. The appointment of George Granville*, future Baron Lansdown, as Cardonnel’s successor, surprised him, ‘as it nearly concerns me, I was in hopes I might have been written to about it first’. He added ‘I think our all depends in a great measure on the new Parliament’. In a more general assessment, on 12 Oct. he told Heinsius that ‘if they are suffered to go on quietly in England, they will bring in the Pretender in a very little time’. Not that Marlborough was entirely passive or averse to rallying support. In a missive to Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, on 18 Oct. he wrote, ‘I am sensibly afflicted at what has passed of late and is still carrying on in England, especially at a juncture… when we ought to be most united for the welfare of our country and the good of the public’.<sup>425</sup> Further, on 19 Oct. Sunderland informed Cowper that he had received letters from Marlborough in which the duke desired ‘very pressingly to have the opinion of your lordship and the rest of his friends about the time of his coming over’.<sup>426</sup></p><h2><em>Marlborough and the Tories: the Session of 1710-11</em></h2><p>Harley could not have been unaware of the risks involved in dismissing Marlborough. On 28 Oct. John Drummond<sup>‡</sup> informed him of Heinsius’s view that Marlborough be retained in command of the army, because ‘the whole alliance was easy under his conduct, that the States were used to him, and though they knew his faults as well as his virtues, that there was nobody they would either prefer or equally desire with him’. On 1 Nov. Drummond addressed the need for an accommodation between Harley and Marlborough; he felt Marlborough was ‘sensible of the intolerable measures which others encouraged him to go into. I know he hates some of their leaders very heartily, and I believe he would abandon his old friend [Godolphin] so far as never to desire to have him in play again’. Drummond felt the peace was hindered by French hopes of divisions in England and Marlborough’s retirement, ‘who they know has been no less instrumental in keeping the allies together as in his success in the field’. Despite Marlborough’s covetousness gaining him ‘much reproach and ill will’ in Holland, ‘his success in the field, his capacity or rather dexterity in council or the cabinet, and his personal acquaintance with the heads of the alliance and the faith they have in him make him still the great man with them’.<sup>427</sup></p><p>On 29 Oct. Marlborough told the duchess that he ‘would be governed by’ the Whigs ‘from whose principle and interest I will never depart’. They may previously have suspected him of acting out of self-interest when they had a large majority in the Commons, ‘but now they must do me the justice to see that it is my inclination and principle which makes me act’.<sup>428</sup> On 3 Nov. Craggs reported that ‘I believe his grace’s presence is thought necessary by the new and old ministers, and what appears to me very strange is, that those who had no difficulty in using him as they have done, have as little in saying nothing can be done without him’. Others did not believe that the new regime regarded Marlborough as indispensable, citing as evidence the series of slights to which he was subjected, which they believed was designed to provoke his resignation. Thus, Arygll’s promotion in October, Hoffman, the Emperor’s resident minister, interpreted as meant to cause Marlborough ‘vexation’. ‘He will be insulted until he resigns voluntarily’.<sup>429</sup> On 30 Oct. Marlborough told Heinsius that ‘the elections in England give a very melancholy prospect’.<sup>430</sup> Nor was the duchess optimistic in confiding to Hare about Marlborough’s fate:</p><blockquote><p>sometimes I think it by the discourse of him that they think it of too much consequence and danger to put him out after such successes, but they print millions of lies in case it happens to quiet those that would not like it. But I believe what they wish most is that he should act with them till he has lost every friend he has and then they may be at liberty to hang him by some contrivances for a reward for all his good services.<sup>431</sup></p></blockquote><p>The latter option seemed to accord more with St John’s view that if Marlborough ‘should engage, though never so artfully and covertly, in the measures of those people to whom of late he has so closely linked himself, it is impossible to say how high the ferment would rise, and into what dangers he would run himself’.<sup>432</sup></p><p>Two days before Parliament assembled, <em>The Examiner</em> of 23 Nov. 1710 set out to attack Marlborough for the rewards he had received from the queen. Marlborough was still at The Hague, having arrived there on 17 November. He remained there for over a month. Meanwhile, on 28 Nov. Scarbrough’s motion for an address of thanks to Marlborough was apparently not concerted with the Whig leadership, and allowed to drop rather than face an embarrassing defeat.<sup>433</sup> St John’s comment was ‘one would imagine Lord Scarbrough was hired by somebody who wished the duke of Marlborough ill to take so ill-concerted and ridiculous a measure’.<sup>434</sup> Drummond felt that the longer Marlborough stayed at The Hague,</p><blockquote><p>the more he will be convinced of the necessities he lies under to submit himself to the queen’s pleasure and the measures which her majesty and her ministers think most for her honour and satisfaction. He has faithfully promised both to the Grand Pensionary and to ours, that he is resolved to live with you if you will make it practicable or possible for him; he will not enter into the heats of party debates, but will go heartily and sincerely into all measures that may be esteemed proper for carrying on the war, but for other votes he will be at his free liberty.<sup>435</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 28 Nov. St John outlined to Drummond a scheme of reconciliation. Favour would be restored ‘if he comes home and disengages himself from the Whigs; if he puts a stop to the rage and fury of his wife, in short, if he abandons all his new and takes up with all his old friends.’<sup>436</sup> The ministry kept up the pressure on Marlborough when three of his officers, Colonel Philip Honywood, and lieutenant generals Thomas Meredyth<sup>‡</sup> and George Macartney were cashiered in December for drinking a toast to the confusion and damnation of Harley and the government.<sup>437</sup> On 21 Dec. Cowper confided to his diary a conversation with Queensberry, which attributed the ministerial changes to the ‘duchess of Marlborough bearing Mrs. Masham coming in to the Queen’s favour so impatiently, and the duke’s restlessness under Hill’s having the regiment; the foolish menaces of some of his friends, at that time to address against Mrs Masham; his withdrawing, &c’. He predicted that ‘the duke of Marlborough would be mortified, till quit. The colonels thereof [are] not to be forgiven’.<sup>438</sup></p><p>Marlborough landed at Sole Bay on 26 Dec. 1710, arriving in London on the 28th.<sup>439</sup> ‘He had a great mob attending him from Whitechapel to Montagu House, where he dressed himself and dropping his mob, came privately to his old lodgings at St James’s.’<sup>440</sup> He then had a brief audience with the queen. At a longer audience on the 29th Swift reported that the duke behaved ‘with abject submission; that he was the meanest of her majesty’s instruments; her humble creature’.<sup>441</sup> Indeed, the queen told Dartmouth that his submission had been ‘lower than it was possible to imagine’. When Dartmouth waited on Marlborough he was received ‘with seeming kindness and civility’, the duke complaining about the duchess that ‘a man must bear with a good deal to be quiet at home’, and spoke ‘very severely’ of Argyll, ‘who was never to be satisfied or obliged’.<sup>442</sup> John Bridges broadly confirmed these reports, before referring to Marlborough’s ‘very great levees, and both parties have been to pay their court to him’, although these did not include Harley, Argyll, or Rochester.<sup>443</sup> On 30 Dec. Marlborough gave Cowper an account of his interview with the queen, ‘that the condition of his continuing to serve is, his submitting to them: time will shew if not’. Cowper ‘advised the duke to be all submission to the queen; none to any of his enemies; but to behave rather higher than he would if they had not the ascendant and to stand and fall by that conduct.’ According to St John, Marlborough ‘was lamenting his former wrong steps in joining with the Whigs’, and was ‘worn out with age, fatigues, and misfortunes’. To Drummond, Marlborough went so far as to agree that ‘some of those he thought his friends had endeavoured and still would prostitute him, naming Lord Wharton’.<sup>444</sup> Yet Marlborough remained wary of Harley. On 31 Dec. Marlborough and Harley ‘looked on one another in the public room at St James’s, and gave each other a nod, and at night his grace, at council, placed himself next to the other, but no words passed.’<sup>445</sup> William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, reported that at court on 1 Jan. 1711 Marlborough was ‘much caressed’, and on 2 Jan. Cardonnel informed Watkins that Rochester, Shrewsbury, Buckingham, John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, and others had been with Marlborough ‘and given each other mutual assurances of friendship’. Harley, however ‘keeps off’.<sup>446</sup> Ralph Bridges noted on 3 Jan. that Marlborough ‘behaves himself with great submission to the queen, has been twice at council and is willing to come into the measures of the new ministry’.<sup>447</sup></p><p>Marlborough first attended the 1710-11 session on 3 January. On 6 Jan. after the Lords, in committee of the whole, had examined Galway and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], over the campaign in the Spanish peninsula, Marlborough felt constrained to tell the Lords that ‘it was somewhat strange, that generals who had acted to the best of their understanding, and had lost limbs in the service, should be examined like offenders, about insignificant things’. In the committee of the whole on 9 Jan. Marlborough backed Tyrawley, noting that ‘he could not perceive the tendency of such enquiries, but if they designed to censure persons, who had acted to the best of their understandings, they would have nobody to serve them’. Later he moved that Galway and Tyrawley be formally told that they were not accused and that ‘the council in Valencia was only to give light into the subsequent operations of the campaign’, although no vote was taken. Marlborough again intervened in the debate to suggest that Tyrawley ‘had answered fully to the question that was put to him’. On 11 Jan. Marlborough contradicted Peterborough over the proposed expedition to Toulon, explaining that it failed not for want of men, but ‘for want of time and other accidents’. Also on 11 Jan. he entered his protest against the resolution to reject the petitions of Galway and Tyrawley concerning the conduct of the war in Spain and against the resolution to agree with the resolution of the committee of the whole that the defeat at Alamanza had been occasioned by the opinions of Galway, Tyrawley and Stanhope. On 12 Jan. he intervened again to contradict Peterborough. As Mungo Graham<sup>‡</sup> put it, Marlborough told the House that the earl ‘knew no more of the design on Toulon than the man in the moon did’, before declaring that ‘if men are to be censured when they give their opinions to the best of their understandings, I must expect to be found fault with as well as the rest’. Galway had done his duty and the whole council of war were for fighting before reinforcements could be supplied by the enemy.<sup>448</sup> Marlborough then protested against the resolution that ‘the carrying on the war offensively in Spain was approved and directed by the ministers, notwithstanding the design of attempting Toulon… and therefore are justly to be blamed, for contributing to all our misfortunes in Spain, and to the disappointment of the expedition against Toulon’. As Marlborough wrote to Townshend, ‘I am just now come from the House, where the late ministers have been censured’.<sup>449</sup></p><p>On 10 Jan. 1711 Marlborough and Harley ‘had their first conference together’ which ‘lasted a pretty while’. Harley ensured that Marlborough understood that Sarah’s resignation was a necessary requirement for an agreement between them, the queen being implacable over her removal. On 16 Jan. Marlborough wrote to Heinsius that since his return he had been ‘always very uneasy in my mind’, although he had ‘assured her majesty of my readiness of finishing this war if she thinks me of any use’. Despite a submissive letter from his wife, and a personal appeal to the queen from Marlborough on 17 Jan. the duchess was forced to resign on the 18th. On that day Peter Wentworth observed that Marlborough was ‘very submissive and complaisant to everybody. Last Wednesday Mr. Harley and he had a meeting and he visit[ed], all the ministry’.<sup>450</sup></p><p>Wentworth was in the Lords on 22 Jan. 1711, where he found the Spanish ‘enquiry begins to cool a little there’, because the House agreed to a proposal from Marlborough and Godolphin ‘that the establishment and the non-effectives should be referred to a select committee’. Wentworth also mentioned Marlborough’s denial of the allegation made by Argyll that several regiments appeared on the Spanish establishment which were never sent there. The duke suggested that it was the sense of the House that it be referred to the select committee, only adding that it was false to talk of the Spanish theatre being starved in favour of Flanders. From Buckingham’s giving thanks for this information, Wentworth surmised that ‘the ministry is willing to make the duke… easy in his command in the army, if he does not trouble himself to advise who shall be employed here at home’.<sup>451</sup> Bishop Nicolson referred to ‘some calm debates, wherein the duke of Marlborough discovered his superior abilities to the duke of Argyll and his great integrity’, while Thomas Bruce also thought the inquiry being turned into a select committee meant that matters had been composed.<sup>452</sup> When the Lords debated the proposed censure of Galway on 24 Jan. for ‘giving the post of honour to the Portuguese’, Marlborough defended him as not being ‘so much in the wrong to act as he did’, even though he had no express authority so to do. He begged ‘that out of compassion to that Lord’s age, the loss of an eye, and of an arm, they would be tender of what censure they passed upon him’, but the Lords still voted his actions ‘contrary to the honour of the imperial crown of Great Britain’.<sup>453</sup></p><p>In St John’s assessment, Marlborough had nothing to reproach the ministers with: his wife, Godolphin and himself had ‘thrown the queen’s favour away’; he needed to secure his wife’s removal from office as ‘irreconcilable’ to the queen; and he must begin on ‘a new foot’. Marlborough had promised to comply, but St John felt ‘the exterior is a little mended; but at heart the same sentiments remain, and these heightened and inflamed by what he calls provocations’. The implied threat was that if he left office and then lost the protection of the court, ‘such scenes will open as no victories can varnish over’.<sup>454</sup> On 26 Jan. Marlborough informed Heinsius that since his return to England he had been ‘so out of humour’ he had rarely written, but that now the queen had ‘taken the resolution for my serving this next campaign,’ preparations had to be made.<sup>455</sup> On 31 Jan. Marlborough sat as one of the commissioners in place of the queen to pass the malt bill. After attending the Lords on 1 Feb. he was absent for a week, returning from Woodstock on the evening of the 7th.<sup>456</sup> He last sat on 15 Feb., having been present on 24 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total, and being named to two committees. Having visited Harley on the day before he went, he left London on 18 Feb. and embarked at Harwich on the 20th.<sup>457</sup> Although Marlborough’s ability to control army appointments was curtailed by the institution in February of a committee of the council at the war office, which henceforth directed military patronage, he was able to obtain much of what he wanted through St John, and the committee began to atrophy, holding its last meeting at the end of July.<sup>458</sup></p><p>On 3 Mar. 1711, one of Robert Wodrow’s correspondents thought ‘there is also some ground to believe that there is a good understanding betwixt Marlborough and Harley’.<sup>459</sup> Marlborough was again able to portray himself as above party, the Hanoverian agent Robethon reporting Marlborough’s views to Hanover on 10 Mar.: ‘the Whigs believed that I should quit my functions in disgust and make common cause with them against the court, while the Tories flattered themselves that in order to keep office I would join absolutely with them and declare myself against the Whigs. But I have done neither.’ Relations between Marlborough and the ministry were superficially cordial during the campaign. The <em>Examiner</em> ceased publication on 14 June, and Harley tackled the queen over funds for Blenheim. Marlborough employed Henry Watkins, a Tory, as his secretary to improve relations with the ministry.<sup>460</sup></p><p>While on campaign, Marlborough kept his ear to the ground about developments in England. Brydges proved to be a useful source of intelligence, particularly as he remained paymaster. On 26 Feb. Brydges wrote ‘I have been to wait on the gentleman you recommended me to, and we have agreed to consult often together, and impart to one another what we hear in order that your grace may have all the intelligence we can meet with’.’<sup>461</sup> In April, Brydges acknowledged the ‘support I received not long ago from your friends in Parliament’, when he was attacked over his accounts. On 9 June Brydges sent Marlborough news that ‘it is looked upon here as certain that there are propositions in agitation for a general peace… tho the treaty is carried on with the utmost secrecy’, and on 23 Aug. following the detention of Matthew Prior<sup>‡ </sup>by a customs officer, he wrote that ‘we have a strong report in town of a secret negotiation of peace being carried on’.<sup>462</sup></p><p>With Harley incapacitated by Guiscard’s assassination attempt, St John cultivated Marlborough, hoping ‘never to see again the time when I shall be obliged to embark in a separate interest from you’.<sup>463</sup> Marlborough continued to be wary of the ministers, and warned the duchess on 5 Apr. that his letters would probably be opened by agents of the government, so ‘for the quiet of my life’, he asked her to be ‘careful never of writing anything that may anger them… whilst I serve, I must endeavour not to displease, for they have it so much in their power to vex me’. By 14 May he had cause to remind her of his request for her letter of 28 Apr. ‘speaks so freely’ of Harley that it concerned him.<sup>464</sup> On 23 June Marlborough informed Oxford (as Harley had become) that he was sending Stair over to consult on the campaign. John Bridges wrote on 20 July that ‘the sudden arrival’ of Stair ‘occasions various speculations’. Stair was conciliatory on Marlborough’s behalf, suggesting that the duke was as ready to live with Oxford as he had been with Godolphin. Stair’s mission had a serious purpose, in preparing the ground for the army to stay on the French frontier during the winter, so as to start the 1712 campaign at an advantage. It was also a means for an alliance with Oxford to finish the war. Writing in 1736 Stair recalled that he had thought Oxford on the verge of ‘establishing a very good understanding’ with Marlborough, but that in the end he deferred ‘declaring his final resolution’, and then repeatedly put Stair off before sending Marlborough ‘a bamboozling letter’. Meanwhile Sarah feared that Oxford was using the funding of Blenheim as ‘bait’ that Marlborough ‘may not join against him in any difficulties that may happily arise in the winter’.<sup>465</sup></p><p>Marlborough disassociated himself from the Whig pamphlet <em>Bouchain: in a Dialogue between the Medley and the Examiner</em> and ‘a villainous answer to it’, probably by Mrs. Manley, noting that ‘whilst these barbarous proceedings are in fashion, it were to be wished that we should never appear in print’.<sup>466</sup> Watkins told Drummond in July that Marlborough detested the <em>Medley</em> as well as the <em>Examiner</em>, and was innocent of all the offence given from around him.<sup>467</sup> With the rumours of peace negotiations in circulation, Marlborough used Drummond to approach Oxford in November, in the hope of ‘the firmest union with his Lordship, whose friendship to me this summer has been proof against all the attempts by our enemies to destroy it’.<sup>468</sup> The queen was anxious to obtain Marlborough’s support, writing on 9 Nov. to Oxford that when Marlborough arrives, ‘I should think it will be best for me just to begin to open the matter of the Peace to him and to refer him to you and Mr. Secretary [St John], for a fuller account of all that is past’.<sup>469</sup> The ministry’s leverage over Marlborough concerned his accounts. Sir Solomon Medina had informed the parliamentary commissioners of accounts that on bread and other army contracts he had paid 332,425 guilders for Marlborough’s ‘own use’, plus 12 or 14 wagons <em>gratis</em>. This covered 1702-10 when he and his predecessor, Antonio Alvarez Machado, had paid Marlborough a total of £63,410 3<em><em>s</em></em>. 7<em>d</em>. Having arrived at The Hague, Marlborough wrote to the commissioners on 10 Nov. N.S. His letter was read to the Commons on 21 December. In it he asserted that the money was merely what had been ‘allowed as a perquisite to the general, or commander-in-chief of the army in the low countries, both before the Revolution and since… for the service of the public in keeping secret correspondence, and getting intelligence of the enemy’s motions and designs’.<sup>470</sup></p><h2><em>The session of 1711-12: the peace and dismissal</em></h2><p>Before Marlborough’s return to England, he was joined at The Hague by the Hanoverian envoy, Baron Bothmer, and the two men landed at Greenwich on 17 Nov. 1711. Bothmer brought with him a memorial from the elector against the peace, which was presented to the secretary of state on 28 November.<sup>471</sup> It was published in the <em>Daily Courant</em> on 5 December.<sup>472</sup> On 18 Nov. Marlborough waited on the queen, making, as she wrote, ‘a great many of his usual professions of duty and affection to me. He seemed dejected and very uneasy about this matter of the public accounts, stayed near an hour and saw nobody here but myself.’<sup>473</sup> Upon his return home the duchess hosted a gathering of Whigs to persuade him to join them against the peace.<sup>474</sup> Considerable pressure was put on him from the other side, which Marlborough tried to evade. According to Bateman, on 19 Nov. Oxford ‘paid a visit to his grace of M[arlborough], who came to town early yesterday morning, went to court at noon, and came back at night’. L’Hermitage confirmed as much in his despatch of 23 Nov. writing that the day after Marlborough arrived in London, Oxford had made a visit to Marlborough, who was not at home, whereupon Marlborough alerted Oxford that he had to go on Tuesday [20th], to Hampton Court to see the queen and could not see him until Wednesday. Meanwhile, the duke had asked the queen’s permission to visit Blenheim for three or four days, but considering the likely importance of the opening day of Parliament, he decided not to go. Marlborough was summoned twice to council, but he did not consider it appropriate to attend, declaring that he was very easy that the whole nation should see that he had no hand in such a peace.<sup>475</sup> Burnet wrote that Marlborough had asked to be excused from attending the council after he had made no impression with the queen in arguing against the ministry’s peace policy.<sup>476</sup> By 30 Nov. Cardonnel recorded that Oxford had visited Marlborough at St James’s ‘three or four times’.<sup>477</sup></p><p>The ministry had made other preparations in case Marlborough came out against the peace, apart from priming the commission of accounts. Jonathan Swift’s <em>The Conduct of the Allies</em> was published on 27 Nov., a devastating critique in which the war was portrayed as a scheme whereby Marlborough (and others) got rich at the expense of the public purse. Marlborough attended the prorogation also on 27 November. On that day Wentworth was at Marlborough’s ‘levee… his house is very fine, but tis not filled so much with company as when he was in lodgings’. Ralph Bridges had made the same point the previous day, when he reported on a recent visit made by Bishop Compton to Marlborough at his new residence in St James’s ‘and found that formerly great man all alone’.<sup>478</sup></p><p>About December Marlborough was listed by Nottingham on what may be a list of supporters for his attack on the ministry’s peace proposals or for his occasional conformity bill. This was the result of a meeting between Marlborough, Godolphin and Nottingham which laid the grounds for an agreement between Nottingham and the Whigs, whereby the earl would oppose the peace in return for Whig backing for a bill against occasional conformity.<sup>479</sup> On 4 Dec., George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Montrose of rumours of an agreement between the three men, although Marlborough ‘acts an odd part having been backward and forward several times since he came over. The reason may be that they have heavy money matters to lay to his charge with which he has been threatened: now I’m told that he declares against the peace and has excused himself from attending the Cabinet’.<sup>480</sup> Two days before the session began, Ralph Bridges reported that the Dutch and the Emperor had declared for war and Marlborough ‘as plainly declares for it and which is pretty remarkable at the same time declares against the present ministry. His duchess invites and caresses and treats all persons whether Whigs or Tories and my lord duke in particular closeted Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> for an whole hour last week’.<sup>481</sup></p><p>Marlborough was present when the House sat on 7 December. During the debate on the Address, Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, ‘arraigned in general terms those who had carried on the war and said they might have had a peace, a good one too, after the battle of Ramilles’. Marlborough replied ‘like a Roman general’, defying ‘the world to charge him with having concealed the most minute thing that past on that occasion from the queen’ and that he was ‘so far from wishing to prolong the war that he would crawl on all fours to the queen’s feet to beg she would consent to peace, but not a peace that must ruin both herself, her subjects and all the world about her’.<sup>482</sup> Having defended his conduct he added that he could not support entering into peace negotiations with France ‘upon the foot of the seven preliminary articles; for I am of the same opinion with the rest of the allies, that the safety and liberties of Europe would be in imminent danger if Spain and the West Indies were left to the house of Bourbon’.<sup>483</sup> On the 8th his name appears on a list of those in favour of presenting the address, including the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause, in the abandoned division of that day and on 10 Dec. he appeared on Harley’s list of officer-holders and pensioners who had voted against the ministry.</p><p>On 14 Dec. Ralph Bridges thought that when Nottingham moved the bill against occasional conformity on the following day, he was to be seconded by either Marlborough or Wharton. Although the honour went to Wharton, according to Raby, Marlborough had ‘the intelligence of the Whigs and actually knew of Lord Nottingham’s design above a fortnight before the Parliament met’.<sup>484</sup> On 19 Dec. Marlborough was forecast as an opponent of the ministry on the following day’s vote on the Hamilton peerage case. In the event he ‘went out’ of the debate before the division and did not vote on the question, probably because the matter touched upon the queen’s prerogative. Wentworth confirmed his abstention.<sup>485</sup> It was perhaps a sign of opinion polarizing on the issue of the peace that on 26 Dec. Robert Bertie*, marquess of Lindsey (later duke of Ancaster), registered his proxy with Marlborough, having retrieved it from Abingdon. On 29 Dec. Marlborough’s name appears on Oxford’s list of those peers to contact over the recess, presumably to inform him of his dismissal. Around this date it was reported that Marlborough was ‘almost daily at the Lord Nottingham[‘s]’.<sup>486</sup></p><p>Meanwhile the attack on Marlborough was gathering pace in the lower House. On 11 Dec. the Commons asked for the report of the commissioners of accounts. On 19 Dec. Cowper, at Marlborough’s request, wrote to Sir Peter King in order to arrange a meeting at Sir Richard Onslow’s<sup>‡</sup> to organize Marlborough’s defence.<sup>487</sup> George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> delivered into the Commons on 21 Dec. a report of ‘some practices’ relating to the army. On the following day William Shippen<sup>‡</sup> presented the depositions of Solomon de Medina and others. According to Ralph Bridges, one of the purposes of the short adjournment of the Lords on 22 Dec. (to 2 Jan.) was to enable a vote to be passed vindicating Marlborough following the charges brought by the commissioners of accounts.<sup>488</sup> This was thwarted by the restoration of the court’s majority in the upper House following the creation of peers at the end of December. Hence Wentworth reported on 28 Dec. that people had not known what to make of Walpole ‘being so ready to have those affidavits read in the House’ on 21 and 22 December. The consequence of which was that ‘they are in the <em>Votes</em>; which for three weeks at least will leave an impression upon people’s mind in the country that his grace [Marlborough], and Walpole has [sic], been guilty of notorious bribery’. In essence, Marlborough’s response to this information was to publish a defence, based on his letter to the commission of accounts, in the <em>Daily Courant</em> on 27 December. In turn, the report of the commissioners was published on the 29th.<sup>489</sup></p><p>The ministry’s authority was restored by the creation of 12 peers and the dismissal of Marlborough. On 31 Dec. 1711, the queen told the Cabinet that she ‘thought fit to dismiss him from all his employments that the matter might undergo an impartial investigation’.<sup>490</sup> In his reply to the queen’s letter of dismissal, Marlborough referred to ‘a false and malicious information’ which had been ‘made public at a time when there was no opportunity for me to give in my answer, which they must needs be conscious would fully detect the falsehood and malice of their aspersions and not leave them that handle for bringing your majesty to such extremity against me’. He also excused his absence from the cabinet because he felt unable ‘to join in the counsels of a man, who, in my opinion, put your majesty upon all manner of extremities’, and because ‘the friendship of France might needs be destructive to your majesty, there being a root of enmity irreconcilable to your majesty’s government, and the religion of these kingdoms.’ On 5 Jan. 1712 Prince Eugene arrived on a visit to England, dining with Marlborough on the 7th. He spent much time in the company of Marlborough and was feted by many of the nobility. From this no doubt sprang his observations of April that year, in which he judged Marlborough, Godolphin and Sunderland as for more violent measures against the ministry than Somers, Cowper and Halifax.<sup>491</sup></p><p>On 9 Jan. 1712, Cadogan sent to Marlborough ‘Cardonnel’s certificates and attestations concerning the business of the bread’, which showed that for the previous 35 years ‘it was an established custom to present the general commanding in chief with a considerable annual gratification in proportion to the number of troops the army was composed of’.<sup>492</sup> Certainly, a case (later published) was compiled for the purpose of lobbying Members, in which the report of the commissioners of accounts was rebutted, and Marlborough’s management lauded as ‘so necessary and important a part of the war, and which has turned to so good an account, has been managed with so little expense to the public’, that with regard to secret service expenditure he had ‘saved the government near four times the sum this deduction amounts to’.<sup>493</sup> On 10 Jan. Brydges wrote to Marlborough that St John was ‘concerned’ that Marlborough ‘intended to push for a vote of justification in Parliament’. He thought this would be perceived as ‘an attacking the ministry, which would engage many, who would otherwise not appear against you to espouse their interest, and I find by him it will be very difficult to prevent a vote’s being carried that the 2½ per cent be deemed public money’. On 11 Jan. Wentworth reported that Marlborough was ‘very uneasy at the report of the commissioners of accounts, and they say, with reason, for that there will be opened such a scene of corruption as never was known. However, mountains often bring forth mice, tho nobody can doubt his greediness hath got the better of his understanding’. This proved not to be the case, for on 24 Jan. the Commons ‘roasted’ Marlborough, voting by 265-155 that his conduct over the bread contracts was ‘unwarrantable and illegal’. Swift recorded ‘the ministry is mighty well satisfied, and the duke will now be able to do no hurt’, for, as William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, put it, the votes ‘hang over his head to keep him in awe’. Marlborough had his defenders in the debates, including Hedges, Brydges, Sir John Germaine<sup>‡</sup>, and General Charles Ross<sup>‡</sup>, while St John stayed silent.<sup>494</sup> Marlborough’s response, in a letter to Albemarle, was that ‘if it procure me a quiet retirement… I shall be easy in relation to my own destiny’.<sup>495</sup> He wrote to Heinsius on 28 Jan. of ‘taking my measures to retire’, but added that ‘if you do at this time consent to such a peace, as is, I fear, projected, Europe is for ever undone’.<sup>496</sup></p><p>On 25 Jan. 1712 Marlborough wrote to Sweet ‘to desire of you the friendly part of securing what is due to me, so that I may have nothing to do with anybody but yourself. Let me see you before anybody when you come to London, and believe me that you shall always find me your friend.’ He added on 28 Feb. ‘I desire you will continue in sending over the balance of the account, and what else may have been received on my account... You must never write to me but by a sure hand, and pray let me know some time before you return.’ On 21 Apr. Sweet assured Marlborough that he ‘may depend that I will sooner lose my life than discover any transaction that your grace has been pleased to entrust me with, although I think it signifies nothing if all the world knew it.’<sup>497</sup></p><p>Further proceedings against Marlborough were threatened. On 16 Feb. 1712 Swift reported to Archbishop King that although nobody had said anything about the queen exercising her prerogative in dismissing Marlborough, an impeachment might have raised awkward questions: ‘I believe it is wisdom to stop where things are as to him’.<sup>498</sup> L’Hermitage reported that on 25 Feb. a bill had been proposed (actually an instruction to the committee on ways and means) that the 2½ per cent Marlborough had collected should be employed for public uses (actually to the war), but it did not receive a seconder and was dropped.<sup>499</sup> On 7 Apr. Bateman reported to Trumbull that the queen had ‘given orders’ for prosecuting Marlborough. According to L’Hermitage on 11 Apr. the court had ordered that Marlborough should be forced to make restitution for the 2½ per cent, but also noted that legal opinion ‘was that he couldn’t be forced to pay, considering the written orders he had, and it’s believed that nothing will come of this’. On 15 Apr., Ralph Bridges reported that the attorney general was drawing up a bill against Marlborough ‘to be brought into the Exchequer for to make him account for two-and-a-half per cent, which the Parliament have declared to be public money. His grace pleads the queen’s warrant, signed by Sir Charles Hedges, and has chose for his counsel [William] Etterick<sup>‡</sup> and [Samuel] Dodd.’<sup>500</sup> Other sources confirmed the report, varying only in the identity of Marlborough’s defence counsel.<sup>501</sup> No actual prosecution followed, Lockhart for one believing that Marlborough and Oxford had come to an agreement that ‘the process should be let fall, on condition his grace would next summer go out of the kingdom and give no further countenance to the Whig party’. Burnet also believed this to be the case. Although Marlborough’s successor, Ormond, was allowed the same perk with regard to bread contracts, the threat of prosecution remained.<sup>502</sup> On 12 Aug. L’Hermitage reported that although an action had begun in the exchequer against Marlborough, ‘the best lawyers from the beginning have said there is no basis for such a proceeding’.<sup>503</sup> On 12 Oct. Marlborough wrote to Sweet about the ‘barbarous’ law suit ‘now begun against me’: the ministers who had ‘persuaded the queen to prosecute me in this manner, must know that I have laid this money out for the public good.’ On 10 Mar. 1713 Marlborough promised Sweet, who had been summoned by the commissioners of accounts that he considered himself obliged to ensure that he would receive no harm from ‘whatever hardships you meet with upon the account of your being my friend in witnessing the truth (which will certainly clear me from this unjust and barbarous persecution’.<sup>504</sup></p><p>While all this manoeuvring was going on, Marlborough continued to play a role in the Lords. On 4 Mar. 1712, James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley, registered his proxy with Marlborough. With the House adjourning for Easter on 15 Apr. Marlborough then left for Windsor Lodge on the 16th.<sup>505</sup> He had returned to London to attend on 28 Apr. the first day after the recess. Marlborough’s diplomatic knowledge was invaluable for party organization: it was Marlborough’s calculation about when news of the peace would reach London which led Townshend on 1 May to summon Whig peers back from Newmarket.<sup>506</sup> On 18 May, Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg, left his proxy with Marlborough.</p><p>On 28 May Marlborough seconded Halifax’s motion for an address to the queen for the ‘restraining orders’ to be laid before the House and for Ormond to be ordered ‘to act offensively in concert with the allies’.<sup>507</sup> During the debate in response to Oxford’s claim that Ormond would not decline cooperating with the allies in a siege, Marlborough pointed out that ‘he did not know how to reconcile the orders not to hazard a battle, and to join in a siege, to the rules of war’, since it was impossible to lay a siege without hazarding a battle should the enemy attempt to relieve the place. Lockhart recorded that Marlborough laid out a plan of action for the campaign, which was rebutted by Argyll. According to Ralph Bridges, ‘Marlborough reflected upon the present general’s both courage and conduct’, which occasioned Poulett to defend Ormond, noting that ‘he showed a great deal more of it in saving the lives of 10 or 20,000 men, than other generals did by losing of them in order to gain their pay.’ A correspondent of Gilbert Coventry*, 4th earl of Coventry, gave another version of events: ‘Marlborough alleged that it was a very hard thing that the nation should be at the charge of maintaining so great an army abroad for no use at all’. In response Poulett retorted that Ormond ‘had no such views in fighting as a late general had, who would send his army against stone walls that the officers might be knocked in the head that he might fill his pockets with their commissions’. Marlborough may not have heard Poulett’s speech clearly, for he ‘contained his resentment for a while, and remained silent’, but issued a challenge after the debate, apparently through General Macartney, or possibly Lord Mohun. Lady Poulett alerted Secretary Dartmouth to the challenge, and he averted a duel using the queen’s name to ensure that Marlborough dropped the matter.<sup>508</sup> Marlborough duly voted in favour of the motion to address the queen ‘to send orders to her general, to act, in concert with her allies, offensively against France, in order to obtain a safe and honourable peace’ and entered his protest against its rejection. He then seconded an unopposed motion proposed by Strafford (as Raby had become) for an address for an account of the negotiations and transactions relating to the preliminaries in 1709, and an account of the negotiations and transactions at Gertrudenberg, to be laid before the Lords, since he saw nothing but merit in the actions he had taken.<sup>509</sup></p><p>When the Lords returned to the matter of the peace, on 7 June 1712 Marlborough spoke in the debate on an address thanking the queen for her speech on the progress of the peace negotiations. He noted that ‘the measures entered into and pursued in England for this year past were contrary to her majesty’s engagements with the allies; did sully the triumphs and glories of her reign, and would render the English name odious to all other nations’. He also protested against the loss of an amendment to the address asking the queen to take measures in concert with the allies to induce them to join in a mutual guarantee of the peace.<sup>510</sup> According to one account, ‘Strafford spoke a great deal and with a notable malice against the Dutch, not without reflections, as was judged, upon my Lord Marlborough, who thought so too, and answered very strongly in his mild way’.<sup>511</sup> Marlborough attended on 85 days of the session, 79 per cent of the total and was named to ten committees.</p><h2><em>Retirement and exile, 1712-14</em></h2><p>Marlborough retired to St Albans in July, where he entertained using his campaign tent pitched on the bowling green.<sup>512</sup> This was of particular use when celebrating the anniversary of the battle of Blenheim, when Godolphin, Cowper and Walpole attended a large gathering.<sup>513</sup> Marlborough’s concern for the minutiae of local patronage saw John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fermanagh [I], report on 7 Sept. that he had given the livings of Bladon and Woodstock to Dr. William Baker<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Norwich.<sup>514</sup> Following the death of Godolphin at Holywell on 15 Sept. Marlborough acted as a pallbearer at his funeral on 7 October.<sup>515</sup> On the day of Godolphin’s death, Marlborough wrote to Nottingham, ‘I can so little bear this unexpected blow that I am quite determined to go out of England, which I have had thought of doing for some time’. On 26 Sept. Sunderland wrote to Nottingham that although he was as surprised as the earl by the decision, he conceded that there were good reasons for so doing, including removing the pretence from ministers that Marlborough was the head of a faction against the queen.<sup>516</sup> Maynwaring duly facilitated the arrangements, writing on 18 Oct. to Oxford to obtain a pass to travel abroad.<sup>517</sup> Marlborough had indicated his desire to travel through Holland and Germany, to Italy, but it seems unlikely that his main intention was to enjoy a quiet retirement. Berkeley of Stratton spoke for many when he noted that ‘the reason is yet a mystery’. St George Ashe, bishop of Clogher [I], wrote on 28 Oct. that ‘his enemies say it is guilt… his friends… urge the reasonableness of his quitting a place where he is daily baited and uneasy… but few know the true reasons of his going’.<sup>518</sup> Marlborough’s pass was signed on 30 Oct. and he left London on 24 Nov., spending some time with the dying Sir Henry Furnese while awaiting a favourable wind.<sup>519</sup> He left England on 30 Nov. having taken the precaution of dispatching £50,000 to The Hague in case of emergencies, and placed his English lands in trust. On 13 Dec. he set out for Antwerp, then travelled to Maastricht and on to Aix-la-Chapelle, where Sarah and Cadogan, who became Marlborough’s key representative in exile, joined him in February 1713. Sarah’s correspondents were to be an important link with the Whigs while Marlborough was in exile.</p><p>It seems probable that Marlborough wished to use his contacts and reputation in order to promote intervention by the allies against the ministry, or in readiness for a struggle over the succession. The French feared his intervention at Utrecht against the Peace. The French secretary of state, De Torcy, informed Shrewsbury in February 1713 that he had received reliable information that Marlborough had secretly met the Emperor and Prince Eugene to hatch a plan to continue the war and support a conspiracy in England. Marlborough may indeed have planned an invasion of Hanoverian troops in Dutch ships hired under cover of the Empire to ensure a ministry capable of ensuring the Protestant Succession, but all the parties rejected the plan.<sup>520</sup></p><p>Having seen a printed version of the peace treaty and the treaty of commerce, Marlborough wrote to Craggs in June, ‘I could wish they had been more to our advantage; for instead of the great advantages we were made to expect, in comparing the treaties that of Holland seems to be more for their advantage, than any care that has been taken for England, for not only the loss of our woollen manufactures in the treaty of commerce, the 9th article in the treaty of peace does in a very plain manner restore Dunkirk to France’.<sup>521</sup> He also paid some attention to the 1713 election. At the end of May Marlborough wrote that although Cadogan might not be able to attend the election at Woodstock, he could certainly attend his duty in the Commons. On 26 July he wrote to assure William Grimston of his support at St Albans. He even resided for a time in Antwerp in case the result of the election presented the opportunity for his return to England.<sup>522</sup></p><p>Marlborough wrote to Oxford from Frankfurt in May or June 1713 of his surprise at being ‘charged with mismanagement of the public money in the report of the commissioners of accounts on pretence of the subject troops having been mustered complete during the war, and the foreigners not being mustered at all’. Such things were easily misrepresented, thereby giving ‘the greatest falsehoods an air of truth by suppressing of circumstances, by relating facts by halves, by reporting only parts of answers, by confounding of times, and drawing conclusions from innuendos and suppositions’.<sup>523</sup> There remained the possibility of impeachment by the Tory-dominated House of Commons. In such a situation, Cadogan remained Marlborough’s essential link with England, carrying papers to and fro between England and the Continent. Marlborough also welcomed an overture from Mary of Modena to resume contact, mainly as an insurance policy against Jacobite Members supporting an impeachment.<sup>524</sup></p><p>The queen’s sudden illness in December 1713 persuaded Oxford to appease Marlborough.<sup>525</sup> He directed the payment of £10, 557 on Marlborough’s ordinary accounts and £3,296-5 in extraordinaries. He also assured Marlborough that ‘all those I converse with are resolved not to give your grace the least disturbance’ in Parliament. ‘This, I suppose, will prove a great disappointment to some people, who would serve themselves at the expense of your grace’s repose. I cannot suspect there will be any change in this resolution, if there should I believe your grace will have early notice of it.’<sup>526</sup> The queen’s illness also prompted renewed plans by Marlborough for intervention to prevent a Jacobite restoration on the queen’s death.<sup>527</sup></p><p>In March 1714 there were rumours that Marlborough would soon return to England. On 24 Mar. Bateman reported that ‘Marlborough will soon be here, with the queen’s permission, which Lady Sund[erland] asked and obtained about ten days ago’. Although this proved to be false, family illness did provide an excuse for Marlborough to return to England. Early in 1714, his grandchildren, William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Rialton (later styled marquess of Blandford) and his sister caught smallpox, and although they recovered, in March the countess of Bridgwater contracted the disease and died. The shock of her death caused the countess of Sunderland to miscarry, with almost fatal consequences.<sup>.</sup> Even so, Marlborough rejected the suggestion that he needed to request permission to return from the queen.<sup>528</sup></p><p>Rumours abounded as to Marlborough’s intentions. In late May Vanbrugh told Marlborough that Anglesey, one of the leaders of the Hanoverian Tories, held Marlborough ‘in strong suspicion of having wholly embarked in the Pretender’s interest and that you are to bring him over. I cannot say that any of them directly believe it but him I have named, but I know he is wild enough to credit it’.<sup>529</sup> The Hanoverian resident Kreienberg reported on 22 June that ‘Cadogan believes he knows from the queen herself, that my lord duke would be welcome’ to return.<sup>530</sup> Marlborough did not finally decide to return until news of Berwick’s departure from Paris in late June 1714 to undertake the siege of Barcelona, which suggested that there was no plan for a French-backed invasion of Britain.<sup>531</sup></p><p>The ministry was certain that Marlborough soon be back: on 11 June, Prior told Bolingbroke that Marlborough was returning to England. Both Oxford and Bolingbroke sought to enlist him in their fight for control of the ministry. Oxford opened negotiations through Cadogan in mid-April. Oxford’s duplicity in telling the Whigs that the elector would be invited to England, while he sent letters to Hanover arguing the opposite, was revealed to Marlborough by the electress, and subsequently published in London on 1 July. Bolingbroke opened negotiations with Marlborough in mid-July through Craggs senior, and an agreement appears to have been reached between them whereby Marlborough would resume his offices and Bolingbroke would be reconciled to Hanover.<sup>532</sup></p><h2><em>Return to England and final years</em></h2><p>On 9 July Bateman, in London, had picked up that ‘the duke of Marlborough’s baggage is put aboard in order for his coming hither by permission, at the instance of Lord B[olingbro]ke, which still forebodes more to the disadvantage of [the] lord treasurer.’ He added on 14 July that Marlborough ‘is not yet arrived, nor any changes yet made. But all agree that the white staff is to be given up and succeeded by a commission’.<sup>533</sup> On 15 July it was reported that he was expected on ‘the first fair wind’, that his house in St James’s was ‘fitting up’ ready for him, and on the 22nd that the Whigs were ‘making great preparations to receive him’. This was gainsaid, but then he was reported to be embarking on 24 July. He did not set out for Ostend until the 16th, embarking for England on the 28th. The wind then further delayed his arrival, partly explaining the state of paralysis afflicting the government in the days before Oxford’s dismissal.<sup>534</sup></p><p>Auditor Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> suspected Marlborough of being at the centre of the machinations which led to the fall of Oxford. Marlborough ‘was to be at the head of it’, and Cadogan and Somerset were ‘engaged in the new plan that was forming by the Lord Bolingbroke’.<sup>535</sup> After Marlborough’s death, Vanbrugh referred to ‘what is now freely said, and generally allowed for truth, that had the queen lived a month longer, he had been seen to act a sad part, having made his peace on the worst terms’. Henry Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, looking back from 1741, was recorded as saying that Marlborough ‘had certainly before the death of the queen made his peace with her and was coming over on purpose’.<sup>536</sup></p><p>L’Hermitage reported Marlborough’s arrival on 1 Aug. and the reception he received at Dover: being saluted by cannon from the town, but not the castle.<sup>537</sup> He passed through Rochester and Chatham on 3 Aug. where he was welcomed with ‘repeated shouts and acclamations’. He arrived in London on 4 Aug. ‘with all pomp imaginable’. Wentworth thought that Marlborough had tried, unsuccessfully, to get the City to ‘excuse their compliment’, but they refused and he was met with a troop of militia with drums and trumpets, as well as ‘a train of coaches’. Bateman reported on 4 Aug. that the Marlboroughs ‘came through the City this afternoon, attended with the trained bands, and a numerous mob. A great many coaches also met them, but neither his, nor any of his family’s, being in the Regency is grating to ’em’. Swift’s correspondent, Charles Ford, thought him ‘hissed by more than huzzarred’. On 6 Aug. Bothmer reported Marlborough ‘not pleased’ that ‘there is any man but the king higher than him in this country’. Nevertheless, on 7 Aug. Charlett was informed that Marlborough’s levee was ‘prodigiously numerous’.<sup>538</sup></p><p>Although Marlborough had been named as one of the electress’s regents, as recorded by Rivers on one of his trips to Hanover (probably in 1710), subsequently the list had been changed and he was not on the list opened on the queen’s death. This may have prompted Marlborough to allow the City to make a fuss.<sup>539</sup> Marlborough attended on only one day of the short session following Queen Anne’s death, on 5 Aug. 1714. He left London on 8 Aug. for several days in the country, before intending to travel to Bath to visit the countess of Sunderland.<sup>540</sup> On 21 Aug. it was reported that Marlborough had been at Woodstock and gone to dine at Wharton’s at Winchendon. After a visit to St Albans, Marlborough was back in London for the king’s arrival on 17 September.<sup>541</sup> He also attended the prorogation on 23 September.</p><p>Marlborough met the new king when he arrived at Greenwich on 18 Sept. 1714, the king saying ‘my lord duke, I hope your troubles are now over’.<sup>542</sup> He had already been restored as captain-general of the land forces. On 26 Sept. he was restored as colonel of the 1st foot guards, and on 1 Oct. as master-general of the ordnance. By mid-September Marlborough’s levees were ‘crowded as much as ever’, with Argyll and Marlborough acting as if ‘there never had been any difference between them.’ On 29 Sept. Cowper recorded that he had dined with Marlborough, ‘who I think played double with Lord Halifax about his being treasurer &c. Bothmer stated the difficulty the king made, being for a commission. [The] Duke of Marlborough, Lord Townshend, [and the] earl [of] Sunderland seemed for his being treasurer but were really against it.’ On 14 Oct. Thomas Burnet thought ‘only my Lord Marlborough caresses his enemies and neglects his friends too much, and is too engrossing’. Wentworth had heard something similar noting that the ‘high Whigs’ thought it one of his ‘sneaking maxims to be reconciled to those that have disobliged him most’.<sup>543</sup></p><p>Although Marlborough was restored to his offices, he did not gain pre-eminence in the ministry. At the end of December 1714, according to Bonet, Marlborough was seen as a crucial figure along with Townshend and Bothmer and Bernsdorff, but in reality it was Townshend who wielded most influence.<sup>544</sup> As Brydges (now Carnarvon) wrote in December 1714, Craggs senior had composed the differences between Marlborough and Townshend and ‘these two with the assistance of Bothmer and Bertsdorff form the ministry’.<sup>545</sup> In 1716 his political importance was curtailed by a stroke and he never recovered his political power. He remained a figurehead until his death on 16 June 1722 at Cranbourne Lodge, Windsor. He was survived by his wife and two daughters, Henrietta, who succeeded to the title, and Mary.</p><p>Interpretations of Marlborough have been many and varied. To Burnet he was ‘one of the greatest men the age has produced’. The Dutch field deputy, Sicco van Goslinga agreed, referring to ‘the rare gifts of this truly great man’, although for him he had many defects: ‘the duke is a profound dissembler, all the more dangerous that his manner and his words give the impression of frankness itself. His ambition knows no bounds, and an avarice which I can only call sordid, guides his entire conduct.’<sup>546</sup></p><p>In domestic politics, Marlborough tried to avoid much of the incessant management involved, and therefore took few initiatives that were not devised by his political associates.<sup>547</sup> He asked Sarah repeatedly not to ask him to intercede with the queen and Godolphin in political appointments. Nevertheless, he did recommend to places where he thought the interests of his position required it, although he allowed Godolphin to bear the brunt of his dealings with supplicants and their sponsors. Accusations of venality were always vigorously denied by Marlborough; as early as 16 Aug. 1703 he reassured the duchess that ‘since the queen came to the crown, I have never taken one farthing from anybody living for any favour or employment.’<sup>548</sup> Perhaps Winston Churchill was correct when he noted that Marlborough ‘took all the emoluments, perquisites and commissions which belonged to his offices and appointments’, but eschewed ‘bribes or any money that was not his by usage or law’.<sup>549</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s role in the Lords ranged from being a brooding oppositionist in William’s reign, which saw him engaged quite heavily in the business of the House, to a busy, pivotal political figure during the reign of Anne, when the time available for parliamentary activity was much diminished. As his correspondence with Godolphin reveals, his presence or absence often determined the timing of a session, and his military demands could often dominate the financial business of the lower House. For Godolphin, as lord treasurer, his presence made the queen more susceptible to his arguments; and his prestige (and negotiating skills) made Parliament, not just the Lords, more amenable to the executive’s demands.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
CLIFFORD, Hugh (1663-1730) |
<p><strong><surname>CLIFFORD</surname></strong>, <strong>Hugh</strong> (1663–1730)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 17 Oct. 1673 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 21 Dec. 1663, 5th but 1st surv. s. and h. of Thomas Clifford*, Bar. Clifford of Chudleigh, and Elizabeth, da. of William Martin of Lindridge, Devon. <em>educ</em>. ?Eton 1671;<sup>1</sup> Winchester 1678-9. <em>m</em>. c.1685, Anne (<em>d</em>. 5 July 1734), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Preston, 3rd bt. of Furness, Lancs. and Mary, da. of Caryll Molyneux, 3rd Visct. Molyneux [I], 9s. (?7 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 6da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 12 Oct. 1730; <em>will</em> 18 Oct. 1726, pr. 24 May 1731.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Clerk of the Pipe Feb. 1681-by Aug. 1689.</p> |
|
<p>By the time of his father’s death Clifford was the eldest surviving son. Interestingly, when Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury drew up his analysis of peers in 1677-8, Clifford was classed as underage, but not as a papist. Unable to take his seat in the Lords because of the terms of the Test Act, he nevertheless entered into public life. On 10 Feb. 1685 he may have been the Lord Clifford who was thought a possible lord chamberlain to the new queen.<sup>4</sup> On 12 Mar. 1686 his name was included in a warrant sent to the attorney general to draw up a document authorizing him and other named Catholics to travel to London or any other place, and to remain at court ‘without taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy’, and ‘for dispensing them from taking the said oaths etc., and from all penalties, notwithstanding’. In 1687, Clifford was added to the commission of the peace in Devonshire, Middlesex and Warwickshire, and in February 1688 he was named as a justice in Buckinghamshire.<sup>5</sup> On four lists produced in the period 1687-8 to gauge opinion towards James II’s policies, he was simply listed as a Catholic.</p><p>The Revolution of 1688 ended Clifford’s public career. It was reported in December 1688, that he had lost £8,000 ‘by the injuries offered to his house’ in Devon, ‘being a Papist’.<sup>6</sup> He also lost his office as clerk of the pipe to Robert Russell<sup>‡</sup>, a son of William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford. Erroneously, his absence from the Lords on 2 Nov. 1691 was excused because he was a minor.</p><p>More trouble was in store for Clifford in May 1692 when Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, seized a letter ‘directed to a servant’ of Clifford’s with one enclosed to ‘Bishop Gifford’.<sup>7</sup> Further reports suggested that the correspondence named the day for an insurrection.<sup>8</sup> Clifford was committed to prison in Exeter and then to London in the custody of a messenger and placed in the Tower.<sup>9</sup> On 14 June 1692 the queen ordered the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, to admit him to bail on a bond of £5,000 with two sureties of £2,500 apiece, to appear the first day of the following term.<sup>10</sup> As the fears of a French invasion passed, nothing further occurred.</p><p>Clifford did not sign the Association in 1696. However, he attended a meeting of Catholics in London in December 1697, in order to draw up an address of congratulation to William III on the peace and praying for his protection, but the meeting ‘broke up abruptly, unable to agree upon a form’.<sup>11</sup> Clifford died in Somerset on 12 Oct. 1730 and was buried at Cannington, being succeeded by his son, Hugh Clifford<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Clifford.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
CLIFFORD, Thomas (1630-73) |
<p><strong><surname>CLIFFORD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1630–73)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>22 Apr. 1672 Bar. CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH. |
|
First sat 30 Oct. 1672; last sat 29 Mar. 1673 |
|
MP Totnes 1660–22 Apr. 1672. |
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Aug. 1630, 1st s. of Col. Hugh Clifford (1603–40), and Mary, da. of Sir George Chudleigh, bt.<sup>‡</sup> of Ashton, Devon. <em>educ</em>. Exeter Coll. Oxf. 1647, BA 1650; M. Temple 1648. <em>m</em>. 27 June 1650 (with £1,000), Elizabeth (1630–1709), da. of William Martin (<em>d</em>. 1641) of Lindridge, Devon, 7s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 8da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 1640; kntd. c. June 1664. <em>d</em>. 17 Oct. 1673; <em>will</em> 7 Oct., pr. 25 Nov. 1673.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of privy chamber June 1660–<em>d</em>.; commr. for loyal and indigent officers 1662; commr. for sick and wounded 1664–7; commr. for duke of Monmouth’s estates 1665–70; envoy extraordinary, Denmark, and amb. extraordinary, Sweden 1665; comptroller of household Nov. 1666–8; treas. of household 1668–72; PC 5 Dec. 1666–?<em>d</em>.; commr. for trade 1668–72; ld. of treasury 1667–72; commr. for union with Scotland 1670–1; commr. inquiry into the land settlement [I], 1672; ld. treas. 2 Dec. 1672–19 June 1673.</p><p>Commr. militia, Devon Mar. 1660; dep. lt. Devon 1661–73; sub-commr. for prizes, London 1665–72.</p><p>Maj. militia horse, Devon Apr. 1660–at least 1661; ?lt. RN 1665.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Asst. R. Fishing Co. 1664.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely 1672, Government Art Collection and NPG 204; oil on canvas after Sir P. Lely c. 1663, Leeds City Council, Burton Constable Hall; miniature, watercolour on vellum by Samuel Cooper 1672, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Clifford was made a ward after the death of his father, shortly after his return from crown service in the Bishops’ Wars. His estate was burdened with charges for his paternal grandmother, who died in 1663, and his mother, who remarried, to Gregory Cole (<em>d.</em> 1660), in 1645. In 1650 Clifford married Elizabeth Martin from a cadet branch of the recusant Martins of Dorset. She was coheiress of her brother, who had died in 1643. In a will made in August 1659, Clifford provided for the sale of an estate worth £1,490 to pay his debts.<sup>5</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, was thus correct in his belief that Clifford was ‘born to a small fortune’; in 1667 Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> was told that Clifford’s estate was worth only £140 per annum.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Clifford’s first political patrons were Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, who backed him as a candidate for Totnes in the election to the Convention, and Sir Hugh Pollard<sup>‡</sup>. His energy and activity in local and national office was impressive from the outset. He served in the Devon militia and as a justice of the peace, a county assessor and deputy lieutenant, but it was his industry in the Commons which initially brought him to the attention of Sir Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, and James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>7</sup> Clifford was appointed a gentleman of the privy chamber in 1660 and York personally recommended him for re-election for Totnes in 1661.</p><p>In September 1662, Bennet described Clifford as a man of ‘virtue and good parts’ and his particular friend.<sup>8</sup> He was to remain Clifford’s political patron for the next decade. Clifford was active in the Commons, and in 1663 he and Solomon Swale<sup>‡</sup> were described as ‘two of the greatest proctors the bishops had’ in the lower House.<sup>9</sup> On 17 Sept. 1666 Pepys described Clifford as ‘a very fine gentleman, and much set by at court for his activity in going to sea, and stoutness everywhere and stirring up and down’.<sup>10</sup> Clifford’s wartime efforts were rewarded and he was appointed comptroller of the king’s household in November 1666 and made a privy councillor.<sup>11</sup> In May 1667 he was appointed to the treasury commission that replaced Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton. Pepys, who worked closely with Clifford during the Dutch war, noted his rise to power with Arlington’s patronage, but went on to say that, despite his faults, he heard nothing but good reports of Clifford’s work at the treasury.<sup>12</sup></p><p>By 1669 Clifford was recognized as one of the king’s leading ministers, who were known collectively as the Cabal. His views chimed in well with the pro-French, pro-Catholic and pro-prerogative views of the times and he was appointed to the Privy Council committee on foreign affairs, the king’s inner circle of advisers. In the late 1660s he prepared a secret paper for Charles II that argued that war with the Dutch ‘would in all respects suit with the interests of England’, so long as the king could be sure of victory.<sup>13</sup> It was also at this juncture that Charles II was said to have revealed his own conversion to Catholicism to Arlington, Clifford and Henry Arundell*, 3rd baron Arundell of Wardour.</p><p>Clifford’s own conversion to Catholicism is difficult to date, although by 1669 he had developed a close friendship with the Benedictine Hugh (Serenus) Cressy, himself a Catholic convert, and was reading various works of Catholic theology and apologetics. Cressy argued that Catholicism and the acceptance of the royal supremacy of a Protestant king were not incompatible, an argument conducive to Clifford’s view that the Church of England and the Church of Rome could be reunited by this approach in the longer term.<sup>14</sup> Whatever his private thoughts, Clifford outwardly adhered to the Anglican faith. His son Thomas entered an Oxford college in 1668 and when, in March 1671, he was dying in Florence, the suggestion that he be ministered to by an Irish priest was vetoed by Sir John Finch, on the grounds that ‘to his father, the knowing that his son died a Catholic might be a greater affliction than his death’.<sup>15</sup> After dining with Clifford on 17 Apr. 1671, Evelyn suspected him of ‘a little warping to Rome’.<sup>16</sup> On 17 July of the same year, Anthony Sparrow*, bishop of Exeter, dedicated a new chapel at Ugbrooke, Clifford’s home to St. Cyprian, the advocate of the unity of the Christian Church.<sup>17</sup> In October 1672 Clifford acted as godfather to a son of Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>, along with Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Given that Clifford was already a party to the king’s secret conversion, he was an obvious choice as a negotiator of the secret treaty of Dover with France. He personally drafted instructions for Arundell, the king’s secret envoy, several versions of the treaty articles, and correspondence with the French ambassador, Colbert de Croissy, and Charles II’s sister, the duchess of Orleans.<sup>19</sup> Together with Arundell, Arlington and Sir Richard Bellings, Clifford was a signatory of the treaty on 22 May 1670. In December 1671 he was commissioned, along with Arlington, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, Ashley and John Maitland*, earl of Guilford (better known as duke of Lauderdale [S]), ‘the juncto about this grand affair’, to negotiate the official version of the French Treaty, without the secret Catholic clause.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Clifford was increasingly seen as an important figure. Indeed, an opposition pamphlet, <em>The Alarum</em>, dropped in Westminster Hall in 1669, portrayed him as an advocate of royal prerogative and absolutism. Further, the public was warned that he had ‘too much ambition and too little money to be content’.<sup>21</sup> There were other critics, too, Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> telling Pepys in March 1669 ‘of the folly, ambitions and desire of popularity of Sir Thomas Clifford and yet the rudeness of his tongue and passions when angry’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>With the king committed by his treaty with Louis XIV to a war against the Dutch, measures were necessary to boost the treasury’s finances. Clifford was an exponent of what became known as the ‘Stop of the Exchequer’, proposing that course of action at a meeting of the Privy Council on 2 Jan. 1672. The freeze on the majority of outgoing payments allowed the incoming revenue to be channelled into military expenditure.<sup>23</sup> The policy was supported by the king and on 18 Jan. 1672 it was reported that Arlington and Clifford ‘in all appearance does gain ground exceedingly of the other faction’.<sup>24</sup> As a corollary to war, and to the need to allay religious fears prompted by an attack on the Protestant Dutch, the committee of foreign affairs met twice on 6 and 9 Mar. to discuss the possibility of a declaration of religious liberty. Clifford took a leading role in discussions, assuring the king and all present that he had dispensing power in matters of religion and could suspend the penal laws. Indeed, as Clifford and Charles II seemed to speak with one voice, they may have been acting in concert.<sup>25</sup></p><p>A Declaration of Indulgence was duly issued on 15 Mar. and war declared two days later. The declaration also had implications for the state’s power, and the author of <em>A Letter From a Person of Quality</em> (1675) (variously attributed to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, or Shaftesbury’s associate John Locke), later claimed that in conversation Clifford had said that the king, ‘if he would be firm to himself, might settle what religion he pleased, and carry the government to what height he would; for if men were assured of the liberty of their consciences and undisturbed in their properties’, with adequate armed forces at Tilbury, Hull and Plymouth, none would have the ‘will, opportunity or power to resist’.<sup>26</sup> Others were less sanguine: Colonel Richard Talbot, the future earl of Tyrconnel [I], feared that the declaration ‘would turn to the ruin of them all’ and claimed that he had tried to moderate the ‘furious’ tendencies of Clifford and Arundell.<sup>27</sup></p><p>For his efforts, Clifford was rewarded with a peerage on 22 Apr. 1672, later paying £60 for a family pedigree that traced his ancestry back to the Middle Ages.<sup>28</sup> In order to support the dignity of his new honour, he was granted the reversion of the manor of Rodway Fitzpaine and site of Cannington Priory, Somerset, worth £2,000 per year.<sup>29</sup> Clifford was now very close to York: Colbert reported that he had joined the duke in pressing the king to take the final step and declare his conversion.<sup>30</sup> He was also closely involved with the duke’s agents in Europe, Talbot and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, who were negotiating for York’s marriage. It was Clifford who transmitted the king’s private instructions to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, on the sensitive matter of dispensing with the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in Ireland and ensuring that one of Queen Catharine’s chaplains, Father Patrick Maginn, was granted lands in Ireland.<sup>31</sup></p><p>By the winter of 1671, Clifford was suffering from gout and rheumatism.<sup>32</sup> Further stress was added when he had to take over many of the tasks of Arlington during the summer of 1672, when the secretary was in Holland.<sup>33</sup> By the third week of July Clifford’s health was so poor that he wrote to Arlington,</p><blockquote><p>I am in such pain with my old distemper I had in the winter, and it is now in my leg as well as in my shoulder. I am almost as very a cripple as the Lord Keeper [Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>]. For many reasons I wish you back and among them that I might be carried to Bath.<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>Clifford did go to Bath on 21 July, accompanied by Father Maginn, and was well enough to correspond with Whitehall by mid-August, expecting to return to London by the 21st.<sup>35</sup> He then went to inspect the fleet, returning on 30 August.<sup>36</sup> On 7 Sept. he informed Lauderdale that ‘the Cabal are all impatient for your return to us’, and suggested that ‘most of us go with the opinion that it is not yet too late in the year for our whole fleet to go out to sea again’, a course adopted so as to remove the need to pay off the seamen, and thus avoid meeting Parliament in October.<sup>37</sup> Thus Parliament was prorogued on 30 Oct. 1672 until February 1673, although the opportunity was taken to introduce Clifford into the Lords, flanked by Arundell and Francis Newport*, 2nd baron Newport.</p><p>The reconstruction of the ministry in November 1672, attendant upon the replacement of Lord Keeper Bridgeman by Shaftesbury as lord chancellor, saw Clifford promoted to be lord treasurer. The king declared that there was ‘nobody fitter’ for the post, but Clifford’s appointment led to a breach with his erstwhile patron Arlington, who had also coveted the place. Arlington thought Clifford ungrateful; despite the efforts of York to effect a reconciliation, none was forthcoming.<sup>38</sup> It was soon reported that ‘the king had a good deal of the French money lately, of which the treasurer, my Lord Clifford wholly disposes’, and that the lord treasurer personally compiled the lists of money to be paid out every Saturday.<sup>39</sup> Further, on 4 Dec. it was reported that Clifford was ‘very vigorous’ and would have the treasury in excellent order by the time Parliament resumed in February so that the Commons would grant the necessary supplies.<sup>40</sup> The implication that Clifford would be involved in managing Parliament was confirmed on 21 Dec. when Clifford and Arlington met with nine members of the Commons ‘about the Parliament’.<sup>41</sup> Before Christmas, Charles II appealed to Clifford and Arundell to attempt to persuade York to take the Anglican sacrament. At the second time of asking Clifford went to York, recalling that he ‘found the duke not to be moved in his resolution of not going against his conscience’.<sup>42</sup> Clifford was more successful with electoral management, ensuring in February 1673 that Walter Langdon<sup>‡</sup>, who had married Clifford’s sister-in-law, was returned at a by-election for East Looe.</p><p>With a difficult session in prospect, Clifford seems to have sought out the astrologer Elias Ashmole to answer the question whether the Declaration of Indulgence ‘will not occasion such a contest in the House of Commons at their next meeting as to hinder the king’s supplies unless it be set aside’.<sup>43</sup> When the new session opened on 4 Feb. 1673 Clifford was absent, confined to his house with gallstones.<sup>44</sup> He missed three of the first four days of the session, but then sat every day, attending on 35 days, a little over 92 per cent of the total. With the Commons threatening to use supply as a weapon to force the king to withdraw the Declaration, Clifford obtained the proxies of John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset, on 10 Feb., and Peterborough on 17 Feb., in case the matter came to a vote in the Lords.</p><p>On 10 Feb. 1673 the Commons voted by 168 to 116 that the king could not suspend penal statutes in ecclesiastical matters, and on 14 Feb. an address on the matter was ordered to be presented to the king. Following this address there was a delay while the king and his advisers pondered their options. Initially, Clifford, with Arlington, advocated being ‘kind in the handling of this address’, in order to secure supply, while remaining firm to the Declaration.<sup>45</sup> When the king finally replied on 24 Feb., it provoked a further address on the 26th, wherein the Commons told the king that he had been ‘misinformed’ as to his powers. In response to this, as Arlington told the French ambassador, Clifford was one of the king’s advisers advocating a dissolution in an attempt to solve the problem.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Eventually, the king decided that the Lords should be asked for their ‘advice’, in the hope of procuring a vote in defence of his prerogative. On 1 Mar. the king referred the Commons’ address to the Lords for their advice, together with his answer to it and the Commons’ response. Clifford was one of eight peers named to draw up an address thanking the king for his ‘great favour in communicating this business’ to the Lords. After several days’ debate, he was one of a large committee appointed on 5 Mar. to draw up ‘heads for a bill of advice’ to be presented to the king. It was to this committee that Clifford proposed providing the king with the ‘power (if it be not in him already) to suspend penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical out of time of Parliament’, although ‘except it be in great exigencies and emergencies’ the king would not do so without naming them.<sup>47</sup> Nothing came of these proposals as, after six hours of debate in council on the 7th, with Clifford in the minority in recommending a dissolution before Parliament ‘could offend the royal dignity further’, the king decided to withdraw the Declaration.<sup>48</sup> When this was announced the following day, Clifford was named to a committee of nine to thank the king for his speech. On 12 Mar. he reported back to the House that the king had given orders for his speech to be printed.</p><p>A corollary of the Commons’ efforts to obtain the withdrawal of the Declaration of the Indulgence was a campaign against the growth of popery. On 6 Mar. 1673 Clifford was one of seven peers named to manage a conference acquainting the Commons with the Lords’ amendments to the lower House’s address against the growth of popery, and on the 7th he was named as a reporter of the conference. Next came the introduction of a bill designed to exclude Catholics from civil and military office, with the clear threat that a failure to pass this legislation would result in the loss of the supply bill. When the Test bill reached its third reading in the Lords on 20 Mar. 1673, Clifford ‘could not resist the inspiration of God’, and launched an impassioned attack upon it as ‘a dirty bill’, the <em>monstrum horrendum</em> or frightful monster from Virgil’s <em>Aeneid</em>.<sup>49</sup></p><p>As Colbert described it to Louis XIV, Clifford, ‘driven by premature zeal, made a speech, or rather a sermon’, in the Lords, accusing the Commons of an attack on the privileges of the Lords and an intrusion by them into purely Church matters. Although his speech ‘had the approbation of much of the upper chamber, especially the duke of York and even the bishops’, when it came to the attention of the Commons, ‘it ignited a fire there to the extent that only outbursts and imprecations against the government were heard’. In particular, Lord Cavendish (William Cavendish*, the future duke of Devonshire), proposed that ‘while the king was permitting them to present their grievances to him, they should start with bad counsellors’.<sup>50</sup> Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St. John, the future duke of Bolton, Michael Malet<sup>‡</sup> and William Sacheverell<sup>‡</sup> also ‘moved against’ Clifford, ‘but the motion was not further seconded’.<sup>51</sup> Clifford’s speech may have been an attempt to foment a privilege dispute with the Commons so that the bill would be lost.<sup>52</sup> Certainly, he was surprised when the king, on Arlington’s advice, disavowed it.<sup>53</sup> Indeed, according to Colbert on 25 Mar., Arlington felt that Clifford’s speech was an extravagance:</p><blockquote><p>at a time when the King of England has consented to everything the Parliament wishes in the matter of religion and is even making a severe proclamation against the Catholics, nothing is so astonishing as to hear his lord high treasurer, the chief repository of all his secrets, take the part of the said Catholics with unparalleled eloquence and boldness.<sup>54</sup></p></blockquote><p>While this controversy raged, what was termed ‘the lord treasurer’s bill’ received its first reading in the Lords on 7 March. This was a bill for the settlement of the rectory of Chudleigh upon Clifford and others, which was reported from committee by Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, on 10 March. It was reported from committee in the Commons with some amendments by Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> and returned to the Lords on 15 Mar., receiving the royal assent at the end of the session. Meanwhile, Clifford was also named to four committees on general legislation and added to the committee for privileges (20 Feb.). Most importantly, for the war effort, on 28 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole the supply bill for raising £1,238,750.</p><p>With the Test Act on the statute books, there was speculation that both Clifford and York would ‘receive the sacrament’ on 30 Mar., Easter Sunday.<sup>55</sup> However, Clifford had already told the Venetian ambassador in confidence on 21 Mar. that he intended to retire into the country.<sup>56</sup> Another burst of speculation occurred in the days before Whitsunday, 18 May. On the 15 May Henry Ball reported that ‘the town’ believed that Clifford would receive the sacrament then, and it was widely believed that he would spend the 17th in preparation for the event.<sup>57</sup> Unfortunately, on that day his coach overturned in the Strand, spilling Clifford and Father Maginn into the street. Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> was told that the ‘whole town is no longer in doubt of my Lord Treasurer’s being a Roman Catholic’, and that it was noted that Clifford had ‘always observed popish holy-days, and would never do business on any of them, and that his chapel was only for fashion and for his servants, his Lordship nor Lady never frequenting it’.<sup>58</sup></p><p>There was also a spate of speculation on Clifford’s successor, should he leave office. On 18 May, Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡ </sup>thought that he would ‘go off’ and be replaced by Sir Thomas Osborne*, the future earl of Danby.<sup>59</sup> Writing the following day, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> was somewhat sceptical of reports that Clifford would ‘lay down his staff’, and be succeeded by Osborne because ‘I cannot easily think he will leave his place so easily’.<sup>60</sup> Arlington was certainly unhappy at the prospect of Osborne, backed by Clifford, York, Lauderdale and Buckingham, succeeding to the treasury.<sup>61</sup></p><p>With the deadline for taking the Test approaching, on 4 June 1673 it was reported that Clifford ‘holds his resolution of quitting’ and that Osborne would pay him a considerable pension.<sup>62</sup> Clifford resigned on 19 June, ‘with great cheerfulness and constancy of countenance, whatever was his complexion within’, and was replaced by Osborne.<sup>63</sup> Rumours abounded about the financial settlement between them. Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> believed that Buckingham had facilitated Osborne’s succession by ‘making a bargain’ between them for half of his salary,<sup>64</sup> and Williamson was told that Clifford would ‘get £20,000 presently’ and £4,000 per annum (which was half the usual lord treasurer’s salary) while Osborne was in post.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Reports that Clifford would go ‘suddenly into the country and wholly retires’ proved accurate, for by 24 June it was reported that he had gone to Ugbrooke and ‘intends a very private life’.<sup>66</sup> On 3 July a warrant was issued for a pardon for all Clifford’s actions before 30 June 1673.<sup>67</sup> On 14 July he was still in the country, but by the 25th he was at Tunbridge, where he met Evelyn, who thought that he was at the spa to ‘divert his mind more than his body’ and that, having promised York he would resign, ‘this grieved him’. Evelyn met Clifford again at Wallingford House on 18 Aug., packing up for his departure to Ugbrooke. On 25 Aug. it was reported that Clifford was departing for the country ‘for all together’.<sup>68</sup></p><p>At the end of September 1673, John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, told Sancroft (referring to the forthcoming meeting of Parliament) that ‘some will have it that Clifford is not October proof, having lately taken a journey somewhere westward’.<sup>69</sup> On 26 Sept. Clifford wrote from Ugbrooke to his successor about the allowance given to the Speaker of the House of Commons.<sup>70</sup> On 3 Oct. it was again reported that Parliament might attack Clifford, who was not expected to attend the session but was ‘ready to take wing upon the first notice’. However, by this time Clifford was ill of the stone and, according to his kinsman Prowse, given over by his doctors.<sup>71</sup> Officially, he died from ‘the stone’, while at his house in Devon on 17 Oct. 1673.<sup>72</sup> Both Tillotson and Ashmole noted that Clifford had died of ‘bleeding’.<sup>73</sup> Evelyn had no difficulty in believing that it was suicide.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Clifford was buried quickly and privately at his chapel in Ugbrooke, as stipulated in his will. He left four unmarried daughters, for whom he provided portions of £2,500. His son Simon was to be maintained by his wife until the place of teller of the exchequer, of which Clifford had obtained the reversion (in 1671, after the death of his eldest son, Thomas, to whom a reversion had been granted in 1667), fell to him (which it did in July 1684). Both Simon and Charles (a godson of Charles II) were also to receive £1,000 apiece. His eldest surviving son, Hugh Clifford*, 2nd Baron Clifford, succeeded to most of his estates, which would be ‘a support to his maintenance’ until the reversion of the pipe office, which Clifford had secured in July 1673, fell to him. Significantly, in a petition at the end of 1675, Lady Clifford referred to having ‘nine children indifferently provided for’.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> noted Clifford’s death as ‘a very great loss to the duke and to the papists’, but in the months that followed, when the Commons sought to place the blame for the king’s religious policies on his counsellors, Clifford provided a ready scapegoat.<sup>76</sup> During the attack on Lauderdale in the Commons in April 1675, Burnet revealed that Clifford had agreed with the Scottish minister in favouring the maintenance of the Declaration by force.<sup>77</sup> Critics pointed to the increase in secret service payments during Clifford’s administration, although the whole establishment had grown in these years.<sup>78</sup> However, Lady Clifford was able to secure a full discharge of her husband’s accounts after his death.<sup>79</sup> Later assessments have concluded that Clifford was part of an exceptionally able treasury commission and continued its work as lord treasurer.<sup>80</sup></p><p>In <em>Advice to A Painter to Draw the Duke by</em>, attributed variously to Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup>, Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, John Ayloffe and John Wilmot*, earl of Rochester, Clifford was described as the ‘mad Cethegus of his age’, but Evelyn saw him as ‘a valiant, uncorrupt gentleman, ambitious, not covetous, generous, passionate, and a most constant, sincere friend to me’.<sup>81</sup> The duke of York later recalled, in his <em>Advice to his Son</em>, that Clifford was the only minister of Charles II that ‘served him throughout faithfully and without reproach’.<sup>82</sup> Less approvingly, a contemporary squib likened Clifford’s loyalty to that of a ‘mastiff dog’.<sup>83</sup> According to Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, he was ‘of a haughty and aspiring spirit and kept to his point’.<sup>84</sup> To Sir Edward Dering, he was ‘the factotum of that time’.<sup>85</sup> Burnet described Clifford as a ‘man of great vivacity’, adding that he had been ‘reconciled to Rome before the Restoration’, and that at one point he had aspired to be a cardinal.<sup>86</sup> Modern commentators have portrayed him as a competent administrator, but also as ‘quick-tempered, stubborn and inflexible’, and as man of ‘genuine faith’, who pursued ideas to their conclusion and took the consequences, which other men avoided by being more flexible.<sup>87</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
CLINTON, Edward (c. 1653-92) |
<p><strong><surname>CLINTON</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>FIENNES</strong>), <strong>Edward</strong> (c. 1653–92)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Clinton and Say 1657-67; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 21 May 1667 (a minor) as 5th earl of LINCOLN |
|
First sat 15 Mar. 1678; last sat 12 Apr. 1692 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1653 o. s. of Edward Clinton<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1657), <em>styled</em> Ld. Clinton, and Anne (<em>d.</em>1707), da. of John Holles*, 2nd earl of Clare. <em>educ.</em> travelled abroad, c.1673-7.<sup>1</sup> <em>m.</em> c. Dec. 1672,<sup>2</sup> Jeanne (<em>d.</em>1688), da. of Pierre de Galière, Sieur de Verune [France]; <em>s.p</em>.; KB 23 Apr. 1661. <em>d.</em> 25 Nov. 1692; <em>will</em> 6 Nov. 1684-Dec. 1690, pr. 20 Dec. 1692, sentence 6 Feb. 1693.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Described by Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, as ‘half-mad’ and reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Lords for ‘too great a liberty’ in his discourse, Edward Clinton, 5th earl of Lincoln, consistently provoked the anger and bewilderment of his fellow peers during the rare times he actually appeared in the House.<sup>5</sup> Edward Clinton was of strongly Presbyterian and even Puritan lineage from both sides of his family. After the early death of his father in 1657, his guardianship was entrusted first to his grandfather John Holles*, 2nd earl of Clare, and after his death in 1666, to his great-uncle, Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles.<sup>6</sup> Edward Clinton’s mother, Lady Clinton, was a known nonconformist, frequenting at least two ‘conventicles’ in Westminster in the 1670s and eventually buried ‘in a Presbyterian meeting house yard’ at her death in 1707.<sup>7</sup> On his paternal side Edward Clinton was connected, through his father’s many sisters, to Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup> and Sir George Booth*, Baron Delamer, and Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) and Samuel Rolle<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>The estate Lord Clinton was set to inherit was in such bad condition that in 1665 his guardian Clare petitioned the crown hoping that some measures could be taken to help the Clintons, ‘to preserve an ancient family from ruin’. After the 4th earl of Lincoln died on 21 May 1667, his will assigning trustees to settle his many debts was not transcribed in the official registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury because it appears to have quickly become a matter of dispute.<sup>9</sup> The dowager countess of Lincoln submitted a petition in 1668 complaining that as the deceased earl’s named executors and trustees had refused to act according to the terms of the will, she had been induced to ask her step-grandson the 5th earl of Lincoln to take out letters of administration on her behalf. She later found he was keeping goods bequeathed to her for himself and was refusing to release her jointure. The dispute over the 4th earl’s will was protracted and eventually ended up before the court of delegates.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Throughout the 1680s Lincoln further worsened the estate’s condition by mortgaging much of his remaining of lands in Lincolnshire, lands which were not redeemed by his heirs until 1755.<sup>11</sup> Perhaps to rescue his financial situation negotiations were entered into in 1671 for a match between him and Dorothy, daughter of John Ferrers<sup>‡</sup>, which would have brought him a portion of £7,000 as well as lands in the Netherlands through her mother. A private bill was introduced in the House on 4 Jan. 1671 to enable him, although still underage, to settle a jointure on her of certain Lincolnshire manors, but it was eventually dropped when the marriage failed to go through.<sup>12</sup> Lincoln travelled on the continent from late 1672 to 1677, and as early as December 1672 it was reported that he had contracted a marriage with Jeanne de Galière, daughter of the sieur de Verune in Languedoc, who ‘hath a good reputation, though her birth is ordinary’. <sup>13</sup> The marriage appears to have taken place privately, for Lady Clinton in England was still receiving propositions for other brides in 1673 and complaining of the difficulties in communicating with her son abroad.<sup>14</sup> While Lincoln was away, his agents in England petitioned the House on 26 Apr. 1675 against a Chancery decree concerning ownership of the lodge and park of Tattershall Castle. After hearing counsel on the matter, the House decreed on 26 May that the petition be dismissed ‘as coming irregularly here’, and Lincoln was left to apply himself ‘below’ to Chancery to obtain an alternate decree. This was the first of what was to be many occasions in which Lincoln’s ‘irregular’ actions exasperated the House.</p><p>Lincoln was back in England in early 1678. The bill for the naturalization of his French wife was introduced into the House on 1 Feb., quickly passed through both Houses and received the royal assent on 13 May 1678.<sup>15</sup> Lincoln himself first sat in the House on 15 Mar. 1678, and on 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of murder. He only came to nine sittings in that session in total, however, and only one in the following session of summer 1678. His sparse attendance made contemporaries uncertain of his political stance. In the spring of 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered the absent Lincoln, a nephew of his trusted lieutenant Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, only ‘worthy’. Lincoln’s behaviour on one his rare days of attendance, 2 May 1678, when he delivered a speech praising the military prowess of James Stuart*, duke of York, comparing him to Henry V as a scourge of the French, would have cast doubt on Shaftesbury’s earlier assessment.<sup>16</sup> Perhaps for this reason Thomas Osborne*,earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) could, in the weeks preceding the first Exclusion Parliament, consider Lincoln a potential court supporter in the forthcoming impeachment proceedings against him, and even assigned his management to Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>. Lincoln’s most noticeable contribution to the Exclusion Parliaments occurred on 19 Mar. 1679 when he came into the House late in the day (and thus his name is not on the attendance register for that day) and made the House suspend a debate while he took the oaths and signed the declaration. Later that day the House passed a standing order requiring that members needing to take the oaths were to be present for that purpose at the beginning of the day’s sitting, or were to withdraw from the chamber. Lincoln did not sit again in that Parliament, although he did register his proxy on 2 Apr. 1679 with John Granville*, earl of Bath. Danby consistently marked him merely as ‘absent’ in all his subsequent working lists and forecasts, although he still appears to have held out the hope that Lincoln would come to Oxford in March 1681 to help promote his petition for bail.<sup>17</sup></p><p>During the reign of James II contemporaries considered him an opponent of the king’s policies. He came to only three meetings of the first session of the Convention in early 1689, but his actions there, and particularly on the day of his return to the House after almost ten years, confirm that he was a keen, if not over-zealous, Whig supporter of William of Orange. Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, listed Lincoln as one of the four peers who previously had not attended the House and who were instrumental in passing the vote of 6 Feb. 1689 agreeing with the Commons that James II had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was only ‘vacant’. Clarendon described how in order to sway the vote in favour of the Commons’ resolution, ‘all imaginable pains were taken to bring other lords to the House, who never used to come: as the Earl of Lincoln, who, to confirm the opinion several had of his being half-mad, declared he came to do whatever my Lord Shrewsbury [Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury], and Lord Mordaunt [Charles Mordaunt*, 2nd Viscount Mordaunt (later 3rd earl of Peterborough)], would have him’.<sup>18</sup> Roger Morrice provided further details of the extent of Lincoln’s political ‘presbyterianism’:</p><blockquote><p>The Earl of Lincoln also spoke (who does not use to do so) and he desired the Prince and Princess might be declared, and the Bishops opposing so strongly he said all his time the Bishops had opposed all good bills and acts relating to Church and State, especially those that tended to the strengthening of the Protestant Interest, and the encouraging of Religion and godliness, and his forefathers had told him they had done so for above hundred years most openly, and even constantly (since the year Anno 1583 when Whitgift was made Archbishop).<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>His duty to William of Orange done with this vote, Lincoln dropped out of sight again the following day, only returning to the House once more that session, on 24 April. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, noted that on 30 July 1689 Lincoln’s vote was cast by proxy against the decision to adhere to the House’s amendments to the bill reversing the judgments against Titus Oates. The proxy registers for the Convention do not have an entry for Lincoln’s proxy at this time but, if Ailesbury is accurate and he had indeed entrusted his proxy by the time of this vote, it was most likely to Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, for the duke was Lincoln’s proxy recipient on three future occasions in 1689-90, on 23 Nov. 1689, again on 6 Dec. 1689 and on 12 May 1690.</p><p>Lincoln incurred the anger of the House again in November 1689, during the second session of the Convention, for his attempt to suborn Josiah Keeling, the man who had revealed the Rye House Plot in 1683 and who was now a witness for the committee investigating the trials and executions of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney and others (the Committee of Inspections). Lincoln does appear to have been connected, in a shadowy way, with some of the protagonists involved in the Whig conspiracies of the early 1680s. He knew the radical printer and bookseller Samuel Harris, and in early 1682 was reluctant to testify in a case of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> in which he was implicated, for fear ‘he must speak several things that will be … of very great prejudice to Mr Harris’s reputation, particularly in several trusts [he] employed him in’.<sup>20</sup> The radicals themselves appeared to have made much of the kinship of one of their number, Captain William Fiennes-Clinton, to Lincoln, even spreading the rumour, which Lincoln was keen to suppress, that he was heir to the earldom.<sup>21</sup> Lincoln was clearly concerned, it is not clear why, with the testimony he feared Keeling was going to give against George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and, as Keeling later informed the Committee on 25 November, ‘Lord Lincoln sent for him this day, and spoke to him of £3,000 or £4,000 and of going into France’ and ‘he told Lord Lincoln he would be torn in pieces before he would discover anything against any nobleman’ and that he was under great obligations to Halifax for a place in the Victualling Office. According to the <em>Journal</em> Lincoln was never formally appointed to the Committee of Inspections, but the minutes of the Committee suggest that he was there as a member on the 25th and record that when Keeling did inform the committee of this secret meeting, Lincoln exclaimed, ‘My Lords, is not this a rogue? He swore to me he would not tell and now he doth’. On 26 Dec. the House itself summoned Lincoln to appear before it to explain his actions, and he appeared the following day, admitted that he had promised Keeling £3,000 ‘not to speak of a friend of his’, and formally begged the House’s pardon.<sup>22</sup> His appearance in the House that day, one of only three in that session, vacated his proxy with Bolton, with whom it had been registered since 23 Nov. 1689, and Lincoln entrusted it to him again only a few days after this humiliation, on 6 Dec., and never appeared in the Convention again.</p><p>The first session of William III’s first Parliament, in the spring of 1690, was the only session where Lincoln came to the House with anything approaching regularity. He attended 17 of its 54 sittings, or 31 per cent. Roger Morrice recorded that on 1 May 1690, Lincoln intervened in the debate on the State of the Nation.</p><blockquote><p>About noon they something unwillingly read the order [for the State of the Kingdom] and then sat silently about half an hour. Then the Earl of Lincoln said they sat like Quakers in their silent meetings etc. but it may be grief and consternation was the cause of their silence, for they were to take into consideration the State of the Kingdom; which he thought had never been in a sadder condition. They had but three human supports, their Army, their Fleet, and the militia of London. The Army and fleet were in a desperate condition, beyond all hope of being made serviceable, and therefore so he must leave them. For the Militia of London it was in the hands of persons of estate and fidelity to the King, and the Citizens placed entire confidence in them, but the Lieutenancy was changed, and many rascals put into it that were of no estates, that enabled King James to do all the arbitrary things he did, and still retain their old affection to him, and would return to him as soon as they had opportunity.</p></blockquote><p>With this change to a Tory lieutenancy, Lincoln felt, the London citizens had lost confidence and credit had dried up. He then successfully moved that a committee be established ‘to enquire into the reasons of our want of money and of our want of credit; and also who advised the King to change the City Milita, for whilst the City counted themselves safe under that Militia His Majesty upon any occasion might borrow what money he pleased’. On that day as well Lincoln, perhaps intending it as a political parable reflecting the current tussle for influence between the ascendant Tories and the disgruntled Whigs, regaled the House with a bizarre story of how the king of Siam had recently put all his trust and reliance for counsel on his great white elephant, ignoring the advice of his wisest ministers, until the country’s affairs had declined so badly that he finally put away his elephant and turned again to his natural advisers (by which Lincoln would almost certainly have been thinking of the Whigs), upon which the state of his kingdom improved.<sup>23</sup> Shortly after this intervention, Lincoln left the House for a long period again, registering his proxy with Bolton on 12 May 1690 for the last few days of the session.</p><p>In the summer of 1690, with William III away on campaign in Ireland, Queen Mary was left to govern the country, assisted by a ‘cabinet council’ of nine peers and ministers. Her reliance on this Council of Nine, the most trusted of whom were the Tories Carmarthen (as Danby had become) and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, sparked resentment both among the Whigs and within the larger Privy Council who felt sidelined in making decisions. Two of the Whig members of the Council, the earl of Monmouth, as Viscount Mordaunt had become, and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, remonstrated with the queen personally for her decision on 8 July 1690, taken on the advice of Carmarthen, not to attend a meeting of the Privy Council. They told her bluntly that there were many of her privy councillors who would only speak before her and who were offended at being denied her presence. She was outraged at these importunate demands and she must have been even more shocked when, as she was having these arguments with Devonshire and Monmouth, Lincoln was in the ‘gallery’ at Whitehall ‘crying aloud, that five or six lords shut me [the queen] up, and would not let nobody else come near me’. By the ‘five or six’ lords he was almost certainly referring to the Council of Nine, or at least its Tory members.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Lincoln was on a number of occasions censured by the House for his indiscriminate use of protections for his ‘servants’. The House received a petition on 23 Dec. 1690 from William Dixon complaining of the cruel treatment and confinement he had been subjected to by Lincoln’s servants acting under his ‘protection’. Four days later, Lincoln having failed to respond to a summons to explain his continued abuse of this privilege, the House ordered that all protections formally registered by him and a number of other peers were to be vacated. Lincoln did come to the House on 29 Dec., one of only three days, all in late December, on which he attended the House in 1690-91.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Lincoln’s increasingly violent and intemperate acts brought him to the attention of the House again in his last parliamentary session, that of 1691-2, when he came to only 17 sittings. After sitting for four days in November 1691, he registered his proxy with Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, on 9 Jan. 1692, but vacated it by beginning to attend the House again from 1 Feb. for the proceedings on the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He appears to have had a great interest in this matter for his attendance throughout February 1692 was steady and regular. He almost certainly supported the bill, for during the course of the debate on its second reading on 17 Feb. 1692 he got into a bad-tempered exchange with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, one of the bill’s opponents. The exchange, as recorded in the <em>Journal</em>, and confirmed by other members of the House, was that Rochester had exclaimed after a comment by Lincoln, ‘That noble lord takes great liberty with the House’, to which Lincoln responded audibly, ‘I do not take so much liberty with the House as you do with the nation’. Lincoln was subsequently summoned to the bar to apologize, before which he received a harangue from the acting Speaker, Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>: ‘Your Lordship ought to kneel, but in respect to your Lordship’s unwieldiness, their Lordships are pleased to dispense with that part of your submission. … I am further commanded to let you know, that the Lords have observed, that you are apt to take too great a liberty in your discourse in this House … which the Lords expect that for the future you should take care to avoid’.<sup>26</sup> Perhaps the comment that earned Lincoln his original rebuke from Rochester was that recounted in a newsletter account of that day’s proceedings, that Lincoln had ‘told the great marquess of Carmarthen, that he was not surprised why that noble peer was against divorce of adulteresses; for he was afraid having [<em>sic</em>] all his daughters should be turned on his hands’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Lincoln received the reprehension and disapproval of the House on other matters during that session. It accepted another petition against Lincoln’s use of protections on 12 Feb. 1692. Far more serious was his alleged involvement in the assault and apparent murder of Anthony Webb. In November 1691 two of Lincoln’s servants had seriously beaten the young Webb, perhaps on the orders of Lincoln, for ‘gazing at him in the street’. The boy had later died of his wounds, and while the servants were later acquitted of murder on extenuating circumstances, Lincoln, on 12 Apr. 1692 and as one of the last pieces of business on that day of prorogation, entered a recognizance in the sum of £4,000 for his appearance at the next session of Parliament ‘to answer what shall be objected against him by Mr Webb, of Kensington, for the death of his son’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Lincoln did not attend the first day of the next (1692-3) session. In his absence, it was alleged, once again, that he was issuing too many unwarranted protections, and on 21 Nov. 1692 a motion in the House to vacate all his protections was defeated. The following day, upon the House’s particular summons, he was present at the end of the sitting to account for his protections, upon which he asked the pardon of the House, removed his protection from some of his ‘servants’ and promised to grant no more.<sup>29</sup> This was Lincoln’s last appearance in the House, and he was there on 22 Nov. 1692 more to be reprimanded than to take part in the House’s proceedings. He died only three days later at his house in Bloomsbury Square.<sup>30</sup> Childless throughout his marriage, in his will of 6 Nov. 1684 he had strictly entailed his heavily mortgaged lands and his household goods at Tattershall Castle to his male heir, his second cousin once removed Sir Francis Clinton, without making any provision at all for his wife (who was still alive when the will was made) nor for any of his closer relations. The will was later contested, first unsuccessfully by his own mother, Lady Clinton, and then more successfully several years later by the heirs general of the 4th earl of Lincoln. They argued that the strict settlement made in the will of 1684 had been later rendered void by the terms of a marriage settlement the 5th earl had entered into in 1691 when he was considering marriage with Anne Calvert, although the marriage did not take place.<sup>31</sup> At the time of his death in 1692 the terms of the will were accepted, and his distant kinsman Sir Francis Clinton inherited both the peerage and the estate and goods settled on him.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CLINTON, Francis (c.1635-93) |
<p><strong><surname>CLINTON</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>FIENNES</strong>), <strong>Francis</strong> (c.1635-93)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 25 Nov. 1692 as 6th earl of LINCOLN |
|
First sat 27 Jan. 1693; last sat 14 Mar. 1693 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1635, 1st s. of Francis Clinton (<em>alias</em> Fiennes)<sup>‡</sup> of Stourton Parva, Lincs. and Priscilla, da. of John Hill of Baumber, Lincs. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m.</em> (1) c.1659, Elizabeth (<em>bur.</em> 11 Dec. 1677), da. of Sir William Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>, of Honiley, Warws., 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> (2) c.1683, Susannah (<em>d.</em> 23 Sept. 1720), da. of Arthur Penniston, of Stow, Lincs., 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 1 da. kt. 14 May 1661; <em>suc</em>. fa. 5 Feb. 1682. <em>d</em>. bet. 25 Aug.-3 Sept. 1693; <em>will</em> 25 Aug., pr. 29 Dec. 1693.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. pens. 1662-7.</p><p>Capt., Sir John Sayers’s Regt. of Ft. June-July 1667.</p> |
|
<p>At the death of the childless Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, in November 1692, his title and estates passed to a distant cousin, Sir Francis Clinton. However, in the early 1680s another kinsman, Captain William Fiennes-Clinton, a noted Exclusionist and acolyte of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, had been widely considered ‘next heir to the earldom of Lincoln’.<sup>2</sup> Perhaps because of this continuing uncertainty of the succession, the 5th earl explicitly named Sir Francis Clinton as his heir and entailed his lands and personal goods to him when he composed his will in November 1684.<sup>3</sup> Both Captain Fiennes-Clinton and Sir Francis could claim the title through descent from Henry Clinton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Lincoln, but Sir Francis’s claim was the stronger as he was descended through the male line from an elder son of the earl. Sir Francis’s own father Francis Clinton<sup>‡</sup> (the 2nd earl’s grandson) appears to have owned considerable property around Baumber in Lincolnshire and was involved in the administration of that county, serving as its member in two of the Protectorate parliaments, throughout the 1640s and 1650s. The younger Francis Clinton was also closely connected with the courtier and fen drainage undertaker, Sir William Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>, who was both his maternal uncle and, later, his father-in-law, as Clinton married Killigrew’s only daughter Elizabeth. Probably through Killigrew’s court connections, Clinton was knighted shortly after the Restoration, and after his father-in-law was appointed vice-chamberlain to the queen consort in 1662 he became immersed in the life of Charles II’s royal household. Both Clinton’s wife and mother-in-law were made dressers to the queen, and Clinton himself was briefly a gentleman pensioner at court between 1662 and 1667. <sup>4</sup> He, like his importunate father-in-law, notorious for his constant efforts to reclaim lost lands in the Lindsey Level, maintained an interest in the Lincolnshire fenlands and was a commissioner of sewers for that county in the 1660s.<sup>5</sup></p><p>He had to wait until the 5th earl of Lincoln’s death in November 1692 before he could inherit the titles and heavily mortgaged lands promised him in the will of 1684. There was still sufficient doubt about this succession that when Sir Francis first appeared at the House with his writ of summons on 25 Jan. 1693 he was told to wait to take his oaths until the committee for privileges, with the assistance of the heralds, had properly judged of the validity of his pedigree. Two days later, on 27 Jan. 1693, it was reported from committee that ‘the pedigree is clear’, whereupon Sir Francis took the oaths and assumed his seat on the earls’ bench.<sup>6</sup> Having achieved this confirmation of his right to sit in the House, he then absented himself for almost two weeks, but the House excused this absence on 4 Feb. upon the report from Lincoln's servants of his serious illness which made him ‘not able to stir’. He returned on 9 Feb. and sat throughout February and early March for 15 of the remaining 38 sittings of the 1692-3 session. On 8 Mar. 1693 he entered his protest against the passage of the measure to revive a number of bills facing expiration, objecting principally to the revival of the act for print censorship as it would ‘subject all learning to the arbitrary will and pleasure of a mercenary licenser’. Two days later he was appointed a reporter for a conference on the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ amendment to the bill to enable grants and leases to be made for lands in the duchy of Cornwall, and after the conference he was placed on the committee assigned to draft reasons in defence of the amendment. His brief parliamentary career ended with the prorogation of the session on 14 Mar., as he died only a few months later in late August 1693. William Fiennes-Clinton’s claims to the earldom still appear to have been current at this time, as Luttrell, on first recording the death of the 6th earl, recorded that he ‘is succeeded by Capt. Clinton in his honour and estate’. In a subsequent entry a few days later, Luttrell was better informed and correctly wrote that the title now descended to Lincoln’s eldest son Henry, a minor of ‘about seven years of age’, then in the care, like his younger siblings, of the dowager countess.<sup>7</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CLINTON, Henry (1686-1728) |
<p><strong><surname>CLINTON</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>FIENNES</strong>), <strong>Henry</strong> (1686–1728)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Clinton 1692-3; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1 Sept. 1693 (a minor) as 7th earl of LINCOLN |
|
First sat 25 Mar. 1708; last sat 11 May 1728 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1686,<sup>1</sup> 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Francis Clinton*, (later 6th earl of Lincoln) and his 2nd w. Susannah, da. of Arthur Penniston, of Stow, Lincs.; bro. of Hon. George Clinton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Wolfenbüttel 1705.<sup>2</sup> <em>m.</em> 16 May 1717, Lucy (<em>d</em>.1736), da. of Thomas Pelham*, Bar. Pelham, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 5da. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KG 25 Apr. 1721. <em>d.</em> 7 Sept. 1728; <em>admon</em>. 31 Oct. 1728 to wid.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber, Prince of Denmark Aug.?-Oct. 1708,<sup>4</sup> George I 1714-27; master of horse, Prince of Wales Sept.-Nov. 1714; paymaster-gen. (jt.) 1715-20; PC 26 Oct. 1715-<em>d.</em>; cofferer 1725-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Constable, Tower of London 1723-5; ld. lt., Tower Hamlets 1723-5, Cambs. 28 Mar. 1728-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1721 (joint portrait with Thomas Pelham Holles*, duke of Newcastle), NPG 3215; oils on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, aft. 1721, Univ. of Nottingham (acc. no. UON.045).</p> |
<p>Henry Clinton, son of Sir Francis Clinton*, 6th earl of Lincoln, was seven years old when he inherited the title upon his father’s death in early September 1693. On 6 Nov. 1696 his mother Susanna, dowager countess of Lincoln, submitted a petition to the House begging for the revocation of a chancery decree of earlier that June which had given much of the Clinton estates in Lincolnshire to Samuel Rolle<sup>‡</sup>, Hugh Fortescue<sup>‡</sup>, and Vere Booth. Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, had entailed his lands and personal goods at Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire to his heir male Sir Francis Clinton in his will of 6 Nov. 1684. Rolle, Fortescue and Booth, cousins to the 5th earl through the daughters of Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, their mutual grandfather, argued successfully in chancery that the strict settlement made in this will had been later rendered void by the terms of a marriage settlement the 5th earl had entered into in 1691, when he was proposing to marry Anne Calvert.<sup>9</sup> Consideration of the matter was continuously postponed throughout December 1696 and January 1697 as the House dealt with the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, but eventually in a close division, the House on 21 Jan. 1697 rejected the petition and upheld the decree by only two votes, thus depriving the young lord of a large part of his estate, worth £2,500 a year.<sup>10</sup> In the early part of his career, then, Lincoln found himself without sufficient landed income to maintain his dignity and was in constant need of a pension and office. From 1698 until the time he came of age in 1707 Lincoln’s mother received a pension of around £200 a year ‘as royal bounty towards the support and maintenance’ of her son.<sup>11</sup> Sometime in 1703 or 1704 Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, then in exile in the Netherlands, conferred with the visiting captain-general John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, on English politics and the means of managing an unruly House of Lords. Among his other recommendations Ailesbury suggested that Marlborough ‘add to the pensions given to the poor peers who had come to the title by entail without any estate but the little they had before’, singling out in this Lincoln, ‘then my neighbour in Bedfordshire where he lived in an obscure manner for want of what to support him in his dignity; else a person altogether unknown to me’.<sup>12</sup> Lincoln‘s guardians were anxious when he went to Wofenbüttel in Hanover to study in 1705 that he would not be able to live according to his quality. He was at that time,</p><blockquote><p>very industrious to qualify himself for the army to live in some figure, which the misfortune of losing the greatest part of his estate will not let him do, without some employment, and though his present circumstances will not allow him to pay the salary that belongs to his quality, he will content himself to be upon the same foot with gentlemen’s sons rather than lose the opportunity of learning his exercises.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>After he came of age, Lincoln was made a gentleman of the bedchamber to George*, prince of Denmark (also duke of Cumberland), with a salary of £600 p.a., and even after the prince’s death in October 1708 he continued to claim that pension for the next several years.<sup>14</sup> He first took his seat in the House on 25 Mar. 1708, one week before the final prorogation and eventual dissolution of Anne’s second Parliament in early April 1708. His political career really began in the following Parliament starting in November 1708, where he was present at 69 per cent of each of its two sessions. In the first session (1708-9) he was named to drafting committees on 23 Dec. 1708 and 1 Mar. 1709 for addresses to the queen concerning the continental war. Dependent upon the court for his pension, he supported the ministry of Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, against the attacks of the Whig Junto by voting on 21 Jan. 1709 that the queen’s commissioner in Scotland, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], recently created a peer of Great Britain as duke of Dover and an ally of Godolphin, had the right to vote in the election of the Scots representative peers. Despite this vote for the court he was already at this point on friendly social terms with a large number of Whigs, including some lieutenants of the Junto. According to the diary of Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville) only a few days after this vote, on 24 Jan. 1709, Lincoln dined at the house of Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, with Bolton’s client, George Rodney Brydges<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Winchester, and a number of other Whigs. Lincoln also dined with Ossulston, Bolton, Brydges and a number of the same dining companions on 3 March.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In the 1709-10 session he was noted for his opposition to Dr. Henry Sacheverell. Lincoln diligently attended the hearings on Sacheverell throughout February and March 1710 and often, according to Ossulston’s diary, had his dinner in the House of Lords with his companions during the long hearings and debates on the impeachment. On 17 Mar. 1710 Ossulston dined in the House with Lincoln, Bolton and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester.<sup>16</sup> Three days after that Lincoln voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, and on the following day, 21 March, he voted that Sacheverell should receive no further preferment despite his mitigated sentence.<sup>17</sup> In the last days of the session he acted as a manager in a conference on the Commons’ objections to the House’s amendment to the Edistone (Eddystone) Lighthouse Bill. Lincoln’s animus towards Sacheverell lasted beyond the prorogation of 5 Apr. and in June 1710 it was recounted that he, with Bolton’s son Charles Powlett*, (later 3rd duke of Bolton), at that time Member for Hampshire, George Brydges and a small group of Whig Members, had been in a tavern in Greenwich ‘drinking confusion’ to the doctor. <sup>18</sup> Unfortunately for him and his friends, it was at this time that the Godolphin-Whig ministry began to unravel in the face of the unpopularity of the prosecution of Sacheverell, leading to the reshaping of the ministry and the elections of that autumn.</p><p>Lincoln maintained much the same attendance level in the first two sessions of the new Tory-dominated Parliament, coming to 65 per cent of each of the 1710-11 and 1711-12 sessions. In the months before the first meeting of Parliament in November 1710, Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford) felt that Lincoln’s political affiliation could be ‘doubtful’, especially as he was so dependent on the government’s largesse. But Lincoln quickly revealed a continuing firm allegiance to the Whigs, regardless of its affect on his finances. On 11-12 Jan. 1711 he joined 35 other members, almost all of them Whigs, in signing three protests against the resolutions condemning the generals Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] and James Stanhope*, (later Earl Stanhope) for their conduct of the war in Spain and against the rejection of the generals’ petitions to be heard in their own defence. This potentially dangerous defiance of the ministry was remarked on by Lincoln’s colleagues. Anne Clavering wrote to her brother James on 16 Jan. of ‘that glorious honest youth, Lord Lincoln, who has nothing but a pension to depend on, and votes for his country’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Lincoln continued to defend the previous ministry’s policy in the Spanish war and on 3 Feb. 1711 he subscribed to two protests against resolutions of the House condemning the Whig ministers’ ‘neglect of their service’ by inadequately supplying the troops in Spain. Regardless of these protests the House was intent on drafting a representation strongly condemning the former war policy in Spain. Ossulston recorded that on 7 Feb. 1711 he attended a dinner at the house of Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, where also present were Lincoln, Manchester and Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans. Perhaps they were gathered to discuss strategy to counter this growing attack. Certainly Lincoln joined in two protests on 8 Feb. in an attempt to prevent the address being delivered to the queen, and the following day he and 19 other Whig members were impelled to subscribe to a further three protests against the resolutions that expunged from the <em>Journal</em> the reasons given in the earlier protest of 3 February. That same day, Lincoln was again found in the company of Whigs, dining at Ossulston’s with Halifax, St Albans, Evelyn Pierrepoint*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston) and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire. Ossulston’s diary further shows that over the following few days Lincoln continued to be a participant at dinners and gatherings of Whig peers and commoners, particularly Dorchester, Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton and Robert Darcy*, 3rd earl of Holdernesse.<sup>20</sup> Lincoln also ensured that when he was away from the House for a brief period of time between 17 and 26 May 1711 his proxy was in the hands of a Whig, Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton. In addition, from 8 June 1711 until the prorogation four days later Lincoln held the proxy of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.</p><p>On 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the 1711-12 session, Lincoln defied the ministry once again, despite the lobbying attempts and confidence of Harley, now earl of Oxford, by voting in favour of the additional clause to the address of thanks to the queen emphasizing that there should be ‘No Peace without Spain’. On 20 Dec. he voted to deny the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as a peer of Great Britain, duke of Brandon. Two days following this he was placed on a drafting committee for an address requesting the queen to order her plenipotentiaries in Utrecht to maintain a strict correspondence with the ambassadors of the Allied powers in order to effect a mutual ‘Guaranty’ to ensure a Protestant Succession in Britain. He registered his proxy briefly with Mohun from 11 to 13 Feb. and again from 25 to 30 May 1712. He is recorded in a contemporary pamphlet as having voted on 28 May 1712 in favour of the motion to address the queen against the ‘restraining orders’ which had been issued to the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke Ormond, ordering him not to engage in offensive military action against the French, but it is likely that this vote was made through his proxy with Mohun rather than in person.<sup>21</sup> Lincoln later also joined 25 other members in protesting against the decision of 7 June 1712 to remove from the House’s reply to the queen’s speech on the peace terms a clause insisting on a mutual guarantee among the allied powers for the Protestant succession.</p><p>At this time Lincoln was a member of both the Kit-Kat Club and of the Hanover Club.<sup>22</sup> His Tory adversary Jonathan Swift also included him among the prominent Whigs who were members of the spurious ‘Calves’ Head Club’ and who were reputedly able to indulge in self-delusion through their constant inebriation at these gatherings. Under the influence of drink, Swift suggested, ‘Lincoln then imagines he has land’.<sup>23</sup> His loyalty to the Whig cause and his financial desperation were also noted by supporters of the Hanoverian succession in England. John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, suggested early in 1712 to the Hanoverian agent in England, Bothmer, that the Elector provide Lincoln with a pension of £600 in order to secure his continuing opposition to a separate Anglo-French peace. Lincoln came to just over three-quarters of the session beginning in April 1713 in which the terms of the Peace were laid out before the House. He most likely opposed them and in June 1713 Oxford predicted that he would vote against the French commercial treaty – if it ever came before the House. Such diligence and fidelity led Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in July 1713 to suggest to another envoy from Hanover that the earl be given a pension of £1,000 p.a. to secure his support. About the earl he commented that he was ‘not paid a farthing of his pension, as one of the Prince’s servants and has hardly bread’.</p><p>Lincoln maintained his highest attendance record in the Parliaments of Queen Anne in the first session of the new Parliament beginning in February 1714, in which he attended 87 per cent of the sittings. In late May Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, was sure that Lincoln would vote against the Schism Bill. Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, may have made the same calculation and registered his proxy with Lincoln on 11 June, just before the Schism Bill came to a vote. Lincoln’s two votes against the bill were to no avail, but he did subscribe to the large protest against the bill’s passage on 15 June. Lincoln was able to hold his full complement of two proxies from 29 June, when Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, also registered his proxy with him. Lincoln held both proxies until the end of the session. On its penultimate day, 8 July, Lincoln protested against the resolution not to bring to the queen’s attention abuses in the disposition of the Assiento which, the Whigs alleged, was being used by individuals such as Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, for personal gain. Lincoln dutifully came to all but three sittings of the session of August 1714 which took steps to ensure a peaceful Hanoverian Succession following the death of Anne, and from 5 Aug. he also held the proxy of John Sydney*, 6th earl of Leicester, for the rest of the session.</p><p>He may have been so assiduous in August 1714 because, as a supporter of the Hanoverian Succession who had even spent time at the Hanoverian academy at Wolfenbüttel, he could have expectations of being rewarded by the new king. Lincoln was quickly made a gentleman of the bedchamber for the new king in October 1714. The following month he submitted a petition claiming that he was due £2,100 in arrears of his annual pension of £600, payment of which Oxford had deliberately withheld in an unsuccessful attempt to force him to support the ministry. In November 1714 Lincoln was given £1,800 as partial payment of these arrears <sup>24</sup> He served as bearer of the second crown at the coronation of the new king and played a prominent role on the second day of the new king’s Parliament, on 21 Mar. 1715, in helping to introduce to the House five new recently created or promoted peers. Most rewarding, both financially and in terms of prestige, was his appointment in October 1715 as joint paymaster-general of the armed forces, with a salary of £3,000 p.a. and an <em>ex officio</em> place on the Privy Council.<sup>25</sup> After this lucrative office had been handed over in 1720 to Robert Walpole*, (later earl of Orford), Lincoln in recompense was installed, in 1721, as a knight of the garter and further made, in 1725, cofferer of the royal Household.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Lincoln’s most surprising stroke of good fortune came from an unexpected quarter, the admiral Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, who bequeathed in his will of April 1716 much of his estate, including the manor house of Oatlands in Weybridge, Surrey, and 10,000 acres in the Bedford Level, to the impecunious Whig stalwart.<sup>27</sup> An anecdote recounts that ‘Lord Torrington, one day at table with his heir at law (probably Henry Herbert*, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury), whom he hated, the conversation turned upon the poor Quality in England’. One of the party mentioned the worthiness and poverty of Lincoln, ‘a noble family, with only £500 per annum’, after which Torrington, ‘though he never saw Lord Lincoln, left him his estate of £6,000 per annum at his death, which happened a few days after’.<sup>28</sup> This legacy also included, at least by one probably exaggerated account, a bequest of £120,000 to Lincoln, and an auction of some of Torrington’s moveable goods raised £3,000 for the earl. It also involved Lincoln and his agents in years of litigation and parliamentary lobbying to secure the estate.<sup>29</sup> One correspondent of Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, commented on Torrington’s impulsive generosity that ‘Everybody is surprised that my Lord Torrington should do so generous and right a thing as to leave his estate to Lord Lincoln, and in his will he says he leaves it him for his public virtue. This is very surprising in a man that had neither public nor private virtue himself.’<sup>30</sup></p><p>With his lucrative government offices and this unexpected legacy from a distant stranger, Lincoln’s fortunes were suddenly transformed, and were then further enhanced by his marriage in May 1717 to Lucy Pelham, daughter of Thomas Pelham*, Baron Pelham, and sister to Thomas Pelham Holles*, duke of Newcastle, and of Henry Pelham<sup>‡</sup>. The 7th earl’s new family connections to some of Britain’s leading statesmen and magnates bound him more tightly to the Whigs and increased his standing among them. During the remainder of George I’s reign, Lincoln remained a leading member of the Whig ascendancy, newly wealthy, landed, and with strong family connections to an increasingly powerful political family. It was a dramatic transformation from his early impecunious days.</p><p>During the reign of George I, Lincoln was an energetic member of the House, who acted there as a leading spokesmen and proxy manager for the Whig ministry and Hanoverian court which had rewarded him so well. A far more detailed account of his political activities in and out of the House during the reign of George I will appear in the 1715-90 volumes on the House of Lords. Lincoln died intestate at his mansion of Oatlands on 7 Sept. 1728. His earldom and lands, those unexpectedly gained through Torrington’s bequest, were inherited in succession by his two surviving sons, George Clinton*, 8th earl of Lincoln and Henry Fiennes Clinton*, 9th earl of Lincoln, whose ties to the Pelham family were reinforced by his marriage to his cousin and who succeeded his Pelham uncle as duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne in November 1768 under the terms of a special remainder.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
CLINTON, Theophilus (1599-1667) |
<p><strong><surname>CLINTON</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>FIENNES</strong>), <strong>Theophilus</strong> (1599–1667)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Clinton and Say 1616-19; <em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Jan. 1619 (a minor) as 4th earl of LINCOLN |
|
First sat before 1660, 30 Jan. 1621; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 8 Feb. 1667 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1599,<sup>1</sup> 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Thomas Clinton<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Lincoln, and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Sir Henry Knyvet<sup>‡</sup>, of Charlton, Wilts. <em>educ</em>. Queens’, Camb. 1618; G. Inn 1620. <em>m.</em> (1) c.1622, Bridget (<em>d</em>.1646), da. of William Fiennes*, Visct. Saye and Sele, 2s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 8da. (bet. 5 and 7 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) c.1646, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em>1675), da. of Sir Arthur Gorges<sup>‡</sup>, of Chelsea, Mdx., wid. of Sir Robert Stanley<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1632), <em>s.p</em>. KB 4 Nov. 1616. <em>d.</em> 21 May 1667; <em>will</em> 21 May 1667, deposed before PCC 28 Sept. 1667, inventory 8 Oct. 1667.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. to Scottish Army in England 1645; excise 1646; exclusion from sacrament 1646; sale of bishops’ lands 1646; compounding 1647; appeals at Oxf. Univ. 1647; appeals from ordinance of indemnity 1647; affairs of Ireland 1647; scandalous offences 1648,<sup>3</sup> plantations 1660.</p><p>Commr. sewers, Lincs. 1632, 1635, 1638, 1657, 1658, 1659, 1660, 1664,<sup>4</sup> to receive papers taken in sequestrations, Lincs. 1643, militia, Lincs. 1660, assessment, Lincs. 1657.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Col., brig. of horse, Count Mansfeld’s expedition, Nov. 1624-Jan. 1625;<sup>6</sup> col., regt. of ft. (Parl.), Sept. 1642-Aug. 1643?<sup>7</sup></p><p>Council for the Royal Fishing 1661.<sup>8</sup></p> |
|
<p>Theophilus Clinton’s ancestor John de Clinton had been raised to the peerage as Lord Clinton in the fourteenth century. They became coheirs of the Say barony after the death of the last Lord Say in 1399 and then styled themselves Lords Clinton and Say. The other coheir of the title was the family of Fiennes, one of whose members was created Lord Say and Sele in 1447. Perhaps to cement his own claim to the Say title, John, 6th Lord Clinton and Say, married a Fiennes and from that point on the Clintons also took the surname Fiennes for themselves. Theophilus Clinton’s great-grandfather, Edward Clinton<sup>+</sup>, 9th Lord Clinton and Say, served the Tudor monarchs from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, for which he was rewarded with former monastic lands in Lincolnshire by Henry VIII and created earl of Lincoln by Elizabeth I. In 1664 the earl calculated that the income from his Lincolnshire estates, or at least from his principal manor of Folkingham, stood at £3,000 a year.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Theophilus Clinton inherited the title and its Lincolnshire lands in 1619 when he was only 19 years old. In 1622 he solidified his family’s connection with the Fiennes by his marriage to Bridget Fiennes. This was a natural alliance because of the families’ distant kinship and perhaps owing as well to similar political and religious views. Lincoln came from a Puritan household, stamped by the influence of his mother, Elizabeth Knyvet, dowager countess of Lincoln. He attended Queens’ College, Cambridge, where his religious instruction would have been conducted by the Puritan John Preston. Many of his connections participated in the early Puritan emigration to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His younger sisters Arabella and Susan were among the early colonists as were, more prominently, his estate steward Thomas Dudley, and Dudley’s daughter Anne and son-in-law Simon Bradstreet. Both Thomas Dudley and Simon Bradstreet, later served as governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Lincoln himself was hauled before the High Commission in the 1639 in a case involving impropriated tithes, although in this case he took pains to stress to Laud his wish ‘to wash my hands before you from the charges of demolishing or profaning the Church’.<sup>12</sup> Two of Lincoln’s own daughters were to marry leading Puritans and Parliamentarians from the West Country, Robert Rolle<sup>‡ </sup>and Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup>, while another married the Cheshire Presbyterian Sir George Booth*, later Baron Delamer.</p><p>Lincoln joined his father-in-law in opposing, and even actively resisting, the fiscal and religious policies of Charles I, and he was imprisoned for a time in the Tower for refusing to pay the Forced Loan.<sup>13</sup> Personal and political interests coincided in the Parliaments of 1640 when he pursued a long-standing dispute with the royalist leader Robert Bertie<sup>†</sup>, earl of Lindsey, over drainage schemes in the fens of south-eastern Lincolnshire, which Lincoln claimed were doing irreparable damage to his own property.<sup>14</sup> In the early stages of the Civil Wars Lincoln fought for Parliament, but he subsequently became alienated from the more radical developments in Parliament. He declined to swear the Covenant and from late 1645 voted consistently with the Presbyterian lords, usually in opposition to his father-in-law Saye and Sele, whose influence on him may have decreased after his second marriage to his cousin, the widow of Sir Robert Stanley<sup>‡</sup>, younger brother of the royalist James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby.<sup>15</sup> Lincoln was one of the seven peers impeached by the Commons in 1647 for supporting the City Presbyterian uprising against the Army.<sup>16</sup> He returned to the House in early June 1648 after the charges were dropped but stopped attending the House entirely after Pride’s Purge and did not take any part in the king’s trial and execution.<sup>17</sup> An informant later told the Council of State that in the projected rebellions of 1651, Lincoln was looked upon by the exiled court as one ‘that would freely engage upon the Presbyterian score’, but it does not appear that he took part in this or any other uprising during the Interregnum.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In March 1660 Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, drew up a list of the potential composition of the House of Lords in which he included Lincoln among the ‘Lords who sat’ in the House in the 1640s and whom he thought might still be supportive of a Presbyterian church settlement. Lincoln greeted the Restoration enthusiastically and was one of the nine lords who sat in the House on the first day of the Convention. He took an active role in the proceedings of the Convention, attending 90 per cent of the meetings of that assembly. He only missed 15 days in the first part of the Convention which engineered the Restoration. On the very first day, 25 April, he reported from the committee entrusted to draft an order for Henry Scobell’s return of all papers and records of the House. The same day he was also one of the group of eight lords delegated by the House to thank General George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, for his services to the country. On the following two days he was nominated to the committees to make Monck captain-general and to frame an ordinance to establish a committee of safety of Both Houses. On 1 May the House named him to the committee to draft a letter of thanks to Charles II for the Declaration of Breda, and on that same day Lincoln dispatched one of his own servants, William Langton, as the bearer of a letter from Major-General Edward Massey<sup>‡</sup> (who had been impeached for treason with Lincoln in 1647 and was involved in planning the risings of summer 1659) to Charles informing him of both Houses’ acceptance of the Declaration and of Lincoln’s ‘great zeal … for the promoting of your Majesty’s service therein’.<sup>19</sup> In a separate letter to Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, Massey further informed him that ‘Lord Lincoln is much your lordship’s servant’ and that he would soon dispatch William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington, another Lincolnshire landowner, to the Netherlands bearing a letter from Lincoln to the king. The king’s response to this letter, thanking Lincoln for his loyalty and service, was dated 18 May.<sup>20</sup> By that time Lincoln was heavily involved in preparations for the Restoration. On 2 May he was placed on the committee to settle the militia and two days later he, with his former father-in-law Saye and Sele, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, and William Craven*, Baron Craven, were assigned to draw up an order to repeal and annul an act of the House of 20 July 1642 barring nine peers from sitting in the House. Four days later he was appointed to the committee of both Houses assigned to prepare the realm for the return of the king, and on 10 May he chaired this committee, whose minutes are among the records of the committee for privileges.<sup>21</sup> He was also named to the committee to consider what votes passed by the Convention should be presented to the king upon his arrival. On 14 May he gave evidence before the House ‘that there was another person’, apart from a Justice Baynes then under consideration by the House, ‘that had spoken other treasonable words against the king’. The next day he was placed on the committee to consider which ordinances made since the abolition of the House in 1649 should be kept and which annulled. He also became heavily involved in a dispute between the Houses over the treatment of the regicides. On 18 May the Commons presented to the House for its concurrence a series of votes ordering the seizure of the persons and estates of those who had sat in judgment of Charles I. Lincoln was part of the select group of three peers – with Saye and Sele and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor) – assigned to consider these votes. The House felt that the Commons’ unilaterally voting these resolutions involving judgments against the regicides was an entrenchment on the House’s own judicature. To make this point Lincoln’s committee rewrote the Commons’ vote – largely to the same effect and purpose but with different wording – and the House requested a conference with the lower House to make its concerns clear. The committee drew up the points for the conference, which was managed for the House on 19 May by its Speaker Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. The Commons objected and at a further conference on 22 May the Commons complained of a printed version of the House’s revised order that the Lords had issued without consulting them and further argued that the matter was not about judicature. Lincoln was appointed to the committee established to develop a further answer to the lower House’s complaints. By this time his attention was taken up by the imminent arrival of the restored king, and he left the House on 22 May in order to gather a large body of gentlemen to go with him to greet Charles II at Dover.<sup>22</sup></p><p>After the return of the king to Westminster, Lincoln’s activity in the House dropped steeply. From being nominated to about one committee a day throughout May, he was appointed to only five committees from 1 June until the summer adjournment of the Convention. However, his local knowledge was occasionally utilized. One committee to which he was named, on 16 July, was for a bill for nominating commissioners of sewers, an office with which he had long experience as he had served intermittently as a commissioner of sewers for Lincolnshire for the past three decades. <sup>23</sup> Another bill to whose committee he was only subsequently added on 3 Sept. dealt with the fens and their drainage. His lack of appointments may have stemmed from royalist distrust of the old Parliamentarian, despite his effusive professions of loyalty to Charles II and Hyde in mid-May. In keeping with Charles II’s stated wishes for the speedy passage of a merciful bill with few exemptions he protested against the decision of 1 Aug. 1660 to exempt wholly the former Parliamentarian leaders, Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup>, Arthur Hasilrigg<sup>‡</sup>, John Lambert<sup>‡</sup>, Daniel Axtell<sup>‡</sup> and Francis Hacker<sup>‡</sup> from the Indemnity Bill. He was the only peer to do so but predictably the Lords’ intervention did lead to renewed conflict with the Commons and slowed the passage of the bill. Lincoln was assiduous in his attendance when the Convention resumed in November 1660, and missed only two of the sitting days before the dissolution on 29 December. He was named to only eight committees on legislation, mostly on bills concerning individuals, as well as that for the observation of the Sabbath on 15 Dec. 1660.</p><p>Lincoln attended the Cavalier Parliament regularly (except for the short session of October 1665) until his death in May 1667, sitting in at least half the meetings of each session until late 1666. He came to two-thirds of the first session of 1661-2, when he was named to 19 select committees. He was nominated to eight committees in the first part of the session before the summer adjournment. He voted in favour of the claim made on 11 July 1661 by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the lord great chamberlaincy, an office then held by Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, son and heir of Lincoln’s fenland rival the 1st earl of Lindsey. In this part of the session he used Parliament to settle personal matters and to insist on his privileges. On 24 July, Lincoln complained to the House that his privilege had been breached when the under-sheriff of Middlesex and his men had violently broken into his house in Chelsea and distrained goods. The House referred the matter to the committee for privileges and on 26 July, after being ordered peremptorily by the House to meet, the committee heard copious testimony from the earl and countess of Lincoln and from the under-sheriff in this matter.<sup>24</sup> The Middlesex officials all swore that according to their records the house in question belonged to Sir Charles Stanley, Lincoln’s stepson. The Clintons and Lincoln’s wife’s family, the Gorges, had long held property in Chelsea from a common Clinton ancestor, Henry Clinton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Lincoln.<sup>25</sup> Using the overlapping and complicated histories of Clinton/Gorges ownership in Chelsea, Lincoln may have been claiming the house as his own in order to use his privileges to protect his debt-ridden and troubled stepson. Four days after this case, and on the day of Parliament’s summer adjournment, 30 July 1661, Lincoln brought a further complaint of breach of privilege before the House, and produced affidavits to prove that Sir Lawrence Goodman had illegally entered into his grounds in Threckingham, ‘and destroyed the mounds and hedges and by force took away part of the hay’.</p><p>On 28 May 1661 Lincoln had been put on the committee to consider the petition submitted by the Quakers. After the session had resumed he was on 26 Nov. further entrusted to consider the bill for ‘preventing mischiefs and dangers’ from this group of Nonconformists. He was appointed to two further committees that month. He was largely absent from the House from 11 Dec. 1661 and returned in early February 1662. On 6 Feb. 1662 he registered his proxy with John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater and vacated this proxy upon his return to the House on 26 February. From this part of the session to its end he was named to a further eight committees.</p><p>Lincoln was named to only one committee, on an estate bill, in the session of 1663, where he attended 56 per cent of the sittings. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, forecast that he would oppose George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, in his attempt to impeach Clarendon. Lincoln came to 30 sittings of the session of spring 1664, 83 per cent of the meetings, but was not named to any committees on legislation. In the session of 1664-5, when he came to just over two-thirds of the sittings, he dissented on 29 Nov. 1664 from the House’s order that the lord chancellor reverse a decree in Chancery concerning the son of Baron Robartes. Lincoln, one of only two protestors, was concerned that as Robartes’s son was a member of the Commons this peremptory order would engender a jurisidictional row between the Houses and, furthermore, that the order ‘opens a gap to set up an arbitrary power in the Chancery’.<sup>26</sup> He was named to only three committees on estate bills, but two of these had family and local connections to him: a bill to restore in blood his stepson, Sir Charles Stanley (27 Feb. 1665), and one to entrust the newly elected Member for Lincolnshire, Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>, with part of his paternal estate (22 February).</p><p>Lincoln missed the session of October 1665 in Oxford entirely and then came to only 38 per cent of the sittings of the 1666-7 session. He first sat in this session on 13 Nov. 1666 but that day registered his proxy with William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, who held it until Lincoln’s return to the House on 18 December. Lincoln on 23 Jan. 1667 protested against the resolution not to add a clause allowing for appeals to the king and the House of Lords to the bill for adjudicating disputes arising from the Great Fire. On 4 Feb. 1667 he was appointed to a committee for another bill dealing with his troubled stepson, Sir Charles Stanley. Having managed to have his bloodline restored by the previous act of 1665, this bill sought to appoint trustees to make leases of Stanley’s property to pay debts and provide maintenance for his children. Lincoln was also appointed to a further four committees on legislation.</p><p>Lincoln died, apparently suddenly, on 21 May 1667, ‘whilst going upstairs to bed’.<sup>27</sup> Writing to her brother Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, commented ‘My Lord Lincoln has left his Lady a widow and no rich one’.<sup>28</sup> By his will, hurriedly written and signed on the day he died, he entrusted his lands and tithes in Pointon, Swayton and other manors in Lincolnshire to trustees to pay off his debts and then to distribute the residue among his wife and two grandchildren. This will was not transcribed in the official registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury because it appears to have quickly become a matter of dispute. In 1668 the dowager countess of Lincoln submitted a petition to the king complaining that as the deceased earl’s named executors and trustees refused to act for her, she had been induced to ask her step-grandson to take out letters of administration for her, but found that now he was keeping her goods for himself and refusing to release her jointure of the manors of Threckingham.<sup>29</sup> This was Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, who had inherited the peerage with its troubled estate at the age of about fourteen.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
COLEPEPER, John (1600-60) |
<p><strong><surname>COLEPEPER</surname></strong> (<strong>CULPEPER</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1600–60)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>21 Oct. 1644 Bar. COLEPEPER |
|
First sat 6 June 1660; last sat 16 June 1660 |
|
MP Rye 1640 (Apr.); Kent 1640 (Nov.)-22 Jan. 1644 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 17 Aug. 1600, 2nd s. of Thomas Colepeper (1561-1613) of Salehurst, Suss. and Anne (<em>d</em>.1602), da. of Sir Stephen Slaney of London.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. ?Peterhouse, Camb. 1611; Hart Hall, Oxf. 1616; M. Temple Feb. 1618. <em>m</em>. (1) 29 Oct. 1628, Philippa (1610-30), da. of Sir George Snelling, of West Grinstead, Suss. 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>, 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>; (2) c. 12 Jan. 1631, Judith (1606-?91), da. of Sir Thomas Colepeper of Hollingbourne, Kent, 5s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>), 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>).<sup>2</sup> <em>kntd.</em> 14 Jan. 1622. <em>d</em>. 11 July 1660; <em>will</em> 3-9 July, pr. 6 Aug. 1660.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1 Jan. 1642-Mar. 1645 (Charles I), Mar. 1645-<em>d.</em> (Prince of Wales/Charles II);<sup>4</sup> chanc. of Exch. 1642-3; master of the rolls (royalist) 1643-6, 1 June 1660-<em>d</em>.; commr. treaty of Uxbridge (for Charles I) 1645, Treasury, June 1660-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: sepia and wash by G. Harding, early 19th cent., NPG 2666.</p> |
<p>Sir John Colepeper was of a prominent family of Sussex and west Kent, in which latter county he served as a local magistrate from at least 1638. Elected for Rye in April 1640, he was returned again for the Kent in the Long Parliament, in whose first few days he presented a long statement of the ‘grievances of the Church and Commonwealth’ against the king’s policies. However, concerned by the growing radicalization of the populace, Colepeper had become by late 1641 one of Charles I’s leading supporters. From May 1642 he was constantly with the king as a principal adviser and in January 1643 was made master of the rolls, resigning the chancellorship of the exchequer to Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, the following month. Colepeper was disabled from the Commons and his estates in Kent and Sussex sequestered in early 1644. Charles I on 21 Oct. 1644 created him a baron, granting him estates in Thoresway in Lincolnshire and Kavenlice in Radnor. In March 1645 he was placed on the council of the prince of Wales, and accompanied the prince in his travels over the following years to the west of England, Jersey and finally to France.<sup>6</sup></p><p>For the next few years he was involved in the factional divisions at the court in exile, where he was often regarded as part of the Francophile ‘Louvre’ group opposed to the king’s chief adviser, Hyde. There are many suggestions in contemporary correspondence of conflict between the two councillors.<sup>7</sup> When writing his autobiography after 1668 Clarendon (as Hyde had become) described Colepeper as a man of ‘a rough nature, a hot head, and of great courage … of sharpness of parts, and volubility of language’ who in matters of religion was ‘very indifferent; but more inclined to what was established, to avoid the accidents which commonly attend a change’.<sup>8</sup> Clarendon elsewhere singled him out as one of the four loyal councillors who attended the king whatever his movements and as ‘a man of great parts, a very sharp and present wit, and an universal understanding; so that few men filled a place in council with more sufficiency, or expressed themselves upon any subject that occurred with more weight and vigour’.<sup>9</sup> In these later writings Clarendon took pains to emphasize that although he and Colepeper were ‘not thought to have the greatest kindness for each other, yet he [Clarendon] knew he could agree with no other man so well in business, and was very unwilling he [Colepeper] should be from the person of the king’.<sup>10</sup> It does appear that there was a reconciliation of the two men after the fall of the Protectorate, when both agreed that it was unwise to foment any premature royalist uprisings. Colepeper even showed himself remarkably prescient by predicting in the days immediately following Oliver Cromwell’s death the role that George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, would play in the restoration of the king.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Colepeper also advised Hyde on the best management of legislation for the Restoration in May and June 1660.<sup>12</sup> He returned to England with Charles II and was formally reinstated as master of the rolls, as his original patent of 1643 was for life, although it is doubtful he ever effectively exercised the office.<sup>13</sup> He was no doubt poised to have a major influence on the shape of Restoration England, but the possibilities of this intriguing scenario were cut short by Colepeper’s death after a lingering illness on 11 July 1660. He had first sat in the House on 7 June 1660, but only attended a total of six times until 16 June, after which illness probably kept him away. His most noticeable intervention occurred on 11 July when in his absence his petition requesting the restitution of his property, which had been sold by ‘that assembly of persons who usurped the name and authority of Parliament’, was granted. The following day the House was informed that Baron Colepeper had died on the very day it had granted his petition, and it was then resolved that the benefit of the preceding order would accrue to Colepeper’s eldest son Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper. By a codicil to his will of 3 July 1660 Colepeper had formally named Thomas heir to his title and estate in Kent and his executor. He further made mention in his will of a petition of 27 June 1660 as a result of which the king granted him £12,000, probably for arrears of pay, ‘for the clearing of my paternal estate’ and to provide portions for his six younger children. The will was proved on 6 Aug., with Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, named executor and three days later, in order to put his inheritance on a more solid basis, the new Baron Colepeper was granted leave to bring into the House a private bill for the restoration of his estate. The bill sailed through both Houses and received the royal assent on 13 Sept. 1660.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
COLEPEPER, John (1641-1719) |
<p><strong><surname>COLEPEPER</surname></strong> (<strong>CULPEPER</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1641–1719)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 27 Jan. 1689 as 3rd Bar. COLEPEPER |
|
First sat 30 Jan. 1689; last sat 12 Nov. 1718 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 4 Mar. 1641, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of John Colepeper*, Bar. Colepeper, and 2nd w. Judith (1606–91), da. of Sir Thomas Colepeper ‘the elder’, of Hollingbourne, Kent; bro. of Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Bar. Colepeper, and Cheney Colepeper*, 4th Bar. Colepeper. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 30 June 1707, Frances (1664–1741), da. of Sir Thomas Colepeper ‘the younger’, of Hollingbourne, Kent, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 8 July 1719; <em>will</em> 12 Aug. 1710–2 Feb. 1715, pr. 2 Nov. 1719.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ensign, coy. of ft. I.o.W. 1667; 2nd lt. RN 1673–4, 1st lt. 1678–9.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>At the death of John Colepeper, 3rd Baron Colepeper, in 1719, his wife and cousin, Frances Colepeper, erected a monument to him in the parish church of Hollingbourne, Kent, ‘to show the great respect she had to the memory of her husband’ and on which she recorded what she thought were his signal achievements. Apart from being ‘the best of Friends and the best of Husbands’ and having been ‘in four Sea-Fights, wherein he behaved with great Courage & Bravery, having his cabin shot to pieces and his commanding officer killed’, his widow boasted that ‘He attended the House of Lords 18 years constantly, with a very small fortune, where he always behaved with steadiness for the good of his King & Country.’<sup>3</sup></p><p>The 3rd Baron Colepeper did sit in the House ‘constantly’, with an attendance rate of about 95 per cent, for the 18 years from 1689 to 1707, whereafter he continued to attend intermittently until his death in 1719, but with much reduced frequency. And he did subsist there ‘with a very small fortune’, the aspect of his career to which most of his contemporaries drew attention. His status as one of the poorest of the ‘poor lords’ resulted from a long-standing family squabble regarding the provisions that his father John Colepeper*, Baron Colepeper, had made for his large family. The first baron’s three sons by his second marriage, Thomas*, (later 2nd Baron Colepeper), John and Cheney* (later 4th Baron Colepeper), all joined their royalist father on the continent in 1651, but Thomas and John appear to have been back in England in 1657–8 when, under instructions from Baron Colepeper, his heir Thomas was assigned to settle various of the family’s Kentish manors on trustees, in order to provide his younger brother with an annuity.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Baron Colepeper died shortly after he himself had returned to England at the Restoration, and in his will of 3 July 1660 he made extensive financial provisions from his restored estates in Kent, Lincolnshire and Radnor for his six younger children, who were enjoined to trust to the protection and management of their eldest brother, the Baron’s successor, Thomas.<sup>5</sup> The 2nd Baron did make his younger brother John an ensign in the company of foot that he commanded in 1667, in his role as governor of the Isle of Wight, and he may have had some hand in ensuring John’s entry into the Royal Navy in 1673, but that was about the limit of his fraternal devotion.<sup>6</sup> He did not make the necessary provisions for his younger siblings’ maintenance, settling many of the estates charged with their annuities on himself, and from the early 1670s was engaged in a protracted feud with them over the terms of their father’s will.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Charles II had assured his old councillor of many years, the 1st Baron Colepeper, that he would protect his children, and one way in which he did this (not being able or willing to pay the sum of £12,000 he had originally promised) was to offer the 2nd Baron the right to fill the vacancies in the six clerks’ office in chancery. John later calculated that a single nomination could garner £5,000, none of which ever went to his annuity, which was badly in arrears.<sup>8</sup> When a subcommittee of the Privy Council, consisting of James Butler*, earl of Brecknock (better known as duke of Ormond [I]), Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, found in 1676 in favour of John and the other younger Colepepers, the king initially responded by vesting the right of nomination in two trustees for the benefit of John and two of his sisters. This decision was quickly reversed following the vociferous and successful objections of the 2nd Baron, which were aided by his sale of the reversion of the mastership of the rolls (which the 2nd Baron had been granted at his father’s death) to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). The king and the Council, however, remained sympathetic over the following years to the complaints of the Colepeper children and in October 1680 John himself was given the nomination of one of the vacant six clerks’ places, ‘in fulfilment of the king’s promise to the late Lord Colepeper to provide for his younger children’. Ormond, a referee to whom the case was presented again in 1681, thought that the 2nd Baron ‘treated his brother and sister very unlike such near relations’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>At his death the 2nd Baron left to his younger brother his title and nothing else, dividing his estate between his legitimate daughter, Katherine, and his two illegitimate children, Charlotte and Susannah. The 3rd Baron set out his long list of complaints against his brother in a series of chancery bills that he brought against the latter’s heirs from 1698, and in his will of August 1710 he made clear his continuing resentment that the estate left to him by his father ‘was by my brother Thomas late Lord Colepeper most unjustly detained from me for above eight and twenty years till the time of his decease and a considerable part thereof hath ever since been and is still as unjustly withheld from me by his daughter and sole executrix Katherine’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>John inherited this impoverished peerage on 27 Jan. 1689, five days after the commencement of the Convention. The 2nd Baron had been one of William of Orange’s most vocal supporters in the proceedings of the peers in December 1688 and when the 3rd Baron first sat on 30 Jan. 1689 he took up where his brother had left off, vigorously defending William’s pretensions to the throne. He voted to declare William and Mary king and queen on 31 Jan., his second day in the House, and held that James had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was thereby ‘vacant’, entering his dissent on both 31 Jan. and 4 Feb. when the House rejected that wording. At the crucial vote on 6 Feb. Colepeper joined with the majority in voting through the resolution that James had abdicated and that the throne was vacant.</p><p>With William III safely on the throne, Colepeper hardly slackened in his engagement in the Convention Parliament – he was absent on only four occasions across its two sessions – or in his support of the new king. He was named to 59 committees on legislation, and was assigned to consider many bills which furthered the Whig or Williamite agenda. These included the bills to reverse the attainders of a number of Whig martyrs and victims of the Tory revenge of the early 1680s: William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell (8 Mar. 1689), Algernon Sydney (24 Apr.), Alice Lisle (3 May), Henry Cornish (10 June) and Thomas Walcott (8 Nov.). In other legislation involving a perceived Whig hero, Colepeper voted on 31 May in favour of the bill to reverse the two punitive judgments against Titus Oates and, after the bill had been returned from the Commons some weeks later, on 30 July both voted and protested against the House’s resolution to adhere to its amendments to the bill, which appeared to cast doubt on the veracity of the Popish Plot.</p><p>In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed him as among the supporters of the court, and added the name Groandman next to his: the identity of Groandman has not been determined. In the winter of 1689 he was also placed on the large committees to examine what the Whigs considered to be the judicial murders of Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney and others (6 Nov.) and to investigate the related matter of the subornation of witnesses used to attest to the alleged complicity of a number of Whig peers in the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth (7 Dec.). Colepeper was also placed on committees for measures to establish the Williamite regime, to counter opposition to it and to prosecute the new war against France, such as the bills to make corresponding with King James a treasonable act (25 Apr.), to suspend habeas corpus for those suspected of such treason (25 May), to attaint those considered to be in rebellion (13 July), to prohibit trade with France (10 Aug.) and to halt the export of arms and ammunition (21 December). On 15 June he was also placed on the drafting committee for an address requesting the new king to repair the military garrisons, to disarm papists and to examine further the dangerous situation in Ireland. Most of his other committee appointments involved numerous estate and naturalization bills.</p><p>Colepeper continued to be an assiduous attender of the Parliaments of both William III and Anne, at least in her early years. In total he was present at close to 98 per cent of the sittings of the House during William’s reign. In the king’s first two Parliaments, between March 1690 and July 1698, his attendance level in each of the nine sessions consistently stood between 90 and 96 per cent, apart from an anomalous dip to 87 per cent in the session of 1696–7. He came to 93 per cent of the meetings in the first session, 1698–9, of the following Parliament, but his attendance level again decreased to 88 per cent in 1699–1700, a level he maintained in the Parliament of early 1701. He was back to his usual constant self, at 95 per cent, in the Parliament of the first months of 1702, which saw William III’s death and the accession of Anne.</p><p>Throughout these sessions Colepeper continued to be named to almost every select committee established. Other than committee nominations, we have only a few votes and protests by which to gauge his activities and attitudes. On 6 Oct. 1690 he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment that he thought he had a pension.<sup>11</sup> In the 1691–2 session he acted as a teller in the division of 21 Nov. 1691 (at the third reading of the bill against the clandestine marriage of minors) on the motion, passed in the affirmative, whether a proviso on behalf of the Quakers should stand part of the bill. On 17 Dec. 1691 he chaired and reported from the select committee considering the bill for the payment of the debts of the late Elizabeth Curtis, the only time he appears to have had such a role in committee.<sup>12</sup> He formally dissented on 2 Feb. 1692 from the decision not to agree with the Commons in their objections to the House’s amendments to the bill appointing commissioners of accounts. On 16 Feb. he joined 17 other peers in signing the protest against the decision that proxies could not be used in the divisions on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, arguing that this went against proper parliamentary procedure. In the following session (1692–3) he continued his support for this bill and voted on 2 Jan. 1693 that it be read a second time and committed. In the same period he switched his vote concerning the Place bill, voting on the last day of 1692 to commit the bill, against the opposition of the court, but casting his vote with the court three days later, on 3 Jan. 1693, against the passage of the bill. The pecuniary considerations which may have led to this apparent change of heart are discussed below. On 19 Jan. 1693 he put his name to the dissent from the decision not to refer to the committee for privileges the House’s amendments to the bill for a land tax. On 4 Feb. he was one of only 14 peers to find Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder.</p><p>In the session of 1694–5 Colepeper protested on 19 Jan. 1695, with only seven other peers, against the decision not to engross the bill making wilful perjury a felony. He also began his opposition to the claim of Sir Richard Verney*, to be declared Baron Willoughby of Broke, by dissenting on 19 Mar. 1695 from a decision of the House which appeared to favour Verney’s claim. He alone continued and strengthened this opposition to Verney’s claim in the session of 1695–6, the first of the new Parliament elected in the summer of 1695. On 17 Jan. 1696 he signed a protest against the decision to hear Verney’s counsel, arguing that the previous Parliament had already determined that Verney had no claim to the title, and on 13 Feb. he further subscribed, with just four others, to the protest against the decision to grant Verney his sought-after writ of summons as Lord Willoughby de Broke.</p><p>Earlier in that session, on 16 Dec. 1695, Colepeper had been added to the group of managers who were to discuss in conference the address concerning the Scottish East India Company. In the 1696–7 session he sided with the ministry in the most publicly controversial matter of that period, voting on 23 Dec. 1696 for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Colepeper was most interested, however, in a private bill that concerned his brother’s contested estate. The disarray of the last Baron Colepeper’s life had already come before the House in January 1690, when the 2nd Baron’s widow brought in a bill to make null and void all of her husband’s wills and conveyances to his illegitimate daughters by Susanna Willis, and to direct his estate to their legitimate daughter, Katherine. Despite some evident sympathy for the abused Lady Colepeper, the House rejected her bill 36 to 35. Colepeper’s stance on this is not recorded, but he probably opposed his sister-in-law’s attempt, for when a bill was introduced in the 1696–7 session which would have allowed Katherine’s husband, Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Fairfax [S], to compound with the two illegitimate daughters of the late baron for their portions, Colepeper clamoured for his own long-standing claims. The bill was brought up from the Commons on 17 Mar. 1697 and given its first reading in the House eight days later, when it was ordered that Colepeper’s case would be heard, either by himself or his counsel. Arguments both for and against the bill were heard on 7 Apr. and the second reading of the bill was debated on 12 and 13 Apr. but it had not been committed by the time Parliament was prorogued on 16 April. Both Colepeper and Fairfax having waived their privilege, the dispute went to chancery, where in August 1698 Colepeper exhibited a number of bills against Lady Colepeper and her daughter and son-in-law, in which he set out in great detail the ways in which his brother had tried to defraud him of his maintenance. After many delays, chancery decreed on 9 Nov. 1700 that Colepeper was to be paid the arrears, with interest, of the £50 annuity his father had intended for him from the revenue of a number of Kentish manors then in the possession of Lady Colepeper.<sup>13</sup> This was the first of a series of decrees in Colepeper’s favour as the case continued to rumble on into the next century. It was still going when Colepeper wrote his will in August 1710.</p><p>In the remaining sessions of William’s Parliaments, Colepeper remained a reliable vote for the Whigs. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted for the Junto bill to punish the former cashier of the excise, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. This session also saw his more frequent involvement as a manager of conferences. On 7 Mar. 1698 he was delegated to manage a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill explaining the system of poor relief. On 24 May he was likewise appointed a manager for the conference, to be held the following day, on the bill for the suppression of blasphemy; a month later, on 20 June, he was assigned to represent the House in a conference on the bill for the Alverstoke waterworks.</p><p>In the 1699–1700 session of the 1698 Parliament Colepeper dissented, on 23 Jan. 1700, from the House’s reversal of the judgment in the case of <em>Williamson v. the Crown</em> and the same day opposed the Tory-led bill to maintain the old East India Company as a corporation, both through his vote against adjourning into a committee of the whole to consider further amendments to the bill and by his protest against its passage. Perhaps significantly, around this time he acquired nine shares in the new East India Company, which he seems to have disposed of in 1703.<sup>14</sup> On 10 Apr. 1700 he protested against the decision not to adhere to the House’s wrecking amendments to the supply bill, which contained provisions for the resumption of William III’s grants of forfeited Irish lands. The partisan animosity revealed by this bill led to a dissolution. In the new Parliament he was closely connected to the leading actors in the Kentish petition of May 1701, though there is no surviving indication of his own role, if any, in this matter. Two of his cousins and a nephew, who were all later appointed trustees of his estate under the terms of his will, were among those who dared to present the petition to the enraged Commons. Colepeper would undoubtedly have been sympathetic to the petition’s Whiggish sentiments, and on 17 and 23 June 1701 he voted for the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. In the ensuing Parliament of early 1702, on 8 Mar. Colepeper was named a manager, along with the rest of the House, for a conference to discuss arrangements to be made following the death of William III and the accession of Anne.</p><p>For the first few parliamentary sessions of the new monarch, Colepeper continued his usual diligent attendance on the House, being present for 87 per cent of the meetings of the 1702 Parliament. In its first session (1702–3) he opposed the Occasional Conformity bill and voted for the Whig amendments to the bill on 16 Jan. 1703. Three days later he also signed a protest against the decision to include a clause in the bill settling a revenue on George* of Denmark (and duke of Cumberland) that would enable the foreign-born prince to continue in public employments after the death of the queen, as it seemed implicitly to bar other foreign-born peers (such as William III’s Dutch followers) from the same rights. In the following session, of 1703–4, he voted for the rejection of the bill against occasional conformity on 14 Dec. 1703. On 21 Mar. 1704 he signed the dissent from the resolution not to give a second reading to a rider to the Recruitment bill, which would require churchwardens and overseers of the poor permission to approve of new recruits.</p><p>An analysis of the peerage drawn up circa April 1705 listed Colepeper as a supporter of the Hanoverian Succession, and he corroborated this opinion by his known stances in the first session of the new Parliament of 1705–6, when he was absent for only ten sittings. He joined with the Whigs on 6 Dec. 1705, when he voted to agree with the committee of the whole that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration.<sup>15</sup> On 11 Mar. 1706, along with the rest of the members present that day, he was assigned to manage two conferences with the Commons on the printed letter from Rowland Gwynn<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, which appeared to support the Tory-inspired ‘Hanover motion’. After that session, however, his attendance dropped precipitously. In the session of 1706–7 he only came to a little over one third of the sittings and he registered the first proxy of his career, on 14 Feb. 1707, to William Cowper*, Baron Cowper. He appears to have suffered a ‘sharp sickness in London’ at this time, for on 17 Feb. he drew up a will which he revoked many years after his recovery. Whatever his illness was, it appears to have permanently weakened him, and he never attended more than one-fifth of the sittings in any of the remaining sessions of Anne’s reign. He came to only one meeting in the brief session in April 1707, and only nine in the longer one of 1707–8. Similarly, he was present at seven meetings of the House in 1708–9, but did manage more in 1709–10, when he was present at 19 sittings, all of them in March 1710, so that he could vote Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Similarly he came to 23 (one-fifth) of the meetings of the first session in 1710–11 of the new Tory-dominated Parliament, and to only 6 in 1711–12, although he made sure he was present on 7 Dec. 1711 to vote in favour of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause to the address to the queen. He left the House for that session on 12 Dec. and the following day registered his proxy with Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. Whig managers were well aware of the importance of his proxy for, as the third reading of the Tory bill to appoint commissioners to examine all of William III’s land grants was postponed to 20 May, special efforts were made to get Colepeper’s proxy ‘from the country’ the day before the vote. His proxy was still formally registered with Sunderland, but that peer had been absent from the House since 17 May, and instead Colepeper, aided and advised no doubt by the Whig managers, transferred his proxy to Cowper, formally registered on 19 May. Colepeper’s hurried proxy proved decisive in defeating the bill as the vote was tied (78 to 78), which amounted to a negative. He was present at only 16 of the meetings of the session regarding the Peace of Utrecht in the spring of 1713, and at 4 in that of spring 1714, in the new Parliament elected in 1713. Having left the House on 3 Mar. 1714 in that session, on 10 Apr. he registered his proxy with Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, perhaps in anticipation of the divisions on the Schism bill, which Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast Colepeper would oppose. Judging by this behaviour, it is very likely that he had also been entrusting his proxy to Whigs in 1707–10 and 1713, but unfortunately the proxy books for those sessions are now missing. He did not attend any of the meetings of Parliament in August 1714 following the death of the queen.</p><p>Throughout this long parliamentary career, Colepeper’s poverty became almost proverbial and seems to have been the most salient aspect of his political personality. When asked in September 1689, only a few months after inheriting his title, for a self-assessment of his personal estate, in order to be taxed under the Act for a General Aid to their Majesties, Colepeper was forthcoming about the limitations of his estate:</p><blockquote><p>my personal estate is very inconsiderable. That part of that little I have is put out and secured by mortgage upon lands …. Part is lent to their Majesties upon the security of this Act and so not liable to be taxed. I desire likewise it may be intimated to their Lordships that I have lately paid for my dignity £20, a sum greatly disproportionable to my small fortune.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>He received occasional bounties of £100 or £200 from the crown from 1689 onwards.<sup>17</sup> In his notes on his conversations with William III, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, claimed that the king had agreed to let Colepeper have the £200 at Halifax’s own motion, but that this bounty ‘was not very well returned since by my Lord’.<sup>18</sup> It is not clear what dissatisfaction Colepeper gave Halifax or William in the early months of 1689 for, judging by his votes in his first few days in the House, as well as his willingness to lend the crown money on the security of the Act, he was already committed to William even before he began to receive such rewards. Certainly his position as a pensioner to the crown made him dependent on the ministry. While on 31 Dec. 1692 he had voted in favour of the commitment of the Place bill, a measure strongly opposed by the court, on 3 Jan. 1693 he switched position and voted against its passage. In the days between the two votes he may well have considered, or been told, that a vote in favour of the bill would damage his position in the crown’s eyes. He was one of seven peers with a dependence on the court who changed their vote between the commitment and the passage of this act.<sup>19</sup></p><p>The king’s token largesse was to little avail in relieving Colepeper’s reputation for poverty. In May 1695 there was a report that Leeds was trying to ‘debauch’ Colepeper, Robert Hunsdon*, 7th Baron Hunsdon, and other noble ‘mumpers’ (contemporary slang for a genteel beggar) by offering them roast beef and ale at ‘Hell’, an eating establishment near Westminster Hall. Another report stated that the new and widely derided lords justices, who ruled the country during William III’s absence on the continent, refused to appear in public because they could find nobody but Colepeper and Hunsdon to bear the sword of state before them on formal occasions. This caused the lords justices to be dubbed ‘the overseers of the poor’.<sup>20</sup> Even the small periodic gifts of £100 became less frequent during the reign of Anne, and Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, halted any bounty to Colepeper altogether from 1710 in order to induce him to vote with the Tory ministry. In the last days of this ministry, Hanoverian agents considered giving Colepeper a pension of £400–£500 p.a., Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, assuring them that he ‘has not in the world above £200 year, and that encumbered’, to ensure his support for the Hanoverian Succession. After Anne’s death something was given him to tide him over until the arrival of George I, when it was promised that ‘competent provision for his maintenance’ would be made.<sup>21</sup></p><p>That ‘competent provision’ was a pension of £600 p.a.<sup>22</sup> This undoubtedly cemented Colepeper’s attachment to the new regime and he came to 58 per cent of the first two sessions of George I’s first Parliament, in 1715–16 and 1717, where he continued to vote with the Whigs or assign proxies to Whig peers during his periods of absence. Through his proxy with Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset, he voted for the Septennial bill in April 1716. He was present in the House himself to vote in June 1716 for the bill to establish commissioners to examine the value of the estates of Jacobites and to promote the impeachment of the earl of Oxford in June 1717.<sup>23</sup> A more detailed discussion of Colepeper’s activities in George I’s first Parliament will appear in the next phase in this series.</p><p>Colepeper died on 8 July 1719 in his house, ‘Brickhouse’, in Hollingbourne. His long will of August 1710 (with a codicil of February 1715) suggests that at the time of his death he may have been better off, or at least have had more assets, than alleged by Sunderland in 1713. Chancery decrees in his favour in his dispute with Lady Colepeper and Lord and Lady Fairfax had certainly helped. In a series of decisions of 1703, 1706 and 1708 it had been determined that Colepeper was owed £2,285 7<em>s</em>. in arrears (with interest) of his annuity of £50 and it had been ordered that that part of the 2nd Baron Colepeper’s estate which had originally been intended for his brother’s provision was to be sold to raise the money.<sup>24</sup> By using associates and trustees as purchasers of this land, Colepeper himself was able, by 1710, to gain possession of the Kentish manors of Greenway Court, Morghew and Godden, which had long been in the Colepeper family. He left his modest estate, which included government annuities of £80 and debts owed him totalling £1,378, to his wife, his cousin Frances whom he had married at age 66, after recovering from his illness in 1707. Additional monetary bequests went to godsons and especially to his younger brother Cheney Colepeper*, who succeeded him as 4th Baron Colepeper. Colepeper took pains to bequeath to Cheney ‘my parliament robes, as well the ordinary robes as the Coronation robes’, an expression both of the pride that the 3rd Baron took in his long and active parliamentary life and of his and his family’s relative poverty.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
COLEPEPER, Thomas (1635-89) |
<p><strong><surname>COLEPEPER</surname></strong> (<strong>CULPEPER</strong>), <strong>Thomas</strong> (1635–89)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 11 July 1660 as 2nd Bar. COLEPEPER |
|
First sat 7 Aug. 1660; last sat 28 Apr. 1687 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 21 Mar. 1635, 2nd but 1st surv. of John Colepeper*, later Bar. Colepeper, and 2nd w. Judith (1606-91), da. of Sir Thomas Colepeper<sup>‡</sup>, ‘the elder’, of Hollingbourne, Kent; bro. of John Colepeper*, 3rd Bar. Colepeper and Cheney Colepeper*, 4th Bar. Colepeper; <em>educ</em>. unknown; <em>m</em>. 3 Aug. 1659 Margaretta (1635-1710), da. and coh. of Jan van Hesse, heer van Pierschil and Wena, Zeeland, 1da; 2da. illegit. with Susanna Willis, <em>alias</em> Welden, <em>alias</em> Laycock; <em>d</em>. 27 Jan. 1689; <em>will</em> 17 Jan. 1689, admon. 22 Feb. 1689 to wid.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. trade 1660-68, trade and plantations 1671–4, (vice-pres. of council 1672-4), mercantile treaty with United Provinces, 1674-5.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Dep. lt and lt-col, militia horse, Kent, ?1661-?68; gov. and capt., I.o.W. 1661-9; capt, coy of foot, I o.W 1666-7. <sup>3</sup></p><p>Lt-gen. and gov.-gen, Virginia, 1678-83.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attributed to Adriaen Hanneman, 1664, Leeds Castle, Kent.</p> |
<p>Thomas Colepeper’s father John Colepeper had been one of the principal advisers of Charles I during the civil war, for which service he was created in 1644 Baron Colpeper, using that spelling of his surname in the patent. The peerage was accompanied by a grant of lands in Thoresway in Lincolnshire and Kevinlice in Radnor as compensation for the parliamentary sequestration of his extensive land-holdings in west Kent and Sussex. The first Baron Colepeper accompanied the prince of Wales into exile on the continent in 1646, and in 1651 his three remaining sons by his second marriage all joined him there.<sup>5</sup> It was most likely here that Thomas was educated, although the details of his schooling are not clear. Thomas and John Colepeper were in England again in 1657-8 when Thomas, under instructions from his father, arranged to settle various of the family’s Kentish manors on trustees to provide his younger brother with an annuity, a transaction that was to cause acrimony within the family for over half a century.<sup>6</sup> It was probably through his connections with the exiled court that in August 1659 Thomas married at The Hague Margaretta van Hesse, whose father was a Dutch nobleman and retainer of the prince of Orange.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The first Baron Colepeper died on 11 July 1660, the very day his request for the restitution of his sequestered property was granted by the Convention House of Lords. The following day the House, being informed of his death, ordered that the benefit of that order would accrue to his son Thomas. Having made extensive provisions for the maintenance of his six younger children in his will of 3 July 1660, Lord Colepeper had stipulated in a codicil that Thomas was to be heir not only to his title, but also to all his real property in Kent (which would otherwise have been subject to gavelkind and divided with his brothers). The will with its codicil was proved on 6 Aug.; Thomas first sat in the House as 2nd Baron Colepeper on 7 August. Three days later he brought in a private bill for the formal restoration of his father’s estate, with its principal lands in Kent and Sussex, and some outlying properties in Lincolnshire and Wales. This bill was committed on 13 Aug. and reported from committee with some amendments and passed by the House on 27 August. On that same day Colepeper was concerned with the introduction of another bill, that for the naturalization of his wife and several other Dutch spouses of recently returned royalist noblemen. This bill was reported from committee a scant two days later and was passed on 31 August. On 8 Sept. the House further ordered that all papers relating to Colepeper’s sequestered estates were to be returned to him and his estate bill and his wife’s naturalization bill both received the royal assent on the day of the Convention’s adjournment on 13 Sept. 1660.<sup>8</sup> These important personal affairs appear to have been Colepeper’s principal concerns in the Convention. He attended the House assiduously during the months of August and September but was less active in the second part of the Convention, coming to less than half of its meetings.On 13 Dec. 1660 he did sign (as ‘T. Culpeper’ as his signature always appears in the manuscript Journal) the protest against the passage of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell.</p><p>The first Baron Colepeper’s attempts to provide for his younger children was dependent on the receipt of £12,000 promised to him by the king for his past services, but over the following years the second baron became another of the many returned royalists who found themselves disappointed in their expectations of royal generosity. Much of Colepeper’s career revolved around his constant search for money and the grasping methods he took to acquire it. He gained a bad reputation in Virginia, of which he was governor for a short time. Some colonial contemporaries, writing a few years after Colepeper’s death, described him as ‘one of the most cunning and covetous men in England’ and a man ‘who had a singular dexterity in making use of all advantages to his own interest’.<sup>9</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, remembered him as ‘a vicious and corrupt man’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Charles II did make some provision for the heir of his former councillor. The first Baron Colepeper had been restored to the office of master of the rolls in June 1660. After his death a month later it was determined that his son would hold the office in reversion pending the death of the new master of the rolls, Sir Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup>. In the meantime the king granted Colepeper the right to appoint candidates to the vacancies among the six clerks in chancery, a privilege which could gain for the baron up to £5,000 a nomination.<sup>11</sup> Furthermore in July 1661 Colepeper was appointed captain, and later governor, of the Isle of Wight. He was active in this government over the following years and received the support of the government for his vigilance against both Quakers and Dutch invaders, although many of the island’s gentry resented his often high-handed and arbitrary manner.<sup>12</sup> Colepeper continued in this position until December 1668, when he sold it to Sir Robert Holmes<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup></p><h2><em>The Cavalier Parliament</em></h2><p>Most likely because of these responsibilities elsewhere, Colepeper’s attendance in the House during the 1660s was intermittent and usually low, particularly during the Dutch war. He only came to one-fifth of the sittings of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament, but was present on 11 July 1661 when Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, recorded that he opposed the claims heard that day of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the office of great chamberlain. Colepeper did not appear again after the adjournment of summer 1661 until 9 May 1662. He may have come specifically to see through the final stages of a bill confirming the Convention’s act restoring his father’s property, which passed the House on 10 May. The bill received the royal assent on the last day of the session, 19 May, on which day Colepeper also subscribed to a protest against a concession to the Commons in the highways bill which threatened to erode the House’s right to begin or amend money bills.</p><p>He came to 34 of the meetings of the session of 1663, and in July Wharton predicted that Colepeper would oppose the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. On 18 July his name was added in select committee to the subsidy bill as a commissioner responsible for assessing the peers.<sup>14</sup> A week later Colepeper signed the protest against the decision to mitigate the terms of the declaration of assent prescribed by the Act of Uniformity so that it only related to external practice and obedience to the act. He attended about half of the meetings of the next two sessions of 1664 and 1664-5, missed the session of October 1665 entirely and was present for only 29 (31 per cent) of the sittings of the House in the winter of 1666-7. He was formally excused at a call of the House on 1 Oct. 1666, probably because of his military responsibilities. He appeared in the House on 8 Nov. 1666, but was absent for the remainder of the session. He registered his proxy with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey on 22 December.</p><p>Colepeper attended the House more diligently in November and December 1667, coming to 63 per cent of the sittings before the Christmas adjournment. On 9 Dec. 1667 he was placed on a sub-committee of the committee for privileges assigned to draft a declaration and address considering the rights and precedence of ‘foreign’, that is Scottish and Irish, peers in England.<sup>15</sup> He supported Clarendon in the proceedings against him and was one of four peers who on 12 Dec. 1667 signed the dissent from the passage of the bill for his banishment. Throughout March 1668, after the session had resumed following the Christmas recess, he disagreed with the House’s proceedings in the case of <em>Morley and Grenville vs Elwes</em>. He was one of the small number of peers who signed all three dissents in this matter, against the resolutions to give the petitioners relief (9 Mar.), to reverse the original chancery decree against the petitioners (16 Mar.), and to remit the cause back to chancery (31 March).</p><p>For much of 1669 he was in the Netherlands, probably in an attempt to effect some sort of compromise with his wife, who had returned there because of the scandal of Colepeper’s public liaison with Susanna Willis, ‘one of the greatest gallants about the town’, as a correspondent described her to Colepeper, ‘and your Lordship hath still the reputation of keeping her so’.<sup>16</sup> Colepeper’s only legitimate child Katherine was a result of this brief reconciliation with his wife. He was back in England by early 1670, for on 17 Mar. he joined the majority of bishops and James Stuart*, duke of York, in dissenting from the decision to give a second reading to the bill for the divorce of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland). He had an altercation with Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, during a debate on the supply bill in February 1671 when Colepeper insisted that the king was indeed present, though incognito, in the Lords’ chamber while Berkshire insisted that he was only formally present to hear the debate if dressed in his robes of state.<sup>17</sup> On 18 Apr. Colepeper reported from committee with the bill for the sale of Thomas Herlackenden’s estate to satisfy a debt to the crown.</p><p>Colepeper does not appear to have been involved in the conflict between the Houses over the bill for additional impositions on sugars which was going on at the same time and led to the session’s prorogation four days later. This is notable considering Colepeper’s apparent interest in matters of colonial trade and government at this point. In March 1671 Colepeper was appointed to the newly formed council of foreign plantations, becoming vice-president when it was reorganized in September 1672 as the council of trade and foreign plantations, and through this role he began to take an active interest in the colonies and their financial possibilities.<sup>18</sup> He quickly secured the recognition of his interest in an area of Virginia known as the ‘Northern Neck’, of which his father had been one of the original grantees in 1649.<sup>19</sup> This land had been regranted in 1669 to a consortium including Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, and John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton (brother to the governor of the colony, Sir William Berkeley), but Colepeper’s name had been left out at that time.<sup>20</sup> In addition, in February 1673 he and Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, received a grant of the proprietorial rights of the remainder of the colony’s territory outside the Northern Neck, although they later signed an agreement that they would only claim the quitrents and escheats of this territory.<sup>21</sup> Despite the council’s abolition in 1674, when its responsibilities were transferred to a sub-committee of the Privy Council, Colepeper maintained his colonial interests. To further cement his hold on Virginia, Colepeper procured from the crown in July 1675 a commission as governor of the colony in reversion to Sir William Berkeley.<sup>22</sup></p><p>At the same time he was battling with his younger siblings Judith, Philippa and John over the meagre provision he was making for their maintenance. From the time of their father’s death in 1660 Colepeper had used underhand means to amass the money intended for his siblings for himself.<sup>23</sup> Colepeper tried to split his favourite sister Judith off from his other siblings by offering her alone an annuity of £100, but in late 1675 she nevertheless decided to join with her brother and sister in complaining to the Privy Council against their elder brother’s actions.<sup>24</sup> From the beginning of 1676 the matter was closely considered by a sub-committee of the council, consisting formally of Anglesey, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (and earl of Brecknock), and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, but in which John Granville* earl of Bath, also appears to have been involved.<sup>25</sup> In July 1676 the king upon their report transferred the right over six clerks appointments to trustees for the benefit of the younger Colepepers.<sup>26</sup> To shore up his interest Colepeper, in exchange for a reconfirmation of his sole right to nominate to the six clerks, in July 1677 sold to the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), the reversion to the mastership of the rolls. Danby vested this in his agent George Johnson<sup>‡</sup> as trustee for his son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Colepeper’s interests in the royal colonies and particularly his business dealings with Danby bound him tightly to the lord treasurer and the court interest in Parliament. From the session of spring 1675, during which he missed only one meeting, he began to attend the business of the House far more closely than previously. He most likely supported Danby’s proposed ‘non-resisting’ Test Bill; certainly his name does not appear on any of the protests intended to block its progress through the House and he is not listed as an opponent of the bill in the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>. On 6 May 1675 he signed the protest against the decision to send a message to the House of Commons regarding the cause of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, a message which Colepeper and the other protesters thought gave far too many concessions to the Commons in the matter of the House’s judicature. This dispute between the Houses led to the early prorogation of the following session (autumn 1675), of whose meetings Colepeper attended just over half. He was much more attentive in the long session of 1677-8, when he came to 82 per cent of the meetings. On 15 Mar. 1677, early in the session, he signed the protest against the passage of the bill to enforce the Protestant education and upbringing of children of the royal family. Colepeper registered his proxy with Bath on 14 May 1677, but Bath only held it between 21 and 28 May 1677; it was vacated on 15 Jan. 1678 when Colepeper took his seat again after a long adjournment. In spring 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, imprisoned in the Tower for his insistence that Parliament was dissolved, considered Colepeper’s political stance ‘triply vile’. On 4 Apr. 1678 Colepeper voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder.</p><p>Colepeper was present at all but one of the meetings of the short session of spring 1678. He supported the right of Robert Villiers to the viscountcy of Purbeck, signing two protests in the claimant’s favour: against the decision of 7 June that members of the House had to consider the claim as a ‘whole’ matter, instead of its three constituent issues and against the decision of 20 June to address the king to bring in a bill to ban Villiers permanently from claiming the viscountcy. On 25 June Colepeper was named a manager for the conference requested by the Commons to discuss the House’s amendments to the supply bill for the disbandment of the army and, after the report on the conference, he was placed on the committee assigned to draw up the reasons why the House could not agree with the lower House’s proposed proviso to the bill. From 26 June to 2 July he managed four conferences on this contentious, and ultimately unresolvable, dispute between the Houses. During the consideration of the appeal of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, against a chancery decree against him over his claim to the marriage portion of his late wife, Colepeper denied in the ‘long and serious’ debate of 8 July that the House was bound by the same rules as chancery. Thus it could vote to relieve the courtier Feversham, one of the duke of York’s favourites. <sup>28</sup></p><p>Colepeper’s attendance dropped to 59 per cent in the following contentious session (autumn/winter 1678), the last of the Cavalier Parliament. In the period 23-27 Nov. 1678 he represented the House in all five of the conferences in which the amendments to the Test Bill, especially those regarding the number of Catholic servants the queen could keep in her household, were discussed and eventually agreed upon. On 26 Dec. 1678 he voted in favour of the House’s insistence that the money raised by statute for the disbandment of the army was to be paid into the exchequer, and not to the chamber of London. He was placed on the committee assigned that day to draw up reasons for the House’s insisting on their amendments, although he was not made a manager for the subsequent conferences on this matter. He voted on 27 Dec. with the majority against the motion to commit the impeached Danby to the Tower. Instead the House gave Danby a set deadline by which to enter his answer to the articles against him.</p><h2><em>Exclusion Crisis and supporter of James II, 1679-87</em></h2><p>Colepeper actively defended Danby in the Parliament of spring 1679, as the treasurer himself expected he would. He came to 82 per cent of the sitting days in the second session of the Parliament and was initially resolutely opposed to the motion that Danby’s impeachment was still pending before the House despite the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. On Essex’s report from the committee for privileges on 18 Mar. confirming that the impeachment could be transferred across Parliaments, Colepeper initially moved to adjourn the debate and then in the ensuing debate of that day and the next argued that the precedents adduced by the committee were insufficient to bear their argument.<sup>29</sup> Colepeper further argued on 21 Mar. against conceding to the Commons’ demand for the immediate committal of the former lord treasurer as contrary to the order of the House of 27 Dec. 1678: ‘We have agreed that all judicial proceedings are as they were and as you left them last Parliament and how comes it to pass that you would now change what you did then?’ To avoid action being taken on the Commons’ request he moved to adjourn the debate to the following day.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On 28 Dec., Colepeper was one of the few supporters of the former lord treasurer placed on the drafting committee for the bill to disqualify Danby from ever holding office again. Later that day he was also appointed a manager for a conference at which the House was to tell the lower chamber of the steps they were taking against Danby by the bill for disqualification. The Commons were not satisfied with this bill and, once it was known that Danby had gone into hiding, submitted their own to the House calling for the disgraced minister’s attainder if he did not surrender himself. On 2 Apr. 1679 Colepeper won the point in debate that this bill should be returned to the Commons with the word ‘attainder’ left out, which an observer noted ‘seemed a contradiction that there should be a bill of attainder without the word attainder in it’. Following Colepeper’s lead the House amended the Commons’ bill to the point to which it merely threatened Danby with banishment and in this form the bill passed the House on 4 April. Colepeper and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, both friends of Danby, joined his enemies Anglesey and Essex on the committee to draw up reasons justifying the bill’s amendments to be presented to the Commons. Colepeper and Fauconberg subsequently joined, and perhaps, judging by the manuscript minutes for this day, may even have replaced Danby’s avowed enemies Shaftesbury and George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, as managers for the conference that day at which the House’s bill was presented to the Commons.<sup>31</sup> He was one of the reporters for the subsequent conference on 8 Apr. in which the Commons made clear their view that the House had fundamentally altered the nature of their bill, but Colepeper was not placed on the committee, dominated by Essex and Shaftesbury, assigned to draw up reasons for the House’s insisting on its amendments. He disagreed with the conclusions of the committee sufficiently to be one of only two dissenters, with Bath, from that part of the report which insisted, in a move to placate the Commons, that the lenient treatment extended to Danby was not to be made a precedent for future cases. The bill eventually passed in the form originally envisaged by the Commons on 14 Apr. and, after Danby had duly surrendered himself and been committed to the Tower, Colepeper continued in his attempt to obstruct the Commons’ prosecution of the former lord treasurer. On 8 May he was a reporter for the conference at which the Commons requested that a joint committee of both Houses be established to discuss procedures for the trials of the impeached peers. He voted against that motion both on that day and then again two days later when it was proposed again. He was also a reporter for the conference on 8 May at which the Commons made clear their objections to the House’s amendments to the supply bill, but this conflict was more readily resolved, as the House decided to agree with the Commons. On 27 May, the day of prorogation, he probably joined with the majority in voting to insist on the House’s resolution that the bishops could stay in the House during the trials of the impeached peers, despite their capital nature.</p><p>He was absent for almost all of the second Exclusion Parliament, for from 3 May until 11 Aug. 1680 he was in Virginia acting as governor, a position he had formally held since the death of Sir William Berkeley in 1677.<sup>32</sup> Since late 1679 the king had been urging him, in increasingly sharper and more displeased tones, to take up his duties there.<sup>33</sup> As governor, Colepeper had little regard for the authority of the Virginia Assembly, the colony’s legislative body. Shortly after his arrival he berated it for its delaying tactics in approving a number of bills the king wished passed, which he deemed ‘totally unparliamentary, and will make the exercise of assemblies wholly impracticable, if not impossible, except the house of burgesses pretend to be the sole legislative power, which no House of Commons ever did till first voted away both kings and lords’. Regarding the proposed bill for supply, Colepeper insisted ‘that his Majesty hath undoubted right to collect it, and by every one’s consent here is by his representative the head of the assembly’.<sup>34</sup> He appears to have left Virginia as soon as he could, but was apparently still en route when Parliament met again in October 1680, for at a call of the House on 30 Oct. 1680 he was excused because he was ‘abroad’. He finally took his seat on 3 Jan. 1681 and sat in seven of the meetings of this session before Parliament was prorogued and then dissolved.</p><p>Danby included Colepeper among the select group of peers with which his son Viscount Latimer was instructed to consult at Oxford in March 1681 to promote Danby’s petition for bail, and on 24 Mar. Colepeper did strongly press the former lord treasurer’s case before the House. By 26 Mar. Latimer confessed to Danby his concern that Colepeper was wavering, although he did own that he ‘made one very good speech in your behalf’ and ‘spoke very well’ in a response to speeches by his father’s foes. Nevertheless Latimer feared that Colepeper was ‘much changed in his opinion since his coming from London’, owing to the influence of Halifax, whose ‘power at this time works a little on his lordship’.<sup>35</sup> Despite Colepeper’s apparent loyalty to Danby at this time, his name does not appear among the signatories to the lord treasurer’s petition for bail.<sup>36</sup></p><p>This may have been a precursor of the break between Danby and Colepeper that took place in the months after the dissolution of Parliament. Colepeper’s reputation at court was only worsening owing to his continued ill usage of his younger siblings. He offered them, or at least his sister Judith, fair promises and long, complicated explanations of why he was not able to provide the amounts due to them, but never actually supplied the money itself. In that sense he was glad to get away to Virginia, for as he wrote to Judith upon his arrival in early May 1680, ‘I have here I thank God no relations to defame or hinder me’. He was faced by a rude shock on his return. Not only was Judith hardly mollified by his assurances, threatening to bring Anglesey on her side again and telling him that ‘I am resolved not to be the good natured fool no longer for I do not find that fair promises will either feed or clothe me or pay my debts’, but the king had taken the unilateral step on 18 Oct. 1680, while Colepeper was still en route from Virginia, of giving the nomination of a vacant place in the six clerks to John Colepeper, ‘in fulfilment of the promise to the late Lord Colepeper to provide for his younger children’.<sup>37</sup> With this source of income in jeopardy again, Colepeper took advantage of the uncertainty of Danby’s confinement and his attempts from the Tower to have George Johnson replaced as his nominee for the mastership of the rolls. <sup>38</sup> Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> informed Danby in February 1682 that Colepeper had been conferring secretly with Johnson in order to have the reversion of the mastership re-granted to him, despite Danby’s life interest. Danby wrote to Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> that he considered Colepeper’s secret dealings with Johnson ‘too foul an action for any gentleman’. In his belligerent defence of his actions, Colepeper reminded Danby that.</p><blockquote><p>I formerly used the utmost extent of my poor interest to hinder you from being committed, so I did the last Parliament at Oxford persevere to have you forthwith heard or released (contrary to the opinion of some persons who have credit with me and who thought it unseasonable in point of time to the king’s affairs) and in order thereunto gave you likewise the best informations I could for you to take your measures by.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote><p>Colepeper ran into trouble again when, after news of popular unrest in Virginia owing to the low price of tobacco had reached London in June 1682, the king ordered him to embark for the colony by 1 Aug. to restore order.<sup>40</sup> The combination of Colepeper’s underhand and irresponsible actions during these years must have infuriated the king and on 13 July 1682, the day Colepeper was to embark for Virginia, there was apparently an angry public scene at court. Over the following weeks Colepeper sent the king a number of grovelling petitions ‘expressing his amazement and dejection at the resentment… expressed yesterday’ and praying that the king would not humiliate him publicly again.<sup>41</sup> Nevertheless, Colepeper did not set out for Virginia until October, arriving there on 6 December. He continued to treat the Assembly in a high-handed manner and fruitlessly tried to extract money from the quitrents due to him by his charter. Frustrated, he left Virginia in May 1683, in contravention of royal orders, and on 16 Aug. 1683, shortly after his return, was stripped of his governorship. Less than a year later he sold his interest in Virginia (he had bought out Arlington’s share in 1681) to the crown for an annuity of £600 for 21 years.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Although he had greatly angered Charles II, Colepeper appears to have remained in favour with the duke of York, who acted as his protector when the feud between Colepeper and Danby came to a head in early 1685. With both George Johnson and Sir Harbottle Grimston dead, Charles granted the mastership of the rolls not to Danby, who held the reversion, but to a qualified lawyer, and in compensation offered Danby the right to nominate candidates to the second and third vacancies among the six clerks. Danby was not to get the nomination to the first place because, Charles explained, York was insisting that a promise made to Colepeper to give it to him be fulfilled. Just before the king’s death Colepeper defeated Danby in a contest before the Privy Council over their competing claims to the first six clerks appointment. This arrangement was later confirmed by York, now James II, shortly after his accession.<sup>43</sup> Colepeper was further able to enhance his colonial interests through James, who granted him land in New England and in September 1688 renewed his lease of the Northern Neck in Virginia (he had bought out the other proprietors in 1681), as the original term of 21 years was fast approaching its end. <sup>44</sup></p><p>Colepeper became an adherent of James II and attended almost every one of the sittings of his Parliament. There he frequently acted as a chairman of select committees on legislation. He chaired two meetings on a naturalization bill, on 27 and 30 May 1685, on which latter day he reported the bill to the House as fit to pass. On that latter day he also chaired a meeting the bill to prevent the clandestine marriages of minors. He chaired the final meeting of the committee on the bill for the king’s carriages on 16 June and reported it to the House the following day. On 27 and 29 June he chaired committees on the bill for reviving several acts and he reported the heavily amended bill to the House on 30 June.<sup>45</sup> He also acted as a teller in divisions. On 25 May 1685 he told in three different divisions on procedures in Elizabeth Harvey’s dispute with her father-in-law Sir William Harvey, while on 14 Nov., after Parliament had reconvened following the defeat of the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, he was a teller on the question whether to dismiss the petition in the privilege case brought by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. In this latter part of the session Halifax included him, in a letter to his friend Philip Stanhope* , 2nd earl of Chesterfield, among ‘those who are called court lords’ but who were nevertheless prepared to oppose the king’s proposed repeal of the Test Act, that is, ‘if he may be relied upon’.<sup>46</sup></p><h2><em>William’s supporter, 1688-9</em></h2><p>So much was Colepeper associated with James II, that some observers in 1687-8 listed him as a supporter of the king’s religious policies. Later and often more cautious lists, such as that drawn up in December 1687 by the French ambassador, merely considered his attitude on the religious issues as doubtful and undeclared. James was still showing his favour even in the tense days of autumn 1688, as his renewal of the lease of the Northern Neck attests. James also issued a warrant to commission Colepeper lord lieutenant of Kent on 13 Oct. 1688, before replacing him five days later with the more experienced military leader Feversham. In the first days following William of Orange’s invasion Colepeper refused to subscribe to the petition calling on James to summon a free Parliament.</p><p>At the time of the king’s first flight Colepeper threw in his lot wholly and enthusiastically with William of Orange, quickly becoming one of the leading supporters of the prince. He was a member of the ‘violent party’, so named by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, because of their forceful championing of William’s cause.<sup>47</sup> The explanation of this sudden switch may lie in Colepeper’s ‘singular dexterity in making use of all advantages to his own interest’, that is, he may have seen an opportunity to gain a powerful and grateful patron in William, obviously on the ascendant after James’s flight. Colepeper was a member of the provisional government of peers and bishops which first met on the day of the king’s flight, 11 Dec. 1688. Alongside Wharton, Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford), and Ralph Montagu*, 3rd Baron Montagu (later duke of Montagu), he was instrumental in changing the initial language of the Guildhall Declaration drafted by the lords in order to excise the clauses calling for the honourable and safe return of James II to the throne. Also on 11 Dec., he was appointed one of the delegates sent to wait on the prince of Orange to present him with the declaration and to inform him of the proceedings of the provisional government, with Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, and James’s supporters Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth. He had returned by 14 Dec. and continued to sit in the provisional government until its disbandment upon James II’s return to the capital.<sup>48</sup> Colepeper was among the peers who attended William in Whitehall on 21 Dec., and there he was the first peer to move for a thanks to the prince after a reading of his declaration.<sup>49</sup> At the meeting of the lords on the morning of 24 Dec. Colepeper was one of the lords who tried to move the assembly quickly on to discuss the means of summoning a Parliament, without getting bogged down in an enquiry whether the king had left the kingdom. The very existence of the gathering of the lords was to Colepeper sufficient proof, for ‘that is the fullest demonstration that can be the king is gone for if he be not gone we ought not, we could not be here’. At the end of the discussion Colepeper, with Wharton, Halifax, Turner of Ely as well as Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, were assigned to draw up a petition requesting the prince of Orange ‘to take upon him the administration of affairs’ until a Convention was summoned. <sup>50</sup></p><p>Burnet further claimed that, apart from Halifax, Colepeper was the only peer in favour of giving William the crown outright, to the exclusion of Mary. He wrote that Colepeper ‘was a vicious and corrupt man, but made a figure in the debates that were now in the House of Lords and died about the end of them’.<sup>51</sup> However, Colepeper never once sat in the Convention House of Lords. He was not present when it met on 22 Jan. 1689, was marked as ‘sick’ at a call of the House three days later, and died in his house in London on 27 January.</p><p>After his return from the Netherlands in 1670 Colepeper had permanently abandoned his wife Margaretta van Hesse and had openly cohabited with his mistress Susanna Willis, by whom he had two daughters. The abandoned Lady Colepeper took out letters of administration of her husband’s estate on 22 Feb. 1689, but she quickly learned that by an indenture of Oct. 1688 he had settled his estate (which consisted of property in Hampshire, Kent, Sussex, Warwickshire, and Lincolnshire, much of which he had purchased with the fortune she had brought to the marriage) on trustees for the benefit of his two daughters by Willis and that he had confirmed this arrangement by a will of 17 Jan. 1689, which revoked all preceding wills and left only the residue of his estate to his legitimate daughter Katherine.<sup>52</sup> On 15 Jan. 1690 Lady Colepeper introduced in the House a bill to void all of Colepeper’s conveyances and wills made for the benefit of Willis and their children, because, the bill claimed, Willis had tricked Colepeper into signing over his estate ‘by her artifices’ and ‘by fraud, circumvention and evil practices’. Because the bill offered no evidence for its allegations nor any legal arguments, it was rejected at its first reading. The division, however, was very close, at 36 to 35, suggesting that there was in the House a great deal of sympathy for the abused Lady Colepeper and her daughter – and perhaps not a little animosity towards the late Lord Colepeper.<sup>53</sup> Colepeper left no male heir and the title passed to his younger and impoverished brother John, who was to spend much of the rest of his life trying to reclaim the lands and moneys bequeathed to him by his father and which the 2nd baron had granted to his own legitimate and illegitimate daughters.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
COMPTON, George (1664-1727) |
<p><strong><surname>COMPTON</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1664–1727)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1664-81 Ld. Compton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Dec. 1681 (a minor) as 4th earl of NORTHAMPTON |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 23 May 1726 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Oct. 1664, 4th but 1st surv. s. of James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton and 2nd w. Mary, da. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden; bro. of Spencer Compton*, later earl of Wilmington. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1679-82, MA 1682; travelled abroad (France,<sup>1</sup> Low Countries) 1682-5.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 9 May 1686 (with £16,000 or £20,000),<sup>3</sup> Jane (<em>d</em>.1721), da. of Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> of Farley, Wilts. 4s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>) 6da.;<sup>4</sup> (2) 3 July 1726, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1750), wid. of Sir George Thorold, 1st bt., da. of Sir James Rushout<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 13 Apr. 1727; <em>will</em> 1 Feb. to 20 Mar., pr. 3 May 1727.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Master of the leash 1682; PC 21 May 1702-20 May 1707, 13 Dec. 1712-16 Nov. 1714;<sup>6</sup> constable of the Tower of London 1712-15; ld. sewer, coronation of George I, Oct. 1714.</p><p>Ld. lt. Warws. 1686-7, 1689-1715; recorder Northampton bef. 1692-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
|
<p>Described by Macky as ‘a very honest gentleman’, though one that ‘will never make any great figure, but in his own house’, Compton succeeded both to the earldom of Northampton and his father’s lieutenancy of Warwickshire while still underage.<sup>10</sup> His father’s eldest son with his second wife, Compton only succeeded to the title in 1681 as a result of the deaths of his three elder half-brothers: two in their infancy and one (William, styled Lord Compton) at the age of eight. During his minority provision was made for the lieutenancy to be exercised by Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, and (after Conway’s death in 1683) by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. In February 1682 Northampton was appointed master of the leash, but rumours that he was to succeed Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, as a garter knight in December proved to be unfounded.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In spite of the powerful interest of his uncle, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, negotiations for Northampton to marry the recently widowed dowager countess of Conway broke down in December 1685.<sup>12</sup> The failure of the suit may have been related to the bishop’s reduced interest after his removal from his places at court but at least one source reported that Northampton himself was the cause of the rupture and that he had pretended ‘himself sick a purpose to delay the marriage with a design to break it quite off’. Another reported to the contrary that Northampton ‘thought himself very ill used’ over the affair and sent Lady Conway’s guardian a challenge for the affront, which was refused.<sup>13</sup> The episode undoubtedly created a stir. Whatever the true cause, and in spite of another rumour in the spring of 1686 that Northampton was to marry the daughter of Henry Cavendish*, duke of Newcastle, later that year he married the daughter of the influential financier, Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> instead.<sup>14</sup> In August he was one of several members of the Compton family to support Bishop Compton at his hearing before the ecclesiastical commission.<sup>15</sup> The bishop was thereafter a frequent visitor at Northampton’s seat at Castle Ashby.<sup>16</sup> The same year (1686) Northampton assumed control of his lieutenancy.</p><h2><em>James II and the Revolution</em></h2><p>In January 1687 Northampton was forecast as an opponent of repealing the Test and in May he was also included in a list of those opposed to the king’s policies. His concerns did not prevent him from taking the lead in the welcome offered to the king by the gentry of Warwickshire during his tour in the late summer but the following month, unwilling to put the three questions in his lieutenancy, Northampton wrote in an effort to justify himself. He explained that he hoped that he:</p><blockquote><p>had satisfied his majesty with the answer I gave and am very sorry the king should propose anything to me wherein I can not show my ready compliance … these are points of so high a nature, that I cannot take any resolution until I have heard them argued in the place, where I have never had as yet the honour to sit.<sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>The following month Northampton was again assessed as opposed to the Test and, as a result of his refusal to put the three questions he was removed from his lieutenancy in favour of his rival, Sunderland.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Northampton again featured on a list of the opposition peers in January 1688 and the same month he was included in a further assessment of those opposed to the repeal of the Test. In March he moved to his new London residence in Bloomsbury Square, where he appears to have remained until the summer, unwilling to leave town while his debts there remained unsettled.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Northampton was among the first to mobilize in favour of the revolution in the winter of 1688 (presumably through his uncle’s influence) and he played host to Princess Anne at Castle Ashby on her journey north. He then accompanied her to Nottingham.<sup>20</sup> From there he sent to his former deputies in Warwickshire requesting them to raise the militia, ‘which I desire you would do with all the expedition conveniently may be.’<sup>21</sup> Northampton’s assurance of their willingness to obey his orders had no doubt been boosted by his receipt in October of correspondence between Sunderland and the Warwickshire deputies, in which the latter had professed their unwillingness to act according to Sunderland’s directions.<sup>22</sup> On the princess’s subsequent entrance into Oxford following the king’s flight, Northampton and Bishop Compton were prominent members of her entourage, each leading a troop of horse.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Northampton had returned to London by the latter stages of December and was present at the meeting of the provisional government that convened in the queen’s presence chamber at St James’s Palace on 21 December. He then attended three subsequent sessions held in the Lords.<sup>24</sup> He took his seat in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and the following day was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. Present on approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to a further seven committees in the course of the session. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen and entered his dissent at the resolution not to concur with the Commons in using the words ‘that the throne is thereby vacant.’ On 4 Feb. he voted to concur with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ and two days later (6 Feb.) he again voted to agree with the Commons in their employment of the word ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant.’ On 12 Feb. Northampton was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning the proclamation. The following month he was reappointed to the lieutenancy of Warwickshire. On 6 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the trial of peers bill, and on 18 Mar. he received the proxy of the weak-minded William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele, which was vacated by the close of the session. Northampton carried the sceptre at William and Mary’s coronation on 11 Apr. after which he sat for a further seven days before registering his own proxy with James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, on 22 Apr., perhaps to be employed in the division on the abrogating oaths bill the following day. The proxy was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 13 May. He continued to be active in the House’s business throughout, most notably over the passing of the bill for reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates. On 2 July Northampton acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to refer the impeachments of Blair, Vaughan and others to the judges, subscribing the protest at the resolution to proceed with the impeachments. A week later (9 July) he acted as one of the tellers for the motion whether to adjourn the debate over the reversal of the judgments against Oates, and on 22 July he was again one of the tellers on the question of whether to proceed with the report of the conference concerning the Oates bill. On 24 July Northampton acted as a teller on the question of insisting on the amendments to the bill and on 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments.</p><p>In the interval following the close of the first session of the Convention, Northampton responded to a demand for a self-assessment of his personal estate for tax purposes, in which he declared himself ‘willing to be assessed at two thousand pounds.’<sup>25</sup> He took his seat in the second session of the Convention on 28 Oct. 1689. Although he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to just two committees in the course of the session. On 9 Nov. he was entrusted once more with Saye and Sele’s proxy, which was vacated at the dissolution. In a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690 Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (and later duke of Leeds), classed him among the supporters of the court and added that he was to be spoken to.</p><p>In spite of his influential position in both Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, in the face of broad hostility to Tory candidates Northampton was unable to bring his interest to bear successfully during the ensuing elections for the new Parliament. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, reported that Northampton intended to set up his kinsman, Hatton Compton, for Northamptonshire but in the event the Whigs, Sir St Andrew St John<sup>‡</sup> and John Parkhurst<sup>‡</sup>, appear to have been returned without a contest.<sup>26</sup> The town of Northampton also proved difficult and Northampton’s candidate there, Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup>, was beaten into third place by his two Whig rivals.<sup>27</sup> Although unable to exert sufficient interest to secure the return of the unpopular Isham for the borough, Northampton’s influence in the town remained important and in advance of the new Parliament, he received a petition from the mayor and aldermen of Northampton that he employ his interest in protecting them from the provisions of a prospective bill to disable those who had been involved in surrendering charters:</p><blockquote><p>since your lordship has honoured us with your patronage, you will forgive us if we humbly represent to your lordship our sense in this matter. That although we are conscious of our past demerit in being concerned in an affair so mischievous in its design, yet the specious pretences by which it was insinuated to some and the threatenings and fears by which others of us were made easy in that affair, and considering the condition of affairs at that time we hope will be allowed in part of an excuse.<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>The corporation of Northampton again appealed for Northampton’s assistance a few days later, when they requested his aid in the disputed choice of a new minister for the parish of All Saints. Northampton undertook to represent the matter to his uncle, Bishop Compton.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>The 1690 Parliament</em></h2><p>Northampton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 after which he was present on half of all sitting days and was named to three committees. Absent from the session after 26 Apr., on 6 May he registered his proxy with Nottingham, which may have been intended to be used during the numerous divisions on the City of London bill between 10 and 14 May. The reason for his absence from the closing weeks of the session is unclear but might have been on account of his duties in Warwickshire from whence he reported the state of the militia in July.<sup>30</sup> He returned to the House for the second session on 23 Oct. 1690 during which he was present on 46 per cent of all sitting days and was named to seven committees. He was back in the House for the third session on 30 Oct. 1691. Excused at a call on 2 Nov. he resumed his seat on 30 Nov. after which he was present on approximately half of all sitting days, during which he was named to two committees. In January 1692 Northampton was again appealed to by the corporation of Northampton, seeking his interest as their ‘worthy recorder’ in supporting the passage of the alnage bill in which he was also requested to co-ordinate his actions in the House with the county’s other peers.<sup>31</sup> The summer brought fears of invasion, causing Sir Stephen Fox to write to his son-in-law, ‘I do not wonder that you are all alarmed in the country when every day gives occasion of suspicion here.’<sup>32</sup> Northampton took his seat in the fourth session on 4 Nov. 1692 and on 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill. On 1 Jan. 1693 he was forecast as being in favour of passing the bill enabling Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce and on 3 Jan. he voted in favour of passing the place bill. On 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. He was also mentioned in the course of the session as one of several peers (among them his uncle, Bishop Compton, and kinsman, Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset), likely to be supportive of a petition lodged in the House by Anne, Lady Fitch, widow of Sir Thomas Fitch for the reversal of a chancery decree.<sup>33</sup> Lady Fitch’s petition was dismissed on 3 March.</p><p>During the summer Northampton was engaged in attending to his estates under the critical gaze of his father-in-law, who complimented him on making ‘an advance in letting as much of your land as Mr Middleton will give leave to be let.’ Premature news of the death of the ailing John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, in July encouraged Fox to approach the queen on Northampton’s behalf for the succession to one of Lovelace’s offices (probably that of chief justice in eyre Trent south). Although Fox was among the first to petition, the queen cautioned him that he was one of many, leading him to advise Northampton that he ‘should be prepared for a disappointment.’<sup>34</sup> The advice proved to be salutary and on Lovelace’s death two months later, the office of chief justice went to James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, while Lovelace’s captaincy of the gentlemen pensioners went to Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat in the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on approximately 62 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the privileges committee on the opening day, he was nominated to a further seven committees during the course of the session. The death of Sir Thomas Samwell<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Northampton, in February 1694 triggered a by-election in the town, where once again Northampton’s interest as recorder proved significant. Having initially intended to support Christopher Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, Northampton was obliged to redirect his interest in favour of Sir Justiniam Isham, who claimed a prior undertaking.<sup>36</sup> Once he had settled on Isham, Northampton exercised his interest effectively to secure his return unchallenged.<sup>37</sup> Writing to the mayor and aldermen of the town, Northampton urged their support for:</p><blockquote><p>a person every way so well qualified for it … he was early in this happy revolution, he is a very worthy honest gentleman and has a sufficient stake in the country, all which you very well know: and therefore I do earnestly desire your assistance in promoting his interest.<sup>38</sup></p></blockquote><p>In accordance with Northampton’s desires, and after having been assured that Montagu had laid aside his intention to stand, the corporation duly backed Isham.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Northampton’s countess was the victim of a robbery while staying at Copt Hall (seat of his cousin, Dorset) in the early autumn of 1694.<sup>40</sup> Her travails may have been the reason for Northampton’s absence from the House at the opening of the ensuing session and he was excused at a call on 26 Nov. 1694. The death of Queen Mary in December proved the occasion of another appeal from the corporation of Northampton in January 1695 that he would introduce a delegation from the town to the king with their loyal address.<sup>41</sup> It was presumably in response to this that he finally returned to London, taking his seat in the House on 1 Feb. after which he was present on 22 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to just two committees.</p><p>Following the dissolution Northampton’s brother, Spencer Compton, stood unsuccessfully for East Grinstead in the 1695 general election on Dorset’s interest but there is no reason to believe that Northampton exerted himself on his brother’s account. Spencer Compton and Northampton were on very poor terms following a violent disagreement and the feud had propelled Compton towards the Whigs and away from his traditionally Tory family.<sup>42</sup> Northampton played host to the king at Castle Ashby in October. The event was said to have pleased King William so much that he informed Lady Northampton that he intended to make his visit an annual event.<sup>43</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1695-1701</em></h2><p>Northampton took his seat in the new Parliament on 9 Dec. 1695. Present for just under 70 per cent of all sitting days, on 1 Jan. 1696 he was named to the committee for Lord Francis Powlett’s bill and on 29 Feb. he signed the Association. A further royal visit to Northamptonshire in March required the mayor and aldermen of Northampton to write in abject terms to Northampton when they accepted an invitation to wait on the king at Althorp, Sunderland’s seat, not realizing that Northampton had intended to present them to the king himself at Castle Ashby. Their embarrassment proved all the more acute when they discovered Northampton also present in the party at Althorp.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Northampton faced difficulties of a different kind in Warwickshire. The unwillingness of four of his deputies to sign the Association in the summer of 1696 caused them to resign their commissions in anticipation of their imminent removal.<sup>45</sup> Urging them to reconsider, Northampton attempted to persuade them to consider the good of the county over their individual consciences:</p><blockquote><p>I do not doubt but you have thoroughly considered it, therefore shall not repeat what I have formerly said to you upon this subject; but am sorry that you still persist in the same mind, and that you will not consider your own and country’s good, but leave them both exposed to the pleasure and disposal of other men; and though you have now forsaken me I shall not forsake you.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his injunction that the deputies should toe the government line if at all possible, Northampton was himself reprimanded by the council in August for failing to supply a return of those members of his lieutenancy that had taken the Association.<sup>47</sup> Northampton’s initial response failed to satisfy them, ‘it not appearing thereby when and where the deputy lieutenants, militia officers and justices of the peace signed the voluntary association.’ Correspondence continued between Northampton and the board on the subject until at least February of the following year.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat in the next session on 9 Nov. 1696 after which he was present on just under 60 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 11 committees in the course of the session, on 18 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to read the bill of attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> a second time. On 23 Dec. he voted against passing the bill and the same day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to attaint Fenwick. The passage of the leather bill in April of the following year was presumably the occasion of Northampton receiving a petition from the shoemakers of the town of Northampton, who sought his interest to represent their complaints against the measure.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Northampton returned to the House for the following session on 3 Dec. 1697 when he introduced Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers, as earl of Jersey. Named to 31 committees in the course of the session, of which he attended 63 per cent of all sitting days, on 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 22 Mar. the House considered a case of breach of privilege committed by Joseph Wilson and others in contravention of Northampton’s fishing rights. The case was referred to the committee for privileges and on 18 Apr. the matter was resolved in Northampton’s favour. Northampton failed to sit after 24 June but on 30 June he registered his proxy with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin.</p><p>Having taken his seat in the new Parliament on 31 Jan. 1699, Northampton proceeded to attend on 15 per cent of all sitting days but he was named to just two committees in the course of the session. His attendance increased slightly in the ensuing session. He returned to the House on 27 Jan. 1700 and was thereafter present for approximately a third of the session during which he was named to three committees. On 8 Feb. he acted as teller for the contents on the question of whether to agree to the resolution concerning the Scots settlement at Darien, and on 23 Feb. he voted against adjourning the House into a committee of the whole for consideration of the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation.</p><p>In anticipation of the first general election of 1701 Sir John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> sought Northampton’s support for his return for Warwickshire in partnership with Sir Charles Shuckborough<sup>‡</sup>, undertaking not to send to any freeholder until they had secured Northampton’s approbation. Following a county meeting, the two were returned unopposed.<sup>50</sup> Affairs in Warwickshire continued to require Northampton’s attention when the terminal sickness of the clerk of the peace for the county led to Northampton being approached by several Warwickshire notables in support of potential successors during the spring.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat in the new Parliament on 3 May 1701 but attended on just 14 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to three committees. Following the dissolution, Mordaunt and Shuckborough were again returned for Warwickshire in the second general election of that year.<sup>52</sup> It may have been at this time that Northampton was constrained to refer another request from the corporation of Northampton to the lord president (Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke). Pleading ‘some business extraordinary’ caused by the dissolution, he asked that Pembroke would allow the mayor and deputy recorder to wait on him with the town’s address and facilitate an audience with the king.<sup>53</sup> Northampton took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. after which he attended on 65 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 Feb. 1702 he was one of 15 members of the House (among them his uncle, Bishop Compton) to subscribe the protest at the resolution to pass the bill of attainder against James II’s queen, Mary Beatrice.</p><h2><em>The reign of Anne to 1710</em></h2><p>The death of William III promised Northampton and his kinsmen greater opportunities for advancement. In May Northampton was appointed to the Privy Council. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702. In November it was discoursed that he was to play host to the queen’s husband, Prince George*, who sat in the House as duke of Cumberland, and who was in need of a rural retreat for his convalescence.<sup>54</sup> On 1 Jan. 1703 Northampton was estimated by Nottingham as being in favour of the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. he duly voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. In advance of the second session he was again forecast as being in favour of the occasional conformity bill in two lists compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. He took his seat on 7 Dec. and on 14 Dec. he was included in a list of those who had voted in favour of the bill. The same day (14 Dec.) he registered his dissent at the resolution to reject the bill. Northampton registered a further dissent on 14 Jan. 1704 at the resolution to reverse the judgment in the writ of error in the case of <em>Ashby v. White</em>. He was included in a list of Members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704, perhaps indicating support over the Scotch Plot; and on 1 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to retain the words insisting on a confession in an address for the pardon of James Boucher, who had been implicated in the plot. Despite this, when the motion was carried, Northampton again registered his dissent. The following day he attempted to mediate in a dispute in train between Mr Ward and ‘Lord Leinster’ (probably his Northamptonshire neighbour, William Fermor*, Baron Leominster).<sup>55</sup> On 3 Mar. he registered a further dissent at the resolution to reveal the key to the Gibberish letters only to the queen and those lords who were members of the committee examining the Scotch Plot. Northampton took his seat in the ensuing session on 31 Oct. 1704, after which he was present on 29 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Nov. he was listed as a likely supporter of the Tack but he was absent from the House from 9 Nov. until 12 Feb. 1705. During his absence he entrusted his proxy to Lawrence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.</p><p>Although Northampton was marked as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage of 13 Apr. 1705, there seems little reason to suspect that he was an active supporter of the exiled royal house. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Oct. but sat for just two days before absenting himself for almost a month and on 12 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. He resumed his seat on 19 Nov. and on 30 Nov. he registered his dissent at the resolution to give no further instructions to the committee of the whole considering the bill for securing the Protestant succession. Northampton subscribed a series of protests on 3 Dec. concerning the resolution not to read riders to the bill limiting the power of the lords justices, and on 6 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to agree with the committee that the church was not in danger. Northampton registered three more dissents on 31 Jan. 1706 in protest at resolutions concerning the bill for securing the Protestant succession, and on 9 Mar. he dissented once more at the resolution to agree with the Commons that Gwynne’s letter to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, was a ‘scandalous false and malicious libel.’ On 12 Mar. 1706 he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to agree to the wording of an address concerning the colony of Carolina, which was reported to the House by his Northamptonshire neighbour, Sunderland.</p><p>Northampton took his seat in the ensuing session on 10 Dec. 1706. On 3 Feb. 1707 he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to instruct the committee of the whole considering the bill for securing the Church of England to insert a clause declaring the 1673 Test Act to be ‘perpetual and unalterable’. On 4 Mar. 1707 he voted in favour of giving a second reading to the rider declaring that nothing in the Union bill should be construed as an acknowledgement of the truth of Presbyterianism. He then registered his dissent when the motion to read the rider was defeated. The same day he dissented once more at the resolution to pass the Union bill. Northampton attended for eight days of the brief fifteen-day session of April 1707. On 23 Apr. he registered his dissent at the resolution to consider the judges’ refusal to offer an answer to the question of whether existing laws were sufficient to prevent frauds concerning duties on East India goods the following day. He was omitted from the Privy Council in May but returned to the House for the new Parliament of Great Britain on 6 Nov. 1707, after which he was present for just under 19 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>News of the anticipated Jacobite incursion in the spring of 1708 found Northampton again preoccupied with lieutenancy affairs as his officers furnished him with precedents from the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, to help him with his mobilization of the Warwickshire militia.<sup>56</sup> Marked a Tory in a list of party classifications of May, Northampton returned to the House for the new Parliament on 16 Dec. 1708 and on 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election of Scots representative peers.</p><p>The spring of 1709 found Northampton criticized for providing his daughter, Mary, with only £6,000 by way of portion on her marriage to the wealthy merchant and director of the Bank of England, William Gore<sup>‡</sup>. Gore was later a member of the October Club and the alliance perhaps indicates something of Northampton’s political inclinations at the time as well as the limitations of his fortune, though Lady Mary’s equipage on her arrival at her new home in Tring was said to be ‘the envy … of the ladies’.<sup>57</sup> Northampton took his seat in the ensuing session on 24 Nov. 1709. On 16 Feb. 1710 he set his name to dissents in response to the resolutions to concur with the Commons’ address requesting that the queen despatch John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, to Holland at once, at that not to require Greenshields to attend the House before his appeal was received and at the resolution not to adjourn. On 14 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution that it was not necessary to include in an impeachment the particular words deemed criminal and dissented when it was resolved not to adjourn the House. Two days later he subscribed the protest at the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment against Dr Sacheverell, and the following day (17 Mar.), he subscribed the subsequent protest at the resolution that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth articles. On 18 Mar. he protested once more at the resolution to limit peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty, and on 20 Mar. 1710 he found Henry Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. He then registered his dissent at the guilty verdict. The following day he registered a final dissent in the matter, at the resolution to pass the censure against the doctor.</p><h2><em>The Ministry of Harley</em></h2><p>Following the dissolution Northampton was again active in the elections for Warwickshire, where Sir John Mordaunt joined with Northampton’s heir, James Compton*, styled Lord Compton (later 5th earl of Northampton).<sup>58</sup> In September Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, listed Northampton as a peer to be provided for and on 3 Oct. he was noted by Harley as a likely supporter. Northampton took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. after which he was present on almost 87 per cent of all sitting days. On 4 May 1711 he wrote to Harley offering his services, ‘the sessions of Parliament now drawing to an end’ eager ‘to know in what I can be serviceable to her majesty if I can obtain that honour.’<sup>59</sup> Clearly irked that his former service to the queen was slow in being recognized, Northampton wrote again on 17 May reminding Harley that:</p><blockquote><p>the assurance you give me in your letter that I have the happiness to be in your thoughts, makes me presume to acquaint you that all those lords who had the honour to wait upon her majesty at the Revolution have received some mark of the queen’s favour, except myself; I do not know that in the late reign or in this I ever neglected any opportunity wherein I could be serviceable to her majesty, which makes me hope that distinguishing mark shall not always be.<sup>60</sup></p></blockquote><p>The same month (May) Northampton employed his own interest to recommend one Mr Gostelowe to Henry Paget*, later earl of Uxbridge, to a place in the leather office.<sup>61</sup> Northampton was noted as a Tory patriot in June. The same month his uncle, Bishop Compton, added his weight to Northampton’s quest for a place, writing to Oxford (as Harley had now become) to:</p><blockquote><p>pardon my importunity in behalf of my Lord Northampton, who was with me yesterday to tell me he was going down into the country. I found him a little uneasy, that after so constant a service as he has paid to her majesty and her interest, he should see so many rewarded, and himself yet left in the dark. I beseech you therefore to put him out of pain so soon as you can prevail with the queen to declare her pleasure.<sup>62</sup></p></blockquote><p>In advance of the new session, William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> conveyed a blank proxy form from Edward Leigh*, Baron Leigh, to Oxford requesting that he fill it with the names of Northampton, Nottingham or Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth.<sup>63</sup> On 1 Dec. the proxy was duly registered with Northampton and the same day Northampton was noted by Oxford as being a supporter of the ministry. The following day Northampton’s name was included on a list of those to be contacted concerning ‘No Peace without Spain’. Northampton returned to the House on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present for almost 79 per cent of all sitting days. The same month he was reappointed to the Privy Council. Despite being included in a forecast of 8 Dec. among those that might desert the ministry in the division on ‘No Peace without Spain’, on 10 Dec. he proved loyal to Oxford. Later that month he was noted as being a possible opponent of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon but on 20 Dec. he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers to sit by virtue of post-Union British peerages.</p><p>Despite his loyalty to the ministry during the session, there is evidence that Northampton’s patience was flagging. He told Oxford that it was:</p><blockquote><p>a great honour to be in your thoughts, and [I] am very sensible of the trouble I have given your lordship; if I could have obtained the favour to have known what her majesty designs for me, I should have ordered my affairs accordingly, but the long delays and uncertainty obliges me to go into the country.<sup>64</sup></p></blockquote><p>Northampton’s patience may have been on the wane but on 28 Dec. 1711 his son, James, was summoned to the House by a writ of acceleration as Baron Compton: the first of Oxford’s ‘dozen’ new creations. Northampton resumed his seat after the recess on 2 Jan. 1712, the same day on which Compton took his seat in the House, and towards the end of the month it was rumoured that Northampton was at last to be offered a place as constable of the Tower.<sup>65</sup> Absent for much of March, on the 3rd he registered his proxy with Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, which was vacated by his return to the House on 24 March. On 21 Apr. Thanet reciprocated by registering his proxy with Northampton, which was vacated by the close of the session. Towards the end of May Northampton was one of those to vote with the ministry in opposing the opposition-inspired motion requesting an address to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging in an offensive campaign.<sup>66</sup> Northampton finally secured his reward for his loyalty later that year with his appointment as constable of the Tower (a position formerly held by his father) in succession to Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers.<sup>67</sup> On 19 May he acted as teller for the contents on the question of whether to resume the House from a committee of the whole deliberating on the grants bill and in July he was persuaded to exercise his interest on behalf of D’Oyley Freman, brother of Ralph Freman<sup>‡</sup>, the influential Tory chairman of the Commons election committee.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Northampton was in communication with Oxford in London during the autumn of 1712 and in advance of the new session the following spring he was listed by Swift as a likely supporter of the ministry.<sup>69</sup> He took his seat in the House on 9 Apr. and the following month introduced Dodington Greville<sup>‡</sup> to the queen with the Warwick address.<sup>70</sup> On 13 June he was estimated by Oxford as being in favour of confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French treaty of commerce. Despite this, Northampton’s relationship with Oxford remained a fragile one, and in July he felt the need to remind Oxford that both he and his son, Compton, had ‘attended the whole sessions’ and the following month that ‘it was by your lordship’s favour I was made constable.’<sup>71</sup> Bishop Compton’s death that year was marked by a sermon preached by William Whitfield at St Martin’s, Ludgate. The text was later printed with a dedication to Northampton in which Whitfield praised both men, declaring how:</p><blockquote><p>You both aimed at the same end with so uniform justice and integrity, that as it is said, you never differed in any vote … It is our great happiness, my lord, that having been near forty years under his spiritual jurisdiction, we are now with our fellow citizens, in another capacity, under your lordship’s government and protection, by her majesty’s having put into your trust, the Tower of London. May this city never want the advantages it has long received, and now enjoys from that auspicious name, which has been the defence of our holy religion for so many years, under your pious uncle; and is now, under your lordship, and his honourable executor, the present security of our peace and civil rights!<sup>72</sup></p></blockquote><p>Northampton took his seat in the new parliament on 16 Feb. 1714 and on 3 May he again received Leigh’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. The following month (2 June) he was entrusted Thanet’s proxy, which was also vacated by the close of the session. On 27 May he was forecast by Nottingham as a likely supporter of the schism bill. Following the death of Queen Anne, Northampton attended ten days of the brief August session and on 10 Aug. he again received Thanet’s proxy (which was vacated by the close of the session).</p><p>Northampton’s activities in preparation for the new Parliament provoked the ire of Sir Justinian Isham, who excoriated Northampton for his ‘evasive duplicity’ over Isham’s efforts to be re-elected. Even so Isham comforted himself (inaccurately) that Northampton’s interest in the county ‘was not great.’<sup>73</sup> For a brief period, Northampton’s firm adherence to the Tory party does appear to have been in question. He acted as lord sewer at the coronation of King George I in October yet was put out of the Privy Council the following month. In January 1715 he was noted as a Tory still in office but in May he resigned his place at the Tower.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Northampton continued to be active in the House for the remainder of George I’s reign. He remained a frequent holder of proxies and teller in divisions. Details of his activities after 1715 will be dealt with in the next phase of this work. Northampton attended for the last time on 23 May 1726. In October of that year he created a stir in society by remarrying, his alliance mercilessly lampooned by one of Abigail Harley’s correspondents, Duncombe:</p><blockquote><p>I have not heard of anything that has created a laugh amongst us of some time except the account of Lord Northampton’s addresses to my Lady Thorold and I can imagine a very pleasant scene to myself from my lady’s prudery and my lord’s formality and as my mother says such a match cannot but be carried on with great decorum.<sup>75</sup></p></blockquote><p>Certainly, Northampton was aware that his actions might be viewed askance and was at pains to reassure his children that their interests would not be infringed by the alliance.<sup>76</sup> The marriage proved to be a brief one, as Northampton died six months later on 13 Apr. 1727 at his house in Bloomsbury Square. In his will he made bequests amounting to more than £45,000 as well providing annuities amounting to £250. He was succeeded in the peerage by his son, James, who was also named sole executor.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COMPTON, James (1687-1754) |
<p><strong><surname>COMPTON</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1687–1754)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1687-1711 Ld. Compton; <em>accel. </em>28 Dec. 1711 Bar. COMPTON; <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Apr. 1727 as 5th earl of NORTHAMPTON |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 1 June 1754 |
|
MP Warws. 1710–11 |
<p><em>b.</em> 2 May 1687, 1st s. of George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, and 1st w. Jane, da. of Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of George Compton*, later 6th earl of Northampton. <em>educ</em>. Eton c.1696–1700; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 8 June 1703; travelled abroad (Holland, Germany, Italy) 1707–9. <em>m</em>. 3 Mar. 1716, Elizabeth (1694–1741), <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Ferrers, da. and h. of Hon. Robert Shirley and Anne Ferrers, 3s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 5da. (4 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>suc</em>. unc. Spencer Compton*, earl of Wilmington 1743. <em>d</em>. 3 Oct. 1754; <em>will</em> 21 Aug. 1751–31 Aug. 1754, pr. 11 Oct. 1754.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr. merchant adventurers (Hamburg Co.) 1707.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>As a loyal Tory and the heir to an earldom, Compton was a convenient choice for Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, as one of his ‘dozen’ new peers appointed to the House in December 1711. Compton had long been thought a dependable young man. He and a handful of others were recommended to Daniel Finch*, styled Lord Finch (later 8th earl of Winchilsea and 3rd earl of Nottingham), by Finch’s father, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as ‘more suitable friends’ than those with whom Finch was thought to be associating while a student at Oxford.<sup>5</sup> Compton later enjoyed a lengthy sojourn abroad under the tutelage of the notorious ‘bear-leader’ James Hay, during which he met the Hanoverian royal family and from which he demonstrated little desire to return. In June 1709 he wrote to his father from Venice, ‘we flatter ourselves very much with the thoughts of peace, since my Lord Townshend’s [Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend] coming over, but I don’t suppose that it will be so soon as to occasion any alteration in my route.’<sup>6</sup></p><p>Following his return, Compton was elected for Warwickshire on his father’s interest in the 1710 general election.<sup>7</sup> Within a year of being returned to the Commons he was elevated to the Lords as the first of the controversial ‘dozen’ to be promoted en masse to the upper House to help bolster Oxford’s tottering majority. Compton’s promotion to the Lords by a writ of acceleration was one of the least contentious. Being the scion of a formidably loyal Tory house and a member of the backbench ‘October Club’ no doubt also contributed to his selection. It is unclear precisely when he himself was informed of his imminent elevation. It is possible that he was merely presented with a <em>fait</em> <em>accompli</em> following negotiations between his father (in whose barony he was summoned) and members of Oxford’s administration.<sup>8</sup> Sir William Boughton<sup>‡</sup>, who was reported to have refused a peerage, replaced him as knight of the shire.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Compton’s name was included on a list compiled by Oxford on 27 Dec. and his writ was dated the following day. On 29 Dec. he was included in another list compiled by Oxford of peers to be contacted during the Christmas recess. The next day he wrote to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, communicating his gratitude for the honour, though there was some doubt as to whether he would be able to return to London from Northamptonshire in time for the resumption of the session on 2 Jan. 1712. This may suggest that he had been made aware of his promotion relatively late in the day.<sup>10</sup> In the event, Compton succeeded in making it to London in time and took his seat in the House on 2 Jan., introduced between William North*, 6th Baron North, and Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway.<sup>11</sup> Compton continued to attend for approximately 79 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 28 May he and his father were noted among those to have voted with the ministry by opposing the motion to address the queen to reverse the ‘restraining orders’ preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from launching an offensive campaign against the French.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Given the reason for Compton’s early summons to the Lords, it is unsurprising that Jonathan Swift noted the new peer as a likely supporter of the ministry in an assessment composed in advance of the new session of April 1713. Compton took his seat at the opening of the session on 9 Apr. and on 13 June he was estimated by Oxford as being in favour of the French commerce bill. Compton and his father may have expected further favours in return for their loyalty to the ministry in the session and, following its close, Northampton wrote to Oxford to remind him of their assiduous attendance (Compton had been present for just over 70 per cent of all sitting days).<sup>13</sup> Despite this, no additional offices or titles were forthcoming.</p><p>Compton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714 and once again proved himself to be diligent in his attendance, attending just over 91 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 6 May he received the proxy of his close associate Charles Bruce*, Baron Bruce (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury), which was vacated on 26 May. Forecast by Nottingham as a likely supporter of the Schism bill, Compton was again entrusted with Bruce’s proxy on 21 June, which was vacated nine days later.</p><p>Compton attended 8 days of the brief 15-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. Although he continued to attend the House throughout the remainder of his life, as a Tory he found himself proscribed by the new regime and he played little further part in political life, though he was later offered a dukedom by King George II at the suggestion of his uncle, Wilmington, which he refused.<sup>14</sup> Details of the second part of his career will be considered in the next phase of this work. Compton died in October 1754, a reclusive and solitary man who had shunned society since the death of his wife and all his children (saving one daughter, Charlotte, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Ferrers).<sup>15</sup> He was ultimately succeeded in the peerage by his brother, George, as 6th earl of Northampton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COMPTON, James (1622-81) |
<p><strong><surname>COMPTON</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1622–81)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1630-43 Ld. Compton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Mar. 1643 (a minor) as 3rd earl of NORTHAMPTON |
|
First sat 8 May 1660; last sat 18 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Warws. 1640 (Nov.); 1641- 16 Feb. 1643 |
<p><em>b</em>. 19 Aug. 1622; 1st s. of Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Northampton, and Mary, da. of Sir Francis Beaumont; bro. of Charles Compton<sup>‡</sup>, Francis Compton<sup>‡</sup>, William Compton<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Compton*, bishop of London. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1633-6; MA, Camb. 1636; Queens’, Camb., adm. fell. comm. 1637; travelled abroad (Low Countries) 1640;<sup>1</sup> DCL Oxf. 1642. <em>m</em>. (1) 5 July 1647 Isabella (<em>d</em>.1661) da. of Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset, 3s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 3da. <em>d.v.p</em>.;<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (2) c.1664 (with £11,000) Mary (<em>d</em>.1719), <em>da</em>. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>3</sup> kntd. Oct. 1642.<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 15 Dec. 1681; admon. 10 July 1682.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Commr., confirming ministers 1660,<sup>6</sup> freedom of trade with Scotland 1668; <sup>7</sup> master of the leash 1661-<em>d</em>.;<sup>8</sup> PC 7 Mar. 1673-April 1679;<sup>9</sup> constable, Tower of London 1675-9.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Warws. 1660-<em>d</em>., Tower Hamlets 1675-9;<sup>11</sup> recorder, Coventry 1660-<em>d</em>., Northampton 1672-<em>d</em>.;<sup>12</sup> high steward, Tamworth 1663-<em>d</em>.;<sup>13</sup> chief ranger, Whittlewood and Saulcey Forests 1665-<em>d</em>.; dep. kpr. of hawks, Saulcey Forest 1666-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em>. <em>rot</em>. Northants. 1671-<em>d</em>.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Capt. coy. of ft. (roy.), 1642; col. regt. of horse and ft. (roy.) 1643-5; gov. Banbury Castle, Oxon. 1643; <sup>15</sup> col. regt. of horse, 1662,<sup>16</sup> regt. of ft. 1673;<sup>17</sup> capt. coy. of horse 1666.<sup>18</sup></p><p>FRS 1663.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by W. Dobson, c. 1643, National Trust, Knole, Kent; oil on canvas by G. Honthorst, 1643, Compton Wynyates; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, Castle Ashby.</p> |
<p>The Comptons had been settled in Warwickshire since the Conquest but rose to prominence under Henry VIII. Their principal holdings lay in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, though there were other estates in Essex, Somerset and several other counties. The barony of Compton was conferred in 1572 and in 1618 the 2nd baron was promoted earl of Northampton. The annual income of the 1st earl was said to have been £6,000, though his extravagance meant that by his death in 1630 he had accrued debts of at least £10,000. His successor did nothing to reverse this trend. Consequently, by the outbreak of the Civil War, the 2nd earl’s debts may have been almost triple this amount.<sup>21</sup></p><h2><em>Civil War and Restoration</em></h2><p>The 2nd earl’s son, then styled Lord Compton, was returned for Warwickshire to the Long Parliament, having beaten off a petition brought in against his election by William Combe and a later effort to smear him with a charge of recusancy. He voted against the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, and was employed as a messenger between the king and Commons on several occasions before being disabled in 1643.<sup>22</sup> On the outbreak of Civil War, the Compton family demonstrated conspicuous gallantry on the king’s side. Lord Compton fought alongside his father at Edgehill, where he was knighted, and at Hopton Heath, where the earl was killed. The new earl, just short of his majority at the time of his succession to the peerage, continued to be prominent in other engagements during the conflict, though with mixed results. While commanding the garrison at Banbury, Northampton almost came to blows with Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton, in the presence of the dowager Lady Northampton, who was already ‘very passionate and much afflicted with this carriage of her son and the language she received from him.’ Eventually, the king’s council in Oxford was forced to restrain both Hatton and Northampton.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Northampton retired to his estates after the king’s defeat. He was fined heavily by Parliament, and though his fine of £20,820 set in 1650 was reduced to £14,153 on account of portions for his younger siblings he continued to struggle throughout the Interregnum to recover his lands from sequestration.<sup>24</sup> His brother, Sir William, continued to play an active part in royalist conspiracies but financial concerns prevented Northampton from involving himself in such adventures. By the 1650s he was outwardly reconciled to the new regime and able to appeal for its aid when he was faced with legal action by clothiers who had suffered at the hands of his troops during the war.<sup>25</sup> Nevertheless, he was sufficiently suspected to be arrested in 1653 and 1655.<sup>26</sup> He was imprisoned again briefly in 1656 for refusing to pay the decimation. On this occasion he was able to call upon the personal protection of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, who wrote an open letter to the forces in London commanding them to allow Northampton, his wife and steward, ‘to reside in London without let, disturbance or molestation… as you will answer for contempt at your utmost perils.’<sup>27</sup></p><p>In 1659 Northampton, by then associated with the royalist grouping of John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, agreed to participate in the rebellion of Sir George Booth*, later Baron Delamer.<sup>28</sup> Although there were reports of his industriousness in the cause and his promise to secure Warwickshire, Northampton failed to appear. Mordaunt put Northampton’s inactivity down to the failure of Robert Bruce*, <em>styled</em> Lord Bruce (later earl of Ailesbury), to rise and to the influence of Northampton’s brother, Sir William, who had cautioned him against participating in the rebellion. John Cooper was more scathing and reported to Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, that the rebellion had been ‘thwarted’ by ‘the great lords, especially Northampton.’ The affair may have contributed to Northampton’s hostility to Hyde and his support of the attempt to impeach him in 1663. For the moment, aside from the damage done to his reputation in the court in exile, Northampton’s hesitancy eroded his influence in Northamptonshire.<sup>29</sup> Although he was committed to the Tower once more he was released in November along with two others ‘to ingratiate with the cavaliers’.<sup>30</sup> In spite of his hesitancy in 1659, Northampton was involved in the negotiations in advance of the king’s return.<sup>31</sup> He proved to be a useful intermediary between the old royalists and Presbyterians and appears to have engaged in some discussion with his wife’s kinsman, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton. Mordaunt may have been referring to Lady Northampton (who, he claimed, ‘wears the breeches’) as responsible for creating some ill feeling against himself.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In advance of the Convention Northampton was noted by Wharton among those who had been ‘with the king’ during the Civil War. Northampton sent a letter to Charles II protesting his loyalty.<sup>33</sup> He took his seat in the Convention on 8 May 1660, and was present on 72 per cent of all sitting days before the autumn adjournment. It may have been part of his policy of distancing himself from the former regime that he refused his assistance to Edmund Ludlow, whom he deemed to have been ‘a great enemy to the king’, in anticipation of the debates on the Indemnity Act.<sup>34</sup> On 18 May he informed the House that he had been advised that some of the troops formerly quartered in Brentwood and now posted to Maidstone were engaging in treasonable utterances against the king. He was deputed by the speaker, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, to take the informers to George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, to settle the problem. On 29 May Northampton was present at the king’s entry into London, leading a troop of 200 gentlemen. On 7 June he was one of five peers nominated to prepare a draft petition to the king requesting that the proclamation against profaneness might be read in all chapels and churches. A week later, he reported from the committee for petitions concerning the estate of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and on 21 June he presented the king with a congratulatory address from the gentlemen of Warwickshire.<sup>35</sup> Over the remaining months before the adjournment, Northampton steadily developed a role as a prominent manager of business. For the remainder of his time in the House he was a frequent chairman of committees On 10 and 11 July 1660 he reported from the committee examining deeds belonging to peers which were then in the hands of the trustees for ministers, while on 28 Aug. he reported from the committee considering the bill for Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, which was recommended as being fit to pass. Northampton returned to the House at the opening of the second part of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660. Although he was present on over 95 per cent of the total number of sitting days in the Convention’s final weeks, he appears not to have played so prominent a role as a committee-member, perhaps being more concerned with sorting out his own affairs. At the beginning of 1661 he was included in a list of members of the nobility who had so far failed to pay their share of the poll tax.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Northampton was eager throughout the early months of the Restoration to secure restitution of his own property. His estates had suffered dramatically during the Civil War and he had been forced to sell an estate at Newnham Abbey to pay his composition in ‘the cursed rebellion’. In all, he claimed that his losses amounted to some £60,000.<sup>37</sup> He complained that ‘his chief houses at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire and Compton in Warwickshire (which in these times of distraction have been plundered, and almost pulled down and of late uninhabited) are daily falling into greater decay and his two parks and chase lying unfenced and almost waste.’ On 26 June 1660 he was given permission by the House to seek restitution of goods which had been ‘illegally taken from him’. The order granted him power, ‘if resistance be offered, to break open in the day time with a lawful officer any door, trunk, chest or box that shall not be opened in obedience and conformity to this order’. Northampton was subsequently forced to bring a case before the House to compel one of his trustees, Thomas Doughty, to produce evidence relevant to the estate, which Doughty claimed no longer to possess. The House ordered that Northampton should be relieved by a bill in chancery.<sup>38</sup> The following year Northampton brought further legal actions concerning lead mines at Wirksworth, which he claimed had been appropriated by John Gell<sup>‡</sup> (probably the son of the first earl’s opponent at the battle of Hopton Heath). The case was settled favourably for Northampton but in 1666 he was again involved in a dispute over the mines.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Northampton was recognized as the principal royal agent in Warwickshire and was appointed lord lieutenant in that county as well as recorder of the city of Coventry in the summer of 1660, although there are suggestions that he was already informally acting as the king’s agent in that county before the Restoration. In the summer of 1660 a petition for a position in the management of Whittlewood Forest in Northamptonshire was referred to him, indicating his family’s long connection with that forest, and Northampton also applied to the secretary of state, Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, for warrants like those granted to his father as master of the game to arrest and punish poachers. It was not until March 1665 that Northampton was addressed as chief ranger of both Whittlewood and its neighbouring Saulcey Forest.<sup>40</sup> In the latter forest he was also made deputy keeper of hawks in 1666. His estate Northamptonshire was valued at £1,200 p.a. in 1662.<sup>41</sup> His influence also extended into Staffordshire: he was appointed high steward of Tamworth when Charles II granted the borough a new charter in 1663. Northampton’s usefulness as a military man was also recognized and in 1662 Monck commissioned him as a colonel of foot, ‘under my command for the service of his majesty.’<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>From 1661 to the fall of Clarendon</em></h2><p>Northampton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661. He was present on more than three quarters of all the first session’s sitting days. On 10 May he was entrusted with the proxy of Isaac Astley*, Baron Astley, kinsman of his chaplain, Herbert Astley.<sup>43</sup> On 20 May Northampton chaired a session of the committee for privileges and two days later he reported from the committee considering the bill against tumults.<sup>44</sup> In early July, he was noted as being likely to support the attempt by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to be restored to the office of lord great chamberlain. On 15 July he presided at a session of the privileges committee considering the case of his Northamptonshire neighbour, Nicholas Knollys*, 3rd earl of Banbury. Northampton reported the committee’s findings four days later, recommending that Banbury should be summoned to the House.<sup>45</sup> Northampton’s personal sympathies were evidently with Banbury, whom he appointed the following year his deputy as master of the leash, a household office Northampton had been granted in the early months of the Restoration.<sup>46</sup> Northampton appears to have been eager to employ his patronage to promote royalists who had suffered for their loyalty to the king and church. He certified the loyalty of one James Harwood, who had been driven from his church for using the Book of Common Prayer, and also testified to the losses incurred by George Goodman in support of his petition for the place of woodward of the forests and chases in Northamptonshire and Rutland. Later in July 1663 he recommended the petition of an old royalist lieutenant-colonel.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Over the remainder of the session Northampton was again active as a committee chairman. On 22 July 1661 he reported from the committee considering the bill to prevent illegal killing of deer. Two days later he reported from the committee considering the petition of Dr Porey, who claimed that one Matthew Hardy had exhumed Archbishop Parker’s coffin, sold the lead and disposed of the remains on a dunghill. Hardy pleaded the Act of Oblivion but was ordered to make good the damage, and see to the body’s reburial. On 9 Jan. 1662 he reported from the committee for Edward Wise’s bill. Later that month he appears to have been active on the committee for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament and on 8 Feb. he reported from the committee for repealing Strafford’s attainder.<sup>48</sup> A week later, Northampton was one of a group of peers to wait on the lord chancellor, the earl of Clarendon (as Sir Edward Hyde had become) to communicate their opposition to the proposed revival of the presidency of the north.<sup>49</sup> Northampton’s interest in the area probably stemmed from his connection with his mother-in-law, Anne, dowager countess of Pembroke. Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> was advised, when he sought election at Appleby in March 1668, to ensure that the countess was ‘well plied with letters’ from Northampton and other of her relations.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Northampton was busy in his home county of Warwickshire, where, in his capacity as lord lieutenant, he sought to bring under heel the factious city of Coventry. Noting that one Pidgeon, and several other senior members of the corporation, had been put out for their loyalty to the king, and an Anabaptist, Hobson, elected mayor, Northampton advised that the ejected aldermen should be restored. He professed himself eager to ensure ‘all things carried peaceably there, and [to] prevent the sword, entrusted to him by the king, be drawn against his majesty.’<sup>51</sup> In the summer of 1662 Northampton was ordered to oversee the destruction of the city’s walls. He undertook the task with characteristic efficiency, leaving the place in such a condition that it would be ‘impossible for any that have any skill in martial affairs to think of it for the future as a place fit to possess in order to a stand.’<sup>52</sup> He received £600 in expenses.<sup>53</sup> Both Coventry and the town of Northampton were notorious for their active dissenting communities and shortly before the coming into effect of the Act of Uniformity Northampton sought to expunge these through his thorough enforcement of the Corporation Act, purging those whom he described as the king’s ‘implacable enemies’:</p><blockquote><p>those who for their own fanatic humours resist the laws of the land, and glory in their strength as if they had or meant to frighten your Majesty to condescensions, I think Sir your Majesty is not so low in the people’s opinion, nor so destitute of loyal subjects but your command would if but pronounced strike them to dust.<sup>54</sup></p></blockquote><p>Northampton’s attention was not just concentrated on the management of his locality. In the month prior to the opening of the new session of February 1663 it was reported that he was on the point of taking a new wife following the death of his countess in late 1661. Marriage to Mary Noel, which seems to have happened by the beginning of 1664 at the latest, brought Northampton a welcome boost to his finances. It is not clear, however, whether it was on account of early difficulties with the second marriage or in reference to his relations with his first wife that Northampton wrote to the king at one point to disabuse him of the belief that he had been ‘severe’ to his countess. He protested that he had married her ‘in all affection’ but that he had been greeted in return by ‘great unkindnesses and scorns’ from her relations. His wife had refused him his conjugal rights, thereby denying him an heir. She had also run up huge bills with tradesmen and appropriated jewels and plate worth £600. None of the children of his first marriage outlived him so Northampton may have been referring to his relationship with his first countess. If relations with the second were similarly uneven, they must have been sufficiently reconciled to have five children together.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat on 20 Feb. 1663 after which he proceeded to attend 94 per cent of the sitting days of this session. On 6 Mar. he received the proxy of Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, which he held until Richmond’s return to the House on 23 March. Once again he was active during the session presiding over a series of committees. Between 21 and 28 Mar. he chaired several sessions of the committee considering the bill for the water-commanding engine, which Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, claimed to have invented.<sup>56</sup> On 11 May he reported from the committee for the bill for settling John Guest’s charitable gift. Ten days later he reported from another committee, considering the Charlotte Hessen Killigrew naturalization bill. In June he was involved with the efforts made by Lady Pembroke to secure her rights to the Clifford barony.<sup>57</sup> Northampton opposed moves to ameliorate the terms of the Act of Uniformity for nonconformists. On 25 July he joined 13 Anglican hard-liners in entering his protest against a clause in the bill for relief to those unable to subscribe to the Act which would dilute the strength of the terms of the required declaration of consent.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Along with a number of other royalist peers such as George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, Northampton was discontented with the Restoration settlement. He feared that too much leniency had been shown towards those who had previously been the king’s enemies. He had previously attempted to persuade the House to increase the number of those to be excluded from the Act of Oblivion In a letter to the king in August in which he informed the king of his successful slighting of the walls of Coventry, ‘so far as that it is untenable, and impossible for any that have any skill in martial affairs to think of it for the future as a place fit to possess in order to a stand, he proceeded to argue that…’he argued that those such as Manchester and William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele, who had been well rewarded for their belated conversion to the king’s return, had merely ‘connived at your Majesty’s restoration, as a degree to their rise, and yours and the monarchy’s eternal destruction and the Church’s fall.’<sup>59</sup> He was listed by Wharton as likely to support Clarendon in the impeachment proceedings initiated by Bristol in July 1663, though this seems unlikely given his dislike of the policy of conciliation of former Presbyterians, strongly associated with Clarendon, and his actions at the beginning of the 1664 session. Northampton may well have had some lingering personal antipathy to Clarendon and his associate Mordaunt following the failed rebellion of 1659.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat in the new session on 21 Mar. 1664 and was present on all bar one of the sitting days. His support for Bristol was made apparent that day when the Speaker, the lord chief justice, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, bt., produced a letter from Lady Bristol, which she had entrusted to Northampton and which he requested should be read out. Several other peers had refused the task, being unwilling to invite criticism after the king had made his support for Clarendon so apparent. Consideration of the matter was put off to the following day. In the debates that ensued over whether or not the letter should be read, Northampton, supported only by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, argued in favour of its being heard, claiming that Bristol was still entitled to his privileges as a peer. In spite of his efforts, the House voted against reading the letter and sent it instead, unopened, to the king.<sup>61</sup> Having failed to have his address heard by the Lords, Bristol offered to surrender himself into custody naming several peers, Northampton among them, to act as his gaoler.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Northampton continued to be extremely active in the House in the following, 1664-5, session. Before taking his seat he was entrusted on 23 Nov. 1664 with the proxy of George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergavenny. He took his place the following day, and was present on 94 per cent of the sitting days. On 16 Dec. he presided over the committee considering the bill for Philip Smythe, Viscount Strangford [I], and he chaired subsequent sessions of the same committee on 20 Dec. and on 12, 13 and 14 Jan. 1665. On 3 Feb. he chaired the committee for the Deeping Fen bill.<sup>63</sup> In the following session convened at Oxford on 9 Oct. 1665 he attended every day but one of all sitting days. Once again his staunch support for the Church and distrust of Dissent came to the fore in his support of the five mile bill, although he expressed some ambivalence about bringing in the bill at this time. He insisted that he ‘wished the bill had not been brought in, but would not now leave it laid aside’.<sup>64</sup></p><p>In early 1666 Northampton replied to a letter from the countess of Banbury about reports circulating of his being engaged in raising a regiment for the Dutch War. He explained that ‘if any such thing should be as I have had some inkling, it is upon an old dormant commission, wherein long since I had named all my officers’. The rumours Lady Banbury had heard were soon realized for in June 1666 Northampton received an order reminding him of a ‘commission received long ago’ (in 1662) ‘to enlist a regiment of horse’. He spent much of the remainder of that spring and summer was spent in raising this regiment.<sup>65</sup> In April he was one of the peers appointed to try Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle. Along with the vast majority he concluded that Morley was guilty of manslaughter.<sup>66</sup> In late September 1666 Northampton was again required to intervene in Coventry and in the county town of Warwick, where mounting hostility to Catholicism in the aftermath of the Fire of London was threatening to boil over into civil unrest. After one of his deputies failed to stem the disturbances, Northampton marched into Warwick in person. Along with his deputies and the local justices he was reported to be ‘very industrious in discovery and apprehension of pragmatical praters, who, from disaffection or loquacity, have reported false ill news’.<sup>67</sup> Northampton took his seat in the House of Lords once more a fortnight into the new session on 1 Oct. 1666. He was present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was, on 21 Sept., entrusted with his father-in-law Campden’s proxy. Later in the session, on 17 Dec., he also received that of Worcester (the proxy was entered in the proxy book twice). Once again, Northampton was heavily involved in the committee work of the House. On 11 Oct. he appeared at the committee for the bill for settling a jointure on Lady Elizabeth Noel to testify his father-in-law’s consent to the measure. He was at the committee again four days later to testify to Lady Elizabeth’s satisfaction, while Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, offered similar assurances on behalf of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton.<sup>68</sup> On 10 Nov. and again on 4 Dec. he reported to the House from the committee considering the bill concerning Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, and on 4 Jan. 1667 he reported from the committee for Strangford’s additional bill (further to the measure he had steered through two years previously). On 12 Jan. he was added to the committee for privileges and two days later nominated one of the members of a sub-committee for the poll bill.<sup>69</sup> He was named on 31 Jan. to the committee considering the bill for James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). On 5 Feb. he was added to the committee for the Bedford level bill, while on 17 Feb. he chaired a further session of the committee for privileges.<sup>70</sup> On 23 Jan. he dissented from the rejection of a clause in the bill to establish a judicature for disputes arising from the Fire which gave final appeal in the king and on 5 Feb. he also dissented from the refusal to hold a free conference on Mordaunt’s impeachment. When at the end of December 1666 Clarendon was drawing up a list of peers to be appointed to a public accounts commission as an alternative to the statutory commission proposed in the accounts bill, Northampton (along with the duke of Buckingham and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury) was one of those whose omission was said to have angered the court’s opponents.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat in the autumn 1667 session ten days after the opening, on 17 Oct. 1667. On 6 Nov. he brought to the House’s attention the arrest of one of his servants, Arthur Capes, contrary to privilege. The House ordered Capes’s release from his confinement in the gaol at Northampton, and those who had arrested him were brought to the bar and forced to apologise for their mistake. The originator of the suit against Capes, Sir Peter Wentworth, was also brought to the bar and subsequently reprimanded for certain remarks he made about Northampton in the course of his hearing.<sup>72</sup> Northampton was deeply engaged during the session in the impeachment of the lord chancellor.<sup>73</sup> After the Commons submitted their articles of impeachment, Northampton was one of those peers to enter his protest on 20 Nov. 1667 against the House’s refusal to commit the former lord chancellor on non-specific charges, noting that a comparison that had been made with the impeachment of Henry VI’s favourite, William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, in 1450 was ‘no precedent at all’. On 5 Dec., after Clarendon had left the country, Northampton himself brought into the House the bill for Clarendon’s banishment, and then presided over the committee considering the measure on 9 and 10 Dec. before reporting the bill as fit to pass on 11 December. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> considered Northampton’s actions as ‘only a thing of vanity and to insult over him [Clarendon]; which is mighty poor I think, and so doth everybody else’.<sup>74</sup> Northampton also joined Ashley and Bridgeman in working on behalf of Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> (who had married his sister, Penelope) to ensure the rejection of Lady Dacre’s bill, which had been promoted by Buckingham, Bristol and Charles Howard*, Viscount Andover. The bill, introduced in the Commons, failed to make it to the Lords.<sup>75</sup></p><p>As in previous sessions, Northampton maintained a high profile as a man of business within the House. On 14 Dec. 1667 he reported from the committee for Palmes’s bill and on 17 Dec. he chaired the committee for the leather bill.<sup>76</sup> In January 1668, along with Buckingham, Northampton was one of the English commissioners deputed to put into effect the Act of Parliament for settling freedom of trade with Scotland.<sup>77</sup> On 11 Feb. he reported from the committee for privileges concerning the draft of an address to the king about foreign nobility as well as about minors sitting in the Lords. On 31 Mar. he reported from the privileges committee again concerning pre-1640 precedents for putting the Commons in mind of bills depending in their House. Northampton was also a prominent participant during the case of <em>Skinner v. The East India Company</em>. Along with Algernon Capel*, earl of Essex, he chaired the majority of committee hearings held on the business.<sup>78</sup> On 29 Apr. 1668 he reported the committee’s findings to the House, estimating Skinner’s losses to total some £28,322 7s. 5d. Following ‘a long debate’ the House awarded Skinner £5,000.<sup>79</sup> Northampton was subsequently named one of the reporters of the conference with the Commons on the subject on 5 May 1668; at another conference three days later he addressed the Commons underlining the Lords’ privileges and insisting that the Lords had no desire to ‘entertain suits causelessly’ but that ‘religion has taught the Lords a wiser method, for they have learnt by the advice of Jethro to Moses to set up inferior courts for their own ease’.<sup>80</sup></p><h2><em>From Clarendon to Danby, 1669-75 </em></h2><p>Northampton was absent from the House for the subsequent session of October 1669. Ironically, considering his close involvement in the earlier proceedings relating to Skinner, on 9 Nov. he was fined £40 for his failure to attend the House without reasonable excuse during the continuing debates on it with the Commons.<sup>81</sup> The same month he submitted a petition to Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, relating to problems in Whittlewood Forest, of which he was by that time chief warden.<sup>82</sup> In December he employed his interest with John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, to secure a scholars’ place for a client at St Peter’s (Peterhouse) Cambridge. Cosin passed on the request: even though it meant that two others eager to secure places for their sons would be disappointed he was adamant that Northampton ‘must not be denied’.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat once more on 12 Mar. 1670, after which he was present on three quarters of all sitting days. That month he was noted as one of the principal speakers arguing against the passage of the bill to enable John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to remarry after his divorce. He joined the majority of those who had voted against the measure in subscribing the protest of 17 Mar. against the committal of the bill.<sup>84</sup> Northampton’s disillusionment with the state of affairs had not abated following the removal of Clarendon. In July, when he wrote to Herbert Astley, his former chaplain, to congratulate him on his appointment as dean of Norwich (a post for which Northampton seems to have employed his interest on Astley’s behalf) he commented, ‘I could well wish to see you in the house of peers, but I fear the kingdom deserves not now so great a happiness as to have you take a place on that bench, for fortune not merit sways this world.’<sup>85</sup> Northampton later attempted to exploit his relation with Astley to recommend one Hughes to a position. It is unclear whether or not he was successful but no-one of that name appears to have occupied significant office at Norwich at this time.<sup>86</sup> On 3 Oct. Northampton was entrusted with the proxy of John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor). Northampton resumed his place in the House following the adjournment on 14 Nov. and continued to sit until the prorogation of 22 Apr. 1671. On 2 Dec. 1670 he was one of four peers to enter a dissent from the passage of the bill for general naturalization. Between 26 Jan. and 11 Feb. 1671 he was involved as one of the managers for the five heated conferences which met on the Lords’ amendments to the bill to prevent malicious maiming and wounding which followed the assault on Sir John Coventry<sup>‡</sup>. On 13 Mar. he reported from the committee for Neville Yelverton’s bill and between 13 Mar. and 12 Apr. he continued to preside over a series of committees. On 10 Apr. he offered a proviso to be incorporated within the game bill and on 18 Apr. reported the result of the conference concerning frauds in the buying and selling of cattle.<sup>87</sup></p><p>As his continued role in a number of committees suggests, Northampton remained an influential figure. Following the death of Manchester in May 1671, he was one of those spoken of as a possible successor as lord chamberlain, though the position was eventually granted to Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans.<sup>88</sup> He did however succeed Manchester both as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Northamptonshire and eventually as recorder of the borough of Northampton. His election to the latter post was not without controversy. Upon Manchester’s death Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, had initially been appointed, a choice approved by the king. However, after about one year the corporation exercised its right to replace him and at an assembly on 14 Oct. 1672 unanimously elected Northampton in his stead. Peterborough protested and brought his case before the Privy Council, where the king made clear his disapproval of the corporation’s action, but eventually acceded to it. However, the attorney-general was ordered to instigate quo warranto proceedings against the town, ‘because of their contemptuous proceedings in this business, and the disrespect they have shown to the earl of Peterborough, who had formerly honoured them by accepting the office.’ Northampton continued to be re-elected each year for the rest of his life, in keeping with the provisions of the borough charter.<sup>89</sup> In January 1673 he was said to have been one of two peers to turn down an offer of a command of a new regiment.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat in the House the following month on 4 Feb. 1673, after which he was again present on every day bar one of the session. In advance of the session he was entrusted, on 23 Jan., with Robartes’s proxy. Notice of his activity in this session is scarce, but he must have been seen as worth cultivating by the court, for on 7 Mar. 1673 Northampton was sworn of the Privy Council. Shortly afterwards, in May, he was commissioned colonel of the regiment of the Catholic John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, who was forced to resign by the terms of the Test Act.<sup>91</sup> Northampton failed to attend the brief session of October 1673 but returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 7 Jan. 1674, having again been given Robartes’s proxy in the preceding month. On 4 Feb. he was also entrusted with that of his Warwickshire neighbour, Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh. Present on each day of the session, he quickly identified himself with the opposition to the anti-Catholic measures presented to the House. On 11 Jan. he was one of only three peers, the others being James Stuart*, duke of York and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, to vote against the motion to address the king for a proclamation banishing all papists to at least ten miles from London.<sup>92</sup> Later that month he was identified (as were Anglesey and Buckingham) by the French envoy de Ruvigny among those thought sympathetic to closer ties with France.<sup>93</sup> Northampton received Robartes’s proxy again on 1 Apr. 1675 for the following session commencing 13 April. The same month he was noted by the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), as among those thought likely to support the non-resisting test. Northampton took his seat once more in the new session on 13 Apr. 1675, after which he was present on each of its 41 sitting days.</p><h2><em>Danby’s associate, 1675-8</em></h2><p>Soon after the prorogation of 9 June 1675, Northampton was at last rewarded with a return to office as constable of the Tower of London, with the accompanying post of lord lieutenant of Tower Hamlets.<sup>94</sup> His appointment was said to have been owing to the influence of Danby, with whom Northampton increasingly came to be associated as indicated by his earlier support for Danby’s non-resisting test.<sup>95</sup> Edmund Verney commented dismissively of the office itself and even more so of its new incumbent, suggesting that ‘his lordship is an erected thing that may easily be managed.’ Verney’s assessment was corrected by his father, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, who pointed out that Northampton’s post was the practical one of constable of the Tower, not the honorific one of high constable, and that the result was likely to be a limitation of the authority of the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Robinson<sup>‡</sup>. The immediate effect appears to have been a breakdown in control in the environs of the Tower with Robinson refusing to move against local rioters as he had not received orders to do so from Northampton.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Northampton’s attention was drawn to local concerns in the autumn of 1675 as a result of the devastating fire that gutted the town of Northampton in early October.<sup>97</sup> He was quick to take advantage of the new parliamentary session, which convened on 13 Oct., to seek assistance for the inhabitants. Present on each day of the 21-day session, he dominated meetings convened to organize the town’s reconstruction and was, appropriately enough, chairman of the committee formed to oversee passage of a bill for rebuilding the town, from which he reported on 22 November.<sup>98</sup> He seems to have petitioned the king to delay proroguing the session so the bill could be finalized. His promotion of the measure intrigued Charles, who professed himself surprised that Northampton might wish to assist a place which had been instrumental in bringing about his father’s death in the Civil War. Northampton’s insistence that he had forgiven the town’s inhabitants was said to have prompted the king to concede that he would do likewise.<sup>99</sup> Consequently, the town was presented with a royal gift of 1,000 tonnes of timber and seven years of revenue from the chimney tax to enable them to rebuild. Northampton headed the list of the rest of the donors, providing £120.<sup>100</sup> On 20 Nov. Northampton was, unsurprisingly, to be found among the majority voting against the motion to address the king to request a dissolution of Parliament. </p><p>Following the prorogation, Northampton’s attention was taken up with management of the Tower. His task proved a trying one. His poor relations with Robinson had been apparent from the outset and towards the end of April 1676 he petitioned Danby for his deputy’s removal. He complained that Robinson had permitted a number of abuses. Robinson had previously been the subject of criticism for demanding excessive fees from his prisoners and hoarding his soldiers’ pay, but no action had been taken. Northampton submitted a detailed list of his complaints among them that the regicide Robert Tichborne<sup>‡</sup>, ‘a very dangerous man’, had no particular warder assigned him and was free to wander as he chose. There were other examples of Robinson’s slovenly attitude to the Tower’s security:</p><blockquote><p>The gates of the Tower are too frequently kept open in the nights till twelve, two, and four o’clock in the morning for the coming home of Sir John, to the hazard of that place which is his Majesty’s great magazine of arms.<sup>101</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite Northampton’s complaints, Robinson remained in post. An attempt was made to improve the prevailing conditions, though, and Robinson entered into a bond of £10,000 ‘to answer for the concerns of the Tower.’<sup>102</sup></p><p>Towards the end of June 1676 Northampton was summoned as one of the triers of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. Unlike Anglesey, Danby and his father-in-law, Campden, who were among seven to find Cornwallis guilty of manslaughter, he divided with the majority and found his colleague not guilty.<sup>103</sup> The afternoon of 13 Oct. was spent in London in company with Anglesey, with whom he also dined on 25 November.<sup>104</sup> Northampton returned to the House four days into the new session, on 19 Feb. 1677, and the only time he was absent during the entirety of this long session were on its first three days. In mid-April it was noted that both he and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, spoke on both days of the lengthy conference held with the Commons concerning amendments to the supply bill for building 30 new warships, though ‘it so happened that the rest of the lords and the commoners were discoursing at that time that very few knew what they said.’<sup>105</sup> Towards the end of the year, on 20 Dec. 1677, he was again entrusted with Robartes’s proxy and on 31 Jan. 1678 he also received that of Thomas Cromwell*, 6th Baron Cromwell (better known by his Irish title of earl of Ardglass), which was shortly afterwards vacated by his return to the House on 6 February. On 4 Apr. Northampton was present in the House for the trial of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, whom he found guilty of manslaughter.<sup>106</sup> Personal concerns were to the fore early that year when Northampton was dismayed to discover that his only daughter by his first marriage, Lady Alathea Compton, had contracted a secret marriage with Edward Hungerford, son of Sir Edward Hungerford<sup>‡</sup>. She meekly responded to his command to return home but this came too late to prevent her being ‘bedded with’ her new husband. The marriage proved a short one as Lady Alathea died in childbirth later that same year.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Northampton took his seat in the following session on 23 May 1678, after which he was present on 95 per cent of sitting days. On 7 June he subscribed the protest against the resolution to investigate the claim of Robert Villiers to the viscountcy of Purbeck. He then subscribed two further protests on 20 June and 9 July against the resolution to petition the king for leave to bring in a bill disabling Villiers from making any further claims on the title. Following the close of the session, Northampton attended the prorogation day of 1 August. In spite of his extensive patronage, he appears to have been able to exert only limited electoral influence. He arrived in Northampton towards the end of September intending to offer his backing to Danby’s 15-year-old son-in-law, Donogh O’Brien, Lord O’Brien [I], in the by-election caused by the death of O’Brien’s father, Henry O’Brien<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Ibrackan [I], only to find his expected candidate unwilling to stand. Having written to Danby seeking his guidance, Northampton transferred his interest to Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>, although he expressed his concerns that Temple, ‘being so absolute a stranger to this country’, might prove unacceptable to the local electors.<sup>108</sup> In spite of Danby’s and Northampton’s backing, as well as local willingness to accept Temple as someone ‘acceptable to the king’, the sheriff of Northampton so blatantly attempted to skew the election in Temple’s favour that it was easy for the supporters of his opponent, Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, to challenge the result. Following an investigation at the bar of the Commons on 11 Nov. into a double return, the House resolved that Montagu was duly elected for the borough.<sup>109</sup></p><p>In advance of the following session of autumn 1678, Robartes again ensured that his proxy was safely lodged, from 14 Oct. 1678, with his usual holder. Northampton returned to the House a fortnight into the new session on 8 Nov., and was present for just over 70 per cent of all sitting days. A week after his arrival he voted in favour of making the declaration against transubstantiation stand under the same penalties as the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in the test bill. On 6 Dec. he was one of only four peers to enter a protest against the proposed address to the king calling for a proclamation to disarm and secure all Catholics convicted of recusancy, while on 26 Dec., he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill. The following day he voted against committing Danby.</p><h2><em>The 1679-81 crisis</em></h2><p>Too closely identified with Danby to escape the repercussions of the treasurer’s fall from grace, at the close of 1678 Northampton was removed from his office as constable of the Tower. He was replaced by his brother-in-law (and the son of Northampton’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth, widow of Sir William Compton) William Alington*, Baron Alington.<sup>110</sup> Northampton’s removal had been long-anticipated following a series of arguments with his deputy Sir John Robinson. Their relationship had failed to improve and at one point Northampton was said to have boxed Robinson on the ear. Robinson, however, did not benefit from Northampton’s removal. He was also put out as a result of continuing complaints about his fondness for carousing with his prisoners.<sup>111</sup> </p><p>Northampton took his seat in the abortive session of the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679. He then took his seat once more at the opening of the second session on 15 Mar., and was present on almost 97 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was noted by Danby among those thought likely to support him, and throughout the session Northampton remained loyal to the former lord treasurer. On 19 Mar. he pressed for the Lords to ‘go the milder way and not with rigour’.<sup>112</sup> The following day he received the proxy of Jacob Astley*, 3rd Baron Astley, vacated on 2 May. On 21 Mar., during the continuing debates over whether or not Danby should be attached, Northampton argued ‘for my part I would disallow all impeachments from the Commons till they allow our judicature’, for which he earned a rebuke from George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, who complained that ‘this speech was not offered in its proper place, he is against impeachments at all.’ On 22 and again on 26 Mar. Northampton entered his dissent from resolutions furthering the Lords’ bill for banishing Danby. On 1 Apr. Northampton was among those voting against the early stages of the Commons’ bill for Danby’s attainder. The following day he spoke once again on behalf of the embattled Danby, warning that the Lords’ privileges were under threat if they agreed to the bill:</p><blockquote><p>the thickest head of hair may be pulled out hair by hair: if you part with one privilege and another, you may at last lose all… they say <em>vox</em> <em>populi</em> is <em>vox</em> <em>dei</em> but I must tell you that the greatest curs make the greatest noise in a pack of dogs. The passing this bill would be more prejudicial to the kingdom than if my Lord Danby were here sitting with his staff in his hand. The bill takes away the King’s power of command and his power of pardon, I am therefore against committing it.<sup>113</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 4 and again on 14 Apr. Northampton voted and protested against agreeing to the passage of the bill for Danby’s attainder, in both the milder form amended by the Lords and the harsher version finally agreed on with the Commons. The following month, he was again vocal in the debates over whether or not the bishops should be permitted to vote in the House in cases of blood. Following on from contributions by Buckingham and by Peter Mews*, bishop of Bath and Wells, Northampton interjected that ‘instead of assisting the people in their liberties you take away the benefit to them of the king’s grace and pardon.’<sup>114</sup> On 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, and four days later he dissented from the resolution to pass the bill for regulating the trials of peers. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. Too clearly a follower of the court, he was excluded in April 1679 when the Privy Council was remodelled to bring more opposition members into the government.</p><p>During the elections for the new Parliament in the summer of 1679 Northampton’s steward in Warwickshire was supposed to be prominent among those eager to ‘show their love to the country by breaking heads.’ But Northampton himself surprised one prospective candidate, Sir John Knightley, by failing to turn out for him, and even though Knightley claimed to have ‘800 in the field’ he seems not to have made it as far as the poll. Both county seats went to court candidates.<sup>115</sup> Northampton took his seat at the opening of the second exclusion Parliament, on which day he introduced Robartes in his new title as earl of Radnor. He continued to attend every one of the 59 sitting days of the session. On 15 Nov. he voted against rejecting the exclusion bill on first reading and on 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. Northampton’s apparent change of tack in favour of exclusion may have been on account of concerns about York’s ability to safeguard the Church of England, though his decision to abandon York was less a step in the direction of the opposition and more a parallel shift with Danby, who had resolved to jettison York to save himself.<sup>116</sup> Nevertheless, it is notable that whereas in May 1677 Shaftesbury (as Baron Ashley had become) had noted Northampton as triply vile, he seems later to have been amended this assessment to ‘worthy’. Having resolved to give exclusion a hearing at least, Northampton persisted on his course. On 7 Dec. 1680 he joined with the majority in finding William Howard*, Viscount Stafford guilty of treason.</p><p>On the dissolution and summoning of a new Parliament, Northampton determined this time to back Knightley for one of the Warwickshire seats, anticipating Knightley’s request for his support.<sup>117</sup> In the event, however, Knightley did not cause a poll and both seats went to country candidates. Northampton returned to the House for the new Parliament convened at Oxford on 21 Mar. and was present on each day of the brief session. Soon after his arrival he was waited on by Danby’s son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, as were all of the other peers Danby had calculated would support his renewed effort to be bailed.<sup>118</sup> Northampton also received a request from Sir William Howard, mentioned in a letter of Lady Northampton as a ‘friend of the family’, to use his interest with Halifax on behalf of Howard’s son. Howard closed his letter with the assurance that:</p><blockquote><p>although your lordship has been a long time used very basely, and unworthily yet you can neither say nor do anything this Parliament that shall seem to reflect on or lessen your constant and immortal loyalty.<sup>119</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Oxford Parliament proved short and ill-tempered and left Danby without time to secure his release. Northampton seems to have retreated to the country following the dissolution, though he was kept informed of developments at court by regular newsletters.<sup>120</sup> By this time, aged almost 60 years old, Northampton’s health seems to have been in decline. One of his correspondents, concerned by reports that he was suffering from swelling in the legs (presumably gout) advised him to seek medical intervention. Although Northampton seems to have heeded the advice, his efforts proved futile and on 3 June he fell downstairs at his Warwickshire seat of Compton Wynyates.<sup>121</sup> In November he was believed to be well enough to be transferred to Castle Ashby but he died there just over a month later on 15 December.<sup>122</sup> For all the concerns about his health, Northampton’s death appears to have been unexpected. He seems not to have left a will and his family was left ‘in great disorder’. It was said that his widow ‘minds nothing but fasts and grieves’ and was thought likely to endanger her own life by her excessive mourning.<sup>123</sup> After a brief period of confusion, Northampton’s corpse was returned to Compton where he was buried in the church he had rebuilt.</p><p>In the course of his career, vigorous campaigning enabled Northampton to achieve restitution of his property, which significantly improved his financial position. On the marriage of his sister, Lady Anne Compton, to Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup> in 1666, Northampton was able to make a ‘noble present’ of £1,000 besides her £5,000 portion.<sup>124</sup> Four years later, he was able to create a settlement providing for an annuity of £500 for his heir, George Compton*, later 4th earl of Northampton, as well as £12,000 to be raised to provide for his daughter’s portions.<sup>125</sup> In addition to this, Northampton undertook considerable restoration work: that at Compton Wynyates cost some £358 17s. 3d.<sup>126</sup> At his death, the estates at Compton, Castle Ashby and the contents of his London home in Lincoln’s Inn were estimated to be worth over £12,155.<sup>127</sup> He was succeeded in the peerage by Lord Compton as 4th earl of Northampton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CONWAY, Edward (c. 1623-83) |
<p><strong><surname>CONWAY</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (c. 1623–83)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 26 June 1655 as 3rd Visct. CONWAY, and 3rd Visct. Conway [I]; <em>cr. </em>3 Dec. 1679 earl of CONWAY |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1623, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Edward Conway<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Visct. Conway, and Frances, da. of Sir Francis Popham<sup>‡</sup>, of Wellington, Som. <em>educ</em>. privately (Mr Garrard); travelled abroad (France) 1640.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 11 Feb. 1651, Anne (<em>d</em>.1679), da. of Sir Heneage Finch<sup>‡</sup>, Speaker of the House of Commons, and Elizabeth Cradok, sis. of Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.;<sup>2</sup> (2) <em>bef</em>. Oct. 1680 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1681), da. of George Booth*, Bar. Delamer, and Elizabeth Grey, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.;<sup>3</sup> (3) bef. 30 Aug. 1681 (with £30,000), Ursula (<em>d</em>. 1697), da. of Col. George Stawell, of Cothelstone, Som., <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 11 Aug. 1683; <em>will</em> 9 Aug. 1683, pr. 11-14 Aug. 1683.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>PC [I] 19 Dec. 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> PC 2 Feb. 1681-<em>d.</em>;<sup>7</sup> commr., Declaration of Settlement [I] 1661, <sup>8</sup> public accounts 1666,<sup>9</sup> freedom of trade with Scotland 1668, <sup>10</sup> customs [I] 1673-5;<sup>11</sup> sec. of state [N.] 1681-3.</p><p>Commr, assessment, Warws. 1657, militia, Warws. Mar. 1660;<sup>12</sup> <em>custos. rot</em>. Warws. 1675-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Warws. 1682-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col., regt.of ft. [I], 1642-?49;<sup>13</sup> capt., coy of ?ft. [I] 1660-?d.;<sup>14</sup>; gov., Charlemont Fort, co. Armagh, co. Tyrone, co. Monaghan and part of co. Down 1672;<sup>15</sup> lt.-gen. of horse [I] 1674;<sup>16</sup> capt., coy of ft. [I] 1674.<sup>17</sup></p><p>FRS 1668.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: none found. The miniature by Hoskins in the Wallace Collection described as a likeness of the 3rd Viscount appears to depict his father.</p> |
<p>Although Conway, a holder of significant Anglo-Irish interests, held a series of local offices as well as one of the principal offices of state, he has long been dismissed as little more than a bungler. Such a reputation is not wholly deserved. If he lacked the gravitas or political knowledge possessed by some of his contemporaries, he compensated for this with astute insight, a genuine intellectual curiosity and willingness to remain on terms with men of opposing camps. He was also able to appreciate the subtleties of the ‘cunning game’ in hand as well as to benefit from its fallout.<sup>23</sup></p><p>The Conway family’s origins were in Wales but it was as loyal servants of the court in England and Ireland that they achieved distinction. By the early 17th century the family had amassed estates in England, Ireland and Wales, with the latter based on the castle of Conwy. In England the principal estate was at Ragley in Warwickshire.<sup>24</sup> For much of the period, though, the family’s interests in Ireland predominated and in 1665 Conway provoked consternation when he sought permission to strip his Welsh seat of its lead, timber and iron to transport it to Ireland.<sup>25</sup> Conway’s estates in Ireland proved a significant source of revenue and patronage, and the basis of his political connection. A close associate throughout his career of Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I] and of his own brother-in-law, Sir George Rawdon, bt., Conway also proved a ‘real friend’ to Sir Edward Dering<sup>‡</sup>, one of the commissioners for executing the Act of Settlement in Ireland. In 1667 Conway used his influence on Dering’s behalf to secure him the reversion of the auditor’s office.<sup>26</sup> In the same year Conway was awarded £2,000 under the Act of Explanation towards his father’s arrears for service in Ireland before 1649. Conway’s title to the lordship of several Irish towns was also confirmed at about the same time.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Conway’s father had been a loyal cavalry commander in the royalist army during the Civil War. Following the king’s defeat his estates were sequestered and he retired to France where he died in 1655. Conway, on the other hand, served as a colonel in the parliamentary army in Ireland after his enforced return from his studies abroad in early 1642 and his role in helping to put down the rebels in Ulster in 1646 was later commended by Parliament.<sup>28</sup> Like George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, Conway may have considered service in the parliamentary forces against Irish rebels acceptable in a way that service against the king in England was not. It also appears that he was encouraged by his father, aware of the king’s declining fortunes, to curry favour with Parliament.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Conway appears to have remained in Ireland until about 1651, when he married in England Anne Finch, the philosopher and Quaker sympathiser. Conway himself was an Anglican and seems to have had little patience for his wife’s ‘friends in the truth’, whom he thought ‘as arrant knaves… as any I know’. Nevertheless, while he was always adamant that his wife was no Quaker herself, he appears to have been remarkably tolerant of Lady Conway’s gatherings at Ragley and he was not averse to participating in theological discussions with members of her circle. He also seems to have been more than willing to employ his interest on behalf of some of his wife’s intellectual acquaintance, in particular the Cambridge scholar, Henry More.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In 1656 Lady Conway, who suffered from cripplingly poor health, travelled to France in search of a cure. While crossing the Channel to join his wife in Paris, Conway was abducted by the Dutch. He was robbed of all his clothes and possessions and imprisoned. Conway’s relatives were forced to appeal to the council of state to assist in obtaining his release.<sup>31</sup> By 1657 Conway appears to have resumed his grandfather’s influential role in Warwickshire society and in December of that year he was admitted to the county’s assessment committee. With the collapse of the Cromwellian regime, Conway played a crucial role in settling the Warwickshire militia and in the selection of candidates to the Convention through the mediation of his cousin Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>32</sup> On Harley’s readmission to Parliament in February 1660 Conway wrote to congratulate him. He also outlined his own aspirations:</p><blockquote><p>If I were admitted (who I think may pretend to be a secluded member) my vote should be that all parties might be put into a secure, peaceable and quiet condition both for conscience and estate, which is the only way to take off that edge of war which runs through the nations.<sup>33</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Warwickshire militia committee which emerged in March 1660 was headed by Conway, Robert Greville*, 4th Baron Brooke, and Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh.<sup>34</sup> Conway’s name also appeared along with the royalist James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, attached to the ‘humble address of the nobility and gentry of the county of Warwick’ submitted to Charles II later in the year. The moderates were hard pressed to maintain their control of the militia in Warwickshire. Conway reported to Edward Harley that ‘these are not all such as would have had, yet more than we should have obtained, being but 7 or 8 of us, to 18 of the contrary party, if we had not stood very stiff to the principles’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Alongside this involvement in Warwickshire affairs, Conway maintained a strong interest in Ireland throughout the 1650s. He maintained a close association with Monck, increasingly influential under the rule of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, and treated him to hospitality in his residence in London in 1652. Monck introduced him to the Cromwellian lord deputy of Ireland, Charles Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>. By the winter of 1660, perhaps under the influence of Albemarle (as Monck had become in July 1660), Conway was awarded with both a place on the Irish Privy Council and the command of a company of foot in that island.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In advance of the Convention, Conway was marked by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of those peers whose fathers had sat in the House in the 1640s. Despite his previous service for parliament, Conway quickly re-established himself at court and over the next few years emerged as one of Charles II’s companions in his social, if not necessarily his political, inner circle. Conway owed this in part to his cultivation of Barbara Palmer, countess of Castlemaine [I] (later duchess of Cleveland), but also to his chameleon-like ability to adapt to changing circumstance.<sup>37</sup> He was fortunate too in being able to make use of the interest of another Anglo-Irish magnate, Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], who was credited with introducing Conway to Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, ‘and the other great ministers of state’.<sup>38</sup> Conway’s Irish interests may have been an additional reason for his successful cultivation of the court. These necessitated frequent absence from the House but in spite of this he maintained close links with associates in Westminster, when he was detained elsewhere.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Conway took his seat in the Convention on 27 Apr. 1660, part of the first influx of eight peers of royalist lineage who were able to force their way into the House. He claimed in a letter written that day that nothing now kept him in London but lack of money, but that must have proved hard to come by as he attended 68 per cent of all sitting days prior to the adjournment.<sup>40</sup> On 1 May he was nominated to the committee to consider the letter of thanks to be communicated to the king and on 5 May he was added to the committee to draw up an ordinance to constitute a committee of safety of both Houses. On 9 May he was nominated to the committee for an ordinance for settling the militia, and a week later he was added to the committee for petitions. He was one of the eight peers granted leave on 22 May to attend the king on his arrival. He returned to his place six days later, on which day he was named to the committee considering the bill for the ordinance confirming the monthly assessment. Conway was named to five more committees in the weeks prior to the adjournment of 13 September. He returned to the House on 6 Nov. after which he was present on two thirds of the remaining days of the session. Absence from the House for the whole of October may have been connected with the death of his young heir, Heneage Conway, during that month.<sup>41</sup> In the midst of the business conducted by the Convention, Conway maintained close contact with the progress of elections for an Irish Parliament. He relied on Rawdon to ensure the election of his nominees to be burgesses for Down and Antrim.<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>Ireland and the Irish cattle bill, 1661-67 </em></h2><p>Conway was one of those to be fortunate to emerge from the coronation festivities in April 1661 unscathed even though his horse proved hard to control and fell three times during the procession. He noted that James Stuart*, duke of York, fared little better falling twice and that the king eventually ordered the musicians to stop playing as the cavalcade looked set to end in disaster. Conway’s attendance declined markedly during the first few sessions of the new Parliament as Irish business monopolized his attention. He took his seat at the opening of Parliament on 8 May but on 10 June he was granted leave to travel to Ireland, following which he was absent from the rest of the first session, having attended just 19 sitting days. On 10 July he registered his proxy with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, which was vacated by the prorogation.<sup>43</sup> Absent from Parliament for the ensuing four years, Conway was kept apprised of events there by contacts such as his brother-in-law, Sir John Finch.<sup>44</sup> On those occasions when he registered a proxy it was normally entrusted to one of his Anglo-Irish colleagues. On 2 Dec. 1664 he gave it to James Butler*, earl of Brecknock (better known by his Irish title as duke of Ormond), at Orrery’s request. Orrery advised Charles Stuart*, duke of Richmond, to do likewise.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Conway was in London in the spring of 1665 but by summer he had quit the capital to avoid the plague. His decision proved too late for at least one of his servants who died shortly after and he was forced to allow two more to be boarded up in his London residence. He seems to have been more concerned about the goods he had not been able to move out in time, by which he estimated he would be a loser to the tune of £200 or £300.<sup>46</sup> He returned to the House for the session convened in Oxford on 16 Oct. 1665, after which he was present on just over half of all sitting days. In advance of the session, on 11 Oct. he was entrusted with Anglesey’s proxy. Conway’s attention during the session was dominated by the controversy over the Irish cattle bill (on whose committee he was placed), which had taken him and several other Irish notables by surprise.<sup>47</sup> On 19 Oct. he warned Ormond of the threat to Ireland if the bill were permitted to pass:</p><blockquote><p>the consequences will be very dangerous to that poor country and utterly disable them from those payments which are expected in the bill of settlement and all other public charge, and besides the advantage it will give the French and Dutch to work upon our discontents there, when we are debarred trade, from all the world, which this is in effect to do, we must either live like brutes, and Americans, or the profit of our trade must go into foreign parts.<sup>48</sup></p></blockquote><p>When the bill arrived in the Lords, Conway was on 26 Oct. named to the committee considering the measure.<sup>49</sup> In an effort to slow the bill’s progress, he insisted that all relevant witnesses be given time to offer their evidence. He sought the intervention of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, ‘who hath ever been a true patron to Ireland’ and accompanied a delegation waiting on Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, in an effort to prevent the bill’s passage. He was also reported as leaving ‘nothing undone to stave it off in the House of Commons’.<sup>50</sup> The spirited opposition led by Conway and other peers dependent on the trade in Irish beef combined with direct pressure from the king resulted in the bill being dropped on this occasion.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Conway was one of several Irish peers to put his name to a letter of August 1666 accusing some of York’s officers of harming the duke’s Irish estates and depleting his revenue there.<sup>52</sup> The same month he was named in a petition by Ormond requesting the king’s continued intervention against the Irish cattle bill.<sup>53</sup> Conway returned to the House a month into the ensuing session, on 25 Oct. 1666, when he was forced once again to respond to a renewed effort to push through the Irish cattle bill, now backed vigorously by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. Conway was deeply critical of Ormond and the Irish Committee of trade, who he believed had been too slow in their response to the threat.<sup>54</sup> On 27 Oct. in one of his regular bulletins to Ormond Conway reported the House’s canvassing of the word ‘nuisance’ the previous week and its adoption on the 26 Oct. of the phrase ‘detriment and mischief’ in its place. Making an analogy with the source of the recent fire of London, Conway commented that ‘the destruction of Ireland would begin at Pudding time.’ Eager to make the most of his contacts at court to head off the unwelcome bill, Conway resumed his regular attendance at Lady Castlemaine’s soirées, ‘as an opportunity of the king’s conversation which is very desirable.’<sup>55</sup> He also prepared the ground for securing concessions for Ireland in the event of the bill passing but was forced to conclude that the measure would pass ‘without any enlargement of time, or any proviso by way of compensation or relief for the inconveniences it will bring upon that kingdom’. Perhaps significantly, Conway was not named to the committee considering the bill during the session and the Irish case was further weakened by Clarendon’s rapidly diminishing influence, who despite being ‘very zealously a friend’ to the Irish interest ‘could not make one convert.’ Conway attributed much of the cause for the bill to the hostility in the House towards Ormond demonstrated by Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury) and John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (attending the House as earl of Guildford), as well as Ashley and Lauderdale’s desire ‘to engross and monopolize … the trade of cattle between England and Scotland.’ In an effort to maximise the voting bloc of those opposed to the measure, he appealed that the duke would send up his proxy but it was not until the following month that Ormond wrote to Clarendon offering the proxy either to Conway or Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington.<sup>56</sup> Conway’s efforts to rally the opposition proved vain and on 23 Nov. he was left with little option but to register his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill. He was one of only four peers to do so, all of them with significant lands and interest in Ireland – Conway, Anglesey, Burlington and Ormond’s son Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler of Moore Park (better known as earl of Ossory [I]). Four days after this vote, he informed Ormond ‘of the fatal blow given to Ireland… and that Irish Cattle had the honour to die by a jury of 63 temporal lords’, opposed by 47, ‘all the bishops included’.<sup>57</sup> In spite of this, Conway remained optimistic in the face of defeat and commented to Sir George Rawdon that, ‘I am one of those that have the vanity to believe this restraint of trade into England will turn very much to the advantage of Ireland.’<sup>58</sup> Conway’s appraisal of the situation proved to be prescient. Irish trade developed in new directions, while that of England suffered.<sup>59</sup></p><p>As proceedings in the House became increasingly fraught during the winter of 1666-7, Conway kept Ormond apprised of events, informing him of the impeachment brought in against John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt. In the last days of December 1666 Conway had the ‘misfortune’, as he considered it, to be one of the six peers named to the accounts commission established by royal prerogative, intended as a means of forestalling the Commons’ planned parliamentary commission of public accounts. In spite of his former prediction that the session ‘would have ended with an outward calmness’ by the end of the year he was warning of greater troubles ahead.<sup>60</sup> The temper of Parliament worsened in the heated debates and Conway reported in January 1667 that, ‘the two Houses of Parliament are at great difference, and the king’s affairs, and the concernments of the kingdom are neglected.’<sup>61</sup> The Irish cattle bill continued to cause dissension. Much of the debate centred on the Commons’ insistence on the use of the term ‘nuisance’ in describing the import of Irish cattle. On 14 Jan. 1667 Conway subscribed the protest against the adoption of the ‘nuisance’ clause, joined this time by a number of court followers who objected to the limitation of the prerogative implied by the term, and the same day he reported back to Ormond that, ‘I little thought to have seen the passages of this day, that when more than five parts in six of the House of Peers were against the word Nuisance, we have passed it by the King’s particular command’. Sheldon had even told Conway that ‘the king was resolved to ruin himself, and it would not be in their powers to preserve him.’<sup>62</sup> Conway himself was dismayed to note how little the bill appeared to have concerned the king or Lady Castlemaine:</p><blockquote><p>Here is no news but the death of my Lady Denham, the queen’s sickness, and the ill correspondence of both Houses of Parliament. I supped with the king and my Lady Castlemaine last night, and was with them till two o’clock this morning, they were very merry, and did not trouble their heads with any of these things.<sup>63</sup></p></blockquote><p>He also reported to Ormond Clarendon’s assessment that it had been Arlington who had convinced the king to allow the measure to pass in the hopes of securing a more compliant Commons for other business.<sup>64</sup> The royal commission of accounts to which he had formerly been appointed was also a cause of conflict between the houses, as the Commons decided to press on with its parliamentary commission. When the bill to establish it was before the House on 24 Jan., Conway’s name was added, once again, as a commissioner for the peers.</p><h2><em>England</em><em> and Ireland after the Irish Cattle Act, 1667-73 </em></h2><p>Following the tempestuous events of the summer of 1667, Conway took his seat four days in the new session on 14 Oct. 1667. He was thereafter present on 40 per cent of all sitting days. The opening found Conway pessimistic in his appraisal of the situation. On his first day he was appointed to the commission to consider the state of trade with Scotland. He felt that while Scotland was ‘under considerations of great favour’, Ireland was overshadowed by ‘evil stars.’ Eager to get to the bottom of the matter, Conway made a point of turning out regularly for the committee on Scottish trade, sitting on one day from three in the afternoon to nine at night. He then conveyed the details of the debate to his kinsman, Rawdon, in the hopes that he would be able to make ‘judgment useful to Ireland better than I can.’<sup>65</sup></p><p>Besides the ongoing concerns over the state of trade between England, Scotland and Ireland, the beginning of the session was dominated by the moves against Clarendon and the rumours of an intended impeachment of Ormond, expected to be brought in by Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>. Conway assured the duke that he had called on Arlington to find out the truth of the matter and been informed that it was nothing more than something ‘vented out of the shop of Clarendon house.’<sup>66</sup> After the session had been adjourned on 19 Dec. 1667, Conway on 13 Jan. 1668 made over his proxy to Arlington, while the following day he informed Ormond of his intention to retreat to Warwickshire for the recovery of his health and advised the lord lieutenant to lodge his proxy with Arlington as well.<sup>67</sup> Similarly at the beginning of February 1668, Conway set out to explain to Sir John Finch the events of the recent session. He despaired that Parliament was ‘formed into more cabals and parties than any Parliament that ever was’, but in the course of the letter he recommended that Finch also look to Arlington for patronage.<sup>68</sup> Two years later, Conway again recommended that Finch cultivate Arlington, believing that ‘you will find yourself more happy under his protection than if you had choice of the court, for his power and readiness to oblige is greater than any man’s.’<sup>69</sup> Conway clearly looked increasingly to Arlington as a patron following the fall of Clarendon, though he had been associated with him since at least the summer of 1665 through Orrery’s mediation.<sup>70</sup> A motivation for this growing partnership may have been Conway’s and Arlington’s shared antipathy towards Buckingham, about whom Conway commented that he ‘heads the fanatics; the king complies with him out of fear; the Commons are swayed by him as a favourite and a premier minister; he himself thinks to arrive to be another Oliver, and the fanatics expect a day of redemption under him’.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Conway anticipated being out of town until the beginning of April but in the event it was not until 7 May 1668 that he resumed his place in the House, thereby vacating the proxy only two days before another long adjournment.<sup>72</sup> In July he attended a meeting of the Irish officials and grandees, such as Ormond, Anglesey, Orrery and Dering, to discuss steps to be taken following the Irish Cattle Act.<sup>73</sup> Conway anticipated being at Ragley in the spring of 1669 and then planned to spend the majority of the summer in Ireland.<sup>74</sup> It was presumably on account of his concentration on Irish affairs that he was absent for the entirety of the ensuing session of October 1669 and he was still missing at the opening of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670. He may have registered his proxy soon after the beginning of the session with Buckingham, but the precise date (probably sometime in the first three months of 1670) in the proxy book is unfortunately obscured. This was vacated when he took his seat finally on 3 December. He was thereafter present on 35 sitting days in the remainder of the session, approximately one fifth of the whole. He last sat in the session on 7 Feb. 1671, registering his proxy with Buckingham once more the following day for the remainder of the session. It is unclear for what particular business Conway expected Buckingham to use his proxy and why he chose him as a recipient. His choice of the duke appears peculiar in view of Buckingham’s vigorous support for the Irish Cattle Bill, as well as in Conway’s own assessment of the duke as one who ‘thinks to arrive to be another Oliver’<sup>75</sup></p><p>Conway appears to have turned his concentration once more to Irish affairs over the next few years. While Arlington, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, Ormond and Ranelagh all struggled to achieve supremacy in the province, Conway, as ever, attempted to be all things to all people.<sup>76</sup> Conway’s own influence in Ireland was underwritten by his appointment as governor of Charlemont in 1672, though his selection encountered difficulties when the lords justices refused to authorize Conway’s succession until they had received confirmation from the lord lieutenant.<sup>77</sup> Following Essex’s appointment as lord lieutenant in 1672, Conway maintained a regular correspondence with him. Thomas Osborne*, Viscount Latimer (later duke of Leeds), assured Essex that Conway was his ‘entire friend’ and Conway in turn assured Essex of Latimer’s support for him. At the same time he warned of ‘the ill offices’ to which Essex was subjected by Orrery.<sup>78</sup> Eager to shore up his position in the province, Conway attempted to add the mastership of the ordnance in Ireland to his responsibilities in April 1673 following the death of Sir Robert Byron. In spite of Essex’s support, he failed to secure the post.<sup>79</sup> He was more successful the following year when he was appointed lieutenant-general of horse in Ireland and was also provided with an additional company of foot to command.<sup>80</sup></p><h2><em>Danby’s agent 1673-79</em></h2><p>Conway had registered his proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath, on 22 Feb. 1673 for the session of spring 1673, but he was present to take his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on every day bar one. The session was dominated by moves launched in the Commons against Buckingham. Conway interpreted the petition presented to the House in protest at the duke’s killing of Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, and his cohabitation with Shrewsbury’s widow, as being intended ‘only to usher in something else.’<sup>81</sup> The fall of Clarendon and Arlington’s waning star had forced Conway to seek a new patron. From 1673 onwards, as evidenced by his negotiations with Essex, Conway became increasingly identified with Latimer, created earl of Danby in June 1674, and within a short while he appears to have emerged as one of his most trusted agents. In advance of the new session of spring 1675, Danby wrote to Essex requesting that he would ‘not only spare my Lord Conway but prevail with him to let us have his company at that time.’ He also hoped that Essex and Conway might, ‘influence as many of your friends as you can which are of the Parliament to assist the making this next session a quiet and calm one.’<sup>82</sup> Although Essex responded that he thought Conway had not intended to take his seat, Conway expressed his eagerness to do Danby’s bidding, declaring fulsomely that ‘if I could be serviceable to your lordship I should make no scruple of going to the farthest part of the world… to disobey your lordship is a thing I cannot do. I would excuse my self to all the rest of mankind, but I shall not do so to your lordship.’<sup>83</sup></p><p>In April 1675 Conway was marked, unsurprisingly, among those thought likely to support the non-resisting test and his willingness to put aside his concerns in Ireland to rally to Danby’s call was made apparent on 10 Apr. when Essex informed Danby of Conway’s imminent arrival in England.<sup>84</sup> Conway took his seat almost a fortnight into the new session on 26 Apr., thereby disproving reports that he had been drowned during the crossing. He continued to attend on 62 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>85</sup> Conway returned to the House for the subsequent session on 13 October. Present on all but one of its 21 sitting days, he was named to two committees, though it is not clear that he took a prominent role in either.</p><p>Despite Danby’s evident support, Conway struggled to exert his interest against far more capable and more entrenched opponents in Ireland. A number of letters of 1675 and 1676 warned Essex that Conway was manoeuvring against him, reports that Essex was more than ready to believe.<sup>86</sup> As pressure mounted on Essex in 1677, he expressed his concern at the idea of Conway assuming the lieutenancy. By early summer, Danby appears to have conceded the implausibility of Conway assuming the post and to have proposed instead that Essex be replaced by James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as lieutenant with Conway taking effective charge of the province as Monmouth’s deputy. The scheme was opposed by York, who championed Ormond’s return to office. By the end of the summer York had triumphed enabling Essex to return to England leaving Ireland once more in Ormond’s hands.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Conway’s efforts to employ his interest in England met with similar disappointments. He proved unable to woo the Derbyshire Member William Sacheverell<sup>‡</sup> away from the opposition and in 1675 was also unable to persuade Orlando Gee<sup>‡</sup> to step down as member for Cockermouth to make room for Ranelagh. In 1676 he was similarly unsuccessful in attempting to exert his interest at Coventry, where he sought to rein in Richard Hopkins<sup>‡</sup>, who had joined the opposition to Danby in the Commons.<sup>88</sup> In February 1677, still intent on assisting Ranelagh to a safe seat, he wrote to Danby asking that he support Ranelagh’s candidacy at East Looe. Conway seems to have been unaware that Danby’s brother, Charles Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, also possessed an interest in the town.<sup>89</sup> In the event Danby backed his brother’s campaign. The influence of Danby and his brother proved far more potent than the combined interests of Conway, his cousin (by marriage) Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, and the sitting knight of the shire, Sir Jonathan Trelawny<sup>‡</sup>, and Ranelagh was once more disappointed in his ambitions.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Unperturbed by these reversals, Conway remained active in attempting to employ his interest both in England and Ireland on Danby’s behalf. Michael Boyle, archbishop of Dublin and lord chancellor of Ireland, reported to Ormond his concerns that Conway appeared intent on persuading Danby to exploit the Irish revenue.<sup>91</sup> In September 1678 the death of the Irish primate, James Margetson, archbishop of Armagh, offered Conway an opportunity to recommend to Danby despatching an English archbishop to Dublin instead of Ormond’s candidate. This, he suggested, would, ‘be an ample recompense for any man that has deserved well of the king there.’<sup>92</sup> Conway’s suggestion was ignored and Margetson was succeeded by Archbishop Boyle.</p><p>Conway took his seat at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he was present on 80 per cent of all sitting days. In March he chaired the committee considering a bill for settling Robert Cooke’s estate, reporting the committee’s findings to the House on 28 March.<sup>93</sup> He seems not to have been a prominent member of any other committee but Conway’s close identification with Danby and the court was reflected in Shaftesbury’s assessment of him as doubly vile. Conway was injured in a fall from his coach that summer of 1677, and was fortunate to escape with a dislocated shoulder. Even so, the accident left him confined at Ragley for almost four months.<sup>94</sup> He had recovered his strength by 28 Jan. 1678 when he took his place in the House once more. On 22 Feb. he was entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman, John Poulett*, 3rd Baron Poulett. The proxy should have been vacated on 9 Apr. when Conway registered his own proxy with William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, though the proxy book only noted the cancellation two days later when Poulett also registered his proxy with Maynard. Conway’s proxy was then vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>By the beginning of August 1678 Conway was back in Ireland. Ormond informed Danby of his arrival and how he hoped to gain ‘much assistance from his advice and interest.’<sup>95</sup> Presumably intent on affairs in Ireland, Conway remained away from the House for the final two sessions of the Parliament. On 2 Nov. 1678 he registered his proxy with Danby and he was still in Ireland when the news of Danby’s impeachment reached him. Conway promised Danby to assist whenever he wished but he seems not to have been overly concerned by his ally’s predicament. He confided to his wife that ‘hearing that he gets the better of them in the House of Lords, I hope he is in no great danger.’<sup>96</sup> Danby marked Conway as an absent supporter in a series of lists compiled early in March 1679. Conway assured Danby, apparently in response to a rebuke for his failure to come up, that he had not neglected the embattled treasurer’s concerns and that he had waited on Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup> in order to arrive at a settlement with Monmouth and Shaftesbury.<sup>97</sup> For all his assurances of his willingness to assist, Conway remained away from the House for the first month of the new Parliament. In April Danby informed him of his surrender to Black Rod and asked for the help of his friends, of whom he counted Conway, ‘one of the best of them.’<sup>98</sup> It may have been in response to this latest plea that Conway finally rallied to take his seat in the House on 26 Apr. after which he was present on 39 per cent of all sitting days in the second session of the Parliament. On 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider how to proceed against the impeached lords, and on 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. From this point onwards, perhaps because of his efforts on Danby’s behalf, Conway’s political focus became increasingly on English rather than Irish affairs. He also appears to have added an interest at Evesham to the Warwickshire boroughs in which he had previously attempted to exert some influence.<sup>99</sup></p><h2><em>Defence of Danby, secretary of state, and death, 1679-1683</em></h2><p>Conway’s tardiness in returning to Parliament in the spring of 1679 may not just have been on account of misplaced confidence in Danby’s ability to manage his attackers. Danby’s imprisonment had come hard on the heels of the death of Anne, Lady Conway, in February 1679.<sup>100</sup> Both factors seem to have quelled Conway’s natural ebullience and by May his confident predictions of the previous year had declined. He summed up the state of English politics gloomily suggesting that ‘no sooner doth any man get the least employment but a hundred others are immediately contriving to turn him out, so that here will be nothing but tumbling down one another till they come all to the bottom of the hill’. His faith in the king had also abated. He commented derisively of the king’s attitude to Danby that Charles was ‘no more concerned for him than for a puppy dog, nor for what becomes of York neither’.<sup>101</sup> The extent of Conway’s disillusionment is perhaps revealed by advice offered to Danby by Bath, that Conway needed encouragement and that Danby should impress upon him how much he relied on his support.<sup>102</sup> Conway’s friendly relations with several of those opposed to Danby were of particular interest to the embattled treasurer. As such he was put to work undertaking negotiations with Monmouth and Shaftesbury in the hopes of securing their acquiescence in Danby’s application to be bailed.<sup>103</sup> Although Monmouth appeared to have been open to suggestions on the question of Danby’s release, Shaftesbury seems not to have revised his earlier opinion of Conway and remained unmoved.<sup>104</sup></p><p>In the midst of his efforts on Danby’s behalf, Conway was rewarded with promotion to an earldom on 3 Dec. 1679. The advancement was rumoured to have cost him £10,000, which was paid to the duchess of Portsmouth, although Conway protested to Rawdon that he had not sought the honour.<sup>105</sup> His promotion coincided with his quest for a new wife. Still lacking an heir, Conway seems to have been urged on to remarry by his relatives, soon after his first wife’s death. His cousin Sir Edward Seymour was a prominent advocate of Conway’s preparing his ‘wooing equipage and… wooing countenance.’<sup>106</sup> Conway’s thoughts at first turned to Margaret Poulett, and in December 1679 it was reported that his promotion as earl of Conway had been made in anticipation of this marriage.<sup>107</sup> Her brother Poulett, another of Conway’s cousins, appears not to have favoured the match and he forbade Conway admittance to his house at Wells. The reason given was Poulett’s antipathy to Seymour rather than to Conway, though Margaret Poulett also seems to have been reluctant to agree to the marriage.<sup>108</sup> Conway was forced to look elsewhere. Sir Edward Harley had attempted to put him in mind of a daughter of Thomas Crew* 2nd Baron Crew, or one of the Clare family, both of whom could be expected to bring portions of £5,000.<sup>109</sup> Neither of Harley’s suggestions interested Conway, though in rejecting them he had protested that ‘if I saw any lady whom I liked very well, it would be indifferent to me whether she had £5,000 or nothing at all’.<sup>110</sup> Having decided against these and other possibilities, Conway turned his attentions to Elizabeth Booth. He justified his choice to Danby insisting that he hoped thereby to recruit her father George Booth*, Baron Delamer, to Danby’s cause. In early October 1680, in advance of the new Parliament, he explained that both he and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, ‘importuned my Lord Delamer, and prevailed with him to be in London the 21st instant contrary to his intentions… But I am certain he will be your lordship’s friend, and if I had not been assured of it, all the world should not have made me marry into his family.’ His assurance echoed his predictions from earlier in the summer that he was confident of being able to ‘make some to be your friends that were not so before.’<sup>111</sup> In the case of Delamer, Conway’s confidence proved to be quite misplaced as his new father-in-law consistently voted for Danby’s impeachment. In the event the connection did not last long as the new Lady Conway died in childbirth the following summer.<sup>112</sup></p><p>In April 1680 Conway had reported a crisis in the heart of government, complaining that ‘our present cabal of governors are all to pieces among themselves, and they cannot agree either who is wisest or most in favour.’<sup>113</sup> By September, he perceived that Ormond was under threat in Ireland and noted Essex’s expectation of replacing the duke once more there. More positively, his undertaking to recruit members to Danby’s cause appears to have had some success among some of his Warwickshire neighbours with both Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, and Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, undertaking to join their voices with Conway’s on Danby’s behalf. Acknowledging the favour, Danby conveyed his gratitude to Brooke for ‘his civility’.<sup>114</sup></p><p>It was in this uncertain state of affairs that Conway took his seat in his new dignity at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, introduced between Bath and Nicholas Leke*, earl of Scarsdale. He was then present on 79 per cent of all sitting days. In November he attempted once more to liaise with Monmouth and Shaftesbury on Danby’s behalf but was rebuffed.<sup>115</sup> Equally opposed to the opposition’s moves to introduce the exclusion bill as he was committed to assisting Danby, Conway voted on 15 Nov. in favour of rejecting the exclusion bill at first reading. He had reported confidently (and perceptively) to Ormond that ‘tis certain it will not pass the House of Lords, for by the largest computation they are but thirty of the temporals, which is all be for it… and we shall be fifty now sitting against it, besides the bishops.’ Conway’s assessment of the number of the bill’s supporters was quite correct. Supplemented by the bishops, those opposed to the measure swelled to 63 votes. He wrote later to clarify the position to Rawdon in response to Rawdon’s suggestion that he had not been among those ‘dissenters’ to the bill who supported York’s right to the throne:</p><blockquote><p>You say you have the names of the dissenters to the duke’s bill and did not find my name among them. I believe you mistake the question, but if you mean the 63 dissenters I was certainly one of them. If you mean the protesters, who were but 24 that entered their protestations, though they were 30 in all, I was none of them.<sup>116</sup></p></blockquote><p>Conway may have been adamant in his support for Danby and York but he proved more than willing to offer up a scapegoat and on 7 Dec. he joined with the majority in finding William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. The verdict was said to have angered the king enormously.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Aware of the imminence of the dissolution, which was proclaimed on 18 Jan. 1681, Conway advised Ormond that:</p><blockquote><p>nothing [is] so necessary in this juncture for the king’s service and the good of Ireland as the present calling a parliament there. Tis certain they will be loyal, though my lord Shaftesbury and my lord Essex will influence some, and my lord Burlington, who has not gone with them this session in English affairs, will go with them in Irish affairs.<sup>118</sup></p></blockquote><p>Shortly after the dissolution, Conway was on 2 Feb. sworn to the Privy Council and appointed secretary of state in place of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland.<sup>119</sup> Observers such as Roger Morrice had noted Conway as one of those thought likely to succeed Sunderland early on, alongside candidates such as Ranelagh, Conway’s own nephew Daniel Finch*, later 2nd earl of Nottingham, Seymour, and several others. Of Sunderland’s potential replacements the king was thought to favour Finch, while York supported the appointment of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon. Finch’s father, and Conway’s erstwhile brother-in-law, Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, appears to have vetoed his son’s appointment, apparently concerned that Finch was not ready for the responsibility.<sup>120</sup> Conway’s eventual selection appears to have been the result of lobbying by Sir Edward Seymour.<sup>121</sup> While Danby was quick to welcome the rumours of Conway’s appointment, eager to have ‘so good a friend at so near a station to his majesty’, and hoping thereby for a change in his fortunes, Conway appeared reluctant to accept the post and was keen to stress that he had ‘not been a solicitor for it to any body’ and would have preferred ‘a less station’ under Danby.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Conway’s tenure of the post has been widely criticized, if largely unfairly.<sup>123</sup> Undoubtedly, he owed his preferment as much to the king’s desperation in seeking loyal servants following the loss of Sunderland and Essex to the movement for exclusion as to Conway’s own aptitude for the task.<sup>124</sup> Admittedly he may not have been the best informed of ministers.<sup>125</sup> He displayed some confusion over the extent of his duties, was criticized by the French ambassador, Barillon, and on one embarrassing occasion was so drunk before the Oxford burgesses that he could (it was said) hardly speak and was barely able to stand.<sup>126</sup> He seems to have struggled with the range of his responsibilities which included responding to petitions such as that submitted soon after his appointment by Dr Thomas Baines seeking the banning of coffee houses and of extravagant clothes and the reform of the theatres.<sup>127</sup> That said, Conway’s analyses of domestic politics were frequently both shrewd and witty. When he left the post in 1683 he did so with some honour and a handsome pension.<sup>128</sup> That his support continued to be cultivated after his departure from office by York, who assured him of his continuing friendship, and Lawrence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, whom Conway suspected of pressing for a ‘correspondency’, may also suggest that Conway’s term of office should not be dismissed out of hand.<sup>129</sup></p><p>In his new role, Conway was active in exerting his interest in Warwickshire for the elections of late February 1681, with habitually uneven results. He encouraged Thomas Archer<sup>‡</sup> to stand for Warwickshire but although Archer seems initially to have been willing to stand with Sir Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup>, he later resolved not to challenge the seat and Newdigate was returned with Thomas Mariet<sup>‡</sup> instead.<sup>130</sup> Neither was likely to have been acceptable to Conway. Having failed to get his way in his home county, Conway took his seat at the opening of the Oxford Parliament on 21 Mar. 1681, after which he was present on each one of its 7 sitting days. He appeared uncharacteristically uncertain of the mood of the assembly: ‘We are like to be a full assembly but what temper they will be in I know not.’<sup>131</sup> Whatever his own doubts, Conway was selected by Danby as one of his principal points of contact in his ongoing efforts to secure release from imprisonment.<sup>132</sup> The failure to secure a satisfactory response to Danby’s petition for bail seems not to have concerned Conway unduly and following the dissolution, Conway assured Sir George Rawdon that, ‘I know on such occasions you are apt to judge our affairs very desperate, and I did desire you might look, see, and hear the contrary from others. I think the king’s affairs were not in a better posture these many years.’<sup>133</sup> In June Conway was called as one of the witnesses at the trial of Edmund Fitzharris. He admitted that Fitzharris had been employed in ‘some trifling businesses’ for the government, but otherwise maintained that the king had no knowledge of him before his arrest.<sup>134</sup> The following month he was one of the signatories of the council order for committing Shaftesbury.<sup>135</sup></p><p>Conway’s optimistic appraisal of the state of affairs in the aftermath of the Oxford Parliament struck a hollow note. In the summer of 1681 it was reported that he might replace Ormond in Ireland, but this proved to be unfounded. Although rumours that Conway was to be replaced as secretary either by Seymour or by Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> also failed to come about, it was asserted that this had been the plan all along and Conway’s appointment no more than a temporary expedient. What does not seem to have been in doubt was the rapid decline of Conway’s reputation. He was mocked in the news-sheets and the ladies at court, it was observed, ‘ridicule him very much.’<sup>136</sup> With his position at court in steady decline, Conway suffered a further blow with the loss of his wife shortly after her giving birth to a stillborn son later that summer. Although Conway complained to Danby of his ‘present trouble which lies heavy upon me’, he appears to have recovered from his loss remarkably quickly and within six weeks, and before the end of August 1681, had married again.<sup>137</sup> The new countess, Ursula Stawell, the 15-year old daughter-in-law of Conway’s kinsman, Henry Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, brought with her a fortune of some £30,000. Described as being ‘much in the queen’s favour,’ Lady Conway was appointed one of the ladies of the bedchamber towards the end of the year.<sup>138</sup></p><p>For all Conway’s rumoured loss of interest, he remained a central figure at court at the height of the Tory reaction. In November 1681 his name appeared alongside that of Rochester and George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax, as ‘favourers of the duke of York’. Shaftesbury’s supporters claimed that they were intent on fabricating evidence to ‘cast the odium off the papists and throw it on the Presbyterians’. In December he was appointed to the lieutenancy of Warwickshire during the minority of George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton.<sup>139</sup> He added this post to his already existing one of <em>custos rotulorum</em> of that county, which he had exercised since 1675, following the death of its previous holder Denbigh. At a more mundane level too Conway continued to employ his interest as secretary. Through his intervention the diplomat Edmund Poley was awarded an additional allowance of 10s. a day.<sup>140</sup> In the face of harsh criticism of his abilities, Conway maintained a subtle balance at court, eager to cultivate all parties. When York canvassed opinion among the council for his return from Scotland in 1681 Conway was said to have passed the message on to Halifax, even though York had deliberately omitted him from his list of those who were to be consulted.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Such malleability no doubt helped maintain the steady stream of rumour of Conway’s likely replacement of Ormond in Ireland. In November 1681 Francis Aungier, earl of Longford [I], warned Ormond that Ranelagh was working to have him removed from the lord lieutenancy and replaced with Conway. Four months later, Ormond’s position was still being undermined by Conway’s supporters, keen to represent Ormond as the marginalized leader of a few ‘old protestants’ while Conway enjoyed the more powerful interest of ‘the new English in Ireland.’<sup>142</sup> Over the course of 1682 similar reports continued to circulate, though at least one of those to repeat the rumour acknowledged it as little more than ‘a coffee house story’ and Conway himself was keen to emphasize that such reports injured himself quite as much as they did Ormond.<sup>143</sup></p><p>While Conway struggled to maintain his own position he remained a committed supporter of the imprisoned Danby, though his efforts on his ally’s behalf were complicated by intricate negotiations between them over the lease of Danby’s London residence.<sup>144</sup> Conway’s position had weakened further by the close of 1682 and on 28 Jan. 1683 he was at last put out of his place as secretary and replaced by Sunderland.<sup>145</sup> After the long period of uncertainty about his prospects, Conway’s eclipse was relatively quick. He was able to salvage some dignity by laying down the post voluntarily. He also retained his position on the Privy Council and was awarded a pension of £1,500 a year as well as a present of £2,500. He may also have been promised the reversion to the office of lord chamberlain.<sup>146</sup> Following his departure from office Conway retired to his Warwickshire estate at Ragley, where he had been undertaking substantial building work since 1677.<sup>147</sup> His retreat from court did not, however, represent a complete cessation of his interest and he continued to participate in ‘intrigues’ at Littlecott with Rochester and George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth. News of the Rye House Plot elicited a characteristically lively response: ‘I doubt not but all the Whigs in England, whether in the Court or out of the Court, and all the French pensioners, if any such there be, were in some measure concerned.’ Convinced that there was more to follow, he warned that those concerned would be quick to make another attempt.<sup>148</sup></p><p>Conway died, unexpectedly, on 11 Aug. 1683. The cause of death was attributed to a surfeit of melon, followed by milk and water.<sup>149</sup> His body ‘was carried out of London in great state’ and buried at Ragley.<sup>150</sup> At his death, the house was still unfinished but Conway left a considerable estate to his widow estimated to be worth £1,000 a year, which passed eventually to his first cousin once removed Popham Seymour (son of Sir Edward Seymour and Letitia Popham). He also left £2,000 as portions for his nieces Brilliana and Dorothy Rawdon. As a condition of his will, which his widow hurried to prove before her husband was cold, Conway required that his building work at Ragley should be completed, the funds to come from the income from his Irish estates.<sup>151</sup> Conway’s widow later married John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), who contrived to spend most of her inheritance. It was, therefore, a depleted estate that eventually passed to the Seymour family and it was not until the following century that Conway’s house at Ragley was finally completed.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CONWAY, Francis Seymour (1679-1732) |
<p><strong><surname>CONWAY</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis Seymour</strong> (1679–1732)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>17 Mar. 1703 Bar. CONWAY; <em>cr. </em>16 Oct. 1712 Bar. Conway and Killultagh [I] |
|
First sat 22 Apr. 1703; last sat 15 July 1717 |
|
MP Bramber 18 Mar. 1701–17 Mar. 1703 |
<p><em>b</em>. 28 May 1679, 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. and Laetitia Popham, da. of Alexander Popham<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Eton c.1691;<sup>1</sup> Christ Church, Oxf. 1698. <em>m</em>. (1) 17 Feb. 1704, Mary (<em>d</em>.1709),<sup>2</sup> da. of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, 4da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); (2) aft. Jan. 1709, Jane (<em>d</em>.1716), da. of one Bowden, of Drogheda, co. Meath, 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>., 1da.; (3) July 1716, Charlotte (<em>d</em>.1734), da. of Sir John Shorter of Bybrook, Kent, lord mayor of London (1687), 4s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 3da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>3</sup> <em>suc.</em> bro. as h. to estates of Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, assuming surname Conway 1699.<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 3 or 4 Feb. 1732;<sup>5</sup> <em>will</em> 8 July 1727, pr. 1732 (Ireland), 1 Mar.–12 Apr. 1733 (England).<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>High steward Chipping Campden, Glos. (?-<em>d</em>.);<sup>7</sup> ranger, Hyde Park 1703–6, Wychwood forest by 1714;<sup>8</sup> PC [I], 1728–<em>d</em>.; gov. Carrickfergus 1728–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>A scion of what was technically the senior branch of the family of the dukes of Somerset, Conway had extensive connections and it is this that explains his elevation to the peerage as one of the four creations of 1703, rather than his own particular merits. Through the marriage of his cousin Alexander Popham to Lady Anne Montagu, Conway was related to Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu, and he was also a distant cousin of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford. His most influential relative by far was his father, the former Speaker of the Commons, and although their relations were at times far from amiable, Seymour was probably responsible for Conway’s return at Bramber in 1701.<sup>12</sup> It was undoubtedly through Seymour’s influence that Conway was granted the barony of Conway when many might have expected Seymour himself to be the more likely object of ennoblement.<sup>13</sup></p><p>While his promotion was largely due to his father’s manoeuvrings on his behalf, Conway was more than able to support his new quality, having inherited the estates (and acquired the surname) of the long-deceased earl of Conway when his brother Popham Seymour Conway was killed in a duel in 1699.<sup>14</sup> Even so, Conway’s inheritance was to prove something of a poisoned chalice. It brought him into conflict with both John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), husband of the earl’s widow, and his distant kinsman, Sir Arthur Rawdon, who had felt himself poorly used by the earl’s failure to bequeath his property to him as the nearer relation.<sup>15</sup> The Conway estates in Warwickshire and Ireland brought with them an annual income in excess of £7,000, and it was as one of the most eligible bachelors in England that Conway entered into negotiations in early 1703 to marry the daughter of Sir Henry Johnson<sup>‡</sup> (‘next the Duke of Newcastle’s daughter, the greatest fortune in England’<sup>16</sup>). An earlier scheme to marry him to one of the daughters of his kinsman Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and to advance him to an earldom had come to nothing.<sup>17</sup> On this occasion Conway was to be disappointed once more. Despite his evident preference for the match (said by some to be worth £50,000), a disagreement over the financial settlement between Sir Edward and Sir Henry meant that the expected alliance came to nothing.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In the midst of these negotiations, Conway was elevated to the Lords as Baron Conway. Rumours of his expected elevation and that of a number of others had been current since the previous summer.<sup>19</sup> On 25 Mar. it was reported that his patent had been delayed on account of ‘some expressions that seemed a little odd in the preamble’, but the problem was soon rectified and on 22 Apr. he took his seat in the House, introduced between John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and William Legge*, 2nd Baron Dartmouth.<sup>20</sup> Intended to assist with bolstering the Tory presence in the House, Conway naturally gravitated towards the grouping dominated by his father, Seymour, and future father-in-law, the earl of Rochester. In May he bought the rangership of Hyde Park from Anthony Rowe and during the year employed his interest at Lisburn (his brother’s former seat in Ireland) on behalf of Richard Nutley, who was seated on petition.<sup>21</sup> The strength of Conway’s interest in the area was later underlined when a subsequent candidate at Lisburn declared that the borough belonged to Conway ‘entirely’ and that his ‘recommendation to the said borough is undeniable’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Although absent for the first two months of the session of November 1703, Conway was estimated by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in both of his forecasts to be a supporter of the Occasional Conformity bill. It was noted that his proxy was employed in support of the measure in a division of 14 Dec., though the proxy register has not survived. Conway resumed his seat on 12 Jan. 1704, after which he attended on just over a third of all sitting days. Despite being listed as present on the attendance list for 17 Feb., he was married to Lady Mary Hyde that same day.<sup>23</sup> The alliance reinforced his attachment to the Hyde–Seymour group in Parliament. Following a break of just one day, Conway returned to the House on 19 Feb. and on 3 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to make the key to the ‘gibberish letters’ public. On 21 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers in a division on the recruits bill; he then subscribed the resulting protest when the bill was carried. He protested again on 25 Mar. in response to the resolution that the failure to pass a censure on Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the enemies of the crown. He was included in a list of some members of both Houses prepared by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in 1704, which may indicate his support over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Conway returned to the House at the opening of the following session in October. He was again named to eight committees in the course of the session but his rate of attendance declined and he was present for less than a quarter of all sitting days. Absent from the House from 18 Dec. he registered his proxy with his kinsman John Granville*, Baron Granville, that day, which was vacated by his return to the House on 16 Jan. 1705.</p><p>Although absent from Warwickshire during the elections of the summer of 1705, Conway employed his interest on behalf of the sitting members and, following their successful re-election, he was assured by his agent that he had ‘carried in all the tenants according to your lordship’s commands’.<sup>24</sup> Relations with his father appear to have been less cordial, necessitating Lady Seymour to write to her son emphasizing that Sir Edward was ‘a good father in the main’ and imploring him not to ‘talk of going where I shall not see you’.<sup>25</sup> Conway was again present at the opening of the new session of October 1705, after which he attended on 40 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Nov. he protested at the resolution not to put the question whether an address be prepared requesting that Princess Sophia be invited to England and on 30 Nov. subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to offer any further instructions to the committee of the whole to which the bill for securing the queen’s person and the Protestant succession was committed. The following week he voted in favour of the motion that the Church was in danger and then subscribed the resulting protest when the motion failed to carry.</p><p>Although absent for much of December, he registered his proxy with his father-in-law, Rochester, on 8 Dec., which was vacated by his resumption of his seat the following month on 8 Jan. 1706. Three days later, the House took into consideration Conway’s petition to bring in a bill enabling the exemplification of the late earl of Conway’s will granted by the Irish courts to be used as evidence in trials at law there. Conway’s Irish relations, the Rawdons, had always disputed the earl’s will and he now found himself embroiled in a series of actions questioning the dispersal of the estates. His bill received its first reading on 15 Jan. and was committed the following day. The committee was chaired by Rochester and little over a fortnight later the House resolved to pass the measure and send it down to the Commons. On 22 Feb. Conway was nominated a manager of the conference considering Cary and Hatley’s bill. Six days later the House debated certain amendments proposed by the Commons to his own bill, after which it was resolved to hold a conference with the Commons to discuss their differences. Following the conference held on 2 Mar. agreement was reached and the bill received the royal assent later the same month.</p><p>Conway was missing at a call of the House on 29 Jan. 1707. On 1 Feb. he registered his proxy with his father-in-law once more, which was vacated by the close of the session. He then took his seat two months into the new Parliament on 17 Dec. but was thereafter present for just 9 per cent of sitting days in the session. He was listed as a Tory in an assessment of party classifications in May of the following year, the month that also witnessed the opening salvoes in a bitterly contested dispute when Buckingham exhibited a bill in chancery against Conway. At the heart of the case was the earl of Conway’s desire that after his death his half-finished mansion at Ragley should be completed.<sup>26</sup> The task had been entrusted to Buckingham following his marriage to the dowager countess and the dispute between Conway and Buckingham, which principally concerned whether or not the house had indeed been completed, persisted for the ensuing four years.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Conway returned to the House on 18 Nov. 1708 but sat for just seven days before again quitting the chamber for the remainder of the session. His absence may have been owing to the loss of his wife in January 1709. If so, his period of mourning proved brief and at some point later that year he married again. He also had the embarrassment of having one of his former servants, Thomas Sheppard (‘about 5 foot 6 inches high, and great lips’), being sought after by local constables, having committed ‘notorious crimes’ that spring.<sup>28</sup> Conway took his seat once more on 15 Nov., after which his attendance improved somewhat, with him present for just under a third of all sitting days.</p><p>In common with a number of Warwickshire peers, he was presumably spurred into action by the prospect of the trial of Henry Sacheverell. A consistent supporter of the embattled doctor, on 14 Mar. 1710 he entered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn the House and the same day subscribed the protest at the resolution not to include the particular words supposed to be criminal in articles of impeachment. Two days later he protested again at the resolution to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment against Sacheverell and subscribed a further protest at the resolution that the Commons had indeed made good the first article. On 17 Mar. he protested again at the resolution that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth articles and the following day at the resolution to limit peers to a single guilty or not-guilty verdict. Predictably enough, Conway found Sacheverell not guilty of the charges against him on 20 Mar. and entered his dissent in response to the guilty verdict. The following day he registered his dissent at the censure passed against Sacheverell and acted as one of the tellers on the motion whether Sacheverell should be barred from receiving benefice for three years. The ending of the Sacheverell trial did not bring to a close Conway’s involvement in the session. On 30 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the amendments to the Eddystone lighthouse bill and on 1 Apr. he was one of the tellers in a division on the bill concerning the dispute between the inhabitants of Hammersmith and Henry Compton*, bishop of London.</p><p>Conway returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov., after which he was present for almost 42 per cent of all sitting days. The following month it was reported by John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fermanagh [I], that Conway had commissioned a new carriage in preparation for his marriage to one of the maids of honour (a Miss Wyvell). Fermanagh must have been mistaken but the incident may indicate that Conway’s marriage to Jane Bowden was not yet widely known.<sup>29</sup> Conway was absent from the House from 11 to 14 December. His absence was covered once more by a proxy registered with Rochester. Having taken his seat again, he entered his dissent at the resolution to reject the bill for repealing the General Naturalization Act on 5 Feb. 1711. On 14 Feb. he registered his proxy with Rochester again, but it was vacated the following day. In April Conway approached James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, for his support for a bill before the Irish Parliament.<sup>30</sup> On 1 June he served as one of the tellers for a division in a committee of the whole on the Scotch linen bill, and the same month he was listed among the Tory patriots.</p><p>Further inaccurate rumours about Conway’s marriage circulated in November: this time a ‘Mrs Kingdom’ was believed to be the new Lady Conway.<sup>31</sup> In advance of the new session, Conway was reported to be one of those peers sent to by his neighbour Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, to ensure his presence in the new session.<sup>32</sup> It was perhaps in response to this that Conway wrote on 3 Dec. to Oxford that he would leave his country business aside and be in London on the following Monday.<sup>33</sup> A similar letter was conveyed to Oxford’s ally, Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>34</sup> Conway took his seat accordingly at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. and the same month was estimated to be in favour of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to assume his seat in the House as duke of Brandon. Despite this, he voted against permitting Scots peers from sitting in the House by virtue of post-Union British titles in the division held the following day. Conway was involved in another family dispute towards the end of the year, this time brought by his half-brother, Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, over the settlement of their father’s estate. Seymour petitioned the House on 15 Dec. and, after hearing the answer of the co-respondents, comprising Conway, his mother and other members of the family, on 2 Feb. 1712 the House ordered that the case be remitted to chancery.</p><p>Conway’s support for Oxford was said to be wavering at the beginning of 1712. On 2 Jan. he voted with Nottingham and a clutch of other Tory peers against adjourning.<sup>35</sup> On 31 Jan. he acted as one of the tellers in a division in a committee of the whole over whether the preamble to the act repealing the General Naturalization Act should stand apart. Absent from the session briefly the following month, Conway registered his proxy with Rochester on 15 Feb., which was vacated by his return to the House three weeks later on 7 March. The same day (15 Feb.) a petition was submitted to the House on Conway’s behalf concerning his ongoing dispute with Buckingham over the completion of Ragley Hall, which had not been settled in chancery or common pleas. Conway sought to obtain the reversal of a judgment of June 1710, which had favoured Buckingham, but on 13 Mar. the House dismissed his petition, resolving by 32 votes to 27 not to reverse the decree. The conclusion of the matter in Buckingham’s favour proved to be so much to the surprise of the duke, ‘not having much of the favour of the house’, that he proceeded to thank all those who had supported him, ‘as if they had considered him more than his cause’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Conway’s failure to compel Buckingham to finance the completion of Ragley may have been the catalyst for his decision to purchase Sandywell in Gloucestershire in 1712. Two years later he added the neighbouring manor of Whittington to his new estates.<sup>37</sup> He quit the session briefly following his disappointment, covering his absence with a proxy registered with Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford). He resumed his seat on 4 Apr. but absented himself once more seven days later, registering his proxy with Guernsey again on 13 Apr., which was vacated by his return to the House the following day. On 19 May Conway acted as one of the tellers in a division in the committee of the whole considering the grants bill. Later that month, on 28 May, he once more rallied to the ministry when he divided against the motion to request the queen to reverse the orders restraining Ormond from pursuing an offensive war against the French.<sup>38</sup> He then continued to sit until three days before the close of the session on 21 June.</p><p>Conway was granted an additional Irish barony in the autumn of 1712, perhaps as part of Oxford’s efforts to retain his loyalty to the ministry. News of the grant was published in the newspapers three months prior to the award being finalized, when it was also reported that he was to be added to the Irish privy council.<sup>39</sup> Listed by Oxford as one of those to be canvassed in advance of the new session, Conway returned to the House on the opening day but was thereafter present for less than a quarter of all sitting days. In May he was noted by Jonathan Swift as one of the possible opponents of the French treaty of commerce to be contacted in advance of the debate and the following month he was again estimated as being possibly opposed to confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the treaty. The same month a further forecast listed him as a court supporter likely to desert over the issue. Continuing disputes with Buckingham again came to the fore at that time. In mid-June a quarrel between the two peers was believed to have resulted in a challenge but the intended duel was prevented by the swift interposition of Oxford.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Conway was present for just seven days of the first session of the new Parliament. In May 1714 Nottingham forecast him to be in favour of the Schism bill. Following the death of Queen Anne, he attended just two days of the brief August session. He was present again on 21 Oct. but was afterwards absent from the House for almost three years. During his absence he suffered the death of his second wife, Jane, in childbirth and shortly afterwards the death of their two-month-old son, viciously reported by a Captain Moore to his Rawdon relations as ‘agreeable news’.<sup>41</sup> Once again, Conway did not allow grief to detract from the need to secure his estate and he remarried soon after. Taking his seat on 25 May 1717, he attended for a further 20 days before quitting the House for the final time on 15 July.</p><p>The reason for Conway’s complete retirement from the House is uncertain. A close friend and, by his third marriage, brother-in-law of Sir Robert Walpole*, later earl of Orford, Conway certainly does not appear to have been opposed to the new Hanoverian regime at all. It seems likely that after 1717 interest in his Irish estates may have predominated but during the 1720s he was also engaged in extending the house at Sandywell, so there is no reason to believe that he decamped from England altogether.<sup>42</sup> In 1721 he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords and, towards the end of his life, he was rewarded with a place on the Irish privy council and with a minor office as governor of Carrickfergus. The latter part of his career will be more fully considered in the next part of this work.</p><p>Conway died at Lisburn, co. Antrim, in February 1732. In his will, he left considerable bequests to his wife and seven surviving children, with the exception of Mary Conway, who was restricted to a legacy of £5 as a punishment for marrying without his permission.<sup>43</sup> Guardianship of the disgraced Mary and her sisters Catherine and Harriet was left to Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester and 4th earl of Clarendon (mistakenly described as Edward, earl of Clarendon, in the will), while that of Francis Seymour-Conway* [986], later marquess of Hertford, and his brother, Henry Conway, was detailed to Walpole and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend. The guardianship of Conway’s remaining daughters, Jane and Anne, was entrusted to Lady Conway. Aside from his elaborate arrangements for his children’s upbringing after his death and encumbering the estate with the payment of his wife’s annuity and children’s portions, which amounted to more than £25,000, Conway also left debts totalling in excess of a further £25,000.<sup>44</sup> These and the unfinished house at Ragley were left to his heir, Francis Seymour-Conway, his eldest son by his third marriage, who succeeded underage as 2nd Baron Conway.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COOPER, Anthony Ashley (1621-83) |
<p><strong><surname>COOPER</surname></strong> (<strong>ASHLEY COOPER</strong>), <strong>Anthony Ashley</strong> (1621–83)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 Bar. ASHLEY; <em>cr. </em>23 Apr. 1672 earl of SHAFTESBURY |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 23 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Tewkesbury, 1640 (Apr.), Wiltshire 1653, 1654, 1656, 1659, Downton, 7 Jan. 1660, Wiltshire 1660 |
<p><em>b</em>. 22 July 1621, 1st s. of Sir John Cooper<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt., of Rockbourne, Hants, and Anne, da. and h. of Sir Anthony Ashley<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt., of Wimborne St Giles; bro. of George Cooper<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (Aaron Guerdon) 1627-37, Exeter Coll., Oxf., 1637; L. Inn, 1638. <em>m</em>. (1) 25 Feb. 1639, Margaret (<em>d</em>. 11 July 1649), da. of Thomas Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, 1st Bar. Coventry of Aylesborough, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) 15 Apr. 1650, Lady Frances Cecil (<em>d</em>. 31 Dec. 1652), da. of David Cecil<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Exeter, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (3) 30 Aug. 1655, Margaret, da. of William Spencer<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Bar. Spencer, <em>s.p. suc</em>. fa. 23 Mar. 1631. <em>d</em>. 21 Jan. 1683.</p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Dorset, 1642-4, 26 July 1660-72; sheriff, Dorset 1643, Wilts. 1 Dec. 1646-11 Feb. 1648; v.-adm. Hants Apr. 1660-1; ld. lt. Dorset, 1672-4.</p><p>Col. of ft. and capt. of horse (royalist), 1643-4; gov. Weymouth 1643; field-marshal-gen., Dorset c. Aug. 1644-Apr. 1646; col. of horse, 11 Jan.-Nov. 1660; gov. I.o.W. Feb. 1660-1.</p><p>Freeman, Poole, 1651, Salisbury 29 June 1654; gov. Charterhouse Hospital, 1662;<sup>1</sup> high steward, Salisbury, 1672-d.; mbr., Skinners’ Co. 1681-d.</p><p>Commr. law reform Jan. 1652-Apr. 1653; judge of probate 8 Apr. 1653-4; cllr. of state 14 July 1653-Dec. 1654, 19 May-Oct. 1659, 2 Jan.-31 May 1660; commr. for army (acting) Dec. 1659-Jan. 1660; PC 31 May 1660-19 May 1674; ld. pres. Apr.-Oct. 1679; commr. trade, Nov. 1660-72; chanc. Exchequer May 1661-Nov. 1672; treas. prizes, 1664-7; ld. of treasury 1667-72; commr. affairs of Tangier, 1669, 1673.<sup>2</sup> commr. union with Scotland, 1670; pres. trade and plantations 1672-4; ld. chanc. 1672-3; Commission for the review of the settlement of Ireland, 1673<sup>3</sup>; commr. of prize appeals, 1672.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Mbr., cttee. Virginia and cttee. Barbados, 29 Dec. 1654-?Jan. 1655; mbr., soc. mines royal and mineral and battery works 1662, gov. 1663-<em>d</em>.; asst. Royal adventurers into Africa by 1664-71; ld. prop. Carolina 1663-d.; mbr., Hudson’s Bay Co. 1668-73, dep. gov. 1673-4, cttee. 1674-5; sub-gov. Royal Africa Co. 1672-3, asst. 1674-7.</p><p>Bencher, L. Inn, 28 Jan. 1673.</p><p>FRS 1663.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, aft. John Greenhill, c.1672-3, NPG 3893; line engraving, by B. Baron, aft. S. Cooper, NPG D 16246; oil on canvas, circle of A. Hanneman, St John's, Camb.</p> |
<h2><em>‘The little man’: Cooper before the Restoration</em></h2> <blockquote><p>A man of little stature, in his youth well enough shaped, of countenance agreeable; grace he had in all his manners of application, which were to every body soft and plausible. He was very well learn’d, and particularly understood the laws; he was exceeding eloquent, a great master he was of words, and the language, and knew powerfully to apply them to every purpose. His voice was harmonious, and of the sweetness thereof he did likewise make use, in his intent to charm the auditors, when he intended to cast false colours upon any thing. But with this he was proud as Lucifer, and ambitious beyond what ever enter’d into the designs of any man; impatient of every power but his own, of any man’s reputation; false to that degree, as he did not esteem any promise, any engagement, any oath, of other use than to serve a purpose, and none of these of consequence to bind a man further than it was his interest: and for religion, of which, for a tool, he made most use, he had never any, as appear’d by the private practices of his whole life… And for his cruelty, it was never less to those he hated, than intentions of total ruin, and extirpation, in which he was inexorable; and it was never known he forgave, or was reconcil’d to any man.<sup>5</sup></p></blockquote><p>For Tories like Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, there was something of the night about Anthony Ashley Cooper, the ‘false Achitophel... a name to all succeeding ages curst’ of Dryden’s epic poem of the 1678-83 crisis, <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em>. To a degree, their hatred of ‘the little man’ was formed in the years when he led the charge against James Stuart*, duke of York, Peterborough’s patron, at the beginning of the 1680s, and Peterborough’s vitriol was partly inspired by the occasion when he crossed swords with him himself in 1681. But royalists had long been deeply suspicious of a man who had begun as one of them in the 1640s before swapping sides. (The Strangways family had cause for lasting enmity for his destruction of their house in Dorset in 1644.)</p><p>Ashley Cooper rose to prominence with his service on the law reform commission in 1652-4, in Barebone’s Parliament and the council of state, formative experiences which gave him a lifelong interest in the promotion of trade, the impact of law on society and the intricacies of matters as various as probate, chancery and commercial law. Sufficiently closely allied to Cromwell to be involved in the proposal to make him king in late 1654, his divergence from the Protector from 1655 onwards, as well as his marriage into the Spencer family, tying him into a series of family alliances involving the Coventrys, Wriothesleys and Saviles, made Royalists think that they might be able to reclaim him. Instead, Ashley Cooper accepted a place on the council of state established by the revived Rump Parliament in 1659 and was cleared of allegations of his involvement in Booth’s rebellion in September.<sup>6</sup> His moment came with the confrontation between the council and Parliament with the Army that unfolded in late October and November. Much later, a story was told about meetings between Presbyterians including Denzil Holles*, later Baron Holles, Arthur Annesley*, later earl of Anglesey, and Ashley Cooper at the house of John Crew*, later Baron Crew, together with Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup> and other republicans, to discuss placing limitations on the crown before the Restoration.<sup>7</sup> Certainly Ashley Cooper was close to the Republicans in 1659, and was generally regarded later as having betrayed them.<sup>8</sup> He did not become a member of the Rump until January 1660, when the House finally made a decision on the twenty-year old dispute over his election for Downton in 1640. He swiftly moved to consolidate an alliance with George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, calling for the readmission of the secluded members, and acting as a key influence in the crisis which resulted in their return to the House on 21 Feb.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Royalists remained uncertain whose side he was on until very late in the day. John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, the agent of Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, was sceptical, believing that Ashley Cooper, together with Holles and others, had been ‘debauched’ by Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland and Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester ‘to prevent the General’s designs’ and to insist on conditions for the king’s restoration.<sup>10</sup> He was said to have acted as an intermediary with key royalists, especially Sir Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, demanding comprehension and ‘that popery be discountenanced’ as a <em>quid pro quo</em> for the king’s restoration.<sup>11</sup> But while Mordaunt remained wary of a man ‘too full of tricks’, he seems to have been reasonably satisfied by 7 May that Ashley Cooper would not be an obstacle to the Restoration.<sup>12</sup></p><p>By then Ashley Cooper had been elected to the Convention Parliament, and on 8 May he was appointed one of the House of Commons’ twelve commissioners to the king at The Hague. On the return of the king, he was sworn a member of the Privy Council, one of those particularly recommended by Monck: a recommendation more willingly accepted, Clarendon wrote later, ‘because having lately married the niece of the earl of Southampton… it was believed that his slippery humour would be easily restrained and fixed by the uncle’.<sup>13</sup> The relationship with Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, would be crucial to his place in the new regime, although Ashley Cooper’s activity in the Convention suggests both his capacity and his determination. Although he was not formally appointed chancellor of the exchequer until May 1661, Hyde gave up the position in September 1660, when the treasury commission created in June had been terminated and replaced by Southampton as lord treasurer. Many of Ashley Cooper’s contributions in the Commons during the Convention related to treasury business, and Southampton had probably already engaged him in the exchequer. Clarendon wrote that it was at Southampton’s instance that Ashley Cooper was made chancellor.<sup>14</sup> His peerage, as Lord Ashley, just before the coronation on 20 Apr. 1661, preceded his formal appointment to the chancellorship.</p><h2><em>Lord Ashley, 1661-5</em></h2><p>Ashley’s estate was based on the amalgamation of the estates of his Ashley and Cooper grandfathers in North Dorset, around Wimborne St Giles, and West Hampshire, at Rockbourne, and in Wiltshire, around Purton, and in Holborn in London. Depleted by sales to pay his father’s debts and litigation in the court of wards, rentals in the 1670s suggest that his income from land was around £3,000 a year, augmented by his salary and fees from 1660 to his loss of office in 1674. Shaftesbury made extensive commercial investments in whaling, silk, and mining, and put money into a range of colonial projects: he owned a plantation in Barbados in the late 1640s and early 1650s and in the 1660s and 1670s his activity expanded considerably, with interests in the Bahamas and Bermudas and Carolina, and money invested in the Royal Africa and Hudson’s Bay Companies.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The new Lord Ashley was introduced into the House of Lords on 11 May between Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor, later earl of Plymouth, and Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton, and was added to the committees for the customs and orders of the House and privileges of the peers, and to consider petitions. One of the most assiduous members of the House, he was present on almost every one of the 65 sitting days of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament up to the summer adjournment in July. He was a member of committees on most of the bills and other business which would occupy the bulk of the peers’ time, including the corporation bill (which Shaftesbury’s eighteenth century biographer suggested that he had opposed, although there is no contemporary evidence for this), and on those exempted from the Act of Indemnity.<sup>16</sup> He reported from the latter committee on 27 July and with the lord treasurer, lord privy seal (John Robartes*, Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor) and lord chamberlain (the earl of Manchester) managed a conference with the Commons on it. He served too on the committee for the licensing bill. Again with the lord treasurer, the lord privy seal and lord chamberlain, he was one of the reporters of a conference on the Lords’ attempt to exempt peers’ houses from being searched, which resulted in the bill being ‘left on the table in the painted chamber’.<sup>17</sup> He was on the committee for the Charing Cross paving bill, also rejected because of peers’ privilege. He served on the committees for four estate bills, as well as one to consider the petition of Robert Pory concerning the body of Matthew Parker.</p><p>On 28 June he was appointed to a committee following a debate on the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, to consider the laws against Roman Catholic priests. According to William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, at his trial in 1680, Ashley, in his capacity of chancellor of the exchequer, had given the nod soon after the Restoration to Stafford’s proposal for the removal of the laws against Catholic worship in exchange for a levy of £100,000, although Stafford did not suggest that he had any further involvement in the discussions led by George Digby*, earl of Bristol, which issued in the debates in the Lords in the summer of 1661.<sup>18</sup> No doubt the reference was motivated by the then earl of Shaftesbury’s prominence in the movement against the duke of York, rather than his significance in the debates of 1661; however it does echo a confused story in Clarendon’s <em>Life</em> – in part mixed up with his account of the 1662 Declaration of Indulgence and its aftermath – which explains how Ashley, together with Sir Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington (who was in fact still abroad in 1661) and Lord Robartes had proposed to the king a liberty of conscience and had tried to calculate ‘what every Roman catholic would be willing to pay yearly for the exercise of his religion, and so of every other sect’. <sup>19</sup> Ashley was certainly appointed to the committee appointed on 16 July to prepare a bill concerning the penal laws against Catholics.</p><p>After the summer adjournment, Ashley was present in the Lords for all but five sitting days and he missed (as did many others) the fast sermons on 15 Jan. and 30 Jan 1662, an attendance record of about 94 per cent. He was enormously busy with exchequer business, which accounted for many of the committees to which he was appointed, including one on collectors of taxes, which he reported on 28 Apr. 1662. He was closely involved in the bill about sheriffs’ accounts, which he reported on 28 Apr., and again on 15 May, and reported the effect of a conference on what was probably the same bill on 17 May. Beside such official activity, he was appointed to committees on most of the key issues of the session, as well as a wide range of economic issues. He reported a bill prohibiting importation of foreign bone lace; was appointed to the committee for another bill to do with repairing highways and sewers in London and Westminster, and later on helped to manage a conference about it, and he was appointed to committees concerning ten local, private or naturalization bills. He reported on the naturalization bill on 14 May, and later managed a conference with the Commons on the subject. Ashley was among the signatories of the protest against Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby’s highly controversial bill on 6 Feb. 1662, although he is not included in the list in the printed Journal.<sup>20</sup></p><p>A number of Ashley’s interventions related to the privilege of peerage, particularly when it came to the intensive inter-house conferencing in May, towards the end of the session. They included the Irish peerage, on 25 Feb. 1662, and disputes over the militia bill in May about rating peers and about the status of the lieutenancy on 14, 16 and 17 May.<sup>21</sup> He was heavily involved in the rush of business at the end of the session, reporting conferences on bills about accountants, sheriffs, former officers, on accounts, on the highways, and on poor relief on 17 and 19 May. On the latter bill, while the Lords abandoned its amendments concerning charges for the repair of bridges on the ground of financial privilege, they determined to assert their privileges at a conference. Unlike a number of his colleagues, Ashley did not protest at the decision to give in on financial privilege, and reported the text of the salvo for Lords’ privilege that was to be delivered to the Commons. Ashley was also appointed to manage a conference on the printing bill. Given his activity in the exchequer and on committees of the Privy Council as well, Ashley was extremely busy: with Lords Robartes, Anglesey, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, Southampton and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, he was one of the key figures on whom much of the business in the House depended.</p><p>Clarendon attributed to Ashley and the new secretary of state, Bennet, the initiative to produce the Declaration of Indulgence in December 1662: Ashley and Robartes were present, he wrote, when it was discussed at a meeting at Clarendon’s Worcester House.<sup>22</sup> Their leading advocacy of the measure would be confirmed when the bill for enacting a liberty of conscience was introduced into the Lords shortly after the new session of Parliament was opened in February 1663. Present on all but 15 days of the 1663 session, an attendance record of 82 per cent, he was appointed to the privileges and petitions committees.<sup>23</sup> Clarendon’s account of the debates on the indulgence bill, presented by Robartes on 23 Feb., emphasizes Ashley’s role once Robartes had given up the struggle on the much-criticized measure:</p><blockquote><p>the Lord Ashley adhered firmly to his point, spake often and with great sharpness of wit, and had a cadence in his words and pronunciation that drew attention. He said, it was the king’s misfortune that a matter of so great concernment to him, and such a prerogative as it may be would be found to be inherent in him without any declaration of Parliament, should be supported only by such weak men as himself, who served his majesty at a distance, whilst the great officers of the crown thought fit to oppose it.</p></blockquote><p>Clarendon described how Ashley had provoked him into an ill-advised response, which had infuriated the king.<sup>24</sup> The exchange probably occurred on 12 Mar., the first day after a few days’ adjournment, and the first day on which Clarendon attended that session.<sup>25</sup> The main result of the row was a further hounding of Catholic priests. Ashley served as a member of the committee appointed on 23 Mar. to prepare a draft of a petition concerning Jesuits and priests.</p><p>Apart from the controversy over the indulgence bill, Ashley’s frenetic level of activity continued, though there was less exchequer business than in the previous session. He reported on arrears in peers’ benevolence payments on 31 Mar., he served on a committee on a bill for vesting alum-making in the king, and he asked the House on 18 June for a decision on whether peers who had to account for monies to the exchequer should deliver their accounts on their honour or upon oath. He was one of the committee for the subsidy bill, and one of the commissioners appointed to assess the peers.<sup>26</sup> Right at the end of the session, he served on a committee for an additional act on the collection of the excise and on 23 July he was appointed to manage a conference on the same bill with the lord privy seal. On 24 July he was on the committee for the additional bill on hearth money, on which he reported the following afternoon.</p><p>Other than departmental matters, he continued to be appointed to the committees dealing with the major bills of the session.<sup>27</sup> He was again concerned with economic development and business matters, including the encouragement of trade, fisheries, the manufacture of linen cloth and tapestry (on which he reported) and Bedford Level, as initiatives concerned with highway improvement, and bills on ecclesiastical or moral issues (tithes, the lord’s day, select vestries, and excessive gaming), and recording the genealogy of the nobility and gentry.<sup>28</sup> On 1 June 1663 Ashley was expected to bring in a motion about Wildmore Fen ‘tomorrow’ to overcome rioting against the improvement plans of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, Theophilus Clinton [460]*, 4th earl of Lincoln and others.<sup>29</sup> An order on the subject is recorded in the Journal for 3 June. Apart from serving on three estate bills, he reported on 15 June from the committee on a bill concerning John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester and his son, Charles Powlett, Lord St John*, later 6th marquess of Winchester. He acted with Robartes, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton and John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace to try to resolve the differences between George Neville*, Baron Abergavenny, and his brother’s wife, and reported on the affair after hearings on the penultimate day of the session. When the earl of Bridgwater and Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, had a row in the House over Middlesex’s niece, whom Bridgwater hoped to marry to his son, John Egerton, Lord Brackley*, later 3rd earl of Bridgwater, Ashley was one of those appointed to draw up forms of reprehension and submission for them both.<sup>30</sup> Ashley may have had an interest in the affair: his second wife’s mother had been Bridgwater’s sister, and he later objected to the terms of the marriage settlement of Brackley and Lady Elizabeth Cranfield when it was under negotiation in 1664.<sup>31</sup> Ashley received the proxy of Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, on 12 May, which was vacated at the end of the session; on 1 July he also received that of Edward Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury. Both were vacated at the end of the session. A proxy from the duke of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, given on 6 March, has been crossed out, but without a date when it was vacated.</p><p>The indulgence affair was regarded as having enhanced Ashley’s standing with the king. The French ambassador wrote in April that he was ‘in my opinion the only man who can match [Clarendon] in intellect and resolve, does not refrain from freely expressing his sentiments, and contradicting him to his face’.<sup>32</sup> In mid-May, Pepys spoke of Ashley being one of ‘the present favourites’, and enemies of Clarendon, along with Bristol, Bennet, Buckingham, and Sir Charles Berkeley*, later earl of Falmouth. Ashley was said to owe his favour largely to Bristol and his support of ‘the Catholic party against the bishops, whom he hates to the death and publicly rails against them; not that he is become a Catholic, but merely opposes the bishops’. Ashley, he thought, in the first appearance of a frequent rumour, was likely to succeed Southampton in the treasurership.<sup>33</sup><sup>34</sup></p><p>Ashley’s alliance with Bristol created a problem for him when the court conflict reached a crisis in late June, as Bennet abandoned the latter and accepted a working alliance with Clarendon. According to the French ambassador Ruvigny, Bristol demanded the admission of himself and his friends – Robartes and Ashley were particularly mentioned – to the king’s inner councils.<sup>35</sup> Ashley was said to be the ‘chief’ of Bristol’s ‘party’. He acted as a go-between when Robert Spencer*, the earl of Sunderland (his brother-in-law) broke off his match with Bristol’s daughter in June.<sup>36</sup> After Bristol introduced his charges against Clarendon and the judges had reported their opinion that they did not amount to treason, Ashley seems to have spoken on 13 July to support the motion that they should bring in their reasons.<sup>37</sup> Several years later, Pepys was impressed by Ashley’s table talk about the subsequent debate. Ashley argued that the Lords was the court of last appeal on points of interpretation, ‘and that therein they are above the judges’; so the opinion of the judges ‘was nothing in the presence of their lordships, but only as far as they were the properest men to bring precedents; but not to interpret the law to their lordships, but only the inducements of their persuasions’.<sup>38</sup> This intervention was probably in the debate on 14 July following the judges’ presentation of their reasons.<sup>39</sup></p><p>After Bristol’s hasty departure at the end of the session, the opposition to Clarendon lacked a leader, although Ashley was still routinely mentioned as among its principals.<sup>40</sup> During the 1664 session Ashley maintained his usual rate of activity. Present for 90 per cent of the short session (all but three-and-a-half days), he was appointed, as usual, to the committee of privileges, and for the first time to the subcommittee for the Journal as well.<sup>41</sup> He navigated the awkward moment at the beginning of the session at which Bristol petitioned the House, apparently supporting the court’s demand that Bristol’s letter to the House should be passed on to the king.<sup>42</sup></p><p>An annotated list of the House of Commons in Ashley’s papers dating probably to before the 1664 session suggests an interest in political management, though it is far from clear what it means.<sup>43</sup> It may have been to do with the resolution initiated in the Commons about the impediments to trade, which would become a key step towards the renewal of war with the Dutch republic. Ashley was involved in the creation of the resolution, reporting the conference with the Commons on 22 April. As before, he served on committees on bills relevant to the exchequer, and on one concerned with reform of petty larceny.<sup>44</sup> In a debate on this bill on 3 Apr., his dislike of placing power in the hands of judges emerged again, as he complained about the discretionary power it gave them, and moved for the bill to be recommitted.<sup>45</sup> The incident suggested (as others did around this time) the worsening relationship between Ashley and Southampton, who had supported the bill. Other bills in which Ashley was involved included, as in the previous session, one against gambling, and the perennial committee to consider how to get legislation about the poor, highways, streets and carriages enforced.<sup>46</sup> As in the previous session he was appointed to a committee on a bill concerning Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>, and on two other private bills.<sup>47</sup> Closely concerned in the discussions on the conventicle bill, he was one of a sub-committee appointed on 6 May to consider parts of the bill, and in a debate on 10 May he offered a proviso described as ‘for reparation without just cause’; but it received no support.<sup>48</sup> At the end of the session he was added to the managers of a conference on it which ended up with a row about a lost proviso on 16 May, the penultimate day of the session. Ashley held the proxy of Lord Herbert of Chirbury from 12 Mar., and that of George Booth*, Baron Delamer, from the 23rd, both of them vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Ashley’s name was linked with those of Robartes and John Maitland*, earl of Lauderdale [S], over the summer.<sup>49</sup> He attended for the prorogation meeting on 20 Aug. 1664, and was present on the opening day of the next session on 24 November. As usual, he was appointed to the committee of privileges, the petitions committee and the Journal sub-committee. Absent for 16 days of the session (an attendance of 69 per cent), he was less active than he had been previously, particularly at the end of the session. He continued to be appointed to committees on bills of concern to the exchequer, on duchy of Cornwall lands and the excise, bills on legal reform.<sup>50</sup> He was appointed to committees on eight private bills, two of which he reported to the House (those on the estates of Francis Leigh, perhaps a relation of Southampton’s, and Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup>), and a bill concerning Wildmore Fen (in which he had also been involved back in 1663).<sup>51</sup> For the third time he held Lord Herbert of Chirbury’s proxy, given on 4 Dec., and vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>On 24 Dec. Ashley was appointed treasurer of prize goods, in anticipation of the forthcoming war. The position created a separate fund outside the exchequer, to which Clarendon objected, complaining to Ashley that no court of law would approve of its exemption from the normal principles of exchequer accounting.<sup>52</sup> The French ambassadors saw the prize commission as a vehicle of a Bennet-Lauderdale-Ashley faction, with lucrative appointments for their associates.<sup>53</sup> The war gave new impetus to the coalition against the chancellor. In early January Ashley and Lauderdale were said to be eclipsing him in the king’s favour.<sup>54</sup> A bone of contention was the reward to be given to Sir Robert Paston<sup>‡</sup>, who had successfully proposed in the Commons supply of £2,500,000 for the war with the Dutch. In Feb. 1665 Paston wrote to his wife that ‘a back friend of mine that loves not the chancellor, my Lord Ashley by name, told the king this morning he would give me four thousand pound a year for my bill’: the meaning is obscure, but presumably related to Paston’s bill concerning improvements to the port of Yarmouth, which would have returned him a considerable profit.<sup>55</sup></p><p>The French ambassadors became particularly fixated with the group of Bennet (now Lord Arlington), Ashley and Lauderdale, whom they thought constituted an anti-French faction. They were reporting in May 1665 that the three were spending every evening at supper with the king’s mistress, the countess of Castlemaine.<sup>56</sup> They thought that Ashley and Lauderdale, of this triumvirate, had less knowledge and interest in foreign affairs, with Ashley trying to pick an argument with them over prizes, and obstructing peace moves.<sup>57</sup> The king paid one ‘surprise’ visit to Ashley at Wimborne St Giles on 10 Aug. and another in September.<sup>58</sup> While the court was in Salisbury, with the duke and duchess of York in the North, a row erupted over the succession to the position of master of the horse to the queen: Southampton and Ashley’s advocacy of the claims of Robert Spencer<sup>‡</sup> (Ashley’s brother in law) was unsuccessful because the duke and duchess had advanced the interest of Ralph Montagu, later duke of Montagu, the previous incumbent’s brother.<sup>59</sup> Clarendon’s account suggests that the incident was used to try to drive a wedge between himself and Southampton.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Ashley was not present at the prorogations in June, August and early October. He missed seven days altogether of the very short Oxford session, lowering his attendance record further to 56 per cent, though he was appointed as usual to the committee of privileges and the sub-committee for the journal. He served on the committee on the five mile bill: the account written ten years later in <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em> says that Ashley opposed the bill together with Southampton and Wharton, though a contemporary account refers to opposition from Southampton, Manchester, Wharton and John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, during the debate on the 30th, but not from Ashley – indeed, Ashley was apparently absent.<sup>61</sup> Ashley did oppose the amendments proposed by Sir George Downing<sup>‡</sup>, introduced late in the discussion of the £1.25 million addition to the assessment voted in November 1664, to reform the way the government secured credit by creating a basic bond market. According to Clarendon’s account of the discussions at court Ashley supported his own objections because of the scheme’s impact on the crown’s relationship with the handful of bankers who usually lent to the government. Downing’s amendments, however, were allowed to remain, in order not to jeopardize the bill’s passage altogether.<sup>62</sup></p><p>A member of the committee on the plague bill, Ashley was one of those appointed to manage a conference on it on 31 October. Sir Allan Brodrick<sup>‡</sup>, a partisan of the chancellor, blamed the Lords – especially York, Robartes, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, and Ashley – for the failure of the bill because, ‘ridiculously tender of their privileges’, they insisted on exempting the peerage.<sup>63</sup> Among the other committees to which he was appointed was one discussing imports of foreign cattle and fish, largely concerned with Irish imports, which would become the greatest cause of conflict in the following session.<sup>64</sup> Ashley was present at the prorogation on 20 Feb. 1666, but not at that on 23 Apr. He served on the lord steward’s court for the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and 7th Baron Monteagle in April 1666; with Wharton, he found Morley guilty of murder (rather than manslaughter, for which most other peers opted).<sup>65</sup> For much of the first half of 1666, however, Ashley was ill with the disorder which would nearly kill him two years later.<sup>66</sup></p><h2><em>War and Irish cattle: 1666-7</em></h2><p>Ashley missed the first two days of the session of 1666-7, but was appointed to the committee of privileges on the first day he attended, 24 Sept. 1666. His attendance record recovered: absent on a further four days throughout the session, he was present for 95 per cent of its sittings. A major preoccupation was the prospect of the French entering the war. Ashley was one of those appointed to draw up reasons for a conference with the House of Commons concerning a vote on imports from France on 12 Oct. 1666; with Anglesey he was appointed on 29 Oct. to draw up an addition extending the bill to all of the king’s dominions, and was one of the members appointed to present the address against French imports to the king. As treasurer of prize goods, he was one of those appointed to examine the merchants following a Commons vote concerning the confiscated goods of some French merchants.<sup>67</sup> He received again the proxy of Lord Delamer on 22 Nov., vacated on 29 Dec., and that of the earl of Pembroke on 16 Jan. 1667, vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Most of Ashley’s energies were taken up, however, with the drive to ban imports of Irish cattle, the bill for which arrived in the Lords on 19 Oct. 1667. Ashley was said to be, apart from Buckingham, the bill’s most prominent advocate in the Lords.<sup>68</sup> Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount Conway, told James Butler*, earl of Brecknock and duke of Ormond [I], on 13 November, just after the bill had emerged from committee of the whole House, that the bill was the result of the ‘implacable hatred’ towards Ormond of Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale, and a scheme of Ashley and Lauderdale to ‘engross and monopolize… the trade of cattle between England and Scotland’. Conway added that Ashley was conducting a determined campaign in the committee of privileges to have all Irish nobility disabled from ‘taking any place in England’, and was also planning to force the Irish to receive all foreign commodities via England.<sup>69</sup> Clarendon later recalled Ashley’s claim that if the bill did not pass ‘all the rents in Ireland would rise in a vast proportion, and those in England fall as much; so that in a year or two the duke of Ormond would have a greater revenue than the earl of Northumberland’.<sup>70</sup></p><p>The debates in the Lords between the report and the third reading on 23 Nov. focused on three points. One was a proviso exempting Scottish cattle, which the committee had already left out, and which Conway thought had been part of a plan to create a monopoly and share the profits with James Scott [700]*, duke of Monmouth; the second was the removal of the word ‘nuisance’, which would enable the king to dispense with the effective parts of the act; and the third was a provision to permit Irish cattle to be exported to help supply London following the fire, proposed in response to a petition from the City of London. On 17 Nov. Ashley was appointed to a committee to draft the proviso to give effect to the latter measure.<sup>71</sup> The result was discussed in the House on 19 Nov. in a widely-reported debate. According to Anglesey, Ashley had been arguing ‘very freely’ that the scheme was ‘a pretence of charity’, designed to disadvantage England. But the drafting of the proviso was principally the work of Buckingham, Ashley and Lucas, and by allowing insufficient time for slaughtering and transportation of the cattle it had been calculated to frustrate the idea. When Anglesey made this point in the House, he wrote, Ashley ‘fell to his wonted politics’, provoking Ormond’s son, Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler and earl of Ossory [I], into a furious remark that the bill had emerged from former Cromwellian councillors. Ashley took the remark as referring to himself, as did most of the House; Buckingham weighed in, provoking Ossory some more; Anglesey himself tried to explain Ossory’s remarks, which ‘grated so near upon my Lord Ashley that he let go his former game and crave[d] justice against me but he was therein single in opinion’.<sup>72</sup> Ossory, however, was forced to beg the pardon of the House.</p><p>The court was equally troubled by the accounts bill. Clarendon in his memoir suggested that Ashley himself had something to fear from an inquiry into the public accounts because of the lack of accountability for the treasurership of prize goods.<sup>73</sup> The Commons’ request for a joint committee to examine the public accounts was rejected by the Lords on 22 Nov., and Ashley was appointed to manage the subsequent conference with the Commons. The Commons responded by sending an accounts bill, creating a statutory commission, up to the Lords on 14 Dec., along with their poll bill. Clarendon persuaded the Lords to abandon the bill in favour of petitioning the king for a royal commission. On 19 Dec. the chancellor, the lord chamberlain, Anglesey, Lucas and Ashley were appointed to draft a petition. But when the details of the alternative commission were given to the House on 29 Dec., Ashley, Buckingham, Northampton ‘and other confederates’ were said to have determined to reject it, and to obstruct further supply.<sup>74</sup> Ashley was one of the managers appointed that day for the conferences on Irish cattle, the poll bill and the public accounts.</p><p>In the meantime, the Irish cattle bill had returned to the Lords. On 17 Dec. the House took into consideration the rejection by the Commons of the removal of the word ‘nuisance’ from the bill. Ashley was presumably in agreement with Buckingham and Lucas, who argued for acceptance of the Commons’ line, but was (with them) appointed to the committee to prepare reasons for adhering to the removal of the word from the bill. <sup>75</sup> The reasons were finally discussed at an argumentative committee meeting on 21 Dec., which Ashley must have attended, given the voting figures, but which was not reported to the House until 29 Dec.<sup>76</sup> Ashley, according to Lord Conway, ‘seemingly to compose the difference’, proposed to change ‘nuisance’ to felony or praemunire. Clarendon quipped that ‘it might as reasonably be called adultery’.<sup>77</sup> Ashley was among those appointed to manage the subsequent conference with the Commons.</p><p>At the beginning of 1667 Lord Conway was pleased with his riposte to Ashley when there was a scare about the invasion of Ireland by France. Ashley asked how Ireland would defend itself: Conway responded that since Ashley was helping to render her incapable of doing so through the Irish cattle bill it was up to him to work it out. He replied ‘very superciliously’, that the blame for the problems of Ireland lay ‘upon those lords, that have driven the English out of the sea ports, and corporate towns, and filled them up with Irish’.<sup>78</sup> On 14 Jan., after the court finally gave way over the word ‘nuisance’ in the Irish cattle bill, Ashley, with Buckingham and Lucas, managed the subsequent conference with the Commons. In a letter of 19 Jan. Conway reported a further exchange with Ashley ‘about two days since’. Conway had reproached Ashley with his actions against Ireland, ‘seeing that no man in the kingdom was so likely in a short time to be lord lieutenant of Ireland as himself’: Ashley replied that:</p><blockquote><p>’Twas true they had done an unnatural Act, but the fault was in our present governors who by the settlement of Ireland, the book of rates, and other principles of government did endeavour to divide the interest of the two kingdoms, whereas he desired they should be united, and sit in one Parliament and then all these Acts would fall to the ground.</p></blockquote><p>Anglesey described their subsequent conversation, in which Ashley promised to support proposals for the relief of Ireland: Anglesey referred to ‘having heard him at Oxford exclaim against granting us liberty of conscience’, and told him that ‘in my own opinion I knew nothing would do us more good than that’. Ashley said that he would ‘particularly befriend us in this, and further it to the utmost of his power’, though it is far from clear whether liberty of conscience for Catholics or for Presbyterians was meant.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Ashley and his allies followed up their success on Irish cattle with pressure on other issues. An attempt to impeach William Willoughby*, 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, shortly to be appointed governor of Barbados, may have had something to do with Ashley, and a speech on the Canary patent, perhaps delivered during the debates in December and January on the monopoly, mischievously copying arguments Clarendon had used against the 1663 ecclesiastical jurisdiction bill, was probably his.<sup>80</sup> Ashley was involved too in the discussions on the impeachment of Viscount Mordaunt, participating in conferences with the Commons on the issue on 4 and 7 February.</p><p>Meanwhile, exchequer business continued to occupy Ashley’s time, including a bill for encouraging coinage, on which he conveyed the king’s consent, was appointed to the committee, and reported two conferences with the Commons (3 and 10 Jan. 1667), and a bill on accounts.<sup>81</sup> There were the usual committees on trade and legal reform: bills to deal with people who died overseas, for price controls on foodstuffs, to confirm enclosures made by decrees in courts of equity, for plague victims (he later reported a conference on it), and for burying in woollen only, and committees for Bedford level and for rebuilding the city of London.<sup>82</sup> Ashley’s membership of the committee on a bill for punishing and suppressing atheism and profaneness should be assumed to involve his opposition.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Ashley also served on the committee on the bill establishing a court to deal with the Fire of London cases: a debate on 23 Jan. over whether to add a clause providing for an appeal to the king and the House of Lords from the sentence of the judges displayed Ashley’s dislike of judicial discretion. The amendment was rejected, and Ashley with many others (including the Robartes, Buckingham and Lucas) protested. He also protested against the passage of the bill – although he entered no reason himself, John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover, explained his own protest as an objection to the unlimited power it gave to the judges without an appeal.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Ashley continued to be heavily involved in private bills: he was appointed to the committees for seven estate bills including those involving Sir Charles Stanley, in which he had been concerned before, and Lord Abergavenny (he acted as chairman on this committee, and his presence on it was clearly regarded as critical to Lady Abergavenny).<sup>85</sup> He was involved in personal bills for illegitimating Lady Anne Roos’s children, naturalizing the wife of the earl of Arlington, and for restoring Francis Scawen in blood.<sup>86</sup> There were also committees concerning the uniting of churches in Southampton and the improvement of lead mines in County Durham (which perhaps related to his mining interests).<sup>87</sup></p><p>The prorogation on 8 Feb. was followed a few weeks later by an order for the arrest of the duke of Buckingham. No action was taken against Ashley, but his chances of succeeding Southampton as treasurer had been entirely sunk by his actions during the session. When Southampton died on 16 May 1667, the king decided to create a treasury commission. Clarendon wrote that he had objected to the omission of Ashley from the proposals agreed by the king and duke of York for the commission. The king reluctantly agreed to include him, but with a quorum of three, Ashley would not be taking a leading role as was customary for the chancellor of the exchequer. Ashley, wrote Clarendon, ‘rather chose to be degraded than to dispute it’.<sup>88</sup> The Commission was dated 22 May.<sup>89</sup> Ashley was certainly irritated, making clear his dim view of his colleagues.<sup>90</sup></p><h2><em>After Clarendon: 1667-9</em></h2><p>Ashley adopted a cautious approach to the political crisis caused by the defeat of the English fleet which ended with the dismissal of Clarendon at the end of August.<sup>91</sup> In the brief meeting of Parliament in July he was not listed as present on the 25th, but was on the 29th. Pepys was flattered to dine with him and his wife at the end of September, and was impressed by what he thought was Ashley’s deftness in asking the right questions to advance a business in which (Pepys believed) Ashley had a financial interest.<sup>92</sup> The end of the war, the death of Southampton and the sacking of Clarendon were factors in a rash of new initiatives, in many of which Ashley was involved. He was included on a Privy Council committee established in September to discuss trade barriers between England and Scotland.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Present for the opening of Parliament on 10 Oct., Ashley attended around 80 per cent of the session’s sittings. As before, he was appointed to the committee of privileges and the subcommittee on the journals, and the committee of petitions.<sup>94</sup> He received, as before, the proxy of Lord Herbert of Chirbury on 25 Oct., vacated on 10 Feb. 1668. He was heavily involved in the debates on the Clarendon impeachment, serving on the committee for the bill for regulating the trial of peers on 7 Nov. 1667.<sup>95</sup> In the long debate on commitment on 12 Nov., both he and the earl of Bristol, no friends of Clarendon, were said to have ‘reasoned much’ against it: it is far from clear why. Ashley’s eighteenth century biographer recorded Clarendon’s son Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester acknowledging that Ashley had opposed it.<sup>96</sup> On 15 Nov. Ashley was among those appointed to manage a conference on the subject. Unlike Buckingham and Bristol, he did not dissent from the Lords vote refusing to commit Clarendon on 20 Nov. but he was one of the Lords’ representatives at the conference with the Commons on the following day, against which some of Clarendon’s key supporters dissented. On 22 Nov. he reported from it, and was appointed to a committee, with Buckingham, Manchester, Bridgwater, Holles, Bristol and Anglesey, to draw up reasons on the Lords’ votes against the Commons. He managed two subsequent conferences with the Commons on the subject, on 25 and 27 November.</p><p>Ashley was also involved in the proceedings following Clarendon’s flight from London at the beginning of December. He was a manager of the conference on Clarendon’s petition on 4 Dec., was appointed to the committee on the bill for his banishment on 7 Dec., and was among those appointed to draw up reasons for dissenting from the vote of the Commons about the banishment on 14 December. He was also among those appointed to report a conference with the Commons on freedom of speech (concerning the 1630 judgment against Sir John Eliot and Denzil Holles) on 10 Dec., and reported from it the following day.</p><p>The subtleties of Ashley’s position on Clarendon may have signalled an attempt to occupy a specific place in English politics. The French ambassador Ruvigny explained on 22 Nov. that Ashley and Anglesey, and possibly Arlington as well, were trying to form an alliance, hoping to persuade Northumberland to act as its figurehead.<sup>97</sup> Ashley and Buckingham’s clash over the public accounts bill, presumably on 18 or 19 Dec. at the second or third reading of the bill (Ashley was appointed to the committee on the bill), may have indicated a more strategic falling out – Ashley had apparently explained to the House that the bill was ‘a foolish and simple act’, eliciting a sarcastic response from the duke. Nevertheless both men were concurrently interested in gathering information against Ormond, supporting an appeal from Dublin against the lord lieutenant and the Irish Privy Council.<sup>98</sup> Pepys picked up a rumour of mass sackings from the council at the end of December of those who had opposed the king’s will on the impeachment of Clarendon, including Ashley, although on 4 Jan. Ossory suggested that Ashley and Anglesey would survive.<sup>99</sup></p><p>As previously, Ashley was involved in much other business. He was appointed to the committee to consider trade with Scotland on 14 October. On 26 Oct. he was present at one of its meetings at which a report was presented from a committee of the council and Lauderdale gave evidence. Ashley proposed that all acts (presumably impositions on Scottish commodities including the Navigation Acts) be suspended until midsummer and in the meantime a commission of both kingdoms should meet. Buckingham (perhaps another sign of distance between them) argued instead that the committee should take nothing on trust from the council but hear the whole business.<sup>100</sup> Ashley missed another meeting on 8 Nov. at which the idea that impositions could be suspended without parliamentary approval was rejected.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Departmental business during the session included a bill on exchequer procedure, and another on the collection of the hearth tax.<sup>102</sup> His other activities for the most part concerned business in which he had previously taken an interest: atheism, the wine trade, bills of Middlesex and certiorari, colliers, woodmongers and butchers, woollen manufacture, the Great Level of the Fens, the promotion of foreign and domestic trade, highways, promotion of English manufactures, duelling, a rebuilding London, Irish cattle. <sup>103</sup> He reported from a committee on a bill on silk throwing.<sup>104</sup> As before he was involved in plenty of private business: estate bills concerning Horatio Townshend*, Viscount Townshend, Sir William Juxon, the bishop of Durham’s lead mines (as in the previous session), Sir Richard Wiseman<sup>‡</sup>, Ashdown Forest (as in 1663), and William Paston. He reported from committees considering the cases of William Herbert and Sir Charles Lloyd, the children of Richard Taylor, the estate of Sir Kingsmill Lucy<sup>‡</sup>, and timber within the forest of Dean.<sup>105</sup> Ashley promised to be a ‘friend’ to Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> in business pending in the Lords on Lady Dacre’s bill concerning Sutton Court.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Immersed in such detail, Ashley, perhaps already affected by the illness which would take hold of him later in the year, may have conceded political leadership to Buckingham. In the high-level politics of the court he was not very visible in the first months of 1668. He was reappointed to the trade and plantations committee in the reorganization of council committees in Jan., and would become a member of the council of trade formed in Oct.<sup>107</sup> His former brother-in-law Sir William Coventry told Pepys on 19 May that Ashley was ‘a man obnoxious to most’, but thought that the absence of complaints about the treasury must mean that it was well managed.<sup>108</sup> Ashley reported a conference on the impeachment of Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup> on 24 April. He was also involved in the debates on Skinner’s case, though his role at this stage was marginal. The significance of a payment to Ashley of £1,782 made on 11 Mar. 1668 by the East India Company’s court of directors is unknown: it seems unlikely to concern Skinner.<sup>109</sup> Ashley and others were appointed on 5 May to report a conference with House of Commons, in which the Commons communicated the petition received from the East India Company concerning Skinner’s action in the House of Lords against them, and their votes on the subject.<sup>110</sup> The Lords’ committee of privileges on the next day, 6 May, attacked the Company’s petitions and the arguments of the Commons. Ashley was involved in the discussion of precedents in the committee of privileges on 6 Apr., but the notes made by Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, of the events on 8 and 9 May noted that Ashley ‘had no part in this service, though he were present all the while, ’tis said he excused himself’.<sup>111</sup> Given his responsibility for the compromise that ended the affair and his statements on other occasions, Ashley may have felt doubtful about the Lords acting as a court of first instance; he may also have been compromised by his friendship with Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>, whom the Lords charged with the breach of their own privileges.</p><p>On the other hand, Ashley may have already been unwell. In late May 1668 he became seriously ill as a result of complications of the hydatid cyst that had troubled him since at least 1656, if not since 1639. An operation was performed on 12 June in order to remove a tumour, and Ashley remained in danger for at least a month; there was a serious relapse in mid-September, and the doctors kept him under close observation until early November. Ashley was left with the famous silver pipe in his side – on which he extensively canvassed medical opinion – in order to continue to drain the abscess.<sup>112</sup></p><h2><em>The Cabal, 1669-72</em></h2><p>By 1669, Ashley may have recovered enough to regain some ground in court politics. It was said in January that he was taking a more active role in appointments in the court of exchequer, traditionally the preserve of the lord treasurer.<sup>113</sup> The following month, after a discussion in the treasury commission about the management of the navy office in which Sir Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, and Ashley joined forces to attack it, Pepys remarked that Ashley was becoming closer to the duke of Buckingham ‘being in danger, it seems, of being otherwise out of play’.<sup>114</sup> Buckingham claimed that Ashley and most of the rest of the Privy Council were his supporters against Arlington.<sup>115</sup> By mid-March, though, there were suggestions of a possible alliance between Arlington, Ormond, Lauderdale and Ashley, though a rumour that Arlington would become treasurer with Clifford as secretary of state can hardly have delighted the chancellor of the exchequer.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Ashley attended the prorogation on 1 Mar. 1669, when Parliament was postponed to the following October. He was involved in the discussions in the foreign committee of the Privy Council (the first time he is recorded as attending such a meeting) in June 1669 over union with Scotland. A strong advocate of the scheme, he argued (unsuccessfully) that the king should nominate commissioners himself, rather than waiting for Parliament to do so.<sup>117</sup> In the late summer of 1669, a month or so before the opening of Parliament, Ashley attended the king in a progress to the southern counties. The king’s plans to call in at Wimborne St Giles were prevented by the news of the death of the queen mother (Ashley attended a meeting of the foreign committee at Southampton to discuss the implications). A letter from John Stewkeley on 20 Sept. recounted his invitation to Wimborne to eat up the food that had been provided, boasting that he ‘was the only Hampshire gentleman there, which made him use me with more than ordinary civility’.<sup>118</sup> Ashley went on via the earl of Sunderland’s to Belvoir Castle to celebrate the marriage of his son to Dorothy Manners, one of the daughters of the John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland.<sup>119</sup> He wrote to fomer secretary of state, Sir William Morrice, at the end of October that his son had ‘married to my great content, a virtuous, discreet, well-humoured lady’.<sup>120</sup> In the same letter Ashley also referred cryptically to ‘horrid storms’: ‘those that hunted together now hunt one another, and at horse play the master of the horse [Buckingham] must have the better. The division about Skinner’s business of the two Houses is by the state chemists like to be improved into a new Parliament. No man of our age has seen a time of more expectation, which is the next step to confusion’.<sup>121</sup> Buckingham seems certainly to have been engaged in a good deal of briefing around the beginning of the new session: the French ambassador wrote in late October of libels circulating against Arlington, Ashley, and their associates, with the implication that they originated from Buckingham.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Ashley was present on first day of the new session on 19 Oct., when he was appointed to the committees of privileges, petitions and the sub-committee for the Journal. Although absent on the following day and on 30 Oct. and 23 Nov., he attended on all other sitting days, a 94 per cent attendance rate. He was nominated to committees considering the report of the commissioners of accounts (whose investigations had proved largely inconclusive), and a bill concerning wool exports, but little business reached committee stage by the time the king prorogued Parliament on 11 December.<sup>123</sup> Ashley’s main energies in the session were concentrated on the committee to consider the causes and ground of the fall of rents and decay of trade, to which he was appointed on 25 October. The debates on its report on 26 Nov. and 1 Dec. ended with votes that Anglesey, George Savile*, Viscount Halifax (later marquess of Halifax), George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley of Berkeley (later earl of Berkeley), Lucas and Ashley should choose some experts to debate the issue in committee of the whole House. Ashley was not prominent in the festering controversy over Skinner’s case and the jurisdiction of the Lords, though he was involved in it. After the Lords’ rejection (on its first reading) of the Commons’ bill on the Lords’ judicial powers on 10 Nov., the committee of privileges met the following day and discussed the duke of Buckingham’s proposed bill asserting first instance jurisdiction over cases which could not be tried elsewhere. Ashley was one of the subcommittee to draw up the bill and reported it to the committee on 13 November.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Following the Skinner-provoked prorogation in December, and Robartes’s resignation from the post of lord privy seal in January 1670, it was rumoured that Ashley might succeed him, though nothing came of this.<sup>125</sup> Instead he was heavily engaged in the new session which began on 14 Feb.: though he was absent that day, he attended on 90 per cent of sitting days up to the April adjournment. He was appointed to the committees for privileges and petitions.<sup>126</sup> He was provided with proxies from Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, and Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden on two successive days, 4 and 5 Mar., both of them vacated at the end of the session. According to the extracts taken in the eighteenth century from James II’s memoirs, it was Ashley who suggested the solution to the Skinner affair that the king proposed to both Houses at a meeting in the Banqueting House on 22 Feb., that they remove all reference to the case from their journals, and delete the record in the exchequer.<sup>127</sup> Ashley supported it by explaining the significance of removing the record from the file, and assuring the House that Skinner should be paid and satisfied the full amount that he had been awarded by the Lords’ original judgment.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Much of his other business involved government finance. He was appointed on 18 Mar. to the committee for the bill for sale of fee farm rents, and chaired the meetings of the committee on 23 and 29 March. On 21 Mar., when the House adjourned into committee on a bill for granting an imposition on wines and vinegar, Ashley reported back to the House. With Oliver St John*, 2nd earl of Bolingbroke, and Anglesey he was charged with preparing a request to the king to preserve the ancient freedom for peers from duties on wine. Ashley reported from committees for bills to enable the king to make leases in the Duchy of Cornwall and on brandy duties.<sup>129</sup> He was nominated to the revived committee for considering the fall of rents and the decay of trade.<sup>130</sup> Given his association with the proposals of the committee for liberty of conscience, it is surprising that he appears not to have deeply involved in the opposition to the conventicle bill which was brought up from the Commons on 10 Mar. Although 13 peers protested against its passage on 26 Mar., Ashley was not one of them. He was appointed on 30 Mar., along with Buckingham and eleven others to report a conference with the Commons about the bill. He may well have supported the proviso added to the bill in the Lords which emphasized to an unusual degree the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs; at the conference on 4 Apr. at which the Lords accepted the Commons’ amendments watering down the proviso Ashley said that the lower House had ‘done very well in their amendments’, probably an agreed government line signalling a graceful retreat from the more extreme version of the proviso.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Other public business reflected his usual interests: legal procedure, benefit of clergy, arson, the reconstruction of the city of London, highways and bridges (he later reported to the House from conferences on the bill), Great Yarmouth harbour, and piracy (on which he was one of the managers on a conference).<sup>132</sup> Among the private bills dealt with by the House in the session was one to enable Anthony Ashley, Ashley’s son, to acknowledge fines and suffer recoveries of certain lands while under 21 (the bill was reported from committee by the earl of Bridgwater on 21 Mar. and given a third reading on the same day). Other bills concerned the heirs of Margaret Strode (which involved the countess of Southampton), Lady Elizabeth Lee, the London residence of the dean of St Pauls and the estate of Thomas Davison.<sup>133</sup> Ashley strongly supported the bill to enable John Manners, Lord Roos*, later 9th earl and duke of Rutland, already divorced, to remarry: Marvell remarked on the fact that Ashley and Anglesey, whose sons were both married to Lord Roos’s sisters and stood to inherit if Roos had no children and ‘who study and know their interests as well as any gentlemen at court’, nevertheless were supporters of the bill. On 17 Mar. he spoke in favour of the second reading, and was appointed to the committee for the bill two days later.<sup>134</sup> Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, noted down Ashley’s speech on the third reading on Monday 28 Mar. in which he emphasized the civil origins of marriage, before the Council of Trent had made it into a sacrament.<sup>135</sup></p><p>On 22 Mar. Lauderdale wrote that the bill for a treaty of union between England and Scotland had been ‘finished’ by himself with Ashley, the lord keeper, and the secretary of state, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>136</sup> Ashley was appointed to the committee on the bill, and would serve in the autumn on the commission that it authorized.<sup>137</sup> During the debates in the joint Anglo-Scottish commission in September and October Ashley would disagree with Buckingham on making a concession to the Scots that no appeal should lie from the Scottish courts to a new British Parliament.<sup>138</sup></p><p>By the time the king adjourned Parliament on 11 Apr. 1670 Ashley had established himself as one of the most significant figures in royal government – one of the ‘Cabal’. Charles II told the French ambassador two days after he did so that the only people who knew about his decision to attend the House of Lords had been York, Buckingham, Arlington, and Ashley.<sup>139</sup> A week after the close of the session Ashley began to attend the foreign affairs committee on a regular basis.<sup>140</sup> In May it was again thought (wrongly) that he might take the position of lord privy seal. <sup>141</sup></p><p>A consequence of his new prominence was that he was drawn into the planning for a renewal of war against the Dutch, following the signing, behind his and other councillors’ backs, of the notorious Catholic treaty on 1 June. Ashley was said to be ‘not against’ a treaty with France, but reluctant to rush into one.<sup>142</sup> Nevertheless, on 21 Dec. he signed the so-called <em>traité simulé</em>, along with Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham and Lauderdale.<sup>143</sup></p><p>During the autumn, Ashley had been closely involved in the discussions in the Foreign Committee in the run-up to the meeting of Parliament.<sup>144</sup> He was absent on the first day of new session on 24 Oct., but overall he attended 91 per cent of sittings. He was as usual prominent in business connected with government revenue: it included bills to ban imports of brandy, which had already occupied a good deal of time earlier in the year; to restore the power of granting wine licenses (formerly granted to the duke of York) to the king; and relating to the grant of the profits of the post office to the duke of York (Ashley presided over committee meetings on 1 April).<sup>145</sup> Ashley chaired the first meeting of the committee on fee farm rents, and was subsequently manager of conference on the bill, 20 April.<sup>146</sup> He also chaired early meetings of the committee on the bill for exporting beer, ale and mum, which heard extensively from the brewers and the farmers of the excise.<sup>147</sup> He was one of the committee appointed on 2 Mar. to report a conference about amendments in the subsidy bill.</p><p>The enormous amount of other public business in which he was engaged included many familiar interests and some new ones: for example he helped to manage a conference on buying and selling cattle on 18 Apr.; he later reported the effect of a conference on the wool exports bill, especially concerning the Lords amendments for leaving out Ireland on 22 Apr., before it was interrupted by the prorogation.<sup>148</sup> Appointed to numerous committees on local and private bills, he reported a conference on a bill for improving navigation between Boston and the River Trent, and with Lords Anglesey and Holles he was deputed to recommend the case of the dowager marchioness of Worcester to the King.<sup>149</sup> Ashley’s views on the judicial role of the Lords (perhaps of relevance to the Skinner affair) were displayed in an intervention in a debate on 1 Dec. 1670 on a case concerning the grandchildren of Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport, in which he insisted that the House’s role was ‘not to judge out of primary equity, but to judge whether the courts below have judged well or not’.<sup>150</sup> Ashley was appointed on 14 Jan. 1671 to the committee to investigate the assault on the duke of Ormond that had taken place in December. He was also involved in the fallout from another outrage, the attack on Sir John Coventry<sup>‡</sup> (his own nephew) in late December, reporting on 18 Jan. from the committee of the whole House on the bill to prevent malicious maiming and wounding. He was one of the Lords managers at conferences on the bill on 6 and 9 February.<sup>151</sup></p><p>In the midst of the speculation about the conversion of the duke and duchess of York in the winter of 1670-71, Ashley was closely involved in discussions about the growth of popery. At the end of the debate on 1 Mar. concerning a petition on the subject brought from the Commons, Ashley was one of those appointed to consider the difficult points of the Commons draft – ambassadorial chapels, St James’s Palace, and Ireland -- and was manager of a subsequent conference on 3 Mar. with Ormond, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, Anglesey, Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), and George Morley*, bishop of Winchester.<sup>152</sup> On 24 Mar. he was appointed to the committee for the bill to prevent the growth of popery, and on 13 Apr. was one of a subcommittee to draw up a ‘test or oath’ which convicted recusants could take to mitigate the penalties against them.<sup>153</sup></p><p>Ashley was deeply implicated in the row that precipitated the prorogation of the session, the dispute over the Commons’ foreign commodities bill, given a second reading in the Lords on 29 March. The Commons’ bill imposed increased duties on refined sugar, making it less profitable for planters to refine their own, as well as on imported tobacco and silk, and it provoked a vigorous lobbying campaign in the Lords. Ashley chaired a series of meetings of the committee from 29 Mar. to 8 Apr., and invited the prominent Barbados planter Sir Peter Colleton<sup>‡</sup>, son of Ashley’s former partner and, like him, one of the proprietors of Carolina, to put his case against the new duties. The committee also heard from Patience Ward<sup>‡</sup>, the outspoken City sheriff, nonconformist and merchant, as well as many others. Ashley reported the bill with amendments on 8 Apr., plus a proposed resolution to ask the king to encourage the native clothing industry by wearing its products himself – compensating for the Lords’ advocacy of the interests of importers. He was manager of the conference at which the bill was (eventually) delivered to the Commons on 12 April. Sandwich took the responsibility for initiating the Lords’ evisceration of the bill, though he wrote in his journal that ‘my Lord Ashley was fully of the same mind and did a good part therein’, and that the king had also approved.<sup>154</sup> Ashley took part in the subsequent conference on the details of the Lords’ amendments on the sugar duties, though he confined himself to making a point about the preservation of the Lords’ right to contribute to the debate, and it was Anglesey who reported reasons for, and the outcome of, subsequent conferences.<sup>155</sup> Sandwich thought that it was Arlington’s followers who had stoked up the dispute in order to blame the duke of Buckingham for the loss of the bill by encouraging the Commons to fear that ‘if the House of peers had been suffered to control them, the peerage would have lessened their power and interest, and Buckingham and Ashley and the nobles would have grown most in the king’s esteem’.<sup>156</sup> It is as likely, however, that the king was quite happy to use the dispute to suppress a bill that would have caused him some embarrassment for uncertain actual gain.</p><h2><em>The War and the Indulgence, 1671-73</em></h2><p>The 1670-71 session had seen Ashley becoming one of Charles II’s most important ministers, overcoming the erratic dominance previously enjoyed by Buckingham, and establishing an uneasy equilibrium with Arlington and his increasingly significant protégé, Clifford; though still not privy to the great secret of the original treaty with Louis XIV, he was fully involved in the preparations for war with the Dutch republic over the summer and autumn of 1671. He was a member of the council commission on the settlement of Ireland initially appointed in February.<sup>157</sup> Ashley’s personal relationship with Buckingham continued: he was said to be one of the godfathers to the countess of Shrewsbury’s son by Buckingham, born in February 1671, and Anglesey’s diary reveals Ashley arriving for dinner at Anglesey’s house in Buckingham’s company in June. Both men were flattering Anglesey with suggestions of high office over the summer; though in September Anglesey heard that Ashley was nosing around to find out how he had benefited from the Irish settlement: ‘God forgive this false man and pretended friend!’ he wrote in his diary.<sup>158</sup> There was fresh talk in May and again in September about Ashley becoming lord treasurer, though by January 1672 the rumours had it that Ashley was destined to be lord privy seal and Clifford treasurer. <sup>159</sup> The idea may have been the result of the decision to default on the accumulated government debt, the Stop of the Exchequer, announced in council on 2 Jan., which Ashley claimed had been proposed by Clifford (his colleague on the treasury commission) over his own objections. In a letter to Locke in late 1674 Ashley said that he and Sir John Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> had washed their hands of ‘all paying and borrowing of money, and the whole transaction of that part of the affair’.<sup>160</sup> Ashley was present, with Lauderdale, Arlington and Clifford, at the ratification of the treaty with France on 29 Jan., and involved in the decision to attack the Dutch Smyrna fleet which started the war. <sup>161</sup></p><p>Ashley, along with Clifford and Arlington, was involved in contacts with various nonconformists in the autumn of 1671, of which the only evidence is a series of poorly legible notes by Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, some of them of interviews with Thomas Blood. They associate Ashley with a man named James Ennis or Innes, and reflect the belief that Ashley and Arlington were competing for the king’s attention and favour.<sup>162</sup> During the discussions on the Declaration of Indulgence in the foreign affairs committee in March 1672, Ashley was strongly supportive of the scheme, in particular emphasizing the existing powers of the king under the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs.<sup>163</sup></p><p>Ashley had attended Parliament at the prorogation on 16 April. Only on the following day were the warrants signed for his creation as earl of Shaftesbury, and it was therefore only on the day of the next prorogation, 30 Oct., that he was introduced between the earls of Bridgwater and Dover, paying fees of £15.10s.<sup>164</sup> The decision to prorogue in October had been taken at the foreign affairs committee in mid-September, when Shaftesbury had been firmly of the opinion that a sitting of Parliament should be postponed to February, to avoid disturbing peace negotiations and in the hope that their conclusion might encourage it to vote money.<sup>165</sup> Shaftesbury was made lord chancellor on 17 Nov., displacing Sir Orlando Bridgeman. One story attributed the change to Shaftesbury informing the king of Bridgeman’s refusal to seal a commission for martial law relating to the troops assembled for an assault on Holland. <sup>166</sup> Other reasons were suggested, including Bridgeman’s continued refusal to seal the Declaration of Indulgence, or to agree to an injunction to protect some of the bankers affected by the Stop of the Exchequer from proceedings for debt, as well as the official reason, illness.<sup>167</sup> Shaftesbury’s was an odd appointment, for though he frequently spoke on legal matters, and his legal learning was respected, he had never gone on from brief attendance at Lincoln’s Inn to qualifying as a barrister. His appointment may have reflected a view that he was less likely to raise legal quibbles about the exercise of prerogative power. It was reported on 4 Dec. that he had granted an injunction to stop proceedings at law against the bankers, though only with temporary effect ‘which gave opportunity in the interim to observe the complexion of the House of Commons’.<sup>168</sup> An order for sealing the Indulgence was given on 9 December. Roger North<sup>‡</sup> expressed a hostile view about Shaftesbury’s reforming approach to the role:</p><blockquote><p>after he was possessed of the great seal, he was, in appearance, the gloriousest man alive: and no man’s discourse, in his place, ever flew so high as his did, not only against the House of Commons, where, perhaps, he expected a party to sustain him; but against the tribe of the court of chancery, officers and counsel, and their methods of ordering the business of the court. As for the Commons, he did not scruple to declare openly, that he did not understand by what reason or right men should sit and vote themselves privileges. And for the chancery, he would teach the bar that a man of sense was above all their forms. He laboured hard and stuck at nothing to get men of his confidence into the House of Commons, and so, with all the gaiety <em>de coeur</em> imaginable, and a world of pleasant of wit in his conversation, as he had indeed a very great share, and shewed it upon all occasions, he composed himself to perform the duties of his place.<sup>169</sup></p></blockquote><p>He adopted an unusually high-profile approach to the office, attempting to revive an old practice of riding to Westminster Hall on the first day of the new term, and ensuring that his speeches on the swearing-in of two lord treasurers and one of the barons of the exchequer were printed.<sup>170</sup> In the latter he emphasized the burdens that small claims pursued in the court by the king’s officers imposed on ‘the industrious part of the nation’. The clergy perhaps had cause to be suspicious: the bishop of Exeter complained in 1674 about Shaftesbury protecting a nonconformist in his diocese, though the complaint of the new dean of Canterbury, John Tillotson, in the late summer of 1674 about a commission being delayed at Exeter House seems to have stemmed from Shaftesbury’s purse bearer, ‘Mr Sherwin, a precise formal starched person’.<sup>171</sup> The earl of Lindsey’s grumble in Aug. 1674 to his sister, Sir Thomas Osborne’s wife, about the failure of the lord chancellor to consult him about the appointment of new justices of the peace in Lincolnshire and its impact on parliamentary elections, may have been a response to Shaftesbury’s politics, though Lindsey said that Shaftesbury’s predecessor, Bridgeman, had done the same.<sup>172</sup> Shaftesbury was well aware that he had many enemies. When he wrote to Essex (now lord lieutenant of Ireland) on 13 Dec. 1673 to respond to his congratulations with strong professions of friendship, he was forced to deny a rumour that he had spoken ill of him and hinted darkly that a number of such rumours had been deliberately circulated ‘by some worthy persons here, that are exceeding skilful in these lesser arts, but can do no business’. He admitted that his ‘stars have not been very propitious as to Irish affairs, or governors.’<sup>173</sup></p><p>Discussions on preparations for the new session had begun in November 1672, when the foreign committee chewed over whom to promote to the speakership. Shaftesbury was not enthusiastic about the decision to invite Serjeant Job Charlton<sup>‡</sup> to take up the post on account of his likely opposition to the Declaration, though he recognized that his own candidate, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, could not easily leave his position as secretary of the treasury.<sup>174</sup> The decision to issue writs for by-elections without the Speaker’s warrant was taken early in January 1673, and a number of elections were held at the end of the month and in the few days in Feb. before Parliament met. It had been challenged already by 30 Jan., when it was discussed in the foreign committee, the king opening a discussion by referring to the ‘great noise’ the issue had made; Shaftesbury responded by referring to precedents from the Interregnum and the reign of James I, presumably drawn from notes put together by Locke.<sup>175</sup> The decision to issue the writs early may have been in part intended to assist some specific candidates: Shaftesbury’s brother George Cooper<sup>‡</sup> at Poole, against Thomas Strangways<sup>‡</sup>; John Man<sup>‡</sup> at Weymouth and Melcombe Regis against the same man; Edward Backwell<sup>‡</sup>, a key figure in government finance, whose election at Wendover would have helped to secure him against legal action; and several servants of the duke of York. On the other hand, not all of the elections were completed before Parliament sat, and the court’s efforts at influencing most of them were fairly feeble. Two of those who were associated with Shaftesbury – William Williams<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Papillon<sup>‡</sup> – received however either no support or active discouragement from the chancellor.<sup>176</sup> Shaftesbury’s attempt to have Newark enfranchized to provide a seat for his business partner Sir Paul Neile, possibly intended to be in time for the same group of elections, failed – the election did not take place until the summer.<sup>177</sup></p><p>On 28 Jan. the foreign affairs committee convened to hear the chancellor’s proposed speech, which was ‘allowed with one or two alterations’.<sup>178</sup> Another meeting was held on 2 Feb. to discuss the practical arrangements. That same day, Shaftesbury was with Anglesey at the Candlemas festivities at Lincoln’s Inn: he dined with Anglesey again on 6 February. <sup>179</sup> Shaftesbury was present and presiding for every day of the 1673 session. At the opening of Parliament on 4 Feb., he spoke to instruct the Commons to elect a new Speaker, and it was on 5 Feb., in response to the Speaker-elect’s speech, that he delivered a long oration which would be famous for its use of Cato’s phrase, <em>delenda est Carthago</em>. It would later be claimed that the speech had been substantially rewritten in the foreign affairs committee.<sup>180</sup> Shaftesbury said that the United Provinces were ‘the common enemies to all monarchies’; only England stood in their way ‘to an universal empire as great as Rome’. This had been Parliament’s view too in 1664, and the king might reasonably request financial assistance given that he had merely followed Parliament’s own policies. The Stop of the Exchequer he attributed to the failure of Parliament in the last session to deal with the king’s debts, and ‘though he hath put a stop to the trade and gain of the bankers, yet he would be unwilling to ruin them’. He defended the Declaration of Indulgence, and vindicated the king’s commitment to the Church of England. After dismissing rumours that the troops that had been raised were intended for internal use, Shaftesbury praised the relationship between the king and Parliament as a ‘happy marriage’, and ‘though this marriage be according to Moses’ law, where the husband can give a bill of divorce, put her away, and take another, yet, I can assure you, it is as impossible for the king to part with this Parliament, as it is for you to depart from that loyalty, affection, and dutiful behaviour, you have hitherto shewed towards him’ – a curious formulation, given the current talk of Charles II’s intentions towards his wife, and the ever-present question of the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. <sup>181</sup> On 18 Feb., less than two weeks later, after Job Charlton’s abrupt departure from the speakership, Shaftesbury was forced to make another speech responding to the petitions for the House’s privileges from the new Speaker, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Shaftesbury’s election writs came under early fire in the Commons from Giles Strangways<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup>, and Henry Powle<sup>‡</sup>, and were voided on 6 February.<sup>182</sup> (The memoir written much later by Shaftesbury’s secretary, Thomas Stringer, refers to a visit to Shaftesbury at Exeter House by Lord St John*, later 6th marquess of Winchester, Lord Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Powle and others days before Parliament sat, at which Shaftesbury attempted to divert them from the writs by egging on their worries about Catholicism.)<sup>183</sup> The onslaught against the Declaration in the Commons commenced on Monday 10 Feb., with the same voices in the lead against it, Strangways adding some pointed remarks about the chancellorship: ‘In point of law’, he remarked, he ‘would have the king advised by those that profess the law’.<sup>184</sup> With the Commons adjourned to Thursday 13th having commissioned a committee to draw up an address to the king, the foreign affairs committee reviewed options on Wednesday evening. Shaftesbury agreed with the duke of York and a consensus in the committee that the Commons should be persuaded to seek the consent of the Lords to their address – where, they reckoned, it would be rejected – and that the government should try to promote a bill to carry forward the policy in the Declaration. When this strategy failed, on 14 Feb., the committee met again. Shaftesbury, spoiling for a fight with the Commons, was inclined to risk the loss of supply: ‘rather lose money than lose rights: make the point to the House of Lords, and engage them in it, who will certainly determine otherwise’. In a further discussion on 16 Feb. Shaftesbury, Lauderdale and Clifford all counselled that the Lords should be encouraged to confront the Commons.<sup>185</sup> Over the next week the dispute escalated with the presentation of the Commons’ address on 19 Feb., the king’s response on the 24th, and the Commons’ second address on 27 February.</p><p>In pursuit of the strategy to provoke a dispute between the two Houses, on 1 Mar. the king made a formal complaint to the Lords about the Commons’ addresses, and requested their advice. He was followed by Shaftesbury, who read out the exchanges with the Commons, and two days later thanked the Lords on behalf of the king for their address in response to the initiative. Shaftesbury chaired the committee appointed on 5 Mar. to draw up a ‘bill of advice’ to the king, to give effect to the Declaration. On the 6th it discussed heads of bills brought in by Clifford and by Anglesey.<sup>186</sup> Shaftesbury was involved in a series of conferences with the Commons on the proposed address to the king concerning the removal of Catholic officers from the navy.<sup>187</sup> On the 7th, when the Lords accepted the Commons’ insistence on the point, a decision may already have been taken to give in on the Declaration of Indulgence. Its abandonment was announced by Shaftesbury on Saturday the 8th. The following Monday, 10 Mar., Shaftesbury reported the delivery of the thanks of both Houses.</p><p>The government hoped that this would produce progress on supply. Instead, on 13 Mar. the test bill arrived in the Lords. The French ambassador wrote that Shaftesbury had questioned the Commons’ messengers about the supply bill, which he had expected to arrive with it. On the 15th the bill was debated in committee, with Shaftesbury chairing a sub-committee to draw up amendments saving the privileges of the peerage, and providing for a pension enjoyed by the earl of Bristol.<sup>188</sup> The Commons responded to these moves by delaying the third reading of the supply bill until Friday 21 Mar., after the third reading of the test bill in the Lords.<sup>189</sup> On the third reading of the test, on 20 Mar., Clifford attacked the bill, arguing that it had dangerous consequences for the authority of the Lords, and blurred the boundaries between church and state.<sup>190</sup> Accounts by Burnet and others of Shaftesbury’s response are confused, though Shaftesbury no doubt indicated government support for the bill, and perhaps attempted to neutralize the effect of Clifford’s outburst (frequently referred to in the discussions in the Commons the following day). Whether it irritated the king or not (as Clifford’s speech almost certainly did) is unclear.<sup>191</sup> Shaftesbury was involved with the bill again on 24 Mar., when he, Anglesey and Holles were set to prepare reasons for their insistence on amendments concerning the queen’s servants and the crown’s power to grant a stay of prosecution. Shaftesbury the following day reported from the committee and from the conference.</p><p>An amendment to the protestant dissenters’ bill made in the Lords providing the king with a power to bring it into effect was seen in the Commons as another way of achieving the policy of the Declaration.<sup>192</sup> At a conference on the morning of the 29th, managed for the Lords by Shaftesbury and others, the Commons registered their dissent to the Lords’ amendments. The Lords indicated their decision to stand by them at a further conference the same day, at which Shaftesbury and Anglesey defended the proclamation power.<sup>193</sup> With no hope of achieving a satisfactory result, the king abandoned the bill, though by adjourning Parliament, rather than proroguing it, he made it conceivable that the bill could be continued with when it reconvened in October. </p><p>Given his position and the major issues that dominated the session, Shaftesbury was involved in little other business, other than formal interventions, dealing with the duel of John Wilmot*, earl of Rochester and Robert Constable, 3rd Viscount Dunbar [S] on 22 Mar., and reporting the king’s signature of a general pardon on 27 March. He was, though, on 22 Mar. one of the committee on the case of Dr Salmon v. the Hamburg company ‘and to consider the relief to be given to the creditors by the judicial power of the House’. A committee to enable Robert Bellamy to sell lands was set to meet in the lord chancellor’s lodgings on 26 Feb., his only apparent involvement in any private bill activity. During the session he held the proxy of John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, given on 4 Feb., and vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Following the adjournment on 29 Mar., and in the aftermath of York’s failure to take communion at Easter, French ambassador Colbert reported on 7 Apr. that Shaftesbury was one of those who had taken up the idea that the king should seek a divorce. York had told him that Shaftesbury wanted the king to marry again, to a Protestant princess, and to abandon the alliance with Louis XIV.<sup>194</sup> On 24 Apr. Anglesey dined at the lord chancellor’s with William Craven*, earl Craven (a fellow Carolina proprietor), Richard Vaughan*, Baron Vaughan and 2nd earl of Carbery [I], Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, ‘Lord Power’ (presumably, and surprisingly, Richard Power, Baron Le Power [I], the recently created earl of Tyrone [I], and Shaftesbury’s physician, Sir Edward Sydenham.<sup>195</sup> After Clifford’s resignation from office, on 26 June Shaftesbury presided at the swearing in of the new treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, Viscount Oseburne [S], who was advanced two months later to the English peerage as Viscount Latimer (and would become earl of Danby in 1674). Latimer later realized that his speech, published eventually in the same format as those in December, was a subtle insult.<sup>196</sup></p><p>The king himself regarded Shaftesbury with considerable suspicion by the end of June. Colbert wrote on 30 June of the king telling him that Shaftesbury’s protestations of friendship to Colbert ‘were nothing but deceit, like all the actions of this minister, who he says is the weakest and most ill-intentioned of all men’.<sup>197</sup> The king may have been irritated by Shaftesbury’s opposition to York’s attempts to evade the effect of the test act by appointment as commander of an expeditionary force in the Netherlands, on the grounds that the act did not apply outside England: Sir Robert Moray wrote on 19 June that Shaftesbury had told the king that he would have to seal the commission himself if he wanted the appointment to go ahead.<sup>198</sup> On 1 July he referred to a row in the foreign affairs committee between Shaftesbury and Lauderdale over replacing York in the admiralty commission. Shaftesbury snapped back to the king when Lauderdale intervened on the legality of part of the commission that ‘that he hoped his commissioner for Scotland would not be allowed to teach the chancellor the laws of England’.<sup>199</sup></p><p>Moray’s report probably originated with Shaftesbury, as Moray was said to be dining a number of times with him over summer (he died three days after writing the above letter after one such occasion). They were suspected of plotting against Lauderdale, perhaps to replace him with Monmouth as Scottish lord commissioner.<sup>200</sup> Monmouth was at Exeter House on 29 July, when Anglesey visited.<sup>201</sup> Shaftesbury had a long interview with the Spanish envoy bearing a message from William of Orange to the king at the beginning of August, and there was some evidence that he was seeking an alliance with Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland (though this may also have had to do with their collaboration on a business scheme relating to the manufacture of guns). <sup>202</sup> Rumours about changes at court in July suggested that Shaftesbury was a marked man, and they became more intense in October with the approach of Parliament.<sup>203</sup> Shaftesbury was still in office on 20 Oct. when Parliament was prorogued to the 27th partly in order to prevent protests against James’s marriage to Mary of Modena. In the event the time taken up by the introduction of new peers on the 20th – which James had asked Shaftesbury to put off – enabled the Commons to pass a resolution for an address before they were summoned to the Lords. James and the king concluded that Shaftesbury had arranged it deliberately.<sup>204</sup> On the 27th Shaftesbury delivered the opening speech of the new session. His account of the peace negotiations suggested that the Dutch had been negotiating in bad faith, backed up the king’s demand for further supply to continue the war and concluded with a plea for the honouring of the debt due to the goldsmiths. Shaftesbury was given the proxy of the earl of Exeter again on 28 Oct., vacated at the end of the session. He was present for all four days of the session, which ended on 4 Nov., when with attacks on the French alliance and the duke of York’s marriage quickly developing in the Commons, the king determined to prorogue again, to January. Five days later, the king took the great seal from Shaftesbury and gave it to Heneage Finch, arranging for it to be collected on 9 Nov., following his ostentatiously friendly meeting with the chancellor that morning.<sup>205</sup> The French ambassador noted the dismay of Rupert and Ormond and ‘all their cabal’.<sup>206</sup> Though the extent of Shaftesbury’s complicity in what had been going on in the Commons is unclear, he had clearly been sailing very close to the wind: it has been argued that Sir Robert Howard’s interventions in the Commons against Catholicism and James were probably co-ordinated with the chancellor.<sup>207</sup></p><h2><em>Shaftesbury and Danby, 1674-6</em></h2><p>Despite the dismissal, Shaftesbury was in touch with both the court and the French before the resumption of Parliament in January. The French offered him £10,000, which he politely declined; according to the Venetian ambassador writing on 28 Nov., he was now offering himself to the court as the advocate of a Spanish alliance and peace, supply and the king’s remarriage to exclude the duke of York from the throne.<sup>208</sup> Nevertheless, Colbert, writing on the day Parliament opened, 7 Jan. 1674, reported the Buckingham’s and Latimer’s assurances that Parliament could be managed, with Buckingham claiming that he had ‘attracted milord Shaftesbury and all his cabal to his party’.<sup>209</sup></p><p>Present at the opening of Parliament and for every day of the short session, Shaftesbury was once more appointed to the committee of privileges and the sub-committee for petitions. He took the oath of allegiance on 14 January. He again received the proxy of the earl of Exeter on 27 Dec., vacated at the end of the session. That he was not working with Buckingham was suggested by his apparent support for the petition of Francis Brudenell, Lord Brudenell and members of the Talbot family, presented on the first day of the session, against Buckingham’s killing of Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury and his cohabitation with the countess.<sup>210</sup> However, by the end of January, Francis Aungier, Baron Aungier [I], was talking about their reconciliation and Shaftesbury’s support for Buckingham’s efforts to ‘get him fairly quit of my Lady Shrewsbury’s business.’<sup>211</sup> Shaftesbury was a member of the committee established to advise on the details when, on 6 Feb., the Lords voted that the duke should enter into security to the king not to cohabit with the countess of Shrewsbury.</p><p>On 8 Jan. (with the Commons adjourned until 12 Jan.) Shaftesbury made an incendiary speech in the Lords, about the presence of 16,000 Catholics around London ‘resolved to commit an atrocity’.<sup>212</sup> The result was an address requesting the king to order that all Catholics ‘or reputed papists’ to go ten miles outside London. When the peers discussed enforcement of the requirement to take the oaths of allegiance, probably on 12 and 13 Jan., and York argued that as heir apparent he should not be required to take it, Shaftesbury and Holles pointed out that he was not heir apparent, but heir presumptive, and for good measure, Shaftesbury questioned the duke’s right to sit in the place reserved for the prince of Wales.<sup>213</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury escaped the inquisition held in the House of Commons into the actions of ministers, which resulted in addresses against Lauderdale and Buckingham: Buckingham’s attempt in his defence to associate himself with Shaftesbury suggested that the latter was seen as safe.<sup>214</sup> Ruvigny wrote on 22 Jan. that York had told him that Shaftesbury, Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Visct. Fauconberg and others were routinely meeting at Lord Holles’s, ‘where they agree together the things that should be proposed in the lower chamber’.<sup>215</sup> Shaftesbury was referred to by Sir Gilbert Talbot<sup>‡</sup> a month later as one of the most forward of the ‘hotspurs’ in the Lords conspiring with elements in the Commons – the others including Halifax, Salisbury and Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare.<sup>216</sup> Shaftesbury was one of nine appointed on 3 Feb. to report a conference concerning the treaty with the States General for peace.<sup>217</sup> He did not play a foreground role in the Lords debate on 24 Jan., when the House agreed the heads for a bill concerning the securing of the Protestant religion, but may have been active in the debates in committee.<sup>218</sup> On 10 Feb., during discussion on a proposal that anyone of royal blood should not be able to marry a Catholic without parliamentary consent, a ‘strange motion… that none should be capable to succeed to the crown that were of the popish religion’ was said to have been moved by the earl of Carlisle, seconded by Halifax and supported by Shaftesbury (whom the Venetian ambassador reported was its strongest proponent), though it was vigorously opposed and not pressed to a vote.<sup>219</sup> James later remembered in his memoirs that his ally, Peterborough, called it ‘a horrid notion’, but was contradicted by Shaftesbury.<sup>220</sup> Shaftesbury was appointed to a sub-committee appointed to draw up a bill, and took the major role in preparing it. It was presented to the committee of the whole House on 21 February.<sup>221</sup> Shaftesbury was regarded as one of the most radical of the government’s opponents, and one of York’s strongest enemies. If it was not simply a misunderstanding, the odd incident in which a number of members close to Shaftesbury (Sir Robert Thomas<sup>‡</sup>, James Herbert<sup>‡</sup> and Lord St John<sup>‡</sup>) accused Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> of being a Catholic and cited information from the earl, may have had its origins in an attempt to build a case concerning York’s promotion of Catholic officers in the navy.<sup>222</sup> James later referred to Shaftesbury and Carlisle planning to propose the disbandment of the duke of York’s regiment; the Venetian ambassador thought that the king believed that Shaftesbury and the ‘malcontent lords’ intended to accuse York of treason, and that they were planning to overthrow both of them and to set up a republic. It was this, he claimed, that precipitated the hasty prorogation on 24 February.<sup>223</sup></p><p>The brevity of the session prevented many bills reaching committee stage, though Shaftesbury was appointed to committees on bills about supplies of wood, apprentices and servants (also charged with considering how ‘non-Christian slaves may be used in England’), illegal imprisonment (the habeas corpus bill), and fraud.<sup>224</sup> He was a member of committees on private bills affecting the estates of Lord Cornwallis and Sir Francis Rhodes, and as in the previous year, he participated in a committee to mediate between the Hamburg company and its creditors.<sup>225</sup></p><p>The rumours after the prorogation that Shaftesbury and several others would be dismissed from the council were realized, despite a meeting between Shaftesbury and the king in late April, on 19 May.<sup>226</sup> He was also replaced as lord lieutenant of Dorset and ordered to leave London, apparently in order to stop him cooperating with the Dutch ambassadors, whom he had established in Exeter House.<sup>227</sup> Over the next year, Shaftesbury remained for the most part in enforced retirement in the country, with occasional visits to London, spending some of his energy on plantation business.<sup>228</sup> He was absent from the Lords on 10 Nov. when Parliament was again prorogued until May the following year.</p><p>As the question of whether Parliament should meet in May, or perhaps be dissolved, was hotly debated at court, Lord Mordaunt’s visit to Shaftesbury in January 1675 prompted much speculation. Sir Robert Southwell wondered on 16 Jan. whether Mordaunt’s mission had been at the instance of the king or the duke, either in order to gain ‘a better understanding with that little lord before the Parliament met’, or to offer him another post, either lord lieutenant of Ireland, or a ‘more extraordinary one here at home under the title of vicar general’. Another theory was that Mordaunt had been sent by ‘some other lords, with whom his Lordship did use here to consult, in order to communicate with him, to know upon what measures, and with what temper he would appear if the Parliament should meet’.<sup>229</sup> By the end of January, although he had no better information about the reasons, he was expecting Shaftesbury to come up to London and to be well received at court.<sup>230</sup> The Venetian ambassador had a much more complex explanation, involving Fauconberg and Carlisle in an approach to Shaftesbury on behalf of the court, to the alarm of Holles and William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford. Shaftesbury’s open letter to Carlisle, dated 3 Feb. 1675, suggests that this may have been correct.<sup>231</sup> He approved in principle of an attempt to create ‘a good correspondence or understanding between the royal family and the people’, and supported the idea that ‘the most considerable, and active of the nobility that were within distance though they were not of the ordinary Privy Council might privately advise the king’ in the absence of a great council, or a Parliament. The only advice, however, which was at present ‘truly serviceable to the king, affectionate to the duke, or sincere unto the country’, was to dissolve the current one and call a new Parliament. He very publicly rejected any offer of a position, especially ‘a great office with a strange name’:</p><blockquote><p>I assure your Lordship there is no place or condition will invite me to Court during this Parliament; nor until I see the king thinketh frequent new Parliaments as much his interest as they are the people’s rights, for until then I can never serve the King as well as I would, nor think a great place safe enough for a second adventure.</p></blockquote><p>Warning that ‘it would not be unwise for the men in great office, that are at ease, and where they would be, to be ordinarily civil to a man in my condition’, he asked Carlisle to pass on his letter to Salisbury, Fauconberg, and Holles. When they four told him to come up to London he would do so. He finished with a sarcastic reference to the unsuccessful efforts of Halifax and Sir William Coventry to obtain office.<sup>232</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury’s letter, dated the same day as Danby's (the former Latimer) proclamation for the enforcement of the penal laws against the Catholics and the suppression of conventicles, appears to have been common knowledge by 20 February.<sup>233</sup> Shaftesbury’s declaration that he would argue for a new Parliament (and the fact that he said little concerning the duke of York) may in part have been an implied offer of an alliance to York: there were rumours before the opening of the new session of contacts between them.<sup>234</sup> At the opening of Parliament on 13 Apr. 1675 the strong support expressed in the speeches of the king and the lord keeper for the laws against Catholic and Protestant nonconformity drew clear battle lines for the session. In the subsequent debate in the Lords, Shaftesbury was even said to have fished for the support of the Catholic lords to reject an address of thanks. Shaftesbury and nine others protested against the thanks of the House being presented to the king for his speech ‘because of the ill consequence we apprehend may be from it, and that we think this manner of proceeding not so suitable with the liberty of debate necessary to this House’.<sup>235</sup> The protest was treated as provocative: on 16 Apr. the House ordered that the matter of entering reasons with dissents should be taken into consideration, and referred to the committee for privileges the minuting of the debate. Shaftesbury was appointed to committees for privileges and petitions, and the sub-committee for the Journal. He was present every day for the session except 8 May. He was appointed to a much smaller number of committees on ordinary bills than usual, and only three private bills.<sup>236</sup> He protested against the reversal of a decree of 1642, which itself reversed an Irish council decree of 1637 in the case of <em>Dacre Barret v. Viscount Loftus</em>. Shaftesbury argued that it was a dangerous precedent to reverse a thirty-three-year-old judgment.<sup>237</sup> He received on 29 Apr. the proxy of Henry Sandys*, 7th Baron Sandys, which was vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Despite their determination to secure a dissolution, the group becoming known as the ‘country lords’ were keen to promote the agenda of the previous session, including the bill for securing the Protestant religion and the bill for explanation of an act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants (Shaftesbury was appointed to the committee for the latter on 21 April). Their aims were overtaken, though, by Danby’s bill to prevent the dangers which may arise from persons disaffected to the government (the second test bill). The pamphlet written shortly after the session by John Locke, perhaps with input from Shaftesbury himself, <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, gave the resistance of Shaftesbury and his allies to the bill an epic quality, and in Shaftesbury’s own household his steward’s account of the long and desperate debates was retold well into the eighteenth century.<sup>238</sup> The second reading debates took place on 20 and 21 April. The bill’s opponents’ first strategy was to stress its impact on the privileges of the House – peers’ freedom of speech. The protest against the failure of their motion was signed by Shaftesbury and 22 others:</p><blockquote><p>Any bill which imposeth an oath upon the peers with a penalty, as this doth, that, upon the refusal of that oath, they shall be made uncapable of sitting and voting in this House, as it is a thing unprecedented in former times, so is it, in our humble opinion, the highest invasion of the liberties and privileges of the peerage that possibly may be, and most destructive of the freedom which they ought to enjoy as members of Parliament, because the privilege of sitting and voting in Parliament is an honour they have by birth and a right so inherent in them, and inseparable from them, as that nothing can take it away, but what by the law of the land must withal take away their lives, and corrupt their blood.<sup>239</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 April, Shaftesbury and 11 peers protested bitterly against the bill’s committal. Three days later they were themselves attacked for their new tactic of entering protests: each of them denied that they had had any ‘intention to reflect upon any members, much less upon the whole House’, but the House voted that the reasons given in the protest reflected on the House and ‘are of dangerous consequence’. Shaftesbury and 20 others defiantly entered a third protest defending the ‘liberty of protesting’.<sup>240</sup> Despite concessions on the first two days in committee, which were supposed to limit the bill’s effect on the freedom of debate, on the third, 4 May, the committee and the House amended the bill to ensure that it encompassed members of either House of Parliament in the obligation to take the oath, provoking another protest from Shaftesbury and 14 others.</p><p>The account in the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality </em>of the ensuing debates (once the committee had ceased to report its votes individually, preventing further multiple protests) on 7, 10, 12, 14, 21, 28, and 31 May, divides the bill into a number of separate issues, attributing opposition to each to an individual peer. It singles out Shaftesbury as having the key role in arguing against the oath, particularly after it was revised to refer to the Protestant religion. In response to ridicule from the lord keeper and the bishops when he affected not to understand what was comprehended in the Protestant religion, he picked apart apparent contradictions in the Thirty-Nine Articles.<sup>241</sup> A text of the speech, or part of it, was in circulation, and formed the basis of the <em>Letter</em>.<sup>242</sup> Other, later, sources make Shaftesbury into the central figure, rather than one among many: Burnet (with the benefit of hindsight) wrote that he</p><blockquote><p>distinguished himself more in this session than ever he had done before. He spoke once a whole hour, to show the inconvenience of condemning all resistance upon any pretence whatsoever. He said it might be proper to lay such ties upon those who served in the militia, and in corporations, because there was still a superior power in the Parliament to declare the extent of the oath. But it might be of very ill consequence to lay it on a Parliament: since there might be cases, though far out of view, so that it was hard to suppose them, in which he believed no man would say it was not lawful to resist. If a king would make us a province, and tributary to France, and subdue the nation by a French army to the French or the papal authority, must we be bound in that case tamely to submit? Upon which he said many things that did cut to the quick: and yet, though his words were watched, so that it was resolved to have sent him to the Tower if any one word had fallen from him that had made him liable to such a censure, he spoke both with so much boldness and so much caution, that, though he provoked the court extremely, no advantage could be taken against him.<sup>243</sup></p></blockquote><p>It has been argued that a document which exists in several versions, called ‘Reasons against the bill for the test’, may have been ‘based on’ the speech Burnet describes. It covers, however, ground attributed to a number of speakers in the <em>Letter</em>, and one copy of the ‘Reasons’ is annotated by Finch that ‘they are rather a collection of all the arguments that were used by several lords that spoke against the test, and here put together in one entire discourse’.<sup>244</sup></p><p>The slow progress of the bill in the Lords was attributable not just to the extended filibuster of Shaftesbury and his colleagues, but also to the Lords-Commons dispute over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, preoccupying both Houses from early May. On 6 May, the Lords declared that it was the right of the Lords to determine appeals from inferior courts even if a member of either House was involved, though it decided not to incorporate the declaration into the message sent to the Commons. Shaftesbury, along with eight others, recorded a protest, arguing that the weaker message eventually sent ‘may seem in some measure to acknowledge that the House of Commons have a claim to some privilege in judicature which is a thing that we conceive belongs solely to this House’. Burnet wrote that Shaftesbury claimed that he had set up the dispute, ‘but others assured me it happened in course’.<sup>245</sup> On 14 May Shaftesbury’s ally Lord Mohun interrupted a committee of the whole House on the test bill by announcing the arrest of Dr Sherley by the Speaker’s warrant. Shaftesbury was one of those to whom the drafting of a message to the Commons was committed, and was among eight reporters of a conference on the affair on 17 May; he perhaps was involved in the other conferences that ensued.<sup>246</sup> Two other privilege cases raised similar issues. Although he did not join with a number of other frequent protestors in a dissent against decision of the House on 27 May to turn down a conference on the case of Mr Onslow, Shaftesbury was involved in conferences on 31 May and 2 June on the case. In the <em>Crispe v. Dalmahoy</em> case, heard by the Lords on 28 May, Shaftesbury joined with Stafford in registering a dissent against its dismissal, and was one of the committee appointed to prepare for a conference on Crispe’s counsel, after his arrest by the Commons.</p><p>The king abandoned the session and prorogued Parliament on 9 June. Although Shaftesbury bore a large part of the responsibility for wrecking it, he was seen at court on 13 June with the 6th marquess of Winchester and ‘attended the king to sermon and back again’.<sup>247</sup> The meeting may have been related to discussions initiated by York about a dissolution and the dismissal of Danby, although within two weeks Shaftesbury was said to have been banished from the court again along with Lord Cavendish and other members of the House of Commons.<sup>248</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury’s summer in Dorset was dominated by the preparations for the Dorset by-election necessitated by the death of Giles Strangways. In a long letter written probably to his close ally and Member of the Commons for Shaftesbury John Bennett<sup>‡</sup> on 28 Aug., Shaftesbury laid out his own account of the affair. Initially inclined to support the candidacy of the son of the earl of Bristol, John, Lord Digby*, later 3rd earl of Bristol, who had marched with the opposition in April and May, Shaftesbury had changed his mind when he heard that Digby ‘would not prove as some of us expected’. Shaftesbury had perhaps heard of Bristol’s reconciliation with the court. Shaftesbury persuaded Thomas Moore<sup>‡</sup>, a former member of the Long Parliament, to stand instead. Digby expressed his fury in a chance encounter on 27 Aug., publicly telling Shaftesbury that he was ‘against the king, and for seditions and factions, and for a Commonwealth, and I will prove it, and by God we will have your head next Parliament’. The outburst was witnessed by a large number of people, including Lord Mohun.<sup>249</sup> The election was not held until 18 Oct., after Parliament sat again. In the event, Digby won easily, helped by Guy Carleton*, bishop of Bristol, who referred to Moore’s ‘dissenting principles’ being ‘as evident as the other’s loyalty’, and the threat to ‘the interest of our king and church (considering his interest made by the earl of Shafton)’.<sup>250</sup> Shaftesbury’s case for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against Digby would be a <em>cause célèbre </em>in the first half of the following year. His letter to Bennett might have been intended for wider circulation: a draft response to another of his letters of around this time, commenting on ‘this course which is so much used by his lordship of divulging his mind so openly by letters’ and expressing surprise that Parliament had not called him to account for his letter to Carlisle, suggests that Shaftesbury’s manuscript letters to Bennett were seen as a way of publicizing his own case.<sup>251</sup></p><p>The new session had begun on 13 October. Shaftesbury was present on all days but one. He was, as usual, appointed on the first day to the committee for privileges and its sub-committee, and to the committee for petitions. He and his friends resumed their campaign. On 14 Oct. he was appointed to the committee for the revived bill for explanation of the act for preventing the dangers which may happen by Popish recusants. On the next sitting day, 19 Oct., Sherley’s petition for a hearing of his case was presented; a debate on 20 Oct. about whether to read it was the occasion for a major speech by Shaftesbury, circulated in manuscript and later printed along with a speech of the duke of Buckingham made on 16 November.<sup>252</sup> The printed version begins dramatically with ‘our all is at stake, and therefore you must give me leave to speak freely before we part with it’. Shaftesbury referred to attempts by Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury and the lord keeper (‘for I may name them at a committee of the whole House’) to suppress the issue and to the lord keeper’s claim that it was beyond the powers of the Lords to entertain the case. He argued that this would be to prejudge the issue. If the doctrine of the Commons – that no appeal from any court of equity was cognizable by the House of Lords – were to stand, he insisted, it might lead to cases coming to be judged and estates disposed of ‘as great men at court please’ (an implied slur on Finch’s impartiality). He contested Ward’s claim that there were more important issues to discuss. ‘This matter is no less than your whole judicature and your judicature is the life and soul of the dignity of the peerage of England’, he told the House: ‘you will quickly grow burdensome, if you grow useless: you have now the greatest and most useful end of parliaments principally in you, which is not to make new laws, but to redress grievances and to maintain the old landmarks’. He rejected the claim that the case did not affect the judicature of the Lords, adding some critical remarks about the abuse by members of the Commons of their privilege of not being sued. He complained that the government was planning that the Lords should put off all private business for six weeks in order to avoid upsetting the Commons while they passed the money bill ‘and other acceptable bills that his Majesty thinks of importance’. He urged the Lords not to abandon a point they had argued for so strongly in the previous session. They needed to maintain their rights against the Commons:</p><blockquote><p>for let the House of Commons, and gentry of England, think what they please, there is no prince that ever govern’d without nobility or an army: if you will not have one you must have t’other, or the monarchy can no longer support, or keep itself from tumbling into a democratical republic. Your lordships and the people have the same cause, and the same enemies. </p></blockquote><p>The Lords’ jurisdiction was not perfect, he conceded – committee dinners, the use of attractive young women to present petitions, had been abuses – but it had rarely been faulted. Finally he turned to an attack on the bishops, who, he suggested, did not share the view of other peers ‘that the king is king by law, and by the same law that the poor man enjoys his cottage’. Instead, the bishops were committed to a view that monarchy was by divine right. This ‘Laudian doctrine’ which lurked behind the previous session’s test bill, would mean that monarchy could not be limited by law and ‘all the properties and liberties of the people, are to give way, not only to the interest, but the will and pleasure of the crown’. He concluded by urging the appointment of a date for the hearing of Sherley’s petition, in three weeks’ time. On 4 Nov. the House finally agreed to set a date for hearing the case on the 20th.</p><p>In the period before returning to <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, Shaftesbury was appointed to three private and three public bill committees, and <em>A Letter to a Person of Quality</em> had appeared in print, incorporating some passages that also appeared in the circulated version of Shaftesbury’s 20 Oct. speech, and a powerful analysis of the strategy of Danby and the bishops of making a ‘distinct party from the rest of the nation of the high episcopal man, and the Old Cavalier’. The scheme, it claimed, was to make the government absolute and <em>jure divino</em>, and to raise a standing army.<sup>253</sup> Copies had been mysteriously distributed on Saturday 30 Oct., with elaborate precautions against the discovery of those responsible.<sup>254</sup> On 8 Nov. (on which Shaftesbury was, perhaps significantly, absent for the only time this session), the House ordered that the book be burnt, and set up a committee to investigate the identity of the publisher. It was reported on the 9th that there had been criticism in the Lords of the lord privy seal, the chairman of the committee ‘for not being severe enough upon it’. The House that day voted that the <em>Letter </em>was a ‘lying, scandalous, and seditious book’. Patrick Murray’s slightly confused account of the debate has Shaftesbury saying ‘he knew no reason for burning it, but that it had the test, that was voted last session, in it’.<sup>255</sup></p><p>Murray also referred to a further discussion of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, apparently on Tuesday 9 Mar., in which the lord keeper proposed that the business be put off until the following day. Shaftesbury responded that the delay was in order to secure supply from the Commons – that the Commons ‘would buy their privileges from them this night with a sum of money’.<sup>256</sup> In fact the Sherley hearing had already been set for the 20th, and there is no record in the Journal of a debate on the subject on the 9th, although there were certainly efforts the following week to prevent the hearing scheduled for the 20th from going ahead. The level of tension is perhaps indicated by the circulation of a rumour about an apparent assassination attempt on Shaftesbury in his coach, which was later discounted as an accident (‘but wonder how the story was made’, mused a letter writer, and others were still claiming the truth of the story a few days later).<sup>257</sup> The Commons passed a vote on the 15th declaring the appeal to be a breach of privilege; Shaftesbury was among those nominated to attend a conference on 19 Nov. at which another plea was made to put off the hearing.</p><p>Though the Lords decided to go ahead as planned, the Commons’ threat to begin breach of privilege proceedings against any counsel appearing in the case forced the hearing in the end to be postponed. The only one of the counsel assigned for Sherley by the Lords who turned up, Richard Wallop, would act later for Shaftesbury and Fitzharris and may have been a kinsman of Shaftesbury.<sup>258</sup> One of the country lords, Charles North*, Baron Grey of Rolleston and later 5th Baron North, complained about the Commons’ resolution, fixed onto the door of Westminster Hall. The sequence of events described in the Journal and in other accounts differs, but according to the most circumstantial of them, the House had voted by 2pm that the Commons’ action was illegal and unparliamentary, and ‘tending to the dissolution of the government’ (echoing language used by Shaftesbury in his 20 Oct. speech). Then, taking advantage of the fact that many of the bishops and court peers left shortly afterwards, Lord Mohun moved for an address to the king to dissolve Parliament, backed by Shaftesbury and Buckingham, in a move that onlookers, especially Bristol, concluded had been premeditated. Danby and his colleagues made strenuous efforts to play out the debate until they could retrieve their majority: the bitter row that ensued between Bristol and Shaftesbury, for which both men were forced to apologize to the House, may have been manufactured as part of that effort. Shaftesbury’s row with Bristol drew in Mohun, and Shaftesbury also clashed with Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice. The lord keeper was again required to intervene by direction of the House to order them to take no further action. Finally, at around 8pm, the proposal was rejected, but by a mere two votes – those of Lauderdale and William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, who had managed to get back to the House just as the question was being put.<sup>259</sup></p><p>Playing again on the technique developed in the previous session, the minority peers entered a protest in the Journal two days later, signed by Shaftesbury and 21 others, reiterating their arguments for a dissolution (‘it seems not reasonable, that any particular number of men should for many years engross so great a trust of the people, as to be their representatives in the House of Commons’).<sup>260</sup> The arguments used by the country peers in the debate on 20 November were summarized in a publication dated 1675 called <em>Two Seasonable Discourses concerning this present Parliament</em>, in similar fashion to the summary of the arguments used in the Test bill debate in <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em> (although no speech is attributed to any particular speaker). It uses many of the same arguments of the speech of 20 October, and plays on Shaftesburian themes (including the abuse of privilege, and the role of the Lords as a balance in the constitution) and may be as much Shaftesbury’s as was the <em>Letter</em>. On 22 Nov. Parliament was, once again, prorogued, for 15 months until February 1677. The division list and the protest were subsequently circulated in manuscript, and both were published in <em>Two Seasonable Discourses</em>, and in the pamphlet containing Shaftesbury’s speech of 20 October.<sup>261</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury made further attempts after the end of the session to divide the court. Noting that York had voted for a dissolution on 20 Nov. he sent him a message through Lord Stafford, according to Burnet.<sup>262</sup> Shaftesbury did not leave London after the session closed: his action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against Lord Digby may have been the reason, but the government suspected him of remaining in order to stir up trouble. On 16 Feb. Williamson visited him on the instructions of the king. Finding him at home with Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, he conveyed the message that (according to Williamson’s careful minute) the king was aware that Shaftesbury was ‘very busy here in town, in matters that he ought not’, and to advise him to leave for the country. Shaftesbury denied meddling in public business, claiming that he was in town dealing with decisions on whether to let or to sell Exeter House or to pull it down and develop the site, the disposal of his interests in the African company, and his share in ‘the Carolina business’.<sup>263</sup> A note of the same encounter from the other side exists in the papers of Lord Wharton, which broadly corroborates Williamson’s account, though suggests that Shaftesbury emphasized that anyone who imprisoned him would have to answer for it.<sup>264</sup> A couple of days later Henry O’Brien, Lord Ibrackan [I]<sup>‡</sup> told Williamson that he had visited Shaftesbury the day after Williamson had. He found with him the earl of Salisbury, Sir Thomas Littleton, Sir Samuel Barnadiston and Thomas Papillon, discussing Williamson’s message. O’Brien also reported people in the city, including the bankers Edward Nelthorpe and Richard Thompson (Shaftesbury was said to have £8,000 on deposit with them), and Sir Thomas Player<sup> ‡</sup>, talking about the news, and complaining about the interference with business and its impact on trade. <sup>265</sup> O’Brien returned via Shaftesbury’s again, finding there this time Sir Robert Clayton and Sir Robert Peyton<sup> ‡</sup>. Williamson took down more intelligence from O’Brien on 18 Feb., including that Shaftesbury would customarily ‘vent out all his thoughts and designs’ in John’s coffee house in Birchin Lane, and that there had been a ‘great meeting’ the previous night at Shaftesbury’s house. Shaftesbury’s friends may have thought he went too far in making an implied threat to impeach any councillor who signed a warrant for his arrest, but O’Brien’s information suggested that he and his allies were confident and organized. They included the attorney general, Sir William Jones<sup> ‡</sup>, and many of the most significant people in the city, and were ‘only waiting to have us be the aggressors, being assured of a sufficient number to stand by them in any hard point put upon them’.<sup>266</sup> It was said that Danby had urged Charles to have Shaftesbury arrested, and only Williamson’s reluctance to sign the warrant had prevented it.<sup>267</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury remained, therefore, in London, occupied with his removal from Exeter House, now destined for demolition.<sup>268</sup> Despite his professions to Williamson, he was clearly deeply concerned in politics, including, apparently, making an approach to Lauderdale, albeit an unsuccessful one.<sup>269</sup> At the end of April Shaftesbury’s <em>scandalum magnatum </em>case came to trial: though the foreman of the Jury, Sir George Howe, was said to be a friend of Digby’s, the verdict was given for Shaftesbury, with £1,000 in damages (which he planned to donate to the fire-devastated town of Northampton). He threw a party for the jury while Digby’s attempts to overturn the judgment on a technicality were thrown out. Digby’s allies in Dorset clubbed together to pay the fine.<sup>270</sup></p><p>Francis Jenks’s bold and electrifying speech advocating an address to the king for a new Parliament, made during the proceedings on the election of the new sheriffs on 24 June was, according to the French ambassador, openly regarded by Shaftesbury as inopportune. He was annoyed with Buckingham for supporting it.<sup>271</sup> Soon afterwards (after attending the trial of the young Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, where he was spotted in a huddle with Lords Wharton and Mohun), he left for Dorset, returning to London in November to Thanet House in Aldersgate, which he had rented from Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet. </p><h2><em>The Tower, 1677-8</em></h2><p>Over the summer, autumn and winter, Shaftesbury made plans for the meeting of Parliament in February 1677. Despite his disapproval of Jenks’s initiative, he ‘laid hold… with great joy’ (according to Burnet) of Jenks’s argument that the fifteen months’ prorogation contravened the provisions in the statutes of Edward III’s reign stating that Parliament should be held every year.<sup>272</sup> Buckingham was equally an advocate of the idea, though over the winter there were reports of disagreements, apparently caused by mutual jealousy over contacts with the duke of York, which Sir Robert Peyton attempted to resolve in January 1677; a reconciliation was reported at the end of the month.<sup>273</sup> Burnet wrote that Salisbury and Wharton were also supporters of the argument, and Robert Murray had been providing a link between Wharton and Shaftesbury. Holles was also on Burnet’s list of supporters, though ‘a fit of the gout kept him out of the way’. <sup>274</sup> Both Shaftesbury and Holles contacted Horatio Townshend*, Baron Townshend in January, but he gave a convoluted response, paying lip service to Shaftesbury’s ‘noble and public designs’, though he did offer his proxy towards the cause (it was registered, in favour of Shaftesbury, on 13 Feb. and not vacated until the end of the session).<sup>275</sup> The serious wound Lord Mohun received in a duel put him out of action for much of the session (and eventually caused his death in September), and also seems to have caused a row between Shaftesbury and Anglesey, Mohun’s father-in-law.<sup>276</sup> Shaftesbury received Mohun’s proxy on 15 Feb., vacated on 26 Mar., when Mohun appeared in the House.</p><p>Just before the Parliament opened both the country conspirators and the government attempted to influence opinion through a series of pamphlets. Published on behalf of Shaftesbury and his associates were <em>Some Considerations upon the Question whether the Parliament is dissolved</em>, <em>The Long Parliament dissolved</em> and <em>The Grand Question concerning the Prorogation of this Parliament</em>.<sup>277</sup> The government-sponsored <em>A Pacquet of Advices and Animadversions to the Men of Shaftesbury</em> by Marchamont Nedham identified Shaftesbury as the architect of the country strategy, though one who preferred to remain in the shadows. It said that Buckingham had likened him to ‘<em>Will-with-the-Wisp</em>, that uses to lead men out of the way; then leaves them at last in a ditch and darkness, and nimbly retreats for self-security’.<sup>278</sup> It was highly effective: Shaftesbury dispatched Stringer and John Harrington on 7 Feb. to the Stationer’s Company to try to prevent it from being distributed, and it was rumoured that Shaftesbury was contemplating another <em>scandalum magnatum </em>action against Roger L’Estrange<sup>‡</sup> for permitting its unlicensed publication. <sup>279</sup></p><p>In the few days before Parliament sat, Shaftesbury, according to James II’s recollection, had ‘had the confidence to send to the duke to know if he had read and consider’d any of the papers about the dissolution of this present Parliament’. Shaftesbury and his allies had worried, he wrote, about a throwaway remark made in <em>Some Considerations</em> that Parliament had the power to alter the succession. Shaftesbury, Wharton and Buckingham all subsequently disavowed the point (Buckingham said that Shaftesbury had put it in without his consent).<sup>280</sup> Shaftesbury may have worried that his campaign was running out of steam: he initiated a meeting with Lemuel Kingdon<sup>‡</sup> on 13 Feb., offering Danby his support against what he claimed was a conspiracy to destroy him, planned by the duke of Ormond, Sir William Coventry, Halifax and Winchester.<sup>281</sup></p><p>Parliament was opened on 15 Feb. 1677. Shaftesbury was again appointed to the privileges committee and sub-committee and the committee for petitions. He attended on the first two days: for almost all of the remainder of a long session punctuated by a series of adjournments he was incarcerated in the Tower of London. On the 15th, immediately after the House began business following the king’s and chancellor’s speeches, Buckingham (in a move coordinated with confederates in the Commons) claimed that Parliament had been automatically dissolved by the long prorogation. A motion made by John Frescheville*, Baron Freschville, to call him to the bar for the speech was seconded by Lord Arundel of Trerice. It was opposed by Salisbury, Halifax, and then Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury attacked it as an assault on freedom of speech in Parliament (expanding on the analysis in the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>); on the issue itself he argued that Parliaments ‘were annual by common law before the statutes, that it was dangerous to remove old landmarks, & there had always been inconveniences from long Parliaments’. There were many more contributions, but support for Buckingham’s motion was generally weak, and the decision around 8 o’clock to lay the debate aside was achieved without much apparent difficulty. Danby immediately moved to consider action against the peers who had argued that Parliament be dissolved. Ormond moved that Buckingham be questioned, and Danby added Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Wharton. After two more hours’ debate, with Lord Anglesey vigorously opposing the move, the House was adjourned to the following day.<sup>282</sup></p><p>On the 16th, the motion that the four lords should withdraw was carried on a division at about 4 o’clock by 53 votes to 30. Buckingham was said to have slunk away into hiding before the vote, to the irritation of the other three, according to one observer, who also noted that ‘my Lord Salisbury had a behaviour, look, & discourse becoming a resolute person, but the other two seem’d more apprehensive of their condition’.<sup>283</sup> The House required Shaftesbury and Buckingham to beg pardon of the House and the king on their knees; the other two only to ask pardon standing in their places. The three who were present refused to acknowledge fault, reasserted their claims about the dissolution and were sent to the Tower. Salisbury and Shaftesbury asked to have their own cooks with them in the Tower, intending to imply that they might otherwise be poisoned. An observer reported Shaftesbury’s remarks in the lobby afterwards, that ‘the House suffered them to run on in this debate, but not approving of it, did resolve to condemn them for it’, and (perhaps reflecting his resentment at the votes of the bishops) that ‘when he lay a-dying, possibly he might send for such honest friends as Sir John Coventry, & Sir Ralph Bankes<sup>‡</sup> (both there present & very fit persons for that occasion) but resolved never to send for priest, or parson, renouncing all persons who had ever taken orders’.<sup>284</sup></p><p>Buckingham gave himself up the next day and was also consigned to the Tower. On the 17th the Lords ordered that the four be kept apart, except at church, and that they be allowed no visitors (except their servants) without the express permission of the House.<sup>285</sup> The four met together at a service on Sunday the 18th and were noted in discussion. It was subsequently reported that they planned to petition for their release.<sup>286</sup> A few days later an oblique approach was made to Shaftesbury via an old acquaintance, Edmund Warcup, who suggested to his countess that Danby would ‘mediate’ for his release and favour, and perhaps even reappointment to the chancellorship in return for assurances of his ‘true loyalty’ and service to the king. Shaftesbury insisted on his loyalty but politely refused to negotiate before his release.<sup>287</sup> Notes in the Danby papers suggest that there may have been a more complex negotiation, in which the initiative was taken by Shaftesbury.<sup>288</sup></p><p>At the same time the House of Lords was reviewing the evidence concerning the publication of the three pamphlets arguing that Parliament had been dissolved, looking for evidence to associate them with the four peers. They only succeeded in establishing that <em>The Grand Question</em> had been written by Holles.<sup>289</sup> There was a flurry of approvals for visits in March: the earl of Bedford, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, Lord Grey of Rolleston, Sir Joseph Jordan, Henry Ubank, Mr Brouncker and the earl of Rochester (in each case limited to single instance).<sup>290</sup> It was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the release of the four by Lord Delamer on 20 Mar., backed by Clarendon, Halifax and Berkshire.<sup>291</sup> John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, curiously, was given permission to visit on 11 Apr., and another Catholic peer close to York, Viscount Stafford, was said to have visited Shaftesbury in July.<sup>292</sup> The activities of Shaftesbury’s relation John Harrington and his and Wharton’s associate Robert Murray in passing on Spanish propaganda concerning the recruitment of Scottish troops for the French service probably contributed to the government’s determination not to release the prisoners even though there was no evidence of Shaftesbury’s direct involvement. The decision to adjourn, rather than prorogue, Parliament was perhaps in order to prevent the natural expiry of their incarceration.<sup>293</sup> Just before the adjournment, the House agreed to free Wharton for a time on health grounds. The other three offered the king a joint petition for their freedom, though avoiding an acknowledgement of their fault. He rejected it, hinting that individual petitions might be received more favourably. Shaftesbury therefore sent one in via secretary of state Sir Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>; it was also dismissed.<sup>294</sup> The king’s adjournment of the House at the end of May until the winter indicated that the peers’ imprisonment would last at least as long again. Salisbury and Buckingham were allowed temporary release from the Tower; Shaftesbury was not.</p><p>Shaftesbury’s next move was to apply for a writ of habeas corpus.<sup>295</sup> There was a huge demand for seats at the hearing at king’s bench on 29 June. The case was debated all morning, with Shaftesbury speaking as well as his counsel, William Williams and Richard Wallop, to respond to points made by the attorney general and solicitor general.<sup>296</sup> Williams’s notes suggest that he argued that the return in Shaftesbury’s case was too vague and general: if it had been returned by any other court than the Lords it would be quashed. He insisted that the court had jurisdiction, even though it concerned the actions of the House of Lords, and the fact that Parliament had been adjourned, rather than prorogued, should make no difference: this was a modern distinction.<sup>297</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury himself said he spoke only to rebut claims by the attorney and solicitor that his counsel had argued that the court was above the House of Lords. They had said only that the court was the proper place to resort to in cases where the liberty of the subject was concerned: ‘the Lords’ house is the supreme court of judicature in the kingdom; but yet there is a jurisdiction which the Lords’ House do not meddle with’. The Lords, he argued, ‘claim not to meddle’ in original cases (arguably, given that this was the point at issue in <em>Skinner v. the East India Company</em>), and were not themselves above the law. The court should, he suggested, judge an act of Parliament null and void if it were against Magna Carta, and should annul an order of the House to deprive any subject of his liberty.<sup>298</sup> Unsurprisingly, the judges rejected the application.</p><p>The reckoning for Shaftesbury was to have some of his privileges removed, with the restrictions on his visitors renewed.<sup>299</sup> Shaftesbury’s wife presented another petition on 2 Aug., which failed again. Lord Stafford was said to have visited him on York’s behalf and suggested (unbelievably) that he turn catholic ‘to get his liberty’. Shaftesbury was reported by one of his allies, Sir Edward Harley, to have said of York that ‘he has done his worst to me yet would do worse if it were in his power. He would have my head, but I shall yet wear it in despite of him, and live perhaps to come betwixt him and his great hopes’.<sup>300</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was allowed visitors in September, October and November, including Michael Mallet<sup> ‡</sup>, the violently anti-Catholic Member, Sir Paul Neile, his business partner and most frequent visitor, Sir Peter Colleton, Thomas Duppa, Thomas Stringer, Lancelot Sedgwick, Francis Charlton (his second most frequent visitor, who would become Shaftesbury’s political factotum), and the marquess of Winchester.<sup>301</sup> It appears to have been over the summer and autumn that Shaftesbury compiled his list of Members of the Lords and Commons, annotating them according to whether (and to what degree) they were either ‘vile’ or ‘worthy’: the Lords list has been regarded as an estimate of support for Shaftesbury’s release; the Commons list appears to be a more general estimate of attitude.<sup>302</sup> There was another attempt at a petition to the king in late December, which met with the same fate as previous ones; but the expectation that Parliament would meet at the end of January to agree funding for action against France created a new situation that Shaftesbury might be able to exploit.<sup>303</sup> The clandestine publication of Marvell’s <em>An Account of the Growth of Popery</em> around the beginning of 1678 provided ‘the fullest synthesis yet of the Shaftesburian analysis of the history of the last decade’ – so much so that Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, attributed it to Shaftesbury himself.<sup>304</sup></p><p>Once Parliament reopened, Shaftesbury’s own submission and readmission to the House of Lords followed those of Buckingham on 28 Jan., of Salisbury on 4 Feb. and Wharton on 7 Feb. Shaftesbury’s petition was brought in by Halifax on 14 Feb. and supported by Clarendon and Essex (‘and faintly by the duke of Buckingham’) but was vigorously and successfully resisted by York, Danby and others, who argued that the habeas corpus appeal of the summer amounted to a further contempt of the House. The petition was rejected.<sup>305</sup> Shaftesbury made a second application on 20 Feb., this time presented by the marquess of Winchester. The government again turned the debate onto the propriety of Shaftesbury’s habeas corpus appeal; the Lords resolved (on a vote carried, on one account, by 33 votes, on another by four) not to make an address to the king for Shaftesbury’s release; on the following day they decided that it was a breach of privilege for any peer committed by the House to bring a suit of habeas corpus, and ordered that Shaftesbury be summoned to defend himself at the bar on 25 Feb. It was widely expected, however, that this would lead to his release.<sup>306</sup> In preparation for the encounter on the 25th, Shaftesbury solicited Salisbury’s proxy for Halifax.<sup>307</sup></p><p>On the day, 25 Feb., Shaftesbury was brought to kneel at the bar. The lord chancellor demanded his response to the Lords’ resolution. Shaftesbury gave an apparently fulsome acknowledgement of his offence and error in his habeas corpus application: ‘I would have perished, rather than have brought my habeas corpus, had I then apprehended or been informed that it had been a breach of the privileges of this honourable House. It is my duty, it is my interest, to support your privileges. I shall never oppose them’.<sup>308</sup> Lord Arundel of Trerice claimed that at his habeas corpus hearing, Shaftesbury had said words ‘of a dangerous nature’; he was supported by Danby and York, but the shorthand writers, John Rushworth<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Blaney, told the House that they could not guarantee the exactness of their account of Shaftesbury’s words.<sup>309</sup> The debate lasted for five hours. At the end of it Shaftesbury made a formal submission at the bar, and the House ordered an address to the king requesting his release.<sup>310</sup> Shaftesbury was back in the House on the following day.<sup>311</sup> Marchamont Nedham shortly afterwards triumphantly published Shaftesbury’s admission and the proceedings on it.<sup>312</sup></p><p>In early April, John Hay, earl of Tweeddale [S] was told of a story ‘commonly discoursed’ (though there seems to be no other account of it) of a challenge sent by the earl of Carlisle to Shaftesbury via Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>: it was claimed that Carlisle had offered to procure Shaftesbury his freedom while in the Tower, on the condition that he would then retire into the country. Shaftesbury’s failure to leave London after his release was taken by Carlisle as breaking that commitment. Shaftesbury denied that he had made any such promise, and refused the challenge, telling Fenwick that ‘it was not unlikely but my Lord Carlisle would be pardoned if he killed him, but if it was his fortune to kill the earl of Carlisle he was sure not to receive mercy’.<sup>313</sup></p><h2><em>The Plot: 1678-81</em></h2><p>Having missed the first 20 sitting days since Parliament had resumed in January, Shaftesbury was present every remaining day of the session but six. Shortly after his return (on a day when he was not present) a complaint about the arrest of his servant (and probably relation) John Cooper was raised and referred to the committee of privileges.<sup>314</sup> Investigations into the publication of the 1675 pamphlets continued without directly implicating Shaftesbury, although Aaron Smith, the publisher and probably part of the Shaftesbury household, was hauled before the Lords and sent to the custody of black rod on 5 Mar. for supporting the case for dissolution in the Tower of London, perhaps during a visit to Shaftesbury.<sup>315</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury resumed some of his previous activity. He was placed on committees on bills concerning fines and recoveries, burying in wool, charitable uses, pedlars, hawkers and petty chapmen, and relief for protestant refugees.<sup>316</sup> He was appointed to two private bill committees.<sup>317</sup> During the preparations for the trial of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, in Westminster Hall, Shaftesbury entered a dissent concerning the inclusion of the spiritual peers in the arrangements.<sup>318</sup> The session was dominated by discussion of French action on the continent, but Shaftesbury kept a relatively low profile in March and April, although on 16 and 18 Mar., when the House debated the Commons’ proposal for an address to the king for an immediate declaration of war and recall of ambassadors, Shaftesbury spoke in favour along with Essex, Halifax, Buckingham, Holles, Clarendon and Wharton, wrong-footing Danby concerning the Spanish ambassador’s opposition to an immediate declaration of war.<sup>319</sup> Shaftesbury was probably not involved in the meetings between country leaders, particularly Lord William Russell, and the French ambassadors Ruvigny and Barillon, in March and April.<sup>320</sup> On 4 Apr. he found Pembroke not guilty.</p><p>After a break for Easter and the Pembroke trial, Parliament resumed in earnest on 29 April. The Lords on 30 Apr. attended a conference with the Commons on the growth of popery: Shaftesbury was one of the managers. He may have been ill, for he was said to be ‘recovering’ on 2 May, although he was said to have spoken in a debate on the Commons’ request for action against the growth of popery, claiming that the main threat came not from rural Catholicism, but from Catholics who lived in London, ‘and apply themselves to an arbitrary government and to introduce the Catholic religion entirely’.<sup>321</sup> Haley has suggested that Shaftesbury (through Lord Russell) was behind the attack on Lauderdale in the Commons on 7 May, a little before the short prorogation from 13 to 23 May.<sup>322</sup></p><p>In the new session that lasted until July, Shaftesbury missed only two sittings, the fast day on 29 May and the afternoon sitting on 12 July, a 95 per cent attendance rate. He was appointed to the committee of privileges, the subcommittee and the committee on petitions on the first day of the session. During late May and early June he was appointed to a number of committees including those concerning relief for protestant refugees and burying in woollen (on which he managed a conference on 11 July). <sup>323</sup> Shaftesbury intervened in the Goldsmiths’ bill (a bill for confirming letters patents for Vyner and Backwell and others) on behalf of John Lindsay as administrator of the estate of John Colvile, one of the king’s creditors.<sup>324</sup> He was on the committee for the frequently debated bill concerning the role of the college of arms in registering deaths among the nobility and gentry.<sup>325</sup> He continued to be appointed to a number of committees on private bills, reporting from one, that concerning John Weld, on 8 June.<sup>326</sup> During the discussions of the Purbeck peerage case, Shaftesbury protested on 7 June, along with Anglesey, Winchester, Bedford, Clare, Bridgwater and others on the decision not to split the issue into separate points (illegitimacy, the existence of a ‘patent of honour’, and whether an honour could be extinguished by a fine) the first two being points of fact, the last a matter of law of which Shaftesbury and his colleagues disapproved. The exact reasons are unknown for Shaftesbury’s dissent ten days later from the dismissal of Charles Cottington’s appeal to the Lords concerning his prosecution in the court of delegates: the committee of privileges was still considering a petition from him, but the underlying issue was one about the jurisdiction of the Lords over a spiritual cause.<sup>327</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury seems, however, not to have been particularly visible in the debates about the peace and the army during the early summer, although he was one of the peers appointed to manage a conference with the Commons on 19 June about the international situation. He joined Winchester, Essex, Wharton and Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Caernarvon in dissenting on 25 June from the rejection of the Commons’ proviso to the supply bill to require a speedy disbandment of the troops. He dined twice in June with the earl of Anglesey, mixing with the countess of Peterborough, Lord and Lady Arundel (though it is not clear which ones), Lady Stanhope, and Sir John Thomson, among others.<sup>328</sup> He continued a high level of activity on private and public bill committees throughout late June and July. Public bill committees to which he was appointed included ones dealing with the right to work of protestant immigrants, the coastal coal trade (evidently related to his Newcastle coal interests), and the relief of poor petitioners.<sup>329</sup> He reported the bill concerning the town of Kelshall on 2 July. On 5 July Shaftesbury, together with Winchester, Halifax, Essex ‘and the rest of that gang’ – though also with York, Finch and the earl of Clarendon – entered his protest against the decision to afford the petitioner, Darrell, relief in the long-running case of Marmaduke Darrell v. Sir Paul Whichcot concerning the Newcastle sea-coal farm.<sup>330</sup> When the Feversham inheritance case was heard in early July, Shaftesbury, along with Halifax, Holles and Fauconberg, argued against reversing the chancery decision to dismiss the claim of the 2nd earl against Lewis Watson and Katherine Sondes his wife. The debate became plainly political – Feversham was one of the closest allies of the duke of York in the Lords, and an instrument in the alliance between Charles II and Louis XIV. But it was also another example of Shaftesbury’s concerns about abuse of the Lords’ judicature. Finch’s account of his speech has him saying that: ‘we must do here as they ought to do below else this court is legislative and the very government is altered… If the lord chancellor can give relief by mending or altering the nature of contracts, then he is arbitrary’. When Danby argued that ‘the petition is an appeal from the king’s conscience limited to rules, to his conscience here administered with more latitude’, Shaftesbury’s response insinuated that Danby was claiming that equity was ‘unbounded’ in the House of Lords. Nottingham wrote that ‘this was said with a design to fasten that upon my lord treasurer which had been said without reproof by all that spoke before’.<sup>331</sup> Shaftesbury, along with Anglesey, Clare and Halifax dissented from the decision for Feversham.<sup>332</sup> Right at the end of the session Shaftesbury was one of the peers appointed to report two conferences with the Commons on the methods of Parliament in passing bills.<sup>333</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was in Dorset from the end of July. He appears to have acted together with Halifax and Lord Russell as peacemaker between William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire and his son William Cavendish*, Lord Cavendish, later duke of Devonshire, in July and August.<sup>334</sup> At some point he suffered an acute attack of the gout, joking in a letter of 8 Sept. to Sir William Cowper<sup>‡</sup> about its effects:</p><blockquote><p>if my lord duke of Lauderdale and the treasurer should have been both disgraced on a sudden I should not have been able to have made one step towards being their successor but however it was a great comfort to me to hear that his grace the duke of Buckingham was in England and not in France; for his grace (I can assure you) would have supplied their places with the good advice of Major Wildman so that neither court nor country should find the least miss of them.<sup>335</sup></p></blockquote><p>He was recovered, however, by the opening sitting of the last session of the Cavalier Parliament, on 21 Oct. 1678, following the revelations about the Popish Plot. Appointed to the committees for privileges, for the Journal, and for petitions, his presence was recorded every day except for the fast days on 5, 13 Nov., on 14 Dec., and on the last day of the session, 30 Dec., an attendance record of 93 per cent. Shaftesbury received the proxies of Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, registered to him on 15 Nov. and Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, registered on 18 Nov. (Fitzwalter’s son seems to have attended the same dissenting academy in Clapham as Shaftesbury’s grandsons). Both were noted down in a list of proxies in the papers of Lord Wharton.<sup>336</sup></p><p>On 23 Oct. Shaftesbury was appointed to the committee to examine the papers concerning the discovery of the Popish Plot, and was one of those (with allies Winchester, Bridgwater, Halifax and Essex) appointed to draw up an address for banishing Catholics from London and Westminster. It was presumably in this debate that he moved that the regiment commanded by George Douglas, earl of Dumbarton [S], formerly in the French service, whose officers were assumed to be Catholics, should be sent well away from London: this and a reference to Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of Roscommon [I] (master of the horse to the duchess) were perhaps intended to insult York.<sup>337</sup> On 24 Oct. Shaftesbury was appointed to the committee investigating whether any of the constables in London and Westminster were Catholics. Two days later, with Danby, Essex, Clarendon and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, he was entrusted with examining Edward Coleman in Newgate. Danby reported back to the House on 29 Oct. on Coleman’s interrogation. It was said that Shaftesbury, supported by Halifax and Compton, successfully insisted (over York’s protests) that the House should have read to it all of Coleman’s correspondence, including letters sent on behalf of the duke of York. Shaftesbury’s motion to communicate the letters to the Commons was narrowly defeated; Shaftesbury entered a protest against the decision, along with Essex.<sup>338</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury now entered an intense period of activity: together with Buckingham, Halifax and the bishop of London, he was seen as leading the pack against York.<sup>339</sup> On 1 Nov. he was one of the committee to investigate the claims of strange digging and knocking noises emanating from inside the Palace of Westminster. That afternoon, he was one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons on the preservation of the king’s person, after which the Lords agreed with the Commons’ resolution asserting the reality of the Plot. On the afternoon of the 2nd, Shaftesbury moved that the duke be removed from the king’s council and from his presence; he was supported by Winchester, Essex, Halifax, Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield) and five bishops, though the motion was not pressed to a division.<sup>340</sup> Shaftesbury responded to James’s announcement on 4 Nov. that he would cease to attend the council by proposing (unsuccessfully) that the announcement be published, Lord Russell introducing on the same day in the Commons a motion to address the king to banish the duke from his counsels and person.<sup>341</sup></p><p>The remit of the committee set up to examine Coleman was extended on 2 Nov. to interrogate the Catholic peers who had been sent to the Tower, and on the 4th to other prisoners too. Shaftesbury was also a leading member of the committee set up on 23 Oct. to examine the papers relating to the Plot, and of its sub-committee to consider the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The committee’s secretary was Shaftesbury’s steward Thomas Stringer. A number of allegations were made later by hostile sources of Shaftesbury’s bullying behaviour towards witnesses: Mary Gibbon in 1683 told the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup> ‡</sup>, how when she gave evidence (which she did on 9 Nov.) Shaftesbury had been rude to her and threatened her ‘that if she would not confess that Sir John Banks<sup>‡</sup>, Mr Pepys and M. de Pieu contrived the matter in it, she would be thrown into prison for her life or torn to pieces by the rabble or worried as the dogs worry the cats’.<sup>342</sup> A determined attempt to get Samuel Pepys’s clerk to testify against him (and by implication, the duke of York) may not, however, be directly attributable to Shaftesbury.<sup>343</sup></p><p>In the wake of the king’s speech of 9 Nov. offering to accept legislation guaranteeing Protestant safety in the reign of his successor, Shaftesbury’s popularity may have been increased by information about threats to his and Monmouth’s lives, and a rumour that he was to be sent to the Tower.<sup>344</sup> On 16 Nov. healths were said to have been drunk to him, Monmouth and the king ‘as the only three pillars of all safety’.<sup>345</sup> Meanwhile, he was appointed to more committees of investigation: one concerning cartridges found in a house at the Savoy on 11 Nov., and another to gather information for the prosecution of Coleman on 16 November. Surprisingly he was not on a committee to organize the printing of Coleman’s letters.<sup>346</sup> It was also his colleague, the marquess of Winchester, who was by now usually reporting from the committee for examinations, and the earl of Essex who normally chaired it. Shaftesbury nevertheless chaired the committee on 12, 14, 15 Nov. and Dec. 3, and reported from it on 20 Dec., and his agent Stringer continued to be closely involved with the committee.<sup>347</sup> On Shaftesbury’s suggestion, he, Essex and Halifax visited Newgate on 16 Dec. to see Richard Langhorne, who it was hoped – unfruitfully – would unravel the whole plot.<sup>348</sup> On 23 Dec., Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Winchester and Grey of Warke were deputed to ask the king to provide Miles Prance, who was promising further revelations about the plot, with a pardon.<sup>349</sup> Shaftesbury was said by Sir Robert Southwell, himself examined twice by the committee, to be ‘the great giant that speaks to all, and they say with strange freedom, and admirable eloquence. My Lord Halifax is his second, and so is my Lord Winchester; but none so close, so constant, and so relied on by him as the earl of Essex’.<sup>350</sup> Burnet told a story showing Shaftesbury insisting that no-one should question the evidence brought out: ‘all those who undermined the credit of the witnesses were to be looked on as public enemies’.<sup>351</sup></p><p>Two key bills occupied the House in November. Shaftesbury was appointed on 26 Nov. to the committee on the militia bill, which the king vetoed on 30 November. The test bill was received from the Commons on 28 October. Roger North, writing much later, said it was ‘promoted by’ Shaftesbury. Catholic peers were said to have pointed to the order made by the House in 1675 with Shaftesbury’s support, that no oaths should be imposed on peers which would have the effect of them losing their seats in the House: North recorded that ‘his lordship smiled, and said, the House was master of their own orders, and <em>leges posteriores priores abrogant</em>’.<sup>352</sup> A few days after the court had succeeded in getting the Commons to accept a proviso exempting York from the bill, Oates’s incrimination of the queen and her physician, Wakeman, in the plot to kill the king on 24 Nov. was seen by the court as connected to Shaftesbury.<sup>353</sup> Shaftesbury was one of the managers of a conference on 28 Nov. at which the Commons delivered their address requesting the removal of the queen from Whitehall, and was listed as one of the lords who voted (unsuccessfully) on 29 Nov. for the address – with Clare, William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Say and Sele, Halifax, Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, Lord de Gray (probably Lord Grey of Warke), Ralph Eure*, 7th Baron Eure, Wharton, William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, and Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter.<sup>354</sup> He, Clare and Paget were the only ones to dissent from the decision.<sup>355</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury took the oaths under the new Test Act on 2 Dec., teasing Lord Wharton about his scruples about kissing the bible (‘he hoped that kissing was no idolatry for if ‘twere then they must forbear kissing their wives’ – though one report, touching on Shaftesbury’s reputation for promiscuity, suggested he should have referred to mistresses).<sup>356</sup> He was appointed to committees on the bill to exclude Catholics from certain trades and occupations on 7 Dec., and on the bill for preventing the sending or going of children of popish recusants overseas on the 12th.</p><p>A letter to the duke of Ormond of 14 Dec. 1678 suggests that Shaftesbury and some others proposed an address to urge the king to become ‘the head and protector of the Protestant party in Europe’.<sup>357</sup> After Danby’s impeachment arrived in the Lords on 23 Dec., Shaftesbury, along with Danby’s other opponents, dissented from the vote against forcing him to withdraw from the House. He dissented again from the decision not to commit Danby on 27 Dec. At the same time he was working to remove from the government control over the money paid on the supply bill, dissenting on 21 Dec. against amendments to the bill removing the provision for money to be paid into the chamber of the City of London, rather than into the Exchequer. He dissented again against the decision to adhere to the amendment following a conference with the Commons on the 26th.</p><p>Following the king’s decision to prorogue Parliament on 30 Dec., and the announcement of a dissolution on 24 Jan. with a new Parliament to meet on 6 March, French ambassador Barillon reported Shaftesbury and Buckingham’s satisfaction at the final end of the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>358</sup> Following the prorogation there were the usual rumours about Shaftesbury accepting a ministerial position, and about a plot to kill him.<sup>359</sup> James Netterville, one of Danby’s agents, reported on Christmas Eve that Danby’s enemies were trying to persuade York to abandon the treasurer, and a month later it was said that ‘my Lord Shaftesbury and that party’ were engaged in the same task.<sup>360</sup> On 23 Jan. Thomas Knox, another of Danby’s agents, described intense activity focused around Shaftesbury, with a stream of messages between him, Monmouth and Buckingham. ‘Mr Cooling my Lord Arlington’s secretary’, he added, ‘is one of the greatest intelligencers my Lord Shaftesbury has’.<sup>361</sup> If Shaftesbury had no role in the deal brokered between Holles and Danby which had made it possible to call the new Parliament, he was willing to negotiate concerning what might happen thereafter. Monmouth told Lord Conway on 30 Jan. that he and Shaftesbury ‘were willing to save Danby’s life and estate, but could not be for supporting the pardon’.<sup>362</sup></p><p>Although there is not much evidence of his systematic involvement in the elections, Shaftesbury paid close attention to the results as they came in, compiling an estimate of those who had sat before, and those he regarded as ‘worthy’, ‘vile’, ‘honest’ or ‘bad’.<sup>363</sup> Shaftesbury was not listed as present on the first day the new Parliament sat, 6 Mar., but he took the oaths on the 8th, and was present for all remaining sitting days in the brief first session. He was reappointed to the committee of privileges, the petitions committee, the sub-committee for the Journal, and the examinations committee, as well as a committee to consider whether the impeachments started in the previous Parliament could stand. He reported from the latter on 12 Mar., when the matter was referred to the committee of privileges.<sup>364</sup> He was reappointed to all of these committees on 17 Mar., two days after the start of the second session of the Parliament, which followed the brief prorogation caused by the dispute in the Commons over the speakership. On 22 Mar. he received the proxy of Lord Lovelace, which was vacated on 5 April. On the 17th, Shaftesbury objected to the speech made by the lord chancellor on the presentation of the new Commons Speaker; later he and Halifax raised the rumours of the package – a pension and marquessate – to be offered to Danby.<sup>365</sup> When the House debated Essex’s report from the committee of privileges on the carrying over of impeachments, Shaftesbury insisted that if they were not carried over, the consequent outrage from the Commons would result in a backlash against the Lords’ role in impeachments.<sup>366</sup> The debate continued on the following day: some sketchy notes of Shaftesbury’s contributions suggest that he argued that criminal judicial cases should be carried over just as civil ones could be, reiterated the point about undermining the Lords’ judicature, and later argued over precedents with the lord chancellor. Later he warned of the political dangers that might follow if the Lords refused to entertain the impeachment after the Commons revived it.<sup>367</sup></p><p>On 20 Mar. Shaftesbury was appointed to a committee on a bill to require members of Convocation to take the oaths and declaration in the test act; the same day the report of Peter Mews*, bishop of Bath and Wells, report of the examination of Miles Prance revealed allegations about plans to kill Shaftesbury by associates of Richard Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour. It was reported by Ossory that on the same day, at the committee of examinations, Shaftesbury ‘in his ingenuous manner shook his head’ and had remarked that he ‘did not like the management of affairs’ in Ireland. Ossory warily wrote to Ormond he would now attend the committee regularly.<sup>368</sup></p><p>On the following day Lord Cavendish brought up a reminder from the Commons of the articles of high treason against Danby and a request that he be committed to custody. Shaftesbury is reported to have rebutted Lord Arundel’s objections to Danby’s commitment, and claimed that Arundel himself had pressed in similar circumstances for Clarendon’s commitment in 1667. Shaftesbury spoke later to comment on the parallels (or lack of them) with Clarendon’s case, and moved for Danby’s immediate commitment to the custody of black rod. Eventually he and other supporters of the impeachment (Halifax and Winchester) had to settle for an adjournment to the following day.<sup>369</sup> The king then attended and announced that Danby would be pardoned, as Shaftesbury had been in 1673, he said, though the parallel was scarcely exact. The subsequent proposal to ban Danby from the king’s presence, from all offices and employments, from receiving grants or gifts from the crown and sitting in the House of Lords was, according to the Dutch ambassador, Shaftesbury’s: he was a member of the committee to draft a bill, along with Winchester, Essex, Halifax, Wharton, Holles and Grey of Warke.<sup>370</sup> Shaftesbury was also one of the managers of a conference at which the Lords’ intentions were put to the Commons the same day.<sup>371</sup> The Commons ignored the proposal and the pardon, and conveyed their determination to press ahead with a prosecution on Monday the 24th. On the same day Shaftesbury reported from the committee for examinations a pamphlet published in French about the Plot, together with a version in translation (this was the <em>Lettre éscrite de Mons à un Amy à Paris, touchant la Conspiration d’Angleterre</em>, exposing the dubious past of Titus Oates); the House ordered that the Lords in the Tower be examined concerning their knowledge of the publication.<sup>372</sup> Three alleged plotters who were supposed to have said that Shaftesbury should be killed, were brought to the bar.<sup>373</sup> On the following day, the 25th, Miles Prance’s claim that Benedict Prosser had been hired to kill Shaftesbury was reported to the committee by the bishop of Bath and Wells.<sup>374</sup></p><p>On that day, amid the reports of the examinations of the Catholic peers in the Tower, the second reading of a bill to disable Danby, and other business, Shaftesbury delivered a ‘long speech representing the dangerous condition of the kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland’, on a motion that the state of the nation be considered (in the Journal the motion is described as for an inquiry into Ireland).<sup>375</sup> Shaftesbury’s speech was apparently sent directly for printing in London, Norwich and Scotland: Roger North believed that the debate had been planned for a post day in order to ensure maximum circulation. There are, however, no contemporary printed copies known to exist. The copy printed later in <em>Somers’ Tracts</em> together with the Nov. 1675 speech and wrongly attributed to November 1678, bore the imprint of The Hague in 1680.<sup>376</sup> In the speech Shaftesbury referred extravagantly to the ‘several little sisters without breasts’ – the foreign protestant churches, and Ireland and Scotland:</p><blockquote><p>The protection of the Protestants abroad is the greatest power and security the crown of England can attain to, and which can only help us to give a check to the growing greatness of France. Scotland and Ireland are two doors, either to let in good or mischief upon us: they are much weakened by the artifice of our cunning enemies, and we ought to enclose them with boards of cedar. Popery and slavery, like two sisters, go hand-in-hand. Sometimes one goes first and sometimes the other, in a doors; but wherever the one enters, the other is always following close at hand.</p></blockquote><p>There followed an attack on the Scottish government, and briefer reference to worrying developments in Ireland: the papists had had their arms restored, and the Protestants were still ‘the suspected party’.<sup>377</sup> Ossory interpreted the speech as an attack on Ormond designed to ease the way for Essex to succeed him.<sup>378</sup> On Monday 31 Mar., the state of Ireland was formally debated. Ossory had prepared a detailed paper setting out the Irish government’s actions in response to the news of the plot. Alluding to Ormond’s services in The Civil War, he tartly pointed out what he had not been responsible for a list of policies with which Shaftesbury was associated: ‘I beg your lordships will be so just, as to judge of my Father, and of all men, according to their actions and counsels’.<sup>379</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury claimed afterwards that his own comments on the Irish government had not been aimed at Ormond, but at Col. John Fitzpatrick, Ormond’s Catholic brother-in-law. Indeed, the House passed a motion to address the king that Fitzpatrick leave Dublin.<sup>380</sup> The debate continued on 1 April, with a series of votes on securing the country. A few days later Ossory was sending his father intelligence about Shaftesbury’s informants on Irish affairs.<sup>381</sup> On 15 Apr. Shaftesbury brought into the Commons a copy of Fitzpatrick’s grant of the Irish quit rents, ‘casting many reflections upon it and upon the person, all which were seconded very vigorously by my Lord of Essex’.<sup>382</sup> Ossory reported to his mother on 19 Apr. that he was unable to defend Fitzpatrick in the Lords, though he and Shaftesbury had had a long conversation clearing the air: Ossory had told him that there were papers relating to the Fitzpatrick case which Shaftesbury himself had signed when a commissioner of the treasury, implying that if Shaftesbury wanted to make a fuss about it, he would be implicated as well.<sup>383</sup> Sir Robert Southwell also wrote that Shaftesbury had told the lord chancellor that he had no personal animus against Ormond, while he observed that Shaftesbury’s ‘business is to make as many places void as may gratify those that concur to gratify him’: he thought that he aimed to place Essex in the lord lieutenancy.<sup>384</sup></p><p>This was just one of a series of attacks on Catholics in government by Shaftesbury and his allies. On 26 Mar. he was said to have raised the leniency of the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Robinson<sup>‡</sup>, to the Catholic peers in his custody and the presence of Catholics in the fleet and garrisons.<sup>385</sup> The committee of examinations on 27 Mar. asked for a fund in order to give rewards for informants, a measure of the effort that was going in to maintaining the flow of information. On 1 Apr. Shaftesbury reported from the committee of privileges on the case of the Catholic Lady Abergavenny, that the servants of peers or peeresses should not be able to claim privilege ‘in the case of recusancy’.</p><p>On the following day the Lords debated the Commons’ bill for the attainder of the earl of Danby, their alternative to the Lords’ proposal for his banishment. It may have been Shaftesbury who argued that ‘we have now shot one rook, but there are a whole flock that will still endanger devouring our corn; therefore I am for hanging them up to affright others’; Northampton’s reference to a ‘little grub that devoured more than the rooks had done’ was probably aimed at him.<sup>386</sup> In a speech late in the debate, Shaftesbury compared Danby to ‘Sampson now grasping the pillars of this house that his death may exceed all the mischiefs of his life’.<sup>387</sup> Shaftesbury’s speech seems again to have been freely distributed, though a full text is not known to have survived.<sup>388</sup> Following the third reading of the bill, with amendments, Shaftesbury was one of those appointed to manage a conference with the Commons explaining the amendments on 4 April.</p><p>Shaftesbury may have planned also to incriminate the bishops. On 5 Apr. John Sidway was heard at the committee of examinations alleging that several, including Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, John Pritchett*, bishop of Gloucester, and Peter Mews, bishop of Bath and Wells were secret Catholics. Sidway though failed to identify Ely when Shaftesbury asked him to, the bishop complained to the House, and the business was taken out of the committee’s hands. Sidway was ordered to attend the House on the following Monday, the 7th.<sup>389</sup> When he did, he was ‘ushered in by an eloquent earl’, Edward Cooke’s euphemism for Shaftesbury. The House voted on a division to commit him to the Gatehouse: Shaftesbury with eight others, including Halifax, dissented from the decision.<sup>390</sup> Shaftesbury’s role as one of the chief investigators of the plot was not affected: on 10 Apr. the House agreed to the issuing of a blank warrant by the clerk of the parliaments permitting searches and arrests, with Shaftesbury and the bishop of London authorized to insert the details.</p><p>Following the arrival of the articles of impeachment of the Catholic peers from the Commons on 7 Apr., Shaftesbury reported from the committee of privileges on 8 Apr. concerning the arrangements for the trial. On the same day he was appointed to a committee to draw up arguments to be used at a conference with the Commons over Danby; he and others were also added to a committee for ‘clearing London from papists’. On the 7th he was also appointed to the committee for a bill making a settlement of the estates of his deceased lieutenant, Lord Mohun. On 12 Apr. Shaftesbury was one of those managing, and later reporting from, a conference on Danby, at which he asserted the Lords’ wish to banish, rather than attaint, the former treasurer.<sup>391</sup> Despite this, and although he voted for the attainder, Shaftesbury seems not to have (overtly anyway) tried to force the issue in the Lords, or through his associates in the Commons: it is possible that he saw no particular advantage in mounting a trial for Danby.<sup>392</sup> On 14 Apr., the Lords considered the Commons’ insistence on attainder: Shaftesbury argued that the bishops should withdraw. The division for agreeing with the Commons was won by just three votes.<sup>393</sup></p><p>Since the removal of Danby extensive changes in office were expected. The earl of Essex had been appointed one of the commissioners of the Treasury on 29 Mar.: on 7 Apr. he proposed ‘a self-denying motion’ that all future lord treasurers or commissioners of the treasury should not have any greater profit from their office than their salaries. Shaftesbury was said to have ‘diverted’ it by instead suggesting a bill to abolish the office of lord treasurer, ‘it being of too great an importance and influence for any one subject’. He said that when the post had commonly been expected to go to him ‘in the misjudging eye of others, tho not in his own thoughts’, he found himself treated with ‘an unexpected reverencing behaviour’ to his amazement until Lord Clifford explained.<sup>394</sup> Essex’s bill was read a first time on the following day; Shaftesbury was on the committee when it was nominated on 10 April. Shaftesbury was also on the committee appointed to consider the ‘coherence’ of the liberty of the subject bill – the habeas corpus bill – on 17 April.</p><h2><em>Lord President, 1679-80</em></h2><p>In Sir William Temple’s account of the new modelling of the Privy Council in April 1679 the choice of Shaftesbury as its lord president is its most controversial aspect. Temple described the debates among himself, the lord chancellor, Sunderland and Essex and the king on his proposal for a completely new council incorporating key government opponents. Having persuaded Temple that Halifax be included on the council, the king suggested Shaftesbury, very much to Temple’s chagrin. The king’s view was that were he to be left out, he ‘might do as much mischief as any’: the other three agreed. They also thought that he would not be content with being simply a counsellor, so it was decided, over Temple’s vigorous protests, to make him president of the council.<sup>395</sup></p><p>The new council took effect on 21 April. York wrote to William Legge<sup>‡</sup> in early May, asking him to make a wary approach to Shaftesbury through Lord Townshend or George Pitt, the Wareham Member, since he could not bring myself to write to him himself.<sup>396</sup> In the Lords on the 23rd, Shaftesbury reassured Lord Clare that he would not change his views because of his new position: ‘his conscience should always guide his tongue’.<sup>397</sup> Indeed, there is some evidence that Shaftesbury and his allies, especially in the Commons, were stepping up their campaign in late April, as the impeachment of the Catholic peers proceeded alongside the early stages of the prosecution of Danby, and was accompanied by a continual flow of information about the Plot. Shaftesbury may have been cooperating with members of the Commons’ committee of secrecy (though James II’s memory of ‘Lady Shaftesbury’s butler’ as a key informant was a misremembering or mistranscription of ‘Lady Shrewsbury’s butler’).<sup>398</sup> The attacks by Thomas Bennett<sup>‡</sup> on Lauderdale in the Commons on 26 Apr., and on Pepys on 28 Apr. reflected Shaftesbury’s interests.<sup>399</sup> Algernon Sydney reported on 28 Apr. that Shaftesbury and Halifax had both been at the forefront of the campaign against the Catholics, and that Shaftesbury had said ‘the other day’ that he ‘neither could live with or under a Papist’.<sup>400</sup> In the crisis debate in the Commons on Sunday 27 Apr. on the Catholic threat, Bennett talked vaguely about ways of blocking York from the throne; the House’s vote that York’s faith was ‘the greatest countenance and encouragement to the present conspiracies and designs of the papists against the king and the Protestant religion’ was brought up to the Lords by Lord Russell.<sup>401</sup> Further debate in the Lords was put off to the following Wednesday, 30 Apr., when the House had also scheduled their debate on the Commons resolution.</p><p>The council held a long meeting on the day before the debate was due to take place. There is no substantial contemporary account of this crucial meeting, at which it seems the council decided on the king’s speech to both Houses, and its offer of limitations on the powers of a Catholic successor. The fullest is in Temple’s memoir, which claims that Shaftesbury was determined on York’s exclusion, and that ‘there could be no security against the duke, if once in possession of the crown’.<sup>402</sup> The view that this meeting marked a decisive shift in Shaftesbury’s views towards exclusion and the beginnings of a complete breach with Halifax has been questioned, with a strong case made that Shaftesbury was playing a more complex game at the time in order to force his way into the inner circle of advisers, and that it was the pressure of more radical forces from the City of London that pushed him into adopting exclusion.<sup>403</sup> His actions were certainly highly ambiguous. Daniel Finch, in a letter to his uncle written at the beginning of June (and therefore after the introduction of the exclusion bill), said that Shaftesbury was opposed to limitations on the grounds that they were ‘too like a republic, but I believe he rather feared it would prevent the bill for the succession at that time upon the anvil’.<sup>404</sup> At the same time, the lord chancellor was telling Henry Sydney that Shaftesbury had persuaded members of the Commons to believe that ‘he was for those things which everybody knows he is utterly against (meaning the excluding the duke from the succession)’.<sup>405</sup> The evidence of the Commons’ debates over the next two weeks is also ambiguous. The king’s and lord chancellor’s speeches of 30 Apr. failed to produce the desired breakthrough: though it has been argued that Thomas Bennett’s early proposal to give thanks for the king’s speech indicated Shaftesbury’s involvement in a delicate agreement between the parties backing limitations, there are many other interpretations of his briefly reported speech. Temple’s account of a set of increasingly frustrating negotiations over two weeks between Essex, Sunderland and Halifax on the one hand and Shaftesbury and Monmouth on the other might be attributed to this period and might explain the failure to revive the debate on the king’s message until Sunday 11 May. Bennett’s motion then to banish (rather than exclude) York was possibly the compromise that Temple says was proposed—‘the banishment of the duke, either for a certain term, or during the king’s life’.<sup>406</sup> But if Bennett was outmanoeuvred in the debate by a group of radical Members of the Commons including Sir Thomas Player, the fact that he was first appointed to the committee to prepare an exclusion bill at the end of the debate suggests that he, and Shaftesbury, were very quick to jump on the bandwagon.</p><p>Shaftesbury was fighting other battles in the House of Lords at the same time. On 2 May he was one of those who dissented against the third reading of the bill for freeing the City of London and parts adjacent from popish inhabitants on the grounds that it targeted Protestant dissenters as well as papists, which might make the Protestants ‘think themselves in interest obliged to take the papists’ parts against us’. Shaftesbury’s appointment to a private bill committee on 2 May concerning Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup> (from which he reported on 6 May) may have been supportive of a sympathetic and prominent figure in the Commons. His appointment to the committee on 15 May for the bill vesting the lands of Henry Howard*, 6th duke of Norfolk and his son Henry Howard*, Baron Mowbray (later 7th duke of Norfolk) in trustees—an attempt by Mowbray to settle the estate of his Catholic father while the latter was abroad—was perhaps also related to his anti-Catholic crusade.</p><p>Meanwhile the debate about proceedings against the earl of Danby and the Catholic peers had moved on to the question of the participation of the bishops in them. When the issue was raised by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, on 6 May, Shaftesbury, finding the bishops’ case strongly supported, moved for the debate to be adjourned.<sup>407</sup> He was one of the peers managing a conference on 8 May at which the Commons complained about the Lords’ decision to address the king to appoint a lord high steward to hear both Danby plead his pardon and the impeachment against the five Catholic peers. They instead proposed a joint committee to consider how to proceed on impeachments. Shaftesbury (along with many other of the senior figures of the council, including the lord chancellor, Arlington, Essex and Halifax) dissented from the decision to reject this request. He managed and reported on a conference the same day concerning the supply bill, which was finally passed and received the royal assent on 9 May.<sup>408</sup> On 10 May, he was one of the managers for a conference about the impeachments at which the Commons complained about the Lords’ reaction to their joint committee proposal. Afterwards, the Lords again voted on the proposal: after a narrow vote Shaftesbury was one of 50 peers, just about all of those on the losing side and including, again, all of the prominent members of the council, to dissent against the decision.<sup>409</sup> The Lords agreed to initiate a free conference with the Commons the following day (the 11th, the day intended in the Commons for taking into consideration the king’s and lord chancellor’s speeches). Shaftesbury reported from this and from a subsequent conference. The Lords’ decision after this to reverse their vote and appoint members to a joint committee (Shaftesbury was one) reflects the narrow balance within the Lords on the issue (and perhaps also the distraction of the vote on exclusion). Shaftesbury reported from the joint committee on both following days, 12 and 13 May. On 13 May there ensued a debate on whether bishops should be allowed to take part in proceedings before judgment of death was pronounced. Shaftesbury, with twenty others, entered a dissent against the decision that they should. Shaftesbury reported again on 14 May from the joint committee that the Commons had taken exception to the decision, which they alleged would in effect give the bishops a vote in the judgment itself. The Lords clarified their vote, indicating that the bishops had the right to sit and vote until the court proceeded to the decision on guilt. Shaftesbury reported again the following morning, 15 May, from another joint committee meeting (which he chaired on this day and several subsequent ones) that the Commons were still concerned about the bishops’ role in the decision on Danby’s pardon.<sup>410</sup> The lord privy seal (Anglesey) argued in the subsequent debate that there was no prospect of agreement, and proposed that a date be set for the trial of the Catholic peers. Shaftesbury ‘after he had magnified the greatness of that lord’s parts, his courage, and zeal for justice, craved leave at this trial to differ, considering how important it was to settle that doubt of the validity of invalidity of the pardon’.<sup>411</sup> On 16 May Shaftesbury reported the Commons’ insistence that the Lords spiritual could have no vote in any of the proceedings on the impeachments. Amid further sparring between Shaftesbury and Anglesey, with Shaftesbury accused of having cast aspersions on the king by referring to Danby’s continuing influence (though he was cleared by notes taken by Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury) the Lords set a date for the trial of the Catholic peers, and the bishops announced that they wished to take no part in the trials.<sup>412</sup> The next day Shaftesbury was reporting the reaction of the Commons members of the joint committee: that the bishops’ statement did not refer to the proceedings relating to Danby, their key concern. When the joint committee met again, on Monday 19 May, the Commons repeated their dissatisfaction (adding that it was not clear either what attitude the Lords had taken to the bishops’ promise), and their refusal to go ahead with the trials until the point was settled. In the following debate in the Lords, Buckingham, Shaftesbury and Halifax were said to have spoken lengthily against the bishops’ right to vote, opposed by the lord chancellor, the lord privy seal, Lord Ailesbury and Lord Robartes, as well as the bishops themselves.<sup>413</sup> Shaftesbury was clearly in the centre of all of these debates: a speech of his is recorded from the debates on 6, 7 or 20 May about whether bishops may vote in cases of blood, emphasizing that bishops did not possess the rights of peers, and were not tried as peers: ‘if bishops be not tried by the peers why should peers be tried by bishops?’.<sup>414</sup></p><p>An order to consider the state of Ireland on 6 May was probably the result of a motion from Shaftesbury (attributed by Col. Cooke to 7 May).<sup>415</sup> Ossory thought Shaftesbury was still digging for dirt about the affairs of Ireland.<sup>416</sup> On 22 May the House embarked on a discussion provoked by a message from the Commons calling for the execution of condemned Catholic priests. The executions had been delayed for them to be questioned by the Lords’ committee of examinations. According to one report, Shaftesbury, speaking on the dangers of reprieving them, found himself embarrassed in the discussion by a plainly irritated fellow member of the committee, the earl of Clarendon, who pointed out that the delay had been moved by Shaftesbury himself, ‘whose authority was so great that, because he moved it, it was ordered, without any reason asked or given’. Shaftesbury was said to have admitted to ‘tender-heartedness, an infirmity he could not help’.<sup>417</sup> That debate was interrupted by a message from the Commons about the habeas corpus bill. Shaftesbury managed the subsequent conference and another on 27 May, which was agreed to following a vote with which the story about Lord Grey of Warke counting a fat peer as ten in order to secure the vote—and Shaftesbury speaking immediately after the vote was announced to prevent the mistake being spotted—is associated.<sup>418</sup></p><p>On the 23rd Shaftesbury was once more reporting from the morning meeting of the joint committee, at which the Commons had reiterated their previous objections. When the Lords voted to stick by their previous answers, Shaftesbury, with 23 others, dissented from the decision, and dissented as well from an affirmation that the Lords would proceed to the trial of the Catholic peers ahead of the trial of Danby. Shaftesbury reported again on Monday 26th two further meetings which had not resolved the deadlock, and later that day he reported a conference at which the Commons delivered a lengthy complaint. Two days of debate followed, with a vote on Tuesday 27th to insist on the votes of 13 and 14 May. Shaftesbury, with 27 others, protested against it. The same day, the king prorogued Parliament to 14 Aug.</p><p>Shaftesbury’s opponents saw him as one of the architects, if not the architect of the crisis into which the session had descended. Temple’s distaste was reflected on every page of his memoirs: refusing to have anything to do with the negotiations between Halifax, Sunderland and Essex on the one side and Shaftesbury and Monmouth on the other, he was unsurprised when they were abandoned. Danby wrote to the king on 21 May about efforts by Shaftesbury’s agent Francis Charlton, and Sir Thomas Player and Thomas Pilkington to promote an address from the City to Parliament praising their efforts against popery and promising to stand by them. Danby added a tart comment about ‘the villainy of my Lord Shaftesbury and the weakness of those he makes his instruments’. <sup>419</sup> Temple wrote about a proposed remonstrance in the House of Commons ‘to inflame the city and nation upon the points of plot and popery’.<sup>420</sup> Lord Chancellor Finch told Henry Sydney that Shaftesbury and his alliance with Monmouth was the chief cause of the trouble. With Temple, Finch believed that Shaftesbury’s standing was buoyed up by his position in the council, and he thought the king should remove him as soon as possible. Sir John Baber blamed Shaftesbury for causing the ‘Presbyterians’ to ‘behave themselves ill’ in the last session.<sup>421</sup> On the other hand, Sir Robert Southwell told Ormond on 24 May that Danby’s continuing influence at court meant that Shaftesbury was weary of his position. He expected the marquess of Winchester (he wrote Worcester, but Winchester must have been meant) to follow him if he left the council.<sup>422</sup></p><p>By all accounts Shaftesbury was furious at the sudden prorogation, which displayed very clearly his actual lack of influence. According to Temple, he said in the Lords ‘that he would have the heads of those who were the advisers of this prorogation’.<sup>423</sup> One story had it that at the prorogation he told the king that ‘there was no need of holding a candle to the king’s face, for his intent was visible by his actions’. Shaftesbury may have tried to resign from the council, but his resignation was refused by the king.<sup>424</sup> The prorogation set the seal on his falling-out with Halifax, and spelt the end of any influence Shaftesbury could bring to bear on government actions. The purge of local magistrates that Shaftesbury had helped to set off in mid-May soon petered out.<sup>425</sup></p><p>The news of the Scottish rebellion arriving in the first two weeks of June offered an opportunity to revive a sense of crisis. Shaftesbury (as well as Halifax and Temple) argued that Lauderdale should be removed: Charles ignored them.<sup>426</sup> Shaftesbury’s preference for a negotiated settlement was similarly ignored: Monmouth—inconveniently preferring action to prolonging the crisis—was sent to confront and defeat the rebels.<sup>427</sup> Shaftesbury demanded a recall of Parliament. It was reported on 17 June that during the long and heated discussions in the council on using English forces in Scotland, Shaftesbury had been the only one who continued to reject the option, at least without explicit approval by the Parliaments of both countries. The correspondent quoted what were alleged to be Shaftesbury’s words at the meeting, his source being a member of the House of Commons who had it ‘from Lord Shaftesbury’s own mouth’: ‘if the king so governed as that his estate might with safety be transmitted to his son, as it was by his father to him, and he might enjoy the known rights and liberties of the subjects, he would rather be under kingly government, but if he would not be satisfied of that he declared he was for a commonwealth’.<sup>428</sup></p><p>During the prorogation Shaftesbury continued to try to uncover further details of the Plot, though informers had possibly become more nervous: Danby was told by Thomas Culpeper that Tongue on 3 June had admitted that Shaftesbury had tried to get him to bear false witness against Danby.<sup>429</sup> He continued to search for information on the continent and in Ireland, while attempting to secure further confessions from the Jesuit priests due to be executed on 20 June, and from Richard Langhorne, the Catholic lawyer implicated in the plot, before his execution on 14 July. <sup>430</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury remained on speaking terms with other members of the council, at least until news of the defeat of the Scottish rebellion. On 25 June he was said to have made ‘great profession of kindness to my Lord Sunderland’; and on 26 June he dined with Anglesey.<sup>431</sup> Sunderland planned to send word to William of Orange (Henry Sydney*, later Viscount Sydney and earl of Romney, wrote a couple of days later) that ‘the Lord Shaftesbury is not of our party, but that he is a good tool to work with, and that there is nothing to be done in a Parliament without him. He makes the fairest promises that can be, and confesses that there were faults committed in the last session which he hopes will be repaired in the next’.<sup>432</sup> The French ambassador Barillon’s analysis of court politics on 3 July described two factions at court: Shaftesbury and Monmouth on the one side and Sunderland and the duchess of Portsmouth on the other, with Presbyterians, led by Holles, holding the balance. Shaftesbury, he wrote, was feared, despite Sunderland’s confidence, particularly because of his credit within London, and because he was regarded as being ‘à la teste des affaires’ in Parliament. Shaftesbury saw the Plot, he went on, as a means of keeping the court continually in fear, and of holding onto the credit of the people. Some of that credit, he pointed out, would be lost after the trials and executions of the Catholic peers.<sup>433</sup></p><p>Barillon’s analysis was written on the same day as Charles broached in the council the idea of a dissolution—a proposal according to Temple’s memoirs motivated largely by the concern that ‘the duke of Monmouth was greater than ever: Lord Shaftesbury reckoned upon being so too, upon the next meeting of Parliament, and at the cost of those whom he took to be the authors of the last prorogation’. Shaftesbury naturally spoke against the idea on the 3rd, along with many others; at a further meeting a week later, the king determined on the dissolution and the second set of new elections that year. Southwell wrote that Shaftesbury had told the king that it would be contrary to his declaration of April, in which he had promised to do nothing without the advice of the council.<sup>434</sup> Sidney suspected that in the intervening week Shaftesbury had had ‘the greatest hand’ in making ‘cabals and intrigues’ against the dissolution—he had already heard that Shaftesbury had been telling people that the advisers of the dissolution deserved to lose their heads.<sup>435</sup> Shaftesbury was reported to complain bitterly that even Danby had been better than the triumvirate of Halifax, Sunderland and Essex.<sup>436</sup> Nevertheless, speaking to Henry Sydney on 17 July he ‘commended Lord Sunderland, but spoke slightly of Essex and Halifax’. Sidney subsequently went to see Halifax, who said ‘there never would be any good done with that man’.<sup>437</sup> Nevertheless, Shaftesbury was still on sufficiently good terms to dine with Anglesey, Halifax and Fauconberg at Weybridge with the marquess of Worcester on 24 July. Anglesey was invited to dinner at Shaftesbury’s on the following day. <sup>438</sup></p><p>The acquittal of Sir George Wakeman on 18 July was a blow to the credibility of the plot, and Shaftesbury at a council meeting in early August criticized the trial judge, Sir William Scroggs: Southwell thought more of the same was likely to be heard when Parliament met.<sup>439</sup> On 12 Aug. Conway wrote that Shaftesbury was not coming to court, but meeting frequently with Monmouth. Southwell reported on 20 Aug. that Shaftesbury had pleaded illness for a failure to appear at Windsor: expecting to be sacked, he ‘would affect to be discharged harshly as the way to enhance him elsewhere’; the earl was working ‘openly in the new elections to have them men of his own mind’, and had spoken bitterly and threateningly about Halifax and the Wakeman judgment.<sup>440</sup> There is not a great deal of evidence, however, of Shaftesbury’s direct involvement in the elections of the later summer of 1679. In the middle of them, on 19 Aug., he left London for Dorset, where he was when the king was taken ill and James hurried back to England from his exile in Brussels. He did not begin his return to London until 26 Sept., a day after both James and Monmouth had again departed, following the king’s recovery.<sup>441</sup> Shaftesbury’s absence makes unlikely a rumour given out on 13 Sept. that Buckingham, Shaftesbury and Lord Robartes were conspiring to set up Monmouth against York during the king’s illness and had sought to draw in the earl of Oxford via Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup>, and that Shaftesbury and Robartes were to be banished as well as Monmouth.<sup>442</sup> Nevertheless, Southwell told Ormond on 22 Sept. that the king certainly did regard Monmouth’s departure as pulling the rug from underneath Shaftesbury, hoping that it would restore equilibrium to the Privy Council.<sup>443</sup></p><p>As soon as he returned to London, Shaftesbury was busy meeting Warcup, Oates and others associated with the Plot, telling Oates on the 28th that he was planning to impeach York as soon as Parliament sat.<sup>444</sup> Southwell, who thought it was planned to impeach the queen as well, believed that the further prorogation of Parliament was intended to disrupt his plans.<sup>445</sup> Shaftesbury found occasion to generate a new crisis with the news of York moving to Scotland, on 4 Oct. calling a meeting of the council for the following day, a Sunday.<sup>446</sup> At the meeting Shaftesbury made claims about an alliance between Presbyterians and Catholics.<sup>447</sup> During the council meeting on 10 Oct. Shaftesbury declared that the dissolution had been ‘the worst counsel that ever was given His Majesty’, and complained about the lack of consultation: ‘he was sorry they were made so useless and to remember that it was otherwise promised in the late declaration touching the council’.<sup>448</sup></p><h2><em>The Second Exclusion Parliament,1679-80</em></h2><p>On 14 Oct. Sunderland (‘extremely sorry to be obliged to write you this’) passed on the command from the king that Shaftesbury would no longer be welcome at the council.<sup>449</sup> It was widely reported that it was Sunderland’s account to the king of what Shaftesbury had said at the council on the 10th that had finally triggered his dismissal, though Southwell provided a catalogue of recent provocative actions by Shaftesbury.<sup>450</sup> The king followed it up on the next day by announcing in council the further prorogation of Parliament to January. Southwell described the widespread popularity that his dismissal had brought Shaftesbury, and the new crisis that it helped to provoke.<sup>451</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury’s popularity was further enhanced by the so-called Meal-Tub plot, allegations of treason brought to the attention of the duke of York and the king in September by the earl of Peterborough and the wife of William Herbert*, earl of Powis. By the beginning of November the main agent of the plot, Thomas Dangerfield, had turned round, now claiming there was a plot to kill the king and Shaftesbury hatched by Lords Arundell and Powis with the enthusiastic assistance of Lady Powis.<sup>452</sup> Shaftesbury was said to have complained in council of Peterborough as instigator of the plot: Peterborough bitterly recalled later how he had been summoned to defend himself before the council.<sup>453</sup></p><p>The subsequent contacts between the court and Shaftesbury may indicate that the king, or certainly Sunderland, was prepared to negotiate, possibly in order to keep alive the prospect of an alliance with the United Provinces, which Sidney was in the Netherlands to achieve.<sup>454</sup> Warcup’s journal suggests that Shaftesbury responded on 3 Nov. to his efforts to initiate a dialogue between him and the king that he would be willing to accept the banishment of Danby, and thought a solution to the bishops’ involvement in criminal trials could be found. Warcup and Sir Paul Neile had conversations with the king on the 4th, and preparations were made for a royal interview with Shaftesbury on the 6th. After Sunderland visited Shaftesbury that morning, however, Shaftesbury told Warcup that he had ‘found no disposition in the court to take his counsel’;<sup>455</sup> Sunderland told Sidney that ‘he could do no good with him; he saith it will not be in his power to do the king any service’.<sup>456</sup> On 8 Nov. Southwell reported that Shaftesbury had met the king, and insisted that he divorce the queen, although subsequent accounts indicated that the meeting had not in fact taken place.<sup>457</sup> There was another rumour, subsequently dismissed, about a meeting two days later.<sup>458</sup> However, there may have been further contacts around the 10th, when Sunderland offered him the treasurership ‘and to make all other the great officers such as he should like’: Shaftesbury was supposed to have insisted that ‘he would never more enter the list at Whitehall till it were resolved there should be excluded from thence the queen, the duke, the duchess of Portsmouth and every other papist that were but an inch long’.<sup>459</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was seen as the impresario of a series of remarkable coups designed to maintain pressure on the government. Although the pope burning procession in London on 17 Nov. was co-ordinated by the Green Ribbon Club, of which Shaftesbury was not a member, Southwell reported the following day that meetings of the nobility and the London grand jury to plan addresses to the king had all originated with him. <sup>460</sup> On 24 and 25 Nov. he turned up with William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, Lord Grey of Warke, the earl of Huntingdon, Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, and James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, Lord North (Grey of Rolleston) and Lord Herbert (Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Herbert of Raglan), to support Oates in his trial for buggery; Southwell noted that ‘these lords dined together, and there is to be a weekly meeting of the Lords who will associate for ends and purposes of the public good’. Dining together at the Swan in Fish Street in the City, the same peers were actively planning an address to the king for Parliament to be allowed to sit in January, to which it was prorogued.<sup>461</sup> The same group dined with the lord mayor on 1 Dec., where their fellow guests included the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs, and the entertainment included an unseemly altercation over Scroggs’ behaviour in the Wakeman trial.<sup>462</sup></p><p>The return of Monmouth to London on 27 Nov. was thought by Halifax to be ‘such a morris-dance as that none but Shaftesbury could have been adviser in it’: it was said that Monmouth left the Netherlands soon after he had received letters from Shaftesbury, and Shaftesbury visited him (along with many others, including Halifax) on the day after his return. Shaftesbury’s actual intentions were particularly difficult to penetrate at this time. Barillon discussed them in a dispatch of 3 Dec. in which he considered whether it was worth offering him money, speculating that the earl might be aiming to establish a commonwealth with himself at its head.<sup>463</sup> The City dinner on 1 Dec. had been largely intended to discuss the coordination of the planned petition to allow Parliament to sit, but Sir Robert Clayton had been reluctant to get involved. The petition was nevertheless being circulated by 6 Dec. in the country, and Southwell was expecting it to be presented by ‘the confederate lords under the character of councillors by birth’, apparently with the support of Monmouth and William of Orange.<sup>464</sup> On Sunday 7 Dec. the petition, signed by Shaftesbury, Bedford, Say and Sele, Huntingdon, Clare, Kent, Eure, Holles, North and Grey, Chandos, Grey, Howard of Escrick, Herbert, Townshend, Delamer, Thomas Grey*, earl of Stamford, and Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, was presented to the king. (Holles, Delamer, Townshend, Saye and Sele, Rockingham, and Kent were not there to present it: nor was Bedford, prevented from joining them by ‘a sudden indisposition’). <sup>465</sup> Southwell related how Shaftesbury, in good humour, had told the courtiers who crowded around that the petition would be to their advantage, ‘for whereas they had now neither meat nor money they were to have both, and even new wenches too, in case the old ones would but give them leave’.<sup>466</sup></p><p>The presentation may have helped to kill off the limitations scheme that was being circulated in early December. In a letter of 7 Dec. James commented that Shaftesbury’s opposition to limitations did not come ‘out of good will’ (presumably to preserve the powers of the monarchy).<sup>467</sup> James wrote again on 13 Dec. that</p><blockquote><p>I never could understand his politics, and am sure they were never calculated for the meridian of a monarchy, and though he be such a hero in a House of Lords, and has a tongue which makes him considered there, he is less than other men out of his sphere, and will I doubt run the king into those inconveniences that I fear will be fatal to the crown, and even to his Lordship too.<sup>468</sup></p></blockquote><p>Shaftesbury was said to have been having very private discussions with the king in early January 1680, in which he again pressed the idea of a divorce and remarriage. The presentation of further ‘monster’ petitions from 13 Jan. onwards may have cut off these discussions, but they were probably doomed anyway.<sup>469</sup></p><p>Two days later, on 26 Jan., Parliament was prorogued (formally to 15 Apr., but it was clear that a further prorogation to Nov. was expected) and the king announced that he was summoning James to return from Scotland. Shaftesbury, who was briefly reported as having made common cause with Lauderdale against York, discussed with his remaining allies in the council how they should react. A copy of a letter dated Jan. 30 1680 and ostensibly written to them states that he had changed his view since the previous evening and now thought they should resign. Claiming that James’s return was linked to a scheme to ‘alter the religion and government by the assistance of the French, whose forces and provisions are ready upon the coast next us’, he urged that it was necessary for ‘the weight of the nation’ to ‘compel us to take right counsels’. ‘To this end’, he went on, ‘your Lordships’ going out together at this time extremely serves; and the sense of the body of the Protestants and sober men, made known to his Majesty by their addresses and petitions through the whole nation, will not a little contribute’. <sup>470</sup> The letter was probably intended for publication, and may have been designed to open up a sharp division between those who stayed and those who went. Russell, Lord Cavendish, Powle and Sir Henry Capell resigned from the council; Essex, Halifax, Winchester and Fauconberg, among others, stayed.</p><p>Over the next few months, however, Shaftesbury found it hard to rekindle the sense of purpose built up at the end of the previous year, with the reconstruction of a much more effective ministry around Sunderland, Hyde and Godolphin, the pursuit of a Dutch alliance, and the caution of the City of London. York was eased back into London society, and the administration was able to contemplate a session of Parliament through negotiations with the Presbyterian leader who had succeeded Holles, Lord Townshend.<sup>471</sup> A meeting of the ‘malcontent lords’ at Lord Wharton’s on 17 Mar. showed up the tensions among them, particularly with Lord North, who had kissed the duke of York’s hand, was engaged in a lawsuit with Lord Grey of Warke and was angling for the ancient earldom that went with it. Shaftesbury told him that ‘there were other ways of getting of an earldom’; North retorted that ‘his Lordship had found out such, but he could not’. The peers agreed to meet weekly; but their attempts to revive their contacts with the City (they sent a message via Francis Charlton to the lord mayor proposing to bring Monmouth to dine with him) were rebuffed.<sup>472</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury sought to recreate a crisis with the information he dramatically supplied to the Privy Council on 24 Mar. about an Irish plot, bringing an informer, Murphy, with him.<sup>473</sup> The news briefly revived the febrile atmosphere in London; a planned loyalist counter-demonstration by apprentices was used as evidence of a plot to murder Shaftesbury and other associates, including Sir William Waller, who took a leading role in examinations about the proposed demonstration.<sup>474</sup> Shaftesbury may also have been trying to push Clayton into greater activity, and renewed speculation about Monmouth’s paternity may or may not have been linked to him.<sup>475</sup> There was a sense of desperation to these efforts. William Coventry observed to Halifax on 20 Apr. that ‘the little man you mention grows every day less, even amongst those from whom he hopes his greatness should spring’.<sup>476</sup> He was not without influence though: Sir Thomas Thynne, who was meeting him in early April, and who told Sir William Coventry that Shaftesbury ‘hoped to see me when I came to town, so that I think I cannot decline it’, attributed his own failure to become ambassador for the Turkey Company to ‘the kindness of our little friend’, whose agents had lobbied against him. (Lord Chandos, who did get the post, had often been associated with Shaftesbury in the past.)<sup>477</sup></p><p>The king’s illness on 13 May, combined with the possibility of a meeting of Parliament on 17 May for a further prorogation created a temporary excitement. At the time, it was said that if the king had continued to be ill, members of the Commons planned to assemble anyway. The later confession of Lord Grey of Warke about an agreement among Shaftesbury, Russell, Sir Thomas Armstrong, Monmouth and Grey himself to mount an uprising against the accession of James in the case of the death of the king has been linked to this episode, though it may in fact relate to 1682.<sup>478</sup> The publication on 15 May of a pamphlet by Robert Ferguson, a close associate and acolyte of Shaftesbury, asserting Monmouth’s legitimacy, York’s treason and the ability of Parliament to control the succession, could also have been related to contingency planning for Charles’s death.<sup>479</sup></p><p>Though the emergency was short-lived and Charles scotched the claim of Monmouth’s legitimacy with a declaration of 2 June, Shaftesbury had a new scheme up his sleeve: a presentment of York for recusancy by the grand jury of Middlesex. This was possibly why Shaftesbury was dining with Monmouth and his other associates at Essex Street, at ‘one Mr Thomson’s, a lawyer’.<sup>480</sup> On 26 June Shaftesbury, with his allies Grey of Warke, Howard of Escrick, Huntingdon, Viscount Brandon (Charles Gerard*, later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), and the Members of the Commons Lord Russell, Lord Cavendish, Thomas Wharton*, later 5th Baron, Earl and marquess of Wharton, Thomas Thynne, Sir Edward Hungerford, Sir Gilbert Gerard, Henry Caverley, Sir William Cowper, Trenchard (perhaps William Trenchard), and Forster (perhaps Sir Humphrey Forster), met the grand jury. The attempt was frustrated by the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs.<sup>481</sup> A second attempt was made on 30 June with 26 or 27 of Shaftesbury’s allies in attendance, including John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, Sir John Cope<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>. It, too, was dismissed by the judge, Sir Thomas Raymond.<sup>482</sup> The publication of the case for the indictment, a Shaftesburian touch, helped to turn the failure to good use.<sup>483</sup> The indictment probably helped to cement Shaftesbury’s role at the head of the government’s most uncompromising opponents. Dorothy Spencer, countess of Sunderland wrote to Halifax on 1 July that ‘all the several parties of this kind are by all called, but my Lord Shaftesbury’s followers’, and referred in subsequent letters to his ‘blind followers’.<sup>484</sup> Reports of his language at this time suggest that he no longer considered negotiations an option.<sup>485</sup> He quarrelled with Algernon Sidney in early July (Shaftesbury accused Sidney of being a French pensioner), but while Sidney told the countess of Sunderland that he refused to visit Shaftesbury ‘because he tells lies of him and his friends’, nevertheless messages were passing between the two via Hampden.<sup>486</sup> Around the same time Lady Orrery was believed to be providing a meeting place for Shaftesbury, Monmouth, Lord Cavendish and Nell Gwyn to meet (the king had forbidden Monmouth to visit Gwyn).<sup>487</sup> Shaftesbury was said to have dined with Monmouth and Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, following the election of Bethel and Cornish as sheriffs of London, leaving for the country shortly afterwards.<sup>488</sup></p><p>The king’s decision to allow Parliament to meet on 21 Oct., announced on 26 Aug., made Shaftesbury’s stay in the country a relatively short one, and he had returned to London by 11 September. Illness may have hampered preparations for Parliament, especially meetings with Irish informers, although he was well enough to see one of them on 27 September.<sup>489</sup> ‘Lord Shaftesbury’s club’ was engaged in further schemes to indict the duke of York at the end of September, and Shaftesbury was said by the secretary of state Sir Leoline Jenkins to ‘be amazed why the Parliament should be called to sit at this time, there being not, as he says, the least probability of their doing good to the king’.<sup>490</sup> Discussions were underway between the duchess of Portsmouth, Sunderland and Shaftesbury’s associates; the French ambassador caught a rumour that a deal had been done between them for an alteration of the succession in return for supply. Shaftesbury was said to have decided to proceed with an exclusion bill in the new Parliament, rather than (as others, including Russell, were proposing) to initiate an impeachment.<sup>491</sup> The council’s decision on 16 Oct. to send James away encouraged speculation that the king was unlikely to stand by the duke if push came to shove.</p><p>On 20 Oct., the day before Parliament was finally due to sit, Shaftesbury, Monmouth and Oates dined with ‘above 100 Parliament men’ in the Sun Tavern behind the Old Exchange.<sup>492</sup> Shaftesbury missed the first two sitting days in the Lords, turning up on the 23rd to take the oaths and the declaration, and to be appointed to the committee of privileges, the Journal committee (which was given the power to review the prorogations), and the committee of petitions. After that, he attended on all but five days, including two fast days, a day on which the House was engaged in writs of error and the last two days of the session, an attendance record of 89 per cent. He moved for a committee to receive information tending to the discovery of the plot, and was nominated to it.<sup>493</sup> As before, Shaftesbury shared its chairmanship with the earl of Clarendon. Shaftesbury, Grey of Warke and Lovelace were asked to review a ‘great bag of papers’ on 25 Oct., though Shaftesbury reported that they found nothing material in them.<sup>494</sup> On 28 Oct. he reported evidence from the committee concerning the Irish Catholic peers Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine and Richard Power, first earl of Tyrone (Anglesey’s son-in-law), and an alleged plot to kill Shaftesbury involving the Portuguese Francisco de Feria, Sir George Wakeman and the Portuguese ambassador that raised the possibility of drawing the queen back into the conspiracy.<sup>495</sup> Two days later, he was reporting progress on an order of the House for examining all Irish Westminster residents; he also reported an allegation that Roger L’Estrange had been seen at Mass. L’Estrange had been summoned by the committee, but had failed to appear.</p><p>On 2 Nov. Lord Russell moved a motion to bring in an exclusion bill in the Commons. Two days later, Shaftesbury brought forward detailed information about Ireland in the Lords. He expanded on it on 6 Nov., the day the exclusion bill had its second reading in the Commons, primed by evidence about York’s involvement in the conspiracy to kill the king. On the 8th, Shaftesbury was one of the managers (with the chancellor, lord privy seal (John Robartes, now earl of Radnor), Monmouth, Salisbury, Huntingdon, Bridgwater and Clarendon) for a conference with the Commons to give them the evidence collected about the Irish plot, and was appointed to a committee to consider the recent purges of the commissions of the peace, and to prepare an address on the subject. On the 9th he was again reporting from the investigations committee, this time giving information collected by Warcupp, whom he moved should be commended to the king for a reward, and proposing a fund ‘to reward poor discoverers of the plot’.</p><p>Around 7 Nov. Shaftesbury and Monmouth rebuffed an approach from Danby via Lord Conway seeking their assistance in presenting a petition to the Lords: Conway overheard Shaftesbury telling Lord Berkeley that ‘he would not abate you [Danby] an ace’, though he supposed that ‘it was in heat, because my Lord Berkeley was stiff and tenacious against raising [erasing] the proceedings against him and the other 3 lords that were sent to the Tower.’<sup>496</sup> On 13 Nov. the House ordered that the 1677 proceedings against Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Wharton should be vacated, as ‘of evil example and precedent to posterity’.</p><p>It was reported on 10 Nov. that Clarendon had whispered to Shaftesbury in the House of Lords a request for assistance with the removal of the duchess of Portsmouth: Shaftesbury responded that ‘we are now hunting tigers and bears and birds of prey and now you would be a cony catching.’<sup>497</sup> The exclusion bill, passed in the Commons on 11 Nov., was not brought to the Lords until 15 Nov., though it was generally expected that it would be rejected, especially because the king had made plain his continued refusal to accept any change to the succession. The debate, preceded by a ‘great shout’ at the bar as the bill was brought up, lasted from 3 o’clock to 9, and was famous for its epic confrontation between Shaftesbury and Halifax – which many sources, hostile to Shaftesbury, regarded as having been won by Halifax. After the vote was taken and the bill defeated by 30 votes to 63, he protested along with 24 others.<sup>498</sup></p><p>On the day following, the 16th, the Lords debated the alternatives for exclusion – ‘expedients’, including an association (advocated by Essex), limitations (by Halifax) and a divorce (by Shaftesbury, seconded by Salisbury, Howard of Escrick, and Essex).<sup>499</sup> The House agreed to proposals for a bill of association. Shaftesbury was a member of the sub-committee of seven appointed to draw up heads for the bill, which met on the 17th and 23rd and commissioned a draft of the bill, though seems never to have considered the result.<sup>500</sup> The House met in committee again on the 17th and 19th, when it agreed to debate the marriage of the king and queen on the following Monday, the 23rd, and established a committee to look at the abuses of the post office under the duke of York, of which Shaftesbury was a member. Shaftesbury vigorously advanced the divorce proposal in these debates, but he also continued to support exclusion. Salisbury’s suggestion, made in the Lords on the 19th, for a prorogation to allow the exclusion bill to be reintroduced may have been related to the intense discussions going on between Shaftesbury and his associates.<sup>501</sup> On the 23rd, though Shaftesbury was listed as present in the morning sitting, the lord privy seal reported that the House decided to postpone its debate on the succession issue ‘in regard a lord that is now absent pretends he hath somewhat to offer in the business’. Said to have ‘gout in his shoulder’, Shaftesbury and some of his key lieutenants were also absent from the list of peers protesting against the House’s rejection of Buckingham’s proposal for a joint committee on the state of the nation.<sup>502</sup> On the following day, the 24th, Shaftesbury, to general surprise, moved the adjournment of the House during a discussion of expedients.<sup>503</sup> York referred to Shaftesbury’s opposition to the bill for securing the protestant Religion – effectively a bill for limitations – that had emerged from the committee of the whole on 23 Nov. and was read for a first time on the 29th.<sup>504</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was a member of the committee established on the 24th to consider fines imposed on the publisher Benjamin Harris. He reported from the committee of examinations on the 25th. On 27th Nov., Shaftesbury excused himself from being appointed to the joint committee appointed to organize Lord Stafford’s trial, to begin the following week.<sup>505</sup> Shaftesbury and Ralph Montagu were said to have singled out Halifax as a key opponent, and planned to demand his removal from the king’s counsels, though Shaftesbury disowned involvement in the address to this end in the Commons in mid-November, and there is no evidence of Lord Russell’s involvement in it either. The dowager countess of Sunderland remarked that Shaftesbury was losing his influence in the lower House – she quoted him as saying ‘he does no more understand the House of Commons than he does the court’.<sup>506</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was not closely involved in Stafford’s trial, which opened in Westminster Hall on 30 Nov. Early on he suggested to the lord high steward that Stafford might be offered a short delay, for which the lord steward, the lord chancellor, Lord Finch, received some criticism until Shaftesbury ‘owned the crime, and then it ceased to be one’.<sup>507</sup> He contributed to the debates on carrying over the impeachment from one Parliament to another, probably on 4 December.<sup>508</sup> On 7 Dec. Shaftesbury voted Stafford guilty.<sup>509</sup> Stafford’s request to be heard after his conviction to make fresh revelations about the plot was accepted on 18 December. He alleged that shortly before the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament Shaftesbury tried to do a deal with York over toleration. Shaftesbury, having insisted that Stafford withdraw, persuaded the House that his revelations were of no consequence.<sup>510</sup></p><p>Still fully engaged in stoking up the plot, on 25 Nov. Shaftesbury reported from the committee of examinations about the evidence concerning Mrs Cellier, and on 2 Dec. he informed the House of a titular bishop in Ireland and other Catholics ‘that would make great discoveries’: claiming to be the only one who knew who they were, he requested the leave of the House to give their names only to the earls of Salisbury and Essex, which the House agreed.<sup>511</sup> A few days later, Shaftesbury used the same technique again in relation to concealed arms. The House authorized Salisbury and Shaftesbury jointly to commission a search of the house of the unnamed person concerned.<sup>512</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was also concerned with the protection of Protestant dissenters from prosecution under the recusancy laws. On 20 Nov., he was one of those appointed to the committee to consider the issue. It is not clear whether this was the same as the committee to deal with the question of Protestant dissenters (both are referred to on 22 Nov.), but Buckingham’s report on 27 Nov. appears to cover both subjects, recommending an address to the king that Protestant dissenters should not be proceeded against under the statutes; on 9 Dec. Shaftesbury reported again from the committee ‘many difficulties’ in preparing an address to the king: it had decided instead to prepare a bill, which was produced and read a first time. He was appointed on 20 Dec. to a committee on a bill designed to encourage Protestant immigration.</p><p>Shaftesbury was appointed on 18 Nov. to the committee on a private bill, although since it concerned Catholics – Hugh Smithson and his wife, the daughter of the Catholic peer Marmaduke Langdale*, 2nd Baron Langdale – it was probably related to his other campaigns. He was concerned in the bill to regulate the trial of peers, dissenting on 18 Dec. with nine others from the rejection of a Commons amendment designed to exclude impeachments from the bill. In late December, however, the main effort of Shaftesbury and his associates was directed towards exclusion, despite the king’s speech of 15 Dec. in which he reiterated his willingness to consider expedients as long as they did not affect the succession. With the Commons agreeing an address offering supply in exchange for exclusion and the absorption of York’s opponents into the administration, on 21 Dec. Shaftesbury, supported by Monmouth, Essex and Salisbury, attacked a number of York’s closest associates – Shaftesbury went particularly for Louis Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, though other targets were George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth and Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester. Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Essex made a more direct attack on York on 23 Dec., in a debate on the king’s speech. Shaftesbury’s speech on the occasion appeared in print as <em>A Speech lately made by a Noble Peer of the Realm</em>. He demanded that ‘there must be, (in plain English) my lords, a change; we must neither have popish wife, nor popish favourite, nor popish mistress, nor popish counsellor at court, or any new convert’. Insinuating that (probably) Sunderland had indicated that the king might accept exclusion in return for supply, Shaftesbury carefully handled the difficulty of offering criticism of the king:</p><blockquote><p>My lords, ’tis a very hard thing to say that we cannot trust the king; and that we have already been deceived so often, that we see plainly the apprehensions of discontent in the people, is no argument at court. And though our prince be in himself an excellent person, that the people have the greatest inclinations imaginable to love; yet we must say he is such an one as no story affords us a parallel of: how plain and how many are the proofs of the design to murther him? How little is he apprehensive of it?</p></blockquote><p>With the king in the chamber, he sketched the ambition of the duke of York, a prince who ‘changes his religion to make himself a party, and such a party that his brother must be sure to die and be made away, to make room for him’. He castigated the conduct of court policy since the discovery of the plot, especially the prorogation and dissolution of Parliaments, and the efforts to tar dissenters with the brush of conspiracy.<sup>513</sup> Shaftesbury disowned the published version when it was complained of in the Lords on the first sitting day after the Christmas adjournment on 3 Jan. It was ordered to be burnt, and the publisher, Shaftesbury’s associate Francis Smith, was ordered to attend the House the following day, when the House ordered the Attorney general to proceed against him according to law.<sup>514</sup></p><p>Over Christmas negotiations between Sunderland and some of the more prominent opposition figures in the Commons are referred to in a number of sources, though Shaftesbury ‘was left out, which made him arraign and protest against the whole business’.<sup>515</sup> Sir Edward Harley pointed out that Shaftesbury’s speech, available by 1 Jan., ‘smells not of a bargain.’<sup>516</sup> In the new year, with the king refusing to move on exclusion, the Commons turned their attention to attacks on the ministers and judges regarded as supporting the current regime. On 9 Jan. 1681, Shaftesbury protested, along with 21 others against the decision of the Lords not to commit Scroggs on his impeachment by the Commons.<sup>517</sup> Shaftesbury did not attend on the last day of the session. The dissolution, and summons of a new Parliament to Oxford in March was announced on 18 Jan.<sup>518</sup> The dismissals or resignations of Salisbury, Essex, Temple and Sunderland from office and the council followed shortly afterwards.</p><h2><em>The Oxford Parliament of 1681 and its aftermath</em></h2><p>Shaftesbury was one of the peers petitioning the king on 25 Jan. that the next Parliament be held at Westminster, rather than Oxford, along with fifteen of his usual allies.<sup>519</sup> There is unreliable evidence from Warcup’s informers and from the 1685 confessions of Lord Grey that in January and February Shaftesbury was discussing with his closest allies the possibility that they might be arrested in Oxford, and considered seizing London with the help of ‘several thousand’ of the notorious ‘brisk boys’. If there were military or paramilitary preparations in London they seem to have been largely defensive in intention, associated as much with city chamberlain Sir Thomas Player, sheriff Slingsby Bethel and the duke of Buckingham as with Shaftesbury.<sup>520</sup> Shaftesbury continued to meet with Warcup and gather evidence of Irish plotting, though he was increasingly suspicious of him, and described one of the chief informants, John Fitzgerald, as a rogue.<sup>521</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury’s own known direct interventions in the elections of 1681 were not conspicuously successful. In Gloucestershire he was said to be rooting for Edward Smyth, described as his lawyer and a ‘mighty man with Dr Oates’.<sup>522</sup> Shaftesbury sought Locke’s help in mid Feb. to prevent a division of the vote in Oxfordshire, and to persuade Sir Philip Harcourt and Sir John Norris to stand down: ‘those that deserved well in the last Parliament ought in right to have the preference’.<sup>523</sup> He made an unsuccessful intervention at Christchurch to prevent the election of Sir Thomas Clarges and George Fulford in favour of Thomas Hooper and John Ayloffe.<sup>524</sup> Shaftesbury’s interest at Downton was not effective in overturning the sitting interest, and even in Shaftesbury itself he was unable to secure victory for a second candidate along with his close associate Thomas Bennet.<sup>525</sup></p><p>Preparing for the Oxford Parliament, John Locke and young James Vernon,<sup>‡</sup> the duke of Monmouth’s secretary, made arrangements for Shaftesbury to stay at the house of John Wallis, Savilian Professor of Geometry and a fellow of Balliol, with Lord Grey of Warke lodging in the same house.<sup>526</sup> It was round the corner from Lord Wharton’s lodgings at Hart Hall ‘so near together that you might even have looked into and call’d to one another out of each others’ chambers’. Locke mentioned that Shaftesbury might prefer to sleep on the ground floor because of his gout, and that he might want to have with him Sir William Cowper, Mr Hoskins his lawyer, and Col. Rumsey, later implicated in plotting.<sup>527</sup> The impressive cavalcade of around 200 horse that accompanied Shaftesbury’s departure from London on 18 Mar. along with Lord Salisbury was widely reported; he spent the night close to High Wycombe, apparently at the house of a Quaker, arriving in Oxford the following day with his well-armed retinue to ‘show his readiness to serve the public’.<sup>528</sup> On the following day, Monday 21 Mar., Shaftesbury and Essex waited on the king, raising with him the case of Edward Fitzharris, currently incarcerated in the Tower, and the information he claimed to have about the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey.<sup>529</sup></p><p>Parliament was opened the same day. Shaftesbury was present. He took the oaths and declaration and was appointed to the committees for privileges and for petitions and the sub-committee for the Journal. He attended every sitting of the short Parliament. He moved on 22 Mar. for an investigation into the reasons why the bill repealing the Elizabethan conventicle act was not presented for royal assent at the end of the 1680 Parliament. Hoskins, the lawyer, who wrote to Stringer giving an account of the events of the week on 26th Mar., presumably meant Shaftesbury when he referred to ‘a lord (a friend of yours)’ who said that the previous bill had been lost ‘by a court trick, to bring in a new way of a negative’, accusing the bishops of preferring to let ‘such a weapon to fall into popish hands than the Church should lose it’.<sup>530</sup> On the 24th James Bertie*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon) presented a petition from the earl of Danby requesting bail. Howard of Escrick, Shaftesbury, Halifax, Salisbury, Grey of Warke, Essex, and Bridgwater all opposed it. Shaftesbury suggesting that it could lead to a breach between the two Houses.<sup>531</sup></p><p>On the same day (if the statement that ‘this was done yesterday in the House of Lords’ can be relied on) Shaftesbury had an encounter with the king, published the following day in a pamphlet dripping with sarcasm:</p><blockquote><p>the great patriot, and next under God and Dr Oates, the supreme saviour and defender of the nation, the earl of Shaftesbury, received, or pretended that he received, a letter written in an unknown hand, containing an expedient for the settling and composing the differences between the king and Parliament. With this he made a great noise, and bustling about as fast as his legs, and man, and stick could carry him.</p></blockquote><p>Lord Feversham offered to show him in to the king, ‘the busy earl told him, he was willing to be conducted by so honest a man as his lordship, drolling and thinking himself guilty of a very shrewd irony’. (Another version of the story has the marquess of Worcester conducting Shaftesbury to the king.) The expedient was a proposal for settling the crown on Monmouth. The result was a sharp exchange with the king, in which, if the pamphlet can be believed, the king wiped the floor with the earl.<sup>532</sup> Shaftesbury’s open advocacy of Monmouth’s claim, and the king’s forceful put-down, were no doubt the point of its publication, which seemed to give no hope for any successful conclusion to the session.<sup>533</sup> In a further exchange, perhaps on the 26th, Shaftesbury’s response to the king’s suggestion of a private discussion between them was to joke that it should be at Arlington’s lodgings because it was neutral, Arlington being neither a good Catholic nor a good Protestant, and because Arlington had the best wine ‘which was the only good thing that could be had from their meeting’.<sup>534</sup></p><p>On the 25th Shaftesbury had been appointed to the committee to investigate the plot; on the 26th he was one of the reporters for a conference requested by the Commons on the loss last session of the bill to repeal the Conventicle Act. The same day the Commons’ impeachment of Edward Fitzharris was brought up to the Lords. The Lords’ decision not to entertain an impeachment, but to leave Fitzharris to be dealt with according to the common law elicited a protest signed by Shaftesbury and nineteen others, claiming that the impeachment should not be rejected because it ‘is at the suit of the people, and they have an interest in it’: by refusing an impeachment, the House was denying justice to the people.</p><p>According to Lord Grey’s later confession, on the day before the dissolution Shaftesbury told him that the rejection of Fitzharris’s impeachment and the likelihood that the Lords would abandon the attempt to try Danby would infuriate the House of Commons. If there were a dissolution, ‘there were’, he thought, ‘enough in their House would sit, if but a small number of the lords would do the like’. Grey reported a second discussion between Monmouth, Essex, Shaftesbury and Salisbury the same afternoon on the same subject. In the end the sudden dissolution on Monday 28 Mar. defeated the plan, although, Grey claimed, several lords hung around in the House ‘under the pretence of signing’ the protestation about Fitzharris while they sent messengers to the Commons to try to get them to continue sitting, without success.<sup>535</sup> In July 1682 an informer told the government of a visit of Shaftesbury to John Scudamore, 2nd Viscount Scudamore [I]<sup>‡</sup> at his lodgings in Oxford shortly after the dissolution, ‘where all or most of the knights and burgesses of Herefordshire were present to wait on Shaftesbury’. He had told them to</p><blockquote><p>make haste every man to his own home and to acquaint all poor countrymen what a sad condition they were in, if they did not stand up for such a Parliament as this was, who had so vigorously stood up for them with their lives and fortunes, and he further said that he thought there would be something to do in England before another Parliament sat and that those members, though dissolved, should take on them the peace and government of their several counties.</p></blockquote><p>It was said that he nominated Scudamore, Col. Birch<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> as colonels and Thomas Coningsby<sup>‡</sup>, Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> and John Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> as captains.<sup>536</sup> There is some evidence that Shaftesbury was compiling details of the gentry of other counties at the same time, perhaps in order similarly to identify suitable local leaders.<sup>537</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury left Oxford on 1 April. His admission as a freeman of the Skinners’ company on 4 May was connected to the contest between the Whig-backed petition to the crown from the City requesting a new Parliament and the Tory-backed address welcoming the king’s declaration of 8 Apr., culminating in the election of Whig sheriffs on 24 June.<sup>538</sup> Whig success in London was counterbalanced by the government’s efforts to pick off Shaftesbury’s confederates. Macclesfield ‘made his peace’ with the king, and Howard of Escrick and Shaftesbury were reported to have fallen out.<sup>539</sup> Howard of Escrick was said in a newsletter of 12 May to have sent him a message that he now realized that Shaftesbury ‘was playing his old tricks (such as in Oliver’s time) he was a villain, and a traitor, and [he] would never have more to do with him’.<sup>540</sup> Oates’s brother claimed around June 1682 that there were two great ‘interests’ among the Whigs: Shaftesbury’s, which had been based around the Angel and Queen’s Arms club, but had now removed to the Nag’s head, Cheapside, and Buckingham’s, which was based at the Salutation in Lombard Street.<sup>541</sup></p><p>During the early summer of 1681 Shaftesbury was offering money to some of the witnesses to the Irish plot who had come to London.<sup>542</sup> ‘Attended by the Whigs’ (including Essex, Salisbury and Grey of Warke), he was present at the beginning of committal proceedings for Fitzharris’s trial on 4 May. Fitzharris attempted to secure a meeting with him and other Whig peers, though this was refused. They were there again on 7 May for further legal argument.<sup>543</sup> Shaftesbury attempted to forestall the trial, attending the proceedings of the Middlesex Grand Jury on 16 May to argue that Fitzharris would be a witness to allegations about the fire of 1666. He brought forward a new witness, seeking to persuade the crown to pardon the man before his identity was revealed. It turned out to be an already discredited Irishman. On 8 June, Kent, Salisbury, Essex and Shaftesbury tried to persuade the king to see them so that they could solicit the pardon.<sup>544</sup> Fitzharris was found guilty the following day, the trial attended by Shaftesbury and many other Whigs.</p><p>In a last-ditch attempt to seek a pardon, Fitzharris implicated Howard of Escrick, who was arrested shortly afterwards.<sup>545</sup> The government moved more cautiously against Shaftesbury. It collected evidence from the Irish informers via Warcup and arrested one of them, Bryan Haines (Danby wrote to the king that ‘there is no one man of whom my Lord Shaftesbury is so much afraid as of Haines’), and men named by Haines, including Stephen College.<sup>546</sup> Fitzharris and Plunkett were executed on 1 July. On the following day Shaftesbury was dramatically arrested at Thanet House, brought before the council, and committed to the Tower (Prince Rupert, Radnor and Fauconberg avoided signing the order for his committal).<sup>547</sup> After initial visits by Monmouth and Montagu, the king refused permission for him to have visitors other than his servants.</p><p>Shaftesbury’s and Howard of Escrick’s habeas corpus petition, presented on 6 July, was heard on 8 July, and turned down: Salisbury, Clare, Essex, Macclesfield, Grey, Lord Russell, Ralph Montagu and Sir Scrope Howe offered, equally unsuccessfully, to stand bail.<sup>548</sup> It was heard immediately after the Whig grand jury (eleven of whom lived close to Shaftesbury in Aldersgate) presented its <em>ignoramus </em>verdict on the charge against Stephen College, in a case that (because it rested on the same witnesses) had obvious implications for any prospects of success in the charges against Shaftesbury.<sup>549</sup> After the government’s success in transferring the proceedings against College to Oxford, it contemplated doing the same with Shaftesbury’s trial.<sup>550</sup> In the course of July there were several rumours of ‘wonderful materials’ to promote the conviction of Shaftesbury and Howard of Escrick, including evidence from the Prince of Orange and other peers.<sup>551</sup> Efforts were made after College’s trial and conviction on 17/18 Aug. to secure a confession from him that would incriminate Shaftesbury.<sup>552</sup></p><p>The two peers made a second habeas corpus application when the Old Bailey sessions began on 31 Aug., though they were referred back to the king’s bench, where proceedings would not begin for another two months.<sup>553</sup> Shaftesbury was reported on 10 Sept. as making fun of the judges, implying that they would be at risk when a new Parliament sat.<sup>554</sup> While further evidence was sought against him, involving the arrests of his secretary, Wilson, and his ‘comrade’ Edward Clarke<sup>‡ </sup>in mid-Sept., and there was talk of a new Parliament which would banish Shaftesbury, Howard of Escrick and Danby as well, Shaftesbury was also prepared to negotiate. <sup>555</sup> In a note delivered to Arlington on 28 Sept. he offered to go into internal exile in Dorset or to his plantation in Carolina in exchange for a pardon, though in typically Shaftesburian fashion he also asked for £3000 which the king had promised him years before. The king dismissed the proposal. <sup>556</sup></p><p>There was much speculation on whether the approach was a sign of the strength or weakness of Shaftesbury’s case.<sup>557</sup> Francis Charlton (already impaneled as foreman of the grand jury nominated by sheriffs Pilkington and Shute at the beginning of October), told Russell on 12 Oct. that Shaftesbury would be tried in Oxford and described the debate among the judges over the propriety of holding a treason trial outside London.<sup>558</sup> Shaftesbury and Howard of Escrick, along with Wilson, the Whig solicitor Edward Whittaker and foreman of the College jury John Wilmore, made renewed habeas corpus applications to the Old Bailey on 17 Oct. Shaftesbury received advice on his petition from William Williams<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>559</sup> It was again rejected – the petitioners were told to apply to king’s bench at the beginning of the next term on 24 Oct. Good news for Shaftesbury, however, was that the grand jury (despite successful challenges by the government to two of its members, including Charlton) returned ignoramus verdicts on a treason charge against John Rouse, one of Shaftesbury’s instruments in gathering evidence about the Irish plot.<sup>560</sup> A pamphlet published in October, <em>No Protestant Plot</em>, comprehensively rubbished the evidence for Shaftesbury’s guilt. Although the earl of Huntingdon’s decision to make his peace with the king was thought by some to involve the provision of more evidence against Shaftesbury, by the time of the opening of the term the attorney general was said to be dubious about the prospects of getting a committal. The response to their new habeas corpus petition was that they would be freed if no indictment had been made against them by the end of the term. The government had still not overcome the legal obstacles to transferring the trial from London, though speculation on the subject continued well into November.<sup>561</sup> Not until the middle of the month was a commission of oyer and terminer issued, to be held on 24 Nov. The government seems largely to have given up hope that the grand jury would return a true bill, though it planned to extract some propaganda advantage from the exposure of the evidence: in the meantime, Shaftesbury’s allies published information concerning the arrest and interrogation of Capt. Henry Wilkinson showing how the government’s agents had tried to get him to provide false evidence against Shaftesbury.<sup>562</sup></p><p>With some of the most prominent city Whigs and dissenters, including Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>, John Dubois<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Papillon<sup>‡</sup>, represented on the jury impanelled by the City sheriffs, the prospects for a true bill were negligible.<sup>563</sup> Monmouth, Essex, Russell, Montagu, Sir Thomas Armstrong and ‘many more of that party’ turned up to the trial on the 24th. Large crowds, encouraged by Oates, intimidated the witnesses as they made their way to the court. One of them (Dugdale) made himself scarce. The trial turned into a circus, with the foreman of the jury and Papillon requesting that the evidence be heard in private, and protesting when the lord chief justice turned them down. The indictment claimed that on 18 Mar. 1681, in advance of the sitting of the Oxford Parliament, Shaftesbury had planned an insurrection and had talked about deposing the king. The evidence included a draft bill for association found among Shaftesbury’s papers, and a series of largely dubious witnesses. The ignoramus verdict, widely anticipated, was greeted with loud enthusiasm in the courtroom and outside it: the celebrations that followed – bonfires, the ringing of bells, demands that the occupants of coaches should drink Shaftesbury’s health – were threatening and violent.<sup>564</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was not released immediately. On 28 Nov. he and his fellow prisoners appeared at king’s bench – crowded as usual, the audience including Monmouth, the recent Member of the House of Commons Richard Savage*, Lord Colchester (later 4th earl Rivers), and Lord O’Brien as well as the men whom he named as his sureties – demanding to be discharged from the Tower. Although he was represented by William Williams, Shaftesbury himself spoke to comment on the quality of the evidence against him, though he was cut short by the lord chief justice, who reminded him that College had been successfully prosecuted even after a London ignoramus verdict. The court agreed only to release them on bail, and Shaftesbury nominated Monmouth, Sir William Cowper, Sir John Sydenham and Francis Charlton as his sureties (some sources add Montagu as well). On his release measures were taken to prevent further demonstrations in the City. Shaftesbury left for Lord Paget’s house.<sup>565</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was said to have entered actions of £80,000 against Richard Graham, principal of Clifford’s Inn and solicitor to the Treasury, a Mr Marriott, the queen’s solicitor, and David Fitzgerald for suborning witnesses against him.<sup>566</sup> He followed with an action for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> for £15,000 against a London mercer named Craddock, who had said he was a traitor, and there were actions against other of his accusers, Booth and Baines.<sup>567</sup> He celebrated his legal victory and release with a dinner at Skinners’ Hall on 14 Dec., and a medal struck in his honour (the occasion for Dryden’s satire <em>The Medal</em>) though as the reaction gathered pace with legal moves against dissenters and the charter of the City of London and with a newly energized government propaganda machine galvanized into action there was little else to celebrate.<sup>568</sup></p><h2><em>The Rye House Plot</em></h2><p>There is little evidence of Shaftesbury’s activities in the months after his release until his and Howard of Escrick’s formal discharge from bail on 13 Feb. 1682.<sup>569</sup> There may have been a meeting with the fugitive Archibald Campbell, earl of Argyll [S] in the early months of 1682 (Grey’s evidence of 1685 said that Argyll had asked him for a large sum of money), and Shaftesbury was probably closely involved in the production of Whig responses to the Tory addresses sparked by the government’s publication of the association scheme found among Shaftesbury’s papers.<sup>570</sup> It was assumed, at least by some of those who responded to it, that <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend, about Abhorrers and Addressors, etc.</em> was the work of Shaftesbury himself.<sup>571</sup> James’s return to England on 10 Mar. sparked off new activity on the part of the Whigs. On 17 Mar. Monmouth, Shaftesbury, Essex, Howard of Escrick and Grey of Warke and others dined with Sheriff Pilkington, and a little while later with Sheriff Shute, possibly beginning to plan for the midsummer shrievalty elections. The king commanded the Tory lord mayor not to dine with the Whig peers.<sup>572</sup> The earl of Anglesey dined with Shaftesbury on 21 Mar.<sup>573</sup> On 28 Mar. Shaftesbury, with business partners including the earl of Craven and the earl of Bath, held a well-publicized meeting concerning a scheme to encourage settlers in Carolina.<sup>574</sup> The return of York to the capital on 8 Apr. was marked by loyalist demonstrations including the burning of Shaftesbury in effigy. York was the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Artillery Company on 20 Apr.; the Whigs planned a rival public event with Monmouth, Shaftesbury, Essex and others, originally for the same date, but it was cancelled at the king’s insistence. Shaftesbury wanted to go ahead; his colleagues thought better of it, though they nevertheless organized a private party at Lord Colchester’s house accompanied by public demonstrations.<sup>575</sup></p><p>In early May, Shaftesbury was forced to withdraw his <em>scandalum magnatum </em>actions against Craddock, Graham, Warcup and others when Craddock persuaded the lord chief justice that the case could not be fairly heard in London. Shaftesbury seems to have cherished hopes of prosecuting Warcup in London for a while.<sup>576</sup> Later evidence suggests that his plans were beginning to go much further. According to a late 1685 confession of Nathaniel Wade, during the brief illness of the king at the end of May, he and John Ayloffe were summoned by Shaftesbury to Sir William Cowper’s house and told about plans for an insurrection in London. The plans were abandoned on the king’s recovery, to Shaftesbury’s annoyance.<sup>577</sup> In the course of the turbulent proceedings surrounding the shrieval election from 24 June to 15 July, the resignation of one of those elected, and the further election on 19 Sept., there was some evidence of a weakening of Whig resolve. Various of Shaftesbury’s allies, including Salisbury, Winchester and Monmouth, either made their peace with the court, or made arrangements to go into voluntary exile. Ormond on 25 Aug. wrote of his impression that Monmouth appeared to have broken off his correspondence with Shaftesbury and Montagu.<sup>578</sup> Shaftesbury himself may (as before) have been prepared to negotiate: John Nalson was told in mid-September of information from Danby that Shaftesbury had contacted York ‘for a reconciliation’. York had referred him to the king.<sup>579</sup></p><p>All this was possibly misinformation. At the same time, Monmouth was making preparations for his visit to the west Midlands, and Robert Murray was alleged to be in Paris on Shaftesbury’s business.<sup>580</sup> Most of the evidence collected by the government about the Rye House Plot dates its origins to the height of the shrieval elections. Grey of Warke’s 1685 written confession stated that the project was initiated in late June at Thanet House between him, Monmouth, Russell and Shaftesbury, and it was Shaftesbury who first proposed a rising; after ‘tedious discussions’ they decided to foment unrest in London, Cheshire and the West. Grey recounted how Armstrong came to London – probably on 22 Sept. – following Monmouth’s apprehension on his way back from Cheshire. They went to seek Shaftesbury’s advice on Monmouth’s behalf, and found him in the garden of Thanet House with Col. Rumsey. Having consulted with others in the City, Shaftesbury met Armstrong again at Southampton House with Lord Russell, and advised him to tell Monmouth to return to Cheshire and start an uprising. Shaftesbury claimed to have supporters at Wapping ready to rise. Russell protested that they were unprepared, and argued about the aims of a rising: Russell thought that Shaftesbury’s allies were ‘for a common-wealth’.<sup>581</sup> When Monmouth himself arrived in London on 23 Sept., Shaftesbury, with Herbert, Russell, Charlton, possibly Essex and others visited him.<sup>582</sup> According, again, to Grey’s confession, a few days later, after Monmouth had been released, he, Grey, and Russell visited Shaftesbury, who bitterly complained about Monmouth’s failure to return to Cheshire. He insisted on a rising in London, responding to Russell’s objections ‘in the greatest passion I ever saw’, that ‘patience would be our destruction, and that if we did not rise in a week at farthest, we were all undone, for he had made such preparation for a rising in London, as would infallibly be discovered if time were lost’. They all considered Shaftesbury to be ‘half distracted’, and left him: it was, wrote Grey, the last time he saw the earl. Other accounts, deriving from Russell and Essex, suggest the essential truth of Grey’s version of this meeting.<sup>583</sup></p><p>At the very end of September, after the new Tory sheriffs were sworn in, Shaftesbury went into hiding, amid rumours of new evidence being collected against him.<sup>584</sup> According to the unreliable evidence of Lord Howard of Escrick at his trial, he saw Shaftesbury on 1 Oct. in London, who talked to him again of his plans for a rising, complaining bitterly of Monmouth and Russell. When Howard conveyed this to Monmouth, the duke was appalled; Howard, however, could not persuade Shaftesbury to abandon his plans. Evidence that Shaftesbury met Monmouth or went to Cassiobury House for a meeting around 8 Oct. is difficult to corroborate, and seems unlikely. The equally unreliable post-1685 evidence of Robert Ferguson suggests that during October Shaftesbury, abandoning any prospect of working with Monmouth, decided to work for a republic, through the assassination of the king and York. According to Grey and other sources, a further meeting was initiated by Monmouth around the beginning of November, at which Ferguson, as Shaftesbury’s representative, again urged a rising, and talked up the forces he could raise in the city. But no arrangements appear to have been made, and Shaftesbury must have made up his mind to leave the country. On 11 Nov. he transferred property to trustees (Sir William Cowper, John Hoskins, Edward Clarke and Thomas Stringer) for the benefit of his wife. Before he left he met Essex and Salisbury, Essex observing to Burnet that ‘fear, anger and disappointment had wrought so much on him that… he was much broke in his thoughts: his notions were wild and impracticable’. <sup>585</sup></p><h2><em>Achitophel</em></h2><p>Shaftesbury sailed for Holland around 19 Nov., landing at Brill and moving on to Rotterdam, and then Amsterdam, where he stayed for a while with the merchant Abraham Kick. At the end of December he became ill. He died on 21/31 Jan. 1683, having made a will on the 17th, making his wife his executrix and with small bequests to Robert Ferguson and to his servants.<sup>586</sup> The body was returned to Wimborne in accordance with his wishes, and buried on 25 Feb., dressed smartly with a new wig, in a coffin that made the face visible.<sup>587</sup></p><p>Well before his death Shaftesbury had become a demon of Tory mythology, ‘Achitophel’ in Dryden’s epic poem of the crisis, <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em>. He continued to be so after it. Effigies of Oates and him were burnt at Temple Bar on 5 Nov. 1683 in a counterpart to the usual anti-popery demonstrations.<sup>588</sup> Ormond, though, reflected that Shaftesbury’s death was ‘neither lamented by his friends nor rejoiced at by his enemies’.<sup>589</sup> The remark is indicative of Shaftesbury’s equivocal position in the leadership of the Whigs. Mark Knights has argued that many of the comments magnifying Shaftesbury’s power were made after the earl’s trial in 1681 and the reality of his power is difficult to extricate from the propaganda version peddled by the Tories.<sup>590</sup> Yet a narrative about Shaftesbury’s ambition, untrustworthiness and the danger that he posed was established long before 1681. It was perhaps based as much on an unparalleled gift for self-publicity as on the revulsion of Tories. It was certainly the case that Shaftesbury’s claim to be sole leader of a party was weak. Shaftesbury was an improbable party leader: slyly arrogant, secretive and often impossible to read, he could be an infuriating and an uneasy colleague, who elicited little trust from other politicians who worked with him, other than a small coterie of acolytes, often young and relatively unimportant peers like Howard of Escrick or Grey of Warke. His exact position on many issues – most notably the exclusion of the duke of York – remains mired in ambiguity and the stuff of historiographical controversy.<sup>591</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury’s ambiguity, which enabled him to sail so close to the wind for so long without actually capsizing, seems to have been lost at the end. His anti-catholicism was perhaps stronger than that of any of his colleagues at court in the 1660s and 1670s, and it seems likely that he genuinely believed in the existence of the Plot which he pursued with an almost fanatical determination: Grey’s account of the conversation they had in 1681 implies not cynical manipulation but a conviction both of the reality of the Plot and of the king’s own involvement, as well as an increasing frustration with the compromising behavior of his colleagues.<sup>592</sup></p><p>Despite this, for most of his career Shaftesbury was clearly not only an eloquent and forceful speaker, particularly in the House of Lords, but also an astonishingly successful political strategist and organizer, with an exceptional talent for making the political weather. There can be little doubt that Shaftesbury orchestrated much of the business of the Plot, arranging for Oates to be supported and devoting enormous efforts to uncovering conspiracy in Ireland and elsewhere.<sup>593</sup> Perhaps most remarkable was his inventive and unrelenting use of the Lords as a platform during the later 1670s: he pioneered the use of the protest as a propaganda weapon and coordinated protests, speeches and publications to maximize the impact of his statements in the House. Though he was not the only one who did this, certainly contemporaries singled him out for it: one of them, Lord Keeper Guilford commented on how he and others arranged to print their protests, ‘and so had a good handle of moving seditious matter with authority’, as well as impunity.<sup>594</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was adept at reaching a popular audience and had a large and significant following both in the Commons and in the City, but the House of Lords was central to his politics. He spent a huge amount of time there, both in the chamber and in its committees, through which he pursued a series of interests, from the encouragement of domestic and foreign trade and barriers to foreign imports, to the wool trade (it is notable that a pamphlet on improving wool manufacture published in 1669 was published by Shaftesbury’s favourite publisher, Francis Smith), to legal reform and the registration of the gentry.<sup>595</sup> But more specifically, along with Buckingham, Holles and others, Shaftesbury was one of a number of peers who were assertive about the privileges of the peerage and the position of the House as the fulcrum of the constitution, a position most fully defined in <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em> and by Shaftesbury himself in his speech of 20 Oct. 1675. Shaftesbury’s aristocratic biases seemed to grow as he became more dismissive of a House of Commons open to manipulation by the court and prone to corruption in its claims of privilege. He may, ultimately, have changed his mind with the Lords’ (and especially the bishops’) obstruction of a settlement of the crisis during the Parliaments of 1679, 1680 and 1681. Lord Grey of Warke in his confession recalls him saying:</p><blockquote><p>That we had committed a great error in being so long a screen between the king and the House of Commons, who once were ready and willing to have laid him open to his people, and had done it, if they had not been prevented, and that chiefly by himself (of which he heartily repented).<sup>596</sup></p></blockquote><p>Indeed, Shaftesbury’s rather surprising weakness as a leader of the movement against the duke of York may well have been a failure both to understand the House of Commons, as he confessed, and to accord it sufficient importance. Widely distrusted as a result of his changes of allegiance from the 1640s to the 1660s and beyond, believed to be a master of dissimulation, Shaftesbury was the easiest figure among the Whigs to hate; for the same reasons, he was among the men least able to lead them.</p> |
P.C.S. |
|
COOPER, Anthony Ashley (1652-99) |
<p><strong><surname>COOPER</surname></strong> (<strong>ASHLEY COOPER</strong>), <strong>Anthony Ashley</strong> (1652–99)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1672-83 Ld. Ashley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 21 Jan. 1683 as 2nd earl of SHAFTESBURY. |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 4 Aug. 1685 |
|
MP Weymouth and Melcombe Regis 1670-9, 1680-3. |
<p>b. 16 Jan. 1652, o. surv. s. and h. of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury and Frances (d.1652), da. of David Cecil<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Exeter. educ. Trinity, Oxf., matric. 1666, MA 1667. m. 1669, Dorothy (d.1698), 3rd. da. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, 3s. 4da. d. 2 Nov. 1699; will 28 Nov. 1690, pr. 23 June 1701.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>V. adm. Dorset 1679, 1685-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. for assessment Dorset, Poole and Wilts. 1673-80, recusants Dorset 1675.</p><p>Mbr. Soc. of Mines Royal 1674.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: Richard Tompson, after Sir Peter Lely, mezzotint, NPG D29420; Sir Peter Lely, oils NPG D13154; NPG D19538.</p> |
<p>The second earl of Shaftesbury (styled Lord Ashley until he succeeded to the earldom) was a disappointment to his illustrious father, being physically and mentally frail. Indeed, shortly before he succeeded to the earldom the unfortunate young man was described by Dryden as a ‘shapeless lump, like anarchy’.<sup>2</sup> Almost certainly a cipher for his father (at that time chancellor of the exchequer in the Cabal ministry), Ashley was elected to the Commons in 1670, still a minor, for Weymouth. Moderately active in the Lower House, he had helped to secure the passage of the first Test Act in 1673 and was dubbed ‘doubly worthy’ by his father in 1677.</p><p>Shaftesbury took his seat as the earl of Shaftesbury in the Lords on 19 May 1685, the first day of the new king’s Parliament, but his career in the upper House was brief and unremarkable. He sat on only 27 sitting days and was named to just four select committees. Despite his father’s political record he was forecast in 1687 as being in favour of the repeal of the Test Act. At eight separate calls of the House his absence was noted; on three occasions, 28 Oct. 1689, 31 Mar. 1690 and 14 Nov. 1693, he was excused attendance. By the call of the House on 26 Nov. 1694 his absence from illness seems to have been a given. The family ensured the return of his sons at Poole and Weymouth in 1695.</p><p>On 2 Nov. 1699, at the age of only 47, Shaftesbury died at Wimborne St. Giles. His will named his son and heir also named Anthony Ashley Cooper*, who succeeded him as 3rd earl Shaftesbury, as both main beneficiary and executor. The second earl was buried in the family vault at Wimborne.</p> |
B.A. |
|
COOPER, Anthony Ashley (1671-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>COOPER</surname></strong> (<strong>ASHLEY COOPER</strong>), <strong>Anthony Ashley</strong> (1671–1713)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1683-99 Ld. Ashley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 2 Nov. 1699 as 3rd earl of SHAFTESBURY. |
|
First sat 19 Jan. 1700; last sat 10 Dec. 1708 |
|
MP Poole 21 May 1695–1698. |
<p><em>b</em>. 26 Feb. 1671, 1st s. of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Ld. Ashley (later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury) and Lady Dorothy Manners; bro. of Hon. Maurice Ashley<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (Elizabeth Birch) 1675–9; Clapham sch. 1680; Winchester 1683–6; travelled abroad (France, Low Countries, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland) 1686–9. <em>m</em>. 29 Aug. 1709 (with £3,000) Jane (<em>d</em>.1751), da. of Thomas Ewer, of Bushey Hall and the Leas, Watford, Herts. 1s. <em>d</em>. 4 Feb. 1713; <em>will</em> 10 Nov. 1710, pr. 31 Mar.–1 July 1713.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>V.-adm. Dorset 28 June 1701–11 June 1702.</p><p>Freeman, merchant adventurers 1689.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: double portrait (with Maurice Ashley), oil on canvas by J. Closterman, 1700–1, NPG 5308; mezzotint, F. Kyte aft. unknown, NPG D4190; oil on canvas, British school, Shaftesbury Town Hall.</p> |
<p>Even before his accession to the peerage, Shaftesbury, now best known as a literary and philosophical figure and as the patron of John Toland, had been chosen as the bearer of the family flame in preference to his sickly and lacklustre father.<sup>5</sup> Although he inherited his father’s appalling health, he proved to be a significant political broker, taking a personal interest in the various boroughs in Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire in which he exercised an interest.<sup>6</sup> While undoubtedly a Whig, in Parliament he was a maverick, his political philosophy inspired by the Roman republic.</p><p>Towards the end of his life he compiled a set of notes outlining his political credo, admitting to an early interest in the merits of the Tories. For Shaftesbury, both parties had originated as honest associations that sought the country’s best interests, but in time each had been corrupted. By the mid-1690s he had become convinced that the Tories were the more corrupt of the two, causing him to look towards the Whigs.<sup>7</sup> Even so, he remained an independent in every sense of the word, prepared to co-exist with local Tories and to question the leadership of the Junto. As such he proved consistent in his lack of consistency and an ‘archetypal Country Whig’.</p><p>Ashley’s education had been committed to the care of his grandfather Shaftesbury, and early on he came into contact with John Locke.<sup>8</sup> Following the earl’s exile in 1683 he was sent to the Tory-leaning college at Winchester, where he endured a miserable few years before setting out on his continental tour in company with Sir John Cropley<sup>‡</sup>, who was to become a lifelong friend and an important lieutenant in the Commons.<sup>9</sup> On his return from Europe, Ashley was offered a number of seats but he rejected them all, pleading inexperience, and it was not until 1695 that he at last agreed to contest Poole in the by-election triggered by the death of Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>10</sup> Returned once more at the general election a few months later, Ashley retained his seat until 1698 when he stood down on the grounds of ill-health. According to at least one source, it was as a result of his activities at late-night sittings and in committee work that Ashley contracted the asthma that would eventually kill him.<sup>11</sup> Following his decision not to contest his seat, Ashley travelled to Rotterdam, where he stayed with the merchant Benjamin Furly.<sup>12</sup> However, he had returned to England by the following November, when he succeeded to the peerage as 3rd earl of Shaftesbury.</p><p>Although the new earl sought early on to exploit his considerable electoral interest, for the time being the Whig forces in Dorset remained divided as Shaftesbury and the Whig lord lieutenant, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, disliked each other intensely. Shaftesbury took his seat in the House two months after succeeding to the peerage on 19 Jan. 1700, after which he was present on 29 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>13</sup> According to Thomas Birch, this delay in taking his seat was due to Shaftesbury’s employment with overseeing his estates.<sup>14</sup> On 1 Feb. he was reckoned to be a supporter of continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 11 July he was marked ‘O’ in a list of Whig peers, possibly indicating that he was a potential supporter of the new ministry.</p><p>Shaftesbury offered his tacit support to the Tory candidate, Thomas Freke<sup>‡</sup>, in Dorset in January 1701, but he was unsuccessful in attempting to promote challenges at Poole launched by his brother-in-law, Edward Hooper, and by Denis Bond against the sitting members, Sir William Phippard<sup>‡</sup> and William Joliffe<sup>‡</sup>. Even though they were Whigs, Shaftesbury considered the two to be unsuitable as they were only merchants and not gentlemen.<sup>15</sup> Shaftesbury’s brother, Maurice Ashley, was more successful at Weymouth, where he secured one of the four available seats, but given his poor relationship with his brother it seems unlikely that Ashley’s success was owing to Shaftesbury’s intervention.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury took his seat in the House almost a fortnight into the new Parliament, on 18 February. Present thereafter on almost 71 per cent of all sitting days, on 9 May 1701 he wrote to Furly to describe the debates in both Houses about the allies, noting for special mention Henry Paget*, later earl of Uxbridge.<sup>17</sup> The following month he was appointed vice-admiral of Dorset, the only official post of any consequence that he held during his career. On 17 June he voted in favour of acquitting the impeached Whig peer John Somers*, Baron Somers, and six days later he mimicked this by voting to acquit Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, as well.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Shaftesbury was again active in campaigning on behalf of candidates in Dorset and Wiltshire. Having been successful in promoting his former companion Cropley at Shaftesbury, he gloated that he had thereby rescued the town from being entirely Tory and made it once again ‘zealous’. Even so, there appears to have been arrangement with the other member, Edward Nicolson<sup>‡</sup> (a Tory), that held good until 1708.<sup>18</sup> The following month, he was also successful in securing the return of Thomas Trenchard<sup>‡</sup> for the county of Dorset, in succession to the lately deceased Freke. Although he had previously supported Freke, Shaftesbury now celebrated Trenchard’s return ‘in the room of a constant ill vote for the county.’<sup>19</sup> Elsewhere, there was less success. Although Maurice Ashley retained his seat at Weymouth, the remaining seats went to Tories and he subsequently chose to sit for Wiltshire instead.</p><p>Shaftesbury took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701, after which he was present on 47 per cent of all sitting days. The king’s speech to Parliament at the opening of the session proved the inspiration for a pamphlet jointly authored by Toland and Shaftesbury, <em>Paradoxes of State</em>. In it they attributed the nation’s troubles to the ‘insufficiency of our hasty bill of rights’, while being careful to assert their faith in the king.<sup>20</sup> Shaftesbury was also interested in the changing character of the Country party, communicating to Furly his thoughts about several of the principal parliamentarians, among them Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. Although at this point Shaftesbury considered Harley still to be ‘ours at bottom’, he continued to reflect on the reasons why he had thrown in his lot with the Tories:</p><blockquote><p>I cannot call him truly a man of virtue: for then he had not been lost to us by any disobligation or ill-usage which he has had sufficient. He is truly what is called in the world a Great Man and it is by him alone that that party has raised itself to such a greatness as almost to destroy us.</p></blockquote><p>At the same time, he rejoiced in the activities of the Tory party in censuring Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, not only because their actions served to confirm Peterborough as a supporter of the Whig interest, but also because it demonstrated to ‘all those of our party who tamper with them, what they have to expect’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was unsuccessful in his efforts to persuade Freke’s son, also Thomas Freke<sup>‡</sup>, to contest Dorchester in February, following Trenchard’s decision to sit for the county instead. On 8 Mar. he joined the majority of members of the House in being nominated a manager of the conference considering the death of King William and the accession of the new queen. That summer, he joined a number of Whigs in being put out of office and in July he was unsuccessful in his efforts to pair Trenchard with Thomas Erle<sup>‡</sup>, which resulted in the Tories carrying both seats in Dorset. Earlier in the year Shaftesbury had confided to Furly his concerns for the Whigs, damaged as they were by Harley’s apostasy. ‘It is he and he alone that wounds us’, he had insisted, ‘for all the strength of the Tories or church party is nothing but by that force which he brings over to them from our side.’<sup>22</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury took his seat in the new Parliament on 7 Dec. 1702, but he was only marked as being present for three days before quitting the House for the remainder of the session. On 1 Jan. 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be a likely opponent of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. (although missing from the attendance list that day) he was noted among those who had voted in favour of adhering the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. That November, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, echoed Nottingham’s previous assessment, but with the gloss that Shaftesbury was by then ‘absent … possibly for some time’. Poor health was almost certainly the reason for the earl’s prolonged absence from the House. In 1704 he travelled to Holland once more and, although he was said to have returned in August, he failed to resume his place in the House, choosing instead to register his proxy with Somers on 25 October.<sup>23</sup> On 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House.</p><p>Noted a supporter of the Hanoverian succession in April 1705, soon after this Shaftesbury was approached by Awnsham Churchill<sup>‡</sup> for his interest at Poole, but he declined to act on the grounds of the ill treatment he had received from the town during his previous attempt to set up Hooper.<sup>24</sup> At about the same time, Somers also approached Shaftesbury seeking his support for Maurice Ashley’s candidature in Wiltshire in partnership with William Ashe. Somers also took the opportunity to acknowledge being entrusted with Shaftesbury’s proxy, which he had so far made use of only on one occasion: the division over the occasional conformity bill. Somers concluded that he would be ‘infinitely pleased if your health would allow you to come and vacate it’.<sup>25</sup> In the event, Ashley chose not to contest Wiltshire, where he had been unsuccessful in the summer of 1702, Ashe was driven into third place and, although Shaftesbury rallied to resume his seat in the House on 9 Nov., the following day he again registered his proxy with Somers, which was vacated by the close. On 12 Nov. he was again excused at a call of the House. The following year found Shaftesbury once again covering his continued absence with a proxy entrusted to Somers.</p><p>In spite of his neglect of Parliament, Shaftesbury continued to maintain a high profile and remained committed to the cultivation of his interest. In 1706 he attempted to clear the way for Whig candidates in Dorset by recommending that a Tory be pricked sheriff and the same year he made a start on repaying £7,000 that he had borrowed three years before towards electioneering expenses. In 1707 he turned his attention to the town of Shaftesbury by providing the local school with an endowment of £30 per annum. That April, he wrote to Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> to assure him of his assistance in Hampshire, insisting that he would be ‘sorry to hear the honest interest divided anywhere: but in any case as far as I have power shall be glad of any occasion to serve you’.<sup>26</sup> During the summer, the corporation of Poole also made a concerted effort to woo Shaftesbury by promising him them their backing for Hooper. Although Shaftesbury accepted their ‘kind, free offer’ gratefully and Sunderland undertook ‘to do all in my power to serve this gentleman’, the Junto leadership as a whole was concerned that the corporation’s offer involved setting up Hooper with William Lewen<sup>‡</sup> (a Tory).<sup>27</sup> In November 1707 the earl’s resurgent political interest enabled him to secure the nomination for the next recorder of Shaftesbury. He was, unsurprisingly, noted a Whig in a list of May 1708. The same month he was forced to appeal to Somers for his assistance in shoring up Hooper’s candidacy at Poole, but neither Somers nor Sunderland were able to declare themselves able to exert any interest in the area.<sup>28</sup> Left unsupported, Hooper was defeated and the seat went to his Tory rivals, Lewen and Thomas Ridge<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>By the autumn of 1708 Shaftesbury had attracted the attention of the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, who employed a mutual friend, Robert Molesworth<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Molesworth [I]), to attempt to recruit him for the ministry.<sup>29</sup> There ensued a friendly correspondence between Shaftesbury and Molesworth, which was later published, but Shaftesbury’s uncertain health stood in the way of all but the most tacit support for ‘our lord’ Godolphin.<sup>30</sup> Missing at the opening of the new Parliament, on 20 Nov. Shaftesbury wrote to Molesworth from Chelsea expressing his pleasure at the improvement in relations between Godolphin and Somers, but a few days later he was compelled to retreat to Cropley’s seat at Beachworth in Surrey.<sup>31</sup> He rallied to return to town the following month and sat for the final time on 10 December. He then seems to have returned to Cropley’s house, where he remained until at least the middle of January.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Clearly exasperated by his dealings with Poole, in February 1709 Shaftesbury refused to respond to George Lewen’s request for his assistance in the town, which had been badly affected by the loss of Newfoundland. Although Shaftesbury acknowledged that the loss of the colony was one that he deplored ‘as the greatest blow to our trade and seafaring interest in general, and in particular to our town of Poole’, he complained that ‘by the unkindness and indirectness of my pretended friends’ there his reputation had been damaged and his interest wrecked.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Disappointed in his efforts to marshal his local interest, in August 1709 Shaftesbury turned instead to family politics, with a resolution that he should at last marry. He seems to have been considering the move for some time. Rumours that he had married Lady Elizabeth Hastings had circulated in September 1707, though this proved not to be the case.<sup>34</sup> In 1708 he had embarked on negotiations with John Vaughan*, 3rd earl of Carbery [I] (2nd Baron Vaughan), for a match with Carbery’s daughter, Anne. By June 1709 Shaftesbury had given up on the Carbery marriage and resolved to look elsewhere. His eventual choice of bride, Jane Ewer, granddaughter to Henry Montagu<sup>†</sup>, earl of Manchester, but the daughter of a merchant of only modest means, was met with dismay by some of his friends. Shaftesbury justified his choice, explaining how he had renewed his acquaintance with ‘a sober good family … of good extract and good principles’ and had ‘determined to make my choice here, where I have nothing deficient but fortune only’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Shaftesbury was noted as ‘absent in the country’ at the time of the trial of Henry Sacheverell.<sup>36</sup> That summer he sold his town house at Chelsea to the brother-in-law of John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fermanagh [I], for £1,300 and conveyed the remainder of his estates to Cropley, Sir Robert Eyre and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> (later Earl Stanhope) in trust.<sup>37</sup> The reason for the sale of the Chelsea house and of the settlement of the estate was probably not because of any particular financial difficulties but because of ill-health. He appears to have resolved to retreat from the foul air of London to the comparatively fresh climes of Surrey and wished to resign the management of his property to others. Despite his previously sympathetic attitude towards Harley, by the advent of the new ministry in October 1710, Shaftesbury had long-since distanced himself from Harley’s brand of Country Whiggism and that month he was noted by Harley as a likely opponent of the new administration. On 9 Oct. Cropley proved to be one of a number of Whig candidates to suffer the changed circumstances when he was defeated at Shaftesbury, his discomfiture no doubt exacerbated by Shaftesbury’s retreat from active campaigning through ill-health.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Although Shaftesbury played no further active part in the House or in electioneering, he continued to make a mark on politics and as a natural philosopher. In 1708 he had commenced publishing a series of works including the letter addressed to Somers, <em>Concerning Enthusiasm</em>. 1711 witnessed the publication of his <em>Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions Times</em>, which, among others things, caused shock by propounding the heterodox view that an innate sense of right and wrong was something that developed without divine assistance.<sup>39</sup> Aside from putting his efforts into print, Shaftesbury also remained willing to use what remaining interest he had on behalf of his friends. His dislike of the Harley regime did not prevent him from approaching his old associate for his assistance on behalf of his kinsman, Thomas Micklethwaite<sup>‡</sup> both directly and through Cropley’s mediation.<sup>40</sup> Curiously, on 20 Feb. 1711 Shaftesbury was recorded as being the recipient of the proxy of George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan. Cardigan may have been unaware that Shaftesbury had no intention of attending the session. Equally this may have a scribal error: indeed it seems more likely that the intended recipient was Cardigan’s kinsman, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury.</p><p>By the summer of 1711 Shaftesbury’s health, precarious for the last half dozen years, was in ruins. Certain that another winter in England would be the end of him, he resolved instead to seek a cure abroad.<sup>41</sup> In July it was reported that he had embarked for Calais with the intention of making for Montpelier.<sup>42</sup> From there he continued his journey into Italy, eventually settling at Naples. From his exile he viewed with concern the wasted condition of the Whigs, who seemed able to field no-one – except perhaps the enfeebled Somers – capable of challenging Harley (now promoted earl of Oxford).<sup>43</sup></p><p>Weakened by his exertions, Shaftesbury finally succumbed to his condition in February 1713. His body was embalmed and shipped back to England. He had made his will soon after his sale of Chelsea, eager ‘to preserve the peace of my family and to prevent all differences and controversies about my estate after my death’. In it he nominated Eyre, Cropley and Stanhope as his executors and made a series of bequests, including annuities amounting to £305 and gifts of £450. He also made provision for the erection of a monument to the memory of his grandfather in the church at Shaftesbury.<sup>44</sup> He was succeeded in the peerage by his son, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 4th earl of Shaftesbury, then not quite two years old.<sup>45</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COOPER, Anthony Ashley (1711-71) |
<p><strong><surname>COOPER</surname></strong> (<strong>ASHLEY COOPER</strong>), <strong>Anthony Ashley</strong> (1711–71)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1711-13 Ld. Ashley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Feb. 1713 (a minor) as 4th earl of SHAFTESBURY |
|
First sat 9 Feb. 1732; last sat 14 May 1770 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Feb. 1711, o.s. and h. of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury and Jane, da. of Thomas Ewer of Bushey Hall, Herts. <em>educ</em>. New Coll. Oxf., matric. 1724. <em>m</em>. (1) 12 Mar. 1725, Susanna (<em>d</em>.1758), da. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd earl of Gainsborough; (2) 1759, Mary, da. of Jacob Bouverie<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Folkestone, and sis. of William Bouverie<sup>†</sup>, earl of Radnor, 1s. <em>d</em>. 27 May 1771; <em>will</em> 17 Mar. 1769, pr. 8 June 1771.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1761.</p><p>Mbr. Common Council of Georgia, 1733; recorder, Shaftesbury 1756; high steward, Dorchester 1757; gov. Levant Co. 1766-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Brig. gen. Dorset Mil. 1761.</p><p>Ld. lt., Dorset 1734-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1754; FSA 1767.</p> |
|
<p>Succeeding to the earldom as a minor, Shaftesbury’s political and parliamentary career as a Whig in opposition to Robert Walpole*, earl of Orford, will be examined in later phases of this work. Shaftesbury died on 27 May 1771 and was succeeded in the earldom by his son Anthony Ashley Cooper<sup>†</sup> as 5th earl of Shaftesbury.</p> |
B.A. |
|
CORNWALLIS, Charles (1632-73) |
<p><strong><surname>CORNWALLIS</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1632–73)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 7 Jan. 1662 as 2nd Bar. CORNWALLIS |
|
First sat 3 Feb. 1662; last sat 29 Mar. 1673 |
|
MP Eye, 1660, 1661-7 Jan. 1662 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 19 Apr. 1632, 1st s. of Sir Frederick Cornwallis*, (later Bar. Cornwallis), and 1st w. Elizabeth, da. of Sir John Ashburnham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Ashburnham, Suss. <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>m</em>. 1651, Margaret (<em>d</em>. 6 Mar. 1669), da. of Sir Thomas Playsted, of Arlington, Suss., 8s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>), 2da. KB 23 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 13 Apr. 1673; admon. 6 May 1673-21 July 1686.</p> |
<p>Capt. of militia horse, Suff. Apr. 1660; commr. assessment, Suff. Aug. 1660-<em>d</em>., Mdx. 1661-2.</p><p>Alderman, Thetford by 1669-?<em>d</em>.; steward, honour of Eye 1671-<em>d</em>.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
<p>A firm royalist, Cornwallis was elected to the Convention in March 1660 on the family interest at Eye. Prior to his succession to the title, Cornwallis’s career is easily confused with that of his cousin, also Charles Cornwallis<sup>‡</sup>, who succeeded him at Eye. Relatively anonymous in the Convention, Cornwallis became ‘very active’ on behalf of the court in the Cavalier Parliament as both committee-man and teller, but his career in the Commons ended abruptly when he succeeded his father in January 1662.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Cornwallis took his seat in the Lords on 3 Feb. 1662, nine months into its first session. Over the course of his career in the Lords, he was named to numerous committees and attended seven out of ten sessions for more than 60 per cent of sittings; in other respects, his parliamentary career is less well documented. He does not appear to have registered his proxy during absences from the House and his voting behaviour was rarely recorded. He was noted as absent at three calls of the House (1 Oct. 1666, 29 Oct. 1667 and 26 Oct. 1669), but no excuse was provided.</p><p>During his first session in the Lords, Cornwallis attended nearly 16 per cent of sittings and was named to ten select committees. On 3 Mar. 1662 he was given leave to be absent for some time. This allowed him to attend the assizes at Bury St Edmunds where the Lowestoft witches were tried. The presiding judge, Sir Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup>, asked Cornwallis and two other gentlemen, Sir Edmund Bacon and serjeant John Kelyng<sup>‡</sup> to undertake an experiment to test the victims’ claims: though they concluded that ‘the business was a mere imposture’, the witches were nevertheless found guilty and hanged.<sup>3</sup> Cornwallis resumed his place on 8 May after which he continued to attend until the prorogation.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Cornwallis took his seat at the opening of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present for 69 per cent of sittings. Although present on the attendance list on the first day, he was not among those named to the committees for privileges or the Journal. He was named to the committee for petitions on 25 Feb. but was then present for just four days in March. Having returned to his place on 9 Apr., he was added to the committee for Coppleston’s bill, vesting the lands of the former Cromwellian sheriff of Devon in the hands of, among others, his kinsman, Charles Cornwallis. He was then regular in his attendance for the remainder of the session during which he was named to a further dozen select committees. On 19 June Cornwallis presented to the House a certificate from the sheriffs of Norfolk and Suffolk certifying the correct mileage between Yarmouth and Lowestoft and their fulfilment of a Lords’ order to set up boundary posts.</p><p>In July 1663 Cornwallis was forecast by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as a likely opponent of the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.<sup>5</sup> He was in the House on 10 July when Bristol exhibited his charges and again on 14 July when the House voted to agree with the opinion of the judges that the attempt was invalid. On 25 July he registered his protest against the resolution to amend the Act of Uniformity.</p><p>Cornwallis returned to the House on 16 Mar. 1664 for the first day of the spring 1664 session and was present in total for 87 per cent of sittings. He was named to the usual committees for petitions, privileges and for the Journal and to nine select committees. That he was active on the Journal committee is indicated by the fact that he was one of those to sign off the account of proceedings on 13 May. Cornwallis took his place once more two weeks into the winter 1664 parliamentary session and thereafter attended 76 per cent of sittings, during which he was named to 25 select committees.</p><p>On 18 Feb. 1665 Cornwallis insisted on his privilege in favour of his servant John Goldsmith, who had been arrested at the suit of Henry Shugforth, Philip Barber and Robert Clarke despite their knowledge that Goldsmith was in Cornwallis’s employ. They were taken into custody but discharged on the 28th through the intervention of Cornwallis himself. On 25 Feb. Cornwallis reported from the committee on the bill to repeal part of an act concerning prize goods, which had been presided over the previous day by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Cornwallis failed to attend the session that assembled in Oxford in October 1665 and (like a number of his colleagues) was missing from the opening days of the session that gathered back at Westminster in the autumn of 1666. He took his place on 19 Oct., a month after the session’s opening but having missed just 17 days of business. He proceeded to attend 64 per cent of sittings, was added to the committee for privileges and named to 18 select committees. On 23 Jan. 1667 he registered his protest against the rejection of a clause (which would allow an appeal to the House) in the judicature bill on disputes concerning houses burnt down during the Fire of London, and on 25 Jan. he was one of those appointed to examine a number of merchants concerning the seizure of contraband French goods. Arriving 11 days after the start of the October 1667 session, Cornwallis proceeded to attend 80 per cent of sittings; he was named to 22 select committees, including the committee on the better execution of laws concerning the price of wines, to which he was added on 24 Oct., and the bill for taxing adventurers in the Fens, to which he was added on 13 December.</p><p>On 10 Dec. 1667 Lady Cornwallis exercised her privilege when it was claimed on oath that one of her servants (Mary Horton) had been arrested by a bailiff despite his knowledge that it was contrary to parliamentary privilege. The bailiff, Peter Bolingham, was arrested and summoned to appear at the bar of the House. On 26 Mar. 1668 Cornwallis was given leave to be absent from the House for four to five days (he returned on 6 April) but this did not prevent him from being named to the committee for the bill for indemnifying the late sheriffs of the City of London and warden of the Fleet prison over a breakout staged by prisoners at the time of the Great Fire. On 9 May he attended the House for the last time that session, missing the last ten months of business.</p><p>Cornwallis’s early departure was presumably related to the anticipated visit of the king to his seat at Culford.<sup>7</sup> In July he was involved in an unsavoury affair during his attendance on the king at Newmarket. According to Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, he tried to procure for the king the daughter of a local parson; she fled and was said to have committed suicide.<sup>8</sup> The episode seems not to have harmed Cornwallis’ standing at court. He was again in attendance on 8 Oct. when the king undertook an inspection at Harwich accompanied by several of the nobility including James*, duke of York, and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Cornwallis missed the first three weeks of the autumn 1669 session but having taken his seat proceeded to attend three-quarters of all sitting days. He was, though, named to only three select committees. His petition for the office of the high steward of Eye (formerly granted by the late queen mother) was referred to the treasury commissioners the same month.<sup>10</sup> It was eventually granted in 1671.</p><p>Cornwallis returned to the chamber on 17 Feb. 1670 for the third day of the new parliamentary session and was added to the committees for privileges and petitions. Thereafter he attended 64 per cent of sittings during which he was named to approximately 39 select committees. On 28 Mar. he registered his protest against the passage of the divorce bill for John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland). The following day he was named to a subcommittee detailed with the task of overseeing the razing from the House’s records of the proceedings relating to the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford.<sup>11</sup> On 9 Apr., after the House received a report on the various procedures in trials of inheritances, it was ordered that Cornwallis should be one of those lords to consult with the barons of the court of exchequer. The committee was to determine how to settle matters of difference in court proceedings and report back to the House after the recess. Cornwallis took part in the funeral procession for George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, on 30 April.<sup>12</sup> On 12 May he was one of those to subscribe an order requiring the attendance of several of the House’s officers at the next meeting of the committee on bills of Middlesex.<sup>13</sup> His apparently greater concentration on business may have been related to the loss of his wife the previous year. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> observed to Lady Anne Hobart that October, that now he was a widower Cornwallis tended to be ‘much at London’.<sup>14</sup> During the following spring, on 9 Mar. 1671, Cornwallis registered his dissent from the resolution not to commit the bill concerning privilege of Parliament; he then subscribed the protest in response to the resolution not to engross the bill on the grounds that there was ‘no colour of law to claim a privilege of freedom from suits’.</p><p>Cornwallis was missing from the last four weeks of business of March and April 1671. In September of the following year, Cornwallis visited Yarmouth in company with several other ‘persons of quality’.<sup>15</sup> He was back in London in time to take his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 4 Feb. 1673 when he was named to the sessional committees. Attending regularly throughout February and March, he was named to 12 select committees.</p><p>Cornwallis attended the House for the final time on 29 Mar. 1673. Falling ill with stomach ailments, he died suddenly on 13 April. His death came as a considerable surprise and rumours began to spread that he had inadvertently killed himself with medicine obtained from a ‘mountebank’, Mr. Easton. Easton subsequently published an account of the episode entering into great detail about Cornwallis’s symptoms and treatment for his own justification.<sup>16</sup> Cornwallis was buried at Culford and succeeded in the peerage by his heir, and namesake, Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
CORNWALLIS, Charles (1655-98) |
<p><strong><surname>CORNWALLIS</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1655–98)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Apr. 1673 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. CORNWALLIS |
|
First sat 15 Feb. 1677; last sat 25 Feb. 1698 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 28 Dec. 1655, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Charles Cornwallis*, 2nd Bar. Cornwallis, and Margaret (<em>d</em>.1669), da. of Sir Thomas Playsted of Arlington, Suss. <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>m</em>. (1) 27 Dec. 1673 (with £10,000 or £12,000), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1681), da. of Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup>, paymaster of the forces, sis. of Stephen Fox<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Ilchester, and of Charles Fox<sup>‡</sup>, 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 6 May 1688, Anne (<em>d</em>.1732), <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Buccleuch [S], wid. of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, 1s.<em> d.v.p</em>., 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 29 Apr. 1698; <em>will</em> 9 Oct. 1697, pr. 5 Aug. 1698.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1 Mar. 1692; 1st ld. of the Admiralty 1692-3; commr. appeal for prizes 1694,<sup>2</sup> 1695,<sup>3</sup> appeal in Admiralty cases 1697.</p><p>Ld. lt. Suff. 1689-<em>d</em>.; high steward, Ipswich 1692.</p><p>Cornet, king’s tp. of Horse Gds. 1673.</p> |
|
<p>Unlike his predecessors, Cornwallis had no previous parliamentary experience prior to inheriting the peerage. Succeeding to the barony as a minor in 1673, Cornwallis continued the family’s colourful tradition. He earned a reputation as a gambler and a ‘young spendthrift’ who would wager ‘as much as anyone would trust him, but was not quite so ready in paying’.<sup>4</sup> While still underage he was tried for murder but went on to forge a career for himself in the House as a politician of some stature. As such he was frequently active as chairman both of select committees and of committees of the whole House.</p><p>Cornwallis’ spendthrift habits appear early on to have led him into financial difficulties. He may have been travelling abroad around the time of his succession but by May 1673 it was said that his debts amounted to at least £20,000, which seems to have made the family contemplate packing him back off again.<sup>5</sup> Necessity no doubt turned him into a ‘fortune-hunter’, and shortly after his succession to the barony it was reported that he was on the verge of making a financially advantageous marriage (through the mediation of Sir John Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>) to Elizabeth Fox. The marriage was said to be worth £10,000 as well as six years’ board (presumably in the Fox household). In addition, Duncombe had secured the young peer a cornet’s commission in the Horse Guards worth £400 a year.<sup>6</sup> Several years later, it was commented that Sir Stephen Fox had not been ‘easily persuaded’ to agree to the terms.<sup>7</sup> In January 1674, Cornwallis sought a private bill to settle his estate, to enable him to pay off his debts and to provide for his brothers and sister.<sup>8</sup> The committee, which was chaired on three occasions by Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, summoned a number of interested parties, including Duncombe and Sir Stephen Fox, all of whom agreed that ‘the bill was to Cornwallis’ advantage’, while one witness, Mrs. Ashburnham, stated that it was ‘the only way for the preservation of Cornwallis and his estate’.<sup>9</sup> The bill, steered through the Commons by Sir Charles Harbord<sup>‡</sup>, passed both Houses but failed to achieve royal assent before Parliament was prorogued in February 1674.<sup>10</sup> Although Fox took his paternal role seriously and frequently paid Cornwallis’ gambling debts whilst delivering a stern lecture, the young peer seems to have been unwilling to retrench.<sup>11</sup> Cornwallis undertook lavish building projects, including the construction of much-admired gardens and canals at the family seat of Culford. Thus by 1689, despite having by then married the widowed Anne Scott, duchess of Buccleuch, he was once again in severe financial straits. Hs self-assessment for taxation purposes that year recorded that he was ‘so far from having any personal estate’ that he was in debt.<sup>12</sup> His tortured finances were subsequently complicated by those of his second wife.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Cornwallis’ improved financial position in the immediate aftermath of his marriage to Charlotte Fox enabled him to continue his libertine existence and over Christmas 1674 he was said to have won £1,700 at play, £800 of which he promptly refunded. He was also said to be in negotiation with Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, for the post of master of the queen’s horse, for which it was thought he was to pay £5,000 or £6,000.<sup>14</sup> Unsuccessful in securing that position, by April 1675 Cornwallis was thought to be competing against Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex, for the office of lord chamberlain to the queen, rendered vacant by the previous holder being dismissed for striking one of the yeomen of the guard.<sup>15</sup> In the event, neither of these posts proved forthcoming, but Cornwallis remained a prominent courtier and the baptism of his son Charles*, later 4th Baron Cornwallis, in June 1675 took place in the presence of the king, James*, duke of York, and Cornwallis’ future wife Anne, duchess of Monmouth (who all stood godparents).<sup>16</sup> The following month it was feared that Cornwallis and at least one other notable was lost aboard the yacht, <em>Katherine</em>, which had been part of a flotilla including a yacht carrying the king that had run into bad weather. The rumour proved false and Cornwallis was back at court by the autumn.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Having inherited the family interest at Eye in Suffolk (which was shared with the Reeves of Thwaite), Cornwallis appears to have struggled to make his presence felt in the November 1675 by-election triggered by the death of his uncle. Although he expressed clear ‘disgust’ at the attempted intrusion of George Walsh<sup>‡</sup>, his behaviour towards Sir Charles Gawdy<sup>‡</sup> was more ambiguous. The king appears to have been eager to see how far Cornwallis’ interest would stretch on Gawdy’s behalf, but in the event Gawdy did not stand and chose to put his weight behind Reeve. The episode caused Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> to comment on Cornwallis’ behaviour that he had been ‘necessitated to be kinder’ to Gawdy ‘than ever intended. Courtiers have fine ways to come off and on at pleasure’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In May 1676 Cornwallis’ rakish behaviour resulted in tragedy. In company with Charles Gerard*, the future 2nd earl of Macclesfield, both of them ‘somewhat distempered in drink’ he was involved in a late-night scuffle that resulted in the death of Captain Wilkes’ young manservant, Robert Clarke. The assault was vicious and Cornwallis and Gerard were said not only to have broken the boy’s neck but subsequently trampled on him, breaking his hip. One source had it that the affair had begun with an argument with a sentinel, which had ended peacefully, but that Gerard had subsequently exchanged insults with a serving lad and then assaulted Clarke, mistaking him for the other boy. Another reported that the men had been on the prowl intent on murdering a sentry and when thwarted in this had resorted to setting on the boy instead.<sup>19</sup> Gerard was thought ‘most to blame’ but Cornwallis was also believed to be ‘too, too culpable’. In spite of this, initial reports suggested that they had been cleared in King’s Bench when no one appeared against them. A few days later, though, it was reported that the Middlesex grand jury had found the bill against them paving the way for Cornwallis’ committal to the Tower on 21 June in advance of his trial (though, according to one observer, this was merely ‘for form’s sake’).<sup>20</sup> Parliament was not in session and the resulting trial was conducted in the court of the lord high steward (Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham) before a selection of peers appointed by the crown.<sup>21</sup> The 35 peers, according to Verney, would undoubtedly ‘not be unkind’ to Cornwallis.<sup>22</sup> Of the peers summoned to try Cornwallis, Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, and Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice, absented themselves.<sup>23</sup> The trial began on the 30th with Finch delivering an impassioned reminder to those assembled that the privilege of the nobility to be tried by one’s peers should in no way blind them to their judicial responsibilities. In the presence of the royal family and ‘a great multitude … so much that several gave £20 apiece for a hearing place at the trial’, Cornwallis was found not guilty by a large majority. A handful of the jury found for manslaughter: Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), Ailesbury, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesley, William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley. According to some lists Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, also voted for manslaughter.<sup>24</sup> Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> commented that the status of the occasion muted the response to the verdict: onlookers did not break out into the ‘clamorous applause’ which often greeted acquittals.<sup>25</sup> The commission for Cornwallis’ trial was later produced in the House on 13 May 1679 as a precedent.<sup>26</sup> In November 1676 Cornwallis’ co-defendant Gerard was pardoned.<sup>27</sup></p><h2><em>1677-88</em></h2><p>On 15 Feb. 1677, the first day of the new parliamentary session, Cornwallis finally took his seat in the House of Lords. His parliamentary career, of 21 years, was marked by frequent attendance and involvement in the business of the House, particularly after the Revolution, when he was frequently employed as a committee chairman. During his first session in the Lords, he attended over 91 per cent of sittings, was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions and to 12 select committees on a wide range of issues. Following the brief prorogation Cornwallis took his seat once more at the opening of the ensuing session on 23 May, after which he was present on 60 per cent of sitting days and named to nine committees. Having quit the session in early July, Cornwallis left London. He was in Bath by the end of September.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Arriving at the House on the eighth day of the autumn 1678 session (29 Oct.), Cornwallis thereafter attended nearly 73 per cent of sittings, during which he was named to two select committees. He was almost at once plunged into the business surrounding the Popish Plot, so much so that on 30 Oct. his wife (ensconced in Suffolk) was advised by her mother, ‘If I write but little and your lord not at all you must not wonder at it; for the House of Lords is but now up and he desired me to excuse him for he feared he should not have time to write’. Early the following month, with the Lords sitting late on the question of whether to demand York’s removal from the king’s presence, Lady Fox wrote to her daughter again, excusing her neglect while emphasizing ‘how busy a place this is and how full everybody is of this damned plot’. In a subsequent letter she assured Lady Cornwallis that once the bill excluding Catholics from sitting in Parliament was passed ‘your lord will come to you’.<sup>29</sup> Despite the assurances, Lady Cornwallis was made to wait a while longer. In December Cornwallis informed one acquaintance about the search for arms in the house of Richard Tasborough, at which he reported that he had been told ‘only a pocket pistol’ had been found.<sup>30</sup> On 20 Dec. he dissented from the resolution to agree with committee amendments to the supply bill (disbanding the army). Six days later, in the division on the bill, Cornwallis voted against the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and again registered his dissent against the resolution to insist on the amendment. Danby, one of the peers who had found the youthful Cornwallis guilty of manslaughter, could expect no favours from this recruit to the country political grouping; on 23 Dec. Cornwallis dissented from the resolution that Danby should not withdraw following the reading of articles of impeachment. On the 27th he voted in favour of Danby’s committal and registered his dissent from the majority decision in Danby’s favour.</p><p>The elections to the new Parliament found Cornwallis eager to exert his interest in Suffolk. The earlier by-election at Eye in November, at which there was no obvious Cornwallis family candidate, had resulted in the election of Sir Charles Gawdy.<sup>31</sup> Cornwallis (now firmly within the Shaftesbury camp) deserted Gawdy and Robert Reeve and backed his own candidates.<sup>32</sup> Almost two weeks before the election Gawdy’s mother remained pessimistic about her son’s chances against the Cornwallis candidates George Walsh (no longer an object of Cornwallis’ disgust) and Cornwallis’ uncle Sir John Duncombe (an enemy of Danby who had been forced out of government in 1676). Lady Gawdy complained that her son’s expenses would have been minimal (and not, as it turned out, the equivalent of a whole year’s income) were it not for Cornwallis who ‘with all his force opposed him’.<sup>33</sup> Nonetheless, both Duncombe and Walsh withdrew on the eve of the poll and the anti-exclusionists Reeve and Gawdy were returned for the borough.<sup>34</sup> Cornwallis contemplated the election result with ‘great regret’; it transpired that he refused to share the interest having been ‘offered one voice but he would have both or none’. Lady Gawdy believed that he had withdrawn his candidates rather than face defeat and had gone straight up to London ‘to procure a new election, [making] some cavil at a word in the precept’.<sup>35</sup> There is no evidence to support her accusation, but it is clear that by the time of the next election in August 1679, Cornwallis had strengthened his political oversight of the borough.</p><p>As the new Parliament approached Danby, calculating levels of support in Lords, listed Cornwallis as one of his opponents. On 6 Mar. 1679, Cornwallis attended the opening of Parliament and was then present for every sitting of the abortive session. He was again present on 15 Mar. at the opening of the new session but attended only 33 per cent of sittings. He was named to two select committees, including that to receive information on the Plot. His attendance was cut short by ill health. On 12 Apr. it was reported that Cornwallis had contracted smallpox and he was still unwell when the House was called over on 9 May.<sup>36</sup></p><p>By early summer he appears to have rallied. The Grimston family were said to be travelling to his seat at Brome at the end of June, and later that summer he involved himself in the electoral campaign at Eye in opposition to Gawdy.<sup>37</sup> Writing in August Lady Gawdy insisted that her son would stand again in spite of Cornwallis’ efforts ‘to put him by’ by keeping ‘open house for all corners of the town, ever since he came to Brome’ declaring his mission ‘to disappoint’ Gawdy.<sup>38</sup> Bringing in his courtier brother-in-law Charles Fox<sup>‡</sup> to partner George Walsh, Cornwallis determined to oust the sitting Members by using the recorder of Eye, Thomas Edgar, as his electoral manager. Efforts to secure support on both sides revealed a range of voting incentives including ‘a trunkful of gold’ and a leg of mutton. Cornwallis was said to have refused the sale of alcohol in the town to court supporters. Lady Gawdy declared her son elected by the narrow margin of ten votes but the result was a double return, which was followed by a series of legal suits that preceded the Commons’ decision on the outcome.<sup>39</sup> Lady Gawdy continued to report into October the ‘great malice’ her son experienced from Cornwallis as well as further electoral manipulation. According to her, Cornwallis ‘does daily endeavour to embroil the town of Eye in troubles and suits, after ... new bailiffs are chosen in full court, he has made choice, both of freemen and two other bailiffs, such as may refuse to return my son by the seal.’<sup>40</sup></p><p>By mid November 1679, the hearing on the controverted election had been postponed ‘several times’ and it was unclear whether Cornwallis or Sir Stephen Fox would appear in the matter. Later that month it was reported that the king had displayed his backing for Gawdy in council and ‘for those as Sir Charles appeared for, which is the bailiffs of Eye’.<sup>41</sup> The resulting struggle within the borough was still ongoing the following summer when Lady Gawdy gloated that her son had not only wrested a fine from Thomas Edgar but that Cornwallis had not ‘triumphed over him according to his endeavours’.<sup>42</sup> It was not until 8 Dec. 1680 that the result was finally confirmed in favour of Cornwallis’ candidates, Fox and Walsh.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Cornwallis, meanwhile, was back in London for the start of the new session on 21 Oct. 1680. Thereafter he attended 85 per cent of sittings, was named to all three sessional committees and to four select committees. On the second day of the sitting, with Charles Henry Kirkhoven*, earl of Bellomont [I] (sitting as Baron Wotton), he introduced Robert Leke*, who had been summoned by a writ of acceleration as Baron Deincourt (later 3rd earl of Scarsdale). On 11 Nov. Cornwallis examined the Journal and on the 13th, following orders of the House to vacate the proceedings of February 1677, Cornwallis was one of those who presided over the alteration of the Journal.</p><p>On 15 Nov. Cornwallis, an ardent exclusionist, voted against the rejection of the first reading of the exclusion bill and subsequently dissented from the resolution to reject the measure. Despite this, on the 23rd he voted against the appointment of a committee to consider, in conjunction with the Commons, the state of the kingdom. In two further divisions that session, he voted alongside adherents of the country party: on 7 Dec. 1680 he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason and on 7 Jan. 1681 registered his protest in the division on the impeachment of lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs.</p><p>Following the dissolution of Parliament, the general election at Eye on 26 Feb. 1681 saw the two Cornwallis candidates (Duncombe and Walsh) defeated by a strongly Tory electorate (the corporation having been manipulated by the senior bailiff) who again returned Gawdy and Reeve. Cornwallis’ associates duly complained of an abuse of electoral practice, but the brief duration of the ensuing Parliament prevented investigation.<sup>44</sup> Cornwallis travelled to Oxford for the Parliament that assembled on 21 Mar., taking his seat the following day and thereafter attending on each of the remaining days. On the 26th he registered his protest against the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than impeachment. Cornwallis attended the funeral of Prince Rupert*, who sat in the House as duke of Cumberland, in November 1682, carrying the train of William Craven*, earl of Craven.<sup>45</sup> In September 1684 he sent a pack of his hounds to Ireland for James Butler*, duke of Ormond ‘to have a trial of them’, though their departure was delayed by the quest for a new huntsman.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Following the accession of James II, perhaps as a consequence of the Tory stranglehold over the corporation, Cornwallis appears to have no attempt to exert his interest in the March 1685 general election at Eye.<sup>47</sup> He attended the start of the new Parliament on 19 May and thereafter attended for 88 per cent of sittings. He was named to four select committees and took a prominent part in the business of the House, chairing committees and acting as a teller in divisions. On 1 June he was one of the tellers in the privilege case <em>Greenville v. Hunt</em>.<sup>48</sup> In June and July he told in a further three divisions. On 25 June he was one of the tellers for a division over hearing counsel in the cause in <em>Eyre v. Eyre</em>, which resulted in a tied vote. Although it was ordered to hear the cause again the next day, the business was not taken up until November. On 27 June he told in the division on the timing of the select committee on the reviving acts bill, and on 1 July he told on the division over appointing a date to hear the cause relating to the privilege of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon.<sup>49</sup> During the recess, on 12 Aug. Cornwallis tried twice to call on George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, to thank Halifax for the efforts he had made on Cornwallis’ behalf relating to a patent for a stewardship. The following day he wrote to Halifax, ‘like an ill debtor’ to seek further assistance over the patent, which seems to have also been claimed by Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Cornwallis was present on 20 Nov. at the abrupt end to the session and on 10 May 1686 and 15 Feb. 1687 attended the House for further prorogations. In the midst of these Cornwallis was involved in an exchequer suit to recover arrears of rent in two of his manors in Scole, Norfolk.<sup>51</sup> In June 1687 it was rumoured that Cornwallis (widowed in 1681) was to marry Anne Scott, duchess of Buccleuch [S]. There may then have been a lull in the affair but late in July ‘discourse’ of the rumoured match had ‘revived’.<sup>52</sup> On 6 May 1688 they were married; three weeks later, having taken up residence with Sir Stephen Fox, the new couple waited on the king and queen and kissed hands to mark the event.<sup>53</sup> Fox subsequently struggled to dissociate himself from a financial dispute between the duchess and the family of John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], excusing himself on the grounds of his relation to the duchess’ new husband.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Cornwallis was unequivocally opposed to the king’s catholicizing policies and during 1687 was twice listed as being opposed to the repeal of the Test Act. At the start of January 1688 he was listed by Danby as a certain opponent of the king in the House of Lords. His movements at the time of the invasion in November are uncertain, but he took his place in the House on 24 Dec. when he was prominent among the Williamites in debate that day. In response to calls to discover whether or not James had fled, Cornwallis argued that there should be no delay in seeing to the settlement of affairs and in summoning a free Parliament. He was present again for the Christmas Day meeting in the Lords and was one of those summoned to the audience with Prince William on 28 December.<sup>55</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution and after</em></h2><p>Cornwallis was present for the start of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and marked his commitment to the new regime by attending the session for nearly 93 per cent of sittings. The session saw Cornwallis increasingly involved in the procedural business of the House. During the first session, he was named to all three sessional committees and to 48 committees, including the committee on the reversal of the attainder of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell and the trials of peers bill (a matter about which he had personal experience). He chaired select committees on 23 occasions.</p><p>Throughout the proceedings on the settlement of the crown, Cornwallis backed the resolutions supporting the establishment of the new regime. On 31 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of the declaration of the prince and princess of Orange as king and queen and dissented from the resolution to reject the Commons’ assertion that the throne was vacant. In the abdication debates of 4 and 6 Feb. he voted consistently in favour of James’ abdication. On the 4th he again dissented from Lords’ resolutions not to concur with the Commons. His status as a prominent supporter of the new regime was confirmed with appointment as lord lieutenant (and <em>custos rotulorum</em>) in March.</p><p>Alongside of his activities on behalf of the new monarchs, Cornwallis took a prominent role in other business. On 1 Feb. and again on 4 Mar. Cornwallis acted as one of the tellers in the division on the clause in the trial of peers bill. On 23 Apr. he chaired the select committee of both the Yarmouth pier bill and Cooke’s bill, reporting back to the House from the first the following day.<sup>56</sup> Having chaired the select committee on enabling the commissioners of the Great Seal on 11 May, he reported back four days later and was subsequently involved in the conference with the Commons.<sup>57</sup> At the end of May he was nominated one of the managers of three conferences with the Commons on the additional poll bill. He was named one of the managers of further conferences considering the bill on 20 June and 21 June 1689. On 4 June, with Charles North*, 5th Baron North, he introduced his kinsman, John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham. On 13 June Cornwallis registered his proxy in favour of Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury. Cornwallis was rarely absent during the session, particularly at this time, but he missed ten days of the session after 13 July (for which he was given leave of absence). This was the only occasion on which he was recorded as having either given or received a proxy.</p><p>Cornwallis was also concerned with the perceived Catholic threat. During March, April and May 1689 he was named a manager of the conferences with the Commons on legislative measures against Roman Catholics.<sup>58</sup> Throughout the session, Titus Oates was the focus of much attention. Cornwallis had acted as one of the tellers in an early division on the reversal of the judgments against Oates on 1 April. Oates’ subsequent attempt to rehabilitate his reputation was threatened when, on 25 May, he was accused of a breach of parliamentary privilege. Cornwallis proved a loyal supporter of Oates’ case. He acted as one of the tellers in the division on Oates’ paper and subsequently registered his protest against the resolution that the paper <em>The case of Titus Oates</em> constituted a breach of privilege.<sup>59</sup> On 31 May Cornwallis voted in favour of the reversal of the two judgments of perjury and registered his protest in response to the majority vote against Oates. On 6 July the Commons brought up a bill to reverse the judgments; Cornwallis again supported Oates and on 10 July dissented from all negative resolutions on the bill to reverse the perjury judgments. On 12 July he told against the question in the division on Oates and registered his protest against the vote to agree with the amendments and proviso proposed by the select committee. At the end of July he was again involved in a conference and divisions on the Oates bill, dissenting from the resolution not to hold a second conference with the Commons and, on 30 July, again acting as a teller for the division whether to adhere to the amendments in the reversal of judgments. Cornwallis registered his protest when the majority voted to adhere to those amendments.</p><p>On 28 June 1689 Cornwallis reported from the committee considering the bill for removing the council of the marches (which he had chaired on four separate occasions).<sup>60</sup> In the third week of July he was added to all existing select committees. On 26 July he reported from the committee for privileges on the order (of the previous 8 June) regarding absent lords, confirming that the committee, which he had chaired on 11 June, could find no precedent for taking a lord into custody for absence but that lords had been fined instead.<sup>61</sup> The month of August was no less busy. On 2 Aug. Cornwallis, having chaired the select committee four times, reported on the militia bill, with amendments regarding the ordering of forces.<sup>62</sup> On 2 and 5 Aug. he was named one of the managers of two conferences on the attainder bill (having chaired the committee on 27 July and 3 Aug.) and on 10 Aug. reported from the committee on the bill concerning the estates of the deceased George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham (again having chaired the committee on eight occasions).<sup>63</sup> The same day he told in the division over whether to direct the committee considering the bill for prohibiting trade with France to draw up a clause granting to the king power to dispense with the act, in case his allies failed to follow suit with the prohibition. The motion was rejected. On 14 Aug. he reported from a committee of the whole House on the bill to appropriate certain duties to pay the States General of the United Provinces for their expenses during the king’s invasion expedition and on the 17th told in the division on leaving out a clause in the report on the small tithes bill. He attended the session for the last time on 20 Sept. when the House was adjourned.</p><p>Classed as an opponent of the court in the list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become), Cornwallis took his place in the chamber five days after the start of the new session on 28 Oct. 1689. He was present for 82 per cent of sittings. He was again named to a number of committees and appears to have been active on a number of these, evidenced by the fact that he was added, on 15 Nov. to the committee on clandestine marriages and on 19 Nov. to all existing committees. On 23 Nov., after a division on the bill for declaring the rights of the subjects and settling the succession, he registered his protest against the rejection of a proviso requiring royal pardons for impeachments to have the approval of both Houses of Parliament. On 25 Nov. the House heard that, contrary to both his privilege of peerage and his privilege of Parliament, Cornwallis’ servant had been arrested the previous month.<sup>64</sup> Those employed in the arrest were ordered to be attached. Although they were discharged from their restraint on 16 Dec., it was not until 22 Jan. 1690 that Miles Bayspoole, the man at whose suit the servant had been arrested, was finally discharged. In the meantime, Cornwallis continued to play an active role in the management of committees, chairing the committee for the papists’ toleration bill at the opening of December, and on 11 Jan. he was involved with the committee considering a case between Nathaniel Reading and the commissioners for the Hatfield Level.<sup>65</sup></p><p>On 14 Jan. 1690, perhaps reflecting on his own experiences, Cornwallis registered his protest against the resolution that it was the ancient right of peers to be tried for capital offences only in a full Parliament. The following day Cornwallis reported back to the House from the committee on duties on coffee, tea and chocolate. During January he chaired the select committee on legislation against Catholics.<sup>66</sup> Cornwallis registered a further dissent on the 23rd, after a division on the bill to restore corporations to their ancient rights and privileges. A majority in the House followed legal opinion, but Cornwallis and Delamere dissented from the resolution to remove from the first enacting clause the words confirming the illegality of charter surrenders under Charles II and James II. Cornwallis did not subscribe the second fuller protest.</p><p>Cornwallis’ increased activity in the House was mirrored in the subsequent general election. On 8 Mar. 1690, Cornwallis’ Whig nominee, Thomas Davenant<sup>‡</sup>, was returned for Eye together with the Tory Henry Poley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>67</sup> The county election saw victory for both of Cornwallis’ candidates, Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup> (‘the old troubler of Israel’) and Sir Gervase Elwes<sup>‡</sup>. Cornwallis, capitalizing on the ‘slow proceedings’ of the Suffolk Tories, secured interests for Barnardiston and Elwes before the Tory candidates had even put in an appearance. The defeated Tories, Sir John Playters and Sir Robert Davers, supported by ‘the whole body of the gentry’ including Henry FitzRoy*, duke of Grafton and Thomas Jermyn*, 2nd Baron Jermyn, could only grumble that the Presbyterian Barnardiston had monopolized the Dissenting vote, culminating in a victory for the ‘fanatic rabble’ over ‘the better part of the county’. One Tory complained that Cornwallis had ‘nobody but rabble and relations’ with him and that even the militia captains and his own deputy lieutenants opposed his candidates. Certainly, the poll was turbulent with the Tories insulted as ‘papists’ and their clerical supporters as ‘black-coated rogues’. Cornwallis was at the forefront of the subsequent entrenchment of Whig dominance when the county bench was purged of numerous Tories including the defeated Playters. Edmund Bohun, one of the dismissed magistrates, bemoaned this attack on the more active Suffolk Tories, which left only ‘the trimmers and those that would not act at all; and put in Whigs of mean estate and education, or gentlemen of little or no spirit’. Sir Robert Rich<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Heveningham<sup>‡ </sup>and Charles Whitaker<sup>‡</sup> were instrumental in the purge, but it is clear that Cornwallis would have gone even further in his ruthless advocacy of the Whig cause.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Cornwallis took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690. He attended the session for nearly 98 per cent of sittings and reported back from two committees: those concerning the bills for regulating the practice of law and to vest forfeitures in the crown.<sup>69</sup> He chaired one committee, on the cause <em>Macclesfield v. Starkey</em>.<sup>70</sup> On 3 Apr. he was noted as having offered a clause to the committee of the whole considering the recognition bill. According to Morrice he:</p><blockquote><p>did make rehearsal of most that was in the good recognition bill brought in at first by the Duke of Bolton [Charles Powlett*, the former 6th marquess of Winchester], and then meddled not with recognizing neither the Parliament nor the king, but provided severe pecuniary penalties to be laid upon those that shall either write, print, or speak contrary thereunto.<sup>71</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 11 Apr. he was one of the tellers in the division on the resulting crown and Parliament recognition bill. He chaired a committee of the whole on the law (reform) bill on 30 Apr. and took part in the debate on 2 May on the second reading of the abjuration bill. He registered his protest on 13 May against the resolution not to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel. The same day he was named one of the managers for the conference on the regency bill. At its first reading five days previously, he had been one of those to pose a question of the judges, whose advice had been sought about the Commons’ amendments to the bill. In May he signed the arrest warrant for Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntington, on charges of high treason.<sup>72</sup> He chaired a committee of the whole on 21 May on the Test Bill, was present for the last day of the session on 23 May and on 7 July attended the House for the prorogation.</p><p>Towards the end of July Cornwallis suffered the loss of his youngest child. He was out of town at the time but hastily summoned back to assist his wife, who was said to have been overtaken with ‘excessive grief’.<sup>73</sup> The duchess immersed herself in her continuing financial dispute with Tweeddale in which she refused to do anything ‘but what the strictest law will oblige her to’. Cornwallis’ return home was not thought likely to persuade her to take a different course.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Cornwallis attended the House on 28 July, 8 Sept. and 12 Sept. 1690 for two prorogations and an adjournment and again on 2 Oct. for the start of the new session. Thereafter he attended for nearly 80 per cent of sittings, chairing and reporting back from four select committees: on thatched houses in Marlborough, to free the estate of Sir Samuel Barnardiston, the militia, and for the relief of poor prisoners. He also reported back from a fifth: the bill to prohibit all trade and commerce with France.<sup>75</sup> On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. He chaired the committee for privileges on the case of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, reported back to the House and on 21 Oct. told in the division on whether the judges be asked their opinion in the case of Torrington’s committal.<sup>76</sup> Five weeks later he again told in the division on whether Thomas Burrows be taken into custody in the cause <em>Dod v. Burrows</em> and on 17 Dec. in the division on adjourning the debate in the same cause.</p><p>On 30 Dec. 1690, in a special ballot during the passage of the bill to appoint commissioners for public accounts, Cornwallis received 47 votes (the greatest number) and was duly appointed as one of four commissioners, together with John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. The following day the four each thanked the House for the honour of having been chosen but requested to be excused. It was resolved subsequently that peers seeking to be excused might be permitted to do so. On 2 Jan. 1691 Cornwallis offered a proviso to the committee of the whole on half landsmen in the navigation act suspension bill.<sup>77</sup> Three days later, the day that Parliament was adjourned, Cornwallis was nominated one of the managers of four conferences on the bill for the suspension of the navigation and corn acts. He also told in the division on agreeing with the amendment in the report on the French trade prohibition bill.</p><p>Cornwallis next attended on 2 Nov. 1691, 11 days after the start of the next session. In this particularly active period in his parliamentary career, he attended 88 per cent of sittings, was named to approximately 35 committees of which he chaired 20 on 34 separate occasions and reported back from 23. On 24 Nov. he reported from the committee of the whole on the trials for treason regulation bill and again on 2 Feb. 1692 from the bill against adhering to their majesties’ enemies. He also acted as teller on a number of divisions during the session: on 2 Nov. in the division of the committee of the whole House on the clandestine marriages bill, on 13 Nov. in the division of whether to dismiss the appeal in the cause <em>Dashwood v. Champante,</em> on 7 Dec. 1691 for the contents in the division on engrossing the report in Goodwin’s estate bill, on 27 Jan. 1692 in the division to amend a clause in the report on the public accounts bill and on 24 Feb. 1692 in the division on referring the cause to the exchequer in <em>Tooke v. Lord Chief Baron Atkins</em>.</p><p>In a list compiled between the middle of December 1691 and end of January 1692 William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, noted Cornwallis among those he believed in favour of his bill for being restored to properties in the county palatines of Chester and Lancaster.<sup>78</sup> On 17 Dec. Cornwallis was named one of the managers of the conference on the treason bill. The following day he reported back from the committee of the whole considering the excise bill and chaired the committee for Pember’s estate bill. He reported back from the latter on 22 December. During February 1692 he was named one of the managers of four conferences on the public accounts bill and one conference on the small tithes bill. On 3 and 6 Feb. he reported from the committee for privileges on the case <em>earl of Rochester v. Lord Grey of Warke</em> (Ford Grey*, later earl of Tankerville).</p><h2><em>Privy councillor and minister</em></h2><p>On 1 Mar. 1692 Cornwallis was appointed a privy councillor as a consequence of his ‘zeal ... in the late session of Parliament’.<sup>79</sup> In April he was appointed a commissioner for prizes. He was also appointed first lord of the Admiralty in place of Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, as part of a ministerial reshuffle that favoured the Whigs.<sup>80</sup> He attended the House on 11 July acting as one of the commissioners to announce the prorogation.</p><p>As the head of the navy, Cornwallis received frequent bulletins from the fleet on their engagements with the French.<sup>81</sup> More importantly, he found himself in the middle of an ongoing feud between two of his colleagues. With Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, at loggerheads and many senior officers in the navy angry with Nottingham’s instructions, Cornwallis attended a cabinet council meeting in Portsmouth on 3 Aug. in an attempt to salvage the naval campaign by holding a council of war after the flag officers refused to cover an assault on St Malo.<sup>82</sup></p><p>On 22 Aug. 1692 Cornwallis attended the House for the prorogation, an act of which he profoundly disapproved. When Parliament eventually reconvened in November, the problem of funding the navy now acute, Carmarthen recorded Cornwallis’ earlier warning ‘had the Parliament met when summoned this summer upon the victory at sea, they would have given anything: English people being puffed up with success, which when forgot, as it soon is, their zeal will cool; so that consequently, by this time, it will be forgot quite, which will prove of ill consequence to your affairs’.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Cornwallis was in the House on 4 Nov. for the start of business and attended the session for 85 per cent of sittings. On 9 Nov., with James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, he introduced Henry Capell*, Baron Capell of Tewkesbury. The same day he reported from the committee for privileges on the complaint of those Lords under bail from King’s Bench on charges of high treason; the committee had spent some time on the matter and found ‘many difficulties’ that required further deliberation. During the session Cornwallis chaired and reported back from a number of both select committees and committees of the whole on a variety of business, including the butter and cheese bill, the bills for frequent parliaments and for the land tax.</p><p>On 7 Dec. he registered his protest against the resolution not to propose to the Commons a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation and on 22 Dec. he was named to the committee for inspecting the journals to examine previous conferences with the Commons. On the 31st he voted against committing the place bill. On New Year’s Day 1693, Cornwallis was forecast as being a likely opponent of the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He voted against the first reading of the bill on the 2nd and against the passage of the place bill on the 3rd. Cornwallis acted as a teller for two divisions: on 13 Jan. 1693 in the division on dissolving the injunctions in the cause <em>Governors of Birmingham School v. Hicks</em> and on 23 Jan. in the division on reversing the decree in <em>Bowtell v. Appleby</em>.</p><p>In the third week of January 1693, news circulated that Cornwallis was to quit his post at the Admiralty in protest against the king’s most recent appointments of admirals to command the fleet, two of which were accused of Jacobitism by the Whigs.<sup>84</sup> His departure from the Admiralty did not interrupt his attendance of the Lords, where he continued to make his presence felt. On 31 Jan. he subscribed the protest against the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb. he voted Mohun not guilty of murder. Four days later he dissented from the resolution not to add a rider to the bill for reviving and continuing laws relating to searches of the House of Lords. Cornwallis was present for the prorogation on 14 Mar. and for further prorogations on 2 May, 19 Sept. and 26 Oct. 1693.</p><p>On 7 Nov. he attended for the start of the new session and was present thereafter for 77 per cent of sittings. He reported back to the House from two committees: on Henry Cavendish, the son of William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, and on the bill for the better discipline of the navy. On 14 Nov. he presided at a session of the committee for petitions.<sup>85</sup> On 5 Jan. 1694 he dissented from the resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendment to the place bill, on 8 and 12 Feb. he was named one of the managers of conferences on intelligence of the sailing of the Brest fleet and on 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>.</p><p>Over the summer of 1694 Cornwallis offered John Moore*, of Norwich, the use of Brome hall during Moore’s forthcoming visitation of his diocese.<sup>86</sup> Cornwallis himself was in London by the end of the summer and on 18 Sept. attended the House as one of the commissioners for the prorogation. He was missing from the two subsequent prorogation days but took his seat again on 12 Nov. for the start of the new session. He attended 92 per cent of sittings and was again prominent presiding over a number of committees. He chaired and reported back from two select committees but also reported from a number of committees of the whole, including six sessions of committees of the whole for the trials for treason bill and five sessions considering the bill to make wilful perjury a felony.<sup>87</sup> On 12 Nov. 1694, with Robert Bertie*, Baron Willoughby of Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), he introduced Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury.</p><p>During the session Cornwallis was named one of the managers of numerous conferences with the Commons. On 16 and 23 Feb., and 15 Apr. and 20 Apr. he was involved in conferences on the trials for treason bill. On 19 Mar. he joined with Rochester and Stamford in the debates over the succession of baronies by writ, opposing the rights of collateral heirs to claim a writ of summons, but was not among those subscribing the subsequent protest.<sup>88</sup> During April he was involved in two conferences on the East India Company: on 13 Apr. on the bill to oblige Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> (the ‘dictator’ of the company) to account for monies received and on 24 Apr. for Cooke’s examination.<sup>89</sup> Cornwallis was also nominated as a manager of conferences on the bill to continue existing laws and that concerning privateers.</p><p>Following the dissolution Cornwallis was active in employing his interest. He was said to have joined with the lord keeper (Somers) in pressing the cause of Sir Samuel Barnardiston (at the king’s desire) on Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, though Godolphin claimed to be ignorant of the king’s orders in the matter. This was probably related to Barnardiston’s petition for money he was owed out of the exchequer. In the election at Eye, Cornwallis fielded his son Charles as running mate for Thomas Davenant. The Whigs swept the board, with the younger Cornwallis replacing the Tory Henry Poley. The Tories did not even contest the county, where Barnardiston and Sir Gervase Elwes both retained their seats.</p><p>The new Parliament opened on 22 Nov. 1695. Uncharacteristically, Cornwallis arrived at the House one month after the start of the session and thereafter attended 73 per cent of sittings. He reported from four committees of the whole: on the relief of poor prisoners, highways, regulating parliamentary elections and the militia. On 23 Dec., in a debate in a committee of the whole House on the treason bill, Cornwallis was noted by Huntingdon as having proposed a panel of jurors of the peers to be included in the legislation. The bill passed by majority of 17.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Cornwallis acted as teller on 28 Jan. 1696 in a division of the committee of the whole House on agreeing with the resolution in the East India Company bill, on 9 Apr. on calling in counsel in the wrought silks bill and on 25 Apr. in agreement with the amendment in the report on the juries regulation bill. On 24 Feb. he was named one of the managers of a conference on the king’s speech about the assassination plot and on 6 Apr. in the conference on the privateers bill. On 11 Mar. the House had ruled that the Lords would receive no new private bills but would consider only those that came up from the Commons, with the sole exception of a new bill from Cornwallis. It seems likely that this referred to the bill enabling his wife to develop land in the parish of St Martin-in-the-fields, which received its first reading on 13 March.</p><p>Cornwallis returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 20 Oct. 1696, after which he attended 83 per cent of sittings and reported from a number of committees, most of them committees of the whole, including those considering bills to prevent trade in offices, and counterfeiting coin. On 26 Nov. he told in the division concerning the retention of a standing order in the matter of the Lords answering in the Commons; four days later, he was named one of the managers of a conference requested by the Commons concerning the Lords’ resolution concerning the ease of the subject. On 3 Dec. he was granted a period of absence (taken over the Christmas break). Eleven days later he reported from the select committee (which he had chaired on two occasions) on the bill for the ease of the subject against privilege of Parliament.<sup>91</sup></p><p>On 18 Dec. the House debated the second reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡ </sup>for high treason. The proceedings lasted until midnight, and it was Cornwallis who requested that candles should be brought into the House while the House adjourned for refreshment. The House, duly lit, resumed 30 minutes later.<sup>92</sup> In further proceedings, one lengthy debate of six hours ranged Nottingham against the Whigs, among them Cornwallis, Thomas Tenison*, of Canterbury and Gilbert Burnet*, of Salisbury.<sup>93</sup> In the debate on the third reading (23 Dec. 1696), Cornwallis argued in response to the lord president’s (Leeds’s) assertion that Fenwick was not a major player among the Jacobites that the main danger lay in allowing criminals to escape and that if defects in the law were not addressed the result would be more conspirators.<sup>94</sup> On 23 Dec. he voted (as expected) in favour of the Fenwick attainder. On 10 Feb. 1697 he told in the division on the second reading the Smith marriage bill, on 5 Mar. was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prohibit India silks and on 10 Apr. the conference on the bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices.</p><p>On 24 Apr. 1697 Cornwallis was granted the honour of Eye with its accompanying landholdings (and rents).<sup>95</sup> He seems to have attempted to capitalize on his good standing by speaking on behalf of Sir Stephen Fox and recommending that he be appointed to the Privy Council ‘to save the present disgrace’ of being removed from office.<sup>96</sup> The elections that followed the dissolution saw the entrenchment of Whig domination in Eye. The Cornwallis influence was strengthened by the acquisition of further properties as well as by the granting of a new borough charter. When Thomas Davenant died in December 1697, Cornwallis oversaw his replacement at a by-election by the Whig Joseph Jekyll<sup>‡</sup>, probably on Somers’ recommendation. Somers had been introduced to the House 11 days earlier by Cornwallis and Charles Berkeley*, 10th Baron (later 2nd earl of) Berkeley.<sup>97</sup> Despite attempts by the duchess of Lauderdale to recruit the opposition support of Tory Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Dysart [S], the Cornwallis interest at Eye was sustained for the remainder of his life.<sup>98</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1697 Cornwallis attended the start of the new session; he attended 22 per cent of all sittings. On 4 Jan. 1698, he reported back for the last time from a committee of the whole, on the bill against corresponding with James II and his adherents. Cornwallis attended the House for the final time on 25 February.</p><p>Cornwallis died of a fever at the age of only 42 two months later. He named as the executors of his will his wife and her two sons, James Scott, earl of Dalkeith [S], and Lord Henry Scott. The will confirmed a quadripartite indenture of 18 Jan. 1677 regarding estates in Cleveland, North Yorkshire, which were limited in their use to Sir Stephen Fox, Sir John Duncombe and John, Baron Ashburnham for 500 years to be held in trust to the upper limit of £6,000, now bequeathed for the benefit of Isabella Scott, his young daughter by the duchess of Buccleuch and, in the case of her prior death, to his son Charles. A dispute over the will resulted in a lawsuit (<em>Scott v. Cornwallis</em>).<sup>99</sup> Cornwallis was buried on 5 May 1698 at Brome.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
CORNWALLIS, Charles (1675-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>CORNWALLIS</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1675–1722)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Apr. 1698 as 4th Bar. CORNWALLIS. |
|
First sat 11 May 1698; last sat 20 Dec. 1721 |
|
MP Eye 1695–8. |
<p>bap. 2 June 1675,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Bar. Cornwallis, and 1st w. Elizabeth, da. of Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup>, paymaster of the forces, sis. of Charles Fox<sup>‡</sup>. educ. Eton 1690–4; Camb. LLD 1717. m. 6 June 1699 (with £3,000), Charlotte (d.1725), da. and h. of Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I], 9s. 1da.<sup>2</sup> d. 20 Jan. 1722; will 19 Apr. 1716, pr. 5 Feb. 1722.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Jt. postmaster-gen. 1715–21; paymaster-gen. of forces 1721–<em>d.</em>; PC 11 Nov. 1721.</p><p>Recorder, Eye 1697–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>. Suff. 1698–1703; freeman, Bury St. Edmunds 1705.</p><p>Capt. 4th Drag. Gds. 1694–7.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1705–15, NPG 3200.</p> |
<p>Born into a family of royal courtiers, Cornwallis was able to boast two kings as godparents (Charles II and James*, duke of York, later James II). The wife of a royal duke (the duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth) was his godmother and later his stepmother. Macky reckoned him ‘of sweet disposition’, if ‘inclining to fat’. He was raised under the protection of his grandfather Sir Stephen Fox, and later saw active military service in the Low Countries before his return for Eye on the family interest.<sup>4</sup> Cornwallis subsequently used his influence at Eye on behalf of the Junto.<sup>5</sup> The patronage of Sir Stephen Fox ensured that he was protected from the worst of his father’s excesses, but Cornwallis, Fox and Cornwallis’s stepmother, Anne, duchess of Buccleuch, were unable to avoid at least one suit at equity over debts relating to the family estates.<sup>6</sup> In 1712, financial difficulties eventually drove Cornwallis (as one of a number of ‘necessitous lords’) temporarily into the arms of the Oxford ministry.<sup>7</sup></p><p>A staunch supporter of the Revolution, Cornwallis was granted the honour of Eye out of jointure lands belonging to Mary of Modena and received a pension of £1,000 for life from 1701. Shrewdly, Fox arranged Cornwallis’ marriage to the wealthy heiress of the earl of Arran, fifth son of James Butler*, duke of Ormond.<sup>8</sup> Her considerable dowry included the parishes of Leighton, Brington and Bythorn in the Huntingdonshire manor of Weston.<sup>9</sup> In a complex multi-party agreement of 1700, confirmed in his will, Cornwallis and his wife entered into an indenture to sell his Suffolk and Norfolk manors of Culford, Easthall and Tymworth for £16,000, that sum being secured for portions and securities for his numerous children.</p><p>The political fortunes of the Cornwallis family had revived in 1690 with the election that saw a Cornwallis candidate returned for Eye. From 1695 until 1715, the dominance of the Cornwallis interest ensured that Eye escaped electoral contests completely. On 29 Apr. 1698, when Cornwallis succeeded to the barony, his seat at Eye transferred to Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Wilmington), who was also associated with Sir Stephen Fox.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On 11 May 1698 Cornwallis received his writ of summons and took his seat in the Lords.<sup>11</sup> Significantly, between 1698 and 1714 his highest attendance occurred during sessions when the Whigs came under pressure or when political issues required a strong party showing, especially during three of the four sessions from 1707 to 1709 and during the ministry of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. The pattern of his proxy giving and receiving suggests co-ordinated parliamentary management by the Whig leadership.</p><p>Having taken his seat six months after the start of the parliamentary session, Cornwallis was present for 33 sittings in his first session of the Lords (a quarter of the whole), attending sporadically until 4 July 1698, the day before the prorogation. In the ensuing election Spencer Compton and Sir Joseph Jekyll<sup>‡</sup> were returned uncontested for Eye. Cornwallis attended two of the prorogation sittings between August and December 1698 (27 Oct. and 29 Nov.) before taking his seat at the start of the new session on 6 Dec. 1698. Thereafter he attended 89 per cent of sittings. He was again present on 16 Nov. 1699 for the first day of the following session, of which he attended just under 80 per cent of all sittings. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning the House during the debates on the East India Company bill. On the same day, he was one of 18 peers to register his protest against the passage of the bill. It is likely that he returned to Suffolk following the dissolution of Parliament on 19 Dec. 1700.</p><p>Cornwallis took his seat in the new Parliament on 24 Feb. 1701, 18 days after the opening. He attended for just under half of all sittings. Loyal to the Junto, on 17 and 23 June he voted to acquit John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, from the impeachment charges. The next Parliament assembled on 30 Dec. 1701 and Cornwallis arrived at the House six days later. He attended 78 per cent of sittings. On 8 Mar 1702, along with everyone in the chamber at the time, he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the death of William III and the accession of Anne. On 1 May he reported from the select committees on two bills, the first involving the late John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, the second on the bill concerning hospitals and workhouses in Sudbury, Suffolk, an area in which he had both a personal and a political interest. He continued to attend until 16 May, when he entered his proxy in favour of Somers. It was vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Throughout 1702 Cornwallis continued to function as lord lieutenant of Suffolk, appointing deputy lieutenants and pressing men into the navy following a royal directive of May 1702.<sup>12</sup> He missed the first three weeks of business in the new Parliament and thereafter attended approximately one-third of sittings. This meant that he was absent for debates and divisions on the Occasional Conformity bill in December 1702, although his attitude toward the proposed measure would probably have been well known. In January 1703 he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a likely opponent of the bill. He then attended from 9 Jan. and on the 16th voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause.</p><p>In March 1703 Cornwallis was replaced as lord lieutenant of Suffolk by Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Dysart [S], who subsequently embarked on a purge of those deemed too ‘moderate’ from the lieutenancy.<sup>13</sup> In spite of his removal, Cornwallis maintained a significant interest in East Anglia. At the end of October James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> (later Earl Stanhope), hearing that Robert Walpole<sup>† </sup>(later earl of Orford) did not intend to return to London until Christmas, informed Walpole that Cornwallis had ‘promised us to use his interest to send you to us’.<sup>14</sup> On 1 and 26 Nov. Cornwallis was estimated by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as likely to oppose a renewed attempt to secure legislation against occasional conformity. He arrived at the House on 19 Nov., ten days after the start of the session, and attended 55 per cent of sittings. On 14 Dec. he was present for the division on a new occasional conformity bill and, as predicted, opposed the measure. Three days later he dined at Sunderland’s residence in St. James’s Square with a large gathering of Whigs. Cornwallis and his fellow Whigs gathered again on 13 Feb. 1704, when they drank tea and discussed in depth ‘about the Scotch Plot’ currently being examined by the Lords. He attended another Whig dinner on 27 Mar. at the Queen’s Arms in Pall Mall.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The next session opened on 24 Oct. 1704, but Cornwallis missed the first three months of business, not taking his seat until 27 Jan. 1705. On 26 Oct. he had again registered his proxy in favour of Somers and on 23 Nov. he was noted ‘excused’ at a call of the House. He attended the session for approximately one-third of sittings and it is possible that Somers used the Cornwallis proxy for the division on 15 Dec. (which called for proxies) against the passage of the reintroduced Occasional Conformity bill. On 27 Feb. 1705 Cornwallis was named to the committee to consider heads for a conference with the Commons on the Ailesbury men, and on 7 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prevent treasonable correspondence. He attended the session until the penultimate day before the prorogation, registering his proxy in favour of Ralph Grey*, 4th Baron Grey of Warke (vacated by the close). Parliament was dissolved on 5 Apr. and during the ensuing electoral campaign Cornwallis was acknowledged as a Hanoverian in an analysis of peerage attitudes towards the succession.</p><p>At the opening of the election campaign, Cornwallis was said to have been approached by his uncle Charles Fox, who had recently been dismissed from his place of joint paymaster of the forces and was anxious about his chances of retaining his seat at Salisbury. In the event, Fox secured re-election at Salisbury, freeing Cornwallis from an unwelcome obligation to promote Fox (a moderate Tory) at Eye in place of his own favoured (Whig) candidate. The election was accounted a success for the Whigs, though the story was not so favourable in Suffolk, where one of their number, Sir Dudley Cullum<sup>‡</sup>, was ‘turned out’.<sup>16</sup> The election there was described by one commentator as ‘such a trial of the strength of parties that the like has been hardly known’. Tory militants in the county claimed that ‘the body of all the chief gentry and most reputable yeomanry of the county’ attended Tory candidates at the hustings, while a ‘scoundrel medley’ accompanied their opponents and only ‘three gentlemen to head that herd’: Cornwallis, Charles FitzRoy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, and John Hervey*, Baron Hervey. The result was the return of Sir Robert Davers<sup>‡</sup> and Dysart (both Tories), who carried their elections ‘by a great majority’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Cornwallis was back in London by the autumn. He was one of a number of grandees to attend William Cowper*, later Earl Cowper, at the Middle Temple and then to accompany him to his swearing-in as lord keeper at Westminster Hall on 23 October.<sup>18</sup> Two days later Cornwallis attended the House for the opening of Parliament and was present for 63 per cent of sittings thereafter. On 1 Nov. he registered his proxy in favour of Somers (vacated on the 13th), after having been registered as ‘excused’ at a call of the House on the 12th. He was absent for the ‘Church in danger’ debate on 6 Dec., arriving four days later and attending fairly regularly until the end of the session in March 1706.</p><p>Cornwallis’ attendance during the winter 1706 session (of which he attended nearly 80 per cent of sittings) reflected the need for Whig support in the Lords as the Junto faced increasing pressure. With the House occupied with the Union with Scotland, Cornwallis was present at another Whig dinner gathering at the Queen’s Arms on 15 Feb. 1707, and at yet another on 24 Feb. (after the House had considered all of the articles of Union), at the residence of Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Cornwallis was present for just two days of the brief session that opened on 14 April. Following the proclamation to continue Parliament as the first of Great Britain, he took his seat on 23 Oct. for the start of parliamentary business and thereafter attended the session for 67 per cent of sittings. He was present on 19 Dec., when the Somers’ motion in the ‘No Peace without Spain’ debate was carried, and, if not present on 29 Jan. 1708 for the opening debate on the conduct of the battle of Almanza, he attended regularly throughout the remaining debates in February and for the subsequent vindication of the Whig ministry. On 5 Feb. he joined with the majority in voting for the speedy dissolution of the Scots privy council.<sup>20</sup> Following the dissolution, Cornwallis was, somewhat surprisingly, listed as being of unknown party affiliation, but possibly Tory. There is no reason to believe that he was anything but staunchly Whig.</p><p>Following the general election of 1708, with the Junto preparing for a series of parliamentary confrontations, Cornwallis arrived at the House on the first day of the session and attended the new Parliament for 79 per cent of sittings. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers sitting in the House by virtue of post-Union British peerages from voting in the elections for representative peers. He was back at Westminster by 17 Nov. 1709 for the third day of the new parliamentary session, during which he attended 61 per cent of all sitting days. He was present throughout the trial of Henry Sacheverell and on 20 Mar. 1710 found Sacheverell guilty. He remained in London thereafter, attending the prorogations on 5 Apr., 2 May and 16 May. The fall of the Junto and dissolution of Parliament on 21 Sept. was followed by the landslide Tory victory at the general election and reconstruction of the administration. The election at Eye revealed that political differences had arisen between Cornwallis and the sitting Member, Spencer Compton, following the latter’s ‘frequent sallies against the Junto’ between 1707 and 1709.<sup>21</sup> The Whig Thomas Maynard<sup>‡</sup> duly replaced Compton at the behest of Cornwallis.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1710, Cornwallis was reckoned by Harley as a certain opponent of the new ministry. Having taken his seat in the new session on 25 Nov., he proceeded to attend 78 per cent of sittings. On 12 Jan. 1711 he registered his proxy in favour of Orford (vacated on the 19th) and continued to support the Whigs in debates and divisions, particularly in early February over the discussions of the previous administration’s handling of the campaign in Spain. On 3 Feb. he registered his protest against two resolutions that criticized the previous government’s handling of resources in Spain. Five days later Cornwallis received the proxy of his fellow Whig Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle (vacated on the 26th). On the same day he dissented twice from Lords’ resolutions: to present to the queen a representation regarding the war with Spain, and against wording in that representation concerning the ‘vast sums’ of money raised by Parliament for financing the war. The reasons for the protests became the subject of debate and a further three divisions on the 9th, when Cornwallis signed three protests over the expunging from the Journal of certain words and phrases. On 16 Mar. he received the proxy of Maurice Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham (vacated at the end of the session). Continuing to socialize regularly with fellow Whigs, on 19 Mar. Cornwallis dined with Carlisle.<sup>23</sup> On 27 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of Sunderland (vacated on 7 May), quite possibly in readiness for divisions on the Greenshields case and the South Seas bill.</p><p>Cornwallis was present for the prorogation of 12 June 1711, after which (according to a list compiled by Oxford, as Harley had recently become) his political loyalties appeared to be wavering. In early December he was listed as one of those to be canvassed before the ‘No Peace without Spain’ vote in the House. He took his seat on 7 Dec. for the start of business and attended the session for 73 per cent of sittings. The following day, an alternative assessment listed Cornwallis as a certain opponent of the court. By 19 Dec. he was forecast as a probable opponent of the ministry in the Hamilton peerage vote due to take place the following day. On 20 Dec. Cornwallis duly joined the Whigs to vote against the right of Scottish peers (at the time of the Union) to sit in the House by right of post-Union British titles. There was a flurry of proxy-giving which reflected the heat of party division. On 14 Feb. and 7 Mar. Cornwallis received Grafton’s proxy (the latter vacated on 13 Mar. 1712) and on 1 Mar., 7 Apr. and 19 May the proxy of Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough (vacated on 14 Mar., 14 Apr. and 20 May respectively).</p><p>If Cornwallis’ loyalties had appeared uncertain at the beginning of the year, before the end of the session private necessity appears to have driven him into Oxford’s arms. On 13 Apr., in preparation for a journey back to Suffolk, he wrote to one of his colleagues seeking his intercession with Oxford ‘about the business I spoke to you of’. Should Oxford be willing to assist, Cornwallis conceded that it would ‘lay such an obligation on me that I shall be ready to serve his lordship in anything he will ask me’.<sup>24</sup> On 20 May, he registered his proxy in favour of Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset (possibly for use in the division on the Grants bill); it was vacated by his attendance on 24 May. By the start of June, Oxford still seems to have considered Cornwallis an unlikely supporter of the court. Yet by 7 June a deal appears to have been struck. Despite having supported the Whigs over the Grants bill (presumably by proxy), Cornwallis behaved completely out of character by supporting the ministry over the peace address.<sup>25</sup> It was reported with some contempt that, following the queen’s speech to Parliament on the succession, he had been one of those who ‘went off’, having ‘made a sort of agreement that the Court should prevent a division, by which means they should not be discovered, but they were gudgeons [political dupes], for the Court wanted not a majority, but a triumph … and so they were caught like fools’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>This was the only occasion on which Cornwallis abandoned the Whigs. He attended the House for the last time that session on 11 June; two days later he entered his proxy in favour of Grafton (vacated with the prorogation on 8 July). He attended further prorogations on four occasions in February and March 1713, by which time he had returned to the Whig fold: his name was appended by Oxford to one of Jonathan Swift’s calculations of support as an opponent.</p><p>Cornwallis took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713 after which he was present for over 60 per cent of sittings. In June he was thought likely to oppose the Eighth and Ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He was then present throughout the Malt Tax crisis until five days before the prorogation of 11 July. Despite the national political trend, the Cornwallis interest ensured that Eye again returned Whig candidates in the general election: on the withdrawal of the veteran Member Joseph Jekyll, Cornwallis ensured that Edward Hopkins<sup>‡</sup> (a young Junto Whig) was elected in his place.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Cornwallis took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, attending 63 per cent of sittings, though his attendance was punctuated with several periods of absence during which he entrusted his proxy to a variety of colleagues. In March he exchanged proxies with Grafton (receiving Grafton’s on 13 Mar. (vacated on the 31st) and entering his own in favour of Grafton later in the month). He returned to the House on 5 Apr., probably for the division on the perceived danger to the Protestant succession. Four days later, he registered his proxy in favour of Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (vacated on 27 April). Cornwallis then entrusted his proxy to Dorset on 11 May (vacated on the 26th), almost certainly in readiness for the Schism bill. He was correctly forecast by Nottingham as an opponent of the measure. Entrusted with the proxy of George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, on 11 June (vacated at the end of the session), Cornwallis recorded his protest when the bill passed the House on 15 June. Tightly managed proxy-giving continued and on 28 June he received Dorchester’s proxy (which was vacated the following day). Attending the session for the last time on the same day, he duly registered his own proxy in favour of Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln.</p><p>Cornwallis attended just two days of the brief August session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. The Hanoverian accession ushered in a far more favourable period for him, reflected in his receipt of a Cambridge LLD in 1717, and his appointment as a privy councillor in 1721. His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next section of this work.</p><p>Cornwallis died at his house in New Bond Street on 20 Jan. 1722 of ‘gout in the stomach’. According to at least one contemporary he ‘killed himself with strong waters’, a vice of which none had apparently suspected him.<sup>28</sup> His will confirmed the indenture made in 1700, and left detailed instructions for the sale of his personal estate and a bequest to his wife (and sole executrix) of £1,000. Of Cornwallis’ numerous children (nine sons and one daughter), one son, Edward, became a celebrated military commander and colonial governor, while Edward’s twin, Frederick* [1946], became archbishop of Canterbury. Cornwallis was buried at the family seat of Culford and was succeeded by his eldest son, another Charles Cornwallis*, as 5th Baron (later Earl) Cornwallis.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
CORNWALLIS, Frederick (1611-62) |
<p><strong><surname>CORNWALLIS</surname></strong>, <strong>Frederick</strong> (1611–62)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 Bar. CORNWALLIS |
|
First sat 14 May 1661; last sat 20 Nov. 1661 |
|
MP Eye 1640-2, Ipswich 1660 |
<p><em>b</em>. 14 Mar. 1611, 3rd but o. surv. s. of Sir William Cornwallis<sup>‡</sup>, kt. and bt. of Brome Hall, Suff. and 2nd w. Jane, da. of Hercules Meautys (Mewtas) of West Ham, Essex. <em>educ</em>. privately and Univ. Camb.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) c. 2 Dec. 1630, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. c.1644), da. of Sir John Ashburnham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Ashburnham, Suss., 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 1da.; (2) 1646 (with £2,000), Elizabeth, da. of Sir Henry Crofts<sup>‡</sup> kt. of Little Saxham, Suff., 1da. <em>cr</em>. bt. 4 May 1627; kntd. 1 Dec. 1630; <em>suc</em>. half-bro. Nicholas Bacon at Culford 1660. <em>d</em>. 7 Jan. 1662; probate inventory 21 Apr. 1662.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Equerry to Charles I by 1631; gent. of the privy chamber 1633-?; gent. usher of the privy chamber, 1638-45; treas. of the Household to Charles, prince of Wales, 1645-9, to Charles II, 1649-62.</p><p>PC 6 July 1660-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Steward, honour of Eye 1639-49, 1660-2; freeman, Ipswich 1660; commr. for oyer and terminer, Norfolk circuit 1660, assessment, Suff. 1660-1, sewers, Westminster 1660; dep. lt., Suff. 1660-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Lt. of horse 1639-40.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on panel by unknown artist, 1639, National Trust, Canons Ashby, Northants.</p> |
<p>Frederick Cornwallis, born into a family of distinguished courtiers, lost his father in infancy; he acquired an influential step-family in the Bacons of Culford when his wealthy widowed mother married the painter Sir Nathaniel Bacon (not to be confused with his namesake and kinsman, who served as Member of the Commons in several Parliaments). A protégé of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, Cornwallis climbed the ladder of court preferment, was created a baronet in 1627 through the influence of Sir Thomas Meautys<sup>‡</sup>, and was knighted in 1630.<sup>3</sup> A royalist veteran of the Short and Long Parliaments who controlled the electoral interest at Eye, Cornwallis was disabled from sitting in the Commons in 1642. He struggled financially because most of the Cornwallis estate was in the possession of his mother. His financial position was finally secured in 1659 when his mother died and when he also inherited the Culford estate.<sup>4</sup> </p><p>At the Restoration, Cornwallis was confirmed in post as treasurer of the royal household and appointed privy councillor. He made recommendations on a range of petitions for court patronage, including one in favour of the future ultra-royalist Lawrence Womock*, who became bishop of St Davids.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Securing the parliamentary seat of Eye for his son, Charles Cornwallis*, later 2nd Baron Cornwallis, he took his own place in the Commons as Member for Ipswich on 29 Oct. 1660. He was elevated to the peerage in April 1661. On 14 May 1661, six days into the Cavalier Parliament, he took his seat in the House of Lords. In the Commons in 1641 he had voted with the minority against the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. Now he was named to the committee on the reversal of that attainder.</p><p>Cornwallis attended the Lords on 53 occasions in the 1661-2 session, just over one quarter of the sittings. During the session, he was named to 13 committees on a range of public and private bills, including the Westminster streets’ bill, the militia bill, legislation to regulate the navy, the bill to preserve the king’s person, the bill for pains and penalties on persons excepted from indemnity, and private legislation concerning Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland. On 26 July he reported back from the committee on private legislation relating to Richard Gipps (a prominent Suffolk landowner) which involved land sale in Norfolk and Suffolk. It was predicted that on 11 July 1661, he would vote in favour of the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. Cornwallis attended the House for the last time on 20 Nov. 1661, six weeks before the end of the session, having been given the proxy of Leicester Devereux*, 6th Viscount Hereford, during July.</p><p>At a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661, it was noted that Cornwallis was sick. Six weeks later, on 7 Jan. 1662, he died of apoplexy at the age of 51. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> observed the funeral procession in St Paul’s churchyard and commented only that Cornwallis was a ‘bold profane-talking man’.<sup>6</sup> A contemporary elegy, in contrast, attributed to him the virtues of affability, humility and sweetness.<sup>7</sup> Cornwallis’ services to the crown were acknowledged when his widow, on 28 Feb. 1662, was granted just over £500 as a free gift out of the privy seal for ‘secret services’. Although the Cornwallis estates were reputed to be worth an annual £2,000, Lady Cornwallis continued to profit from her husband’s service to the Crown. Two months after his death, she was granted an annual pension of £600 and in August 1663, she received a further grant of the monthly ‘diet’ for the full month in which her husband had died.<sup>8</sup> More than eight years after the death of her husband, she was granted the debts and Suffolk estates of Sir Robert Drury, after his conviction for manslaughter.<sup>9</sup> Cornwallis was buried at Brome in Suffolk and was succeeded by his son Charles.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
COVENTRY, George (1628-80) |
<p><strong><surname>COVENTRY</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1628–80)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 27 Oct. 1661 as 3rd Bar. COVENTRY |
|
First sat 23 Nov. 1661; last sat 4 Dec. 1680 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 14 Feb. 1628, 1st s. of Thomas Coventry*, 2nd Bar. Coventry, and Mary, da. of Sir William Craven, sis. of William Craven*, earl of Craven; bro. of Thomas Coventry*, later earl of Coventry.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1643–c.1651.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 18 July 1653, Margaret (<em>d</em>. aft. July 1687),<sup>3</sup> da. of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<em> d</em>. 15 Dec. 1680; <em>admon</em>. 17 Jan. 1681.</p> |
<p><em>Custos. rot</em>. Worcs. 26 Nov. 1661–?<em>d.</em>; high steward, Tewkesbury.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>On the outbreak of Civil War, Coventry and his brother Thomas were despatched to France to avoid the conflict but they had returned to England by 1651, when they were in arms for Charles II.<sup>6</sup> Investigated for their role in the rebellion, the brothers were eventually cleared and restored to their estates.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Judicious marriage alliances contributed to making Coventry one of the most brilliantly connected members of the House. In addition to his uncle Craven, he could boast close relations with George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, as well as Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, and Anne, Baroness Clifford, with whom he appears to have been on good terms.<sup>8</sup> Coventry’s sister-in-law, Cecilia, later married Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, while his other uncles, Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, offered him potentially significant influence at court. There were close local connections, too: Coventry’s brother-in-law Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> was in turn brother-in-law to Samuel Sandys<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Droitwich and Worcestershire. He also appears to have had contact with members of the London merchant community, such as Sir Thomas Vernon<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Despite this, Coventry appears to have been content to lead a retired life in Worcestershire, satisfied with keeping ‘a great retinue & a noble & plentiful table’, though his estates appear to have suffered a decline during his stewardship.<sup>10</sup> In 1661 he was appointed <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the county, though the appointment appears to have been due more to his standing as one of the wealthiest local landowners than to his desire to exert any political influence. Occasional references to him as also holding the office of lord lieutenant are erroneous: it was entrusted to Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth). Even so, Coventry’s influence in the county was considerable, and one of the seats at Droitwich was held consistently by the Coventry interest in the period 1660–85. His brother, Thomas, was elected to the Convention for Droitwich in spite of his well-known previous royalist activities. The following year, Thomas gave way to his uncle Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> who held the seat for the ensuing 20 years.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Coventry’s wife Margaret was a devoted upholder of the Church of England, and there is no reason to doubt that her husband shared her opinions. Shortly after his succession, Coventry withdrew his contribution towards the curate’s income at Stroud in Gloucestershire, on account of the Presbyterian doctrine of the incumbent, Robert Pleydell. Pleydell appealed to have the £10 stipend restored several years later, offering testimonials of his orthodoxy, but it is unclear whether he was successful.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Coventry took his seat in the House on 23 Nov. 1661, after which he continued to attend on a further 34 days (21 per cent of the whole) but was named to only one committee during the remainder of the session. He was marginally more active in the second session, of 1663. He took his seat at the opening, when he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and the subcommittee for the Journal. Present on half of all sitting days in the session, he was otherwise named only to one other committee, that considering the bill to regulate glass bottles, and was notably absent for the first reading of his uncle Sir John Pakington’s bill on 7 May 1663. He was still missing the following day, when a committee was nominated to consider the measure, but returned to the House in time to witness the passing of the bill on 13 May.</p><p>For the rest of the decade Coventry’s attendance remained sporadic and his activity in the House limited. He failed to attend the third session but was excused at a call of the House on 4 Apr. 1664. He took his seat once more in the fourth session, on 2 Dec. 1664, after which he was present on 34 per cent of all sitting days, but he was again named to just one committee. He attended a mere three days at the close of the subsequent session in October 1665 and was again missing at the opening of the following session in October 1666. He eventually took his seat on 10 Nov., after which his attendance improved markedly, to approximately 57 per cent of all sitting days. Even so, he was named to only two committees and there is no evidence that he played a significant role in either one. Coventry failed to attend the following session but was again excused at a call of the House on 29 Oct. 1667. He was then present for just one day of the eighth session, taking his place on the final day on 1 Mar. 1669. His attendance improved once more later that year: having taken his seat two months into the new session on 8 Nov. he proceeded to attend on just over 72 per cent of all sitting days but he was again named to no committees.</p><p>Coventry’s activity in the House underwent a significant change the following year. Having taken his seat at the opening of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670 he proceeded to attend on 87 per cent of all sitting days. He may also have been more involved in committee work. He was named to the standing committees for petitions and privileges and on 2 Mar. to that considering Lady Lee’s bill. On 8 Mar. he was named to two more committees and on 24 Mar. to that considering the bill to prevent the malicious burning of houses. Following the adjournment, on 9 Nov. Coventry was named to two further committees, considering the bills for Christopher Monk*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. There may have been local interest involved in the decision of 23 Nov. to add him, along with William Herbert*, 3rd Baron Powis, and Halifax, to the bill concerning Worcester gaol. Similar local interest may have involved Coventry’s nomination three days after to that considering the bill for the improvement of navigation on the River Trent.</p><p>Coventry was named to two further committees in December 1670 and on 14 Jan. 1671 he was also named to the committee of the House examining the assault on the lord steward (James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], earl of Brecknock in the English peerage). On 17 Jan. he was nominated to the committee considering the bill for Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, the son of his former neighbour in Worcestershire, Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, and on 14 Feb. to that considering Neville Yelverton’s bill. Yelverton was the posthumous son of Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, whose family owned estates in Warwickshire, so it is possible that there was, again, a local dimension to Coventry’s involvement with this committee. Through March and April Coventry was named to a further six committees, one of which was that considering the bill for regulating tobacco. The illegal propagation of tobacco was rife in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, crops being grown in Pershore, close to the Coventry’s Croome estates, and in Prestbury, where Craven was the dominant landowner.<sup>13</sup> Other centres of illicit tobacco manufacture included Tewkesbury, where Coventry was high steward, which suggests that he must have had a keen interest in the outcome of the bill, though there is no evidence of his playing a prominent role in the committee’s deliberations.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Despite this apparent resurgence of activity, Coventry’s attendance declined once more in the subsequent session. Absent from the opening, he was excused on the grounds of ill health at a call of the House on 13 Feb. 1673 and it was not until 3 Mar. that he finally took his seat. He was thereafter present on just under half of all sitting days, during which he was named to no committees. He failed to return to the House for the brief 12th session of October 1673 but took his place once more at the opening of the following session on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the committees for petitions and privileges, he was thereafter appointed to three further committees during the remainder of the session.</p><p>Coventry was absent for the two following sessions, though he entered his proxy in favour of his uncle Craven on 20 Apr. 1675, which was vacated by the closing of the session. At a call of the House on 10 Nov. he was said to be travelling to London to attend but he appears to have altered his resolution. He took his seat in the new session on 15 Feb. 1677 and was present thereafter on 68 per cent of all sitting days. On 19 Feb. he was named to the committee considering the bill for prevention of frauds and perjuries. The following day he was nominated to the committee for the bill of Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, and to a further six committees during the following two months. In April 1677, a marriage settlement appears to have been in train between Coventry’s daughter Margaret and ‘Lord Howard’. Despite having the backing of Henry Somerset*, marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, and an assurance that Howard intended to convert to the Church of England, neither Coventry nor his wife appear to have favoured the match and it is perhaps indicative of Lady Coventry’s greater sway that, when Worcester and Carlisle visited to negotiate, she handled the discussions, while Coventry slumbered in his chamber, his wife professing herself ‘loath to disturb him’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Coventry was noted as ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury in his assessment of May 1677. He took his seat in the House following the adjournment in January 1678, after which he was named to three committees during March and April. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. ‘The Thynnes and all the Coventrys and their interest’ were listed as being enemies of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), in 1678.<sup>16</sup> Danby still reckoned Coventry to be one of his opponents in a series of forecasts gauging support in March of the following year.</p><p>Coventry’s level of attendance collapsed once more in the final sessions of the Cavalier Parliament. He failed to attend the session of May 1678 at all and only managed to rouse himself to be present on two days of the following session in December. On 24 Dec. he was noted among three peers believed to have resolved to back the court, though there remained some doubt about his steadfastness.<sup>17</sup> He attended two days of the abortive session of March 1679, before taking his place a month into the new Parliament, on 15 April. He was subsequently present on 33 per cent of all sitting days. On 10 May he voted in favour of appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against Danby and the other impeached lords, and on 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during consideration of capital cases. Coventry’s attention at the time may have been more taken up with attempting to settle a marriage for one of his daughters. In March he appears to have been on the point of concluding a match with James Hamilton*, earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S]), though the question of portion appears to have been a sticking point. Arran’s father suggested that Coventry should be persuaded to increase the portion in return for an earldom but nothing further came of it.<sup>18</sup> The negotiation clearly collapsed soon after, and during the summer Coventry’s daughter Margaret was married to Charles Powlett*, styled earl of Wiltshire (later duke of Bolton), instead, with a £30,000 portion.<sup>19</sup> The marriage, ‘kept with great solemnity according to the fashion of old England’, was marked by a ball at Coventry’s house attended by the king.<sup>20</sup></p><p>In spite of his former opposition to Danby, Coventry seems not to have been willing to continue in opposition and in the general election he attempted to exercise his influence in support of anti-exclusionist candidates. Towards the end of August he attended the poll for the city of Coventry in company with Simon Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Baron Digby [I], who aimed to stand against Richard Hopkins<sup>‡</sup> and John Stratford<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>21</sup> Coventry and Digby’s attempt to influence the election aroused the irritation of the townsmen, who refused to allow them into the town, saying ‘that as they were peers they had nothing to do with the election, and they knew no business they had there, and in plain terms told them therein they should not come’. The townsmen had their way and, despite an attempt to persuade the sheriff to adjourn the election, Digby ended bottom of the poll.<sup>22</sup> This unsuccessful bid appears to have been one of the few occasions when Coventry attempted to exert what ought to have been considerable political influence.</p><p>Coventry failed to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680. On 30 Oct. he was missing at a call of the House but was excused on the grounds of ill health. He took his place on 15 Nov. but attended on just 12 days before quitting for the final time. On his first day back in the House he voted in favour of putting the question that the Exclusion bill should be rejected at its first reading but was then listed as absent from the subsequent division on whether or not to proceed with the bill. On 23 Nov. he may have voted in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom, though the annotation against his name is uncertain. Coventry sat for the last time on 4 December. Three days later he was excused once again at a call of the House and was consequently absent from the division on Stafford’s guilt. He died just over a week later, on 15 December. His death was related dismissively by his cousin Halifax to Henry Savile, who commented only that it ‘may give you the opportunity of mourning if you care for it’.<sup>23</sup> John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, made more of the event, noting that the deaths of both Coventry and Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, had occurred shortly after the great comet (Kirch’s comet) had been observed in the skies.<sup>24</sup></p><p>In his later years, Coventry appears to have made some effort to improve his estate.<sup>25</sup> Although he died intestate, he was able to leave a substantial inheritance to his heir. An inventory of his estate compiled in February 1681 listed goods in excess of £12,450.<sup>26</sup> He was buried at Croome and succeeded by his son, John Coventry*, as 4th Baron Coventry. His widow continued to exercise her own influence; after her husband’s death she remained a devoted upholder of the Church of England.<sup>27</sup> She outlived both her son and his successor, dying in July 1729.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COVENTRY, Gilbert (c. 1668-1719) |
<p><strong><surname>COVENTRY</surname></strong>, <strong>Gilbert</strong> (c. 1668–1719)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew 28 Jan. 1712 as 4th earl of COVENTRY |
|
First sat 23 Feb. 1712; last sat 28 June 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1668, 2nd surv. s. of Thomas Coventry*, later earl of Coventry, and Winifred, da. of Col. Piers Edgcumbe<sup>‡</sup> of Mount Edgcumbe, Cornw. <em>educ</em>. apprenticed to a merchant of Amsterdam 1683–7;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (Paris) 1689–90.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 30 Nov. 1694 (with £5,000),<sup>3</sup> Dorothy (1667–1705), da. of Sir William Keyte, bt. of Hidcote, Glos. 1da.; (2) 27 June 1715 (with £10,000), Anne (1691–1788), da. of Sir Streynsham Master of Codnor Castle, Derbys.<sup>4</sup> <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 27 Oct. 1719; <em>will</em> 27 Oct. 1719 pr. 13 Feb. 1720.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1719.</p><p>Dep. lt. Worcs. 1700;<sup>6</sup> ld. lt. Worcs. Mar. 1719–<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Johann Kerseboom, 1694, National Trust, Antony House, Cornw.; oil on canvas by Michael Dahl, 1714, National Trust, Antony House, Cornw.</p> |
<p>As the younger son of a younger son, Gilbert Coventry cannot have expected to inherit the Coventry peerage. At the age of 15 he was sent to Holland to be apprenticed to a merchant, an arrangement that did not appeal to the young man at all. Although he became fluent in Dutch, his family were concerned that he was not applying himself to his trade and was frittering away his allowance.<sup>10</sup> There were also concerns that his attachment to the Church of England was being eroded.<sup>11</sup> Such fears became more acute in 1687, when his father unexpectedly succeeded as 5th Baron Coventry. More worrying still was the news that Coventry was believed to be ‘very near marriage’ with one Mrs Blake. The prospect of the son of a peer making a <em>mésalliance</em> induced Edward Cookes, Coventry’s steward, to warn, ‘If there was ever such a thing I hope it is now past, and that you will see your own interest so far as to waive any such thoughts, for it is now expected you should marry into a good family.’ The Blake match came to nothing, and two years later negotiations were under way for a suitable partner for both Gilbert and his brother, Thomas Coventry*, later 2nd earl of Coventry.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Coventry returned to England in 1690, after a spell in Paris.<sup>13</sup> In March Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Bellomont [I], sought his interest in the election for Droitwich, but his continued excesses caused further ruptures with his father.<sup>14</sup> The attempts of Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, to mediate on Coventry’s behalf were unsuccessful and Coventry was forced to seek sanctuary with his mother’s relatives at Cotehele in Cornwall.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Over the next few years Coventry continued to complain of lack of money.<sup>16</sup> By 1692 he had become so desperate as to contemplate enlisting in the army. Because he was prohibited from visiting the family home at Croome, his brother suggested that he stay with Charles Hancock of Twining, or Sir Francis Russell, bt. of Strensham, while further mediation was attempted with his father.<sup>17</sup> In 1694 Leigh once more intervened on Coventry’s behalf, while his sister-in-law, Lady Anne Coventry, used her influence to attempt to procure him preferment with James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. The death of his mother, Winifred, Lady Coventry, during the year was a considerable blow, but in November Coventry was able at last to achieve some independence with his marriage to his cousin Dorothy Keyte.<sup>18</sup> The match should have improved relations between Coventry and his long-suffering father but disputes over the marriage settlement added to their disagreements.<sup>19</sup> He also fell out with his brother, Thomas, convinced that the latter had poisoned their father’s mind against him.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Despite these family disputes, Coventry was able to command significant political influence in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. In March 1698 Thomas Windsor*, later Viscount Mountjoy, requested his assistance in the Evesham by-election.<sup>21</sup> On this occasion Windsor was defeated but, as a further indication of his status in the county, in 1700 Coventry was appointed a deputy lieutenant in Worcestershire.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The general election of 1702 revealed deepening divisions within the family as Coventry and Thomas, who had since succeeded as 2nd earl of Coventry, clashed over the elections for Worcestershire. Gilbert Coventry had intended to give his support to Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>. In alliance with his father-in-law, Sir William Keyt, he sent gifts of meat to the voters but he was persuaded to withhold his interest by his aunt, Lady Throckmorton, to avoid further damaging relations with his brother.<sup>23</sup> Coventry agreed reluctantly, but complained of his brother’s interference:</p><blockquote><p>I will not pretend to advise one way or [the] other not knowing how far the nobility ought to concern themselves in elections, but it is very hard that my brother should pretend to forbid me any place, because he is there present. I hope I may be allowed the liberty … to serve my friends and country as others do without disobliging anybody.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>Coventry’s close relations with the Windsor family were underlined by his inclusion as one of the trustees of the marriage settlement of Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, with Elizabeth Whitley, in April 1705, and in May Coventry and Plymouth combined their interests in the Worcestershire election in favour of Pakington.<sup>25</sup> The same year, Dorothy Coventry died, leaving Coventry with a daughter, Anne. The following December witnessed the beginnings of a lengthy dispute with Sir Richard Newdigate over the leasing of coal mines on Coventry’s land. Although not a party to the action, the case provided an opportunity for the new earl to patch things up with his brother. The earl was reported to be ‘mighty zealous’ to assist, as he was eager to see Coventry wash his hands of Newdigate.<sup>26</sup> In October 1707 Coventry entered a counter-suit in chancery against Newdigate’s demand for a renewal of the lease but bickering between the two families over the leasing of the coal mines continued until after Coventry’s death.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Coventry succeeded to the peerage as 4th earl of Coventry in January 1712, following the death of his nephew, Thomas Coventry*, 3rd earl of Coventry, at Eton.<sup>28</sup> With the earldom he inherited a considerable estate, with lands in Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Middlesex, commanding an annual rental income in excess of £4,750.<sup>29</sup> His succession altered the political balance within Worcestershire, he being solidly Tory in outlook in contrast to his late brother’s vehement Whiggism. Coventry took his seat in the House on 23 Feb. but he sat for just four more days before retiring for the remainder of the session and on 12 Mar. he registered his proxy in Plymouth’s favour.</p><p>Succession to the earldom brought to the fore the problem of the future inheritance of the peerage, and within a month of his elevation Coventry was encouraged to marry again.<sup>30</sup> Eagerness to settle the succession may also have encouraged him to find a husband for his daughter, Anne. For the remainder of the year, Coventry’s attention was occupied with the drawing up of a bill to allow him to raise £5,000 from his lands in Warwickshire and Middlesex towards his daughter’s portion. In May he drafted a memorandum for his agent, Francis Taylor, requiring him to wait on his cousin Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, to recruit his assistance in passing the bill. Coventry also hoped that Edward Jeffreys<sup>‡</sup> (formerly Winnington) would lend his support in the Commons should a petition to the lower House be necessary.<sup>31</sup></p><p>In June Coventry was listed by Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, as a doubtful court supporter but the following month Coventry received an enthusiastic letter from Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, complimenting him on the ‘zeal’ he had displayed in Worcestershire for the queen’s interest. Coventry was disappointed, however, by the lord keeper’s cautious response to his bill in August, in which he perceived there to be several difficulties.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Rumours circulated in October 1712 that Coventry was to marry a ‘west country widow’ but these proved illusory.<sup>33</sup> He was present in the House on four of the prorogation days in February and March 1713; in March he was listed as a supporter of the ministry and on 9 Apr. he took his seat at the opening of the new session. Present on just over 30 per cent of all sitting days, on 5 May he was named to the committee considering the bill to enable Symes Parry to change his surname to Symes, and three days later the Coventry estate bill received its first reading.<sup>34</sup> The following day the bill was committed and on 30 May, following a third reading, the House resolved that the bill should pass. In June Coventry was thought to be in favour of the Eighth and Ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Perhaps in deference to his mother’s influence, Coventry appears to have been associated closely with Cornish affairs. On 4 Jan. 1714 his daughter, Anne, married Sir William Carew, bt. of Antony House. Coventry took his seat in the House once more on 5 Mar. but sat for only four days before once more retiring from the session. On 12 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of his distant relative-by-marriage, the Cornish peer George Granville*, Baron Lansdown. However, unlike Lansdown and Carew, there is no reason to suspect that Coventry harboured Jacobite sympathies. In May he was unsurprisingly estimated to be a supporter of the Schism bill and on 31 May he transferred his proxy to his Warwickshire neighbour, Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh. Coventry’s earlier proxy had been vacated when Lansdown registered his own proctoral vote on 28 May. His new proxy was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Family disagreements again occupied Coventry during the year, as he was involved with a chancery case with his sister-in-law, Anne, Lady Coventry, over the terms of her jointure.<sup>35</sup> In spite of such distractions, he maintained his interest in Worcestershire following the queen’s death, and in August Thomas Vernon<sup>‡</sup> approached Coventry for his interest in the county. The same year Coventry appears to have exercised his influence in the South Sea Company on behalf of one Dover in procuring him the position of chief officer for the company at Buenos Aires.<sup>36</sup> He took his seat in the House a month after the opening of the new Parliament, on 26 Apr. 1715, following which he was present on a further 21 days until the end of June. During this time he was at last successful in concluding an advantageous match. He was consequently absent from the House on 27 June, the day of his marriage to Anne Master, whom he described as his ‘Indian queen’, daughter of Sir Streynsham Master, director of the New East India Company.<sup>37</sup> The wedding breakfast, held at a hotel on Hampstead Heath, cost the princely sum of £6 5<em>s</em>. 4<em>d</em>.<sup>38</sup> During his brief absence, Coventry ensured that his proxy was registered in favour of John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham. He resumed his seat in the House for the final time the following day.</p><p>Coventry returned to Croome in July 1715 but his intended return to London was forestalled by news of Oxford’s impeachment. In a letter to his father-in-law, Coventry excused his failure to rally to Oxford’s cause, arguing that ‘my Lord Oxford’s enemies carried it by so great a majority that had I been there it would have been no service to him, but I shall not be backwards in attending when occasion shall require’. In spite of his good intentions, he continued to avoid London. In February he complained to Sir Streynsham Master that he was plagued by ‘a multitude of business occasioned by law suits and other private concerns’.<sup>39</sup> In part this was a result of the imprisonment of his son-in-law Sir William Carew as a suspected Jacobite at the time of the 1715 rebellion, but Coventry may also have been referring to the ongoing dispute with his sister-in-law, as hearings in October 1715 and April 1716 failed to resolve the matter.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Preoccupied with business, Coventry entrusted his proxy to Buckingham again in April and took the opportunity to explain how he expected him to exercise it:</p><blockquote><p>It is infinite satisfaction to me that I know it is committed to one who upon all occasions has had the courage to show himself a great and a strenuous defender of the public safety and there is nothing but this consideration that … have kept me thus long in the country at this time of day especially since I have heard of a design to bring in a bill to repeal the Triennial Act which act I always took to be one of the greatest securities our laws afford to the liberties of the subject, and I had not given your lordship the trouble of this letter but that your lordship was pleased to tell me it would be some satisfaction to you to know that you used my vote as I would do my self if I was present which should be for the throwing out of this bill and I hope I agree with your lordship’s own sentiments …<sup>41</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite the care he displayed in outlining his wishes to Buckingham, there is no record of Coventry’s proxy being registered in the proxy book. On 25 Feb. 1717 Coventry registered his proxy in Buckingham’s favour again, which was vacated by the conclusion of the session. He did so once more later that year, probably in December, but the date of its registration is missing from the proxy book.</p><p>In the final years of his life Coventry suffered from poor health and was incapacitated by gout.<sup>42</sup> On 8 Nov. 1718 he again registered his proxy in Buckingham’s favour, which was vacated once more by the close of the session. Coventry died the following year on 27 October.<sup>43</sup> In his will, which appears to have been drawn up hurriedly the same day, he bequeathed to his wife £3,000, in addition to her jointure and much of the personal estate at Croome. He appointed his daughter, Lady Anne Carew, his executrix and was succeeded by his cousin William Coventry<sup>†</sup> as 5th earl of Coventry.<sup>44</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COVENTRY, John (1654-87) |
<p><strong><surname>COVENTRY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1654–87)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Dec. 1680 as 4th Bar. COVENTRY |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1681; last sat 20 Nov. 1685 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 Sept. 1654, 1st s. of George Coventry*, 3rd Bar. Coventry, and Margaret (<em>d</em>.1729), da. of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet. <em>educ</em>. unknown. unm. <em>d</em>. 25 July 1687; admon. 26 July 1687 to mother.</p> |
<p><em>Custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Worcs. 3 Feb. 1681-<em>d</em>.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by unknown artist, National Trust, Antony, Cornw.</p> |
<p>Coventry inherited an estate that, while still lucrative, was in need of serious attention. Although he did not live to see the estate restored, the policies that he initiated with his agent, Francis Taylor, ensured the continued wealth of his family.<sup>3</sup> Soon after coming into the title, Coventry made use of his influence in the election of 1681 when he was active in company with his relative Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), in supporting the royalist Samuel Sandys<sup>‡</sup> as knight of the shire for Worcestershire.<sup>4</sup> At a meeting of the local gentry on 10 Feb. Windsor headed a subscription in the event of the election ending in a poll, with his pledge of £200 matched by Coventry.<sup>5</sup> Windsor and Coventry expended over £500 during the campaign but despite their efforts Sandys lost out to the exclusionists Bridges Nanfan<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup>. Windsor and Coventry’s defeat inspired a ballad celebrating Nanfan and Foley’s victory over the ‘court designers’, ‘Not Guilty’ (Windsor) and ‘Coventry Blue’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>During his short career in the House, Coventry appears to have departed from his father’s political path and to have taken a sympathetic stance to the plight of the imprisoned former lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). A forecast drawn up by Danby estimated that if Coventry did not support his efforts to be bailed in the coming sessions he would abstain. Coventry took his seat in the House on the first day of the session held at Oxford on 21 Mar. 1681 and sat for six of its seven days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and on 25 Mar. to the committee receiving information about the plot. Despite opposing Exclusion and standing against the Whigs, on the news of the death of his great-uncle, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, Coventry, Windsor and other relatives went into public mourning.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Coventry appears to have been a passionate follower of the turf. His enthusiasm was remarked on by his kinsman, Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup>, who commented at Newmarket in March 1683 how the young lord ‘comes little to court, his business being most amongst the jockeys.’<sup>8</sup> Two years later Coventry was roused into renewed activity with James II’s accession. The Coventry family was traditionally associated with staunch support for the Church of England and in a series of forecasts compiled over the next few years Coventry was estimated as an opponent of repeal of the Test Act and of the king’s policies in general. At the election of 1685, Plymouth (as Windsor had since become) ‘with the approbation of Lord Coventry’ was successful in overturning the disappointment of 1681 by setting up Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> and James Pytts<sup>‡</sup> in opposition to Foley and Nanfan.<sup>9</sup> Coventry took his seat in the House at the opening of Parliament on 19 May 1685 but appears to have exerted little influence. He was again named to the committees for privileges and petitions but absented himself after 6 June and there is no record of his entering a proxy. He was present again shortly after the summer adjournment on 16 Nov. and sat on each of the five days the session lasted.</p><p>Coventry died in July 1687 aged just 32 of a violent fever following a long illness. Hogsdun (Hoxton) waters were said to have added dramatically to his suffering. He died intestate, leaving it to his mother to take out letters of administration.<sup>10</sup> Coventry left a substantial estate, which was valued by Roger Morrice at £11,000 p.a. and ‘the most and the richest jewels that any one subject of England had.’<sup>11</sup> Estate records at Croome suggest the total annual income was in fact nearer £8,471.<sup>12</sup> He was buried at Croome and succeeded by his uncle Thomas Coventry* as 5th Baron Coventry.<sup>13</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COVENTRY, Thomas (c. 1606-61) |
<p><strong><surname>COVENTRY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1606–61)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 14 Jan. 1640 as 2nd Bar. COVENTRY |
|
First sat 11 May 1660; last sat 28 May 1661 |
|
MP Droitwich 1625, 1626; Worcs. 1628 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1606, 1st s. of Sir Thomas Coventry<sup>†</sup>, later Bar. Coventry, and Sarah, da. of John Seabright of Blakeshall, Worcs.<sup>1</sup>; bro. of Henry<sup>‡</sup> and William Coventry.<sup>‡</sup> <em>educ</em>. I. Temple 1623. <em>m</em>. 2 Apr. 1627, Mary (<em>d</em>.1634), da. of Sir William Craven, Merchant Taylor and alderman of London, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>.<em> d</em>. 27 Oct. 1661; <em>will</em> 31 Aug. 1657, pr. 20 Feb. 1662.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p><em>Custos. rot</em>. Worcs. 1628–c.1643, 5 July 1660–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot.</em> Glos. 1638–?; mbr., Council in the Marches 1633; commr. array, Worcs. 1642, Worcester 1642.</p><p>Mbr., Plymouth Venturers 1625.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: by Cornelius Jonson, Croome d’Abitot.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>The Coventry family’s origins are uncertain. According to one tradition they were originally a London mercantile family, while another places them early on in Worcestershire. What is certain is that by the middle of the sixteenth century they were established in Worcestershire, where in 1592 Sir Thomas Coventry (1547–1606), grandfather of the subject of this piece, purchased the manor of Croome D’Abitot. Sir Thomas’s son, also Thomas, became lord keeper to Charles I and was created Baron Coventry of Aylesborough in 1628. During his lifetime the family’s estates were substantially improved and extended, and on his death the 1st baron left a vast fortune to his heir.</p><p>Coventry inherited estates in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Lincolnshire, as well as several houses in London, though his principal residence remained at Croome.<sup>6</sup> The manor of Croome had been conveyed to Coventry by his father at the time of his marriage to Mary Craven, sister of Sir William Craven*, later earl of Craven, and many of the improvements on the Worcestershire estates were carried out at the 2nd baron’s instigation.<sup>7</sup> The extent of Coventry’s wealth is apparent by the acquisition of several estates in the county at a cost of £80,000 during the 1630s and, following the gutting of Croome Court by fire in about 1640, its lavish rebuilding. The internal woodwork alone was reported to have cost £641 13<em>s</em>. 10<em>d</em>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Before succeeding to the peerage, Coventry had been a relatively inactive member of the Commons as Member for Droitwich and Worcestershire. He appears to have been more circumspect in his political dealings than his father and may have profited from his connection with families of widely differing political outlooks. Through his half-sister, Margaret, Coventry was brother-in-law to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later earl of Shaftesbury, with whom he shared a house in 1641, while his own marriage connected him not only to the staunchly loyal Cravens but also to the impoverished yet influential Catholic peer Percy Herbert*, 2nd Baron Powis.<sup>9</sup></p><p>On the outbreak of Civil War, Coventry supported the king initially but as the conflict increasingly went Parliament’s way, he appears to have faltered in his resolve.<sup>10</sup> The first battle of the war, at Powick Bridge on 23 Sept. 1642, took place on Coventry’s land, which may have contributed to his determination to quit the country. In February 1643 his two sons were granted passes to travel to France. Coventry followed them later the same year, ostensibly for his health.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Coventry had returned to Croome by the time of the 1651 uprising in the hopes of safeguarding his estates, and he appears to have attempted to hedge his bets by promising substantial sums to both sides.<sup>12</sup> The king, according to one report, exasperated at Coventry’s behaviour, ordered his troops to requisition horses from the stables at Croome and commanded that the recalcitrant lord should be pulled ‘out of his house by his ears’, though evidence presented to the county commissioners suggested that Coventry had in fact offered the king the horses and more besides.<sup>13</sup> Although Coventry was cleared on this occasion, he was arrested two years later along with a number of other cavaliers, though he seems to have suffered no further discomfiture at Parliament’s hands for the rest of the Interregnum.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Coventry took his seat in the restored House on 11 May, following which he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days in the session. In spite of his inglorious conduct during the war and removal into France, he was included by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in his assessment of the peerage as one of the ‘lords with the king’.<sup>15</sup> On the face of it he ought to have proved an influential member. His younger son, Thomas Coventry*, later earl of Coventry, was returned for Droitwich in the Convention, on the strength of support at court, and his brother-in-law, Sir John Packington<sup>‡</sup>, secured one of the Worcestershire county seats at the 1661 election; his brothers Henry and William were both also returned to the Cavalier Parliament. Despite this, Coventry’s contribution to the proceedings seems to have been minimal. On 19 July 1660 he was named to the committee considering the second reading of the bill confirming judicial proceedings but this was the only committee to which he was named in the session. In an attempt, perhaps, to make up for his ambiguous behaviour during the civil wars he subscribed a voluntary gift of £400 to the king.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Coventry took his seat again on 6 Nov. 1660. Although he was present on over 95 per cent of all sitting days in the remainder of the session, he was named to no committees, his only obvious action being to subscribe the protest of 13 Dec. against the resolution to pass Sir Edward Powell’s bill. He then took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was named to the committees for privileges, customs and orders of the House and petitions. Having attended on just 14 occasions, he sat for the last time on 28 May, and died five months later on 27 Oct. aged 55. The cause of death was reported to have been ‘gangrene that was in several of his toes’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Coventry made a number of substantial bequests, including £5,000 to his younger son, Thomas Coventry, £500 to the poor of Evesham, £300 to the poor of Tewkesbury and a yearly rent-charge of £25 from his lands at Powick for the city of Worcester.<sup>18</sup> A codicil of 2 July 1661 added a further bequest of £500 for the repair of Worcester Cathedral. He was buried at Croome and succeeded by his elder son, George Coventry*, as 3rd Baron Coventry.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COVENTRY, Thomas (c. 1629-99) |
<p><strong><surname>COVENTRY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1629–99)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew 25 July 1687 as 5th Bar. COVENTRY; <em>cr. </em>26 Apr. 1697 earl of COVENTRY. |
|
First sat 29 Jan. 1689; last sat 23 Dec. 1697 |
|
MP Droitwich 1660; Camelford 1661; Warwick 1681, 1685. |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1629, 2nd s. of Thomas Coventry*, 2nd Bar. Coventry (<em>d</em>. 1661), and Mary, da. of Sir William Craven; bro. of George Coventry*, 3rd Bar. Coventry. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1643.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 1660, Winifred (<em>d</em>. 11 June 1694), da. of Col. Piers Edgcumbe<sup>‡</sup> of Mount Edgcumbe, Cornw. 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 1da. (<em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 16 July 1695, Elizabeth Grimes (<em>alias</em> Graham), domestic servant, da. of Richard Grimes, turner of London, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 15 July 1699; <em>will</em> 24 Mar., pr. 27 July 1699.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>High steward, Worcester 1687–<em>d</em>., Evesham 1687–Feb. 1688, Oct. 1688–<em>d</em>; <em>custos rot</em>. Worcs. 1689–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by Mary Beale, c. 1675, St Edmundsbury Museum, Suffolk; monument, St Mary’s, Elmley Castle.</p> |
<p>Coventry had an undistinguished career in Parliament before inheriting the peerage from his nephew in his late fifties. In spite of his father’s royalist activities during the civil wars and his own suspected support for Charles II at Worcester in 1651, Coventry was returned to the Convention Parliament on the family interest for Droitwich. The following year he made way there for his uncle Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> and was returned instead for Camelford on the interest of Sir Piers Edgecumbe,<sup>‡</sup> whose daughter he had married the previous year.<sup>6</sup> In addition to his responsibilities in Cornwall, Coventry also maintained his Warwickshire interests and the same year he purchased an estate at Snitterfield from Lady Hales for £14,500.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Coventry appears not to have stood for Parliament in 1679. In 1681 he transferred to Warwick with the support of Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke.<sup>8</sup> Having narrowly avoided death in a catastrophic riding accident that left him incapacitated for 11 weeks in 1684, he was returned once more in 1685, but the premature death of his nephew John Coventry*, 4th Baron Coventry, in 1687 promoted him to the peerage, propelling him into a political arena that he appears to have been more than ready to quit.<sup>9</sup> At the time of his succession he was described as ‘living as a private gentleman’, though Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup> thought he appeared to be ‘a man to some purpose’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Coventry came into a substantial estate comprising lands in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Middlesex valued at over £8,471.<sup>11</sup> Despite this, as his nephew died intestate Coventry was compelled to expend some £6,000 in securing the personal estate from the dowager Lady Coventry (with whom he appears to have been on particularly poor terms). He then spent a further £2,000 buying further land from Sir Francis Russell to consolidate his holdings.<sup>12</sup> Coventry also appears to have been £5,000 in debt to his Savile cousins.<sup>13</sup> Reflecting his new prominence in Worcestershire society he was elected as high steward at both Worcester and Evesham and he was one of those to wait on the king at Worcester and Coventry in August 1687.<sup>14</sup> Although his own political sympathies appear to have been less rigid than his predecessor’s, he continued the latter’s opposition to James II’s policy of repeal of the Test.</p><p>Coventry’s comparative indifference to politics was not carried over into his personal life. Bruising contretemps within his immediate family appear to have been a common occurrence. His relations with his wife deteriorated seriously over the years, and in February 1688 he was summoned before the ecclesiastical commissioners following complaints from Lady Coventry of ill treatment. Poor relations with his younger son, Gilbert Coventry*, later 4th earl of Coventry, also resulted in a series of ruptures.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Coventry does not appear to have been active at the time of the Revolution. He defaulted at a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689 but took his seat in the Convention four days later. He was thereafter present on 31 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to 11 committees, including that considering the Droitwich salt works bill, a measure in which he had a close interest.<sup>16</sup> Coventry initially supported the establishment of a regency and voted against the declaration of the prince and princess as king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons over the use of the term ‘abdicated’ but two days later he was noted among those who had made an about-face and dropped their former objections; it was noted that he then ‘went off’.</p><p>Coventry’s lukewarm reception of the Revolution notwithstanding, in June 1689 he was appointed <em>custos rotulorum</em> for Worcestershire. Collins and other authorities record that he was also appointed lord lieutenant of the county, but this is erroneous.<sup>17</sup> On 21 June he was granted permission to travel into the country, presumably as a result of his new responsibilities in Worcestershire. The same day he entrusted Charles North*, 5th Baron North and Grey, with his proxy. The proxy should have been vacated by Coventry’s return to the House the following day, after which he was absent for the remainder of the session, but on 30 July North exercised the proxy to vote against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates.</p><p>Coventry responded to the demands for a self-assessment that summer by pleading that, as his debts ‘by some thousands of pounds surmount the value of my whole personal estate’, he was liable to pay nothing.<sup>18</sup> He was again missing at a call of the House on 28 Oct. 1689. On 8 Nov. he sent in his apology (read four days later), in which he claimed to be ‘too indisposed with pain to make the journey’ and begged to be excused. He was granted ten days’ grace but it was not until 25 Nov. that he eventually took his seat. Thereafter he was present on a quarter of all sitting days. In a list drawn up between October 1689 and February 1690 Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen and later duke of Leeds, assessed Coventry as an opponent of the court.</p><p>Coventry appears to have attempted to bring about a reconciliation with his younger son towards the close of the year, amid efforts to secure a suitable marriage for the young man.<sup>19</sup> He also seems to have been eager to employ his interest at Droitwich in the elections for the new Parliament on behalf of Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Bellomont [I], though Bellomont’s ultimate re-election for the seat probably owed more to his own connections and the backing provided by Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury.<sup>20</sup> Coventry took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 but proceeded to attend on just 30 per cent of all sitting days. His lack of activity appears striking, considering his clear ambition to secure promotion in the peerage at this time. In April he approached his kinsman, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, seeking his ‘favour in this affair’. He then reminded Halifax of his desires the following month, but made no further progress. He also asked Halifax to make his excuses should he be missed from the session.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Difficulties between Coventry and his younger son, Gilbert, continued to plague both men, in spite of the intervention of influential neighbours such as Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh. In April 1690 one of Coventry’s agents informed Gilbert of his father’s annoyance that he had attempted to persuade his older brother to break certain engagements. These possibly related to the recent election, but financial difficulties seem to have been at the root of their disagreements. By October of the following year matters had reached such a pitch that Coventry expostulated with his son:</p><blockquote><p>You cannot be in want of money … Taxes &c make money scarce with me, which you will do well to consider, & the debts also which your Mother, your Brother and self have occasioned; you consider your own quality, notwithstanding which you may live private, but take no notice of my dignity as a Peer of the Realm which ought in the first place to be supported.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>Relations between father and son failed to improve and in January 1692 Gilbert Coventry was commanded to stay away from Croome and Snitterfield unless given ‘particular leave’ by his father.<sup>23</sup> Coventry was better pleased with his heir, Thomas Coventry*, later 2nd earl of Coventry, who was able to secure a prestigious match with Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, in 1691, with a portion of £10,000.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Coventry’s attendance of the House continued to be lacklustre. He was missing at the opening of the new session in October 1691 and defaulted on a call of the House in November. Having finally taken his seat on 11 Dec. he proceeded to attend on just 19 per cent of all sitting days. Towards the end of the year he was assessed by William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as a likely opponent of Derby’s efforts to secure restitution of property lost during the civil wars.<sup>25</sup> Coventry failed to return to the House for the ensuing session of November 1692, in spite of the presentation of the Salwerpe navigation bill, in which he was named alongside Shrewsbury as one of the principal trustees.<sup>26</sup> He took his seat once more the following year, at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov., after which he was present on 29 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>Coventry’s countess died in June 1694. Relations between the two seem to have continued to be frosty and she was, perhaps significantly, buried at Clerkenwell rather than Croome. Although Coventry was noted as being in mourning for his wife, he refused to make any provision for mourning for his sons and comments were also made about the unseemly haste with which Lady Coventry was interred.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Coventry responded to the devastation created by the great fire of Warwick that summer with a donation of £30.<sup>28</sup> He failed to take his seat at the opening of the new session on 12 Nov. and was again missing at a call of the House on 26 November. Despite receiving a summons to attend in December and using his haste to return to London as an excuse not to write to Gilbert Coventry’s new father-in-law, Sir William Keyt, that month, he failed to return to the House until the following year, on 3 January 1695.<sup>29</sup> He was thereafter present on just 18 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>Later that year, Coventry scandalized his family by marrying the niece of his housekeeper, who was also 40 years his junior.<sup>30</sup> The following year (1696) he caused further offence by declining an invitation to stand godfather to Gilbert Coventry’s daughter and advising that another godmother be found in preference to the one whom Gilbert and his wife had proposed.<sup>31</sup> Coventry’s refusal was presumably owing to continuing ructions between him and his younger son over the financial settlement made at the time of Gilbert’s marriage to Dorothy Keyt. The dispute dragged on for several months, and at the close of 1696 Coventry wrote furiously to Sir William Keyt, complaining of Gilbert Coventry’s ‘extravagant wasteful humour of living above his estate’. He continued:</p><blockquote><p>If he expects to live above his quality, and does not, or will not consider that I ought in the first place to take care of my own dignity according to the station I am in, but would pull me down low enough to set up himself … I must declare that unless it please God I live to be better satisfied with him than I am at this time, he will have but little cause to expect any more from me.<sup>32</sup></p></blockquote><p>By the beginning of 1697 Coventry seems to have handed the matter over to his agent, George Harris, who attempted to convince Keyt that Coventry’s outburst was not intended as ‘any reflection’ on his daughter-in-law and that he as well as Gilbert was finding cash hard to come by, owing to the ‘backwardness of tenants and scarcity of money’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>No doubt distracted by such family dramas, Coventry’s attendance at Parliament remained poor in the closing years of his life. Missing again from the opening of Parliament in November 1695, he took his seat at last on 11 Mar. 1696 but then proceeded to attend just 11 days of the session (approximately 9 per cent of the whole). He signed the Association but was then absent once more for the opening stages of the new session and consequently failed to participate in the debates surrounding the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. On 14 Nov. he was ordered to attend the House within 12 days; when he failed to appear, the House issued an order for him to be sent for in custody. Coventry wrote explaining that ‘none would pay a readier obedience to their lordships’ order than himself, were it not that his age and the craziness of his health have now rendered him very unfit either to winter in London or to take a journey thither’. His excuse was dismissed. On 7 Dec. the House was presented with a certificate from Coventry’s physician and affidavits from two of his servants confirming his infirmity, as a result of which he was at last excused attendance.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Coventry finally returned to the House on 29 Mar. 1697, in time to attend four days towards the end of the session. Despite his poor record of attendance, the following month he was finally rewarded with an earldom, ‘by the special favour’ of the king.<sup>35</sup> The promotion, for which he had laboured for so long, was rumoured to have cost Coventry £8,000.<sup>36</sup> By a special remainder, the descent of the earldom was extended to Coventry’s cousins.</p><p>Coventry took his seat in the House as earl of Coventry on 3 Dec. 1697, introduced between Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford. He sat for just two more days and thereafter withdrew from public life. He died in July 1699 and was succeeded in the peerage by his favoured eldest son. In his will he left an annuity of £200 and a personal estate later valued at £40,000 to his widow. He also instructed that a suitable memorial should be constructed for him, ‘as to my executrix shall seem meet’.<sup>37</sup> Scandal continued to dog the family after his death. Doubts were expressed about the validity of his will, and his lavish funeral proved to be the subject of further controversy as the dowager countess was accused of bribing her future brother-in-law, Gregory King, Lancaster Herald, to fabricate a suitable family history for her and to impale the earl’s arms with spurious ones of her own.<sup>38</sup> The false achievements were duplicated on the memorial commissioned by the dowager countess. The new earl refused to allow the structure to be erected in the church at Croome and he commissioned a separate tomb for his father instead. The fanciful monument was later erected at Elmley.<sup>39</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COVENTRY, Thomas (c. 1662-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>COVENTRY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1662–1710)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 July 1699 as 2nd earl of COVENTRY |
|
First sat 22 Dec. 1699; last sat 9 Nov. 1705 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1662, 1st surv. s. of Thomas Coventry*, later earl of Coventry, and Winifred Edgcumbe, da. of Col. Piers Edgcumbe<sup>‡</sup> of Mount Edgcumbe, Cornw.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Holland) 1683.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 4 May 1691 (with £10,000), Anne (d. 1763), da. of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 20 Aug. 1710;<sup>3</sup> <em>admon</em>. 5 Dec. 1710 to wid.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p><em>Custos. rot</em>. Worcs. 1699–<em>d.</em>; high steward, Evesham 1699; freeman, Worcester 1699; recorder, Coventry 1706–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Coventry appears to have been a man of contradictions. On the one hand, he was a supremely reluctant holder of his dignity, rarely in attendance in the House and resentful of the prominence that his local political role allotted to him; on the other, he was a determined defender of his family name (engaging in a long and tendentious legal battle with his stepmother over her claims to noble birth), a firm espouser of the Whig interest and a powerful local political broker. His expectations had been transformed in 1687, when the death of his cousin John Coventry*, 4th Baron Coventry, advanced his father to the peerage. Coventry’s altered circumstances perhaps contributed to him breaking off the marriage negotiations which had been in train with one of the daughters of Henry Pollexfen<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup> Up until then, as the member of a cadet branch of a noble family with only modest means, he appears to have found it difficult to attract anyone willing to marry him. Morrice recorded how those who had rejected him ‘are now ready to go into mourning indeed, such a great estate and honour being now certain if he lives’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Closely connected to a number of the gentry families of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, Coventry was a cousin of William Craven*, earl of Craven, William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, and Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> of Westwood. The Coventrys’ principal estates at Croome in Worcestershire and Snitterfield in Warwickshire gave them considerable local political influence and in 1690 Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Bellomont [I], sought the support of Thomas Coventry and his brother, Gilbert Coventry*, later 4th earl of Coventry, in his election for Droitwich, where the Coventry family exercised particular influence.<sup>7</sup> The following year, Coventry married Lady Anne Somerset. Through this marriage into the Beaufort family, he extended his interests into Gloucestershire and further broadened his connections as brother-in-law to Henry Howard*, 6th earl of Suffolk, and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.</p><p>In 1694 Coventry reluctantly agreed to use his influence with his brother-in-law, Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, styled marquess of Worcester, to procure an introduction to Ormond for his brother, Gilbert.<sup>8</sup> Coventry’s relations with his brother were uneven. Gilbert had earned their father’s deep displeasure through his extravagant lifestyle, and continual attempts to reconcile father and son eventually resulted in a rupture between the brothers as well. By 1695, relations between the two men had all but broken down. Coventry wrote, in exasperation at his brother’s accusation that he had sought a quarrel, ‘without falling into Billingsgate I am fully convinced did either yourself or one you can confide in impartially read and weigh the contents of my letter, upon a second perusal it would be found a difficult task to make that ill construction yours implies’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In 1697 Coventry’s father was advanced in the peerage as earl of Coventry, and on his death in July 1699 Coventry succeeded to the earldom. His father’s demise immediately revealed deep divisions within the family, primarily owing to the late earl’s 1695 <em>mésalliance</em> with one of his servants, Elizabeth Grimes.<sup>10</sup> The dowager countess was named as sole executrix of her late husband’s estate. She benefited from an annuity of £200, as well as inheritance of the entire personal estate.<sup>11</sup> Her hand in the old earl’s final arrangements led to some members of the family casting doubt upon the validity of the will.<sup>12</sup> The prospect of inheriting an earldom alienated from a large proportion of its actual wealth posed an intractable problem for the new earl:</p><blockquote><p>I doubt not but I am sufficiently envied for what is fallen to me, though without reason, by such who don’t consider the disadvantages I come to the estate with; and nothing, I am satisfied, will gratify the ambition, and malice, of some people unless, Esau-like, a man will sell his birth-right for a mess of potage.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>Coventry acted as chief mourner at his father’s funeral, supported by Gilbert Coventry and their Warwickshire neighbour Richard Verney*, 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke.<sup>14</sup> Although Coventry was chief mourner, the dowager countess and Gregory King, the Lancaster Herald, engineered the proceedings and fabricated false achievements for the low-born widow.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Coventry succeeded his father as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Worcestershire in 1699 but, unlike his predecessor, he was a determined upholder of the Whig interest.<sup>16</sup> On 16 Nov. he received his summons to the House and on 30 Nov. a declaration was issued allowing his countess the precedence of the daughter of a duke.<sup>17</sup> Coventry took his seat on 22 Dec., but sat for just one day before retiring to the country. He did not return to the House until March 1701.</p><p>Although Coventry exhibited a marked disinclination to involve himself with affairs at Westminster, he was unable to avoid a prominent role in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, where his greatest interests lay. In December 1700, Sir Thomas Rous<sup>‡</sup>, conscious that ‘your lordship’s interest is superior to any other’, solicited Coventry’s support in the forthcoming election for Worcestershire. A similar request was made by Coventry’s cousin, Sir John Pakington, though in Pakington’s case kinship counted for nothing and Coventry proved consistently inimical to his ambitions.<sup>18</sup> Among the other potential candidates was Thomas Savage of Elmley Castle, who had married Coventry’s stepmother. Significantly, he withdrew, claiming a disinclination to divide the county, but it is equally possible that he was unwilling to weather the determined opposition that his candidature would almost certainly have met with from Coventry.<sup>19</sup> Coventry, out of the county at the time of the poll, appears to have offered his support to William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned with Pakington. At the same time, he also received requests for his interest by Sir Charles Shuckburgh<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> for Warwickshire, Shuckburgh professing that he would ‘not have the confidence to do it without your lordship’s approbation’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>From 1700 Coventry’s attention became increasingly focused on an unfolding legal tussle with his stepmother, her second husband, Savage, and Gregory King. Following the pomp of the 1st earl’s funeral, the dowager countess had continued to flaunt her suppositious ancestry and commissioned an elaborate monument to her late husband, intending that it be erected in the church at Croome. The piece repeated her claims to a respectable pedigree and displayed the arms of the Graham family as her own impaled with those of the Coventrys. Coventry refused his permission for the monument’s erection and the dowager was forced to content herself with raising it in her second husband’s family church at Elmley.<sup>21</sup> Incensed, Coventry introduced cases against Savage and King in the court of chivalry.<sup>22</sup> The earl marshal upheld his complaint, but Savage was successful in moving the court of king’s bench for a prohibition in his own case, leaving Coventry no choice but to pursue King. He had little success here too, as King challenged the earl marshal’s jurisdiction and the case was moved to the court of delegates.<sup>23</sup></p><p>A need to attract support among his fellow peers seems to have forced Coventry out of his country hibernation, and on 25 Mar. 1701 he took his seat in the House once more, though he attended on just three days before quitting the chamber for the remainder of the session. He found his own case overshadowed by the proceedings for a separation in train between James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, and his countess. On 26 Mar. he wrote to his wife, excusing himself for his failure to write and complaining at being unable to leave the chamber the previous day on account of ‘the tedious examination of evidence’ that ‘kept me in the House fasting till 4 in the afternoon’. He was present to hear Lady Anglesey’s petition for maintenance on 1 Apr. but afterwards attended on just one more day. Coventry appears to have remained in London for at least a week more, taking advice on his own business, but, although he planned to have his case printed and the copies distributed to members of the House in case he should ‘have occasion to bring the affair on there’, he does not appear to have considered it necessary to attend in person.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Coventry returned to the country to find himself besieged on all sides once more with requests for his interest in the forthcoming elections. Sir Francis Russell sought his support for William Walsh and William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> for Worcestershire.<sup>25</sup> Charles Hancock<sup>‡</sup>, who probably owed his previous return to the support of Coventry’s father-in-law, Beaufort, was eager to secure his assistance at Tewkesbury.<sup>26</sup> John Howe<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Ralph Dutton<sup>‡</sup> also hoped for Coventry’s backing in the Gloucestershire election. In August, Sir Joseph Jekyll<sup>‡</sup> reported confidently to John Somers*, Baron Somers, that Walsh appeared in a strong position thanks to the combined interest of Coventry, Russell and Bridges Nanfan.<sup>27</sup> Hancock, on the other hand, was on far less certain ground. Fearing that one of Coventry’s retainers planned to vote for Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> and that others would follow suit, he requested that Coventry would look into the matter and that, ‘if true, cause him to alter his mind and friends or stay at home, for I look upon Sir Richard to be the greatest enemy I have’.<sup>28</sup> There is no reason to think that Coventry would have felt compelled to assist the Tory Hancock, who was defeated at Tewkesbury, while Cocks was returned for the county in all probability with Coventry’s full support.<sup>29</sup> Possibly too involved in affairs in these counties, Coventry made it known that he would not play a part in the election for Warwickshire.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Following his exertions in the elections, Coventry was missing at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702 but he was allowed little respite before the brief 1701–2 Parliament’s dissolution following the death of King William again forced him into electoral activity. In April 1702, Sir John Talbot considered approaching Coventry in the hopes that he might reverse his usual objection to Sir John Pakington, but in alliance with Sir Francis Russell and Sir Thomas Cookes Winford<sup>‡</sup> Coventry once more set his weight behind William Walsh.<sup>31</sup> The election threatened to provoke conflict within the family, as Gilbert Coventry also proposed attending the poll in support of Pakington. Following the intercession of Lady Throckmorton he undertook not to vote for either candidate, but remonstrated with her that: ‘I will not pretend to advise one way or [the] other not knowing how far the nobility ought to concern themselves in elections, but it is very hard that my brother should pretend to forbid me any place, because he is there present’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Coventry resumed his seat in the House on 26 Nov. 1702. His motivation was primarily a desire to make progress in his suit against King and he lost no time in waiting on two of the delegates, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, and Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford.<sup>33</sup> He sat for a further 13 days (approximately 16 per cent of the whole), which was to prove his most regular attendance of the House during his tenure of the earldom. On 1 Dec. he was nominated to the committee considering Goddard’s bill and was then named to a further nine committees during the session. On 7 Dec. he recorded that the House sat until 9 in the evening debating the Tack, after which he ‘was obliged’ to attend a supper given by William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, that lasted until midnight.<sup>34</sup> The following day, counsel met to discuss the case against King but the ensuing debates over occasional conformity further threatened to delay Coventry’s case. On 9 Dec. Coventry was one of those to sign the resolution against annexing clauses to bills of aid or supply. The following day, he recorded the week’s proceedings in a letter to his wife:</p><blockquote><p>The dangerous bill I mentioned in my last is passed our house, though not without great amendments, the penalties very much lessened, and the peerage, I think exempted from being liable to them … The bill is sent to the Commons for their concurrence, though how they will relish the amendments is very uncertain.<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 17 Dec., although missing from the attendance lists, Coventry does appear to have attended the House in the afternoon, having spent the morning at Doctors Commons pursuing his affair against Gregory King. He found the demands of life in London taxing and he complained to his wife: ‘I confess myself already weary with the thoughts of it, though I shall with more satisfaction undergo the toil since I have the promises of a great many lords that they will be present at the hearing, and I shall endeavour still to engage more.’ Despite his good intentions, Coventry appears to have been unable to ‘undergo the toil’ and, troubled by a persistent cough, he sat for only two more days before once again retiring to the country.<sup>36</sup> He failed to return to the House for the ensuing three years.</p><p>A list compiled by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in January 1703 reckoned Coventry to be an opponent of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. In May, Coventry found himself in trouble over his refusal to involve himself at Westminster and he was warned that his failure to take out his commission as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Worcestershire, despite having been told to do so in the House six months previously, had attracted the attention of the lord keeper.<sup>37</sup> This was in spite of the fact that Coventry’s commission as <em>custos</em> had been renewed in July 1702. Coventry faced further pressure in October, when his stepmother and Savage entered a bill of complaint in chancery, accusing Coventry of withholding part of his father’s personal estate from the dowager. In spite of their ‘friendly’ attempts to approach Coventry, Savage and the dowager protested that he would not even permit them into his house at Snitterfield to undertake an inventory.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Although Coventry showed little inclination to return to Parliament that autumn, he was included in a forecast compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in November as an opponent of the bill against occasional conformity. A division on the issue on 14 Dec. 1703 listed Coventry as having voted against it by proxy, but no record of the proxy has survived. The same year, Coventry’s case in the court of chivalry was temporarily suspended, and in March 1704 the death of Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, one of the delegates, was the occasion of a further delay in the case, as King objected to the new constitution of the court.<sup>39</sup> On 22 Nov., a month after the opening of the new session, Coventry entrusted his proxy to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, who held it until the close. The same year the case against King was finally dropped, amid a concerted effort by the gentry of Worcestershire, and by King himself, to arrive at a settlement with Coventry.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Settlement with the Savages failed to bring Coventry’s travails to a close and in April 1705 he and his brother were involved in a dispute with All Souls College, Oxford, over the rights to a copyhold estate.<sup>41</sup> The same month he was estimated a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. Coventry’s interest was insufficient to make much impression in the elections of that year. He was one of several peers to offer his support to the maverick George Lucy for Warwickshire.<sup>42</sup> He made his interest available to William Walsh in Worcester once more but, on this occasion, Pakington and Bromley comprehensively beat Walsh into third place.<sup>43</sup> Coventry remained resentful of his political role, complaining to his wife later that year that ‘were I in Warwickshire I should be in danger of attacks by messages about elections, or from the owner of the neighbouring castle’.<sup>44</sup> He took his seat in the House on 25 Oct. but his attendance remained half-hearted and he sat for a total of nine days before absenting himself for the final time. On 30 Oct. he kissed the queen’s hand, introduced by Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, on the recommendation of his Worcestershire neighbour Somers.<sup>45</sup> On 12 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House, having again entrusted Somerset with his proxy.</p><p>Despite his poor record of attendance in the House and decidedly lukewarm attitude to involvement in politics, in 1706 Coventry was elected recorder of the city of Coventry.<sup>46</sup> Denouncing the ‘arbitrary practices’ of certain Worcester justices to William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, he used his influence to ensure that the commission of the peace was extended to include his own nominees and attempted to exclude several of those whom he deemed ‘furious zealots of the high church party’. In the event only one Tory was removed.<sup>47</sup></p><p>On 5 Feb. 1707 the 1705 Coventry election was declared void, and on 20 Feb. Coventry’s support was applied for once more by Edward Hopkins<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> for their candidature in the re-election.<sup>48</sup> Following the death of William Bromley the same year, Coventry’s interest was again solicited for the by-election for Worcestershire, while Sir Richard Cocks also sought his assistance in Gloucestershire.<sup>49</sup> Coventry’s continuing absence from the House occasioned an appeal from Somerset in December that he might make an appearance, ‘though your lordship stayed no longer than to take the oaths and thereby to qualify your self to make a proxy’, but Coventry failed to respond.<sup>50</sup> The following May (1708) he found his interest again sought by Sir John Mordaunt, this time in partnership with Andrew Archer<sup>‡</sup> for Warwickshire,<sup>51</sup> but Coventry made clear his extreme dislike for the way in which Mordaunt and Archer had been set up in a letter to his wife:</p><blockquote><p>As England has been remarkable for a Heptarchy, or government by 7 kings, so Warwickshire is like to be no less famed for an attempt made to govern that branch of the kingdom by 7 electors who … have very imperiously and unanimously fixed upon Mordaunt and Archer; but so very few gentlemen appearing ’tis thought the tide is turned and that some person incognito has secured the greatest part of the interest with an attempt to oppose, [even] if he does not carry the election.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>Coventry was thought unlikely to be ‘very zealous’ in assisting with the influx of poor Palatines into the county in June 1709.<sup>53</sup> The following summer he fell ill, and in August his death was imminently anticipated.<sup>54</sup> Almost to the end he continued to receive letters requesting his interest, from John Howe and John Symes Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> in Gloucestershire and Samuel Pytts in Worcestershire.<sup>55</sup> Coventry died on 20 Aug., intestate and with debts of £7,914.<sup>56</sup> He left an estate estimated to be worth £6,400 per annum and a personal estate of £3,000.<sup>57</sup> He was buried at Croome and succeeded by his eight-year-old son, also Thomas Coventry*, as 3rd earl of Coventry. His widow survived him by 53 years.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COVENTRY, Thomas (1702-12) |
<p><strong><surname>COVENTRY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1702–12)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1702-10 Visct. Deerhurst; <em>suc. </em>fa. 20 Aug. 1710 (a minor) as 3rd earl of COVENTRY. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 7 Apr. 1702, s. of Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, and Anne, da. of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1710-12. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 28 Jan. 1712; <em>admon</em>. 14 Feb. 1712 to mother.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, aft. Sir G. Kneller?, c. 1710,National Trust, Antony, Cornw.; mezzotint by John Simon aft. Sir G. Kneller, NPG D31413.</p> |
<p>‘A pretty sweet youth’, Coventry succeeded his father in the peerage at the age of eight.<sup>2</sup> During his life, control of the estate, and therefore presumably any concomitant political influence, was left in the hands of his mother. In February 1711 a bill of complaint was entered in chancery on Coventry’s behalf by his uncle Lord Arthur Somerset, drawing attention to the dowager countess’s failure to provide the young earl with a suitable maintenance. The dowager answered the bill with a request that the court might oversee the payment of a proper allowance for her son to be raised from the real estate, claiming that Lord Arthur’s computation of the money available from both real and personal estate was exaggerated.<sup>3</sup> Coventry died the following year at Eton and was succeeded by his uncle Gilbert Coventry*, as 4th earl of Coventry.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
COWPER, William (1665-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>COWPER</surname></strong> (<strong>COOPER</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1665–1723)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>14 Dec. 1706 Bar. COWPER; <em>cr. </em>18 Mar. 1718 Earl COWPER |
|
First sat 30 Dec. 1706; last sat 24 May 1723 |
|
MP Hertford 1695, 1698, Bere Alston 1701 (7 Mar.), 1701 (Dec.), 1702, 1705 |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 June 1665, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir William Cowper<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. and Sarah, da. of Sir Samuel Holled of London, merchant; bro. of Spencer Cowper<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. St Albans sch. 1672; M. Temple 1682, called 1688. <em>m</em>. (1) 9 July 1686, Judith (<em>d</em>.1705), da. of Sir Robert Booth of London, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) settlement 10 Sept. 1706, Mary (<em>d</em>.1724), da. and coh. of John Clavering of Chopwell, co. Dur., 2s. 2da.; 1s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.) 1da. illegit. by Elizabeth Culling. <em>suc</em>. fa. as 3rd Bt. 26 Nov. 1706. KC 1689. <em>d</em>. 10 Oct 1723; <em>will</em> 6 Nov. 1722, pr. 8 May 1724.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. kpr. and PC 11 Oct. 1705, ld. chan. 4 May 1707-23 Sept. 1710, 21 Sept. 1714-Apr. 1718; ld. justice Aug.-Sept. 1714.</p><p>Chairman of supply and ways and means 1699.</p><p>Commr. union with Scotland 1706, trade and plantations 1707; trustee, poor Palatines 1709.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Herts. 1710-12, 1714-<em>d</em>; recorder, Colchester 1714 -?<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1707.<sup>4</sup></p><p>FRS 1706.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by T. Murray, c.1695, Palace of Westminster, WoA 6181; oil on canvas by J. Richardson (the Elder), Palace of Westminster, WoA 3644; oil on canvas by or after J. Richardson, 1710?, NPG 736.</p> |
<h2><em>Career before 1705</em></h2><p>As a young man Cowper developed an enviable reputation for eloquence both as an advocate and as a member of the Commons. His oratory was so highly regarded that Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford) once declared that ‘people would go to hear causes in which they had no concern to have the pleasure to hear such good language’.<sup>5</sup> Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> thought less highly of him. Considering Cowper alongside John Somers*, Baron Somers, he concluded: ‘their education has been narrow and they are both cautious, which makes them thought wise. But there is more wisdom in doing a bold, resolute action, when rightly timed, than there is in trimming and finding out expedients.’<sup>6</sup></p><p>Cowper’s career prospects owed a great deal to his political allegiances. Like his father he was associated with independent (country) whiggery and imbued with deeply anti-Catholic sentiments. His ideology was based on a desire to uphold the Revolution settlement and to ensure the safe succession of the house of Hanover. As he later declared to Princess Sophia ‘I was one of those who have had the honour for a long time past constantly to have adhered to that opinion for excluding a popish successor even while it was unfashionable and decried by those that were in authority’.<sup>7</sup> Nevertheless William III’s somewhat reluctant agreement to Cowper’s promotion as king’s counsel only a year after being called to the bar seems to have owed more to his mother’s ability to exploit the Cowpers’ long association with the earls of Shaftesbury and Bedford than to his own early defection to the Williamite cause.<sup>8</sup> He subsequently lent his legal talents to the new regime in ways that suggested a somewhat flexible attitude to legal principles and moral scruples. He played a leading role in securing the passage of the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, bt. putting forward arguments that have been described as ‘an effort to wrap judicial murder in a cloak of legality.’<sup>9</sup> Despite his reputation for being an affectionate and devoted husband, Cowper’s sexual morals seem to have been similarly flexible and lent credibility to the Tory slur that he had tricked his mistress, Elizabeth Culling, into a sham marriage. Cowper did father her children but there is no evidence to substantiate (or deny) the claim of a marriage. Nevertheless the belief that Cowper had committed bigamy and/or espoused polygamy became something of an article of faith amongst his Tory opponents. Swift referred to him as ‘Will Bigamy’ and he was roundly criticized for it by Delariviere Manley in both <em>The Secret History of Queen Zarah</em> and, more particularly, in <em>The New Atlantis</em>.<sup>10</sup> His reputation was not helped by rumours of other dalliances. An obscure reference to a quarrel between ‘the Lord C-r’ and his wife over ‘his freedom with Lady Ma. V-re’ in 1709 probably refers to Cowper, who had certainly had a relationship with one of the Vere sisters at the time of his second marriage.<sup>11</sup> Cowper’s relationship with Lady Arran was said by some to have caused Lady Cowper to become seriously ill in the autumn of 1713.<sup>12</sup></p><p>As a member of the Middle Temple, Cowper may have developed an early connection with Somers. He certainly attracted Somers’ attention once he began to practise and it was at Somers’ suggestion that he stood for election to the Commons. He was soon identified with the policies of the Junto Whigs, supporting the financial policies of Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, and developing links to the circle of (amongst others) Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. Sunderland’s chaplain, the future bishop Charles Trimnell*, who championed the Whig cause in Convocation, named his son in honour of Cowper and invited him to stand godfather.<sup>13</sup> Cowper’s ability to maintain a friendship with Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, was also useful and enabled him to remain in good standing at court after Anne’s accession. </p><p>The scandal surrounding his brother Spencer’s alleged involvement in the death of Sarah Stout undermined the Cowper interest at Hertford, and in 1701, after a brief and half-hearted flirtation with Totnes, William Cowper was returned on the interest of Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, at Bere Alston. Occasional differences with the Junto over policy issues, such as the question of a standing army, enabled Cowper to portray himself as a man of studied impartiality, striving for what he repeatedly called ‘the true English interest’ rather than short-term party advantage, but such differences did not go deep. Cowper remained close to the Junto even when it had fallen from power. It was Somers who persuaded Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, to offer Cowper a seat at Totnes and Cowper deployed his considerable legal and oratorical skills in support of Somers during the attempted impeachment. He also supported the Whig leadership during the dispute over the Aylesbury men (<em>Ashby v. White</em>) in 1704.</p><p>The need to reconstruct the ministry, and dissatisfaction with the Tory lord keeper, Nathan Wright, led to rumours of Wright’s imminent replacement early in 1705. It was however by no means clear who should take his place. As Sir William Simpson put it, ‘it is strange conduct to let a lord keeper know for a year together that he is to be turned out before anybody knows who is to be put in his place’, but rumours identifying Cowper as the new lord keeper were beginning to circulate even as Simpson was writing.<sup>14</sup> It was ‘confidently reported’ at the end of June that Cowper was to be the man and Cowper’s receipt of ‘caresses’ from the Junto at a meeting in August suggested that the appointment was a foregone conclusion. Despite this, individuals on both sides of the party divide were said to be reluctant to see him promoted: Somers because he was jealous of his former protégé and fearful of a Whig split, and Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, because, like the queen, he preferred a moderate Tory instead.<sup>15</sup> In mid-September Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, wrote as though Cowper’s appointment was all but decided but even after the dismissal of Wright in early October, there was some uncertainty about whether the seal was to go to Cowper or into commission.<sup>16</sup> His ultimate appointment was, as Cowper well knew, attributable to the efforts of Godolphin and the ‘unseen hand’ of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, rather than the Junto. In later life, Sarah duchess of Marlborough, the Junto’s patroness, admitted that her attempts to sway the queen in his favour had done more harm than good, though the queen remembered the subject only being brought up by the duchess on one occasion.<sup>17</sup> Not surprisingly he became known as one of ‘the lord treasurer’s Whigs’. Determined to appear as a man of principle rather than party, Cowper lost no time in distancing himself from his erstwhile allies, declaring that he owed little to the Junto and that nothing in his life was as valuable as ‘this privilege of drawing a little nearer to those great men I have always loved and admired at a distance out of their sight’.<sup>18</sup> Later remarks show that he now regarded Godolphin as his patron.<sup>19</sup> He also told himself that he had accepted the post out of the purest motives: to give himself ‘the opportunity of endeavouring steadily to promote such men only as I judged in the true interest of England.’<sup>20</sup> Nevertheless despite his protestations and continuing discord between the duumvirs and the Junto, Cowper remained on good terms with Somers. He re-employed three of Somers’ secretaries and in the summer of 1708 wrote him a fulsome letter of thanks for ‘the great favour and honour of your picture’, done by fellow Kit Kat member, Sir Godfrey Kneller.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Cowper’s appointment was marked by the composition of a satire by one Brown (who was later pilloried for his trouble).<sup>22</sup> His selection as lord keeper was the more remarkable for his comparative youth. His boyishness was said to have been emphasized by his habit of wearing his own hair rather than a wig. The queen remarked on this and encouraged him to trim his locks lest ‘the world would say she had given the seals to a boy’.<sup>23</sup> Previous incumbents of the office had been older and more experienced than Cowper who was still only 40 years of age, although as one newsletter writer put it ‘he has a sufficiency of parts and learning to supply his want of years.’<sup>24</sup></p><h2><em>Lord Keeper 1705-07</em></h2><p>In a letter of 11 Oct. 1705 Thomas Bateman reported that Cowper had been declared lord keeper the night before. It was, however, only on the morning of 11 Oct. that Cowper was informed of his appointment by Godolphin and Halifax and it was to them that he made his acceptance. He accepted the place conditionally on having the same money for equipage (£2,000) and salary (£4,000 a year) as had been given to his predecessor and with a promise of a peerage at the next promotion. He saw the queen later that day and was sworn into office at a meeting of the council the same evening. When he told the queen that he intended to go into the country for the weekend she encouraged him to do so, warning him that otherwise he would be besieged with solicitations for places. After the weekend he noted that he had disposed of all the places within a few hours, recording with some satisfaction that he had not reserved any to himself or taken ‘the value of one farthing reward.’<sup>25</sup> His determination to avoid any hint of corruption led to his wary refusal to accept the customary new year’s gifts the following January, on the grounds that ‘no court or judge in England or elsewhere’ was in receipt of such gifts and in the hope that ‘it doth me more credit and good than hurt, by making secret enemies’.<sup>26</sup> He worried, unnecessarily as it turned out, that Godolphin would disapprove, ‘as spoiling in some measure a place which he had the conferring.’<sup>27</sup> Yet the sacrifice was not quite as selfless as it appeared. Cowper’s financial notes make it abundantly clear that the fees of office, over and above his salary, made the post a highly profitable one; and if the diarist John Evelyn is correct he had also taken steps to obtain the promise of a pension of £2,000 a year if and when he lost office, as compensation for giving up his practice.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Cowper’s first procession to Westminster Hall as lord keeper was described as ‘the most noble cavalcade… that ever was known’ with a train of some 60 coaches.<sup>29</sup> So very public a demonstration of the resurgence of Whig political fortunes provided ‘no small mortification’ to the Tories who witnessed it.<sup>30</sup> Further honours were predicted for him, including the earldom of Oxford and marriage to the eldest daughter of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>31</sup> Although not yet a member of the House of Lords, it was his function to preside over its sittings and it may well have been his influence that saw the restoration of the empty ritual of ‘The old method of entering on the journal, the appointing receivers and triers of petitions on the Lords Journals’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Despite Cowper’s previous political affiliations, moderate Tories in the ministry were confident that his primary loyalty was to the court and that he would use his new powers in their favour. Early in November Godolphin asked Cowper to use his influence over the independent Whig lawyer Peter King<sup>†</sup>, later lord chancellor as Baron King, at the time a member of the Commons, to prevent the introduction of a projected place bill. The ministry feared that the popularity of such a bill amongst the country wings of both parties would threaten the success of their attempts to attract the support of the court Tories, the existing fragile coalition being described by Halifax as ‘mixing oil and vinegar’.<sup>33</sup> Cowper undertook to do so, convincing himself that it was</p><blockquote><p>unseasonable to join with the malignant party (though in a thing right in itself and popular); because they would have the main credit of it, and would get new life and vigour from thence to give the public more trouble by things not so reasonable as that; and therefore they are not to be assisted in any thing that is not necessary for the public good. A small amendment of the constitution is better wanted, than that they, who mean ruin to the constitution, should get strength by the credit of mending it.<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>His half-hearted attempt to dissuade King was completely unsuccessful and did not prevent the controversy over the ‘whimsical clause’ in the regency bill the following January.</p><p>Soon after his appointment he also began to refashion local commissions of the peace. This attracted letters such as the one from Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, that recommended the removal of several ‘furious zealots in the high church party’ who had been made justices by Nathan Wright.<sup>35</sup> He sought Marlborough’s orders on the composition of the Oxfordshire commission and on one occasion promised to remove a magistrate who opposed the Marlborough interest there.<sup>36</sup> He was also prepared to take Harley’s advice on the appointment of magistrates in areas close to the latter’s territorial base.<sup>37</sup> After the Union he was asked for advice on how to establish justices of the peace in Scotland.<sup>38</sup> Prompted by Godolphin, he paid considerable attention to the instructions to be given to the assize judges going on circuit. He noted that the queen had been displeased by ‘seditious invective’ against her and her government made in the course of assize sermons and urged the judges not only to discountenance such remarks but to encourage grand juries to present them as libels.<sup>39</sup> His standing with the queen was not, however, sufficiently strong to give him total control of the crown’s extensive patronage of church livings. Anne was willing to allow him to bestow livings worth less than £40 a year but, not surprisingly in view of her Tory sympathies, insisted on retaining the disposal of the more valuable ones for herself. She opined that ‘the Crown can never have too many livings at its disposal, and therefore, though there may be some trouble in it, it is a power I can never think reasonable to part with.’ Her decision to do so (prompted by Harley) depressed Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, who thought the queen was too easily influenced by the ‘importunity of the women and hangers on at court’. Tenison wanted to work with Cowper ‘to get that matter into a proper method.’<sup>40</sup> Given the expressions repeatedly used in patronage approaches to Cowper, it is fairly clear that ‘a proper method’ involved rewarding Whig rather than Tory clerics. As his friend William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), made clear many years later, the criteria for promotion included establishing that candidates were ‘entirely in the same notions and interests with ourselves’.<sup>41</sup> Cowper’s decision in 1708 to resolve the long running dispute over the charter of Bewdley by issuing a new one would similarly come under fire as a partisan political act designed to ensure the election of a Whig candidate.</p><p>Cowper’s continuing professional and personal relationship with Somers was reflected in his involvement in the discussions of a committee of the House considering defects in the laws. The committee was chaired by Somers and specifically asked for Cowper’s assistance.<sup>42</sup> An account of the proceedings by Cowper’s close ally William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, makes it clear that Cowper and Somers worked together on the project against lord chief justice Holt who wanted to allow equitable issues to be argued in the common law courts. Their efforts resulted in a statute (Somers’ Act) which imposed major changes on judicial procedures in courts of equity and common law. The alliance of the two men was also seen in their efforts to amend procedures for private bills. On 16 Jan. 1706 Sunderland remarked on the ‘suspicious contents’ of a private bill that had been introduced into the House. Cowper commented similarly on another. Nicolson considered his remarks irregular, probably because as a commoner, Cowper was not a member of the House and therefore should not have made anything approaching a speech. Nevertheless he returned to the subject on 12 Feb. when a bill for the sale of the estates of John Barnes deceased was introduced to the House. Cowper ‘laid such an emphasis on the peccant parts of the breviat, that the Lords took notice of the roguery; and threw it out with indignation.’ Somers then made a speech against the ‘perfunctory and careless passing of such bills’ and it was agreed that a committee of the whole should ‘consider of the best means to prevent the increase of private bills in Parliament, and the surprizing the House in their proceeding thereupon’.<sup>43</sup> As a result the House agreed to a new and comprehensive series of standing orders to govern the passage of private bills.<sup>44</sup> As a commoner Cowper should not have participated in the debates of the committee but he may have been consulted in framing the new orders because they were intended to reduce the business of the House and hence the fee income for himself and other officers of the House. </p><p>In the spring of 1706 Cowper joined with other leading Whigs in what was effectively a letter-writing campaign to the Electress Sophia designed to deter her from accepting an invitation from the Tories, or ‘discontented party’, to visit England, which he dismissed as ‘a sudden unaccountable zeal, contrary to known principles, affected merely for popularity’.<sup>45</sup> He went on to promise his support for the Hanoverian succession:</p><blockquote><p>being fully persuaded it is impossible to be in the true interest of England and not to be a fast friend to that succession, which the sense of the kingdom hath so often declared to be its only defence from the most deplorable condition a people can be reduced to.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>He also took his place as one of the commissioners for the Union with Scotland, working closely with Somers. At the same time Cowper’s personal life was also becoming complicated because of his relationship with Mary Claverin. Her well-connected Whig gentry family were based in the north-east but she herself lived in London with her aunt, the widow of Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. The relationship resulted in a potential conflict of interest for Cowper since the Claverings were involved in a long running chancery suit; one of the appeals heard in the House in January 1706 resulted from this business.<sup>47</sup> Perhaps it was the fear of being accused of partiality that led the couple to keep their marriage secret, or perhaps it was because of the somewhat indecent haste with which the marriage took place, barely 18 months after the death of Cowper’s first wife. It was not publicly acknowledged until February 1707. </p><p>Despite his acceptance of the seals, Cowper remained deeply suspicious of secretary of state, Robert Harley. It is possible that his dislike of Harley stemmed from memories of the battle over Somers’ impeachment; whatever its origin, it coloured relations between the two men from the outset of the new ministry. Early in December 1705 discussions over the disputed Hertford election had led Cowper to perceive ‘a menace from him, that he would do all he could underhand to spoil the Hertford business.’ A fortnight later Cowper recorded his view that Harley’s conduct in securing a reduction in the amount of reward offered for the discovery of the printer responsible for circulating the <em>Memorial of the Church of England</em> suggested that ‘the Secretary knew or conjectured who were the authors and had no mind they should be discovered.’<sup>48</sup> Harley’s examination of suspects did little to dispel Cowper’s suspicions. Cowper criticized Harley’s interrogation technique, commenting, ‘He extreme bad at it; if not designedly, to hinder the Discovery’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Cowper, along with Marlborough, Godolphin and Sunderland, was present at a meeting in January 1706 designed to reconcile differences between Harley and the Junto Whigs Somers and Halifax when:</p><blockquote><p>Harley took a glass, and drank to love and friendship & everlasting union and wished he had more Tockay to drink it in (we had drunk two bottles, good, but thick). I replied, his white Lisbon was best to drink it in, being very clear. I suppose he apprehended it (as I observed most of the company did) to relate to that humour of his, which was, never to deal clearly or openly, but always with reserve, if not dissimulation, or rather simulation; & to love tricks even where not necessary, but from an inward satisfaction he took in applauding his own cunning. If any man was ever born under a necessity of being a knave, he was.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite this incident Cowper affected to believe that his behaviour towards Harley in public was supportive. In August that year he told John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, whom he approached as a mediator, that ‘I have most unfeignedly kept terms with him and endeavoured to possess my friends with an opinion of his fitness to serve, and the good qualities I have observed in him since I had the honour to serve.’ In contrast, he felt that Harley had ‘become less kind to me than he used to be’ and had ‘altered his mind as to my interests.’<sup>51</sup> Cowper’s thwarted ‘interests’ were probably to do with his desire for a peerage and it was not until November that Harley, apparently acting on a ‘hint’ from Newcastle sought Marlborough’s assistance in securing a title for Cowper.<sup>52</sup> At the beginning of December preparations for Cowper’s ennoblement were well advanced and Cowper had received demands for just over £360 for the various fees that accompanied acceptance of his new honour.<sup>53</sup> The letters patent creating him a peer were dated 14 Dec. and a writ of summons was issued to him the following day. He took his seat as a member of the House for the first time on 30 December. His peerage came as part of a general promotion involving the creation of three new marquessates, five new earldoms and another barony as well as a dukedom for the electoral prince, Prince George*, duke of Cambridge (later King George II). In spite of his new dignity Cowper remained lord keeper for the time being. He was not sworn in as lord chancellor until the following July.<sup>54</sup></p><h2><em>From the Union to Sacheverell, 1707-10</em></h2><p>By virtue of his position as presiding officer, Cowper was almost always present when the House of Lords was in session, yet for the same reason much of his activity there remains invisible. On 14 Feb. 1707 he was registered as the holder of the proxy of the ailing John Colepeper*, 3rd Baron Colepeper, probably for use in divisions over the articles of Union with Scotland, in which Cowper had a considerable political investment. He had played a prominent role in the initial meeting of the commissioners for Union in April 1706 and continued to be a point of focus for those eager to secure alterations to the projected legislation in advance of the session of April 1707.<sup>55</sup> Cowper’s part in the bishoprics crisis of 1707 is obscure although his constant attendance at meetings of the cabinet council suggests that he must have been involved, as does his comment to his old school friend, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, of how ‘we live here in dread of our vacant church preferments… falling into ill hands: there is all care that can be taken to prevent it, by those whose opinions will have the most effect’.<sup>56</sup> Cowper’s political predilections as well as his characterization as one of the lord treasurer’s Whigs makes it likely that he weighed in against the promotion of Tory candidates. Late in 1706 he was already involved in attempts to dissuade the queen from making a ‘fatal mistake’ by appointing a Tory to the vacant bishopric of Exeter, warning that ‘if that step should be taken false it would not be in the power of any leading men to bring the Parliament to act quickly and with good effect the next session.’<sup>57</sup></p><p>In the meantime relations between the duumvirs and Harley continued to deteriorate. A sign of this was Godolphin’s informal meetings with Cowper at Windsor Castle, on 1 and 8 Sept. in which they discussed the conduct of the war (including the shift towards the Spanish theatre of war and a descent on the French coast), and the difficulties of securing the queen’s consent to the entry of Junto Whig ministers into her cabinet and the bishoprics’ crisis. Cowper provided a first draft of a queen’s speech for the forthcoming session.<sup>58</sup> In the same month Cowper acted as go-between, delivering a letter from Godolphin remonstrating with Harley for his partisan support of Francis Atterbury*, dean of Carlisle (later bishop of Rochester) in his dispute with William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, and accusing him of disturbing public business.<sup>59</sup> In February 1708 he joined with other leading ministers, including Marlborough and Godolphin, and the ‘Argathelians’ (those Scots representative peers who followed John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], earl of Greenwich in the English peerage), in protesting against the third reading of the act for rendering the Union of the two kingdoms more entire and complete. The protesters complained that the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council was too precipitate and that the powers given to justices of the peace breached the articles of union. In this he was for once acting against Somers who had argued in favour of its early abolition.<sup>60</sup> Cowper’s loyalty to the ministry was also demonstrated by his role in persuading the queen to grant a British peerage (the dukedom of Dover) to James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].<sup>61</sup> That same month he was instrumental in assisting Bishop Nicholson to secure support for his Cathedrals bill, an issue which once again saw him in alliance with Somers who had drafted the bill.<sup>62</sup> Harley’s removal from office must have brought Cowper considerable satisfaction, since the consequent purge of Harley’s followers also removed Sir Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt. Cowper believed that Harcourt was being groomed by Harley to replace him as lord chancellor. This certainly chimed with the intelligence being given to Manchester by Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In May 1708 Cowper was present at the cabinet meeting at which it was agreed to instruct the judges to take bail in the sum of £10,000, plus four sureties for £5,000 apiece, for James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], who had been arrested in connection with the failed Franco-Jacobite invasion. In so doing Cowper became party to the agreement brokered between the Whigs and Hamilton for the election of Squadrone members as representative peers for Scotland in the 1708 elections.<sup>64</sup> The Whigs were successful in the elections to the Commons too, prompting an angry Harley, referring to the affair of the Bewdley charter, to ask whether Cowper’s exploitation of his office ‘has not taken more towns by force than our army will by storm this campaign?’ and ‘whether it would not have been as honest to have sent a congé d’élire naming the men to Parliament as to force charters to the same purpose?’<sup>65</sup> Nor did Cowper neglect his own family interests, taking care to ensure the support of fellow Whig Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, for the re-election of his brother at Bere Alston.<sup>66</sup> He was less successful in his own locality. The Tories were successful in Hertfordshire despite Cowper’s efforts, which included abandoning his court for several days in the middle of term in order to assist the campaign there.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Ironically the very success of the Whigs made the ministry more unstable as Godolphin came under increasing pressure to reward the Junto. Cowper’s letter to Newcastle of October 1708 showed that he now occupied a crucial position in the ministry’s political management. With the Tories likely to capitalize on the tensions between the Junto and the duumvirs, he notified Newcastle of the date of the new Parliament and encouraged him to attend, urging him to undertake ‘the good and now necessary work of preventing a division among honest men’.<sup>68</sup> On 16 Nov. he informed the House of the queen’s commission for opening Parliament, prompting a debate as to whether the order was to be read to the upper House only. When it was concluded that the Commons ought to be summoned to hear the commission read, it fell to Cowper to instruct the lower House to return to their chamber to elect a new speaker.<sup>69</sup></p><p>On 21 Jan. 1709, despite his role in the earlier alliance of the Whigs with Hamilton, he voted in favour of Queensberry’s right to vote in the elections for Scottish representative peers.<sup>70</sup> The following month he joined with Godolphin and others to reject a suit brought by William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S]. An undated and possibly later addition to Cowper’s diary recorded his suspicions about the sincerity of the French commitment to the peace negotiations and consequent disagreement with Godolphin, ‘nothing but seeing such great men believe it could ever incline me to think France reduced so low as to accept such conditions’. He was also worried about Marlborough’s request to be appointed captain-general for life, declaring ‘that a commission during life, is a new instance and liable to malicious constructions’.<sup>71</sup></p><h2><em>The Sacheverell trial and its aftermath, 1710</em></h2><p>The ministry was already tottering when it made the disastrous decision in November 1709 to prosecute Henry Sacheverell. Within a month there were rumours that the ministry was about to break up and that Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, was leading a campaign to remove both Godolphin and Cowper. Cowper himself was said to be giving ‘wing and credit’ to such talk. Nevertheless shortly before Christmas Cowper was said to think that he was secure for the time being and when in January 1710 Marlborough stormed out of a meeting with the queen, Cowper and Somers both attempted to mediate between them.<sup>72</sup> In March he was deeply involved in attempts to secure the passage of the treason bill with minimal concessions to the Scots. Argyll’s attempt to secure a provision allowing the accused a list of witnesses before trial was opposed by Cowper, Godolphin and Somers whilst a decision to postpone discussion of Scottish settlements saw Cowper and Godolphin on the opposite side to Somers and Sunderland.<sup>73</sup></p><p>The same month Cowper presided over the trial of Henry Sacheverell. He was prominent in the debates of 16 Mar. arguing in defence of resistance theory. He rejected impatiently proposals that the Lords should be permitted to cast their votes article by article. Having in the earlier stages of the proceedings emphasized to Sacheverell how ‘indulgent’ the peers had been in allowing him counsel and in permitting him to be bailed he now made plain his impatience with Sacheverell’s defence. Unsurprisingly, he voted with the majority to convict but the unpopularity of the verdict intensified ministerial instability. In May, apparently failing to realize that the duchess of Marlborough’s relationship with the queen was part of the problem, Cowper used his wife’s friendship with the duchess in an attempt to persuade her to use her influence over the queen.<sup>74</sup> In June Cowper supervised plans to print an account of the Sacheverell trial by the Whig printer Jacob Tonson. As early as April it had been speculated that Tonson may have paid as much as £1,500 for the rights, though some thought Cowper had made ‘a present of it to him’. Cowper took care to ensure that all the resolutions made between the conclusion of the evidence and the verdict should be included ‘to show the great care and deliberation with which the Lords proceeded and the method they went in.’<sup>75</sup></p><p>The dismissal of Sunderland in June prompted Cowper to describe the political situation as the result of ‘great art, skill, and application, and a wonderful deal of intrigue’; he also joined with other leading Whigs—Godolphin, Somers, Newcastle, William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, Orford, Halifax and Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton—in an effort to prevent Marlborough from throwing up his command in response to this ‘great mortification’ and thus precipitating a dissolution of Parliament.<sup>76</sup> Matters were not helped by the scandal surrounding the involvement of Cowper’s chaplain and servant in a ‘knavish business’ concerning the administration of the assets of an elderly man by means of a possibly fraudulent commission of lunacy issued by Cowper in his capacity as head of chancery.<sup>77</sup> Although Parliament was not dissolved until September 1710, the removal of Harley from the commissions of the peace for Middlesex and Herefordshire may have been a last-ditch effort on Cowper’s part to limit his influence in the anticipated general election. Harley wrote to Cowper complaining about it on 2 Aug., and despite his protestations to the contrary, he clearly found his removal deeply insulting, although he professed to be mollified by Cowper’s explanations, in which he laid the blame for the decision elsewhere.<sup>78</sup></p><p>The dismissal of Godolphin in August and his replacement by a commission dominated by Harley himself was promptly followed by the appointment of the Harleyite defector Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, as envoy to Hanover, which the displaced Whigs initially believed was a precursor to an announcement of his appointment as Marlborough’s replacement. Harley was determined to try and keep Cowper and Halifax within the ministry though he admitted that negotiating with them was difficult because it was impossible to bring them ‘out of general terms to particulars’. The appointment of Cowper as lord lieutenant of Hertfordshire that month may have been part of his strategy, but it certainly came as a surprise to Harley’s supporters who had expected the post to go instead to the young James Cecil*, 5th earl of Salisbury, and it is likely that Cowper’s nomination pre-dated the ministerial changes as he had signalled his willingness to serve in that post during the minority of William Capell*, 3rd earl of Essex, the previous February.<sup>79</sup> The report of Harley’s emissary, Robert Monckton<sup>‡</sup>, that Cowper‘expressed his gratitude to you with tears in his eyes and gave so elegant a turn to the assurance he gave me of his affections and fidelity to your service that he said whether he was kept in or put out should be inviolable’ may have referred to Harley’s allowing the appointment to stand.<sup>80</sup> Although Harley must have been well aware of Cowper’s participation in private meetings called by Somers, he was encouraged to believe that he could win him over. Cowper’s influence, added to that of Newcastle and Halifax, whose support he believed he had already won, would, he hoped, bring in the bulk of the Whigs.<sup>81</sup> Sir John Cropley<sup>‡</sup>, however, thought it thoroughly uncertain how either Cowper or Somers intended to respond to the new situation. Sunderland was equally convinced of Cowper’s loyalty to Marlborough and Cowper recorded that he had refused to negotiate via Monckton because to do so ‘while I had my place would look like a desire to save it’. Perhaps he was also influenced by personal dislike of Monckton, who had offended him in the Commons.<sup>82</sup></p><p>In the midst of this manoeuvring Cowper continued to employ his interest. He expressed his satisfaction that Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], had recovered sufficiently to ensure that he would be able to ‘bear a great part in the ensuing elections’.<sup>83</sup> Negotiations between Harley and Cowper continued into September and Halifax added to the pressure on Cowper to remain in office, declaring that by doing so he would provide a buffer against the Tories. He begged him not to ‘throw away that buckler which God has put into your hands to defend our laws and liberties’. But both sides remained highly suspicions of each other.<sup>84</sup> Cowper used his time in office to minimize Whig losses where possible. According to one of Harley’s correspondents, he appeared to be about to pass a commission of the peace for Hampshire which would leave the Whig Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, in the office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> even though Bolton had recently been dismissed as lord lieutenant in favour of a Tory candidate. Such a move it was thought might be a deliberate stratagem (‘a piece of fineness’) to suggest that Bolton had been restored to the queen’s favour. For his part Cowper told Monckton that he could not stay in office because ‘things were too far gone towards the Tories’ and warned that ‘in case of a Tory Parliament, Mr Harley would find himself borne along into measures he might not like.’<sup>85</sup> When Harley intervened directly to persuade Cowper to remain in place, he was informed that the lord chancellor had long wished to resign:</p><blockquote><p>being weary of my place; that being so indifferent towards it I was not prepared to bear much for it; that I had already tasted mortifications from Ld Dartmouth [William Legge*, 2nd Baron later earl of Dartmouth], encouraged, as I had reason to believe from [blank]; that things were plainly put into Tories’ hands; a Whig game, either in whole or part, impracticable; that to keep in, when all my friends were out, would be infamous; that in a little time, when any Tory of interest would press for my place, he must needs have it; that it was necessary a man in that place, who had so much to do and judge of, should sit easy in his mind as to the circumstances he was in; that it was impossible I should be so, during measures I could not but think hurtful to the public, and contrary to the true interest of my country; and on the whole desired him not to think of continuing me, but only to prepare the queen to believe my true professions, that I would always endeavour to serve her, to assist her against any hard attempts on either side, and to live well with the ministry when I was out of place, if they pleased to allow me that favour.<sup>86</sup></p></blockquote><p>Harley refused to believe him and for the next two days Cowper was pursued by Monckton. Cowper may have encouraged this continued courting, for he allowed Monckton to share his coach back to London on 21 Sept. though he was saved from a further harangue by the presence of his trainbearer. His distrust of Harley cannot have been helped when, on his return, he received a summons to a meeting of the Privy Council which he believed had been delayed deliberately ‘that I might have as little notice as possible.’<sup>87</sup> As Cowper anticipated, the purpose of the meeting was to announce the dissolution of Parliament. He took with him notes for a speech opposing this but was prevented from making it.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Although the queen had initially been reluctant to appoint Cowper, she was now even more reluctant to lose him. Both Cowper and Somers appear to have established an unlikely rapport with the queen, who was sincere in thinking highly of them.<sup>89</sup> Cowper recorded in his diary that on 22 Sept. (after yet another session with Monckton) he had offered her his resignation five times and that it was refused each time:</p><blockquote><p>The reason of all this importunity, I guess, proceeded from the new ministry being unprepared of a successor that would be able to execute the office well; Sir Simon Harcourt having chose to be attorney general and her not knowing if he would take it; her having been informed I executed the office well; the ministers not having thought to removing me as yet, and so not prepared… Mr Harley and Duke Shrewsbury [Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury] being afraid of the old Torys overrunning ’em, and willing for a while at least to have a little counterbalance, if they should disagree; so much to my dissatisfaction I returned home with the seal.<sup>90</sup></p></blockquote><p>Cowper did extract from the queen a promise that she would accept his resignation the next day. Anxious to retain the confidence of a crucial ally, Harley told Newcastle ‘that all has been done that was possible to assure him of support and to persuade him’ and blamed Cowper’s resignation on ‘some rash engagements’.<sup>91</sup> For his part Cowper was equally concerned to retain the respect and friendship of Newcastle, who had instructed him not to resign. He explained that the circumstances provided as ‘forcible a cause of my going out as if I had been actually removed’ and hastened to contrast his experience with Newcastle’s:</p><blockquote><p>you are sure to be always wanted and courted while there is any the least pretence to the true interest of England; but I had reason to think the reprieve offered me could not possibly be of any long continuance, though I believe it proceeded from an unfeigned kindness towards me[.]<sup>92</sup></p></blockquote><p>Harley may still have had hopes of persuading him to change his mind. Harcourt was reluctant to accept the post of lord keeper and was not named as his replacement until 16 October. The following day the duchess of Marlborough, apparently unaware of the appointment, seems still to have been worrying that the queen might have persuaded Cowper to something ‘contrary to right and reason’ although she also expressed confidence that ‘he does not intend to leave his old friends.’<sup>93</sup></p><h2><em>Out of office 1710-14</em></h2><p>As Speaker of the House, Cowper had rarely missed more than a single day per session. Now that he was no longer in office his attendance fell markedly. During the session of 1710-11 he was present on 70 per cent of sitting days. He probably still exerted considerable influence over procedural issues, since his expertise was clearly superior to that of Harcourt, now the reluctant custodian of the seals as lord keeper. His willingness to offer advice to the House helped to reinforce perceptions that his commitment to the Whigs did not overcome his impartiality. This was reflected in an incident in November 1710 when he defended the lord keeper’s conduct in response to a complaint from an unknown member of the House, who had objected that Harcourt should not have introduced the newly elected representative peers of Scotland to the queen because he was not himself a peer.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, with the Whigs out of power Cowper now found himself under attack for his past conduct. On 18 Dec. he suffered the ignominy of having a chancery decree overturned without a division.<sup>95</sup> The following day the now Tory-dominated Commons considered the disputed return of members for Bewdley and voted to overturn the 1708 charter. Cowper accurately ‘expected much dirt to be, unjustly, God knows, thrown at me’ but went off to sit for his portrait ‘secure and content with my innocence and right conduct… my mind being so easy, as that I could depend it would not discompose my looks.’ Cowper’s confidence was not entirely justified. He was criticized by several members of the Commons, though his record was defended by Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Orford) who was at pains to emphasize that Cowper was ‘spotless and unblemished, and that nobody ever discharged that high trust so well that have gone before, or will come after him in it’.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Still a central figure among the Whigs, Cowper’s advice was sought by his former colleagues. He advised Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, to make an ambivalent response to the advances that had been made to him by the new ministry and encouraged Marlborough to behave with dignity: ‘to be all submission to the queen; none to any of his enemies; but to behave rather higher that he would if they had not the ascendant and to stand and fall by that conduct.’<sup>97</sup> He was also still constantly approached with clerical patronage requests. In January and February 1711, along with other senior Whigs he was deeply involved in attempts to defend the former ministry from the Tory attack over the conduct of the war in Spain. He contributed forcefully to the debate, insisting in the course of the attempt to censure Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], that ‘in things essential to justice, the ordinary forms of courts of judicature ought to be observed’. Such sentiments stand in marked contrast to those that he had expressed during the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> some 15 years earlier. He entered seven protests or dissents to the various resolutions of the House condemning the conduct of Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> (later Earl Stanhope) and the consequent address to the queen.<sup>98</sup> On 27 Feb. together with Somers and other moderate Whigs he was present at a meeting organized by Bishop Nicolson to plan the parliamentary campaign in support of James Greenshields. Two days later he was present when Greenshields’ case was considered by the House but his motion that the lord keeper should ask that nothing relating to the sentence of the presbytery should be mentioned in the debates was rejected.<sup>99</sup> From 20 Mar. he held the proxy of fellow Whig, Henry Herbert*, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, and on 26 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the estate bill of William and Edward Hubbald. On 10, 12 and 17 May he was as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on amendments to the bill for preserving white and other pine trees in America and for the conferences to consider the bill for the preservation of game.</p><p>Cowper was absent from the House for the final four weeks of the session during which his proxy was held by Halifax. In the latter stages of the session it was rumoured that Harley meant to reach out to the Junto by offering places to Cowper and Somers, but no such offers were forthcoming.<sup>100</sup> During the recess Cowper was consulted as a possible arbitrator in the dispute over the estate of the recently deceased Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. He also became involved in more behind the scenes negotiations over the composition of the ministry when Somerset approached him for advice on his possible resignation after failing to recover his seat in the cabinet council. Cowper advised him to resign but noted that the duke had hoped to be told to stay.<sup>101</sup></p><p>During the 1711-12 session Cowper’s attendance rose to 81 per cent of sitting days. Questions relating to the war continued to dominate political life, although a new domestic crisis was threatened by the bestowal of a British peerage on Hamilton. Like other Whigs Cowper was upset by the queen’s speech with its reference to endeavours to secure peace ‘notwithstanding the arts of those who delight in war’. This was interpreted as a slight on Marlborough and ‘looked like a libeller in a garret, with a reflection on a general; and not like a Queen, who should not have thundered in that way.’<sup>102</sup> During December 1711 Cowper spoke with the queen on both issues. Although he was thought to be prepared to vote in favour of the No Peace without Spain motion in the abandoned division of 8 Dec. and told the queen that he could not vote with the ministry, he appears to have taken no part in the debate and to have abstained. However he assured the queen that he would vote in favour of Hamilton, unless convinced to the contrary by what was said in debate. He noted with some satisfaction in his diary that she had expressed her opposition to the creation of any more peers, the House being ‘already full enough’. Once again he appears to have been silent in the debate.<sup>103</sup> Cowper’s abstentions may have encouraged others to believe that he could be persuaded to support the new ministry. He was certainly represented abroad as one who sought to win Harley over, ‘reducing all things again into the right channel’.<sup>104</sup> Nevertheless, he voted with the opposition in opposing the adjournment on 2 Jan. 1712 and later in the session joined with his old colleagues, Somers and Halifax, in speaking in favour of William Carstairs’ petition against the patronage bill, but to no effect.<sup>105</sup> Although he had not been present when the committee to consider the bill relating to the estate of the deceased James Annesley*, 2nd earl of Anglesey, had been nominated, John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham (who had an interest in the estate through his marriage to the widow of the 3rd earl) entreated his presence at the meeting of the committee on 4 Mar. because of ‘the just opinion I have of your great ability and equity’.<sup>106</sup> The proxy of Charles Finch*, 4th Baron Winchilsea, was registered in his favour on 18 January. This may have been intended for use in connection with the vote on the address to the crown, but cannot have been employed, as Winchilsea was present in the House on that and the following day. Cowper was given the proxy of John Hervey*, Baron Hervey, later earl of Bristol, on 1 Mar. (vacated 4 Mar.), that of Somerset on 3 Mar. (vacated 17 Mar.) and of Godolphin from 28 Mar. (vacated 13 May). On 19 May he held Colepeper’s proxy. Colepeper had been absent from Parliament since December 1711 and would not return until the following year. Proxies had been marshalled on both sides for the debate on the bill to enquire into grants passed since the Revolution. Cowper was one of those to speak against it.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Cowper also participated in the debate of 28 May on the address to the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from pursuing an active campaign against the French. He voted in favour of the address and entered the protest when the motion was rejected.<sup>108</sup> During June he used his friendship with the queen’s physician, Sir David Hamilton, to secure an audience in order to make his opposition to the proposed peace known. Together with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, he was reported to have spoken ‘very handsomely and well’ in the debate of 6 June following the queen’s speech announcing the peace.<sup>109</sup> The phrase ‘handsomely and well’ appears to have been something of a euphemism for a furious row with Strafford (as Raby had since become). Strafford, who had served as ambassador at the Congress of Utrecht, accused members of the House of undermining the peace effort by encouraging the allies to believe that there was a strong pro-war party in England. In the course of his rebuttal Cowper declared that Strafford:</p><blockquote><p>had been so long abroad, that he had almost forgot not only the language, but the constitution of his own country. That according to our laws it could never be suggested as a crime in the meanest subject, much less in any member of that august assembly to hold correspondence with our allies… whereas it would be a hard matter to justify, and reconcile, either to our own laws, or to the laws of honour and justice, the conduct of some persons, in treating clandestinely with the common enemy without the participation of the allies.<sup>110</sup></p></blockquote><p>When the Whigs lost the vote on their attempted amendment to the address on the peace by a spectacular margin, Cowper joined them in yet another protest. The reasons, like those for the protest of 28 May, were later ordered to be obliterated from the <em>Lords Journal</em>.<sup>111</sup></p><p>An exchange of letters with Halifax that August underlined the difficulties of their political situation and of dealing with ‘a foolish deluded people.’<sup>112</sup> By December 1712 rumour suggested that Cowper might be moving towards the ministry after all; in January 1713, however, when Halifax put him (prematurely) on standby for the queen’s death, he was probably hoping for a Whig revival triggered by the Hanoverian succession.<sup>113</sup> In February 1713, Oxford (as Harley had become), still hopeful of winning Cowper over, included his name on a list of peers to be canvassed before the session. In March he invited Cowper to St James’s to discuss the issues of the day, stressing his own determination to uphold the Protestant succession. There seem to have been several such meetings between Oxford and leading Whigs. Cowper’s own account of the meeting suggests that Oxford emphasized his support for the Protestant succession and the steps he had taken to ensure it. Oxford had brought written notes, and it is possible that what was under discussion was a Whig proposal to bar the pretender form the succession even if, as many Tories hoped, he were to renounce the Catholic faith. Whether Oxford seriously contemplated supporting such an attempt is unclear. Cowper noted that Oxford spoke ‘as always, very dark and confusedly’ and that he accused Marlborough and the recently deceased Godolphin of being deep in the pretender’s designs.<sup>114</sup> Despite his uncertainty about Oxford’s motives, only a fortnight later he was arranging another meeting with the lord treasurer, specifying that ‘it may be with as little observation as possible’. Just a month later, on the other hand, he was seen arriving at a meeting with his Whig allies at which Nottingham was also present.<sup>115</sup></p><p>During the 1713 session Cowper was present on nearly 82 per cent of sitting days. On 9 Apr., together with Nottingham and Halifax he spoke against an address to the queen in response to her speech. A few days later (20 Apr.) he visited the queen to discuss foreign policy and his opposition to the peace.<sup>116</sup> The same month he was approached by Patrick Hume, Lord Marchmont [S], for his assistance in dealing with a Scottish appeal involving his nephew-in-law, Sir Alexander Don who, according to Marchmont, was ‘fixed in good principles’ and promoted them in Scotland.<sup>117</sup> In May Oxford predicted that Cowper would oppose the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. In June he opposed the ministry over the malt bill too, joining with Nottingham to assert that the tax amounted to ‘a breach of faith and honour’ with the articles of Union. As far as his concerns over the treaty of commerce went, part of Cowper’s preoccupation was with the way in which it encouraged the queen to be seen to associate herself with a party. She should, he informed David Hamilton, be ‘neuter’ and leave such matters to be debated in Parliament.<sup>118</sup></p><p>The strength of Cowper’s continuing commitment to the Whigs was demonstrated in August 1713 when he, together with Somers and Lady Sunderland stood godparents to the infant son of Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich. He was also deeply involved in electioneering, both for the Commons and for the Scots representative peers who were to sit in the Lords. Yet in December his apparent ability to set political issues to one side enabled him to act as an arbitrator in a complex dispute involving Oxford and the estate of the deceased duke of Newcastle.<sup>119</sup></p><p>During the first session of 1714 Cowper was again present on over 81 per cent of sitting days and between 1 and 17 Mar. he held the proxy of Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor. This may have been for use in the debates over an attack on the Whigs responsible for the union negotiations contained in a pamphlet, <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>. As one of the Union commissioners Cowper had a personal as well as a political interest in punishing the author. He chaired the committee that drew up an address to the queen on the subject and entered a protest when the House rejected an amendment that implied the pamphlet had backing from the ministry.<sup>120</sup> On 12 Mar. Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans, sent his proxy to Cowper expressing his confidence that Cowper would use it well and asking him to enter it ‘when you judge there will be occasion for it’.<sup>121</sup> It was registered on 23 Mar. and vacated at the end of the session. On 3 May Cowper reported from the committee to draw an address to the queen seeking her intervention to protect the liberties and privileges of the Catalans. He was briefly absent in mid-April, entering a proxy in favour of Halifax on the 13th before returning to the House the following day. The business considered on 13 Apr. included several issues that might have prompted the proxy: papers relating to the 1711 peace negotiations and the second reading of a place bill. Matters relating to the affairs of the deceased Lord Mohun were probably also of interest as Cowper had advised the dowager Lady Mohun on the conduct of her case.<sup>122</sup> Nottingham predicted that Cowper would vote against the bill to prevent the growth of schism. Cowper indeed signed a protest against its passage on 15 June and received messages of thanks from prominent dissenters for his opposition to it.<sup>123</sup> He held the proxy of Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, from 22 June, which, like that of St Albans, was vacated at the end of the session. On 5 July he chaired a committee to draw up an address to the queen on the state of trade, which was effectively a revival of previous attacks on the ministry over the handling of the commercial treaty. The next day he took a prominent role in questioning Arthur Moore<sup>‡</sup>. Two days later he entered a protest over the failure of an attempt to make a representation to the queen alleging that the benefit of the Asiento contract had been obstructed by those seeking personal advantage from it.<sup>124</sup></p><h2><em>Return to office, 1714-23</em></h2><p>The death of Queen Anne in August 1714 transformed Cowper’s political fortunes. Cowper had steadfastly supported the Hanoverians and like his wife he had probably been in regular contact with the court at Hanover for several years. He was now expected to receive an appropriate reward.<sup>125</sup> Even before the arrival of the new king he had received fulsome letters of praise from Bolingbroke whose expressions of thanks for the way in which Cowper had executed ‘a harsh commission’ suggest that it was Cowper who communicated the former secretary’s dismissal from office. Oxford also wrote offering his services.<sup>126</sup> On 21 Sept. Cowper drafted the king’s first speech to the first meeting of the new Privy Council; he was appointed lord chancellor the same day.<sup>127</sup> His wife was appointed lady of the bedchamber to the princess of Wales. She translated into French the briefing document that Cowper had prepared for the king on the state of English political parties and gave it to the Hanoverian minister, Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff, on 24 October.<sup>128</sup> This ‘impartial history of the parties’ asserted that the Whigs supported the Hanoverian succession and constitutional government whilst the Tories were Jacobites who ‘would greedily swallow the cheat and endeavour by all possible means to put in practice again their old notions of divine, hereditary and indefeasible right by a restoration of the person in whom by their opinion the right is.’ Despite their political differences Oxford sought Cowper’s support in retaining his offices as warden of Sherwood Forest and <em>custos</em> of Radnorshire. It is perhaps indicative of the care with which Cowper cultivated an air of disinterested public service that he replied in a vein that appeared to be supportive but which firmly denied his ability to be of assistance. Cowper’s studied impartiality did not prevent him from recommending the removal of James II’s former attorney general, Thomas Powys, from his post as one of the justices of king’s bench. His fellow Whigs certainly believed that his recommendations for judicial appointments would be influenced by political considerations. When Francis Godolphin*, 2nd earl of Godolphin, wrote in support of a candidate for a Welsh judgeship, he said very little about his client’s legal ability, stressing instead that ‘His opinion as to public matters is what your lordship could wish it to be and his conduct (in his sphere) has always been of a piece with his opinion.’<sup>129</sup></p><p>During the election campaign that followed the dissolution of Parliament Cowper was again involved in selecting and promoting Whig candidates.<sup>130</sup> Cowper’s second period of office and his subsequent resignation and leadership of the opposition to the Sunderland Stanhope ministry will be covered in the next volume of this work.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
CRANFIELD, Lionel (c. 1625-74) |
<p><strong><surname>CRANFIELD</surname></strong>, <strong>Lionel</strong> (c. 1625–74)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 11 Sept. 1651 as as 3rd earl of MIDDLESEX |
|
First sat 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 11 Feb. 1674 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1625, 2nd s. of Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, earl of Middlesex, and Anne, da. of James Brett of Hoby, Leics. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 1 May 1655, Rachael (<em>d</em>.1680), da. of Francis Fane<sup>†</sup>, earl of Westmorland, wid. of Henry Bourchier<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Bath (separated 1661), <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 26 Oct. 1674; <em>will</em> 30 Mar. pr. 2 Nov 1674.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1673–<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by Theodore Russell, c. 1645, National Trust (Trustees of the Sackville Estate), Knole, Kent.</p> |
<p>Middlesex was related by marriage to the families of Bourchier, St. John, Villiers, Fane, Carey and Sackville. He inherited a substantial estate from his brother, including lands in Essex, Gloucestershire, Middlesex and Warwickshire.<sup>6</sup> The succession proved to be contentious from the outset. Although the 2nd earl had left no sons, from 1653 legal actions were launched on behalf of his surviving daughter, Elizabeth Cranfield, to secure her £14,000 portion and even to question Middlesex’s right to the estates.<sup>7</sup> Middlesex also inherited an ongoing dispute with his sister’s husband, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset (with whom he was otherwise generally on good terms), over the payment of her marriage portion. Granted a pass to travel abroad in 1654, the following year Middlesex finally reached an agreement with Dorset. The same year he also married Rachael, dowager countess of Bath.<sup>8</sup> The marriage was a disaster. The money raised by Middlesex from the sale of her plate and goods was reputed to have been wasted ‘in play and rioting’.<sup>9</sup> Although some attempt was made at a reconciliation, in 1659 actions were launched in chancery by both parties over non-fulfilment of the terms of the marriage settlement.<sup>10</sup> Two years later the couple separated.</p><p>No doubt relieved to find some distraction from his woeful domestic situation, towards the end of the Interregnum Middlesex became increasingly involved with conspiracies to restore the monarchy. In September 1658 he conveyed a promise of service to the king and in November was again granted permission to travel abroad, perhaps intending to meet other royalists. Although he seems to have been unwilling to contribute any funds towards the king’s cause in March 1659 (he contracted smallpox at about that time), in July Middlesex joined the fragmented rising initiated by John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, and was captured at Lincoln.<sup>11</sup> Freed on bonds of £10,000 for his good behaviour on 19 Aug., in January 1660 he again offered his services to the king.<sup>12</sup></p><p>One of the first lords to enter the restored House, Middlesex, with his brother-in-law Dorset, was among a small group of former royalists who tested the resolve of the other peers by taking their seats on 25 Apr. 1660.<sup>13</sup> The decision by George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, not to insist on the ‘young lords’ being removed set the seal on the eventual readmission of all the peers to the House. Named to the committees for privileges and for preparing a conference for settling the nation on 27 Apr., on 1 May Middlesex was nominated to the committee established to compose an answer to the king’s letter. The following day he was named to the committee for petitions and shortly after he was named as one of the commissioners to conduct the king to England from The Hague.<sup>14</sup> Later that month he was recommended to James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond, as a ‘noble gallant person’ and as a ‘faithful servant’ of the king.<sup>15</sup> Middlesex quickly established himself as one of the king’s regular hunting companions. In July 1660 he entertained him at his Essex seat of Copthall.<sup>16</sup></p><p>On 14 Aug. he was added to the committee considering the bill for William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, but two days later he was granted leave to be absent. Returning to the House in November, on the 6th Middlesex was named to the committee for the bill to restore Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, to his estates and he was also added to that considering Dorset’s bill on 23 November. On 15 Dec. he was named to one further committee during the session, considering the Hatfield level bill.</p><p>Middlesex took his seat shortly after the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 14 May but on the 22nd he was again granted leave to be absent. He resumed his seat on 10 June and was thereafter present for approximately 38 per cent of all sitting days. On 13 June his wife secured an order for their separation from the court of arches, complaining of his cruelty and desertion. On 27 June Middlesex was named to the committee chaired by Dorset considering Sir Anthony Browne’s bill but on 6 July he secured permission from the king to be absent again.<sup>17</sup> Two days later he was also granted leave of absence by the House. In compliance with the terms of the king’s warrant, Middlesex completed a proxy form registering his proxy with Dorset but no record of it appears to have been entered in the proxy book.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Middlesex returned to the House on 20 Nov. 1661 and on 26 Nov. he was named to the committee for the Quakers’ bill. The following month, on 11 Dec. he was forced to claim his privilege in a case brought against him by Sir William Underhill, under-sheriff of Warwickshire, in the court of common pleas.. Middlesex was named to two further committees during the session: on 8 Feb. 1662 to that considering Sir Aston Cockayne’s bill and on 11 Apr. to the committee for the glass bottles bill, again chaired by Dorset.</p><p>Middlesex took his seat at the opening of the second session on 18 Feb. 1663, following which he was present on approximately 37 per cent of all sitting days. His attendance was once more somewhat erratic. On 23 Feb. he was again excused his absence at a call of the House. He resumed his seat two days later when he was named to the committee for petitions and on 11 Apr. he was named to the committee for the Ashdown forest bill, a measure with which Dorset was very closely involved. In May he had to appeal for his privilege to be upheld again when Francis Grimes arrested one of his servants. The previous month had witnessed the beginning of a far more damaging case, when on 14 Apr. Middlesex’s niece, Lady Elizabeth Cranfield, absconded from her grandmother’s house and sought refuge with John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater. Although Bridgwater claimed to have received the king’s permission to shelter the girl, his letter to Lady Elizabeth’s stepfather, Sir Chichester Wrey<sup>‡</sup>, explaining his actions failed to defuse the situation, which was further complicated when, on Lady Elizabeth’s behalf, Bridgwater accused Middlesex of failing to abide by the terms of his brother’s will and denying her the £14,000 portion. He also revived the claim that as sole heir of the 2nd earl she was entitled to the entire Cranfield estate.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Middlesex responded to the crisis by issuing a challenge to Bridgwater in (as Bridgwater phrased it) ‘the Billingsgate dialect’ but the intended duel was discovered and prevented when both peers were secured.<sup>20</sup> An attempt at mediation failed and Middlesex further complicated matters by offending the king with his intransigence. On 12 June the House was informed of the affair. Following discussion, Middlesex was committed to the Tower and Bridgwater to the custody of Black Rod.<sup>21</sup> On 18 June Middlesex petitioned the House successfully to be transferred from the Tower and to be secured under house arrest instead. Discussion of the affair was resumed in the House on 25 June and the following day it was ordered that the two peers should be reprehended. On 27 June Bridgwater and Middlesex made their submissions, Middlesex seeking forgiveness for the ‘just provocation I have given by using most unfitting and most unbecoming language to a member of this House’. On 2 July he was finally readmitted to his place.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The case between the two families continued to be debated in the courts for a further two years, Middlesex pursuing his cause (according to Bridgwater) ‘with as much malice as possible’. It was ultimately settled essentially in Middlesex’s favour, with the recognition of the validity of his father’s and brother’s wills and an order to fulfil the terms laid down in them by paying Lady Elizabeth the stipulated portion when she attained the age of 16.<sup>23</sup></p><p>On 3 July 1663, the day after his humiliating return to the House, Middlesex requested that John Cramphorne, a carman who had ‘affronted’ the lords ‘as they were come to attend the Parliament’ the previous day and who had been taken into the custody of the serjeant-at-arms, might be taken before the lord chief justice and released following the securing of sureties for his good behaviour. Middlesex continued to sit until 17 July but he seems to have taken no further role in the House’s business during the session.</p><p>Middlesex took his seat once more on 16 Mar. 1664 and on 21 Mar. he was named to the committee for privileges. On 27 Apr. he was named to the committee considering the bill for Sir John Packington and the inhabitants of Aylesbury but he failed to sit after 11 May. In August, the refusal of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, to exchange one of his forest walks with Middlesex prompted Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, to offer to exchange one of his instead.<sup>24</sup> Middlesex returned to the House for the following session on 24 Nov. and the next day he was again named to the privileges committee. He was absent at a call of the House on 7 Dec. but returned two days later and sat for a further five days before leaving for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Middlesex failed to attend the session of Parliament held at Oxford in 1665. He returned to the House on 18 Sept. 1666 at the opening of the new session but, having attended on a mere four days, on 13 Nov. he registered his proxy in favour of Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg. The proxy was vacated when he resumed his seat on 3 December. He then sat for a further three days before quitting the session.</p><p>In June 1667 Middlesex and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, were placed in joint command of securing the river defences at Woolwich by order of the king.<sup>25</sup> Both appear to have escaped recriminations over the Dutch success during the summer. Middlesex took his seat in the following session on 16 Oct. 1667. The same day he was named to the committee considering the bill for Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare. Excused at a call held on 29 Oct. on account of sickness, Middlesex’s attendance during the session was again marginal and between October 1667 and March 1668 he attended a mere 11 of the 122 sitting days.</p><p>On 31 Mar. 1669 Middlesex was granted a pass to go into France.<sup>26</sup> Later that year it was rumoured that he was to be appointed governor of Tangiers.<sup>27</sup> The rumoured appointment failed to materialize and he was excused attendance in the Lords on the grounds of ill health at a call on 29 October. Noted as being abroad at a subsequent call on 21 Feb. 1670, he was provoked into a rare dispute with his brother-in-law Dorset later that month, following the death of his mother, over the distribution of the dowager countess’s personal estate.<sup>28</sup> On 24 Oct. he took his seat in the House once more but attended on just four days. On 13 Mar. 1671 he registered his proxy in favour of his Essex neighbour, William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre, which was vacated on 17 April.</p><p>In March 1672, Middlesex was one of several local landholders to enter a caveat against the new charter for Stratford-upon-Avon.<sup>29</sup> He returned to the House on 4 Feb. 1673, when he was named to the sessional committees for petitions and privileges. After just two days, he absented himself once more and he was recorded as being sick at a call of the House on 13 February. On 1 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, which was vacated on 17 March. After a further three days Middlesex again absented himself.</p><p>Rumours circulated that Middlesex had died in September 1673 but he proved to be sufficiently animate to be named a gentleman of the bedchamber the following month. He appears to have owed his appointment to the interest of his nephew, Charles Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset and Middlesex). In return, he settled his estate on the young man.<sup>30</sup> On 27 Oct. he took his seat in the House but, having attended for just three days, he ceased to sit for the remainder of the session. He took his seat once more on 7 Jan. 1674 but sat for just one day before rumours circulated that his London home had been shut up on account of plague. The plague rumours proved to be false but Middlesex was sick at a call on 12 January.<sup>31</sup> He rallied to resume his seat again on 16 Jan. but sat for just three more days before quitting the chamber for the last time.</p><p>Middlesex’s infrequent attendance of the House belies his real influence. At least two undated letters, one of them from Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers, in which Middlesex’s presence on committees is requested, point to his interest in the House.<sup>32</sup> He was also able to maintain good relations with the court throughout his life. Middlesex died in October 1674 and was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside his father and brother.<sup>33</sup> As he had formerly undertaken, he left his estates to his nephew Buckhurst, as well as substantial bequests of £4,000 to his nephew Edward Sackville<sup>‡</sup> and £1,500 to Richard Sackville.<sup>34</sup> Legacies of a further £500 were made to servants.<sup>35</sup> The peerage was revived the following year for Buckhurst.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CRAVEN, William (? 1608-97) |
<p><strong><surname>CRAVEN</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (? 1608–97)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>12 Mar. 1627 Bar. CRAVEN; <em>cr. </em>16 Mar. 1665 earl of CRAVEN. |
|
First sat before 1660, 20 Mar. 1627; first sat after 1660, 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 23 Jan. 1697 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 26 June 1608, eld. s. of Sir William Craven (<em>d</em>.1618), and Elizabeth, da. of William Whitmore, Haberdasher of London. <em>educ</em>. Trinity Coll. Oxf. (matric. 1623), MA 1636; I. Temple 1624; MA (Camb.) 1627. <em>unm</em>. Kt 4 Mar. 1627. <em>d</em>. 9 Apr. 1697;<sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> 4 July 1689-7 July 1691, pr. 10 Apr. 1697.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1666-79,<sup>3</sup> 1681-89;<sup>4</sup> commr, appeals for prizes 1672,<sup>5</sup> Tangier;<sup>6</sup> cttee. trade and plantations 1675.<sup>7</sup></p><p><em>Custos</em>.<em> rot</em>. Berks. 1660-89, Mdx. 1669-89, ld. lt. Mdx. 1670-89;<sup>8</sup> gov. of Shrewsbury 1660;<sup>9</sup> high steward Cambridge University 1667-<em>d</em>, Newbury 1685, 1690;<sup>10</sup> elder Brethren of Trinity House Mar. 1670-d., master 1670-1.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of ft. 1662-4,<sup>12</sup> Coldstream Gds. 1670-89,<sup>13</sup> lt.-gen. 1678-89.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Ld. Proprietor of Carolina;<sup>15</sup> council Royal Fishing of England 1661;<sup>16</sup> gov. Charterhouse hosp. 1668.<sup>17</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, studio of Gerrit van Honthorst, 1647, NPG 4517; oil on canvas, by unknown artist, late 17th century, NPG 270.</p> |
<p>Craven’s ancestors were in trade: something of which his contemporaries never tired of reminding him. His father made his fortune in London and served as lord mayor between 1610 and 1611. At his death in 1618 the elder Craven left a vast fortune, much of which was left in trust to his ten-year-old heir. During his minority Craven’s mother bought a number of estates in Berkshire, Warwickshire and several other counties, which provided him with a substantial income leaving him free to indulge his ambitions of becoming a great soldier and a patron of the arts.<sup>23</sup> Craven was able to secure a knighthood and elevation to the barony of Craven while apparently still a minor in March 1627. It was rumoured that the peerage was to have cost him £16,000 with marriage to one of the kinswomen of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, part of the arrangement. In the event he paid £7,000 to the crown for the honour. Although the marriage failed to come to pass he probably paid an additional sum to Buckingham as well. For all his prodigious fortune, Craven’s humble origins appear to have prevented him from being accepted entirely within county society and in the years before the Civil War, even though he was one of only 10 peers with an annual income of more than £9,000, he was excluded from appointment to a lord lieutenancy.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Eager to make a mark as a warrior, Craven fought with distinction in the Thirty Years War during which he became devoted to the interests of the Palatine family. In 1637 Craven contributed £10,000 to an expeditionary force seeking to recapture the Palatinate and was taken prisoner with Prince Rupert*, (later duke of Cumberland), at the siege of Lemgo. He was thereafter a life-long friend of the prince and his family, particularly of Elizabeth, ‘Winter Queen’ of Bohemia.<sup>25</sup> According to some reports, Craven and the queen later married (though this was almost certainly not the case).<sup>26</sup> Married or not Craven took upon himself the responsibility of providing for the exiled queen. His lavish generosity on her behalf attracted criticism from several sources with one commenting scathingly that:</p><blockquote><p>his wealth is his greatest enemy, and yet his only friend. It begets in his inferiors, a disguised friendship; in his equals, envy. His vanity makes him accessible to the one; the meanness of his birth, person, parts, contemptible to the other… Had fortune conspired with nature and ranked him according to his degree, he might have crept away among the rout, his levities unknown.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>Craven eschewed direct involvement in the Civil War preferring instead to accompany Queen Elizabeth to The Hague. He remained there throughout the war years and for much of the Interregnum.<sup>28</sup> In 1651 he was noted as being present at the exiled king’s court in company with Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford.<sup>29</sup> Although at one point it was speculated that Charles II may have considered a match with one of his Palatine cousins through Craven’s influence, it was thought that the king’s principal interest was in Craven’s money.<sup>30</sup> Craven was certainly more than willing to help his exiled monarch and according to some sources he loaned him as much as £50,000.<sup>31</sup> At Charles’s departure for Scotland, Craven appears to have taken charge of Lucy Walters and her son James Scott*, later duke of Monmouth, though he seems to have exceeded his commission, compelling Walters to resort to legal action to secure custody of her son.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Craven’s financial assistance to the royalist cause brought him to the attention of the Council of State and in 1651 many of his extensive estates, which were spread over eight counties, were sequestered in spite of his efforts to be comprehended within the act of pardon. Craven was successful in having the order overturned two years later and on 2 Sept. 1654 Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> ordered a stop to any further sale of the estate.<sup>33</sup> Petitioning appears to have continued late into the year, when Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> also claimed to have given Craven his assistance.<sup>34</sup> In spite of Cromwell’s order, Craven seems to have been compelled to make repeated efforts to prevent invasions of his property. He was certainly in England for that purpose in July 1659, though his presence may also have been connected with the attempted royalist rising that year. His name was mentioned in several reports relating to the rebellion and rumours circulated that he had made £20,000 available for the insurgents.<sup>35</sup> In spite of his scheming, in September Craven was issued with a licence permitting him to remain in England until the close of the year.<sup>36</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Charles II, 1660-85</em></h2><p>In advance of the Convention, Craven was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, among those peers who had withdrawn during the Civil War. With the king on the point of being welcomed home, Craven was one of the first peers to take his seat in the restored House, where his previous experience was clearly welcomed.<sup>37</sup> Present on almost 90 per cent of all sitting days in the first session of the Convention, on 27 Apr. he was named to the committee for privileges and the committee to draw up heads for a conference with the Commons on the question of the settlement of the nation. During the rest of his long parliamentary career, Craven continued to be similarly assiduous in his attendance. He failed to attend only two parliamentary sessions during a period of 37 years and it was not uncommon for him to attend every day of each session. It was perhaps as a result of such diligence that he was named frequently to committees on a broad range of subjects.</p><p>On 1 May 1660 he was named to the sub-committee for examining the Journal and that considering the letter of thanks to be sent to the king. Three days later, Craven wrote to the king directly recommending to his notice Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup> as well as suggesting appropriate rewards for George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle.<sup>38</sup> On 7 May Craven was one of the four peers nominated to meet with the same number from the Commons to consider the king’s proclamation and on 9 May Craven was added to the committee discussing the king’s reception. The following day Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, bt. brought a message from the Commons concerning abuses being perpetrated on Craven’s property, following which the House ordered a stop to all such activities. In spite of his efforts to protect them from alienation, many of Craven’s estates had been lost during the Commonwealth and much of his activity in the months following the return of the king was spent securing their restoration.<sup>39</sup></p><p>On 17 May Craven reported back from the committee established to consider an ordinance concerning the bringing in of the arrears of assessments for the army. During the committee’s deliberations, Craven approached the judges for their opinion touching a petition from Trinity House as the ownership of the corporation’s property was bound up with the case’s outcome.<sup>40</sup> Two days later, the House ordered that all papers relating to the sale of lands belonging to the king, queen or Craven were to be inventoried, and on 6 June it was ordered that all votes concerning the seizing and selling of his estates during the Commonwealth were null and void. Craven was restored to full possession and of all arrears of rents and profits, though it was not until 4 July that he was empowered to recover the documents. On 23 June, the House was compelled to send for one Edward Baker and several others, who had refused to acknowledge Craven’s restoration and had spoken contemptuously of the order. The House confirmed its original judgment by ratifying the order in all points. Three days later two more recalcitrant former beneficiaries of Craven’s sequestration were sent for and on 2 July yet another unwilling former owner was ordered to the bar of the House to explain his refusal to comply. Craven’s efforts to secure full restitution of his property continued and on 24 Aug. he was granted a further order allowing him to search for his missing goods and household belongings.</p><p>Craven returned to the House for the second session of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660 following which he was present on almost 96 per cent of all sittings. On 14 Nov. he was added to two committees, that concerning the bill for the Fens and the committee considering the case of the Protestants of Piedmont. At the coronation the following year, Craven was one of the peers to subscribe a voluntary gift to the king, characteristically contributing the maximum amount of £400.<sup>41</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on 93 per cent of all sittings. On 15 May he was granted a week’s leave of absence but he does not seem to have taken advantage of it as he continued to sit with only occasional interruptions throughout the remainder of the month. In July Craven was noted as being in favour of Oxford’s attempt to secure the lord great chamberlaincy and on 22 Aug. he was appointed to the council of the Royal Fishing of England, a body with which he came to be closely involved. Craven also seems to have taken an active role as one of the members of the Lords committee for the Journal, signing off the record of events on 25 Mar. and again on 4 Apr. 1662.</p><p>Besides his activities in the House, Craven continued to be an indefatigable supporter of the exiled queen of Bohemia. Unable to persuade the king to do so (the king, he complained, merely ‘puts me off with good words’), he also continued to provide the queen with financial assistance, undertaking to pay her an annual pension of £10,000, while placing his London residence in Drury Lane at her disposal.<sup>42</sup> Craven also began a number of major building projects, most significantly that at Hampstead Marshall.<sup>43</sup> The queen did not live to see Craven’s plans realized. She remained at Drury Lane for some time, before removing to Leicester House shortly before her death in 1662. Despite their former close association, Prince Rupert was critical of Craven’s efforts on his mother’s behalf, while one commentator remarked on the queen’s departure from Craven House, ‘<em>le pauvre Milor</em> (the poor lord) Craven will be glad to be rid of her, so as not to be altogether eaten up.’<sup>44</sup> After the queen’s death, Craven remained in close contact with the surviving members of her family, maintaining a regular correspondence with Princess Elizabeth, abbess of the Lutheran convent at Herford.<sup>45</sup> He also served as intermediary between the Elector Palatine and the English court on at least one occasion.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Shortly after the commencement of the session beginning in February 1663 (of which he attended 93 per cent of all sittings), Craven was entrusted with the proxy of his brother-in-law, Percy Herbert*, 2nd Baron Powis, which he held until the end of the session. On 24 Mar. 1663 Craven was one of those to be named a lord proprietor of Carolina in acknowledgement of their services in bringing about the Restoration. A further order of 12 Aug. declared all former grantees’ titles void, and encouraged the new proprietors to ‘proceed in the planting’ of the colony.<sup>47</sup> On 9 Apr. the House was informed that one of Craven’s menial servants, Lewis Ricer, had been arrested contrary to privilege. Ricer’s release was ordered and those responsible secured. While the Lords seemed more than ready to impose further punishment on the two men, Craven, displaying his habitual generosity, intervened on their behalf and secured their release on 30 April. Craven chaired a session of the committee considering the bill for street repair on 22 June and one for preventing duels on 10 July, though the latter was adjourned without discussion.<sup>48</sup> On 24 July he reported from the committee considering the bill for the relief of loyal indigent officers. The same month he was thought likely to favour the attempted impeachment of the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, driven by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, one of his co-proprietors in Carolina.</p><p>Craven appears to have been engaged in a dispute with Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> over estates at Lentwardine in Herefordshire since at least the summer of 1661. In 1663 the dispute was brought before the court of exchequer and disagreements between Craven and the Harley family over rights in the area persisted for much of the rest of his life.<sup>49</sup> Craven took his seat in the new session on 16 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on each one of its 36 sittings. Early in the session, on 22 Mar. he was again entrusted with the proxy of Powis. Having attended the prorogation of 20 Aug. 1664, Craven took his seat in the new session on 24 Nov. after which he was present on 91 per cent of all sittings. Craven’s interests in London and at the Admiralty brought him into close contact with Albemarle, with whom he developed a close partnership, and with Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>. Although Craven thought well of him, Pepys’ opinion of Craven was scathing. On 18 Nov. 1664 at a committee of the Fishing chaired by Craven considering the establishment of a new lottery, Pepys recorded Craven’s embarrassing explanation of why other lotteries would oppose the establishment of the Virginia lottery, ‘for’, says he, ‘if I occupy a wench first, you may occupy her again your heart out; you can never have her maiden-head after I have once had it.’ On other occasions Pepys referred to his would-be patron as a ‘coxcomb’ and of being little more than Albemarle’s secretary.<sup>50</sup> Whatever Pepys’s opinion, in March 1665 Craven was rewarded for his loyalty and generosity, being advanced in the peerage as earl of Craven. He was introduced in the House on 1 Aug. 1665 by Albemarle (standing in for the absent lord great chamberlain) and conducted to his new place on the earls’ bench by Theophilus Clinton*, earl of Lincoln, and Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport. Still unmarried, Craven was also granted a special remainder to the barony of Craven in favour of his cousin William Craven of Lenchwick, with a remainder to his brother Sir Anthony Craven. Later the same year a further extension was granted to Sir Anthony’s grandson, Sir William Craven of Coombe, and it was ultimately this man’s son and heir, another William Craven*, 2nd Baron Craven, who inherited the barony.</p><p>At the outbreak of plague in 1665 the majority of the court removed to Oxford but Craven remained in London, ‘out of friendship’ to Albemarle, who remained behind in his capacity as lord lieutenant of Middlesex.<sup>51</sup> Craven was consequently absent for the whole of the October 1665 session of Parliament which was convened in Oxford. During the crisis, Craven worked closely with both Albemarle and William Sancroft*, dean of St Paul’s and later archbishop of Canterbury. Craven even produced notes stipulating basic regulations to prevent any further spread of the disease.<sup>52</sup> Convinced of the efficacy of establishing designated ‘pest-houses’, Craven rented land near Carnaby Street for such places and for a burial ground for the victims. He bought the land outright six years later and in 1687 he conveyed it to his heirs with the proviso that they continued to maintain buildings for ‘the relief, support, comfort, use and convenience of such of the poor inhabitants… as shall… be visited with the plague.’<sup>53</sup> Craven’s activities during the years 1665 to 1666 earned him the affection of the London crowd and Albemarle was extremely complimentary of Craven’s diligence in implementing efforts to combat the disease.<sup>54</sup> Craven also appears to have involved himself with the election for Southwark triggered by the death of George Moore<sup>‡</sup> in December 1665. He was certainly present along with a number of other courtiers at the reading of the writ and it is reasonable to expect that he would have supported the election of Thomas Clarges, Albemarle’s brother-in-law.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Perhaps as a result of his activities in London, in April 1666 Craven was added to the Privy Council. The great fire of September 1666 found Craven once again to the fore in managing affairs in the city and proved the beginnings of a new career for him as a self-appointed ‘fire marshal’ in London. His by now legendary generosity remained uncurbed and it was rumoured that he had offered to provide the funds for rebuilding the Royal Exchange out of his own pocket. This came only two months after he had subscribed £2,000 towards building the <em>Prince</em>.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Craven took his seat in the new session on 18 Sept. 1666, following which he was present on 91 per cent of all sittings. On 15 Oct. he joined with Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, in introducing into the chamber Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington. His experience in combating the plague may have contributed to him being named on 8 Oct. to the committee preparing a bill to prevent the spread of the plague and on 16. Jan. 1667 he was also added to the committee for making provision for those infected by plague. Similarly, his involvement in combating the fire saw him named on 11 Jan. 1667 to the committee considering the bill for appointing a court of judicature to end controversies over houses destroyed in the fire. On 23 Jan. he was one of 29 peers to subscribe their protest when the House voted against adding a clause to this bill permitting appeal to the king and House of Lords. On 5 Feb. he was appointed to the committee considering the bill for rebuilding the city. In the aftermath of both disasters Craven demonstrated his customary munificence by lending large sums to the treasury, the extent of which was indicated by a warrant of June 1667 authorizing repayment of £1,000.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Craven was absent for the two-day session at the end of July 1667, but he took his seat once more on 10 Oct., at the opening of the next session, after which he was present on 95 per cent of all sittings. The formation of the Triple Alliance against France in January 1668 gave rise to rumours that Craven was to command a force of 4,000 foot and 1,500 horse in Flanders, but nothing came of the proposed mobilization.<sup>58</sup> Instead Craven remained in the House where he was again named to numerous committees but he does not appear to have played a particularly prominent part in any of them. Significantly, he was named on 4 Mar. to that considering the Ashdown Forest bill, which may have had an impact on Craven’s own estate there. Craven was ordered into action on 24 Mar. in command of the Life Guards in order to suppress the ‘bawdy house’ riots.<sup>59</sup> On 26 Mar. he was named to another committee on a bill occasioned by the fire: that seeking to indemnify the City’s sheriffs as a result of prisoners escaping in the confusion. Craven entered into partnership with Prince Rupert and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury (another of the lords proprietors of Carolina) during the year, subscribing to the new Hudson’s Bay Company. Three years later, the three men co-operated again in the establishment of the Royal Africa Company.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Craven’s efforts to personify an ideal of nobility occasionally misfired. In October 1668 he was deputed to convey the new Venetian ambassador to his first audience with the queen. Craven, ‘who sometimes sins by being too exact’ caused the ambassador offence by insisting that he be received in a drawing room rather than, as was usually the case, half way up the stairs. He was eventually forced to capitulate.<sup>61</sup> Craven’s advice was more warmly welcomed in other quarters. In July 1669 he was one of five members of the Privy Council to be named to a standing committee to investigate conventicles and Craven’s financial assistance was certainly welcomed by his old Palatine associates. In August 1669 Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, wrote to thank Craven for advising her ‘of the season to solicit the establishment of my pension in England,’ and he desired that he might raise the matter with Bristol.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Craven took his seat in the new session on 19 Oct. 1669, following which he was present on each of the session’s 36 sittings. His partnership with Albemarle continued that year with his appointment as <em>custos rotulorum</em> for Middlesex and was again made apparent by his inclusion in the duke’s will as one of those recommended to oversee his heir’s ‘tuition and breeding’.<sup>63</sup> At Albemarle’s death in January 1670 Craven was appointed commander of his former regiment, which was renamed the Coldstream Guards.<sup>64</sup> He also succeeded the duke as lord lieutenant of Middlesex and Southwark, preferment which was ‘no more than you deserve’, according to Elizabeth, Princess Palatine.<sup>65</sup> Craven’s influence in London was further underlined with his election as one of the elder brethren in February and as master of the Trinity House of Deptford in June 1670.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Craven took his seat in the new session on 14 Feb. 1670. Present on 98 per cent of all sittings, on 17 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill allowing John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to divorce. Craven may well have objected to a measure widely believed to be promoted by those eager to press the king to divorce Queen Catherine. Throughout the remainder of the session Craven was again involved with committees considering legislation with which he had a close personal interest. On 29 Mar. he was named to the committee considering an additional act for rebuilding London and on the same day to that considering the dean of St Paul’s bill. On 9 Nov. he was named to the committee considering a bill enabling Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, at that point still a minor, to re-convey land mortgaged by his father. Having attended the prorogations of 16 Apr. and 30 Oct. (when he introduced Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington into the House), Craven took his seat in the House once more on 4 Feb. 1673, following which he was present on 95 per cent of all sittings. On 14 Mar. he was added to the committee for the bill for new buildings and on 29 Mar. he chaired and reported from the committee for the bill for the encouragement of trade to Greenland.<sup>67</sup></p><p>As a Shropshire landowner, in August 1673 Craven headed a petition of the burgesses of Oswestry for a renewal of their charter.<sup>68</sup> Craven’s continuing prominence at court was made apparent by his inclusion within an anonymous squib earlier in the year. Listed under ‘Lot 41’ Craven’s role in the rebuilding of London was held up for ridicule as ‘the art of making brick without straw… wherein is showed a cheap and expeditious way for building any part of the city.’<sup>69</sup> Part of the motivation for this assault may have been Craven’s petition of March to develop the site of his house in Drury Lane, promising to, ‘improve the same by several streets and regular buildings, which will be both ornamental and useful.’<sup>70</sup></p><p>Craven was present on each day of the curtailed four-day session of October –November 1673, before taking his seat once more for the new session of January-February 1674, of which he attended on each of the 38 sittings. In spite of growing political tension, early in February he predicted ‘good harmony’ between the king and Parliament.<sup>71</sup> In August he was appointed commander in chief of all the forces in London and Westminster during the king’s absence at Windsor, a duty he had also overseen three years previously.<sup>72</sup> Problems in Carolina led to Shaftesbury, Craven and Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup> ordering the dismissal of the governor, Sir John Yeamans, who was replaced by one of Shaftesbury’s followers.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Craven was present for the prorogation of 10 Nov. 1674 when he introduced into the House his kinsman, William Herbert*, earl of Powis, and also the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby. Craven took his seat in the House again in the new session that commenced on 13 Apr. 1675, of which he attended 95 per cent of all sittings. On 20 Apr. he was entrusted with the proxy of his brother-in-law, George Coventry*, 3rd Baron Coventry, and on 28 May he was again one of the members of the Journal committee to sign off the record. In August he was engaged in suppressing riots in London.<sup>74</sup> Craven took his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 13 October. He then continued to attend each of its 21 days and on 20 Nov. he voted against addressing the king to request a dissolution.<sup>75</sup></p><p>During the 15-month prorogation that followed, Craven was among the majority finding Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of murder in June 1676.<sup>76</sup> He returned to the House on 15 Feb. 1677. His level of attendance remained impressive with him attending again on every day of the long-drawn out session. On 8 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the bill for execution of writs in Cirencester, and on 10 Apr. he reported from that considering Thomas Barkeley’s bill. On 8 Feb. 1678 the House was again informed of the arrest of one of Craven’s servants contrary to privilege, the offending parties being were released on 4 Mar. after admitting their fault and craving pardon. On 4 Apr., he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder.</p><p>In spite of his lavish generosity, Craven appears always to have remained on the fringes of royal favour. He never quite cast off his reputation as a buffoon and perhaps suffered also from being too closely associated with the party of James Stuart*, duke of York, for which Shaftesbury dubbed him doubly vile in his assessment of May 1677.<sup>77</sup> Craven’s religious sympathies may have been a further factor in keeping him on the margins. Craven was one of the peers generally approached by Quakers in the hopes of achieving redress and in 1677, along with Prince Rupert and York, he appears to have used his influence on behalf of the imprisoned Quaker theologian, Robert Barclay.<sup>78</sup> Barclay had gained the confidence of Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, and it was no doubt in response to her request that Craven agreed to help him.<sup>79</sup> Princess Elizabeth certainly wrote to her brother, Prince Rupert, and it is fair to assume that Craven would have acted in concert with him.<sup>80</sup> Several years later, Craven’s name arose in a letter of March 1682 from Robert Frampton*, bishop of Gloucester, to Archbishop Sancroft, in which Frampton complained of one of Craven’s tenants, ‘a Scottish dissenter’ (perhaps Barclay again) who was suspected of using his house as a conventicle.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Craven took his seat in the ensuing session on 23 May 1678, after which he was present on 93 per cent of all sittings. On 5 July he registered his dissent at the resolution to ascertain the relief of the petitioner in the cause of <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em>. Revelations about the Popish Plot that broke in the late summer brought Craven to the fore in London at the command of the local militia, though he had been troubled earlier in the summer by members of his own regiment mutinying over lack of pay.<sup>82</sup> If his manner and some of his sympathies left him occasionally on the margins, his efficiency in dealing with crises and unquestioning loyalty undoubtedly engendered respect. His diligence in executing the order to disarm Catholics in London in October elicited a favourable response from Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Longford [I]. In the midst of taking command of the military response to the crisis in London Craven remained an active member of the House. Having attended the prorogations of 1 and 29 Aug. and 1 Oct., he took his place in the new session on 21 Oct. following which he was present on 92 per cent of all sittings. On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill and the following day voted against the motion to commit Danby. On 31 Dec. he was added to the committee considering the information regarding the Popish Plot.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Craven was mentioned as being one of York’s ‘twelve disciples’ in February 1679.<sup>84</sup> The association may help to explain Craven’s omission from the reconstituted Privy Council later that year.<sup>85</sup> In advance of the new Parliament Craven was assessed by Danby as a likely supporter in a series of forecasts drawn up early in March. Craven took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Mar.; he was present on every day of the first session, abandoned after six days, and on 98 per cent of sitting days of the second 61-day session. On 1 Apr. he voted against the Danby attainder and on 14 Apr. again demonstrated his support for the former lord treasurer by voting against agreeing with the Commons in the bill. The following day he was added to the committee for the bill to hinder the lord treasurer and other officers from taking advantage of their positions. Craven was deputed to enquire into a complaint made by Lady Powis on 2 May about a suspected break-in at her home in Lincolns Inn Fields. He reported his findings the following day and on 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Craven was active in the elections for Middlesex when he was said to have been approached by some of the local grandees to offer his support for the candidature of Sir William Smith<sup>‡</sup>, but despite such influential backing Smith proved reluctant to stand.<sup>86</sup> Craven took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, when he joined with James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, in introducing into the House John Robartes*, earl of Radnor. Craven was again assiduous in his attendance, being present on 89 per cent of all sittings. Although he had been actively involved with taking depositions from informants and with the maintenance of order in London during the Popish Plot, he seems not to have been convinced of the extent of the conspiracy.<sup>87</sup> He voted to reject the Exclusion Bill on first reading on 15 Nov. and the following month voted with the minority in finding William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason.<sup>88</sup> His stance may have contributed to his continuing exclusion from the Privy Council which (along with that of several others of York’s circle) became the subject of a plea from York to Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, in which York insisted that the king ‘might very well make room for them all, and do himself no harm.’<sup>89</sup></p><p>Craven’s continuing connection with Prince Rupert’s family was underlined by his standing proxy to the Elector Palatine at his installation as a Garter knight in January 1681.<sup>90</sup> In advance of the new Parliament, Danby had again assessed Craven as a likely supporter. As before Craven was left in command of the troops in London and Westminster during the Parliament of Oxford, although in spite of his responsibilities in London he made a point of attending on three days (22-24 Mar.) of the brief seven-day assembly. As his absence from the capital had occasioned some concerns as to who should stand in for him while he was away, he returned to London, but not before he had signed a proxy on 22 Mar. in favour of Albemarle. Craven was reappointed to the Privy Council in March 1681. The same month he found himself required to mediate over a challenge between Prince Philip, son of Elizabeth of Bohemia, and the Sieur de Seissne.<sup>91</sup> In April he was one of those rumoured to be appointed lieutenant general of an army to be commanded by Albemarle, though there was some confusion about quite which troops were to constitute the force.<sup>92</sup> The following month he was one of 24 peers to petition the king on behalf of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who stood indicted for murder.<sup>93</sup> Two months later he had his revenge on Shaftesbury when he was one of the members of council to sign the warrant for his former colleague’s commitment.<sup>94</sup> Craven’s continuing relationship with the Palatine family was again apparent when he was named executor to Prince Rupert and trustee to his illegitimate daughter, Ruperta, at the Prince’s death in November 1682.<sup>95</sup> Craven was chief mourner at the prince’s funeral.<sup>96</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution and after, 1685-97</em></h2><p>Although the accession of James II ought to have offered Craven improved interest at court, there was some early suggestion that he might be required to resign his colonelcy of the Coldstream Guards. Craven resisted the move vigorously and the matter was evidently dropped.<sup>97</sup> Craven took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May, after which he was present on each day of the session. In June far from being sidelined he was rewarded with his appointment as lieutenant general over all forces.<sup>98</sup> He was one of the peers nominated to appear as commissioners for the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, which took place on 14 Jan. 1686.<sup>99</sup> In an assessment of early 1687, Craven was noted among those believed to be in favour of repealing the Test Act and in March he presented to the king the request of the Middlesex justices that as Catholics were to be dispensed from the Test the king might confer the same favour on all Protestants. The king was said to have received the petition coldly but promised to consider the matter.<sup>100</sup> Craven was thereafter included on three further lists of those believed to be in favour of repeal and of the king’s policies drawn up over the coming months.</p><p>Although without an official position there, Craven seems to have acted as a kind of self-appointed major-domo at court and in April he was said to have interposed ‘as he does upon all such occasions’ to prevent a quarrel between William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, and Colonel Colepeper. In spite of his advanced age Craven also continued to be active as a local justice in Middlesex and in July he was involved in investigating the causes of rioting in the area. The same month he was one of only two of the governors of the Charterhouse hospital to refuse to subscribe a document declaring their unwillingness to admit a Catholic to the charity when the man refused to take the oaths. Although Craven seems to have been unwilling to compel the local justices to provide answers to the ‘Three Questions’ other than as their consciences dictated, for his own part he remained a loyal servant of the monarch. The following summer he was one of a small number of the nobility to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Wales with the customary dispensing of wine to the local populace. He also made a point of offering his personal congratulations to the king in typically obsequious form.<sup>101</sup> He was later one of those to subscribe a deposition certifying the circumstances of the prince of Wales’ birth, for which he was satirized in <em>A Poem on the Deponents</em>:</p><blockquote><p>Then foolish Craven comes and doth depose,<br />A mark he has that he the prince well knows;<br />If’t be his lordship’s mark, he must ne’er rule,<br />For Europe knows that he’s mark’d out a fool.<sup>102</sup></p></blockquote><p>Also in June 1688, Craven was one of the council to sign the warrant for committing the Seven Bishops.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Loyalty did not prevent Craven from being willing on occasion to assert his views even where they diverged from those of his master. In February 1688 Craven courted the king’s ire by repeating too often his opinion that lord chief justice Sir Mathew Hale<sup>‡</sup> was ‘a most learned, just and able judge’, for which he was firmly slapped down.<sup>104</sup> At the Revolution he was once more caught between loyalty to the king and the need to maintain order. Early in November he was placed in command of several regiments defending London. As protests in the capital gave way to rioting, Craven found himself in a potentially serious predicament when an attempt was made by the grand juries of London and Westminster to indict him for wilful murder or even treason over the deaths of several Protestants killed during an attack on a Catholic chapel in Clerkenwell.<sup>105</sup> Having deflected this, in December he was petitioned by the inhabitants of Westminster to mobilize the militia and use his troops to disarm all Catholics.<sup>106</sup> Accordingly, on 11 Dec. he oversaw the disarming of the Catholic population.<sup>107</sup> The same day he was ordered by the provisional government to deploy the militia to curb the continuing disorder in the capital, but he explained that it had already been done. He was then specifically asked to sign the declaration to the Prince of Orange of 11 Dec., which he duly did. Craven attended the meetings convened in the council chamber in Whitehall from 12 to 15 December.<sup>108</sup> Following the king’s return to London after his abortive first flight, Craven appears to have been determined to seize the opportunity of defending him to the death in the face of Prince William’s advance. Thus when Count Solmes was despatched to secure Whitehall, Craven drew up his regiment to oppose him vowing that he would rather be cut to pieces than allow Solmes past. He refused to quit his position until he was at last ordered to stand down by the king.<sup>109</sup> For all Craven’s apparent willingness to defend James II, he did not withdraw with the king but remained in England, where he continued to be a proponent of the ‘loyalist’ case. Present once more in the sessions of the Lords’ provisional government held towards the end of 1688, on 21 Dec. he seconded the motion put forward by Wharton for George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, to remain in the chair as temporary speaker. Three days later, he supported James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, in moving that the parliamentary writs that had already been sent out should be proceeded upon.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Craven took his seat in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on each of its sittings. On 25 Jan. he was added to the committee considering the problem posed by the Catholic population and on 29 Jan. he voted in favour of settling the crisis with the establishment of a regency. Two days later he voted against the insertion of the words declaring the prince and princess king and queen. On 4 Feb. he maintained his opposition to the deposing of King James by voting against the adoption of the word ‘abdicated’ and on 6 Feb. voted once again to reject the abdication and the vacancy of the throne. He then registered his dissent when the House resolved at last to adhere to the Commons’ motion and on 6 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for better regulating the trials of peers. His disinclination to accept the new state of affairs made him an obvious target for being stripped of his commands. The new king was quickly presented with an opportunity in March when the Coldstream Guards were ordered to Holland along with several other regiments. Craven’s men refused to go and it was probably as a result of this insubordination that he was deprived of both his colonelcy and his lieutenancy in Middlesex.<sup>111</sup> He was also removed from the Privy Council and by the end of July he was said to have been ‘totally laid aside’.<sup>112</sup></p><p>His removal from office did not prevent Craven from remaining a prominent member of the House. On 8 May 1689 he was named one of the managers of a conference considering the bill for the speedy convicting and disarming of Catholics and on 27 May he was again called upon as one of the managers of the conference for the additional poll bill. On 31 May he voted against the reversal of Titus Oates’s conviction for perjury. On 20-21 June Craven was named as a reporter for two further conferences on the bill enabling the commissioners of the great seal to execute the office of the lord chancellor or lord keeper and on 2 July he entered his dissent over the resolution to proceed with the impeachments of Blair, Vaughan and others. Craven was involved as manager of a series of conferences throughout July, including four concerning the succession to the throne (12, 13, 16, 19, 31 July) and two discussing the bill reversing the judgments against Titus Oates (22, 26 July). On 30 July he divided in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing the judgments against Oates.</p><p>Classed by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) as a supporter of the court in a list of October 1689 to February 1690, in spite of his loss of office and advanced age, Craven remained influential. He also continued to attend the House regularly. Having taken his seat at the opening of the second session of the Convention he proceeded to attend on 89 per cent of all sittings. He then took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, after which he was present on 96 per cent of all sittings. On 24 Apr. he reported from the committee on Sir Humphrey Forster’s<sup>‡</sup> bill and in May he was nominated one of the commissioners for raising money for the French and Irish wars.<sup>113</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 2 Oct. after which he was present on 90 per cent of all sittings. On 30 Oct. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for clarifying the powers of the Admiralty commissioners. On 3 Nov. he reported from the committee considering John Wentworth’s bill.</p><p>Craven attended the adjournments of 31 Mar. and 28 Apr. and the prorogations of 26 May, 30 June, 3 Aug. and 5 Oct. before taking his seat once more on 22 Oct. 1691. On 21 Nov. he reported from the committee for the bill to permit Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and his countess to make a lease to assist with the payment of their debts. On 7 Jan. 1692 he reported from the committee considering the bill to enable Henry Compton*, bishop of London, to sell land in Worcestershire and on 12 Jan. he entered his dissent over the resolution to receive the Norfolk divorce bill. Having attended the prorogations of 12 Apr., 24 May, 14 June, 11 July, 22 Aug., and 26 Sept., Craven took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 4 November. Present on 93 per cent of all sittings, on 31 Dec. he voted against committing the place bill and on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted once more against the passage of the Norfolk divorce bill. On 3 Jan. he changed his mind and voted in favouring of passing the place bill. On 4 Feb. he joined with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder and on 1 and 3 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conferences considering the bill for the prevention of malicious prosecutions. Craven took his seat in the following session on 7 November. His attendance was again impressive with him present on 95 per cent of all sittings and on 17 Feb. 1694 he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s judgment in the case <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. He took his seat again at the opening of the 1694-5 session on 12 Nov. 1694 (of which he attended 97 per cent of all sittings). On 23 Jan. 1695 he entered his dissent at the resolution to postpone implementation of the provisions of the bill for regulating treason trials.</p><p>During the dissolution Craven’s interest was sought in at least one of the counties where he held significant estates. Henry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> was eager to encourage Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> to put himself forward for one of the county seats in Berkshire and advised Trumbull to seek Craven’s assistance in the election.<sup>114</sup> Craven took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695. Present on 93 per cent of all sittings, on 16 Dec. Craven was added to the managers of a conference with the Commons on the address.<sup>115</sup> While no Jacobite, Craven clearly remained lukewarm towards the new regime. On 24 and on 26 Feb. he was included in lists of Lords who had failed to subscribe the Association and he was again noted among those who had refused to sign in a further list compiled early the following month.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Craven took his seat in the new session on 20 Oct. 1696 following which he was present on 44 per cent of all sittings. On 23 Dec., he voted against passing the bill for attainting Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and then subscribed the resulting protest. He continued to sit for the majority of January 1697 before attending for the final time on 23 January. He registered his proxy with John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby on 20 February. Failing health seems to have been the reason for his final departure from the House. Between 2 and 27 Feb. a series of bulletins reported on his steady recovery and how he was ‘on the mending hand’ while on 6 Mar. it was said that he had ‘miraculously recovered’ from ‘a sore fit of sickness’.<sup>117</sup> Such optimistic reports proved to be misplaced and Craven died on 9 Apr. at his house in Drury Lane of ‘a general decay of nature and a gangrene in his leg which would have killed the youngest and most vigorous man’.<sup>118</sup> He was buried at Binley in Warwickshire. Craven’s former chaplain, Daniel Griffith, extolled his late master as ‘much lamented and ever to be remembered by me and many thousands more.’<sup>119</sup></p><p>According to the terms of his will of July 1689, with the exception of a number of small bequests made to members of his family, the bulk of Craven’s estate was conveyed to his cousin, William Craven of Coombe Abbey, who also succeeded to the barony by the terms of the special remainder. The extent of Craven’s London interests were reflected in a codicil of 1690 in which sums were conveyed to several London schools and hospitals as well as to the Trinity House. In the absence of a direct heir, Craven’s earldom became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CRAVEN, William (1668-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>CRAVEN</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1668–1711)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 9 Apr. 1697 as 2nd Bar. CRAVEN. |
|
First sat 6 Dec. 1697; last sat 6 Mar. 1711 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Oct. 1668, 1st s. of Sir William Craven (1638–95) and Margaret, da. of Sir Christopher Clapham; bro. of Robert Craven<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Oxf. DCL 1706. <em>m</em>. 12 Oct. 1697 (with £10,000),<sup>1</sup> Elizabeth (1679–1704), da. of Humberston Skipwith, 3s. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1695. <em>d</em>. 9 Oct. 1711; <em>admon</em>. 27 June 1712 to Elizabeth Craven, spinster, paternal aunt and guardian of William Craven*, 3rd Bar. Craven.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Berks. 1702–<em>d</em>.; warden, Whittlewood Forest 9 July 1711–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Ld. proprietor of Carolina 1706–<em>d</em>; ld. palatine 1708–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Craven succeeded to the barony of Craven by special remainder on the death of his cousin, William Craven*, earl of Craven. The succession to the title had been re-conveyed on a number of occasions as a result of the deaths of all of the previous holder’s immediate relatives, his penultimate heir being the 2nd baron’s father. With the peerage, Craven also succeeded to the late earl’s estate, including his interest in Carolina. In addition to this substantial inheritance from his cousin (worth at least £5,000 p.a.), he inherited extensive estates from his father.<sup>6</sup> His eventual holdings comprised lands in more than a dozen counties, as well as property in Coventry that offered him influence within the city.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Shortly after his succession to the peerage Craven made a settlement of his Berkshire and Warwickshire estates, as well as lands in Shropshire worth £1,000 p.a. The manor of Hampstead Marshall in Berkshire was settled on his wife.<sup>8</sup> Marriage into the Skipwiths connected him with a number of influential individuals, including Sir Francis Dashwood<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>. Craven appears to have enjoyed a good relationship with his wife’s family, entering into at least one financial ‘adventure’ in 1700 with his brother-in-law, Sir Fulwar Skipwith<sup>‡</sup>, who was a regular resident of Craven’s London home.<sup>9</sup> A published account of the Skipwith family includes some inaccuracies, confusing Lady Craven’s brother with his grandfather, the first baronet, while also implying that Craven married his wife’s aunt.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Described by Macky as ‘very fat and fair’ and a lover of ‘field sports and a bottle’, Craven proved to be a consistent Tory supporter.<sup>11</sup> He took his seat in the House three days into the new session on 6 Dec. 1697, introduced between John Colepeper*, 3rd Baron Colepeper, and John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys. Although he had succeeded to his peerage, the ceremony of introduction was deemed necessary in his case, as Craven had inherited it by a special remainder. He was thereafter present on 48 per cent of all sitting days. On 4 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and on 7 Mar. he was one of those named to manage the conference concerning the amendments to the bill explaining poor relief. Craven was absent from 3 May until the close of the session, but he covered his absence by registering his proxy in favour of his Warwickshire neighbour Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, on 9 June. Craven took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec., following which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted in opposition to a committee resolution for offering to assist the king in retaining the Dutch guards, and entered his dissent when the resolution was adopted.</p><p>Craven returned to the House for the opening of the second session, on 16 Nov. 1699, after which he was present on 56 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1700 he voted in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation. He appears to have invested in the company, from which he was said to have been expecting £500 at his death in 1711.<sup>12</sup> He was again absent for the final two months of the session, in March and April 1700, and was then present for just 15 per cent of all sitting days of the first Parliament of 1701. On 15 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolutions to reject the second and third heads of the report relating to the Partition Treaty and on the 20th he entered a further protest at the resolution not to send the address concerning the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence.</p><p>Craven was absent from the opening of the new Parliament in December. Missing at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, he delayed taking his seat until 15 Jan., after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 Feb. he subscribed the protest against the bill to attaint James II’s widow, Queen Mary Beatrice, for high treason, and on 24 Mar. he entered a further protest against the passage of the bill for the further security of the king’s person. Craven’s brother, Robert, was believed to be one of those who would have supported a Jacobite restoration had the exiled claimant renounced Catholicism.<sup>13</sup></p><p>The death of William III and the accession of Queen Anne offered Craven improved prospects at court and in the summer of 1702 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Berkshire, in succession to Montague Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon. At first sight Craven’s appointment is curious. Despite holding extensive estates, he does not appear to have exercised much influence in Berkshire, though the election of Sir John Stonhouse<sup>‡</sup> for the county certainly accorded with his political sympathies. The explanation may lie more with Abingdon’s interest than that of Craven. Craven’s appointment to Berkshire facilitated Abingdon’s restoration to the lieutenancy of Oxfordshire, in place of Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, and ensured that both counties were headed by dependable Tory peers. In spite of his new office, Craven’s principal interest remained in Warwickshire, where he exercised considerable political influence in association with Denbigh and William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Craven failed to return to the House for the opening of the new Parliament. He took his seat almost two months into the session, on 10 Dec. 1702, in time to participate in the debates over the Occasional Conformity bill. Having attended just nine days he quit the chamber for the remainder of the session. Despite this, he proved himself a committed upholder of the Church of England, wholeheartedly persuaded of the dangers facing the Church, and in January 1703 he was assessed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a likely supporter of the bill. On 16 Jan., although absent from the attendance list that day, he was listed among those who voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause.</p><p>Craven was again missing from the opening of the new session in November that year. The reason may have been poor health, as a report probably dating from the beginning of October in the same year noted that he was ‘very much indisposed’.<sup>14</sup> In advance of the session he was included by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, among those likely to persist in their support for the Occasional Conformity bill. The forecast was repeated just over a fortnight later and on 14 Dec. Craven was noted as having voted in favour of passing the measure by proxy, though this cannot be confirmed as no proxy records survive for the session. His failure to attend at the time may have been due to his involvement in a chancery case concerning disputes over the manor of Ryton in Shropshire. Disagreements dating from his predecessor’s tenure as lord of the manor over the payment of an annual rent charge, encouraged by certain ‘confederates’, had continued to rumble on beyond the earl of Craven’s death in 1697 and the affair perhaps hinted at a more general problem concerning the Cravens’ authority in the area.<sup>15</sup> Craven took his seat at last on 18 Jan. 1704 but he was thereafter present on just 17 per cent of all sitting days. His absence from the latter part of the session may have been owing to his wife’s ill health, as Lady Craven died shortly afterwards.<sup>16</sup> He was, however, included in a list drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Craven did not allow his mourning to stand in the way of his sporting engagements and in mid-October 1704 it was noted that he had a horse running in the opening day of a meet at Lutterworth.<sup>17</sup> He dragged himself away from the racecourse to take his seat a week into the new session on 2 Nov. and he was thereafter present on approximately a third of all sitting days. That month he was listed among those thought likely to support the Tack. He also applied to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, on behalf of Sir Thomas Dolman to be appointed sheriff of Berkshire.<sup>18</sup> Absent for the final week of November and for the entirety of December, on 26 Nov. he registered his proxy with Denbigh once more, which was vacated by his return to the House on 15 Jan. 1705. On 17 Jan. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to give a first reading to the Bath estate bill and on 22 Jan. he joined with several other lords in subscribing the protest at the rejection of the petition of Thomas Watson*, the deprived bishop of St Davids.</p><p>Family loyalties did not sway Craven during the 1705 general election, when he failed to rally to the cause of his brother-in-law, Fulwar Skipwith, who was unsuccessful in attempting to secure the county nomination for Warwickshire. Skipwith’s failure was principally due to the dominant force in the county, Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, making plain his support for Sir John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Charles Shuckburgh<sup>‡</sup>, but Craven also seems to have favoured his brother-in-law’s rivals on this occasion.<sup>19</sup> Skipwith was also unsuccessful at Coventry, where Craven’s interest was greatest: he opted to lend his support to Thomas Gery<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Christopher Hales<sup>‡</sup> instead. The election was marked by violence, during which the mayor of Coventry sustained minor injuries.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Craven took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on just under 35 per cent of all sitting days. He was absent briefly in November 1705 but once again ensured that his proxy was registered with Denbigh. On 12 Nov. he was excused at a call. He resumed his seat (thereby vacating the proxy) on 6 December. The same day, he voted in favour of the motion that the Church was in danger under the present administration, and entered his protest when the motion failed to carry.<sup>21</sup> On 31 Jan. 1706 he registered three dissents in response to resolutions to alter the phrasing within one of the clauses of the bill for securing the Protestant succession.</p><p>Craven was one of a number of prominent Tory peers to be advanced doctors of law at Oxford in the spring of 1706.<sup>22</sup> Later that year, rumours circulated that he was to remarry, but nothing came of it.<sup>23</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 3 Dec., after which he was present on just over a third of all sitting days. On 3 Feb. 1707 he entered a further protest against the resolution not to instruct the committee of the whole House to insert a clause in the bill to secure the Church of England declaring the 1673 Test Act to be perpetual and unalterable.</p><p>Craven failed to attend the brief session of April 1707 and attended just over a fifth of the first Parliament of Great Britain, which convened in October. Following the dissolution, his interest in Coventry proved unequal to the task of securing a seat there for his brother, Robert, in the 1708 election.<sup>24</sup> In September he, along with Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, and Grace, Lady Carteret, acting as guardian for her underage son, John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret, were involved in a chancery action brought against them by Nicholas Trott, who claimed to have inherited the proprietorship of Carolina formerly in the possession of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Trott’s claim was denied by the remaining proprietors.<sup>25</sup> Although Craven then returned to the House just under a fortnight after the opening of the new Parliament on 29 Nov. 1708, he attended just four days before quitting the chamber for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Craven’s association with Beaufort may have been the catalyst for his commencing negotiations to marry Beaufort’s granddaughter Lady Mary Somerset in the winter of 1709. Craven’s approach was warmly welcomed by the duke and duchess, not least because he was in possession of £5,000 a year, £2,000 in reversion and ‘a very considerable personal estate’. He and Beaufort were also both members of the Tory club, the board of brothers, to which Craven had been elected in July.<sup>26</sup> Such recommendations cut little ice with his prospective bride. Lady Mary seems to have regarded Craven, whom she found ‘prodigiously fatter than ever’, with undisguised dislike. Writing to her aunt Anne, countess of Coventry, she comforted herself with the hope that ‘if my Lady Duchess hears he has as ill health as people say he has that will prevent it’.<sup>27</sup> Lady Mary’s wish was granted, and the marriage never materialized.</p><p>In the midst of his unsuccessful courting, Craven resumed his attendance of the House, taking his seat in the new session on 21 Nov. 1709. Present on just under 56 per cent of all sitting days, on 16 Feb. 1710 he registered his dissent against the resolution to agree with the Commons’ address requesting that the queen order John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, to Holland. He entered a further dissent when the House resolved not to adjourn and then dissented again at the resolution not to require Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates to appear before the House. Craven continued to enter a series of protests in March during the Sacheverell crisis. On 14 Mar. he registered his objection to the resolution that it was unnecessary to include within the impeachment the words that were deemed criminal; he then dissented when it was resolved not to adjourn. He dissented twice more on 16 Mar. over the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article against the doctor, and the following day he dissented against the resolution that the Commons had successfully established their second, third and fourth articles. On 18 Mar. he protested at the resolution that limited peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty; two days later he found Dr Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.<sup>28</sup> He then subscribed the protest against the guilty verdict, and on 21 Mar. registered a final dissent against the censure passed against Sacheverell. In the aftermath of the trial, Craven remained one of Sacheverell’s champions and during the summer he was one of a number of Warwickshire notables to welcome the disgraced cleric during his tour of the county.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Craven undoubtedly benefited from the shift towards the Tories that year. Despite his brother’s 1708 setback, the elder Craven was able to exert considerable influence in Coventry, where the election of 1710 was celebrated with the composition of a song acclaiming the Tories’ triumph at the polls.<sup>30</sup> On this occasion Robert Craven was elected one of the members, while Craven himself featured prominently in a popular ballad that declared how:</p><blockquote><p>The Glorious sons of Warwickshire may justly be commended,<br />There’s ne’er a Member now Elect that ever has offended;<br />Denbigh and Craven we esteem, a loyal and noble pair, sir,<br />And hope to see our worthy friend, Great Bromley, in the chair, sir.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>Craven took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710. In advance of the session he was reckoned by Harley as a likely government supporter and in June 1711 his name appeared on the list of Tory patriots in the previous Parliament. By then, Craven had quit the chamber for the final time, though he ensured that his absence was covered by registering his proxy with Denbigh on 8 March. The prospect of additional honours under the new administration was hinted at in July, when Craven was appointed warden of Whittlewood Forest. Such expectations were brought to a halt by his death three months later, at his Warwickshire seat of Coombe. His unexpected demise from ‘apoplexy’ ‘eclipsed’ the annual diversion of the Lutterworth races.<sup>32</sup> He was buried in the family vault at Binley and succeeded as 3rd Baron Craven by his eldest son, also William Craven, then aged just 11 years.</p><p>Craven died intestate, raising certain difficulties in the division of his estate, though administration was granted to his aunt Elizabeth Craven. His younger sons, Fulwar and Robert, later presented a bill to the House for raising suitable provision for their maintenance.<sup>33</sup> Craven left a considerable personal estate, worth at least £3,000, including an extensive wine cellar at Coombe Abbey of more than 1,300 bottles (though half of these were empties).<sup>34</sup> Sir Fulwar Skipwith was able to capitalize on his brother-in-law’s death by using his position as guardian to the young baron to secure his return for Coventry in 1713.<sup>35</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CRAVEN, William (c. 1700-39) |
<p><strong><surname>CRAVEN</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1700–39)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Oct. 1711 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. CRAVEN. |
|
First sat 18 Jan. 1721; last sat 31 May 1739 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1700, 1st s. of William Craven*, 2nd Bar. Craven, and Elizabeth Skipwith; bro. of Fulwar Craven*, later 4th Bar. Craven. <em>educ</em>. Rugby sch.; travelled abroad 1716, 1718-20;<sup>1</sup> St John’s, Camb. 1716; DCL Oxf. 1722. <em>m</em>. 1 June 1721 (with £4,000 p.a.), Anne (<em>d</em>.1730), da. of Frederick Tylney<sup>‡</sup> of Tylney Hall, Hants, 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 10 Aug. 1739; <em>will</em> 19 June 1735-7 Mar. 1738, pr. 25 Sept. 1739.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. foundling hosp. 1739.</p> |
|
<p>Craven succeeded to the title while still at school. His precise date of birth is not certain but at least one newspaper reporting his succession described him as being ‘about 12 years of age’ at the time.<sup>6</sup> During his minority management of the orphaned peer’s estates was exercised by his aunt, Elizabeth Craven, though he seems also to have come under the influence of his uncle and guardian, Sir Fulwar Skipwith<sup>‡</sup>. His inclusion in a list of May 1712 as having voted in favour of the opposition-inspired address to overturn the ‘restraining orders’ preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from waging an offensive campaign against the French must be an error.<sup>7</sup> The following year, the support of Craven’s tenants (through Skipwith’s mediation) was sought for the Whig Henry Newport*, styled Lord Newport (later 3rd earl of Bradford), during the latter’s successful campaign to secure re-election for Shropshire in 1713, though it seems more likely that the Craven interest would have backed the Tory candidates.<sup>8</sup> During the same election Skipwith secured his own return at Coventry thanks, largely, to the employment of Craven’s interest there on his behalf. In March Craven may have been one of a party including the lord treasurer, Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, and other members of Oxford’s family hosted by Rev. Henry Brydges, brother of James Brydges*, later duke of Chandos.<sup>9</sup></p><p>During his short career in the House Craven espoused the Tory interest and, perhaps reflecting his own experience as someone orphaned early in life, he was also one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the Foundling Hospital. Although he died before its inauguration, his role was recognized by his inclusion among the list of founding governors. Full details of his post-1714 career will be covered in the next part of this work. On his death in 1739 without direct heirs, Craven’s barony descended to his younger brother.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
CREW, John (c. 1598-1679) |
<p><strong><surname>CREW</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1598–1679)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 Bar. CREW |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 20 Apr. 1671 |
|
MP Amersham May 1624, 1625, Brackley 1626, Banbury 1628, Northants. 1640 (Apr. 5), Brackley 1640 (Nov.), Northants. 1654, 1660. |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1598, 1st s. of Sir Thomas Crew<sup>‡</sup> of Nantwich, Cheshire and Steane and Temperance, da. and coh. of Reynold Bray of Steane; <em>educ</em>. G. Inn, entered 1615, called 1624; Magdalen, Oxf. matric. 26 Apr. 1616, aged 18. <em>m</em>. c.1623, Jemima, da. and coh. of Edward Waldegrave of Lawford Hall, Essex, 6s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>)<sup>1</sup> 2da. d. 12 Dec. 1679; <em>will</em> n.d. (c.1677), pr. 15 Dec. 1679.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr., cttee of Both Kingdoms 1644-8; commr. for treaty of Uxbridge 1645, abuses in heraldry 1646, exclusion from sacrament 1646, bishops’ lands 1646, scandalous offences 1648, trade 1655-7, relief of Piedmontese Protestants 1656, accounts 1666; cllr. of state 25 Feb.-31 May 1660.</p><p>Commr. for defence, 1642, assessment, 1643-8, 1657, Jan. 1660-1, sequestration, 1643, execution of ordinances, 1643, accounts, 1643, levying of money, 1643, appeals, Oxf. Univ. 1647, militia, Northants. 1648, Northants. and Westminster Mar. 1660, drainage Great Level 1649, visitation, Oxf. Univ. 1654, scandalous ministers, Northants. 1654, statutes, Durham college 1656, oyer and terminer, Midland circ. July 1660.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: wash drawing by unknown artist, Sutherland collection, Ashmolean Museum, Oxf.</p> |
<p>A deeply religious, moderate Presbyterian and virulent anti-Catholic who wrote in 1672 of his hope that anti-Christian powers ‘would have bricks put into their mouths and hooks into their nostrils’,<sup>3</sup> John Crew was excluded from the House of Commons at Pride’s Purge and did not respond to a summons to Cromwell’s ‘Other House’.<sup>4</sup> In 1660 he became a leading figure in the negotiations that led to the calling of the Convention in 1660. He was openly discussing the need to readmit the secluded members as early as 16 Jan. 1660, some two weeks before General Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, arrived in London.<sup>5</sup> Thirty secluded members gathered at his house on 14 Feb., though whether this was before or after the meeting of representatives of the secluded and sitting members called the same day by Monck, is unclear. The likelihood is that it was a pre-meeting called to discuss tactics, for there was undoubtedly some sort of post-meeting discussion at Crew’s house the next day, involving ‘at least 40 gentlemen … [who] … came dropping in one after another’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Monck called another, larger, meeting on 18 Feb. at which Crew and other secluded members did their best to reassure the Rumpers that they had no intention of seeking revenge and intended only to meet and dissolve so that writs could be issued for a free Parliament. Reports vary about how successful they were: according to at least one account, Hesilrige simply stormed out.<sup>7</sup> Pepys was afterwards told that that readmission of the secluded members had become a ‘great likelihood’ and rejoiced to think that Crew and his son-in-law, Edward Montagu*, later earl of Sandwich, were ‘likely to be great men’. He also reported the strange visits of secluded members to Crew’s house the next day – visits that he found all the more suspicious for taking place on a Sunday – apparently not realizing that plans were afoot for an immediate readmission.<sup>8</sup></p><p>On the morning of 21 Feb. Crew was one of a number of secluded members who assembled at the house of Arthur Annesley*, later earl of Anglesey, before being conducted to Whitehall where they were addressed by Monck. Escorted by Monck’s soldiers, they were then readmitted to the House. According to Pepys, Crew was ‘very joyful’. Presumably Crew was even more joyful when, two days later, he came second in the poll to elect members of the new council of state. His son-in-law, to whom he was very close, was also elected to the council.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Crew’s actions and Roger Morrice’s subsequent account of the negotiations that led to the Restoration suggest that as a political presbyterian he was in favour of a conditional restoration: ‘a fair comprehension in matters of religion, and popery be discountenanced’.<sup>10</sup> As a member of the Convention he opposed the sitting of the ‘young lords’ and probably also the admission of those Members of the Commons whose elections breached the strict qualifications that were designed to exclude active cavaliers. Crew and Montagu believed that Monck had encouraged them to resist the admission of the ‘young lords’ and felt betrayed by his subsequent actions. They were also worried that despite having moved the Commons resolution condemning the execution of Charles I, Crew had ‘too much concerned himself with the presbyterian[s], against the House of Lords’ thereby damaging his standing with the king.<sup>11</sup> Nevertheless, Crew took an active part in arrangements for the king’s reception and was a member of the delegation that met him at The Hague.</p><p>In April 1661 Charles II personally invested a dozen new peers (six earls and six barons) at a splendid ceremony in Whitehall.<sup>12</sup> John Crew was one of them, although a peerage was the one and only mark of favour he was to receive from the new regime. He took his seat in the House on the opening day of the ensuing session but was not introduced (between Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu, and Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham) until 11 May. Thereafter he was regularly named to the sessional committees. He was present on 77 per cent of sitting days of the 1661-2 session and was named to 22 select committees. These included committees to discuss the major issues of the political and religious settlement such as uniformity and corporations as well as lower profile matters ranging from bills on fen drainage and the provision of allowances to curates, to Norwich stuffs and sheriff’s accounts. He was also named to the committee to consider the bill of the royalist Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland. Rather oddly he was both listed as present in the attendance list and as absent at the call of the House on 20 May 1661. In July 1661 he was said to oppose the case of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, who wished to overturn a pre-Civil War decision that had deprived his family of the great chamberlaincy. Although family loyalty might suggest a sympathy with Oxford’s case since Crew’s uncle (Ranulphe Crew<sup>‡</sup>, chief justice of king’s bench) had favoured it in the original dispute, more recent personal and political considerations may have had greater weight. Crew probably had greater sympathy for the rival candidate, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, than for Oxford who was a notorious rake. Lindsey, despite his royalist past, was close to a number of former parliamentarians, including Albemarle, and was related through the marriage of his son and heir Robert Bertie*, then styled Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 2nd earl of Lindsey), to the Whartons.</p><p>At the adjournment later in July 1661 Crew was more than satisfied with the relationship between crown and Parliament, writing with pleasure of the return of ‘the old and good way of parliaments’.<sup>13</sup> By the autumn, matters were rather different. A devout (and dour) Presbyterian with decidedly Calvinist leanings and a model family man, it is scarcely surprising that he should be disgusted by Charles II’s notoriously bawdy and pleasure loving court.<sup>14</sup> Nor did he command sufficient patronage or influence in the cavalier-dominated House of Commons to attract offers of office or the flattering attentions of Charles’s ministers. On 13 Nov. Crew invited Pepys to see his new house; his son, Thomas Crew*, later 2nd Baron Crew, told Pepys that the next session of Parliament would ‘be troublesome to the court and clergy’ and spoke of the growing enmity between Parliament and Clarendon.<sup>15</sup> There is little doubt that Crew agreed, though perhaps his own views were coloured by ill health. His longest absence of the session was between 20 Nov. and 7 Dec., and at a call of the House on 25 Nov. he was excused as being unwell. According to James Butler*, then sitting under his English title as earl of Brecknock but better known as duke of Ormond [I], Crew was one of those who opposed the bill to restore the estates of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, in February 1662.<sup>16</sup></p><p>By December 1662 Crew was thoroughly disillusioned. He complained to Pepys of ‘great factions at court’, hinting at disputes between the king and James*, duke of York, over the possible legitimization of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and predicting an attack on Clarendon in the forthcoming parliamentary session. He spoke of the betrayal of the Presbyterian interest manifested on the one hand by royalist attempts to purge the administration of former parliamentarian collaborators and on the other by the deprivation of Presbyterian ministers under the Act of Uniformity. He was particularly bitter about the exclusion of the ministers ‘to whom he says the king is beholden for his coming in, and that if any such thing had been foreseen he had never come in’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>During the 1663 session Crew was present for 72 per cent of sitting days, although his absences were far more scattered than in the previous session. He was named, along with all others present, to the committee to consider the bill for repealing acts of the Long Parliament and to six more genuinely select committees, including committees on bills for his fellow peer Richard Byron*, 2nd Baron Byron, and select vestries. Not surprisingly, he was listed by Wharton as likely to vote for Bristol’s motion against Clarendon.</p><p>Virtually nothing is known of Crew’s activities, let alone his motivations, during the 1664 session other than what can be gleaned from entries in the Journal, although he attended assiduously, missing only one day. He was named to four select committees: for bills concerning the abatement of writs of error, defects in certain acts of the Convention, that of Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], and of Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>. Over the next session, 1664-5, he missed five of a potential 50 sitting days. He even attended the formal prorogation day on 20 Aug. 1664. Despite this high attendance he was named to only two select committees, one for the bill to prevent arrests of judgments and the other (to which almost everyone present was also named) for Sir Robert Carr’s bill. He did not attend the brief session of October 1665 at all. In January 1666 he was troubled by the possibility of threats to Sandwich, seeking Pepys’ help in persuading Sandwich to sue out a pardon for the prize goods affair and other matters, ‘For it is to be feared that the Parliament will fly out against him and particular men the next session’.<sup>18</sup> Pepys also reported a number of conversations held over the period 1664 to 1666 in which Crew expressed opposition to the Dutch war mainly on grounds of expense but also because it was unjustified and instigated by ‘persons that do not enough apprehend the consequences of the danger of it’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>During the 1666-7 session Crew was present on 77 per cent of sitting days. Some two-thirds of his absences were concentrated in January and early February 1667 and probably reflect another period of ill health. He was named to five select committees, including another bill for Cleveland and that for the naturalization of Lady Holles, wife of his friend and political ally, Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles. In October 1666 he resorted to a claim of privilege of Parliament to protect his servant, William Spurrier. By November 1666 news of rebellion in Scotland, suspicions of Catholic conspiracies, and the issue of government finance left Crew deeply depressed about the future of the country ‘he doubting not that all will break in pieces in the kingdom.’ He was worried about the government’s proposed new taxes – ‘the hardest that ever came out’ – and its inability to prepare a coherent strategy to secure Commons approval for them.<sup>20</sup> In December the House of Lords petitioned the crown for a royal commission to inspect accounts.</p><p>According to his younger son Nathaniel*, later bishop of Durham and 3rd Baron Crew, Crew’s understanding of the issues led him to be offered the chancellorship of the exchequer twice. On each occasion Crew refused, declaring that ‘if he was to begin the world again, he would never be concerned in public affairs’.<sup>21</sup> Nevertheless, Crew’s trenchant views on the subject (and perhaps also his concern for Sandwich), ensured him a place on the commission of accounts which was announced to the House on 29 Dec. 1666.</p><p>If Crew had willingly agreed to join the commission, he soon changed his mind. Country Members of the Commons, with whom he must surely have been in sympathy, were vociferous in their objections and obstructed its meetings. By May 1667 Crew was convinced that the commission would ‘do more hurt than good’ and that it was bound to ‘be looked upon as a forced, packed business of the king’ and hoped that it would soon fall. In anticipation of the imminent death of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, he was also angling for Sandwich to be appointed lord treasurer.<sup>22</sup></p><p>During the troubled 1667-8 session, Crew’s attendance rose to 83 per cent. His longest absence was at the beginning of the session and meant that he was not present to be named to the sessional committees. In October 1667 he was appointed to the committee to enquire into the abuses of woodmongers; thereafter he was named to five select committees to consider bills for Sir William Juxon, naturalization, trade, Lady Frances Savil, William Paston and the rebuilding of the City of London. Whilst it seems unlikely, given his Presbyterian sympathies and previous antipathy, that Crew was prepared to support Clarendon, he was nevertheless dismayed by the aftermath of the chancellor’s dismissal. In December he ‘bewailed the condition of the nation’ complaining of divisions at court, of the disputes between the Commons and the Lords, the danger of a dissolution of Parliament and the king’s coldness toward the queen. The following month he was, for once, optimistic about the future, cheered by news of the alliance against France, ‘the first good act that hath been done a great while’. On 16 Mar.1668 he entered his dissent to the reversal of the chancery decree in the case of <em>Morley v. Elwes</em>. His usual pessimism soon re-emerged. In April he bewailed Sandwich’s ‘folly in leaving his old interest’ and in May when he was once again convinced that ‘all will come to ruin.’ Over the course of the summer he was once more ill, this time dangerously but briefly so, with what Pepys called ‘an insipulus’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>When Parliament reconvened in October 1669, Crew attended some 86 per cent of sittings, though once again an absence early in the session meant that he was not named to the sessional committees. He was named to the select committees for the bills for prevention of frauds in exporting wool, for John Warner*, the late bishop of Rochester, and for John Bill. He was also named to the committees to enquire into the decay of trade and to consider the report of the commissioners of accounts.</p><p>Crew was present for just under half the sitting days in the 1670-1 session. He was absent for the first two weeks of the session for which he was excused by reason of sickness on 21 Feb. 1670. Presumably he never fully recovered for thereafter his attendance was erratic. His absence early in the session meant that, once again, he was not named to the sessional committees. He was named, along with most of the members of the House, to the committees to investigate the attempt to assassinate Ormond and the bill to prevent the growth of popery. He was also named to committees for the bills on fee farm rents, impositions on brandy, the prevention of clandestine marriages, the enrolment of deeds and the construction of workhouses. Despite, or perhaps because of, his membership of the committee on the bill for brandy duties, on 8 Apr. 1670, in company with several other Presbyterian peers, he entered a protest against its passage.</p><p>Although Crew lived for another five years, he did not attend Parliament after the end of the 1670-1 session. On 4 Apr. 1672 he told his friend and political ally, John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup>, that illness had confined him to his house for six weeks.<sup>24</sup> There are further references to episodic sicknesses in December 1672, August 1673 and December 1674.<sup>25</sup> He was excused attendance on 13 Feb. 1673 and 12 Jan. 1674, probably for the same reason. Only a very small cache of Crew’s correspondence is known to survive, mainly from the 1670s. The tone and subject matter suggest a man contemplating death and who was firmly convinced of the imminence of the end of the world.<sup>26</sup></p><p>From 1674 Crew began to make regular use of his proxy. In 1674 and the first session of 1675 his proxy was held by Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington. During the second session of 1675 it was held by William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford. His failure to take the oath of allegiance was noted by the House on 29 Apr. 1675, and the following month his activities as a trustee came into question as a subsidiary issue to a complaint of privilege by William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford.<sup>27</sup> The ability to use proxies meant that Crew’s opinions were valuable even in his absence. During 1677 and 1678 his proxy was held by Bedford and may have been used by him in December 1678 when he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the disbanding bill and for the committal of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). In 1677 Shaftesbury deemed Crew triply worthy. In spring 1679 Danby, unsurprisingly, regarded Crew’s support ‘doubtful’, and in another list of similar date he was described as an opposition lord. On 9 May 1679 he was again excused attendance on grounds of ill health, but there is no entry of a proxy on his behalf.</p><p>Crew drew up his will in his eightieth year, on 19 Aug. 1678, declaring himself to be ‘of the same faith now I am old wherein I was trained up in my youth’ and expressing his conviction that he deserved damnation. Crew’s wealth is difficult to estimate. His main estates were in Northamptonshire, but he is known to have had a subsidiary estate in Essex and this alone was worth £800 a year.<sup>28</sup> Negotiations for the marriage of one of his sons in the early 1670s suggest that even his younger sons were well provided for.<sup>29</sup> He also left generous bequests to his servants and to the poor of Northamptonshire. He was succeeded by his son, Thomas Crew*, 2nd Baron Crew*.</p> |
R.P. |
|
CREW, Nathaniel (1634-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>CREW</surname></strong>, <strong>Nathaniel</strong> (1634–1721)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 30 Nov. 1697 as 3rd Bar. CREW |
|
First sat 30 Oct. 1672; last sat 14 Dec. 1715 |
cons. 2 July 1671 bp. OXFORD; transl. 28 Oct. 1674 bp. DURHAM |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 31 Jan. 1634, 5th s. of John Crew*, Bar. Crew, and Jemima (<em>d</em>.1675), da. of Edward Waldegrave of Lawford, Essex; bro. of Thomas Crew*, 2nd Bar. Crew. <em>educ</em>. privately (Henry Bishop); Chenies Sch., Amersham (Mr Azall); G. Inn 1652; Lincoln Coll., Oxf., matric. 1653, BA 1656, fell. 1656, MA 1658; fell. in canon law 1659; incorp. Camb. 1659; DCL 1664; ord. deacon and priest 1665. <em>m</em>. (1) 21 Dec. 1691, Penelope (<em>d</em>.1699), da. of Sir Philip Frowde, of Kent and wid. of Sir Hugh Tynte, mayor of Guildford, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) 23 July 1700, Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1715), da. of Sir William Forster, of Bamburgh, Northumberland, <em>s.p. d</em>. 18 Sept. 1721; <em>will</em> 24 June 1720-17 Sept. 1721, pr. 3 Mar. 1722.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1676-9, 1686-9.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Chap. to Charles II 1666-85, to James II, 1685-8; dep. clerk of the closet 1668;<sup>3</sup> clerk of the closet 1669-85;<sup>4</sup> dean chapel royal 1685-89.</p><p>Sub-rect. Lincoln Coll., Oxf. 1659-61, 1663-8, rect. 1668-72;<sup>5</sup> mbr. I. Temple 1674; master, high court of chancery bef. 1668; commr. eccles. affairs 1686,<sup>6</sup> 1687,<sup>7</sup> for building 50 new churches.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Rect. Gedney, Lincs. 1668-71,<sup>9</sup> Witney, Oxon 1671-4;<sup>10</sup> dean and precentor Chichester 1669-71.</p><p>Ld. lt. Durham 1674-90, 1712-14.<sup>11</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1698, Bodleian Lib., Oxf.; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, after 1698, National Trust, Kedleston Hall; oil on canvas, three-quarter length in peer’s robes, Lincoln Coll., Oxf.</p> |
<p>Nathaniel Crew was the only bishop in this period who was also a peer. Indeed, he is thought to have been the first holder of both a peerage and a bishopric.<sup>12</sup> A younger son, he had not been expected to inherit the barony and made an alternative career through the Church. He proved to be a thorough courtier, and during his own lifetime was decried for his willingness to toe the court line even where this interfered with his expected loyalty to the Church. Such malleability, apparent in his early life, became the hallmark of his career. Baptized into the Church of England, he accommodated himself to the interregnum as a presbyterian before emerging again in the 1660s as an ardent Anglican conformist. Elevated to the episcopate at the age of just 37, Crew owed his early promotion in the church to contacts at Oxford and to influential connections at court. During the 1670s he was identified as one of the ‘12 disciples’ of James*, duke of York. Under James II he was at first sympathetic to the king’s desire to grant greater freedom to Catholics but when it was plain that the regime was unravelling, he became a stern critic of the policy. He survived the Revolution and by the reign of Anne was counted among the Tories on the bishops’ bench. Crew’s marked political quiescence attracted considerable opprobrium to the extent that his later charitable bequests were written off by some as bribes to posterity.<sup>13</sup></p><p>The bishopric of Durham, one of the wealthiest in the country, brought Crew considerable wealth. Though reduced over the Interregnum, it was still thought in 1660 to be worth nearly £4,000 a year gross, though the abolition of feudal tenures was said to have had some impact on it. In 1707 Elizabeth Burnet estimated the see to be worth some £5,000 per annum; other uninformed estimates went as far as £6,000. These may have been overestimates, as there were also considerable costs associated with the see. Certainly, however, its value was steadily enhanced by the commercial benefits of a fast developing coal industry across the diocese.<sup>14</sup> The deaths of his elder brothers meant Crew also inherited additional family property, though it had been diminished by the 2nd Baron Crew’s decision to convey a large part of his estate to his daughters, a settlement which Crew later contested.<sup>15</sup> Crew’s fortune was augmented still further by his second marriage to the young co-heir to the vast Bamburgh estates, though this ultimately proved a troublesome inheritance. Crew expended over £20,000 buying back lands that had been sold to satisfy debts and it was not until 1709 that he eventually took full possession by buying out his nephew by marriage, Thomas Forster<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>16</sup> Towards the end of his life, without direct heirs of his own, Crew was able to promise a substantial benefaction to Lincoln College, Oxford.<sup>17</sup> Acquisitive and proud, Crew’s meteoric rise attracted envy. He was loathed by many of his contemporaries and earned the particular enmity of Henry Compton*, later bishop of London. Although from similar backgrounds (they had even shared the same wet-nurse) the two men were diametrically opposed. They were also bitter rivals to several preferments long before locking horns over James II’s ecclesiastical commission.<sup>18</sup> After Crew’s death it transpired that he had deprived the rector of Steane, where his seat was, of his glebe and tithes.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Crew’s ecclesiastical career has been examined at length but with the exception of his open letter to James II in November 1688 calling for a free Parliament, he left no publications of his own.<sup>20</sup> He claimed to be eager to avoid works being attributed to him with the result that none of his sermons made it into print. Accident also played its part. According to the memoir of Crew apparently compiled by Dr John Smith, one of the prebends of Durham, when he fled to Holland in 1689 he gave his personal papers to Samuel Eyre (a prebend of Durham). Eyre in turn entrusted them to his tailor but the papers were then lost when bailiffs seized the tailor’s goods for debt.<sup>21</sup></p><h2><em>Early career and elevation to Oxford</em></h2><p>Crew’s father had been a prominent member of the Long Parliament, one of the Presbyterian leadership involved in bringing about the Restoration in 1660. As a reward he was elevated to the peerage. Nathaniel Crew was by then an Oxford fellow: quick to respond to the changing state of affairs he was, so he claimed, the first to adopt the surplice and hood in Lincoln College chapel, before any orders had been issued commanding their use. By 1663, he had come to the attention of the king and was said to have been offered a knighthood, though this was declined, on the grounds that he intended to enter the Church. Nevertheless he put off his ordination for a further two years, until 1665. A year later he was appointed a chaplain in ordinary and by the age of 30 he had become a ‘thorough courtier’.<sup>22</sup> Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, who dined with them in November 1666 thought the Crew family ‘best ... in the world for goodness and sobriety’ and by 1667 judged that Crew delivered sermons of surprising maturity for his years.<sup>23</sup> Crew himself attributed his popularity at court to his ‘good breeding’; as a result the king ‘would often use him with familiarity & freedom of conversation which he well knew how to receive in the manner that became him’. In early 1668 Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, was appointed dean of the chapel royal and Walter Blandford*, bishop of Oxford, clerk of the closet. Crew was appointed Blandford’s deputy. In late 1668 he became rector of Lincoln College, but in 1669, following Croft’s resignation as dean of the chapel royal, Blandford moved to succeed Croft, and Crew succeeded Blandford as clerk of the closet. Croft’s resignation, related by Crew himself to Croft’s open criticism of the king’s behaviour towards his mistresses, was seen by some as deliberately engineered in Crew’s favour: Crew was said to have been intended to marry Croft’s recently deceased daughter. The same year, apparently on Blandford’s recommendation, Crew was appointed dean of Chichester. Crew’s preaching was appreciated by the court as well as by Pepys: his 1668 Lent sermon was considered to be of such quality that the king remained standing throughout, and was praised by the duke of York, to whom Crew seems to have become close.<sup>24</sup></p><p>There were rumours of Crew’s imminent elevation to the episcopate at least two years before his eventual promotion to the bishopric of Oxford. In October 1669, only a few months after his appointment as dean, a newsletter reported erroneously that he had been made bishop of Chichester.<sup>25</sup> The following year, his good standing at court was underlined when he was permitted to accompany an embassy to France. His eventual appointment to the see of Oxford appears once again to have owed something to Blandford, as it was closely bound up with Blandford’s own translation to Worcester. Crew considered James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], to have been behind Blandford’s promotion, though he reported the comment of Joseph Henshaw*, bishop of Peterborough, that Crew had himself arranged Blandford’s move so that he could succeed at Oxford. He was consecrated at Lambeth on 2 July 1671 and celebrated with a well-attended banquet. The guests included his brother-in-law Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, and the event was described by Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, as the most fine in his experience (according to Crew). According to Smith’s memoir his decision to retain the rectorship of Lincoln prompted a complaint from John Fell*, later bishop of Oxford. Crew replied that as there was no suitable residence for the bishop he saw nowhere fitter for him to be but in the centre of his diocese. Even so, he resigned the rectorship the following year.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Within six months of his elevation, Crew had presided at the controversial marriage of Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Southampton, to Sir Henry Wood’s daughter. Both parties were underage: according to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, their combined ages only amounted to about 16. Crew conducted his primary visitation in September 1672. He finally received his writ of summons on 23 October, a few days after he resigned the rectorship.<sup>27</sup> On the 30th, a prorogation day, with only Sheldon, Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester, and John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester, present on the bishops’ bench, Crew took his seat in the Lords. For a man later decried for being servile, Crew was reputed to have been notably outspoken in his early career in the House. A prominent defender of York’s interests, he was said to have attracted attention for his forceful attacks on a number of prominent ministers whom he deemed inimical to the duke. He was also supposed to have been reproved by his father for reflecting too harshly on The Civil War period.<sup>28</sup> Crew’s parliamentary career lasted for 43 years. Of the 41 sessions that assembled between 1672 and 1715, he attended all but three, and until 1689 he was nearly always in his place at the opening and closing of each session. At times of particular political tension (such as the autumn of 1673, the first exclusion Parliament and the only session of James II’s Parliament), he attended every sitting. Up to the 1688 Revolution he was appointed to the sessional committees in every session (examining the Journal on numerous occasions) and was named to select committees in all but one session. After 1689, he was appointed to over 200 select committees, but it is not certain whether he served on any of them. </p><p>In advance of the spring 1673 session of Parliament, Crew received the proxy of former Presbyterian Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich. He held the proxy throughout the session and assured colleagues that he would use it to ensure that Reynolds voted ‘right’.<sup>29</sup> In the House on 4 Feb. for the start of his first session, Crew attended thereafter for nearly 94 per cent of sittings. He was named to the three sessional committees and to 14 select committees (including the committee on attorneys, to which he was added), nine of them on private bills. On 22 Mar. he was present at the afternoon sitting when the committee of the whole House debated the ultimately abortive bill for the ease of protestant Dissenters. A list of the sub-committee appointed to frame a clause allowing the king to suspend the penal laws by royal proclamation named Crew as a member.<sup>30</sup> Smith’s memoir of Crew suggests that he had been ‘taken notice [of] for speaking well in the House of Lords’ against three peers who were particularly seen as hostile to York: George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury and Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby.<sup>31</sup> Attending on 20 Oct. for the prorogation, Crew was back at the House a week later for the start of the brief autumn session on 27 October.</p><p>Crew’s association with York continued to develop during this period and by the close of 1673 he was closely identified with the duke. According to Smith’s memoir of Crew, at Easter 1672 Crew had spoken to York about his absence from the royal chapel but had managed to do so without sacrificing the duke’s good opinion of him.<sup>32</sup> In the autumn of 1673 Crew was selected to officiate at York’s marriage to Mary of Modena. With the Commons eager to voice their opposition to the match, Crew was advised by Shaftesbury to obtain a marriage licence under the broad seal (Crew thought this was maliciously intended, as he planned not to grant it), but ultimately he conducted the Anglican rite at Dover, where the princess had landed on 21 Nov., under a royal warrant.<sup>33</sup> He returned to the House for the opening of the new session on 7 Jan. 1674, attended just over 80 per cent of sittings and was named to four select committees. On 10 Jan. he received Blandford’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session), possibly in anticipation of the bill to secure the protestant religion and provide for the education of children in Catholic families. Crew was in the House when all legislation was lost with the abrupt prorogation on 24 February.</p><h2><em>Translation to Durham</em></h2><p>As early as March 1674 it was rumoured that the bishopric of Durham, vacant since January 1672, was at last to be disposed of. Crew, it was thought, ‘stands fair for it’. He appears to have approached York about being translated there some time before. Croft seems again to have used his interest on Crew’s behalf to secure the place.<sup>34</sup> Unsurprisingly, competition for the prestigious see was fierce. George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, and Gilbert Sheldon had previously pressed the case of John Dolben.<sup>35</sup> Henry Compton also had designs on the ‘prince-bishopric’. It was reported that Compton waited on York ‘and run violently against [Crew] and his family’ but York dismissed him, advising that Durham would be filled not with a new bishop but an existing one.<sup>36</sup> There was still some delay: Crew wrote himself that Crofts had to urge the king to take action in it. Although one newsletter reported that Crew had kissed hands for the bishopric in mid-August, a correspondent of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, declared it ‘for certain’ only a few days later that Crew was to be translated to Salisbury. The latter was mistaken (probably prompted by the report that Durham had first been offered to Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury): Crew was elected at Durham on 26 Aug. (although the date is recorded as the 18th in Smith’s memoir). As well as being possibly the second choice for the see, Crew’s appointment was far from straightforward since many wanted the vacancy to remain unfilled until the palatine authority had been dismantled. As a further complication, revenues from the bishopric had been appropriated by the king for payments to the royal household including to James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and Nell Gwynn, to whom, it was rumoured, Crew subsequently paid £6,000 as compensation. On 28 Oct. he was confirmed as bishop of Durham at Covent Garden Church. He then ‘kept a most noble dinner at his house in Leicester Fields’ attended by ‘most of the principal persons about the court’. His enthronement took place by proxy the following month.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Translation improved Crew’s financial standing dramatically and also offered him additional opportunities to assist family members. His nephews Charles Montagu<sup>‡</sup> and Sidney Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup> would benefit from mining leases on preferential terms from Crew. Crew also profited from the grant of coal transportation rights across his property and over the time of his episcopate would initiate unprecedented claims for mines under enclosed grounds in his copyhold manors.<sup>38</sup> During the recess he had also been named as lord lieutenant of Durham and begun to use his extensive temporal powers in the county palatine, bolstered by honours conferred by custom along with the bishopric: lord lieutenant of the county palatine, admiral of Sunderland and earl of Sadberge.<sup>39</sup> Though considerably reduced in its powers since the early sixteenth century, the county palatine possessed courts largely distinct from and independent of Westminster, with jurisdiction across Durham and Northumberland, as well as manorial rights over various outlying areas, including the manors of Crayke, close to York, and Northallerton, a parliamentary constituency, also in Yorkshire.<sup>40</sup> The bill establishing parliamentary representation for Durham, long resisted by its bishops, had received the royal assent in March 1673, during the vacancy of the see. Crew made up for any erosion of authority by wielding considerable influence over the choice of parliamentary candidates.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Crew evidently came under pressure over the lucrative appointments available in the cathedral of Durham: it was apparently with the agreement of Crew that on 19 Dec. 1674, at the instance of John Granville*, earl of Bath, the king promised the deanery of Durham at the next vacancy to Bath’s brother, Archdeacon Denis Granville (the vacancy would not occur until 1684, on Dean Sudbury’s death). Crew was evidently a friend of the Granvilles, for he solemnized the marriage in March 1675 between Lady Grace Granville and George Carteret*, Baron Carteret, when both were underage. Crew’s had to defend his rights of appointment to various posts, particularly prebends, a right established in the bishop since the reign of Queen Mary, but recently exercised by the king during the vacancy. In January 1675 the king attempted to make effective a promise during the vacancy made to Thomas Cartwright*, later bishop of Chester, of the deanery of Ripon; Crew seems to have deftly avoided it. Crew was said in April to be intending to confer Durham prebends on the son of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and another on the brother of his own nephew, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Sandwich (the latter was successful, but the young Annesley seems not to have secured the hoped-for place); but Cartwright was said to have secured the king’s recommendation ‘for the first of five of the best livings that shall fall in the bishop’s gift’.<sup>42</sup> In the course of 1676-7 Crew again had to defend his right of appointment to prebends.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Crew sat in the House of Lords as bishop of Durham for the first time on 10 Nov. 1674, a prorogation day. In January 1675 he was one of the signatories to the ‘bishops’ advice’ to the king on the suppression of Catholicism.<sup>44</sup> On 8 Apr. in advance of the next parliamentary session he received Blandford’s proxy, possibly in anticipation of debates on Danby’s non-resisting Test. He took his seat on the opening day (13 Apr.), attended 92 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees, five on private bills. He attended until the prorogation on 9 June. In the second week of July he was expected in the country.<sup>45</sup> Thereafter Crew would reside frequently at Durham, where he entertained with lavish hospitality, lived grandly and flamboyantly (with a gondola on the river) and refurbished the fabric of the castle. His reception at his first entry into Durham was, according to Smith’s memoir, ‘exceeding pompous and magnificent’ with ‘two coaches and six, 12 led horses and a great number of running footmen and servants on horseback’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>By 13 Oct. 1675 he was back at Westminster for the start of the new parliamentary session. He attended two-thirds of all sittings and was named to eight select committees. On 18 Oct., perhaps surprisingly given their usually poor relations, he registered his proxy in favour of Compton, his successor at Oxford. It was vacated with Crew’s attendance on 8 November. On 10 Nov. he was named as one of the conference managers on the address to the king for recalling soldiers and he continued to attend until the prorogation later in the month. Meanwhile, a by-election had taken place for the county of Durham on 25 October. Crew backed Christopher Vane*, later Baron Barnard, brother of the former member, but also someone who shared Crew’s Presbyterian antecedents.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Crew undertook his primary visitation of the see of Durham in the summer of 1676, ‘which was very solemn and pompous’: he preached at Newcastle, and was met by the clergy at Alnwick, received by the corporation and the garrison at Berwick (some of the alderman asking to be excused from attending the Church because they were ‘of different principles from the Church of England’. He also conducted a visitation of the cathedral, apparently to the chagrin of the dean.<sup>48</sup> He made the zealous Tory Anglican, Sir Richard Lloyd<sup>‡</sup>, chancellor of his diocese and enrolled himself and his secretary in the Durham mercers’ guild enabling them to vote in elections in the city.<sup>49</sup> The same year he was appointed to the Privy Council, for which he thanked York.<sup>50</sup> After the controversial recess of 15 months, Crew was back at the House on 15 Feb. 1677 for the start of the new session. He attended nearly 88 per cent of sittings during which he was named to 63 select committees, 25 on public bills and 38 on private legislation. On 14 Apr. Crew was named as one of the additional managers of the free conference with the Commons on the supply bill. On 23 Apr. he officiated at the baptism of Charles Mohun*, future 4th Baron Mohun, Anglesey’s grandson.<sup>51</sup></p><p>That summer, Crew joined with John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S], and ‘other persons of quality’ in defence of the postmaster at Doncaster, whom Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> hoped to eject from his office and replace with one of his own circle. Despite their backing the postmaster was put out after Reresby secured York’s backing for his own man.<sup>52</sup> Despite this minor setback, Crew remained prominent within York’s grouping, indicated by his selection to baptize York’s latest son, Charles, duke of Cambridge, on 8 November, and perhaps in the (albeit inaccurate) report made by Roger Morrice that four days previously Crew rather than Compton had officiated at the marriage of Princess Mary to William of Orange.<sup>53</sup> During Archbishop Sheldon’s long decline, and on his death in November 1677, Crew’s influence with York was thought to make him a strong contender to be his successor. Danby was well known to be keen to prefer Compton to the post, though conscious of York’s hostility to Compton and his zeal against Catholics. Smith’s memoir relates that as well as York’s support he was encouraged to put himself forward by his kinsman Ralph Montagu*, who would later become duke of Montagu, and who was back from his Paris embassy in November and December 1677 (Montagu was not yet at least openly intriguing against Danby, however). Compton himself offered Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, as an alternative, clearly hoping that the elderly Sterne might be a stopgap until he was able to prevail. Crew’s father, who had previously encouraged his son to solicit for Durham, was now said to be opposed to his son’s translation. Ultimately William Sancroft*, then dean of St Paul’s, was selected instead.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Crew took his place in the House when it resumed on 15 Jan. 1678, although it then adjourned for almost two weeks. On 29 Jan. he dissented from the resolution to address the king for the release of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who had been imprisoned on a charge of blasphemy. He attended until the close on 13 May and was then once more in his place at the opening of the following session on 23 May. On 13 July he was one of those named to report the conference with the Commons on methods and proceedings in Parliament. Two days later he attended for the prorogation and returned to Durham. Four months earlier, in March, the first election had been held for the Durham City constituency although the act providing for its enfranchisement had been passed five years earlier. Crew had originally recommended Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of Roscommon [I], ‘yet the people do utterly dislike him, and have desired the bishop to name another, and they express a kindness for ... Parkhurst’. John Parkhurst<sup>‡</sup>, Crew’s cousin, had been appointed by the bishop in 1674 as steward of his estates and on 27 Mar. he was, with Crew’s backing, successfully elected with Sir Ralph Cole<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Crew was back in London by the end of September when he was present at the council meeting held on the afternoon of 28 Sept. to hear the testimony of Titus Oates relating to the Popish plot.<sup>56</sup> He then took his seat at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. and attended for nearly 92 per cent of sittings. He was named to five select committees. He was not present on 7 Nov. when the bill to disable Catholics from sitting in Parliament was debated in committee of the whole House. He was registered as present on the 9th when there was further debate in committee, but one source reported that Crew had by then left the chamber.<sup>57</sup> By the 21st, it was reported that Crew, together with Sancroft, Dolben and Peter Gunning*, of Ely, were among the ‘chief opposers’ of the Test.<sup>58</sup> According to the <em>Memoirs</em>, Crew made a point of cautioning the king of the attempt being made to divide Charles and York, ‘for who can be supposed to be so entirely your majesty’s friend as your own brother’?<sup>59</sup></p><p>On 6 Dec., as part of the enquiry into the Popish Plot, the House considered the case of John Jennison, father of the Jesuit Thomas Jennison, a prisoner in Newgate. Crew was ordered to summon the elder Jennison to London and informed the House on the 19th of his arrival; the Lords subsequently permitted Jennison free access to his son and ordered Crew to examine Mr Smith, one of the Jennisons’ relations (and a convert from Catholicism) to ascertain the veracity of Smith’s conversion. Smith’s memoir of Crew tells a story about Crew asking Titus Oates, when he was dining at the chaplains’ table, Crew being there as clerk of the closet, who was supposed to replace him as bishop of Durham if the Plot had been successful; Oates’s answer—providing a name—was supposed to have protected Crew from any subsequent imputation of having been involved in the Plot himself.<sup>60</sup> On 26 Dec. in the division on the supply bill (to disband the army) Crew appears to be listed as an opponent of the Lords’ amendment removing the provision that money raised should not be paid into the exchequer, but into the chamber of London, though this is surprising, particularly given that York, and other government figures, voted on the opposite side. He was present for the prorogation on 30 December. Following the dissolution in January 1679 he returned to Durham for the election campaign. The Durham City election on 20 Feb. saw the re-election of Sir Ralph Cole together with court candidate William Tempest<sup>‡</sup>. Parkhurst, a supporter of exclusion, seems as early as May 1678 to have redirected his attention to Northamptonshire where he was returned instead. In the borough of Northallerton, it was reported that ‘my lord of Durham ... hath recommended his elder brother [Thomas Crew<sup>‡</sup>] with some earnestness, and a kind of little threatening’, but Sir Gilbert Gerard<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and Sir Henry Calverley<sup>‡</sup> were elected.<sup>61</sup></p><p>On 3 Mar. Crew witnessed the affidavit in which the king denied that he had been involved in a previous marriage.<sup>62</sup> Three days later he attended the House for the week-long abortive session of the first Exclusion Parliament. He attended every sitting and was named to just one select committee, to receive information regarding the Plot. On the 15th, after the brief recess, he was again present for the start of the next session. He attended nearly 97 per cent of its sittings and was named to 10 select committees. According to the Memoirs he supported Danby’s impeachment on the grounds that the disgraced lord treasurer had set himself against York. On 14 Apr. he left the chamber to avoid voting in the division on Danby’s committal to the Tower. The Memoirs stated that two other bishops ‘his friends’ followed him out, thereby denying Danby votes that might have saved him.<sup>63</sup> On 24 Apr. he was named to the conference concerning the answers to the articles of impeachment and on 6 May was present for the debate on the bishops’ right to vote in capital cases. Four days later Crew voted to appoint a joint committee of both houses to consider the method of proceeding against the five impeached lords and, with Edward Rainbowe*, bishop of Carlisle, was one of 51 to dissent from the Lords’ rejection of establishing that committee. Crew and Rainbowe had voted in opposition to the other 14 bishops present that day.<sup>64</sup></p><p>By the spring of 1679 Crew’s position at court appears to have been weakening, no doubt on account of his close identification with York. In April he was omitted from the remodelled privy council. It was also rumoured that he was one of five bishops to be impeached for complicity in the Plot (the others being Peter Gunning, Peter Mews*, bishop of Bath and Wells, John Pritchett*, bishop of Gloucester, and Isaac Barrow*, bishop of St Asaph), though no impeachments were forthcoming.<sup>65</sup> Crew returned to Durham over the summer to mobilize the local militia in response to the rising in Scotland, and entertained Monmouth on his return from suppressing the Covenanters. According to Crew’s Memoirs, it was his absence from court during this period, and the influence of Lauderdale (who spread rumours that Crew had been ineffective in making preparations to resist the Scots), that had undermined his position at court.<sup>66</sup> If his interest at court was in decline, it seems not to have had much impact in Durham. Following the dissolution in July, the election for County Durham on 25 Aug. resulted in another contested poll with Crew intervening on behalf of the successful candidates William Bowes<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Fetherstonhalgh<sup>‡</sup>. At the Durham City election on 10 Sept. Crew brought in his diocesan chancellor Sir Richard Lloyd.<sup>67</sup></p><p>On 20 Oct. Crew responded to Sancroft’s urging to ‘hasten up’ to London with an undertaking to make preparations ‘for a sudden journey’. Although a further prorogation was anticipated, he reckoned that travelling then would be preferable to delaying to January. His plans changed on 7 Nov. when, after spending five days travelling south, he turned back when he heard that York was travelling by land to Scotland. He returned in time to entertain the duke and duchess and was seen being kissed by York, a mark of particular favour. Sir Ralph Verney was unsurprised that Crew afforded York such a welcome in Durham, ‘because he made that bishop’.<sup>68</sup> In December, Crew’s father died, succeeded by Thomas Crew, 2nd Baron Crew, who had voted for exclusion as a Member of the Commons earlier that year.</p><p>Parliament did not, in the end, meet again for until the following autumn. Crew was back in the House on 21 Oct. 1680 for the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament. He attended 83 per cent of sittings and was named to four select committees. On the matter of exclusion Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, was said to have claimed that Crew was so lacking in principle that he would have voted for the measure if the vote had been close. Crew, though, opposed the bill and summarily dismissed his cousin Parkhurst from his employment after the latter spoke against York in the Commons. On 15 Nov. he voted to reject the exclusion bill on its first reading and on the 23rd he voted against the appointment of a committee of both houses to examine the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. Crew and his brother were in rare agreement in both voting William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.<sup>69</sup> Crew was asked by Sancroft to preach before the king on 22 Dec. at the fast for the prevention of all Catholic plots. After some hesitation, Crew agreed whilst claiming that he was ‘very unfit for such an undertaking’. He eventually submitted to ‘that which I must count a task, having never engaged before on the like subject. My inclinations have always been averse to appear in public, especially before so great a presence on such a solemn sudden occasion’.<sup>70</sup></p><p>On 7 Jan. 1681 Crew and his brother were in the House for the division on the committal for high treason of Lord Chief Justice Sir William Scroggs, the two men again on opposite sides of the political divide.<sup>71</sup> Crew attended until the prorogation on 10 January. Parliament was dissolved eight days later and in the subsequent general election Archdeacon Denis Granville (almost certainly on Crew’s instructions) instructed his congregation to vote for the sitting Members for County Durham. Crew was again appointed to preach at court on 20 March. The following day he attended for the start of the new Parliament in Oxford and attended on each of its seven sitting days. He was named to one select committee. Following the peremptory dissolution of Parliament on 28 Mar. Crew signed the Durham grand jury’s address approving the king’s actions and thanking him for his protection of the Church; neither of Crew’s political opponents, the Whigs Sir Gilbert Gerard and John Parkhurst, signed the address. Secretary of State Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> promised to forward to the king both of the Durham addresses, the other from the lieutenancy, also subscribed by Crew.<sup>72</sup></p><p>In 1681 Crew succeeded to the estates of his brother, John, at Newbold, Leicestershire, valued at between £500 and £600 a year. The following year he stood godparent (with Anglesey and Lady Gifford) to the son of Lady Temple and preached the Lenten sermon on 5 March.<sup>73</sup> Following the revelations of the Rye House Plot in June 1683 he was ordered to search for conspirators in the area around Doncaster. He instructed the justices to find sureties for the good behaviour of suspects, including the servants of Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke. Secretary Jenkins applauded Crew’s ‘diligence’ after the Darlington bailiff sent Crew 20 Scottish suspects. Another loyal address from the Durham grand jury was forwarded to London by Crew on 13 July followed swiftly by an inventory of all arms seized in the county.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Crew’s activities in hunting potential conspirators coincided with his summer visitation.<sup>75</sup> Towards the end of July 1683 he was also preoccupied by rumours of the anticipated elevation of Thomas Cartwright*, later bishop of Chester, to the see of St Davids. Crew wrote to Sancroft hoping that Cartwright would not be permitted to hold his Durham prebend in <em>commendam</em>, arguing that too many absentees were prejudicial to the functioning of the cathedral chapter. Cartwright’s expected promotion seems to have encouraged Thomas Comber to seek the anticipated vacant prebend through application to Sancroft. He claimed always to have sought a place at Durham but to have been opposed by the bishop. He now hoped that with the support of Bishop Compton and the earl of Halifax, he might have greater success. In the event Cartwright remained where he was for another three years, thus thwarting an opportunity for Compton to insert one of his protégés in Durham against Crew’s opposition.<sup>76</sup> Anticipating another general election in the autumn of 1683, Crew received instructions from Jenkins on behalf of William Bowes and Sir Richard Lloyd, ‘two worthy friends of mine [who] have had your countenance and protection on such occasions and, I hope, will still deserve it’. The elections did not take place and neither man stood at the subsequent election. A sign of the recovery of Crew’s interest at court during the last years of the reign of Charles II was the report that he had been offered the archbishopric of York, vacant since Sterne’s death in June. If he was offered the distinction, he declined it.<sup>77</sup> In the spring of 1684, Crew and his fellow lieutenants were informed that the king had no intention of summoning Parliament and that any attempt to petition for one must be discouraged.<sup>78</sup> Crew proved a willing instrument of Tory reaction, pre-empting the king by surrendering the Durham charter before it was demanded under a <em>quo warranto</em>. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> lamented the bishop’s enhanced power under the new charter, whereby he ‘reserved to himself and his successors in that see the power of approving and confirming the mayor, recorder, aldermen and common council of the city.’<sup>79</sup></p><h2><em>The Accession of James II</em></h2><p>Crew, as clerk of the closet, was in regular attendance on Charles II during the last days of his life.<sup>80</sup> As a partisan of York’s he flourished once James had succeeded to the throne. He became one of the king’s chief advisers on religious affairs. In April he advised Dean Granville to see to the restoration of weekly communion in Durham Cathedral, gratifying Granville, for whom this seems to have been a pet project; the change was confirmed in the visitation of the cathedral in September, though the leaking one of Granville’s letters in which he had complained at Crew (and other bishops) for being too slow to enforce some of the rubric in the Book of Common Prayer, may have been intended to make trouble between the two of them.<sup>81</sup> In the parliamentary elections for James II’s first Parliament, two Tories were returned for County Durham without opposition. Crew’s candidate, his spiritual chancellor Sir Richard Lloyd, was returned for one of the city seats together with his nephew Charles Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. (He appointed Montagu, a younger son of the first earl of Sandwich, as constable of Durham Castle in 1684, vice-admiral in 1685, and, on Lloyd’s death, spiritual chancellor of the diocese in 1687, writing to Sancroft in 1686 insisting that he should have as his next chancellor ‘a person who will be directed and governed by me’.<sup>82</sup>)</p><p>On 23 Apr. Crew attended the king at his coronation as one of his supporters under the canopy of state.<sup>83</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May and attended every sitting of that session. He was named to 14 select committees (including the committee on minors’ marriages, to which he was added on 2 June). On 26 June he reported from the committee on the bill involving St Anne’s Church, Westminster. Parliament was adjourned over the summer. According to Smith’s memoir, the bishop’s earlier entertainment of Monmouth was said to have offered some of his detractors the opportunity to question his loyalties at the time of the rebellion, and to have been behind the decision to appoint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡, </sup>3rd bt. to take command of the Durham county militia as well as the Northumberland forces (nominally under the control of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle). More probably, Fenwick as an experienced soldier was thought a more appropriate commander. The king told Crew that Fenwick had informed him that the Durham militia was ‘the most regular and best disciplined of any in the kingdom’. With the rebellion crushed and immediate danger averted, the militia was returned to Crew’s command. He was ordered to remain watchful for further signs of sedition, particularly amongst nonconformist ministers.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Present for the prorogation on 20 Nov., Crew attended the House for four further prorogations between 10 May 1686 and 28 Apr. 1687. In late 1685 he was credited with helping to procure the see of Bristol for Jonathan Trelawny*, later bishop of Winchester.<sup>85</sup> During 1686 relations between Crew and Compton degenerated further following Crew’s replacement of Compton as dean of the chapel royal.<sup>86</sup> It was rumoured that Crew failed to supply the chapel with protestant preachers: instead, the sergeant of the vestry, Thomas Haynes, ‘voluntarily… applied himself to and engaged several doctors of the Church of England to take turns there’.<sup>87</sup> He was increasingly an object of ridicule as the willing tool of the king’s plans for the advancement of catholicism. He was even viewed as vulnerable to conversion himself. Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> noted that he bore ‘his preferment with so much moderation that his chin is not smoother than his deportment’ and continued:</p><blockquote><p>’Tis the sweetest man, the meekest person, so full of courtesy and empty of sense, that either his good nature or his ignorance must needs make way for his perversion. And truly I cannot blame it in a man who is willing to please and scarce knows the difference between one religion and another.<sup>88</sup></p></blockquote><p>It did nothing for his reputation that in July 1686 he was appointed to the ecclesiastical commission. The extent of his participation has been questioned, but in the absence of Sancroft he was the senior cleric in attendance.<sup>89</sup> Arriving in London on 30 July, Crew sat throughout the proceedings against Compton in August and September, which resulted in the suspension of his old rival from office.<sup>90</sup> He subsequently administered the diocese of London with Thomas Sprat*, of Rochester, and Thomas White*, of Peterborough; Sprat claimed that he and White, but not Crew, had Compton’s blessing.<sup>91</sup> It was widely believed that he and his fellow commissioners exercised authority arbitrarily (according to the king’s wishes) and in contravention of canon law. Crew also exhibited a pedantic edge in the way he carried out his duties. He appears to have taken the lead at the controversial degradation of the disgraced cleric, Samuel Johnson, in November, seeing to the ritual removal of all the symbols of Johnson’s clergy status bar his cassock (though the memoir of Crew claims that he arranged for payments of a total of £500 to be made to Johnson out of his own revenues, two years before the Revolution). On another occasion, Crew was reported to have taken offence at Sancroft’s failure to append his signature to one letter sent in to the commissioners, putting ‘the letter up with some resentment and indignation’.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Crew’s perceived association with James’s Catholic favourites was hinted at in November 1686, when he was observed prompting William Powis*, earl of Powis, Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, and Henry Jermyn*, Baron Dover, at a ceremony at which they were made commissioners of the peace. The following year, when the ecclesiastical commission was renewed, Crew remained on the board while Sancroft was dropped. With the suspension of the archbishop predicted on a daily basis, Crew’s translation to Canterbury seemed equally probable.<sup>93</sup> Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter (later archbishop of York), believed that Crew ‘aims at great things’ and hoped that Sancroft would hold fast. Notwithstanding his compliance in ecclesiastical affairs, Crew seems not to have been wholly tractable. Although he appears to have been on good terms with Thomas Cartwright (dining frequently with him at least after he became bishop), he claimed that that he attempted once again to block Cartwright’s elevation to the episcopate but was outmanoeuvred by the king’s Jesuit counsellor Father Edward Petre.<sup>94</sup></p><p>At the start of 1687, Crew was listed as one of the lords who would support a repeal of the Test Act. Roger Morrice observed that the repeal of the Tests had ‘gained the concurrence of several temporal lords, and ... of seven bishops’, of whom Crew was one, and under February reported an interview between Crew and Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> on the subject, in which Crew argued that the repeal was necessary to secure toleration for Catholics in the event of a Protestant successor to the throne, ‘that those laws may not be turned upon them who have been such loyal persons’. Crew went on that ‘the king was a most just and gracious and merciful prince, and did desire nothing more, but that all his subjects might stand upon an equal level and we might all live in peace and perfect ease ... and it was very fit that those laws should be taken off’.<sup>95</sup> During April 1687, Crew, Sprat, White, Cartwright and Samuel Parker*, bishop of Oxford, were instructed by the lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, to arrange for a congratulatory address to the king for his Declaration of Indulgence. A meeting of ‘several’ bishops composed the address, but the attempts of Crew, Parker and Cartwright to persuade the London clergy to sign it resulted in them being dubbed ‘renegadoes to the Church of England, and Tories’. Further attempts during May to make the address more acceptable to the Church failed. When Crew finally presented it to the king, James complained that it was too tardy and displayed a selfish disregard for any who were not Anglicans.<sup>96</sup> Crew’s court duties now involved attendance at some Catholic ceremonies. He was present at the consecration in May 1687 of the papal nuncio, Ferdinando d’Adda as archbishop of Amasia, and also joined the formal procession through Windsor in July when the nuncio was received at court. Crew denied he had ever met the nuncio in person but it failed to scotch rumours that he had converted to Rome. Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, branded Crew the ‘weak, vain man of Durham’. Crew, aware of his vulnerability, increasingly avoided private discussions with those not known to him.<sup>97</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution, 1687-90 </em></h2><p>By November 1687 Crew was still thought to be in favour of a repeal of the Test Act, but (for all the rumours of his sympathies with Rome) he was increasingly isolated and unhappy about the king’s ecclesiastical policy. After Father Petre had been sworn in at the Privy Council on 11 Nov. 1687 (placed between Crew and Sir Nicholas Butler) Crew ceased to attend its meetings, prompting the king to accuse him of desertion. Crew was nevertheless said to have continued to rebuke the more vehement anti-Catholic preachers, including Simon Patrick*, later bishop of Ely, whom he refused to introduce to the king.<sup>98</sup> With the announcement of the queen’s pregnancy, Crew helped to compose an order of thanksgiving for use on 15 Jan. 1688. Due to preach the Ash Wednesday sermon at court on 29 Feb., Crew was instead, however, instructed to go to Durham. He left London on the 23rd ‘in order to understand how the people in his palatinate may be inclined to favour his m[ajesty’s] intentions’.<sup>99</sup> Back in his diocese, Crew was said to have continued to canvass opinion on repeal of the tests in Durham and accepted without protest a purge of the commission of the peace in March.<sup>100</sup> In the ‘three questions’ posed to the clergy by the bishop in May (almost certainly composed not by Crew but by Dean Granville) it was suggested that since the Church of England predated the penal laws, it would be better to dispense with those laws rather than antagonize the king, an act that could lead ultimately to the destruction of the Church. The secular version of the ‘three questions’ was rejected by six of the Durham justices.<sup>101</sup> In March, the corporation of Durham had signalled their willingness ‘to engage and give our own votes and to use all our interest with others for such persons only as shall be recommended by the lord bishop of Durham to serve as burgesses for this city in the next ensuing Parliament’. During May he was asked by the king to supply the names of suitable parliamentary candidates, but by September he had been instructed by the king to recommend Sir Gilbert Gerard as the candidate for the county.<sup>102</sup></p><p>Crew was one of only a few bishops who was said to have tried, unsuccessfully, to enforce the reading of the second Declaration of Indulgence, issued at the end of April with orders for it to be read in churches outside London on the first two Sundays in June. According to one newsletter, he stripped a number of vintners and victuallers of their licences for refusing to subscribe a paper supporting the policy. Although it was claimed in several newsletter reports in July, Crew’s biographer denied the claim that he had suspended a number of clergy at his visitation for their refusal to read the indulgence read, explaining the suspension of Dr Morton as relating to his non-appearance (a version of events that receives some support from a correspondent of Thomas Hearne nearly fifty years later), and retold a story about a local Catholic, Sir Thomas Haggerson, hearing that Crew had not ‘taken care’ to have the king’s orders obeyed. Crew did hosted lavish celebrations following the birth on 10 June of the Prince of Wales and preached a loyal sermon, the corporation of Durham sending up an address welcoming the news of the royal birth.<sup>103</sup> Crew was excluded from all discussions relating to the protest of the Seven Bishops. Though it was said in early June that the ecclesiastical commissioners were keen for the business to be dealt with by king’s bench and not themselves, Crew, in Dutham cannot have had much input into the discussions. Following the dissolution of the commission in early October, however, Crew was instructed to travel to London after authorizing the guarding of all coastlines and the removal inland of livestock capable of transport.<sup>104</sup></p><p>By the time of the invasion in November 1688 Crew was in London.<sup>105</sup> He had already been granted a pardon as insurance against future repercussions for his actions (a pardon which held up legally after the Revolution, despite the efforts of Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, to call it into question).<sup>106</sup> At the start of November he joined a group of bishops who attended the king to reassure him that they had not invited the prince of Orange, Crew insisting that he was ‘the last man in England that shall be guilty of that’. By this point, though, Crew appears to have begun to shift his position. It was reported that, although shunned by many of his fellow bishops, he now changed sides and had ‘gone off from [the] bishop of Chester [Cartwright] and St Davids [Thomas Watson*, who was intensely disliked by his colleagues], and has made his submission to the archbishop and is fallen in with him and his brethren’. Sometime before 10 Nov., when Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon was startled to find him at Lambeth, he had assured the archbishop that he was ‘perfectly come into [their] sentiments’.<sup>107</sup> As a result he was viewed with some suspicion at court, but he retained sufficient interest to be able to secure private audiences with the king. On 14 Nov. he took the opportunity of presenting a letter of advice, pressing James to withdraw his protection from Catholic chapels, to call a free Parliament, and advising on clerical appointments. He also refused (once again) the offer of the archbishopric of York, which he counselled should be ‘filled with some other more deserving person’. Anthony Wood viewed Crew’s change of tack as ‘abominable falseness’.<sup>108</sup></p><p>On 5 Dec. the city of Durham surrendered to a detachment commanded by Richard Lumley*, Viscount Lumley [I], later earl of Scarbrough, who took up quarters at Crew’s palace.<sup>109</sup> One week later both Crew and his brother Thomas attended the council chamber at Whitehall to sign the various declarations to preserve the peace. Crew attended meetings on 12 and 14 Dec. and was named in the summons to attend William at St James’s on the 21st. Sources disagree as to whether he attended that day; confusion with his brother Lord Crew may explain any discrepancy in the records. He was, though, present on 22 and 25 Dec. when he signed the address to William to take on the provisional government. On 26 Dec. he was one of the bishops summoned by Sancroft to discuss ‘certain limits and restrictions to be laid upon the prince in this Convention, which if he concur not to they will labour to give him checkmate’. Asked that night about the Lambeth proceedings probably by Sir John Baber (who had been physician to King Charles II), Crew remained tight-lipped despite the two having been former confidants. It may be that he had little to tell; Baber’s response assumed that Crew was still distrusted and kept at arm’s length by the other bishops.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Dismissed from his positions at court, Crew nevertheless appeared at Westminster on 25 Jan. 1689, the fourth day of the Convention. He would attend only 12 sittings (six per cent) in the first session of the Convention, voting in favour of a regency on 29 January. On 4 Feb. it was reported that Crew (not noted as being present in the Journal) and Thomas Belasyse*, Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, ‘retired between the hanging and the door next to the bishops’ room’ during the main division on the abdication question. By the 6th Crew appears to have resolved to abandon James and was one of only two bishops, according to some lists, to vote that the king had abdicated and that the throne was vacant, the other being Compton. In other lists Crew was the only bishop to do so. Clarendon remarked bitterly that Crew, who had been to the House only twice before that session ‘came today to give his vote against the king, who had raised him’. Anthony Wood accused Crew of deserting the king ‘in hopes to keep his bishopric’.<sup>111</sup> Crew’s kinsman, Montagu (soon to be promoted to an earldom), claimed afterwards that he had invested considerable effort persuading Crew, Huntington and Jacob Astley*, 3rd Baron Astley, to vote against a regency.<sup>112</sup> Crew himself seems to have later forgotten whether or not he was in the House for the critical vote.<sup>113</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of William and Mary</em></h2><p>On 18 Feb. Crew attended the House for the last time for eight months. He was one of three bishops named by Gilbert Burnet as being untrustworthy; being careful to ensure that he had a witness to any conversation, it was no doubt out of concern for his security under the new regime that he resolved to depart for the continent with his nephew James Montagu, one of the sons of the earl of Sandwich.<sup>114</sup> According to one newsletter, Crew resigned his bishopric before his departure. It was also reported that he had intended to make for France but that the ship was diverted by a storm, during which he abandoned his disguise and distributed the sacrament among the passengers in anticipation of imminent wreck. Compton and Burnet were said to have been eager to succeed him in his apparently vacant see of Durham.<sup>115</sup> Crew, it was claimed, was dissuaded from stepping down by his Montagu relatives and resolved to retain the place rather than see it taken on by Compton. During his absence (noted at a call of the House on 22 May) he was replaced as clerk of the closet by John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury. But after five months in the Netherlands, Crew returned to London. According to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> he arrived in time to take the oaths on 25 July. Other accounts suggested that he returned to the capital with just two days to spare, attending at the Guildhall on 30 July as the House was by then adjourned (according to Crew, at Burnet’s prompting).<sup>116</sup> A bitter letter from his former colleague, Dean Granville, was published from Rouen, dated 1 July, presumably after Granville was aware of Crew’s decision to return home, criticized Crew’s failure to maintain his loyalty to James II.<sup>117</sup></p><p>During July the Commons had ordered that Crew be excepted from the bill of Indemnity. The Crew memoirs attributed his inclusion to Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen, as an act of revenge.<sup>118</sup> Crew’s exception was opposed in the Commons by Sir William Pulteney<sup>‡</sup> and the bill did not pass Parliament that session.<sup>119</sup> Tillotson (who owed his original royal chaplaincy to Crew’s influence) introduced Crew to the queen, who granted him the right to continue as bishop of Durham. He lost the lord lieutenancy which was given instead to Scarbrough (as Lumley had since become), though the claim that the crown managed to prise away the right to appoint to the cathedral prebends appears to be inaccurate.<sup>120</sup> Carmarthen in fact put Crew among the supporters of the court in a list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, and added that he was to be spoken to by Lady Montagu.</p><p>On 19 Oct. 1689 Crew attended the Lords and, with Simon Patrick, took the oaths.<sup>121</sup> Four days later he attended the start of the next session and attended nearly half of all sittings. Early in the session the palatine jurisdiction came under attack: on 25 Nov. the House ordered an investigation into ‘irregularities in the courts of the counties palatine’. The enquiries came to nothing and the palatinate survived until the 19th century.<sup>122</sup> On 23 Jan. 1690 Crew and Nicholas Stratford*, of Chester, were the only bishops to oppose the bill for restoring corporations. Crew’s opposition was perhaps unsurprising given his role in the surrender of the Durham charter.<sup>123</sup> Crew attended for the prorogation on 27 January. The elections that followed the dissolution of Parliament showed that he had retained considerable influence within the city of Durham (not least because the bishopric owned two of the city’s three manors). On 3 and 10 Mar. both the city and county saw the unchallenged return of Tory candidates.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Crew attended the House on 20 Mar. 1690 for the start of the new Parliament and attended the session for 48 per cent of sittings. Rather than being cowed by his near escape at the Revolution, Crew seems to have resumed an active role in the House. On 5 May, with Bishop Watson of St Davids, he visited Clarendon, ‘rejoicing at the victory they had received … the peers having passed a vote that no oath nor subscription should be imposed upon peers, whereby they should lose their seats in Parliament in case of refusal’.<sup>125</sup> Yet he was far from being out of the woods: a Privy Council meeting in May determined that Crew should be excepted from a new bill of general pardon.<sup>126</sup> On 20 May the bill was read, debated and passed without opposition, with Crew one of the 35 people excepted from pardon. During the debate, Crew threw himself on the mercy of the House, saying, as recorded in the Memoir:</p><blockquote><p>My lords … I am very far from envying the happiness of those who are thus pardoned: nay, rather I heartily congratulate them upon it, for God forbid that when the king’s eye is good mine should be evil. I remember when an act of this kind was sent down to this House in [Lord] Treasurer Clifford’s time ... in that Act there was no exception of persons, only crimes were excepted. If the same form had been observed in this, I humbly conceive there would have been more room for justice: I am sure there would have been less reasons for so long a debate as this. My lords, I am very far from going about to justify my own conduct: nay rather I am heartily sorry for it, and beg pardon of heaven, pardon of all your lordships, and more particularly I ask this reverend prelate’s pardon (laying his hand on the bishop of London’s [Compton’s] shoulder) …No, my lords, I resolve for the future, to make the laws the standard of my actions, according to the royal example … My lords: seeing that this pardon is so necessary for preserving the public peace of this nation, and that you may see how much I am a well-wisher to the good of my own country, rather than I should give any further delay to the passing of it, I will throw myself up for a sacrifice, and am willing the bill should pass.<sup>127</sup></p></blockquote><p>According to his memoirist, Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, later observed that Crew ‘spoke like an angel’ and Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, commending ‘the most natural piece of oratory’ he had ever heard. Even Roger Morrice reported the speech as being ‘very well-tempered ... confessing his faults and miscarriages, submitting himself entirely to the wisdom of the nation’. Crew escaped further formal censure.<sup>128</sup> He attended until the penultimate day of the session, which was adjourned on 23 May. He was back at Westminster for the autumn session on 20 Oct. and thereafter attended 66 per cent of sittings up to the adjournment on 5 Jan. 1691.</p><p>Crew remained in London during the recess, attending the House between 31 Mar. and 30 June 1691 on four days for prorogations. There was still speculation that he would be threatened with prosecution ‘to be frightened into a resignation to make way for the preferment of [the bishops of] London and Worcester’.<sup>129</sup> Once more nothing came of this and he resumed his seat in the House on 22 Oct. for the start of the next session of which he attended 57 per cent of sittings. On 17 Nov. it was noted by one observer that Crew was part of a parliamentary deputation to the queen, who was apparently surprised by his inclusion.<sup>130</sup> His name, unsurprisingly, cropped up when William Fuller gave testimony before the Commons on the Preston Plot.<sup>131</sup></p><p>In January 1692 it had been falsely rumoured that the 57-year-old bishop was to be married to his distant relation Anne, daughter of John Crew of Crewe Hall and widow of John Offley. At the end of the year he did marry after a number of unsuccessful courtships in the course of the previous 20 years.<sup>132</sup> Crew’s new wife, a widow, some 40 years old, was reported as having ‘no great advantages of person or fortune’. Retaining her title of Lady Tynte until the bishop succeeded to the barony, and she exercised a vigorous pastoral ministry amongst the poor and sick at Durham. Within months of the marriage, the bishop was said to have fallen ‘into a very languishing distemper’. Thomas Watson queried whether marriage did not suit him.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Crew attended the House sporadically until 23 Feb. 1692, the day before an adjournment. By August political tensions ensured that he was under constant surveillance. A report in May had suggested that he was one of a number of prominent figures who had been sent for to be taken into custody. Carmarthen was sent intelligence by the ‘strenuous revolutioner’ dean of Durham, Thomas Comber (who had replaced the nonjuring dean Granville) that sedition was rife in the bishopric and that Crew was responsible for packing juries and for undermining royal justice.<sup>134</sup> Again, Crew seems to have escaped further investigation.</p><p>On 4 Nov. he attended the House for the start of the 1692-3 parliamentary session and attended 66 per cent of sittings. On 3 Jan. 1693 he voted on the other side to his brother on the passage of the place bill. On 9 Mar. Crew was given leave to be absent from the House that day. He returned on the 10th and attended until the prorogation on the 14th. He had returned to Westminster within two weeks of the start of the November 1693 session, attending thereafter for 68 per cent of sittings. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted to reverse chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>, a case in which he was related to participants on both sides. Present for the prorogation on 25 Apr. he almost certainly returned to Durham during the recess. He was back in the Lords a fortnight after the start of the 1694-5 session in November. He attended 47 per cent of sittings. Following the death of Queen Mary, to whom he owed his survival at the Revolution, Crew attended her funeral in Westminster Abbey.<sup>135</sup> He continued to attend the House until 24 Apr. 1695.</p><p>Parliament was dissolved on 11 October. Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, predicted accurately that Crew would back his nephew Charles Montagu and Sir Henry Liddell for the Durham city seats although both candidates were Whigs. In the Northallerton election, Carmarthen pressed Crew and John Sharp*, archbishop of York, to agree on a replacement candidate for the Dissenter Thomas Lascelles<sup>‡</sup>; either they refused or made an unsuccessful attempt as Lascelles was returned unopposed.<sup>136</sup></p><p>Crew took his seat in the House on 23 Nov. 1695, the second day of the new Parliament, attending the session for 76 per cent of sittings. He joined his fellow bishops on 10 Apr. 1696 in signing the ‘repugnance’ at the absolution by two non-jurors of Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup>, the conspirators in the Assassination Plot.<sup>137</sup> On 25 Apr. he was named as one of the managers of the conference for the Greenland trade bill. Present for the prorogation on 27 Apr. he returned to Durham, probably staying there until November, when he resumed his seat four weeks after the start of the autumn 1696 session. He attended 62 per cent of sittings. He attended regularly throughout the passage of the Fenwick attainder bill in December and sat up on the final night of the trial until 3 o’clock in the morning.<sup>138</sup> He twice dissented from Lords’ resolutions, including the resolution to give the bill a second reading and on the 23rd voted against the passage of the attainder. He was then one of those to register a protest on the grounds of legal technicalities and the fact that Fenwick was too ‘inconsiderable’ to warrant such proceedings.</p><h2><em>Succession to the peerage </em></h2><p>In November 1697, on the death of his older brother, Crew succeeded to the barony of Crew. Although the fifth son of the 1st baron, none of Crew’s older brothers had produced heirs, and he had been regarded as the heir to the barony for some time. The death of his younger brother, Waldegrave, in the summer of 1694 also made more likely the title’s extinction after Crew’s own death. He inherited the Northamptonshire patrimony (and electoral influence in the tiny corporation of Brackley), but in 1700 contested in chancery his brother’s financial arrangements that had placed several of the manors in trust for the latter’s daughters. Crew arrived at Westminster on 14 Dec. 1697, 11 days after the start of the new session, and attended for only 20 per cent of sittings. On the 15th he received his writ of summons as 3rd Baron Crew of Stene. He took his seat on the barons’ bench two days later, ‘not being in his bishop’s habit’.<sup>139</sup> He thereafter always received two writs to each Parliament, one as bishop and the other as baron. His unique position also meant that he was free to register proxies with either peers or bishops. Crew did not attend the House that session after 19 May 1698, registering his proxy in favour of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. At the election following the dissolution on 7 July, one of the Durham city seats went to the Tory candidate Thomas Conyers (whom Crew later entertained in London). Crew continued to back his nephew Montagu, who took the first seat comfortably, but Liddell was beaten into third place by Conyers, the result of ‘ill management’ and poor support from Montagu and his managers—perhaps including the bishop who may have been happy to support the Whiggish Montagu as a family member, but less keen on the Whig Liddell rather than the Tory Conyers.<sup>140</sup></p><p>After his succession to the barony, Crew resided far less in his diocese and attended the House on fewer occasions, now dividing his time between his four residences, Steane, Newbold Verdon, Auckland and Durham.<sup>141</sup> After a series of prorogations, the new Parliament eventually opened on 6 December. Crew took his seat one week later, attending the session for 38 per cent of sittings during which he was named to several committees. On 22 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill for Edward Radclyffe*, 2nd earl of Derwentwater, and on 12 Jan. 1699 to that for Nicholas Lepell’s naturalization bill. On 25 Jan. he was named to the committee for George Penn’s bill and on 10 Feb. to that considering the bill for relieving the creditors of Sir Robert Vyner. During the remainder of the session he was named to the committees for three more naturalization bills and on 7 Mar. he was named to the committee tasked with inspecting the Journals about trials in criminal cases. He did not attend the session after 10 Mar. (the day following the death of his first wife), thus missing the passage of the bill to confirm a settlement on trustees of lands in Durham and Northumberland by Sir William Forster. The Forsters of Bamburgh, with whom Crew had long associations, were in severe financial difficulty; Crew married the young Dorothy Forster (his original choice of wife who was now old enough to marry but still 40 years his junior) almost as soon as her father had died and was declared bankrupt. Their ceremonial progress into Durham was a matter of considerable interest.<sup>142</sup></p><p>Crew missed the entirety of the 1699-1700 parliamentary session, and it was not until 6 Feb. 1701, the opening day of the new Parliament, that he once again took his place in the House, after which he was present for 58 per cent of sittings. His relations with his old adversaries had not improved. When in March 1701 the countess of Anglesey petitioned the House for a bill of separation, Crew supported the bill and was attacked by Burnet for lending encouragement to ‘whores’. According to Crew’s biographer, Burnet was forced to apologize.<sup>143</sup> On 20 Mar. Crew was one of 21 lords, including Compton and Sprat, to register a protest against the failure of the Tory attempt to send to the Commons an address relating to the Partition Treaty. He attended the session until 4 June, missing the last three weeks of business, and was back in Durham by September.<sup>144</sup> Parliament was dissolved two weeks later. In the elections of December 1701 Charles Montagu was again returned for Durham City, but with Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup> who had recently changed his political affiliations to the Tories.<sup>145</sup> The same month it was reported that Crew had secured an additional windfall following the suicide of Charles Granville*, 2nd earl of Bath. Cary Gardiner lamented that the bishop’s ‘revenues increase upon so sad an account, and when I see the strange prosperity of some men, makes me wonder. And he is one of them’.<sup>146</sup> Crew did not attend the new Parliament until three months into the session, attending for only 30 per cent of sittings. Crew greeted the news of the king’s death in March 1702 with the sentiment that William had been king for altogether too long. He asserted, and won, his traditional right as bishop of Durham to escort the new queen to her coronation, but was unsuccessful in regaining his lord lieutenancy for another ten years.<sup>147</sup> On 22 May Crew reported from the committee on church building and the augmentation of livings in Ireland out of the profits of forfeited estates. He attended until the prorogation on 25 May and returned to Durham, but by September was journeying back to the capital with his wife to transact business on the sale of some of her Northumberland property.<sup>148</sup> He missed the initial three weeks of Anne’s first Parliament, but attended thereafter for 69 per cent of sittings.</p><h2><em>The reign of Anne</em></h2><p>Crew became one of the more prominent Tory bishops under the more congenial circumstances brought by the new reign. On 3 Dec. 1702 Crew joined Compton and Sharp to vote against the wrecking amendment to the occasional conformity bill proposed by John Somers*, Baron Somers. The following day Crew again joined with Archbishop Sharp and Bishop Compton and other Tory bishops to oppose an amendment proposed in committee of the whole House requiring office holders to take the sacrament four times a year and to attend church every week. On the 9th, once more with Sharp and Compton, Crew opposed the motion that the tack was unparliamentary. On the 17th, with the Commons demanding a conference on occasional conformity, the Lords divided on an adjournment; Crew voted with the minority for the delay. Correctly forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a supporter of the occasional conformity bill, Crew continued to vote with the Tories in the new year, opposing the clause relating to the Corporation Act on 16 Jan. 1703. On the 19th, he voted with the Tories in favour of post office and excise grants to the royal dukes, sons of Charles II, and on 22 Jan. he protested against the resolution to dismiss the petition of Robert Squire and John Thompson in their appeal against Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton.<sup>149</sup></p><p>Following the prorogation on 27 Feb. Crew absented himself from the House for the following year. In November, he was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a supporter of the next attempt to legislate against occasional conformity. Missing the first ten weeks of business in the 1703-4 session, Crew attended for only 29 per cent of sittings, missing the division of 14 Dec. when the occasional conformity bill was again thrown out. He was nevertheless listed as having given his vote (presumably by proxy); proxy records do not, however, survive for this session. On 4 Jan. 1704 the House ordered that Crew be contacted about his continuing absence and he was ordered to attend at 11 in the morning on 12 January. He did not appear until 21 Feb., shortly before he was due to preach the Lenten sermon at court. His sermon met with approval from Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford, and the queen herself.<sup>150</sup> Back in the House a flurry of dissents followed. On 16 Mar. he twice dissented from the resolution to agree with the committee of the whole House and replace Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> (a Durham-based Tory Member of the Commons) on the list of commissioners to examine public accounts. Five days later he dissented from the resolution to reject a rider in the bill to raise recruits for the army and marines and protested against the passage of the bill. On the 25th he dissented from the decision to put the question whether the failure to pass censure on Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to enemies of the crown. </p><p>Crew attended for the prorogation on 3 Apr. 1704. By the beginning of May he was in Bath. <sup>151</sup> His name was included on a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704, which may indicate support over the ‘Scotch Plot’. He was noted as excused at a call of the House on 23 Nov. but returned to Westminster in time for the re-introduction of the occasional conformity bill in December, six weeks after the start of the new session. He subsequently attended the session for 43 per cent of sittings. Listed as a probable supporter of the tack, he was one of 11 bishops to vote in its favour. On 15 Dec. Crew voted for the second reading of the new occasional conformity bill. Two days later he entertained a range of ecclesiastical and political contacts and relations, including William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Hinchingbrook, son of Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, Edward Carteret<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Conyers.<sup>152</sup> He remained in London over the Christmas period, attending the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. On 22 Jan. 1705, he protested against the Lords’ rejection of the deprived bishop Thomas Watson’s petition regarding a writ of error. Crew attended the House until 6 Mar. missing the last week of business. He returned to Durham where, on 23 Aug. he presided over a thanksgiving service for Marlborough’s action at Brabant.<sup>153</sup></p><p>No longer regular in his attendance, Crew was missing from the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705. He was again noted as excused at a call of the House. He took his seat on 8 Jan. 1706 and was present at only 31 per cent of sittings over the 1705-6 session, having missed the ‘Church in danger’ debate on 6 Dec. 1705. This may have been a diplomatic absence given that he usually remained in London over the winter months. He was certainly in London by Christmas when he received the sacrament from William Wake*, later archbishop of Canterbury. In the division on the regency bill of 31 Jan. 1706 both Crew and George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells, voted with the minority against Somers’ motion to replace the place clause in the 1701 Act of Settlement. On 11 Mar. he was named to both conferences on the matter of privilege of both Houses. Attending the House until 14 Mar. he returned to Durham for the summer, in July forwarding to Harley a loyal address from the grand jury of Durham. He again missed the start of the session that assembled in December 1706, taking his seat on 13 Jan. 1707 in time for debates on the union with Scotland and attending thereafter for 46 per cent of sittings. Crew for the most part supported the Union, but on two occasions joined with other Tory bishops to attempt to ameliorate aspects of the treaty that he thought damaging to the Church. On 3 Feb. he supported Sharp’s amendment that the Test Act be an integral part of the Union, registering his protest when the amendment was rejected. On the 15th, in a debate in committee of the whole House on the articles of Union, Crew, Sharp and Sprat deserted their Tory colleagues and voted for the Union.<sup>154</sup> On 3 Mar., however, Crew and Sharp once again joined the Tory bishops in voting against the clause in the Union treaty that guaranteed the rights of the Kirk.<sup>155</sup> Attending until the week before the prorogation in April, he failed to attend the brief session later that month. During the bishoprics’ crisis that summer, Crew’s advice was sought by Offspring Blackall*, who would eventually become bishop of Exeter, as to the latter’s choice of diocese; Crew recommended Exeter although he made it clear to Sharp that he was ‘indifferent’ as to the remaining disposal of preferments.<sup>156</sup></p><p>Crew arrived at the first Parliament of Great Britain (the final session of the 1705 Parliament) three weeks after the start of business (on 23 Oct. 1707) and attended 64 per cent of the session’s sittings. He attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth and in March 1708 was invited to take part in the procession headed by James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, to address the queen.<sup>157</sup> Present for the prorogation on 1 Apr. he returned to Durham a month earlier than usual. The election campaign was already underway with the creation of 75 new freemen and vigorous canvassing by the sitting Members, Conyers and Belasyse, the clergy and Tory Anglican gentry. The emergence of a Whig candidate prompted Crew to redouble the efforts of the Tory campaign. The week before the election witnessed an intimidating sermon from the cathedral pulpit (by the school master) in which opponents of the Tory Conyers were threatened with eternal damnation. Crew was listed as a Tory in a publication of Lords’ political affiliations, but he did not intervene in all constituencies where he had an interest, leaving the borough of Brackley as an unchallenged win for the Whigs.<sup>158</sup></p><p>He next attended the House four weeks after the opening of Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, attending the session for 45 per cent of sittings. On 21 Jan. he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers. He resumed his normal Tory stance in the vote of 15 Mar. 1709 on the general naturalization bill, and was one of 10 Tory bishops to seek to retain the requirement that subjects attend their Anglican parish church and not an unspecified Protestant gathering.<sup>159</sup> Crew almost certainly left London after the prorogation on 21 Apr. but returned to Westminster on 28 Nov. to resume his seat in the 1709-10 session. He attended for 49 per cent of sittings. On 1 Dec. with Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, he introduced Thomas Manningham*, bishop of Chichester, to the Lords. Crew attended the House throughout the Sacheverell trial during February and March. A supporter of the high Tory firebrand, he dissented on 14 Mar. 1710 when a motion to adjourn the House was negative and protested against the decision that it was unnecessary to include in an impeachment the specific words deemed to be criminal. On the 16th, 17th and 18th he continued to oppose Lords’ resolutions, voting consistently with the Tories. On the 16th he voted against the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article.<sup>160</sup> On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell not guilty and dissented from both the guilty verdict and the punishment. </p><h2><em>The Harley Ministry and afterwards</em></h2><p>Crew’s support for Sacheverell increased his own popularity in the diocese. He was met by 5,000 Sacheverell enthusiasts at Elvet Moor on his return home after the prorogation, possibly the same occasion referred to by Lady Clavering, who criticized her husband for taking part in the ‘cavalcade’.<sup>161</sup> Shortly before the dissolution in September, it was rumoured, wrongly, that the 76-year-old bishop was dead. Instead he was gearing up for yet another parliamentary election campaign. Sir Henry Belasyse warned Harley that the region had become complacent about the safety of the Church, but a costly campaign, together with the creation of another 49 Tory freemen, guaranteed a Tory victory.<sup>162</sup></p><p>Crew, reckoned by Harley a certain supporter of the new ministry, attended the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710 and attended the session for 53 per cent of sittings. He was one of only two bishops to avoid the annual St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. According to Crew’s nephew, the bishop was unwell.<sup>163</sup> In February 1711, he joined a number of Tory peers in offering his support in his capacity as Baron Crew to Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup> in the forthcoming Leicestershire by-election triggered by the succession of John Manners*, styled marquess of Granby, as duke of Rutland. On 1 Mar. Crew joined with the rest of the bishops’ bench in supporting the appeal of James Greenshields.<sup>164</sup> On 31 May he reported from the select committee on the bill to grant the queen ‘several duties upon coals’ for building 50 new churches in London and Westminster. It was reported that he was the only bishop left in attendance after Trimnell, Manningham and William Fleetwood*, of St Asaph, left the chamber to show their disapproval of the bill which would be seen as an attack on Dissenters.<sup>165</sup> Crew attended until the prorogation on 12 June. Listed as one of the Tory ‘patriots’ in the Lords of the previous Parliament, Crew nevertheless laid party considerations to one side in favour of family ones when in April 1711 he gave a wealthy living to his nephew, John Montagu (already Dean of Durham), despite being petitioned ‘by some great men’ in favour of Sacheverell. He also refused Sacheverell a prebend’s stall ‘for fear of disobliging the Whigs and because of his being under sentence’. He put Sacheverell off by insisting that he ought to be rewarded by the ministry rather than by a private patron.<sup>166</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1711, with the approach of a new parliamentary session and Oxford, as Harley had become, expecting struggles over the peace negotiations against strongly entrenched Whigs in the Lords, Crew’s support was of enhanced significance to the ministry. He avoided attending the start of the session, though, informing Oxford that his summons:</p><blockquote><p>should oblige me to a ready obedience, if old age and the depth of winter would allow me trying the experiment of such a hasty journey ... my own heart ... is brim full of loyalty and fidelity to the queen, of unfeigned sincerity for the Church, and of a steady adhering to the constitution… though I cannot so suddenly give my personal attendance in Parliament, yet that I may not seem, in such a critical juncture, to decline a service I have hitherto espoused with a more than ordinary zeal, I will presume to appear by proxy at the time desired; in order to which I have here enclosed a temporal one, with a space in it, for your lordship, if you please, to insert the name of such a peer as you shall judge most proper. By this your lordship sees how great a confidence I have in your integrity for the public good.<sup>167</sup></p></blockquote><p>Crew’s proxy was duly registered in favour of John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, and was very likely one of four lodged by Tory prelates used in favour of the adjournment vote on 2 Jan. 1712 after the introduction of the 12 new peers.<sup>168</sup> It was vacated with Crew’s attendance on 14 Jan. after which the bishop attended for 47 per cent of sittings. On 26 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons’ pro-episcopalian amendment to the Scottish toleration bill. Two months later he reported from committee of the whole House on the building churches bill, which related to an earlier act on the use of coal duties to build churches in London. In May he appears to have been the only one of the bishops then present to back the ministry by voting against the address to the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging the French. Absent from the session after 16 June, he registered his proxy in favour of Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham, on the 26th. Meanwhile, Crew and William Dawes*, bishop of Chester, had given Nicolson their proxies for a diocesan meeting at Carlisle while they, according to Nicolson, were at Westminster ‘ratifying the safe and honourable peace’.<sup>169</sup> At a by-election in Durham the previous month both Belasyse and James Nicolson declined to stand rather than ‘disoblige’ the bishop. Robert Shafto<sup>‡</sup>, who stood on the Church interest, won the seat despite allegations of bribery and false voting.<sup>170</sup> Having recovered ground under the Tory ministry, Crew finally regained his coveted lieutenancy, writing in July that he noted that he had been present in court ‘and was an eye witness to all that signed it, which was so unanimous, that I easily discerned the good effect of her majesty’s gracious restoring me to my former post of honour’.<sup>171</sup></p><p>Crew and his wife were expected at Lutterworth towards the end of November on their way to Steane. By February 1713 he was back in London and he attended the House on 9 Apr. for the first day of the new session. He attended one third of all sittings. On 15 May he reported from the select committee on the bill to create a parish from the Stockton chapelry in his own diocese. Listed by Oxford as a probable supporter of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty, Crew attended the House for the last time that session on 15 June. He appears to have registered his proxy with William North*, 6th Baron North, as North requested that Oxford would transfer the proxy when he also quit the session at the beginning of July.<sup>172</sup></p><p>Despite the protection and warmth extended by friends such as John Sharp, Crew appears to have accepted his widespread lack of popularity in the establishment. When Crew and the duke of Leeds (the former earl of Danby and marquess of Carmarthen) met at court, their mutual attempts at civility did not disguise the fact that, as Crew acknowledged, Leeds had had his sights on Crew since the impeachment attempt in 1679.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Despite reaching his 80th birthday the previous month, Crew returned to Westminster on the third day of the new Parliament, attending one third of sittings. He was present on 5 Apr. 1714 for the vote on the perceived danger to the Protestant succession and on the 13th when the Lords considered the queen’s reply on the danger posed by the pretender. Of the bishops then in the House, only Crew and Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, voted with the court.<sup>174</sup> On 17 Apr. Crew again registered his proxy in favour of North (vacated on the 27th). Nottingham correctly estimated that Crew would support the schism bill; on 11 June in the division on extending the scope of the bill to Ireland Crew voted in favour of the clause.<sup>175</sup> Three days later he again registered his proxy in favour of North for the remainder of the session; the proxy was used on 15 June in support of the schism bill.</p><p>The resignation of Oxford and the death of the queen spelled the end of Crew’s political revival. He was in Durham when the queen died, where he proclaimed the new king. He was thus absent for the entirety of the brief August session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. He travelled south shortly afterwards and attempted to wait on the new king. He was not admitted at court; he left the message that he came only to pay his duty but had nothing to ask of the new king. Once again he lost the lord lieutenancy. He attended the coronation on 20 October. The following day he finally waited on the king where they discussed Crew’s similar role in two previous coronations. With the earl of Wharton present, he also waited on the Prince and Princess of Wales that autumn, apparently with a favourable reception.<sup>176</sup></p><p>Crew lived on for a further six years after the Hanoverian accession and continued to play a role in Parliament. He died at Steane on 18 Sept. 1721. According to one possibly apocryphal account, his dying words were ‘don’t you go over to them’, which the writer took to mean the Hanoverians. His lengthy will and codicil bequeathed his considerable estates in trust for charitable and educational uses and secured his name for posterity as a great benefactor.<sup>177</sup> His patrimony of Steane devolved (under the 2nd Baron’s marriage settlement) on Jemima, wife of Henry Grey*, duke of Kent.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
CREW, Thomas (c. 1624-97) |
<p><strong><surname>CREW</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1624–97)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 12 Dec. 1679 as 2nd Bar. CREW |
|
First sat 17 May 1680; last sat 17 Dec. 1696 |
|
MP Northants. 1656, Brackley 1659, 1660, 18 July 1661, 1679 (Mar.) |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1624, 1st s. of John Crew*, later Bar. Crew; bro. of Nathaniel Crew*, later bishop of Durham and 3rd Bar. Crew. <em>educ</em>. G. Inn 1641; Padua 1647. <em>m</em>. (1) May 1650 (with £5,000),<sup>1</sup> Mary, da. of Sir Roger Townshend<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt., of Raynham, Norf., 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 3da.; (2) 1674, Anne, da. and coh. of Sir William Armine<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., of Osgodby, Lincs., wid. of Sir Thomas Wodehouse of Kimberley, Norf., 3da. Kntd. 26 Sept. 1660. <em>d</em>. 30 Nov. 1697; <em>will</em>, 11 July-12 Nov., pr. 3 Dec. 1697.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. militia 1659, Mar. 1660, assessment, Aug. 1660-79; dep. lt. col. Aug. 1660-2; high steward, Banbury 1683-Oct. 1688.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. C. d'Agar, National Trust, Calke Abbey, Derbys.</p> |
<p>Like his father, Thomas Crew was an active supporter of the readmission of the secluded members to Parliament in 1660 for which he was rewarded with a knighthood.<sup>3</sup> Likewise, he was also soon disillusioned by the political realities of the Restoration and by the decadence of Charles II’s court.<sup>4</sup> In the Commons he was probably a follower of John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup>. In 1673 his father told Swinfen that his son had heard Swinfen speak in Parliament, and that he hoped his son would turn to Swinfen for advice after Crew’s death.<sup>5</sup> Crew’s various conversations with Pepys whilst still a member of the Commons leave little doubt of his country sympathies, and in 1677 he was marked thrice worthy by Shaftesbury. Not surprisingly, given his Presbyterian upbringing, he had strong anti-Catholic prejudices and believed it to be ‘a thing certain’ that the fire of London resulted from a Catholic conspiracy.<sup>6</sup></p><p>His writ of summons was issued on 24 Jan. 1680, just over a month after his father’s death, and he took his seat in the House of Lords at a prorogation three months later in the midst of the political crisis caused by attempts to exclude James*, duke of York, from the succession. His subsequent attendance suggests that he took a considerable interest in the activities of the House, but in the absence of surviving family papers it is difficult to do justice to his political career.</p><p>Crew attended the House on over 90 per cent of the sitting days in 1680, and with the exception of 1689 when his attendance dipped to just over 60 per cent, he maintained his attendance at this sort of level until 1692. He was regularly named to the sessional committees. He had voted in favour of the Exclusion bill in the Commons and voted for a first reading of the bill in the Lords, signing a protest at its rejection on 15 Nov. 1680. Later that month he was named to the committee to inspect laws against papists and favoured the appointment of a committee to consider the state of the nation. On 7 Dec. he voted in favour of the attainder of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, and on 18 Dec. he dissented to the rejection of the Commons proviso for regulating trials of peers. On 20 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill to encourage protestant strangers to come to England. On 7 Jan. 1681 he supported the impeachment of Sir William Scroggs, entering two protests at the failure to impeach or suspend him from office. During the following session, on 26 Mar. 1681, he protested against the decision to try Fitzharris in the common law courts rather than by impeachment in the Lords.</p><p>During the long interval that followed the end of the 1681 session, Crew appears to have spent some time abroad. He was granted a pass to travel to France in 1683 together with his wife, three children and 11 menservants.<sup>7</sup> He was back in England for the opening of the first session of James II’s Parliament in May 1685 and attended every day. He was named to several committees for bills whose subject matter ranged from murder at sea, the rebuilding of the London house of William Herbert*, earl (later marquess) of Powis, and Yarmouth pier to Deeping Fen.</p><p>With the deepening of the political crisis of James II’s regime he attended the two prorogation days on 15 Feb. and 28 Apr. 1687. Throughout that and the following year, Crew was said, unsurprisingly, to be opposed to the repeal of the Test Act and to be an opponent of the policies of James II. In June 1688 just before the trial of the seven bishops he was put forward by Henry Compton*, bishop of London, as a possible bail for Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells.<sup>8</sup> At the Revolution of 1688 he signed the declaration to the Prince of Orange and was one of the lords temporal who met at the Guildhall to direct affairs in the absence of the king.<sup>9</sup> During the first session of the Convention he was present on 63 per cent of sitting days. Despite his undoubted opposition to James II, he nevertheless found it difficult to reconcile his conscience with the reality of deposing a king. In January 1689 he voted in support of the motion for a regency and on 4 Feb. voted to substitute the word ‘deserted’ for ‘abdicated’ in the Commons resolution.<sup>10</sup> He again opposed the word ‘abdicated’ on 6 Feb., even though a variety of gestures had placated much of the opposition to William III’s assumption of the crown. Nevertheless, he took the oaths to the new regime on 2 Mar. 1689.</p><p>Quibbles about the constitutionality of the revolution do not seem to have affected Crew’s naturally whiggish tendencies or his desire to rake over the misdeeds of the Stuart brothers. On 2 Feb. 1689 Crew was named to the committee to enquire into the death of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex. On 8 Mar. he was named to the committee for the bill to reverse the attainder of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, and on 14 Mar., together with everyone else in the chamber, to that for the bill for uniting protestants. On 24 Apr. he was named to the committee for reversing the attainder of Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> and the following day to the bill to make it treason to correspond with the exiled king. Over the course of the session he was also named to some 14 other committees, including that to amend the bill to remove papists from London and Westminster and the additional poll bill. On 30 July he voted in support of the terms set out by the Commons for the reversal of the conviction of Titus Oates. His low attendance over this session was probably caused by illness rather than reluctance to participate in the Convention, for when the House was called early in the following (1689-90) session, on 28 Oct. 1689, he was excused attendance.</p><p>During the 1689-90 session, Crew was present on just over 69 per cent of sitting days. His intense distrust of Thomas Osborne*, formerly earl of Danby and now marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), was underlined by his insistence on 23 Nov. 1689 that no pardon issued by the Crown should be valid unless agreed by both Houses of Parliament. He was named to ten select committees including that for the act of indemnity. Carmarthen marked him as an opponent of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690. During the following (1690) session he missed only three sitting days and was named to nine committees, including that for the bill to prevent irregularities in the courts of law and equity.</p><p>Crew missed the first two weeks of the 1690-1 session and his overall attendance dropped to 75 per cent. This session saw him again attacking Carmarthen when on 30 Oct. 1690 he opposed the bill to clarify the powers of the Admiralty commissioners. He was also appointed to numerous other committees to consider bills including that for annulling the marriage of Mary Wharton and James Campbell.</p><p>For the 1691-2 session Crew’s attendance was 77 per cent. On 23 Feb. 1692 Crew entered dissents both against the poll bill and about the ‘unparliamentary’ tacking of a clause renewing the commission of accounts to it. The 1692-3 session saw a marked drop in his attendance – to just under 57 per cent. On 7 Dec. 1692 he protested against the government’s blocking of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. He voted for the place bill in December 1692 and protested against its rejection on 3 Jan. 1693. On 17 Jan. 1693 he protested against the decision that Charles Knollys had no claim to the earldom of Banbury, and on 19 Jan. he supported the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill. In February 1693 he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohon, not guilty of murder. In February of the following year he voted to reverse the order of the court of chancery in <em>Montagu v. Bath</em> (the Albemarle inheritance case).</p><p>From 1693 Crew’s attendance rapidly declined: he attended on only a third of the sitting days in 1693 and 1694, and in 1695 and 1696 he hardly attended at all. When he made his will in July 1696, he described himself as ‘somewhat weak in body’ and despite the heavy pressure exerted to compel attendance during the debates over the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> was given leave to be absent on 1 Dec. 1696. In March 1697 he gave his proxy to Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, father-in-law of his daughter Jemima. At his death in November 1697 he left generous bequests to his servants and to the poor of Northamptonshire. He requested a private funeral but left £200 for the erection of a monument at Steane. Crew’s finances, like those of his father, remain obscure. He inherited estates worth £4,000 p.a. from his father and his self assessment in October 1689 stated that he had £1,000 in money and was owed a further £2,000 on a mortgage. These were substantial sums given that the responses of most of his fellow peers indicated no liquid assets and a high level of indebtedness.<sup>11</sup> A family settlement made in 1680 provided for portions of £4,000 for each of his six daughters, but Crew changed his mind about the disposition of his estate after the death in July 1694 of his nephew Waldgrave Crew. This ensured that the succession to his title and properties would pass to his childless brother, Nathaniel Crew, bishop of Durham, who had been closely associated with the policies of James II. Accordingly, early in 1695 the 2nd Baron Crew conveyed a substantial part of his estate to the use of his daughters, which Nathaniel Crew later tried to regain.<sup>12</sup> Jemima, his eldest daughter, received a portion of £20,000 on her marriage to Henry Grey*, the future duke of Kent, in 1695.<sup>13</sup> Crew’s widow was said to be worth £30,000 at her subsequent marriage to Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington.<sup>14</sup> Whether she was entitled to this sum is another matter. She was deeply distrusted by her stepdaughter, Anne Joliffe, who expected ‘very hard usage and foul dealings’ after Crew’s death, suspecting her of diverting funds to her own use that had formed part of her mother’s settlement and rightfully belonged to herself and her sister Temperance, wife of Sir Rowland Alston.<sup>15</sup> It seems unlikely that large sums were available for the portions of Crew’s daughters by his second wife. They made respectable rather than brilliant marriages and despite their father’s Whig allegiances, moved decisively into the Tory camp. Catherine married Sir John Harpur, Armine married Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup>, whilst Elizabeth married Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, more usually known by his Irish title as the earl of Arran [I] (duke of Arran in the Jacobite peerage).</p> |
R.P. |
|
CROFTS, William (c. 1611-77) |
<p><strong><surname>CROFTS</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1611–77)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>18 May 1658 Bar. CROFTS |
|
First sat 3 Sept. 1660; last sat 17 May 1675 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1611, s. and h. of Sir Henry Crofts<sup>‡</sup> of Saxham and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley, Yorks. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) <em>c</em>. 1 Apr. 1661, Dorothy (1620-63), da of Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., wid. of Sir John Hele<sup>‡</sup> of Clifton Maybank, Dorset, formerly wid. of Hugh Rogers of Conington, Som. and wid. of John Hele<sup>‡ </sup>esq. of Flanchford, Reigate, Surr.;<sup>1</sup> (2) Elizabeth (1618-72), da. of William Spencer<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Spencer, wid. of John Craven<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Craven, formerly wid. of Henry Howard; <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>suc</em> fa. 31 Mar. 1677. <em>d</em>. 11 Sept 1677; will 9 Aug 1676-30 Aug. 1677, pr. 30 Oct. 1677.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1652-<em>d.</em>; capt. of gds. to Queen Henrietta Maria.</p><p>Envoy, Baltic states 1649-52; amb. Poland 1660; envoy, France, 1660.</p> |
|
<p>The Crofts were no more than minor gentry until their acquisition of a seat at Little Saxham in the sixteenth century. Crofts’ father and both his grandfathers sat in the Commons. His brother in law, Sir Edmund Poley<sup>‡ </sup>sat in the Cavalier Parliament, as did his cousins Sir John<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Henry Bennet*, the future earl of Arlington, and his kinsmen, Sir John<sup>‡</sup> and William Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Crofts was one of those courtiers declared by Parliament in 1642 to be an enemy of the state who should be removed from the court and subsequently he accompanied the royal family into exile. Although he had managed to make an enemy of both George Digby*, later 2nd earl of Bristol, and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, he was sufficiently personable to gain the regard and friendship of Charles II and was one of those credited with having prevented the conversion of Henry*, duke of Gloucester, to Catholicism.<sup>3</sup> Towards the end of 1658 he was entrusted with the care and upbringing of Charles II’s young son James*, the future duke of Monmouth, who initially took the surname Crofts as his own.</p><p>Much about Crofts’ political career is obscured by a lack of family papers so that his activities have to be reconstructed through stray references in the correspondence of others. It may never be possible to establish his true political significance but such glimpses as are available suggest that Crofts was a rather more important figure than is usually allowed. He had regular access to the king, he was closely associated with Arlington and was deeply engaged with him in factional court politics; he was also involved in the diplomatic negotiations with the French that may have influenced the signing of the Treaty of Dover.</p><p>At the Restoration Crofts did not initially return to England but was sent to inform Louis XIV of the situation and to congratulate him on his marriage to the infanta Maria Theresa. As a result he was unable to take his seat in the House of Lords until 3 Sept. 1660 when he did so without apparent ceremony. He was then present for only 17 of a possible 54 sitting days. His absence from Parliament did not affect his role as courtier and diplomat; he wrote on behalf of the king to compliment Mazarin in October 1660 and over the next six weeks was central to the arrangements to devise appropriate entertainments for the French ambassador extraordinary, Eugene Maurice, comte de Soissons, including escorting him to a private audience with Charles II.<sup>4</sup></p><p>During the 1661-2 session Crofts was present on just under 35 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committee for privileges. Then on 14 May, together with John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), he introduced his brother in law Frederick Cornwallis*, as Baron Cornwallis. Later that day he was given leave to be absent on the king’s business in France. Nevertheless, he was back in the House on 18 May and then attended fitfully until 26 July. Parliament was adjourned the following day; Crofts did not attend when it reconvened on 20 Nov. and did not return to the House until 7 Dec. 1661. His absence was noted at a call of the House on 25 Nov. when it was noted that he had left a proxy; the proxy was held by John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. Crofts was named to two select committees during the session, that for the admiralty jurisdiction bill on 4 Apr. 1662 and the bill for payment of officers who served in the late troubles on 25 Apr.1662. His main interest in Parliament during this session seems to have been to use privilege of Parliament as a weapon in a dispute over lands claimed by his wife as part of her jointure from her third husband, John Hele.<sup>5</sup> He was not listed as present in the House on 6 July 1661 when the House was informed of an action at law against one of Crofts’ tenants and ordered an end to all proceedings; he was present on 15 Apr. 1662 when the House again intervened on his behalf to put a stop to various attempts to prevent his tenants from paying their rents. On 25 Apr. he was named to a select committee (for the bill for money for the officers who served the king in the late troubles). In July 1662, during the long recess, Crofts was serving at sea with Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich. Both were feared lost in a storm but survived, though observers contrasted Sandwich’s bravery to Crofts’ fear.<sup>6</sup> Crofts’ reputation with the French also seems to have been diminishing; in November French diplomats made somewhat barbed comments about ‘Milord Craf’ and were clearly relieved to find that they would be dealing with Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, instead. Gerard, presumably unlike Crofts, ‘recalls better than some the favours he has received’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The 1663 session saw Crofts present on 45 per cent of sitting days but apart from a nomination to the committee for privileges on 18 Feb. he has left no mark on the session. Crofts was still in favour at court, receiving a grant in May 1663 in company with James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, and others of a stretch of marsh lands in Kent.<sup>8</sup> By July 1663 he appears to have settled the dispute over his wife’s jointure lands.<sup>9</sup> In the surviving somewhat unreliable parliamentary list he was forecast as a supporter of Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon. In Crofts’ case the prediction is entirely credible. He and Clarendon disliked and distrusted each other, so much so that when Crofts was appointed to the bedchamber in 1652, it was said that it ‘makes Hyde mad and weary of his life.’<sup>10</sup> Crofts was on close terms with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, another enemy of Clarendon and also with his more vacillating cousin, Henry Bennet. In the autumn of 1663 he was one of those friends of Bristol who hoped to use the king’s new favourite, Frances Stuart, to regain royal support.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Crofts’ attendance rose to just over 80 per cent during the short session of 1664. He was named to the committee of privileges on 21 Mar. 1664 and to that for petitions on 23 March. On 22 Mar. he was named to the select committee for the bill on writs of error. He was also present on 20 Aug., a prorogation day.</p><p>His attendance fell back to just over 53 per cent during the following, 1664-5, session. His absence from the House on 7 Dec. 1664 was excused by reason of sickness but the following month saw the beginnings of a phase of unaccustomed parliamentary activity, possibly related to his financial negotiations with the Crown. On 18 Jan. 1665 he was named as one of the trustees for the Scottish estates of the young duke of Monmouth. On 28 Jan. a warrant was issued for the payment of £1,100 in part payment of an annual pension of £1,500 that had been awarded to him and his wife in return for the surrender of his £1,000 a year salary as a gentleman of the bedchamber.<sup>12</sup> He was named to five select committees (estate bills for Lord Henry Pawlet on 16 Jan, George Morley*, bishop of Winchester on 31 Jan. and Sir Robert Carr on 22 Feb. as well as to two navigation bills, for the River Medway on 21 Jan. and the River Avon on 3 Feb. 1665). He also attended on the prorogation day, 21 June, when the only business conducted was the introduction of the newly created Baron Arlington between Crofts and William Brydges*, 7th Baron Chandos. During the short session of October 1665 he was present on all but three of the 15 sitting days.</p><p>Late in 1665 whilst the court was still at Oxford, Crofts became involved in what Clarendon interpreted (probably correctly) as an attempt to drive a wedge between him and the lord treasurer (and maternal uncle of Lady Crofts), Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton. The death of Edward Montagu in August had created a vacancy for master of the horse to the queen. Edward Montagu’s younger brother Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, who was in the service of Anne Hyde, duchess of York, asked for the post. His candidature was supported by the Yorks who naturally expected Clarendon to exert his influence in Montagu’s favour. Crofts backed a second candidate, Robert Spencer, his wife’s kinsman and Southampton’s nephew. Croft’s ‘passionate and indiscreet’ activity in support of Spencer turned the affair into a show of strength between Southampton and York. As a result of Crofts’ machinations, Montagu’s appointment in December was perceived by Southampton ‘as a designed, contrived attempt to expose him to contempt’. Clarendon found himself suspected of double dealing by all concerned.<sup>13</sup> Crofts spent Christmas 1665 at his house in Saxham, entertaining Arlington and Buckingham, but was back in London to attend the House on the prorogation day on 20 Feb. 1666. Clarendon noted in June 1666 that Crofts was in Salisbury and that Arlington was again making ‘a jolly journey’ to visit him there.<sup>14</sup></p><p>During the 1666-7 session Crofts was present on just over 45 per cent of sitting days. On 18 Sept.1666, together with Arlington, he introduced Thomas Butler*, better known by his Irish title as earl of Ossory, as Baron Butler of Moor Park. Crofts was absent on 24 Sept. and so was not named to the committee for privileges which was named that day. He was named to a single select committee, that for the estate bill of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, on 24 Oct. 1666. Thereafter he covered an absence from 15 Dec. 1666 to 7 Feb. 1667 inclusive by a proxy to Arlington.</p><p>A letter written in May 1667, during the long recess, provides rare insight into Crofts’ political views. Together with Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, and Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, he expressed his fears about the military situation and the prospects for a Dutch invasion, specifically adding his concern about a government in which ‘matters went he knows not how, such men appointed over the treasury, such little preparation for resistance and such gaiety appearing at court.’<sup>15</sup> Scattered reports indicate that he was taken ill at or shortly after this time and that even in mid July his gout was so bad that he was unable to travel. By August he had recovered but he missed the first two days of the 1667-9 session, taking his seat on 14 Oct. 1667.<sup>16</sup> He was then present for about 50 per cent of sitting days, including those on which the impeachment of Clarendon was debated, until 25 Nov. but what part he played in those debates is unknown. His proxy, again in favour of Arlington, was registered on 28 Nov. and was not vacated until he returned to the House on 11 Feb. the following year; he was then present for just under 37 per cent of the remaining sitting days that year. He was in the House on 10 Mar. 1668 to bring a complaint of privilege regarding the arrest of one of his servants but on 16 Mar. was given permission to retire into the country for his health. He attended on 17 Mar. but was then absent until 23 April. His last attendance of the session was on 9 May 1668. He then retired to Saxham where he entertained the king during his visit to Newmarket later that month.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Despite an absence of evidence by which to establish and judge the extent of Crofts’ influence, it seems likely that his position as a gentleman of the bedchamber and his diplomatic experience made him an important figure at court; Colbert, the French ambassador, certainly believed him to be so. In 1669, in the wake of the triple alliance, Crofts and Arlington were closely involved in seeking a rapprochement with France. In January 1669 Colbert, the French ambassador, reported that Crofts had drawn him aside to emphasize that Arlington,</p><blockquote><p>knew quite well that there was nothing more advantageous to the king and the realm of England, or even more agreeable to his interests and his personal satisfaction than the union I had proposed, that he hoped to make it succeed, and that I could be assured that he would work sincerely for it.</p></blockquote><p>Crofts also indicated that it was Arlington rather than Buckingham who enjoyed the king’s full confidence. By April he had backtracked, saying that neither Buckingham nor Arlington were ‘bold enough to undertake anything significant towards the glory and service of the king, as the alliance with your majesty [Louis XIV] would be, not knowing how it would be received by Parliament’. According to Crofts both ministers recommended a dissolution and fresh elections the result of which would be to bind England even more closely into a Protestant alliance. He recommended instead that the French should deal direct with Charles II and offer him money with the implicit suggestion that he persevere with his existing Parliament. The suggestion appears to presage the Secret Treaty of Dover signed the following year but at the time Colbert was uncertain whether to take Crofts’ words at face value, or whether it was part of a ploy to bolster Arlington’s position by creating trouble between the French and Buckingham.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Crofts did not attend the brief session of autumn 1669 at all; on 26 Oct., shortly after the beginning of the session, he was excused on grounds of illness. He was present on just over 40 per cent of sitting days in the 1670-1 session. His absence on the first day of the session meant that he was not named to the committee for privileges but he was named to five select committees. On 14 Feb. 1671, he was named, as were almost all those listed as present that day, to the committee to investigate the attempt to assassinate James Butler*, duke of Ormond. He registered a proxy on 3 Mar. to Arlington which was vacated on his return to the House on 17 April.</p><p>On 13 Feb. 1673, shortly after the opening of the new session, he was excused attendance on grounds of illness. He took his seat on 18 Mar.; all eight of his attendances that session were concentrated in the following weeks. He did not attend the brief second session of the year at all, although Colbert’s despatches make it clear that he was in London and in attendance at court.<sup>19</sup> The short 1674 session saw him present on just under 58 per cent of sitting days during which he was named to two select committees. He took the oath of allegiance on 13 Jan. 1674.</p><p>Early in 1675 Crofts was engaged in negotiations for the marriage of his niece Judith Poley, to Henry Jermyn*, the future earl of Dover. Crofts was said to have contributed £8,000 for her dowry, but his will shows that the Poleys paid £4,000 and that Crofts engaged that the remaining £4,000 would be paid from his estate after his decease.<sup>20</sup> The spring 1675 session opened on 13 April. Crofts did not attend until 26 Apr. and was then present for just 12 days. He did not attend Parliament again. He was excused at a call of the House on 10 Nov. 1675, covering his absence for that, the second session of the year, as well as the next (1677) session with a proxy to Louis de Duras*, Baron Duras (later 2nd earl of Feversham). In January 1677 he was so ill that there were rumours that he had died, but he lingered for several more months before dying in September 1677. His will made generous provision for his servants and kinswomen as well as for the poor of Little Saxham. He also left a substantial sum to defray the expenses of a funeral suitable to his quality. In order to ensure that the £4,000 owed to Jermyn was paid he appointed Jermyn ‘and with his approbation’ William Duncombe, Henry Poley and Martin Folkes, as executors. At his death his title was extinguished for lack of a direct male heir; his estates passed to his cousin, also named William Crofts<sup>‡</sup>.</p> |
R.P. |
|
CROMWELL, Thomas (1653-82) |
<p><strong><surname>CROMWELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1653–82)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 3 Oct. 1668 (a minor) as 6th Bar. CROMWELL and 3rd earl of Ardglass [I]. |
|
First sat 15 May 1675; last sat 23 Mar. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Nov. 1653, o. s. of Wingfield Cromwell*, 5th Bar. Cromwell, and Mary (<em>d</em>. 1687), da. of Sir William Russell, bt.<sup>‡</sup> <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1668. <em>m</em>. Honora (<em>d</em>. Nov. 1710), da. of Michael Boyle, abp. of Dublin (1663–79) and 2nd w. Mary, da. of Dermod O’Brien, 5th Bar. Inchiquin [I], sis. of Murrough Boyle, Visct. Blessington [I], <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 11 Apr. 1682.</p> |
|
|
<p>Thomas Cromwell was more generally known by his Irish title as earl of Ardglass rather than as Baron Cromwell. His family background was Anglican, royalist and military. The young earl evidently split his time between England and Ireland for in December 1670 he was among 23 survivors in the wreck of a packet boat off Arklow, co. Wicklow, and on 10 Apr. 1672 he was at Chester awaiting passage to Ireland.<sup>2</sup> He survived another shipwreck in March 1675 en route from Dublin to Chester, one account suggesting that the incident had been caused by the ‘drunken earl of Ardglass’ supplying the crew with too much wine.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Although the date of Ardglass’ marriage is unknown, his alliance with one of the oldest and richest Protestant families in Ireland was significant. He married Honora Boyle, the eldest daughter of the politically influential Michael Boyle, archbishop of Dublin (1663–79), lord chancellor of Ireland (1665–85) and primate of Ireland as archbishop of Armagh (1679–1702). This marriage also linked Ardglass to the Gaelic Irish family of O’Brien. Honora’s uncle Murrough O’Brien, later 6th Baron Inchiquin [I], commanded royalist forces in Ireland after the departure of James Butler*, marquess of Ormond [I] (and later duke of Ormond in the Irish and English peerage) in 1650.</p><p>As a minor Ardglass was regularly excused attendance in the Lords between 1669 and 1674, as well as on 29 Apr. 1675, which may have been an error. He first took his seat on 15 May 1675, but attended on only two further days that session, just over 7 per cent of the total. He attended seven sittings in the second session of 1675, a little more than 33 per cent of the total. His name appears without a classification on the analysis of lay peers compiled by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in 1677–8. In the 1677–8 session he was excused a call of the House on 9 Mar. 1677.</p><p>On 29 Jan. 1678 the Lords received a complaint that John Farrington, a prisoner in the King’s Bench prison, had often refused to be examined before commissioners in bankruptcy, alleging a protection signed ‘Ardglass’. Further complaints were made on 31 Jan. of Farrington sheltering behind his protection. As a consequence, on 29 Jan. Ardglass was ordered to attend and the committee for privileges ordered to prepare a declaration, to be presented to the House, for preventing the ill consequences of granting of protections (which seems never to have emerged from committee).<sup>4</sup> Two days later Ardglass registered his only recorded proxy with James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton. It was cancelled when he attended on 6 February. Meanwhile, on 4 Feb. the House was informed that Ardglass had granted a protection to John Milner, who was a clerk employed by one of the corporations of London. On 6 Feb. Ardglass was asked why he had granted protections to Farrington, Milner and John Cooke, when they were not his menial servants and so not capable of the privilege of Parliament. In response, Ardglass said that he was unaware of the relevant order, apologized for transgressing it and promised not to give any protections contrary to it. The committee for privileges was then ordered to produce ‘something fit to be published, declaring the sense and purport of the standing orders … relating to the privilege of Parliament’.</p><p>On 25 May 1678 a complaint was made that James Walker, a menial servant of Ardglass’, had been arrested for debt and he was ordered to be released. Rather trickily, one of those behind the arrest was Robert Bate<sup>‡</sup>, a Member of the Commons, but Ardglass was willing to accept the acknowledgement that Bate and the others were at fault and they were discharged on 30 May, with Ardglass promising that Bate would not lose any of the debt he was owed. He attended only 11 sittings of the resumed session of January–May 1678 before the prorogation on 13 May 1678, 18 per cent of that part of the session. He did record a vote on 4 Apr., that Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, was guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Ardglass attended on the third day of the next session, 25 May 1678, and on 14 days in all, some 32 per cent of the total. In the session of October–December 1678, he was present on nine occasions, about 15 per cent of the total. After being absent since 22 Nov., on 16 Dec. 1678 he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Ardglass did not attend the session of 6–13 Mar. 1679. In the session of March–May 1679, he attended on 20 days, 33 per cent of the total, taking the oaths on 19 March. In March–April 1679 Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, twice seemed unsure as to how to categorize Ardglass when considering how peers would vote in the proceedings against him. On 12 Mar. he was classed as a court lord on a list of absent lords. On 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the methods of proceeding against the impeached Lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Ardglass attended the prorogation of 1 July 1680 and was present on 21 Oct., the opening day of the 1680–1 session, when he took the oaths. He attended on 30 days in all, nearly 52 per cent of the total. On 15 Nov. 1680 he voted in favour of rejecting the exclusion bill on its first reading. On 7 Dec. he voted in favour of the attainder of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. On 17 Mar. 1681 Danby’s pre-sessional forecast had Ardglass in favour of granting him bail, if he attended. Ardglass was present on the opening day of the Oxford Parliament, 21 Mar., when he took the oaths, attending on four days, 57 per cent of the total.</p><p>Ardglass died on 11 Apr. 1682 and was buried at Ilam. He was succeeded by his uncle Vere Essex Cromwell*, 7th Baron Cromwell. However, his wife continued to extract a jointure from the Irish estates until her death, even receiving a saving clause in an estate act of 1709.<sup>5</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
CROMWELL, Vere Essex (1625-87) |
<p><strong><surname>CROMWELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Vere Essex</strong> (1625–87)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew 11 Apr. 1682 as 7th Bar. CROMWELL and 4th earl of Ardglass [I] |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 22 Nov. 1686 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 Oct. 1625, 2nd s. of Thomas Cromwell<sup>†</sup> (<em>d</em>. 1653), 4th Bar. Cromwell, earl of Ardglass [I], and Elizabeth Meverell (<em>d</em>.1653), da. of Robert Meverell of Ilam, Staffs.; bro. of Wingfield Cromwell*, 5th Bar. Cromwell. <em>educ</em>. Stone School, Staffs.; Finglass, co. Dublin; TCD, fell. com. 20 Mar. 1638. <em>m</em>. 1672, Catherine, da. of James Hamilton of Newcastle, co. Down, wid. of General Richard Price of Greencastle, co. Down,<sup>1</sup> 1 da. <em>d</em>. 26 Nov. 1687; <em>will</em> pr. 24 Jan. 1688 in prerogative court [I].</p> |
<p>Trustee, 1649 officers’ arrear of pay, 1662.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Capt. of horse [I], 1660; lt.-col. Forbes’ regt. 1670; maj. and capt. Ossory’s horse 1685; col. 1686 [I].<sup>3</sup></p><p>PC [I] Apr. 1682-<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Dep. lt. Staffs. Aug. 1683-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Corp. of Horsebreeders, co. Down 1685.<sup>6</sup></p> |
|
<p>Like his father and brother, Cromwell pursued a military career and rose to the rank of colonel of horse in the royalist army during the conflict in Ireland and England in the 1640s. He then served under the command of James Butler*, then marquess of Ormond [I] (later duke of Ormond), against the Irish rebels and later the parliamentary army. In October 1666 Charles II officially reversed a declaration of treason issued by Parliament against him, Ormond and others.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Known by his civil war rank of colonel, by February 1661 Cromwell was captain of a troop of horse, serving in the regiment of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. When mutiny broke out in the garrison at Carrickfergus, co. Antrim, in 1666, Colonel Cromwell was sent for to help suppress it. By August 1670 he was listed as lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Sir Arthur Forbes. In September 1672 he was attached to the regiment of Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount Conway. He continued to be listed as the commander of a troop of horse until the end of the reign.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Cromwell’s marriage in 1672 to Catherine Hamilton reinforced his connections to Ormond, whose sister, Mary Butler, was married to one of the Hamilton family. In November 1673, during the viceroyalty of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, he was authorized to collect arms from the Catholics of co. Down.<sup>10</sup> In October 1675 he was commissioned, along with Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, and others, to represent and secure the arrears of the ’49 Officers in Ireland, another indication of his good standing.<sup>11</sup></p><p>After his succession in 1682 Cromwell was more generally known by his Irish rather than his English title. On 17 Apr. 1682 the king issued a warrant to Ormond to swear Ardglass as a member of the Irish privy council.<sup>12</sup> In June 1682 he was in Dublin, where Captain Fitzherbert hoped that ‘things will be fairly accommodated by the treaty proposed. You have so much justice on your side that surely my Lord Chancellor [Boyle], will not let it go on to law.’<sup>13</sup> This may have been related to what became a long-running and contentious legal dispute with Denny and Henry Muschamp. At the beginning of November 1682 Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I], wrote from Dublin to Ormond that ‘the complaints’ of Ardglass ‘in his business with Mr Muschamp’ were likely to prove difficult, especially as Ardglass accused the local clergy of acting inappropriately in their capacity as justices of the peace and because Archbishop Boyle was active on Muschamp’s side.<sup>14</sup> On 27 Nov. Arran added of Ardglass that</p><blockquote><p>[his] heart is broke, and no man without concern (who has any good nature in him) can see so brave a man as he has shown himself to be in such a desponding condition as he is, and with good reason, for he is decrepit in body, disturbed in mind, and cannot get one able lawyer to plead for him.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>By March 1683 Ardglass intended to take his accusations to England and to use the English legal system. On 28 July he approached Arran for an extension of his leave from the army in order to attend the continuing chancery suit against Denny and Henry Muschamp.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In August 1683 Ardglass was made a deputy lieutenant of Staffordshire. Following his accession, James II reappointed him to the Irish privy council and in May he was again commissioned as a deputy lieutenant in Staffordshire. Also in May 1685 the lords justices were instructed to pay him an annuity of £400 p.a. on the Irish establishment.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In July 1685 Ormonde informed Archbishop Boyle that Ardglass had petitioned the privy council in England for the arrest of Muschamp until he had performed the chancery decree in his favour.<sup>18</sup> In response the archbishop pointed out</p><blockquote><p>that the sending for a subject, out of this kingdom, upon a proceeding in chancery, in England, wherein both the parties, and the matter, … do all belong to this Kingdom, is without a precedent, and may be of sadder consequence to the … liberty of all the inhabitants … but especially of the Nobility, than can be easily foreseen.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ardglass first attended the House of Lords on the opening day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685. He was present on 29 days of the session before its adjournment on 2 July, and he attended the further adjournment of the House on 4 August. When the session resumed on 9 Nov. 1685, he was present on all 11 days before the prorogation of 20 November. In all he sat for just over 95 per cent of the session.</p><p>In January 1686 Ardglass was named to be colonel of a regiment of horse in the Irish army, made vacant by the promotion of James Butler*, styled earl of Ossory [I], the future 2nd duke of Ormond, to the foot regiment which had belonged to Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I].<sup>20</sup> On 14 Jan. 1686 he attended the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, and found him not guilty.<sup>21</sup> He also attended the prorogation on 22 Nov. 1686.</p><p>Ardglass’ attitude to James II’s policies is hard to establish. About May 1687 one commentator thought him a possible supporter; three other lists, including one probably drawn up after his death, indicated that he was opposed to the repeal of the Test Act. He continued to command his regiment of horse in Ireland until his death in 1687, surviving the reorganization of the Irish army by Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell [I].<sup>22</sup> That Ardglass, a Protestant, was able to maintain his command during Tyrconnell’s Catholicizing of the Irish army suggests that he was considered sufficiently competent and well connected at court and in Ireland to maintain his position.</p><p>Ardglass died at Booncastle, co. Down, on 26 Nov. 1687 and was buried on 29 Dec. at the Abbey in Downpatrick. He died without male issue and the peerage became extinct, although his daughter, Elizabeth, was widely (if incorrectly) assumed to have become Baroness Cromwell.<sup>23</sup> His widow later married Nicholas Price of co. Down. The family’s lands passed to the Southwell family in or about 1711 through Elizabeth Cromwell’s marriage to Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup>.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
CROMWELL, Wingfield (1624-68) |
<p><strong><surname>CROMWELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Wingfield</strong> (1624–68)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Feb. 1653 as 5th Bar. CROMWELL and 2nd earl of Ardglass [I]. |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 20 Feb. 1668 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em><em>.</em> 12 Sept. 1624, 1st s. of Thomas Cromwell<sup>†</sup>, 4th Bar. Cromwell and earl of Ardglass [I], and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1653), da. of Robert Meverell of Throwleigh and Ilam, Staffs. <em>educ</em><em>.</em> Stone, Staffs.; Finglass, Co. Dublin; Trinity Coll. Dublin 1638; DCL Oxf., Nov. 1642. <em>m</em><em>.</em> c.1650, Mary (1628-87), da. of Sir William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Bt., of Strensham, Worcs., 1s. 1da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 3 Oct. 1668.</p> |
|
|
<p>Ardglass’s grandfather, Edward Cromwell<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Cromwell (<em>d</em>. 24 Sept. 1607), bought the family estate in the Lecale and Ardglass area of County Down, Ireland, in 1606. His father, who died in 1653, commanded one of the king’s regiments of horse during the Civil Wars.<sup>2</sup> Ardglass also served in the royalist cause. He appears to have commanded a troop of horse in Ulster, in the Irish army under the command of James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I], in the earlier 1640s.<sup>3</sup> He was arrested at Chester in April 1649 and again in August 1659 in Stafford on suspicion of being an ‘old Cavalier’.<sup>4</sup> Indeed, after the Restoration he made great play with his father’s losses in the royal cause when he petitioned for the command of a troop of horse in Ireland.<sup>5</sup></p><p>In March 1660, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, identified Ardglass as a supporter of the king. He first took his seat in the Lords on 27 Apr. 1660, in the final weeks before the Restoration. He attended the House on 79 days between April and September 1660, and a further 20 between November and December 1660, making just over 60 per cent overall, but was not appointed to any select committees.<sup>6</sup> In March 1661, Ardglass’s doctors certified that he was ‘ill of a palsy’ and could not safely leave his house.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Ardglass was absent when the 1661 Parliament assembled on 8 May, first sitting five days later. On 17 June, a complaint was made to the House that one John Browne, a serjeant belonging to Woodstreet Compter, had attached £150 belonging to Ardglass, in breach of privilege of Parliament. Browne was duly summoned and on 26 June admitted his offence at the Bar, claiming that he did not know that the money had belonged to the peer. Richard Snead, at whose suit the money had been attached, also affirmed at the Bar that he did not know that Ardglass was a peer. Snead was now willing for the money to be paid and the attachment to be taken off, which the House ordered. He last sat that session on 13 July, having received leave to be absent on the 10th. On 15 July he registered his proxy with Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden.<sup>8</sup> He had attended in all on 29 days of that part of the session, 45 per cent of the total.</p><p>Ardglass was absent from the House when Parliament resumed in November 1661. He was excused a call of the House on 25 Nov., it being noted that he had given a proxy. On 3 May 1662 Richard Hickling made an affidavit that Richard Kinge, a servant of Ardglass’s had been imprisoned at the suit of John Hatton, although nothing was done in the matter before the session ended on 19 May.<sup>9</sup> He attended on the second day of the next session, 19 Feb. 1663, but his absence was noted at a call of the House on 23 February. He was named to the committee for petitions on 25 Feb. and last attended that session on 31 Mar., having been present on 18 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total. On 2 Apr. he registered his proxy with Campden, although the proxy books also contain a proxy from him to Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, on the same date which was crossed out. On Wharton’s forecast of 13 July 1663 for the division on the motion of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, Ardglass was deemed in favour by proxy.</p><p>Ardglass was absent from the opening of the 1664 session on 16 Mar. and was excused a call of the House on 4 Apr. when he was said to be in Ireland. He first attended on 28 Apr. and was present on the last day of the session 27 May 1664, having attended on 14 days of the session, 39 per cent of the total. He was absent at calls of the House on 7 Dec. 1664 and 1 Oct. 1666. He did not appear again in the House until 17 Oct. 1667, early in the session of 1667-9. He was present again at the adjournment on 19 Dec., having attended on 27 days, 53 per cent of the total of that part of the session. He last attended the House when it resumed in February 1668, but only for two days.</p><p>Ardglass died on 3 Oct. 1668 and was buried at Ilam. He was succeeded by his son, Thomas Cromwell*, as 6th Baron Cromwell and 3rd earl of Ardglass [I]. His widow, who had a jointure of £1,500 p.a. in 1674, married Charles Cotton, the poet.<sup>10</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
DANVERS, Robert (1624-74) |
<p><strong><surname>DANVERS</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>VILLIERS</strong>) (<em>formerly</em> <strong>WRIGHT and HOWARD</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (1624–74)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>John Villiers, Visct. Purbeck 18 Feb. 1658 as 2nd Visct. PURBECK |
|
Never sat. |
|
MP Westbury Jan.-Feb. 1659, Malmesbury 1660 |
<p><em>b</em>. 19 Oct. 1624, s. of Frances, da. of Sir Edward Coke<sup>‡</sup>, l.c.j.k.b. 1613-16, of Stoke Poges, Bucks., w. of John Villiers<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Purbeck (c.1591-1658). <em>educ</em>. in France c.1633-41. <em>m</em>. 23 Nov. 1648, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1709), da. and coh. of Sir John Danvers<sup>‡</sup> of Dauntsey, Wilts. 2s. 3da. <em>suc</em>. mother 1645. <em>d</em>.1674. <em>admon</em>. 14 Mar. 1676 to Thomas Hughes, guardian of heir Robert, Viscount Purbeck.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Col. of ft. (royalist) 1643-4; gov. Oswestry 1643-4.</p><p>Freeman, Chipping Wycombe 1668.</p> |
|
<p>Whether Danvers possessed a peerage that entitled him to be regarded as a member of the House of Lords was the subject of much controversy. The mental health of John Villiers, Viscount Purbeck (older brother of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham) was fragile.<sup>2</sup> His wife deserted him in 1621 and was subsequently convicted in the court of high commission of adultery with Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, a younger son of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Suffolk. It was a matter of common belief that Sir Robert was the biological father of Lady Purbeck’s son. The child was initially christened as Robert Wright but subsequently assumed the surname of Howard before taking that of his wife’s father in 1655. Nevertheless, Viscount Purbeck did not sue for a legal separation or Church court divorce and appears to have recognized the young man as his son and heir. Like the analogous case of Nicholas Knollys*, who styled himself 3rd earl of Banbury, the normal application of common law rules suggests that Danvers was legitimate and ought to have succeeded to the viscountcy at the death of his mother’s husband.</p><p>In the eyes of the House of Lords in 1660, Danvers was indeed a viscount. Having once been a Catholic and a royalist, Danvers had married the daughter of a man who was to become one of the regicide judges and then shifted both his religious and political allegiances, becoming a Presbyterian supporter of Parliament. On 15 June 1660 the House of Lords ordered his arrest for treasonable words. When he was brought to the House in the custody of Black Rod the following day, the charges included informations against him by Henry Carey*, 2nd earl of Monmouth, who testified that he had ‘heard the said Viscount Purbeck say, that rather than the late king should want one to cut off his head, he would do it himself’ and by William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre, that Purbeck had declared the regicide Bradshaw to be ‘a gallant man, the preserver of our liberties … [who he] … hoped … would do justice upon that tyrant (speaking of the late king).’ He was also accused of blasphemy. The House ordered him to take his place as a peer, but he refused, denying his peerage on the grounds that, ‘1. This honour was but a shadow, without a substance. 2. His small estate was unfit to maintain any such honour. 3. That noble family he comes of never owned him; neither hath he any estate from them.’ Yet although he also tried to stand on his status as a Member of the Commons, he effectively accepted his peerage status by petitioning the crown to pay a fine ‘to clear him of any title to that honour’ and, as he told the House that day, the crown had accepted his offer. The House did not order his release from imprisonment until 10 Sept. and even then it was on bail of £10,000. At no point during these transactions did the House consider him to be anything other than a peer. Danvers duly paid his fine to the crown in the autumn of 1660 but a year later, on 25 Nov. 1661, when it was noted that his name had been omitted at a call of the House a fresh investigation into his entitlement to sit was ordered. No report was made and there the matter rested until after his death.</p><p>In April 1675 Danvers’ son, also named Robert Villiers and still a minor, claimed the viscountcy. In his report to the crown (a copy of which was delivered to the House on 30 Apr. 1675), the attorney general declared that the matter should be referred to the House of Lords ‘forasmuch as it is a considerable question (never yet resolved that I know of) whether a peer can by a fine bar or extinguish an entailed honour.’ The claim also attracted opposition from the Villiers family in the person of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and Buckingham’s kinsman, William Feilding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh. The House did not rule on the matter until forced to do so when the young man came of age in 1678 and claimed a writ of summons. On 18 June the House resolved ‘that no fine now levied, or at any time hereafter to be levied, to the king, can bar such title of honour, or the right of any person claiming such title under him that levied, or shall levy, such fine.’ Given the House’s insistence on its jurisdiction over the claimant’s father in 1660, despite allegations of his illegitimacy, the logical outcome of its decision that a peerage could not be relinquished would seem to have been that the claimant should have been admitted to the House as 3rd Viscount Villiers. With Buckingham and Denbigh still vehemently opposed to such a move, the House was reluctant to agree to his admission, although recognition of its own inconsistency was implicit in its decision on 20 June to petition the crown for leave to bring in a bill to disable his claim to the peerage. No such bill was ever passed. Villiers never received a writ of summons but continued to style himself Viscount Purbeck; after his death in 1684 so did his son John Villiers.</p> |
R.P. |
|
DARCY, Conyers (1599-1689) |
<p><strong><surname>DARCY</surname></strong>, <strong>Conyers</strong> (1599–1689)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 3 Mar. 1654 as 8th Bar. DARCY and 5th Bar. CONYERS; <em>cr. </em>5 Dec. 1682 earl of HOLDERNESSE |
|
First sat 30 May 1660; last sat 8 June 1661 |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 24 Jan. 1599, 1st s. of Conyers Darcy<sup>†</sup>, 7th Bar. Darcy of Knaith and 4th Bar. Conyers and Dorothy, da. of Sir Henry Belasyse, bt.; bro. of Hon. James Darcy<sup>‡ </sup>and Hon. Marmaduke Darcy<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m.</em> 14 Oct. 1616, Grace, da. of Thomas Rokeby of Skiers, Yorks., 6s. (5 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 7da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> 14 June 1689.</p> |
<p>Constable, Middleham Castle 1660-71; bailiff and steward, liberty of Richmond, Yorks. (N. Riding) 1660-71; kpr., Richmond Forest, Yorks. (N. Riding) 1660-71.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of ft 1642-3;<sup>3</sup> capt. tp. of ind. horse 13 June-16 Aug. 1667.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas by E. Mascall, 1640s, York Museums Trust; oil on canvas, aft. Robert Walker, 1650s, sold by Bonhams 15 Jan. 2008.</p> |
<p>Conyers Darcy’s father, also named Conyers Darcy, had become 7th Baron Darcy and 4th Baron Conyers in 1641 after petitioning Charles I to bring both baronies out of abeyance. It has been estimated that, through inheritances and advantageous marriages, the Darcy family had acquired an estate worth between £4,000 and £5,000 p.a. by the time of the Interregnum.<sup>5</sup> Their estates were based in the North Riding of Yorkshire, with the principal residence at Hornby Castle near Richmond. In 1663 Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, lord lieutenant of the North Riding, calculated for the privy council that the Darcy estates were worth at least £1,600 p.a., the fourth highest in the riding.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Conyers Darcy initially served as a colonel in the royalist army in the Civil War and was seriously wounded at the storming of Burton-upon-Trent in 1643. He retired from fighting from that point, leaving the command of the regiment to his younger brother Marmaduke, who became one of Charles II’s staunchest companions.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Another brother, Henry, also fought for the king, and between them these brothers established the reputation of their family as leading royalists. In 1654 Conyers succeeded to his father’s two baronies. He was, and is, often referred to as Baron Conyers and Darcy, a misnomer as the barony of Darcy was the senior of the two. Other sources termed him merely, and correctly, Baron Darcy and so he shall be referred to in this biography.</p><p>At the Restoration Darcy’s local influence in the North Riding was confirmed when he was appointed constable of Middleham Castle, steward and bailiff of the liberty of Richmond, and keeper of that liberty’s forest, although he resigned these posts to his son Conyers Darcy*, later 2nd earl of Holdernesse, in 1671. He confined his activities to the north, perhaps prevented from travelling to Westminster by the war wound which had rendered him lame (and of which he had complained in 1647 when summoned to attend the committee for compounding in London).<sup>8</sup> He attended the House for only about 18 days in each of the years 1660 and 1661, and when he was in attendance he did not take an active part and was appointed to no committees.</p><p>In early 1660 Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton considered Darcy one of the ‘lords with the king’ in his list analyzing the potential composition of the Convention House of Lords, and throughout his career Darcy did consistently support the court. He may have been largely absent but he was regular in assigning proxies, and these were usually given to lords who would vote with the government. Throughout the 1660s he gave his proxy to Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, a privy councillor and gentleman of the bed chamber, and the father-in-law of his son and namesake Conyers. Darcy first gave him his proxy when he left the Convention after only 17 sittings on 22 June 1660, after he was given leave by the House to go into the country. His proxy with Berkshire was formally registered on 23 July for the remainder of the Convention. Darcy spent an almost equally brief time in the Cavalier Parliament, in which he sat from its first day for all of 20 sittings until he was given leave of the House on 6 June 1661 to be absent. He last sat in the House two days later, 8 June 1661, and registered his proxy with Berkshire two days after that for the remainder of the session. He continued to entrust his proxy to Berkshire for most of the remaining sessions of the Cavalier Parliament until Berkshire’s death on 16 July 1669: from 25 Nov. 1664 to 2 Mar. 1665; from 21 Sept. 1666 to 8 Feb. 1667; and from 12 Oct. 1667 to 1 Mar. 1669.</p><p>On 20 Oct. 1666 it was to Berkshire’s son, Charles Howard*, summoned to the House in his father’s lifetime as Howard of Charlton but more usually styled Viscount Andover (later 2nd earl of Berkshire), that Darcy complained about an issue of precedence. The Irish peer George Saunders<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Castleton [I], had insisted on taking precedence over Darcy and other English peers during the visit of James*, duke of York, to his namesake city in 1665. Darcy wanted the matter of the precedence of foreign nobility in England to be settled, and his letter was quickly brought to the attention of the committee for privileges by John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover, in October 1666.<sup>9</sup> On 14 Nov. 1666 Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, the lord great chamberlain, reported the committee’s view that a bill be brought into the House ‘asserting the right of precedency of the English peerage before all foreign nobility whatsoever’. The House, having heard the contents of Darcy’s letter to Andover, decided instead that the committee should draw up an address to the king, ‘he being the fountain of all honour’. Darcy’s fellow Yorkshire peer, Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, who was also prominent as the earl of Cork [I] and a major landowner in Ireland, may well have listened to these proceedings with some trepidation, but could take some comfort that ‘their anger extends most to such of England as have purchased titles in Ireland and Scotland where they have no estates but get those honours for precedency’.<sup>10</sup> Proceedings on the address in the committee were long running and it had to be reminded again on 22 Oct. 1667 to report. Eventually an address condemning the pretensions of foreign peers in England was reported and, ‘after a serious debate’, agreed upon by the House on 4 Mar. 1668.<sup>11</sup> Darcy, however, was absent from the House throughout these proceedings despite having instigated them.</p><p>From 1669, the year of Berkshire’s death, to 1677 Darcy assigned his proxy consistently to the duke of York: from 20 Oct. to 11 Dec. 1669; from 3 Feb. 1670 to 22 Apr. 1671; and from 1 Feb. to 29 Mar. 1673. This last was a session when York was apparently in high demand as a proxy holder, and Darcy was lucky to get his registration in early before the session began.<sup>12</sup> York held Darcy’s proxy again for the two sessions of 1675, from 1 Apr. to 9 June 1675 and again from 1 Oct. to 22 Nov. 1675, during the latter of which York was able to use it to vote, ultimately unsuccessfully, for the address calling for the dissolution of Parliament. The last period when York held his proxy was from 2 Feb. 1677 to 13 May 1678. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, not surprisingly considering this record of proxy donation, categorized Darcy as ‘vile’ in his list of lay peers in spring 1677. Darcy did not assign any proxies in the remaining sessions of 1678 and Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), marked him as absent and of uncertain views in his calculations of potential supporters and opponents for his impeachment proceedings in spring 1679. Darcy did not assign his proxy to any peer during the Exclusion Parliaments or during James II’s Parliament.</p><p>On 5 Dec. 1682 Darcy was created earl of Holdernesse, although the previous holder of that title, Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, had not yet been buried. This may have been a reward not only for his own loyal role in northern affairs but to the much more visible royalism of other members of his family. His younger brothers James<sup>‡</sup> and Marmaduke Darcy<sup>‡</sup> both had positions at court, and both had served the court interest in Parliament as Members for Richmond, James during the Convention and Marmaduke in the Cavalier Parliament. Most important was Darcy’s son and heir Conyers, who was active in northern commissions and affairs and sat as Member for the county of Yorkshire in the Cavalier Parliament. In 1680 he was summoned to the House in his father’s barony of Conyers. This acceleration was unprecedented in that the unwritten rules indicated that only a son of a peer at the level of earl or above could assume one of his father’s subsidiary baronies during his lifetime. It is likely that Baron Darcy’s promotion to an earldom was essentially intended to make the acceleration of his son two years previously more regular. It was also probably a preparation for making his heir, a loyal court supporter, an earl upon his father’s seemingly imminent death (he was 83 when raised to the earldom). Yet his son still had to wait another seven years, until 14 June 1689, before his father died and he could claim the earldom and the Yorkshire estates for himself. By the time of his death, the aged Holdernesse had well and truly earned a reputation as a recluse in his northern fastness. His fellow Yorkshire peer Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, threatened the king in a letter of 23 Mar. 1689 that unless the arrears of his pension were paid he would be compelled ‘to shut up his house, as Lord Darcy [sic] has done, and live like a poor gentleman’.<sup>13</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
DARCY, Conyers (1622-92) |
<p><strong><surname>DARCY</surname></strong>, <strong>Conyers</strong> (1622–92)</p> |
<em>accel. </em>1 Nov. 1680 Bar. CONYERS; <em>styled </em>1682-89 Ld. Darcy and Conyers; <em>suc. </em>fa. 14 June 1689 as 2nd earl of HOLDERNESSE |
|
First sat 3 Nov. 1680; last sat 22 Nov. 1686 |
|
MP Boroughbridge 1660; Yorks. 1661 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 3 Mar. 1622, 3rd but o. surv. s. of Conyers Darcy*, later earl of Holdernesse, and Grace, da. and h. of Thomas Rokeby, of Skiers, Yorks. <em>educ.</em> Univ. Coll., Oxf. 1637; G. Inn 1640. <em>m.</em> (1) 14 May 1645, Catherine (<em>bur</em>. 30 Aug. 1649), da. of Francis Fane<sup>†</sup>, earl of Westmorland, <em>s.p.</em>; (2) 6 Feb. 1650, Frances (<em>d.</em> 9 Apr. 1670), da. of Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (3) 19 May 1672, Frances (<em>bur</em>. 5 Jan. 1681), da. of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset, wid. of Richard Molyneux, 2nd Visct. Molyneux [I] and of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, <em>s.p.</em>; (4) 8 Jan. 1685, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1690), da. and coh. of John Frescheville*, Bar. Frescheville, wid. of Philip Warwick of Chislehurst, Kent, <em>s.p.</em> <em>d.</em> 13 Dec. 1692; <em>admon</em>. to creditors 25 Feb. 1693.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Yorks. (N. Riding) 1661-Feb. 1688, Yorks. (W. Riding) 1677-81;<sup>2</sup> col. militia ft., Yorks. (N. Riding) by 1666-81;<sup>3</sup> commr., loyal and indigent officers, Yorks. 1662, corporations, Yorks. 1662,<sup>4</sup> recusants, Yorks. (W. and E. Ridings), 1675;<sup>5</sup> constable, Middleham Castle 1671-<em>d.</em>; bailiff and steward, liberty of Richmond, 1671-<em>d.</em>; kpr. forest of the liberty of Richmond, 1671-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Capt. indep. tp. of horse 1667.<sup>7</sup></p> |
|
<p>Conyers Darcy, son and namesake of Conyers Darcy, 8th Baron Darcy and 5th Baron Conyers (and later earl of Holdernesse), was, like his father, influential in Yorkshire and particularly its North Riding. Throughout the 1660s and 70s he held a number of local offices and commissions. He was deputy lieutenant and colonel of militia for the North Riding under his kinsman Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, in which role he was prominent in the suppression of the 1663 ‘Farnley Wood’ conspiracy.<sup>9</sup> In 1671 his father passed over to him the offices connected with the liberty of Richmond which were traditionally held by the Darcy family, and which enabled Conyers Darcy to have a strong interest in elections for the borough of Richmond.<sup>10</sup></p><p>During his service in the Commons, in which he was largely inactive, Darcy was seen as a government supporter and a close follower of his fellow Yorkshireman Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).<sup>11</sup> He relied on the government’s protection when in February 1674 Darcy arranged – many said by forcibly abducting the bride – the secret marriage of his son John Darcy<sup>‡</sup> to Bridget Sutton, only daughter of the deceased Robert Sutton*, Baron Lexinton. Her guardians’ angry petition to the House of Lords against the Darcys, presented on 23 Feb. 1674, was lost when Parliament was prorogued the following day.<sup>12</sup> In May 1674 the attorney general Sir Francis North*, later Baron Guilford, assured Darcy’s courtier uncle, Marmaduke Darcy<sup>‡</sup>, that the king would try to have proceedings in the case halted, for ‘I believe the world expects the king should show some favour to a family that has deserved so well of the crown.’<sup>13</sup> On at least two other occasions Darcy turned to Danby to acquire offices for nephews and sons, and when Danby forwarded Darcy’s request for a military commission for his son Philip to the secretary of state Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, he appended the recommendation, ‘Besides his quality, you are enough witness of his constant and faithful serving of the crown’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Darcy stood down from the Commons at the election of spring 1679 to allow the selection of his brother-in-law (both were married to daughters of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset), Charles Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, as his replacement, as he had agreed to do as far back as 1675.<sup>15</sup> But Clifford of Lanesborough and his fellow knight of the shire for Yorkshire, Henry Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Baron Fairfax of Cameron [S], both favoured exclusion. In order to ensure that Darcy’s ‘court’ vote was not lost, he was summoned to the Lords by a writ of acceleration dated 1 Nov. 1680, only a few days after the long-prorogued second Exclusion Parliament met for business on 21 October. His acceleration as ‘Baron Conyers’ was unusual, indeed unprecedented, in that his is the only case where the eldest son of a baron was summoned in one of his father’s secondary baronies; usually such writs were reserved for sons of peers at the rank of earl or above. In December 1682, no doubt to formalize retrospectively this highly irregular acceleration of a son of a mere baron, Baron Conyers’s aged and invalid father, Baron Darcy and Conyers, was created earl of Holdernesse.</p><p>Darcy received his writ on 2 Nov. 1680, as he proudly informed Sir William Dugdale, and was introduced to the House as Baron Conyers the following day.<sup>16</sup> There was a question from the beginning of where he should sit in the House with a title which was formally held by his father at that time, and he was forced to leave the House as it debated the point of precedence. It was eventually decided that he should be placed in the House’s seating as if he actually were Baron Conyers, that is below William Stourton*, 12th Baron Stourton. Lord Conyers proceeded to attend the House for a further 35 sittings of that Parliament until he left on 18 Dec., and he was named to three select committees, including that to consider the statutes against recusants with an eye to providing relief for dissenting Protestants. On 15 Nov. 1680 he voted to reject the exclusion bill at its first reading. Other of his votes were, surprisingly, less agreeable to the court. On 23 Nov. he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the dangerous state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. he voted the Catholic, William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.</p><p>In the weeks preceding the Parliament of March 1681 Danby forecast that Conyers would support his petition for bail from the Tower and Danby’s son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, was pleased to inform his father of Conyers’s arrival at Oxford on 23 Mar. 1681, the day before Danby’s followers were planning to present the petition.<sup>17</sup> Conyers remained for the following four days, during which he was named to the large committee to receive further information regarding the ‘horrid plot’ against the king, until the snap dissolution of 28 March. He continued to be a friend and advocate for Danby and his family in the years following. With Danby still in the Tower, it was Latimer who maintained frequent social relations with Conyers when both were in Yorkshire.<sup>18</sup> In early 1684 Conyers was also one of the signatories in support of Danby’s successful petition for bail.<sup>19</sup></p><p>From the time of his father’s creation as earl of Holdernesse in December 1682, Lord Conyers became styled by a new courtesy title, as Lord Darcy. In the eyes of the House, though, he was still Lord Conyers by writ of acceleration, and as such he attended James II’s Parliament in 1685 diligently. He missed only 14 sitting days throughout the Parliament, but most of his attention was spent on its first part in the spring, when he attended all but one meeting and was named to six committees, including that for the bill against the clandestine marriage of minors – a matter which would have touched him personally considering the accusations levelled against him and his son in 1674. After the adjournment he only came to the last five sitting days before the Parliament was prorogued on 20 Nov. 1685 and he sat in the House for the last time on 22 Nov. 1686, when Parliament was again prorogued.</p><p>From 1687 at least, contemporaries considered Lord Conyers an opponent of the king’s attempt to repeal the Test Acts and penal statutes. Certainly his eldest son and heir, John Darcy<sup>‡</sup>, was a leading figure in the Revolution of 1688 in the north.<sup>20</sup> It may have been he who effected the reconciliation between Danby and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, which smoothed the way for the Williamite occupation of York and Nottingham. John Darcy died unexpectedly on 6 Jan. 1689, a death which apparently was kept secret for a number of days, for on 10 Jan. the returning officer formally submitted the papers returning him as Member for Richmond in the Convention.</p><p>On the fourth day of the Convention, 25 Jan. 1689, the House addressed a missive to Conyers demanding his attendance at its important proceedings, but his letter of 31 Jan., explaining his incapacity owing to his weakness and the recent death of his son, was accepted and his absence was formally excused on 6 February. He added to his tale of woe following a subsequent peremptory summons of 2 Mar. 1689 when two of his servants appeared before the House on 13 Mar. to present his excuses and his letter explaining that his own debilitating illness, the death of his son, with the consequent need to take care of his now fatherless grandchildren and the weakness and impending death of his own father all prevented him from leaving his northern estates. The House summoned him again on 28 May, but his excuse of his and his father’s illness was again accepted on 8 June.<sup>21</sup> His father the earl of Holdernesse did die on 14 June 1689, but Conyers Darcy never did attend the House as the 2nd earl of Holdernesse and only outlived his father by three years before his own death on 13 Dec. 1692. He died intestate and it is likely, though not certain, that the consortium of administrators to whom his estate was granted (and whose inventory valued Holdernesse’s personal estate and arrears of rent due in February 1693 at just under £868) were to act as guardians for the widowed Holdernesse’s orphaned grandchildren, the eldest of which, Robert Darcy*, inherited the estates and earldom as a minor aged 11.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
DARCY, Robert (1681-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>DARCY</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1681–1722)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Darcy and Conyers, 1689-92; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 13 Dec. 1692 (a minor) as 3rd earl of HOLDERNESSE |
|
First sat 22 Dec. 1702; last sat 9 June 1721 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 24 Nov. 1681, 2nd but 1st. surv. s. of John Darcy<sup>‡</sup> (1659-89) and Bridget, da. of Robert Sutton*, Bar. Lexinton; bro. of Conyers Darcy<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> King’s, Camb. 1698; travelled abroad (Italy) 1701-2.<sup>1</sup> <em>m.</em> 26 May 1715, Frederica, da. of Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg and <em>suo jure</em> Countess of Mertola [Portugal], 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 1da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d.</em> 20 Jan. 1722; <em>will</em> 12 July 1717, pr. 12 June 1723.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>First Ld. Board of Trade 31 Jan. 1718-2 May 1719; PC 13 Feb. 1718-<em>d.</em>; gent. of bedchamber, 1719-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Constable, Middleham Castle, 1693-<em>d.</em>; bailiff and steward, liberty of Richmond, 1693-<em>d.</em>; kpr. Richmond Forest, 1693-<em>d.</em>;<sup>4</sup> ld.-lt., Yorks. (N. Riding), 1714-<em>d.</em></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Enoch Seeman jun., c.1710, sold at Christie’s, 1 Dec. 2000.</p> |
<p>Robert Darcy’s father, John Darcy, had achieved some notoriety in 1674 by his clandestine marriage to Bridget Sutton, daughter of Robert Sutton, Baron Lexinton, and it is likely that their son was named after his maternal grandfather. John Darcy was prominent in national and Yorkshire politics, and he and his family were close to that of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).<sup>6</sup> He was notably opposed to James II’s policies from as early as November 1685 and worked with Danby in raising the north for William of Orange in 1688, playing a shadowy role in the reconciliation between Danby and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire and an important part in the capture York on 22 Nov. 1688.<sup>7</sup> He was formally returned as member for Richmond on 10 Jan. 1689 but, apparently unbeknown to the returning officer, had died four days previously of quinsy. His young son, Robert, succeeded to the titles and estates of his grandfather, Conyers Darcy*, 2nd earl of Holdernesse, on that earl’s death on 13 Dec. 1692, after having just turned 11 years old. He did not sit in the House until 22 Dec. 1702, shortly after he had returned from his European travels and had come of age.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Holdernesse arrived in the House two months into the first session (1702-3) of Anne’s first Parliament, and he proceeded to sit on a further 21 sitting days until the prorogation on 27 Feb. 1703. At the start of his parliamentary career he appears to have been perceived as a Tory. On 16 Jan. 1703 Holdernesse voted against the Whig amendment to the penalty clause in the Occasional Conformity Bill, as Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, had earlier forecast he would. In his working lists resulting from this division, the Whig Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, considered Holdernesse ‘bad’, although he placed a query mark next to his name. When the bill came before the House again in the following session of 1703-4 (when Holdernesse attended only 28 per cent of the sitting days) Sunderland predicted that he would vote for it with the Tories. In the event Holdernesse abstained, leaving the House before the division on 14 Dec. 1703. He then went on to absent himself entirely for the following session of 1704-5.</p><p>In the weeks following the dissolution of the Parliament in April 1705, a contemporary considered Holdernesse a supporter of the Hanoverian Succession. Holdernesse attended 42 per cent of the sittings of each of the sessions of 1705-6 and 1706-7, and on 2 Feb. 1707 Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham, registered his proxy with him, although this was vacated the following day by that peer’s return to the House. Holdernesse failed to attend any of the nine meetings of the brief session of April 1707 and came to only 15 sitting days (14 per cent) of the first session of the first Parliament of Great Britain in 1707-8. Holdernesse missed the first session of the new Parliament, in 1708-9 entirely.</p><p>Holdernesse may not have been an active member of the House of Lords, but throughout the reign of Anne together with his brother Conyers, he worked to increase the electoral influence of his family in Yorkshire and especially in the liberty, and electoral borough, of Richmond. The Darcys competed for electoral influence in Richmond with Thomas Yorke<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton. Wharton was keen to wrest control of the borough’s representation from Holdernesse’s kinsman, the Tory James Darcy<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Richmond since 1698. In a letter of 1704 Wharton professed his loyalty to the Darcys, writing that he was ‘always glad of any occasion of showing my service to my Lord Holdernesse and his brother to whom I have the honour to be related’, but he pointedly specified that he did not extend the same friendship to James Darcy.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Well in advance of the election of 1705 Wharton made a concerted effort, in alliance with Thomas Yorke, to purchase burgage properties (and hence votes) in Richmond, spending £1,293 on buying 21 burgages. Yorke and Wharton’s kinsman Wharton Dunch<sup>‡ </sup>were returned for the borough at that election. James Darcy contested the return but his petition became redundant after Dunch’s death later that year. He failed again at the resultant by-election in December 1705, when Wharton was able to manage the return of the Worcestershire Whig, William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>. Yorke and Wharton determined the burgesses for the three subsequent general elections. Wharton’s death in 1715 and the succession of his wayward and Catholic son Philip Wharton*, 2nd marquess (later duke) of Wharton, finally allowed the Darcys to work to counter the Wharton interest in Richmond, and from 1720 both Holdernesse and Conyers Darcy engaged in a sustained campaign of purchasing burgages in Richmond, making an electoral alliance with John Yorke<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Yorke’s son.<sup>10</sup></p><p>With their influence at Richmond in abeyance during the reign of Anne the Darcy brothers turned their attention to the county itself. Conyers Darcy was returned as a knight of the shire for Yorkshire after a by-election in December 1707, the second in one year, but then lost the seat in a bitterly fought election in 1708 and decided not to stand again in the general election of October 1710. In a letter of April 1710 Holdernesse’s mother Bridget Darcy, dowager countess of Holdernesse, wrote to Sarah Churchill, duchess of Marlborough, that ‘my Lord thinks he must give up his designs of his brother’s election for the county of Yorkshire, only on the account of the vast expense (which he sustained last time) … he declines it when he’s pretty sure of success and ’tis only for want of money that we shrink.’<sup>11</sup> Perhaps finding no assistance coming from the Marlboroughs for Conyers’s career in Parliament – ‘it must not always be the lot of younger brothers to be patriots of their country’, the dowager countess of Holdernesse lamented – the family appear to have turned instead to the Court Whig, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, for patronage. In December 1710 Conyers Darcy became gentleman of the horse, the next immediate officer in the royal stables under Somerset who was master of the horse. In June 1711 he was appointed avenor, chief equerry and clerk martial, entrusted to swear in all officers in the stables and to keep its accounts. After Somerset’s dismissal in January 1712 Darcy was one of the two commissioners entrusted to exercise the mastership of the horse in his absence. Holdernesse was not only connected to the court through his brother but also by virtue of a number of offices of trust that he himself held under the Crown. He was bailiff and steward of the liberty of Richmond, keeper of its forest, and constable of nearby Middleham Castle, positions which had almost become hereditary in his family.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Holdernesse came to only 34 percent of the sittings of the 1709-10 session. He may have come specifically to hear the proceedings against Henry Sacheverell, and he voted the doctor guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours in March 1710. In a list of the peerage, perhaps annotated at about the time of the Sacheverell trial, Holdernesse was classified as a Whig. He did not attend much of the Parliament of 1710-13. He attended ten sittings in the first session of 1710-11, 12 sittings in 1711-12, and only one (its first day) in spring 1713. His attendance was similarly low in the following Parliament, as he came to only eight sittings in the session of spring 1714 and four in that of August 1714, upon the death of the queen. Before the beginning of the 1710 Parliament Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, considered Holdernesse’s partisan affiliation doubtful, classifying him at best as a Court Whig. Holdernesse voted with the Whigs on 20 Dec. 1711 to disable the Scottish peer James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from taking a seat in the House as duke of Brandon in the peerage of Great Britain. This was Holdernesse’s first attendance in that session, and he probably came specifically to vote against Hamilton.</p><p>Thereafter Holdernesse’s close connection to Somerset became increasingly obvious. On 21 Jan. 1712, only two days after Somerset was dismissed from his post as master of horse to the queen, Holdernesse registered his proxy with him; Somerset held it until Holdernesse’s return on 27 March. Somerset in turn entrusted his proxy to Holdernesse on 31 Mar., but Holdernesse only remained in the House for that session until 10 Apr. and registered his proxy with Somerset on 24 Apr., thus vacating the proxy he held from Somerset. On 2 June 1714, having been absent from the House for some three weeks, Holdernesse again registered his proxy with Somerset. Nottingham predicted Holdernesse would oppose the Schism Bill, and the proxy may well have been intended for use against it.</p><p>After several years of low attendance in the House under Anne, Holdernesse became much more politically active in the reign of George I, when he was more clearly considered a Whig closely connected to, and patronized by, the court. In December 1714 he was made lord-lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire, his family’s traditional base of influence, in George I’s sweeping replacement of Anne’s lord-lieutenants. The court Whig Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg, sufficiently approved of Holdernesse’s party allegiances and his prominent position at court to agree to his marriage with his daughter Frederica in 1715 and to assign him his proxy on 21 Mar. 1716 and again on 14 Feb. 1718. A fuller and more detailed account of Holdernesse’s career in the House after the Hanoverian Succession will appear in the 1715-90 volumes in this series.</p><p>In a letter of October 1721 Holderneses informed secretary of state Sunderland that he was travelling to Bath to cure his ill health. He died there on 20 January 1722, apparently of a fistula.<sup>13</sup> For his young daughter Louisa Carolina his will provided for a portion of £10,000 while his titles and estate passed to his one surviving son Robert Darcy*, 4th earl of Holdernesse, who was only three years old at the time of his succession.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
D'AUVERQUERQUE, Henry (1672-1754) |
<p><strong><surname>D'AUVERQUERQUE</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1672–1754)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>24 Dec. 1698 earl of GRANTHAM |
|
First sat 4 Jan. 1699; last sat 30 Aug. 1748 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>.1672,<sup>1</sup> 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Henry de Nassau, Lord of Auverquerque and Frances van Aersen (<em>d</em>.1720), da. of Cornelius, Lord of Sommeladyck and Plaata, Holland. <em>educ</em>. DCL Oxford 1695; LLD Cambridge 1728. <em>m</em>. 12 Jan. 1697 (with £10,000),<sup>2</sup> his cos. Henrietta (<em>d</em>. 1724), da. of Thomas Butler*, Bar. Butler of Moore Park and earl of Ossory [I], and Emilia, da. of Loderwyk van Nassau, and sis. of Henry de Nassau, Ld. of Auverquerque, 2s. (<em>d.v.p.</em>), 4da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>3</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 7 Oct. 1708. <em>d</em>. 5 Dec. 1754; <em>will</em> 25 Aug. 1753 (codicil 19 May 1754), pr. 10 Dec. 1754.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Chamberlain to Princess of Wales Feb. 1717–27;<sup>5</sup> to Queen Caroline 1727–37; PC 5 July 1727.</p> |
|
<p>D’Auverquerque was well connected to the upper echelons of English, Irish and Dutch society. His father was a second cousin of William III, being the offspring of an illegitimate son of Prince Maurice, whose sisters married Thomas Butler, earl of Ossory [I], and Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington.<sup>7</sup> A long-term servant of William of Orange, D’Auverquerque’s father accompanied the Dutch forces to England in 1688, and was soon rewarded with the prestigious post of master of the horse. He eschewed involvement in English politics so successfully that, according to Defoe, despite the unpopularity of Dutch courtiers, ‘no man ever had a bad word for Monsr. Overkirk’.<sup>8</sup> However, his father remained located close to the centre of power, buying the house which is now 10 Downing Street from the Lichfields in 1690. It remained in the family until the Crown reclaimed it after the death of Grantham’s mother in 1720.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Initially it was through his sister, Isabella, that D’Auverquerque’s links with the English peerage became closer. On 10 Mar. 1691 she married Charles Granville*, styled Viscount Lansdown, the heir of John Granville*, earl of Bath. Although Isabella died on 30 Jan. 1692, while giving birth to William Henry Granville*, later 3rd earl of Bath, D’Auverquerque’s mother was to play an important part in the upbringing of the child. Significantly, it was Isabella’s marriage which led Queen Mary to promise many favours to Bath, including the right to nominate a person to be a baron.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Although D’Auverquerque’s father had been naturalized by act of Parliament in 1689, his wife and children had not. On 1 May 1695 a warrant was issued for making D’Auverquerque, his mother, his three brothers – Cornelius, William Maurice (aged 16) and Francis (aged 13) – and his sister Lucy de Nassau (aged 11) free denizens of England.<sup>11</sup> The letters of denization were issued on 29 May.<sup>12</sup> On 28 Dec. leave was given to bring in a bill into the Commons for the naturalization of Henry de Nassau and his siblings (although Cornelius appears to have been omitted). On 5 Feb. 1696 Henry took the oaths in the Commons in order to receive his naturalization, and his brother-in-law, John Granville*, the future Baron Granville, presented a naturalization bill to the House, which the Lords agreed to without amendment, and which received the royal assent on 24 February. In January 1697, D’Auverquerque married his cousin, Lady Henrietta Butler, sister of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston and earl of Arran [I]. Rumours immediately circulated that he would be made a Scottish marquess and an English earl.<sup>13</sup> A son, Henry, was born at the end of October 1697.<sup>14</sup></p><p>It was decided to raise D’Auverquerque to the peerage in the summer of 1698, a warrant being issued on 19 July for him to be made earl of Grantham, with a special remainder to his three brothers. The timing does not appear significant; at the same time Frederick Charles De Roye was made earl of Lifford [I] and Christopher Vane* became Baron Barnard of Barnard Castle.<sup>15</sup> Following his creation in late December 1698, Grantham was introduced into the Lords on 4 Jan. 1699 by Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. Having missed the first seven days of the session, Grantham then attended on 47 days of the remainder, 55 per cent of the total. He was named to 12 committees, 4 of them second reading committees on naturalization bills.</p><p>Grantham attended the prorogation on 24 Aug. 1699. On 6 Sept. he hosted a dinner in his house in St. James’s Park for Ormond, Rochester, Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St. Albans, Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham, Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, and ‘several other persons of quality’.<sup>16</sup> Grantham attended the House on 16 Nov., the opening day of the session of 1699–1700. He was present on 46 days of the session, just over half of the total, being named to four committees.</p><p>Grantham was used as a courtier in ceremonial, hence his reception of the ambassador from Savoy before he entered Greenwich in January 1700, and his accompaniment on 3 Feb. 1701 of the French ambassador when he went to take his farewell audience with the king.<sup>17</sup> It was even reported in the press on 29 June 1700 and by Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> that Grantham had taken possession of the keepership of the privy purse.<sup>18</sup> However, this does not seem to have been the case, for in mid-July 1700 there were more reports that Grantham would obtain the post of privy purse.<sup>19</sup> In spite of all these rumours, the keepership was undertaken by Caspar Henning, a Dutch courtier from Holstein, although there remains the possibility that he was acting for Grantham, as he may have performed the same function as a deputy in the reign of George I.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Grantham attended the prorogations on 1 Aug. and 12 Sept. 1700. He was present on 48 days of the 1701 session, 44 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. He attended the opening day of the 1701–2 session, 30 Dec., sat on 37 days of the session (37 per cent of the total) and was named to 13 committees. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address against the Pretender. Following the demise of William III, Grantham, as one of the Lords present, was named on 8 Mar. to a conference on the death of the king and the accession of Queen Anne. He last sat on 30 April.</p><p>The accession of Queen Anne changed Grantham’s position. His father was no longer a royal servant and confidant of the monarch, but a loyal subordinate of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and played an important part as a Dutch commander of the allied forces. As a consequence, Grantham lost his ‘lodgings below stairs at Hampton Court’ to John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby.<sup>21</sup> When Macky noted his salient points early in Anne’s reign he recorded Grantham simply as ‘son to Monsieur Auverquerque’, married to Ormond’s sister, and ‘a very pretty gentleman’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Grantham attended on the opening day of the 1702–3 session, on 20 Oct. 1702. However he was only present on six days of the session, last sitting on 13 Nov. 1702. His attendance included the thanksgiving service on 12 Nov. for the military victories earlier in the year.<sup>23</sup> His absence may account for his classification as doubtful on the issue of occasional conformity, according to the estimate of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. In early July 1703 Grantham was reported to be on ‘the point of death’ from smallpox, although by the 13th he was past danger.<sup>24</sup> On 20 Oct. he and Arran were at Rochester’s house in New Park, drinking Ormond’s health.<sup>25</sup> He remained close to Ormond, being described in November 1704 by Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], along with Arran and James Kendal<sup>‡</sup>, as Ormond’s ‘counsel learned’, who intended to meet weekly in Whitehall to carry out Ormond’s instructions in relation to his building work at Richmond.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Grantham attended on the opening day of the 1703–4 session, 9 Nov., but only sat on one other day of the session, 30 November. His absence was widely known, for when Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, made a forecast of the division on the bill to prevent occasional conformity, Grantham was placed among the opponents of the bill, but with the comment ‘probably absent as he was’. On 20 Jan. 1704, Grantham and his wife, together with his father, petitioned the Commons for a saving clause in the resumption bill for the rents granted to his father by William III in Wales and the duchy of Cornwall. These had been settled in trustees for the maintenance of Grantham and his wife, and were ‘the only support of them and their family, whose constant residence is in England’. Although the bill was never reported to the House from committee, according to a newsletter report of 5 Feb. Grantham’s petition had secured him relief from the bill’s provisions.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Grantham missed the beginning of the 1704–5 session, first attending on 17 November. In all he attended on 17 days of the session, 17 per cent of the total. He was named to one committee during the session, and last attended on 26 Jan. 1705. His attendance improved for the 1705–6 session: he was present on the opening day (25 Oct.) and attended on 37 days, 38.5 per cent of the total. On 6 Dec. 1705 he voted that the Church was not in danger under the current administration. In mid-September 1706 he was at Bath but he was back in London to attend the prorogation on 22 Oct. 1706.<sup>28</sup> He was then present on the opening day of the session of 1706–7, 3 Dec., attending on 31 days of the session, just over a third of the total.</p><p>Grantham did not attend the short session of April 1707. In that month he moved house from Pall Mall, where he was recorded as residing in the 1705–6 session, to Albemarle Street, where he remained until his death. He was, however, present on 23 Oct. 1707, the opening day of the 1707–8 session, attended on 74 days of the session (69 per cent of the total) and was named to 10 committees. In early May 1708 he was unsurprisingly classed as a Whig.</p><p>On 7 May 1708, the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, referred a memorial from Grantham to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. The import of this memorial became clear when a warrant was issued on 14 July to Pembroke to pay £1,000 to Grantham as royal bounty, in regard of his many faithful services. He had applied for a pension of £1,000 p.a. out of the Irish revenue, but the queen did not think it proper to burden the revenue.<sup>29</sup> On 21 Sept. Erasmus Lewis<sup>‡</sup> reported that Grantham would get a pension of £1,000 a year out of the Post Office, but added a week later that it had not yet been passed although ‘it is supposed they will before the sessions open’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Grantham’s father died on campaign on 7 Oct. 1708.<sup>31</sup> It seems likely that the pension of £2,000 p.a. out of the duchy of Cornwall granted to him, his heirs and assignees in 1695 devolved onto Grantham.<sup>32</sup> Marlborough was under the mistaken impression that Grantham had been granted a pension by the queen, but, as Godolphin pointed out, although he had asked for £1,000 p.a. during his father’s life, ‘the queen chose rather to give him one of £1,000 believing, as it proved, that poor Monsieur d’Auverquerk [<em>sic</em>], would not live to occasion a second payment’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Grantham attended on the opening day of the 1708–9 session, 16 Nov. 1708. He was present on 58 days of the session, a little over 60 per cent of the total, and was appointed to eight committees. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of the resolution that a Scots peer who possessed a British title had the right to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. Grantham made another attempt to secure a pension of £1,000 p.a. in 1709, but on 29 Dec. a warrant was issued to Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, for the payment of £1,000 to Grantham, only as the queen’s free gift and royal bounty in consideration of the great merit and services of his father in the reduction of Ireland, as also of the said earl’s steady and unshaken loyalty. Although the queen had intended to bestow a pension of £1,000 p.a. on him, she had been influenced against doing so by representations from the lord lieutenant.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Grantham attended the House on 15 Nov. 1709, the opening day of the 1709–10 session and was present for 66 days of the session. On 20 Mar. 1710 he voted Dr. Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. On 5 Apr. William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, recorded that, at the House, Grantham was one of those peers pressing him to print the sermon he had preached at St. James’s on 2 Apr. on the theme of ‘the danger and mischief of misguided zeal’.<sup>35</sup> Grantham attended the prorogation on 5 June. His status among the Anglo-Irish, as Ormond’s brother-in-law, was demonstrated on 6 Aug. when he attended the funeral of the dowager duchess of Devonshire (Ossory’s sister) in Westminster Abbey, carrying the pall with her nephews Ormond and Arran, alongside John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, and Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl of Portland.<sup>36</sup></p><p>On 3 Oct. 1710 Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, classed Grantham among the Court Whigs and other doubtfuls in his attitude to the new ministry, rather than as an outright opponent. Grantham attended on the opening day of the 1710–11 session, 25 November. He sat on 43 days of the session, 38 per cent of the total, although he was only present for two days in November, one in December, one in March and two in April 1711. He was named to three committees during the session, two of them inquiring into the Spanish theatre of the war, a matter perhaps of some personal interest as his brother Francis had perished at Almenara in July 1710 (Cornelius was to be killed at Denain in July 1712).</p><p>On 5 Mar. 1711, a warrant was issued to Ormond, as lord lieutenant, to place a yearly pension of £1,000 on the civil list of Ireland for Grantham, mention again being made of the great merit and services of his father in the reduction of Ireland and of his own steady and unshaken loyalty.<sup>37</sup> There followed a petition to the treasury in early June 1711 praying for a royal warrant for an arrear of £1,325 on a pension of £1,000 p.a.<sup>38</sup> In July 1711 Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup> referred to ‘a warrant for some bounty as the earl of Grantham formerly had’, and on 7 Aug. a warrant was sent to Ormond to pay the £1,325 to Grantham.<sup>39</sup> All this was no doubt sanctioned by Oxford to keep Grantham at least quiescent, if not positively supportive of the ministry. Ormond remained an important link between Oxford and Grantham, writing on 21 Aug. to thank the lord treasurer ‘for the dispatch of what lay in the treasury relating to this kingdom, and particularly for my Lord Grantham’s letter’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Oxford remained unsure of Grantham and, although he was recorded as receiving £2,000 in both 1710 and 1711 (probably from the duchy of Cornwall), he received nothing after December 1711.<sup>41</sup> At the beginning of that month Oxford listed him as a query, and on 2 Dec. he placed Grantham among those lords to be canvassed before the ‘No Peace Without Spain’ motion. Grantham’s name does not appear on either of the lists actually covering the votes on 7 and 8 Dec. 1711, but he was present on the opening two days of the session. However, he only attended on eight days of the session and five of these occurred before the recess on 2 Jan. 1712. On 19 Dec. 1711 Grantham was forecast (albeit with a query) as likely to support the cause of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, in the division of the following day on his peerage case, and on the 20th he voted with Oxford against Scots peers to sit by post-Union British titles. He was listed on 29 Dec. as one of the lords whom Oxford designed to contact during the Christmas recess, possibly through the medium of Ormond, who was certainly at work in endeavouring to ‘bring over some lords against next Wednesday’, when Parliament reconvened.<sup>42</sup> After the Christmas recess, Grantham only attended on 17–20 May 1712, and so was absent for the vote on the restraining orders on 28 May.</p><p>On 26 Feb. 1713, Oxford had Grantham on his canvassing list for the 1713 session; any approach may have been successful as Grantham did not attend at all. Clearly, Oxford felt that Grantham was a prospective opponent for on his forecast compiled about 13 June he classed Grantham as expected to vote against the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Again, Oxford’s success in keeping Grantham away can be gleaned from the Whig side, by his appearance on a list prepared for the elector of Hanover as one of those peers deemed ‘right out of principle’, but in the ‘lowest condition’, a pension of £1,000 being suggested.</p><p>Grantham was present on the opening day of the 1714 session, on 16 February. However, after attending on the 18th, he was absent until 4 June. In all he attended on eight days of the session, just over 10 per cent of the total. He was forecast by Nottingham as likely to oppose the schism bill at the end of May or the beginning of June 1714. He last sat in that session on 15 June 1714. Following the death of the queen, Grantham attended the opening of the short session of 1714, on 1 August. He also signed the proclamation of George I.<sup>43</sup> Thereafter he attended on just one other day, 5 Aug.</p><p>In December 1714 Grantham petitioned about William III’s grant to his father, his heirs and assigns of an annuity or yearly rent of £2,000. As the heir of his father Grantham claimed that he was entitled to the annuity, and in February 1715 it was agreed that this would be paid out of the excise. After March 1715 he also seems to have had a pension on the Irish establishment of £1,500 p.a.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Thereafter Grantham had a long career as a courtier, serving the Prince and Princess of Wales, later George II and Queen Caroline. He died on 5 Dec. 1754, whereupon his titles became extinct. Both his sons and all his brothers predeceased him (without heirs). His sister Lucy, who eventually married Nanfan Coote, 2nd earl of Bellomont [I] (<em>d</em>. 1708), on 17 Feb. 1706, also predeceased him, dying in 1744.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
DEVEREUX, Edward (? 1675-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>DEVEREUX</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (? 1675–1700)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 12 Feb. 1683 as 8th Visct. HEREFORD |
|
First sat 20 Oct. 1696; last sat 13 Feb. 1700 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. ?1675 2nd. s. of Leicester Devereux*, 6th Visct. Hereford, and Priscilla, da. of John Catchpole of Suff; bro. of Leicester Devereux*, later 7th Visct. Hereford. <em>m.</em> lic. 25 Apr. 1690, Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Walter Norborne<sup>‡</sup> of Calne, Wilts.; <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 9 Aug. 1700; <em>will</em> 26 July, pr. 8 Nov. 1700.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Steward Courts Baron, Carm. and Card.</p> |
|
<p>Edward Devereux, the younger brother of the 7th viscount, succeeded to the title at the age of eight. Like his brother, he remained under the care of his mother until her death in 1681, after which time he came under the protection of his father’s appointees: George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley (his father’s friend and overseer), and guardians Theophilus Hooke (whose personal financial interests were closely bound to those of the Devereux family), Edward Steynor, Charles Cocks, and Ipswich lawyers Thomas Edgar<sup>‡</sup> (senior and junior).<sup>2</sup> Under the entail in his father’s will, Hereford inherited the Suffolk manor of Sudborne and its associated electoral interest in the borough of Orford where one uncle, Edward, was elected mayor in 1685 and another, Walter Devereux,<sup>‡</sup> was the Member for the Commons.<sup>3</sup></p><p>While still a minor, Hereford was maintained financially from Devereux estates in Pembrokeshire. Hereford’s guardians also oversaw his marriage, at the age of 15, to the 12-year-old daughter (and wealthy coheiress) of Walter Norborne<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>4</sup> In 1689, Hereford obtained a private act to enable him to make a jointure notwithstanding his minority.<sup>5</sup> The bill was introduced to the House on 21 Nov. 1689 and committed the following day. On 3 Dec. Hereford’s mentor Berkeley reported from committee that all the interested parties had been heard and that the bill should be passed without amendment. The next day the House learned that Francis Browne*, 4th Viscount Montagu, had objected to the bill. The Devereux’s entitlement to the viscountcy had been challenged, but not settled, in 1678 by Francis Browne*, 3rd Viscount Montagu.<sup>6</sup> Now, in pursuit of the same end, the 4th Viscount Montagu objected to the wording of the bill because it seemed to confirm the Hereford title and precedency. As a result of Montagu’s objection, the House ordered that counsel be heard on the 13 Dec. on the legitimacy of the title, but on 7 Dec. Charles North*, 5th Baron North, reported that Montagu had dropped his objection. Apart from its paternal oversight in the Lords by Berkeley, the bill was clearly managed by Hereford’s Suffolk neighbours in the Commons, Sir John Rous<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Barker<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>7</sup> It received the royal assent on 23 Dec. 1689.</p><p>By 1692 the Devereux electoral interest at Orford had fallen into the hands of Sir Edward Turnor<sup>‡</sup>, an Essex squire who benefitted from the fact that the tiny borough had no single dominant influence during Hereford’s minority.<sup>8</sup> The Tory Turnor soon recruited the support of the young viscount by promising to regulate maverick labourers at the local lighthouse and thus preserve Hereford’s customary rights as lord of the manor. Hereford’s politically active guardian, Theophilus Hooke, helped to convert Turnor’s efforts into more aggressive partisan rivalries, with Hereford firmly entrenched in the Tory camp by the spring of 1693. Taking ‘a great deal of pains’, the 17-year-old viscount contributed to the Tory costs of treating in anticipation of the 1693 mayoral election, after which the Tory victory degenerated into a legal fracas with the existence of two rival corporate bodies. By the time of the parliamentary election of 1695, the national political situation was not propitious for Hereford’s Tory interest, and Hooke negotiated a compromise candidature to prevent the expense of a double return.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In what is probably confirmation that he had recently attained his majority, Hereford took his seat in the House of Lords on the first day of the autumn session, 20 Oct. 1696. On 26 Oct. 1696 he was named to the Lords committee to prepare an address to the king on the occasion of his speech to both Houses. As a politically active Tory, it was no surprise on 15 Dec. 1696 when he dissented from the resolution to read information in the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Three days later he again dissented against the resolution that the bill be read for a second time. On 23 Dec. 1696 (like his cousin Price Devereux*, later 9th Viscount Hereford, who was then in the Commons) he voted against Fenwick’s attainder, and registered his protest against the final vote. He attended the session for only a third of its sittings, absenting himself after 23 Jan. 1697 and entering his proxy in favour of his friend Thomas Jermyn*, 2nd Baron Jermyn.</p><p>In the Orford by-election of March 1697, Hereford was willing to reach an accommodation with local Whig interests, but was unable to withstand the strength of external partisan pressure. He accepted the candidate sponsored by Jermyn though later withdrew his support when the candidate was accused of bribery; instead he threw his political influence behind the successful Sir John Duke<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>10</sup> Hereford did not attend the 1697-8 parliamentary session, but he was active in the campaign for the 1698 general election. On this occasion, he engaged himself to William Johnson<sup>‡ </sup>and to a relation by marriage, Sir Edmund Bacon<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>11</sup> His preferred candidates were successful only after another controverted election and a petition to Parliament. The involvement of the leading Whig politicians John Somers*, Baron Somers (the recorder of Orford) and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, put Hereford’s electoral interests under considerable pressure.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Hereford attended the following session, in the winter of 1698, on only 11 occasions (around 14 per cent), arriving on the first day of business to take the oaths, but playing no prominent part in the business of the House. He again arrived for the first day of the winter 1699 session. With the Orford election petition being considered by the Commons, it is possible that Hereford spent that winter at Westminster lobbying for his party’s interest. On 1 Feb. 1700, it was thought likely that he would support the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. He attended the Lords on only 21 days (a little over a quarter of the session) up to 13 Feb. 1700, his last day in the House and three days after his Orford parliamentary candidates were successful (by a very narrow margin) in their petition to the Commons.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In August 1700, Hereford (like his father and older brother) died prematurely. He died childless and left his property in trust for his heir at law. His trustees were Leicester Martin<sup>‡</sup> of Ipswich (an Ipswich Tory who was a distant relation by marriage) and Sir Charles Blois<sup>‡</sup> of Yoxford, Suffolk, another staunch Tory and common councilman of Orford. Hereford’s heir, his only surviving sister Anne, shortly afterwards married Leicester Martin.<sup>14</sup> Hereford was succeeded by his cousin Price Devereux and was buried in the family church at Sudbourne where his guardian, Theophilus Hooke, was the officiating pastor. His widow Elizabeth later married John Symes Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> of Stoke Gifford, Gloucestershire.</p> |
B.A. |
|
DEVEREUX, Leicester (1617-76) |
<p><strong><surname>DEVEREUX</surname></strong>, <strong>Leicester</strong> (1617–76)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1649 as 6th Visct. HEREFORD |
|
|
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1617, 2nd but 1st. surv. s. of Walter Devereux<sup>†</sup> (later 5th Visct. Hereford), and 2nd w. Elizabeth, 2nd da. of Thomas Knightley of Burgh Hall, Staffs., and wid. of Matthew Martin of Barton, Cambs.; bro. of Walter Devereux<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) 6 June 1642, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1669), da. and h. of Sir William Withypoll<sup>‡</sup>, of Sudbourne, Suff. 1 da.; (2) 1670, Priscilla, da. of John Catchpole of Suff. 2s. 2da.<sup>1</sup> <em>bur</em>. 2 Jan. 1677; <em>will</em> 29 Sept.- 21 Dec 1676, pr. 1 Nov. 1677.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Officer, parlty. forces 1645;<sup>3</sup> capt. Prince Rupert’s Regt. of Horse 1667.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Commr. Suff. 1647, assessment for Ireland 1648, settling militia in Suff., Herefs. and Warws. 1648, assessment for Suff. 1649, 1650, 1652;<sup>5</sup> steward, manorial cts., Carm. and Card. Wales, 1661;<sup>6</sup> gamekpr., Sudbourne, Suff. 1664.<sup>7</sup></p> |
|
<p>Leicester Devereux, born into a position of wealth and political prominence, could trace his family origins in the Welsh Marches back to the twelfth century. His father’s main territorial base was in Warwickshire, but Leicester Devereux, like his younger brother Walter, married a Suffolk heiress and established himself in East Anglia. Upon his marriage he acquired the Ipswich estate of Christchurch but only after a bitter legal quarrel, firstly, with his volatile father-in-law Sir William Withypoll and, after Withypoll’s death, with Ptolemy Tollemache (whose family were major landowners in the area).<sup>8</sup> Apart from his extensive estates in Suffolk, Devereux had landholdings across East Anglia, the Midlands, the East Riding and Pembrokeshire.<sup>9</sup> At his death he was able to bequeath some £10,000 to his children.<sup>10</sup></p><p>The date of Hereford’s succession to the viscountcy is uncertain but there is evidence that his father died in November 1649. This would explain Hereford’s revival, in the first months of 1650, of the 5th viscount’s suit against William Seymour*, marquess of Hertford (later 2nd duke of Somerset), over entailed property in Herefordshire belonging to Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Essex.<sup>11</sup> Leicester Devereux had followed the family’s lead in his civil war allegiances and fought on the side of Parliament; his dispute with the royalist Hertford thus had political overtones. Throughout the 1640s and 1650s he served as a commissioner for Suffolk, the only peer to serve on a county committee.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Ipswich and its surrounding region, staunchly anti-Laudian since before the Civil Wars, proved a sympathetic political environment for the new viscount.<sup>13</sup> Hereford’s marriage to Elizabeth Withypoll had also brought him an electoral interest in the small corporate town of Orford. Having forged strong local political ties, including an affiliation with the Ipswich lawyer and politician, Thomas Edgar<sup>‡</sup>, Hereford used his interest to secure Edgar’s election as Member for Orford when the town’s franchise was restored in 1659. Edgar continued to act as Hereford’s confidant and man of business throughout the rest of the latter’s life, although Hereford’s younger brother, Walter Devereux, took over the Orford parliamentary seat in 1660. At the Restoration, Hereford petitioned the king for Welsh offices traditionally associated with the Devereux family. A suggestion made in December 1660 that he be made lord lieutenant of Herefordshire was rejected by Charles II who had found that Hereford was ‘not at all beloved’ but Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, insisted that Hereford was ‘honest and all men say worth the cherishing’ and this may explain why, despite his parliamentarian past, he was granted the stewardship of the manorial courts in Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire and the constableship of Carmarthen Castle.<sup>14</sup> .</p><p>On 27 Apr. 1660 Hereford took his seat in the Lords as one of those former parliamentary supporters who would form the core of the presbyterian bloc in the House. Hereford had several kinship connections in the House including the Seymours, Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport, and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, his lifelong friend.<sup>15</sup> His parliamentary career was far from active, and he rarely attended the House for more than 40 per cent of sittings. Of the 15 sessions that assembled during his lifetime, he failed to attend four (in 1665, 1670, 1673 and 1675), and of the remaining 11, attended only five for more than a quarter of the time.</p><p>On 3 May 1660, Hereford was one of the peers named to the delegation to bring home the exiled king. Hereford was present in the House on 11 Sept. 1660 for the debates on the Lords proviso to the bill for confirming and restoring ministers; he registered his protest against the Lords amendments to the disputed proviso. He was rarely named to legislative committees but on 4 July 1661, was named to the committee for the bill to vacate fines levied by Sir Edward Powell. One week later, on 11 July 1661, he was tipped to support Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his case for the great chamberlaincy. On 16 July 1661 he registered his proxy in favour of Frederick Cornwallis*, Baron Cornwallis, and the following day the House gave him leave to absent himself and go into the country.</p><p>Hereford clearly wished to spend more time in Suffolk in advance of the parliamentary election. In August 1661, through his ‘worthy and bountiful benevolence’ of 20 loads of timber to repair the Town House and quay, he helped to secure the re-election of his brother Walter as Member for Orford. Hereford’s two younger brothers, Walter and Edward, were freemen of the town and the family shared its political dominance with the Tollemaches. Hereford continued to exercise paternal oversight in Orford and in 1662 made a contribution to relieve the town’s needier inhabitants.<sup>16</sup></p><p>On 7 May 1662, Hereford was again excused absence from the House. This was repeated on 3 June 1663 when the House noted that he intended to leave his proxy. Two days later, the proxy was duly registered in favour of Berkeley, and was not vacated until the end of the session. By the middle of July 1663, it was assumed by Wharton that the proxy would be used to support the impeachment attempt on Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Hereford arrived for the spring 1664 session on 27 Apr. 1664 and was promptly named to the committee to compose differences between the former royalist Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> and the inhabitants of Aylesbury. The following week, Hereford claimed privilege in the case of his chaplain, Samuel Aldus, who had been ejected from Hereford’s donative living at St. Peter’s church in Ipswich by the ‘violence of factious people’. The case was referred to the committee for privileges, and the offenders were ordered to appear before the House. On 9 May 1664, Hereford’s complaint was discussed in committee and Hereford’s brother, Edward Devereux, gave a sworn statement. Since the offending action had fallen within the parliamentary session, the committee reported that Hereford’s parliamentary privilege had been breached and that his rights in the living should be restored.<sup>17</sup> The following day, the House duly ordered a restoration of Hereford’s rights of presentation. On 26 Nov. 1664, Hereford requested the discharge of all but one of the Ipswich offenders: Joseph Hubbard was reprimanded at the bar of the House three days later for contempt of the Lords’ order.</p><p>Hereford remained in the country, hardly ever attending the autumn 1664 session and absenting himself from the Oxford Parliament in October 1665. It is possible that there was a fine dividing line between Hereford’s protection of his property rights and a more aggressive adventurism. In May 1666, the Swedish envoy complained that individuals acting in Hereford’s name had seized corn from a Swedish ship that had been wrecked near Orford Ness in 1662. The king ordered Hereford, who had refused to appear at the admiralty to answer the charge, to make good his claim.<sup>18</sup></p><p>The Anglo-Dutch wars rendered the Suffolk coast particularly vulnerable and Hereford’s military experience was useful in securing the region from attack. He and Oxford were both concerned in the defence of the coast in June 1667.<sup>19</sup> Hereford attended the autumn 1667 parliamentary session on only 18 occasions, but he was present on 13 Nov. 1667 to hear the impeachment charges against Clarendon. He attended for the crucial vote on 20 Nov. and supported the king against the chancellor. By 25 Nov. he was again absent, with another proxy entered in favour of Berkeley. According to the proxy book, this was cancelled on 28 Apr. 1668, although the Journal does not record Hereford’s return to the House until 5 May. Presumably Hereford had acquitted himself well the previous year in the defence of Suffolk, for on 5 Oct. 1668, the king and James, duke of York, dined with him at Ipswich and were treated to ‘all the expressions of joy possible’: bell-ringing, gunfire, decorated church steeples and flower-strewn streets.<sup>20</sup></p><p>On 19 Oct. 1669, the first day of the new session, Hereford was named to the committee for privileges. He attended the brief session on only 11 days, and was named to only two committees. On 22 Nov. 1669 his proxy was registered in favour of James, duke of York. It was vacated at the end of the session in mid-December, to be re-entered on 17 Mar. 1670 in favour of York’s friend and ally, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, for the duration of the session.</p><p>The Suffolk county by-election of February 1673, occasioned by the suicide of Henry North<sup>‡</sup>, came at a difficult time for the Church in the wake of the king’s Declaration of Indulgence. York, concerned at the political clout of Nonconformists, wrote to Hereford in advance of the poll recommending the court candidate Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Huntingtower (later 3rd earl of Dysart [S]). Despite having the support of Hereford, the greater part of the Suffolk gentry, and the Church, the controverted election resulted in a defeat for Tollemache.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Hereford arrived in the House for the spring session on 18 Feb. 1673 and was named to three committees. His last attendance that session was on 8 Mar. – some seven months before the end of the session. He registered his proxy with his fellow East Anglian magnate, the former Presbyterian Horatio Townshend*, Baron Townshend. The proxy was vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Hereford was present on 7 Jan. 1674, the first day of the new session, and named to the committees for petitions and for privileges. He appears to have been inactive in the six week session. By the following year, his reaction to the policies of the government under the direction of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) identified him with the Country opposition.<sup>22</sup> In the protracted debates over Danby’s non-resisting Test in the spring of 1675, he was ‘a steady man among the Country lords’.<sup>23</sup> On 20 May 1675, Hereford sat in the House for the last time. He did not attend the autumn 1675 session but remained on his Suffolk estate.</p><p>Hereford died at the end of December 1676, having made a codicil to his will to protect his financial arrangements from disruption by his second wife. He was succeeded in the peerage by his three-year-old son and namesake. Hereford’s executors – Thomas Edgar (senior and junior), Charles Cocks, Edward Steynor, and the Sudbourne rector, Theophilus Hook, were given guardianship of the young 7th Viscount, who was to be maintained from family estates in Pembrokeshire.</p> |
B.A. |
|
DEVEREUX, Leicester (? 1673-83) |
<p><strong><surname>DEVEREUX</surname></strong>, <strong>Leicester</strong> (? 1673–83)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. Dec. 1676 (a minor) as 7th Visct. HEREFORD |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. ?1673, s. of Leicester Devereux*, 6th Visct. Hereford, and Priscilla, da. of John Catchpole of Suff. <em>unm</em>. <em>bur.</em> 12 Feb. 1683.</p> |
|
|
<p>Under the terms of his father’s will, the three year old viscount was to remain in the custody of his mother until he attained the age of 15. After that time he would come under the guardianship of his father’s executors: Theophilus Hooke (rector of Sudbourne), Edward Steynor, Charles Cocks, and Ipswich lawyers Thomas Edgar<sup>‡</sup> (both senior and junior).<sup>1</sup> His succession to the title at such a young age seems to have provided an opportunity for the raising of old grievances. On 30 May 1678, the House heard a petition from Francis Browne*, 3rd Viscount Montagu, challenging the right to the title enjoyed by the descendants of Walter Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 5th Viscount Hereford.<sup>2</sup> Montagu claimed that the assumption of the title of viscount by the Devereux family had dishonoured both the royal dignity and the peerage.<sup>3</sup> The House ordered that consideration of the matter be postponed until the 7th Viscount came of age.</p><p>In January 1681, Hereford’s mother fell ill. Advising her young son to remain loyal to the Church of England, she appointed as his guardians George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley, the Presbyterian Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>, Theophilus Hooke and the Reverend Cave Beck of St. John’s, Cambridge.<sup>4</sup> The 7th Viscount outlived his mother by less than two years. He was buried in Sudbourne, Suffolk on 12 Feb. 1683 and was succeeded in the title by his younger brother Edward Devereux*, 8th Viscount Hereford.</p> |
B.A. |
|
DEVEREUX, Price (c. 1664-1740) |
<p><strong><surname>DEVEREUX</surname></strong>, <strong>Price</strong> (c. 1664–1740)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 9 Aug. 1700 as 9th Visct. HEREFORD |
|
First sat 19 Feb. 1701; last sat 8 Apr. 1730 |
|
MP Montgomery Boroughs 1691-1700 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1664, s. and h. of Price Devereux (<em>d.v.p</em>. 1666, s. and h. of George Devereux<sup>‡</sup> of Sheldon, Warws. and Vaynor Park) and Mary, da. of ?Stephens of Bristol. <em>m</em>. 3 Dec. 1683, Mary (<em>d</em>. 14 Jan. 1729), da. of Samuel Sandys<sup>‡</sup> of Ombersley, Worcs. 1s. 1da. <em>d.</em> 3 Oct. 1740; <em>admon</em>. 15 Nov. 1740- 9 Apr. 1754, to s.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Welshpool 1678; ld. lt. Mont. 1711-14; steward, manors of Mavon, Card. and Mynydd Mallaen and Talyllychau, Carm. 1713-Dec. 1714.</p> |
|
<p>A stalwart Anglican and Tory, Price Devereux was raised by his paternal grandfather and succeeded to the peerage as the cousin and male heir of Edward Devereux*, 8th Viscount Hereford. He was descended from the Warwickshire Devereux of Sheldon Hall and a complex family inheritance left him with tracts of real estate in Mathon, Herefordshire and in Montgomeryshire.</p><p>Devereux failed to sign the 1696 Association (although he claimed that that he was ill in the country) and was possibly purged from the commission of the peace as a consequence.<sup>2</sup> His career in the Lords to 1715 was lengthy but lacklustre, punctuated by frequent absences and very low levels of attendance. In the 16 sessions up to 1715, he failed to attend seven, attended a further six sessions for less than a quarter of sittings and the remaining three for only a third of sittings or less. The formation of the Tory government after the election victory of 1710 seems to have provided Hereford with greater motivation and he attended most regularly in the 1713 session. He failed to attend the brief August session.</p><p>In his first session in the House of Lords, Hereford attended 33 per cent of sittings and was named to three select committees. On 15 Mar. 1701, he protested against the rejection of the second and third heads in the Treaty of Partition. The following month, on 16 Apr. 1701, he registered his protest against the appointment of a committee to draw an address to the king on the four impeached lords. The protest was expunged, but Hereford did not sign the subsequent protest that such action was against privilege. On 6 May 1701, the House considered a petition regarding Hereford’s own privilege. Samuel Purchase objected to a protection issued by Hereford to John Wilkinson ‘to the ruin of the petitioner’ and argued that Wilkinson was merely a trustee. On 15 May Henry Yelverton* Viscount Longueville, reported back from the committee for privileges which, having heard counsel on the matter, had decided that Wilkinsn was not a trustee and was therefore was entitled to privilege. Hereford missed the last four weeks of parliamentary business up to the prorogation of 24 June 1701.</p><p>The second Parliament of 1701 assembled at the end of December, but Hereford missed the first two months of the session and thereafter attended one quarter of all sittings. On 8 Mar. 1702 he took part in the conference on the death of William III and the accession of Anne. During the winter 1702 session of the new Parliament, he again missed the first two months of business and attended only 15 per cent of sittings; he was named to four select committees, including the committee to prepare an address to the queen.</p><p>On 1 Jan. 1703 Hereford’s ally, Daniel Finch* 2nd earl of Nottingham, estimated that Hereford would support legislation against occasional conformity. On the 16th, Hereford duly voted against the wrecking amendment to the penalty clause. In November, Charles Spencer* 3rd earl of Sunderland, twice forecast that Hereford would support another attempt to legislate against occasional conformity. In the event, Hereford did not attend the autumn 1703 session, sending his proxy to Thomas Thynne* Viscount Weymouth; he acknowledged no person ‘fitter’ to hold his proxy than Weymouth and expressed confidence in the new government ‘that sets all things at right’.<sup>3</sup> The proxy was not entered in the Lords’ proxy book.</p><p>Hereford absented himself from the autumn 1704 session and on 23 Nov. 1704 was excused attendance by the House. On 28 Nov. 1704 he registered his proxy in favour of Basil Feilding* 4th earl of Denbigh, (vacated at the end of the session). This was almost certainly for use in connection with the occasional conformity bill. Hereford arrived at the House on 17 Dec. 1705, some seven weeks into the new Parliament and thereafter attended seven per cent of sittings. He missed the important ‘Church in Danger’ debate of 6 Dec. 1705, but arrived in time for the debates in the new year on the Protestant succession. On 13 Jan. 1706 he dissented three times in divisions on the bill to secure her majesty’s person and the succession.</p><p>There were repeated prorogations from March to December 1706 and Hereford did not attend the following session. Instead on 4 Feb. 1707, he registered his proxy in favour of Rochester (vacated at the end of the session). He was also absent from subsequent sessions in 1707, but it is not possible to identify a proxy, as the proxy book is missing. On 1 May 1708 he was unsurprisingly listed as a Tory in a list of party affiliation. Following the general election in June 1708 and the Whig Junto’s preparations for confrontation with the Court in Parliament, Hereford did make an appearance in the House. He arrived three months into the November 1708 session and attended only six per cent of sittings; he was not named to any select committees. On 14 July 1709 he was admitted to the Board of Brothers, a Tory dining club, but absented himself from the November 1709 parliamentary session.<sup>4</sup> During the division on the guilt of Henry Sacheverell on 20 Mar. 1710, it was noted that Hereford was absent.</p><p>Following the dissolution of 21 Sept. 1710 and the reconstruction of the ministry, Hereford appears to have experienced a slightly greater sense of obligation regarding his parliamentary duties. Although he again missed the first two months of the session that had assembled in Nov. 1710, he attended nearly 13 per cent of sittings. On 5 Mar. 1711 he again registered his proxy in favour of Denbigh (vacated at the end of the session). Estimated by Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, as a political ally, Hereford remained loyal to the ministry over the peace negotiations of 1711-12, but still missed the first six weeks of the December 1711 session. On 15 Dec. 1711, possibly in recognition of the weighty debates on the peace treaty, he registered his proxy in favour of Other Windsor* 2nd earl of Plymouth, (vacated on 18 Jan. 1712). Thereafter, Hereford attended 18 per cent of sittings. He attended the session for the last time on 17 Mar. 1712 when he registered his proxy in favour of Weymouth (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Despite Hereford’s uninspiring levels of parliamentary attendance, he was described by Weymouth, his patron, as having ‘zeal for the public, and fixed resolution of serving your lordship [Oxford]’. Both he and Hereford hoped to benefit from the death of John Vaughan* earl of Carbery [I] (but a Member of the Lords by virtue of his English peerage of Baron Vaughan), by inheriting his stewardship and leases.<sup>5</sup> Hereford was now clearly in Oxford’s orbit, and on 26 Feb. 1713 the latter noted Hereford’s name as a lord to be contacted before the following parliamentary session. On 23 Mar. 1713 Weymouth thanked Oxford for having spoken to the queen on behalf of Hereford who was subsequently appointed steward of nine Cardiganshire manors ‘formerly in his family’.<sup>6</sup> Hereford was not only in political alliance with Tories in Wales and the Marches. He recommended to the South Wales exchequer an ally of Shropshire Member of the Commons (and leader of the Shropshire Tories) John Kynaston<sup>‡</sup> and also joined ranks with Adam Ottley*, bishop of Hereford, to make recommendations to Oxford.<sup>7</sup> Ottley described one of Hereford’s candidates as a man who ‘did great service in the last election and spared neither pains nor charge’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Hereford attended the House most assiduously (by his standards) in the session that assembled on 9 Apr. 1713, attending 35 per cent of sittings. On 13 June 1713 Oxford estimated that Hereford would support the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. As there is no surviving proxy book, whether he registered his proxy for his periods of absence is unknown. Perhaps prompted by the debates on the danger to the Protestant succession, he arrived one month into the spring 1714 parliamentary session and attended 20 per cent of sittings. On the day of the Lords’ vote on the succession, 5 Apr. 1714, he again registered his proxy in favour of Weymouth. The proxy was vacated on the 13th when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to an address on the danger from the Pretender.</p><p>On 27 May 1714 Nottingham forecast that Hereford would support the contentious schism bill. Two days later, Hereford again registered his proxy in favour of Weymouth. It was vacated the following day. He missed the debates and divisions on the bill. Following the death of the queen, Hereford failed to attend the first brief Parliament of George I. Somewhat dubious Jacobite intelligence in 1721 described him as ‘a worthy man and fit to be relied on’, but he had taken the oaths to the new king some six years earlier on 3 May 1715.<sup>9</sup> His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next phase of this work (1715-1790). Hereford died on 3 Oct. 1740 at Vaynor aged about 76. He was buried at Berriew, Montgomeryshire and succeeded by his son and namesake who had sat as a Tory Member of the Commons since 1719.</p> |
B.A. |
|
DIGBY, George (1612-77) |
<p><strong><surname>DIGBY</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1612–77)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1622-53 Ld. Digby; <em>accel. </em>9 June 1641 2nd Bar. DIGBY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 21 Jan. 1653 as 2nd earl of BRISTOL |
|
First sat before 1660, 10 June 1641; first sat after 1660, 16 June 1660; last sat 1 Mar. 1677 |
|
MP Dorset 1640-1 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 Nov. 1612, 1st s. of Sir John Digby<sup>†</sup> (later Bar. Digby and earl of Bristol) and Beatrice (Beatrix) (<em>d</em>.1658), wid. of Sir John Dyve (Dive, Dyves), of Bromham, Beds. and da. of Charles Walcot<sup>‡</sup> of Walcot, Salop; half-bro. of Sir Lewis Dyve<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. abroad (Spain) until 1623-4; Magdalen, Oxf. matric. 1626, MA 1636. <em>m</em>. settlement 23 June 1632, Anne (<em>d</em>.1697), da. of Sir Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford and Catharine Brydges, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 20 Mar. 1677; <em>will</em> 5 Oct. 1675, pr. 10 Apr. 1677.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Amb. France Aug. 1641;<sup>3</sup> PC and sec. of state, 28 Sept. 1643-9, 1656-8;<sup>4</sup> high steward, Oxf. Univ., 1643-6. 1660-3; special amb. c. 20 Dec. 1659-c. 2 June 1660, c. 17 Feb.-8 May 1661;<sup>5</sup> amb. Spain July 1668-?<sup>6</sup></p><p>Col. of horse, (roy.) c.1642; gov. Nottingham?; lt. gen. north of the Trent, 1645; lt. gen. French army, 1651-?</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by A. Van Dyck, 1637-9, Althorp Park, Northants.; oil on canvas, by A. Van Dyck, c<em>.</em>1638-9 (double portrait with Lord William Russell), Dulwich Picture Gallery, London; oil on canvas, c.1650, Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds.</p> |
<h2><em>Early life and politics</em></h2><p>Bristol’s father was a younger son of a leading Warwickshire family who became a prominent politician and diplomat at the court of James I and was rewarded with an estate at Sherborne and an earldom. As a diplomat he was closely associated with Spain and his advocacy of the Spanish match brought him into conflict with George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham. His family’s opposition credentials were further underlined in 1632 when the young Lord Digby married Lady Anne Russell, daughter of the influential Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford. Digby’s hostility to the king’s policies was evident both during the personal rule of Charles I and after his election to the Commons in 1640. At this stage in his career he was a committed Protestant and in 1638-9 he engaged in a vigorous theological defence of the Church of England with his Catholic cousin, Sir Kenelm Digby (son of Sir Everard Digby, the Gunpowder plotter) in a series of letters that were published in 1651.<sup>7</sup> In 1640-1 Digby began to back away from his opposition stance. His defence of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, earned him the enmity of the Commons. The decision to summon him to the Lords on a writ in acceleration amounted to a public statement of the king’s confidence that Digby had now relinquished opposition to the court. Now one of the king’s closest supporters and urging him to even greater intransigence, Digby was suspected of promoting a royalist military coup and fled abroad rather than obey an order of the House of Lords, made on 12 Jan. 1642, to attend for questioning. Before he left Digby took steps to protect his estates by putting them into trust for his three sons.<sup>8</sup> It proved to be a wise move. The Commons voted articles of impeachment against him on 25 Feb. 1642 and on 14 Mar. 1649 included him in the list of 12 individuals to be proscribed and to have their estates confiscated.</p><p>Digby succeeded to the earldom in 1653, but even after that date his contemporaries sometimes referred to him as Lord Digby or earl of Digby, thus creating occasional confusion between Bristol and another branch of the family who held the barony of Digby of Gleashill in the Irish peerage (but who were English and resident in England). Bristol was a prominent member of the court in exile and equally prominent in the factional rivalries that beset it. He was particularly blamed for the conflict between the king and James*, duke of York.<sup>9</sup> Given his earlier defence of the Church of England, Bristol’s conversion to Catholicism early in 1659 was a matter of astonishment and dismay that embarrassed the king and forced him to remove Bristol from the post of secretary of state.<sup>10</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention 1660</em></h2><p>As the events of the Restoration unfolded, Bristol, involved in negotiations in Spain, found himself left behind by the pace of developments. Nevertheless, he not unnaturally expected to reap the rewards of loyalty including compensation for his losses in the king’s service, the restitution of his estates and payment of the arrears of his salary as secretary of state, which he estimated at £8,500.<sup>11</sup> Initially fearful that Monck would insist on some form of conditional restoration, Lady Bristol soon began to press the king for what she perceived as Bristol’s well-earned reward, apparently afraid that her husband’s absence would lead to him being overlooked. Bristol was far more confident of the king’s favour and feared only that his wife’s importunities might backfire to his discredit.<sup>12</sup> He counselled discretion, assuring her that,</p><blockquote><p>I cannot fail to succeed in all that we reasonably propose to our selves for my person, fortune and family; so certain am I of his Majesty’s favourable kindness, unalterable, by any thing but by your letting him see, that we precipitating prefer the satisfying our own vanity and ambition, the consideration of drawing inconveniences upon by pressing to be near him, before he is master enough of his affairs to be able to admit it without ill consequence unto them.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>He did not doubt that there might be obstacles to his advancement. These included his Catholicism but, more importantly, the rivalry of those who were jealous of his credit with the king and of his ‘parts and ambitions’. He suggested that an emphasis on a desire to live quietly at Sherborne rather than to pursue places at court would persuade even his enemies ‘to be forwardest as a matter of justice, to counsel his majesty to repair my losses liberally.’ He was also convinced that Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, and James Butler*, duke of Ormond in the Irish peerage and subsequently also in the English peerage, would support his pretensions.<sup>14</sup> His expectations were considerable. Whilst in exile, he had been granted the wardship of his wife’s nephew, Francis Greville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court. This, ‘the only thing he relied upon to repair the losses of his family in his service, and to pay his debts, without being burdensome to the crown’, was valued at some £30,000. Bristol also had a claim to the arrears of a pension of £2,000 a year that had been granted to his father and which at the time of the Restoration amounted to £36,000. Over and above these amounts he alleged that he and his family had lost £16,000 as the price of their loyalty to the crown during the Civil Wars and Interregnum.<sup>15</sup> The gap between these expectations and what he actually received would soon engender an implacable hostility to Edward Hyde.</p><p>Bristol returned to England in time to take his seat in the Lords on 16 June 1660. His ability and willingness to attend Parliament coupled with his access to the king and his Catholicism led the Abbé Montagu (the Catholic brother of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester and high in the esteem of the queen mother) to tell Cardinal Mazarin that Bristol ‘could be useful to cultivate, even if he does not realize it’; Mazarin welcomed the abbé’s offer to influence and manage Bristol.<sup>16</sup> Bristol attended 72 per cent of the remaining sittings in the Lords that session, becoming an active and significant member of the House involved in discussion and debate on controversial and crucial post-restoration issues; over the course of the session he was named to 23 committees. On 19 June 1660 he was named to the committee for privileges and the subcommittee for the Journal as well as to the committee to examine the acts and ordinances of the Interregnum. On 4 July he was named to the committee to confirm the privileges of Parliament and the fundamental laws of the kingdom; he also obtained an order of the House for the restoration of goods that he had lost during the ‘late wars’. Bristol’s hard-line attitude to the king’s former enemies and inability to understand or accept the case for moderation was soon apparent. On 7, 11 and 14 July he reported from the committee for privileges on the executions of James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton [S], Henry Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holland, and James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby, as a result of which the House ordered those responsible to be secured.</p><p>On 20 July 1660 during the debate on the bill of indemnity he told the House of his rage, ‘That many of the wickedest and meanest of the people should remain, as it were, rewarded for their treasons, rich and triumphant in the spoils of the most eminent in virtue and loyalty, of all the nobility and gentry of the kingdom’. Although he himself would be ‘irreparably ruined’ in his fortune by the bill, the public interest nevertheless called for it to be passed quickly. He argued, successfully, that the murder of the late king had to be washed away by the ‘blood of the guilty’ and should be dealt with as a particular issue in a separate bill.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Contrary to his statements to Lady Bristol about sublimating his private interests to the wider public good, Bristol was determined to extract revenge and reparation from his own old enemies. He also put considerable effort into securing the rewards to which he believed himself entitled. He obtained a grant in reversion of the office of writer of the tallies (auditor of the receipt of the exchequer) for his younger son, Francis Digby. His countess petitioned for a lease of Theobald’s Park as compensation for giving up her jointure to raise the £30,000 demanded after the Civil Wars for the ‘redemption’ of her son John Digby*, later 3rd earl of Bristol.<sup>18</sup> On 2 Aug. 1660 Bristol introduced a bill to recover £6,500 given ‘by the late pretended Parliament’ to Carew Ralegh (Raleigh)<sup>‡</sup>; it received its third reading on 22 Aug. but failed to pass the Commons. Bristol also, on 11 Aug, obtained an order of the House putting him into possession of all lands formerly belonging either to himself or his father and which had been confiscated and sold for delinquency.</p><p>The question of reparations and how far they could or should be pursued was a sensitive one. On 6 Aug. in the course of debates on private provisos in the act of indemnity, Bristol’s support of the merits and sufferings of William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle over and above those of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, caused an open quarrel in the House and fears of a duel, forcing the king to order the two men to confine themselves to their lodgings.<sup>19</sup> They appear to have been reconciled by the end of the month.</p><p>On 10 Sept. Bristol reported from the committee for the potentially controversial bill to restore Sir George Lane (Ormond’s secretary) to possession of Rathclyne, Lisduff and other lands in Ireland. The following day he was named to the committee to amend the contentious bill for restoring ministers, apparently as part of an alliance with York and Clarendon that aimed to conciliate the Presbyterians and offer the hope that a more general toleration would follow.<sup>20</sup> He was also named to the committees for the annexation of Dunkirk, Mardyke and Jamaica to the crown and, after reporting from the committee for the bill for disbanding the army, was named to assist Hyde in managing the consequent conference on the subject.</p><p>The Abbé Montagu’s hopes for securing Bristol’s support for France seemed to have been borne out, for by late September at the latest Bristol was in regular communication with the French court, telling Mazarin that his desire to serve him was second only to his desire to serve the king.<sup>21</sup> Bristol was active in court life, entertaining the king of Spain’s representative, Claude Lamoral, Prince de Ligne, accompanying Charles II on state occasions and welcoming the royal household to his London house. He is known to have been present at at least one gathering of Catholic nobility and gentry, in November 1660; this may have been the meeting called to discuss a general toleration described by William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, in his ‘confession’ of December 1680, although on this occasion the presence of Ormond suggests that Irish interests rather than purely Catholic ones may have provided the focus of the meeting.<sup>22</sup> On 6 Dec. he sought further direction from the House for the benefit of the committee considering the bill to vacate Sir Edward Powell’s fines and reported the bill itself as fit to pass on 8 December. On 12 Dec. after a debate in a committee of the whole he was named to the subcommittee to consider provisos to the bill against the regicides.</p><p>Given that the most substantial part of Bristol’s claims related to his father’s unpaid pension and the wardship of Lord Brooke, he was naturally extremely concerned about the prospect of the formal abolition of the court of wards. The Commons passed a bill to this effect in December 1660 and backdated it to the last sitting of the court in February 1646. Bristol prepared a petition against the bill, asking that it be revised either to secure his claim to the wardship of Lord Brooke or to provide him with compensation, but when he told Clarendon of his intention he was persuaded to take no action on the grounds ‘that it might be of great ill consequence to his majesty’s service to set on foot, in the House of Commons, a claim to such a compensation, since it might be of example to divers others to do the like’. Bristol’s compliance was secured by a promise from Clarendon, given in the king’s name, that he would be provided for in other ways.<sup>23</sup> Clarendon’s failure to keep his promise, aggravated by subsequent political and factional differences, led to a rapid deterioration in the relationship between the two men. The passage of the bill to abolish the court of wards was speedy – it was brought up from the Commons on 17 Dec. and received the royal assent on 24 Dec. – but Clarendon was probably correct in thinking that Bristol had raised a potentially controversial issue that could have delayed it. The House received a petition against it from the dowager duchess of Somerset as well as two provisos on 18 Dec. and a petition from the officers of the court the following day. The alterations made in the Lords became the subject of a conference with the Commons on 21 December.</p><h2><em>The Cavalier Parliament, 1661-3</em></h2><p>In January 1661, Bristol together with York joined Albemarle in the suppression of Venner’s uprising. He also emphatically restated his willingness to serve the interests of the French at the English court.<sup>24</sup> Despite his professions of poverty and ruin, he was able to buy a magnificent house in Wimbledon, which he described as the ‘noblest place in England’, from the queen mother for £4,000. He later sent her a diamond valued at £500 by way of thanks.<sup>25</sup> Early in February 1661 it was reported that Bristol was to make a visit to Flanders and Germany. The purpose of the visit was variously given out as personal business relating to his daughter’s marriage or to the ‘unhandsome disbanding of British regiments’ by the king of Spain, but it was widely suspected to relate to the choice of a bride for the king, particularly the need to provide convincing proof that serious consideration had been given to finding a suitable Protestant bride. According to the French ambassador there was yet another reason: Clarendon’s desire to get Bristol out of the way so that he would increase his own influence over the king.<sup>26</sup> Despite his earlier protestations of support for the French, Bristol, who had been born and brought up in Spain, advocated a Spanish match for the king. Clarendon and Ormond had also initially favoured this, but by the time Bristol returned to England (in or about early May) Clarendon had switched his support to securing an alliance with Portugal, a policy that Bristol vehemently opposed.<sup>27</sup> Differences between Clarendon and Bristol were also a reflection of larger rivalries at court. Bristol enjoyed the friendship of the king’s powerful mistress, Lady Castlemaine, as well as of his mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, who were both ranged against Clarendon.</p><p>Bristol again took his seat in the House on 10 May 1661, two days after the opening of the new session. He was present on 75 per cent of sitting days and was named to numerous committees. Once again these included some of the most significant issues of the day: the reversal of the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, on 14 May, the security of the king’s person and government on 24 May, the regulation of corporations on 18 July and the restoration of ecclesiastical jurisdiction on 19 July. In July it was thought that he would support the attempt of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to secure the great chamberlaincy. He also had interests of his own to pursue. In a petition that seems to belong to March 1661 he requested a grant of letters patent for authority to make the rivers Salwerpe (Salwarpe) and Stower (Stour) in Worcestershire navigable and then to have a monopoly of trade on those rivers.<sup>28</sup> The ulterior motive was to improve the access to (and profitability of) the salt works at Droitwich. No grant was made; instead a bill to attain the same end and granting rights to Bristol and Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor, was introduced to the House on 11 May 1661 and, after a prolonged delay in the Commons, finally received the royal assent on 19 May 1662. The part played by Bristol and Windsor in securing the passage of the bill is unclear; neither were named to the committee to consider the bill on 15 May 1661, although both were probably present; Bristol’s name is given in the attendance list and Windsor may have been the individual incorrectly named in the list of barons as Winton. The projected profits never materialized and the provisions of the bill had still not been carried out some 30 years later.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Differences with Clarendon were now becoming more obvious. In June 1661 the House debated Catholic demands for inclusion in the benefits of the Declaration of Breda, a modification of the oath of allegiance and the removal of the penal laws. Such demands faced considerable opposition especially as it was widely believed that Catholics did not consider themselves bound by oaths that conflicted with their obedience to the pope. As Bristol himself admitted during the course of the debates, ‘there is little hopes for us to obtain any ease from penalties till your lordships be satisfied what security we will give by oath of our duty and allegiance to his majesty.’<sup>30</sup> The debates did produce a committee to draft a bill to repeal the sanguinary laws against Catholics on 28 June to which Bristol was named. The resultant proposals would have reduced rather than abolish the various restrictions on Catholics but were never introduced. Just who was responsible for the failure to do so remains unclear. Clarendon blamed divisions amongst the Catholics. The Catholics, including Bristol, blamed Clarendon. In July Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> noted that Bristol and Buckingham endeavoured to undermine Clarendon at court. In the same month the French ambassador told Louis XIV that Clarendon had openly declared that Bristol was his enemy and that Clarendon had opposed concessions to Catholics solely in pursuit of his feud with Bristol.<sup>31</sup> He later went on to suggest that Clarendon had been organizing opposition to Catholic demands by underhand methods.</p><p>The king’s known sympathy to some form of toleration for Catholics coupled with his open humiliation of the chancellor in August 1661 when he gave the post of keeper of the privy purse to Bristol’s ally Henry Bennet*, the future earl of Arlington, encouraged Clarendon’s ‘enemies and enviers’ to believe that the time was right for an attack. Emboldened, Bristol and Bennet spoke openly to the king, only to find that he ‘took it very ill that they should conspire to decry the conduct of a man who served him well’. Bristol and Clarendon were summoned before the king who ‘told both of them to forget the past and in future to live in harmony together’.<sup>32</sup> Perhaps it was this attempt at reconciliation that prompted a grant that month to Bristol of the Broyle and Ashdown Forest in Sussex, for which he had petitioned the crown nearly a year earlier in December 1660. Clarendon may have thought this went a long way towards fulfilling his promise but the grant proved to be a source of litigation and very little profit. It also soured relations with Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, who had previously received a grant of the same properties for his own and his son’s lives.<sup>33</sup> Further evidence of some sort of reconciliation at court was provided in September when a Privy Seal passed for the payment of £6,000 to Bristol in consideration of his father’s pension on the court of wards; of this £2,000 was actually paid the following February.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Bristol continued to be an important member of the Lords. On 7 Dec. 1661 he was deputed to be one of the managers of the conference concerning the swearing of witnesses to be examined in the Commons regarding Sir Edward Powell’s fines, on 14 Dec. of that concerning legislation to confirm private acts and on 4 Feb. 1662 on the bill for the execution of attainted persons. On 6 Feb. 1662 he protested against the bill to restore the estates of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby.</p><p>One doubts that Bristol’s reconciliation with Clarendon was genuine; it was in any case short-lived. In March 1662 a furious row broke out between the two men during the debates over the bill of uniformity. On the first day of the debate, 18 Mar., Clarendon proposed a proviso which he claimed to be at Charles II’s instigation which granted the king a power of dispensation over the wearing of the surplice and making the sign of the cross.<sup>35</sup> Bristol declared that a proviso proposed by the king amounted to a breach of privilege, that it was improper and that he knew that the king opposed it. He drew some support from John Cosin*, of Durham, who denied that the king had any power of dispensation in such matters. The next day Bristol spoke at length against it, then interrupted Clarendon’s response, claiming that Clarendon’s references to Cosin’s speech amounted to a transgression of the rules of the House as well as a denial of free speech. At the end of the debate, which lasted several hours, Bristol put in his own proviso – to enable the king to give liberty to all. Clarendon, appalled, pointed out that this would admit popery, insisted on a division and threatened to enter a protest. Bristol’s proviso was rejected. Clarendon’s was accepted, but perhaps ominously for Clarendon, on the following day (20 Mar.), Bristol was added to the committee for the bill.<sup>36</sup> On 8 Apr. he was named to the committee to draw up a different kind of proviso, one that would enable the king to offer some form of compensation to those clergymen who would be deprived under the Act of Uniformity.</p><p>Bristol remained an active and powerful member of the House. On 25 Apr. 1662 he was named to the committee for the bill for loyal and indigent officers. On 10 May when the bill was returned by message from Commons with further amendments, the House decided that the proper method of proceeding would have been for the Commons to have requested a conference rather than simply return the bill. Bristol was named to a small committee to draw up an appropriate response. That day he was also named as one of the managers of the first conference on the militia bill (settling the forces). On 13 and 16 May he was named as a manager for the second and third conferences on the bill. Despite the setbacks over the Act of Uniformity he was still a significant political figure at a court beset by faction and in command, so it was said, of ‘a powerful cabal’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>One of Bristol’s identifiable allies at this time was another member of the committee of 8 Apr. 1662, the moderate episcopalian John Gauden*, of Exeter, who wrote in glowing terms of Bristol who ‘takes nothing upon trust, but brings all to the test of reason and religion, justice and honour.’ Over the next few months Gauden corresponded with Bristol, sought his ‘potent interception’ with the king on behalf of one of his clients and stayed at his house in Wimbledon. Yet he seems to have had no inkling of the news that would astonish the political world early in June: that Bristol had turned Protestant. In July he wrote again to Bristol asking for more information about his decision to change ecclesiastical communion.<sup>38</sup> Sir Henry Yelverton (who had always believed Bristol to be ‘too learned for a papist’) concluded that the conversion reflected a belief that rewards were more easily available to Protestants than to Catholics and, much as he deplored the possibility of Bristol’s advancement, he was glad to learn that ‘interest runs against popery’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Late in July 1662 it was reported that the rift between Clarendon and Bristol had been repaired and ‘that the king is the master and the chancellor has all the credit’.<sup>40</sup> It did not last. In August the ejection of nonconformist ministers on ‘Black Bartholomew’s day’ brought about an alliance between Bristol and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor) in favour of toleration; then in October Sir Edward Nicholas was replaced as secretary of state by Bennet at the behest of Bristol and other members of the anti-Clarendon faction at court.<sup>41</sup> The king was still trying to ensure a permanent reconciliation between his warring courtiers. In order to do so he promoted the possibility of a marriage between Bristol’s daughter, Anne, and Clarendon’s son, Henry Hyde*, then styled Lord Cornbury, later 2nd earl of Clarendon. It is unlikely that the marriage alliance was taken very seriously for only a few months later arrangements were being made for the marriage of Anne Digby to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland.<sup>42</sup></p><p>In December 1662, whilst Clarendon was incapacitated by illness, the king agreed to a declaration of indulgence. Although Bristol’s involvement was obvious, he was, according to the French ambassador, ‘very prudently’ holding himself at a distance from it. The declaration, published on 26 Dec. 1662, promised to seek an act of Parliament to enshrine the king’s claim to a dispensing power in matters of religion, but to Clarendon’s horror the draft bill that emerged for presentation to Parliament when it met again on 18 Feb. 1663 was altogether more radical. Its chances of success, like the possibility of a reconciliation of factions at court, were not improved by news that Bristol had returned to the Catholic church.<sup>43</sup> Bristol, however, seems to have been confident of his position and on 14 Feb. had renewed his request for payment of the arrears of his salary as secretary of state.<sup>44</sup> Bristol attended the 1663 session for 63 per cent of sitting days and was named to 13 committees. The early weeks of the session were dominated by controversies over the declaration and opposition to the bill that it had spawned. By mid-March the bill was dead but factional discord at court continued. ‘They are so bent on destroying themselves that the sky might fall without them noticing’, wrote the French ambassador in April 1663, ‘the king could not occupy himself with anything of greater importance than reconciling them … [but] to achieve this would require more resolve, firmness, involvement and even authority than he has’.<sup>45</sup> He was not the only observer to believe that Bristol would win out in the end.<sup>46</sup> Bristol, Ashley and Robartes, together with the two secretaries of state, often (or so it was said) transacted business in which Clarendon played ‘only a small part’, whilst in the Commons Bristol’s allies including Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡ </sup>led an oblique attack on Clarendon by seeking an enquiry into the sale of public offices.<sup>47</sup></p><p>That Bristol remained in favour was demonstrated in May by the king’s decision to order payment of £10,000 for his arrears as secretary of state.<sup>48</sup> Bristol and his allies, wrote Samuel Pepys, ‘have cast my lord chancellor upon his back, past ever getting up again; there now being little for him to do, and waits at court attending to speak to the king as others do’.<sup>49</sup> Yet more attempts to promote a reconciliation with Clarendon followed but Bristol now began to overplay his hand. On 12 June 1663 Bristol’s Commons ally Sir Richard Temple opposed the court on a vital supply motion. Clarendon’s ally Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> then created a furore in the Commons when he delivered a message from the king denouncing Temple as an ‘undertaker’ who had offered, via a ‘person of quality’, to manage the Commons in order to secure supply. Bennet deserted to the chancellor and Bristol was left dangerously exposed, his situation made all the worse by a temporary deterioration in the king’s relationship with Lady Castlemaine resulting from his infatuation with Frances Stuart and her alleged affair with Henry Jermyn*, Baron Jermyn.</p><p>By 15 June 1663 the king had formed an inner group of advisers from which Bristol and his allies were pointedly excluded. The king even took steps to avoid meeting Bristol socially. Bristol made matters worse by threatening to ruin the king’s business unless Ashley and Robartes were made part of the new group of advisors. On 20 June the Commons formally demanded the name of the person of quality who had acted as go-between. On 21 June Bristol was forbidden the court; he also found himself barred from Lady Castlemaine’s.<sup>50</sup> Such was his disgrace that Sunderland broke off his engagement to Bristol’s daughter on the eve of their wedding.<sup>51</sup> On 22 June, judging by the heavily altered surviving draft, Bristol expended considerable effort on composing a letter to the king agreeing that his name be revealed and declaring that he was ready to vindicate his actions to the Commons.<sup>52</sup> According to Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, the king desperately tried to dissuade Bristol from addressing the Commons. Burnet’s suggestion that this was because Bristol ‘knew the secret of the king’s religion’ needs to be treated with some caution since although Burnet was in London between February and June 1663, it is unlikely that he was moving in circles that would have given him access to that sort of information.<sup>53</sup> In the meantime, either convinced that he could retrieve his situation or desperate to do so, Bristol continued his search for information with which to discredit Clarendon.<sup>54</sup> His speech to the Commons on 1 July was a magnificent performance, in which he stressed his own loyalty and service to the crown contrasting it with pointed references, easily interpreted as allusions to Clarendon, to those who negotiated for cardinals’ caps and who amassed and sold offices for their own profit. Bristol won over Members of the Commons who, impressed by Bristol’s eloquence, cleared Temple from all charges.<sup>55</sup> Members of the Lords, however, were upset at his decision to address the Commons without the leave of the House, although they were forced to accept that there was a precedent for his conduct.<sup>56</sup> The king, to whom Bristol repeated his speech, was furious. Ruvigny, Louis XIV’s envoy, told his master that Charles II considered it,</p><blockquote><p>the most seditious speech there could be in an assembly, that he now thought that everything he had been told about his ambition, that being Catholic and being unable to enter offices because of his religion, he had resolved to turn everything upside down so as to find a place in the disorder and confusion. The earl of Bristol’s reply was bold; his master told him quite mildly that he would be a poor king if he could not manage an earl of Bristol. God preserve your majesty from such subjects and so little power.</p></blockquote><p>Ruvigny went on to report that Bristol had asked the king for permission to accuse Clarendon in Parliament and that although the king had specifically forbidden this, Bristol was ‘in the depth of despair’ and intent on revenging himself on king and chancellor.<sup>57</sup> Comminges, the French ambassador, concluded that,</p><blockquote><p>The earl, full of vanity and feeling triumphant at the victory that he imagined he had carried off in the lower chamber, and thinking that he had a fair wind, he could undertake anything, and that the fall of the chancellor hung only on his pressing his point, misinterpreted the king’s kindness and flattered himself at the mildness of his behaviour.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 10 July 1663 in the House of Lords, Bristol accused Clarendon of high treason. The charges included taking money from the Dutch to make peace and from the Portuguese to secure the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II, selling offices and tricking York into marrying his daughter, Anne Hyde. The House ordered that a copy of Bristol’s accusations be delivered to Clarendon and the king and that the judges be asked to report ‘whether the said charge hath been brought in regularly and legally? and whether it may be proceeded in? and how? and whether there be any treason in it, or no?’</p><p>On 13 July 1663 the judges gave their opinion, declaring that it was not regular or legal for one peer to bring charges of treason against another in the House of Lords and that, even if Clarendon were guilty of all the charges brought by Bristol, they did not amount to high treason. The king’s attitude was made abundantly clear in his message of thanks to the House in which he could not but ‘take notice of the many scandalous reflections in that paper upon himself and his relations’ and which he considered as a ‘libel against his person and government’. On 14 July the House voted unanimously to concur with the judges.</p><p>Bristol’s accusations bewildered many of his contemporaries. Many of the Lords concluded that the affair had no other foundation than the ‘spleen of an enraged and disappointed enemy’.<sup>59</sup> Samuel Pepys was not the only one to be puzzled that the accusations against Clarendon included helping Catholics.<sup>60</sup> Ormond sarcastically remarked that, ‘My lord of Bristol’s care of the protestant religion, and against the pope’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England is very admirable and deserves commendation if it be the motive of his zeal against my lord chancellor.’<sup>61</sup> The potential for exacerbating strife at court worried Roger Pepys<sup>‡</sup> who wrote ‘What this will come to God only knows. The one hath great friends the other a great and high spirit.’ The public airing that the affair gave to the weaknesses at the centre of government appalled even French observers who noted that Bristol’s accusations had ‘caused a great commotion here, and will do so no less abroad, where they will be astonished that a minister of state can be accused of things which the king declares to be for the most part false’.<sup>62</sup></p><p>With the recess imminent the court wanted the matter over and done with, but Clarendon, ‘full of confidence’ and perhaps feeling obliged to make a show of magnanimity, advised the House to give Bristol until the first week of the next session to produce witnesses to substantiate his lesser charges, particularly Ormond and John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S].<sup>63</sup> He even told Bristol ‘that notwithstanding he had been more injured than ever any man was by a private subject, yet he would be ready to do him all the service in the world.’<sup>64</sup> Whether he actually meant these public protestations to be taken seriously is a matter for conjecture; he later indicated the opposite.<sup>65</sup> That the king wanted Bristol arrested was, however, widely known and questions about whether this could or could not be achieved without a breach of parliamentary privilege were already being asked. Conscious of the danger in which he stood, Bristol refused to request the protection of the House in the interval between sessions, ‘as being to doubt his majesty’s justice, and to no purpose, for that if they denied him he was undone, but if granted it would give no more security than their order to proceed, which is an implicit protection, and his restraint will do the other person more injury than it can do him’. With the assistance of Buckingham and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, he was, nevertheless, lobbying behind the scenes in an attempt to secure a resolution ‘that no member ought to be questioned elsewhere, for what passes within those walls’.<sup>66</sup> He also made a determined effort to secure wider support, presumably aiming at influencing opinion in the Commons. From 9 July,</p><blockquote><p>and some days after, he quitted his ordinary way of going to the Lords house, and came through the great hall and exchequer chamber with his hat in his hand saluting with a sad and humble countenance all the crowd that followed, wishing him all success, he showed himself several days upon the exchange and told many considerable merchants his story, which is but too well received and credited.<sup>67</sup></p></blockquote><p>For the rest of the session Bristol continued to parade himself in public, ‘playing on the bowling green every day’. He was also paying attention to his own personal affairs. Comminges, the French ambassador, wrote that,</p><blockquote><p>the very day that he caused all this uproar he married his elder son, a man of less than mediocre talent, to an advocate’s daughter, a great friend of the late Cromwell, who is giving him ten thousand jacobus in cash, ten thousand at the birth of the first child and ten thousand after his death, which is a fine marriage, especially only having one son who might die.<sup>68</sup></p></blockquote><p>The session ended on 27 July 1663. Attempts were then made to arrest Bristol ‘for attempts of a high nature by him committed against our person and government and to the end he might be brought to answer, and to a legal trial’. <sup>69</sup> No specific crime was imputed, but according to Secretary Morrice Bristol’s offence was to have told the king in July 1663 that ‘if he suffered his enemies to have such an access to and credit with his majesty, he would raise such a storm as he should feel the effects thereof.’<sup>70</sup> Bristol vanished. A proclamation for his apprehension was issued on 25 Aug. and, balked of its prey, the Privy Council also ordered that Bristol be prosecuted in his absence for recusancy.<sup>71</sup> According to the French ambassador, this was yet another sign of the government’s weakness that ‘will assuredly serve only to undermine royal power and blame the conduct of his ministers.’<sup>72</sup> For his part Bristol had not given up attempts to find evidence against Clarendon; it was reported in September that he had sent an agent to Holland, looking for a financial connection between de Witt and Clarendon.<sup>73</sup> He was also preparing his defence. His papers include an undated fragment in which he wrote:</p><blockquote><p>In case an imaginary charge of treason should be brought in to the House against the earl of Bristol to keep him from coming to the Parliament as was done heretofore to his father. It is hoped the lords will do him the same justice they did to the lord chancellor that it may be put to the judges to know whether his charge amount to treason or no before their lordships proceed to remove him from his place in the house. If he be charged of any lesser crime it is hoped he shall according to the constant practice of the peers be heard speak for himself in his place, before there be any proceeding against him.<sup>74</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the Old Bailey in late August or early September 1663 Bristol and John Digby, son of Sir Kenelm Digby, were indicted for recusancy.<sup>75</sup> John Digby’s estate was sequestered, more as an affront to Bristol than as a punishment for Digby. Bristol’s own estates were safe, for Bristol had once more protected his property by transferring it to his son. He also reconverted to the Anglican church. Rumours of his conversion surfaced in November when he was said to be in London ‘and bottoms himself mostly on the Presbyterian interest being now turned Protestant again’. At first the accuracy of the story seemed doubtful for, as one observer remarked, no two versions agreed ‘in the circumstances of time, place, or accidents contributory to the publication of his conversion.’<sup>76</sup> The rumours were confirmed in January 1664 when Bristol presented himself at the parish church in Wimbledon.<sup>77</sup> The following month the minister and three of Bristol’s servants were arrested and imprisoned for failing to obey the king’s proclamation, as were the churchwardens and parish constable, but Bristol’s recusancy was discharged.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Rumours that the king still had a fondness for Bristol and that the attack on Clarendon would be renewed continued to circulate. As the new session of Parliament approached there were reports that Bristol’s agent was preparing ‘very rich liveries coaches and other equipage’ so that his master could make a magnificent entrance.<sup>79</sup> Bristol, apparently unrepentant, was making ‘great brags’ about what he would do in the new session leading Clarendon to insist that the session open on 16 Mar. as originally planned rather than be postponed as might have been more appropriate.<sup>80</sup> The king attempted to dispel any belief that he still had a lingering regard for Bristol by declaring,</p><blockquote><p>that if any of his privy council abet my Lord Bristol he will remove him from the council, if any of his servants he will dismiss them his service, if any other person he will forbid them his presence: and take such farther course against my lord and all that appear for him as the indignities offered to his person and government deserve.<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>The king’s fickle nature left at least some of his courtiers convinced that, for all his protestations, Bristol’s disgrace might not be a lasting one. In March 1664 even as the king fulminated against Bristol, Thomas Killigrew made him and the rest of the court laugh as he waved two sixpences and demanded to know what the king would give him ‘for this money, when you believe him again?’<sup>82</sup></p><p>Almost simultaneously Bristol wrote letters to several of the king’s ministers. In his letter to Secretary Morrice he explained that his actions in the previous session had been prompted ‘by an excess of zeal … beyond the bounds of that great reverence with which subjects ought to tender even their best and most affectionate advices to their sovereign’ and that having been forbidden the court he naturally withdrew to a ‘strict retirement’ which meant that he was entirely ignorant of the proclamation for his apprehension. Determined to appear immediately before the Privy Council, he had been prevented from doing so by illness and with the approach of the session was now in a quandary knowing,</p><blockquote><p>not which way to govern my self betwixt the duty which I owe unto his majesty’s proclamation, obliging me to appear before the honourable board, and that regard which at the same time I owe to the high and important privilege of the house of peers; It is that wherein I humbly desire the direction of the honourable board; how a person so resigned as I am to duty and obedience in all kinds ought to behave himself .<sup>83</sup></p></blockquote><p>Morrice appears to have given his letter to Clarendon. A letter directed to Albemarle is also amongst Clarendon’s papers.<sup>84</sup> Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, left his sick bed and took his straight to the king.<sup>85</sup> In a letter addressed to the king, Bristol requested a private audience to reveal a ‘great secret’ that had been kept from him by Clarendon; he threatened that the king would be ‘lost’ if the matter were revealed in Parliament and offered to surrender to Albemarle or Oxford.<sup>86</sup> Comminges reported that behind the scenes first d’Aubigny and then Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans, and Sir John Berkeley had attempted to act as mediators. The king and York were prepared to settle for a recantation in Parliament but Clarendon considered that this would reduce the king’s authority and strengthen that of Parliament. An offer from Bristol to apologize verbally or in writing to the king and volunteer to stay away from court until permitted to return was also refused by Clarendon. For his part Bristol volunteered to go into exile but only if he could have some sort of act of indemnity so that he could eventually return to England without fear of further proceedings. This, too, was refused by Clarendon who considered it ‘prejudicial to royal authority and shameful to his dignity.’ Bristol had not abandoned his attempts at intimidation for he maintained that he had evidence against Clarendon ‘but that he would never make use of it out of the respect he had for his majesty’.<sup>87</sup></p><p>With Bristol threatening to attend the new session, its opening was delayed as troops laid in wait to arrest him as he arrived at the House; when he did not, they went to search his house in Wimbledon but he escaped through a back door.<sup>88</sup> Bristol wrote a further letter to his ally James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton. During the ensuing debate on 22 Mar. Northampton, with the backing of John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, spoke of Bristol’s rights and privileges as a peer, but the House decided to deliver the letters unopened to the king.<sup>89</sup> The following day Lady Bristol approached several peers in the lobby in an attempt to deliver a petition; all refused to accept it.<sup>90</sup> The king declared that ‘no age had produced so false and shameless a person’ and rumours began to circulate that Bristol would be impeached.<sup>91</sup> Bristol was now ‘flying on only one wing’; in a last desperate attempt to justify himself he circulated copies of his letters, but the failure of the House to defend his claim to privilege had handed victory to the king and Clarendon.<sup>92</sup></p><h2><em>Rehabilitation, 1664-70</em></h2><p>Further searches were made for him but Bristol had fled and was, wrote Sir Thomas Brathwaite, ‘looked upon as a lost man’.<sup>93</sup> Payment of the £10,000 that had been ordered towards his arrears as secretary of state was suspended. His health broke down and in October 1664 he petitioned the king for readmission to his presence or for the right to return to his own house.<sup>94</sup> Lady Bristol presented a further petition in November asking for her husband to be allowed to return home for health reasons. The queen mother supported the request and Bristol was allowed to return to Sherborne.<sup>95</sup> Slowly Killigrew’s prediction about Bristol’s rehabilitation proved to be correct. By January 1665 Lady Bristol was being ‘graciously received at court’. By February the king would once again allow Bristol’s name to be mentioned in his presence, although those who visited him still took care to let it be known that it was Lady Bristol who was the object of their attentions. Bristol stayed away from Parliament but his allies Lauderdale and Ashley were increasingly in favour.<sup>96</sup> A further sign of Bristol’s restoration to favour came with Sunderland’s marriage to Anne Digby in June 1665.<sup>97</sup> In August 1666 Pepys reported that ‘Bristol’s faction is getting ground apace against my lord chancellor.’<sup>98</sup> In January 1667 when the Commons’ decision to investigate three chancery decrees signalled that Clarendon’s position was once more under threat, there were some who believed that despite his absence from Parliament, Bristol’s hand was again at work.<sup>99</sup> Military reverses over the summer of 1667 also strengthened Bristol’s position by discrediting the ministry in which Clarendon had played so important a part.</p><p>Bristol took his seat again on 29 June 1667 for the prorogation. He and Clarendon saluted each other but Bristol did not wear his robes and carefully absented himself from the chamber whilst the king was present.<sup>100</sup> Ominously for Clarendon, Bristol returned to the House on 16 Oct. 1667, a few days after the opening of the 1667-9 session. He was then present for just over 82 per cent of sitting days and was named to 16 committees. His return took place amidst reports that he was rising in the king’s favour. By mid-November 1667 Pepys wrote that Bristol and Buckingham provided ‘the only counsel the king follows’.<sup>101</sup> Bristol was also reported to have encouraged Lady Dacres to petition for a private bill which suggests that his intention to return to public life was well known.<sup>102</sup></p><p>The business of the House for the remainder of 1667 was dominated by the attack on Clarendon. Bristol was named as one of the managers of the conferences with the Commons concerning Clarendon’s impeachment that were held on 15, 19, 25, 28 Nov. and 4, 6 and 14 Dec. 1667. He was not present for the conference on 21 November. On 22 Nov. he was appointed to the committee to draw up reasons for a conference about procedural issues relating to conferences but did not attend the House on 23 Nov. when the conference was actually held. His involvement in the attack on Clarendon was underlined by his signature to the protest of 20 Nov. against the resolution not to commit Clarendon without a specific charge. During a debate in the House on 27 Nov. about the conference to be held the following day, he repeated his belief that the House should reverse its vote and commit Clarendon, ‘but the generality of the House disliked that and it was ordered without a question that we should give them a free conference’.<sup>103</sup></p><p>In February 1668 Edward Conway*, Viscount (later earl of) Conway remarked of the uncertainties and chaos afflicting government policy that ‘Lord Bristol thinks himself in as good favour as ever, but Lord A[rlington], says he is not, and never will be employed. The king gives good words and good countenance to friends and foes alike, without any distinction’. Bristol was influential enough, though, to be credited with the reconciliation between the king and his namesake Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond.<sup>104</sup> In April Bristol was granted the superintendence of banks and <em>monts de piété</em> (a form of pawnbroker) in London, Westminster and other cities.<sup>105</sup> In Parliament that same month he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the impeachment of William Penn. On 8 May during the debate relating to the conference over the dispute arising from <em>Skinner’s case</em> Bristol was said to have spoken ‘excellently well, and in favour of the Commons’ which probably explains why his name was deleted from the list of managers in the manuscript minutes.<sup>106</sup></p><p>That Bristol was now in favour with the king is confirmed by a warrant for the payment of £1,000 issued to him in June 1668. The following month a further £200 was granted and there was a report that he was to go ambassador to Spain.<sup>107</sup> Although he and Buckingham had taken opposite sides during <em>Skinner’s case</em><em>, </em>Bristol was still reckoned to be one of Buckingham’s followers in January 1669. That same month his growing confidence in the king’s goodwill led him to draw up a petition to the crown for recompense in which he pointedly referred both to his own merits and to his frustrations at Clarendon’s hands. His claims were referred to a small committee consisting of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Anglesey and the two secretaries of state. They reported in his favour recommending that his £10,000 grant should be renewed and that he should be given a pension of £2,000 ‘so that after his eminent services, he may be comfortable the remainder of his life.’<sup>108</sup> The king subsequently turned this into a grant of a pension of £2,000 plus a second pension to Lady Bristol of £1,000 with a reversion after her death to their younger son, Francis, until he in turn succeeded to his own reversion of a place as auditor of the receipt.<sup>109</sup></p><p>During the short 1669 session Bristol was present on just under 64 per cent of sitting days. Although still considered an ally of Buckingham, in November 1669 the two peers were again at odds over the bill spawned in the Commons as a result of <em>Skinner’s case</em> and designed to prevent the House of Lords from hearing original causes. Bristol and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley were said to be the only peers who voted in its favour.<sup>110</sup></p><h2><em>Final years, 1670-3</em></h2><p>Bristol’s attendance over the 1670-1 session plummeted to just under 27 per cent of sitting days. His absences were concentrated in the autumn of 1670 and winter of 1670-1. He may have stayed away because the task of toppling Clarendon had been achieved or because the business under consideration had little interest for him, but there may have been a more obvious explanation for in a letter dated 30 Oct. 1670 he referred to being unwell.<sup>111</sup> His attendances were at their highest in the spring of 1670 when the question of a divorce for John Manners*, then styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), was under consideration. Bristol opposed the bill, citing scriptural authorities to justify Catholic and Anglican traditions against divorce, the practical inconveniences of encouraging domestic strife if ‘a way should be opened to be unmarried again’ and the need to protect the rights of the Anglican church to determine matters ecclesiastical.<sup>112</sup> On 17 and 28 Mar. 1670 he entered dissents to its passage.</p><p>Bristol’s financial needs were, in his own view at least, still acute. In June 1670 he was trying to borrow £200 to meet ‘a pressing present occasion’.<sup>113</sup> His professed poverty did not prevent him from buying the governorship of Deal Castle for his son Francis.<sup>114</sup> However, practical procedural difficulties had hampered the payment of the pensions awarded the previous year and he approached Arlington for a Privy Seal to secure the arrears,</p><blockquote><p>which amount to £2,250 by which means I should be able to redeem my plate and best furniture, now engaged, and satisfy some of my pressing creditors who, before the grant of these pensions, were apt rather to pity than to press, but have now grown insupportable, believing that the king has given me the means to satisfy them.<sup>115</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 1 Dec. 1670 the House ruled on an appeal in the case of <em>Lady Anne Fry v. George Porter</em>. In the course of the debate Bristol argued in favour of the appellant and of a liberal interpretation of the House’s judicial powers, stating ‘that this case was an appeal from chancery equity to the superior equity of this house, which is not bound by rules and forms (as the chancery is)’, but the House did not follow his lead and the appeal was dismissed.<sup>116</sup></p><p>In May 1672 Bristol’s son, Francis Digby, was killed at the battle of Sole Bay. By his own account Bristol had long tried to secure an alteration to the grant of a reversion to the auditor of the receipt. Fearing that his son might die he had secured a promise from the king that the reversion be extended for another life, ‘it being the only foundation of credit remaining to the said earl after his great losses for his loyalty.’ Bristol believed that he deserved the fresh grant for ‘though he were destitute himself of all pretence of merit in his majesty’s service … it is a justice ever observed of course by generous princes towards the heirs of those who die conspicuously in their service.’<sup>117</sup> Bristol believed he had support from York for the new grant but in March 1673 the reversion was issued to Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> instead.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Bristol was present on 69 per cent of sitting days during the first session of 1673, with most of his absences concentrated in February 1673. He was named to ten committees. In March during the debates on the Test Act he insisted that Catholics ought to speak ‘not as Roman Catholics but as faithful members of a protestant Parliament’. He praised ‘this incomparable House of Commons’ that had produced, ‘A bill, in my opinion, as full of moderation towards Catholic, as of prudence and security towards the religion of the state’. Whilst he intended to vote against it ‘yet as a member of the protestant Parliament, my advice prudentially cannot but go along with the main scope of it, the present circumstances of time, and affairs considered, and the necessity of composing the disturbed minds of the people’.<sup>119</sup> His conciliatory attitude may in part have been influenced by the need to secure special treatment. The subcommittee to consider the bill was given a series of points to embody as amendments, one of which was to ensure that, if passed, it include a proviso to protect the payment of the pensions to Bristol and his countess. Bristol drafted the proviso himself and it duly became section 14 of the act.<sup>120</sup> The pensions were crucial to Bristol’s finances; during the recess, in May 1673, he paid his draper by an assignment on the arrears.<sup>121</sup> In June 1673 he received a free gift from the crown of £2,120.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Parliament reassembled in October 1673 and met for just four days; Bristol attended for two of them. A reference in November 1673 to Bristol’s ‘ill legs’ suggests that his health may have been in decline but he was still an influential figure at court.<sup>123</sup> In December it was reported that he was visited every day by the principal courtiers and parliamentary figures. He encouraged the French to believe that Parliament would become more favourable to France but only if it were possible to remove suspicions of the existence of the secret treaty of Dover and Louis XIV’s obligation to offer Charles II military assistance ‘to establish the Catholic religion and arbitrary power’.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Bristol was present for 68 per cent of the sitting days during the 1674 session. In December 1673 the French ambassador had reported that Buckingham and Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, were confident of their ability to control Parliament and that they expected to have Bristol’s support, but when the session opened on 7 Jan. 1674 Bristol and Ormond indicated their opposition to Buckingham by speaking in favour of the petition presented by the trustees of the young Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, complaining of Buckingham’s affair with Lady Shrewsbury. Later that month, despite still being reputed to be a Catholic himself, he spoke in support of Shaftesbury’s attack on Catholics and suggested removing them from a ten mile radius of London.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Money, as ever, was a matter of major concern to Bristol. The stray survival of a letter in March 1675 suggests that the ability to expedite or delay payment of his pension provided Danby with a useful weapon with which to secure Bristol’s gratitude. When the new session opened on 13 April 1675 Bristol joined the opponents of Danby’s attempt to secure the non-resisting test, entering formal protests against it on 15, 21 and 26 April.<sup>126</sup> He was present for the initial stages of the dispute over the House’s jurisdiction in the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> and entered a protest on 6 May at the message that was to be sent to the Commons, arguing that ‘it may seem in some measure to acknowledge that the House of Commons have a claim to some privilege in judicature’. He attended the House on the following day but then absented himself.</p><p>Parliament adjourned on 9 June 1675; Bristol was present when it resumed on 13 Oct. at which time it was already clear that renewed clashes over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> were likely to disrupt business. On 10 Nov. Bristol was named as one of the managers of the conference on the address to the king for recalling soldiers. That same day when the House ordered an investigation of the publication of <em>A letter to a Person of Quality</em> with a view to having it burned as a seditious libel, Bristol defended it saying that, ‘he knew no reason why it should be so treated, for he did not see one lie in it, and only told the matter of fact.’<sup>127</sup> Perhaps his pension was paid, for within days he had abandoned any pretence of support for Shaftesbury, Buckingham and rest of the opposition peers. On 20 Nov. during the course of the debate over the Commons reaction to <em>Sherley v. Fagg,</em> he denounced the proponents of confrontation as having premeditated their actions, saying that,</p><blockquote><p>it was not in the nature of man to have such a faculty of speaking to a point of so great concern, as he found they did, without a long and serious consultation and consideration beforehand, and that it was designed for a surprise &c upon which my Lord Shaftesbury and he grew hot with one another, that my Lord Bristol told him he would have articles of treason against him and the other said he would have articles of conspiracy against him and much more & for which they both were forced to ask the pardon of the House.<sup>128</sup></p></blockquote><p>The House was then moved for an address for a dissolution; Bristol voted with the court lords against it. The relationship between Bristol and Shaftesbury was further soured by events at the by-election for Dorset held in October 1675. Bristol’s son, John Digby*, then styled Lord Digby (later 3rd earl of Bristol), was returned as one of the Members for Dorset in a contest that pitted the Digbys against a candidate sponsored by Shaftesbury. As a result of insults traded during the campaign Shaftesbury prosecuted Digby for <em>scandalum magnatum</em>, winning damages of £1,000.<sup>129</sup></p><p>After the prorogation of November 1675, Parliament did not meet until February 1677. Bristol attended the first six days of the session but was then absent for a week before making his final appearance there on 1 March. At a call of the House on 9 Mar. 1677 he was excused. He died at his home in Chelsea on 20 Mar. 1677. In his will Bristol left his remaining property and possessions to his wife during her lifetime. Having already transferred most of his lands in Somerset and Dorset to his sons, there remained a mansion in Wimbledon, a house in Chelsea and the family seat at Sherborne Castle. Bristol made particular mention of his debts and the money to which he had a right. In July 1677 the countess of Bristol sold their house in Chelsea, Surrey, to Danby for £11-12,000.<sup>130</sup> Bristol’s extensive library was auctioned in London in April 1680 and the catalogue gives some indication of the scope of the earl’s interests and influences. Works of philosophy, astrology, theology and literature abound.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Accounts of the infamous earl of Bristol continued to emerge in the decades that followed. Roger Morrice recorded a conversation between Bristol and the king about ways of getting Parliament to vote a supply. Bristol was alleged to have said that a ‘sure and easy way’ was to ‘let a priest be tried, condemned and executed’, and to have offered a likely candidate.<sup>132</sup> Burnet described Bristol as having ‘courage and learning, bold temper and lively wit, but no judgment or steadiness’, a description that certainly reflects Bristol’s religious inconstancy but which does but partial justice to a man whose life seems to have been governed by a single-minded pursuit of the rewards, financial and personal, that he believed his devotion to his monarch deserved.<sup>133</sup></p> |
A.C./R.P. |
|
DIGBY, John (1634-98) |
<p><strong><surname>DIGBY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1634–98)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Ld. Digby 1653-77; <em>suc. </em>fa. 20 Mar. 1677 as 3rd earl of BRISTOL |
|
First sat 30 Mar. 1677; last sat 19 Mar. 1697 |
|
MP Dorset 18 Oct. 1675-24 Mar. 1677. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 26 Apr. 1634, 1st s. of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol and Lady Anne Russell. <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>m</em>. (1) 26 Mar. 1656, Alice (<em>d</em>.1658), da. and h. of Robert Bourne of Blake Hall, Essex, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) lic. 13 July 1663, Rachel (<em>d.</em>1709), da. and coh. of Sir Hugh Wyndham, j.c.p. 1673-84, of Silton, Dorset, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 18 Sept. 1698; <em>will</em>, 1 Dec. 1681- 9 Sept. 1698.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. oyer and terminer, Western circuit July 1660, assessment Dorset 1661-74, Som. 1664-74; ld. lt. and <em>custos rot.</em> 1679-June 1688, Oct. 1688-<em>d</em>.; freeman, Lyme Regis 1683.</p> |
<p>Likeness: monument, Sherborne Abbey, Dorset.</p> |
<p>There may have been a hint of scandal about the young Lord Digby. In 1661 Richard Boyle*, earl of Cork [I] and later earl of Burlington, considered him an unsuitable candidate for his daughter’s hand, but on the whole the young man seems to have been relatively inoffensive.<sup>2</sup> He did not share his father’s resentment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, or his catholicism and had little interest in making a mark as either a parliamentarian or a politician. When he stood for election for Dorset in 1675 he did so as a court candidate, backed by Guy Carleton*, bishop of Bristol, and opposed by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. During the ill-tempered election campaign Digby accused Shaftesbury of being ‘a fanatic and a traitor’. As a result Shaftesbury sued him for <em>scandalum magnatum</em><em>, </em>winning damages of £1,000. The decision of a group of Dorset gentlemen to offer to pay his costs and damages suggests that he was popular locally, though whether they actually did so is unknown; at least one of his contemporaries thought that the two men had privately compounded the affair.<sup>3</sup></p><p>He took his seat as earl of Bristol on 30 March 1677, having received a writ of summons dated 23 Mar., just three days after his father’s death.<sup>4</sup> He was then present on only 19 sitting days during the session, just over 20 per cent of possible attendances. He was immediately appointed to the committee considering the bill to prevent clandestine marriages and in the course of the session was named to a further seven committees. Shaftesbury listed him as vile. Bristol covered a long absence between January and the end of April 1678 with a proxy in favour of Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham).</p><p>Bristol’s attendance for the May-July 1678 session was slightly higher at 35 per cent; on 24 June he again registered a proxy in favour of Finch. He was named to five committees. During the October-December 1678 session he was present for just under 20 per cent of sitting days. A third proxy in favour of Finch was registered on 22 Oct. and vacated by Bristol’s arrival in the House on 16 December. Bristol then attended assiduously for the remaining weeks of the session, probably at the behest of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting upon the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and on 26 Dec. against committing Danby.</p><p>Bristol attended none of the sittings of the abandoned first session of the first 1679 Parliament (6-13 Mar.). He also missed the beginning of the second session, not taking his seat until 1 April. He was present for 57 per cent of sitting days. On 30 Apr. he was deputed, together with William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, and James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, to carry the thanks of the House to the king for his speech. Danby consistently listed him as a supporter, assigning Charles Bertie to manage him. Bristol’s arrival on 1 Apr. meant that he was present for the first reading of the bill of attainder against Danby and voted against it. The list of those who voted on the third reading of the bill on 4 Apr. suggests that Bristol voted in favour of the attainder which had been much amended by the Lords. Danby’s own list for the vote on 14 Apr. on whether to agree with the Commons about the bill again identifies Bristol as a supporter, which may reflect the benefit Bristol gained by the recent reinstatement of pensions that had not been paid since the stop of the exchequer.<sup>5</sup> On 10 May 1679 Bristol voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and entered a dissent when the motion was lost. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Bristol was absent when the second 1679 Parliament finally assembled on 21 Oct. 1680. He arrived on 8 Nov. in time to take part in the debates over exclusion and despite his late arrival had an overall attendance rate of 74 per cent; he was named to one committee. On 15 Nov. he voted to put the question that the exclusion bill be rejected at its first reading. On 23 Nov. he voted against the appointment of a committee to consider the state of the nation in conjunction with the Commons. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. Before the brief 1681 session, Danby listed Bristol as likely to support his request to be bailed from the Tower. However, Bristol attended on only one of a possible seven days. In the long interval between Parliaments it seems that Bristol busied himself with his responsibilities as lord lieutenant of Dorset, although almost the only evidence of this is a report that he had summoned William Gulston*, bishop of Bristol, to meet him at Sherborne assizes in July 1683 to discuss public business.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In later years William George Richard Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, included Bristol in his list of those he believed were in favour of the bill he had tried to secure for the restoration of his estates in May 1685 but he was mistaken – Bristol attended James II’s Parliament for only five days in November 1685.<sup>7</sup> There were conflicting reports of his attitude to James II’s policies in 1687, with three out of four surviving lists indicating his support for them. His inability to persuade the gentlemen of Dorset to acquiesce to the three questions led to the loss of his lieutenancy in June 1688. He was reinstated in October but rapidly threw in his lot with the Prince of Orange, reportedly inviting him to dine at Sherborne Castle shortly after the landing at Torbay.<sup>8</sup></p><p>During the first session of the Convention Bristol was present on 65 per cent of sitting days, with most of his absences concentrated in the period after 18 June 1689. The second (1689-90) session saw Bristol’s attendance fall back to just over 42 per cent. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen and on 4 Feb. voted in favour of the motion to agree with the Commons in the use of the word abdicated instead of deserted. When the motion was lost he entered his dissent. His service to the new regime secured a pension of £5,500 a year but in his response to the peers’ self assessment exercise in September 1689, he declared that he had no personal estate other than stock upon land.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Bristol’s attendance during the first session of 1690 marked his highest level of attendance since the exclusion crisis, nearly 72 per cent. Unfortunately those records that survive are silent as to his contribution to the House and his motivation for attending. Thereafter his attendance declined markedly. He was present on only 22 per cent of sitting days during the 1690-1 session. On 6 Oct. Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen, noted that he was ‘expected in town this night’, although his first attendance of the session was on the 18th.<sup>10</sup> His attendances were concentrated in October and November 1690 on days when the most controversial issues before the House were the arrest of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, and the release of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough. Other issues that may have attracted his attention were an appeal in the Albemarle inheritance case and the bill for the reformation of chancery but his attendance on the days these issues were discussed was erratic. He also had a more personal reason for attendance. On 12 Nov. he invoked privilege of peerage and of Parliament against William Turner who, together with an attorney and a bailiff and several servants had taken hay, several loads of stones and dung from Bristol’s land.</p><p>Bristol’s attendance was even lower during the 1691-2 session when he was present on only six occasions (all of which were in the last two weeks of November 1691). The attendances were so scattered that it is difficult to identify a common thread other than concern about the situation in Ireland. On 8 Feb. 1692 he covered his absence for the rest of the session with a proxy registered in favour of John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater. Bristol’s attendance remained at this low level for the 1693-4 session (less than two per cent), the 1694-5 session (attended twice) and the 1695-6 session when he attended on nine days in March and April 1696, possibly spurred by discovery of the assassination plot. His attendance during the 1693-4 session did include several days when the Albemarle inheritance case was again before the House but on 17 Feb. 1694 when the matter came to a vote he was named as one of the peers who had not been present for all the hearings and who ought to withdraw from the chamber, which he duly did.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Bristol’s attendances during the 1696-7 session were again in the order of two per cent. He arrived in the House on 23 Nov., probably in response to the order of 14 Nov. relating to the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and which had threatened absentees with imprisonment. On 18 Nov. he entered a dissent to the passage of the second reading of the attainder bill. He voted against the third reading on 23 Dec. and also entered a protest against it. Thereafter he made a few scattered attendances until his final appearance in the House on 19 Mar. 1697.</p><p>In May 1697 it was said that Bristol had laid down his lieutenancy of Dorset and that the government ‘are at great loss to supply it.’<sup>12</sup> No replacement was made so presumably he was persuaded to continue in post until his death in September 1698. His epitaph declared that he lay down his titles ‘unsullied’ and that,</p><blockquote><p>he was naturally inclined to avoid the hurry of a public life … but scorned obscurity; and therefore never made his retirement a pretence to draw himself within a narrower compass, or to shun such expense as charity, hospitality, and his honour call’d for. He was kind and obliging to his neighbours, generous and condescending to his inferiors, and just to all mankind.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>After his death Bristol lay in state at Sherborne where he was visited by thousands of people before a public and ostentatiously splendid funeral. Perhaps part of his popularity in the county can be ascribed to his habit of paying his debts to local tradesmen whenever he left the county – a practice shared by few of his fellow peers. The probate copy of his will has not been traced but another copy exists locally. In it he left generous bequests to the church at Sherborne, to friends, servants and local charities.<sup>14</sup> He also provided for a magnificent and still surviving monument to himself and his two wives to be erected in Sherborne Abbey. Bristol had no children and no brothers to inherit either his estate or his honours. His older sister had predeceased him, leaving a daughter who took the veil. Another sister was married to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. In 1694, during negotiations for the marriage of his son, Sunderland claimed Bristol had entailed his estate on Lady Sunderland but shortly after her brother’s death Lady Sunderland reported correctly that it had passed to their cousin, William Digby, Baron Digby of Gleashill [I].<sup>15</sup></p> |
A.C./R.P. |
|
DORMER, Charles (1632-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>DORMER</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1632–1709)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 20 Sept. 1643 (a minor) as 2nd earl of CARNARVON |
|
First sat 1 May 1660; last sat 14 Dec. 1708 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Oct. 1632, s. and h. of Robert Dormer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Carnarvon and Anna Sophia, da. of Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke. <em>educ.</em> MA Oxf. 1648. <em>m</em>. (1) in or bef. 1653, Elizabeth (1633-78), da. of Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Capell of Hadham, and sis. of Arthur Capell*, later earl of Essex. 3s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), (2) in or about Jan. 1679,<sup>1</sup> Mary (1655-1709), da. of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, <em>s.p.m. d</em>. 29 Nov. 1709; <em>will</em> 30 July 1709, pr. 1710-12.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Hereditary chief avenor and kpr. of the king’s hawks.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by Sir P. Lely, sold at Sotheby’s, 7 June 2006; Oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, sold at Sotheby’s, 6 June 2007.</p> |
<p>Carnarvon was descended from the Catholic Dormers of Wing in Buckinghamshire; his father had benefitted from the sale of peerages in the reign of James I and served as a royalist army officer in the first Civil War.<sup>4</sup> In addition to his hereditary position as master of the hawks, a position for which he had to petition the king in 1660, Carnarvon’s patrimony included the Buckinghamshire manors of Ilmer, Buckland and Hughenden.<sup>5</sup> Involved in numerous chancery cases over personal estate in Buckinghamshire, including one against his brother-in-law, Essex, in which Carnarvon confessed his earlier lack of experience in managing estates, family finances and indebtedness, he exploited the estate’s natural resources to service his own needs, timber being ‘an excrescence of the earth provided by God for the payment of debts’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>On 1 May 1660 Carnarvon took his seat in the newly reconstituted House of Lords. He attended 77 per cent of sittings and was named to one select committee, on the bill to raise £420,000. He voted for stiffer penalties on parliamentarians and on 25 Aug. 1660 dissented from the resolution to agree with the Commons in the bill for indemnity and oblivion. Attending until the last day of the session on 29 Dec. 1660, he remained in London at his Covent Garden residence.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Present for the start of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661, Carnarvon attended the session for 62 per cent of sittings and was named to three select committees. On 30 May 1661 the House gave him leave to go into the country; he returned on 17 June. On 11 July 1661 he was listed as being in favour of the case for the great chamberlaincy put forward by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford. He did not attend the session for the last five months of 1661 despite being in London with his wife. He returned in mid January 1662, only to absent himself again from 7 Mar. when he was given leave to do so by the House and entered a proxy in favour of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater. He returned in April and attended until the prorogation on 19 May 1662.</p><p>During the 1663 session he attended 95 per cent of sittings and was named to the sessional committee for petitions and to four select committees. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that he would oppose the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. On 3 June 1663 the House ordered that a suit between Charles Pittcarne and George Russell could not continue since it breached Carnarvon’s parliamentary privilege.</p><p>Carnarvon was present for the start of the following parliamentary session on 16 Mar. 1664 and attended thereafter for 31 per cent of sittings. He was not named to any committees. On 21 Mar. 1664, careful of his own position, Carnarvon refused a request from Lady Bristol, under threat of arrest, to present Bristol’s petition to the Lords.<sup>8</sup> On 5 Apr. 1664 he was once again given leave to be absent and on 6 Apr. 1664 registered his proxy in favour of James*, duke of York.</p><p>Carnarvon failed to attend the autumn 1664 session. On 28 Jan. 1665 he registered his proxy in favour of York and did so again on 11 Oct. for the 1665 Oxford Parliament, on 24 Sept. 1666 for the autumn session of that year and on 21 Feb. 1668 for the remainder of the 1667-9 session. He was excused attendance at calls of the House on 29 Oct. 1667 and 20 Feb. 1668 but the substance of his excuses is unknown. He failed to attend the autumn 1669 or spring 1670 sessions. On 26 Mar. 1670 Carnarvon registered his proxy in favour of York’s friend and ally, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, who almost certainly used it to oppose the divorce bill for Lord Roos, John Manners*, later 9th earl of Rutland. The proxy was vacated at the end of the session. He stayed away for the next two sessions, the House noting on 13 Feb. 1673 that his proxy had been registered. There are no details in the proxy book, although we know that the proxy had been offered to York, who turned it down in order to accept that of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon.<sup>9</sup></p><p>On 12 Jan. 1674, after nearly ten years’ absence from the House, Carnarvon resumed his seat. He attended nearly 40 per cent of the six week long session but was not named to any committees. He missed the first four weeks of business for the next (spring 1675) session attending for only 38 per cent of sittings. Again, he was not named to any committees. Danby listed Carnarvon as an opponent of the non-resisting test and it seems that his attendance was specifically linked to the need to oppose it. On 30 Apr. 1675, during a debate on the bill in a committee of the whole he ‘stuck very fast to the country party, and spoke many excellent things against it’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Carnarvon did not attend the autumn 1675 session. During 1676 and early 1677 he exchanged familiar letters with Lady Grey of Ruthin, confiding his fears for his daughter’s physical and mental health. He also commiserated with Lady Hatton on her husband’s illness, explaining that he too suffered from ‘giddiness in the head’ and that he had been ill for a long time ‘and not able to mind anything’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Carnarvon did not resume his seat until 11 months after the start of the contentious session that had opened in February 1677. He attended 48 per cent of sittings and was named to four select committees, being listed as ‘worthy’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. His country party sympathies sit oddly against his choice of proxy recipients. On 23 Feb. 1678 he registered his proxy, this time in favour of another courtier, the former royalist soldier and close friend of Charles II, John Granville*, earl of Bath. It was vacated on 12 Mar. 1678 with Carnarvon’s attendance, although a marginal note in the proxy book suggests that it was recalled.</p><p>It was almost certainly on 15 Mar. 1678 that Carnarvon made one of his rare speeches to the Lords. According to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, he spoke at some length in a committee of the whole on the proposed Commons’ address to the king to declare war on France. Carnarvon’s speech included, ‘many very good things pertinent to the business, even beyond all expectation, and concluded to join with the Commons. But in this speech there was a strange mixture which might better have been left out’. Carnarvon was nevertheless complimented for speaking ‘so well for joining with the Commons’ address ... how to prevent arbitrary government is a point very necessary and worthy of consideration and undertaking’.<sup>12</sup> On 4 Apr. Carnarvon voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. On 1 May he received the proxy of his son-in-law Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, (vacated at the end of the session). He dissented from the resolution not to agree with the proviso offered by the Commons in the supply bill on 25 June 1678.</p><p>Carnarvon missed the first two months of the autumn 1678 session, arriving at Westminster on 19 Dec. 1678. He attended only 15 per cent of sittings and was not named to any committees. On 7 Nov. 1678 he registered his proxy in favour of Bridgwater, who was active in the test bill in committee. It was vacated with Carnarvon’s resumption of his seat in December when he was almost certainly motivated to attend by the attempted impeachment of Danby. On 23 Dec. 1678 in the debate on the articles of impeachment against Danby, Carnarvon spoke at length after ‘having been heated with wine’ and egged on ‘to display his abilities by the duke of Buckingham’ who hoped that Carnarvon would pour ridicule on the proceedings.<sup>13</sup> Carnarvon spoke at length of the mischief of the impeachment, embarking on a comic rehearsal of English history:</p><blockquote><p>My Lords, I understand but little of Latin, but a good deal of English, and not a little of the English history, from which I have learnt the mischiefs of such kind of prosecutions as these, and the ill fate of the prosecutors. I could bring many instances, and those very ancient; but my lords, I shall go no farther back than the latter end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign: at which time the earl of Essex was run down by Sir Walter Raleigh. My Lord Bacon, he ran down Sir Walter Raleigh, and your lordships know what became of my Lord Bacon. The duke of Buckingham, he ran down my Lord Bacon, and your lordships know what happened to the duke of Buckingham. Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards earl of Strafford, ran down the duke of Buckingham, and you all know what became of him. Sir Harry Vane, he ran down the earl of Strafford, and your lordships know what became of Sir Harry Vane. Chancellor Hyde, he ran down Sir Harry Vane, and your lordships know what became of the chancellor. Sir Thomas Osborne, now earl of Danby, ran down Chancellor Hyde; but what will become of the earl of Danby, your lordships best can tell. But let me see that man that dare run the earl of Danby down, and we shall soon see what will become of him.<sup>14</sup></p></blockquote><p>A delighted Buckingham exclaimed that Carnarvon was inspired and that ‘claret has done the business’.<sup>15</sup> On 26 Dec. 1678, in debates on the supply bill, Carnarvon voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and registered his dissent from the resolution. The following day, he voted against Danby’s committal and was present at the prorogation on 30 Dec. which put an end to the impeachment. His conduct was probably influenced less by ideology than kinship. At or about this time he married Lady Danby’s sister. At the start of March, Danby calculated that Carnarvon would again support him in the approaching session of Parliament. Further calculations on 2 and 3 Mar. 1679 confirmed that Carnarvon would indeed support the lord treasurer.</p><p>Carnarvon attended every sitting of the first abortive week of the first Exclusion Parliament in March 1679 and was again in the House on 15 Mar. 1679 for the start of the substantive session. He attended thereafter for 95 per cent of sittings and was named to just one select committee. On 1 Apr. 1679 he voted against the early stages of the bill to attaint Danby; three days later he voted against the passage of the bill. On 14 Apr. he opposed the Commons’ amendment, dissenting from the resolution to agree with the lower House on Danby’s banishment. He attended the House until the last day of the session on 27 May 1679, on which day he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Towards the end of August 1679 Danby, from his imprisonment in the Tower, wrote in friendly terms to Carnarvon of his continuing gratitude for the latter’s support and of his fears about the king’s latest illness and the prospect of the kingdom’s ‘distraction’ if the king succumbed.<sup>16</sup> The following March, Danby wrote again from prison with enquiries after the family and complaining that there was little in London to tempt Carnarvon to visit unless he wanted to know more about ‘the new plots’ about which there was endless speculation.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Carnarvon ventured to London for the start of the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, attending thereafter for 88 per cent of sittings. He was again not named to any committees. Two days after the start of the session, Carnarvon and Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor, took the oaths for a second time, their oaths of the previous day considered void as having been sworn outside the prescribed hours for oath-taking. On 15 Nov. 1680 Carnarvon voted to reject the exclusion bill on its first reading. Eight days later he voted to appoint a committee to consider, in conjunction with the Commons, the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. 1680 he voted that William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, was not guilty of treason. One month later he dissented from the resolution not to put the question on the committal of the lord chief justice, William Scroggs, although his name did not appear in the Journal.<sup>18</sup> During the recess, Danby noted that Carnarvon was one of those who would post his bail.<sup>19</sup> Carnarvon travelled to Oxford and attended every sitting of the brief Parliament in March 1681, but does not seem to have been particularly active and his role, if any, during the subsequent period of Tory reaction is unclear.</p><p>In the Buckinghamshire election in April 1685 the sitting Member Thomas Wharton*, successively 5th Baron, earl and marquess of Wharton, campaigned strongly against the court candidates. Yet Danby appears to have asked Carnarvon to support Wharton, who was his kinsman.<sup>20</sup> Carnarvon attended for the opening of James II’s first Parliament on 19 May 1685. With John Manners*, 9th earl of Rutland, he introduced his brother-in-law, James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon. According to a somewhat unreliable list compiled c.1691 by William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, in May 1685 Carnarvon voted in favour of his bill for the restoration of estates lost in the Civil Wars.<sup>21</sup> Carnarvon attended the session for 83 per cent of sittings and was named to three select committees, on Bangor Cathedral, reviving acts, and tillage. On 18 June 1685 he received Abingdon’s proxy (vacated on 9 November). He attended the session regularly until the abrupt prorogation on 20 Nov. 1685.</p><p>In a curious episode in October 1686, it was rumoured that Carnarvon had been ‘whipped’ in his own house at Ethrop by Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, Charles Spencer*, later 3rd earl of Sunderland, and Thomas Wharton who also ‘did some other pecadillos of that kind in his castle’. Captain Bertie was sent to ‘relieve’ the castle but the ‘bravos’ had already made their escape.<sup>22</sup></p><p>By 1687 Carnarvon was said to be opposed to the repeal of the Test Acts and to the king’s policies in general. Nevertheless, his behaviour during the Orange revolution in 1688 suggests a studied neutrality. He absented himself from the deliberations of the provisional government during December 1688, but he was present on the first day of the Convention in January 1689 and attended thereafter for 98 per cent of sittings. Despite his far more regular attendance after the Revolution, and the emergence of the practice of nominating all those present in the chamber to committees, he was named to only 90 select committees between 1689 and the end of his parliamentary career in 1708, a figure that suggests that he did not remain in the Lords’ chamber for the full day’s business.</p><p>On 31 Jan. 1689 Carnarvon voted against the words that would declare the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and on 4 Feb. 1689 he voted against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’. On the 4th and 5th he was one of the conference managers on the dispute between the Houses on the abdication question but the parliamentary list for the vote on the use of the word abdicated on 6 Feb. is somewhat confusing since it marks him both as ‘content’ and as have abstained (‘went off’). On 31 May 1689 he voted against the reversal of judgments of perjury against Titus Oates and on 30 July 1689 voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments in the case of judgments against Oates. Meanwhile, on 10 June 1689, he had again received Abingdon’s proxy (vacated with Abingdon’s attendance on 21 Oct.). Carnarvon did not attend the session after the third week of August 1689, missing the last two months of business.</p><p>Carnarvon arrived for the next session on 30 Oct. 1689 and attended thereafter for 77 per cent of sittings. On 19 Nov. 1689 he protested against the passage of the ultimately unsuccessful bill to prevent clandestine marriages. He again received Abingdon’s proxy on 20 Dec. (vacated at the end of the session) and attended until the last day of the session on 27 Jan. 1690.</p><p>Before the opening of the new Parliament in 1690, Carnarvon was reckoned as a loyal court lord although his subsequent parliamentary behavior reveals a pragmatic loyalty to Carmarthen (as Danby had become) rather than any ideological commitment. He was present at the opening of Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and attended for 91 per cent of sittings. On 29 Apr. 1690 the House heard that Carnarvon had been assaulted by Henry Washington, a gunner on <em>The Defiance</em>, who impressed the waterman then rowing Carnarvon, breaching Carnarvon’s parliamentary privilege as well as causing an ‘indignity’ to his person. The case was referred to the committee for privileges and on 3 May 1690, in Carnarvon’s presence, Washington begged pardon of the House and was discharged on payment of his fees.</p><p>On 2 Oct. 1690 he attended the House for the new session at which he was present for some three-quarters of all sittings. On 6 Oct. he voted in favour of release of Peterborough and of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, from the Tower. On 31 Oct. he again received Abingdon’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session). He attended the session until 29 Dec. 1690, one week before the adjournment.</p><p>On 12 Mar. 1691 it was reported that Carnarvon, Carmarthen and John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, were supporting the interest of Carmarthen’s son-in-law, James Herbert, in the subsequently controverted Aylesbury by-election.<sup>23</sup> The extended Dormer family was divided by the polarizing campaign, but Carnarvon’s allegiances remained firmly behind Carmarthen. Even so, Herbert lost the election.</p><p>On 22 Oct. 1691 Carnarvon attended the House for the start of the new session and attended for 84 per cent of sittings. He resumed his seat six days after the start of the November 1692 session and again attended for 84 per cent of sittings. On 31 Dec. 1692 he voted to commit the place bill, voting in favour of the measure on 3 Jan. 1693 and protesting against its rejection, one of the rare occasions on which he differed from Carmarthen. On 4 Feb. 1693 he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>On 14 Nov. 1693, one week after the start of the next session, it was noted at a call of the House that he was excused attendance. He arrived three days later and subsequently attended 86 per cent of sittings. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against a reversal of Chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. He resumed his seat at Westminster for the next session on 20 Nov. 1694, attending thereafter for 82 per cent of sittings. On 23 Jan. 1695 he dissented from the resolution to accept an amendment in the bill to regulate treason trials. Although he lost his daughter Anne to smallpox over the weekend of 2 Feb. 1695, he was back in the House the following Monday.<sup>24</sup> He received Abingdon’s proxy on 10 Apr. 1695 (vacated with Abingdon’s attendance on 1 May) and attended until the prorogation of 3 May 1695.</p><p>Following the dissolution in October, Carnarvon, Abingdon and Leeds (as Carmarthen had become) again backed James Herbert’s candidature for Aylesbury, this time with success but only after Carmarthen applied pressure on the returning constables and the committee for elections had dismissed petitions from the defeated candidate. Carnarvon attended the Lords for the opening of Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695 and attended for 77 per cent of sittings. A by-election for the Buckinghamshire county seat in February 1696 followed Wharton’s succession to the peerage. Carnarvon joined with Whig lord lieutenant Bridgwater to support the successful candidature of William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In the aftermath of the discovery of the Assassination Plot, Carnarvon signed the Association on 28 Feb. 1696 and attended sporadically until the prorogation at the end of April. Resuming his seat on 12 Nov. 1696, three weeks after the start of the next session, he attended two-thirds of all sittings. Another by-election in Buckinghamshire at the end of December brought Carnarvon into the fray on behalf of the Tory Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) against Wharton’s candidate, Henry Neale<sup>‡</sup>. Neale topped the poll.</p><p>Back in the House on 18 Dec. 1696, Carnarvon opposed the second reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and three days later voted against the third reading. He attended until the prorogation of 16 Apr. 1697 and resumed his seat at the start of the December 1697 session. He attended 70 per cent of sittings, during which time he voted against committal of the bill to punish the Tory Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> on 15 Mar. 1698. He received the proxy of William Fermor*, Baron Leominster, on 17 June 1698 (vacated at the end of the session). On 22 June 1698 he again received Abingdon’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session), attending until three days before the prorogation in July.</p><p>The 1698 general election for Buckinghamshire again involved Carnarvon in support of William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>. After repeated prorogations, Carnarvon resumed his seat at Westminster on 16 Dec. 1698, after which he attended 71 per cent of sittings. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against agreeing with the committee resolution which offered to assist the king in retaining the Dutch guards, dissenting from the resolution. After the prorogation in May Carnarvon next attended the House on 29 Nov. 1699, 13 days after the start of the session. He attended two- thirds of all sittings and on 1 Feb. 1700 was forecast as being in favour of the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. On 8 Feb. he dissented from the resolution to put the question as to whether the Scottish colony of Darien was consistent with the good of the English plantation trade. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted to adjourn the House during pleasure, a measure which would prevent the House from resolving into a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to the East India bill. He attended the House until the penultimate day of the session in mid April.</p><p>Carnarvon was again active in the general election campaign of January 1701 on behalf of the Tory interest in Buckinghamshire, supporting Cheyne (now Viscount Newhaven [S]) and Sir John Verney against the Whigs, Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Dormer<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>26</sup> Wharton topped the poll but Cheyne retained the second seat. Carnarvon attended the new Parliament on 14 Feb. 1701, eight days after it opened and attended two-thirds of all sittings. On 20 Mar. 1701 he protested against the resolution not to send to the Commons the address relating to the Partition Treaty; on 16 Apr. 1701 he protested against the resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address against the punishment of the four impeached lords (and against resolutions to expunge the reasons for this protest) and on 9 June 1701 he protested against the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons’ committee regarding the impeachment. Five days later he again protested against the message to the Commons asking for a conference and against the resolution to insist on the appointment of a committee of both Houses on the impeachment. On 17 June 1701 he dissented from the decision to move into Westminster Hall and proceed with the impeachment of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and again from the resolution to put the question of guilt in the court; in Westminster Hall, he voted with the minority against Somers’ acquittal. He attended for the prorogation on 24 June 1701. In the second general election of 1701, Carnarvon does not seem to have been active and Cheyne lost his seat to the Whig Robert Dormer.</p><p>Carnarvon attended the new Parliament on 9 Jan. 1702 and attended the session for 54 per cent of sittings, acting as one of the conference managers on the accession of Queen Anne on 8 Mar. 1702. Carnarvon was in no hurry to attend the queen’s first Parliament in October 1702 and missed the first six weeks of business, arriving on 30 Nov. 1702. He attended 45 per cent of sittings. He attended the House on 3 Dec. 1702 when the House voted on Somers’ wrecking amendment to the occasional conformity bill, a bill which, according to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Carnarvon supported. On 16 Jan. 1703 he voted against the next wrecking amendment to the penalty clause. He attended the House on 30 Jan. 1703 for prayers before processing with eight bishops to the abbey for the traditional martyrdom sermon.<sup>27</sup> On 22 Feb. 1703 he protested against the resolution not to commit the bill to establish a landed qualification for Members of the Commons.</p><p>By the time of the autumn session, Carnarvon was still reckoned to be a supporter of a new attempt to pass the occasional conformity bill. He attended the session for the first time on 26 Nov. 1703 and attended half of all sittings. On 14 Dec. 1703 he again voted in favour of the bill, dissenting from its rejection by the Lords. On 1 Mar. 1704, in debates on the Scotch Plot, Carnarvon dissented from the inclusion of a phrase in the address to the Crown concerning the convicted Jacobite James Boucher that would prevent the granting of a pardon without a full confession. Then on 3 Mar. he protested at the resolution that the key to the Gibberish Letters be made known only to the queen and those members of the Lords’ committee examining the plot. On 25 Mar. 1704 he dissented from the resolution to put the question whether the failure to censure the plotter Ferguson encouraged the enemies of the crown. Still taking the Tory line, on 16 Mar. 1704 he dissented from the resolution to agree with the committee of the whole House and remove the name of high Church Tory Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> from the list of commissioners for public accounts.</p><p>Missing the first month of the October 1704 session, Carnarvon attended for only 27 per cent of sittings. His arrival on 24 Nov. was almost certainly timed to support the reintroduction of the occasional conformity bill. On 15 Dec. 1704 he dissented from the resolution against a second reading of the bill and to its rejection.</p><p>Having been noted as excused attendance at a call of the House on 12 Nov. 1705, Carnarvon attended the new Parliament four weeks after its opening and attended 21 per cent of sittings. On 3 Dec. 1705 he protested three times against resolutions relating to the bill for securing the queen’s person and the protestant succession, including resolutions on the rider to prevent the lords justices giving the royal assent to any repeal or alteration of the Test Acts. He attended the House on 6 Dec. for the Church in danger debate, entering a protest when the House resolved to agree with the committee that the Church was not in danger. In the new year of 1706 he received the proxy of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, for the remainder of the session. On 11 Mar. 1706 he was twice named as a manager of conferences relating to the privilege of both Houses.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Carnarvon attended the start of the December 1706 session and thereafter attended 40 per cent of sittings. On 8 Feb. and 10 Mar. 1707 (almost certainly for divisions on the Union) he again received the proxy of Abingdon (vacated at the end of the session), attending until six days before the prorogation in early April. He did not attend the ten-day session later that month, nor did he attend the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain in October 1707. He finally arrived at Westminster on 1 Dec. 1707 and attended 34 per cent of sittings up to the prorogation on 1 Apr. 1708. He attended the new Parliament on one day only, 14 Dec. 1708, to take the oaths. This proved to be his final ever attendance at the House. On 29 Nov. 1709, five months after the death of his wife, he died at Ascott House, aged 77.</p><p>Carnarvon’s three sons all predeceased him. His daughters Elizabeth and Isabella were married respectively to the 2nd earl of Chesterfield, and to Charles Coote, 3rd earl of Mountrath [I], who both became involved in a law suit over the disposition of the estate.<sup>29</sup> The earldom was extinguished at Carnarvon’s death but his cousin, the Roman Catholic Rowland Dormer*, succeeded as 4th Baron Dormer.</p> |
B.A. |
|
DORMER, Charles (1668-1728) |
<p><strong><surname>DORMER</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1668–1728)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>2nd. cos. 27 Sept. 1712 as 5th Bar. DORMER |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 22 Apr. 1668, s. of Charles Dormer (<em>d</em>. 1651) of Peterley, Bucks. and Mary Cellier. <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>m.</em> (1) Catherine, da. and coh. of Sir Edmund Fettiplace, bt. of Swincombe, Oxon. 2s.; (2) 7 June 1694, Elizabeth, da. of Richard Biddulph of Biddulph, Staffs. 7s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 2 July 1728; <em>will</em> 15 Sept. 1726, pr. 6 Nov. 1728.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>As a Roman Catholic (the Dormers’ Catholicism had been noted in a 1678 recusancy return and a 1706 episcopal visitation), Dormer was disabled from taking his seat in the House of Lords.<sup>3</sup> A cadet branch of the family, the Dormers of Lee Grange, sent two members to the Commons: Robert<sup>‡</sup> and Fleetwood Dormer<sup>‡</sup>, but there is no indication that he had any influence over them.</p><p>During his lifetime, Dormer added to his family estates in Buckinghamshire when he acquired property in Hughenden as a legatee of Thomas Gregory.<sup>4</sup> He also held property in Hampshire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, acquiring the manor of Swincombe when he married into the armigerous Fettiplace family.<sup>5</sup> He died on 2 July 1728 in London’s Drury Lane and was buried at Great Missenden. At least four of his sons became Jesuit priests, including his son and heir, Charles<sup>†</sup> (from his first marriage), who entered the novitiate in September 1709.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
DORMER, Rowland (1651-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>DORMER</surname></strong>, <strong>Rowland</strong> (1651–1712)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 29 Nov. 1709 as 4th Bar. DORMER. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1651, 1st s. and h. of Robert Dormer of Grove Park, Warws. and Anne, da. of Rowland Eyre of Hassop, Derbys. <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>unm.</em> <em>d</em>. 27 Sept. 1712; <em>admon</em>. 26 June 1713 to sis. Lady Anne Curson.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>At the death of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, the earldom was extinguished for lack of direct male heirs but the barony of Dormer descended to the nearest male descendant of his grandfather, Robert Dormer<sup>†</sup>, 1st Baron Dormer. The new Baron Dormer did not inherit the principal family seat at Wing Park; this had passed (in marriage) to Philip Stanhope*, later 3rd earl of Chesterfield.<sup>2</sup> The Dormers nevertheless retained other estates in Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and the Midlands and the 4th baron lived at the family estate of Grove Park in Warwickshire (situated at Budbrooke, in the Roman Catholic stronghold to the west of Warwick).<sup>3</sup></p><p>As a Catholic, Dormer was unable to take his seat in the House and his circumscribed political activity was limited to the brief period of religious toleration during the reign of James II; in 1688 he was named as an alderman for Warwick in a charter that was never issued.<sup>4</sup> Virtually nothing is known of Dormer’s private affairs, apart from his conveyance of a tract of land to the mayor and corporation of Warwick in 1706.<sup>5</sup> He died on 27 Sept. 1712 and was buried at Budbrooke. A marble memorial was erected in the parish church of St. Michael by his younger sister, Anne, to whom the manor of Budbrooke passed after Dormer’s death.<sup>6</sup> Dormer never married and was succeeded in the barony by his second cousin Charles Dormer*, as 5th Baron Dormer.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
DOUGLAS, Charles (1698-1778) |
<p><strong><surname>DOUGLAS</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1698–1778)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1698-1706 Lord Charles Douglas; <em>cr. </em>17 June 1706 earl of Sallway [Solway] [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 6 July 1711 as 3rd duke of Queensberry [S] and 2nd duke of DOVER |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Nov. 1698, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry and duke of Dover, and Mary (<em>d</em>. 2 Oct. 1709), da. of Charles Boyle*, 2nd Baron Clifford of Lanesborough. e<em>duc</em>. Christ Church, Oxford 1716 (tutor Mr. John White);<sup>1</sup> DCL 1720; travelled abroad, Netherlands, Italy 1717-18. <em>m</em>. 10 Mar. 1720, Catherine, da. of Henry Hyde<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Clarendon, and Jane (<em>d</em>. 1777), da. of Sir William Leveson Gower, 4th bt., sis. of John Leveson Gower*, Bar. Gower, 2s. <em>d,v,p</em>. <em>d</em>. 22 Oct. 1778. Will pr. 1778.</p> |
<p>Lord of bedchamber 1720-7; ld. lt. Dumfries and Kirkcudbright 1721; vice-adm. [S] 1722-9; PC 31 May 1726; commr. of claims, coronation, 1727; gent. of bedchamber to Prince of Wales 1733-51; capt.-gen R. coy archers 1758-<em>d</em>.; keeper, great seal [S] 1761-3; ld. justice gen. [S] 1763-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 8 Nov. 1722.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by T. Hudson, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 2166; oil on canvas by J. Wootton, 1740 (group portrait, with Frederick, Prince of Wales and John Spencer, Royal Coll.</p> |
<p>Queensberry succeeded his father to a British peerage whilst a minor. The story of his attempts to take his seat will be told in the next phase of this work.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
DOUGLAS, James (1662-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>DOUGLAS</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1662–1711)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1671-82 Visct. Drumlanrig [S]; <em>styled </em>1682-95 earl of Drumlanrig and Sanquhar [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 28 Mar. 1695 as 2nd duke of QUEENSBERRY [S]; <em>cr. </em>26 May 1708 duke of DOVER |
RP [S] 1707–8 |
First sat 6 Nov. 1707; last sat 4 June 1711 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Dec. 1662, 1st s. of William Douglas, duke of Queensberry [S], and Isabel, da. of William Douglas, mq. of Douglas [S]. <em>educ</em>. Glasgow Univ. 1676; travelled abroad 1680-4. <em>m</em>. 1 Dec. 1685, Mary (<em>d</em>. 2 Oct. 1709), da. of Charles Boyle*, 2nd Bar. Clifford of Lanesborough, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 5da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KG 18 June 1701. <em>d</em>. 6 July 1711; <em>will</em> 8 June 1711, pr. 16 July 1711.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Lt.-col. King’s Own R. Horse [S] 1684-8; col. Scots Life Gds. 1688-95.</p><p>Commr. borders [S] 1684, exchequer [S] 1684–8, 1690–6, treasury [S] 1692-1702, 1705-8, auditing accts. of treasury [S] 1696, vis. univs. [S] 1697, trade [S] 1698, Union with England 1702–3, 1706; PC [S] 1684-8, 1689-1708; gent. of bedchamber 1689-1702; ld. treasurer [S] 1693; ld. privy seal [S] 1696-1702, 1705-9; extraordinary ld. of session [S] 1696-<em>d</em>.; ld. high commr. to parl. [S] 1700, 1702, 1703, 1706; sec. of state [S] (jt.) 1702-4, 1705-8, (sole)1709-<em>d.</em>; PC 1707-<em>d.</em>; jt. kpr. of signet [S] 1709-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Burgess, Glasgow 1680, Edinburgh 1684; provost, Dumfries 1683; commr. supply, Dumfriess. 1696, 1698; steward, Kirkcudbright stewartry, 1698–1707.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by G. Kneller, c. 1703–5, Govt. Art. Coll.; oil on canvas, attrib. J. B. de Medina, c. 1685, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 2045; marble effigy by J. Van Nost, 1711 (Durrisdeer ch. Dumfriess.); oil on canvas, by unknown artist, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 1171.</p> |
<p>As the dominant figure in Scottish politics 1698-1710, and a principal architect of the Union, Douglas inevitably generated strong opinions. A man of great personal charm, and a formidable strength of character which enabled him to withstand crises in public and private life, he cultivated a reputation as a statesman and a patriot, but to a Jacobite anti-unionist like George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, he possessed no virtue: disloyal not only to the royal line that had raised his family but also to his country, he promoted ‘every proposal and scheme for enslaving Scotland, and invading her honour, liberty, and trade, and rendering her obsequious to the measures and interest of England’. According to Lockhart, Douglas was both avaricious and slothful, and a dissembler who hid a ruthless and vengeful spirit: ‘inwardly a very devil’.<sup>4</sup> Those who looked to him as a patron and political leader naturally saw him differently, as ‘the best natured, friendly man’ they ever knew.<sup>5</sup> But they were not blind to the harder aspects of his character, and could see beneath the fair words to the <em>realpolitik</em>: one of his closest followers, John Clerk<sup>‡</sup>, observed that Douglas was ‘a complete courtier, and partly by art, and partly by nature, he had brought himself into a habit of saying civil and obliging things to everybody’.<sup>6</sup> </p><p>The Douglas family constituted the largest magnate interest in the south-west of Scotland, but their wealth and power owed more to the fruits of royal favour than to their vast estates. Lord Drumlanrig and his father had been heavily involved in Charles II’s repression of the covenanting movement, Drumlanrig in a military capacity as lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of John Graham, Viscount Claverhouse [S], but Queensberry subsequently fell out of favour with King James. At the Revolution Queensberry attempted to lever concessions from James while, as an insurance policy, Drumlanrig quickly switched sides, being the first Scotsman of high rank to declare for the prince of Orange. The strategy was politically successful — both Queensberry and Drumlanrig acquired office — even if henceforth it was difficult for the Douglases to present themselves as either indisputably Episcopalian (as they once had been) or Presbyterian (as they now claimed to be). After succeeding his father, the 2nd duke of Queensberry, by skilfully negotiating a course between the rival political interests in Scotland, including bouts of opposition when he deemed it tactically necessary, secured advancement to the position of lord privy seal, and in 1700 commissioner to the parliament summoned after the collapse of the Scottish colony at Darien.<sup>7</sup> Although a substantial investor himself in the Darien fiasco, he had no qualms about fending off patriotic protests.<sup>8</sup> By the end of King William’s reign he had consolidated his family’s political interest by absorbing several smaller groupings, and by the judicious use of patronage had established an ascendancy in Scottish politics.</p><p>Queensberry resumed his place as parliamentary commissioner on the accession of Anne: his main priorities were to ensure the recognition of the queen’s authority and to empower her to appoint commissioners to negotiate a union, both of which he achieved easily after the secession of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and the bulk of the ‘country party’ opposition. The only controversy occurred over the proposal for an oath of abjuration, which Queensberry managed to suppress.<sup>9</sup> He then left for London, where in November he led the Scottish commissioners in abortive negotiations for a union. </p><p>Continued as commissioner in the new Parliament, which met in 1703, Queensberry sought to neutralize the ‘country party’ opposition by detaching the pro-Jacobite ‘cavaliers’ with promises of a share in government and a toleration for Episcopal clergy.<sup>10</sup> This was not his own idea, but was foisted on him by his great rival John Murray*, duke of Atholl, and the lord chancellor, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]). When the cavaliers reverted to their alliance with Hamilton, Queensberry explained this to the English lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, as the effect of ‘encouragement by some of the queen’s servants’, that is to say Atholl and Seafield.<sup>11</sup> As the session threatened to descend into chaos, he was instructed to withhold the royal assent to the act of security, which embodied opposition proposals to secure Scotland’s religion and liberties, so provoking members that he was obliged to order a prorogation without a supply.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Queensberry moved against his enemies by drawing attention to what he identified as ‘ill designs amongst us’, a vaguely defined Jacobite conspiracy, the evidence for which he was searching out: the political character of the witch-hunt was clear from the fact that Atholl’s name soon came up.<sup>13</sup> Queensberry sought not only to besmirch Atholl’s reputation, with the intention of having him eventually charged with treason, but also to win back ‘Presbyterian’ elements of the country party.<sup>14</sup> But his key witness was the notorious Jacobite, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat [S], who was working to discover, and probably manufacture, evidence. One observer saw this as evidence of Queensberry’s true nature: ‘let the world think what they pleased of the good and debonair nature of the duke of Queensberry ... he was of such a vindictive temper that if he could get all your necks, who he conceived opposed him, he would not fail to do it’.<sup>15</sup> At the same time Atholl was trying to make political capital out of the failure of the 1703 parliament, to secure Queensberry’s dismissal.<sup>16</sup></p><p>By December 1703 the ‘Scotch Plot’ was a focus of political interest in England, with Queensberry paying court to both Whigs and Tories, as well as repeating promises to the ministry that ‘he’ll undertake to get all done here to the humour of the court if the queen will give him an absolute trust and ... oblige her other ministers to concur with him’.<sup>17</sup> He was also playing both sides in Scotland, using the opportunity provided by the debates at Westminster over the second occasional conformity bill to ingratiate himself with the archbishop of Glasgow. It was reported that Queensberry ‘continues ... in his mighty cajoling of the archbishop of Glasgow and ... swears with all the solemn oaths in the world that he hates the Presbyterians and that he is not upon a Presbyterian foot’. <sup>18</sup> Eventually, some members of the House of Lords tried to begin an inquiry into the ‘Scotch Plot’, only to be foiled on 16 Dec. by an intervention by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, which was ‘looked upon as being done by him for the sake of the duke of Queensberry’.<sup>19</sup> Instead, the Cabinet made its own inquiries, and on 17 Dec. the queen informed the House of</p><blockquote><p>designs carried on in Scotland by emissaries from France, which might have proved extremely dangerous to the peace of these kingdoms, as you will see by the particulars which shall be laid before you as soon as the several examinations relating to this matter can be fully perfected and made public without prejudice.</p></blockquote><p>The following day a secret committee, consisting entirely of Whigs, was appointed to examine witnesses. More evidence was coming to light of Lovat’s machinations and the design to implicate Atholl.<sup>20</sup> But while the Lords pursued the inquiry, the Commons appointed their own committee to examine the Lords Journals ‘as to their proceedings in relation to the examination of any persons who are discovered to have a design against her Majesty’s government’, and addressed the queen, expressing concern at what they saw as a violation of the royal prerogative by the upper House. The affair became the subject of a quarrel between the two Houses, which effectively postponed until February 1704 the point at which the promised papers could be laid before the Lords.</p><p>While Lords and Commons were at odds the first steps were taken to replace Queensberry as commissioner by John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], leader of the ‘Presbyterian’ wing of the country opposition, the so-called ‘new party’ (later known as the Squadrone Volante). One of their number, George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, still felt that Queensberry would hold on to office because of his new friendship with the Whig Junto: ‘the lords who support him will have it so and by the management of the plot they have got a hand of the Court.’ Hamilton took the same view: ‘there’s no outbidding the duke of Queensberry unless we will be as great villains as we think him’.<sup>21</sup> The report of the committee of inquiry on 22 Mar. did not immediately compromise Queensberry, since it produced four resolutions, validating the idea of a conspiracy, inferring that uncertainty over the succession had encouraged the plotters, calling for a settlement of the crown of Scotland in the house of Hanover, and promising to promote a union. However, despite the feeling in ministerial circles that Queensberry was the man to carry the succession, the episode had soiled his reputation, and on 5 May news reached Edinburgh that he had been dismissed.<sup>22</sup> He reacted with <em>sang froid</em>, having taken care to ensure that he would be paid his salary and expenses in full, though among his supporters there were fears — unfounded as it turned out — that he would be impeached.<sup>23</sup></p><p>With Queensberry taking his party into opposition, Tweeddale failed to carry the queen’s instructions, including the succession, which Queensberry’s followers did much to frustrate while their leader kept his distance.<sup>24</sup> The session demonstrated that Scottish business could not be carried on without him. In 1705 Tweeddale was replaced as commissioner by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], with Queensberry’s support, the price of which was a return to office as lord privy seal, much to the queen’s disgust, since she now regarded him as untrustworthy, and doubted whether he was in fact of any use in Scotland as he was so disliked there; she told Godolphin that Queensberry’s ‘last tricking behaviour’ had ‘made him more odious to me than ever’.<sup>25</sup> But although Hamilton observed sourly that ‘we are irretrievably flung into Queensberry’s ministry’, the duke did not achieve the complete dismantling of the ‘new party’ administration for which he had pressed.<sup>26</sup> He did not appear at the beginning of the session, possibly because of ill health, although Lockhart interpreted his absence as a stratagem: Queensberry was ‘desirous to see how affairs would go, before he ventured himself in a country where he was generally ... abhorred; and therefore he sent the duke of Argyll down as commissioner, using him as the monkey did the cat in pulling out the hot roasted chestnuts’.<sup>27</sup> Even after he arrived his supporters did not at first prove reliable, but eventually his intervention was crucial in securing the vote to appoint commissioners for a union treaty, and he exerted his influence to shape the membership of the commission.<sup>28</sup> He was adamantly opposed to the idea that it should represent all parties in Scotland, ‘for ... it will be impossible to do ... any kind of business with a jumble’, with the result that the Court party dominated.<sup>29</sup> Although Queensberry had led the Scottish side himself in the previous negotiations this responsibility was now given to Seafield, and in his absence, to Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar. However, it was clear that Queensberry was now ‘the only great man’, in effect entrusted by Godolphin with the management of Scotland (and so far identified with the treasurer’s interest as to forfeit the friendship of the Junto, who allied instead with the Squadrone).<sup>30</sup> He attended all but one of the joint meetings of commissioners, and made sure that he was paid handsomely for so doing; indeed, he appeared to the English ministers to be ‘full of unreasonable demands’.<sup>31</sup> His only recorded contribution to the discussions came on 12 June, concerning Scottish representation in the British Parliament, when, according to John Clerk, he made a speech that was ‘easy, felicitous and brief’.<sup>32</sup> At the same time, he was in constant attendance on the queen, having already been designated as commissioner to the parliament which would ratify the treaty.<sup>33</sup></p><p>When Parliament assembled Queensberry recommended the treaty for ratification, reminding his audience that the commissioners ‘were limited in the matter of church government’, and adding that he was ready to consent to anything further that was judged to be necessary, for that purpose, after the Union. Despite vehement opposition, inside and outside parliament, Queensberry maintained his poise: when ‘ill-used’ in debate, he, ‘with a great deal of temper suffered ... preferring the public peace to all his private resentments; and by this prudence, prevented those who desired to have things exasperated’.<sup>34</sup> In the Edinburgh streets he was insulted and threatened, and on one occasion engulfed by the mob and ‘almost knocked down by stones, and would surely have been killed if his guards had not hurried him off’.<sup>35</sup> In the face of this intimidation, he was said to have shown ‘as much cheerful bravery in the action, as he had calmness and temper in the Parliament’.<sup>36</sup> He was also faced with a family catastrophe, when his eldest surviving son James, an ‘idiot’ who was kept locked up in Holyrood Palace, escaped and murdered a cook boy, whose body he was said to have roasted on a spit and begun to consume before being restrained. It says much for Queensberry’s fortitude that he continued his work as commissioner. His handling of the parliament may not have been decisive in securing the passage of the Union, but was important in containing resistance. As usual, he ensured that he would be appropriately recompensed; of the £20,000 sterling provided by the English government to settle arrears due to Scottish office-holders and pensioners, over £12,300 went to Queensberry’s own pocket.<sup>37</sup></p><p>After ratification came the selection of Scottish representatives to the first Parliament of Great Britain. Queensberry tried at first to postpone this till after the prorogation but the Squadrone, who had come into the Union in alliance with the Junto and hoped to profit politically, pushed for a quick decision. Queensberry’s main concern, which he achieved, was to prevent Hamilton being included. <sup>38</sup> The list was dominated by his own adherents, which furnished the Squadrone with another grievance, since they alleged that he had gone back on promises to them.<sup>39</sup> Having been rewarded for his efforts by appointment to the new British Privy Council and the award of an annuity of £3,000 (from the revenues of the Post Office) for 30 years, Queensberry set out for London on 3 April.<sup>40</sup> John Clerk, who accompanied him, testified that he ‘was quite otherwise treated in England than he had been in Scotland’, ‘everywhere caressed and received with great acclamations of joy’, and greeted near London by ‘all the queen’s ministers and the members of both Houses of the English Parliament’. Clerk also noticed how, despite her previous aversion to him, Queensberry had now become ‘more and more a favourite of the queen.<sup>41</sup> Some were suspicious: the duchess of Marlborough, for one, opposed the idea that Queensberry should be brought into the Cabinet, as he earnestly desired:</p><blockquote><p>nobody should go there that is not in all respects what one would desire, unless there is a necessity of it; and I have known several things of him I do not like, besides that he is so near relation to [Lord Rochester], and I believe he has been sufficiently gratified already for any service he has ever done.<sup>42</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Squadrone were also resentful that Queensberry monopolized royal favour, and prepared to take action against him in the British Parliament.<sup>43</sup></p><p>In the analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] of 1707 Queensberry was noted as ‘for the Revolution Not of principle But if the court will which he will follow’. The same list indicated that seven peers (Mar, Seafield, Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S], Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S] and David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S]) and five of the Members returned to the Commons from Scotland in 1707 (Archibald Douglas<sup>‡</sup>, John Murray<sup>‡</sup>, John Pringle<sup>‡</sup>, John Stuart<sup>‡</sup> and William Douglas<sup>‡</sup>), could be influenced by him. Queensberry took his seat in the Lords on 6 Nov. 1707, when he was named as one of the triers of petitions, and appointed to the committee of privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal. He was present on 28 Jan. 1708 when the Commons sent up a bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council, a calculated attack by the Squadrone on his domination of Scottish business, since its passage would mean the abolition of the Scottish secretaryship.<sup>44</sup> As he was present on 5 Feb. he was almost certainly one of the ‘Scotch Lords’ who in the committee of the whole supported an unsuccessful amendment to postpone abolition until October 1708. A cold caught at the queen’s birthday celebrations on 6 Feb. kept him away when the bill passed its third reading, so he was unable to sign the protest, to his chagrin.<sup>45</sup> He returned to the House on 14 February. In all, he attended on 78 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total. Having been reappointed lord privy seal for Scotland with a salary of £2,000 p.a., on 26 May he was granted the first British peerage after the Union, as duke of Dover, despite the disapproval of the duke of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, who wrote to his wife: ‘I am entirely of your opinion that this last mark of favour ... might have been spared’.<sup>46</sup> On a list of about May 1708 of the first Parliament of Great Britain, Queensberry was marked as a Whig, with a qualifying +, the significance of which is unknown.</p><p>In preparation for the elections Queensberry had preliminary discussions with Hamilton about co-operation in the choice of representative peers, which came to nothing, Hamilton blaming Queensberry’s insistence on including ‘an unreasonable number’ of his own ‘set’. The two men also quarrelled over Hamilton’s claim to a British peerage: according to Hamilton, ‘Queensberry hindered it’; while Queensberry declared that ‘he did in all in his power to procure it and that preferable to his own patent’.<sup>47</sup> Hamilton then came to an agreement with the Squadrone and the Junto to oppose the ‘old court party’ in the elections, which pushed Queensberry and his followers into feverish activity. Queensberry was particularly concerned at the way in which the Whig secretary of state, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, was making use of the queen’s name to advance Hamilton’s interest, and complained to Godolphin, adding that Sunderland was also stealing the Court party’s credit for interceding with government to help the Scottish peers arrested for suspected complicity with the planned Jacobite uprising, a ploy his henchmen had used to secure votes.<sup>48</sup> At the peers’ election Queensberry voted in person for his own list, and also cast a proxy. Hamilton immediately protested against his participation on the grounds that he was a peer of Great Britain, and was supported in doing so by the Squadrone.<sup>49</sup> After consultations with the Junto, the objection was taken to the Lords.<sup>50</sup> </p><p>Queensberry had intended to leave Edinburgh on 24 June and return to London, but on 5 July he was still there ‘not being yet in a condition to write’ himself, although he hoped to begin his journey on 7 July.<sup>51</sup> He was introduced into the Lords as duke of Dover on 19 Nov. 1708 by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, but without a word of complaint from the Squadrone or the Junto, to Godolphin’s surprise.<sup>52</sup> While the treasurer looked on Queensberry as an ally against the Junto, Marlborough remained suspicious, considering him ‘a very dangerous false man’: ‘I did ever think him a very knave. I wish you may not find him so’.<sup>53</sup> On 18 Jan. 1709 Hamilton presented a protest against Queensberry’s right to vote in the peers’ election as contrary to the Scottish Act which had established the manner of election. Three days later the matter was debated. Mar reported that ‘The Junto and all they could make of their folks were against him; the treasurer and all who depend on him and the Court independent of the Junto for him.’ What proved decisive, however, was the fact that the ‘Tories were divided and none for him but those who were particular acquaintances of him or his friends and even some of those against him’, a consequence of the fact that Queensberry’s followers in the Commons had voted the day before against the Tory Sir Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, in an election case. So when the question was put ‘the duke’s vote was lost by seven’ (57-50), and the House resolved that a Scottish peer ‘claiming to sit in the House of Peers by virtue of a patent passed under the great seal of Great Britain after the Union, and who now sits in the Parliament of Great Britain, had no right to vote in the election of the sixteen peers’. Queensberry is not recorded on the division list and probably did not vote himself.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Shortly afterwards, having heard that there were plans to give Queensberry a seat in the Cabinet, Marlborough told his wife that ‘you may depend upon my doing all that is in my power to hinder his coming into so dangerous a place’.<sup>55</sup> He believed he could rely on the Junto to prevent this, since they had strongly opposed Queensberry’s right to vote in the peers’ election, and in an effort to undermine further his influence in Scotland had suggested to Godolphin that there should be ‘a third Secretary in order to get Scots business into the Cabinet which was now done by a private whisper’. Godolphin replied that he had already advised the queen to appoint Queensberry as her third secretary, with a Cabinet place, alongside two promotions for the Squadrone, which left the Junto nonplussed and capable of only half-hearted expressions of disapproval.<sup>56</sup> However, the responsibilities of the third secretary were initially confined to domestic business, foreign affairs remaining the province of the secretaries for the northern and southern departments, so that Tweeddale’s son could console himself with the likelihood that Queensberry ‘will do no more in Scotland than any other secretary’.<sup>57</sup> The Squadrone then began to complain publicly ‘that there should be a Scots secretary, which occasioned much of our former slavery which they say was to be removed by the Union and all such badges of distinction’, from which it was alleged that ‘there is nothing less intended than the overturning of all that’s done and by those who appeared forward in it’.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Queensberry was present in the Lords on 16 Mar. for the second reading of a bill ‘for improving the Union’, the main purpose of which was to extend the English treason laws to Scotland. He joined the other Scots peers on 18 Mar. in the minority in a division in committee against inserting into the bill the titles of the English statutes.<sup>59</sup> On 23 Mar. he acted as a teller on whether to resume the House; and as a teller again on 26 Mar., in voting for an amendment to give the accused a list of witnesses five days before the trial, according to Scottish practice. On 28 Mar. he signed a protest against the rejection of a rider which provided that all those accused of treason should receive a copy of the indictment at least five days before the trial, and then signed a protest against the passage of the bill itself. It was returned from the Commons with two additional clauses, including the provision for making available the list of witnesses, and these were considered on 14 April. The Junto lord Charles Montagu*. Baron Halifax, offered a further amendment to delay implementation until after the death of the Pretender. It was noted that in the debate ‘all the Scots went one way’, against Halifax’s amendment, but that Seafield ‘whisper[ed] to Queensberry’, and then ‘spoke backward and forward but concluded that though he was not for delaying the effect of the clause until after the Pretender’s death yet he was for doing it till a peace’, possibly a tactic decided in advance by Queensberry and Godolphin.<sup>60</sup></p><p>During this session Queensberry’s attendance became more sporadic; he attended on 57 days, 62 per cent of the total. Moreover, as his wife’s health deteriorated during the summer, he attended only five Cabinet meetings between July and November. Her death on 2 Oct. 1709 ‘after a long sickness’, was a devastating blow and accelerated the decline in his political activity.<sup>61</sup> He resumed his seat on 25 Nov., but attended only seven times before the end of the year. He was, however, more assiduous at Cabinet, missing only one meeting between 13 Nov. 1709 and 26 Jan. 1710. He was recorded as present in the Lords on nine occasions in January. Neither Godolphin nor Marlborough fully trusted him: it was the strength of his political following that kept him in office, as well as Godolphin’s realisation that the only feasible replacement would be a Squadrone nominee.<sup>62</sup> After the end of January Queensberry did not attend either the Lords or the Cabinet for a month. However, he was present throughout the Sacheverell trial. On 8 Mar. Godolphin recorded that Queensberry would ‘be right in the matter of Sacheverell’, and he duly voted him guilty on 20 March.<sup>63</sup> The very next day, he was prevailed upon by Somerset to go back into the chamber and vote with the opposition in ameliorating the punishment to be inflicted on the doctor rather than abstain as he had intended.<sup>64</sup> Thereafter he missed only two sittings until the series of prorogations which began on 5 April. All in all, he attended on 42 days of the session, 45 per cent of the total. He attended the prorogations on 18 Apr. and 5 June and was also present at every Cabinet meeting before the dismissal of Sunderland as secretary in June, a development which resulted in an increase in his departmental responsibilities to include some foreign business. In July Marlborough thanked him ‘for the account you give me of the distribution of the business in the secretary’s office.’<sup>65</sup></p><p>During August there were conflicting reports about possible differences between Queensberry and Mar over the forthcoming election in Scotland with the likelihood that an agreement would be made with Hamilton, and even Atholl, by the incoming Tory ministry.<sup>66</sup> There were rumours that Queensberry was ‘not pleased with present proceedings’ and might well ‘fall in again with the Whigs’, though, supple as ever, he was able to make an accommodation with the Tories (through his connexions with prominent Tory peers like Rochester and Ormond, and survived the ministerial revolution intact.<sup>67</sup> Despite being declared ineligible to vote in the peers’ election, he was said to have obtained a proxy during the preparations, but did not participate.<sup>68</sup> The electoral alliance brokered by Mar with Argyll, Hamilton and Atholl, was not to his taste, and he was said to be ‘mad that he has not been more regarded’.<sup>69</sup> In fact, he was not in the confidence of either side in England, and at this point seems to have been primarily concerned to protect himself and his closest friends.<sup>70</sup> Nevertheless his name appeared on a list drawn up on 12 Sept. by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, of Lords to be provided for. According to another list of 3 Oct. 1710 he was expected to support the new ministry.</p><p>On 8 Aug. 1710, a newsletter reported that Queensberry after being ‘seized with an indisposition on the road’, had ‘continued at Durham being better is expected in town the latter end of the next week.’<sup>71</sup> When John Clerk return to London from Bath in the autumn of 1710, he noted in his journal that ‘instead of the satisfaction I expected to find ... by seeing my dear friend the duke of Queensberry in perfect health’ he had ‘found him dying’.<sup>72</sup> On 30 Sept. it was being assumed that Queensberry would travel to Scotland for the peerage election scheduled for 10 Nov., but a report on 7 Oct. observed that he would not be attending.<sup>73</sup> Indeed, he was in Whitehall on 17 Oct. 1710 when he wrote to Marlborough on a patronage matter.<sup>74</sup> Nevertheless, Queensberry rallied, and so long as he retained the secretaryship and his pension of £3,000 a year, was prepared to swallow resentment.<sup>75</sup> He attended eight of the 12 sittings before the Christmas recess in 1710, although there were rumours in December that he would be replaced by Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay.<sup>76</sup> On 2 Jan. 1711 he brought a message from the queen with news of the allied defeat at Brihuega and was named to the committee to draw up an address of thanks. On 12 Jan. during the inquiry into the conduct of the war in Spain, he voted against the resolution that the previous Whig ministry had approved of an offensive campaign and was therefore responsible for its failure, not surprisingly, perhaps, since he had been a member of the Cabinet at the time.<sup>77</sup> On 14 Jan. 1710 Richard Dongworth informed William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, that Queensberry was ‘not disaffected’ to Episcopalianism.<sup>78</sup></p><p>After 9 Feb. 1710, Queensberry did not attend again until 1 Mar. when he opposed Whig attempts to delay a hearing on the petition from the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against a conviction for using the Church of England liturgy. His administrative role was being reduced, as the chief minister, Robert Harley, by-passed him, but he attended Cabinet meetings and was present when Guiscard made his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Harley.<sup>79</sup> During March and April he only attended the Lords six times. This number increased to eight in May, when there was renewed speculation about his losing office.<sup>80</sup> On 21 May he registered a proxy in favour of Loudoun, but was able to attend again from 26 May. He last attended on 4 June. All in all he was present on 42 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total. Following the end of the session it was reported that Queensberry would marry the widow of John Leveson Gower*, Baron Gower, a daughter of John Manners*, duke of Rutland, but death intervened.<sup>81</sup> He died on 6 July 1711 ‘at his house in Albemarle Street ... after he had, for some days, been afflicted with the iliac passion, or misere, which baffled all the remedies that were administered’.<sup>82</sup> According to Mar, he ‘died ... handsomely, both like a gentleman and a Christian’, his last thoughts reserved for family and friends.<sup>83</sup> His remains were carried north to be buried ‘among his ancestors’ at Durisdeer, Dumfriesshire.<sup>84</sup> The Queensberry dukedom passed to his second surviving son, Charles Douglas*, 3rd duke of Queensberry, a charter of <em>novodamus</em> in 1705 having amended the entail. Care had also been taken that the British dukedom should descend directly to Charles by a special remainder in the patent. His will provided for several executors, including his political ally, Glasgow, and his brother-in-law, Henry Boyle*, the future Baron Carleton.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H./S.N.H. |
|
DURAS, Louis Durfort de (c. 1640-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>DURAS</surname></strong>, <strong>Louis Durfort de</strong> (c. 1640–1709)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1641-73 mq. de Blanquefort [France]; <em>cr. </em>29 Jan. 1673 Bar. DURAS; <em>suc. </em>fa.-in-law (by spec. rem.) 16 Apr. 1677 as 2nd earl of FEVERSHAM |
|
First sat 4 Feb. 1673; last sat 24 Mar. 1709 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1640,<sup>1</sup> 6th but 3rd surv. s. of Guy-Aldonce Durfort de Duras, mq. de Duras and comte de Rauzan [France] (<em>d</em>. 8 Jan. 1665) and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1 Dec. 1685), da. of Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, duc de Bouillon [France]. <em>m</em>. c. 9 Mar. 1676 Mary (<em>d</em>. 31 Dec. 1676),<sup>2</sup> da. of Sir George Sondes*, (later earl of Feversham), <em>s.p.</em> KG 30 July 1685. <em>d</em>. 8 Apr. 1709;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 18 July 1701–6 Apr. 1709, pr. 3 May 1709.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Kpr. of privy purse to James Stuart*, duke of York, 1667–88?; amb. extraordinary, France 20 Oct.-2 Dec. 1677, 10 Aug.-15 Sept. 1682; master of horse to Catherine of Braganza, Dec. 1679-Sept. 1680; ld. chamberlain, Catherine of Braganza, Sept. 1680-1705;<sup>5</sup> extra gent. of the bedchamber 1682-May 1685; gent. of bedchamber May 1685-Feb. 1689.</p><p>Master forester, honour of Grafton, Northants., c.1682-<em>d</em>;<sup>6</sup> ld. lt. Kent Oct. 1688-May 1689.</p><p>Capt. coy. in duke of York’s Life Gds, 1665-7; col. duke of York’s Life Gds June 1667-85; 1st tp., R. Life Gds, 1685-89; R. regt. of drags., 1678-83; lt.-gen., English forces in Netherlands, 1678-9; R. Army, 1685-Dec. 1688.</p><p>Master, St Katherine’s Hospital, London, 1698-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by I. Beckett aft. J. Riley, 1681-88, NPG D11658.</p> |
<h2><em>Early Life</em></h2><p>Durfort de Duras was above all a servant and soldier in the service of James II, although his military competence, both at Sedgemoor in 1685 and at the time of William of Orange’s invasion in 1688, has been calumnied both by his own contemporaries and by later writers. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, described him as ‘an honest, brave, and good natured man, but weak to a degree not easily to be conceived’.<sup>10</sup> After the Revolution, Whigs such as Burnet were never going to forgive Feversham his French military background nor his constant loyalty to James II, especially when it could be positively contrasted with the notable disloyalty shown by Feversham’s subordinate, John Churchill*, Baron, later earl and duke of Marlborough. Considering the changed climate in England after 1689, and the enmity he had earned from William III and the Whigs, it was remarkable that Feversham brazened it out as long as he did and continued to reside in an unfriendly country and regularly participate in Parliament until his death.</p><p>Feversham came from a long-established noble Huguenot family, based in the Agenais region of Guyenne. His paternal grandmother was a daughter of the comte de Montgomery, while his own mother was a daughter of Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, duc de Bouillon, and Elisabeth de Nassau, herself a daughter of William the Silent. This important maternal connection tied him to some of the most famous military families in the protestant cause in Europe and, more immediately, made him the nephew of Henri, vicomte de Turenne, the great general of the French armies whom York admired so much while serving under him in the 1650s. All of Louis’s brothers who survived to adulthood became soldiers. The two elder, Jacques-Henri and Guy-Aldonce, became marshals of the French army, in 1675 and 1676 respectively, and dukes of the realm, Jacques-Henri as duc de Duras in 1689 and Guy-Aldonce as duc de Lorge in 1692. These family connections with two of Louis XIV’s generals did not help Feversham’s reputation in England, and to compound matters they only attained these high positions by converting to Catholicism, as did Feversham’s sister Marie, a lady-in-waiting to Charles II’s sister ‘Minette’, and as did Turenne himself.<sup>11</sup> It is not surprising that with these siblings Feversham’s loyalty both to his adopted country and to the protestant religion was always suspect: ‘both his brothers changing religion, though he continued still a Protestant, made that his religion was not much trusted to’, as Burnet commented.<sup>12</sup></p><p>It is most likely that the young marquis de Blanquefort first met his future patron, York, when they were both serving their military apprenticeships under Turenne. As a younger son he realized the limitations of a career in France and decided to throw in his lot with the restored English monarchy, with which his family had had strong links since the English medieval occupation of Guyenne. Macky stated that he ‘came over with one of the duke of York’s family’, while Clarke, in his biography of James II, claimed that Feversham ‘chiefly owed the kindness the king had for him to that great General’s [Turenne’s] recommendation’.<sup>13</sup> He was commissioned a lieutenant in York’s Life Guards in 1662 (if the comte de Grammont is to be believed), accompanied the prince on board his flagship the ‘Royal Charles’ at the battle of Lowestoft in June 1665, and was promoted to captain in the duke’s troop of Guards shortly thereafter.<sup>14</sup> After the act naturalizing him had received the royal assent on 31 Oct. 1665, Blanquefort quickly received more lucrative signs of royal favour in the form of grants of custom duties and a monopoly on lotteries in England and Ireland.<sup>15</sup> He was made keeper of York’s privy purse in 1667 and in June of that year was promoted to colonel of the duke’s Life Guards. York, as warden of the Cinque Ports, even tried (unsuccessfully) to have him chosen for New Romney at a by-election in May 1668 after Henry Brouncker<sup>‡</sup>, the duke’s groom of the bedchamber, had been expelled from the Commons. Between 1668 and 1672 Blanquefort accompanied both York and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, on military inspections and duties and personally attended the duke on board his flagship at Southwold Bay in June 1672.<sup>16</sup></p><h2><em>Parliament and royal service under Charles II</em></h2><p>It was not until 29 Jan. 1673 that Blanquefort was able to enter the English Parliament, when he was created Baron Duras of Holdenby, a royal estate in Northamptonshire which York had ‘bestowed’ on him, ‘in whose service he had been the last 10 years, having been a near attendant on him during the present and former wars’.<sup>17</sup> He first took his seat in the House on the opening day of the new session on 4 Feb. 1673, being introduced by Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, and John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. He attended only the first three meetings of the session, being named to three committees. On 7 Feb. he was given leave of absence, as he was going abroad on the king’s service, duly registering his proxy on that day with Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington. In late January, together with Monmouth, he had been chosen to command the English forces to be sent to the continent to campaign with Louis XIV’s army against the Dutch. He was excused at a call of the House on 13 February. In mid-May it was reported to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> that Duras’s troop had arrived at Courtrai and were ‘much esteemed’ by Louis XIV, and ‘joined with the Garde du Corps in a brigade, and do equal duty with them’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Duras was absent from the short session of October-November 1673, arriving back in London on 12 November.<sup>19</sup> He attended on the opening day of the 1674 session on 7 January. He was present on 33 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. In the summer of 1674 Duras returned to the continent to observe the French military campaign, where he saw action.<sup>20</sup> He was present when the session of April-June 1675 opened on 13 Apr., attending on 34 days of the session, 83 per cent of the whole, and was named to two committees. In this session Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later duke of Leeds, estimated that Duras would support his non-resisting Test bill. Duras was present on 13 Oct., the opening day of the session of October-November 1675. On the second Sunday of the session, 24 Oct., he dined with Arlington, the Dutch ambassador and John Evelyn, who described him as a ‘valiant gent’.<sup>21</sup> He attended on 17 days, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. As a diligent loyalist, he was an obvious choice to hold proxies. Just prior to the commencement of the session both William Crofts*, Baron Crofts (8 Oct.), and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland (12 Oct.), registered their proxies with Duras. Sunderland’s proxy was vacated on 25 Oct. but Duras had his full complement of proxies again a few weeks later when Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, registered his proxy in his favour on 15 November.</p><p>In February 1676 Duras entered into negotiations for a marriage to the eldest daughter and co-heir of Sir George Sondes, a wealthy Kentish merchant who had loaned large amounts to the government in the 1660s.<sup>22</sup> As one observer noted, ‘the lady is not handsome and therefore I suppose the easier got, for he has but £700 a year in land and £2,000 in offices’.<sup>23</sup> Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> noted the somewhat fortuitous nature of the marriage, ‘Mr. [Edward] Lewis that is dead was to have had her’.<sup>24</sup> To shore up his position with Sondes, Duras petitioned the king in February 1676 ‘being now about concluding a marriage’ for a grant of £3,000 per annum from the crown to be paid out of the Irish revenue and disbursed over the following seven years. The king actually bettered this by granting £4,000 for the first three years and then £3,000 for the next three.<sup>25</sup> The marriage articles, which promised Duras a settlement of £3,000 p.a. on the settlement of a jointure on his wife, were signed on 28 Mar. 1676.<sup>26</sup> As part of the bargain Duras used his influence at court to have Sondes created a peer, largely in order to receive a title for himself, as the king had promised him an earldom. Charles probably considered it too inflammatory to confer such an honour outright on a Frenchman and preferred to do it indirectly through a special remainder. The letters patent of 8 Apr. created Sondes Baron Throwley, Viscount Sondes and earl of Feversham, and allowed the title to pass after his death to his son-in-law, Duras. Mary Sondes died childless within a year of the marriage, followed shortly thereafter by her father on 16 Apr. 1677.<sup>27</sup> By these deaths Duras gained his coveted earldom, but his receipt of the promised £3,000 p.a. was placed in doubt. The first earl’s only surviving daughter Katherine was now sole heir to the Sondes estate and Feversham’s prospects were further dimmed when she, now a much sought-after heiress, married Lewis Watson*, the future earl of Rockingham in July 1677. As the countess of Sunderland wrote on 24 May 1677, ‘Feversham is to have but £800 a year for his life’. Lady Chaworth wrote that following Mary’s death Duras would lose the £3,000 a year of Lord Faversham’s as the daughter did not outlive her father, ‘but the other daughter is now a vast fortune.’<sup>28</sup></p><p>Duras found Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of murder at his trial on 30 June 1676.<sup>29</sup> He was present on 15 Feb. 1677, the opening day of the session of 1677-8. He sat on all but three of the 54 days of the session before the adjournment in May (94 per cent of the total), and was named to 11 committees. Crofts had again registered his proxy with Duras before the session began (10 Feb.), it being vacated on Crofts’s death in September. During the short adjournment of April-May, Sunderland ‘from the king’, and Duras ‘from the duke’, went to Calais to compliment Louis XIV ‘upon his coming into those parts’.<sup>30</sup> Upon his return Feversham sat in the House for the first time under his new title when the House resumed on 21 May, being introduced by St Albans and Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset.</p><p>On 31 July 1677, Feversham and Monmouth went to join the French army. Together with Sunderland Feversham was warmly received by Louis XIV. On 25 Aug. it was reported that he had returned.<sup>31</sup> In November Feversham was sent back to France as ambassador extraordinary to present to Louis XIV the proposals for a European peace agreed to by Charles II and William of Orange. After the French king had rejected them, Feversham reported back to the committee of foreign affairs on 2 Dec. 1677.<sup>32</sup> The announcement on 3 Dec. 1677 that Parliament would be recalled on 15 Jan. 1678, earlier than had previously been announced, was thus attributed to Feversham having brought back from France ‘not so pleasing an answer from that king as our king expected, upon which there is some little discourse of a war with France ... therefore the Parliament is called sooner to provide money against this war’.<sup>33</sup> In February 1678 Feversham was appointed to command under Monmouth the English forces sent to Ostend to support the Dutch against France and on 5 May he was named lieutenant-general of all the forces, horse as well as foot, to be employed in the king’s service.<sup>34</sup></p><p>The assessment of his fellow peers made by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, while incarcerated in the Tower in 1677-8, noted Feversham as‘doubly vile’. Feversham was present when the session resumed on 28 Jan. 1678. He attended on 45 days of that part of the session covering January-May 1678 (three quarters of the total) and was named to six committees. He held the proxy of Charles Lucas*, 2nd Baron Lucas, from 21 Feb. until Lucas’s return to the House on 4 March. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. Feversham missed the opening day of the next session, 23 May, but attended on the following day. In all, he was present on 37 days of the session of May-July 1678 (86 per cent of the total), and was named to seven committees</p><p>Outside Parliament, on 11 May 1678 Feversham’s bill in chancery petitioning for the £3,000 a year promised in his marriage settlement had been dismissed after a three-day hearing before Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), the lord chief justice, Sir Francis North*, the future Baron Guilford, and the chief baron William Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, on the grounds that the execution of the contract on Sir George Sondes’s part was to have been conditional on Feversham’s settlement of a jointure on Mary, which had not been completed by the time of his wife’s death.<sup>35</sup> Feversham appealed to the House of Lords against this decision on 19 June, and the House eventually ordered a hearing for 6 July, which took place at the Bar with counsel attending on both sides, although the House adjourned consideration of their decision. As Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> wrote of proceedings, ‘Feversham’s cause was heard by the Lords on 6 July, and ’tis to go on again this day [8 July], but what the success will be I cannot say, but I am sure the town says my Lord Rockingham hath the right of his side clearly, but the duke hath a great interest, and he is for Feversham.’<sup>36</sup> The ‘long and serious’ debate of that day (the 8th) ranged well beyond the actual merits of Feversham’s individual case and became a theoretical discussion of whether the House in its judicial role was bound to follow the same rules of equity as chancery. There is some indication of a split along political lines, as the opponents of Feversham’s patron, York—Shaftesbury, Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, and George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax—were ranged against him. Court supporters, such as Danby, Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, and John Pearson*, bishop of Chester, were more inclined to favour Faversham. In the division on the question whether Feversham should have relief the contents had the majority and the chancery dismission was overturned, although a few peers entered their dissents, including Shaftesbury, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, Halifax and Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare.<sup>37</sup> On 10 July the House deliberated upon the relief to be granted to Feversham, ordering, again with some dissents, that the lord chancellor should appoint commissioners to provide Feversham with an annual sum of £3,000 from the first earl of Feversham’s estate and to ensure that he received from Watson the dowry originally promised him at his marriage. According to Charles Hatton, this decision seemed to dissatisfy the Commons so much that there was talk that ‘whenever they meet they will take away the jurisdiction as to appeals’. Judging from a Watson marriage settlement, he was still receiving payments from the estate of £300 per annum in 1708.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Bulstrode reported Feversham’s arrival in Brussels on 28 July 1678 (presumably NS).<sup>39</sup> He seems then to have returned to England briefly as a subsequent letter noted that he ‘parted hence for Flanders, to command the king’s troops there’ on 28 August.<sup>40</sup> On 9 Sept. Monmouth sent to Feversham to ensure that army officers serving in Parliament were sent back to England in time for the forthcoming parliamentary session.<sup>41</sup> There were signs of disgruntlement with his command of the English army: in early September it was reported that a number of officers, such as Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and William Craven*, earl of Craven, were threatening to resign their commissions rather than serve under him.<sup>42</sup> A letter transmitted from Flanders to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> in November accused Feversham of having ‘a particular secret correspondence with the court of France… Twas the wonder and trouble how he was thought on to have any general command over the English’.<sup>43</sup> The suspicions only increased after the revelations of the Popish Plot when Feversham, with his high military rank, his French background and close connection to the Catholic York and French duchess of Portsmouth, was seen by many as being part of the plot to bring French-style arbitrary rule and popery to England.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Feversham attended on the opening day of the session of October-December 1678, being present on 57 days (almost 97 per cent of the total), and was named to six committees. He confirmed his loyalty to York by voting on 15 Nov. against incorporating the declaration against transubstantiation into the oaths of the test bill, and to the court by voting on 26 Dec. to insist on the Lords’ amendment to the disbandment bill that the money raised should be paid into the exchequer instead of the chamber of London. One of Danby’s supporters, acting as a spy among Shaftesbury’s associates, reported that the Speaker of the Commons, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, and the Irish vice-treasurer Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], had persuaded Feversham to convince York not to oppose the impeachment of the lord treasurer, for fear of ‘the great odium he would contract by espousing a man so universally hated’. ‘You must know’, the informant added, ‘that the Speaker, Feversham and Ranelagh often meet and play high together’.<sup>45</sup> Nevertheless, Feversham himself voted on 27 Dec. against committing Danby. </p><p>When a fire broke out in the Temple on 26 Jan. 1679, Feversham was on hand to help quell the flames. Together with Monmouth, he supervised the blowing up of houses, but unfortunately owing to a misunderstanding, ‘being so near a house that was blown up, a beam fell upon his head, and broke his skull, to which some say he can not live’.<sup>46</sup> Feversham survived after an operation, being ‘trepanned’, that is having his skull drilled into. Not that he gained much sympathy; as Edmund Verney put it, ‘it’s a pity Lord Feversham should be hurt to death by striving to do us good, but he is a Frenchman, and that takes of[f] all lamentation for him.’<sup>47</sup></p><p>Danby generally perceived Feversham as likely to support him over the question of his impeachment in the forthcoming meeting of the new Parliament. On one canvassing list, Danby’s son, Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Dunblane [S], the future 2nd duke of Leeds, was given the task of lobbying him, but it seems unlikely that he actually voted for Danby as he did not appear in the House until 21 Apr., probably delayed by his convalescence following his head injury.<sup>48</sup> On 10 May Feversham voted in favour of the proposed committee of both Houses to determine the method of proceeding in the trial of the impeached Lords, and dissented from its rejection. On the day of the prorogation, 27 May, he probably supported the House’s assertion that the lords spiritual could attend capital trials until a sentence of death was pronounced. He had been present on 31 days of the session (51 per cent of the total).</p><p>Having recovered, in June 1679 he was slated to command the dragoons as troops were readied to crush the rebellion in Scotland.<sup>49</sup> Interestingly, there is evidence that he believed that if York changed his religion, he would ‘dash all his enemies’. Despite such views, he was perceived as close to York and according to Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, Feversham was the chief among the small number of about four courtiers (‘so close could the king be when he conceived it necessary’) who knew that York was returning from exile in Brussels when Charles II was in danger of dying in late August 1679.<sup>50</sup> Feversham attended the prorogation of 17 Oct. and was very much involved in measures taken to support the regime in public. On 21 Oct. Feversham and Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler of Moore Park (earl of Ossory [I]), ‘walked before the Artillery men... from Bow Church where they heard a sermon’, before joining York for dinner with the company at Merchant Taylors’ Hall. York continued to promote Feversham’s claims to royal favour and in November it was believed that the duke had recommended him to the king as a privy councillor.<sup>51</sup> At the end of 1679 he was made master of the horse to the queen-consort Catherine of Braganza, and in 1680 was promoted to be her lord chamberlain, a position which he kept until her death in 1705.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Feversham attended the prorogations of 26 Jan. and 15 Apr. 1680. He was then present on the first day of the session, 21 Oct. 1680, attending on 54 days (93 per cent of the total) and was named to three committees. He voted for the rejection of the exclusion bill at its first reading on 15 Nov. and on 23 Nov. against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation. On 7 Dec. he voted for the acquittal of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. In response to his perceived influence, the Commons voted on 7 Jan. 1681 to address the king to remove Feversham from his public functions on the grounds that he was ‘a promoter of popery and of the French interest; and a dangerous enemy to the king and kingdom’.<sup>53</sup> Any further action against him was prevented by the prorogation of the 10th. </p><p>Feversham was in Oxford before the start of the session on 21 Mar. 1681, where he was waited on by Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Latimer, on behalf of his father, Danby.<sup>54</sup> Danby considered Feversham a supporter of his application for bail from the Tower, and he was one of the signatories to Danby’s petition.<sup>55</sup> He attended on six of the seven days, and was named to three committees. In May Feversham was a signatory to a petition to the king asking for a pardon for Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, following the death of a yeoman during an affray.<sup>56</sup></p><p>In June 1681 Henry Sydney*, the future earl of Romney, told the Prince of Orange that Feversham had ‘more of the king’s personal kindness than anybody’.<sup>57</sup> In August 1681 he demonstrated his support for the regime by attending the feast of the London apprentices at Sadlers Hall.<sup>58</sup> Conversely, informers singled him out in September as one of the lords who should ‘lose his head’ and as a ‘French fop’ who was to be accused (falsely) of attending mass; there were also reports in December that Feversham would be impeached as one of York’s favourites when Parliament met again. Allegations that he was a Catholic continued to be made. <sup>59</sup> One of the many schemes discussed in the assassination plots of 1682-3 involved framing Feversham by placing the pistol used to kill the royal brothers in his pocket, as it was assumed he would be near them at the time.<sup>60</sup></p><p>On 10 Aug. 1682 Feversham left London on a mission from the king to congratulate Louis XIV on the birth of his grandson, the duke of Burgundy, returning about a month later.<sup>61</sup> In November he was made an extra gentleman of the bedchamber and was later promoted to a full gentleman shortly after James II’s accession. When in February 1685, York smuggled in a Catholic priest to the royal bedchamber to give his dying brother the last rites and to hear his confession, he vacated the room of all its occupants, except for Feversham and the groom of the stole, John Granville*, earl of Bath, who were the only two Protestant courtiers present at the king’s death and witnesses to his deathbed conversion. Following Charles II’s death he was continued in post as chamberlain to the queen dowager.<sup>62</sup></p><h2><em>James II and the Revolution</em></h2><p>Feversham was present on the opening day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685. On 25 May he acted as a teller twice in opposition to Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, in the case of <em>Harvey v. Harvey</em>. He remained active for the first few weeks, attending on 20 days of the first part of the session until the adjournment on 2 July (65 per cent of the total), and was named to 10 committees. He last attended on 18 June, having been appointed commander of the armed forces gathered to repel Monmouth’s invasion.<sup>63</sup> Although the rebellion was crushed, Feversham came in for some criticism. He was accused of not taking sufficient preparations at the army’s camp on the night of 5 July, thus allowing Monmouth to make his surprise attack. He was also blamed for having been ‘abed without care or order’ and having to be roused from sleep when the battle began in the small hours of the morning.<sup>64</sup> In his absence it fell to Churchill to defend the camp and rally the troops. The contrast between the two commanders of different nationalities has since become part of Marlborough’s hagiography.<sup>65</sup> Feversham’s reputation has been further blackened by the latitude he gave subordinates such as Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup> to engage in a policy of terror among the civilians in the areas that had been sympathetic to Monmouth. Feversham himself gave orders on the day after the battle for gibbets to be set up in several towns for the exemplary punishment of the most ‘notorious’ rebels.<sup>66</sup> Immediately after the battle, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, wrote a short farce on the subject, ‘The Battle of Sedgemoor’, in which the humour relies entirely on the exaggerated French accent and broken English of the Feversham character, and his vain boastings of his incompetent conduct.<sup>67</sup> Burnet judged, ‘the king could not choose worse than he did, when he gave the command to the earl of Feversham … And he conducted matters so ill, that every step he made was like to prove fatal to the king’s service’.<sup>68</sup> The king saw matters otherwise, and for his action against Monmouth, Feversham was at the end of July made a knight of the garter and promoted to colonel of the first troop of the king’s Life Guards, replacing Albemarle, who felt so insulted that he resigned all his military commissions in disgust.<sup>69</sup> Feversham attended the adjournment on 4 Aug. 1685 and in mid-September he accompanied the king to Winchester. He attended on each of the 11 days when the session resumed in November. On 14 Jan. 1686 he attended the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), and found him not guilty.<sup>70</sup></p><p>In April Halifax was asked by the queen dowager, through Henry Thynne, to facilitate a match between Feversham and Lady Margaret Cavendish, the daughter of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle. He quickly realized, though, that Newcastle’s insistence on ‘a considerable estate in land’, would prove to be a stumbling block, Feversham, though he was ‘in more plentiful circumstances than almost any man in England in other respects, cannot in that come up to what is expected’.<sup>71</sup> According to William Hamilton, 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, had been roped in to propose the match as well.<sup>72</sup> By June, Sir John Reresby had entered the lists on Feversham’s behalf, but found major obstacles to the match in Feversham’s small landed income (although from offices and land combined Reresby calculated he had £8,000 p.a.), and in the deteriorating relations between the duke and duchess of Newcastle. Negotiations broke down in November 1686, when Feversham ‘now thought himself in his single condition more happy then married into that family’, and at the start of December Feversham declared himself ‘satisfied with his condition and would not I find marry for a million.’<sup>73</sup> The match was revived in June 1687, by which time Feversham had the king’s backing with an offer of £15,000 to satisfy Newcastle’s concerns. The duchess agreed to this, but despite the advice of Reresby not to snub Feversham, ‘one of the first men of England for quality, alliance, preferments, virtue, etc.’, Newcastle absolutely refused to countenance the marriage.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Feversham spent much of the remainder of the reign with the army at its camp on Hounslow Heath, where he indulged his taste for fine food and wine. He did, however, also combat the daily celebration of mass there by ensuring that Henry Compton*, bishop of London, supplied ‘good preachers’ to the camp.<sup>75</sup> He was still an integral member of the court, and in August 1687, Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, recorded attending the ‘king’s levee at six in the morning’, before bringing Feversham, Churchill, and Tyrconnell ‘to drink coffee in the study’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>In January 1687 Roger Morrice reported that Feversham was one of the peers who would not ‘declare’.<sup>77</sup> A newsletter at the beginning of July 1688 also stated that it was generally said that Feversham was one of those who would ‘not declare’ themselves of the Roman faith.<sup>78</sup> His name appeared on four lists of 1687-8 relating to the king’s religious policies: in one, he was grouped with those lords seen as likely to support the repeal of the Test Act; in another, about May 1687 he was classed as doubtful; in about November 1687 he was classed as being in favour of repeal; and in about January 1688 he was listed as in favour of repeal.</p><p>When a Dutch invasion became certain, Feversham was designated commander of the royal army to repel the invaders and on 18 Oct. 1688 James further appointed him as lord lieutenant of the vulnerable coastal county of Kent. A few days later he enlisted him to testify formally to the legitimacy of the Prince of Wales.<sup>79</sup> On 20 Oct. Feversham sent to speak with Sir John Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. about the lieutenancy, saying that ‘he was very sensible of his incapacity by reason of his being a stranger and not residing in the county and also not being known to them’. He insisted ‘he would immediately capacitate himself according to law, that he had orders to admit no papist, and that if the gentlemen would accept of him they should govern him in every thing’.<sup>80</sup> In late November Feversham urged James to join the army at Salisbury to keep it loyal; but early in December Feversham warned the king at the camp at Salisbury of the potential disloyalty of the troops, and it may have been this information that convinced James to return to London and make plans to flee the country. On 4 Dec. Roger Morrice reported that Feversham came to court.<sup>81</sup></p><p>On 11 Dec. Feversham, now at Uxbridge, received a letter from James informing him of his flight and advising him that, as the troops’ loyalty could not be counted on, ‘I do not expect you should expose yourselves by resisting a foreign army and a poisonous nation’.<sup>82</sup> Feversham took this letter as an instruction to avoid battle with William’s troops and formally disbanded the army, without paying them or taking away their arms. This action, releasing thousands of unpaid and well-armed soldiers on the unsuspecting country, was almost universally condemned.<sup>83</sup> William of Orange himself suspected that the disbandment had been done deliberately to destabilize the country and to prevent him from taking over the English army intact. ‘I am not to be thus dealt with’, he exclaimed angrily upon learning of this development.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Feversham attended the meeting of peers at the Guildhall on the morning of 12 Dec.; he was absent in the afternoon being at Somerset House to defend the queen dowager from any threat from the mob. He again attended at the Guildhall on 13 Dec. (morning and afternoon). That afternoon, the peers debated their response to the detention of the king at Faversham. Feversham argued that some of the peers should be sent to meet the king with the King’s Guards, although the king ‘should be allowed to do as he pleases’. He added later that although he wished to see the return of the king, and ‘would do as much towards it, but nothing would induce him to it, but a request of the Lords’. The peers duly sent Feversham to the king, including at his request the order that he was ‘to receive his commands and protect his person from insolence’. Before he went, Feversham was able to show the peers a letter from James indicating that he was still under restraint. This letter was more fully discussed by the peers, with Feversham still present on 14 December.<sup>85</sup></p><p>When Feversham arrived in Kent, he assured James that ‘he would die in his quarrel’, or conduct take him either to the sea, or to London. James opted to return to London, arriving on 16 December, sending Feversham to William with a letter inviting the prince to join him at St James’s for discussions on the distracted state of the nation.<sup>86</sup> William, already furious with Feversham for the disbandment of the army, was even more angered by the news of the king’s imminent return to the capital, and promptly arrested Feversham upon his arrival at the camp on 15 Dec. on the trumped-up charge of travelling without a passport. There were even rumours that Feversham was to be charged with the murder of Arthur Capel*, earl of Essex, or with the orders for summary executions he had given Colonel Percy Kirke in the aftermath of Sedgemoor.<sup>87</sup> James was enraged at the unlawful arrest of his emissary, but it persuaded him to embark on his second, and permanent, flight. Feversham remained imprisoned until the end of December, and was only set free after the queen dowager complained to William of his absence as her chamberlain.<sup>88</sup> Feversham continued in this role after the Revolution, and ensured that the secretary of state Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, was unable to acquire the queen dowager’s residence at Somerset House. Periodically searches were made for suspected Jacobites and their arms thought to be concealed there. Thus on 28 Oct. 1689 Shrewsbury gave Feversham prior warning of a search of the quarters of a man lodging in Somerset House Yard, as he did again in January 1690, and in May 1696.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Following Feversham’s enlargement, it was reported on 3 Jan. 1689 that the prince had released him without bail and indeed that he had been at St James’s the previous day, where there was ‘a mighty confluence of nobility and gentry’.<sup>90</sup> Feversham was present at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan., attended on 122 days of the session (three quarters of the total), and was named to 18 committees. He consistently opposed William’s claim to the throne, voting in favour of a regency on 29 Jan. and against the motion to declare William and Mary king and queen two days later. On 4 and 6 Feb. he opposed the resolution that James had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’, formally protesting when that wording was adhered to on the 6th. One of the men accused of murdering Essex in the Tower attempted to solicit Feversham’s aid by informing him on 26 Feb. of a design to accuse him of a role in the death, but this was the only time the old rumours surfaced.<sup>91</sup> On 5 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, at the report stage of the bill for uniting Protestants. On the 8th, 16th and 17th he was named to manage conferences on the bill for removing papists from London. On 31 May he opposed the reversal of the judgments against Titus Oates and on 12 July acted as teller in opposition to Cornwallis on whether to accept the amendment disabling Oates from giving evidence in future trials; on 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments on the bill. On 2 July he dissented from the decision to proceed with the impeachment of the printers of James’s declaration to his supporters. He also acted as a teller in opposition to Bath on 16 July on the proposed reversal of the judgment against the Whig Thomas Pilkington<sup>‡</sup>, who had been elected sheriff of London in 1681 in controversial circumstances, and on 23 July in the case of <em>Ashfield v. Ashfield</em>.</p><h2><em>Reign of William III</em></h2><p>Feversham was in an invidious position post-1688. Though known for his loyalty to King James, he had thrown in his lot with the English polity early in the Restoration and had family obligations and property in England. A return to the France of Louis XIV was not an attractive proposition, and he could hide behind his obligations to Charles II’s queen to remain in England.</p><p>Feversham was present when the second session of the Convention began on 23 Oct. 1689, sitting on 62 days, 85 per cent of the total, and was named to nine committees. in a list compiled by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690, he was classed as among the supporters of the court, though to be spoken to. On 15 Jan. 1690 he acted as a teller in opposition to George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, on the motion to reject Colepeper’s bill. Feversham’s one clear attempt at electoral patronage occurred at the election of 1690 when at the request of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, he unsuccessfully recommended Christopher Yelverton, younger brother of Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin (later Viscount Longueville), for Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, part of the queen dowager’s jointure lands. In future elections the task of nominating candidates fell to Queen Catherine’s steward, Robert Shirley*, Baron (later Earl) Ferrers.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Feversham was present on 20 Mar., the opening day of the session of March-May 1690. He attended on 53 days (all but one) of the total and was named to 13 committees. He acted as a teller twice on 4 Apr. in opposition to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on procedural matters in the committee of the whole on the recognition bill. He then acted as a teller in opposition to Stamford at the report stage in the House on 5 April.<sup>93</sup> He dissented from the passage of this bill on 8 April. On 3 May he acted as a teller on three occasions on the abjuration bill, in opposition to Stamford (twice) and then John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, and once more on the 5th in opposition to Warrington (as Delamer had become). On 13 May he told twice more in opposition to Warrington in divisions on whether to allow the City of London more time to prepare its case for quashing the <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings against its charter.</p><p>Feversham’s role as the queen dowager’s lord chamberlain again evoked controversy in June, when the chaplain of the Protestant chapel in Somerset House left off praying for King William’s success in Ireland. This was attributed to the queen dowager, who had the power to shut the chapel, but Feversham took responsibility for the order, before reinstating the prayers. Queen Mary was less than impressed by his actions and it led to a very uncomfortable interview for Feversham with her, although she did admit, privately, ‘I pity the poor man for being obliged thus to take the queen dowager’s faults upon him’.<sup>94</sup></p><p>After attending the prorogations of 28 July, 18 Aug., 8 and 12 Sept. 1690, Feversham was present on the opening day of the 1690-1 session on 2 October. He attended on 59 days in total, almost 86 per cent of the total, being named to 17 committees. Carmarthen predicted that Feversham would oppose the release of the Catholics Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, from the Tower, when the matter came before the House on 6 Oct., although he would ‘comply’ if the king spoke ‘one word’ to him.<sup>95</sup> On 30 Oct. he acted as a teller in opposition to Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, on the motion to pass the admiralty commission bill. On 5 Jan. 1691 he acted as a teller in opposition to Bridgwater on the passage of the bill prohibiting trade with France. His duties as a servant of Queen Catherine also occupied his time. Thus, on 28 Jan., when the queen dowager went to Euston, she was accompanied by Feversham even though he had had a fit of the gout a couple of days beforehand.<sup>96</sup> Then, on 4 Apr. it was reported that Feversham would shortly be in London for 12 to 15 days, before returning to Euston after Easter [12 April].<sup>97</sup> He attended the prorogation on 3 August.</p><p>Feversham attended on 22 Oct., the opening day of the 1691-2 session. He was present on 78 days, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. On 25 Nov. 1691 he was appointed a teller, only for both tellers to be found on the same side of the question (the other being Viscount Longueville). Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, was then appointed to tell in Longueville’s stead and in future the House decided that the contents in any question should go out below the bar. On 9 Dec., the informer William Fuller had named Feversham as one of those in favour of French intervention to restore King James. On 12 Jan. 1692 Feversham protested against the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk and on 16 Feb. he acted as a teller in two divisions on Norfolk’s divorce bill. On 22 Feb. he acted as a teller twice in opposition to Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, on the bill concerning the commissions and salaries of judges. The following day Fuller again implicated Feversham in the Commons, this time as one of the signatories of a petition asking Louis XIV for his assistance in restoring James II. Ailesbury thought that he was involved in plotting, revealing that Feversham often ate with other of the exiled king’s adherents, such as himself, George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, and Weymouth: Ailesbury wrote that ‘I always took my leave of them towards the dusk of the evening, telling them smilingly that I would not hinder their rendezvous; and they would have me to believe they knew not what I meant by that expression’.<sup>98</sup></p><p>When Queen Catherine left to return to Portugal in April 1692, the government put pressure on Feversham to leave the country as well. While others were arrested, Feversham was sent for in May and told that by reason of the great obligations that he owed to King James, ‘the government could not be satisfied with his conduct, unless he would retire to Holland till the storm was over’. He refused. He claimed that he had much business in England, both his own and the queen’s and stood on his privilege as a peer.<sup>99</sup> He remained in England until his death, acting as a trustee of the queen dowager’s interests and property in England. Not that he was free from the attention of informers; in March 1693 Dr. Richard Kingston implicated Feversham as one of the key officers ‘chiefly depended upon by the Jacobites’.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Feversham attended the prorogation on 22 Aug. 1692 and attended on the opening day of the 1692-3 session, 4 November. He was present on 84 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, and was named to nine committees. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of the committal of the place bill, and on 3 Jan. 1693 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Berkeley*, Baron (later 2nd earl of) Berkeley, on five occasions in the committee of the whole on the bill. He also told for the motion that it pass the House, being recorded as doing so on a division list. At the end of December 1692 Ailesbury correctly forecast that Feversham would again oppose the Norfolk divorce bill, and he duly opposed the 2 Jan. motion to give it a first reading. On 14 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, on whether to proceed with the debate on the claim of Charles Knollys to the earldom of Banbury. On 21 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Bridgwater on the <em>Englefyld v. Englefyld</em> case. On 4 Feb. he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. On 13 Feb. he told twice in opposition to Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, on the question of remitting the fine on Ailesbury for failure to attend the House. On 20 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, on whether to proceed with the business appointed for that day. On 13 Mar. he told in opposition to Marlborough on whether to agree to an amendment at the report stage of the bill preventing the false and double return of Members. He attended the prorogations on 19 Sept. and 26 October.</p><p>Feversham was present on 7 Nov., the opening day of the 1693-4 session. He attended on 107 days, 84 per cent of the total and was named to nine committees. He acted as a teller in opposition to Bridgwater on 5 Jan. 1694 for the division on whether to agree with the Commons on the place bill. On 17 Feb. he supported Bath, by voting against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the case <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. On 23 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, in the committee of the whole on the tonnage bill.</p><p>Making provision for family members, especially his siblings and their children, who had emigrated to England to escape the anti-protestant measures of Louis XIV, was a further preoccupation for Feversham. On 18 Sept. 1694 he left London to escort his niece, Henriette, northwards for her marriage to the aged William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford. Feversham had been heavily involved in the negotiations for this match.<sup>101</sup> Two of his nephews, Frédéric-Guillaume de la Rochefoucauld, later styled earl of Lifford [I], and Armand de Bourbon, marquis de Miremont, were prominent military commanders in the wars with France. Indeed, in November 1704 Feversham apparently approached Godolphin with ‘two requests from his mother’: that she might have the ‘advantage of selling his place’, and that the queen might be spoken to so that ‘to’ther son might be her page’, only the second of which Feversham thought a realistic proposition. The identities of those involved are not clear.<sup>102</sup></p><p>Feversham attended the prorogation of 6 Nov. 1694, and was then present on the opening day of the 1694-5 session on 12 November. He attended on 107 days (89 per cent of the total) and was named to 17 committees. On 8 Jan. 1695 he acted as a teller on three occasions in opposition to Manchester in the committee of the whole on the treason trials bill on the question of the date upon which the legislation would come into force, and on 23 Jan. he entered his dissent from the resolution to postpone the implementation from 1695 to 1698. During this session, the Commons investigated the testimony of John Lunt, taken in June 1694, part of which implicated Feversham in the Jacobite intrigue known as the Lancashire Plot.<sup>103</sup> He attended the prorogation on 8 Oct. 1695</p><p>Feversham was present when the 1695 Parliament opened on 22 Nov. 1695. He attended on 93 days of the 1695-6 session, 75 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. On 8 Jan. 1696 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, on whether to adjourn the House rather than proceed with the amendments to the bill regulating the coinage. On 17 Jan. he acted as teller in opposition to Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, on whether to hear at the Bar the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, the future 11th Baron Willoughy de Broke, for a writ of summons. On 24 Jan. he acted as a teller twice in opposition to Monmouth on the bill to prevent false and double returns of Members. He refused to sign the Association of February 1696, objecting that while he was ready to sign that William was ‘rightful by the law’ and that James had no right to the crown, he was not able to subscribe to the wording about the ‘pretended’ Prince of Wales, as he had been one of those to testify the validity of the child’s birth. He was reassured that ‘pretended’ here did not refer to the prince’s birth but to his claim to the throne. Feversham held out from signing nonetheless.<sup>104</sup> On 9 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Manchester on the bill for further regulating elections. He attended the prorogations on 28 July and 1 September.</p><p>Feversham was present when the 1696-7 session convened on 20 October. He attended on 87 days, 76 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. The fate of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> was always likely to interest Feversham, as earlier that summer he had been suspected of hiding Fenwick in Somerset House. On 15 Dec. Feversham acted as a teller in opposition to Scarbrough against allowing Goodman’s testimony to be read, and duly protested against the decision to do so. On 23 Dec. he voted against the passage of the Fenwick attainder bill, again entering his protest against it. On 26 Jan. 1697 he acted as a teller in opposition to Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, on the motion to adjourn the House following the reading of the petition of Lady Mary Fenwick. On 23 Jan. he protested against the rejection of a bill to regulate parliamentary elections. On 19 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Tankerville on whether to adhere to the amendments made to the wrought silks bill. On 6 Apr. he received Weymouth’s proxy, but promised not to register it ‘till I see some business worthy of it, which I believe would not happen this session in our House.’<sup>105</sup> Apparently no matters of sufficient importance arose before the prorogation on 16 Apr. as the proxy was never registered.</p><p>Feversham was present when the 1697-8 session opened on 3 December. He attended on 88 days (67 per cent of the total) and was named to 23 committees. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He attended the prorogation on 29 Nov., and was present again when the 1698-9 session opened on 6 December. He attended on 60 days (74 per cent), and was named to 13 committees. On 11 Feb. 1699 he made a collection in the Lords, ‘for a poor French minister, who was condemned to be hanged with the late marquis Brausson [perhaps the Huguenot Claude Brousson, executed in 1698] and who had found means to get into England, and his Lordship garnered but 50 guineas’.<sup>106</sup> On 26 and 29 Apr. he was named to conferences on the bill making Billingsgate Market a free market and on the Legg naturalization bill.</p><p>Feversham was present when the 1699-1700 session began on 16 November. He attended on 57 days, 72 per cent of the total, being named to seven committees. In February 1700 he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 8 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Peterborough (the former Monmouth) on whether to adjourn a debate on Norfolk’s divorce bill. He attended the prorogations on 23 May, 1 Aug. and 12 September. On the latter occasion he showed the ceremony to the son of the visiting duke de Duras. He also attended the interment of the duke of Gloucester on 9 Aug. 1700.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Feversham missed the opening day of the 1701 Parliament. He first attended three days into the session on 11 February. He was present on 80 days of the session, over three quarters of the total, and was named to 25 committees. He acted as a teller in opposition to Ferrers on a motion on 18 Mar. to adjourn the debate on the partition treaties. On 16 Apr. he entered his protest against the decision to expunge the reasons given for the protest earlier that day which opposed an address in favour of the impeached Whig peers. On 17 June he protested against the decision to proceed with the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers. He voted against his acquittal and entered a protest to that effect. Feversham still attended the court, being named as a card player in April 1701 with such favourites of the king as Romney and Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Feversham was present when the 1701-02 Parliament opened on 30 December, attended on 70 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 24 committees. On 20 Feb. 1702 he protested against passing the bill to attaint Mary of Modena of high treason, and on 24 Feb. against the passage of the bill ‘for the further security of’ the king’s person, through the imposition of an abjuration oath. </p><h2><em>Feversham under Queen Anne</em></h2><p>At the time of Anne’s accession, Feversham was, according to Macky, ‘a middle statured brown man, turned of fifty years old’. Swift later commented on this pen-portrait, ‘he was a very dull old fellow’.<sup>109</sup> He was present when the 1702 Parliament convened on 20 October. He attended on 69 days (80 per cent) of the first session, and was named to 23 committees. Feversham had a personal stake in the bill of January 1703 granting Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, a settlement of £10,000. A clause was proposed in committee of the whole on 11 Jan. that provided that after Anne’s death George would be able to continue to enjoy preferments in England, regardless of the provisions of the 1701 Act of Settlement which appeared to prohibit foreigners from holding office in England after a Hanoverian succession. The debate centred on whether the terms of the act forbade foreign-born peers from sitting in the House and holding office after the succession. As all of the foreign peers in the House at that time were, with the exception of Prince George and Feversham, Dutch followers of the late William III, the Whigs were keen to insist that all sitting foreign peers could continue their employment after the queen’s death. They rejected the proposed clause which, in its specific dispensation of the prince consort, seemed to imply that all other foreign-born members of the House would be excluded. Initially, Feversham sided with the Whigs to save his own position. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, recorded his response as: ‘Then… be gar I am kick out too [sic]; and therefore I will stick to the prince, and the prince shall stick to me’. The House then ordered a bill allowing those foreign-born peers made before 1701 to continue to sit but this failed in the Commons. When the House returned to the subject on 19 Jan. and a clause was proposed in favour of the prince, and it was suggested that the other six foreign-born peers should agree to it and so pave the way for their own relief, Feversham declared that he was now in favour of the clause, explaining ‘he should be sorry that His Royal Highness should suffer on their [the other foreign peers’] accounts’. Nicolson thought the resulting laughter from Feversham’s erstwhile allies ‘somewhat inconsistent… with the gravity of so wise and great an assembly’.<sup>110</sup> The controversial clause eventually passed the House. Feversham was seen by Nottingham as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity. However, on 16 Jan., although in attendance that day, he ‘chose to be absent’ at the division on the penalties amendment to the bill.</p><p>Feversham attended the prorogations on 22 June and 4 November. He was present when the session of 1703-4 began on 9 Nov., attending on 54 days, 55 per cent of the total, and being named to 30 committees. When the occasional conformity bill came up again in the winter of 1703 Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, tentatively classified him as an opponent of the measure, and Feversham did vote against the bill on 14 December. His opposition can perhaps be accounted for by his own roots as a member of a persecuted religious minority, and his acquaintance with the large Huguenot exile community then in the capital, who would have been affected by this measure. His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Feversham was present when the 1704-05 session began on 24 October. He attended on 68 days, 69 per cent of the total, and was named to 29 committees, including that of 27 Feb. 1705 to prepare heads for a conference on <em>Ashby v. White</em>. In a forecast of November 1704 he was listed among those thought likely to support a tack of the occasional conformity bill to a money bill from the Commons. On 23 Nov. the marchioness of Granby wrote to her father-in-law, John Manners*, duke of Rutland, informing him of a speech by Feversham ‘expressing dissatisfaction with the conduct of affairs at sea and in regard to the Scotch succession’. At the end of August 1705 Marlborough explained Feversham’s dalliance with Tory peers such as Rochester, Nottingham and John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, as so that his nephew Miremont ‘may play the fool to their liking’ with his project for military action in the Cévennes.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Feversham was present when the 1705 Parliament opened on 25 October. He attended on 43 days, 45 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. On 6 Dec. he voted that the Church was not in danger under the current administration. He last attended that session on 8 Feb. 1706, nearly five weeks before the end of the session. In May Marlborough told his wife that he would never recommend Feversham’s nephews to the queen, ‘for I think their behaviour noways deserved it’. He also he expressed an interest in buying Feversham’s estate, presumably Holdenby, an interest revived after Feversham’s death.<sup>112</sup> Feversham was absent from the beginning of the 1706-07 session, first attending on 21 Jan. 1707. He was present on 41 days (48 per cent of the total) and was named to 18 committees. He also attended the short session of April 1707, being present on seven of the nine days. Feversham was present on the opening day of the 1707-08 session, 23 October. He attended for 67 days of the session (63 per cent of the total) and was named to 20 committees. About May 1708 he was classed as a Court Whig. Feversham was present on 16 Nov., the opening day of the 1708-09 session. He was then present on 38 days, 41 per cent of the total, and was appointed to 11 committees. On 21 Jan. 1709, he voted in favour of the motion that a Scots peer who possessed a British title had the right to vote in the election of the Scottish representative peers. He attended for the last time on 24 March.</p><p>Feversham died at Somerset House ‘of gout in his stomach’, on 8 Apr. 1709, aged 68.<sup>113</sup> He had continued to reside there with a host of relatives even after the death of the queen dowager in 1705. By his will Feversham requested to be buried in Westminster Abbey. He ordered his estate to be sold and the proceeds devoted to bequests totalling £1,030, with the residue to be divided between his nephews Lifford and Miremont and his niece Charlotte de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Mauleuse. By the time of his death, though, there had been a depletion in his estate. In a codicil of 6 Apr. 1709, ‘having at present much less money than I had heretofore’ he had to diminish the amount left to Lifford to only £2,000. He also now requested to be buried in the French church in the Savoy with a minimum of expense. In March 1740, his body was disinterred and reburied with those of the marquis de Miremont and Mademoiselle de Mauleuse in Westminster Abbey, as he had originally requested.<sup>114</sup> With no children of his own, Feversham’s title became extinct and the various estates he had acquired went to other owners. The honour of Grafton, part of Catherine of Braganza’s jointure, went to Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, while that part of the Sondes estate awarded to him in 1678 reverted to Lewis Watson, now 3rd Baron Rockingham, husband to the last Sondes heiress. Holdenby was sold by his executors to Marlborough.<sup>115</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L./S.N.H. |
|
EGERTON, John (1623-86) |
<p><strong><surname>EGERTON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1623–86)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1623-49 Visct. Brackley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Dec. 1649 as 2nd earl of BRIDGWATER |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 10 May 1686 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 May 1623,<sup>1</sup> 3rd but 1st surv. s. of John Egerton<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bridgwater, and Frances (1583-1636), da. and coh. of Ferdinando Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Derby. <em>educ</em>. G. Inn 1633, MA, Oxf. 1663. <em>m</em>. 22 July 1641, Elizabeth (1626-63), da. of William Cavendish*, mq. (later duke) of Newcastle, 6s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 26 Oct. 1686; <em>will</em> 2 Apr. 1685, pr. 28 May 1687. <sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr., loyal and indigent officers 1662, 1671,<sup>4</sup> public accounts 1667, retrenchment of public finances 1667,<sup>5</sup> trade, 1668-72, Tangier 1673-84;<sup>6</sup> to treat with Emperor and king of Spain 1678, to treat with French ambassador 1679;<sup>7</sup> PC 13 Feb. 1667-<em>d</em>., ld. of trade and plantations 12 Mar. 1675-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt., Bucks. 1660-<em>d</em>., Cheshire and Lancs. 1673-76, Herts. 1681-<em>d</em>.;<sup>8</sup> <em>custos rot</em>., Salop. 22 May-13 Aug. 1660;<sup>9</sup> Bucks. 1660-<em>d</em>.; Herts. 1681-<em>d</em>.; warden of game, Ashridge and ten-mile area, Herts. 1660<em>-d</em>.;<sup>10</sup> high steward, Oxford Univ. 1663-<em>d</em>, Tring, Bucks. 1670-<em>d</em>.;<sup>11</sup> Chipping Wycombe, Bucks. 1672-<em>d</em>.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Gov., Charterhouse 1670.<sup>13</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely (school of), n.d., Egerton Collection, Ashridge, Herts.; oil on canvas by W. W. Claret, c.1660-80, National Trust, Tatton Park, Cheshire.</p> |
<h2><em>Interregnum and Restoration, 1649-61</em></h2><p>John Egerton’s grandfather was the celebrated Thomas Egerton<sup>†</sup>, James I’s lord chancellor, who had been created Viscount Brackley in the year of his death, 1617. Brackley’s heir was created earl of Bridgwater shortly after his father’s death, and ruled Wales and the English marcher counties during the reign of Charles I both as lord lieutenant and lord president of the council of Wales. Increasingly disenchanted with the policies of Charles I, Bridgwater resigned all these local posts at the outbreak of Civil War and retired to his house at Ashridge in Hertfordshire, where he and his growing family of two sons and eight daughters by his wife (and step-sister) Lady Frances Stanley, lasted out the conflict relatively unscathed.</p><p>In 1641 John, then styled Lord Brackley, married Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the royalist marquess of Newcastle. It was perhaps because of this connection that, after he succeeded to his father’s peerage in December 1649, the new earl of Bridgwater came under the suspicion of the Commonwealth government. In April 1651 he was arrested, imprisoned and examined along with his Cavendish brothers-in-law Charles Cavendish, Viscount Mansfield, and Henry Cavendish*, later 2nd duke of Newcastle, but was released on bail on a bond of £10,000.<sup>15</sup> The lord protector (Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>) treated this young peer with respect and forbearance, as in 1654 when he allowed Bridgwater to present Dr Nicholas Bernard, a protégé and eventual biographer of James Ussher, to the living of Whitchurch-cum-Marbury in Shropshire in preference to Cromwell’s own candidate, Thomas Porter. Two years later, the committee of sequestration for Lancashire ordered Bridgwater to appear before them so that his estate could be assessed, but following Bridgwater’s direct petition to Cromwell for leniency, the lord protector ordered the committee to withdraw its prosecution.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Hanging over Bridgwater throughout his life were the prodigious debts and obligations accumulated by his father and his brother-in-law, the failed merchant William Courteen. In his correspondence with Cromwell over the presentation to Whitchurch, Bridgwater apologized for the necessity of informing him of his choice of Bernard by letter, as ‘through the multitude of engagements my father stood bond in, not for himself, but for his son-in-law, my brother Courteen, who is now beyond the seas, I cannot in any safety appear in public’.<sup>17</sup> It has been estimated that at his death in 1649 the first earl bequeathed to his heir debts on bonds of £26,950, debts of £51,700 incurred from the ventures of William Courteen, and payments due on annuities of £1,654; but the 2nd earl and his agents themselves estimated shortly after his father’s death that there were claims exceeding £200,000 against the estate.<sup>18</sup> In 1662, after several years of trying to sort out his finances, he calculated that he still had at least £40,000 in debts, as well as £581 in annuities to honour, to pay which he only received between £4,000 and £6,000 p.a. net from his estates.<sup>19</sup> Bridgwater only added to his debts with his own extravagances, which he was at pains to justify. In 1668 he drew up a long memorandum explaining to his family the reasons for his continuing indebtedness. After detailing expenses laid out on new buildings and improvements at Ashridge – a new kitchen, riding house, bowling green, and improved garden – and the great charge incurred in making his sons knights of the Bath at the Restoration and by attending Charles II at his coronation, and further admitting that he had spent £10,258 in acquiring new land for the estate, he noted that since the death of his father he had paid £54,169 to satisfy the debts to which he was liable. Six years later he added a note that in the intervening time he had paid off further debts, making his outlay for this purpose a total of £71,616.<sup>20</sup> Trying to settle his estate from the wreckage of his father’s inheritance remained a constant theme and aggravation throughout Bridgwater’s life, both before and after the Restoration.<sup>21</sup></p><p>At the time of the Convention Bridgwater was one of the ‘young peers’ who had succeeded to their title during the Interregnum, who were persuaded by the royalist agent John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, to assert their right to sit despite the attempts of the peers who had been sitting in 1648 to restrict membership of the reconvened House to themselves alone. On 27 Apr. 1660, Bridgwater and 18 other such ‘young peers’ were able to take their seats in the House, with the connivance of George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Bridgwater attended all but 11 of the 163 sittings of the Convention. On his very first day in the House he was named to a select committee appointed to draw up heads for a conference to find ways ‘to make up the breaches and distractions of this kingdom’ and probably attended that conference when it was held on 1 May. On that day he was also placed on the committee to draw up a letter of thanks for the Declaration of Breda, and on 5 May he was added to the committee to prepare an ordinance to establish a committee of safety. Between14 May and the return of the king he was nominated to a further four committees and on 24 May was placed on the small group of six assigned to draft a letter to the king congratulating him on his return.</p><p>From this point Bridgwater, despite being one of the new members, with no previous experience of parliamentary procedure, increasingly marked himself out as one of the leading members of the House. From June he was named to 27 select committees on legislation and on 10 Aug. he received the proxy of his nephew John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, which he held for the remainder of the session. Between 4 Sept. and 28 Dec. Bridgwater reported to the House from five committees, including that on the bill to give the county palatinate of Durham parliamentary representation (4 September). Otherwise the bills he dealt with were largely on private and personal matters, including the estate bill, which he reported on 29 Nov., of Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, who was quickly establishing himself as Bridgwater’s only rival in the frequency and number of committee chairmanships.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Bridgwater marked himself out from the start as an effective chairman of committees, which became his speciality. Between 1660 and 1685 he chaired select committees on 119 separate pieces of legislation, second only to Dorset with 170. He led committees of the whole House on 37 different bills, the highest number of committees of the whole chaired by any single peer by quite a margin. He was also one of the most frequently-chosen delegates to manage or report conferences with the Commons (on 117 occasions), exceeded in this only by Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey.<sup>24</sup> Bridgwater became a protégé of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and became one of the leading managers for the government in the House under the lord chancellor. His relative youth and continuing presence in the House may have been of great benefit to Clarendon as he and many of his other associates were affected by illness, or died, as the 1660s wore on. <sup>25</sup> Bridgwater was particularly important in seeing through both select committees and committees of the whole House the legislation of the first years of Charles II’s reign which established the religious monopoly of the Church of England. Throughout his career Bridgwater specialized in religious legislation protecting Anglican Protestantism in England – although by the later 1670s he would take some stances which were quite at odds with those of the early 1660s.</p><p>On 17 Nov. 1660 Bridgwater was added to the sub-committee for the Journal, and thus began his work preparing the record of the Lords Journal, with which he was to have a long association. His signature indicating his review and approval of the record of the House’s proceedings appears in the manuscript Journals more often than that of any other peer, usually at the head of the other signatures. This might suggest that he was the chairman of the sub-committee and its chief examiner. In addition, papers among his private manuscripts show him marking up draft manuscript copies of Journal entries as if in preparation for a copyist or scribe, suggesting that he may also have been the dominant figure (or at least the most diligent) in the sub-committee responsible for the layout and appearance of the manuscript Journal.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The Egerton family’s focus for local power had shifted during the 1650s from the Welsh marches to the Hertfordshire-Buckinghamshire area in which was located the principal residence of Ashridge, and in July 1660 Charles II constituted Bridgwater both lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Buckinghamshire. The following month he was made warden of game within ten miles of his seat. At this time he also defeated the claims of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to the manor of Great Gaddesden in Hertfordshire, part of a tangled inheritance dispute between William Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Derby, and the 6th earl’s sister-in-law, Alice Spencer, dowager countess of Derby, third wife of Bridgwater’s grandfather.<sup>27</sup> Over the following years Bridgwater embarked on a sustained project to expand and improve his house and park at Ashridge, aided by a succession of royal patents allowing him to impark over 500 acres. By 1682 a traveller took pains to describe ‘this ancient house, grown more famous in the country by the present lord’s great house-keeping’.<sup>28</sup> Nevertheless, his electoral interest in Buckinghamshire, despite being lord lieutenant, compared unfavourably with that of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and of his even more aggressively political son Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, both at the election of the Cavalier Parliament and all future elections. He had more influence in the Northamptonshire borough of Brackley, where he was lord of the manor, but even here his wishes had been disregarded in the elections to the Convention and in 1661 only one of his nominees, Robert Spencer<sup>‡</sup> of the prominent Northamptonshire royalist family, was returned.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>First sessions of the Cavalier Parliament, 1661-4</em></h2><p>Bridgwater attended every single meeting of the session from May 1661 to May 1662 – all 193 sittings in what was a very busy and intense session. In the brief period of May-July 1661 before the summer recess he was named to 29 select committees, chaired nine meetings of these concerning eight different pieces of legislation, while also chairing the committee for privileges once. He reported to the House from committees on five occasions: from those concerning the bills to make the river Stour navigable (17 June 1661), to manage payment of the debts of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, for Sir Edward Moseley (both on 15 July), to vest the king’s money in the hands of treasurers (20 July), and to provide carriages for the king’s processions (20 July).</p><p>In November 1661 he informed his solicitor John Halsey that he would be coming to town soon to see to business, ‘for Parliament draws me, at which to attend, I must needs say, doth agree so much with my nature and disposition that I cannot find in my heart to forbear it’.<sup>30</sup> When the House reconvened on 20 Nov. Bridgwater was even busier. He chaired the committee for privileges on the matter of the fines of Edward Powell, and was also one of five peers making up a sub-committee of that assigned on 7 Dec. to draw up reasons in defence of the House’s stance regarding foreign peers.<sup>31</sup> Most importantly, he was again one of the principal chairmen of select committees on legislation. In this part of the session he was nominated to 67 select committees, chaired these committees on 84 separate occasions on 26 different bills and reported to the House from committees 25 times between 14 Dec. and 16 May 1662, most frequently in March and April 1662 as the session drew to a close.<sup>32</sup> So prominent was he becoming by this latter part of the session that a number of peers looked to him to hold their proxies. Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, absented himself from the House for a long period from 11 Dec. 1661. Bridgwater apparently held his proxy for a period during this absence, as the proxy was marked as vacated by Lincoln’s renewed presence in the House on 6 Feb. 1662. He then held the proxy of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, from 7 Mar. to 15 Apr. 1662, and that of James*, duke of York, from 8 May to the end of the session eleven days later.<sup>33</sup></p><p>There were a number of bills, particularly dealing with religion, on which he took a leading role. On 26 Nov. 1661 he was named to the large select committee for the bill to punish Quakers, ‘and others’ as it was originally framed, for refusing to swear oaths. From the time of the bill’s first recommitment on 29 Nov. Bridgwater appears to have effectively taken over the chair of its select committee. The bill’s progress was tortuous, for on each occasion over the next few weeks when he reported the committee’s version of the bill, it was again recommitted. After the Commons had objected to the fourth version of the bill - reported by Bridgwater and passed by the House on 28 Jan. 1662 - because it did not extend the penalties in the bill to all nonconformists who refused to swear oaths, the House re-committed the bill once again to the same select committee on 21 February. Bridgwater reported another version of the bill on 27 Feb. and this one was eventually passed by both houses. From mid-February 1662 he was also involved in the tithes bill.<sup>34</sup> The uniformity bill received most of his attention, and he was described as ‘being as zealous in it [the bill] as any in the House’.<sup>35</sup> He first chaired a select committee on the bill on 25 Feb., the same day on which the king presented to the House the new version of the Book of Common Prayer, and over the next several days Bridgwater chaired five more meetings of the committee, before reporting to the House on 13 Feb. various alterations to the bill based on the revised liturgy. He continued to chair committee meetings, some attended by as many as 18 or 21 peers, over the next few weeks.<sup>36</sup> On 4 Apr. he reported the bill with a proviso whose wording was rejected by the House. On 10 Apr. he, Clarendon and Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London (later archbishop of Canterbury), were the three managers of the conference where the new version of the prayer book and the bill based on it were to be delivered to the Commons, as well as the controversial amendment allowing the king to dispense by prerogative with some provisions of the act for loyal Presbyterians. The Commons objected to this. Bridgwater took part in the continuing discussion between the Houses, and was one of the five peers appointed to report another conference with the Commons on 30 April.</p><p>By far his most intensive work was with the bill for the relief of the poor, on which he chaired 15 committee meetings from 25 Feb. 1662 and reported on 26 Apr., and the bill to regulate printing, on which he chaired 12 committee meetings from 15 Feb., reported on 22 Apr. and then managed a conference on the Commons’ objections on the last day of the session. Other less well-known bills which he reported from committee in the final weeks of the session were those for his fellow peers Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, and George Booth*, Baron Delamer, which were reported on 7 Apr.; for pilchard fishing (18 Apr.); to naturalize Anna Ferrers (29 Apr.); to repair Bengworth Bridge (3 May); and against the export of wool (16 May).<sup>37</sup> Bridgwater also joined in the protest of 6 Feb. 1662 against the passage of the 8th earl of Derby’s bill to reclaim land that he had knowingly leased or sold to supporters of the Interregnum government during the 1650s. The militia bill particularly occupied him in the final days of the session. On 17 Apr. he reported from the committee of the whole House the controversial amendments to the bill by which the peers insisted that their own houses could not be searched and that they could be assessed for their contribution to the militia only by their peers. The Commons rejected or watered down these and several other amendments and when the bill was returned, Bridgwater participated in four conferences during 10-17 May settling these differences, in which the lords ultimately abandoned their claims to privilege.<sup>38</sup> Having helped to frame the bill in these terms, he was assessed for his contribution in those counties where he had a landed stake, such as Northamptonshire (£840), Cheshire (£529), Shropshire (which assessment by the lord lieutenant Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport, he disputed), and his own county of Buckinghamshire (where he assessed himself for £1,100).<sup>39</sup></p><p>The lord chancellor saw Bridgwater as a worthy recipient of proxies for the government’s interest and encouraged James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (earl of Brecknock in the English peerage), to register his proxy for the 1663 session with Bridgwater, ‘a right working person’, following the death of Ormond’s usual proxy recipient Jerome Weston*, earl of Portland.<sup>40</sup> Bridgwater was present in the House for 86 per cent of sitting days during the session. He also maintained his busy schedule in committees. He was named to 38 select committees, chaired them on 61 occasions on 22 different matters, and reported to the House with legislation six times between 11 May and 3 June.<sup>41</sup> He also chaired the committee for privileges on four occasions, three of them dealing with the case in early April of a forged ‘protection’ given out in the name of John Carey*, 5th Baron Hunsdon (styled Viscount Rochford, later 2nd earl of Dover).<sup>42</sup> He was the principal actor in trying to steer through the House the Heralds’ bill, to which committee he was named on 12 Mar., first chaired six days later and from which he first reported on 19 March. Thereafter he continued to chair another ten meetings on the Heralds’ bill until he reported the committee’s version of the bill on 12 May, only to have it recommitted. He chaired the revived committee a further four times.<sup>43</sup> He was also heavily involved as chairman of the committees assigned to the bills to prevent blockages in the streets around Westminster Hall, to make rivers navigable, and to prevent the illegal chopping of wood (which he reported to the House on 11 May). He led the committee which considered over several meetings the bill to settle the debts of Richard Byron*, 2nd Baron Byron, which Bridgwater reported as fit to pass on 3 June, only to have the bill recommitted (apparently a common occurrence) when the petition of Daniel Harvey against it was submitted that day.<sup>44</sup>.</p><p>His work on Byron’s bill, the Heralds’ bill and his other committees came to an abrupt halt in June when Bridgwater was for a time put under house arrest and ultimately censured by the Lords. Two months earlier, Lady Elizabeth Cranfield, the 14-year-old only surviving child and heir of James Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Middlesex, and niece of Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, had run away from her uncle’s residence to Bridgwater whom she persuaded, without much difficulty, to act as her guardian. As he wrote to her stepfather Sir Chichester Wrey<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., ‘she was now in such a distressed condition that if I did not assist her she was utterly undone’. Wrey’s suspicions about this arrangement can be seen by Bridgwater’s half-hearted assurances that:</p><blockquote><p>though there is not a person in the world whom I should more desire to match with my son than her ladyship, yet I never did intend, or do intend to do anything of that kind without first treating with her relations, of whom Lord Middlesex is one of the nearest.</p></blockquote><p>Those assurances were little believed by Middlesex, who was enraged by his niece’s absconding and her choice of guardian and defender. Lady Elizabeth was due by the terms of her father’s will to receive a large marriage portion when she reached 16 years and was already receiving a maintenance of £200 a year. <sup>45</sup> Middlesex was understandably infuriated that such a valuable item on the aristocratic marriage market was no longer in his control and such an easy prey for Bridgwater, with an unmarried heir, John Egerton*, styled Viscount Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater), almost exactly Lady Elizabeth’s age. He addressed an intemperate challenge to Bridgwater, ‘in the Billingsgate dialect’, as Bridgwater endorsed the letter:</p><blockquote><p>My Lord, I must forget your quality, since you have only a title, and no honour, therefore I must let you know, that you are the basest, and the most unworthiest person that ever owned himself a gentleman, and as for the injury that you have done me, know that there is nothing but your sword shall ever give me a satisfaction for it, which if suddenly you refuse to give me, expect in print, on every post in the town to find yourself an infamous coward.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>The king got wind of this challenge and sent the serjeant-at-arms to apprehend the two peers. He found Bridgwater alone waiting on the spot arranged for the duel. Charles tried his hand at mediation, but this having proved fruitless, he referred the matter to the House, and the dispute was first presented on 12 June 1663. Bridgwater and Middlesex had to withdraw themselves while the Lords considered the matter and the appropriate punishment for this breach of the public peace. Middlesex was sent to the Tower, while Bridgwater was committed to the lodgings of Black Rod.</p><p>Here what he considered the greatest tragedy of his life occurred. His wife, heavily pregnant with their ninth child, came to visit him, but on 14 June died in childbirth at Black Rod’s residence. This was an extreme blow to Bridgwater. He never remarried and the inscription for his own memorial, whose wording he specified himself in his will of 1685, dwells exclusively on the virtue and goodness of his wife. He portrayed his marriage of 22 years as the greatest achievement of his life, as he enjoyed ‘all the happiness that a man could receive in the sweet society of the best of wives till it pleased God in the 41st year of his age to change his great felicity into a great misery’. When the anniversary of his wedding, 22 July, came around in 1664, he found himself so distracted by grief and memories – ‘once a day of the greatest joy and comfort to me, now (by the remembrance of past felicity, which never can return) a day of sorrow, of sadness’ – that he had to break off writing a business letter to his solicitor John Halsey, ‘my thoughts already so far strayed from what was the subject of the beginning of this letter’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>The day following her death, 15 June, the House, being informed that Bridgwater ‘desired their Lordships’ compassion upon him in this sad condition, his Lady dying in the same house where now his Lordship is confined’, ordered that Bridgwater could be removed from Black Rod’s house to stay under confinement at his London residence in the Barbican. On 25 June Middlesex petitioned for readmission to the House, acknowledging and regretting his actions, and the following day, the House judged that both Middlesex and Bridgwater should stand at the bar and receive the reprehension of the House. After this, both, standing in their own places in the House, were to make their submissions while Middlesex was to make his own acknowledgment and apology to Bridgwater. The two peers came before the House on 2 July to hear the reprehension and make their submissions to be readmitted to the House. Afterwards they went to the king to submit to him as well.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Despite his claim made in August 1663 to his trusted Buckinghamshire deputy lieutenant Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, bt, that ‘by reason of the great loss with which it hath pleased God lately to afflict me ... all manner of business is yet troublesome to me’, Bridgwater resumed his usual busy activity as a chairman and reporter from as early as 10 July, chairing committees on ten occasions concerning seven bills from that time.<sup>49</sup> He was especially involved in the bill to settle the profits of the wine licences and the post office on the duke of York, and he chaired this committee three times before reporting the bill on 15 July. He almost certainly would have supported Clarendon against the impeachment articles submitted by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, despite the ambiguous analysis of Bridgwater’s position provided by Wharton (who listed him on both sides for this matter). From 17 July Bridgwater held the proxy of John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace, for the final week of the session, and on 25 July he chaired a committee on the bill to extend the deadline for subscription to the Act of Uniformity for those who had mitigating reasons for not taking the oaths previously. The majority of the 12 attending the committee voted through an additional proviso that the declaration of assent and consent to the act ‘shall be understood only as to the practice and obedience to the said act’. Bridgwater himself was required to report this new clause to the House that day, but he was clearly opposed to it and its inherent dilution of the force of the original Act of Uniformity for, after the House had divided to accept the clause, Bridgwater and 13 other peers entered their protest against it as ‘destructive to the Church of England as now established’. The clause was later rejected on a division in a thin Commons.<sup>50</sup> Later that same day, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), reported the hearth tax bill, but the House not being satisfied, they delegated Bridgwater and the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, to withdraw to make an addition to the bill. When Bridgwater returned to report the desired addition, the bill was passed and sent to the Commons.</p><p>The following year witnessed further manoeuvrings over the disputed guardianship of Lady Elizabeth Cranfield. In January 1664 Middlesex resorted to chancery to attempt to attach some of Bridgwater’s property.<sup>51</sup> Bridgwater could have claimed privilege of Parliament to avoid legal proceedings when the session began in March, but had strong views on the matter. This perhaps reflected his respect for the institution of Parliament and his unwillingness to use it solely for his own personal benefit. As early as November 1662 he had told his solicitor Halsey, regarding another cause, ‘There is in my judgment a vast difference between privilege of Parliament and privilege of peerage, the one I never yet did insist upon, the other I never will desert while I live’. By February 1664, though, he was wavering and assured Halsey that if Middlesex ‘fly to privilege, I shall then make mine as well worth the maintaining as his, and shall willingly engage in the defence of it against him, but by no means make use, neither of it, nor of anything else, as a shelter from him’.<sup>52</sup></p><p>There is no indication that Bridgwater did invoke privilege of Parliament to evade legal proceedings during the parliamentary session which began on 16 March. He attended every one of the 36 sittings of this brief session, during which he was nominated to 11 select committees. He chaired these on seven occasions, dealing with four separate matters, and reported from committees two times. He was involved in directing the bill for the transportation of felons through committee, before it was recommitted by the House upon his report on 2 April. He also led the committee established on 21 Apr. to examine the ‘noisome’ open ditch next to the part of the Tower of London where the records of the House were kept, from which he reported to the House on 5 May.<sup>53</sup> All his other work, though, was quickly subsumed from early May by his overriding concern to see the conventicle bill passed, and from 6 May, the date of the first of the many committees of the whole House on this bill, until the end of the session, his only recorded activity in the House centred around it. He chaired four committees of the whole on the bill between 6 and 11 May, and at the end reported the amendments and provisos added to the bill.<sup>54</sup> He and Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, were delegated to present the bill and its amendments to the Commons on 12 May, and over the next four working days Bridgwater, Mohun and Anglesey alone represented the House in the seven conferences the two houses held to thrash out their differences over amendments. The House was so concerned by these differences that on Saturday, 14 May it asked the king to delay proroguing the session until the bill had been settled. The following Monday the bill was almost derailed again when the Commons complained that the Lords’ additions to a proviso concerning the Quakers had not been delivered to them for their consideration. The House quickly dispatched Bridgwater and the conference managers to draw up another version of the proviso. Bridgwater then managed two more conferences to press on the Commons the necessity of passing this bill, which eventually passed both houses on 17 May. It received the royal assent the same day, before Parliament was prorogued.</p><p>The next several months before the next session were taken up with further proceedings with Middlesex, which became more rancorous as at the same time Bridgwater was preparing for Brackley’s marriage to Lady Elizabeth Cranfield. The marriage was celebrated on 17 Nov., only a few days after Middlesex had arranged to have a subpoena served on the prospective bride. Despite the imminence of another parliamentary session, Bridgwater still categorically refused to invoke privilege of Parliament to escape the legal proceedings.<sup>55</sup></p><p>When Parliament reconvened one week after the wedding, Bridgwater attended all but two of its 53 sittings. On the very first day of the session, 24 Nov., he was assigned with five others to present the thanks of the House to the king for his speech describing the depredations of the Dutch and setting out the justifications for war. The same delegation was sent into the City to thank the corporation for the money they had given the king for the war effort. On that same day Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, registered his proxy with Bridgwater; two days later Bridgwater also received that of Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich. On 30 Dec., during the Christmas recess, Henry Carey*, earl of Dover, also registered his proxy with Bridgwater. Most likely Bridgwater arranged to receive Dover’s proxy in the knowledge that Peterborough would return to the House to vacate his proxy once the session resumed on 12 Jan. 1665 – otherwise Bridgwater would have held more than the permitted number of two proxies (Sandwich’s was not vacated until 27 Feb. 1665). During the session Bridgwater was again mainly concerned with committee work. He was nominated to 25 committees, chaired 12 of these on 23 occasions and reported to the House from them eight times, with the bills (among others) to make rivers in Hampshire navigable (reported 20 Jan. 1665), to repair highways in London and Westminster (3 and 11 Feb.) and Hertfordshire (17 Feb.), to regulate the measurement of coal (2 Mar.) and to provide for the settlement of the younger siblings of Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet (11 February).<sup>56</sup></p><h2><em>Dutch War and fall of Clarendon, 1665-7</em></h2><p>Throughout the spring and summer of 1665, and in the many following months, Bridgwater was busy in mustering and managing Buckinghamshire’s militia for the defence of the county in the Dutch War, aided by his deputy lieutenant Sir Ralph Verney.<sup>57</sup> At the same time, Bridgwater’s attention returned to the affairs of his heir Brackley and Brackley’s new bride. He was intent that the portion due to her by her father’s deed of settlement was paid and tried to enlist the assistance of the late earl’s trustees, Basil Fielding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, and William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, to counter Middlesex’s continuing claims. The two trustees were not immediately forthcoming, but Bridgwater was eventually able to extract a promise of co-operation from Denbigh when the latter finally arrived at the session held in Oxford in late October 1665. He was frustrated, though, to learn that Bedford did not intend to come to the session at all.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Bridgwater, for his part, was present at all but three of the meetings in Oxford, during which he chaired select committees on 11 occasions dealing with six separate bills, four of which he reported to the House. As usual, he was highly involved in legislation affecting the Church of England, and chaired and reported on 16 Oct. from the committee on the bill to unite churches in cities and corporate towns. He also led the busy and well-attended (at least 15 being present for three divisions) committee meeting on 21 Oct. on what would become the Five Mile Act. Bridgwater’s report on 30 Oct. of the bill with the stringent oath imposed on nonconforming ministers aroused passionate debate. Those peers who had long advocated a more comprehensive Church urged the recommitment of the bill to reconsider the oath imposed on ministers. These propositions were rebuffed by the bishops and Bridgwater, who ‘desired that it might be understood that those who were for the recommitment were against the bill and those who were against the recommitment were for the bill’. The bill was passed by the House without being recommitted. He was also heavily involved in framing and passing the bill for further regulations against the plague, chairing the committee three times and reporting the bill to the House on 30 October. He also reported on 21 Oct. from the committee on the bill for removing damage cleer.<sup>59</sup></p><p>In the months following the prorogation, Bridgwater continued to delay his proceedings against Middlesex for Lady Brackley’s property and by the end of March 1666 was highly defensive against his solicitor’s accusation that he had neglected her interest. On one point he was adamant, he would not take possession of the disputed properties before the suit began: ‘I do absolutely dislike that and will by no means begin the suit, by such an action, as may, by the end of the suit, prove to be the greatest injustice imaginable’. On 30 Apr. 1666 Bridgwater joined the majority of his peers in finding Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, tried for murder in the court of the lord high steward, guilty only of manslaughter. He revealed his sympathies in the increasing rivalries at court in late May when he complained to his solicitor that, regarding the expectation that he and other peers would advance money to the king for the war, he had had some ‘usage’ from the secretary of state Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, ‘which is not very fair’ and ‘which I must represent to my lord chancellor before I can begin to endeavour to do his Majesty any service in it’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Bridgwater attended all but three of the sittings of the session which began in September 1666. From 25 Sept. he held the proxy of Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton. In this busy session he was nominated to 36 select committees and chaired 14 of them on a total of 33 occasions. In the first weeks of the session he was busy completing a bill which he had first worked on in the previous session before it was lost at the prorogation, that for sowing hemp and flax, and throughout October he chaired five meetings of the committee before reporting the bill on 22 October. On 12 Oct. he was placed on the committee to draft points for a conference with the Commons concerning their vote and proposed address for a complete ban on the import of French goods and between 17 and 30 Oct. he was one of the delegates of the House for four conferences on this matter. He was busy again in committees from December and between 10 Dec. and 8 Feb. 1667 he reported from 11 of them, including the bills for the encouragement of the coinage (reported 10 and 11 Dec.), to unite churches in Southampton (18 Dec.), for burying in woollen (17 Jan. 1667), to make provisions for those infected with the plague (23 Jan.), to establish a judicature to settle differences arising from the Great Fire (23 Jan.), to prevent the disturbances of seamen (5 Feb.), for rebuilding the City of London (7 Feb.), and for settling the taxes on the Adventurers’ lands in the Bedford Level (8 February).<sup>61</sup> On 19 Dec. he was also one of four reporters for a conference concerning the Commons’ accusations of Clarendon’s malfeasance in the matter of the Canary Company.</p><p>Like most peers in the House, he was most preoccupied from December 1666 with the controversy between the houses over the Irish cattle bill. He was chosen one of four reporters for the conference with the lower House on 14 Dec. in which the Commons insisted on their use of the controversial word ‘nuisance’ in the bill. Upon the report on the conference three days later he was further named to a committee of seven to draft the House’s resolution that they would not admit the word ‘nuisance’ and that they hoped to alleviate the Commons’ fears by proposing an address to the king requesting him not to grant any dispensations or licenses which would circumvent the intent of the act. Three more peers were added to this committee on 20 December. Bridgwater chaired its well-attended meeting the following day; eight peers were involved in each of the nine divisions Bridgwater oversaw which rejected five of the reasons proposed to be offered to the Commons and accepted four.<sup>62</sup></p><p>It was not until 29 Dec., after the Christmas recess, that Bridgwater reported from this committee with the petition to the king and with a number of points to be made against the use of the word ‘nuisance’. He was named as one of eight peers to manage the free conference on this matter to be held the following day. On that same day (29 Dec.) the king’s answer to the House’s petition to establish a royal commission to examine the public accounts was read and Bridgwater was among the six peers who, with 12 members of the House of Commons, were nominated to the new body.<sup>63</sup> The petition had been Clarendon’s response to, and attempt to forestall, the bill brought up from the Commons which would have established a statutory commission of accounts. Bridgwater was named a manager for the conference to be held that day in which the House was to inform the Commons of their decision to petition the king without the concurrence of the lower chamber. He was also assigned on 29 Dec.to manage a conference on the Lords’ objections to the Commons’ poll bill. On 2 Jan. 1667 he duly attended conferences on the houses’ disputes over the commission for public accounts, the Irish Cattle Bill, and the poll bill, and over the following ten days he attended a further conference on each of these three matters. On 14 Jan. he joined seven other peers in entering his protest against the resolution of the House to accept the Commons’ description of the import of Irish cattle as a ‘nuisance’. Bridgwater chaired the committee of the whole House on 19 Jan. in which the House reluctantly accepted the public accounts bill framed by the Commons, and five days later he chaired another committee of the whole which drew up a list of 24 peers who were to serve on the commission which it established, including Bridgwater himself. He was then named a manager for the conference in which the House was to return to the Commons the amended bill and its list of commissioners.<sup>64</sup> He chaired and reported on 26 Jan. from the committee of the whole House considering the supply bill to grant the king £1,256,347 for the war. The previous day the House had heard the testimony of several merchants trading to France, who were suspected of infringing the king’s proclamation prohibiting the import of French goods, but who complained that their goods had been wrongly seized. On 28 Jan. Bridgwater was one of the six peers delegated to address the king pleading for these merchants’ innocence.</p><p>The final days of the session were taken up with the impeachment proceedings against Mordaunt. Bridgwater had already attended a conference on the matter on 29 Dec. 1666 and had chaired a meeting of the committee for privileges entrusted on 17 Jan. 1667 with determining precedents on how Mordaunt’s answers to the articles of impeachment should be transmitted to the lower House. On 28 Jan. he reported from another meeting of the committee for privileges with precedents the committee had found to answer the Commons’ objections to the ‘demeanour’ of Mordaunt in the House during his defence and the behaviour of his counsel.<sup>65</sup> On 4 Feb. he was one of three peers who dissented from the resolution to grant the Commons’ request for a conference on Mordaunt because he felt that conferring with the lower House on a matter touching the House’s judicature was derogatory to its privilege. Despite his opposition, he was still named one of the seven peers chosen to report this conference. After the report of this conference the House resolved to adhere to its earlier decision regarding its procedure for the trial of Mordaunt, and Bridgwater helped to manage two more conferences on 4 and 7 February. On that latter day he was the only peer to enter his dissent from the resolution to concede another free conference with the Commons – for which he was then once again named a manager. The following day, 8 Feb., Bridgwater reported from a select committee for the bill for taxing the adventurers in Bedford Level, but the resolution of that and all other matters, including the dispute over the trial of Mordaunt and the bill for the commission of public accounts, still being debated in the Commons, were lost by the prorogation of Parliament that day.</p><p>On 13 Feb., only five days after the prorogation, Bridgwater was sworn to the Privy Council, a belated recognition of his many years of close attention to the court’s interests in the House, and particularly of his intensely busy activity in the most recent turbulent session.<sup>66</sup> He quickly became one of the council’s more diligent members and a principal candidate for the numerous sub-committees established to concentrate on specific issues. On 22 Mar. Bridgwater was included in the royal commission to examine public accounts, established in the wake of the failure of the public accounts bill the previous session.<sup>67</sup> But this commission was troubled almost from the start, as many of the Commons’ Members of it disputed its legitimacy and authority and it fell to Bridgwater, perhaps as chairman or the principal peer of the commission, to convey to the king their many scruples. When the brief session of Parliament hurriedly convened to discuss the peace was prorogued on 29 July Bridgwater was placed on a sub-committee of the council, which also included the treasury commissioners and the secretaries of state, entrusted with retrenching expenses after the costly Dutch war. The committee quickly became unpopular with the courtiers closely attached to the king.<sup>68</sup></p><p>When Clarendon, in another example of his ‘extraordinary preference’ for Bridgwater, nominated his protégé to replace Southampton as lord treasurer upon the latter’s death in June 1667, his suggestion was overruled and instead a treasury commission was established consisting of many of the lord chancellor’s fiercest enemies. <sup>69</sup> Bridgwater never did hold one of the great offices of state or indeed any position at court. His realm of activity always remained Parliament, the Privy Council, and the management of county society in Buckinghamshire and later other counties. He was always an efficient and active ‘man of business’ for the government, but without office or pension and with a local powerbase in the counties, it became easier for him in later years to adopt the attitudes of a country peer. This was especially so after his last strong link to the government, Clarendon, was removed from the scene.</p><p>He spent much of the autumn of 1667 defending Clarendon and his associates, both in the Privy Council and in Parliament.<sup>70</sup> He attended every single meeting of the House in the winter of 1667, and on the second day of the session, 11 Oct., was delegated to present the House’s thanks to the king for his speech. Yet he could not agree with the Commons’ address thanking the king for his dismissal of the lord chancellor, and on 15 Oct. he, with fellow Clarendonians York, Peterborough and Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, left the chamber rather than vote on the motion for this address of thanks.<sup>71</sup> Within the first four days of the session, he received the proxies of both his father-in-law Newcastle and his cousin Thomas Leigh*, Baron Leigh, probably for the sake of using them for Clarendon’s defence.</p><p>His first opportunity to register his dissatisfaction with the Commons’ prosecution of Clarendon came on 21 Nov. when the Commons did not immediately respond to a request from the Lords for a conference but instead later sent their own messenger to request a conference, without giving its subject matter. This was seen as a breach of parliamentary procedure and after the peers had agreed to accept the Commons’ request for a conference, Bridgwater, Anglesey and William Brydges*, 7th Baron Chandos, were the only peers to protest. They argued that the Commons should have answered the Lords’ request first and should not have made their own request without finding out what the subject of the Lords’ conference was to have been. Upon the report of this conference the following day, Bridgwater was appointed to a committee of seven peers to draw up the reasons for the House’s censure of the Commons’ actions, which was subsequently presented by Bridgwater and other members of the drafting committee to the lower House at a conference. On 25 Nov. he was again named a manager for a conference to explain the House’s reasons for refusing to commit Clarendon without charge. Two days later he was again appointed a manager for a free conference to be held the following day on the growing disputes between the two houses. The situation was soon transformed by Clarendon’s flight and the subsequent bill for his banishment. In other matters of this stage of the session, Bridgwater was appointed one of eight reporters who attended the conference on 10 Dec. at which the lower House presented two resolutions concerning their freedom of speech in Parliament, with which the House agreed the following day. Just before Parliament was adjourned he reported two bills from committees he had chaired: that against atheism (18 Dec.) and for making prize ships free for trade (19 December).<sup>72</sup></p><h2><em>After Clarendon, 1668-71</em></h2><p>In the recess before Parliament reassembled in February 1668 it was widely expected that Bridgwater would be one of the Clarendonians who would be removed from the Privy Council but, perhaps owing to the influence of the duke of York, this cull did not happen.<sup>73</sup> When Parliament resumed in February, Bridgwater was still on the council and continued to attend every single sitting of the House until Parliament was again adjourned in May. He continued his usual busy activity and was named to 17 select committees, but his involvement declined somewhat from previous sessions and he only chaired four of them on a total of seven occasions.<sup>74</sup></p><p>He was opposed to the petition and appeal of Cuthbert Morley and Bernard Grenville to have a chancery decree against them reversed and he signed the three protests of 9, 16 and 31 Mar. against the House’s resolutions in favour of these petitioners. In April and May he continued to be engaged in committees. He reported from two select committees—on the bills to regulate the accounts of administrators (3 Apr.) and against the abuses of drovers (1 May)—and one committee of the whole House, on the bill against duelling, for which he was subsequently named to the drafting sub-committee (24 April.). Among those matters in which he took a special interest was the bill against atheism and prophaneness, whose consideration had been postponed until after the recess when he had reported it from committee on 18 Dec. 1667.<sup>75</sup> On 13 Apr. he also introduced in the House the bill to build a canal which would make the Severn navigable to London. He was a reporter for the conference on 24 Apr. concerning the Commons’ impeachment of Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup>, and he chaired the committee for privileges on the same matter. In the last days of the session he was involved in the controversy over <em>Skinner v East India Company</em>. He chaired the committee for privileges considering the East India Company’s petition to the Commons on 29 Apr., 2 and 6 May and was named a delegate of the House for two conferences held on 5 and 8 May. <sup>76</sup> This last was a bad-tempered affair, during which in ‘a severe and high sense’ the Lords insisted that the East India Company’s petition was a breach of privilege and that it was within their judicial rights to hear Skinner’s original petition. Contemporaries singled out Bridgwater as one of the principal members of the House’s delegation which presented their arguments in a conference which lasted close to five hours.<sup>77</sup> With relations between the houses having collapsed, on 9 May the king adjourned the stalled Parliament.</p><p>During the long series of adjournments which kept Parliament officially in session during 1668-69 Bridgwater was named a commissioner on the council of trade when its commission was renewed on 20 Oct. 1668.<sup>78</sup> He was also one of the nine commissioners of prorogation when the session of Parliament was finally prorogued on 1 Mar. 1669. Throughout 1668-69 Bridgwater took an active part in the suppression of Dissenters and nonconformists in Buckinghamshire and at council he appears to have been concerned by the limited reach and lax enforcement of the 1664 Conventicle Act as it neared its expiry in 1669.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Four days before the new session of Parliament convened on 19 Oct. 1669, the duke of Newcastle, absent from the House since 1660, once again registered his proxy with Bridgwater for the entire forthcoming session. Bridgwater himself attended all but one of the sittings of this brief session of winter 1669 but was not greatly involved in committees, only chairing the committee on the bill for preventing fraud in the export of wool, from which he reported on 26 October.<sup>80</sup> On 29 Nov. he protested against the House’s favourable reception of the petition and appeal of Bernard Grenvile in the case of <em>Morley and Grenville v. Elwes</em>, in which cause Bridgwater had already made his views known through his many protests in March 1668. Another holdover from the previous session in which he became involved was the resurgence of the dispute over <em>Skinner v East India Company</em> and the House’s assertion of its right to hear causes in the first instance. On 11 Nov. Bridgwater was named to a sub-committee of the committee for privileges assigned to draw up a bill that would assert the House’s place as the supreme court of judicature and its right to judge cases which were not relievable in lower courts.<sup>81</sup> On 3 Dec. the House heard of a breach of privilege committed by Thomas Langresh, who had had Lady Audley, wife of James Tuchet*, 13th Baron Audley (3rd earl of Castlehaven [I]), arrested by the bailiff Thomas Turnball. In his appearance before the House on 7 Dec., Turnball testified that, in order to gain access to Lady Audley’s chambers in Covent Garden, he had followed Langresh’s advice and pretended that he had a letter to deliver to Lady Audley from her cousin Bridgwater. Both Turnball and Langresh submitted themselves to the House, to Bridgwater and to Lady Audley and were discharged on 9 December.<sup>82</sup> Two days after that Bridgwater was one of the nine commissioners who announced the prorogation of Parliament until 14 Feb. 1670.</p><p>Once again, before that session even started Bridgwater had his full complement of two proxies from his ever-absent father-in-law Newcastle and cousin Leigh. He thus could not comply with the request of his brother-in-law Richard Vaughan*, Baron Vaughan (2nd earl of Carbery [I]), to take over his proxy in late March 1671, after Vaughan’s original proxy recipient, John Granville*, earl of Bath, himself had left the House.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Bridgwater was his usual assiduous self and missed only one sitting throughout this long session of 165 days from February 1670 to April 1671. That one day was in the shorter period of February to April 1670 when Bridgwater distinguished himself by his guidance of the second conventicle bill, with which he had been so concerned the previous summer, through the House in March. From the time it was first considered in a committee of the whole House on its second reading on 14 Mar. to its final passage on 26 Mar., Bridgwater was the sole chairman of the committee of the whole House on the bill on ten occasions, many of them attended, somewhat controversially, by the king himself.<sup>84</sup> The bill passed upon Bridgwater’s report on 26 Mar. but still incurred a protest from 17 peers. He was also a central figure in the series of four conferences held between the Houses on amendments to the bill from 30 Mar. to 6 Apr., which was only settled after the House reluctantly agreed to the Commons’ amendment allowing the searching of peers’ houses for illegal conventicles. At the same time he was also a delegate of the House in the three conferences held on 2 and 6 Apr. on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for repairing highways and bridges. It was Bridgwater too who reported on 6 Apr. the Commons’ reasons for insisting that the number of horses available to go at length in a team be limited to five, an amendment which the House eventually accepted. He was named to 32 select committees, but he chaired only three of these.<sup>85</sup> He reported from committee the bill to prevent the delivering up of merchant ships and on that same day, 9 Apr., he was also named one of the managers for a conference on this bill. On this day he also reported a personal bill from committee and on 11 Apr. he presented the bill concerning jurors for the House’s approval before the long summer adjournment started. Reflecting some of his other important roles in Parliament, from mid-March he was involved in meetings of the committee for privileges, and on 29 Mar. no doubt in a reflection of his many years’ work on the committee for the Journal, he was appointed to a sub-committee to oversee the erasure and ‘vacating’ of all records in the Journal concerning the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Parliament reconvened from its summer adjournment on 24 October. Bridgwater came to all of the ensuing 124 sittings of the House until the prorogation of 22 Apr. 1671 and was named to 55 select committees. Of these he chaired 12 on a total of 22 occasions and reported from six.<sup>87</sup> He was unusually inactive during the winter months of 1670-71. Between 23 Nov. and 6 Dec. he chaired eight meetings of the committee on the bill to prevent fraud in exporting wool, but he reported from select committees only twice in this period, on 25 Nov. and 17 Dec., both times on personal bills. This session was in effect Bridgwater’s last moment as a leading chairman of select committees. After its close his involvement dropped remarkably, although his role as the leading chairman of the committee of the whole House only grew over the succeeding years. In other matters, on 2 Dec. he was one of only four peers to enter a dissent against the Act for a General Naturalization.</p><p>It was only from March 1671 that Bridgwater became his usual busy self again. On 6 Mar. he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill for an additional excise upon beer and ale. On that same day he was named a reporter for a conference in which the Commons objected to the amendments the House had made, which they subsequently agreed to omit. A week later he was a reporter for two other conferences. On 15-16 Mar. he joined in two protests against the House’s decision to suspend the judgments found against the petitioner John Cusack. On 11 Apr. he also reported from a committee of the whole House with the bill for impositions on legal proceedings ready to be passed without any amendments. Within the first two weeks of April alone he reported four bills from select committee, including those to explain a proviso in the bill settling the Post Office revenue on the duke of York (3 Apr.), to settle the land taken for the fortifications of Portsmouth (11 Apr.), and to prevent abuses in the Smithfield cattle trade (13 April).</p><p>On 18 and 20 Apr. he also served as a delegate of the House in a series of three conferences on the dispute between the houses over the amendment to this latter bill. He was also involved in the numerous conferences in which were aired the disagreements over the House’s claimed right to amend the bill to raise supply through impositions on foreign goods such as West Indian sugar. He was initially on 10 Apr. named a manager for a conference on the bill and for a proposed address to the king, but this conference fell through when the lower house responded the following day concerning the conference on the bill but not on the address, an answer which the Lords conceived to be ‘unparliamentary’. Bridgwater was assigned to be one of the managers to represent the House in the two conferences on 11 and 12 Apr. to discuss this breakdown in communication. He was a reporter of the two ensuing conferences on 12 and 15 Apr. discussing the bill for impositions, and on 17 Apr. was placed on the committee to draw up reasons justifying the House’s right to make amendments to the rates of imposition in a money bill. Three increasingly bad-tempered conferences were held on 20 and 22 April. After the last, Bridgwater was again placed on a committee to prepare answers to the Commons and to show their dislike of ‘the unusual expressions of the Commons’ to be presented in a free conference. But the committee stopped its work when it learned that the king, annoyed at the breakdown of all manner of business between the houses over this matter, was going to prorogue Parliament that afternoon. Bridgwater’s active involvement in this matter is suggested by the survival among his manuscripts of a large bundle of papers (26 leaves) written in his own hand and entitled ‘Observations concerning a dispute between the Lords and the Commons about the granting of impositions’, a fair copy of the reasons that were to be presented to the Commons at the abortive conference.<sup>88</sup></p><h2><em>Defender of Protestantism, 1672-4</em></h2><p>Shortly after the prorogation, the lord chamberlain Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, died of a ‘griping of the guts’, and Bridgwater was one of those put forward as a possible replacement, although the post eventually went to Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans.<sup>89</sup> Over the succeeding long months of the prorogation, as England, allied with France, entered into war against the United Provinces and the king issued his Declaration of Indulgence, Bridgwater attended the prorogations of 16 Apr. and 30 Oct. 1672. On the latter of these days he introduced into the House his nephew Lord Ashley, newly raised in the peerage as earl of Shaftesbury. Bridgwater’s connection with Shaftesbury went back to the 1650s, when the latter had married Bridgwater’s niece Lady Frances Cecil, which gave Bridgwater cause in 1654 to use Ashley Cooper (as he then was) as an intermediary in his negotiations with Cromwell. This formed a personal connection that appears to have outlasted Lady Frances’s early death and may have brought about the political connection which grew between Bridgwater and Shaftesbury from about the time of his succession. Ashley had also served as a negotiator and a trustee for the marriage settlement of Lord Brackley and Lady Elizabeth Cranfield in 1664.<sup>90</sup></p><p>In March 1670 Lady Brackley died in childbirth. In late 1672 and early 1673 Bridgwater was busy trying to finalize the settlement for a marriage between his heir and Lady Jane, daughter of Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St John (later 6th marquess of Winchester, ultimately duke of Bolton). Despite the fact that Bridgwater calculated that there remained £21,050 worth of debt encumbering the estates he intended to settle on Brackley, St John was pleased to proceed, and even to give his daughter a portion of £12,000 upon the marriage, which was celebrated in April 1673. His other children also occupied Bridgwater in the long months without Parliament. In May 1672 his daughter Lady Elizabeth Egerton married Robert Sidney*, later 4th earl of Leicester, with a portion of £10,000.<sup>91</sup> In late 1672 Bridgwater took up the offer, originally extended to him in 1668, of being high steward of the Buckinghamshire borough of Chipping Wycombe, when the death of the borough’s sitting Member, Sir John Borlase<sup>‡</sup>, bt, opened up a parliamentary seat in which Bridgwater wished to place his younger son Sir William Egerton<sup>‡</sup>, who had barely reached his majority. A more distant family connection led to Bridgwater’s appointment as lord lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire at the turn of 1673. He held this in trust until his second cousin, William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, who had succeeded his father on 21 Dec. 1672 at the age of only 17, could come of age and take up his family’s leadership of those counties.<sup>92</sup></p><p>On 30 Dec. 1672, well before the long-anticipated reconvening of Parliament was to take place in early February, Bridgwater received the proxy of his nephew Edward Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury. To this he added Newcastle’s proxy, also registered in anticipation of the session. Bridgwater took his place on 4 Feb., the opening day. He missed only three meetings of this session, and on 1 Mar. he was named to a small committee of eight peers assigned to draw an address of thanks to the king for communicating to the House the matter of the exchange of addresses he had been conducting with the Commons regarding the Declaration of Indulgence. Four days later he was named to a much larger committee which was to prepare heads for a bill, suggested by the king himself, to set out by statute the scope of the king’s dispensing power. That Bridgwater was one of the more active members of the drafting committee for this bill is suggested by the survival among his papers of a draft, which never got out of committee.<sup>93</sup> On 6 Mar., Bridgwater chaired the meeting of the committee for privileges which determined that the Commons had acted in an unparliamentary manner by sending their remonstrative address to the king without the concurrence of the House; but these disputes ended when the king announced that he had cancelled the Declaration. <sup>94</sup></p><p>Bridgwater was central to the important religious legislation discussed in that session. From 15 to 19 Mar. 1673 he acted as the sole chairman of the four committees of the whole House that rushed through and eventually passed the Commons’ test bill that would exclude Catholics from holding office. He was a reporter for the conference held on 24 Mar. concerning the Commons’ disagreements with the bill, which the House accepted with surprising readiness in order to get the measure passed so that the much-needed supply bill could be passed in time for the prorogation. Bridgwater was also the sole chairman of the six meetings of the committee of the whole between 22 and 27 Mar. which considered the Commons’ bill for the ease of Protestant dissenters. During these debates a clause was added granting the king power to issue proclamations on religious matters when Parliament was in recess. On 29 Mar., Bridgwater was named a reporter of the conference to hear the lower house’s objections to this amendment, which seemed like a confirmation of the dispensing power against which they had just fought. This time the Lords did not accept the Commons’ arguments, and Bridgwater was assigned to manage another conference later that afternoon at which the House made the reason for its adherence to the clauses clear. The matter was still in dispute when the king prorogued the session that afternoon, upon which the bill was lost, to the dismay of many nonconformists.</p><p>From this session of 1673 a change in Bridgwater’s attitude and activity in the House can be discerned. Bridgwater, so long a pillar of the Anglican Church and a leading enemy of Dissent, now probably began to believe, like so many other staunch Anglicans, that the greatest threat to the Church of England came not from nonconformity in the country but from Catholicism at court. Over the following years, Bridgwater increasingly took a role in guiding through the committee of the whole House, for which he became the principal chairman, the country religious legislation which sought to halt the growth of popery, place limitations on the power wielded by a Catholic monarch, and provide protection to Protestant dissenters. He did so even though it placed him in some distinctly uncomfortable positions regarding his previous attitudes towards dissent.</p><p>It would be difficult, though, to categorize Bridgwater in the later 1670s solely as a country peer, or even more so as a Whig, as some have done.<sup>95</sup> His main concern was the defence of Anglican Protestantism in England and of the privileges of the House, and that brought him often to side with his nephew and friend Shaftesbury and his circle, particularly in 1674-79. Although on some matters he opposed the court, many of the measures he managed through the committee, such as the propositions for placing limitations on the power wielded by York or any other Catholic successor, had the tacit approval of the government as a means of placating the more radical voices in Parliament. He did not agree with some of the more extreme views to which the government was strictly opposed, such as on the succession or the role of the bishops in the House. Throughout the later years of the reign he was still considered a moderate fundamentally loyal to the crown, its legal succession and the Church of England.</p><p>In the turbulent session of January-February 1674, for which he once again held Newcastle’s proxy for the entire session, he remained busy as chairman of the committee of the whole House concerning controversial religious legislation. He was the only chairman of the four committees of the whole which from 10 to 21 Feb. considered the ‘heads of advice’ for securing the Protestant religion ‘as it is established in the Church of England’. Over these days the committee discussed proposals to ensure that royal children be educated as Protestants, to prohibit the marriage of a member of the royal family to a Catholic except by parliamentary approval, to disarm Catholic recusants and to remove the queen’s English Catholic servants from Whitehall. The exclusion of a Catholic monarch unwilling to take the Test was even discussed in the committee. Contemporaries attributed such proposals to ‘some hotspurs’ in the Lords, in particular Shaftesbury, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, who made up the core of a sub-committee appointed by the committee of the whole on 14 Feb. to draw up these proposals into a bill. It was Shaftesbury who presented the bill for the better securing the Protestant religion to the committee of the whole chaired by Bridgwater on 21 February.<sup>96</sup> However, the bill for securing the Protestant religion was only read once that day before the king, having ratified the Treaty of Westminster with the United Provinces and disturbed by the hostile motions in both houses, prorogued Parliament on 24 Feb. until 10 November. Bridgwater served as commissioner when it was prorogued again to 13 Apr. 1675.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Rumours circulated again shortly after the prorogation that Bridgwater was to be removed from the Privy Council, but not only did he remain on the council, he was even appointed in March 1675 one of the councillors on the newly formed committee for trade and plantations.<sup>98</sup> He was one of the nine members of the council, along with Anglesey, Halifax, Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, and others, ‘to have immediate care and intendency’ of the business of the council, and he appears to have devoted a good deal of attention to the committee’s business.<sup>99</sup></p><h2><em>Danby, court and country, 1675-8</em></h2><p>Bridgwater’s shifting political stance did confuse people. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), considered the privy councillor and high Anglican Bridgwater a natural supporter of the ‘non-resisting’ test bill that he was intending to introduce into the House, with the support of the bishops, during the session of spring 1675. On the other hand, Shaftesbury’s <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country</em> listed Bridgwater as second in its list of 24 peers who managed the opposition to the bill in the House. It even singled out Bridgwater for praise as ‘the never-to-be-forgotten earl of Bridgwater, who gave reputation and strength to this cause of England’ and pointed out that Bridgwater urged in debate on the bill the inclusion of a mandatory oath ‘for preserving the freedom of debates in Parliament’.<sup>100</sup> Bridgwater’s activities in the House in this session bear out the assessment in <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em> and show how Danby was mistaken in his assumptions. Bridgwater was his usual diligent self, and once again attended every single sitting (mornings and afternoons) of the session that opened on 13 April. He chaired the committee on highways four times (two of those merely adjourning them without discussion) but did not report from it, and on 19 Apr. chaired one committee of the whole House on the bill for the trial of peers.<sup>101</sup> But as the <em>Letter</em> suggests, he primarily made his mark by his role in the concerted opposition to Danby’s bill. He signed three of the four protests - on 21 and 29 Apr. and 4 May (missing that of 26 Apr.) - against the perceived breach of the privilege of peerage, and the incursion into the House’s right to discuss legislation freely, inherent in the non-resisting test bill. He was equally concerned with the House’s judicial rights, and joined the ‘country’ group in strongly pressing the right of the Lords to hear appeal cases involving members of the Commons. On 6 May he and eight other peers protested against the resolution to reassure the Commons that the House would be solicitous of the lower House’s privilege when considering the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>. The protesters thought the message this sent too concessive in tone to the Commons. A week later he, Anglesey and Shaftesbury were first assigned to draft a letter to the Commons complaining of its arrest of Sherley. This group, later joined by Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, appears to have become the principal drafting committee for the House’s responses, some of them phrased in very strong language, to the Commons’ actions and objections.<sup>102</sup> Then between 17 May and 3 June he was one of the small group of peers who represented the House in a series of six conferences (ultimately inconclusive) in which the issue of the judicial privileges of each House was debated with increasing bad temper. On 4 June it was Bridgwater who moved, as the first item of business that day, that the House should consider the ‘great breach of privilege’ committed in Westminster Hall when the Commons’ Serjeant-at-Arms seized the counsel for Nicholas Crispe, the plaintiff in <em>Crispe v Delmahoy</em>, at the bar of the court of chancery, completely ignoring the formal protections they produced from the House of Lords.<sup>103</sup> This marked the final break-down of the working relationship between the Houses. When on 9 June he prorogued Parliament to 13 October and the king blamed ‘ill-designed men’ for stirring up this conflict to procure a dissolution of Parliament. Bridgwater’s nephew Herbert of Chirbury again registered his proxy with him on 29 May, at the height of the debate.</p><p>Bridgwater attended all of the sittings of the following short session of the autumn of 1675. On 10 Nov. he was a manager for a conference on the Commons’ address to recall Englishmen fighting in Louis XIV’s service. Two days later he chaired a committee of the whole House on the bill for the trial of peers and was placed on the sub-committee of seven peers established to frame amendments.<sup>104</sup> He also reported on 20 Nov. from a select committee on a private bill.<sup>105</sup> On 13 Nov. he chaired the first committee of the whole which discussed the heads ‘agreed on last session’ – actually the session of February 1674 – for securing the Protestant religion. These included ensuring the Protestant education of children of the royal family; disarming Catholic recusants; limiting the number of the queen’s Catholic servants (and outright forbidding any Jesuits); and providing for the Protestant religion of children with Catholic parents.<sup>106</sup> These concerns were once again pushed to the side as Shaftesbury stoked up the conflict over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> again by insisting that the House consider Sherley’s appeal. Bridgwater was one of the ten reporters assigned for the conference on 19 Nov. when the Commons made clear its displeasure that the House was going to reopen this case. On the following day, Bridgwater joined members of the country group in voting in favour of an address for the dissolution of Parliament, one of the few privy councillors to vote against the government on this motion. A contemporary division list, a copy of which survives among Bridgwater’s papers, notes that for this vote he held Herbert of Chirbury’s proxy, who had registered it with his uncle on 4 Oct., a week before the commencement of the session. Proxies turned out to be the key to this close vote, for while the majority of those present in the House on the day voted in favour of the motion, it was defeated by two votes through the larger number of proxies held by those against the address. The proxy which Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, brought in at the last minute finally tipped the balance against the motion. Bridgwater might have been able to narrow the result still further had not his kinsman, Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, unexpectedly turned up on 20 November. His return vacated a second proxy in Bridgwater’s keeping and effectively wasted the vote as Leigh does not appear in the division lists.<sup>107</sup> Bridgwater signed the protest against the defeat of this motion, and two days later, on 22 Nov., Charles II prorogued this increasingly uncooperative Parliament until February 1677.</p><p>In May 1676, Bridgwater stepped down as lord lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire, when Derby came of age and could take over the role himself. At the end of the following month he was one of the 35 peers who sat in the court of the lord high steward to try Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, for murder. Bridgwater joined with the majority of peers in finding Cornwallis not guilty.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Five days before Parliament reconvened on 15 Feb. 1677, Bridgwater, no longer needed to hold the proxy of his late father-in-law Newcastle, who had died on Christmas Day 1676, instead received that of his nephew John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, who had not sat in the House since 5 Apr. 1670. Bridgwater held this proxy until Exeter’s death on 1 Feb. 1678. Bridgwater maintained his consistent attendance rate of 100 per cent throughout this long session, which was not prorogued until 13 May 1678. In the records of this first period of the session before the adjournment of 16 Apr. 1677 Bridgwater appears most frequently by his signature next to the many deletions from the Journal’s official record of the proceedings against Shaftesbury, Wharton, Salisbury and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, for claiming at the commencement of the session that Parliament was automatically dissolved by its 15-month prorogation. By a later order of 13 Nov. 1680, based on a report from Bridgwater from the committee for the Journal delivered the previous day, all records of these proceedings were to be excised. Bridgwater, usually the first name among the signatories, seems to have managed the effort to go back through the Journal’s records from 15 Feb. 1677 to 26 Feb. 1678 in order to implement this order.</p><p>He was named to 42 select committees but only chaired two and reported from one, on 1 Mar. 1677, and devoted most of his attention, as usual, to leading committees of the whole House in the important religious legislation of the session. In the first two weeks Bridgwater chaired a number of meetings of the committee of the whole House which once again considered many of the measures proposed for securing the Protestant religion put forward in February 1674 and November 1675. At the first committee on 21 Feb. 1677 the heads from November 1675 concerning the Protestant education of the royal children, the disarming of Papists and the queen’s Catholic servants were read and agreed upon, while some other new points were raised. The following day, Bridgwater reported from the committee of the whole with points for other bills: one for mitigating the penalties for Catholics who voluntarily placed themselves on a register of recusants, the other to limit a Catholic monarch’s control over the nomination of Anglican bishops.<sup>109</sup> From 5 to 9 Mar. 1677 he chaired three sittings of the committee of the whole on a bill to require any English monarch upon succession to swear an oath against transubstantiation, failing which both the education of that monarch’s children and the power to make appointments in the English Church would be handed over to a panel of Anglican bishops. He had to delay his report on this bill by a day because he had so many papers to go through. Then for two intense weeks from 16 to 30 Mar. he was the sole chairman of 11 sittings of the committee of the whole House considering another bill ‘for the more effectual conviction and prosecution of Popish recusants’, providing for the registration of all recusants and limiting the trades which they could practice.<sup>110</sup> Both of these bills were in effect government bills representing how far the king, and perhaps York as well, were willing to go to placate Parliament’s anti-Catholic obsessions. But even through both were ultimately passed by Bridgwater’s committee of the whole and by the House, they were rejected when sent down to the Commons for being insufficiently rigorous against Catholic recusants and for giving too much power to the bishops.</p><p>On 4 Apr. Bridgwater was a manager for a conference on the Commons’ amendments to the bill for the naturalization of children born abroad of English parents. The following day he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill for securing the liberty of the subject. On 10 Apr. he chaired another sitting of the committee of the whole on the supply bill for building warships, and over the following days he was one of the group of peers assigned to manage a series of conferences in which the House defended its amendments against the Commons’ complaint that the House could not change money bills. At the free conference held on 14 Apr. it was noted that Bridgwater was one of the conference managers, along with Anglesey and Halifax, who ‘argued with great sharpness to show the impossibility that the Lords could at this time comply’ with the Commons’ request to recede from their amendments. After the report of the next free conference which Bridgwater managed, on 16 Apr., the House resolved that because of the urgent need for supply, they would reluctantly recede from their amendment. Bridgwater, true to form, dissented with seven other peers from this desertion of the principles which he had expressed vehemently in conference.<sup>111</sup></p><p>With the supply bill passed, the king adjourned the bad-tempered Houses for a few weeks until a very brief meeting of five days, all of which Bridgwater attended, was held in late May 1677. Parliament was then further adjourned. During these spring months Bridgwater was noted ‘worthy’ by the imprisoned Shaftesbury. He confirmed Shaftesbury’s estimate when the session resumed on 15 Jan. 1678, from which day he attended all the meetings until the prorogation of 13 May. On 1 and 7 Feb. he chaired and reported from two committees of the whole House discussing the bill for punishing atheism and blasphemy. From 23 Feb. Bridgwater held the proxy of his great-nephew John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, and he had his full complement of two proxies for the remainder of the session from 11 Mar. when Leigh also registered his proxy with him. On 6-7 Mar. he chaired both a meeting of the committee for privileges and two select committees, while he represented the House in two conferences on 9 and 19 Mar. on the bill to regulate fishing. On 27 Mar. he reported from committee two bills, a private bill and the bill for burying in woollen.<sup>112</sup> He was also a reporter for the conference on 22 Mar. regarding the Commons’ address to the king requesting an ‘immediate’ war with France. This was quite pertinent for on that same day, he was appointed a commissioner empowered to treat with the ministers and ambassadors of the emperor, the king of Spain and the States General about an alliance against France.<sup>113</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. On 30 Apr. he was made a reporter for the conference on the danger to the kingdom caused by the growth of popery, and a week later, on 8 May, he chaired the committee of the whole considering the bill for suppressing the growth of popery, but this bill was lost when the king prorogued Parliament on 13 May.</p><p>Bridgwater again attended all of the sittings of the session which began only ten days later, and lasted until 15 July, during which he briefly resumed his past activity as a leader in select committees. He was named to 28 committees, chairing six of them on 12 occasions. He also chaired the committee for privileges once.<sup>114</sup> On 26 June he reported two bills from committee, a private bill for Thomas Plater and, after having chaired the select committee on four occasions that month, the bill for registering certificates in the Heralds’ Office, a matter with which he had first concerned himself in 1661-2.<sup>115</sup></p><p>He was engaged in two particular issues during this session. The first was Robert Villiers’s claim to the viscountcy of Purbeck, which Bridgwater strenuously opposed to the point of protesting against motions even to consider the matter. He was named on 20 June to the committee assigned to draft a petition asking the king to grant permission that a bill be brought in to disable the petitioner from ever claiming the title. Bridgwater himself reported from this committee six days later. The petition was approved and presented to the king on 9 July. He was also at the heart of the debate between the Houses on the supply bill for disbanding the forces raised for the war with France. He chaired the first committee of the whole House on the bill on 19 June and managed the conference the following day at which the king’s message emphasizing the necessity of maintaining the army in Flanders in order to force France to the negotiating table was conveyed to the Commons. On the following day, 21 June, he served once more as chairman of the committee of the whole for the bill and reported the House’s amendment to extend the deadline for the disbandment from the end of June to the end of July. On 25 June Bridgwater was named one of the seven reporters for the conference at which the Commons explained their objections to the House’s amending a money bill and during which they submitted a proviso which they hoped would satisfy the Lords’ intentions. Bridgwater was placed on the committee to draw up reasons why the House could not accept the proviso which he helped to present to the Commons in another conference on 26 June. Between 28 June and 2 July Bridgwater represented the House in three increasingly bad-tempered conferences in which the House’s right to amend money bills was debated. At the last conference, on 2 July, the Commons effectively placed the blame for the bill’s failure to pass on the Lords. The House’s representatives, including Bridgwater, emphatically rejected this, and ‘their Lordships left the bill still with them [the Commons]’. To solve the impasse the Commons brought up new bills over the following days – a bill to lay an additional duty on wines and a new supply bill for £619,388, with a provision to disband the army conveniently ‘tacked’ on. Over 11-12 July Bridgwater chaired the committees of the whole which dealt with these bills in turn and, probably with the imminent prorogation and the need to pass a supply bill in mind, he reported both bills fit to pass without amendment.</p><p>These last days before the prorogation on 15 July were very busy for Bridgwater as the House frantically tried to wrap up overdue legislation. Bridgwater held the proxy of John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, which was registered with him on 4 July, for the remainder of the session. On 5 July he dissented from the decision not even to put the question whether the petition in <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em> should be dismissed first before the House went ahead to ascertain the relief which should be granted to the petitioner. In the last week of the session he reported three bills from select committee, including those for the enlarging of common highways (11 July) and for a general naturalization of Protestant strangers (12 July). The most troublesome was the bill for the relief of poor prisoners, which was recommitted to his committee after his first report on 10 July, and did not satisfy the House until two days later.<sup>116</sup> On 11-12 July he attended two conferences on the dispute between the Houses on amendments to the bill for burying in woollen, and on 13 July he was in turn a reporter for the Commons’ conference on the House’s amendments to the bill for measuring ships carrying coal. He was also a manager for the House’s conference on their dissatisfaction with the Commons’ irregular way of returning bills. Two days after those conferences the House was prorogued.</p><h2><em>Popish Plot and Exclusion, 1678-9</em></h2><p>Bridgwater served as a commissioner at all three of the prorogations in August and October 1678. He attended the first day of the new session on 21 Oct., convened in response to the allegations of the Popish Plot, and missed only four of its sittings. Within two days of the first sitting Bridgwater was named to both the large committee entrusted to examine the papers transmitted from the council regarding the Plot and the smaller committee of five assigned to draw up an address requesting the king to banish papists from London and Westminster. The following day he was placed on the committee to examine whether any of the constables or other officers in London and Middlesex were papists. On 26 Oct. he reported from the committee of the whole House with advice to be given to the king ‘for the better preservation of his person’ and he was named to the ensuing sub-committee to draft the resulting address. He attended on 1 Nov. two conferences in which the houses agreed that there was a ‘hellish’ Popish plot to assassinate the king and that effective steps for the preservation of his person and the Protestant religion should be taken. On 9 Nov. he was placed on the committee to examine the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, and he was also a reporter for two conferences held on 11 Nov. at which the houses discussed the Commons’ complaint that the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham), was being unduly slow in issuing out commissions for justices of the peace to tender the oaths to suspected papists.</p><p>Exeter registered his proxy with Bridgwater again on 30 Oct. 1678, for the entire session. Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, also registered his proxy on 7 Nov., but this was vacated on his return on 19 December. While holding these proxies Bridgwater was at the heart of the procedures surrounding the test bill aimed to bar Catholics from sitting in Parliament. Bridgwater chaired a committee of the whole considering proposals for the ‘further preservation’ of the king’s person on 4 Nov. and then from 7 to 19 Nov. he acted as sole chairman of all eight intense committees of the whole House, which worked out the details of the test bill, and which he reported to the House the morning of 20 November. Throughout this two-week process, the Commons sent numerous messages urging, in ever more panicked tones, the House to hurry up with this bill which had first been brought up to the Lords on 28 October. The House was not to be rushed, though. Many peers were directly touched by the terms of the bill and argued vigorously against it. Bridgwater himself voted on 15 Nov. in favour of an amendment that would bar from the House peers who refused to make the declaration against transubstantiation, but this motion was defeated in committee by five votes, largely from Catholic peers and the bishops present. However, when Bridgwater gave his final long report on the many amendments to the bill on 20 Nov., the full House reversed this earlier decision and voted the amendment through, while at the same time voting in favour of a proviso which excepted York alone from the bill’s provisions.<sup>117</sup> Only two days after seeing the test bill through the House, Bridgwater was back at the helm of the committee of the whole House as it considered additional heads for bills for securing the Protestant religion. After another committee of the whole on 23 Nov., he reported that the judges were to draw up a bill for the more speedy conviction of recusants by ensuring that the refusal to make the declaration against transubstantiation would result in conviction. Between 23 and 27 Nov. Bridgwater represented the Lords in four conferences on the disagreement between the houses over the Lords’ lenient amendments concerning the Catholic servants of the queen and the duchess of York in the test bill. The House eventually acceded to the Commons’ objections. On 28 Nov. he was also delegated to act as reporter for the conference at which the Commons presented the Lords with an address for the king expressing their amazement and horror at the danger then threatening him. The Test Act received the royal assent on 30 Nov. and the same day Bridgwater himself took the requisite oaths and declaration to continue sitting in the House.</p><p>Apart from his work on these committees, he was also involved in Privy Council sub-committees examining the Plot and its ramifications.<sup>118</sup> On 25 Nov. he and Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (Baron Butler of Moore Park in the English peerage), were chosen by the council to go with Titus Oates to Somerset House to corroborate his account that he had overheard the queen and her servants plotting the king’s death. Their report, first read in council on 26 Nov., made clear that Oates’s knowledge of the layout of Somerset House was very sketchy, even nonexistent. This potentially damning report was laid before the House for its consideration three days later and may have helped the House reject the Commons’ motion that the queen and her household be removed from Whitehall.<sup>119</sup> In early December he was named to a large Privy Council sub-committee entrusted to investigate all aspects of the Plot.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Throughout early December Bridgwater picked up where he and the committee of the whole had left off before the Test Act was pushed through, and from 4 to 13 Dec. he chaired five committees of the whole House in consideration of further heads of bills for preserving the king’s person and securing the Protestant religion. Among the recommendations that were to be shaped into bills was one that children of English subjects were to be prohibited from attending foreign seminaries and another that recent converts from Catholicism to Protestantism were to be free from the penalties of the penal laws but were still to be barred from holding civil or military office for a further two years.<sup>121</sup> On 26 Dec. he was a reporter for the conference in which the Commons expressed their opposition to the House’s amendment to the disbandment bill whereby the money raised would be placed in the exchequer instead of the chamber of London. When the House divided on whether to adhere to this amendment, Bridgwater voted as, according to Danby, an ‘Opposition Lord’, against adhering to the amendment, though he did not sign the ensuing protest against the decision to stand by it. The following day Bridgwater also voted in favour of the commitment of Danby himself but again did not sign the protest when this motion was rejected. Bridgwater missed another conference on the amendment to the disbandment bill on 28 Dec. because he and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, had been assigned by the House to go to the Tower to examine William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, about the allegations against him. They returned in the afternoon, when Bridgwater reported the result of the examination. Bridgwater and Essex remained closely associated with investigations into the Plot, for on 31 Dec., the day following the prorogation, Essex, Bridgwater and Anglesey were named the three principal members of a sub-committee of the Privy Council which was to sit daily to investigate the Plot further. Bridgwater remained central to the council’s examination of the Plot in the weeks following.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Bridgwater had little success in bringing his sons into Parliament in the elections of spring 1679. Within three days of the dissolution of Parliament on 24 Jan. 1679 both Wharton and Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> had assured Bridgwater of their interest for his eldest son Brackley for one of the Buckinghamshire county seats. Bridgwater in turn had to tell them that Brackley declined to stand. Instead, he offered his interest, or at least his neutrality, to Wharton’s and Hampden’s sons, respectively Thomas Wharton and John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, after his three preferred candidates, William Cheyne,<sup>‡</sup> Sir Ralph Verney, and Sir Anthony Chester<sup>‡</sup>, all stood down close to the time of the election.<sup>123</sup> Wharton and Hampden, both exclusionists, were selected for the county without opposition, as they were again in the summer of 1679. Bridgwater tried to arrange the election of his second son, Sir William Egerton, for the town of Brackley. But even with the predominant Egerton interest in the borough two country candidates were returned instead, though Egerton was returned for a borough seat in the ensuing elections of summer 1679.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Bridgwater attended all six meetings of the short session which began on 6 Mar. 1679, but which, owing to disputes between the Commons and the king over the choice of Speaker, had to be prorogued prematurely on 13 March. When Parliament reconvened two days later he was there and proceeded to miss only one of the 61 days of the first Exclusion Parliament. From the first day he held Exeter’s proxy, which he retained for the entire session. Danby forecast that Bridgwater would act against him in the matter of his impeachment and his calculations were by and large correct. On 22 Mar. Bridgwater was placed on the committee of 13 peers, almost all of them members of the country opposition, assigned to draw up the bill suggested by Shaftesbury to disqualify the lord treasurer from ever coming into the king’s presence again and banning him from all employments. Four days later Bridgwater chaired two committees of the whole House considering the bill for disabling Danby and, following the news that the lord treasurer had gone into hiding, he reported to the House that the Committee had turned the bill into one for Danby’s banishment if he did not surrender himself by 1 May. Bridgwater chaired a committee of the whole on 3 Apr. on the Commons’ alternative bill to attaint Danby in case he continued to remain in hiding. He reported the changes in the bill which sought to revive the terms of the Lords’ original measure by threatening the lord treasurer with the lesser penalty of banishment. On the next day he was a manager for the conference in which the altered bill was returned to the Commons and between 8 and 14 Apr. he represented the House in a series of six conferences where the houses argued over the evasive lord treasurer’s punishment. He himself eventually voted in favour of the bill of attainder, and was a manager for the conference on 14 Apr. where the Commons were informed that the House now agreed with its original bill. He was also part of the delegation to the king that same day requesting him to give the bill a speedy royal assent. The bill had its desired effect even without the king’s immediate approval, as Danby voluntarily gave himself up to Black Rod two days after its passage, but before the deadline for his surrender it had set.</p><p>On 24 Mar. 1679 Bridgwater was delegated, with Essex and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, to go to the Tower to examine Danby’s fellow prisoners, the imprisoned Catholic peers, about allegations raised in a French pamphlet that they had employed an agent in Flanders to find evidence to counter the charges against them. Bridgwater reported the result of the interviews to the House the following day and on 27 Mar. conveyed to the House the request of two of the prisoners for liberty to receive visitors during their incarceration. On 20 May, though, Bridgwater was part of a deputation sent by the House to the king to request him to ensure that the gates of the Tower were securely locked at ten o’clock at night, so that sympathizers of these imprisoned peers could not have access to them after that time.</p><p>He was involved in a number of committees of the whole House as well. In late March he chaired two on the bill for the better discovery and speedy conviction of recusants (20 and 25 Mar.), one on framing a bill to clear London and Westminster of papists (28 Mar.), and a further two to consider ways of excluding Catholics from the Inns of Court and Chancery (28 and 29 Mar.). On 31 Mar and 1 Apr. he chaired committees of the whole considering measures to counteract the danger of the Plot and of Catholicism in Ireland. He took up this matter again in another Committee on 15 April.</p><p>On 21 Apr. 1679 Bridgwater was sworn to the newly constituted Privy Council, remodelled in the wake of the exclusionist agitation, and the following day he was again placed on the sub-committee for trade and plantations.<sup>125</sup> His place in the councils of the king was secure, and throughout April and May he was frequently called upon to act as a delegate of the House to make its representations to Charles II.<sup>126</sup> On 24 Apr. he was a reporter for a conference on the impeached lords’ answers to their charges, while five days later he chaired a committee of the whole on the amendments to the bill for clearing the capital of Catholics. In May he was involved in conferences concerning the Commons’ proposal that there be a joint committee of both houses to discuss the methods to try the impeached peers. He helped to manage the conference on 9 May in which the House made clear that they did not agree with the Commons’ proposal, and the following day he was a reporter for the conference where the Commons complained of the Lords’ refusal. Bridgwater himself agreed with the House’s policy, for he voted against the motion to establish a joint committee. However, the following day, 11 May, when managers were chosen for yet another conference, Bridgwater was not appointed and apparently had no involvement in future conferences on this matter or in the joint committee that was eventually established. In the debates surrounding the trials, he supported the right of the bishops to remain in court during the hearing of capital cases and on the last day of the session (27 May) voted to adhere to the House’s motion in favour of the bishops.</p><p>His principal activity from late April was shaping the habeas corpus bill and seeing it through both houses. On 17 Apr. he was placed on a sub-committee assigned by a committee of the whole House, chaired by John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), to clarify sections of the bill. After over a week of deliberations the sub-committee’s amendments to the bill were considered in two committees of the whole, both chaired by Bridgwater, on 28 and 30 April. The bill was passed and sent to the Commons on 2 May. Bridgwater was appointed a reporter for the conference on 3 May in which the Commons set out their objections to the Lords’ amendments and, after the House resolved to adhere to many of these, he attended another conference on 9 May to deliver the House’s reasons for its intransigence. There the matter stood for two weeks, but as the day of prorogation rapidly advanced, the Commons decided to give a last effort to settle the differences over the bill. They requested another conference on 22 May, which Bridgwater was delegated to manage, where the Commons acceded to all but four of the House’s amendments. In turn, Bridgwater and his fellow managers of the free conference on 26 May offered to rescind these amendments if the Commons would insert an even more offensive proviso in their place. At a free conference on 27 May, where Bridgwater was again manager, the Commons thwarted the Lords’ attempt to wreck the bill through its amendments by reluctantly agreeing to accept all of the House’s amendments it had previously rejected rather than include the new proviso. The bill, having just barely passed both houses, was ready to present to the king for his assent when he came to prorogue Parliament that same afternoon.</p><h2><em>Tory reaction, 1680-5</em></h2><p>Parliament was dissolved on 12 July and Bridgwater served as a commissioner at the seven prorogations of the House as Charles II continuously put off convening his new Parliament for over a year. Over these long months, he continued his activities with the Privy Council in investigating the Plot in both England and Ireland, and he appears to have been fully convinced of its reality and danger.<sup>127</sup> He was also heavily involved in the committee of Tangiers, and was a principal contact for the acting governor, Sir Palmes Fairborne, who sent Bridgwater numerous dispatches concerning the siege of Tangiers in the summer of 1680.<sup>128</sup></p><p>The new Parliament finally convened on 21 Oct. 1680. Bridgwater was there on its first day and proceeded to attend all but eight of its sittings. He chaired a committee of the whole House on the bill for ‘freeing’ London and Westminster from papists on 29 Oct and chaired another one on the same subject on 8 Nov., on which day he was also manager for a conference in which the House handed over to the representatives of the Commons transcripts of the papers from the Privy Council regarding the Plot in Ireland. As Bridgwater had been placed on the council’s sub-committee investigating the Irish situation earlier that summer he may have had a special interest and involvement in this conference.<sup>129</sup> In the House he was placed on the committee for examinations for investigating the Plot as well and appears to have been a diligent attender, although he only chaired the committee once. He was also placed on the sub-committee of seven peers formed by a committee of the whole House on 16 Nov. to draw up a bill for a Protestant Association, to be based on that of a similar statute of Elizabeth I.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Although Bridgwater had previously joined the country group in many measures to secure Protestantism in England, he did not join with Shaftesbury and his followers in supporting York’s exclusion. On 15 Nov. he voted to reject the exclusion bill and voted against the motion to form a joint committee with the Commons to consider measures for the safety of the kingdom. He did, however, vote Viscount Stafford guilty on 7 December. Bridgwater quickly returned to his role of managing religious legislation in the committee of the whole House and between 13 and 21 Dec. he chaired committees of the whole seven times on some very closely related bills, those for ‘securing the Protestant religion’ (13 Dec.), to repeal the statute of 35 Elizabeth I against Protestant Dissenters (15 Dec.) and to distinguish Protestant Dissenters from popish recusants. This latter he chaired five times that week in committee before it was passed after the Christmas recess on 3 Jan. 1681.</p><p>On 7 Jan. he most likely voted for the motion to put the question whether Lord Chief Justice Scroggs should be committed while the impeachment charges against him were considered. At least, Bridgwater’s name appears on a list drawn up by Wharton of the protesters against the decision not to put the question. However, Bridgwater is one of the seven peers who appear on Wharton’s list but who are not among the protesters found in the Journal. Wharton may well have merged together those who merely voted in favour of the previous question with those who actually protested against its rejection. It is likely that Bridgwater also voted for the succeeding motion to put the question whether to suspend Scroggs from his duties pending his impeachment hearings. Here too, though, Bridgwater was unwilling to sign the protest when the motion was rejected.</p><p>Shortly after the dissolution, a cull of the king’s perceived enemies occurred in which Essex, who had voted for exclusion, was deprived of his lord lieutenancy of Hertfordshire. He was replaced by Bridgwater who, although he had worked closely with Essex in investigating the Plot and promoting legislation to protect the Protestant interest, was probably still seen by the court as a moderate, and a safe pair of hands for the elections of early February.<sup>131</sup> But Bridgwater, despite his opposition to exclusion, was by this point hardly the most vigorous agent for the court interest and he appears to have played little role in the elections in Hertfordshire. In Buckinghamshire, he seems to have made no effort to stop the return of the Whigs Thomas Wharton and Richard Hampden, father of the sitting member. Nor was Bridgwater able to oversee the return of any of his sons or clients for his proprietary borough of Brackley.<sup>132</sup></p><p>In the weeks preceding the Parliament called for Oxford, Danby considered Bridgwater one of the ‘enemy Lords’ whose support he felt he could solicit for his application for bail from the Tower.<sup>133</sup> On 17 Mar. 1681, as the peers were gathering in Oxford for the impending session, Danby instructed his son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, to present Bridgwater and other hostile peers with his letters.<sup>134</sup> In the letter written in his own hand to Bridgwater, Danby acknowledged Bridgwater’s long-standing personal hostility towards him, which may have been born from his role in the prosecution of Clarendon in 1667. Nevertheless, the lord treasurer hoped their mutual concern for the privilege of the peerage would prevail over their many disagreements over Church and State:</p><blockquote><p>Although I know not any one action of my life wherein I have not paid your Lordship all the respect which is due both to your worth and quality, yet I know not how fortunate I may be to stand well or not in your Lordship’s opinion. I thank God I know not a thought in my heart that is not suitable to what I take your Lordship’s judgment to be both as to Church and State, and therefore I am the more desirous to preserve the good opinion of all such: but however your Lordship may judge of my person, I am assured your Lordship is a great assertor of the rights of the Peers, which I think has been so deeply wounded in the never before known procedures about me, that unless some care be taken for preventing the like for the future, I am sure the condition of a Peer must speedily become both the most unsafe and most contemptible in this nation.<sup>135</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bridgwater was a suitable target for Danby, as he was in the House from the very first day of the Parliament, 21 Mar., attended all seven of its meetings, and showed himself typically engaged in the business of the House from the start. On the first day of the Parliament he administered oaths and declaration to the members of the Commons gathering in the History School. On 23 Mar. he chaired the committee of the whole House considering the failure of the clerk of the Parliaments to present the bill passed by both houses at the end of the previous Parliament for the repeal of the Elizabethan statute against Dissenters to the king for his royal assent. Bridgwater was assigned to present the report of the committee in six days’ time, but in the meantime he was on 26 Mar. a reporter for a conference concerning this matter. Danby’s petition for bail was presented on 24 Mar., but his earlier solicitations had apparently had no effect on Bridgwater. Latimer wrote to his father that day that his advocates had presented the lord treasurer’s petition to the House, but that it had been strongly opposed by peers such as Shaftesbury, Halifax, Salisbury, Essex and Bridgwater – who, Latimer parenthetically noted, ‘was not so fierce as the rest’.<sup>136</sup> In the last few days of the session there were moves, by the Commons in particular, to draft a commission enabling Bridgwater to act as lord chancellor during the indisposition of the incumbent (Finch).<sup>137</sup> All these matters fell quickly by the wayside and became inoperative at the unexpected dissolution on 28 March.</p><p>Bridgwater spent the years following the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament largely on Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire lieutenancy duties. He engineered a loyal address to be presented to the king from those counties in January 1682 and assured the government of his diligence in tracking down those suspected of involvement in the Rye House Plot.<sup>138</sup> He did not agree fully with the government’s actions in the aftermath of the plot as they threatened to cause a breach in county society. Bridgwater dutifully complied in helping the royal agent Samuel Starkey<sup>‡</sup> find Simon Mayne, ‘son of a regicide’, but when Starkey also seized arms across the county, including those of Whig gentry such as Thomas Wharton, Bridgwater complained to the secretary of state Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡ </sup>that Starkey had ‘not well demeaned himself in what he was employed in’. Bridgwater later had to apologize to Wharton for having overseen the seizure of his arms.<sup>139</sup></p><h2><em>James II and final year, 1685-6</em></h2><p>At the accession of James II Bridgwater was confirmed in his places as a privy councillor and as lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.<sup>140</sup> His commission for the lord lieutenancy was signed on 4 Mar. 1685, probably with a view to the elections almost immediately following. For the county of Buckinghamshire, James II’s advisers chose Bridgwater’s heir Brackley as the court candidate and Bridgwater, despite his earlier doubts about James II, was still sufficiently dutiful to the government to force his son to stand for the county. ‘I am forced to be a Parliament man for the county of Buckinghamshire much against my will, but with my father’s command’, Brackley lamented to his cousin Henry Herbert* 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury.<sup>141</sup> Despite the government’s best efforts, Wharton was returned and advised his supporters to cast their second votes for Brackley. Bridgwater was also able to place his second son, Sir William Egerton, at Aylesbury, for which he stood as a representative of the ‘loyal interest’ against the two incumbent country members.<sup>142</sup></p><p>Bridgwater resumed his 100 per cent attendance level in James II’s sole Parliament. He even slightly resumed some of his former involvement in select committees, as in the sittings of May-July he chaired three on a total of five occasions, and reported from one, a naturalization bill, on 10 June.<sup>143</sup> Most of all he resumed his busy activity as a chairman of the committee of the whole House, and in these months, his last in Parliament, he dealt with a larger variety of matters than his usual speciality of religious legislation. Between 27 May and 25 June he chaired 11 committees of the whole on a wide variety of bills - such as those to settle a permanent revenue on the new king (27 May), to grant him the duties from impositions on wine, vinegar, tobacco and sugar (4 and 16 June), to allow him to grant and lease land in the duchy of Cornwall (17 June), and bills dealing with the ongoing projects to drain the Fens (6 and 20 June). He also chaired committees on bills dealing with attainders, both the one to reverse Stafford’s (2 June 1685) and that to attaint James Scott*, duke of Monmouth (15 June).</p><p>Bridgwater may have served James II in the elections and in the management of the House, but his religious views were strong and well enough known that it was clear he would refuse to support the king’s proposal to repeal the Test Acts—which he had done so much to frame in the first place—when Parliament reconvened in November. Halifax, trying to convince his friend Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, that he would not be alone if he came down to Westminster to vote for the defeat of the attempted repeal used Bridgwater as an example of a ‘court lord’ (mentioned in the company of, surprisingly, Danby, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and the bishops) who was intending to vote against repeal.<sup>144</sup> There were reports in the days before Parliament reconvened that Bridgwater was going to be dismissed from the king’s council, along with Fauconberg and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, the latter of whom also appears in Halifax’s letter to Chesterfield as a leading opponent of repeal. It was later discovered that this report of Bridgwater’s dismissal was started at a ‘fanatic’ coffee house. The government moved to stifle this false rumour that might suggest there was opposition to royal policy within the council itself.<sup>145</sup> Nevertheless, Bridgwater was apparently seen as a prominent figure in the campaign to defeat the repeal of the Test Acts and shortly after the session was reconvened on 9 Nov. he already had his full allotment of two proxies. John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland, registered his with Bridgwater on 12 Nov. while William Pierrepoint*, 4th earl of Kingston, perhaps at the urging of his paternal uncle Halifax, did likewise two days later. Bridgwater held both for the remainder of the short-lived session, which was quickly prorogued on 20 Nov. as James faced violent opposition to his plans for repeal</p><p>Shortly after the prorogation, Bridgwater was one of the peers summoned to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), for conspiracy during the time of Monmouth’s Rebellion. Bridgwater already had, on 10 Nov., acted as a teller in a division over whether to adjourn a debate on this trial. On 14 Jan. 1686 he joined his fellow peers in unanimously finding Delamer not guilty.<sup>146</sup> He served as a commissioner of prorogation for two successive days on 10 Feb. and 10 May, on the latter of which Parliament was prorogued for several months until 22 November.</p><p>Bridgwater died on 26 Oct. at his London residence at the Barbican, at 63 years of age. <sup>147</sup> His short will is extraordinary in that it was almost entirely concerned with the details of his monument to be set up in the Egertons’ church at Little Gaddesden in Hertfordshire, where he was to be buried. He gave to his heir Lord Brackley, now 3rd earl of Bridgwater, his personal estate, including his collection of coins and large library, which was admired by so discerning a bibliophile as Anglesey who described it as ‘being above 6,000 volumes in great order in wainscot presses’. He also bequeathed to Brackley his creation and parliament robes and footcloth, for the new earl’s coming role in the House.<sup>148</sup> It was quickly rumoured among the Buckinghamshire gentry that ‘Lord Bridgwater died much in debt’, which was a surprise to some, for ‘ I thought he had been a great husband ... neither did I ever hear he had any ways of spending. But the misfortunes of some are unaccountable’.<sup>149</sup></p><p>These gentlemen of Buckinghamshire were clearly upset by Bridgwater’s death. He was dubbed ‘a true friend both to his king and country’ and ‘a man of a quiet spirit and well beloved’. They were anxious that the new earl of Bridgwater immediately step in to take his father’s role.<sup>150</sup> It was said that ‘no son does bear the image of his father more exactly than his that now succeeds’. The 3rd earl of Bridgwater was commissioned lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire exactly a month after his father’s death and later went on almost to rival his father in his level of engagement in the House as a dedicated servant and official of William III. <sup>151</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
EGERTON, John (1646-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>EGERTON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1646–1701)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Ld. Brackley 1649-86; <em>suc. </em>fa. 26 Oct. 1686 as 3rd earl of BRIDGWATER |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 3 Mar. 1701 |
|
MP Bucks. 1685-26 Oct. 1686 |
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Nov. 1646, 1st s. of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater and Elizabeth (1626-63), da. of William Cavendish*, mq. (later duke) of Newcastle; bro. of Hon. Sir William Egerton<sup>‡</sup> and Hon. Charles Egerton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. I. Temple 1673. <em>m</em>. (1) 17 Nov. 1664, Elizabeth (1648-70), da. of James Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Middlesex, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) 2 Apr. 1673 (with £12,000),<sup>1</sup> Jane (1655-1716), da. of Charles Powlett*, <em>styled</em> Ld. St John (later duke of Bolton), 7s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. KB 23 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 19 Mar. 1701; <em>will</em> 10 May 1687-4 Mar. 1701, pr. 26 Apr. 1701.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 7 May 1691-<em>d</em>.; ld. of trade 14 May 1691-Dec. 1695;<sup>3</sup> commr. appeals in prizes of war c.1691-9,<sup>4</sup> trade and plantations Dec. 1695-15 May 1696,<sup>5</sup> to treat with French over Hudson Bay 1699;<sup>6</sup> first ld. Bd. of Trade 15 May 1696-31 May 1699,<sup>7</sup> Admiralty 31 May 1699-<em>d</em>.,<sup>8</sup> ld. justice June-Oct. 1699, June-Sept. 1700.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Speaker, House of Lords 22 July-30 Sept. 1697, 1 Mar.-20 June 1700.</p><p>Dep. kpr. of leash, Ashridge, Herts. 1665-?;<sup>10</sup> dep. lt., Bucks. 1667-86;<sup>11</sup> col. militia regt., Bucks. 1667-86;<sup>12</sup> capt. militia horse, Bucks. by 1672-86; <sup>13</sup> ld. lt., Bucks. 1686-7, 1689-<em>d</em>.; recorder, Brackley, Northants. 1686-8.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1701-<em>d</em>.<sup>15</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller (school of), mid-1680s, Ashridge, Herts.; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller (school of), National Trust, Belton House, Lincs.</p> |
<h2><em>Early life</em></h2><p>John Egerton, styled Lord Brackley, was the eldest of six sons. At the coronation of Charles II he was made a knight of the Bath at the age of only 14. As his father, the 2nd earl, became more influential in the parliaments and Privy Council of Charles II, so the expectations attached to the young man rose. In November 1664 Brackley married Lady Elizabeth Cranfield, but the marriage ended early when Elizabeth died in childbirth on 3 Mar. 1670. Bridgwater was soon engaged in arranging another match for the young man, and in early April 1673 Brackley married for a second time.</p><p>Bridgwater, as lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, entrusted his heir with increasing local responsibilities. As early as November 1667 he had made the young man a justice of the peace, deputy lieutenant and colonel of a militia regiment for the county, and in 1672 he further commissioned him captain of a company of horse.<sup>19</sup> Brackley was later to succeed his father directly as lord lieutenant of the county. The family’s residence of Ashridge lay close to the Buckinghamshire border but was actually in the county of Hertfordshire, and Brackley served as a magistrate in that county as well (his father was also lord lieutenant there from 1681). By the time of the elections of January 1679, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> and other Buckinghamshire gentlemen ‘used the utmost endeavours’ to persuade Brackley to stand, as did the leaders of the country interest in the county, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>20</sup> Brackley declined and instead offered his own interest, or at least his neutrality, to the successful candidates, the exclusionists Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, and John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>21</sup> James II and his advisers chose Brackley as a court candidate for the election of March 1685 and his father Bridgwater forced his son to stand for the county. Brackley was still reluctant, as he wrote to his cousin Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, ‘I am forced to be a Parliament man for the county of Buckinghamshire much against my will, but with my father’s command’.<sup>22</sup> Brackley was paired with Thomas Hackett, while Wharton stood on his own independently against the court. George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, acted as the government’s principal electoral agent in the county, but although his heavy-handed methods backfired badly and Wharton was returned, so was Brackley, with the support of Whigs as well as moderate Tories.<sup>23</sup></p><p>On his succession to the title at his father’s death on 26 Oct. 1686 it was said that ‘no son does bear the image of his father more exactly’.<sup>24</sup> The new earl of Bridgwater was commissioned lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire exactly a month after his father’s death, on 26 November. Roger Morrice recorded that at Bridgwater’s swearing-in before the council he duly took the oath of allegiance, but the king prevented him from swearing the oath of supremacy, presumably because of the doubt it cast on the Pope’s authority over the Church of England. The scrupulous Bridgwater was concerned for a time that this affected the legality of his tenure, but was fully confirmed in the post when he took the oaths again in early May 1687.<sup>25</sup> Earlier that year, laden with debts (as his father had been), Bridgwater had been intent on selling his family’s London residence of Bridgwater House in the Barbican and retiring to Ashridge in Buckinghamshire to ‘mind the county and my own estate and live as privately as I can’.<sup>26</sup> Tragedy intervened when on 11 Apr. 1687 a fire burned down part of Bridgwater House killing his two eldest sons, Charles, Viscount Brackley (aged 12), and Thomas (aged 8), a disaster which made him quite ‘unfit for business’ for a time and prompted him to abandon Bridgwater House for good.<sup>27</sup> By this time contemporary political observers already considered him an opponent of the king’s policies and particularly of his attempt to repeal the Test Acts, and in early November James replaced him with Jeffreys, now lord chancellor.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention, 1689-90</em></h2><p>Bridgwater took no known military role in the Revolution of late 1688, but when he first sat in the Convention in January 1689 he clearly distinguished himself as a Williamite. Throughout late January and early February he consistently voted for the acceptance of the Commons’ resolution that James II had ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’, signing the protests of 31 Jan. and 4 Feb. against the House’s rejection of this wording.<sup>29</sup> Following the vote in favour of this resolution on 6 Feb., he was active in the conferences from 8 Feb. which worked out the details of the proclamation of the prince and princess of Orange as king and queen as well as the wording of the oaths to the new monarchs. He was active in the first session of the Convention, and indeed continued to be active in all of William III’s Parliaments until he died in 1701, a year before the death of the king he served so diligently. For over ten years he was equally attentive to all sorts of parliamentary business – as a chair of select committees, as chair of committees of the whole House, as a manager or reporter of conferences, as a teller in divisions, as, for a time, Speaker of the House and, less noticeably but perhaps as importantly, as a member of successive subcommittees for the Journal, as evidenced by his frequent signatures attesting to his approval of accounts of proceedings. He did not only resemble his father physically but in character and interests as well, as he followed his example closely. The 3rd earl’s diligence and industriousness as an administrator and man of business in the House matched, if it did not exceed, that of his father and together they formed a dynasty that, with only a handful of others, effectively managed the daily business of the House for the 40 years from the Restoration of Charles II to the accession of Anne.</p><p>He attended all but 12 of the sittings (93 per cent) of the first session of the Convention, his highest attendance rate throughout his parliamentary career. He was named to 44 select committees, and of these he chaired nine separate committees concerning different pieces of legislation on a total of 13 occasions. In early March he chaired the committee on the removal of Papists for a substantial discussion, although he was not the only chairman on this matter.<sup>30</sup> He also told in divisions affecting the wording of the legislation at the report stages of the trial of peers bill and the comprehension bill.<sup>31</sup> He chaired committees of the whole House on the bills for reviving actions in the Westminster courts (22 Mar.) and for establishing a coronation oath for the new monarchs (6 Apr.), as well as on the wording for the address requesting their majesties to issue writs of summons to convocation (16 April). On 23 Mar. he received the proxy of William Pierrepont*, 4th earl of Kingston, which was vacated upon Kingston’s return to the House on 6 Apr., before Kingston registered it once again with Bridgwater on 4 May for the remainder of the session. For a brief period of three days in early April Bridgwater held his full complement of two proxies, for on 3 Apr. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, also registered his proxy with Bridgwater until he returned 12 days later on 15 April.</p><p>Bridgwater was a strange choice of proxy recipient for Ailesbury, as from the time of Ailesbury’s return the two peers frequently found themselves telling for differing positions in some key divisions. On 20 Apr. Bridgwater chaired the committee of the whole which discussed the Commons’ objections to the House’s amendment to the bill for the abrogation of oaths which exempted members of the clergy from taking the oaths to the new monarchs. Three days later he told, with Ailesbury on the opposite side, in a division on the question whether to agree to a resolution which left it to the king to determine which members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to dispense from the requirement to take the oaths. On 10 May he told, once again against Ailesbury on the opposing side, in favour of dismissing the appeal in the cause <em>Agutter v. Collins</em>,<sup>32</sup> He was also involved in the proceedings on the bill for disarming Papists, chairing and reporting from the committee of the whole House which devised amendments to the bill on 30 Apr. and then being named reporter of the conference on 8 May at which the Commons objected to one of these amendments, which the House accepted in order to let the bill pass. In the last week of May he acted as manager for two conferences on the additional poll bill and reported from the committee for privileges on a peerage claim.</p><p>From late April he chaired and reported from select committees on bills which attempted to redress some of the most egregious of the perceived crimes of the last reign, such as those for annulling the attainders of Algernon Sydney (reported 25 Apr.), Alice Lisle (reported 6 May) and Henry Cornish.<sup>33</sup> Throughout June and July he was engaged in a variety of ways to reverse the draconian punishments inflicted on Titus Oates. On 31 May he told in two divisions to reverse that the judgments against Oates, and he entered his protest when the motion for reversal was rejected. The peer telling against him on both these divisions, and recording Bridgwater’s vote in favour of reversal, was once again his former proxy donor Ailesbury.<sup>34</sup> A week later, on 6 June, he was placed on the committee of eight peers assigned to draw up an address requesting their Majesties formally to pardon Oates and to discharge him from his remaining punishments.</p><p>Bridgwater was otherwise occupied in mid May with framing addresses to be presented to the king and queen suggesting ‘what means to use to secure us from the designs of the Papists and power of the French king’. On 14 June he was named to a select committee entrusted with revising an address to forbid all French papists from coming to Whitehall or St James’s, and the following day he chaired a long committee of the whole on ‘means to use to secure us from the designs of Papists’, the records of whose proceedings are found in the select committee minute books, and reported the principal heads to the House.<sup>35</sup> Bridgwater was named to the committee delegated to draw up an address based on these heads, and he reported the address on 18 June, along with a request which arose from the committee’s deliberations for copies of the records of the committee for Irish affairs. On that day he also reported from the committee assigned to draw up the address against French papists in St James’s, but it apparently not being completed, the House recommitted the drafting of the address to the same committee.<sup>36</sup> It appears that Bridgwater was displaced as chair of this committee by Charles North*, 5th Baron North and Baron Grey, who reported from it on 21 June, but the earl maintained his control of the committee now devoted to investigating Irish affairs, although, after an abortive meeting on 19 June, he was forced to report to the House two days later that the committee could not proceed in its examination until it got sight of the minute books of the committee for Irish affairs.<sup>37</sup> On 20-21 June he was a reporter and then a manager for two conferences on the disagreement over the amendments to the bill for the commissioners of the Great Seal, to which amendments the Commons eventually agreed. On 26 June he was a teller in a division on the question whether to give a second reading to the bill to declare illegitimate four of the children of the late Brilliana Popham, and that same day, upon the delivery of articles of impeachment from the Commons against Sir Adam Blair and others; Bridgwater was named to a committee of six members selected to inspect the Journals for precedents.<sup>38</sup> When the bill for the reversal of the judgments against Titus Oates was brought back up from the Commons on 6 July, Bridgwater once again became involved in trying to pass the bill and to reject some of the more punitive amendments placed in it by the House. On 10 July he told against Ailesbury in a division on agreeing with the committee of the whole’s amendments to the bill, and later that day he joined in the protest against this and two other divisions which had not gone in favour of Oates and his advocates in the House. The following day he chaired a long meeting of a committee of the whole on the bill, which went so far as to appoint a subcommittee to alter the controversial clauses which would have prevented Oates from being able to testify in court. The subcommittee reported its own amendments and revisions to the bill the following day, which were accepted by the majority of the House, though not without further protests from a handful of peers; Bridgwater, though, did not take part in these.</p><p>For the remainder of July and August, with the exception of a brief absence between 25 July and 2 August, during which time his Whig father-in-law, recently created duke of Bolton, held his proxy, Bridgwater was principally busy as a chairman for select committees and committees of the whole. Between 19 July and 17 August he chaired six different select committees on 12 occasions, and on 24 July oversaw the committee on the bill for Christopher Monk, one of the claimants in the Albemarle inheritance case, which heard copious testimony on the controversial marriage he had contracted while still a minor.<sup>39</sup> After the committee to investigate the condition in Ireland was revived in mid July, minute books of the Privy Council committee dealing with the war there were entrusted to the House; Bridgwater took over as the chair of the subcommittee entrusted with examining them.<sup>40</sup> On 18 July he also chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill for additional duties on liquors, and a week later was a reporter for the conference on the Commons’ objections to the amendments to the bill for duties on tea, coffee and chocolate; he was then named to the committee to draw up the House’s reasons for adhering to their amendment. On 7 and 10 Aug. he chaired committees of the whole on the bills for the relief of the Irish Protestant clergy and to appoint commissioners to execute the act raising 12<em>d</em>. in the pound. Over 16-17 August he chaired and reported from the select committee on the bill for the payment of small tithes.<sup>41</sup> Most controversially, he oversaw the committee of the whole on 17 Aug. which heard testimony concerning those targeted in the bill to attaint rebels against William and Mary. So overwhelming was the task that Bridgwater had to report that the committee had so many amendments to make and further testimony to hear that it would require another two hours’ time before the report could be ready. The report had to be postponed for two days, at which time Bridgwater offered to the consideration of the House the fates of those whose names were included in the bill but against whom there appeared to the committee to be insufficient evidence.<sup>42</sup> The following day, 20 Aug., the Convention was adjourned for a month, and was continuously adjourned until it was finally prorogued on 21 Oct. 1689.</p><p>Bridgwater was slightly less attentive to the second session of the Convention, first sitting on 30 Oct., a week after its commencement. He attended 70 per cent of its meetings. In a list drawn up between October 1689 and February 1690, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen. classified him as among the supporters of the court. On his first day in the House he chaired the committee of the whole considering the bill against the clandestine marriages of minors, and throughout the session he chaired committees of the whole on various other bills: for preventing doubts concerning the collection of the public revenue (21 Dec. 1689); for granting a 2<em>s.</em> aid to the king (15 Jan. 1690); to establish an additional poll tax for the war in Ireland (21 January). On 10 Jan. 1690 he also reported from the committee for privileges the decision, then a controversial point in the debates on the unsuccessful treason trial bill, that peers could only be tried by the full House in time of Parliament. On 15 Jan. he also chaired a meeting of the committee for petitions.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Two activities principally occupied him during this session. First was his stewardship of the committee established to examine the irregularities in procedures and fees in the courts held at Westminster Hall. He chaired this committee on eight occasions between 9 Nov. 1689 and 21 Jan. 1690 on which it heard evidence of practices in the court, and particularly of fees collected, and he made a preliminary report to the House on 14 November.<sup>44</sup> A memo in the manuscript minutes for 17 Jan. 1690 noted that two bills first read that day, for the regulation of the law and of the courts, were in the possession of Bridgwater for consideration before the next meeting of the select committee, and one of these is surely the draft bill, ‘An Act for regulating their Majesty’s Household and the Courts of Justice’, found in Bridgwater’s papers. Parliament, however, was prorogued on 27 Jan. 1690 before Bridgwater could make further progress with this bill or his examinations.<sup>45</sup> The other primary activity, in this, as in all his future parliaments, was his work on the subcommittee of the Journal, of which he appears to have been the leading member. In the period 1 Feb. 1689 to 27 Jan. 1690 his signature appears, often at the head of the signatories, on all but one of the many instances where the subcommittee indicated its approval of the clerk’s account of proceedings in the House.</p><p>Bridgwater was also a busy agent for the regime outside of Parliament. He had been reinstated as lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire as early as 4 Apr. 1689, although he appears to have already been acting in this role, albeit informally, from late February at least.<sup>46</sup> During the following years of war with France he took an active role in organizing the county militia and also encouraging, indeed ordering, his deputy lieutenants aggressively to press men for service in the army and navy.<sup>47</sup> He also tried to exercise his electoral interest. At the elections of spring 1690 he was most successful in the Northamptonshire borough of Brackley, where he was lord of the manor, and was able to ensure that his younger brother, Sir William Egerton<sup>‡</sup>, and John Blencowe<sup>‡</sup> were returned as burgesses.<sup>48</sup> In Buckinghamshire, however, his influence was surpassed by that of the sitting members for the county Thomas Wharton and Richard Hampden who were returned for the county unopposed. He was largely uninvolved in the unopposed election in the borough of Aylesbury, but following the death of one of the incumbents, Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup>, Bridgwater apparently supported the candidacy of James Herbert, son-in-law of Carmarthen, against that of Wharton’s candidate Simon Mayne<sup>‡</sup> in the bitterly contested by-election of April 1691.<sup>49</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690: first session</em></h2><p>Bridgwater himself attended all but five of the sittings of this first session of the 1690 Parliament (91 per cent) and first sat in the House on 24 Mar. 1690, four days after it had started. Already on the following day he was reporting from the committee for privileges. In the first week of April he was closely connected with the bill introduced by Bolton on 26 March to ‘declare’ the acts of the Convention ‘to be of full force and effect’ and to ‘recognize’ William and Mary as ‘rightful and lawful’ monarchs. Bridgwater first chaired the committee of the whole on this measure on 1 Apr., and then proceeded to direct the proceedings of the committee of the whole at all but one of its subsequent four meetings in which the language regarding the status of the acts of the Convention was debated. On 5 Apr. he reported a host of alternative wordings in different clauses and finally Carmarthen came up with acceptable language: that it was ‘the opinion of the House, that all the acts passed in the last Parliament ... were and are good laws, to all intents and purposes whatsoever’. Two days later Bridgwater reported from the committee of the whole different amendments whereby it was merely ‘enacted’ that the acts of the Convention ‘were and are’ legal statutes. Many peers were still dissatisfied and when the bill was read a third time and passed the following day, 8 Apr., 17 peers entered their protest, complaining that the phrase was ‘neither good English nor good sense’. A few days later the wording itself of this protest was expunged from the Journal, which prompted yet another protest from 13 peers. Copies of both these protests, including that of 8 Apr. with its original language, are among Bridgwater’s surviving papers.<sup>50</sup></p><p>A few days after this controversial bill was pushed through, Bridgwater was again at the centre of further heated debates in the House, when the Whigs in the House tried to further their advantage from the recognition bill by proposing, on 1 May, a bill for an oath abjuring loyalty and all previous oaths to James II. On 3 May Bridgwater reported from the committee of the whole a first version of the abjuration oath and the results of the series of divisions, the product of several hours’ debate. The vote on Bridgwater’s report itself was saved until two days later when the House, after much more acrimonious debate, rejected the oath as first worded and the provision that it should only be tendered to civil and military officers. He chaired two further meetings of the committee of the whole on this bill over the following days as alternative versions of the oath continued to be worked over and reported a version from the committee, at whose debates the king himself had been present, on 8 May. When that oath was debated in the House four days later, the king once again present, a decision could still not be reached and debate was adjourned, while Bridgwater chaired another committee of the whole on the bill and reported that it had been agreed that the oath and declaration determined by the House was to be administered to all civil and military officers, ecclesiastics and members of both houses of Parliament. He was named to the select committee entrusted with drawing up a clause enforcing the oath on such persons, and there the clause and the bill itself appear to have languished, as the House turned its attention to other matters in the last days of the session.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Bridgwater was named to 15 select committees on legislation during this session. From 9 Apr. to 10 May 1690 he chaired committees dealing with eight of these bills, and in the first week reported to the House with four of them – the bills for the regulation of coal prices and three estate bills.<sup>52</sup> His most significant select committee was that for the bill to make void letters patent concerning Needwood Forest which he chaired on four occasions before reporting the final amended version on 10 May.<sup>53</sup> His place among the Whigs in Parliament is suggested by his introduction on 21 Apr. of two of their foremost members to the House – Richard Lumley*, elevated from a viscountcy to become earl of Scarbrough and Henry Booth*, likewise elevated to an earldom as Warrington. His companion in making these introductions was another stalwart Whig, and one of the busiest men in the House alongside Bridgwater, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. On 26 Apr. Bridgwater chaired and reported from a committee of the whole on the bill to reform the practice of law. Two days later he chaired another committee of the whole on the bill to make Queen Mary regent in her husband’s absence, and on 12 May he was appointed a manager for the conference on this bill which was held the following day. On that same day he also entered his protest against the decision not to allow counsel for the City of London more time to present their case in the bill to restore the City’s charter and privileges from the <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings under James II.<sup>54</sup> Bridgwater reported on 20 May from the committee for privileges concerning precedents for the passing of bills of royal pardon, which allowed for the quick passage of William’s general pardon. On the last day of the session, 23 May, it was Bridgwater who reported from the committee of the whole that the hereditary revenues bill was fit to pass, just before William unexpectedly prorogued Parliament to forestall its passage.</p><p>Bridgwater was present at 86 per cent of the sittings of the 1690-1 session. He remained occupied with select committees, being named to 31. He chaired committees on nine different matters and reported eight bills to the House, including those for regulating the price of coals (23 Oct. 1690), for suspending parts of the navigation and corn acts during the duration of the war (30 Dec.), as well a number of personal estate bills.<sup>55</sup> His most significant committee was that examining the bill to rectify abuses in chancery, which he chaired on two occasions and reported to the House on 3 Nov. with amendments which were rejected. On 14 Nov. he told in a procedural division on this bill.<sup>56</sup> He was also rebuffed when he reported the bill to void letters patent concerning Needwood Forest on 26 Nov., when the House did not agree with Bridgwater’s committee’s choices for commissioners and inserted their own preferences ‘at the table’.<sup>57</sup> On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, and on 30 Oct. he protested against the decision to discharge these two suspected Catholics from bail; he also protested on that day against the passage of the bill to ‘clarify’ the powers of the admiralty commissioners, a bill which was largely used by the Tories Carmarthen and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to attack the unsuccessful admiral Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, after the disaster of Beachy Head in the summer. The following day he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole considering ways to make absent peers attend the House. On 10-11 Nov. he also reported from the committee for privileges on two separate cases concerning the privilege of bishops. He reported again from the committee for privileges on 2 Dec. 1690. Ten days later, Bridgwater chaired and reported from a committee of the whole concerning the abuse of protections, and he again guided a committee of the whole a week later in passing the bill to lay duties on wine, vinegar and tobacco.<sup>58</sup> He was involved in three conferences over the course of two days, two on 17 Dec. on the debated amendments to the mutiny bill, and the following day in the conference on the lower House’s amendments to the bill to prevent Salisbury from cutting off his entail from his Protestant kinsmen. On the penultimate day of 1690 he chaired and reported from the select committee on the bill to suspend the navigation acts during the war.<sup>59</sup> He was one of four peers chosen by ballot (garnering the second largest number of votes, after Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis) to represent the House on the commission of accounts. The Commons objected to this interference from the upper House and, after threatening to hold up a much-needed supply bill, the four peers the following day, probably upon orders from the court, declined their appointment. The House then backed down from its insistence on having representatives on the commission by rejecting the bill as reported from committee.<sup>60</sup> In the last three days of the session he chaired two committees of the whole, on the bill to prevent false musters at sea, and on 5 Jan. 1691, the day of prorogation, on the bill for renewing the excise on liquors. That same day he was a teller for the question whether to pass the bill to prohibit trade with France.</p><h2><em>Second and third sessions, 1691-3</em></h2><p>Both in the House and in his efforts in early 1691 to recruit soldiers and seamen in Buckinghamshire, Bridgwater had marked himself out as an industrious and efficient follower of the government.<sup>61</sup> On 7 May 1691 he was sworn to the Privy Council and within a few weeks he was further appointed to the subcommittees for Ireland and for trade and plantations, the latter of which was to become his specialty in his burgeoning career as a government administrator.<sup>62</sup> Perhaps his new responsibilities kept him away from the House, for he came to only 70 per cent of the sittings of the 1691-2 session. However, from his first sitting on 6 Nov. 1691 he was more than usually busy in select committees. He chaired meetings on 15 different matters on 22 occasions, and reported to the House on 11 of these legislative matters, including the bills for ascertaining the tithes for hemp and flax (11 Dec.), for declaring two merchant vessels as prize ships (21 Dec.) and for settling the militia for that year (1 Feb. 1692) as well as several estate bills.<sup>63</sup> In December 1691 he was involved as both a teller and committee chair in seeing through the House the bill to preserve for the Navy two prize ships laden with bay salt, perhaps reflecting his growing involvement in naval matters and the disposition of prize ships in particular.<sup>64</sup> From early 1692 at least, if not earlier, he was a commissioner of appeal in prizes and he diligently attended meetings, on which he took copious notes, over the next several years right up to the time of his death.<sup>65</sup> He also chaired committees of the whole on that year’s Mutiny Bill on 29 Jan. and 5 and 9 Feb. 1692. On 17 Dec. 1691 he was appointed a reporter for the conference on the Commons’ objections to the amendments to the trial for treasons bill, and Bridgwater was also named to the committee delegated to draw up reasons for the House’s adhering to its amendments. Bridgwater may have tried fruitlessly to reach some consensus with the lower House on this bill, for on 20 Jan. 1692 he was a teller on the question whether to agree with the Commons’ amendment to a penalty clause in the bill.<sup>66</sup> In contrast, in the first two weeks of February he consistently refused to agree with the Commons in its complaints against the House’s amendments to the bill for a commission for public accounts. He was made a reporter for a conference on 1 Feb. 1692 in which the Commons made clear their objections and upon the conference report the following day was named to the committee designed to draw up reasons in defence of the amendments. He helped to present the House’s view in conferences on 5 and 8 Feb., and upon the latter conference’s report, told on 9 Feb. in a division on the motion to agree with the Commons. The matter was effectively dropped after a further fruitless conference the following day. On 16 Feb. he also protested against the resolution that proxies could not be used in votes on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 22 and 23 Feb. he chaired two committees of the whole on the bill to ascertain the commissions and salaries of judges. In the last weeks of the session he held the proxies of both John Digby*, 3rd earl of Bristol (from 8 Feb. 1692) and William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford (from 12 Feb. 1692).</p><p>Bridgwater missed only 12 of the sittings in 1692-3, an attendance rate of 89 per cent. In this session he chaired select committees dealing with 16 different matters on 24 occasions, and he reported from seven of these committees with bills, including the bill to allow their majesties to make leases and grants of their estate in the duchy of Cornwall (on 7 Mar. 1693), as well as several personal bills concerning private estates.<sup>67</sup> On 23 Nov. 1692 he also reported from a drafting committee the address to recommend to the king’s favour the acting Speaker of the House, Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>, for his dutiful service.</p><p>The most notable and controversial committee with which Bridgwater was concerned was that investigating the failure of the military campaigns of the previous summer, particularly the heavy defeat at Steenkerke, accompanied by the accusations that the Dutch general Hendrik Trajectinus, Count Solms, had abandoned the English troops under his general command to face the full force of the French attack unaided, and the apparent reluctance of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, to follow up his resounding naval victories at Barfleur and La Hogue with an aggressive ‘descent’ on the French coast. Bridgwater acted as chairman of the committee of the whole which from 28 Nov. 1692 to 13 Jan. 1693 discussed on seven occasions the advice to be given to the king on military and naval matters in the wake of these setbacks. On 12 Dec. 1692 the committee approved an address to the king that insisted that, according to the treaty with the United Provinces of 1678, English general officers had command over Dutch and other Allied commanders of the same rank – a rebuke to Solms for his purported dismissal of the concerns of the English commander James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.</p><p>Even more controversy arose when the committee on the advice turned its attention to the naval events of the previous summer. The secretary of state Nottingham submitted his papers to the House on 6 Dec., and Bridgwater chaired the committee of the whole that considered them, as well as the four meetings of the select committee assigned on 10 Dec. to examine the matter further.<sup>68</sup> Papers submitted to this committee and his notes of its proceedings can still be found among his papers, attesting to his close attention to this case.<sup>69</sup> Late on 17 Dec. he reported the findings of the select committee, a long account of the battle of La Hogue and its aftermath, derived from Nottingham’s correspondence with Russell. The report was not considered by the House until two days later and when the ensuing conference (held on 20 Dec.), at which these papers were delivered to the lower House’s representatives, was reported in the Commons, Russell denounced Nottingham and the House’s proceedings, and the Commons passed a vote of thanks to Russell for his actions. After the managers from the Commons informed the House’s reporters of this vote at a conference the following day, Bridgwater was named to a select committee to consider precedents for this unusual action, as the conference had not been requested for the matter of the vote. Bridgwater chaired the first meeting of this committee which searched the Journal and reported on 23 Dec. that the committee needed more time for its work, but it was John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), who eventually reported its findings on 29 December.<sup>70</sup> Over the following days at the turn of the year Bridgwater continued to be named to the select committees considering this unprecedented action, and he was manager at a conference on 4 Jan. 1693 where this issue was taken up once more, before it fizzled out in the wake of William’s dismissal of Russell from his command and the press of other business.<sup>71</sup> The heads of advice from the committee were not deemed ready for the king until as late as 11 Feb. 1693, when Bridgwater reported them and then told in a series of divisions (against John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough) on whether to present one of the heads in an address.<sup>72</sup></p><p>At the turn of the year Bridgwater was a teller, once again against Ailesbury, for the not contents in the division on whether to commit the place bill, and he voted against both its commitment and, on 3 Jan. 1693, its passage. At the same time he supported Norfolk’s divorce bill and voted to read it a second time. In late January 1693 he was involved in the dispute with the Commons over the House’s amendments to the land tax bill which provided for a separate body of commissioners, drawn from the peerage itself, to assess the value of the peers’ lands. He chaired the committee of the whole on 18 Jan. which reluctantly consented to a conference with the Commons on the matter, but was not made a reporter. Upon the report the following day the House declined to follow the opposition members George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Mulgrave in insisting that the clause be submitted to the consideration of the committee for privileges and instead receded from the clause. Bridgwater did not sign either of the protests against these decisions and instead was placed on the committee to draw up a statement explaining the House’s decision to recede from the amendment, which was not to be taken as a precedent of the House’s abandoning of its rights and privileges.<sup>73</sup> On 24 Jan. the House ordered that the libellous pamphlet <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em> should be burned by the common hangman in Old Palace Yard. Bridgwater was a manager for the two conferences held the following day where the House presented this order to the Commons. On 23 Jan. John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston, registered his proxy with Bridgwater, on the same day he chaired and reported from the select committee assigned to consider methods to be used at the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.<sup>74</sup> At the trial itself, Bridgwater was one of 20 who protested against the decision on 31 Jan. not to proceed with the trial of Mohun that day, and at the verdict on 4 Feb. he was one of only 14 peers to find him guilty of murder. His own interest in this trial may be suggested by the three copies of accounts of it surviving among his papers.<sup>75</sup></p><p>During the first three months of 1693 he also frequently acted as a teller in divisions on judicial cases and private bills.<sup>76</sup> As the session drew to a close he was busy as chair of committees of the whole on bills that needed to be passed quickly, such as those for renewing the commission of accounts, for raising the militia (both on 25 Feb.), for punishing mutiny in the army, for granting additional impositions for raising supply (both on 1 Mar.) and for charging several joint stocks (on 11 March). In early March he became involved in the proceedings of the committee to draw an address on abuses in the government of Ireland, and his hastily scribbled notes from the select committee still survive among his papers, as does a copy of the address itself.<sup>77</sup> He was one of three peers appointed to consult with the king on 4 Mar. 1693 when he would be ready to receive the address. A few days later he acted as chair on two occasions for the select committee on the bill for the revival of statutes about to expire, of which the most controversial was the act for licensing printed publications.<sup>78</sup> After he had reported it from committee on 8 Mar. he acted as teller in a division on whether to accept the proposed riders to the bill which would prohibit the search of peers’ houses and would allow publications with the names of the printer and author clearly marked to be published without licence. Two other matters with which he was involved at this late stage of the session reflect his growing interest and involvement in naval and military matters. He chaired the select committee on the bill to develop and license a process to make saltwater fresh on two occasions before reporting the bill as fit to pass on 7 Mar., on which day it was recommitted to his committee to hear the petition of one of the patentees of the process involved, Colonel Fitzgerald.<sup>79</sup> He also reported that year’s mutiny bill from the committee of the whole on 1 Mar. and a week later he also informed the House of the results of the delegation which the previous day had attended the king to inform him of the bill’s passage.</p><h2><em>Third and fourth sessions, 1693-5</em></h2><p>The level to which Bridgwater’s star had risen at court can be suggested by the rumours circulating in November 1693 that he would replace Nottingham as secretary of state after the latter’s resignation.<sup>80</sup> This change was not effected, but Bridgwater remained a key figure for the government in the House, particularly on naval matters, during the following session and thereafter. He attended a high proportion of the meetings of the 1693-4 session, at 83 per cent. In the day to day business of the House he chaired select committees on 12 separate bills, almost all of them private bills, and reported eight of these bills to the House.<sup>81</sup> He also chaired committees of the whole dealing with the bills for preventing disputes concerning the royal mines (31 Jan. 1694), for repealing an article in the Elizabethan Act of Artificers (6 Mar.), for setting rates and duties upon salt, beer and ale (22 Mar.), for the import of saltpetre (2 Apr.), for raising money by poll (on two occasions, 10 and 11 Apr.), for preventing frivolous and vexatious suits (on two occasions, 13 and 14 Apr.), and for re-appointing commissioners of public accounts (20 April). He also reported from the committee for privileges, on 28 Nov. 1693, and for petitions, on 18 Nov. and again on 3 Jan. 1694.<sup>82</sup></p><p>On 13 Dec. 1693 Bridgwater joined six other peers in dissenting from the decision to uphold the original judgment in favour of Simon Harcourt<sup>‡</sup> in the writ of error brought before the House by John Fox. His principal occupation at the turn of the year, however, appears to have been the continuing negotiations on the place bill. He chaired the committee of the whole that put some amendments to the bill on 14 Dec., and he was a manager for a conference on 5 Jan. 1694 in which the Commons objected to a House amendment which placed the Speaker of the Commons under the same pains and penalties as other members. Upon report, Bridgwater was a teller in the division on the question whether to agree with the Commons in its objections. Once again a naval matter caught his attention, and he registered his protest against the resolution of 10 Jan. that the Tory admirals had done well in executing the orders they had received in the previous summer in directing the movements of Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, which had resulted in the Turkey fleet being captured by the French. Bridgwater appears to have been one of the driving forces behind this protest, as a number of different draft versions of the text of the protest are found among his papers, some of them much harsher in their condemnation of the admirals than the final version found in the Journal.<sup>83</sup> He was opposed to the petition and appeal of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, against chancery’s dismissal of his bill against John Granville*, earl of Bath, and he told in a series of divisions on this matter in mid February.<sup>84</sup> On 6 Mar. he was a manager for a conference on the House’s disputed amendments to the mutiny bill and the following day he was placed on the committee assigned to draw up reasons why the House insisted on those amendments. This matter languished for several weeks before the committee was revived on 27 Mar. and Bridgwater was a manager for another conference two days following. In the first days of April he defended in conference the House’s objections to the amendments to the bill to pay the debts of John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, while on 16 Apr. he managed the conference on the House’s amendments to the bill for the recovery of small tithes. In the last days of the session, in the period 10-14 Apr., he chaired committees of the whole trying to wrap up the bills for the poll tax, the bill against vexatious suits, and to establish commissioners of the public accounts.</p><p>He attended the 1694-5 session on its first day, 12 Nov. 1694, when he introduced into the House Francis Newport*, elevated from Viscount Newport to earl of Bradford and Henry Sidney*, similarly elevated from Viscount Sydney to earl of Romney, and then went on to attend a further 111 of its 127 sittings (88 per cent). He chaired committees considering 30 separate bills on a total of 58 occasions, and reported bills to the House from 19 of these committees, the majority on estate or naturalization bills, but also including the bills for exempting apothecaries from local offices (9 Feb. 1695), for establishing new oaths to William III as sole monarch (8 Mar.), for determining the rates of water carriage along the Thames (8 Apr.), and for approving the process to make salt water fresh (14 March). <sup>85</sup> One bill he managed had to be worked out over the course of eight meetings of its committee between 19 Jan. and 2 Mar. 1695, not including the four times the committee met under Bridgwater only to be adjourned.<sup>86</sup> On 18 Dec. 1694 he reported from the committee of the whole with a version of the triennial bill fit for passage, to which controversial measure William III finally, and reluctantly, assented four days later. In the new year, and particularly as the session drew to a close, he chaired committees of the whole on ten occasions, including on the bills for preventing simony (18 Feb. 1695), for suppressing profane swearing (28 Mar.), for relief of creditors (29 Mar.), for purchasing life annuities (3 Apr.), for appointing commissioners of the public accounts (4 Apr.), for granting the king duties upon births, marriages and deaths (10 Apr.), for granting him likewise additional duties upon coffee, tea and chocolate (13 Apr.), for regulating the penalties in the existing act for duties on vellum, parchment and paper (18 Apr.), and for raising the militia for that year (19 April).</p><p>One issue with which he became heavily involved, in both a select committee and a committee of the whole, was the bill against coin clipping. He was named to the select committee assigned to draw up a bill on the matter based on the evidence delivered before the House by the officers of the mint on 6 Feb. 1695. He first took over the chair of the committee on 12 Feb. and chaired it for its further three meetings before he reported the bill against counterfeiting and clipping coin on 22 February.<sup>87</sup> Three days later it was read a second time and ordered to be committed to a committee of the whole in early March, but in the meantime a further order on 2 Mar. revived the original select committee assigned to draw up the bill, and Bridgwater duly chaired that select committee on 8 Mar. and all three committees of the whole that discussed the bill on 7, 11 and 14 Mar., reporting it as fit to pass with amendments on 18 March.<sup>88</sup> Another measure with which he was heavily involved in the early months of 1695 was the treason trials bill. On 23-24 Jan. he acted as teller in four divisions regarding adding amendments, including the controversial ones which postponed the implementation of the bill’s provisions from 1695 to 1698 and which required every peer to be summoned to a peer’s trial for treason. On 20 Feb., after the Commons had objected to some of these amendments in a conference, Bridgwater was named to the select committee assigned to draw up reasons defending the House’s amendments.<sup>89</sup> The matter was still rumbling on in April and Bridgwater was named one of the seven managers for two free conferences on the controversial amendments to the bill held on 15 and 20 Apr. In addition, on 19 Mar. Bridgwater signed the protest against a motion regarding the inheritance of baronies by writ which only furthered the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, to receive a writ of summons as 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke.</p><p>Three issues in particular occupied him in the closing weeks of the session in April and May 1695. He reported on 18 Apr. from a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to make several acts perpetual, the Commons’ objections to the clause in the Licensing Act which would strengthen the licensing power of the Stationers’ Company and the bishops. Another matter was the affair of Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> and his suspected misuse of the funds of the East India Company. The House proposed a bill which would indemnify him in exchange for further evidence against his accomplices, and Bridgwater chaired the committee of the whole on 16 Apr. which debated this bill and reported a version fit to be engrossed. A week later he and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, came a joint top of the ballot (each receiving 46 votes) for a place as one of the 12 peers on the committee assigned to take evidence from Cooke.<sup>90</sup> He was also named to the committee to examine Cooke’s accomplices in the company. Bridgwater was involved in conferences on the matter throughout its proceedings. He was most highly involved in the attempt to pass bills for the encouragement of privateers in the war against France. On 18 Apr. he reported from select committee a bill that would retrospectively declare March 1693 as the commencement of a former act prohibiting trade with France and encouraging privateers.<sup>91</sup> The Commons added a proviso excepting a particular ship from the bill, and Bridgwater was the principal actor in the select committee assigned to draw up objections to it, as among his papers are both the reasons against the proviso drawn up by the committee’s clerk and a draft in Bridgwater’s own hand of the report he made to the House on 1 May. He also reported from the conference where these reasons were presented to the Commons.<sup>92</sup> Encouraged by Bolton, who was confined by illness to Hampton Court but kept a close eye on events in Parliament through his correspondence with his son-in-law, Bridgwater on 30 Apr. introduced another, separate, bill for the encouragement of privateers.<sup>93</sup> This was lost at its second reading on 1 May when the committee of the whole delayed further consideration of the matter for a whole month, even though the prorogation was imminent. Bridgwater took a great interest in this matter, and many drafts of bills for privateers, and the objections to them, survive among his papers.<sup>94</sup> The bills for encouraging privateers and for imprisoning Sir Thomas Cooke, both of which Bridgwater had been working on since participating in Cooke’s interrogation, were lost when Parliament was prorogued on 3 May 1695.</p><h2><em>The 1695 Parliament, first session</em></h2><p>William III’s first Parliament was dissolved on 11 Oct. 1695 and new elections called. The elections for Bridgwater’s lieutenancy county of Buckinghamshire were straightforward, as the sitting member Wharton and his new partner Sir Richard Atkins<sup>‡</sup> were returned without a contest in a county where the Whartons had the greatest interest. There had already been some change at Brackley, for at the turn of 1691-2 one of its burgesses, Bridgwater’s brother William, had died and at the ensuing by-election Bridgwater had supported as his replacement Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, the younger brother of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough). In the autumn of 1695 Bridgwater once again returned Mordaunt and instituted as his partner another younger brother, Charles Egerton<sup>‡</sup>, who was to sit continuously as a Whig burgess in the Commons until unseated by petition in 1711.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Bridgwater himself sat in 85 per cent of the sittings of the 1695-6 session, the first of William III’s second parliament. He spent the first two weeks of December involved in committees and conferences on a number of trade and military issues, such as the condition of the army and the damage done to English trade by the Scottish East India Company. He was one of the delegates of the House sent to discover when the king would be able to receive the House’s addresses on these matters, and on both occasions he reported the king’s answer to the House. Only from late December did he once again take up his usual activity in select committees, chairing committees on 21 different bills on 33 occasions and reporting 18, almost all of them personal bills for naturalization or estate management.<sup>96</sup> He also continued the concern with the state of the coinage of the realm which he had shown in the previous session. From 30 Dec. 1695 he chaired a series of three committees of the whole on the recoinage bill in which several clauses were added and modified, with him always being a member of the drafting committees for these as well, until he could report the bill as fit to pass on 3 Jan. 1696. From 7 Jan. he was a manager for three conferences in which the houses debated the amendments and Bridgwater himself reported from the conference on 11 Jan. in which the House insisted on one of its amendments. He also continued his opposition to the claims of Sir Richard Verney to a writ of summons as Baron Willoughby de Broke, signing protests on both 17 Jan. and 13 Feb. against motions which gave legitimacy to, and eventually upheld, Verney’s claims. In late January he was involved in a number of committees of the whole dealing with bills for electoral reform – the bill to prevent charge and expense in elections (18 Jan.) and that to prevent double returns (24 January). He also chaired and reported from committees of the whole on the land tax bill and on the bill for a commission of public accounts.</p><p>Bridgwater was involved in drafting the Association in defence of William III from his first involvement on 24 Feb. in the committees and conferences on the address to be presented to the king concerning the assassination attempt against him. Two days later Bridgwater chaired the committee of the whole concerning the state of the nation, and it was he who reported the text of the Association as agreed upon by the committee. He signed the Association signifying his loyalty to the Williamite regime as soon as he could on 27 Feb. and a copy of the Association survives in his own papers, with his own annotations indicating the numbers of those who signed it and those who refused.<sup>97</sup> He followed this up by chairing on 5 Mar. the committee of the whole on the bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in order to apprehend William III’s enemies. On 19 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole discussing the bill for regulating the ecclesiastical courts; this may have had something to do with his role two days previously as chairman of the committee for privileges considering the petition of Richard Lucy, the chancellor of the diocese of St Davids, against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, which he had reported to the House on 18 March.<sup>98</sup> Bridgwater was later, in 1699, appointed one of the court of delegates to consider Watson’s appeal.<sup>99</sup></p><p>During the final month of this session Bridgwater was principally employed as a chairman of committees of the whole as Parliament tried to wrap up the legislation of the session. He reported from eight committees of the whole between 15 and 25 Apr. 1696, on the bills to accept ‘affirmations’ instead of oaths from Quakers in courts of law (15 Apr.), against the export of wool, to vest the profits of the honour of Tutbury in the king (both 18 Apr.), for setting an excise on low wines, and for enforcing the laws against marriages entered into without license or bans (both 24 Apr.), among others. Bridgwater was the principal actor in the House on the penultimate day of the session, 25 April. Not only did he report from the conference on the House’s amendments to the Greenland trade bill, whose formulation he had overseen himself as chairman of the committee of the whole on 20 Apr., but he also reported from another committee on the bill to continue duties on salt, glass and stoneware. One of his last acts of this day and of the session suggests his increasingly important role in the government of William III. The night before Bridgwater had received a letter from secretary of state Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> conveying the king’s pleasure that Bridgwater should lay before the House the following day ‘the state of the Lords who are now in the messenger’s hands’. It was, indeed, Bridgwater who on 25 Apr. 1696 informed the House of the king’s warrants for the commitment of Peterborough, Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, and Charles Gerard*, 6th Baron Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley for high treason.<sup>100</sup></p><h2><em>Second and third sessions, 1696-8</em></h2><p>Bridgwater’s increasing influence at William’s court was confirmed in the following months. On both 16 June and 28 July 1696 he was the king’s commissioner entrusted with proclaiming Parliament’s prorogation and setting the date on which it was to reconvene. More significantly, on 15 May 1696 he was commissioned first lord of the new royal council of trade.<sup>101</sup> He had long been involved in dealing with issues of trade and the plantations, from the time he was placed on the subcommittee of the Privy Council dealing with such matters in 1691 to the time he was named in a separate commission of trade set up by the king in December 1695 to counter calls from the Commons for a parliamentary board of trade.<sup>102</sup> This was the genesis of the royal council of trade and plantations established in May 1696, and it was as its principal commissioner, the first lord of trade, that Bridgwater appeared at all but 12 of the sittings of the session of 1696-7. Bridgwater did not get heavily involved in the detailed business of the parliamentary session until its final weeks from mid March 1697. During this relatively fallow period of almost five months Bridgwater chaired only four select committees on private bills (of which he reported three to the House over the two days 11 Jan. and 8 Mar. 1697) and chaired three committees of the whole, on bills for coining guineas (9 Nov. 1696), to attaint those suspected in the assassination attempt (9 Jan. 1697), and for the return of juries (15 Feb.).<sup>103</sup> He also held the proxy of his father-in-law, Bolton, from 6 to 23 Feb. In the most controversial legislation of that period, the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, Bridgwater unsurprisingly followed the government line and voted in favour of the attainder.</p><p>Most likely Bridgwater was busy at the council of trade and also perhaps dealing with local matters, for the political complexion of Buckinghamshire changed over the course of 1696. There had already been a by-election in the county in February following Thomas Wharton’s succession as 5th Baron Wharton on the death of his father. Bridgwater joined with Wharton and a Tory of the county Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, to back the candidacy of Wharton’s ally (and Bridgwater’s own cousin) William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, at that point styled Lord Cheyne (later 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S]), who came top of the poll. The other sitting member Atkins died in late November 1696, prompting another by-election in December. Both Wharton and Bridgwater supported as the Whig candidate, Henry Neale<sup>‡</sup>, who won by a large margin.<sup>104</sup> One of Neale’s opponents was the moderate Tory candidate Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]), who had recently moved into the county following the death of his father, Bridgwater’s loyal deputy lieutenant Sir Ralph Verney. Sir John was advised by one of his followers to address himself to Bridgwater, Carnarvon and James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, who were seen as potential supporters for the Tory candidate. Another correspondent of Verney also advised him to garner Bridgwater’s support: ‘I know my Lord Bridgwater is a Church of England man and I believe will not be very solicitous to set up a man against it. However, he is at present influenced’.<sup>105</sup> Such comments suggest that contemporary political observers did not see Bridgwater as a zealous Junto Whig like his colleague Wharton, or his father-in-law, Bolton, but as a court Whig. His sense of loyalty and duty was tied above all to serving the king and <em>de facto</em> government, but as that government moved more and more under the influence of the Junto throughout 1696-7, Bridgwater too perforce became increasingly associated with and influenced by them.</p><p>He maintained his busy activity in the House from March 1697. Over the two days 6 and 15 Mar. he chaired committees of the whole on the bills to set duties on paper and vellum, to allow the Turkish merchandise laden on two foreign ships to be sold as if they had been transported by English ships, and to enlarge highways. From 17 to 22 Mar. he held the proxy of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford. His involvement in the House increased greatly in the last two weeks of the session, as the House tried to clear up its legislative backlog. From 31 Mar. to 15 Apr. he chaired nine committees of the whole; eight of these were in the last week of the session alone. He reported from committee on such matters as the bills to enlarge the capital stock of the Bank of England (31 Mar.), to enforce the existing act to prevent delays at quarter sessions (9 Apr.), to prevent the clandestine marriages of minors (12 Apr.), to raise the militia for that year, to increase the number of seamen for the navy (both on 13 Apr.), to supply the king with tonnage and poundage, to better observe procedure in the receipt of the Exchequer, and to license hawkers and peddlers (all three on 15 Apr.). In those same final few days he chaired three meetings of select committees on three different matters, and reported from two of them, on the bills to prevent counterfeit of coins (10 Apr.) and to pave the streets of London and Westminster (13 Apr.).<sup>106</sup></p><p>Bridgwater was the commissioner who announced Parliament’s prorogation on 13 May 1697 and its next meeting date, and at another prorogation on 22 July he was appointed by commission as Speaker of the House during the absence of the newly appointed lord keeper, John Somers*, later Baron Somers. Bridgwater’s period as Speaker was short-lived, consisting of only two days, 22 July and the subsequent day of prorogation, 26 Aug., for he was replaced by Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup> on the following day of prorogation, 30 September. Bridgwater maintained his usual diligent attendance on the House when the 1697-8 session finally began in December, and he came to all but 15 of its meetings (89 per cent). Here he chaired 16 meetings of the committee of the whole between 16 Dec. 1697 and 2 July 1698, six of them from 20 June alone. From 26 Feb. 1698 he chaired all five meetings of the committee of the whole considering the bill for the divorce of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, and the many petitions and objections raised against it, finally reporting the bill fit to pass on 2 Mar. He chaired other committees of the whole on matters such as the bills to prevent clandestine marriages (16 Dec. 1697), for the continuing imprisonment of one of William III’s suspected assassins (8 Jan. 1698), to prevent the import of foreign bone lace (25 Feb.), for licensing hawkers and peddlers (31 May), for duties upon coals (12 May) and on stamped vellum (20 June), for raising money by poll (22 June), for raising the militia for the following year (28 June), and for establishing the new East India Company, and for declaring two prize ships free to trade as English ships (both on 2 July). Bridgwater also chaired select committees on 18 occasions between 7 Jan. and 30 June 1698. These dealt with 21 different pieces of legislation, and he reported from 13 of them, the majority of them personal estate or naturalization bills.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Among Bridgwater’s papers is a copy of a speech against the bill to punish the exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and what appears to be Bridgwater’s own division list recording the defeat of the bill (by one vote) in the House on 15 Mar. The division list indicates that Bridgwater himself followed the Junto line and voted in favour of the bill. The following day he entered his one protest of the session, against the House’s reversal of the chancery decree in the cause <em>James Bertie v. 6th Viscount Falkland</em> on 16 Mar. He reported from the conference held on 7 Mar. 1698 where the Commons presented their objections to the House’s amendments to the bill for remedying defects in the poor law passed the previous session, and a number of sheets among his manuscripts detailing objections to the bill may be the papers delivered to him at this conference.<sup>108</sup> Later, on 20 June, he helped to manage a conference on the bill for the Alverstoke Waterworks promoted by Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, and a week later he also reported from a conference in which he delivered to the Commons the information that Jean Goudet and the other French merchants whom the Commons had impeached had voluntarily confessed their guilt. On 2 July he chaired the committee of the whole that set the fines against each of the merchants. During the session he held the proxies of Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas of Shenfield, from 2 Apr. to 3 May 1698, of Ralph Eure*, 7th Baron Eure, from 13 Apr. until the end of the session, and of his father-in-law Bolton from 10 June for the last month of the session.</p><p>As first lord of the Board of Trade, much of Bridgwater’s involvement in the House involved matters of trade. On 2 and 18 Apr. 1698 he reported from select committees bills to repair navigation and docking facilities in both Bridgwater in Somerset and Colchester in Essex. From 20 Apr. Bridgwater’s fellow Whig Stamford had been directing the committee considering the bill to encourage woollen manufacture in England and to ‘restrain’ the export of rival woollen manufactures from Ireland. On 6 May he reported that the king should be asked to supply the committee with papers concerning the English Privy Council’s amendments to a bill sent from the Irish Parliament for the establishment of linen manufacture in that country. There is no record in the Journal of the establishment of this committee or its composition, but the presence of pages in Bridgwater’s surviving manuscripts endorsed, ‘Some observations on the amendments offered in England to the bill for encouraging the linen manufacture in Ireland’, suggest that he was a prominent member of this committee or consulted with it in his position as first lord of trade. The final address, as reported by Stamford on 9 June, recommended that strict measures be taken against Irish manufacturers continuing to export woollen products, while it strongly encouraged the development of linen manufacture on the island, which was not seen to compete with vital English manufactures. Also among Bridgwater’s papers is a sheet of ‘Objections and Amendments to a Bill relating to Plantations in Africa, and trading to the same’, no doubt dealing with the bill ‘to settle Trade to Africa’ which was first read on 24 May and passed by the House on 10 June. This act, which received the royal assent on 5 July, secured for the Royal African Company the statutory charter it had long sought.<sup>109</sup> Similarly, he was involved in the dealings on the bill to encourage the Russia trade, telling on 23 June in a division on the motion to put the question whether to reject the bill, and this much-contested bill was subsequently lost in the press of other business at the end of the session in early July. In December 1697 he had also been re-appointed a commissioner of appeal in Admiralty cases involving prize ships, and his personal papers show that he was active in this committee.<sup>110</sup> He was also involved when the issue of prize ships spilled over into the House. On 27 June 1698 and again on 2 July he reported from the committees dealing with two separate bills to give the freedom to trade as ‘English’ ships to vessels taken as prizes.<sup>111</sup></p><h2><em>The 1698 Parliament: first session</em></h2><p>Bridgwater spent the remainder of July 1698 managing the elections in Buckinghamshire and Brackley for the next Parliament, which was summoned for that autumn. In Buckinghamshire Wharton, who still controlled the principal interest there, put forward his own brother ,Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, and Henry Neale<sup>‡</sup> against his former ally William Cheyne, now 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S]. At the poll Newhaven, owing to his long preparations and perhaps the growing Tory and country mood, came top of the poll by a wide margin, followed by Wharton’s brother Goodwin. Sir John Verney came very close to pipping Goodwin Wharton at the poll, and the tallies in a Buckinghamshire poll book in Bridgwater’s papers even suggest that Verney did come second.<sup>112</sup> Once again Sir John Verney’s allies had encouraged him to enlist Bridgwater’s support for this election, but the earl appears to have been more secretive than usual in this election. A correspondent of Verney’s noted that Abingdon did not know whom Bridgwater would support, and could only guess, as Verney himself had made no mention of Bridgwater in his electoral calculations, that ‘he is for the other party’.<sup>113</sup> Bridgwater’s mysterious stance in this election may have been owing to a growing estrangement from his fellow Whig Wharton, who was now trying to encroach in Bridgwater’s own borough of Brackley. There was now a contest between a sitting member Harry Mordaunt, now supported by Wharton, and Bridgwater’s nominee, Sir John Aubrey<sup>‡</sup>. After the first poll in the borough since 1679 Aubrey was returned for the borough with the other Bridgwater candidate, Charles Egerton.</p><p>Bridgwater was in the House when the new Parliament convened on 6 Dec. 1698 and proceeded to attend three-quarters of the meetings of its first session, down from the high attendance he had shown in recent sessions. Nor was he active in select committees, as he only chaired them on four occasions on three different matters; and of these he only reported from one.<sup>114</sup> Nor was he particularly active in committees of the whole, although as usual in the last weeks of the session he was called on to push bills through quickly. From 26 Apr. 1699 to the prorogation on 4 May he chaired six committees of the whole, on the bills to raise supply for disbanding the Army (26 Apr.), to raise the militia for that year (27 Apr.), to enable disbanded soldiers to exercise trades (28 Apr.), to levy a duty on paper, parchment and vellum (2 May), and two bills to set the duties on a number of goods (3 and 4 May).</p><p>Bridgwater was directly involved in the address of thanks and advice to the king regarding the proposed disbandment of the army in early February 1699. On 4 Feb. he chaired the select committee assigned to draw up the address to the king thanking him for his speech in which he had reluctantly acquiesced to a disbandment. After reporting the committee’s address of thanks, Bridgwater then went on to chair two committees of the whole, on 7 and 8 Feb., in which the king’s speech was debated. He reported that the committee thought the state of the fortifications on the south coast should be examined, and on 8 Feb. he reported the controversial motion that the House was ‘ready and willing to enter into any expedient’ to retain the king’s Dutch Guards for the year 1699, which produced a dissent from 38 peers. Notes endorsed by Bridgwater ‘Heads of Advice upon the King’s Speech’ and recommending ‘that no troops may be left here this summer but his subjects ... except his Guards’, undoubtedly come from these duties as chairman of the committee.<sup>115</sup> Throughout the session he was also involved in a number of conferences concerning bills for regulating trade and markets. On 23 Jan. 1699 he was placed on the committee to draft a clause for the bill to prohibit the export of corn and malt and was made a manager for the conference on this amendment held five days later. He was named a manager on 20 Apr. for the conference on the amendments to the bill for restoring Blackwell Hall market, and the following day he was likewise made a manager for a conference on the bill for making Billingsgate a free market. On the latter bill he was also named to the committee assigned on 25 Apr. to draw up reasons for adhering to the House’s amendment and he again was a manager for the conference held two days later where these reasons were given. On the penultimate day of the session he was a manager for the conference on the amendments to the bill for the duty on paper and vellum – which Bridgwater had steered through the committee of the whole the previous day with the omission of one clause. He was appointed to the committee to draw up an explanation of the House’s insistence on this omission, but the bill was lost at the prorogation the following day, 4 May 1699.</p><p>One other matter closely affecting Bridgwater was dealt with in the final days of the session as well. On 29 Apr. Bridgwater and other petitioners received permission from the House to prove, as the appointed executors, the will of the duke of Bolton, who had died in February 1699. The House resolved as a general rule that no peer had privilege to stop probate. Bolton’s heir Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, may well have been trying to hinder probate of his father’s will, as he was severely disadvantaged by it. Bolton left his daughter the countess of Bridgwater and her children, in whom he clearly delighted, close to £40,000 by his will, while barely mentioning and making virtually no provision for his heir.<sup>116</sup> The ungenerous terms of this will were later to bring lawsuits between the 2nd duke and his sister.<sup>117</sup> Yet there was no immediate evident ill-feeling between the new duke of Bolton, a keen follower of the Whig Junto, and his brother-in-law Bridgwater, to whom Bolton looked for advice on measures to take with the wayward behaviour of his son and heir Charles Powlett*, then styled marquess of Winchester, later 3rd duke of Bolton. In this case Bridgwater, in his efficient way, took the matter in hand and independently removed Winchester from his uncongenial school and from the temptations offered by his love for Lady Falkland’s daughter.<sup>118</sup> The correspondence between the brothers-in-law suggests that Bolton constantly looked up to, and relied on, Bridgwater.</p><h2><em>Second session, and the 1701 Parliament</em></h2><p>The summer of 1699 also saw a major reshuffling of offices in which Bridgwater at the beginning of June 1699 replaced Orford as first lord of the Admiralty. This was only after Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, had declined the offer, telling William III that ‘he would be drawn through a horse pond’ rather than take such a politically vulnerable post and was made first lord of the treasury instead.<sup>119</sup> Some contemporaries were disappointed by the appointment, and Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> confided in his patron Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, that ‘I wish to God Lord Tankerville had accepted the commission offered him, for he has an active understanding and a good one. I believe Lord Bridgwater is too sedate for such an employment’.<sup>120</sup> Bridgwater himself appears to have had serious doubts as to his fitness for the post. James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> told his many correspondents that Bridgwater ‘was ‘earnest ... with the king to be excused’ from a post in which ‘he does not pretend to skill’, but ‘he was pressed beyond resistance, and the king would not part with him till he had kissed his hand upon the acceptance’.<sup>121</sup> Bridgwater also served as a commissioner of prorogation on 1 June 1699, and before the king set sail for the continent the following day he further made Bridgwater one of the lords justices assigned to govern the realm in his absence.</p><p>When Parliament resumed in November 1699 Bridgwater came to over three-quarters (77 per cent) of the sittings but did not play a noticeable role in the first three months or so of the session, during which his only known stance was his opposition on 23 Feb. 1700 to the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation. Unusually, he chaired no committees, neither select nor of the whole House, during this session. This was most likely because as of 1 Mar. he had a new responsibility thrust on him which may have precluded such close involvement in committees. For on that day a commission was read in the House making Bridgwater Speaker of the House in the periods of absence of the lord chancellor, Somers. He served as Speaker, directing proceedings in the House in the periods 1-9 and 21-25 Mar. and 1-11 Apr., Somers having returned to the House briefly during 11-20 and 26-28 Mar.<sup>122</sup></p><p>He was thus presiding over the House on 10 Apr. 1700, when the debate between the two Houses over the bill to resume the Irish lands forfeited to William III came to its head. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> has this account of the events of that day:</p><blockquote><p>The Lords debated the Commons’ reasons for not agreeing to their [the House’s] amendments to the land tax and Irish forfeiture bill; and the question being put for adhering to the said amendments, yeas 37, noes 34; but proxies being allowed of, the numbers were then equal; and the lord Bridgwater, officiating for lord chancellor (who was indisposed) gave his casting vote against adhering: so the bill passed as sent from the Commons.<sup>123</sup></p></blockquote><p>Immediately after this bill was passed, Bridgwater and 20 other peers signed a dissent against its passage. Luttrell’s account throws up some questions about procedure in the House. The general practice was that if the vote at a division was tied, it was decided in the negative. There was thus no reason for Bridgwater to cast a deciding vote, and the manuscript minutes record the division as a tie at 43 voices each and imply that the motion was lost on that basis, with no need for a casting vote from the Speaker tipping the not contents over into 44 voices. It may have been that Luttrell, unfamiliar with procedure in the House, misinterpreted Bridgwater’s pronouncement as Speaker of the result of the tied division in the negative. William III did not like the Commons’ version of the Irish forfeiture bill, but was eager to have some supply bill passed, and at the last moment enlisted enough of his supporters to vote, with a narrow majority of five this time, to accept the bill without the controversial amendments. Still angry, he came to the House the following day to dismiss Parliament hurriedly, and Bridgwater, as Speaker, made the formal announcement proroguing Parliament to 23 May.</p><p>Bridgwater continued in his role as Speaker of the House and formally announced Parliament’s prorogation when it met again on 23 May 1700, one of a long series of prorogations as William reordered the ministry to try to counter the hostility of the Commons. He was removed from the Speakership on the next day of prorogation, 20 June, and replaced by Sir Nathan Wright<sup>‡</sup>, recently made lord keeper in the place of the disgraced Somers, but Bridgwater still served as a commissioner of prorogation on that day and on two more successive prorogations on 24 Oct. and 21 Nov. 1700.<sup>124</sup> Before the king’s departure for the Netherlands in late June Bridgwater was once again appointed a lord justice of the realm during the king’s absence.<sup>125</sup> From the time of the death of the lord privy seal John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, on 10 July 1700, there were rumours that he would be promoted from the Admiralty to that place. Certainly his Whig brother-in-law, Bolton, encouraged him to apply for the post – ‘it would be much quieter than the place you have and for my own part I protest I cannot think of anybody fit for it but yourself’.<sup>126</sup> Throughout that summer Bridgwater was kept informed of William’s activities by a regular correspondence with William’s secretary-at-war, William Blathwayt<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>127</sup> The post of lord privy seal still had not been filled by late October 1700, and Luttrell was sure that Bridgwater would indeed be named as Lonsdale’s replacement until he was forced to report at the end of October that the post had gone instead to Bridgwater’s fellow Whig, Tankerville, whom Bridgwater had long been shadowing (and vice versa) in the frequent reshuffling of offices in William III’s last years.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Bridgwater’s choice for Brackley in 1698, Sir John Aubrey, had died in a riding accident in the interval before the long-anticipated elections of January 1701 and, with the selection of candidates now narrowed down, Bridgwater conceded and allowed Wharton’s candidate, Harry Mordaunt, to be returned unopposed with his own brother, Charles Egerton. Buckinghamshire was of course more contested. Verney hoped to join interests with Newhaven this time and looked to him for support in gaining Bridgwater’s favour, but Newhaven wrote to him in mid November 1700 that, ‘my interest with the earl you mention is not sufficient for any such purpose if you were in danger’.<sup>129</sup> Even worse for Tory prospects, Verney’s election agent (or at least a correspondent who was concerned with Verney’s election prospects) informed him in December that ‘I fear Lord Bridgwater is not your friend’.<sup>130</sup> At the election in January 1701 Newhaven and Verney stood separately for the Tory interest against the Whigs Goodwin Wharton and Robert Dormer<sup>‡</sup>, who also formally stood independently of each other. Presumably Bridgwater put his interest behind Wharton and Dormer, and a poll book among Bridgwater’s papers shows that Wharton came top of the poll this time, followed by Newhaven, trailing by 250 votes, while Verney, who had conducted another lacklustre campaign, trailed badly by 500 votes.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Bridgwater consistently came to meetings in the first month of the new Parliament throughout February 1701. On 12 Feb. he was named to the large committee assigned to compose the address of thanks for the king’s speech. The following day Charles Mordaunt, now 3rd earl of Peterborough, reported the address, which asked the king to lay the recently signed Partition Treaties before the House for their examination. The House’s address was sent down to the Commons on 14 Feb. and Bridgwater was appointed one of 14 managers to attend a conference three days later when the lower House announced that it had drafted its own separate vote on the same matter. Bridgwater was more directly involved when the House called for a report on the state of the navy on 19 Feb., arising from a specific request of William in his speech of the previous week. Bridgwater assured the House that, as first lord of the Admiralty, he would have the report ready for the House by the following day. When Bridgwater submitted the Admiralty’s report to the House as promised he was, not surprisingly, named to the very large committee entrusted to draw up an address on the state of the navy, which was ultimately reported to the House by Rochester.</p><p>Bridgwater’s sudden death on 19 Mar. 1701 must have been unexpected. He was ‘much lamented’, as he died ‘with a good reputation’ and ‘leaving a very honourable character behind him’ at the height of his ministerial and official career in a regime which he had long and well served, and which was about to face some of its sternest tests.<sup>132</sup> He was succeeded in his title and estate by his 17-year-old son, Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (and later duke) of Bridgwater. The young man hurriedly returned from his continental travels to take up his father’s title and inheritance, which included a special bequest of ‘all my books and collections of coins’, which were to be made heirlooms in the family – an indication of the antiquarian interests Bridgwater had been able to maintain while conducting his busy and dutiful public life in the service of William III.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
EGERTON, Scroop (1681-1745) |
<p><strong><surname>EGERTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Scroop</strong> (1681–1745)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1687-1701 Visct. Brackley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Mar. 1701 (a minor) as 4th earl of BRIDGWATER; <em>cr. </em>18 June 1720 duke of BRIDGWATER |
|
First sat 15 Dec. 1702; last sat 20 Dec. 1744 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Aug. 1681, 4th but 1st surv. s. of John Egerton*, <em>styled</em> Visct. Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater) being 3rd s. with 2nd w. Jane, da. of Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton; bro. of William<sup>‡</sup>, Charles<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Egerton*, bp. of Hereford. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Holland, France, Germany 1699-1702; tutor, Jacob Herald).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 9 Feb. 1703 (with at least £10,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1714), da. of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, 2s. <em>d.v.</em>p., 1da.; (2) 4 Aug. 1722, Rachel (<em>d</em>. 22 May 1777), da. of Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 11 Jan. 1745; <em>will</em> 5 Feb. 1743, pr. 28 Jan. 1745.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Page, duke of Gloucester 1698-9;<sup>5</sup> gent. of the bedchamber to George*, prince of Denmark (and duke of Cumberland) 1703-5, George I 1719-27; master of horse, George, prince of Denmark 1705-8; ld. chamb., princess of Wales 1714-17.</p><p>Ld. lt. and <em>custos. rot</em>. Bucks. 1703-12, 1714-28.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Charles Jervas, c.1710, Egerton Collection, Ashridge, Herts.</p> |
<p>Scroop Egerton acquired his unusual forename from his great-grandfather, Emmanuel Scrope<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland. He became heir to his father’s earldom in April 1687 after a disastrous fire at the family’s London home of Bridgwater House in the Barbican killed his two elder brothers; an older half brother had died in infancy. When his grandfather Bolton died in February 1699 he bequeathed close to £40,000 to his daughter Jane and her children, while barely mentioning and making virtually no provision for his heir Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton.<sup>7</sup> The ungenerous terms of this will were later to bring lawsuits and contention between the 2nd duke and his sister, the dowager countess of Bridgwater, and her children.<sup>8</sup></p><p>It was reported in 1698 that Brackley had been made a page to the duke of Gloucester, but by May 1699 the young man was setting out for a tour of the continent.<sup>9</sup> After the death of his father in March 1701, he remained on the continent until he came of age in August 1702, and returned to enjoy favour at court under the reign of the new monarch, Queen Anne. The lord lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire, which had been held by the earls of Bridgwater since 1660, had been put temporarily in other hands during the earl’s minority, first to Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton shortly after the 3rd earl’s death, and then in June 1702 to the Tory William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S] (usually known as Lord Cheyne). Bridgwater took over the lieutenancy of the county, with the accompanying role of <em>custos rotulorum</em>, on 14 Jan. 1703, and continued to be an active and diligent lord lieutenant for the next several years.<sup>10</sup> The following month he and his family followed that up with a prestigious double wedding. His sister Mary married William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron, reputedly with a dowry of £12,000.<sup>11</sup> Bridgwater, married Elizabeth, the third daughter of the queen’s favourite John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. The queen herself may have supplied a contribution of £10,000 to the portion.<sup>12</sup></p><p><em>Allied to Marlborough 1702-10</em></p><p>This marriage put the young Bridgwater firmly at the centre of the court and government, allied to the most powerful and influential couple in the kingdom, the duke and duchess of Marlborough. Shortly after the marriage both he and his wife gained positions at court – she as a lady of the queen’s bedchamber and he as a gentleman in the bedchamber of the prince consort, George of Denmark.<sup>13</sup> Nor was Bridgwater slow to call on the influence this new connection could bring. Only a few months after the marriage Marlborough himself, on campaign at Maastricht, assured Bridgwater that he would help his brother William Egerton in with his rise in the army; by 1705 William had been promoted to lieutenant colonel of the first regiment of foot guards.<sup>14</sup> The Bridgwaters expected more, they both complained to the duchess that the duke had not made strenuous enough efforts to persuade Prince George to take on an Egerton kinsman as his vice chamberlain.<sup>15</sup> The Marlboroughs sought a suitable position at court for their son-in-law, but initially without success.<sup>16</sup> When in late June 1703 there were rumours that Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, master of horse to the prince consort, had died, Anne could assure the duchess of Marlborough that there would be no problem in putting Bridgwater in his place instead, ‘for though he may be no Solomon, he is a man of great quality and young enough to improve’.<sup>17</sup> After it transpired that Sandwich was still alive, Bridgwater turned his attention to the lord chamberlaincy, which had become vacant by the dismissal of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, but was ultimately filled by Henry Grey*, 12th earl (later duke) of Kent instead.<sup>18</sup> Bridgwater finally got his promotion at court in early July 1705, when Sandwich was dismissed from his post after a long absence arising from a serious illness and accompanying mental derangement. Bridgwater replaced him as master of horse.<sup>19</sup> The marriage alliance with the Churchills gave Bridgwater even wider and more powerful connections. When his first son John, styled Viscount Brackley (<em>d</em>.1719), was born in February 1704, both Queen Anne and Sophia, dowager electress of Hanover, sent congratulations and expensive gifts to the infant and his mother.<sup>20</sup> Bridgwater was to forge tight links with the court of Hanover and appears to have played some role in the wedding ceremonies of the future George II in September 1705.<sup>21</sup> His name appears in a list of potential regents for the dowager electress of Hanover, drawn up presumably sometime after the passage of the Regency Act in 1706 and before 1709.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Bridgwater first sat in the House two months into Anne’s first Parliament, on 15 Dec. 1702, and in total came to 35 per cent of the meetings of its first session in 1702-3. In his political views Bridgwater most likely in these early years, and certainly in his later, followed the Whig proclivities of his father, but also like his father he was a loyal servant of the court and ministry. His marriage and the interest at court it brought him tied him strongly to his father-in-law Marlborough and his political trajectory followed his. Thus the Tory leader Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast that in 1702-3 Bridgwater would support the occasional conformity bill. However, although Bridgwater was marked as present on 16 Jan. 1703, when it came to the divisions on the Whig wrecking amendments to the bill, he chose to abstain by absenting himself from the chamber. During the second session of the Parliament in 1703-4 (during which Bridgwater attended 84 per cent of the sittings), Bridgwater’s brother-in-law Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, initially considered him ‘uncertain’ in his attitude to the revived occasional conformity bill, as ‘last year [sic] chose to be absent’. Sunderland later marked him as an opponent of the bill, though doubtful, which suggests that contemporaries were unclear how the competing pulls of his parents’ political heritage and those of the family he had married into would sort themselves out. In this case Bridgwater was a dutiful son-in-law and followed Marlborough’s lead in voting in favour of the bill on 14 Dec. 1703, though he did not join his father-in-law in signing the protests against the denial of the second reading or the eventual rejection of the bill. Later that session he joined the Tories in fighting against the attempt to use the Scotch Plot investigations to bring down the secretary of state Nottingham. On 3 Mar. 1704 he protested against the resolution to make the content of the ciphered ‘gibberish’ letters made known only to the queen and members of the committee investigating the Plot. On 22 Mar. he was named, alongside all those present, to the committee entrusted with drawing up the address encouraging the queen to prosecute the Scottish conspiracy, but presumably he took little or no part in its deliberations because three days later he dissented from the decisions both to put the question on the motion that Nottingham’s failure to commit or prosecute the Scottish conspirator Robert Ferguson ‘is a great encouragement to her Majesty’s enemies’, and from the eventual passage of the resolution. He came to relatively few meetings of the following session of 1704-5, first sitting in the House almost a month after the session had started, on 16 Nov. 1704, and then proceeding to sit in exactly half of the meetings, but apart from his nominations to 29 committees, no other activity of his in the House during this final session of Anne’s first Parliament is recorded.</p><p>Outside the House, Bridgwater was keen to exercise electoral influence. Control of his lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire was far from straightforward, as there were many competing interests in the county, the most formidable being that exercised by the active and aggressive Junto peer Wharton, who in 1696 had been described as having ‘the greatest interest of any man in Buckinghamshire’. Against Wharton stood the leader of the Buckinghamshire Tories, Lord Cheyne.</p><p>Buckinghamshire was infamous for its party strife and contested elections. Bridgwater, nevertheless, entered the fray and tried to make his own mark on the parliamentary representation of the county shortly after taking up his lieutenancy. In October 1704 one of the sitting Members, Wharton’s younger brother, Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, died and Bridgwater immediately joined with the other sitting member Lord Cheyne to promote the Buckinghamshire landowner Francis Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> as the Tory candidate in the resulting by-election. Duncombe was defeated by Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup> by over 200 votes.<sup>23</sup> At the end of 1704 both Wharton and Bridgwater were already preparing for the general election scheduled for the following summer. Bridgwater put forward his own brother William to stand with the parliamentary veteran Cheyne, but when it was discovered, ‘upon a strict enquiry of his age’ that William ‘wants a few months of 21 years’, Bridgwater decided to give Cheyne his entire interest and Cheyne was forced to ask his ‘friends’ to plump their votes for him. The Whig candidates Temple and Robert Dormer<sup>‡</sup> still beat him at the poll.<sup>24</sup> In February 1706 Dormer had to resign his seat when made a judge and Bridgwater was successful in soliciting support for his brother William, now properly of age, who was returned for the county at the by-election without opposition.<sup>25</sup></p><p>When he was not promoting family members as candidates, Bridgwater chose Tories in opposition to Wharton’s Whig nominees. When the antiquarian Browne Willis<sup>‡ </sup>felt ‘compelled’ by the overwhelming dominance of Wharton in the elections of the borough of Buckingham to make his own foray into politics, it was to Bridgwater he turned for support at a by-election in December 1705; he won at the poll by a deciding vote cast by a member of the corporation who was brought out of prison to declare his choice.<sup>26</sup> Bridgwater’s most direct and uncontested influence was in the Northamptonshire borough of Brackley, where he was lord of the manor, and where the Egerton family could rely on controlling at least one of the seats, usually given to a member of the extended family. Yet even here during Anne’s reign the irrepressible Wharton was trying to build an interest and at times could seriously challenge Bridgwater’s dominance over the second seat. At the time of his accession to the earldom, Bridgwater’s Whig uncle, Charles Egerton<sup>‡</sup>, had been entrenched in one of the seats since 1695 and continued to stay there, with Bridgwater’s full acquiescence, until the dramatic change in Whig fortunes in 1710. In the 1702 elections Bridgwater tried to exert some control over the second seat by supporting the successful candidacy of the newcomer John James<sup>‡</sup> against a veteran burgess, Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, a younger brother of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, and a protegé of Wharton. Mordaunt initially bowed out of the running for the 1705 election when it was clear that Bridgwater was set on the return of his cousin, John Sydney*, who shortly thereafter succeeded his elder brother as 6th earl of Leicester and never sat in the Commons. The duchess of Marlborough, who was angered by her son-in-law’s Tory proclivities, was able to persuade Bridgwater to support Mordaunt’s return at the ensuing by-election.<sup>27</sup> Sunderland was quick to praise the duchess for this intervention, as it would ‘have the good effect of uniting him [Bridgwater] and Lord Wharton which will make things hereafter easy in that country’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>After 1705 when Marlborough and the government looked increasingly towards the Whigs for support of his continental war aims, Bridgwater followed suit. He came to just over half of the sittings of the first session of Anne’s second Parliament, in 1705-6. On 6 Dec. 1705 he voted in favour of the motion in a committee of the whole that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration and was later assigned to draw up the reasons for this vote to be presented to the Commons in conference.<sup>29</sup> He was apparently active in this committee, for he was appointed a representative of the House in the ensuing four conferences on this matter from 7 to 17 December. Bridgwater was also nominated as a manager (along with all the other peers present in the House) for two conferences on 11 Mar. 1706 in order to condemn the published letter of Sir Rowland Gwynn<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. The letter strongly attacked the recently passed Regency Act and defended the project to invite the dowager electress to England while Anne was still alive. On 6 Feb. 1706 John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, another courtier, registered his proxy with Bridgwater, which he held for the remainder of the session. He attended 72 per cent of the sittings of the final two sessions of the Parliament of England, from 3 Dec. 1706 to 24 April 1707. On 30 Dec. 1706 he helped introduce to the House three of the ten newly created or promoted court peers who first sat in the House that day: John Poulett*, Earl Poulett (whom he introduced with his Junto brother-in-law Sunderland); Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, and Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley. In the following session of 1707-8, the first to include the Scots, he took his seat on 19 Nov. 1707, almost a month after the session had started, and was then present for 57 per cent of the sittings. On 7 Feb. 1708 he supported Godolphin and the ministry by protesting against the abolition of the Scottish privy council in the act to make ‘the Union of the two kingdoms more entire and complete’. At around this time he was, unsurprisingly, categorized as a court peer in a political analysis of the peerage.</p><p>By February 1708, preparations were already underway for the elections of May 1708. Bridgwater had been canvassing for his brother William throughout the summer of 1707 and Cheyne tried to muster Tory support for his candidacy as a way of making ‘him [Egerton] and our lord lieutenant our own’. But in December 1707 Cheyne had to write to his Tory colleagues with the regrettable news that, despite all previous assurances, Bridgwater ‘has laid aside all thoughts of setting up his brother at the next election for the county of Buckinghamshire’. Matters were made worse for the Tories because after the Union, Cheyne’s possession of a Scots peerage made him ineligible to sit in the Commons. ‘Tis a melancholy story, but a true one’, he concluded, ‘that now the Lord Wharton names both the knights of our county: Mr Hampden [Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup>] and Sir Edmund Denton<sup>‡</sup> will carry their point without any opposition’. The ensuing election on 19 May 1708, proved to be the only uncontested election for the county between 1698 and 1715.<sup>30</sup> Bridgwater’s decision to withdraw his brother from standing for the county was a result of the growing partnership in the county between him and Wharton that had been envisaged by Sunderland in 1705 and which was made more necessary for Bridgwater by the government’s increasing reliance on the Whigs. At the 1708 election Wharton provided the Brackley burgess Harry Mordaunt with an unopposed seat in the Yorkshire burgage borough of Richmond, firmly under Wharton’s control, thus allowing Bridgwater to place his brother in the second Brackley seat, where he would face far less of a challenge than if he were to stand for the county.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Three days before Bridgwater took his place at the first meeting of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 he had overseen, as master of horse, the procession and ceremonies for the funeral of Prince George of Denmark.<sup>32</sup> He received a pension of £1,000 p.a. from 1709 for his past services and retained lodgings at St James’s Palace, although his insistence on also keeping the late prince’s horses as a perquisite of office caused controversy.<sup>33</sup> Perhaps as a result his attendance in this Parliament was better than usual, and he attended 78 per cent of the meetings over the two sessions in the period 16 Nov. 1708-5 Apr. 1710. He still supported the Godolphin ministry, as in his vote of 21 Jan. 1709 in favour of the motion that Godolphin’s Scottish ally James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], could take part in the election of Scottish representative peers, despite possessing a British peerage as duke of Dover. One piece of legislation of that session concerned Bridgwater indirectly, the bill to sell part of the estate of his uncle Lord William Powlett<sup>‡</sup> in order to fulfil an agreement between Powlett and his sister, the dowager countess of Bridgwater, arising from the first duke of Bolton’s will.<sup>34</sup> The bill was brought up from the Commons on 21 Mar. 1709 and committed four days later. After some petitions against it were heard in early April, it was reported back from committee on 11 Apr. and received the royal assent by commission ten days later.<sup>35</sup></p><p>In January 1710 it was rumoured that Bridgwater would be chosen to replace the deceased Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, as lord lieutenant of Hertfordshire, but in the prevailing political climate, it may have been thought that he was insufficiently Whiggish, and the post went instead to William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper.<sup>36</sup> Nevertheless, on 20 Mar. 1710 Bridgwater joined Godolphin and the ministry, now firmly allied to the Whigs, in voting Henry Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, and on 27 Mar. he was named a manager for a conference to present the House’s disagreements with the Commons’ amendment to Edward Southwell’s marriage bill.</p><p>In the Buckinghamshire elections for the Parliament in October 1710 Bridgwater reportedly lent his support to the Tory John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fermanagh [I], whom he may have preferred to Wharton’s candidate, the Junto follower Richard Hampden.<sup>37</sup> Fermanagh and the sitting Whig member Sir Edmund Denton<sup>‡</sup> barely came top of the poll, just ahead of Hampden and Fermanagh’s partner Sir Henry Seymour<sup>‡</sup>. In Brackley, the Tories in the corporation made it clear that of the two Egertons representing the borough they preferred Bridgwater’s brother William, who had previously attracted Tory support and who headed the poll by a large margin, rather than his Whiggish uncle Charles, who just squeaked by with one more vote than his Tory opponent John Burgh<sup>‡</sup>. Burgh petitioned, alleging bribery by Wharton and Bridgwater’s steward for the borough, and not surprisingly the Tory House of Commons found in his favour, unseating Charles Egerton, who had sat for Brackley since the 1695 election, on 27 Jan. 1711.<sup>38</sup></p><p><em>The Oxford ministry </em></p><p>In October 1710 Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford and Mortimer) forecast that Bridgwater would be opposed to the new ministry he was constructing, and Bridgwater’s discernible activities in the new Parliament’s first session in 1710-11, during which he attended 77 per cent of the sittings, bore out this assessment. A follower of Marlborough and the war effort he had led, Bridgwater opposed the attack on the previous ministry and its military aims in Spain. On 11 Jan. 1711 he signed the protests against the rejection of the petitions of the Whig generals Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] and then from the resolution that it was their advice that led directly to the debacle of the Battle of Alamanza. The following day he also subscribed to the dissent from the resolution criticizing the leaders of the previous ministry for advocating an offensive war in Spain, and 12 days later, on 24 Jan. he was a teller, probably for the Not Contents, in the division on the motion (which was won by a majority of 20) in a committee of the whole to censure Galway for his role in the campaign.<sup>39</sup> In the first two weeks of February, he signed seven protests from this debate: two against resolutions which accused the former ministers of ‘a neglect of their service’ in inadequately supplying the troops in Spain with men or supplies (on 3 Feb.); two against presenting the queen with an address on the war in Spain (on 8 Feb.); and three (on 9 Feb.) against the various resolutions which expunged from the Journal the majority of the reasons given in the protest of 3 February. In a sign of his new alliance with the Whigs defending Marlborough and the war, on 7 June 1711 he registered his proxy for the first time of which there is a record (the proxy registers for April 1707 to April 1710 are missing) to his Junto Whig brother-in-law Sunderland, who held it for the remaining five days of the session.</p><p>He was even busier in the following session (1711-12), of which he attended three-quarters of the meetings, when the Whigs in the House put up a spirited rearguard action against the peace being negotiated by the ministry of the earl of Oxford (as Harley had become). He was probably among those Whigs who negotiated with Nottingham in early December 1711 to garner his support for the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the address to the queen. Oxford was clearly angered that Bridgwater, a pensioner of the court, would oppose the ministry by supporting the address on 7 December. On 20 Dec. Bridgwater followed this up by voting against the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] to sit in the House using his British title of duke of Brandon.</p><p>Bridgwater’s father-in-law Marlborough was stripped of all his offices by the queen on 30 Dec. 1711, and Bridgwater, so clearly opposed to the ministry, fell with him. He had already been punished by Oxford who had ensured that the uncooperative Whig was not paid any of his pension as master of the horse of the late Prince George. In May 1711 Oxford’ colleague Sir Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, recommended that Bridgwater be replaced as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulotum</em> of Buckinghamshire by the more reliable Cheyne, but it took a year before this change was formally put into effect.<sup>40</sup> In early February 1712 the queen ordered Bridgwater to vacate his apartments at St James’s, so that her new favourite Abigail Masham could take up residence there.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Despite these setbacks, Bridgwater continued to be active in the proxy exchanges that helped to sustain Whig forces in this session. On 30 Dec. Bridgwater received the proxy of his cousin Leicester, who vacated it by his return to the House on 14 Jan. 1712 only to register it again to Bridgwater on 23 Feb. before coming back into the House once more on 4 March. Bridgwater registered his own proxy with Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, on 12 Apr. 1712, who kept it for the two weeks Bridgwater was absent until his return on 28 April. On 13 May Sunderland returned Bridgwater’s earlier favour by registering his own proxy with his brother-in-law, though he returned to the House to vacate it only four days later. On 19 May 1712 Bridgwater told in the division on whether to insert words that would exempt peers in the bill to establish commissioners to investigate the value of the land grants made by William III.<sup>42</sup> Nine days later, on 28 May, he voted and protested against the resolution to reject the Whig-inspired address expressing disquiet at the ‘restraining orders’ which prohibited British forces taking offensive military actions against France.<sup>43</sup> He further protested on 7 June against the decision not to add a clause in the reply to the queen’s speech which requested her to take measures to join in a ‘mutual guarantee’ with the Allies to ensure the Protestant succession in Britain. In June 1713, during the final session of the Parliament (of which Bridgwater attended two-thirds of the meetings), Oxford predicted that Bridgwater would oppose the ministry once more by voting against the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Bridgwater, out of office both at court and in the county, fully joined the Whig effort against his erstwhile ally Cheyne in the Buckinghamshire election in the summer of 1713. Cheyne, now lord lieutenant of the county, was able to convince Fermanagh to stand again, and partnered him with his own nephew, John Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>. Against them Bridgwater tried to convince the freemen of the county to vote for the Whig candidates Richard Hampden and the sitting Whig Member Sir Edmund Denton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>44</sup> He even engaged in some electioneering theatrics, as described by a Tory contemporary; in a reference to the French commercial treaty, </p><blockquote><p>The Whigs … put wool in their hats, saying ’twas all going into France, and they resolved to keep some on’t, before ’twas all gone. Lord Wharton, Lord Bridgwater, Lord Portland [William Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland] and Lord Essex [William Capell*, 3rd earl of Essex] were all at the head of them with wool in their hats: and Lady Wharton with her own fair hands made up several cockades for the country fellows. The Tories had oaken boughs in their hats, and these jokes in their mouths against their adversary that their wits were gone a wool gathering, and that they looked very sheepish, and ba’d them out of the field.<sup>45</sup></p></blockquote><p>Similarly, in 1713 the Tory members of Brackley corporation fielded two candidates, John Burgh<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Watkins<sup>‡</sup> against Bridgwater’s and Wharton’s nominees, William Egerton and a rising star in the Whig party, Paul Methuen<sup>‡</sup>. The latter two were formally returned, but on 3 Mar. 1714, well into the session, Burgh and Watkins petitioned against the result. The elections committee unexpectedly resolved in favour of the sitting Members, but the Tories marshalled their forces and in a contentious vote that went straight down party lines managed to unseat the two Whigs. After this electoral defeat, Bridgwater tightened his grip on his manor, and the Egertons controlled both seats of the corporation for most of the rest of the eighteenth century.</p><p>Bridgwater himself came to only 13 meetings of Parliament in February and March 1714. He left the House on 19 Mar. 1714, registering his proxy with his brother-in-law John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu, for the remainder of the session. It may have been with this proxy in mind that Nottingham forecast that Bridgwater would oppose the schism bill, against whose passage Montagu did protest on 16 June 1714. Bridgwater’s departure from the House may have been prompted by the illness of his wife, who died of smallpox in early April. To his bereaved mother-in-law, then in self-imposed exile on the continent, he expressed the confident hope that their mutual enemies would ‘so fall out amongst themselves, that we shall have the comfort to have your grace and the duke of Marlborough return more beloved than ever’. It was their daughter’s death which prompted the duke and duchess to hasten their return to England.<sup>46</sup> They arrived home on 1 Aug. 1714, the day of the queen’s death, which was also the only day in the brief second session of that Parliament on which Bridgwater attended the House.</p><p>Through his Marlborough connections, Bridgwater benefitted from the Hanoverian succession, although the duchess of Marlborough later turned her full anger against her former son-in-law and claimed that ‘he was so little liked and there were so many useful men to be employed that I could only obtain that he should be lord chamberlain to the princess of Wales’. He was appointed to that office in October 1714.<sup>47</sup> Contemporaries appear to have been baffled by Bridgwater’s decision to resign this place in February 1717, although perhaps he was prescient of the growing friction between the king and his son.<sup>48</sup> Bridgwater escaped the royal ire, and was made a gentleman of the bedchamber to the king in May 1719, a post he retained until that king’s death, after which he was not kept on by George II. In the purge of Tory officers, he was also put back in charge of Buckinghamshire on 8 Dec. 1714, once more replacing Cheyne as lord lieutenant and he kept this post until the accession of George II. On 18 June 1720 he was elevated to the rank of duke of Bridgwater. The duchess of Marlborough calculated, admittedly when she was railing against him in their disputes over money, that at about this time he was worth about £20,000 p.a.<sup>49</sup> As befitted his position as a Whig grandee and a courtier, he acted in Parliament as a supporter of the Whig ministries. Oxford was sure that Bridgwater would be against him in the impeachment proceedings of June 1717, but in the event, Bridgwater largely abstained from participation in this matter.<sup>50</sup> His activity in the House in the reigns of George I and George II will be detailed in the 1715-90 volumes of this series.</p><p>Bridgwater further confirmed his place among the Whigs by his second marriage, in August 1722, to Lady Rachel Russell, a sister of Wriothesley Russell*, 3rd duke of Bedford. In 1725 he matched the 3rd duke, still a minor at that point, to his own only surviving child by his first marriage, Lady Anne Egerton. This marriage, coupled with earlier failed marriage negotiations for Lady Anne and disputes over the duke of Marlborough’s will, severely embittered relations between Bridgwater and his former mother-in-law, the duchess of Marlborough, who had been planning to marry her favourite granddaughter, Lady Diana Spencer, to the young duke.<sup>51</sup> Bridgwater died on 11 Jan. 1745 and was succeeded in turn by his two surviving sons. His eldest, John Egerton*, 2nd duke of Bridgwater, died in February 1748 while still a minor. The Bridgwater estates and title thus devolved to his younger son, only nine years old at the time, Francis Egerton*, 3rd duke of Bridgwater, who achieved fame and great fortune as the aristocratic entrepreneur behind the canal systems linking the burgeoning industrial and coastal towns of his Lancashire and Cheshire estates.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
EURE, George (c. 1620-72) |
<p><strong><surname>EURE</surname></strong> (<strong>EWER</strong>), <strong>George</strong> (c. 1620–72)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 25 June 1652 as 6th Bar. EURE |
|
First sat 6 Nov. 1660; last sat 16 Apr. 1672 |
|
MP Yorks. 1653; Yorks. (N. Riding) 1654, 1656; ‘Other House’ 1658, 1659 |
<p><em>b.</em> c.1620,<sup>1</sup> 1st surv. s. of Horatio Eure (<em>bur</em>. 9 Jan. 1637) of Easby, Yorks. (N. Riding), and Deborah, da. and coh. of John Brett, of Romney Marsh, Kent; bro. of Ralph Eure*, 7th Bar. Eure. <em>educ.</em> adm. L. Inn 27 Feb. 1672. <em>unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. bro. 18 Aug. 1643. <em>d.</em> by 25 Oct.; <em>will</em> 15 Oct., pr. 25 Oct. 1672.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Cllr. of state 1 Nov.–12 Dec. 1653; commr. security of the Protector, England and Wales 1656–8.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Commr. assessment, Yorks. (N. Riding) 1647, 1648, 1649, 1657, 1660; commr. Yorks. 1650, 1652;<sup>4</sup> commr. militia, Yorks. 1648, 1655, 1659, 1660.<sup>5</sup> Commr. scandalous ministers, Yorks. (N. Riding) 1654;<sup>6</sup> commr. sewers, Yorks. (N. Riding) 1664.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Capt. coy. of ft. (Parl.) by 1643–1646;<sup>8</sup> maj. coy. of militia ft. Yorks. 1648–9;<sup>9</sup> capt. coy. of militia horse, Yorks. 1650–aft. 1651;<sup>10</sup> col. regt. of militia horse, Yorks. by 1656–1660?<sup>11</sup></p> |
|
<p>The barony of Eure had first been granted to the soldier William Eure<sup>†</sup> in 1544 for his loyal military service in the constant border skirmishing with the Scots. This line of the Eures died out in 1652 with the death of William Eure<sup>†</sup>, 5th Baron Eure, while still a minor. The title then passed to George Eure, the grandson of Sir Francis Eure<sup>‡</sup>, the younger brother of Ralph Eure<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Eure. George tried to claim the family estates in the parliamentary borough of Malton in the North Riding of Yorkshire, but they were granted to, and divided up by, the 5th baron’s female cousins.<sup>12</sup> The 6th baron thus was left with a respected northern title but very little wealth to support it, and was one of the poorest peers in the Restoration House of Lords. His own estate, probably worth less than £250 p.a., consisted of the manor of Easby and a moiety of that of Little Ayton near Northallerton in the North Riding, which his grandfather Sir Francis Eure<sup>‡</sup> had acquired from his elder brother the 3rd baron early in the seventeenth century.<sup>13</sup> George Eure also had a reversionary interest in estates in Herefordshire, for his branch of the family had established itself in the legal profession in Wales. Sir Francis had been a chief justice of Chester and had acquired Gatley Park in Herefordshire, which had descended to his younger son, George Eure’s uncle Sir Sampson Eure<sup>‡</sup>, who had also served in a number of judicial and government posts in Wales in the years before he joined Charles I at Oxford and served as Speaker of the royalist Parliament.</p><p>Unlike his uncle Sir Sampson, George Eure served Parliament, and later the Cromwellian regime, devotedly from the early days of the Civil War. His succession to his second cousin’s prestigious northern title in June 1652 only increased his standing in that region. In the summer of 1653 he was selected to sit for Yorkshire in the short-lived Nominated Assembly and on 1 Nov. 1653 he was elected by his fellow Members, with 56 votes, to sit on the council of state. He attended almost two-thirds of the council’s meetings before the Nominated Assembly dissolved itself in December.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Eure’s loyalty to Cromwell benefited him after the Protectorate was established. He was elected for the North Riding in the first Protectorate Parliament of 1654 and was again elected for the North Riding in the Parliament of 1656. In December 1657 he and his fellow Yorkshire peers Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, were summoned by Cromwell to the ‘Other House’. Eure and Fauconberg were the only two members of the ‘old’ hereditary peerage who actually sat in that assembly, attending it on its first day, 20 Jan. 1658. A hostile commentator described Eure at this time as ‘a gentleman of Yorkshire, not very bulky or imperious for a lord’ and ascribed his selection to ‘the Protector being so well satisfied with his principles, and easiness … to be wrought up to do whatever their will and pleasure is, and to say, No, when they would have him’.<sup>15</sup> Eure also sat in Richard Cromwell’s ‘Other House’ from late January to mid-March 1659 and continued to act as a militia commissioner and officer in Yorkshire after the army coup against the Protectorate in April.<sup>16</sup></p><p>At the time of the Convention, Wharton, drawing up his list of potential members of the House, marked Eure as one of only six peers who had actually ‘sat in both houses’ (considering the Other House as a House of Lords) during the preceding twenty years. Despite this highly compromised past, Eure did not notably suffer at the Restoration and maintained his prominent place in the society and governance of the North Riding, continuing to be placed on the commissions of the peace for the region.<sup>17</sup> He could count among his neighbours his fellow Cromwellians and members of the ‘Other House’ Fauconberg, now lord lieutenant of the North Riding, and his second cousin, Charles Howard*, ennobled by Charles II in the coronation honours as earl of Carlisle. Such connections did not mitigate Eure’s greatest handicap: poverty. When Fauconberg sent to Whitehall a valuation of the estates of the nobility of his lieutenancy, with the view of assessing their contribution to the militia, Eure’s name was not even included.<sup>18</sup> And despite his name and the family’s long establishment at Malton, Eure exercised no electoral influence in that parliamentary borough, which was controlled by his second cousins, who actually possessed the estate.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Similarly, in the House of Lords he was one of the most constant attenders of the House for many years, yet he was never a leading figure or entrusted with political responsibilities. Perhaps at first trying to gauge the mood of the royal government to former Cromwellian collaborators, he waited until after the autumn adjournment of the Convention to take his seat in the House, sitting for the first time on 6 Nov. 1660, and being present for 78 per cent of the meetings of the House in the last two months of 1660. He maintained the same attendance rate in the Cavalier Parliament in the spring and summer of 1661 before the long adjournment. In early July Wharton forecast that Eure would oppose the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of the great chamberlaincy. Eure left the House on 18 July and two days later registered his proxy with another former Cromwellian military leader, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, for the final ten days of the session.</p><p>From 20 Nov. 1661 Eure attended 87 per cent of the remaining meetings of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament until he was granted leave on 29 Apr. 1662 ‘to go into the country for some time’. He was named to a select committee on the bill concerning bankrupts on 13 Feb. 1662 and was placed on a further 14 select committees before his departure from the House. Most of these were for private bills dealing with the sale or settlement of estates or the payment of debts, but he was also placed on committees dealing with bills to improve Sedgemoor, to regulate the import of wool cards and madder, and to repair Dover harbour. On 10 Apr. 1662 he chaired the meeting of the committee for a bill on the manufacture of cloth, which he adjourned to the following Monday – his only recorded committee chairmanship.<sup>20</sup> Considering his parliamentarian past, it is intriguing that he was appointed on 25 Apr. 1662 to the committee for the distribution of £60,000 to former royalist officers. On the very next day his military experience in the north was called on when he was named to the committee for the bill to prevent rapine on the northern borders.</p><p>Eure was concerned in another northern matter when on 15 Feb. 1662 he joined a delegation of peers from that region, led by Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, to the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, to assure him of their opposition to the bill for the re-establishment of the council of the North, ‘as believing it not for the service of the king or good of the country’.<sup>21</sup> It was probably Eure’s Cromwellian past which led him to oppose the attempt of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to reclaim by legislation land in Lancashire which during the Protectorate he had conveyed by legal methods. Although Eure’s name does not appear among the signatories to the formal protest of 6 Feb. 1662 against the passage of the bill restoring Derby’s land, a later list drawn up by James Butler*, earl of Brecknock (better known by his Irish, and later also English, title of duke of Ormond), of protesters and general opponents to Derby’s bill does include Eure’s name.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Eure came to all but one of the meetings of the session of 1663 and was named to 23 select committees; on 18 July he was nominated to be one of the commissioners to assess his fellow peers for the purposes of the Temporalty Subsidy bill. In July 1663 Wharton listed him as one of those peers expected to support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. This forecast is one of the few surviving indicators of Eure’s stance in the House, of which he became an almost constant member. From this point until his death in 1672 he attended every session of Parliament – except for the short sessions of October 1665 and July 1667 – and his attendance in any one session never dropped below 84 per cent.</p><p>During his entire career, nominations to select committees on (largely) private legislation were by far his principal, if not his sole, recorded activity in the House. From the time of his first nomination on 13 Feb. 1662 until 20 Apr. 1671 he was named to 194 select committees in total. Yet it is noteworthy that such an assiduous and visible member of the House did not make more of an impact. He was never entrusted with managing conferences and his level of activity in the many committees to which he was named is unknown. He only appears once in the committee minute books as a chair, on 10 Apr. 1662, and again only once in the Journal as a reporter of a bill from a committee, on 4 Apr. 1670.<sup>23</sup></p><p>From 1668 Eure did become more active in the House, or there is more evidence of it in the records. Already in the 1666–7 session he had been added, for the first time, to the committee for the Journal, and from December 1666 he began to sign pages of the manuscript drafts of the Journal approving their content on a regular basis. On 16 March 1668 he signed the protest against the House’s resolution to reverse the chancery decree in the case of <em>Morley v. Elwes</em>. Four days previously he had been placed on a committee to consider the relief to be granted to Thomas Skinner in the case of <em>Skinner v. East India Company</em>, and Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, later recorded that Eure was one of only nine peers who on 22 Feb. 1670 voted in the minority against the motion, strongly urged by the king, to have all records of the rancorous dispute between the Houses erased from the official Journal.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Barely a month later, on 26 Mar. 1670, he subscribed to the protest against the passage of the second Conventicle Act, and on 8 Apr. 1670 he similarly dissented from the passage of the bill settling a duty on brandy. The protest against the Conventicle Act in particular suggests that he had ‘Presbyterian’ sympathies, held over from his earlier political career in Cromwell’s ‘godly’ parliaments. This may explain Wharton’s earlier forecast of Eure’s support for the impeachment of Clarendon. It may also explain Eure’s placement on 24 July 1663 on the committee for the bill to offer relief to those clergy who had been unable (or unwilling) to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity. The long and pious preamble of his will of 15 Oct. 1672 suggests that he was still a ‘hotter sort’ of Protestant at the end of his life. On 25 Feb. 1671 he successfully petitioned the House for the suspension of a suit in Chancery brought in by John Carnesew which aimed to prevent Eure from felling timber, in his widowed aunt’s name, on the Herefordshire manors of Leinthall Starkes and Gatley Hall, to which Carnesew claimed title.</p><p>Among many other notables with Yorkshire estates, including Fauconberg and Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, Eure was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 27 Feb. 1672, on the recommendation of the Member for Aldborough and reader of Lincoln’s Inn, Sir Francis Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>. Eure did not live long thereafter to enjoy the honour, as he died in late October 1672. In his will he left approximately £300 to immediate family members and servants, and his executors were entrusted to pay off the arrears on his rented accommodation in London; he was apparently too poor to purchase a residence in the capital. He also bequeathed to his younger brother, executor and successor, Ralph Eure, who would become 7th Baron Eure, ‘my robes and coronation footcloth’, probably aware that the latter was even less able to afford such essential accoutrements of nobility than he had been himself.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
EURE, Ralph (c. 1625-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>EURE</surname></strong> (<strong>EWER</strong>), <strong>Ralph</strong> (c. 1625–1707)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. by 25 Oct. 1672 as 7th Bar. EURE |
|
First sat 4 Feb. 1673; last sat 22 June 1703 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1625, 3rd surv. s. of Horatio Eure, of Easby, Yorks. and Deborah, da. and coh. of John Brett, of Romney Marsh, Kent; bro. of George Eure*, 6th Bar. Eure. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 27 Apr. 1707; <em>admon</em>. 16 May 1707 to niece, Bathshua Lister, wid.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Ralph Eure succeeded to his elder brother’s barony in late 1672. His origins and activities before he was catapulted into the nobility are obscure. At the time of Eure’s death in 1707, Peter Le Neve, Norroy king-at-arms, wrote that ‘the title is extinct, and the estate before, for he had not above £100 p.a. Before the title came to him he was a journeyman to a woollen draper at £20 p.a. and his diet’. There is no surviving evidence to confirm or deny these lowly origins, but they are not inconceivable as Ralph Eure was a younger son from a cadet branch of the Eure family. He was undoubtedly poor, like his elder brother, whose debts he inherited.<sup>2</sup> By the 1690s he was in receipt of a regular pension from the court, and at the accession of Anne he had to write a begging letter to have it reinstated.<sup>3</sup> He may have had a better estate than his brother, for in 1674 he entered a claim to the manor of Leinthall Starkes and Gatley Park in Herefordshire, which had been in the possession of his uncle Sir Sampson Eure<sup>‡</sup>. These fell to him, so Eure claimed, at the death of his aunt, Martha Eure, in 1674. The claim was challenged, but by February 1675 Ralph was in possession of a deed of title to the Herefordshire estates.<sup>4</sup> He added these estates to the property in Easby in north Yorkshire inherited from his brother, but they did not make a significant difference to his financial situation nor did they confer local power in either Herefordshire or the North Riding. Even when a peer he was not entrusted with commissions or other responsibilities for these regions. Like his brother the main arena in which he could show he was a peer was in the House of Lords, and his attention was predominantly directed towards that body.</p><p>He was most active in the early days of his political life. From his first session, that of spring 1673, until the end of the first Exclusion Parliament in May 1679 he was present for at least three-quarters of each session. Yet even so he was not a leading figure in the House. Throughout his entire career he was never entrusted to manage a conference with the Commons. He was infrequently nominated to select committees – or certainly less so than his brother – and just over half of these were for private bills. From his first sitting on 4 Feb. 1673 until his last day of sitting in the second Exclusion Parliament he was nominated to 52 select committees, 27 of which involved private estate legislation or naturalization. Other committees to which he was named were concerned with issues such as protecting and preserving fishing, burying in woollen, and the well-governing of servants and apprentices. Perhaps reflecting his northern roots, he was nominated in February 1678 to the committee for a bill continuing the act against theft and rapine on the northern borders, which his elder brother may have helped frame when it first came before the House.</p><p>His political views are more discernible than those of his predecessor, and they were probably influenced by the same devout Presbyterian religion which had earlier led his elder brother to press for the passage of ‘godly’ legislation. From the spring session of 1675 Eure began to align his actions in the House with the country opposition led by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. From October 1675 he was named to a number of committees to examine legislation against ‘popery’ and its growth in England. Certainly, Eure showed himself hostile to the ‘Anglican’ policy of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), and particularly his proposed non-resisting Test Bill. Eure signed three protests on 21, 29 Apr. and 4 May concerning this bill’s progression in the House. He supported the motion to submit an address to the king calling for the dissolution of Parliament in November 1675 but was not present in the House for the actual division on that motion, nor was he available to sign the protest when the motion was rejected.</p><p>In his analysis of the political views of the lay peers, drawn up around May 1677, Shaftesbury considered Eure ‘worthy’. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. In November 1678 Eure voted that a refusal to make the declaration against transubstantiation should incur the same penalties as those for the other oaths provided for in the Test bill and was one of the few lords who, during the Popish Plot panic, voted to agree with the Commons that the queen should be removed from court as she was suspected of conspiring in the king’s death. On 23 Dec. he protested at the resolution that Danby did not need to withdraw after the reading of the articles of impeachment proceedings; on 26 Dec. he voted against the Lords’ amendment that the money raised for the disbandment of the Army be placed in the exchequer rather than the chamber of London and entered a protest when the House insisted on this.</p><p>In the Exclusion Parliaments Eure joined with the opposition in attacking Danby, the bishops and James Stuart*, duke of York, and in supporting the Commons in some of their more extreme measures against these targets. He voted for the attainder of Danby and supported proposals to have active consultation with the Commons on his trial procedure and to exclude the bishops from pronouncing judgment in his case, registering his dissent when these plans were rejected by the House.<sup>5</sup> On 27 May 1679 he voted against adhering to an earlier vote that the lords spiritual had a right to stay in court in capital cases until judgment of death came to be pronounced. During the long series of prorogations that delayed the assembling of the second Exclusion Parliament, Eure was one of the 16 lords who signed the petition calling for an immediate summoning of Parliament, which was presented to the king by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntington, on 6 Dec. 1679. When that Parliament finally did meet in October 1680 he supported the exclusion of the duke of York from the throne and voted against the rejection of the Exclusion bill, entering his protest when the bill was thrown out on 15 November. He found the Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. He did not join the opposition on every occasion, withholding his subscription to the protests against the decisions not to commit or suspend Chief Justice Scroggs pending his impeachment.</p><p>Eure was also a signatory to the petition of January 1681 requesting the king not to convene the next Parliament in Oxford, and he did not attend that Parliament in March 1681.<sup>6</sup> He does not appear to have taken part in the political agitation or conspiracies against the court and York in the 1680s and sat in James II’s brief Parliament in 1685, in which he was nominated to just one committee on Deeping Fen. He signed a protest on 4 June 1685 against the reversal of Stafford’s attainder, and his contemporaries consistently placed him among those peers opposed to a repeal of the Test Acts. He did not take an active role in the Revolution of 1688, although on 14 and 15 Dec. 1688 he sat as a member of the provisional government of peers meeting in London during James II’s first abortive flight.<sup>7</sup> On 31 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen of England, and over the following days he voted in favour of the words used by the Commons in their vote, that James II had ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is vacant’, registering his protest on 31 Jan., and 4 Feb. when the House rejected that wording. Eure maintained his high level of commitment to the House throughout the Convention and the first session of the 1690 Parliament, attending at least two-thirds of their sittings. During this period, from 22 Jan. 1689 to 23 May 1690, he was named to only 20 committees, half of them on private bills, as well as committees for the bills to reverse the attainders of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney.</p><p>Eure participated in the House’s proceedings far less frequently after May 1690. On average he sat in only a third of the meetings of each session of the House during the remainder of William III’s Parliaments, and stopped attending altogether shortly after the accession of Anne. He assigned his first ever proxy on 9 Feb. 1692 to Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas of Shenfield, although this was vacated by Eure’s return to the House eight days later. He continued to sit intermittently in the House without assigning proxies for most of the rest of the decade, but he entrusted his vote to John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, on 13 Apr. 1698, which remained in force until the end of the session on 5 July 1698.</p><p>In the Convention Eure voted consistently with the Whigs, largely out of personal conviction, judging by his previous actions in the Exclusion Parliaments. He voted on 31 May 1689 to reverse the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates and entered his protest when that motion was rejected. When the Lords’ amendments to the bill, which would have disallowed Oates from ever testifying in court again, were being voted on, Eure, who was not present in the chamber at the beginning of the sitting, was ‘sent to and desired to be present’, probably by the Whigs who were in the minority in this division; Eure dutifully voted against the punitive amendments.<sup>8</sup> On 14 Jan. 1690 he dissented from the resolution that it was the peers’ ancient right to be tried in full Parliament for capital offences, and on 13 May he dissented from the resolution not to allow the Corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel.</p><p>In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 by the marquess of Carmarthen (formerly the earl of Danby), Eure was accounted as an opponent of the court. But in later Parliaments his adherence to the Whigs was tempered by an allegiance to the court. He was undoubtedly influenced by the pension he received from the king’s bounty from at least 1691 and perhaps earlier: on 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment, ‘I think he hath a pension’.<sup>9</sup> In 1691 Eure was listed as in receipt of £100 from the royal bounty and similar payments continued throughout the remainder of William’s reign and even increased to £200 by 1697.<sup>10</sup> The court’s influence can perhaps be seen in his voting pattern in the place bill in the winter of the 1692-3 session. Many Whigs supported the bill which was bitterly opposed by the court. At first Eure appears to have supported the bill. He voted to commit it on 31 Dec. 1692, but at its third reading three days later he voted against it. In January 1693 he voted for the first reading of the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and the following month found the Whig Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. In February 1694 he voted against reversing the chancery’s dismissal of the case concerning the Albemarle inheritance brought by Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu against John Granville*, earl of Bath. In December 1696 he voted in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. In 1700 he opposed the old East India Company and registered his dissent, on 23 Feb. 1700 against the passage of the bill re-constituting it as a corporation. He again showed his support for the court and ministerial Whigs when he voted for the acquittals of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford in June 1701.</p><p>The first session of Anne’s Parliament was the last in which Eure sat. Nevertheless, he was present on 16 Jan. 1703 for the division on the amendments to the penalty clause of the occasional conformity bill and voted with the Whigs to adhere to them, thus ensuring the bill’s defeat in the Commons. He is also listed as voting by proxy against the second occasional conformity bill on 14 Dec. 1703. From 4 Nov. 1704 to the prorogation on 14 Mar. 1705 Eure’s proxy was registered with Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, who would have ensured that Eure’s vote continued to be cast for the Whigs. Illness kept Eure from the House, as he made clear to the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, in a letter of 30 May 1705, when he apologized for not attending the last two sessions due to ‘sickness and sores’. In the same letter Eure begged for a continuation of the pension he had received for so many years, upon receiving which he promised he ‘would never give further trouble’. Anne later authorized £100 from the secret service fund to be paid to this indigent noble.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Eure died intestate on 27 Apr. 1707. His estate was entrusted to the administration of his niece, Bathshua Lister, daughter of his sister Deborah Pickering. With no children and no surviving male heirs from any of the closest branches of the family the title was presumed to be extinct, although only a few days after Eure’s death Luttrell was recording that ‘It’s said Peter Eure, of the bishopric of Durham, succeeds the Lord Eure in his honour and estate’.<sup>12</sup> There was some question of whether a male heir could be traced if the heralds went all the way back to younger sons of the 1st Baron Eure, but this was apparently not pursued and Ralph Eure was the last of that title.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
FANE, Charles (1635-91) |
<p><strong><surname>FANE</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1635–91)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1635-66 Bar. Le Despenser; <em>suc. </em>fa. 12 Feb. 1666 as 3rd earl of WESTMORLAND |
|
First sat 21 Sept. 1666; last sat 23 May 1690 |
|
MP Peterborough 1660, 1661-6. |
<p><em>b</em>. 6 Jan. 1635, 1st s. of Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, and 1st w. Grace, da. of Sir William Thornhurst, of Agnes Court, Kent; half-bro. of Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland. <em>educ</em>. Emmanuel, Camb. 18 Sept. 1649; travelled abroad (France and Low Countries) 1652-4.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 15 June 1665 (with £8,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth, (<em>d</em>.1669?)<sup>3</sup> da. and h. of Charles Nodes (Noads) of Shephalbury, Herts., <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>; (2) by 1674 (with £10,000)<sup>4</sup> Dorothy Brudenell (<em>d</em>.1740) da. of Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 18 Sept. 1691; <em>will</em> 23 Oct. 1690, pr. 5 Mar. 1692.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Northants. c. Aug. 1660-6; commr. assessment, Northants. Aug. 1660-6, Hunts. 1664-6, oyer and terminer, Nassaborough July 1660; capt. vol. horse Northants. Nov. 1660;<sup>6</sup> kpr. Cliffe bailiwick, Rockingham Forest 1682-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
|
<p>Dismissed by the French ambassador, de Ruvigny, as ‘a fairly stupid man’, Westmorland’s management of the family estates did nothing to contradict this assessment.<sup>8</sup> On the death of his father, he had inherited a considerable fortune with lands lying principally in Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent and Cambridge; during his tenure of the earldom he succeeded in squandering much of this inheritance leaving, according to a later holder of the title, Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, but half of what had come to his hands.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Before his elevation to the peerage, Le Despenser (as he was then styled) was an inactive member of the Commons and holder of a number of local offices.<sup>10</sup> As a deputy lieutenant for Northamptonshire he was involved in reducing the city walls, for which the king commended him and his fellow deputies.<sup>11</sup> In 1664 he was noted as a court dependant.<sup>12</sup> Through family connection Westmorland was part of a particularly prominent local elite in Northamptonshire, closely associated with Cardigan and Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton.</p><p>Westmorland took his seat on 21 Sept. 1666, after which he was present on just under a third of all sitting days. On 9 Oct. he was nominated to the committee for Lady Elizabeth Noel’s bill and on 28 Nov. to that considering Sir Richard Franklin’s bill. Having failed to attend the brief session of July 1667, he resumed his place in the following session on 6 November. Present on less than a quarter of all sitting days, he was named to two committees that month, and on 13 Dec. he was added to the committee considering the bill for taxing the Great Level of the fens but was named to no further committees during the session. Westmorland then attended ten days of the brief 36-day session at the close of 1669, before resuming his seat in the ensuing session on 10 Mar. 1670, of which he attended just over ten per cent of all sitting days. On 30 Mar. he was nominated to the committee considering the Yarmouth Harbour bill, and the same day he was also named to the committee for Perkins’ bill, but there is no evidence to suggest he was active in the deliberations of either committee. Absent from the House between 17 and 29 Mar., on 19 Mar. Westmorland registered his proxy with his Northamptonshire neighbour, John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter. The proxy was noted as having been vacated on 25 Mar., four days before Westmorland’s resumption of his seat. He was then absent once more from early April until 5 December. On 16 Nov. the House learned that Westmorland complained of a breach of privilege. The matter was referred to the committee for privileges, but on 24 Nov. William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, reported that they were unable to proceed as Westmorland had failed to give them details of the case. Westmorland’s agents then advised the House of the details of the dispute between the earl and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, that had resulted in Westmorland being dispossessed of the manor of Aldenham. On 15 Dec. the Lords ruled that Westmorland could not claim privilege as he had held the manor in trust. The case was described dismissively by Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, in his diary that day, Burlington noting that Holles had succeeded in making Westmorland’s case appear entirely ‘frivolous’.<sup>13</sup> No doubt disgruntled at his failure here, Westmorland retreated for the remainder of the session, giving his proxy in March 1671 to another neighbour, his future father-in-law, Cardigan. Although Westmorland attended the single sitting day of 16 Apr. 1672, he failed to resume his seat in the ensuing session, contenting himself instead with registering his proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath, on 12 Feb. 1673. The proxy was vacated by the session’s close, and Westmorland then resumed his seat for just one day of the cursory four-day session of October 1673.</p><p>Westmorland took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Jan. 1674 when he presented to the House a petition drawn up on behalf of Cardigan’s grandson, Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, complaining of the adulterous relationship between George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and Shrewsbury’s mother.<sup>14</sup> Following the death of his first wife, probably in 1669, Westmorland had married Cardigan’s daughter, Lady Dorothy Brudenell, sister to the countess of Shrewsbury, which explains his interest in the affair. The petition resulted in a fine for both the duke and the countess and their undertaking to cease all communication with each other. Westmorland proceeded to attend on approximately 87 per cent of all sitting days in the session, but he was named to just one committee. His increasing identification with the opposition grouping in the House may well be reflected in the fact that on 27 Jan. 1674 he was entrusted with the proxy of John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, which was vacated shortly after on 3 February. It was certainly from about this time that Westmorland began to support opposition measures.</p><p>Having failed to attend the session of April 1675, Westmorland resumed his seat a fortnight into the subsequent session on 4 Nov. 1675, attending on 13 of its 21 sitting days. On 20 Nov. Westmorland voted in favour of the address for dissolving Parliament, entering his protest when it was rejected. Local connections may well have been the cause of his appointment to the committee considering the bill for rebuilding the devastated town of Northampton the same day, but he was otherwise named to just one further committee during the session.</p><p>Westmorland returned to the House in the following session on 7 Mar. 1677, after which he was present on 17 per cent of all sitting days and was again named to just one committee. He was noted ‘worthy’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, that year, and on 15 Mar. he and his brother, Sir Vere Fane (later 4th earl of Westmorland), were given permission to visit the lords in the Tower. Westmorland appears to have spent the autumn in partnership with Hatton tackling local problems in Rockingham forest.<sup>15</sup> He was again absent from the House for the summer session of 1678 but then resumed his place in the subsequent session on 2 November. Although he was present on just under 73 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to just two committees. On 23 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to insist that Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), withdraw following the reading of the articles of impeachment against him. Three days later (26 Dec.) he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the disbanding bill, entering his dissent when the motion was carried. The following day he voted in favour of committing Danby and again protested when the motion was rejected.</p><p>In advance of the meeting of the new Parliament, Westmorland was variously assessed by Danby in a series of forecasts for the anticipated proceedings against him as a likely opponent, unreliable or doubtful. Westmorland attended five days of the abortive session of March 1679 before resuming his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 15 March. Present on 70 per cent of all sitting days in the session, Westmorland was noted among those voting in favour of the early stages of the Danby attainder at the beginning of April, and on 4 Apr. he voted in favour of passing the bill. Ten days later he voted to agree with the Commons in supporting the attainder. Excused at a call on 9 May he resumed his place the following day when he voted in favour of appointing a committee to meet with the Commons to determine the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. He then subscribed the protest when the motion was rejected and dissented again on 23 May, first at the resolution to instruct the Lords’ committee meeting with the Commons that the Lords would give no other answer regarding the bishops’ right to vote in the forthcoming trials, and second at the resolution to proceed with the trials of the five impeached lords before trying Danby. On 27 May he voted against adhering to an earlier vote that the lords spiritual had the right to remain in the court in capital cases until judgment of death came to be pronounced.</p><p>Westmorland returned to the House for the opening of the subsequent Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to two committees. His attitude to exclusion remains somewhat unclear. Although he voted against putting the question to reject the bill at first reading on 15 Nov., he was then listed as having supported rejecting the measure at first reading in the subsequent vote the same day. Given that he supported other opposition measures such as voting in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom on 23 Nov. (subscribing the protest when the motion was rejected) and that he found Viscount Stafford guilty of treason the following month on 7 Dec., it may be reasonable to conclude that he was sympathetic to the cause of exclusion even if he found the bill presented to the House unacceptable.<sup>16</sup> On 18 Dec. he registered a further dissent at the resolution to reject a proviso drawn up by the Commons exempting trials on impeachment from the bill for regulating the trials of peers. On 7 Jan. 1681 he protested again at the resolution not to put the question whether the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs should be committed upon the articles of impeachment brought up from the Commons, although his name does not appear in the Journal.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Despite his previous opposition to Danby, Westmorland was assessed as likely to be neutral in the anticipated division on Danby’s bail in March 1681. He resumed his seat at the opening of the Parliament held at Oxford on 21 Mar. 1681 and attended on each of its seven days. On 26 Mar. he protested against the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than by parliamentary impeachment, and he was subsequently one of the ‘great concourse of persons of quality’ to attend Fitzharris’s trial in June.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Westmorland’s finances appear to have become increasingly problematic from the mid-1670s onwards and may in part explain his move towards the opposition. On 10 July 1674 a new settlement was drawn up between Westmorland, his countess and her father, Cardigan, to ensure the payment of her annuity following Westmorland’s conveyance of a number of his estates to Sir John Brownlow<sup>‡</sup> for £18,074 the previous month.<sup>19</sup> In February 1676 Westmorland was forced to appeal to his agent in London, William Bellamy, for £50, his ‘word and credit lying at stake’, and in 1679 he was reduced to offering to sell his horse to Hatton for 30 guineas.<sup>20</sup> Gambling was perhaps one of the causes of Westmorland’s pecuniary embarrassment. In 1681 he wrote to Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, attributing his recent losses to ‘being so highly elevated with your wine’ and pleading with the duke to accept the £500 he had already paid him, presumably in lieu of whatever greater debts he owed, which appear to have amounted to 2,350 guineas.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Westmorland took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, after which he was present on 73 per cent of all sitting days and was named to seven committees. The new king’s accession offered Westmorland little prospect of relief. Although Princess Anne undertook to recommend his countess to the king and queen’s notice later that year, Lady Westmorland was soon after the subject of scandal amid rumours that she had been found in bed with Robert Constable, 3rd Viscount Dunbar [S], and that she had been ordered back to the country by her cuckolded husband.<sup>22</sup> The following year Westmorland was the subject of further humiliation when he was removed from the commission of the peace in Northamptonshire. In January and November 1687 Westmorland was included among those believed to be opposed to repeal of the Test, and in May of that year he was noted among those opposed to the king’s policies. In January 1688 he was again noted among those opposed to repeal of the Test, and the same month he was added to a list drawn up by Danby of those peers believed to be in opposition to the king. Although he possessed a private copy of the unlicensed pamphlet composed by Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, which set out ‘to prove the Church of Rome guilty of stupid idolatry’, Westmorland does not appear to have been averse to wielding his influence on behalf of those known to him, irrespective of their religion. In February 1684 he had stood surety of £5,000 along with Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, and Sir John Talbot<sup>‡</sup> for the Catholic peer John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, and in October of that year he had appealed to Hatton to intervene on behalf of William Smith who was being prosecuted for recusancy.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Westmorland’s removal from the commission of the peace appears to have left him vulnerable and reliant on the good grace of his neighbour, Hatton. In 1687 both Westmorland and his servants had been the subject of some abuse, and on 5 Feb. 1687 he wrote to Hatton to see that those responsible were apprehended, explaining that ‘our corner is so barren of justices of the peace’ and that he was unable to see to the matter himself having ‘not wholly performed the rest of the ceremony belonging to the employment.’ Hatton evidently did as he was asked, but on 29 Apr. Westmorland troubled him for further assistance having discovered that ‘I have been abused much more than the fellows confessed.’<sup>24</sup> Two years later Westmorland was once more compelled to turn to Hatton, on this occasion to seek the release of one Bond who had been imprisoned on his ‘score’ but who he now wished to see at liberty.<sup>25</sup> Such evidence suggests that Westmorland was at best a bungler and at worst, as Ruvigny had concluded, stupid.</p><p>Despite his opposition to the king’s policies, Westmorland’s activities during the Revolution are somewhat unclear. A report published in the <em>London Gazette</em> related that he, Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Huntingtower (later 3rd earl of Dysart [S]), Danby and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, had all ‘offered their services to the king.’<sup>26</sup> Westmorland protested that he was incapacitated by gout but promised Thomas Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Middleton [S], that as soon as he was, ‘dismissed from this unruly companion … I shall be ready to attend his majesty with all dutifulness either with myself and servants alone or with more if I receive his majesty’s command.’<sup>27</sup> His indisposition may well have been in part diplomatic. A report sent to the States General by the Dutch envoy Dijkvelt at the close of November mentioned Westmorland as one of those in arms for the Prince of Orange at Nottingham; he was similarly included in a list of those said to be in arms for the prince early the following month.<sup>28</sup> Westmorland denied this in a letter to Hatton, and true to form he seems to have been eager to follow Hatton’s lead. Thus, when he eventually travelled to London in December 1688, it was in Hatton’s coach.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Although he was described as being ‘very ill’ on 8 Jan. 1689, Westmorland proved well enough to take his seat at the opening of the Convention after which he was present on 18 per cent of all sitting days (he ceased to attend after 2 March).<sup>30</sup> He was named to two committees and on 4 and 6 Feb. was also nominated one of the managers of four conferences concerned with the wording to be used with respect to James II’s desertion or abdication. On 29 Jan. he voted in support of the resolution that the formation of a regency was the best way of preserving the nation, and two days later he voted against declaring William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’, and again voted against adopting the Commons’ terms two days later.</p><p>Despite his reluctance to support the accession of the new king and queen, in the elections for the new Parliament the following year Westmorland was reported to have been active in promoting the Whig candidates in Northamptonshire, St Andrew St John<sup>‡</sup> and John Parkhurst<sup>‡</sup>. The news prompted Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to ask Hatton to write to his friend, presumably to encourage him to redirect his interest elsewhere.<sup>31</sup> Absent at the opening of the new Parliament, Westmorland took his place on 8 Apr. 1690, after which he was present on 43 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to two committees. Westmorland protested against the passage of the bill recognizing William and Mary as king and queen on 8 Apr., and two days later he protested again at the resolution to expunge the former protest from the Journal.</p><p>Westmorland sat for the final time on 23 May 1690. A newsletter of 17 Sept. 1691 reported that he was dying but that Shrewsbury had been turned back from visiting the stricken lord on hearing that he was ‘somewhat better’.<sup>32</sup> The improvement proved only fleeting and he succumbed the following day. The cause of his demise appears to have been apoplexy brought on by excessive drinking.<sup>33</sup> In the absence of any children of his own, he was succeeded in the peerage by his half-brother, Sir Vere Fane.</p><p>In his will of 23 Oct. 1690 Westmorland directed that he should be buried at Apethorpe, ‘without any pomp or funeral expense extraordinary.’<sup>34</sup> A lavish funeral would have been out of the question in any case as Westmorland died heavily in debt, his estates mortgaged.<sup>35</sup> The state of his finances was sufficiently summarized by his response to a request to provide a self-assessment in September 1689. He replied that he ‘never yet knew what it was to be out of debt since I came to my estate.’<sup>36</sup> Westmorland requested that part of his Huntingdonshire estate should be sold to discharge the mortgage on the rest of his lands there. In March 1692 administration was granted to the new earl, as his predecessor’s executors, Shrewsbury and Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, had renounced execution.<sup>37</sup> Westmorland’s widow, reputed to be a zealous supporter of the Pretender, survived her husband by almost 50 years and later married her former lover, Dunbar.<sup>38</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FANE, Mildmay (1602-66) |
<p><strong><surname>FANE</surname></strong>, <strong>Mildmay</strong> (1602–66)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1624-26 Bar. Burghersh; <em>styled </em>1626-28 Bar. Le Despenser; <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Mar. 1629 as 2nd earl of WESTMORLAND |
|
First sat 20 Feb. 1641; first sat after 1660, 12 May 1660; last sat 17 May 1664 |
|
MP Peterborough 1621, Kent 1625, Peterborough 1626, 1628 |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Jan. 1602, 1st s. of Sir Francis Fane<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Westmorland), and Mary Mildmay (<em>d</em>.1640), da. of Sir Anthony Mildmay, of Apethorpe; bro. of George Fane<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Emmanuel, Camb. 1618, MA 1619; travelled abroad (France) ?1620, (France, Italy, Switzerland) 1622-5;<sup>1</sup> L. Inn 1622. <em>m</em>. (1) 6 July 1626, Grace (<em>d</em>.1636), da. of Sir William Thornhurst of Agnes Court, Old Romney, Kent, 1s. 5da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>);<sup>2</sup> (2) 21 June 1638, Mary (<em>d</em>.1669), da. of Horace Vere<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Vere of Tilbury, wid. of Sir Roger Townshend<sup>‡</sup>, bt., 3s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 6da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>3</sup> KB 1 Feb.1626. <em>d</em>. 12 Feb. 1666; <em>will</em> 20 Sept. 1662, pr. 17 May 1666.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Maidstone 1617; dep. lt. Northants. by 1627; commr. array Northants. and Kent 1642;<sup>5</sup> capt. vol. horse Northants. c.1660; ld. lt. (jt.) Northants. 1660-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. of horse (roy.) 1642.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by P. Williamson (1662), NPG 8277.</p> |
<p>The Fane family originated in Monmouthshire but had settled in Kent by the early sixteenth century. Although the 1st earl’s marriage to Mary Mildmay of Apethorpe brought the family new estates and established him as one of the most significant Northamptonshire magnates, the union also brought with it conflicting religious loyalties: the Mildmays being staunchly puritan, the Fanes creatures of the court. During James I’s reign Apethorpe became a centre of political activity, and it was there that James I was said to have been introduced to George Villiers<sup>†</sup> (later duke of Buckingham).</p><p>Le Despenser succeeded his father as earl of Westmorland in 1629. During the following decade he acquired a number of local offices while, through his second marriage, he was brought into close contact with prominent opposition figures. The Veres were cousins to the Harley family and the new Lady Westmorland’s sister, Anne, was married to Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S].<sup>6</sup></p><p>Despite his new connections, Westmorland was a determined (though not uncritical) royalist in the years leading up to the Civil War. On the outbreak of hostilities he initially took his stand with the king, serving as a captain in the Prince of Wales’ Regiment of Horse, but following his capture and imprisonment in the Tower in 1642 he broke with the royalists and concentrated on making his peace with Parliament and securing his property.<sup>7</sup> Following the collapse of one attempt to resolve the conflict Westmorland wrote to his cousin Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>,</p><blockquote><p>I wish I were but a hewer of wood or a water tanker in this great work begun of reformation wherein the devil and wicked men cause yet so great many rubs … I am sorry the treaty ends without beginning, the summer will be the hotter if God (who alone can) prevent not.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote><p>Westmorland was fined £2,000 and his estates were sequestered for delinquency, but in 1643 he petitioned to be released from his imprisonment in the Tower and restored to favour.<sup>9</sup> The following year he compounded for £1,000.<sup>10</sup> He retired to Apethorpe where he concentrated on the composition of dramatic lampoons, many directed against his brother-in-law, Fairfax.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Westmorland may have been peripherally involved with the Sealed Knot, but it seems unlikely that he took a particularly prominent part in any royalist plotting. He does, though, appear to have fallen victim to a confidence trick perpetrated by a Mr. Brett, who claimed to be collecting funds for the exiled Charles II. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, wondered that ‘any friends should be so cheated’ but commented witheringly that while he was ‘glad that good earl has so much respect for the king … even if he parts freely with his money to such people … he has never sent any to the king himself.’<sup>12</sup></p><p>In advance of the summoning of the Convention, Westmorland was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of the peers ‘with the king’. Westmorland took his place in the House on 12 May 1660, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days prior to the adjournment, but he seems to have made little impact on the House’s business. On 14 May he was added to the committee for petitions, but he appears otherwise to have been named to just one committee, that for the bill for the encouragement of shipping and navigation on 6 September. On 31 July, when the House was called over, although he was missing from the attendance list, his name did not appear on the list of missing peers either, so it seems likely that he took his seat late. He failed to resume his place after the September adjournment and was then absent for the entirety of the second session of the Convention because of poor health.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Despite his ambiguous behaviour during the preceding two decades, following the Restoration Westmorland was, with John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, appointed joint lord lieutenant for Northamptonshire. Perhaps significantly, Robert Brudenell*, later 2nd earl of Cardigan and son to Westmorland’s old comrade, was included as one of the officers in Westmorland’s own militia troop.<sup>14</sup> Shortly before the coronation (which he failed to attend) he wrote to Brudenell, critical of the latest round of new honours, commenting that</p><blockquote><p>The glory now preparing is not <em>in excelsis</em>, which my age and infirmities make me more look after. The distribution of honours has brought on contempt. I wear Spanish breeches, so need no garters, and for the Bath I have been in friar’s weeds and a knight already … for claims, I renounce them all, but to be able to serve my God, my king, my country, and my friend …<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>For all Westmorland’s apparent disgruntlement, his appointment as joint lord lieutenant in Northamptonshire is indicative of the king’s confidence in him, and Westmorland and Exeter appeared eager to fulfil their task efficiently.<sup>16</sup> Northamptonshire, strongly populated by dissenters, had been steadfastly parliamentarian, and Westmorland and Exeter appear to have been vigorous in executing their commissions. In January 1661 the two lieutenants wrote to the council boasting that, ‘there is not a man known to be of evil principles or … [who], has shown himself … to bear any disaffection to his majesty … but we have disarmed and secured them.’<sup>17</sup> In 1662 Westmorland was paid £50 from secret service funds to organize the dismantling of Northampton’s walls, though the two lieutenants complained that £500 would scarcely cover the costs involved.<sup>18</sup> In the event Westmorland was able to report that the dismantling of the walls had almost been completed towards the end of July and the task was accomplished for £148.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Westmorland took his place shortly after the opening of the new Parliament on 14 May 1661, after which he was present on just 20 per cent of all sitting days. His participation in the House’s business appears again to have continued to have been minimal, and he was named to just three committees. On 19 July he was named to that considering the Militia bill and the bill for preserving deer and on 27 July to the committee for the bill for preventing disorderly printing. On the question of who would be appointed to the lord great chamberlainship Westmorland commented, ‘The contest for the white staff I guess will be canvassable, yet I reserve my voice as I told Lindsey [Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey], my self <em>secundum</em> <em>alegata</em> & <em>probate</em> [according to allegation and proof].’<sup>20</sup> Clearly, Westmorland was unimpressed by Lindsey’s blandishments, and in an assessment of 11 July Westmorland was noted instead as one of those likely to support the claims of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford.</p><p>Missing at a call of the House of 25 Nov. 1661, on 9 Dec. Westmorland registered his proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath. It was presumably this absence from the latter stages of the session to which he referred in a letter to his stepson, Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, (merely dated 23 Mar.) in which he stated that he had registered his proxy as he was too unwell to attend.<sup>21</sup> Both Westmorland and Exeter may also have been distracted by the demands of their lieutenancy at this time. They complained that their deputies had been too slow in settling the militia and that they expected speedier progress. The deputies’ failure to oversee their task may have been in part the result of the two lieutenants being incapacitated by ‘the ague’ and ‘the gout’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In addition to his concerns with his lieutenancy, Westmorland also maintained an interest in Emmanuel Cambridge, which had been founded by one of his forebears. At the beginning of November 1662 he wrote to the newly appointed master, William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, to congratulate him on his appointment and to recommend to his care his youngest son, Henry.<sup>23</sup> Absent for the entirety of the second session, Westmorland was excused his attendance on 23 Feb. 1663, and he appears to have continued indisposed throughout the year. Excused once more on 4 Apr. 1664 he resumed his place eventually in the third session on 5 May 1664, but he was thereafter present on only ten sitting days (just under 28 per cent of the whole), during which he was named to two committees, both on 9 May. It is unclear whether he played a significant role in either. Westmorland sat for the final time on 17 May 1664. At a call on 7 Dec. it was noted that he intended to send a proxy to cover his absence, which was again registered with Bath, on 27 December.</p><p>Westmorland died on 12 Feb. 1666 and was buried at Apethorpe. In his will Westmorland made provision for portions of £3,000 apiece to his daughters Katherine and Susanna and an annuity of £200 for his younger son, Henry. He left it to his heir, Charles Fane*, styled Lord Le Despenser, who succeeded in the peerage as 3rd earl of Westmorland, to see to it that another daughter, Frances, received her unpaid portion of £2,500. Concluding, Westmorland admonished his family to,</p><blockquote><p>live in amity and godly love one with another that they may accord and be consonant to that ditty the princely prophet warbled out: Behold how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to live together in unity which god of his goodness grant them grace to do.</p></blockquote> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FANE, Thomas (1683-1736) |
<p><strong><surname>FANE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1683–1736)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 19 May 1699 (a minor) as 6th earl of WESTMORLAND |
|
First sat 6 Nov. 1704; last sat 19 May 1736 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Oct. 1683, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, and Rachel, da. of John Bence, alderman of London; bro. of Vere Fane*, 5th earl of Westmorland, John Fane*, 7th earl of Westmorland, and Mildmay Fane<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Mr Taylor’s sch., Darenth, Kent c.1693-4; Eton c.1694-7; sch. at Kensington c.1697; travelled abroad (The Hague) 1699-1702.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (lic. 14 June 1707) Katherine (<em>d</em>. 1730), da. and h. of Thomas Stringer of Sharleston, Yorks., wid. of Richard Beaumont of Whitley, Yorks. (<em>d</em>.1704), <em>s.</em>p.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 4 July 1736; <em>will</em> 11 Apr. 1734, pr. 7 July 1736.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber, Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, 1704-1708;<sup>4</sup> PC 16 Apr. 1717-<em>d</em>.; first ld. of trade and foreign plantations, 1719-35.</p><p>Dep. warden, Cinque Ports 1705-8; dep. gov., Dover Castle 1705-8;<sup>5</sup> master forester and kpr. of Cliff Bailiwick, forest of Rockingham, Northants. 1705-<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> <em>custos rot</em>., Northants. 1715-35;<sup>7</sup> c.j. in eyre, Trent N. 1716-19.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Vol. in the <em>Resolution</em> c.1697-99.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Gov., York Buildings Co. 1720-1.<sup>10</sup></p> |
|
<p>Fane succeeded to the earldom of Westmorland unexpectedly and while still a minor following the death of his elder brother, Vere Fane*, 5th earl of Westmorland, who had contracted a fever and died just short of his majority while abroad at The Hague. While his brother had been early on marked out for service at court and had attracted the favourable attention of the king, his successor had been intended for the Navy, a calling that he found thoroughly appealing, having served for the past few years as a volunteer on board the ship <em>Resolution</em>. It was thus with a sense of keen disappointment that the new earl of Westmorland was compelled to abandon his naval career and take his brother’s place at the Academy at The Hague.<sup>12</sup> Not only did he find himself saddled with a role for which he considered himself unsuited, Westmorland also succeeded to an estate encumbered with debts, some of which he was still paying off almost 30 years later.<sup>13</sup> His youngest brother was said to have had ‘nothing to keep him from starving but £150 a year’ out of the subpoena office in chancery.<sup>14</sup> Their mother, Rachel, dowager countess of Westmorland, was convinced that a position at court was the solution to the family’s problems and took the peculiar step of withholding funds from the young earl in the hopes that the king would make up the shortfall. It was a policy that Westmorland discovered rapidly did not work. Although he was granted an annual pension of £300 and was offered assistance by the English ambassador at The Hague, Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, Westmorland soon found himself in such financial straits that he was forced to leave his lodgings at The Hague and find cheaper accommodation. Following the death of William III, Westmorland appealed to John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, for money. Marlborough obliged with £200, but while Westmorland believed this to have been the result of Marlborough’s generosity, in reality the loan was made on orders from Queen Anne and Marlborough made quite sure that his money was reimbursed.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Westmorland returned to England in the summer of 1702. On Marlborough’s recommendation he was presented to the queen by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin.<sup>16</sup> His pension of £300 p.a. was renewed from the autumn of 1702, while in October he also received £150 out of secret service money.<sup>17</sup> The extent of the family’s financial plight was made apparent when Westmorland’s mother brought a case in chancery against her own children in an effort to recoup money she had expended in defraying her late husband’s debts. Between October and December 1702 proceedings were initiated against Westmorland, his brothers John Fane<sup>†</sup>, later 7th earl of Westmorland, and Mildmay Fane<sup>‡</sup>, and his sisters Susan and Rachel, all of whom were underage. The court appointed Joseph Watts to stand guardian to Westmorland and his brothers and their elder sister Mary Fane to act in the same capacity for Susan and Rachel Fane. Lady Westmorland claimed that following her husband’s death she had been compelled to pay almost £4,000 from her own money, as the estates set aside by the former earl to satisfy his debts had proved woefully inadequate. The parties eventually reached agreement in May 1703, by which the countess dowager was recognized as a creditor of the former earl’s estate.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Only too aware of the extent of the financial crisis that faced him, Westmorland seems to have been resolute in seeking ways to supplement his income. In late January 1703 he made the first of a series of petitions for the renewal of the office of master forester and warden of Cliff bailiwick in Rockingham forest, which had long been held by his family.<sup>19</sup> In April 1704 he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince George*, duke of Cumberland.<sup>20</sup> The position came with a salary of £600 p.a. and he believed (probably mistakenly) that his advancement was owing to Marlborough’s patronage.<sup>21</sup> Westmorland came to view the prince with the greatest of affection and loyalty, professing that although Prince George was ‘a foreigner born [he] was become so hearty an Englishman that it was visible to all who were about him always pleased with their successes and speaking always in a manner natural for people of a country to do in behalf of their own.’<sup>22</sup></p><p>Westmorland took his seat in the House on 6 Nov. 1704, after which he was present on 67 per cent of sitting days in the session. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to the committee to consider the heads to be presented in conference concerning the Aylesbury men. In late March he was appointed deputy governor of Dover Castle and deputy warden of the Cinque Ports under Prince George in place of Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea. Westmorland’s promotion at this time was part of a general restructuring of local government in favour of the Whigs and may also have provided a mild sop to someone who had intended to make his career at sea.<sup>23</sup> Westmorland complained that throughout his tenure of the office he was subjected to ‘unkind usage’ from Godolphin, who refused consistently to allow him the usual expenses and that his Whig political principles attracted the opprobrium of the other members of Prince George’s ‘family’, in particular George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, Marlborough’s brother.<sup>24</sup> Westmorland’s new responsibilities brought him interest in a number of coastal boroughs. Within days of being appointed he was approached by Sir Basil Dixwell<sup>‡</sup>, bt. the former lieutenant-governor of Dover Castle, who complained that he had been ‘unjustly put out’ by Winchilsea ‘for no other reason than not being of the Tory party’, and sought Westmorland’s patronage to restore him to favour in the town.<sup>25</sup> During the summer of 1705 Westmorland was active in the elections throughout the Cinque Ports, and though he claimed great success and the replacement of Tories with men sympathetic to his ‘principles’, in reality the returns were far more mixed, and his interest in the return of members rather more limited than he cared to believe.<sup>26</sup></p><p>On 12 Nov. 1705 Westmorland took his seat in the new Parliament, after which he was present for approximately 72 per cent of the session. On 6 Dec. he voted, unsurprisingly, against the Tory-led resolution that the Church was in danger under the current administration and five days later he was placed on the committee of twelve peers assigned to draft an address to the queen reporting the House’s resolution.<sup>27</sup> He was an active member of the committee which met on 12 Jan. 1706 to consider a bill for the naturalization of more than 100 foreigners.<sup>28</sup> On 26 Feb. and then again on 5 Mar. he dined with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), and several other members of both Houses. <sup>29</sup> He was named on 9 Mar. one of the managers for a conference regarding the printed letter of Sir Rowland Gwynn<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford.</p><p>Westmorland’s standing at court was perhaps emphasized by his selection by Henry Grey*, marquess (later duke) of Kent, as godfather to Kent’s daughter in 1706. The queen and duchess of Marlborough stood godmothers to the child.<sup>30</sup> During the summer of that year, Westmorland’s attention was again taken up with his duties in the Cinque Ports. His attempt to co-ordinate a joint address from all the port towns to the queen on Marlborough’s recent successes was ill conceived and, he was informed, too late to be organized, each town having already submitted their own addresses.<sup>31</sup> There were continuing difficulties over raising money for the renovation of Dover harbour and in July matters reached such a pass that Westmorland sought Godolphin’s leave to resign. Westmorland acknowledged that quitting his place would lose him the favour of Prince George, though he appears to have been on very poor terms with the prince at that point. In the event he chose not to give up his office but he continued to find cause to complain about being sidelined. In a letter to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, probably written at the beginning of 1707 or 1708, he protested that since taking up his post he had not been permitted to appoint a single officer thereby making it impossible for him to execute his office effectively. Those under him, he protested, ‘perceiving the small interest he has, take not the least notice of him.’<sup>32</sup></p><p>Having taken his seat in the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, Westmorland was present for 55 per cent of sitting days. As a placeman, Westmorland found himself in an awkward position on the question of the Union. He supported warmly the proposal that the Scottish Privy Council should be abolished, believing that, ‘the more we were brought to be one people and form of government the better and safer for our public liberties,’ but his views were not echoed by the lord treasurer, Godolphin. According to Westmorland, Godolphin wished to see the council survive as a means of maintaining control on elections in Scotland. When the question of abolition came to be debated in the House, Westmorland was summoned to Kensington for an interview with Prince George. In the event the summons arrived after the crucial vote had taken place and the resolution to abolish had already been carried with Westmorland’s support. Westmorland believed that he had been ordered to Kensington at Godolphin’s instance to put pressure on him to revise his intentions. Not for the first time, he found Prince George sympathetic to his views.<sup>33</sup> On 4 Mar., at the third reading of the Union bill, he acted as one of the tellers for the division on the motion for a second reading of the rider stating that nothing in the bill should be construed as an approbation of the Presbyterian Scottish Church and its claims of being the true Protestant religion.<sup>34</sup></p><p>On 8 Feb. 1707 Westmorland introduced a paper into the House to be referred to the committee appointed that day to consider a recently-published ‘libel’.<sup>35</sup> On 18 Feb. 1707 he chaired the committee considering the bill for naturalizing Philip van den Emden and later the same day he reported the bill as fit to pass without amendment.<sup>36</sup> It was perhaps because of his role on this committee that in March he was approached to employ his interest on behalf of a convert from Judaism, who was also seeking support for his bill of naturalization.<sup>37</sup> Westmorland took his seat in the final session of the English Parliament on 14 Apr., of which he attended seven of its nine days. During the summer he married Katherine Beaumont, ‘a most excellent woman’ of ‘an ancient family’ and reputed to be in possession of ‘a considerable fortune.’<sup>38</sup> The fact that her former husband had been named Beaumont and that Westmorland’s commander aboard the <em>Resolution</em> had been the ill-fated Basil Beaumont appears to have been a coincidence.</p><p>Westmorland took his seat in the first Parliament of Great Britain on 17 Nov. 1707 after which he was present for 58 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He reported on 4 Mar. from a committee of the whole House on the East Riding register bill. On 30 Mar. he reported the findings of a committee of the whole House concerning the act to empower the treasury to compound with Richard Parke for a debt to the queen. On the last day of that month he was named one of the eleven managers of a conference concerning the bill for the encouragement of trade with America. He was again named a manager on 1 Apr., this time for a conference on the waggoners’ bill. Westmorland was marked a Whig on a printed list of the Parliament of Great Britain in May. In spite of his former difficulties in making his interest felt in Dover, at the general election on 4 May he employed his interest successfully at nearby Hythe on behalf of his brother John Fane. The election of his brother-in-law, Sir Francis Dashwood<sup>‡</sup>, at Winchelsea probably also owed something to his influence in the area.<sup>39</sup></p><p>The summer of 1708 found Westmorland’s attention taken up by his involvement in a legal action that had been initiated by his wife three years previously. In spite of being in possession of ‘a considerable fortune’ Lady Westmorland had been compelled to go to law to secure her legacy from her former husband’s estate.<sup>40</sup> The surviving members of the Beaumont family contested Lady Westmorland’s bill strenuously, denying all knowledge of any settlement made in Lady Westmorland’s favour. It was not until December 1714 that a final resolution was arrived at, confirming to Lady Westmorland her legacy of £6,000 with the addition of £1,831 18<em>s</em>. on account of lost interest and fees spent in bringing the case.<sup>41</sup></p><p>The death of Prince George in October 1708 was a considerable blow for Westmorland. He resigned his offices rather than agree to serve under the new lord warden, Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset.<sup>42</sup> Freed from his responsibilities in the Cinque Ports, he took his seat in the new session of 16 Nov. after which he was present on 59 per cent of sitting days. Throughout January 1709 Westmorland attempted to make use of his interest with Marlborough to procure his brother John a commission in the guards, unaware that Marlborough had already confessed to Godolphin that he liked John Fane ‘much better than his brother.’<sup>43</sup> On 21 Jan. Westmorland voted with the Whigs and the Squadrone against allowing Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election of the Scottish representative peers. On 7 Mar. he dined with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, and Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, at Lambeth.<sup>44</sup> Following a burglary at one of his homes during the year, Westmorland petitioned in October for one of the culprits to be pardoned in return for providing information concerning the ringleaders. The guilty man, Baines, had his sentence commuted to transportation in January 1710.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Westmorland returned to the House for the new session on 12 Jan. 1710, of which he attended only approximately 39 per cent of sitting days. In spite of his lower attendance record, he was active throughout the trial of Henry Sacheverell. As a regular dining companion of Ossulston and William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon, he was also presumably able to keep abreast of affairs in the House. On the first day of the trial (27 Feb.) he dined with Ossulston at the George and the following day they dined together again, this time at the Duke of Bedford’s Head. Between 3 and 16 Mar. Westmorland, Ossulston and Hunsdon dined together on five occasions either at the House itself or at the George.<sup>46</sup> On 20 Mar. all three united in finding Sacheverell guilty.</p><p>Westmorland suffered both personal and financial loss in the latter part of 1710. During the summer, the incompetent intervention of the royal physician, Sir David Hamilton, who had been recommended by the dowager countess, contributed to the loss of his heir. The delivery was so badly bungled that Lady Westmorland was left permanently weakened and barren.<sup>47</sup> In August, his eldest sister, Lady Mary Dashwood, also died.<sup>48</sup> Shortly after, he appears to have received the final payment of his pension during the reign as gentleman of the bedchamber to the prince, despite an undertaking from the queen that former officers of her late husband would continue to be paid. Nominally he received £600 in 1711 and 1712 and £300 in 1713, but payment appears to have been woefully in arrears. The pension was most likely withheld through the influence of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, who in October 1710 marked Westmorland down as a court Whig and a ‘doubtful’ supporter of his newly-formed ministry.<sup>49</sup> Westmorland later complained that Oxford also brought an ‘unreasonable prosecution’ against him over his rights as master forester of Cliff bailiwick in the forest of Rockingham.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Westmorland took his seat in the new Parliament on 18 Dec. 1710. Perhaps distracted by his personal travails, his attendance continued to tail off. He was in the House on a mere 18 per cent of sitting days. On 29 Jan. 1711 he was again in company with Ossulston and Hunsdon at the Red Lion and the following day he dined at Ossulston’s residence.<sup>51</sup> On 3 Feb. Westmorland entered his protest at the resolution to agree with the committee that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of the battle of Almanza had not been properly supplied. He subscribed a further protest at the resolution to agree with the committee that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament for the war in Spain amounted to a neglect of the service.<sup>52</sup> Westmorland sat for two more days before absenting himself from 8 Feb. for two months. The evening before his last sitting he dined with Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, Charles Montagu* 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester*, with the diarist Ossulston making one of the party.<sup>53</sup> Westmorland resumed his seat on 5 Apr. but he sat on just one more day in the session, 12 Apr., and the following day registered his proxy in favour of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle.</p><p>Absent at the opening of the new session, on 1 Dec. 1711 Westmorland registered his proxy in favour of Sunderland for the 1711-12 session, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat nine days later. He thus was absent from the divisions on the first two days of the session, 7 and 8 Dec., on the Whig motion for the ‘no peace without Spain’ clause, even though Oxford (as Harley had since become) included him on a list of peers to be canvassed before the vote, and on another list of those who had voted against the ministry. He was present at the time of the proceedings on the claim of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon, which Oxford predicted Westmorland would oppose. On 20 Dec. 1711 Westmorland voted as expected against permitting Scots peers from taking their seats by virtue of British peerages created since the Union. He registered his proxy with William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, two days later, on 22 December. The proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 14 Jan. 1712. He then sat for just two more days before registering his proxy in favour of Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, on 19 Jan. which was in turn vacated by the prorogation of the session.</p><p>Westmorland took his seat in the House after an absence of more than a year on 9 Apr. 1713. His level of attendance remained low and he sat for just 10 days of the session (approximately 15 per cent of the whole). In spite of their poor relations, in April he approached Oxford to obtain a colonelcy for his brother John who had been unseated at Hythe two years earlier.<sup>54</sup> Oxford was unlikely to look upon him with favour, as he forecast that Westmorland would be one of those who would vote against confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty if it ever came before the House that session. It was presumably to this that Westmorland referred in a letter of 27 June to one Mr Browning, in which he congratulated him on, ‘the glimmering of rescuing liberty from the amazing stupidity of slavery we were hurrying into, but I forget the old maxim which when a boy I thought a jest but never was more truer than now, <em>audi</em>, <em>vidi</em>, <em>tace</em>, <em>si</em> <em>vis</em> <em>vivere</em> <em>in</em> <em>pace</em>’ (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil).<sup>55</sup> His abandonment of Oxford on the subject of the peace notwithstanding, at the beginning of July Westmorland once more sought the lord treasurer’s interest to ‘rid me from the plague of law’ relating to woods to which he claimed ownership.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Westmorland returned to the House on 16 Feb. 1714 for the new Parliament. His record of attendance improved markedly with him present on almost 42 per cent of all sitting days but he made little impact on the session. On 19 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of his Northamptonshire neighbour, Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, which was vacated by Westmorland’s resumption of his seat on 28 April. The following month Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, estimated that Westmorland would be opposed to the schism bill. On 13 May he again retired from the House, registering his proxy in favour of Rockingham once more, which was vacated at the close of the session.</p><p>Following the queen’s death on 1 Aug. 1714, Westmorland took his seat on 12 Aug. and attended just five days of the brief 15-day session. His stance as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession was in no doubt and he received his summons to the coronation on 20 Oct., a fortnight before the event at which he officiated as an assistant cupbearer.<sup>57</sup> Active again in the elections in Kent, in February 1715 he was successful in persuading one of the sitting members for the county to stand down in favour of his youngest brother, Mildmay Fane<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned at the top of the poll.<sup>58</sup> On 26 July he returned to the House but four days later registered his proxy in favour of his distant cousin, George Nevill*, 13th Baron Abergavenny, which was vacated on 21 September. His absence may have been connected with the sudden death of his brother Mildmay on 11 Sept. but the family’s interest in the county was confirmed with the return of John Fane for the vacant seat later the same month.<sup>59</sup></p><p>The new reign proved far more profitable to Westmorland. His arrears of pay totalling £1,800 were at last attended to as early as November 1714 and he was granted a further annual pension of £1,000 in 1717.<sup>60</sup> Improved fortunes were perhaps reflected in a marked improvement in his attendance record in the House. Named to a number of significant local offices by George I, Westmorland was finally able to realize some of his mother’s ambitions for the family. The later part of his career will be dealt with in detail in the second phase of this work. Westmorland died on 4 July 1736 at Mereworth, having outlived all but one of his siblings. He was buried in the family vault at Apethorpe and succeeded in the title by his remaining brother, John Fane, Baron Catherlough [I], as 7th earl of Westmorland.<sup>61</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FANE, Vere (1645-93) |
<p><strong><surname>FANE</surname></strong>, <strong>Vere</strong> (1645–93)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>half-bro. 18 Sept. 1691 as 4th earl of WESTMORLAND |
|
First sat 22 Oct. 1691; last sat 9 Dec. 1693 |
|
MP Peterborough 1671-9, Kent 1679-81, 1689-91 |
<p><em>b</em>. 13 Feb. 1645, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, and 2nd w. Mary, da. of Horatio Vere<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Vere of Tilbury; half-bro. of Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland. <em>educ</em>. (unknown). <em>m</em>. 13 July 1671 (with £6,000),<sup>1</sup> Rachel (<em>d</em>.1711), da. of John Bence<sup>‡</sup>, alderman of London, 5s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. KB 23 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 29 Dec. 1693; <em>will</em> 28 Dec. 1693, pr. 10 Jan. 1694.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Kent 1668-82,<sup>3</sup> 1689-92; asst. warden, Rochester bridge 1672-<em>d</em>., warden 1673, 1680, 1687; jt. ld. lt. Kent 1692-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>According to his son, Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, Vere Fane was ‘a very good natured man but affected popularity too much’.<sup>4</sup> He appears to have become attached to the opposition soon after the Restoration, and although a prominent figure in Kent, his first attempt at parliamentary involvement found him contesting Peterborough in 1666 which had become vacant on the succession of his half-brother to the earldom of Westmorland.<sup>5</sup> On this occasion Fane was defeated, but he succeeded in being returned for the borough in 1671. In the same year he married Rachel Bence, who brought with her a considerable fortune amounting to perhaps £40,000 in all.<sup>6</sup></p><p>A supporter of Exclusion, Fane was described as being ‘very forward and active in the Revolution’, though little evidence remains of such activity.<sup>7</sup> Although he was defeated at Maidstone in 1689, he worked successfully with other Whigs to keep out Sir William Twisden<sup>‡</sup> as knight of the shire, and he was returned for Kent to the Convention along with Sir John Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup>. The two men were deputed to present the county association to Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney).<sup>8</sup> As a deputy lieutenant, Fane was active in hunting down and prosecuting suspected Jacobites within his jurisdiction.<sup>9</sup> In March 1690 he and Knatchbull were again returned unopposed for the county.<sup>10</sup> Knatchbull’s estimate that the combined strength of his, Fane’s and Sir Thomas Roberts’<sup>‡</sup> supporters numbered some 2,000 against their opponent Sir Stephen Leonard’s mere 300 is suggestive of the extent of Fane’s influence within the county, as is the drawing up of a message of thanks by the gentlemen and freeholders of Kent for Fane and Knatchbull’s activities in the Convention.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Fane succeeded to the earldom of Westmorland on the death of his half-brother in September 1691. With the peerage Westmorland inherited a difficult financial situation, and in March 1692 he was granted administration of the 3rd earl’s will as the executors, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> had renounced execution. The 3rd earl had left copious debts, and in his quest to secure preferment at court the 4th earl exacerbated the situation.<sup>12</sup> In spite of his apparently advantageous marriage, according to his son, Thomas Fane, Westmorland failed to profit from the alliance and proceeded to squander what resources he had in the quest for preferment at court. Moreover, Lady Westmorland’s fortune was delivered ‘but in small sums’ and ‘supplied only a present occasion to stop some clamorous gap and so the family [were], not the better for it.’<sup>13</sup></p><p>Westmorland received his writ of summons on 20 Oct. 1691 and took his seat two days later.<sup>14</sup> An inactive member of the Commons, Westmorland demonstrated rather greater interest in the Lords. Present on approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 18 Jan. 1692 he was added to the committee for Keeble’s bill, and on 23 Jan. he reported from the committees for the Shadwell waterworks bill and for Vaughan’s bill. The same month he acted as one of the tellers during a vote on the bill for commissioners of accounts, and on 1 Feb. he was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons on the subject of the public accounts bill. On 5 Feb. he acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to reverse the decree in the cause <em>Gawdey v. Scroggs,</em> and he acted as one of the tellers again four days later on the motion whether to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the public accounts bill. On 16 Feb. he protested at the resolution that proxies should not be allowed during proceedings over the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 23 Feb. he again acted as a teller for a division on passing the poll bill.</p><p>Westmorland attended the two prorogation days in April and June before resuming his seat in the ensuing session on 11 Nov. 1692. Again present on approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days, on 19 Dec. he presided at a session of the committee considering Powell’s bill.<sup>15</sup> On 31 Jan. 1693 he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and the following month he was one of only 14 peers to find Mohun guilty. The same month Westmorland acted as one of the tellers for the votes in the House over whether the fine imposed on Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, for failing to attend the trial should be remitted.</p><p>Having attended the prorogation day on 26 Oct., Westmorland resumed his place in the House in the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 after which he was present on just 18 days before sitting for the final time on 9 December. His only notable action in the session was on 23 Nov. when he subscribed the protest over the resolution that the House would not receive any petitions for protecting the king or queen’s servants.</p><p>By the end of his life, Westmorland was in dire financial straits. Having lived continually beyond his means, he had been forced to mortgage his estates.<sup>16</sup> Parts of Westmorland’s holdings in Kent were mortgaged for £4,100 but this clearly failed to cover his debts, and in July 1693 Arabella, Countess Rivers, agreed to lend him £4,000.<sup>17</sup> Not everyone believed that Westmorland’s financial situation was as precarious as his heirs later made out. Following his death two creditors obtained letters of administration for the personal estate of the 3rd earl arguing that he had left a considerable personal estate ‘amounting to several thousand pounds’ which had been seized by the 4th earl and the 3rd earl’s widow.<sup>18</sup> Thomas Fane, 6th earl Westmorland, was in no doubt of his father’s poverty, and he was highly critical of Westmorland’s actions, arguing that the 4th earl had ‘found himself greatly deceived’ in his quest for office and treated his disappointed hopes as ‘a warning to all not to spend their estates to serve a court in expectation of being afterwards repaid or rewarded; ’tis an action all courtiers smile at …’<sup>19</sup></p><p>The 6th earl’s comments were not quite fair. As a result of his careful cultivation of the court the 4th earl was chosen to carry the sword before the king and queen on at least three occasions, which may have been a deliberate attempt to put himself forward for further preferment.<sup>20</sup> In 1692 he became joint lord lieutenant of Kent with Viscount Sydney, and he was also rumoured to be likely to succeed John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, as captain of the gentleman pensioners in November of the following year.<sup>21</sup> In July 1693 Westmorland faced difficulties within his lieutenancy when several of the deputy lieutenants quit their commands in the militia, forcing him to find replacements but such difficulties do not appear to have deterred him from seeking further positions of responsibility.<sup>22</sup> In 1693 Westmorland petitioned to be granted the keepership of the Cliffe bailiwick of Rockingham Forest, which had been held by his predecessor.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Hopes of further preferment were blighted by illness. Before his succession to the peerage, Westmorland had been described as being in a ‘very ill and dangerous … condition’, suffering from diabetes ‘a distemper which is newly found out.’ He was subjected to a strict diet in an effort to control the condition; his countess was eager to emphasize that he had not drunk ‘one drop’ of beer or wine and was confined to ass’s milk and eighteen pills a day.<sup>24</sup> Despite this rigorous regime and the constant attentions of his physicians, towards the end of December 1693 Westmorland was reported to have been ‘given over’ and he died of the condition shortly after.<sup>25</sup> In his will, dated the day before he died, Westmorland directed that his daughter, Lady Rachel Fane, should have £2,000 as a portion on her marriage or attainment of the age of twenty-one. In view of the perilous state of his finances it must have come as some relief to the dying earl to note that his remaining children’s fortunes had been taken care of by their grandfather. He was buried at Mereworth, and succeeded by his son, also Vere Fane*, as 5th earl of Westmorland.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FANE, Vere (1678-99) |
<p><strong><surname>FANE</surname></strong>, <strong>Vere</strong> (1678–99)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1691-93 Bar. Le Despenser; <em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Dec. 1693 (a minor) as 5th earl of WESTMORLAND |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 May 1678, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, and Rachel, da. of John Bence, alderman of London. <em>educ</em>. Eton (c.1690); travelled abroad (Hague) 1698-9.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 19 May 1699; admon. 18 Jan. 1700.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Guidon and cornet, 1st tp. of Life Gds. 1697.</p> |
|
<p>Le Despenser succeeded to the earldom of Westmorland following the early death of his father. The family owned lands in several counties, with the principal holdings divided between Kent and Northampton, but at the 4th earl’s death the estate was encumbered with debts.<sup>4</sup> Recommended to the care of the king, Westmorland replaced Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford), as an officer in the Life Guards and was present in the king’s train when he met Tsar Peter at Utrecht in 1697.<sup>5</sup> The following year Westmorland was chosen to accompany Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, to Holland.<sup>6</sup> There, Westmorland was entered at the academy at the Hague, where he rapidly gained the king’s favour. The dowager Lady Westmorland hoped that her popular son would restore the family’s woeful financial condition through promotion at court, but in May 1699 Westmorland fell sick and died just days short of his twenty-first birthday, reputedly of a fever caught at a ball hosted by the Princess of Denmark (the future Queen Anne). His premature death stalled his mother’s hopes of an early revival of the family’s fortunes and catapulted his younger brother, Thomas Fane*, then serving as a volunteer aboard the <em>Resolution</em>, into prominence as 6th earl of Westmorland.<sup>7</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FEILDING, Basil (c. 1608-75) |
<p><strong><surname>FEILDING</surname></strong> (<strong>FIELDING</strong>) (<em>alias</em> <strong>HAPSBURG</strong>), <strong>Basil</strong> (c. 1608–75)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1622-43 Visct. Feilding; <em>accel. </em>21 Mar. 1628 Bar. FEILDING; <em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Apr. 1643 as 2nd earl of DENBIGH; <em>cr. </em>2 Feb. 1665 Bar. ST LIZ |
|
First sat before 1660, 24 Mar. 1628; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 13 Nov. 1675 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1608, 1st s. of William Feilding<sup>†</sup>, (later earl of Denbigh) and Susan, da. of Sir George Villiers, sis. of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham. <em>educ</em>. Queens’ Coll. Camb. (1621); Basel Univ.; travelled abroad (Germany) 1631. <em>m</em>. (1) 1633 (with £4,480),<sup>1</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1635) da. of Richard Weston<sup>†</sup>, earl of Portland, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) 12 Aug. 1639 (with £50,000), Barbara (<em>d</em>. 1 Apr. 1641) da. of Sir John Lambe (<em>d</em>.1647) of Rothwell, Northants, <em>s.p</em>.;<sup>2</sup> (3) 8 July 1641 (with £4,000),<sup>3</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1670) da. and coh. of Edward Bourchier<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bath, <em>s.p</em>.; (4) 1670, Dorothy (1654-1709?) da. of Francis Lane of Glendon, Northants., <em>s.p</em>. KB 1626. <em>d</em>. 28 Nov. 1675; admon. 29 Apr. 1676.</p> |
<p>Amb. Venice 1634-9;<sup>4</sup> gent. of bedchamber to Charles, Prince Wales aft. 1630;<sup>5</sup> commr. treaty of Uxbridge 1645; speaker of House of Lords 1648-9; mbr. council of State 1649, 1650.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Denb. and Flint 1642, Warws. 1643; recorder, Coventry 1647-51; <em>custos rot</em>. Warws. 1660-<em>d.,</em> Leics. 1667-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of horse 1642; cdr. West Midlands Assoc. 1643-5; capt. tp. of horse 1667.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: etching by W. Hollar, NPG D28214.</p> |
<p>Feilding has been vilified by some as the embodiment of an unprincipled opportunist.<sup>10</sup> Despite fighting on the side of Parliament in the Civil War, he maintained a foot in both camps through his family’s royalist connections. He opposed the king’s execution but squared his conscience to serve on the first two councils of state. He later retired from public life having possibly offered his support to Charles II in 1651.<sup>11</sup> Reconciled with Charles II at the time of the Restoration, Denbigh again slipped into opposition during the 1660s and at the time of his death was a fierce critic of the direction being taken by the government.</p><p>The Feilding family claimed descent from the Hapsburgs, a fiction that Feilding was eager to perpetuate and which belied the family’s relatively recent rise to prominence.<sup>12</sup> In reality, the Feildings were a Warwickshire family of solid gentry origin which had owned land in the county since the early 15th century. Their seat at Newnham Paddox was assessed at 34 hearths in 1666 and they owned other estates in Wales, Leicestershire and Rutland.<sup>13</sup> The family was propelled into wider political importance by his father’s marriage to a sister of the duke of Buckingham and his consequent elevation to the peerage as Baron Feilding in 1620. Promotion to the earldom of Denbigh followed in 1622. Feilding himself was summoned to the House by a writ of acceleration as Baron Feilding of Newnham Paddox. Further awards and advantageous marriages followed for other members of the family. Feilding’s brother, George, was created earl of Desmond [I], while his sister Mary married James Douglas, duke of Hamilton [S]. Another sister, Anne, was married to Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden; Elizabeth was married to Lewis Boyle, Viscount Boyle of Kinalmeky [I], and later created countess of Guildford in her own right.</p><p>While the 1st earl of Denbigh appeared reluctant to court further advancement, the driving force for his promotions apparently being his countess, Feilding seems to have been all too eager to build upon these foundations.<sup>14</sup> It was through his Villiers relations that he established a friendship with Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, who was connected to the family through his first marriage to Anne Ayliffe.<sup>15</sup> Feilding’s most significant connection remained with his uncle, Buckingham, through whose influence he was promised the offices of master of the rolls and gentleman of the bedchamber.<sup>16</sup> The duke’s assassination stalled Feilding’s prospects for rapid promotion and he was advised by the king to seek his fortune in the European wars instead.<sup>17</sup> Following service at the siege of Bois-le-Duc, Feilding was offered a position as gentleman of the bedchamber to the Emperor Ferdinand II, who may have been intrigued by Feilding’s supposed Hapsburg ancestry.<sup>18</sup> On his return to England, Feilding forged a new alliance by his marriage to a daughter of Lord Treasurer Portland, through whose influence he was appointed ambassador to Venice.<sup>19</sup> He remained there until 1639, though his wife died within a few months of their arrival.<sup>20</sup> The death of his father-in-law in 1635 weakened Feilding’s position at court, while financial concerns further added to his difficulties.<sup>21</sup> By 1637 it was expected that he would be recalled from his embassy.<sup>22</sup> His continued employment caused bemusement in some Venetian circles but was explained by their resident in London, who emphasized the strength of his court connections: ‘without such support he would have fallen utterly, as faults which in him are not noticed or are condoned, would be believed and punished in others’.<sup>23</sup></p><h2><em>Civil War to Restoration</em></h2><p>On his return from Venice, Feilding was able to contract another advantageous match but in other regards he was less fortunate.<sup>24</sup> Deprived of the queen’s favour as a result of his support for a Spanish alliance, he was thwarted in his quest to secure court office and was prevented from returning to his Venetian embassy.<sup>25</sup> The outbreak of Civil War found Feilding at odds with the rest of his family who all rallied to the king. Some have speculated that he was imbued with the principles of the Venetian republic and made a principled stand against arbitrary monarchy. Certainly he proved to be a consistent upholder of the parliamentary and aristocratic interest. He may, though, have been disgruntled at the lack of suitable rewards for his services to the crown.<sup>26</sup> In April 1642 he was named one of the delegates to wait on the king but he declined to act, a decision that elicited surprise from the Venetian Resident, Giustinian, who was struck by Feilding’s unusual ‘coyness’. Such scruples were laid aside at the outbreak of hostilities. At the battle of Edgehill, Feilding was present in the ranks of the parliamentary army on the opposite side to his father and was even mistakenly reported to have been killed in the fray.<sup>27</sup> Feilding’s close ties to the court led many to suspect his true loyalties and there is some evidence to suggest that after Edgehill he sought a return to the king’s party.<sup>28</sup> He remained in the parliamentarian camp, though, and in 1643 succeeded Robert Greville<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Brooke, as commander of the West Midlands Association, an appointment that brought him into conflict with Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex. His moderate approach also caused problems with the more radical county committee in Warwickshire led by William Purefoy, who accused him of favouring royalists.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Feilding succeeded to the earldom of Denbigh after his father was mortally wounded during a skirmish at Birmingham. He later resigned his command in accordance with the self-denying ordinance and was appointed one of the commissioners to treat with the king at Uxbridge in 1645. Denbigh became associated with the handful of Independent peers after the end of the Civil War, signing the Vote of No Addresses in 1648. On 9 Jan. 1649 he was nominated speaker of the Lords and appears to have been behind a scheme to preserve both the House and the king’s life.<sup>30</sup> He refused to act on the commission trying the king, protesting that he would rather be ‘torn in pieces than have any share in so infamous a business’.<sup>31</sup> In spite of his opposition to the king’s execution, Denbigh served on the first two councils of state.<sup>32</sup> At least one authority mistakenly suggests that he was also one of the peers to accept a seat in the Commons.<sup>33</sup> He was uncomfortable with the engagement to be taken by all members of the council, conceiving it to be ‘contrary to what he then acted as a peer in the House of Lords, then acknowledged a third estate of this kingdom’. As a result of Denbigh’s response a new engagement was drawn up.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Denbigh stepped back from public life in the 1650s. He was not elected to the third council of state and from 1651 appears to have been at least on the peripheries of royalist plotting. He may have offered his support to Charles II prior to the battle of Worcester.<sup>35</sup> In the middle of the decade he was engaged in a tussle over settling the estate of Henry Bourchier<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Bath.<sup>36</sup> By the late 1650s Denbigh had manoeuvred himself clearly into the ranks of the Presbyterian opposition associated with Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and in March 1658 he was said to have been in negotiation with William Legge<sup>‡</sup> about seizing Coventry. Similar negotiations were afoot in June of the following year.<sup>37</sup></p><h2><em>Restoration to 1670</em></h2><p>Denbigh was among the first peers to enter the reconstituted House of Lords, taking his seat on 25 Apr. 1660. He opposed the admission of the ‘young lords’, favouring instead the inclusion of the ‘Oxford lords’, who he believed would be more moderate. His concession to admit even the latter appears to have been the result of pressure applied by George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle. For all this, in discussion with royalists agents he was eager to let it be known that his intentions throughout the years of Civil War and interregnum had been ‘loyal’.<sup>38</sup> Present on 96 sitting days in the first session of the Convention (81 per cent of the whole), Denbigh quickly threw himself into the House’s business. On 27 Apr. he was named to the committee for privileges and on 1 May to the sub-committee for the Journal and the committee considering an answer to the king’s letter. On 2 May he was named to the committee considering the ordinance appointing Monck captain general. The same day, the House issued an order for attaching John Seagrave, a tailor, and two others who had arrested Thomas Chamberlane, one of Denbigh’s servants, contrary to parliamentary privilege. On 9 May the committee for privileges requested that Denbigh and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, be present the following day for hearings in the separate case of Antonio Vas.<sup>39</sup> On 14 May Seagrave and the two other delinquents were brought to the bar but Seagrave was released through Denbigh’s intercession on account of his poverty. The following day Denbigh moved that the two remaining prisoners, John Dowell and John Osborne, should also be released. On 24 May, Denbigh was one of those named to the committee to compose a letter of congratulation to the king on his safe landing. On 9 June Denbigh was given leave of absence and on 20 June he was granted a pardon for his activities during the Civil War and Interregnum.<sup>40</sup> He resumed his seat in the House the following day. On 4 July he was named to the committee for the bill to confirm the privileges of Parliament and on 19 July to the committees considering the bill for poll money and that confirming judicial proceedings.</p><p>On 9 Aug. 1660 Denbigh was again granted leave of absence for his health. He resumed his seat on 22 Aug. after which he sat without major interruption until the close of the session. On 5 Sept. he was named to the committee for the bill to restore Thomas Howard*, 16th earl of Arundel, to the dukedom of Norfolk. The same day he was added to the committees considering the patent purporting to create Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, duke of Somerset and Beaufort, and the bill for restoring William Seymour*, as 3rd duke of Somerset, which contested Worcester’s claim to the titles. Denbigh was named to a further five committees before the close of the session. He returned to the House for the opening of the second session in November 1660 after which he continued to attend until 12 Dec. (56 per cent of the whole). On 6 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the bill restoring Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, to his estate and to three further committees before withdrawing on 12 December. On 30 Dec. Denbigh registered his proxy in favour of William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele, perhaps not realising that the session had ended the day before.<sup>41</sup></p><p>The early years of the restoration found Denbigh eager to achieve payment of his arrears from the time of his service in Venice under the previous reign. In January 1661 he was the first of the peers to receive a warrant for his creation money.<sup>42</sup> Despite his position as <em>custos rotulorum</em> for the county, Denbigh does not appear to have been active in the elections in Warwickshire following the dissolution of the Convention. He returned to the House for the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661 and was thereafter present on just over a quarter of all sitting days. On 11 May he was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the sub-committee for the Journal and on 14 May he was named to the committee for the bill to reverse the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl Strafford. On 6 June he was granted leave to go into the country. The following day he again registered his proxy with Saye and Sele, which was vacated by his return to the House on 16 July.<sup>43</sup> On 18 July he was nominated to the committee for the corporations bill and on 20 July for that considering the bill for Charles Stuart*, duke of Richmond. Denbigh was absent from the House from 25 July and a call of the House on 25 Nov. indicated that he had left a proxy. On 6 Feb. 1662 he was again excused his attendance on account of sickness and did not return to the House until 14 April. He was then present until 14 May, attending 24 sittings in that period during which he was named to a further three committees.</p><p>Denbigh took his seat in the second session on 20 Feb. 1663. He was present on just 11 days in the session (approximately 13 per cent of the whole) and over the ensuing three years there was a marked decline in his attendance of the House. On 12 Mar. he was named to the committee for the heralds’ bill, in which he may have had a particular interest given his partiality for devising spurious genealogies. On 16 Mar. he was granted leave of absence, after which he was absent for the remainder of the session, though he ensured that his proxy was registered in favour of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland. He was consequently away from the House at the time of the attempt to impeach Clarendon launched by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.</p><p>Denbigh’s departure may have been connected with the continuing dispute over the settlement of the Bourchier estate, though he explained his decision to retire to the country as being on account of ‘a great cold taken at London’. In settling the Bath dispute he appears to have been promised the assistance of the queen mother through the intercession of his sister Elizabeth, countess of Guildford, and Sir Kenelm Digby. Denbigh’s rural solitude was rudely broken shortly after his arrival in Warwickshire when he was served with a <em>subpoena</em> to appear in a case concerning one Walter Devereux at Warwick Assizes. Denbigh was quick to remonstrate with Serjeant Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup>, taking exception both to the style by which he was addressed and the <em>subpoena</em> itself: ‘the peers of England enjoying the privilege in the chancery of being [cited] to appear by letter, and not by an ordinary s<em>ubpoena</em>, I may well lay claim to the same civility in other courts of justice.’ Denbigh requested that he be excused attendance at the assizes, ‘before I have acquainted my lords the peers… least by my condescension I may prejudice others in their hereditary rights and privileges, as well as my self.’<sup>44</sup> Denbigh returned to the House a fortnight into the new session on 4 Apr. 1664 but sat for only 13 days (36 per cent of the whole) before absenting himself once more. His proxy was again registered in favour of Northumberland.</p><p>That summer Denbigh became embroiled in a boundary dispute concerning the limits of his estate at Martinsthorpe. Disagreement over the extent of the adjoining manors of Preston and Martinsthorpe dated from at least the Civil War. It was asserted by Denbigh’s witnesses that a conspiracy had been hatched at the Oakham assizes to deprive him of the disputed land. The case appeared before the court of exchequer in October, but was delayed to the following term.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Denbigh returned to the House on 24 Nov. 1664 and the following day he was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions. Present on just under half of all sitting days in the session, on 12 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill enabling Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I], who was connected to Northumberland by marriage, to sell lands for the payment of his debts. On 13 Feb. the ongoing dispute between Denbigh and the remaining heirs of Edward Bourchier, earl of Bath, reached the House. The point at issue was over rights to Roach Forest in Somerset. The House ordered that there should be no further proceedings in the case before Denbigh’s counsel had been heard but the session ended before any progress could be made.</p><p>On 2 Feb. 1665 Denbigh was honoured with the additional barony of St Liz. At first sight the peerage was a somewhat puzzling award. It gave Denbigh, already an earl, no superior precedence and was far inferior to the marquessate it was rumoured he had been offered by Charles I during the Civil War. The explanation may lie in the dispute over Martinsthorpe, which had descended to the Feildings from the family of Seyton or St Liz. Creation as Baron St Liz might have been an attempt on Denbigh’s part to strengthen his claims to the estate as well as appealing to his antiquarian interests.<sup>46</sup> It certainly did nothing to alleviate his financial difficulties, which continued to plague him through 1665. In rejecting a plea for assistance from his nephew, William Feilding*, earl of Desmond [I] (later 3rd earl of Denbigh), he complained of being oppressed by ‘the incivilities of my tenants, charge of buildings, and burden of debts.’<sup>47</sup> Alongside his own concerns he was also involved with a chancery action brought by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, relating to his daughter-in-law’s marriage settlement, of which Denbigh was one of the trustees. Bridgwater was anxious to assure Denbigh that his inclusion in the action was form’s sake alone and that he had ‘no other thoughts towards you than always to acknowledge the kind respects I have ever found at your hands.’ Denbigh obliged by making no difficulties over Bridgwater including his name in the suit.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Denbigh took his seat in the new session convened in Oxford on 21 Oct. 1665, after which he was present on 32 per cent of all sittings. On 26 Oct. he was named to the committee for the bill to prevent the importation of foreign cattle, in which he may have had a vested interest given the extensive Irish holdings of his nephew and of his sister Elizabeth, countess of Guildford.<sup>49</sup> On 30 Oct. he made a brief intervention during the debates about the passage of the five mile bill relating to the attitudes of those wishing to have the measure recommitted.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Denbigh returned to the House for the ensuing session on 18 Sept. 1666. Present on just over 30 per cent of all sitting days, on 24 Sept. he was named to the usual standing committees. The following day he was named to the committee for the hemp and flax bill and on 27 Sept. to the committee considering the bill for naturalizing Isabella, Lady Arlington. Denbigh sat for just three days in October but he resumed his place on 22 Nov. when he was named to the committee for the bill to prevent frauds in receiving the king’s money. He was named to a further two committees in December. On 5 Feb. 1667 he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to allow a conference with the Commons over the issue of the trial of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt. The same day Denbigh was named to the committee for the bill for rebuilding the city of London.</p><p>Denbigh failed to attend the brief session of July 1667 but that autumn he returned to the House to rally to his old friend, Clarendon. Having taken his seat on 14 Oct. he was present on 69 per cent of all sitting days and named to 16 committees. On 22 Oct. Denbigh and Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham, were the only two peers to oppose joining with the Commons in an address of thanks to the king for Clarendon’s dismissal, alleging that it was improper for the House to take notice of the matter as Clarendon had been dismissed at the instance of the king and not of Parliament.<sup>51</sup> The same day Denbigh was added to the standing committee for privileges. On 4 Nov. he was in attendance at the privileges committee and was one of those ordered to meet at the Parliament office to examine the proceedings concerning the privileges of peerage. Two days later Denbigh was again active in the committee deliberating on the question of foreign nobility and was responsible for the replacement of one of the points composed by the committee with one of his own:</p><blockquote><p>His Majesty by his letters patent giving precedency only to such persons so created to the degree of peers in those kingdoms from whence they derive their titles, it must needs be looked upon as a deviation from the law and a high dishonour and derogation to his Majesty’s letters patent and the nobility of this kingdom that they should not enjoy those privileges and pre-eminencies contained in them and so highly affected and grounded upon the law of the land.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>The same day Denbigh complained to the House about a scandalous petition that had been presented to the king against him by one Thomas Insley (or Hinsley) of Leicestershire. Insley had complained that for the past four years he had been ‘persecuted and overpowered by the greatness’ of Denbigh; that Denbigh had turned out one of the Leicestershire justices and threatened to turn out others.<sup>53</sup> Insley was ordered to answer at the bar of the House the following day.<sup>54</sup> He confessed to the petition and requested to be sworn on oath. Denbigh desired that the House would grant Insley liberty to speak but the House took greater offence at Insley’s presumption than Denbigh and reprehended him for his ‘scandalous and saucy expressions towards the earl of Denbigh.’ Insley was enjoined to seek Denbigh’s forgiveness and the unfortunate man was compelled to submit completely.</p><p>Denbigh chaired two further sessions of the privileges committee on 21 and 26 November. He also continued to work on behalf of the disgraced Clarendon. On 3 Dec. 1667 he presented Clarendon’s petition to the House and confirmed that the former lord chancellor had fled the country.<sup>55</sup> On 9 Dec. he was again one of those named to a sub-committee of the committee of privileges to compose a declaration on the subject of foreign nobility.<sup>56</sup> He continued to attend regularly through the latter part of the session until 24 Feb. 1668 when he absented himself for six weeks. He ensured once more that his absence was covered by registering his proxy in favour of Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough. Denbigh resumed his seat on 13 Apr. and on 5 May he was nominated one of the peers to report the conference with the Commons concerning the dispute between the East India Company and Thomas Skinner.<sup>57</sup></p><p>During the summer of 1668 Denbigh’s newly constructed chapel at Newnham Paddox was consecrated by John Hacket*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, while Hacket was undertaking his visitation of the diocese.<sup>58</sup> In August Denbigh appears to have been one of a number of peers to convey messages of support to James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I].<sup>59</sup> He returned to the House on 25 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on 34 of the session’s 36 sitting days. The same day he was named to the committee considering the decay of trade and fall of rents. On 10 Nov. he made an ‘eloquent speech’ arguing for the rejection of the bill for limiting the Lords’ privileges and on 22 Nov. he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the measure.<sup>60</sup></p><h2><em>Opposition in the 1670s</em></h2><p>Following the fall of Clarendon, Denbigh came increasingly to be identified with the opposition in the House. Disgruntlement may also have been reflected in his diminishing attendance of the Lords, though he was active initially on a number of committees. Having taken his seat on 14 Feb. 1670 he was present on just 17 per cent of the whole session. On 17 Feb. he was again nominated to the committee considering the decline in trade and he was named to a further nine committees before quitting the session. On 21 Feb. he was one of 9 peers (among them Bridgwater and Wharton) to vote against razing the records from the Journal relating to the dispute with the Commons over Thomas Skinner.<sup>61</sup> On 11 Mar. he chaired the committee considering Lord Strangford’s bill and reported its conclusions to the House later the same day.<sup>62</sup> Three days later he was nominated to a sub-committee of the committee for privileges considering the case <em>Slingsby v. Hale</em> and on 19 Mar. he was named to the committee considering the bill to enable John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to remarry.<sup>63</sup> On 25 Mar. he was named to the committee considering the bill for a treaty of union between England and Scotland. The following day William Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke, registered his proxy in Denbigh’s favour, which was vacated by his return to the House on 29 March. The same day Denbigh was one of only four peers to vote against the passage of the union bill.<sup>64</sup> He then registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill against conventicles. In spite of his marriages to the Catholic Anne Weston and the high Anglican, Barbara Lambe, and the conversion of his own sister Elizabeth, countess of Guildford, to Catholicism, Denbigh himself appears to have remained sympathetic to Protestant Dissent: he was noted to have offered protection to at least two ejected ministers.</p><p>Denbigh quit the session after 29 Mar. 1670 though he ensured that his proxy was registered with his cousin, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. Denbigh’s absence may have been connected with the final illness of his wife, who died in September at Martinsthorpe.<sup>65</sup> Plans for her funeral, initially expected to be a public event, were altered and she was eventually buried in the Feilding vault at Monks Kirby following a private ceremony.<sup>66</sup> Denbigh wasted little time in seeking out a fourth wife and before the end of the year he had married Dorothy Lane, a distant relative of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton. This may have been the occasion of an affidavit sworn by one Alexander Ekins about complaints made against Montagu by Denbigh’s new father-in-law.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Denbigh was excused at a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1670. Ill health may have been behind his absence. He was excused again on 10 Feb. 1671 and in May 1671 it was reported, inaccurately, that he had died.<sup>68</sup> In January 1673 he was named in a case brought in chancery by Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Baron Sherard [I], concerning the profits of the manors of Great and Little Harrowden. The case arose out of a dispute involving the 1649 marriage settlement of Nicholas Knollys*, 2nd earl of Banbury, and one of Denbigh’s distant relations, Lady Isabella Blount, in which Denbigh had been named one of the trustees.<sup>69</sup> Denbigh attested, perhaps reasonably, that he could not ‘well remember the particular contents of the deeds to which it is alleged this defendant was a party’ and requested that he be ‘dismissed with his costs and charges wrongfully sustained.’<sup>70</sup></p><p>Denbigh had rallied by the beginning of 1673. He returned to the House three weeks into the new session on 25 Feb., after which he was present on two thirds of all sittings. On 26 Feb. he was named to the committee considering Robert Bellamy’s bill. On 3 Mar. he chaired the committee and reported its findings to the House but subsequent sessions of the committee for the bill were chaired by Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey.<sup>71</sup> On 8 Mar. Denbigh’s cousin, Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, registered his proxy in Denbigh’s favour, which was vacated by Stamford’s death later that year. On 12 Mar. Denbigh was named to the committee for Sir William Rich’s bill and the following day he was again involved with a case concerning breach of privilege relating to his lands at Martinsthorpe. The governors of neighbouring Oakham School claimed that Denbigh owed them a rent charge. When he refused to pay, some of his cattle were confiscated by the under-sheriff of Rutland, acting as Oakham’s attorney. Denbigh then complained to the Lords that his privilege had been infringed by the governors issuing a writ against him.<sup>72</sup> The Lords ordered that the dispute be heard at the bar of the House on 2 Apr. but further proceedings were lost by the close of the session on 29 March.</p><p>In the midst of such proceedings, Denbigh appears to have become increasingly troubled by the state of the administration. At about this time an unsigned document, annotated by Denbigh, appears to have been composed either as the basis for a speech or pamphlet expressing his concerns at the increasingly arbitrary nature of the restored monarchy.<sup>73</sup> His concerns may not have been entirely high minded. Denbigh experienced increasing financial difficulties in the later years of his life and from 1673 he renewed his appeals for his arrears of pay as ambassador to Venice (still outstanding) and of a 1,000 mark pension awarded to him by Charles I to be honoured. In all, Denbigh claimed to be owed upwards of £13,157. His financial straits were hampered further by debts of £3,000 and he was compelled to pawn his jewels worth £6,000.<sup>74</sup> On the king’s order, Denbigh related the ‘unhappy story of my embassy at Venice’ to Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington. He excused his importunity by explaining that he had held off from appealing for restitution for as long as possible but laced his explanation with a veiled threat of the consequences to the crown of not honouring past debts:</p><blockquote><p>If my design had taken a view of prospect upon my own particular profit, my address to my lord treasurer had lain fairer in my way, but desiring to take His Majesty off from the trouble of charges and expenses in this time of war, especially when the discharging the debts of the late king of glorious memory might give an ill precedent of drawing his present Majesty into a bottomless and clamorous gulf of engagements not to be overcome I am only become an humble suitor to his Majesty that by your lordship’s advice and the assistance and representation of his Majesty’s ministers abroad, his late Majesty’s honour and dignity of his crown… may be brought off from that rock upon which they were split in the ruins and dissolution of this monarchy…<sup>75</sup></p></blockquote><p>Tardy satisfaction of what he considered his due appears to have left Denbigh embittered. It may have been his failure to secure what he considered to be due to him that directed him towards the opposition, though the matters with which he was particularly concerned were those connected with privilege, a subject in which he had been consistently active.</p><p>Denbigh attended just one day of the brief session of October 1673. He then took his seat in the new session on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on all bar one of the session’s 38 sittings. Named to four committees, on 6 Feb. he was nominated one of the peers to consider the manner of the securities to be imposed upon his cousin, Buckingham, and Anna Maria Brudenell, countess of Shrewsbury, following the revelations about their scandalous liaison. In April further mistaken reports of Denbigh’s demise encouraged Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Ranelagh [I], to approach Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount Conway, about procuring one of Denbigh’s offices.<sup>76</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1675 Denbigh launched a new effort to secure his Venetian arrears. This time his petition was referred to Thomas Osborne* earl of Danby, who recommended to the king that the arrears be paid.<sup>77</sup> Danby may have hoped that settlement of Denbigh’s financial concerns would encourage him to forsake opposition but in this he was mistaken and Denbigh continued to associate with the ministry’s critics. Denbigh took his seat in the new session on 13 Apr. after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sittings. Named to just two committees, he made the first of a series of protests on 21 Apr. at the resolution that Danby’s non-resisting test bill did not encroach upon the Lords’ privileges. Denbigh put his name to a further protest on 26 Apr. and three days later he protested again at the resolution that the previous protest reflected upon the honour of the House. From 30 Apr. he participated in the debates in committee on the same issue.<sup>78</sup> On 4 May Denbigh protested once more at the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendment to include members of the Commons and lords of Parliament within the scope of the first enacting clause of the bill.</p><p>Denbigh was embroiled once again in family disputes during the session and on 30 Apr. 1675 he was ordered to present his answer in writing to the petition of Robert Villiers to receive a writ of summons as Viscount Purbeck. In May he submitted his own petition to the House against Villiers’ right to the viscountcy. Emphasizing Villiers’ illegitimacy and his own close interest in the case, Denbigh appealed to the Lords to:</p><blockquote><p>take care that the streams derived from the fountain of honour [the king] may run clear in their proper channels; and this most illustrious body of peers composed of so many noble and princely families, may not receive diminution by any illegitimate mixture injuriously obtruded and pinned upon this of Villiers.<sup>79</sup></p></blockquote><p>The case was delayed until 3 June when the House eventually dismissed Denbigh’s petition, who was not even in the House for the conclusion. Buckingham was also ordered to pay Villiers £20 in costs.</p><p>On 24 May 1675 Denbigh registered his proxy in favour of George Booth*, Baron Delamer. He returned to the House on 13 Oct., after which he was present on two thirds of all sittings and was named as usual to the three standing committees. The following day he was named to the committee for the bill explaining the former measure about Popish recusants and on 11 Nov. he was named to the committee for the countess of Warwick’s bill. Denbigh sat for the final time on 13 Nov. and on 20 Nov. he registered his proxy in Delamer’s favour once more. The proxy was employed the same day in favour of the motion to address the king to dissolve Parliament.<sup>80</sup> Denbigh died eight days later at Dunstable.<sup>81</sup> Despite a series of premature reports of his demise, his death may have been unexpected, as he died intestate. An inventory of his personal estate at Newnham and Martinsthorpe compiled in March 1676 estimated his private fortune at over £3,191. It was expected that half of this would be divided among his nephews and nieces.<sup>82</sup> He was succeeded by his nephew, Desmond, as 3rd earl of Denbigh. His widow later married Sir John James.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FEILDING, Basil (1668-1717) |
<p><strong><surname>FEILDING</surname></strong> (<strong>FIELDING</strong>), <strong>Basil</strong> (1668–1717)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1675-85 Visct. Feilding; <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Aug. 1685 (a minor) as 4th earl of DENBIGH |
|
First sat 16 Nov. 1689; last sat 18 Aug. 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> bet. 28 Oct. and 14 Nov. 1668, 1st s. of William Feilding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh, and Mary (<em>d</em>. 1669) da. of Sir Robert King; bro. of William Feilding<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 15 May 1685, DCL 9 Nov. 1695; travelled abroad 1686-7 (Brussels).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 20 June 1695<sup>2</sup> (with £15,000), Hester Firebrace (1676-1726), da. of Sir Basil Firebrace<sup>‡</sup>, of London,<sup>3</sup> 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 6da.<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 18 Mar. 1717; <em>admon</em>. 9 May 1717, to wid.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Master of Horse to Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, 1693-4;<sup>6</sup> teller of exch. Aug. 1713-Nov. 1715.</p><p>Ld. lt. Leics. 1703-6, 1711-14.</p><p>Col. Regt. of Drag.1694-7.</p> |
|
<p>‘Tall, fat, very black’ and ‘one of the greatest drinkers in England’, Feilding succeeded to the earldom while still a student at Christ Church, Oxford.<sup>8</sup> It thus seems unlikely that he was the same Basil Feilding who was appointed to the office of lieutenant governor of Carlisle in April of the same year.<sup>9</sup> Still underage, he appears almost at once to have turned his thoughts to acquiring a bride, and in January 1686 he approached James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, for the hand of his kinswoman, Bridget Bertie. Although Denbigh was recommended to the Berties as being ‘seemingly good natured and free from vice’ and, perhaps more importantly, in possession of an estate of £4,000 per annum, nothing came of his proposal.<sup>10</sup> Disappointed, he travelled abroad, and by July he had settled at the academy in Brussels, where he remained for the following two years.<sup>11</sup></p><p>There is no indication that Denbigh took any part in the events surrounding William of Orange’s invasion, though one correspondent at the time of the Seven Bishops’ trial thought that Denbigh would add his name to a petition in favour of the imprisoned prelates.<sup>12</sup> At a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689 he was still recorded as being under age. He was again marked under age at a call on 28 Oct., but on 14 Nov. he was issued with a writ of summons. He took his seat in the House two days later, after which he was present on 43 days (59 per cent of the total). Classed as among the supporters of the court on a list prepared by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds) of October 1689 to February 1690, he resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690. Eight days later he owned to a protection that he had issued to one of his servants. He was marked excused at a call of the House on 31 Mar. but resumed his place the following day after which he continued to attend until the close (57 per cent of all sittings in the session).</p><p>Denbigh resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 2 Oct. 1690, after which he was present on 56 per cent of sittings. On 6 Oct. he may have voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, but Carmarthen placed a query against his name, suggesting that he did not vote. On 22 Oct. it was reported that a duel with the suspected Jacobite, Charles Livingston, 2nd earl of Newburgh [S], had been averted. Another peer, Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, was said to have been Newburgh’s second in the affair, but no mention of the quarrel was made before the Lords.<sup>13</sup> In May 1691 Denbigh was again involved in a fracas with Newburgh, but on this occasion the two peers, in company with Sir John Conway<sup>‡</sup>, bt., joined forces to attack the watch, only to be overpowered and imprisoned for the night.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Denbigh’s uncle, Dr. John Feilding, ‘a twice a day preacher for many years in a small living in Dorsetshire’, was said to be one of the pretenders to the vacant bishopric of Hereford that spring. He was disappointed in his ambition, but there is no evidence that the young Denbigh exerted much interest on his behalf.<sup>15</sup> Denbigh resumed his seat at the opening of the third session on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on approximately half of all sittings. In January 1692 he was said to be one of two contenders for a place as gentleman of the bedchamber, vacant on the removal of John Churchill*, earl of Marlborough.<sup>16</sup> On 12 Feb. 1692, he was entrusted with the proxy of Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter, which was vacated by the close of the session on 24 February.</p><p>Denbigh returned to the House for the new 1692-3 session on 4 Nov. 1692, after which he was present on 54 per cent of all sittings. There is some ambiguity in the positioning of his name on the list of 31 Dec. on the place bill, suggesting that he may have opposed its committal, but on 3 Jan. he voted for the bill’s passage, and then subscribed the protest when it was voted down. He was forecast as a supporter of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted, as expected, in favour of the bill. On 12 Jan. it was rumoured that Denbigh was to replace Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, as master of the horse to Prince George of Denmark. The appointment was confirmed the following month.<sup>17</sup> On 4 Feb. he agreed with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>Denbigh returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present for just under a third of the session. In January 1694, he resigned as master of the horse to Prince George, possibly as a result of the continuing rupture between the king and Princess Anne.<sup>18</sup> Denbigh resumed his seat in the House after the Christmas recess on 8 Jan., but towards the end of February he was absent for just over a month, only returning to the House on 4 April. The following day an order was drawn up for providing provisions for a regiment of dragoons that he was to command and on 10 Apr. it was reported that he was at Spithead with his squadron.<sup>19</sup> He returned to the House on 16 Apr. and sat for a further five days before the close of the session. Denbigh was again present at the beginning of the new session on 12 Nov. 1694. Although marked as being present on the attendance list, he was excused at a call of the House on 26 Nov., resuming his seat on 4 December. He was thereafter present for approximately 46 per cent of the sittings.</p><p>The following summer Denbigh married Hester Firebrace, daughter of the notorious purveyor to the royal household, Sir Basil Firebrace, who had recently been the subject of a joint investigation by the Lords and Commons of his dealings with the East India Company. A report of the marriage in the <em>Post Boy</em> inflated the new Lady Denbigh’s portion to £20,000 but it was still a lucrative match for Denbigh.<sup>20</sup> Firebrace, however, would be imprisoned for a year as a result of the parliamentary investigation, and his reputation permanently damaged; by 1705 he was rumoured bankrupt.</p><p>Indicative perhaps of his increasing profile among the Tories in the Lords, in November 1695 Denbigh was one of a number of peers and distinguished gentry to be granted honorary doctorates at Oxford upon the king’s visit to the university.<sup>21</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament later that month on 22 Nov. but his attendance declined once again. He sat for a mere nine days in December and seven days in January 1696 and was present overall for a total of 36 per cent of sittings in the session. In spite of this lacklustre performance, on 6 Apr. he was entrusted with the proxy of John West*, 6th Baron de la Warr, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Denbigh returned to the House a month into the new session on 24 Nov. 1696, after which he was present on 46 per cent of sittings. He failed to attend the House on 23 Dec. and was consequently absent from the division for the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He was present when the House reconvened after the Christmas recess on 7 Jan. 1697, and on 1 Feb. he registered his proxy in favour of de la Warr, which was vacated by Denbigh’s return four days later. Just under a fortnight later, on 17 Feb., Denbigh’s brother-in-law, Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl of Kingston, registered his proxy in Denbigh’s favour, which was vacated on Kingston’s return to the House on 24 February.</p><p>Denbigh returned to the House just over a week into the new session on 14 Dec. 1697. Present on 41 per cent of sittings, on 4 Mar. 1698 he entered his dissent at the resolution to read the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> a second time, and on 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill. On 9 June, Denbigh’s Warwickshire neighbour, William Craven*, 2nd Baron Craven, registered his proxy with Denbigh, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 15 June Denbigh was also entrusted with the proxy of William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron, which was again vacated by the close of the session. On 1 July Denbigh entered his protest at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill for establishing the two million fund and for settling the East India trade.</p><p>Denbigh returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sittings. Having attended the prorogation of 1 June 1699, he resumed his place in the new session on 23 Nov., after which he was present on just under half of all sittings. In February 1700, no doubt influenced by his father-in-law’s position, he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into a committee of the whole to enable discussion of amendments to the bill.</p><p>Perhaps reflecting his position as a former member of the household of Prince George, Denbigh participated as one of the assistants to the chief mourner at the funeral of the duke of Gloucester in August 1700.<sup>22</sup> He had attended the prorogation of 1 Aug., and took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on 54 sittings (just under half of the session). On 9 June he entered his protest at the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons regarding the impeachment of the Whig lords, and on 14 June he protested against sending a message to the Commons requesting a conference on the matter. Three days later he voted against acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers, and then subscribed a series of protests on the same subject.</p><p>Denbigh resumed his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701 (of which he attended 55 per cent of sittings), and on 24 Feb. 1702 he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill for the further security of the king’s person (abjuration bill). Following the king’s death, Denbigh was active in the elections for Leicestershire and Warwickshire. In August he reported the results to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, hoping that ‘now we are pretty sure of a Church of England Parliament which will settle the affairs of England a little better than they have been of late.’<sup>23</sup></p><p>Denbigh took his seat in the new Parliament almost a month into the first session on 14 Nov. 1702 and was present on just over half of sittings. In about January 1703 he was listed by Nottingham as likely to support the bill for preventing occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. he voted accordingly, against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. On 22 Feb. he joined with a number of other Tory peers in protesting at the resolution not to commit the bill for the landed qualification of members of Parliament and two days later entered a further protest at the resolution to publish the occasional conformity bill along with the Lords’ amendments and the report of their conference with the Commons. The following month, Denbigh’s reliable Tory credentials earned him the position of lord lieutenant of Leicestershire in place of the Whig John Manners*, duke of Rutland.<sup>24</sup> He proceeded to stamp his mark on the county by overseeing a purge of the deputy lieutenants.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Having attended the prorogation of 22 June 1703, Denbigh resumed his seat for the winter session on 17 Nov., after which he was present on just under a third of sittings. In both forecasts drawn up by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in late 1703, he was predicted to be a likely supporter of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, and on 14 Dec. he voted in favour of passing the measure. On 21 Mar. 1704 he entered his dissent at the resolution not to give a second reading to a rider to the bill for raising recruits for the army. Four days later, he registered two further dissents concerning ministers’ failure to censure, arrest or prosecute ‘the plotter’ Robert Ferguson over his two papers had been an encouragement of enemies to the crown. Denbigh was included on a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support over the ‘Scotch Plot’. Denbigh sat for just one day in April, and was then absent from the House until the winter session.</p><p>In May 1704 Denbigh approached Marlborough for his assistance in securing him a command in the army, having recently been overlooked for one for which he had considered himself ‘as fit’ as the other candidates, namely the command of the Royal Horse Guards. Determined not to be disappointed again, he requested that ‘if any honourable post should happen that you would think of me.’<sup>26</sup> He resumed his seat in the House a month into the new session on 23 Nov. 1704, after which he was present on 35 per cent of sittings. Shortly after the opening of the session, he had been listed among those thought likely to support the Tack. On 26 Nov. he was entrusted with Craven’s proxy and two days later Price Devereux*, 9th Viscount Hereford, also registered his proxy with Denbigh; both were vacated by the close of the session. On 15 Dec. Denbigh entered two dissents relating to the rejection of the bill for the prevention of occasional conformity.</p><p>Denbigh’s name was included among the Jacobites in a list compiled around April 1705 of the peerage ‘in relation to the succession.’ He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 after which he was present on just 22 per cent of sittings. Despite this, on 14 Nov. Craven once again registered his proxy in Denbigh’s favour, which was vacated by his return to the House on 6 December. On 30 Nov. Denbigh entered his dissent at the resolution not to give any further instructions to the committee of the whole on the regency bill and on 3 Dec. he protested against the passage of the bill. On 6 Dec. Denbigh acted as one of the tellers in a division held in a committee of the whole on whether or not the Church was in danger. He then subscribed to the subsequent protest at the resolution that the Church was not in danger. Denbigh was absent after 11 Dec. 1705 until 31 Jan. 1706. On that day he put his name to three dissents relating to the amendment of the place clause in the regency bill. He was then absent again until 19 February. On 23 Feb. he acted as one of the tellers in two divisions concerning the archbishop of Dublin’s bill, in the second of which it was resolved to appoint a day for the measure to be given a third reading. On 9 Mar. he dissented again at the resolution to agree with the Commons that the published letter from Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, was a ‘scandalous, false and malicious libel.’ Two days later Denbigh was named as one of the reporters of two conferences held to examine Gwynne’s letter.</p><p>In May 1706 Denbigh was noted as being one of the members of the revived Tory club, the ‘Honourable Order of Little Bedlam’, and the same month it was rumoured that he was to be removed from office along with a number of other Tory lords.<sup>27</sup> On 1 July he was accordingly put out from the lieutenancy of Leicestershire. For the remainder of 1706 and throughout 1707 Denbigh’s attendance of the House was sporadic. He took his seat a week into the new session on 10 Dec. 1706 but proceeded to attend on just 17 days (18 per cent of the whole). He was then present on just one day of the brief nine-day session of April 1707. Disinclination to attend Parliament does not seem to have prevented him from continuing to participate in local events. In October of that year he was present at the races held at Lutterworth and afterwards was entertained at the house of his kinsman, Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>28</sup> The new session found Denbigh demonstrating greater activity. He took his seat on 28 Nov. 1707, after which he was present on just under a third of sitting days. In March 1708 he attempted to make use of his interest with Marlborough to procure a captaincy for one of his brothers-in-law in the regiment of General William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Cadogan.<sup>29</sup> In about May he was (unsurprisingly) classed as a Tory in an assessment of the peerage in the first Parliament of Great Britain.</p><p>Denbigh returned to the House a fortnight after the opening of the new Parliament on 3 Dec. 1708 but then quit the chamber until the new year. He resumed his place on 10 Jan. 1709, after which he was present on a further 43 occasions (48 per cent of sittings). In March, evidence emerged of Denbigh’s occasionally boisterous lifestyle when two London constables were compelled to enter public apologies to him as well as to Craven and several others for having arrested them the previous year: the two constables, Violet and Ravis, now admitted that they had been ‘guilty of this great imprudence without any just cause.’<sup>30</sup> On 21 Jan. Denbigh voted against the resolution that Scots peers with British titles had the right to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers, thereby ensuring that James Douglas*, duke of Queensberry [S], was not able to vote. On 15 Mar. he was present at a dinner hosted by William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], which was attended mainly by other Scottish peers, including James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], John Ker*, duke of Roxburgh [S], and James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], and may possibly relate to the bill for improving the Union.<sup>31</sup> Certainly, on 28 Mar, he joined these Scottish lords in subscribing two protests relating to the passage of the bill: first at the resolution not to give a second reading to a rider permitting those accused of treason to receive a copy of the indictment at least five days in advance of their trials; and second at the passage of the bill.</p><p>In July 1709 Denbigh joined Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, and Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale, in becoming one of the founding members (and also the vice president) of the Board of Brothers, a hard-drinking Tory club.<sup>32</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 6 Dec. 1709, after which he was present on 44 per cent of sittings. On 16 Feb. 1710, he entered his dissent from the resolution not to adjourn the House and then again from the resolution to agree with the Commons’ address to the queen for Marlborough’s immediate departure for Holland. The following month, Denbigh lent his support to Dr. Henry Sacheverell: on 14 Mar. he subscribed two protests, firstly against the decision not to adjourn the House and then against the crucial resolution that allowed the prosecution to continue—that in cases of impeachments for high crimes or misdemeanours, by writing or speaking, the particular words need not be expressly specified. On 16 Mar. he protested against the decision to put the question that the Commons had made good the first article of their impeachment, and then against passage of the resolution. On the 17th he signed a protest against the resolution that the second, third and fourth articles had also been made good. On 18 Mar. he protested against the form of the question and answer to be asked of peers when judging Sacheverell. On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell not guilty, and signed a protest against the peers finding him guilty. On the 21st he dissented from the censure passed on Sacheverell. The trial over, Denbigh attended only three more days before the end of the session on 5 April. He did, however, attend the prorogation of 2 May.</p><p>Early in June 1710 Denbigh continued to demonstrate his support for Sacheverell, as he was one of the Warwickshire peers to entertain the clergyman during his progress through the county.<sup>33</sup> At the beginning of July, he was reported to be in Holland with his brother. With the ministry under reconstruction, in August William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, recommending Denbigh’s claim for the vacant chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, and reminding Harley that Denbigh had</p><blockquote><p>been a sufferer by the misfortunes of Sir B. Firebrace to a degree that all, who know his circumstances, compassionate. He has just pretensions to be distinguished in the army, having been in that service till the disbanding upon the late peace. He has asked for Essex’s Dragoons, but I believe is not likely to succeed’<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although Denbigh was overlooked for the chancellorship, on 3 Oct. 1710 he was assessed by Harley as a likely supporter of his new ministry.</p><p>Denbigh was present on the second day of the new Parliament, 29 Nov. 1710. He then sat on just six more occasions before the end of the year, but his attendance improved over the following three months and he was present in all on approximately 54 per cent of sittings during the session. On 5 Feb. 1711 he registered his dissent at the resolution to reject the bill repealing the General Naturalization Act. On 5 Mar. he was again entrusted with Hereford’s proxy and three days later, he also received that of Craven. Both proxies were vacated by the close of the session. Following Rutland’s death, Denbigh was reappointed lord lieutenant of Leicestershire, though the formal appointment was delayed until Parliament had risen.<sup>35</sup> The elevation of Rutland’s heir, John Manners*, styled marquess of Granby, to the dukedom provided Denbigh with the opportunity to use his interest to secure Sir Thomas Cave’s return for the newly vacant Leicestershire county seat.<sup>36</sup> Cave was successful but only after another Tory, Henry Tate, had been persuaded to withdraw.<sup>37</sup></p><p>In spring 1711 Denbigh was listed among the Tory ‘patriots’ of the first session of the 1710 Parliament. From this time he appears to have been increasingly troubled by financial difficulties and his loyalty to the ministry was underwritten with the award of a £500 pension to help alleviate the situation.<sup>38</sup> In July 1711, he sought Oxford’s interest in case the indisposition of George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, proved fatal and the colonelcy of the Royal Horse Guards became vacant. Denbigh had also sought it when the previous incumbent, Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, had died.<sup>39</sup> The colonelcy proved elusive. Clearly reluctant to make another expensive journey to London, on 17 Sept. Denbigh approached the secretary of state, William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, to ask whether he could exercise his duties as lord lieutenant without being sworn formally before the queen and council. The following month he acted as one of the bearers at the funeral of his neighbour and companion in unruliness, Craven, whose death from apoplexy had ‘eclipsed’ the annual festivities at Lutterworth.<sup>40</sup></p><p>With the ministry’s peace policy expected to come under attack at the beginning of the session, Bromley was deputed to ensure Denbigh’s prompt arrival in London. On 15 Nov. 1711 Bromley had advised Oxford that he had already been in discussion with Denbigh about his appearance in the House. Bromley had warned Oxford that it would ‘be most suitable to his unhappy circumstances to stay as long as he can in the country’ but noted that Denbigh had conceded his willingness to turn out earlier should the occasion demand it.<sup>41</sup> Forced to honour his promise, Denbigh grumbled at having his peace disturbed and protested that he had not thought ‘of coming up to town so soon, knowing that our House used to have little to do at the first sitting till the Commons had cut us up some work,’ though he conceded, ‘but I find now the case is altered. It’s we that are doing that and indeed fine work.’<sup>42</sup> Despite his annoyance about being roused earlier than he had hoped, Denbigh took steps to ensure the attendance of three other peers at the beginning of the session.<sup>43</sup> Denbigh took his seat on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present for just under 64 per cent of sittings. On 8 Dec. he supported moves to remove the reference to ‘No Peace without Spain’ from the Address, and protested against the failure to do so. On 10 Dec. his name appeared on a memorandum by Oxford of peers to be rewarded; in his case the suggestion was a ‘regiment’. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being likely to vote in favour of Hamilton’s petition to sit as duke of Brandon and the following day he voted (as expected) against barring the holders of Scots peerages from sitting in the House by right of post-Union British creations. Denbigh’s name also featured on Oxford’s 29 Dec. list of peers to contact during the Christmas recess. Denbigh was in attendance on 2 Jan. 1712, when the ministry secured a further adjournment of the House. On 15 Jan. he was included in a list of ‘poor lords’ sent to the elector of Hanover, in which it was recommended that he should be promised a pension of £1,000 to secure his allegiance to the new dynasty. On 28 May Denbigh voted against the opposition motion that the queen overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from conducting an offensive campaign on the continent.</p><p>In July 1712 Denbigh renewed his approaches to Oxford about the colonelcy of the Royal Horse Guards, lamenting his ‘misfortune that I have not so much reputation, or interest with your lordship as to be trusted with such a command.’ In spite of the award of the pension, his financial problems continued to mount and in August Denbigh petitioned Oxford for payment of his arrears. He was even reduced to the embarrassment of admitting that he was unable to pay his way home from London to Newnham. Following the death of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, in August, Denbigh redoubled his efforts to secure the command of the horse guards, begging leave ‘to solicit… in a stronger manner than I could persuade myself to do whilst he was living.’ His petition received Bromley’s warm support, and Denbigh also approached Ormond for his assistance. Ormond told him that he thought that he was already in receipt of a government pension. Denbigh sought Oxford’s approval for his denial, saying that he had ‘denied it… in such a manner that I hope you’ll approve of… I’m not used to lie and should be sorry to be thought in one now.’<sup>44</sup></p><p>Denbigh was noted by Oxford in February 1713 as a peer to be contacted in advance of the new session. An estimate shortly after compiled by Jonathan Swift (with Oxford’s additions) assessed Denbigh as being likely to continue to support the ministry. He resumed his seat in the House a month after the opening of the new session on 15 May. He was present for approximately 40 per cent of all sittings. In June it was predicted that he would divide in favour of the ministry in the expected vote on the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Having been denied his ambition to secure command of a regiment, in August it was widely rumoured that Denbigh’s support was to be bought with an appointment as one of the tellers of the exchequer.<sup>45</sup> By the end of August he was becoming frustrated with the delays in securing his patent and his loss of patience with the lord treasurer was more than apparent in his complaints that he was ‘even denied the common decency of good manners.’<sup>46</sup></p><p>Denbigh took his seat a fortnight after the opening of the new Parliament on 2 Mar. 1714, after which he was present on just under 49 per cent of sittings. Having sat for just eight days, he registered his proxy in favour of Beaufort, which was vacated on his return to the House on 27 April. On 31 May, Gilbert Coventry*, 4th earl of Coventry, registered his proxy in Denbigh’s favour, which was vacated by the close of the session. At the end of May or beginning of June Denbigh was forecast by Nottingham as being a likely supporter of the schism bill. Continual failure to prise his pension out of the government’s hands seems to have made Denbigh increasingly desperate, and in July 1714 he wrote to Oxford begging for payment, professing himself ‘perfectly astonished’ at Oxford’s latest prevarication.<sup>47</sup> On 24 July Oxford included Denbigh in another of his memoranda, in which he noted the £500 pension due to him.<sup>48</sup> Denbigh attended just two days of the brief session that met following the queen’s death in August. Despite his Toryism, in November 1714 Denbigh received a re-grant of his tellership, but on 3 Dec. he was again put out as lord lieutenant in Leicestershire. Towards the end of that month he was said to be suffering from poor health.<sup>49</sup> In spite of this, he retained considerable influence in Leicestershire and was active in employing his interest in the elections to the new Parliament.<sup>50</sup> He lost his tellership in November 1715. Denbigh died of an apoplexy on 18 Mar. 1717.<sup>51</sup> He was buried at Monk’s Kirby and was succeeded by his son, William Feilding<sup>†</sup>, as 5th earl of Denbigh.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FEILDING, William (1640-85) |
<p><strong><surname>FEILDING</surname></strong> (<strong>FIELDING</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1640–85)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1640-66 Visct. Callan [I]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 31 Jan. 1666 as 2nd earl of Desmond [I]; <em>suc. </em>uncle 28 Nov. 1675 as 3rd earl of DENBIGH |
|
First sat 15 Feb. 1677; last sat 30 May 1685 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Dec. 1640, 1st. s. of George Feilding, earl of Desmond [I] (<em>d</em>.1666), and Bridget (<em>b</em>. c.1615), da. of Sir Michael Stanhope<sup>‡</sup>, of Sudbourne, Suff. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) 1666, Mary (1645–69), da. of Sir Robert King, wid. of Sir William Meredyth, bt. [I], 2s. 1da.; (2) 1676 (with £5,000), Mary (1635–1719), da. of Henry Carey*, 2nd earl of Monmouth, and Martha, da. of Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex,<sup>1</sup> <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 23 Aug. 1685; <em>will</em> 20 Feb. 1683–21 Feb. 1684, pr. 30 Sept. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p><em>Custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Leics. 1680–1; ld. lt. Warws. 1683–<em>d</em>.</p><p>?Capt. tp. of horse (Ireland) 1672–6.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>As heir presumptive to the English earldom of his uncle Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, and the holder of an Irish peerage inherited from his father, Feilding had pretensions to significant influence on both sides of the Irish Sea. A cousin of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, through his mother he was related to the Stanhopes and Berkeleys, while the advantageous marriages of his siblings also connected him with the families of Gawdy and Gage.<sup>7</sup> He enjoyed great expectations in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, as well as substantial estates in Ireland, though his mother’s custodianship of the family’s Irish properties during his minority attracted harsh criticism from her brother-in-law Denbigh, who considered her profligate. Feilding’s own poor health appears to have prevented him from fulfilling much of his potential.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Feilding succeeded his father in the earldom of Desmond in 1666 and the same year he took his seat in the Irish parliament.<sup>9</sup> The previous year he had been reprimanded by Denbigh for paying too much heed to his aunt Elizabeth, countess of Guilford. Denbigh complained that Feilding’s ‘misapprehension of my sister Guildford’s kindness to you, upon the ill success of your leaving Ireland upon her advice may well discourage me from interposing in your affairs, since my interest at court cannot equal hers’. Denbigh then restricted himself to cautioning his nephew that, ‘the king has been very gracious to you, and it will become you in honour to use personal diligence in that noble employment his majesty has preferred you unto’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Denbigh’s exhortations to his nephew to be wary of Lady Guildford appear to have fallen on deaf ears, as negotiations to secure Desmond a suitable match were led by his aunt, and at some point after his succession to the Irish earldom he married Mary King, widow of Sir William Meredyth.<sup>11</sup> Lady Desmond died after only three years of marriage in September 1669.<sup>12</sup> Disputes with his brother-in-law, John King, Lord Kingstone [I], which were precipitated by Lady Desmond’s death, continued after Kingstone’s own death and in May 1683 they were referred to counsel.<sup>13</sup> The same year as his wife’s death (1669), Desmond was appointed to the Irish privy council and in 1670 he carried the sword of state at the entry of John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley, as lord lieutenant.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Perhaps in expectation of his imminent succession to the English peerage, in January 1675 Desmond approached Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, about quitting his command in Ireland in favour of a Colonel Jeffries. In November of the same year he succeeded his uncle as 3rd earl of Denbigh.<sup>15</sup> The inheritance proved a troublesome one and as early as January 1676 it was reported that he was ‘highly incensed’ by the activities of some of his younger kinsmen in enquiring into the personal estate.<sup>16</sup></p><p>The hiatus in parliamentary sessions meant that it was not until 15 Feb. 1677 that Denbigh finally took his seat in the English House of Lords, after which he was present on 29 per cent of all sitting days. The same day he was named to the standing committees for petitions and privileges. He was named to a further 11 committees during the session. On 3 Mar. Denbigh requested that he and his kinsman, Buckingham, might be heard in the ongoing case concerning Robert Villiers’ claim to the viscountcy of Purbeck. Despite early interest in the case, Denbigh appears to have surrendered the principal role to Buckingham, who presented a bill before the House for disallowing Villiers’ pretensions to the peerage.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Denbigh sat regularly throughout March and the first half of April, attending on 25 occasions during those two months. In spite of his association with Buckingham, in May of that year he was assessed by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, as ‘vile’. Denbigh was absent from the House from 25 May and failed to resume his seat in the second half of the session but on 16 Feb. 1678 he registered his proxy in favour of Richard Butler*, Baron Butler (better known as earl of Arran [I]), which was vacated by the close of the session. He remained absent from the House throughout the session of May 1678 but then took his seat once more at the opening of the following session on 21 October. Present on 85 per cent of all sitting days, on 12 Dec. he was named to the committee considering the Popish recusants’ children bill.</p><p>Denbigh took his seat at the opening of the abortive session of 6 Mar. 1679. He was then present again for the opening of the new session on 15 Mar. after which he again attended on 95 per cent of all sitting days. That month he was assessed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), as a likely supporter: in April he proved the embattled peer right by voting against the bill of attainder, and on 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. Denbigh was also active at a local level and in November, along with his neighbour Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, he ensured that Sir Richard Newdigate and Thomas Mariot were put out of the commission of the peace for Warwickshire in retaliation for their standing against the court candidates at the August election.<sup>18</sup> Denbigh’s feud with Newdigate simmered on throughout the ensuing year and at the 1680 summer assizes a case was brought against Newdigate for ‘a pretended riot’ by Sir William Jesson at Denbigh’s instigation. A half-hearted attempt by Denbigh to patch up relations with Newdigate failed and their antagonism continued into the following year.<sup>19</sup> Denbigh took his seat in the new session on 21 Oct. 1680, after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days. In November he voted against exclusion and the following month he was among the minority finding William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of high treason.</p><p>Denbigh was again considered a likely supporter of Danby’s attempt to secure bail in March 1681. He took his seat two days into the brief Oxford Parliament on 23 Mar. and proceeded to attend on five days before the session was brought to a close. In July, Lady Newdigate approached Lady Denbigh in the hopes of negotiating a reconciliation between their warring husbands but Lady Denbigh was able only to offer that:</p><blockquote><p>Time I hope may efface what is past if no new subject be given for unkindness, but my lord was credibly informed that at the last elections Sir Richard, to lessen my lord’s interest in the country, publicly bid them remember my lord voted not guilty in my Lord Stafford’s business, which exasperated my lord very much, for what he did according as his conscience and honour directed him, ought not to be mentioned with reproach.<sup>20</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the autumn of the same year, shortly after returning to London, Denbigh agreed to a request from the king that he would resign his position as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Leicestershire in favour of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon (the former holder of the position).<sup>21</sup> In compensation he was appointed lord lieutenant of Warwickshire during the minority of George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, and the following year it was reported that, on the death of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, he was also to be appointed to the lieutenancy of Rutland ‘by the favour of the new privy seal [George Savile*, earl, afterwards marquess, of Halifax]) who salves a former injury by this medium’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Denbigh was one of those to subscribe Danby’s petition to be bailed in early 1684.<sup>23</sup> The following year his name headed the list of the local nobility and gentry petitioning Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, for £200 to be added to the £1,200 they had already raised towards the building of a new hall and gaol at Warwick.<sup>24</sup> By this time, Denbigh was clearly a sick man. Though barely in his forties, he had been referred to as the ‘old earl’ in May 1682 and the following year he composed his will.<sup>25</sup> Early in January 1685 he was referred to the care of Dr Radcliffe in Oxford and by 15 Jan. it was reported within the family that his countess was in ‘great apprehension’ about his condition.<sup>26</sup> He rallied sufficiently to take his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 but he sat for a mere four days before retiring for the final time on 30 May. On 16 June he registered his proxy in favour of his cousin Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, which was vacated by his sudden death on 23 Aug. at his home in Islington.<sup>27</sup> The cause of death was believed to be diabetes.<sup>28</sup> He was buried at Monks Kirby.</p><p>In his will of 1683, Denbigh appointed Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and John Verney<sup>‡</sup> of Allexton trustees. He bequeathed annuities of £500 and £200 to his sons, Basil Feilding*, <em>styled</em> Viscount Feilding (4th earl of Denbigh), and William Feilding. The latter also received £2,500 to be raised from the sale of lands in Yorkshire. Provision was also made for a £6,000 portion for his daughter, Mary Feilding, and small bequests were made to other members of his immediate family. A codicil drawn up the following year reduced William Feilding’s share dramatically by revoking the £2,500 bequest. Denbigh was succeeded by his elder son, Basil Feilding, as 4th earl of Denbigh.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FERMOR, Thomas (1698-1753) |
<p><strong><surname>FERMOR</surname></strong> (<strong>FARMER</strong>), <strong>Thomas</strong> (1698–1753)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 7 Dec. 1711 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. LEOMINSTER (LEMPSTER); <em>cr. </em>27 Dec. 1721 earl of POMFRET (PONTEFRACT). |
|
First sat 9 Dec. 1719; last sat 13 Mar. 1753 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 23 Mar. 1698, s. of William Fermor*, Bar. Leominster, and Sophia, da. of Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. (MA 1717). <em>m.</em> (settlement 13 July 1720) Henrietta Louisa, da. of John Jeffreys*, 2nd Bar. Jeffreys, and Charlotte, da. of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, 4s. (at least 2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 6da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> KB 27 May 1725. <em>d</em>. 8 July 1753;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 23 Jan. 1752, pr. 20 July 1753.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Master of the horse to Queen Caroline, 1727-37.</p><p>Gov. of Guernsey, 1740-42;<sup>4</sup> ranger, St James’s Park and Hyde Park, 1751-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of dragoons, 1740.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas (with Henrietta, countess of Pontefract), by Thomas Bradwell, c. 1721, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.</p> |
<p>Leominster succeeded to the peerage while underage, though this did not prevent Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup> from appealing to him to ‘take care of his side’ in the forthcoming elections in Buckinghamshire in the summer of 1713.<sup>8</sup> He seems early on to have tended towards the Jacobites but a trip to Hanover was thought to have persuaded him ‘to have nothing more to say to them and never to believe what they said more’.<sup>9</sup> His conversion resulted in several marks of favour. He was promoted in the peerage under George I and was awarded significant household and local office under George II. His career will be considered more fully in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FERMOR, William (1648-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>FERMOR</surname></strong> (<strong>FARMER</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1648–1711)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>12 Apr. 1692 Bar. LEOMINSTER (LEINSTER, LEMPSTER). |
|
First sat 11 July 1692; last sat 18 Apr. 1710 |
|
MP Northampton 1670, 1679. |
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Aug. 1648, 2nd s. of Sir William Fermor, bt. and Mary, da. and coh. of Hugh Perry, of London. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen, Oxf., 1664, MA 1667. <em>m</em>. (1) 21 Dec. 1671 (with £7,000), Jane (<em>d</em>.1673), da. of Andrew Barker of Fairford Park, Glos, 1da. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); (2) June 1682 (with £9,000), Katherine (<em>d.</em>1687), da. of John Poulett*, 3rd Bar. Poulett, 1da.; (3) 5 Mar. 1692 (with £10,000), Sophia (<em>d</em>.1746), da. of Thomas Osborne*, mq. of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), wid. of Donough (Donatus) O’Brien, <em>styled</em> Ld. O’Brien [I],<sup>1</sup> 2s. 4da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 14 May 1661. <em>d</em>. 7 Dec. 1711; <em>will</em> 16 Mar. 1706- 28 Jan. 1711, pr. 22 Jan. 1712.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. assessment, Northants. 1673-80, 1689-90; dep. lt. Northants. 1674-87;<sup>3</sup> commr. inquiry, Whittlewood and Salcey forests 1679.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, sold at Sotheby's, 17 May 2005 (Easton Neston sale).</p> |
<p>The Fermor family, traditionally of Welsh descent, settled at Easton Neston in the sixteenth century and within 25 years of making Northamptonshire their home were sending Members to Parliament. The family held extensive lands in Bedfordshire and Dorset, but it was the Northamptonshire estate that formed the foundation for their political influence.<sup>5</sup> Besides Easton Neston the family also owned substantial property in the town of Northampton itself.<sup>6</sup> Following the fire that devastated the town in 1675, Fermor and Sir William Langham<sup>‡</sup> headed the list of commoners subscribing to the rebuilding fund, pledging £100 each. On completion of the new church of All Saints in August 1680 Fermor’s local prominence was again made apparent by the offer of a pew ‘until he shall build a seat for himself.’<sup>7</sup></p><p>Fermor’s father had sided with the royalists in the Civil War, serving as a captain of horse before compounding for £1,400.<sup>8</sup> He lived to see the monarchy restored but was unsuccessful in contesting Brackley shortly before his death. The Restoration enabled Fermor to reassert his manorial rights over Towcester, which adjoined his estate.<sup>9</sup> In 1670 he stood for Northampton against Henry O’Brien<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Ibrackan [I], at the by-election triggered by the succession of Christopher Hatton*, to the peerage as 2nd Baron Hatton. When the second seat also fell vacant on the death of Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, both Fermor and Ibrackan were returned without a contest.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Fermor appears to have been an inactive Member of the Commons. In April 1674 he was issued a pass to travel to France.<sup>11</sup> He remained abroad for the following three years, and it may have been during this tour that he developed his lifelong passion for collecting antique curios.<sup>12</sup> Marked ‘vile’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in 1677, after his re-election for Northampton in 1679 Fermor was recorded as being ‘worthy’, but he remained an inactive Member and he did not stand again.</p><p>In June 1682, almost a decade after the death of his first wife, Fermor remarried. Two years later his influence over Towcester was extended when he was granted a cattle market and three annual fairs there, but his interests from about this time until its completion in 1702 were centred about the new house and gardens at Easton Neston.<sup>13</sup> Fermor’s second marriage may have been one of the reasons for rebuilding the house and may also have provided the necessary capital.<sup>14</sup> It is certainly noticeable that work stopped shortly after Lady Fermor’s death in 1687.<sup>15</sup> Fermor relied too on the help of his Northamptonshire neighbour, Hatton, both for building materials and garden supplies, in return for which he promised Hatton his assistance in local affairs.<sup>16</sup> The whole served as a showcase for Fermor’s prized exhibits, the Arundel marbles, which he purchased for £300 from Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, in 1691.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The accession of James II brought about a brief decline in Fermor’s fortunes. He refused to answer the three questions, and in 1687 he was deprived of his deputy lieutenancy. Fermor’s activities at the time of the Revolution are uncertain, but following the king’s overthrow he was once more drawn into the political arena by his marriage to Carmarthen’s daughter, widow of the son of his old political rival Ibrackan.<sup>18</sup> To coincide with this new alliance Fermor was raised to the peerage. The warrant for his barony was issued on 19 Feb. 1692, but early in March it was rumoured that the patent for creating him baron or earl of Towcester had been stopped.<sup>19</sup> Another report suggested that he was to be created both an English baron and Irish viscount.<sup>20</sup> It is not clear why it was decided to alter the style of the barony to Leominster rather than Towcester, a town with which Fermor was closely connected. The creation was seen as a reward for Carmarthen and throughout his career in the House, Leominster proved a faithful adherent of his father-in-law. Shortly after his elevation, plans for Leominster’s house at Easton Neston appear to have undergone further alterations to reflect his new status.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Leominster took his seat in the House on 11 July 1692, introduced between John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas, but he was then absent at the opening of the new session on 4 November. On 21 Nov., following a call of the House, his presence was requested. In reply to the House’s demand, the postmaster at Towcester wrote to explain that Leominster had left Easton Neston and that he was expected to be in town on 25 November.<sup>22</sup> He actually took his place on the following Monday (28 Nov.) and was thereafter present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. On 31 Dec. he voted against committing the place bill. At about the same time he was predicted to be an opponent of Norfolk’s divorce bill and voted against it on 2 Jan. 1693. A few days later, on 9 Jan., Leominster was named to the committee considering the River Nene navigation bill. Local knowledge may have been one of the reasons for his nomination, but there is no evidence of his being an active member of this or any other committee to which he was named. On 17 Jan. Leominster entered his dissent over the resolution not to hear all the judges over Charles Knollys’ claim to the earldom of Banbury, and the following month he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>Leominster resumed his seat for the 1693-4 session on 2 Dec. 1693, after which he was present on 45 per cent of all sitting days. Local loyalties may have influenced his decision, on 17 Feb. 1694, to vote in favour of the appeal of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, against the chancery ruling in the Albemarle inheritance case (<em>Montagu v. Bath</em>). Leominster registered his proxy with his father-in-law, Carmarthen, on 26 Feb. which was vacated on his return to the House just over a month later on 31 March.</p><p>Over the following few years Leominster continued to attend the House without making any great mark on its proceedings. He resumed his seat for the 1694-5 session, attending just under half of all sitting days. He attended the first (1695-6) session of the new Parliament for just 21 (of 124) days. On 17 Mar. 1696 the House ordered that letters should be sent to three absent peers, Leominster being one of them, demanding that they attend or (if unable to do so through sickness) sign a copy of the Association. Leominster delayed returning for a further fortnight. He registered his proxy with Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become) on 30 Mar. and resumed his seat the following day when he also subscribed the Association. He then absented himself once more for the remainder of the session. He returned to the House for the 1696-7 session, attending 55 per cent of all sitting days). The following month he opposed the move to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, entering his dissent on 15 and 18 December. On 23 Dec. he voted against the attainder. He then entered another protest against it.</p><p>Leominster resumed his seat on 14 Dec. 1697 and in March 1698 again followed his father-in-law’s lead by voting against the resolution to commit the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> for corruption. Present on half of all sitting days in the session, he received the proxy of his brother-in-law, Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen (later 2nd duke of Leeds), on 14 June 1698. It was vacated three days later when Leominster also absented himself from the House; Leominster registered his own proxy with another member of the Leeds clan, Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon.</p><p>Absent for the first four months of the new Parliament, Leominster finally took his seat on 3 Jan. 1699, after which he attended a further 18 days in the session (22 per cent of the whole). Along with his father-in-law, on 8 Feb. Leominster voted against the committee resolution offering to assist the king in retaining his Dutch guards, subscribing his dissent when the resolution was carried. During the 1699-1700 session he was forecast as being a likely supporter of the East India Company bill. In Feb. 1700 he supported the resolution to adjourn into a committee of the whole to consider two amendments to the bill, and on 8 Feb. he registered his dissent at the resolution that the Scots colony at Darien was inconsistent with the good of England’s trade. The following month, on 8 Mar., Leominster protested against the second reading of Norfolk’s divorce bill.</p><p>Absent for the entirety of the first Parliament of 1701, Leominster resumed his a month after the opening of the second 1701 Parliament. He was thereafter present on just 19 per cent of all sitting days. He returned to the House for the new Parliament on 9 Dec. 1702, attending almost 20 per cent of all sitting days for the 1702-3 session. In January 1703 he was assessed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham as a likely supporter of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. 1703 he voted accordingly to reject the resolution to adhere to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. On 22 Feb. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to commit the bill requiring that all Members of the Commons meet a property qualification.</p><p>Leominster failed to resume his seat for the opening of the new session in November 1703, but he was recorded in both of the estimates compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill; on 14 Dec. he was noted as having voted for the measure by proxy, though no proxy records survive for this session (Boyer’s list of the lords voting for and against the measure makes no mention of proxies). Leominster returned to the House on 19 Feb. 1704. His stance as an upholder of the Anglican Church appears to have been reflected again in his subscribing the dissent, on 21 Mar. 1704, at the resolution not to read a rider to the bill for raising recruits for the army, which required that church wardens and overseers of the poor in parishes from which the new recruits were to be raised should give their consent. He then put his name to the protest at the resolution to pass the measure. Four days later (25 Mar.) he subscribed two further dissents at the rejection of the resolution that the failure to pass a censure on Ferguson was an encouragement to the Crown’s enemies. Lempster was included by Nottingham in a list of members of both Houses drawn up in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Leominster’s attendance of the House slumped during the 1704-5 session which he attended on just two days. Even so, he was included in a list of those thought likely to support the Tack and, following the close of the session, he was reckoned as being a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.</p><p>Despite his reputation as a stalwart Anglican, Leominster failed to attend the first session of the 1705 Parliament and was thus not in attendance for the Church in Danger debates. That he drew up a will in March of the following year suggests that poor health was the reason for his absence. Still missing at the opening of the second session in December 1706, he finally resumed his place on 17 Feb. 1707, attending on just four occasions before retiring once again. Leominster failed to attend the brief third session in April 1707. He returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 23 Oct. 1707 but attended for only six days before again absenting himself.</p><p>During the summer of 1708 Leominster was, unsurprisingly, included among the Tories in a list of the Lords’ party affiliations. Following the successful (unchallenged) return of both sitting members for Northamptonshire he was able to confine himself to pleasant social activities before returning to London early in the second week of December.<sup>23</sup> He then resumed his seat a month into the new Parliament on 16 Dec. 1708, after which he was present on a fifth of all sitting days in the session. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scottish representative peers.</p><p>Leominster seems to have suffered from cripplingly bad health in 1709.<sup>24</sup> He appears to have recovered by the end of the year and returned to London in December 1709.<sup>25</sup> He took his place on 10 Jan. 1710, after which he was present on a third of all sitting days. His motivation was the trial of Dr. Sacheverell. On 14 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn the House and then subscribed the protest at the resolution that it was unnecessary to include the particular words deemed criminal in the articles of impeachment. On 16 Mar. he entered two further protests against the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment and on 18 Mar. he protested again at the resolution to limit the peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty. Two days later Leominster found the doctor not guilty, entering his dissent against the guilty verdict and against the censure passed on Sacheverell. Taciturn as ever, he does not appear to have made any contribution to the debates.</p><p>Leominster attended the House for the final time on 18 April. That summer, he appears to have sought the interest of his second wife’s kinsman, John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, over a dispute with a Captain Ryder, who was said to have caused ‘great havoc’ in Whittlewood Forest. Leeds assured Poulett that gratifying Leominster in this would be ‘more pleasing to his lordship than any employment the queen could give him.’<sup>26</sup> Noted by Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, as a likely supporter of his new ministry in October, the following summer (1711) Leominster was included in a list of Tory patriots. By then it was apparent that he was critically ill. His son-in-law, Sir John Wodehouse<sup>‡</sup> visited Easton Neston to take his leave of the dying lord in May, and in August Leominster ‘very ill of a dropsy’ journeyed to London.<sup>27</sup> The reason for this final exertion is uncertain, but it may be significant that, still clinging to life at the beginning of December, he was included in a list of peers to be canvassed in advance of the crucial vote on ‘no peace without Spain.’</p><p>Leominster finally succumbed on 7 Dec. 1711 and was buried at Easton Neston. His will specified that his funeral be conducted ‘without a sermon’ and with ‘no mourning put up in the church nor chancel nor any room in the great house.’ He left substantial portions (£5,000 each) to his three unmarried daughters (a fourth daughter, Bridget, is not mentioned, presumably having died in infancy), raising them by means of a codicil to £6,000 following the death of Sophia Fermor. He also bequeathed £20,000 to Mary, Lady Wodehouse, Leominster’s daughter by Katherine Poulett, in the event of both his sons dying. He was succeeded by his son, Thomas Fermor*, a minor, as 2nd Baron Leominster (later earl of Pomfret). Leominster’s widow continued to live in the house he had created, and it was there in 1712 that her father Leeds also died.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FIENNES, James (c. 1603-74) |
<p><strong><surname>FIENNES</surname></strong> (<strong>FINES</strong>), <strong>James</strong> (c. 1603–74)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 14 Apr. 1662 as 2nd Visct. SAYE and SELE. |
|
First sat 5 Mar. 1663; last sat 29 Mar. 1673 |
|
MP Banbury 1625, Oxfordshire 1626, 1628, 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.), 1660. |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1603, 1st s. of William Fiennes*, Visct. Saye and Sele, and Elizabeth, da. of John Temple, of Stowe, Bucks; bro. of John<sup>‡</sup> and Nathaniel Fiennes<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Queens’, Camb. matric. Easter, 1618; Emmanuel Camb. 1622-1624; travelled abroad 1624-5; L. Inn, 1628. <em>m</em>. 1630 (with £3,000), Frances (<em>d</em>.1684), da. of Sir Edward Cecil<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Wimbledon, 3s. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p)</em>. 2da. <em>d</em>. 15 Mar. 1674; <em>admon</em>. 15 Apr. 1674 to da. Frances Ellis.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Oxon. 1660-8; ld. lt. Oxon. 1668-<em>d</em>; freeman, Oxford 1668.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>The least prominent son of the 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, James Fiennes was described by Wood as ‘an honest Cavalier and a quiet man.’<sup>4</sup> He was neither the firebrand his brother Nathaniel proved to be, nor so ambitious a politician as his father. Even so, he was an active member of the local nobility, proud of his ancestry and proved to be a conscientious member of the House.<sup>5</sup> Reckoned by Nugent to have been a man ‘of a shrewd mind and a persevering and resolute temper,’ the contrast between Fiennes and his father is perhaps most apparent in the causes which he supported.<sup>6</sup> While his father had narrowly escaped trial for treason for his political activities before the Civil War, Fiennes contented himself with less contentious issues, though of undoubted personal interest to him, such as adding his name to a petition to the king of July 1664 requesting that traditional rights of way be maintained for those owning land in Pall Mall adjoining the king’s gardens.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Before succeeding to the family seat of Broughton Castle, Fiennes resided principally at Shutford in Oxfordshire and at Weston-under-Edge in Gloucestershire.<sup>8</sup> With his brother, Nathaniel Fiennes, he also had interests in Ireland in co. Wicklow, where he purchased part of a 200-year lease on the barony of Shellelowe.<sup>9</sup> In the 1630s he was admitted an adventurer in America.<sup>10</sup> Although less rigid than his father in matters of religion, he retained some of the 1st Viscount’s prejudices. Thus, although he released the Quaker, Edward Vivers, who had served two years and seven months in gaol despite the lack of evidence brought against him, he was quite as hostile to the sect as his father had been.<sup>11</sup> Thirteen Quakers living on his estates were fined between 1662 and 1663, while ten people from Banbury were imprisoned for attending Quaker meetings in 1664.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Fiennes broke with the family tradition of attending New College, Oxford, and instead matriculated at Queens’ Cambridge in 1618 before migrating to Emmanuel in 1622. Both were puritan institutions. In 1630 he married Frances Cecil, daughter of his co-religionist, Viscount Wimbledon, but the marriage was not successful and was said to have failed by January 1648 when the future viscount and viscountess separated. Fiennes’ wife complained that her husband was not ‘holy enough.’<sup>13</sup> Of their five children, the first two sons, James and William, died in their infancy, while the third son, also William, drowned in the Seine while still a minor.<sup>14</sup> A number of sources mention a fourth son, Francis, serving in a parliamentarian regiment, but this appears to be a mistake.<sup>15</sup> No evidence has been found to support the suggestion that Fiennes fought at Edgehill alongside his father and brothers.<sup>16</sup> However, he was active in Parliament before his exclusion in Pride’s Purge.<sup>17</sup> Having been forced from the Commons, he retired to his estate at Shutford and from there was one of the Oxfordshire gentry who petitioned General George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, for a free Parliament in February 1660.<sup>18</sup> Although he was returned unopposed as knight of the shire for Oxfordshire to the Convention along with Thomas Wenman<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Wenman [I], he seems not to have contested the seat again the following year, perhaps in anticipation of his inheritance of the peerage.<sup>19</sup></p><p>The Restoration almost at once plunged the Fiennes family into an acrimonious lawsuit involving Andrew Ellis, husband of Fiennes’ younger daughter, Frances. Ellis, along with Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup> and Colonel George Twisleton, parliamentarian governor of Denbigh, had purchased the manors of Hawarden, Hope and Mold from Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, during the Interregnum.<sup>20</sup> One of Fiennes’ other relatives, Beaumont Percival, had been rector of Hawarden before moving to the family living of Broughton.<sup>21</sup> Fiennes petitioned the king not to return the estates to Derby, as the manor of Hawarden had been especially set aside as a portion for Frances Fiennes on her marriage to Ellis.<sup>22</sup> Fiennes’ father was a member of the Lords’ committee deputed to investigate the affair. Both Houses of Parliament supported the bill to return the lost estates to Derby, with Fiennes being one of only six members of the Commons to vote against the measure, the king refused his assent to it. The case rumbled on until 1678 when the Stanley family finally achieved the return of their property, but in Fiennes’ lifetime the king assured the estates to Ellis and the other purchasers.</p><p>Fiennes succeeded his father in the peerage in April 1662, marking his accession to the viscountcy by presenting a silver standing cup surmounted with the family arms to the church of St. Mary’s, Broughton.<sup>23</sup> It was not until 5 Mar. of the following year that he finally took his seat in the Lords, a fortnight into the session that had commenced on 18 Feb., having been excused at a call of the House on 23 February. He was thereafter present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to at least 28 committees. An implacable opponent of the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in July Saye and Sele was included in a list prepared by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of those likely to support the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to have Clarendon impeached.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Saye and Sele resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 16 Mar. 1664 after which he was present on each day of the 36-day session. Named to at least ten committees in addition to the sessional committee for privileges and the sub-committee for the <em>Journal</em>, on 12 May he reported from the committee for the bill to continue the act for regulating the press and also from that considering the bill for establishing Abraham Colfe’s free school at Lewisham. The following day he reported from two more committees, that for Francis Cottington’s bill (the committee of which he had chaired two days previously) and the committee for Charles Cotton’s bill.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Saye and Sele returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 24 Nov. 1664 after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to 17 committees. On 15 Dec. he chaired a session of the committee for privileges considering the complaint of Seth Ward*, bishop of Exeter, against Gilbert Yard for suing a writ against the bishop during the time of privilege. Saye and Sele reported the committee’s conclusion in Bishop Ward’s favour the same day, following which Yard was summoned to the bar to make his submission.<sup>26</sup> On 1 Mar. 1665, having chaired a session of the committee for the bill for taking away damage clear, Saye and Sele reported the committee’s recommendation that the bill should pass with certain amendments; the House resolved instead that the measure should be recommitted.<sup>27</sup> The following day his signature to the proceedings attests to his activity in the committee for the Journal.</p><p>In advance of the new session, presumably anticipating being absent at its opening, Saye and Sele registered his proxy with Humble Ward*, Baron Ward, but the proxy was vacated when Saye and Sele appeared on the first day of the new session, on 9 Oct. 1665. Present on 15 of the session’s 19 sitting days, he was named to six committees, chairing sessions of four committees on 30 October.<sup>28</sup> On 31 Oct. he reported back from three of these, including the committee considering the bill to continue the act for regulating the press and that considering the distresses of rent bill, after which it was ordered that a conference should be held with the Commons over amendments in the latter, some of which the committee had determined not to approve.</p><p>Saye and Sele was absent at the opening of the 1666-7 session. Still missing from the attendance list on 8 Oct., it seems likely that he resumed his seat later that day when he was named to the sessional committee for privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal. Named to some 20 further committees during the session, on 9 Jan. 1667 he chaired the committees for Henry Mildmay’s bill and for the bill for George Nevill*, 12th Baron Abergavenny, reporting back to the House from the former two days later.<sup>29</sup> On 21 Jan. he chaired a session of the committee for the plague bill, and the following day (22 Jan.) he reported from a naturalization bill.<sup>30</sup> The same day he chaired two further committees considering the bills for Sir Seymour Shirley and Sir John Poyntz.<sup>31</sup> He reported from the former on 23 Jan. and the same day subscribed the protest over the rejection of a clause granting the right of appeal to the king and House of Lords from the fire court.</p><p>Saye and Sele attended on two days in July 1667 and resumed his place a week into the 1667-9 session on 17 October. Present on over 88 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to at least 24 committees, including that concerning Thomas Skinner’s case against the East India Company. In keeping with his earlier support for Bristol’s attack on Clarendon, in November 1667 Saye and Sele supported the Commons’ motion to impeach Clarendon. On 20 Nov. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request to commit the former lord chancellor on a general charge. Saye and Sele, who had served as a deputy lieutenant in Oxfordshire since the Restoration, became lord lieutenant of the county following Clarendon’s fall. His appointment as lieutenant is striking. He was by no means the most substantial landowner in Oxfordshire at the time, but his reputation as a moderate (as well as his consistent opposition to the disgraced former incumbent) may have recommended him.</p><p>Saye and Sele did not take his seat in the 1669 session until 12 November. On 9 Nov. he had been excused on the grounds of ill health. He was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days in this short session and was named to just three committees. He returned to the House three days into the next (1670) session on 17 Feb. 1670. Although he was named to 14 committees, he attended just 18 per cent of all sitting days, quitting the session on 2 April. Shortly before this, on 26 Mar., he registered his dissent against the resolution to pass the conventicles bill. Returning to the House just over a week into the first 1673 session on 13 Feb., Saye and Sele’s level of attendance improved markedly being present on more than three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to eight committees.</p><p>Saye and Sele failed to return to the House for the brief session of October to November 1673, almost certainly on the grounds of poor health. Noted as missing at a call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674, he died just over two months later on 15 Mar. and was buried at Broughton. Despite the family’s success in adapting to the Restoration, Saye and Sele’s niece, Celia Fiennes, noted that at her uncle’s death the family seat of Broughton Castle, its park and gardens were ‘much left to decay and ruin’. Certainly little improvement work was undertaken on the site from the time of the Civil War, when it was besieged by the royalists, until the eighteenth century.<sup>32</sup> By 1675 the castle, which was assessed at 26 hearths in 1665, generated income from half-yearly rentals amounting to little more than £450.<sup>33</sup> This is not to say that Saye and Sele had been reluctant to make the most of his comparatively modest estate. He was quick to take advantage of the 1671 Game Act, which gave landowners extensive powers to regulate hunting and repeated the wording of the act almost verbatim when he commissioned his gamekeeper, John Guy, to confiscate all poaching ‘engines’ and provide him with a list of names for prosecution.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Besides concerns over falling revenues, Saye and Sele had also long been embarrassed by the relationship between his estranged wife and Joshua Sprigge, the Banbury-born author and independent minister, whom Anthony Wood described as her ‘gallant.’<sup>35</sup> Sprigge’s father, William, had been steward to Saye and Sele’s father.<sup>36</sup> Sprigge himself had published an account of Sir Thomas Fairfax’s armies during the Civil War, at least in part as a vindication of the activities of Saye and Sele’s brother, Nathaniel Fiennes, as the parliamentarian governor of Bristol.<sup>37</sup> Within a year of Saye and Sele’s death the dowager viscountess and Sprigge married, but they attracted unwelcome attention for holding conventicles and were forced to move to Highgate, where they died within weeks of each other in July 1684.<sup>38</sup> In the absence of a will, administration of Saye and Sele’s estates was granted to his daughter, Frances Ellis. The barony fell into abeyance, but the viscountcy descended to his nephew, William Fiennes*, who succeeded as 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FIENNES, Lawrence (bef. 1683-1742) |
<p><strong><surname>FIENNES</surname></strong> (<strong>FINES</strong>), <strong>Lawrence</strong> (bef. 1683–1742)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 2 Jan. 1710 as 5th Visct. SAYE and SELE |
|
First sat 24 Feb. 1710; last sat 11 May 1737 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. bef. 1683,<sup>1</sup> 4th but o. surv. s. and h. of John Fiennes<sup>‡</sup> and Susanna (<em>b</em>. c.1621), da. of Thomas Hobbes, of Great Amwell, Herts. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. ?1692. <em>d</em>. 27 Dec. 1742; <em>will</em> 14 Jan. 1739, pr. 5 Jan. 1743.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Little is known of Lawrence Fiennes prior to his accession to the peerage in 1710, which came about as a result of the failure of the senior branch of the family represented by Nathaniel Fiennes*, 4th Viscount Saye and Sele. It has not been possible to determine a precise date for Fiennes’ birth (or that of his father, who probably died in about 1692).<sup>4</sup> Evidence produced in a case brought in the court of exchequer reveals that he was probably an adult or very nearly an adult by 1684, and his older brother, Thomas Fiennes, referred to his riotous way of life in a will drawn up in August 1683. Thomas Fiennes hoped that Lawrence ‘shall see the error of his ways and forsake his present idle, wicked life’.<sup>5</sup> At least three older siblings predeceased Fiennes, opening the way to his succession to the peerage, though not to the majority of the family’s estates as the principal interest in the manor of Broughton appears to have descended with the barony of Saye and Sele, at that time in abeyance between the coheirs of James Fiennes*, 2nd Viscount Saye and Sele.<sup>6</sup> Lawrence Fiennes’s succession to the estates of another brother, William Fiennes (who died in 1699), at Moreton Morrell in Warwickshire, was also complicated by legal challenges in the courts of chancery and exchequer.<sup>7</sup></p><p>It was no doubt as a result of his obscure heritage that Fiennes’s succession to the peerage did not go unquestioned. Narcissus Luttrell described his title as ‘somewhat dubious’ and in February 1710 Saye and Sele was forced to petition the queen for a writ of summons.<sup>8</sup> His petition was referred to the committee for privileges, which convened on 14 February. On 16 Feb. the committee heard evidence from his kinsmen lieutenant-general Thomas Erle<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John St Barbe in support of his claim.<sup>9</sup> The following day the House ordered that his writ of summons be issued.<sup>10</sup> On 24 Feb. Saye and Sele took his seat in the House, after which he attended regularly until the close of the session (approximately 23 per cent of all sitting days). On 16 Mar. he protested at the resolution to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment against Henry Sacheverell and on 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, subscribing a further protest that day against the guilty verdict.</p><p>Saye and Sele attended four of the prorogation days between April and July 1710. On 3 Oct. Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, assessed him as a likely supporter of his new ministry. He resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 27 Nov. 1710, after which he was present for three-quarters of all sitting days in the first session. On 5 Feb. 1711 he registered his dissent at the resolution to reject the general naturalization bill and in June he was included in a list of Tory patriots. Resuming his seat at the opening of the second session on 7 Dec., after which he again attended approximately three-quarters of all sitting days, on 19 Dec. he was correctly forecast as being in favour of allowing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon and voted accordingly the following day.</p><p>Deprived of the inheritance of both Broughton and his father’s estate at Great Amwell in Hertfordshire (which had passed to his brother-in-law, Thomas Filmer), Saye and Sele’s name was included in a list of ‘poor lords’ to be sent to the future George I on 15 Jan. 1712.<sup>11</sup> It was thought that a pension of £400 would secure his allegiance to the House of Hanover. On 14 Apr. he petitioned the House for a writ of error in a case he was contesting with Henry Lloyd in the court of queen’s bench but on 24 May the House ruled in Lloyd’s favour. Regularly in attendance on the prorogation days between July 1712 and March 1713, on 29 Feb. 1713 his name was included in a list of lords compiled by Oxford (as Harley had since become) to be canvassed before the new session. A list in Jonathan Swift’s hand of 15 Mar. assessed Saye and Sele as a probable supporter of the ministry. He resumed his seat at the opening of the third session on 9 Apr., after which he attended on almost 78 per cent of all sitting days and on 13 June he was estimated by Oxford to be a likely supporter of the bill for confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty.</p><p>Saye and Sele returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on almost 89 per cent of all sitting days in the first session. On 27 May, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast that Saye and Sele would be a supporter of the schism bill. He resumed his seat on 3 Aug. and attended eight days of the brief 15-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death.</p><p>Saye and Sele continued to attend the House frequently under the new regime. In February 1718 he accepted the government pension that secured his support for Sunderland’s ministry, though it was noted that he ‘would not vote against the earl of Oxford in any critical matter’.<sup>12</sup> In his own letter to Sunderland at the beginning of March 1718, Saye and Sele emphasized that he would support Sunderland ‘in all things that consist with my honour’.<sup>13</sup> He retained his high level of attendance until May 1737, when he sat for the final time. Four years earlier, he had excused his inability to attend a service on the grounds of being ‘too weak’, so poor health may explain his absence from the House for the final four years of his life.<sup>14</sup> Details of the latter stages of his career will be dealt with in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Saye and Sele died unmarried on 27 Dec. 1742. In his will he named his kinsmen Edward Trotman and Robert Eddowes as executors. The peerage and the greater part of Saye and Sele’s possessions, including his coronet and both coronation and Parliament robes, passed to his cousin Richard Fiennes*, at the time a fellow of New College, Oxford, who succeeded as 6th Viscount Saye and Sele.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FIENNES, Nathaniel (1676-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>FIENNES</surname></strong>, <strong>Nathaniel</strong> (1676–1710)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Dec. 1698 as 4th Visct. SAYE and SELE |
|
First sat 3 May 1699; last sat 14 Apr. 1709 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 23 Oct. 1676, o.s. of William Fiennes*, 3rd Visct. Saye and Sele, and Mary (<em>d</em>.1676), da. of Richard Fiennes. <em>educ</em>. Winchester (1688-92); New Coll., Oxf. 1693; travelled abroad (Italy) c.1697-9.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 2 Jan 1710; <em>admon</em>. 25 Feb. 1710 to aunt, Cecilia Fiennes.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Oxon. 1702.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Saye and Sele inherited the peerage on the death of his reputedly imbecile father in December 1698. Living in Florence at the time of his succession, he was noted by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to be, ‘the only person between our countrymen and the honour’: a reference presumably to Saye and Sele’s cousins who stood to gain the title in the event of his dying without issue.<sup>5</sup> With the new viscount overseas, the estate was at once thrown into chaos by the claims of his stepmother, the dowager viscountess, who had married his father under peculiar circumstances in 1685. Saye and Sele’s relatives rallied to prevent the dowager from taking possession of the estate, which she claimed her husband had made over to her in her marriage settlement.<sup>6</sup> When he returned to England in early 1699, Saye and Sele was faced with the task of settling his relatives’ feuding. Much of the following two years were spent responding to his stepmother’s claims for an annuity and access to the estates that she insisted had been left to her.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Saye and Sele took his seat in the House at the close of the first session of the 1698 Parliament, attending just one day on 3 May 1699. Following the prorogation, he retreated to the country. Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> noted his arrival in his ‘neighbourhood’ in a letter to Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> that June, complimenting the young viscount, who he considered to be ‘a very sober and discrete [sic] young gent.’<sup>8</sup> The following month Saye and Sele added his name to a letter published in the <em>Flying Post</em> in approbation of a volume describing the societies for the reformation of manners.<sup>9</sup> Perhaps distracted with ongoing family disputes, Saye and Sele failed to resume his seat at the opening of the new session that November, delaying his return to the House until 20 Jan. 1700. He attended thereafter on 36 days (just under 40 per cent of the whole), and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to consider the East India Company bill. In March an initial attempt was made to solve the continuing dispute between Saye and Sele and his stepmother. John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, were appointed referees with John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, acting as umpire, but the effort to reconcile the feuding parties failed.<sup>10</sup> On 10 Apr. (the penultimate day of the session) Saye and Sele joined in subscribing the protest at the resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the Irish forfeitures bill.</p><p>With the dispute with his stepmother still unresolved, Saye and Sele took his seat four days into the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Mar. the dowager presented the House with a petition seeking satisfaction of her claim, a copy of which was ordered to be despatched to Saye and Sele. His reply to the dowager’s petition made plain the bad blood in existence between the two parties. She accused him of trying to ‘starve’ her; he argued that, ‘on the contrary, in spite of her disregard of his father’s memory, [he] is willing to allow her £300 a year…’.<sup>11</sup> On 19 Mar. the case was referred to the committee for privileges and on 31 Mar. Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, reported from the committee, recommending that new referees should be appointed to break the impasse. On 31 Mar. the dowager’s agents named William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford, to act on her behalf, while Saye and Sele nominated John Somers*, Baron Somers, to act for him. The House then appointed Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, as umpire. Under his guidance the dispute was eventually settled, broadly in Saye and Sele’s favour, though he was ordered to pay his stepmother the £300 annuity, £1,500 in money and to settle any outstanding debts.<sup>12</sup> With his family difficulties apparently resolved, Saye and Sele was able to turn his attention to other matters. On 17 June he voted in favour of acquitting Somers, and on 23 June he also voted to acquit Somers’ co-accused, Edward Russell*, earl of Orford.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Saye and Sele was reported to have been one of those accompanying Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, on his embassy to Hanover to deliver the Act of Settlement to the Electress Sophia and to invest the Elector George Lewis (later King George I) with the order of the garter. He returned to England in time to resume his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701 but was then present on just 23 per cent of all sitting days in the session. His attendance increased marginally in the 1702-3 session, of which he attended a quarter of all sitting days. On 1 Jan. 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be an opponent of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Three days later he subscribed the two protests against the passage of the bill for Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, and on 22 Feb. he acted as a teller for the division on appointing a day to give the Savoy Hospital Bill a second reading, which was defeated by three votes.<sup>13</sup>Absent for the first month of the new session of November 1703, he took his place once more on 8 Dec., and was thereafter present on 21 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session, Saye and Sele had been included by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, among those thought likely to oppose the occasional conformity bill again. The forecast was echoed in a subsequent assessment towards the end of November, and on 14 Dec. Saye and Sele accordingly voted against passing the bill.</p><p>Saye and Sele’s level of attendance in the 1704-5 session plummeted. Absent at the opening of the session, he was excused at a call of the House on 23 Nov. and did not resume his seat until 15 December. He was then present on just eight days in the session, though he, along with all others present, was nominated to the committee to consider the heads of a conference with the Commons concerning the Aylesbury men on 27 February 1705.</p><p>Saye and Sele returned to the House a week after the opening of the new Parliament on 31 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on just under 20 per cent of all sitting days. On 12 Nov. he was again excused at a call of the House, resuming his seat a week later. Towards the close of the session, on 11 Mar. 1706, along with most of those present in the House at the time, he was nominated a manager of the conferences discussing Sir Rowland Gwynn’s<sup>‡</sup> letter to Stamford. He returned to the House for the following session on 30 Dec. 1706, after which he was again present on approximately 20 per cent of all sitting days, but he was then absent for the entirety of the brief session of April 1707.</p><p>Resuming his seat at the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct. Saye and Sele attended a dozen days in the session (a little over 11 per cent of the whole), and following the session’s close he was noted as a Whig in a list of members’ party allegiances. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Dec. 1708, and on 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the elections for Scottish representative peers. Present on just 15 days in the session, Saye and Sele sat for the final time on 14 April. He failed to attend the subsequent session that opened in November, and by December he was reported to be dangerously ill. He died a few days later on 2 Jan. 1710, aged just 33.<sup>14</sup> The viscountcy descended to his cousin, Laurence Fiennes*, who succeeded as 5th Viscount Saye and Sele. In the absence of a will, administration of his estate was granted to his aunt, Celia Fiennes.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FIENNES, William (c. 1583-1662) |
<p><strong><surname>FIENNES</surname></strong> (<strong>FINES</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (c. 1583–1662)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. by Feb. 1612 as 8th Bar. SAYE and SELE (SAY and SEALE); <em>cr. </em>7 July 1624 Visct. SAYE and SELE |
|
First sat 5 Apr. 1614; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 16 July 1661 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. 1583, 1st s. of Richard Fiennes<sup>†</sup>, 7th Bar. Saye and Sele, and Constance, da. of Sir William Kingsmill.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Winchester; New Coll. Oxf.; travelled abroad (dates unknown). <em>m</em>. c.1602 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1648), da. of John Temple of Burton Dassett, Warws. and Stowe, Bucks. 4s. 5da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 14 Apr. 1662; <em>will</em> 3 Mar. 1660, pr. 19 Nov. 1662.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Master court of wards 1641-4; PC 1660-<em>d</em>.; commr. plantations 1 Dec. 1660; High steward, Oxf. Univ. 1641-3, 1646-50; ld. lt. Cheshire, Glos., Oxon. 1642.</p><p>Dir. Co. Propagation. Gosp. in New England and parts adjacent to America, 1662.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Cornelius Johnson, 1628, Broughton Castle; engraving by W. Hollar, NPG D26628.</p> |
<p>Dubbed ‘Old Subtlety’, Saye and Sele was one of those at the centre of events surrounding the outbreak of Civil War, and the restoration of the monarchy and House of Lords. He owed his promotion to a viscountcy to the influence of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, in a vain attempt to secure his support. But for most of the 1620s and 1630s he was in opposition to the court, and by the 1640s he was one of the most prominent of the peers supporting Parliament against the king’s policies.<sup>5</sup></p><p>The Fiennes family was able to claim kinship with both royal houses of the Wars of the Roses, but it was as descendants of William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, founder of New College, Oxford, that they inherited their principal seat of Broughton Castle. This provided the source of most of the family’s annual income, amounting to £1,452 by 1688.<sup>6</sup> Besides this, Saye and Sele also possessed the lordship of Banbury Castle, held estates at Shutford East and leased the manor of Adderbury from New College, though this last seems to have caused him nothing but trouble.<sup>7</sup> He found his tenants there ‘very clamorous and unruly’, and they vexed him by demanding that he uphold a local custom by giving them a bull at Christmas and dole of 3d. as well as bread and beer. Saye and Sele denied that any such custom existed, there being no mention of it in the tenants’ leases and that the practice was only a courtesy occasionally observed by a previous lord.<sup>8</sup> Adderbury was also tarnished in Saye and Sele’s eyes by being home to a thriving Quaker population led by Bray Doyley, lord of the manor of Adderbury West. A prominent Presbyterian, Saye and Sele was an inveterate foe of the Quakers, and he lamented that Doyley had fallen in among ‘these seduced and seducing people.’<sup>9</sup> He published two harangues against them, <em>Folly and Madness Made Manifest</em> (1659) and <em>The Quakers Reply Manifested to be railing</em> (1660). He was also responsible for evicting at least two Quaker families from cottages on his estates at Broughton, when he was said to have ‘had their goods thrown into the street, and obliged them, their wives, and seven children, to lie in the streets three weeks in a cold wet season; and their goods much damnified.’<sup>10</sup></p><p>Bad relations with his tenants seems to have resulted in Saye and Sele acquiring a reputation for covetousness, and he may well have been the intended target of a jibe that he was reckoned to be a ‘grasping landlord … one who would lay field to field and house to house, till there be no place for the poor.’<sup>11</sup> His flinty heart was not only apparent in his dealings with his tenants. Aubrey recounted how Saye and Sele allowed his ward, William Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Emley [I], to die of want out of mere cruelty.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Besides his dubious reputation as a landlord and guardian, Saye and Sele excited equal controversy on the national stage. In 1640 he narrowly avoided being prosecuted for treason for conspiring with the Scots; he was later prominent first as one of those seeking the impeachment of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, and then as one of the advocates of a compromise that might have saved Strafford’s life. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, was highly critical of Saye and Sele’s contribution to the unsettled atmosphere of the 1640s describing him as, ‘a man who had the deepest hand in the original contrivance of all the calamities which befell [this] unhappy kingdom.’<sup>13</sup> William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, was more polemical, describing Saye and Sele as the ‘Anabaptist’ leader of ‘a pack of half witted lords’ who should be ‘torn in pieces’ for their actions.<sup>14</sup> A friend to noble government but bitter foe of monarchical tyranny, Saye and Sele’s political philosophy was firmly based on the leadership of the peerage, who he believed should be the principal arbiters in a theocratic state,</p><blockquote><p>Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government, either for church or for commonwealth. If the people be governors, who shall be governed? As for monarchy, and aristocracy, they are both of them clearly approved, and directed in scripture.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>Saye and Sele’s influence declined as the war progressed, and he eventually retired to the country.<sup>16</sup> Closely associated with Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and with Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, he not only refused to accept a seat in the ‘Other House’, for which he earned Cromwell’s undying anger but was also instrumental in convincing Wharton not to take up his seat either. Saye and Sele’s reasoning was that he was unconvinced that the new chamber would have the dignity or power he believed necessary. ‘The peers of England’, he opined, ‘and their power and privileges in the House of Lords, they have been as the beam keeping both scales, king and people, in an even posture.’<sup>17</sup> Especially proud of his standing as a peer, when he discovered that Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> meant to compete with his eldest son, James Fiennes*, later 2nd Viscount Saye and Sele, for one of the Oxfordshire seats in 1640, Saye and Sele had wondered that ‘Mr Whitelocke an upstart lawyer should contest with his son in that country.’<sup>18</sup></p><p>By 1659 Saye and Sele appears to have been persuaded to support the restoration of the monarchy, having been brought round by the ‘agency’ of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester.<sup>19</sup> In February 1660 both he and his heir, James Fiennes, set their names to the Oxfordshire address.<sup>20</sup> Hoping for a new constitutional settlement based upon the treaty of Newport, which he had been involved in negotiating, Saye and Sele was consequently disappointed by the Declaration of Breda. He was also concerned about his own future under a restored king, but he was, eventually, said to have been reassured by the promise of high office under the new regime.<sup>21</sup> According to Noble, ‘it was surely more than a “grand climacterical absurdity” after having been “excepted from pardon” by the father, as an inflexible republican, thus to crouch at the last, and to die a placeman and a courtier to the son.’<sup>22</sup> Noble’s statement seems to have been founded on a common misapprehension that Saye and Sele was appointed lord privy seal at the Restoration. Wood reported that he had been appointed lord privy seal and lord chamberlain of the household. Both reports are mistaken. The latter office was held by Manchester, and there is no evidence that Saye and Sele was appointed to the former.</p><p>Saye and Sele did not, like some, rush to London to force the pace of events in the spring of 1660. Instead, he remained in Oxfordshire to oversee the elections there, where he hoped he ‘might do more service’ to ensure that ‘men well principled and discreet might be chosen and that care might be taken for settling the militia.’ Once that was done Saye and Sele resolved to return to town, ‘so we may advise what is and will be fittest for us to do in claiming our own rights and the right of the whole nation.’<sup>23</sup> Saye and Sele’s eldest son, James, was accordingly elected one of the knights of the shire, though another son, John Fiennes<sup>‡</sup>, failed to secure Banbury.<sup>24</sup> He arrived in London a few days before the opening of the Convention.<sup>25</sup> In spite of his retirement during the 1650s, as a veteran member of the House who had experienced Parliaments under both James I and Charles I, Saye and Sele remained a figure of central importance and much was expected from the other lords once he joined them in town.<sup>26</sup> Noted by Wharton in his assessment of the peerage as one of the lords who had sat, Saye and Sele took his seat in the House on the first day of the Convention on 25 Apr. 1660, and the same day he was named to the committee to draw up a list of lords to be summoned to the restored House. He was also one of those nominated to wait on George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, to thank him for his services. He attended almost 84 per cent of all sitting days in the session prior to the September adjournment.</p><p>Despite the intention to limit membership of the House to approved former parliamentarian peers, Saye and Sele and his fellows were swiftly outnumbered by returning royalists, and they were forced rapidly to moderate their expectations. Saye and Sele’s attitude to the Restoration can be gleaned from a cartouche which he had inscribed over the arch in the oak drawing room at Broughton: ‘<em>Quod olim fuit, meminisse minime iuvat</em>’ [There is no pleasure in the memory of the past].<sup>27</sup> There were initial apprehensions of Saye and Sele’s enduring influence, but his decreasing attendance on committees after the first feverish sessions of the Convention, in which he was initially one of the most prominent committeemen, soon showed his waning authority.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Named to the committee for preparing an ordinance appointing Monck captain general on 26 Apr. 1660, the following day he was named to three further committees, including that to frame an ordinance constituting a committee of safety for both Houses. On 1 May he was named to the committee to consider an answer to the king’s letter and, the following day, to that for settling the nation. Named to more than a dozen further committees that month, including that for investigating the readmission of excluded fellows to New College, Oxford, on 9 May the House ordered that Saye and Sele’s title of warden of the Cinque Ports and constable of Dover Castle should be confirmed.<sup>29</sup> Two days later (11 May) the House considered propositions from Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Fairfax [S] and Thomas Bushell over surrendering the Isle of Lundy to him. Although Saye and Sele had been added to the committee for the king’s reception on 9 May, he was not himself one of the welcoming party. During the negotiations surrounding the king’s return and the question of what should be done with those responsible for Charles I’s execution, he had attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Monck to except some of the regicides from the threat of punishment.<sup>30</sup> Prior to the adjournment Saye and Sele was nominated to ten more committees as well as being named to the sub-committee for the Journal<em>,</em> but he does not appear to have taken a leading role in any of them.</p><p>That summer the question of the lord lieutenancy of Oxfordshire opened up fissures within the county elite. Amid rumours that either Saye and Sele or Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, would be appointed, another local magnate, Henry Carey<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Falkland [S], complained of Lindsey that he had never done ‘anything for the king’s service.’ Although he considered Saye and Sele ‘much more worthy’, in the event it was Falkland himself who was appointed to the vacant position.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Saye and Sele resumed his seat following the adjournment on 7 Nov. 1660. Once again present on approximately 84 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to eight committees in the session. Despite Clarendon’s severe criticism of his role in politics in the 1640s, Saye and Sele was reputed to have had the lord chancellor’s ear after the Restoration.<sup>32</sup> Like many English landowners dismayed by the prospect of lawsuits overturning contracts made during the Commonwealth, he united with Clarendon in opposing the bill to restore Sir Edward Powell to his estates. Saye and Sele was then one of 25 peers to subscribe the protest against the measure on 13 December. Just over a fortnight later, on 30 Dec. (nine days after he had sat for the last time in the Convention) he received the proxy of Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh.</p><p>It is not clear whether Saye and Sele attempted to exert his interest in the elections for the new Parliament, but if he did he was presumably disappointed as none of his sons were returned. He took his seat shortly after the opening of Parliament on 16 May 1661, after which he was present on just over 20 per cent of all sitting days. On 28 May he was named to the committee considering the Quakers’ petition, to two committees on 28 June (one for the Westminster streets bill and the other concerning the sanguinary laws) and on 1 July he was nominated to the committee to consider the petition for the re-establishment of the council at York. He was then named to a further two committees prior to 8 July 1661 after which he no longer features on the attendance lists, though it appears that he did attend at least once more, as on 16 July he was also named to the committee considering the application of the penal laws against priests and Jesuits.</p><p>Saye and Sele increasingly withdrew from politics from the middle of 1661. In July he wrote to the governor of Massachusetts explaining that the missive might well be his last, ‘my glass being almost run out.’<sup>33</sup> During the 1630s Saye and Sele had hoped to establish an ‘aristocratic’ colony in the Bahamas, but he had been thwarted by the opposition of the prospective colonists.<sup>34</sup> He had also been involved with Robert Greville<sup>†</sup>, Baron Brooke, John Pym<sup>‡</sup> and John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> in founding a colony at Saybrook [Seabrook] in Connecticut, but this too had been short lived. After the Restoration, he maintained his interests in America, and he was one of the lords the colonists looked to for assistance in influencing the new regime.<sup>35</sup> He spoke in favour of his great-nephew, Thomas Temple, later governor of Nova Scotia, to the committee for plantations in America.<sup>36</sup> When John Winthrop travelled to England to deliver a petition on behalf of the Puritans of Connecticut, he hoped to recruit Saye and Sele’s support, though by then the almost-octogenarian peer was too ill to be of much use. He died on 14 Apr. 1662. According to Wood, ‘this noble author, after he had spent 80 years mostly in an unquiet and discontented condition, had been a grand promote of the rebellion’ and was in part responsible for the death of Charles I ‘did die quietly in his own bed, but whether in conscience I cannot tell’.<sup>37</sup> In his will Saye and Sele demonstrated his puritan credentials by making provision for the satisfaction of a bequest of £200 to his son James’ former college, Emmanuel, Cambridge, made by Dr Preston to provide allowances for poor scholars. Saye and Sele added a further £40 to the total in acknowledgment that interest had not always been paid on the capital as a result of the ‘late troubles’. He was buried at Broughton and succeeded by James Fiennes as 2nd Viscount Saye and Sele.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FIENNES, William (c. 1641-98) |
<p><strong><surname>FIENNES</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1641–98)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>uncle 15 Apr. 1674 as 3rd Visct. SAYE and SELE |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 16 Dec. 1693 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1641, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Nathaniel Fiennes<sup>‡</sup> and Elizabeth Eliot, da. of Sir John Eliot<sup>‡</sup> of St. Germans, Cornw. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 9 Apr. 1674, Mary, da. of Richard Fiennes and Mary Burrell,<sup>1</sup> 1s., 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 7 Sept. 1685, Katherine, da. of Edward Walker of Banbury, Oxon., <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 16 Dec. 1669. <em>d.</em> 9 Dec. 1698; <em>admon</em>. 9 June 1710 to sis. Cecilia Fiennes.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Oxford 12 Feb 1686.</p> |
|
<p>Saye and Sele is something of an enigma. Described by his relations as ‘weak’ and ‘mentally incapable’, his disability also appears to have been widely known outside his family as two years before he succeeded to the peerage one correspondent remarked that, ‘I am sorry to tell you who will be Lord Saye for it is the brother to him that is dead and he is a fool’.<sup>3</sup> The precise nature of his malady remains uncertain. He appears to have enjoyed periods of lucidity, and it seems only to have been in later life that he descended into permanent mental torpor. In spite of his condition he was able to marry twice, attend the House on occasion and to oversee an extensive programme of improvements on the family estates. Much of this may have been owing to the efforts of the trustees who managed his affairs after his succession to the peerage. It is noticeable that unlike his uncle and grandfather, Saye and Sele was appointed neither lieutenant nor a deputy in Oxfordshire, which may again be indicative of a general perception that he was weak-minded. Nevertheless, it is at times difficult to reconcile his supposed mental incapacity with his other activities.</p><p>There can be no doubt that the Fiennes family believed sincerely that Saye and Sele suffered from a debilitating mental illness. It was stated explicitly that this was the reason for his father providing him with a modest inheritance sufficient only for his maintenance, and on his succeeding to the viscountcy there was a dispute within the family over who should manage his affairs. His aunt, Frances Ellis, believed to be influential at court, sought to take control. She was thwarted by Saye and Sele’s uncles who petitioned the lord keeper (Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham), determined to protect him and the estate from this ‘expensive woman,’ who they believed would ‘ruin the estate and family.’<sup>4</sup> It is perhaps significant that on her death, Frances Ellis was buried in her maternal family’s church of St Mary’s, Wimbledon, not at Broughton.<sup>5</sup> Although safe from the interference of his aunt, shortly after his succession the trustees were perplexed to discover that Saye and Sele wished to marry, so ‘kept strict watch over him till they could find out some discrete person to recommend … to him.’ A suitable candidate was found in the person of his cousin, Mary Fiennes. She took a close interest in estate affairs, but the alliance was brought to a premature conclusion when she died in childbirth after just two years of marriage.<sup>6</sup></p><p>The Fiennes estates, which had fallen into some decay under the 2nd viscount, underwent a huge programme of improvement following Saye and Sele’s succession. He confirmed his uncle’s steward, Abel Makepeace, in office shortly after inheriting, and (with his first wife) he also took a personal interest in the estate revenue. In ten years, the yields from estate rentals doubled. On his succeeding to the title the half-yearly rents from Saye and Sele’s lands amounted to between £380 and £450. By 1685 the rental income had risen to over £1,000. In part, the improvement was owing to the reacquisition of property in Banbury left by the 2nd viscount to his daughter, Frances Ellis, and other beneficiaries. The scale of improvement nevertheless suggests that the estate was being run more efficiently. Traditional family rights were also asserted. When it was discovered that the family did not have a pew in the church at Weston-under-Edge, the vicar general of Gloucester was commissioned to make one available.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In spite of his apparent disabilities, Saye and Sele took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 13 Apr. 1675, after which he was present on two-thirds of all sitting days. His arrival in London proved of sufficient moment to be noted in a newsletter six days prior to him taking his seat.<sup>8</sup> The following day he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions, and he was nominated to a further half a dozen committees in the course of the session. On 21 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the failure to reject the bill for preventing dangers from disaffected persons, and eight days later he protested again at the House’s censure of the 26 Apr. protest against committing the measure. Absent from the House after 20 May, the following day he registered his proxy with Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later Earl) Fauconberg, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>Saye and Sele resumed his seat at the opening of the following session on 13 Oct. 1675. Once again, he was nominated to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions as well as to the sub-committee for the Journal, and on 14 Oct. he was also named to the committee for the bill to explain that concerning popish recusants. Despite this apparently committed activity, Saye and Sele attended on just five days before quitting the House for the remainder of the session, registering his proxy on 26 Oct. with his kinsman, George Booth*, Baron Delamer.</p><p>Saye and Sele failed to attend the following two (1677-8 and May-July 1678) sessions. He was nevertheless assessed by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, as worthy in May 1677. He also ensured that his absence from the latter session was covered by registering his proxy on 25 May 1678 with Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles.</p><p>Saye and Sele resumed his seat a month into the second 1678 session on 23 Nov., but he was again marked present on just five occasions before retiring for the remainder of the session. Named to the committee for the militia bill on 26 Nov., three days later, although not included on the attendance list that day, he was noted among those who had voted in favour of the address to the king for removing Queen Catharine and her servants from Whitehall.<sup>9</sup> On 6 Dec. he registered his proxy with Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, which was again vacated by the close.</p><p>In advance of the new Parliament, Saye and Sele was assessed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), as a likely opponent in two forecasts of 1 and 3 Mar. 1679. That of 2 Mar. also cast him as an opponent but unreliable. He took his seat a week into the new Parliament's second session on 22 Mar. after which he was present on 26 per cent of all sitting days. Although associated with the opposition grouping at this time, he was again missing from the House from the end of March until 9 May, covering his absence by registering his proxy with Wharton once more.<sup>10</sup> On 10 May he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, subscribing the protest when the motion was rejected. On 23 May he entered two further protests, first at the resolution to instruct the Lords committee meeting with the Commons not to comment on the question of the bishops voting and second at the resolution to proceed with the trials of the Catholic peers before that of Danby. Four days later he protested again at the decision to insist on the previous resolution concerning the bishops.</p><p>Saye and Sele’s name was included on the list of those who addressed the king to summon a new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1679, but he failed to attend the Parliament that convened in October 1680, being noted as missing without explanation at a call of the House on 30 October. He was later listed among those peers who had been absent from the divisions on the Exclusion Bill on 15 November. In advance of the Oxford Parliament, held at Oxford in the spring of 1681, Saye and Sele was again noted by Danby as a likely opponent, but he failed to attend even though the assembly was so close to his home. Although he resumed his place shortly after the opening of the subsequent Parliament on 22 May 1685, he attended on just four days before retiring again. In his absence, his proxy was secured by peers loyal to the court. On 26 May it was registered with Francis North*, Baron Guilford, vacated by Guilford’s death in September. It was then transferred to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on 9 Nov. to cover the final days of the session.</p><p>The latter part of 1685 found Saye and Sele’s family facing a challenge from a new quarter when he was effectively kidnapped from Broughton by agents of the Banbury-based Walker family.<sup>11</sup> Edward Walker was said to have been ‘low in the world’ and eager to pair his daughter off without a portion.<sup>12</sup> Aided by Philip Styles, who was later appointed Saye and Sele’s deputy steward, the Walkers spirited Saye and Sele to Northampton with one of the viscount’s servants following in hot pursuit. There, they succeeded in intimidating the mayor into acquiescing in their scheme. Having threatened the loyal retainer, French, with imprisonment, the following day (7 Sept.) the Walkers arranged Saye and Sele’s marriage to Katherine Walker, having apparently secured a licence at Peterborough two days previously. Significantly, the Fiennes family appears to have made no attempt to challenge the validity of the marriage at this point, though following his death, Saye and Sele’s son from his first marriage (Nathaniel Fiennes*, later 4th Viscount Saye and Sele) declared that his father had been incapable of making such a ‘solmen’ [sic], act and described the marriage as ‘artificial.’ Faced with the marriage as a <em>fait</em> <em>accompli,</em> Saye and Sele’s relations were forced to consent to a settlement in which the new viscountess was promised an annuity of £300 and payment of her debts as part of the marriage settlement. The future 4th viscount was provided with an annuity of £250 once he attained the age of 21 and was advised to live abroad after finishing at Oxford. He was in Italy when his father died 13 years later.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In spite of registering his proxy with Sunderland in the previous session, Saye and Sele was noted as a likely opponent of repeal of the Test in January 1687, and in May he was included in a further list of those peers thought likely to oppose the king’s policies. Subsequent assessments of November 1687 and January 1688 also reckoned Saye and Sele as an opponent of repeal. Even so, there is no evidence that he was an active opponent of the king, and he appears to have played little part in the Revolution. He attended just one session of the provisional government on 12 Dec 1688 and one day of the Convention the following year.<sup>14</sup> Noted as being sick at a call on 25 Jan. 1689, he rallied to take his seat on 18 Mar. but registered his proxy with George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, later the same day. The proxy was exercised by Northampton to vote in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. Saye and Sele was again missing, this time without excuse, at a call of 28 Oct. after which, on 9 Nov, he registered the proxy with Northampton once more. It was again vacated by the close. He continued to be noted as missing without excuse at a series of calls over the ensuing four years, but following a call of 21 Nov. 1692, the House wrote requiring his attendance. In response, on 27 Nov. Thomas Welford, postmaster of Banbury, replied that Saye and Sele was in Worcestershire and that although the letter had been sent on to him there, no reply had been received.<sup>15</sup> No further action appears to have been taken. Saye and Sele attended on just one further occasion on 16 Dec. 1693, registering his proxy the same day with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to whom he had appealed the previous year to employ his interest on behalf of one Weely Cale.<sup>16</sup> He registered the proxy with Nottingham again on 16 Feb. 1695. The following year, the House ordered Saye and Sele and several other peers to be sent for, for failing to attend, and on 2 Dec. Saye and Sele was ordered to be attached for his continual failure to present himself. He was eventually excused after his doctor certified that he was too ill to attend.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Saye and Sele died two years later on 9 Dec. 1698. Even in death he was not safe from indignity. His widow accused the family of refusing to allow his corpse to be conveyed into Broughton Castle prior to his interment. The charge was denied by his cousin, William Fiennes, who had moved rapidly to secure the place from the dowager’s agents, but Saye and Sele was instead taken directly to the church at Broughton where he was buried.<sup>18</sup> He was succeeded in the title by his only surviving son from his first marriage who was abroad at the time of his succession. Almost at once a dispute arose over Saye and Sele’s will. The new viscount claimed his stepmother and her relations had imposed the will on Saye and Sele when he was out of his mind. The case presupposed that the 3rd viscount’s mental incapacity was common knowledge, something the family had been reluctant to admit openly during his lifetime.<sup>19</sup> The dowager viscountess was accused of having, ‘disclosed transactions which a due regard for her husband’s memory ought to have induced her to keep secret.’<sup>20</sup> He also suggested as the case dragged on that he was able to provide more information on his father’s illness than he had at first volunteered.<sup>21</sup> A letter from Lady Danby to her daughter-in-law, Lady Dunblane, warning of the perils of alcohol mentioned the 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele as being so ill that he was unable to leave his chamber. It is possible then that alcohol had played some part in his mental instability but the true nature of his condition remains uncertain.<sup>22</sup> The dowager viscountess later married Vincent Oakley, a gentleman from Banbury.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FINCH, Charles (1672-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>FINCH</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1672–1712)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1672-89 Visct. Maidstone; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 28 Aug. 1689 (a minor) as 4th earl of WINCHILSEA |
|
First sat 7 Nov. 1693; last sat 21 June 1712 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 26 Sept. 1672, o.s. (posth.) of William Finch, <em>styled</em> Visct. Maidstone (<em>d.</em> 28 May 1672) and Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Windham of Felbrigg, Norf. <em>m.</em> 28 Sept. 1692 (with £7,000) Sarah (<em>d.</em> 29 Oct. 1735), da. of Henry Nourse, of Woodlands, Wilts.,<sup>1</sup> 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 4 Aug. 1712; <em>admon</em>. 23 Oct. 1712 to John Stratford, esq., principal creditor (wid. renouncing).<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>First ld. of trade 12 June 1711-<em>d</em>.; PC 14 June 1711-<em>d.</em></p><p>Dep. warden, Cinque Ports 1702-5; lt. gov., Dover Castle 1702-5;<sup>3</sup> v.-adm., Kent 1702-5; ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>., Kent 1704-5.</p><p>Env. extraordinary, Hanover 1702-3.</p> |
|
<h2><em>Under William III, 1689-1702</em></h2><p>Finch inherited the earldom of Winchilsea and its heavily indebted estate from his grandfather while still underage, his father having been killed at the battle of Sole Bay in 1672. He, with his mother Lady Maidstone and uncle Leopold Finch became embroiled in a dispute with the deceased earl’s fourth wife Elizabeth over the disposition of the house at Eastwell and the personal estate. The dowager countess of Winchilsea brought her complaint of breach of privilege of peerage before the House on 8 Nov. 1689. All the parties looked to their second cousin Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to resolve the dispute and agreed to abide by his decision.<sup>4</sup> Nottingham was also involved in protracted marriage negotiations for Winchilsea in 1691-2. These negotiations fell through, and it was because of this experience that on 9 Dec. 1691 another uncle and guardian, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, brought before the House an estate act for his young nephew, which would enable Winchilsea to settle a jointure upon a prospective wife during the time of his minority.<sup>5</sup> The bill was passed by the House on 23 Dec. by which time it was already rumoured that Winchilsea was ready to contract a marriage that would gain him a £20,000 portion.<sup>6</sup> The bill did not receive the royal assent until 24 Feb. 1692 and in late September Weymouth negotiated a marriage with an admittedly more modest portion of £7,000 between the young earl and Sarah Nourse, daughter to Henry Nourse, sheriff of Wiltshire.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Both Nottingham and Weymouth acted as Winchilsea’s guardians throughout his minority and they continued to act as protectors and advisers thereafter. From Winchilsea’s first appearance in the House of Lords on 7 Nov. 1693, the day after Nottingham was dismissed as secretary of state, he sided with his Finch and Thynne kin and their espousal of High Tory measures. Writing early in Anne’s reign, John Macky emphasized the political implications of these family connections when he described Winchilsea as ‘of the family of Finch’ and ‘an opposer (to his power) of the measures of King William’s reign’.<sup>8</sup> On 22 Dec. 1693 Winchilsea joined his uncle Weymouth and nine other peers in protesting against the decision to allow the duchess of Grafton to withdraw her petition against the judges of king’s bench in her cause against William Bridgeman. On the penultimate day of the session, on 24 Apr. 1694, he subscribed to another protest, against the measures in the supply bill incorporating the Bank of England. He attended just under three-quarters of this, his first session, and was named to 16 committees on legislation. After this, however, he showed a disinclination to come to the House for the remainder of William III’s reign. Weymouth held his proxy from 30 Nov. 1694 for all of the session of 1694-5. He first sat in the session of 1695-6, the first in William III’s second Parliament, on 31 Jan. 1696 and came to only 23 per cent of its sittings. He was named to only six committees on legislation, and on 14 Feb. he was placed on the small drafting committee to compose a report to the king on the House’s treatment of the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, who was seeking to receive a writ of summons as Baron Willoughby de Broke. He was also placed on the committee of 24 Feb. to draw up a response to the king’s speech regarding the discovery of the Assassination Plot. As part of this committee he was a manager for the conferences that day in which an address to the king congratulating him on his escape was developed. Winchilsea, however, clearly showed his opposition to William III and his rule by his persistent refusal to sign the Association that was promulgated over the following days. Shortly afterwards Winchilsea left the House for the session on 17 Mar. and registered his proxy with Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, until the prorogation of 27 April. His attendance in the following session of 1696-7 was even lower, as he came to only 21 of its 117 sittings and only appeared in the House on 23 Nov. through compulsion as the House had ordered his appearance by that date. Shortly after his arrival he began to oppose the projects of the ministry. On 28 Nov. he, with Nottingham, Weymouth and two other Tories, dissented from the passage of the recoinage bill and on 2 Dec. dissented from the House’s decision to recede from its amendments to the bill against which the lower House objected. He also fought to stop the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. He subscribed to the dissent on 15 Dec. from the resolution to read the tainted and suspect evidence of Cardell Goodman and three days later he joined 47 other members of the House in dissenting from the decision to give the bill of attainder a second reading. He was a teller, almost certainly for the not contents (his opposite teller was the court Whig Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough), in the close and controversial division on 23 Dec. for the passage of the bill, which scraped through by a majority of seven votes. Despite this effort in ensuring the bill’s defeat, his name, surprisingly, does not appear on the protest of that day against the bill’s passage.<sup>9</sup> He registered his proxy with Thanet once again on 23 Dec., who held it until the prorogation of 16 Apr. 1697.</p><p>He was entirely absent from the 1697-8 session but appears to have kept informed of proceedings in the House. On 6 Feb. 1698 he wrote to Weymouth, referring to the salacious testimony being heard by the House at that time in the proceedings of the divorce bill of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, that ‘I am sensible of the diversion absent peers have missed this session, in a very entertaining cause and should regret my being in the country at such a time, if I had not been present at one of the same kind, wherein a noble duke was concerned’. The similar case he referred to was the earlier attempt of Henry Howard* 7th duke of Norfolk, to effect a divorce through parliamentary legislation. He confided to Weymouth that James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, and his friends were strongly encouraging him to come up to Parliament to support Abingdon’s son Hon. James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> in his appeal to the House against the chancery ruling against him in his testamentary dispute with Lucius Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S]. ‘But [I] have excused myself hitherto’, he explained, ‘as I hope I shall be able to do for the remainder of the winter, hearing nothing as yet that the House will proceed to compulsion as they did the last year’.<sup>10</sup> He registered his proxy with Thanet for this session on 23 Feb. 1698, and then transferred it to John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, on 11 Apr., 10 days after Thanet had quit the session. Winchilsea himself did not appear in the House again until 20 Dec., well in the midst of the 1698-9 session of William III’s third Parliament, and he came to 64 per cent of the session’s sitting days. On that first day back he was placed on the committee for the answer to the king’s speech, but again he quickly showed his opposition to the king, and voted and protested against the resolution of 8 Feb. 1699 to help William maintain his Dutch Guards and to exempt them from the provisions of the disbandment bill. He was named to eight committees on legislation and was a manager for a conference on 29 Apr. on the House’s amendments to the naturalization bill for Richard Legg and others. After this brief spurt of activity, Winchilsea retired to the country again for the following session of 1699-1700.</p><p>Winchilsea took his seat in the first Parliament of 1701 on 24 Apr., and came to just under a quarter of its sittings. He was named to three committees on legislation and acted as a teller in a division of 6 June (against the Whig Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford) on whether the House should direct a trial at law in the cause <em>Lloyd v. Cardy</em>. He quit the session on that day and thus was not in Westminster Hall to pass judgment on the impeached Junto ministers. In the following Parliament, of which he attended 60 per cent of the meetings, he protested on 20 Feb. 1702 against the attainder of Mary of Modena and was also opposed to the bill for the oath of abjuration. On 23 Feb. he was a teller (against Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor) in a division in the committee of the whole on whether to add the words ‘and I will to the utmost of my power support, maintain and defend the constitution and government of this realm in King, Lords and Commons, as it is by law established’ to the oath, a motion which lost by a majority of 37 votes.<sup>11</sup> The following day Winchilsea joined several other Tories in signing the protest against the bill’s passage. On 25 Feb. he reported a private estate bill from committee, which was to become a frequent duty of his under Anne. He became more involved in Parliament following Anne’s accession. On 18 and 20 May, following the declaration of war, he was a delegate of the House to two conferences on methods to prevent correspondence between the allies and France and Spain. He also participated in a conference on the bill to encourage privateers. Perhaps as a sign of his enthusiasm for the Tory regime of the new queen, Winchilsea stayed in the House until the prorogation of this session on 25 May.</p><h2><em>Favour under Anne, 1702-5</em></h2><p>Winchilsea benefitted greatly from the large-scale redistribution of offices and honours to Tories, especially those in Nottingham’s circle, at the beginning of Anne’s reign. John Macky attributed his preferment to Nottingham while observing: ‘He hath neither genius nor gusto for business, loves hunting and a bottle… and [is] zealous for the monarchy and Church to the highest degree’.<sup>12</sup> Winchilsea was made deputy warden of the Cinque Ports and lieutenant governor of Dover Castle, as well as vice-admiral of the Kentish coast, all under the nominal authority of the queen’s consort, Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland. It was rumoured at the time that this host of positions was bestowed on Winchilsea that he was to be made lord-lieutenant of Kent as well.<sup>13</sup> However he had to wait an additional two years until he acquired that office. The office of warden of the Cinque Ports was largely honorific, and it was really Winchilsea, as deputy warden, who managed the ports. This was especially important to Nottingham, then secretary of state, at the time of the parliamentary elections following the dissolution of Parliament on 2 July 1702, in which Winchilsea managed the Cinque Port constituencies assiduously, although not always successfully, for the Tories. Only a few days before the elections, he sent a long letter to Nottingham discussing the electoral prospects in each of the ports and in the county and boroughs of Kent. He found Dover the most difficult of the ports and unlikely to elect his preferred candidate Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>:</p><blockquote><p>I find there reigns such a spirit of obstinacy among the bench, they will not admit of any application to remove either of the old members, though the most probable means has been used to persuade them they do not regard their own interest in setting up such men as they must know will be obnoxious, and can do them no service.</p></blockquote><p>More promisingly, though, ‘most of the other ports seem inclined to mend their hand’. A few days after the elections he wrote belatedly to Nottingham, apologizing that since receiving his last letter ‘I have been hurried from one election to another’. He reported on the results of the elections in the ports, especially the controversial one at Rye, where his candidate Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup> lost because of the recent ‘irregular’ creation of freemen opposed to him. He further lamented the results of the borough election of Maidstone, where the Tory candidates lost, ‘the strength of bribery joined to a factious disposition of that town, prevailing over any honest interest could be made for them’.<sup>14</sup> Already, he reported, the defeated candidates, Thomas Bliss<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Twisden<sup>‡</sup>, bt. were preparing to petition against the results. The Commons on hearing the case found that all the candidates at Maidstone had engaged in bribery, and they declared the election void. Maidstone had to wait for over two years before a writ was issued for new elections.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Nottingham was also able to procure for his second cousin in the summer of 1702 the role as envoy extraordinary to Hanover to greet the dowager electress and her son the elector of Hanover in the name of the new queen. Winchilsea was initially appreciative of this honour bestowed on him, but he seems not to have been first choice for the embassy: William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, claimed to have been approached by Nottingham first but refused what he thought to be a thankless task.<sup>16</sup> Dartmouth and Nottingham then settled on Winchilsea, who ‘was very unacceptable, having voted against their [the Hanoverians’] succession’.<sup>17</sup> Winchilsea also appears to have found the embassy more trouble than it was worth. Having inherited his grandfather’s precarious finances, he constantly complained to Nottingham that he had not been granted a sufficient allowance for his mission and resented having to pay so much of his expenses out of his own pocket. This especially grated on him when he was stranded in The Hague for several months while the Hanoverian court moved from one hunting lodge to another. At The Hague he was able to indulge his prejudices against the Dutch as ungrateful and unreliable allies. He also became seriously ill in the winter of 1702-3. Although he had initially asked Nottingham and Weymouth to procure for him the embassy to Prussia after the completion of his mission to Hanover, he later retracted this request and asked to be allowed to return to England as soon as possible in order to recover his health and to participate in Parliament.<sup>18</sup> He started making his way back home in March 1703. Shortly after his departure the dowager Electress Sophia sent a letter to Anne expressing her satisfaction in his embassy.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Owing to his embassy and his illness he was absent for the entirety of the first session of Anne’s first Parliament in 1702-3, whose elections in Kent he had so dutifully managed. He first sat in the following session of 1703-4 on 24 Nov. 1703 and came to 80 per cent of its sittings. Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that he would support the occasional conformity bill on its second appearance in the House that winter. Winchilsea did sign the protests of 14 Dec. against both the decision not to give the bill a second reading and to reject it outright. He was particularly busy in the first three months of 1704. Between 4 Jan., when he reported from the committee on Sir John Ivory’s bill, and 28 Feb. he reported from seven different committees on estate bills and on 12 Feb. he also brought from committee the bill to extend the time allowed in a previous act to repair Dover harbour, a measure with which he would have been particularly concerned as lieutenant governor of that port’s castle. He was also a teller in a number of divisions: on whether the word ‘grantee’ should stand part of the clause in the West Riding register bill (25 Jan. 1704); on whether to reverse the decree in the cause <em>Hassell v. Knatchbull</em> (16 Feb.); on whether the committee of the whole agreed with the committee’s report on Hore’s petition concerning abuses in victualling the Navy (2 Mar.); on whether to put the question to set a date for the first reading of the subsidy bill (4 Mar.); and on whether the House should agree to the condition that the contents of the deciphered ‘gibberish letters’ concerning the Scotch Plot should be divulged only to the queen and the Privy Council (3 March).<sup>20</sup> Winchilsea’s position on this last matter is pretty clear and he almost certainly would have told for the not contents, for that same day he signed the dissent from the resolution that the House would forego its right to see the content of the deciphered letters. In the proceedings on the Scotch Plot he tried to defend his kinsman Nottingham and on 25 Mar. he subscribed to the large dissents – each with over 25 signatories - from the House’s censure of the secretary of state’s lax handling of the examination of the informer Robert Ferguson, which the House considered ‘an encouragement to the enemies of the crown’. In other matters, Winchilsea also joined the Tories in dissenting from the House’s decision of 16 Mar. to remove the High Church Tory Robert Byerley, a scourge of the Junto, from the list of commissioners of accounts in the bill for taking public accompts. The Commons were, unsurprisingly, not pleased with this change and on 27 Mar., a week before the prorogation, Winchilsea was chosen a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill.</p><p>At the beginning of May 1704, shortly after the removal of his patron Nottingham from office, Winchilsea replaced the recently deceased Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney, as lord lieutenant of Kent. He now was the principal agent of the crown throughout Kent and parts of Sussex, both as lord lieutenant of the county and deputy warden of the Cinque Ports. From the outset his mind was on party matters. The prorogation of Parliament on 3 Apr. appears to have given rise to rumours of a new election and in June Winchilsea informed Weymouth of the electoral prospects in the county: ‘The business of elections is less talked of now then soon after the rising of the Parliament, though some honest gentlemen are not unactive in making the best interest they can against another’. For the county Winchilsea feared that the Whig Sir George Choute<sup>‡</sup> was only standing down ‘with design to favour another [who] will be as unacceptable to the best part of the gentry’, while at Rochester he despaired that Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s<sup>‡</sup> stated intention to run would disrupt the chances of the Tory candidate Edward Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup>. Winchilsea was equally occupied with the Cinque Ports, trying to ensure that they would return men of his party. In August he wrote a tardy response to a letter of Weymouth’s, explaining that</p><blockquote><p>I have been almost continually from home and returned very lately from my progress through the Ports, which I performed with some difficulty in ten days … I found some places still under the bondage of their late masters, but in general I think a good account is to be given of the Ports [at] another election.</p></blockquote><p>He also reported to Weymouth that he had been to the recent assizes in order to reconcile the disputes among the west Kent gentlemen, which he feared threatened Tory chances at the county election, but ‘hitherto all endeavours have been ineffectual and I fear some advantage may be made of the division by another Party’.<sup>21</sup> But there were no elections in 1704 in which he could exercise his careful control of the county and its ports, and by the time there were, the following year his situation was very different.</p><p>Winchilsea only attended half of the sitting days of the 1704-5 session, the last of the Parliament before the elections. He first sat on 23 Nov. and sat for a week before assigning his proxy to Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, on 30 November. He returned to the House two weeks later, probably specifically to help push through the occasional conformity bill, now on the third attempt. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, singled Winchilsea out as one of those who argued for the bill in the debates on 15 Dec., even ‘seeming to threaten the House with being hereafter forced by the Commons to pass the bill’. For this Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, accused him of trying to bully the House, to which Winchilsea replied provocatively ‘that he was neither for bullying, nor would he be bullied’. Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, was able to quieten down the tumult caused by these words, seen by some as amounting to a challenge, by proposing a motion enjoining peace in the House. On that day Winchilsea joined the Tories in signing the protests against the resolutions not to give the bill a second reading and to reject it outright.<sup>22</sup> In January 1705 Winchilsea subscribed to protests against measures which threatened some of his fellow Tories. On 17 Jan. he and seven others protested against the resolution to give a first reading to the estate bill of the underage William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, despite the strenuous opposition of Bath’s uncle, John Granville*, Baron Granville of Potheridge. Five days later he joined eight others in protesting against the rejection of the petition of Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, asking to submit a writ of error against his deprivation from his bishopric; the reasons given in the protest were subsequently erased from the Journal. He was also again involved in chairing and reporting from committees. On 12 Jan. he chaired a committee of the whole House discussing the annuities bill and between 31 Jan. and 14 Feb. he reported from three committees dealing with private estate bills. On 27 Feb. he was placed, along with the rest of the House, on a committee to draw up heads to be presented to the Commons in a conference on the case of the ‘Aylesbury men’, but he was not named a manager for the conference on this matter held the following day.</p><h2><em>The Tories in disgrace, 1705-10</em></h2><p>Early in April 1705 Winchilsea was deprived of the lieutenancy of Kent and the deputy wardenship of the ports, in the redistribution of offices following the disgrace of the High Church Tories and just before the elections to Anne’s second Parliament. He was replaced in both offices by Whigs: Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, was made vice-admiral, lord-lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Kent, and Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, was appointed deputy-warden and lieutenant-governor of Dover. In his autobiography Westmorland clearly stated that he came in with the intention of turning out Winchilsea’s clients from the Cinque Port seats in the forthcoming election.<sup>23</sup> The Junto leader Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, breathed a sigh of relief at these changes, for ‘if that had been done sooner, and followed with a good spirit, not one ill man had been chose in that county, which has ever [been] well disposed till Sir George [Rooke]<sup>‡</sup> and Lord Winchilsea were allowed to spoil them’.<sup>24</sup> The changes in office were only partly successful in the 1705 elections. Westmorland was able to claim that in the Cinque Ports ‘the members were almost all changed to the Principal I was of’, but the freeholders returned two Tories as knights of the shire, though different from the incumbents. Winchilsea’s brother-in-law Philip Herbert<sup>‡</sup> was elected for Rye, which may have provided the earl with some small consolation.</p><p>Despite his comprehensive fall from office in April 1705, Winchilsea continued to attend the House during Anne’s second Parliament, although with decreasing regularity. He still managed to sit in almost three-quarters of its meetings in the first session of 1705-6. He joined with the disgruntled High Church Tories in their controversial actions surrounding the Hanoverian Succession and the regency bill. He supported Nottingham in his call on 12 Nov. 1705 to request the queen to lay before the House material on the ‘present state of the kingdom of Scotland in relation to the Succession and the Union’, no doubt referring to the Scots Parliament’s Act of Security.<sup>25</sup> On 15 Nov. he prominently backed the ‘Hanover motion’ for an address requesting that the dowager Electress Sophia come to reside in England during the lifetime of the queen and he signed the protest when this inflammatory motion was not even put to the question. During the proceedings on the regency bill, drafted by the Whigs in response to the Hanover motion, he acted as a teller on 20 Nov. in a division in the committee of the whole House on whether the name of the incumbent lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, should be inserted in the bill as one of the seven lords justices to govern the country following the queen’s death and during the time the Hanoverian successor travelled to England. The motion passed in the affirmative by a large majority, but Winchilsea probably told for the not contents, as Godolphin was then under strenuous attack from the High Church Tories.<sup>26</sup> Winchilsea later voted and protested on 6 Dec. against the Whig motion made in the committee of the whole House that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration, and that those who suggested that it was were enemies to the kingdom.<sup>27</sup> In January 1706 the regency bill was returned from the Commons with a controversial place clause, depriving officers of the court from sitting in Parliament. On 31 Jan. Winchilsea supported this country-inspired clause and subscribed to three separate protests on 31 Jan. against the House’s rejection of the Commons’ wording ‘regulating and altering’ the earlier place clause in the 1701 Act of Settlement. The controversy surrounding the Hanover Succession and the Regency Act reappeared at the end of the session, as Parliament sought to take action against the libellous printed ‘letter’ from Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, which defended the idea of the dowager electress residing in England during the remainder of the queen’s life. On 9 Mar. Winchilsea dissented from the resolution to agree with the Commons that Gwynne’s letter was ‘a scandalous, false and malicious libel’ and he, along with the rest of the House, was named to take part in conferences two days later on the address to the queen concerning this pamphlet. He was also named a manager for a conference on 22 Feb. on a bill to allow two merchants to import a quantity of French wines and, as previously, he reported from a number of committees on private estate bills, four in this session between 8 Feb. and 13 March.</p><p>He came to just over half of the sitting days of the session of 1706-7, and held the proxy of Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, from 4 Feb. 1707 for the remainder of the session. Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup>, reporting on 18 Feb. to Horatio Walpole<sup>‡</sup> on the debates on the bill for union with Scotland, commented that ‘The Finch family appeared the warmest against it (vizt) Lords Nottingham, Guernsey [Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, later earl of Aylesford] and Winchilsea’. Winchilsea voted on 4 Mar. for the rider to the bill proposed at the last minute by William North*, 6th Baron North, which stated that nothing in the act should be construed as an approbation of the Presbyterian Kirk’s claims to be the true Protestant religion, and he subscribed to the protest when that amendment was rejected.<sup>28</sup> Later that same day Winchilsea also dissented, with 13 other members, from the passage of the Act of Union itself. Even after its passage he continued in his opposition to aspects of the Scottish Union. On 23 Apr. Winchilsea and a group of eight other Tories, perhaps as a sign of their opposition to the bill and the Union in general, signed a protest against a resolution to consider further the matter of ‘drawbacks’ that allowed merchants trading through Scotland to evade English custom duties. Winchilsea attended five of the meetings of the short session of April 1707. That summer, Winchilsea, Guernsey, Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> ‘and a great party of that side’—meaning Tories—met in Kent in expectation of an imminent election ‘to carve us out two knights of the shire’. The commentator, a correspondent of Sunderland, despaired of the Whigs’ chances at the next election, calculating that three-quarters of the clergy and most of the gentry of Kent ‘are against us’.<sup>29</sup> But there were no elections at that time and Winchilsea, perhaps out of distaste for sitting with the new Scottish members, came to only 14 sittings of the session of 1707-8, all in March 1708.</p><p>He was more attentive in the new Parliament of Great Britain elected in the summer of 1708, despite the majority the Whigs had there. Throughout the first session of 1708-9, where he attended 65 per cent of the sittings, he was principally busy in committees, often serving as chairman to both select committees and committees of the whole House on estate and other private legislation. He reported from a private estate bill on 29 Mar. 1709 and acted as a chairman of committees of the whole House on 24 and 25 Mar. and 6 April. On 21 Apr. he was a manager for a conference on the bill to continue the act to prevent false coining. This new burst of activity suggests that, owing to his adverse financial situation and dependence on patronage, Winchilsea found himself increasingly reliant on the favour of the Whigs then in power in Parliament and at court.<sup>30</sup> Jonathan Swift, who considered Winchilsea ‘a particular friend of mine’, later commented in his annotations to Macky’s character of the earl, that ‘being very poor he complied much with the party he hated’.<sup>31</sup> He apparently satisfied the government with his actions during the first session of 1708-9, for in the summer following the prorogation of 21 Apr. 1709 there were rumours, ultimately unfounded, that he would be rewarded by being made either a major-general in the army, or governor of the colony of New York.<sup>32</sup> He then appeared in a similar number of sittings in the following session of 1709-10 (57 per cent). On 31 Jan. 1710 he reported an estate bill from committee, while on 30 Mar. he was manager for a conference on amendments to the Edistone Lighthouse bill. It was concerning the trial of Dr Henry Sacheverell that Winchilsea behaved most uncharacteristically. Here he moved against the doctor, taking a stand in opposition to his Finch cousins, Nottingham and Guernsey, and in line with the wishes of the Whig ministry. He did not subscribe to any of the protests of February and March over the proceedings against Sacheverell, was a teller in a division on 18 Feb. on whether to adjourn discussion on the matter, and surprised many contemporaries by voting the doctor guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours on 20 March. The following day he voted that Sacheverell should receive no further preferment.<sup>33</sup></p><h2><em>The Oxford ministry, 1710-12</em></h2><p>Winchilsea’s apostasy was short-lived, however, as reaction against the trial of Sacheverell soon brought the Tories back into power, and a new patron for Winchilsea in the person of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. Already in July Weymouth was corresponding with Harley about the elections that all thought were imminent, and suggested his nephew be reinstated to his positions of influence in Kent: ‘the Cinque Ports are much guided by the lord warden, as well as Kent by a popular lord lieutenant, and though Lord Winchilsea’s unhappy circumstances forced him with reluctance to make a false step, yet no man is more beloved and pitied there, or capable of doing more service; and greater sinners must be restored, if they did not offend out of malicious wickedness’.<sup>34</sup> Harley certainly considered Winchilsea a potential supporter for the upcoming parliamentary session and even included him on a list of September of members of Parliament to be provided for and rewarded for their loyalty.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Despite Weymouth’s urgings, Winchilsea did not regain control of the Cinque Ports or the lieutenancy of Kent. These offices remained in the hands of, respectively, Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset (warden since the death of Prince George of Denmark in 1708) and Rockingham. Tory leaders in the county resented this and feared that they would lose the elections of 1710, ‘the lieutenancy, the commissions of the peace and the Cinque Ports being all against them headed by a great man in post’. The Tories did win most of the Kentish seats, though, helped no doubt by Winchilsea who was able to lead 1,000 freeholders to the poll for the county election.<sup>36</sup> The Whig officers were not immediately replaced and when rumours spread in January 1711 that Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, was to be made warden of the Cinque Ports and lord admiral, Winchilsea himself wrote to Harley stressing his claims on that office, ‘not only from my past services and sufferings, but from the late hopes and promises which have been given me, that the Queen designed me some recompense for the large share of my own private fortune I have sacrificed to her service’. Even, he added, his journeys to London to attend upon the queen and the House were depleting his limited funds and he was desperately in need of some sign of favour to recompense him for his sacrifices.<sup>37</sup> His wishes were partly fulfilled in the spring and summer of 1711. On 12-14 June he was sworn of the Privy Council and made first lord of trade. Even with these he remained dissatisfied. He complained to Harley, recently created earl of Oxford, that the salary allotted to him at the board of trade was insufficient for his expenses incurred in attending the court and Parliament, and that his new post was ‘inferior… both in profit and honour to those employments I had before.’ He even requested an advance of £1,000 ‘to make me easy at my entrance’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Even in his continual disappointment, Winchilsea loyally attended the House throughout the first two sessions of the 1710 Parliament. He first sat in the 1710-11 session on 11 Dec. 1710 and proceeded to sit in just over two-thirds of the sittings. He left the House briefly on 26 Jan. 1711 and registered his proxy with Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, who held it until Winchilsea’s return to the House on 5 February. On the day of his return, Winchilsea subscribed the protest against the rejection of the bill to repeal the Act for General Naturalization and received in turn the proxy of Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, which he held until 19 February<strong>.</strong> Winchilsea chaired, and reported from, a select committee on an estate bill on 23 February. He was called upon on 24 Apr. and 12 June to chair committees of the whole House on bills concerning trade and mercantile matters. He was also a teller, probably for the contents, on the motion in a committee of the whole on 24 Jan. whether to censure the general Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], for his conduct of the war in Spain.<sup>39</sup> On 9 Mar. he was a manager for two conferences in which the Houses drafted the address to the queen condemning Guiscard’s attempted assassination of Harley. That same day Winchilsea left the House for over a month. He registered his proxy with John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, from 10 Mar. until his return on 12 April.</p><p>The session of 1711-12 was the last Winchilsea attended and the one he frequented most assiduously, appearing at just over 90 per cent of the sittings. He remained loyal to the Oxford ministry, even where the head of his family and his erstwhile patron did not. On 7 Dec. Winchilsea voted with the ministry to reject the Whig motion to include a clause in the address to the queen emphasizing that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’, while Nottingham ‘apostasized’ and voted for the motion. Winchilsea also voted and protested against the decision of 20 Dec. that James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], could not sit in the House as duke of Brandon. He seconded a motion made by Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, on 17 Jan. 1712, that an address be delivered to the queen thanking her for promising to keep Parliament informed of the proceedings of the peace negotiations at Utrecht, even though Scarbrough raised objections to the procedure by which the queen’s message had been presented to the House.<sup>40</sup> Winchilsea’s proxy was registered with William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, the following day, perhaps with the intention of covering his vote for the brief period he was away from the House between 22 and 28 January. Winchilsea was later a teller in the division of 19 May on whether to insert the words ‘except Peers of Great Britain’ in the bill to appoint commissioners to assess the value of the land grants made by the crown since the time of the Revolution.<sup>41</sup> Near the end of the session he voted on 28 May against the motion to address the queen condemning the ministry’s ‘restraining orders’ commanding the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, not to engage in offensive military action against the French.<sup>42</sup> Throughout the first months of 1712 he was again involved in reporting from select committees—on 25 Mar. and 5 May—and committees of the whole House—on 14 Apr. and 10 June. He was particularly engaged with the bill to offer assistance to insolvent debtors, and he chaired committees of the whole on this measure twice, on 10 and 14 April. He also chaired a committee of the whole in one of the House’s first discussions of the South Sea Company bill, on 11 June.</p><p>Despite his attachment to the ministry, prominent Whigs suspected that Winchilsea’s finances were in such bad condition that he could be swayed by a pension. In January 1712 the Hanoverian envoy Bothmer, following suggestions from John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, recommended to George, elector of Hanover, that Winchilsea’s opposition to a separate Anglo-French peace could be bought for a pension of £1,000. Winchilsea himself turned increasingly desperately to Oxford, writing to him on 15 May that ‘I am so far from having mended my circumstances in the station the queen has commanded my service is most certain’ and making the ‘short’ request ‘that I may know in what time and manner her Majesty has thought of providing for me, that I may not spend the best part of my life only in expectation’.<sup>43</sup> Winchilsea did not have to live in expectation much longer, for in the first days of August he fell dangerously ill. He died in his house in the capital on 5 August. He died without any surviving children and intestate. Two days after the earl’s death, Swift wrote to ‘Stella’ in Ireland, ‘Poor Lord Winchilsea is dead, to my great grief, he was a worthy honest gentleman, and particular friend of mine’. He added that without heirs the title had passed to the 4th earl’s paternal uncle Heneage Finch*, 5th earl of Winchilsea ‘but without much estate’.<sup>44</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
FINCH, Daniel (1647-1730) |
<p><strong><surname>FINCH</surname></strong>, <strong>Daniel</strong> (1647–1730)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1681-82 Ld. Finch; <em>suc. </em>fa. 18 Dec. 1682 as 2nd earl of NOTTINGHAM; <em>suc. </em>cos. 9 Sept. 1729 as 7th earl of WINCHILSEA |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 13 Feb. 1728 |
|
MP Great Bedwyn 29 Jan.-6 Feb. 1673, 10 Feb. 1673-1679; Lichfield 1679 (Oct.)-1681 |
<p><em>b</em>. 2 July 1647, 1st s. of Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham and Elizabeth, da. of Daniel Harvey; bro. of Hon. Edward Finch<sup>‡</sup>, Hon. Heneage Finch<sup>‡</sup> and Hon. William Finch<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Westminster; I. Temple 1658; Christ Church, Oxf. 1662; travelled abroad (Germany, Italy, France) 1665-8. <em>m</em>. (1) 16 June 1674, Lady Essex Rich (<em>d</em>. 23 Mar. 1684), da. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Warwick, 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 6da. (5 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 29 Dec. 1685 (with £10,000),<sup>2</sup> Anne, da. of Christopher Hatton*, Visct. Hatton, 6s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) ?9da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), (and 7 other children <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 1 Jan. 1730, will 28 July 1729; pr. 30 June 1730.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. of Admiralty 1679, first ld. 1680-4; PC 4 Feb. 1680-12 Mar. 1696, 2 May 1702-1707, 23 Sept. 1714-<em>d</em>.; sec. of state (S) 1689-93, 1702-4; ld. pres. 1714-16.</p><p>Freeman, Portsmouth 1682;<sup>5</sup> gov. Charterhouse 1687;<sup>6</sup> commr. visiting hospitals 1691;<sup>7</sup> Greenwich Hospital 1703.<sup>8</sup></p><p>FRS 1668.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1720, Beningbrough Hall, Yorks. NPG 3910.</p> |
<h2><em>Reign of James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>After an active career in the Commons, notable for its loyalty to the crown, Finch succeeded his father at the end of 1682. He was already a member of the Privy Council and a holder of ministerial office as first lord of the admiralty. When a Parliament was summoned following the accession of James II, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, wrote to him in April 1685 on behalf of the king to solicit his support in the elections for Buckinghamshire, Nottingham owning property at Milton which he had purchased in 1677.<sup>10</sup> When the Parliament sat, Nottingham was introduced into the House on 19 May by Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester and Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury. He attended on 29 of the 31 days of the session before the adjournment in July, being named to 16 committees. As in the Commons, Nottingham was protective of his father’s reputation: Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, recounted a debate on the reversal of a decision made by the first earl’s successor, the lord keeper, Francis North*, Baron Guilford, in which Nottingham joined in the ‘many severe reflections’ upon Guilford, whom he hated ‘because he had endeavoured to detract from his father’s memory’. Nottingham had ‘got together so many instances of his ill administration of justice, that he exposed him severely for it’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Nottingham attended the adjournment on 4 Aug. 1685. In October, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, expected him to be one of the peers attending Parliament to oppose the repeal of the Tests.<sup>12</sup> Nottingham’s papers contain documents arguing for the retention of the Habeas Corpus Act and the continued exclusion of the Catholic peers from Parliament.<sup>13</sup> On 27 Oct., Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, reported rumours that Nottingham had been removed from the Privy Council, perhaps on account of his known views, but these seem to have been false.<sup>14</sup> He attended all 11 days of the second part of the session after it resumed in November 1685, and was named to one further committee. On 19 Nov. he joined those supporting a motion for a separate day to take into consideration the king’s speech. The motion’s success precipitated James’s decision to prorogue on the following day.<sup>15</sup> He was later to attend the prorogations of 10 May, 23 Nov. 1686 and 28 Apr. 1687. On 29 Dec. 1685 Nottingham married for the second time, in a ceremony conducted by the dean of Norwich, John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York. Bridget Noel thought the bride’s portion of £10,000 ‘a great deal’ because Nottingham already had a son and a daughter from his previous marriage.<sup>16</sup> Nottingham’s first son by his second marriage, Heneage, was born on 6 Apr. 1687, and baptized on the 17th by Nottingham’s chaplain, John Moore*, the future bishop of Norwich.<sup>17</sup></p><p>On 14 Jan. 1686 Nottingham attended the trial for high treason of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, finding him not guilty. He was no passive participant in this trial, intervening to suggest that in matters pertaining to parliamentary privilege, the judges were not ‘altogether the sole judges’.<sup>18</sup> Nottingham also challenged the lord high steward, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys on other points of law. Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, reported that Nottingham had ‘gained great honour in chastising’ Jeffreys, ‘who took upon him to overrule things without consulting the peers, as he used to do with common juries, and advanced a new doctrine, that one positive evidence with corroborating circumstances was sufficient to convict in case of high treason’, whereupon Nottingham ‘shewed him his mistakes in law as well as form, and that he had no power of giving any judgment there; but [basely] to declare the resolution of the peers’.<sup>19</sup> Roger Morrice later reported that Nottingham ‘ruffled the lord chancellor, and was the chief instrument in saving’ Delamer.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The dismissal in April 1686 of his brother, Heneage, the solicitor-general, for refusing to act for the crown in the case of <em>Godden v. Hales</em>, must have added to Nottingham’s unease about royal policies. In June Nottingham tried to protect Sharp, who was under threat of suspension for preaching sermons deemed anti-Catholic. He succeeded to the extent that Sharp was allowed to retire unmolested to Norwich, as the real target of the authorities was Henry Compton*, bishop of London.<sup>21</sup> The establishment of the ecclesiastical commission brought a fresh challenge; Nottingham thought the court was not legal and encouraged Bishop Compton to test its legality. However, he felt that since it was composed of privy councillors, a summons to appear before it could not be avoided.<sup>22</sup> In 1687 Nottingham was chosen a governor of Charterhouse, by ‘some indirect practices’ of his friends, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later successively marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) and James Butler*, duke of Ormond, whom he later joined in refusing to admit a Catholic because he would not take the oaths.<sup>23</sup> Nottingham’s name appeared on five lists in 1687-8, all of which listed him as an opponent of James II’s religious policies or more specifically against the repeal of the Test Act. Both French ambassadors, Barillon and Bonrepaux, concurred in describing him as an opponent of the Court.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Given his views, Nottingham was an obvious person for William’s agent, Dijkvelt, to visit during his mission to canvass English political opinion. They met at the town house of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, although when Dijkvelt returned in June 1687 to report to William he carried only a polite non-committal letter from Nottingham.<sup>25</sup> On 7 June 1687 Nottingham took the oaths and the Test in chancery, in a calculated snub to the king’s wishes.<sup>26</sup> On 2 Sept. Nottingham was quite sanguine in response to Prince William’s request for his assessment of the political situation in England following the Declaration of Indulgence, predicting that James II’s putative alliance with the dissenters would not be able to produce a parliamentary majority for taking off the Test.<sup>27</sup> Meanwhile, September 1687 saw him involved in the negotiations for the marriage of his niece, Elizabeth Grimston to Halifax’s son, William Savile*, styled Lord Eland, the future 2nd marquess of Halifax.<sup>28</sup></p><p>On 11 Nov. 1687 Nottingham was late in attending the Privy Council, so avoided the ceremony surrounding the installation of Father Petre as a councillor, subsequently declining to sit with the Jesuit.<sup>29</sup> In May 1688 the London clergy, faced with the order to read the Declaration of Indulgence, consulted Nottingham among others, ‘who has most reputation, and who they place most confidence in, and he was utterly against their refusal, unless they were unanimous therein’, a view Morrice attributed to Nottingham having ‘the same temper with his father and the rest of the family, plausible but obsequious in all things, if the government favour not a reformation’.<sup>30</sup> Nottingham was in attendance on the Seven Bishops on 15 June, in order to support them in court and to stand bail for them if necessary.<sup>31</sup> Indeed, in the original plan drafted by Bishop Compton he was slated as one of those to provide bail for Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Danby and Bishop Compton advised Henry Sydney*, the future Viscount Sydney, to approach Nottingham, ‘who had great credit with the whole Church party’ to see if he would advise the prince to come over to England. Initially, Nottingham agreed, and on 18 June William was promised in a cipher letter that five of his ‘principal’ friends, one of whom was Nottingham, would send another letter, enclosing an ‘invitation’ to William. However, when the promised invitation was sent on 30 June, Nottingham was not among the signatories—as Sydney wrote, ‘you will wonder, I believe, not to see the number 23 [Nottingham] among the other figures; he was gone very far, but now his heart fails him, and he will go no further; he saith ’tis scruples of conscience, but we all conclude ’tis another passion’. On 27 July Nottingham’s own letter to William played down the need for intervention by questioning the likely success of the king’s policies.<sup>33</sup> Nottingham later recounted that the dilemma on whether to sign the invitation was ‘the greatest difficulty that ever I was plunged into in my whole life’, convinced as he was that William ‘had a just cause for such an attempt’ given the suspect birth of the prince or Wales and James II’s ‘putting all the offices and power in the kingdom into the hands of papists as fast as he could’. However, the invitation was high treason, and in violation of his solemn oath of allegiance. After consulting Edward Stillingfleet*, the future bishop of Worcester, and William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, on whether ‘in conscience’ force could be used ‘to defend our religious, and civil rights and liberties’, and receiving a negative response, he declined to participate, informing Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, of his decision and of his promise not to reveal the plot to the king.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Nottingham used his influence against James II’s regulators in their attempts to secure an amenable Parliament. On 16 Sept. 1688, one of James’s leading Whig collaborators, Sir William Williams<sup>‡</sup>, feared that if his patron at Beaumaris, Robert Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Bulkeley [I], died before the election, Bulkeley’s son, Richard Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, the future 3rd Viscount, ‘who is lately arrived here with the influence and eloquence of the earl of Nottingham and Mr [Heneage] Finch his near relations [they were cousins] will oppose my election’.<sup>35</sup> With Dutch preparations at last being taken seriously, on 5 Oct. Nottingham attended the king, but declined to resume his seat on the Privy Council.<sup>36</sup> According to his own description of his meeting, the king was ‘much dissatisfied with him for saying nothing to him relating to the present state of affairs’, although he noted that he would not ‘engage in any action against the allegiance he owes in conscience to the king’.<sup>37</sup> On 22 Oct., when the king issued a summons to all privy councillors to attend him to hear depositions on the birth of the prince of Wales, Nottingham refused to sit at the council table with the other councillors along with those whom he regarded as unqualified to sit—that is, the Roman Catholics.<sup>38</sup> On 4 Nov., Nottingham was one of the Tory peers who, having been ordered to attend the king, ‘excused themselves’ from signing an address abhorring the invasion. Further, none of those present offered the king their service, but ‘only declared in civil and general terms, how sorry they were to see his majesty’s affairs placed in such an awkward position, on which his majesty dismissed them very dissatisfied’.<sup>39</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution, 1688-9</em></h2><p>Nottingham was present at Halifax’s on 12 Nov. 1688 when he met with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Weymouth and Bishops White of Peterborough and Lloyd of St Asaph, to discuss a petition to the king calling for a Parliament. Nottingham and Halifax would not join in a petition if it were signed by any peer who had made themselves ‘obnoxious’ by their previous governmental role, such as those who had sat on the ecclesiastical commission. As a result Nottingham was one of the peers who on 16 Nov. refused to subscribe to the petition. On 27 Nov. he was one of about 40 peers summoned to a meeting to discuss the petition with James II, following the defection of many of his senior officers and his return from Salisbury. Nottingham was said to have spoken ‘plain’, in ‘very soft language, but things smart enough’, advising the king to call a Parliament and pardon those who had joined the prince of Orange, thereby qualifying them for election.<sup>40</sup> In this he supported Halifax and ‘laid all miscarriages open’ and favoured sending commissioners to the prince. Having been, together with Halifax, in private with the king on 28-29 Nov., on the 30th he was named with Halifax and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, to treat with Prince William.<sup>41</sup> ‘Feuds’ between Halifax and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, apparently dictated that Nottingham be appointed in Rochester’s place, even though William at this point ‘had but little acquaintance with’ him.<sup>42</sup> His appointment was a victory, perhaps, for what Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey saw as the Halifax-Nottingham faction at Court, over Clarendon and Rochester and over Danby and his adherents.<sup>43</sup> The commissioners left London on 2 Dec., and held negotiations at Hungerford with William on 8 and 10 December. Finding that the prince’s terms exceeded their instructions, they returned to London for further directions, but by the time they had arrived at Whitehall on the evening of 11 Dec., the king had fled.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Presumably due to his late arrival, Nottingham did not attend the provisional government meeting at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. 1688, but was present on the following day. In the afternoon, he signed the arrest warrant for Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, although he was known to be opposed to general warrants on principle. He next attended on the afternoon of 13 Dec. and then on the morning of 14 Dec., upon which occasion he argued that Jeffreys should be brought before them and a new warrant for his confinement issued, a course of action which was rejected on safety grounds. He continued to be active on the 15th, including proposing that Jeffreys be examined as to the fate of the great seal.<sup>45</sup> Although one of the peers in attendance on the prince after he had arrived at St James’s on 18 Dec., Nottingham ‘was singled out by all the clergy, or he singled them out and left all the company to talk with them’. He was described by Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, as ‘the patron of the hierarchists’.<sup>46</sup> Nottingham answered the summons of the prince and duly attended when the peers met in the queen’s presence chamber on 21 December. When the Association signed at Exeter was read, Nottingham gave several reasons against subscribing to it, and suggested that it should be voluntary, ‘out of a scruple that it was inconsistent with the oath of allegiance, and made a long unintelligible speech wherein he used much oratory’.<sup>47</sup> Nottingham attended the meeting of the peers in the House of Lords on 22 Dec. when he signed the order authorizing Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> to sign orders on behalf of the Lords collectively. At their meeting on 24 Dec. Nottingham was in favour of obtaining and reading the letter written by James II to secretary of state Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Middleton [S], which after a long debate was allowed to drop.<sup>48</sup> The debate then continued on to the matter of securing a ‘free’ Parliament: Nottingham opposed the suggestion of William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, that the king withdrawing constituted ‘a demise in law’, and the proposal from William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, that the Princess of Orange should be declared queen so that she could issue the writs for a Parliament, apparently speaking ‘with great moderation and tenderness towards the king’.<sup>49</sup> He recognized that they ‘cannot come to have a Parliament but by the king’, and that the nearest one could get to it was ‘circular letters to the House of Lords, and to the coroners or high or chief constables’, which would take three weeks. He then brought up the precedent of Prince John taking over the government as regent for Richard I, without a commission from the king. If this were to be done in the king’s name, it would be ‘owning the king, who hath forsaken the kingdom’.<sup>50</sup> He considered sending ‘propositions’ to the king, which Burnet interpreted as asking the king to issue the writs for a Parliament, but may relate to a document among his papers containing a list of 13 limitations on royal authority.<sup>51</sup> He then moved an address for Prince William ‘to take on all other matters of the regency’. After circular letters were duly ordered, Nottingham was one of those appointed to draw up a letter asking the Prince to take on the ‘administration of affairs’. In the debate which followed the reading of the draft letter, Nottingham opposed the motion of Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford to leave out the words ‘his majesty’s withdrawing himself’ by pointing out that these were the grounds for having the letter in the first place, but it was agreed to omit them; he then opposed Halifax’s motion to leave out the word ‘legal’ (the letter expressed the wish to ‘the establishment of these things upon such sure and legal foundations, that they may not be in danger of being again subverted’). On the 25th Nottingham signed both the address summoning a Convention and the address requesting the Prince to take over the administration of public affairs.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Clarendon recorded on 16 Jan. 1689 that Rochester had been with Nottingham, who ‘was resolved to support the king’s cause in the Convention’, and keen that William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, should attend.<sup>53</sup> On 19 Jan. Nottingham noted from Kensington that he was ‘every day late at London’.<sup>54</sup> He was present when the Convention opened on 22 Jan. and attended on 142 days, 87 per cent of the total, being named to 41 committees. On the 22nd Nottingham unsuccessfully opposed the appointment of George Bradbury as an assistant to the House.<sup>55</sup> Burnet wrote that Nottingham, Clarendon and Rochester were the managers ‘in favour of a regent, in opposition to those who were for setting up a king’.<sup>56</sup> No doubt believing that the best way to preserve the king’s authority lay with the peers, Nottingham explicitly opposed the idea that the Lords were ‘only to take aim from the gentlemen below’. Thus, on 22 Jan., when it was moved that the Commons go into a committee of the whole on the state of the nation on the following day, Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup> ‘upon concert with Lord Nottingham and Mr Finch’ moved for it to sit on 28th, thereby handing the initiative to the Lords. This plan was baulked on 25 Jan., when Nottingham seconded the motion that the state of the nation be considered on the following day, only for Devonshire and Halifax to persuade the House to put the matter off until the 29th.<sup>57</sup> On that day the Lords took into consideration the vote of the previous day in the Commons that James II had abdicated the government and that the throne was thereby vacant. Nottingham supported a regency and voted in favour of the proposition that a regency was the best way to preserve the protestant religion and the nation’s laws.<sup>58</sup> He ‘brought many arguments from the English history to support his opinion’, as well as a recent example from Portugal. The vote, however, was lost by two.<sup>59</sup> Even if the king had done ‘all that is suggested’ Parliament had no power to judge him or to force a forfeiture. He cautioned against ‘subverting your own constitution’. As the debate evolved, it was proposed by Rochester that a regent be appointed for the king’s life, a proposition in keeping with Nottingham’s views and which he supported. In his final contribution Nottingham reiterated his support for a regency and his concern ‘not for the monarch, but the monarchy, not the persons but things’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Nottingham voted in the committee of the whole on 31 Jan. 1689 against inserting into the resolution sent from the Commons the words declaring the prince and princess of Orange to be king and queen. On 2 Feb. Nottingham told the king’s Dutch secretary, Constantijn Huygens, that he could not accept the view that the throne was vacant. His view explains his omission from the meeting William held with Halifax, Shrewsbury, Danby and others on 3 Feb. in which the prince made clear his refusal to act as regent or prince consort.<sup>61</sup> On 4 Feb. Nottingham was named to a conference on the amendments made by the Lords to the Commons’ vote of 28 Jan. on the abdication, at which he laid out the reasons for the Lords’ preference for the word ‘deserted’ over the word ‘abdication’.<sup>62</sup> Following the report, he acted as a teller, opposite Shrewsbury, against agreeing with the Commons that the throne was vacant, and he was then named to prepare heads for a conference on the Lords’ disagreements with the Commons. On 5 Feb. he reported from this committee, was named to the ensuing conference and reported back that the managers had delivered their reasons to the Commons.</p><p>Nottingham was named to a further conference on 6 Feb. 1689, reporting back from it on the differences between the Houses over the terms ‘abdicated’ and ‘deserted’.<sup>63</sup> He had spoken first at the conference, explaining that the word deserted had been substituted for abdicated because of the ‘consequences’ drawn in conclusion by the Commons that the throne was vacant, which would ‘null the succession in the hereditary line’ and make the crown elective. He proposed to shift the debate on to filling the vacancy and only then to determine the word to be used, something the Commons resisted, a point he returned to in the conference.<sup>64</sup> In the debate in the Lords which followed the conference, he spoke and voted against agreeing with the Commons that King James had abdicated, and that the throne was vacant, duly entering his protest when the Lords agreed to the wording of the Commons.<sup>65</sup> Despite this vote and protest, there were indications that Nottingham wished to end the uncertainty, whilst maintaining his principled stand: Lady Cavendish revealed that he ‘had a great mind to come off before, but could not tell which way’, and William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, later recorded that Weymouth had told him that Nottingham had prevailed with him and others to stay away, so that the vote was lost and civil war averted.<sup>66</sup> Clarendon duly noted that both Weymouth and Hatton were absent.<sup>67</sup> On 7 Feb. ‘several Lords’ met to enter their dissent to the vote of the 6th. Nottingham had already prepared some reasons for the Lords disagreeing to the Commons vote of 28 Jan., but it was decided that in order to maximize the numbers entering a protest that no reasons should be given. Clarendon copied Nottingham’s proposed reasons, which encapsulated his argument: although the king could resign his crown by consent of Parliament, neither Parliament nor the people had the authority to depose him without his own consent. ‘If the Parliament could depose him, yet the monarchy of England is hereditary by the fundamental constitution of this government, and has been often declared by Parliament to be so’; since ‘no act of the king alone could abrogate the right of his heir without act of Parliament’, therefore the throne could not be vacant, and the consequence of the vote was to make the monarchy elective, which was ‘contrary to the original constitution of the government, and destructive of it, and the peace and welfare of the nation’.<sup>68</sup> Clarendon recorded on the 6th that Nottingham had ‘moved that new oaths might be made instead of the old ones of allegiance and supremacy, which, he believed, few would take to a new king’: it was ordered to be considered on the following day, when Clarendon reported the new oaths from committee of the whole House.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Nottingham was one of those named on 8 Feb. 1689 to report a conference on declaring William and Mary monarchs. On 9 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to Devonshire on whether to agree with the paragraph on the standing army, as amended by the Lords, for insertion in the declaration to be presented to the new monarchs. He was then named to prepare reasons to ‘fortify’ the Lords’ amendments in preparation for a conference, and to the resultant conference. During the debates on 9 Feb., when it was put about (possibly with an intent to derail proceedings) that William was irked by some of the proposed restrictions in the Declaration, Nottingham said that ‘the prince ought to consider that the crown of England with whatever limitations ... was far more than anything the States of Holland were able to give him’.<sup>70</sup></p><h2><em>Secretary of State in the Convention, 1689-90</em></h2><p>Nottingham quickly adjusted to the new state of affairs. Halifax quoted Nottingham’s speech with approval when attempting to convince Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> to take the oaths; ‘he had not consented in the least to this change, but had opposed the prince his accession to the crown, not believing it legal, but that since he was there, and that we must now owe and expect his protection from him as king <em>de facto</em>, he thought it just and lawful to swear allegiance to him’.<sup>71</sup> On 11 Feb. 1689 Clarendon apparently proposed a boycott of proceedings, but Nottingham opposed such a move, arguing that the government must be supported ‘and the Lords can never answer it if they leave the House’.<sup>72</sup> On 14 Feb. Nottingham was named to the new Privy Council, ‘though for some accidental reasons he did not’ sit at its first meeting.<sup>73</sup> Clarendon was surprised to see his name among the new councillors, while Nottingham, in turn, ‘wondered how’ Clarendon could ‘enter into the Association at Salisbury and now refuse to take the oaths’.<sup>74</sup> As for higher office Nottingham seems to have wanted a seat in the treasury commission and refused the custodianship of the great seal, probably as first commissioner.<sup>75</sup> Instead, on 5 Mar. he accepted the secretaryship, but told William that ‘he foresaw that there were many steps yet to be made in which he would oppose that which would be pretended to be his service; but he would follow his own sense of things in Parliament, though he would be guided by the king’s sense out of it’.<sup>76</sup> Reresby was probably correct in attributing Nottingham’s appointment to Halifax.<sup>77</sup> It may also have facilitated negotiations for the sale of Nottingham’s house in Kensington, which the king was reported in mid March to be ‘buying’.<sup>78</sup> The purchase was completed at the end of May for about 18,000 guineas.<sup>79</sup></p><p>On 28 Feb. 1689 Nottingham brought into the Lords a toleration bill, which fulfilled earlier promises made to the dissenters.<sup>80</sup> All Trinitarians outside the Church who declared against transubstantiation and swore allegiance to the new monarchs were to be relieved from the penalties of the penal statutes.<sup>81</sup> Meanwhile, Nottingham worked on a draft of a comprehension bill for the Lords, along with some of his clerical friends. A draft bill is extant in Sharp’s hand.<sup>82</sup> On 8 Mar. Nottingham received a letter from Stillingfleet, who having perused the papers sent to him thought ‘the last part fittest to be added to the bill’, though he advised that it ought to be delayed until it was possible to convene Convocation, without whose approval, ‘our clergy will hardly come into it’.<sup>83</sup> On 11 Mar., however, Nottingham introduced the comprehension bill into the Lords.<sup>84</sup> The bill was narrower than that championed by Nottingham in 1680, and when asked by Roger Morrice why he had abandoned the earlier bill, he replied that ‘they would offer such a bill as was fit &c and convenient’.<sup>85</sup> A measure of his involvement in the bill is the survival among his papers of a whole raft of documents relating to the legislation, many with emendations in his hand.<sup>86</sup> On 27 Mar. he reported from the committee on the bill and on 8 Apr. his proviso against the practice of occasional conformity was added at its third reading. He was then named to manage the conference on the amendments to the bill removing papists from London. Nottingham was rumoured to be behind the advice to the king which saw William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> on 9 Apr. propose an address to the king that Convocation consider the issue of comprehension.<sup>87</sup> After its adoption by both Houses and presentation to William on 19 Apr., it was Nottingham who relayed the king’s reply to the Lords on the 20th, in which he recommended toleration for dissenters, and promised to summon Convocation. </p><p>Nottingham was a keen defender of the test in the bill abrogating the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. On 15 Mar. 1689 he was named to a select committee to draw a clause to make clearer the abrogating and making void the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. At the committee on 16 Mar. Nottingham handed in some ‘propositions’, and Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Cresswell Levinz and Sir William Dolben were ordered to draw some clauses based upon them. When the debate was resumed in committee of the whole House on the 19th, Nottingham reported what the select committee had drawn up. A disagreement arose over the draft of a clause by Atkyns concerning the sacrament, which Nottingham refused to accept, ‘for it did effectually take off that point and so wrangled about it many hours’, and eventually it was rejected by the committee.<sup>88</sup> The bill was further considered in a select committee, which reported when the House sat the following day. Nottingham acted as a teller in opposition to Macclesfield on whether the second amendment, that the king and queen should issue commissions to tender the oaths, should stand without amendment. On 21 Mar., Nottingham spoke against a proposed clause to remove the requirement to receive the sacrament incorporated in the Test Act. The clause was not adopted.<sup>89</sup> When the bill, amended by the Commons, was returned to the Lords, Nottingham was one of those named on 17 Apr. to ‘make the rest of the bill to agree with the amendments already made’. Nottingham was appointed on 20 Apr. to report the ensuing conference, and afterwards he was a teller in opposition to John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, in a division on whether to agree with the reasons given by the Commons for disagreeing with the Lords’ amendments to the bill. He was involved in drafting heads and reasons for a conference on the bill and then managing the conference itself.<sup>90</sup> The most controversial of the Commons’ amendments was a proviso forcing incumbent clergy to take the oaths. The Lords finally backed down from their attempts to moderate it in a close division on 23 April. A newsletter sent to Arthur Charlett summed up Nottingham’s views during these debates: ‘since our religion is the established religion he thinks it impracticable and dangerous to admit any kind of Dissenters into any share of the government’.<sup>91</sup></p><p>During a debate on 25 Mar. 1689 on the bill appointing commissioners of the great seal, Nottingham defended his father from the charge that he had sold the place of clerk of the peace.<sup>92</sup> On 28 Mar. he was named to a committee to draw reasons for a conference on provisos added by the Commons to the bill removing papists from London, and was named to the ensuing conference. He was very busy both in and out of Parliament: on 25 Apr. his wife wrote that Nottingham was ‘now sitting at the House, which is not yet up and ’tis two a clock and at three there is to be a council’.<sup>93</sup> On 22 May Nottingham was named to a conference on the toleration bill, from which he reported later in the day. He also reported on a conference on the additional poll bill, which the Lords had amended to appoint their own commissioners: the Commons disagreed to the amendment. He was named to a committee to draw up reasons and on 27 May he was named to manage another conference on the matter. On 22 May and 12 July Nottingham supported a proviso recognizing the claims of the house of Hanover to the succession in the bill of rights.<sup>94</sup> On 31 May he voted against reversing the judgments against Titus Oates. Although he thought that the judgments were erroneous, Nottingham argued that by reversing them the Lords would take off Oates’s conviction for perjury and allow him to become a witness again.<sup>95</sup> It was reported on 11 July that Nottingham had ‘appeared very stout and resolute and highly disgusted’ the friends of Oates, ‘especially those in the House of Commons’.<sup>96</sup> On 24 July he was named to draw up reasons for the Lords insisting on their amendments to the bill, and was named to the resultant conference on the 26th. On 30 July he voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the bill.</p><p>On 3 June 1689 Nottingham registered the proxy of Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. On 20 June, as secretary, Nottingham issued a warrant for the arrest of Peregrine Osborne*, styled earl of Danby, the future 2nd duke of Leeds, upon information supplied by his father, Carmarthen; although Nottingham was defended by Clarges, it resulted on 28 June in a vote in the Commons that Danby’s arrest had been a breach of privilege, and further inquiry into whether the warrant pre-dated his receipt of the information.<sup>97</sup> On 2 July he entered his dissent to the vote to proceed upon the impeachment brought against Sir Adam Blair and others. On 20 July Nottingham registered the proxy of Hatton. He was named to a conference on 25 July on the bill concerning the collection of customs duties. On 19 Aug., the day before Parliament adjourned for a month, he acted as a teller in opposition to Macclesfield on whether to agree to an amendment in the bill prohibiting trade with France.</p><p>Nottingham played a significant role in ecclesiastical politics at the beginning of the reign. In September 1689 William authorized Nottingham to convene a clerical commission to draft detailed plans for comprehension and other reforms for presentation to Convocation in November.<sup>98</sup> He also played a crucial part in selecting candidates for the ecclesiastical promotions made at the beginning of September, many of whom were drawn from Nottingham’s friends and clients: John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, who was made dean of St Paul’s; Sharp, who became dean of Canterbury; Richard Kidder*, the future bishop of Bath and Wells, who was appointed dean of Peterborough; Simon Patrick*, who was chosen as bishop of Chichester; and Stillingfleet, made bishop of Worcester.<sup>99</sup> Sometimes his role in clerical patronage married perfectly with his position as head of the extended Finch family. Thus on 13 Sept., Tillotson informed Leopold William Finch that he would be given a prebend at Canterbury owing to the ‘zeal and concern’ of Nottingham for his kinsman, Finch having just lost his father Henage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea.<sup>100</sup> Both Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, and his mother (Viscountess Maidstone) thanked Nottingham in November 1689 for his role in mediating a dispute with the dowager countess of Winchilsea, which she had brought into the Lords on 8 Nov. by claiming a breach of privilege. The House decided there was no breach and both women accepted Nottingham’s mediation.<sup>101</sup> In June-July 1691 Nottingham was consulted over prospective brides for Winchilsea, and then the negotiations over a marriage settlement. Although the negotiations failed in August, Viscountess Maidstone hoped that Nottingham would be able to bring the dowager countess of Winchilsea ‘to some reasonable terms of accommodation’, so that the estate would not be wasted in legal costs.<sup>102</sup></p><p>Marked by Carmarthen as an opponent of the court in the list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Nottingham was present when, after several adjournments, Parliament sat again on 19 Oct. 1689. On 22 Oct. the countess of Nottingham revealed that they had moved into Berkshire House, although ‘whether we can fix here is yet uncertain’ due to possible structural defects.<sup>103</sup> Nottingham was again present when the new session met on 23 Oct. 1689. He attended on 64 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and was named to 14 committees. At the third reading of the bill of rights on 23 Nov., Nottingham was able to prolong a debate on an amendment to make void all pardons in cases of impeachment (aimed at Carmarthen), until the Court had the numbers to ensure its rejection.<sup>104</sup> On 31 Oct. 1689 he again registered Hatton’s proxy. During the session Nottingham was busy trying to bolster Tory support for the king, which, it was hoped, would give the king the confidence to introduce more Tories into the ministry. On the evening of 1 Dec. 1689 Sir John Knatchbull, 2nd bt.<sup>‡</sup> paid Nottingham a visit, where they spoke about Convocation, and Nottingham ‘seemed not to deny’ Knatchbull’s point about its meeting being ‘unseasonable and would heighten our differences’. Knatchbull believed that Nottingham had been ‘a good deal the author of their meeting’. On the Church in general, Nottingham ‘seemed very industrious in persuading me that the king would entirely espouse its interest’.<sup>105</sup> On that same day Nottingham paid Rochester a visit in an attempt to persuade him that the king was ‘now convinced that he had taken wrong measures in relying so much upon the Dissenters, and that he would hereafter put himself in the hands of the Church of England.’<sup>106</sup> In mid December there were rumours that Parliament would be adjourned at Christmas and then dissolved, with Nottingham being appointed lord chancellor.<sup>107</sup> They provoked some Whigs to attack Tory ministers in the Commons.<sup>108</sup> Tory leaders, including Clarges and Sir Edward Seymour, 4th bt.<sup>‡</sup> to defended Nottingham and others on 14 Dec. in debates on the state of the nation in committee of the whole House in the Commons.<sup>109</sup> In December Nottingham was one of those arguing for an extended adjournment until mid-January, on the grounds that the ‘Church of England men’ had already gone into the country in expectation of a three-week recess.<sup>110</sup> In the struggle over the shape of the ministry, Nottingham tried to secure support for supply from the Tory leaders in the Commons, while preparing to resist a planned Whig attempt to remove the sacramental test from the bill to restore corporations.<sup>111</sup> Early in January 1690 Nottingham was to approach Clarges and Sir Christopher Musgrave, 4th bt.<sup>‡</sup> about joining the Privy Council.<sup>112</sup> Such was Nottingham’s confidence in clerical company, that when he delivered a message from the king to Convocation on 4 Dec. 1689, supporting the work of the commission on reforms in the Church (with a view to the comprehension of moderate Dissenters), he added his own thoughts as well.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Nottingham acted as a teller in opposition to Stamford on 14 Jan. 1690 on whether to adjourn the debate on the trial of peers. On 23 Jan., when the Lords debated the bill to restore corporations, Nottingham took the view that the surrender of the charters in the previous two reigns had been legal, arguing that the seven of the ten judges holding the contrary opinion had ‘argued rather like philosophers than lawyers, for they had compared bodies politic with bodies natural, and yet they had said they were immortal which was a strange property of bodies natural’.<sup>114</sup> The notes for his speech contained legal precedents and much discussion of the nature of a corporation. Nor was he impressed by arguments as to the ‘inconvenience’—‘for if every inconvenience illegal’, there would be an end to such acts as ‘frauds and perjuries [and] habeas corpus’.<sup>115</sup> He acted as a teller both in committee of the whole and at the report stage in opposition to Stamford in favour of leaving out the words ‘declared and were and are illegal’ in the corporation bill.</p><h2><em>Secretary of State in the Parliament of 1690 </em></h2><p>Nottingham had supported arguments for a new Parliament and following the dissolution on 6 Feb. 1690, he campaigned for Tory candidates in the ensuing elections.<sup>116</sup> It was intimated on 12 Feb. that he intended to attend the poll for Northamptonshire, but the Tories failed to put up any candidates, despite his efforts.<sup>117</sup> He appears to have gained the recommendation of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, for his ‘cousin’ Christopher Yelverton, the brother of Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin at Higham Ferrers, but in the event he did not stand.<sup>118</sup> On 12 Mar. it was reported that Nottingham was one of a number of Lords ‘gone to endeavour to put by Colonel [Henry] Mildmay<sup>‡</sup> in Essex’, although other business prevented his attendance at the poll.<sup>119</sup> His brothers, Heneage and Edward, were returned for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge respectively, another sign of Finch prestige in clerical circles. Nottingham also played a role in ensuring that the court exercised an interest at Rye, originally in favour of Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, but when he decided to sit elsewhere, its support was switched to Caleb Banks<sup>‡</sup>, a brother-in-law of Heneage Finch, though he was unsuccessful.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Nottingham was present when the 1690 Parliament convened on 20 March, and attended 52 days of the session, including the prorogation on 7 July, missing only 22 March. He was named to 13 committees. On 26 Mar., Nottingham was one of those who criticized at first reading the bill introduced by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, declaring the Convention to be a lawful Parliament and recognizing William and Mary as ‘rightful and lawful’ rulers.<sup>121</sup> Nottingham’s notes reveal that he was ‘against this whole bill: as being needless, unseasonable and so far from adding any security to the king ... that it directly tends to the diminution both of him and of the government’.<sup>122</sup> He favoured following the precedent of the Restoration instead for confirming the legislation passed by the Convention. Much erudition was then used to defend Nottingham’s view of <em>de facto</em> kingship.<sup>123</sup> On 4 Apr. he acted as a teller opposite Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, in divisions in committee of the whole House on whether the laws passed in the Convention should be ‘confirmed’, and then on whether it should be ‘declared’ that they had the full force of acts of Parliament.<sup>124</sup> On 5 Apr. he told again for the majority, opposite Stamford, in a division on whether to keep the word ‘adjudged’ in the phrase that the acts would be ‘declared, adjudged and enacted to have the same authority as if enacted by the present Parliament’.<sup>125</sup> When Carmarthen brokered a compromise whereby the acts of the Convention would be ‘enacted’ to be good in law, but inserted that they ‘were and are’ statutes, Nottingham opposed the amendment as ‘neither good English nor good sense’, and entered a protest against it on 8 April.<sup>126</sup> On 10 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to Monmouth on whether to expunge the protest of the 8th. This issue created a split between Nottingham and Rochester on the one side and Carmarthen on the other: they were described as ‘quite out’ with the lord president.<sup>127</sup> On 24 Apr. the ‘news-mongers’ were reporting that Nottingham had been given his <em>quietus</em>, his ‘only crime’ being ‘his zealous opposing the recognition act’, and on 26 Apr. Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> reported ‘it is confidently said’ that Nottingham declined to continue in his post, ‘the king now being declared a king <em>de jure</em>’.<sup>128</sup> Nottingham, however, remained in office.</p><p>After the Commons rejected the abjuration bill on 26 Apr., a modified bill, for the better securing King William and Queen Mary and the peace of the kingdom was given a first reading in the Lords on 1 May, and on 2 May Nottingham was one of those that spoke against the terms of the oath during the second reading debate, describing the bill as ‘destructive of the government’.<sup>129</sup> Nottingham’s notes show that he thought this bill was ‘either more than the oath of allegiance and then ’tis contrary to the original contract and the consequence very dangerous least ill men should take the occasion to think themselves absolved from the oath which they have already taken, and you lose a solemn religious security for a vain shadow’, or else the oath proposed was ‘equal or less and then needless’. Moreover, it supposed ‘that men have taken the oath of allegiance with equivocations or with resolution not to keep it’.<sup>130</sup> On 3 May he acted as a teller in opposition to Warrington (the former Delamer) against proceeding on the bill. Dr Denton reported on 6 May that Nottingham had told William directly that he was ‘king <em>de facto</em> not <em>de</em> <em>jure</em>’.<sup>131</sup> That day, Nottingham registered the proxy of George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton. On 12 May he was named to a conference on the regency bill. Nottingham took the chair of the committee of the whole House on 13 and 14 May on the bill reversing the <em>quo warranto</em> against the City of London, dealing with the petition from the City on the 13th (his papers contain notes from the lawyers representing the City). He reported the bill on the 14th. Nottingham attended the adjournment of the session on 23 May, and its prorogation on 7 July.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Despite Nottingham’s well known quibbles over the nature of William’s kingship, the king had long had Nottingham in mind as a member of Mary’s advisory council should he leave the kingdom. Nottingham was confirmed as such on the eve of the king’s departure in May 1690.<sup>133</sup> Most commentators regarded Nottingham as likely to play a key part in the government during William’s absence. On 13 May, Charles Cottrell thought Danby and Nottingham were ‘the men most in power with the king, which is so much disliked by a contrary party’ that Shrewsbury had offered to resign.<sup>134</sup> Morrice thought that Nottingham, Carmarthen and Godolphin would dominate the regency.<sup>135</sup> Following Shrewsbury’s resignation in June, Nottingham was the sole secretary until December 1690. Left on her own, Queen Mary recorded her thoughts on those left to advise her; Nottingham was ‘suspected by most as not true to the government. None would trust or have anything to do with him, tho in the post he was, he must do all. The king believed him an honest man, but he was thought too violent for his party’.<sup>136</sup> She added in July that Nottingham was ‘very hearty in all affairs’, and ‘appears to be sincere, tho’ he does not take much pains to persuade me of it, upon all occasions, as others do’.<sup>137</sup></p><p>In July 1690, in the wake of the battle at Beachy Head, Nottingham was ‘oppressed with business’ and ‘scarce ever in bed till three or four o’clock in the morning’.<sup>138</sup> On 26 July he expressed the view that the displacement of the rear admiral at Beachy Head, (Sir) George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, ‘seems so hard a case’ that perhaps the queen would review it again in council, an early example of his championship of Rooke, whose mother was a Finch and who was related to the Howes, as was Nottingham’s first countess.<sup>139</sup> His papers also contain a long paper on the merits of Rooke and his treatment after Malaga.<sup>140</sup> Nottingham attended the prorogations on 28 July, 18 Aug. and 12 September. On the latter day Nottingham was at North Mimms, Hertfordshire, where he stood proxy for the king at the baptism of William Henry Osborne, the eldest son of the earl of Danby, and thus the grandson of Carmarthen.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Nottingham was present when the 1690-1 session began on 2 October. He attended on 59 days, 81 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. On 21 Oct. the Lords upheld the claim of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, that his imprisonment after Beachy Head was a breach of privilege, although Nottingham defended the order of the council.<sup>142</sup> On 12 Nov. Torrington was heard in the Commons apropos his imprisonment, whereupon, according to John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, he undertook a long justification of his conduct and ‘complained of’ Nottingham, who, in the aftermath of the battle had thought Torrington ‘wholly and only guilty’.<sup>143</sup> On 2 Jan. 1691 Nottingham proposed adding a proviso in the committee of the whole on the bill suspending the navigation act.<sup>144</sup> He was named to a conference on 5 Jan. on this bill, the last day before the adjournment of the House. In late November 1690 Nottingham had been touted as a potential plenipotentiary to accompany William on his next trip to Holland with powers ‘to treat there upon any business about the League’.<sup>145</sup> Before he could depart, Nottingham had to attend on 16 and 19 Jan. 1691 as a witness at the Old Bailey at the trials for treason of Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S] and Major Ashton.<sup>146</sup> On the 21st he embarked from Gravesend for Holland to join the king.<sup>147</sup> He was still in The Hague on 8 Apr., but had returned to Whitehall by 17 April.<sup>148</sup></p><p>While abroad there was renewed evidence that the king held Nottingham in high esteem; on the 9 Feb. 1691 Nottingham’s son, William Finch<sup>‡</sup>, was baptized by Bishop Stillingfleet, with Sydney standing in for the king as godfather, and Princess Anne standing as godmother.<sup>149</sup> In late January, in the wake of Jacobite plotting which implicated several of the non-juring bishops, Nottingham had been one of those urging the king to fill up the vacancies created by the non-jurors.<sup>150</sup> When these vacancies were eventually filled in April, many of them went to Nottingham’s friends and allies, including Tillotson as archbishop of Canterbury, whose consecration he attended on 31 May.<sup>151</sup> On 13 Aug. 1691 Prince George*, duke of Cumberland described Nottingham’s ‘righteousness and honesty’, possibly in connection with Nottingham’s role in negotiating with Dijkvelt over a debt owing to the Prince.<sup>152</sup> Further evidence of royal favour was the appointment of the countess of Nottingham on 15 Aug. as a lady of the bedchamber to the queen.<sup>153</sup></p><p>Nottingham attended the prorogations of 26 May, 30 June, 3 Aug. and 5 Oct. 1691 and was present when the next session began on 22 Oct. 1691. He attended on 73 days, 75 per cent of the total, and was named to 17 committees. On 1 Nov. Nottingham wrote to Hatton to thank him ‘for trusting me with your proxy, for which I shall send you a draught in the usual form’, not that he had it for long, for Hatton attended the Lords on 28 November. Nottingham had been heavily involved in advising Hatton in an ecclesiastical dispute with the bishop of Ely, which resulted in a bill for the settling on Hatton and his heirs a fee farm rent of £100 per annum on the bishop and his successors. On 13 Nov. Nottingham met with various referees to settle matters before the bill was drawn up, which he expected to be done by the 17th. The bill was given a first reading on 1 Dec. and passed the Lords on the 4th. Following the Royal Assent on 24 Dec., Nottingham advised Hatton to obtain a copy of the act from the clerk of the Parliaments ‘to keep by you’.<sup>154</sup></p><p>On 11 Nov. 1691 it was reported that Nottingham ‘looks down of late’. The report may have reflected Whig criticism of him in the Commons over the inactivity of the fleet during the summer. The king, however, ensured that any criticism was muted.<sup>155</sup> On 17 Nov. he was named to a conference on matters relating to the safety of the kingdom. In committee on the bill abrogating the oaths in Ireland, Nottingham apparently said that some parts of the bill were contrary to the articles of Limerick, and some amendments were made as a consequence.<sup>156</sup> On 8 Dec. Richard Hill told Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> of ‘a foolish plot’ contrived by Bolton and the Whigs intended ‘to blacken Lord Nottingham’ about letters between him and Sir Ralph Delaval<sup>‡</sup>, ‘but all was madness or knavery’.<sup>157</sup> The Commons exonerated Nottingham on 15 Dec., voting that there was no copy of his letter to Delaval found on board a French vessel captured by the earl of Danby.<sup>158</sup> Carmarthen may have encouraged his son’s role in this intrigue, for he was unhappy with Nottingham’s attempts to woo those Churchmen who were in opposition to the ministry, which resulted in Rochester and Seymour being admitted to the Privy Council in March 1692.<sup>159</sup> Nottingham’s absence from the Lords between 10-19 Dec. 1691 may be explained by the death on the 12th of his eldest surviving son, John Finch, styled Lord Finch.<sup>160</sup></p><p>On 2 Jan. 1692 Nottingham registered the proxy of Viscount Longueville (the former Grey of Ruthin), and entered protests, first against sending for a precedent to include in the heads of reasons for a conference on the bill for regulating the East India Company, and then against the heads themselves. On 4 Jan. he was added to the managers of a conference on the treason trials’ bill, speaking at the conference held on the following day on a clause of the bill. Following the report of the conference, further debate was adjourned until the 7th, whereupon the Lords insisted on their amendment. Nottingham attended further conferences on the subject on 9, 14, 21, and 27 January. On 22 Jan. Nottingham registered the proxy of Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough. On 2 Feb. he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the bill for taking the public accounts, and he spoke at the conference on the bill on 8 February.<sup>161</sup> On 16 Feb., he appears to have protested twice when the House refused to countenance the use of proxies on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 22 Feb. he was named to report a conference on the small tithes bill.</p><p>Before the adjournment of the session on 24 Feb. 1692, there had been rumours that Nottingham would be appointed lord chancellor, possibly to make way for Sunderland as his replacement as secretary.<sup>162</sup> Nottingham had been lobbying for the appointment of Trumbull as secretary, partly to reduce the burden on himself as sole secretary and partly to ‘exclude all suspicion’ of Sunderland.<sup>163</sup> Nottingham attended the prorogation on 12 April. Although Nottingham had been criticized by Russell following the sea campaign in 1691 and, it seems, had tried to remove himself from naval affairs, he remained the conduit for naval operations in 1692 between Russell and the cabinet.<sup>164</sup> After the naval victory at La Hogue, relations with Russell seem to have improved: on 26 May Nottingham wrote to the admiral, ‘let nothing hinder you from sharing with the nation in the joy you have given them’. However, after attending the prorogation on 14 June, Nottingham alerted Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, to how La Hogue had raised expectations because some privy councillors had previously informed the Commons of plans for a ‘descent’, a direct attack on France. The failure to launch a descent would have ill effects in Parliament and ‘be improved upon by the malice of some men who already impute to the king a partiality for the Dutch’.<sup>165</sup></p><p>Another problem for the ministry was how to regulate the trade to the East Indies. Nottingham was broadly sympathetic to those who wished to dissolve the old East India Company.<sup>166</sup> In June 1692 Nottingham dispatched to William Blathwayt<sup>‡</sup> some proposals concerning the trade and a new charter for the company; he added that the king ‘may think me already too partial (tho’ I have neither any stock in the old company, which for the cheats put upon the rest by some few members would bias me to this opinion, nor do I intend to have any share in the new)’. The reply on 30 June ordered the drafting of a new charter for the old company, which, if they refused it, was to result in the establishment of a new company. That was not the end of the matter, for on 19 July Nottingham was forced to complain of some of the company’s ‘chief men’ who were openly insolent to other merchants and to the cabinet council: their actions, he warned, were prejudicial to the king’s affairs and threatened to spill over into Parliament.<sup>167</sup> When Speaker Trevor fell ill in June Nottingham pressed the claims of Musgrave to be his replacement, should he not recover.<sup>168</sup></p><p>Nottingham informed Blathwayt on 8 July that Parliament would be prorogued to 22 Aug. 1692. On 27 Aug. he penned a pessimistic letter to Blathwayt expressing the view that it was unlikely that Parliament would grant large supplies and that even if it did, that Flanders would be able to command such a large share as hitherto. Another, drafted to Portland, stressed ‘the unhappy distinctions of Whig and Tory’ and that ‘many of both parties are combined to destroy this government: those of the last sort as enemies to this king. The others are so to monarchy itself’. The ‘disaffected’ were making preparations for the next session and gaining an adequate supply would be difficult.<sup>169</sup> Nottingham attended the prorogation on 26 September. As the session approached conflict with Russell loomed on the horizon: Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup>, on 1 Oct. recorded talk that Nottingham and Russell ‘intend to impeach one another next session’.<sup>170</sup></p><p>Nottingham was present when the 1692-3 session met on 4 Nov. 1692. He attended on 82 days, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to 20 committees. On 9 Nov. it was reported that the Lords were ‘upon the matter of the late imprisonment of Lords during an adjournment of Parliament. I doubt their aim is towards the secretary, e[arl] of N[ottingham] for committing, or the lord chief justice [Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>] for not bailing’.<sup>171</sup> According to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup>, Nottingham was questioned about the commitment during the spring of John Churchill*, earl of Marlborough and Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, which he countered by referring to ‘an irreproachable witness’ against one of them.<sup>172</sup></p><p>By 26 Nov. 1692 a Commons’ committee examining papers concerning the failure to make a descent on France was ready to report, with criticisms ‘levelled’ at Nottingham. If the committee had had power to have reported conclusions they would, it was said, ‘have passed a censure’ on him. Speaker Trevor tipped off Nottingham, requesting that the earl’s friends attend and ‘that one of them may inform me how you will be served’, when the report was made on the 28th.<sup>173</sup> On 30 Nov., in a debate in committee of the whole House in the Commons on giving advice to the king, Seymour counter-attacked on Nottingham’s behalf, criticizing the committee inquiring into the descent. In response, John Smith<sup>‡</sup> referred to a coolness towards the government by those who regarded the king as only <em>de facto</em>, and John Arnold<sup>‡</sup> directly attacked Nottingham, ‘who has beat two secretaries into one, who has prohibited the licensing some books writ in defence of this government, and has discouraged some witnesses in matters carrying on against this government’.<sup>174</sup> However, the committee adopted only a general resolution that the king should employ only such persons ‘whose principles oblige them to stand by him and his right against the late King James and all other pretenders whatsoever’, rather than criticizing any particular person. Robert Harley noted that ‘the courtiers who managed the debate did not think fit to make use of the opportunity, and it is not probable the House will come up to so great warmth again’.<sup>175</sup> There followed a motion for more papers relating to the descent. When the committee of the whole House again debated giving advice to the king on 5 Dec. Seymour defended Nottingham saying that ‘never any person has taken more care and industry to serve this government than he has’, and others defended him as ‘indefatigable in his place, and of sure integrity to the present government.’<sup>176</sup> Nevertheless, a motion ‘expressly levelled’ at Nottingham, saying that timely orders had not been sent, was passed by 156-155.<sup>177</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Nottingham was marshalling his own defence in the Lords. He was one of three peers deputed to present an address to the king on 29 Nov. 1692, for all the orders and papers sent by the council, or secretary of state, in the summer’s expedition at sea, especially the papers relating to the descent. He accordingly delivered the papers on 6 and 8 December. On 7 Dec. Nottingham voted with the majority against establishing a committee of both Houses to consider advice to the king on the state of the nation.<sup>178</sup> On 9 Dec. Luttrell recorded him making a ‘long speech in his justification’, desiring them thoroughly to examine the matter ‘and place the fault on whom it lay, hinting at the admiral.’<sup>179</sup> As Nottingham told Hatton on 13 Dec., he had taken ‘an opportunity in the House of Lords sufficiently to vindicate myself, and Mr Russell, whose proceedings towards me are very unaccountable, has reason to repent of his bringing upon the stage the last summer’s transactions’. Nor did he neglect to maximize his support: on 8 Dec. Nottingham sent a blank proxy to Hatton for him to sign, suggesting either himself or Rochester as the recipient. A proxy dated 10 Dec. was registered, but the exact date is unknown for on 13 Dec. Nottingham noted that he had not yet filled in the blank.<sup>180</sup> Despite not being recorded as present, on 10 Dec. he was named to a committee to prepare material to be offered at a conference on the papers previously delivered into the House. According to Robert Yard<sup>‡</sup>, this committee was to draw up an abstract of what Nottingham had told the House about the previous summer’s sea expedition, ‘which did more nearly touch Mr Russell’, in order to communicate it to the Commons at a conference. However, the committee was not quorate when it met (there ‘did not meet enough of them to make one and so it was dissolved’). Nottingham informed the House of this on 12 Dec., and said ‘that he had done his part in laying this whole matter before their lordships and that for the rest he left it to them to do farther therein as their lordships should think fit’. The committee was revived and met on the 13th’.<sup>181</sup> John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater reported from it on the 17th with the papers organized into a narrative of events, and on 20 Dec. Nottingham was again named to deliver them to the Commons at a conference.</p><p>Meanwhile, on 15 Dec. Robert Price<sup>‡</sup> reported that Russell was ‘making all the preparation he can’ in the Commons to give Nottingham ‘a new charge, as to the miscarriage of the descent’ and Nottingham was ‘as eager in fixing the fault on Russell’, ensuring that everyone was ‘very desirous to see the engagement between them’.<sup>182</sup> The Commons, having received the papers on the descent from the Lords on the 20th, passed a vote that day in support of Russell (and implicitly critical of Nottingham), despite Heneage Finch defending his brother, saying ‘none was ever more diligent in your service, and he never goes to bed before all orders and dispatches are executed’.<sup>183</sup> The Commons reported this vindication of Russell at a conference on 21 December: the Lords reacted by taking offence at what seemed to be a direct challenge: they chose to object to the apparent procedural irregularity, and set up a committee, including Nottingham, to inspect the Journal to see whether any free conferences had been asked other than to resolve a disagreement. The resulting procedural dispute between the Houses was dropped only when the king intervened to persuade Nottingham to end his quest for vindication. To Peter Shakerley<sup>‡</sup> the Nottingham-Russell dispute boiled down to the ‘two Houses seeming to assist each their member’.<sup>184</sup> George Stepney felt that both Nottingham and Russell had ‘cleared themselves, the first by proving that he had given necessary instructions, and the other, that he had executed all that was possible’.<sup>185</sup> Sunderland’s assessment made after the end of the session was more pessimistic: he thought the dispute ‘was managed very much to the prejudice of the king’s affairs, and that drew on several inconveniences, among the rest the clamour concerning the miscarriages of Ireland, which was fomented by some who ought least to have done it’.<sup>186</sup> In the event William relieved Russell of his commands, replacing him with a commission including two Tories, Delaval and Henry Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>, ‘to the declared satisfaction of the Lord Nottingham and his friends’.<sup>187</sup></p><p>On 31 Dec. 1692 Nottingham spoke and was listed as voting against the commitment of the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted against its passage.<sup>188</sup> Notes also exist for a speech against the triennial bill, which passed both Houses only to be vetoed.<sup>189</sup> At the beginning of January Nottingham was forecast as likely to support the Norfolk divorce bill and he duly voted in favour of reading the bill on 2 January. On 19 Jan. he was named to draw reasons for what should be offered at a conference on the land tax bill. He was named on 24 Jan to a conference on the publication of <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em>. On 25 Jan. in the debate on the committal of the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons that he ‘spoke for the bill very modestly’. It was reported on 2 Feb. that Nottingham had declared that he thought Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun guilty of murder.<sup>190</sup> On 4 Feb. he was one of a minority of peers that found Mohun guilty of murder, after laying out the case that</p><blockquote><p>a person, knowing the design of another to lie in wait to assault a third man, and accompanying him in that design, if it shall happen that the third person be killed at that time in the presence of him who knew of that design and accompanied that other in it, be guilty in law of the same crime will the party who had that design and killed him, tho’ he had no actual hand in his death?<sup>191</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 19 Feb. Nottingham registered the proxy of Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton. He was one of three peers on 7 Mar. deputed to attend the king and inform him that the penalties in the mutiny bill were due to begin on 10 March. He was in attendance on the last day of the session on 14 March.</p><p>Following the end of the session, John Somers*, the future Baron Somers was named lord keeper, after Nottingham refused to take the great seal.<sup>192</sup> At the end of April 1693 Nottingham wrote to Blathwayt, presenting the state of the East India trade and various legal opinions as to the forfeiture of the company’s charter, for Blathwayt to put before the king: ‘if you did not know my opinion’, he added, ‘you might perhaps guess at it by this state I have given you’. Nottingham attended the prorogation on 2 May. In June he offered his views to Portland on a possible pardon for the Irish lords justices, Sir Charles Porter<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Coningsby, which had better not be done on ‘the eve of a Parliament and look as if it were done on purpose to prevent a prosecution’. Indeed, Nottingham wrote to Coningsby on 24 June to alert him to the manoeuvres against him and to assure him that he would not delay his pardon.<sup>193</sup></p><p>Given the conflict over naval affairs in the previous session, Nottingham was bound to come under pressure again in the wake of the disaster of the Smyrna convoy in May 1693. Realizing this he asked Delaval for a detailed defence of the admirals’ actions and helped plan their defence before the Privy Council.<sup>194</sup> On 25 July, Weymouth described how ‘the sea runs high against’ Nottingham, noting that he had ‘slipped his opportunity of making a seasonable retreat’.<sup>195</sup> At around the same time, Henry Saunderson thought that Nottingham’s reported resolution to resign the secretaryship would be a ‘wise move’.<sup>196</sup> Meanwhile, Nottingham carried on as normal: on 31 Aug. he asked the queen’s leave to go into the country on 4 Sept. hoping to be at Kirby on the night of the 5th. He was back in London on the 14th, and attended the prorogation on 19 Sept., as he did those of 3 and 26 October.<sup>197</sup> However, important moves were being made against him, and it was widely reported that the conclave of Whig politicians which had met at Sunderland’s country home in August had agreed that Nottingham should be forced out of the secretaryship.<sup>198</sup> This proved to be the case and on the eve of the parliamentary session, 6 Nov., he was dismissed. He surrendered the seals of office personally to the king, having declined to send them via his fellow secretary, Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>199</sup> As Abraham Stanyan<sup>‡</sup> informed Trumbull, Nottingham had been</p><blockquote><p>desirous to have justified himself in Parliament before he parted with his employment, but this sudden change being made chiefly to put the Parliament in good temper at their meeting, it was not thought convenient to defer it till then, tho’ I can’t say my Lord ever desired that favour of his majesty expressly.<sup>200</sup></p></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <h2><em>Out of Office, 1693-5</em></h2><p>Nottingham was present when the session convened on 7 Nov. 1693. He attended on 111 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total, the majority of his absences coming in March and April. He was named to 18 committees. On 4 Dec., in a debate in committee of the whole House on the triennial bill, he unsuccessfully opposed the inclusion of the word ‘declare’, and when discussions in committee resumed on 6 Dec. he opposed the bill.<sup>201</sup> On 16 Dec. Nottingham registered the proxy of William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele. On 5 Jan. 1694 he entered his protest against the vote not to insist upon the Lords’ amendments to the last clause of the place bill. Nottingham was closely interested in the appeal of Ralph Montagu*, earl of Montagu, and his wife, the duchess of Albemarle, against a decree in chancery in favour of John Granville*, earl of Bath. In May 1691 Nottingham had been a member of the court of delegates which had found in favour of the duchess of Albemarle in her cause against Bath, before her marriage in 1692 to Montagu. Bath had subsequently won a decree in chancery against the duchess and her husband. Charles Hatton passed on to Lord Hatton on 30 Dec. 1693 the request from Montagu that he ask Nottingham ‘to attend the House of Lords when the cause is argued and debated and to give his vote as the merits of the cause shall appear most just.’<sup>202</sup> On 17 Feb. 1694 Nottingham voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission and then entered his protest to the decision to dismiss Montagu’s appeal. On 19 Feb. Nottingham made a motion to ‘suspend’ entering this decree as ‘there might be some salvo to the earl of Montagu to try the validity of the deed again at law’. A petition from Montagu was being presented on the 20th about using the evidence exhibited in the Lords in a legal case.<sup>203</sup> Nottingham protested on 24 Feb. against the rejection of Montagu’s petition.</p><p>The Commons’ investigation into the conduct of the admirals over the Smyrna convoy in November and December saw Delaval and Killigrew escape severe censure, but they were removed from the Admiralty Board in December. The Lords exonerated them too on 10 Jan. 1694, and attention turned to the shortcomings of Trenchard, with Nottingham being given leave to substantiate his claim that he had brought intelligence of the movements of the French fleet to the cabinet.<sup>204</sup> On 15 Jan. he produced the letter he had sent to Trenchard in which timely notice was given that the French fleet was at sea, upon which the Lords at a conference desired of the Commons that they might examine the affair, a suggestion the Commons declined to pursue.<sup>205</sup> Nottingham supported the Commons’ bill to reform treason trials, but on 26 Feb. the motion for a second reading was rejected without a division.<sup>206</sup> On 1 Mar. he chaired the committee of the whole on the mutiny bill. Having attended on the last day before the short Easter recess, 5 Apr., Nottingham was then absent until the 16th. He was at Milton on 14 Apr., having arrived there on the 12th, from Kirby via London.<sup>207</sup> On 23 Apr. Nottingham argued against the incorporation of the Bank of England and on the 24th he entered his protest against the relevant clause of the tonnage bill.<sup>208</sup> Burnet, summing up the session, claimed that Nottingham and Rochester had obstructed government business ‘more openly than before’, and ‘with a peculiar edge and violence’. There were many ‘sad declamations setting forth the misery the nation was under, in so tragical a strain’.<sup>209</sup></p><p>Now out of office, Nottingham switched his attention to the building of a mansion on his newly acquired estate at Burley. Nottingham had not inherited a country seat from his father, just houses in Kensington and at Ravenstone, Buckinghamshire. His search for a country estate had centred on those counties in which he had an existing interest, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland. Burley had come to his attention as early as October 1689, when it became likely that it would eventually be sold to pay the debts of the previous owner, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham.<sup>210</sup> After many delays, on 8 July 1693 Nottingham wrote that the estate of at ‘Burley is now to be sold, and if I am not deceived and abused, I believe I shall be the purchaser’.<sup>211</sup> On 5 Sept. 1693 Charles Hatton noted that ‘all domestic news is drowned with the great noise my lord Nottingham’s enemies (which I am heartily sorry are so numerous) make in all the coffee houses that at this time when there is scarce any money left in the nation he is about to give £80,000 for Burley.’<sup>212</sup> Another estimate put the purchase price at over £90,000.<sup>213</sup> Both inflated the price, which was about £50,000 and financed by the sale of Kensington (£19,000), his marriage portion of £10,000, and the profits of office.<sup>214</sup> Nottingham ‘designed to build a great house’ at Burley, but he also needed a house to live in while building work proceeded.<sup>215</sup> His answer was to rent the nearby house of Wriothesley Baptist Noel*, 2nd earl of Gainsborough at Exton, ‘which is offered to me’ as a residence.<sup>216</sup> In May 1694 the countess wrote that Nottingham had taken Exton, ‘to repair it or rather secure it from tumbling down’, and in August Luttrell reported that Nottingham had gone to reside there.<sup>217</sup> He retained the tenancy until December 1699. As work began in earnest in September 1694, he told Heneage, that he would not be coming to Parliament ‘till there be some particular occasion, which I will not believe, but from you’, and thereby insulating himself from the importunities of his friends to make an appearance.<sup>218</sup> Further, he told Archbishop Sharp in October, ‘the king and people have given me my quietus, and (if you will not think me arrogant and peevish) I will say too, <em>Sat patria Priamoque datum</em> [you have done enough for Priam and your country, <em>Aeneid</em>, bk. 2, l. 291]’.<sup>219</sup></p><p>Nottingham was absent from a call of the House on 26 Nov. 1694, and when he was still absent on 3 Dec. the lord keeper was ordered to write to him to attend by 18 December. As he wrote to Hatton on 7 Dec., ‘did not my business require me at London I should not go upon this summons tho’ I had no sickness to disable me from attending the House’.<sup>220</sup> He first took his seat on 17 Dec., and attended on 63 days, 53 per cent of the total. On 18 Dec. he opposed the third reading of the triennial bill.<sup>221</sup> He approached Hatton for his proxy (by sending him a blank form on 22 Dec.), in order to support the treason trials’ bill, which was ‘the same almost as formerly, save only that there is nothing in this peculiar to commoners but the whole is equally beneficial to the lords as to them’, nor would it ‘prejudice the crown’. He then added that if Hatton ‘either think the bill inconvenient or that you upon any account would rather choose that your proxy should not be given in it, I shall by no means press it’. He acknowledged receipt of the proxy on the 29th, with the comment that the death of the queen might enable ‘some about the king’ to ‘press things which your Lordship will not like, and which the queen might in some measure have prevented or restrained the violence of such proceedings.’<sup>222</sup> This proxy does not appear in the proxy books.</p><p>The death of Queen Mary affected Nottingham deeply. On 28 Dec. 1694 James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> reported a rumour that Nottingham had questioned whether Parliament was dissolved by the queen’s death, as the Members had been summoned by writs in both the king’s and the queen’s names.<sup>223</sup> Nottingham wrote on 1 Jan. 1695 to Sir John Lowther*, the future viscount Lonsdale, that though he was ‘unhappy that my business here obliged me to come from Exton’, and hoping that they could meet ‘before I leave town for I long to talk with you to whom I can most freely impart my thoughts, and my sorrow too, for the loss [of] the queen’.<sup>224</sup> He told Hatton on 3 Jan. that ‘some things are more expedient to be done than have been formerly thought fit or necessary’, particularly, perhaps, the treason trials’ bill, which had been ‘always useful to the subject, no prejudice to the king and [was] now of absolute necessity.’<sup>225</sup></p><p>Nottingham acted as a teller on 12 Jan. 1695 in opposition to Rochester on the question of whether to reverse the judgment in the case of the <em>Bishop of London v. Birch</em>. On 22 Jan. Nottingham seconded the motion of James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, for the House to consider the state of the nation, which was ordered for the 25th.<sup>226</sup> On that day, he ‘proposed several things to their enquiry’, such as</p><blockquote><p>the sending the fleet into the streights, the prejudices by carrying the money out of the kingdom to the enriching of strangers, the unsafe condition they were in by the king’s going abroad without their knowing how the government shall be settled in his absence, the ruin of trade that was threatened by the Bank and the examination of the Lancashire trials.<sup>227</sup></p></blockquote><p>The House took up only the question of the Bank, which was defended successfully, and the Lancashire Plot, which was ordered to be considered on the 28th. Nottingham acted as a teller on 25 Jan. in opposition to Charles Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, on the question of appointing a day to consider the Bank. Commenting on the investigations into the Plot and Shrewsbury’s role in it, Vernon noted on 29 Jan. that Nottingham had declared that ‘no reflection could lie’ upon Shrewsbury, ‘since he had done no more than the duty of his place required’.<sup>228</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 23 Jan. 1695 Nottingham had protested against an amendment to the bill regulating treason trials. On 24 Jan. he entered another protest, this time against adding a clause making it more difficult to quash proceedings on certain technicalities such as mis-spellings. He was appointed on 16 Feb. a reporter of a conference on the bill, and was named on 20 Feb. to a committee to draw reasons and on the 23rd then nominated for the conference itself. He had acted as a teller on 5 Feb. in opposition to Monmouth on the question of agreeing a resolution on Aaron Smith relating to the Lancashire Plot trials. On 16 Feb. he registered the proxy of Saye and Sele. He entered his protest on 18 Feb. to the vote that the judges in the Lancashire trials had done their duty, according to law. Nottingham’s papers contain notes for a speech on the Lancashire trials, which may never have been delivered after further inquiry into the matter was adjourned on 22 February.<sup>229</sup></p><p>On 1 Mar. 1695 L’Hermitage noted in a dispatch that Nottingham had expressed a desire to live in the country. On 7 Mar. Nottingham wrote that ‘I am very weary of the town but am afraid I shall not get to Exton till Easter week’.<sup>230</sup> By 12 Mar., Halifax was ‘pressing me very earnestly to be gone’ and on 19 Mar. he intended to be at Exton the following week, even though he could not finish all the business that had brought him to town, ‘but ’tis so prepared as that I hope to conclude it next term; another journey to London is very irksome but I must submit to it’. On 18 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Rochester on whether a petition was properly brought before the House in the case of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. The next day, Nottingham was one of those who ‘undertook the cause of the barons’ in the debate on the descent of baronies by writ and acted as a teller in opposition to Rochester on the question of whether to adjourn the debate.<sup>231</sup> Nottingham was absent after 21 Mar., well before the end of the session at the start of May. The reason for his absence was the marriage of his daughter to Lord Eland on 2 Apr. at Nottingham’s ‘house in the country’.<sup>232</sup> On 27 Apr. Weymouth him sent an account of the impeachment proceedings begun against Leeds (the former marquess of Carmarthen and earl of Danby), over the revelations of bribes distributed by senior officials of the East India Company. Weymouth wished that Nottingham was present ‘for upon this next week’s resolutions depends a good part of our quiet.’<sup>233</sup> Nottingham came out of the sordid affair very well, with ‘right done to his honour by everybody that his virtue set him out of reach of these temptations’, he being one of the few people to decline when offered a bribe.<sup>234</sup> Following the prorogation in May, L’Hermitage considered Leeds, Rochester and Nottingham to be the three ‘heads’ of the Tory party.<sup>235</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>During William III’s tour of the Midlands before the 1695 election, Weymouth wrote of his surprise that Nottingham had avoided treating the king when he had ‘passed so near him’.<sup>236</sup> With his brother Edward standing down, in October 1695, Nottingham recommended, unsuccessfully, John Isham<sup>‡</sup> to the electors of Cambridge University as his replacement.<sup>237</sup> The wells of patronage were drying up for his youngest brother, Henry, who had been appointed in 1692 to ‘the great living of Winwick in Lancashire’.<sup>238</sup> Finch had ambitions to be dean of York, but while he waited for the expected vacancy William George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby offered him the bishopric of Man. An initial disposition to accept was altered by the queen’s view that holding the two posts together was incompatible. Finch extricated himself from his commitment to Derby and waited. Then the political circumstances changed, so that when on 29 May 1695 Nottingham wrote from Exton to Archbishop Sharp, regarding his ‘great kindness to my brother’, he added that his obligations were now greater because ‘I have no prospect of his obtaining the deanery when it shall be void; those thoughts are dead with the queen, and if the king should yet have any inclination, I believe he will not think it convenient to do a thing which looks like a favour to me’. When Dean Wickham of York died at the end of April 1697, thereby giving Archbishop Sharp the opportunity to press Henry’s claims, he noted ‘the disadvantageous circumstances that Mr Finch now lies under as to any pretensions to the king’s favour and I am heartily sorry for them’.<sup>239</sup> In the event, Finch had to wait until the more propitious circumstances of April 1702 to be appointed.</p><p>The pattern of the previous session was repeated in 1695-6, with Nottingham absent from the beginning of the session on 22 Nov. 1695. As usual his absence did not prevent him from commenting on topical matters, including registering his support for a parliamentary council of trade.<sup>240</sup> On 10 Feb. 1696 he arranged to wait on Hatton at Kirby on the 14th on his way to London.<sup>241</sup> He first attended on 17 Feb., being present on 47 days, 38 per cent of the total (78 per cent of the available sittings, after he had arrived), and was named to 15 committees. One of his reasons for a visit to London was to set in train the sale of some of his Essex properties, and another duty was to present his son-in-law, now marquess of Halifax, to the king, which prompted speculation of his return to office as lord chancellor.<sup>242</sup> On 26 Feb. Nottingham opposed the voluntary Association, despite the fact that it had been amended to refer to William’s ‘right by law to the crown’, rather than calling him the ‘rightful and lawful king’, and rather than sign it immediately, he asked for time to consider.<sup>243</sup> He informed Hatton on 27 Feb. that he had prevented the Lords from issuing out a letter requiring his attendance ‘by acquainting the House of your inability to undergo a journey’.<sup>244</sup> On 29 Feb. Weymouth was hoping that Nottingham would join with Halifax in securing him a leave of absence from the Lords.<sup>245</sup> On 9 Mar. Nottingham reported from the committee on the Maydwell rectory bill. He entered his protest on 27 Mar. against the passage of the bill for the increase of seamen and on 31 Mar. against the passage of the bill encouraging plate to be brought into the Mint and for further remedying the ill state of the coinage. He was named on 6 Apr. to a conference on the privateers bill.</p><p>As a result of Nottingham’s refusal to sign the Association his name had been struck out of the Privy Council register by the king on 12 March.<sup>246</sup> Nottingham carried his opposition to the Association over into opposition to the Commons’ bill for the better security of his majesty’s person and government, which made non-jurors liable to the penalties of convicted papists and provided that no person could hold any office or employment in England, Jersey or Guernsey (where Hatton was governor) who refused the Association. On 7 Apr. 1696 he wrote to encourage Hatton to come up to oppose the bill (‘it will be of very dangerous and pernicious consequences to the public’), offering to send his coach to collect Hatton.<sup>247</sup> In committee of the whole House on 13 Apr. on the bill Nottingham was one of those speaking ‘for moderation’, but only three small amendments were made, ‘so that now the Lords are to sign the Commons’ Association’ (the bill used the words ‘rightful and lawful king’) before they could sit in the House. Nottingham wanted to have peers excepted out of the bill altogether.<sup>248</sup> According to Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, Nottingham spoke against the clause in the bill that all those who refused to sign the Association should forfeit their hereditary offices.<sup>249</sup> On 14 Apr. Nottingham reported that the Lords had sat late the previous night on the bill and passed it earlier in the day, and that</p><blockquote><p>we have made very little alterations in it, only added a proviso to except offices of inheritance. I would have taken the like care of offices for life, but I found so great caution used in the wording of the proviso that it should not extend to offices for life that ’twould have been to no purpose to have attempted it.<sup>250</sup></p></blockquote><p>No doubt his opposition explained George Stepney’s comment on 11 Apr. that Nottingham had ‘become the most violent man in England against the king’s interest’.<sup>251</sup> On 14 Apr. Nottingham hoped that he would be at Exton the next week. He last attended the House that session on 25 April.<sup>252</sup></p><p>Nottingham was absent when the 1696-7 session convened on 20 Oct. 1696, first attending on 6 November. He attended on 52 days of the session, 46 per cent of the whole, and was named to 14 committees. He entered protests on 28 Nov. against the passage of the amended bill for further remedying the ill state of the coinage and on 2 Dec. against the decision not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the bill. He wrote to Hatton on 3 Dec., ‘I was not at the House today, being engaged in the duchy court, where I have prevailed against the corporation of Daventry’.<sup>253</sup> On 4 Dec. the cause between John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby, and the duke of Devonshire over the purchase of Berkeley House was adjourned while Nottingham and six other peers attempted to mediate: on 9 Dec. Nottingham reported some proposals to the House relating to privilege and eventually the cause was referred back to the courts. A petition was presented to the Lords on 14 Dec. from several people claiming that Nottingham had not paid them for work done, and wishing to proceed against him in the law courts; several standing orders were read relating to the petition (which was not recorded in the Journal).<sup>254</sup></p><p>The major issue of the session was the fate of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Fenwick was keen to know whether Nottingham was ‘for or against the bill, he is a leading card and I hear he spake against my having counsel till the bill was read[.] If he is against the bill I suppose then it is the better for me’.<sup>255</sup> Vernon wrote that Nottingham, Leeds and Rochester had met with the Howard family concerning Fenwick’s predicament and on 28 Nov. Nottingham spent an hour and a half walking with Monmouth in the court of requests, attempting to convince him to oppose the bill. Nottingham was one of those that promoted an address to the king on 1 Dec. over whether the papers already communicated to the House contained all the relevant material. He apparently even proposed sending two judges with the request, but this was objected to as against the normal procedure for addressing the king. Vernon interpreted this as an attempt to obtain a letter written by Devonshire to the king about the plot, which was thought to show Shrewsbury’s handling of the affair in a bad light.<sup>256</sup> On 8 Dec. Nottingham was one of the peers who questioned whether there was a need for a bill of attainder against Fenwick, but it was thought that this should be decided when debating the case after the evidence had been heard. Nottingham spoke on 15 Dec. against admitting Goodman’s deposition in evidence, and entered his protest against the decision to do so.<sup>257</sup> On 18 Dec. he was one of the ‘chiefs who argued against the bill’ at its second reading and then entered his protest against it.<sup>258</sup> In his speech, he argued the injustice of all attainders ‘saying they were symptoms of a very sickly state’, and only made in troublesome and unsettled times. Professing his zeal for government and king, he criticized the bill as an attack on the royal prerogative because it removed the power of pardon. Fenwick should be prosecuted, he said, through the ordinary courts. He went on to argue ‘with a great deal of rhetoric’ that the bill provided a precedent that could be used at some future date when there was no extraordinary need. Parliament could be packed as it was in the reigns of Richard II and Henry VI and then ‘not stick so much at the rules of justice, but would be glad to lay hold of such a precedent to commit what was never so unjust and illegal.’<sup>259</sup> On 23 Dec. Nottingham spoke and voted against the third reading of the bill, and entered his dissent when it was passed.<sup>260</sup> In his speech, he noted that the Lords were bound by the laws of the land, and that the evidence presented against Fenwick was not lawful, reasonable or credible. Using his legal expertise, he then claimed that no bill of attainder had started in the Commons, with the exception of those against Monmouth and Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. The bill, he argued, should have begun in the House of Lords, according to a statute of 1 Henry IV, and furthermore ‘the late act of trials gives counsel to the prisoner, and directs the witnesses on both sides to be upon their oaths’, and yet the Commons ‘cannot administer oaths, nor is a court of judicature’. He produced precedents from the opening years of the reign of Edward III to prove the proceedings to be unlawful. Citing an act of the first year of Edward VI, which provided for the personal testimony of two witnesses, he suggested that the evidence against Fenwick was ‘not sufficient in law’. A letter from Fenwick written at Romney was not admissible evidence, neither was Goodman’s examination. In such circumstances, the Lords might as well proceed without any witnesses at all produced <em>viva voce</em>. He noted that ‘the first reformation for protecting the lives of the subject established two witnesses to prove treason, do not let it be said the second reformation took them away’, and was ‘sorry the good laws of the land and the safety of the government should not be consistent’.<sup>261</sup> When the House came to consider on 9 Jan. 1697 Monmouth’s role in allegedly advising Lady Mary Fenwick on courses of action, Nottingham appeared unfavourable to Monmouth. On 15 Jan. he was among the lords who spoke to give their view that Monmouth had been the ‘contriver’ of the papers delivered to the House by Lady Fenwick, and pressed for the vote to send Monmouth to the Tower. In the debate on 22 Jan. on Lady Fenwick’s petition for a reprieve for her husband, Nottingham argued that the king had been ‘misinformed’: it was within the royal prerogative ‘not only to reprieve him, but pardon him if he thought fit’.<sup>262</sup></p><p>Nottingham entered his protest on 23 Jan. 1697 against the decision to reject at second reading the bill for further regulating parliamentary elections. On 8 Feb. the bill for the exchange of advowsons between Nottingham and the bishop of London passed its third reading in the Lords. It had received its first reading on 1 Feb., and had been reported by Bishop Lloyd of Lichfield and Coventry, without amendment, on the 5th. Nottingham last attended on 10 Feb., over two months before the session ended and on 11 Feb. his proxy was registered with Halifax. By 20 Feb. 1697 Nottingham was reported to be out of town.<sup>263</sup></p><p>Nottingham’s views of the forthcoming session were set out in a missive to Halifax on 22 Nov. 1697, in which he raised the prospect of opposing the ministry’s support for a standing army with ‘some measures more suitable to the interest of England’. He suggested that they positively promote their own proposals, and not simply ‘barely … oppose the designs of others’; he argued for a ‘concert’, ‘without which all struggling in Parliament will not only be vain but leave some particular men exposed to resentment’. On 29 Nov., Nottingham wrote again to Halifax to tell him that he would not be in town until 18 Dec. at the earliest (Parliament was prorogued to 3 December). He told him that he would not ‘recommend to my friends any particular things to be done, because there are some to which perhaps they will not be persuaded tho’ without them all other matters will be ineffectual to our happiness’. He then again suggested that his friends ‘should resolve what to do as well as what to oppose so they should also begin those things and bring them to a speedy issue before gentlemen grow weary of attending.’ Nottingham was still at Burley on 4 Dec., grappling with his accounts, but hoping to ‘make haste to town’. With the weather poor, still delayed on 25 Dec., he announced his intentions to set out on 3 Jan. 1698 or the day after.<sup>264</sup> He did not in fact attend the House until 25 Jan., and was present on 31 days of the session, 24 per cent of the total. He was named to eight committees.</p><p>On 12 Feb. 1698 Robert Bertie<sup>‡</sup> reported after dining with Nottingham, Halifax and Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron Ferrers, that Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> would ‘come off’ in the Lords, even if the bill against him (a bill of pains and penalties against him for alleged corruption in the exchequer accounts, initiated by Montagu in a response to charges Duncombe had brought against him) passed the Commons.<sup>265</sup> Vernon noted on 17 Feb. that ‘great notice’ had been taken that Nottingham, Weymouth, Ferrers and some others had been ‘in close whispers of late. We shall soon see whether it be any new thing they are aiming at’.<sup>266</sup> On 4 Mar. Nottingham entered his protest against the motion for a second reading of the bill to punish Duncombe, having been one of a number of ‘speaking peers’ against it.<sup>267</sup> He was named on 5 Mar. to prepare heads for a conference in order to elucidate the ground upon which the bill had proceeded in the Commons. He was then named to conferences on the bill on 7 and 11 March. On 15 Mar. he voted against the committal of the bill, which was rejected.<sup>268</sup> Nottingham was one of those peers on 17 Mar. who felt compelled to defend Lord Chancellor Somers from a printed paper which had been distributed to promote the cause of James Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, which implied corruption on his part.<sup>269</sup> By this date, and having recently paid a visit his brother, Heneage, at Albury, Nottingham was preparing to leave London, hoping to wait on Hatton the following week en route for Exton.<sup>270</sup> He last attended on 22 Mar., and by the 28th he was writing from Exton, and sending a proxy up to Halifax three days later. On 31 Mar. he wrote to Halifax that ‘tho’ it be out of fashion to pay fees for proxies yet the clerks will expect something and ’tis fit they should have it and therefore pray let me know what you give them and I will repay it to you’. He provided Halifax with a prolonged commentary on the bill for taxing grants of land made by the crown.<sup>271</sup></p><h2><em>From the 1698 Election to the end of William’s Reign</em></h2><p>In the 1698 general election, Nottingham exerted electoral influence in his adopted county of Rutland, where according to Vernon, the defeated candidate, Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, apparently wrote that Nottingham ‘was the first man that voted against him’. Vernon also noted that Nottingham had ‘writ very zealously’ on behalf of Anthony Hammond<sup>‡</sup> at Cambridge University.<sup>272</sup> He also backed Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup> for Northamptonshire, although he felt that his interest at Daventry had suffered from his conflict with the corporation there. He told the two candidates that he had sent to ‘some of my acquaintance at Stanford and am sending to my Lord Halifax’s steward at Fotheringhay to promote your interest and I will try to obtain my Lord of Exeter’s [John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter] assistance’. At the end of April Nottingham had been considering a possible partner for Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> at Peterborough, and in July he was still promoting Dolben’s interest there, but without success.<sup>273</sup></p><p>Nottingham was still a magnet for Tory politicians: on 1 Aug. 1698, he talked of Halifax’s impending visit, a potential visit from Rochester, and of having waved off Musgrave and Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> after a short stay. Nottingham might feign a lack of interest in politics, but on 27 Aug. he wrote to ask Halifax to bring a marked printed list of the returns of Members with him to help pass away the time ‘when you are weary with hunting’. On 19 Sept. Nottingham showed little inclination to return to active participation in the Lords unless matters changed: ‘I have no business in London, nor any thoughts of going thither till I see whether the H. of Commons will find any other business for us than consenting to their money bills’. Nottingham told Halifax on 3 Nov. that he had no plans to visit London and was only going to stay at Albury for a few days. Despite his professed indifference to politics, Nottingham noted on 12 Nov. that Seymour’s determination to stand for the Speakership of the Commons risked splitting the Tory vote and letting the third candidate, Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>, carry it, ‘which in itself would be very ill and in the consequence much worse for it will break all confidence among our acquaintance and prevent all measures that should be taken.’ His hope was that Rochester would prevail upon John Granville*, the future Baron Granville, to abandon his bid for the Speakership, for ‘I despair of persuading the other [Seymour]’. Nottingham did plan a visit to Rochester at New Park in early December, and he was at Albury on 12 Dec., and then expected to spend a couple of days in London.<sup>274</sup> Although the parliamentary session had begun on 6 Dec., when Nottingham penned a letter from London on 15 Dec., it was to suggest that he would leave on the 19th and be at Exton three days later.<sup>275</sup></p><p>Nottingham did not attend the Lords until 16 Jan. 1699. In all he attended on 30 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total and was named to 13 committees. On 17 Jan. Nottingham wrote that the bill mentioned by Hatton, the governor of Guernsey, to prohibit the export of corn for one year, had arrived in the Lords the previous day; he would be ready to obey Hatton’s ‘commands’, presumably for the exemption of the island, but there was an ‘obvious objection’ that ‘under the pretence of exporting corn to Guernsey it will [be] carried to other places’. He then reported on the 19th that on the previous day that the corn bill had been read ‘and the Guernsey-men have liberty given to make their proposals, which I have desired them may be such as they may reasonably hope will be granted and to offer such restrictions as may prevent the abuse of the favour they ask’.<sup>276</sup> The bill was duly amended by the Lords, but it is unclear as to whether the Guernsey amendments were accepted by the Commons.<sup>277</sup> On 1 Feb. Lonsdale wrote to Halifax asking him to tell Nottingham about a forthcoming appeal of one Thomas Wybergh against him: ‘I have heard my Lord Nottingham so often declare his opinion how necessary a point of our policy, and how material a part of the law the quieting of possessions are, that I am sure his judgment would concur with what is so material to my quiet’. He added a plea for him to emphasize to Nottingham ‘how much I both need and do beg his protection as I do your Lordship’s.’ The appeal was dismissed on 4 Apr., by which date Nottingham had ceased to attend.<sup>278</sup></p><p>Nottingham was still attending on 4 Feb. 1699, when he wrote that ‘I can’t forsee when I shall return into the country. I can only resolve to stay here no longer than of necessity I must’.<sup>279</sup> On 8 Feb. he probably spoke, and certainly voted and protested against the resolution to retain the Dutch Guards, insofar it was consistent with the forms of Parliament.<sup>280</sup> But after attending on 27 Feb., Nottingham returned to Exton, writing on 4 Mar. that he had written to Mr Jodrell (presumably Paul Jodrell, who was clerk of the House of Commons, though also a solicitor in chancery) ‘to put off’ John Todd’s cause, scheduled for 9 Mar. ‘because I can’t be in town till this day sevennight, after which day I should be glad it could be heard any day of the week following’. Nottingham asked Halifax to approach Jodrell to ‘ask him what he can do in this business and whether it be proper for your lordship from me to desire such a favour of my lord chancellor (it being a cause of charity) and accordingly as Mr Jodrell advises, to speak about it.’ After a short delay, Nottingham intended to set out for London on the 11th, and he was back in the House on 14 Mar., when Todd, Thomas Milbourne, and George Henderson, were given liberty to withdraw their appeal.<sup>281</sup> He last attended on 22 Mar., well before the end of the session.</p><p>Lawsuits often determined Nottingham’s movements, especially his visits to London. On 13 June 1699 Nottingham wrote ‘my cause was heard yesterday and the court has taken time to consider of it, what my lord chancellor said seemed to be in my favour. I shall go out of town on Thursday [15th], thro’ Essex to Exton’. When on 2 Sept. Nottingham was considering the patronage implications of the conviction for simony of Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, and the likelihood that those paying for preferments would lose them, he felt able to approach Lord Chancellor Somers, and to use Halifax and Bishop Lloyd, now of Worcester, but not Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, ‘whom I will not ask’. On 9 Sept., he wrote to Halifax that ‘I thought the bishop of Norwich [Moore] had intended a preferment to Dr Burton, which did not require much residence, which I should like much better, that my children might not be deprived as yet of a man so useful to them.’<sup>282</sup> Dr Thomas Burton thus had some kind of tutorial role in the Finch household, and Nottingham was still after preferment for him in April 1702, writing to his daughter, the marchioness of Halifax, to get Dartmouth [Heneage Finch’s son-in-law] to approach Feversham for the living of Kingsthrop, Northamptonshire, the incumbent supposedly being close to death.<sup>283</sup> It seems that Burton had been promised a prebend at Christ Church, at Nottingham’s ‘very particular instance’ and on 19 May 1702 Godolphin noted that the warrant for Burton’s appointment had been signed.<sup>284</sup></p><p>Although the 1699-1700 session began in November 1699, Nottingham did not attend until 22 Jan. 1700. He was present on 29 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. On 8 Feb. he entered his protest against putting the question that the settlement of the Scotch colony at Darien was inconsistent with the good of the kingdom’s plantation trade. On 10 Feb. he protested against the address itself. In about February 1700 he was forecast as likely to support the East India Company bill and on the 23rd he voted in favour of adjourning into committee of the whole House to debate the bill. Also on 23 Feb. he was named to draw up heads for a conference relating to the Commons bill authorizing the appointment of English commissioners to treat for a Union with Scotland. Following the removal of Somers in April, Nottingham was one of those mentioned as a possible lord chancellor.<sup>285</sup> Nottingham was one of six executors of the will of Halifax, who died at the end of August, although the will was not opened until the marchioness had given birth to a posthumous daughter. Arrangements for Halifax seem to have caused trouble, as on 7 Nov. Cary Gardiner reported from London that ‘here my Lord Nottingham is condemned about my Lord Halifax’s will and funeral’; he was also, she added, ‘hated and cursed in Rutlandshire and Leicestershire’, where, although ‘at first he made an interest’, it was said that he had ‘undone many families about his building’.<sup>286</sup></p><p>Around the end of 1700 and the beginning of 1701, his presence in London and a belief that the king favoured a further move towards the Tories encouraged the rumours that Nottingham would be made lord chancellor. However a newsletter of 11 Jan. 1701 suggested that he had refused the office, ‘being unwilling to meddle any more with public affairs’.<sup>287</sup> Nevertheless, with politics in a state of flux, Nottingham’s interest, and consequently his attendance in the Lords revived; he was there when the session began on 10 Feb. and sat on 81 days, 77 per cent of the total. He was named to 28 committees. On 12 Feb. Nottingham supported a simple vote of thanks for the king’s speech, rather than a more critical response to recent French actions.<sup>288</sup> He entered his protest on 8 Mar. against the decision to address the king to take off the suspension against Captain John Norris<sup>‡</sup>. The countess of Dorchester lobbied Nottingham on 12 Mar. to press for her daughter’s divorce from James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey.<sup>289</sup> On 14 Mar., when the Lords took into consideration the various treaties they had addressed for on 13 Feb., Nottingham said ‘a great deal’ in condemnation of the partition treaty of 1700 and the king’s failure to take proper advice before concluding it.<sup>290</sup> He was then named to the committee charged with stating the facts relating to the partition treaty, and drawing an address on the matter. He chaired this committee on the 15th, reporting later in the day setting out a series of heads representing the facts as they appeared to the committee. He entered two protests at the rejection by the House of two of their conclusions: the second head, that the Emperor was not a party to the treaty even though he had been principally concerned in it, and the third, that no minister of the States-General had met with the plenipotentiaries of England and France, at the making the treaty in London. When the adjourned debate resumed on 17 Mar., the Lords requested the presence of Vernon at the committee, and Nottingham reported his testimony from it. He entered two more protests on 18 Mar., over further proposals for the address were rejected by the House: one at the rejection of a proposal for including a passage concerning the exclusion of the Emperor from the treaty negotiations, and another at the agreement to a passage arguing that the French king’s acceptance of the king of Spain’s will was a manifest violation of the treaty, and that the king should be advised to proceed with caution in future negotiations with Louis XIV. On 19 Mar. he chaired the committee to draw up the address, which he reported on the 20th, and then he acted as a teller, in opposition to Stamford, in favour of communicating the address to the Commons, and entered his protest against the vote not to do so.<sup>291</sup> On 2 Apr. he was named to a conference on the partition treaties. He reported progress on 3 Apr. from the committee of the whole on Box’s divorce bill. Following his return from a visit to Albury, Nottingham wrote on 8 Apr. that as his wife and children had colds, he was going to Burley, intending to wait on Hatton on the 12th on his way there.<sup>292</sup> Having attended on 10 Apr. Nottingham was absent until 26 April.</p><p>Nottingham was named on 15 May 1701 to a conference on the bill on the king’s bench and Fleet prisons. He entered protests on 3 June to parts of the House’s answer to the Commons on the delay to the impeachments of the members of the Junto. It seems very likely that he spoke in the debate that preceded the protest.<sup>293</sup> On 6 June he was named to a conference on the impeachments. He entered protests on 9 June against the decision not to appoint a joint committee with the Commons to consider the impeachments and on 11 June against putting the question that no Lord of Parliament, impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours, should, upon his trial, be without the Bar, a vote which seemed likely to derail the trial. On 14 June he protested against the continual resistance of the Lords to a joint committee on the impeachments. He entered his protest on 17 June against the decision to proceed with the trial against Somers, voted against his acquittal, and protested against the decision to acquit him.<sup>294</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, however, Nottingham responded to an initiative from Godolphin on 8 June 1701 to concert with ‘our friends’ in the Commons in support of the king’s foreign policy, and following the king’s speech on 12 June, the Commons voted an address in support of such alliances as William thought fit to approve for the preservation of Europe and the reduction of French power.<sup>295</sup> After the disappointment over the impeachments, Nottingham decided to decamp for Burley in the middle of June, but planned to return again before 4 July.<sup>296</sup> On 21 July he was writing to his brother at Aylesford to consider a successor to Thomas Meredith<sup>‡</sup>, the recently deceased knight of the shire for Kent, ‘and then to be very active in soliciting’.<sup>297</sup> From Burley, on 8 Sept., he expressed satisfaction both in his quiet country existence and that as Rochester had a greater share in the administration of affairs ‘then the contrivances of some restless spirits need not be much apprehended’. On 29 Sept. he added that, given ‘we are entering into a war’, he hoped that ‘we shall not have it managed as the last was and be twice in danger of ruin of the same methods; good gamesters will change their cards at least if they can’t their fortune especially when they are master.’<sup>298</sup> After the dissolution of Parliament in November and the calling of new elections, Nottingham threw his interest behind Isham and Cartwright in Northamptonshire, noting that ‘never was more industry and art, I might say knavery used to prevail in elections’, but ‘in spite of all their tricks and impudent aspersions thrown upon men of the best reputation for integrity and zeal for the interest of their country’ he thought there would be ‘a very good Parliament’.<sup>299</sup> In the closely fought Derbyshire election of December, Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale hoped to gain Nottingham’s support for Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup> and John Curzon<sup>‡</sup>, ‘with his power in relation to my Lady Halifax’.<sup>300</sup></p><p>Nottingham was present when the 1701-2 Parliament first met on 30 December. He attended on 50 days, 50 per cent of the total and was named to 20 committees. He seconded Normanby’s motion on 31 Dec. for an address concerning Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender.<sup>301</sup> On 5 Jan. 1702, Nottingham, ‘being highly concerned’ made a speech on the petition of the Jacobite defector William Fuller ‘in relation to his making out the suppositious birth of the pretended Prince of Wales and some other matters’.<sup>302</sup> Nottingham’s opinion of the abjuration oath when writing to the absent Archbishop Sharp on 10 Jan. was that ‘the safest side in conscience is to refuse it’.<sup>303</sup> On 12 Jan., at the second reading of the Lords’ abjuration bill, or more probably in the debate on it in committee of the whole House, Nottingham ‘insisted that the word abjure was of great latitude and desired it might be explained and limited’.<sup>304</sup> This bill was passed on the 13 Jan. and the matter lapsed until an alternative abjuration bill, initiated in the Commons, was brought up to the House on 20 February. It seems highly likely that Nottingham supported the unsuccessful move to make the oath voluntary through an instruction of 21 Feb. to the committee of the whole House. On 24 Feb. Nottingham protested against the passage of the bill.<sup>305</sup> He then broached the topic of securing the succession in Scotland through a parliamentary union, and to that end moved for an address for a dissolution of the Scottish Parliament, hoping no doubt for an increased representation among Episcopalians, who were more acceptable to English Tories.<sup>306</sup></p><h2><em>Queen Anne and the Secretaryship, 1702-4</em></h2><p>Nottingham was not in London when William died on 8 Mar. 1702, but his prospects seemed to have revived with the new reign. On the 9th Nottingham had already noted that ‘I am much importuned by my friends (not of the Court) to come to town immediately to which I am very averse, for the same reasons which made me leave London’.<sup>307</sup> Normanby wrote to him on the 10th to ask him ‘to come again among us as soon as possible’.<sup>308</sup> On 16 Mar. Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup> reported that the queen had sent for Rochester and Nottingham, ‘so it’s not like she intends to govern by the former councils and there will be a great change in the ministry’. However, later Lyttelton opined that Nottingham would not take the new oath.<sup>309</sup> Doubts remained even though Nottingham had declared to the House during the passage of the abjuration bill ‘that he had only some slight scruples rem[aining] and did not know but he might take the oath enjoined by the bill as well as another’, and, as James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> wrote on 11 Apr., without taking the oath ‘he can’t be employed, nor perhaps if he did take it’.<sup>310</sup> While he made up his mind Nottingham absented himself from Parliament, and he was not listed as attending between 4 Mar. and 27 April. Nottingham wrote to Sharp on 7 Apr. from Burley of his impending departure for London on the following day, still craving a discussion over his dilemma.<sup>311</sup> He presumably did talk with Sharp for on 20 Apr. Nottingham and Weymouth ‘being returned from the country’, they, together with Sharp, ‘appeared in the House of Lords and took the abjuration oath’.<sup>312</sup> The archbishop was probably instrumental in persuading Nottingham to take it for on 31 Mar. he had written to Nottingham that his objection ‘that it looks like swearing against God’s Providence and government of the world’ had</p><blockquote><p>no force in it, for I think you are left as much at liberty after you have taken this oath, nay it is as much your duty to own for your king whomsoever God in his Providence sets upon this throne (so as that in the sense of the law he is the king), tho’ it should prove the very person you have abjured. Provided you contributed nothing to it, I say in this case it is as much in your liberty without breach of your oath to own this person for your king, as if you had never taken it.<sup>313</sup></p></blockquote><p>In turn, Nottingham was crucial in persuading Weymouth to take the oath, as the latter acknowledged on 4 Apr.: ‘I think I have overcome my scruples, and ... shall be proud to follow your Lordship to the Table and since our hasty retreat has occasioned much discourse, the sooner we silence it the better, and therefore design to be in town the 15th instant’.<sup>314</sup></p><p>Nottingham was appointed secretary of state on 2 May 1702. His wife became a lady of the bedchamber later in May.<sup>315</sup> On 20 May Godolphin wrote to Harley that Nottingham and Rochester desired ‘to meet tomorrow night at your house to consider of the Queen’s Speech.’<sup>316</sup> The speech delivered on 25 May contained a closing reference to the Church, which owed much to consultations with Nottingham and Rochester: ‘my own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the interests and religion of the Church of England, and will incline me to countenance those who have the truest zeal to support it.’<sup>317</sup> In June Marlborough at The Hague told Godolphin that he had learnt that Rochester ‘says all things are directed by’ Nottingham, ‘which has gained belief with a great many’.<sup>318</sup> Nottingham certainly had strong views on the war, being less keen on large scale armies fighting in Flanders and stressing instead the advantages to be gained in using naval power in conjunction with land forces in Spain, Italy, Portugal and the West Indies.<sup>319</sup> Nottingham could claim to have some influence on the clerical politics of the new reign, due to his friendship with Archbishop Sharp, now the queen’s key ecclesiastical adviser. The firebrand Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, was disappointed, writing on 13 June, of the ‘great dissatisfaction here among the friends of the Church about the measures that are taken, and particularly at the conduct of my Lord Nottingham, who is thought to be as deep as anybody in all the new methods of moderation’.<sup>320</sup></p><p>From Whitehall Nottingham kept a close eye on the election returns; on 13 Aug. 1702 he congratulated James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> ‘on the victories you have obtained’, and took the opportunity to exhort ‘you and all our friends about you’ to ‘be here at the first day of the Parliament’.<sup>321</sup> Nottingham informed Marlborough on 3 Sept. that Parliament would probably be prorogued until 20 Oct. ‘because most gentlemen can’t come sooner to town by reason they must first take the tests at the sessions, which are in several counties in the first week in October and should they defer it to the term, the three months would be lapsed and they would incur the penalties’. The delay would also allow Marlborough ‘to tell us something of the measures designed for the next year, which will be useful in order to her majesty’s resolutions about the things to be proposed to the Parliament.’<sup>322</sup> While the queen visited Bath in September, Nottingham retreated to Burley.<sup>323</sup> He was expected back in London on 22 Sept. and was certainly there by the end of the month.<sup>324</sup></p><p>Nottingham was present when Parliament met on 20 Oct. 1702, and there is evidence that the Queen’s Speech had been amended by him when in draft form.<sup>325</sup> He was present on 66 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total and was named to 31 committees. On 19 Nov. Nottingham opposed the defensive Whig motion for an address that Bishop Lloyd of Worcester be continued as almoner until some crime had been proved against him, on the grounds that it limited the queen’s exercise of her prerogative. Dining with Nottingham on 30 Nov., William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, found him in favour of a union with Scotland.<sup>326</sup> He was probably behind the introduction in the Commons of the bill against occasional conformity, Dartmouth later recounting that Nottingham persuaded William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> to bring in the bill.<sup>327</sup> Nottingham was one of those who argued on 9 Dec., after the third reading of the bill, that a resolution against tacking, although it was ‘just in itself’, was now ‘unseasonable’.<sup>328</sup> Nottingham continued to exert a moderating influence on the Commons: Godolphin wrote on 24 Dec., ‘I don’t wonder you found Sir C[hristopher] M[usgrave] a little easier in the business of Holland. Lord Nottingham has brought his brother [Heneage] and Sir E[dward] S[eymour] into it also’.<sup>329</sup> Nottingham had probably persuaded them not to oppose the augmentation of Dutch troops, but to support it on condition that the prohibition of trade between the Dutch and the French would be enforced. When the Lords agreed to a resolution along these lines on 9 Jan. 1703, Nottingham came under attack for apparently advising that a prorogation would be needed before an augmentation of the forces could be voted. He responded that this had been the general view of the council and that he had acted in good conscience. This speech (‘said with so much courage, and so good a grace’) prevented any further reflections.<sup>330</sup> In about January 1703 Nottingham was listed in his own forecast as likely to support a bill against occasional conformity, and he voted on 16 Jan. against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause of the bill. On 19 Jan., when the Lords came to consider a bill permitting Prince George, as a foreigner, to hold office after the death of the queen, notwithstanding the provisions of the Act of Settlement, he opposed Burnet’s arguments that all foreign peers should be given the same exemption (the Commons had already rejected a bill passed by the Lords in favour of all foreign peers), and suggested that the passage of this bill might help to secure the passage of another bill in favour of the other foreign lords later on. On 22 Jan. Nottingham protested against the dismissal of the petition of Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup> and John Thompson in their cause against Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton. When Wharton’s appeal against Squire was heard before the Lords on 12 Feb., Nottingham was ‘indefatigable’ in his opposition to it.<sup>331</sup></p><p>On 2 Feb. 1703, it was ordered that the commissioners of accounts should attend in relation to the management of the exchequer by Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax. Nottingham’s concern was to ensure that since the Commons had already ordered the attorney-general to prosecute Halifax that their actions did not look like giving a judgment in the case. In a debate in committee of the whole House on 4 Feb. on the bill extending the time allowed for taking the oath of abjuration, Nottingham and Somers combined to add a clause promoted by Bishop Compton of London that clergymen already instituted into vacant benefices should not be deprived as a result of failing to take the oaths in time. On 5 Feb., when Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset reported from the committee on the findings of the public accounts commissioners, exonerating Halifax, Lord Keeper Wright informed the House that the attorney-general wished to be heard before any vote on the report. Nottingham backed him, but unsuccessfully. Nottingham brought in on 9 Feb. a list of persons granted licences to return from France by Queen Anne; he was in agreement with peers who felt that those returning without licences should be prosecuted, but suggested that it was incumbent upon peers who were aware of such persons to inform ministers. Nottingham used his lawyer’s expertise in defence of Rooke on 11 Feb., when he objected to the report of the committee appointed to examine the journals of Rooke and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. The committee’s frequent use of the word ‘appears’, he argued, indicated that it had exceeded its remit which was only to inspect and report, not to draw inferences and conclusions; the report was recommitted to be re-drafted.<sup>332</sup> Nottingham protested on 22 Feb. against the failure to commit the land qualification bill and on 24 Feb. against the vote to print the proceedings on the occasional conformity bill. He attended the prorogations on 22 Apr. and 22 June.</p><p>Even Marlborough acknowledged that Nottingham was the fount of ecclesiastical patronage; in May 1703 the duke asked Godolphin to excuse him to the queen for writing to Nottingham on the subject of the bishopric of St Asaph ‘for had I not done it Doctor Chetwood would never have forgiven me’. Nottingham’s reply was that ‘the matter was too far advanced’ in favour of George Hooper*, who would become the bishop in October.<sup>333</sup> William Grahme, dean of Carlisle, told his brother, James, on 30 June 1703, that Nottingham ‘lays his hand on all church preferment. His brother, his chaplains, and his favourites are all taken care of, and her majesty’s chaplains and clerks of the closet are put by’.<sup>334</sup></p><p>On 7 June Marlborough thought fit to warn the lord treasurer (with the caveat that his informant Count Wratislaw was ‘hotheaded’) that Nottingham ‘will upon all occasion’ do Godolphin ‘what hurt he can with his party’.<sup>335</sup> Nottingham was certainly proactive in many aspects of foreign and domestic policy: in August he relayed his arguments in favour of union to John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S].<sup>336</sup> He also maintained his support for Tory candidates: following the elevation of his brother, Heneage, to the peerage, Nottingham supported attempts to persuade Sir Thomas Dyke<sup>‡</sup> to stand for the vacancy in the ensuing by-election for Oxford University, though without success.<sup>337</sup> At the beginning of September, Nottingham sought leave to visit Burley about the middle of the month, although Godolphin thought that the queen would allow him to go slightly later, while she was at Windsor.<sup>338</sup></p><p>Nottingham attended the prorogations on 14 Oct. and 4 Nov. 1703 and he was present when the next session commenced on 9 November. He attended on 53 days of the session, 54 per cent of the total and was named to 24 committees. He seems to have actively solicited the attendance of some peers, presumably to support the occasional conformity bill.<sup>339</sup> Not surprisingly, Nottingham was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland at the beginning of November as a supporter of this bill, and again on a revised forecast made at the end of November or the beginning of December. Nottingham did not perceive the bill as a measure of persecution; as the queen herself wrote to the duchess of Marlborough, probably in December 1703, ‘I see nothing like persecution in this bill’, denying, significantly, that it was ‘a notion Lord Nottingham has put into my head’.<sup>340</sup> On 14 Dec. Nottingham voted in favour of giving a second reading to the bill, and then protested when the House voted not to do so and protested again when the House voted to reject it.</p><p>During the summer of 1703 Nottingham had been heavily involved in the investigation of the so-called ‘Scotch Plot’ for a Jacobite rising in Scotland. The Scotch Plot was brought before the Lords on 14 Dec. 1703, possibly owing to a leak from the cabinet, and the Lords elected a committee of seven on 18 Dec. to interrogate some of the prisoners. Nottingham gained ten votes, a derisory amount compared to those secured by the Whigs who were chosen. Nottingham was criticized in the Commons on 20 Dec. for ‘having given order for the release of one Middleton’ (one of those said to be involved in the Plot). But when the lower House resumed the debate the next day a concerted effort was made there to argue that Nottingham ‘was the only person in Council that opposed his release’, and the House then agreed ‘the most honourable vote that ever was seen in favour of that great and good minister and ordered it to be laid before her majesty at the same time with their address which was accordingly done’.<sup>341</sup> The vote said that Nottingham ‘for his great abilities and diligence in the execution of his office, for his unquestionable fidelity to the queen, and her government, and for his steady adhering to the Church of England, as by law established, hath highly merited the trust her majesty has reposed in him’.<sup>342</sup> Trumbull told William Aligonby that Nottingham ‘did not seek after such a vote’, which followed some ‘scandalous and foolish hearsays, talked of in the House to throw dirt upon him, with an intention to leave it there and a supposition that some of it would stick’; his friends, therefore, pushed for his vindication.<sup>343</sup> On 6 Jan. 1704 Nottingham thanked Southwell for his ‘congratulations of my escaping once more the malice of my enemies; I hope I shall never deserve a censure, but I see ’tis impossible to avoid the secret reproaches which openly can never be avowed’.<sup>344</sup> The Commons also objected to the Lords’ action in interrogating prisoners. The Lords defended their rights in two resolutions on 13 Jan. 1704. As the investigation carried on, Nottingham continued to fend off the attacks from the Whigs. The House was kept up till ten o’clock on 29 Jan., when the Lords considered various papers delivered into the House by Nottingham, and he went home ‘very weary’.<sup>345</sup> On 19 Feb. it was reported that when the Scotch Plot was laid before the Lords, Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, ‘laid very great reflections upon’ Nottingham.<sup>346</sup> On 24 Mar., it was moved that Nottingham’s account of the examination of Sir John Maclean was ‘imperfect’, but Nottingham ‘was justified to have done his duty by the plurality of 11 voices’ (when the motion to put the motion was negatived).<sup>347</sup> On 25 Mar., Nottingham protested against the vote to put the question on a motion criticizing the government’s actions in the case of the plotter Robert Ferguson, and then protested against the passage of the resolution itself.</p><p>Nottingham’s responsibilities as secretary must have limited his appearances in the House: a letter of 13 Mar. 1704 from Godolphin implies that it was easy enough to summon Nottingham back to Westminster when necessary, allowing him to spend much of his time out of the House: ‘the House is in a committee upon the bill of first fruits. I think there is not like to be any occasion of troubling you to come hither’.<sup>348</sup> Nottingham was indeed absent that day. On 16 Mar. Nottingham protested against the amendment of the public accounts bill which left out Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> from the commission, and he then protested against that part of the amendment which sought to add two nominees from the Lords. On the loss of the bill Nottingham threatened to tack it the next session to the land tax to force it through the Lords, though the bill was not in fact revived.<sup>349</sup> Nottingham entered three protests on 21 Mar. related to the recruitment bill, including one dissenting from the passage of the bill.</p><p>Marlborough, en route for the campaign, wrote from Harwich to Godolphin on 8 Apr. 1704 that Nottingham had told the Tories that the queen was hindered from giving them satisfaction by the duumvirs, that he was convinced that they would hand all business to the Whigs, and that ‘if he can’t get such alterations made in the Cabinet Council as he thinks absolutely necessary for the safety of the Church, he would then quit’. Godolphin reported to him on 18 Apr. that Nottingham had outlined his demands for the removal of Somerset (who had chaired the Lords’ investigations of the Scotch Plot) and Archbishop Tenison from the Cabinet, but although Nottingham had given the queen ‘a good deal of these notions’, she was still set to dismiss Seymour and Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey instead.<sup>350</sup> Burnet believed that Nottingham wanted Somerset and Devonshire (the two Whig cabinet members, who had encouraged the investigations into his handling of the Scotch Plot) removed from the Cabinet.<sup>351</sup> His response to his failure to get his way was to resign. Harley wrote on the 22nd that two days previously Nottingham had ‘brought the seals to the queen and told her he could not serve her with that cabinet &c. She persuaded him to carry them back. This day at one a clock he hath finally delivered them. The manner of it can never be justified if he had had reasons’.<sup>352</sup> Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, was not impressed: ‘surely when the queen refused to take the seals, and gave him time to think better of what he had to do, there was an opportunity offered him of continuing in employment with greater reputation than most people have ever served.’ He then compared Nottingham unfavourably with the Elizabethan statesman, William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, Baron Burghley, whose ‘patience and art’ was ‘enough to bring the queen to remove these men for her own sake, whom he never solicited to remove for his own.’<sup>353</sup></p><h2><em>Return to Opposition, 1704-6</em></h2><p>It was reported on 16 May 1704 that Nottingham attended as frequently at Court as before his resignation. His presence presaged some kind of political campaign in the autumn, centring on the fear of instability in Scotland, the failings of the allies and the promotion of a further bill against occasional conformity.<sup>354</sup> On 17 June Nottingham wrote from Whitehall, ‘I doubt I shall remove my family to Burley this summer, but I hope to be there myself about hunting time, and to be here again before the meeting of the Parliament’.<sup>355</sup> By October, Marlborough, on campaign, had heard that Buckingham (the former Normanby) was ‘in measures’ with Nottingham and Rochester ‘to give all the obstruction that is in their power to the carrying on of the public business with vigour this sessions’. Nottingham attended the prorogation on 19 October. Marlborough’s duchess observed that he would base himself at a house in the Privy Garden, which the queen had given to him when he was secretary, ‘to cabal with all her enemies’.<sup>356</sup> Nottingham was present when the next session began on 24 Oct., attended on 78 days of the session, 79 per cent of the total, and was named to 39 committees. In about November Nottingham was marked on a printed list which may have been intended to indicate that he was in favour of the Tack. On 14 Nov. he registered the proxy of John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham.</p><p>Godolphin reported on 23 Nov. 1704 that Rochester and Nottingham ‘were the only men’ to second John Thompson*, Baron Haversham ‘upon the mismanagement of naval affairs. One or two more came into the other part of the motion about Scotland. They would also have had a committee to inquire into the state of the money, but that would not be endured in the House’.<sup>357</sup> Bishop Nicolson recorded that Nottingham, though ‘professing a retired life and his being a stranger to public matters,’ supported Haversham on the point of the coinage by wishing ‘that the little coin that was left might be some way or other, secured’.<sup>358</sup> Marlborough thought Nottingham and Rochester ‘very impudent and foolish’ in indicating their agreement with Haversham, since the queen ‘can’t but see how they would use them if they had power.’<sup>359</sup> On 29 Nov. Nottingham registered the proxy of Weymouth. On that day, in a debate in committee of the whole House on the state of the nation, he seconded and enlarged upon Rochester’s motion to have the Scottish Act of Security read; he challenged the view of Burnet that following the queen’s death the Scots would crown the same monarch as England, by observing that ‘this could not be; since they were tied up by this act to do otherwise’.<sup>360</sup> According to Sir William Simpson’s account, Nottingham</p><blockquote><p>said that though he would not presume to propose a remedy he would say what remedy he would not approve of. Not introducing the Scots. Not to bring K. James into England. Nor to sacrifice to Protestant interest abroad in order to have King William’s title acknowledged as done at the treaty of Ryswick.</p></blockquote><p>This drew Pembroke and Jersey into vindicating their actions as the negotiators of the treaty, though Nottingham disavowed any intention of questioning their conduct.<sup>361</sup> James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> wrote that Nottingham ‘made a long discourse, full of innumerous bad consequences, which you in Scotland never thought on’ when the Act of Security was passed.<sup>362</sup> For his reflections on King William and the partition treaties, there were moves to send him to the Tower, but this was decided against out of respect for the queen, who was present.<sup>363</sup> Nottingham was again involved in the debate on Scottish affairs on 6 Dec., pressing the House to pass judgment on the Act of Security as ‘of pernicious consequence, tending to defeat the Protestant Succession and to alienate the two kingdoms from one another’. His proposal was headed off with consideration of some new laws to obviate the dangerous consequences of the act.<sup>364</sup> Nottingham’s criticism of this method of proceeding, as not ‘going to the bottom of the sore’, drew the retort from Mohun that he was ‘for rubbing it to a gangrene’.<sup>365</sup> Nottingham defended his conduct on 11 Dec. over the previous negotiations for union with Scotland and during several interventions in the debate made suggestions on how the commission for union should be structured. On 15 Dec. he supported giving a second reading to the Commons’ bill against occasional conformity.<sup>366</sup></p><p>Nottingham protested on 17 Jan. 1705 against giving a first reading to a bill to allow William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, to make leases of his settled estate during his minority, because the next heir to the estate, Baron Granville, objected to it. On 21 Jan. Nottingham approached the customs commissioner, Sir John Werden, bt.<sup>‡</sup> to ask him a question about ‘prohibiting Flanders trade’, presumably in preparation for possible legislation.<sup>367</sup> He protested on 22 Jan. against the decision to reject the petition of Thomas Watson, the former bishop of St Davids, and his wife. On 27 Feb., when the Lords had agreed six resolutions on <em>Ashby v. White</em> and were set to ask for a conference on the following day, Godolphin reported that Nottingham ‘took the part’ of the Commons ‘entirely’.<sup>368</sup> Outside the House, at the beginning of March 1705, he was forwarding a marriage alliance between Charles Bruce*, styled Lord Bruce, the future Baron Bruce of Whorlton and 3rd earl of Ailesbury and Lady Anne Savile (he being one of her guardians). He took Bruce to visit the old marchioness of Halifax, and then the younger marchioness (Nottingham’s daughter and Lady Anne’s step-mother). The prospect of this match allowed Nottingham to ask Bruce to be godfather to his daughter, born the week before 6 June 1705, pleading ‘a kind of necessity’ after 24 children ‘and having troubled almost all my acquaintances’.<sup>369</sup> On 11 Mar. 1705 Evelyn had recorded news of a ‘great loss by fire by the burning of the out-houses and famous stable, at Burley full of rich goods and furniture’.<sup>370</sup> Nottingham’s last attendance in the House that session was the following day. In about April 1705 Nottingham was classed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage in relation to the succession.</p><p>During the early part of 1705 Nottingham was preoccupied with the forthcoming election. As early as 12 Jan., Bishop Nicolson was approached in the Lords by Nottingham and Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, who discussed the ‘fancy’ of Joseph Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> in declining to stand for Westmorland.<sup>371</sup> In February he re-affirmed his support for Sir William Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> at Oxford University, in the face of a challenge from Sir Humphrey Mackworth<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>372</sup> Nottingham’s papers contain material prepared for the elections of 1705, defending the Tack and emphasized his case against the ministry, which he attacked as secretly favouring the dissenters in England and Presbyterians in Scotland and blatantly interfering in elections.<sup>373</sup> In June, as the election results were digested, Marlborough thought that the Tories, ‘by the advice of’ Nottingham and Rochester, were likely to oppose the ministry and endanger the war effort. The queen, he suggested, should therefore encourage the Whigs.<sup>374</sup> When William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, accepted the lord keepership on 11 Oct., he was shown a letter from the queen to Godolphin which intimated that Nottingham and Rochester ‘had so behaved themselves, that it was impossible for her ever to employ them’.<sup>375</sup></p><p>Nottingham attended on the opening day of the Parliament, 25 Oct. 1705. He was present on 68 days of the session, 72 per cent of the total, and was named to 34 committees. On 12 Nov., Nottingham ‘made a motion relating to the affairs of Scotland’, which resulted in the appointment of a committee to draw up an address on union, asking that what had passed in the Scottish Parliament since the previous session in relation to the succession of the crown of Scotland and to the intended treaty of union be laid before them.<sup>376</sup> Nottingham reported from the committee on the 13th. His papers contain an annotated printed copy of the Queen’s Speech of the 27 Oct., and a draft address in response to that part of the speech relating to Scotland, which was adopted almost verbatim by the House.<sup>377</sup></p><p>George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> had told Atholl on 15 Oct. 1705 of the frustrations of the Tories and their plans to invite the electoral prince, Prince George*, duke of Cambridge, to reside in England. Nottingham and Rochester were in correspondence with Hanover, he wrote, and observed ‘that they don’t so much value in England who shall be king, as whose king he shall be’.<sup>378</sup> On 15 Nov. Nottingham seconded Haversham’s motion for an address to the queen to invite Princess Sophia to reside in England in order to safeguard the Protestant Succession. He protested when it was rejected.<sup>379</sup> Unlike other Tory leaders associated with the ‘Hanover motion’, Nottingham seems to have permanently damaged his standing with the queen over this issue, possibly because he had previously suggested that such a move could only be designed to depose her.<sup>380</sup> The failure of this initiative saw Nottingham switch his attention to the alternative to the ‘invitation’, namely the regency bill, and in the debate on 19 Nov. on the heads for the bill, Nottingham argued that the laws relating to the succession should be ‘rectified’ before they named the lords justices who were to exercise authority until the arrival of the queen’s successor; and that no minister should be one of the lords justices.<sup>381</sup> On 30 Nov. the House debated limitations on the exercise of the power of the justices, and after Rochester had successfully proposed an instruction to the committee of the whole House to include a clause in the regency bill preventing them from repealing or amending the Act of Uniformity, it was ordered by the House that no further instructions be permitted, against which Nottingham protested. His papers contain a list of statutes not to be repealed by Parliament before the arrival of the queen’s successor; according to Cowper and Nicolson, Nottingham had moved that other acts might have the same protection, including the Habeas Corpus Act, the Triennial act and the Treason Trials Act, but this was rejected. ‘Thus it came out’, wrote Cowper, ‘that the Act of Uniformity was brought in to be secured in so extraordinary and improper a manner and no other act’.<sup>382</sup> Nottingham at the third reading stage on 3 Dec. tried again to protect key legislation, offering several riders to the bill designed to prevent the justices from giving the royal assent to bills repealing laws concerning papists, the royal succession, or habeas corpus and other safeguards for the liberties of the subject. He entered three protests against the decision of the Lords not to add them, and then protested against the passage of the bill. On 31 Jan. 1706 the Lords returned to the regency bill once it had been amended by the Commons, whereupon Nottingham objected to ‘the power given to the lords justices, as too great for subjects’ and protested on three occasions, objecting to three amendments made to the clause added by the Commons to the bill.<sup>383</sup></p><p>Earlier, in the debate in committee of the whole House on the state of the nation on 22 Nov. 1705, Nottingham made an unsuccessful motion to request the queen for information on the disappointing military campaign. The next day, he seconded Haversham’s motion for the repeal of the clause which declared the Scots to be aliens, although Somers then proposed repealing the whole act and was seconded by Rochester. On 28 Nov. Nottingham opposed leave to bring in an appeal (requested by Halifax) on the grounds that it was against standing orders. He spoke in the debate on 6 Dec. on the queen’s speech and the Tory claim that the Church was in danger: ‘having briefly remarked on the Scotch act for the establishment of presbytery and the mischief of the occasional communicants voting in corporations’, he seconded Archbishop Sharp’s motion on an instruction to the judges to consider ways of subjecting dissenting seminaries to ecclesiastical discipline.<sup>384</sup> Towards the conclusion of the debate he also remarked that if the second part of the proposed resolution stood (‘that whoever insinuates or suggests that the Church is in danger under her present majesty and her administration, is an enemy to her majesty, the Church and the kingdom’), then ‘some of us have nothing to do but to go home and say our prayers’.<sup>385</sup> His name appears on a list as having voted that the Church was in danger, and he protested against the resolution when the House passed the resolution denying it.</p><p>On 17 Jan. 1706, Nottingham defended himself against the report of Lord Halifax (Charles Montagu, Baron Halifax) from the committee on records, which complained of the neglect of the recent secretaries of state in failing to pass on the public papers: Nottingham said that he had parted with some papers he should have kept for his own security. Pembroke ‘preferred’ a petition from the trustees of the deceased marquess of Halifax’s estate, including Nottingham, on 23 Jan., praying leave to bring in a bill to sort out the estate.<sup>386</sup> This bill was opposed by the widow of the first marquess and the sister of the second and after their petition against leave to bring in the bill was read on 1 Feb., no further proceedings took place.<sup>387</sup> Nottingham seconded Rochester on 21 Feb. of dispensing with the standing orders of the House of allowing 14 days after the commitment of a private bill to give notice to interested parties (presumably to allow more bills to be completed before the impending recess), but this was opposed by Wharton, Halifax, Godolphin and Marlborough and not passed. In committee of the whole House on 23 Feb. Nottingham, along with Rochester, supported the bill for restoring certain lands to the archbishop of Dublin relating to their purchase from the trustees for sale of the forfeited estates in Ireland, opposing amendments proposed by Halifax.<sup>388</sup> Nottingham dissented on 9 Mar. from agreement with the Commons’ vote that Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter to the Earl of Stamford</em> was ‘a scandalous, false, and malicious libel’. Nottingham attended the last day of the session on 19 March. </p><h2><em>The Union, the War and Sacheverell, 1706-10</em></h2><p>Critical of the conduct of the war away from central Europe, in a letter of July 1706 Nottingham criticized the neglect of the war in the West Indies and in October Godolphin was worried that the complaints of the earl of Peterborough (formerly earl of Monmouth) about his treatment and the war in Spain would adversely affect the business of the forthcoming session, especially as ‘one may be sure’ Nottingham ‘will be fully possessed of that whole affair.’<sup>389</sup> Nottingham was present when the next session opened on 3 Dec. 1706. He attended on 62 days, 72 per cent of the total and was named to 36 committees. On 11 Jan. 1707 Nottingham acquainted the Lords that he had ‘something of moment to communicate to them’. They ordered the business to be heard on the 14th.<sup>390</sup> On that day, he talked about the importance of the Union and the difficulties in securing it and ‘moved that all the papers touching that affair’ should be laid before the House. Godolphin answered that the articles were nearly finished in Scotland, and would then be laid before Parliament, so that the matter was dropped.<sup>391</sup> Another version of Nottingham’s speech reports him warning that since the Scottish Parliament had provided security for Presbyterian church government in Scotland, the English Parliament should provide ‘against the dangers, with which the Church, by law established, was threatened, in case the Union was established’. He was seconded by Rochester.<sup>392</sup> News of Nottingham’s speech provoked a flurry of organizational activity: Nottingham registered the proxy of William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell on 15 Jan. and on the 18th Bishop Lloyd told John Hall*, bishop of Bristol that his proxy was necessary ‘upon account of some motion made in the House’ by Nottingham.<sup>393</sup></p><p>Before the House went into a committee of the whole on 3 Feb. 1707 on the bill for the security of the Church of England, Nottingham seconded Archbishop Sharp’s motion to instruct the committee to insert into the bill, ‘as a fundamental condition of the intended Union’, a clause declaring the Test Act perpetual and unalterable. In all probability he drew up the protest, which he signed, when the motion was negatived.<sup>394</sup> As Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> recounted, this bill was a ‘confirmation of all acts that have been already made in favour of it’, to which Nottingham ‘would have had the Test Act inserted’.<sup>395</sup> On 15 Feb., in committee of the whole House, Nottingham, along with Guernsey, spoke in favour of postponing the first article of the Union. The motion to do so was lost on a division which Nottingham had rather not been called, ‘for fear of showing the thinness of their party’ (and indeed they could only muster around 20 votes). Nottingham then spoke against the first article, ‘upon account of altering the name that it would subvert the whole laws’.<sup>396</sup> He alleged that the name ‘Great Britain’ was an innovation in the monarchy and moved that the opinion of the judges be sought, although they ruled that the name did not alter or impair the constitution of the realm as the laws remained the same.<sup>397</sup> Nicolson observed that ‘the Finch family’—Nottingham, Guernsey and Winchilsea—were those who were the warmest against the Union. Nottingham was one of the ‘chief’ opponents on 19 Feb. of the ninth article on the proportionality of the land tax.<sup>398</sup> On 21 Feb. Nottingham spoke on the 15th article, the ‘Equivalent’, which he said was ‘highly unreasonable’, as the Scots had free entry into English markets and paid so little to support the expenses of government, including the war; furthermore, he said that the part given to the Darien Company was ‘so ordered’ as to favour a few persons rather than ‘indemnifying every private sufferer in that unhappy enterprise’.<sup>399</sup> In the committee of the whole House on 21 Feb. Nottingham’s concerns over the Habeas Corpus Act were ignored because the judges saw no ‘hazard’ in the Union. On 24 Feb., when the committee went through the last seven articles, Nicolson observed that the debates were chiefly managed by Nottingham and Somers.<sup>400</sup> Nottingham was reported to have argued that ‘it seemed by the treaty the queen could not make any of the Scottish peers, after the Union, sitting peers’. Halifax responded ‘that he wished his lordship would make that point out, for he was sure it would be better that it were so; the crown would be delivered of great importunities’.<sup>401</sup> On that day, after the last article had been read Nottingham, after apologizing for having troubled the House on most of the articles, again melodramatically argued that the passage of the Union would subvert the constitution.<sup>402</sup> On 4 Mar. Nottingham voted in favour of and then protested against the rejection of a rider to the Union bill which insisted that the ratification of the treaty should not be construed as approval of the Presbyterian way of worship, or suggesting that the Church of Scotland’s doctrine constituted ‘the true Protestant religion’. He then protested against the passage of the bill itself. He last attended during the session on 2 Apr., and presumably left London before the short session of April 1707 convened on the 14th.</p><p>Nottingham was omitted from the new Privy Council of Great Britain in May 1707.<sup>403</sup> In late July he was in correspondence with Dartmouth over the marriage of his daughter, the widowed marchioness of Halifax, to John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe. Nottingham spent August hesitating over the match.<sup>404</sup> While John Bridges on 8 Oct. was confidently able to report that the marriage would go ahead, James Johnston on 30 Oct. wrote that Roxburghe’s ‘affair’ which had been ‘quite off’ the previous week, was now back on again: Nottingham ‘knows not, it seems, his own mind’.<sup>405</sup> The couple eventually married on 1 Jan. 1708.</p><p>Nottingham was present when the next session opened on 23 Oct. 1707, despite telling Dartmouth as recently as 9 Oct. that</p><blockquote><p>if I were never so idle and had nothing to do, I have a great deal to say against London, where I can do no good to any, but may [do] much harm to myself, at least I shall expose myself to great and unavoidable but yet fruitless vexation, instead of quiet and satisfaction which I enjoy here, more, I can truly say, than ever I had in my life.<sup>406</sup></p></blockquote><p>He did attend on only 29 days, 27 per cent of the total and was named to seven committees. After attending the first three days of the session on 23, 30 Oct. and 6 Nov., he did not appear again until 1 December. On 15 Dec., when the state of the war in Spain was considered in committee of the whole House, Nottingham joined Rochester and Haversham in speaking in defence of Peterborough. When the House continued the debate on the 19th, Nottingham spoke for half an hour, ‘took notice of the ill condition of the kingdom in the decrease of our money and trade, but agreed it was absolutely necessary to support King Charles’, proposed sending 20,000 men from Flanders under a British commander, and said that ‘Spain ought to be our principal regard, for that in Flanders we might war to eternity and never come to anything decisive, wherefore he proposed we should [act] there only on the defensive’.<sup>407</sup> When the debate moved on to the question of the allies sending their quotas to Spain, Nottingham was in favour of including the Dutch in the question, but Somers prevailed upon the House for the address to refer only to the Emperor.<sup>408</sup> James Brydges*, the future earl of Carnarvon, thought that Nottingham had ‘endeavoured to fix a fault upon the ministry in the manner of that war’s being managed, and that it had been neglected there, in order to aggrandize and increase my Lord duke’s reputation and glory’. He believed that the high Tories had expected to be supported by the Whigs, as they had previously done; this time, however, they deserted them, Somers closing the debate with a motion for an address that no peace could be safe or honourable while Spain and the West Indies remained in Bourbon hands.<sup>409</sup> On 9 Jan. 1708 Nottingham was one of four peers asking for an investigation into the allegation that the battle of Almanza had been ‘fought by positive orders’.<sup>410</sup> Although Nottingham was last recorded as attending on 31 Jan., on 5 Feb. Bishop Nicolson listed him among those supporting moves to abolish the Scottish Privy Council.<sup>411</sup> Nottingham does seem to have left London before the fall of Harley that month. He was certainly back at Burley by 8 Mar. when he wrote to solicit Dartmouth’s support for the Stratford-Dunchurch road bill, which was brought up from the Commons and received its first reading on 19 Mar. and passed the following day.<sup>412</sup> In about May 1708 Nottingham was classed as a Tory on a marked list of the Parliament of Great Britain. Nottingham again mobilized his interest for the Rutland election of 1708, but he could not prevail to return two Tory candidates, even though only a single Whig candidate stood.<sup>413</sup> In response Nottingham allegedly ‘turned off all his tenants and put out of offices all who were suspected to be for Mr [Philip] Sherard<sup>‡</sup>’.<sup>414</sup> He even played a role in the Scottish peerage election, in support of his son-in-law Roxburghe, lobbying Leeds to ensure that his son, Carmarthen, cast his vote for him.<sup>415</sup> Nottingham was not supportive of the ministers, being reported by Roxburghe in July 1708 as being ‘more averse to them than ever’.<sup>416</sup></p><p>Nottingham’s perceived importance to the Tories can be gauged by a letter written to him by Bromley on 2 Oct. 1708, concerning a possible Tory candidate for Speaker in the new Parliament; if Nottingham approved, ‘it is humbly desired you’d be pleased to engage all you can to be in town the first day of the session and if your Lordship can any way do it to secure some of the Scotch to be with us.’ Nottingham’s reply must have been encouraging in general, but promised no action on his part, for on 23 Oct. Bromley wrote again, to press his attendance, some peers being unwilling to act without him. Rather plaintively, he ended ‘the term is begun, has your Lordship no business at it?’ Bromley regretted on 11 Nov. that Nottingham was ‘so much determined against coming to town at a juncture when all advice and assistance are wanted’ in order to take advantage of Whig divisions over the speakership. In his draft reply of 15 Nov., Nottingham counselled caution in dealing with Harley, suggesting that Bromley listen to his proposals rather than advancing any of his own. He decided to remain in the country although ‘if I could hear that resolutions were taken to lay open our grievances and boldly to endeavour to remedy effectually, I think I could not refuse’ to answer his commands.<sup>417</sup> Thus, Nottingham ‘flatly refused’ to leave Burley to discuss political strategy, and dampened down Bromley’s hopes of an alliance with Harley, which may have been discussed during a visit Bromley had made to Burley in the early autumn.<sup>418</sup></p><p>Nottingham was not, therefore, present when the 1708 Parliament convened on 16 Nov., and did not attend the christening on 2 Dec. by Archbishop Sharp of his grandson, Robert Ker*, the future 2nd duke of Roxburghe, Dartmouth standing in for him as godfather.<sup>419</sup> On 20 Dec. Nottingham wrote again to Bromley about the prospects for two Whig measures, the removal of the sacramental test and a general naturalization, and of his hopes for a personal application to the queen by the Tories in the shape of Rochester, backed by Archbishop Sharp and Bishops John Hough*, of Lichfield and Coventry and Moore of Ely. The letter also exhibited a deep distrust of Harley. He wrote again on the 29th suggesting ways of proceeding in investigating the attempted invasion of Scotland, even detailing some questions which might be asked in the Commons. Bromley’s response on 31 Dec. was to reiterate the need for Nottingham’s presence in warding off the threat to the Church.<sup>420</sup> Johnston remarked on 3 Jan. 1709, on the uncertain political situation that ‘Nottingham comes up and both Houses will be full, but who shall unite does not yet appear’.<sup>421</sup> Nottingham did finally come up, first attending the House on 28 Jan., and was present on 31 days, 34 per cent of the total and was named to 13 committees. He protested on 15 Mar. against the committal of the general naturalization bill and on 1 Apr. acted as a teller in opposition to James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, on the question of whether to reverse the decree in the case of <em>Hedges v. Hedges</em>. He last attended on 8 Apr., two weeks before the end of the session.</p><p>On 10 Aug. 1709 Nottingham was looking forward to the prospect of a visit to Burley by Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> and Arthur Annesley*, the future 5th earl of Anglesey, in the first week of September, remarking incidentally on the favours he had received from Hanmer in Wales.<sup>422</sup> Nottingham again missed the beginning of the next session at Westminster on 15 Nov., and did not attend until 1 Feb. 1710; he then missed only five days in February and March, sitting on 42 days in all, 45 per cent of the total and being named to 19 committees. What finally brought him to town and stimulated his regular attendance was the Sacheverell trial and other issues concerning the defence of the Church. Nottingham entered his protest on 16 Feb. against not sending for James Greenshields and the magistrates of Edinburgh to be present at the hearing of his appeal before the Lords. He then protested against the decision not to adjourn the House before it considered whether to join the Commons in an address to the queen for the immediate departure of Marlborough to Holland and then against the address itself. Following the Sacheverell trial proceedings on 7 Mar. 1710, Nottingham sounded an optimistic note about Sacheverell’s fate: ‘hitherto he triumphs in the argument and today finished his defence with the most glorious harangue that I have ever heard or read in any author not excepting Tully; there are many converts, and I have some reason to believe he will be acquitted’.<sup>423</sup> Further, Nottingham’s legalistic turn of mind had thought of a way of stopping the trial. Following the completion of the prosecution case on 10 Mar., Nottingham asked whether he should put a question to the judges in Westminster Hall (where the trial was being held) or in the House itself. After an adjournment to consider the matter, it was decided that Westminster Hall was the appropriate venue, whereupon he asked ‘whether, by the law of England, and constant practice in all prosecutions by indictment or information, for crimes or misdemeanours, in writing or speaking, the particular words supposed to be criminal must not be expressly specified in such indictment or information?’ Faced with a question that could have destroyed the prosecution, another adjournment of the trial was secured. Back in the Lords, Nottingham carried his point and the judges were asked for their opinion. They concurred with him, but only so far as it was the practice of the common law: Parliament was the master of its own procedures. On 11 Mar. the Lords debated the judges’ response, with Nottingham among the speakers. They voted to ‘proceed to the determination of the impeachment’ of Sacheverell, ‘according to the law of the land, and the law and usage of Parliament’.<sup>424</sup> A search for precedents then commenced, with the implications quite clear to some observers: George Baillie<sup>‡ </sup>thought that ‘if this had gone otherwise there would have been an end of the trial’, and a correspondent of the countess of Lindsey thought that ‘some hope the Doctor may come off by this means’.<sup>425</sup> Indeed, on 10 Mar., when the issue first arose, the Tories ‘handed out a paper’ which spelt this out, and on the 11th published all over town that Sacheverell would be acquitted on those grounds.<sup>426</sup> John Bridges, more pessimistically thought the vote on the 11th meant that ‘a man might be criminal upon a general charge according to the custom of and usage of Parliaments, which I take to be a leading vote to his condemnation.’<sup>427</sup> On 14 Mar., it was revealed that 40 persons had been impeached between 1620 and 1701, but only one of those cases, Roger Mainwaring in 1628, gave any support to the method currently being followed. This somewhat dubious precedent, though, was sufficient for the Whigs to force through their interpretation. Nottingham asked for the original documents to be produced, but he was told that not all of them could be found. He then attempted to secure an adjournment, so that he could produce the contrary precedents from his own papers, which contained notes on many of the cases, but he was defeated. He protested against the failure to adjourn.<sup>428</sup> Clearly riled by this procedural defeat, Nottingham pledged that, ‘though he was very much tired, he must tell them his thoughts and should speak an hour’. After only 30 minutes the queen arose and left the Hall, leaving him too disconcerted to continue.<sup>429</sup> He argued that</p><blockquote><p>there is a great difference between a single instance and a law custom, especially since we conceive that in all the proceedings, at least all that have appeared to us for 400 years of the prosecutions in Parliament, the particular words charged as criminal, have been constantly expressed in the articles or declarations of impeachment.<sup>430</sup></p></blockquote><p>As he wrote later that day, the matter had been decided ‘upon one single precedent, not clear and plain but justly controverted, and which no man could or did affirm to be fact against 40 instances to the contrary’.<sup>431</sup> The Whigs then carried their substantive point that by the law and usage of Parliament, in prosecutions by impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanours, it was not necessary to include the specific words supposed to be criminal. Nottingham then protested against the resolution.<sup>432</sup></p><p>Nottingham spoke twice in the debate on first article of the impeachment on 16 Mar. 1710, although, according to White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, he was one of those who ‘spoke long but so low that I could know little more than their general votes for the Doctor’.<sup>433</sup> A draft of one of the speeches Nottingham delivered on the 16th has survived in which he attacked the doctrine of resistance, denying that it was ‘lawful’ and that it ‘brought about the revolution and was a necessary means of it’, and concluding that ‘there is one thing that must necessarily acquit’ Sacheverell from the charge in this article, namely that he was required by the Church to preach as he did, otherwise it would have been against the rubric of the Church and disobedient to it.<sup>434</sup> At the end of the debate he recorded that when the question was called for, a debate arose with Nottingham advocating that ‘there determination upon every article should be given in the court’, a motion answered by Godolphin, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton and others.<sup>435</sup> Nottingham then protested against putting the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article of their impeachment and then against the resolution itself. On the following day Nottingham made a short speech on the third article and then protested against the resolution that the Commons had made good the charges contained in the remaining three articles of the impeachment.<sup>436</sup> He protested on 18 Mar. against the decision to restrict the question on Sacheverell to a simple guilty or not guilty verdict. On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, and protested against the resolution declaring him so. The following day he protested against the censure placed upon Sacheverell by way of a punishment. His contributions to the debates on Sacheverell were backed by copious note-taking and considerable analysis, drawing on his extensive legal knowledge and long-standing interest in the issue of resistance at the Revolution and its consequences.<sup>437</sup></p><p>As Nottingham concluded in a letter to his son, Daniel Finch<sup>†</sup>, Lord Finch, the future 3rd earl of Nottingham and 8th earl of Winchilsea, on 24 Mar. 1710,</p><blockquote><p>never was more concern shown among all sorts of people than upon this occasion, and it is now pretty plain how zealous the generality of the people all over England are for the Church; and it is a pretty odd sight to see the victors more uneasy than those who are overcome, if they may be said to be overcome who have such an issue of this affair as I have told you.<sup>438</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 3 Apr., Rev. Ralph Bridges had heard ‘a flying report’ that Nottingham had ‘got all the speeches that were spoke in the H. of Lords on the debate of the articles there, which in due time will be published with the protests and reasons.’<sup>439</sup> Having last attended on 1 Apr., he left London, meeting his former chaplain, William Wotton, on the road: when Wootton expressed the hope that ‘this flame were quenched’, Nottingham responded ‘Do you think it should be quenched?’<sup>440</sup> On 5 Apr. Nottingham arrived in Rutland. He was ‘met by most of the gentry and clergy of the county on horse-back besides a great number of persons on foot,’ and given thanks ‘for the great and good services he had done the queen, the Church and Doctor Sacheverell in the sessions of Parliament’.<sup>441</sup> Another report had him being ‘met by about 1,000 horse at the entrance of his own county, 500 of whom were entertained with a sumptuous cold treat, and wine and ale at his own house that evening.’<sup>442</sup> Nottingham moved to secure the election of his heir (who was currently abroad) for Rutland, and then he led the campaign to unseat his Whig partner.<sup>443</sup> Upon reporting his victory Nottingham recounted how he had created free-holders to nullify his opponents’ creations, although he did not expect to use them.<sup>444</sup> (When the election petition was heard in the Commons for the first time on 18 Jan. 1711, Nottingham looked on from the gallery.<sup>445</sup>) After Dartmouth was appointed secretary in June 1710, Nottingham sought to use Dartmouth’s father-in-law Guernsey to solicit a favour which he did not feel able to ask Godolphin at the treasury, the appointment of a separate receiver-general for Rutland, rather than making do with the Whiggish man nominated by Sunderland for both Northamptonshire and Rutland.<sup>446</sup></p><h2><em>The Ministry of Harley, 1710-11</em></h2><p>While Nottingham remained at Burley, speculation was rife as to his role in any new ministry. Both the lord privy seal and the admiralty were mentioned by contemporaries as possible posts for him.<sup>447</sup> This prompted the duchess of Roxburghe to write to her father at the end of August, craving his presence, for Harley</p><blockquote><p>brags that both you, and my uncle Guernsey, are now so pleased that my Lord Anglesey and my Lord Dartmouth are employed, that you both must do journey man’s work under them, or else keep out of the way of opposing; that ’twas never to be thought of, to bring in the leaders or high Tories, such as yourself and my Lord Rochester, into the administration for that would be contrary to that rule of moderation as to keep in the violent Whigs.<sup>448</sup></p></blockquote><p>Addison was better informed, writing on 1 Sept. that the ‘present scheme’ under Harley as ‘first minister of state’, would exclude Nottingham, Rochester and Leeds.<sup>449</sup> The major block to the employment of Nottingham in 1710 was the queen’s prejudice against him, even if Harley had been prepared to sanction his return to office.<sup>450</sup></p><p>Harley’s analysis of peers drawn up on 3 Oct. 1710 listed Nottingham as a supporter of the new ministry. On 9 Oct. William North*, 6th Baron North was surprised that Nottingham was not in London, as he recognized that the changes had gone further than originally intended and foresaw that Nottingham’s presence ‘may be necessary to keep things steady’.<sup>451</sup> Shrewsbury predicted on 20 Oct. that Nottingham and Guernsey would be cool towards the new administration in the Lords, ‘unless her majesty use some measures to please them’.<sup>452</sup> Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, too, reckoned that ‘most considerable are to be left out in this scheme, and 199 [Harley] pretends to be the head, which will make such men as Lord Nottingham draw off as many as they can from him.’<sup>453</sup> On 28 Oct. John Ward<sup>‡</sup> reported that in one week’s time all the principal Tory Members would be in town, and therefore Nottingham’s presence would be of great import to his friends and the public. Ward wrote again on 2 Nov. to inform him that when all his friends were in town, he would write again, ‘and would by no means hurry your Lordship till I can give you good satisfaction that we wait for nothing else’. On 2 Nov. Bromley asked Nottingham to ensure his early attendance in London otherwise his friends would ‘be very much discouraged and cannot have an entire confidence’. Ward referred on 4 Nov. to a meeting of Nottingham’s friends ‘at Lord A’s [Anglesey’s] this morning where your Lordship’s thoughts were much wanted. It’s hoped your Lordship will be pleased to quicken Sir Roger Mostyn<sup>‡</sup> and some Members who are near you’.<sup>454</sup></p><p>Nottingham was present when Parliament met on 25 Nov. 1710, attending on 69 days, 61 per cent of the total. He was named to 22 committees. He took a major part in the fresh investigation of the Spanish campaign of 1707, in support of Peterborough. On 9 Jan. 1711, during the examination of General Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], in committee of the whole House, Nottingham interrupted him, ‘telling him he wasn’t being examined about Almanza’, and was rebuked in turn by Buckingham for speaking to the witness without going through the chair. Two days later, during a debate which led to the decision not to receive petitions from Galway and Tyrawley seeking time to prepare their defence, Nottingham thought that these petitions should not be granted as ‘this was no proper time to deliver them, and because the petitions themselves were improper’. He answered Wharton’s view that a censure would not allow them a proper defence, by noting that he did not deny them a right to be heard, and if a prosecution was ordered then would be the time to hear them. He then spoke against the motion that Peterborough’s instructions should be laid before the House. On 12 Jan. when the culpability of ministers for the failures of Spanish campaign was discussed in committee of the whole House, Nottingham argued that he would not have supported an offensive war at that juncture and that there were too few men at Almanza, which showed that ‘advocating an offensive war was a very ill council’.<sup>455</sup> The final address on the failings of the Spanish campaign reported to the House on 8 Feb. 1711 was probably drawn up by Nottingham, and not by the court: a draft of it exists in his papers. If so, it may account for the cool reply to it given by the queen.<sup>456</sup></p><p>Nottingham spoke on 5 Feb. 1711 in favour of a second reading for the bill repealing the general naturalization act and protested against the bill’s rejection.<sup>457</sup> On 13 Feb. he reported from the committees appointed to consider the orders and customs of the House and to peruse and perfect the Journal concerning the form of the entry for 9 Feb., in which the House voted to expunge some of the reasons given for the protestation of 3 Feb. against the resolutions criticizing the ministers in post at the time of the Spanish campaign. Nottingham wrote on 17 Feb. to inform Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup> that he had enlisted his tenants in Rutland in support of his candidature for a county election in Leicestershire made necessary by the removal of John Manners*, who sat in the Commons as marquess of Granby, to the Lords as 2nd duke of Rutland. Nottingham added ‘I am very sorry you meet with any opposition, especially from a gentleman [Henry Tate] who is in the same interest with you; for this dissention may be of ill consequence in future elections’. Tate eventually responded to the concerns about dividing the Tories by withdrawing shortly before the poll.<sup>458</sup></p><p>It seems possible that the increasingly effective opposition of the October Club was linked to the disappointment of its members over the failure of important legislation, such as the repeal of the general naturalization act and the place bill. Nottingham shared their disappointment and seems to have attempted to influence their proceedings through his friends among the membership.<sup>459</sup> Dartmouth later referred to a meeting at Rochester’s house at which Nottingham met with six ministers and made plain his desire to crush the Whigs through prosecuting them for past misdeeds. When he was rebuffed, he became the ‘most indefatigable in persecuting’ the ministers, ‘with all the art that he was master of’.<sup>460</sup> Nottingham certainly had a plan laid out for the 1710-11 session, a four-page memorandum of ‘what to me seems proper to be done’. After noting that ‘there has been much time lost, we ought now to make more haste, and to lose no more in expectation of any great matters from the ministers’. Thus, the Commons should ‘collect such matters of fact as are plain and indisputable, relating to money or maladministration of other affairs, and to represent them in two addresses to the queen, that they may be public to the whole nation’. Topics suggested for inclusion were ‘the loss of a million in the customs’ and ‘the cheat in the Stamp Office’, as well as the failure to provide for the proper defence of Scotland in 1708.<sup>461</sup></p><p>Nottingham was named to manage a conference on 9 Mar. 1711 on a matter relating to the safety of the queen’s person and government. On 3 Apr. Ward reported to Nottingham a meeting with Speaker Bromley the previous day in which it had been decided</p><blockquote><p>to bring on the notice of the invasion, to force on the account of the customs and stamp office and what other mismanagements the court can lay open without tedious inquires and to make two representations, the one of the money matters, the other of the church and state, and in the latter to expose the mask of moderation by which we have so much suffered and the trimming measures we fear and this in the boldest lively colours.</p></blockquote><p>This bore some similarity to Nottingham’s programme and significantly Ward added that this required ‘your Lordship at hand to direct and conduct us and nothing can discourage us but your Lordship’s withdrawing this from us’.<sup>462</sup> This was clearly an attempt to entice Nottingham to remain in London. It failed to do so, and in any case this attack was blunted by the report to the Commons of the missing £35 million, the target of the inquiries about mismanagement of the revenue, on 4 April. It may be that the ministry had been forewarned and had deliberately pre-empted Nottingham’s strategy, although the Commons ultimately did pass on 31 May a representation criticizing the financial mismanagement of the previous ministry, the grant of a new charter to Bewdley and the invitation to the Palatinates.<sup>463</sup> By then Nottingham had long departed from London, last attending on 9 Apr., over two months before the session ended on 12 June. One of Wodrow’s correspondents wrote that Nottingham was ‘very much disgusted’, as were Rochester and the October Club: ‘they are all displeased with Mr Harley’.<sup>464</sup></p><p>The unexpected death of Rochester, the lord president, at the beginning of May 1711 saw Nottingham immediately mentioned as a possible successor.<sup>465</sup> John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, advised against it:</p><blockquote><p>if you put Nottingham in and he over-sets the balance, you can no more raise the scales again. You know him of no great consequence as he is out, and what service can he do you with the Tories, to make amends for misleading others to be desperate. Would you give his weight to secure an interest already yours by the greatest obligations imaginable, and after this, may not his being in just now show a shift and make it doubtful by tempting them to hope for their old extravagances with him, which they must despair of as impossible without him.</p></blockquote><p>Nottingham, he suggested, could ‘be made as useful with more safety in giving his son Lord Finch a place, rather than in admitting him into the ministry’.<sup>466</sup> In the event, Ward, Mostyn, Henry Bunbury<sup>‡</sup>, and Heneage Finch<sup>‡</sup> (Nottingham’s nephew), all received posts. John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, told Maynwaring that the position of the lord president had been offered to every one of the cabinet, and ‘there never had been any thoughts of Lord Nottingham, but quite the contrary; that 199 [Harley] would think his power at an end if that person were taken in, which would only give life and encouragement to that party which he intended to weaken’.<sup>467</sup> Another death, that of the lord privy seal, Newcastle, on 15 July 1711 again brought Nottingham’s name to the fore as a replacement, but as St John explained, Nottingham was ‘disagreeable personally to the queen; and besides, his relations are so well provided for, that it is thought he ought to be contented’.<sup>468</sup> He did have his supporters, such as Bromley, who wrote to Nottingham on 27 Aug. to express the hope that he would be made lord privy seal, as it would ‘evoke a more entire confidence in our friends than any other measure can be taken, and would do the ministry more service among them, than all the professions (of which they are not sparing) they can make’.<sup>469</sup> Nottingham’s failure to secure either post was the reason given by Swift to explain the alliance with the Whigs into which he entered in late 1711.<sup>470</sup></p><h2><em>Whig Alliance, 1711-13</em></h2><p>Rumours reached the Whigs early in October 1711 that Nottingham was expressing strong disapproval of a peace being negotiated in which Spain remained in Bourbon hands.<sup>471</sup> Nottingham arrived in London on 23 Nov., and on the 25th he and Lord Finch kissed the queen’s hand.<sup>472</sup> He attended the prorogation on the 27th, delaying the beginning of the session. Considerable uncertainty surrounded Nottingham’s intentions, although Baillie attributed the prorogation to ministerial unease, ‘for had 333 [the English ministry] been masters there would have been no prorogation, in short the fate of that affair seems to depend upon 66 [Nottingham]’.<sup>473</sup> Shortly after his arrival Oxford (the former Harley) sent Poulett to ascertain Nottingham’s position. Following a discussion of two and a half hours, Poulett found Nottingham ‘as sour and fiercely wild as you can imagine anything to be that has lived long in the desert’.<sup>474</sup> The failure of this approach from ministers, including a personal visit from Oxford, was signalled by the publication of an advertisement in the <em>Post Boy</em> for 4-6 Dec. which referred to a ‘very tall, thin, swarthy complexioned man’ having ‘lately withdrawn himself from his friends, being seduced by wicked persons to follow ill courses’, and of a lampoon of ‘Dismal’ composed by Swift on the eve of the session, <em>An Excellent New Song, Being the Intended Speech of A Famous Orator against Peace</em>.<sup>475</sup> The Junto used Roxburghe as the initial point of contact with Nottingham, followed by Marlborough.<sup>476</sup> By 4 Dec. L’Hermitage had heard that Nottingham had made such a strong case against the peace preliminaries that Archbishop Sharp intended to attend Parliament, presumably to back him, and on 5 Dec. Swift recorded that Wharton had been heard to claim that ‘Dismal’ would ‘save England at last’.<sup>477</sup></p><p>Nottingham attended the opening day of the session on 7 Dec. 1711, and moved for the insertion in the address of a phrase demanding ‘No Peace without Spain’, ‘against his usual principles’.<sup>478</sup> In a long speech, he spoke ‘with great earnestness, to show that if Spain and the Indies were given up to France, Europe was undone, Britain enslaved and the queen unsafe upon her throne’. Further, even though he had a large family to provide for, he would cheerfully submit to the government taking ‘his whole revenue to apply to the war, leaving him only some small branch to keep him and his children alive’. In L’Hermitage’s account, Nottingham had said that he would prefer to live on £200 a year (although he had 14 children living) rather than consent to a peace which would destroy the Protestant Religion, the English nation, and all Europe.<sup>479</sup> Even so, the impact of his speech was limited: Johnston wrote that he ‘carried none of his friends with him’, while Ralph Bridges felt that for ‘all his scraps of scripture and most assured and solemn protestations of his sincerity in his speech’, he had weakened his interest with the Tories and not gained any among the Whigs. Lord Finch had defended his father as having</p><blockquote><p>served the Church party very faithfully for these 30 years past. He was allowed on all hands to have a very good understanding and had all this summer taken a[n] abundance of pains to study the important points of peace and war, and after all this, he could not but be concerned to find all his old friends desert him and run a-madding after a white staff.</p></blockquote><p>Bridges interpreted this as ‘a plain argument that his revolt is chiefly founded upon either envy or resentment that he is not in the management of affairs’.<sup>480</sup> Another account ended with the gibe that he was ‘Nott-in-game’.<sup>481</sup> The speech certainly failed to produce a significant rebellion of Tories in the Commons in their debate on the same day, although his son and perhaps 10 more Tories were part of the minority in the 232-106 defeat.<sup>482</sup> In the Lords, ‘not one of those upon whose interest he has valued himself will go along with him’.<sup>483</sup> Nottingham reported from the Address committee on the 8th and was listed as voting in the abandoned division of that day in favour of presenting the address as amended to include the peace clause.</p><p>The deal Nottingham made with the Whigs included a bill against occasional conformity.<sup>484</sup> Nottingham’s presence on his own list of peers produced around the beginning of December 1711 probably related to his new alliance with the Whigs over the attack on the peace and the occasional conformity bill. On 11 Dec. Baillie wrote to Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], that ‘we are to have an occasional conformity bill, and that the Whigs are to go into it in return to the assistance they have had from my Lord Nottingham in the last question’.<sup>485</sup> He added on the 13th that ‘the Whig Lords have agreed with Nottingham to pass the occasional conformity bill’, which would enhance Nottingham’s credibility with the Tories over other issues, such as the peace and the residence of a member of the house of Hanover in England.<sup>486</sup> Nottingham brought in the bill on 15 Dec. with the support of the ‘chief’ Whigs in the Lords.<sup>487</sup> It was a more moderate bill than that threatened by the ‘high-flyers’, with Nottingham describing it as ‘exactly the same’ as that of 1704, ‘save only the last two clauses which we left out as unreasonable favours to dissenters, and two clauses added, which were just and fair condescensions to them’.<sup>488</sup> Nottingham also lobbied the Commons in person to prevent the proposed penalties in the bill being left to the administration.<sup>489</sup> A blank had been left in the bill in the Lords to avoid any potential conflict with the Commons, but on 20 Dec. Nottingham heard of a plan for the Commons also to leave the penalty blank, which he prevented, with the aid of Anglesey, by speaking in advance of the day’s business to Members.<sup>490</sup> Indeed, as Dr Hamilton told the queen on 17 Dec., Nottingham ‘said he would not vote for it any other way than as it was drawn up’.<sup>491</sup> Nottingham complained of the Tories to his wife on 26 Dec. that</p><blockquote><p>notwithstanding this their darling bill which they could never have had but by me and that they know the Great-Man [Oxford] would never have given it them, nor suffered it if he could have helped it, ... yet there are such charms in the word peace ... or such enchantments in a white wand that tho’ there be scarce any that believe him sincere in their interests ... yet they are entirely governed by him and to such a degree that I am even railed at by ’em as a deserter for opposing his measures for peace.<sup>492</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 20 Dec., one of the correspondents of William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, told him that ‘Nottingham’s bill had a very quiet passage’ through the Lords, although Nottingham had received ‘a taste of that scurrility which has formerly been in so liberal a manner bestowed upon other men’.<sup>493</sup> The bill did seem to provide some re-assurance to the Tories that Nottingham was not acting as a stalking horse for the return of the Whigs and a renewed attack on the Church; Charles Aldworth<sup>‡</sup> wrote on 18 Dec. that Nottingham had made ‘some amends’ for his actions on the 7th by bringing in the bill to prevent occasional conformity, ‘which will in all probability, under God, be a real security to the Church for all generations’.<sup>494</sup></p><p>On 15 Dec. 1711 Nottingham had complained in the Lords of ‘a grub street speech’, supposedly delivered by him in the Lords on 7 December. A committee was named to investigate the matter.<sup>495</sup> The committee was revived on 21 Dec., and the following day William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, reported that the printer of the speech, Andrew Hinde, had been ordered into custody. Hinde, the author, printer, and publisher, of ‘a false and scandalous paper’, <em>The Earl of Nottingham’s Speech to the Honourable House of Lords</em> was brought to the Bar on 19 Jan. 1712, reprimanded by the lord keeper, Simon Harcourt*, the future Baron Harcourt, and discharged. Nottingham disowned this printed version as ‘ridiculous and nonsensical’.<sup>496</sup> Hinde’s publication was in addition to Swift’s <em>Excellent New Song, Being the Intended Speech of a Famous Orator against Peace</em> and its similarly titled rejoinder, the anonymous <em>The Nottingham Ballad. An Excellent New Song. Being the Intended Speech of a famous Orator</em>.<sup>497</sup> On 19 Dec. Nottingham was forecast by Oxford as likely to vote against James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, in the division expected the following day on the Hamilton peerage case. The next day he was indeed listed as voting in favour of the motion that no Scottish peer at the time of the Union could sit in the Lords by right of a British title created after the Union: he acted as a teller in the division opposite Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers. On 22 Dec., Nottingham sprang a surprise on a depleted House, when, following Devonshire’s motion for a bill to give the duke of Cambridge precedence above all other peers, he moved for an address that the peace congress should not open until the queen’s plenipotentiaries had instructions to work in concert with the allies and to preserve a strict union between them. The ambush had been so well laid that no division took place on the motion after it was amended by the court (who suggested that it was unnecessary, as the envoys already had been told to do so) to concede that the queen might already have given such instructions. Nottingham was then appointed to the committee to draw up the address, and duly reported it.<sup>498</sup> At the end of December, Marlborough was reported to be ‘almost daily’ at Nottingham’s.<sup>499</sup></p><p>Following the introduction of the 12 new peers on 2 Jan. 1712, the lord keeper read a message from the queen for an adjournment to the same day as the Commons stood adjourned. The Whigs opposed it, and were joined by Nottingham, who in seconding Somers, argued that the Lords should not be in such haste in a matter that so nearly concerned their constitution, that there was no precedent for such a message, and that they should follow ‘a known and good maxim in the law that what never had been never ought to be’. Furthermore, he pointed out, the House was a court of judicature and there were several private causes appointed to be heard between before the time of the next sitting of the Commons.<sup>500</sup> Nottingham was able to entice Thanet, Weymouth, Guernsey, John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret and Francis Seymour*, Baron Conway, into the lobby against adjourning, although the adjournment was carried.<sup>501</sup> When the House resumed on 14 Jan., it was expected that Nottingham would ‘open the eyes of the world’, but the House merely received another message to adjourn. On 17 Jan. Nottingham ‘made a speech for an hour against having the last words in the address inserted’, namely the thanks to the queen for her ‘great condescension’ in acquainting the House ‘with the progress already made towards the peace’, and for her assurance of communicating to the House ‘the terms of the Peace, before the same shall be concluded’.<sup>502</sup> Later on the 17th, Nottingham desired the leave of the House to bring in a petition of the executors of the 3rd earl of Anglesey, complaining that they could not perform their duties under the will relating to the deceased earl’s daughter, Lady Catherine Annesley, because Buckingham, who had married Anglesey’s widow, claimed privilege.</p><p>On 19 Jan. 1712 Nottingham reported the bill to enable John Leveson Gower*, 2nd Baron Gower, an infant, to make a settlement upon his marriage. John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerinoch wrote on 24 Jan. that on the ‘last day we sat’, the discussion ranged on how to solve the problem of the fall-out from the vote on Hamilton’s patent: Nottingham was one of the peers who ‘held their peace’.<sup>503</sup> Nottingham hoped that ‘some use may be made of their [the Scots’] discontent and they may be persuaded to join in Parliament to prevent this fatal peace’.<sup>504</sup> On 27 Jan. Swift recorded that Oxford had engaged him to ‘contrive some way to keep the archbishop of York from being seduced by’ Nottingham.<sup>505</sup> Nottingham supported the address from the Lords on 15 Feb. ‘expressing our indignation against the French’s usage of the queen’ in offering inadequate peace terms, noting that his brother, Guernsey, spoke ‘very handsomely’ and the court had acquiesced in it rather than lose the question. He disclaimed any credit for Guernsey’s intervention: ‘he was not prevailed upon to come into it by me (with whom he does not care to talk for reasons which I guess and reserve to tell you)’.<sup>506</sup></p><p>Nottingham was unable to prevent the amendment of the Scottish Episcopalian toleration bill in the Lords in committee on 13 Feb. 1712 to include an abjuration clause acceptable to the Kirk.<sup>507</sup> The Commons amended the new clause to ensure that non-juring Episcopalians and Presbyterians were treated the same. In the debate on 26 Feb. on the amendment made by the Commons to the bill, Nottingham and Guernsey spoke for retaining the Lords’ version of the clause, but with both John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar and Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton, assuring the House that all of the Presbyterian clergy would take the oath as amended, the Lords acquiesced in the Commons’ amendment.<sup>508</sup> As Nottingham put it, the ‘hardship to the Kirk’ in the bill was in that ‘part of the abjuration which relates to an Act of Parliament by which the successor is obliged to be of the communion of the Church of England, which they scruple to swear to, tho’ they will not scruple to swear to the person’. He concluded that ‘a very little alteration would have removed that scruple and not in the least weakened the oath’.<sup>509</sup> On 29 Feb. Marchmont used Roxburghe to approach Nottingham to attend a forthcoming appeal from the lords of the session in which John Hamilton of Pumpherston wished to reverse a judgment in favour of Lady Cardross and her son, the earl of Buchan [S]: Hamilton’s appeal succeeded on 8 April.<sup>510</sup> Possibly on 29 Feb. Nottingham and Guernsey attended ‘a great consult’ at Halifax’s.<sup>511</sup> According to James Greenshields, Nottingham remained ‘neutral’ over the bill for restoring church patronage rights in Scotland, which passed on 12 April.<sup>512</sup></p><p>Nottingham acted as a teller on 6 May 1712 opposite Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, in a division in committee of the whole House on the county elections bill, on an amendment to the clause allowing Quakers to affirm.<sup>513</sup> The defeat of the resumption bill on 20 May, a measure whose passage through the Lords Oxford had promised the October Club in exchange for their agreement not to tack it to a money bill, was in part attributed to Nottingham being ‘prevailed’ upon to attend and vote against it, ‘who had not been present the two former days’.<sup>514</sup> Maynwaring noted that in the Commons on the following day, Henry Campion<sup>‡</sup> ‘stood up, and in a very disorderly manner took notice of’ Nottingham’s speech on the bill, and</p><blockquote><p>almost repeated it, adding that he hoped the House would have in their immediate thoughts the resumption itself, and think no more of enquiries, especially since that noble Lord had declared he would be as much for the resumption of any person, and only disliked the last bill because it left room for partiality and favour.<sup>515</sup></p></blockquote><p>St John could only splutter: ‘I cannot express to you what part my Lord Nottingham acted; his son voted for tacking it to the money-bill; and he, in the House of Lords, opposed it when separated from it.’<sup>516</sup></p><p>Whigs were said to have boasted before the debate on the ‘restraining orders’ on 28 May 1712 that Oxford would be sent to the Tower and that Nottingham would be treasurer.<sup>517</sup> Nottingham joined in the Whig attack on the orders declaring that ‘he could not comprehend why orders had been given to our general not to fight, unless certain persons were apprehensive of weakening the French, so far as to disable them to assist them in bringing about designs which they durst not yet own’.<sup>518</sup> He then voted for the restraining orders to be lifted, and protested against the decision not to address the queen to send orders to Ormond to act offensively.<sup>519</sup> As Nottingham said ‘the world’s grown mad and any peace, any day, will be approved of’, although he was sceptical of Oxford’s claims that it would be ‘the most glorious that ever was made’.<sup>520</sup> On 6 June, when the queen came to the Lords to lay the peace terms before Parliament, Nottingham moved that consideration of the address be put off until the following Monday ‘because of the devotion of Whitsuntide’ (which was on the 8th). Instead, the House voted to consider it on the following day.<sup>521</sup> On the 7th, Nottingham attempted to add to the proposed address that the peace should be guaranteed by the allies, speaking ‘very handsomely and well’ in the debate, and denouncing the ‘folly’ of the clause by which Philip V renounced his claim to the French throne.<sup>522</sup> His motion was heavily defeated, against which he protested, although he was named to the subsequent address committee. There is evidence that Nottingham had a hand in drafting the expunged protests of 28 May and 7 June.<sup>523</sup></p><p>The last sitting Nottingham attended in the session was 13 June 1712. In all he had been present on 89 days, 83 per cent of the total and been named to 15 committees. By 26 June he was in the country, complaining in July in correspondence with Godolphin about the enthusiasm of the country for peace and the results of several by-elections.<sup>524</sup> He was believed to be at the forefront of attempts to prevent an address from Rutland in favour of the peace, the rector of Edith Weston noting that ‘we are chiefly swayed by some great men who are enemies to peace, who though they agree not so well among themselves, yet can agree in their dislike and opposing of that which the generality of the gentry, clergy and common people esteem a most valuable blessing.’<sup>525</sup> In September Nottingham was surprised by Marlborough’s decision to retire to the continent, following the sudden death of Godolphin, and asked Sunderland to try to dissuade him: without him he questioned whether there would be any point in attending the next session.<sup>526</sup> In November, Sunderland wanted to meet Nottingham in town so as to concert measures for the forthcoming session, which had already been put off to 13 Jan. 1713: ‘[we] should take the like pains before that time, to open people’s eyes and to show them, the snares that are laid for them and I will venture to say nobody is so capable of doing that as your lordship.’<sup>527</sup> It was reported on 2 Jan. 1713 that Nottingham had arrived in London, ‘tho’ many people thought he would not come this winter.’<sup>528</sup></p><p>Possibly on 8 Mar. 1713 Robert Benson*, the future Baron Bingley, wrote to Oxford to remind him to invite his father-in-law, Guernsey, to a meeting: ‘for though he should not come to the meeting tomorrow, yet the invitation will take away a pretence for complaint which his brother would make use of.’<sup>529</sup> Nottingham attended the prorogations of 13 Jan. 3 and 17 Feb. 3, 10 and 17 Mar. 1713, and was present when the session finally commenced on 9 April. He attended on 60 days of the session, 90 per cent of the total and was named to 15 committees. Following the queen’s speech of 9 Apr., in which she communicated the terms of the peace to the Lords, there was a debate over the Address. Nottingham was one of the managers against thanking the queen, on the grounds that the articles had not been laid before Parliament. He proposed removing the words from the Address congratulating the queen ‘upon the success of her endeavours for a general peace’, and for what she had done to secure the Protestant Succession.<sup>530</sup> Hugh Speke reported on 15 Apr. 1713 that Nottingham had attended a large gathering of Whig peers at the residence of Somers in Leicester Fields, presumably to plan parliamentary tactics.<sup>531</sup> On 21 Apr. Nottingham and the other executors of the 2nd marquess of Halifax made another legislative attempt to sort out his affairs by petitioning for a bill for the sale of the reversion and inheritance of the manor of Morley in Yorkshire. It was introduced on 8 May and eventually passed into law.<sup>532</sup> On 8 May John Bridges reported that he had heard a rumour of ‘a design hatching, whether if Lord Nottingham’s or no I can’t tell’, to promote a motion that the son of the Electoral Prince, Prince Frederick Lewis, ‘be sent for over here that the nation may have a sure and present pledge for the security of that succession and this ’tis thought can’t be reasonably objected against and can give no umbrage to our Court.’<sup>533</sup></p><p>When, in a debate on the state of the nation in committee of the whole House on 1 June 1713, James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater moved for the dissolution of the Union, Nottingham supported him to the extent that he foresaw no constitutional impediment to prevent the Union being dissolved by Parliament, ‘answering solidly all the trash had been said against us (as that it was not possible to dissolve the Union)’.<sup>534</sup> However, in another speech he joined with the Whigs in insisting that another day be appointed to consider how the succession would be settled and the peace and quiet of both kingdoms secured: both of these were absolutely necessary before discussion of the dissolution could be entered upon.<sup>535</sup> His actions were in keeping with the Whig strategy of maximizing the discomfort of the ministry, while ensuring that there was no actual threat to the Union.<sup>536</sup> On 5 June, Nottingham supported Balmerinoch’s opposition to the committal of the malt tax bill. When it was debated in committee of the whole House on 8 June, Nottingham argued that it was a breach of faith to impose the malt duty on Scotland.<sup>537</sup> About 13 June Oxford forecast Nottingham as likely to oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. The loss of the bill in the Commons on 18 June led to suspicions that there was ‘a division in the court and Lord N. hath great levees every day waiting on him’.<sup>538</sup> Nottingham supported Bolton on 29 June, when he raised a matter of privilege over the queen’s recent message to Parliament concerning the debts on the civil list being addressed only to the Commons. On the 30th, it was agreed, on Nottingham’s suggestion, to refer this matter to a select committee, whereupon Wharton unleashed his motion for the queen to use her influence to secure the removal of the pretender from Lorraine.<sup>539</sup> On 3 July Nottingham seconded Sunderland’s motion for a second address on the removal of the pretender, expressing surprise that the queen’s previous attempts had met with no success.<sup>540</sup> He last attended on 16 July and by the 25th he was at Burley.<sup>541</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1713 and the Succession Crisis</em></h2><p>Nottingham had been preoccupied by the forthcoming electoral contest in Rutland since January 1713, by the end of which Lord Finch had ‘been personally round about the county, haranguing the freeholders, and spending liberally amongst them, endeavouring as well as he can to justify his own and others proceedings last winter.’<sup>542</sup> Nottingham also seems to have engaged in campaigning of a sort in Buckinghamshire, for on 17 Feb. William Viccars reported that Nottingham, ‘who makes a great noise among us’, would visit Claydon on the 19th, and in May Lady Fermanagh referred to Nottingham having sent letters about the forthcoming election for Buckinghamshire.<sup>543</sup> However Nottingham concentrated his energies on the election of Lord Finch, and the defeat of Richard Halford<sup>‡</sup> (whose election for the county he had previously worked hard to secure): ‘to effect it I will do all I can tho’ it should lessen the number of my son’s votes and hazard his election, but this hazard I believe is very little, tho’ I meet with some very unhandsome proceedings’.<sup>544</sup> He duly achieved his aim, Lord Finch and Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Sherard [I] being returned. After congratulating Nottingham on his success in Rutland, Sunderland’s missive of 14 Sept. concentrated on Nottingham’s relations with the Hanoverian Tories Anglesey and Hanmer. He hoped that Nottingham had kept up a good correspondence with the former during the interval of Parliament, ‘because by it you will know how far you may depend upon him, and by it will contribute very much towards fixing him’. In response, Nottingham pretty much agreed that Anglesey’s position was crucial.<sup>545</sup> According to Kreienberg on 23 Feb. 1714 Nottingham had ‘urged Anglesey very much to enter into measures for proposing an invitation’ to the son of the elector of Hanover to come to England, but without success.<sup>546</sup></p><p>Nottingham was present when the 1714 Parliament met on 16 February. He attended on 70 days, 92 per cent of the total and was named to 14 committees. He protested on 11 Mar. against the rejection of an addition to the address for a proclamation for discovering the author [Swift] of <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>: the proposed additional words would have hinted that the author was close to the administration. On 15 Mar. Philip Herbert<sup>‡</sup> and his wife Marianne, daughter of William Finch, Viscount Maidstone (first son of Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea), who had died in his father’s lifetime, petitioned the Lords to overturn a Chancery decree in favour of her brother-in-law, Hon. John Finch<sup>†</sup>, the future 6th earl of Winchilsea (and youngest son of the 3rd earl), and Nottingham and his sons, but after a hearing on 27 Apr., the Lords upheld the decree.<sup>547</sup> In a debate on the state of the nation in committee of the whole House on 17 Mar., Nottingham joined the Whigs in attacking the ministry for not securing the removal of the pretender from Lorraine and in favour of a series of addresses on that and other matters relating to the peace and the fate of the Catalans.<sup>548</sup> During the Easter adjournment, 19-31 Mar., Nottingham, with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll, worked hard to forge an agreement between the Hanoverian Tories and the Whigs in order to safeguard the Protestant Succession. On 1 Apr. a meeting between Nottingham, Argyll, Anglesey, Hanmer and Sharp’s protégé and successor, William Dawes*, archbishop of York, brought an agreement to secure the Protestant Succession, remove Oxford and replace him with a treasury commission.<sup>549</sup> This newly forged alliance launched a sustained attack on the ministry, beginning with the further consideration of the queen’s speech on 5 April.<sup>550</sup> After various papers relating to the Pretender had been read, Nottingham supported Wharton’s general attack on the peace in ‘another harangue’ in which he ‘lashed and reflected bitterly on the ministry’.<sup>551</sup> The ministry responded by moving that the succession was not in danger, and winning the vote by 14. On 10 Apr. Nottingham attended a consult at Halifax’s, and Baron Schütz revealed that he had orders from the Princess Sophia to demand the parliamentary writ for her grandson, the duke of Cambridge.<sup>552</sup> Nottingham registered the proxy of Sunderland on 13 Apr., the day of an important debate on the queen’s answer to the Lords’ address on the pretender, in which the court survived a division by two votes after proxies had been called for. On 16 Apr. Nottingham supported Cowper in his attack on the Spanish peace, but they could not prevent an address of thanks being ordered, referring to a safe and honourable peace with France and Spain.<sup>553</sup> Nottingham registered the proxy of Robert Bertie*, marquess of Lindsey on 17 Apr. and 15 May, and that of Guernsey on 7 June.</p><p>In late May 1714 Nottingham wrote in pessimistic vein to Schütz, in response to the obstacles put in the way of the plans to send the duke of Cambridge to reside in England: ‘if the difficulties which you insinuate should prevail to disappoint our present expectation the scene here would soon be changed; and put an end to all our further hopes’.<sup>554</sup> The elector’s decision not to send his son to England saw Nottingham in a state of near despair, for ‘the case appears so very plain, so very terrible, that I wish I could flatter myself with any reasons to believe that the resolution, which seems to be taken, would not be irrecoverably fatal’.<sup>555</sup> At the end of May or beginning of June Nottingham was listed on his own forecast as likely to oppose the schism bill. On 4 June, Nottingham spoke against the resolution that the schism bill be given a second reading, saying that the ‘zeal of the Church ought to be shown against the <em>majora crimina</em>’.<sup>556</sup> Margaret Cocks reported that Nottingham had joined Halifax and Cowper in speaking in the debate about receiving the Dissenters’ petition, concluding his speech by alluding to a passage in Acts 27 when St Paul warned the centurion that all his men must stay in the ship or perish.<sup>557</sup> Another account reported Nottingham as saying that ‘it was certainly what every honest man must wish that there was an uniformity in religion’, but that this bill was ill-timed and amounted to ‘something like persecution, in that it denied a man the liberty of disposing of his own children’; that it weakened the Toleration Act; and that it was ‘dangerous because that tho’ now they had the happiness of having so worthy bishops; yet it possibly might happen that a person who had wrote lewdly, nay even atheistically might by having a false undeserved character given him be promoted to a bishopric’, a remark probably aimed at Swift.<sup>558</sup> All in all, Baillie felt that Nottingham ‘spoke excellently against the bill’, and indeed ‘I am told never better than upon this occasion’.<sup>559</sup> He protested on 15 June against the passage of the bill.</p><p>On 24 June 1714 Nottingham moved for and was nominated to a committee to draw up an address of thanks for the reward placed upon the head of the pretender, asking for the queen to enter negotiations with her allies to guarantee the Hanoverian Succession and for putting the laws into execution against recusants and non-jurors. He reported it to the House.<sup>560</sup> On 29 June Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford was informed that ‘warm work’ was expected on 30 June in the Lords, with some believing that ‘the matter’ would be ‘opened’ by Nottingham. On that day Nottingham called for the papers relating to the state of trade with Spain to be read, and then took notes ‘on everything that was read’.<sup>561</sup> Nottingham’s aversion to the south sea scheme from the start was evident by his arguments against it in his papers.<sup>562</sup> When the Lords considered the Spanish trade on 2 July, Nottingham ‘made a speech setting forth and complaining that we might had better terms’ and several Spanish merchants were called in to support that view; Oxford and Bolingbroke (formerly St John) justified the government’s proceedings.<sup>563</sup> When the debate was resumed on 6 July, Nottingham said that ‘this peace patched up with Spain was so infamous that he believed’ James II would have ‘scorned to have signed it’.<sup>564</sup> On 7 July Nottingham registered the proxy of Radnor. The following day he protested against the rejection of a representation to the queen that the benefit of the Asiento contract had been obstructed by some for private advantage. When Anglesey followed this with a motion for an address to the queen thanking her for giving up her part of the Asiento, Nottingham successfully moved to add that what remained vested in her should also be applied to the public.<sup>565</sup> He attended on the last day of the session, 9 July, by which date <em>A Vindication of the Earl of Nottingham from the Vile Imputations and Malicious Slanders which have been cast upon him in some late Pamphlets</em> had been published.<sup>566</sup> Nottingham left London shortly after the end of the session, for he wrote to Wake from Burley on 20 July on a matter of ecclesiastical patronage.<sup>567</sup></p><p>Nottingham was not in London when the queen died on 1 Aug., Sunderland writing to him from Bothmer’s residence on 30 July to return immediately.<sup>568</sup> When he first attended the Lords on 5 Aug., it was as one of George I’s appointed regents. He was present on six days in all of the short session, 40 per cent of the total.<sup>569</sup> On 14 Aug. Charles Ford wrote that ‘Dismal begins to declare for his old friends and protests he was really afraid for the Protestant Succession which made him act in the manner he did’.<sup>570</sup> On 4 Sept. newsletter reports tipped Dean Finch of York to succeed Moore as bishop of Ely, but the see went instead to William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph, and Finch declined to succeed Fleetwood.<sup>571</sup> Soon after the arrival of George I in England on 18 Sept., Nottingham was named lord president of the council and Lord Finch made a gentleman of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales.<sup>572</sup> On 21 Sept., a newspaper reported that Nottingham had been named lord lieutenant of Middlesex, although if this was so, he soon relinquished it to Thomas Pelham Holles*, earl of Clare, the future duke of Newcastle.<sup>573</sup> Nottingham attended the prorogation of 23 September. It was reported that on the 26th George Smalridge*, bishop of Bristol and John Robinson*, bishop of London had officiated at the chapel royal, Nottingham having ensured that they were not removed by ‘declaring in the council that putting them out and [putting] Burnet in would disoblige three parts in four of the nation. Thus not shame or repentance keeps them and others in, but fear’.<sup>574</sup> In December Bishop Smalridge was confirmed as lord almoner, being introduced to kiss the king’s hand by Nottingham.<sup>575</sup> About 25 Oct., Nottingham’s son-in-law, Mostyn, was made a teller of the exchequer.<sup>576</sup> At the end of October, Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, could opine that Nottingham agreed with the Whigs ‘in the great lines of the administration’. Ultimately, however, Nottingham’s attempts to persuade the king to follow his own brand of politics ended in failure and he lost office in 1716.<sup>577</sup></p><p>Nottingham had appeared as a serious figure to contemporaries. As early as 1663, his father enjoined him not to lose the reputation he had gained for ‘diligence and sobriety’, and just before his second marriage in December 1685, John Fell*, bishop of Oxford described him as ‘grave’.<sup>578</sup> Queen Mary, too, referred to his ‘formal, grave look’, many years before Richard Steele<sup>‡</sup> dubbed him ‘Don Diego Dismallo’ in <em>The Tatler</em> for 28 May 1709.<sup>579</sup> Several themes ran through his career. There was a desire to be seen as consistent; hence his determination not to break his oath of allegiance to James II, even though he was willing to acknowledge William and Mary as <em>de facto</em> monarchs. His support for the Church of England was unceasing and the basis of much of his political strength and his friendships with influential clergy such as Archbishops Sharp and Tillotson. Nottingham used his influence on the ecclesiastical appointments of the early 1690s to attempt to reconcile churchmen to the new regime; together with Tillotson, he sought to ‘steer a middle course’ between the non-jurors and the Whigs, who wished to see the influence of the Church reduced. Many of the men appointed were known associates of Nottingham, having received preferment from his father, when he controlled much minor church patronage as lord keeper and then lord chancellor, 1673-82.<sup>580</sup></p><p>Much of Nottingham’s parliamentary influence rested on his legal training and knowledge of parliamentary records, which made for long set-piece interventions, although his style was not to everyone’s taste. Burnet clearly enjoyed describing his rival as ‘a copious speaker, but too florid and tedious’, and one full of ‘pompous and tragical declamations’.<sup>581</sup> Throughout his career he was a Tory, Poulett describing him in May 1711 as ‘party sense in person without respect to the reasons of things’.<sup>582</sup> Administratively he was a diligent secretary of state, although according to one observer ‘he plodded on mechanically’, being ‘more diligent and laborious than the common clerks, and with as much ability as pedantry’.<sup>583</sup> The profits of office were important to him as they helped to finance the construction of his mansion at Burley, which probably cost about £30,000 to build.<sup>584</sup> Such were the attractions of Burley that after he left office and lost his use of an official residence, he only rented property in London until the end of Anne’s reign.<sup>585</sup> However, he did not diminish his estate. His inherited estate income was about £5,000 per annum, of which he spent almost all on current expenditure and upon annuities charged on his estate. With the addition of Burley, he estimated in 1695 that his income from his estates was £8,400 before tax (estimated at £1,170). In 1704 his income from his estates had probably grown to about £9,000 per annum because despite losing £800 per annum from the sale of the Essex estates, Burley had shed the burden of £1,440 in old jointures and annuities.<sup>586</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
FINCH, Heneage (1621-82) |
<p><strong><surname>FINCH</surname></strong>, <strong>Heneage</strong> (1621–82)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>10 Jan. 1674 Bar. FINCH; <em>cr. </em>12 May 1681 earl of NOTTINGHAM |
|
First sat 7 Jan. 1674; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Canterbury 1660, Oxford Univ. 1661 |
<p><em>b</em>. 23 Dec. 1621, 1st s. of Sir Heneage Finch<sup>‡</sup>, Speaker of the Commons, and 1st w. Frances, da. of Sir Edmund Bell<sup>‡</sup> of Beaupré Hall, Norf. <em>educ</em>. Westminster Sch.; Christ Church, Oxf. 1636, DCL 1665; I. Temple, admitted 26 Nov. 1638, called 30 Jan. 1645. <em>m</em>. 30 July 1646, Elizabeth<sup>1</sup> (<em>d</em>.1676),<sup>2</sup> da. of Daniel Harvey, merchant of London, sis. of Daniel Harvey<sup>‡</sup>, 10s. (3 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.),<sup>3</sup> 4da. <em>cr</em>. Bt. 7 June 1660. <em>d</em>. 18 Dec. 1682;<sup>4</sup> <em>will</em> 31 Mar. 1682, pr. 5 Feb. 1683.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Bencher, I. Temple June 1660, treas. 1661-73, reader 1661.</p><p>Solicitor-gen. June 1660-70; attorney-gen. 1670-1673; ld. keeper Nov.1673-Dec. 1675; ld. of admiralty 31 Oct. 1674- 14 May 1679; PC 1673-<em>d</em>.; PC [S] 1674,<sup>6</sup> 1676; ld. chancellor Dec. 1675-<em>d</em>.; cttee of trade and planatations 1679;<sup>7</sup> ld. high steward (trials of Bar. Cornwallis, earl of Pembroke and Visct. Stafford).</p><p>Commr. for militia, Mdx. Mar. 1660, assessment, oyer and terminer, Mdx. July 1660, Sept. 1660-74, Kent Aug. 1660-1, 1665-74, Westminster 1665-74, Northants. 1673-4, sewers, N. Kent Sept. 1660, loyal and indigent officers, Mdx., London and Westminster 1662; freeman, Canterbury Oct. 1660; chamberlain palatinate of Chester 1673-6; gov. of the Charterhouse 1674.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Asst. R. Fishing Co. 1664.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, English Heritage, Kenwood House; oil on canvas aft. Sir G. Kneller, c.1680, NPG 1430; monumental effigy in All Saints, Ravenstone, Bucks.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>The Finch family originated in Kent and had been for several generations notable in the law. Family tradition suggested that they were descended from the Fitzherberts. Finch was probably born at Eastwell, although one account indicates his place of birth may have been Heneage House in London. By the early 17th century the family’s senior branch had acquired an earldom (Winchilsea). Finch’s cousin, John Finch* Baron Finch, was both a controversial speaker of the Commons and lord chancellor under Charles I. He was forced to flee to the continent at the time of the impeachments of Archbishop William Laud<sup>†</sup> and Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. Judicious marriages brought the family estates beyond their native Kent and connection with a number of noble families: the Hattons were connected; and Finch’s half-sister, Anne, later married Edward Conway*, Viscount (later earl of) Conway, a close associate of the court with interests in Ireland.<sup>13</sup></p><p>A man of sober outlook, Finch’s driving passion was to regulate the system of judicature.<sup>14</sup> He developed a reputation as a forceful and yet respectful prosecutor who was reluctant to indulge in the more confrontational style associated with some of his contemporaries.<sup>15</sup> While this left him with a glowing reputation as a founding father of equity and a practitioner of rare moderation and sincerity, he fared less well as a politician. His pomposity attracted disparaging remarks while his disinclination to involve himself too closely with court factionalism left him open to a charge of pusillanimity. Assaults upon his honesty were rare but as an earnest and successful legal practitioner later in his career he was an obvious target for John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester:</p><blockquote><p>Our good lord chancellor<br />With his pale meagre face<br />Do’s with his ballocks like his purse<br />And his p-ck like to his mace<br />Even in the House of Peers if he a wench shou’d lack<br />He’d take and f-ck a judges arse<br />Upon a woolly pack.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>Dryden was more kindly and depicted Finch as the honest ‘Amri’ in the second part of <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em>.</p><p>Aside from an austere practitioner of law, Finch was also a staunch Anglican. The Cambridge Platonist, Henry More, reported to Finch’s half-sister Anne, Lady Conway, Finch’s response to news of her conversion to Quakerism: ‘What a peal my lord chancellor rang in my ears about you being turned Quaker, and what a storm I bore with be too long to rehearse in this letter’. Despite this, and in keeping with his eagerness to demonstrate moderation, he appears to have allowed his sister to influence his response to Quakerism in the country and seems to have been willing to exercise mercy towards the imprisoned Fox, incarcerated in Worcester gaol in 1674.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>Career before 1673</em></h2><p>Finch confined himself to the quiet development up his practice during the years of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. By the time of the Restoration he enjoyed a substantial income from the law, earning in excess of £1,000 a year over and above any income he gained from his own estates.<sup>18</sup> In 1661 he purchased a house in Kensington from his younger brother, which he expanded substantially. This residence (later Kensington Palace) was listed in the 1664 hearth tax assessment at 26 hearths.<sup>19</sup> That he was not unwilling to make a principled stand on behalf of a fellow royalist, however, is suggested by his defence of Thomas Street<sup>‡</sup> in 1659 (a fellow member of the Inner Temple), whose election for Worcester had been challenged on the grounds that he had been in arms for Charles II in 1651. Even Finch’s opposing counsel were said to have complimented his performance on Street’s behalf.<sup>20</sup> Finch’s moderate royalism recommended him to the king following the Restoration when he was chosen to undertake the role of solicitor general. As such he was summoned to attend the special council meeting to determine the details of the marriage of James*, duke of York, to Anne Hyde. He was responsible for the conduct of the trials of the regicides and latterly was prominent as counsel for the defence during the proceedings over Skinner’s case.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Having been elected to the Cavalier Parliament for Oxford University, Finch was a frequent participant in debates though he failed to meet the exacting demands of some of his constituents, particularly over his perceived failure to secure concessions relating to the hearth tax. Alongside of his official duties as solicitor general and as a speaker of no little skill, Finch was also an active manager of conferences with the Lords. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> was impressed by what he witnessed and thought him a man ‘of as great eloquence as ever I heard’.<sup>22</sup> Several years later Sir Charles Littleton<sup>‡</sup> was to comment facetiously how he wished Finch would ‘lend me his tongue’ as he was in need of his oratorical powers in an upcoming audience at court.<sup>23</sup> Some found Finch’s style overly florid, though at least one of the correspondents of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (who attended the House as earl of Brecknock), noted that many were appreciative that Finch ‘has so much good and honest oratory in him as to call a spade a spade.’<sup>24</sup></p><p>Finch’s close association with Ormond was the result both of his identification with Clarendon and his efforts to throw out the Irish cattle bill in 1666-7. Finch later thanked the duke for ‘the honour I have received in being so publicly owned by your grace’ for his attempt to have the measure rejected. He spoke out particularly against the ‘nuisance’ clause, arguing that its insertion into the measure had been motivated by an interest in restricting the prerogative. Although he was able to secure an amendment allowing for appeals against the seizure of suspected illegal imports he proved unable to derail the bill.<sup>25</sup></p><h2><em>Lord Keeper 1673-5</em></h2><p>Finch’s activities in the Commons were brought to a conclusion by his appointment as lord keeper on the dismissal of the lord chancellor, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, on 9 Nov. 1673. By the time of Finch’s appointment rumours of Shaftesbury’s likely removal had been current for almost a month and other alterations were expected to follow.<sup>26</sup> Finch noted the time that he was granted his new position precisely to have been at 6 pm. The newsletter writers, not privy to such exact information, were still unsure the following day who had been given the post. Some speculated that it had instead gone to the lord privy seal (Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey).<sup>27</sup> Finch’s promotion was almost certainly owing to the ‘unremitting’ efforts of Thomas Osborne*, Viscount Latimer (later early of Danby) and Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> on his behalf. It was certainly the opinion of the French envoy Ruvigny, that Finch owed Latimer for ‘everything he has’.<sup>28</sup> The three men continued to work closely together in opposition to both Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington (with whom Finch had initially associated himself on the fall of Clarendon), and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham.<sup>29</sup> Finch’s appointment elicited numerous letters of congratulation including one from his Irish counterpart Michael Boyle, archbishop of Armagh. George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, bemoaned his ill health that prevented him from congratulating Finch in person.<sup>30</sup> Finch’s promotion quickly attracted attention from those eager for his patronage, including those involved with the commission for rebuilding the devastated St Paul’s Cathedral.<sup>31</sup> The following month he was engaged with the final details of the marriage of his heir, Daniel Finch*, later 2nd earl of Nottingham, to Lady Essex Rich, daughter of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Warwick. He had earlier been able to secure an advantageous match for his daughter, Elizabeth, with the daughter of Sir Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. the master of the rolls.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Finch made his first appearance in the Lords on 7 Jan. 1674. He presided over the House for the next three days in his capacity as lord keeper, though as yet not a member of the House. His oratorical skills continued to impress: the French envoy recorded that he spoke ‘with such eloquence that it was admired by the whole assembly.’ Evidence from Finch’s own papers demonstrates the care with which he drafted and re-drafted the text of the speeches he delivered.<sup>33</sup> Nevertheless, his removal to the Lords coincided with a gradual falling off in his activities in Parliament.<sup>34</sup> This may have been in part the result of ill-health but also perhaps of the difficult alteration of his circumstances having formerly been a regular representative of the Commons at conferences with the Lords. Soon after taking up his new position, reports circulated of Finch’s imminent ennoblement as Baron Daventry. Finch expressed himself unwilling to give up his surname, though, so on 10 Jan. he was raised to the peerage as Baron Finch of Daventry. Two days later he took his seat for the first time. He recorded in minute detail the ceremonial at his introduction, noting his introduction between Francis Newport* Baron Newport (later earl of Bradford) and Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler of Moore Park (styled earl of Ossory [I]), and his progression from the extremity of the barons’ bench, to the top of that of the earls and thence back to his place on the woolsack. In the absence of a presiding officer to receive his patent and writ, he was compelled to place them on the throne before retrieving them to give to the clerk.<sup>35</sup></p><p>In contrast to his earlier role in the Commons, Finch’s activities in the Lords were largely determined by his duties as speaker. It may be that the conflicting demands of presiding in the Lords and as the head of chancery meant that it was not feasible for Finch to be active in much of the Lords’ committee-work. Thus, he appears not to have been named to any committees and his involvement with detailed procedural issues was largely confined to management of conferences (in which he was highly experienced). On 15 Jan. 1674 he informed the Lords that representatives of both Houses had waited on the king about a fast and on 3 Feb. he reported from a conference concerning the peace treaty with the States General. Just under a week later he was one of five members of the administration to sign the peace articles with the Dutch.<sup>36</sup> The following day (10 Feb.) Finch spoke in the debate in the Lords on the bill for securing protestantism. When it was proposed that a clause might be included barring a prince of the blood from marrying a Catholic, Finch interjected that Elizabeth I had once been rendered ineligible to succeed and yet (happily) had done so.<sup>37</sup> With the peace treaty established Finch seems to have joined with Latimer and York in pressing the king to prorogue Parliament, against the advice of Ormond and Arlington who were eager to see the session continue.<sup>38</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1674 there were rumours that Finch was on the verge of being replaced. According to one source, he had been reprieved by the interposition of Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, though the reporter (Denton) was unable to discover why he had been thought vulnerable in the first place.<sup>39</sup> In May he was deeply involved with assisting in the arrangements for the match between the king’s daughter, Charlotte Fitzroy, and Sir Edward Henry Lee*, later earl of Lichfield.<sup>40</sup> Later that summer he was instrumental in securing a pardon for Richard Hals (or Halse), who had been convicted for committing a robbery in Chelmsford, after several people, among them his daughter in law, Lady Essex Finch, had spoken up on Hals’s behalf.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Finch was present at the prorogation day of 10 November. The early weeks of 1675 found him engaged with business connected with his role as an admiralty commissioner.<sup>42</sup> He was also actively involved with Danby (as Latimer had since become) and John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who sat in the Lords as earl of Guilford), in meeting with the bishops to discuss the proposed enforcement of the penal laws.<sup>43</sup> The three men had observed with unease Arlington’s efforts to promote a marriage between William of Orange and Princess Mary. By the end of January their concerns had reached such a pitch that they informed the king that they would not be willing to reveal their opinions in council if Arlington was present.<sup>44</sup> In March Finch and Danby were both involved in efforts to overcome divisions in the corporation of London, following a stormy meeting between the common councilmen and lord mayor and aldermen triggered by a recent appointment to the shrieval courts. In common with the lord mayor, Sir Robert Vyner<sup>‡</sup>, Finch and Danby feared that the councilmen’s actions had been orchestrated by the opposition with the intention of disturbing the next parliamentary session.<sup>45</sup> The following month (April 1675) Finch was involved in a case before council involving Anglesey (with whom he was on rather difficult terms). Anglesey’s ward Catherine Fitzgerald had fled her guardian’s protection having been married under age and (as she insisted) against her will to her cousin John Power, <em>styled</em> Viscount Decies, later 2nd earl of Tyrone [I]. Finch argued that her action made clear her objection to the marriage and was irrevocable. Anglesey recorded in his diary Finch’s ‘partial and mistaken notion’ over the affair.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Finch took his seat at the opening of the new session on 13 Apr. 1675 after which he was present on all but one of the session’s 42 sitting days. In his speech to the House, in which he made reference to the ‘three estates’ and the importance of gathering together ‘a full concourse’ of all who made up ‘this august and venerable senate’, he underscored the turbulent relations between the Houses that had characterized the previous session and called to mind the memory of Civil War. He insisted that the king had called Parliament ‘at this time to examine and concur with him in the best expedients for recovery of our ancient good temper’.<sup>47</sup> Both Finch’s and the king’s speeches proved controversial. Ten peers registered their protest at the resolution to offer thanks for the king’s speech and the Commons took exception to both addresses.<sup>48</sup></p><p>The focus of the session was Danby’s non-resisting test bill, for which Finch had been noted a supporter in advance of the session. Given this and his close co-operation with Danby in preparing the document it is unsurprising that he was among the foremost advocates of the measure. He commended it to the House as ‘a moderate security to the church and crown’ and doubted how any honest man could refuse it.<sup>49</sup> On 29 Apr., presumably in preparation for an expected division on the measure, Finch was entrusted with the proxy of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and in a letter of 8 May he thanked Huntingdon for the proxy ‘especially as it is to be used to promote the king’s service’.<sup>50</sup> Finch proved a prominent contributor to the debates held in a committee of the whole for the Test bill. He answered Shaftesbury’s speech of 12 May, in which the earl, arguing against the attempt to insist that there should be no endeavour to alter the doctrine of the Church, had questioned exactly what was meant by the Protestant religion. Finch observed mockingly: ‘let it not be told in Gath nor published in the streets of Askalon that a lord of so great parts and eminence… should not know what is meant by the Protestant religion’. Finch was supported by Seth Ward* bishop of Winchester, but both were then systematically taken apart by Shaftesbury’s analysis of the state of the Church and the inconsistencies inherent in its canons and practice.<sup>51</sup></p><p>By the time the session closed on 9 June the Lords and Commons were quite as divided as they had been the previous year with Shaftesbury’s promotion of the cause <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> reopening divisions over questions of privilege between the two Houses. Finch was again closely involved. When Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, intercepted the Commons’ warrant for Sherley’s arrest, he related that it was passed to Finch who received it (rather uncharacteristically) ‘fleering and laughing.’<sup>52</sup> On 17 May he was one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons about the issue and on 19 May he reported from a second conference for the same business. He was a manager of a third conference about <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> on 21 May, but on that occasion the report was delivered to the House by the lord privy seal.</p><p>Finch’s health, which already appears to have been failing with his heavy workload in the Commons since the king’s return, collapsed that summer. It was reported that he was suffering from swellings in the face that forced him to postpone a visit to his Grimston in-laws. He had been troubled with a similar condition earlier in the year.<sup>53</sup> Despite this, he remained involved in business at court, notably over the drawing up of patents creating several of the king’s natural children dukes and over the appointment to the vacant see of Bristol. For the latter, Finch seems to have favoured John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, believing him to be well qualified to cope with the town’s dissenting population.</p><p>Finch took his place at the opening of the new session on 13 Oct. 1675. Once again, his address on the opening day emphasized the king’s desire to see harmonious relations restored between him and the other estates.<sup>54</sup> Later that month Finch was entrusted with the proxies of both Huntingdon and of his kinsman, Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea. Within a week of the opening of Parliament, the <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> case was again brought before the House when Sherley submitted a new petition seeking redress. On 20 Oct. Shaftesbury tore into Finch’s argument that Sherley’s case was ‘uncertain’ and that it was better to postpone further consideration rather than risk a breach with the Commons.<sup>55</sup> On 19 Nov. Finch was one of those nominated reporters of a conference with the Commons, ‘for the preservation of a good understanding between the two Houses’. He reported the effect of the meeting the same day, communicating the Commons’ desire that the Lords would delay further proceeding over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> for a while so that other business could be despatched. The following day (20 Nov.), Finch voted (predictably enough) against addressing the crown to request a dissolution. His possession of Huntingdon and Winchilsea’s proxies proved of crucial importance as the court was able to defeat the opposition motion only because of its greater weight in proxies (16 to seven).<sup>56</sup> At the beginning of December Finch again thanked Huntingdon for the use of the proxy and in return offered him ‘a present’ of the office of custos rotulorum of Leicestershire, vacant by the death of Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh.<sup>57</sup></p><h2><em>Lord Chancellor 1675-80</em></h2><p>The close of the session was followed once more by rumours of Finch’s possible removal. Edmund Verney reckoned that the lord keeper now sat ‘somewhat totteringly’. Such reports proved to be far off the mark, though, and on 19 Dec. rather than being put out Finch was promoted to the office of lord chancellor. Verney had not been the only person to think Finch’s position appeared vulnerable. In a letter to Lady Conway, Henry More confirmed that Finch’s appointment had come hard on the heels of reports that the seal was to be taken from him. No doubt in reaction to such rumours Sir Ralph Verney believed that along with the office, Finch was also to be promoted to an earldom. This, he conceived, ‘will convince the town that all those reports of the seal being to be suddenly taken from him were nothing but mere fictions.’<sup>58</sup> In the event, the earldom was not forthcoming. This may have been a deliberate omission on the part of the king, who may have been eager to keep the court guessing about his intentions.</p><p>Prior to his promotion to the chancellorship, Finch had offered the Conways’ close associate, Henry More, a prebendal stall at Gloucester. After some reflection, More resolved not to accept the place and instead recommended it should go to Edward Fowler*, later bishop of Gloucester, ‘a good scholar and a good Christian’.<sup>59</sup> The spring of 1676 found Finch involved with the early stages of the Hyde-Emerton affair when he was petitioned by Bridget Hyde for a stay in proceedings until her forced marriage to John Emerton had been settled by the ecclesiastical courts. The case continued until after Finch’s death.<sup>60</sup> In March, after the death of his wife, there were rumours that he would marry Anne, dowager countess of Warwick (widow of Robert Rich*, 5th earl of Warwick).<sup>61</sup></p><p>In the absence of a sitting Parliament, in the summer of 1676 Finch was appointed lord high steward to preside over the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis.<sup>62</sup> In advance of the proceedings he was also called upon to adjudicate between the lord chamberlain (Arlington) and lord great chamberlain (Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey) as both claimed certain privileges about the preparations for the trial.<sup>63</sup> Finch had to deal with a variety of delicate issues in relation to the trial. He noted, for example, that he made a point of summoning no Catholic peers to the commission of 35 who were to try Cornwallis, conceiving that to do so ‘might prove a snare to them and oblige them to renounce transubstantiation.’ He was also careful to omit Shaftesbury, Mohun and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, on the grounds that Shaftesbury was supposed to have quit the capital on the king’s orders. Even so, he made no efforts to prevent the three peers attending the trial where they made a great show of their presence.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Finch’s conduct of the trial reflected his habitual stern fairness. His opening address to the young Cornwallis was suitably severe, emphasizing the enormity of the offence with which he was charged and the potential harm caused to the dignity of the peerage. Cornwallis seems not to have been overawed by the occasion, though, and once the peers had retired to consider the evidence presented in the trial, he plied Finch (and the other tryers) with wine and Naples biscuits.<sup>65</sup> The Lords resolved not to send for the judges to advise them on points of law but to raise their concerns in open court with Finch. Finch considered their decision to do so was a result of an erroneous following of Sir Edward Coke<sup>‡</sup> and that by doing so they had effectively deprived themselves of their privilege of taking judicial advice in private. The result, though, he concluded was ‘a better privilege is gained to the peer who is tried.’ In the event Cornwallis was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter by all but three of his tryers (one of the last being Danby).<sup>66</sup></p><p>Towards the end of November, Finch rebuked the lord mayor and aldermen of London over the citizens’ petition to the crown complaining about French naval power and the excessive importation of goods to the detriment of English trade. He was careful, though, to lay the blame at the door of the document’s contrivers, the prominent opposition figures Francis Jenks and Sir Thomas Player<sup>‡</sup>, both associates of the duke of Buckingham.<sup>67</sup> Shortly before the opening of the new session in February 1677 Finch’s house was burgled and several items associated with his office stolen: these included the mace and two purses, though the thieves were sensible enough not to take the great seal. By 12 Feb. (four days after the robbery was reported) those responsible had been caught and committed to Newgate, though not before they had succeeded in melting down the mace. Finch was subsequently able to recover only part of the damaged regalia. The two hapless thieves (Sanders and Johnson) were executed the following month.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Finch took his place in the new session on 15 February. The opening of the session was quickly thrown into confusion when Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Wharton and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, insisted that Parliament was dissolved by virtue of the long prorogation. Finch, in his address, responded in no uncertain terms:</p><blockquote><p>Your lordships are not at all obliged to those noble lords who have thrown you upon this debate, since it is impossible to come well out of it. For if you be no Parliament, you cannot vote yourselves one; and if you be a Parliament, you cannot vote yourselves none, but the very endeavour to do it were a contempt of the highest degree.<sup>69</sup></p></blockquote><p>Finch then argued forcefully for the offending peers to be prosecuted. Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Wharton were all committed to the Tower. The following day (16 Feb.) Buckingham was also ordered to the Tower. Prior to this, Buckingham had been compelled to kneel at the bar, prevailed upon to do so only by the advice of his friends and by Finch’s assurance that the other peers had done likewise. When the duke requested to be permitted to take his cook with him to the Tower Finch made some opprobrious remarks but was warned by Buckingham not to persist in his criticisms. Finch appears to have taken the warning and said no more.<sup>70</sup> With the opening drama out of the way, Finch continued to attend for much of the remainder of the session, failing to sit on only two occasions. He was closely involved with drafting revisions to the bill for prevention of frauds and perjuries.<sup>71</sup> On 9 May he was again the recipient of Huntingdon’s proxy and on 21 July he also received that of Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester. He was, predictably enough, listed by Shaftesbury as triply vile.</p><p>During the summer of 1677 there were renewed rumours of Finch’s likely promotion to an earldom.<sup>72</sup> Once again, the honour eluded him. Finch was present in the House on 16 July and 3 Dec. when the adjournment was extended into the following year. He took his seat once more on 15 Jan. 1678 when Parliament was adjourned once more to the end of the month. In advance of the resumption he was entrusted with the proxy of John Digby* 3rd earl of Bristol, which was vacated on 29 April. Soon after the session reconvened, Finch began a complaint in the House that some of the opposition lords in the Tower had been set at liberty without making due satisfaction to the Lords. He was interrupted by Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, who insisted that Buckingham was ready to make what satisfaction the Lords demanded.<sup>73</sup> Finch later attempted to remonstrate with the king about Buckingham’s presence at court but Charles was unwilling to deny himself the companionship of the duke. Buckingham’s return to the centre of affairs was no doubt behind talk that Danby (and his following) were now in decline. It may also have been in response to this that one Culpeper attempted to take advantage of the lord chancellor’s apparently weakened state by making a complaint against him for injustice and for defrauding him. Culpeper earned for himself incarceration in the Gatehouse having failed to establish a ‘single tittle of his impudent complaint’, which it appears related chiefly to the activities of Finch’s predecessors.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On 30 Mar. 1678 Finch reported from the conference with the Commons concerning the growth of Popery. The following month his attention was again taken up with trial preparations as a result of the indictment of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, for murder. The occasion provoked renewed debate in the House about the presence of bishops at the trial; it was resolved to permit them to attend the proceedings but to exercise their discretion whether to remain in court when sentence was passed. Finch noted that York and Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, agreed to give way to him as the ‘king’s lieutenant’ in the procession to Westminster Hall. Finch’s address at the opening of the proceedings made much of the unusual circumstances in which the murdered man, Cony, had died: according to the indictment, Cony had been trampled to death. While being careful to note that Pembroke was at that point still merely accused of the crime, Finch insisted ‘it is an accusation of a crime with such circumstances as are very rare and unusual. To tread upon a gentleman in any kind becomes no person of honour, but to tread him to death is that which is new and never heard before.’<sup>75</sup> As with the Cornwallis trial, the Lords were divided, with some thinking him guilty of murder, others of manslaughter and some not guilty of either. The lack of clear resolution may have been why it was asked whether Finch would also vote. Finch at first insisted not, ‘for I being the king’s lieutenant <em>pro</em> <em>hac</em> <em>vice</em> and made the judge in this case I was to give sentence.’ Although Finch argued for this strenuously, he was overruled by the rest of the peers who insisted that as Pembroke was being tried in full Parliament all the peers were sitting as judges rather than tryers. Finch concluded that the unwelcome decision was an argument in favour of such trials being conducted only in times of prorogation. In the event only five lords found Pembroke guilty and 18 not guilty. The remaining 42 found him guilty of manslaughter. Finch was among them.</p><p>Finch recorded his reasoning for concluding as he did with some care, setting out the burden of the law and the particulars of the case:</p><blockquote><p>1) I agree that to kill a man without provocation is murder<br />2) That a slight provocation is all one with none<br />3) But I take it to be a great difference when the party slain gave no provocation at all and where he comes in as it were in <em>partem</em> <em>litis</em> and will needs be seconding a great provocation given by another just and immediately before by pretending to expostulate about it or to demand an account of it.</p></blockquote><p>This, Finch reasoned—indulging in a high degree of sophistry—was the case with the death of Cony, who had questioned Pembroke’s quarrel with a third man. Considered in this light, the killing had occurred at a time when Pembroke’s blood was up on account of the previous quarrel which Cony had extended by his interposition; it was accounted accidental as Pembroke’s action had been first to push and then to kick Cony. He had then left the scene with Cony not obviously seriously hurt. Further doubt had been cast on Pembroke’s culpability by at least one surgeon who had concluded that Cony’s internal injuries could have been the result of his wayward lifestyle (though Finch seems not to have been convinced by this man’s testimony). The trial concluded with Pembroke claiming his clergy and Finch warning him that he would be unable to rely on it a second time.<sup>76</sup></p><p>The pressures of the Pembroke trial may have contributed to another decline in Finch’s health a few days after the proceedings had been concluded. In the first half of April 1678 it was noted that the Speakers of both Houses were unwell, with Finch now suffering from gout in the heel. His condition was so painful as to make attendance of the House difficult. During his indisposition, the lord chief justice, Francis North*, later Baron Guilford, acted as his deputy.<sup>77</sup> Before he was noticed as becoming ill, however, he succeeded in combination with Danby, Arlington and the lord privy seal in raising £100,000 from the corporation of London.<sup>78</sup> The continuance of his illness in the latter part of April encouraged ‘coffee house discourse’ that he was to be replaced, though some thought it was less because of his health and more because of his refusal to accede to the king’s commands. Some reports suggested that North had been offered the place but refused it; others thought the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs, was to be the man.<sup>79</sup> By the close of April, however, Finch seems to have recovered sufficiently to attend the chamber to present a speech to both Houses concerning the Dutch alliance.<sup>80</sup> The following month he presided in the court of chancery for a case involving Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham.</p><p>The king prorogued parliament on 13 May for just ten days while he concluded a treaty with the French, offering Finch little time to recover his strength before on 23 May he was back in the House to preside over the new one and make a speech attempting to lay out the complicated international situation and providing a tendentious interpretation of the failure of English efforts to broker a general peace. Two days later he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and on 24 June he again received that of the earl of Bristol. When the Commons took his speech into consideration on 1 June, it came in for considerable criticism, many arguing that it laid the blame on the Commons for failing to support his preparations to intervene on the continent. Sir Ralph Verney thought it worthy of comment, though, that they made no personal reflections on his management of chancery, emphasizing ‘indeed there can be no just exception against him in that court’.<sup>81</sup> The remark serves to emphasize that however much Finch may have attracted the ire of the Commons for his enforcement of ministerial policy, his conduct as a lawyer was rarely the subject of anything but warm approbation. Finch registered a rare dissent on 5 July when he objected to the resolution to ascertain the relief of the petitioner in the cause <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em>. Three days later the case <em>Feversham v. Watson</em> with which he had been engaged in May came before the Lords: the chancery dismission was overturned following a lengthy debate. Finch noted that he was supported in his view by George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, but that the case still went against him by a large majority.<sup>82</sup> On 11 and 12 July he was named a manager of two conferences with the Commons for the bill for burying in woollen and on 13 July he was also one of the managers of the conference considering the method of returning bills from the Commons.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued once more at the end of July 1678.<sup>83</sup> The latter stages of the summer and into the autumn of that year came to be dominated for Finch as for many other members of the council with the revelations surrounding the Popish Plot. Towards the end of September he was present at a meeting of the council presided over by Prince Rupert when Oates was heard, in spite of an attempt by Israel Tongue to have both Finch and Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> excluded on the grounds that they were hostile to him (Tongue) and possibly partial towards the Catholics. If Finch was sceptical about Oates’s claims at this point, he raised no objections and at the beginning of October he was appointed to the private committee of the Privy Council directed to examine papers relating to the Plot.<sup>84</sup> Finch was a friend of the justice Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, before whom Oates had first testified and who was last seen alive on 12 October. A few days later, on the king’s return from Newmarket, Finch presented to Charles his assessment of the presence of treasonable material in Coleman’s papers.<sup>85</sup> Godfrey’s body was discovered on 17 October.</p><p>Finch had been present at the prorogation sittings of 1 and 29 Aug. and of 1 October. He took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct., following which he proceeded to attend on 85 per cent of all sitting days. He was again the recipient of Bristol’s proxy on 22 Oct. and on 2 Nov. he was entrusted with that of Stamford (a list dated 21 Oct. noted Finch holding both of these proxies).<sup>86</sup> He was also nominated a manager of the conference with the Commons on 2 Nov. concerning the dilapidated state of both chambers. A man more suited to debating questions of equity rather than the kind of uncompromising politics thrown up by the Plot, Finch seems quickly to have found himself out of his depth. On 1 Nov. he reported from a conference with the Commons concerning the preservation of the king and safety of the Protestant religion and on 11 Nov. from a subsequent conference over the issuing of commissions to JPs to tender oaths to Catholics. That day John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) remarked to his father Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> that the lord chancellor ‘loses in the people’s affections by his mealy carriage in these troublesome days.’ Sir Ralph was quick to answer his son’s criticisms and insisted that Finch ‘may possibly be willing enough to keep his place if wariness will keep it, but I think verily he will not act anything against his conscience.’<sup>87</sup> On 15 Nov. Finch voted in favour of disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament and on 23 Nov. he was one of the managers of two conferences with the Commons: one concerning the disabling of Catholics from sitting in Parliament and the second relating to the address concerning the militia. He was then one of the managers of a series of conferences held between 26 and 27 Nov. concerning the preservation of the king’s person.<sup>88</sup> At the end of the month he advised the king to accept the militia bill, which had been promoted in the Commons by his son, Daniel. In this he was unsuccessful and the king followed Danby’s advice instead and rejected the measure.<sup>89</sup> On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill. The following day he voted against committing his colleague, Danby. The closing days of December 1678 point clearly to Finch’s struggle to remain on top of the ongoing crisis. When the king suggested postponing the execution of three of the convicted Jesuits both Finch and Danby protested. Suffering from gout and apparently dismayed by the result of a meeting with the king, Danby and Lauderdale, Finch seems to have considered seriously resigning his position in protest. Further evidence of tension can be seen in his unusually testy examination of the witness, Miles Prance, who had attempted to withdraw his (almost certainly perjured) evidence. Finch was even said to have contemplated showing Prance the rack. It was to this severe interrogation that Prance’s decision to reject his recantation was attributed.<sup>90</sup></p><p>By the close of January 1679 Finch’s position appeared once more assured, with the appointment of his younger son Heneage*, later earl of Aylesford, as solicitor general. The younger Finch was also successful in contesting his father’s old seat of Oxford University in the election in March, for which Finch sought Ormond’s interest.<sup>91</sup> Although the elder son, Daniel Finch, was defeated at Great Bedwyn he too was the recipient of ministerial patronage when he was named an admiralty commissioner in April. This may have been in part owing to his father’s interest, though by then Finch was once more thought to be vulnerable and he insisted that he was not responsible for the appointment. By early May Finch was said to be preparing himself to be put out of office.<sup>92</sup> Finch was noted a likely supporter by Danby in a series of forecasts drawn up in advance of the new Parliament. At the beginning of the month he was one of those to witness the king’s declaration that he had never been married to Lucy Walters (mother of James Scott* duke of Monmouth).<sup>93</sup></p><p>For all this, Finch found himself once more at sea in the tense early days of the first exclusion Parliament. He attended each of the six days of the short session at the beginning of March 1679, prorogued after the row over the Speaker. In spite of cautious drafting, his response to Sir Edward Seymour on 7 March conveying the king’s command not to accept his election as speaker of the Commons caused uproar, though most of the blame fell on Danby. Finch presided over the opening of the new Parliament on 15 Mar., when his address to Sir William Gregory<sup>‡</sup>, when Gregory presented himself as the Commons’ new Speaker, in which he pointed out ‘that what His Majesty had created by his power, he would protect by his kindness’ caused further resentment. Shaftesbury in particular took the lord chancellor to task for his ill-judged rhetoric. In response, Finch protested that he had been unprepared and forced to speak extempore. Finch’s papers bear evidence to the constant drafting and redrafting of his speeches, so it seems more than credible that he was uncomfortable with being expected to speak without enough preparation. As neither his remarks nor those of Gregory were deemed particularly admirable, it was agreed not to publish them.<sup>94</sup> Edward Cooke<sup>‡</sup> reported to Ormond the essentials of Finch’s address and how he had ‘in a few words also reminded them of the great opportunities they had to do national good.’<sup>95</sup></p><p>Finch was present on every sitting day of the second session of the 1679 Parliament. On 19 Mar. he responded to Shaftesbury’s arguments in the debate concerning the continuation of Danby’s impeachment from one session to the next. Although he conceded the general point that past practice indicated that impeachments could be continued from one Parliament to another, he raised a number of objections to specifics in the case. He was joined in his defence of Danby’s position by Lauderdale and the majority of the episcopal bench. The case ultimately, however, went Shaftesbury’s way and the House gave Danby a week to put in his answer.<sup>96</sup> On 22 Mar., following the king’s appearance in the Lords to reveal that Danby had been dismissed, but he had given him his pardon, during the subsequent debate in the Commons, Finch’s son the solicitor general had revealed that his father had made a point of refusing to seal it himself and left it to the king to instruct another officer to do so instead. On 22 Mar. the House of Commons ordered a deputation to wait on the chancellor to discover the circumstances of the drawing up of the pardon: on 24 Mar. they reported back to the Commons with an account of the correspondence between Finch and Danby on the subject and confirmation of his son’s story.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Towards the end of March 1679 Finch was the recipient of a letter from Danby, in which the former lord treasurer asked his colleague ‘as what one peer might hope for from another’ for his assistance in the proceedings against him.<sup>98</sup> The following month, Finch proved loyal to Danby, voting against the passage of the attainder in a series of votes between 1 and 14 April. Over the summer he was noted to be one of those giving advice to the imprisoned lord treasurer.<sup>99</sup> Later that month he supported Sir William Temple’s<sup>‡</sup> proposal for the Privy Council to be limited to 30 but then backed the king against Temple in supporting Shaftesbury’s inclusion within the new body. He was also one of those to speak in favour of Shaftesbury’s appointment as lord president. In spite of this, Conway reckoned that Finch was one of those anticipating being laid aside as part of the general alteration.<sup>100</sup></p><p>In April Finch drew up a series of detailed objections to a draft of the habeas corpus bill and on 30 Apr. he relayed to both Houses the king’s offer to agree to legislation to secure religion and liberty provided it did not interfere with the descent of the crown, including limitations on the power of a Catholic successor to interfere in the Church, the continuance of Parliament in the case of a Catholic successor, and extensive powers for Parliament over civil and military appointments.<sup>101</sup> On 6 May the House took into consideration a question Finch had already tackled in his earlier management of the Cornwallis and Pembroke murder trials, namely the right of bishops to sit in the House during cases of blood, as a result of Shaftesbury’s attempt to exclude them from the trial of Danby. In answer to the objections put forward by Shaftesbury and others Finch argued that the question was not whether the bishops attended as barons or members of a third estate and pointed out that some bishops had attended the House by virtue of their temporalities before being invested.<sup>102</sup> Two days later, however, along with Shaftesbury (though also with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Halifax and others) he registered his dissent at the rejection of the Commons’ request for a committee to be appointed to consider the proceedings against the impeached peers. He voted in favour of appointing the joint committee again on 10 May – something for which he had lobbied hard – and entered a further dissent (with a much longer list of peers) when the motion was again rejected. When the Lords climbed down on 11 May, day he was appointed a manager of two conferences with the Commons on the subject and on 12 May he queried whether it would be necessary to have a lord steward attending and suggested that without one the trial could go ahead.<sup>103</sup> On 19 May the House returned to the question of the bishops’ participation with Finch again arguing in favour.<sup>104</sup> Finch again sparred with Shaftesbury on 22 May over the Commons request for several condemned Catholics to be sent for their executions. Finch told the House that Shaftesbury, who was promoting the request, had been the one to move for the delay in the first place. In response Shaftesbury excused himself for being too tender-hearted. By the beginning of July the king had resolved to bring the Parliament to a close. Finch, along with several other members of council, was opposed to the decision. On 6 July he joined with Anglesey and Arlington in making known his opposition to the king’s decision at a council meeting at Windsor. His advice was ignored and on 12 July Parliament was dissolved.<sup>105</sup> The following day he was expected at Windsor to help adjudicate a dispute between Lauderdale and William Hamilton, 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], but failed to appear.<sup>106</sup></p><p>During the elections for the succeeding Parliament, in mid-August, Finch seems to have had some qualms about the tactics of Robert Paston*, earl of Yarmouth, to whom he wrote complaining of the action of Yarmouth’s son in withholding from the sheriff the writ for the Norfolk elections.<sup>107</sup> By the autumn rumours were once more current of Finch’s likely displacement. Within the Verney circle both Cary Gardiner and John Verney circulated the story though William Denton was as vigorous in denying it. Finch was also said to have waived his right to a £4,000 pension should he be put out of office.<sup>108</sup> In November Finch was said to have refused the bogus witness Dangerfield an interview concerning the sham plot. The same month he was present at a turbulent meeting of the council from which the king stormed out after being harried by several councillors about allowing Parliament to sit imminently. Finch chid his colleagues for being ‘too quick with the king’. Finch’s identification with Danby made him a target for abuse: towards the end of November he was featured in a libel which characterized him as no more than a ‘fop at the council table’. Around this time his coach was stopped by revellers in the streets and he was compelled to give them money to drink Monmouth’s health. He capitulated and offered a shilling and a cry of god bless the duke of Monmouth; he was later said to have regretted that the sum had marked him out and that he would have been better off giving a halfpenny or more.<sup>109</sup> Finch came in for criticism when it was reported (inaccurately) that he had overturned a decree made by one of the masters in chancery in a case between Charles West*, 5th Baron De la Warr, and Mr Huddleston over settlement of the marriage articles between De la Warr’s son and Huddleston’s daughter, Mary. According to Cary Gardiner, Finch’s supposed insistence on £10,000 being awarded to De la Warr was reckoned ‘a hard measure’ and inspired talk of corruption. Gardiner conceded ‘it is hard for great men to be innocent and as hard to please all, but this makes a great noise.’ In fact, as she later reported, she had been mistaken. Finch’s award aimed at securing an agreed settlement of £6,000 for De la Warr rather than burdening Huddleston with the full £10,000 plus interest as Gardiner had at first thought.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Finch had been present in the House for the prorogation day of 17 October. He continued to attend on a further half dozen such occasions prior to the belated opening of the new Parliament in October 1680. In December 1679, he provoked an angry retort from the king after he spoke out in council earnestly against the further prorogation of Parliament. The king commanded Finch to desist, after which Finch supported North’s suggestion that if Parliament was to be prorogued it should not be for too long. His public dressing down no doubt prompted more reports of his imminent dismissal, which persisted well into the following year.<sup>111</sup></p><p>In spite of rumours of his poor standing with the king, Finch kept his place. In the summer of 1680 he spoke on behalf of Sir Job Charlton<sup>‡</sup>, whose son, William, had been chosen town clerk of Ludlow but then been disqualified for not taking the oaths correctly. Clarendon, Henry Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort) and John Granville*, earl of Bath, all joined with Finch in undertaking to promote Charlton’s case.<sup>112</sup> Ill in August, he was nevertheless expected back in town for the opening of the new Parliament in October.<sup>113</sup> On 12 Oct. he joined Halifax and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, in advising York to leave before Parliament met, though he later joined Sir Edward Seymour and Lawrence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, in advising the king to postpone a decision on York’s fate until the mood of Parliament had been gauged. In the event, Sunderland was able to convince the king of the wisdom of sending York away before Parliament was convened.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Finch took his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 October. He was thereafter present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He was absent for around two weeks in the middle of November: his son wrote that he had almost collapsed in the Lords as a result of pain from the gout. It meant that he missed the vote on exclusion, and the public demonstration of his ill health helped allay any suspicions that he was avoiding the chamber out of expediency.<sup>115</sup> Between 12 and 27 Nov. he covered his absence by registering his proxy with John Robartes*, earl of Radnor, with whom he appears to have been closely associated, and who also replaced him over the period as Speaker of the House. The proxy was vacated on 19 Nov. but on 15 Nov. Finch was noted to have voted in favour of rejecting the exclusion bill at first reading. This suggests either that the vote was made by proxy or that the source merely indicated the likely sympathies of members of the House on the issue. At the close of November Finch was once more nominated lord high steward for the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. In spite of Finch’s earlier experience in presiding over such occasions and the prince’s willingness to give way when the point had arisen in the Pembroke trial in 1678, on 30 Nov. Prince Rupert raised an objection to the commission constituting Finch high steward being read out in the House rather than in Westminster Hall, concerned that it would grant Finch precedence over him. A compromise was arrived at whereby the commission was read in the Lords’ chamber, but Finch only formally assumed the dignity of lord high steward once he had been handed his wand in the court room.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Finch’s conduct of Stafford’s trial was generally applauded. William Denton noted the commendations made by foreign ministers who were impressed by the ‘respect and civilities used towards the prisoner’.<sup>117</sup> Finch appears to have made a genuine effort to be fair to the arraigned peer, though he was unsuccessful in his efforts to allow Stafford time to answer part of the charge against him when Sir William Jones objected that no further time was to be given for a matter of fact.<sup>118</sup> When the Lords tied on the question of whether to proceed to judgment at once or to postpone to the following day, Finch used his casting vote in favour of postponement. The delay made no difference to the outcome and however sensitive his handling of the case may have been, Finch joined with the majority in finding Stafford guilty.<sup>119</sup> In his closing address he insisted that his role was ‘a very sad one. For I never yet gave sentence of death upon any man and am extremely sorry that I must begin with your lordship’. He then proceeded to an exposition of his confidence of Stafford’s guilt and of the reality of the plot: ‘That there has been a general and desperate conspiracy of the papists, and that the death of the king has been all along one chief part of the conspirators’ design, is now apparent beyond all possibility of doubting.’</p><p>He seems, however, to have been at pains to insist that it was Stafford’s religion rather than Stafford himself that was the more to blame. His subsequent assertion that this proved in turn that the Catholics had been responsible for the Great Fire, seems to have caused more perplexity among his hearers.<sup>120</sup> (It was certainly at variance with his original response to the Fire. In a letter to his brother-in-law Conway in September 1666 Finch had stated unequivocally ‘without all doubt there was nothing of plot or design in all this though the people would fain think otherwise’.<sup>121</sup>) Having made his point, Finch proceeded to the sentence, though even here he displayed some delicacy in the way he addressed the condemned man: ‘And now, my lord, this is the last time that I can call you my lord, for the next words that I am to speak will attaint you.’<sup>122</sup> Finch missed a few days after the trial, but thereafter attended for the remainder of the session until the prorogation on 10 Jan. 1681.</p><h2><em>Oxford Parliament and final years</em></h2><p>Parliament was dissolved shortly afterwards, and a new one summoned to Oxford for March. In advance of the new Parliament at Oxford Finch was thought likely to support the attempt to have Danby bailed. He left London on 18 Mar. and two days later was lodging at Merton (his former college, Christ Church, where the king was staying, being presumably unable to accommodate him). Recovering from illness again, he reported to his daughter-in-law on the 20th that he was now ‘in more health and ease than I thought had been possible to recover in two days’. That afternoon he was to wait on the king, ‘which will be the first trial of my strength’.<sup>123</sup> Finch took his seat in the new Parliament the following day, and attended each of the session’s seven days. On 26 Mar. he delivered a long address on the impeachment of Fitzharris, arguing strongly against the Lords receiving the impeachment and in favour of the case being dealt with by the courts. Having forwarded the view that the king, quite as much as the Lords, had a just quarrel with Fitzharris and thus reason to wish to see him proceeded against in court, Finch took up a further argument as to why the Lords should not hear the case:</p><blockquote><p>Instead of saying that you cannot refuse this impeachment, give me leave to advance a contrary proposition and to affirm that you cannot receive it if you would, because this is an impeachment of a commoner in a cause that is capital. And in this point I pray to be heard with patience, for if I be in the right, then it will be murder in us to proceed upon such an impeachment… I pray your lordships to consider whether it can be advisable to take a case out of an inferior court where the method is clear and plain, to bring it hither where it is possible all that we do may be erroneous.<sup>124</sup></p></blockquote><p>The dissolution effectively settled the matter leaving Fitzharris to be tried in the courts later that summer.</p><p>In spite of his expected support for Danby in March, Finch joined with Lord Chief Justice North and Radnor in advising the king against releasing the earl the following month.<sup>125</sup> The changing balance at court away from the opposition identified with Shaftesbury and Monmouth was apparent in Finch’s resurgent interest. By the early summer he was accounted a member of a junto of half a dozen prominent officials.<sup>126</sup> In May he was promoted in the peerage as earl of Nottingham, a title only recently available by the death of Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham. As one correspondent noted ‘our golden-mouthed chancellor has already got his title.’ His choice infuriated Dorchester, who was said to have wanted the title for himself and was determined to put a stop to the warrant.<sup>127</sup> The following month Nottingham was also successful in securing the deanery of Norwich for his chaplain, John Sharp*, (later archbishop of York) in the teeth of opposition from the countess of Yarmouth and John Sparrow*, bishop of Norfolk.<sup>128</sup> In explaining the decision to Sparrow, William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, stressed ‘my lord chancellor is very powerful and prevailed against us both’: clearly unhappy with the appointment, he complained that ‘I am sure the chancellor would have taken it very ill if we should have opposed him in making a judge, or a serjeant, and if we had succeeded, would have borne the affront with less patience than thank God I do.’<sup>129</sup></p><p>Both Nottingham and his heir were among those who signed the warrant for committing Shaftesbury in July. Nottingham delivered a long speech on this occasion.<sup>130</sup> He continued to exert his interest at Norwich later that summer by presenting one of his sons’ tutors to a prebend there. His efforts appear to have riled Sancroft further, who not only opposed a later effort to secure a fellowship at All Souls, Oxford, for Leopold Finch but also subjected Nottingham to a harangue in which he accused him of lacking ‘either affection or esteem’ for the archbishop. Nottingham’s response seems to have been bemusement at the archbishop’s loss of temper.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Freed from presiding in Parliament, Finch was able to concentrate on legal affairs. In early 1682 he rejected arguments made by lord chief justice Pemberton relating to the Norfolk perpetuities case between Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and his uncle Charles Howard as ‘a deal of artifice’ and ‘plain piece of chicanery’, paving the way for his landmark ruling for trust settlements.<sup>132</sup> In February he rebuked the London sheriffs for failing to deliver up several condemned priests, telling them that they might accompany the condemned men to the king if they ‘doubted his care in their transportation’.<sup>133</sup> Nottingham remained reluctant to involve himself too openly in Danby’s ongoing case. As a result Danby requested that the king would speak to Nottingham in private as ‘I fear he may not otherwise be so free in speaking his mind’.<sup>134</sup> Nottingham’s disinclination to draw attention to himself did not protect him from being targeted by the opposition. That spring, he was one of a number of courtiers teased with invitations to banned Whig banquets held at the Haberdashers’ and Goldsmiths’ halls.<sup>135</sup></p><p>Nottingham’s health, which had already been poor in March, took a turn for the worse in the summer of 1682 when he was said to be suffering from both gout and scurvy. It was in this condition that he entered the fray over the disputed London shrieval election. The king had sought to secure the return of one sheriff on his own nomination leaving the other office free to be elected by the common councilmen, but this led to widespread protests in the city in June. When the lord mayor complained to the king and council of the affront offered him on the occasion, Nottingham declared that ‘the insolency’ of those involved was ‘little less than treason’.<sup>136</sup> On 12 July, in advance of a second round of elections, Nottingham argued in council in favour of the king’s right to nominate one of the sheriffs but was answered back by Sheriff Pilkington. The result was another disputed poll, which was not settled until later in the summer.<sup>137</sup></p><p>Nottingham set out for Bath in August, accompanied by 100 horse, in search of a cure for his ailments.<sup>138</sup> The large retinue may have been occasioned by reports of threats that Nottingham and a number of privy counsellors would be attacked for their role in advising the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament. On 15 Aug. he reported that the place was suiting him well and hoped to be able to return to the capital ‘with better legs shortly’. He also took advantage of his proximity to Bristol to ‘improve all opportunities of securing a good election’ there. Nottingham’s expectations of swift recovery proved optimistic. He had returned to London by October but on 17 Dec. he was said to be lying speechless, and he died the following day, almost exactly a month after his brother, Sir John Finch. The cause of death was given variously as gout in the throat, or gout and quincey.<sup>139</sup> On his death the great seal was passed to North as lord keeper. The earldom of Nottingham descended to his eldest son, Daniel Finch.</p><p>In his will, Nottingham requested to be interred next to his wife in the family vault at Ravenstone. He made a series of bequests to his younger children as well as leaving sums of £10 apiece to the poor of Kensington and Ravenstone and £20 to Dean Sharp. The residue of his personal estate was left to his heir, who was named sole executor.<sup>140</sup> Shortly before his death Nottingham composed a tract on the king’s power of pardoning, a copy of which was conveyed to Charles by Conway.<sup>141</sup> The detail is illustrative of Nottingham’s character and importance. If he had been reluctant to stand out against the rest of the council to intervene on Danby’s behalf in the final months of his life, Nottingham retained throughout an interest in the rule of law and the principles of equitable justice. His manner at times riled some; his oratory was occasionally pompous. Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, thought him ‘a man of probity and well-versed in the law; but very ill-bred, and both vain and haughty’.<sup>142</sup> In spite of such criticisms he died with a reputation of having been ‘very just’ and, perhaps as importantly, more knowledgeable about his office than of any of his contemporaries.<sup>143</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FINCH, Heneage (1627/8-89) |
<p><strong><surname>FINCH</surname></strong>, <strong>Heneage</strong> (1627/8-89)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1634-39 Visct. MAIDSTONE; <em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Nov. 1639 (a minor) as 3rd earl of WINCHILSEA; <em>cr. </em>26 June 1660 Bar. FITZHERBERT of Eastwell |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 22 June 1689 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1628,<sup>1</sup> 4th? but 1st surv. s. of Sir Thomas Finch<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Earl of Winchilsea and Cecilia (Cecily), da. of John Wentworth of Gosfield, Essex. <em>educ.</em> Queens’ Coll. Camb. 25 July 1644; travelled abroad (Low Countries, France) c.Oct. 1646-summer 1647, (France, Italy and Germany)<sup>2</sup> 13 Sept. 1657-25 May 1658;<sup>3</sup> M. Temple 4 Aug. 1669. <em>m.</em> (1) 21 May 1645, Diana (<em>d.</em> 27 Mar. 1648), da. of Francis Willoughby*, 4th (<em>CP</em> 5th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham, <em>s.p.</em>; (2) c.1649, Mary (<em>d.</em> 20 Nov. 1672), da. of William Seymour*, mq. of Hertford, 7s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 4da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (3) 10 Apr. 1673, Catherine (<em>d</em>. c. June 1679), da. of Sir Thomas Norcliff of Langton, Yorks. wid. of Christopher Lister of Thornton, Yorks. and Sir John Wentworth (<em>d</em>. 1671), of Elmshall, Yorks. 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (4) lic. 29 Oct. 1681, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em> 10 Apr. 1745), da. of John Ayres of London, 1s. 2da.<sup>4</sup> kntd. 26 May 1660.<sup>5</sup><em> d.</em> 28 Aug. 1689; <em>bur.</em> Eastwell, Kent; will 18 Aug., pr. 10 Sept. 1689.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. militia, Kent 12 Mar. 1660;<sup>7</sup> col. militia tp. of horse, Kent 12 Mar. 1660-July 1662?;<sup>8</sup> gov. Dover, 10 May-c. June 1660,<sup>9</sup> 14 Dec. 1688-c. Mar. 1689;<sup>10</sup> ld. lt. Kent 10 July 1660-16 July 1662, (jt.) 13 May 1668-29 Jan. 1673, (sole) 29 Jan. 1673-16 Jan. 1688, 14 Dec. 1688-<em>d.</em>, Som. 4 June 1675-16 July 1683; v.-adm. Kent, Jan. 1673-Nov. 1687; <em>custos rot</em>. Kent 10 July 1660-16 Jan. 1687, c. 6 July 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Amb. Turkey, 23 Aug. 1660-7 July 1669.</p> |
|
<p>Finch was the grandson of Sir Moyle Finch<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Eastwell, Kent, a leading figure in Kentish local administration in the last years of the reign of Elizabeth I. After Sir Moyle’s death his widow Elizabeth Heneage, was created, probably with the assistance of her nephew Sir John Finch*, later Baron Finch, Viscountess Maidstone in 1623 and countess of Winchilsea in 1628, both in her own right.<sup>11</sup> Her grandson inherited the title on 4 Nov. 1639 from his father Thomas Finch, 2nd earl of Winchilsea. He is often referred to as the 2nd earl of Winchilsea because he was the second male holder of the title, but he is properly considered the 3rd earl as he was the third holder of the peerage. He succeeded when still a minor, and the court of wards entrusted, for £6,000, the wardship of the young earl to his mother, Cecily, dowager countess of Winchilsea (<em>d</em>.1642), his uncle Francis Finch<sup>‡</sup>, his brother-in-law Sir William Waller<sup>‡</sup>, and Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland.<sup>12</sup> Winchilsea’s principal estates were in Kent, especially around Canterbury, Maidstone and Wye, near which the family seat was located at Eastwell, with in addition the priory of Watton in the East Riding of Yorkshire.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In later years Winchilsea was to claim that from 1647, at the age of 19, he had put his life and, more disastrously, his fortune at the service of the king.<sup>14</sup> He was closely associated with various royalist schemes from 1655 alongside his father-in-law, Hertford, whose daughter Mary he had married in 1649. Supported by Hertford, in 1659 Winchilsea aimed to be the principal agent in Kent and the southeast for the abortive rebellion planned for the summer of 1659, but perhaps because of his inactivity during Penruddock’s Rising in 1655, Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, suggested that the young earl be replaced by someone else more reliable, such as the acknowledged royalist leader Sir Thomas Peyton.<sup>15</sup> Hyde’s intervention may have been the cause of a distinctly uneasy relationship between the two in the early years of the Restoration.</p><p>In the weeks leading up to Charles II’s return Winchilsea was appointed commissioner of the Kent militia and colonel of a militia troop of horse. In this post he was responsible both for the capture of one regicide, Sir Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup>, and the unfortunate escape of another, William Cawley<sup>‡</sup>, at Kentish ports.<sup>16</sup> He also chaired the meeting of Kentish gentry which met at the Star Inn at Maidstone to choose the knights of the shire for the Convention. In advance of this meeting he wrote to his neighbour, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, professing himself glad to find Dorset ‘so forward to serve your country’ and hoping to see him at Maidstone as well.<sup>17</sup> Winchilsea started attending the House of Lords on the third day of the Convention (27 Apr.), one of a handful of peers taking their seats for the first time that day. He was thereafter present on approximately 70 per cent of sitting days before the adjournment at the close of the summer. Prior to taking his seat he conveyed to the king his desire that his kinsman, Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, might be rewarded with a baronetcy and its effective creation backdated to 1648. Winchilsea’s own ‘most handsome deportment’ was similarly brought to the king’s attention. The earl supplemented such panegyrics with his own assertions of his eagerness to serve the king. He was also at pains to court other returning royalists, such as James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I], looking forward to the day when he would be able to kiss his hands and insisting how he would ‘feel a particular deliciousness in the restitution of your lordship to that [splendour] which your birth and virtues have long since made to be your due’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Once in the chamber, Winchilsea quickly involved himself with the business before the House. He was appointed to the committee assigned to draw up heads for the conference with the Commons discussing the settling of the nation (27 Apr.), as well as to those to draft a letter of thanks to the king for the Declaration of Breda (1 May), to settle the militia and to make General George Monck*, (later duke of Albemarle) captain-general (both 2 May). On 3 May, already worried by the large debts he had accumulated in the service of the exiled king, he complained to the committee of privileges that he had not received his creation money for several years. On 29 June the committee reported their decision that creation money was ‘the undoubted right of the peers’ and that arrears should be duly paid to them.<sup>19</sup> On 10 May Monck entrusted Winchilsea with the governorship of the castle and town of Dover, and the following day he arranged for the king to be proclaimed there. Winchilsea corresponded with Edward Montagu*, later earl of Sandwich, on the procedures for fetching the king from the Netherlands, and later attended the king, along with Monck, Montagu and the corporation of Dover at Charles II’s first landfall in England on 25 May.<sup>20</sup> The following day Winchilsea was knighted at Canterbury, but unlike Monck and Montagu he was not made a knight of the Garter: one of many perceived snubs which rankled Winchilsea for years to come.<sup>21</sup> On 26 June 1660, the king granted Winchilsea the additional barony of Fitzherbert of Eastwell, a peerage bestowed primarily to shore up the Finch family’s purported (though probably fictitious), claim to descent from Henry Fitzherbert, chamberlain to Henry I.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1660 Charles II recommended Winchilsea to the Levant Company as their ambassador to Istanbul, and the Company confirmed him in that post on 19 September. With the post came an annuity of 10,000 rix dollars with an additional 2,000 rix dollar gratuity.<sup>23</sup> The Venetian resident in England, Giavarina, reported to his masters that this choice did not please the merchants, and the resident was not impressed by Winchilsea either. It was clear to him that ‘his chief object being gain, he has not thought of anything beyond and his talk is all of occasions which may bring him profit’ and that in addition ‘the earl is a young man full of idle talk, informed about many things, but not very steady, rather inclined to be light and volatile, like the climate of the country’.<sup>24</sup> This view of the earl was later corroborated by many of his English contemporaries. Roger North, writing about the experiences of his brother Sir Dudley North<sup>‡</sup> as a merchant in Turkey, described Winchilsea as ‘a jolly lord… having a goodly person and mustachios, with a world of talk, and that all (as his way was) of mighty wonders’.<sup>25</sup> John Evelyn, conversing with the earl in August 1669 upon his return to England, also commented that Winchilsea was ‘a prodigious talker’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Winchilsea spent much of the summer of 1660 trying to put his affairs in good order before his departure. In July he had been appointed lord lieutenant of Kent and he spent many weeks appointing his deputies and giving them detailed instructions, particularly his principal and most trusted deputy, Sir Edward Dering, for the proper disposition of the Kent militia in his absence.<sup>27</sup> On 18 Aug. the Lords read and committed Winchilsea’s bill for settling his estate of Watton Priory in Yorkshire on trustees and also heard the claims of his father-in-law, Hertford, to the title of duke of Somerset, against the pretensions of Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester.<sup>28</sup> Winchilsea was anxious for the success of both of these matters and wrote to Dering in late August, encouraging him ‘to get the act for the settling of my estate in the North … to be passed your House with all the speed you can’, and further requesting him to get himself on a committee meeting the following afternoon on Hertford’s ‘business’.<sup>29</sup> Winchilsea’s bill received the royal assent on 13 Sept. 1660 and was later confirmed by an act which received the royal assent on 19 of May 1662. In preparation for his absence, Winchilsea appointed his kinsman, Finch, as his proxy on 12 Sept., and attended for the last time on the following day. His plans proved inadequate as Finch died a few weeks later in November 1660. Winchilsea appears to have registered his proxy at least once more during his absence, a call of the House of 25 Nov. 1661 noting him among several peers who had appointed proxies, though there is no indication which peer had been entrusted with his vote.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Winchilsea arrived in the Ottoman capital in late February 1661. His journey there was disrupted by storms and in late November he had been forced to put in to Lisbon after his ship’s main mast was broken. By the beginning of January he had reached Smyrna.<sup>31</sup> He was to remain in his post for the next eight years, forced by financial necessity to prolong his stay longer than he wished in spite of receiving a bequest of some of the estates of his recently deceased kinsman, Lord Finch.<sup>32</sup> While on embassy he maintained a constant correspondence with England, in which he tried to maintain and improve his political situation at home, though he was dismayed at the loss of one of his ‘chiefest patrons’ (Henry Stuart*, duke of Gloucester), as well as Somerset (the former Hertford), ‘who was a real father to me’.<sup>33</sup> He corresponded with the Levant Company, with whom he had constant disagreements concerning his accounts and expenses; with the secretaries of state, especially Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, who informed him of government trade and foreign policy and kept him up to date on events in Parliament; with the trustees of his estate, to whom he gave directions regarding the disposition of his Kentish estate and emphasized his desire to sell the Yorkshire lands to alleviate his debts; and with his trusted kinsmen and associates, especially his cousin, Sir Heneage Finch, bt. and his brother-in-law Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton. He also tried to patch up from afar his frosty relations with Clarendon. In July 1661 he endeavoured to erase any bad memories of their previous public disagreement in Parliament over the disposition of Dunkirk and Jamaica by referring to it merely as a ‘friendly contest’ in which Clarendon was, as Winchilsea now claimed to realize, correct, which ‘will teach me hereafter to submit to your lordship’s judgment, and with an implicit faith to resign my whole reason to the determination of your lordship’. He assured both William Juxon*, archbishop of Canterbury, and Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London, in letters of August 1661, ‘I have always entertained a most reverend esteem of our English prelates’ and only regretted that he had not been present in the House to cast his vote in favour of the bishops’ readmission there.<sup>34</sup></p><p>When new commissions for county lieutenancies were drawn up in the summer of 1662 following the passage of the Militia Act, Southampton agreed with Winchilsea to take over the lieutenancy of Kent and keep it for him until his return.<sup>35</sup> After Southampton’s death in May 1667, Winchilsea had to accept being made joint lord lieutenant with Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, by a commission dated 13 May 1668.<sup>36</sup> Winchilsea returned to England in July 1669, after months of letters from the Levant Company and the king urging his return. He immediately resumed his vigorous government of Kent, effectively managing affairs in the county alone, with little assistance from Richmond.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Upon his return to England Winchilsea took his seat for the first time in almost nine years on 27 Oct. 1669, but proceeded to attend on just five occasions (14 per cent of the whole). In early 1670 it was suggested in a set of proposals submitted to the Privy Council concerning the prevention of wool smuggling from Kent that Winchilsea examine and amend the draft of the bill against the export of wool before the next meeting of Parliament.<sup>38</sup> As Winchilsea waited until early March to start attending the session of Parliament which had begun on 14 Feb. and was not named to the committee when the bill against wool exporting was first committed on 21 Feb, he does not appear to have been involved in its formulation or progress in any way in the weeks before he assigned his proxy to Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, on 7 Apr. 1670. Winchilsea’s early departure from the session seems to have been connected with his need to appear at a commission summoned at Saffron Walden to investigate the circumstances of his heir’s clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Windham, which had occurred while Winchilsea was still overseas ‘in a barbarous country, far distant, representing our royal master in a great empire’. William Finch, styled Viscount Maidstone, had been underage at the time of the marriage and (apparently) also under the influence of alcohol. Bemoaning his sorry condition, Winchilsea wrote to Ormond seeking his interest with the king, but the marriage was allowed to stand.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Winchilsea appeared in the House again on 24 Oct. 1670, when the session resumed, and took a greater role in the wool bill. He chaired the committee himself on 3 Dec., when he was ordered, with Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, to draw up a clause to provide for boats caught illegally transporting wool to be burned.<sup>40</sup> Later in that session, on 20 Mar. 1671, Winchilsea reported to the House that he had come across a pirated printed version of the inflammatory speech recently made in the House by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, and the House subsequently decreed that the pamphlet, ‘derogatory to the honour of his Majesty’s government’ was to be burnt by the hangman.<sup>41</sup> Winchilsea expected some reward for his loyalty in exposing this libel and three years later reminded the secretary of state, Sir Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, that ‘the service I did the king in my Lord Lucas his speech did then cause the king to promise me some favour’.<sup>42</sup> On that same day of 20 Mar. he registered his proxy with Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, who held it until the end of the session on 22 April. In May Winchilsea stood proxy for the duke of Saxony as his installation as a knight of the Garter.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Winchilsea was responsible for defending and supplying the south-eastern coast during the third Dutch War, during which his son and heir William, Viscount Maidstone, was killed in the Battle of Sole Bay in May 1672.<sup>44</sup> Perhaps disappointed by his reception back in England, by the autumn of 1672 Winchilsea was said to have been eager to return to his former posting at Constantinople. He was disappointed in his ambition and the position went instead to his kinsman, Sir John Finch, whose cause was backed by the Levant merchants.<sup>45</sup> In December 1672 Richmond died, and by a commission of 29 Jan. 1673, Winchilsea was once again reinstated as sole lord lieutenant of the county, an office which he continued to execute actively until late in the reign of James II.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Winchilsea took his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 4 Feb. 1673 and proceeded to attend on 78 per cent of all sitting days. His activities in the House coincided with his efforts on behalf of his brother-in-law, John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset, over his separation from his estranged duchess.<sup>47</sup> He was present the day that Somerset took his seat on 10 February, and was named to a few select committees Shortly after the adjournment at the close of March Winchilsea married for the third time. His decision to marry again less than 6 months after the death of his former countess caused some disapproving comment.<sup>48</sup> Winchilsea failed to return to the chamber for the final few days towards the end of October and was then missing from the House for the ensuing two sessions.</p><p>Winchilsea returned to his place at the opening of the session commencing on 13 Apr. 1675, of which he attended almost 93 per cent of all sitting days, but was named to only three committees, two of them on private estate bills. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, considered him a supporter of the proposed ‘non-resisting’ test bill, and certainly Winchilsea was marked as present in the House for the key divisions on the bill and never entered a protest against it.<sup>49</sup> In return Winchilsea seems to have sought Danby’s interest to enable him to secure first refusal on one of the estates of the recently deceased Somerset.<sup>50</sup> From June 1675 to July 1683 he also served as lord lieutenant of Somerset, standing in the place of his underage kinsmen (through his first wife Mary), Francis Seymour*, 5th duke of Somerset and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>51</sup> Winchilsea only attended four early sittings of the session beginning 13 Oct. 1675 before assigning his proxy to his cousin, Lord Chancellor Finch, one of Danby’s key allies in the Lords. Finch employed the proxy in the vote of 20 Nov. 1675 against addressing the king to request that Parliament be dissolved.<sup>52</sup></p><p>From about 1675 complaints of insufficient reward for his loyalty and requests for a lucrative embassy in the Mediterranean, for the sake of his health, become recurrent themes in Winchilsea’s letters to ministers of the crown. By the summer of 1676 he had taken matters into his own hands in his quest for a more agreeable climate and had sought refuge in France and Italy, along with a sojourn to Smyrna to visit his old servant, Paul Rycaut.<sup>53</sup> From there he continued to petition for various postings from his contacts back in England. He looked in particular to his son-in-law Thomas Thynne*, later Viscount Weymouth, to procure for him offices or preferment, even though from 1674 to 1680 he was engaged in a legal battle with him over a suspiciously last-minute codicil to the will of the duchess of Somerset, which gave Thynne a larger than expected share of the inheritance.<sup>54</sup> Winchilsea also busily solicited Sir Henry Coventry, Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Edward Dering<sup>‡</sup>, Danby, Lord Chancellor Finch and, in later years, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡ </sup>and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, as his intermediaries for royal favour. He was particularly embittered by what he saw as the neglect of his interests by his cousin, the lord chancellor.<sup>55</sup> Perhaps because of Winchilsea’s continuing solicitation of and reliance on Court favour, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered the earl ‘thrice vile’ in his assessment of lay peers drawn up in mid-1677. This judgment was probably borne out in his eyes when Winchilsea, who returned to the House in late January 1678 from his travels in southern Europe and attended 25 days of the latter part of the session, assigned his proxy on 9 Apr. 1678 to Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, a close ally of James Stuart*, duke of York. Winchilsea was missing once more for the entirety of the brief session of May 1678. He then attended the House for just six days in the last two weeks of 1678 during the final session of the Cavalier Parliament. Barely two weeks before its dissolution he confided to his son-in-law, Thynne, ‘I have melancholy thoughts of the public affairs… I pray God give the king wisdom like Solomon to distinguish between those that really love him and others’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Winchilsea attended on 13 Mar. 1679, the last day of the abortive session of that month, and consequently was on hand to take his seat on 15 Mar. when the next session began. He was thereafter present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. In his assessments drawn up in advance of the session, Danby professed himself unsure which way Winchilsea would vote in the debates surrounding the proceedings against him, and considered him unreliable. In the event, Winchilsea proved an opponent of the imprisoned lord treasurer. On 22 Mar. he was named to draft the bill to disqualify Danby and appointed to manage a conference about Danby. He voted in favour of it in the crucial divisions. Perhaps this opposition to Danby was owing to Winchilsea’s personal disgruntlement at not getting a lucrative (or warm) foreign post. On the larger issue of exclusion, though, Winchilsea remained loyal to the king (and York). He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680 and in the crucial vote of 15 Nov. Winchilsea voted to throw the Exclusion Bill out at its first reading. He did, however, return a verdict of guilty on 7 Dec. against William Howard*, Viscount Stafford.</p><p>Winchilsea proved an assiduous attendant of the curtailed Oxford Parliament, sitting on each of its seven days. By then his attitude towards Danby had altered and Danby seemed confident that Winchilsea would this time support his request for bail from the Tower and Danby’s son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Latimer, confirmed this and was able to report to his father that Winchilsea himself had volunteered to present Danby’s petition to the House, although James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), thought that Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, would be a better choice for the task.<sup>57</sup></p><p>In the early months of 1683 Winchilsea was actively involved in his duties in Kent, attempting to prevent fanatics from enticing a newly settled French population away from the Church of England.<sup>58</sup> After the discovery of the Rye House Plot, Winchilsea organized the loyal address for Kent and reported to Secretary Jenkins that though he was still suspicious of the loyalty of much of the county gentry, and did not wholly approve of the language which they wished to use in the address, he felt that ‘they are truly sound at the heart’. He commented that even Sir James Oxenden<sup>‡</sup>, an exclusionist member of the Commons, had signed the address and ‘seems truly horrified by the Plot, I hope he has thus learned by his mistakes’.<sup>59</sup> Winchilsea also sent out a party of his deputy lieutenants to search the houses of Thomas Papillon<sup>‡</sup> and Colonel Edward Dering<sup>‡</sup> for arms.<sup>60</sup> When presenting the loyal address to the king in August, Winchilsea described Dering, knight of the shire for Kent in all three Exclusion parliaments, as ‘the principal person who obstructs your Majesty’s service and hinders us in our addresses, all we endeavour to serve you in’. He went on to suggest that Dering’s father, his previously trusted deputy-lieutenant, was the principal encourager of this disloyalty.<sup>61</sup> In August 1683 he further wrote to Weymouth that he had not been able to go on his long-planned trip to southern Europe for his health because ‘it was necessary for me to stay some time longer and keep a very watchful eye upon the discontented party’.<sup>62</sup></p><p>At the accession of James II and the summoning of the new king’s first Parliament, Winchilsea, like all the other lord lieutenants, was requested by Sunderland to ‘use your utmost endeavours to ensure people of approved loyalty and affection to government are chosen’ to the new Parliament. Winchilsea promptly replied on 19 Feb., reporting to the secretary that ‘the knights of the shire are likely to be Sir William Twysden<sup>‡</sup> and Major [John] Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup>. Canterbury and Maidstone, as also Rochester, I am assured will make loyal members their representatives, and I hope Queensborough will do the like’ – all predictions that were fully borne out two days later, when Kent returned a full complement of Tories for the county and its boroughs. Winchilsea himself attended 44 per cent of the sittings of James II’s Parliament of 1685, but left the session in early June to prepare the Kentish militia for their projected role against James Scott*, duke of Monmouth and his rebels, entrusting his proxy to his son-in-law Weymouth until he returned to the House on 12 November.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Winchilsea was one of those nominated to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer at the beginning of 1686.<sup>64</sup> In early 1687 Robert Bertie*, Baron Willoughby de Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), listed Winchilsea among those lords who opposed James II’s repeal of the Test Act in a list supplied to the Dutch agent Dijkvelt. In December of that year, however, the French ambassador Bonrepaus was more cautious when reporting to his master, and indicated that Winchilsea was undecided on this matter. James II himself clearly did not trust him and his Tory loyalty to the Church, and in January 1688 removed him from the lieutenancy of Kent (rumours of his likely displacement had circulated since the end of November of the previous year).<sup>65</sup> Yet in the chaos surrounding William of Orange’s invasion and James II’s flight through Kent and capture at Faversham, Winchilsea quickly fell again into his role as natural leader of the county. Certainly the local gentry looked to him for direction in the events surrounding the capture of the king and James II himself turned to him for help in his captivity.<sup>66</sup> Winchilsea rescued the king from the inn at Faversham where he was being held and moved him to more suitable surroundings.<sup>67</sup> James promised to reinstate Winchilsea in his old offices and the local MP Sir John Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup> noted that from 15 Dec. Winchilsea styled himself in his formal correspondence lord lieutenant of Kent and warden of the Cinque Ports, ‘all which his lordship published to all the company with his usual vanity’, even though the patent for these offices was never sealed.<sup>68</sup> Even without a formal commission Winchilsea continued to act as lord lieutenant of Kent during the unstable days of December 1688 and January 1689, being present at the meeting of the provisional government on 21, 22, 24, and 25 Dec. 1688 and providing the Lords with much local information.<sup>69</sup> Early in January it was noted by Roger Morrice that he had captured various Catholic notables attempting to flee through Kent.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Winchilsea took his place at the opening of the Convention a month later on 22 January. Until his death in August 1689 Winchilsea was a regular attender of the first session of the Convention Parliament, being present on 95 sitting days before quitting the session for the final time on 22 June. He supported William and Mary’s claim to the throne, voting in favour of the resolution of 31 Jan. to declare them king and queen and in the divisions of early February consistently agreed with the Commons that James had abdicated and that the throne was vacant. He was involved in some of the important legislation of the Convention Parliament establishing the new regime, being named to the committee to draw up explanatory clauses in the bill to abrogate the former oaths (15 March). He was appointed to the committees overseeing the reversals of the attainders of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell (8 Mar.), Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> (24 Apr.), and Dame Alice Lisle (3 May). On 25 Mar. he reported to the House on an interview he and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, had had, at the order of the House, with James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, about the whereabouts of his two younger brothers, suspected of having been spirited away to France to be raised as Catholics. As a reward for his services to the new regime, in May 1689 Winchilsea was formally reinstated to the lord lieutenancy of Kent, and in June was also made custos rotulorum for the county.<sup>71</sup> He pressed for further rewards, moving throughout the spring of 1689 that he be confirmed as warden of the Cinque Ports and governor of Dover, as had been promised to him by James II, although these requests were ultimately rejected. His kinsman Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, explained to him that the king did not wish to add to Winchilsea’s ‘vexations’ as lieutenant and custos by adding the cares of Dover and the Cinque Ports to his official burden. He promised that in recompense Winchilsea would be granted a pension of £500 per annum.<sup>72</sup> If this pension, which must have been gratifying to the constantly hard-up Winchilsea, was ever established the earl could not have enjoyed it for long, as he died shortly after this communication from Nottingham, in late August 1689.</p><p>In his will, written just before he died, Winchilsea made his fourth and surviving wife, Elizabeth, sole executrix and heir of his personal estate, ‘the better to enable her for payments of my debts because I would endeavour as far as in me lies to be just to all my creditors’. According to his executrix the value of his debts was still far in excess of his personal estate. In the months following his death there was a bitter dispute over the ownership and use of his property between his widow and his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, Viscountess Maidstone, whose 17-year old son Charles Finch*, had inherited the earldom of Winchilsea upon his grandfather’s death.<sup>73</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L./R.D.E.E. |
|
FINCH, Heneage (1649-1719) |
<p><strong><surname>FINCH</surname></strong>, <strong>Heneage</strong> (1649–1719)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>15 Mar. 1703 Bar. GUERNSEY (GERNSEY, GUARNSEY); <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of AYLESFORD |
|
First sat 22 Apr. 1703; last sat 23 Dec. 1718 |
|
MP Oxford Univ. 1679; Guildford 1685-7; Oxford Univ. 1689-98, 1701-3 |
<p><em>b</em>. 6 Apr. 1649,<sup>1</sup> 2nd s. of Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, and Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Harvey<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of Daniel Finch*, later 2nd earl of Nottingham and 7th earl of Winchilsea, Edward<sup>‡</sup> and William<sup>‡ </sup>Finch. <em>educ</em>. Westminster; I. Temple 1662, called 1673, bencher 1673; Christ Church Oxf. matric. 18 Nov. 1664, DCL 1683; travelled abroad (Brussels) 1665, 1667.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 16 May 1678 (with £10,000), Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Sir John Banks<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of London, 3s. 6da. <em>d</em>. 22 or 23 July 1719; <em>will</em> 20 May 1717, pr. 14 Oct. 1719.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Attaché to Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> as plenip. at congress of Breda 1667; KC 1677; solicitor gen. 1679-86.</p><p>Groom of bedchamber 1685-9; PC 1703-May 1708, 13 Dec. 1711-<em>d</em>.; chan. of the duchy of Lancaster 1714-16.</p><p>Dep. lt., Kent, Surr. 1702.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Commr. building 50 new churches, 1711-15.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving (group portrait ‘the bishops’ counsel’), R. White, 1689.</p> |
<p>‘Silver-tongued’ Finch had enjoyed a notable career as both a barrister and Member of the Commons before being rewarded with a peerage in 1703. A member of the numerous and well-connected Finch clan, he usually followed the lead of his older sibling, Nottingham, although he was not averse to treading his own path on occasion. He was the more able to do so in part thanks to inheriting a substantial fortune from his father-in-law, which brought with it an interest in Maidstone to add to the interest he already enjoyed in Surrey. A significant contributor to the high Tory faction within Parliament, Finch was respected both as a legal expert and effective orator but seems not to have inspired much personal affection.<sup>7</sup> The passing of the years did not mellow him, and once he was in the Lords he proved a frequent signatory of protests and dissents from the House’s resolutions. Swift conceded that Finch was more talented than Nottingham but dismissed him as ‘an arrant rascal’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Much of the animosity towards Finch stemmed from the memory of his controversial activities as solicitor general and, particularly, for his role in securing the convictions of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, and Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>, in 1683, though he later made up for this in part by his defence of the Seven Bishops. He was also one of those legal experts consulted by the provisional government in the winter of 1688.<sup>9</sup> Elected to the Convention for Oxford University, he joined with his brother in supporting a regency, but having failed to carry the point he resolved to accept the state of affairs and (like Nottingham) supported William and Mary as <em>de</em> <em>facto</em> monarchs. Such a lukewarm attitude did not recommend him to William’s good graces. He was denied significant office throughout the 1690s largely through the king’s personal intervention, and by 1698 he was defeated at Oxford University and replaced by a more ardent Tory candidate.</p><p>By the close of William’s reign, Finch’s interest had been reinvigorated. The marriage of one of his daughters to William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, extended his influence, as did his inheritance of his father-in-law’s Kentish estates, though his appointment as one of the executors of William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, proved to be a more troublesome responsibility.<sup>10</sup> The succession of Queen Anne offered both Finch and Nottingham the prospect of a return to office and in June 1702 it was rumoured that Finch was to be raised to the peerage.<sup>11</sup> The rumour persisted into the following year when he was at last one of a handful of Tories (and one Whig) to be promoted ‘to help the queen to more votes in Parliament’.<sup>12</sup> On 15 Mar. he was created Baron Guernsey and was summoned to the House the same day. Then on 20 Mar. he was admitted as a member of the Privy Council.<sup>13</sup> On 22 Apr. 1703 he took his seat in the House, introduced by John West*, 6th Baron Delaware, and by his son-in-law, Dartmouth.</p><p>Guernsey attended the prorogation day of 4 Nov. and then took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 9 Nov., after which he was present on approximately 85 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely supporter of his brother Nottingham’s beloved project: the bill for the prevention of occasional conformity. A second forecast later that month repeated this assessment and he voted as expected in favour of adopting the measure in the division held on 14 December. The same day he entered two dissents, first at the resolution not to give the bill a second reading and second at the resolution to reject it. He then registered a further dissent on 14 Jan. 1704 at the decision to reverse the judgment in the cause <em>Ashby v. White</em>. Guernsey proceeded to enter a series of dissents during March, the first of them at the resolution to make known the key to the ‘gibberish letters’ only to the queen and members of the committee examining the ‘Scotch Plot’. On 16 Mar. he registered two more dissents in response to resolutions concerning the replacement of certain of the commissioners for public accounts. On 21 Mar. he entered his dissent from the failure to give a second reading to a rider to the bill for raising recruits for the army and marines; he then subscribed the protest at the passage of the bill without the desired amendment. Four days later, he entered two further dissents at the resolution that the failure to censure Ferguson amounted to an encouragement to the enemies of the crown. Guernsey’s name was included by Nottingham in a list he drew up in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Guernsey hosted his son-in-law, Dartmouth, at his seat in Kent.<sup>14</sup> At the beginning of November 1704 his heir, Heneage Finch<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd earl of Aylesford, was elected for Maidstone on the family interest. Guernsey returned to the House three weeks into the new session on 16 November. The following month, on 15 Dec., he spoke again in favour of passing the occasional conformity bill, which was once more before the House. He took the opportunity to tease Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, by quoting passages from the bishop’s <em>Glasgow Dialogues</em>, in which Burnet was ‘very severe upon the Dissenters’, a copy of which he just happened to have to hand for the debate.<sup>15</sup> In January 1705 he subscribed to the protest at the rejection of the petition of Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids. The rejection of the petition meant the end of Watson’s battle to avoid the deprivation of his temporalities: earlier that month Guernsey had insisted in conversation with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, that Watson’s deprivation was ‘a hardship on all us ecclesiastics.’<sup>16</sup> The following month he was named to the committee to consider the heads for a conference with the Commons over the ongoing dispute over the Aylesbury men.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Guernsey was listed in an analysis of the peerage compiled in the spring of 1705 as a Jacobite. The identification was almost certainly wrong but such a perception may have contributed to a disappointing run at the polls for those connected with him in the elections held that year. In May it was noted that his ‘bosom friend’ Morgan Randyll<sup>‡</sup> had been defeated at Guildford, a seat Morgan had held for the past 15 years. Guernsey’s son and namesake, Heneage Finch, was similarly unfortunate at Maidstone, where he was unseated in spite of an earlier prediction by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, that both sitting members appeared to be safe.<sup>18</sup> Guernsey enjoyed better success in employing his interest at Oxford University, though here too there was some controversy. Prior to the dissolution, Guernsey and his brother, Nottingham, were appealed to by Sir William Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>, who had replaced Guernsey as member for the university. Whitelocke complained that both Guernsey and Nottingham’s names were being used against him by his opponents. Nottingham insisted that he had not countenanced such action, and Whitelocke came away from his meeting convinced that the brothers were ‘really my friends in this matter.’<sup>19</sup> He was returned subsequently along with the other sitting member, William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Guernsey took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on 40 per cent of all sitting days. On 30 Nov. he entered his dissent at the failure to give any further instructions to the committee of the whole House considering the bill for securing the queen’s person and the Protestant succession. On 3 Dec. he subscribed two protests against the bill, objecting to the failure to give second readings to riders that sought to protect certain pieces of legislation from the future interference of lords justices; he then subscribed a third protest at the passage of the bill. Three days later he voted against the resolution that the Church was not in danger. He signed a protest against it when the resolution was carried in the affirmative. On 9 Jan. 1706 he voiced his dissent at a judgment in favour of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, concerning a property dispute but, unable to secure a seconder, the dissent was not recorded.<sup>20</sup> Towards the close of the session, on 11 Mar., he was nominated one of the managers of the two conferences held that day concerning the privilege dispute arising from the letter written by Sir Rowland Gwynne to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford.</p><p>Guernsey took his seat in the ensuing session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on almost 69 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1707 he was involved in a case in the court of delegates.<sup>21</sup> The session was dominated by the debates surrounding the security of the Church of England and the passage of the Union bill. In common with the majority of his immediate kin, Guernsey was an opponent of Union and on 3 Feb. he subscribed the protest when the House failed to instruct the committee of the whole considering the bill for securing the Church to insert a clause declaring the Test Act of 1673 to be ‘perpetual and unalterable’. The following month, on 4 Mar., Guernsey voted in favour of giving a second reading to the rider declaring that nothing in the bill should be construed as a declaration in favour of the Presbyterian religion. The same day he entered his dissent at the failure to have the rider included and he dissented again at the passage of the bill. On the final day of the session, 8 Apr., he was nominated a manager of the conference for the vagrants bill.</p><p>Guernsey, who had rarely if ever attended council meetings, was one of several individuals removed from the council on 20 May 1707.<sup>22</sup> In August he joined a number of Tory grandees attending the assizes at Maidstone for the selection of candidates standing as knights of the shire for Kent. It was determined to set aside William Villiers*, Viscount Villiers (later 2nd earl of Jersey), in favour of Percival Hart, though in the event both seats were taken by Whigs at the election the following year.<sup>23</sup> Guernsey took his seat at the opening of the new session on 23 Oct. 1707, but he was thereafter present on just 24 of the session’s 107 sitting days. In November he was one of a handful of peers to object to a motion put forward by Stamford for an address to the queen, arguing that the House should instead consider first the state of the nation.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Following the close, Guernsey was noted as a Tory in a list assessing the political affiliations of members of the House of Lords. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 26 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on a little over two-thirds of all sitting days. Closely involved with co-ordinating a rapprochement between his brother and some of the Whig members during the session, on 2 Dec. he reported to Nottingham the latest proceedings concerning the petition of several of the Scots representative peers against the election results, though he did so from second hand as he was confined to his house with a cold at the time. Guernsey compiled a further report for Nottingham six days later, and on 27 Dec. he wrote to Nottingham again advising him that ‘the trust of Lord Halifax [Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax] requires a meeting’ and undertaking ‘when I go to town I will do what I can’.<sup>25</sup> He also took the opportunity to report on an ‘odd kind of debate’ in the House concerning the address congratulating John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene, to which Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, had objected, pointing out that the prince should not be included in such an address being a foreigner. Guernsey’s suspicion of the implications of union were once again revealed by his decision to vote in the division held on 21 Jan. 1709 against permitting Scots peers holding British titles to vote in the elections for the Scots representative peers. He joined with Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, in opposing a cause presented to the House by the brother of James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>, the Scots-born member for Ilchester.<sup>26</sup> Guernsey’s hostility to the encroachment of the Scots brought him into an otherwise unlikely alliance with Sunderland, and at the close of the month Sunderland begged Dartmouth to ensure that his father-in-law and other allies were present at the committee appointed to scrutinize the Scots election returns.<sup>27</sup> On 23 Feb. Guernsey reported from the committee for the Lacy estate bill and on 15 Mar. he subscribed the protest when the general naturalization bill was committed.</p><p>Guernsey attended the prorogation day on 23 June 1709. The following month Lawrence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, announced his intention of waiting on Guernsey and Dartmouth, perhaps as part of an effort to shore up a Tory alliance.<sup>28</sup> Guernsey returned to the House for the new session on 5 Dec., after which he was present on just under half of all sitting days. In March he was to the fore in defending Henry Sacheverell, though like a number of Sacheverell’s defenders he acknowledged that the doctor’s sermon had been singularly foolish.<sup>29</sup> He was noted among a group of normally adamantine peers reduced to tears by the doctor’s speech on 7 Mar. and he took a leading part with Nottingham in fashioning the Tory response to the impeachment. On 14 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution that it was not necessary to include within the articles of impeachment the particular words deemed criminal and the same day entered a further dissent at the resolution not to adjourn. In his speech, delivered during the marathon session in the Lords on 16 Mar., Guernsey insisted that ‘the Doctor in his sermon has not touched upon the Revolution’ but had rather preached ‘against resistance at the present, a resistance against the powers that be.’ Although his tireless oratory proved too much for the queen, who left the chamber while he was still holding forth, Guernsey’s speech was later printed. He concluded his argument by laying down the gauntlet to his fellows:</p><blockquote><p>Here I am, and here I declare, that the Doctor is so far from being criminal in this point, that I challenge every lord, now sitting in judgment upon him, to prove resistance lawful. For at the same time he does assert it, I will charge him, and impeach him of high treason against the Queen.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>Guernsey subscribed two protests that day, first against putting the question whether the Commons had made good the first article against Sacheverell and second against the resolution that the first article had indeed been established. The following day he protested against the resolution that the Commons had been similarly successful in making good the subsequent articles of the impeachment. Guernsey’s spirited defence of Sacheverell proved singularly ill-considered and he managed to offend the queen with his apparent renunciation of the Revolution.<sup>31</sup> On 18 Mar. he voiced his objections to dividing on the question whether Sacheverell was guilty or not guilty of the charges against him, insisting that:</p><blockquote><p>the question, as stated, was not fit to be put in Westminster Hall, because it would subvert the constitution of Parliament, and preclude the peers from their right of giving their judgment, both of the fact, as well as of the law.</p></blockquote><p>He moved instead that the first part of the question, which stated that the Commons had made good articles against the doctor, should be dropped, and proceeded to engage in further debate with Thomas Wharton*, marquess of Wharton, as to the nature of the Lords’ role in the impeachment proceedings, insisting that ‘every particular lord was in himself both judge and juror too’. His argument attracted the attention of John Somers*, Baron Somers, who as forcefully argued against Guernsey’s conclusions. Guernsey then subscribed the protest at the resolution to limit the peers to a single vote of guilty or not guilty. Unsurprisingly, Guernsey found Sacheverell not guilty of the articles against him on 20 Mar., entering his dissent at the resolution to pass the articles the same day. The following day he dissented once more from the Lords’ resolution to censure Sacheverell. Within days of the verdict Guernsey’s was one of several speeches available in print and being touted on the streets of London.<sup>32</sup></p><p>The advent of the new ministry headed by Harley and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, temporarily sundered Guernsey from Nottingham. Guernsey was among the first to wait on Shrewsbury to congratulate him on his return to office, but he was unsuccessful in his efforts to convince Nottingham to do likewise. His action no doubt encouraged Harley to include Guernsey’s name in a memorandum in July of potential office holders in the new ministry; the same month it was rumoured that Guernsey would replace Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, as lord lieutenant of Kent.<sup>33</sup> The management of the Finch clan continued to be a prominent feature of Harley’s plans over the summer. It was hoped that the appointment of Guernsey’s sons-in-law, Robert Benson*, later Baron Bingley, and of Dartmouth as, respectively, a member of the treasury commission and secretary of state would help to keep both Guernsey and Nottingham from opposing the new ministry.<sup>34</sup> Expectations also remained high that Guernsey might be prevailed upon to join them by accepting office as lord keeper or lord chancellor.<sup>35</sup> Poor health seems to have been one of the factors that ultimately prevented Guernsey from accepting the offer, though it seems likely that he would have been reluctant to involve himself overtly in a ministry headed by Harley.</p><p>In spite of such developments, Guernsey appears to have continued to struggle to exert his interest at a local level. He was again busy in keeping Nottingham informed of developments in the electoral contests.<sup>36</sup> In the 1710 election Guernsey’s heir, Heneage Finch, was unsuccessful at Maidstone, and although Guernsey applied to Dartmouth to assist his cousin, Edward Harvey<sup>‡</sup>, who was standing for re-election at Clitheroe, it seems to have been another kinsman, John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu, rather than Guernsey who was instrumental in securing Harvey’s return.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Although Guernsey continued to be noted by Harley as a likely supporter of the new ministry in October, the same month Shrewsbury warned that the state of the House of Lords remained poor and that unless something more was done to win over Guernsey and Nottingham they would remain ‘cool’ towards the new administration.<sup>38</sup> With matters thus balanced, Guernsey took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on over 85 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1711 he was one of those to speak in favour of rejecting the petitions submitted to the House by the former allied commanders, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope. His objection was based upon a legal nicety concerning the distinction between matters of fact and matters of opinion.<sup>39</sup> The same month he joined with his brother, Nottingham, in promoting the passage of the general naturalization act, but when the measure came before the House for a second reading on 5 Feb., it was rejected. This prompted Guernsey to register a further dissent. Guernsey found himself in the minority again on 29 Jan. over an appeal case relating to the prisage of wines.<sup>40</sup></p><p>In February 1711 Guernsey was one of a number of peers to offer his interest to Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup>, who was seeking election for Leicestershire following the succession of the former member, John Manners*, to the dukedom of Rutland.<sup>41</sup> Towards the end of the same month, he was involved in an altercation with Bishop Nicolson in the House over the state of the church, with Guernsey arguing that the majority of bishops were no longer of his own opinion and therefore no longer of the same faith.<sup>42</sup> The following month, although he probably voted in Greenshield’s favour, he also acted in concert with John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], to prevent the Edinburgh magistrates from being ‘soundly fined’.<sup>43</sup> On 9 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the safety of the queen’s person. On 10 May he was appointed a manager of the conference considering amendments to the act for the preservation of pine trees in America; two days later he was also named a manager of two conferences considering the bill for the preservation of game. He was then appointed to manage two subsequent conferences on the same business later that month. In June he spoke against the passage of the Scots linen bill, arguing that it would be ‘a hardship to Ireland.’<sup>44</sup></p><p>By the beginning of the new session at the end of 1711, Guernsey’s already uncertain relations with the ministry had deteriorated further over the progress of the peace negotiations. Having taken his seat at the opening of the session on 7 Dec., the following day he was included among those expected to divide against the ministry and support the presentation of the address insisting on ‘No Peace without Spain’. Although he proceeded to vote with the ministry over the issue of the address, he resolved subsequently to switch his support to the opposition over the measure following a report from committee, arguing that it would be unparliamentary to attempt to alter something that had been approved by the House.<sup>45</sup> In an attempt to prevent Guernsey from sliding into opposition, Oxford (as Harley had since become) held out the prospect of membership of the Privy Council. Guernsey accepted and on 13 Dec. he was one of three new councillors to be sworn.<sup>46</sup> The distinction did not prevent Guernsey from being the first peer to give voice to his opposition to allowing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon, nor from voting (as expected) in favour of barring all Scots peers holding post-Union British peerages from sitting in the House.<sup>47</sup> In January he divided against the ministry once more, voting against the motion to adjourn the House, though the measure was carried thanks to the addition to the government ranks of a dozen new peers.<sup>48</sup></p><p>By the beginning of 1712 Guernsey had all but forsaken the ministry and was deeply involved with the new alliance of Junto peers with Nottingham and other high Tories. On 26 Feb. he and Nottingham were active in the House speaking in favour of minor amendments to the abjuration bill, though it was eventually concluded against them.<sup>49</sup> That month he attended a ‘great consult’ hosted by Halifax and attended by several other lukewarm supporters of the ministry, among them Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, and Henry Grey*, duke of Kent.<sup>50</sup> On 17 Mar. Guernsey was entrusted with the proxy of Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, which was vacated by Conway’s resumption of his seat on 4 April. He was entrusted with the proxy again a few days later on 13 Apr., which was vacated the following day. Conway’s reason for lodging his proxy with Guernsey is not clear, but it may have been connected to his recent unsuccessful bid to overturn a chancery decree concerning a long-running case with John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham. Despite Guernsey’s apparent move towards his brother and the Whigs, on 28 May he once again rallied to the ministry in opposing the Whig-sponsored motion to order the allied commanders to resume an offensive war and overturn the ‘restraining orders’ that had been imposed on James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Guernsey was present on six of the days between July 1712 and March 1713 on which Parliament met to be prorogued. In that month his son-in-law, Benson, wrote to Oxford advising him to invite Guernsey to a meeting to be held the following day in the hopes that it might placate Nottingham. By then, however, both men had moved decisively into opposition.<sup>52</sup> Having taken his seat in the new session on 9 Apr. (after which he was present on approximately 95 per cent of all sitting days), Guernsey joined with Halifax, Nottingham and his adherent William Dawes*, bishop of Chester, in opposing the vote of thanks for the queen’s speech before the House was made aware of the terms of the proposed peace.<sup>53</sup> Later in the session he again allied with his brother to join in the calls for the Union with Scotland to be dissolved, and on 13 June he was noted among those expected to oppose the passage of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty.<sup>54</sup></p><p>In July 1713, towards the close of the session, the vestry of St Margaret’s Westminster proposed approaching Guernsey to become a vestryman, only for the new dean (Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester) to warn them of the perils of bringing peers in and to remind them that the last time they did so they were soon afterwards faced with the influx of poor Palatines. Atterbury’s attitude, unsurprisingly, caused Guernsey considerable annoyance. The affair appears to have been connected with Atterbury’s thwarted efforts to secure the passage of a new excommunication bill, for which he had hoped to gain the support of both Guernsey and Nottingham.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Guernsey returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on almost 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Mar. he proposed that a phrase should be added to the address to the queen seeking out the author of the scurrilous pamphlet, <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>, published anonymously by Jonathan Swift, declaring that ‘the author would have it believed that he was a person that was in the secrets of her majesty’s administration.’<sup>56</sup> The motion was rejected by 53 votes to 35. Guernsey entered his dissent at the failure to include his amendment. The following month he acted as one of the tellers in a division held in the committee of the whole concerning the House of Commons’ officers bill. Guernsey was indisposed towards the end of May with a fever.<sup>57</sup> On 27 May he was included in a forecast drawn up by his brother as a likely opponent of the schism bill. Although he disagreed with his brother on this point, on 7 June Guernsey registered his proxy with Nottingham, which was vacated when he resumed his place at the end of the month. On 8 July he subscribed the protest at the rejection of the proposal to make a representation to the queen objecting to the manner in which the benefit of the Asiento contract had been obstructed by certain individuals seeking their own personal advantage.</p><p>Guernsey took his seat on the second day of the brief session that met shortly after the queen’s death, after which he was present on a further nine days. On 13 Aug. he was entrusted with the proxy of John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret (later earl of Granville). The queen’s demise finally offered Guernsey and Nottingham the prospect of a return to office. In October Guernsey was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster as well as being promoted in the peerage as earl of Aylesford. In December he joined with Rutland and his brother in seeking to unseat Sir Thomas Cave at Leicestershire, but in spite of the coming together of this ‘vast armado’, Cave successfully fought off the challenge and retained his seat the following year.<sup>58</sup> Aylesford was noted as one of the Tories still in office in an assessment of 1715 and in 1716 it was rumoured that he was to be made lord chancellor.<sup>59</sup> Afflicted by poor health in the final years of his life, Aylesford attended the House for the final time on 23 Dec. 1718. Reported ‘much indisposed’ in the middle of June of the following year, his health declined steadily over the next few weeks. By the close of the month his life was ‘despaired of’ and he finally succumbed in July.<sup>60</sup></p><p>A lifetime’s service in the law and politics seems not to have left Aylesford in a particularly strong financial situation and in his will he excused his inability to confirm to his wife the £1,000 per annum jointure to which she was entitled by their marriage articles. In place of this, he conveyed to her all his estate real and personal, trusting to her goodness to make suitable provision for his unmarried children. He was succeeded in the peerage by his heir, Heneage Finch, previously styled Lord Guernsey, as 2nd earl of Aylesford.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FINCH, Heneage (1657-1726) |
<p><strong><surname>FINCH</surname></strong>, <strong>Heneage</strong> (1657–1726)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew 5 Aug. 1712 as 5th earl of WINCHILSEA |
|
Never sat. |
|
MP Hythe 1685 |
<p><em>b.</em> 3 Jan. 1657,<sup>1</sup> 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea* and 2nd w. Mary, da. of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset; half-bro. of John Finch*, 6th earl of Winchilsea. <em>educ.</em> Wye g.s. 1663-4, Chelsea, Mdx. 1665;<sup>2</sup> travelled abroad (France) c.1675-7.<sup>3</sup> <em>m.</em> lic. 14 May 1684, Anne (<em>d.</em> 5 Aug. 1720), da. of Sir William Kingsmill of Sydmonton, Hants, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 30 Sept. 1726; <em>will</em> 3 June 1725, pr. 20 Oct. 1726.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of the bedchamber to James*, duke of York (later James II), 1683-8.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Col. militia ft. Kent, 1678-89; dep. lt. Kent 1678-89;<sup>6</sup> freeman, Canterbury 1680.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Capt. Coldstream Gds. 1682-7, lt.-col. 1687-9.</p><p>FSA, c.1722-<em>d.</em>, v.-pres.1724-<em>d.</em>; Freemason? c.1725-<em>d.</em><sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: line engraving by George Vertue, 1728, NPG 8739.</p> |
<p>As a young man Heneage Finch, the second son of Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, by his second wife, joined his fortune to that of James Stuart*, duke of York. In November 1682 he was commissioned a captain in the Coldstream Guards and, with his youth and military background, was appointed a groom of the bedchamber to the duke in 1683. He further cemented his connection with James and his court in May 1684 by marrying Anne Kingsmill, a maid of honour to Mary of Modena, and later a celebrated poet. As the king’s nominee, he won a seat for the port of Hythe in 1685 but was not particularly active in James II’s only Parliament.</p><p>While his father ultimately sided with William of Orange at the Revolution, Finch remained loyal to his master and shortly after the accession of William and Mary he resigned his military commissions, or at least he is noted as ‘wanting’ in a muster of the Coldstream Guards in the spring of 1689.<sup>10</sup> He refused to take the necessary oaths to the new monarchs and in May 1690 was apprehended trying to flee via Hythe to the exiled court in France. His case was dropped in November upon his giving recognizances for good behaviour.<sup>11</sup> Thereafter he retired to a country life at Eastwell Park in Kent, at the invitation of its owner, his nephew, Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea.</p><p>On 5 Aug. 1712 Finch inherited the title and the financially embarrassed estate from his childless nephew. Although Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, hoped to enlist his support for the upcoming session of Parliament, Winchilsea still refused to take the requisite oaths of allegiance and never sat in the House of Lords.<sup>12</sup> Nor did he involve himself in politics in general. An observer of the elections in Kent in 1713 commented that the Tory victories were even more surprising as there were, by his reckoning, only two politically active Tory peers in the county, ‘for Winchilsea does not concern himself with the public’.<sup>13</sup> The Winchilsea estate, however, did come up before the House in April 1714 when the lords upheld in Winchilsea’s favour a previous chancery decree against the claims on part of the estate made by his niece, Marianne, sister of the 4th earl and his heir-at-law, and her husband Philip Herbert<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Thomas Hearne described Winchilsea as ‘a very honest worthy Non Juror, and an excellent antiquary’.<sup>15</sup> From his country retreat, Winchilsea acted as a patron of the non-jurors, occasionally serving as a witness to the consecration of non-juring bishops and protecting clergy who refused to comply.<sup>16</sup> He even tried to place ‘a very ill man, and disaffected to the government to the last degree’ in a church living under his control in Eastling in Kent.<sup>17</sup> As Hearne also suggests, and knew from his own activities, Winchilsea was a keen antiquarian.<sup>18</sup> In around 1722 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and less than two years later was nominated vice-president of the Society. These new engagements were short lived as Winchilsea died of inflammation of the bowels on 30 Sept. 1726. The title thereafter passed to his half-brother John, son of the 3rd earl of Winchilsea’s fourth wife, and the only surviving male heir of that peer.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
FINCH, John (1584-1660) |
<p><strong><surname>FINCH</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1584–1660)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>7 Apr. 1640 Bar. FINCH |
|
First sat before 1660, 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 9 June 1660; last sat 10 Sept. 1660 |
|
MP Canterbury 1621, 1626, 1628 |
<p><em>b</em>. 17 Sept. 1584, 1st s. of Sir Henry Finch<sup>‡</sup>, sjt.-at-law of Whitefriars, Canterbury, and Ursula, da. and h. of John Thwaites of Ulcombe, Kent; bro. of Nathaniel Finch<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Emmanuel, Camb. 1596; G. Inn 1601, called 1611. <em>m</em>. (1) 18 Jan. 1612, Eleanor (<em>d</em>.1623), da. of George Wyat of Boxley, Kent, 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>., 1da. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) 14 June 1627, Mabella (Mabel) (<em>d</em>.1669), da. of v. rev. Charles Fotherby, dean of Canterbury, of Bishopsbourne, Kent. <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. kntd. 15 June 1625. <em>d</em>. 20 or 27 Nov. 1660; <em>will</em> 28 Apr. 1660, pr. 29 May 1661-25 July 1700.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Speaker, House of Commons 1628-9; PC 1640-9.</p><p>Freeman, Canterbury 1617, recorder, Canterbury 1617-19, 1620-1, ?1625; high steward, Camb. 1640.</p><p><em>Custos</em> <em>brevium</em>, K.B. 1611; bencher, G. Inn by 1617-34, asst. reader 1617, reader 1618, dean of the Chapel 1626, treas. 1626-7; autumn reader 1618; att. gen. to Queen Henrietta Maria 1626-34; c.j.c.p. 1634-40; dep. (jt.) c.j. in Eyre, S. of Trent 1635-at least 1636; judge of assize, Western circ. 1635-9; ld. kpr. 1640-1.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, aft. Sir A. van Dyck, c.1640, NPG 2125.</p> |
<p>One of the most notorious figures in the Caroline regime, Finch has been the subject of a series of damning criticisms from contemporaries and historians alike.<sup>3</sup> Considered by many to be self-serving and an overly harsh judge, the best-known instance of the latter was his order, having observed that William Prynne<sup>‡</sup> still had some vestiges of his ears left, for the remaining stumps to be sliced off and for Prynne’s cheeks to be branded.<sup>4</sup> It was as a result in part of his role in handing down such brutal sentences that Finch was one of those particularly targeted for censure in the months leading up to the outbreak of Civil War but his involvement with ship money was perhaps more significant. After charges of impeachment were brought against him by the Commons, he fled to the Netherlands and thus avoided the fate of his colleagues, William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury, and Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. In July 1641 John Evelyn noted him among those paying court to the exiled queen of Bohemia at The Hague, while the following month he was described as being a pensioner in a Brownist house in Amsterdam.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Although Finch was a cadet member of a newly ennobled Kentish family, the Finches pretended to a more illustrious heritage as descendants of the family of Herbert or Fitzherbert and claimed only to have taken upon themselves the name of Finch during the reign of Edward I in acknowledgement of their inheritance of the manor of Finches in Kent.<sup>6</sup> The 1619 visitation of Kent listed the Finch family under Herbert <em>alias</em> Finch and it was a (probably spurious) tradition that Finch appears to have taken seriously.<sup>7</sup> From his exile in The Hague, he wrote to Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke, describing himself as ‘your poor kinsman’.<sup>8</sup> He was genuinely able to claim kinship with a number of senior Kentish figures on both sides of the political divide but such connections could not disguise the relative paucity of Finch’s inheritance, rendered the more uncertain by his predicament, and on 14 Mar. 1645 Lady Finch felt constrained to petition the Lords to give their consideration to her ‘distressed estate’, she being forced to subsist on a remnant of her husband’s lands, ‘the fifth part … being but £60.’ She subsequently entered into an agreement with Parliament to lease back certain estates in Kent and Middlesex, valued at £338 p.a., for an annual payment of £100. Two years later, on 14 July 1647, Finch petitioned the House for leave to return to England: ‘Old age, many late sicknesses, and the deep sense of his long and present miseries, give the petitioner certain assurances of a very short life, which above all earthly things he desires may take end in his dear and native soil’. Although his request appears to have gone unanswered, in 1649 he compounded for his delinquency, being fined £1,678 12<em>s</em>. 6<em>d</em>.<sup>9</sup></p><p>By the time of the Restoration Finch was living in retirement on his estates in Kent. The precise date of his return from exile is uncertain.<sup>10</sup> He may have been in England as early as 1653, while a report of March 1655 noting that three of Finch’s horses had been confiscated at the time of the rising of that year is strongly suggestive of his having returned to his home in Canterbury by that date.<sup>11</sup> In spite of the earlier confiscation of his horses, Finch seems not to have played any part in the plots to secure the king’s return, and in March 1660 he was sufficiently poorly remembered to have been noted, inaccurately, by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of the peers whose fathers had sat.</p><p>Despite his relative seclusion, Finch greeted the king on his triumphal progress through Kent in May, noting the dates of the king’s proclamation and landing in his commonplace book.<sup>12</sup> On 9 June he took his seat in the Convention, after which he was present on 56 per cent of all sitting days prior to the September adjournment. In spite of his age and clearly failing health, as one of the few peers in the chamber with both judicial and ministerial experience from before the Civil War, Finch was soon active in managing committees and conferences. Named to some 33 committees in the course of the session, on 2 July he was added to the committee for petitions as well as being named to that considering the petition of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland. On 10 July he reported from the committee for petitions the case of <em>Portington v. Dawson and Thomson,</em> and on 21 July from the committee for the poll money bill, which was passed with a number of additions and alterations recommended by the committee. Finch reported from the committee considering Cleveland’s petition on 30 July and on 11 Aug. from that considering the bill for judicial proceedings. Three days later he was named to the committee established to prepare heads for a conference concerning the poll money bill. He reported the committee’s findings the same day and was then named one of the managers of the resulting conference. The proceedings were opened by Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, after which Finch spoke, followed by John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor) and Wharton.<sup>13</sup> Finch reported the result of the conference to the House on 16 August. On that day he was also prominent as one of the principal managers of the conference for the indemnity bill. One of a number of peers who were determined to secure a more severe settlement, he was noted as having ‘made a most excellent speech’ in outlining the reasons for the Lords’ proposed alterations to the bill.<sup>14</sup> Comparing the king with ‘Joseph in Egypt, lying long in fetters’ and David being ‘hunted as a partridge in the wilderness’, he reminded the Commons that ‘the afflictions that befell this good king were the effects of the counsels of these men that are now in question.’ No doubt eager to forestall any suggestion that he was motivated by his own experiences, he concluded by declaring that, ‘his majesty’s honour was concerned in the infamy which the shedding of that royal blood brought upon this nation, in the eyes of foreign nations; and that this is the only opportunity to take it off.’<sup>15</sup></p><p>Over the ensuing month Finch continued to be active in the House. He reported from the committee for the bill for George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, on 17 Aug. and three days later he was again nominated a reporter of a second conference to consider the indemnity bill. Later that month he presided at the committee for petitions and on 29 Aug. reported from the committee for Cleveland’s bill.<sup>16</sup> On 3 Sept. he was added to the committee for the bill for draining the fens in Lincolnshire. On 6 Sept. he reported from the committee for the bill for Sir George Booth*, later Baron Delamer, and two days later from the committees for the Colchester baize-making bill and the bill for disbanding the army. He was then nominated a reporter of a conference to consider the latter business.</p><p>Finch sat for the last time on 10 September. There was clearly no expectation of this being his last attendance in the House as two days later he received the proxy of his cousin, Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea. The proxy was vacated by Winchilsea’s resumption of his seat the following day. On 13 Sept. Finch noted in his commonplace book the death of Prince Henry*, duke of Gloucester, with whom he had participated in the conference on the indemnity bill; Winchilsea had counted the prince as ‘one of my chiefest patrons.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>In October 1660 Finch was nominated one of the commissioners for judging the regicides, attending at least three days of the proceedings. During the trial of Thomas Harrison<sup>‡</sup> on 11 Oct., Finch gave vent to his frustration at Harrison’s demeanour. He lectured the prisoner, ‘though my lords here have been pleased to give you a great latitude: this must not be suffered; that you should run into these damnable excursions; to make God the author of this damnable treason committed.’ He appeared better disposed towards Thomas Scot<sup>‡</sup>, whom he hoped ‘would contradict that which he has said before; that is, that he hopes he should not repent, I hope he does desire to repent’.<sup>18</sup> On the final day of the hearings, he also attempted to interpose with his kinsman, Sir Hardress Waller, attempting to convince him to submit to some form of public penance for his role in the execution of the king:</p><blockquote><p>I have heard of late of your sorrow, which I was glad to hear of, because you are my kinsman, both by your fathers and mothers side, and also my countryman; I was glad to hear of your great penitence for that horrid crime, and I would have been glad to have seen it now; advise with your self, whether you do yourself any good in speaking to extenuate, when you know there is no man against whom there are such circumstances of aggravation as against you; consider whether a public penitence would not be more proper.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>Harrison and Scot were both executed, while Waller’s death sentence was commuted following the intercession of other members of the family.</p><p>Finch died towards the close of the following month and was buried in Canterbury. A memorial was erected to him in St Martin’s church. In his will, which was drawn up earlier that year, Finch bequeathed £500 to his niece and committed her upbringing to his wife, who was named sole executrix. The majority of his estates, including the manor of Chilham, were left to his wife for her life after which they descended to the senior branch of the family.<sup>20</sup> In the absence of an heir the title was extinguished.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FITZJAMES, James (1670-1734) |
<p><strong><surname>FITZJAMES</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1670–1734)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 Mar. 1687 (a minor) duke of BERWICK UPON TWEED |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 21 Aug. 1670, <em>s</em>. of James Stuart*, duke of York (later James II) and Arabella Churchill (1649-1730), da. of Sir Winston Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Collège de Juilly (Father Gough), 1677, Collège du Plessis, 1678-84, La Flèche, Anjou, 1684; academy of M. de Vaudeuil, Paris, 1685. <em>m</em>. (1) 26 Mar. 1695, Honora Bourke (de Burgh) (<em>d</em>.1698), da. of William de Burgh, 7th earl of Clanricarde [I], wid. of Patrick Sarsfield, earl of Lucan [I], 1s.; (2) 18 Apr. 1700, Anne (c.1675-1751), da. of Henry Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, master of the household to James II, 8s. 5da. KG 1688. <em>d</em>. 12 June 1734.</p> |
<p>Gov. Portsmouth 1687; ld. lt., Hants 1687-9; constable, Porchester Castle 1687; lt. Forest of Southbear; warden and kpr., New Forest, 1687;<sup>1</sup> master of the horse 1688.</p><p>Col. Royal Horse Gds. 1688.</p> |
<p>Engraving by P. Drevet after Bennedetto Gennari, 1693, BM 1888 1211.11.</p> |
<p>The illegitimate son of James, duke of York and Arabella Churchill, sister of John Churchill*, later duke of Marlborough, Fitzjames was brought up as a Catholic and became politically significant only for the brief period of his father’s reign. Educated in France from an early age, he had hardly visited England before his arrival in October 1687. It was perhaps a testimony more to the king’s desperate search for willing allies than to the abilities of this virtually unknown and certainly untried teenager that Berwick was almost instantly co-opted to his father’s catholicizing policies. In December 1687, after a dispensation from the penal laws, Berwick replaced Edward Noel*, earl of Gainsborough, as lord lieutenant of Hampshire, governor of Portsmouth and the keeper of New Forest for failing to deliver on the three questions.<sup>2</sup> James also appointed Berwick as his master of the horse, though in this case he ensured that the previous post holder, his ally George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, was compensated adequately.<sup>3</sup> In February 1688 he was given the regiment of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, another loyal servant of the Crown who was punished for his inability to accept James’s policies.<sup>4</sup> If James had confidence in Berwick’s ability to succeed where older heads had failed, he was mistaken. Berwick was unable to persuade either the officers of the regiments stationed at Portsmouth or the gentry of Hampshire to answer the three questions in the way that his father required.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Despite these failures Berwick remained high in the king’s favour. In July 1688 it was rumoured that he would be given the regiment of the recently deceased James Butler*, duke of Ormond. In September several officers refused to co-operate when Berwick tried to incorporate Irish Catholic soldiers into his regiments and had to be court martialled.<sup>6</sup> As the political situation deteriorated Berwick’s activities become increasingly difficult to track. In mid December he was reported to have been with the king at his flight to Faversham, but he was at Portsmouth just a few days later threatening to attack local residents who had seized Gosport castle.<sup>7</sup> Dartmouth pointed out the futility of resistance in a situation in which supplies could not be guaranteed and when this was followed up by a direct order from the king, Berwick surrendered Portsmouth and joined his father in his flight to France.<sup>8</sup> By the end of January 1689 he was reputed to be raising a regiment there.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Berwick accompanied his father to Ireland where he was involved in actions at Coleraine, Derry, Newry and the Battle of the Boyne. As a result of his activities he was named in the bill introduced into the Commons on 20 June to attaint of high treason certain persons in Ireland, or elsewhere abroad, adhering to the kingdom’s enemies.<sup>10</sup> After being amended in the Lords, the bill failed for lack of time in the Commons, although on 20 Aug. the Commons resolved to address to king for a commission of oyer and terminer, for indicting persons in rebellion in Ireland or elsewhere. In October 1689 Berwick was indicted at the Old Bailey along with William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, and others for being in rebellion in Ireland against the crown.<sup>11</sup> His failure to answer to the charge appears to have led to Berwick being outlawed. Intrinsic to the process of outlawry was a loss of civil rights, in this case seemingly confined to the kingdom of Ireland. In 1693 Berwick was captured by William III’s forces at the Battle of Landun and he was exchanged for James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>12</sup> He was rumoured to have been in London ready to lead the plot to assassinate William III and in February 1696 a proclamation was issued for his apprehension.<sup>13</sup> A second proclamation in November 1697 referred to him as the late duke of Berwick and as having been outlawed, this time presumably in England. The process of outlawry which in Ireland had led only to loss of estates, led in England to the loss of his peerage as well as of estates. In the absence of an act of attainder, later references to Berwick having been attainted have puzzled historians, but it is clear that such references use the word in its ordinary legal sense of loss of rights (through outlawry) rather than as a process that needed to be invoked by an act of Parliament. Confirmation of attainder through outlawry was given in 1699 when the House was informed that he had been outlawed both in England and Ireland.<sup>14</sup> Whether the process of outlawry was in itself a breach of privilege of peerage, in that it bypassed the right of trial by the peers, remains something of an open question.</p><p>After the Treaty of Ryswick, Berwick commanded a regiment in the French service. He continued to assist his father, acting on his behalf in negotiations with Victor Amadeus II, and was present during the exiled king’s last illness. His career was now increasingly centred on military service with France. He served in the French army with distinction after 1702 and became a naturalized Frenchman. His success at the Battle of Almanza earned him a Spanish peerage, the dukedom of Liria and Xerica, and lands to support his new dignity. In November 1707 it was rumoured that Berwick was implicated in a Jacobite plot in Scotland, involving the pretended Prince of Wales and some 30,000 men.<sup>15</sup> His military career, however, continued to ensure that his longer term interests were identified with France. In 1710 he was created duke of Fitzjames in France, an honour that he ensured, through a special remainder, would descend to the children of his second marriage. Although it was assumed that Berwick would accompany the Pretender during the attempted rising of 1715, he failed to obtain the necessary permissions from the French government and, faced with a conflict of loyalties, chose France rather than his half-brother. He was killed during the siege of Philippsburg in June 1734.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
FITZCHARLES, Charles (c. 1657-80) |
<p><strong><surname>FITZCHARLES</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1657–80)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>29 July 1675 (a minor) earl of PLYMOUTH |
|
First sat 8 May 1679; last sat 27 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. 7 May 1657, s. of Charles II with Catherine (<em>d.</em>1678), da. of Thomas Pegge of Yeldersley, Derbys. and Catherine Kniveton. <em>educ</em>. in Flanders; travelled abroad (France and Holland), 1674–6. <em>m</em>. 19 Sept. 1678, Bridget Osborne (1661–1718), 3rd da. of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 17 Oct. 1680; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
<p>Master of the horse to Queen Catherine, 1678.</p><p>Vol. Dutch army 1677; col. 4th Ft. 1680.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint, by J. Smith, c. 1689-1700, NPG D29514.</p> |
<p>Charles Fitzcharles, popularly (and dismissively) known as Don Carlos, was brought up in the Spanish Netherlands by his mother, the daughter of a royalist country squire who subsequently married (c.1667) Sir Edward Green. Apparently ignored by Charles II for much of his early life, Fitzcharles charmed his way into the court and the king’s affections after arriving in England in 1672. For a while it seemed that he had eclipsed his older half-brother, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, in the king’s favour. In October 1672 it was rumoured that he was to be given command of a regiment of foot and an income of £10,000 a year, but rumour proved to be inaccurate. He actually received a pension of just £2,000 a year, a relatively insignificant sum when compared to Monmouth’s £8,000 a year.<sup>1</sup> By July 1673, when George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, wanted to give his mastership of the horse to Fitzcharles, the king was noticeably ‘not so favourable as formerly’ and Buckingham was pressurized to give it to Monmouth instead.<sup>2</sup> Fitzcharles had apparently acquired a reputation for idleness, extravagance, and loose morals.<sup>3</sup> Such qualities were scarcely out of place at Charles II’s court but subsequent discussions about Fitzcharles’ need for education suggest that he lacked the veneer of aristocratic polish that rendered them acceptable.</p><p>Although the letters patent creating Fitzcharles earl of Plymouth were not issued until July 1675, the warrant was issued on 31 Aug. 1674 and the intention was so well known that he and others used the title even before that date.<sup>4</sup> At or about this time it was proposed that Plymouth be sent to Cambridge as part of a deal by which his debts would be paid and he would agree to dismiss his Catholic servants.<sup>5</sup> An undated draft budget for ‘Lord Plymouth’s establishment at the rate of £4,000 p.a.’ probably also belongs to these negotiations. Instead of enrolling at Cambridge, Plymouth embarked on a period of foreign travel in which he was accompanied by Robert Paston<sup>‡</sup>, the son of Robert Paston*, Viscount (later earl of) Yarmouth.<sup>6</sup> His surviving letters make veiled references to his ‘enemies’ and to ‘those disgraces that malice itself dares threaten me with’, and demonstrate that he had become very dependent on the earl of Danby’s friendship and support to overcome jealousies at court. Some found Plymouth to be a likeable young man: Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, for example, declared that ‘I am confident everybody that is not prepossessed with malice, prejudice and ignorance will grow to like him more as they grow to know him better.’<sup>7</sup> It may be that Plymouth genuinely did have enemies at court and that his absence abroad freed his enemies to represent his actions in the worst possible light. In January 1677, while on his way back to England, he was reported to have been ‘wholly in fault’ in initiating a quarrel with Francis Seymour*, 5th duke of Somerset, and to have provoked Charles II to declare that ‘he shall make him know he hath no rank but what he has given him’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1677 Plymouth went to serve at the siege of Charleroi but his departure was delayed until his inability to afford a suitable equipage was eased by an infusion of an additional £5,000 from the king.<sup>9</sup> His military service seems to have been used as a cover for diplomatic activities, for he, together with Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (Baron Butler of Moore Park in the English peerage), was involved in negotiations on behalf of Charles II with William of Orange.<sup>10</sup> By the summer of 1678, when Danby had won a temporary victory over Ralph Montagu*, the future duke of Montagu, Plymouth was clearly back in favour. His impending marriage to Bridget Osborne was already well known, and there were rumours that he would be made master of the wardrobe and vice-treasurer of Ireland and be promoted to a dukedom.<sup>11</sup> Ossory suspected him of being behind a proposal that Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, buy the office of lord steward from Ossory’s father, James Butler*, duke of Ormond.<sup>12</sup> Although the rumours proved to be unfounded, Plymouth was appointed master of the horse to the queen and was spoken of as possessing ‘admirable endowments’. A passing reference in a letter from Danby to Sunderland not only mentioned Plymouth’s friendship for Sunderland but stressed his reliability and loyalty.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Plymouth was noted as being under age at a call of the House on 16 Feb. 1678. He took his seat on 8 May 1679, in the second session of the first Exclusion Parliament, in consequence of a writ of summons dated 7 May 1678, which was probably his 21st birthday. He then attended every remaining day of the session, just under 30 per cent of the whole. Despite his close relationship with Danby, it is far from clear whether he supported his father-in-law. In April 1679 he referred, without explanation, to the displeasure of Lady Danby, who blamed him for contriving Danby’s ruin.<sup>14</sup> Danby’s own canvassing lists do not include Plymouth as they were drawn up in March and April 1679, before Plymouth had been summoned to Parliament. On 10 May Plymouth voted, alongside several of his father-in-law’s opponents and just a handful of his supporters, in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and entered a formal dissent when the vote was lost.<sup>15</sup> On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Although the fall of Danby threatened to damage Plymouth’s career at court, it soon seemed likely that this would be more than offset by the effects of Monmouth’s fall from favour. In December 1679 Plymouth was tipped to become master of the horse in Monmouth’s place.<sup>16</sup> However, he did not live to find out whether his change of fortune would prove to be permanent. In the summer of 1680 he was appointed colonel of a new regiment formed for the defence of the beleaguered city of Tangier. His service there was distinguished but brief. In September he contracted a ‘bloody flux’ (probably dysentery), of which he died a month later. His widow married her chaplain, Philip Bisse*, later successively bishop of St Davids and of Hereford in 1704. At Plymouth’s death the peerage became extinct but it was recreated for Thomas Windsor alias Hickman*, just two years later.</p> |
R.P. |
|
FITZROY, Charles (1662-1730) |
<p><strong><surname>FITZROY</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>PALMER</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1662–1730)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1662-70 Ld. Limerick; <em>styled </em>1670-75 earl of Southampton; <em>cr. </em>10 Sept. 1675 duke of SOUTHAMPTON; <em>suc. </em>mo. 9 Oct. 1709 as 2nd duke of CLEVELAND |
|
First sat 28 Jan. 1689; last sat 26 Feb. 1728 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 18 June 1662, 1st illegit. s. of King Charles II and Barbara Palmer, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> duchess of Cleveland; bro. of George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, and Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton. <em>educ</em>. matric. Christ Church, Oxf. Dec. 1675; travelled abroad (France) 1677.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) ?1 Jan. 1672<sup>2</sup> (confirmed 29 June 1677<sup>3</sup>), Mary (<em>d</em>. 1680), da. of Sir Henry Wood<sup>‡</sup>, bt., clerk of the Green Cloth, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) Nov. 1694 (with ?£7,000),<sup>4</sup> Anne, da. of Sir William Pulteney<sup>‡</sup> of St. James’s, Westminster, 3s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 3da.<sup>5</sup> KG 1673. <em>d</em>. 9 Sept. 1730; <em>will</em> 24 Dec. 1716, pr. 17 Nov. 1730.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Ch. butler of England 1716–<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas (with his mother) by Sir P. Lely, NPG 6725; miniature, gouache on ivory, attrib. to W. Faithorne, National Trust, Anglesey Abbey, Cambs.</p> |
<p>The least impressive of the sons of Charles II, Fitzroy was described by his own mother as ‘a very kockish idle boy’.<sup>10</sup> He may have suffered from some form of mental disability, perhaps as a result of a blow sustained while an infant. Later satires emphasized his lack of wit, with one suggesting that it was only in his cups that he made much sense.<sup>11</sup> Although a contemporary report noted that his mother’s husband, Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I], had not slept with his wife for 15 months prior to the birth, Castlemaine acknowledged the boy initially and as such he was styled Lord Limerick from birth.<sup>12</sup> By 1670 the king had accepted paternity and, following Lady Castlemaine’s creation as duchess of Cleveland in her own right with a special remainder allowing the dukedom to descend to her eldest son, Limerick adopted the style earl (not, as initially rumoured, marquess) of Southampton.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Southampton’s mother had made her pretensions for her son apparent as early as 1664 by posing with him in a faintly blasphemous double portrait by Lely in the guise of the Madonna and Child. Having established his royal (if not divine) paternity, she almost at once set about securing a profitable match for the boy. By early 1671 she had entered into an agreement with Sir Henry Wood for a marriage with his daughter Mary (then aged just seven), possibly through the intervention of Wood’s brother, Thomas Wood*, later bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.<sup>14</sup> Sir Henry’s death in May of that year, only days after he had drafted a settlement, threatened to bring negotiations to a close. To forestall this the duchess had the girl abducted from her guardian, Lady Chester, and arranged for the two children to go through a form of marriage service, which was conducted by Nathaniel Crew*, (later 3rd Baron Crew) bishop of Oxford.<sup>15</sup> It was commented at the time that ‘certainly the ceremony of the bed will signify but little should the young lady when at age repent it’, though it was reported to be a condition of the settlement that should Mary Wood not consent to the marriage she was to pay Southampton £20,000.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Southampton was made a garter knight in April 1673. Two years later he was promoted to a dukedom, but a mistake made by his mother’s solicitor meant that his younger half-brother, Charles Lennox*, the newly created duke of Richmond, was granted precedence over him and his brother Grafton, to the duchess’s unconcealed irritation.<sup>17</sup> Despite his already well-known disabilities, Southampton was entered at Christ Church, Oxford, later that year (where Bishop Fell was dean), under the tutelage of Henry Aldrich, though his arrival was viewed with unease by a number of the dons and Dean Prideaux noted that it was ‘the general desire among us that he come not’.<sup>18</sup> In 1677 Fell conducted a second marriage service between the young duke and duchess, who, though still minors, had both by then attained the age of consent.<sup>19</sup> That summer Southampton travelled to France in company with his duchess, presumably to further his education. He completed his studies at Oxford the following year. In 1680 he was one of two peers to be forbidden by the king from joining the expedition to Tangier mounted by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham).<sup>20</sup> There is no indication that Southampton was ever permitted to gain the kind of military experience common to all his siblings.</p><p>In November 1680 the duchess of Southampton fell prey to smallpox. Her premature demise led to a series of legal actions between Southampton and other members of the Wood family over the descent of the Wood estate that would dominate his attention (and that of his agents) for the following 15 years.<sup>21</sup> The basis of the dispute lay in a discrepancy between the terms of Sir Henry’s will and Southampton’s marriage settlement, and the ensuing legal wrangling later served as a precedent for other high-profile cases heard in the Lords such as <em>Montagu v. Bath</em> and <em>Normanby v. Devonshire</em>.<sup>22</sup> As the duchess had both married underage and died without producing an heir it was argued by Sir Henry’s executors that the Wood estate should pass to Sir Henry’s heirs as stipulated in his will rather than to Southampton, but in the autumn of 1685 Southampton was successful in obtaining a favourable judgment in chancery at the hands of George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys.<sup>23</sup> It proved only a temporary victory, as both Bishop Wood and Sir Caesar Cranmer Wood, another of Sir Henry’s heirs, contested the judgment. As Jeffreys must have been well aware, the argument hinged on the well-established principle of the courtesy of England, by which a widower could claim a life interest in his deceased wife’s estate, but only if she were actually seised of the estate and if a child of the marriage had been born alive, and Southampton’s success, however fleeting, probably had a political dimension. He was noted consistently as one of the peers thought sympathetic to James II’s policies. In forecasts of January and November 1687 and again in January 1688 he was listed among those thought likely to favour repeal of the Test, while a list of May 1687 included him among those believed likely to support the king’s policies.</p><p>Unlike his brothers, Southampton does not appear to have taken an active role on either side at the time of the Revolution or to have participated in the deliberations of the provisional government. Marked absent at a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689 he took his seat for the first time three days later, introduced between his brother Grafton and Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, after which he was present on 27 per cent of all sitting days and was named to four committees. Opposed to settling the crown away from his uncle, the following day (29 Jan.) he voted in favour of establishing a regency. On 31 Jan. he voted against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen in a committee of the whole and on 6 Feb. he voted against concurring with the Commons’ use of the phrases ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. On 31 May he voted against reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates and on 30 July he voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing Oates’s conviction.</p><p>In a list drawn up between October 1689 and February 1690, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen, classed Southampton as among the supporters of the court. But although Southampton took his seat in the second session on 23 Oct. 1689 and was thereafter present on almost 44 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to no committees. His attention may have been taken up with the continuing dispute over the Wood estate. On 19 Dec. Sir Caesar Cranmer Wood submitted a new petition against the chancery decree awarding the estate to Southampton but, although Southampton submitted his answer at the close of the month, no further progress appears to have been made.<sup>24</sup> Southampton returned to the House for the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 (of which he attended approximately 57 per cent of all sitting days). On 28 Mar., in response to an enquiry into protections that had been granted by members of the House, he withdrew all but one of the three protections he had previously issued, insisting only on that granted to Frederick Harder.<sup>25</sup> On 3 Apr. the House received a further petition from Cranmer Wood requesting a stay of all proceedings in their case in the lower courts until the Lords had determined the matter, and on 10 Apr. the committee for privileges, chaired by John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, considered Bishop Wood’s request to insist on his privilege in the case.<sup>26</sup> The committee having recommended that the case be referred back to the Lords, on 12 Apr. the House concluded critically that the bishop had ‘waived his privilege in the courts below, when he found it was for his advantage; but, when he found it was against him, he insisted on his privilege’. Two days later the House took Cranmer Wood’s petition into consideration again, concluding in Southampton’s favour once more by affirming the chancery decree that awarded the estate to him. Despite this, when Southampton took his seat in the second session on 2 Oct. 1690 (attending almost 32 per cent of all sitting days), he was compelled to bring a further complaint against Bishop Wood over his failure to hand over money due to him from the estate.<sup>27</sup> In response the bishop insisted that, despite not having fulfilled the terms of the settlement, Southampton had already benefited from the estate to the tune of £20,000 and appealed for the case against him to be dismissed. The case was referred again to the committee for privileges and, following hearings on 27 Oct. and 7 Nov., the committee concluded in Wood’s favour that there was no reason for him to waive his privilege, thus further delaying resolution of the ongoing dispute.<sup>28</sup> On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower.</p><p>Southampton stood godfather to his nephew, one of the sons of Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, in the late summer of 1691.<sup>29</sup> He took his seat in the new parliamentary session on 27 Oct. but was then absent at a call on 2 Nov. and remained absent until 12 Nov., after which he was present on almost 22 per cent of all sitting days. The same month he was named along with his brother Northumberland as a Jacobite plotter by Fuller, but little attention was paid to the information and there seems no reason to believe that Southampton was actively engaged in plotting against the regime. Towards the close of the year he was listed by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, among those whom Derby thought likely to support his ongoing efforts to secure restitution of lands lost during the Commonwealth.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In June 1692 Southampton recommenced his suit with Cranmer Wood, suing to secure a £4,000 annuity out of the estate.<sup>31</sup> He took his seat on 4 Nov. 1692 and proceeded to attend on 42 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1693 he was forecast as being opposed to the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 2 Jan. he voted against reading the bill. The session was again dominated (for Southampton at least) by his ongoing tussle with the Wood family. Shortly after the opening of the session, Cranmer Wood appealed to the House once more for the judgment against him to be overturned, prompting a further response from Southampton in which he complained that Cranmer Wood had ‘been very unkind’ to him and refused ‘to give him any account of the personal estate’.<sup>32</sup> Following consideration of the matter in December 1692, the Lords overturned their former resolution by reversing the chancery decree in Southampton’s favour and awarding the estate to Cranmer Wood instead, ‘no one lord speaking one word to justify the decree but the whole House exploded it’.<sup>33</sup> The decision served only to perpetuate the dispute, which continued to trouble both sides until at least the close of the decade.</p><p>Southampton returned to the House for the fifth session on 14 Nov. 1693 but was thereafter present on just 16 per cent of all sitting days. In the summer of the following year he was said to have been on the point of marrying a daughter of Major Buggins, only for his mother to prevent the match at the last minute.<sup>34</sup> A few months later he concluded a match with Anne Pulteney, presumably more acceptable to his mother, who brought with her £7,000 provided by the Pulteneys’ kinsman and close associate Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup>. Guy (the secretary to the Treasury) was also said to have undertaken to pay Southampton his pensions.<sup>35</sup> Southampton took his seat once more shortly after the nuptials on 4 Dec. 1694 and was then present on 40 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He does not appear to have exercised any interest in the autumn elections of 1695 but he took his seat in the new Parliament on 3 Dec, after which he attended for just under a quarter of all sitting days. He returned to the House for the second session on 20 Oct. 1696 (being present on 35 per cent of all sitting days) and on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of attainting Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He took his seat in the third session on 8 Dec. 1697 (attending on 19 per cent of all sitting days) and on 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Southampton’s attendance of the House during the 1698 Parliament increased slightly. He took his seat on 13 Dec. 1698 for the new session (of which he attended almost 25 per cent of all sitting days) and the subsequent session on 16 Nov. 1699, (of which he attended approximately 24 per cent of the sittings). In advance of the latter session he was noted as one of those to have been especially finely apparelled at a ball held at Princess Anne’s court.<sup>36</sup> Forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation in Feb. 1700, on 10 Apr. Southampton subscribed the protest at the failure to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill.</p><p>Southampton’s attendance declined markedly again the following year. He attended just one day of the first Parliament of 1701 and 10 per cent of all sitting days of the subsequent one, when he was named to the conference on the death of King William on 8 Mar. 1702. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 7 Nov. 1702, after which he was present on 31 per cent of all sitting days. On 4 Dec. he was said to have been ‘cajoled’ by Mulgrave (now marquess of Normanby) during the debates on the Occasional Conformity bill.<sup>37</sup> On 1 Jan. 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as doubtful on the question of the bill. On 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. He took his seat in the second session on 9 Nov. 1703 but was then present on approximately 21 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session his continuing opposition to the Occasional Conformity bill had been noted in two forecasts compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, and on 14 Dec. he again voted against the bill. For the subsequent session, Southampton’s attendance declined still further and, having taken his seat on 24 Oct. 1704, he was present on approximately 11 per cent of all days in the session. The following month he was listed as a likely supporter of the tack. On 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House.</p><p>Southampton took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Nov. 1705. Six days later, despite being listed as present on the attendance list, he was excused at a call of the House. He resumed his seat on 19 Nov., after which he attended for 27 per cent of all sitting days and was named to just one committee. Present for just 16 per cent of all sitting days in the subsequent session in the winter of 1706, he attended just one day of the 1707 Parliament and two during the first session of the 1708 Parliament. That year he was marked ‘+’ on a printed list of party classifications, a sign whose meaning is not clear but which may refer to his court affiliations.</p><p>On the death of his mother in October 1709, Southampton succeeded as 2nd duke of Cleveland according to the special remainder in his mother’s patent as duchess. With the dukedom he also inherited a share, with his brothers, of the late duchess’s annuity of £5,000 paid out of the post office.<sup>38</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 23 Nov. 1709 but it was not until 14 Jan. 1710 that he was introduced in his new dignity, between James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. The reason for the delay in his introduction is uncertain but may reflect some ambivalence about his status. Peers by descent were not introduced but Cleveland had inherited his honour from a woman, and by special remainder. He was thereafter present on just under a third of all sitting days and on 9 Feb. he was named to the committee for Henry Summers’ bill.</p><p>One of the more inglorious episodes of Cleveland’s career occurred at the time of the Sacheverell vote. Firmly under the thumb of his duchess, who was determined that her husband should ‘speak as his brother Northumberland did’ and acquit the doctor, Cleveland was locked in his room so that he could be escorted to the House to vote the ‘right’ way. The duchess’s plan was thwarted by Cleveland’s half-brother Richmond (an opponent of Sacheverell), who came to his rescue by smuggling him out of his chamber via a ladder. Once in the House, Richmond ensured that Cleveland joined with him in finding Sacheverell guilty.<sup>39</sup> It is not reported what occurred when Cleveland returned home that night.</p><p>By the autumn of 1710 Cleveland appears to have moved away from his former political associates and in October he was marked ‘doubtful’ by Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford). His change of heart may have coincided with difficulties in securing regular payment of his pension out of the excise (which otherwise appears to have been paid with notable regularity), about which his duchess complained to Oxford in an undated letter, pointing out that without the money they would ‘be under greater difficulties than is easy for me to say’.<sup>40</sup> Cleveland took his seat in the new Parliament on 27 Nov. 1710, following which he was present for just seven days of the whole. Before the next session opened, in December 1711, he was listed as a peer to be contacted in advance of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. It appears that Oxford’s efforts to retain his loyalty were unsuccessful as he was later nominated by Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, along with Nottingham to be part of the committee for drawing up the address, Wharton joking that ‘he had matched them well, being both changelings’.<sup>41</sup> On 8 Dec., although not marked as being present on the attendance list, Cleveland, predictably, was forecast as being in favour of presenting the address with the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. It seems likely that his omission from the register was on account of lateness, as he was noted as having voted in favour of presenting the address, urged on by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>42</sup> Forecast on 19 Dec. as being opposed to admitting Hamilton to the House as duke of Brandon, on the following day Cleveland abstained by going out before the vote was taken.</p><p>In May 1712 Cleveland divided with the ministry in voting against addressing the queen to overturn the restraining orders issued to Ormond. Despite this he was marked a doubtful court supporter the following month.<sup>43</sup> In February 1713 Oxford (as Harley had since become) listed him as someone to be canvassed in advance of the new session but the following month Oxford added Cleveland to a list compiled by Swift of those thought likely to oppose the ministry. Cleveland took his seat in the third session on 17 Apr. 1713 but attended just two days of the session. On 31 May he was listed among those lords either thought likely to oppose the French commerce bill or to be contacted about the bill, and on 13 June he was again estimated by Oxford as an opponent of the measure.</p><p>Cleveland took his seat for the first session of the new Parliament on 3 Mar. 1714 (attending for a quarter of all sitting days) and in May he was forecast by Nottingham as an opponent of the Schism bill. He attended just one day of the brief session that met in the wake of Queen Anne’s death in August and his attendance of the House thereafter remained sporadic, never rising above 13 days in any one session for the remainder of his life. Although present in the House at the time of the vote on the impeachment of Oxford in June 1717, Cleveland joined John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu, in going out without voting either way, indicative of his general detachment from the political process.<sup>44</sup> The following year he registered his proxy with James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, Baron (later Earl) Stanhope, on 11 Jan. 1718, which was vacated seven days later. Full details of his post-1715 parliamentary career will be covered in the next part of this work.</p><p>Cleveland sat for the final time on 26 Feb. 1728. He died two and a half years later on 9 Sept. 1730. In his will he named his duchess as sole executrix and beneficiary, entrusting to her the education of his remaining children. He was buried in Westminster Abbey and succeeded by his only surviving son, William Fitzroy*, as 3rd duke of Cleveland.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FITZROY, Charles (1683-1757) |
<p><strong><surname>FITZROY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1683–1757)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1683-90 earl of Euston; <em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Oct. 1690 as 2nd duke of GRAFTON; <em>suc. </em>mo. 7 Feb. 1723 as 3rd earl of ARLINGTON |
|
First sat 25 Oct. 1704; last sat 9 Feb. 1757 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Oct. 1683, o.s. of Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, and Isabella, da. of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Low countries, France, Italy) 1698-1700, Padua Univ. 17 Feb. 1701;<sup>1</sup> LLD Camb. 1705.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 30 Apr. 1713, Lady Henrietta Somerset (<em>d</em>.1726), da. of Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, styled mq. of Worcester, sis. of Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, 5s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 4da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); 1 illeg. s. KG 1721. <em>d</em>. 6 May 1757; <em>will</em> 15 Apr. 1756, pr. 16 May 1757.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Master of horse, duke of Gloucester 1698;<sup>4</sup> gent. of the bedchamber, King George I 1714-17; ld. high steward, coronation of George I, 1714; ld. justice [I] 1715-17; PC 1715; ld. lt. of Ireland 1720-4; ld. justice [GB] 1720, 1723, 1725, 1727, 1740, 1743, 1745, 1748, 1750, 1752, 1755; ld. chamberlain. 1724-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ranger, Whittlewood forest 1705-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt., Suff. 1705-<em>d</em>.; v.-adm., Suff. 1705-<em>d</em>. recorder, Coventry 1724; gov. Charterhouse 1734.</p><p>Capt. tp. of horse 1703.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1703-5, NPG; oils on canvas, attrib. to W. Hoare, 1735-45, NPG; oil on canvas by Sir J. Reynolds (Ashmolean).</p> |
<p>A Whig in politics, Grafton sported a rather gruff persona, which accorded well with his principal passion as a committed fox hunter and student of horseflesh.<sup>9</sup> Macky thought him ‘a very pretty gentleman … zealous for the constitution of his country.’ But Swift annotated the entry with, ‘almost a slobberer, without one good quality’. It seems clear that there was more to Grafton than Swift implied. This was certainly the opinion of the nineteenth-century commentator, William Drogo Montagu<sup>†</sup>, 7th duke of Manchester, who thought Grafton ‘shrewd, witty, and only seemingly simple’.<sup>10</sup> Grafton’s commitment to the thrill of the chase, combined perhaps with his rather coarse manner and stout frame, in time gained him the sobriquet, ‘Old Puff’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Unlike most of Charles II’s illegitimate sons, Grafton’s father, the first duke, had been established with a considerable estate. This included the right to the reversion of the manor of Grafton in Northamptonshire and grants out of the excise and post office as well as the succession to the property of his father-in-law, Arlington, in Suffolk and Norfolk.<sup>12</sup> Following the first duke’s early death at the siege of Cork, this substantial inheritance descended to his only son, who therefore succeeded to an estate worth nominally (by the 1750s) £18,000 a year.<sup>13</sup> At least one part of the duke’s inheritance was, however, the subject of legal dispute. On 24 Nov. 1693 his mother and guardians petitioned the House for a writ of error as part of their efforts to secure his right to the office of protonotary of the court of king’s bench, formerly held by Sir Robert Henley, but which they considered had been appropriated by lord chief justice Holt, and was now challenged in the case <em>Bridgeman v. Holt</em>. The dowager duchess, it was reported, ‘solicits hard for her son’, but on 22 Dec., following a series of debates in the House, she and her fellow trustee, William Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, requested leave to withdraw their petition.<sup>14</sup> Although this was granted, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, lodged his dissent and 11 other peers subscribed a protest against the resolution, angry that no order had been given for further information to be presented about the conduct of the judges in the case. Towards the end of the following reign, Grafton was again compelled to petition the House for a place he believed to be his, when he appealed to the queen to be recognized as housekeeper of St James’s Palace.<sup>15</sup> A further complication for the duke in attempting to secure his position was that, until he attained his majority, stewardship of the Euston estates was controlled by his stepfather and political opposite, Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup>. Also it was not until the death of Queen Catharine of Braganza in 1705 that he was able to assume full control of the manor of Grafton.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Early on singled out for advancement at court, Grafton was appointed master of the horse to Princess (later Queen) Anne’s son, William, duke of Gloucester, in 1698. At the close of that year he was packed off on a foreign tour.<sup>17</sup> He had returned by the autumn of 1701 when it was mentioned that he was expected at Windsor in company with Mrs. Ramsey, his ‘inseparable’ companion.<sup>18</sup> Over the following few years Grafton acquired a reputation as something of a lothario, his conquests said to have included Mary, duchess of Montagu (wife of the 2nd duke).<sup>19</sup> Conscious of the need to rationalize his estates, in 1702, in company with his guardians, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup>, and his mother, Grafton petitioned for a privy seal to permit him to suffer a common recovery of his lands in Middlesex centred on Arlington House, to enable him to sell them and purchase in their stead the manor of Grafton (then in the possession of the queen dowager). Although Grafton’s petition was successful and John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), was willing to purchase Arlington House for £13,000, the scheme foundered on the unwillingness of Queen Catharine to relinquish her ownership of Grafton.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Grafton’s concern to secure his inheritance may have been connected with a scheme on foot towards the close of that summer for his marriage to one of the daughters of Colonel Godfrey, brother-in-law to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, but in the event nothing came of the match. The following spring (March 1703) Grafton was granted a pass to travel overseas to join Marlborough as a volunteer at the siege of Bonn and was commissioned as a captain of horse for the campaign.<sup>21</sup> Military life seems not to have appealed, though, and he arrived back in England in mid October.<sup>22</sup> Two months later he was granted a commission to raise a new regiment of dragoons but Marlborough commented dismissively soon after that, as the young duke had given orders to sell his equipage, he did not expect him to return for the next campaigning season. Even so, Grafton still attempted to make use of his interest to recommend one Robert Crow for a lieutenancy among the new recruits.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Grafton joined parties of Whig peers dining at the Queen’s Arms in Pall Mall on two occasions in March 1704.<sup>24</sup> He took his seat in the House later that year at the earliest possible moment: a day into the new session on his twenty-first birthday. He was then present on 52 per cent of all sitting days. Estimated a supporter of the Hanoverian succession in April 1705, the same month he was appointed to the lieutenancy of Suffolk to help bolster the Whig presence in the county. News of Grafton’s likely appointment had been in circulation since before February. It caused dismay among the local Tories, who feared that he would be able to use his interest to swamp them.<sup>25</sup> Despite this, at the general election it was the Tory candidates, Sir Robert Davers<sup>‡</sup> and Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Dysart [S] (the former lieutenant), who were returned for the county, in spite of the strenuous efforts of Grafton and other local peers, Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, and John Hervey*, Baron Hervey (later earl of Bristol), on behalf of the Whigs. Grafton had accompanied them to the poll accompanied by an entourage that according to one (Whig) source stretched for over a mile down the road.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Grafton took his seat just over a fortnight after the opening of the new Parliament on 12 Nov. 1705, after which he was present on over 56 per cent of all sitting days. The following month he divided with the majority in concluding the Church to be in no danger.<sup>27</sup> In October 1706, in his capacity as lord lieutenant of Suffolk, he introduced members of the corporation of Sudbury to the queen on presentation of their address.<sup>28</sup> He returned to the House at the outset of the following session on 3 Dec. but his level of attendance declined to 41 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1707 he divided with those favouring an early abolition of the Scots Privy Council.<sup>29</sup> The following month, on 27 Mar., he reported from the conference concerning the Fornhill and Stony Stratford highway bill, business in which he perhaps had some local interest. Following the session’s close, he attended just one day of the brief April session before taking his seat at the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct., of which he attended approximately 56 per cent of all sitting days. In May 1708 he was listed as a court Whig. The same month he lent his support to the Whig candidates at Thetford, Thomas de Grey<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Baylis<sup>‡</sup>, in opposition to his stepfather, Hanmer, and in spite of efforts made by the latter to arrive at an accommodation whereby the representation was shared between the two interests.<sup>30</sup> On this occasion, Grafton’s influence proved the more potent but only after Baylis had expended about £3,000 wooing the voters. Hanmer was successful in securing his own return for Suffolk in partnership with Davers in the face of his stepson’s continuing hostility.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Coinciding with his efforts in the 1708 elections, Grafton was said once more to be contemplating matrimony. The latest target of his interest was said to be a nonconformist called Mrs. Knight, worth £70,000. A report of April had noted that he was ‘very assiduous’ about her even to the extent of attending Nonconformist meetings on Sunday afternoons. Although his wooing failed to have the desired effect, his interest in ‘Widow Knight’ seems not to have diminished and a number of years later he was again thought to be on the point of marrying her.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Grafton was employed on a minor diplomatic assignment in September when he was sent to convey the queen’s compliments to the queen of Portugal on her arrival at Portsmouth.<sup>33</sup> He also attempted to employ his interest with Marlborough on behalf of Colonel Honeywood.<sup>34</sup> Grafton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 (of which he attended about half of all sitting days), and in January 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election for Scots representative peers. Following the close of the session he was present at a ‘great feast’ attended by Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, and other Whig peers.<sup>35</sup> He took his seat in the ensuing session on 15 Nov. 1709 and in March of the following year (unsurprisingly) found Henry Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.</p><p>Grafton supported the candidacy of Sir Philip Parker<sup>‡</sup> for Suffolk in the 1710 elections, though both seats were again carried by Tory candidates (one of them being Hanmer). With neither of the sitting members prepared to stand again at Thetford he appears to have resolved not to involve himself there after the expenses incurred in the previous contest.<sup>36</sup> Grafton took his seat in the new session on 25 Nov. 1710 after which he was present on approximately 47 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had been reckoned an opponent by Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford. This did not prevent him from offering Harley ‘such assurances of his friendship as becomes his character’ in May 1711 after Harley had indicated his willingness to support his pretensions to the office of ranger of Whittlewood forest, which lay close to his Grafton estates.<sup>37</sup> Besides this, Grafton remained closely aligned with those opposed to Harley’s ministry. On 9 Apr. 1711 he received the proxy of his former guardian, Godolphin, which was vacated by Godolphin’s return to the House on 9 May. The following month he also received the proxies of Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln on 17 May (vacated on 26 May) and Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset on 19 May (vacated on 30 May).</p><p>Grafton came under assault from the Northamptonshire Tory members in August over his proposed appointment as chief ranger of Whittlewood forest. In a letter to Oxford (as Harley had since become) Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup> pointed out the undesirability of the appointment given the duke’s interest in the forest already and the influence he would be able to bring to bear on the elections in both the county and in the neighbouring corporations of Buckingham and Brackley.<sup>38</sup> In spite of their concerns, Oxford bowed to pressure to allow Grafton the place the following year. Listed as a peer to be canvassed over the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion in December, Grafton took his seat in the House on 7 Dec. 1711 and the following day was listed among those in favour of presenting the abortive address containing it. Forecast as being opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from taking his seat in the House as duke of Brandon on 19 Dec., the following day he voted against admitting Scots peers at the time of the Union from sitting by virtue of post-Union British titles.</p><p>Grafton treated Prince Eugene of Savoy to a sumptuous entertainment at his London residence early in January 1712.<sup>39</sup> The following month, on 14 Feb., Grafton registered his proxy with his Suffolk neighbour, Cornwallis. He registered the proxy again on 7 Mar., though it is unclear why he did so, as he appears to have been absent from the House without interruption between 13 Feb. and his return on 13 March. The following month there were further rumours that he was to marry imminently but once again the match failed to transpire. It was not until the following year that he finally put such speculation to sleep with his marriage to Lady Henrietta Somerset.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Grafton was one of a dozen or so young lords who were noted to have abandoned the opposition at the beginning of June 1712 over the Whig-sponsored motion to amend the vote of thanks to the queen following her speech laying out the terms of the peace. Among those deserting with him were Dorset and Cornwallis. Grafton’s association with the latter continued on 13 June when Cornwallis registered his proxy with the duke, which was vacated by the close of the session.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Grafton attended the House on five of the prorogation days between the close of the second session and opening of the third in April 1713. In advance of the new session he was listed by Jonathan Swift as a likely opponent of the ministry and on 9 Apr. he voted with the minority over the proposed amendment to the address in reply to the queen’s speech.<sup>42</sup> In June he was estimated by Oxford as being opposed to ratification of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty. His absence from the House during the debate on the malt tax was blamed (along with the absence of a handful of other Whig lords) by the Scots peers for failing to halt the passage of that measure.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Grafton took his seat in the new session on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on over 70 per cent of all sitting days. He covered his absence from the House between 11 and 31 Mar. by registering his proxy with Cornwallis on 13 March. Cornwallis then registered his own proxy with Grafton on 27 Mar. (before Grafton had resumed his seat), which was in turn vacated by Cornwallis’ return to the House on 5 April. Cornwallis’ mistake was presumably caused by a clerical error but technically invalidated both proxies. Grafton was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as opposed to the Schism bill in May. The same month (on 12 May) he registered his proxy with his Suffolk neighbour, Hervey, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 26 May. On 15 June he subscribed his protest at the passing of the Schism bill and on 28 June he registered his proxy with Francis Godolphin*, 2nd earl of Godolphin, vacated by his return to the House two days later. On 8 July he subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to make representation to the queen stating that the benefits of the Asiento had been obstructed by certain individuals’ efforts to obtain personal advantages from the contract.</p><p>Grafton was present on just four days of the brief session that met in the wake of Queen Anne’s death in August, but on 2 Aug. he received Godolphin’s proxy, which was vacated two days later. The Hanoverian succession proved a turning point in Grafton’s career. Although he was initially named one of the gentlemen of the new king’s bedchamber, he was put out in 1717, but then benefited by Walpole’s re-emergence after 1722 and was rewarded with appointment as lord lieutenant of Ireland and then as lord chamberlain, a post he held until his death. During this period he was closely associated with the old corps Whigs, led by Thomas Pelham Holles*, duke of Newcastle.<sup>44</sup> Details of the latter part of his career will be considered in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Grafton died on 6 May 1757 as a result an injury sustained earlier in the year from a fall. In his will he requested that he be buried ‘in the most private manner as the rest of my family have been’. Grafton fathered nine children with his wife before her death in childbirth in 1726, in addition to at least one illegitimate child, Charles Fitzroy Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned at Thetford in successive elections after 1733 on his father’s interest.<sup>45</sup> Of the five legitimate children who survived infancy, only two, both daughters, outlived their father. He was, thus, succeeded in the peerage by his grandson, Augustus Henry Fitzroy<sup>†</sup>, as 3rd duke of Grafton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FITZROY, George (1665-1716) |
<p><strong><surname>FITZROY</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>PALMER</strong>), <strong>George</strong> (1665–1716)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1670-74 Ld. George Fitzroy; <em>cr. </em>1 Oct. 1674 (a minor) earl of NORTHUMBERLAND; <em>cr. </em>6 Apr. 1683 (a minor) duke of NORTHUMBERLAND |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 5 Mar. 1716 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Dec. 1665,<sup>1</sup> 3rd illegit. s. of Charles II and Barbara Palmer, countess of Castlemaine [I] (later suo <em>jure</em> duchess of Cleveland); bro. of Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Southampton, and Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1676, 1679-81 (France, Italy).<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) by 13 Mar. 1686 Catherine (<em>d</em>.1714), da. of Robert Wheatley, poulterer of Bracknell, wid. of Thomas Lucy<sup>‡</sup> of Charlecote, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) by 10 Mar. 1715 Mary (<em>d</em>.1738), da. of ?Henry Dutton, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. KG 1684. <em>d.</em> 28 June 1716; <em>will</em> 12 Mar. 1715, pr. 18 July 1716.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1688-89; PC ? Aug. 1713-?Oct. 1714.</p><p>Ld. lt,. Surr. 1702-14, Berks. 1712-14; high steward, Windsor 1701-14; constable, Windsor Castle 1701-14.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Col., 2nd Tp. of Horse Gds. 1685-89, R. Regt. of Horse Gds. 1703-12, 2nd Tp. of Horse Gds. 1712-15;<sup>5</sup> maj.-gen. 1708; lt.-gen. 1710.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by R. Williams (aft. W. Wissing), c. 1683-1704, NPG D3736.</p> |
<p>George Fitzroy was the youngest son of Charles II and his then principal mistress, Barbara, countess of Castlemaine, and the last of the five children resulting from the liaison to be acknowledged by the king. Evelyn thought him ‘of all his majesty’s children… the most accomplished and worth knowing’; William of Orange considered him ‘a blockhead.’<sup>7</sup> Although more talented than most of his siblings, Fitzroy appears to have been easily gulled and had a tendency for getting himself into scrapes. From 1670 when his mother was created duchess of Cleveland in her own right, he was styled Lord George Fitzroy and on 1 Oct. 1674 was raised to the peerage as earl of Northumberland. The award came soon after the grant of the earldom of Lichfield to Cleveland’s son-in-law, Edward Henry Lee*, who had married Lady Charlotte Fitzroy, and also coincided with the promotion of Thomas Lennard*, husband of Lady Anne Fitzroy, as earl of Sussex. Northumberland’s title was undoubtedly intended to convey Cleveland’s intention that her youngest son should secure a match with the Percy heiress, the widowed Elizabeth, Lady Ogle. Over the following years, interspersed with periods of Northumberland’s education abroad in France, there were constant rumours that such a prestigious and lucrative match would be effected.<sup>8</sup> In October 1681, Northumberland having returned from his foreign travels, rumours of the match with Lady Ogle, who was then herself in Flanders, re-emerged. Although these persisted until the spring of the following year, such expectations were finally dashed by her marriage to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, at the end of May 1682.<sup>9</sup></p><h2><em>1683-88</em></h2><p>After plans for Northumberland to campaign with the Imperialists in Hungary during the summer of 1683 fell through, he was promoted in the peerage, being made duke of Northumberland on 6 Apr. 1683.<sup>10</sup> The king further ensured his election as a knight of the Garter on 10 Jan. 1684 and he was installed on 8 April.<sup>11</sup> Almost immediately after, he and his brother Henry Fitzroy, duke of Grafton, travelled to France, where a number of high-ranking English nobles participated as volunteers in Louis XIV’s army at the siege of Luxembourg.<sup>12</sup> Northumberland was back in England by the end of October, when he acted in concert with his brother Grafton to disentangle their mother from her current lover, Cardell Goodman. The dukes claimed that Goodman had plotted to have them poisoned but although they were successful in securing his conviction on 7 Nov., he escaped the gallows and they failed to end the liaison, which was terminated only when Goodman’s Jacobite activities forced him into exile in the 1690s.<sup>13</sup></p><p>The plan, first hatched in 1683, to make Northumberland colonel of the 2nd troop of Horse Guards, was finally realized in early February 1685, when the position became vacant following the appointment of its colonel, Sir Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>, as governor of Jamaica.<sup>14</sup> Rumours had also circulated throughout 1683-4 linking Northumberland matrimonially with a variety of wealthy heiresses, but none of these ever came to anything.<sup>15</sup> It was presumably through his military duties that Northumberland met Catherine Lucy, widow of Captain Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, who had died on 1 Nov. 1684. He was ‘bubbled’ into a clandestine marriage with her, of which he informed James II in mid-March 1686, much to his uncle the king’s fury, as it was said he had intended to provide Northumberland with one of the daughters of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle. The new duchess, ‘rich only in beauty’, was considered unsuitable being both a Catholic and the daughter of a tradesman, reputedly a poulterer. <sup>16</sup> There followed a farcical attempt by Northumberland to disentangle himself from his parvenu bride when he, acting again with his brother Grafton, effectively kidnapped his duchess and conveyed her to a nunnery in Flanders. The episode caused a great stir at court and it was thought by some that the dukes would be arrested for their actions, though according to another report, when the duchess’s mother complained to the king, he refused to take any positive steps against his nephew and merely advised her that she might ‘take her course at law’. <sup>17</sup> Dr Owen Wynne believed the king was more concerned that his nephew ‘should be imposed upon by the lady’. Northumberland was eventually prevailed upon to release his wife from her confinement, following which the king in early May ordered Grafton to bring her back to England.<sup>18</sup> At least one satirist made the most of the affair, portraying Grafton, with it would appear good reason, as the driving force behind the kidnapping:</p><blockquote><p>That the lady was sent<br />To a convent in Ghent<br />Was the counsel of kidnapper Grafton;<br />And we may foretell<br />That all will do well,<br />Since the rough blockhead governs the soft one.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>An alternative interpretation was that the entire escapade had in fact been intended to give Northumberland time to reconcile the king to his <em>mésalliance</em>, though there is also reason to believe that Grafton took advice to ascertain whether a divorce might be obtained for his brother.<sup>20</sup> The eventual acknowledgement of the duchess at court was signalled by her reception by the queen on 16 June 1686 amid rumours that she was to be appointed a lady of the bedchamber.<sup>21</sup> Northumberland and his wife thereafter lived in apparent harmony until her death in 1714.</p><p>Northumberland was still a minor at the time of his uncle’s Parliament in May-November 1685. Throughout 1687-8 contemporaries estimated that the duke, now of age and with a vote in the House, was one of those in favour of repealing the Test Acts; he is included among the king’s supporters in four of the lists drawn up in this period on that question. This view may have derived from, or given further credence to, the common belief that he shared his wife’s Catholicism, though reports of his attendance at church in July 1687 dampened such speculation.<sup>22</sup> The close of 1687 found Northumberland named in the case brought by James Percy before the court of chivalry in his efforts to be recognized as the true heir to the earldom of Northumberland, though Percy’s claims were treated with disdain by the courts and Parliament alike.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Of far greater concern to Northumberland was the prospect of William of Orange’s invasion the following year, which found James II’s army divided in its loyalties. The close association between Northumberland and Grafton presumably accounts for reports of Northumberland having joined his brother in deserting his uncle for William’s camp, though these were hastily corrected. <sup>24</sup> Indeed four days after Grafton’s defection, Northumberland was appointed a gentleman of James’s bedchamber, on 28 Nov. 1688, probably as a means to shore up his loyalty. Northumberland remained at his uncle’s side and was on duty the night the king made his escape from London on his first attempt to flee the country. Reports differed as to whether he had been privy to the king’s flight and dutifully kept the chamber door secured until morning to give the king time to make good his escape, or whether he had simply fallen asleep and thus missed the event.<sup>25</sup> Whatever his private convictions, once the king had gone he bowed to circumstances and declared for William of Orange. On 11 Dec. it was reported that he had given orders for all papists to be put out of his regiment.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>1689-1702</em></h2><p>Northumberland took his seat in the House for the first time on 22 Jan. 1689, though it was not until 25 Jan. that he was formally introduced between Somerset and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>27</sup> He thereafter attended on approximately a quarter of all sitting days and on 29 Jan. he joined with Grafton in voting in favour of a regency. On 31 Jan. he voted against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen in a committee of the whole and on 4 Feb. he voted against concurring with the Commons’ use of the term ‘abdicated’. Two days later he voted against employing the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’ and subscribed the protest when the resolution was carried.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Despite his opposition to the Revolution settlement, in late February 1689 Northumberland’s regiment presented the king and queen with an address congratulating them on their accession.<sup>29</sup> According to George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, the king had ‘some suspicions of him [Northumberland] which made him treat him coarsely’ as well as calling him ‘a great blockhead’, although he did maintain the duke’s pension of £3,000 p.a. throughout his reign. By early April William was keen to dismiss both Northumberland and Grafton from their military commands, and on 20 Apr. Northumberland was replaced as colonel of the 2nd troop of Horse Guards by Ormond.<sup>30</sup> Northumberland last sat in the House for the session on 6 June, and registered his proxy that day with Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), with whom he appears to have been closely associated at this point. Two days later Northumberland, ‘now mightily in his majesty’s favour’, according to one newsletter writer, embarked for Holland on the king’s service to fight under Ormond.<sup>31</sup> Both men were subsequently praised for their conduct on campaign.<sup>32</sup> On 30 July Carmarthen employed Northumberland’s proxy in his absence to vote in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates.<sup>33</sup></p><p>During her husband’s absence, the duchess of Northumberland was one of those to visit the Catholic James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, during his imprisonment in the Tower.<sup>34</sup> In a list drawn up between October 1689 and Feburary 1690, Carmarthen classified Northumberland as a supporter of the court. Excused at a call of the House on 28 Oct. 1689, Northumberland returned from Holland on 8 Dec. and resumed his seat on 16 Dec. in the second session of the Convention; he was present for just over 30 per cent of all its sitting days.<sup>35</sup> He does not appear to have exerted his interest in the elections for the new Parliament, but took his seat at its opening on 20 Mar. 1690, after which he was present for approximately 27 per cent of all sitting days of its first session. The same day it was reported that he was to be restored to the colonelcy of his former troop of Horse Guards, though in the event this was not forthcoming. On 22 Mar. he was named to the committee for examining irregularities in the courts of Westminster Hall and to that concerning the bill for the better execution of the poor law. Absent on 24 Mar. when the House took into consideration the various protections issued by members, he was one of those given notice about the nine people to whom he had granted such certificates. Excused at a call on 31 Mar., he resumed his seat on 9 Apr., after which he continued to sit until 23 May. Northumberland returned to the House on 2 Oct. for the subsequent session of 1690-91, of which he attended a little over one quarter of all sitting days, and he was again named to just two committees. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl fo Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. The matter of protections was again the subject of debate towards the close of December and on 26 Dec. Northumberland was one of four peers ordered to attend about the matter. The following day he admitted issuing protections to two people but insisted that he had ordered his steward to vacate three more. After consideration, the House ordered that all Northumberland’s protections should be voided.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Northumberland returned to the House 22 Oct 1691 for the opening of the following session of 1691-2. Again absent at a call on 2 Nov., he resumed his seat on 11 Nov. when he introduced his half brother, Charles Beauclerk*, as duke of St Albans. He then proceeded to attend for just over 38 per cent of sitting days in the session. On 9 Dec. Northumberland was one of those accused in the Commons by William Fuller, formerly a page to Queen Mary Beatrice, of conspiring to restore the exiled King James but it was noted that ‘the discovery did not produce the fervour in the House which might have been expected’.<sup>37</sup> The affair was widely thought to have been ‘dreamed up’ by Carmarthen to deflect attention away from himself.<sup>38</sup> Towards the end of 1691 Northumberland was included in a list of those thought likely to support the bill promoted by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, to recover estates his family had lost after the civil war.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Northumberland took his seat on 4 Nov. 1692 for the 1692-3 session, after which he was present on 59 per cent of all its sitting days, and during which he was named to four committees. He was excused at a call on 21 Nov., despite having been ordered to attend on that day along with several other peers to explain a number of protections that had been entered in their names. Commanded to attend the following day to account for the 14 protections (the most of any of the peers summoned) that he had signed, Northumberland was compelled to beg the House’s pardon. He evaded answering directly his reason for having made out so many of the certificates but assured the Lords that ‘I have now struck out those protections that were entered; and, now I know the sense of the House, I humbly beg pardon for my offence; and I assure your lordships, I will take care to prevent the like for the future’.<sup>40</sup> On 28 Nov. he received the proxy of St Albans, which was vacated by St Albans’s return to the House on 6 December. On 9 Jan. 1693 the House ordered the arrest of four men for breaching Northumberland’s privilege by arresting his hunting groom, John Smith. The House eventually ordered on 13 Mar. that Smith should be discharged from his imprisonment. In January it was also rumoured that Northumberland was to succeed Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, as colonel of the Horse Guards, but the appointment was (again) not forthcoming.<sup>41</sup> He defended Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, against a charge of murder and signed the protest of 31 Jan. against the decision to proceed with the trial and then on 4 Feb. found him not guilty of murder.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Northumberland took his seat once more on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on 30 per cent of all sitting days in the 1693-4 session. On 14 Nov. he introduced his half-brother, Charles Lennox* as duke of Richmond. In spite of his previous undertakings, Northumberland was again reprimanded over misuse of protections in March 1694 and on 14 Mar. several of his protections were struck out. He returned to the House on 12 Nov. 1694, after which he was present on just over 43 per cent of all the sitting days of the 1694-5 session. On 26 Nov, although his name was omitted from the attendance list, he was not among those noted as missing at the call of the House held that day, so it may be assumed that he arrived after the clerks had taken the roll. Towards the end of the year it was again suggested that he was to be appointed to command one of the Guards regiments.<sup>43</sup> On 14 Jan. 1695 Northumberland was named to the committee for the bill to compel the Williams brothers to produce Sir Paul Pindar, bt. and on 11 Apr. he was named to that for examining Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup> and John Morice<sup>‡</sup> as part of the House’s investigations into the allegation that the corporation of London had accepted bribes.<sup>44</sup></p><p>During the summer of 1695 Northumberland’s name was mentioned in Jacobite correspondence under the cipher ‘Mr Walden’ but there seems little reason to believe that he was actively involved in plotting with the exiled court.<sup>45</sup> He returned to the House on 22 Nov. 1695 for the new Parliament, after which he attended on a third of all sitting days of its first session. Northumberland was one of those peers noted as absent when the entries in the book of protections were read on 27 Jan. 1696. On 27 Feb. he signed the Association and on 9 Mar. was named to the committee on the bill to allow Wriothesley Russell*, styled marquess of Tavistock (later 2nd duke of Bedford), permission to develop his interests at Rotherhithe.<sup>46</sup> That summer he was one of several peers deprived of their licence to hunt in the royal forest at Windsor on the orders of James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, acting in his capacity as chief justice in eyre, in an effort to prevent over-hunting, ‘so that if his majesty’s game does not increase it is not my fault’.<sup>47</sup> Northumberland took his seat once more on 20 Oct. 1696, after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days of the 1696-7 session and was named to three committees. On 18 Dec. he entered his dissent from the resolution to read the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. a second time and on 23 Dec. he voted against passing the bill, subscribing the protest when the resolution to pass it was carried.</p><p>Northumberland returned to the House on 3 Dec. 1697, after which he was present on approximately 36 per cent of all the sitting days of the 1697-8 session. Named to seven committees, on 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 18 June, while returning from a day spent at the wells at Richmond-upon-Thames, Northumberland was one of several peers to be beset by highwaymen on Hounslow Heath, though according to one report the robbers subsequently returned the duke’s possessions to him.<sup>48</sup> Shortly after, on 20 June, he was named one of the managers of the free conference to be held with the Commons the following day concerning the impeachment of Goudet and others.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Northumberland returned to the House on 6 Dec. 1698 for the first day of the new Parliament, after which he was present on approximately 36 per cent of the sitting days of its first session. He was, however, named to just one committee. On 24 Mar. 1699 his hunting groom, John Smith, was again the subject of an investigation by the privileges committee following his arrest by one Jacob Broad at the suit of Thomas King, a wine merchant, in spite of Northumberland’s intervention on Smith’s behalf. Broad had then compounded his error by speaking ‘very opprobrious words’ against the duke, as a result of which the House gave orders for Broad to be attached and arranged for Smith’s release.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Northumberland’s good standing at court was reflected in reports in May 1699 that he was to be appointed to a vacancy in the bedchamber, though in the event this did not come to pass.<sup>51</sup> Having taken his seat once more on 16 Nov. 1699 for the 1699-1700 session, Northumberland proceeded to attend on approximately 40 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 1 Feb. 1700 he was forecast as being in favour of the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation, but on 23 Feb. he voted against adjourning into a committee of the whole to help further progress the bill. In August he served as one of the supporters to the chief mourner, Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, at the funeral of Princess Anne’s son, William, duke of Gloucester.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Northumberland took his seat in the first Parliament of 1701 on 10 Feb., after which he was present on approximately 54 per cent of all sitting days and was named to three committees. Having been excluded from office since the Revolution, Northumberland was at last rewarded with the lord lieutenancy of Surrey and with the place of constable of Windsor Castle.<sup>53</sup> On 19 May he also elected high steward of Windsor in succession to Norfolk.<sup>54</sup> His appointments coincided with an improvement in Tory fortunes represented by the impeachment of John Somers*, Baron Somers. Northumberland, siding with the Tory-dominated Commons against the Whig-dominated Lords, on 17 June subscribed the protest against the resolution to proceed to Westminster Hall for the trial. The same day he voted against the resolution to acquit the former lord chancellor.</p><p>The elections of November 1701 saw the sitting members returned for New Windsor, following which Northumberland presented an address from the corporation expressing its thanks for the Acts of Toleration and Settlement. In Surrey, although Northumberland’s interest was perhaps the cause of a less amicable contest, the sitting candidates were also re-elected.<sup>55</sup> Northumberland’s attendance declined slightly in the Parliament of 1701-2 and, having taken his seat on 30 Dec. 1701, he was present on 31 per cent of all sitting days.</p><h2><em>1702-1716</em></h2><p>Following the king’s death on 8 Mar. 1702 Northumberland was named to the conference considering matters arising from the king’s demise and the accession of Queen Anne. The new reign appeared to offer him the expectation of continuing preferment and in April it was reported, again without foundation, that he was to replace Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, in the command of the first troop of Horse Guards.<sup>56</sup> He took his seat in Queen Anne’s first Parliament on 21 Oct. 1702, of whose first session he attended approximately 52 per cent of all its sitting days. In January 1703 he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being in favour of the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. he demonstrated his support by voting against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the bill’s penalty clause. He was clearly in line for military promotion. In February it was rumoured that he would replace Ormond and be restored as colonel of the 2nd troop of Horse Guards. While that did not immediately come to fruition, upon the death of the earl of Oxford Northumberland was on 13 Mar. appointed to replace him as colonel of the Royal Horse Guards, a place thought to be worth £2,000 per annum.<sup>57</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session of 1703-4, Northumberland was again assessed as a supporter of the occasional conformity bill in two forecasts compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. He took his seat on 6 Dec. 1703 but he was then absent from the House on 14 Dec., the day of the vote on the bill. He was noted as having voted in favour of the bill by proxy, though no record of the proxy survives. At the close of the year, the laxness with which Northumberland was willing to allow use of his name by his agents was highlighted when he was informed by Nottingham of a case involving his gentleman of the horse, Charles Mildmay. Mildmay had procured on Northumberland’s authority passes to Holland for two people who it later transpired had assumed false names to secure their passage to France. Mildmay was later prosecuted for his activities.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Northumberland was unsuccessful in his efforts to have one Charles Harman elected a freeman of Windsor in May 1704, though the corporation was at pains to explain their refusal on the grounds of his election being likely to injure the already large number of wine retailers in the borough and hoped that the duke would ‘not take it amiss’.<sup>59</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 24 Oct. 1704, after which he was present on 23 per cent of all of the sitting days of the 1704-5 session. On 1 Nov. he was noted among those thought likely to support the tack but he was marked ‘uncertain’ in an analysis of 13 Apr. 1705 relating to the succession. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on 40 per cent of all sitting days of its first session. Excused at a call on 12 Nov., he resumed his seat on 27 Nov. and on 3 Dec. officiated as lord great chamberlain at the introduction of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], as earl of Greenwich.</p><p>In June 1706 Northumberland was reprimanded by the queen for awarding a cornet’s commission to a young boy (Edward Bird) considered to be far too young for the position. He was forced to offer the commission to a more mature candidate instead (Edward Reading).<sup>60</sup> At the beginning of the new legal term in November, Northumberland, along with his nephews Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, and Edward Henry Lee, styled Viscount Quarendon, introduced the duchess of Cleveland at the Old Bailey. Cleveland was engaged in a case against her estranged husband, Robert ‘Beau’ Feilding, who had been indicted for bigamy and from whom she claimed she feared ‘personal hurt’.<sup>61</sup> In spite of her pleas, Feilding was continued on bail, though he was later found guilty both of bigamously marrying Cleveland and one Mary Wadsworth as well as of an incestuous liaison with Quarendon’s sister. Cleveland secured an annulment of their marriage the following year.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Northumberland took his place in the House on 13 Dec. 1706 and was present for approximately 38 per cent of all sitting days in the 1706-7 session. He then attended just one day of the brief session of 14-24 Apr. 1707 but returned to the House at the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct., after which he was present on approximately 45 per cent of all sitting days in the 1707-8 session. In November 1707 the borough of New Windsor demonstrated their appreciation for their high steward by electing Alexander Monk, Northumberland’s butler, a freeman, and by waiving the usual fees.<sup>63</sup> In early April 1708 Northumberland was included (with a query) in a list of colonels to be promoted to the rank of brigadier and later that same month, on 27 Apr., he was promoted major-general.<sup>64</sup> As in the case of the list relating to the succession, an assessment of the members of the first Parliament of Great Britain, compiled in May 1708, failed to classify Northumberland in terms of party.</p><p>Northumberland returned to the House for the new Parliament on 16 Dec. 1708, after which he was present on approximately 46 per cent of all sitting days of the first session of 1708-9. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers. In May he approached Robert Walpole*, the secretary at war, and later earl of Orford, and requested to be advanced another step in the army as a lieutenant-general. Although Northumberland had only recently been appointed a major-general, Walpole recommended to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, that he ‘is so very old a colonel, that I believe if this favour should be granted him nobody would think himself much concerned or affected by it’.<sup>65</sup> In the event the promotion was delayed until 1710. In the meantime efforts seem to have been afoot to persuade Northumberland to part with his regiment. In attempting to effect this the duchess was played upon, who seemed very willing to concede the point given that the money associated with the regiment did not come near her and was ‘wasted’, as the duchess thought, ‘in evil courses and wicked infidelity to herself.’ Shortly before his attempt to secure promotion, Northumberland’s duchess had also attempted to intervene on his behalf following a complaint about the management of the deer in Windsor Great Park. Her defence can hardly have done him much good as she attempted to stress that he had ‘always endeavoured to have the game preserved from other people’ while being ‘too lazy to do anything that could destroy it himself.’<sup>66</sup></p><p>Northumberland took his seat in the House again on 28 Nov. 1709, following which he was present on approximately 48 per cent of all sitting days of the 1709-10 session. He enjoyed Marlborough’s good opinion but the latter’s declining interest with the queen meant that his recommendation was insufficient to secure Northumberland the lieutenancy of the Tower of London in early January 1710. Instead he was promoted to lieutenant-general.<sup>67</sup> Marlborough’s absence from Parliament at the time was also credited for Northumberland’s defection on 20 Mar. 1710 when he rebelled against his commander’s direction and voted against the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell.<sup>68</sup> By October 1710, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, counted Northumberland among the potential supporters of the new ministry he was trying to form. Northumberland took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. and on 16 Dec. registered his proxy with his military colleague, Ormond, which was vacated by his return to the House on 11 Jan. 1711. Four days later (15 Jan.), although present at the opening of the day’s proceedings, Northumberland registered his proxy with John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, which was vacated two days later on 17 January. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted that Northumberland’s cause about the prisage of wine ended on 29 Jan. and on 5 Feb. the duke entered his dissent from the resolution to reject the bill repealing the General Naturalization Act.<sup>69</sup></p><p>In spite of reports at the beginning of 1711 that he would participate in the new campaigning season on the continent, Northumberland failed to resume his military career.<sup>70</sup> The death of the sitting Member of Parliament William Paul<sup>‡</sup> in May offered him an opportunity of exerting his interest in the borough of New Windsor at a by-election but here too he was compelled to leave aside his aspirations for his friend and correspondent, the Jacobite Charles Aldworth<sup>‡</sup>, once it became clear that the court interest intended the seat for Samuel Masham*, later Baron Masham, husband of the queen’s favourite.<sup>71</sup> Listed in June 1711 among the Tory patriots of the previous session, in July Northumberland suddenly fell sick and later that month he was reported dead of an apoplectic fit.<sup>72</sup> His apparent demise encouraged a number of competitors to solicit for his offices, but the report proved to be premature and by October Northumberland was sufficiently recovered to engage in correspondence with his agents in Berkshire about his expected appointment as lord lieutenant of the county.<sup>73</sup> The following month Charles Aldworth lobbied the lord privy seal, Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, and Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, about the lieutenancy, and by 5 Nov. he was confident that ‘all matters will go as your servants desire they should in relation to Berkshire’.<sup>74</sup></p><p>In the meantime, Northumberland took his seat in the House on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present on 54 per cent of all sitting days in the 1711-12 session. He had been listed among those to be canvassed by the earl of Oxford (as Harley had become) over the attempt to reject the motion insisting that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’, and on 8 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to present the address to the queen with the clause included. Northumberland was thought likely to support James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in his attempt to sit in the House as duke of Brandon and on 20 Dec. he voted against the motion denying Scots peers the right to sit in the House by virtue of post-Union British peerages.</p><p>Oxford clearly saw Northumberland as a supporter, someone to be conferred with during the recess of Christmas 1711, and Northumberland’s loyalty was rewarded in the new year with his restoration to the colonelcy of the 2nd troop of Horse Guards, following Ormond’s promotion to command of the 1st troop on 4 Jan. 1712.<sup>75</sup> His growing interest in Berkshire was also underlined by his successful championing of Charles Aldworth to succeed Samuel Masham as Member for New Windsor following Masham’s elevation to the Lords on 1 Jan. 1712 as one of ‘Oxford’s dozen’. As a recognition of this local influence, Northumberland was appointed lord lieutenant of Berkshire, to which office he was sworn 5 May 1712. The House was again called upon to uphold Northumberland’s privilege on 2 Feb. 1712 when George Willan was reprimanded on his knees at the bar for breaching Northumberland’s privilege. Aldworth further advised Northumberland in April to be in the House during the proceedings on the bill for satisfying the creditors of John Dann and John Coggs, in which Northumberland was involved as a trustee for one Thomas Brerewood.<sup>76</sup> Northumberland was duly in attendance on 5 June when the bill was considered in a committee of the whole but he was then absent from the remainder of the session after 6 June. He registered his proxy on 7 June with Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, and following further debate, the bill was ordered to be engrossed on 11 June. Northumberland was again present at the prorogation of 8 July.</p><p>On the death of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, on 18 Aug. 1712, Northumberland was reportedly in line to resume his old command of the Royal Horse Guards, which Rivers had commanded since Northumberland’s move to the 2nd troop of Horse Guards earlier that year.<sup>77</sup> He took his seat in the House for the long-delayed session on the peace on 16 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on 59 per cent of its sitting days. In May his protégé Aldworth penned an inflammatory address on the peace for the New Windsor corporation, which Northumberland refused to present at court.<sup>78</sup> In June Oxford forecast that he would be in favour of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty. In August Northumberland was sworn to the privy council.</p><p>Northumberland returned to the House on 2 Mar. 1714 for the new Parliament. He registered his proxy with Oxford the same day: it was vacated by the resumption of his seat on 31 March. The death of his duchess on 25 May again curtailed his attendance but he ensured that his proxy was registered with Poulett on 26 May. Northumberland wrote to thank Oxford for his sympathy at his loss, which he acknowledged ‘is a sensible one, which will prevent my attending the House at this time’, but he assured Oxford of having ‘left my proxy with my Lord Steward, who I doubt not will be for the bill.’<sup>79</sup> The bill in question was the schism bill, and Nottingham assessed Northumberland as a likely supporter of it. He resumed his seat on 9 June and continued to attend until 9 July.</p><p>Northumberland attended just three days of the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death on 1 Aug. 1714. As a supporter of the Oxford ministry his expectations under the new regime were unpromising but although he was turned out of his offices at Windsor in October, on 26 Jan. 1715 he was noted among those Tories still in office.<sup>80</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Mar. but sat on just four occasions. In the following year of 1716 he attended on just two days, sitting for the last time on 5 March. On 13 Apr. he registered his proxy with John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron Ashburnham. It was vacated by Northumberland’s death on 28 June at Epsom.</p><p>Northumberland lay in state in the Jerusalem chamber at Westminster before his interment in Westminster Abbey.<sup>81</sup> In his will he provided for the payment of a third of his annual pension of £3,000 to his widow Mary Dutton, whom he had married within a year of the death of his first wife. He left no legitimate children, so at his demise the dukedom of Northumberland became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FITZROY, Henry (1663-90) |
<p><strong><surname>FITZROY</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>PALMER</strong>), <strong>Henry</strong> (1663–90)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>16 Aug. 1672 (a minor) earl of EUSTON; <em>cr. </em>11 Sept. 1675 (a minor) duke of GRAFTON |
|
First sat 27 May 1685; last sat 10 May 1690 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. bet. 2 and 28 Sept. 1663, 2nd illegit. s. of King Charles II and Barbara Palmer, <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Cleveland; bro. of Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Southampton, and George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1673,<sup>1</sup> (France; tutor Edward Chamberlayne) 1676-8.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (pre-contract 1 Aug. 1672)<sup>3</sup> 6 Nov. 1679, Isabella Bennet (<em>d</em>.1723),<sup>4</sup> da. of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, and Isabella, da. of Louis de Nassau, count of Beverwaet and Auverquerque, 1s. KG 1680. <em>d</em>. 9 Oct. 1690; <em>will</em> 8 July 1687-27 Oct. 1688, pr. 11 Nov. 1690.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Gov., Isle of Wight 1684-90, ?Portsmouth 1689;<sup>6</sup> clerk of the treasury and jt. kpr. of recs. in Common Pleas 1685.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Suff. 1685-9, <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. 1685-9; ranger Whittlebury forest 1685; recorder Sudbury 1685.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Elder bro. Trinity House 1681-90, master 1682-3.</p><p>Vol. (RN) 1678-80, 1688; col. 1st Ft. Gds. 1681-8, 1688-90; v.-adm. of England 1683-8.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: chalk drawing aft. Sir P. Lely, c.1678, NPG 2915; mezzotint by Isaac Beckett aft. Sir G. Kneller, c.1685-8, NPG D29468; oil on canvas, studio of Sir P. Lely, c.1679/80, National Trust, Ickworth, Suff.</p> |
<p>The second son of Charles II and his principal mistress, Barbara Palmer, countess of Castlemaine (later duchess of Cleveland), there is some doubt as to the precise date of Henry Fitzroy’s birth, which occurred between 2 and 28 Sept. 1663. He was initially not acknowledged by his royal father, who doubted his resemblance to other members of his brood. It was thus not until 1672 that he was formally recognized, and in August of that year he was created earl of Euston when he was contracted to marry Lady Isabella Bennet, daughter of the earl of Arlington (both parties being underage).<sup>9</sup> Three years later he was advanced duke of Grafton. He was also granted a pension of £3,000 out of the excise.<sup>10</sup> It was speculated that he would have been elevated before then but for the opposition of his mother who was determined that his older less talented brother, Southampton, should be given precedence.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Grafton spent much of the remainder of his youth in France, and in 1676 he was entrusted to the ambassador to Paris, Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, to be schooled in French language and etiquette.<sup>12</sup> By February 1677 Montagu was able to report approvingly to Arlington of Grafton’s progress and how he ‘does mend every day in everything as much as you can wish’.<sup>13</sup> Despite this, Grafton retained a carefully cultivated blunt demeanour suitable to his chosen military profession. By the close of 1677 Grafton’s mother had fallen out with Arlington, and it was reported that the duchess, who ‘hates Arlington heartily and is the most implacable creature in the world’ was determined to break off the arranged marriage between her son and Lady Isabella.<sup>14</sup> In June 1678 it was reported misleadingly that Grafton and his child bride had been ‘divorced’, but having failed to find a suitable alternative candidate, in 1679 Cleveland determined at last to see the Arlington match through.<sup>15</sup> A second marriage service was conducted by John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester, in November though it seems not to have been until April 1681 that the marriage was finally consummated.<sup>16</sup> John Evelyn was surprised that the match came to fruition, noting it as being ‘a sudden and unexpected thing (when everybody believed the first marriage would have come to nothing).’ Although he acknowledged Grafton to be a ‘tolerable person’, he lamented that the new duchess was sacrificed ‘to a boy that had been rudely bred.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>Although Grafton was the recipient of a number of grants from the king and expected to inherit his father-in-law’s estates in Suffolk, it was designed early on that he should make his way in the world as a sailor, and following his marriage he was entrusted to the tutelage of the veteran mariner, Sir John Berry.<sup>18</sup> In the summer of 1680 Grafton arrived with a flotilla off Smyrna. His presence there precipitated a diplomatic hiatus at the Turkish court as the Ottomans recognized all monarchs’ sons irrespective of their legitimacy.<sup>19</sup> Grafton was created a garter knight during his absence, and in December the king’s continuing favour was demonstrated when he was promised all that had formerly been granted to his half-brother, the recently deceased Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth, including an annuity of £3,000 out of the proceeds of the tin trade.<sup>20</sup> In February 1681 Grafton was appointed lord lieutenant of Suffolk (the duties being undertaken by his father-in-law during his minority), and in April it was rumoured that he would be appointed governor of Jamaica, though this last distinction failed to materialize.<sup>21</sup> Grafton had returned to England from his naval apprenticeship by the spring of 1681, and in June he was one of a number of peers to attend Fitzharris’ trial.<sup>22</sup> In December he was appointed colonel of the guards.<sup>23</sup> His appointment prompted speculation that there would follow ‘a purgation’ in the regiment, ‘none being suffered to hold a commission but such as are true sons of the Church of England,’ an early indication of his association with the Tory revival, which was further highlighted by his presence at the Tory feast in August of the following year.<sup>24</sup></p><p>The final years of Charles II saw Grafton appointed to a number of military posts. In the winter of 1682 he was made vice-admiral of England in succession to Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, and he appears to have used his new position to frustrate the ambitions of Admiral Arthur Herbert*, later earl of Torrington, to be appointed to the admiralty commission.<sup>25</sup> In March 1683 it was rumoured that Grafton was to be given the command of a fleet during the summer, and in April his squadron was said to be ‘fitting out very diligently’ in anticipation of sailing the following month.<sup>26</sup> Grafton’s preparations were brought to a halt when he was recalled by George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, who took over command of the flotilla himself, prompting bitter complaints from members of Grafton’s family.<sup>27</sup> Thwarted at sea, Grafton travelled to France in the spring of 1684 as a volunteer in the French army at Luxembourg along with his brother, Northumberland, and a number of other young noblemen.<sup>28</sup> On his return from campaign in late July, he fell prey to a smallpox epidemic. Although he was at one stage thought unlikely to survive, he had rallied by the beginning of August.<sup>29</sup> That autumn Grafton and his brother, Northumberland, used their interest to secure the conviction of the actor, Cardell Goodman, for conspiring to poison them.<sup>30</sup> The dukes’ motivation may have been simply the desire to discredit their mother’s latest unsuitable lover. Goodman was fined £1,000 for his offence but the dukes’ efforts failed to prevent his continued association with the duchess of Cleveland, who gave birth to a son in April 1686 popularly dubbed ‘Goodman Cleveland’ in the news-sheets.<sup>31</sup> Cardell Goodman later achieved further notoriety as a Jacobite plotter involved in the Assassination Plot of 1696.</p><p>The death of Charles II threatened to curtail Grafton’s continuing preferment, but he retained his places under his uncle and served as lord high constable at the coronation. Although he was noted as being abroad at a call of the House on 26 May 1685, the following day he was marked present on the attendance list, though he was not formally introduced. He was then absent for the remainder of the session. The outbreak of the rebellion against King James led by Grafton’s half-brother, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, offered Grafton the opportunity to demonstrate his loyalty to the new regime, and he was at the forefront of those involved in suppressing the rebellion, during which he was noted for his bravery both at Sedgemoor and in an earlier action where he had found his advance troop ambushed by some of Monmouth’s musketeers.<sup>32</sup></p><p>While his military career went from strength to strength, Grafton’s marriage appeared on the brink of collapse by the autumn of 1685. The breakdown in relations between Grafton and his duchess probably owed something to Arlington’s death that summer. Grafton may also have been disappointed at his failure to be appointed lord chamberlain in succession to his father-in-law.<sup>33</sup> It was reported that following a particularly heated row about the late earl, he had kicked his duchess out of bed.<sup>34</sup> In spite of her brutal treatment at the hands of her husband, the duchess of Grafton was noted as ‘the finest woman in town’ that winter.<sup>35</sup> On 9 Nov. 1685 Grafton was at last formally introduced in the House between Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, and George Savile*, marquess of Halifax. He proceeded to attend for 11 days of the brief session, but there is no evidence of involvement with any particular business.</p><p>Grafton was one of the peers to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), in January 1686.<sup>36</sup> The following month he narrowly avoided being tried himself when he was provoked into fighting a duel with Colonel John Talbot, brother of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury.<sup>37</sup> Talbot was reported to have accused Grafton of buggering Kildare (probably John Fitzgerald<sup>‡</sup>, 18th earl of Kildare [I]).<sup>38</sup> Following a short but vicious encounter, Talbot was killed outright.<sup>39</sup> Although Shrewsbury pleaded with the king not to pardon Grafton too readily (and the king was said to have been ‘incensed’ at the proliferation of duelling), it was believed that Grafton had been severely provoked. The coroner’s inquest found accordingly in favour of manslaughter, following which Grafton was pardoned on 19 Feb. 1686.<sup>40</sup> The same day Evelyn reported that Grafton had killed a brother of William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, but he may have been confusing events for no action seems to have been taken against him for what would have been his second killing in as many weeks. Grafton was again the subject of scandal the following month when he prevailed upon his brother, Northumberland, to kidnap his (Northumberland’s) duchess and convey her to a nunnery in Flanders. Northumberland had attracted the king’s disapproval over his marriage to the lowly born widow of Captain Lucy, and Grafton seems to have been eager to disentangle his brother from his parvenu bride.<sup>41</sup> Although the king made little effort to intervene, following a brief outcry the brothers were prevailed upon to release the unfortunate duchess and bring her home.<sup>42</sup></p><p>The following year found Grafton involved in another dispute, this time with George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, probably over rights in Nonsuch Park, where Berkeley was the keeper. Having been denied entry to the park by some of Berkeley’s servants, Grafton was successful in prosecuting them for assault, but he was then indicted in the court of king’s bench for forcible entry.<sup>43</sup> The case against Grafton was later dropped and possession of the place awarded to him.<sup>44</sup></p><p>In 1687 Grafton was listed among those believed to favour the king’s intention to repeal the Test Act; he was also included in another list of about May noting those sympathetic to the king’s policies. Grafton’s apparent willingness to acquiesce in the new regime’s religious policy was further demonstrated in July when he agreed to introduce the papal nuncio at Windsor following the refusal to do so by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>45</sup> Grafton returned to command of the fleet in the summer of 1687 and remained at sea until the spring of 1688.<sup>46</sup> In his absence he was again included among those thought favourable to repealing the test, but in March 1688 his order that all the officers in the fleet should take the Test suggests that he had already begun to waver in his support. The command attracted the king’s displeasure and speculation about his future.<sup>47</sup> About this time Grafton supposedly further angered the king by beating a Catholic priest sent to attempt his conversion.<sup>48</sup> Despite this, Grafton retained his places and in August was ordered to his lieutenancy to prepare for the expected Parliament.<sup>49</sup> Grafton was infuriated to be displaced once again by Dartmouth at the head of the fleet in the autumn, and the king’s decision to abolish the offices of vice- and rear-admiral of England was also generally supposed to be ‘a wile to be rid of the duke’.<sup>50</sup> Grafton’s disappointment at his treatment no doubt encouraged him to become involved with other members of the armed forces plotting against the king.<sup>51</sup> He travelled to Holland in late September where he held a brief meeting with William of Orange, although he denied that he had made any such visit when he was questioned on his return to court shortly afterwards.<sup>52</sup> He continued to irritate James by lecturing him on the inadvisability of staffing the navy with Catholics and warned that the officers of the fleet would refuse to serve alongside the French in the event of a joint effort to repel the Dutch.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Although the king now entertained serious doubts about his nephew’s dependability, Grafton was granted leave to serve as a volunteer in the fleet preparing for the Dutch invasion.<sup>54</sup> He made use of his access to recruit a number of officers to the Orangist conspiracy and may even have been involved in a plan to kidnap Dartmouth.<sup>55</sup> Having failed to stop the Dutch at sea, Grafton abandoned the fleet and returned to London where he subscribed the petition calling for a free Parliament. He then left to rendezvous with the army at Salisbury where, having failed to persuade James to come to terms with the invaders while he was still in a position of comparative strength, he joined John Churchill*, Lord Churchill (later duke of Marlborough) and a number of others in deserting the king on the night of 23 Nov. and making their way over to the enemy camp.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Although Grafton and Churchill had been deep in the army plot, they were as little trusted in William of Orange’s camp as in that of the king and were rewarded with the thankless task of attempting to restore order to King James’s disbanded forces.<sup>57</sup> Grafton returned to London in time to join the deliberations of the provisional government meeting at Whitehall on the afternoon of 13 Dec. 1688 and was again present the following morning when he reported to the assembly the prince’s desire that he should take two battalions to secure Tilbury. He also informed them of the ill condition of the disarmed Irish troops who were at the point of starvation. In response to this, the Lords ordered that Grafton should be provided with transport to take his troops to Tilbury and also be given £80 to provide for the disbanded men.<sup>58</sup> Grafton narrowly avoided being shot while marching at the head of his troops along the Strand that afternoon.<sup>59</sup> The incident was initially mistaken for an assassination attempt. Resuming his place the following afternoon, Grafton was able to reassure the assembly that the would-be assassin had been no more than an inebriated soldier, and he regretted that he had been unable to prevent his own men from gunning the drunkard down.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Grafton was present at a meeting convened at Windsor to determine what should be done with the king.<sup>61</sup> Following the king’s flight, he attended three of the meetings of the provisional government in the House of Lords on 22, 24 and 25 December.<sup>62</sup> He then took his seat in the Convention on 23 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on 69 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to 20 committees. Grafton was one of a number of Tory peers to warn Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, of the intentions of some of his enemies to ‘ensnare’ him ‘by cross questions’ at the opening of the session.<sup>63</sup> On 28 Jan. he introduced his older brother, Southampton, and the following day voted in favour of establishing a regency. Two days later he voted against declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen in a committee of the whole, and on 4 Feb. he voted against concurring with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’. On 6 Feb. he also rejected the employment of the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’, entering his protest when the motion was carried. The following month, he was removed from all his offices, but his abiding popularity among his own men was reflected in a report that his troops threatened to lay down their arms at the news of his displacement.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Grafton’s decision to divide against those wishing to award the crown to William and Mary was undoubtedly the principal cause of his removal from office, but he also seems to have been a victim of the new king’s reluctance to trust those at the head of the English armed forces.<sup>65</sup> Grafton was one of those to appear in Westminster Hall to offer bail for James Hamilton*, styled earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and duke of Brandon), in April.<sup>66</sup> Despite his unhappiness at the manner in which the crisis had been settled, he was sufficiently reconciled to the new regime to play a ceremonial role at the coronation, and by the summer of 1689 it was noted that he had held several private discussions with the king.<sup>67</sup> On 22 Apr. along with the Seven Bishops and John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, he was ordered to provide the committee for privileges with documents relating to the case formerly brought against him in the court of king’s bench (presumably a reference to his earlier dispute with Berkeley) as part of the committee’s ongoing examination of privilege of peerage. On 30 Apr. the committee noted that none of the lords had done as requested and moved that the House would order them to comply.<sup>68</sup> Grafton voted against reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates on 31 May. On 7 June he presented a petition to the House appealing for his privilege to be respected in a dispute with lord chief justice Pollexfen, who he claimed had invaded his rights over the office of clerk of the treasury in the court of common pleas.<sup>69</sup> The petition proved the beginning of a protracted case, which the privileges committee oversaw for the following month. On 12 June the committee convened to consider the parties’ evidence and resolved by 13 votes to five to uphold Grafton’s complaint, reporting to the House the following day that Grafton should enjoy the same condition he had held before Pollexfen’s appointment as lord chief justice.<sup>70</sup> Despite this, on 29 June Grafton was driven to submit a further petition against Pollexfen, and on 1 July the House ordered that one Richard Carter should be attached for refusing to appear at the bar to give evidence on Grafton’s behalf. The privileges committee considered the matter again on 3 July, and between 4 and 5 July the House debated whether or not Pollexfen had complied with their former order, eventually concluding in Grafton’s favour that the lord chief justice had failed to do so.<sup>71</sup> Disputes over the office continued to trouble Grafton and his successor until at least 1693. On 2 July 1689 Grafton registered his protest against proceeding with the impeachments of Blair, Vaughan and others, and on 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments relating to the reversal of Oates’ conviction for perjury.</p><p>Absent at the opening of the second session, Grafton registered his proxy with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, on 23 Oct. which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 23 November. He was thereafter present on 29 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to two committees. On 29 Nov. Grafton again appealed to have his privilege upheld over the arrest of his servant Robert Terkill by the Suffolk attorney, Thomas Sawyer of Langham. On 5 Dec. Grafton entrusted his proxy to Godolphin once more, which was vacated by his return to the House on 13 January. It is possible that his absence was occasioned by attendance on his regiment in Ireland and rumours circulated at this time that he was shortly to have ‘some considerable command given to him.’<sup>72</sup></p><p>Grafton found his interest in Suffolk squeezed in the elections for the new Parliament, and he was unsuccessful in securing the return of his nominees, Sir Robert Davers<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Playters for the county seats.<sup>73</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, after which he was present on approximately 61 per cent of all sitting days and was named to four committees. As a sign of his gradual rehabilitation with the new regime, the same month he was granted command of a frigate, <em>The Grafton</em>, and given letters of marque allowing him to recruit crews for five ships, which it was supposed he would fund out of his own pocket.<sup>74</sup> His financial position was also further secured by the grant or confirmation of several pensions and gifts including a £3,000 annuity out of the excise.<sup>75</sup> Grafton sat for the final time on 10 May, but he ensured that his proxy was again registered with Godolphin that day. In June, acting as a private captain with the fleet, Grafton served with distinction at the otherwise wholly inglorious action off Beachy Head. As a result of Grafton’s success it was rumoured that he was to be nominated one of the admiralty commissioners.<sup>76</sup> Although Thomas Osborne*, the former earl of Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), included Grafton’s name among those who might be appointed in a report to the king and noted ‘everybody agrees [he] has behaved himself very honourably in your service’, restoration to office continued to elude him.<sup>77</sup> Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, seems to have been one of those to counsel the king against appointing Grafton as commander of a fleet seeing as he was ‘of so rough a temper it would never suit with the seamen at all.’<sup>78</sup> Unemployment did not prevent Grafton from attempting to exert his interest. Appointed a trustee for his non-juror brother-in-law, Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, Grafton undertook to protect the earl from Lovelace’s efforts to invade his rights at Woodstock.<sup>79</sup> He also attempted to make use of his influence with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, on behalf of Admiral Rooke.<sup>80</sup> Shortly afterwards he departed for Ireland where he offered to serve as a volunteer with the army besieging Cork. As usual Grafton was at the forefront of the action. He was shot and mortally wounded advancing at the head of his troops on 28 September.<sup>81</sup> Hopes of his recovery rested on his being ‘young and of a vigorous constitution,’ but his wounds were too severe and he died 11 days later.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Grafton may have been an unruly man prone to acts of violence but his death was widely lamented.<sup>83</sup> His loss was marked in a number of ballads and panegyrics, and he was accorded a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey attended by the queen.<sup>84</sup> In his will he bequeathed his widow an annuity of £1,000 (Lady Pen Osborne mistakenly reported the sum to be £800) and by the terms of a codicil provided for the sale of Cleveland House for the satisfaction of his debts including £1,480 owed to Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham, and £2,000 to Lichfield.<sup>85</sup> Grafton appointed his duchess sole executrix and his brother-in-law, Lichfield and friend Godolphin as guardians to his heir, Charles Fitzroy*, styled earl of Euston, who succeeded him as 2nd duke of Grafton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FOLEY, Thomas (1673-1733) |
<p><strong><surname>FOLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1673–1733)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. FOLEY. |
|
First sat 12 Jan. 1712; last sat 14 Feb. 1733 |
|
MP Stafford 1694–1712. |
<p><em>b</em>. 8 Nov. 1673, 1st s. of Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> and Elizabeth Ashe; bro. of Edward<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Foley<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Sheriffhales acad. (John Woodhouse) 1689; Utrecht 1689–93; L. Inn 1695. <em>m.</em> 18 June 1702 (with £30,000), Mary (<em>d</em>. 1735), da. and h. of Thomas Strode, serjeant-at-law, of Lincoln’s Inn and Beaminster, Dorset,<sup>1</sup> 4s. (3 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 3da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 1701. <em>d</em>. 22 Jan. 1733; <em>will</em> 22 July 1731, pr. 19 Mar. 1733.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for taking subscriptions to land bank 1696.</p><p>Freeman, Stafford 1694, Bewdley 1706, Worcester 1721.</p><p>FRS 1696.</p> |
|
<p>Like his kinsman and patron Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, Foley came from a dissenting background. He was educated for a while at the nonconformist Sheriffhales academy, but he seems soon to have distanced himself from such allegiances. During his early career he came to be identified with the Tory party and as a strong upholder of the Church. Connected by marriage to the Harleys, he joined numerous relations from Worcestershire and other western counties to form a formidable bloc in Parliament. For the majority of his career he seems to have followed Harley’s lead in most matters of consequence.</p><p>First elected to the Commons in 1694 on his uncle’s interest, Foley retained his seat at Stafford until his elevation to the peerage 18 years later. In 1699 his quest for a rich bride may have had an effect on the way in which the influential Foley–Harley connection responded to the parliamentary assault on Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. Foley was then courting Orford’s niece Letitia Harbord and, although the marriage never came to pass, his kinsmen were notable in refusing to back the Tory effort to censure Orford at that time.<sup>5</sup> By the beginning of Queen Anne’s reign, Foley had distanced himself from the high Tory interest and allied himself closely with the new court Tory interest led by his former brother-in-law, Harley. By 1704 he was clearly identified with the court and his name was mentioned in the spring of 1705 as a possible candidate for a peerage. In the event he was forced to wait a further seven years before being advanced to a barony.<sup>6</sup></p><p>A consistent supporter of Oxford (as Harley had since become) both in and out of government, married to a wealthy heiress and previously considered for a peerage, Foley proved an obvious candidate for one of the 12 new creations made in the winter of 1711/12 to protect Oxford’s ministry from defeat in the Lords. On 27 Dec. his name was included among 21 others on a memorandum of possible new peers drawn up by Oxford and on 1 Jan. 1712 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Foley of Kidderminster (the last of those created on that day and thus senior in precedence only to Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later earl of) Bathurst, whose creation was delayed to the next day).<sup>7</sup> On 2 Jan. he took his seat for the first time, introduced between William North*, 6th Baron North, and James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, after which he was present on 66 occasions (approximately 62 per cent of all sitting days).<sup>8</sup></p><p>Absent in the second week of May, on 15 May Foley registered his proxy with Bathurst, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat towards the end of the month, on 27 May. The following day he voted with the ministry in rejecting the resolution concerning the restraining orders issued to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>9</sup> The name Foley appears in a memorandum prepared by Oxford in July 1712, in which he was noted as a possible commissioner for trade. No such appointment was forthcoming and it is clear that it was Foley’s cousin, also Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup>, appointed to the board of trade at this time, who was the intended recipient.<sup>10</sup> In October he attempted to exploit his local interest and wrote to Oxford to recommend one Whitcombe to succeed John Laughton as a prebend of Worcester, but was unsuccessful.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Unsurprisingly noted a supporter of the ministry by Jonathan Swift in March 1713, Foley took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr., after which he was present on over three-quarters of all sitting days. On 13 June he was listed in one forecast among 12 court supporters thought likely to desert over the French commerce bill, though Oxford’s own estimate of the same date included Foley as a probable supporter of the measure. Three days later, he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for explaining a clause in the act for preventing fraudulent conveyances to multiply votes in county elections.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Foley retreated to Bath. Although it was thought at the beginning of October that he would leave the city soon, he was still there towards the end of November in company with his kinsman Auditor Harley (Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>) and (probably) Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup> and Andrew Archer<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>12</sup> The following month, Foley and his wife were troubled by the death of their eldest daughter, which proved ‘a great affliction’ to them both.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Early the following year, Foley’s own health was in doubt, as he was said to be suffering from a pain in his side. Although he was said to be much recovered by the beginning of February, he was absent from the opening of the new session, presumably on the grounds of ill health.<sup>14</sup> He returned to his place on 2 Mar., after which he was present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days. On 27 May he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to oppose the Schism bill and on 15 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the measure. Foley’s opposition to the Schism bill caused divisions within his own family and he and Richard Foley were forced to put aside thoughts of travelling to Worcestershire together on account of their disagreement.<sup>15</sup> Foley subscribed a further protest on 8 July at the resolution not to make a representation to the queen stating that the benefit of the <em>Assiento</em> had been obstructed by the efforts of certain individuals to use it to their personal advantage.</p><p>Foley was absent from London, at his seat at Witley, at the time of the queen’s death. On 2 Aug., still unaware of her demise and that Parliament had already assembled, he wrote to Oxford gloomily ‘surprised with the melancholy news of the queen’s illness’ and assuming that, ‘if it should please God to take her (if I mistake not) the Parliament is immediately to meet’.<sup>16</sup> It was consequently not until 19 Aug. that he eventually took his seat in the House, after which he was present on just three days before the close of the session.</p><p>Foley followed Oxford into opposition and remained loyal to him during his imprisonment and the proceedings against him in Parliament. As a wealthy member of the Tory county elite, Foley remained a significant political figure although proscribed from holding office. Full details of the latter part of his career will be examined in the next part of this work. He died early in 1733, leaving a considerable fortune. To his only surviving daughter, Elizabeth, he bequeathed £15,000 to be paid to her on attaining the age of 21 or at her marriage, while he also made smaller bequests to a servant and the poor of Witley, totalling a further £130. The title descended to his sole remaining son, another Thomas Foley*, who was named sole executor and who succeeded as 2nd Baron Foley.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FRESCHEVILLE, John (1606-82) |
<p><strong><surname>FRESCHEVILLE</surname></strong> (<strong>FRECHEVILLE</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1606–82)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>16 Mar. 1665 Bar. FRESCHEVILLE of STAVELEY |
|
First sat 21 June 1665; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Derbyshire 1628, 1661-16 Mar. 1665 |
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Dec. 1606, o.s. of Sir Peter Frecheville<sup>‡</sup> (1575-1634) of Staveley, Derbys. and 1st w. Joyce (<em>d</em>. Apr. 1619), da. of Thomas Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> of Chalfont St Giles, Bucks., wid. of Sir Hewett Osborne of Dagenham, Essex. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen Hall, Oxf. 1621; M. Temple 1624. <em>m</em>. (1) Bruce (<em>d</em>. 10 Apr. 1629), da. of Francis Nichols<sup>‡</sup> of Ampthill, Beds. <em>s.p.</em>; (2) by 27 Apr. 1630, Sarah (<em>d</em>. 22 June 1666), da. and h. of Sir John Harrington of Bagworth, Leics., 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (3) Dec. 1666 Anna Charlotte (<em>d</em>. 12 Nov. 1717), da. of Sir Henry de Vic, bt. chanc. of the Order of the Garter, of Windsor Castle, Berks. <em>s.p</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa 1634. <em>d</em>. 31 Mar. 1682; <em>will</em> 10 Jan.-28 Mar. 1682, pr. 10 Apr. 1682.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of privy chamber (extraordinary) 1631, (ordinary) 1639-45.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Dep. lt., Derbys. by 1630-42,<sup>3</sup> 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> commr. array, Derbys. 1642, <sup>5</sup> corporations, Chesterfield 1662-3,<sup>6</sup> loyal and indigent officers, Derbys. 1662;<sup>7</sup> gov., Welbeck, Notts. 1645,<sup>8</sup> York 1665 (1663?)-<em>d.</em><sup>9</sup><em>;</em> forester, Langton Arbour, Sherwood Forest, Notts. 1677-<em>d</em>.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Cornet, king’s gds. 1639;<sup>11</sup> capt. tp. of horse (roy.) 1642, col. 1643-5;<sup>12</sup> capt. vol. horse, Derbys. 1660-1;<sup>13</sup> capt. tp. of horse, Roy. Horse Gds. (The Blues) 1661-79,<sup>14</sup> indep. coy. of ft. York 1678.<sup>15</sup></p> |
|
<p>The Frechevilles, as they originally spelled their name, were a gentry family of Norman descent of long standing in Derbyshire, particularly in the northeast corner around their principal manor of Staveley. The antiquary Gervase Holles, a kinsman and contemporary of John, Baron Frescheville, described the baron’s father Sir Peter Frecheville<sup>‡</sup> as ‘the person of most principal account and had the greatest power of any of the gentry in his country [i.e. Derbyshire]’, and John quickly followed in his father’s footsteps, representing the county in the Parliament of 1628 and serving as a deputy lieutenant in the 1630s.<sup>16</sup> He was also making his way at court and in April 1630 married, without his father’s consent, a maid of honour, Sarah Harington, who, Gervase Holles insisted, ‘brought him no portion but Court legacies: pride, passion and prodigalities’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Frescheville fought for Charles I during the Scottish wars and the first Civil War, but in 1644 he appeared to be lukewarm in his commitment to the cause. In 1643 he had recaptured his own house at Staveley, which had been occupied by the enemy, but quickly surrendered it again in August 1644 upon the first appearance of Parliament’s troops and without a shot being fired.<sup>18</sup> Holles attributed Frescheville’s apparent abandonment of the royalist cause to the thwarted ambition of his wife Sarah, who ‘had long nourished a most violent ambition to have her husband created a baron’. In April 1644 the king drew up a warrant for a patent for Frescheville’s creation as ‘Lord Frescheville of Stavelely, Musard and Fitzralph’.<sup>19</sup> The king’s messenger informed Sarah, presumably with the court at Oxford that the patent could not pass immediately because of the press of other matters. ‘At which words’, Holles asserted, ‘she falls into intemperate expressions both of the king and queen … and away she flies into the country to her husband, prevails with him to desert the king’s service’.<sup>20</sup> The composition fine for his sequestrated estate was reportedly ‘something mitigated by friendship by some of the adverse party’ and set in 1649 at £287 10<em>s.</em> 4<em>d</em>.<sup>21</sup> This was a small amount for a man who in 1651 raised, albeit with damage to his estate, a portion of £10,000 for the marriage of his eldest daughter Christiana to the royalist Charles Powlett*, then styled Lord St John (later duke of Bolton).<sup>22</sup></p><p>Frescheville was one of those assigned to raise Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire in the planned rising of summer 1659 and was considered a principal royalist leader in the early months of 1660.<sup>23</sup> He petitioned for the barony promised him in 1644 and in June 1660 Charles II ordered out a new warrant for a creation, with remainder to his two surviving daughters (Christiana having died in 1653) in default of male heirs, but once again there were delays in passing the patent.<sup>24</sup> In the early years of the Restoration, Frescheville enhanced his royalist credentials and his position at court by the marriage of his elder surviving daughter, Elizabeth, in 1661 to Philip Warwick, only son and heir of Sir Philip Warwick<sup>‡</sup>, secretary to the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton. However, his remaining daughter Frances eloped in 1662 with a penniless, but ingenious (and quarrelsome) soldier and engineer, ‘colonel’ (as he dubbed himself) Thomas Colepeper. This marriage did not help Frescheville socially or economically, and for a period he disowned the couple, but Colepeper’s voluminous and detailed researches into the Frescheville records in order to stake his claim to the title and the lands of the Baron after his death provide most of what we now know of Frescheville genealogy and history.<sup>25</sup></p><p>At the Restoration Frescheville received a commission as captain of a troop in the Royal Horse Guards, and he resumed his prominent position in local Derbyshire society and government, where he acted as a deputy lieutenant under the lord lieutenant, his friend William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire. Devonshire was very close to Frescheville and put great trust and responsibility in him, and helped ensure that he was selected by the Derbyshire freeholders, with Devonshire’s son William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire), to represent the county in the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>26</sup> In August 1663 Frescheville was commissioned to take his troop of Guards to York and there to act as general of that city’s military forces in the suppression of the feared rising of that autumn, and from this point he acted as military governor of York, a position confirmed by periodic renewals of his commission. Frescheville himself petitioned in 1669 for funds to help defray the personal expenses incurred during what he calculated to be his six years’ command in the city.<sup>27</sup> On 16 Mar. 1665 the patent for his creation as Baron Frescheville of Staveley finally passed the great seal. The patent left out the remainder to his daughters and their heirs that had been included in the warrant of 1660, an omission which was to prove exasperating for Thomas Colepeper in the years after Frescheville’s death. This patent was followed within three months by the death of Frescheville’s wife Sarah, who for so long had ambitiously driven him to press his suit for this honour, and he married in the space of a year the much younger Anna Charlotte de Vic, who was to serve as a lady of the bedchamber for many years in the household of Anne Stuart, both as princess and as queen.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, put forth a theory that Charles II was prompted to fulfil his long-standing promise to Frescheville because of his determination to make his secretary of state, Henry Bennet*, a peer (as Baron, later earl of, Arlington) and ‘the king took the occasion to make these two noblemen from an obligation that lay upon him to confer two honours at the same time’.<sup>29</sup> Frescheville and Bennet were made barons, as part of a general creation or promotion of eight new peers in mid March 1665, shortly after the prorogation of the 1664-5 session. Frescheville and Arlington were the only two of these eight to be introduced to the House on the next sitting day of Parliament, the prorogation of 21 June 1665, when Frescheville was introduced between George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley of Berkeley and John Carey*, Baron Hunsdon (later 2nd earl of Dover). Frescheville and Arlington were to continue to have a close connection over the next few years. Frescheville, as a loyal servant of the crown, frequently looked to Arlington for specific instructions on whether his attendance was needed in Parliament and relied on the secretary of state as a recipient of his proxy. Initially Frescheville was not a diligent member of the House, perhaps kept away from Westminster by his duties at York. He was not present for any of the meetings of the session of October 1665 in Oxford, perhaps preoccupied with the examinations and prosecutions of those involved in the abortive rising of 1663.<sup>30</sup> He was summoned to the court of the lord high steward to sit in trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, on 30 Apr. 1666 and, as the most recently created baron in the court, was the first peer called upon to give his verdict of guilty of manslaughter.<sup>31</sup> He came to only five sittings of the following session of September 1666-February 1667, perhaps because of his responsibilities for keeping the north-eastern coast secure during the Dutch war.<sup>32</sup> He was once again absent for all of the sittings of October-December 1667, but this time registered his proxy in favour of Arlington on 9 Nov. 1667 for the proceedings against Clarendon. Frescheville resumed his seat on 17 Feb. 1668, when his proxy was vacated, and proceeded to sit in 83 per cent of the sittings during spring 1668, during which he was nominated to six committees on legislation. He was once again absent for the session of winter 1669, but on 29 Oct. 1669, ten days after the session had begun, he wrote to Arlington, via Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, asking the secretary to excuse his absence and assuring him that in a previous letter he had already ‘tendered my proxy … but have not received [Arlington’s], commands’.<sup>33</sup> Three days later, on 1 Nov., Frescheville’s proxy to Arlington was officially registered in the records of the House.</p><p>He was present every day during the sittings of February-April 1670, when he was named to 15 committees on legislation. When the House passed a version of the second Conventicle Act in March which did not include a proviso asserting the king’s supremacy in religious matters, Charles II summoned Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, and Frescheville, among others, to give them instructions that they were to work on their fellows in the House to ensure the passage of the controversial proviso.<sup>34</sup> In the weeks preceding the reconvening of Parliament in October 1670, Frescheville wrote increasingly anxious letters to Arlington and Williamson ‘desiring to know His Majesty’s pleasure as to whether I am to attend Parliament or stay at York’.<sup>35</sup> As he did not appear in the House until five days before Parliament was prorogued on 22 Apr. 1671; it appears that the court preferred his services in York, from where Frescheville had reported on 19 Mar., ‘I will not trouble you with any relation of Parliament speeches and cursed libels already divulged in the north. I put them together, for I think if a speech in either of the Houses be published upon design and without the king’s permission it is worse than a libel’.<sup>36</sup> This is almost certainly a reference to the inflammatory speech against the king’s request for supply made by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, the printed version of which was ordered by the House to be burned by the public executioner.</p><p>Frescheville came to only one meeting of Parliament, on 4 Nov. 1673, during the two sessions between the prorogation of 22 Apr. 1671 and the session beginning 7 Jan. 1674. Undoubtedly he was preoccupied again with the defence of Yorkshire during the Dutch war, but he also spent much of these years petitioning for royal grants, such as for the lease, including the right of presentation, of the manor of Eckington, which adjoined his own at Staveley but was part of the queen’s jointure.<sup>37</sup> From late 1673 he was asking his nephew, the lord treasurer, Sir Thomas Osborne*, Viscount Latimer (later earl of Danby and duke of Leeds) for further offices and favours.<sup>38</sup> Frescheville’s mother’s first husband had been Sir Hewett Osborne, and her son by this first marriage, hence Frescheville’s half-brother, was Sir Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, father of the lord treasurer. Danby (as Latimer quickly became) complied with his uncle’s wishes and a sheet among Danby’s papers, headed ‘Lord Frescheville’s grants and payments’ shows that during 1675-6 Frescheville was granted the reversion of the manor and advowson of Eckington, Derbyshire and of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire after the queen’s death and, to maintain him while awaiting her death, a pension of £152 p.a. for life and fee farm rents in Yorkshire totalling £120 p.a. Throughout 1677 Frescheville was paid an additional £1,200 in secret service payments. Danby appears to have been willing to make grants for Frescheville’s clients in York as well.<sup>39</sup> Frescheville, long a courtier and servant of the crown, would most likely have supported the court party without these financial blandishments, but they and his close kinship ties to Danby only made his association with the lord treasurer and his faction in Parliament the stronger, to the point that Frescheville was considered one of Danby’s leading lieutenants and associates.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Frescheville attended every single sitting day of the House (except for six days) in the six remaining sessions of the Cavalier Parliament from January 1674 to the dissolution in January 1679, precisely the period when Danby was most involved in managing Parliament. He was also active in the business of the House and was appointed to 91 select committees (although he only reported from one, on 18 May 1675, on a private estate bill) during that period, and by the final sessions of the Cavalier Parliament he was being named to every select committee established.</p><p>Danby counted on Frescheville to support his Non-Resisting Test bill in the session of spring 1675. After the lord treasurer had prompted William Cavendish*, duke of Newcastle, to ‘place his proxy in some good hand’ before the session started, Newcastle, clearly considering Frescheville to be a suitable lieutenant of the lord treasurer, registered his proxy with him on 9 Apr. 1675.<sup>41</sup> In the following session of autumn 1675 Frescheville again received the proxy of Newcastle on 21 Sept. 1675, and also was entrusted with that of John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton on 10 November. He was able to use both of these to bring three votes to help defeat the motion for an address calling for the dissolution of Parliament on 20 Nov. 1675.<sup>42</sup> During the long prorogation that followed this contentious vote, Frescheville was summoned to the court of the lord high steward to sit in judgment on Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, on 30 June 1676, where he voted with the majority in finding the peer not guilty.<sup>43</sup></p><p>When Secretary Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> prompted Berkeley of Stratton in the weeks before Parliament reconvened in early 1677 to nominate a proxy ‘that may have the same zeal and real intentions for [the king’s], service as you have’, Berkeley of Stratton once again chose Frescheville, who held the proxy from 25 Jan. 1677 to 4 Mar. 1678. The king himself was concerned to know to whom Berkeley had entrusted his proxy.<sup>44</sup> On 15 Feb. 1677, after the House had debated and rejected the allegation made by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, that the Parliament had been automatically dissolved by the long prorogation, Frescheville made a motion that the duke be called to the bar to be censured for his temerity in making the suggestion. It was Frescheville’s motion, seconded by Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice, which eventually led to the House’s order that Buckingham and three other peers who maintained that the Parliament was dissolved be imprisoned.<sup>45</sup> It is hardly surprising that Buckingham’s fellow prisoner in the Tower during the spring of 1677, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered Frescheville ‘triply vile’. Frescheville carefully observed proceedings and may have acted as one of the many parliamentary correspondents of his Derbyshire neighbour the earl of Devonshire. Certainly one letter of his from 13 Mar. 1677 survives, in which Frescheville promised that through him Devonshire would have ‘a better account’ of the House’s proceedings surrounding the address to the king for war against France ‘than any other absent Lord’. The tone of his account is largely neutral, but there is still evident a note of disapproval towards those peers who pressed for an ‘immediate’ declaration of war.<sup>46</sup> In the period 13-15 Mar. 1677 Frescheville protested against both the engrossment and the eventual passage of the bill for ‘further securing the Protestant religion’ which enjoined a Protestant education of the children of a Catholic monarch and placed episcopal appointments to be in the hands of a committee of bishops. On 13 Apr. he was named to a committee to consider heads for a free conference on the bill to raise supply for building warships.</p><p>When Parliament resumed in January 1678 after a long adjournment he dissented, on 14 Feb. 1678, to the resolution to dismiss Dacre Barret’s petition in his long-running dispute with Edward Loftus, 2nd Viscount Loftus [I]. Perhaps presuming on his increased favour with the king and his ministers at this time, in February 1678 Frescheville submitted a petition to the king requesting an elevation in his precedence within the peerage. He argued that he was the lineal descendant of Raphe de Frescheville who had received a writ of summons in 1297 and that, following the precedent of recent cases involving baronies by writ, his title and precedence, should be considered to date back to that ancient time, rather than to the more recent 1665 creation. The king ‘having a gracious sense of the petitioner’s constant loyalty and faithful services’ referred the petition to the attorney general, Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup>, who found that there had been no subsequent writ of summons to any member of the Frescheville family beyond that one of 1297 and that it was doubtful whether Raphe de Frescheville had even attended that Parliament. Perhaps sensing that this was not the answer that the king wished, Jones suggested that the petition be passed on to the House itself, who first heard it, together with the attorney general’s report, on 20 Feb. 1678. After a number of hearings the House itself came to the same negative conclusion, reporting on 6 Mar. that they ‘do not find sufficient ground to advise his Majesty to allow the claim of the petitioner’.<sup>47</sup> On 4 Apr. Frescheville voted with the majority to find Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>In the following session of summer 1678 Frescheville contributed to the debate of early July concerning the petition and appeal of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, to have a chancery decree against him dismissed. The debate concerned to what extent the House of Lords, as the final court of appeal, were bound by the procedural rules of chancery. Frescheville, wishing to see the decree against the court favourite Feversham reversed, argued, with Danby and Berkeley of Stratton among others, that the House was not bound by the procedures of the lower courts.<sup>48</sup> In the final session of the Cavalier Parliament in the winter of 1678, Frescheville voted on 15 Nov. in a debate on the Test bill that a refusal to make the declaration against transubstantiation should not incur the same penalties as a refusal to take the oaths. On 6 Dec. he protested against the resolution to join with the Commons in requesting the king to order the disarming of all convicted recusants. At the end of that month he voted against the commitment of the earl of Danby and in favour of the House’s amendment to the supply bill which placed money for the army’s disbandment in the exchequer instead of the Chamber of London. He was named on 26 Dec. to a committee to draw up reasons in favour of this amendment and was appointed a manager of the conference that took place on 28 Dec., two days before Parliament was prorogued.</p><p>Danby clearly saw Frescheville as a supporter in the proceedings against him which would take place in the next Parliament in the spring 1679, and he assigned the Baron to the management of his son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer. Frescheville was active in the first Exclusion Parliament, coming to five of the six sitting days of the abortive first session of 6-13 Mar., and 60 of the 61 sittings in the second session of 15 Mar.-27 May. In the first few days of the second session he was named to the committee to gather information on the Popish Plot. He defended Danby vigorously and on 19 Mar. 1679 argued that the impeachment proceedings against him were extinguished with the dissolution of the last Parliament.<sup>49</sup> That argument having been lost, two days later he took part in the debate on the Commons’ insistence on the immediate commitment and impeachment of Danby. The debate hinged on whether the peers should agree with the Commons, which would entail their countermanding an order they had made the previous day which gave Danby a week, until 27 Mar., to appear and submit his answer to the articles of impeachment. Not surprisingly Frescheville moved ‘it for your own honour that your orders may stand inviolable’, but was overruled and on 24 Mar. 1679 the House ordered that Danby should be secured and appear for his impeachment proceedings.<sup>50</sup> With Danby now in hiding, a bill of attainder against him was brought up from the Commons and Frescheville spoke out against its commitment at its second reading on 2 Apr., arguing that it had been agreed the previous day at its first reading that the bill would be debated before being referred to a committee. He voted against the passage of the amended attainder bill in the House on 4 Apr., although he did not subscribe his name to the protest against it.<sup>51</sup> The two Houses debated the Lords’ amendments (which the Commons thought diluted the force of the bill) for close to two weeks before the House acceded to the Commons arguments and passed the lower House’s version of the attainder bill on 14 April. Frescheville voted and protested against its passage. On 10 May, with Danby having surrendered himself and being incarcerated in the Tower, Frescheville voted against the establishment of a joint committee to consider the impeachments against the lord treasurer and the five Catholic lords. He was later appointed a manager of the conference considering Danby’s complaint to the House that no counsel wished to act for him because of a vote of the Commons that would inflict penalties on any who acted in his defence. On the very last day of the Parliament, 27 May, Frescheville probably voted in favour of the bishops’ right to sit in the House in judgment of cases involving capital punishment.</p><p>By 1680 Frescheville was ‘of great years and infirm’ and rivals such as the powerfully connected Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir Thomas Slingsby<sup>‡</sup>, who had bought Frescheville’s captaincy in the Royal Horse Guards in 1679, were jostling to take over his post as governor of York.<sup>52</sup> Although Frescheville did manage to make it to three days of the second Exclusion Parliament, those were all days when the Parliament was prorogued – 17 Oct. 1679, 15 Apr. and 17 May 1680. He appears to have been in Westminster during the winter of 1679; his letters to the corporation of York informing them of the way in which James Stuart*, duke of York, should be properly received in that city on his way to Scotland were not received in time and the duke ‘had no kind reception, neither being met nor complimented by the mayor or aldermen’.<sup>53</sup> When the Parliament did meet for actual proceedings in October 1680, Frescheville was absent, excused owing to illness at a call of the House on 30 Oct. 1680, and on 29 Nov., two weeks after the vote rejecting the Exclusion Bill, John Buckly and John Harris swore before the bar of the House that the Derbyshire neighbours, Frescheville and Devonshire, ‘were so ill as that they cannot attend the service of this House, without danger of their lives’. Frescheville had confided to his son-in-law, Thomas Colepeper, in August 1680 that ‘though I have health yet my pains of the strangury are so great and come so often that I cannot expect less than death in a short time’.<sup>54</sup> Frescheville, however, did make it to all seven of the sittings of the Oxford Parliament of 1681, where both Danby and his agent in Oxford, Latimer, counted on him as an advocate for Danby’s petition for bail from the Tower.<sup>55</sup> On 24 Mar. Danby’s petition was presented to the House by his kinsman James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdom) and supported by Frescheville and a number of Danby’s other ‘old friends’ who ‘never go off the business without a question’. Contemporaries as politically diverse as Latimer and Roger Morrice who enumerated Danby’s supporters in this petition consistently placed Frescheville among them.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Frescheville’s finances were by this time in such a precarious position, despite the many grants bestowed on him by Danby, that in late 1680 he was reduced to selling the reversion of his principal manor of Staveley for £2,600 to Devonshire.<sup>57</sup> From late 1681 he was further pressed on all sides to make adequate provision for his youngest daughter Frances. Danby, though still in the Tower, took an active part in these negotiations, as he had been acting as his cousin’s ‘solicitor to know [Frescheville’s], good intentions in future towards her’ since 1666, shortly after she had incurred her father’s wrath for her elopement with Colepeper. In January 1682 Frescheville complied and made out a will constituting Danby, Latimer and Danby’s other son Peregrine Osborne*, styled Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S], (later 2nd duke of Leeds), trustees to provide an annuity of £300 to Frances which, Frescheville insisted, could not be touched by Colepeper.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Frescheville died on 31 Mar. 1682, lamented by his ‘noble friend’ Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, as ‘a brave gentleman as any was in his time’.<sup>59</sup> His son-in-law, Colepeper, refused to accept the sale of the Staveley estate and the extinction of the Frescheville title caused by the Baron’s lack of male issue and compiled a voluminous collection of papers and documents to support his claims to them himself.<sup>60</sup> As late as 1701 he insisted on titling himself, thanks to his extensive genealogical and heraldic research on the family (as well as a good deal of creative fantasizing), ‘Baron of Croich, Musard, Fitzralph and Staveley in right of Frances his wife and Prince of Alberan in Africa’ while his wife, he insisted was ‘Baronnes of Staveley, Croich, Musard and Fitzralph’<strong>.</strong><sup>61</sup> Colepeper’s sense of grievance over the loss of the Staveley estate brought him into direct legal and, more importantly, physical conflict with Devonshire’s successor in the earldom. The unseemly physical brawls the two men had at the court of James II over Staveley had indirect far-reaching consequences for British constitutional history, which are recounted in more detail in the biography of the 4th earl, later duke, of Devonshire.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GEORGE, Prince of Denmark (1653-1708) |
<p><strong><surname>GEORGE</surname></strong>, <strong>Prince of Denmark</strong> (1653–1708)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>6 Apr. 1689 duke of CUMBERLAND |
|
First sat 20 Apr. 1689; last sat 23 Oct. 1707 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 Apr. 1653, yst. s. of Frederik III, king of Denmark, and Sophie Amalie, da. of Georg, duke of Brunswick-Luneberg. <em>m</em>. 28 July 1683, Anne (1665–1714) (later queen of England), 2nd da. of James Stuart*, duke of York (later James II of England, James VII [S]); 2s. (<em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da. (<em>d.v.p</em>.) (14 others <em>d.v.p</em>.). KG 1684. <em>d</em>. 28 Oct. 1708; intestate, admon. to John Smith and Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>.</p> |
<p>PC 9 Feb. 1685–<em>d</em>.; PC [S] 1689–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Generalissimo of all the forces; constable Windsor Castle; ld. high adm.; ld. warden of the Cinque Ports; capt. gen. Hon. Artillery Coy. 1702–<em>d</em>.</p><p>High steward, Colchester 1703–<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1704.</p> |
|
<p><em>Before the Revolution, 1683–8</em></p><p>Prince George’s first visit to England seems to have been in 1669 when he was described as ‘a very fair young prince’.<sup>1</sup> Whether he was even then considered to be a suitable match for the young Princess Anne is unclear. During the 1670s James, duke of York, was almost certainly exploring the possibility of finding her a Catholic husband and at one stage seems to have been interested in marrying her to the ‘prince of Florence’, presumably Ferdinando, son and heir apparent to the despotic Cosimo III of Tuscany.<sup>2</sup> Another candidate for her hand was Prince George of Hanover (later George I). In the autumn of 1682 Anne herself seems to had a somewhat indiscreet relationship with John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham). Quite how indiscreet remains a matter for speculation. Some whispered that ‘his proceedings … spoil her marrying to anybody else’; some that he had written her a letter; some ‘will have his crime only ogling’; while yet others blamed rivalries at court.<sup>3</sup> Mulgrave was stripped of his offices and forbidden the court.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The news that George and Anne were to be married spread rapidly in May 1683. The marriage was a diplomatic triumph for the French, who were then in alliance with Denmark and whose interests required a counter-balance to the marriage of Anne’s older sister Mary (later Mary II) to William of Orange (later William III). Criticisms of the marriage were somewhat muted by George’s Protestantism and his reputation for bravery but the obvious French interest and the generalized distrust of York’s military pretensions and the danger posed by his acquisition of a potential general as a son-in-law created considerable suspicion.<sup>5</sup> York did nothing to dispel such anxieties, smugly declaring that ‘I am the better pleased with it because I find the loyal party here do like it, and the Whigs are as much troubled at it.’<sup>6</sup> The pro-French context led first to a rumour that Parliament was to be asked to disinherit the Princess Mary in favour of Anne and then, when the marriage was delayed, to suggestions that Anne would marry the newly widowed Louis XIV instead.<sup>7</sup></p><p>It was agreed from the outset that George and Anne would live in England. The existence of many Danish surnames in the list of his servants suggests that the prince never forgot his origins but he nevertheless became ‘so hearty an Englishman that it was visible to all who were about him’.<sup>8</sup> The success of the marriage was attributed by Roger Morrice to Prince George’s sexual prowess and Anne’s lust, but it is clear that the couple soon formed a close and devoted relationship.<sup>9</sup> So close were they that it is difficult to treat them as other than a single entity. They were given residences at the Cockpit in Whitehall and at Wandsworth in Surrey. They were also ranked at the same level as York and his duchess, thus having precedency over the prince and princess of Orange. Rumours that George was to be made duke of Gloucester, lord high admiral, and general of all the forces proved to be unfounded. The prince’s income was variously said to be £40,000 or £45,000 a year and Anne was said to receive a further £20,000 in her own right; it was further said that Prince George would live better than his brother the king of Denmark.<sup>10</sup> Like that of Anne’s older sister, the marriage treaty was a conventional one, focused on the couple’s future financial security. It did not include any reference to the constitutional position of Prince George in the event that Anne became queen.</p><p>Neither Charles II nor James II offered Prince George an opportunity of sitting in the House of Lords. He was kept at a distance from the centre of power – perhaps because he was a foreigner, perhaps because of his own lack of ability and ambition, or perhaps because he and his wife were known to be committed Protestants. James made a number of attempts to convert his daughter and son-in-law. In March 1686 Anne seems to have given the French envoy Bonrepaux some indication of vacillation, leading him to speculate on the possibility of cutting her older sister Mary out of the succession.<sup>11</sup> In May, following the birth of his granddaughter, Anne Sophia, James took at least one and possibly more Catholic priests to see (and presumably baptize) the baby. Variant accounts of the incident leave it impossible to know whether James removed the priest(s) himself on viewing his daughter’s distress or whether they were expelled by Prince George.<sup>12</sup> James also told Princess Mary that he was considering legitimating his Catholic younger son by Arabella Churchill, Henry FitzJames, by act of Parliament. The ostensible reason was to remove the canon law bar on his admission to orders, but the potential of a threat to the succession was nevertheless implicit.<sup>13</sup> In December 1687 there was even a rumour that both Mary and Anne would be declared illegitimate.<sup>14</sup></p><p>George and Anne not only felt increasingly insecure but found the ostentatious Catholicism of James II’s court so distasteful that they preferred to withdraw from court life rather than to endure its active pro-Catholic proselytizing. They became the focus of the as yet somewhat amorphous Protestant opposition, forming a close circle of friends, including John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), his wife, Sarah (who came to exercise considerable influence over Anne), George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin. Despite their shared commitment to the Anglican Church, the couple did not get on well with Anne’s uncles, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and regarded both with considerable suspicion.</p><p>It is not clear whether or not Prince George resented the lack of an English peerage. He does not at this stage appear to have sought naturalization and his reputation as a somewhat indolent and rather stupid, if congenial, character suggests that he may well have been happy with the other, albeit relatively empty, honours that were conferred on him. He was made a knight of the garter in 1684 and on York’s accession as king in 1685 he was added to the privy council. Anne’s resentment of her father and his Catholic advisers led to a virtually complete estrangement by the spring of 1687, yet James II seems never to have suspected his daughter and son-in-law of disloyalty to his regime. On the contrary, the deterioration in Prince George’s health led instead to considerable speculation about the possibly imminent chances of persuading a widowed Anne to remarry, this time to a Catholic prince.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1687 Prince George returned to Denmark, ostensibly on account of his health. His willingness to undertake the expense of such a journey surprised Roger Morrice and it may be significant that his brother Christian V was to support the invasion of William of Orange the following year.<sup>16</sup> Superficially at least, the prince and princess showed little sign of opposition to the policies of James II. In December 1687 Prince George complied with the king’s wishes and dismissed Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, from his service though he was said to have remarked that he would have no other servant foisted upon him. Scarsdale had already been removed from his other offices for his failure to return satisfactory answers to the three questions.<sup>17</sup> Yet by July 1688 (if not before) George and Anne, and their friends the Churchills, almost certainly knew that William of Orange had been invited to intervene in English political affairs, with armed force if necessary. Anne had been conducting a secret correspondence with her sister for several months and was in close contact with at least three of the seven signatories to the invitation: Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, and Henry Sydney*, later Viscount Sydney. She and her husband were probably also in touch with two others, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, both of whom later helped ensure her safety.</p><p><em>Revolution and its aftermath, 1689–1702</em></p><p>Anne was appalled at the prospect of a Catholic heir and cast doubts on the reality of her stepmother’s pregnancy long before the birth of her half-brother and the invention of the myth of the warming pan.<sup>18</sup> The couple continued to dissemble. In October 1688 Prince George was present at the meeting of the privy council which drew up the proclamation to restore corporations; he was also present to hear the testimony of witnesses to the birth of the prince of Wales. Prince George refused to accept a commission in James II’s army, believing that the Dutch invasion would provoke widespread desertion and/or mutiny. On 18 Nov. Anne assured her brother-in-law of her and her husband’s support ‘in this so just an undertaking’.<sup>19</sup> Six days later George went over to William of Orange; Anne soon followed. George defended his conduct by reference to the need to defend the Protestant religion from its enemies ‘backed by the cruel zeal and prevailing power of France’.<sup>20</sup> In his memoirs James II affected to have been unconcerned at this defection but, given the pivotal position that George and Anne occupied in Protestant circles, the loss of their support must have been a crippling blow to his confidence, and the Danish ambassador reported that it left him in total consternation.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Since he did not possess an English peerage Prince George was unable to play a direct role in the deliberations of the House of Lords concerning the decision to offer the crown to William and Mary. William’s claim to rule had some justification in English and European marriage law whereby a wife’s inheritance became part and parcel of the husband’s estate. His claim was not only accepted but encouraged by his wife: Danby reported that ‘she would take it extremely unkindly, if any, under a pretence of care for her, would set up a divided interest between her and the Prince’. Mary herself declared she had always believed ‘that women should not meddle in government’.<sup>22</sup> Anne’s view of the succession was very different: she believed that William had usurped her place in the succession. She and her husband were active behind the scenes in a somewhat botched attempt to protect that place.<sup>23</sup> What they did not do was to campaign for the rights that Prince George had gained by his marriage and for his future political status, perhaps because to do so would have amounted to a tacit justification of William’s claim.</p><p>On 6 April 1689 Prince George was created duke of Cumberland. A bill for his naturalization was rushed through Parliament and received the royal assent on 9 April. He took his seat on 20 Apr. and was then present on approximately a quarter of sitting days, being named to three committees. His commitment both to the new regime and to settling peace between the northern Protestant states was further demonstrated by his part in facilitating the Treaty of Altona in June 1689. The duke of Gottorp (in his capacity as duke of Holstein) refused to sign the treaty unless lands in Holstein that had been seized by Denmark were returned free of encumbrances. The lands in question, valued at £25,000 a year, had been granted to George and Anne on their marriage with the proviso that they would descend to Anne if widowed and thereafter to any surviving children. Prince George willingly acquiesced in a request that he should forego possession when William of Orange promised either to secure financial compensation from Holland and its allies or to pay the sum owing himself. Trusting to William’s honour, George failed to insist on a detailed agreement that would include an agreed valuation and specify what proportion of the debt would be borne by each of the allies.<sup>24</sup> He also appears to have been instrumental in promoting a treaty between England and Denmark which ensured that Danish troops would be available to assist the new regime either in France or Ireland.<sup>25</sup> In July he voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing Titus Oates’ conviction for perjury.</p><p>Prince George attended the brief session of 1689–90 on nearly 85 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to three select committees. His high attendance over this session may have been linked as much to his quarrels with the new king and queen as to the business before Parliament. His relationship with William and Mary deteriorated rapidly, partly because of Anne’s resentment over changes to her position in the succession and partly because of quarrels over money. The failure of negotiations over his wife’s financial settlement was part of the problem. According to a pamphlet published in 1693 William had promised Anne £100,000 a year on condition that she gave up her right to the crown for the term of his life even if he outlived Queen Mary, but had then reneged on his promise. Anne also expected to receive half of her father’s extensive and profitable Irish lands.<sup>26</sup> The commencement of a dispute over the value of the lands which Prince George had sacrificed to secure the passage of the Treaty of Altona soured relations still further. To the prince and princess it seemed that William, jealous that Anne’s claim to the throne was so much stronger than his own, was determined to keep them in subjection ‘by endeavouring to make them both depend upon him for bread’.<sup>27</sup> The quarrel was carried into the Commons and resulted in an address to the crown in December 1689 asking that a pension of £50,000 a year be settled on the couple.<sup>28</sup> The king’s decision the following month to grant the title of ‘highness’ to Prince George was perhaps meant to mollify the couple but suspicions remained deep on both sides.<sup>29</sup> Mary suspected that her sister was trying to build a political interest of her own and it seems likely that William, acutely aware of his own unpopularity, similarly feared Prince George’s intentions.</p><p>During the first session of the 1690 Parliament Prince George was present on a third of sitting days and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. His absences between the end of March and early May were probably caused by illness and then by preparations to join William’s forces in Ireland. Parliament was adjourned on 23 May and on 3 June Prince George left for Ireland.<sup>30</sup> He served at the battle of the Boyne in July but was upset and disappointed by William’s indifference to his help, especially as it seems that his presence was instrumental in preventing a mutiny by William’s Danish troops.<sup>31</sup> When Parliament resumed for the second session in October 1690 Prince George’s attendance rose to over three-quarters of sitting days and he was again appointed to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was also appointed to three select committees. On 6 Oct. Carmarthen (as Danby had become) recorded that ‘I hope the prince will attend a business which so much concerns the crown, and on him will depend, or must otherwise be spoken to’, Robert Sutton, 2nd Baron Lexinton, master of the horse to the prince and John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, groom of the stole to the prince.</p><p>Shortly after Parliament adjourned on 5 Jan. 1691 Prince George was appointed as one of the commissioners to act in the king’s absence but that compliment to his status was more than offset by William’s refusal to allow Prince George to go to sea as a naval volunteer.<sup>32</sup> There was also the matter of the king’s continuing failure to settle compensation for the Holstein lands. Prince George’s consent to the arrangement had been secured by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and it was to a somewhat embarrassed Nottingham that he turned for help. Nottingham found himself cast as honest broker, ‘which I do the more willingly because the King promised to see this debt paid and ’twill not be for his majesty’s advantage that this matter should grow cold, but be determined while the parties are willing to pay their quota’. Nottingham’s intervention secured a settlement for 340,000 rix dollars or crowns (£85,000), half of which was to be paid by William himself and the remainder by his allies. Prince George, who professed considerable respect for Nottingham’s upright and honest character and who appreciated his friendship, reluctantly accepted the settlement on condition of receiving prompt payment. William acknowledged the debt (and an obligation to pay 6 per cent interest until it was paid) by a privy seal issued in July 1691.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Achieving agreement perhaps emboldened Prince George to test his standing still further. In August 1691 he asked the king to bestow one of the vacant garters on Marlborough (as Churchill had become). His request was echoed by the princess. Both phrased their letters in such a way as to make it clear that they would interpret a refusal as a personal slight.<sup>34</sup> It is not clear whether William even bothered to reply. He had always been suspicious of Marlborough, suspected that he was in correspondence with the exiled king, resented his denigration of Dutch favourites, and blamed him for the alienation of the prince and princess.</p><p>During the 1691–2 session Prince George was present on 69 per cent of sitting days and was named to the committee for privileges. His close friendship with Marlborough ensured that his attendance was far more consistent after Marlborough was dismissed from office on 20 Jan. 1692 and forbidden the court. Marlborough’s dismissal was associated with ‘great intrigues’ at the prince and princess’s Cockpit residence and an illicit correspondence with the Jacobite court.<sup>35</sup> Anne’s determination to defy the king and queen by retaining Lady Marlborough in her service and her subsequent withdrawal to Sion House created further problems. Prince George continued to attend meetings of the privy council and worked hard on keeping lines of communication open although it is clear that he backed his wife’s decision.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Parliament was prorogued in April 1692 amid fears of a Jacobite invasion sponsored by the French. Although it is extremely unlikely that the prince and princess were actively involved in plotting against William and Mary, many Jacobites anticipated their support: one intercepted letter declared that Prince George had actually seized the Tower of London and it was reported that he had also received money from the king of France. The death of Anne’s newborn son provided an opportunity for the queen to attempt a reconciliation but the resulting interview left both sisters feeling slighted and the queen’s resolution never to return to ‘proud Sion’. After Marlborough’s arrest on a charge of treason the following month the prince and princess expected to follow him to the Tower. In a blatant attempt to capture public sympathy they used Carmarthen and Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, as go-betweens.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Prince George appeared at court on the king’s return in October 1692, having first checked that his presence could be welcome.<sup>38</sup> He and his wife were by now acutely aware that their household had been infiltrated by court spies but were perhaps less aware that Richard Kingston, who was posing as a Jacobite agent, was actually reporting back to Nottingham.<sup>39</sup> They also faced social humiliation. Acting on instructions from the queen, Henry Compton, bishop of London, told the minister of St James’s church that ‘considering the terms the princess is upon with the king and her majesty he should not bow to her royal highness from the pulpit, nor say prayers for, nor use those public respects that are practised towards the royal family at Whitehall’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>During the 1692–3 session, Prince George was present on two-thirds of the sitting days. Although he was listed as present on 10 Nov. 1692 when Marlborough’s detention was debated he was not named to the committee to draw up an order on the debate and it is difficult to know what role he played when he was present on subsequent days. Nevertheless he was by now edging cautiously into open opposition. He voted consistently in favour of the bill for free proceedings in Parliament and on 3 Jan. 1693 registered his protest at its rejection. He also opposed the attempt of the court supporter Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to obtain a divorce from his Catholic, Tory, and suspected Jacobite wife. The circulation at this time of the now lost <em>Vindication of the Princess of Denmark</em> – the ‘scandalous pamphlet’ mentioned above concerning an allegation that William had promised £100,000 a year to the princess in return for foregoing her right to the crown during his life – underlines the intensification of the prince and princess’s opposition to the court. Remarks in the pamphlet were said to border on treason.<sup>41</sup> The royal quarrels naturally affected their entourage: Prince George’s master of the horse, Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, and his groom of the stole, John Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, were reluctant to follow the prince and princess into obscurity and both urged the dismissal of Lady Marlborough. In January 1693 Lexinton was variously reported either to have resigned or to have been dismissed. He was promptly appointed to William’s bedchamber. It was now openly said that Prince George was ruled by his wife and that she increasingly resembled her father, in that her obstinate favour for Lady Marlborough paralleled the way in which James II loved Father Petre more than those of his own blood.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Prince George was present for only half the sitting days of the 1693–4 session and there is little evidence of his activities. The dispute over Lady Marlborough continued, as did its effect on the prince’s household. In March 1694 Lexinton’s successor, Basil Fielding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, also resigned and went over to the court.<sup>43</sup> Despite reminders, the king still made no attempt to pay the Holstein debt.<sup>44</sup> Prince George’s attendance over the 1694–5 session plummeted still further: he was present on only a third of sitting days. His absences were concentrated in the period between 22 Dec. 1694 and 11 Feb. 1695, which suggests that they were linked to the death of the queen on 28 Dec. 1694 and the prince and princess’s subsequent reconciliation with William III. A number of senior courtiers, including John Somers*, later Baron Somers, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Thomas Tenison*, newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, seem to have been instrumental in securing the rapprochement, though given William’s somewhat shaky claim to rule and the more general problem of the succession it was scarcely possible for the estrangement to continue. On 8 Jan. 1695 Prince George was ‘kindly received’ by the king and by the end of March Marlborough too was reconciled to the court. The reconciliation was of necessity somewhat superficial. William continued to be jealous of Anne’s superior claim to the throne. For her part Anne despised her brother-in-law, dubbing him Caliban in her letters to Lady Marlborough, and resented his continuing failure to recognize her claim to her father’s Irish properties or to make any attempt to pay the debt due on the Holstein properties. In the unsettled state of affairs following Mary’s death, Jacobite sympathizers speculated that the king’s departure on campaign in the spring might be deemed an abdication and predicted that he would have to take Prince George with him to prevent a possible coup d’état in his absence.<sup>45</sup> Perhaps it was this nascent fear that lay behind William’s refusal to appoint Prince George to the council of regency that ruled in his absence.</p><p>During the first session of the 1695 Parliament George was present on just under 39 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committee for privileges – the first committee to which he had been named since November 1691 – and signed the Association, acknowledging William as the right and lawful king on 28 Feb. 1696. He missed the opening days of the 1696–7 session, arriving on 30 October; overall he was present on just over 55 per cent of sitting days. While it is difficult to match all his attendances to subject matter it is clear that one of the issues that interested him was the trial of Sir John Fenwick; on 23 Dec. 1696 he voted in favour of Fenwick’s attainder. He was also interested in the subsequent furore about the role of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (and later 3rd earl of Peterborough), in the case.</p><p>Outside the public world of Parliament and the court the fragile relationship between the prince and princess and the king remained strained throughout 1697. Personal jealousies apart, the king’s continuing failure to accede to the prince and princess’s financial demands was enough in itself to create considerable ill will. Negotiations over what was to become the Peace of Ryswick prompted Prince George to agitate for payment of the Holstein debt (which with arrears of interest now amounted to nearly £120,000). His wife, still anxious to obtain her father’s Irish lands, attempted to dissuade members of the Irish Parliament from passing the bill to confirm outlawries in the belief that it effectively confirmed William’s grant of those lands to Elizabeth Villiers, now Lady Orkney. Although she failed to carry her point, her campaign did worry those charged with managing Irish affairs as they had not anticipated any opposition. A direct appeal to the king to prevent the bill receiving privy council confirmation also failed.<sup>46</sup> William’s refusal to pay over the whole of the parliamentary grant intended for the upkeep of the young duke of Gloucester and his interference in the choice of officials for Gloucester’s household also enraged the prince and princess.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Prince George was present for the opening of the new session of Parliament on 3 Dec. 1697 and was appointed to the committee for privileges. He was then absent until 13 December. His attendance during the session was sporadic, amounting overall to just over a third of sitting days. Neither his attendance nor his absences necessarily related to political issues: his absence in early December was probably linked to Anne’s miscarriage on 7 Dec. and a two-week absence in April 1698 was caused by his attendance on the king at Newmarket.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Prince George took his seat again at the opening of the 1698 Parliament on 6 December. He was named to the committee of privileges but was subsequently present for only a quarter of sitting days. Over the winter and early spring of 1698–9 the issue that most appears to have caught his attention was that of prohibiting the export or distilling of corn but it is also possible that he was interested in a number of cases relating to the navy. He was present on 24 Mar. 1699 for discussions on the method of trial for Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun (on an indictment for killing Captain Coote) but although he was reported to have watched the procession bringing Mohun to Westminster he was not present for the trial.<sup>49</sup></p><p>During the 1699–1700 session Prince George was present for just 28 per cent of sitting days. He attended the opening of Parliament on 16 Nov. when he was again named to the committee for privileges. He was then absent for much of the remainder of the year, even though the Commons had the payment of his Holstein debt under consideration and used the occasion to attack the arrangements for the education of the young duke of Gloucester.<sup>50</sup> He did attend on 4 Dec. 1699 to hear the preliminary arguments in the case concerning Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, but was not named to the subsequent committee and was not present when the bishop’s application for parliamentary privilege was turned down on 6 December. It seems likely that he may have been influenced by the attorney general’s declaration of the king’s interest in the issue.</p><p>The prince’s subsequent sporadic attendances appear to have been largely issue-related. He was present for most of the debates on the Darien settlement (although he was absent on 12 Feb. when the king replied to the address on that subject). His attendances also appear to be linked to the revival of the Norfolk divorce bill and the question of union with Scotland. Prince George was thought to be in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation but according to the attendance list was not present at any of the readings of the relevant bill. Although the session did not end until 11 Apr. 1700 he ceased his attendances on 19 March. In July 1700 his only surviving child, the duke of Gloucester, died of smallpox, precipitating a potential succession crisis. Although he and Anne almost certainly reassured the exiled King James that they would somehow ensure the succession of Anne’s young half-brother, there is little doubt that in reality both supported the Hanoverian option, with its inbuilt guarantees for continuing the line of Protestant monarchs.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Prince George was present for the formal opening of the first 1701 Parliament on 12 Feb. 1701 but, like Princess Anne, seems to have spent much of the year in seclusion and mourning. He was present on only eight days of the four-month session and there is little evidence to suggest reasons for his attendance on those days. It was said that he and his wife were instrumental in concealing the countess of Anglesey from her thuggish husband, James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, yet Prince George took no part in the debates over her bill to secure a separation.<sup>52</sup> Nor does he seem to have played any part in parliamentary discussions of the major political issues of the day, such as the impeachment of the Whig lords or the passage of the Act of Settlement, although in the case of the Act of Settlement Princess Anne’s approval of the measure is well documented.<sup>53</sup> There is no indication that Prince George was consulted by William over his plans for the Grand Alliance: the assumption appears to have been that neither the prince nor his wife would ever play an active part in strategic political or military decision-making and that at the king’s death the ministry would effectively fall under the dominance of Marlborough. During the second 1701 Parliament Prince George was present on just one day, 9 Jan. 1702.</p><p><em>Consort to the queen, 1702–8</em></p><p>The death of William III on 8 Mar. 1702 opened up speculation about Prince George’s role in government and the concept of the crown matrimonial. The precedent supplied by three previous consorts of queens regnant (Philip of Spain and William of Orange in England and Henry Darnley in Scotland) suggested that he should be declared king, either as king consort or with full regal powers. The precise status of consorts was uncertain and obscured still further by legal conceits that applied to the inheritance of estates in the two kingdoms, such as the courtesy of England and the courtesy of Scotland. This was almost certainly why Philip of Spain’s role as monarch had been defined by statute. There is evidence that a proposal to make George king was under discussion in some elite circles. An anonymous pamphlet declared that it was both unprecedented and unnatural for a husband to be subject to his wife and went on to suggest that declaring George to be king would block Jacobite pretensions. The proposal outlined in the pamphlet was that during Anne’s lifetime he would be king consort but that he would possess full regal powers after her death. Somewhat disingenuously, considering the state of Anne’s health, the author of the pamphlet also suggested that she would outlive both the Electress Sophia and Sophia’s son, the future George I. There would therefore be no effect on the eventual succession of the House of Hanover.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Within days of the king’s death it had been suggested that Prince George might take charge of the allied troops and that he would need the status of kingship for such a post to be viable.<sup>55</sup> Rumours were also said to have reached the court of Hanover to the effect that such a proposal would be introduced during the session that opened in October 1702.<sup>56</sup> The proposal was never debated in Parliament. This may have been because of the visible deterioration in Prince George’s health, caused by a serious pulmonary illness in August 1702 that was ascribed to asthma. A course of the waters at Bath did little to alleviate his condition and he was again gravely ill in October. A more likely explanation is that the decision to grant Prince George an annuity of £100,000 a year for life and to exempt him from those clauses of the Act of Settlement prohibiting foreigners from holding public office were sufficiently controversial in themselves without going into issues that would almost certainly have been seen as a Tory attempt to overthrow the Act of Settlement. There are hints of a complex series of negotiations behind the scenes involving Prince George’s claim to kingship, his projected annuity, and Tory attempts to penalize occasional conformity.<sup>57</sup> It was perhaps as some compensation for the lack of a formal constitutional position that Anne loaded her husband with high offices, underlining that in her eyes at least he played an important role in the public life of the nation. It has been argued that the failure to recognize Prince George as king represented a significant, albeit unremarked, development in consitutional thought, in that it rested on the concept of kingship as an office rather than as an estate.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Although Prince George seems never to have made a concerted attempt to build a parliamentary grouping, his appointment as warden of the Cinque Ports enabled him to exercise (or attempt to exercise) influence over the 1702 elections in the Cinque Port constituencies in favour of Tories, through his deputy, Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea. His many offices and the size of his household also ensured influence over several Members of the Commons. They included Sir Benjamin Bathurst<sup>‡</sup>, John Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> (4th Viscount Fitzhardinge [I]), Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup>, Anthony Carey<sup>‡ </sup>(5th Viscount Falkland [S]), Walter Chetwynd<sup>‡</sup>, Charles Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, George Clarke<sup>‡</sup>, Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, (later earl of Wilmington) Thomas Conyers<sup>‡</sup>, William Ettrick<sup>‡</sup>, Francis Godfrey<sup>‡</sup>, Francis Godlophin<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, Charles Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, Edmund Webb<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Richmond Webb<sup>‡</sup>, and John Richmond Webb<sup>‡</sup>. His election in 1703 as high steward of Colchester also gave him influence in that constituency.</p><p>Prince George was present for the opening of Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702. He was absent for the queen’s speech the following day but attended again on 22 Oct. when he took the oaths. He was again ill in November, so ill that he was reported dead.<sup>59</sup> He next attended Parliament on 4 and 7 Dec., when the bill to prevent occasional conformity was debated in a committee of the whole House. As a Lutheran and occasional conformist himself he was known to have personal qualms about the bill. It is said that although he voted for it he told Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, the teller for the non-contents, that ‘My heart is vid you’. The story has been related since at least the mid-eighteenth century but no original manuscript source has yet been traced.<sup>60</sup> It is at least in part apocryphal since Prince George was not present to vote at any of the readings of the bill. If it has any basis in truth then it probably refers to a vote taken in the committee of the whole House on 4 Dec. when Wharton acted as teller for the contents on a resolution to amend the bill. However in an entry that appears to refer to Somers’ unsuccessful motion on 3 Dec. that the committee on the bill be instructed ‘that this bill extend to no other persons than the Test Acts’. William Nicolson*, of Carlisle, recorded that ‘Prince George came into the House to countenance the Bill and divided with the Not Contents’.<sup>61</sup> It seems highly likely therefore that he did, at the queen’s bidding, speak in favour of it; in January 1703 Nottingham certainly listed him as one of the supporters of the bill.</p><p>Prince George’s next attendance, on 16 Jan. 1703, was also related to the issue of occasional conformity. On that day the two Houses met in a free conference to discuss the amendments that had been proposed by both sides. The surviving division list shows that Prince George voted against insisting on the (Whig) peers’ amendment to the penalty clause. As indicated above, it seems likely that the occasional conformity bill was being used by the queen as a lever to obtain concessions for her husband. Cary Gardiner reported that Parliament was ‘hot’ about occasional conformity,</p><blockquote><p>but are finding out a way to keep Prince George in without taking oaths, and ’tis further said the Queen will desire the Parliament to make some settlement for a maintenance for the Prince during his life, and ’tis believed she will gain both these points, but will keep her word that she will let the Dissenters enjoy the liberty of conscience, tho’ not preferments.<sup>62</sup></p></blockquote><p>Prince George’s ninth and final attendance of the session was on 17 Feb. 1703, when the main business related to the attack on Charles Montagu*, earl of Halifax, and the debate over Sir George Rooke’s conduct during the Cadiz expedition.</p><p>In October 1703 Godolphin predicted ‘great clamours’ in the ensuing Parliament about the mismanagement of naval affairs which would prove to be ‘particularly uneasy’ to Prince George.<sup>63</sup> Despite this prediction George’s attendance fell still lower. He was present on only four days of the 1703–4 session: 10 Nov. and 17 Dec. 1703 and 13 and 20 Mar. 1704. Thus he was not present when the occasional conformity bill was lost on 14 Dec., even though Sunderland had listed him as a supporter of the bill. His attendance on 17 Dec. and 20 Mar. may have been linked to debates over the Scotch Plot, but the variety of business discussed on 10 Nov. and 13 Mar. makes it more difficult to identify the issues that attracted his attention.</p><p>Despite his low parliamentary profile, Prince George seems to have taken an active interest in foreign affairs and in November 1704 was promoting a marriage between his niece, the princess of Denmark, and Frederick I of Prussia.<sup>64</sup> His only attendances during the 1704–5 session were on 7 and 10 Feb. 1705, which coincided with the second and third readings of the place bill; the suggestion that he would support the tack seems to have been entirely misplaced. In March Prince George replaced Winchilsea with the Whig Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, as his deputy in the Cinque Ports in order to manage the elections there.<sup>65</sup> The prince was ill once more in March 1705, this time with gout.<sup>66</sup> His health continued to be so precarious that rumours of his death again circulated in September 1705.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Prince George was present for the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705. Despite his apparent disengagement from everyday politics, behind the scenes he was active in lobbying for the election of John Smith as Speaker of the Commons and dismissed his secretary, George Clarke<sup>‡</sup>, for refusing to promise his vote for Smith.<sup>68</sup> In all he was present for ten days over the course of the session. He attended the House on 12 Nov. when the question of a union with Scotland was debated, and again on 15 Nov. when the issues before the House concerned a possible invitation to Princess Sophia and the Protestant succession. Further attendances on 19, 20, 21, and 30 Nov., 6 Dec. 1705, and 29 and 31 Jan. 1706 also coincided with debates on the Protestant succession. He was sufficiently in touch with events to learn of, and then to prevent, a duel between Halifax and Carmarthen in December 1705 but his health continued to deteriorate. In May 1706 Anne told Marlborough that the prince was unable to write to congratulate him on his victories because of a cold and ‘shortness of breath’.<sup>69</sup> The letter that the prince wrote on his recovery a fortnight later is suggestive of a continuing interest in foreign affairs. He expressed his satisfaction with Marlborough’s praise of the Danish troops and went on to assure him that ‘nothing shall be wanting on my part to persuade their master to follow the interest of England in everything’.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Prince George attended the House just twice more before his death: on 3 Feb. 1707 and for the opening of the first British Parliament on 23 Oct. 1707. He was thus present for the assault by John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, on the ministry. Perhaps he took some pleasure in the way in which Haversham specifically exempted him from criticism, declaring that Prince George ‘owes not his commission to the favour of any great minister whatsoever, nor is he within reach of their power; he stands upon a much more unshaken and firm foundation’.<sup>71</sup> He was, however, incensed by the Whig attack on his management of the navy, although, since in practice he was in the habit of delegating almost all responsibility, the real target was George Churchill. In the crisis of February 1708, Prince George emerged from the shadows for once and played a crucial role in persuading the queen to dismiss Harley and to support her in resisting Junto demands.<sup>72</sup> Had more papers of the period survived it is possible that they would illuminate similar activities at other times, for according to Westmorland it was Prince George’s role to keep his wife ‘from being beguiled to her dishonour by sycophants that were about her all the time of his life’.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Prince George died later that year, on 28 Oct. 1708, after a week’s sickness and ‘a very tedious life of illness for some years’. Spitting blood, dropsy, and asthma all played a part in his demise.<sup>74</sup> For those, like Westmorland, who supported the rule of the duumvirs, his death explained the political crises of the next few years for now there was no one to protect the queen from ‘whisperers’ and to help her ‘to stand by those who had so successfully carried on her affairs’. Westmorland declared that ‘no sooner was he dead but she sullied the great glory she had gained during her reign before, by bringing in a party not able to support her and to go on with the war she was engaged in for the liberties of Europe’.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Although his health had been in decline for several years, Prince George had not made a will. The queen had to obtain the advice of the 12 judges, who agreed that Prince George’s estate should be distributed in accordance with the provisions of the intestacy statute, with half his estate going to the queen and the remainder to be divided between his next of kin.<sup>76</sup> After payment of his debts the residue of his estate amounted to £39,000. These calculations excluded the old question of the Holstein debt, about which the administrators professed themselves baffled. Despite the Commons vote of 1698 it was not clear whether the debt had ever been paid. If the debt remained then it ought to be paid by the queen, yet the lands in question had been settled on her in jointure. The administrators sought legal advice but whether the problem was ever settled remains a mystery.<sup>77</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
GEORGE AUGUSTUS (GEORG AUGUST), Prince (1683-1760) |
<p><strong><surname>GEORGE AUGUSTUS (GEORG AUGUST)</surname></strong>, <strong>Prince</strong> (1683–1760)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>9 Dec. 1706 duke of CAMBRIDGE; <em>cr. </em>27 Sept. 1714 Prince of Wales; <em>suc. </em>fa. 11 June 1727 as king of Great Britain and Ireland |
|
First sat 17 Mar. 1715; last sat 15 May 1727 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Nov. 1683 [NS], o.s. of Georg Ludwig von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, prince of Calenberg (later elector of Hanover and King of Great Britain) and Sophia Dorothea of Celle. <em>educ</em>. privately (Johann Hilmar Holsten, Phillip Adam von Eltz). <em>m.</em> 2 Sept. 1705 [NS] Wilhemine Caroline von Ansbach-Bayreuth (als. Brandenburg-Ansbach, Brandenburg-Ansbach-Bayreuth) (<em>d</em>.1737), da. of Johann Friederich, margrave of Ansbach, and Eleonore von Sachsen-Eisenach, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.); ?1da. illegit. with Henrietta Howard, countess of Suffolk; 1s. illegit. with Amalie Sophie Marianne von Wallmoden, countess of Yarmouth. KG 4 Apr. 1706. <em>d.</em> 25 Oct. 1760.</p> |
<p>PC 1714;<sup>1</sup> guardian of the kingdom 1716-17.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Capt.-gen. Artillery co. of the City of London 1715.<sup>3</sup></p><p>High steward of Scotland, 1714-27; freeman Glasgow 1714;<sup>4</sup> high steward, Exeter 1715.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Gov. S. Sea Co. 1715-18, 1727-60.<sup>6</sup></p><p>FRS 15 May 1727.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: (as prince of Wales) enamel, by Christian Friedrich Zinke, 1717, Royal Collection, RCIN 421777; (as prince of Hanover) mezzotint, by William Faithorne jr after Georg Wilhelm Lafontaine, c.1700-10, NPG D 7906.</p> |
<p>The only son of the future King George I, Georg August was brought up between his family’s principal residences in Hanover and nearby Herrenhausen. His childhood was blighted by the scandalous circumstances of his parents’ separation following his mother’s affair with Count Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck: the latter’s mysterious disappearance and Sophia Dorothea’s immurement in the castle of Ahlden. News of the scandal was current in England.<sup>7</sup> Prince Georg August’s subsequent poor relations with his father may have stemmed in part from this traumatizing event. He also resented his lack of involvement in the management of the electorate once he had attained adulthood and his father’s refusal to allow him a military career until he had produced an heir. In 1705 the electoral prince, as he was known after his father’s accession as elector of Hanover, married the Protestant heroine, Caroline of Ansbach. The new electoral princess had achieved fame as an upholder of the faith after her refusal to convert to Catholicism to marry the future Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI.<sup>8</sup> That year, Prince Georg was also included in speculation that he might accompany his grandmother, Dowager Electress Sophia, to England to help secure her claim to the throne as part of the Act of Settlement. Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, though, advised that should Sophia come over the prince should remain in Hanover:</p><blockquote><p>it would be advisable to let him live here in quiet, till he has issue. He is bred up here in great virtue and sobriety, but if he came into England, might be exposed to many temptations, which a young prince of a gay temper, who has a great deal of fire might not, perhaps, resist, where he would see a quite different world from what he sees here.<sup>9</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the event the motion for summoning over the heir presumptive failed to be carried and Sophia herself made plain her disinclination to travel without the queen’s consent.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Relations between the courts of Hanover and St James remained awkward for the ensuing few years. In March 1706 the Hanoverians took umbrage at the proposed method of conveying the naturalization bill to them and the offer of a garter (available by the death of the prince’s maternal grandfather, the duke of Celle) to the electoral prince as ‘paying them with trifles instead of calling them over’. The elector proposed instead that the bill should be presented without ceremony while a herald should travel to Hanover with his son’s garter.<sup>11</sup> In the event the prince was invested with the garter in June during the diplomatic mission headed by Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, though he was not installed formally for another four years (by proxy).<sup>12</sup> There were similar difficulties over the proposal to promote Prince Georg to the peerage later that year. There seems to have been initially some thoughts of him being created duke of Clarence, but Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, dismissed this as a ‘snivelling project’. He claimed to have ‘stifled that at birth and hindered it being offered’, probably in response to objections raised by John Holles*, duke of Newcastle.<sup>13</sup> By the beginning of October Harley was able to advise the English resident in Hanover, Emanuel Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, husband of the natural daughter of Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, that the letters patent had passed; but it was not until December that the prince was elevated to the peerage as duke of Cambridge and not until the beginning of 1707 that Harley wrote to Howe again with the patent of creation to be presented to the prince.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The following year Cambridge played a conspicuous part in the opening action of the battle of Oudenarde, serving under John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, in command of a squadron of Hanoverian dragoons.<sup>15</sup> It was almost immediately after this that there were renewed manoeuvrings to have a member of the Hanoverian family summoned over to England to settle in advance of the Hanoverian succession to the throne, whether it was in the person of his grandmother, his father or (as the first heir of the Hanoverian line to be younger than Queen Anne) himself. The queen, who had herself effectively run a reversionary interest before her own accession, made plain her extreme displeasure at the notion. She warned Marlborough that whoever might propose such a course of action in Parliament, Whigs or Tories, she would ‘look upon neither of them as my friends, nor would never make any invitation neither to the young man, nor his father, nor grandmother’. Having heard that Cambridge intended to make a visit at the close of the campaigning season, she requested that Marlborough would find a way to discourage it so that she would not need to refuse him permission.<sup>16</sup></p><p>During the final years of the queen’s reign, Cambridge increasingly became a focus for political point-scoring, particularly for those eager to see him granted his writ of summons to the Lords. In January 1712 Oxford (as Harley had become) presented a bill to the House for granting Cambridge precedence above all other peers.<sup>17</sup> The bill for settling the precedence of Cambridge, the dowager electress and the elector was given the royal assent the following month.<sup>18</sup> The next year it was mooted that Cambridge’s son, Prince Frederick Louis<sup>†</sup>, later Prince of Wales, could be sent for as ‘a sure and present pledge for the security of that succession’, which it was thought could not ‘be reasonably objected against’.<sup>19</sup> In the spring of 1714 Cambridge’s anomalous position as a duke thus far denied his seat in the House was brought to a head when the Hanoverian resident, Baron Schütz, demanded of the lord chancellor, Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, a writ of summons for the duke for the forthcoming session of Parliament. Harcourt responded that a writ had never been denied, nor as yet demanded, and referred the matter to the queen for her approval.<sup>20</sup> Writing of the affair to Thomas Harley in Hanover, Oxford expatiated on the queen’s annoyance at the proceeding, which she conceived was intended ‘to insinuate to all her subjects that though she has often declared to her people the friendship she has for the House of Hanover, yet they will not accept it’. He also underlined that Schütz had now shot his bolt and was no longer in a position to do anything for the heir presumptive. Thus, while a writ was despatched along with Oxford’s diatribe it was made patently clear that Cambridge was not expected to act on it.<sup>21</sup> To make matters doubly sure, it was reported that Henry Paget*, 4th Baron Paget (later earl of Uxbridge), was to travel to Hanover to prevent Cambridge from responding to the summons.<sup>22</sup> Personal letters from the queen to the dowager electress and the elector also made plain her disquiet at the notion of Cambridge appearing in England.<sup>23</sup> The controversy sparked discussion in London over whether or not Cambridge would come over, though as one commentator put it ‘I believe the one that says he is to come knows as little as the other that is of the contrary opinion’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Once it was apparent that Cambridge would not come in time to take his seat in the Lords, the parties began to make what capital out of the affair they could. Both the Whigs and Oxford’s enemies within the administration put it about that the scheme had all along been the lord treasurer’s. Others suggested that although it had been a Whig device they had backed away from the notion fearful that once in England, Cambridge might not espouse their interests.<sup>25</sup> Oxford’s heir reported in early May that some Whigs were still confidently reporting Cambridge’s imminent arrival, but he concluded that ‘his father and grandmother are both wiser than to let him come’.<sup>26</sup> A message from Hanover from the dowager electress and elector disavowing any knowledge of the affair was accounted ‘the best cordial’ that could be given the queen who by then was suffering from poor health allegedly brought on in part by the strain of the business.<sup>27</sup> Once the queen’s condition improved, a compromise arrangement was put about in mid-May by which Cambridge might be permitted to come over but not before Parliament had risen.<sup>28</sup> Further schemes and stratagems continued to circulate into the early summer amid mutual recriminations, not least among certain Whigs who were dismayed that the prince had not been, as expected, en route when the writ was despatched which they had hoped might wrong-foot their opponents.<sup>29</sup></p><p>The court at Hanover was undoubtedly offended by the response from Britain. Schütz’s actions stemmed in part from pressure from the Whigs but he was also responding to an instruction from the dowager electress. The elector played a more cautious hand. He was more intent on securing confirmation of the succession and confined himself to voicing the desire that some member of his house might be permitted to attend the queen, which according to Samuel Molyneux<sup>‡</sup> was ‘the only step made to support the demand of the prince’s writ’.<sup>30</sup> The prince’s own response is not known but attention was soon after distracted by the death of Dowager Electress Sophie, relegating to second place concerns about Cambridge travelling to England.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Communications relating to Cambridge’s writ as a peer continued to feature in despatches until shortly before the queen’s death, which at last put an end to the business. When the new king set out to claim his throne, Cambridge accompanied him. They arrived at Greenwich on 17 Sept. at a rather low key ceremony. Ten days later the prince was elevated prince of Wales, as the first of a number of notables to receive coronation honours. His wife and daughters joined him over the ensuing months but his only son (next heir but one to the throne), Prince Frederick, was left behind in Hanover to act as a symbol to the electorate of the family’s continuing commitment there. Once in England, the prince of Wales, conversant in French and English, was quick to capitalize on his position to build up a political following.<sup>32</sup> Details of his role as head of a significant opposition grouping and his later role in Parliament as king will be dealt with in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
GERARD, Charles (c. 1618-94) |
<p><strong><surname>GERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1618–94)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>8 Nov. 1645 Bar. GERARD of Brandon; <em>cr. </em>21 July 1679 earl of MACCLESFIELD |
|
First sat 15 June 1660; last sat 5 Jan. 1694 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1618, 1st s. of Sir Charles Gerard of Halsall, Lancs. and Penelope, da. of Sir Edward Fitton, Bt, of Gawsworth, Cheshire.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Leiden Univ. 1634,<sup>2</sup> G. Inn 1672. <em>m</em>. bef. 1 Dec. 1656 Jeanne (<em>d</em>. 28 Sept. 1671), da. of Pierre de Civelle, equerry to Queen Henrietta Maria, 2s., 3da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 7 Jan. 1694; <em>admon</em>. 26 Apr. 1694 to heir Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield; 2 Dec. 1701 to Fitton Gerard*, 3rd earl of Macclesfield; 5 Jan. 1703 to Charlotte Orby, w. of Thomas Orby, da. of Charles, 2nd earl of Macclesfield.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1649-81;<sup>5</sup> PC 14 Feb. 1689-<em>d</em>.; commr., disorders in fleet July 1690.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Commr. array Lancs. 1642; kpr. Enfield Chase, Mdx. 1661-<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> freeman, Preston by 1682;<sup>8</sup>; ld. pres., Council of Wales Mar.-July 1689;<sup>9</sup> ld. lt., N. Wales, S. Wales, Glos., Herefs., Mon., Bristol 1689-<em>d</em>.; <em>cust. rot</em>., Herefs., Mon., Brec. 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col., regt. of ft (roy.) 1642-5,<sup>10</sup> c.-in-c., S. Wales and Mon. (roy.) 1644-5,<sup>11</sup> lt-gen., horse (roy.) 1645;<sup>12</sup> vice-adm., fleet (roy.) 1648-9; capt., 1st tp. of Life Gds. 1657-68;<sup>13</sup> c.-in-c., Portsmouth. and I.o.W., Jan.-Aug. 1667; capt., tp. of horse May-Aug. 1667; col., regt. of horse Feb. 1678-Jan. 1679; lt.-gen., English army May 1678-Oct. 1679.<sup>14</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by P. Lely (studio of), c.1645, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 1108; oil on canvas by W. Dobson, c.1645, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, NZ; miniature, oil on copper, National Trust, Calke Abbey, Derbys.</p> |
<h2><em>Cavalier general, 1642-67</em></h2><p>Charles Gerard was a great-grandson of Elizabeth I’s attorney-general Sir Gilbert Gerard<sup>‡</sup>, who established the family seat at Gerard’s Bromley in Staffordshire. The main branch of the family was represented by the Barons Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley; Charles was of a cadet branch which had been established in Halsall in Lancashire since his father bought the estate in 1625. He raised a foot regiment for the king at the commencement of the Civil Wars and was quickly in the thick of the fighting. He caught the eye of Charles I’s nephew and leading commander, Prince Rupert*, later duke of Cumberland, who made him commander-in-chief of the royalist forces in the six counties of south Wales. During his campaign there of 1644-45 Gerard became renowned both for his effective military tactics and for his brutality. In the face of complaints from the local population of Gerard’s excessive exactions, Charles I, taking refuge in Wales after the defeat at Naseby, was forced to dismiss him from this post. He compensated him by putting him in charge, as lieutenant-general, of all the cavalry remaining in the royalist army and by creating him on 8 Nov. 1645 Baron Gerard of Brandon, Suffolk. He had no known connection with Suffolk, and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, who is hostile to Gerard throughout his history of the civil wars, claimed that he chose that title after reasoning that ‘because there was once an eminent person called Charles Brandon, who was afterwards made a duke, he would be created baron of Brandon, that there might be another Charles Brandon who had no less aspiring thoughts than the other’.<sup>18</sup> Gerard remained principally loyal to his patron and commanding officer Rupert, sharing his temporary disgrace in late 1645 and later joining him in exile after the fall of Oxford the following year.</p><p>In late 1648 he was appointed vice-admiral, under Rupert, of the royalist navy at Helvoetsluys. He did not sail with the fleet in January 1649, though, and remained at The Hague where shortly after the execution of Charles I he was made a gentleman of the bedchamber to the new king.<sup>19</sup> Gerard spent much of the 1650s either in the service of the French army or wandering between the courts and capitals of northwest Europe. It was during this period that he married the Frenchwoman Jeanne de Civelle, daughter of an equerry to the queen mother Henrietta Maria. By 1657 he was back at the court of the exiled Charles II, when he was commissioned to raise a troop of horse to serve as life guards to the king. <sup>20</sup> As captain of this body Gerard led his troops into London at the restored king’s triumphal entry into the capital on 29 May 1660. His positions as captain of what was now considered the first troop of the Life Guards and as gentleman of the bedchamber in the restored regime were confirmed shortly afterwards. He soon received other marks of royal favour. On 29 July he was granted the reversion of the office of remembrancer of first fruits and tenths and on 15 May 1661 he was made keeper of Enfield Chase, although this latter post was to engage him for many years in suits with William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, who also had claims to the office. He received a pension of £100 charged on the customs receipts from 1662 and at the end of that year briefly served as an envoy-extraordinary to the court of France. His French wife was made a lady-in-waiting to the queen, Catherine of Braganza, although she was to lose this position in March 1663 for the folly of telling the queen details of the king’s affair with Lady Castlemaine. <sup>21</sup></p><p>Gerard of Brandon first sat in the Convention on 15 June 1660, where he immediately set to work reclaiming and augmenting his estate with the same determination which he had shown during the wars. Three days after his first appearance the House ordered his estate to be discharged from sequestration. He then moved to have a bill passed confirming to him the restoration of all his estates held as of 23 Oct. 1641. His request was exempted from the restrictions of the pending indemnity bill. It was first introduced on 8 Aug. and committed five days later. It was delayed while the committee tried to set a date from which his ownership of the properties would be reckoned. This was eventually determined to be 20 May 1642, and the revised bill was passed by the House on 27 August. It was returned unamended from the Commons on 5 Sept. and received the royal assent eight days later.<sup>22</sup> The success of his bill is in contrast to the similar bill of Gerard’s Lancashire neighbour and local rival Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, which sought the forcible restitution of his lands sold under duress during the Interregnum. The principal difference between the bills, and the reason why Gerard’s quickly succeeded whereas Derby’s, after many twists and turns and attempts, ultimately failed, was that Gerard’s did not seek to reclaim lands which he had legally granted or sold during the 1650s. It sought only to reclaim those that had been illegally seized and confiscated by the ‘usurping’ authorities. Seeing this bill through appears to have been Gerard’s principal concern in the Convention. Otherwise, he does not appear to have been particularly active.</p><p>Gerard attended 43 per cent of the sitting days of the first session of the new Parliament elected in 1661. His position as an ex-cavalier keen to reward his old colleagues and punish his former enemies is suggested by his nomination to consider the bills to determine the pains and penalties for those excepted from the Act of Indemnity, to distribute the £60,000 raised for ‘loyal and indigent’ officers of the late war, and to repeal the acts of the Long Parliament. Identification of Gerard of Brandon’s activities in the House until the end of 1667 is slightly complicated by the intermittent presence there of his distant cousin Charles Gerard*, 4th Baron Gerard of Bromley, but Gerard of Bromley sat infrequently and was not a major figure in the House. He missed some sessions altogether. Gerard of Brandon even held his cousin’s proxy from 13 June 1661 for the remainder of the 1661-62 session.<sup>23</sup></p><p>During these early years of the Restoration Gerard of Brandon tried to augment his fortunes by acquiring the Gawsworth estate in Cheshire, lands that were to embroil him and his descendants in protracted, bitter and controversial litigation for almost a century. In 1643 Gerard’s maternal uncle, Sir Edward Fitton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., who owned the lucrative estate of Gawsworth, had died childless. In his will of 1641 Sir Edward had left the estate to a distant Irish cousin, William Fitton, in order to keep the family name attached to the property. Gerard pushed for his own right to the property through his mother, Fitton’s sister, but war and exile impeded his ability to do so and in the 1650s William Fitton’s son and heir, Alexander, who had sided with Parliament to secure possession, took over the property. When Gerard returned, high in the king’s favour, he worked to reverse this situation, with little regard to the legality of his means. In Cheshire itself he produced forged documents casting doubts on Fitton’s legal tenure of the estate.<sup>24</sup> In May 1661 he brought in a bill in chancery against William and Alexander Fitton claiming that Sir Edward on his death bed had invalidated his 1641 will assigning the estate to the Fittons and in a later will of 1643 (only recently ‘discovered’) had bequeathed the property to Gerard. Lord Chancellor Clarendon (as Hyde had become) decreed in June 1662 that the validity of the first will had to be tried in king’s bench, and for this trial Gerard and his associates threatened and cajoled a notorious forger, Abraham Granger, to testify that he had forged the 1641 will on Alexander Fitton’s orders. Granger played his part well, the jury found in Gerard’s favour and chancery awarded the property to Gerard.<sup>25</sup> Fitton decided to strike back and in 1663 arranged for the unlicensed publication of a short work, <em>A True narrative of the Proceedings … between Charles Lord Gerard of Brandon and Alexander Fitton, esq</em>, which took the form of Granger’s confession of his perjured testimony and of Gerard’s tactics to acquire it. <sup>26</sup> Gerard was incensed and took the matter to his peers in the House. After being almost entirely absent for the months of March to May in the session of 1663, Gerard began to attend assiduously from 12 June and on 20 June petitioned the House to take action against this libellous pamphlet against one of their own. Three days later, Granger’s writing having been submitted to the House, the matter was referred to the committee for privileges. On 26 June the Committee heard copious testimony (comprising seven folio sides in the committee minute book) from the parties involved in the publication of this work. All insisted it was an open and unsolicited confession of Granger, afflicted by a heavy conscience for what he had done to Fitton. Following the report the next day, the House resolved that Gerard was ‘free from any scandal mentioned in the said narration’ which was judged ‘to be a mere scandal, and a conspiracy and confederacy contrived by wicked persons, against the honour of his lordship, and false in every part’. When counsel for both Fitton and Gerard were heard at the bar on 2 July, the House further branded the publication ‘false, odious and infamous’, and declared that Gerard deserved reparations for the damage done to his reputation. A week later, after further argument from both counsel, the House passed down its heavy punishment on Fitton. He was to be fined £500, imprisoned in king’s bench until he could produce the elusive Granger for questioning and find sufficient sureties for his good behaviour. He also faced the additional threat of further legal action from Gerard, who was declared ‘clear and free’ of all the allegations in the libel. On 11 July the House further ordered that copies of the pamphlet were to be burned at both New Palace Yard in Westminster and in the market place in Chester, and that the content of the libel was not to be entered in the Journal <sup>27</sup> Fitton was unable to find the money or sureties to stand for him. He was imprisoned for his debt, where he remained for the next 20 years.</p><p>At the same time in July 1663 as Gerard’s proceedings against Fitton were occupying the House, George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, brought articles of impeachment against his old enemy, Clarendon. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, forecast that Gerard of Brandon would oppose Bristol’s attempt against Clarendon, while a contemporary newsletter writer, Thomas Salusbury, placed Gerard among Bristol’s supporters. Both these conflicting reports are plausible. Bristol had been one of Prince Rupert’s foremost antagonists in the royalist camp during the Civil Wars and Gerard would have had little reason to countenance Bristol’s Catholicism or calls for religious toleration. A few days after the affair of the impeachment, Gerard of Brandon joined with other zealous Anglicans in signing, on 25 July, the protest against a measure that would allow those subscribing to the Act of Uniformity to limit their agreement with its terms only to outward practice and obedience.<sup>28</sup> Yet there are other indications that Gerard’s dislike of Clarendon was longer-lasting and stronger. They had quarrelled during the years of exile and Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> later heard of an incident from the early days of the Restoration when Gerard reported to the king some unwise comments the lord chancellor had made about him.<sup>29</sup> Thomas Salusbury, placed Gerard among Bristol’s supporters drawn from ‘the nobility, disobliged (not to say abused) by the chancellor’, who were discontented with the scant reward they had received at the Restoration.<sup>30</sup></p><p>After the prorogation of 27 July Alexander Fitton’s three accomplices in the publication of the libel against Gerard – Edward Lloyd, John Cade and John Wright – were also arrested. Upon their pardon and release by order of the king in August they adamantly refused to pay the serjeant-at-arms and other of the House’s officials the accustomed fees, ‘accompanied with high and threatening language’. During the following session, on 9 May 1664, the House heard the petition of its officials against this treatment and ordered that these three were to pay the officers the fees owing them or risk being recommitted.<sup>31</sup> He came to just under half of the sittings of the following session of 1664-65 and to only five of the sitting days of the session of October 1665. He was present in Westminster Hall on 30 Apr. 1666 when he was part of the court of the lord high steward to judge in the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, whom he found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Gerard once again attended just under half of the sittings in 1666-67. On 30 Oct. 1666 he was assigned to be part of the delegation from the House to present the king with the address requesting the prohibition of French imports and the following day he joined John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, in introducing Richard Arundell*, to the House as Baron Arundell of Trerice. During this session his opposition to Clarendon was revealed once again. On 10 Nov. 1666 Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, included Gerard in a list of royal servants acting against the wishes of the lord chancellor and the court by aggressively supporting the Irish cattle bill.<sup>33</sup> On 27 Nov. he registered his proxy with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, the leading advocate of the bill and one of Clarendon’s particular adversaries in the House. This proxy was vacated by Gerard’s return to the House on 5 December. On 20 Dec. he was added to the existing committee assigned to draw up reasons for insisting on the House’s rejection of the word ‘nuisance’ in the Irish cattle bill. On 3 Jan. 1667 Gerard, recently commissioned general of the militia entrusted to defend Hampshire and the Isle of Wight from a Dutch invasion, was granted leave to be absent for a time. That same day Gerard gave his proxy to his new military commander-in-chief, Prince James*, duke of York, but it was not entered in the proxy register until 8 January.<sup>34</sup> On 7 Feb. York presented Gerard’s complaint that two of his menial servants had been assaulted in March 1665, during time of privilege of Parliament.<sup>35</sup> The matter, though, was quickly dropped by the prorogation the following day. Following the peace with the United Provinces during the summer, Gerard came to 82 per cent of the meetings in the winter of 1667, which saw the impeachment of Clarendon by the Commons. Gerard joined in the attack and signed the protest of 20 Nov. against the decision not to commit Clarendon without specific articles of treason laid against him. On 7 Dec. he was placed on the large committee to consider the bill for banishing and disabling the former lord treasurer.</p><h2><em>The William Carr affair, 1667-71</em></h2><p>By that time Gerard himself was mired in controversy and distrust and had himself become a target of the Commons. As early as 1663 the king himself began to have suspicions that Gerard was using his company of the Life Guards and the pay allotted to them for his own profit. In October 1663 Pepys recorded that when Charles II decided to muster his own Guards himself ‘he found reason to dislike their condition to my Lord Gerard, finding so many absent men or dead pays’. On 9 Dec. 1667 the stationer John Cade, who had already been punished for his involvement in the publication of Fitton’s libel in 1663, told Pepys ‘my Lord Gerard is troubled for several things in the House of Commons’, which prompted Pepys to comment that ‘it seems this lord is a very proud and wicked man’. <sup>36</sup> Cade knew of the petition that William Carr, former clerk of Gerard’s company of Guards, had tried to submit to the House of Commons that day. Carr alleged that for at least the past six years he had been advancing Gerard for his own use large sums of money, at least £2,000 p.a., from the pay intended for the Guards, and that Gerard had been selling offices in the Guards for a healthy profit. When he had recently confronted Gerard to settle his account, the baron had threatened ‘that if he [Carr] ever spoke or revealed the advantage of the profits of the troop, and would not comply with his lordship’s desires, he [Gerard] would rip up his guts, and could now hang him, for that he was now a general, and could hang and draw, and none could question him’. Carr alleged that Gerard had sent troops to his house to terrorize his family and to seize incriminating papers. Carr had fled abroad, which gave Gerard the opportunity to accuse him of desertion, but had recently returned under the protection of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. When Carr had first tried to present his petition before the Commons, some of Gerard’s thugs waylaid him en route to St Stephen’s Chapel, wounded him and seized his petition in the precincts of Westminster Abbey.<sup>37</sup> Carr had his petition printed and distributed to members of the Commons before trying again on 16 Dec. and Pepys reported from Westminster on that day that the Commons were ‘very hot’ about the charges levelled in Carr’s printed petition. Unfortunately for Carr he had had his printed charges publicly distributed before first having presented them to the Commons. On that basis, on 17 Dec., the lower house decided not to commit the petition for further consideration.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Gerard informed the House on 16 Dec. 1667 both of the paper’s derogation of a peer and of Carr’s insulting solicitation to the Commons alone. The petitioner saw the lower House as ‘the only hopes and protectors of England’, as his case could ‘be that of any commoner under the tyranny of a great lord’. Carr and his accomplices were interrogated before the committee for privileges on 17 Dec. and the day afterwards, following the report from committee, Carr was heard at the bar before the whole House. The lords sentenced him to be fined £1,000, while copies of the offending paper were to be publicly burned. Carr was sentenced to be placed in the pillory for three consecutive days at central locations in the metropolis, with a notice over his head detailing his offence: ‘For publishing several scandalous and libellous papers against the Lord Gerard of Brandon, a peer of this realm, and reflecting upon the honour and justice of His Majesty and the House of Peers.’<sup>39</sup> Judging by Pepys’s reaction, the politically engaged public sided with Carr against the House’s draconian punishment. At Westminster on 19 Dec. Pepys heard ‘how the House of Lords with great severity, if not tyranny, ordered poor Carr (who only erred in the manner of the presenting his petition against my Lord Gerard, it being first printed before it was presented …) to stand in the pillory two or three times … and be imprisoned I know not how long’. He even reported the false rumour that the House had ordered Carr’s ears to be cut off. Pepys later saw Carr standing in the pillory at the Exchange, ‘the Lords having ordered this with great injustice, as all people think’.<sup>40</sup> Carr did not accept his punishment quietly and sometime in very late 1667 or early 1668 publicized his allegations against Gerard and his mistreatment by the House in a work, <em>An occasional dialogue at a coffee-house, between Philanax Britannicus, and Calophilus Anglus, two loyal English gentlemen</em>, in which he adopted the authorial name ‘Coffo-Philo’.</p><p>Determined to rid himself of the troublesome Carr once and for all on 6 Feb. 1668 Gerard started proceedings against Carr in king’s bench under three indictments: felony (for desertion of his military service, even though Carr was never a soldier) and two of forgery.<sup>41</sup> ‘All do say’, Pepys reported, ‘that my Lord Gerard, though he designs the ruin of this man, will not get anything by it’ and on 8 Feb. the diarist was able to record that ‘the great talk is of Carr’s coming off in all his trials, to the disgrace of my Lord Gerard to that degree, and the ripping up so many notorious rogueries and cheats of my Lord’s that my Lord it is thought will be ruined’. Pepys saw the whole Carr episode as emblematic of</p><blockquote><p>the madness of the House of Commons … and much more, the base proceedings (just the epitome of all our public managements in this age) of the House of Lords, that ordered him to stand in the pillory for those very things, without hearing and examining, which he hath now, by the seeking of my Lord Gerard himself, cleared himself of in open court, to the gaining himself the pity of all the world, and shame for ever to my Lord Gerard.<sup>42</sup></p></blockquote><p>Previously the stationer John Cade had also told Pepys on 20 Jan. 1668, before Parliament resumed from its winter recess, ‘how my Lord Gerard is likely to meet with trouble the next sitting of Parliament, about Carr being set in the pillory, and I am glad of it’. <sup>43</sup> Gerard first sat in the reconvened session on 10 Feb. and came to 69 per cent of the sittings until the adjournment of 9 May. He was named to only two committees on legislation, and undoubtedly his principal concern during this time was the continuing turbulence over his and the House’s treatment of Carr. The Commons did harry him after his defeat in king’s bench and on 21 Feb. referred to its committee of grievances Carr’s new petition against the peer and revived consideration of a petition from Alexander Fitton first submitted on 12 Dec. 1667, which had not been dealt with at the time because of the press of Clarendon’s impeachment.<sup>44</sup> Fitton’s petition questioned the House’s jurisdiction over him in 1663, while the allegations in Carr’s petition, concerning his knowledge of Gerard’s coercion of Granger to testify falsely in the Fitton case, were made publicly available, and Pepys thought that the petition ‘will, all do believe, ruin him [Gerard] – and I shall be glad of it’.<sup>45</sup> The petition languished in committee for some time but was revived in early April, so that on 23 Apr. Gerard, informing the House that ‘scandalous informations against him [had been] exhibited to the House of Commons’, requested the leave of the House in order to defend himself before the Commons. Again, the petition probably became lost in the press of other business, but Carr took his battle with Gerard into other arenas and, perhaps with the assistance of Alexander Fitton, tried to lampoon Gerard and his blustering greed in an overdrawn farce, <em>Pluto furens & vinctus, or, The raging devil bound</em>, published in 1669 but perhaps performed as early February 1668.<sup>46</sup> In 1670 an unlicensed and clandestine publication appeared (with a suspicious Amsterdam imprint), <em>Carr’s Case, being a brief relation of the cause and sufferings of Mr William Carr</em>. This was again submitted to the House of Commons, ‘who are the representatives of all the commons of England’, and included ‘a plea against the pretended jurisdictions and singular proceedings of the House of Lords, in which may be seen the just rights of every commoner and free-born subject of England’. It rehearsed Carr’s account of Gerard’s underhand dealings as captain of the Guards, and delighted in detailing his intemperate and violent actions, including the abusive language he directed towards his general, Albermarle, behind his back. The bulk of it was taken up with a detailed treatise, complete with references to legal precedents and extracts from Coke’s Institutes, taking issue with the House’s claims for original jurisdiction and denying its right to try commoners at all. Undoubtedly this was written with the ongoing fight between the two houses over <em>Skinner v. East India Company</em> in mind and in the arguments and petitions of 1668-71 what started out as a personal feud between Gerard and those he had wronged, such as Fitton and Carr, quickly took on larger constitutional issues because of Gerard’s reliance on his peers to punish those who dared to confront him on his corrupt practices.</p><p>By September 1668 the numerous allegations against Gerard had become too much even for his patron the king. Gerard agreed to sell his commission as captain of the first troop of Life Guards to the king’s natural son James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, for £8,000 and to purchase Monmouth’s residence of Chiswick House in Acton.<sup>47</sup> Furthermore, in September 1668 he was granted by John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, the manor of Northallerton in Yorkshire.<sup>48</sup> He had an existing interest there through his extended family, as his first cousin Sir Gilbert Gerard<sup>‡</sup>, bt, who had been a lieutenant in the Life Guards until dismissed with his captain in 1668, was married to one of Cosin’s daughters as well as being member for Northallerton in all of Charles II’s parliaments. He remained a close associate of Sir Gilbert Gerard throughout the subsequent years. Gerard of Brandon retained his position in the bedchamber, where he maintained his reputation for harshness and vindictiveness. In November 1668 he saw in the queen’s privy chamber a ‘Mr Cornewall’, who had testified against him before a parliamentary committee in the William Carr matter, and he ‘came across the room to him and swore desperately at him threatening him that his footmen or porters should slit his nose, etc.’ Cornewall took the matter to king’s bench with the result that ‘even soldiers and those of my lord’s own kindred very much blame my lord, and so hath his Majesty’. Years later the earl of Anglesey, coming into the king’s bedchamber for business on 5 Jan. 1674, was ‘saucily used by my Lord Gerard’ and reported this behaviour to the king once summoned to his presence.<sup>49</sup></p><h2><em>Court supporter, 1669-79</em></h2><p>Gerard came to 57 per cent of the sitting days of both the sessions of 1669 and of 1670-71. He was most active in the latter session when he was named to 24 committees on legislation and two for investigation, including the large committee assigned in the first days of the session to investigate the fall of rents and decay of trade. On 13 Jan. 1671 he chaired the committee on the bill to allow the underage Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, to settle a jointure of certain Lincolnshire manors on his prospective bride Dorothy, daughter of John Ferrers<sup>‡</sup>. He reported the bill as fit to pass the following day, but it soon became a moot point as the marriage failed to go through. <sup>50</sup> From the time of the turbulent session beginning 4 Feb. 1673 his attendance in the House increased substantially. He attended all but two of the meetings of the two sessions of 1673, when he was placed on four committees on legislation. He also held the proxy of Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, from 1 Mar. 1673 until vacated upon the earl’s return on 17 March. On 5 Mar. he was also placed on the large committee assigned to prepare an address of advice to the king regarding his referral of the controverted matter of the Declaration of Indulgence to ‘a parliamentary way by bill’. In the following session of early 1674 Gerard came to 86 per cent of the sittings and was named to three committees. At this time he was still a follower, or at least friend, of Buckingham, who had held his proxy back in December 1667. On 14 Jan. 1674 it was Gerard who presented to the House the duke’s answer to the petition of the trustees of the young Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, requesting the House to take action against Buckingham for the murder of Shrewsbury’s father and his continuing cohabitation with his mother.<sup>51</sup> He was later, on 6 Feb., placed on the committee of 12 members assigned to determine the conditions of the security of £10,000 Buckingham and the dowager countess of Shrewsbury were to enter into to prevent them from cohabiting.</p><p>He attended 95 per cent of the sittings in spring 1675, with six committee nominations, including that for the bill to confirm letters patent for his colleague Prince Rupert. He held the proxy of Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, from 28 May for the remainder of the session. He came to 80 per cent of the sittings in the session of autumn 1675, with only two committee nominations. The lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), considered Gerard an important part of the ‘court and church’ party he was trying to construct. Something of Gerard’s importance to Danby may be suggested by his presence in a list of ciphered names in the lord treasurer’s correspondence, among such other important figures as the king, the duchess of Portsmouth and Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I].<sup>52</sup> In the spring of 1675 Danby considered him as a court supporter of his controversial test bill, which aimed to further discriminate against those refusing to conform to the Church of England. He may even have intended Gerard to speak in the House for the bill. Certainly Gerard did not sign any of the protests against the measure, and he even requested from the clerk of the parliaments, John Walker, senior, a copy of the protest of 21 Apr. and its signatories, perhaps to know the bill’s enemies.<sup>53</sup> Similarly Gerard in the following session voted against the motion of 20 Nov. for an address to the crown requesting the dissolution of Parliament.<sup>54</sup> In the spring of 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, labelled the loyal courtier Gerard ‘vile’ in his political analysis of the House.</p><p>Shaftesbury drew up this list while imprisoned for making the claim when Parliament reassembled on 15 Feb. 1677 that the long prorogation of 15 months automatically led to a dissolution. Gerard himself was present for 87 per cent of the meetings of this session of 1677-78. He missed only one day of proceedings in the sittings of spring 1677, when he was named to 29 committees on legislation, as well as to the committee established on the second day of the session to investigate the circumstances of the publication of the libels arguing that Parliament was dissolved. He also held the proxy of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, from 20 Feb. to 3 Mar. 1677. He was undoubtedly a prime mover in the bill to naturalize his children born in France during his exile, Charles Gerard*, later 2nd earl of Macclesfield, and Elizabeth. In September 1678 the latter married Gerard’s distant cousin, the dissolute Digby Gerard*, 5th Baron Gerard of Bromley, who, fortunately for the purposes of distinguishing Gerard of Brandon’s activities in Parliament, never sat in the House from the time of his succession in December 1667, as he only came of age in 1683 and died the following year in a drinking match. The bill for the Gerard children, first introduced on 21 Feb. 1677, was eventually replaced and superseded by a more general bill for the ‘naturalizing of children of his Majesty’s subjects born in foreign countries’, which was first read on 2 Mar. and reported from committee as fit to pass 11 days later. The Commons’ proviso to the bill was rejected when it was brought up to the House on 3 Apr. by Gerard’s cousin Sir Gilbert Gerard, but after a few conferences the Commons relented and Sir Gilbert was able to deliver another version of the bill on 9 Apr. of which the House approved. It received the royal assent on 16 Apr., the day of adjournment.<sup>55</sup> On 13 Apr. Gerard was appointed to the committee to draw up heads for a free conference at which the House was to insist on its amendments to the bill to raise money for warships. He does not appear to have taken part in the ensuing conferences which saw the House, with great reluctance, recede from its amendments in order to ensure the passage of this supply bill in time for the adjournment. The session reconvened for business on 28 Jan. 1678. Gerard was present from the second day and proceeded to sit for 80 per cent of the sittings and was named to five committees. He again held Rochester’s proxy, from 31 Jan. to the peer’s return to the House on 25 February. Gerard, with the majority of the House, found Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter in his trial in Westminster Hall on 4 April.<sup>56</sup></p><p>On 23 Mar. he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons to be presented in conference why the House could not agree to the word ‘immediately’ in the Commons’ address to the king urging him to declare war on France. This is an indication that from this time Gerard’s contemporaries looked to him once more for his military expertise and experience. He was commissioned a colonel of his own regiment of horse for the threatened war with France on 15 Feb. 1678 and in May was made lieutenant general of all the English forces, perhaps on Monmouth’s recommendation. <sup>57</sup> It may have been because of this important military appointment that on 7 May 1678 Gerard took the oaths and subscribed to the declaration against transubstantiation required by the 1673 Test Act publicly in the House. He attended just over three-quarters of the sittings of May-July 1678, being appointed to 11 committees on legislation, and 80 per cent of the following session of the autumn of 1678, during which he was named to five committees on legislation. He was involved in the investigations into the Popish Plot. He and fellow military officer Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (Baron Butler of Moore Park), were assigned by the House on 8 Nov. to search the queen’s residence at Somerset House for arms, papers and Catholic servants of the queen. The following day they reported to the House that the only suspicious item they could find there was a box of cartridges in the rooms of one of the queen’s retainers, who claimed they were only to be used for fireworks. Gerard was later, on 11 Nov., placed on the committee to inspect the circumstances of these cartridges more fully. Fuelled by his dislike of Catholicism he went against the court temporarily by voting on 15 Nov. in favour of placing the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalties as the oath of allegiance in the test bill. He himself took the necessary oaths and declarations according to the Test Act on 2 December. Otherwise he still acted as a follower of the court. On 26 Dec. he voted to insist on the House’s amendment to the disbandment bill, which would place the funds raised in the exchequer rather than the chamber of the City of London, and the following day he voted against Danby’s commitment.</p><p>Danby continued to consider the baron an ally in the House during the first Exclusion Parliament, and appears to have assigned him to be managed by his own son Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds). Initially Gerard did not disappoint Danby’s expectations, as he was a diligent attender. He came to five of the six days of the brief and abortive session from 6 to 13 Mar. 1679 and then to 93 per cent of the session which eventually met for business on 15 Mar., during which time he was placed on five committees on legislation as well as the large committee to receive information regarding the Plot. Perhaps it was in his role as a member of this committee and a military commander that on 27 Mar. Gerard was delegated by the House to request the king to dismiss Humphrey Weld, suspected to be a Papist, from his command of Portland Castle. In the first weeks of the Parliament Gerard opposed the Commons’ attempt to commit and then, following Danby’s going into hiding, attaint the former lord treasurer. Gerard had little time for the Commons’ demand on 21 Mar. that Danby be committed immediately pending his impeachment proceedings. This would have forced the House to rescind its previous vote of 27 Dec. 1678 and the period of time they had set within which Danby was to remain at liberty to respond to the articles of impeachment. In a speech redolent of his brusque, abusive manner, and his bitter memories of the 1640s, Gerard argued:</p><blockquote><p>All that I find to make any change in this matter is that the House of Commons comes now to prosecute the impeachment of my lord treasurer upon that which you have voted to be no treason. In ’41 the attorney general impeached the five members and he was clapped by the heels for doing it. We should have some regard therefore to ourselves. The other House as they called it, though they were cobblers and tinkers, they were concerned for one another. Let this noble lord have fair play for his life. Will you blow him away with noise and then say he is guilty? You have given [him] time for his answer, and we are now engaged by our word for seven days.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the first two weeks of April he consistently voted against the Commons’ bill threatening the former lord treasurer with attainder if he did not surrender himself once he had gone into hiding, as well as the House’s eventual and reluctant decision to agree with the attainder. Following Danby’s turning himself in Gerard took part in the debates throughout late April and May about the procedures to be followed in the trials of Danby and the five Catholic peers. On 24 Apr. he was placed on the committee to consider the response to the Commons’ objections to the answers submitted by these peers. Later, in a debate of 7 May 1679, he defended the right of the bishops to sit and vote in the House during trials which involved capital punishment, arguing that ‘when they are quiet the government [is] quiet. They have kept faithful to it’.<sup>59</sup> He voted on 10 May with the majority against the motion to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider the methods of trying the impeached lords, and the following day acted as a manager at two free conferences which further discussed this matter. At the end of the second conference of the day, the House relented and agreed to a joint committee, to which Gerard was not appointed. On the day of prorogation, 27 May, he probably once again voted to affirm the right of the bishops to hear capital cases tried by the House.</p><h2><em>Exclusionist and earl, 1679-89</em></h2><p>Following the prorogation, and eventual dissolution, of Parliament, Gerard significantly altered his political allegiances. During the summer of 1679 he turned decisively against the Catholic duke of York, and began to espouse the cause of his friend and military colleague, the Protestant pretender Monmouth. There had long been signs of Gerard’s attachment to Monmouth and dislike of York such as when, in September 1678, he had refused to serve under York’s favourite, Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, who was acting as Monmouth’s second in command.<sup>60</sup> Gerard’s was one of the first regiments targeted for disbandment in January 1679, ‘by which you may see whose regiments they [the government] have least confidence of’.<sup>61</sup> In June, when Monmouth was given command of the army to suppress the Scottish covenanters, he turned to Gerard and another rebel of September 1678, Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, to raise forces and serve under him.<sup>62</sup> By the summer of 1679 Gerard was clearly a follower of Monmouth and his pretensions to the succession.</p><p>Seeing Gerard going over to Monmouth’s camp, Charles II tried to bind him more tightly to the court by raising him in the peerage. On 21 July 1679 Gerard of Brandon became earl of Macclesfield by letters patent. The title had been entered in the docket book originally as earl of Newberry but this was subsequently crossed out and replaced by Macclesfield.<sup>63</sup> Gerard probably decided on the Macclesfield title, apparently at the last moment, as a way of reinforcing his claim to Gawsworth by linking him to the royal forest in Cheshire near that estate. Despite the honour, Macclesfield continued his close association with the duke and in September it was noted that he was the only person of Monmouth’s quality who attended him on board the ship that was to take him to his exile. It was further conjectured that Macclesfield, and not York, would replace Monmouth as general of all the forces, but this plan was quickly foiled when the privy council passed an order in October that disabled Macclesfield from ever acting as the duke’s deputy.<sup>64</sup></p><p>In the second Exclusion Parliament the new earl of Macclesfield, introduced under that title on 21 Oct. 1680 between Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, and John Granville*, earl of Bath, defended Monmouth’s pretensions and voted consistently for exclusion and other measures against Catholics in general and the duke of York in particular. He came to 86 per cent of the sittings of this session, was appointed to four committees on legislation. He was most noticeable on 15 Nov. when he took part in the debate on the exclusion bill brought up from the Commons. According to the rough jottings on the debate made by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, Macclesfield’s arguments all had a military and martial context, both in the concerns he expressed and the precedents and metaphors he used. ‘This bill may be good; with a bent sword one may hit an enemy’ was his first contribution to debate. He later raised the topic of the safety of the present king and those assigned to guard him, citing the precedent of the murder of Henri III of France by a ‘papist priest’. He both voted and protested against the motions leading to the rejection of the bill at its first reading that day. <sup>65</sup> A week later, on 23 Nov. he entered his protest against rejecting the establishment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom. On that same day he was added to the committee to draw up a Protestant Association against Catholic plotting. He voted the Catholic peer William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason on 7 December. He also signed the protests of 7 Jan. 1681 against the attempts to save the lord chief justice, William Scroggs, from commitment and suspension from his office pending his impeachment.<sup>66</sup> Macclesfield continued siding with the exclusionists in the third Exclusion Parliament, of which he attended all but one sitting. On 26 Mar. he was made a reporter for a conference discussing the suspect manner in which some bills had not received the royal assent in the previous session and he also protested against the decision to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law and not by impeachment. He was later one of the many spectators to attend the proceedings against Fitzharris in king’s bench on 7 May.<sup>67</sup></p><p>In early 1681 it had been rumoured that the earl would be removed from all his offices at court. He temporarily ‘made his peace’ with the king, but at the end of August Macclesfield was dismissed as a gentleman of the bedchamber, as ‘the king is resolved thoroughly to purge his family from disaffected persons’.<sup>68</sup> This only strengthened his commitment to the cause of Monmouth and the Whigs. He and his sons Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon since his father’s elevation in the peerage (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), and Fitton Gerard*, later 3rd earl of Macclesfield, led Cheshire in giving Monmouth a rapturous reception during his visit to Chester in September 1682. <sup>69</sup> This trip was also potentially treasonous, in that it was in part a cover for Monmouth to consult with Macclesfield and his sons, as well as other Whig peers in Cheshire such as George Booth*, Baron Delamer, about the plans being discussed for a joint rising in London and the west. According to the later testimony of the Whig turncoat Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), Macclesfield was a prominent actor in the plans for a rising and was even given a prominent military command: it was intended that he should fall upon the rear of the king’s forces with his troops after a march through the capital. At one point he even, as Grey of Warke alleged, advocated York’s murder as a means to frighten the king. This suggestion apparently so horrified Monmouth, that he claimed that he ‘should never have any esteem for my Lord Macclesfield while he lived’.<sup>70</sup> Nevertheless Monmouth was still dining in the company of Macclesfield and other Whigs (as recorded by Anglesey) in late May 1683. Following the discovery of the Rye House Plot, Macclesfield was anxious to kiss the king’s hand as an act of loyalty.<sup>71</sup> Nevertheless the grand jury at the Cheshire assizes on 17 Sept. 1683 presented him, his son Brandon and about 30 other Whigs for disaffection to the government and for promoting sedition. George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, subsequently bound them over. Macclesfield, as usual, counter-attacked through litigation. In February 1684 he had the foreman of the jury, Sir Thomas Grosvenor<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, and another of its members, John Starkey, arrested on charges of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>, seeking £10,000 in damages. The case was not heard before the Exchequer until April and was finally settled in November, when the court judged against Macclesfield, deciding that the grand jury was immune from such legal proceedings as ‘no action lies against an officer doing his duty’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>In order to further its campaign against Macclesfield the government released Alexander Fitton from prison, where he had been languishing for over 20 years. Fitton presented a bill of review to chancery in late 1684 resuscitating the old dispute over the Gawsworth estate. Surprisingly, considering the political mood of the time, the lord keeper, Francis North*, Baron Guilford, dismissed the bill on the basis that Fitton had waited too long to submit it for review. Fitton took advantage of the new Parliament of James II to appeal and brought in his petition for a reversal of chancery’s decree on 23 May 1685. It was referred to the committee for petitions which reported back on 27 May that the case should be heard before the whole House and that Macclesfield should submit his answer. On 1 June the House granted Macclesfield permission to print the statement of his case and his answer was read before the House two days later. After counsel for both sides had been heard before the bar on 5 June the House also decided against Fitton and dismissed his petition.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Macclesfield was otherwise largely inactive in James II’s Parliament, although he came to 64 per cent of the sittings, and was named to eight committees, in what he must have perceived as a hostile environment. He does not appear to have been actively involved or implicated in Monmouth’s Rebellion. The duke’s agent Robert Cragg would later testify in December 1689 that when he was in the Netherlands in the spring discussing with Monmouth potential supporters in England, the duke expressed doubts as to whether Macclesfield would be willing to take up arms for his rebellion, ‘for he was old, and his blood was cool’.<sup>74</sup> After Sedgemoor the government arrested Macclesfield’s son Brandon and confined him to the Tower for his suspected role in the uprising. Macclesfield appears to have initially been left at liberty, but his period of grace did not last long and by late August 1685, on the information of Grey of Warke, he was summoned to court for early September to answer for his previous involvement in Whig conspiracies.<sup>75</sup> He was nowhere to be found and when he was absent at a call of the House on 16 Nov. the House passed an order demanding his presence by 7 Dec. ‘as he will answer the contrary to this House, at his uttermost Peril’. He was certainly out of the country by this point, finding a home at the court of William of Orange. In his absence, and unable to answer the charges against him, a sentence of outlawry was passed against him. Brandon had been condemned to death in November 1685 for his shadowy involvement in the rebellion but, after a long series of reprieves of execution, the king pardoned him in August 1687, largely in an attempt to enlist him as a dependent in his attempt to push through his religious policies in Lancashire. To bind Brandon to him more tightly, in January 1688 James granted him his father’s estate, which had been forfeited to the crown.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Reprising his old role, Macclesfield became captain of William’s bodyguard in exile and during the descent on England entered Exeter with the prince and his other English followers ‘with all the grandeur and solemnity they could’.<sup>77</sup> He led William’s bodyguard in the prince’s triumphant entry into the capital, just as he had done previously for Charles II, and continued in his position as one of William’s closest advisers, associates and dining companions.<sup>78</sup> He was one of the 11 peers chosen by William to discuss what should be done with James after his return from Faversham following his abortive attempt at flight and at the meeting at Windsor Castle on 17 Dec. 1688 Macclesfield joined with other Whigs such as Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, in insisting that the king should be placed in the Tower, for his attempt at flight amounted to a ‘dissolution of the government’ and an abdication of his kingship.<sup>79</sup> George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, noted that Macclesfield spoke in the debate on 24 Dec. on the whereabouts of the king, which led to the address of the lords to the Prince of Orange requesting him to take on the administration of public affairs and to summon a Convention. Halifax though did not record the content of Macclesfield’s intervention.<sup>80</sup> Macclesfield’s own, perhaps ambivalent, attitude towards his part in the Revolution is revealed in an anecdote recounted later by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, in his memoirs. Macclesfield (‘of a haughty spirit’) was furious in the early days of 1689 when John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), dared to disband the regiment of horse commanded by Macclesfield’s son Brandon, which had been conferred on him by James II after his pardon. Ailesbury himself admitted that Brandon ‘never swerved from his duty, not even at the Prince of Orange’s landing, although his father came over with the prince, and in the Army with him’. For this reason Marlborough felt able to disband the regiment of a commander who showed insufficient ‘zeal’ for the prince and did not defect with his troops. ‘My Lord’, Ailesbury records Macclesfield expostulating to Churchill, ‘if my son had done such a base action, after having had his life given him so graciously, I would have been the first that would have shot him in the head. Hark you, my Lord, I have been a rebel for so acting against the king, but, by God, my Lord, I never was a traitor’.<sup>81</sup></p><h2><em>Convention, 1689</em></h2><p>The Convention was by far the busiest period of Macclesfield’s long parliamentary career. He came to 88 per cent of the sittings, when already at the age of 70, and from the start was at the forefront of all affairs before the House. From January 1689 until his death five years later he was named to just about every committee established by the House on days when he was present. His increased activity was largely owing to his concern to ensure the establishment of the new Williamite regime, and to have his revenge on the Tories of the 1680s who had persecuted him. On the very first day of the Convention he was named to the committee of 14 assigned to draw up an address of thanks for William of Orange’s letter to the assembled members. Throughout late January and early February Macclesfield worked to ensure that William and Mary became king and queen. In the debate on the regency on 29 Jan. it was noted that ‘the Lords were very warm in their disputes’ and that Macclesfield contributed to the ‘several sharp speeches … some of which made the bishops a little uneasy’ made that day.<sup>82</sup> On 31 Jan. he voted in the committee of the whole House in favour of the motion to insert in the resolution brought up from the Commons words declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and, after the House had been resumed, signed the dissent from its rejection of the words ‘vacant’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He continued to vote in favour of these words until they were eventually accepted by the House on 6 February. Two days later he was appointed a manager for the conference to draft the Declaration of Rights as well as the oaths which were to be sworn to the new king and queen. On 12 Feb. Macclesfield was again made a manager for a conference at which the House was to present to the Commons its draft of the proclamation declaring the new king and queen. The following day, William and Mary were offered the crown. On 1 Mar. he was placed on the committee of seven members assigned to draw up an answer to the king’s notification to the House that he had deemed it a necessity to detain more suspected enemies of the new regime. He was a manager for a conference on the Commons’ address to the king expressing their commitment to the king’s cause and their willingness to expend their lives and fortune to assist him, and was assigned on 8 Mar. to help compose and present to the king the House’s thanks to William’s response to this address.</p><p>For his support more rewards came his way. His outlawry was quickly reversed and he was sworn to the Privy Council on 14 February. He was made lord lieutenant of all the counties of Wales, both north and south, as well as of the border counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. In addition he briefly, and controversially, served as lord president of the council of Wales from 21 Mar. until its abolition in July. To these offices he added in October that of <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Herefordshire, Monmouthshire and Breconshire. His son Brandon was given the post of lord lieutenant of Lancashire so that, between them, father and son were entrusted with defending most of the long and vulnerable west coast of the country from invasion from Ireland. Both were energetic in their pursuit of Catholics and Jacobites in these areas and in promoting the selection of Whigs for local offices and for parliamentary seats, especially in bitterly divided boroughs such as Bristol, where Macclesfield took an especial interest. The copious correspondence of the Harley family, whose members were prominent in the administration of the Marcher counties, is peppered with references to Macclesfield and his activities there.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Macclesfield also had his own concerns in the House. He was exercised over the derogation of the peerage and on 28 Jan., early on in the Convention, he complained to the committee for privileges that members of the Commons were daring to keep their hats on in the presence of peers. While he was certain of the inferior place of the commoners, he thought that the peers and the king were at the same level and that new year’s presents should be given reciprocally between members of the nobility and the king. He later asserted to the committee that the peers had long enjoyed the privilege of keeping their hats on in the presence of the king in the playhouse or the king’s chapel if he himself were covered. He continued to press for the rights of the peers to keep their heads covered in the presence of the monarch during further discussion of the matter in the committee of the whole House and in the committee for privileges. He was backed up by George Howard*, 4th earl of Suffolk, and Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, who could rely on their own memory of customs and procedures in Charles II’s court. This was enough for the committee for privileges and on 16 Apr. it was ordered to report to the House that ‘by the information of persons of great honour and credit that when the king was present at plays and put on his hat, the peers of the realm there present did so likewise, and also at such times when the king used to walk abroad covered, they did likewise cover’. However, no such official report appears in the Journal.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Macclesfield, with his heightened sense of the peerage’s privilege, was even more concerned with what he saw as the inferior courts’ breach of privilege in their proceedings against the nobility (and himself in particular). On 28 Jan. in the committee for privileges he complained ‘that the peerage is invaded in their trials’, ‘that a peer hath not so fair a trial as a commoner’ and that the peers ought to be tried only in Parliament. Furthermore he pointed out that in times past a delegation from the House – two earls, one prelate and two barons – would attend the courts in Westminster Hall ‘to see wherein was any failure in justice’. These complaints, made in the first week of the Convention, may have been what helped to spur the House to consider the many bills of 1689-90 dealing with the regulation of trials and justice, both among the peerage and in the courts of Westminster Hall.<sup>85</sup> Macclesfield himself was named to the select committee to consider the bill for regulating the trial of peers on 27 Feb. and in the committee of the whole House on 4 Mar. he was a teller for the division on the motion whether an amendment, concerning the minimum number of lords necessary to try a peer outside time of Parliament, should be maintained. His opposite teller was Stamford, another Whig.<sup>86</sup> Macclesfield pursued his complaints against his treatment before the privy council and the court of king’s bench in the committee for privileges. On 22 Apr., he reported that he had been part of the delegation from the lords, first mentioned in his intervention on 28 Jan., to inspect the courts in Westminster Hall. That same day he produced a legal opinion regarding the illegality of the sentence of outlawry that was decreed against him in 1685, which the committee returned to him, ‘until he thinks fit to bring his own case (which he now takes notice of) in writing before the committee’. Shortly afterwards Macclesfield employed his friend from their Exclusionist days, Sir William Williams<sup>‡</sup>, bt, as his counsel to help him reverse the various judgments found against him in the period of the Tory reaction. Williams appears to have used Macclesfield as a witness in his own attempt to reverse the charge of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> laid against him in 1686.<sup>87</sup> As other peers such as William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, began to come forward with their stories of mistreatment by the courts under James II, Macclesfield and his grievances appear to have dropped from the forefront of the committee for privilege’s attention. <sup>88</sup> However, all these proceedings, and particularly Macclesfield’s initial examination of ‘the delays and grievances’ of the Westminster courts led eventually to the framing of the bill to redress irregularities in the courts, and Macclesfield maintained his interest in this issue during the long gestation of this and other acts concerning the reform of the legal system. On 17 Jan. 1690 he offered to the select committee considering the bill for irregularities in the Westminster courts a bill ‘for regulating the law’. Another bill introduced to the committee that day, perhaps by Macclesfield as well, was for the regulation of the courts of justice, and this was probably the genesis of the later ‘Act for the benefit of the subject regulating the practice and execution of the law’, to whose select committee Macclesfield was named on 5 Apr. 1690.<sup>89</sup> His animus towards the courts, and the administration of justice in recent years, was clear. In late March 1690 Macclesfield suggested that ‘the twelve judges’ were obvious candidates for exemption from the indemnity bill.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Macclesfield had other reasons to be aggrieved against his treatment in the courts during his exile under James II. In 1683 he had applied to chancery to redeem part of the Gawsworth estate which had been mortgaged in 1640 and which had been, for a consideration of £2,400, assigned to Alexander Fitton’s father-in-law William Joliffe as a trustee for Fitton and his wife, Joliffe’s daughter. Macclesfield tried to fight back after chancery decreed that he would have to pay this initial consideration of £2,400, with interest for all the ensuing years, as part of his redemption, but he could not pursue his defence after his flight. During this time Lord Chancellor Jeffreys voided the earl’s injunctions against Fitton’s proceedings and stopped the hearing of the master in chancery’s report on the case because of Macclesfield’s outlawry. Now Macclesfield took advantage of the more sympathetic political environment and on 15 Mar. 1689 submitted his appeal that these decrees against him be overturned. Fitton could not submit his answer because he was in Ireland in arms against the new regime, but the House decided on 20 Apr. to continue with consideration of the appeal in any case. Counsel was heard on 2 May and the following day the House ordered that the case be referred back to the commissioners of the Great Seal to rehear the case in chancery, as it transpired that no official decree had ever been enrolled by Jeffreys and the case involved the technicalities of chancery’s proceedings.<sup>91</sup> Macclesfield was later at the receiving end of a petition as his estranged daughter-in-law Anne Mason, now separated from Brandon, submitted a petition on 13 July complaining that Macclesfield had never fulfilled his part of the original marriage settlement in suffering recoveries of various of his Cheshire lands for her jointure. She requested that Macclesfield be forced to waive his privilege in any impending legal action, but the House decided to leave the matter wholly in the hands of Macclesfield himself.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Macclesfield was involved in a number of other pieces of legislation that came before the House. He was a teller on 25 Mar. 1689 for a division at the report stage of the bill to establish commissioners for the Great Seal and on 10 June he told in the division whether counsel should be called in as the House considered the case of <em>Barnardiston v. Soames</em>. In this latter case he also signed the protest of 25 June against the decision to uphold the Exchequer’s reversal of the original judgment. On 15 Mar. he was named to the committee to draft a clause for the bill for abrogating oaths which would remove the requirement of the sacramental test for holding office. On 20 Mar., when this clause was reported to the House from committee, he was a teller, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, telling on the opposing side, in the division on whether to leave this clause unchanged. One month later, on 20 Apr., he and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), were the only two peers to dissent from the House’s insistence on an amendment that would give the king the power to dispense incumbents in clerical livings from taking the oaths to the new regime. He was later appointed a manager for a free conference on this bill on 24 April.<sup>93</sup> On 14 Mar. he was named to the select committee for the toleration bill and was a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to this bill on 22 May. He was also a manager for conferences on the amendments to the bill for an additional poll held on 27 and 31 May. On 13 July he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons for the House’s insistence on its amendments to the Bill of Rights concerning the succession of the crown in the House of Hanover and three days later he helped to manage the conference where these reasons were presented. He was one of the signatories of a petition presented on 23 July to the Commons from Charles II’s former gentlemen of the bedchamber requesting that the grants and pensions bestowed on them in their letters patent not be infringed by the bill for settling the revenue by new impositions on sugar, tobacco, coffee and tea. He was sufficiently concerned by this bill that he reported to the House himself the results of a conference on 25 July at which the Commons explained in detail their opposition to the House’s amendments to the bill. He was later that day placed on the committee to draw up reasons for insisting on the amendments. He again served as representative of the House in a conference on the bill to attaint their majesties’ enemies held on 2 and 5 August. He and Stamford were delegated on 3 Aug. to attend the king to present him with an address requesting that a formal proclamation be issued demanding that Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, surrender himself to the House. On 19 Aug. he was a teller, Nottingham again telling for the other side, in a division at the report stage of the bill to prohibit trade with France on the question whether to agree to a clause setting the price of French wines.<sup>94</sup></p><p>The cause that seemed to exercise him most, though, was the attempt by the House to reject or place stringent conditions on the reversal of the two punitive judgments against Titus Oates of 1684 and 1685. When the case first came up in late May 1689 Macclesfield acted as one of Oates’s foremost defenders. On 25 May he protested against the resolution that Oates’s printed apologia, ‘The Case of Titus Oates’ was a breach of the privilege of the House and on 31 May he voted to reverse the two judgments and subscribed to the lengthy protest when this motion was rejected. He was appointed on 6 June to a committee of six members assigned with drafting an address requesting the king to grant a pardon to Oates, on the basis that he had already suffered sufficient punishment. The bill to reverse the judgments came up from the Commons in July and quickly became a point of contention in the House again. On 10 July Macclesfield was one of the 16 peers who dissented to all the decisions made that day in the debate on amendments to the bill. Two days later he subscribed to both parts of the lengthy and strongly-worded protest against the House’s amendments, which the protesters felt were too weak in their condemnation of the judgments, and the proviso which forbade him from ever testifying in a court of law again. The Commons also disagreed with the proviso and a series of conferences were held to discuss them. On 27 July the Commons requested another free conference on this matter for that day, but this request was rebuffed by the House, a decision which was greeted by another dissent signed by Macclesfield and a small band of five other determined Whig peers. The free conference was held instead on 29 July and upon its report the following day Macclesfield voted against insisting on the proviso. He entered his protest when the House decided instead to adhere to it.</p><p>Macclesfield continued his busy career in the House in the second session of the Convention, where he came to all but three of the meetings. In a list compiled by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690, he was reckoned to be an opponent of the court. In a debate on the Bill of Rights on 23 Nov., he was one of 12 who protested against the rejection of a proviso that would invalidate all royal pardons upon impeachments of the House of Commons which did not have the concurrence of both houses of Parliament. On 13 Dec. he was a teller, Monmouth telling for the opposing side, in the division in the committee of the whole House considering the bill for a land tax on the question whether to add a clause. On 11 Jan. he once again told, this time on the question whether to refer the debt at issue in the cause of <em>Fountaine v. Coke</em> to a trial at law.<sup>95</sup> He was most concerned with the proceedings of the committee for inspections, established on 2 Nov. 1689 to search into the misdeeds of the Tory reaction and the reign of James II – the judicial ‘murders’ of leading Whigs, the <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings against corporations, and other such matters. Macclesfield was among the large group of peers nominated to attend this committee and in the House on 13 Nov. he was a teller in a division on the proposal to summon the infamous John Wildman<sup>‡ </sup>from the Commons to attend the committee in its enquiries. Grey of Warke (whose testimony in 1685 had earlier prompted Macclesfield’s flight to the Netherlands) told for the other side in this division.<sup>96</sup> He was personally affected by the proceedings of the committee, especially when a sub-committee was established on 7 Dec. to hear the evidence of Robert Cragg, one of Monmouth’s agents in the spring of 1685, about the attempts of James II’s government to ‘suborn’ him after his arrest into testifying against Macclesfield, Delamer, Stamford and other associates of Monmouth. It appeared from Cragg’s testimony submitted to the committee and reported to the House on 11 Dec. that he knew nothing of any involvement of Macclesfield in the planned uprising and that the late government had not had the earl principally in its sights, concentrating its ire on Delamer.<sup>97</sup> In this mood of invoking past injustices, Macclesfield on 23 Dec. insisted that the trial and judicial ‘murder’ of Stephen College should be examined by the House as well, after James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, had insisted that anybody who said that College’s trial had not been fair was a liar.<sup>98</sup> On 23 Jan. 1690 Macclesfield also dissented from the decision to remove from a clause in the bill to restore corporations the statement that the surrendering of charters to Charles II and James II had been illegal, for ‘the putting out those words seems to be the justifying of the most horrid action that king James was guilty of during his reign’.</p><h2><em>William III’s Parliament, 1690-94</em></h2><p>Macclesfield, lord lieutenant of all of Wales and the marcher counties, tried to exercise a political interest for Whig candidates during the elections to William III’s first Parliament in the spring of 1690. However, he often found himself up against long-entrenched local and regional interests with which he, as an interloper, could not successfully compete. His greatest interest may well have been in the Shropshire borough of Ludlow, where he had been based as lord president of the council of Wales before its abolition in July 1689. Here he was able to see through the election of the Whig, and former Exclusionist, Silius Titus<sup>‡</sup>, in a by-election in January 1691, after the first election which had seen the return of two Tories (and the defeat of his younger son Fitton) had been declared void.<sup>99</sup> </p><p>Macclesfield himself missed only one sitting throughout the brief session of spring 1690 and on 5 Apr. registered his protest against the House’s decision to amend wording in the bill for making the Convention a full Parliament. He also dissented from the decision of 13 May not to allow counsel for the City of London more time to prepare and present their case regarding James II’s <em>quo</em> <em>warranto</em> proceedings against the corporation. Much of his attention in this session was taken up with his further litigation against his political enemies from the previous reign. On 7 Dec. 1689 Macclesfield had brought in a writ of error against the judgment found against him in Exchequer in 1684 concerning his bill of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> against the members of the Cheshire grand jury. He named one of these jurymen, John Starkey, as the defendant in his writ. Starkey did not submit his answer quickly and the hearing of the case was constantly postponed. Even when counsel were to be heard before the bar on 11 Apr. 1690, only one representative for Starkey appeared and quickly admitted that he was insufficiently instructed in the case and requested another postponement.<sup>100</sup> Counsel was finally heard at the bar on 15 April. In the hearings between 15 and 25 Apr. before the House and in the select committee appointed to consider the matter, the question quickly went beyond the actual merits of Macclesfield’s writ of error and to larger constitutional issues concerning the House’s original jurisdiction, Macclesfield having submitted his writ to the House before lodging an appeal in exchequer or any other inferior court. The question the House put to the committee considering the matter upon its report of 21 Apr. was ‘whether the Lords may proceed to correct errors before they have been brought before the treasurer and chancellor in the Exchequer chamber’. The House eventually agreed with the opinion of the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt, that the writ ‘does not lie in Parliament till a judgment be given in the exchequer chamber’. On 25 Apr. it was ordered that Macclesfield’s writ should be withdrawn and returned to the exchequer, to follow the ordinary course of law.<sup>101</sup></p><p>The period between sessions saw the disastrous Allied defeat at the naval battle of Beachy Head on 30 June 1690. The investigation into the debacle was assigned to a committee consisting of Macclesfield, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup>, which on 19 July reported that the English admiral, Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, alone had been responsible for the defeat.<sup>102</sup> Macclesfield’s attendance declined slightly in the 1690-91 session of Parliament beginning on 2 Oct. 1690, as he came to only 78 per cent of the meetings. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. Carmarthen commented that he was ‘easy for the reasons of the earl of Bath’, that is ‘ made [to] follow the king's mind by what he holds under him’.<sup>103</sup> On 30 Oct. he signed the protest against the passage of the bill to clarify the powers of the Admiralty commissioners to conduct Torrington’s court martial with the same powers as a single lord high admiral. Despite his part in the damning report of Torrington’s conduct, Macclesfield appears to have been concerned by the retroactive justice inherent in the bill, by which Torrington would be tried by an authority which had not existed at the time he had committed the offences with which he was charged. He may also have been concerned at Torrington’s loss of privilege of peerage, as he could now be court martialled, and perhaps even executed, by a collection of commoners.<sup>104</sup> On that same day, 30 Oct., Macclesfield also dissented from the decision to discharge Salisbury and Peterborough from their bail. On 18 Dec. he was made a manager for a conference on the bill to prevent Salisbury from cutting off his entail. He also continued his long-held interest in the reform of the courts and legal system. On the last day of October he was added to the committee considering a bill for the regulation of the court of Chancery and on 29 Nov. he was named to another committee assigned after debate in a committee of the whole House to consider the bill as it then stood in order to determine whether it should be amended or an entirely new bill introduced.</p><p>His attendance dropped off significantly in the 1691-92 session, down to 40 per cent. This was most likely because he was ‘sick’, the reason given for his absence at a call of the House on 2 Nov. 1691. He assigned his proxy on 28 Nov. to John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan (3rd earl of Carbery [I]), who like Macclesfield had an interest in the government of Wales. It was vacated on 29 Dec. on Macclesfield’s return to the House. He was back to his usual level of attendance in 1692-93, when he came to 87 per cent of the sittings. During this session he was involved in the investigation into the state of the armed forces that followed William III’s request in his speech to both houses for ‘advice’ in the further conduct of the war, as the Allies had suffered a series of disasters and disappointments in both land and sea campaigns the previous summer. The Prussian envoy reported to his masters that in the last days of November 1692 Macclesfield, ‘a great Whig and not at all a Jacobite’, told the committee of the whole House that although he had previously been a general, his great age now gave him the liberty to say whatever he liked without being suspected of any interest. He then launched into an attack on the predominance of the Dutch: ‘it was true that they placed Dutchmen everywhere, and that he did not despair of seeing a Dutchman as secretary of state, nor even to see others as bishops’. These ‘sarcasms’, as Bonet termed them, contributed to the ‘advice’ of the House requesting the king to limit the appointment of general officers in the army to those born in England.<sup>105</sup> On 7 Dec., Macclesfield joined the protest against the decision not to establish a joint committee with the Commons to examine the papers on the conduct of the summer’s naval campaign submitted by Secretary of State Nottingham. Three days later he was placed on the House’s own committee to study the papers. On 20-21 Dec. he participated in conferences with the Commons dealing with these papers and the committee’s findings, and in the second conference the Commons took the unusual step of announcing its vote praising the admiral of the previous summer’s campaign, Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford. This was seen as unprecedented as the Commons’ vote had been unsolicited and was not the ostensible subject for which the conference had been convened. On 22 Dec. Macclesfield was a member of the large committee assigned to search for precedents for such behaviour in conferences and a week later, after the committee’s report, he was again placed on the committee to consider whether the Commons had acted ‘according to usual proceedings’. The committee reported the following day and a conference on this matter, for which Macclesfield was a manager, was held on 4 Jan. 1693.</p><p>By this time other matters were preoccupying Macclesfield and the House. Macclesfield voted to commit the controversial place bill on the last day of December 1692, but when the vote for its passage came on 3 Jan. 1693 he was, according to Ailesbury, one of those ‘lords that went away and for the bill’. This view is corroborated by Bonet, who claimed that Macclesfield, ‘although a great Whig, wished to please the court and absented himself’ from the vote.<sup>106</sup> The previous day he had voted against giving a reading to the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 19 Jan. he joined over 20 other peers in objecting to the House’s abandonment of its amendments to the land tax bill. He subscribed to the dissents from the resolution to recede from them without even referring them to consideration by the committee for privileges. In February Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, who in 1691 had married, and then quickly separated from, Macclesfield’s grand-daughter Charlotte Orby, appeared before the House accused of the murder of William Mountfort. Whatever Macclesfield may have felt about Mohun’s abandonment of his grand-daughter, he acquitted the young man of murder.<sup>107</sup> On 6 Mar. the earl was one of nine peers dissenting from the decision not to communicate to the Commons the informations about the deplorable state of government and the military in Ireland heard at the bar four days previously. He further subscribed his name to the protest of 8 Mar. against rejecting provisos to the bill for reviving the Licensing Act which would allow printers to publish books without a license from the Stationers’ Company, providing that the author’s and printer’s name were printed in the book. In the very last days of the session he was involved in conferences. On 10 Mar. he was appointed a reporter for the discussions on the House’s amendments to the duchy of Cornwall bill and after the report of the conference he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons why the House insisted on its amendment. Four days later he was again a reporter, this time for the conference on the amendments to the bill to prohibit trade with France and to encourage privateers, after which the House agreed with the lower house’s changes so the bill could pass before the prorogation of that day.</p><p>When Parliament resumed on 7 Nov. Macclesfield was as active as usual. His involvement was cut short by his death two months later, having attended 35 sittings. During those final two months he chaired a meeting of the committee for privileges on 20 Nov. which heard the petition for breach of privilege of Piers Mauduit, Windsor Herald at Arms. It was probably Macclesfield who reported to the House the next day the committee’s decision that Mauduit should receive privilege of Parliament. This matter may have been the source of the debate two days later, on 23 Nov., on the rights of the king’s servants, when Macclesfield protested against the House’s resolution that it would not receive any further petitions for protection from the king and queen’s servants. On 13 Dec. he was one of only seven who dissented from the House’s affirmation of the court of king’s bench’s judgment in favour of Simon Harcourt<sup>‡</sup> in the case of <em>Fox v Harcourt</em>.<sup>108</sup> His suspicion of the inferior courts of Westminster Hall may again be evident in his protest of 22 Dec. against the resolution to allow Isabella, dowager duchess of Grafton, and her trustee William Bridgeman, to withdraw their petition in the cause <em>Bridgeman v Holt</em>. He and his fellow protesters thought an order should have been given to investigate further the previous proceedings in this cause in king’s bench so that a criminal prosecution could be brought against that court’s judges. In the first week of 1694 he was still busy in the House. On 3 Jan. he was a manager for the conference concerning the Smyrna fleet disaster the previous summer and two days later, his last in the House, he was again a manager for a conference on the amendments to the place bill, after which the House agreed with the clause proposed by the Commons.</p><p>On that same day, Friday 5 Jan., he enjoyed a dinner with the king and the visiting dignitary Prince Louis of Baden, but shortly after he was overtaken with a fit of vomiting. He died during the night of Sunday 7 Jan., ‘not having been sick two hours’. He was 75 years old, and a correspondent of Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> marvelled that ‘my lord Macclesfield has lived as fast as any man, therefore I wonder he attained to old age’.<sup>109</sup> He died intestate but his eldest son and heir apparent Viscount Brandon was entrusted with the administration of the estate.<sup>110</sup> The new earl of Macclesfield inherited the estates and houses in Lancashire, Cheshire and Gerard Street in Westminster. He also inherited his father’s ruthless and determined character, which had served Macclesfield well on the battlefield, but often to less advantage in the courts of Westminster Hall and in the House of Lords.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GERARD, Charles (1634-67) |
<p><strong><surname>GERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1634–67)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Apr. 1640 as 4th Bar. GERARD OF GERARD’S BROMLEY. |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 18 Dec. 1667 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1634, only s. and h. of Dutton Gerard<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley, and Mary, da. of Francis Fane<sup>†</sup>, earl of Westmorland. <em>educ</em>. Emmanuel, Camb. 1649. <em>m</em>. settlement 18 Nov.,<sup>1</sup> lic. 28 Nov. 1660, Jane (<em>d</em>.1703), da. and h. of George Digby of Sandon, Staffs., 1s. <em>d</em>. 28 Dec. 1667; <em>admon</em>. 13 Apr. 1668 to wid.; inventory 12 June 1668.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas c.1650: National Trust, Lytes Cary, Somerset.</p> |
<p>The details of Gerard’s early life are obscure. Following the death of his father in 1640, Gerard was entrusted to the care of his maternal uncle, Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland.<sup>3</sup> It was presumably Westmorland’s influence that led to Gerard entering his guardian’s former college, Emmanuel, Cambridge, in 1649. Given his college admittance in 1649, it is unlikely that it was this Baron Gerard who that year was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber to the exiled Charles II. It is likely that the Gerard appointed to this post was the 4th Baron’s distant cousin Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield), who had left England for the continent in 1647 and who held military office with the exiled court during the 1650s. It seems likely that Schoenfeld’s attribution of activity at the exiled court to the 4th Baron of Gerard’s Bromley is similarly mistaken.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Little more is known of Gerard’s activities both in and out of Parliament until the upper House was restored in 1660. Even then his recorded contribution to the proceedings of the Lords is meagre and complicated by confusion with Gerard of Brandon. In 1660 he was included on the analysis of the upper House by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as a Catholic.<sup>5</sup> Wharton’s reasons for classing Gerard as such are unclear. No contemporary evidence has been found to support Wharton’s assertion and at least one source directly contradicts him. A survey of Staffordshire gentry dating from the early 1660s described Gerard’s ‘affections civil and military’ as being ‘loyal and orthodox’, in comparison to a number of leading Staffordshire figures who were listed simply as ‘Roman Catholic’.<sup>6</sup> It is possible that he was the Gerard who had interests in the Tanfield colliery in Durham.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Gerard took his seat in the House of Lords on 27 Apr. 1660 and began a lacklustre parliamentary career. He was present at just under half of the sittings in the first session of the Convention and his attendance thereafter was sporadic. In only one session, that of 1666-7, did he attend even a third of the total sittings, and he made no appearance at all at the sessions of 1661-2 and 1665. He was granted leave of absence on 11 June 1661; two days later he registered his proxy in favour of Gerard of Brandon.<sup>8</sup> In July 1663 Wharton listed a ‘Lord Gerard’ as a likely opponent of the impeachment attempt on Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. It is unclear whether this forecast related to Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley or Gerard of Brandon. The only occasion upon which it can be stated with any certainty that the former is known to have expressed an opinion in the House came on 23 Jan. 1667, when he was one of those who dissented from the decision to reject a right of appeal to the Lords in the bill establishing a court for resolving disputes concerning houses burnt down by the Fire of London.</p><p>By the time he had signed this dissent, Gerard’s health had begun to falter. On 1 Oct. 1666, and again on 29 Oct. 1667, he was granted leave of absence on grounds of ill health. Although he was able to attend two sittings each in November and early December 1667, the improvement in his health was short-lived. He died in London on 28 Dec. 1667, intestate. Administration of his estate was granted to his widow, who on three occasions during the 1670s (2 Dec. 1670, 4 Apr. 1677 and 14 Mar. 1678) petitioned the Lords claiming either privilege of peerage or privilege of Parliament for herself. On two of these occasions she appears to have been using privilege to protect men who were liable to arrest, one on a charge of felony. Gerard was buried on 25 Jan. 1668 in the family vault in Ashley, Staffordshire.<sup>9</sup> His title and estates descended to his only son.</p> |
R.D.H./B.A. |
|
GERARD, Charles (c. 1659-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>GERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1659–1701)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1679-94 Visct. Brandon; <em>suc. </em>fa. 7 Jan. 1694 as 2nd earl of MACCLESFIELD |
|
First sat 24 Jan. 1694; last sat 24 June 1701 |
|
MP Lancs. 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Sept.), 1681, 1689, 1690-3 Jan. 1694 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1659, 1st s. of Charles Gerard*, Bar. Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield) and Jeanne (<em>d</em>.1671), da. of Pierre de Civelle, equerry to Queen Henrietta Maria; bro. of Fitton Gerard*, 3rd earl of Macclesfield. <em>educ</em>. G. Inn 1674. <em>m</em>. 18 June 1683 (with £2,000),<sup>1</sup> Anne (1668-1753), da. and coh. of Sir Richard Mason<sup>‡</sup> of Bishop’s Castle, Salop., div. 1698, <em>s.p.</em> legit. <em>d</em>. 5 Nov. 1701; <em>will</em> 2 July, pr. 17 Dec. 1701.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Preston 1682, Liverpool 1690; dep. lt. Lancs. 1687-9,<sup>3</sup> Wales (12 counties), Herefs., Mon. 1689-96;<sup>4</sup> recorder, Chester 1688-9;<sup>5</sup> ld. lt., Lancs. 1689-<em>d</em>., N. Wales 1696-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>., Lancs. 1689-<em>d</em>., Mont. 1700-<em>d.</em>; butler, Lancs. 1689-<em>d</em>.; constable, Liverpool Castle 1689-<em>d</em>.; steward, Blackburn hundred, Tottington and Clitheroe, 1689-90; v. adm. Cheshire and Lancs. 1691-<em>d</em>., N. Wales 1696-<em>d</em>.; commr. superstitious uses, Lancs. 1693; col. militia ft., Lancs. and Denb. by 1697-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Lt. col. Ld. Gerard’s Regt. of Horse Feb. 1678-Jan. 1679; col. regt. of horse, June-Sept. 1679, Oct.-Dec. 1688, 1694-<em>d</em>.; maj. gen. 1694.</p><p>Envoy extraordinary, Hanover Aug.-Sept. 1701.</p> |
|
<h2><em>Viscount Brandon, 1679-89</em></h2><p>Charles Gerard was born in Paris in the late 1650s during the exile of his royalist father. He followed his father in pursuing a military career and, perhaps assisted by his early years in France and his French mother’s connections, served as a volunteer in the French army under the prince of Condé in the early 1670s. Officially an alien owing to his birth on French soil, he was naturalized by an act of Parliament in April 1677.<sup>8</sup> He was later commissioned, while still probably underage, lieutenant colonel and then colonel of his father’s cavalry brigade in 1678-9. Father and son shared a quarrelsome, violent and ruthless character, and the younger man first became notorious for his drunken murder of a footboy in St James’s Park in May 1676, for which act he was eventually granted a royal pardon.<sup>9</sup> He was up to his violent ways again by December 1677 when he was wounded when acting as a second to Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (and Baron Butler of Moore Park in the English peerage), in a duel.<sup>10</sup> He again followed his father by turning his back on the court, which had favoured the Gerards for so long, and becoming a member of the opposition in 1679-81. In the Commons, as the Member for Lancashire, where the family had its origins and owned the estate of Halsall, he consistently voted against the wishes and interests of the court. In a bid to win back Gerard of Brandon’s support, Charles II in July 1679 raised him in the peerage, creating him Viscount Brandon and earl of Macclesfield. From this point Macclesfield’s eldest son, Charles Gerard, took the courtesy title of Viscount Brandon, under which name he became well known over the following years.</p><p>Throughout the early 1680s Brandon placed himself deeper into trouble with his activities against James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>11</sup> He and his father and brother Fitton Gerard, later 3rd earl of Macclesfield, were among the most enthusiastic acolytes of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and played host to him when he visited Chester in the summer of 1682.<sup>12</sup> Even more damaging was Brandon’s shadowy involvement in the conspiracies of 1682-3; in early July 1683 he was imprisoned under suspicion of treason. He entered a writ of habeas corpus in late October 1683, was released on bail in late November and was finally discharged owing to lack of evidence in February 1684.<sup>13</sup> He went to Flanders in the spring of 1684 for the Spanish campaign and while there maintained his dangerous contacts with the exiled Monmouth.<sup>14</sup> Brandon was suspected of having made preparations for involvement in the duke’s failed uprising in the summer of 1685 and James II’s ministers were able to convince the Whig, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, ignominiously captured in flight after the battle of Sedgemoor, to testify against Brandon. Grey of Warke commented in his written confession that ‘I never saw a man so zealous for a rebellion, that kept his word and engagements no better, than my Lord Brandon’.<sup>15</sup> Brandon was found guilty of treason on 26 Nov. 1685, which amounted to attainder, and sentenced to death two days later.<sup>16</sup> James II granted him a reprieve and his date of execution was constantly postponed until in January 1687 the king ordered his release from captivity (on bail of £30,000) and pardoned him on 4 August.<sup>17</sup> With the king’s support, Brandon tried to reverse his attainder by bringing in a writ of error in November 1687, but years later it was noted that this writ of error was phrased in such a way – making mention of Brandon’s supposed crimes against James II when in fact he had been charged with treason against Charles II – that could render it, and the attainder’s reversal, invalid.<sup>18</sup> In January 1688 James II further granted Brandon control of the estate of his father Macclesfield. Macclesfield had been outlawed in late 1685 for his own support of Monmouth and his flight from the country.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Such generosity on the part of James II was hardly altruistic, as the king used his control over Brandon’s life as a way of winning him over to furthering the royal policy in Brandon’s territorial base of Lancashire and Cheshire. Brandon, in gratitude, became a willing and energetic servant of James in the north-west, being one of the few Nonconformists placed on the Lancashire commission of the peace in April 1688, and serving as a trusted deputy lieutenant of the king’s choice for the lord lieutenant of the county, Caryll Molyneux, 3rd Viscount Molyneux [I].<sup>20</sup> In this role Brandon worked hard to win the support of the region’s many Dissenters for the king’s Declaration of Indulgence and plans to repeal the Test Acts. In October, with the threat of a Dutch invasion, the king commissioned him colonel of the cavalry brigade which Brandon had briefly commanded in 1679.<sup>21</sup> Brandon appeared in arms for James II in the winter of 1688, one of the small band of army officers who remained loyal to him throughout, until the king himself formally disbanded his army and fled the country.<sup>22</sup> Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, years later admitted that ‘I must do justice to that lord’s memory, that he never swerved from his duty, not even at the prince of Orange’s landing, although his father came over with the prince, and in the army with him’. Ailesbury went on to recount how in early 1689 John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, wished to disband Brandon’s regiment because of the lack of zeal to the prince shown by his failure to defect with his troops (as Marlborough himself had so notoriously done). This so angered the solidly Williamite Macclesfield that he exclaimed to Marlborough, ‘My Lord, if my son had done such a base action, after having had his life given him so graciously, I would have been the first that would have shot him in the head.’<sup>23</sup></p><h2><em>A Williamite in Lancashire, 1689-94</em></h2><p>Such loyalty to James II did have the potential to damage Brandon’s future under the new regime, but he was able quickly to repair relations with William of Orange, and was rewarded remarkably well for someone who had been in arms against the invader until the last moment. He was returned for Lancashire in the Convention and William preferred to see him as the leader of that county than his rival, the head of the long-established Lancashire family of Stanley, William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby. Derby, as lord lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire, had fruitlessly dithered during November 1688, although he had never declared himself positively for James II as Brandon had done. Nevertheless, after William III had bestowed the lieutenancy of Cheshire on his enthusiastic supporter Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), Derby refused to serve in only one of his traditionally quasi-hereditary counties and William instead made Brandon lord lieutenant and later <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Lancashire in his place. One of the few Lancashire justices of the peace of James II’s reign to maintain his place on the magistrates’ bench under William, in his role as <em>custos</em> he tried to gain control over nominations to the Lancashire commission of the peace, formally in the hands of the Tory chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Robert Bertie*, Baron Willoughby of Eresby (later duke of Ancaster).<sup>24</sup> Brandon also benefited at the expense of another ancient and prominent Lancashire family then in disgrace, the Catholic Molyneux, whose head, the 3rd Viscount Molyneux [I], had been James II’s lord lieutenant of Lancashire. Brandon was granted many of the quasi-hereditary offices in the gift of the duchy of Lancaster that this long-established but Catholic family had enjoyed – butler of Lancashire, constable of Liverpool Castle and steward of the hundreds of Blackburn, Tottington and Clitheroe.<sup>25</sup> Brandon was returned to Parliament for Lancashire in 1690 and through his many local and national offices he became the leading political force in that county. In March 1691 he was further awarded the vice admiralty of Lancashire and Cheshire, another local office William III removed from the control of the ineffectual Derby.</p><p>His government of Lancashire was controversial and increasingly partisan. Still under suspicion for his former loyalty to James II, he used the threat of a Jacobite invasion from Ireland as an opportunity to prove his loyalty to the new regime by a strenuous prosecution of the county’s many Catholics.<sup>26</sup> The Tory gentry of Lancashire, most especially the clerk of the peace Roger Kenyon<sup>‡</sup>, though, could not forget Brandon’s chequered past – his disreputable youth, his close association with the opposition in 1678-83 and his even closer connection to the catholicizing religious policies of James II. They were angered at his appointment as lord lieutenant and continued to look towards the deposed Derby, ineffective as he was, for political leadership.<sup>27</sup> Brandon therefore increasingly turned to the Whigs and the county’s many Dissenters for his political base and proved himself energetic, inventive and unscrupulous in promoting the Whig cause in the county.</p><p>He was certainly at pains to assure William III of his loyalty and to solicit more favour from the court, as in a letter to the king of 1691:</p><blockquote><p>I do not know how I was misrepresented to you at your first coming, but am sure you could not think ill of me for being faithful to a king to whom I owed my life. … But true to my trust, my principles and inclinations were always on your side, and when King James was gone away I am sure no man came to you with more sincere intentions to serve you. … My great ambition is to serve you in the army, because I think I can there do you the most service, and I hope you will place me in the post you consider the most suitable.<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>But these ambitions were not met until after he had come to the attention of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, who in June 1693 strongly urged Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, as part of his campaign to persuade Portland and the king to turn to the Whigs, to fulfil Brandon’s military ambitions by giving him a regiment of horse and to make him a major general. Sunderland explained to Portland why he felt this step was so important in a series of letters in that summer of 1693:</p><blockquote><p>I could say a great deal in his behalf to show this to be reasonable and particularly the chief part, his being a major general, but I will say only this, that without excepting any man, none can do more good or hurt, than he, and if the king takes him into his service, he will be well served by him. … [then, in a later letter] I am very glad that you hope well for Brandon. I am and was at the first sensible of the difficulty and would not have proposed what I did if anything else would have done which I am sure nothing will, though he does not know that he has ever been thought of by the king, you or me. I cannot work without him, therefore pray finish the matter. He has roared out the king’s praises for what he has done this year in Flanders when others would not allow him the least.<sup>29</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sunderland no doubt valued Brandon’s influence in the Commons, for in an analysis of government supporters drawn up sometime in the autumn of 1692, it was noted that Brandon ‘is a leader of some Lancashire and Cheshire members.’<sup>30</sup> Brandon exhibited the political energy and ruthlessness which made him indispensable to Sunderland in his attempts to establish an electoral interest in the borough of Clitheroe through aggressively promoting the candidacy of his younger brother Fitton Gerard at a bitterly contested by-election in November 1693. Brandon ‘labour[ed] hard’ for his brother and tried to intimidate the electors into voting for him by sending a militia company, led by his close associate the Dissenter Hugh Willoughby*, 11th (<em>CP</em> 12th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, into the town to treat the electors lavishly, ostensibly ‘in compliment to the ale houses at Clitheroe.’ Later Gerard and his associates surreptitiously entered the unlocked moot hall and secretly ‘elected’ a returning officer favourable to the Gerard interest. This led to a double return, protracted hearings of the case before the committee of elections, a new by-election called for the new year, another double return and finally the Commons’ decision in April 1694, after months of proceedings on this case, that Gerard had been duly elected.<sup>31</sup></p><h2><em>2nd earl of Macclesfield and the Whigs, 1694-8</em></h2><p>By the time of this decision Brandon had become 2nd earl of Macclesfield upon his father’s death on 7 Jan. 1694. The new earl first sat in the House on 24 Jan. 1694 and proceeded to sit in a further 41 meetings during the remainder of the 1693-4 session, where he was appointed to six committees. His chief deputy lieutenant Willoughby of Parham entrusted his proxy to him on 12 Feb. for the remainder of the session. On 17 Feb. 1694 Macclesfield voted to uphold chancery’s dismissal of the bill of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, claiming the estates of the deceased Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, against John Granville*, earl of Bath. He was named to a committee on 3 Apr. to draw up the Lords’ objections to a clause in the bill to pay the debts of the late John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, and two days later he was made a manager of the conference.</p><p>Macclesfield benefited from the honours and grants the court bestowed on its Whig supporters at the end of this session. Following Sunderland’s wishes, Macclesfield was granted his own cavalry regiment on 16 Feb. 1694 and in April he was further promoted to be a major general in the army.<sup>32</sup> His new regiment participated in the disastrous attack on Brest in June 1694. The officers in Macclesfield’s regiment reveal something of the company he kept. Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, the mentally unhinged younger brother of the Junto Whig, Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, was his lieutenant colonel while Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, who was tried by the House years later for the murder of Captain Richard Coote, also appears to have gone as a volunteer with Macclesfield. A captain in the regiment was the young Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, already infamous for his involvement in the murder of William Mountfort, for which he had been acquitted by the House in February 1693.<sup>33</sup> Mohun was already Macclesfield’s nephew by marriage, having married, and then quickly separated from, his niece Charlotte Orby in 1691. Macclesfield, separated from his own wife by this time, must have found the violent and impetuous Mohun a kindred spirit and the two became fast friends, with consequences whose full import would not be felt for many years.</p><p>The earldom and the swing to the Whigs in national politics, engineered by his patron Sunderland, also gave Macclesfield an opportunity to strengthen his and his party’s interest in Lancashire. One of his gambits, the prosecution of suspected Jacobites in the ‘Lancashire Plot’ in the summer of 1694, eventually backfired on him. There had been rumours of Jacobite plotting among the many Catholics in Lancashire and Cheshire since 1689, when Macclesfield had first taken advantage of them to show his loyalty to the new regime. He had been made a commissioner to investigate lands or debts conveyed for ‘Popish or superstitious uses’ in 1693, and in the summer of 1694 he pursued a number of local Tories, Anglicans as well as Catholics, who had been accused of treason by a group of disreputable informers.<sup>34</sup> The partisan zeal with which he hounded these suspects made the Lancashire plot a national sensation and his long-standing opponent Roger Kenyon went out of his way to demonstrate that the informers were perjuring themselves.<sup>35</sup> The case collapsed with the acquittal of the suspects in October 1694 but it had done much to increase partisan strife in the north-west.</p><p>Macclesfield came to 70 per cent of the meetings of the session of 1694-5 and was nominated to 21 committees, including that of 28 Dec. 1694 to draw up an address of condolence to the king for the death of Queen Mary. He had Willoughby of Parham’s proxy from 4 Jan. 1695, and on 29 Apr. 1695 produced a letter on his behalf in the House waiving his privilege in a pending legal suit with Lady Margaret Standish.<sup>36</sup> Throughout January and February 1695 the House considered the prosecution of the reputed Jacobites in Lancashire the previous summer, which would probably have been discomfiting to Macclesfield, but his role in these proceedings is unknown and on 16 and 18 Feb. 1695 the House resolved both that there had been sufficient grounds for the prosecution of the suspected Jacobites and that the judges acting in the trial had done their duty, ‘according to law.’</p><p>The reverberations of the Lancashire plot proceedings were still felt in the Lancashire and Cheshire elections of November 1695, when Macclesfield tried to exact revenge on those who had thwarted him. He worked to defeat the sitting member for Preston, Christopher Greenfield<sup>‡</sup>, who had represented the accused in the trials and had also tainted himself in the earl’s eyes by opposing attempts by Nonconformists to register Anglican chapels as Dissenting meeting houses. For Cheshire he encouraged Sir Willoughby Aston to stand against the sitting member Sir Robert Cotton<sup>‡</sup>, as ‘he was much troubled to find him [Cotton], an altered man’. He had ‘voted ill in the House, particularly discountenancing the proceedings against Mr. [Peter] Legh of Lyme and the other prisoners in the Plot’ and had opposed legislation to bar counsel who refused to take the oaths from pleading before the House. When Aston demurred and defended Cotton, Macclesfield turned to bluster, assuring Aston that if he did not agree to stand the Whigs would find someone else to defeat Cotton.<sup>37</sup> Elsewhere Macclesfield resorted to threats and strong-arm tactics, as in Wigan where reportedly he told the corporation that if they did not return his candidate Alexander Rigby<sup>‡</sup> ‘there should be two troops of horse quartered upon them’. Despite the strong Whig presence at polling day, including Willoughby of Parham, Rigby came third in the poll. Macclesfield was also involved in both a by-election and the general election at Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire, which one of the candidates, Richard More<sup>‡</sup> saw as his town as the manor had come to Macclesfield with his marriage in 1683 to Anna Mason.<sup>38</sup></p><p>In the House Macclesfield came to 83 per cent of the first session of the new Parliament and he was named to 26 committees. Willoughby of Parham once more registered his proxy with Macclesfield on 19 Dec. 1695, and to this was joined on 30 Mar. 1696 the proxy of Macclesfield’s fellow Whig military commander Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg. On 17 Jan. 1696 he entered his protest against the resolution that the counsel for Sir Richard Verney*, could be heard at the bar regarding his petition for a writ of summons as Baron Willoughby de Broke, as he had previously submitted an identical petition which had already been decided upon. Macclesfield signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696 and on 14 Apr. was placed on a committee to draw up reasons to be presented in conference justifying the Lords’ amendments to the bill against trade with France. In the 1696-7 session he was present for 79 per cent of the sittings, was named to only five committees (including the drafting committee for the response to the king’s speech), and held the proxy of Willoughby of Parham from 10 Jan. 1697 for the entire session and that of Charles Bodville Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor from 19 Jan. 1697. Radnor’s proxy having been vacated by his return on 22 Feb. 1697, Macclesfield reached his full complement of two proxies again by holding that of Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex, from 8 Mar. to 7 Apr. 1697. He voted for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> on 23 Dec. 1696 and then joined a small band of about a dozen Whigs, including Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford and George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, in defending Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), from the charge of having supplied Fenwick with papers detailing strategies to be taken in his defence.<sup>39</sup></p><p>The period 1696-7 saw Macclesfield at the height of his local power and influence, supported as he was by the resurgent Whigs in national politics. He was given new powers, being in March 1696 made lord lieutenant of all the six counties of north Wales, following the resignation of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury. Macclesfield’s father, the first earl, had previously served as lord lieutenant for all 12 counties of Wales and the marcher counties of Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, and during these years Brandon had acted as an energetic and partisan deputy lieutenant throughout this large area, a role which he continued as lord lieutenant, even though his responsibility was reduced to the northern counties of the principality.<sup>40</sup> He continued with his vigorous electioneering in Lancashire itself and in February 1697 he skilfully played the factions in dispute over a new charter for the corporation of Lancaster off against each other in order to ensure the return of his brother Fitton in a by-election for that borough. His power would only have been increased by the appointment in May that year of a like-minded Whig chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, the 2nd earl of Stamford, to replace the Tory Willoughby of Eresby.<sup>41</sup></p><h2><em>Divorce and family rift, 1698-1701</em></h2><p>It was Macclesfield’s tumultuous domestic life which quickly became of greatest interest in the House in the session of 1697-8 when the sordid details of his fractured marriage were publicly aired in the hearings surrounding his divorce bill in February and March 1698. The bill and its proceedings were the sensation of this session, both for its revelations of salacious aristocratic life and for the important constitutional precedent it set. Parliament granted Macclesfield a divorce with the right to remarry without his first receiving a decree of separation <em>a mensa et thoro</em> from an ecclesiastical court. To some, such as the Tory Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, this was ‘against the ecclesiastical laws and canons of the Western church. … If I were in the House I should be against the bill’. A contemporary newsletter writer also thought that ‘the bill will not easily pass.’<sup>42</sup></p><p>Macclesfield’s union with Anne Mason had long been troubled. They had married in 1683 largely so that he and his father could procure the large portion of £2,000 cash and lands worth approximately £10,000 p.a. provided by her father Sir Richard Mason<sup>‡</sup>. The marriage had quickly broken down, as Anne took a strong dislike to her husband and his family – she later accused her father-in-law of expelling her from his London townhouse of Gerard House and of not fulfilling his side of the marriage settlement. The feeling was reciprocated on the Gerards’ side.<sup>43</sup> In 1685 Macclesfield separated from her and ejected her from his house, resolving ‘to ease both you and myself of so unpleasing a conversation … I am resolved to give you the satisfaction you have often asked, in parting with me’.<sup>44</sup> During these years of separation Anne gave birth to two children, a girl in 1695, who soon died, and a boy in 1697. All contemporaries, and later historians, are agreed that the father was Macclesfield’s Cheshire neighbour and fellow army officer Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, especially as Anne decided to have her first child christened ‘Anne Savage.’ Macclesfield now saw the possibility of the Gerard estate, especially the valuable and much fought-over lands of Gawsworth in Cheshire, going to this bastard ‘heir’. As early as July 1697 he was making plans not only for a divorce from his wife but for an advantageous remarriage, even proposing a match with Portland’s 14-year-old daughter, 24 years his junior.<sup>45</sup> In December 1697 he moved to obtain a decree of separation in the Court of Arches. The proceedings of this court moved slowly as the countess fought back and her counsel employed delaying tactics. Impatiently, Macclesfield introduced a bill for his divorce, with a right to remarry, in the House on 15 Jan. 1698. The countess quickly counter-attacked here as well and petitioned to be heard in her defence. Her counsel relied on the argument that the case had to be settled in the ecclesiastical courts first: ‘We say no bill of this nature had any effect till it had had the proper methods in other courts. We say it is in the nature of the Legislature to be an aid to other courts and not to take it from them.’ The House agreed to hear witnesses in the case even though it was pending in the Court of Arches. From 21 Jan. to 18 Feb. the House, and the populace outside Parliament, were caught up in hearing testimony from both sides on the cruelty and infidelity in this marriage. On some days the hearing of witnesses in this case was the only business done in the House. The House heard copious testimony from the earl’s witnesses, a range of maidservants, lodging house keepers, midwives, wet nurses and parish priests who told in detail about the clandestine visits of a ‘tall gentleman’ to Anne, of her surreptitious birth of Anne Savage in rented rooms in Chelsea and of the registration of the infant’s birth and its death only a few weeks later. More witnesses testified to the birth of the second, male child, as well and of Macclesfield’s growing concern over the conduct of his wife. For her part the countess produced witnesses from as far away as Breconshire to attest to her bad treatment at the hands of Macclesfield and his father, especially the moment when her father-in-law turned her out of Gerard House, which was contrasted to her applications to the king for mercy towards her husband when Brandon (as he then was) was sentenced to death. After a month of testimony the bill was voted to be read a second time and committed to the consideration of a committee of the whole on 24 Feb. and was debated from 26 Feb. to 2 March. At this point it faced further opposition from Macclesfield’s own brother, Fitton, who thought that the clause annulling the original marriage settlement, and returning to Anne Mason all the lands she had brought with her to the marriage, affected his rights and his reversion to his brother’s lands, but he was quickly persuaded to withdraw his petition. The bill was reported with amendments on 2 Mar. and it was passed by the House the next day. Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, both entered a protest against the bill ‘because we conceive this is the first bill of this nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent’. The bill quickly went through the Commons and received the royal assent on 2 Apr. 1698. By its terms both parties to the marriage had the right to remarry, Anne regained the lands she had brought with her to the marriage and her two children were declared illegitimate and thus ineligible to inherit the Gerard properties.<sup>46</sup></p><p>After his divorce bill was settled, Macclesfield could turn his attention to other matters in the House. On 15 Mar. 1698, the day when his bill was brought back up from the Commons, he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, a surprising vote considering that this was largely a Junto Whig measure. But there appears to have been some connection between Macclesfield and Duncombe, as the earl later stood surety for Duncombe for £5,000 to ensure his appearance in King’s Bench.<sup>47</sup> Although Macclesfield himself was absent for much of April 1698 following the royal assent to his bill, two Whig colleagues both assigned their proxies to him in that month, Willoughby of Parham on 6 Apr. and Warrington on 20 Apr., both for the remainder of the session. He would have been able to use them when he returned in May to resume regular attendance in the House (he attended almost two-thirds of all sittings of this session). On 20 June he was named a manager for a conference on the bill of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, for the Alverstoke waterworks.</p><p>The repercussions of the divorce lasted into the general election of summer 1698. One of the clauses of the divorce act compelled Macclesfield to return to Anne the properties she had brought with her to the marriage, a condition which had been ‘put upon my lord, which he would not consent to till his best friends told him that otherwise they would not pass the bill’.<sup>48</sup> Despite this provision Macclesfield was still able to wield influence in the election at Bishop’s Castle, part of his ex-wife’s portion, during the elections of late 1698. He had as a client his ex-wife’s cousin Charles Mason<sup>‡</sup>, who was already assured of a seat for the borough through his own interest there, and together they sponsored the candidacy of Macclesfield’s distant kinsman, Sir Gilbert Gerard<sup>‡</sup>. Opposing Gerard was Anne Mason’s brother-in-law, Sir William Brownlow<sup>‡</sup>, who had been sympathetic to her for many years. The electoral contest quickly took on the appearance of a family feud between different parts of the Mason family. In the event, Gerard lost at the poll and both Mason and Brownlow were returned. Macclesfield was furious and hurled accusations that Jacobites had infiltrated the polls. James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> tried to be patient with the earl’s outbursts and explained to Shrewsbury, ‘ My Lord Macclesfield generally acts passionately, and therefore what he says in heat and anger ought to be examined over again; and the best of it is, after having vented himself, he will come back to a better temper.’ Gerard petitioned against Brownlow’s victory but the Commons found both parties guilty of bribery and declared the election void. Macclesfield also tried to impose his interest in several elections in Lancashire, and he was reported to have ‘carried down others into Lancashire besides his brother Fitton, that he might stick them into some of the boroughs’. Fitton, despite their recent falling out over the divorce, was his principal candidate and he managed to have him elected for a knight of the shire, though ‘with great difficulty’ and, as James Vernon reported, if Gerard had been opposed at the poll ‘it might have gone bad with him’. The Gerard interest was slowly weakening in Lancashire, and Macclesfield did not have the success in the boroughs in this election that he had had previously. Only one of his candidates was returned at Lancaster, none for Wigan and he appears to have withdrawn himself from active involvement in most of the other borough elections.</p><p>Macclesfield attended 70 per cent of the meetings of the first session of the 1698 Parliament and was named to 30 committees. He most likely held the proxy of Willoughby of Parham (who continued to stay away from the House) and others during this and subsequent sessions, but this cannot be certain owing to the absence of the proxy registers for 1698-1701. He was personally concerned with the disbandment bill of January 1699, as his regiment of horse was scheduled to be one of the first disbanded, and in early February he made a motion in the House that all the Huguenot officers serving in William III’s army should be naturalized gratis as a mark of thanks for their service, but it was not seconded.<sup>49</sup> He was appointed a manager on 1 Mar. 1699 for the conference on the bill to prevent the distilling of corn and on 7 Mar. was placed on the large committee considering the trial of his former military colleague Warwick. In the following session he was present at a little over half of the sittings and was nominated to 21 committees. He told in the division on whether to reverse the decree in the cause of <em>Beisely v. Stratford</em> on 22 Dec. 1699 and on 23 Feb. 1700 voted to prevent further discussion on the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation and dissented from its passage.<sup>50</sup> He was a manager for the House in a series of three contentious conferences held 9-10 Apr. 1700 on the Commons’ supply bill with its controversial tack for the resumption of William III’s Irish grants. As a court Whig he probably followed the direction of William’s ministers and acceded to the supply bill, despite its offensive tack, at the last minute; certainly his name does not appear on the protest of 10 Apr. against the House’s withdrawing its objections to the bill.</p><h2><em>Local decline and brief international prominence, 1701</em></h2><p>The decline in his local interest in Lancashire continued apace in the election of early 1701 following the surprise dissolution of 19 Dec. 1700. In Lancashire, as elsewhere, the Tories and the country interest steadily regained ground against court Whigs. Macclesfield again supported Charles Mason and Sir Gilbert Gerard at Bishop’s Castle, with the same result – Gerard was defeated while Mason was returned, although his election was later declared void owing to bribery. In Lancashire Macclesfield and his brother struggled furiously to preserve Gerard’s hold of the county seat, even enlisting the aid of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], husband to their niece Elizabeth. Gerard was defeated for the county, coming third in the poll. One of Macclesfield’s Whig candidates was returned again for Lancaster but otherwise he was not as visible in this election as in previous ones while other candidates in the boroughs strengthened their own local interests independent of the earl.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Macclesfield was more involved in the proceedings of the Parliament of 1701, of which he attended 84 per cent of the sittings and was placed on ten committees, including the drafting committee to respond to the king’s speech. He was a manager for two conferences on the Partition Treaties held on 2 and 10 Apr. 1701, but he was also concerned with his personal affairs in this Parliament, as when he complained on 6 Mar. of a breach of privilege following the arrest of one of his servants. He introduced on 17 May 1701 a private bill to allow him to settle lands in his late father’s estate, which had constituted part of his original marriage settlement with Anne Mason, in preparation for his impending second marriage. There had been rumours from at least July 1700 that Macclesfield was preparing to marry Laetitia, the daughter and heiress of William Harbord<sup>‡</sup>, who reportedly could bring with her a portion of £16,000. This supposition appears to be confirmed by his bequest to her in his will of a diamond necklace in the shape of a heart.<sup>52</sup> The bill was committed but quickly ran foul once more of his brother, who petitioned on 2 June that the bill would deprive him of land settled on him by his father in 1671. Arguments were heard in the committee considering the bill, chaired by either Mohun or Stamford. The earl’s counsel argued that despite Gerard’s claim in his petition, Macclesfield had informed his brother well in advance of his intentions in the bill and the earl’s secretary attested that he had once heard the earl say that ‘he would do anything for him [Fitton], and he told Mr. Gerard so’. Macclesfield’s counsel also produced a paper purporting to be Gerard’s written consent to the bill, although Gerard’s counsel objected that this paper was not signed nor was it on stamped paper. Perhaps in exasperation at these obstacles, Macclesfield declared before the committee on 3 June 1701 that he would proceed no further with the bill. The committee, nevertheless, made an order to report to the House their suspicions that Gerard had known about the bill previous to its introduction in the House, despite his protestations, but this report does not appear to have been made and there were no further proceedings on the bill.<sup>53</sup> In any case at this point in the session the House’s attention was almost wholly occupied with the impeachment proceedings against John Somers*, Baron Somers, and the other Junto lords. Macclesfield, who had earlier on 16 Apr. 1701 been placed on the large committee for the address requesting the king not to dismiss his Junto ministers, was opposed to the impeachments and voted for the acquittal of both Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, on 17 and 23 June respectively.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued the day following Orford’s acquittal and during the summer Macclesfield headed an embassy to Hanover to present Sophia, the dowager electress of Hanover, with a copy of the Act of Settlement which made her heir to the throne of England and to invest George, the elector of Hanover, and future George I of England, with the garter. Contemporaries at home were shocked at the composition of the embassy assigned with such an important mission, for it consisted of Macclesfield, who had almost been executed for treason in 1685 and was an infamous divorcé, his friend Mohun, twice acquitted of murder by his peers in the House and with an unsavoury reputation as a rake and seducer, and Macclesfield’s client Charles Mason, involved in some dubious election results in Bishop’s Castle. Nevertheless, the embassy was welcomed at Hanover with all signs of honour, and both George and his mother entertained Macclesfield and his entourage lavishly.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Macclesfield returned to London on 30 Oct. 1701, flushed with success, ready to climb still higher in William III’s court and in Whig circles and anticipating a lucrative marriage with Laetitia Harbord. Yet almost immediately upon returning the earl came down with a fever which quickly worsened and he died on 5 Nov. 1701, less than a week after his return. He was buried nine days later in Westminster Abbey, his executor Mohun making the arrangements. Macclesfield’s will caused consternation among his family and surprise among the public. He left his two surviving sisters and his nieces and nephews various small bequests of money and jewellery and allowed his brother Fitton to live on the estate of Gawsworth, but the remainder of his estate, and Gawsworth after Gerard’s death, was to go to his friend and nephew Mohun, with the further instructions that ‘in what relates to the public he will take the advice of the earl of Orford and Lord Somers’. Macclesfield’s bequest to Mohun was to have ramifications for the next several decades since, after the earldom of Macclesfield in that line of the Gerards became extinct with the death of Fitton Gerard in December 1702, Mohun had to conduct protracted legal disputes with members of Macclesfield’s remaining kin, particularly his sister Lady Charlotte Orby (mother of Mohun’s first wife) and his nephew, Hamilton, to maintain control of the estate. The dispute between Mohun and Hamilton came to a head when the two rivals fought a duel in November 1712, during which both were mortally wounded. This tragedy did not end the legal wrangling between Mohun’s heirs and the remaining Gerards over Gawsworth, which lasted well into the reign of George I.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GERARD, Charles (c. 1659-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>GERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1659–1707)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 9 Oct. 1684 as 6th Bar. GERARD of GERARD’S BROMLEY |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1659, 1st s. and h. of Richard Gerard, of Hilderstone, Staffs.; bro. of Philip Gerard*, 7th Bar. Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley. <em>educ</em>. St Omer Coll. by 1677-at least 1678.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. Mary (<em>d</em>. Sept. 1716),<sup>2</sup> da. of Sir John Webb, bt. of Oddstock, Wilts. <em>s.p</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 11 Mar. 1680. <em>d</em>. by 15 or 21 Apr. 1707;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 14. Mar. 1706, pr. 23 Nov. 1708.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Preston 1682, Liverpool 1690; dep. lt. Lancs. 1687-9,<sup>5</sup> Wales (12 counties), Herefs., Mon. 1689-96;<sup>6</sup> recorder, Chester 1688-9;<sup>7</sup> ld. lt., Lancs. 1689-<em>d</em>., N. Wales 1696-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>., Lancs. 1689-<em>d</em>., Mont. 1700-<em>d.</em>; butler, Lancs. 1689-<em>d</em>.; constable, Liverpool Castle 1689-<em>d</em>.; steward, Blackburn hundred, Tottington and Clitheroe, 1689-90; v. adm. Cheshire and Lancs. 1691-<em>d</em>., N. Wales 1696-<em>d</em>.; commr. superstitious uses, Lancs. 1693; col. militia ft., Lancs. and Denb. by 1697-<em>d</em>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Lt. col. Ld. Gerard’s Regt. of Horse Feb. 1678-Jan. 1679; col. regt. of horse, June-Sept. 1679, Oct.-Dec. 1688, 1694-<em>d</em>.; maj. gen. 1694.</p><p>Envoy extraordinary, Hanover Aug.-Sept. 1701.</p> |
|
<p>The Gerards of Hilderstone were a cadet branch of the Gerards of Gerard’s Bromley, established by John, a younger son of the 1st baron. A member of Staffordshire’s Catholic squirearchy, Richard Gerard is an obscure figure. Little is known of him until the furore occasioned by the revelations of Titus Oates led to his imprisonment in Staffordshire in 1679. Shortly afterwards Gerard was allowed to travel to London to provide evidence for the defence of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, against the allegations of the Popish Plot. This provided little respite for Gerard. Soon after arriving in London he was accused of complicity in a campaign to raise money in Staffordshire for a Catholic rising, it being alleged that the funds Gerard was sending to the Catholic college of St Omer (where his three sons were being educated) were for seditious purposes. Richard Gerard was imprisoned; he remained in Newgate until his death on 11 Mar. 1680.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Richard Gerard was succeeded by his eldest son Charles, who four years later gained the barony of Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley following the death of his cousin, Digby Gerard*, 5th Baron Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley. Charles Gerard succeeded (under the terms of the marriage settlement of the 4th Baron) to sizeable estates in Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire, worth more than £2,500 a year in 1715.<sup>10</sup> The year after this stroke of good fortune Gerard was given the opportunity to exact revenge for the death of his father when, in May 1685, he was among those who gave evidence for the prosecution during the trial of Titus Oates for perjury, Gerard having made Oates’s acquaintance when they were both students at a Catholic college in France. When questioned by Oates during this trial Gerard stated baldly, ‘I am a Catholic’.<sup>11</sup> The following year he was listed as one of those to receive dispensation to come to London and the court without taking the oaths.<sup>12</sup></p><p>There is little evidence that Gerard took an active role in promoting the catholicizing policies of James II. Indeed, when the three questions were put in late 1687 Gerard was one of those Staffordshire notables who gave no response.<sup>13</sup> Three analyses of 1687-88 examining the attitudes of the English peerage to the repeal of the penal laws and test simply listed Gerard as a Catholic. One further list classed Gerard amongst the protestant supporters of James II’s policies. Following the 1688 Revolution Gerard took little interest in public affairs though he occasionally came to the attention of the House of Lords, most notably in February 1692 when his claim to privilege of Parliament in a suit with the widow of the 5th Baron Gerard was rejected, the Lords resolving that ‘privilege of Parliament shall not extend to lords that have not first qualified themselves … by taking the oaths and test’. In March 1696, in the aftermath of the revelations of the Assassination Plot, Gerard was taken into custody.<sup>14</sup> Although the Lords were informed in April that he was one of the three peers of whom the king ‘hath some suspicion’, Gerard was released in May.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Though Gerard’s death has been recorded as occurring on 21 Apr. 1707, Narcissus Luttrell was reporting his demise as early as the 15th of that month. Gerard was buried in the family vault at Ashley, Staffordshire. He was succeeded in the barony by his brother. His jewels, plate, coach and horses were bequeathed to his widow and the remainder of his personal estate, over and above payment of his debts and costs of his funeral, to his Catholic sister, Frances, wife of Thomas Fleetwood of Calwich, Staffordshire.<sup>16</sup></p> |
R.D.H./B.A. |
|
GERARD, Digby (1662-84) |
<p><strong><surname>GERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Digby</strong> (1662–84)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 28 Dec. 1667 (a minor) as 5th Bar. GERARD of GERARD’S BROMLEY |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 17 July 1662, s. and h. of Charles Gerard*, 4th Bar. Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley and Jane, da. and h. of George Digby of Sandon, Staffs. <em>m</em>. lic. 3 Sept. 1678, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 11 Jan. 1700), da. of Charles Gerard*, Bar. Gerard of Brandon and earl of Macclesfield, 1da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 9 Oct. 1684; <em>admon</em>. 24 Oct. 1684 to wid.; inventory 13 Aug. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Gerard succeeded to the family estates and title as a child of five. He remained in the care of his mother and her second husband, Sir Edward Hungerford<sup>‡</sup>, until his marriage in 1678 to a distant cousin. Gerard then joined his wife to live in the household of his father-in-law, though this appears to have been a short-lived arrangement and he soon returned to live with his mother and stepfather.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Coming of age after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and dying before the calling of James II’s Parliament, Gerard never took his place in the House of Lords. He was nevertheless included upon two parliamentary lists compiled in the late 1670s. In 1677-8 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, included Gerard upon his assessment of lay peers, noting only that Gerard was then underage. In 1679 Gerard was listed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, (later duke of Leeds) among those peers absent from the Lords and who were not Catholic. Danby classed Gerard as a probable court supporter, a judgment that might have been grounded in the perceived influence of Gerard’s father-in-law, who at this stage was also regarded as loyal to the court, and/or as a result of the abortive negotiations the previous year for the marriage of Gerard to one of Danby’s daughters.<sup>4</sup> The significance of these lists lies in the light they may throw upon Gerard’s religious sympathies. Gerard’s father has traditionally been regarded as Catholic, but clearly neither Shaftesbury nor Danby believed that the 5th Baron was such. How well they were informed about a relatively obscure junior nobleman is uncertain. Despite negotiations with the staunch Anglican Danby for a marriage, there are indications that the young Gerard’s mother was close to the Catholic nobility. The Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, was also involved in trying to find Gerard a bride.</p><p>Gerard appears to have been an impetuous and short-tempered youth. When he was only 14 he drew his sword during a scuffle with a social inferior and ran his opponent through the groin.<sup>5</sup> His marriage in the late summer of 1678 to his distant cousin Elizabeth Gerard seems to have taken place without his mother’s consent as she was reported to have been ‘in a very great rage at it’.<sup>6</sup> His lack of judgment led to his premature death at the age of 22 when he collapsed and died suddenly at the Rose Tavern at Covent Garden. The cause of death was given either as a ‘drinking match’ or as ‘a surfeit of buttered eggs, toast and gravy, and mulled sack’.<sup>7</sup> One contemporary described Gerard as ‘a great swearer, drunkard and very debauched’; another was slightly more charitable in his opinion that Gerard was ‘a beautiful young man … [who] was utterly marred by keeping company with base lewd fellows’.<sup>8</sup> His title and settled estates descended to a Catholic junior branch of his family, while the remainder of his estate fell to his only daughter Elizabeth, later duchess of Hamilton [S]. Throughout the late 1680s she was engaged in legal causes against her mother-in-law concerning the latter’s rights to the profits of certain lands in accordance with her marriage settlement and the disposition of rents received while the 5th Baron was still a minor.<sup>9</sup> Gerard was buried in the family vault in Ashley, Staffordshire.<sup>10</sup></p> |
R.D.H./B.A. |
|
GERARD, Fitton (1663-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>GERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Fitton</strong> (1663–1702)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 5 Nov. 1701 as 3rd earl of MACCLESFIELD. |
|
First sat 30 Dec. 1701; last sat 30 Dec. 1701 |
|
MP Yarmouth (I.o.W.) 1689, Clitheroe 30 Nov. 1693-2 Feb. 1694, 17 Apr. 1694, Lancaster 25 Feb. 1697, Lancs. 1698. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 15 Oct. 1663, 2nd s. of Charles Gerard*, Bar. Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield) and Jeanne (<em>d</em>.1671), da. of Pierre de Civelle, equerry to Queen Henrietta Maria; bro. of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield. <em>educ.</em> Christ Church, Oxf. matric. July 1673. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 26 Dec. 1702; <em>will</em> 23 Dec. 1702, pr. 9 Jan. 1703.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Preston by 1682, Liverpool 1698; dep. lt., Wales (12 counties), Herefs., Mon. 1689-?1701.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Cornet, Queen’s Regt. of Horse 1678-9.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Fitton Gerard owes his unusual first name to his grandmother Penelope Fitton and the claim to the lucrative estate of Gawsworth in Cheshire that she brought to the Gerard family after the death in 1643 of her childless brother Sir Edward Fitton<sup>‡</sup>. Fittton Gerard’s father had long been engaged in legal battles with Sir Edward’s distant cousin and legatee Alexander Fitton over Gawsworth and the disposition of the estate was to hang over much of Fitton Gerard’s life, and even more his death. His branch of the Gerard family originated in Lancashire but because of Gawsworth began to associate itself increasingly with Cheshire.</p><p>Fitton Gerard joined his father and elder brother, also named Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), in enthusiastically hosting James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, during his 1682 progress through Cheshire, while in the following year he was named by Josiah Keeling as a Whig sympathizer who uttered treasonable healths in Wapping taverns during the months preceding the Rye House Plot.<sup>4</sup> Gerard also relied on his family, and particularly his brother, lord lieutenant of Lancashire from 1689, to maintain his position in the county. The 2nd earl of Macclesfield, as Brandon became in January 1694, was a controversial Whig lord lieutenant in a county with a largely Tory gentry. He engaged in a long campaign to gain control over nominations to the Lancashire commission of the peace and was able to ensure that his younger brother was appointed a justice of the peace throughout William III’s reign.<sup>5</sup> The lord lieutenant also used threatening and controversial means to ensure his brother’s return to Parliament for Lancashire boroughs. Fitton Gerard was involved in a double return for Clitheroe in a by-election of late November 1693 but the committee for elections judged that the election had been rendered invalid by dishonest tactics used by Macclesfield and Gerard to elect a returning officer and ordered the poll to be held again. The second by-election resulted in another double return, and Gerard was only able to claim his seat, by petition, on 17 Apr. 1694 after months of deliberations. So controversial were the Gerards that Fitton Gerard was not immediately returned for any seat at the following Parliament and his brother Macclesfield had to wait until a by-election in Lancaster in February 1697 before he could force his younger brother again into the Commons. At the elections of 1698 it was noted that Macclesfield ‘hath with great difficulty got in his brother’ for the county seat. Fitton Gerard was not returned for any constituency in January 1701.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Macclesfield had largely sponsored Gerard’s political career, but the brothers had a falling out over Macclesfield’s divorce bill of 1698. This would have enabled the earl to separate from his long-estranged wife and have any children born to her during their long separation declared illegitimate. By the original marriage settlement Fitton Gerard would inherit Gawsworth if there were no children of the union, but the bill aimed to annul the settlement, leaving the disposition of the estate after Macclesfield’s death an open question. On 26 Feb. 1698 during the proceedings on the bill Fitton Gerard presented a petition to the House requesting that his own condition and inheritance be taken into consideration. This appears to have upset his brother and Fitton Gerard quickly withdrew the petition.<sup>7</sup> Fitton Gerard ran afoul of his brother again on 2 June 1701, when he petitioned the House to the effect that a bill the now divorced Macclesfield had recently introduced to settle jointure lands on his prospective bride Laetitia Harbord deprived him of property settled on him by his father in a deed of 1671. Macclesfield’s counsel informed the select committee considering the bill that the earl, professing his loyalty and service to his younger brother, had informed him well in advance of his intentions and had even procured a paper purporting to be Fitton Gerard’s written consent to the bill, although it remained suspiciously unsigned. In exasperation at his brother’s obstruction Macclesfield declared before the committee on 3 June 1701 that he would proceed no further with the bill.<sup>8</sup> The damage was done though, and when Macclesfield died unexpectedly on 5 Nov. 1701 Fitton Gerard, now 3rd earl of Macclesfield, was in for a rude shock. The late earl had bequeathed various small legacies of money and jewellery to his two surviving sisters (who had joined Fitton in the opposition to their brother’s bill) and their children and allowed his brother to continue to live on the estate of Gawsworth for his natural life, but otherwise his entire real and personal estate, including Gawsworth after the 3rd earl’s death, was to go to Macclesfield’s friend, nephew and fellow soldier Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.<sup>9</sup> Years later, during the protracted legal disputes between the Gerard and Mohun heirs and descendants, the Gerards complained that Mohun’s only claim to Gawsworth was through the 2nd earl’s ‘unnatural and barbarous act’, which ‘broke through the laws of God and man’. He had tried to subvert the first earl’s settlement of 1671 through his bill, ‘and being afterwards opposed in it by his brother and sister, he destroyed the deed itself in revenge to them, and to complete his revenge gave away the estate from his own family to the Lord Mohun, a stranger to his own and father's blood’. Another petition from the Gerards pointed out that the late earl’s siblings, now effectively disinherited, had earlier pleaded for their brother’s life when he was under threat of execution for treason in 1685.<sup>10</sup> The new earl of Macclesfield did not immediately contest the provisions of the will. He was already ill and lived almost as a recluse. Unmarried with no children to provide for, he may have been satisfied by the life interest at Gawsworth.</p><p>Macclesfield attended the House on the first day of the 1701-2 Parliament, on 30 Dec. 1701, but while the first appearance in the House that day of two other peers who had just inherited their titles was recorded in the Journal, the presence of the new earl of Macclesfield was passed over without a note. This one day appears to have been enough for Macclesfield and he never attended the House again. He was briefly implicated when Mohun complained on 7 Jan. 1702 of a breach of privilege concerning the arrest of his steward for Gawsworth, Thomas Shepherd, at Macclesfield’s suit. Shepherd himself, in his petition to the House, suggested that the action had been brought against him by Macclesfield’s agents without the earl’s knowledge.<sup>11</sup> Whatever local influence in the northwest may have remained to Macclesfield was further attenuated by the Tory turn in politics following Anne’s accession, as evidenced by the purposeful exclusion of the earl from the Lancashire commission of the peace in July 1702.<sup>12</sup> He himself died, young and unmarried, on 26 Dec. 1702 in his house at Chelsea, and with his death the short-lived Gerard earldom of Macclesfield became extinct. His will, written just before his death, distributed small bequests to a wide array of nieces, nephews, sisters and their husbands. The dispute over the estate continued for many years, taken up by his two surviving sisters and their heirs against the pretensions of Mohun, and leading ultimately to the fatal duel in November 1712 between Mohun and James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, like Mohun a nephew by marriage of the brothers Charles and Fitton Gerard, earls of Macclesfield.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GERARD, Philip (1665-1733) |
<p><strong><surname>GERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Philip</strong> (1665–1733)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 21 Apr. 1707 as 7th Bar. GERARD of Gerard’s Bromley |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Dec. 1665, 3rd s. of Richard Gerard of Hilderstone, Staffs.;<sup>1</sup> bro. of Charles Gerard*, 6th Bar. Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley. <em>educ</em>. St Omer Coll. ?-1684; Watten, 1684-5, Liège, 1686-7, 1687-9.<sup>2</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 4 May 1733.</p> |
|
|
<p>Philip Gerard, who succeeded in the barony but did not inherit the family’s landed estates, was educated as a Catholic. He was admitted into the Society of Jesus in September 1684. He was ordained in 1693, and for the following decade and a half served in a number of continental Europe’s Catholic colleges. He remained on the continent for the rest of his life, apart from brief spells in England between 1726 and 1728, and again in 1730.<sup>3</sup> He died on 4 May 1733, at which time the title was extinguished.</p> |
R.D.H./B.A. |
|
GODOLPHIN, Francis (1678-1766) |
<p><strong><surname>GODOLPHIN</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1678–1766)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1706-12 Visct. Rialton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Sept. 1712 as 2nd earl of GODOLPHIN; <em>cr. </em>23 Jan. 1735 Bar. GODOLPHIN of Helston |
|
First sat 3 Feb. 1713; last sat 25 Nov. 1760 |
|
MP Helston 1695; East Looe 1701 (Feb.); Helston 1701 ( Dec.), 1702, 1705; Oxfordshire 1708; Tregony 1710–15 Sept. 1712 |
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Sept. 1678, o. s. of Sidney Godolphin* (later earl of Godolphin) and Margaret (1652–78), da. and coh. of Thomas Blagge of Horningsheath, Suff. <em>educ</em>. privately (John Evelyn); Eton; King’s, Camb. 1695, MA 1705. <em>m</em>. 27 Apr. 1698 (with £10,000), Henrietta (<em>d</em>. 24 Oct. 1733), da. and coh. of John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough (from 1722 <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Marlborough), 2s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.), 4da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 17 Jan. 1766; <em>will</em> 10 June 1763–1 June 1765, pr. 29 Jan. 1767.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Registrar, chancery (jt.) 1699–1727; teller, exch. 1699–1704; gent. of bedchamber, George of Denmark 1702–8; cofferer, royal household 1704–11, 1714–23; groom of the stole 1723–35; PC 26 May 1723–<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1723, 1726, 1727; ld. privy seal 1735–40.</p><p>Dep. lt. Cornw. by Mar. 1701–?1710;<sup>3</sup> ld. warden, the Stannaries, Cornw. 1705–8; high steward, duchy of Cornwall 1705–8; rider and master forester, Dartmoor 1705–8; recorder, Helston, Cornw. 1712–<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> dep. ranger, Windsor House Park 1712–35;<sup>5</sup> ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>. Oxon. 1715–39; high steward, Banbury 1718, Woodstock 1728; gov. Scilly Islands 1732–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir Godfrey Kneller, c.1710–12, NPG 329; oil on canvas after Jean-Baptiste van Loo, c.1740, NPG 899.</p> |
<p>Francis Godolphin’s mother, Margaret Godolphin (née Blagge), died only six days after she gave birth to him in September 1678, and he was educated in his early years by her close ‘spiritual friend’ John Evelyn, before he went to Eton and eventually Cambridge.<sup>9</sup> Francis’s widowed father, Sidney Godolphin, created Baron Godolphin in 1684, never remarried and Francis became the sole focus of his dynastic ambitions. Francis first entered Parliament for the family seat of Helston in Cornwall in 1695, when he was four years underage.</p><p>The growing friendship and alliance between Lord Godolphin and John Churchill, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, and his wife, Sarah, was cemented by Francis’s marriage in April 1698 to Marlborough’s eldest daughter, Lady Henrietta (‘Harriet’). Anne, then princess royal, offered to pay all of the substantial dowry of £10,000 on behalf of her ‘dear Mrs Freeman’ (i.e. the countess of Marlborough), but the countess eventually only accepted half of that amount from her mistress.<sup>10</sup> The newly married Godolphin received offices and favours consonant with the growing influence of his father and parents-in-law. Through his father’s continuing solicitations he was made one of the four tellers of the exchequer in June 1699, while in October of that year he was granted the post of joint registrar of chancery, an office he had been promised since June of the preceding year.<sup>11</sup> Godolphin was returned to the Commons in the first election of 1701 for the Cornish seat of East Looe and once again for Helston at the second election of that year.</p><p>Godolphin’s trajectory at court and in Parliament in the reign of Anne roughly followed that of his father, appointed lord treasurer by the new queen, and of his father-in-law, captain-general of the Allied forces. At the accession Godolphin and his wife were attached to the royal household, Lady Harriet joining her mother, the duchess of Marlborough, as a lady of the bedchamber to the queen, while Francis Godolphin was made a gentleman of the bedchamber to her consort, Prince George*, of Denmark. In 1704 Godolphin’s father and the duchess of Marlborough secured for him the lucrative post of cofferer of the household, a place worth £2,000 p.a., prompting his resignation as teller of the exchequer in that year, and in early 1705 he was made warden of the Stannaries, high steward of the duchy of Cornwall and master forester of Dartmoor.</p><p>In 1702 and again in 1705 Godolphin was returned for Helston and from 26 Dec. 1705, when his father was raised in the peerage to become earl of Godolphin, Francis was styled Viscount Rialton. In February 1707 Marlborough, recently granted the manor of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, presented Rialton as his candidate for one of the county seats in the upcoming election of 1708, but Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, predicted accurately that Rialton ‘will meet with a greater opposition than I could have imagined an heir of the duke of Marlborough recommended by him could have found’.<sup>12</sup> In the event Rialton was returned both for Oxfordshire and for Helston and decided to sit for the county, signifying his new connection with Oxfordshire by resigning all his Cornish offices to his cousin Hugh Boscawen*, later Viscount Falmouth.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Following the pattern of his father and father-in-law, over these years Rialton gradually aligned himself more closely with the Whigs willing to support the war policy of the duumvirs and he suffered from their reversal of political fortune in 1710. After his father’s removal from the treasurership in August 1710, he had great difficulty retaining a seat in the Commons, but was eventually returned for the Cornish borough of Tregony on the Boscawen interest. On 13 May 1711 he lost his principal court post, when he was removed as cofferer of the household, a move which convinced Frances Needham, writing to the duchess of Marlborough, that ‘sure never anything was like the violence they [the new ministry], go on with, like a rapid stream that you can’t stop the course of’.<sup>14</sup> Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> also reported to the duchess that Godolphin, the former lord treasurer, was ‘more touched by the removal of Lord Rialton than his own’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Rialton succeeded to his father’s earldom on 15 Sept. 1712. The only honours that accompanied his rise in the peerage were slight ones – the recordership of the borough of Helston, a hereditary office vested in his family, and the deputy rangership of Windsor House Park, an office under his mother-in-law, the duchess of Marlborough, the warden of the Park.<sup>16</sup> The new earl came to the title in the midst of the long months of prorogations from June 1712 to April 1713, while Parliament and the country waited to learn the details of the peace that was being negotiated at Utrecht. Godolphin first sat in the House on 3 Feb. 1713, a day of prorogation. As preparations were made for the session to commence for business in April 1713, the duke and duchess of Marlborough, in voluntary exile on the continent, looked to Godolphin as their representative and agent in the House. The duchess wrote anxiously from Aix of rumours she had heard of ‘a new disagreeable battle’ in the dispute over who was responsible for the immense costs in the building of Blenheim Palace ‘by a petition to both houses of Parliament, which ’tis said was ordered at my Lord Treasurer’s [Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford]’. She could take comfort, however, that ‘the suit being already begun in Westminster Hall I can’t see that it can be of much use to him’. Marlborough himself, she added, would tell Godolphin if he was to be expected in the House that winter. The duke remained away until the death of Anne, entrusting his affairs in England (both his interest at Woodstock borough and in Parliament) to Godolphin. In June 1714 Godolphin dutifully reported to the duke and duchess the successful outcome of a subsidy bill in which they had an interest.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Godolphin came to the first day of the session of spring 1713 but only attended 44 per cent of its sitting days. Oxford saw him as an opponent of both his ministry and the peace, and forecast that he would oppose the French commercial treaty – which was defeated in the Commons before it even came before the House. He appears to have had little discernible role in either Oxfordshire or Cornwall during the elections of late summer 1713, and even the Godolphin family’s control of Helston came under threat as George Granville*, recently created Baron Lansdown, was able to return two Tories for the borough. Godolphin came to only slightly more (47 per cent) of the sittings of the new Parliament’s first session, starting in February 1714. His pattern of proxy giving and receiving during this session suggests that, despite his low attendance, he was eager to maintain Whig votes in the House. His proxy partners in the session of April–July 1713 cannot be known, owing to the loss of the proxy registers for that period, but it is likely that he was as active a member of a network of proxy exchanges with fellow Whigs then as he was in the following 1714 session. He registered his proxy with his brother-in-law, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, from 6 Feb. to 4 Mar. 1714; with Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, from 16 Mar. to 27 Apr.; and with Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, from 11 to 23 June. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast in late May that Godolphin would vote against the Schism bill and it may have been to shore up votes against this bill that Godolphin entrusted his vote to Orford just five days before the division.</p><p>In the last days of this session he was called on to hold the proxy of other Whigs in turn. He held the proxy of Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, for only two days (28–29 June 1714) and of Richard Newport*, 2nd earl of Bradford, for another two days (6–7 July). In the final five days of the session, which ended on 9 July, he also held the proxy of Sunderland on two occasions, for a matter of a day or two, as Sunderland flitted in and out of the House. Godolphin only attended the first day of the following session, 1 Aug. 1714, following the queen’s death, and on 2 Aug. registered his proxy with Grafton for the remainder of the session.</p><p>As a representative of a family which had supported the war with France and the Hanoverian Succession, Godolphin was rewarded by the new king. He was reinstated as cofferer of the household in October 1714, appointed lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire in 1715 and, after his wife became <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Marlborough upon her father’s death on 16 June 1722, was sworn to the privy council and made groom of the stole in 1723. He was probably even busier on the domestic front, for within the space of a few weeks in 1722 he became an executor for the estates of both his brother-in-law, Sunderland, and his father-in-law, Marlborough, and much of the remainder of his life was spent communicating with and trying to pacify his mother-in-law, the imperious dowager duchess of Marlborough.<sup>18</sup> The dowager was always suspicious that the duke’s money was not being spent wisely or honestly; to make matters worse, her relations with her daughter Harriet, Godolphin’s wife, broke down irretrievably and acrimoniously, especially after the younger duchess of Marlborough gave birth to a daughter who was widely suspected to be the child of the playwright William Congreve, but whom Godolphin always recognized and raised as his own.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Godolphin’s career in the Hanoverian House of Lords in the early years of George I and beyond will be discussed in greater depth in the next phase of this work. His attitude to the House, however, may be best expressed by his response to the request from his mother-in-law to speak for her interest in her appeal of 1721 against the exchequer judgment that she and the duke were personally responsible for the debts incurred in building Blenheim Palace. He explained to her ‘that to have ten times the value of the debt he could not speak, that he had once attempted it in the House of Commons in a mighty trivial thing and was quite out’.<sup>20</sup> Philip Dormer Stanhope*, 4th earl of Chesterfield, is said to have remarked that Godolphin ‘came to the House of Peers only to sleep, and that he might as well sleep on the right as on the left of the Woolsack’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In 1735 Godolphin, battered by the deaths in the space of a few years of his only son and heir, William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>, styled marquess of Blandford, and of his wife, gave up his posts in the bedchamber and in Windsor House Park. He was, however, promoted to be lord privy seal instead. He resigned from this post in April 1740, having already stepped down as lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire the previous year. At his death on 17 Jan. 1766 there were no direct male heirs to the earldom, but in 1735 Godolphin had secured a patent as Baron Godolphin of Helston, with a special remainder to the descendants of his uncle Henry Godolphin. By this his cousin and namesake, Francis Godolphin*, succeeded as 2nd Baron Godolphin of Helston. Godolphin’s will made the 2nd baron the principal heir of his Cornish lands and his sole executor, but also laid out a daunting profusion of gifts to a large circle of servants, family members and friends. To his one surviving child, Henrietta, duchess of Newcastle, already married to probably the richest peer in the kingdom, he was able to leave Bank of England stock worth £14,000.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GODOLPHIN, Sidney (1645-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>GODOLPHIN</surname></strong>, <strong>Sidney</strong> (1645–1712)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>8 Sept. 1684 Bar. GODOLPHIN; <em>cr. </em>26 Dec. 1706 earl of GODOLPHIN |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 13 June 1712 |
|
MP Helston 15 Oct. 1668-1678; St. Mawes 1679 (Mar.-Oct.); Helston 1679 (Oct.)-1681 |
<p><em>bap.</em> 15 June 1645, 3rd surv. s. of Sir Francis Godolphin<sup>‡</sup> (1605-67), of Godolphin Breage, Cornwa. and Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1668), da. of Sir Henry Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> of Yarlington, Som., bro. of Sir William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt. and Francis Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Oxford MA 28 Sept. 1683; travelled abroad (Italy) 1664; L. Inn 1669. <em>m.</em> 16 May 1675, Margaret (1652-78), da. and coh. of Thomas Blagge of Horningsheath, Suff., maid of honour to Queen Catherine of Braganza, 1s. <em>suc.</em> bro. 1710. KG 6 July 1704 <em>d</em>. 15 Sept. 1712. will 23 July 1688; pr. 7 Nov. 1712.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Page of honour 1662-68; groom of the bedchamber 1670-78; master of the robes 1678-79; ld. chamberlain to Queen Maryof Modena 1685-Dec. 1688; mbr. of council to Queen Catherine 1687-?91.</p><p>Cornet, Prince Rupert’s horse 1667.</p><p>Special ambassador, France Mar.-Apr. 1670, Nov.-Dec. 1671; envoy extraordinary to Louis XIV Apr.-Nov. 1672, Spanish Netherlands, and Prince of Orange Mar.-July 1678.</p><p>Ld. of treasury 26 Mar. 1679–24 Apr. 1684, 4 Jan. 1687–18 Mar. 1690, first ld. 9 Sept. 1684–16 Feb. 1685, 15 Nov. 1690–31 Oct. 1696, 9 Dec. 1700–11 Nov. 1701; ld. treasurer 8 May 1702–8 Aug. 1710; secretary of state (S) Apr.-Aug. 1684; PC 4 Feb. 1680-Feb. 1689, 20 Nov. 1690-<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1695, 1696, 1701.</p><p>Commr. Tangier 1680-4;<sup>2</sup> commr. chan. duchy of Lancaster, 1687; prize appeals, 1695; Union with Scotland Apr. 1706.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Freeman, Portsmouth 1668, Liskeard 1685; ranger Cranbourne Chase, Windsor forest July 1688-1698;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. and custos Cornw. Apr. 1705–15 Sept. 1710; gov. Charterhouse 1707;<sup>5</sup> commr. Greenwich Hosp. 1695.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by Sir G. Kneller, c. 1705-10, NPG 5179.</p> |
<p>Godolphin was one of 16 children born into a family of royalist and Anglican gentry, part of ‘the intricate network of kinship which linked the Killigrews, the Berkeleys and the Jermyns’. As a younger son, in receipt of only a small annuity upon the death of his father, he had to seek his own fortune, although family connections provided an entrée at court.<sup>7</sup> To begin with he pursued several career paths, including military service against the Dutch. He may have been admitted to the Inner Temple in 1668 and on 5 Aug. 1669 he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn at the request of Sir John Howell, the recorder of London, then reader at the Inn.<sup>8</sup> His Cornish family links provided him with a seat in the Commons at a by-election in 1668. Godolphin proved to be an adept courtier: he was a fine horseman and tennis player, a composer of witty verse, and a devotee of the turf and the gambling that went with it. Despite this facility he never abandoned his Anglican piety nor embraced the libertinism of the court. He had influential kinsmen, such as Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and gained patrons such as Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, the latter of particular use in forwarding his diplomatic career.<sup>9</sup> Perhaps Godolphin’s most impressive quality was his aptitude for royal service, coupled with discretion. In Charles II’s words, ‘he was never in the way and never out of the way’ and to Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, he was ‘the silentest and modestest man that was perhaps ever bred in a court’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Godolphin was married in the Temple Church on 16 May 1675, by Mr Lake, ‘chaplain to the duke’, presumably Dr John Lake*, the future bishop of Chichester.<sup>11</sup> At the end of July 1678 it was reported that Laurence Hyde*, the future earl of Rochester, had sold his mastership of the robes to Godolphin for £6,000, while Godolphin sold his own position of groom in the bedchamber place to George Rodney Brydges<sup>‡</sup> for £4,500.<sup>12</sup> His wife died on 9 Sept. 1678, after the birth of his son, Francis Godolphin*, the future 2nd earl of Godolphin.</p><p>During the Exclusion Crisis Godolphin was very much associated with his fellow ‘chits’ Sunderland and Hyde. He opposed the first exclusion bill, but followed Sunderland in supporting exclusion in 1680, although he did not suffer the consequences, the king blaming Sunderland for his actions. His reputation for financial acumen stood him in good stead and when he left the treasury to become secretary of state in April 1684, his fellow commissioner, Sir Edward Dering<sup>‡</sup>, thought ‘the removing of Godolphin is taking out a cornerstone, which if it do not ruin and dissolve doth at least much weaken the building’.<sup>13</sup> He was back in the treasury in September, as first lord and with a peerage. His tenure as first lord was short-lived because the king’s death in February 1685 saw Hyde, now earl of Rochester, restored as lord treasurer and Godolphin made chamberlain to the new queen.<sup>14</sup> Even then, according to Paul Barillon, the king intended to continue to consult Godolphin, as well as Rochester and Sunderland, on matters of high policy.<sup>15</sup> Godolphin’s friendship with the queen continued after the Revolution and according to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, he ‘kept a constant correspondence with her to his dying day’, which was to cause him some difficulties in the following reign.<sup>16</sup> Faced with the dilemma of attending the queen to mass, Godolphin conducted her to the door of the chapel but remained outside.<sup>17</sup> He played a role in facilitating a gift of £16,000 from James II to help pay off the debts of Princess Anne, evidence of a growing closeness to the Churchills and the Princess which would see him eventually become ‘Mr Montgomery’ in the private correspondence between the group.<sup>18</sup></p><p>On 19 May 1685 Godolphin was introduced into the Lords by Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, and William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard. He attended the House every day before the adjournment on 2 July, 31 days in total, and was named to 10 committees during that part of the session. On 25 June he acted as a teller, in opposition to Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, on the question of whether to call in counsel in <em>Eyre v. Eyre</em>. Two days later he acted as a teller, again in opposition to Cornwallis, on the question of whether the committee on the bill reviving acts should sit at the time to which it had been adjourned. He attended the adjournment on 4 Aug., and on every day following the resumption of the session on 9 Nov. until the prorogation on 20 Nov., being named to one further committee.</p><p>On 14 Jan. 1686 Godolphin was one of those peers who found Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, not guilty of treason.<sup>19</sup> He attended the prorogations on 10 Feb., 10 May and 22 November. In October Evelyn visited Cranbourne, ‘a Lodge and walk of my Lord Godolphin’s in Windsor Park’, which he had purchased early in James II’s reign.<sup>20</sup> On 26 June 1688 a warrant was issued for a grant for 31 years to Godolphin of the position of keeper of the lodge and chase of Cranbourne.<sup>21</sup> When talk surfaced in October 1686 of the removal of Rochester as lord treasurer, those considered for the replacement commission included Godolphin, ‘who understands it and must teach others’.<sup>22</sup> It was as an ally of Sunderland that Godolphin returned to the treasury at the beginning of 1687, with Princess Anne opining to her sister, ‘I am sorry the king relies so much’ on Sunderland and Godolphin.<sup>23</sup> Observers of the regime were paying close attention when the commissioners of the treasury, Godolphin, Sir John Ernle<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> took the Test on 8 Feb. 1687: according to Roger Morrice they did so together and ‘with good attendance’. It was thought, he wrote, that they had as a result offended the king.<sup>24</sup> The Dutch ambassador, Van Citters, confirmed this when he reported that the Protestant commissioners ‘having performed the oath of the Test and allegiancy in due form’, the king had ‘in no small degree shown his displeasure to Lord Godolphin about it’.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Despite his protestantism, Godolphin was perceived as a loyalist, and various commentators have assumed that he was in favour of the king’s policy of repealing the Test acts; his name appears on four lists compiled between January 1687 and January 1688 implying his support. Godolphin’s closeness to Sunderland can only have perpetuated this opinion; it was underlined by his presence early in January 1688 at the marriage of Lady Anne Spencer to James Hamilton*, earl of Arran [S], the future duke of Hamilton.<sup>26</sup> Nor did he shirk his duty as a privy councillor. He was present on 26 Oct. 1687 when the king in cabinet delivered the three questions to various lord lieutenants and again on 4 May 1688 when the order was given for the Declaration of Indulgence to be read in church.<sup>27</sup> He was also present on 8 June when the order was made to prosecute the seven bishops, reportedly having signed the warrant committing them to the Tower.<sup>28</sup> He attended the birth of Prince James (the future Pretender) on 10 June 1688, although he later deposed that he stood in a position whereby he could see nothing.<sup>29</sup> The duchess of Marlborough later explained that his presence at the birth was the reason why Godolphin ‘was no way concerned in making the Revolution and disliked it very much’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Godolphin remained at the centre of events as the regime contemplated a change of policy and seems to have welcomed a turn back to the old alliance with the Anglican establishment. On 22 Sept. 1688 Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, recorded in his diary that the lord chancellor, George Jefferys*, Baron Jeffreys, had written the Declaration resolved upon on the previous day to accompany the issuing of the writs calling a Parliament and that although Sunderland, Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, and Godolphin had agreed it, amendments had been made in council, and that ‘Lord Godolphin had broke loose from him and endeavoured to trim in the new wording some clauses.’<sup>31</sup> On 24 Sept. Sunderland told the papal nuncio that Godolphin and the other Protestants of the court had resolved on supporting James’s designs in Parliament.<sup>32</sup> On 16 Oct. Godolphin attended the Cabinet which finalized the proclamation restoring the corporations.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Godolphin’s closeness to the regime put his position at some risk as the king tried to satisfy his domestic opponents. On 12 Nov. 1688 Van Citters reported that rumours that Jeffreys and Godolphin ‘were to be removed from their offices, but as these gentlemen are in possession of many secrets, it is thought the king will not make up his mind to this so easily now things are placed in such an extreme point’. Two weeks later, on 26 Nov. Van Citters reported that ‘some of the cabinet council’, including Godolphin and Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], had ‘ventured to advise the king, to assemble his Parliament without delay’.<sup>34</sup> Godolphin was apparently responsible for excluding its Catholic members from the meeting of the council on 27 Nov., and was one of those at the meeting in favour of calling a Parliament.<sup>35</sup> Following a ‘great council’ on 27 Nov., James II named Godolphin, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as his commissioners to negotiate with William, to whom Godolphin was already well known. The commissioners met the Prince at Hungerford on 8 Dec., where they remained until the 10th. They had almost reached London on their return journey on 11 Dec. when they received news of the king’s flight. Godolphin did not reach London for the first meeting of the provisional government of peers at the Guildhall on that day. He was present on each occasion that the lords met on 12-15 Dec., and again on 21-22, 24-25 December.<sup>36</sup> In the interim, on 16 Dec., along with such loyalists as Middleton and Preston he signed a proclamation in the king’s name, inserted into the <em>London Gazette</em>, ordering local office-holders to prevent buildings from being attacked.<sup>37</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention, 1689-90</em></h2><p>Godolphin was present when the Convention convened on 22 Jan. 1689. On the crucial issue of the settlement of the Crown, Godolphin was entirely consistent: on 29 Jan. he voted in favour of a regency; on 31 Jan. he voted against declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen; on 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons that the king had ‘abdicated’. On 6 Feb. Clarendon noted him as one of the peers that ‘usually support the king’, who were absent from the Lords, using the excuse that he had to attend the prince of Orange at the treasury.<sup>38</sup> However, the Journal recorded him as present, and Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, recorded him as voting against agreeing with the Commons in using the term ‘abdicated’. On 2 Mar., however, Godolphin took the oaths to the new monarchs. He continued to administer the treasury along with Ernle and Fox, until his appointment to a new treasury commission on 9 April.<sup>39</sup></p><p>On 20 Apr. 1689 Godolphin was named to report from a conference on the amendments made by the Lords to the bill abrogating oaths, duly reporting back later in the day. He was then named to a committee to draw up reasons for adhering to the amendments and to manage the resultant conference on the 22nd. On 31 May he voted against the bill to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates, and on 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill. On 13 July he was named to a committee to draw up reasons in support of the Lords’ views on the house of Hanover in the bill settling the succession of the Crown, and was named to a conference on the bill on the 16th. On 10 Aug. he acted as a teller in opposition to Cornwallis on an instruction to the committee on the bill prohibiting trade with France to bring in a clause to give the king power to dispense with the act. He attended on 149 days of the session up to the prorogation of 21 Oct. 1689, 91 per cent of the total. He was named to a further 33 committees.</p><p>As one contemporary put it, Godolphin was ‘the only man that had the cunning or else the good fortune to be at once in some favour with both the king and Prince of Orange’.<sup>40</sup> William certainly had a high opinion of his abilities as a minister of finance, despite his previous service to Charles II and James II, which made him a target of Whig attacks in the Convention.<sup>41</sup> When William was considering the composition of his first treasury commission, he asked Halifax ‘if he had a mind to keep Lord Godolphin in, who should hinder him?’ Halifax noted that ‘he ever showed an inclination to Lord Godolphin’.<sup>42</sup> The new commission therefore included Godolphin, the only experienced hand, together with four Whigs.<sup>43</sup> Two of his Whig colleagues, Delamer and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, were unhappy because they ‘soon saw that the king considered him more than them both. For, as he understood treasury business well, so his calm and cold way suited the king’s temper’. As Athur Onslow<sup>‡</sup> noted, the treasury commission was ‘ill-composed’, with Godolphin having supported James II and opposed the abdication.<sup>44</sup> Godolphin himself may have been unhappy as early as August 1689, when Halifax recorded that the king ‘seemed to believe [Godolphin] desired to live out of employment’.<sup>45</sup> Whatever misgivings he may have had, Godolphin attended the board with great regularity between April 1689 and the demise of the treasury commission in March 1690, rarely missing a meeting. This pattern was resumed when Godolphin rejoined the board in November 1690.<sup>46</sup> This was in keeping with his reputation for routine; in December 1689 Cary Gardiner advised Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> that Godolphin ‘is ever to be found between eight and nine o’clock in the morning’ at his house.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Godolphin was present on the opening day of the second session of the Convention, 23 Oct. 1689. On that day, Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, registered his proxy with Godolphin (as he did also on 5 Dec.). On 25 Oct. he acted as a teller in opposition to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on whether the House should resolve itself immediately into committee of the whole House on the bill against clandestine marriages. He attended on 57 days of the session, 78 per cent of the total, and was named to 14 committees.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>Godolphin persisted in his desire to retire.<sup>48</sup> In an attempt to dissuade him the king utilized Marlborough as his advocate; on 27 Jan. 1690 Marlborough wrote to the king, ‘I have let no day pass without speaking to "Lord G." about what you command, nor will I be rebutted in it, though I do not prevail much with him, save that I make him melancholy; your kindness to him has most weight with him’.<sup>49</sup> Parliament was dissolved on 6 Feb., and before the new one met Godolphin had been left out of the treasury commission announced in March, although it seems that he was instrumental in ensuring that Fox was available to supply his financial expertise.<sup>50</sup> That the new treasury commission was composed of only four men suggested that there was a ready-made vacancy for Godolphin should he signal his wish to return.<sup>51</sup> Sometime between October 1689 and February 1690, before the new Parliament met, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), drew up a list of the lords which seemed to suggest that Godolphin was among the opposition (at least to Carmarthen).</p><p>Godolphin was present when the new Parliament convened on 20 Mar. 1690. On 2 May Clarendon recorded that Godolphin went away without voting ‘in the matter which was upon the tapis’, presumably the bill securing the king and queen against King James.<sup>52</sup> On 8 May Godolphin asked one of the questions posed to the judges concerning the implications of the regency bill.<sup>53</sup> He was named on 12 May to draw up reasons for the Lords’ amendment to the bill, and also to manage the resultant conference on the following day. On 10 May Grafton again registered his proxy with Godolphin. Godolphin attended on 51 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, and was named to 10 committees. In May 1690 he was named as one of the trustees of the prince and princess of Denmark’s children.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Despite being out of office, Godolphin’s name was never far from the thoughts of political commentators. In May 1690 Roger Morrice reported that ‘it’s highly probable’ that when William left on campaign, Carmarthen, Nottingham and Godolphin would be entrusted with ‘the conduct of all affairs under the queen’. In June Morrice heard that Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, and Godolphin had been instrumental in removing Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup> and replacing him as a commissioner of the great seal by Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, although ‘I know not well upon what grounds’. Godolphin, Sydney and Trevor attended the king to Tring on the first stage of his journey to Ireland, and Sydney and Godolphin had brought Sunderland to kiss the king’s hand at Northampton on the same journey.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Godolphin was afflicted with kidney stones in the summer of 1690, recuperating at Cranbourne Lodge and then Tunbridge Wells, where Morrice noted his presence among ‘a great number of the English nobility and gentry’. Godolphin’s companions included Shrewsbury and Thomas Wharton*, the future 5th Baron Wharton, who all ‘lodged together, and were very much in conversation at Tunbridge’.<sup>56</sup> On 8 Aug. Godolphin wrote to Halifax that both he and Shrewsbury intended to remain in Tunbridge to take the waters for a full six weeks. He seems to have stayed there until late August.<sup>57</sup> On 24 Aug. Halifax recorded that Godolphin had told him that ‘he would do all that was possible to avoid employment at the king’s return, but he was not sure it could be avoided’.<sup>58</sup> On 23 Sept. Clarendon was informed that there were rumours that Godolphin would be appointed secretary of state and that he was ‘resolved to enter again upon the matrimonial state, and to that end makes love to the Lady Mauleverer, a fine young widow’.<sup>59</sup> She was the widow of Sir Richard Mauleverer, 4th bt., (<em>d</em>. May 1689), who subsequently married John Arundel*, 2nd Baron Arundel of Trerice, and then Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. Godolphin seems to have come close to marrying her, for Evelyn even wrote to him on 20 Sept., ‘upon report of his having married the lady which did not prove true’ and about October the countess of Scarbrough reported that ‘my Lord Godolphin’s match goes on now very fast, and I believe they will marry before Christmas’.<sup>60</sup> Godolphin’s proposed remarriage was his main defence against being enticed back to the treasury. After he had attended the adjournment on 8 Sept. and the prorogation on 12 Sept., he returned to Cranbourne Lodge, where in mid-September the king stayed with him while on a hunting trip and no doubt consulted him about a return to the treasury.<sup>61</sup> Godolphin was named as one of the trustees for the young Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, at the death of his father, the first duke, on 9 October.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Godolphin was present when Parliament met on 2 Oct. 1690 and a draft of the king’s speech in Godolphin’s hand is extant, giving credence to the claim of Charles Montagu*, the future earl of Halifax, that he was in great credit with the king.<sup>63</sup> On 6 Oct he acted as a teller in opposition to Monmouth on whether to desire the concurrence of the Commons in the address thanking the king for going in person to Ireland. Also on the 6th he voted against the motion that Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, should be discharged from their imprisonment as their impeachments had lapsed. This had significant implications for Carmarthen, who noted on his list apropos Godolphin that ‘his majesty knows best’, suggesting how he could be brought into line.<sup>64</sup> On 15 Nov. Godolphin returned to the treasury as first lord, ‘to all his friends’ wonder’: Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> who wrote that ‘the restitution of the Lord Godolphin to the treasury gives occasion to many to hope for great changes at court’.<sup>65</sup> On 16 Dec. a newsletter reported that Godolphin and Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, had been added to the Cabinet Council.<sup>66</sup> On 23 Dec., William Penn was already speculating that the appointment of Henry Sydney as one of the secretaries of state would mean that ‘Godolphin and he will have great share’ in government ‘when King William is gone’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>On 11 Dec. 1690 Godolphin was named to draft two clauses to be added to the bill against the export of gold and silver. On 17 Dec. he was named to manage two conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the mutiny bill. On 3 Jan. 1691 he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for encouraging the distilling of brandy and spirits from corn. On the last day of the session, 5 Jan., he was named to manage several conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the bill suspending part of the act of navigation, and was then named to a committee to draw up reasons for the Lords insisting on their proviso to the bill. He had attended on 48 days of the session, 66 per cent of the total, and been named to 23 committees. On 8 Jan. a newsletter reported that Godolphin was one of those named by the king to be the council for the administration of affairs during his absence.<sup>68</sup> During the past session he had encouraged the attacks made by Admiral Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, on Carmarthen. In February and March 1691 he tried to block Carmarthen’s pension on the Post Office.<sup>69</sup> The treasury’s refusal to pass the warrant provoked Carmarthen to lament ‘how few friends I have in the treasury’.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Having only just returned, following the end of the session, Godolphin evinced a desire to retire again from the treasury. The king asked Marlborough to persuade him to stay in office. On 2 Feb. 1691 Godolphin hoped that the king would ‘let me live the summer at least in the country; the occasion admits of no delay’, and on 3 Feb. Sydney affirmed that Godolphin wished to retire using his forthcoming marriage as an excuse, it not being ‘convenient for a man of business that is not very young to bring a wife near the court’.<sup>71</sup> On 6 Feb. William III wrote from The Hague to assure Godolphin of his friendship and support: ‘I cannot convince myself that you desire to continue in this resolution [to quit] and that you have too much affection for me to abandon me at such a juncture’.<sup>72</sup> In reply, on the 13th, Godolphin reiterated his request, adding ‘how long my natural temper and inclination will suffer me to remain in the retirement I propose to myself, I cannot be answerable for, till I have tried it’. On 24 Feb. Marlborough reported that Godolphin ‘continues very obstinate’ in his determination to resign and on 6 Mar. Sydney informed the king that Godolphin’s ‘quitting your service is now no secret’, and noted that ‘his proceedings in other places [than the treasury] are not with that zeal for your service, as might be expected from him; he scarce comes to council, and never to the committees upon the taking of several ill-affected persons, and at the examination of them he never was present’.<sup>73</sup> Not that Godolphin was short of complaints. On 13 Mar. he protested against Carmarthen’s pension being paid out of the Post Office, and ‘the finding of £16,000 towards’ the arrears of John Granville*, earl of Bath.<sup>74</sup> Nevertheless, he did not resign, and on 27 Apr. Penn thought ‘Godolphin is the man of sway, whether good or bad news.’<sup>75</sup> He was named as one of the council of nine to advise the queen during William’s absence on campaign.<sup>76</sup> When the death of William Jephson<sup>‡</sup> on 7 June 1691 left a vacancy as secretary of the treasury, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> felt that although many people wished well to Charles Montagu, ‘I don’t see what they can contribute to it, unless they could engage my Lord Godolphin who in probability espouses Mr [Henry] Guy’s<sup>‡</sup> Interest’.<sup>77</sup> Guy was indeed appointed, and replaced at the customs’ board by Charles Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>78</sup> Montagu joined the treasury board in March 1692, and in later years the duchess of Marlborough credited Godolphin as the person ‘who first brought him into the treasury’.<sup>79</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1691 Godolphin was preparing to suggest that the financial difficulties of the government should be met by legislating for a general excise on domestic commodities, and at the beginning of July encouraged a scheme by Dr Charles Davenant<sup>‡</sup>. He also asked permission to visit Tunbridge in eight or ten days.<sup>80</sup> This was granted and later in July he attended the Prince and Princess to Tunbridge, along with the countess of Marlborough.<sup>81</sup> It was from Tunbridge that he wrote again to William on 10 Aug., that as ‘business in the treasury can be as readily, and as carefully, dispatched in my absence’, he wished to persist in his request to retire, especially as the waters at Tunbridge could not hope to free him from the distemper that troubled him.<sup>82</sup> On 20 Aug. he insisted that the post of cashier to the customs was ‘of too great consequence to be given to anybody because they want a place, but ought to be filled with such a one as is best able to execute it’.<sup>83</sup> Back in Whitehall, on 8 Sept., he remarked to the king that ‘my health makes me anxious for leisure’.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Godolphin was present on the opening day of the session, 22 Oct. 1691 and there is an extant draft of the speech in his hand broadly similar to the one delivered by the king on that day.<sup>85</sup> On 10 Nov., a newsletter noted that Godolphin’s friends in the Commons had joined with those of Halifax and Rochester, and with Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, to try to exclude Carmarthen from influence with the king.<sup>86</sup> Following a debate at the report stage of the bill regulating treason trials on 3 Dec., Godolphin was named to a committee to re-draft a clause concerning impeachments. Also on the 3rd he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for the Lords’ amendment to the bill abrogating the oath of supremacy in Ireland, and was named to manage the conference on the 5th. On 17 Dec. he was named to draw up reasons for insisting upon the Lords’ amendments to the bill regulating treason trials, chiefly the addition of a clause on peerage trials. On 30 Dec. he reported from the committee of the whole the Lords’ amendments to the bill granting an aid to the king.</p><p>Godolphin was one of those implicated by the Jacobite defector William Fuller’s testimony to the Commons on 9 Dec. 1691, but was exonerated on 24 Feb. 1692.<sup>87</sup> On 18 Dec. he intervened in the debate in committee of the whole on the report of the commissioners of accounts in order to explain why tallies were allowed before the receipt of money.<sup>88</sup> On 12 Jan. 1692 he entered his dissent to the decision to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 27 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Cornwallis on the amendment of a clause at the report stage of the public accounts bill and on 2 Feb. he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for disagreeing with the Commons on the bill, and was named to manage the resultant conferences on 5, 8, 10 February. On 19 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for better ordering and collecting the duties upon low wines. On 20 Feb. he reported progress from the committee of the whole on the quarterly poll bill, and was named to a committee to consider expedients for the preservation of the privileges of the House in relation to the bill. He then reported from the committee of the whole on the bill on the 23rd. He had attended on 80 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 29 committees.</p><p>Following the dismissal of Marlborough from his posts on 20 Jan. 1692, Godolphin continued his avowed friendship with the disgraced man. Indeed, on 29 Jan., Princess Anne received a letter containing the postscript ‘it has been taken great notice of Lord Godolphin and Cherry Russell’s being at Lord Marlborough’s lodgings so late the night he was turned out.’<sup>89</sup> He was one of those who advised the countess of Marlborough to accompany the princess in her visits to the king and queen on 4 Feb., which precipitated the crisis which resulted in the princess abandoning the court for Sion House.<sup>90</sup> On 9 Feb. Marlborough registered his proxy with Godolphin, as did Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport, the future earl of Bradford, on 16 February.</p><p>Godolphin wrote to the king on 13 May 1692 that ‘among many other mortifications’, he had suffered ‘a very severe fit of the stone, which for some days made me unable to write or do anything’, so that ‘my ill health, as well as other reasons, make me desire to be at liberty’.<sup>91</sup> On 21 June Nottingham noted that of the cabinet council, only Godolphin and Rochester defended the East India Company and did not endorse the advice to the king to proceed to frame a new charter to be offered to Parliament.<sup>92</sup> On 28 June Godolphin asked for leave to travel into the country to ‘drink the waters’, although in the event he does not seem to have gone. He continued to socialize with Marlborough and on 12 July Sydney told the king that ‘Godolphin is angry upon my Lord Marlborough’s account’, and reported that ‘the Club … are framing some design that is not for your service; whether my Lord Godolphin be in it or no I cannot tell, but he has put off his journey to Tunbridge, which he was fond of a month ago and that gives me some suspicion’.<sup>93</sup> On the next day Godolphin told the king that ‘you will find Parliament very uneasy to pay a greater number of troops in Flanders, for they grumble too much already at the great sums of money that go out of England; they will never repine at any charge of invading France and with a fleet of their own’. A month later he advised the king that with the revenue falling short of its anticipated yield, and expenditure continuing to rise, there was a need for the king ‘to fix the day for the meeting of Parliament here and also for your own return upon which will depend all preparations which are requisite to that matter’.<sup>94</sup> In August Godolphin dined at Pontack’s with Marlborough, Shrewsbury, Russell and others.<sup>95</sup> By the end of August Godolphin was engaged in acquiring loans from the City to tide the government over until Parliament met, and also advising the king on the disposal of the posts vacant by the death of William Harbord<sup>‡</sup>, which impinged on the efficient running of the treasury.<sup>96</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1692 Carmarthen included Godolphin implicitly in his list of the government’s supporters, noting that the commissioners of the treasury were to ‘speak to all their friends and to attend diligently’.<sup>97</sup> It was reported that on 5 Sept. at Newport’s house at Twickenham ‘great preparations’ had been made for a dinner for Godolphin, Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], Charles Beauclerk* 523], duke of St Albans, and ‘Lady Mazarin’, presumably the duchess of Mazarin.<sup>98</sup> It was perhaps a measure of Godolphin’s reliability and reputation for administrative competence that it was suggested in September that he might be appointed one of a commission to command the fleet, albeit in company with some experienced seamen, in an attempt to nullify the political consequences of the failure to capitalize on the victory at Beachy Head.<sup>99</sup> In early October he was rumoured to be in line for the vacant secretaryship.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Godolphin was not present when the Lords met on 4 Nov. 1692, attending the next sitting on 7 November. He was named to manage a conference on 20 Dec. to deliver to the Commons the papers brought in by Nottingham and to the resultant conference on 21 December. Following the report of this conference he was named on 22 Dec. to inspect the Journal in relation to free conferences and on 29 Dec. he was named to a committee to consider whether the resolution of the Commons, delivered to the Lords at a conference the 21st, was consistent with the usual procedure, and to consider of what was to be said at a free conference on the matter. He was named to manage the resultant conference on 4 Jan. 1693. On 21 Dec. 1692, following the report of the committee of privileges on the petition of the lord chief baron (the then Speaker of the Lords) concerning the auditing of the customs accounts, Godolphin was heard as to the transactions of the treasury in the case. On 31 Dec. he voted against committing the place bill.</p><p>At the turn of the year Godolphin was forecast as a likely opponent of the Norfolk divorce bill. On 3 Jan. 1693 he attended a private dinner with the king held at the house of William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, where Sunderland, among others, was present, an indication of the re-emergence of Sunderland as an adviser to the king.<sup>101</sup> On 16 Jan. he reported from the committee of the whole on the land tax bill that a clause should be added on the self-assessment of peers and he was then deputed to draw one up. He produced it on the 17th. On 18 Jan. he was named to manage a conference with the Commons on the amendment, and on the following day he was named to a committee to consider what should be offered at the conference when the Lords receded from their amendment, and was named a manager of the resultant conference on the 20 January. Also on the 16th he was named to a committee to draw up a clause on the bill for triennial Parliaments. Meanwhile, also on 17 Jan., he acted as a teller twice on the claim to the earldom of Banbury, both times in opposition to John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater: first in favour of hearing all the judges, and second on putting the question whether the petitioner had the right to the earldom. He entered his dissent on the outcome of both votes. On 24 Jan. he reported from committee of the whole House on the bill levying an excise on beer, ale and other liquors. Also on 24 and 25 Jan. he was named to manage conferences on Burnet’s <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em>, which had been adjudged libellous. On 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.<sup>102</sup> On 9 Mar. Godolphin reported from the committee of the whole on the progress of the bill continuing the acts for prohibiting trade and commerce with France and encouraging privateers. On the following day Nottingham wrote to him asking him to be at the Lords ‘tomorrow by 10 or a little after’, so that ‘we might dispatch the bill of privateers, which his majesty desires to have finished as soon as possible’.<sup>103</sup> He reported the bill on the 11th, and it passed the House with amendments and was returned to the Commons. On 10 Mar. Godolphin reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to review the quarterly poll and he was named to report a conference on the duchy of Cornwall bill, and subsequently to a committee to draw up reasons for insisting on their amendment. He had attended on 88 days of the session, 86 per cent of the total, and been named to 21 committees.</p><p>In May 1693 Godolphin opposed a descent on France on financial grounds. On 19 May he wrote to the king that ‘I have been so unwell the last two or three days, that I am forced to go out of town for a little rest and air, but hope to be back again the beginning of the week to receive your commands’.<sup>104</sup> On 4 July Godolphin was out of town at Windsor, but expected the next day.<sup>105</sup> Once back in London, he had to deal with the news of the losses suffered by the Smyrna fleet. ‘The consternation [is] so great in the City at present’, he wrote to the king, ‘that it is impossible to hope for any money from thence’.<sup>106</sup> Part of the summer was spent in political discussion, one meeting at Althorp in August causing much comment. Godolphin’s presence was noted among a varying cast of ‘great men’, including Shrewsbury, Rochester, Marlborough, Wharton, Montagu, and Russell. Halifax was told on 29 Aug. that ‘every politick is making his own reflection about it’, one of the more interesting being that Godolphin would be lord treasurer in a scheme of alterations for the ministry.<sup>107</sup> Not that Godolphin confined his attention to Althorp: according to information from Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> on 26 Aug. Godolphin, Marlborough and Russell went on from Sunderland’s house to Montagu’s at Boughton, en route for Wharton’s abode in Buckinghamshire.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 Nov. 1693. On 24 Nov. Godolphin brought into the House the observations of the treasury upon the report of the commissioners for public accounts, which were read and a copy sent to the commissioners. On 11 Jan. 1694, after the House had debated the intelligence failures that were the cause of the Smyrna convoy disaster, Rochester and Godolphin were deputed to ask the king to allow the ‘lords of the council’ to provide an account of when the intelligence of the sailing of the Brest fleet was sent to the English fleet. On 15 Jan. Godolphin and other members of the cabinet had to explain that they had assumed that the intelligence presented to them by Nottingham had been conveyed to the fleet by Secretary Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>109</sup> Godolphin reported from committee of the whole on 24 Jan. on the land tax bill, and on 5 Feb. on the million bill. On 8 and 12 Feb. he was named to manage conferences on the intelligence that had been received about the sailing of the Brest fleet. Also on 8 Feb. he was one of five peers deputed to draw up the reprimand of the judges for not attending the House.<sup>110</sup> On 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>, and entered his dissent to the decision to dismiss the Montagus’ petition and to affirm the judgment. On 24 Feb. he entered his dissent to the order dismissing another petition from Montagu. He reported from the committee of the whole on the tonnage bill (23 Apr.) and the paper duties bill and the bill licensing hackney coaches (24 April). In all, he had attended on 99 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. In May Godolophin was made a trustee when Marlborough executed the deed which transferred the estate of the mother of the countess of Marlborough to her sole use.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Before the king left England, he designated Godolphin as one of the ‘cabinet council’ to the queen, though he may have been irritated to have been excluded from the small committee of council charged with advising the queen, which he was not summoned to attend until late in the summer.<sup>112</sup> During the spring and summer Godolphin had to grapple with the details of the establishment of the Bank of England, the ‘thing being new in itself and against the interests of many particular persons, meets with great opposition; and besides the Act of Parliament was made in such haste, as that several parts of it are defective, and have not been so well considered as they ought to have been’.<sup>113</sup> Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> specifically records him coming to town to a treasury meeting on 14 May to agree on a method of settling the Bank.<sup>114</sup> In June he was preoccupied with the details of the subscription for the Bank, reportedly advancing £7,000 himself towards it.<sup>115</sup> A printed list confirmed that he had subscribed over £4,000, sufficient to qualify for election as a governor.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Godolphin was also annoyed by the purges planned in the revenue departments by the Whig ministers. On 28 May 1694 Sunderland told Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, that ‘there is but small progress made in the business of the commissions and the justices, the first will go on as slowly as [Lord Godolphin] can make it, who by the way has been mistaken in everything and is very much out of humour’.<sup>117</sup> In June Godolphin met with Trenchard, Sir John Somers*, the future Baron Somers, and Shrewsbury to consider the composition of the commissions of customs and excise. Godolphin made clear his opposition to ‘removing some men that are of one party and gratifying some that are of another,’ without reference to their qualifications and ability to do the job. In particular he defended Sir John Werden<sup>‡</sup>, a commissioner of the customs, from accusations of corruption and employing subordinates disaffected to the government, treating his omission as a great surprise and ‘a greater mortification to me, tho’ of late I am pretty well used to them’.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, by July Godolphin was impressed with two of ‘our new brethren at the treasury’, John Smith<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, who ‘are in a very different temper from those we parted with’, Hampden and Seymour, ‘for these love dispatch in business as well as the others did trifling, so that if we had wherewithal to work upon, I should flatter myself you would be satisfied with our endeavour, but it is hard to make bricks without straw’.<sup>119</sup> August saw the usual political meetings, centred around Althorp. Marlborough and Godolphin intended to meet Wharton there on the 14th where ‘some suspect there is a project to reconcile Sunderland and Lord Rochester’.<sup>120</sup> In late August Shrewsbury and Godolphin had approached Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, and Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> in an attempt to ‘prevent miscarriages in Parliament, especially relating to excises’.<sup>121</sup> In mid-September, Godolphin reported to the king that he had discussed with Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Coningsby, ‘very fully all my notions concerning the money to be raised for next year, and of the funds which I think are most proper, if they can be obtained; so that I need not give you any trouble in repeating the particulars’.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended the prorogation on 18 Sept. 1694 and the opening day of the 1694-5 session, 12 November. On 21 Jan. 1695 he acted as a teller twice in the committee of the whole on the treason trials bill, both times in opposition to Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, on the rights of peers to be summoned to trials.<sup>123</sup> On 16 Feb. he was named as a reporter at a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill; on 20 Feb. he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for adhering to some of their amendments and on 23 Feb. he was a manager of the resultant conference, as he was again on 15 and 20 April. On 25 Jan. the Lords considered the state of the nation: one of the subjects of contention was ‘the ruin of trade that was threatened by the Bank’, which ‘was defended by my lord president [Leeds] and Lord Godolphin and a question at last being put whither they should appoint a day to consider further of it. It was carried in the negative by 10 voices’.<sup>124</sup> According to one report Godolphin also defended the government’s naval strategy by comparing it favourably with the problems experienced under Nottingham’s secretaryship.<sup>125</sup> On 6 Feb. Godolphin reported from committee of the whole House on papers delivered by the officers of the Mint and goldsmiths during the discussion of ways to prevent clipping and debasing of money. He was then named to the committee charged with drafting a bill to prevent the exportation of money. On 9 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole House on the land tax bill. On 19 Mar. John Verney<sup>‡</sup> reported to Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, on the House’s consideration of the case of Richard Verney*, who would eventually become 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, that after the House had agreed that in the complicated circumstances matching those of Verney’s case there was a right to a summons to Parliament, effectively reversing the previous decision to which the House had come on 10 Jan., ‘Godolphin moved that the vote in Sir R. Verney’s case might be withdrawn that the votes might agree which he thought the house was in honour obliged to’, though no decision was reached on his motion.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended on the day the House adjourned for Easter on 21 Mar. 1695, and on the first day after the recess (27 Mar.), but then there was a gap in his attendance until 8 Apr., when he was presumably taking a break at Newmarket. On 13 Apr. he was named to report a conference concerning papers to be delivered by the Commons about Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup>, who was at the centre of allegations concerning the misappropriation of East India Company funds. On 16 Apr. he was named to draft a bill indemnifying Cooke for any discoveries he might make. On 17 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the Commons’ bill to oblige Cooke to account for money received from the East India Company, and also to manage the resultant conference. On 22 Apr. he was elected in equal last place (with 26 votes) to the joint committee appointed under the act to examine Cooke.<sup>127</sup> He was named on 24 Apr. to a conference on the examination of Cooke. He was then named to a committee to join with Members in taking the examinations of others involved in the scandal. On 2 May he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the amendments to Cooke’s bill. On 29 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons for a conference over the bill prohibiting trade with France and encouraging privateers, and was named on 1 May to manage the resultant conference. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the impeachment of Leeds. Also on 3 May he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill levying duties on glassware. He had attended on 99 days of the session, 83 per cent of the total, and was nominated to 23 committees.</p><p>On 5 May 1695 Godolphin attended the first meeting of the commissioners for building Greenwich Hospital, being the ‘very first of the subscribers who paid any money towards this noble fabric’.<sup>128</sup> Following his appointment to the regency in May, the Dutch agent L’Hermitage characterized Godolphin as a trimmer. On 14 May he reported that Godolphin and William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, had gone to Newmarket to attend the horse races, returning on the 17th.<sup>129</sup> At the end of May Godolphin, Sunderland and the new Speaker, Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup>, agreed to meet to discuss public affairs, particularly the parlous state of the public finances.<sup>130</sup> By the autumn the silver coinage had deteriorated so badly that it was having a serious effect on the supply of the army in Flanders. In the discussions that ensued, Godolphin appeared to favour coupling a recoinage with a devaluation. In the event, the scheme proposed by William Lowndes<sup>‡</sup> and backed by Godolphin was rejected, though Lowndes was more successful in preventing action being taken by proclamation, rather than by Parliament.<sup>131</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>According to Harley, on 20 Aug. 1695 all the lords justices ‘who can write, have written for a new Parliament or at least their opinion, except Lord Godolphin’.<sup>132</sup> Godolphin outlined his own anxieties to William Blathwayt<sup>‡</sup> on 23 Aug.: ‘God send a good issue of the siege of Namur’, he wrote, ‘for without it, we are more ruined here at home, than abroad’. Victory would create ‘a will to struggle and do all that is in our power to overcome’ any difficulties: ‘one of the greatest … next winter will be the exportation of so much money, as is required for the support of the army and the allies.’<sup>133</sup> Godolphin was expected to go with the king on his progress to Newmarket on 17 Oct., and thence to Althorp and Nottingham, and he was absent from the treasury board on 23 Oct. and 1 November.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended on the opening day of the new Parliament, 22 Nov. 1695, and was described as one of the ‘lords of the council who met about the king’s speech’, which was delivered on the following day. The speech asked Parliament to take action on the coinage.<sup>135</sup> On 3 Dec. he spoke in the debate in the committee of the whole House on the state of the nation in favour of hearing evidence of the pernicious effect of the establishment of the Scottish East India Company. On 13 Dec. he was named to a committee to amend an address against it, and was then named to manage the subsequent conference. On 4 Dec., in the debate in the committee of the whole House on the state of the coin, Godolphin seconded the motion of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, for an address against importing English coin. He emphasized the need for regulating the coinage: ‘peace in the nation cannot be preserved without it’. After a further intervention, he was named to draw up an address on the ill state of the coinage, and was named on 5 Dec. to manage the resultant conference on a joint address.<sup>136</sup> On 27 Dec. the Lords gave a first reading to the bill regulating the silver coinage, Godolphin speaking ‘against several parts of it’.<sup>137</sup> Following the second reading on 30 Dec. he was named to a committee to amend a clause in the bill, which was given the task of amending further clauses on 31 Dec. and 1 Jan. 1696. On 2 Jan. Godolphin played a leading role when the Lords extensively amended the Commons’ bill, and on 3 Jan. he was one of those given the task of drawing up reasons for a conference on the amendments. Subsequently, this committee managed the conferences on 3 and 7 January. On the 9th he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for a further conference, especially the Commons’ denial to the Lords a right of inflicting pecuniary penalties, and he was named the following day to manage the conference itself. Refusing to accept the interference of the Lords in what they considered to be a money bill, the Commons abandoned the bill and started afresh, with the new bill passing into law in January.<sup>138</sup> Godolphin reported this bill from the committee of the whole on 18 January.</p><p>On 28 Jan. 1696 Godolphin acted as a teller in a division on the East India Company bill in the committee of the whole House in opposition to Cornwallis, in favour of a motion that the trade should be carried on by a joint-stock company by act of Parliament.<sup>139</sup> On 24 Feb. he was named to draw up an address following the king’s speech informing Parliament of the Assassination Plot, and to manage the subsequent conference. The Plot may well have been a key event in turning Godolphin away from Jacobitism.<sup>140</sup> He signed the Association on 27 February. On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill for continuing several duties on wine, vinegar, tobacco and East India goods. On 31 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill granting a duty on houses to make good the deficiencies in clipped money, and on the bill to encourage bringing plate into the Mint. Godolphin did not attend between 31 Mar. and 8 Apr., and was absent from the treasury board on 3 Apr., so he was presumably taking his usual trip to Newmarket.<sup>141</sup> On 14 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference for the Lords insisting on some of their amendments to the bill continuing the acts prohibiting trade and commerce with France. Godolphin last attended on 23 Apr., having been present on 99 days of the session, 80 per cent of the total, and been named to 28 committees.</p><p>When discussing the regents, on 1 May 1696, L’Hermitage characterized them as all Whigs, except Pembroke and Godolphin, whose views were ‘beyond the ability of the most penetrating to discern’.<sup>142</sup> Questions of public credit and war finance dominated Godolphin’s summer, as did the viability of the land bank. The treasury and lord justices refused to allow the land bank commissioners to raise part of the subscription in clipped money. Godolphin opined on 22 May that some people were ‘not as uneasy as I am’ about the failure of the subscription and that some had been ‘full of objections and difficulties’. His main concern was to ensure that the troops were paid, and therefore he was inclined to be more conciliatory than most of his treasury colleagues. Frantic negotiations continued involving Godolphin and in the end the army was supplied by the Bank of England.<sup>143</sup> On 1 Sept. Godolphin wrote to Wharton that he ‘was in great hopes of being able to wait on you the 9th of this month’, seemingly for some horse racing, and on the 13th Wharton referred to Godolphin and Marlborough having recently left for Althorp.<sup>144</sup> Godolphin left London for Newmarket on 26 Sept., where he was on 29 September.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, who had been arrested in June 1696 for his part in the Assassination Plot, had made several discoveries under interrogation in early August, which implicated Godolphin among others. Although the king professed to discount his allegations, Fenwick made a fresh confession on 23 Sept., again accusing Godolphin. With the town awash with speculation, another of those allegedly implicated, Monmouth, reacted by spreading rumours about Shrewsbury, Russell and, especially Godolphin.<sup>146</sup> By the end of October Sunderland had been ‘engaged again in the old business of removing my Lord G[odolphin]’ in order to protect Shrewsbury and Russell if Monmouth was able to entice the Whigs to use Fenwick against Godolphin. Sunderland’s tidy solution was to manoeuvre Godolphin into offering his resignation as a mere gesture, but to ensure that the king accepted it. Thus, Godolphin was ‘directly tricked in this matter, and has suffered himself to be cozened into an offer to lay down, and is surprised in having his offer accepted’ into quitting on 31 October.<sup>147</sup> His resignation surprised Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, who wrote on 3 Nov. that ‘all people are amazed at my Lord Godolphin’s laying down’, adding that ‘it seems my Lord has been for resigning any time this twelve month and has endeavoured it five or six times.’<sup>148</sup> L’Hermitage confirmed that, as in the previous year, Godolphin had asked the king’s leave to resign, and this time after enumerating the indispositions which prevented him from carrying out his duties the king had agreed. Despite his great abilities, his having been chamberlain to Queen Mary, plus his adroit manner, had led to his loyalty being suspected.<sup>149</sup> To Vernon, perhaps closer to the action, his resignation was ‘no very great surprise to people, they having been prepared for it by what has been talked of this day or two’.<sup>150</sup> By 10 Nov. Wharton thought Godolphin ‘sensible now that he was not very well advised in it; and I am apt to think there never was more management than in bringing that about’.<sup>151</sup></p><p>Godolphin had not been present on the opening day of the 1696-7 session, 20 Oct., first attending on the 26th. After his resignation, he went to Windsor, and was absent until 23 Nov., the date upon which he had been ordered to attend at a call of the House on 14 November.<sup>152</sup> On 4 Dec. he was one of seven peers named to mediate in the dispute between Normanby and Devonshire over the purchase of Berkeley House, a report being made of their recommendations on the 9th.<sup>153</sup> Meanwhile, it had been decided to proceed against Fenwick by a bill of attainder. When Fenwick appeared before the Commons on 17 Nov., he was ‘told by the Speaker that the House commanded him to ask me some questions of what I knew of any peers of this realm who had acted anything against the government in particular what I knew of my Lord Godolphin’.<sup>154</sup> Vernon noted that Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup> (Godolphin’s brother-in-law) ‘first moved for my Lord Godolphin [to be heard at the Bar] and prevented my Lord Coningsby, but they altered the method of the questions, and took a better’, so Godolphin was not summoned.<sup>155</sup> On 1 Dec., at the first reading stage of Fenwick’s attainder bill in the Lords, L’Hermitage reported that Godolphin spoke to justify himself, accepting that he had been one of the last people to abandon King James, but had abandoned him when he recognized that service to him was not in accordance with the interests of his country and of his religion.<sup>156</sup> On 8 Dec. Godolphin, along with other peers, questioned whether an attainder bill was the correct method of proceeding, though the House agreed to address the issue after the evidence had been heard.<sup>157</sup> On 23 Dec. Godolphin voted against the passage of the bill. He entered his dissent against it, one of 12 peers objecting to it on the narrow grounds that ‘bills of attainder against persons in prison, and who are therefore liable to be tried by law, are of dangerous consequence to the lives of the subjects, and, as we conceive, may tend to the subversion of the laws of this kingdom’.To Vernon this vote was ‘less wondered at’ than some others ‘since it was consistent with his vote against the second reading’ on 18 December.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Monmouth’s intrigues had been exposed by Fenwick’s relatives and he was called to account for his actions. Monmouth had suggested to Fenwick a series of ways he might help to defend himself by publicizing his allegations, and that he should request that the king be asked to lay before the House the letters from the late king and queen, and others in France, intended for Godolphin, which had come into his possession, as well as evidence against Marlborough and Shrewsbury and others. The aim was to charge Godolphin ‘with a correspondence with the late queen, and to prove it, the earls of Portland and Romney were to be examined what they knew of intercepted letters, that had been shown to the king’. Papers in which Monmouth’s scheme was discussed were read out in the House on 9 Jan. 1697. Marlborough and Godolphin spoke on behalf of themselves and of Shrewsbury. On 12 Jan. Godolphin defended Shrewsbury again when Monmouth’s associate, Matthew Smith, attended the House and spoke about how he had first revealed evidence of a plot to Shrewsbury the previous February. Godolphin defended Shrewsbury’s conduct and Smith himself denied knowing anything incriminating against Godolphin when questioned by the House.<sup>159</sup> Following further examinations, and a debate in which Godolphin joined Leeds, Rochester, Nottingham and Marlborough in arguing that Monmouth was ‘the contriver of those papers, and the judgment of the House ought to be formed accordingly’, it was resolved that Monmouth be committed to the Tower.<sup>160</sup> Godolphin was then named to the committee to draw up a representation to the king on their resolution. As Godolphin wrote to Shrewsbury on 16 Jan. ‘it would be endless to repeat to you all the idle and frivolous impertinences as well as the strange and extravagant madnesses and contradictions which we have heard upon this occasion’.<sup>161</sup> On 22 Jan. he was named to draw up an address to the king for a reprieve of one week for Fenwick.</p><p>On 10 Feb. 1697 Godolphin and Rochester raised their concerns about the ineffective protection of shipping. Vernon believed that ‘something … like to what the House of Commons were framing last year’ was intended.<sup>162</sup> On 19 Feb. St Albans registered his proxy with Godolphin. On 20 Feb. Godolphin acted as a teller in opposition to Wharton in the committee of the whole on the bill prohibiting Indian silks; on 5 Mar. he was named to a conference on the same bill and on the 9th to a committee to draw up reasons for insisting on the Lords’ amendments. Presumably he was a manager of the conference on 13 March. On 8 Mar., both Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, and Charles Seymour*, duke of Somerset, registered their proxies with Godolphin. On 10 Mar. Godolphin reported from committee of the whole House a bill concerning partition of land. After 27 Mar., he attended once only, on 14 Apr., before the end of the session on 16 Apr., doubtless taking advantage of his lack of official duties to spend longer than usual at Newmarket. He had attended on 79 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, being named to 24 committees.</p><p>Godolphin spent the early summer of 1697 with the Marlboroughs at St Albans.<sup>163</sup> From there in late June he was picked up by Sunderland on his way to Althorp from London.<sup>164</sup> Godolphin then joined the Marlboroughs and Princess Anne at Tunbridge in July. Tunbridge was a convenient place for politicking: on 31 July the company staying with Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester, at Penshurst – Sunderland, Romney, Coningsby and Lord Edward Russell – came to dine with Marlborough, and on the following day Godolphin, Marlborough and George Churchill<sup>‡</sup> made a return visit to dine at Penshurst.<sup>165</sup> On 2 Nov. a newsletter recorded that ‘it is confidently said my Lord Rochester, Godolphin and Marlborough are reconciled, and some people are to be engaged by honours to be done to the family at St James’s’.<sup>166</sup> Godolphin was at St Albans again on 8 November.<sup>167</sup></p><p>Godolphin first attended the 1697-8 session on 6 December. On 30 Dec. John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Galway that Godolphin approved of his conduct in Ireland, and that this would be passed on to the king, ‘with whom my Lord Godolphin is very well, although not like as yet to be employed.’<sup>168</sup> On 13 Jan. 1698 Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the bill for continuing the imprisonment of Counter and others for their role in the Assassination Plot. On 3 Mar., in the second reading debate on the bill punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> for false endorsement of exchequer bills, Godolphin, Normanby and some others argued ‘for retaining the bill, tho’ they did not think they should be for it as it was drawn’.<sup>169</sup> On 5 Mar. Godolphin was named to a committee to prepare for a conference on Duncombe, and also to manage the conferences on 7 and 11 March. On 8 Mar., a newsletter reported that Duncombe’s bill’s was likely to be thrown out, with Godolphin ‘and a great many other speaking peers’ against it, though when Robert Yard<sup>‡</sup> reported that Duncombe’s bill had been lost by one vote, he noted Godolphin’s support for it and Godolphin’s name appeared on a list of those in favour of committing the bill.<sup>170</sup> On 17 Mar. Godolphin entered his dissent to the resolution that the appellant should enjoy Cary’s estate for the life of Mrs Bertie in the cause of <em>Bertie v. Falkland</em>. On 24 Mar. he was named to a conference on the attendance of James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> on the matter of a libel in the case.</p><p>After 2 Apr. 1698, the day on which a bill to overturn the will of Sir William Godolphin’s passed the House, he attended the king to Newmarket, the party arriving on 4 April.<sup>171</sup> During the king’s stay, ‘a new scheme of ministry [was] discoursed of; if the duke of Shrewsbury takes the stick, as it is believed he will do, Lord Godolphin shall come into the treasury again, and Mr Chancellor [Montagu], be made secretary of state’.<sup>172</sup> Godolphin returned from Newmarket to London on 16 Apr., having also played host to Shrewsbury in his house there.<sup>173</sup> That Godolphin remained close to royal counsels was revealed by Methuen on 16 Apr. when he told Galway that the king would go on 19 Apr. to Windsor, where Shrewsbury intended to meet him and that ‘as soon as my Lord Godolphin is come I shall know all that hath passed between the king and my Lord Shrewsbury and how far my Lord D[uke] will himself meddle with business’ as Godolphin had ‘promised me to speak effectually to my Lord Shrewsbury for that purpose.’<sup>174</sup></p><p>Following his return to London, Godolphin on 18 Apr. 1698 settled Pell Mell Fields (later St James’s Market House and Market Place) on his son as part of his marriage settlement with Lady Henrietta Churchill.<sup>175</sup> He was next present in the Lords on 19 and 20 April. On 6 May Methuen wrote that ‘we have been much frightened about the woollen bill, but I have at last engaged’ Godolphin, Rochester and Marlborough ‘to secure it for this session and they kept their words, and have put it off a week in such manner that I hope we shall certainly gain our point’.<sup>176</sup> On 10 May Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the bill for erecting hospitals and workhouses in Colchester. On 17 May he wrote to John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, that ‘there’s a great project depending before the House of Commons at present which I find people are willing to flatter themselves may shorten the sessions, but I must own myself not sanguine enough to expect the public will have any great advantage by it’.<sup>177</sup> On 24 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill for the more effectual suppression of blasphemy. On 31 May Methuen wrote to Galway that Godolphin had been out of town, evidently on a visit to Sunderland at Althorp.<sup>178</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1698 ‘the unfortunate book of Mr Molineux’s’ (as Methuen called it in a letter to Galway), <em>The Case of Ireland’s being bound by Acts of Parliament</em>, addressed the issue of England’s right to legislate on Irish matters, raised in particular by a bill that had passed the Commons to restrict Irish woollen exports. Godolphin helped to reduce the impact of Molyneux’s publication on the delicate issue, arranging for Methuen to show Rochester and others ‘a new draught of the linen bill’, and ‘instructed them’, as a result of which on 3 June, ‘upon a long debate the bill is openly and fairly laid aside for this session, declaring that if they in Ireland do not settle the matter before the next session it shall be again begun there’.<sup>179</sup> On 7 June, Vernon reported on the introduction of the bill for raising £2m, which included the incorporation of the new East India Company, adding that he believed Godolphin and Marlborough had ‘mediated’ an accommodation between the old company and the new subscribers, which if it succeeded would facilitate raising the money ‘with greater certainty and much less clamour’.<sup>180</sup> This may not have been the case, however, for on 1 July Godolphin entered his protest against the bill’s second reading. On 15 June Godolphin was named to manage a conference about the trial of John Goudet, and was again on the 20th, adding to Rochester’s report from the conference on the 22nd.<sup>181</sup> On 22 June he was named to a committee to examine what had been usually the method of proceedings between the two Houses after a free conference and to manage conferences on Goudet’s impeachment on 28 June and 2 July. He reported from the latter. On 20 June he was named to manage a conference on the bill for Alverstoke waterworks. On 28 June Godolphin reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to abolish ‘smoak silver’ and other payments at ‘the sheriffs’ tourne’.</p><p>In May and June 1698 Godolphin helped to promote the Aire and Calder navigation bill. He wrote to the absent Lonsdale on 17 May, promising ‘to attend very carefully the bill your Lordship was pleased to mention. Some of the northern lords in our house seem to think it against their particular interest but surely the making a river navigable in any country has a face of being for the good of the public’?<sup>182</sup> On 2 June he reported that ‘we committed the bill yesterday and the majority is for it’; however, Somerset, Normanby, Peterborough and Scarbrough among others, ‘think they have an interest against it, but I think you may depend the bill will pass in this sessions or the next’.<sup>183</sup> On 30 June George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, registered his proxy with Godolphin, just a few days before the end of the session, and just before the second reading of the East India bill. Godolphin had sat on 102 days during the session, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to 38 committees.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1698</em></h2><p>In late August 1698, Godolphin and Marlborough visited Wharton at Winchendon for Quainton races.<sup>184</sup> By the end of October Godolphin was at Newmarket.<sup>185</sup> At the turn of the year, Godolphin was seen by the countess of Sunderland as an essential mediator in the marriage negotiations between the Spencer and Churchill families which led to the marriage of Charles Spencer*, the future 3rd earl of Sunderland, and Lady Anne Churchill.<sup>186</sup> Godolphin was present when the new Parliament opened on 6 Dec. 1698. On 3 Jan. 1699 both Edward Harley and Vernon reported rumours that he had been made secretary. Vernon noted that the Whig party seemed ‘mightily alarmed’ at the news, and questioned ‘whether he be of a humour to accept it, especially as our present circumstances are’.<sup>187</sup> On 27 Jan. Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the bill to prohibit the exportation of corn for one year. Around this date he told Lonsdale that the disbanding bill had been committed in the Lords and that ‘I believe it will pass, not but that the force maintained by it is generally thought too small, but that so great a division and distraction as the loss of that bill would have proved of worse consequence, and harder to be retrieved again’.<sup>188</sup> It may have been in this debate that Normanby reflected on Godolphin, accusing him of acting for private ends, only for Godolphin to tell him ‘that those who live in glass-houses, should not be the first to throw stones’.’<sup>189</sup> On 20 Mar. he advised John Evelyn to come to an agreement with his brother, George, and thus avoid the need for the bill which was currently before the Lords, and which lapsed before counsel were heard on it.<sup>190</sup> On 29 Apr. Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the Legg naturalization bill. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the bill levying a duty on paper. He had attended on 62 days of the session, 76 per cent of the total, being named to 27 committees.</p><p>Godolphin was present at the opening of the 1699-1700 session, 16 November. On 7 Dec. Godolphin wrote to Harley returning a book, and also making a reference to the proceedings against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, the Lords on the 6th having voted that the bishop should not be allowed his privilege. Godolphin wrote that ‘the strength of the argument in the matter relating to the archbishop’s power of depriving a bishop, seemed to me to be of one side, but it must be owned the strength of votes was much greater against us’.<sup>191</sup> On 15 Dec., Godolphin was one of the friends of Shrewsbury who supported the motion that Matthew Smith’s <em>Remarks on the D - of S -- ‘s Letter sent to the House of Lords</em> was ‘scandalous, false, injurious to their House’ and to Shrewsbury, and should be burnt.<sup>192</sup></p><p>When Peterborough took notice on 10 Jan. 1700 of the Darien scheme and raised the prospect of Union, ‘the gravest men’, such as Godolphin ‘were for setting apart another day to consider the business’, which was appointed for 16 January. On A month later, on 16 Feb., Vernon wrote to Shrewsbury, ‘I find there are as great jealousies of my Lord Sunderland as ever, which my Lord Marlborough and Lord Godolphin are involved in’.<sup>193</sup> On 23 Feb. Godolphin was appointed to draw up heads to be offered at a conference on the delivery of the bill authorizing commissioners to treat for a Union with Scotland. He chaired the committee, and reported from it on 28 February.<sup>194</sup> About the same month he was forecast as likely to support the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning to allow the House to go into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 12 Mar. he entered his dissent to the passage of Norfolk’s divorce bill. He last sat this session on 25 Mar., having attended on 51 days of the session, 65 per cent of the total, and been named to 24 committees.</p><p>The illness and death of the lord privy seal Lord Lonsdale in July 1700 provoked speculation of a return to government for Godolphin as part of a revamped ministry.A return to the treasury was blocked by his refusal to serve under the first lord, Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville.<sup>195</sup> Other offices, such as the secretaryship, did not seem to interest Godolphin and the king wanted Godolphin at the treasury.<sup>196</sup> On 16 Aug. Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, informed Marlborough that the king had not altered his view, but that what he had been told about Rochester would ‘persuade my Lord Godolphin to submit to the trouble of the treasury, but nothing will be said to him of it till I hear that you have made him easy in this affair which certainly will be very much for the king’s service’.<sup>197</sup> This seemed to refer to a quarrel between Godolphin and Rochester, patched up early in September. Henry Guy served as an intermediary between Harley, Godolphin, Rochester and Sunderland as they discussed a ministerial reshuffle.<sup>198</sup> A solution was found to the problem of the treasury commission by moving Tankerville to be lord privy seal. On 12 Sept. Jersey wrote that Godolphin was ‘to come into the treasury, but not till the king returns; he desires that the vacancy may be in the treasury some little time before he goes in, which is the reason that the privy seal is given to my Lord Tankerville’.<sup>199</sup></p><p>Godolphin was expected to be in town on 14 Oct. 1700, preparatory to discussion with his political allies, in readiness for the king’s return and the sitting of Parliament. He was supposed to meet Rochester on the 15th, before they met Harley together.<sup>200</sup> On 29 Oct. L’Hermitage reported that, following William III’s return to England, Tankerville had been made lord privy seal. This prompted a belief that Godolphin would succeed him as first lord of the treasury.<sup>201</sup> However, nothing happened: on 6 Nov. Trumbull was informed that the ‘report continues of my Lord Godolphin’s succeeding my Lord Tankerville in the treasury.’<sup>202</sup> When the council met on 14 Nov., it was decided that Parliament should be further prorogued until 21 Jan. 1701. To James Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, ‘it was looked upon as pretty certain a fortnight ago’ that Godolphin would return to the treasury and the ‘warrant was accordingly prepared for the king to sign, but this matter is not yet determined. Whatever the meaning of it, it makes people think he has no mind to come in alone’.<sup>203</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Godolphin, Harley and Rochester continued to meet with each other, and with the king, to hammer out further details of the new ministry.<sup>204</sup> On 15 Nov. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, thought that since the end of the last session there had been</p><blockquote><p>a beginning with a Tory ministry and an essay made of this kind by first throwing out the chancellor [Somers] and afterwards others. Now since this Lord Godolphin … Lord Rochester and the rest of that party have been esteemed the undertakers and to be the managers in a new Parliament chosen by their interest.<sup>205</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 24 Nov. Godolphin sent Harley a letter from Rochester arranging a meeting for the 26th. There was another request for a meeting on an unnamed Sunday, for the three of them to meet the king at eight in the evening.<sup>206</sup> Godolphin seems to have helped Harley’s accession to the Speakership, sounding out Sir Edward Seymour and proposing Harley to him; Seymour did indeed nominate Harley to be Speaker.<sup>207</sup> Although Tankerville received the privy seal on 5 Nov. Godolphin was not sworn into the cabinet until 1 Dec. and a few days later first lord of the treasury. Parliament was dissolved on 19 December. One reason for the delay may have been Godolphin’s insistence that the king should accept the will of Carlos II and recognize Louis XIV’s grandson, the duke of Anjou, as king of Spain, arguing that the new monarch would soon become a ‘Spaniard’.<sup>208</sup></p><h2><em>The two Parliaments of 1701</em></h2><p>Before the new Parliament met, Guy expected Godolphin in London on 15 Jan. 1701, from where both Godolphin and Rochester urged Harley to attend to make arrangements in readiness for the new Parliament.<sup>209</sup> On 3 Feb. 1701 Godolphin and the other treasury commissioners took the oaths of office in Chancery.<sup>210</sup> Godolphin was present on 10 Feb. when the new Parliament opened, and supported a ‘tepid’ address in response to the king’s speech of 11 February.<sup>211</sup> On 14 Mar., both Godolphin and Rochester mildly criticized the partition treaty of 1700 and the king’s failure to take proper advice on it.<sup>212</sup> Godolphin was then named to the committee to draw up an address on the treaty. During these discussions on 18 Mar. he opposed an addition proffered by Wharton, and he duly dissented from the resolution which declared that the French king’s acceptance of the Spanish king’s will was a manifest breach of the treaty.<sup>213</sup> At the end of March Godolphin transmitted to Harley the contents of a letter from the English ambassador in The Hague, which outlined on the French response to Dutch security concerns and the Dutch decision to invoke their 1677 treaty with England. Godolphin told him that it ought to be ‘forthwith communicated to the House of Commons’, helpfully providing the lines of a proposed address to the king.<sup>214</sup> Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> presented the information to the Commons on 31 Mar., and the Commons on 2 Apr. advised the king to continue the negotiations on the basis of the 1677 treaties, and resolved in the committee of supply to enable him to do so.</p><p>Godolphin was consistent in his support for the impeachment of the Whig Lords. He made a series of protests and dissents against decisions limiting the impeachment: on 3 June 1701 he dissented from a resolution insisting on the right of the Lords to limit the time for bringing the charges before them; on the same day he dissented from including in the Lords’ response to the Commons a suggestion that the Commons should not act in a way which might tend to the interruption of a good correspondence between the Houses; and on 9 June he dissented from the decision not to appoint a committee to meet with a Commons’ committee regarding the impeachments. On 17 June he entered his dissent from the resolution to proceed with the trial of Somers in Westminster Hall and to the resolution to put the question acquitting him, and then he voted against the acquittal itself.</p><p>Writing to Lord Nottingham on 8 June, Godolphin said that he had been visited by a number of Members that there was some dissatisfaction in the country ‘with the proceedings of the Parliament’, the chief criticism being that ‘they do nothing but quarrel with one another to the neglect of the public business.’ Worried that the sentiment might make the king more susceptible to the suggestion of a fresh election, he proposed that the Commons should ‘pass some vote before the conclusion of the session which may leave a good impression with both’ the people and the king, possibly in a response to the speech to be made by the king when giving royal assent to bills; he suggested that Nottingham should approach Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, ‘or any of our friends of the House of Commons’, to arrange it, so that ‘when I wait upon you tomorrow your Lordship will have put it into such a form as may be proper to receive the opinion of all our friends together at our next general meeting’. Following the king’s speech on 12 June, the Commons’ address duly referred to the king’s ‘approbation of the proceedings of your Commons’.<sup>215</sup> He had attended on 79 days of the session, 75 per cent of the total. He had been named to 18 committees.</p><p>Godolphin spent the summer of 1701 in London and Windsor, dealing with business relating to the treasury and his role as a lord justice. In August he was sufficiently worried about the direction of royal policy to fear that the ministry did not have the king’s full confidence, and even informed Marlborough of his intention to resign when the king returned to England. He was particularly concerned about a turn towards the Whigs and its concomitant the dissolution of Parliament. On 9 Sept., at Marlborough’s instigation, Godolphin wrote a letter to him (to be shown to the king) that defended the record of the Parliament and its support for the king’s foreign policy.<sup>216</sup></p><p>On 22 Aug. 1701 Godolphin wrote to Harley that he, Lord H[alifax] and Mr [Gilbert] Heathcote<sup>‡</sup> ‘will attend you at your own house this night between 7 and 8. I have just written to Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> to desire his company at the same hour.’<sup>217</sup> This meeting related to the search for a compromise between the two East India Companies; during the first two weeks of September Godolphin, Harley and representatives of the two companies struggled to reach a compromise. By the middle of the month it was reported that they had referred the matters under dispute to Godolphin, Charles Montagu, who had been created Baron Halifax at the end of 1700, and Lord Keeper Wright.<sup>218</sup> In late September, one newspaper reported that seven of each company had waited on Godolphin and Halifax.<sup>219</sup> Yard reported Godolphin and Halifax as being present at a meeting held on 1 Oct. of the committee of seven of both East India companies which decided that Lowndes should draw up a charter for a third company to be formed out of the two existing ones.<sup>220</sup> On 21 Oct. Godolphin confessed that Lowndes’s scheme was ‘so very long that I have not had time to read it’. Once an abstract had been made, he wrote, ‘I suppose we will have a general assembly’.<sup>221</sup></p><p>On 3 Oct. 1701 Godolphin was writing from St Albans about the king’s imminent return from Holland. He was back in London on 20 Oct., although at the end of the month Marlborough assumed that he had gone to Newmarket.<sup>222</sup> Godolphin arrived back in London on 7 Nov. from Newmarket, and went on the 8th to Hampton Court.<sup>223</sup> There is no question that Godolphin advised William III against a dissolution aimed at fostering a more forceful coalition against France, although he was absent from the cabinet held at Hampton Court on 9 Nov. to discuss whether to dissolve Parliament: he was at Windsor instead, having been told the day before to begin drafting a speech for the next session. When he returned on the 10th, the king informed him of his decision in favour of dissolution, and Godolphin intimated his intention to resign. He did so following the council’s narrow approval of the dissolution on the 11th.<sup>224</sup> Some Tories were angry at Godolphin for his precipitate resignation.<sup>225</sup> Marlborough, too, it seems, was critical of Godolphin for being over hasty, as the Tories were optimistic of securing a majority in the new Parliament.<sup>226</sup></p><p>The election was inconclusive, and Godolphin on 4 Dec. 1701 encouraged Harley to come up to town in good time, as ‘the choice of a speaker will be a very decisive stroke in this ensuing Parliament’: he added that he was about to write to Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, ‘to muster up his squadron so as to have them here by the 30th.<sup>227</sup> On 9 Dec. he thought ‘we have a vary fair expectation of taking such a step in the very first day of the sessions as may be a sufficient indication of all that is like to follow’.<sup>228</sup> On 12 Dec. Methuen, in Dublin, recorded a general view that the result of the elections would mean that the king would need to involve Rochester, Godolphin and Marlborough ‘in the conduct of his affairs’.<sup>229</sup> It was the clear import of Godolphin’s letters that Harley should stand again for the Speakership, as the Tory candidate.<sup>230</sup> However, the king made his preference clear by supporting Sir Thomas Littleton as Speaker and filling the seat left vacant by Godolphin’s resignation with Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle.<sup>231</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended on the second day of the new Parliament, 31 Dec. 1701, and signed the address on 1 Jan. 1702 against the Pretender being recognized by Louis XIV. Indeed, Godolphin drafted a reply for the Commons in response to the speech, although the address actually adopted on 2 Jan. bore little resemblance to it.<sup>232</sup> His attendance was somewhat irregular and after 12 Jan., he only attended once, on 21-22 Jan., before 11 Feb., and he was then absent again until 28 February. However, his political manoeuvring did not stop: on 25 Jan. he wrote to Harley asking for a meeting with himself and Marlborough the next evening, adding the news of Rochester’s dismissal from the lord lieutenancy of Ireland that morning. On 4 Feb. he wrote to Harley to inform him that Rochester was ‘ready to meet those gentlemen at your house’ on 8 February.<sup>233</sup> On 8 Mar. he was named to a conference on the death of William and the accession of Queen Anne, an event which transformed Godolphin’s position.</p><p>As a long-term adviser to the new queen and a confidante of the Marlboroughs, Godolphin was the obvious choice for the treasury. Although not officially appointed lord treasurer until 8 May 1702 he was active as a royal adviser from the beginning of the reign: he was sworn a privy councillor on 18 March.<sup>234</sup> Even before that he had assumed an important position as a domestic adviser to the queen. On the 8th, he referred to a conversation with Speaker Harley in the Commons about the queen’s speech, and suggested that Harley draw up his own version, which could be discussed the following evening. On the 9th he added: ‘we must desire to come to your house tonight to show the draught. You may speak to whom you like to have there’.<sup>235</sup> By 19 Mar. Godolphin had adopted the cares of a leading minister, fretting about the passage of the bill settling the civil list, and on the following day noting that he had used ‘all my endeavours’ to convince Members that the matter of the king’s debts should be left to the new monarch.<sup>236</sup> Matters of high finance and politics limited his attendance in the chamber, though other matters did too: following the recess on 2 Apr., Godolphin was not present when the House resumed on the 10th, until 8 May. Part of the time had been spent at Newmarket: it was reported on 11-14 Apr. that his horse had won £3,000.<sup>237</sup> On 1 May he had written to Speaker Harley about the declaration of war against France that:</p><blockquote><p>The cabinet council was to have considered this evening of the communication to be made to the Parliament. I have not yet had any account of what they have done. The enclosed draught contains some of my notions upon that matter. I should be glad you would freely tell me how far it agrees with the form you think ought to be given to it and send it me again tomorrow morning with your alterations. If no supply be asked, perhaps the form of a message is best, but if a supply be asked, I doubt it should be desired from the throne.<sup>238</sup></p></blockquote><p>Godolphin was much involved in political management, particularly meetings with Tories. Of one such meeting on 15 May he wrote, ‘I am glad the gentlemen had any satisfaction in last night’s conversation; I had very little’.<sup>239</sup></p><p>On 18 and 20 May 1702 Godolphin was named to manage conferences on the prevention of correspondence between England and the allies with France and Spain. Also on 18 May, Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby, was given leave to withdraw his appeal of 19 Jan. against several proceedings in the Irish court of chancery, as it had been agreed to refer the matter to Rochester and Godolphin, who having heard counsel, made an award on 20 April. On 20 May Godolphin wrote to Harley that ‘Lords N[ottingham] and R[ochester] desire to meet tomorrow night at your house to consider of the queen’s speech’ at the end of the session, adding on 21 May, ‘I take it I am to be at your house tonight about the speech’.<sup>240</sup> He had attended on 33 days of the session, 33 per cent of the total, and was named to eight committees.</p><p>As soon as the session had ended, Godolphin complained to Harley about the ‘humours so changeable and uncertain’ of Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, whom ‘I never took so many pains in my life to satisfy’, over a place in the ordnance and a tellership of the exchequer. His heartfelt wish was ‘that four or five of these gentlemen that are so sharp set upon other people’s places had mine amongst them to stay their stomachs.’<sup>241</sup> Patronage requests were to become the bane of Godolphin’s existence. He once remarked that ‘I can’t help reflecting upon what I have sometimes heard fall from the late king viz, "that he wished every man that was in any office, immortal".’<sup>242</sup> Although Godolphin was accounted a Tory (a distinct advantage with the queen), it did not mean he was keen on changing personnel for political reasons; on 2 June a newsletter noted that it was ‘observable’ that Godolphin ‘has made no alteration in any of the commissioners relating to the management of any branch of the revenue.’<sup>243</sup> In December, James Lowther found the Tories ‘not a little angry with Lord Godolphin for keeping so many in their offices as he has done’ and a newsletter of January 1703 described him as ‘that great man not being given to change.’<sup>244</sup> Although not a party man, Godolphin was always interested in electoral matters, especially where the return of Members useful to the management of government business was concerned. In the election of 1702, Godolphin pressed the bishop of Exeter to ensure that Richard Jones, earl of Ranelagh [I], was again returned for West Looe.<sup>245</sup> What he did not do was to throw the weight of the court behind the Tories, a policy which engendered further criticism from their ranks.<sup>246</sup></p><p>As treasurer, Godolphin was called upon to adjudicate between the competing claims of Peregrine Osborne*, Baron Osborne, styled marquess of Carmarthen, and Halifax for the lucrative post of auditor of the exchequer. After a hearing on 3 July 1702, Godolphin refused to admit Carmarthen to the post, but also declared Halifax’s possession of the office should not be construed so as to prejudice Carmarthen’s claim when it came to be tried in Westminster Hall.<sup>247</sup> By June Godolphin was facing a challenge from the Tory wing of the ministry, particularly Rochester. In August Marlborough was in agreement with Godolphin that Rochester would ‘always be endeavouring to give mortifications’ to both of them, and that if he continued ‘disturbing underhand the public business’ he should be sent to his government in Ireland.<sup>248</sup> In the late summer, Godolphin embarked on a peripatetic existence. On 14 Aug. he was at St Albans, from where he seems to have issued an appeal for Marlborough to return to England a fortnight before Parliament was due to open.<sup>249</sup> On 18 Aug. he wrote to Harley to thank him ‘for the hint of appointing somebody to write for us. I have spoken of it to Lord Nottingham who has promised to take care of it, indeed it is his business.’<sup>250</sup> He was at St James’s for a short while, before going on to Bath. On 28 Aug. Weymouth recorded that Godolphin had ‘called here for almost an hour this day, in his way from his running horses to Bath’.<sup>251</sup> He wrote to Harley from Bath on 16 Sept., enclosing ‘a rough draught of what I have prepared for her majesty’s speech to the approaching Parliament… being also extremely desirous of your thoughts and amendments upon it before it be exposed to anybody else’.<sup>252</sup> Before Godolphin left Bath on 27 Sept., he thanked Harley for his ‘hints … relating to the queen’s speech’, and informed him that he had the queen’s leave to spend a week at Newmarket.<sup>253</sup> He was with his brother at Eton on 29 Sept., returning to St Albans and then proceeding to Newmarket, where he arrived on 2 Oct. having been ‘all the way in a kind of a struggle betwixt indisposition and health.’Having arranged to meet Nottingham on 14 Oct., he was back in London on the previous day.<sup>254</sup> No treasury board was held between 24 Aug. and 14 October.<sup>255</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1702: the 1702-3 session</em></h2><p>On 19 Oct. 1702 Godolphin wrote to Harley about Convocation. He had left a book with Harley that had been given to him by Archbishop Tenison, which showed, Tenison had told him, how Convocation showed little interest in accommodation. Godolphin hoped that the Speaker could find a way to quieten the matter, as ‘all matters of difference at this time must needs have very ill consequences both in Church and State’. He himself was not ‘willing… to meddle with it one way or another’.<sup>256</sup> Godolphin’s main preoccupation in the days leading up to the opening of the Parliament was the queen’s speech. On 19 Oct. he complained to Marlborough that he was ‘hurried out of my life … with long reasoning upon what was proper for Mrs. Morley [i.e. the queen] to say to her dear friends’, the speech having been drafted in consultation with the lords of the Cabinet and then approved in Cabinet by the queen.<sup>257</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702. He would keep up a regular correspondence with Harley about the management of the House of Commons, particularly at the beginning of the session. He was immediately determined to ensure a favourable address in response to the queen’s speech of 21 October. On 22 Oct. he wrote to Harley,</p><blockquote><p>to me it seems not a matter of much difficulty, the words of the speech leading so naturally to it. Why might it not run in words to this effect; that this state will stand by and assist her majesty in the just and necessary war in which she is engaged for the support and encouragement of her allies and for disappointing the boundless ambition of France.<sup>258</sup></p></blockquote><p>The address agreed to in the Lords on the 22nd did not use these phrases, though it referred particularly to the success of the allies under Marlborough’s command: on the following day Godolphin sent for John Granville*, the future Baron Granville, told him of the Lords’ address and made clear his hope that the Commons would follow suit ‘in which I thought he would have an opportunity of doing a thing very agreeable to my Lord Marlborough, if he would take care he might be as honourably mentioned by them as by the other House’.<sup>259</sup> Although Godolphin told Granville that he had not spoken to anyone else, he had in fact approached Sir Edward Seymour as well as Harley.<sup>260</sup> In the event, although the gist of the resolution from the Commons on 23 Oct. was the same, the wording was different, although the phrase ‘boundless ambition of France’ was incorporated; the address itself, agreed in the Commons on 26 Oct., was more fulsome in its tribute to Marlborough than the Lords’ version had been.</p><p>On 3 Nov. 1702 Godolphin wrote to Harley that he was detained at Nottingham’s office till after the Commons had sat, so that ‘I cannot speak to the persons necessary to move anything this morning there, upon the subject of your letter, but will take all the care I can that they shall be furnished with all the necessary papers for the information of the House’: Ranelagh, Coningsby, Hedges and Blathwayt would meet at the treasury ‘to adjust what shall be opened to the House before they go into the committee, and by whom, unless you offer me a more proper method’. As planned, when the order of the day was read on the 4th for the Commons to go into a committee of supply, the House agreed an address to ask for copies of the treaties relating to the war. These were provided on the 6th and included detailed breakdowns of the financial commitments of the crown to the allies. Meanwhile on 4 Nov. Godolphin grumbled to Harley about ‘how untowardly we proceed about our land forces’, having complained to the solicitor general, Sir Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, who seemed to think another meeting at Harley’s might adjust matters. In response Godolphin noted that he was ‘so out of patience with Sir Edward S[eymour] that I am sure I can meet him nowhere but to scold’.<sup>261</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, by 7 Nov. 1702 Godolphin could write to Harley, presumably apropos the committee of the whole on supply in the Commons, that</p><blockquote><p>the votes of yesterday with the assurances which I have had that no angry thing shall be stirred in the House of Lords without further provocation from the House of Commons, give a fair prospect of a speedy and quiet end of this session, of which I am extremely glad for many reasons that you need not be troubled with particularly till I see you, and I wish that might be either at your own house or mine Sunday about nine at night, as will be most easy to you.<sup>262</sup></p></blockquote><p>Three days later Godolphin asked Harley ‘if the bill about occasional conformity is to extend to any persons that are not her majesty’s natural born subjects’, because Granville had asked the queen ‘if the prince would have any clause offered to exempt him from the force of the intended act’.<sup>263</sup> More evidence of Godolphin’s attention to parliamentary management exists in his notes to Secretary Nottingham. On 19 Nov. he thought Nottingham should ‘take the queen’s commands before she rises from Council’, to get Wright, Pembroke, Buckingham, Nottingham and himself ‘to wait upon her in her lodgings within, to consider of an answer to each House’, presumably to the conflicting requests on the position of William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, as lord almoner, following the complaints of the Commons over his interference in the elections. Later that day Godolphin reported on the presentation of the Lords’ address: the queen had resisted their desire for an immediate answer ‘and took time to consider of it till tomorrow’; she hoped that the Commons would not present their address that night, ‘that she might have time to think of her answer to each House’. On the following day, ‘from the treasury chambers before nine’, he wrote that ‘if the gentlemen of the House of Commons are to meet this morning at your office, I should be glad to speak one word to you before they come’.<sup>264</sup> On 24 Nov. Godolphin reported to Harley that Nottingham had laid before the House of Lords the papers relating to the Cadiz expedition, which ‘they have been so calm as to appoint Thursday [26 Nov.] for the reading of them’. He added that if the Commons ‘suffer no new incident to interfere with the dispatch of the supplies I am not out of hopes but the session may yet end with the old year’ [i.e., by March 25th].<sup>265</sup></p><p>Following the arrival of Marlborough in England at the end of November 1702, plans for the forthcoming campaign went forward rapidly, as did the queen’s desire to provide the material basis for Marlborough’s dukedom.<sup>266</sup> This involved some complicated parliamentary management: on 9 Dec. Godolphin asked Harley if the queen’s request that Marlborough’s pension should be for her life should be communicated to the Commons by a written or a verbal message. On the 10th he arranged for Harley to have a sight of the message Hedges was to deliver to the Commons. By the 12th Godolphin was evincing concern ‘at the little success which I find the queen’s message is like to meet with’, and again asked Harley’s advice. On the 14th he thanked Harley for ‘your patience last night when I had so little and for your calm and sincere advice’, and having ‘full power’ from Marlborough he left the matter in Harley’s hands ‘to give it the form tomorrow which you think will be least disrespectful to the queen’. As Harley was meeting Members that evening, the main thing was to avoid division and added the suggestion of ‘an address to the queen showing an uneasiness for not complying with the message from the inconvenience of the precedent and at the same time a satisfaction in Lord Marlborough’s services.<sup>267</sup> Godolphin was keen to avoid any delay to supply, ‘which will undo us if it does not pass before Christmas.’<sup>268</sup></p><p>On 9 Dec. 1702, at the third reading of the bill against occasional conformity in the Lords, Godolphin was one of those arguing that although the bill was ‘just in itself’, yet it was ‘now unseasonable.’<sup>269</sup> Writing to Harley on 10 Dec. of ‘the madness of yesterday’, Godolphin hoped to consult with him that evening: ‘does anybody think’, he added, that ‘England will be persuaded that the queen won’t take care to preserve the Church of England? And do they forget that not only the fate of England but of all Europe depends upon the appearance of our concord in the despatch of our supplies’, something put at risk by the raising of this issue in so provocative a way.<sup>270</sup> On 18 Dec., before the debate on whether the Lords should insist upon their amendments to the bill, Godolphin ushered Leeds into the Prince’s chamber, whereupon they emerged for the debate, ‘without offering an objection or <em>not content</em> to any one of the questions’.<sup>271</sup></p><p>A new issue arose on that day: Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I am told advantage is taken from the clause added this day to the prince’s bill to blow up the House of Lords into the thought that this is a tack against which they have lately declared themselves so positively’ (on 9 December). This was the decision in the Commons to add a clause to the bill for settling a revenue on Prince George of Denmark, to make clear that he was not affected by the provisions in the Act of Succession disabling those born outside the kingdom from holding office. Godolphin warned Harley that the clause risked the loss of the bill, which would upset the queen; ‘I do not see how to prevent it unless upon the report so many other saving clauses be offered as will tire the House and give them a handle to leave out all the clauses of the bill and this amongst the rest.’ On 19 Dec. Godolphin wrote again more cheerfully that since the prince’s bill was not to be reported in the Commons until 21 Dec., ‘there’s no danger of its being in our House so as to disturb our passing the bill for the land tax before the holidays’. A free conference about the occasional conformity bill could also, he hoped, be put off till after the adjournment, which it was. However, on 24 Dec. (the day after the Commons had added numerous clauses to Prince George’s bill, as Godolphin had envisaged) he again complained about the action in the Commons, and warned that ‘if the prince meets with a disagreeable opposition in the House of Lords to his bill, he is obliged to his own servants for it. The whole proceeding of that House [Commons] yesterday looks to me as if they were afraid the time were too short for madness and extravagance’.<sup>272</sup></p><p>The House adjourned on 23 Dec. 1702, and on the 26th Godolphin went to St Albans to bring Marlborough back to town with him on the 27th.<sup>273</sup> He attended on 29 Dec., whereupon the House adjourned until 7 Jan. 1703, although Godolphin did not attend again until 19 Jan. (the day the House sat as a committee of the whole on the prince’s bill), owing to ill-health. On 6 Jan. he wrote to Harley, `I am now able to crawl about my own room, tho’ not without pain. As soon as I am able to go abroad I shall be glad to come to you.’<sup>274</sup> On 14 Jan. Godolphin wrote ‘I find by the stopping of the money bills the queen’s servants in both Houses are vying who shall be maddest’, which made a meeting with Harley even more necessary. Meanwhile, he asked that the Commons should delay their consideration of the bill sent down that day to clarify the Act of Succession ‘till we have tried our strength once more in the House of Lords upon the Prince’s bill’.<sup>275</sup> About January 1703 Nottingham adjudged Godolphin as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. he was listed as voting against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill, which were widely seen as wrecking its chances of success, although he was not listed as present in the Journal. On 23 Jan. he wrote to Harley on the occasional conformity business and the progress of supply.<sup>276</sup> On 24 Jan. he received the sacrament from William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields.<sup>277</sup></p><p>Despite it being reported at the beginning of February 1703 that a chapter of Order of the Garter had been appointed for choosing Godolphin, it was an honour he did not accept until the following year, probably because he wished first to be made an earl.<sup>278</sup> Godolphin last attended the Lords this session on 12 Feb. before the prorogation on the 27th. Part of his absence can be explained by his close friendship to the Marlboroughs, Godolphin being the only person allowed to visit St Albans following the death on 20 Feb. of his godson, the marquess of Blandford.<sup>279</sup> In all Godolphin had attended on 34 days of the session, 39.5 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees.</p><p>No meetings of the treasury board were held between 25 Mar. and 6 Apr. 1703 and on 27 Mar. it was reported that Godolphin and ‘most of our great men’ were going to Newmarket for ‘the horse racing the next week,’ where he duly lost ‘the great horse race … for 1,000 guineas’ to John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S].<sup>280</sup> Godolphin was again at Newmarket in April: on 20 Apr. he ordered 100 guineas to be paid to Wharton ‘for the plate run for at Newmarket’, and no treasury board was held between 20 and 26 April.<sup>281</sup> Not that Godolphin could relax his guard too much. In June Marlborough felt it necessary to warn him that conversations with Count Wratislaw had led him to believe that Nottingham ‘will upon all occasion do 26 [Godolphin] what hurt he can with his party’.<sup>282</sup> Godolphin had also to be aware of the threat to the duumvirs’ war policy from Rochester (recently dismissed from office), Seymour and Buckingham. He also had to deal with the Scottish parliament held in the summer of 1703, which saw him struggling to exact a supply without acceding to Scottish demands for an act of security. In the event, deadlock ensued and the Scottish parliament was adjourned on 16 September.<sup>283</sup></p><p>On 17 July 1703 a newsletter reported that Godolphin would attend the queen to Bath.<sup>284</sup> However, he was taken ill at Windsor on 25 July with ‘a sort of dizziness in his head, and a sickness in his stomach’.<sup>285</sup> He had returned to London by 13 Aug., and left again on the 20th in order to spend six weeks at Bath for the recovery of his health.<sup>286</sup> He stopped en route at Windsor, where he penned a letter to Nottingham on Scottish affairs, before arriving at Bath on 22 August. His convalescence, though, was interrupted by his passion for the turf, Blathwayt writing on the 25th that ‘Godolphin found himself this morning somewhat indisposed by a cold he thinks he got last night upon Lansdowne’, a nearby race course.<sup>287</sup> His health improved slowly while at Bath, and on 26 Sept. he announced his intention to leave Bath for Newmarket and to be in London by 15 Oct., while claiming to Harley how indifferent he was to ‘the hot men of either party’, and propounding a theory that the anger of the parties did not ‘arise from the same grounds; one side being moved by an inveteracy of a deep root, against anything that is uppermost but themselves, and the other only by the immoderate pride and ambition of a few men’.<sup>288</sup> He left Bath on 28 Sept. and went via Eton and St Albans, with the intention of being at Newmarket on the 30th.<sup>289</sup> On 12 Oct. he wrote from there, ‘I am better than I have been, God be thanked, tho’ not well enough to write much’ and asked Harley to ‘prepare the heads of what is proper to be said to the Parliament’.<sup>290</sup> On 15 Oct. he was still at Newmarket, but he was back at St James’s by 21 October.<sup>291</sup> His autumnal correspondence contained many references to the trouble expected from the Tories when Parliament resumed.<sup>292</sup></p><h2><em>The session of 1703-4</em></h2><p>Perhaps owing to the enhanced threat to his position, on 4 Nov. 1703 Godolphin outlined a plan of parliamentary management to Harley for the ensuing session: he had left with Hedges ‘the paper of names and settled the method he is to take in concerting matters from time to time’; Hedges was willing to ‘receive his instructions from you’. Sir Edward Seymour, he suggested, had to be called to two or three meetings at least, till his opposition asserted itself. ‘Besides these meetings and those agreed upon last night to be at your house’, Godolphin continued, ‘it is necessary above all the rest that the duke of Marlborough and you and I should meet regularly at least twice a week if not oftener, to advise upon everything that shall occur.’<sup>293</sup> Although Godolphin did not often attend these meetings, he regarded them as of singular importance, writing to Harley probably in 1707, that unless the ‘meetings be kept up constantly and those who are called come willingly to them, and with a desire to agree, I cannot think it possible to succeed’.<sup>294</sup> On 9 Nov. 1703, Godolphin wrote to Harley that Hedges had sought to ‘have consulted with me about forming the address of the House of Commons but I told him it was not proper for me to meddle in that means and desired [him] to go and take his instructions from you’. Godolphin did obtain a draft of the address on the following day before it was submitted to the House.<sup>295</sup></p><p>He attended the Lords on the opening day of the 1703-4 session, 9 November. At the end of November and beginning of December Sunderland forecast that Godolphin was likely to support the occasional conformity bill. On 7 Dec. Methuen reported that Godolphin had told Seymour that ‘it was an ill time to press this bill and if it did pass the Commons it would not pass in the Lords’.<sup>296</sup> On 14 Dec. Godolphin was listed as voting for the bill, entering his protest twice against the resolution not to give the bill a second reading and against its rejection. A report of 16 Dec. confirmed this, noting that he had ‘declared the bill to be unseasonable, that he opposed its bringing in, but at the same time allowed it to be a good bill, and voted for its second reading’.<sup>297</sup> On Christmas Day, Godolphin arranged to meet Harley at his house on the following day about 5pm, before the cabinet council.<sup>298</sup> He added that ‘I am glad to hear you talk of calming people in these holidays, and should be glad to have your directions what part I could be able to take towards making men a little more moderate’.<sup>299</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended on the first day after the Christmas recess, 12 Jan. 1704. There is a draft in Godolphin’s hand of the queen’s speech to the Commons on 21 Jan., which he had sent to Harley the day before with the request that ‘you would let me know your sense of this, or what alterations or objections you would propose because the words will not be finally settled till night’. The speech remained Godolphin’s in essence, but with subtle changes of tone which bore the hallmarks of Harley.<sup>300</sup> On 10 Feb. Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘Lowndes tells me we had so good a day yesterday in the House of Commons’, presumably in the committee of ways and means, ‘that I think I shall scarce need to trouble you any more this session about the business depending there, though I know very well that matter must always be watched from hour to hour, and there’s no such thing as safety till the black rod knocks at the door.’ He complained of a cough, which he hoped to throw off with some fresh air, proposing to visit Eton the following day; he would, he wrote, return to meet Harley on Sunday 13th. He sent a draft of the answer to the address of the Commons upon the queen’s message, with a request for any amendments to be sent back to him that night.<sup>301</sup> The answer, which encouraged the establishment of Queen Anne’s bounty, was reported to the Commons on the 12th, virtually unchanged from Godolphin’s draft. On 11 Mar. Godolphin delivered into the Lords an account of the yearly value of the first fruits and tenths, which was referred to the committee on the bill establishing the bounty.<sup>302</sup></p><p>Sir William Simpson reported that in the Lords on 25 Mar. 1704, ‘a question was put and carried that the lords of the cabinet, in not committing Robert Ferguson upon the evidence which appeared against him and his own confession when he was first brought before them tended to the endangering the constitution and other hard words’ Simpson added that neither Godolphin nor Marlborough had been present at the relevant meeting, but that they ‘laboured mightily to oppose the vote by which the cabinet was censured though not concerned.’<sup>303</sup> Godolphin entered his protest against the resolution. Godolphin got into trouble with the duchess of Marlborough when he supported the pretensions of Ralph Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, to a place in the prince’s bedchamber without realizing that he was brother in law of William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Oxford University, and a central high Tory partisan. Godolphin nevertheless thought that he could control Stawell ‘in every vote’.<sup>304</sup> Godolphin last attended during the session on 29 Mar., although on 30 Mar. he was ordered to lay before the queen the House’s report on the methods of keeping public records. He had attended on 51 days of the session, 52 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 16 committees. On 5 Apr. he held a meeting of the treasury board and then went to Newmarket, returning on the 13th, the treasury board sitting the next day.<sup>305</sup></p><p>Over the spring Nottingham’s dissatisfaction with the ministry and its policies was coming to a head, particularly his claims that the queen was being hindered from following a Tory agenda by Godolphin and Marlborough. On 18 Apr. 1704 Godolphin revealed that he had ‘had a very long conversation’ with Nottingham, replete with some threats and a demand that Archbishop Tenison and Somerset be removed from the Cabinet and the earl of Carlisle from the lieutenancy. This did not deflect the queen from ordering the removal of Seymour and Jersey, and thus preparing the way for Nottingham’s resignation and his replacement by Harley, whom Godolphin, ‘contrary to the advice of all his friends’, promoted in his place.<sup>306</sup> On 29 Apr., Godolphin went to St Albans and then to Newmarket ‘to divert himself with the racing and other sports’ for a week.<sup>307</sup> No treasury board was held between 28 Apr. and 9 May.<sup>308</sup> The failure of the queen to replace the displaced Tories with Whigs put Godolphin under some apprehension that ‘I am now to learn that till they have the power in their hands, they will always be against everything that may be an assistance to the queen and the government.’<sup>309</sup></p><p>In July Godolphin recorded his support for the appointment of Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, as dean of Carlisle, noting to John Sharp*, archbishop of York, that it had been done ‘as an earnest only’ of the queen’s intention to promote him further.<sup>310</sup> It was done at the behest of Harley, in the hope that it might ameliorate the disputes in Convocation. It did, however, create more problems with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle: Godolphin in September noted of Atterbury’s superior that ‘the bishop of Carlisle’s perverseness is very unaccountable, but a discreet clergyman is almost as rare as a black swan’.<sup>311</sup></p><p>As early as late August there is evidence that Godolphin, Marlborough and Harley were being ‘called the triumvirate and reckoned the spring of all public affairs’.<sup>312</sup> There were no meetings of the treasury board between 25 Aug. and 5 Sept. 1704 as Godolphin visited Wharton’s house at Winchendon to attend the Quainton race-meeting.<sup>313</sup> After a sitting of the treasury board on 28 Sept. he was ‘taken ill with a pain in his side’ while at Windsor.<sup>314</sup> On the 29th Jack Howe<sup>‡</sup> described his gout as so ‘violent that he despaired of going to Newmarket, which will be the greater loss to his Lordship, the season proving fair beyond what has usually been known’.<sup>315</sup> James Brydges<sup>†</sup>, the future duke of Chandos, confirmed that he had been ‘very ill of the stone and gravel, insomuch that he was forced to defer his journey to Newmarket, a sure sign of his being bad’.<sup>316</sup> He was ‘much better’ on the 30th, setting out for Newmarket via St Albans and arriving on 1 October.<sup>317</sup> On 6 Oct. Hedges wrote that Godolphin was ‘still at Newmarket’, but was expected at Windsor on 11 October.<sup>318</sup> While at Newmarket, Godolphin considered the scope of the queen’s speech. Harley was asked for his suggestions on 7 Oct., and the speech was eventually approved by cabinet on the eve of the session.<sup>319</sup> He held his next treasury board on 16 October.<sup>320</sup></p><h2><em>The Session of 1704-5</em></h2><p>Godolphin attended on the opening day of the 1704-5 session, 24 Oct., when he registered the proxy of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. In about November his name appears on a list which may have been a forecast of those likely to support the Tack. Having returned to London on 5 Nov., Godolphin found ‘the hot, angry people continue obstinate in endeavouring to give all the disturbance they can’, although Harley had been ‘very industrious’ in working against them.<sup>321</sup> On 7 Nov. Godolphin moved that something should be done to prevent the chaotic scenes that had happened on the attendance of the queen, which led to an order for the committee of privileges to consider the erection of galleries. On the following day, in the committee of the whole House Godolphin opposed the suggestion of putting into execution the orders of the House excluding spectators. On 10 Nov. he reported on what had been done in response to an order of the House of 30 Mar. about the records in Caesar’s Tower. He commented on a ‘manifestly concerted’ motion for an address to ask the queen, in negotiating the exchange of the Bishop of Zuebec and the other ecclesiastics taken in the ship <em>La Seine</em> the previous summer, to have regard to the poor French protestants in the galleys of Louis XIV. The French king, he pointed out, could hardly exchange the one for the other, the latter being his subjects; but he nevertheless supported the address, as a way of showing an ‘acceptable concern’ for Protestant refugees.<sup>322</sup></p><p>On 12 Nov. 1704 Godolphin informed Harley that with Seymour `being at last come to town’, the 14th ‘is designed for the day of battle,’ when leave would be asked to bring in a bill against occasional conformity.<sup>323</sup> The bill was indeed introduced on the 14th, and on 16 Nov. Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I find plainly it was in the power of the queen’s servants to have kept out the occasional bill’, although he did not ‘apprehend they can carry a tack or put a stop to the money, but when the bill is thrown out in the House of Lords, they will make use of that handle to throw dirt and stones at whom they have a mind to bespatter’. At least this was reassuring, for he had reported to Harley a week before that at a meeting on the 6th at the Fountain Tavern 150 Members had ‘resolved that the money bill should lie upon the table till the bill of occasional conformity be passed.’<sup>324</sup> Godolphin was more worried at the prospects for the introduction of a tack by 21 Nov., when, finding Henry Boyle<sup>‡ </sup>‘much alarmed’, he agreed to meet the following evening at Secretary Hedges’, ‘with those gentlemen of the House of Commons, to consider if anything can be proposed to defer it in that House, and at the same time to think what course can be taken to stop it in the other’. On 25 Nov. he wrote to Harley with some detailed instructions for last minute lobbying: ‘I have sent to the queen that she may please to speak to the prince to make his servants attend. I have likewise spoken to Mr Churchill to speak to him, he answers for Mr Nicholas, but not G. Clark, not Tom Conyers, the last you are to answer for’. Churchill had promised to speak to three other Members, and Godolphin had spoken to Lowndes to speak to five Members and to all the prize commissioners. Hedges had also been drafted in, and together with Harley, was ‘to summon for tomorrow night … the gentlemen of the House of Commons, who usually meet at his house and Mr Churchill particularly should be there, where they may concert who should more be spoken to and by whom, and what is there resolved may be put in practice the next day’.<sup>325</sup> After much lobbying, on 27 Nov. Godolphin felt able to report that the tack would be defeated, and that although those servants of the queen and the Prince that had voted for it should not be shown ‘present resentment’, nor threatened, ‘when the session is over, I shall never think any man fit to continue in his employment, who gives his vote for this tack’.<sup>326</sup> When the bill to prevent occasional conformity, minus the tack, reached the Lords, Godolphin declared on 15 Dec. that it was, like the previous year, ‘unseasonable, but being brought up, he thought it might be made a good one’ and he voted for a second reading.<sup>327</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, in the Lords, on 23 Nov. 1704, after Godolphin had laid before the House accounts of parliamentary grants for the previous three years, John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, launched a general attack on the ministry, which included reference to the passage of the Scottish act of security.<sup>328</sup> Godolphin’s contribution to the debate was to suggest that these criticisms were designed to prevent a ready grant of supply from the Commons, with Dartmouth later recalling that when Nottingham attacked Godolphin ‘in answer he talked nonsense very fast, which was not his usual way, either of matter or manner; but said much as to the necessity of passing the money bill’.<sup>329</sup> Halifax then moved for an adjournment, and the House ordered a committee of the whole for the 29th. This adjournment facilitated negotiations between Godolphin and the Whigs, with John Montagu*, styled Viscount Monthermer, the future 2nd duke of Montagu, acting as the intermediary. Godolphin’s ill health kept him away from the House until the 29th, at a time when his position was exposed because, under pressure from Scottish ministers, he had reluctantly advised the queen to give the royal assent to the Scottish act.<sup>330</sup> As Francis Hare<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Chichester, later put it, Godolphin defended the queen’s acceptance of the act of security on grounds of necessity, given the ‘melancholy face of things’ between the battle of Schellenberg and Blenheim: ‘the Scotch Parliament would give no money nor do any public business if the queen would not give them that act. The Scotch ministry declared they could not answer for the quiet of the kingdom an hour if the bill were refused.’<sup>331</sup> On 28 Nov. it was expected that the debate on the following day on the state of the nation with regard to Scotland would see ‘whoever hath been an adviser in it may expect to be sorely whipped’.<sup>332</sup> Simpson recorded Godolphin’s saying in the debate on 29 Nov. that ‘what had been done was to prevent a greater mischief’; it had happened before Marlborough’s recent victory at Blenheim ‘and the ministry were assured that an insurrection was unavoidable in Scotland (if they were not ratified in these bills of security etc.) which could not be suppressed but by recalling other troops from abroad where they could not be spared’.<sup>333</sup> From the Scottish perspective, John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], observed that Godolphin not only refuted the arguments used against the Scottish legislation, ‘but declared that the passing of the act of security was absolutely necessary, and said, their meddling in our business would do but harm; whereas if they would let it alone, he believed the queen might easily bring the affairs of that country to a happy settlement’. Roxburghe added that the matter was put off to 6 Dec. by the intervention of Somers, ‘in order to get a thorough conjunction’ between Godolphin and the Whigs: during the debate first Wharton and Somers, and finally Halifax had discussions with Godolphin, and concluded a deal which resulted in the debate being adjourned.<sup>334</sup></p><p>On 1 Dec. 1704 Godolphin wrote to Harley about plans for a meeting at Secretary Hedges’ two days later ‘about the roll of sheriffs’, to be followed by another on the 4th ‘of the gentlemen of the H. of Commons to concert what should be done next day about the Aylesbury business and about making the recruits and getting the 5,000 men’: he added that ‘it may not be amiss also to think of what shall be said about the business of Scotland upon which I find by Mr Sec. Hedges the angry gentlemen are very keen’. He ended the letter with the thought that ‘some measures should be speedily concerted to contain our present majority to the end of this Parliament which might also lay a foundation of having one of the same kind in the next’.<sup>335</sup> When the debate on Scotland resumed in the Lords on 6 Dec. the Tories renewed their attack on Godolphin and pressed for a vote on the Scottish act of security; the Whigs countered by suggesting ‘new acts to secure England’, such as a bill to make the Scots aliens, thereby cutting off their trade, which Godolphin supported as he thought it ‘would make the Scots wiser another time’.<sup>336</sup> When the House turned again to Scotland on 11 Dec., Godolphin supported Wharton’s proposal for the queen to issue a new commission to negotiate a Union. Godolphin survived a censure vote on 12 Dec., in committee of the whole in the Commons ‘touching the Scotch acts,’ by 209-152, ‘the Whigs and no-tackers joined against it; for if it had carried there would have been an address to the queen to know who of the English ministers had advised the act’. As James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> wrote, Godolphin ‘was never known to have been so uneasy’: he had now, however, ‘made up’ with the Whigs.<sup>337</sup></p><p>On 15 Dec. 1704 Godolphin presented to the Lords an account of quotas of ships furnished by the States General the previous summer. On 5 Jan. 1705 he wrote to James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], excusing himself for not being able to meet on the next day (when he was to go into the City for Marlborough’s feast) and arranging to meet him instead on the 7th, along with Marlborough.<sup>338</sup> On 9 Jan. he was hopeful that the Irish parliament might grant revenue for three years, ‘in case our Parliament here allows them to export linen to the West Indies, which I hope they may be willing to do’.<sup>339</sup> Godolphin attended the second sitting of the Lords after the Christmas recess on 10 January. On 11 Jan. he presented to the House the instructions given to Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> between November 1703 and May 1704, which were referred to the committee on the state of the nation. Also, on 11 Jan. he suggested a form of words by which the queen might respond to the vote of the Commons the previous day for an address in favour of Marlborough, but this was rejected in favour of a holding reply, delivered to the House on 13 Jan., and a more considered response on the 17th.<sup>340</sup></p><p>On 25 Jan. 1705 Godolphin wrote to Harley, `I am very much concerned and troubled at yesterday’s easy defeat’—meaning the passage of the place bill through committee in the Commons—‘and the business of this day coming so immediately upon it’, meaning the security of the kingdom from acts passed in Scotland: ‘I must own I think these bills will bring the greatest difficulties imaginable on the queen.’ Possibly hearing that the third reading of the place bill had been put off until 27 Jan., later that day he passed on Marlborough’s request for him to meet them that evening after nine, ‘that we may think a little what is next to be done.’<sup>341</sup> On 27 Jan. St Albans registered his proxy with Godolphin. On 7 Feb. the Lords committed the place bill ‘after a great debate’, in which Godolphin ‘and the courtiers spoke against the bill’, and ‘such amendments were ordered to be made to it as ‘tis thought will hardly be complied with by the Commons.’<sup>342</sup> When the committee sat on 10 Feb. Godolphin wrote that the Lords had ‘left out the first clause in the bill of offices, upon the uncertainty and absurdity of it, and have passed the second relating to the prize office with some considerable amendments, one of which puts the judgment of offences against that act into the courts of Westminster Hall.’<sup>343</sup> After apologizing to Harley for failing to attend ‘your meeting tonight’, on 12 Feb., he added ‘I hope the judges will do well tomorrow, and that you will not agree to our amendments to the prize office bill’.<sup>344</sup> On 14 Feb. the Commons disagreed to the first amendment of the Lords, whereupon the bill was adjourned and never discussed again, despite a reminder from the upper House.</p><p>Godolphin was absent for a few days in February 1705, going on the 14th with the court to Windsor and then to Woodstock.<sup>345</sup> Upon his return, there is evidence of him attempting to manage the Aylesbury case, which threatened to disturb a quiet end to the session. On 24 Feb. Godolphin responded to Harley’s letter of that morning in which he had ‘wished the Lords might be induced to peace, I had not quite lost all hopes of easing our present difficulties, because I found a very good disposition in some of the chiefs to have been very tractable, but what has passed since’—an address in the Commons condemning the use of a writ of error in an attempt to free those who had been arrested for breach of privilege against the Commons—‘will I fear make all compromise impossible’. The queen ‘must either deny a petition of right or else she must refuse the address of the H. of Commons in the tender point of privilege’. Further, the action of the Commons that day in ordering those involved in soliciting the writs of error into custody had made the queen’s position worse. In an attempt to find a solution, Godolphin asked Harley to visit him after dinner and before the cabinet council, ‘and I will endeavour to get the duke of Marlborough to meet you there.’<sup>346</sup> On 27 Feb. the Lords passed six resolutions on the case and Godolphin was named to consider heads for a conference regarding upon the resolutions. When he had returned from the Lords on the 27th, he wrote to Marlborough about the current position of the case, although the matter remained unresolved even after a series of conferences.<sup>347</sup> Godolphin last attended on 12 Mar., having attended on 69 days of the session, 70 per cent of the total, and been named to 15 committees. The Parliament was prorogued two days later, and then dissolved on 5 April: elections took place in May.</p><h2><em>The 1705 election</em></h2><p>On 24 Mar. 1705 Godolphin wrote to Harley asking him to come to his house about 7 in the evening, one reason for the visit being the disposal of the ‘great seal’, which ‘must not lie as long as it does; I wish you would think what ought to be done in it, as soon as you can’ (the lord keeper, Sir Nathan Wright, had come under extreme pressure from the Whigs, and would be replaced in the autumn).<sup>348</sup> In advance of the general election, a warrant was issued on 2 Apr. for Godolphin to become lord lieutenant of Cornwall.<sup>349</sup> His son became warden of the Stannaries in May.<sup>350</sup> As early as 1693 Nottingham had thought that Godolphin would not care to be lord lieutenant, and it seems that his appointment was designed to make a political point against supporters of the Tack.<sup>351</sup> It did not signal a partisan review of local government under his auspices as he did not remodel the bench, no commission being issued between July 1705 and July 1709, and it was not until 1 May 1706 that a warrant was issued to him for a new lieutenancy commission.<sup>352</sup> No treasury board was held between 7 and 25 Apr. and by 12 Apr. 1705 Godolphin was at Newmarket again. He was still there on the 20th.<sup>353</sup> On 24 Apr. Simpson reported that ‘the queen was entertained and complimented by the University of Cambridge and it is a great question whether her interest is sufficient to make Mr Godolphin [Francis Godolphin*, later 2nd earl of Godolphin, Godolphin’s son] a Parliament-man there’. Simpson added that ‘people of all sides are angry at my lord treasurer but I suppose he had rather everybody were angry than that anybody should have him in their power.’<sup>354</sup> On 27 Apr., the chancellor of the university, Somerset, thought ‘there is no dispute’ that Francis Godolphin would be chosen for the university.<sup>355</sup> This turned out to an over-optimistic: Arthur Annesley*, the future 5th earl of Anglesey, was returned with Dixie Windsor<sup>‡</sup>, defeating Godolphin junior and Sir Isaac Newton<sup>‡</sup>. His father pronounced it ‘no small mortification to me’, and on 22 May Halifax found Godolphin still ‘truly moved at the behaviour of the University‘.<sup>356</sup></p><p>Godolphin was concerned to see that public approbation of ‘Tackers’ did not in any way aid their re-election to Parliament; thus on 2 May 1705 he suggested to Harley that the promotion of several Tackers to be serjeants-at-law should be put off until the term following the election.<sup>357</sup> Given the triumph of Hugh Boscawen<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Falmouth, in Cornwall, there was even talk of Francis Godolphin being drafted in to challenge Seymour at Exeter, although wiser counsels prevailed.<sup>358</sup> Godolphin was also concerned to bring in other Members who would prove useful in managing government business in the Commons: Secretary Hedges was accommodated by Godolphin at West Looe, courtesy of Bishop Trelawny.<sup>359</sup> Godolphin may have more directly assisted in the election of Major-General Maine in 1705 by paying his election expenses.<sup>360</sup> However, he was discerning in his choice of whom to back, and a master of prevarication and dissimulation if necessary: Jack Howe’s hopes of a seat on the Boscawen interest were seemingly encouraged, but quietly allowed to drop.<sup>361</sup> Godolphin was also engaged at Woodstock in support of Marlborough’s nominee, William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Cadogan, though it proved a difficult contest: Godolphin wrote on 11 May that the ‘battle at Woodstock vexes me very much, what good will it do us to have Lord Marlborough beat the French abroad if the French at home must beat him’.<sup>362</sup> On elections, more generally, James Johnston recorded Godolphin noting that the Triennial Act had ‘spoiled all affairs in England, as they find, he says, by experience’.<sup>363</sup></p><p>The results of the elections were evenly balanced. Given that, and Godolphin’s view of the Tories following the ‘tack’, it was essential that the Whigs be brought into a closer relationship with the ministry, and in order to ensure that, to replace Lord Keeper Wright with the Junto Whig, William Cowper*, later Baron and then Earl Cowper. Johnston thought in July, however, that Godolphin ‘begins to neglect 6 [the Whigs] here, and they grow very mutinous’.<sup>364</sup> Godolphin’s neglect arose from the trouble he had in getting the queen to agree both to Cowper, and to Sunderland’s appointment as envoy extraordinary to Vienna.<sup>365</sup> During the summer, Godolphin often took refuge at Windsor, where he received visits such as one on 20 June 1705 from James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], who would become his closest political ally in Scotland.<sup>366</sup> In order to facilitate the management of the new House of Commons, at the end of July Harley sent out letters inviting ‘about 30 of the principal officers of the Crown’ to a meeting at the office of ‘Mr Boyle’. Godolphin addressed those assembled ‘in a warm speech’, that ‘there was a party that nothing would satisfy but wresting the administration out of the queen’s hands, vizt, the tackers’, and recommending John Smith for the Speakership, ‘in a very obliging manner as to himself, and in very pressing terms for the queen’s and public’s service’: Smith would be the court candidate with Whig support for the Speakership in 1705, rather than a party nominee endorsed by the court.<sup>367</sup> As an extra precaution, by the end of August Godolphin was pressing Marlborough to be in England two weeks before the start of the parliamentary session.<sup>368</sup></p><p>In August 1705 the publication of Dr James Drake’s <em>The Memorial of the Church of England</em> caused Godolphin some anguish as it pictured him as an enemy of the Anglican establishment.<sup>369</sup> Archbishop Sharp recorded that ‘he said he hoped in his distress he might have recourse to me, or words to that effect. He was often, as I thought, in great concern, and very near weeping’.<sup>370</sup> In the event, the pamphlet was condemned to be burnt in September by a grand jury of Middlesex as ‘a false, scandalous, and traitorous libel’.<sup>371</sup> From 27 Aug. to 12 Sept. 1705 no treasury board was held and at the end of August Godolphin attended the queen at Winchester.<sup>372</sup> Parliament was not far from his mind, though, and on 3 Sept. he wrote to Harley concerning the latter’s intentions of speaking ‘fully and particularly’ to Somers and Halifax, and the ‘unreasonable things’ Harley expected them to insist upon. Godolphin was happy to find the proposed Speaker, Smith, ‘very reasonable and very moderate’.<sup>373</sup> On 19 Sept. Godolphin was in London attending to yet more minutiae of parliamentary management, asking the duchess of Marlborough to write to Lady Grandison ‘in order to give her son’, John Fitzgerald Villiers, 5th Viscount Grandison [I], some ‘good advice as to his carriage in the House of Commons’, though it was to no avail as the House decided against his double return for Old Sarum in December.<sup>374</sup></p><p>On 24 Sept. 1705 Godolphin went from Windsor to Woodstock, intending to go on to Newmarket on the 26th for his pre-sessional entertainment.<sup>375</sup> No treasury board was held between 25 Sept. and 10 October.<sup>376</sup> He had arrived in Newmarket by 27 Sept. and on the 30th he wrote to Harley about the ‘thousand difficulties’ he foresaw about Parliament. He was still in Newmarket on 4 Oct., but expected to be at St Albans on the 8th and arriving back in London on the 9th.<sup>377</sup> Marlborough thought that although Rochester and Bromley would be ‘as malicious as they can’, any attack on Godolphin personally would ‘not find one half of their party stick to them’.<sup>378</sup> Johnston noted on 2 Oct. that Godolphin ‘towards the meeting of the Parliament, courts 37 [Whigs] and will do everything in 74 [Scotland] to please, or will delay everything till he be at more liberty; as for instance till 26 [Marlborough] come, he says, you cannot have a general’.<sup>379</sup></p><p>Throughout the summer, Godolphin had continued to press the claims of Cowper to succeed Wright. He finally prevailed in October, thereby fulfilling his part of the deal in which the Junto had rescued him over the Scottish act of security.<sup>380</sup> On 10 Oct. 1705 Godolphin visited Cowper and on the 11th met Cowper again to confirm the conditions upon which he was made lord keeper, and, after Godolphin had showed Cowper and Halifax a letter from the queen to Marlborough favourable to the Whigs, the two men went to Kensington to see her.<sup>381</sup> Following Cowper’s appointment, Wharton ‘jestingly’ told Godolphin that ‘he was now got into the net and must either make his way through, or else he might be in danger of being hanged in’t’.<sup>382</sup> This may explain why on the matter of Cowper’s appointment Simpson thought Godolphin ‘very uneasy as I believe, but it seems there is a necessity of gratifying the party in everything’.<sup>383</sup> As Cowper later put it himself, ‘Marlborough and Godolphin by interest of [the] late duke of Montagu applied to some of the principal lords under William and who were Whigs to carry on the queen’s business in Parliament in return for offices and great seal put into hands of Mr Cowper’.<sup>384</sup> Whatever Godolphin’s misgivings they did not prevent a public demonstration of his agreement with the Whigs, for when he accompanied Cowper into Westminster Hall on his first day as keeper on 23 Oct., ‘the conversation between them appeared very gay and entertaining which was no small mortification to the Tories.’<sup>385</sup></p><h2><em>The session of 1705-6</em></h2><p>As the parliamentary session grew closer, Godolphin devoted more time to his scheme of management. He wrote to John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, on 11 Oct. 1705, ‘this day fortnight being appointed for the meeting of Parliament, you will give me leave to put you in mind that your grace’s assistance will be very necessary, as in other particulars so in choice of a Speaker’.<sup>386</sup> On 13 Oct. he sent Harley ‘the list of the Cornish Members which I received from Mr Boscawen’ (Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup>, Godolphin’s nephew).<sup>387</sup> After Parliament sat, Godolphin continued to monitor election cases in the Commons. He helped to manage the campaign which saw Henry Killigrew<sup>‡</sup> unseat John Gape<sup>‡</sup> at St Albans in November.<sup>388</sup> On 19 Nov. he wrote to Harley, having been informed that some of his friends, such as Henry Paget*, the future earl of Uxbridge, and the Foleys, were likely to vote for Sir John Garrard<sup>‡</sup> in the Amersham election case: ‘there is not a more perverse man against us in the whole House and for my Lord Cheyne [William<sup>‡</sup>] I have power to assure he is quite out of the case, and there won’t be the least word said against his election by the counsel or any of the witnesses.’<sup>389</sup> He complained about the failure to unseat the Tacker, James Winstanley<sup>‡</sup> at Leicester, on 8 Feb. 1706, the House overturning the committee’s resolution: ‘I must needs say I think it is a great contre-temps, to fall out among ourselves, when all our strength united is not sufficient to defeat the whimsical clause’, which he felt ‘is a very weak and foolish behaviour of those who are in office to say no more’.<sup>390</sup> Godolphin had no success either in overturning the Bewdley election, where his efforts in favour of Hon. Henry Herbert*, the future 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, whom Peter Wentworth actually termed a ‘lord treasurer’s whig’, were counterbalanced by the efforts of Harley and his Foley allies on behalf of their relative, Salwey Winnington<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>391</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, asking Harley’s leave after ‘the hurry and anxiety of this day’ to ‘put you in mind that the draught of the speech must not be brought tomorrow to the Cabinet Council in my hand, and besides the amendment you may have made to it, there are some, which, upon reflexion, I think myself, more proper to be made’. Further, the winning margin on the speakership had not been ‘so great, but that it will concern the court not to be either negligent or imprudent, any false step will easily spoil this session’, and although ‘so many of our friends have played the fool… unless we have a mind to so too, it must not be resented’.<sup>392</sup> After 31 Oct. he did not attend again until 12 November. At the cabinet on 4 Nov., Godolphin passed to Cowper ‘a note across the table, desiring me to use my interest with my friends in the Commons House, to stop the bill against officers, and particularly to deal with’ Peter King<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron King, country Whig and leading advocate of the place clause and its inclusion in the regency bill.<sup>393</sup> Godolphin obtained Cowper’s agreement, but was then worried that this would be jeopardized by a defeat in the election for the chair of the Commons’ committee of privileges and elections. As he noted on 6 Nov., ‘it will be very necessary to take a little pains with our friends, not to mistake their interest tomorrow about the chairman of the committee of elections’: he worried about the impact of a defeat for the court candidate Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Wilmington, by Sir Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup>, on Cowper’s ability to exercise any persuasion over King and others like him.<sup>394</sup> Compton was, however, elected on 7 November.</p><p>Godolphin then faced a problem with the chairmanship of the committee of ways and means, the key position in managing supply legislation through the House. From December 1699 this had been John Conyers<sup>‡</sup>, and Godolphin must have acquiesced in his continuance when he returned to the treasury in 1700. Conyers, though, voted against the court in the contest for the chair of the committee of elections on 7 Nov., raising fears that the Whigs would not back his re-election. As Godolphin wrote to Harley on 8 Nov., ‘I am sorry to hear, Mr Conyers played the fool last night, but I could wish that might not be so resented as to contest against his coming into the money chair tomorrow, since his being there will, in my opinion, make the session a month shorter than else it will be’.<sup>395</sup> On the 9th, Godolphin added: ‘I hope there will be no great difficulty today in fixing Mr Conyers in his throne tho’ at the same time his behaviour shows we ought not to have taken such pains in the matter but for [our] own sakes’.<sup>396</sup> As Simpson reported on 12 Nov., ‘there was much ado to get Mr Conyers into the money chair because he is under their displeasure though my lord treasurer and Mr Lowndes had a great mind to him’.<sup>397</sup> Conyers triumphed owing to the lobbying campaign on his behalf, conducted by Godolphin, who wrote to Bishop Burnet on 10 Nov. that he had informed the queen of ‘what readiness both your Lordship and Mr [Robert] Dormer<sup>‡</sup> had both shown in putting an end to the contest about the chair of supply, which would perhaps have been very inconvenient’.<sup>398</sup> Dormer’s agreement to be absent from the vote in return for the promise of promotion to the bench seems to have secured Conyers’ re-election.<sup>399</sup></p><p>In the Lords, Nottingham moved on 12 Nov. 1705 to address the queen to lay before the House the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament on the succession and union. There was a long debate over whether it should encompass only the Acts of Parliament, or the whole proceedings: Godolphin, who, Cowper wrote in his diary ‘was most concerned in what passed in the Parliament there’, proposed the words used in the address, which were general and did not even mention the Scottish Parliament.<sup>400</sup> Godolphin only had two days notice of Haversham’s intended motion on 15 Nov. 1705 for an address asking the queen to invite the electress of Hanover to England. Tactically this was designed to damn Godolphin and Marlborough in the eyes of the queen (if they supported it) or of Hanover (if they did not). On the 13th Godolphin wrote to Newcastle ‘to prepare ourselves with some defences against my Lord Haversham’s great guns’. To that end he wanted Newcastle to ask Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, ‘whose house lies in your way and is convenient for this purpose, to desire his grace to send to such Lords as you and he shall think proper, to meet you there tomorrow morning before you go to the House’, to settle how to approach the question.<sup>401</sup> Having concerted his response with the Whigs, Godolphin successfully managed to secure an amendment of the motion so that it would instead require the appointment of a day to consider the better security of the Protestant succession, especially during the interim after the death of the queen and the arrival in the country of her heir.<sup>402</sup> Burnet later claimed to have proposed the motion, with Godolphin seconding it.<sup>403</sup> The House consequently considered the issue in committee of the whole on 19 Nov.: Wharton proposed several heads for a regency bill, to ensure the orderly transition to the heir; Godolphin moved for the judges to be called, and then intervened to ensure that particular lords justices should be named in the bill ‘for order’s sake’.<sup>404</sup> Perhaps in preparation for the debate, on 17 Nov. Somerset registered his proxy with Godolphin.</p><p>Debate on the state of the nation continued in the committee of the whole on 22 Nov. 1705, with Nottingham criticizing the disappointing campaign of the last summer. It occasioned a four hour debate, chiefly between Nottingham and Godolphin, before the committee rejected the motion, in favour of one promoting good relations between the allies.<sup>405</sup> On 24 Nov. Godolphin told Harley that the letters brought by James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Stanhope, from the king of Spain and the earl of Peterborough should be communicated to Parliament, and that ‘I believe the best way of doing it will be by the queen from the throne but then it cannot be done till Tuesday morning, the House of Lords being adjourned to that time.’ He asked Harley to come to meet him to discuss it.<sup>406</sup> The letters were presented to the House on the 27th. On 26 Nov. Henry Grey*, 12th earl (later duke) of Kent, registered his proxy with Godolphin. When leave was sought on 28 Nov to bring in an appeal (that of John Doulbin and his wife Beata) after the time had elapsed for hearing it, Godolphin resisted various expedients suggested for dealing with it, successfully moving that it might be considered on 1 Dec. when some Lords might be better informed on the issues.<sup>407</sup> He also reported to the House that the queen had agreed to print the letters laid before the House on the conquest of Catalonia, and that she would receive the address of both Houses about the allies the following afternoon.</p><p>On 6 Dec. 1705 Godolphin intervened in the debate on the ‘Church in danger’ to prevent it becoming diverted by Archbishop Sharp’s motion to ask the opinion of the judges on how the law stood in relation to dissenting schools and seminaries. Godolphin pointed out that ‘the order of the day determines what is the main question and that is to take place of any incidental question. The main question is whether the Church be in danger from her majesty’s administration’.<sup>408</sup> The Tories would be forced to contradict the queen, who had declared that the Church was not in danger. Godolphin was then named to a committee to prepare for communicating the resolution to the lower House for their concurrence, and to manage the succeeding conferences. When the Commons debated joining in with the Lords resolution that the Church was not in danger on 8 Dec., William Bromley attacked Godolphin, claiming that he had signed the warrant for sending the bishops to the Tower in 1688, and that he had been named ‘in all the papers of plots etc. since the Revolution’.<sup>409</sup> Tory tempers had not cooled by 19 Dec. when, during the debate in the Commons on the regency bill, Charles Caesar<sup>‡</sup>, attacked Godolphin ‘in a long tedious speech of railing’, for which he was sent to the Tower.<sup>410</sup> On that day Godolphin wrote to Harley of his agreement that ‘the Commons should adjourn rather than be put to find business for themselves’, and to that end he sent him a ‘draft of a speech’ for his amendment at his leisure.<sup>411</sup> Both Houses adjourned on 21 December.</p><p>On 5 Jan. 1706 Godolphin visited Halifax, who was engaged in the middle of a management meeting with the Speaker and other, presumably Whig, Members in preparation for the resumption of business after the recess.<sup>412</sup> On the following day he attended a dinner with Harley, Halifax and others designed to reconcile Harley with Halifax and Somers.<sup>413</sup> On 7 Jan. Simpson reported that Godolphin thought ‘the Whigs were stronger by 20 since the House sat by their attending the committee of elections’, and that ‘the daily injuries and provocations he receives from the Tories here have made him as is believed a perfect Whig’.<sup>414</sup> Godolphin attended on the first day following the Christmas recess, 8 January. On 21 Jan. Nicolson implied that Godolphin had been asked to prevent progress on the bill sent up from the Commons on sheriffs’ accounts: it was indeed dropped.</p><p>The major preoccupation over January and February was the progress of the regency bill, and the attempt by the ‘whimsical’ whigs to insert a clause excluding officer holders from the Commons. On 22 Jan. 1706 Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I don’t hear when they intend to proceed upon the place bill, but my thought is that the sooner it comes the better’, while the previous day’s committee of the whole on the regency bill was fresh in Members’ minds: ‘I am apt to think gentlemen will be more easy than if you give them time to harden one another’.<sup>415</sup> It was not a place bill that was eventually proceeded with: on 25 Jan., Godolphin wrote again following the completion of the report stage of the regency bill the previous night when the so-called ‘whimsical clause’, which would have disqualified all but about 40 named office-holders from the Commons after the Queen’s death, had been added to the bill. ‘You fought it so stoutly last night, and brought it so near’, he told Harley, ‘that I hope the House of Lords will be encouraged to ruffle the clause pretty handsomely, before they meet you upon it, in the painted chamber’. The Lords considered the Commons’ amendments on 29 Jan., but adjourned the debate on the whimsical clause. On 30 Jan. Godolphin told Harley that he hoped ‘we shall yet be masters of this bill in the House of Lords’. The Lords amended the clause on 31st, but the Commons rejected their amendments on 4 February. On 7 Feb. Godolphin was named to manage the resultant conference, and afterwards to draw up reasons for the Lords adhering to their amendments and the subsequent conference on 11 February. On 15 Feb. he wrote to Harley, ‘I have had this morning an account of a long tedious meeting betwixt the heads of the whimsicals and some lords of our House’, in which a compromise was thrashed out, with specific offices excluded from the Commons, rather than a blanket exclusion with certain exceptions. The Lords told them they might exclude negatively whatever they would in the next reign provided they would not disturb the queen and the present reign’, and ‘after much wrangling’, the two sides came to an agreement. Godolphin went on to ask that Harley, Boyle and Hedges take `as much pains as you can to agree this matter today, for nothing will be so uneasy to the queen as losing this bill’.<sup>416</sup> The Commons postponed consideration of the crucial clause until the 18th, when amendments including the exclusion of several offices including the prize office were passed, but the key demand of the whimsicals lost.<sup>417</sup> Godolphin was then named to the resultant conference on 19 February. On the 15th Godolphin had sent to Harley a draft of the queen’s speech to be read when royal assent was given to the supply bills for ‘your correction’, with alternative wording depending on whether the regency bill had been agreed: if it had, ‘all the bills may pass together upon Monday’; if it had not, ‘the money bills may pass tomorrow’. He ended with the heartfelt observation that ‘we live the life of galley slaves.’<sup>418</sup> Since the regency bill was then still in the balance, the money bills, including the annuities bill which helped to shift the government’s debt from the short-term to the long-term, were given royal assent on 16 Feb., when the queen made a short speech.<sup>419</sup></p><p>On 21 Feb. in the Lords, Godolphin (with Wharton, Halifax and Marlborough) opposed Lord Rochester’s motion (supported by Somers and Nottingham) to dispense with the standing order allowing 14 days after the commitment of a private bill.<sup>420</sup> After 25 Feb. he did not attend until 4-5 Mar., and then he was absent until the last two days of the session on 18-19 March. In the interim he was involved in facilitating the loan to the Emperor through a commission authorizing trustees to collect contributions. He subscribed £5,000 himself, even though to do so he was ‘obliged to sell my stock in the Bank’ held under the name of Mr Hall.<sup>421</sup> He retained some stock under his own name, a printed list from 1710 showing that he had an investment of over £4,000.<sup>422</sup> On 10 Mar. he told Harley that ‘I go to Newmarket tomorrow for four or five days and I had a mind to have shown you a draught of a speech for the queen to make at the close of the session, which I shall now leave in the duke of Marlborough’s hands for your correction’. No treasury board was held between 6-18 Mar., and Godolphin wrote from Newmarket on 14 Mar. acknowledging Harley’s amendments to the speech and expressing the hope that the Commons would ‘take some effectual resolution about manning the fleet, since that matter does but too plainly want their immediate care’.<sup>423</sup> He added that he expected to be in London on 16 March.<sup>424</sup> On 18 Mar. he was ordered to attend the queen with their address concerning the Cotton Library. By the end of the session on the 19th, he had attended on 56 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total and been named to 20 committees.</p><p>By the end of the session, the germ of future disagreement between Godolphin and Harley can be discerned. On 22 Mar. 1706 Godolphin replied to a letter from Harley concerning political strategy: with 190 Tories, 160 Whigs and 100 ‘queen’s servants’, Godolphin thought ‘our business is to get as many [as] we can from the 190, without doing anything to lose one of the 160’. The behaviour of the Tories in the previous session had ‘shown as much inveteracy and as little sense as was possible’, and even if some of them could be separated from their fellows they would be unreliable. Any move towards them would result in a loss of Whig support.<sup>425</sup> Such matters were of practical import as ministerial changes were expected. On 30 Mar. Ralph Bridges reported the queen’s imminent return from Windsor, ‘where the two great ministers have accompanied her majesty these holidays, in order, as they say, to determine the changes in the ministry so long discoursed of, which are also to be accompanied with several new honours and all they say in favour of the Whig party.’<sup>426</sup> On 2 Apr. Simpson believed that ‘Godolphin ‘has taken pains with the Whigs to reconcile them to him, which was easier to do because the solicitor [Harcourt] joined with them in the question about places and some other great points and now they talk of making him attorney’.<sup>427</sup> No treasury board was held between 30 Mar. and 12 Apr., Godolphin paying a second visit to Newmarket, and asking ask Harley on 4 Apr. to ‘let me know precisely when you think the duke of Marlborough will go, because my coming or stay here depends upon the certainty of it’.<sup>428</sup> When nothing happened Godolphin evinced some concern on 16 Apr. over the pressure he was coming under from Somers ‘and his friends’ for ministerial changes, mainly the inclusion of Sunderland at the expense of Harley, ‘and I am sorry to say they are not all so reasonable as is certainly very necessary, for their own sakes as well as for everybody else’. No doubt, too, he had to deal with Sarah’s advocacy of Whig claims, saying on 19 Apr. that the main reason for his trip to Windsor was ‘to let her see the unreasonableness of her friends in some particulars’. Godolphin’s concerns were magnified by the knowledge that the queen would resist Junto demands for office: the ‘matter goes so much uphill with her, that she will hate one for endeavouring to persuade her to half of what is really necessary for her own good’.<sup>429</sup></p><p>On 23 Apr. 1706 Godolphin recorded that ‘we gave yesterday the first proposal for a union to the commissioners of Scotland’.<sup>430</sup> On 30 Apr. Simpson reported that Godolphin had ‘returned late from meeting with union commissioners ‘and said that by endeavouring to unite others he should break himself. If we were in earnest for a union I don’t think our great man would take so much pains at conferences I am afraid all is but grimace.’<sup>431</sup> Godolphin’s main political concern over the Union negotiations was to ensure that the Junto did not dominate the Scottish representation in the new legislature. He spoke on 12 June at a meeting of the commissioners on the proposed representation of the Scots in the Commons.<sup>432</sup> Financially, one of his major tasks was to negotiate the Equivalent (compensation for Scotland having taken on the debts of England incurred before the Union), which was agreed in July.<sup>433</sup> He was also involved in lobbying Scottish politicians, such Roxburghe, to support the Union, as well as nagging his English counterparts, such as Newcastle, to make the effort to be present to sign the treaty. <sup>434</sup> The the Treaty of Union was completed on 22 July, though Godolphin was well aware that the Tories would oppose it in Parliament and already ‘it begins to be preached up and down that the Church is in danger from this Union.’ To which he coupled the complaint that ‘there’s no end of … the folly of the other [the Whigs] in affecting to bring in none but their own creatures and not making the bottom broad enough to be durable’.<sup>435</sup> The Scots had their uses, however, as Johnston revealed on 21 Sept.: the Whigs were upset that the Scottish commissioners had ‘betrayed’ to Godolphin what passed between them, Godolphin owning that ‘he never knew so much of 32 [the Whig Lords’] disposition with respects to himself, as he has done since 67 [the treaty].<sup>436</sup></p><p>The prospect of taking Ostend in May 1706, and with it a direct link into the markets of the Spanish Netherlands, saw Godolphin keen to ensure that the possibilities for trade were enhanced by executive action and then parliamentary statute, with all laws dealing with the prohibition of lace being lifted in the following session. In early June Godolphin had to deal with a threat from Ormond to quit his Irish lieutenancy, an inconvenience given the pretensions of Wharton to the post. Also in June he expressed his concern at the influence of George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, Marlborough’s Tory-inclined brother, on Prince George, for although Churchill ‘had contributed to make some things easy’, the ‘uneasiness’ shown at times by the Prince was attributed to Churchill. On 5 Aug. Godolphin went ‘into Wiltshire for three or four days to see my horses’ at his stables at Tilshead.<sup>437</sup></p><p>Godolphin accepted the implications of his analysis that the Junto should be compensated for its political support, recognizing that Sunderland should be accommodated in the ministry. During the summer of 1706 he attempted to persuade the queen of the efficacy of such an appointment.<sup>438</sup> He utilized Marlborough’s influence to convince her, but she remained obdurate in her refusal to remove Hedges in favour of Sunderland, and it seems that Godolphin even offered to resign, on or about 20 August. In response the queen offered only to bring Sunderland into the cabinet, with a pension, until a post became vacant, while noting that ‘it is impossible to be more mortified than I am to see my lord treasurer in such uneasiness, and his leaving my service is a thought I cannot bear and I hope in God he will put all such out of his own mind.’<sup>439</sup></p><p>On 27 Aug. Godolphin went to visit Wharton at Winchendon, where he was expected to stay until the 31st.<sup>440</sup> However, on the 29th he was already at St Albans. Almost immediately he was drawn into mediating between Sarah and the queen over one of the duchess’s more trenchant letters on behalf of Sunderland, by explaining that the queen had misread Sarah’s atrocious handwriting, reading ‘notion’ for ‘nation’.<sup>441</sup> On 30 Aug. the queen succinctly summed up Godolphin’s position: ‘you press the bringing Lord Sun[derland] into business that there may be one of that party in a post of trust, to help carry on the business this winter, and you think if this is not complied with, they will not be hearty in pursuing any service in the Parliament’.<sup>442</sup> Marlborough thought that Godolphin’s ‘quitting’ was ‘wholly impossible’, pointing out ‘without flattery’ that ‘his reputation is so great in all courts as well as at home, that such a step would go a great way with Holland in particular, to make their peace with France, which at this time must be fatal to the liberties of Europe’.<sup>443</sup> Godolphin’s position was made worse by his unwillingness to hide behind the queen’s intransigence in his dealings with the Whigs, who ‘do really not see the difficulties as they are and one cannot go about to show them those difficulties without too much exposing 83 [queen]’.<sup>444</sup> Nor, as Godolphin told Sarah on the 14 Sept, could he find a way of making the queen ‘sensible’ of her ‘mistakes’. When the queen rebuffed a further attempt, he responded on 13 Sept.: ‘it gives me all the grief and despair imaginable to find that your majesty shows inclination to have me continue in your service, and yet will make it impossible for me ... I cannot struggle against the difficulties of your majesty’s business and against yourself at the same time’. He ended pathetically, ‘I have worn out my health, and, almost, my life, in the service of the crown.’<sup>445</sup></p><p>After holding a treasury board on 23 Sept. 1706, the next day Godolphin set out from Windsor for Woodstock, from where on 25 Sept. he wrote to Harley, enclosing a letter for the queen, in which he again pressed for ministerial changes: ‘I propose nothing but what is necessary for carrying on your majesty’s business, especially in this next winter, which is like to be the most critical of your whole reign’, he had written, plaintively: ‘I doubt whether all we can do will be able to keep off the peace this winter’.<sup>446</sup> From Woodstock, Godolphin went to Newmarket, via St Albans, arriving on 30 September. He was still there on the 9 Oct., arriving back at St James’s on the 12th. The plan now was to delay the parliamentary session to allow for the completion of the Union.<sup>447</sup></p><h2><em>The sessions of 1706-7</em></h2><p>In the run-up to the session, Godolphin turned his mind to more specific issues of parliamentary management. He was interested in the possibility of a treasury nominee filling the Devizes seat of John Methuen, who had died in July. In October he used Simpson to dissuade Methuen’s son, Paul Methuen<sup>‡</sup>, currently serving as ambassador in Portugal, from standing in the seat, and to persuade him to use his interest to secure the election of someone else who ‘might be useful to the government during your absence and quit it to you at the next election’.<sup>448</sup> The broad difference of opinion between Godolphin and Harley on political strategy continued in the run-up to the session. On 10 Oct. Godolphin thanked Harley for his thoughts on the subject, ‘though I differ in opinion’. He wrote that in the last session, there had been ‘an averseness at bottom’ to do anything that was thought to advantage the Whigs, though ‘without them, and their being entire, the queen cannot be served’. Now, he worried, the Whigs would be made ‘jealous and uneasy, and at best but passive. The consequence of which is that the majority will be against us upon every occasion of consequence’.<sup>449</sup></p><p>By the end of October 1706 Godolphin was anxious for Marlborough’s return ‘for several things which ought necessarily to be done before the Parliament. And your being here before their sitting down, must needs have a very great influence toward hastening their preparation for next year’.<sup>450</sup> On 12 Nov. Johnston thought that Godolphin and the Whig Lords ‘having concerted matters as to their own Parliament, seem more one than ever’.<sup>451</sup> On 15 Nov. Godolphin wrote to Harley that he did not think the Scots would ‘proceed upon the Union till they have perfected their act for security of their church’: in the meantime, he suggested ‘the pretext of the floods’ could be used for putting off the meeting of Parliament.<sup>452</sup> On 19 Nov. Godolphin was ‘so taken up’ with Marlborough and two meetings of the council that he could not see Sir David Nairne about Scottish affairs.<sup>453</sup> Before the session began, Godolphin and Marlborough finally persuaded Harley of the need for the appointment of Sunderland, rather than Harley’s alternative scheme, at a conference between the three men taking place on 20 November.<sup>454</sup> At last the impasse was solved by the resignation of Hedges and the appointment of Sunderland on 3 Dec., the opening day in the 1706-7 session.</p><p>In a list of promotions in the peerage in Godolphin’s hand on 29 Nov. 1706, Harley had inserted Godolphin’s advancement to an earldom.<sup>455</sup> On 6 Dec. Harley sent to Godolphin’s son a draft by Erasmus Lewis of a preamble for his father’s patent, ‘my Lord’s great modesty made me afraid of displeasing him, therefore you will find only matter of fact mentioned without any embellishment: your great judgment in the language as well as the interest you have in it, makes me desirous to have it submitted to your correction’.<sup>456</sup> In 1711 Peter Wentworth recalled that Lewis had drawn up Godolphin’s patent, which he had then given to Hare, ‘and after they had both modelled it, my Lord had the modesty to strike out above half, for as ‘twas to be supposed what the queen says, he thought ‘twas too many compliments for her to make to anybody’.<sup>457</sup> Godolphin was introduced into the Lords as earl of Godolphin on 30 Dec. by Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl of Bridgwater, and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl Manchester. He attended on the first day after the recess, 7 Jan. 1707, and then only on 14 Jan. until 15 Feb., possibly in part due to ill-health for on 4 Feb. Johnston referred to him having been ill.<sup>458</sup> On the 14th Kent registered his proxy with Godolphin, who on that day spoke against ‘Nottingham’s motion for the articles of the Union’, which ‘was quashed by [the] lord treasurer without a question’.<sup>459</sup> According to Luttrell, Godolphin said that ‘the articles were near finished in Scotland, after which would be soon brought before the Parliament here’, and after being supported by Wharton, Somers and others, the matter dropped.<sup>460</sup> On 17 Jan. Johnston thought that the Whigs had done so much for Godolphin that he seemed to be entirely for the Union.<sup>461</sup> On 28 Jan. the Articles of Union were read in the Lords, along with the Scottish Act ratifying it, and the Scottish Act to protect the position of the Scottish church. Godolphin informed Harley that a bill for the security of the Church of England had been ordered by the House of Lords that day, and had been ‘brought in with very good intentions and chiefly to hinder the House of Commons from beginning with that matter. I am to see it tomorrow night. I think the shorter and plainer it is the better; but something of that nature seems unavoidable the Scots having done it’.<sup>462</sup> On 29 Jan. Godolphin was present at a meeting at Sunderland’s with John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, the Marlborough, Wharton, Orford, and Halifax to consider the bill. They agreed the text, and made arrangements for its passage.<sup>463</sup> On 15 Feb., the House took into consideration the articles of Union in a committee of the whole, where Godolphin was one of those against allowing the amendment of any of the articles.<sup>464</sup></p><p>On 1 Mar. 1707 Nicolson recorded that Godolphin had spoken in favour of Nicholas Barnewall, 3rd Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland [I], during the debate upon his appeal, noting that Kingsland had married the duchess of Marlborough’s niece, Mary Hamilton, the daughter of the countess of Tyrconnell. Godolphin was not present on 8 Mar., preferring to attend at St James’s where Nicolson preached a sermon to commemorate the queen’s accession.<sup>465</sup> On 4 Apr. Godolphin was confident that the session would end with the Whigs having ‘contributed to make the sessions so easy and so much to her majesty’s advantage’.<sup>466</sup> He last attended on the final day, 8 Apr., when he was ordered to lay before the queen the report of a Lords committee on the keeping of records. He had been present on 38 days of the session, 44 per cent of the total, and had been named to three committees. Parliament was only prorogued until 14 Apr. because of ‘a wrangle betwixt the Lords and Commons’ over a bill concerning the drawbacks issue, the likelihood of customs fraud on goods transported between England and Scotland, and the desire to pass corrective legislation before the date the Union came into effect, 1 May.<sup>467</sup> On 10 Apr. Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I think the prorogation of the Parliament puts us under very great difficulties, and some resolution must be taken quickly how to get out of them as well as we can.’ He also asked him to bring with him a copy of the queen’s speech.<sup>468</sup> On 11 Apr. Godolphin wrote to Harley that ‘all the Scots will pour in upon us next week, I wish before they come we could pour out the English, and that I might go Monday to Newmarket’.<sup>469</sup> No treasury board was held between 12-22 Apr. and Godolphin duly went to Newmarket on the 14th, for four or five days.<sup>470</sup> Godolphin attended the brief session on 3 out of the six days, 21, 23 and 24 April.</p><p>The short April 1707 session failed to resolve the problem of fraud associated with the Union, which continued to exercise Godolphin. John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar, reported on 29 July 1707 that Godolphin had said that favour would be shown to the Scottish merchants ‘which was not contrary to the opinion of the queen’s counsel learned, and further he nor none of the queen’s servants durst advise her majesty to do without hazarding their heads.’<sup>471</sup> The Union also presented Godolphin with the problem of integrating the two systems of government, and the political problem of managing the expectations of Scottish politicians.<sup>472</sup> On 2 May 1707 he was summoned to a meeting with Sunderland, Cowper, Pembroke ‘and some of the Scotch Lords to consider the constitution of the Privy Council’; on 14 May he was ‘endeavouring to fix the customs house officers for Scotland’.<sup>473</sup> At the end of the month, Godolphin quarrelled with Kent ‘about the two Scotch dukes’ created before 1 May, ‘contrary to a promise made by the treasurer and which the marquess thinks to be a slur upon the English Peerage’. There had been, it was said, ‘high words about this betwixt them’, ‘they say even in the queen’s presence.’<sup>474</sup> There was also the imminent session of the Irish parliament to consider, plus the military situation in Spain following the defeat at Almanza, and planning for the descent upon Toulon.<sup>475</sup> The affairs of the East India Companies also came under the purview of the lord treasurer. Between February 1707 and September 1708 he was often called on to facilitate negotiations between the two companies, or to deal with the detrimental effect of their currency transactions on the remittance of funds for the payment of troops in Flanders.<sup>476</sup> After Godolphin’s mediation, letters patent were issued of the agreement uniting the two companies in September.<sup>477</sup></p><p>Ecclesiastical matters also intruded into Godolphin’s consciousness. The death of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, in November 1706 provided Godolphin with the opportunity to fulfil promises to his fellow Cornishman, Bishop Trelawny of Exeter, for advancement in the Church, in return for his electoral interest.<sup>478</sup> However, Trelawny was not popular with the Whigs and there was competition for the vacant see from Burnet, and so Trelawny had to wait for his long promised the promotion.<sup>479</sup> In February 1707, the death of William Jane, the regius professor of divinity at Oxford, saw Godolphin, Marlborough and the Whigs espousing the claims of John Potter<sup>†</sup>, the future archbishop of Canterbury, but his promotion was put on hold because the queen preferred George Smalridge*, the future bishop of Bristol.<sup>480</sup> In February, following the death of Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, the Whigs put together a compromise scheme whereby Samuel Freeman, dean of Peterborough would succeed Stratford; White Kennet<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, would succeed Freeman and Charles Trimnell*, the future bishop of Norwich, would replace Trelawny.<sup>481</sup> Unfortunately, the queen had already promised the vacant see of Exeter to Offspring Blackall*, who would eventually become its bishop, and that of Chester to Sir William Dawes*, who would also succeed there. She refused to break her word.<sup>482</sup> The Junto interpreted the subsequent indecision as a sign of Godolphin’s bad faith.<sup>483</sup> This was not helped by the fact that within a few days of the death of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, at the end of May, he was replaced by Bishop Moore of Norwich; Trelawny was translated to Winchester on 7 June; and later in June Godolphin secured the deanery of St Paul’s for his brother, Henry.<sup>484</sup> As early as June 1707 Godolphin was hoping to leave the bishoprics of Chester, Exeter and Norwich vacant until Marlborough’s return, trusting that ‘before winter things will jumble into a better posture’.<sup>485</sup> In the event, the issue was resolved in January 1708 when the queen kept her promise to Blackall and Dawes, Trimnell got Norwich, and Potter the chair of divinity.</p><p>By the end of June 1707 Godolphin feared a difficult winter in Parliament, as the queen’s ‘proceedings in some things will give 89 [Whigs] a handle to be uneasy and to tear everything in pieces if they can’t have their own terms’. Further, Harley hated Somers, Sunderland and Wharton so much ‘that he omits no occasion of filling 42’s [the queen’s] head with their projects and designs’. As usual when he faced difficulties with the queen, Godolphin urged Marlborough to return early from the campaign otherwise ‘there must be the greatest confusion imaginable in all the affairs of 88 [Parliament]’.<sup>486</sup> By the middle of August Godolphin, writing to Marlborough, had fixed the blame for the queen’s intransigence on Harley’s ‘inclination of talking more freely than usually to 156 256 [Mrs Masham]. And this is laid hold of, and improved by 199 [Harley] upon all such matters, if not upon others, to insinuate his notions’ – notions of a different basis for the ministry.<sup>487</sup></p><h2><em>The session of 1707-8</em></h2><p>On 25 Aug. and 1 Sept. 1707 Godolphin held meetings of the treasury board at Windsor. In between, on 27 Aug. he was at Wharton’s house at Winchendon, for the horse-racing at Quainton.<sup>488</sup> On 1 Sept. Godolphin held a conference with Cowper, which ranged over matters of patronage and foreign policy, including the bishoprics crisis, wherein Godolphin revealed ‘how far he had gone to tell the queen the necessity of agreeing with the Whigs and court’, and the difficulties caused by ‘the queen’s <em>personal inclination and engagements</em> (one not being able when asked to tell her they were obnoxious to anyone)’. After a second meeting on 8 Sept., the two men also agreed ‘to consider heads for the queen’s speech’, which was ‘the best ground to speak to the queen upon [it] together’. Godolphin’s amendments to Cowper’s draft of 11 Sept., which was delivered by the queen on 6 Nov., are extant.<sup>489</sup> On 4 Sept. Godolphin told Newcastle that he hoped to arrive in London by 4 Oct., ready to assist in ‘the many difficulties of the next session of Parliament’.<sup>490</sup> Not the least of his problems was the need to set Parliament off on the right foot, for ‘in other years the encouragement to our allies abroad has often proceeded from their votes in the first week of the Parliament’.<sup>491</sup> On 18 Sept. Marlborough summed up Godolphin’s predicament: ‘if he stays in his place and does not entirely govern 239 [the queen] he will be duped by 199 [Harley]; and if he does what is certainly best for himself, quit, he will do great hurt both to the business at home and abroad’.<sup>492</sup> Godolphin did not hold a treasury board meeting between 26 Sept. and 20 Oct. and in late September he travelled to St Albans to pick up his son en route for Newmarket.<sup>493</sup> While at Newmarket Godolphin considered whether it was possible to accommodate Marlborough by deferring the meeting of Parliament for a fortnight, ‘without doing more hurt than good’: such a delay would discourage ‘our friends, retarding all our preparations, and encouraging the opposing party’. Nevertheless, ‘nothing is fixed here to make 88 [Parliament] succeed, nor can 38 [Godolphin] do anything so shameful as to abandon 42 [the queen] but upon a joint measure with Mr Freeman [Marlborough]’.<sup>494</sup> Godolphin arrived back in London on 17 Oct., having had ‘good fortune’, at Newmarket, ‘winning the queen’s plate and three other races’.<sup>495</sup></p><p>Godolphin was present on the opening day of the session, 23 Oct. 1707. Both Whigs and Tories were now willing to unite in an attack on the ministry, for its military failures in Spain, the shortcomings of the admiralty and the attempt to tidy up Scottish government after the Union. Godolphin could count on a group of ‘lord treasurer’s Whigs’, comprising men such as Henry Boyle, John Smith, Sir Thomas Littleton, Spencer Compton, Hugh Boscawen, Thomas Coningsby, and Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Orford, who defended Godolphin in the Commons from the attacks of the Junto Whigs.<sup>496</sup> Godolphin’s scheme of management also involved independent Whig peers, such as Shaftesbury.<sup>497</sup> After Sir John Cropley<sup>‡</sup> had met Godolphin in December, he reported to Shaftesbury that ‘the quarrel continues betwixt the Whig lords and the court’, with the queen reportedly saying that ‘she will never more return to consult them any more than Lord Rochester and that form of men, but will ever after trust herself in the hands of such as have never been on the stage in either party’. At the end of the month, Cropley added that Godolphin ‘has fixed his game to make a party of Whigs and Tories’, and was for ‘true Whigs that would be your Whigs and not the Junto’s’, with Newcastle having ‘gone into this scheme’ with Somerset and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire.<sup>498</sup></p><p>Godolphin was absent from the first three sittings of the House after the Christmas recess, 7-9 Jan. 1708, first attending on the 12th. On 16 Jan., Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> reported that both Marlborough and Godolphin attempted to blunt Peterborough’s lengthy and not entirely coherent criticisms of the war in Spain.<sup>499</sup> By the end of the month, Godolphin and Harley had come to a parting of the ways, Godolphin feeling that he had been betrayed by Harley, possibly over the latter revealing to the queen the shortfall in the number of troops at Almanza.<sup>500</sup> It had come on top of the growing disagreement between the two men on how to manage Parliament, and more specifically Harley’s plans for a new ministry. At some point in January Godolphin had realized that any plans for working with the Tories would not provide a majority. Harley, nevertheless, continued to work on a new scheme in secret.<sup>501</sup> This set the scene for a power struggle, in which Harley attempted to force Godolphin from office with the assistance of the queen.<sup>502</sup> Godolphin’s trump card in this battle for power was the support of Marlborough, who, although he may have wavered, came down decisively on the side of the lord treasurer, despite several appeals from Harley pleading for the opportunity to justify himself.<sup>503</sup> On 6 Feb. Godolphin and Marlborough told the queen they could not serve with Harley. Before the Cabinet met on 8 Feb. Godolphin resigned. The queen refused to accept, giving him until the following day to reconsider, but adding that ‘then he should do as he pleased, with all she could find enough glad of that staff’. When Marlborough, in turn, resigned, he was told that he ran his sword through her head. The cabinet refused to consider important business in their absence, signalling their lack of support for Harley.<sup>504</sup> The queen only abandoned Harley when ‘upon the first report of my lord treasurer laying down, many of the Members had resolved not to go into the committee of ways and means that day, so that the day was spent in business of little moment’ and the Lords threatened to enquire more deeply into the treason committed by Harley’s under-secretary, Greg.<sup>505</sup> Harley resigned on 11 February, allowing Godolphin and Marlborough to resume their roles.</p><p>Before the crisis, Godolphin had been negotiating with the Bank for a new subscription, on the one hand and drafting a proposal to the House for raising the remainder of the supply. On 4 Feb. Boyle reported that the Bank had agreed to open their books for an additional subscription of £2,200,000, ‘which will make the way easy for them to supply the government in the method my lord treasurer proposes.’<sup>506</sup> On 5 Feb. Vernon reported that at the report stage of the annuity bill a new clause was offered ‘to enact what my lord treasurer had ordered already’, that no names should be taken as money received before the act was passed.<sup>507</sup> A major preoccupation in the Lords was the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, on which the Commons had resolved on 11 Dec. 1707. As the most effective instrument of executive control in Scotland, Godolphin fought to preserve it when the legislation reached the Lords.<sup>508</sup> On 5 Feb. 1708 the Lords had ‘a long debate’ in the committee of the whole House on the bill for ‘completing the Union’ over whether the council should be dissolved on 1 May or 1 Oct.: ‘it was carried for the day already fixed in the bill by 50 votes against 45. It was chiefly argued by my lord treasurer and Lord Somers, who were of different opinions’.<sup>509</sup> After the adjournment of the committee, Godolphin tried to use the influence of the court to overturn the vote. Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, was lobbied by Prince George on 6 Feb. following Godolphin’s late night visit to the queen.<sup>510</sup> The attempt was unsuccessful. After further sessions on the bill in the committee of the whole on the 7th, Cropley noted that the Lords had passed ‘our Scotch Bill taking away the council without any amendments,’ although Godolphin ‘spoke five times against this bill’.<sup>511</sup> He duly entered his dissent to the bill’s passage.</p><p>On 14 Feb. 1708, Godolphin, on the advice of Cowper and Somers, proposed the adjournment of the committee of the whole on the cathedrals bill, promoted by Nicolson to overcome his current dispute with his high Church dean, Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, until the 19th to allow time for the queen to be informed of its import. On 17 Feb., when Bolton reported from the committee of the whole and an address critical of the management of the admiralty was moved by Wharton and supported by both Whigs and Tories, it was carried without a division after ‘a faint opposition’ from Godolphin.<sup>512</sup> As Cropley reported it, Rochester seconded the motion ‘saying the errors and mismanagements had been so notorious he blushed to name them considering the person that was at the head of the sea administration’ (who was Prince George); to which Godolphin replied ‘he should have hoped he might have blushed in making so severe a reflection on that person now at the head of the administration’.<sup>513</sup> On 2 Mar. Godolphin informed John Erskine*, earl of Mar [S], that he could not attend the committee that morning on the bill establishing a Scottish court of exchequer because he had to attend at Kensington. However, he had written to David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], ‘to make my excuse to the committee and to give the papers there which they expected from’ him, which Glasgow duly presented to the committee.<sup>514</sup></p><p>By the end of March, the ministry were hoping for progress on a bill to improve recruitment for the army. Not present, however, at a meeting of Members on 29 Mar., held under the auspicies of secretary of state, Henry Boyle, he received a report of it on 30 Mar., and wrote that ‘they will do nothing tomorrow that will be worth delaying to put an end to the session in expectation of what they may do farther’.<sup>515</sup> On 31 Mar. he attended a meeting at Speaker Smith’s at which it was decided to prorogue Parliament on the following day, given ‘the difficulty, if not the impossibility of getting any effectual bill to pass for the better raising the recruits’.<sup>516</sup> Parliament was prorogued accordingly and on 2 Apr. Addison reported that Godolphin had gone to Newmarket.<sup>517</sup> He had attended on 74 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, and been named to 16 committees. No meetings of the treasury board were held between 31 Mar. and 12 April. Godolphin returned to London on the 10th.<sup>518</sup> Godolphin had hoped that Marlborough would be back in London upon his return in order to assist in persuading the queen to admit both Somers and Wharton to office.<sup>519</sup> Upon his return the writs for the new Parliament were expected to be issued. Parliament was duly dissolved on 15 April.<sup>520</sup></p><h2><em>The 1708 election</em></h2><p>Harley’s resignation had done little to reduce the pressure from the Whigs on Godolphin; and suspicions of Harley’s continuing influence with the queen were an additional irritant. Already Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> was arguing that the inclusion of Somers in the cabinet in place of Pembroke would nullify Harley’s influence with Abigail Masham, because he agreed so perfectly with Godolphin, Sunderland and Boyle.<sup>521</sup> The queen, still resistant to Somers, was equally reluctant to advance Halifax’s brother, Sir James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, to be attorney general. Godolphin feared that the failure to include Somers would cause divisions among the Whigs, and hence make it more difficult to manage Parliament. On 15 Apr. 1708, Cropley told Shaftesbury that Godolphin was the</p><blockquote><p>most open, plain man, the freest of art and trick I have ever known. The more heartily zealous and open this Lord is, the worse and worse he grows with the queen and the higher are the terms and demands from the Oaks [Junto Whigs] when even at the same time they do own he does all he can, that never man run greater hazards than he has done to serve them… You may have wagers that we shall see this Lord sacrificed at last and Mr Harley restored and in this Lord’s place.<sup>522</sup></p></blockquote><p>And indeed, on 6 May, having read to the queen another supportive letter from Marlborough, Godolphin recorded a conversation of two hours with her in which she resisted ‘all the plainest reasons and arguments that ever were used in any case whatsoever’, while disclaiming ‘any talk of the least commerce with Mr Harley, at first or secondhand, and positive that she never speaks with anybody but 41 [Prince George] upon anything of that kind.’<sup>523</sup> About May Godolphin was classed as a court Tory on a list analysing the first Parliament of Great Britain. On 18 May he held a treasury board meeting and then went to Newmarket for a few days, where the ‘great quiet and little company’, he found there, coupled with a ‘very discouraging letter’ from the queen persuaded him to stay until the 24th. On 31 May he reported another long conversation with the queen over the merits of appointing Montagu to the attorney-general’s post, ‘which ended with the greatest dissatisfaction possible to both’.<sup>524</sup></p><p>As usual, Godolphin took a close interest in the 1708 election. In mid May, he had ‘little reason to doubt, but the next Parliament will be very well inclined to support the war and (I hope) to do everything else that is reasonable, if they can have but reasonable encouragement. All seems to turn upon that’, but the queen remained ‘very inflexible’.<sup>525</sup> To aid in the management of the Cornish elections, he replaced his son as warden of the Stannaries with his nephew, Hugh Boscawen. Facing opposition at Hereford, James Brydges was hopeful of a Cornish seat, having ‘presumed to lay my case before my lord treasurer and to have recourse to his Lordship’s favour for refuge in case of a disappointment at the city I served for before.’ Brydges was, in fact, successful at Hereford, and wrote to Marlborough of his gratitude for their recommendation at Truro on the Boscawen interest.<sup>526</sup> On hearing news of Robert Molesworth’s<sup>‡</sup> defeat at East Retford, Godolphin suggested him (albeit unsuccessfully) for a seat in Cornwall.<sup>527</sup> Following Sir Henry Peachey’s<sup>‡</sup> return for both Sussex and Arundel, Godolphin promoted first Littleton and then Thomas Hopkins<sup>‡</sup> to succeed him at the latter.<sup>528</sup> Godolphin likewise paid careful attention to the election for Scottish representative peers, to be held in mid-June. As early as 26 Apr. he had noted that George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], wished to have leave from the army to attend the election.<sup>529</sup> On 7 May, by Godolphin’s ‘desire’, Seafield sent Marlborough the form of a proxy to use in the Scottish peerage election.<sup>530</sup> On 8 May, the duke of Hamilton wrote to Sunderland that he had been told that Godolphin did not ‘approve of’ James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], being given the British dukedom of Dover.<sup>531</sup> On 3 June Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S], reported a private meeting with Godolphin wherein ‘his lordship requested that I would give my proxy to any of the five he had named, whereupon I left it wholly to his lordship, who hath chose my Lord Seafield’. Godolphin then arranged a meeting for the following day at the treasury, where ‘he would there have the Scotch secretary to direct and assist me in the form and method of doing it. All which is done accordingly, and tomorrow I am to take the oaths and all is to be finished. And his lordship hath ordered the proxy to go down in his own packet’.<sup>532</sup> Godolphin himself wrote to Seafield, ‘I have taken some pains to send you my Lord Stirling’s proxy, which Sir David Nairne will take care shall come to you in time.’<sup>533</sup></p><p>Tensions between Godolphin and the Whigs were such that in mid-July 1708, Roxburghe referred them as being ‘quite broke’, owing to the queen’s ‘aversion’ to the Junto, and Godolphin’s belief that he could construct a party from the Whigs and the Tories, which Harley supported. The Whig Lords ‘laugh at it’, he wrote, because the Tories could not be gained: Nottingham was especially averse to an alliance and recently, he recounted, Godolphin had ‘sent a message to Bromley, but that he refused to treat with him’.<sup>534</sup> Godolphin’s attitude may explain why he felt able to write to Seafield on 25 June, ‘if you will keep my counsel, I will confess ingenuously to you, that I like your election much better than if you had carried your whole list’.<sup>535</sup> Scotland was indeed a source of potential support for Godolphin. Robert Pringle told Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], that Somers ‘seemed to be very sensible’ that Godolphin’s ‘little regard’ to the Junto’s recommendations was a departure from ‘his ordinary road of a cautious, and prudent management between parties’. Somers attributed to Godolphin’s changed attitude to a belief that he would receive ‘support in a Parliament from those whose interest he espouses so much’—Queensberry and his court party—who had convinced the lord treasurer that ‘of the 45 Members returned from the North at least 40 are at their devotion’, although he was confident that Godolphin would be disappointed in this.<sup>536</sup> Pringle added on 2 Aug. that the ‘situation’ at court ‘appears pretty odd’; Godolphin, ‘who has the sole management, seems to have little deference for the Whig Lords, of which they seem themselves very sensible, and at the same time it is hard to imagine how he shall be able to support himself without them’. He continued that there were ‘some talks of attempts and interviews towards a good correspondence betwixt him and the Tories, which still seems more odd, that he should take a party by the hand, that seems weaker this, then they were the last session of Parliament.’<sup>537</sup> It is in the context of these manoeuvres that in June Somerset was involved in an attempt to detach Wharton from the Junto, by suggesting he take office instead of Somers. Godolphin was rumoured to have sanctioned this approach, and Maynwaring for one feared that Wharton might believe it to be the case.<sup>538</sup></p><p>Hamilton thought that Marlborough’s victory at Oudenarde on 11 July would make Godolphin ‘see the advantage of 166 [the Whigs’] assistance and will therefore do everything to put them in good humour’ and ‘mind what 134 [Sunderland] says more than ever’: he advised Sunderland that he should insist ‘that nothing should be disposed of here’ until Sunderland’s allies had arrived; Queensberry had been trying to pre-empt it.<sup>539</sup> On 27 July, Queensberry’s adherent Mar reported that Godolphin ‘was very kind and civil as he used to be’ with ‘no measures yet taken in order to the Parl[iament] and what or when they will be is uncertain; but I’m told the Junto is as high as ever and abated nothing by the victory [of Oudenarde]’.<sup>540</sup></p><p>On 2 Aug. 1708 Godolphin announced that the following day he would travel to Wiltshire for three or four days. On the 4th he was at Tilshead. No meetings of the treasury board were held between 2 and 18 and 20-30 August.<sup>541</sup> On 24 Aug. he went to Winchendon, ‘to Quainton plate’, from whence he intended to be at Althorp on the 26th, and then return to Windsor on 28 August.<sup>542</sup> At about this time he organized another letter for Marlborough to dispatch to the queen advocating the employment of the Junto.<sup>543</sup> On 20 Sept. Godolphin received fresh proposals from the Junto for accommodating their differences with the court.<sup>544</sup> On 25 Sept. Sunderland was clearly expecting some political discussions to take place at Newmarket in early October: a few days later Erasmus Lewis<sup>‡</sup> reported that a ‘council of the Junto’ would be held at Newmarket ‘and not till then shall we know who will be Speaker’.<sup>545</sup> The decision was in fact pre-empted at a meeting of the Junto and Godolphin, in London, on 30 Sept., in which they ‘pitched upon Sir Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup> to be Speaker, and Sir Peter King is to be otherwise considered’.<sup>546</sup> No meetings of the treasury board were held between 4-18 Oct., and on the 5th Godolphin went to Newmarket, in the company of his son Francis, now styled Lord Rialton, and Somerset.<sup>547</sup> He had informed Marlborough on the 3rd that a proclamation had been issued for Parliament to meet on 16 Nov., ‘later than usual, in the view that you may be here some time before’. Godolphin, it seems, still held to the view that until Marlborough arrived ‘there is no meddling’ with Parliament ‘by any means in the world. This is a matter for which I think one cannot prepare you too soon’.<sup>548</sup> With the decision over the Speaker already made, Harley was informed on 5 Oct. that though it had originally been supposed that Godolphin ‘would fix measures and capitulate with the Junto at Newmarket, but it’s said now that that work will be delayed some time and it’s probable that none of these Lords will go thither except those who are concerned in the diversions of that place’. Some people thought that Godolphin ‘finds great difficulties with the Whig lords, that the queen is very stiff and inflexible and will not consent to any treaty, believing that no terms which she can grant will be accepted by them’: he had even, it was said, offered to resign.<sup>549</sup></p><p>Godolphin was under considerable pressure in early October because of a looming financial crisis, with the Bank thought to be scarcely able to survive until Christmas. He was said to have urged Marlborough to do ‘something of éclat’ to encourage public credit: ‘the scarcity of money has frightened him out of his wits, and there is nothing he will not do to oblige the Junto’. Private meetings had been held at Godolphin’s direction about raising money, with agreement that no loans could be raised on the general mortgage or almost any other fund: ‘in this exigency they could think of nothing but exchequer bills to be circulated by subscriptions, the interest to be secured by the malt tax for perpetuity, with the proviso usual in mortgages, redeemable however by Parliament.<sup>550</sup> Godolphin was expected back in London on 16 Oct., although Maynwaring reported that Somerset had returned the previous day with him, ‘whether in anger to him or not I can’t tell’: Somerset was apparently ‘displeased’ that he had not been invited to a meeting at Newmarket, at the bishop of Ely’s.<sup>551</sup> On the 16th Harley wrote ‘that there has lately been a meeting of some great persons, and the lord treasurer has not only promised entirely to comply with the Junto but also to sacrifice the duke of Queensberry to them’. Harley had never had any doubts that Godolphin would ally to the Junto, for ‘he has for a long time been contriving to do it, though he at the same time exclaims against them, as they do him’.<sup>552</sup> A couple of days later Maynwaring revealed that one of the topics of discussion at Newmarket had been a reform of the admiralty. Godolphin had proposed a scheme to make the Prince’s council ‘responsible by a new law’, but this had been rejected as being ‘liable to as many objectors as the present administration and will not cure the evil, but will affront his Highness as much as anything else’. But the Junto insisted on reform, threatening that without it ‘they will not come into the measures of the court, not so much as in the first step of choosing a Speaker’. Nothing but the prince’s resignation, ‘even before the session’, would satisfy them.</p><p>The difficulties between Godolphin and the Junto were becoming more and more difficult to overcome: Wharton wrote in a letter to the duchess of Marlborough that at one point, possibly during his visit to Winchendon in August, Godolphin ‘had so little disposition to speak to him that if he had not forced himself into his room at six a clock in the morning [the] day he was to go away he had not had a word’s conversation with him. And [wh]at he said to him then was very dry and disagreeable’.<sup>553</sup> On 19 Oct. Sunderland reported to Newcastle on a meeting at Althorp between Godolphin, the Junto and several of their lieutenants, in which Godolphin had been issued with an ultimatum—no further support for the court would be forthcoming unless Whig grievances were met.<sup>554</sup> But the illness (and death, a week later) of Prince George weakened the queen’s willingness to resist. On 20 Oct. Maynwaring facilitated a meeting between Godolphin and Wharton for the following day, and later reported that he had met Godolphin ‘at Mr Boyle’s, who told me he had seen the other lord, and that they had had a very long conference, and that he believed they were both satisfied with one another, and he seemed to be in good humour and I in good favour’. Optimistically, Maynwaring felt that ‘there being nothing ill at bottom’, when ministers and the Whigs ‘are brought to understand one another, and to converse more openly and plainly together, I think they cannot disagree’. Maynwaring continued to believe that Godolphin and Marlborough ‘had acted a very sincere part in endeavouring to bring Lord Som[ers] into the Council’.<sup>555</sup> This improvement in the relationship between Godolphin and the Junto was partly the result of the appointment, finally, of Halifax’s brother, Sir James Montagu, as attorney general on 21 Oct. 1708, the queen having ‘at last come to allow 38 [Godolphin] to make such condescensions, which (if done in time) would have been sufficient to have eased most of our difficulties, and would yet do in great measure, if 89 [the Whigs] will be but tolerably reasonable’. The admittance of Somers and Wharton to office followed in November.<sup>556</sup> Pembroke’s acceptance of the admiralty in succession to Prince George was thought to be essential, balancing the advances of the Junto, for the session to be manageable: Maynwaring in late November ‘thanked God that Lord Pemb[roke] had accepted and that the lords [of the Junto] had not carried their admiral too, for then [the] lord treasurer could not have stood three months’. It had been ‘a necessary means of his own preservation’.<sup>557</sup> Over the next few months, Godolphin appears to have attempted to survive through dividing the Junto, exploiting the discontent of Halifax and Orford at their continued exclusion from office while Wharton and Somers had achieved it, and relying heavily on his own remaining allies in the Commons, the ‘lord treasurers’ whigs’.</p><h2><em>The session of 1708-9</em></h2><p>Godolphin was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 16 Nov. 1708. On 24 Nov. Johnston reported to Trumbull that ‘this day Conyers lost his chair of the committee of supply because he’s the treasurer’s man, say some’: the Whigs pressed the cause of their candidate, William Farrer<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>558</sup> Godolphin’s preoccupations at the beginning of the session, included the problem of recruiting soldiers for the army. He closely monitored the recruitment bill in the Commons, reporting back to Marlborough on 6, 10, 14, 17, 21 December. He was just as assiduous in detailing the progress of the augmentation of troops voted by the Commons, having managed to get it inserted in the queen’s speech.<sup>559</sup> He told Marlborough that the Commons’ Address of 23 Nov. was ‘as full as you can desire, and cannot fail, I hope, of having a good effect.’ On 19 Nov. Godolphin had predicted that ‘I doubt we shall have no money next year under six per cent, even upon the land tax’ and it would seem he saw the necessity to defend the rate of return; on 10 Dec. Johnston wrote that in the committee of the whole considering the land tax bill ‘Mr Montagu of Wiltshire’ moved that only five per cent interest should be given for money on the land tax, ‘but the treasurer’s people carried six [per] cent. There appears no concert’. The six per cent interest clause was overturned at the report stage on 15 December. Johnston also noted that Anthony Hammond<sup>‡</sup> had been ‘thrown out as a creature of the treasurer’s’: the Whigs had found an excuse to expel him on the grounds that as a commissioner of the navy ‘employed in the outports’ he was ineligible from sitting in Parliament under the Regency Act.<sup>560</sup></p><p>Godolphin was in attendance right up until the Christmas recess on 23 Dec. 1708, when he acquainted the House that the queen would receive their address on the capture of Ghent that evening. On 24 Dec. Godolphin warned Marlborough that although things appeared ‘to be upon a very good foot here, as to the support of the war; yet with relation to the credit of the government and the administration at home, they are in a very uncertain precarious condition’. He complained that the queen’s ‘intimacy and conversation seems to lean only to those who are enemies to all that are most useful in the public service’, and those willing to support the government were in consequence uncertain as ‘to whom they should apply, or upon whom they can depend’.<sup>561</sup> Scottish affairs continued to occupy Godolphin. On 23 Dec. papers on the failed Jacobite invasion were ordered to be considered by the Lords on 12 Jan. 1709. Godolphin co-ordinated the response to the order, arranging on 5 Jan. for Mar, Seafield and Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudon [S], to meet the lords of the council on the following day to consider those papers it might be proper to place before Parliament ‘pursuant to their address before the recess’.<sup>562</sup> Meanwhile, there was the question of who would be appointed Scottish secretary, the nominee of the treasurer or the Junto. The Junto favoured James Grahme*, duke of Montrose [S], but the post eventually went to Queensberry. His appointment was to have been declared on 30 Dec. 1708, but on the 29th Godolphin took Somers with him to see the queen. Godolphin ‘seemed to be against Queensberry and to convince my Lord Somers of this went with him to the queen… and got a stop put to it, but whether it be only delayed or quite broke I know not’. For Johnston, this was a battle over the alignment of the Scots in Parliament and of decisive importance for Godolphin, ‘they being the only body of men which seem entirely to trust my lord treasurer, if he part with them, which he says he will not do, I know not where he can find such sure cards’. For this reason the Junto ‘will not trust such a strength in his hands for thus they say the Union would ruin all’.<sup>563</sup></p><p>Over the Christmas recess Godolphin continued to worry about the recruitment bill: on 4 Jan. 1709 he recorded a meeting of two hours with Somers and ‘some gentlemen of the House of Commons, hearing Mr Lowndes read over the recruit bill which he has prepared… It will be ready to be offered to the House of Commons at their first meeting after the present recess,’ as indeed it was. In some apprehension, Godolphin on 6 Jan. admitted to ‘the spleen’ at ‘the prospect of nothing but difficulty and trouble in the course of this sessions from the very great unreasonableness one meets with in most people’. By virtue of the late start to the session, he also warned Marlborough that ‘our supplies will be more backward this year, than they were the last. There is only the land tax past hitherto, and the money does not come in upon that so fast as it used to do in former years’.<sup>564</sup></p><p>Godolphin attended on the first day after the recess, 10 Jan. 1709, despite Johnston writing that ‘the treasurer has the stone and voids blood by urine and spits it too.’<sup>565</sup> On 11 Jan. Sir Henry Shere told Trumbull that ‘there seems to be a confederacy and combination of both parties to distress the little great man in the Park nor do there want symptoms in both Houses of small devotion to his colleague abroad’.<sup>566</sup> On 14 Jan., Godolphin admitted that ‘my head has been for some days much out of order’, not helped by the passage of several resolutions in the Commons on 12 Jan. relating to expenditure on the war: ‘people who have a mind to be troublesome in both Houses’, he complained, ‘are very busy in enquiries concerning the late invasion, Scotland, and the application of the money in Spain and Portugal’.<sup>567</sup> On 21 Jan. Godolphin voted in favour of the motion that a Scots peer who possessed a British title had the right to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers, in favour of the rights of Queensberry. As John Tucker noted, he was joined by the archbishop of York, Rochester ‘and a great many other Lords, who used not to vote together (I hear) were on the same side in this division; and on the other side Lord Wharton, Lord Somers &c.’<sup>568</sup> For the Junto, supporting Queensberry’s right to vote was part of a strategy to unify the party behind Orford’s claims to office; Godolphin marshalled the court vote behind Queensberry’s pretensions.<sup>569</sup> James Johnston added that the Junto were helped to defeat the motion by ‘the Jacobite Tories… who would have their revenges on the treasurer for his diligence against Sir Simon [Harcourt]’, who had been unseated on petition in January.<sup>570</sup></p><p>There were further battles over Scottish issues, especially the contested election for Scottish representative peers, in February. On 4 Feb. 1709 Johnston wrote that he was now ‘cock-a-hoop’ at having fooled the Junto in the business; he lost a first division by eight votes on a procedural motion on 26 Jan., but on the 28th ‘he carried it by four’ that a peer of Scotland who took the oaths within Edinburgh Castle was thereby qualified to vote at the election of the 16 representative peers; Johnston thought he would have won by a bigger margin in a vote on the following day, but it was not pressed to a division. As a result of the four who had petitioned against the result of the election, only William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], was calculated as having been elected ‘and he the only man of the four whom the Juncto did not desire and thought to have kept out’. At this outcome, ‘hard words’ passed between Godolphin and the Junto, but the quarrel was patched up, Queensberry being declared Secretary, John Kerr*, duke of Roxburghe [S], and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] and earl of Greenwich, put on the council and Montrose made privy seal in Scotland. The Junto were said to have conceded that they had ‘given the treasurer 16 votes’: ‘the truth is’, Johnston wrote, ‘they are partly out-witted, not knowing Scotch business as he does.’<sup>571</sup></p><p>On 25 Jan. 1709 John Smith, the former Speaker, and one of Godolphin’s allies, told Marlborough that ‘I must do that justice to my lord treasurer to say that all endeavours that the prudence of man can use to quiet men’s minds or to gratify their desires, he has done’.<sup>572</sup> The death on 22 Jan. Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, leaving a vacancy in the council of trade, illustrated his predicament: he had been inundated with about 50 applications, ‘but it is impossible to dispose of that till after the end of the session without disobliging 49’ of them. Meanwhile, supply was being held up by the failure to vote on the estimates for the war in Spain and Portugal while the expenditure on previous years was enquired into; until the total was fixed the committee of ways and means could not sit.<sup>573</sup> On 15 Feb. one of the correspondents of Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, the future 2nd earl of Oxford, wrote of the ‘very great heats between the treasurer and his new friends’.<sup>574</sup> On 18 Feb. Godolphin told Marlborough that his presence in England necessary, even though the supply measures had almost passed into law: many things had been left undecided, ‘which require to be settled before the beginning of this summer, which can never be well done without you, and it is likewise so necessary that we should adjust with you the measures proper to be followed this summer in order to another sessions of Parliament’.<sup>575</sup></p><p>Godolphin and the Junto could close ranks to meet specific attacks: on 24 Feb. Gibson informed Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford of plans for a debate in the Lords on Haversham’s speech earlier in the session, in which he pressed for an enquiry into the preparations for meeting the Jacobite invasion. It had been resisted by Godolphin’s allies who argued that it was designed only ‘to perplex and lose time’; though a debate was conceded instead on ‘the present state of North Britain of which I suppose the ministry will be able to give a better account.’ He added that in the last three weeks ‘it has been understood that the treasurer and the Whig lords or Junto as they call them, were breaking, and a country party forming, of Whigs and Tories, in opposition to the court’. However ‘by the turn given’ to Haversham’s motion of the 18th, ‘it appeared plainly enough that they were together; though I am afraid the union is but loose, nor like to continue long, unless my Lord Marlborough’s coming closes some breaches that are made and making’.<sup>576</sup> On 26 Feb. Godolphin survived an attack on his stewardship of the treasury in the Commons instigated by Bromley’s report from a committee examining the arrears of the land tax receivers. It ended in a motion for an address for a state of arrears of the land taxes for 1706-8 and for royal orders that more effectual care be taken to prevent the like arrears for the future. Backed by Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> and Annesley, the motion was watered down by Godolphin’s defenders, organized by Walpole, who turned the blame on to the receivers and amended the address merely to ask that the money be better collected.<sup>577</sup></p><p>Godolphin only attended eight out of 18 sittings of the Lords in February 1709. After attending the first three sittings in March, 1st-4th, he next attended on 22 March. On 7 Mar. Johnston wrote an interesting commentary on the address sent by the Lords to the Commons on 1 Mar. ‘for the preservation of the repose and quiet of Europe’. The Commons sent it back on the following day with an amendment relating to the destruction of Dunkirk. According to Johnston, the Junto claimed to have ‘resolved and proposed the address without my lord treasurer’s knowledge, that they believe he takes it ill, but they say they can’t help it, for having saved him this winter in both Houses, if that do not satisfy him nothing can.’ Though the address was popularly believed to present an argument for continuing the war, the Junto conceded that the inclusion of a reference to the demolition of the fortifications at Dunkirk by ‘may indeed delay the Peace’, but disclaimed responsibility for the passage demanding the removal of the Pretender from the French dominions (Mohun, they said, ‘is not theirs’. ‘In short’, Johnston concluded, ‘this motion of theirs may have proceeded from their jealousy of which my Lord Somers seems full and Wharton to have none at all, or from a design not to be outrun by Rochester and Haversham, or in concert with the ministry as all the world believes.’<sup>578</sup> On 11 Mar. Godolphin was reported to be ‘in good humour’ following the vote in the Commons on the previous day vindicating the ministry’s actions in response to the threatened attack on Scotland, which ‘has given him all the glory of our deliverance’.<sup>579</sup></p><p>On 22 Mar. Godolphin was one of those successfully arguing in the committee of the whole that the clause in the bill improving the Union relating to treason trials, which allowed the accused a list of witnesses before the trial, should be thrown out because it made a dangerous change at such a time. On 25 Mar. he voted in favour of Seafield’s proposal to consider the validity of Scottish marriage settlements under the new treason law.<sup>580</sup> He wrote that day ‘we are yet one step further in the Scot treason bill, but if at last it does go through both Houses, I believe it will not be without a good deal of difficulty’. On 1 Apr. he added that opposition to the bill had united ‘all the different parties of that nation’, and that it had been committed in the Commons ‘by so slender a majority that I don’t expect it should pass’, and if it did ‘all the fruit it is like to have will be to make some of our friends in that House angry with us’. With the session not predicted to end until late April, Godolphin took a short break to Newmarket. He had intended to leave on 5 Apr., but he was recorded as present in the Lords on 7 Apr., although he wrote a letter from Newmarket that day. He returned on the evening of the 9th.<sup>581</sup></p><p>Following the Commons amendment of the bill for improving the Union by adding clauses against forfeitures for treason and for providing the accused with a list of witnesses ten days before the trial, the Lords on 14 Apr. 1709 voted that the clauses should commence from the Pretender’s death. Johnston revealed that Godolphin ‘spoke four times for the amendment’: the Scottish peers spoke against it, hoping thereby to lose the bill.<sup>582</sup> The Commons agreed to the Lords amendments by six votes on 18 Apr. after the court had assembled ‘all their forces, the lame and blind and all’.<sup>583</sup> Godolphin attended the last sitting of the session on 21 Apr., having been present on 58 days, 63 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees. The end of the session coincided with Marlborough’s arrival in London, and on the 25-28th Godolphin accompanied the duke to view the building work at Blenheim. He attended the prorogation on 19 May. Although by late May Godolphin was deeply engrossed in following the peace negotiations with France, he was sufficiently sceptical of French sincerity to remain relatively unmoved by the refusal of the French to sign the peace preliminaries.<sup>584</sup></p><h2><em>The 1709-10 Session and the Trial of Sacheverell</em></h2><p>Following the end of the session, the Junto stepped up pressure on Godolphin to obtain the admiralty for Orford. On 20 May 1709 James Craggs<sup>‡</sup> told Marlborough that Somers had been deputed to speak to him ‘very plainly on this subject.’ The ‘Junctonians’ argued that the next session could not ‘be carried on without it, for as the majority are in the Whig interest, they will not be easy without being of a piece, for though there may be some few whimsicals yet the main would be put in good humour by it’.<sup>585</sup> Godolphin seemed to share their analysis for on 5 June he noted that although everyone had been distracted by the peace, shortly the problem of putting the admiralty under new management would become acute as ‘the present is not to be supported next winter’: blame for the queen’s reluctance to employ Orford would fall upon himself.<sup>586</sup></p><p>On 4 July, Godolphin explicitly linked military success to public credit, worrying of a shortfall of £1,200,000 on the supplies voted for the war.<sup>587</sup> No meetings of the treasury board were held between 1-11 July and on the 5th Boyle reported that Godolphin had gone to Wiltshire.<sup>588</sup> He was at Tilshead on 6 July, ‘to see his horses’ and had returned to Windsor on the 9th. He told Marlborough that the peace preliminaries had been sufficiently liked in England for the latter to resume negotiations on that basis should the French seek renewed terms.<sup>589</sup> But Godolphin was worried about meeting Parliament without knowing if preparations had to be made for another year of war. His political intelligence network had also picked up notice of Harley’s tactics for the forthcoming session; from Rivers he learnt that Harley planned to portray Godolphin and Marlborough as implacably opposed to peace upon any terms. Thus the duumvirs would be at fault whether peace or war followed.<sup>590</sup> On 17 Aug. he wrote from St James’s to Cowper about the peace negotiations.<sup>591</sup> He only held one meeting of the treasury board during August, on the 22nd, and towards the end of the month he retired again to Wiltshire.<sup>592</sup> On 15 Sept., Godolphin felt that ‘one good effect’ of the battle of Malplaquet was to create the favourable conditions for an approach to the Bank of England to circulate £600,000 worth of Exchequer bills as allowed by statute.<sup>593</sup></p><p>By September 1709 the Whigs were confident that Godolphin and Marlborough ‘could not propose any safety but in the Whigs’.<sup>594</sup> Whig pressure in support of Orford built up as the session approached. No meetings of the treasury board were held between 22 Sept. and 5 Oct. and on 29 Sept. Godolphin announced his departure shortly for Newmarket, where he had arrived by 3 October.<sup>595</sup> On 4 Oct. Addison reported Wharton as ‘now going to Newmarket’ to see Godolphin.<sup>596</sup> Godolophin remained there until at least 14 October. On 18 Oct. he was at Windsor, acknowledging that the queen had read a letter from Marlborough urging the appointment of Orford, but that she had ‘never once opened her lips to me upon the subject’, whereupon ‘I have not thought proper to begin with her till you come, and we have an opportunity of concerting what is best to be done’.<sup>597</sup> Meanwhile, Sunderland awaited Godolphin’s return to discuss with the details of Orford’s admiralty commission—if ‘the affair should break’, he wrote to the duchess of Marlborough, ‘I don’t at all doubt but the world would censure my Lord Orford, for insisting upon a trifle, and also [the] lord treasurer, for breaking for a trifle’. He wrote again on 13 Oct. suggesting that the matter should be settled between Godolphin and Orford while at Newmarket: ‘if he comes away, leaving it quite unsettled there, I will venture to say there will be no end of it.’<sup>598</sup> This underestimated Godolphin’s difficulties with the queen and the delay increased Orford’s uneasiness.<sup>599</sup> By the end of October, however, the queen had been brought to agree to the appointment, although the make-up of the admiralty commission of which Orford would be head was still causing problems at the beginning of November, specifically with relation to Sir George Byng<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Torrington, and Sir John Jennings<sup>‡</sup>, the queen being ‘inflexible upon the two knights’.<sup>600</sup> Sunderland blamed Godolphin for the impasse: ‘it is plain to a demonstration that notwithstanding it’s put upon the queen, it is nothing but his own pique to those two men, because they refused being of the prince’s council, when he had a mind to have drawn them in that snare’. In response Somers had ‘laid the matter very plain, and very home to him’, whereupon Godolphin had written to the queen on 5 Nov., who remained unmoved. Sunderland wanted the duchess of Marlborough to come to town to pressurize Godolphin, the fear being that unless Godolphin persuaded the queen, Orford would lose patience and leave London.<sup>601</sup> Eventually, a compromise was reached which omitted Jennings from the new commission issued on 8 November. On 12 Nov., Godolphin’s client Molesworth penned a panegyric to Godolphin in a letter to Shaftesbury:</p><blockquote><p>never shall any man ever persuade me that the public minister who fixes a liberty of conscience, who unites two discordant nations, who promotes public registers, procures general naturalization, encourages the increase of people, the navigation of rivers, manages the public treasure so well, restores lost credit to a miracle, loves liberty, keeps secrets to a degree not known in England since Queen Elizabeth’s time, provides for all the war in its distant parts, bears disappointments, lives frugally, but not covetously, gives not into the designs of priestcraft of any kind, can do these through any bad intentions or be anything like a Tory.</p></blockquote><p>‘It would be the greatest happiness that can possibly befall these nations’, Molesworth went on, reflecting on recent experience, if Godolphin could be preserved from being ‘ground between two parties like two millstones’.<sup>602</sup></p><p>Godolphin was present on the opening day of the next session, 15 Nov. 1709. It seems likely that he played a role in the motion following the queen’s speech in the Commons on that day for Maynwaring referred to a meeting at which a paper he had prepared for Lord Coningsby was not considered, ‘for Mr Smith brought another paper in the lord treasurer’s hand, upon which they sat in consultation till twelve o’clock; and it was moved by Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>, with some small alteration’.<sup>603</sup> Even in mid-session, Godolphin took cognisance of elections for the Commons: on 1 Dec. Bolton wrote to Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> that ‘my lord treasurer has sent to desire the bishop [Trelawny] to be for you, I was present when he did it’, a reference to the by-election pending for Hampshire.<sup>604</sup></p><p>In the crisis engendered by the death of Algernon Capel*, 2nd earl of Essex, and the disposal of his posts in January 1710, Godolphin and Somers tried, but failed, to persuade the queen not to appoint Jack Hill<sup>‡</sup>, the brother of Abigail Masham, to the vacant regiment and thereby undermine Marlborough’s authority in the army.<sup>605</sup> Following Marlborough’s furious departure to Windsor Lodge on 15 Jan., Godolphin counselled Marlborough against threatening to resign unless Masham were dismissed.<sup>606</sup> On 16 Jan., Godolphin had ‘hunted’ Somers out and ‘hindered him from coming to the other lords’, who were meeting over the crisis, in order that Somers could wait on the queen.<sup>607</sup> Godolphin was later at the House at the hearing of ‘Lord Bath’s cause’ over the Albemarle estates, and tried to formulate a united Whig response, marshalling a series of Whig grandees to put pressure on the queen. A compromise was ultimately worked out in which Hill obtained a pension rather than a regiment and Marlborough responded to a royal request to return to court.<sup>608</sup> On 19 Jan. Maynwaring noted that Godolphin had shown ‘the greatest desire imaginable not to bring this thing to extremity’, although he had ‘endeavoured to show the ruinous consequences of the indifference and little notice’ that the queen showed of Marlborough’s ‘mortification and concern for her unkindness’.<sup>609</sup> Sunderland, who had wanted to force the issue, ‘spoke very warmly’ to Godolphin saying ‘that he was sure none that had ever pretended to be Whigs would fail in this dispute, except 200 [Boyle] and Mr Compton, to which 38 made no reply, but seemed much nettled’.<sup>610</sup></p><p>On 16 Feb. 1710, when the Lords took into consideration the appeal of James Greenshields concerning the right to hold Episcopalian services in Scotland, Rochester ‘moved to send for the proceedings in Scotland and the person to make out the allegations of his petition’, and, according to Mar, Godolphin ‘and those who were for delaying the affair’ supported it. However, Rochester insisted that he had also proposed sending for Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates, which was seen as tantamount to accepting the appeal: a motion for adding the words was lost by 42-39, and the original motion was then passed by a great majority.<sup>611</sup> Also on 16 Feb., the Lords agreed to join with the Commons in addressing the queen for Marlborough’s immediate departure for Holland: the motion said that he was ‘the most capable’ of executing the twin trusts of general and plenipotentiary; Coningsby thought that Godolphin had been responsible for changing it from Marlborough ‘alone’.<sup>612</sup> The queen’s answer to the address, reported to the Commons on 20 Feb., had, according to the duchess of Marlborough, been the subject of strenuous negotiation between Godolphin and the queen. ‘Godolphin and the honest men’, she wrote,</p><blockquote><p>had prepared a better in respect to what she said concerning the duke of Marlborough, but when he came to receive her directions about it she had been first prepared by Mr Harley and his cousin [Abigail] and she would have some things altered, some quite left out and would have put in something that was not true, and that would have been a mischief to the duke of Marlborough, upon which my Lord Godolphin argued it with her, and in the debate she said to him that upon her soul what she had desired was from herself and her own thoughts purely, which was not possible to have been true, and Lord Godolphin so far got the better in this as to have the speech tolerable and to do no hurt.<sup>613</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nevertheless, the duchess was still being urged to put more pressure on the treasurer: as soon as Marlborough had departed on the 19th Sunderland pressed him to persuade the duchess to come to London, criticizing Godolphin for ‘a slowness and coldness about him, that is really terrible, and therefore all that can be must be done, to keep him up, and to animate him’.<sup>614</sup></p><p>The most important domestic issue on which Godolphin needed animation was the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell for a sermon preached on 5 Nov. 1709, on <em>The Perils of False Bretheren</em>. Sacheverell had taken particular note of ‘the crafty insidiousness of such wily Volpones’, a clear reference to Godolphin, who had been tagged with this uncomplimentary nickname since at least 1707.<sup>615</sup> Swift captured Godolphin’s ‘passionate pique’ at being dubbed a ‘wily Volpone’, and it was this sensitivity to charges of disloyalty to the Church which perhaps persuaded him to back the use of impeachment as a counter-measure, as proposed by Wharton and Sunderland.<sup>616</sup> The prosecution surprised Dr Stratford who ‘could not have thought this prosecution had come directly’ from Godolphin and Marlborough.<sup>617</sup> Dartmouth agreed, noting that neither Sacheverell nor the doctrine of passive obedience would have been questioned if the term ‘Volpone’ had not been used.<sup>618</sup> Godolphin never dealt easily with criticism, especially in printed form, and the sermon quickly became a best-seller. As Maynwaring told John Oldmixon in 1710, ‘Godolphin had the last contempt for pamphlets, and always despised the press’.<sup>619</sup> On 4 Feb. the Commons had voted to attend the trial as a committee of the whole House, thereby removing it from the bar of the Lords to the public arena of Westminster Hall. Godolphin’s initial reaction was apparently to drop the trial, rather than accede to the Commons request, but the Whigs decided to accept the challenge.<sup>620</sup> By 21 Feb. Godolphin’s antennae had picked up an inkling of the intrigues taking place between some Whigs and Harley. A week later he remarked that ‘everybody’s whole time from morning to night [is] being taken up with Mr Sacheverell’s trial’.<sup>621</sup></p><p>He was certainly an active participant, for on 1 Mar. he moved for the adjournment of the trial till the next day after a tour de force of a speech by Sir Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Macclesfield.<sup>622</sup> On 3 Mar. he noted that during ‘this troublesome trial’, he had not time ‘either to eat or sleep in any regularity’.<sup>623</sup> On 4 Mar. he was ‘fiery for’ sending Judge Powell to the Tower for admitting to bail a person suspected of countenancing the riots, but instead a motion was passed that he had done his duty according to law.<sup>624</sup> By 5 Mar. Godolphin felt that the trial was impairing his health and its outcome was ‘uncertain’, especially as ‘the great majority’ in the Lords, ‘which we had in the beginning of this sessions, encourages people to commit follies’. On 6 Mar. he was forced to leave the trial early ‘with very great pain of the gravel’. The last day of the trial on 10 Mar. brought little relief as Godolphin thought ‘the debate of that matter in the House of Lords will require two days more at least’.<sup>625</sup> On 11 Mar., after the House had voted ‘to judge of the said impeachment according to the usage of Parliament, and the law of the land’, Godolphin moved that ‘the clerks should make out extracts of the books of Parliament of parallel cases’, ready for proceeding further.<sup>626</sup> On 14 Mar. he wrote at nine o’clock having ‘just this moment come home from the House of Lords, where we sit every day almost to the extinguishing of nature’.<sup>627</sup></p><p>On 16 Mar. 1710 Godolphin argued against Nottingham’s proposal for voting on the articles of impeachment in Westminster Hall, preferring it to take place in the Lords.<sup>628</sup> As he reported, on 16 Jan., the House sat until ten o’clock, with the first article agreed by 68-52. On the 17th the other three articles were carried without a division: ‘the main question is still behind us, whether he be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, which they intend to debate with us tomorrow, as long as is possible’.<sup>629</sup> On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.<sup>630</sup> Following the verdict, Bishop Wake recorded that ‘we met [the] lord treasurer and lord president in the Prince’s Chamber; and agreed upon Dr S.[’s] censure. I wish I could have made it lighter: I did all I could for him.’<sup>631</sup> Godolphin recognized the risk that if the punishment, to be considered on the following day, ‘be not made lighter than (in itself) is reasonable’, some of the trial’s supporters might desert.<sup>632</sup> On 21 Mar. Godolphin seconded Carlisle’s motion detailing the punishment of Sacheverell, debarring him from receiving ecclesiastical preferment and preaching for seven years, plus three months imprisonment and the sermons to be burnt: in the event, a milder punishment was substituted.<sup>633</sup> For Godolphin, the punishment had ‘dwindled’ so much ‘that all this bustle and fatigue ends in no more but a suspension for three years but from the pulpit and burning his sermons at the old Exchange’.<sup>634</sup></p><p>Godolphin last attended on the penultimate day of the session, 4 Apr. 1710, having sat on 66 days, 71 per cent of the total, and been named to 12 committees. He then went on his usual trip to Newmarket, setting out on the 6th ‘for eight or ten days’ and returning on 16 April.<sup>635</sup> In his absence the queen appointed Shrewsbury as her lord chamberlain, leaving people ‘divided in opinion whether it was without his knowledge or no’.<sup>636</sup> On 17 Apr. Sir William Trumbull’s correspondent Thomas Bateman recorded that although Godolphin had been written to on the 13th ‘that t’would be done, but (tis said) [he] knew nothing before. This occasions variety of discourse, and especially about more removes, and the Lady’s [Masham] hand is said to be in it.’<sup>637</sup> In fact the queen had written to Godolphin on 13 Apr. that ‘I have not yet declared my intentions of giving the staff and the key to the duke of Shrewsbury because I would be the first that should acquaint you with it.’<sup>638</sup> Godolphin responded to her pointing out that Shrewsbury’s appointment, ‘just after his being in a public open conjunction in every vote with the whole body of the Tories, and in a private constant correspondence, and caballing with Mr Harley in everything’, would make every member of the Cabinet Council except Somerset and Queensberry ‘run from it, as they would from the plague’. Further, she should consider the ‘effect this entire change of your ministers will have among your allies abroad’, and on the conduct of war ‘by those who have all along opposed and obstructed it, and who will like any peace, the better, the more it leaves France at liberty to take their time of imposing the Pretender again upon this country.’<sup>639</sup> Despite his objections, Godolphin, according to Coningsby, offered to enter into a ‘strict confidence’ with Shrewsbury.<sup>640</sup> To Marlborough, he wrote on the 17th that although ‘mortified’, he hoped to be able to keep the Whigs ‘from flying out on this occasion into any measures that would ruin all the affairs abroad irrecoverably and do no good to those at home’. He felt that Shrewsbury would like to live easily with the duumvirs, although it was ‘plain’ that he came into office by the influence of Harley and Somerset.<sup>641</sup> On the following day he suggested that Shrewsbury’s appointment might in fact eclipse Somerset at court.<sup>642</sup> Sunderland, too, agreed with him ‘that we must endeavour to weather it, as well as we can, in order to preserve the Parliament from being dissolved’.<sup>643</sup></p><h2><em>Dismissal, 1710</em></h2><p>Godolphin had by now realized that the queen would never be reconciled to the duchess of Marlborough.<sup>644</sup> He finally seems to have persuaded her supporters to accept that there was no point in his taking up her cause. On 30 Apr. Maynwaring told the duchess of his belief that if the Whigs spoke to Godolphin ‘upon your subject, he would desire them not to meddle, tell them they do not know you (as he did Lord Coningsby) and rather than you should be reconciled by their means, he would never have it done.’<sup>645</sup> Godolphin was aware that the animosity of the Marlboroughs and the Whigs to Abigail had led the queen to look to the Tories and others to protect her. He knew that Shrewsbury’s suggestion that the Whigs offer assurances to the queen that ‘she should not be made uneasy’ over Abigail, were unacceptable to the Marlboroughs. Godolphin’s loyalty to the duchess thus made him vulnerable. He plainly suspected Somerset of undermining him and Marlborough: Somerset’s close proximity to the queen allowed him to ‘tell lies and make impressions when nobody else has the opportunity of setting it right’. In the light of this, Godolphin advised ‘we must take care so to keep out temper as not to suffer ourselves to be provoked by the injuries done us by others, to make a wrong or unseasonable step; for that would not only be the greatest gratification imaginable’ to Somerset, Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, and Argyll, ‘but also draw the blame of any ill consequence upon ourselves’. Indeed, Godolphin adopted a form of political quietism; he professed to stand ‘stock still, and makes the same answer to abundance of applications of all sides, and even from the very best of 84 [Tories]; viz that while Mr Freeman [Marlborough] is absent, he can only thank them but not enter into any engagements without him’.<sup>646</sup></p><p>The intimation, possibly as early as 12 May 1710, that there were plans to replace Sunderland, was a direct provocation. Godolphin realized that Marlborough ‘must look upon it as personal’ and couched his counter-argument in terms of the ‘hurt’ it would do abroad and the mortification it would be to Marlborough, while urging the duke that he should not be ‘provoked to any rashness or precipitation by any rumour from hence’; in return Godolphin would ‘obey your commands in not being wearied out of my life, as long as flesh and blood can bear it’. On 8 June Godolphin floated the idea that the grand pensionary of Holland, Heinsius, should write to Ambassador Vrijbergen that rumours of Sunderland’s impending dismissal were aiding the peace party in Holland. (His suggestion led to a memorial from the States and Heinsius, presented by Vrijbergen, which backfired: Godolphin had to report to Marlborough on 3 July that Shrewsbury and Somerset had persuaded the queen that they had ‘taken too much upon them’.)<sup>647</sup> When the queen informed Godolphin of her decision to replace Sunderland on 14 June, Godolphin signed a joint letter with the Whigs urging Marlborough not to resign over his son-in-law’s dismissal.<sup>648</sup></p><p>A dissolution of Parliament and new elections was particularly a matter for concern. On 16 June Godolphin was still hopeful of avoiding a dissolution, noting that the argument that a new Parliament would support the war was fallacious because once Parliament was dissolved ‘all the allies are in despair, and making their own terms, before it is possible for 88 [Parliament] to come again and to declare his intentions’. On 22 June Godolphin stressed to Marlborough that with a victory over the French ‘all this may yet come right again, and no other way do I see any prospect of it’. With some subtlety Godolphin realized that those Whigs who wished to show the queen that public credit was falling due to the ‘mortifications’ given to Godolphin and Marlborough, although acting out of good will, were mistaken, as public credit ‘once broken’ would take time to recover and ‘in the meantime the whole must be ruined’.<sup>649</sup> Godolphin received his own ‘mortification’ in June when the queen decided that Emanuel Howe’s<sup>‡</sup> replacement at Hanover was not to be Godolphin’s nephew, Sir Philip Meadowes<sup>‡</sup>, but Harley’s nominee, James Cresset.<sup>650</sup></p><p>The political uncertainty was indeed creating a crisis of credit, as Godolphin’s problems at the treasury showed. On 15 June he had requested a routine loan from the Bank of England, which had been refused on the 22nd, and only agreed to a week later after two meetings of the directors. On 18 July he reported that ‘the credit continues to sink and the difficulties to increase, and unless there be a speedy remedy, the government will be very soon in the greatest extremities’. On that day he wrote to Seafield that ‘the continued noises of a speedy dissolution continue to have a most pernicious effect upon all our public credit here.’ When the Bank directors approached Godolphin on 3 Aug. for an assurance that the current Parliament would be continued, he asked them to put their request in writing. Armed with their memorandum, Godolphin saw the queen, but failed to get the assurance he wanted.<sup>651</sup></p><p>The undermining of Godolphin’s position continued. Coningsby’s replacement as vice-treasurer of Ireland by Anglesey he interpreted on 9 July as ‘another very disagreeable alteration’, caused by Coningsby’s ‘firm adherence’ to himself and to Godolphin, and by the need to compensate Anglesey for the failure to appoint him as Sunderland’s successor. On 12 July Godolphin reported to Marlborough an approach from James Vernon, on behalf of Shrewsbury, which he thought might be about the duchess’s relationship with the queen, a subject Godolphin thought ‘ought not to be treated with by anybody but’ Marlborough. On 21 July Godolphin reported that Shrewsbury had told Halifax that the queen ‘was resolved to make’ Godolphin and Harley ‘agree’, but that this resolution had been ‘delayed, if not retracted’.<sup>652</sup> Despite his opposition to a dissolution, Godolphin had one eye on preparations for an election. He responded to a request from Seafield by asking Marlborough on 30 June to ‘speak to all the North Britons in the army, to give us their help by joining with my Lord Seafield in the elections either of peers or commoners’ whenever they should come on.<sup>653</sup> On 24 July he told Seafield that he was glad ‘you think we may not despair of a favourable election of the Commons, in case of a new Parliament, which threatens us more and more every day, as the reason increases against it’.<sup>654</sup> Godolphin had attended the prorogations on 2 May, 20 June and 1 Aug., reporting that the prorogation to 26 Sept. had encouraged some people by the ‘remoteness of the day’. He comforted himself with the observation that the ‘reasons for continuing it grow every day stronger, by the renewing of the war in all places’. Meanwhile, Marlborough asked Godolphin to arrange the election of Stanhope should Parliament be dissolved. In September he issued the like request for Boyle.<sup>655</sup> Neither of them were elected with Godolphin’s help, although it appears that Onslow acknowledged Godolphin’s help in securing a bolt hole at St Mawes.<sup>656</sup></p><p>The process by which Harley eased Godolphin from office was not straightforward. On 3 July 1710 Harley drew up a memorandum for an interview with the queen in which he wrote ‘you must preserve your character and spirit to speak to [the] lord treasurer. Get quit of him’.<sup>657</sup> However, it was over a month later on 5 Aug., when Harley wrote to Newcastle, ‘this is plain, it is impracticable 32 [the queen] and 37 [Godolphin] can live together. He every day grows sourer and indeed ruder to 32 [the queen] which is unaccountable, and will hear of no accommodation, so that it is impossible he can continue many days’.<sup>658</sup> In the event, as Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, recorded in his <em>Letter to Wyndham</em>, personal reasons lay behind Godolphin’s dismissal—the queen had been alienated by ‘the personal ill usage which she received in her private life’, doubtless a reference to Godolphin’s well meaning attempts to reconcile her to Sarah and in particular his behaviour at cabinet on 30 July.<sup>659</sup> On 7 Aug. the queen wrote to Godolphin, ‘the uneasiness which you have showed for some time has given me very much trouble, tho I have borne it, and had your behaviour continued the same it was for a few years after my coming to the Crown, I could have no dispute with myself what to do’. However, ‘the many unkind returns I have received since, especially what you said to me personally before the Lords makes it impossible for me to continue you any longer in my service’. His dismissal was sweetened by the promise of a pension of £4,000 a year, ‘out of the privy purse’, and the command that ‘instead of bringing the staff to me that you will break it, which I believe will be easiest to us both.’<sup>660</sup> In reply, on the 8th, Godolphin defended his conduct, being ‘not conscious of the least undutiful act, or of one undutiful word to your majesty in my whole life.’<sup>661</sup> According to Sarah, the pension was never paid, so that ‘had not his elder brother happen to die he had been in very low circumstances’, Sir William Godolphin leaving him an estate worth a reputed £4,000 a year.<sup>662</sup></p><p>On 14 Aug. 1710 Godolphin explained his dismissal in terms of the queen being ‘industriously wrought up’ to believe that Mrs Masham could never ‘expect any quarter’ from himself or Marlborough. He predicted the resignation of the Whigs following the dissolution.<sup>663</sup> Although Bateman reported on 18 Aug. that Godolphin had ‘not been at council since he was out of office’, he did continue to help the government to finance its military commitments abroad, not least in facilitating the transfer of funds to pay Marlborough’s troops.<sup>664</sup> Cropley wrote to Shaftesbury that the Bank had agreed to lend ‘at the earnest request of my Lord Godolphin’. Godolphin, he said, had also written to Marlborough ‘to give strong assurances to all princes the queen will go on with the war and that the next Parliament will support the war’.<sup>665</sup> James Craggs the younger<sup>‡</sup> told Stanhope that when he had heard that Sir Henry Furnese<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Theodore Janssen<sup>‡</sup> had ‘refused to lend the new commissioners above £300,000 which they had agreed to lend my lord treasurer upon tallies’, Godolphin wrote them ‘a letter desiring them to keep to their bargain and support the nation’s credit, upon which they did give the money’.<sup>666</sup> The day after his fall, Godolphin was busy speaking to the envoys of the Dutch and the emperor to encourage their war effort and arranging for a secure means for Marlborough to communicate with the queen, either via him to Boyle, or to Boyle directly.<sup>667</sup></p><p>This did not mean that Godolphin was happy with what had happened. On 26 Aug. 1710 Harley wrote that Godolphin was ‘very peevish and makes Mr Secretary [Boyle] so’ and on 12 Sept. that Godolphin would not release Boyle from his ‘engagements’ to him.<sup>668</sup> Swift, too, detected a similar demeanour, when following his arrival in London on 7 Sept., he recounted a visit to Godolphin on the 9th, who ‘gave me a reception very unexpected and altogether different from what I have received from any great man in my life; altogether short, dry and morose’, which was explained by his friends ‘that he was overrun by the spleen and peevishness upon the present posture of affairs, and used nobody better’.<sup>669</sup> On 7 Sept. Maynwaring was desired by Devonshire and Sunderland to find out Godolphin’s views on how the other Whig ministers should behave, ‘for they would do, or not do, whatever he believed was best’.<sup>670</sup> Godolphin’s view that the remaining Whigs would resign following a dissolution, was confirmed on 10 Sept., he having been ‘very lately in company’ with the Junto.<sup>671</sup></p><h2><em>The Harley ministry and the 1710 election</em></h2><p>In September 1710, Godolphin turned some of his attention to the elections. He took part in ‘a great cabal’ at Althorp designed to promote a Whig challenge to Tory hegemony in Northamptonshire, although ultimately to no effect.<sup>672</sup> On 12 Sept. he received a visit from Wharton and ‘some gentlemen of Oxfordshire’ who were keen to have Rialton stand for the county, but Godolphin thought it ‘wrong to go about it at this time’.<sup>673</sup> On 13 Sept. he wrote to Seafield about the forthcoming Scottish peerage election.<sup>674</sup> But in the latter part of the month, thoughts of recreation became uppermost. On 24 Sept. Godolphin wrote from Althorp to the duke of Kent to tell him of his plans of visiting him at Wrest the following week, and ‘of walking about your gardens and park all Friday, of going to Newmarket, Saturday’.<sup>675</sup> By 2 Oct. Godolphin was at Newmarket. On 16 Oct. he wrote to the duchess of Marlborough perceptively analysing the tensions in the new ministry between Harley and Rochester. He described a dinner the previous day at Orford’s and characterized his own health as on the mend, although he could only bear the motions of a coach at walking pace.<sup>676</sup> On 26 Oct. Walpole wrote from Newmarket that Godolphin was ‘much out of order with the stone and gravel’.<sup>677</sup></p><p>According to Harley’s calculations of 3 Oct. 1710, Godolphin was expected to oppose the new ministry.<sup>678</sup> However, Godolphin had told Marlborough that he did not expect to be in London until towards the end of November, and he was absent from the opening of Parliament on 25 Nov., first attending on 4 December.<sup>679</sup> He attended a further three days in December, the last being the 18th. On 8 Dec. Peter Wentworth thought that some of the country gentlemen planned to impeach Godolphin, although ‘some great men… had art enough to get that waived’; on 19 Dec. Mungo Graham<sup>‡</sup> had heard nothing about an impeachment.<sup>680</sup> Rumours of an impeachment were to resurface in March 1711.<sup>681</sup> On 17 Dec. Godolphin penned a critique of current affairs, which was shown to the queen on 21 Dec., probably by Dr Hamilton.<sup>682</sup> He dealt mainly with the resurgence of France, and accompanying ‘insolence’, which had been encouraged by the decline in public credit, the dissolution of Parliament and the expected removal of Marlborough from his military commands. He went on to warn that</p><blockquote> talking never so big nor voting never so well signifies very little towards carrying on the war with effect, if there be not an entire conjunction and harmony betwixt her majesty and the allies abroad as it has been hitherto, and if, as the French have been already gratified in the first two points, they must also have further satisfaction of seeing assurances from their friends here made good by the duke of Marlborough’s not serving any more, this must needs give the finishing stroke to the drooping alliance, and make it fall to pieces immediately.</p></blockquote><p>The end result would be the allies negotiating separately with France. ‘When the alliance is once broken’, he argued, ‘can it enter into anybody’s imagination that the queen and the British nation will have any terms from France, but what shall be in favour of the Pretender’?<sup>683</sup> In the first ceremony since his own installation in December 1704, in Windsor on 22 Dec. Godolphin officiated at the installation into the garter of the electoral prince, the future George II*, then duke of Cambridge, as well as of the duke of Devonshire and the duke of Argyll.<sup>684</sup></p><p>On 5 Jan. 1711 Godolphin spoke in the debate on the war in Spain in defence of Galway’s actions: Nicolson referred to his ‘puzzling remarks’.<sup>685</sup> On 6 Jan. Dartmouth sent the queen’s commands to Godolphin that he comply with an order from the Lords for copies of his letters relating to the war in Spain and Portugal. Godolphin replied on the 7th that although he had written to Stanhope and Peterborough the letters contained ‘only my private thoughts’, and were of insufficient consequence to keep copies: orders to them from the queen ‘were always transmitted to them by the secretary of state’.<sup>686</sup> This rather neatly removed the threat of his being censured ‘for using the queen’s name’ without her consent, or knowledge.<sup>687</sup> On 9 Jan. he spoke in another debate on the Spanish war, when his motion that the House be cleared of strangers was rejected. On 11 Jan. he spoke in favour of hearing the petitions of Galway and Tyrawley on the conduct of the war and entered his protest against their rejection. He also spoke in the debate on the attribution of the blame for Almanza and protested against the conclusion that the defeat had been occasioned by the opinions of Galway, Tyrawley and Stanhope. He spoke in the censure debate on 12 Jan. to point out that it was important to distinguish between the cabinet council and the ministry: as ‘the word ministers was more copious, it was therefore improper in this case, because their Lordships ought to be sure whom they designed to censure’. He called, unsuccessfully, for an adjournment as it was late and ‘a person concerned in this debate was absent’. He later answered Peterborough, explaining why the earl’s project for an attack on Toulon had not been feasible.<sup>688</sup> He entered his protest against the censure of the conduct of ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. On 2 Feb. Kent registered his proxy with Godolphin, as did by James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley, three days later. On 3 Feb. he entered his protests against further motions relating to the Spanish war: that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of the battle of Alamanza were not properly supplied and that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament amounted to a neglect of that service. On 8 Feb. he entered his dissent from the presentation to the queen of the House’s conclusions concerning the war in Spain.</p><p>Godolphin was absent from the House from 22 Mar. until 9 May. This was partly because of a visit to Newmarket, from whence on 30 Mar. he wrote to Kent, promising ‘a great deal of diversion next week, and a very great appearance’: two of his horses were slated to race on consecutive days on 26-27 April.<sup>689</sup> On 9 Apr. Godolphin registered his proxy with Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton. The Tories, meanwhile, were planning a number of attacks on him. On 18 Apr. Poulett expounded a typical Tory view of Godolphin: ‘as the world is of all hands fully convinced Marlborough and Godolphin shifted only by setting mankind against one another and only throve by wars of all degrees and kinds’.<sup>690</sup> The Commons on 24 Apr. voted that £35 million of public money was unaccounted for, and an investigation was launched. Godolphin’s defenders mobilized themselves in response, Arthur Maynwaring collaborating with Walpole on compiling a repudiation of the claims, and on 28 Apr., Walpole defended him from claims that procedures had not been properly followed, showing ‘how some accounts could never be passed in that form the exchequer required, and it was not possible the lord treasurer could compel an impossibility’.<sup>691</sup> On 1 May Alexander Abercromby<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Marlborough, explaining his delay in joining the campaign: ‘Lord Seafield, Mr Boscawen and some others of my Lord Godolphin’s friends not only advised my stay hitherto but also for some days longer.’<sup>692</sup> On 5 May it was reported to Robert Wodrow that the Commons had ‘come to two resolves one highly reflecting upon the late management of the treasury’, particularly on the late passage of accounts. ‘There was a great debate whether in the first resolve my Lord Godolphin should be named but upon a division it was carried in the negative.’<sup>693</sup> According to Burnet, the missing £35 million could scarcely be attributed to Godolphin, who had ‘managed the treasury with an uncorruptness, fidelity and diligence, that were so unexceptionable that it was not possible to fix any censure on his administration’: he added, darkly, that the Tory-dominated Commons would not consent to allow the report of the committee on the arrears of taxes to be published, ‘for by that it would have appeared who had served well, and who had served ill.’<sup>694</sup></p><p>Back in the Lords, on 10 May 1711 Godolphin was named to manage a conference on amendments to a bill for the preservation of pine trees in the American colonies. On 12 May he was named to two conferences on the bill for the preservation of game, as he was again on the 17th and 31st. On 15 May Maynwaring reported Godolphin ‘ill of a cold, and more touched by the removal of Lord Rialton than his own’ (his son having been dismissed as cofferer on the 13th).<sup>695</sup> On 1 June in the debate in the committee of the whole on the Scottish linen cloth bill, according to John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], the only significant point at issue was the prohibition of the export of unmanufactured linen yarn ‘from Scotland or Ireland or any foreign part’, which came under considerable attack from English peers of all sides. Godolphin was one of the few who stood up for the Scots, speaking for them twice, ‘very heartily and very well’.<sup>696</sup> As well as removing the clause, the Lords added a clause allowing the exportation of linen from Ireland to the plantations for 11 years, something which, Baillie felt, would have seriously disadvantaged the Scottish linen trade. Only Godolphin, Shrewsbury and Buckingham had spoken against the amendment.<sup>697</sup> Godolphin last attended that session on 4 June, having attended on 62 days of the session, 55 per cent of the total, and having been named to a further six committees.</p><p>Over the summer, Godolphin worked on defending his own and his ministry’s reputation, calling on 25 July 1711 for material from Cowper on the Bewdley charter dispute, ‘in order to set the late representation of the House of Commons in a truer light’ (the catalogue of grievances against the Whig ministry which had been compiled in the Commons and voted to be presented to the queen on 31 May, and which referred to the long-running issue of the replacement of Bewdley’s corporation charter).<sup>698</sup> On 21 Sept. he was at St Albans and by 4 Oct. he was at Newmarket, where he was still on 25 October.<sup>699</sup> Godolphin’s name occurs on Nottingham’s list of list of peers put together probably at the beginning of December, possibly in relation to Nottingham’s alliance with the Whigs against the ministry’s peace policy, or the passing of the occasional conformity bill.<sup>700</sup> Godolphin attended on the opening day of the 1711-12 session, 7 Dec., speaking in favour of inserting into the address the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause.<sup>701</sup> He argued against the ministerial view that the matter should be postponed: the nation, he warned, could be bought and sold before it was considered; the outcome of the debate was being closely watched by the French.<sup>702</sup> On 8 Dec. his name appears on a list either as an opponent of the court in the projected division on the Address or in favour of presenting it with the amendment of the previous day. On 19 Dec., on a forecast for the division expected on the following day on the Hamilton peerage case, Godolphin’s name was amongst the opponents, but with a query.<sup>703</sup> In the event he left the House rather than vote on the validity of patents of honour granted to peers of Great Britain who were peers of Scotland at the time of the Union, and their entitlement to sit and vote in Parliament. In doing so he avoided voting against the royal prerogative, although partisan advantage might have demanded it.<sup>704</sup></p><p>The tactical advantage of a short Christmas adjournment obtained by the Whigs on 22 Dec. 1711 was obviated on 2 Jan. 1712 when the court (bolstered by the new peerage creations) succeeded in winning a further adjournment. Godolphin spoke against the motion, ‘insisting upon the irregularity of adjourning one house and not th’other’, but it was carried by 63-49.<sup>705</sup> In late January Godolphin seems to have been consulted by Somerset on whether the duke should insist upon his wife leaving the queen’s service following his own dismissal.<sup>706</sup> On 15 Jan., Abercrombie reported that following the report of the commissioners of public accounts in the Commons there was ‘some talk of impeaching’ Godolphin, among others.<sup>707</sup> On 17 Jan., after the queen’s message to the Lords on the diminution of her prerogative over the creation of British titles and the need to satisfy the Scots, Godolphin proposed it be debated in committee of the whole House the following day, as it would require some time.<sup>708</sup> On 31 Jan. Thomas Pelham*, Baron Pelham, registered his proxy with Godolphin, followed on 13 Feb. by John Hervey*, Baron Hervey (later earl of Bristol). On 21 Feb. Godolphin made a motion to adjourn the House until the 25th, but this was lost after a tied division.<sup>709</sup> After 13 Mar. he did not attend again until 13 May. He registered his proxy with Cowper on 28 March. One of his horses was slated to run at Newmarket on 30 April.<sup>710</sup> After his return, on 28 May he seconded Halifax in the debate over the ‘restraining orders’ sent to Ormond and entered his protest against the resolution not to address the queen for an offensive war against France.<sup>711</sup> On 7 June he spoke in the debate on the motion to address the queen thanking her for her speech concerning the peace negotiations, noting that although ‘he did not pretend to any great knowledge in trade’, yet he had observed that customs records showed that ‘the single trade of Portugal brought to England in times of war [was] double the wealth of the trade to Spain in times of peace’, so that it must be ‘presumed that the trade to Spain would still yield less for the future because the French had made themselves absolute masters of it’.<sup>712</sup> He then entered his protest against the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace. He last attended on 13 June, a week or so before the end of the session, having been present on 57 days of the session, 53 per cent of the total, and been named to a further nine committees.</p><p>On 26 June 1712 Godolphin sent a letter to Nottingham noting that ‘the second declaration of the duke of Ormond’s [presumably his announcement that he had received instructions to agree a ceasefire with the French for two months] makes a great noise here, and would have made a greater, I believe if it had not missed of its intended effect’.<sup>713</sup> On 7 July Godolphin accompanied the Marlboroughs from the Lodge at Windsor to London.<sup>714</sup> Upon their return to St Albans, Godolphin was present on 11 Aug. at a dinner held in Marlborough’s campaign tent on his bowling green.<sup>715</sup> At the end of July, his sister referred to Godolphin intending ‘a thorough progress now he has nothing else to do’.<sup>716</sup> This he seems to have undertaken, for on 18 Aug. he was visiting his niece, Dorothy Meadowes, near Winchester. He then moved on to Tilshead; and on 24 Aug. he was at Woodstock, dining with Sunderland, Maynwaring and Vanbrugh.<sup>717</sup> He then returned to St Albans, no doubt looking forward to a foray to Newmarket, where on 10 Sept. it was announced that one of his horses would run against one of Wharton’s at Newmarket on 8 October.<sup>718</sup></p><p>Godolphin did not live to see the race. He died at St Albans at 2 o’clock on the morning of 15 Sept., ‘having been long afflicted with the stone in the kidneys’.<sup>719</sup> White Kennet rather gruesomely described how in the process of ‘riding cross the country 40 miles a day, the motion of the coach broke a stone in the kidneys and the pieces coming down in great torture obstructing and bearing upon one another, one of them so lodged in a neck of water as to mortify and kill without possible help’.<sup>720</sup> His sister wrote that it was a ‘great happiness in the midst of this misfortune that my Lord Godolphin is ill in a place where he is so carefully and tenderly looked after’ by the duchess.<sup>721</sup> L’Hermitage recorded that after his death they had opened him up and found a stone the length of a kidney.<sup>722</sup> On 7 Oct. his body was taken from his house at St James’s Park to the Jerusalem chamber of the Palace of Westminster. The next evening, about 11 p.m., he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Marlborough, Richmond, Schomberg, and Devonshire held the corners of the pall, and a large number of other nobles came up from the country to attend.<sup>723</sup> There had been a slight delay in the burial ‘till they could get six lords of the Garter together to carry up the pall’, there even being a suggestion that ‘they don’t find the Tory knights so ready to come to town a purpose’.<sup>724</sup></p><h2><em>An unblemished reputation</em></h2><p>After his death, the new earl of Godolphin declared that his father ‘died with no more money by him than £1500 which all people wonders at.’<sup>725</sup> This should perhaps been compared with Godolphin’s self-assessment of his personal estate ‘including money at interest’ at about £10,000 in October 1689.<sup>726</sup> Kennet recorded that on his death ‘his effects beside the paternal estate are said not to be above 25 thousand pounds, yet considering his public employs and private way of life must argue an integrity singular in that office’.<sup>727</sup> L’Hermitage thought that he left only £50,000, apart from £3,000 in rents inherited from his older brother.<sup>728</sup> On 23 Oct. Godolphin’s sister, Jael Boscawen, wrote that she was ‘more sorry than surprised’ that Godolphin had ‘left no more money to those that come after, and that what was thought to be left is not theirs, especially if there be any debts to pay’. Further, the ‘poor old estate has had debts and encumbrances upon it, to near the value of it, since my remembrance, but yet even at that time the owners were never straitened but had always plenty of money and the last of them left £4,000 which he disposed of in legacies.’<sup>729</sup> According to the duchess of Marlborough, Godolphin ‘never made any great expense for he won at play and mortally hated all things of show and grandeur, but he was very charitable and generous’. When he died ‘he had not in the world but about’ £14,000 in tallies, of which £11,000 was not his ‘and many other small sums which he took off helpless people who thought themselves safe in his hands, and when all his debts were paid there could hardly be enough to bury him’.<sup>730</sup></p><p>In the immediate aftermath of his death, the duchess described Godolphin as ‘the truest friend to me and all my family that ever was, and the best man that ever lived’.<sup>731</sup> Molesworth lamented that ‘the greatest man in the whole world for honesty, capacity, courage, friendship, generosity is gone’.<sup>732</sup> Boyer recorded in September 1712 that Godolphin’s ‘administration was found thoroughly clear, sound and unattachable. So that, as he lived, he died, with an unblemished reputation, to which the most candid of his enemies paid a due respect’.<sup>733</sup> The <em>Flying Post</em> recorded that ‘he has left behind him the character of an accomplished statesman and a frugal and prudent manager of the public money’.<sup>734</sup> Swift recorded that ‘the Whigs have lost a great support’ by his death.<sup>735</sup> Hearne noted that ‘he was a man that could keep his temper, but was one of the greatest Whigs in the kingdom, and did as much mischief as the duke of Marlborough, these two ingrossing the treasure of the nation to themselves’.<sup>736</sup> In 1685 Jael Boscawen had written of his ‘silent manner of his expressing himself to his best friends, which to those that don’t know him very well may give just occasion to doubt of him’.<sup>737</sup> Godolphin himself once remarked to Coningsby that his ‘countenance was none of the best at any time’, and Hare thought his ‘silence was very particular and almost without example’ when under provocation.<sup>738</sup> He may have needed it to deal with the clamour of those who wanted his attention: Maynwaring described the scene at his levee: ‘when my Lord himself comes out, they all crowd about him, press to be heard, and stick close to his ear, till he is gone out into the court.’<sup>739</sup> As the perceived fount of most ministerial patronage, Godolphin was always troubled by ‘so many unreasonable people, that it is impossible for a man in his station to satisfy them all’.<sup>740</sup> Nor was he helped by Marlborough’s determination to keep out of most patronage matters, relying on Godolphin to shield him from the incessant importunities of suitors and their patrons.<sup>741</sup> Nevertheless, if one could pierce his armour, Godolphin was loyal to his friends. Shaftesbury noted in 1709 that ‘once he has conceived a good opinion of a man, he will bear anything from him’.<sup>742</sup> Or woman for that matter, for perhaps his closest friend was the duchess of Marlborough, on whom he relied for ‘comfort and companionship’. He saw her every day when she was at court and they corresponded every day when she was absent.<sup>743</sup></p><p>Although extremely hard-working, Godolphin could also be good company and was known to enjoy card-playing and, especially horse-racing. Foreign diplomats, such as the Prussian Ezekiel, Freiherr von Spanheim, took particular note of his regular attendance at Newmarket in the spring and autumn of each year.<sup>744</sup> Godolphin told Burnet that his love of gaming ‘delivered him from the obligation to talk much’. Political opponents regarded Godolphin’s famed coolness as a mask for hypocrisy, an ‘affectation’, according to Dartmouth, for ‘though he had the grimace of refusing everything before he received it’, yet he had benefited his family through alliance with the Marlboroughs.<sup>745</sup> The squibs of his opponents, such as Brown’s <em>The Country Parson’s Honest Advice</em> addressed to Lord Keeper Cowper, poured doubts on his probity.<sup>746</sup> However, most contemporaries regarded him, as did James Brydges, as a man of ‘wisdom, probity and deep experience’.<sup>747</sup> To Burnet, Godolphin was ‘the man of the clearest head, the calmest temper, and the most incorrupt of all the ministers of state I have ever known’. Time seemed only to increase his reputation: Thomas Carte in 1724 noted that ‘Godolphin had certainly the best head and capacity for a minister of state of any man in England and was a man that no country in the world might be ashamed of. He had not the least tincture of avarice and was the uncorruptest man in his time’ in the treasury.<sup>748</sup></p><p>The traditional view of Godolphin is that of a highly competent administrator, who presided over a treasury which raised unprecedented funds for military purposes, whilst managing the relationship between the executive and the legislature.<sup>749</sup> During 1702-9, Parliament raised over £40 million for the war. Further, Godolphin managed the supply much more efficiently than his predecessors, with better record keeping, more attention to the management of tallies and the use of exchequer bills, long term borrowing by the sale of annuities, and an attempt to prevent excessive profiteering by those remitting funds to pay the armed forces. In this he was not essentially an innovator, but a bureaucrat who had fully mastered the workings of the system. As one historian put it, ‘his forte was administration rather than originality’.<sup>750</sup> The weakness of Godolphin’s financial management was ‘the floating departmental debt’, which grew each year and ‘came after 1708 to imperil the structure of credit’.<sup>751</sup> Even so, his reputation in this field was again higher 15 years after his death; looking back from the vantage point of 1727, a correspondent of Spencer Compton wrote that ‘a good judgment capable of weighing the several expedients that will always be proposed to it, is the chief quality required in a lord treasurer’, and Godolphin, ‘who knew but little of accounts, whose hand was perhaps one of the worst in England, and who did not even write at all without some difficulty, is generally allowed one of the best lord treasurers we ever had’.<sup>752</sup></p><p>In political terms, Godolphin was reluctant to commit the court to a party campaign by sending signals of wholesale removals; what he did do, in Cropley’s words, was ‘dabble a little in a few particular places [to] influence, ’tis so gently done and unseen and so as really to signify very little’. In a sense, the objective was ‘to regulate the extent of official influence … in such a way as to leave one party victorious in the Commons but not uncontrollable’. If he had a weakness as a political manager, it was his distaste for the party battle.<sup>753</sup> Around 1710, Raby referred to Godolphin as speaking ‘seldom in the House of Lords, but when he does is well heard, and speaks very handsomely and always much to the purpose’.<sup>754</sup> This fits in well with the views of John Dunton that Godolphin was ‘a statesman of a profound and orthodox judgment’, and Abel Boyer, who at the end of a lengthy panegyric observed that Godolphin had ‘a very clear conception of the whole policy of the government both in Church and State’.<sup>755</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
GORING, Charles (1624-71) |
<p><strong><surname>GORING</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1624–71)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1657-63 Ld. Goring; <em>suc. </em>fa. 6 Jan. 1663 as 2nd earl of NORWICH |
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1663; last sat 11 Feb. 1671 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 23 Oct. 1624,<sup>1</sup> 2nd but o. surv. s. of George Goring*, earl of Norwich and Mary (<em>d</em>.1648), da. of Edward Nevill<sup>†</sup> 8th Bar. Abergavenny; bro. of George Goring<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Jesus, Camb. 1637. <em>m</em>. bef. 7 Jan. 1659, Alice (<em>bur</em>. 23 July 1680), da. of Robert Leman, of Brightwell Hall, Suff., wid. of Thomas Baker of Fressingfield, Suff. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 3 Mar. 1671; <em>will</em> 2 Mar., pr. 15 Mar. 1671.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Clerk, Council of Wales 1661-3; sec., Council of Wales 1663-<em>d.</em>; steward, honour of Peverell, Notts. 1664-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Col., Ld. Goring’s Regt. of Horse 1645-6.</p> |
|
<p>Like his father and elder brother Colonel George Goring<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Goring, Charles Goring fought for the royalists during the Civil War, serving under his brother at Marston Moor, the second battle of Newbury, Naseby and Langport. He also had a field command during the second Civil War but appears to have escaped to the Netherlands after that campaign’s failure and was in Antwerp in early 1652, when he, his father and brother were all specifically exempted from the benefits of the Act of General Pardon and Oblivion.<sup>5</sup> He returned to England that spring to manage the affairs of his family’s estate in England, including the sale of Danny and other of the family’s estates in Sussex, and appears to have remained in the country thereafter, despite occasional harassment from the government.<sup>6</sup></p><p>From late 1657, when Colonel Goring died in Madrid, Charles adopted the courtesy title of Lord Goring and became heir to his father’s earldom of Norwich. Sometime in late 1658 the new Lord Goring contracted a lucrative marriage with Alice Baker, a widow who brought with her from her previous marriage a personal estate of £10,000 and jointure lands of £1,000 p.a., including the richly furnished Forest House in Leyton, Middlesex.<sup>7</sup></p><p>On 7 Jan. 1663, having just learned of his father’s death, he wrote to his former comrade in the royalist western campaign, Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Wentworth, predicting ‘nothing but ruin’ unless the king took compassion for ‘a family of loyalty and passionate affection for him’. He claimed that, under the pressure of providing for his creditors, his father had been reduced to an estate of £450 p.a. by the time of his death.<sup>8</sup> Charles II did make some gestures to help him in his dire financial straits and Norwich was able to take over his father’s previous sinecure as secretary of the Council of Wales (where he had held the position of clerk under his father since 1661) and in 1664 the Crown bestowed on him the stewardship of the honour of Peverell in Nottinghamshire, an office which had also been held by his father during the reign of Charles I.<sup>9</sup> Norwich also insistently claimed the residue of the pension of £14,000 (to be paid in instalments of £2,000 a year for seven years) that had been given to his father on surrendering the captaincy of the yeomen of the guard to George Villiers, 4th Viscount Grandison of Limerick [I] in 1661.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Norwich first sat in the House on 18 Feb. 1663, and proceeded to attend 72 per cent of the meetings of the session of spring 1663, where he was named to ten select committees, mostly on private bills, but including those on bills to prevent gaming and to prevent duels. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, forecast that Norwich would support the attempt in July 1663 of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Norwich had good reason to dislike Clarendon. The first earl of Norwich had blamed Clarendon directly for his failure to be appointed farmer of the customs in late 1662, and the second earl came close to holding the lord chancellor responsible for his father’s death, as he suggested that being passed over as customs farmer broke his father’s heart.<sup>11</sup> Norwich would already have witnessed the intense animosity between his brother, Lord Goring, and Sir Edward Hyde (as he then was) during the western campaign of 1644-5 and probably blamed Clarendon for the failure of many of his own petitions, such as his attempt to claim the Mulberry Garden in St. James Park, a plot of valuable land which had originally been promised to his father but whose grant had been aborted by the events of 1642.<sup>12</sup> He was connected with other opponents of the lord chancellor. He appears to have had some relationship, although it is difficult to determine what the exact connection was, with Clarendon’s rival Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington. Norwich referred to Arlington in 1663 as his ‘cousin’ who would be able to attest reliably to the meagre state of his inheritance.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Norwich was also connected to many prominent members of the English Catholic community and, if not a Catholic himself, he apparently had a good deal of sympathy for them and their religion. This too may have encouraged him to side with the Catholic Bristol against the religiously discriminatory measures associated with the lord chancellor. Goring considered himself enough of a member of the Church of England to have his burial in the Anglican parish church of Leyton.<sup>14</sup> But his wife may have been a Catholic, for it was the abbess of the Benedictine convent at Ghent who was able to reassure the first earl of Norwich in 1659 that his new daughter-in-law was ‘a virtuous, rich and wise young lady’.<sup>15</sup> The first earl had long served the Catholic household of Henrietta Maria; Colonel George Goring had formally converted to Catholicism before his death in 1657 and was buried in St. George’s Chapel of the English Jesuits in Madrid. Most tellingly, Norwich’s mother was of the Catholic Nevill family and his maternal cousin, the Catholic George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergavenny, was on Wharton’s list of Clarendon’s opponents, as was the Catholic peer Christopher Roper*, 4th Baron Teynham, who on 14 July 1663 registered his proxy with Norwich to represent him during the proceedings on the impeachment. This proxy was vacated three days later at Teynham’s reappearance in the House.</p><p>Teynham gave Norwich his proxy again for the entirety of the session of spring 1664, during which Norwich came to all but five of the sittings and was named to five committees. He improved his level of attendance and activity at the next session, in 1664-5, when he came to 45 of the 53 meetings. He was nominated to 21 committees in all, almost all on private bills, and on 24 Jan. 1665 chaired a meeting on Francis Leigh’s estate bill which was adjourned with no discussion.<sup>16</sup> He came to 75 per cent of the session of 1666-7 and on 22 Dec. 1666 was delegated to bring George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, from the Tower of London, where he had been incarcerated for an unseemly tussle with Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, to the bar of the House to make his submission and bind himself not to provoke Dorchester again. As Dorchester was brought before the bar at the same time by his nephew Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, this duty given to Norwich suggests that he may have been considered an associate of Buckingham. Their fathers had indeed been close companions at the courts of James I and Charles I, but they may also have been united in their dislike of Clarendon and their wish to see his fall. To exacerbate matters during 1666-7 Norwich was involved in a long dispute with the treasury about privy seals granted to a number of his father’s creditors and legatees which diverted to them first call on the pension money which Norwich claimed.<sup>17</sup></p><p>It is not surprising then that in the session of 1667-8 Norwich supported the measures taken against Clarendon and attended the proceedings faithfully, coming to over three-quarters of the meetings of the autumn. He protested on 20 Nov. 1667 against the House’s decision to reject the Commons’ request that Clarendon be committed without a specific charge of treason and on 7 Dec. he was named to the committee to consider the bill for banishing the lord chancellor. He was named to a further nine committees in late 1667, but over the following two years his attendance and committee nominations slackened slightly. He did come to 80 per cent of the meetings of spring 1670 and was named to committees considering the decay of trade and for the bill against the fraudulent export of wool, among others. On 8 Mar. 1670 he chaired the committee considering the estate bill of Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I].<sup>18</sup> That same day he stepped forward in the House to represent the interests of George Nevill*, 12th Baron Abergavenny, his five-year-old first cousin once removed, against the claims of Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, to precedence over all the barons of England, and particularly of Abergavenny. Norwich opposed the bill for the divorce of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) and dissented both from its second reading on 17 Mar. 1670 and from its eventual passage 11 days later. After the summer adjournment, Norwich held Teynham’s proxy from 1 Nov. 1670, although he himself did not sit in the House until 4 Nov. and left it permanently on 11 Feb. 1671, probably owing to illness. He hurriedly composed his will on 2 Mar. 1671 in which, being childless, he left everything to his wife, acknowledging that almost all he possessed, apart from a few leaseholds in Yorkshire and Essex, came from her and the lucrative jointure she had brought with her. Without any male heirs, the earldom of Norwich became extinct. As early as April 1671 it was rumoured that the title would be conferred on Henry Bennet, Baron Arlington, but instead it, along with Norwich’s stewardship of the honour of Peverell, was bestowed on Henry Howard*, Baron Howard of Castle Rising (and later 6th duke of Norfolk) on 19 October 1672.<sup>19</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GORING, George (1585-1663) |
<p><strong><surname>GORING</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1585–1663)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>14 Apr. 1628 Bar. Goring of Hurstpierpoint; <em>cr. </em>28 Nov. 1644 earl of NORWICH |
|
First sat 15 Apr. 1628; first sat after 1660, 1 June 1660; last sat 6 May 1662 |
|
MP Lewes 1621, 1624, 1625, 1626, 1628–14 Apr. 1628 |
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Apr. 1585, 1st s. of George Goring<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1602), of Danny Park, Suss. and Anne, da. of Henry Denny, of Waltham Abbey, Essex.; bro. of Sir Edward Goring<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Sidney Sussex, Camb. 1600; travelled abroad (Germany) 1609–13. <em>m</em>. by 1608, Mary (<em>bur</em>. 15 July 1648), da. of Edward Nevill<sup>†</sup>, 8th Bar. Abergavenny, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 7da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 1602; <em>ktd</em>. 29 May 1608. <em>d</em>. 6 Jan. 1663; <em>will</em> 2 Jan. pr. 29 Jan. 1663.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. pens. by 1608, lt. 1616–39; gent. of privy chamber to Prince Henry 1610; Embassy to France 1616; agent 1624–5; amb. extraordinary, France 1643–44; surveyor of soap 1624, farmer, sugar impost 1626; vice-chamb. to Henrietta Maria 1626–8; master of horse to Henrietta Maria 1628–at least 1638; surveyor of wine licences 1627, customs 1638–41, wine and currant imposts 1639–41; commr. sale of French prizes 1627, butter exports 1635, gold and silver thread 1636, tobacco licences 1636, cottages 1638, usury 1638, subsidy of peerage 1641, revenue inquiry 1642; vice-chamb. of household 1639–44; PC 25 Aug. 1639–44, c.1650–60 (exiled court), 1 June 1660–<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> capt. Yeomen of the Gd. 1645, 1657–61;<sup>3</sup> commr. trade 1660–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. sewers, Suss. 1610–at least 1641, array, Suss. 1642;<sup>4</sup> freeman, Portsmouth 1635; steward, honour of Peveril, Notts. (jt.) 1618–38, (sole) 1638–45; sec. Council of Wales 1630–41, 1661–<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Gen., forces in Kent and Sussex (roy.) 1648.</p> |
|
<p>George Goring was born into a cadet branch of a prominent family which had been settled in Sussex since the reign of Edward I. From about 1608, owing to family connections and to his charm and affable nature, he became a leading member of the households of James I and Charles I, closely connected with the royal favourite George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham. He accompanied Buckingham and the prince of Wales to Madrid in 1623 to arrange the Spanish Match. With the failure of that project he then took part in negotiating the marriage of Prince Charles with the French princess Henrietta Maria, and he served her from 1626, first as vice-chamberlain and then as master of horse.</p><p>Goring began his parliamentary career in the Commons, where he sat for the Sussex borough of Lewes in every Parliament from 1621 until he was raised to the peerage on 14 Apr. 1628 as Baron Goring of Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. Sussex remained the base of his land-holding and political interest until he was forced to abandon and sell many of his properties during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Throughout the first half of the seventeenth century he held a wide range of local responsibilities and commissions in that county.<sup>6</sup> But the other centre of his influence gradually shifted to Westminster and the court. Through royal favour and his own financial acumen he quickly grew very rich. By 1619 he was receiving a pension of £3,000 p.a. and from 1623 he earned for himself a reputation as ‘captain projector’ for his involvement in many schemes of tax farming and monopolies. Under the protection of the crown and its patents and monopolies he acquired a fortune in the import or production and retail sale of soap, wine, tobacco and many other luxury and domestic goods. He was given the sinecure of secretary of the Council of Wales in 1630 and in 1639 attained his apogee of court influence when made vice-chamberlain of the royal household and a member of the Privy Council. At the time of his death in 1663 it was estimated that Goring’s income in 1641–2 had amounted to £26,800 p.a., much of it earmarked for the repayment of the massive debts of his extravagant and flamboyant heir, also George Goring<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Goring.<sup>7</sup></p><p>During the Civil War Goring remained loyal to the king and in August 1643 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary to France to try to firm up French assistance to the royal cause. He was back in Oxford by 28 Nov. 1644, on which date he was advanced in the peerage as earl of Norwich, the title previously held by his maternal uncle Edward Denny<sup>†</sup>, who had died in 1637 without male heirs. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, suggested that this promotion was influenced by the solicitations of Norwich’s son and heir, George, who was fast becoming the principal royalist military leader in the western and southern theatres of war.<sup>8</sup> Norwich went abroad as the royalist cause collapsed, but had returned to England by May 1648 as general of the royalist forces in Kent and Sussex; during the second Civil War he was one of the commanders leading the besieged royalist forces in Colchester. After the city’s surrender in August 1648, Norwich was imprisoned for several months and in early March 1649 was condemned to death, but was reprieved by one vote in a division in the Rump on his petition for mercy.</p><p>Norwich was still stirring up trouble in Surrey in August 1649, but in September 1650 he was given a pass to go abroad, and he settled in the Netherlands from where he engaged in a frequent correspondence with Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup> In 1652 he served Charles II as his agent to the duke of Lorraine and Elizabeth of Bohemia in the Netherlands, while in 1656–8 he took an active interest in the plans for a military alliance with Spain and a descent on England.<sup>10</sup> Charles II for his part showed his appreciation of Norwich’s long service to his father and mother and in 1657 confirmed his appointment as captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, which had originally been conferred on him by Charles I in October 1645.</p><p>Norwich’s relations with Nicholas’ colleague Sir Edward Hyde were much cooler. He thought Hyde’s ‘overvaluing himself and undervaluing others, together with his grasping at too much’ would ‘bring irrecoverable inconveniences, if not ruin, to affairs’. <sup>11</sup> For his part, Hyde in his <em>History of the Rebellion</em> portrays Norwich as a simple, inoffensive, almost buffoonish, courtier with no great political ambition or ability:</p><blockquote><p>He had always lived in the Court in such a station of business as raised him very few enemies; and his pleasant and jovial nature, which was every where acceptable, made him many friends, at least made many delighted in his company. So that by the great favour he had with the king and queen, and the little prejudice he stood in with any body else, he was very like (if the fatal disorder of the time had not blasted his hopes) to have grown master of a very fair fortune; which was all that he proposed to himself.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> later recorded anecdotes which similarly emphasized Norwich’s jovial character, even in the solemnity of the French court.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Norwich was in Antwerp preparing to return to England in early April 1660 and Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> recorded his arrival at Dover on 10 Apr. as the Convention was preparing to convene.<sup>14</sup> He was in England as an agent for the exiled court as the initial moves for a restoration of Charles II were made. On 21 Apr. it was reported that he had had a ‘civil reception’ from the council of state and George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, while a week later, after the Convention had first met, Norwich and a number of other lords dined at the London residence of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland.<sup>15</sup> Throughout May he acted as an observer on political affairs for the exile court, informing Nicholas, Hyde and James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I] (and later earl of Brecknock in the English peerage) of developments in the Convention and giving advice on actions to take and people to promote.<sup>16</sup> Norwich himself first sat in the Convention House of Lords with the general influx of formerly exiled royalists on 1 June, on which day he was also reappointed to his places as privy councillor and captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. In this latter role he played a prominent ceremonial role in the coronation of April 1661.<sup>17</sup> That his death in January 1663 occurred while en route from Windsor to the capital suggests that even in his advanced age he attended the court and Privy Council.<sup>18</sup> However, the elderly Norwich was not active in the House and only came to 35 per cent of the sittings of the Convention and 15 per cent of the 1661–2 session of the Cavalier Parliament. He was appointed to only four committees throughout 1660–2 and signed one protest, that of 13 Dec. 1660 against the resolution to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell levied during the Interregnum.</p><p>Norwich was most concerned in the years following the Restoration with satisfying his creditors. To this end, in 1661 he surrendered his post as captain of the Yeomen of the Guard in exchange for a pension of £2,000 p.a. for seven years, and he frequently petitioned Hyde, now earl of Clarendon, for the restitution of the other lucrative offices and privileges he had enjoyed before the civil wars. He was reappointed secretary of the Council of Wales in 1661, but his ambitious request for the farm of the custom was turned down definitively in late 1662.<sup>19</sup> Norwich blamed Clarendon directly for this, and on 2 Jan. 1663, as he lay deathly ill at an inn at Brentford, he composed an angry letter to Clarendon’s son Henry Hyde*, styled Lord Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon), complaining that he had received by the hands of his father ‘the most fatal blow’ to his fortune.<sup>20</sup> The same day he also composed a brief will, which is concerned almost exclusively with the settlement of debts and which made his second son (from 1657 his sole heir male), Charles Goring*, 2nd earl of Norwich, executor of this depleted estate. The 2nd earl, writing a few days after Norwich’s death on 6 Jan. 1663, claimed that Clarendon’s refusal of the farm of the custom had broken his father’s heart and had effectively reduced his estate to a mere £450 p.a.<sup>21</sup> Despite his impoverished and lonely death, attended only by his few servants at the inn, ‘the good old earl of Norwich’ (as Nicholas dubbed him) was rewarded for his long and faithful service to the Stuarts by burial a week later in Westminster Abbey.<sup>22</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GRANVILLE, Charles (1661-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>GRANVILLE</surname></strong> (<strong>GRENVILLE</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1661–1701)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Visct. Lansdown 1661-1701; <em>accel. </em>16 July 1689 Bar. GRANVILLE of Kilkhampton and Bideford; <em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Aug. 1701 as 2nd earl of BATH |
|
First sat 17 July 1689; last sat 24 June 1701 |
|
MP Launceston 19 Nov. 1680, Cornwall 1685 |
<p><em>b</em>. 21 Aug. 1661, 1st s. and h. of John Granville*, earl of Bath, and Jane, da. of Sir Peter Wyche; bro. of John Granville*, later Bar. Granville of Potheridge; nephew of Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup>; cos. of Bernard<sup>‡</sup>, Bevil<sup>‡</sup>, and George Granville*, later Bar. Lansdown. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France; tutor Nicholas Durell) 1676–81. <em>m</em>. (1) 22 May 1678, Martha (<em>d</em>. 11 Sept. 1689), da. of Sir Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), <em>s.p</em>. (2) 10 Mar. 1691, Isabella (<em>d</em>. 30 Jan. 1693), with £16,000, da. of Henry de Nassau, Ld. Auverquerque, Count of Nassau (master of the horse to William III), sis. of Henry de Nassau*, earl of Grantham, 1s. <em>d</em>. 4 Sept. 1701; <em>admon</em>. 10 Sept. 1701 to bro. John Granville<sup>‡</sup>, guardian of William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, 16 Mar. 1708 to Sir John Stanley, guardian of 3rd earl of Bath<sup>1</sup>.</p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1683–5; envoy extraordinary to Spain 1685–9.</p><p>Ld. lt. (jt.) Cornwall and Devon 6 May 1691–25 May 1693; commr. assessment Cornwall 1689;<sup>2</sup> burgess, Plymouth and Saltash 1684; freeman, Bodmin, Liskeard, Plympton Erle, and Tintagel 1685.</p> |
|
<p>Given that the earl of Bath’s second peerage was the viscountcy of Granville of Lansdown, one would have expected that his heir would be styled Lord Granville but in practice it was the territorial designation of the viscountcy that supplied the title by which Charles Granville was known until he succeeded to the earldom in 1701. The subsequent creation of a second barony of Granville (of Potheridge) for his younger brother, John Granville, and a barony of Lansdown for his cousin George Granville creates occasional confusion.</p><p>In 1676, apparently a somewhat awkward teenager, Lansdown left England in the company of his kinsman, the diplomat Sir Peter Wyche, having been granted a pass to travel abroad for four years. Reports indicate that he got no further than Paris, where he became a pupil at the famous Foubert academy, which provided training in horsemanship, swordplay, and other courtly accomplishments. There the teenager soon appears to have acquired the sort of social polish appropriate to a young nobleman. Lady Penelope Osborne later described him ‘as complete a gentleman as ever’ she did ‘behold’.<sup>3</sup> The improvement was ascribed to his governor or tutor, Nicholas Durell, whose services in that regard attracted admiration (and recommendations to new pupils).<sup>4</sup> During Lansdown’s absence Bath negotiated a marriage between his son and Martha Osborne, daughter of Bath’s friend and political ally, the earl of Danby. The negotiations initially foundered over Bath’s insistence on a dowry of £10,000 but an amicable arrangement was eventually reached and Lansdown returned to England for the marriage before departing for Paris once again.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Almost the only information we have about Lansdown’s religious beliefs comes from a single letter to his new father-in-law in January 1679 describing his dismay at the persecution of French Protestants in general and the associated threats to Foubert in particular. Lansdown suggested that Danby assist Foubert (who had been forced to close his Parisian academy) to move to England ‘for then our nobility might learn at home of a Protestant what they are now obliged to seek for abroad amongst the papists’.<sup>6</sup> Danby presumably responded positively to Lansdown’s suggestion: Foubert re-opened his academy in London later that year, assisted by a royal grant.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Lansdown finally returned to England in 1681. During his absence, and while he was still a minor, he had been elected to the Commons on his father’s interest. Like his father he supported Danby after his fall and imprisonment. In 1682 the Lansdowns separated, apparently as a result of incriminating letters that had passed between Lady Lansdown and William Leveson Gower<sup>‡</sup> (husband of Lansdown’s sister, Jane).<sup>8</sup> Later that year Lady Lansdown was described as ‘a most sad sort of woman’ who was either flirting or having an affair with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>9</sup> Although Lansdown’s appointment as a supernumerary gentleman of the bedchamber in April 1683 demonstrated royal favour, it was by then a matter of common knowledge that he intended to go as a volunteer to fight in Hungary. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> was probably not the only person to link this decision to Lansdown’s marital misfortunes, remarking that ‘the discontents between Lord Lansdown and his Lady … are grown so high, I think he doth very well to go fight against the Turks, rather than see himself so much abused here’.<sup>10</sup> Lansdown served with such distinction that he was awarded the title of count of the Holy Roman Empire, which Charles II ordered to be registered in the college of arms.<sup>11</sup> Having returned to England in 1684, Lansdown was appointed envoy extraordinary to Spain the following autumn, an appointment that was confirmed by James II at his accession.<sup>12</sup> In May 1685 he was elected as a knight of the shire for Cornwall but by the autumn of that year he was in Madrid and did not return to England until March 1689.<sup>13</sup></p><p>On 8 Nov. 1688 Lansdown’s father, hitherto a staunch though disillusioned supporter of James II, defected to William of Orange, effectively handing control of the west country to the invading forces. Lansdown followed his father’s lead; he helped carry the train at the coronation of William and Mary and was summoned to the House of Lords in July 1689 as Baron Granville. Although he had had little opportunity to make a mark on the Commons he threw himself into his duties in the Lords with gusto. He showed little sign of political independence, becoming something of a shadow to his father – regularly acting with him in committees, divisions, and protests. Nevertheless, as a member of a substantial if rather loose west country political connection with members in both Houses, he was a significant parliamentary figure. Like his father, in the immediate aftermath of the revolution Lansdown worked closely with Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, against Carmarthen (as Danby had now become) and Daniel Finch*, earl of Nottingham. Lansdown and his father were both later listed by Carmarthen as being among the opposition peers in the House.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Lansdown’s summons was dated 16 July 1689; he took his seat in the House the next day. He was thereafter present for all but one of the remaining sitting days of the session. On 25 and 27 July he was named one of the managers of the conference to discuss the amendments proposed by the Lords to the bill for duties on coffee, tea, and chocolate. The issues at stake were part of the perennial dispute between the Houses about the right of the Lords to amend money bills. On 30 July he demonstrated a belief in the reality of the Popish Plot when he voted with the minority against adhering to the Lords’ amendments on the bill to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates and joined his father and other peers in protesting against the loss of the motion. On 2 and 5 Aug. he was named as one of the managers of the conferences to consider the attainder bill.</p><p>Lansdown’s attendance for the 1689–90 session remained high. He missed only three sittings, one of which was 5 Nov. 1689 when only three peers and a single bishop attended for the traditional sermon in the Abbey church. He became an active member of the committee for the Journal after being added to it on 23 Oct. 1689. On 23 Nov., again in company with his father, he entered a protest against the decision of the House to reject a clause which would have prevented the monarch from pardoning impeachments by the Commons. Since the clause in question was part of a transparent attack on Carmarthen, the protest clearly indicates that the once close alliance between the Granvilles and the Osbornes was definitively over. Quite why this should be remains something of a mystery. The misery caused by the breakdown of the Lansdown marriage, together with allegations against the virtue of Lady Lansdown, provides an obvious explanation but it is not entirely clear that it is the correct one. As late as October 1688 the then earl of Danby had asked his wife to ‘Give my blessing and kind remembrance to Lansdown’.<sup>15</sup> Perhaps Carmarthen’s grief at Lady Lansdown’s death in September 1689 had changed matters but the grudge seems to have been one held by the Granvilles against Carmarthen rather than the other way round and may well have originated in Bath’s discomfiture about Carmarthen’s promotion in the peerage and his own failure to receive the coveted dukedom of Albemarle. Other members of the Granville clan were equally obsessed with obtaining new peerages or reviving ancient ones. It is not unreasonable therefore to speculate that the Granville animus against Carmarthen was based in political and personal jealousies rather than resentment over the breakdown of the Lansdown marriage.</p><p>Lansdown continued to be an active member of the House. On 9 Dec. 1689 he was named to the committee to draw the address to the king to put the laws in execution against papists. He was then present on every day of the first 1690 session. On 31 Mar. 1690 he was a teller in the division that resulted in the affirmation of the chancery decree in <em>Gore v Rolt</em>, and on 13 May 1690 he protested against the failure to allow more time to the City of London to instruct counsel concerning the reversal of the <em>quo warranto</em> and restoration of its ancient privileges. Over the summer he was back in the west country, playing a leading role in collecting intelligence and organizing the defence forces against a potential French invasion. With command of a militia force said to number 30,000 he was able to assure Queen Mary of their readiness to ‘venture their lives and fortunes in defence of her majesty and the present government’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Lansdown was present for just over 98 per cent of sitting days in the 1690–1 session; he was absent on a total of 12 days, 3 of which can be explained by a brief spell of imprisonment at the behest of the House. In October 1690 there were fears of a duel between Lansdown and his erstwhile brother-in-law, Peregrine Osborne*, the future 2nd duke of Leeds, then styled earl of Danby but sitting in the House of Lords under a writ in acceleration as Baron Osborne. Whether the quarrel, which had apparently festered for a year, was a manifestation of the feud between the Granvilles and the Osbornes is unclear, especially as the young Danby was a somewhat mercurial and unpredictable character. Lansdown’s second was to be his cousin George Granville (later Baron Lansdown) and Danby’s was to be Thomas Stringer<sup>‡</sup>. The House ordered all four to be arrested; as a result, Lansdown was held in the custody of black rod for five days before being discharged on 27 Oct., after promising on his honour to ‘do nothing, directly nor indirectly, either as principal or second’ in furtherance of the quarrel.</p><p>On 6 Oct. Lansdown underlined his Protestant credentials by voting against the resolution to release James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding that he would be ‘as his father’.<sup>17</sup> On 30 Oct. he registered a protest against the decision to release them from bail. The same day saw him entering a protest at the passage of the bill to clarify the powers of the admiralty commissioners, in what amounted to yet another oblique attack on Carmarthen, the instigator of the bill. Nevertheless, on 3 Nov. Lansdown and Danby publicly shook hands in the House of Lords, promising not to quarrel any further.<sup>18</sup> After the end of the session, when the House was further adjourned on 31 Mar. 1691, Lansdown, together with Francis Newport*, 2nd Baron Newport, introduced Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers.</p><p>In the same month Lansdown contracted a second marriage, one that allied the Granvilles to one of William III’s closest friends.<sup>19</sup> Bath once again played an important part in the marriage negotiations, securing the promise of a dukedom for himself as well as several financially advantageous arrangements from the queen, although in the event the crown reneged on the agreements made and only £6,000 of the promised £16,000 was received as the bride’s portion.<sup>20</sup> Lansdown was now sufficiently high in favour to be appointed joint lord lieutenant of Cornwall and Devon with his father. On 28 June 1691 Bath registered his proxy in favour of Lansdown; theoretically it should have been discharged on 3 Aug. 1691 when Bath was present for the announcement of a further prorogation, but since this was a formality and he was then absent until 14 Nov. 1691 it may have continued in force until that date. Lansdown’s own attendance fell markedly during this session, to just 53 per cent of sitting days. He covered a short absence from the House in February with a proxy in favour of his brother-in-law George Carteret*, Baron Carteret. The proxy was registered on 9 Feb. and discharged on his return to the House eight days later. Although there is no evidence as to its intended use it seems likely that the proxy was expected to be deployed in connection with the attempt of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce his wife.</p><p>In April 1692 Lansdown was despatched to the west country to oversee defensive arrangements there.<sup>21</sup> He was also deeply involved in the local manifestations of the power struggles at court, having (at some point before May 1692) removed Nottingham’s ally, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, from the deputy lieutenancy.<sup>22</sup></p><p>During the 1692–3 session Lansdown attended 89 per cent of sittings and on 4 Nov. 1692 he was as usual named to the sessional committees for privileges, the committee for the Journal, and the committee of petitions. On 7 Dec., in what was effectively an attack on Nottingham, he protested against the Lords’ decision to reject the motion that a committee of both Houses consider what advice should be given to the king regarding the state of the nation. On 20 and 21 Dec. the campaign against Nottingham continued when Lansdown was appointed as one of the managers of conferences to consider the papers that Nottingham had presented to the Lords. Later that month he voted in favour of the place bill. In January 1693, as predicted by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, Lansdown voted in support of Norfolk’s controversial divorce bill. Despite his known support of the place bill he gave in to court pressure and was one of those peers whose abstention on 3 Jan. enabled the bill to be narrowly defeated. The following month he voted that Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, was not guilty of murder. On 8 Mar. he entered a protest at the decision to reject a proviso concerning searches of peers’ houses in the bill for reviving and continuing laws.</p><p>By that time, concern about the political reliability of the Granville clan meant that Nottingham was considering who could be appointed to the lord lieutenancy of Cornwall in place of Bath and Lansdown. The only alternative candidate he could come up with was Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, who was not thought to be of sufficient weight to command the county.<sup>23</sup> Lansdown was threatening to resign over the non-payment of arrears owing to him for his embassy to Spain on behalf of the previous regime.<sup>24</sup> He was so upset that he resigned all his places.<sup>25</sup> Nevertheless he remained sufficiently in favour to be given 150 ounces of gilt plate by the king in May 1693 at the christening of his son.<sup>26</sup> Just as Lansdown himself had been named Charles in honour of the newly restored king, so the name of his son, William Henry Granville*, (later 3rd earl of Bath), emphasized the Granvilles’ continuing loyalty to William III.</p><p>During the 1693–4 session Lansdown attended 87 per cent of sittings and was named to the usual sessional committees and 17 other committees of the House. These included, on 22 Feb. 1694, the committee for the bill for the speedy payment of the debts of his west country neighbour John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, deceased. On 14 Mar. he was also named to the committee for a similar bill for another deceased west country neighbour, Bryan Rogers of Falmouth. In what amounted to a further attack on Nottingham, on 15 Jan. 1694 Lansdown was appointed one of the managers of a conference with the Commons to investigate intelligence failures during a naval expedition against the French fleet in the summer of 1693. On 13 Mar. 1694 he was one of several peers ordered to appear before the House as part of an investigation into abuses in the use of letters of protection. During the following, 1694–5, session he attended 69 per cent of sittings and was named to the committee of privileges and nine other committees.</p><p>The first session of the 1695 Parliament saw Granville present at 75 per cent of sittings and named to the committee for privileges and 15 other committees of the House. Despite having been a regular attender for some six years, it was perhaps a commentary on the extent to which he was in the shadow of his father and his forceful younger brother that, at the taking of the oaths on 22 Nov. 1695, he was listed as John rather than Charles, Lord Granville. Lansdown, like his father, was by now moving back to his Tory roots. On 21 Jan. 1696 he, together with his father and an entirely Tory group of peers – Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, Robert Sherley*, 8th Baron Ferrers, John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, and the soon to be disgraced bishop, Thomas Watson*, of St Davids – protested against a clause in the bill to prevent false and double returns in elections which they maintained was derogatory to the powers and privileges of the House of Lords. Although his brother in the Commons was reluctant to do so, Lansdown signed the Association on 28 Feb. 1696.</p><p>Lansdown attended 83 per cent of sittings in the 1696–7 session of the 1695 Parliament and was named to 13 committees of the House. In December 1696 he failed what was essentially a test of loyalty to the new regime when he opposed the Fenwick attainder. He entered dissents to the conduct of proceedings on 15 and 18 Dec., voted against the bill, and protested when it passed its third reading on 23 December. The following month, on 23 Jan. 1697, he protested against the decision not to give a second reading to the bill for regulating elections to the House of Commons. On 15 Apr. he entered yet another protest, this time against the failure to agree with a committee amendment to the bill to restrain the number and ill practices of stock-jobbers. In February 1697, despite all previous promises to his father, the coveted title of Albemarle was bestowed on the king’s favourite, Arnold Joost de Keppel (though as an earldom rather than a dukedom). Thereafter, like his father, Lansdown’s loyalties were unequivocally Tory.</p><p>In the next, 1697–8, session Lansdown attended 80 per cent of sittings and was named to 44 committees of the House. He was also named to the committee to consider the indictment and proceedings against Charles Mohun in relation to the death of William Hill, the committee to consider methods of restraining the expense of suits in courts of law and equity (which was almost certainly prompted by his father’s ongoing litigation over the Albemarle inheritance), and the committee for the bill for determining differences by arbitration. On 7 Jan. 1698 he was also named to the committee to consider the constitutionally and politically contentious issue of appeals from decrees made in the court of chancery in Ireland. He was presumably in agreement with the decision that an appeal from that court lay to the House of Lords in England rather than to the House of Lords in Ireland because on 20 May he was named to the committee to draw up an address to that effect. In March 1698 he opposed the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and on 1 July he entered a protest at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill to establish the two million fund and settle the East India trade.</p><p>Lansdown attended 81 per cent of sittings during the 1698–9 session and was named to 22 committees of the House including, as usual, the committee for privileges. He voted against the Lords’ resolution to assist the king in retaining the Dutch guards and on 8 Feb. 1699 entered a dissent when the resolution passed. On 27 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw an address to the crown to restore Captain Desborrow to the command from which the House agreed that he had been unjustly removed.<sup>27</sup> On 3 May he was appointed as one of the managers of a conference with the Commons regarding the bill for a duty on paper.</p><p>The 1699–1700 session saw Lansdown attending 89 per cent of sittings; he was named to 18 committees. In February 1700 he was predicted to be a supporter of the East India Company bill and he voted in favour of adjourning the House into committee to consider amendments to the bill.</p><p>In the first Parliament of 1701 Lansdown attended 81 per cent of sittings and was named to 19 committees of the House, including that for the address on the king’s speech on 12 February. On 8 Mar., in the continuing fallout from the Desborrow affair, he entered a dissent to the resolution to address the king for the removal of the suspension of Captain John Norris for great neglect of duty. On 15 Mar. he protested against the Lords’ decision to reject the second and third heads of Nottingham’s report on the partition treaty. Three days later, together with Nottingham and others, he entered two protests against resolutions that were intended to impose parameters on the content of an address to the crown on the partition treaty. Lansdown, along with a small group of mainly Tory peers, wanted the committee to include criticism of the exclusion of the emperor from the negotiations but not to condemn the actions of Louis XIV or warn against his future ambitions. On 20 Mar., together with a much larger group of peers, he protested against the decision not to send the address on the treaty to the House of Commons for their concurrence. The following month, on 16 Apr., he protested against the resolution to address the crown against censuring or punishing the Whig peers until the impeachment had been tried. Later that day he entered a second protest, this time against the decision to expunge the reasons for the first protest. On 3 June he again entered two protests, this time against the wording of the response to the Commons over their failure to mount a timely prosecution of the Whig lords. Nevertheless, in June 1701 Lansdown voted for the acquittal of his father’s friend, John Somers*, Baron Somers.</p><p>Lansdown made his last appearance in the House of Lords on 24 June 1701. Although he succeeded his father as earl of Bath on 22 Aug. he never attended the Lords in that capacity. On 4 Sept. 1701 he was found dead, a gunshot wound to his head and a ‘brace of pistols’ beside his body. It was said that he had been ‘melancholy for some time past’ but the coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of death by misadventure.<sup>28</sup> ‘That may be, if a man can be supposed to be listening to a pistol while it is going off’, remarked James Vernon, who like most observers believed that Bath had committed suicide and that the coroner’s verdict was a transparent fiction intended both to protect the family’s honour and to save his estate from confiscation by the crown.<sup>29</sup> It was widely believed that Bath’s distressed state of mind had been caused by his horror at revelations about the extent of his father’s debts. Many blamed the long-running legal battle over the Albemarle inheritance which had strained the family finances and damaged its reputation.<sup>30</sup> Evelyn lamented the death of such a ‘hopeful young man’ who had ‘so bravely behaved himself against the Turks at the siege of Vienna’.<sup>31</sup> Both the old and the young earl of Bath were buried in Kilkhampton, Cornwall, on the same day.</p> |
A.C./R.P. |
|
GRANVILLE, George (1666-1735) |
<p><strong><surname>GRANVILLE</surname></strong> (<strong>GRENVILLE</strong>), <strong>George</strong> (1666–1735)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. LANSDOWN (LANSDOWNE) |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 19 Jan. 1730 |
|
MP Fowey 1702-10, Cornwall 1710-1, Jan. 1712 |
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Mar. 1666, 2nd s. of Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup> of Birdcage Walk, Westminster, and Apps Court, Walton-on-Thames, Surr. and Anne Morley; brother of Bevill<sup>‡</sup> and Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup>; nephew of John Granville*, earl of Bath; cos. of Charles Granville*, later 2nd earl of Bath, and John Granville*, Bar. Granville of Potheridge. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1676-7; Trinity, Camb. 1677, MA 1679; Acads. Paris 1682-7. <em>m</em>. 15 Dec. 1711 (jointure £12,000 p.a.), Lady Mary Villiers (<em>d</em>.1735), wid. of Thomas Thynne of Old Windsor, Berks., da. of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, and Barbara Chiffinch 4da. <em>d</em>. 29 Jan. 1735. admon. 6 May 1737 to Richard Mills.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Sec. at war 1710-12; comptroller of the Household 1712-Aug. 1713; treas. of the Household Aug. 1713-14; PC 18 Aug. 1712-Aug. 1714.</p><p>Gov. Pendennis Castle 1703-14; recorder, Launceston 1710-19; freeman and high steward, Barnstaple 1713-?14.</p><p>Commr. taking subscriptions to S. Sea Co. 1711.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by M. Vandergucht, aft. Sir G. Kneller, NPG 27316; line engraving aft. C. D'Agar, BM 1864.0813.121.</p> |
<p>Despite being a member of a prominent and powerful West Country family, George Granville’s early fame was as a literary rather than a political figure, and it is as a minor poet, playwright and early patron of Pope that he is now chiefly remembered. His literary achievements are well described elsewhere.<sup>2</sup> His first foray into the political world took place in 1702. As a result of the death of his uncle and cousin, the 1st and 2nd earls of Bath, the previous year, the powerful Granville clan had fallen under the care of the 1st earl’s younger son and namesake, and it was through the influence of the younger John Granville (created Baron Granville of Potheridge in 1703) that George Granville was returned for the Cornish borough of Fowey.</p><p>He was heir to a somewhat mixed political inheritance. The 1st earl of Bath had deserted James II at the Revolution; he and his two sons subsequently engaged in a brief flirtation with the Whigs. Differences with William III meant that they soon moved back towards the Tories. Another uncle, the 1st earl of Bath’s brother Denis Grenville, erstwhile dean of Durham, went into exile with the toppled king and was nominated by him as archbishop of York in 1691. Granville himself also had Jacobite leanings. In 1688 he offered to fight for James II, a somewhat quixotic gesture given that he had no military experience, but was forbidden to do so by his father. His poem <em>The Progress of Beauty</em> written in or about 1700 includes complimentary references to the exiled king and queen; Mary of Modena was said to be his muse. The prospect of office inculcated a certain respect for Queen Anne, reflected in the 1707 production of his play <em>The British Enchanters</em> in which the final scene depicted the queen as Oriana (i.e. Elizabeth I). Nevertheless, in or about 1705, Elizabeth Burnet reported that she had been told that,</p><blockquote><p>when he had principles was a Jacobite, and fancied himself in love with the Q[ueen] at St Germains. That they believed his strait circumstances forced him to take the oaths against his conscience, and that since that he had given up himself to follow some of his friends right or wrong.</p></blockquote><p>She also reported that he was said to be ‘of no judgment more than a child, that he was affected and conceited’.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Granville’s own assessment of his abilities and of what was owed to his family was very different. Despite his known Tory sympathies he abstained over the Tack and fell out with the Tory leader Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, who led the attack against Granville’s brother, Bevill, over his record as governor of Barbados. Granville attached himself to Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, and Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, but the advancement he so confidently expected did not materialize. In August 1705 he wrote to Harley complaining that: ‘It is so well known to everybody how much I have devoted myself personally to your service, that I flatter myself you will confound my interest a little with your own, since the injuries that are offered to our friends are so many affronts to ourselves’.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In 1707 the death of Granville of Potheridge and the continuing minority of his nephew, William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, left Granville as the senior adult male in the family with a claim (contested by the young earl’s grandparents) to take charge of its west country interests. It is a measure of the discrepancy between his aspirations and his actual status that he remained the representative for Fowey rather than stepping up to the more prestigious county seat, which was held from 1705-10 by his rival, Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup>. Granville took an active role in the 1708 elections, incurring further enmity from Boscawen who threatened, publicly, to have him turned out of the governorship of Pendennis. As Granville pointed out Boscawen’s threat amounted to a serious miscalculation, since Granville’s ability to retain that office served to bolster Harley’s reputation and ‘will contribute as much as anything to the keeping the gentlemen of this county in temper, for as inconsiderable as I may seem at London, I find myself not without consequence here.’<sup>5</sup></p><p>Granville increasingly acted both as an intermediary between St John and Harley and as a conduit for patronage requests from west country allies to the court. He also acted as Harley’s go-between in an attempt to win the support of the young Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort.<sup>6</sup> Still best known as a literary figure, Granville’s political prospects were transformed by the collapse of the administration of Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. The change of ministry and associated appointment of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, as lord lieutenant of Cornwall during the minority of the earl of Bath helped to revive the Tory interest there. According to his own account Granville also played an important role as mediator between Harley and St. John.<sup>7</sup> His close association with St John reflected his own commitment to the virulently anti-Whig section of the party and his opposition to Harley’s attempts at compromise. Granville’s continuing support was extremely important to Harley, and his name appears on Harley’s September list of ‘Members of the House of Commons which are immediately necessary should be provided for before their elections’.<sup>8</sup> Granville’s ensuing appointment as recorder of Launcestown and as secretary at war, against the express wishes of Marlborough, confirmed his new status as a major figure in both local and national politics.<sup>9</sup> Armed with such signal marks of royal favour, at the ensuing elections he dislodged Hugh Boscawen as knight of the shire for Cornwall.<sup>10</sup> He also managed to secure the return of his brother Bernard Granville for Camelford and that of his close associate John Manley<sup>‡</sup> for Tintagel. It soon became apparent that he wanted still more. Anticipating difficulties in dealing with Marlborough, he asked to be made a privy councillor,</p><blockquote><p>a favour that will cost the queen nothing, and ’twill give me a great deal of ease in my correspondence with the general when he comes home, by putting me above the servile attendance which he may expect by having been used to it by my predecessors in the same post. It will likewise be a public approbation of my endeavours for her majesty’s service upon the late occasion, which will be very acceptable to my countrymen and add to my credit among them.<sup>11</sup></p></blockquote><p>The sudden death of Rochester, caretaker lord lieutenant of Cornwall, on 2 May 1711 left Granville touting himself as successor. When he learned that objections had been made to this he suggested instead James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, as Bath’s nearest maternal relative.<sup>12</sup> Bath himself died only two weeks later leaving Granville at the head of a family connection that was no longer distinguished by a peerage. On 18 May, just a day after his nephew’s death, Granville began his campaign for a peerage. The queen, he argued, should ‘not suffer a name and family always so devoted to the service of her ancestors to be buried in the same grave with my Lord Bath.’ Furthermore, her service required some distinguishing mark to be conferred on Granville lest the interest he had carefully built up in the west country ‘return into the hands of her enemies ... If I am thought unworthy to be continued upon the level with those who have gone before me, I shall think myself unworthy to live, or at least to show my face again in my own country.’<sup>13</sup> He was equally concerned about the fate of the vacant lord lieutenancy, decrying the possibility of appointing Charles Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, about whom ‘there is that general aversion … that they will give everything for lost if such a step be taken’ and also opposing his kinsman, John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret (later Earl Granville). Carteret was not only whiggishly inclined, he was also Granville’s opponent in litigation over the family estates. Granville still wanted the lord lieutenancy for himself, but he was happy to support the candidacy of yet another kinsman, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester (later also 4th earl of Clarendon), whose appointment was widely expected, and welcomed, by the gentlemen of the county.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Meanwhile Granville continued to press his claim to a peerage. His countrymen expected it (or so he said) and ‘a declaration of her Majesty’s pleasure in this case without any delay would be of public service in the county, as well as fix my own private affairs.’ Mention of his private affairs amounted to an oblique reference to the unsettled litigation over the Albemarle and Bath estates and the advantages that membership of the House of Lords could confer on litigants. Granville had taken possession of the family seat at Stowe with an income reputed to be between £6,000 and £8,000 each year, but his hold on the property was uncertain and he claimed that ‘this favour … will settle me in the quiet enjoyment of it.’<sup>15</sup> Although he was well aware of the need to counter objections that a peerage might be considered incompatible with his office as secretary at war, he may not have realized that the vacant lord lieutenancy was also a bar to his ambitions. Lord Keeper Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, seems to have believed that were he to be ennobled it would be necessary to confer the lord lieutenancy with it, and that was something that the ministry was extremely reluctant to do.<sup>16</sup> At the same time as Granville was seeking an English peerage he was also petitioning the queen for permission to use the title, equivalent to an earldom that had been conferred on his cousin the 2nd earl of Bath by the Emperor Leopold.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Over the next year Granville continued to act as a conduit for patronage requests and continued to seek advancement for himself and family. He also implemented something of a political purge in Cornwall in order to reduce the influence of the Godolphin and Boscawen families on local corporations.<sup>18</sup> In June 1711, along with St John and Dean Swift, he became a founding member of the Tory ‘Brother’s Club’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>By December 1711 it had been settled that Granville was at last to get the peerage he craved, although at least one observer thought he was to get the revived earldom of Bath rather than a mere barony.<sup>20</sup> The details of the new creation seem still to have been undecided on 29 Dec. when Granville wrote to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a special remainder that would bring his younger brother Bernard into the succession ‘as he suffers himself so very heavily from a former omission of that kind that he is sufficiently warn’d not to repeat the like neglect.’<sup>21</sup> The peerage also brought other problems to the fore, specifically the question of just how he was to support his new dignity. He claimed to have spent some £4,000 in the last elections, a sum ‘too great for a private man with a private fortune’ and was still owed some £1,500 on that score. He now overcame his previous reluctance about asking for recompense,</p><blockquote><p>being in a very few days to change my condition, though very much to my advantage, yet a new expense and a considerable one is created at the first entrance, and being thrown so far back for the present by my expenses in the queen’s service, I find myself pressed to apply to you to be reimbursed at least some part of that charge. Your Lordship may judge how unwillingly I make this application, by my never doing it before, nor could anything have brought me to it, unless you had first mentioned it yourself, but an absolute necessity.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>His financial exigencies were almost certainly a factor in his decision to marry. Mary Thynne was some 20 years his junior but was otherwise an eminently suitable choice since her parents were prominent Tories (with pronounced Jacobite tendencies) and she was also an heiress. Created Baron Lansdown of Biddiford, a title that acted as a reminder of his family’s Civil War service, he was introduced in the Lords on 2 Jan. 1712 by Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, and Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle (also 4th earl of Orrery [I]) in a ceremony that both reflected his Tory credentials and his family association with the Butler earls of Ormond. Despite Oxford’s need for support in the House, Lansdown then attended for only 16 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the 1711-12 session. His poor attendance rate did not prevent him from continuing to press the demands of his west country allies in terms that sometimes seem to amount to virtual blackmail. One list of requests made to Oxford ended with an application for a land surveyorship in Bideford, suggesting that ‘you will not let my credit appear so little in a town entirely my own as not to be able to obtain this preference for my friend.’<sup>23</sup> On 19 May 1712 he registered a proxy in favour of Lord Harcourt, probably for use during the crucial June divisions on the French peace. It was vacated at the end of the session. During the recess he demonstrated his usefulness to the ministry in a new way – acting as go-between to secure the vote of his kinsman Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount of Falkland [S], in the by-election for a Scots representative peer to replace the late William Keith, 8th Earl Marischal [S].<sup>24</sup> Oxford continued to confer marks of favour upon him. Lansdown was appointed to the prestigious post of privy councillor and perhaps more importantly to the extremely lucrative one of comptroller of the household. His appetite for rewards was by no means sated; by the end of the year he was putting forward requests on behalf of his brother in law, William Villiers*, 2nd earl of Jersey, in addition to his normal clutch of demands for lesser individuals.<sup>25</sup></p><p>The short 1713 session saw Lansdown present on 36 per cent of sitting days. Oxford again counted on Lansdown’s support for his various measures including the French commercial treaty and Lansdown in return was active in support of ministerial candidates during the ensuing general election.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The first session of the next Parliament opened on 16 Feb. 1714. Lansdown attended for just 29 per cent of sittings. He may have been distracted by ongoing family litigation, including an action that he himself had brought in chancery in January 1713, as well as by the substantial losses he was said to have suffered as a result of the failure of a London goldsmith.<sup>27</sup> In March 1714 he had to relinquish his claim to the estates of his uncle John Granville, 1st earl of Bath, to the earl’s daughters: Catharine (wife of Craven Peyton<sup>‡</sup>), Grace (wife of George Carteret*, Baron Carteret) and the heirs of Jane (wife of Sir William Leveson-Gower<sup>‡</sup>). Although Lansdown’s attendance was low, he still managed to be present for all the crucial divisions on the queen’s speech, the protestant succession, the peace treaty and also for the schism bill, for which Nottingham anticipated Landown’s support. Proxies were widely used for these divisions. It was probably for this purpose that Lansdown held that of Gilbert Coventry*, 4th earl of Coventry from 12 Mar. until 28 May. On that day Lansdown entered a proxy in favour of Jersey, which was in turn vacated when he returned to the House on 4 June. Lansdown’s last attendance of the session was on 11 June; two days later he registered a second proxy in favour of Jersey.</p><p>Shortly after the death of Queen Anne early in the morning of 1 Aug. 1714 Lansdown was one of the signatories to the proclamation of the accession of George I. Then, like the other Tories, he was swept from office by the new king. He attended 27 per cent of sittings during the brief second session of 1714 but seems to have taken no active part in proceedings. The strength of Lansdown’s Jacobite connections coupled with his association with Bolingbroke and Oxford meant that the new regime was bound to be wary of him whilst his surviving correspondence with the exiled court suggests that there was good reason for such suspicion. For the time being, however, Lansdown seems to have had no inkling of what was in store for him and his erstwhile ministerial colleagues. In November 1714 when he celebrated the final settlement of the long-running family litigation over the disposition of the Bath and Albemarle estates, he appears to have been convinced that the new king would happily recreate the various Granville titles in order to distribute them amongst the heirs:</p><blockquote><p>My Lady Carteret having the Cornish estate, should be created countess of Bath, and as I am entitled by virtue of King Charles’ warrant to assume the earldom of Corbeil, as the direct male descendant from Sir Bevil, I cannot think a patent would be refused me for it, if it was represented to the king, as an article that would give peace to the family.’<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>In January 1715 Lady Carteret became Countess Granville; Lansdown remained a baron.</p><p>The 1715-16 session saw something of a witch hunt against suspected Jacobites, in part of course because the activities of the Jacobite conspirators were well known to the government. According to the Jacobite agent Allen Cameron ‘the government was going on with such violence, he thought every suspected person that stayed in London, especially lords that did not sit in the House, was in hazard of being taken up every day’.<sup>29</sup> Between the beginning of the 1715-16 session and his arrest on 21 Sept., Lansdown was present on nearly 34 per cent of sitting days. The thrust of his parliamentary activities was to protect his former colleagues, Oxford, Ormond and Bolingbroke, from attempted impeachment. To this end he held several proxies from fellow Tories: on three occasions (21 May to 21 June, 27 June to 12 July and 16 July to 15 Aug.) he held that of William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, and between 15 July and 8 Aug. he also held Harcourt’s proxy. On 8 and 9 July he entered dissents to the proceedings against Oxford; on 18 Aug. he protested against the passage of Ormond’s attainder. He then dissented to a resolution concerning proceedings against Bolingbroke and entered a protest at the passage of Bolingbroke’s attainder.</p><p>Lansdown was deeply involved in the Jacobite conspiracy, maintaining a correspondence with supporters in England as well as with the exiled king’s illegitimate brother, James FitzJames*, duke of Berwick, in France.<sup>30</sup> Just four days before his arrest he wrote a coded letter to fellow conspirator Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup> encouraging him to believe that a rising was imminent:</p><blockquote><p>I can’t help communicating to you an intrigue of a certain lady, whom you have wished a great while to be better acquainted with, being this moment let into the secret that she is with child, and in daily expectation of the happy hour: you will wish her I am sure as well as I, an easy labour, a safe delivery, and a brave boy for the honour of the fathers, for there are more than one who must have had a finger in this pie. You will be very dull if you miss guessing at my lady, I shall not name her you may be sure, the affair not being yet public, but it can’t be long a secret ...<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>After a brief period of house arrest Lansdown was committed to the Tower. Rumours that he would be the first of the conspirators to be tried proved inaccurate, probably because the government had failed to persuade any of the conspirators to give evidence against him.<sup>32</sup> The letter quoted above was produced as evidence against him and was used to secure an indictment against him at the Middlesex sessions in May 1716. In order to proceed further the indictment had to be removed to the House of Lords by writ of <em>certiorari</em> so that Lansdown could be tried there, but there seems to have been no attempt to do so. The prosecution case was flimsy and made all the more difficult because the letter in question was unsigned and the handwriting, although said to be Lansdown’s, was difficult to identify with any certainty as one of the clerks in the war office was known to have been in the habit of imitating Lansdown’s hand.<sup>33</sup> Lansdown was eventually pardoned and released on 8 Feb. 1717, probably as part of an attempt to widen the gulf between supporters of Bolingbroke and Oxford in advance of the trial of the Jacobite lords. Notwithstanding the pardon, Lansdown’s Jacobite contacts remained convinced of his loyalty to the exiled court.<sup>34</sup></p><p>The next parliamentary session began on 20 Feb. 1717. Lansdown did not attend until 6 May. He was then present on 23 days before the session ended on 15 July. All but three of his attendances were concentrated on the period from 22 May when the major issue of the day was the impeachment of Oxford. Lansdown was named, along with all others present in the House, to the committee to consider precedents and was present on 25 May when, as a result of the committee’s report, the House decided that the proceedings against Oxford were still valid. Given his previous relationship with Oxford it is difficult to believe that he agreed with this decision, but he did not sign the resultant dissent. Lansdown may also have been interested in the possibility of fomenting a constitutional clash over the rights of the English and Irish parliaments as he was present on 31 May and 12 June when the day’s business included a consideration of the precedents in the controversial case of <em>Annesley v. Sherloc</em>k, which pitted the rights of the English House of Lords against those of its Irish counterpart.</p><p>Lansdown did not attend at all during the following (1717-18) session. On 18 Nov. he registered a proxy in favour of John Leveson-Gower, 2nd Baron Gower, though technically it was invalid as he had not attended to take the oaths. He came to the opening of the 1718-19 session and was thus named to the committee for privileges. Between 5 Dec. 1718 and 7 Jan. 1719 and then again between 11 Feb. and 16 Mar. 1719 he held Gower’s proxy but had little opportunity to use it as after the opening of the session he attended only twice, on 18 and 19 Dec. when the House debated the bill to strengthen the protestant interest, which despite its innocuous title was intended to repeal the occasional conformity Act. On the one hand it strengthened the powers of the Anglican church to refuse communion to occasional conformists; on the other it subverted the intent of the Test Acts by allowing those who had been refused communion to take office. This was an issue on which Lansdown purported to have strong views and, according to the opening lines of his speech on 19 Dec., it prompted his first and only contribution to a debate in the House. The speech attracted much attention with its vitriolic condemnation of dissenters, ‘those followers of Judas who came to the Lord’s supper only to sell and betray him’, who made ‘the god of truth subservient … to acts of hypocrisy’ and who profaned the eucharist in order ‘to seek … preferment in this world by eating and drinking to … damnation in the next.’ Although strangers had been excluded from the House during the debate, the speech was quickly published. It was issued twice in 1718 and again in 1719.<sup>35</sup> Lansdown was sufficiently proud of it to include it amongst his collected works published in 1732. His commitment to the cause was, however, not quite as great as he had made out. He was not listed in the presence list on 20 Dec. when the bill was considered in detail by a committee of the whole and when his contribution would have had practical rather than purely propaganda value.</p><p>During the 1719-20 session Lansdown attended on just 12 days. His first appearance was on 14 Jan. 1720 when the major item of business was whether a writ of summons could be issued to Charles Douglas, 3rd duke of Queensberry [S], in right of his post-Union (British) title as 2nd duke of Dover. His personal attendance may have been necessary because of problems over his proxy, which had been registered on 7 Dec. 1719 to Rochester but, because he had not yet attended the House, was technically invalid. It was cancelled on 11 Jan. 1720. Lansdown was then present on a further ten days in February and March when on all but one of the days in question the main business before the House related to appeals from Scotland concerning the forfeited estates of convicted or attainted Jacobites, including those of John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar [S]. His last attendance of the session was on 7 May. Having left for France in July 1720, he did not attend the 1720-21 session although he registered a proxy to Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later Earl) Bathurst, on 12 Feb. 1721, the validity of which was questionable.</p><p>Although Lansdown returned briefly to England in the autumn to assess the damage (reputedly £10,000) to his finances caused by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble and although his wife continued to maintain friendly relations with members of the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Lansdown spent the next four to five years amongst the coterie of Jacobite sympathizers who had gathered in Paris.<sup>36</sup> In the summer of 1721 he was appointed secretary of state in any provisional government to be formed after a successful Jacobite insurrection. The failure of the projected insurrection to materialize left him in an embarrassing position since the titular James III expected him to join him in Rome. Lansdown, who was effectively being paid £1,000 a year via a pension to his wife to stay away from England and keep out of Jacobite conspiracies, was desperate to avoid an open declaration of his Jacobite sympathies and had to throw himself on the Pretender’s goodwill to extricate himself from the situation.<sup>37</sup> Nevertheless, his allegiance to the Jacobites was sufficiently important for the Pretender first (in October 1721) to create him earl of Bath and then (in November 1721) to confer on him the peerage so long coveted by the Granvilles, the dukedom of Albemarle. In 1722 he was the author of one of the most stirring pieces of Jacobite propaganda of the day, <em>A Letter from a Noble-Man Abroad, to his Friend in England On the approaching General Election</em>.</p><p>Over the next few years Lansdown was deeply involved in the factional in-fighting of the Jacobite exiles. By the mid-1720s his friendship with Mar, his continuing receipt of a British pension and the intensity of conspiratorial Jacobite politics had created a belief, not entirely unjustified, that Lansdown was a double agent. Out of favour with the Pretender and deeply in debt, he threw his lot in with the Hanoverians instead. His rehabilitation was in part signalled by the marriage of his stepson, Thomas Thynne*, 2nd Viscount Weymouth, to the daughter of the leading Whig peer, Lionel Sackville*, duke of Dorset, in December 1726. The accession of George II and the Walpole ministry’s policy of leniency towards former Jacobites smoothed the path still further. By spring 1729 Lansdown was back in London. He attended the House just once more, on 19 Jan. 1730. He had no son to succeed him and when he died in January 1735 his honours were extinguished with him.</p> |
A.C./R.P. |
|
GRANVILLE, John (1628-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>GRANVILLE</surname></strong> (<strong>GRENVILLE</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1628–1701)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 earl of BATH |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 17 June 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Aug. 1628, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Bevill Grenville<sup>‡</sup> and Grace, da. of Sir George Smyth(e)<sup>‡</sup> of Madford, Heavitree, Devon; bro. of Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup>; nephew of Sir Richard Grenville<sup>‡</sup>; fa. of John Granville*, later Bar. Granville of Potheridge, uncle of Sir Bevill<sup>‡</sup>, George<sup>‡</sup>, and Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. c. Oct. 1652, Jane, da. of Sir Peter Wych(e), merchant and comptroller of the royal household, of London, and Jane, da. of Sir William Meredith; 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 11da. (8 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 5 July 1643. <em>d</em>. 22 Aug. 1701; <em>will</em> 11 Oct. 1684–15 Aug. 1701, disputed.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber to Charles, prince of Wales, 1645–60; groom of the stole 1660–85; kpr. of St James’s Palace, 1660–<em>d</em>.; PC 1663.</p><p>Ld. lt. Ireland 1665, Cornwall 1660–91, 1693–6, jt. 1691–3, Devon 1670–5, 1685–91, 1693–6, jt. 1691–3; warden of the stannaries 1660–<em>d</em>.; steward, duchy of Cornwall 1661–?, Bradninch, 1661–?; rider and master forester of Dartmoor 1661–?; recorder, Launceston 1682–?;<sup>2</sup> commr. wine licences 1661–?.</p><p>Gov. Scilly Isles ?1645–51, 1689–1700, Plymouth 1661–96, Pendennis 1680–96,; col. regt. of ft. 1685–8, 1689–93.</p> |
|
<h2><em>A legacy of debt</em></h2><p>John Granville, earl of Bath, served as a member of the House of Lords for 40 years. Throughout that time he was a significant figure in local and national politics yet an effective assessment of his career is extremely difficult because of the almost total loss of his family papers. Documentary material is particularly rare for the period when Bath’s influence was at its height, that is to say, during the reign of Charles II. Within ten years of his death, his dynasty had failed and what was left of his estate passed through the female line to the Carteret family. Granville’s financial legacy was, to say the least, a tangled one in which allegations of fraud and forgery were never far away. His political legacy involved suspicions of a growing rapprochement with the exiled James II*, which were reinforced by the activities of his Jacobite brother Denis (sometime dean of Durham) and by the outspoken ‘country’ party sympathies of his younger son, John. The family’s Jacobitism was seemingly later confirmed by the activities of his nephew George*, later Baron Lansdown. It is tempting to speculate whether any or all of these factors contributed to a deliberate decision to destroy the family papers, yet it is equally possible that the destruction was carried out as an unthinking consequential effect of the demolition of the family mansion in the 1720s. A few of Bath’s key papers do however survive among those of the family of the dukes of Grafton.</p><p>The Grenvilles had been established in Kilkhampton since the thirteenth century. Despite claims of Norman aristocratic ancestry the family were ranked as no more than minor gentry. In the early seventeenth century they were proud to bask in the military glory won by their Elizabethan ancestor, Sir Richard Grenville of the <em>Revenge</em>, but the lustre was wearing decidedly thin. By the mid-1620s Sir Bevil Grenville was so deeply in debt that he sought election to Parliament as part of a strategy to protect himself.<sup>3</sup> Even so he was forced to enter into a debt trust in 1639 to pacify his creditors; at that time he owed some £20,000.<sup>4</sup> At the outbreak of the civil wars he fought for the king and revived the family fame by his heroic death at the battle of Lansdown.</p><p>The young John Granville’s inheritance was thus heavily encumbered. His financial problems were further compounded by Parliament’s attempts to sequestrate the Granville estate, but his own decision to fight for the royalist cause then worked in his favour. In 1651, when he relinquished the Scilly Isles to parliamentarian forces, the articles of surrender contained, <em>inter alia</em>, a provision protecting his estates from sequestration.<sup>5</sup> The terms of the agreement permitted him to join the king in exile but he chose instead to return to England, where he contracted an advantageous marriage and divided his energies between royalist plotting and attempts to wrest possession of the patrimonial estate from his father’s creditors.</p><p>The surviving documentation from his various legal actions paints a picture of an unscrupulous individual who, backed by a network of kinsmen and allies in the West Country, including John Arundell of Trerice (father of Richard Arundell*, later Baron Arundell of Trerice) and Peter Prideaux<sup>‡</sup>, was prepared to use any means to attain his objectives. The allegations against him included claims that he had repossessed lands that had been mortgaged or sold by his father by producing fraudulent deeds to establish that Sir Bevil had acted illegally. He was also alleged to have threatened to rig criminal charges against some of his opponents and to have used his soldiers and threats of actual force against others.<sup>6</sup> In the years after the Restoration he proved to be as ruthless with his own creditors as with those of his father.<sup>7</sup> It is perhaps also noteworthy that after the Restoration both his brothers (Denis and Bernard) found themselves in similar financial difficulty and embroiled in what appears to have been largely vexatious litigation.</p><h2><em>Restoration and the rewards of loyalty</em></h2><p>Only two years’ older than Charles II, with shared interests and perhaps also shared grief and anger at losing a father at a young age, Granville and Charles II seem to have become close friends. The young king’s surviving letters to Granville are informal, sometimes written in his own hand and close with the phrase ‘your affectionate [occasionally “very affectionate”] friend’. From as early as November 1649 the new king promised Granville that his absence from the exiled court would never prejudice his interests, and subsequent letters include promises of future rewards ‘on any seasonable occasion that may manifest your deserts and the esteem and kindness I have for you’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1659 Granville became involved in negotiations with George Monck*, the future duke of Albemarle, about the possibility of restoring the king. Monck was Granville’s cousin (their mothers were sisters) and had reason to be grateful to the Granville family. Granville’s uncle, Sir Richard Grenville, had rescued him as a youth from a charge of murder and had fostered his early military career; John Granville had presented the general’s younger brother Nicholas Monck*, later bishop of Hereford, to the rich living of Kilkhampton. John Granville, his younger brother Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup>, and Nicholas Monck were all involved in the negotiations that led to the Restoration but it was John Granville who was entrusted with the king’s commission to treat with Monck and who gained most credit for the success of the negotiations, together with renewed promises of recompense ‘suitable to your desires’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>That Granville was to be created earl of Bath was already well known before the king’s return to England. Early in April 1660 he was promised an earldom, along with payment of his debts, the office of groom of the stole, and an estate worth at least £3,000 a year. A number of letters, including one from the king himself, referred to him as Lord Bath long before the letters patent were sealed in April 1661.<sup>10</sup> Almost immediately afterwards he received a potentially lucrative commission to compound with those who had obtained goods, jewels, and money owing to the crown during the interregnum.<sup>11</sup> He received other rewards and also benefited from the ability to act as middleman for individuals seeking office or other valuable grants. In the late summer of 1660, for example, he was instrumental in securing a grant to publish lotteries for Sir Edward Ford and Robert Yarway, in return for which he was to be paid his expenses and receive half the profits.<sup>12</sup></p><p>More significantly, Bath received two royal warrants. That of April 1661 recognized his (probably false) claim to descent from Rollo, duke of Normandy, and hence to kinship with the king. Two of the ancestors so claimed included Hamon Dentatus, earl of Corbeil and lord of Thorigny and Granville in Normandy, and Robert Fitzhamon, lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan. Bath’s desire to emphasize his family’s Norman ancestry appears to have been behind the decision to encourage the use of the name Granville instead of Grenville or Greenville both as a surname and as a peerage title. The warrant went on to promise that should the earldom of Glamorgan become available during Charles II’s lifetime it would be conferred on Bath and that in the meantime Bath and his heirs could use the titles of Corbeil, Thorigny, and Granville. The second warrant, issued in December 1661, stated that Bath and his father had ruined the family estate by contracting debts in the royalist cause and that the king accepted that £25,000 of these debts should be recognized as public debts. Additionally, in recognition of Bath’s services towards the Restoration he was, as previously promised, to be given an estate (or pension in lieu) worth £3,000 a year.<sup>13</sup> A further £1,000 a year was to be paid in silver plate as his salary as groom of the stole. Bath calculated that he was to receive a total of £5,000 a year over and above diet and board wages for this post, although, as he would soon discover, in practice the king’s revenues were insufficient to ensure regular payment and the arrears steadily grew. Finally, he was entitled to an annual fee of £1,022 as governor of Plymouth.<sup>14</sup> Bath’s claims to such lavish rewards were backed by Albemarle, with whom he formed a close alliance.</p><p>The promise of financial rewards was accompanied by a number of key appointments in the government of the West Country, enabling him to build a formidable power base there. In so doing he provided the court with a reliable ally in an area notorious for religious Dissent and parliamentarian politics, as well as with a capable military commander to oversee a strategically important (and vulnerable) coastline. As warden of the stannaries he played a crucial role in negotiating the potentially profitable pre-emption of tin. He also enjoyed a powerful position at court, where as groom of the stole and first gentleman of the bedchamber he had ready access to the person of the king. His standing with the royal family must have been enhanced still further by his wife’s appointment in June 1663 as one of the ladies-in-waiting to Charles II’s new queen.<sup>15</sup> His sister-in-law, Lady Isabella Wyche, became a dresser in ordinary to the queen in or about autumn 1675.<sup>16</sup></p><h2><em>Parliamentary life and West Country magnate, 1661–7</em></h2><p>Bath took his seat at the opening of the 1661–2 session and was present for some 67 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to 17 other committees. Some of the bills considered by these committees were of obvious personal or local interest, such as Albemarle’s bill, the bill for distribution of money to loyal commissioned officers, and those for the duchy of Cornwall and the pilchard fisheries in Devon and Cornwall. Others, such as the two bills for Westminster streets, may have reflected interests acquired as a result of Bath’s appointment (for life) as keeper of St James’s Palace. A number of the bills dealt with the aftermath of the civil wars and interregnum, such as that for reversing Strafford’s attainder, the restoration of the lands of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, and the repeal of acts passed by the Long Parliament after 1640. Others reflected Bath’s position both as a courtier and as a significant figure in the defence of the new regime: these included the committee to draw an address to the king for communicating his intention to marry, the committee to consider the Quakers’ petition, and the militia bill. On 24 May he was added to the committee for the preservation of the king’s person which had been named earlier that day, suggesting that he had perhaps arrived late to the sitting.</p><p>The destruction of the family papers makes it difficult to be absolutely sure that he had a working partnership with his various kinsmen and dependants in the Commons but the parliamentary activities of his brother Bernard Granville and his brother-in-law Sir Cyril Wyche<sup>‡</sup> are certainly suggestive of a productive family alliance.<sup>17</sup> It is likely that Bath had similarly close political relationships with other West Country members, including Peter Prideaux<sup>‡</sup> (married to Bath’s sister), Thomas Higgons<sup>‡</sup> (married to another sister), and his more distant kinsman Sir James Smyth<sup>‡</sup>. The Granville family were also closely associated with Sir William Morice<sup>‡</sup>, to whom there was probably a family link via Albemarle and the extensive Prideaux clan.</p><p>Bath’s attendance fell markedly during the 1663 session, when he was present on only 40 per cent of sitting days. He did not take his seat until 23 Mar. 1663, a month after the session had begun. He spent his time instead in the West Country, where he had invested much time and effort settling the affairs of the tinners and organizing the militia, tasks that he considered essential in ‘a county so full of disaffection’. He was particularly proud of his work with the tinners, claiming that he had recovered revenues of £12,000 for the crown that had been ‘lost many years’ and, despite the rewards he had already received, was anxious for more.<sup>18</sup> He was absent from Parliament on 1 July when George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, launched his attack on Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and his intentions are made no clearer by his appearance on the notorious list compiled by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as both a supporter and an opponent of the chancellor. It seems likely that Bath opposed Clarendon. His uncle, Sir Richard Grenville, had been at loggerheads with Clarendon during the interregnum, and Bath had a close personal and political relationship with Albemarle, who is known to have disliked Clarendon. Equally it seems unlikely that, as a courtier, Bath would have openly opposed Clarendon at this stage. Albemarle’s intentions towards Clarendon at this time are also obscure.</p><p>Bath was present almost every day of the short spring 1664 session and was appointed to three committees. It is a telling mark of the importance of his position at court that in the summer of 1664 he was specifically exempted from the consequences of the king’s order to suspend payments of pensions.<sup>19</sup> During the 1664–5 session he was present for 65 per cent of sitting days and was named to committees on three bills, including one for the sale of lands in Devon by Sir Edward Hungerford<sup>‡</sup>. He held the proxy of Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, from December 1664 but there is no indication that this was for any specific purpose. Westmorland was probably infirm: his last attendance in the House was on 17 May 1664 and he died in February 1666. Bath also held the proxy of his fellow civil-war conspirator John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, from December until it was vacated by Mordaunt’s attendance on 20 Jan. 1665; again there is no indication that it was to be used for any specific item of business.</p><p>Despite the rewards he had already received, Bath was keen for more. In the summer of 1665 he used Albemarle as go-between in an attempt to secure the keepership of the privy purse. Although Albemarle declared that he would be ‘much troubled’ by a refusal of the request, Bath lost out to Baptist May, who commanded a still more influential patron – the king’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine.<sup>20</sup> Bath missed the brief October 1665 session altogether, probably because he was still in the west country, where he had been sent by the king in September 1665 to secure the peace of the region.<sup>21</sup> Between sessions, he was one of the peers who acquitted Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, after he was tried for murder in the court of the lord high steward in April 1666.<sup>22</sup> By July 1666 he was back in Devon (where he was by now deputizing for the ailing Albemarle as lord lieutenant) in order to ensure that defensive preparations against the Dutch were in hand, and securing the election in September 1666 of Sir Gilbert Talbot<sup>‡</sup> to represent Plymouth.<sup>23</sup></p><p>During the troubled 1666–7 session Bath was present on nearly 63 per cent of sitting days and was named to seven committees, including bills on the coinage and for the rebuilding of London. On 23 Jan. 1667 he entered a protest over the failure to allow for an appeal to the House of Lords in the bill creating the fire court. At court he was pursuing his arrears. Neither the £25,000 nor the £3,000 a year promised him in 1661 had yet materialized. He settled instead for payments of £5,000 a year towards the £25,000 capital sum and interest.<sup>24</sup> He acted as intermediary to promote a reconciliation between the king and Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, after the latter’s rash marriage to ‘La Belle Stewart’ in April 1667. That same month also provides a glimpse into Bath’s problems at court, where he was at odds, perhaps for a second time, with the grooms of the bedchamber over rights to the king’s linen.<sup>25</sup> By the summer he had once again returned to Plymouth to take personal command of the defences along the coast.<sup>26</sup> It was at this point that Albemarle, preparing to go to sea, petitioned the king for a reversion of his dukedom to Bath:</p><blockquote><p>in regard that your petitioner is grown old, and having only one son under age who may not live to have issue, your petitioner intends for failure thereof to settle all the crown lands granted by your majesty to your petitioner in fee simple upon his near and most deserving kinsman John earl of Bath, whom your petitioner hath chosen in that case to inherit his estate, and doth most humbly recommend unto your majesty to enjoy his titles of honour rather than any other of his kindred, not only for being his near relation in blood and the most deserving but more particularly for his late personal merit in conjunction with your petitioner for your majesty’s most happy restoration, wherein the said earl of Bath was intrusted alone by your majesty to treat and conclude with your petitioner about those important affairs, which he did most faithfully perform with so much hazard, courage, secrecy and prudent conduct, as was requisite in those dangerous times for carrying on that great work …<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>A week later the king issued a warrant under his signature promising ‘upon the word of a king’ to confer both the crown lands (especially Theobalds Park) awarded to Albemarle and the Albemarle dukedom on Bath in case of failure of male heirs and exhorting his successors to honour the undertaking.<sup>28</sup></p><p>The deteriorating political situation led at least one observer to suggest that Bath was ‘not a little pleased with this disgrace of my lord chancellor’.<sup>29</sup> During the ensuing (1667–8) session he attended on 80 per cent of sitting days. He held the proxy of Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, from 12 Oct. and that of Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton, from 27 November. On 20 Nov. 1667 he followed Albemarle and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in signing a protest against the refusal of the House of Lords to agree with the Commons over the commitment of Clarendon on a general charge. He was named to ten committees, including subjects of national importance such as Clarendon’s banishment and public accounts, as well as of personal interest, such as the bill to permit John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, to lease lead mines. Bath’s younger brother, Denis Granville, was not only archdeacon (later dean) of Durham but was also married to Cosin’s younger daughter.</p><h2><em>Parliamentary life and west country magnate,1668-85</em></h2><p>The financial crisis caused by war made Bath’s position as warden of the stannaries even more important, with the result that during the second half of 1668 through into the spring of 1669 much of his time was taken up acting as an intermediary between government and tinners during negotiations over the pre-emption of tin.<sup>30</sup> Shortly after the end of the session, in April 1669, he negotiated the marriage of his eldest daughter, Jane, to William Gower<sup>‡</sup> (later Leveson-Gower).<sup>31</sup> The match provides further indications of Bath’s attitude to Clarendon. His new son-in-law’s father, Sir Thomas Gower<sup>‡</sup>, had been involved in a number of activities such as the commission on public accounts and the enquiry into the miscarriages of the war, suggestive of enmity to Clarendon.</p><p>By May 1669 Bath’s arrears of salary as groom of the stole and first gentleman of the bedchamber had reached £7,250 and new arrangements were made to ensure payment. Continuing discussions of the arrears suggest that these new arrangements were not entirely successful: although the arrears had been reduced to £5,250 by the following May, by July 1670 they had risen to £7,250 again.<sup>32</sup> Bath’s financial situation may have been the more pressing as the marriage of Jane to Leveson-Gower had taken place the previous month and Bath had agreed to settle £1,800 a year on her.<sup>33</sup> That same month he joined Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, and Sir Gilbert Taylor in petitioning for lands in Denbighshire and Flintshire that might be reclaimed by navigation works on the River Dee.<sup>34</sup></p><p>When Parliament reconvened for the short session of autumn of 1669 Bath was present on 72 per cent of sitting days. His friend and patron Albemarle was by this time a very sick man; he died early in January 1670. The king immediately selected Bath as the person to inform the young Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, that he was to be invested with his father’s vacant garter.<sup>35</sup> Bath was also appointed lord lieutenant of Devon during Albemarle’s minority. The death of the duchess soon after left Albemarle an orphan so that Bath, together with Albemarle’s maternal uncle Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, now became responsible for the welfare of the teenage duke – a responsibility that included oversight of the Albemarle fortune, which was valued at some £22,000 a year.<sup>36</sup> Although Bath was clearly a court supporter his precise position in the factional kaleidoscope of court politics in the years immediately after the death of the 1st duke of Albemarle is difficult to determine. By 1676–7 he was firmly in the orbit of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), but the speed with which he adopted that trajectory remains uncertain.</p><p>Bath was present on nearly every day of the first part of the 1670–1 session, last attending on 11 Apr. 1670 – the day on which the Roos divorce received the royal assent. During this period, in what seems to have been a deliberate action, he collected proxies, holding that of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, from 15 Mar. and that of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, from 2 April. Towards the end of March 1670 he was also offered that of Richard Vaughan*, who sat in the House as Baron Vaughan but was better known by his Irish title as earl of Carbery. Bath appears to have declined it with the excuse that he would be detained at Plymouth and unable to use it.<sup>37</sup> Unless there is an error in the dating this was clearly untrue since Bath was in London in March 1670; it seems more likely that he knew he would receive Oxford’s proxy and be unable to accept another but did not wish to give offence by an outright refusal. Presumably the proxies were for use in connection with the controversial business of the session – conventicles, supply, union with Scotland, and the Roos divorce – but we have no indication of the way in which they were to be employed.</p><p>During that spring Bath was named to seven committees, including those on the Roos divorce and the projected union with Scotland. He was absent from the House for the remainder of the session, which did not end until April 1671. Scattered references suggest that that he spent much of that period in the west country tending to the defences there.<sup>38</sup> He was even absent for the passage of the Albemarle estates bill and had to send in written confirmation of his willingness to become one of the young duke’s trustees.<sup>39</sup> From March 1671 he covered his absence by entering a proxy in favour of John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse.</p><p>In May 1671 Bath was back in the London area; it was reported that he was to take part in a garter investiture ceremony at Windsor where he would stand in for the duke of Saxony.<sup>40</sup> He did not stay long. By July he was once again back in the west country, making elaborate preparations for a visit to and inspection of the fortifications there by the king. The entertainment was lavish and expensive. Bath</p><blockquote><p>entertained his majesty with all his officers and followers in the citadel at his own cost, and also kept a table in the town … where his lordship entertained the duke of Monmouth*, the marquess of Blanquefort [i.e. Louis de Duras*, later 2nd earl of Feversham], with many others of the nobility, having provided all things in very great plenty to entertain his majesty with all the nobility and persons of quality, and giving money to all his majesty’s inferior officers at their departure.</p></blockquote><p>In return, the king bolstered Bath’s position still further by promising his royal favour to the corporation.<sup>41</sup> Bath was also the recipient of other marks of royal favour: he was one of a very small group of individuals whose pension was specifically exempted from the stop of the exchequer.<sup>42</sup> He probably continued to divide his time between London and the west country; he was supervising building works at Plymouth in September 1671 but was in London when he attended the prorogation days at the House on 16 Apr. and 30 Oct. 1672.<sup>43</sup> In August 1672 he and his heirs were also awarded in perpetuity an annual pension of £3,000.<sup>44</sup></p><p>When Parliament reconvened in 1673, Bath was present for almost every day of the session. He was also once again involved in difficult discussions with the tinners, whose demands for what Danby considered an ‘unreasonable price’ meant that negotiations continued well into December 1674.<sup>45</sup> He held the proxies of Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland, and Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, from 12 and 22 Feb. 1673 respectively. In keeping with the Test Act he took the sacrament together with other leading courtiers in a somewhat ostentatious public ceremony on the Sunday before Easter 1673.<sup>46</sup> In June 1673, together with Francis Hawley<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Hawley [I], he became trustee for the pension of £1,000 from the aulnage awarded to the recently widowed Frances Stewart, duchess of Richmond. As such he gained additional patronage through his control over the actions of the officers and collectors of the aulnage.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Bath was present for all four days of the autumn 1673 session. He continued his high attendance through the 1674 session and both those of 1675, not missing a single day. He held the proxy of James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), for both sessions of 1675 as well as that of William Ley*, 4th earl of Marlborough, from 12 May 1675, re-entered on 14 Oct. 1675. During the 1674 session he was named to five committees to consider legislation, including one for the estates of the underage Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, and (somewhat ironically, given allegations about his future activities over the Albemarle inheritance) one for the prevention of frauds and perjuries. On 16 Feb. he was also named to a committee to consider a master and servant bill which was specifically asked to consider adding a clause regulating ‘in what manner, and upon what terms, slaves, either blacks or any other foreigners, not being Christians, may be used in England’. As one of the trustees for Albemarle, who had inherited his father’s role as one of the proprietors of Carolina, Bath may well have had a personal interest in slavery and in the contentious issue of whether slavery could be said to exist in England. However the committee seems never to have met and details about just what such an amendment might have been expected to achieve and who had promoted it remain tantalizingly elusive. Bath was also named as one of the mediators between the Hamburg Company and its creditors. During the first session of 1675 he was named to seven committees. Two forecasts for divisions confirm that, as one might expect, his political allegiances were to Danby and the court. In April he was listed as a supporter of the non-resisting test and in November he opposed making an address to the crown requesting a dissolution. During the second session he was named to the committee for privileges.</p><p>Throughout this period Bath continued to act as the hinge between central and local government, representing the interests and claims of individuals and corporations in the west country to the crown. His involvement in west country patronage and politics continued even after 1675, when Albemarle reached his majority and assumed the lord lieutenancy of Devon in his own right. Bath also looked to the interests of his own family. In December 1674 he obtained a promise from the king that his brother Denis would be promoted to the deanery of Durham.<sup>48</sup> Meanwhile, by January 1675 plans were well advanced for the marriage of his youngest daughter, Grace, to George Carteret*, the future Baron Carteret. Grace Granville was six years old; her new husband only two years older.<sup>49</sup> The marriage confirmed the close alliance between Granville and his fellow courtier and old royalist ally Sir George Carteret. Occasional glimpses of Bath’s correspondence confirm that by this date he was working closely with Danby, keeping him informed of events at court and hoping to cement the alliance by arranging for his son and heir, Charles Granville*, then styled Viscount Lansdown (later 2nd earl of Bath), to marry one of Danby’s younger daughters. It was perhaps symptomatic of the high value that Bath put on himself and his dynasty that negotiations initially foundered over Danby’s reluctance to pay the substantial dowry (£10,000) that Bath demanded.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Bath’s attendance over the troubled sessions between 1677 and the end of 1678 was again high. During the 1677–8 session he missed only three days; he missed another four days during the first session of 1678 and one during the second session of that year. He held proxies from Norreys and also from Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham, from the beginning of the 1677–8 session; Norreys’ proxy was re-entered in October 1678. He also held those of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, from 22 Feb. 1677 to 5 Mar. 1677, Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, from 14 May 1677 to 15 Jan. 1678, Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, from 23 Feb. 1678, and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, from 28 Feb. to 11 Mar. 1678.</p><p>Predictably, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, listed Bath as triply vile. During the 1677–8 session he was named to 26 committees, mostly estate bills. He was also named to the committee to trace the author of <em>Some Considerations upon the Question, Whether the Parliament is Dissolved by Prorogation for Fifteen Months</em>. Only one bill (that for the stannaries) was of obvious personal interest to him. During the first session of 1678 he was named to four committees, one of which concerned his west country neighbour Sir John Weld. Another, for boats carrying coals, might also have been of personal interest as Denis Granville had a financial interest in coal mines. Bath was not named as one of the original members of a fifth committee – that concerning the unlawful killing of deer – but was added later, which suggests that this too may have been a subject in which he was interested. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. During the second session of 1678 he was named to five committees whose business was related to the growing fears of a popish plot; he was also named to the committees for privileges and petitions.</p><p>In June 1678 Bath entered a protest against the decision to proceed on the claim of Robert Danvers alias Villiers to the title of Viscount Purbeck, arguing that it was impossible ‘upon complicated and accumulative questions [to] give a resolution; nor hath the practice been so, but upon the case agreed, or single propositions, except where the House is unanimous in judgment; whereas in this cause they appear yet much divided’. Also that year he was summoned as one of the peers to sit in the court of the lord high steward for the Cornwallis trial; along with the majority of his fellow lords triers, and in the face of the evidence, he found Cornwallis not guilty.<sup>51</sup></p><p>In November 1678 in a committee of the whole considering the Test, Bath voted against making the declaration against transubstantiation attract the same penalty as the oaths. On 20 Dec. he was one of those named to draw up arguments for the conference on disbanding the forces. This was a matter in which as the commander of a military garrison he had both a personal and a professional interest. That day the House went into committee and agreed extensive amendments to the bill, including changes that specifically exempted troops at Bath’s garrison in Plymouth and at Pendennis (commanded by Bath’s political ally and neighbour, Arundell of Trerice) as long as they had been recruited before 29 Sept. 1677. He was not named to the subsequent conference to discuss the amendments, possibly because the provisions regarding Plymouth and Pendennis were not matters of controversy. On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and the following day he voted against the motion to commit Danby.</p><p>Bath was present at the opening of the first Exclusion Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679 and was present at five of the six days in the first abortive session. He missed only one day of the 61-day second session, attending 98 per cent of all sitting days. He held the proxy of Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, from 2 Apr. 1679 and that of Norreys from 15 Apr. to 24 April. His close relationship with the king was demonstrated by his willingness to obey the king’s instructions to seal Danby’s pardon.<sup>52</sup> Two days later Bath carried a message from the king to Danby whereby Danby was instructed to withdraw himself.<sup>53</sup> On 27 Mar. Bath was again the messenger who conveyed the king’s commands to Danby. He made it clear that, despite the king’s expressions of support, Danby would be safer ‘the other side of the water’. He added that Danby should be encouraged by the attempt to pass an act of attainder rather than banishment, ‘the said bill being of that nature that it is believed it will very hardly ever pass the Lords house much less the royal assent’.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Bath was consistently listed by Danby as a supporter and became an important intermediary between Danby and the king, as well as with Danby’s wider network of allies, even to the extent, some said, of perpetuating Danby’s influence in the Privy Council.<sup>55</sup> He provided the king with a list of persons to be canvassed in Danby’s favour, campaigned himself on Danby’s behalf, and kept open a correspondence in which each kept the other abreast of developments at court.<sup>56</sup> He voted against the attainder on 4 Apr. 1679 and entered dissents on 8 and 14 Apr. to the resolution to include in the heads of a conference a declaration that Danby’s case could not be used as a precedent and the resolution to agree to the Commons’ amendment. Then, on 1 May, he voted against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 10 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference to consider Danby’s petition and on 14 May he entered a dissent against the passage of the bill to regulate trials of peers. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>During the elections for the second Exclusion Parliament, Bath lent his support to Sidney Godolphin*, later earl of Godolphin, who was successfully returned for Helston.<sup>57</sup> At a by-election in November 1680, his eldest son, styled Viscount Lansdown, was returned for Launceston. From December 1680, Bath held the proxy of John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland. Bath’s confidence in his own position and prospects now resulted in a project to rebuild his home at Stowe. The new house was said to be so magnificent that even ‘the kitchen offices, fitted up for a dwelling-house, made no contemptible figure’.<sup>58</sup> It is tempting to speculate whether Bath’s decision to rebuild was influenced in any way by his relationship with Albemarle. Although Albemarle was still a young man, his alcoholism meant that he was often ill, his wife was mentally unstable, and their ten-year marriage had not produced any children. As one of Albermarle’s closest male relatives, accorded what seems to have been a free hand over the Albemarle estates, Bath may have been encouraged to embark on an ambitious building programme because he believed that he and his heirs would ultimately inherit the Albemarle fortune. Such a possibility was certainly being talked of by the end of 1684 and Bath probably knew that he was named as the principal heir in a will made by Albemarle in 1675.<sup>59</sup> It is perhaps also worth noting that 1680 was the date at which he took control of the estates inherited by his young son-in-law Carteret.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Despite his close connections to the court, Bath did not know, as late as 13 Oct. 1679, that when Parliament met on 17 Oct. it would immediately be prorogued to the following March.<sup>61</sup> His attendance was again exemplary; he missed only two days. On 15 Nov. 1680 he voted to reject the Exclusion bill at its first reading and a week later voted against the appointment of a committee to consider in conjunction with the Commons the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. he voted with the minority to find William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason, the only officer of the bedchamber to do so.<sup>62</sup> Bath missed the opening day of the Oxford Parliament but was present on all the remaining days. Not surprisingly, given his record, he was expected to support Danby’s attempt to be bailed from the Tower, although in the event he, together with other allies of Danby, allowed the matter to be delayed and then lost at the dissolution on 28 Mar. 1681.</p><p>During the subsequent four-year interval before the next Parliament, Bath continued to play a central role in the campaign to free Danby and in the communications between Danby, the court, and the outside world.<sup>63</sup> He was one of many loyal courtiers who attended the trial of Fitzharris in June 1681 and he was present to support Danby when his application for bail was rejected by the judges of king’s bench in June 1682.<sup>64</sup> Bath was also active in the campaign against the corporations, bringing in a clutch of surrendered charters. He was appointed recorder of Lostwithiel, with the power of appointing the common clerk, under that borough’s new charter in 1682.<sup>65</sup> Presumably the charter left the borough insufficiently loyal for another was issued in 1684.<sup>66</sup></p><p>For almost a year, from 1682 to the spring of 1683, Bath was involved in an unpleasant quarrel at court about the right of access to the king. The quarrel was given just a little more edge because his opponent, Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, was a politician on the wane and one of Danby’s enemies. Arlington, who was lord chamberlain of the household, complained that he had been refused admission to the bedchamber ‘in a very rude manner’ and had thus been prevented from speaking with the king. Bath, who, as groom of the stole, was in charge of the bedchamber, defended himself by producing a book of rules and orders, supposedly dating from 1661. This incensed Arlington still further, who complained that the rules were ‘never seen before by himself or his predecessors wherein over and above the wrong to the petitioner, as he conceives, in the abridgment of the best part of his privileges and jurisdiction of his office, many other clauses are inserted to the disturbance of the king’s service’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Edward Conway, now earl of Conway, somewhat gleefully remarked that he would be ‘very glad to hear that my lord chamberlain gets the better of my lord of Bath’ but the ensuing investigation appears to have found in Bath’s favour. A group of privy councillors declared that the 1661 book of rules that had been confirmed by the king as recently as 1678, and on which Bath relied, did ‘exclude generally all persons whatsoever, except the princes of the blood, and such as are sworn of the bedchamber’. Nevertheless they concluded that the 1661 orders had rarely been implemented and contained items that were ‘unusual and not agreeable to constant practice’.<sup>68</sup> It has been argued that Bath was acting with the connivance of the king, who was consciously seeking to restrict access to his person and to distance himself from his subjects.<sup>69</sup> Bath also emphasized his right to supervise the pages and other servants of the bedchamber, who were ‘to be sworn to be obedient in all things to the groom of the stole as the chief officer under the king’.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Almost contemporaneously with this quarrel Bath found himself defending his conduct as trustee for his teenage son-in-law, Carteret. Carteret was still a minor and was abroad on his travels but in his absence his grandmother, acting on his behalf, sought information about the state of his finances, which Bath (the only active trustee) refused to disclose.<sup>71</sup> Carefully declaring that Carteret’s trustees were ‘persons of honour worth and integrity’ whose ‘fidelity, sincerity and punctual performance’ was not doubted, she nevertheless took Bath to court in what may have been a collusive action to force the information out of him.<sup>72</sup></p><p>In Feb. 1684 Bath stood bail for Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, one of the Catholic peers who had been accused and imprisoned during the Popish Plot scare.<sup>73</sup> He continued to be active in securing the surrender of charters and later that year he was appointed recorder of Plymouth for life under that town’s new charter; his brother Bernard, his son Lansdown, his protégé Albemarle, and his friends Arundell of Trerice, Sir Edward Seymour, and the future bishop of Bristol, Jonathan Trelawny*, were all appointed burgesses.<sup>74</sup></p><h2><em>Loyalty under pressure, 1685–8</em></h2><p>In February 1685 Bath’s loyalty and friendship for the royal brothers was such that he and Feversham were the only Protestants to be present at the death of Charles II.<sup>75</sup> The change in regime also marked a partial eclipse in Bath’s fortunes. Although he regarded the office of groom of the stole as his for life, James II dismissed him and appointed instead his close friend, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough. In a petition to the new king Bath drew attention to his arrears of pay and the still unpaid debt of £25,000; he also claimed that he had been forced to encumber his estate and that his dismissal from office amounted to such a sign of disfavour that it had encouraged his creditors to become more pressing.<sup>76</sup> He was promised that his pension and salaries would be continued at the rate of £5,000 a year and that he would receive compensation for his place and the six years of arrears owed to him. ‘God grant I may see it’ wrote his brother. ‘Otherwise my brother in his old age will be uneasy in his fortune after 40 years’ service.’<sup>77</sup> Bath also claimed the dead king’s bed and furniture as a perquisite of office.<sup>78</sup></p><p>In part it seemed that his loss of influence at court might be compensated for by the growth of his family connection in Parliament. In 1685 his brother Bernard and his older son Charles were joined in the Commons by Bath’s younger son, John, and his nephews. Bath’s local influence remained undiminished. In March 1685 he was appointed recorder of Plympton under the stannary town’s new charter. He and Albemarle also became burgesses.<sup>79</sup> He also became recorder of Liskeard, where the list of freemen under the new charter included Bernard Granville, Lansdown, Arundell of Trerice, Jonathan Trelawny, and a host of other well-known loyal courtiers. Bath himself became recorder of at least nine local corporations.<sup>80</sup> When Parliament assembled in May 1685 it was said that Bath had brought in 15 charters and had been dubbed as a result the prince elector.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Bath was absent for two days in the first half of the 1685 session and did not attend at all after 19 June, having left London to assist in the subjugation of Monmouth’s rebellion. By 22 June he was in Exeter organizing the Cornish and Devon militias; he remained there after the capture of Monmouth to deal with the prisoners.<sup>82</sup> In August he received notification that he was to be appointed lord lieutenant of Devon, following Albemarle’s resignation. He insisted that he also be appointed <em>custos rotulorum</em>, ‘it being always an occasion of discord when they are divided’.<sup>83</sup> The death of Arlington led to rumours that Bath would succeed him as lord chamberlain but these proved inaccurate and Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, was appointed instead.<sup>84</sup> Towards the end of October the king instructed Bath to return to London.<sup>85</sup> If he did so, he did not attend Parliament, for which he apologized to the king while at the same time asking for payment of the arrears of his pension and remarking that the result of his activities was that ‘The town of Plymouth is now as loyal and dutiful as the garrison.’<sup>86</sup></p><p>Yet within months there were signs of major disagreement between Bath and the king. Bath, who considered himself an expert on the political and military management of the west country, asked that he be given the command of the standing forces there and that the forces be dispersed to avoid complaints about quartering too many together. On behalf of the king Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, refused both requests.<sup>87</sup> Monmouth’s rebellion had shaken the king’s faith in Albemarle as a military leader and one wonders whether the level of support displayed for Monmouth in the west had also diminished the king’s belief in Bath’s ability to manage the area. Although Sunderland insisted that the king’s reply was in keeping with the rules for other parts of the country, it is difficult not to read an implication of distrust into the response. Bath’s anxiety to keep on good terms with Albemarle perhaps exacerbated this. He ensured that the Devon militia would continue to march ‘under the name and colours of Albemarle’ and told him,</p><blockquote><p>that your power, interest and command in Devonshire is still as fully absolutely in yourself as formerly, and shall ever so remain whilst I am honoured with the commission of lieutenancy, which I shall rejoice, and be always desirous, as once before, to lay at your grace’s feet whensoever you will be pleased with his majesty’s approbation to accept the same …<sup>88</sup></p></blockquote><p>In 1686 revelations of irregularities in the tin industry prompted Bath to suggest new elections to a convocation of tinners. Given the difficulties of earlier attempts to come to terms with the tinners, this was an undertaking fraught with difficulty. The rights and customs of the stannaries were a matter of controversy, having been disused since the civil wars. Bath nevertheless claimed to be in no doubt that the stannary towns would ‘elect such loyal sober persons, as would breathe new life into those languishing laws’.<sup>89</sup></p><p>The actual convocation proved to be something of a mixed blessing. While Bath insisted in November 1686 ‘that no meeting could ever end better that had so ill a prospect of agreement before it met’, he was equally convinced that his authority had been undermined by Jonathan Trelawny, recently appointed bishop of Bristol. Just as Bath had had a long and close attachment to Charles II so the Trelawny family had had a similarly close association with James II. Trelawny owed his elevation to the episcopate to his friendship with the new king and, according to Bath, he flaunted his new influence at court,</p><blockquote><p>insinuating that he had by his interest at court procured the convocation ‘to get them a farm’ and a good price for their tin; on all occasions making use of the lord treasurer’s name and the king’s authority; acting therein contrary to his [Bath’s] commission: which made it very difficult to reconcile all things to the satisfaction of the tinners and convocators, and impossible to mention a less price, as the bishop had so raised their expectations.<sup>90</sup></p></blockquote><p>Meanwhile, although Bath’s attitude to the repeal of the Test Act remained determinedly ambiguous (his contemporaries variously listed him as opposed to repeal, supportive of repeal, and undeclared), he was caught up in the king’s new campaign against charters. He managed to persuade several Cornish boroughs by prescription to exchange their ancient rights for chartered ones.<sup>91</sup> Early in 1688 he set out for Cornwall to put the three questions, though Roger Morrice for one was convinced that this was against his inclination for ‘there is no men in the kingdom that do more abominate the Protestant Dissenters, nor that have been more severe upon them’.<sup>92</sup> Jonathan Trelawny correctly predicted a high level of resistance:</p><blockquote><p>I was glad to find the gentry unanimous for the preserving the Test and our laws and what pleased me as much, resolved to appear in their several corporations and not suffer so many foreigners to be put upon them, as were returned hence by the wheedle of the earl of Bath our lord lieutenant, whom they will attend in a body upon his coming into the country, and with the decency of a complement desire that they themselves may be permitted to serve the king in Parliament, which if his lordship will not yield to, but answer that he has the king’s commands for the return of such as his majesty named to him, the gentry, at least a great part of them will assert their particular pretensions in such boroughs as have dependence upon them, and try whether the earl of Bath will with a high hand turn out such mayors and magistrates as will not comply with his nominations, disoblige the gentry, and endanger the kingdom.<sup>93</sup></p></blockquote><p>Early in March 1688 Bath was ‘very joyfully received’ at Exeter but the town’s new charter, granted the same month, sent a chilling message to those most anxious to defend the Anglican Church. It provided a model for the charters that followed, containing clauses that empowered the king to appoint as well as to remove members of corporations and that dispensed them from the Test.<sup>94</sup> The joy soon dissipated. By 23 Mar.,</p><blockquote><p>Letters from the west bring the news that the earl of Bath labours with as little success in the counties of Devonshire and Cornwall who return most of the members to Parliament as other lord lieutenants have met with in other parts of the kingdom, notwithstanding he has very seriously offered to the inhabitants to grant them the sale of tin, which would give them the facility of delivering all the tin they might dig out to his m[ajesty] at the rate of £3.10 – pr cwt – and to receive cash for it on delivery without having to wait for other buyers or having to send it to market.<sup>95</sup></p></blockquote><p>When Bath returned to London in April he confirmed this in person. His failure marked a major setback for government policy. As a result *Sunderland and William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, both postponed planned trips to their own lieutenancies.<sup>96</sup> Yet Bath was still willing to be party to the order to read the Declaration of Indulgence in churches.<sup>97</sup> Twists in royal policies caused other troubles too. In the summer 1688 he received a letter from Albemarle, now governor of Jamaica, pointing out the contradictions in his instructions and asking Bath to find out what it was that the king really wanted him to do.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Bath went back to Cornwall in August, and the following month, despite the setbacks, he was given a list of approved parliamentary candidates.<sup>99</sup> As the political crisis deepened and the king began to backtrack, Bath was left to sort out the contradictions. By early October he had received the writs for parliamentary elections in Devon, Cornwall, and Exeter, as well as the proclamation for ‘surcease of all proceedings thereon’, and had to ask for advice about what to do with them. In a long and pointed but restrainedly polite letter to Sunderland he nevertheless left no room for doubt about the extent of his anger and frustration both at the changes in policy and at the way in which he himself had been marginalized. He referred with false modesty to his own ‘weak endeavours’ to serve the king, castigated the ‘irregularities and extravagances’ of the regulators and went on to declare ‘that the best expedient for settling matters in cos. Cornwall and Devon is to put things in such a method that they may return to their ancient course’. He particularly drew attention to the problems of Exeter,</p><blockquote><p>which gives laws to all the rest, but it is so miserably divided and distracted that I dare affirm there is not a place in the king’s dominions that wants more speedy or serious consideration. It is the bishop’s seat, the residence of the dean, canons and prebendaries. The great interest of the place consists of church men, and it has always been true to the church and consequently loyal to the king. Its motto is <em>Semper fidelis</em> [always faithful]. You may easily imagine it to be a great mortification to them to see the most substantial, rich, loyal citizens turned out of the government for no offence … and this in such a hurry that they destroyed their charter for very haste. It cannot choose but be grievous to them to be domineered over by a packed chamber of dissenters, and to see the sword … carried every Sunday before the Mayor in state to a conventicle. The animosities, I am told, are so great that they would be dangerous in the most peaceable times. In these they may be fatal if some speedy course be not taken.<sup>100</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bath had already sent lists of justices to be added and removed from the commissions of the peace to the lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys. He was careful to secure royal approval for reinstating prominent individuals and tried to balance conflicting demands by nominating a number of ‘gentlemen of the first rank’ who were sympathetic to Dissent but whose status would make them acceptable to loyal Anglicans. The earlier purges had resulted in the addition of men who were ‘of mean quality and small estate and very unacceptable to those worthy gentlemen who are now to be restored’ and he suggested that they should be removed. Jeffreys complied.<sup>101</sup></p><p>So deep were the worries that news of the birth of a prince of Wales caused economic as well as political upset in Cornwall. The newly appointed farmers of the pre-emption of tin found that ‘the difficulties of the times’ had delayed the passing of their patent, which was perhaps fortunate as they also claimed that the market had collapsed.<sup>102</sup> On 23 Oct. 1688 Bath wrote to Godolphin reporting that the convocators had ‘grown peevish and suspicious’ and prone to ‘new jealousies and difficulties’. The restoration of charters recently ordered by the king had had little effect because its terms excluded most of the Cornish corporation charters. Nor could he follow the king’s instructions to ‘take care’ of Exeter as the militia was commanded by the mayor, who</p><blockquote><p>was a person in whom he had no confidence, as he had often faithfully acquainted the king; the rest of the officers had tendered him their commissions, and desired to be excused from serving under him (the mayor), so that his lordship might easily judge what was to be expected from such a commander in case of necessity. He had not thought fit to remove him, but would be glad of his majesty’s pleasure therein by the next post. Without putting the militia of that city into better hands it was impossible (unless the king sent some of his standing forces) to preserve that important place long in peace, or defend it against an enemy.<sup>103</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>Revolution and defection to the prince of Orange, 1688–92</em></h2><p>Bath’s reputation as the king’s man and his apparent willingness to accept policy changes, even when he disliked them, seems to have blinded James II to the depth of his rage. On 30 Oct., as the prospect of invasion became ever more likely, Bath was one of several lords lieutenant of strategically important counties to receive instructions to keep watch on the coast and to remove ‘all horses oxen and cattle fit for burden or draught’ 20 miles inland from any attempted landing place.<sup>104</sup> Others were equally sure of his loyalty. In the confusion that followed the landing of William of Orange there were reports that Bath had attempted to thwart the invaders by ordering all haystacks and provisions to be burnt and that as a result he had been killed at the hands of an Orangist mob.<sup>105</sup> As the political situation continued to deteriorate, a sceptical Van Citters reported back to the estates general that Bath’s interest with the west country’s tin miners, ‘who are in great numbers’, was being used by the court in a desperate and ineffective attempt to shore up support.<sup>106</sup></p><p>In reality Bath was already in touch with the invading forces.<sup>107</sup> He had been unwilling to commit himself when approached earlier by Henry Sydney*, the future Viscount Sydney, but just three days after the prince of Orange’s landing an approach by Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, who brought with him a personal letter from the prince, changed his mind. Russell asked Bath to name his terms; Bath declined to do so, trusting to the prince’s gratitude and goodwill, but he must have made at least some of his pretensions known verbally for in a letter of 20 Nov. 1688 William promised ‘to see justice done you’ and added a note in his own hand to the effect that he would never forget Bath’s services.<sup>108</sup> Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon who was staying with Bath at Plymouth reported that on the evening of 17 Nov. Bath left Plymouth, saying he would return within half an hour but he had not come back by the following day. Presumably he was visiting William for on 18 Nov. he wrote to the prince, agreeing to obey his commands, which included the seizure of the citadel, raising the militia, and imprisoning Huntingdon.<sup>109</sup></p><p>In the meantime Bath continued to play the part of attentive host, offering his own shalloop to Huntingdon, who had expressed an interest in visiting St Nicholas Island. Although pleased at the favour, Huntingdon declined; it was not until later that he realized that Bath had intended to leave him there as a prisoner. He was invited instead to dine with Bath, who explained to his somewhat gullible listener that he had restrained ‘port liberty’ for his soldiers as part of their training ‘the better to accustom them to a siege’. During what seems to have been a pleasant and genial dinner, Bath’s men seized the citadel and removed all the Catholic officers and soldiers. As soon as he was informed that the operation was complete, Bath placed Huntingdon under arrest.</p><p>The next day, 26 Nov. 1688, Bath had the prince of Orange’s declaration read to the garrison who greeted it with huzzas and threw up their hats. The declaration was then posted on the gates of the citadel.<sup>110</sup> When, shortly afterwards, the justices, deputy lieutenants, and principal gentlemen of eastern Cornwall met at Saltash they unanimously endorsed Bath’s actions, as did the townsfolk and the militia. Following Bath’s lead they signed the Association. Bath was confident that Charles Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, and the gentlemen of west Cornwall would follow suit and arranged for copies of the declaration to be published in the remaining boroughs and market towns of the county. Thanks to Bath the invading fleet was able to anchor safely in Plymouth harbour, which then became William’s principal naval base.<sup>111</sup></p><p>In December 1688 Bath was only one of three peers who received a summons to the Parliament that James had scheduled for January.<sup>112</sup> The other two peers (Huntingdon and Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin) were stalwart supporters of James II and it seems that Bath’s writ was obtained at the request of Lady Huntingdon to ‘facilitate’ her husband’s freedom.<sup>113</sup> When the Convention assembled on 22 Jan. 1689 Bath was probably still at his house in Cornwall where he had gone to celebrate Christmas.<sup>114</sup> He took his seat on 2 Feb. and was subsequently present for just over 85 per cent of sitting days. By now he commanded a considerable family connection in Parliament. His younger brother Denis had followed James II into exile but the remaining members of the family transferred their loyalties to the new regime. Bath’s nephews Bevil, Bernard, and George and his nephew-in-law, Alexander Pendarves<sup>‡</sup>, joined his brother Bernard and younger son John in the Commons, while his son Lansdown received a writ in acceleration to the Lords (where he was known as Lord Granville) and his son-in-law Carteret also took his seat in the Lords. Other members of the Commons who represented west country constituencies undoubtedly also looked to him for leadership.</p><p>Bath now appeared to be distancing himself from his own political past. His once close relationship with Danby had turned sour, but dating the breakdown is extremely difficult. One factor in the transformation may have been the failure of Lansdown’s marriage to Martha Osborne in or about the summer of 1682.<sup>115</sup> Yet there is no evidence of any enmity between the two men before the Revolution; rather it seems likely that it was the Revolution that was the catalyst that provoked Bath’s jealousy. His anger was also inextricably intertwined with the Albemarle inheritance. News of the death of Albemarle reached England almost contemporaneously with the Dutch invasion. Bath believed that he would succeed to the Albemarle estates and thus consolidate still further his position as a regional magnate; he also expected to be created duke of Albemarle, pursuant to the promise made him by Charles II. There was too the ongoing issue of the outstanding debts due from the crown.</p><p>Bath returned to London in January 1689 determined to pursue all these claims. His first step seems to have been to register the warrant of April 1661 – with its claim to the earldom of Glamorgan and the titles of Corbeil, Thorigny, and Granville – with the college of arms.<sup>116</sup> In a petition (which from the style of address is likely to have been written shortly before the formal offer of the crown to William and Mary on 13 Feb.) he also laid out his claim to the office of groom of the stole or for compensation for the same. He was distressed by the appointment of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, to the office and still more distressed by the decision to grant Bentinck possession of Theobalds Park. Furthermore the crown still owed Bath a substantial sum. Initially he sought to make an ally of Portland, telling him ‘that you having taken possession of my office it is but just that you should mediate with the king that I might have right and justice done me in compensation’.<sup>117</sup></p><p>While Bath found it necessary to besiege the crown with petitions for what he perceived to be his just recompense, Danby enjoyed a privileged position as one of the ‘immortal seven’. Before the Revolution Bath’s earldom had enjoyed higher precedence than that of Danby; until 1685 as both groom of the stole and a trusted friend of Charles II he had also been closer to the centre of power than the erstwhile lord treasurer. Danby’s promotion to a marquessate (as Carmarthen) in April 1689 and his ability to command office under the new regime meant that their relative positions were now reversed: he was now more powerful than Bath and also outranked him.</p><p>Bath’s parliamentary activity undoubtedly also contributed to the process. In February 1689 both men voted consistently in favour of the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’ and both were named as managers of the conference to consider amendments to the declaration declaring William and Mary to be monarchs. Then in May, when Carmarthen led the campaign against reversing Oates’s convictions for perjury, Bath not only parted company with him but went on to enter three protests against the refusal to do so. In so doing he allied himself with Carmarthen’s Whig enemies. He held Carteret’s proxy from 12 July so was able to employ that in the division on Oates that took place on 30 July 1689. During the session he acted as teller on seven occasions, leading one to wonder if he had been similarly involved before the Revolution (for which records of tellerships do not survive).</p><p>On 5 Mar. Bath told on the division for an amendment to the bill for the trial of peers; on 23 Apr. for the division concerning the Commons amendment to the abrogating oaths bill; in June for that on the addition of a proviso to the land tax bill which would have bolstered privilege of peerage by enabling the peers to name their own commissioners and on the vote for reversing the 1682 judgment against the former sheriff of London, Thomas (now Sir Thomas) Pilkington<sup>‡</sup>. In all these cases, although solid evidence is lacking, it seems likely that he voted with the Whigs. In September 1689 news of the death of Lady Lansdown, which was said to bring ‘joy’ to Bath, removed the final link between him and Carmarthen.<sup>118</sup> At or about this time the relationship between Lansdown and his brother-in-law Peregrine Osborne*, styled earl of Danby, later 2nd duke of Leeds, was so poor that that Lansdown had been forced to promise the king that the pair would not resort to a duel.<sup>119</sup> Osborne’s volatility however was such that it is difficult to be certain that the quarrel stemmed from family animosity or some other cause.</p><p>Alongside his parliamentary activities during this session, Bath also took the first steps in what was to become a long-running attempt to gain possession of the Albemarle fortune. As noted above, he had expected to be the major beneficiary under the 2nd duke of Albemarle’s will. He was therefore dismayed to discover that Albemarle had made a new will shortly before leaving England in 1687 in which, after safeguarding the interests of his wife during her lifetime, he had entailed virtually the whole of his property on a Col. Henry Monck and his two sons, Christopher and Henry Monck. Col. Monck had been a protégé of the 1st duke of Albemarle; the 2nd duke had taken a similar interest in the careers of Christopher and Henry junior. There is no extant evidence to confirm a family connection but Albemarle clearly believed that he and Col. Monck were related to each other through the paternal line. It seems that it was not until 1684 that he realized that his relationship to Bath was through their mothers and that Bath was not therefore the heir to the Monck patrimony.<sup>120</sup></p><p>The will of 1687 was drawn up by the leading lawyer Henry Pollexfen<sup>‡</sup>. Albemarle took the original with him to Jamaica but made sure that two certified copies were left in England; the original and both copies were opened in the presence of witnesses on 8 Apr. 1689. Within six months Bath was embroiled in a case in the prerogative court of Canterbury to overturn the 1687 will and in a suit and counter-suit in chancery to the same end.<sup>121</sup> He produced what he claimed to be a deed of settlement drawn up by Albemarle in 1682, which contained a clause nullifying any subsequent disposition of the Albemarle estates unless witnessed by six individuals of whom three had to be peers of the realm. His case rested on the legality and authenticity of this deed and the somewhat preposterous claim that Albemarle had deliberately drawn up an invalid second will in order to avoid the importunities of his mentally fragile duchess. The various suits and counter-suits generated by the dispute, and the allegations of perjury and fraud that accompanied it, fascinated the social and political elite for nearly 20 years.</p><p>During the 1689–90 session Bath was present for 71 per cent of sitting days. His activities during this session are more difficult to trace but his protest on 23 Nov. 1689 about the loss of a proviso to the bill of rights that would have required royal pardons to impeachments to have the approval of both Houses of Parliament suggests open enmity to Carmarthen, who marked him as an opponent of the court in a list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690. His attendance over the short first session of 1690 rose to nearly 92 per cent, perhaps because his presence in London was required in order to continue litigation over the Albemarle inheritance. In March 1690, as a result of an enquiry into protections, he withdrew one protection and claimed that a second was forged.<sup>122</sup> On 13 May he joined with leading Whigs in a protest against the refusal of the House to grant further time to the City of London in connection with the bill to reverse the judgment against it. In the meantime his case against the duchess of Albemarle continued with an appeal to the court of delegates and fresh moves in chancery, where he produced a copy of Charles II’s 1667 promise that if the Albemarle line should ever fail the dukedom would revert to Bath.<sup>123</sup> After the end of the session, when the king had left for Ireland, Bath was once again instructed to attend to the defence of the west country by directing the militia there and preparing to deal with possible mutinies by the tinners.<sup>124</sup> His reluctance to do so (he sent his son instead) annoyed the queen.<sup>125</sup></p><p>The 1690–1 session saw Bath’s attendance rise to nearly 90 per cent. He almost immediately faced a challenge to his claim of privilege in the Albemarle case.<sup>126</sup> He was discomfited still further by the arrest of Lansdown, who was rumoured to have revived his quarrel with Danby.<sup>127</sup> Legal complications over the attempt to court martial Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, resulted in October 1690 in a bill to clarify the powers of the commissioners of the Admiralty. Bath, clearly part of an alliance against Carmarthen that stretched across both Houses and that was led in the Lords by Bath’s Cornish neighbour Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, entered a protest at the passage of the bill, as did his son Lansdown. On the same day Bath also protested at the resolution to discharge James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Peterborough from bail; previously, on 6 Oct. he had voted against their discharge from imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment that he was ‘easy to be made [to] follow the king’s mind by what he holds under him’.<sup>128</sup> In the Commons John Granville’s defence of Torrington was such that the king removed him from all his offices.<sup>129</sup> One might have thought that such disapprobation would extend also to Bath, yet in the spring of 1691 preparations for Lansdown‘s second marriage, to Isabella de Nassau van Auverquerque, the daughter of one of the king’s closest companions, sparked gossip that Bath was to be promoted to a dukedom.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Various enquiries had supported the validity of Bath’s financial claims.<sup>131</sup> As a result his claims on the crown and his son’s marriage settlement were being negotiated together. On 12 Mar. 1691 Queen Mary signed a warrant summarizing the results of the settlement. Bath was granted the right to nominate a ‘fit person of estate and quality’ to an English barony or to receive £10,000 in ready money, over and above the £6,000 already paid as dowry, in lieu. He was also promised the dukedom of Albemarle at the next creation of dukes or payment of the arrears relating to the original promise to pay £15,000 (which by then amounted to over £50,000), plus payment of his pensions and arrears as governor of Plymouth. The warrant makes it clear that William III was fully aware of the agreement that had been reached and that it was backed by ‘the royal word of a king and queen’.<sup>132</sup> As a result, in August 1691 Henry Guy notified the paymaster general that Bath’s pensions of £5,000 a year had been confirmed and that payments were to be made, backdated to Christmas 1690.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Other matters progressed in a less satisfactory manner. In May 1691 the delegates – who included Carmarthen, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, unanimously rejected Bath’s appeal against the duchess of Albemarle.<sup>134</sup> In July Bath’s post-revolutionary enthusiasm for the Whigs was underlined still further when he acted as godfather to Bolton’s infant grandson.<sup>135</sup> Whether the Whigs really were enthusiastic about gaining the support of a man who had been so prominent in the Tory reaction of the 1680s is unclear; in a letter to Portland that must have been written some time after Portland’s appointment as groom of the stole in March 1689, Bath revealed that he had been unable to obtain a private audience with the king since his return to London from the west, which suggests that even at that early stage he had powerful enemies at court.<sup>136</sup></p><p>Bath was absent when Parliament reassembled for the 1691–2 session, not taking his seat until 14 Nov. 1691. He did not attend after 27 Jan. 1692 at all. He covered his absence during the first part of the session by a proxy to Lansdown and during the second part by a proxy to Carteret. There were other scattered absences so that overall his attendance was just under 58 per cent. During November, after an exceptionally long trial, Bath won his case against the duchess of Albemarle. Carmarthen spoke so reluctantly for the duchess that neither she nor Bath were satisfied with his testimony.<sup>137</sup> Lansdown’s marriage had already raised Bath’s political and financial credit. Now his legal victory implied that he could take possession of an estate valued at between £6,000 and £10,000 a year. It was also reported that the salary of £5,000 awarded to him by Charles II as groom of the stole was to be resumed, ‘being given him upon the account for what he lost for Charles the First’. <sup>138</sup> This report was only partially correct since the resumption of the pension was part of a deal whereby Bath waived arrears of £20,000.<sup>139</sup> Nevertheless his creditors were delighted. Rumours of his imminent creation as duke of Albemarle began to circulate once again.<sup>140</sup></p><p>Only partial information is available about the state of Bath’s finances at this time. He was apparently still in possession of a substantial quantity of plate issued to him during the reign of Charles II and never returned, and it seems that even after Bath had relinquished his claim to the arrears of £20,000 the crown still owed him some £10,000.<sup>141</sup> Perhaps it was a sense of fellow feeling that led William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, to believe that Bath would vote in favour of his bill to secure the restoration of estates lost in the civil wars. In the event Bath was absent from the House on 25 Jan. 1692, the day of the second reading, but Derby’s predictions were in any case unsound. The bill was rejected even though he thought he would win by an overwhelming majority.<sup>142</sup></p><h2><em>Overplaying his hand, 1692–1701</em></h2><p>Shortly before the 1692–3 session began Bath petitioned the queen about his pension. Having, in his view, sacrificed £20,000 in return for a contractually guaranteed payment of £5,000 a year, he was incensed to find that that payment had been stopped, allegedly because of financial exigency, but more probably because William III was trying to force Bath to exercise his influence over his two sons in order to persuade them to support the administration.<sup>143</sup> Over the session Bath’s attendance was again high (some 84 per cent). He took his revenge on the government first by protesting at the decision not to propose a joint committee to consider the state of the nation on 7 Dec. 1692 and then, in the face of the king’s known displeasure, by voting in favour of committing the place bill on 31 December. Within days of the place bill vote, however, he had moved back to a Whiggish pro-court position. He supported the attempt of the Whig Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce his Tory wife, deliberately abstained at the third reading of the place bill on 3 Jan. 1693, and voted to acquit Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, on 4 Feb. 1693. On 10 Mar. he was named as one of the reporters for the conference on the duchy of Cornwall bill. He held Carteret’s proxy from 14 Jan. 1693.</p><p>Shortly after the session ended in March 1693, Lansdown, who had been appointed jointly with his father as lord lieutenant of Devon and Cornwall in 1691, was removed from those offices after quarrelling with the king over his own unpaid arrears.<sup>144</sup> Sunderland instructed the lord keeper, John Somers*, later Baron Somers, to delay reissuing the necessary new commissions for Bath while exploring the possibility of replacing him with Radnor.<sup>145</sup> Sunderland was convinced that Bath was playing a double game and that he ‘would be very glad to be of one side and have his sons of the other, for men grow more politic every day’.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s attempts to discipline the Granvilles may also have included promises of reward. Contemporaneously with Lansdown’s quarrel with the king, there were renewed rumours of a dukedom for Bath, and in June Sunderland, in discussing the prospects for managing the Lords, referred to Bath as one of three peers who needed ‘something besides money’. Unfortunately for Bath his prospects of promotion in the peerage had to be weighed against the needs of others. John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), had made it clear that he wanted a marquessate – but not if others were to be offered dukedoms.<sup>147</sup> Bath held on to his lord lieutenancies, partly because of the support he received from Nottingham and partly because of his willingness to frighten Somers by telling him that without the commissions it would be impossible to convene the west country militias in case of emergency. Sunderland declared Bath’s reasoning to be frivolous but had to acknowledge that further delay was impossible.<sup>148</sup></p><p>Bath was present on 77 per cent of sitting days in the 1693–4 session, with well over half his absences being in March and April 1694. He was present almost every day in November and December 1693 but absent on 22 Dec., presumably because he was attending yet another hearing in the Albemarle case. On 3 and 15 Jan. 1694 he was named as one of the managers of the conference over the controversial issues surrounding the loss of the Turkey convoy the previous summer. Meanwhile, the Albemarle inheritance case now began to assume even greater prominence. On 8 Jan. the duchess of Albemarle and her new husband, Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, brought an appeal against the 22 Dec. verdict in Bath’s favour and on 26 Jan. Thomas Pride petitioned for a waiver of privilege by Bath and Montagu so that he could proceed with a claim as heir at law to his uncle, the 1st duke of Albemarle. On 29 Jan. Bath and Montagu both agreed to waive privilege. On 17 Feb., after a hearing that had lasted several days and which had even attracted the king to attend incognito, Bath won yet another round in the legal battle, although only by a small majority.<sup>149</sup> Bath, Lansdown, and Montagu were all present that day and there was no formal rule prohibiting them, as interested parties, from voting, but the surviving division list does not include their names. Carteret did vote, unsurprisingly in favour of his father-in-law. Montagu, backed by Nottingham, was not prepared to give up.<sup>150</sup> On 20 Feb. the House was confronted with a need to hunt for precedents when it received his request that exhibits used in the appeal be released for use in another legal action against Bath. The decision to dismiss his request passed by a majority of just two and was sufficiently controversial to provoke a formal dissent.</p><p>Despite his victory, Bath’s standing with the government was still precarious, probably because of his son’s activities in the Commons in favour of the triennial bill, and there were fresh reports that he was to be removed from his lord lieutenancies.<sup>151</sup> In April 1694 he received what he undoubtedly interpreted as a fresh insult from the crown when, despite the promise of 1691, he remained an earl while Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, was promoted to a dukedom. To make matters worse in May Carmarthen was also elevated to a dukedom (as Leeds).</p><p>Bath’s attendance in the following (1694–5) session was just over 82 per cent but there is almost no information about his parliamentary activities. The Albemarle inheritance dispute dragged on with further lengthy hearings in the court of king’s bench (one of which was said to have lasted all day and all night) in November 1694 and February 1695.<sup>152</sup> Bath triumphed once again but the case was far from over.<sup>153</sup> In March Montagu revived his request for an order by the House of Lords concerning exhibits in the appeal, causing something of a minor political crisis when the Commons found out and decided that this amounted to an attempt to extend the Lords’ judicature to original causes. A breach between the Houses was avoided when the Lords dismissed Montagu’s petition on 18 March. Just who had stirred matters up in the Commons remains a matter for speculation, but John Granville is an obvious candidate; his other activities certainly led him to be regarded by the administration as one of the Commons’ leading troublemakers.</p><p>Bath appears to have been relatively inactive during the 1695 elections but even so he still headed a significant parliamentary connection. During the 1695–6 session he was again present on some 82 per cent of sitting days but he left no trace of his activities until 24. Jan. 1696 when, together with his son and four other Tory peers, he signed the protest against the passage of the bill to prevent false and double returns at elections to the Commons. On 27 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association. Lansdown, who was absent on 27 Feb., signed the following day. In the Commons Sir Bevil Granville also signed the Association but John and Bernard Granville refused it.<sup>154</sup> Perhaps Bath was still suspected of playing a double game, for by April he had been removed from his lord lieutenancies and from the governorship of Plymouth. He also seems to have been annoying the king by his failure to keep good order in St James’s Park and in May it was reported that he had been ordered to sell his offices as ranger of St James’s and lord warden of the stannaries.<sup>155</sup> During the summer of 1696 there was yet another hearing in the Albemarle case, in which allegations of fraud and forgery by Bath were made openly. When Montagu won the case Bath promptly resumed privilege in order to obstruct further process and in the meantime he and Montagu both indicted each other’s witnesses for perjury. At this point the two men had allegedly spent some £20,000 between them on litigation.<sup>156</sup></p><p>When Parliament reassembled for the 1696–7 session Bath was present for nearly 73 per cent of sitting days. Almost half his absences were concentrated in the period between 25 Feb. and 13 Mar. inclusive and may well relate to the final illness of his daughter Jane, dowager Lady Leveson, who died on or about 27 Feb. 1697. During the early months of the session the House was confronted with a series of allegations and counter-allegations about the use and misuse of privilege in the Albemarle case by both parties. A decision to allow Bath privilege for a period of six months so that he could pursue his actions for perjury was allegedly undermined by Montagu’s determination to obstruct and delay the prosecutions.<sup>157</sup> Then, in December 1696, wrangles over the Albemarle inheritance were eclipsed by the controversies over the Fenwick attainder. John Granville led the opposition to the attainder in the Commons; his father was equally active in the Lords. On 15 and 18 Dec. he entered dissents to the decision to allow Goodman’s information to be read and to the resolution that the bill be read a second time. On 23 Dec. he not only voted against it but entered a protest at its passage. Since the king was determined that Parliament should pass the attainder and since Bath was one of many smeared by Fenwick as a Jacobite collaborator, such conduct was scarcely likely to win the confidence of the administration. His punishment was rapid. In January 1697 it became known that the king’s favourite, Arnold Joost van Keppel*, was to be created earl of Albemarle.</p><p>Bath was furious. He tried to prevent the use of the Albemarle title and petitioned for the dukedom.<sup>158</sup> He pointed out that his ‘just pretensions’ to the title had been recognized not only by the king but by others. The original warrant authorizing the ennoblement of the Dutch general, Frederick Schomberg*, for example, had indicated that he was to become duke of Albemarle but after learning of Bath’s claim to that title he had chosen Schomberg instead. Bath attributed his misfortune in being under royal displeasure to the ‘unparalleled ill practices by the agents of his powerful adversaries’.<sup>159</sup> Loath as Bath was (or so he claimed) ‘to be compelled to seek relief by a contest in a public manner’, he was nevertheless prepared to threaten a law suit to compel the performance of Queen Mary’s promises, which he claimed amounted to a contractual obligation. Referring to the assistance that he had rendered William at Plymouth in 1688 he insisted that barely a fortnight before William’s landing at Torbay, James II had offered to make Bath duke of Albemarle and to confer on him the Albemarle lands as well as the garter vacated by Albemarle’s death. He paraded this information as evidence that ‘I lost more then I now pretend unto for his service and the public which I preferred before any private interest’ and offered to prove it ‘by persons of honour’.<sup>160</sup></p><p>Bath’s only other known activity in the House that session took place on 15 Apr. 1697 when (again in company with his son Lansdown) he entered a protest against the failure of an amendment to the bill to restrain the number and ill practices of stock-jobbers, arguing that the amendment was necessary to prevent the retrospective application of the new regulations.</p><p>During the summer of 1697 there were lengthy hearings concerning the perjury allegations in the Albemarle case. There would have been more but the judges postponed them because they were too tired to cope with another all-night sitting.<sup>161</sup> Bath, victorious yet again, was said to be so incensed by the perjury allegations that he was contemplating suing Montagu’s lawyer, James Sloan<sup>‡</sup>, for <em>scandalum magnatum</em>; instead he prosecuted him, unsuccessfully, for subornation of perjury.<sup>162</sup> Bath’s west country electoral interests were now clearly under attack from the government. Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup>, who was closely associated with Somers, had foiled a plot by senior local Tories to avoid taking the Association in 1696, and in the same year, assisted by Somers and Shrewsbury, obtained a new charter for Plymouth under which he became recorder for life. By Sept. 1697 he, rather than Bath, was effectively managing the parliamentary representation of Plymouth, Bere Alston, and Tavistock.<sup>163</sup></p><p>During the 1697–8 session Bath was present for just over 76 per cent of sitting days. His known activities in the House again centred on the Albemarle case. In the autumn he claimed privilege yet again, leading to yet another compromise brokered by the House in January 1698.<sup>164</sup> In the meantime the notoriety of the case (and the disgust that it inspired) sparked a debate on 17 Jan. 1698 on the evils of the ‘exorbitant fees’ charged by lawyers and led to the nomination of a committee to prepare a bill to regulate the expense of law suits and to prevent vexatious delays.<sup>165</sup> The case became increasingly convoluted. The House confirmed a verdict in the court of common pleas in favour of Montagu in February 1698 but a month later, to the dismay of the judges, allowed Bath to bring a writ of error in order to convict some of Montagu’s witnesses of perjury.<sup>166</sup> On 7 Mar. Bath was appointed as one of the managers of a conference to discuss amendments to the bill explaining poor relief. On 15 Mar., along with a number of leading Tories, he voted against the motion to commit the bill to punish the financier Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> for a second reading and entered a dissent when the motion passed.</p><p>Bath’s longest absence during the 1697–8 session was concentrated towards the end of May and early June 1698. It is tempting to wonder whether this too was related to the Albemarle case, since on 12 May it was reported that ‘The great lawsuit … has met with an unexpected turn.’ Bath had bought off Christopher Monck, the residuary legatee under the 1687 will, in order to undermine Montagu’s case by means that were later alleged to be fraudulent.<sup>167</sup> Despite this apparent coup, hearings in related suits heard in king’s bench and common pleas at the end of May went against him, with the result that he was publicly labelled as a fraudster.<sup>168</sup> In July 1698, apparently undaunted by this turn of events, Bath again approached Somers for assistance in obtaining the dukedom of Albemarle. He wanted, so he said, ‘only what is already granted for the most part under his majesty’s great seal upon valuable considerations and confirmed under the sacred royal word of the late queen’, but he was clearly aware that he was in disfavour at court for he also referred to his inability to wait on the king in person ‘without his leave under my present unfortunate circumstances’.<sup>169</sup></p><p>Although he reached his seventieth birthday shortly after the commencement of the 1698–9 session, Bath’s attendance remained high: he was present on some 73 per cent of sitting days. In September he and Montagu had finally agreed to settle their long dispute, though Bath had still not given up hopes for the Albemarle title.<sup>170</sup> Although the Whig Junto were opposing his son’s election as Speaker of the Commons, he appears to have remained on good terms with Somers – so much so that during the rest of the autumn Bath went out of his way to heap fulsome thanks on Somers for his various services (both as counsel and as lord keeper) in connection with the Albemarle case, for his ‘many good offices’ in presenting Bath’s various petitions to the king and for his ‘favourable promise to be my advocate to the king’.<sup>171</sup></p><p>Whether he obtained the personal interview for which he was angling is unclear. He continued to be unwilling to adopt a political line that would secure him in the court’s favour. On 8 Feb. 1699, perhaps again in alliance with opposition members in the Commons, he voted against the resolution to assist the king to retain the Dutch guards and entered a dissent on the same subject. He was also involved in less controversial matters: on 20 and 21 Apr. he was named as one of the managers for conferences on the acts for Blackwell Hall and Billingsgate markets. His presence in the House on those days (after an absence of a week) may well have been related to another issue: the writ of error brought by Christopher Dighton against Bath’s brother Bernard Granville. Although not included in the presence list, on 3 May 1699 he was named as one of the managers of the conference to discuss the supply clauses that had been tacked by the Commons to the bill for duty on paper. This was an issue that overrode party politics since the interest of the peers in preserving their privileges and the interests of the king coincided.<sup>172</sup></p><p>Over the next (1699–1700) session, Bath’s attendance fell slightly to some 68 per cent but there is little information about his activities other than that he was believed to be opposed to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. Although still in office as ranger of St James’s Park his inability to suppress alehouses and encroachments there continued to irk the king and he was faced with demands to return the plate that had been issued to him as groom of the stole during the reign of Charles II.<sup>173</sup> Bath seems to have felt himself under increasing financial pressure, and by November 1700 he had again complained of the stop on payment of his pension. Presumably he did not appreciate (as the lords of the treasury apparently did) the fine difference between a ‘stop’ and a failure to pay caused by a shortage of liquidity in the nation’s accounts, since the result was in either case the same. He had not been paid since Michaelmas 1692.<sup>174</sup></p><p>The first session of the 1701 Parliament was the last that Bath was able to attend before his death in August 1701. His attendance over this session fell to 44 per cent, which was largely attributable to long spells of absence in February and March and again in June. On 20 Mar. he entered a protest at the failure of the Tory attempt to send the address relating to the partition treaty to the Commons. On 23 May he (and other proprietors of Carolina and the Bahamas) petitioned the House against the bill for uniting the government of several colonies and plantations in America to the crown. Although the House ordered him to be heard, the bill appears to have been lost, possibly because of the disruption to business caused by the attempted impeachments of the Junto lords. Bath’s last attendance was on 17 June 1701 when he voted to acquit Lord Somers.</p><p>Bath died on 22 Aug. 1701, leaving a will in which he claimed to be owed some £25,000 by the crown. Somewhat ironically, in view of the long-running and still unresolved disputes over the Albemarle inheritance, his own disposition of his estate also gave rise to litigation.<sup>175</sup> It was perhaps even more ironic that the hereditary pension that was paid so irregularly during his lifetime was continued after his death. A moiety was still being paid in 1883 when it was bought out under the Consolidated Fund Act of 1872 for £32,334.<sup>176</sup> He was succeeded by his son Charles, whose suicide two weeks later was popularly ascribed to the horror that he experienced when he began to realize the full extent of the tangled web of debt, deceit, and litigation left behind by his father.</p> |
R.P. |
|
GRANVILLE, John (1665-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>GRANVILLE</surname></strong> (<strong>GRENVILLE</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1665–1707)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>13 Mar. 1703 Bar. GRANVILLE OF POTHERIDGE |
|
First sat 22 Apr. 1703; last sat 1 Dec. 1707 |
|
MP Launceston 1685-7, Plymouth 10 July 1689-98, Newport 1698-1700, Fowey Feb.-Nov. 1701, Cornwall Dec. 1701-13 Mar. 1703 |
<p><em>b</em>. 12 Apr. 1665, 2nd s. of John Granville*, earl of Bath, and Jane Wyche; bro. of Charles Granville*, <em>styled</em> Ld. Lansdown (later 2nd earl of Bath); nephew of Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1701); cos. of Bevill<sup>‡</sup> and Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup>; stepfather of Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort; uncle of John Leveson Gower*, later Bar. Gower, and of John Carteret*, 2nd Bar. (later Earl Granville). <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1680; DCL 1706. <em>m</em>. 15 Apr. 1703, Rebecca, da. of Sir Josiah Child, bt. and 2nd w. Mary Atwood, wid. of Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> mq. of Worcester; sis. of Sir Josiah Child, 2nd bt.<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Richard Child, 3rd bt.<sup>‡</sup>, <em>s.p</em>. ?<em>suc</em>. fa. at Potheridge 1701. <em>d</em>. 3 Dec. 1707; <em>will</em> 20 Aug. 1703, pr. Mar. 1708.</p> |
<p>Commr. of public accts. 1696–7; PC 18 June 1702–22 May 1707; lt. gen. of the Ordnance June 1702–May 1705; ranger of St James’s Park Mar. 1703–<em>d</em>; gov. Q. Anne’s Bounty 1704.</p><p>Capt. earl of Bath’s regt. (later 10th Ft.) by 1687–Dec. 1688; capt. and brevet col. 1 Ft. Gds. ?1689–90; capt. RN 1689–Dec. 1690.</p><p>Commr. assessment, Devon 1690; freeman, Plympton Erle 1685; gov. Deal by Apr.–Dec. 1690; recorder, Launceston 1701–<em>d</em>.; ld. warden of the stannaries and steward of the duchy of Cornw. (jt.) 1701–2, (sole) 1702–5; ld. lt. and <em>custos ro</em>t. Cornw. 1702–5.</p><p>ld. proprietor of Carolina 1701–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>John Granville made his mark in the Commons as something of a renegade Tory, often acting in alliance with his father and the extensive but somewhat loose west country Granville connection to embarrass the government of William III in an attempt to force the payment of the rewards (financial and honorific) that Bath believed, with some justification, to be his due. The death of his father in 1701, closely followed by the suicide of his older brother left Granville as the senior adult in the family, as his nephew, William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, was still a young child. His leadership of the family did not go unchallenged. The young earl’s maternal relatives gained guardianship and control of his estates, which were entangled in an intricate web of litigation resulting from the long-standing disputes over the Albemarle inheritance and complicated still further by his father’s decision to include the disputed properties in the disposition of his own estates. During his lifetime, Granville was involved in several suits over the Albemarle estate; the various disputes were still unresolved at his death.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Granville had extensive connections to the political elite. In addition to those listed in the heading above, his niece Jane was married to Henry Hyde*, styled Viscount Cornbury, later 2nd earl of Rochester and 4th earl of Clarendon. He was also a close ally of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford. His Toryism was of a brand that meant his political career was often tainted by suspicions of Jacobitism. A prominent member of the Commons, he was active in pursuing the impeachments of the Whig lords and at one point was considered a candidate for the Speakership. The accession of Queen Anne revived Tory political fortunes in general and Granville’s in particular. He began to acquire local offices, including the lord lieutenancy and the influential post of steward of the duchy of Cornwall, although not, despite lobbying for it, the post of governor of Plymouth, which was held by his local rival, Charles Trelawny<sup>‡</sup> (younger brother of Jonathan Trelawny*, the then bishop of Exeter). In 1703 he received the peerage that he thought he deserved and that he needed to bolster his local influence. Potheridge was the ancestral home of the dukes of Albemarle so its use as the territorial appellation for the new peerage underlined the Granville claims to that inheritance, even though possession of the property itself was disputed. Within a month of his promotion he had married the widowed Lady Worcester, thus strengthening both his Tory connections and his fortune.</p><p>Granville took his seat at the earliest opportunity, an inter-sessional prorogation day, introduced between John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth. On that day he acted as one of the commissioners charged with proroguing the Parliament. He went on to attend as a commissioner on a further three of the four remaining prorogation days before the beginning of the session on 9 Nov. 1703, when he was named to the usual sessional committees. Thereafter he was present on just under 83 per cent of sitting days, rapidly becoming one of the most active peers. On 10 Nov. he was named to the committee to draw the address. On 22 Nov. he began the process of obtaining a bill to enable trustees to administer the estates of the young earl of Bath; when the bill was given its second reading on 29 Nov. he was himself named to the select committee to consider it. Along with others present in the chamber he was also named as a matter of routine to several other committees during the course of the session. On 6 Dec., together with De la Warr he introduced his nephew, the newly ennobled John Leveson Gower, as Baron Gower. Not surprisingly, since he had been an avid supporter of the bill in the Commons and was in the process of encouraging similar legislation in Carolina, where he was one of the lords proprietors, all the surviving lists indicate that Granville would support the bill to prevent occasional conformity and on 14 Dec. he signed two dissents objecting to its failure. Four days later he was named to the select committee to draw the address in response the queen’s speech of the previous day referring to the alleged ‘Scotch Plot’. That day he was also named to the small select committee to examine the ballots for membership of the secret committee to examine the conspirators, Boucher and Ogleby. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham included him in a list he drew up in 1704 of members of both Houses which might indicate his support for him over the plot.</p><p>On 14 Jan. 1704 Granville entered a dissent to the resolution to reverse the judgment in the case of the Aylesbury men. On 29 Feb. he was a teller in the division over the case of <em>Scott v Hilton</em>. The Scotch plot continued to exercise him: he entered a dissent on 1 Mar. to the resolution to retain words in the address to the crown for a pardon for Boucher ‘that he may have no hopes given him for a pardon’ without making a full confession of his knowledge of conspiracies involving France against William III, Queen Anne, or the Protestant succession. On 3 Mar. he entered another dissent to the resolution that the key to the ‘Gibberish letters’ be made known only to the Queen and members of the Lords’ committee investigating the plot. The same day he also chaired the committee of the whole that discussed the bill to allow extra time for payments by the purchasers of forfeited estates in Ireland, and was a teller on 13 Mar. for the division in a committee of the whole on the first fruits and tenths bill. He entered two further dissents on 16 Mar., this time over the decision of the House to support the Whig initiative to remove Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> from the list of commissioners named in the bill for public accompts. On 20 Mar. he chaired a committee of the whole considering the bill for the discharge of imprisoned insolvent debtors on condition of serving the queen in the army or navy.</p><p>The following day he entered three dissents during the third reading of the bill for raising recruits for the land service and marines, particularly objecting to the implications of the bill for local poor relief and the failure to include a clause that would require the consent of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor to the conscription of individuals as soldiers. On 25 Mar. the House took up the question of the Scotch plot once more, voting that Robert Ferguson’s two narratives were seditious and tended ‘to create an ill opinion of Her Majesty of her good subjects, and to promote the interest of the pretended Prince of Wales’. Granville again dissented, first at the resolution to put the question that the failure to censure Ferguson amounted to an encouragement to the queen’s enemies and then, when the question was put and carried, to the resolution itself. After the end of the session, on 4 July 1704, he was again present as one of the commissioners when the House was further prorogued.</p><p>Granville was present for the opening of the 1704–5 session but was then absent for nearly a month, covering this with a proxy to Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway. He himself held Gower’s proxy from 15 Oct. 1704 until it was vacated by Gower’s presence on 7 Feb. 1705. His attendance over the rest of the session was not as regular as it had been in 1703–4: overall he attended on just under 52 per cent of sitting days. The major issue of that autumn and winter was yet another attempt to pass an act against occasional conformity. Granville, still deeply committed to the bill, entered two dissents on 15 Dec. at its failure. On 17 Jan. 1705 another bill for the management of the young earl of Bath’s estate was brought to the House. Granville and several of his Tory allies entered a protest against its first reading, arguing,</p><blockquote><p>that the main foundation and greatest motive for the legislative authority to intermeddle in the settlement of private men’s estates, is the desire and free consent of all parties concerned in the said settlement first had and obtained and the Lord Granville, next heir to the present earl of Bath, having, in his place in this House, declared ‘that he conceived his interest in that estate, to be prejudiced by this bill, and that he could by no means give his consent to it’.</p></blockquote><p>Meanwhile the disputes over the Aylesbury men continued and on 27 Feb. 1705 Granville was named to the committee to draw up heads for the forthcoming conference with the Commons on the subject.</p><p>Throughout the session the Duumvirs – John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin – had been working behind the scenes against the occasional conformity bill; at the end of the session its most vociferous supporters, including Granville, were removed from office. For this Granville blamed Marlborough, but Marlborough told his duchess that ‘I am so ignorant that I did not know that he was out of his place’, blaming Godolphin, who was closely associated with Granville’s local rivals, the Trelawnys, and ‘who has been desirous to have it done all this winter’.<sup>2</sup> At or about this time an analysis of the peerage in relation to the succession deemed Granville to be a Jacobite.</p><p>During the 1705–6 session Granville’s attendance rose to 68 per cent. The defence of the Church of England was still his major political objective and on 30 Nov. 1705 he entered a protest at the failure to instruct the committee of the whole considering the bill for securing her majesty’s person (better known as the Regency Act) to insert a clause that would prevent the repeal of the Act of Uniformity; he had earlier acted as teller for the proposition. Then on 3 Dec., despite his reputed Jacobite leanings, he entered three protests at the failure to prevent the lords justices from giving the royal assent to the repeal of what he and his fellow protesters deemed to be the crucial statutes for the preservation of the Protestant religion and the rights and liberties of the subjects of England. These were the Habeas Corpus Act, the Toleration Act, the Triennial Act, the Treason Trials Act, the Test Acts, and the Act of Succession. When the bill passed he protested against that too, though he disassociated himself from the first of the reasons given, which amounted to a revival of the proposal, so inimical to the queen, that her Hanoverian heir be invited to reside in Britain. Three days later, on 6 Dec., he entered another protest, this time at the resolution to agree that the Church was not in danger. On 31 Jan. he entered three further dissents, also to the Regency bill, but this time concerning the House’s decision to alter amendments suggested by the Commons. He held the proxy of his stepson, Beaufort, from 26 Feb. until it was vacated by Beaufort’s presence on 18 Mar. 1706. On 9 Mar. he entered a dissent to the resolution to agree with the Commons that Sir Rowland Gwynne’s <em>Letter</em> was a scandalous, false, and malicious libel.</p><p>On that day the House also took into consideration complaints about the government of Carolina that had first been brought to its attention on 18 Feb. 1706. Preliminary discussions of the issue on 2 Mar. had generated a ‘warm’ debate and brought to light what William Wake*, then bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), described as ‘a very foul business’.<sup>3</sup> Political life in Carolina had been dominated by Dissenters but, as the senior proprietor, Granville saw it as his responsibility to promote Anglican worship. In 1704 his high Tory nominee as governor, Sir Nathaniel Johnson<sup>‡</sup>, used a packed session of the Assembly to pass an act (the Exclusion Act) that not only mirrored the requirements of the English Test Acts but included provisions to prevent occasional conformity, thereby excluding Dissenters from public office. He also secured an act (the Church Act) making the Anglican Church the established church of Carolina. Both acts had been ratified by Granville; both had provided propaganda material for opponents of the occasional conformity bill, most notably in Defoe’s 1705 pamphlet <em>Party Tyranny, or an Occasional Bill in Miniature; As Now Practised in Carolina</em>.</p><p>The debate on 9 Mar. was a long one: the House sat until 6 p.m.<sup>4</sup> Having heard counsel on both sides, the House resolved that the Church Act was not warranted by the Carolina charter and was ‘not consonant to reason, repugnant to the laws of this realm and destructive to the constitution of the Church of England’. It declared that the Exclusion Act was ‘an encouragement to atheism and irreligion … destructive to trade and tendeth to the depopulating and ruining the said province’ and went on to resolve in favour of an address to the queen imploring her to deliver Carolina ‘from the arbitrary oppressions under which it lies and to order the authors thereof to be prosecuted according to law’. Not surprisingly the peers named to the committee to draw the address were overwhelmingly associated with the Junto Whigs. Granville was present on 12 Mar. when the text of the proposed address, with its transparent attack on his conduct, was agreed by the House. Given the comprehensive success of the Whigs’ revenge, his attendance as a commissioner on the inter-sessional prorogation day, 21 May, was perhaps something of an act of bravado.</p><p>Granville missed the first two months of the 1706–7 session, not arriving in the House until 3 Feb. 1707, after which he rarely missed a day. The initial long absence, however, meant that overall his attendance was only just over 51 per cent. His absence was covered by a proxy to Beaufort; on arrival he held Gower’s proxy. On his first day in the House he entered a protest against the failure to instruct the committee of the whole to whom the bill for securing the Church of England was entrusted, to insert a clause declaring the Test Act of 1673 perpetual and unalterable. Later that month, on 27 Feb., he dissented to all the resolutions for a union with Scotland. On 3 Mar. he acted as teller opposite the Whig Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, in a division on the first enacting clause in the Union bill. The following day he entered a dissent to the failure of the resolution to declare that nothing in the Union bill should be construed to be an acknowledgment of the truth of Presbyterian worship, or that the Church of Scotland was the true Protestant religion. He then went on to protest the passage of the bill in its entirety. On 27 Mar. he was named as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on the Fornhill and Stony Stratford highways bill, and on 8 Apr. as one of the managers of the conference on the vagrants bill. The very short session of Apr. 1707 saw him present on five of the nine sitting days. Shortly after the session ended, Godolphin reported that at the first meeting of the privy council after the Union the queen had left out a swathe of Tory peers, including Granville.<sup>5</sup></p><p>In July 1707, during the recess, Granville suffered a fit of apoplexy, followed by convulsions. His condition was so serious that it was thought that ‘he can never be perfectly well again’ but his health had improved by August.<sup>6</sup> He was still weak when he wrote to Harley in September explaining that,</p><blockquote><p>The town of Monmouth having sent up to me their humble address to her majesty at a time when my ill health will not give me leave to go so long a journey as to Windsor, and if I were able I am afraid I am not well at court to have anything there graciously received from so uncertain a hand, therefore that my neighbours may in no manner suffer by the misfortune of their ill chosen agent, I beg of you the favour to be so kind both to them and me as to present to her majesty this their humble and loyal address, and that you will believe that (however I may be misrepresented or misunderstood) I ever was and ever shall be, whatever usage I meet with, a dutiful and loyal subject of the queen and a hearty wellwisher to her majesty’s prosperity and that of my country …<sup>7</sup></p></blockquote><p>He was also well enough to write a stern letter to Gower the same day, berating him for his attitude to the projected marriage of Gower’s nephew, Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Ill health perhaps explains why Granville missed the initial two days of the first session of the first Parliament of Great Britain; however, he was then present on all but two days, until his last attendance on 1 Dec. 1707. He was as usual named to a number of committees as a matter of course but he was also named to two genuinely select committees. On 17 Nov. he was named to the committee to consider the petition and appeal of Sarah, dowager countess of Radnor, against Sir Richard Child<sup>‡</sup>. There was a clear personal interest here since the Radnors were local rivals in the west country and Sir Richard Child (later Viscount Castlemaine [I] and later still Earl Tylney [I]) was his brother-in-law. On 21 Nov. he was named to the committee to consider the standing order concerning the presence of sons of peers in the House. He died of apoplexy on 3 Dec. 1707; his honours died with him.<sup>9</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
GRANVILLE, William Henry (1692-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>GRANVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>William Henry</strong> (1692–1711)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Sept. 1701 (a minor) as 3rd earl of BATH |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Jan. 1692, o.s. and h. of Charles Granville*, 2nd earl of Bath, and 2nd w. Isabella de Nassau. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 17 May 1711; <em>will</em> 3 Apr. 1710, pr. 24 May 1711.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>William Henry Granville succeeded to the earldom of Bath as a nine-year-old child following the suicide of his father. Along with the title he inherited titular leadership of a powerful west country political connection and a share in the convoluted, and expensive law suits begun by his grandfather, John Granville*, earl of Bath, and given new life by disputes over the disposition of his grandfather’s estates. Responsibility for nursing the Granville family’s political interests was assumed by his uncle, also named John Granville*, then serving in the Commons but later to enter the Lords himself as Baron Granville of Potheridge. The new earl’s minority and John Granville’s close association with the Tories provided an opportunity for renewed attacks on the Granville interest in the west country, but after a short delay and ‘a considerable obstruction’ John Granville was appointed lord lieutenant of Cornwall and lord warden of the stannaries until his nephew attained his majority.</p><p>Bath’s only formal involvement in parliamentary business related to attempts to secure the passage of a private act to manage his affairs during his minority. The bill was read for the first time on 28 Nov. 1703 and sent into committee the next day. It languished for several months, possibly because of opposition from adversaries in the long-running litigation over the Albemarle inheritance. In February 1704 arguments entered on behalf of Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu, and of Katherine and Elizabeth Monck, all of whom were rival claimants to the Albemarle fortune, secured an agreement that any lands concerned in the Albemarle inheritance case would be excluded from Bath’s bill. The bill was recommitted but despite the agreement nothing more was heard of it, and it was lost at the end of the session. A new bill was introduced in January 1705, this time provoking opposition from John Granville who insisted that the bill was prejudicial to his interests as the heir apparent to the young earl. Backed by his friend and ally, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and a small group of like-minded Tories, on 17 Jan. 1705 he protested against the first reading of the bill, arguing that for the House to consider a bill that meddled in private property without the consent of all parties was ‘contrary to the usual method of proceeding in all bills of this nature’. Although the bill passed through its committee stage, it was again lost at the end of the session; its fate perhaps influenced by reports that Bath was ill of the ‘spotted fever’ and unlikely to recover.<sup>2</sup></p><p>A dispute over the distribution of the personal estate of John Granville, earl of Bath, suggests an engrained lack of trust between Baron Granville of Potheridge and those responsible for the welfare of the young earl.<sup>3</sup> Nevertheless, the continuing claims and counter claims over the Albemarle inheritance forced a façade of family unity. They also led to a major innovation in English law when, on 17 Jan. 1710, in response to an appeal brought on Bath’s behalf, the House of Lords overturned a decision of the lord chancellor and ordered a perpetual injunction against some of the Albemarle claimants, preventing them from bringing multiple actions of ejectment based in allegations that Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, had been illegitimate.</p><p>Whether Bath was present in the House to observe the proceedings over his case is unknown. He was, however, in Westminster Hall for the trial of Dr Sacheverell in March 1710, when Sarah Churchill, duchess of Marlborough took the opportunity of speaking with him.<sup>4</sup> Although not yet of age, the young man was beginning to cut a figure in local and national politics and was deputed to present an address from Cornwall to the queen. Bath’s political loyalties were clearly a matter of intense interest to both parties. Bath’s Granville connections were solidly Harleyite Tory with Jacobite overtones, but he had been brought up by his mother’s family whose close connections to William III suggested potentially whiggish inclinations. Lady Marlborough told her husband John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, ‘that the enemys here attack him with all their strength’ but that, nevertheless, ‘he seemed to me, to be very well inclined … So I hope your civillity and prudence may help fix him, though he is a Greendvill [sic].’ Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, had similar designs on Bath, entreating Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, to ‘favour him with your countenance, and get him a good reception and answer from her majesty, [so] that young noble man might now be gained, who in regard to his interest in the western boroughs is one of the most considerable in England ...’.<sup>5</sup> In April 1710 Bath made his will, not because he was in poor health but in anticipation of travelling abroad. Whether he intended to join Marlborough’s army or merely to take the grand tour is unclear, but he was still in England in May 1711 when he died of smallpox after a short illness. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. His honours died with him, but control of the family interest passed to his kinsman George Granville, created Baron Lansdown as one of ‘Harley’s dozen’ the following winter.</p> |
A.C./R.P. |
|
GREVILLE, Fulke (c. 1643-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>GREVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Fulke</strong> (c. 1643–1710)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 17 Feb. 1677 as 5th Bar. BROOKE |
|
First sat 21 May 1677; last sat 28 Mar. 1710 |
|
MP Warwick 1664-77 |
<p><em>b</em>. aft. 2 Mar. 1643, 5th and posth. s. of Robert Greville<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Brooke and Katherine (<em>d</em>.1676), da. of Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. lic. 12 Jan. 1665, Sarah (<em>d</em>.1705), da. of Francis Dashwood, alderman of London, 5s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 7da. (at least 1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 22 Oct. 1710; <em>will</em> 3 Apr.-22 May 1710, pr. 9 Nov. 1710.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. assessment Warws. 1664-74; recorder Warwick 1677-?87, ?1689-<em>d.</em>,<sup>3</sup> Coventry 1682-?87, ?1689-1706.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>‘A well-bred and fair-complexioned nobleman’, Brooke inherited an extensive estate with lands in several counties.<sup>9</sup> By 1686, the value of the whole appears to have been some £15,826 p.a.<sup>10</sup> Most significant were the Greville lands in Warwickshire, where ownership of Warwick Castle lent the family unrivalled influence in the town of Warwick itself and where Brooke himself served as a Member of the Commons from 1664 until his succession to the peerage. In addition to his lands in Warwickshire Brooke stood to gain from other sources too. In a post-nuptial settlement of 1665, Brooke’s father-in-law, Francis Dashwood, and Dashwood’s son Samuel undertook to pay Brooke £1,000 in the event of the birth of a third child to the couple, while in May 1678 Brooke was said to have been the beneficiary of an annuity of £1,000 by the death of Francis Seymour*, 5th duke of Somerset.<sup>11</sup> Brooke’s marriage to Sarah Dashwood served also to consolidate his already extensive connections in the county, she being sister-in-law to Andrew Archer<sup>‡</sup>, with whom Brooke was on close terms.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Reckoned ‘a man of pleasure’ and (like his brother) ‘a gambler’, Brooke made little impression in the Commons in the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>13</sup> On his elevation to the Lords he was initially similarly detached but gradually proved to be a far more conscientious member than he had been of the lower House. He succeeded to the title two days after the opening of the session in February 1677. He took his seat in the Lords on the last day prior to the May adjournment, though his name was not included on the presence list for that day. He then absented himself from the House until November of the following year.</p><p>Brooke continued to exercise the Greville’s traditional patronage in Warwick and was confirmed in the office of recorder in succession to his brother. His influence in the town was sufficient to dissuade Richard Booth<sup>‡</sup> from standing for the seat made vacant by his succession to the peerage, and he was successful in securing the return of Robert Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Baron Digby [I]. The following year, Booth determined to stand at the by-election occasioned by Digby’s death, but he was again placed at a disadvantage by the strength of the Greville interest against him. Booth suspected foul play and asserted that, ‘though I do not make the commons my friends with strong beer, yet shall do that I hope that will be a real kindness to the town, and be of more good use than all the hogsheads of beer.’<sup>14</sup> Yet Booth’s inability to recruit Brooke’s support ensured his defeat and the successful return of Brooke’s preferred candidate, Sir John Bowyer<sup>‡</sup>, nephew of Brooke’s ally Sir Henry Puckering<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Brooke was missing at a call of the House of 16 Feb. 1678, but it was noted that he had sent up his proxy, which had been registered on 19 Jan. with Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford). The proxy was vacated by the close of the session. Brooke failed to attend the subsequent session and it was not until 11 Nov. that he took his place once more after which he was present on 40 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of disabling papists from sitting in Parliament.</p><p>Brooke returned to the House a fortnight into the new Parliament’s second and substantive session on 31 Mar. 1679. Present on 46 per cent of all sitting days, on 9 May he was excused at a call of the House as he was <em>en</em> <em>route</em> to London following a few days’ absence. Although he had previously been noted as an opponent of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), he appears to have supported Danby at this time.<sup>15</sup> Danby listed him as a likely supporter in a series of forecasts drawn up in early March. Brooke was noted among the absent opposition peers on 12 Mar. but early the following month he proved Danby right by voting on 1 and 4 Apr. against passing the bill of attainder. On 14 Apr. he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ motion on the issue. On 10 May Brooke’s name appeared on both sides of the division whether to appoint a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. His name was then erased from the list of not contents, so it seems that he voted in favour of the resolution. He entered his dissent when the motion failed.</p><p>Brooke’s drift towards the court was underscored by his activities at the two 1679 general elections when he employed his interest at Warwick on behalf of the anti-exclusionist candidates Sir John Clopton<sup>‡ </sup>(in February) and Thomas Lucy<sup>‡</sup> (in August). Sir Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup> incurred Brooke’s anger by standing against them.<sup>16</sup> By August 1680 Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, recommended Brooke to Danby as being once more a likely supporter in the forthcoming sessions.<sup>17</sup> Although Brooke rather lamely excused himself from responding to a letter from Danby directly, he assured Conway that he ‘would not fail the attendance of the Parliament at the first opening of it,’ which persuaded Conway to assure Danby of Brooke’s ‘steadyness’ on his behalf.<sup>18</sup> In the event Brooke proved to be far from dependable, failing to return to the House until 3 Nov. 1680. His late return may have been connected with the burning down of his sister-in-law’s house during the summer.<sup>19</sup> Having taken his seat he was present on 35 per cent of all sitting days in the session. By this point he appears to have weakened in his resolution to stand by the court and, in spite of his support for anti-exclusionist candidates at Warwick, Brooke voted against putting the question to reject the exclusion bill at first reading. He then voted against throwing the bill out on 15 November. On 23 Nov. Brooke voted in favour of appointing a committee to consider the state of the kingdom and entered his dissent when the resolution was not adopted. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.</p><p>Brooke was understood to be in favour of Sir Charles Holte<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> standing for Warwick in January 1681 but Thomas Coventry*, later earl of Coventry, was returned for the town, probably with Brooke’s concurrence, partnered by Thomas Lucy. The contest for the county seat found Thomas Archer pressed to stand by Conway, but Archer expressed his willingness to desist should Brooke wish to prefer someone else and in the event Archer seems not to have stood.<sup>20</sup> A pre-sessional forecast of the peers’ likely responses to a division on bailing Danby in March suggested that, should Brooke not continue to support the imprisoned earl, he would be neutral on the issue. In the event he failed to attend the 1681 Parliament at all.</p><p>Following the revelation of the Rye House plot Brooke persuaded the corporation of Warwick to surrender its charter. In 1682 Brooke’s continuing interest in the county had been underscored by his election as recorder of Coventry. Brooke’s election there had been endorsed by the dissenters and was initially opposed by the government.<sup>21</sup> The corporation, which had returned court opponents to all three Exclusion Parliaments, responded with disgust to the Rye House Plot and acquiesced in Brooke’s advice that they too should surrender their charter. Brooke relayed to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, that in both Warwick and Coventry the people were ‘much satisfied in the belief that they were frighted by knaves or fools about the loss of their ancient rights which now they understand to be only subjecting their governors to his Majesty’ and reported the ‘satisfaction’ with which the new charter was received. The government came to appreciate Brooke’s influence within the city. Such trust enabled Brooke to ensure that no outsiders were foisted on the corporation in the new charter, though some assessed as ‘very obnoxious’ were put out of their places.<sup>22</sup> In the case of Coventry, Brooke displayed a supremely balanced response to the challenges presented by the traditionally awkward city, reporting to Sunderland that, ‘I am not confident of the citizens of Coventry in so high a measure as I wish and yet I think it is his Majesty’s interest not too much to take notice of some things which are not so well amongst them as is to be desired.’<sup>23</sup></p><p>In January 1685 Brooke was one of the trustees of a marriage settlement between William Pierrepont*, 4th earl of Kingston, and Brooke’s niece Lady Anne Greville. The settlement provided for the raising of a portion of £20,000, while the new countess of Kingston was to receive a jointure of £2,500 a year.<sup>24</sup> The accession of James II threatened to erode Brooke’s authority in Warwickshire. Brooke’s earlier sympathy for exclusion no doubt earned him the king’s distrust, as did his staunch defence of the Church of England. In spite of this, Brooke managed the court interest in Coventry in the 1685 election, selecting Sir William Craven and Sir Roger Cave<sup>‡</sup> as candidates, but when Craven refused to stand Sir Thomas Norton<sup>‡</sup> was substituted. Digby’s younger brother, Simon Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Baron Digby [I], probably enjoyed Brooke’s backing when he was returned for Warwick with Thomas Coventry the same year as did Sir Charles Holte<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, for the county.<sup>25</sup> Digby’s early death necessitated a by-election in 1686 and despite Sunderland’s desire that ‘Beau’ Feilding should get the vacancy, no attempt was made to overturn Brooke’s decision to nominate Sir John Mordaunt,<sup>‡ </sup>a further indication of the strength of the Greville interest in the town.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Brooke was assessed as a likely opponent of repeal of the Test Act in January 1687 and again in subsequent assessments of November and January the following year. A list drawn up in or about May 1687 noted him as an opponent of James II’s policies in general. Unwilling to offer the king his support, he was sidelined and towards the end of the year, it was reported that he had been removed from his local offices in Warwick and Coventry.<sup>27</sup> In spite of his clear loss of face under James II, Brooke’s activities at the time of the Revolution are somewhat unclear. He appears to have rallied to Princess Anne at Nottingham, along with Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, and his Warwickshire neighbours, Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and William Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Digby [I], but he refused to sign the Association until the king’s flight had been confirmed.<sup>28</sup> Once this had been established and he expressed his willingness to subscribe, he was prevented by the other peers who had already signed.<sup>29</sup> Even so, Brooke’s ambiguous behaviour does not appear to have damaged his influence over Warwick, and in the 1689 election Digby was returned having secured Brooke’s all-important backing.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Brooke took his seat three days into the Convention on 25 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on just under 20 per cent of all sitting days. The early manoeuvrings surrounding the settlement of the crown found Brooke firmly in favour of James’s continuation as king in name and on 29 Jan. he voted in favour of the establishment of a regency. Two days later he voted against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen and on 4 and 6 Feb. divided against the motion to agree with the Commons’ employment of the terms ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is now vacant.’ He then entered his dissent when the motion to agree with the Commons was carried. Brooke was absent from the House from mid-February until 8 Apr. He quit the session on 11 May and on 22 May he was marked absent without excuse at a call of the House. Brooke took his seat in the second session on 11 Nov. but attended for just 14 days (19 per cent of the whole) before quitting the chamber once more. On 18 Dec. he registered his proxy with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, who held it until the close of the session. Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed him as an opponent of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690.</p><p>Brooke failed to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament, not arriving until 3 Apr. 1690. Present on 46 per cent of all sitting days in the session, he failed to attend after 14 May but ensured that his proxy was registered with his nephew by marriage, Kingston. Brooke was absent for the entirety of the second session but returned to his place shortly after the opening of the third session on 7 Nov. 1691, after which he was present on almost 57 per cent of all sitting days. Towards the end of the year he was noted by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, among those whom Derby thought likely to support him in his efforts to recover lands lost during the Civil War.<sup>31</sup> Brooke returned to the House two weeks after the opening of the fourth session in November 1692 but his attendance declined once more to just over 36 per cent of all sitting days. Absent for the entirety of December, he again registered his proxy, this time with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, with whom he was on close terms.<sup>32</sup> Weymouth exercised the proxy to vote in favour of the place bill on 3 Jan. 1693. During his absence Brooke faced a damaging suit brought against him in the House by his nieces’ husbands, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, and William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> (who had married the widowed countess of Kingston). Both claimed that Brooke had failed properly to distribute the 4th Baron’s personal estate.<sup>33</sup> Brooke was ordered to put in his answer by 10 Jan. Brooke did not return to the House until 20 Jan. but was present on 28 Jan. to witness the report of the privileges committee, which concluded that though Brooke’s title to the personal estate was disputable at law, he should be allowed his privilege. On 4 Feb. Brooke found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>Brooke took his seat a week after the opening of the subsequent session on 14 Nov. 1693. He was thereafter present on just 18 per cent of all sitting days. Local matters once again dominated Brooke’s attention in the late summer of 1694 following the devastating fire that gutted much of the centre of Warwick on 5 September. The cost of the damage to the town was estimated at some £120,000. Brooke was prominent in leading the task of reconstruction.<sup>34</sup> He convened a meeting of town notables the day after the fire and headed a subscription for the relief of those who had lost property in the blaze with a contribution of £40.<sup>35</sup> Over the ensuing years Brooke continued to take a leading role in rebuilding the town, acting as one of the commissioners established by Parliament and making donations towards the restoration of St Mary’s church, the burial place of several members of his family.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Brooke returned to the House just over a fortnight into the new session on 29 Nov. 1694, after which he was present on just under 48 per cent of all sitting days. His improved level of attendance was no doubt connected to a new threat, one that emanated from one of his Warwickshire neighbours, Sir Richard Verney, over the disputed title of Brooke. James I had conferred the barony of Brooke of Beauchamps Court on Sir Fulke Greville<sup>†</sup> with a special remainder conveying the peerage to his cousin Robert Greville<sup>†</sup> but Sir Fulke had also possessed a claim to the barony of Willoughby de Broke and at his death without direct heirs this peerage descended to the Verney family via his sister, Margaret, <em>suo jure</em> 6th Baroness Willoughby de Broke. After her death the peerage remained dormant and her grandson, Sir Richard Verney, petitioned the House for a writ of summons. The challenge to Brooke lay not in Verney’s right to the barony by descent, which Brooke conceded, but in the style to be adopted. Verney wished to be summoned as Baron Brook, a pretension supported by at least one expert, while Brooke’s advisers argued that he should be styled Willoughby de Broke or Verney of Brook and expressed alarm at Brooke’s apparent lack of zeal in defending his rights. The matter was further complicated by the lawyers’ apparent ignorance of the rules in such cases. Despite their concerns, the House resolved on 10 Jan. 1695 against allowing Verney’s claim to a writ of summons. Brooke had, presumably, mobilized what influence he could to prevent the troublesome questioning of his title and the House, no doubt unwilling to invite further irksome demands, appears to have been only too happy to support him on this occasion.<sup>37</sup></p><p>With the matter apparently settled satisfactorily in his favour, Brooke absented himself from the House from the end of January until 1 Mar. 1695 during which time his proxy was held once more by Rochester. Brooke’s resumption of his place then may have been prompted by the continuing debates in the House over Verney’s pretensions. The case precipitated lengthy consideration in the House of the rights of peers claiming their baronies by writ, and on 19 Mar. Brooke was one of ten peers to enter their protest at the resolution that if a peer summoned by writ were to die leaving two or more daughters and only one of the daughters were to have offspring, that issue would have a right to a writ of summons. Brooke’s objection was clearly in response to Verney’s suit.</p><p>The close of the session found Brooke active once more in preparing for elections in his locality. In October 1695 on the eve of the general election he played host to the king at Warwick Castle during his progress through the Midlands.<sup>38</sup> Once again Brooke’s preferred candidates were returned for Warwick with William Colemore<sup>‡</sup> desisting ‘out of respect to my Lord Brooke and Mr. Greville,’ while William Bromley and Andrew Archer were returned for the county.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Brooke returned to the House shortly after the opening of the new Parliament on 2 Dec. 1695, after which he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days. Although he was noted as being present on 9 Jan. 1696, Brooke presumably left the chamber for the remainder of the day as he is also recorded as having registered his proxy with Rochester. The same day witnessed a renewed attempt by Verney to secure his writ of summons, perhaps explaining Brooke’s eagerness to ensure that his proxy was held during his absence. Brooke resumed his place on 10 January. A week later, on 17 Jan., a number of peers entered their protests at permitting Verney’s counsel to be heard at the bar of the House, but perhaps significantly, Brooke was not among them. Verney’s right to a writ of summons was recognized finally on 13 Feb. after which he took his seat in the House as 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke. Brooke was absent again from 10 March. On 21 Mar. he registered his proxy with Rochester once more, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>The almost unanimous signing of the Association at Warwick in response to the Assassination Plot against the king elicited warm satisfaction of the town’s loyalty, which reflected well on Brooke’s continuing influence over the corporation.<sup>40</sup> Even so, he failed to take his seat in the new session for over a month after its opening in October 1696, and he was thereafter present on just 11 days (approximately ten per cent of the whole). His poor attendance may well have been the result of dissatisfaction with the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> for on 23 Dec. he voted against passing the bill of attainder.</p><p>Brooke returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697, after which he was present on 31 per cent of all sitting days. The 1698 election for Warwick was the occasion of Brooke again striving to enforce his supremacy over the town. His eldest son, Francis Greville, did not stand for re-election and Digby’s opposition to the Association made his retirement from the Commons inevitable. Their absence enabled Brooke to propose his second son, Robert Greville<sup>‡</sup>, and Admiral Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> in their place. When a number of assistant burgesses supported Sir Thomas Wagstaffe<sup>‡</sup> in opposition to the Greville candidates, their offices were ‘arbitrarily and corruptly discontinued’ by Brooke.<sup>41</sup> But in spite of Brooke’s heavy-handedness, Wagstaffe was returned along with Robert Greville, and Rooke was pushed into third place. In July 1699 Robert Greville died of smallpox while travelling in France.<sup>42</sup> His seat was secured in turn by his younger brother, Algernon<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Brooke attended just one day of the first session of the new Parliament. The reason for his absence is not known. He returned to the House a month into the second session on 11 Dec. 1699, after which he was present on 52 per cent of all sitting days. Throughout the 1690s Brooke had invested heavily in the East India Company and in February 1700 he voted in favour of its continuation as a corporation. Following the dissolution, Brooke’s brother-in-law, Sir Samuel Dashwood<sup>‡</sup>, was one of the East India Company directors to consider standing for election for the City of London, though in the event Dashwood withdrew before the poll.<sup>43</sup> In the election for Warwick in January 1701 Brooke’s interest again proved to be strong and he was successful in securing the return of his son, Francis. Brooke took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on half of all sitting days. The following month he wrote to his neighbour, George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, to recommend Thomas Woolmer, ‘a very ingenious honest careful sober man’ for the office of clerk of the peace for Warwickshire.<sup>44</sup> He failed to attend the meeting of the gentry to select candidates for the second general election of that year but wrote to the corporation thanking them for their support and declaring that,</p><blockquote><p>I can’t, gentlemen, but take this free offer of yours very kindly, and am very much pleased to find my self not forgot by those for whom I have ever had a cordial and sincere respect and whose interest (however I may have been misrepresented) I have and shall constantly advance and promote.<sup>45</sup></p></blockquote><p>The strength of the Greville interest was again made apparent in the November election with the return of both Francis Greville and another of Brooke’s sons, Algernon<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Brooke was again present at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701, though his level of attendance declined to just 36 per cent of all sitting days. In the summer of 1702 his youngest daughter was married to the Wiltshire magnate, Sir James Long<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>46</sup> Brooke took his seat in the new Parliament on 9 Nov. 1702, after which his attendance improved once more to approximately 56 per cent of all sitting days. Despite his father’s dissenting background and the Greville family’s continuing toleration for dissenters in their areas of local influence, in January 1703 Brooke was reckoned by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to support the bill for the prevention of occasional conformity.<sup>47</sup> On 16 Jan. he voted accordingly against adhering to the House’s amendment to the penalty clause.</p><p>Brooke failed to attend the second session of November, 1703 but he was assessed in advance of the session by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as one of those likely once more to support to the occasional conformity bill. Sunderland repeated the assessment later in the month and on 14 Dec. Brooke was listed among those voting in favour of the measure by proxy, but as no proxy book survives for this session the name of the proxy holder is unknown. His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Brooke took his seat once again at the opening of the third session of Queen Anne’s first Parliament on 24 Oct. 1704 but proceeded to attend on just four occasions between then and 12 December. On 1 Nov. he was listed as being thought likely to support the Tack but can have made little impression on proceedings before once more absenting himself. On 14 Dec. he entrusted his proxy to his son-in-law, Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, which was vacated by his brief return to the House for a single day on 17 Jan. 1705.</p><p>Brooke’s rather ambiguous political proclivities were reflected in an assessment of April 1705 that marked his attitude to the succession as uncertain. Although he continued to press his interest on behalf of individuals, his interest in Warwickshire was challenged severely during the 1705 election when he found himself ranged against his Whig in-laws during the elections for Warwick, Coventry and the county.<sup>48</sup> When George Lucy of Charlecote attempted in turn to persuade Brooke’s brother-in-law, Sir Francis Dashwood<sup>‡</sup>, and Dashwood’s son-in-law, Sir Fulwar Skipwith<sup>‡</sup>, to stand in the Whig interest, Dashwood approached Brooke on Skipwith’s behalf but was rebuffed as Brooke was already engaged in support of the sitting Tory members. Other families found themselves similarly divided, with William Craven*, 2nd Baron Craven, also supporting the Tory cause against his brother-in-law, Skipwith. Lucy persevered in support of Sir John Burgoyne in Warwick in opposition to Brooke’s sons, Francis<sup>‡</sup> and Dodington<sup>‡</sup>, and predicted confidently that they had secured sufficient support to ‘put out one of the two Mr Grevilles’. Lucy claimed to have ‘had the start of my lord Brooke for three days’ and to have made such inroads that some of the leading citizens of Warwick had actually sent to Brooke to request that he content himself with the return of just one of his sons. Brooke’s determination to maintain his control over the corporation remained unbowed, and he responded with a vigorous campaign to secure his sons’ election including the payment of ‘a crown for two votes and half a crown for one vote’.<sup>49</sup> In spite of all that Lucy could do in response, both Grevilles were returned.</p><p>After his exertions in the election, Brooke failed to take his seat in first session of the new Parliament and it was not until 3 Dec. 1706 that he returned to the House once more. He was thereafter present on just 15 per cent of all sitting days and was then absent again for the subsequent session of April 1707. Brooke took his seat a fortnight into the first Parliament of Great Britain on 10 Nov. but his attendance was again low with him present on just over a quarter of all sitting days.</p><p>Brooke was classed as a Tory in a list of May 1708. By this time his interest in Warwick appears to have been seriously compromised. He refused to confirm his son’s candidacy for the county to Sir John Mordaunt and William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> but agreed to accompany them to Warwickshire ahead of the election.<sup>50</sup> In the event Mordaunt was returned for the county with Andrew Archer, while Brooke’s sons Francis and Dodington were returned for Warwick.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Brooke’s attendance in the House declined markedly after this point. Although he was present at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, he attended on only five days (just over five per cent of the whole). The following year he was present on just eight days of the session that began in November 1709 (nine per cent of the whole). Brooke was noted as being sick at the time of the Sacheverell trial. He resumed his place shortly after on 25 Mar. and sat for the last time on 28 Mar. 1710. The following month he joined with Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, in introducing members of the corporation of Warwick to the queen with their loyal address.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Brooke was noted by Harley as a likely supporter at the beginning of October 1710, but by 8 Oct. Brooke was so ill that he was reported to have died. The report was quickly corrected but his case remained desperate and he succumbed two weeks later at his house at Twickenham aged 67. He was predeceased by his heir, Francis, who died following a fit of apoplexy and convulsions while apparently suffering from smallpox just a few days before his father.<sup>53</sup> The date of Brooke’s death was mistakenly noted by Boyer as 22 Sept. rather than 22 Oct.<sup>54</sup> Brooke left a considerable estate estimated to be worth some £10,000 p.a.<sup>55</sup> In his will he named his sons, Algernon and Dodington Greville, as joint executors. He was succeeded in the peerage as 6th Baron Brooke by his grandson, also Fulke Greville*, who was still under age.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
GREVILLE, Fulke (c. 1693-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>GREVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Fulke</strong> (c. 1693–1711)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 22 Oct. 1710 (a minor) as 6th Bar. BROOKE |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1693, 1st s. of Francis Greville<sup>‡</sup> of Warwick Castle and Anne, wid. of Henry Baynton of Spy Park, Wilts., da. of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, grands. of Fulke Greville*, 5th Bar. Brooke; bro. of William Greville*, later 7th Bar. Brooke. <em>educ</em>. Univ. Coll. Oxf. matric. 1 Dec. 1710. <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 24 Feb. 1711; <em>admon</em>. 25 May 1711, to Algernon<sup>‡</sup> and Dodington<sup>‡</sup> Greville, guardians of William Greville, 7th Bar. Brooke.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Brooke succeeded to the peerage shortly before matriculating at University College, Oxford. He died of a fever less than six months later, whereupon the barony descended to his younger brother William Greville.<sup>2</sup> During his brief tenure of the peerage, control of the Greville interest was presumably overseen by his father’s executors.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
GREVILLE, Robert (1639-77) |
<p><strong><surname>GREVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1639–77)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 1658 (a minor) as 4th Bar. BROOKE |
|
First sat 30 Apr. 1660; last sat 28 Mar. 1673 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Jan. 1639, 2nd s. of Robert Greville<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Brooke and Katharine, da. of Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford; bro. of Fulke Greville*, later 5th Bar. Brooke. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen Oxf. matric. 15 Mar. 1654. <em>m</em>. 1661 (settlement 1 Oct. 1660), Anne (<em>d</em>.1691), da. and sole h. of John Dodington [Doddington] of Breamore [Bremer], Southampton, 7s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 3da. (?1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 17 Feb. 1677; <em>will</em> 14 Nov. 1667-24 Nov. 1674, pr. 2 June 1677.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Warws. 1660; ld. lt. Staffs. 1660-<em>d.</em>; recorder Warwick 1660-<em>d.</em>,<sup>3</sup> Stratford-upon-Avon 1672-<em>d.</em>;<sup>4</sup> high steward Stafford 1674-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: engraving by Gerald Valck, 1678, NPG D19238.</p> |
<p>By the fifteenth century the Greville family had settled in Warwickshire, where they acquired substantial estates. In 1605 Fulke Greville<sup>†</sup>, who was created Baron Brooke by James I, acquired the family’s principal residence of Warwick Castle.<sup>7</sup> Following the death of Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, at the siege of Lichfield the peerage descended to the underage Francis Brooke<sup>†</sup>, who died unmarried in 1658 and was succeeded by his brother Robert.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Brooke inherited a considerable estate. A settlement of 1667 conveying his lands into the hands of trustees cited property in Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire and several other counties as well as lands in the City of London and Hackney.<sup>9</sup> Brooke House in Hackney was assessed at 36 or 37 hearths in the period 1664 to 1674.<sup>10</sup> The focus of Brooke’s activities appears to have been on his Warwickshire and Hackney estates, though he seems to have considered the former his real priority.<sup>11</sup> With such local interest came an ability to secure advantageous matches for his offspring, though it was not until after his early death that his daughters were married: Anne to William Pierrepoint*, 4th earl of Kingston in 1685 and Dodington to Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester in 1691.<sup>12</sup></p><p>The months leading up to the Restoration found Brooke working closely with his Warwickshire neighbours, Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, and Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, at the head of the county militia committee.<sup>13</sup> Brooke himself took command of the militia forces, and in March 1660 he advocated a meeting of the county gentry to select suitable candidates for the new Parliament.<sup>14</sup> The same month he was noted in an assessment compiled by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as among those whose fathers had been in arms during the Civil War.</p><p>In spite of his considerable local political influence, Brooke was less active as a member of the House. Having taken his seat on 30 Apr. 1660, he attended approximately 53 per cent of all sitting days of the first session of the Convention. On 1 May he was named to the committee considering the letter of thanks to be sent to the king and the following day he was named to three further committees, including that for settling the militia. On 3 May Brooke was nominated one of those peers to present the House’s answer to the king.<sup>15</sup> From 10 to 31 May he was absent from the chamber while acting as a courier for his neighbour, Conway, conveying information to James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond in Ireland.<sup>16</sup> Otherwise, Brooke made little impact on the Convention. He was named to two further committees prior to the adjournment but to none in the following session, of which he attended a mere three sittings.</p><p>In the autumn of 1660 Brooke was dropped as a deputy lieutenant in Warwickshire by the new lord lieutenant, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, but in recognition of his part in bringing about the king’s return he was appointed lord lieutenant of Staffordshire instead.<sup>17</sup> The support of men like Conway and Ormond was no doubt significant in securing him the appointment. The county was home to a considerable dissenting population, it being estimated in 1663 that some 1,128 men in the area had served against the king in the Civil War.<sup>18</sup> Although he proved an effective, if remote, figurehead in a county which was at times difficult to control, there is some suggestion that the appointment of a non-resident lieutenant caused discontent. A list of the gentry of Stafford, probably compiled by one of the deputies, Colonel Edward Vernon, noted Brooke as one who professed ‘to be very loyal and orthodox’ and possessed ‘good abilities’ but emphasized that he was ‘very rich in money and lands elsewhere.’<sup>19</sup> As lord of the manor of Penkridge, Brooke possessed lands in the county valued at just £80 a year, far behind one of the county’s great magnates, Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury (a Catholic who was also non-resident), who possessed lands in excess of £1,000 p.a.<sup>20</sup> Tensions arose in Staffordshire in November 1660 over competition for the position of muster master of the militia. Brooke’s eventual choice caused considerable discontent, though he excused himself arguing that, ‘there were so many competitors that it was impossible to satisfy any considerable part in any one of them.’ Brooke clearly understood the fears and prejudices of the gentry well. In 1661 he persuaded the king to allow the gentlemen of his lieutenancy to pay their taxes early rather than ask a loan of them, though six years later further demands for a loan found Brooke willingly working to raise the money in response to ‘his majesty’s reasonable desires.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>Brooke was successful in overseeing uncontested elections in Staffordshire for the new Parliament.<sup>22</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the session on 8 May but was then present for a mere 16 per cent of all sitting days during which he was again named to few committees. Local responsibilities may have been one of the reasons for his poor attendance of the House. The threat of Venner’s rising in the autumn of 1661 was treated with great seriousness by Brooke, who told his deputies ‘should the pulpit be allowed a sanctuary for sedition or treason, we must expect quickly to see the kingdom again in a flame.’<sup>23</sup> By the following year the pressures of office appear to have been taking their toll and purges of the corporations in 1662 found Brooke complaining that the task of overseeing Tamworth was ‘too great a burden for me to undertake.’ He insisted also that he should attend to affairs in Warwickshire first.<sup>24</sup> The death of Sir Thomas Leigh<sup>‡</sup> (one of the knights of the shire for Staffordshire) in April 1662 presented further difficulties with the prospect of a potentially divisive contest for his vacant seat. Brooke wrote to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, explaining that on Sir Thomas’s death, ‘I heard of great contests like to be between the gentry… about the choice of another which … I did endeavour to settle and appease, which happened to have so good success that all the parties agreed in Sir Edward Littleton to be the man.’<sup>25</sup> Brooke’s hard work was almost undone when Littleton<sup>‡</sup> was proposed as sheriff for the county. After Brooke protested that he feared he would not be able to achieve unity among the gentry again, Littleton’s nomination as sheriff was scrapped.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Brooke’s attendance of the House fell dramatically in the second session of February 1663 during which he was present on just eight sitting days (nine per cent of the whole). Absent for the whole of May and June he rallied to resume his seat for two days in July, his return presumably owing to interest in the outcome of the attempted impeachment of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. Brooke’s indifferent attendance in the House may again have been owing to concentration on his local interests as he was complimented by Sir Henry Bennet*, (later earl of Arlington) for his actions in Staffordshire during the summer of 1663.<sup>27</sup> Two years later Arlington conveyed the king’s thanks for Brooke’s ‘care and zeal in his service.’<sup>28</sup></p><p>Although assiduous in overseeing his lieutenancy, Brooke continued half-heartedly in his attendance of Parliament. Besides responsibilities in his locality his frequent absences from the House may also have owed something to his partiality for gambling. On one occasion, ‘led on by cunning and companioned by fortune’, he was said to have won an astonishing £4,800 in a single night.<sup>29</sup> Having taken his seat a month into the spring session of 1664 on 26 Apr, he sat for just six days (17 per cent of the whole) while his attendance collapsed to a mere two days of the fourth session at the end of that year. Absent for the entirety of the fifth session of October 1665, Brooke sat again for just two days of the sixth session in the autumn of the following year. Lieutenancy business may again have explained his unwillingness to linger in London. Fear of invasion in June 1666 had found the Staffordshire horse mobilized and stationed in Northampton ready to be moved into action but, following a summer of high activity, Brooke was content to cancel the regular autumn muster and concentrate instead on bringing his troops’ equipment up to scratch.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Brooke failed to attend a single day of the brief session of July 1667 but he rallied a little to attend ten days of the eighth session (1667-9), just under nine per cent of the whole. Poor health may well have been the reason for his failure to attend on this occasion as it was reported in September 1668 that having been given over, he was now believed to be on the road to recovery.<sup>31</sup> Brooke’s convalescence seems to have been a long one. He was missing once more at the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1669 and on 9 Nov. he was absent without explanation at a call of the House for which he was fined £40. On 15 Nov. he managed to present himself in the chamber and was excused his fine. The experience clearly failed to alter his disposition and during the remainder of the session he sat on only 11 occasions, towards the end of which he was named to the committee considering a bill to prevent frauds in the exportation of wool. Brooke was absent again for the opening of the tenth session in February 1670, but he entrusted his proxy to his uncle-by-marriage Francis Newport*, 2nd Baron Newport (later earl of Bradford), on 19 February. The proxy was vacated by Brooke’s return to the House on 31 Oct. after which he was absent for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Brooke was involved in a quarrel with Sir William Bromley in Warwick in the summer of 1671. The fracas appears to have been occasioned by the excesses of excise officers in Warwick and Coventry. The dispute was swiftly resolved but not without an exchange of blows.<sup>32</sup> Such indecorous events (and Brooke’s sidelining in the county by Northampton) did not negate the continuing strength of the Greville interest in Warwick.<sup>33</sup> The return of Sir Francis Compton<sup>‡</sup>, Northampton’s brother, as member for the borough in 1664 had certainly required Brooke’s support.<sup>34</sup> Brooke was also influential in other areas of the county, notably in Stratford-upon-Avon where the composition of a new charter in 1674 brought him into conflict with members of the corporation. Brooke was insistent that as high steward he should enjoy the same privilege of nominating a deputy as he did as recorder in Warwick, while emphasizing that he had ‘no designs to serve but those of your corporation’ and offered to make appointments annually so that unpopular officers could easily be removed. Brooke’s personal influence within the borough was further demonstrated by the compromise arrived at whereby he was granted the authority to nominate a steward of the borough court, as well as a handful of other local offices for his lifetime: powers that were to revert to the corporation on his death.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Brooke returned to the House a month into the new session on 11 Mar. 1673 after which he was present on 16 occasions, though he was again named to only one committee. He sat for the last time on 28 Mar. 1673. Sickness again seems to have been the cause of his failure to attend and premature reports of Brooke’s demise spread in July 1674.<sup>36</sup> To cover his absence Brooke ensured that his proxy was again registered with Newport for the two sessions in 1675. In September of that year Brooke pleaded sickness to excuse his attendance on the king about Staffordshire business.<sup>37</sup> In November Newport wielded Brooke’s proxy in support of the motion for the House to address the king to dissolve Parliament. In December 1676, eager to secure the ailing Brooke’s support, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), deputed Conway to attempt to secure the proxy for the next session but Brooke died at Bath on 17 Feb. 1677 aged 38, just two days after the session opened.<sup>38</sup> He was buried amid considerable pomp on 20 Mar. at the collegiate church of St Mary’s Warwick and succeeded in the peerage by his brother, Fulke Greville, as 5th Baron Brooke.<sup>39</sup> He seems to have been dubbed doubly worthy posthumously by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in an analysis of the peers compiled in the spring of that year.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
GREVILLE, William (c. 1694-1727) |
<p><strong><surname>GREVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1694–1727)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 24 Feb. 1711 (a minor) as 7th Bar. BROOKE. |
|
First sat 10 Jan. 1716; last sat 27 Apr. 1727 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1694 2nd s. of Francis Greville<sup>‡</sup> and Anne, wid. of Henry Baynton of Spy Park, Wilts., da. of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester; bro. of Fulke Greville*, 6th Bar. Brooke. <em>educ</em>. Wadham, Oxf. matric. 5 Jan. 1711, MA 1712. <em>m</em>. Mary (<em>d</em>.1720), 2nd da. of Henry Thynne<sup>‡</sup> and Grace, da. of Sir George Strode of Leweston, Dorset, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 28 July 1727; <em>will</em> 1 Feb. 1726, pr. 8 July 1728.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Recorder, Warwick 1719-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Like his brother, Brooke succeeded to the peerage while still underage, and while a student at Oxford. Control of the family estates and any concomitant electoral interest was probably left in the hands of trustees until he reached his majority. In 1713 it was reported that he required the permission of an uncle (probably Dodington Greville<sup>‡</sup>) before he was able to take up residence at Warwick Castle.<sup>2</sup> Brooke died in his early thirties and also left a minor to succeed him. Full details of his career following the Hanoverian succession will be considered in the next part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
GREY, Anthony (1645-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Anthony</strong> (1645–1702)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 28 May 1651 (a minor) as 11th earl of KENT |
|
First sat 18 Sept. 1666; last sat 25 May 1702 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 June 1645, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Henry Grey, 10th earl of Kent, and Amabel, wid. of [–] Douce, wid. of Hon. Anthony Fane, da. and h. of Sir Anthony Benn. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Camb., MA 1661. <em>m</em>. 2 Mar. 1663, Mary, later Baroness Lucas of Crudwell (<em>d</em>.1702), o. da. of John Lucas*, Bar. Lucas of Shenfield, and Anne Nevill, 1s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 19 Aug. 1702; <em>will</em> 12 Apr. 1699-7 Aug. 1702, pr. 9 Sept. 1702.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. of horse 1666.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Grey succeeded to the earldom shortly before his sixth birthday. His father had supported Parliament in the early stages of the Civil War and had acted as Speaker of the House of Lords in 1645 and again between 1647 and the abolition of the House in 1649, but he opposed the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649. Despite his parliamentarian political heritage the 11th earl’s marriage at the age of 17 to Mary Lucas suggests that his own sympathies (or perhaps those of his trustees) were very different. The Lucas family had been prominent supporters of the king and Mary Lucas’s uncle, executed by the parliamentarians after the siege of Colchester, was regarded as a royalist martyr. For the early part of his career, Kent appears to have followed his father-in-law’s lead fairly closely. Although described by <em>Complete Peerage</em> as a Tory, Kent, like Lucas, was associated with the ‘country’ opposition to the government during the latter part of Charles II’s reign. It was only after the fall of James II that his activities in Parliament became more obviously aligned with the Tories.</p><p>Kent’s marriage was certainly advantageous: Mary’s wealthy father appears to have settled his estates, which included lands in Northamptonshire and Wiltshire, so that they would descend to his only child rather than pass with his title to his direct male heirs. Kent was thus able to join these estates to his own in Herefordshire, where he exercised considerable political interest, and in Bedfordshire, where his principal seat was located.<sup>4</sup> The accounts of the building of a new front to the house at Wrest Park between 1672 and 1676 suggest that half the cost came directly from the Lucas inheritance. For the remainder of his life Kent and his countess continued to develop the estate at Wrest, expending considerable sums on the park and gardens; £650 was spent on brick walls alone in the year following the Revolution.<sup>5</sup> The result was not to everyone’s taste. Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, thought Wrest a ‘good large house’ but commented dismissively that it was a ‘dirty place’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Kent may have possessed a title of considerable antiquity, but he was nevertheless comparatively impoverished. His grandfather, the 9th earl, was an elderly clergyman when he inherited the title in 1639. He represented a cadet branch of the family, and was said to be worth only £500 a year. A contemporary commented that he had ‘divers daughters, some married to farmers, and some to mercers, who will be much troubled to know how to carry themselves like ladies.’<sup>7</sup> Despite this poverty the 11th earl’s family were well aware of the deference due to them. When Kent’s sister married Banastre Maynard*, 3rd Baron Maynard, in 1681 his wealth could not compensate for her loss of status. She took care to ensure that she would continue to enjoy the status and precedency of an earl’s daughter, rather than that of the wife of a mere baron.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Although a peer of first creation, Lord Lucas was proud of his family and, perhaps in the knowledge that his name and title were likely to die out, ensured that they would be preserved through his daughter. Shortly after her marriage she was given a title in her own right as Baroness Lucas of Crudwell. The letters patent contained an unusual remainder ensuring that the title should never fall into abeyance. Since Kent was a minor at the time of his marriage, a private act of Parliament was required to authorize the couple’s marriage settlement. This was steered through the Lords by Lucas and through the Commons by his brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Pye<sup>‡</sup>. The act included additional clauses ratifying and confirming the special remainder for the barony of Lucas of Crudwell.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In 1665, in company with his father-in-law, Lord Lucas, and several other noblemen, Kent greeted James*, duke of York, on his progress through the Midlands.<sup>10</sup> Kent took his seat at the opening of the new session of September 1666: the first sitting day after he had attained his majority. His attendance during 1666 and 1667 was assiduous (95 per cent of all sitting days) but thereafter it became somewhat erratic: high at times of political crisis (1670-1, 1677-81, 1685 and 1689-90) but less so at other times. On 23 Jan. 1667 he entered a protest against the failure to add a clause to the bill for resolving disputes concerning houses burnt down by the Fire of London.</p><p>Kent attended one day of the brief adjourned session of July 1667 before taking his seat once more one day into the new October session. Although his attendance remained high for the first part of the session, he failed to attend after March 1668 (he had been granted leave of absence for a few days on 26 Mar.) and was consequently present overall on just 38 per cent of the whole. On 26 Oct. he was noted one of those present at a meeting of the committee concerning Scots trade.<sup>11</sup> On 20 Nov., following the example of a number of peers disappointed by the Restoration settlement or frustrated by the failures of the war against the Dutch, he subscribed a protest against the Lords’ failure to commit Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. On 17 Mar. 1670 he entered a dissent to the bill enabling John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to divorce his wife. The following year, on 14 Feb. 1671, Kent’s father-in-law made a point of insisting on Kent’s precedency as the premier baron of England in opposition to various other competitors, including George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley. It was a topic to which Kent would later return on at least two occasions.<sup>12</sup> On 9 Mar. 1671 Kent protested at the failure to commit the bill restricting privilege of Parliament.</p><p>Lucas’s death in the summer of 1671 presented Kent and his countess with the prospect of a significant boost to their interest as she came into possession of, according to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, ‘all his land and all his money’.<sup>13</sup> Kent attended the prorogation day of 30 Oct. 1672 before taking his place once more at the opening of the session of February 1673. He failed to attend the brief four-day session that October but was then present once again at the opening of the subsequent session on 7 Jan. 1674, of which he attended just under 79 per cent of all sitting days. Over the next two sessions his attendance fell off with him present on just five days of the session of April 1675 and nine (just under half of the whole) in November. His disillusionment with the by then 14-year-old Parliament was then made clear when on 20 Nov. he voted in favour of the resolution to request a dissolution of Parliament.</p><p>Kent was one of the peers nominated to try Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in June 1676. In common with the majority he found Cornwallis not guilty.<sup>14</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the new session of 15 Feb. 1677, of which he attended 90 per cent of all sitting days. The high drama of that session may in part explain his renewed activity, but he was clearly not a slavish ‘country’ supporter for in May, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, listed him as doubly rather than triply worthy.</p><p>Besides his interest in the great national disputes of that session, Kent also took the opportunity to promote the cause which had already been raised by his late father-in-law some years earlier. Conscious of the dignity due to his family and their ancient nobility, on the death of Baroness Grey of Ruthin in February 1677, Kent readied himself to prevent her (underage) son from claiming that title. The barony of Grey of Ruthin had previously been held by the earls of Kent but had devolved on the heir general following the death without direct heirs of Henry Grey†, 8th earl of Kent. In March Kent objected to the roll of peers, thereby ensuring a saving of his right to the title of de Grey despite the assumption of the peerage of Grey of Ruthin by Charles Yelverton*, in right of his mother. At the same time he proposed a clause to the bill for religion in order to ensure that clergymen should be subject to the Test.<sup>15</sup> On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Kent took his seat once more on 23 May 1678, after which he was present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days. Following the brief interval between sessions that year, he took his place at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. and was again assiduous in his attendance, being present on 85 per cent of the whole. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of putting the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths. On 20 Dec. he subscribed two protests against agreeing to amendments to the bill for disbanding the army and on 26 Dec. voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendments to that bill and protested when the resolution in favour of insistence was carried. Then, on 27 Dec., he voted in favour of the committal of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>Kent attended six days of the abortive March session of the new Parliament before taking his seat once more at the opening of the Exclusion Parliament on 15 March. He was thereafter present on 97 per cent of all sitting days. In March and April 1679 he was consistently listed as an opponent of Danby, and voted in favour of the bill of attainder against him. On 2 May his decision to protest over the loss of an amendment to the bill to remove popish inhabitants from London and Westminster provides an insight into his sympathy for dissenters and hatred of Catholics. He also supported moves to try the five lords impeached as a result of allegations about their involvement in the Popish Plot, and on 13 and 27 May opposed the resolution that permitted the bishops to be present during the trial of capital cases.</p><p>The dissolution in no way diminished his active prosecution of the cause of the plot. In November he accompanied Shaftesbury, William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, James Brydges*, 3rd Baron Chandos, Charles North*, 5th Baron North and Grey, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, to the trial of Knox and Lane in what was effectively a statement of confidence in Titus Oates’s credibility. William Denton noted that Oates, bolstered by such support, came off ‘with flying colours’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>The same group of peers formed a weekly dining club at the Swan in Fish Street to plan for a mass petitioning movement to demand that Parliament be recalled. On 4 Dec. 1679 Kent was one of a similar group of around ten peers, of whom Shaftesbury was another, dining with the lord mayor. Also present was Chief Justice Scroggs, whose role in the Wakeman trial they deplored, and the result was an open and unpleasant quarrel which deteriorated into ‘a great scuffle’.<sup>17</sup> Kent signed the petition which was presented to the king on 6 December.<sup>18</sup> In January 1680, together with North and Shaftesbury, he was one of the ‘malcontent lords’ who met at the house of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Kent attended the two prorogation days of 26 Jan. and 15 Apr. 1680 before taking his place once more at the beginning of the new session on 21 October. In November he supported the exclusion bill and the resolution for a committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom. The following month he voted to find William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty. On 7 Jan. 1681 he supported the impeachment of Scroggs.</p><p>Kent was one of 16 peers to subscribe a petition to the king requesting that the ensuing Parliament meet at Westminster as usual and not in Oxford.<sup>20</sup> Although their request was denied, he rallied once more to be present on each day of the Oxford Parliament. In advance of the session he was included by Danby in a list of ‘enemy’ lords to be approached through intermediaries. Danby assigned their mutual kinsman, the court supporter William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, the task of speaking to Kent and in a subsequent memorandum even queried whether Maynard might not be able to persuade Kent to stand bail for him. In spite of this, Kent remained obdurate and far from offering to assist the former lord treasurer, opposed the attempts to bail Danby. On 26 Mar. he protested against the decision not to try Fitzharris by impeachment in the Lords. He was present at Fitzharris’s trial later that summer. The day before the proceedings (8 June) he had been one of four peers to attempt to appeal to the king in person about, according to Morrice, ‘the pardon of a new, and I believe, great discoverer’ but they were put off.<sup>21</sup> Kent remained committed to exposing the plot. He was named as one of those willing to contribute financially to the support of Oates and in November 1681 he stood bail for William Howard*, Baron Howard of Escrick.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Although he was not named as one of the Rye House conspirators, Kent may have felt uncomfortably close to them. Shortly after the discovery of the plot, he was reported to have been at court and to have kissed the hands of the king and York in company with Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, and James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Kent took the opportunity provided by the ceremonial of the new reign to renew his pretensions to the title of Grey of Ruthin and also to press for the right to bear the spurs at the coronation. Kent was granted the latter, a success that John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, a friend of the Yelverton family, hoped might satisfy him and release pressure on the dispute over the Grey of Ruthin title, now held by Henry Yelverton*, later Viscount Longueville.<sup>24</sup> During the brief parliamentary session of 1685, he was present on over 80 per cent of sitting days; on 14 Nov. he entrusted his proxy to his sister’s father-in-law, Maynard, but it was vacated by his return to the House on 16 November. On that day at a call of the House notice was taken of the as yet unsettled dispute between Kent and Grey of Ruthin and on 17 Nov. Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, reported back from the committee for privileges confirming the right of Grey of Ruthin to bear the title.</p><p>Kent’s disappointment over the barony of Grey was soon overshadowed by greater national concerns. During 1687 he was consistently listed as an opponent both of the repeal of the Test Acts and of James II’s policies in general, and in the spring of that year it was rumoured that he was to quit the country and travel overseas.<sup>25</sup> In the event he seems not to have gone abroad and in June he was said to have informed one of the members of Gray’s Inn that the Presbyterians ‘had quite blemished their reputation and lost their friends by addressing and owning the dispensing power’.<sup>26</sup> As a further indication of his religious sympathies, it was reported that he had successfully bid £21 for a set of the works of John Wycliffe. One of those who had also been interested in the collection lamented his failure to acquire them but reckoned Kent would have been willing to pay £50 to secure their possession. In November 1688 he joined with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, in refusing to subscribe to the petition for a free Parliament, perhaps being unwilling to set his hand to a document associated with men who had collaborated on the ecclesiastical commission.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Following the Dutch invasion, Kent joined a number of peers assembling in the council chamber at Whitehall on 12 and 13 Dec. for meetings of the provisional government. After James had fled for the second time, Kent was again to be found in the hastily convened sessions first in the queen’s presence chamber at St James’s and latterly back in the Lords.<sup>28</sup> Despite his long record of opposition to the government, Kent was uneasy about deposing the king. He took his place at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and quickly associated himself with his former enemy, Danby. On 29 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of the motion for a regency. Following Danby’s lead, he voted against declaring William and Mary to be king and queen, and on 31 Jan. and again on 4 Feb. for amending the Commons resolution by substituting the word ‘deserted’ for ‘abdicated’. William’s insistence on ruling in his own right led to a further vote on 6 Feb., at which Kent salved his conscience by leaving the chamber. Later that year he demonstrated his doubts about the Popish Plot by voting against the reversal of the judgment against Oates and in favour of the Lords’ amendments that would have prevented Oates from ever testifying in a court of law. He also helped manage two conferences on the proposed tea and coffee duties.</p><p>As well as matters relating to the House Kent was also the focus of interest in local politics. In the Marcher areas where he possessed an interest a lively campaign was waged over the appointment of a new president of the Council of Wales. Macclesfield ‘vigorously defended’ his claim (in which he was ultimately successful), but it was reported that local interests in Herefordshire favoured a peer with land in the county and were keen to see Kent named to the post.<sup>29</sup></p><p>High politics apart, Kent again had his own reasons for attending Parliament in 1689 since he had an interest in securing a proviso to the Wye and Lugg navigation bill.<sup>30</sup> Despite this, he absented himself from the final three months of the session, having secured leave to go into the country on 27 July. He ensured that his absence was covered by giving his proxy to Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, brother-in-law and political associate of his old enemy, Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen. Kent returned to the House for the second session of the Convention but was noticeably present on a smaller proportion of sitting days (turning out for just 45 per cent of the whole). In September he had responded to a demand for a self-assessment communicated by Halifax asserting that he did not have ‘any personal estate liable to be taxed according to the act of Parliament’. His countess, on the other hand, confessed to personal estate worth ‘fifteen hundred pounds over and above what I owe’ and undertook to pay whatever was due.<sup>31</sup> Carmarthen classed him as among the supporters fo the court on a list of October 1689 to February 1690.</p><p>In advance of the elections for the new Parliament Kent promised his support in Herefordshire to Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, one of the sitting Members. As early as the opening of the Convention, Harley’s son, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, had warned his father of developing opposition in the county against which he had hoped Sir Edward would ‘fix the interest’ of Kent and other influential peers in the area. Kent was said to have ‘expressed himself with great kindness and civility’ in his assurances on Harley’s behalf but a meeting of the local freeholders revealed that Kent was eager to ensure that no one would be returned who was sympathetic to the Wye navigation bill. This was not an area in which Kent and Harley saw eye to eye but in the event Harley appears to have been squeezed out by an Anglican backlash represented by the pairing of Sir John Morgan<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Herbert Croft<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Kent took his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and was again present for the opening of the subsequent session on 2 October. He was then absent from the chamber for almost six weeks but ensured that his voice was not lost by giving his proxy to Carmarthen. The proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 17 November. Concerns over the progress over the Wye navigation bill, which had divided opinion in the county, also continued to exercise Kent at this time. He was reported to have reneged on an understanding reached with the Harleys whereby he would accept compensation of £3,000 in return for allowing the measure to proceed. According to Robert Harley, writing on 22 Nov., Kent was no longer willing to compromise and had resolved to obstruct the bill. Kent’s disinclination to support the measure was no doubt in part owing to unwillingness to part with valuable bankside land but also perhaps on account of efforts that he and other Herefordshire magnates had made in the early 1680s to repair and protect the area by developing a causeway for use during winter.<sup>33</sup> His case did not start well and the following year a grand jury found against him, representing a weir in his possession as a ‘nuisance’ and recommending the Wye navigation as ‘a public benefit’. Wrangling over the detail of the bill, the employment of the phrase ‘nuisance’ and Kent’s determination to maintain his weirs were still ongoing over five years later. The measure was enacted in 1696 but the matter was still not fully settled the following year. In April 1697 it was reported that ‘great abuses’ had been committed ‘with relation to the fish at the earl of Kent’s weir’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Kent’s stern protestant identity (or perhaps more correctly that of his countess) revealed itself again at this time in his letters to his heir, Henry Grey*, styled Lord Ruthyn (later duke of Kent), who was engaged in travel on the continent. While Kent was willing to allow his son to travel through Italy on his way to Germany he forbade him absolutely from taking in Rome, ‘it being (as you very well know) very much against my wife’s inclination and contrary to the promise both you and I made to her at your departure’.<sup>35</sup> In May 1691 he happily attended the consecration of John Tillotson*, even though William Sancroft*, the deposed archbishop of Canterbury, was holding a rival service elsewhere.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Kent took his place once more at the opening of the new session on 22 Oct. 1691, but proceeded to attend just 22 days (just under 23 per cent of the whole). His attendance for the subsequent session of November 1692 improved markedly with him present on not far short of three-quarters of the whole session (73 per cent). In December he voted for the place bill, but the following month, after an intensive court campaign against its provisions, he was listed as one of the supporters of the bill who had abstained. Kent’s earlier inability (or unwillingness) to secure Sir Edward Harley’s election was echoed by his half-hearted objection to Harley’s candidacy at the by-election triggered by the death of Sir John Morgan in early 1693. The session had witnessed renewed struggles over the Wye navigation bill which had again brought to the fore the differences between Kent and Harley. Kent was also said to have resented Harley’s behaviour towards him because ‘he had met him and did not pull off his hat to him’. By the end of January Harley was informed of the arrival of the writ for the election and that as yet no opposition had been declared by Kent. Harley was accordingly returned unopposed just over a week later.<sup>37</sup> On 29 Jan. 1693 Kent entered a dissent against the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb. he found him not guilty.</p><p>Kent returned to the House just under a month into the session of November 1693. In 1694 he voted against dismissing the decree of the court of chancery in the notorious case of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. His attendance of the final session of the Parliament demonstrated similar half-hearted interest with him present on approximately 42 per cent of the whole.</p><p>The October elections raised once again the ongoing tensions in Herefordshire over the Wye navigation. Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> was warned that an interest was being made against his re-election at Hereford stirred up by Henry Gorges<sup>‡</sup> and Kent’s steward. In spite of this, Foley was returned unopposed with Gorges leaving the field clear for Sir John Morgan.<sup>38</sup> Kent took his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695 and was thereafter present on approximately 69 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Jan. 1695 he opposed proposals to postpone the implementation of the treason bill and was later named as one of the managers of the four conferences held to discuss the bill. On 9 Mar. 1696, for what seems to have been the only time in his career in the House, he reported from a committee, communicating that the bill for improving a house and ground in Great Queen Street had been found fit to pass with some minor amendments.</p><p>Kent took his seat a few days after the opening of the new session of October 1696, which was dominated by the aftermath of the Assassination Plot. The same day he registered his proxy with Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become) which was vacated by his return to the House two days later. In December he consistently opposed the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, voting against the passage of the bill on 23 December. On 15 Mar. 1697 he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Crew*, 2nd Baron Crew (father-in-law of Kent’s heir, Lord Grey).</p><p>Kent was again present shortly after the opening of the new session of December 1697. In February 1698 he acted in defence of his privilege when he learned that his bailiff had been arrested.<sup>39</sup> On 15 Mar. he voted against the bill of pains and penalties against Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Towards the end of the session, on 16 June, he registered his proxy again, probably to Leeds (the entry is uncertain).</p><p>Kent avoided the opening day of the new Parliament in August 1698 and delayed taking his place until 20 December. He continued to attend 37 per cent of all sitting days. His level attendance remained similar in the subsequent session (35 per cent).</p><p>For all his declining attendance of the House Kent appears to have been eager to exercise his interest. In 1699 he approached John Somers*, Baron Somers, about appointing Dr. Hickman to the parish of St James’s, understanding that it had been vacated by William Wake*, later archbishop of Canterbury, on his advancement to the bishopric of Oxford. Somers demurred, reluctant to promise a post so close to the court without being certain of the king’s approbation.<sup>40</sup> In 1700 he supported the attempt to continue the East India Company as a corporation.</p><p>The new Parliament of 1701 found Kent present once again at its opening. He continued to attend over 60 per cent of its sittings, and in March 1701 he protested against the decision to reject the proposal for a joint address to the crown on the subject of the partition treaty. The following month, on 16 Apr., he supported the Commons attempt to secure the punishment of the impeached lords before trial. He returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 December. Present on 55 per cent of all sitting days, he was present for the final day of the session on 25 May which also coincided with his last appearance in the chamber.</p><p>Kent died unexpectedly a little over a month after the dissolution while playing bowls at Tunbridge Wells (not, as the <em>Daily Courant</em> reported, at Bath).<sup>41</sup> According to Thomas Bateman, death overtook him in the middle of his turn; a newsletter recorded that it was just after the ball had left his hand.<sup>42</sup> The cause of death appears to have been a massive stroke. An eyewitness account of his last moments describes the extraordinary, and perhaps cruel, attempts that were made to revive him, from letting blood to pouring medicine down his throat and applying a red hot pomade to his head, from being jolted about in a coach to being blistered with hot tobacco and having his stomach covered with the entrails of a newly slaughtered sheep.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Cary Gardiner thought his loss sad but noted that his heir ‘much transcends him in parts’.<sup>44</sup> In his will first drawn up in April 1699 but amended only a few days before his demise, Kent provided generously for his servants and for the poor; he appointed his brother-in-law Maynard as trustee to his daughter Amabel for whom he provided a portion of £23,000. In the event neither Kent’s wife nor his daughter stood in need of his benefactions for long, as both followed him to the grave later that year.<sup>45</sup> He was succeeded in the peerage by his son Henry who later became duke of Kent.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
GREY, Ford (1655-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Ford</strong> (1655–1701)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 June 1675 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. GREY of Warke; <em>cr. </em>11 May 1695 earl of TANKERVILLE |
|
First sat 22 Feb. 1677; last sat 18 June 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 6 Dec. 1655,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Ralph Grey*, 2nd Bar. Grey of Warke, and Catherine, da. and h. of Sir Edward Ford of Harting, Suss.; bro. of Ralph Grey*, 4th Bar. Grey of Warke. <em>educ</em>. ?St Paul’s School. <em>m.</em> c. July 1674 Mary (<em>d</em>. 19 May 1719), da. of George Berkeley*, 9th Bar. Berkeley, 1da. <em>d</em>. 24 June 1701. <em>will</em> 31 May 1696-17 Apr. 1701, pr. 2 Dec. 1701, codicil 16 Dec. 1702.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 5 May 1695-<em>d</em>.; commr. appeals in prizes of war 1695, 1697;<sup>3</sup> trade and plantations 1696-9; to treat with French over Hudson Bay 1699;<sup>4</sup> treasury 1 June-15 Nov. 1699, first ld. treasury 15 Nov. 1699-9 Dec. 1700; ld. justice June-Sept. 1700;<sup>5</sup> ld. privy seal, 5 Nov. 1700-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint, aft. Sir Peter Lely, c. 1684, NPG D29417; line engraving, Cornelius Nicolas Schurtz, aft. Sir Peter Lely, 1689, NPG D18611.</p> |
<p>Grey succeeded to his father’s title on 15 June 1675 while still underage.<sup>12</sup> Married in the summer of 1674 to Mary, the daughter of the wealthy and well-placed George Berkeley, 9th Baron Berkeley, at his father’s death Grey came into a substantial inheritance, acquiring the Chillingham estates in Northumberland and Epping and Gosfield in Essex. The Northumbrian lands were estimated to be worth £7,000 per annum at the death of his grandfather, William Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke, in 1674, while the Epping estate, ‘one of the best copyhold manors in England’, was valued at £1,200 per annum in 1704.<sup>13</sup> Through his mother in 1682 he inherited what had in effect been his principal residence since coming to the title, Uppark near Harting in West Sussex.</p><p>Less than a year after the death of his father, the young Baron Grey attempted, through a suit in Chancery brought against his mother, to abrogate the debts and annuities charged on the Gosfield estate by his late father, including the maintenance intended for his younger brothers. He claimed, in what was a long-running dispute involving many members of the extended Grey family, that Gosfield had been entailed to the heirs male by his grandfather the first Baron Grey in 1672, and it had not been in his own father’s power to alienate it and place charges on it for other purposes.<sup>14</sup> This action reveals the rashness, presumption and belligerence, not to say the egoism, that was to characterize much of the rest of Grey’s life. Upon taking his seat in the Lords, he began a long and turbulent political career that brought him dangerously close both to the executioner’s block and to some of the highest offices in government. At first glance, he would appear to epitomize the dissolute Restoration gallant and rake, especially in light of his passion for his sister-in-law, Lady Henrietta Berkeley, which almost brought ruin to both families and was immortalized in the first published prose work of Aphra Behn, <em>Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister</em>. Yet in his political actions, however extreme, reckless and even treasonous they may appear, he showed a consistent set of political beliefs, which he acted upon both as a fiery member of the country opposition in the 1670s and 1680s and as a member of the Whig ministry from 1695. He showed great parliamentary skills, both in the House as an orator and manager, and ‘out of doors’ in his campaigning for Exclusionist candidates in 1679. Perhaps because of his youth and ‘common touch’—similar in many ways to his good friend and sexual rival James Scott*, duke of Monmouth—he was popular with the crowds outside Parliament, an important advantage for the more elderly Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. But with the dissolution of Parliament in March 1681 Grey had to take his political energy and penchant for dramatic action outside Parliament and he thus acquired a notorious reputation during the early 1680s, both as a debauché and as a brazen political agitator. His obloquy was only furthered by his distinctly unsuccessful—contemporaries said cowardly—performance as Monmouth’s general of cavalry in the rebellion of 1685. His recovery from the debacle of 1685 is impressive, and reveals his talents for survival and his lack of any sense of remorse or even loyalty. From 1695 he became a key figure in the House for the Whig ministry and offices, honours and titles soon came to him in rapid succession. He was only 45 years old when he died in 1701 but had already lived a life more full of tumult, energy, reverses and recoveries than most.</p><h2><em>Country Peer, 1677-81</em></h2><p>Grey first sat in the House on 22 Feb. 1677 and was quickly named to a number of select committees, principally on private bills. On 13 Apr. he was named as a reporter for a conference at which the Commons presented their objections to the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill for building more warships. He was then placed on the committee to draw up the explanation for the House’s continuing insistence on this amendment and was most likely a manager for the free conferences held on 14 and 16 Apr., after which the House receded from its amendment. Grey was not an assiduous attender of the House in 1677-8. He came to 53 per cent of the sittings in 1677 and left the House on 14 Apr., attending none of the sittings when Parliament briefly reconvened in late May. He returned to the House when Parliament assembled on 28 Jan. 1678, but still he only attended 38 per cent of the sittings of this latter part of the session. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. He came to slightly more sittings in the session of spring 1678 when his attendance stood at 53 per cent.</p><p>Shaftesbury considered Grey as singly ‘worthy’ in his political analysis of the peers in the spring of 1677, at which time Grey would still have been largely unknown to him. But in the session of autumn 1678, during which he attended 61 per cent of the sittings, he became one of Shaftesbury’s most loyal and able political associates. His political positions may partly be attributed to the Presbyterian and Parliamentarian history of his family. His grandfather had been Speaker of the Lords during the Civil War and promoter of a ‘godly’ and Presbyterian Church settlement, although there is admittedly little similarity between the 3rd Baron’s shameless actions and the deep sense of personal sin and reprobation expressed in his grandfather’s long will.<sup>15</sup> In addition, the 3rd Baron’s great-uncle had been Cromwell’s general Henry Ireton<sup>‡</sup>, and his son by the lord protector’s daughter, Henry Ireton<sup>‡</sup>, remained one of Grey’s closest advisers throughout his life.<sup>16</sup></p><p>From late 1678 Grey became an integral part of Shaftesbury’s campaign of ‘country’ agitation against both James Stuart*, duke of York, and Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby. As a list of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton noted, Grey’s proxy for the session was held by Shaftesbury. It was assigned to him on 15 Nov. 1678, a day when an important division was held in committee of the whole House on the motion to exclude from the House those lords who refused to sign the Test bill’s declaration against transubstantiation. Shaftesbury voted for the motion and presumably was able to cast Grey’s vote in its favour as well. Certainly, Wharton listed Grey as voting for it, even though his name is not on the attendance list for that day.<sup>17</sup> On 28 Nov., only three days after his return to the House, Grey was a manager for the conference in which the Commons presented their address requesting the queen’s removal from Whitehall upon suspicion of complicity in the attempts to kill the king. Grey may have been one of the few in the House in favour of the motion that the queen should be removed from court, but while one source listing those voting for the motion mentions a ‘Lord Grey’, another, drawn up by Wharton, includes a ‘Lord de Gray’, which may refer to the short-lived Charles Yelverton*, 14th Baron Grey of Ruthin, who was also present in the House that day.<sup>18</sup> On 9 Dec. 1678 Grey was a manager for the conference at which the House explained their fears of a large standing army in England if the forces in Flanders were brought back before the troops in the kingdom itself were disbanded. In the last days of the session he stood against the House’s resolution that the funds raised for the disbandment should be placed in the exchequer instead of the chamber of London (as the Commons had specified) and he signed dissents on both 20 and 26 Dec. against the House’s continuing insistence on this point. He was an opponent of Danby and on 23 Dec. he joined in the dissent from the vote against requiring the lord treasurer to withdraw from the chamber after the articles of impeachment against him had been read. Four days later he voted in favour of Danby’s commitment and subscribed to the protest when that motion was rejected. On 23 Dec. he was one of the small group of peers, with Shaftesbury and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, who were chosen to attend the king to plead for a pardon for Miles Prance, so that he could give testimony with indemnity. These country peers were also assigned by the House to examine Prance in his cell in Newgate, but the prorogation on 30 Dec., and the eventual dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament on 24 Jan. 1679, put a halt to those proceedings.</p><p>As Danby himself predicted, Grey continued his attacks on the former lord treasurer in the first Exclusion Parliament. He attended 69 per cent of sittings in its second session. On 22 Mar. 1679 Grey was appointed to the committee of 13 members—almost entirely made up of country peers such as himself, Shaftesbury, Wharton, Monmouth, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater—assigned to draft a bill barring Danby from ever again holding office or attending the king. He was also named a manager of the conference held that day to discuss this bill. The Commons instead produced their own bill threatening Danby with attainder unless he surrendered himself to face the charges against him. Grey voted in favour of all versions of this attainder bill, both the House’s first amended bill, which effectively reduced the penalty to banishment, and the final version of the bill, closer to the Commons’ original intention, which passed the House on 14 April. He was even appointed one of the members of the House—with Monmouth, Halifax, Anglesey and Bridgwater—delegated to attend the king at court to present him with the bill and urge his speedy assent to it. During this period Grey also put his name to the dissent of 7 Apr. against the decision that John Sidway should be committed for making false allegations against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, and other bishops. Danby surrendered himself by the deadline of 21 Apr. set in his Act of Attainder and the debates soon turned to the procedure for the trials of both Danby and the five Catholic lords. On 8 May Grey was made a reporter for the conference in which the Commons suggested that there should be a joint committee of both Houses to settle the details of the trials and he entered his dissent when the House rejected this proposal. That same afternoon he was named as a reporter for the conference in which the Commons stated their objections to the House’s amendments to the supply bill, but the House more readily receded from their changes in this case, mindful of the urgency of voting through supply. On 10 May he was one of the many dissenters when the Commons’ suggestion for a joint committee to sort out the procedure for the trials was once again rejected. The following day the House relented and agreed to a joint committee, but Grey was not appointed to it. On 13 May Grey joined in the dissent of 21 country peers from the resolution that the bishops would be allowed to take part in the trials, despite their capital nature. Ten days later the country peers, once again including Grey, dissented from the House’s instructions to its representatives on the joint committee that they were to insist on the right of the bishops to attend the trials and on the condition that the trials of the five Catholic peers were to take place before that of Danby. Grey was appointed on 26 May a reporter for a conference to ‘maintain a good correspondence’ between the Houses, and the following day he subscribed to the dissent of 28 peers from the House’s continuing insistence on the bishops’ rights to assist in capital trials. Grey’s last activity that day, and indeed in that Parliament, was perhaps both his most important and his characteristic, for he may have been instrumental, through underhanded methods, in having the habeas corpus bill passed, one of the few successful legislative measures from that Parliament. On 27 May Grey, acting as teller in a division on whether to hold a last-minute conference requested by the Commons to discuss the bill, was said to have counted, ‘as a jest at first’, a particularly fat peer as ten votes in favour of the conference. Noticing that his opposite teller, James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys, reputedly ‘a man subject to vapours’, was not paying attention, Grey decided to turn his jest to advantage and maintained this false tally. According to the manuscript minutes the vote in favour of a conference won by only 57 to 55, even though the attendance list for the House on that day only counts 107 peers present. The Commons agreed with the House’s amendments in the free conference, and the habeas corpus bill received the royal assent that afternoon before the king prorogued Parliament.<sup>19</sup></p><p>From 1677, if not before, Grey had been a friend, as well as a romantic rival, of his near contemporary the duke of Monmouth, with whom he shared a love of country sports, as well as of gallantry and womanizing. It was an open secret from at least 1677 that Grey’s wife had been conducting an affair with Monmouth, perhaps a continuation of a liaison inaugurated before her marriage to Grey. The affair appears to have been largely countenanced by Grey himself, as is suggested by a number of bawdy poems and lampoons, as well as from comments in contemporary correspondence.<sup>20</sup> The liaison did not split Grey from Monmouth and may even have drawn them closer together, especially as Grey’s own sexual attentions were soon drawn elsewhere even more illicit. The two men continued to work in tandem in politics and when Monmouth was in June 1679 appointed general of the English forces raised to suppress the rebellion in Scotland, his friend Grey was chosen to serve as a colonel of a regiment of foot under him. Grey, though, refused the commission, citing an act of 1641 which he interpreted as prohibiting English military intervention in the affairs of Scotland. This may have been an attempt to further signal his distance from the court and government through his unwillingness to accept a commission from it, as he nevertheless went on to serve under Monmouth as a ‘volunteer’ in the campaign.<sup>21</sup> Roger North<sup>‡</sup> later put his own Tory gloss on this peculiar episode:</p><blockquote><p>this vain scruple shows clearly the impudence of the faction at that time, that would insist, in the face of the government, upon arrant nonsense … And it argues also a concern of theirs for the [Scottish] rebels; why else should they, by foolish cavils, endeavour to stay the forces going in aid to suppress them.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>Following the unexpected dissolution of the Parliament on 12 July 1679, Grey proved himself highly adept at managing the elections for the Parliament scheduled for October. His brother Ralph, while still underage, was returned on the family interest for Berwick-upon-Tweed, which lay close to Chillingham Castle, for all three of the Exclusion Parliaments of 1679-81.<sup>23</sup> Grey supported Sir Robert Peyton<sup>‡</sup> for the Middlesex county seat and joined him in early September in leading a group of voters to the hustings at Brentford where they were met by a similar convoy of 1,000 voters led by Buckingham and the other exclusionist candidate, Sir William Roberts<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>24</sup> A pro-exclusionist pamphlet recounting the events of the Essex election describes how,</p><blockquote><p>the ever noble and renowned Lord Grey met the Colonel [Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup>, the exclusionist candidate] in a most sumptuous habit, with his led horses in rich trappings, and about 2,000 horse attending him; then the Lord Grey with the Colonel began to march into the town, where they were met with near 2,000 horse more, and so passing through the town into the field in very good order, with their mouths loudly hollowing for A Mildmay only and crying out, God bless my Lord Grey.</p></blockquote><p>Mildmay and his partner John Lamotte Honeywood<sup>‡</sup> won the poll and ‘the truly noble Lord Grey’ ended the election with a speech to the freemen of Essex extolling them for their ‘zeal and courage for the maintaining your liberties, and the Protestant religion’.<sup>25</sup> For the borough of Chichester, located near his principal country house of Up Park, Grey ensured the election for all three Exclusion Parliaments of the old republican plotter John Braman<sup>‡</sup>, who was later involved with Grey and his co-conspirators in planning insurgency against the Stuart brothers in 1683.<sup>26</sup> Guy Carleton*, bishop of Chichester, provided the secretary of state Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> with an account of Grey’s aggressive tactics in overseeing Braman’s election, largely through the votes of ‘the fanatic party’ there.<sup>27</sup> Carleton later noted Grey’s political and popular influence when describing to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, the triumphal visit of Monmouth to Chichester in February 1680: ‘the elector-general Grey (for so is his title in this country) being here in Chichester went out to bring him [Monmouth] into the city attended with broken shopkeepers, butchers, carpenters, smiths and such like people, all dissenters and petitioners, to the number of 50 or three score’.<sup>28</sup> Two years later the secretary of state Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> was informed that Monmouth’s party in Chichester was powerful: ‘they are as factious a sort of people as any in England and … are ready at an hour’s warning to serve the duke of Monmouth and Lord Grey’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>During the long series of prorogations which delayed the meeting of Parliament, Grey was an active member of the Green Ribbon Club and of other Whig groups dining in the taverns of London.<sup>30</sup> With his noble colleagues such as Shaftesbury, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, Edward Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick and Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, he began to meet in weekly gatherings at the <em>Swan Tavern</em> to discuss political strategy.<sup>31</sup> These peers engaged in several provocative acts in the winter of 1679-80 indicating their fears of popery and ‘arbitrary rule’, elements of both of which he saw in the actions of the royal brothers. He was one of those who attended Titus Oates’s suit on 25 Nov. 1679 against Knox and Lane, in order to show support for Oates’s allegations of the Plot.<sup>32</sup> On 1 Dec. Grey was one of the <em>Swan Tavern</em> group present at a dinner at the house of the Whig lord mayor of London, Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup>, at which there was a confrontation between the opposition peers and an unexpected guest, the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs.<sup>33</sup> Grey was one of the 16 peers who signed the petition to Charles II calling on him to summon the new Parliament speedily and was among the nine who presented the petition to the king in person on 7 December. He, Shaftesbury, Huntingdon and Howard of Escrick, were the only peers to sign the ‘Monster Petition’ of inhabitants of Westminster and Southwark, which was presented to the king on 13 Jan. 1680 by, among others, Grey’s kinsman and associate Henry Ireton.<sup>34</sup> It was perhaps for such presumption that his name was deleted from the commissions of the peace for Northumberland, Essex and Sussex in that same month.<sup>35</sup> He was one of the ten peers who in the last days of June 1680 submitted to two separate Middlesex grand juries indictments of York as a recusant.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Family and domestic problems also caused Grey concern during this period. Not only was there the matter of Monmouth’s continuing affair with his wife, which led him to pack off Lady Grey to Northumberland in January 1680 to keep her away from temptation, but perhaps as disruptive was Grey’s battle with other members of his family over the authenticity and terms of the will of his grandfather, especially as his enemy in this cause was his uncle Charles North*, Baron North and Grey of Rolleston, another member of Shaftesbury’s circle. The case came to a head in late 1679 when it was heard by the court of delegates, which ultimately rejected North and Grey’s claims that the old baron’s will had been forged to disinherit his own wife Katherine, who was Grey of Warke’s paternal aunt. In February 1680 North and Grey exhibited yet another bill in chancery, aiming at recovering some of Grey of Warke’s estates.<sup>37</sup> This dispute spilled over into the relations of the opposition peers. At a meeting at Wharton’s house in March 1680, Shaftesbury accused North and Grey of instigating a suit against one of his colleagues for an estate and, as Shaftesbury thought, an earldom (of Tankerville, which had originally been conferred to a member of the Grey family in the 15th century, and was eventually reclaimed by Grey of Warke in 1695). When North and Grey denied that he was aiming at the earldom, Shaftesbury, slyly referring to his recent deference to the duke of York, whose hand North and Grey had kissed, suggested that there were other, less litigious, ways for him to get an earldom.<sup>38</sup></p><p>When the Parliament for which Grey and his colleagues had petitioned assembled on 21 Oct. 1680, Grey was present and attended all but three of its 59 days. He was, on 8 Nov., named to the committee assigned to enquire into the recent alterations to the commissions of the peace, through which he could try to rectify his own recent omission from the commissions for Sussex, Essex and Northumberland. In the debate on the exclusion bill on 15 Nov. he sought to demolish the case against the bill. Against the argument that it was not certain that York was a Catholic he pointed to the proviso in the 1678 Test Act excepting the duke as well as the content of Colman’s letters as definitive proof of the duke’s religion. To those who claimed that passing the bill would abrogate the oath of allegiance that all those in Parliament had sworn, he insisted that the bill’s advocates were not violating the oath, because it merely enjoined them ‘not to undermine the government’, while this bill was merely ‘skipping the duke and so it goes to the right heir’. To the point that it was not in Parliament’s power to pass such a measure he challenged the bill’s opponents that ‘if any man knows that the king will not pass this bill, let him speak’. He was one of the peers who signed the dissent from the rejection of the bill at the first reading.<sup>39</sup> He was appointed on 20 Nov. to the committee to consider ways of relieving Protestant nonconformists from the recusancy laws and three days later voted for the proposal to appoint a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom after the defeat of the exclusion bill. He found the Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason on 7 Dec. and three days later was given a list of 50 Catholics in Sussex, with the intention that he would execute the House’s order for their dispersal should the proposed bill ‘for securing Papists’ pass.<sup>40</sup> He signed the dissents of 7 Jan. 1681 against the decision not to put the questions on whether lord chief justice William Scroggs should be suspended from his duties or even committed while articles of impeachment were pending against him.</p><p>Grey joined 15 other opposition peers in the petition of 25 Jan. 1681 requesting the king not to convene the next Parliament at Oxford.<sup>41</sup> He was involved in supporting Slingsby Bethel and Edward Smyth at the Southwark election in February, but they were defeated despite Grey and Buckingham ‘riding before on their managed horses through the town’.<sup>42</sup> Initially Grey intended to join Shaftesbury in staying away from Parliament, for fear of capture, but after Shaftesbury relented and travelled to the notoriously royalist university city, Grey stayed with him on the second floor of the lodgings of Dr John Wallis.<sup>43</sup> He first sat on the Parliament’s second day, 22 Mar. and was present every day of this short-lived Parliament thereafter. He distinguished himself as an opponent of Danby’s petition for bail from the Tower which he, with Shaftesbury, Halifax, Bridgwater and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, argued was submitted to the House at an inopportune time, when there were other more proper matters to be discussed.<sup>44</sup> On 26 Mar. Grey was appointed a reporter for the conference requested by the Commons to discuss the method of passing bills, after it was learned that the bill for the repeal of 35 Eliz. I had not been duly presented to the king for his royal assent at the previous prorogation. The Commons also brought up to the House their impeachment against the informer Edward Fitzharris, which the House rejected, following the king’s wish that Fitzharris be left to the ordinary course of the law. According to his own later confession Grey was one of the group of Whig peers who stayed behind in the Lords’ chamber after the surprise dissolution of 28 Mar., ostensibly to put their signatures to the protest against the House’s rejection of Fitzharris’s impeachment, but also in order to join with supporters of exclusion in the Commons who had vowed to Shaftesbury to stay in session in defiance of the king. Anticlimactically, the peers discovered that most of their colleagues among the Commons had already left, ‘and soon after we heard the Commons house was empty; upon which we went away’.<sup>45</sup> He joined Shaftesbury, Monmouth and others in presenting Balliol with a gilt bowl for accommodating them during the Parliament.<sup>46</sup></p><h2><em>Radical Whig and rebel, 1681-8</em></h2><p>From that point Grey joined the more radical Whigs in taking ever more extreme, provocative and potentially treasonous routes to demonstrate their anti-Catholicism and opposition to York and his succession. In May 1681 he attended the first political trial of the ‘Tory reaction’, that of Edward Fitzharris, and he also signed the petition begging the king to grant a pardon to Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, for yet another one of his violent murders.<sup>47</sup> On 8 July Grey attended king’s bench for the trial of Stephen College, and also for Shaftesbury’s bail hearing, the earl having been arrested on 1 July. Grey stood bail on 28 Nov. for Howard of Escrick when he was discharged from confinement along with Shaftesbury.<sup>48</sup> Grey was belligerent and quick to challenge in defence of the Whig cause, unlike his former country colleague Huntingdon who sought to return to the favour of the king. Grey, Monmouth and Herbert of Chirbury took great offence at the comment that Huntingdon was reported to have made when he attended the king to kiss his hand on 21 Oct., that he ‘had by experience found, that they who promoted the bill of Exclusion were for the subversion of monarchy itself’, which had been printed in Thompson’s <em>Publick Intelligence</em> of 25 October. The three Whig peers demanded a published retraction from Huntingdon: the earl refused to comply and on 2 Nov. Grey and his colleagues published their own defence and apology. The matter eventually descended into a series of challenges and counter-challenges involving Herbert of Chirbury and some of Huntingdon’s military kinsmen.<sup>49</sup> On 17 Nov. Grey attended a bonfire at Smithfield in honour of the accession of Elizabeth I.<sup>50</sup> Grey himself was involved in a duel on 31 May 1682 with Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, over some disrespectful words Grey had said of him. Albemarle was forced to concede defeat to Grey and his second, Captain Charles Godfrey<sup>‡</sup>, another close associate of Monmouth.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Many contemporaries in 1681, and some scholars in the years following, thought that Grey of Warke was ‘cold Caleb’, mentioned fleetingly with ‘well-hung Balaam’ (most frequently assumed to be Huntingdon) and ‘canting Nadab’ (supposedly Howard of Escrick) among those ‘lords, below the dignity of verse’, ‘kind husbands’ and ‘mere nobles’ who were part of the circle of ‘Achitophel’ (Shaftesbury) manipulating ‘Absalom’ (Monmouth) in John Dryden’s satirical poem, <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em>. One reason for identifying Grey as Caleb is the epithet ‘cold’ and his placement among ‘kind husbands’, reflecting the complaisancy with which Grey faced his wife’s open affair with Monmouth.<sup>52</sup> Grey’s seeming indifference may have been because his own passions were at that time directed elsewhere, in a liaison even more scandalous than his wife’s – with her own sister, his sister-in-law, the underage Lady Henrietta Berkeley. As he was reported to have provocatively said in explanation, ‘he married [Henrietta’s] eldest sister and expected a maidenhead, but not finding it, he resolved to have one in the family, if any be left’.<sup>53</sup> On 20 Aug. 1682 Henrietta deserted her parents’ residence of Durdans in Surrey and went to London to reside in secret with Grey, moving from lodging to lodging to avoid being found. Her whereabouts with Grey were finally determined in mid-October and the matter was immediately a public scandal and quickly brought to court once the law term began on 23 October.<sup>54</sup> Grey was committed on 6 Nov., failed to obtain bail, and so was in custody until his trial on 23 Nov. (incidentally providing an alibi when later investigations revealed alleged plotting against the king at around the same time).<sup>55</sup> The trial was tumultuous from the start. The distraught countess of Berkeley refused to look at Grey or give her evidence while he was in the same room, and Henrietta made the surprise announcement at the end of the proceedings that she was now married to one William Turner, a menial servant and accomplice of Grey, and thus could not be forced to return to her father. The trial descended into a near riot at the end as Berkeley and Grey and their respective retainers literally fought over the body of Henrietta outside of the confines of the court in Westminster Hall. Grey and his accomplices in this venture were found guilty of the charges against them, but the judgment was deferred until the first day of the succeeding law term, by which time the matter had been somehow compromised between Grey and Berkeley, and no judgment entered in the record. The published transcript of this trial provided much of the material for Aphra Behn’s fictionalized account of the affair, <em>Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister</em>, published in three parts between 1684 and 1687.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Grey’s erotic adventures were made even more titillating to Behn’s readers because by the time the work was published, it was known that he had been engaging in potentially treasonous activity at the same time as he was seducing his sister-in-law. Most open and public was Grey’s involvement in the tumultuous politics of the City of London. On midsummer’s day in June 1682 he helped to orchestrate the riot at the London shrieval elections in which the incumbent sheriffs Thomas Pilkington<sup>‡</sup> and Samuel Shute presided over the election of the Whig candidates Thomas Papillon<sup>‡</sup> and John Dubois<sup>‡</sup>, in defiance of the lord mayor’s adjournment of the poll. The trial of Grey and his accomplices for inciting riot was originally scheduled for 16 Feb. 1683, but was put off until the following term when Grey challenged the make-up of the jury.<sup>57</sup> On 8 May 1683 he was found guilty of riot, and hard words passed between him and the attorney general.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Less well-known at the time was Grey’s central place in the plots of autumn 1682 for a co-ordinated national rebellion in which Shaftesbury and William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, would lead an insurrection in the City, while Monmouth would raise the western counties of Lancashire and Cheshire. For his part, Grey was to foment rebellion in Essex. Grey stood bail for Monmouth after he was arrested in late September 1682 for the riotous behaviour of his followers during his progress in the west.<sup>59</sup> In early 1683 Grey was co-opted by Monmouth to the ‘council of six’ which took over the conspiracy after Shaftesbury’s flight to the Netherlands, and he was, by his own account, central to the debates on the declaration of Whig principles that was to be drawn up before any insurrection.<sup>60</sup> On about 16 May 1683 over 50 muskets were found in ‘his house’ (which one is never specified by those reporting this incident) hidden in bed mattresses. He was hauled before the Privy Council to account for himself, and eventually had to enter a bond of £20,000 for his good behaviour, his brother Ralph and brother-in-law Richard Neville<sup>‡</sup> (married to Grey of Warke’s sister Catherine) standing surety for him.<sup>61</sup> Shortly thereafter he was, not surprisingly, heavily implicated in the confessions of the Rye House plotters, although in his later confession he insisted that neither he nor Monmouth knew about, or would have countenanced, the plans to murder the royal brothers.<sup>62</sup> On 26 June 1683 he was apprehended and sent to the Tower but was able to make his escape from the coach carrying him there when the serjeant-at-arms guarding him fell asleep.<sup>63</sup> By August Grey was in Cleves in the duchy of Brandenburg, in the company of Henrietta Berkeley as well as other plotters such as Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Ferguson. He occasionally visited the Netherlands, and in early June 1684 was in the company of Armstrong when he was seized by agents of the English envoy Thomas Chudleigh<sup>‡</sup> at Leiden en route to Amsterdam. As the warrant for his arrest did not include Grey’s name, the peer was allowed to escape once again.<sup>64</sup> Himself outlawed and attainted for treason, Grey’s lands were confiscated and their income managed to provide the funds for the gift of £16,000 made to Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, upon his appointment as lord president of the council in August 1684.<sup>65</sup></p><p>In the weeks following James II’s accession to the throne, Grey and Robert Ferguson acted as Monmouth’s principal advisers, spurring him on to raise rebellion in the west of England. Grey sailed with Monmouth and served as his general of horse, but his irregular and inexperienced cavalry was quickly dispersed at Sedgemoor. Grey’s contemporaries delighted in attributing it to the peer’s own cowardice and military ineptitude.<sup>66</sup> His life was spared largely through the intercessions of Rochester, who needed Grey alive in order to continue receiving the income from his entailed estates. At the recommendation of his captor after Sedgemoor, Richard Lumley*, Baron Lumley (later earl of Scarbrough), Grey, in exchange for his life, prepared a confession of his involvement in the various conspiracies against the Stuart brothers, which was published in 1754 as <em>A Secret History of the Rye House Plot</em>.<sup>67</sup> His pardon, on 26 Oct., was also contingent on his signing away most of the income from his estates to the crown and its servants.<sup>68</sup> Rochester in particular gained, as Grey was compelled to enter into an agreement which would convey much of his unentailed lands, after he had unburdened them of their debts and annuities, to Rochester, and which bound him to pay the remainder of the £16,000 pledged to the earl within five years. Ralph Grey, the heir to the entailed lands which were to provide much of the income for Rochester, and Richard Neville once again came to Grey’s rescue by entering into a bond of £14,000 in case of the non-payment of these debts.<sup>69</sup> Grey was called upon to act as witness for the prosecutions in the proceedings against Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon, of whom he had commented in his confession, ‘I never saw a man so zealous for a rebellion, that kept his word and engagements no better, than my Lord Brandon’.<sup>70</sup> At the conclusion of his testimony on 26 Nov. Grey made an ‘elaborate studied speech’ (as Roger Morrice described it) which another observer described as</p><blockquote><p>the finest, the best delivered, and the most like a gentleman I ever heard, in which he evidenced as much regret to appear in such circumstances, as much penitence for his past errors, and as much gratitude to the king as any creature could do, and as much resentment against those who invited them over and left them in the lurch when they were come, as was possible.<sup>71</sup></p></blockquote><p>Grey also testified at the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), on 14 Jan. 1686, but as he could only give a general account of the plotting of 1682-3 without pointing to any specific involvement of the peer, Delamer was ultimately unanimously acquitted by his peers.<sup>72</sup> Grey’s evidence was also used in the prosecutions of other Whig conspirators.<sup>73</sup> On 7 June 1686, having bought his life with his estate and his evidence against his former colleagues, Grey was restored in blood and title and was allowed to return to Up Park in order to manage the unentailed part of his property for Rochester’s benefit.<sup>74</sup></p><h2><em>Revolution, 1689-95</em></h2><p>Grey spent most of the rest of James II’s reign out of public life, probably concentrating his energies on recovering his fortunes. When his kinsman John Caryll, secretary to Mary of Modena, wrote asking him to assist James II during William of Orange’s invasion, Grey declined with the excuse that he had just had a bad fall from a horse.<sup>75</sup> Grey threw in his lot with William of Orange when it was safe to do so and James II had successfully fled the country. During the Convention he was a constant attender of the House for its first few critical weeks. In the debates surrounding the disposition of the crown he voted on 29 Jan. 1689 against the motion for a regency.<sup>76</sup> Two days later Grey voted to insert in the vote sent up from the Commons words declaring William and Mary king and queen. He consistently voted with the minority that James had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’, as signified by the dissents he signed on 2 and 4 Feb., until 6 Feb., when the balance of voting had changed in the House and he found himself in the majority voting for the Commons’ wording of their address, thus paving the way for William of Orange to be offered the crown. </p><p>On 21 Mar. 1689 Lord ‘Grey’ signed the protest against the rejection of the proposed repeal of the sacramental test from the bill to formulate oaths to the new monarchs. Both Grey and Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin, were in the House that day and as both were confirmed Williamites either of them could be the dissenting Lord Grey. More unambiguously ‘Grey of Warke’ was in these early weeks placed on committees for legislation which reflected the Whigs’ attempts to reverse the effects of James II’s reign. Considering his previous radical Whig activities and involvement in Monmouth’s Rebellion, it was fitting that he was named to the committees to consider the bills for voiding the attainders of Lord Russell (on 8 Mar.) and Alice Lisle (3 May), as well as the bill to make it treason to correspond with the exiled king (25 April). On 8 May he was named a reporter for a conference on the bill for convicting and disarming papists, but on 10 May his proxy was registered with Lumley. Grey returned to the House on 30 May, just in time to vote, the following day, in favour of reversing the harsh judgments levelled against Oates in 1685 and then to enter his protest when that motion failed. He last sat in the first session of the Convention on 13 June 1689 and in total came to just under half of its sittings.</p><p>Grey’s attendance in the House after that was sporadic and he does not appear to have been active for the few years. He was still suffering the consequences of his involvement in Monmouth’s Rebellion; most of his energies were probably devoted to clearing his debts to Rochester, and in 1691 he and his brothers were compelled to sell the disputed Gosfield estate in Essex.<sup>77</sup> He came to only seven sittings in the second session of the Convention in the winter of 1689, although he was there on 13 Nov. to act as a teller in the division on the motion, ultimately defeated, to send a message to the Commons requesting the attendance of John Wildman<sup>‡</sup> at the House’s committee of inspections investigating the ‘crimes’ and judicial murders of the previous two reigns. Fortunately for future identifications, on 21 Apr. 1690 Grey of Ruthin was raised in the peerage to be Viscount Longueville, though Grey did not in fact attend the first two sessions, in spring 1690 and in 1690-91, of William and Mary’s first Parliament.</p><p>Grey was present at 27 per cent of the sittings in 1691-2, first attending on 23 Nov. and last attending on 14 Dec. before a specific occasion brought about his return to the chamber. On 22 Jan. 1692, on a day when Grey was not present in the House, Rochester presented a petition in which he complained that he was being refused possession of the unentailed lands, still encumbered with debts and annuities, now due to him by the expiration of the five-year lease to Grey stipulated in the 1686 agreement, and further that there was still a substantial amount due to him from the original grant of £16,000. Rochester requested that Grey’s privilege of Parliament be waived so that he could be pursued him in law. This roused Grey who began to sit regularly from 26 January. On 2 Feb. he signed the dissent from the resolution to adhere to the amendments to the bill to establish commissioners for public accounts. Later that day he submitted his answer to Rochester’s petition and requested the House not to take away his privilege, complaining, among other charges levelled against Rochester, that he was now reduced for his only income to precisely the unentailed estate of which Rochester was now wishing to deprive him. Grey’s answer was referred to the committee for privileges to ‘consider precedents of when privileges had been disallowed and taken away’ and the committee chairman, Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, delivered his report in favour of Grey’s claiming privilege on 6 February.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Grey did not sit in the House again after that decision until 5 Dec. 1692, a month into the following session, when he became involved in the discussions on the ‘advice’ to be given to the king in the light of the military reverses of the previous summer. On 20 Dec. he was named a manager for the conference at which the House delivered to the Commons the papers submitted by the secretary of state Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, on the failure of the planned ‘descent’ on France the previous summer, with a request that the Commons consider and report on them. The following day he attended the conference where the Commons returned the papers without comment and instead delivered to the House’s reporters a vote praising their own Member, Edward Russell* later earl of Orford, for his conduct as admiral. Having attended on 22 Dec., the penultimate day before the House adjourned for Christmas, Grey did not return until 13 Jan. 1693. On 16 Jan. 1693 he was named to a committee to draw up clauses for the bill for the frequency of Parliaments, to ensure that Parliament would meet annually and would be newly elected every three years. The following day he joined in the two protests against the House’s rejection of the right of Charles Knollys to claim the earldom of Banbury, or even to have his case referred to the judges. On 19 Jan. he protested against the House’s abandonment of its amendment to the land tax bill which provided for a separate body of commissioners, drawn from the upper House, to assess the value of the peers’ lands. He also signed the protest against the House’s refusal to have the amendment considered by the committee for privileges.<sup>79</sup> He left the House for that session a mere two days later, on 21 Jan., having attended only 21 per cent of the sittings. Similarly he came to only a quarter of the sittings in the 1693-4 session. He was present on 17 Feb. 1694, when he voted in favour of the motion to reverse Chancery’s dismission of the petition of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the long-running cause of <em>Montagu v Bath</em>.</p><h2><em>Earl of Tankerville, 1695-99</em></h2><p>It was only mid-way through the following session of 1694-5, from December 1694, that Grey became a constant attender of the House, a major parliamentary figure and an effective and leading spokesman for the Whigs. Despite arriving a month into the session’s proceedings, he attended just over two-thirds of its sittings, his highest rate since the Exclusion Parliaments. Possibly, the ‘turn to the Whigs’ that had been slowly going on since 1693, and had seen the promotions in the peerage of Whig political leaders in the summer of 1694, encouraged Grey to re-enter politics. He quickly took to it and was a natural leader in the House. On 24 Jan. 1695 he first served as chairman for a meeting of the committee for the bill to vest in trustees lands belonging to Grey’s distant kinsman John Caryll, then in exile with James II at St. Germain. By 4 Feb. he appears to have been sole chairman and reported the bill to the House as fit to pass on 12 February.<sup>80</sup> While these proceedings were going on Grey was appointed on 6 Feb. to a committee to draw up the bill against coin-clipping and the debasement of the coinage. Between 16 and 23 Feb. he was named as a reporter at three conferences on the disputed amendment to the treason trials bill and on 20 Feb. he was also placed on the committee to draft the explanation for the House’s continuing adherence to its clause. When the matter was revived a month later, Grey again named as one of the House’s managers in the free conferences of 15 and 20 April.</p><p>The under-secretary of state James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> informed Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, in a letter of 1 Mar. 1695, of the reasons for Grey’s rapid rise in the estimation of the House:</p><blockquote><p>I perceive my Lord Grey is in great reputation for the late speeches he has made upon these two great occasions of the [Lancashire] Plot and the Fleet[.] He has been the greatest champion for both and not put himself always upon the defensive but as it came in his way[.] He has edged his eloquence with that keenness as to show the finders of faults have not kept themselves clear of them. In the debate on Wednesday [27 Feb.] when he highly extolled the sending the Fleet into the Mediterranean he said he did not know whose advice it was or whom we were obliged to for the counsel, but he was satisfied it did not come from France, though he feared there might have been a time when we received French advice and followed it too.<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>Grey had taken part in both these contentious matters. On 22 Feb. he had been a teller—probably, judging by Vernon’s comments, for the minority not contents—in the division on a successful motion to adjourn the House, at a point when the Lords were debating motions affirming the veracity of the allegations of the Lancashire Plot.<sup>82</sup> On 1 Mar. he was named to a committee to prepare an address to the king on the state of the Navy. Later, on 19 Mar., Grey signed his dissent to a resolution which furthered the peerage claim of Sir Richard Verney*, who would eventually become 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke. In the last month of the session he took part in the proceedings surrounding the allegations of corruption in the East India Company. On 16 Apr. he was placed on the drafting committee for a bill offering to indemnify Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> if he gave testimony of bribery in the Company and the following day he was also named to the committee entrusted to draw up points justifying the House’s procedures with Cooke, which he presented to the Commons at a conference later that day.</p><p>For his eloquence in support of the king’s interests, Grey was amply rewarded. A warrant for his creation as earl of Tankerville, a town in France where a 15th-century ancestor had performed signal military actions (contemporaries were quick to waggishly contrast it with Grey’s own performance at Sedgemoor) was dated 3 May, the day of the prorogation. Two days later he was sworn to the Privy Council as earl of Tankerville, even though the patent creating him under that title had not yet passed the seals and was only enrolled eight days later, on 11 May.<sup>83</sup> For the elections held following the dissolution of 11 Oct. 1695, the new earl of Tankerville succeeded in having his brother Ralph returned for Berwick-upon-Tweed having been absent from the Commons since 1681. In his strongest base, Sussex, Tankerville was now faced with a strong competitor in the region, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, with his large estates, centred on the great house of Petworth. Tankerville was unsuccessful in his attempt to have his old exclusionist clients, Major John Braman and Richard Farington<sup>‡</sup> elected for Chichester against Somerset’s choices, Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I] and William Elson<sup>‡</sup>. At the county level, he had been able to bring 2-300 supporters to the poll at Chichester to vote for the Whig Member Sir John Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., who, with his partner Sir William Thomas<sup>‡</sup>, bt, was able to defeat Somerset’s preference, the Tory Robert Orme<sup>‡</sup> in a contentious election.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Tankerville did not sit in the first session of the new Parliament until 10 Feb. 1696, when he was introduced in his new title. With this late start he attended in total only 45 per cent of the session’s sittings, but within two weeks of his arrival he became a major actor in the House as a result of his response to the news of the assassination attempt against William III. On 24 Feb. he chaired and reported from the drafting committee for the address to the king following his speech to Parliament informing them of the conspiracy.<sup>85</sup> He was also the principal manager for the two conferences with the Commons on the address, reporting to the House from both, the second time with the news that the lower House had concurred in it, with some amendments. He was foremost in the debates on the Association in a committee of the whole on 26 February. He was a teller on the motion to substitute a clause in the Association with a new one specifying that William III ‘hath a right by law to the crown of these realms, and that the late King James, nor the pretended prince of Wales, or any other person hath any right whatsoever to the same’. Undoubtedly Tankerville told for the contents in this division, for the Dutch envoy L’Hermitage reported him as ‘doing wonders’ in trying to convince the committee to accept William’s claims as ‘rightful and lawful’ king. Other contemporaries described Tankerville as one of the ‘chief court managers’ in this debate, who stood out for making ‘very learned’ speeches. He subscribed to the Association on 27 February.<sup>86</sup> L’Hermitage reported on 13 Mar. that in another speech Tankerville argued for a strong navy to defend the kingdom, pointing out that although the east wind had already saved the country once, and the west wind another time, England could not rely on all the points of the compass to perform miracles in its favour. By early May L’Hermitage was spreading the news that Tankerville was being touted to replace Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, as first lord of the Treasury. On 15 May Tankerville was instead appointed one of the first commissioners of the newly-created board of Trade, where he was able to use his position to procure the governorship of Barbados for his brother, Ralph.<sup>87</sup></p><p>In the following session of 1696-7, of which he attended 62 per cent of the sittings, Tankerville was on 30 Nov. 1696 appointed to represent the House in a conference on the Commons’ bill to reform and limit privilege of Parliament, a matter which continued to capture his personal interest. The main business to occupy Tankerville in this session, though, was the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. Before the debates began in the House, Vernon wrote to Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, that ‘some are sensible there will be a want of speakers to support the bill. My Lord Tankerville will signalize himself, but it is hard to find him seconds’, and after the first day of debate Vernon reported that Tankerville had managed the bill in the House.<sup>88</sup> L’Hermitage also identified Tankerville as one of the leading proponents of the bill, which he helped to vote through the House on 23 December.<sup>89</sup> By his prominent part in getting the bill through, it is almost certain that Tankerville was teller for the contents in the division of 26 Jan. 1697 on the motion to adjourn the House (following the reading of Lady Mary Fenwick’s petition begging that her husband’s sentence of death be commuted to banishment).<sup>90</sup> On 9 Mar. he was a teller in the division on whether the House should insist on its amendments to the bill for the prohibition of silks and calicos imported by the East India Company and he repeated the same role ten days later, at a division on the similar question whether to adhere to the amendments. He almost certainly told for the not contents in both these divisions, for after the vote to adhere passed on 19 Mar. he was one of only four peers, all Whigs, to sign the protest against it.</p><p>Tankerville continued as a spokesman for the Whigs in the last (1697-8) session of the Parliament, when he came to 70 per cent of the sittings. On 10 Jan. 1698 he was named as a manager for the conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to prohibit correspondence with James II and his adherents at St. Germain, despite the recently-concluded peace with France. He was a teller in the division of 15 Mar. on whether to commit the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He told for the contents as he was listed as voting in favour of commitment and subscribed to the protest when the motion was lost by one vote.<sup>91</sup> The following day, 16 Mar., he also signed the dissent from the vote to grant relief to the appellants in the cause <em>James Bertie v. Viscount Falkland</em>. The French ambassador, Count Tallard, writing to Louis XIV on 9 May 1698, listed Tankerville as among the six most esteemed men in England.<sup>92</sup> From 13 May he was busy as the sole chairman of a committee which over the next several weeks gathered copious testimony on abuses in the assigning and felling of trees in the New Forest, which cheated the Navy of suitable timber for its naval stores, and on 25 May he was able to give a preliminary report concerning the best means to enclose and protect the timber there. On the previous day he had been named as a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill for suppressing blasphemy. He was named as a manager for a conference on 15 June on the procedures for the trial of John Goudet and other merchants, and he helped to draft and present to the Commons at a conference the following day the House’s reasons for adhering to its resolutions. On 20 June Tankerville was appointed a manager for a conference on the Commons’ amendments to the bill on the Alverstoke Waterworks of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, and for another conference on the continuing dispute between the Houses over the procedures for the Goudet trial. He was a teller on 23 June in a procedural motion over the bill for improving trade with Russia. At the same time as he was wrapping up his committee on abuses in the New Forest, Tankerville also chaired, on 1-2 July, three meetings of the committee to hear testimony to help establish the wealth of the merchants who had pleaded guilty in the Goudet impeachments. He reported from this committee on 2 July and consequently was named as a manager for another conference to negotiate the timing of the trials. Two days later, with the prorogation imminent, he gave the final report from the committee on abuses in the New Forest. The House resolved on an address requesting the king to take measures to prevent future abuses, and on the following day, 5 July, Tankerville was able to report the king’s positive reception to the request, before the prorogation later that day.<sup>93</sup></p><p>For the elections to the 1698 Parliament, Tankerville and Somerset decided to cooperate for both Chichester and Sussex. They were unsuccessful in getting Ranelagh re-elected for Chichester, which prompted Tankerville to offer Somerset some advice from his long experience in managing the borough: ‘I will make a demonstration to your grace when I have the honour to wait on you, and will propose such a method to you of commanding that city for the future that in all elections to come it shall be at your disposal’. For the Sussex election, Tankerville still refused to support Orme, though he assured Somerset he was eager ‘to preserve the good understanding which has so happily begun between us’, but his pleas to Somerset to find a candidate on whom they could agree were fruitless, as this time Orme was successful in winning a seat.<sup>94</sup> </p><p>Tankerville maintained his previous attendance rate of 70 per cent in the first session of the new Parliament. On 27 Jan. 1699 he was named as a manager for the conference on the amendments to the bill to prohibit the export of corn, malt and meal for one year. Vernon reported to Shrewsbury on 31 Jan. that various members of the Lords objected to the small peacetime standing army provided for in the disbanding bill sent up from the Commons, but felt that it was imperative for maintaining peace between the two Houses and getting business done not to reject it. ‘My lord chancellor [John Somers*, Baron Somers] and my Lord Tankerville were the most copious on the subject’, he added.<sup>95</sup> L’Hermitage reported that Tankerville had stressed the necessity of William’s maintaining the love of his people and a right understanding with Parliament, even at the cost of being unprepared militarily.<sup>96</sup> On 8 Feb., as the committee of the whole House considered ways to maintain the king’s favoured Dutch Guards, despite the terms of the disbandment bill, it was moved by those opposed to this proposition to resume the House. Tankerville was a teller on this question, probably for the not contents, and the motion was defeated by a majority of 11. The committee of the whole went on to pass the motion expressing their readiness ‘to enter into any expedient’ for retaining the Dutch Guards.<sup>97</sup> On 2 Mar. he was appointed to manage a conference on the bill to prevent the distilling of corn. In the final days of the session he was, on 3 May, chosen to represent the House in a conference on the amendments to the bill for placing a duty on paper and vellum. When the House decided to insist on their amendments Tankerville was likewise placed on the committee to draw up reasons for the decision, but time ran out when the session was prorogued on 4 May.</p><h2><em>Whig minister, 1699-1701</em></h2><p>By this point, favours and offices were heaped on the increasingly sickly Tankerville. He was offered the post of first commissioner of the Admiralty in May 1699, after Orford had resigned from the post. But, as Vernon reported, he had heard that Tankerville had said that ‘he would be drawn through a horse pond before he would take that employment’. L’Hermitage thought that Tankerville had turned down the post, ‘for fear of being the target of the House of Commons, as have been all the others’. Nevertheless, only four days after turning down this post, Tankerville accepted the offer to be second commissioner of the Treasury, serving under a commoner, Charles Montagu*, the future Baron Halifax. As Vernon reported to Shrewsbury, ‘he did it with so good a grace, that the king is very well satisfied in the giving it to him’.<sup>98</sup> When Montagu resigned on 15 Nov. 1699, Tankerville moved into his place as first lord of the Treasury.<sup>99</sup> This was one day before the opening of the second session of the Parliament, of 1699-1700, during which Tankerville attended 68 per cent of the sittings. He chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House which on 9 Feb. 1700 discussed the bill to take away the bounty on the export of corn. On 23 Feb. he voted and protested against the passage of the bill to maintain the Tory-backed East India Company as a corporation. Tankerville was on 9-10 Apr. assigned to represent the House in three last-ditch conferences on the Commons’ supply bill which provided for the parliamentary resumption of William III’s grants of forfeited Irish lands. Tankerville’s own stance on this controversial measure was made clear by Vernon when he wrote to Shrewsbury on 13 Apr., two days after the session had been prorogued, that Tankerville, as a good court Whig, had ‘all along’ voted for the bill, even though ‘the Whigs are suspected to have encouraged the opposition underhand’.<sup>100</sup></p><p>The mismanagement of this bill, which led to a breakdown between the government and Parliament, led to rumours of wholesale changes in the ministry, including the possible replacement of the Whigs, including Tankerville, by Tories.<sup>101</sup> Instead Tankerville was on 27 June appointed one of the lords justice entrusted with governing the realm during William’s absence.<sup>102</sup> The death of the lord privy seal John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, on 10 July, only a few days after William’s departure, however opened the way for moving Tankerville out of the Treasury in order to promote Godolphin to be first lord there, a move demanded by the increasingly vociferous Tories anxious to have a part in the remodelled ministry. After weeks of negotiation, Tankerville finally agreed to accept the privy seal and was sworn into office before the Privy Council on 5 Nov., allowing Godolphin to move up to head the Treasury.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Parliament was dissolved on 19 Dec. 1700, shortly after these complex negotiations to form a new ‘mixed ministry’ were completed. By the time the new Parliament met on 6 Feb. 1701, Tankerville was seriously ill and could only manage to come to five meetings of Parliament in March 1701 before slipping back into absence. In a letter of 29 May, written with ‘a trembling gouty hand’, Tankerville expressed his fears to his Whig colleague, Somers, of the progress in the Commons of the bill to take away privilege of Parliament, for if the bill passed ‘it will enable Lord Rochester to pursue me with a most terrible persecution from which I cannot hope for any relief’ as the king had not made good his previous promises, procured by Somers, Shrewsbury and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to make Tankerville ‘easy’ in relation to Rochester’s claims on his estate. Tankerville was well aware though that Somers had more pressing matters on his mind at this point, namely his impeachment by the Commons. He promised his colleague his support at the trial despite his poor health: ‘I will be carried thither if alive; I had almost said if in my grave I should rise again upon that occasion’. Tankerville did rouse himself from his bed one more time to vote on 17 June for Somers’s acquittal and died at his house on Pall Mall only a week later, on 24 June, the day when Parliament was prorogued and the Act of Settlement received the royal assent.<sup>104</sup> Tankerville left no male heirs and the earldom of Tankerville became extinct, although the title was later revived and granted in October 1714 to his son-in-law Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston, who had married Tankerville’s daughter Mary in July 1695. This daughter was by his will of 31 May 1696 the sole heiress and executrix of Tankerville’s personal estate and by a codicil of 17 Apr. 1701 he additionally charged her to provide an annuity of £200 p.a. to Lady Henrietta Berkeley.<sup>105</sup> His younger brother Ralph Grey succeeded to the title of Grey of Warke, as well as to the family’s entailed estate, as well as all the complicated financial obligations with which his elder brother’s extravagant and reckless political actions had loaded it.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GREY, Henry (c. 1600-73) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1600–73)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 26 July 1614 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. Grey of Groby; <em>cr. </em>26 Mar. 1628 earl of STAMFORD |
|
First sat 30 Jan. 1621; first sat after 1660, 1 May 1660; last sat 1 May 1668 |
|
MP Leics. 1654 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1600,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Sir John Grey<sup>‡</sup> of Pirgo, Essex (1576–1611), and Elizabeth (1577–1642), da. of Edward Nevill<sup>†</sup>, 8th Bar. Abergavenny. <em>educ</em>. matric. Trinity, Cambridge 1615, MA 1615; Padua 1618;<sup>2</sup> G. Inn 1632. <em>m</em>. lic. 19 July 1620, Anne (<em>d</em>. c.Oct. 1676), da. and coh. of William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, <em>styled</em> Ld. Burghley, later 2nd earl of Exeter, 5s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. <em>d</em>. 21 Aug. 1673; admon. 2 Oct. 1673 to wid.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Leics 1642–9; commr. maintenance of Somerset forces 1643, militia, Leics. Mar. 1660;<sup>4</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. Leics. Mar.–Aug. 1660.</p><p>Col. regt. of foot (parl.) 1642–3; capt. tp. of horse (parl.) 1642;<sup>5</sup> gov. (parl.), Hereford Oct.–Dec. 1642;<sup>6</sup> c.-in-c. (parl.), Heref., Glos., Salop., Worcs. and Wales Dec. 1642–Sept. 1643,<sup>7</sup> Devon and Cornw. Jan.–Sept. 1643.</p><p>Commr. excise 1645, to treat with Scotland 1645, 1646, 1648, exclusion from sacrament 1646, sale of bishops’ lands 1646, compounding 1647, visitation of Oxford Univ. 1647, indemnity ordinance 1647, navy and customs 1647, scandalous offences 1648.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by C. Johnson, 1638, National Trust, Dunham Massey Hall; oil on canvas by J-B. Gaspars, c. 1665, National Trust, Dunham Massey Hall; Wenceslaus Hollar, etching, late 1640s, NPG D28239.</p> |
<p>Henry Grey came from a long-distinguished Leicestershire family.<sup>10</sup> His great-grandfather was Lord John Grey, a son of Thomas Grey<sup>†</sup>, 2nd marquess of Dorset and younger brother of Henry Grey<sup>†</sup>, duke of Suffolk, who was attainted in 1554 for his attempt to place his own daughter Lady Jane Grey on the throne. Lord John Grey’s son, Sir Henry Grey<sup>†</sup>, was in his own turn created Baron Grey of Groby in 1603, and when he died on 26 July 1614 it was his 14-year-old grandson Henry who inherited the title and estate, his own son Sir John Grey having predeceased him in 1611. Through his marriage to Anne Cecil, Henry Grey acquired the castle, borough and manor of Stamford in Lincolnshire. He first sat in the House as Baron Grey of Groby on 30 Jan. 1621, but was promoted to an earldom in recognition of the increased standing that his Cecil inheritance had given him.</p><p>A prominent, and often aggressive and violent, landowner in both Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, with an estimated income of £4,000 p.a., Stamford was also a man of puritan inclinations, strongly opposed to the clericalism of the Laudian Church. Although Charles I had paid a royal visit to Stamford’s house at Bradgate in 1634, by the end of the decade Stamford was one of the many puritan peers disgruntled with his rule. In the Long Parliament, Stamford, stood in opposition to the king in the Lords, while his son and heir apparent, Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Grey of Groby, sitting for Leicester in the Commons, was equally, if not more, active against the king. In February 1642 Parliament appointed Stamford its lord lieutenant of Leicestershire, and when war began he was made a colonel of a parliamentary regiment of foot and captain of horse.</p><p>Appointed governor of Hereford in October 1642 and then commander-in-chief in Wales and its bordering marcher counties in December, from May 1643 he also led the parliamentary armies in Devon and Cornwall. He was defeated at Stratton on 16 May, and ‘having stood at a safe distance all the time of the battle’, according to the later account of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, ‘as soon as he saw the day lost … made all imaginable haste to Exeter’, where he endured a siege for three months before surrendering the town to Prince Maurice on 5 Sept. 1643.<sup>11</sup> He retired to Westminster, where he set about defending himself against the charges of cowardice and military incompetence levelled against him, but the House eventually recognized his services in 1644 by granting him £1,000 and awarding him the sequestered estate of Charles Stanhope*, Baron Stanhope of Harrington. From this point, Stamford played no further role in the military events of the civil wars.</p><p>The attacks that he faced in Parliament and his opposition to the Independent scheme of a New Model Army, as well as perhaps some local rivalries, may explain Stamford’s physical assault on the Member for Leicestershire, Sir Arthur Hesilrige<sup>‡</sup>, in 1645, for which misdemeanour he was impeached by the Commons on 28 June. Despite the fact that he was a peer, he made his defence before the Commons on 30 Sept. and, although the case was later dropped, this was to become an important precedent in later years as the members of the upper House tried to assert their right to be tried only by their peers. Throughout 1645–8 he was an intermittent member of the House and was often placed on parliamentary commissions, especially those concerning lay control of the church.<sup>12</sup> He was also closely involved in managing Parliament’s increasingly fractious relations with the Scots and their army in England.<sup>13</sup> In divisions in the House Stamford initially sided by and large with the group of Independent peers headed by Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, but he became increasingly dismayed by the radical turn of politics after 1648.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Although he remained among the small number of peers continuing to attend the House in the latter half of 1648, on 6 Dec. 1648, the day after Pride’s Purge, Stamford was granted leave of the House to go into the country for six weeks, and was not in Westminster for the execution of the king and the abolition of the House of Lords.<sup>15</sup> In contrast his own radical son Grey of Groby played a prominent part as an orchestrator of the Purge and later as one of the judges in Charles I’s trial, his signature on the death warrant appearing prominently. Grey of Groby went on to hold a number of important military and government posts in the Commonwealth but was hounded during the Protectorate for his close contacts with Levellers and other radicals, and in April 1657 this young firebrand, who increasingly caused distress to his more conservative father, died of the gout, leaving behind only a young son, Thomas Grey*, later 2nd earl of Stamford.</p><p>Stamford himself remained aloof from the Interregnum governments, except for a brief period in the first Protectorate Parliament of 1654 when, although a peer, he sat for Leicestershire, for which county he also continued to serve as a justice of the peace. Perhaps spurred on by his son-in-law Sir George Booth*, later Baron Delamer, in August 1659 he tried to raise a small number of forces in Leicestershire for the restoration of Charles II, but was quickly apprehended.<sup>16</sup> He was released from his incarceration by the Long Parliament in March 1660 and at the opening of the Convention Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in drawing up his list of potential members of the House, marked Stamford as one of only six peers who had actually sat in both Houses during the preceding twenty years.</p><p>As a peer who had remained in the House in 1648 it was determined that Stamford could be admitted to the House at its opening, but he did not appear until its fifth day, 1 May 1660. He continued to sit for a further 80 meetings of that assembly, just under a half of the total sittings, until it adjourned in September 1660. He did not come to any of the meetings in the winter of 1660. He did not take an active role in the Convention, being nominated to just two select committees on 16 and 19 July 1660. On 11 July he did submit a petition to the House complaining of the harsh treatment dealt to him, and particularly to his house at Bradgate, by Major William Hubbert at the time of Booth’s rising. The commissioners for settling the militia in Leicestershire had later determined that Hubbert’s actions had been ‘without any order or authority’, and it was decided that this petition would be more fully considered when the House took up the Act of Indemnity for discussion.<sup>17</sup> No further reference to this petition appears in the Journal, but the dispute between Hubbert and Stamford appears to have still been rumbling along in chancery as late as 1668.<sup>18</sup> Stamford probably exerted some influence, as one who had tried to bring the king back in 1659, in ensuring that his son Grey of Groby did not have his corpse disinterred and hanged, as was done to the bodies of the other prominent regicides, and that his son’s estate was not exempted from the Act of Oblivion.<sup>19</sup></p><p>The frequent illnesses which had long plagued Stamford took their toll. He was absent for all of the meetings of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament before the summer recess. He registered his proxy with Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, on 16 May 1661 and his absence was excused by the House on 15 June, ‘he being not well’.<sup>20</sup> He returned to the House on 21 Nov. 1661, and was present for just over half of the meetings in the winter of 1661–2, but again played little role, being named to only five select committees during that entire time, largely for bills involving trade and manufacture. He came to only eight meetings in the 1663 session, quitting the House on 21 May 1663, and his illnesses and absence appear to have been so well known and accepted at this time that Wharton did not even include his name in his forecast of opponents and supporters of the lord chancellor Clarendon in the impeachment attempt of July 1663. However, he was not completely divorced from parliamentary affairs and at some point early in Charles II’s reign put forward to him (or more probably to Clarendon) a proposal for a parliamentary bill that would ensure that a proportion of the revenue of every city, borough, corporate town and livery company in England would be directed to the royal coffers to assist in the rebuilding of Whitehall.<sup>21</sup></p><p>After 1663 Stamford did not reappear in the House for five years. He seems to have been abroad for part of that time, returning to England in March 1666.<sup>22</sup> During his absence from the House his 1645 impeachment by the Commons came to the attention of the Lords in their wrangle with the lower House over the Commons’ attempt to impeach John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt. At the heart of the quarrel was Mordaunt’s right to have counsel plead his defence in the lower chamber and the Lords in a decision of 28 Jan. 1667 pointed out that such a right had been extended to Stamford in 1645.</p><p>Stamford did devote part of his time during this period to looking after his own and his family’s interests. In the spring of 1663 he petitioned the king to re-grant to him the 4,000 acres of Wildmore Fen and Armtree manor in Lincolnshire, property which Stamford had conveyed to Charles I in the 1630s in order to have royal assistance in his enclosure of this fenland. A compromise was reached with the grantees of part of the estate, Robert Bruce*, 2nd Baron Bruce of Whorlton (later earl of Ailesbury), Stamford’s son-in-law, and Henry Hungate. In July 1666 Armtree and Wildmore Fen were granted to Stamford in the name of three of his younger children.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Stamford returned to the House on 17 Feb. 1668, probably in order to manage a petition submitted by him and Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, for the title of the manor of Hedingham in Essex, then in the possession of Brien Cockayne, Viscount Cullen [I]. Both Stamford and Berkshire were married to daughters of the 2nd earl of Exeter, co-heiresses of their third sister, the late Diana Cecil, who had come into this property as part of her jointure at the death of her first husband, Henry de Vere<sup>†</sup>, 18th earl of Oxford. Oxford himself had been granted the property from his mother, Elizabeth Trentham, and by a settlement she made in 1609 the reversion of the property, failing heirs of the 18th earl, was to go to the heirs of her brother Francis. Cullen claimed the property through his wife, Elizabeth, Francis Trentham’s heiress, and the House, hearing his argument on 30 Mar. 1668 that his wife’s claim to the property had never been disputed in a court of law, dismissed the petition of Stamford and Berkshire.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Stamford was present when the petition was first presented on 24 Feb. 1668 but left the House three days later and did not attend for its dismissal. He only sat again on 20 Apr. and came to the House for the last time on 1 May 1668, having attended in total only 16 sittings of this session. In the following years he began to register his proxy with other peers. On 13 Nov. 1669 he gave it to William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire, for the session of winter 1669. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), held his proxy from 4 Mar. 1670 until the end of the session in April 1671 and Stamford later registered it with Basil Fielding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, on 8 Mar. 1673. A marginal note next to this proxy registration indicates that it was vacated by his death, but the earl died at his house at Bradgate on 21 Aug. 1673, well after that session had ended. He died intestate and his estate was put into administration to his widow in October 1673. His title and estate were inherited by his grandson, Thomas Grey, still a minor.</p><p>The first earl of Stamford may not have had a politically active career in the Restoration, but both his grandson, Stamford, and his younger son, Anchitell Grey<sup>‡</sup>, were leading figures in the politics of the period, and Anchitell’s record of debates in the Commons has become one of the principal sources for its history.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GREY, Henry (1671-1740) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1671–1740)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1671-1702 Ld. Grey (or inaccurately Ld. Ruthen, Ruthin or Ruthyn); <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Aug. 1702 as 12th earl of KENT; <em>suc. </em>mo. 1 Nov. 1702 as 2nd Bar. Lucas of Crudwell; <em>cr. </em>14 Dec. 1706 mq. of KENT; <em>cr. </em>28 Apr. 1710 duke of KENT; <em>cr. </em>19 May 1740 Mq. GREY |
|
First sat 20 Oct. 1702; last sat 20 Dec. 1739 |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 28 Sept. 1671, o.s. of Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent and Mary Lucas (<em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Lucas of Crudwell). <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Holland, Germany, Italy, Geneva) 1690-2;<sup>1</sup> LLD, Cambs. 1705. <em>m</em>. (1) 20 Apr. 1695<sup>2</sup> (with £20,000),<sup>3</sup> Jemima (<em>d</em>.1728), da. of Thomas Crew*, 2nd Bar. Crew, 5s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 7da. (6 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.);<sup>4</sup> (2) 24 Mar.1729, Sophia (<em>d</em>.1748), da. of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, 1s. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 1da. KG 1713. <em>d</em>. 5 June 1740; <em>will</em> 29 June 1736-27 May 1740, pr. 13 June 1740.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1704;<sup>6</sup> ld. chamb. 1704-10; ld. justice 1 Aug.-18 Sept. 1714; constable of Windsor Castle 1714-16; gent. of the bedchamber 1714-16; ld. steward 1716-19; ld. kpr. of the privy seal 1719-20.</p><p>Ld. lt., Herefs. 1704-14, Beds. 1711-14, Bucks. 1711-12; <em>custos</em>. <em>rot</em>. Beds. 1711.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1705, Wrest Park.</p> |
<p>Grey (or Ruthin), as he was styled before succeeding to the title, was known as ‘the Bug’ or ‘His Stinkingess’, apparently because he suffered from remarkably bad breath in an age when personal hygiene was probably rudimentary at best.<sup>10</sup> His historical reputation has not proved much more flattering, although some contemporaries complimented him as an astute moderate. Cary Gardiner comparing Grey with his father reckoned he ‘much transcends him in parts’, and Swift considered him ‘good natured’. Others (such as John Hervey<sup>†</sup>, Baron Hervey) regarded him either as a time-server of the most opportune variety, willing to toe whichever line happened to be in fashion, or a harmless nonentity who owed his appointment to a number of key offices precisely to that fact.<sup>11</sup> Arthur Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup> remarked that it seemed ‘as if Bug had been fortunately made by providence to supply a vacancy that was to be filled up with something very insignificant’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Grey certainly seems to have had little problem with serving in a variety of administrations. Having been reckoned in his early years ‘always violent to the Tory party’, he slipped seamlessly into the ranks of the court Whigs on his appointment as lord chamberlain.<sup>13</sup> As such his career mimicked that of a number of courtiers who saw their duty first and foremost to serve the monarch, in return for which they expected appropriate favours. Nor should he be regarded as being without talent. His correspondence reveals him to have been a man with a keen sense of humour and his political longevity belies his apparent inconsequence. Thus over the course of a career in the Lords of just under 40 years he progressed from an earldom to a dukedom and, dying without male heirs, succeeded in securing a marquessate shortly before his death specially framed to descend to his granddaughter, Lady Jemima Campbell, so that his honours would endure.</p><p>Grey’s father had opposed settling the crown on William and Mary preferring the kind of settlement envisaged by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. It seems likely that Grey too was sympathetic to this view (he appears to have been a regular visitor at the home of his neighbour in Bedfordshire, the Jacobite peer Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury).<sup>14</sup> Shortly after the Revolution, he departed on the expected tour of Holland, Germany and Italy and early on demonstrated a wilfulness that meant that he took in Rome in his wanderings, in spite of a clear command from his mother not to visit that city. He took advantage of an introduction to Cardinal Howard to visit a consistory enabling him to ‘have a sight of antichrist’ (the Pope) but expressed disappointment that he was unable to get a glimpse of the Pope’s horns and cloven hooves.<sup>15</sup> Following a spell in Geneva, Grey returned to England in February 1692.<sup>16</sup> Until his succession to the peerage he appears to have spent his time engaged in a round of gaming, hunting and visits to the chocolate house. Although he seems to have been content not to involve himself directly in politics, a note in his accounts which refers to paying one of the doorkeepers at Parliament £1 1<em>s</em>. 1<em>d</em>. in April 1693 may suggest that he occasionally took advantage of his right as the eldest son of a peer to attend debates.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Grey’s life of comparative ease was brought to an abrupt halt in August 1702 when he succeeded to the earldom following the death of his father. With the peerage he succeeded to a substantial fortune and interest based on lands in Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Herefordshire as well as to estates that had descended through his mother in Northamptonshire and Wiltshire.<sup>18</sup> Later that year he benefited financially still further by the death of his sister, Lady Amabel Grey, by whose death he was reputed to have secured an addition of £30,000 to his fortune (the true figure appears to have been nearer £23,000).<sup>19</sup></p><p>Kent took his seat on 20 Oct. after which he was present on almost 55 per cent of all sitting days. He appears to have made little impact on the session, which may in part be attributed to the loss of his sister the following month. In January 1703 just how little was yet known about him is revealed in the forecasts surrounding the occasional conformity bill. A list compiled by Nottingham included Kent among those thought likely to support the measure but was further annotated, with a revision in pencil, listing Kent as a likely opponent of the bill. On 16 Jan. Kent revealed his hand by voting against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the penalty clause. The following month, on 22 Feb., he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to commit the bill for the landed qualification of Members of the Commons and the same day he served as one of the tellers on the motion whether the bill should be rejected.</p><p>Kent’s attitude to the occasional conformity bill remained ambiguous, and he was listed (with a query) as a potential supporter of the bill in a forecast compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, at the beginning of November 1703. He took his seat in the new session on 9 Nov., after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days, and on 26 Nov. he was again listed by Sunderland among the bill’s likely supporters. This assessment was confirmed on 14 Dec. when he was among those to support it.</p><p>Kent attempted to employ his interest on behalf of his cousin, Banastre Maynard, in March 1704, approaching John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, for an ensign’s commission for the young man.<sup>20</sup> Although Marlborough obliged, Maynard’s father (Kent’s uncle), Banastre Maynard*, 3rd Baron Maynard, objected that his son had been commissioned into a regiment that was still in the process of being raised thereby failing to meet his object of getting Ensign Maynard out of England and away from his creditors as soon as possible.<sup>21</sup> Maynard continued to prove a problem for his family over the coming months before being found a place in a regiment in Flanders.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Kent was severely injured in a riding accident at the beginning of April 1704 and was at one point thought to be in danger of losing his life.<sup>23</sup> In the event his injuries proved far less threatening and, having made a full recovery, he was later that month the unexpected beneficiary of the newly vacated office of lord chamberlain. Kent’s appointment appears to have taken a number of observers by surprise.<sup>24</sup> Most detected the hand of the duchess of Marlborough in his selection, an assumption that Kent was more than happy to confirm by writing soon after to thank the duchess for her role in securing him ‘the honour designed me’.<sup>25</sup> He also wrote to Marlborough to express his ‘thanks for any share’ he may have had in it.<sup>26</sup> Unsurprisingly, Kent made no reference to the reputed £10,000 the post was supposed to have cost him.<sup>27</sup> Neither of the parties appeared very satisfied with his selection. The Tory press was quick to propagate rumours that he had lost the £10,000 to the duchess at the gaming tables, while other commentators pointed out that ‘the Whigs have no reason to boast at this change for that noble lord appeared for the occasional conformity bill and always for the interest of the church’. Summarizing the situation, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, noted that ‘the whole town was thoroughly disappointed about Bug’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>However disappointed society may have been by his appointment, Kent attempted to woo at least some at court by hosting a lavish entertainment on the Thames in May.<sup>29</sup> In June he was one of two peers rumoured to be in line to be promoted to dukedoms and the same month he was appointed to the lieutenancy of Herefordshire.<sup>30</sup> For once, the reaction was less caustic, with Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, Baron Coningsby [I], (later earl of Coningsby), writing to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, that, ‘it’s certainly most proper for him he having the best estate and at least as good an inclination to her majesty’s service as any nobleman who has an estate among us’.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Having attended the prorogation day of 4 July 1704, Kent took his seat in the new session on 24 Oct. after which he was present on approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days. The following month he was listed among those thought likely to support the Tack, and on 18 Nov. he was entrusted with Maynard’s proxy which was vacated by the close.<sup>32</sup> The end of the parliamentary session in March 1705 coincided with rumours that Kent was to be turned out of his place as lord chamberlain.<sup>33</sup> In October it was reported that John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, one of the former competitors for the place, was to be appointed in his stead. In the event, the rumour proved to be groundless. It was later suggested that Kent’s ability to retain the chamberlaincy for so long was more owing to his comparative unimportance set against ‘fear of disobliging a multitude’ who all thought themselves better qualified for the place rather than from any of his own merits.<sup>34</sup></p><p>In spite of such reports of his paltry influence at court, Kent continued to wield significant local interest. In the elections that spring, he promised his support to James Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Scudamore [I], for the county seat in Herefordshire.<sup>35</sup> He also employed his interest in Bedfordshire on behalf of the Whig candidates, though in the latter case a resurgent Tory interest left the seats divided between the two parties.<sup>36</sup> Kent took his seat in the new Parliament on 27 Oct. 1705 and on 14 Nov. he reported the queen’s answer to the Lords’ address. Absent for a few days towards the close of the month, on 26 Nov. he registered his proxy with Godolphin, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 3 December. The same month he was one of those to vote against the Tory inspired motion that the church was in danger under the present administration.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Kent was able to call upon both the queen and duchess of Marlborough to stand as godmothers to his new daughter, Lady Anne Grey, in February 1706.<sup>38</sup> The child’s godfather was the queen’s consort, Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland.<sup>39</sup> Kent returned to the House for the single sitting day of 21 Nov. and then resumed his place at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. Present on almost 62 per cent of all sitting days in the session, he was one of a number of peers to be promoted at that time and at the close of the month he was introduced in his new dignity as marquess of Kent between Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester. Having taken his place, he then acted as one of the sponsors of the newly promoted Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester. Early the following year Kent was involved in a dispute with the lord great chamberlain, Robert Bertie*, marquess of Lindsey (later duke of Ancaster), over which of them ought to lead the queen at the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s. On 11 Jan. 1707 Harley wrote to Kent advising him that the dispute was to be debated in council on 23 Jan. when he ought to be ‘prepared with your counsel to argue on your behalf.’<sup>40</sup> The disagreement was settled in Kent’s favour, it being concluded that the lord chamberlain should lead on all occasions barring those when the queen was in her robes.<sup>41</sup> Kent was absent from the House for just over a week in the middle of January 1707 but covered his absence by registering his proxy with Godolphin on 14 Jan. The proxy was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 22 Jan., and on 3 Feb. he received that of his uncle, Maynard, which was vacated by the close of the session. The following month Kent complained of the activities of an Irish clergyman named Higgins, who had preached a sermon declaring the Church of England to be in danger, as a result of which Higgins was arrested on Sunderland’s warrant.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Following the brief prorogation Kent attended on five days of the nine-day session that met in mid-April 1707. Shortly afterwards rumours circulated that he was to be put out as lord chamberlain and replaced by James Douglas*, duke of Queensberry [S].<sup>43</sup> Although nothing came of this, towards the end of May it was reported that there had been a dramatic falling-out between Kent and Godolphin over the creation of the two Scots dukes, James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], and John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S]. Kent claimed these promotions were contrary to a former promise made by Godolphin, and their argument was said to have been carried on in the queen’s presence with Kent insisting that he regarded it as ‘a slur upon the English peerage’.<sup>44</sup> It was perhaps in part Kent’s resentment of having been overlooked on this occasion that led him to press to be rewarded with the garter that summer, a pretension which was greeted by Marlborough with disbelief. In a letter to his duchess, Marlborough complained, ‘as to what you write of Kent pressing for the blue ribbon, it would be scandalous to give it him, since he has no one quality that deserves it.’<sup>45</sup></p><p>Shortly before the opening of the new Parliament, Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> sought Harley’s mediation with Kent over a local dispute between the two men in Herefordshire. Foley was eager to assure the marquess ‘how false and groundless a story was told him of my being in any design to pull down his weirs.’<sup>46</sup> Kent took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Nov. 1707, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days but he seems to have made no particular impact on the session. Following the dissolution in April 1708, he used his interest in Bedfordshire on behalf of the Whig candidates, Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Gostwick<sup>‡</sup>, who were both returned.<sup>47</sup> In spite of this demonstration of his local interest and rumours popularized in a set of comic verses composed by Congreve that ‘that little great man’ was soon to be viewed ‘in ribbon blue’,<sup>48</sup> Kent’s application to be rewarded with a garter was again met with disdain by Marlborough, and towards the end of May he was said to be talking very freely about the ministers as he expected to be turned out of office at any moment.<sup>49</sup> Part of the reason for Kent’s disquiet was his increasingly fractious relations with the duchess of Marlborough, who believed that Kent was busily cultivating the queen’s new favourite, Abigail Masham. Later that summer he was believed to be the source of a number of rumours spread by the vice-chamberlain, Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, that the duchess had been involved in ‘two terrible battles with the queen.’<sup>50</sup></p><p>Kent took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Nov., after which he was present on almost 72 per cent of all sitting days. A list that had been prepared in advance of the session (though possibly not annotated until 1710) noted Kent unsurprisingly as a court Whig. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for the Scots representative peers. That summer Kent drew up proposals for settling the poor Palatines, who had recently arrived from Germany, which Sunderland undertook to lay before the queen for her consideration.<sup>51</sup> Resuming his seat in the second session on 15 Nov. 1709, after which he was present on approximately 76 per cent of all sitting days, Kent suffered the embarrassment that month of being robbed by his former steward, Thomas Aston, who was seized attempting to abscond overseas with a large sum of Kent’s money.<sup>52</sup> In December it was rumoured that he was at last to be granted his wish and that he was to be one of five new garter knights, but no further progress was made in the award for the time being.<sup>53</sup> Uncertain how to respond to the trial of Henry Sacheverell, Kent was said to have waited on the queen to receive her guidance, but he then ignored her recommendation of voting that the doctor should be found guilty but subjected to a lenient punishment.<sup>54</sup> Having found Sacheverell guilty, he supported the imposition of a harsh penalty for his crimes.</p><p>It was perhaps in part as a result of this small act of rebellion that on 14 Apr. Kent was summoned to the queen’s presence and at last forced to resign his office.<sup>55</sup> He was replaced by Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, whose appointment proved to be the first of a series of alterations resulting in the wholesale replacement of the ministry that year. Kent was said to have been ‘extremely nettled’ by his treatment, and although the queen expressed the hope that he would ‘be easy in this matter by being made a duke’, he was ‘not shy of expressing a good deal of resentment.’<sup>56</sup> Kent’s discomfiture no doubt encouraged Godolphin to write to him from Althorp towards the close of September hoping that it would be convenient for him to visit Wrest, perhaps with a view to discussing the new political situation.<sup>57</sup> Although Harley had included Kent’s name among a list of potential Admiralty commissioners earlier in the year, by October he listed Kent as a certain opponent of his new ministry.<sup>58</sup> In the elections for Bedfordshire that autumn, Kent again employed his interest on behalf of the Whig candidates, even going so far as to convince the Tory dean of Gloucester (who was resident in the county) to stay away from the polls. The result was the same as the contest two years previously.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Kent took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710. Two days later he was introduced formally in his new dignity as duke of Kent between William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, and Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond. Present on over 72 per cent of all sitting days, on 11 Jan. 1711 he subscribed two protests, first at the resolution to agree with the committee resolution that the allied army’s defeat at Almanza had been down to the intervention of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and second at the resolution to reject Galway’s petition. The following day he protested again at the resolution to censure the ministers of the previous administration for approving an offensive war in the Peninsular, and on 3 Feb. he subscribed a further protest at the resolution to agree with the committee that the regiments on the Spanish establishment had not been properly supplied. Absent from the House for just over a week towards the end of February, on 20 Feb. Kent registered his proxy with Godolphin once more, which was vacated on his return to the House on 28 February.</p><p>In spite of his disgruntlement at being turned out of office and clear disapproval of the manner in which the previous administration’s handling of the war had been lambasted, Kent’s allegiance appears to have returned to the balance by the spring of 1711. Towards the end of March he received a warm invitation from Godolphin to join in the amusements at Newmarket. He was assured that he should ‘never want a supper’ there and was promised that Lady Hervey would be ‘sure to give you your bellyful’ but he also appears to have been courted by the ministry.<sup>60</sup> A few weeks before the session’s close, Sir Simon Harcourt*, (later Viscount Harcourt) suggested that Harley (soon to be created earl of Oxford) should replace Kent as lord lieutenant of Herefordshire but, in spite of this threat, between August and October Kent was appointed successively lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire and of Bedfordshire, which he held in addition to his Herefordshire lieutenancy.<sup>61</sup> In November 1711, on the death of Paulet St John*, 3rd earl of Bolingbroke, he added the office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Bedford to his portfolio, which may have been the result of a direct appeal from Kent to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth.<sup>62</sup> News of Kent’s appointment was greeted warmly in Bedford with toasts to his health, illuminations and ringing of bells.<sup>63</sup> Such marks of favour seem to have had the intended effect, and in advance of the new session Oxford listed Kent as a potential supporter, though Lady Strafford commented shortly after how Kent ‘is made a jest on by every body in being (as he thinks) the head of the Whig party’.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Present on two prorogation days in November, Kent took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711 after which he was present on 69 per cent of all sitting days. The night before the session, Kent was said to have been summoned to attend the queen. Although it was reported that as a result of this closeting he voted with the Tories the following day, he continued to steer an independent course.<sup>65</sup> On 8 Dec. he was listed as a possible opponent of the court in the abandoned division over the presentation of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, and on 10 Dec. he was noted among those office-holders who had voted against the ministry on the question of ‘No Peace without Spain’. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being in favour of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon and the following day he voted accordingly not to bar Scots peers with British titles from sitting in the House.</p><p>By the close of the session in June 1712, Kent was once more being listed by Oxford as a doubtful court supporter. The assessment may have been inspired in part by Kent’s decision to divide with the ministry on 28 May in opposing the calls for the queen to order her commanders on the continent to resume offensive operations.<sup>66</sup> Present on six of the prorogation days that were held between the close of the previous session and the opening of the new session in April 1713, towards the end of 1712 efforts were made to secure Kent’s continued goodwill with his appointment as a knight of the garter. In January 1713 it was reported that the installation of the new knights had been postponed on account of Kent’s ill health.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Kent took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. Although his name had been added by Oxford to a list of likely ministry supporters in March 1713, that month Kent waited on the queen to seek her assurance that she did not favour the Pretender.<sup>68</sup> Towards the end of May Oxford noted him as a potential opponent to be contacted in advance of the division on the French treaty of commerce. Kent failed to attend the House for approximately a fortnight between 21 May and 4 June. His absence elicited an appeal on 3 June from Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham, that he would be sure to be present the following Friday for the second reading of the malt tax bill. Masham noted that ‘there is a great deal of pains taken to throw it out, which if it should, would be of prejudice very much at this time to her majesty’s affairs, which I am satisfied your grace would be uneasy to see.’<sup>69</sup> On 13 June Oxford listed him as a likely opponent of the French commerce treaty but the same month, Kent responded to Masham’s appeal and was noted by John Elphinstone*, Lord Balmerinoch [S], as one of three lords to desert the Scots in the division on the Union.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Despite his rebellion of the previous summer, Kent continued to maintain a foot firmly in the court camp. In November he sought Oxford’s assistance in excusing Nehemiah Brandreth from being pricked as sheriff for Bedfordshire and in recommending Thomas Emerton to be selected in his stead. The following month Kent emphasized his willingness to co-operate with the ministry, insisting that he had ‘no great[er] ambition than to acknowledge your favours.’<sup>71</sup> Kent’s efforts secured a positive response a few days later when Oxford wrote to assure him that he had acted as requested with regard to the shrievalty and also to let him know that as soon as he returned to London he intended to seek out ‘a convenient time to wait upon you, being desirous to know your grace’s opinion in public matters, for it will be a great satisfaction to me to concur with your grace in the public service.’<sup>72</sup></p><p>Kent took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714. Present on almost 79 per cent of all sitting days, the following month he was noted by Peter Wentworth among the majority voting against including an addition to the address to the queen proposed by Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey. Wentworth believed that this was the first time he had voted against ‘us courtiers’.<sup>73</sup> Kent lodged his proxy with Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset, on 20 Mar., which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 5 Apr. He registered the proxy with Dorset again on 13 May, which was vacated by his return to the House on 26 May. The following day he was forecast by Nottingham as being opposed to the schism bill. On 24 June he registered his proxy once again, though on this occasion with his kinsman, Talbot Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville (later earl of Sussex), which was vacated the following day. Four days later (29 June) he received Dorset’s proxy, which was vacated on 2 July, on which day he was also entrusted with that of Longueville, which was vacated by the close of the session. A few days later, Kent approached Oxford for his assistance in securing a place for James Brett. He repeated his address a few days later, justifying his importunity by claiming:</p><blockquote><p>I believe I may say I have not been very troublesome to your lordship upon this or any other subject, and that I made it my business last winter to be as serviceable as I could and am only sorry I was not more useful, and that we differed so much in our notions of it.<sup>74</sup></p></blockquote><p>By this time Oxford was on the point of being dismissed, and it is uncertain whether Kent was successful in his suit. In any case his own star was once more in the ascendant, being one of those to be named lords justices on the queen’s death. Having taken his seat in the House on 1 Aug., he continued to attend on five days out of the brief 15-day session.</p><p>Kent continued to hold a succession of court offices under the new regime, but his last years were marked with sadness. Although he survived a severe illness in 1717, in the succeeding years he was forced to confront the loss of his duchess as well as the remainder of his surviving children.<sup>75</sup> Details of the latter part of his career will be dealt with in the next part of this work. Kent died in June 1740 and was buried, according to the directions in his will, in the family vault he had built at Flitton. On his demise the dukedom became extinct, but the barony of Lucas and the newly created marquessate of Grey descended, by virtue of a special remainder, to his granddaughter, Lady Jemima Campbell.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
GREY, Ralph (1630-75) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Ralph</strong> (1630–75)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 29 July 1674 as 2nd Bar. GREY of Warke |
|
First sat 10 Nov. 1674; last sat 9 June 1675 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 27 Oct. 1630, 3rd but o. surv. s. of William Grey*, Bar. Grey of Warke<sup>1</sup> and Cecilia, da. of Sir John Wentworth of Gosfield, Essex; bro. of Hon. Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. St Paul’s 1647.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. bet. 1649 and 1654, Catherine (<em>d.</em>1682), da. and h. of Sir Edward Ford of Harting, Suss., wid. of Hon. Alexander Colepeper, 3s. 1da. <em>d.</em> 15 June 1675; <em>will</em> 7 Jan., pr. 18 June 1675.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Asst., Royal African Co. 1674-5.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir Peter Lely, c.1675, English Heritage, Audley End, Essex.</p> |
<p>Ralph Grey became the 2nd Baron Grey of Warke through the death in quick succession of his elder brother Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup> in February 1672 and then of their father William Grey, Baron Grey of Warke, in July 1674. At the death of Thomas Grey, a commissioner for trade and plantations and a gentleman pensioner, his father was left with only two surviving children – Ralph and his sister Catherine – from a brood which he claimed at one point had numbered nine sons and eight daughters.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Grey of Warke appears to have been devastated by the loss of his favourite son Thomas and according to later accounts held a deep affection both for his only surviving daughter Catherine and her husband from 1667, Sir Charles North*, later Baron Grey of Rolleston and 5th Baron North, who lived with his father- and brothers-in-law in their house in Charterhouse Square.<sup>8</sup> Grey of Warke may well have seen the couple as his preferred heirs rather than Ralph and he was able to arrange that Sir Charles North be created Baron Grey of Rolleston by writ of summons on 24 Oct. 1673. The timing and name of this new title were hardly fortuitous, coming a little over a year after Thomas Grey’s death and celebrating the name and lucrative dower estate of Grey of Warke’s daughter, Catherine Grey. The title was, in effect, an indirect ennoblement of the old Baron’s daughter and perhaps a snub to his actual heir apparent, Ralph.</p><p>When he succeeded to his father’s title, Ralph came into the possession of substantial property in both the north and south of England. There were the Grey estates in Chillingham in Northumberland, as well as Up Park at Harting in Sussex which he had acquired through his marriage in the early 1650s to Catherine Ford, widow of the eldest son of John Colepeper*, Baron Colepepper, and heiress in 1670 to her father’s estate in Sussex. Most controversially, there were the estates acquired by his father in Epping and by his brother Thomas in Gosfield, both in Essex. The 2nd Baron’s possession of these latter properties was to prove contentious within the Grey family for many decades. At dispute was whether Thomas Grey had bought the property for himself with money supplied by his father as an advance, or whether his father had intended Thomas to purchase the property in trust for himself. After Thomas’s death, the 1st Baron Grey of Warke had, in a settlement of 1672, placed his Gosfield and Epping property in trust. Nevertheless, at his coming to the title the 2nd Baron Grey of Warke took possession of the Gosfield estate himself, claiming that it had been his brother’s property, and not his father’s to put in trust, and that he took it as his brother’s rightful heir. When he began to charge the estate with debts and legacies, his recently ennobled brother-in-law, Grey of Rolleston, initiated an action in chancery to protect what he saw as his wife Catherine’s interests. He alleged that the second Baron had destroyed the first Baron’s original will and had forged a new one to deprive his sister Catherine of the Essex estates her father had promised her. In 1680 Grey of Rolleston, now 5th Baron North, was still accusing the 2nd Baron’s widow and son Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, of trying to defraud his wife of the lands due to her by her father’s settlement.<sup>9</sup></p><p>The 2nd Baron Grey of Warke took after his father in his devotion to Parliament, but his career there was cut short by his unexpected death less than a year after succeeding to the title. He only sat in one session, that of April-June 1675, but during that period he attended every single meeting of the House. Other than sitting constantly, he does not appear to have taken an active role. He was nominated to only six committees, two of them on private bills and the others on more general bills, such as those to prevent frauds (15 Apr.), to clarify a previous act against recusants (21 Apr.), to confirm augmentations made to small vicarages (18 May), and to regulate fishing (31 May). Grey of Warke died on 15 June 1675, less than a week after the prorogation of this session. Upon his death he left £2,000 each to his two younger sons, Ralph Grey*, later 4th Baron Grey of Warke, and Charles and an additional £2,000 to his daughter Catherine, which money was to be levied from the disputed Gosfield estate.<sup>10</sup> He was succeeded in the barony and his far-flung estates by his eldest son Ford, who was still a minor.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GREY, Ralph (1661-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Ralph</strong> (1661–1706)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 24 June 1701 as 4th Bar. GREY of Warke |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1702; last sat 21 May 1706 |
|
MP Berwick-upon-Tweed 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.), 1681, 1695, 6 Feb.–24 June 1701 |
<p><em>b.</em> 28 Nov. 1661, 2nd s. of Ralph Grey*, 2nd Bar. Grey of Warke, and Catherine, da. and h. of Sir Edward Ford of Harting, Suss., wid. of Hon. Alexander Colepeper of Wigsell, Kent; bro. of Ford Grey*, 3rd Bar. Grey of Warke. <em>educ.</em> St Paul’s 1677.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 20 June 1706; <em>will</em> 13 Mar. 1705, pr. 2 July 1706.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Auditor of exch. (crown revenues, Wales) 1692–1702;<sup>3</sup> gent. pens. 1692–1702; commr. union with Scotland, 1706.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Gov. Barbados and Windward Islands, 1697–1702;<sup>5</sup> commr. adjudging piracies in W.I. 1700.<sup>6</sup></p> |
|
<p>In April 1695 the crown granted Ralph Grey a lease of five lighthouses in Winton Ness (Winterton Ness) and Orford Ness in Norfolk, with an estimated income of £1,200 p.a., for £20 annual rent and an entry fine of £750 ‘only and in consideration of the said Grey’s good services’.<sup>9</sup> He later conveyed part of this lease to his brother-in-law Richard Neville<sup>‡</sup>, with whom he was closely associated (it was Neville who informed him in long, chatty letters of his brother’s final illness and death).<sup>10</sup> In December 1695 he was given a further £750 as royal bounty to help him with his financial difficulties.<sup>11</sup> Meanwhile, Grey of Warke, increasingly prominent in the House for his speeches supporting the Whig ministry, had been created earl of Tankerville in June 1695. Later that year Ralph Grey was returned for Berwick for the new Parliament, where he supported the Whig policies being promoted by his brother in the upper House.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Tankerville was appointed a commissioner of the board of trade in May 1696, and in this position was able to acquire for Ralph the governorship of Barbados and the Windward Islands in July 1697.<sup>13</sup> Ralph set out for the Caribbean the following spring, and, after having narrowly escaped being kidnapped at sea, arrived in Barbados almost a year after his commission, on 27 July 1698.<sup>14</sup> William Penn valued his new colleague in colonial government, or at least thought it worthwhile to correspond with Grey expressing his admiration, with one eye always on his influential brother on the board of trade.<sup>15</sup> Grey’s governorship was a period of widespread piracy and of disputes between the colonial powers in the West Indies. In November 1700 he was appointed a commissioner for the trial of pirates and was ordered to seize Captain Kidd.<sup>16</sup> Occasionally he was too zealous in his duties, as when he tried to expel French planters from St Lucia during the brief period of peace between the two countries, and when he barred a Scot from holding office on the island, claiming that they were reserved for Englishmen alone. On both occasions he had to be called up short by the government in England.<sup>17</sup> Aggrieved inhabitants brought various charges of his maladministration before the Privy Council in 1701 and 1702, but he appears to have gathered around him a coterie of adherents, who continued to correspond with him well after he had left the island and returned to England.<sup>18</sup> The board of trade saw fit to consult with him in 1706 on his knowledge of Barbadian affairs after it had received reports of the corruption of his successor, Sir Bevill Granville<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Despite his absence in the West Indies, Grey was returned once more for Berwick in the first election of 1701. He did not attend, but his elder brother died on 24 June 1701, the very day on which that Parliament was prorogued. Tankerville had no male heirs, so while the earldom did not pass to his younger brother, Ralph did inherit their grandfather’s title of Grey of Warke. The new 4th Baron Grey of Warke was still marked as ‘abroad’ at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, but had arrived home in time to take his seat on 22 January. After this late arrival he sat in a further 35 sittings of that Parliament, which saw the death of his patron William III and the accession of Anne.</p><p>In the early days of the new reign, John Macky described the new baron (mistakenly named Ford Grey in the printed edition of the <em>Memoirs</em>), as: ‘A sweet disposed gentleman. He joined King William at the Revolution, and is a zealous asserter of the liberties of the people – a thin, brown, handsome man, middle stature’. Jonathan Swift, though, appended to this character sketch the comment, ‘Had very little in him’.<sup>20</sup> Swift’s animosity would have come from Grey’s allegiance with the Whigs, both as a Member for Berwick in the Commons and in the Lords. In the 1702–3 session of Anne’s first Parliament (during which he attended for 59 per cent of the sittings), Grey of Warke acted as a manager for conferences on the Occasional Conformity bill on 17 Dec. 1702 and again on 9 Jan. 1703. Contemporaries fully expected him to be opposed to the bill and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of the Whigs’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause of the bill. He voted to reject it when it came before the House again on 14 December 1703 in the session of 1703–4, when he attended a full 84 per cent of the sittings, the highest attendance level of his career.</p><p>On the same day as this important vote, Grey of Warke petitioned the House to bring in a bill which sought to confirm complicated arrangements he had made with both Rochester and his own nephew Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (married to Tankerville’s daughter), regarding the disposition of the encumbered Grey estates. The bill was read for the first time on 21 Dec. 1703 and passed the House on 14 Jan. 1704, before receiving the royal assent on 24 February. By this act Grey of Warke agreed to compound with both Ossulston and Rochester for £15,000 each to discharge various debts and free up the encumbered estates.<sup>21</sup></p><p>During his brief career in the House, Grey of Warke occasionally chaired committees. At the latter part of the 1704–5 session (during which he was present for 79 per cent of the sitting days), he chaired and reported from a committee of the whole considering the recruiting bill on 2 Mar. 1705. He also chaired select committees on three separate estate bills and on 16 Mar. reported to the House from one of these, the bill for John Proctor of Northumberland to sell part of his estate, for which Grey’s northern connections and knowledge may have been called upon.<sup>22</sup> His Northumberland background probably also coloured his opinion of the Scots. In November 1704 he ‘nettled at the Scotch Act’, probably meaning the Scots Parliament’s Act of Security, and predicted ‘that Nation’s over-running this as the Goths and Vandals did the Roman Empire’. In the discussion of the English Parliament’s Aliens bill, he responded to the proposal that the Scots not be excluded from offices in the English plantations by pointing out that they were already excluded by statute and proudly pointed out that he had put this law into effect himself while in Barbados.<sup>23</sup> Despite this obvious hostility to his northern neighbours, Grey of Warke was appointed a commissioner for the union with Scotland in March 1706.<sup>24</sup></p><p>He was registered as the holder of the proxy of the Whig Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, on 14 Mar. 1705, but had no opportunity to use it as Parliament was prorogued that very day and then dissolved barely a month later. He was marked as a Hanoverian in a list analysing the attitudes of the peerage towards the succession that appeared shortly after the dissolution. During the first session of the 1705 Parliament, for which he was present at just over three-quarters of the sittings, Grey continued to be active in the proceedings of the House, and was named manager for a number of conferences in February and March 1706: for the Regency bill (7, 11 and 19 Feb.); for the consideration of the printed letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡ </sup>to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford (11 Mar.), and for the militia bill (13 March).</p><p>Grey of Warke died suddenly of apoplexy on 20 June 1706. By the provisions of a settlement drawn up by his grandfather in 1672 the Epping estate passed to his cousin, the Tory William North*, 6th Baron North.<sup>25</sup> Grey charged debts totalling at least £30,000 on his remaining real estate in several counties, including the compositions of £15,000 which he owed to Ossulston and Rochester, ‘all which several sums of money’, he added in his will, ‘I am obliged to pay and discharge on account of my brother the late Earl of Tankerville’. He bequeathed the remainder of the estate as well as his personal estate in England and Barbados (which included a plantation) to his nephew, Henry Neville<sup>‡</sup>, on condition that he change his surname to Grey and that he pay bequests of £2,700 and annuities totalling £110 p.a. out of this estate. At his death without male heirs the barony of Grey of Warke became extinct.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GREY, Thomas (c. 1653-1720) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1653–1720)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1657-73 Ld. Grey of Groby; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 21 Aug. 1673 (a minor) as 2nd earl of STAMFORD |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 18 Apr. 1719 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1653/4, o.s. of Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup>, styled Ld. Grey of Groby (1622-57) and Dorothy (1626-aft. 1660), da. of Edward Bourchier<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bath. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1 July 1667, aged 13, MA 1668. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1672-3 (with £10,000) Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 7 Sept. 1687), da. of Sir Daniel Harvey<sup>‡</sup>, of Combe Nevill, Surr. 2s. <em>d.v.</em>p. 1da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) 10 Mar. 1691,<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 9 Nov. 1722), da. of Joseph Maynard<sup>‡</sup>, of Gunnersbury, Mdx. 2s. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 31 Jan. 1720; <em>will</em> 10 Sept. 1719, pr. 11 Feb. 1720 and 16 Jan. 1731.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p><em>Custos</em> <em>rot.</em> Leics. 1689-1702, Devon 1696-1711; ld. lt. Devon 1696-1702; high steward, honour of Leicester 1689–97; chan. duchy of Lancaster 1697-1702.<sup>5</sup></p><p>PC 10 May 1694-1714; commr. appeals in prizes 1694, 1695, 1697;<sup>6</sup> first commr. trade and plantations June 1699-June 1702, Apr. 1707-June 1711.</p><p>Commr. Greenwich Hospital 1695;<sup>7</sup> relief of Vaudois and French refugees in Germany 1699-1701;<sup>8</sup> Savoy Hospital by 1702;<sup>9</sup> trustee poor Palatines 1709.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Freeman, Leicester 1681;<sup>11</sup> mbr., New England Company 1697-<em>d.</em><sup>12</sup></p><p>FRS 1708.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Richardson (the Elder), c.1700/1705, National Trust, Dunham Massey.</p> |
<h2><em>Early Life under Charles II</em></h2><p>Stamford came from a distinctly puritan and radical background. He was directly descended from an uncle of Lady Jane Grey, one of the few survivors from the culling of the Grey family which followed their attempt to put the young Protestant pretender on the throne. His grandfather, Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, had distinguished himself by his opposition to Laudian innovations in the Church and was an unsuccessful military commander for Parliament in The Civil War, while his own father, Lord Grey of Groby, was a more vigorous and radical soldier and administrator for the Independents and the New Model Army. Grey of Groby played a prominent part in Pride’s Purge and was one of the judges in Charles I’s trial, his signature appearing second on the king’s death warrant. He went on to serve as a councillor of state and military officer in the Commonwealth, but in the spring of 1657 died of gout, leaving behind him an only son and namesake. On his grandfather’s death on 21 Aug. 1673, Grey of Groby (as he was styled in the interim) succeeded to the earldom and estate. By this date Stamford may already have been married, for on 29 Oct. 1672 Lady Mary Hastings reported that Lord Grey was to marry Elizabeth Harvey, daughter of the recently deceased Sir Daniel Harvey.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Stamford took his seat in the Lords at the first opportunity after reaching his majority. He had been under age at the call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674, so he first sat on 13 Apr. 1675, the opening day of the session of April-June 1675. He attended on 39 days, all bar two of the session, 95 per cent of the total. On his first day he revealed that he was committed to the cause of the burgeoning ‘Country’ opposition by subscribing to the protest against the resolution thanking the king for his speech, which had referred to ‘the pernicious designs of ill men’ who advocated a dissolution of Parliament. In the weeks following he was nominated to 11 select committees and signed three of the four protests (on 21, 26 Apr. and 4 May) against the ‘non-resisting’ test bill introduced by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). He was later named by the author of <em>A Letter of a Person of Quality</em> as one of the leading movers in the House against this bill, and as ‘a young nobleman of great hope’.<sup>15</sup> He also joined in a small protest on 27 May against rejecting a forthright answer to the Commons’ request for a conference in the case of <em>Stoughton v. Onslow</em>, ‘which would have been the surest way to have justified and preserved the right of the Lords’ in judicial appeals. </p><p>Stamford missed the opening day of the session of October-November 1675 (13 Oct.), but he was present on the other 20 days, 95 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. He voted for the motion of 20 Nov. to address the king for the dissolution of Parliament and entered his protest when it was rejected. By December 1675 domestic strife had intruded into his life. As it was recounted by his mother-in-law, Lady Harvey, in a letter referring to Stamford’s ‘follies and impertinences’, after his uncle, presumably Anchitell Grey<sup>‡</sup>, had made him so ‘impudent’ as to fall out with her, he then made him leave his wife too without saying why, or where he went. The death of his own mother the following year created further difficulties, as Lady Chaworth wrote in October 1676: ‘here is a mighty discourse of the great suits now will be between Mr Grey and Lady Harvey about the estate of Lady Stamford [which] now on her death falls to my Lord’.<sup>16</sup> Tradition has it that the countess set fire to Bradgate while her husband was asleep inside the house.<sup>17</sup> Matters seem to have been patched up for Stamford and his wife went on to have several children, before their marriage broke down irretrievably in 1685-6. </p><p>When Parliament met again on 15 Feb. 1677 Stamford only attended the first nine days of the session during which he was nominated to 14 committees, and examined the journals twice (the first of many occasions during his career). At the beginning of the session he and his uncle through marriage, George Booth*, Baron Delamer, were almost alone in the House in their support for the claims of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and three other peers that the prorogation of 13 months had automatically dissolved Parliament, although unlike the others they avoided being sent to the Tower.<sup>18</sup> On 28 Feb. Stamford registered his proxy with Delamer, a fact duly recorded when he was noted as absent at a call of the House on 9 March. Shaftesbury during his incarceration in the Tower during 1677-8 classed Stamford as ‘worthy’.</p><p>Stamford attended all five days of the short sitting of the House in May 1677, thereby vacating his proxy. He was absent when the session resumed on 15 Jan. 1678, first sitting on 28 January. He attended on only 13 days of the session, last being present on 15 Feb. and he was absent from the call of the House made on the following day. He had been appointed to five committees. Stamford was also absent from the session of May-July 1678, registering his proxy two days after its beginning (on 25 May) with the lord chancellor Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham, a staunch supporter of the royal prerogative. This somewhat strange choice may perhaps be explained by a family connection: Finch, through his marriage to Elizabeth Harvey, was Stamford’s wife’s uncle. Stamford was again absent when the House reassembled on 21 Oct. for the final session of the Cavalier Parliament. He renewed his proxy with Finch on 2 Nov., which was duly vacated when he attended the House for the first time on 27 December. He attended the last four days of the session, 7 per cent of the total. On his first day in the House he voted to commit Danby during his impeachment and entered his dissent when this motion was rejected.</p><p>Not surprisingly Danby considered Stamford an opponent in the period March-April 1679, recording him as such on three separate lists, although on one of them he was deemed unreliable (perhaps meaning uncertain to vote). Stamford attended on all six days of the first, short session of the 1679 Parliament, of 6-13 Mar. 1679, and was again present when the second session began on 15 March. He attended on 45 days of the session, 75 per cent of the total, but he was absent from the House from 29 Mar. to 21 Apr. 1679 and so was not present to vote on the bill to attaint the lord treasurer. Upon his return to the House, he aligned himself with the opponents of the court: he protested against the motion not to amend the bill to remove papists from Westminster in favour of Protestant dissenters (2 May); he voted for a joint committee to discuss the trials of the impeached peers and protesting against its rejection (10 May); he protested against allowing the bishops’ right to stay in court in capital cases until judgment of death was pronounced (13 May); and he protested against adhering to that position (23 and 27 May), and then against the attempt to try the five Catholic lords before Danby (23 May).</p><p>Stamford maintained his commitment to the court’s opponents during the long prorogation: he signed the petition of 16 peers on 6 Dec. 1679 asking that Parliament be allowed to meet and was one of those who presented it to the king on the following day. This action led to his removal from the Leicestershire commission of the peace in early 1680.<sup>19</sup> It also led to an increased standing in the eyes of the prime mover within the opposition, Shaftesbury: in July 1685, when Stamford was in disgrace, it was recorded that at around this time Shaftesbury had promised the young man to ‘set him up for a speaker in the House of Lords, and a patriot for the reforming nation’.<sup>20</sup> When Parliament finally did convene in October 1680, Stamford missed the opening three days, first attending on 25 October. He was present on 53 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was named to four committees. He supported the exclusion bill, arguing in the debate on 15 Nov. 1680 that ‘submission to higher powers doth not restrain limiting the succession by the word of God’, duly voting against its rejection at first reading and protesting against that decision.<sup>21</sup> He continued to vote against the court, supporting the proposal to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation, and protesting at the failure to do so (23 Nov.); voting William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason (7 Dec.); and protesting against two resolutions exempting Lord Chief Justice Scroggs from either commitment or suspension from his duties while his impeachment proceedings were pending (7 Jan. 1681).</p><p>Stamford’s main estate lay at Bradgate in Leicestershire and it was from here that he exercised some electoral influence on the county. He played a major role in early 1681 in orchestrating the re-election of Sir John Hartopp<sup>‡</sup> as knight of the shire, accompanying him to the castle for the poll. Following the presentation of an address to the two Members, Stamford departed to Bradgate taking Hartopp with him.<sup>22</sup> On his pre-sessional forecast of 17 Mar. 1681, Danby thought that Stamford would oppose any application that might be made to release him from the Tower on bail. Danby was probably correct in his assessment. Stamford accompanied Shaftesbury to Oxford in March, duly attending all seven days of that short-lived Parliament and being named to three committees.<sup>23</sup> He joined in the protest of 26 Mar. against the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law instead of by impeachment. In July Stamford appears to have been in dispute with Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, who at his visitation to Leicester, refused to recognize Stamford’s jurisdiction within his peculiar.<sup>24</sup></p><p>After the dissolution of March 1681, Stamford continued his opposition outside Parliament. In 1682-3 he was involved with Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, later earl of Tankerville, and Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup> in the tumultuous London shrieval elections and in the triumphant progress through Chichester of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>25</sup> Colonel John Rumsey and Richard Goodenough both later confessed in 1685 that in 1682-3 they had involved Stamford in their plotting against the king and James*, duke of York.<sup>26</sup> Sufficient suspicion surrounded Stamford at the time of the Rye House Plot for the council to order on 10 July 1683 a search of Bradgate for arms, but he was not ordered to be sent for into custody and the search proved disappointing.<sup>27</sup> In October 1683 he ‘had a great meeting’ at Leicester designed to promote the interest of a parliamentary candidate for the borough.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of James II and the Revolution</em></h2><p>Stamford attended on the opening day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685. He was one of the few peers to subscribe to the protests against the resolutions of 22 May to reverse the order that allowed the continuation of Danby’s impeachment from Parliament to Parliament, and of 4 June against the bill to reverse Stafford’s attainder. He attended regularly until 19 June, after which, and rather suspiciously, he was absent. In all, he was present on 20 days of this part of the session, 65 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. After the suppression of Monmouth’s Rebellion, warrants were issued for the arrest of both Stamford and his cousin, Henry Booth* 2nd Baron Delamer, later earl of Warrington. Stamford was detained in Leicestershire and committed to the Tower on 24 July.<sup>29</sup> On 16 Oct. the grand jury at the Old Bailey found a bill of high treason against him, but as Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, noted, he could not ‘be tried the Parliament sitting, but by the House of Lords’.<sup>30</sup> On 29 Oct. Stamford’s counsel moved that he either be tried or bailed, but the court found that a bill having been found against him for high treason, he could have no benefit of the <em>Habeas Corpus</em> Act.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Stamford was thus incarcerated when the session resumed on 9 Nov. and was absent from the call of the House on 16 November. On 11 Nov. he submitted a petition to the House complaining that he had been imprisoned without being informed of the specific charges against him and had no means to work on his defence. The peers responded by issuing a writ of <em>certiorari</em> so that the indictment found against him by the grand jury could be examined by the House itself. The indictment was delivered to the Lords by the clerk of the peace for London on the 14th and Stamford was heard in the House on the 17th when the date for his trial before his peers was set for 1 December. Parliament was prorogued on 20 Nov., while still in possession of the writ; the scheduled trial could not, therefore, take place and the scaffolding erected in Westminster Hall was dismantled.<sup>32</sup> Following the acquittal of his co-defendant Delamer before the lord high steward’s court on 14 Jan. 1686, Stamford was bailed by king’s bench on a writ of <em>habeas</em> <em>corpus</em> in February to appear in the Lords at their next sitting. Delamer and Paulet St John*, future 3rd earl of Bolingbroke, posted the £40,000 bail. Stamford was soon out and about, Roger Whitley<sup>‡</sup> recording on 14 Feb. that he was a visitor at Delamer’s house (although Delamer himself was not there), being one of ‘much company’ with Delamer’s mother (Stamford’s aunt, a daughter of the first earl). The king then issued a pardon to him, which passed the great seal on 3 April.<sup>33</sup></p><p>At some point in 1685 Stamford had sued for a divorce.<sup>34</sup> The case was ordered to be heard in doctors’ commons on 9 Nov. 1686. According to William Denton, the countess’s ‘pecadillos were only cuckholding [sic], burning his house, stealing his jewels etc.’<sup>35</sup> In December the court was ‘about ordering alimony <em>pro</em> <em>expensis litis’</em> (for the expenses of the lawsuit), to enable Stamford’s wife to continue the suit ‘where both parties are equally offenders’. The case also spilled over into other disputes. In February 1687 Stamford attempted to prosecute one of his own servants who had been his own witness against the countess, for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> (the servant had called him a cuckold), but the servant sought to bring the issue to court and the matter was dropped.<sup>36</sup> A newsletter of February 1687 recorded ‘a duel was lately fought between Mr Allen and another gentleman in Covent Garden the quarrel about the earl and countess of Stamford and the last gent. taking the part of the countess was disarmed’.<sup>37</sup> By the time of the countess’s death on 6 Sept. 1687, the couple had separated, it being noted that she had ‘given up the ghost (and by the way wanted bread).’ Stamford was now a widower with no surviving children. Other litigation in which Stamford was involved around this time included a protracted dispute with John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, over the manor of Stamford in Lincolnshire.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Unsurprisingly, five contemporary analyses between 1687 and the beginning of 1688 listed Stamford as an opponent of the repeal of the Test or opposed to James II’s religious policies in general. In public, too, he remained a highly visible opponent, who turned out in support of the Seven Bishops in court on 15 June. In September 1688, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, consulted him about William of Orange’s planned invasion, and Stamford gave assurances that he would ‘do as the Lord Delamer did’. He took up arms for the prince and was already in Nottingham when William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, arrived on 20 November. Delamer arrived the following day, and Stamford and Delamer both left on 24 Nov., joining William’s forces at Hungerford on 7 December.<sup>39</sup> At Hungerford Stamford argued for the removal of James II and at the meeting held at Windsor on 17 Dec. to determine action to take after James’s return from Faversham, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, noted that Stamford seconded and supported Delamer’s motion that the king be incarcerated in the Tower, on the basis that his abortive attempt at flight amounted to a dissolution of his government. Stamford attended the meetings of peers at St James’s on 21-22 and 24-25 Dec. 1688, arguing in the debate on the 24th that mention of the king ‘withdrawing himself’ should be left out of their letter inviting the prince to assume the administration of affairs.<sup>40</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention</em></h2><p>Stamford was present when the Convention opened on 22 Jan. 1689. He voted in a division in committee of the whole House on 31 Jan. in favour of declaring William and Mary king and queen, and entered his dissent at the decision not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in using the word ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’ to described James’s departure, and protested against the failure of the House to agree. On the 6th, he again supported the motion that James II had abdicated and that the throne was thereby vacant. On 12 Feb. he was named to manage a conference on the proclamation of the new monarchs. Also on 12 Feb. he reported from the committee for privileges to recommend a search for precedents of proceedings against peers in criminal matters, connected to the bill regulating treason trials for peers. On 4 Mar. in a division in committee of the whole House he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, on a clause in the bill; he protested on 6 Mar. against the bill’s passage. On 5 Mar. he was named to manage a conference about assisting the king in reducing Ireland and defending the religion and laws of England. On 21 Mar. he protested against the decision to retain the sacramental test in the oaths to the new monarchs. He protested on 5 Apr. against the rejection of an amendment to the comprehension bill which would have included lay members in the proposed commission to inspect the liturgy, even adding an extra reason to the eight points endorsed by the other dissentients. On the 8th he protested against the addition of a proviso to the same bill. </p><p>In April 1689 Halifax recorded on several occasions comments about the king ‘doing something’ for Stamford who ‘talked with discontent’.<sup>41</sup> Stamford was already beginning to show the propensity for the management of business which was to become such a pronounced feature of his parliamentary career. On 20 Apr. he chaired the committee on the hearth tax bill.<sup>42</sup> On 8 May he was appointed a reporter of a conference on the bill for the more effectual disarming and conviction of papists. On 22 May he was named to manage a conference on the Commons’ amendments to the toleration bill. On 27 May he acted as a teller in opposition to Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, on the amendments to the <em>habeas</em> <em>corpus</em> suspension bill, and was named to manage a conference on the poll bill, as he was again on the 31st (twice). On 15 May Stamford chaired the committee which drew up reasons to be entered in the Journal for reversing the decree in <em>Barnardiston v the Crown</em> (which do not appear to have been entered). On 22, 24 and 27 May he chaired the committee on Bathurst’s estate bill, which he reported on 28 May, and the adjournment of Penwarne’s bill on the 24th. On 10 June he chaired a committee on the dispute between the curriers and leather-sellers.<sup>43</sup> On 20 June he chaired the committee of the whole on the land tax bill.</p><p>Stamford championed the cause of Titus Oates, voting on 31 May in favour of reversing the two judgments of perjury against him and protesting against the loss of that resolution. On 10 July he acted as a teller in opposition to Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, at the report stage of this bill against a motion that part of the preamble be postponed and then entered his dissent when he lost the vote. On the 12th he protested against the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendments; on 22 and 26 July he was named to conferences on the bill; on 27 July he dissented to a resolution not to hold a conference at that time and on 30 July he opposed the Lords’ adhering to their amendments to this bill.</p><p>On 25 June he entered his protest against the resolution not to reverse the judgment in <em>Barnardiston v Soame</em>. On 2 July he acted as a teller in opposition to Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, in favour of the motion that the House proceed on the impeachment of Adam Blair and others. He was named a manager of the conferences on the succession bill (12, 16, 20, 31 July) and on the tea and coffee duty bill (25, 27 July). On 27 July he was named to draw up an address to the king requesting a proclamation summoning James II’s last peerage creation, Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, which he reported on the 3rd and was given the task of presenting to the king.</p><p>Meanwhile, on 9 May 1689 Stamford was named to a committee to make the amendments made by the Commons to the bill concerning the commissioners of the great seal into a coherent whole. He duly reported the committee’s efforts to the House and was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the matter (subsequently managing conferences on the bill on 20 and 21 June). This particular act had ramifications for Stamford in that it confirmed his appointment by the commissioners (made before 1 May and including Maynard and Sir William Rawlinson) as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Leicestershire, and thereby thwarted the pretensions of John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland.<sup>44</sup> Following the adjournment of the Convention on 20 Aug. Stamford travelled into Leicestershire. On 11 Sept. the corporation of Leicester ordered that Stamford ‘be entertained at a feast’ at a local tavern. The corporation used Stamford to lobby both the administration and Parliament on such matters as the grant of a fair to neighbouring Harborough, the Derwent navigation bill, and the billeting of troops. Stamford was not present for the adjournment on 20 Sept. but he was in his place when the session resumed for two days before the prorogation of 21 October. He had been present on 155 days of the first session, 95 per cent of the total, and had been named to 53 committees. His regular attendance may well have been aided by his lodging locally in Bow Street, Covent Garden.<sup>45</sup> This seemed to set the pattern for his residence in London, where he rented a number of different properties in the capital, including 10-11 Leicester Street, Westminster between 1691-3, Bristol House, Great Queen Street, Westminster at some point between 1689 and 1703, and Norfolk Street, 1705-6.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Stamford was present when the second session of the Convention convened on 23 Oct. 1689. He attended on 71 days of the session, missing only 5 Nov. and 13 December. He was named to 27 committees during the session, the most important of which was established on 2 Nov. to investigate the judicial murders of Armstrong, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>, Stephen Cornish and others, as well as the advisors of the writs of <em>quo</em> <em>warranto</em> against corporations, their regulators and the public asserters of the dispensing power. He chaired the ‘committee for inspections’ (known informally as the ‘murder committee’) on 11 occasions. On 6 Nov. he reported from the committee to ask for an address to the king to be allowed to inspect the council books for the previous two reigns. On 12, 16 and 21 Nov. he reported a request for the attendance of some Members of the Commons, such as John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> and John Wildman<sup>‡</sup>. On 7 Dec. he reported the committee’s desire for clarification on how Stephen College’s death was to be treated, whereupon the House limited their investigations to the four murders. The House then appointed a separate committee (of which Stamford was not a member) to examine into those who had endeavoured to suborn witnesses against Stamford, Macclesfield, Delamer and Devonshire. On 20 Dec. Stamford reported to the House the fruits of the committee’s labours—57 depositions all of which were entered <em>in</em> <em>extenso</em> in the Journal.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Stamford was engaged in a range of other activity in the House. On 25 Oct. 1689 he acted as a teller in opposition to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, on whether to go into committee of the whole on the clandestine marriages’ bill. On 23 Nov. he entered his protest against the rejection of a proviso to the bill of rights which would have made royal pardons in impeachments contingent upon the approval of both Houses. On 14 Jan. 1690 he acted as a teller in opposition to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, on whether to adjourn the debate on the treason trials bill. On 23 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Nottingham in committee of the whole on the corporation bill in favour of retaining the phrase that the surrenders of the borough charters ‘were and are illegal’. At the report stage he again acted as a teller, again in opposition to Nottingham, against leaving these words out. He then joined in the protest against the rejection of this wording because, as he and his eight fellow protesters argued, ‘the putting out those words seems to be the justifying of the most horrid action that King James was guilty of during his reign’. On 25 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, on the previous question concerning an address to the king over his proposed journey to Ireland. In the last weeks of the session, Stamford chaired five meetings of the committee considering a triennial bill, a measure with which he would continue to be associated when it reappeared in William III’s later Parliaments.<sup>48</sup> In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) estimated Stamford to be an opponent of the court.</p><h2><em>The 1690 Parliament</em></h2><p>Stamford was present when the 1690 Parliament met on 20 Mar., and attended on every day of the session, bar the prorogation of 7 July. He was appointed to 28 committees during the session. He chaired the committee on the bill to make Worthenbury, Flintshire, a separate parish from Bangor, reporting it to the House on 5 April. On 3 Apr. he chaired the committees on the appeals of Gore and Vincent and the adjournment of the bill for the sale of Halyford House. He was involved in the deliberations over the bill to recognize the Convention formally as a Parliament and William and Mary as monarchs <em>de</em> <em>jure</em>. On 4-5 Apr. he was a teller in six divisions in opposition to Nottingham, Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, and Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl Kingston, over the wording in the bill ‘confirming’ or ‘declaring’ the Convention valid. When all options discussed were eventually rejected, Stamford and nine other peers protested because ‘to leave a doubt touching the validity of the last Parliament is to shake all the judgments and decrees given in the house of Peers during this reign’. On 5 Apr. Stamford (together with John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater) introduced into the House two recently promoted Whig followers of William and Mary, Richard Lumley*, Viscount Lumley [I], as earl of Scarbrough, and Delamer, recently made earl of Warrington. For a week in April he chaired seven meetings of the committee on the bill for the benefit of the subject, in relation to the practice and execution of the law, which he presumably reported on 21 Apr. although it was then recommitted to a committee of the whole and eventually lapsed. On 2 May he chaired and reported Wynne’s estate bill, and the adjournment of Sir John Hoby’s bill.<sup>49</sup> On 3 May he was a teller on three occasions in the committee of the whole (again in opposition to Kingston and Feversham) in procedural divisions on the abjuration bill, and once more on 8 May in opposition to Kingston. On 3 May he also received Bolingbroke’s proxy. On 12 May he was named a manager for a conference on the bill to make the queen a regent during William’s expedition to Ireland. On 13 May he protested against the refusal of the House to give more time to the corporation of London to put their case for the reversal of the charter imposed on it by James II.</p><p>Stamford used his local office to bolster the Revolution Settlement, stressing in his charge to the Leicestershire grand jury at the quarter sessions at Michaelmas 1690 that William and Mary were ‘the lawful and rightful king and queen of these realms’, and refuting the notion that ‘the very species of government is of divine right’. To Stamford this last seemed to be ‘contradictory to the nature as well as destructive to the very end and being of government’. The charge was subsequently printed, with copious scholarly notes, in order to protect his reputation from being slandered as a republican. A second charge, at Michaelmas 1691, also found its way into print.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Stamford was missing when the House convened for the next session on 2 Oct. 1690, but attended on the next sitting, 6 Oct. and was added to all standing committees on the 9th. On 6 Oct. he acted as a teller in opposition to Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford), on whether to discharge from imprisonment Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and on 30 Oct. he protested against their discharge from bail. On 21 Oct. he was teller again in a procedural division in opposition to Charles North*, 5th Baron North, on the petition of the disgraced admiral, Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington. He protested on 30 Oct. against the bill brought in by the marquess of Carmarthen to ‘clarify’ the powers of the admiralty commissioners who were to try Torrington. On 9 Dec. he told in opposition to Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, in favour of proceeding with a bill for the reversal of a judgment of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> passed against John Arnold<sup>‡</sup>, a bill that was ultimately rejected by the House. On 30 Dec. he was chosen (with 26 votes) as the third of four peers to be added as representatives of the Lords considering the establishment of the commission of accounts, but in the face of resistance to this interference from the Commons, the Lords backed down.<sup>51</sup> Stamford had been present on 68 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, and been named to 36 committees. He had chaired committees on bills for the encouragement of pin-making, regulating the price of coal and Hildeyard’s estate, reporting the latter to the House on 15 November.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Around this time it was thought likely that Stamford would remarry, though one letter to the countess of Rutland suggested that he would not agree to do so for less than £20,000.<sup>53</sup> It was reported on 17 Feb. 1691 that ‘Stamford’s match’ had been ‘broke off’, but on 10 Mar. he married ‘the daughter of the late Serjeant Maynard’s son’, at the house of Sir Henry Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. in Norfolk, Hobart who was married to the other daughter and co-heir.<sup>54</sup> The match certainly had prospects for financial gain, although for the moment it embroiled him in disputes over the Maynard inheritance. Stamford remained active in political business, arranging in April to dine with Robert Harley, now a commissioner of public accounts, and on 31 May attending the consecration of John Tillotson*, as archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Stamford was present when the 1691-2 session began on 22 Oct. 1691. He attended on 87 days of the session, 90 per cent of the total, and was named to 54 committees. On 19 Nov. he served as a teller in opposition to Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, on whether to go into committee of the whole House on the bill to establish procedures for bills of review in chancery. He chaired select committees on the aulnage, and chaired and reported from Mathews’ estate bill, which favoured a daughter of Sir Thomas Armstrong (12 Nov.) and Roberts’s estate bill, which concerned Leicestershire (25 Nov.).<sup>56</sup> On 1 Dec. he was named to report a conference on the bill for the abrogation of oaths in Ireland.</p><p>In an attempt to sort out the Maynard inheritance, on 5 Dec. 1691 Stamford petitioned that Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk, should waive his privilege in the case concerning the will of Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup> (Lady Stamford’s grandfather). Maynard had died in October 1690 leaving the bulk of his vast estate to two of his grandchildren, daughters of his son Joseph, who had predeceased him. He made his fourth and surviving wife, Mary, Lady Maynard, executrix. She had subsequently married Suffolk. Shortly after his own marriage, Stamford brought a bill in chancery to claim the inheritance from Maynard’s widow, who was able to claim privilege through her new husband. The committee for privileges reported on 12 Dec. that Suffolk and his wife could not claim privilege as she was only a trustee of the estate, a decision with which the House concurred. These legal disputes continued until the case was settled by an act of 1694.<sup>57</sup></p><p>On 16 Dec. 1691, following an assault on Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, Stamford urged in the House the suppression of playhouses ‘as being illegal and tending greatly to the increase of debauchery’.<sup>58</sup> He was named a manager for a conference to defend the House’s amendments to the treason trials bill on 17 Dec., having been named to the committee to draft reasons defending the Lords’ amendment. However, after the report of the conference he was not named to the committee to draw up reasons for insisting on their amendment and so was not appointed on 29 Dec. to manage the next conference. However, he was added to those named to manage the next conference and duly spoke on 5 Jan. on a proviso to be added to the bill.<sup>59</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1692 Stamford acted as a teller in opposition to James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, on whether to appoint a day for hearing counsel on the petition of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, for a divorce bill. On 16 Feb. he protested twice against the decision that proxies could not be used during the proceedings on this bill, while the following day he told in favour of the unsuccessful motion that the bill be read a second time.<sup>60</sup> From 12 Jan. 1692 he held Warrington’s proxy and he added to this on 11 Feb. when John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston, registered his proxy in his favour. He chaired the committee of the whole on 21 Jan. on the bill for breeding cattle, and on 2 Feb. he subscribed to the protest against the rejection of the Commons’ objections to the House’s amendments to the bill establishing the commissioners of accounts. On 2 Feb. he protested against the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ reasons against the Lords’ amendments to the bill appointing commissioners of accounts. He chaired and reported from committees on bills for repairing highways (11 Feb.) and the relief of the poor (13 Feb.).<sup>61</sup> He reported from the committee on several petitions relating to a matter of privilege (20 Feb.), and took the chair for part of the proceedings on two further matters of privilege.<sup>62</sup> He was named as a reporter for a conference on the small tithes bill (22 Feb.). He acted as a teller on 24 Feb. in opposition to Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, on whether to refer the cause of <em>Tooke v. Chief Baron Atkins</em> back to the exchequer. Stamford attended the prorogations on 24 May and 14 June 1692.</p><p>Stamford was present when the 1692-3 session met on 4 November. He attended on 90 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and was nominated to 53 committees. On 14 Nov. 1692 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, on whether to agree to a resolution that granted bail to the suspected Jacobites, Huntingdon and Marlborough, because two witnesses against them (as was necessary to convict for treason) could not be found. On 22 Nov. he reported to the House a number of decisions made by the committee for privileges and some general guidelines to prevent disorders in the House. Between 24 Nov. and 5 Dec. he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill providing for an indemnity from suits for those who had acted in the royal service, although when proceedings on the bill were resumed in January 1693, the chair was taken by Cornwallis.<sup>63</sup> On 7 Dec. Stamford told in opposition to Scarbrough in favour of requesting a conference on the advice to be given to the king regarding the disastrous military situation; he then entered his protest against the rejection of the proposal to establish a joint committee. On 17 Dec. he told in opposition to Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex, on whether to reverse the decree in <em>Moore v Coote</em>. On 23 Dec. he protested against the resolution to reverse the decision in <em>Leach v Thompson</em>. On 20 Dec. he was named to manage the conference at which the naval papers brought in by Nottingham were to be handed over to the Commons; he was named too for the conference on the 21st at which the Commons announced their House’s vote praising Admiral Edward Russell*, future earl of Orford. On 22 Dec. he was named to manage a conference charged with procedural matters, as he was on several follow-up conferences to debate what was claimed to be an unprecedented use of a conference.</p><p>Stamford joined other disgruntled Whigs in supporting the place bill at the turn of 1692-3. On 31 Dec. he voted to commit the bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 voted for its passage, signing the protest at its rejection. On 12 Jan. he was a teller in opposition to Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, in the committee of the whole House on giving advice to the king concerning the cautionary towns in Flanders. On 17 Jan. he chaired the select committee named to draw a clause in the bill for frequent Parliaments, providing for triennial Parliaments that should meet and sit every year. He reported from it on the 18th.<sup>64</sup> On that day he was named to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill and the day after, he subscribed to two protests against the House’s decision to abandon these amendments. On 24-25 Jan. he was appointed a manager for two conferences on Burnet’s anonymous tract <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em>, which was perceived as inflammatory and libellous. On 28 Jan. he reported from the committee for privileges on a matter concerning Manchester and Fulke Grevile*, 5th Baron Brooke. He then reported from the committee arranging the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, in Westminster Hall. Stamford found Mohun not guilty of murder on 4 February.</p><p>Stamford served as chairman of the committee of the whole for the bill to prevent malicious informations in the court of king’s bench (10 Feb.), and was later named to report from two conferences on it (1, 3 Mar.); and for the bill to prevent disputes about the royal mines (16 Feb.). He subscribed to a protest on 6 Mar. against the decision not to communicate to the Commons the information on Ireland heard before the House and to another on 8 Mar. against the rejection of several provisos relating to the freedom to print in the bill to continue various laws, including the licensing of the press. As the session progressed, the Lords became very busy with legislation passed by the Commons, so from 10 Feb. Stamford came into his own as a legislative workhorse, chairing select committees on 22 occasions, on a variety of bills, although on some of them he merely adjourned proceedings.<sup>65</sup> He reported on bills relating to Hertford highways (10 Feb.); Williams’ estate (13 Feb.); highwaymen (16 Feb.); Birmingham school’s petition (17 Feb.); the exchange of lands between Monmouth and Henry Compton*, bishop of London (23 Feb.); delivering declarations to prisoners (25 Feb.); Goodwyn’s estate (1 Mar.); the Greenland trade (2 Mar.); double returns (10, 13 Mar.); making fresh water from seawater (10 Mar.); discovering judgments in Westminster Hall (11 Mar.); and regulating the crown office (11 Mar.).</p><p>With the end of the session, Stamford was much in the thoughts of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, as he tried to construct a viable ministry. Stamford seems to have been on good terms with one of the key men in Sunderland’s plans, Sir John Somers*, the future Baron Somers. He was one of the peers who attended Somers to Westminster on the first day of term in May 1693 following his appointment as lord keeper.<sup>66</sup> On 20 June Sunderland wrote to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, that Stamford was one of the Lords that ‘must have money’. On receiving news in July of the Smyrna convoy disaster Stamford was perhaps being critical of the Tory elements of the government when he opined on ‘that fatal stroke’ that he would take some comfort if ‘some eyes would be opened before it be too late’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Stamford attended the prorogation on 26 Oct. 1693 and was present when the 1693-4 session opened on 7 November. He attended on 112 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and was named to 31 committees. In early December he was one of the sponsors of the triennial bill and ‘spoke often’ in its defence in committee of the whole House on 4 Dec. which debated the provision that a Parliament should be held every year.<sup>68</sup> That winter he chaired two select committees, reporting on Gardiner’s estate bill (11 Dec.) and on the bill against the importation of foreign silk (13 Jan. 1694).<sup>69</sup> On 10 Jan. he entered his protest against the motion exonerating the Tory admirals from the debacle of the Smyrna fleet and was named on 8 and 12 Feb. to manage conferences on the related matter of the intelligence the admiralty had received on the French fleet.</p><p>A bill of much greater personal import to Stamford was given a first reading on 3 Feb. 1694, that for settling the estate of Sir John Maynard. The bill’s contentious nature was perhaps flagged by the order which followed its introduction, that notice of it be given to Sir William Rawlinson, who was married to another grand-daughter of Sir John Maynard by his daughter, Honora. Rawlinson submitted a petition at the next sitting of the House (5 February). On the 7th an order was made for some of Stamford’s witnesses to attend a hearing at the Bar, and counsel was duly heard on the 16th. After repeated adjournments the House does not appear to have made a decision on the petition (probably because the parties had reached a compromise). A second reading was ordered on 3 Mar. and the committee under Manchester sat on 5-8 Mar., with Rawlinson consenting to the bill as amended in committee on the 8th. It was reported that day and the House agreed to the amendments. Following the committal of the bill in the Commons (20 Mar.), a petition was referred to the committee on the 21st from Elizabeth Maynard (Joseph Maynard’s widow) asking that the bill should not be passed until Stamford and Hobart had executed a conveyance allowing her £350 per annum for life. A long-term political ally, Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, reported the bill in the Commons on 26 Mar., and that Elizabeth Maynard had been satisfied, the bill passing its third reading on the 28th and receiving the royal assent on 16 April.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Stamford voted on 17 Feb. 1694 against the motion to reverse chancery’s dismissal of the appeal in the cause <em>Montagu v Bath</em>. On 4 and 5 Apr. he was named to manage a conference defending the House’s amendments to the estate bill of William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, and to manage a conference on the bill for small tithes (16 April). As usual, as the end of the session approached, Stamford was pressed into service as a chair of committees on legislation. He acted as a chairman on eight separate occasions for three private bills, reporting them to the House over the course of a month: Whitley’s estate (16 Feb.); Turner’s estate (19 Feb.); and Chaplin’s estate (17 Mar.).<sup>71</sup> He chaired and reported the committee of the whole on the mutiny bill (2 Mar.); the bill preventing delays at quarter sessions (9 Mar.); the bill allowing the king to make grants in the duchy of Cornwall, (28 Mar. and 14 Apr.); the bill settling the method of taking special bails (16 Apr.); and the bill encouraging privateers (19 and 20 April).</p><p>As the king increasingly turned to the Whigs to form his ministry in 1694, Stamford’s fortunes rose. In April it had been rumoured that he would be made one of the lords of the treasury in the place of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and on 10 May he was sworn in as a privy councillor.<sup>72</sup> Stamford attended the prorogations of 25 Oct. and 6 Nov. 1694 and was present when the 1694-5 session opened on 12 November. He attended on 116 days of the session, 97 per cent of the total, and was named to 48 committees. On 22 Nov. he acted as a teller in opposition to Marlborough in a division on whether to ask the judges if various parliamentary papers were chargeable under the Stamp Act. On 10 Dec. he dissented from the decision to reverse the judgment following the bringing in of a writ of error in the case of <em>Philips v Bury</em>.</p><p>Stamford was named to manage a number of conferences on the treason trials bill (16, 23 Feb., 11, 15, 20 Apr. 1695); on the bill encouraging privateers (1 May); on the bill imprisoning Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> and others; and on the impeachment of the duke of Leeds (3 May). On 8 Mar. he joined Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, in the debate on the descent of baronies by writ, following which on 19 Mar. he protested against the decision that if a person summoned to Parliament by writ died after sitting, leaving issue two or more daughters, of whom only one left issue, such issue had a right to demand a summons to Parliament.<sup>73</sup> On 17 Apr. he chaired the committee of the whole House considering the bill to oblige Sir Thomas Cooke to account for the East India Company’s funds. On 18 Apr. he put his name to the protest against the resolution that exonerated the Tory John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), from suspicion of having divulged the opinion and proceedings of the House ‘without doors’. From 10 Jan. he chaired eight select committees, mainly on private bills, reporting the following five: Wollaston’s estate (11 Feb.); Barkham’s estate (13 Feb.); Howland’s estate (25 Feb.); Gollop’s estate (7 Mar.); and Christ Church, Surrey parish (16 Mar.). He also reported an address for the increase of the fleet (2 March).<sup>74</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>Stamford was said to have coveted the post of secretary of state, left vacant by the death of Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup> at the end of April 1695.<sup>75</sup> He attended the prorogation of 18 June. After a visit to Leicestershire, where he boasted that he ‘left the town and county so well disposed that I will hope without much contest to carry both’, he left for Gunnersbury, the Maynard family residence, arriving on 5 October. He then planned to be in London, hoping to be at the Grecian coffee-house on the 8th or 9th, although he stated that he had to return to Leicestershire for the elections.<sup>76</sup> A few weeks later he was required to play host to the king during his progress through the Midlands, William III visiting Bradgate on 3 November.<sup>77</sup> Stamford’s prediction of the electoral outcome in Leicestershire was wide of the mark, as one of his candidates, George Ashby<sup>‡</sup>, was forced to share the county representation with John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, a moderate Tory. Stamford’s other candidate, William Bird, came third in the poll.<sup>78</sup> His position was more secure at Bere Alston, where he had acquired an electoral interest through his wife’s inheritance upon Sir John Maynard’s death. Stamford worked closely with the major leaseholder of the manor, a leader of the west country Whigs, Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., in returning mutually agreeable candidates in 1695 including Stamford’s brother-in-law, Hobart. When Hobart chose to sit elsewhere, he was replaced by Gwynne.</p><p>Stamford was a candidate for a place on a revamped commission dealing with trade and plantations in December 1695. A warrant for a bill creating this commission was signed on 15 December. John Locke was informed of its membership, including himself and Stamford, two days later. However, it did not pass the great seal and never came into effect. When a commission finally passed the seals in May 1696, Stamford had been replaced by Tankerville (as Grey of Warke had become).<sup>79</sup> Stamford was made lord lieutenant of Devon, corresponding to his new influence there, in April 1696, and no doubt encouraged Somers in his purge of the commission of the peace, especially of men who had not signed the Association. Stamford also campaigned to add control of the militia of Plymouth to his lieutenancy, despite the long precedent which separated the powers belonging to the lord lieutenant and the governor of the city. This led to a long drawn-out contest with the governor, major general Charles Trelawny<sup>‡</sup>, which was not resolved in Trelawny’s favour until the following summer.<sup>80</sup> All in all, Stamford’s role in Devon met with some hostility. One anonymous correspondent of Thomas Tenison*, archibishop of Canterbury, attempted to smear him by alleging that his father had acted as one of the executioners of Charles I, and suggested that the archbishop, knowing this, should dissuade the king ‘from entrusting and preferring the son of such an infamous regicide, especially considering he manages matters in the West so much to the distaste of the gentry, as will occasion complaint in Parliament and doth his majesty’s interest and credit no little damage.’<sup>81</sup></p><p>Stamford was present when the 1695 Parliament opened on 22 November. He attended on 109 days of the 1695-6 session, 88 per cent of the total, and was named to 34 committees. On 23 Dec. he spoke in committee of the whole House on the treason trials bill about the date on which the statute was to take effect, although the import of his contribution is unclear.<sup>82</sup> He opposed the claim of Sir Richard Verney*, future 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to a writ of summons to the House, an issue which had been raised in a general way in the previous session, and which had elicited a protest from him in March. He protested on 17 Jan. 1696 against a resolution that Verney’s counsel be heard at the bar on his petition for a summons and on 13 Feb. against the resolution that Verney had the right to a writ of summons. On 24 Feb. he was named a manager for a conference on the king’s speech on the Assassination Plot and he signed the Association on 27 February. On 6 Apr. he was also appointed a manager for a conference on the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ amendments to the privateers bill. On 7 Apr. he and Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, were the only two peers to protest against the procedural anomaly of the House’s agreeing to hear counsel and witnesses on a bill after it had already been heard in committee of the whole. During the session he chaired the select committee on several private bills, reporting from one, Midford’s estate bill, on 19 February.<sup>83</sup> On 2 Apr. he chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill for an additional duty on all French goods, and on 17 Apr. the committee of the whole House on the bill re-vesting in the king various estates belonging to the honour of Tutbury.</p><p>Stamford attended the prorogation on 28 July 1696, and the opening day of the 1696-7 session on 20 October. He was present on 104 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was named to 39 committees. On 2 Nov. he reported from the committee for privileges on the petition of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and the answer of John Granville*, earl of Bath—part of their ongoing tussle over the Albemarle inheritance. On 28 Nov. he reported from the committee of the whole on the low wines bill. On 30 Nov. he was named to manage a conference on the waiving and resumption of privilege. </p><p>Following the allegations of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., Stamford and Monmouth saw an opportunity to attack their enemies, such as Godolphin. It was Stamford who on 26 Nov. proposed sending for Fenwick to appear at the bar on 1 Dec.: James Vernon<sup>‡ </sup>was not clear why, though he was suspicious because of Stamford’s ‘intimacy’ with Gwynne and some other Members, ‘who have entertained unintelligible notions of advantages to be made’ from Fenwick’s confession. Vernon wrote on 8 Dec. of his fear that Stamford might also be manipulating the informer Matthew Smith. On 8 Dec. L’Hermitage reported that Stamford was one of those peers who, like Devonshire and Tankerville, argued that the evidence against Fenwick should be heard before any decision was taken as to whether to proceed by attainder. Stamford promoted the attainder of Fenwick energetically, moving for the second reading of the bill on 18 Dec. and voting for its passage on 23 December. He then joined Bolton and ten or so other peers in defending Monmouth after it was revealed that he had continued to try to influence Fenwick’s testimony in order to implicate other peers.<sup>84</sup></p><p>On 12 Mar. 1697 Stamford again received Bolingbroke’s proxy. On that day he chaired and reported from the committee appointed to draw reasons for the Lords insisting on its amendments to the bill to restrain the wearing of imported wrought silks and printed calicoes, and on the 19th he entered his dissent against the House’s insistence on maintaining these amendments to this bill. On 16 Mar. he reported from the committee for privileges on the petition of William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby. He reported from committees of the whole House on the bill for the relief of creditors (20 Mar.), the malt duty bill and the bill for the better relief of the poor (14 Apr.), and the bill to restrain stock-jobbing (15 April). He also chaired several select committees, reporting from the bills on Moyle’s estate (23 Mar.), Crowle’s estate (25 Mar.) and Reigate highways (30 March).<sup>85</sup></p><p>Stamford appears to have stayed in London for part of the summer, attending the prorogations on 13 May, 17 June and 22 July 1697. One of the main reasons for his extended stay was his elevation to the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster. The duchy contained many Leicestershire manors, and may have been an attempt by the ministry to temper his propensity for trouble-making. On 6 May Vernon had recorded that the seals of the duchy would be demanded from Robert Bertie*, Baron Willoughby de Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), and Stamford duly took the oaths as chancellor on 11 May.<sup>86</sup> Stamford seems to have set out to oust other long-standing officials. At his first sitting as chancellor, he removed Guicciardini Wentworth as secretary and replaced him with his own nominee, Brutus Brown. In May he threatened the duchy attorney-general, Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup>, whom he wished to replace with his own nominee, Atwood, but Northey had powerful advocates and retained his post. Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, lost his stewardship of Northamptonshire in July, later noting that Stamford had removed him ‘to place there some men more agreeable to his humour, and tho’ I had some intimation that he would have restored me to it if I had been inclined to make application to him which I was not willing to do’. Needless to say, Stamford was involved in purging the Lancashire bench in the wake of the Association.<sup>87</sup> Stamford’s own stewardship of Leicester passed to his client Lawrence Carter<sup>‡</sup>, senior.</p><p>Stamford was absent from the prorogations of 26 Aug. and 30 Sept. before attending those on 21 Oct. and 23 Nov. 1697. He was present when the 1697-8 session began on 3 December. He sat on 127 days of the session, 97 per cent of the total and was named to 75 committees. On 18 Jan. 1698 Vernon implied that only Stamford, together with Bolton, Peterborough (as Monmouth had become) and Normanby would be ‘troubling the waters’ in the Lords, but that they were ‘so well known as to have all their motions narrowly watched’.<sup>88</sup></p><p>During the session Stamford was again prominent as a manager of conferences. On 13 Jan. he was named a manager for a conference on the bill for continuing to incarcerate those suspected of conspiring to kill the king, and on 7 Mar. for that on the House’s amendments to a bill to further explain recently-passed legislation for the relief of the poor. He was clearly active on the conference concerning amendments to the bill to erect hospitals and workhouses in Colchester, from which he reported on 11 May, although the journals do not record his appointment as a manager on the previous day. On 20 June he was named a manager for the conference on the bill concerning the Alverstoke waterworks of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester. On 15 Mar. he voted to commit the bill to punish the exchequer official, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, and subscribed the protest against the decision not to do so. He also protested against two resolutions in the cause of <em>Bertie v. Viscount Falkland</em> which benefited the appellants, the Berties (16-17 March).</p><p>From May 1698 much of Stamford’s time was taken up in chairing committees. He chaired the committee on the impeachments of the suspected smugglers Goudet and Barreau, which had to consider the demands made by the Commons over the conduct of the trial (13 May, 6-8 June). On 8 June Stamford reported that the committee could find no precedent of members of the lower house standing anywhere in the upper house except below the bar in impeachment trials, but he appears himself to have disagreed with this decision, as on 15 June he was one of only three peers, along with Devonshire and John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, to protest against the House’s insistence on this point. Vernon reported on 16 June that Rochester and Peterborough ‘stand very stiff upon the prerogative of the peers’, but that Devonshire, Normanby, Haversham and Stamford were for showing some consideration to the Commons. Nevertheless he was named to the resultant conference and to another on the 20th. After Goudet and Barreau had confessed to the crime, he reported from the committee on precedents for their punishment and the manner of delivering such a judgment. (29 June, 4 July).<sup>89</sup></p><p>Stamford also chaired the committee of the whole House on a number of occasions: on the annuities bill (21 Feb.); on the better payment of lottery tickets (28 May); on the duties on lustrings, and the bills on naval shipbuilding, naval embezzlement (all 20 June); and on the bill explaining the statutes against the export of wool (24 June). He chaired the committee for privileges on <em>Vaughan v. Herbert</em> (18 Feb.) and on <em>Lucy v Bishop of St Davids</em> (23 May), later serving on the court of delegates in the case against the latter (Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids).<sup>90</sup> Stamford was also very busy chairing select committees. He reported from committees on the following: the bishops of Ely’s estate bill (10 Jan.); the estate bill for John Williams*, bishop of Chichester (21 Feb.); the bill amending the poor law (28 Feb.); Hall’s estate bill (1 Mar.); Hewett’s estate bill (12 Mar.); bills for Colchester and Exeter workhouses (4 May); Walrond’s estate bill (7 June); the bill on the export of manufactures containing silver (10 June); a naturalization bill (20 June); a bill allowing a ship to import her cargo (22 June); a bill on gold and silver thread (27 June). Some bills were more complex than others: he chaired the committee on the estate bill of Sir William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup> on six occasions before reporting it fit to pass on 31 March; and he reported several times from the committee considering the proper method of treating appeals to the Lords from the Irish court of chancery (8, 15 Jan., 21 February). From 20 Apr. he led the committee on the bill to encourage woollen manufacture in England by halting the import of woollen goods from Ireland, from which he reported on 6 May with a request for papers. This bill became hopelessly entangled in committee and on 9 June Stamford instead reported an address relating to the Irish woollen and linen industries.<sup>91</sup> On 30 June Bolingbroke once more registered his proxy with Stamford, but this was short-lived as Parliament was prorogued on 5 July.</p><p>Stamford’s belligerent assertion of his privileges as chancellor of the duchy, brought him into conflict with Devonshire over Needwood Forest. On 22 Sept. 1698 Devonshire complained about the actions of the axe-bearer appointed by Stamford, which led to a dispute over the right to appoint to the office.<sup>92</sup> In October Vernon reported the likelihood of ‘mortal strife’ between Stamford and Devonshire over this appointment, Stamford being ‘tenacious of his right to dispose of the place, exclusive of the lieutenancy of the forest’.<sup>93</sup> On 26 Jan. 1699 the council heard Stamford’s counsel, Northey and Nathan Wright, argue that he had the right as chancellor to hunt in Needwood Forest. This was opposed by Devonshire, as ranger of the forest, through his counsel, Sir Thomas Powys<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>94</sup> Stamford was also criticized in Lancashire for his influence in appointments: James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], was informed in December 1700 that the sheriff, William Hulme, was ‘a man of very ill fame, and was made by my Lord M[acclesfield] and Stamford’, having been recommended to them by Hugh Willoughby*, 2nd Baron Willoughby of Parham. Hulme had been ‘formerly accused and convict[ed] of forgery.’<sup>95</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1698</em></h2><p>In the elections for the 1698 Parliament, Stamford and Drake were able to ensure the return for Bere Alston of Gwynne and the Whig solicitor-general John Hawles<sup>‡</sup>. After Gwynne opted to sit for Breconshire, James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, brother of the Junto leader Charles Montagu*, future earl of Halifax, was returned at the ensuing by-election. Stamford was able to use the duchy interest to nominate Henry Ashurst<sup>‡</sup> at Preston, as he did in the following two elections. He had less success in Leicestershire, where the largely Tory gentry were able to force through their own choices, although it was reported that Stamford would insist on a poll for Bird. More favourably, the town of Leicester returned two Whigs.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Stamford attended the prorogations on 27 Oct. and 29 Nov. 1698. He was present on the opening day of the session, 6 December. In all he attended on 68 days of the session, 84 per cent of the total, and was named to 39 committees. He chaired and reported from the committee preparing the address on the king’s speech on 22 December. He remained active in his usual role of chairing and reporting from committees during the remainder of the session. In total he chaired select committees considering 30 pieces of legislation, reporting on the following bills: Derwentwater’s estate (12 Jan. 1699); repairing Yarmouth piers (16 Feb.); naturalizations (20 Feb., three on 10 Mar., 13 Mar.); Viner’s estate (24 Feb.); Bridges’ estate (16 Mar.); Seliyard’s estate (21 Mar.); the ship <em>Charles Flyboat</em> of Exeter (22 Mar.); Weslyd’s estate (1 Apr.); preventing the export of wool (27 Mar. and 1 Apr.); Price’s estate (3 Apr.); Moor’s estate and Blackwell Market (12 Apr.); Vesey’s estate (13 Apr.); Cowslade’s estate (18 Apr.). He also chaired the committee on a petition from the underage Edward Ward*, future 8th Baron Dudley, over an appeal from a legal judgment in Ireland (14 Feb.), the committee on Barailleau’s naturalization, though he did not report it, and one of the meetings of the committee drawing up an address on the Newfoundland trade.<sup>97</sup> On 3 May he also chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill for encouraging Newfoundland trade.</p><p>Stamford was closely involved in the bill to prohibit the export of corn or malt: he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill on 18-19 Jan., reporting on the 23rd, whereupon the bill was ordered to be recommitted to a select committee, from which he reported later that day.<sup>98</sup> He was then named on 27 Jan. as a manager of a conference, which was held the following day and from which he reported. This committee also drew up reasons and acted as managers at subsequent conferences on the bill. On 27 Jan. Stamford joined Haversham as one of the few peers to speak against the second reading of the disbanding bill.<sup>99</sup> He was named on 1 Mar. to manage a conference on the bill to prevent the distillation of corn. He acted as a teller on 11 Feb. in opposition to James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, in the case of <em>Fitch v the attorney-general</em>.</p><p>Following the end of the session, there was much talk of a ministerial reshuffle. At the end of May 1699 Vernon reported that Stamford was being considered for a place on the commission of trade, though he felt that the earl had higher expectations. In the event, he was appointed to the commission, ‘he having asked it at last’ through the agency of Lord Chancellor Somers, and the king ‘was unwilling to refuse one of that humour, who began to show himself very dogged for his being neglected’. Thus, on 9 June Stamford replaced Tankerville, as ‘first lord’ of the board of Trade. He attended the prorogations of 1 June and 13 July, and was active at the board until towards the end of July. He had returned to the board before the end of October. He attended the prorogation of 24 October.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Stamford was present when the 1699-1700 session opened on 16 Nov. 1699. He attended on 73 days of the session, 92 per cent of the total and was named to 35 committees. As a commissioner of trade, Stamford was the conduit whereby documents were transmitted from the board to the Lords. Following the order of the Lords of 16 Jan. 1700, two days later he submitted to the House the Board’s report on the prejudice done to English trade by the Scottish East India Company and the Darien settlement.<sup>101</sup> On 23 Jan. he chaired (and adjourned) two select committees considering private bills. He chaired (and reported from) only one other select committee during the session, that which examined on 4 Mar. the proper conduct of judges when bringing writs of error before the House. He reported from it the following day.<sup>102</sup> One probable reason for the decline in his work on select committees was his work on the board of Trade, where he was regular in his attendance when in London. On 23 Jan. he entered his protest against the decision to reverse the judgment in the cause <em>Williamson v. the Crown</em>. On 23 Feb. he voted against adjourning the House so that it could go into committee on the bill for continuing the old East India Company as a corporation. On 27 Mar. he chaired and reported the committees of the whole on three bills: for punishing vagrants; to punish corporation officers who had failed to sign the Association; and for the more effectual suppression of piracy, the latter of which concerned an amendment which revoked the charters of any proprietary or chartered colony which refused to obey the provisions of the act.<sup>103</sup> On 5 Apr. he chaired and reported the committee of the whole on the militia bill; and on 9 Apr. he chaired and reported on the supply bill laying a duty on wrought silks. Meanwhile, on 4 Apr. Stamford spoke in favour of rejecting the bill to resume the forfeited Irish land, and entered his protest against its second reading, a position fully in accordance with the king’s wishes.<sup>104</sup> On 9 and 10 Apr. he was named to manage conferences defending the House’s amendments to the bill, and entered his protest when the House decided not to insist on its amendments (10 April).</p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1701</em></h2><p>On 25 May, following the end of the session, and with the ministerial position uncertain, Vernon reported that the king intended to speak to Stamford, among others, to suggest to them that he had no thoughts ‘but of employing the Whigs’.<sup>105</sup> Stamford was certainly perceived by contemporaries as a Whig. His name appeared on a list of Whig lords (probably after 10 July), with markings which in his case may indicate that he was seen as a supporter of the Junto; but on a list of the Commons analysed by Harley, he was accorded his own ‘interest’ separate from that of the Junto, although only one Member was assigned to it, namely Gwynne.<sup>106</sup> Stamford ceased to attend the board of trade at the end of June and presumably spent the summer and autumn in the country because he did not attend any of the prorogations of Parliament until 24 Oct. on which day he also returned to the board.<sup>107</sup> He attended the prorogation of 21 November. Following the election of January 1701, Gwynne opted to sit for Breconshire and Drake and Stamford were able to ensure the return at Bere Alston of William Cowper*, future Earl Cowper, to join with the Whig lawyer Peter King*, future Baron King.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Stamford attended the prorogation of 6 Feb. 1701 and he was present when the 1701 Parliament assembled on 10 February. He attended on 96 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was named to 43 committees. According to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup>, it was Stamford who on 26 Feb. brought in the bill allowing Ralph Box to divorce and marry again, and on 10 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to Warrington at the report stage of this bill on whether to agree to an amendment.<sup>109</sup> On 3 Mar. Stamford brought before the House a case of breach of privilege against Robert Wakelin, an attorney, and those he was acting for, for turning out some of his tenants in Dorset. As a result Wakelin and his associates were ordered into custody. Stamford acted as a teller in opposition to Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, on the third reading of the bill for confirming the grants of Newport and Brookfield markets (15 Apr.); in opposition to Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, on whether to give a second reading to the bill for furnishing New Deal with fresh water (21 May); and on a procedural motion in the cause of <em>Lloyd v. Cardy</em> (6 June). On 15 May he was named to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for regulating prisons. He chaired the select committee on 3 June on the bill of his close Whig colleague, Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, to annul the marriage settlement with his divorced wife, but no report seems to have been made.<sup>110</sup> On 9 June he reported Jane Barkstead’s naturalization bill. On 23 June he chaired a committee of the whole on the bill for establishing commissioners of public accounts and was named on the following day to count the ballots for the Lords’ places on this body (which failed to pass).</p><p>Perhaps of most importance in this session was Stamford’s heavy involvement in the defence of Whig ministers over the partition treaties. On 15 Mar. 1701 he acted as a teller in opposition to Peterborough on whether the second paragraph of the report on the partition treaty, that the Emperor was not a party to the treaty, should stand; on 20 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Nottingham on whether to communicate the Lords’ address on the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. He was named as a manager on 2 and 10 Apr. to conferences about communicating information on the treaties. On 9 May a committee was established to consider the manner of the Commons delivering articles of impeachment, from which Stamford duly reported. Henceforth, he monopolized the chairmanship of this select committee, further reports being presented to the House on 14, 20 May, 2-3, 7, 9-10, 12, 19-20, 23 June, and through this forum he was able to direct the House’s obstruction of the Commons’ prosecution of the Junto lords.<sup>111</sup> Not surprisingly on 17 June Stamford voted to acquit Somers, as he did for Orford on 23 June.</p><p>Meanwhile, Stamford’s feud with Sir Basil Firebrace<sup>‡</sup>, a ranger of Enfield Chase in the duchy of Lancaster, came before Parliament. This cause had already involved the Council in 1699, and led Secretary of State Vernon to comment that Stamford ‘takes a pleasure in seeing all mankind at variance’. He exasperated the king sufficiently for him to have said (reportedly) ‘that he should never have heard of the duchy of Lancaster if he had not had so busy a chancellor’.<sup>112</sup> On 12 May 1701 a complaint was made to the Commons about timber being felled in Enfield Chace, leading to an address to the king to halt such action and appoint a committee of inquiry into the matter. Vernon forwarded the address to Stamford on the following day.<sup>113</sup> The committee reported to the Commons on 26 May. Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> thought that the attack on Stamford was politically driven, that it was ‘more the humour of the leading men to ruin an enemy and remove a Lord they don’t like and to put one in they do in his place’. The Commons passed two resolutions, one that ‘great waste and spoil had been committed in Enfield Chace’ and the second that this had occurred through Stamford’s ‘neglect of duty and trust’. Stamford’s chief defender in the debate was William Cowper, thanks to whose performance the second resolution passed by only 136-102 (with Gwynne among the tellers for the noes). The question for Stamford’s removal was not pressed because the king let it be known, through the other secretary, Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>, that Stamford had acted upon his orders in cutting down the trees, although Hedges was only able to do so informally near the end of the debate.<sup>114</sup> Stamford later resorted to print to defend himself: <em>The Case of the Earl of Stamford, Relating to the Wood lately Cut in Enfield Chace</em> was advertised for sale in August 1701. A reply, <em>The Case of the Earl of Stamford Considered</em>, also published in 1701, reiterated the case against him.</p><p>Stamford probably left London as usual in late July 1701, when he stopped attending the board of Trade. He had returned by the end of October, as he was present at the prorogation of 30 October.<sup>115</sup> He was present when the 1701-2 Parliament convened on 30 Dec., attending on 87 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total, and was named to 34 committees. On 1 Jan. 1702 he subscribed to the address condemning Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender. On 19 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Mohun on the question whether to censure William Fuller’s Jacobite publications. On 6 Feb. he was named to report a conference on the bill to attaint the Pretender. After the conference the Lords decided to insist on their amendments and named a committee, including Stamford, to search for precedents of clauses added to bills of attainder, which he chaired and reported from the following day. A further conference followed on the 10th.<sup>116</sup> On 16 Feb. he submitted to the House a report on the plantation trade in which the board of trade argued for the resumption by the crown of all proprietary charters in the colonies. After the death of the king, he was one of those delegated on 4 May to present to the queen the House’s resolution that the report that certain papers found in the late king’s closet cast aspersions on the queen’s succession was ‘groundless, false, villainous and scandalous’. He chaired the committee of the whole House when considering the bills for the relief of Sir William Ashurst<sup>‡</sup> (1 and 12 May) and for the Greenland trade (4 May). He was named to manage conferences on the abjuration oath (7 May) and the bill for the encouragement of privateers (20 May). On 21 May he acted as a teller in opposition to Abingdon on the question of whether to dismiss one of the witnesses on the bill for the relief of Jane Lavallin. Also on 21 May the House was informed that the previous evening, four bailiffs, at the suit of a tailor, Thomas Nicholas, had entered Stamford’s house and seized his goods, and coach and horses, contrary to the privilege of Parliament. They were all ordered into custody. However, in his petition to the House, Nicholas pointed out that the earl had agreed to waive his privilege for the debt of £600 he owed, and consequently he was ordered to be released on the 23rd.<sup>117</sup> This incident demonstrated the somewhat precarious nature of Stamford’s financial situation. Around this date Macky noted that Stamford’s ‘zeal for the public led him from the care of his own private affairs, which he did not mend by his employment’ and that ‘from a good estate he is become very poor, and much in debt’.<sup>118</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1702</em></h2><p>The accession of Queen Anne did nothing to enhance Stamford’s financial or political prospects. He was not a favourite of the queen, doubtless because of his radical Whig past and current association with the Junto. In early April 1702 John Wilkins<sup>‡</sup> informed Rutland that Stamford would be removed from office, and there were rumours that he would be impeached by the Commons.<sup>119</sup> Between May and July he lost most of his posts, although he appears to have retained his place as <em>custos</em> of Devonshire. It may not have been a coincidence that the public airing of his debt to a tailor coincided with his decision to resign his seat at the board of Trade on 22 May so that he could travel to the electoral court of Hanover and cement his ties with the Protestant successor. He was granted a pass to travel abroad on 23 May, and embarked shortly thereafter. He arrived in Hanover in July, where he ‘was very constant both at dinner and supper with the elector’, and presented the dowager electress with a copy of the new Book of Common Prayer, which now included a prayer for ‘the Princess Sophia’. Despite this apparent respect for the official liturgy, Stamford was deeply suspicious of the established Church, refusing to appear at the chapel of the English envoy at Hanover.<sup>120</sup> Indeed, Macky commented that he was ‘a very honest man himself, but very suspicious of everybody that is not of his party, for which he is very zealous, [and] jealous of the power of the clergy, who, he is afraid, may sometime or other influence our civil government’.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Stamford was expected back in England in September 1702, because his wife was ill, but he probably did not return until the end of November.<sup>122</sup> He was not present when the Parliament convened on 20 October. He first attended the Lords on 30 Nov.: his reappearance drew the enigmatic comment from a newsletter writer that he had ‘returned to England tho’ at the same time some say that his Lordship has not been out of the kingdom’.<sup>123</sup> He was present on 52 days, 60 per cent of the total, and was named to 28 committees. He was named on 17 Dec. to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill against occasional conformity, as he was again on 9 Jan. 1703. In January Nottingham thought Stamford likely to oppose this bill and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of the Lords adhering to the penalty clause, essentially a wrecking amendment. On 19 Jan. he entered his protest against the decision not to leave out a clause in the bill enabling the queen to settle a revenue on Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, in case he should survive her, mainly because of the section on grants. Stamford took part in the investigations of the naval action at Cadiz and Vigo and joined in the partisan attack led by Torrington against the vice-admiral Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, being ‘early at the committee’ on 4 February.<sup>124</sup> On 17 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to Sandwich on a division concerning the miscarriages of the Cadiz expedition. On 12 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to Abingdon on whether to read a copy of a survey in the case of <em>Wharton v. Squire</em>. Without his administrative duties, Stamford had more time for committee work, and much of his parliamentary activity revolved around the management of legislation. He chaired several select committees, reporting on bills for Peachey’s estate (17 Dec. 1702); a land exchange (19 Dec.); Hodson’s estate (7 and 9 Jan. 1703); Williams’ estate (9 Feb.); and to prevent fraud in textile manufacture (17 February).<sup>125</sup></p><p>Stamford attended the prorogations on 14 Oct. and 4 Nov. 1703, and was present when the next session began on 9 November. He attended on 81 days, 83 per cent of the total, and was named to 38 committees. In November Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast Stamford as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill, as he did again in late November or early December, and on 14 Dec. he voted against the bill. On 2 Mar. 1704 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, on whether to agree with the report on the petition of the Hore family relating to abuses in victualling the navy. On 24 Mar. he entered his protest at the decision not to put the question on the motion that part of the narrative relating to Sir John Maclean, and the papers relating to his examination, taken by Nottingham, were imperfect, meaning that no censure at all was passed on Nottingham’s conduct. On 25 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Abingdon in a division concerning the criticism of ministers for failing to prosecute the plotter, Robert Ferguson, in relation to the Scotch Plot.</p><p>Again Stamford dealt with an impressively wide range of legislation, chairing many select committees and reporting on bills concerning Grainge’s estate (3 Feb.); Holworthy and Tipping estates (4 Feb.); Legh’s estate (21 Feb.); two naturalizations (22 Feb., 13 Mar.); the Sword Blade Company (24 Feb.); thrown silks (3 Mar.); Hawe and Conway estates (4 Mar.); Cooper’s estate (6 Mar.); and Briscoe’s estate (10 Mar.). One of the more notable select committees he chaired was that which examined the ‘Observations’ made by the Commons’ commissioners on the public accounts, upon which he reported on 6 and 16 Mar., before submitting a long and detailed report on 24 March. He also chaired the committee on the Scotch conspiracy on 28 March.<sup>126</sup> He attended the prorogation on 4 July 1704.</p><p>Stamford was present when the 1704-5 session opened on 24 October. He attended on 89 days of the session, 90 per cent of the total, and was named to 45 committees. On 15 Nov. he was present at the select committee on the records, and on 17 Nov. was one of eight peers that visited the Tower to examine the organization and preservation of the records there. On 29 Nov., with the queen present incognito for the debate on the Scottish act of security, Stamford moved that the House remain sitting, rather than going into committee of the whole because ‘the debates would be the more regular and solemn’, which was ‘understood as an intended respect’ to the queen, but nevertheless the original order of the House was adhered to. He was named to manage conferences on 28 Feb. and 7 Mar. 1705 on the contentious case of the ‘Aylesbury men’. He also chaired on 10 Mar. an adjournment meeting of the select committee entrusted with drawing up an address to the queen on the matter.<sup>127</sup></p><p>Once again, much of Stamford’s parliamentary work revolved around committees. He reported from committees on the following bills: four naturalization bills (29 Nov. 1704, 24 Jan. and two on 8 Feb. 1705); Hacche’s estate (20 Dec. 1704); Gould and Pile estates (12 Jan. 1705); Williams’ estate (24 Jan.); Grainge’s estate (1 Feb.); Coke’s estate (2 Feb.); Worsopp’s estate (8 Feb.); Nodes’ estate (14 Feb.); earl of Bath’s estate (15 Feb.); Bludworth’s estate (16 Feb.); Kenyon’s estate (22 February).<sup>128</sup> There is some evidence that Stamford was an assiduous committee-man, even when not in the chair. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted on 18 Nov. that he was willing to make up committees on two naturalization bills (Teviot and Cresset) which had then been passed in the House.<sup>129</sup> During the last weeks of the session, Stamford frequently served as chairman of the committee of the whole House. He presided over consideration of the bill to prevent traitorous correspondence (2 Mar.), following which he was named to manage a conference on the bill, reporting back from the conference on 7 March. He also dealt with bills to prevent delays in writs of error (1 Feb.); to prevent fraud by bankrupts and to continue certain acts (both 6 Mar.); the militia (8 Mar.); and for remedying abuses in the collection of the revenue (10 March).</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1705</em></h2><p>Following the end of the session, an analysis of the peerage in relation to the succession marked him as a Hanoverian. On 23 Oct. 1705 Stamford was one of those who attended the new lord keeper, Cowper, to the law courts.<sup>130</sup> In the elections of May, Cowper had been re-elected at Bere Alston: he would shortly pass on the seat to his brother, Spencer Cowper<sup>‡</sup>, who was also returned in 1708.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Stamford was present when the 1705 Parliament convened on 25 October. He attended on 89 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, and was named to 50 committees. On 19-21 Nov. Stamford chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House considering how best to preserve the government and the Protestant Succession. The resulting resolutions formed the genesis of the regency bill, and on 30 Nov. and 1 Dec. he again chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill. When the bill was returned from the Commons, complete with a ‘place clause’, to which the Lords did not agree, Stamford was named to the resultant conferences on 7, 11 and 19 February. At this point Stamford was embarrassed by his associate Gwynne, who published an open letter of support for the ‘Hanover motion’ addressed to Stamford, to almost universal condemnation.<sup>132</sup> On 9 Mar. 1706 both houses resolved that Gwynne’s <em>Letter to Stamford</em> was ‘a scandalous and malicious libel’, and three days later they addressed the queen condemning the offending publication. Stamford was not named to any of the committees or conferences managing this affair. </p><p>On 28 Nov. Stamford chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House concerning the bill to repeal certain clauses in the Alien Act. On 4 Dec. he chaired and reported form the committee of the whole House on the bill to naturalize the Electress Sophia. On 6 Dec. he chaired the committee of the whole again on the queen’s speech and he reported the controversial resolution that the Church of England was not in danger under the queen. As chairman he was not recorded in the division on the bill.<sup>133</sup> However, he was named later in the day to the conference at which the resolution was delivered to the Commons. He was then named to conferences on the resolution on 7, 11, 14 (which he reported), and 17 December. </p><p>Stamford was also the only chairman of the nine meetings of the select committee which met from 25 Jan. to 20 Feb. 1706 (when indefinitely adjourned) on the petitions of several of the inhabitants of Barbados against the island’s governor Sir Bevill Granville<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>134</sup> On 14 Feb. he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the annuities bill. On 28 Feb. and 2 Mar. he was named to manage conferences on the amendments to the estate bill of Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, and on 13 Mar. to manage that on the militia bill. Nicolson provides some evidence of Stamford’s active role while attending committees. On 18 Jan. Nicolson noted Stamford’s presence at the committee examining into the records, which adjourned to the chapter house at Westminster to take a personal view of conditions. On 20 Feb. Stamford was one of those who intervened in the committee on the bill for the better regulation of Lichfield Cathedral to ensure that the queen gave her formal consent to a living being united to the deanery. He was also ‘severe’ on Dean Bincks.<sup>135</sup> Stamford continued to chair a number of select committees, reporting from the following bills: for the Butler and Hamilton estates (11 Jan. 1706); two naturalization bills (15 Jan.; Nicolson noted that on 12 Jan. Stamford had chaired ‘two bills for naturalization of about 100 foreigners gone through at the committee’); Smalman estate (18 Jan.); the duchess of Shrewsbury’s naturalization (25 Jan.); Crome estate (26 Jan.); Stour navigation (14 Feb.); Humble estate (19 Feb.); relief of Irish regiments (27 Feb.); Reve estate and for preservation of salmon in Hampshire and Wiltshire (both 2 Mar.); Baldwin estate (5 Mar.); Gower estate (6 Mar.); Row estate (8 Mar.); Fairfax estate (18 Mar.).<sup>136</sup> He chaired and reported from committee of the whole on the bills for tonnage and poundage (14 Feb.); the regulation of Thames watermen (25 Feb.); and the Mint (4 March). On 6 Mar. George Nevill*, 13th Baron Abergavenny, registered his proxy with Stamford.</p><p>In October 1705 and again in May 1706 there were rumours that Stamford would be restored to the chancellorship of the duchy, but James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, was appointed instead.<sup>137</sup> According to Harley Stamford was ‘in open rebellion’ about this in the summer of 1706 and Lord Keeper Cowper thought him ‘very hard to be comforted’; Cowper’s papers contain an undated memorial from Stamford concerning the undesirability of the same man being appointed chancellor of the duchy and lord lieutenant of Lancashire, a clear reference to Derby. However, Harley thought that ‘the true secret’ of Stamford’s disgruntlement was that after all his efforts for the Hanoverian Succession he was not sent to the electoral court to present the recently passed Acts of Parliament—the Regency Act and the Naturalization Act among them—to the electress and her son.<sup>138</sup></p><p>Stamford attended the prorogations on 22 Oct. and 21 Nov. 1706 and was present when the 1706-7 session met on 3 December. He attended on 75 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total, and was named to 43 committees. On 30 Dec. Stamford and Sunderland introduced the newly promoted Thomas Wharton*, earl of Wharton, into the House. Stamford chaired the committee of the whole House on the West Riding registry bill (13-14 Mar.); duties on low wines (27 Mar.); a bill for the apprehension of housebreakers (28 Mar., 3 Apr.); the Brerewood-Pitkin bill (2 Apr.); preventing frauds from bankrupts (4 Apr.); and Rice’s estate bill, a bill continuing laws and a subsidy bill (8 Apr.). He also continued to chair a large number of select committees, reporting on bills concerning Lee’s estate (24 Feb.); the Hockcliffe to Woburn road and the Royal Lustring Company (3 Mar.); Von Holte naturalization (11 Mar.); the Fornhill-Stony Stratford road (13 Mar.); Lady Rich’s charities (14 Mar.); free ship (15 Mar.); Pierrepont’s estate (19 Mar.); Drake’s estate (26 Mar.); and Crosse’s estate (7 Apr.).<sup>139</sup> On 4 Mar. Abergavenny again registered his proxy with Stamford. </p><p>Stamford attended every day of the short session of April 1707. He was named to two committees and chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill preventing gunpowder from being brought into London, from which he reported on 23 April. Whig pressure for office evidently benefitted Stamford, for on 25 Apr., the day after the prorogation, he was reinstated as first lord of the board of Trade. He brought his usual attention to the post, first sitting on 29 Apr. and attending all meetings bar one until mid-July 1707 when he decamped from London.<sup>140</sup> Stamford was back by 20 Oct. 1707 when he attended a meeting of the board of trade and was present when the 1707-8 session convened on 23 October.<sup>141</sup> He attended 93 days, 87 per cent of the total, and was named to 36 committees. On 12 Nov., after Stamford had proposed an address of thanks to the queen for her speech delivered a week previously, the House agreed instead a motion from leading Tories that the state of the nation be first discussed, particularly in relation to trade and the state of the fleet.<sup>142</sup> To this end Stamford laid his board’s memorial on the country’s trade before the House on 28 Nov. and throughout November he was frequently called upon to submit reports and to give testimony before committees considering trade.<sup>143</sup> On 29 Jan. 1708 he acted as a teller in opposition to David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S], on whether to agree a resolution critical of Captain Kerr in relation to convoys. On 9 Feb. he was named to count the ballot for election to the select committee charged with the examination of Harley’s under-secretary William Greg, duly reporting the result to the House. On 1 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the waggoners bill. </p><p>Stamford chaired the committee of the whole House considering the bill relating to the statutes of cathedrals and collegiate churches (19 Feb.), a debate which Nicolson described as ‘beginning in a heat’.<sup>144</sup> Likewise, he chaired the committee of the whole on the bills for salt duties (26 Feb.); establishing a court of exchequer in Scotland (22, 24 Mar.), which he reported on 26 Mar., although Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, had chaired the committee on the 25th; to promote trade to America (23 Mar.); for the import of cochineal from Spain (29 Mar.); and for limiting the time for claims on the forfeited Irish estates (1 April). His work on select committees was limited to chairing and reporting the Cherrill to Studely road bill (reported 25 Feb.); and the Cheeke and earl of Kilmarnock estate bills (17 March).<sup>145</sup> The decline in his activity on select committees may have been due to his work at the board of trade, as he barely missed a meeting of the commissioners until his departure from London in mid-June.<sup>146</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1708</em></h2><p>In about May 1708 Stamford was classed as a Whig on a printed list. He was back attending meetings at the board of Trade on 25 Oct., again barely missing a meeting until June 1709.<sup>147</sup> He was present when the next Parliament met on 16 November. He attended on 82 days of the session, 89 per cent of the total, and was named to 34 committees. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted with the Junto against the motion that James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], could vote in the elections for Scottish representative peers as he had disqualified himself by taking up the British dukedom of Dover. Stamford again chaired important committees of the whole during the session. He was heavily involved in framing the bill for ‘improving’ the Union of the two kingdoms, which provoked fierce opposition from Scottish members as it effectively extended and amplified English treason laws to the northern kingdom in the wake of the pretender’s attempted invasion. On 19 Mar. Stamford replaced Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, whose opposition to the bill was too evident, as chairman of the committee of the whole House during discussions on the bill and he continued to direct discussions on it on 21, 22, 23, 25 Mar. before reporting the bill as fit to pass on 26 March. He chaired the committee of the whole House when considering the Middlesex registry bill on 19, 28, 29 Mar. and 2, and 4 Apr.; and one meeting of the committee of the whole each on the bill to prevent laying wagers on 26 Mar. and on the bill to make more effective the act against ‘mischiefs’ caused by fire on 13 April. On 6 Apr. he clashed with Rochester in a debate on the clause in favour of the Quakers in the stamp bill, but the dispute on the wording was resolved without a division.<sup>148</sup> He was named to a conference on 21 Apr. on the bill continuing the acts against coining and other banking matters. From February 1709 he took up his usual duties as a frequent chairman of select committees. He reported from select committees on Sainthill’s estate bill (14 Feb.); the reversal of Lord Slade’s attainder (15 Feb.); the bishop of Chichester’s bill (1 Mar.); Stafford’s estate bill (12 Mar.); Powlett’s estate bill (11 Apr.); Whitaker’s bill (16 Apr.); and the Portsmouth harbour bill (20 April).<sup>149</sup></p><p>Stamford returned to London before the following session began, attending the board of trade on 7 Nov. 1709.<sup>150</sup> He was present when the 1709-10 session convened on 15 November. He attended on 85 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was named to 32 committees. He chaired the adjournment of one select committee and Emerton’s estate bill (reported on 28 March).<sup>151</sup> He chaired the committee of the whole during consideration of bills to prohibit the export of corn (7 Dec. 1709), to rebuild Eddystone lighthouse (27 Feb. 1710), and to reform the administration of justice by the lords of justiciary in Scotland (22 Mar.). On 10 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to Ailesbury on whether to reverse the decree in the cause <em>Mickleburgh v. Crispe</em>. On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. On 27 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on the disagreements with the Commons on the bill concerning the marriage settlement of Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Stamford’s main preoccupation from mid-February to the end of March 1710 was the petition he brought to the House on 18 Feb. for the reversal of a decree found against him by Lord Chancellor Cowper in chancery in December 1709 in favour of his underage nephew, Sir John Hobart<sup>†</sup>, 5th bt. (future earl of Buckinghamshire), the orphaned child of Stamford’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Maynard. Upon the death of the 5th earl of Suffolk in December 1709, his widow (also Sir John Maynard’s widow and executor), guardian of the young Hobart heir and his eight siblings, had successfully managed to overturn part of the Maynard Estate Act of 1694 so that the children could be more amply maintained. Stamford’s petition was met with counter-petitions on 9 Mar. from one of the recently deceased earl of Suffolk’s sons, Charles Howard<sup>†</sup>, future 9th earl of Suffolk, who in 1706 had married Henrietta, one of the many Hobart daughters, and on 22 Mar. from the dowager countess of Suffolk herself. Counsel was heard on the case on 29 and 30 Mar., with Northey one of those appearing for Stamford, and Spencer Cowper appearing for the dowager countess, after which the House dismissed Stamford’s petition.<sup>152</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1710 and after</em></h2><p>The loss of the chancery case and the appeal seemed to provoke a quarrel between Stamford and Cowper, which threatened the parliamentary seat of Spencer Cowper at Bere Alston. At the same time, a local dispute over a plan to create more voters in Stamford’s interest threatened to upset the electoral balance between Drake and Stamford. At one point Drake denounced Stamford as ‘a person of so little temper and principle and so great ingratitude I will comfort myself seeing he intends it, that [I] am like to have no more to do with him’. Drake claimed to have ‘spent some hundreds of pounds in his service which have brought him both credit and money in his pocket, and [I] have never myself been a saver in anything have had to do with him’. In the event, Cowper did not contest the election and the dispute between Drake and Stamford was patched up; King and Lawrence Carter<sup>‡</sup> junior were returned for the seat.<sup>153</sup> Meanwhile, in July 1710 Stamford seems to have been lukewarm in his reception of the desire of John Manners*, marquess of Granby, future 2nd duke of Rutland, to contest Leicestershire, apparently proposing an alternative, but in the event Granby and a Tory split the representation without a contest.<sup>154</sup></p><p>After attending the board of trade on 1 June 1710, Stamford left London for the summer. On a list compiled on 3 Oct. Harley considered Stamford as certain to oppose the new ministry, but this was qualified by a query. The next day a commission was sealed for a new board of trade with Stamford remaining as first commissioner. His decision to remain in office, while most other Whigs resigned, may well have been dictated by his poor financial situation, which must have been made worse by the recent chancery decision and the failure of his appeal to the Lords. Stamford was back in London to attend the board of trade on 24 Oct., barely missing a meeting until his departure from office in June 1711.<sup>155</sup></p><p>Stamford was present when the 1710 Parliament met on 25 November. He attended on 106 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, and was named to 31 committees. From 18 Dec. he held the proxy of George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington. Warrington returned to the House to vacate this proxy on 15 Feb. 1711, but then registered it with his cousin again on 30 March. Stamford’s uncomfortable position as a Whiggish member of the ministry was exposed by the Tory-led attack on the failures of Spanish war under the previous ministry. On 11 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Abingdon against rejecting the petition of Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], one of the allied commanders in Spain. He then subscribed to a protest against the rejection of the petitions of Tyrawley and Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], as he did to a resolution that Galway, Tyralwley, and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope, were responsible for the defeat at Almanza and subsequent allied losses. On the following day he subscribed to a further protest that an offensive war had been approved and directed by ministers, who were therefore to blame for the failed attack on Toulon as well as the misfortunes of the allies in Spain. A month later the controversy over the campaign was still continuing, and on 3 Feb. he signed two protests against resolutions explicitly condemning the Whig ministers for the ‘neglect of their service’ in not sufficiently supplying Spain with troops. On 8 Feb. he signed two further protests, one against the wording proposed for the address on the war in Spain (which again blamed the allied commanders for the defeat at Almanza) and another against the resolution to present the resulting address to the queen. On the 9th he signed three protests against a resolution which expunged some of the previous protests of 3 February.</p><p>Stamford continued his usual duties as chairman of the committee of the whole House. He chaired the committee during discussions on bills to preserve American pines (16 Apr. 1711; he also reported from a conference on the bill on 10 May); to lay a duty on hops and to expedite the draining of Lindsey Level (both reported 14 May); to preserve fishing in the river Thames (2 June), and to raise two million pounds (7 June). He continued to chair select committees, including Clarges’s estate bill (reported 9 Mar.); Viscount Montagu’s bill (1 May); Weston’s bill (7 May); and Brideoak’s bill (9 May). Notably, in one committee on 17 Mar. Nicolson recorded him as being ‘sharp on the Low Church’s roasting a priest the last winter; and High-Church’s Carbanadoeing a Bishop in this Session’.<sup>156</sup> Stamford was also named to manage a conference on amendments to the Dunstable to Hockley road bill on 9 May.</p><p>Stamford’s loyalty to the Whigs on party matters made him a marked man. He was replaced as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Devonshire in January 1711, when John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, took over the lieutenancy, and was omitted when a new board of trade was commissioned on 12 June. The loss of office must have made his financial position even worse and he retired to the country. He did not attend the 1711-12 session, although with the crucial issue of the peace coming to a head, he registered his proxy with Somers on 30 Nov. 1711. On 2 Dec. Oxford listed Stamford as one of those peers to be canvassed before the expected division on the peace at the opening of the session. Oxford hoped that Stamford’s financial plight would make him amenable to following the ministry’s lead, but in response to Oxford’s approach, Stamford noted that although the lord treasurer had made him ‘many promises which were very surprising and unexpected’, he insisted that ‘I only hoped to have my arrears of salary paid, which truly after your Lordship got me turned out, I expected’.<sup>157</sup> Even though Stamford was absent, on 19 Dec. Oxford classed him as likely to oppose Hamilton’s peerage claims in the division expected on the following day. In January 1712 and again after the 1713 session (from which Stamford was again absent), Hanoverian agents and supporters in England saw him as a fitting recipient of a pension of £1,000 from Hanover and he was probably one of the few peers so recommended to the electoral court who was in actual receipt of a reward. The Hanoverian envoy, Schütz, recorded that ‘Stamford I have been told has something from Hanover, if not he should’.<sup>158</sup> Oxford continued to regard him as an opponent, assessing Stamford on 13 June 1713 as likely to oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Stamford was absent from the House when the 1714 session convened on 16 February. He sat for the first time in the session on 28 Apr. and attended just 23 days in all, 30 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. At the end of May and beginning of June Nottingham predicted that Stamford would oppose the schism bill. He acted as a teller on 7 June in opposition to Scarsdale in a privilege case. He last attended the House on 10 June, registering his proxy with Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, on the following day. Stamford was probably absent from London when the queen died on 1 Aug., for he was not present for the short session convened on the queen’s death until the 12th. He was present for nine days of the session, 60 per cent of the total. He chaired the committee of the whole House on 18 Aug. when it considered the act for the better support of the king’s household. He stayed in London, receiving a visit from William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Peter King<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron King, on 31 Aug. and was present at the prorogation on 23 September. When the king attended chapel at St James’s on 26 Sept., Stamford carried the sword of state.<sup>159</sup> Despite this apparent sign of favour, Stamford did not receive any obvious benefit from the Hanoverian succession. According to William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, he was offered his old post of chancellor of the duchy in October 1714, but ‘he insisted upon being commissioner of trade with it’, and declined the offer.<sup>160</sup> Nor was he reappointed to the Privy Council.</p><p>Stamford died on 31 Jan. 1720. His will revealed that he had owed £2,500 to Carter. The first call on Stamford’s limited real and personal estate was to pay this and other debts, while the remainder was to go to his widow.<sup>161</sup> As he had no surviving children by either of his marriages, his share of the Maynard inheritance, and his control of the electoral interest in Bere Alston, devolved to his wife’s nephew, Hobart, while the Stamford title was passed on to his cousin Henry Grey*, 3rd earl of Stamford, the son of John Grey<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Stamford had a long and busy parliamentary career, demonstrating in political ideology and vigour that he was his father’s worthy successor. From the time of the Convention, Stamford became one of the leading members of the House, a parliamentary workhorse, who until 1711 maintained a consistently high level of attendance and activity—and this despite the fact that ‘by reason of a defect in his speech [he] wants elocution’. Some people saw him as lacking in judgment. Ailesbury referred to him as ‘that poor-headed earl’, whose ‘reasonable paternal estate, but entailed’ had seen him ‘cut down all the vast fine woods, ruined the mansion house, and took money by advance on his estate and spent it, and was after little better for it during his life; his maternal estate, upwards of £3,000 per annum, he ate up absolutely and all sold’. Some of estate may have been spent on scholarly pursuits, for as well as his record as a regular scrutineer of the journals and work on the committee examining into the keeping of Parliament’s records, he possessed a collection of manuscripts of sufficient interest for Peter le Neve in April 1698 to arrange for Thomas Tanner to have ‘the liberty of his house to make’ a catalogue of them.<sup>162</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L./S.N.H. |
|
GREY, William (c. 1593-1674) |
<p><strong><surname>GREY</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1593–1674)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>11 Feb. 1624 Bar. GREY of Warke |
|
First sat 25 Feb. 1624; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 24 Feb. 1674 |
|
MP, Northumb. 1621 |
<p><em>b.</em> c. Aug. 1593, 1st s. of Sir Ralph Grey<sup>‡</sup> of Chillingham, Northumb., and 1st w. Jane, da. of William Ardington of Ardington, Berks; half-bro. of Edward Grey<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Univ. Coll., Oxf., B.A. 11 Nov. 1611; G. Inn 1613; travelled abroad 1614-17?. <em>m.</em> 16 June 1619, Cecilia (<em>bur.</em> 1 Feb. 1668), da. of Sir John Wentworth, of Gosfield, Essex, 9s. (8 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 8da. (7 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>cr</em>. bt 15 June 1619. <em>suc</em>. fa. 7 Sept. 1623. <em>d.</em> 29 July 1674; <em>will</em> 4 Jan. 1669-23 May 1674, pr. 11 Aug. 1674.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Jt. kpr. seal of duchy of Lancaster 1644-8; commr., excise 1645, excommunication 1646, sale of bishops’ lands 1646, cttee. for compounding 1647, appeals, Oxford Univ. visitation 1647, indemnity 1647, Navy and Customs 1647, Great Seal 1648, scandalous offences 1648, removing obstructions in sales of bishops’ lands 1648.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Speaker, House of Lords, 13 Sept.-24 Nov. 1642, 24 Aug. 1643-26 Jan. 1646.</p><p>J.p., Northumb. 1628-at least 1640, by 1650-at least 1666, Essex by 1644-53, by 1656-at least 1670,<sup>4</sup> Mdx. by 1650-53, 1660-at least 1666, ld.-lt. Cumb. 1642-?46; commr., court martial, London and Westminster 1644, Northern Assoc. 1645, militia, northern counties 1648, Essex Mar. 1660, assessment, Essex 1657;<sup>5</sup> elder of classis, Epping, Essex 1648.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Maj.-gen., Eastern Association, 20 Dec. 1642-10 Aug. 1643.<sup>7</sup></p> |
|
<p>William Grey, Baron Grey of Warke, came from a long-established Northumbrian family which had distinguished itself militarily and from the mid-sixteenth century was becoming increasingly important as the influence of the Percys, earls of Northumberland, waned. William Grey’s father, Sir Ralph Grey, inherited substantial estates in Northumberland, first Horton from his maternal grandfather Sir Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup> in 1570 and then Chillingham and surrounding estates from his childless elder brother, also Sir Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup>, in 1590, which together may well have made Sir Ralph Northumberland’s wealthiest resident. William Grey was thus born into a wealthy and powerful family, as evidenced by the godfathers chosen for him, William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, Baron Burghley, and Henry Carey<sup>†</sup>, Baron Hunsdon. On 15 June 1619 he was created a baronet, and the following day he entered into an advantageous marriage to Cecilia Wentworth, daughter of the impecunious Sir John Wentworth of Gosfield, which brought him within the circles of landed society in Essex. He began his long parliamentary career in January 1621, sitting in the Commons as senior Member for Northumberland. Two years later he inherited his patrimony, with almost 250,000 acres of land in Northumberland, on his father’s death on 7 Sept. 1623. Grey was returned for Northumberland again on 12 Feb. 1624 for the following Parliament, but unbeknownst to his electors and perhaps even to himself, the previous day he had been created a baron by patent, Baron Grey of Warke. His election as a Member of the Commons having immediately become moot, the new Baron Grey of Warke first sat in the House of Lords on 25 Feb. 1624.</p><p>By the mid-1630s Grey was a major landowner in Essex as well, and from that time garnered the commissions and offices associated with his new position, which are set out in more detail in his biography in the volumes on the Commons 1604-29. His wife Cecilia Wentworth was a grand-daughter of Elizabeth Heneage, <em>suo jure</em> countess of Winchilsea from 1629 and Sir Moyle Finch<sup>†</sup>, bt, who owned the manor of Epping in Essex. Grey had been a trustee of the manor for several years after Sir Moyle’s death before he was able to buy it outright from his uncle by marriage (two times over) Thomas Finch<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Winchilsea, in July 1636 for £21,500. Through this family connection with the Finches, earls of Winchilsea, Grey was also able to acquire a large London townhouse among their property on the east side of Charterhouse Yard, which he occupied from at least 1643 and which served as his base in the capital during those important years. Furthermore his wife inherited part of the Gosfield property in Essex at the death of her improvident father Sir John Wentworth in 1631 and from 1653 Grey of Warke’s money also acquired the rest of his late father-in-law’s estate, including the grand Gosfield Hall, although the lands were actually formally purchased in the name of his eldest son and heir presumptive Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup>, an arrangement which was to cause many problems in later years. </p><p>Grey sided firmly with Parliament during the Civil War and was one of the small number of peers who remained in the House of Lords in Westminster throughout the 1640s. He was a prominent member of the group intent on prosecuting the war and establishing an erastian presbyterian church settlement. He served as Speaker of the wartime House from 13 Sept. to 24 Nov. 1642. He stepped down from this role when he was appointed major-general of the Eastern Association on 20 Dec. 1642, but was largely ineffective in this role and was replaced on 10 Aug. 1643 by Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. His dismissal may also have come about through his refusal to travel to Scotland as part of the parliamentary commission of late July 1643 assigned to arrange the military alliance with the Scots, and he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower for his disobedience. On 24 Aug. 1643, no longer in the field as leader of the Eastern Association, he was again made Speaker of the House of Lords, and remained in that position for close to three years, before having to cede this office as well to Manchester, who replaced him on 26 Jan. 1646, after he too had been relieved of his military command.<sup>9</sup> From the time of the defeat of the king Grey voted consistently with the group centred around Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and Edward Howard*, Baron Howard of Escrick in measures supporting the New Model Army and against the Scots and the king. Although he supported a Presbyterian church settlement, Grey of Warke opposed the clericalist aspirations of the Scottish commissioners, voting consistently for lay, and ultimately parliamentary, control of the church. When in 1647 Essex was provisionally created a Presbyterian ‘province’, divided into fourteen <em>classes</em>, Grey of Warke was named as one of the potential elders for the <em>classis </em>of Epping.<sup>10</sup> On 26 Dec. 1646 Parliament resolved to pay him £5,000 for his military service and his other losses in the parliamentary cause and in early February 1647 the Committee for Compounding decided that this amount would be paid out of the fine levied on the royalist Robert Sutton*, Baron Lexinton, and the income from Lexinton’s sequestered estates. It was not until Mar. 1649 that Lexinton had fully paid this fine and was formally acquitted by Grey of Warke and the Committee. <sup>11</sup> On 15 Mar. 1648 he was appointed a commissioner of the Great Seal, and in January 1649 he was named to the commission for the king’s trial, although it is doubtful if he took part – he was never accused of complicity in the king’s death thereafter. He last sat in the House on 1 Feb. and a week later he resigned as commissioner of the Great Seal. After the abolition of the House of Lords on 19 Mar. 1649 he was nominated to be a member of the Council of State, but he did not take up the appointment, unwilling, he claimed, to serve only one house of parliament, and he largely retired from public life during the Interregnum.<sup>12</sup></p><p>As predicted by both his old presbyterian colleague Wharton and the royalist John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, Grey of Warke was one of a small band of ten old parliamentarians who took their seats on the first day of the Convention on 25 Apr. 1660 to push through some of the measures they had espoused in the 1640s.<sup>13</sup> In the first weeks of the Convention he was closely involved in business concerned with the re-establishment of the House of Lords and Restoration of the king. On the first day of sitting he was assigned to help draft an order for Henry Scobell to restore the House’s records which he had kept in his custody and he also accompanied a delegation of the lords to thank George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, for his actions in preserving the country. The following day he was ordered to draw up an ordinance to make Monck captain-general. On 27 Apr. he was placed on the committee to frame an ordinance to constitute a committee of safety comprised of members of both houses and was also named to the drafting committee to devise heads for a conference concerning ways ‘to make up the breaches and distractions of this kingdom’. In the first weeks of May he was nominated to committees entrusted with drawing up a letter of thanks to Charles II for the Declaration of Breda (1 May), re-establishing the county militias (2 May and re-committed on 9 May), investigating the whereabouts of the late king’s jewels (9 May), determining which ordinances passed since 1649 should be retained (15 May), and drafting an ordinance to levy an assessment of £70,000 p.m. for the returning king (21 May). He was named to 14 committees of the Convention between 25 Apr. and 30 May 1660 and was active in the House’s proceedings throughout all that time, only missing three sittings during that period.</p><p>On 1 June effective control of the House passed from Grey of Warke’s old colleague Manchester to the returning lord chancellor Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, who replaced Manchester as Speaker of the House. With the arrival of the king and many old royalists, Grey of Warke’s activity in the House, as least as indicated by his nominations to committees, noticeably decreased; from 1 June for the remainder of the Convention he was only appointed to 12, although he continued to be a regular attender and overall came to 85 per cent of its sitting days. Nevertheless his committees included some important legislation of this period, such as the bills to confirm the judicial proceedings of the Interregnum (19 July 1660), to encourage shipping and navigation (6 Sept.), to disband the New Model Army (7 Sept.), and to confirm ministers in their parishes (8 Sept.). On 13 Dec. 1660 he also subscribed to the dissent against the decision to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell, an attempt to reverse a judicial decision concerning property handed down during the Protectorate.</p><p>On 4 June 1660 Grey of Warke asked for and duly received the king’s pardon.<sup>14</sup> Nevertheless, with his past at the forefront of the Independents in Parliament during the Civil War, Grey could not expect, and did not receive, any major offices or commissions from the crown after the Restoration. However he remained involved in local administration and continued to be placed on commissions of the peace for Middlesex, Essex and Northumberland. Similarly in the House, where he was named to 76 committees in the Cavalier Parliament until his death on 29 July 1674, he was often assigned to consider legislation affecting his territorial bases in London and Middlesex, Essex and Northumberland. In the 1661-2 session of the Cavalier Parliament, of which he attended 81 per cent of the sittings, he was placed on committees considering legislation for repairing and cleaning the streets of Westminster on both 25 May and 28 June 1661. On 1 July he was named to the committee to consider the petitions calling for the re-establishment of the Council of the North and court of York. He may also have had a hand in framing the Corporation Act, to whose committee he was named on 18 July 1661; this would have had an effect on the borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed, close to his northern base of Chillingham Castle. Grey of Warke was opposed to a renewed court of York and on 15 Feb. 1662 was part of a delegation to the lord chancellor, the earl of Clarendon, led by Northumberland, and containing Wharton, Richard Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington), Marmaduke Langdale*, 2nd Baron Langdale, George Eure*, 6th Baron Eure and other northern peers and gentry. They made clear their belief that a revived Council of the North, especially one presided over by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, was ‘not for the service of the king or good of the country’<sup>15</sup> Concerning the borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed, on 20 Feb. 1662 he was placed on the committee considering a bill to establish a corporation for the relief and employment of the poor there, as well as similar establishments in London and Westminster. On 26 Apr. 1662, he was also assigned to help consider the bill for the prevention of theft and rapine on the Anglo-Scottish border. In the session of spring and summer 1663, where he had an attendance of 70 per cent, he became involved in matters of transport between these two widely-dispersed areas of his interest. He was on 14 Mar. 1663 placed on the committee to consider the legislation concerning highways passed in the previous session and to report its defects and, perhaps in consequence of this committee, was further placed, on 12 May 1663, on the committee for the bill to repair highways in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, all close to his principal county of Essex. Reflecting Grey of Warke’s continuing, though perhaps waning, interest in the far north-east, in December 1664 Grey’s heir Thomas, by then a well-placed merchant and a confidant of Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, assumed, incorrectly as it transpired, that his father’s interest would win him a seat in a by-election held on 10 Jan. 1665 in Berwick-upon-Tweed.<sup>16</sup> Grey of Warke’s northern experience was still called upon in 1666-7 as on 17 Dec. 1666 he was placed on the committee for the bill to improve the lead mines in co. Durham granted to Humphrey Wharton<sup>‡</sup> and early in the following session, he was, on 16 Nov. 1667, nominated to the committee for the bill to enable John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, to make leases of his lead mines in that county.</p><p>Grey of Warke maintained a high attendance in the early sessions of the Cavalier Parliament, except for the sessions of October 1665 in Oxford and of winter 1669, none of whose sittings he attended. He came to 86 per cent of the sittings in spring 1664; 81 per cent in 1664-5; 76 per cent in 1666-7; 73 per cent in 1667-9; 75 per cent in 1670-71; 83 per cent in early 1673; 75 per cent in the four-day session of autumn 1673; but only 42 per cent in early 1674, the last session he was able to attend before his death that summer. Throughout these sessions continued to be nominated to committees. It is difficult to distinguish a particular political stance from what extremely limited evidence there is of his activity and voting in the House, although some of his conduct might demonstrate continued loyalty to his parliamentarian and presbyterian past. On 11 July 1661 Grey of Warke was recorded as voting against the claim of the former royalist Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of lord great chamberlain. A Captain Gilbert Swinhoe, perhaps the playwright of that name and of a royalist family, may have intended to show his contempt for the former parliamentarian peer by insisting on quartering his soldiers on Grey of Warke’s Northumberland estates in January 1661, but the House strongly resented this breach of privilege of peerage and, upon consideration of the matter on 7 Dec. 1661, would have levied ‘exemplary’ punishment on the contumacious Swinhoe if Grey of Warke himself had not pleaded for clemency. On 6 Feb. 1662 Grey signed the protest in the manuscript journal against the passage of the bill restoring to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, the lands he had conveyed by legal instruments during the interregnum. This protest was signed by a large number of both former royalists, such as Clarendon, and former parliamentarians, such as Manchester, as both groups saw it as a breach of the recently-passed Act for the Confirmation of Judicial Proceedings and of the Act of Indemnity. Interestingly, although Grey of Warke’s name is clearly written in the page of the protest in the manuscript journal, he is not listed in any of the contemporary manuscript lists of the opponents and protesters against this bill.<sup>17</sup> Grey’s Presbyterian loyalties seem to have been qualified or conditional upon circumstance: when in July 1663 Grey’s old colleague Wharton drew up his list of those who were likely to support George Digby* 2nd earl of Bristol, in his attempt to impeach Clarendon, he tentatively and uncertainly placed Grey among those against the impeachment, while most of Grey’s former presbyterian allies—including Saye and Sele and Wharton himself—were listed as opponents to the lord chancellor and to the intolerant church settlement which they associated with him.</p><p>Grey was deemed significant enough to be named initially to the court of the lord high steward as a member of the jury in the trial for murder of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, held outside time of Parliament, on 30 Apr. 1666. However Grey of Warke was the only peer so summoned who did not appear on the day ‘and therefore was not any more called during the trial’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Grey of Warke’s family became closely connected with that of his former colleague in the Civil War House of Lords, Dudley North*, 3rd Baron North, through the person of North’s grandson, Charles North*, later 5th Baron North and Baron Grey of Rolleston. On 3 Apr. 1667 was agreed a settlement for the marriage of Charles North to Katherine, Grey of Warke’s only surviving daughter, and already the recipient of about £1,200 p.a. in dower lands from lands in Staffordshire that were part of her marriage settlement with her late first husband Sir Edward Mosley<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. Ten days after the articles of marriage were signed, Charles North wrote to his father, Dudley North*, 4th Baron North (as he had recently become on 6 Jan. 1667), to inform him that he and his bride had already proceeded with the marriage ceremony, without either set of parents being informed.<sup>19</sup> He became closely connected with the Grey family, living with his wife’s father and brothers at their London residence in Charterhouse Yard. The ageing Grey of Warke was clearly fond of his son-in-law and found him ‘so good company that were it not his nearness to me would deserve his living here … I suppose we shall not be weary of one another’s company’, as he wrote to North. Charles North was not as well greeted by his other in-laws, Katherine’s siblings, who appear to have been resentful of the favoured intruder whom they perceived as a ‘pensioner’ living on his wife’s fortunes.<sup>20</sup> From this base in the capital, Charles North was able to inform his father of court and political gossip in a series of newsletters.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Following the marriage of Charles North and Katherine Grey, North and Grey of Warke frequently exchanged proxies. It was usually the 4th Baron North who entrusted his vote with his new kinsman. On 27 Nov. 1667 North first assigned his proxy to Grey of Warke, who held it until the prorogation of that session on 1 Mar. 1669. In his turn Grey of Warke relied on his son-in-law Charles to ensure that his proxy with North was registered on 16 Oct. 1669, just before the short session of autumn 1669, one of the few sessions from which Grey was entirely absent, probably as he was suffering from ‘a little defluxion of rheum in his head’.<sup>22</sup> North himself did not attend this session until 6 Nov. and it was prorogued on 11 December. North again placed his proxy with Grey on 21 Oct. 1670, where it remained until 22 Apr. 1671. North stopped attending the House entirely after 27 Mar. 1673, but registered his proxy with Grey on 5 Jan. 1674, two days before the start of the 1674 session.</p><p>Grey of Warke’s favour towards his son-in-law Charles North led to North being created Baron Grey of Rolleston by writ of summons on 24 Oct. 1673. Grey of Warke formally introduced his son-in-law to the House three days later. Grey of Warke’s heir apparent, Thomas Grey, had died on 16 Feb. 1672 and the old man appears to have been devastated by this loss, even though he had another son, Ralph Grey*, later 2nd Baron Grey of Warke, to inherit the title and estate.<sup>23</sup> According to later accounts Grey held a deep affection for his daughter, and may have seen her, and by extension her husband, as his preferred heir rather than Ralph.<sup>24</sup> Charles North’s title did not celebrate his own family name or estates, but those of his wife, whose principal estate given to her in her jointure lay in Rolleston in Staffordshire. The title was, in effect, an indirect ennoblement of the old baron’s daughter and perhaps indicates the continuing influence of the former parliamentarian lord at court even as late as the early 1670s.</p><p>Grey of Warke died on 29 July 1674, at the age of eighty-one. His own will, written on 4 Jan. 1669, demonstrates an intense personal religiosity: it is not so much a list of bequests as a long and pious meditation on human sinfulness and reliance on God’s unmerited grace, written in the fervent and emotional language of a tortured puritan. Subsequent codicils of 2 Mar. 1672 and of 23 May 1674 distributed annuities to his closest servants and donated £10 each to the parishes closest associated with him and gave £100 to the poor orphans of London. It also constituted his only surviving son Ralph Grey, now 2nd Baron Grey of Warke as his principal legatee and executor.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In his own piously morose will, first written on 11 Jan. 1655, Grey’s eldest son Thomas had constituted his father sole executor and bequeathed to him the Gosfield property in Essex, including Gosfield Hall.<sup>26</sup> After Thomas’s death, Grey, in a settlement of July 1672, had vested the Gosfield property in trustees to provide for maintenance of his children and grandchildren, while he entailed the Epping estate on his heirs. The dispositions made by both Thomas and his father led to many long years of conflict and suits within the family, particularly after the early death on 15 June 1675 of the 2nd Baron. At dispute was whether Thomas Grey had bought the property for himself with money supplied by his father as a gift, or whether his father had intended Thomas to purchase the property in trust for himself. When the 2nd Baron began to charge the estate with debts and legacies to his younger children, and then settled it on different trustees in his will, his brother-in-law Grey of Rolleston initiated an action in Chancery, to protect what he saw as his wife Katherine’s interests. He alleged, in a complicated case that included conflicting testimonies about locked strong-boxes and the manner in which the old baron habitually signed his name, that the second baron had destroyed the first baron’s original will and had forged a new one to deprive his sister Katherine of the Gosfield estates promised by her father. By 1680 Grey of Rolleston, now the 5th Baron North, was still accusing the 2nd Baron’s widow and son Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), of trying to defraud his wife of the lands due to her by her father’s intended settlement.<sup>27</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
GRIFFIN, Edward (c. 1640-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>GRIFFIN</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (c. 1640–1710)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>3 Dec. 1688 Bar. GRIFFIN |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 19 Oct. 1689 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1640, s. of Sir Edward Griffin and Frances, da. of Sir William Uvedale. <em>educ</em>. privately; Peterhouse, Cambs. 1656. <em>m.</em> 4 Mar. 1667 (with ?£6,000),<sup>1</sup> Essex (<em>d</em>. aft. 1705), da. of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, 1s. <em>d.</em> 10 Nov. 1710.</p> |
<p>Treas. of the chamber 1679–88; groom of the bedchamber to James*, duke of York, 1672.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Dep. lt. Northants. 1687.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Lt. col. Coldstream Gds.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by Enoch Seeman (the younger), English Heritage Collection, Audley End House.</p> |
<p>Griffin was the last of James II’s creations to be accepted by the House following the 1688 revolution. His family was said to be of Welsh descent, though by the seventeenth century they had settled in Northamptonshire at Dingley. According to some sources he was related to both William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon<sup>†</sup> (Viscount St Albans).<sup>6</sup> If this was so, neither of his forebears’ wisdom seems to have rubbed off and Griffin was dismissed by a number of commentators as little more than a barely literate blockhead. An inveterate and incompetent plotter on behalf of his royal master, he was eventually to achieve the dubious distinction of being committed to the Tower on more occasions than anyone other peer during this period and also to have amassed the greatest number of stays of execution.</p><p>Griffin’s father, Sir Edward, achieved some distinction at court, being appointed treasurer of the chamber to Charles I and, after the Restoration, to Charles II. Griffin succeeded his father in this post and as such served both Charles II and James II. A close companion of James when duke of York, he was with the duke aboard the <em>Gloucester</em> and was fortunate to survive the wreck.<sup>7</sup> If York enjoyed Griffin’s companionship, Charles II thought otherwise. He found Griffin’s officiousness irritating. In 1679 when the king was secretly reconciled to his son James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, Griffin, spying Monmouth’s departure from court, rushed to tell the king so that he could be arrested. Charles was said to have called Griffin a ‘fool’ and could not thereafter ‘bear the sight of him’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Griffin’s fortunes improved in the new reign. James II stood godfather to his son James Griffin*, who, in theory at least, can be regarded as his successor in the barony. Griffin was appointed to local office in his native Northamptonshire in December 1687 and he was one of those who provided a deposition testifying the prince of Wales’s legitimacy in October 1688.<sup>9</sup> He remained loyal to James in the face of the Williamite invasion and it was presumably in acknowledgment of such steadfastness that in December 1688 James raised him to the peerage as Baron Griffin of Braybrooke. His wife was allowed to retain the precedence of the daughter of an earl.<sup>10</sup> The newly ennobled Griffin and his son James were among those who accompanied James II to the Channel coast and were deputed to communicate the news of his flight to William of Orange.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Griffin’s elevation was not automatically accepted. When he attempted to take his seat at the opening of the Convention, objections to his presence in the chamber were raised almost at once. Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), was reported to have been ‘most violent in opposing Lord Griffin being admitted’, but eventually John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace (who had also initially been hostile to Griffin), surprised the House by moving for his admission. Lovelace’s motivation appears to have been a desire to prevent Whig peers such as George Carteret*, Baron Carteret, from being barred as well.<sup>12</sup> Lovelace and Delamer therefore stood as Griffin’s rather unlikely supporters at his formal introduction. During his brief career in the House, Griffin was named to three committees. He voted in favour of establishing a regency and opposed the Commons’ resolution that James had ‘abdicated’. After William and Mary were offered the crown, he was one of eight temporal peers to refuse to take the oaths. He then seceded from the House.</p><p>In April, Griffin was, unsurprisingly, removed from his place of treasurer of the chamber.<sup>13</sup> Released from his responsibilities in the household, he threw himself into vigorous plotting on behalf of the exiled king. He was mentioned as being present, along with Renny Grahme, brother of Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], at Sir Peter Maxwell’s in Scotland later that year, possibly indicating his involvement in fomenting rebellion in the north.<sup>14</sup> Lady Griffin was also a committed intriguer, though her attempted conspiracies were said to be ‘so mysterious that none but her correspondents could know what to make of them’.<sup>15</sup> In April 1689, following the interception of letters from St. Germain addressed to Griffin and other well-known Jacobite activists, orders were despatched for his arrest.<sup>16</sup> On 27 May a messenger was sent to summon Griffin to the House and the following day an order was passed to attach him. A series of conflicting rumours of his movements ensued. He was rumoured to have slipped across the sea to Ireland at some point that month and in June he was one of those said to have been arrested. After debates in the House in July, a proclamation was issued demanding that Griffin present himself before the House. In a letter to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, he protested at this treatment, insisting that he had been absent while engaged with his own legitimate business. He claimed that he had requested Nottingham to make his excuses to the House and complained that he ‘never thought it a crime for any one to look after his own affairs’.<sup>17</sup> Griffin importuned Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, for his assistance saying that ‘I cannot learn that any other of the peers have been so proceeded with, though several of them have taken leave as well as I, to employ themselves upon their private occasions.’ Although Shrewsbury appears to have been irritated by Griffin’s approach, he seems to have secured Griffin an audience with the king and in September it was reported that Griffin had kissed the king’s hand.<sup>18</sup> The same month he submitted his response to a demand for a self-assessment insisting that he had ‘no personal estate at all’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>The opening of the second session of the Convention offered Griffin a final opportunity to submit to the new regime. On 19 Oct. 1689 Nottingham informed the House that Griffin had surrendered himself to him and was now waiting in the lobby. The information elicited some debate as to how Griffin might appear. Some objected that he was unable to stand in his place but that it was also inappropriate for him to appear at the bar as he was as yet not charged with anything. As a compromise, he was summoned to the Speaker’s chair. Asked if he would take the oaths, Griffin claimed to have come unprepared to do so and asked for time to make up his mind. He quit the chamber to commune with his thoughts.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Griffin’s apparent willingness to consider co-operating with the new regime proved to be a mask and he was soon involved in further plotting. Later that month his wife was arrested following the uncovering of an incompetent effort to convey messages to St. Germain secreted in the false bottoms of pewter tankards (the so-called pewter pot plot). Griffin and his son were also ordered to be arrested. Among the papers discovered was a draft warrant for Griffin to be advanced to an earldom, complete with a request that the date of the award should be backdated to before James’s abdication.<sup>21</sup> Having evaded pursuit for some days, Griffin was finally apprehended. His excuse that the plot had been of his wife’s contrivance did little to help and he found himself once again lodged in the Tower.<sup>22</sup></p><p>For all the farcical elements that surrounded this latest conspiracy, dismissed by Charles Hatton as ‘much more ridiculous than Mrs Cellier’s meal tub’, the plot did hint at a more serious, broader conspiracy against the fledgling regime of William and Mary. Griffin had been able to find out secret details about orders relating to the navy, which seemed to suggest that he had access to high-level information. It was also put about that he had ‘impeached at least 20 persons of note’. The House ordered him to be brought before them once more on 12 November. Again, Lovelace demonstrated himself to be an unlikely friend: he assured the House that ‘Lord Griffin would take the oaths, and offered to stand bail’.<sup>23</sup> Griffin was brought to the bar of the House to answer for his behaviour, where he encountered another unlikely champion in the form of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, who argued that as Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> had recently been absolved of his crimes as he had been condemned only on the basis of writings, the same should apply to Griffin. Following ‘several warm debates’, the House agreed but ordered Griffin to provide £10,000 as a recognizance, with Maurice Berkeley, Viscount Fitzhardinge [I], and Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> providing sureties of £5,000 each.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Griffin did not remain at large for long. In July of the following year he was again imprisoned in the Tower following further Jacobite intriguing.<sup>25</sup> His brief incarceration prompted the under-sheriff for Northamptonshire to enquire whether he should seize Griffin’s property, having received an order requiring Griffin to account for more than £100,000 due to the exchequer.<sup>26</sup></p><p>By the late summer of 1690 Griffin had been released once more and in September he was free to set up his horses for the races at Newmarket.<sup>27</sup> He remained committed to the cause of the exiled court, though, and in May 1692 he was one of several perennial plotters ordered to be taken up again. On this occasion he seems to have evaded arrest.<sup>28</sup> When the English Jacobites found themselves at loggerheads with the exiled James II’s secretary of state, John Drummond, earl of Melfort [S], in 1694, Griffin was sent to St. Germain to inform the former king that the Tories would not do business with his minister. A warrant was issued to have him arrested in Kent, but he managed to slip away unmolested.<sup>29</sup> It is not clear whether Griffin returned to England after his 1694 visit but it is certain that by the early months of 1696 he was in permanent residence at the Jacobite court, where he was notable as one of the few Protestant courtiers of the exiled king. He was later one of the witnesses to James II’s will.<sup>30</sup> Essex, Lady Griffin remained in England, where she enjoyed the unlikely patronage of Sarah, countess (later duchess) of Marlborough.<sup>31</sup> Lady Griffin suffered from an illness that resulted in her losing her sight and towards the end of William III’s reign she petitioned to be allowed to join her husband in France.<sup>32</sup> Her requests were refused. In 1695 Griffin was at last indicted for high treason at the Old Bailey. The following year he was outlawed for non-appearance and thereby stripped of his peerage.<sup>33</sup></p><p>During Griffin’s absence many of his estates at Dingley and Braybrooke in Northamptonshire were confiscated, though his son, James, continued to exercise some influence in the area.<sup>34</sup> At the time of the Commonwealth Griffin’s father, Sir Edward, had claimed that, of his gross income of £1,200 a year, he received only £564, though the committee for compounding clearly did not believe him and assessed his gross income at nearer £1,750 a year.<sup>35</sup> By the time of his exile, Griffin was in possession of lands in Northamptonshire totalling over 1,000 acres. These afforded him an income of over £900, though he also claimed that his estates were ‘embroiled’ and he has been described as one of the more impecunious of the Jacobite plotters.<sup>36</sup> His exile undoubtedly compounded the problem and James Griffin was forced to introduce a bill in Parliament enabling him to make leases of part of the manor of Dingley to pay off his creditors.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Griffin finally attempted to stage his return to England by becoming involved in the abortive 1708 Jacobite invasion. Along with the sons of Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], he was aboard the <em>Salisbury</em>, the only ship in the French fleet to fall into English hands.<sup>38</sup> Griffin was captured and once more imprisoned in the Tower. Unlike the other prisoners, he was denied a trial. The solicitor general explained to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, that, Griffin having been outlawed in the previous reign, there was ‘nothing farther to be done with him’. All that remained was for the court to ask, ‘what he has to say why execution should not be awarded against him and if he has nothing material to insist upon, as we believe he has not, to award execution’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Griffin was brought before queen’s bench. Referred to as ‘the late lord Griffin’, his argument that he was unaware of his outlawry was rejected by the court and he was refused permission to stand trial on the basis of an error in the original declaration.<sup>40</sup> Griffin claimed that he had never been a party to any counsels against his country and that he had gone to live in France because his estate was ‘encumbered’.<sup>41</sup> His arguments were dismissed and he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. In deference to the fact that he had once been a peer, the queen shortly after commuted the sentence to simple beheading.<sup>42</sup></p><p>The night before the execution was due to take place, the Privy Council narrowly voted in favour of a stay of execution for a fortnight.<sup>43</sup> This was later further extended until the summer. Griffin’s reprieve surprised many, one commenting that ‘he being a man so obnoxious, none of the prisoners can suffer if he comes off’.<sup>44</sup> Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, was said to have retorted, ‘Heyday! Fine work! that neither the Lord Griffin nor the old Lord Middleton’s sons should be hanged. At this rate we shall have none hanged.’<sup>45</sup> Griffin was not released, however, and the government treated his claims that he could not furnish them with any information concerning the Jacobites with considerable suspicion. He persisted in petitioning the queen to release him on bail, pleading ill health and advanced age, but his pleas were ignored. A series of orders for his execution were made over the next few months but always suspended at the last moment. Griffin was ultimately able to deny the executioner his fee, dying in the Tower of natural causes in November 1710 aged about 70.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Griffin’s son was permitted to retain most of the family estates, and during the ministry of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, it was rumoured that James Griffin might be restored to the peerage. In the event it was not until 1727 that George I overturned Griffin’s outlawry, accepting that an error had been made in the way that it had been declared.<sup>47</sup> John Macky wrote of Griffin that ‘He was always a great sportsman, and brave.’<sup>48</sup> Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, was less flattering. He concluded that Griffin had been ‘a person little esteemed’; he conceded only that he had been ‘a great hunter’ and ‘understood dogs and horses, that was all’.<sup>49</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
GRIFFIN, James (1667-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>GRIFFIN</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1667–1715)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Nov. 1710 as 2nd Bar. GRIFFIN. |
|
Never sat. |
|
MP Brackley 1685. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 15 Dec. 1667, s. of Edward Griffin*, (later Bar. Griffin) and Essex, da. and coh. of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. 29 Nov. 1684 (with £10,000),<sup>1</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1707), da. and h. of Richard Raynsford<sup>‡</sup> of Dallington, Northants. 3s. 2da. <em>bur.</em> 31 Oct. 1715; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
<p>Groom of the bedchamber to James II 1685-1702, to James Stuart (the Old Pretender, titular James III) 1702.</p><p>Capt. indep. tp. 1685; maj. horse gds. 1686, lt. col. Dec. 1688.</p> |
|
<p>Griffin never claimed the barony of Griffin. His father had died in the Tower, where he had been imprisoned following his capture during the abortive invasion of 1708. By that time the peerage was considered extinguished after the 1st Baron’s outlawry under William III. It was only in 1727 when this was reversed by writ of error that the peerage was revived and only in this sense that Griffin came to be considered posthumously as the second holder of the honour.</p><p>Griffin may have gone into exile with his father at some point in the 1690s. Having served James II as a groom of the bedchamber prior to the Revolution, he seems to have retained the place in the court in exile and even to have been continued in office (briefly) after James II’s death. Unlike his father, he also appears to have been a Catholic. It seems unlikely that he was synonymous with the ‘Captain Griffin’ who was sought on suspicion of plotting the king’s death in May and referred to in a newspaper report of June 1698 concerning the arrest of his wife, who had travelled back from France without a pass.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Griffin was living in England by the beginning of Anne’s reign by which time he had aligned himself with the Tories of Northamptonshire. In January 1702 he wrote to Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, delighting in the news that ‘contrary even to our expectations’ both seats at Northampton and at Higham Ferrers had gone to Tories in the general election. The county contest was expected to be trickier and Griffin sought Hatton’s assistance in ensuring that John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, employed his interest on behalf of their preferred candidates.<sup>3</sup></p><p>The death of Griffin’s father in 1710 brought to the surface financial difficulties that had plagued him since the mid 1690s. In June 1711 Griffin presented a memorial outlining his problems. In it he made reference to an act of 1705, enabling trustees to make leases out of the manor of Dingley, that he had been forced to resort to in order to raise funds for the payment of debts and which he had sought to have amended only the year before. Eager to underscore his own loyalty to the queen, it may have been as a result of this approach that plans to overturn the 1st lord’s attainder were first broached.<sup>4</sup> Rumours about it seem to have been afoot in 1712, though it is possible that these were spread as part of the campaign of vilification of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, by those who were eager to emphasize that none of the rebels of 1708 had as yet been punished.<sup>5</sup></p><p>By the time of Griffin’s death in the autumn of 1715 he appears to have been in serious financial difficulties. Shortly before his demise he was said to have offered the remaining equity in Braybrooke Castle, following the redemption of a mortgage, to one of his creditors in satisfaction of a debt for £58. The fact that this had been amassed in purchasing wine helps to confirm an assessment of him that he was ‘a plain drunken fellow’.<sup>6</sup> He was succeeded by his heir, Edward<sup>†</sup>, who was ultimately successful in securing the revival of the peerage.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HARCOURT, Simon (1661-1727) |
<p><strong><surname>HARCOURT</surname></strong>, <strong>Simon</strong> (1661–1727)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>3 Sept. 1711 Bar. Harcourt; <em>cr. </em>11 Sept. 1721 Visct. Harcourt |
|
First sat 9 Oct. 1711; last sat 17 July 1727 |
|
MP Abingdon, 1690-1705, 1708-20 Jan. 1709, 4-19 Oct. 1710; Bossiney, 1705-8; Cardigan Boroughs, 22 Feb.-21 Sept. 1710 |
<p><em>b</em>. ?Dec. 1661, o. s. Sir Philip Harcourt<sup>‡</sup> of Stanton Harcourt, Oxon. and Anne, da. of Sir William Waller<sup>‡</sup> of Osterley Park, Mdx. e<em>duc</em>. Shilton, Oxon. (Samuel Birch) to 1677; I. Temple 1676, called 1683, bencher 1702, treasurer 1702; Pembroke, Oxf. matric. 30 Mar. 1677, aged 15, BA 1679, DCL 1702. <em>m</em>. (1) 18 Oct. 1680, Rebecca (<em>d</em>.1687), da. of his fa.’s chaplain, Rev. Thomas Clarke, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 2da.; (2) aft. 1695, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1724), da. of Richard Spencer, Vintner, of Berry Street, Aldgate, London and Newington, Surr., wid. of Richard Anderson<sup>‡</sup>, of Pendley, Herts. <em>s.p.</em>; (3) 30 Sept. 1724, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1748), da. of Sir Thomas Vernon of Twickenham Park, Mdx., wid. of Sir John Walter<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. <em>s.p.</em> <em>suc</em>. fa. 1688; kntd. 1 June 1702. <em>d</em>. 28 July 1727; <em>will</em> 30 May 1727; pr. 14 Nov. 1727 and 19 Mar. 1745.</p> |
<p>Solicitor-gen. 1702-Apr. 1707; attorney-gen. Apr. 1707-1708, Sept.-Oct. 1710; ld. kpr. Oct. 1710-Apr. 1713; ld. chan. Apr. 1713-Sept. 1714; PC 19 Oct. 1710-Sept. 1714, 25 Aug. 1722-<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1723, 1725, 1727.</p><p>Commr. Union with Scotland 1706.</p><p>Recorder of Abingdon June-Dec. 1687, Oct. 1689-Apr. 1711; clerk of the iter to c.j. in eyre south of the Trent 1695-?9; steward, Woodstock manor and hundred of Wootton, Oxon. 1705-9; freeman, Ludlow 1707, Hereford 1710.</p><p>Commr. rebuilding St Paul’s 1702-7, Q. Anne’s bounty 1704, building 50 new churches 1712-15; gov. Charterhouse 1711.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, aft. 1710, Pembroke, Oxf.</p> |
<h2><em>The lawyer-politician</em></h2><p>Harcourt was one of the leading lawyer-politicians of his day, having been called to the bar in 1683, served as solicitor and attorney-general and having sat in the Commons almost continuously since 1690. After resigning with Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, in 1708, he was a marked man. Following the Whig victory at the polls of that year he was unceremoniously unseated in January 1709. This treatment may have accelerated his shift from a middle-of-the-road politics to a more committed Toryism.<sup>1</sup> It also gave him more time to practice the law, not least in cases heard before the Lords.<sup>2</sup> Indeed, a mere four days after his ejection from the Commons, James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> related that Harcourt had been involved in a five-hour hearing before the Lords speaking ‘an hour like an angel having only been consulted yesternight in place of the attorney-general, who would not come to the bar’.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Most impressive of all was his role as one of the defence counsel during the impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell in 1710. Ironically, it was only Harcourt’s absence from the Commons that allowed him to undertake that role and his return for a by-election was delayed to allow him to do so. According to George Smalridge*, the future bishop of Bristol, Harcourt’s speech on 3 Mar. was ‘the noblest entertainment that ever audience had’. He ‘spoke with such exactness, such force, such decency, such dexterity, so neat a way of commending and reflecting as he had occasion, such strength of argument, such a winning persuasion, such an insinuation into the passions of his auditors as I never heard.’<sup>4</sup> For his efforts Sacheverell presented him with a gilt basin used for washing after dinner and Harcourt reciprocated by becoming a significant patron of the doctor.<sup>5</sup></p><p>At the end of March 1710 Harcourt was representing two Oxfordshire landowners, Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, and Sir John Walter<sup>‡</sup>, in their dealings with William Guidott<sup>‡</sup>, the agent of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and was also practising on circuit.<sup>6</sup> Harcourt’s perceived closeness to Marlborough, nurtured by his role in the transfer of Woodstock from the crown to the Churchills, may have given Harley doubts about his suitability for the role occupied by William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, a favourite of the queen, who, could he be retained, might help to fulfil Harley’s ideal of a ministry not dependent wholly on one party.<sup>7</sup> As such Harley planned originally to return Harcourt to his old post of attorney-general.<sup>8</sup> Nevertheless, by early August rumours abounded that Harcourt would be made lord chancellor.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Harcourt’s notoriously poor eyesight provided him with a cover, either as an excuse to avoid the lord chancellorship, or as a bargaining chip. On 4 Sept., Ralph Bridges wrote that Harcourt ‘having been lately couched for a cataract, refuses to be lord keeper and had rather be attorney general.’<sup>10</sup> Harley continued to plan as if Harcourt would be attorney-general, writing a memorandum on 12 Sept. in which he noted that ‘most of the members of the House of Commons which are immediately necessary should be provided for before their elections’, the first name on his list being that of Harcourt as attorney-general.<sup>11</sup> Once the queen had been convinced of the need for a dissolution, Harcourt was to replace the existing attorney general, Sir James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, as Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of )Halifax, recognized on 16 Sept. when he wrote to Cowper that his brother’s days were ‘numbered’ and that Harcourt ‘is to resume his places very suddenly’. For Halifax, the one glimmer of hope in this was that ‘since this all-powerful gentleman is pleased to content himself with his old office he may not hurt us in a more vital part’, that is the lord chancellorship.<sup>12</sup> On 14 Aug. William Stratford had thought that there was a difficulty in replacing Cowper, if Harcourt proved ‘obstinate’, and on 19 Aug. he reported a conversation held on 17 Aug. with Harcourt in which he ‘still says he will not have the seal’, although Stratford thought this a ploy ‘only to raise his terms, that he will insist on’, which was likely to be ‘somewhat considerable for the life of’ his son. Certainly his son was in need of a sinecure given his propensity to bring opprobrium on himself by drinking healths to the Pretender and implying that his father was in the same interest, prompting Harcourt to say his son ‘might have called him a Mohammetan as well as a Jacobite’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>The situation was sufficiently unclear for Swift on 15 Sept. 1710 to record that Harcourt had been appointed lord keeper, only to correct it two days later to attorney-general.<sup>14</sup> Harley still harboured hopes of keeping Cowper in office, the latter recording on 18 Sept. that Harley’s approach to him included an undertaking that Harcourt approved of him continuing as lord chancellor. On 22 Sept. Cowper added that ‘the reason of all this importunity, I guess, proceeded from the new ministry being unprepared of a successor that would be able to execute the office well; Sir S. Harcourt having chose to be attorney-general and her [the queen] not knowing if he would take it’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The dissolution of September 1710 precipitated Cowper’s resignation on 23 Sept., whereupon both Harcourt and then Sir Thomas Trevor*, the future Baron Trevor, refused the lord keepership, which was placed in commission.<sup>16</sup> One issue behind Harcourt’s refusal was financial. As Charlwood Lawton put it on 9 Oct., ‘unless a good pension is settled upon him for life, I cannot wish he should be put into a post, that is precarious and out of which, if he is put, he hath lost the opportunity of increasing his fortune by his profession, at the top of which he now stands as a private man’. Nevertheless, he came under pressure to accept the post. By 17 Oct. Harcourt was writing to Harley of the latter’s failure to secure him a ‘reprieve’ and insisting that it ‘was my duty not ambition placed me in that slippery station, in which I never could have entered had I not that utmost confidence in her majesty’s goodness’.<sup>17</sup> Despite his qualms, the office was not unremunerative. Between 1711 and 1714 it has been calculated that Harcourt received in excess of £8,000 p.a. by virtue of his office.<sup>18</sup></p><h2><em>Lord Keeper </em></h2><p>Harcourt was declared and sworn in as lord keeper at the council held on 19 Oct. 1710.<sup>19</sup> On that day, a correspondent of Charles, Lord Bruce*, the future 4th Baron Bruce of Whorlton, revealed that Harcourt had told him that he feared that ‘he shall never see any more of one eye and that the other is not perfectly well but he will do what he can to preserve it by keeping extremely regular hours at night, which is the only part he can be master of’.<sup>20</sup> He took up residence in the house in Lincoln’s Inn Field which had been vacated by Cowper.<sup>21</sup> His house at Cockthorpe was close enough to enable short visits from London, as occurred for five days in June 1711.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Harcourt continued to be involved in electoral matters. During September 1710 Thomas Sclater<sup>‡</sup> revealed that Harcourt was the source of his information that Mr Annesley (presumably Arthur Annesley*, who became 5th earl of Anglesey on 18 Sept.) had advised making an interest immediately for the next election for Cambridge University.<sup>23</sup> On 20 Oct. Harcourt was present at Harley’s house when it was ‘agreed for my Lord Stirling’s taking the oaths and signing his proxy next Monday’ for the forthcoming Scottish peerage elections.<sup>24</sup> Following his appointment Harcourt attended the vast majority of cabinets held before 17 June 1711, although his attendance at meetings of the lords of the committee (a sub-group of the cabinet, without the queen present) was severely restricted by the fact that they met during the week at 11 a.m., when he was usually engaged in legal business.<sup>25</sup> Another of his tasks was the regulation of the county magistracy, mainly adding Tory justices to the bench. Sometimes this involved calculations of electoral expediency, but generally Harcourt’s regulations fitted into a pattern of action before the winter and summer assizes. Overall his remodelling was more extensive than that undertaken by Cowper between 1705 and 1710. He also did most of the work independent of recommendations from the crown, through the secretaries of state or Privy Council.<sup>26</sup> Harcourt was also much involved in patronage matters relating to Welsh judgeships and the lieutenancies.<sup>27</sup></p><p>When the 1710 Parliament opened on 25 Nov. 1710, Harcourt presided over the Lords as lord keeper. As such his role in the Lords was limited, although he was listed as a Tory patriot during the first session of the 1710 Parliament. His importance was also recognized in his regular attendance at the dinners hosted by Harley on a Saturday, together with Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, and sometimes Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers. Gradually more people were admitted to these dinners which became, according to Swift, ‘of less consequence and ended only in drinking and general conversation’.<sup>28</sup> He also hosted his own entertainments, Swift recording a dinner at Harcourt’s on 17 Apr. 1711, the other guests being Thomas Mansell*, Baron Mansell, Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>, George Granville*, the future Viscount Lansdown, and Charles Caesar<sup>‡</sup>, the same quintet dining at Granville’s on the 21st.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Harcourt’s duties as lord keeper involved delivering the formal thanks of the House in a speech on 12 Jan. 1711 to Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, for his conduct in Spain and acting as a commissioner to give the royal assent to legislation. Behind the scenes he was also influential, being notably unsympathetic on 18 May to the agents of the Bertie family, who had a claim to the ancient earldom of Oxford and were contemplating putting a caveat against allowing Harley to adopt the same title.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Shortly before Harley was made a peer on 23 May 1711, Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> predicted a similar honour for Harcourt, ‘that he may take place of Lord Cowper’. However, in his next missive Maynwaring told the duchess of Marlborough that there was a report that Cowper would return as lord chancellor, ‘it being impossible for a man so blind as’ Harcourt ‘to do the business long; and indeed it is ridiculous to see him on the bench, for when he is to read any paper, he is forced to hold his glass in one hand, and to keep the light from his eyes with the other’.<sup>31</sup> In early May Swift had also picked up rumours that Harcourt would soon be made a peer, but on 19 May Harcourt himself told him that he would not be a peer immediately.<sup>32</sup> On 20 May Harcourt wrote that Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, had ‘desired he might have the making my preamble’, so that if Harley ‘really intended to order one for me, I think he must be sent to’.<sup>33</sup> On 14 June 1711, a newsletter reported that the warrant for passing the patent for creating Harcourt a peer of Great Britain ‘is daily expected. One of his titles ’tis said will be Lord Viscount Stanton Harcourt—the preamble of the patent is already drawn and very fine’. On 5 July another newsletter reported his creation as a peer and expected his promotion to the lord chancellorship on the following Sunday, 8 July.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Harcourt’s peerage was nevertheless delayed. On 29 July James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, wrote to Harcourt, ‘I am sorry for the occasion that has delayed the honours that the queen designs you’, probably a reference to the ministerial reshuffle occasioned by the unexpected recent deaths of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, and James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry.<sup>35</sup> The delay may have been prolonged by the death of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, on 25 Aug. 1711, on the eve of his appointment as lord privy seal. On 29 Aug. 1711, Harcourt wrote from Cockthorpe to Mansell with the news that the new privy seal would be John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol.<sup>36</sup> Harcourt’s main aim during his visit had been to bolster his interest in the university, ready for his son’s candidature at the next election, but he decided to delay it in the hope of being present at Atterbury’s installation as dean of Christ Church. Stratford noted that the two men already enjoyed ‘the strictest alliance that is possible between them’.<sup>37</sup> Harcourt had long been an advocate of Atterbury’s promotion to the deanery and Atterbury in turn was to promote Harcourt’s interest in the university, especially the candidature of his son. Atterbury nurtured conflict however, and soon the dean was at loggerheads with fellows such as Stratford and Francis Gastrell*, the future bishop of Chester, both supporters of Oxford.<sup>38</sup></p><p>At some point, the queen informed Oxford that she did not think it ‘right’ that Harcourt ‘should be a viscount’, and that Oxford should therefore ‘endeavour to make him easy in the matter’.<sup>39</sup> Presumably he did so, and Harcourt’s barony was announced along an earldom for William Legge* 1256], 2nd Baron Dartmouth, and an English barony (Boyle) for Charles Boyle*, earl of Orrery [I].<sup>40</sup> Clearly Harcourt was important for the ministry; indeed at the end of August 1711 Swift thought that ‘the safety of the present ministry to consist in the agreement of three great men, lord keeper, lord treasurer [Oxford] and Mr Secretary [St John]’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>On 25 Sept. 1711 Ralph Bridges wrote that he could learn little about the Peace, although ‘some lay great stress on the lord keeper’s sudden removal of himself and family out of the country, contrary to his resolutions of settling there till the meeting of the Parliament’. At the prorogation of 9 Oct., Harcourt was introduced by John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter. He also presided over the prorogations on 13 and 27 November. On 30 Nov. Bridges wrote that ‘the attorney and solicitor generals [Sir Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Robert Raymond<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Raymond] have received a great mortification this term being reprimanded by the lord keeper for suffering’ Nicholas Lechmere<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Lechmere ‘to harangue at the queen’s bench bar against the ministers, in the case of the <em>Observator</em>.’<sup>42</sup> Harcourt’s name appears on Oxford’s list, probably of supporters, of about December 1711.</p><p>When the session opened on 7 Dec. 1711, Harcourt presided over every sitting. He may have been partly responsible for the procedural confusion of the vote on 8 Dec. on the address, as he was in the chair when some Tories challenged the inclusion of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause that had been agreed to on the previous day, and insisted upon a division, though it was abandoned when others realised that they were likely to lose it.<sup>43</sup> After the confirmation of the address Harcourt joined Oxford and St John ‘on business’.<sup>44</sup> On 15 Dec. Dr Hamilton recorded that the queen had said that it was Harley’s misfortune that St John and Harcourt, ‘who took fees of little lords’ was with him, a reference to Harcourt’s grasping reputation.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Harcourt was forecast on 19 Dec. 1711 as likely to support the pretensions of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in Parliament under his British peerage and voted accordingly the following day, signing the subsequent protest when the resolution against Hamilton was carried. In the debate on 20 Dec. Harcourt spoke in support of Oxford’s motion that the judges should be consulted on whether the queen had a right to grant the patent, making ‘a very fine speech’ showing that ‘as ’twas matter of law ’twas always the custom to ask the judges’ opinion, and that when they had asked their opinion they might determine as they pleased as to their privileges, and said the most of any body as to the validity of the patent’. He then spoke ‘to confirm’ what John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar, had said, ‘appealing to the commissioners of the Union, whether ’twas not at that time understood by them all that the queen’s prerogative remained as it were before the Union’, because the Scots had been assured that the election of 16 representative peers did not ‘debar any of them being made peers of Great Britain … [as] the queen’s prerogative would still be the same, which was the chief inducement to them to agree to be represented by so small a number’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>On 14 Jan. 1712 he received the proxy of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury. On 17 Jan. Harcourt delivered a message from the queen, part of which related to the affairs of Scotland, especially ‘the distinction such of them who were peers of Scotland before the Union must lie under, if the prerogative of the crown is strictly barred against them alone’; she asked the advice of the House ‘in finding out the best method of settling this affair to the satisfaction of the whole kingdom’. This provoked a debate as to the correct response to the message; Harcourt ruled that an address was in order as it had not been a speech, but a message sent to the House via the lord keeper.<sup>47</sup> On 25 Jan. Harcourt and Oxford, in a committee of the whole, supported the resolution that ‘the sitting of the peers of Great Britain, who were peers of Scotland before the Union, in this House, by election, is alterable by Parliament, at the request of the peers of Great Britain who were peers of Scotland before the Union, without any violation of the Union’.<sup>48</sup> On 18 Feb. he again received Shrewsbury’s proxy. Also on 18 Feb. he reported information to the House from Muell, a muster master of marines who had been captured by the French in 1705, although there is no mention of this in the <em>Journal</em>.<sup>49</sup></p><p>On 29 Apr. 1712 the Lords adjourned until 5 May, probably in reaction to the Commons’ tacking provsions appointing commissioners to examine grants since 1688 to the lottery bill. Peter Wentworth recorded visiting Harcourt in Oxfordshire and Harcourt’s reaction to the tack and to the Commons’ resolutions laying a further duty on stamped paper, which was that ‘he believed those gentlemen did not mean to complement’ Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, ‘and the late ministry, but they acted as if they were advised by them’.<sup>50</sup> On 16 May 1712 Harcourt received the proxy of James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, and on 19 May that of Lansdown. In May Harcourt was also involved in preparing a bill to enable Ormond to sell his county palatinate to the queen.<sup>51</sup> On 28 May 1712 he supported the ministry over the restraining orders sent to the duke of Ormond.<sup>52</sup></p><blockquote></blockquote> <h2><em>The Power Struggle with Oxford 1712-14</em></h2><p>On 26 Sept. L’Hermitage reported that Harcourt, Shrewsbury, St John, now Viscount Bolingbroke and John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, were</p><blockquote><p>for dissolving the present Parliament to get one which would last three years to complete (or perfect) all they had planned to do, on the assumption that the next Parliament would be as favourable as this one because of the good disposition of the public (“peace is at hand”), which might not last.<sup>53</sup></p></blockquote><p>Three days later, Maynwaring noted that Shrewsbury, Harcourt, and Bolingbroke had fallen out with the treasurer.<sup>54</sup> However, on the matter of signing a separate peace with the French, Harcourt appears to have sided with Oxford against Bolingbroke in the cabinet held on 28 Sept. 1712.<sup>55</sup> As a result of these disagreements, Harcourt retired to Cockthorpe, from whence on 2 Oct. he referred to ‘that true satisfaction which I can never hope for but in retirement’, and asked Oxford to obtain the queen’s pardon because he could not ‘without very great inconvenience attend at Windsor on Sunday next [5th]’.<sup>56</sup> On 13 Oct. Peniston Lamb informed Sir John Newton that ‘it is said the lord keeper refuses to put the broad seal to a separate peace with France which puts the ministry in difficulties’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>On 29 Oct. 1712 Harcourt attended the dinner at Goldsmiths’ Hall that followed the swearing in of the lord mayor, Sir Richard Hoare<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>58</sup> He presided over the prorogation on 6 November. He then intended to visit Cockthorpe for a week in order to confer with Atterbury between the end of the legal term and dealing with seal business. On 20 Nov. Stratford thought that it was ‘somewhat odd’ for Harcourt to expect to be able to nominate the president of St John’s College to the bishopric of Raphoe [I], while he did ‘nothing to extinguish quarrels in a place, where my lord treasurer desires to have peace; which quarrels must cease if they were not supported by my lord keeper’, a clear reference to continuing quarrels involving Dean Atterbury at Christ Church, Oxford.<sup>59</sup> The bishopric went instead to Thomas Lindsay.</p><p>The theme of finance again reared its head for Harcourt in a letter to Oxford of 24 Nov. 1712 in which he referred to the lack of a ‘retreat’ from his office. This was of some importance given the decline in the profits of his post combined with the expense of it, whereupon he would ‘leave little other memorial in my family of my having been in the great station, than the bare honour of it’.<sup>60</sup> This is somewhat ironic, as contemporaneously (29 Nov.), Stratford was detailing Harcourt’s expenditure on land: his purchase of Nuneham (1710) for £17,000, his laying out £4,000 at Cockthorpe and paying £10,000 for Sir Edmund Warcup’s estate adjacent to it.<sup>61</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1712 Harcourt sought Oxford’s intervention in the continuing differences at Christ Church. These ‘must be speedily ended, or they will be incurable … I am not proper to act the part you commanded me. Your Lordship’s authority will bear down all cavils and your character will not permit you to be suspected of partiality’.<sup>62</sup> According to Stratford, the problems were of Harcourt’s own making, ‘all the bustle to make this man [Atterbury] dean, all the unjust support of him in all his villainies since he has been dean, was only by his interest to influence things here as [the] lord keeper should think most proper for his own turn’.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In late December 1712 Shrewsbury asked Harcourt to accept his proxy again, although the absence of a proxy book for this session does not allow us to discover Harcourt’s response.<sup>64</sup> On Swift’s list, amended by Oxford, of late March–early April 1713, Harcourt was expected to support the ministry. On 7 Apr. Harcourt was promoted from lord keeper to lord chancellor and duly opened the Parliament in that capacity on 9 April. He presided each day. On 15 May Harcourt intervened in the debate on the case of <em>Huband alias Pollen v. Huband</em>, to declare ‘the matter of fact’ in relation to the two previous trials on the case.<sup>65</sup> On 19 May 1713, the House ‘after a long hearing’ and ‘without any debate’, affirmed the lord chancellor’s order in the cause between Thomas Pelham*, 2nd Baron Pelham, and the duchess of Newcastle.<sup>66</sup> Harcourt had long been involved in the dispute surrounding the descent of the estates of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle. His legal acumen was used by Oxford in the disputes surrounding the Newcastle estate, and particularly the claims of the dowager duchess, preparatory to the marriage of the Holles heiress with Oxford’s son. </p><p>In the committee of the whole on the malt bill on 8 June 1713, John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerinoch, noted that Harcourt and Trevor ‘opened not their mouths, knowing well they had nothing to say’. In a private conversation with Balmerinoch, Harcourt had urged payment of the malt tax on the grounds that ‘equality of taxes was necessary for equality of trade’.<sup>67</sup> On or about 13 June Oxford listed Harcourt as expected to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty, if it reached the Lords. On 3 July Harcourt reported the queen’s answer to the address for the removal of the Pretender from Lorraine. In the absence of both Oxford and Bolingbroke he had to concede a further address from the Whigs expressing their surprise at the failure of previous attempts to secure his removal.<sup>68</sup> On 7 July he took part in the public thanksgiving for the peace at St Paul’s Cathedral.<sup>69</sup></p><p>By this stage Harcourt had joined Bolingbroke in seeking to undermine Oxford. He had a success with the appointment of Atterbury as bishop of Rochester on 5 July, a promotion he had been advocating for some time.<sup>70</sup> Oxford later recollected that, after the 1713 session, he had felt the need to ‘put everything into a steady measure before the new elections’ and so proposed a ministerial reshuffle involving the promotion of several of his allies, including Mar, James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater, William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup>, and Robert Benson*, the future Baron Bingley. This angered Bolingbroke and Harcourt, the latter suggesting that he would refuse to affix his seal to Findlater’s appointment as keeper of the great seal of Scotland.<sup>71</sup></p><p>On 6 Aug. 1713 Harcourt sent Oxford a draft of the proclamation dissolving Parliament and also put the lord treasurer in mind of speaking to Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Winchester, before he went out of town, presumably about his electoral influence.<sup>72</sup> Harcourt’s possession of the great seal was used to electoral advantage; following the dissolution of 8 Aug., Lansdown told Oxford that the lord chancellor had ‘sent me notice that our writs will be delivered to the sheriff upon Monday sevennight [31st]’ thereby triggering his own journey to Cornwall.<sup>73</sup> However his own influence was seen as weak, at least by Stratford, who noted, writing on 11 June about the election of Harcourt’s son at Wallingford, that Harcourt’s interest ‘runs as low in the county as it does in the university’, and that with such opposition young Harcourt ‘must have recourse to Cornwall’, which would require Lord Harcourt ‘to pay for his own election there [in 1705], which he has not yet done, before they choose the son’. The young Harcourt was in fact elected for Abingdon.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On 21 July 1713, Stratford wrote that Atterbury had the ‘entire ascendancy’ over Harcourt, by means of either flattery or ‘some secret’, as ‘there is nothing … that is trusted to [the] lord chancellor which the bishop of Rochester is not master of’.<sup>75</sup> On 30 Aug. Harcourt congratulated Oxford on the marriage of Lord Harley, noting that although ‘I have no thoughts of returning with my family to London, till the middle of October, but I will be there myself the first moment my presence can be of use to your Lordship, or give any sanction to what I hope is happily before this time concluded.’<sup>76</sup> In late October, Ralph Bridges noted that Harcourt ‘has lately made a grant of two prebends in Rochester and Gloucester and annexed them for ever to the two headships of Oriel and Pembroke,’ a move designed to strengthen his interest in the university.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Oxford entertained Harcourt among others to supper at Windsor in early January 1714, when the former arrived to see how the queen was convalescing.<sup>78</sup> On 19 Jan. Harcourt, Oxford and Bolingbroke went over the list of Lords in order to assess their strength in the forthcoming session.<sup>79</sup> Harcourt presided over the prorogation of 12 January. He opened the Parliament on 16 Feb. and presided over each meeting during the session.</p><p>On 15 Mar. 1714 Oxford wrote to Harcourt seeking his advice over his belief that he had become,</p><blockquote><p>a burden to my friends and to the only party I ever have or will act with for many months ever since this was apparent I have withdrawn myself from every thing but what neglect would be inexcusable. When a retreat happens to be desirable to one’s friends and agreeable to one’s own inclination and interest it must be sure to be right.<sup>80</sup></p></blockquote><p>In his reply on 16 Mar. Harcourt asked Oxford ‘to think calmly and give me the first opportunity you can to attend you.’<sup>81</sup> The following day he wrote that he was concerned that should Oxford ‘give way to your resentment’ the public confusion would see his enemies triumph. On 19 Mar. Harcourt warned Oxford that he had lost Lady Masham’s good opinion and that the queen was complaining of his failure to attend her. On 20 Mar. the queen summoned Harcourt, probably in order to urge a reconciliation. Yet, although Harcourt did not wish Oxford to quit, he was by now engaged with Bolingbroke in an attempt to undermine Oxford’s authority at court.<sup>82</sup></p><p>In early April 1714 Johnston referred to the disputes at Court, noting that Bolingbroke, Harcourt and Trevor had acted together and that Oxford had given them assurances of being ‘more communicable, more vigorous and to come into new measures and not to act by himself’. On 4 Apr. Harcourt, together with Oxford and Bolingbroke, was one of those who met about 30 Tory Members at Secretary Bromley’s office in order to concert measures for the remainder of the session.<sup>83</sup> On 5 Apr. 1714, when Robert Shirley*, Earl Ferrers, moved his motion that the Protestant succession was not in danger, Harcourt courted controversy by adding to the question the phrase ‘under her majesty’s government’. When the Whigs accused the lord chancellor of unparliamentary conduct, Ferrers intervened to say that was how he meant to style the question.<sup>84</sup> On 7 Apr., Harcourt spoke to the attorney-general to tell Henry Eyre that ‘he thought it proper to defer bringing our affair on for a few days, that some notice had been taken of it in the House of Lords, and hoped it would be no inconveniency’.<sup>85</sup> This related to the payment of Queen Mary’s dowry, a payment to James II’s queen originally agreed by William III, and now meant as a sop to the Jacobites, which Harcourt scuppered by refusing to affix the great seal to any such payments.<sup>86</sup></p><p>On 12 Apr. 1714, while Harcourt was in Whitehall to deliver the address of the Lords to the queen, he was approached by the Hanoverian envoy, Baron Schütz. At their subsequent meeting Schütz demanded, on behalf of Princess Sophia, a writ of summons for her grandson, Prince George*, duke of Cambridge (later George II). Harcourt</p><blockquote><p>told him I thought it my duty to give the queen immediate notice thereof. He desired to know whether I would issue the writ or not. I told him the writ had never be[en] denied, or to my knowledge, demanded, I should acquaint her majesty with what had passed, and that he should without any delay hear from me.<sup>87</sup></p></blockquote><p>According to Bateman, Harcourt was able to delay issuing the writ because Cambridge was out of the country,</p><blockquote><p>it was a colour for its lying at the lord chancellor’s, and for evading the envoy’s having it, and to back this proceeding better, ’tis given out that the envoy had no authority from his master or the duke for demanding it, but that he did it of himself, or in concert with some here.<sup>88</sup></p></blockquote><p>The cabinet then considered the issue that evening and ensured that although the order for the writ was granted, Harcourt was to make it clear that Cambridge’s presence was not welcome.<sup>89</sup> On 13 Apr. Harcourt wrote to Schütz that when he had told the queen of his request, she had not believed he had any direction from Hanover to do it, adding that the writ for Cambridge had been sealed at the time of those for all peers and ‘lies ready to be delivered to you, whenever you call for it’.<sup>90</sup></p><p>On 20 Apr. 1714 Harcourt received the proxy of Barons Trevor and Ferrers. Towards the end of April, Oxford began to spread rumours that both Bolingbroke and Harcourt harboured Jacobite sympathies.<sup>91</sup> On 4 May, however, Erasmus Lewis<sup>‡</sup> thought that Harcourt and Bolingbroke ‘seem already to have broken their new undigested confederacy’.<sup>92</sup></p><p>On 7 May 1714 Ralph Bridges wrote of the ‘noise’ made by Lords in ‘reversing a decree’ of Harcourt’s. ‘One Ratcliffe, a papist’, had made a will in which his estate was to be sold to pay his debts. The remaining money was devised to his ‘popish heirs’, thereby defeating the next Protestant heir, who laid claim to this remainder by virtue of an act passed under William III, disabling Catholics from disposing of their estates. Harcourt at the hearing of this cause called in the assistance of the two chief justices and the master of the rolls [Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>], and decreed that this money, being personal estate, was not included in the act. The lord chief justice, Sir Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Macclesfield, offered a contrary opinion and this weighed so much with the Lords ‘that they reversed the decree by a great majority’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>On 9 May 1714 Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, provided an insight into Harcourt’s electoral role when he wrote to remind Oxford of an assurance made by Oxford and Harcourt of ‘a good post’ for Thomas Webb<sup>‡</sup> ‘if he should desist from being member of Parliament’ for Gloucester. <sup>94</sup> On 24 May Harcourt thought that the bill resuming church revenues in Scotland was unwise and that ‘immediate care’ should be taken with ‘our friends’ in the Commons ‘lest they engage themselves too far’.<sup>95</sup> On 25 May George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> thought that both Harcourt and Oxford were opposed to the proposed bill to resume all the revenues accruing from former episcopal property in Scotland which was subsequently dropped in favour of a bill to appoint commissioners to inquire into the grants.<sup>96</sup></p><p>On 27 May 1714 Harcourt received the proxy of George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan. Harcourt’s role as a ministerial manager was brought into sharp focus on 27 May, when the government was taken by surprise in a thin House and found the malt bill at risk at its second reading. As Sir John Perceval<sup>‡</sup> was informed, Harcourt, ‘finding a debate growing against receiving the bill, and that the Scotch were going that way sent in great haste to the coffee houses and other places for Lords’. As a result the government just managed to secure the bill by five votes.<sup>97</sup></p><p>At or about the end of May 1714, Nottingham forecast Harcourt as likely to support the schism bill. On 13 June 1714 Harcourt asked Oxford if he included him in the number of those he accused of ‘running mad’, and that if he ‘err for want of information’ it was Oxford’s fault more than his own.<sup>98</sup> On 14 June, at the report stage of the schism bill, Shrewsbury had arrived in time to speak against the amendment made in committee of the whole that the legislation be extended to Ireland. He was answered by Harcourt, who discounted the objection that it should be done by a separate bill.<sup>99</sup> On 30 June he again received Trevor’s proxy. On 3 July, Harcourt ‘gave an account how it stood by the counsel at the bar’, before the bill for the relief of William Paterson out of the equivalent was rejected on second reading.<sup>100</sup></p><p>On 5 July 1714 Ralph Bridges wrote of the schism ‘amongst the great ones at court’. Bolingbroke, Harcourt and Atterbury were ‘the men chiefly concerned in what they call the new scheme’; they were ‘resolved to out the treasurer, and Bolingbroke is to have the staff and be premier minister’.<sup>101</sup> On 8 July when the House examined into the treaty of commerce with Spain, Harcourt asked each commissioner of trade in turn if they had seen a letter from one Gilligan or Gillingham of the South Sea Company offering Arthur Moore<sup>‡</sup> a pension from the king of Spain.<sup>102</sup> Harcourt presided over the prorogation on 9 July, but only after reading the queen’s reply in response to the Lords’ address on her share in the Asiento. So inflammatory was it that Harcourt had to backtrack upon declaring the session adjourned, and the House debated an address requesting the identity of the advisors of the message. The queen then arrived before a vote could be taken and prorogued the session.<sup>103</sup></p><p>On 11 July Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> wrote to his brother, Oxford, that Harcourt desired to meet him.<sup>104</sup> On 14 July Harcourt was still pressing for a meeting as he was going into the country on Friday [16th], and had to take leave of the queen on the 15th.<sup>105</sup> Lewis reported that on 15 July Harcourt had a long conference with Oxford, ‘kissed him at parting and cursed him at night’. Harcourt then went into the county on the 16th leading some to ‘conjecture nothing considerable will be done’.<sup>106</sup> One of Harcourt’s tasks was to ‘lay the first stone of the new college’ in Oxford, the statutes of which he was expediting because ‘he did not know how long he might have the seals’.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Harcourt intended to stay in the country until 10 Aug., but on the 20 July he ‘was sent for express by Lord Bolingbroke’ who, confident of his victory over Oxford, required Harcourt’s presence for ‘besides the Irish dispute, which some consideration must be had upon Thursday morning [22nd], there are too many other affairs of consequence now on foot to dispense with your Lordship’s absence’.<sup>108</sup> On his arrival on 21 July Harcourt went into discussions with Bolingbroke and the queen.<sup>109</sup></p><p>On 21 July 1714 Johnston wrote that it was still the ‘general opinion’ that Oxford would be removed. Three days later, Lewis reported that Oxford had ‘broke out into a fiery passion’ with Harcourt, ‘sworn a thousand oaths that he would be revenged’.<sup>110</sup> On 27 July Oxford resigned and on his way from an audience with the queen, he again erupted against Harcourt: ‘I found you a poor rascal, and by my means you became rich and great, but by God I’ll never leave you till I make you again what you was at first’.<sup>111</sup> As L’Hermitage wrote on 5 Oct., following the appearance of <em>Secret History of the White Staff</em>, Oxford’s apologists blamed the Tories’ difficulties on Harcourt and Bolingbroke. </p><p>On 30 July it was Harcourt who gently guided the queen’s hand as she placed the lord treasurer’s staff in Shrewsbury’s custody.<sup>112</sup> Following her death, on 1 Aug. 1714, Harcourt signed the proclamation of George I. By virtue of his office, he was one of the regents of the realm in the king’s absence. He also presided over each meeting of the session of August 1714, including the delivery of the speech from the lords justices on 5 August. Also on 5 Aug. he received the proxy of Lord Bruce.</p><p>According to Thomas Carte’s notes, probably based on Lansdown’s recollections, ‘Harcourt has complained often in very feeling terms’ to Ormond ‘that he knew no more of the measures of the court’, even though he was lord chancellor, ‘than his footman’, and that Bolingbroke ‘had not made him a visit of a year and Lord Oxford did not so much as know him, but just before the queen died, Bolingbroke brought him into his measures and they were entire confidants’. Their scheme was in favour of the house of Hanover, to make Marlborough general and if Ormond agreed, to allow him the post of lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>113</sup> An alternative view was provided by Henry Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, who later told Sir Dudley Ryder<sup>‡</sup> that on the death of the queen, there was a meeting between Bishop Atterbury, Thomas Howard*, 8th duke of Norfolk (the earl marshal), Bolingbroke and Harcourt, at which the bishop offered to proclaim the Pretender, but only the earl marshal came into it.<sup>114</sup> This latter account is somewhat odd, given that Norfolk, as a Catholic, did not act as earl marshal. Perhaps Pelham was referring to his deputy and kinsman, Henry Howard*, 6th earl of Suffolk.</p><p>Harcourt was dismissed on 21 Sept. and replaced by Cowper. He was present at the coronation on 20 Oct. 1714.<sup>115</sup> Thereafter he continued in opposition until his rehabilitation which saw him gain a viscountcy in 1721 and serve as a lord justice. He died on 28 July 1727.</p><p>Harcourt has been widely perceived by both contemporaries and historians as an able man, but with a seriously flawed character: ‘a convivial man of presence and authority in polite society’, but ‘vain, pushing and greedy’.<sup>116</sup> The duchess of Marlborough around 1710 described him as ‘a man of great ability and reputation in his own profession but in nothing else, and when he was in a less station was always thought to be very corrupt’.<sup>117</sup> On the latter Swift agreed: ‘I believe everything you can say of him, and that nothing but guineas can influence him’.<sup>118</sup> More impartially, Prince Eugene cited him as an example of Oxford’s ability to use men ‘of low birth and small fortune, but good parts’, he being ‘a country gentleman of small fortune, but a good lawyer and of a bold spirit, a great asserter of the Church of England, which entitled him to the queen’s favour and to the great station he is now in, and very compliable to all the treasurer’s measures’.<sup>119</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
HARLEY, Robert (1661-1724) |
<p><strong><surname>HARLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1661–1724)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>23 May 1711 earl of OXFORD and Earl MORTIMER |
|
First sat 25 May 1711; last sat 14 Apr. 1724 |
|
MP Tregony 1689-90, New Radnor Boroughs 12 Nov. 1690- 23 May 1711 |
<p><em>b</em>. 5 Dec. 1661, 1st s. of Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> and 2nd w. Abigail, da. of Nathaniel Stephens, of Eastington, Glos., bro. of Edward<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Shilton sch. 1671-80 (Samuel Birch, master); Mons. Foubert’s Academy 1680-81;<sup>1</sup> M. Temple 1682. <em>m</em>. (1) 14 May 1685, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1691), da. of Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> of Witley Court, Worcs. 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 2da.;<sup>2</sup> (2) 4 Oct. 1694, Sarah (<em>d</em>.1737), da. of Simon Middleton of Edmonton, Mdx., <em>s</em>.<em>p.</em> KG 26 Oct. 1712. <em>d</em>. 21 May 1724;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> ?, pr.1724.</p> |
<p>Speaker of the House of Commons, 1701-5.</p><p>Commr. public accounts, 1691-7; sec. of state (north) 1704-8;<sup>4</sup> PC 23 Apr. 1704-May 1708, 13 Aug. 1710-Sept. 1714; commr. union with Scotland 1706; chan.of the Exchequer 1710-11; ld. treasurer May 1711-July 1714; housekeeper, St James's Palace May-July 1714.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Sheriff, Herefs. Mar.-Nov. 1689; maj. of militia ft. Herefs. Dec. 1688-1696;<sup>6</sup> freeman, New Radnor 1690, Ludlow 1701;<sup>7</sup> steward of crown manors, Rad. 1691-1714; dep. lt. Herefs., by 1694-1714, Rad. by 1701-1714;<sup>8</sup> <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Rad. 1702-14; warden, Sherwood Forest 1712-14.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Commr. Greenwich Hosp. 1695, Q. Anne’s Bounty 1704; gov. S. Sea Co. 1711-14;<sup>10</sup> gov. Charterhouse by 1716.<sup>11</sup> FRS 1712.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, aft. J. Richardson, c.1711, Palace of Westminster; oil on canvas, aft. G. Kneller, 1714, NPG 4011; J. Richardson, oils, c.1718, Christ Church, Oxf.</p> |
<p>Midway through the ministry of 1710-14, Prince Eugene wrote of Robert Harley (by then earl of Oxford), that he ‘steers the helm of state with as great sway as ever Richelieu or Mazarin did in France.’<sup>13</sup> Just over two years later, he was out of office and within three years he was in the Tower on a charge of treason.<sup>14</sup> Dramatic as was Harley’s fall, it also served to emphasize the extent to which he had dominated affairs while he was in the ascendant and the degree of animus that he had inspired in those he had outmanoeuvred. Long before his promotion to the Lords, Harley had acquired an unparalleled reputation as a commanding politician of rare deviousness, with a series of soubriquets that reflected it: ‘Robin the Trickster’, ‘the Colonel’ or simply ‘the Great Man’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Scion of an old dissenting family, having started out as a Whig follower of Country principles, by the accession of Queen Anne Harley was already spoken of by Whig colleagues with unease, as someone of whose ideology they were no longer sure.<sup>16</sup> By the middle of the decade he had migrated to emerge as the effective leader of the Tories. His apparent change of tack was not as bizarre as might first appear. Once he had distanced himself from the Country Whigs, he tended to eschew party labels and preferred to think of himself as the queen’s ‘manager’, willing to work with members of both parties. In this role of court broker he emulated his erstwhile patron, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, but it was a stance that, in the charged atmosphere of the last years of Queen Anne, made him appear to be all the more slippery and unreliable.</p><p>Harley came from a long-established marcher family with links to the influential Foley family. His paternal estate was valued at £1,500 in the mid-1650s; he was able to supplement it with additional fees and salaries from his various offices.<sup>17</sup> Physically, he was unimpressive, being short with a ‘hard and dry’ voice.<sup>18</sup> An assiduous list-maker and collector of intelligence, Harley’s great gift was for understanding the value of information of all kinds.<sup>19</sup> Introduced to John Toland through the auspices of either Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, with whom he was initially on good terms, or John Methuen<sup>‡</sup>, he would later add Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift to an array of journalists and propagandists producing work for him.<sup>20</sup> Such qualities brought him early recognition in the Commons and soon also brought him to the notice of the Court. Although his election for Radnor in 1690 had been supported by the Junto leaders, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, and Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, Harley soon fell out with the more dogmatic members of the Whig party. Early in Queen Anne’s reign he emerged at the head of affairs as one of a triumvirate with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (from 1706 earl of) Godolphin, and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. Having initially resisted the blandishments of King William and shunned office in the late 1690s, he eventually gave way and accepted both election as Speaker of the Commons and (in May 1704) appointment as one of the secretaries of state.<sup>21</sup> Acceptance of office and his increasing identification with Tory members caused him to part company with Shaftesbury and by 1707 the alliance with Marlborough and Godolphin was also faltering. In April of that year, his fellow secretary, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, accused him of being ‘the author of all the tricks played here’, while in July Godolphin complained that matters were growing ‘worse and worse’, identifying Harley as the cause of the dissension.<sup>22</sup> By the beginning of February 1708 relations between Harley and his ministerial colleagues (especially Sunderland between whom and Harley there was said to be ‘mortal antipathy’) had soured so severely that it was widely reported that he would have to give way.<sup>23</sup> Damaged by the revelation in late 1707 of the activities of Greg, his former secretary, in passing confidential documents on to the enemy Harley was pushed out of office in February 1708 amid bitter recriminations on all sides.<sup>24</sup> Marlborough was said to have brought matters to a head by threatening to step down himself, refusing to continue in post with ‘so vile a person as Mr Harley.’<sup>25</sup></p><h2><em>The Establishment of the New Ministry 1710-11</em></h2><p>Convinced that his fall had been the result of the overweening dominance of ‘the family’ (Marlborough, his duchess, and their son-in-law, Sunderland), Harley set about plotting the removal of his former allies and their replacement by a coalition ministry of Tories and moderate Whigs with him at its head. In this he was aided by striking up an alliance with his kinswoman, Abigail Masham, who had replaced the duchess of Marlborough in the queen’s affections and who, according to Godolphin, was responsible for placing the queen in the hands of Harley and his confederates.<sup>26</sup> He was also aided by the active co-operation of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, the first of whom Harley had begun courting back in 1703 during the duke’s voluntary exile in Italy.<sup>27</sup> Like Harley, Shrewsbury had become convinced of the need to extract Britain from its participation in the War of the Spanish Succession and it was this peace policy that was to prove the focus of Harley’s administration.<sup>28</sup> A series of meetings between Shrewsbury and Harley ensued following the duke’s return to England.<sup>29</sup> Harley was able to disguise their manoeuvrings so effectively that as late as the end of April 1710 the Whig associate of the duchess of Marlborough, Arthur Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup>, was still unwilling to believe that Shrewsbury could have been persuaded by Harley to forsake the duumvirs. Godolphin was also kept in the dark and seemed convinced in May that Somerset was the central figure responsible for undermining Marlborough.<sup>30</sup> Having already secured Shrewsbury the household office of lord chamberlain, Harley’s apparently miraculous manipulation of events in the later spring and early summer of 1710 saw the replacement of Sunderland in June with the moderate Tory, William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth.<sup>31</sup> It reached a climax in August with the dramatic removal of Godolphin from office as lord treasurer. It confirmed Harley’s already well-established reputation as a diabolical figure: he was later dubbed by the duchess of Marlborough (and others) ‘the sorcerer’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In reality, the ministry that had emerged by the autumn of 1710 was far removed from that which Harley had originally envisioned and the process by which the administration of Marlborough and Godolphin was unravelled proved more protracted than Harley had probably expected. His initial scheme, worked out in alliance with Shrewsbury and the leading Tory in the Commons, William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, and heavily influenced by the queen’s own preferences, appears to have aimed at little more than the removal of ‘the family’ and their replacement by figures from both parties, with Shrewsbury the public face of the new ministry.<sup>33</sup> The appointment of Dartmouth as secretary was very definitely a compromise and there is some doubt as to whether or not Harley himself intended to emerge from ‘behind the curtain’ as early as he did.<sup>34</sup> The refusal of Whigs such as William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, and Orford, to serve alongside the ‘Trickster’ also disappointed Harley in his hopes of constructing a thoroughly mixed ministry. Although Halifax remained on friendly terms with Harley throughout, once it was plain that Harley would not guarantee the continuance of the current Parliament none of the Junto felt able to remain in place. Their refusal, set alongside Shrewsbury’s unease with his new responsibilities, made it impossible for Harley to avoid taking a central role earlier than he had anticipated.<sup>35</sup> It also made it difficult for him to deny senior posts to members of the High Church wing of the Tory party such as Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, along with others whom he had hoped to keep in subordinate positions.<sup>36</sup> The result was a more thoroughgoing Tory administration than he had intended.<sup>37</sup> Harley’s manoeuvring had another detrimental effect, for although he eventually agreed to bring in Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, as one of the secretaries of state, his earlier efforts to keep St John out of the cabinet helped make his ambitious colleague into a bitter rival.<sup>38</sup> Thus, although Toland wrote from Leiden towards the end of August to congratulate Harley on his ‘happy return to the management of affairs and the disgrace of his enemies’, all was not as well as it seemed and within six months of the ministry’s formation, it was under threat from serious internal divisions.<sup>39</sup></p><p>The extent of the changes both at Court and in local offices was reflected in a report of September 1710 that asserted</p><blockquote><p>there is no doubt but there will be a most universal change of the ministry as ever was and all places that can any ways influence elections are putting as fast as may be into the hands of the high party who have directions everywhere to make their utmost efforts, but that would not turn the Parliament without a great squadron of courtiers going over from Godolphin to Harley.<sup>40</sup></p></blockquote><p>Harley’s own assessment was similar, in a memorandum of 12 Sept. 1710 noting the need to provide places for members of the Commons while also sketching out offices for the peers. These included the posts of lord president for Rochester and lord steward for John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, though Buckingham was eventually appointed to the post of lord privy seal.<sup>41</sup> Still hoping for a ministry founded on moderation, he wrote in a letter of the same day to John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, that he believed Halifax might still prove ‘very useful’, but despaired of being able to carry with him any of the other members of the former ministry. Subsequent letters of 14 and 16 Sept. from Harley to Newcastle confirmed the plans for the imminent dissolution as well as the determination of Cowper and others not to remain in office.<sup>42</sup> Cowper’s diary also acknowledged Harley’s efforts to persuade him to remain as chancellor but, finding that ‘things were too far gone towards the Tories’, Cowper declined the invitation.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Harley’s room for manoeuvre was restricted still further by the general election that autumn. The result was a swingeing victory for the Tories, many of whom, according to Peter Wentworth, were returned by nonconformist electors who had been assured by Harley that ‘there shall be nothing this Parliament done against them, but their toleration [kept] inviolable.’ The strength of the Tory party in the lower House may have given rise to rumours that Rochester was to be made lord treasurer and Harley restricted to the office of master of the rolls.<sup>44</sup> Matters in the Lords were more finely balanced. Harley himself calculated that 63 members of the upper House might be expected to support the ministry with 51 likely to oppose. A further 19 lords were listed as doubtful, but the majority of these proved hostile to his administration, leaving the (English) Lords fairly evenly matched between court and opposition. The Scots peers also proved a challenge. Difficulties arising from the efforts of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to secure an ‘English’ (British) dukedom and thus a writ of summons to the Lords provoked a number of his countrymen to refuse to attend.<sup>45</sup> The result, according to Swift, was but ‘a weak and crazy [unreliable] majority’ for the ministry in the upper House. In spite of this, the first few months of the new ministry witnessed a number of government successes in the Lords, largely thanks to Rochester’s leadership.<sup>46</sup> Harley was also able to deter for a while expected opposition from the Finch family by appointing Dartmouth as secretary and by extending an olive branch to Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), brother of Harley’s bitter enemy, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham.<sup>47</sup> Despite this, by the spring of 1711 rumours abounded of difficulties at the heart of the administration. The formation of the October Club demonstrated the unease with which Harley’s leadership was viewed by the immoderate Tories and its ‘testy, unmanageable, hotheaded’ membership ‘of young country squires’ was said to ‘fright their friends and leaders more than they do their enemies.’<sup>48</sup></p><p>Harley was, paradoxically, thrown a lifeline in March 1711 when he survived an assassination attempt that for a while cowed his critics within the administration and also earned for him the anxious concern of the queen. The occasion was a meeting of the Privy Council held on 8 Mar. to interrogate a French spy, the marquis de Guiscard. Towards the end of the meeting, Guiscard pulled out a small penknife and thrust it into Harley’s chest. Guiscard was then run through by St John and other council members in the ensuing mêlée.<sup>49</sup> Although Harley’s thick coat and brocaded waistcoat took the brunt of the blow, he was seriously injured in the assault.<sup>50</sup> He was then fortunate to survive the incompetent ministrations of his surgeon and remained ill for several weeks after the attack.<sup>51</sup> By the end of the month he was able to walk with the aid of a stick and on 1 Apr. he made his first public appearance after the attack.<sup>52</sup> Soon after, it was reported that both he and the lord keeper, Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, were to be made peers.<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>Promotion to the Lords, 1711</em></h2><p>The Guiscard assault assisted Harley in a variety of ways, not least by silencing those who had been intent on spreading rumours that Harley was working ‘in the French interest’.<sup>54</sup> There seems little doubt that it also accelerated his promotion to the Lords. Although rumours of his advancement had been put about prior to the events of March 1711, his creation as earl of Oxford at this juncture was directly linked to the queen’s relief at his survival.<sup>55</sup> It may also have been seen as a necessity at this point to bolster the ministry’s leadership of the Lords following Rochester’s unexpected death on 2 May. Promotion to the peerage was not without its difficulties. It removed Harley from his natural territory in the Commons and as a letter from Swift to Stella implied, Harley also purported to be reluctant to accept the honour on account of his financial situation. He, wrote Swift:</p><blockquote><p>makes only one difficulty which is hard to answer: he must be made a lord, and his estate is not large enough, and he is too generous to make it larger; and if the ministry should change soon by any accident, he will be left in the suds.<sup>56</sup></p></blockquote><p>Harcourt’s situation was similar and Arthur Mainwaring took pleasure in noting that the promotion of Harley and Harcourt to the Lords was a poor deal for the queen as she would have to give estates to both of the new peers to enable them to maintain the dignity of their titles.<sup>57</sup></p><p>While removal to the Lords contained an element of risk, in that it required Harley’s detachment from the lower House of whose procedures he was a noted master, it did offer Harley the opportunity of reshaping the ministry. He was also now in a stronger position to exert himself following the successful passage of the bill establishing the South Sea Company.<sup>58</sup> In early May Mainwaring commented on the possibility of a return to government for the ‘lord treasurer’s Whig’, Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton, whom Harley had hoped to keep in office the previous year. Mainwaring thought that this might indicate that a ‘middle scheme is aimed at’. He also predicted that the treasury would be brought out of commission with Harley taking the reins as lord high treasurer.<sup>59</sup> As before, though, Harley found himself unable to model the ministry quite as he would have liked to do. Boyle did not resume office and Newcastle, another moderate Whig, refused the offer of the lord presidency, ‘thinking it a place of less consequence of that he has’. The question of how to manage the Finch family was another dilemma, with John Poulett*, Earl Poulett advising that it would be better to offer a place to Nottingham’s son, Daniel Finch*, styled Lord Finch (later 8th earl of Winchilsea and 3rd earl of Nottingham), rather than make space for Nottingham himself.<sup>60</sup> By the middle of May, Mainwaring was happy to conclude that Harley faced grave difficulties ahead and that no matter whether he preferred Whigs or Tories, both sides would take offence.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Harley’s choice of title also caused problems. On 8 May it was speculated that he was to be made earl of Oxford and this report was repeated over the next few days along with the additional gloss that with the peerage would come appointment as lord treasurer.<sup>62</sup> The selection of Oxford provoked the indignation of the Bertie family, who believed that they had a claim to the earldom as descendants of the de Vere family, while Harley himself could claim only a very tenuous connection to a previous holder of the title. The dispute was welcomed by Mainwaring, who told the duchess of Marlborough that ‘nothing has pleased me in all this but to hear the Bertie family is all in arms upon his taking the title of Oxford.’<sup>63</sup> On 17 May Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> sought a meeting with Harley to discuss the issue, warning him that his family had previously forestalled an attempt made by Buckingham and Normanby to take the title and they now intended to enter a caveat against Harley assuming the style too.<sup>64</sup> Mainwaring thought that Buckingham would also have made ‘a sad splatter about it’, but that ‘his concern for his place keeps him silent.’<sup>65</sup> Harley answered the Bertie challenge by pointing out that both the queen and the council considered the title to be in the crown’s gift, but that he would not take it amiss if they entered their caveat. Nevertheless, he remained adamant that the Berties’ caveat would not stop the grant and reiterated his intention of taking the title, insisting that if he did not someone else would do so soon after.<sup>66</sup></p><p>In the midst of his efforts to settle the question of his title, Harley remained focused on his efforts to make what alterations he could in the administration. Towards the end of May Harcourt sent him a list of likely contenders for county lieutenancies, noting under Herefordshire ‘why not the earl of Oxford?’<sup>67</sup> Harley was also subjected to a series of petitions from others eager to secure preferment of one sort or another. On 17 May, George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, irritated that he was now the only one of those who had waited on the Queen at the Revolution still to be wanting a place, wrote to Harley to remind him of his claim.<sup>68</sup> The following day Harley wrote to Marlborough to assure him that he would do what he could to ensure that the new palace at Blenheim would be completed as planned.<sup>69</sup> On 21 May it was reported that Harley’s promotion to the Lords would proceed as soon as the South Sea scheme had been passed. Two days later, he was created earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (the latter title being included as a sop to the other claimants on the earldom of Oxford).<sup>70</sup> The patent, drawn up by Dr Robert Friend, provoked some derision, at least one commentator noting that it was symptomatic of Oxford’s ‘excessive vanity’.<sup>71</sup></p><p>On 24 May, Oxford wrote to the deputy earl marshal (Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex) advising him of his creation and requesting that preparations might be made for his introduction into the House the next day.<sup>72</sup> He took his seat on 25 May, introduced between Poulett, and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers. One of the disconsolate Berties, Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, dragged himself from his sickbed to officiate at the ceremony as deputy to the lord great chamberlain.<sup>73</sup> Commenting on the event, Ralph Bridges reflected ‘the ring of changes at court &c. it’s thought will now begin.’<sup>74</sup> Four days after being introduced, Oxford was appointed lord treasurer.<sup>75</sup> He attended the House on a total of seven days before the prorogation brought the session to a close on 12 June. Writing to Marlborough at the time of his appointment, Oxford confessed somewhat disingenuously that he conceived it to be a ‘difficult’ post for which he considered himself ill qualified save for being cognisant of ‘the dangers which attend it, as well as how unequal I am to it.’<sup>76</sup> On 31 May he was ordered to attend the queen with the House’s report concerning public records and on 2 June he reported back with the queen’s response.</p><p>Oxford’s transformation was reflected in his inclusion within a list of ‘Tory Patriots’ of the first session of the 1710 Parliament. For the time being he appeared to be in the ascendant, the subject of a paean declaring it to be ‘the opinion of all the philosophers and unprejudiced men… that whilst the earl of Oxford… holds the scales of the contending parties he will produce harmony out of discord’. The apparently optimistic appraisal hinted, though, at the inherent difficulty of his position. His removal from the Commons, where he had the benefit of over 20 years experience, to the Lords, whose procedures were less familiar to him and which was dominated by members hostile to his interests, made his task doubly challenging.<sup>77</sup> Physical absence from the Commons meant that he was reliant upon others to manage that House and, as happened the day after his introduction in the Lords, to send him the results of the Commons’ business.<sup>78</sup> This may have encouraged a series of challenges to his authority from several directions. As early as 12 June, the day of the prorogation, it was reported that he now stood on ‘slippery ground’.<sup>79</sup> Many of his problems stemmed from trying to make appointments which would not further upset the delicate balance of the ministry. In July, he was compelled to accede to a request from the Dutch not to appoint Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, to the office of lord high admiral as Jersey was believed to be hostile to the Hanoverian succession.<sup>80</sup> The difficulty of finding an appropriate role for Jersey left Oxford subjected to a string of petitions from the earl before Jersey’s death put an end to the problem.<sup>81</sup> The office of lord privy seal, to which Jersey had eventually been appointed, was then awarded to John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol (later bishop of London).<sup>82</sup> The death of other prominent members of the administration further complicated matters for the lord treasurer. The demise of James Douglas* 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], left vacant the office of secretary of state for Scotland, while that of Newcastle shortly afterwards eroded still further the number of Whigs on whom Oxford was able to rely.<sup>83</sup> In a letter to Marlborough, Oxford pondered how best to manage Queensberry’s replacement, particularly because ‘a third secretary is so new a thing in England, and so much out of the way of doing business here, that it ought to be put upon some other foot.’<sup>84</sup> The death of Queensberry was no doubt part of the reason for Oxford receiving a number of requests from other Scots peers, who were disgruntled at the way in which they had been treated over measures in the session and now threatened to move for the Union to be dissolved.<sup>85</sup> It also meant additional difficulties in managing Hamilton, who had been eager to succeed Queensberry in the secretaryship but whom neither the queen nor Oxford were willing to appoint.<sup>86</sup> His reluctance to employ the Tory Hamilton, alongside his continuing friendly relations with Halifax, may have encouraged rumours at the close of July that Oxford had been successful in persuading both Halifax and John Somers*, Baron Somers, to realign themselves with him and even speculation that other members of the Junto were willing to negotiate an alliance on the condition that Parliament was dissolved and a new one elected.<sup>87</sup> The rumours proved inaccurate.</p><p>Oxford continued to suffer from his injuries sustained in March. His right arm remained ‘so weak that I have no use of it and only strength enough to write a letter’.<sup>88</sup> He was nevertheless effective in promoting the interests of members of his own family, securing places as tellers of the exchequer for both his brother, Edward Harley, and son-in-law, George Hay* styled Viscount Dupplin [S], later Baron Hay and 8th earl of Kinnoull [S].<sup>89</sup> Towards the end of the summer the first reports circulated of a match in prospect between Oxford’s heir, Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley, later 2nd earl of Oxford, and Newcastle’s daughter. It was also reported (prematurely) that Oxford was shortly to be created a knight of the Garter.<sup>90</sup> Such perceived nepotism and continuing self-aggrandisement only increased the growing criticism of his conduct and at the beginning of September it was reported that ‘there are great bickerings among the great ones, the earl of Oxford is said not to carry it amongst his meritorious friends so acceptably as was expected’.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Oxford’s attention was divided in the late summer and early autumn of 1711 between domestic affairs—negotiations with the dowager duchess of Newcastle—and and preparations for the forthcoming session, particularly concerning the efforts to secure a peace. The early stages of the peace negotiations had been entrusted to Jersey, whose death led even Marlborough to wish for ‘a speedy end of the war, that I may enjoy a little repose before my own time comes’.<sup>92</sup> Settling matters with the duchess involved Oxford in a dispute that had developed between her and Thomas Pelham*, Baron Pelham, over the inheritance of her late husband’s estate. The duchess, struggling to deal with Pelham, whom she found ‘so fickle’, sought both Oxford and Harcourt’s interest in ensuring that the ‘prerogative court will please to give me all the time possible’ in sifting through the mountain of paperwork generated by the case.<sup>93</sup> One of his correspondents assured him of the duchess’s eagerness to accede to the Harley-Cavendish match in return for Oxford’s assistance.<sup>94</sup> Although he professed himself grateful for Oxford’s willingness to mediate, Pelham remained committed to the legal action, ‘not doubting of success in so just a cause’.<sup>95</sup></p><p>The weight of business and his uncertain health compromised Oxford’s ability to remain on top of affairs. Towards the end of September, James Brydges*, later 9th Baron and duke of Chandos, believed that Oxford was too busy to deal with changes in the commissioners of customs, although among Oxford’s principal concerns was the state of the Treasury, which he complained was in dire need of reformation.<sup>96</sup> The ministry’s efforts to extract Britain from the war was a constant refrain in his correspondence, not least the difficult task of convincing the allies (particularly the Dutch and Hanoverians) to end the conflict.<sup>97</sup> On 19 Oct. he complained to Marlborough that</p><blockquote><p>Ours is a very unlucky situation that everyone is shrinking from the war and at the same time casting the burden upon Britain, and yet unwilling to let her have the least advantage. I would to God that our allies would resolve either to make a good war, or a good peace.<sup>98</sup></p></blockquote><p>Oxford’s continuing efforts to collaborate with some members of the former ministry met with apparent encouragement from Halifax, who declared that Oxford and Somers should ‘act in concert and take measures together in this great affair which I am confident may end gloriously if we do not mistake each other in pursuing the same intentions.’<sup>99</sup></p><p>From the middle of October to the beginning of November, in the run-up to the new session of Parliament, Oxford was troubled by pains in his stomach and on occasion confined to his house by attacks of gout.<sup>100</sup> By 19 Nov. he was still said to be ‘a little lame’. Some suggested that the ill health of both Oxford and the queen at this point was diplomatic.<sup>101</sup> Oxford was early on alerted to the prospect of the new session being far from harmonious. He attended the House on four of the days on which it sat just to be prorogued, on two of which he assisted in introducing allies to the House. On 9 Oct. he joined Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, in introducing the newly promoted earl of Dartmouth, and on 27 Nov. he introduced Robert Shirley*, promoted to an earldom as Earl Ferrers. As secretary of state Dartmouth’s loyalty was presumably not in question, but the promotion of the Tory Ferrers was no doubt intended to help bind him to the ministry. Such tokens did little to alleviate the problems facing the ministry. In the middle of November, William Bromley encouraged Oxford to rally the ministry’s supporters in the Lords, though Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], considered it his ‘duty’ to warn Oxford that although he had done his best to contact the other Scots peers he had found them not to be ‘in so good temper as I could wish.’<sup>102</sup> This assessment was echoed by Dupplin, who informed Oxford that the Scots seemed disgruntled that they had not been given earlier notice that they would be required back in London.<sup>103</sup> Several of the bishops advised that they would be unable to attend in person, though most such excuses came with promises of proxies being lodged so that their votes would not be lost.<sup>104</sup></p><h2><em>The Session of 1711-12</em></h2><p>Given his reputation as a master of parliamentary management, Oxford’s initial preparations for the session that finally opened on 7 Dec. 1711 appeared uncharacteristically haphazard. A combination of unfamiliarity with the Lords, ill health and bad luck seems to have been at the root of his problems. Attempts to meet Halifax and Somers were subjected to continual postponements through the ill health of each of the participants.<sup>105</sup> By the end of the month, Oxford was still described as looking ‘very badly’ and Brydges noted that he had hardly been seen in his offices at the Cockpit since he had become ill.<sup>106</sup> A planned meeting with Somers and Halifax was again postponed early in December, though Halifax insisted that the two were sincere in their desire to meet Oxford.<sup>107</sup> Oxford’s efforts to maintain his alliance with the Tories in the Commons appear to have met with greater success. Both Bromley and Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> expressed themselves satisfied with his debriefing concerning the peace and by the draft of the queen’s speech.<sup>108</sup> By the beginning of December 1711, efforts to rally the ministry’s supporters in the upper House also appeared to be paying off at last. Through the mediation of Dupplin, Scots members of the Commons and representative peers undertook to turn out in time for the start of the session and Oxford was regaled with assurances from several English peers of their commitment to be present.<sup>109</sup> But on the first day of the session (7 Dec.), Oxford was narrowly defeated in the Lords when the opposition’s amendment to the address of thanks to the queen insisting on ‘No Peace without Spain’ was carried by a single vote (the motion was rejected in the Commons where the government majority held firm). The result was a shock: according to one commentator, the ministry had reckoned it would defeat the motion in the upper House by 30 votes.<sup>110</sup> Peter Wentworth recorded that some ascribed the government’s reversal to Oxford’s miscalculation of his level of support. Although this was evidently the case, it would appear that Oxford had been deliberately misled by at least eight peers who had promised him their support only to vote the other way. The ministry was also severely affected by Nottingham’s decision to rally to the opposition and by the refusal of some Scots peers to assemble in time.<sup>111</sup> The defeat, though close, threatened to upset the ministry at the beginning of the session. As the peers left the chamber, it was reported that Oxford’s Junto adversary, Wharton, clapped his hand on his rival’s shoulder and declared, ‘By God, my lord, if you can bear this you are the strongest man in England.’<sup>112</sup> On 8 Dec. Oxford was subjected to a second humiliation when he oversaw a misguided attempt to reverse the previous day’s defeat, which was abandoned without a division. Less than a fortnight later Nottingham’s occasional conformity bill, a measure for which Oxford had no liking, was passed through Whig acquiescence.<sup>113</sup> Having abandoned his former co-religionists to their fate, Oxford advised those who had approached him to help to stop the bill to do what they could to ‘recover their reputations of sobriety, integrity and love of their country.’<sup>114</sup> He may have felt their predicament a just reward for hitching their carts to the Junto bandwagon.</p><p>News of the ministry’s setbacks led to reports of further alterations, among them rumours that St John was to join Oxford in the Lords. It was also speculated that the government’s defeat on the address had emboldened the Tories to force Oxford to dispense with the remaining Whigs in the administration. Yet another crisis was caused by Hamilton’s attempt to take his seat as duke of Brandon, a British peerage to which he had been raised in September. On 20 Dec. Oxford spoke in Hamilton’s favour and moved that the opinion of the judges might be sought to settle the matter. He then voted against barring Scots peers holding post-Union titles from sitting in the House.<sup>115</sup> Once again, the ministry failed to carry the point and Oxford was left with little to do but subscribe the protest when the motion to bar Hamilton was carried.<sup>116</sup> Two days later, Oxford was entrusted with Sussex’s proxy.</p><p>The Christmas adjournment gave Oxford an opportunity to attempt to reshape his administration. An unlikely offer of support from Halifax, who once more insisted on his desire ‘to promote the good of my country in your lordship’s hands’, seems not to have been taken seriously. On 31 Dec. Halifax wrote again by then professing himself to be ‘in a most desponding way’ and no longer convinced that it was in Oxford’s ‘power to save this nation.’<sup>117</sup> In the absence of a real prospect of assistance from Whigs such as Halifax, Oxford turned to other potential allies. Young peers were offered places in the ministry in the hopes of buying their support, but it soon became clear that a more radical solution was called for.<sup>118</sup> Faced with a hostile Whig majority in the Lords that had been reinforced by Nottingham’s defection, he persuaded the queen to tackle the problem head-on with a mass creation of peers to bolster the numbers of ministry supporters. Between 31 Dec. 1711 and 1 Jan. 1712, 12 new peerages were awarded to a combination of Tories and Harleyites, among them Oxford’s son-in-law, Dupplin, and his kinsman, Thomas Foley*, Baron Foley. Although the mass creation excited criticism from a number of quarters and concerns that the peerage had been diluted as a result, most of those selected were well qualified to be promoted. Three were sons of peers. Only one (Masham) might be said to have been anything other than a substantial gentleman and Masham, who had been turned down for a peerage earlier in the year, was included on the list only after one of those approached, Sir Michael Warton<sup>‡</sup>, declined his proffered barony on the grounds of age.<sup>119</sup> The creation added to the tensions between Oxford and St John, who was not offered a peerage, in part because Oxford recognized the need to maintain at least one senior cabinet member in the Commons.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Oxford resumed his seat in the House on 2 Jan. 1712 to witness the introduction of the dozen new peers. After he had communicated the queen’s answer to the Lords’ address of 22 Dec. over negotiations for the peace, it was then moved (on the basis of a recommendation from the queen) that the House should adjourn to 14 January. The motion was carried by 13 votes, though not before the Whigs had made plain their disquiet at the presence of the new peers in the chamber and threatened Oxford with impeachment for his actions.<sup>121</sup> Wharton took the opportunity to enquire mockingly whether the new jury of peers would vote singly or do so <em>en bloc</em>. The time between the adjournment and resumption was dominated by renewed furtive negotiations between Oxford and potential supporters: on 8 Jan. he met Halifax, and two days later, Halifax reported that he had passed on what they had discussed to ‘the two persons’ (possibly Cowper and Somers) ‘who are very desirous to serve your lordship and promote the good of their country.’ Halifax proposed meeting again on 11 January.<sup>122</sup> The following day Oxford was warned of trouble ahead in the Commons, where Marlborough hoped to turn criticism of his activities against Oxford.<sup>123</sup></p><p>Oxford took his seat in the House when it resumed on 14 January. Two days later he wrote to Hamilton, assuring him that he had done everything in his power to prevent the vote against him sitting in the Lords and that he was still resolved to get the decision reversed. To do this he would require the assistance of Hamilton’s countrymen:</p><blockquote><p>I will take any part either of beginning a motion or supporting others in it and I have not been a negligent solicitor of the English peers on this occasion, but then I shall desire to know what assistance is like to be expected from the northern peers for it will be very ridiculous in me to put myself in the forefront of a matter so displeasing to the bulk of the English noblemen and at the same time not to be sure of pleasing the northern lords.<sup>124</sup></p></blockquote><p>Soon after, Oxford received an acknowledgement from James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S] and earl of Seafield [S], who hoped that the Scots peers ‘will always retain a grateful sense of your lordship’s justice to them’, but complained that they had ‘received a fatal stroke and sentence of perpetual incapacity.’<sup>125</sup> On 21 Jan. 1712, having informed the House that he had conveyed to the queen the House’s further address of 18 Jan. on the peace, and relayed her answer, Oxford attempted once more to settle the question of the Scots peerage. The House adjourned into a committee of the whole in which Oxford and Harcourt proposed that the system of electing 16 representative peers be done away with and that the same number should be admitted as hereditary peers. The ministry’s proposals lacked clarity and Oxford’s motion was rejected ‘with scorn’: the business was laid aside without a division. Oxford could only propose that the House resume, which was carried in a division by eight votes.<sup>126</sup> Towards the end of the month the House debated the question of the Scots peerage once more, and on 25 Jan. resolved that Parliament could determine the right to sit of peers of Great Britain who had been Scots peers before the Union without infringing the terms of the Union.<sup>127</sup> Although he was unable to make progress in settling the question of the Scots, Oxford, ‘glad of an opportunity to express his zeal and affection for the Protestant heir’, enjoyed greater success in addressing issues relating to the succession. On 17 Jan. he presented the House with a bill for confirming the precedence of the Electress Sophia, her son (later George I) and her grandson, Prince George*, duke of Cambridge (later George II), which passed the House within two days, and met with similar support in the Commons.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Towards the end of January Oxford, beset with further difficulties relating to the settlement of the Newcastle estate, struggled to remain on top of the business before him, and was chided by his brother Edward for ‘going so late to bed and losing the morning.’<sup>129</sup> The extent of Oxford’s problems in early 1712 was emphasized in a report at the beginning of February in relation to the Scots toleration bill, that John Hutton<sup>‡</sup> (a former agent of Rochester’s) was now the only Scots Member of the House of Commons still in his favour, while the English Whigs were united in opposition to his administration.<sup>130</sup> Later that month, Oxford was warned that some of his opponents had begun discussing the possibility of having him sent to the Tower, the rumour emanating from Halifax’s household.<sup>131</sup> However, having survived the crises of December and January, Oxford’s administration did manage to steer much of its business through Parliament over the following months.<sup>132</sup> At the end of February the court was credited with carrying ‘a nice point’ in order to throw out the place bill by five votes.<sup>133</sup> In April 1712 Prince Eugene judged that Oxford continued to be successful in managing ‘the caballing parties with that dexterity that he keeps in with both.’<sup>134</sup></p><p>Oxford was involved as well in much of the more routine business of the House. On 7 Apr. he was entrusted with the proxy of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. On 12 Apr. he reported to the House the queen’s consent to one private bill, and two days later, he reported that the queen had also agreed to resign her personal interest in the estate referred to in another: he did the same for a third bill on 6 May. On 7 May, the Lords ordered him to lay before them the report of the commissioners for customs. On 12 Apr. the court was successful in carrying the motion to commit the Scottish patronage bill by 50 votes to 28 (Halifax being among those ranged against Oxford on this occasion).<sup>135</sup> Although it was reported on 14 May that Oxford had resolved to employ the court’s interest to ensure the passage of the Tory-sponsored grants resumption bill, the bill was later defeated in the Lords following a tied vote on its third reading on 20 May.<sup>136</sup> After the defeat, Bromley wrote to Oxford thanking him for his efforts and assuring him that it ‘must give an entire satisfaction and convince everyone that your lordship has used your utmost powers to have it pass’.<sup>137</sup> In spite of Bromley’s conviction that Oxford’s support for the bill would serve to restore the Tories’ confidence in him, however, Thomas Bateman thought the outcome would be the opposite.<sup>138</sup></p><p>On 22 May 1712, the day after the loss of the grants bill, Oxford acted as one of the sponsors of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, at his introduction into the House in his new dignity, an award that Oxford no doubt hoped would help to secure the demanding Strafford’s support for the administration. Six days later, Oxford spoke in the debate on the opposition motion to address the queen to order the duke of Ormond to resume the offensive against the French. He sought to assure the House that ‘in a very few days her Majesty… would lay before them the conditions on which a general peace may be made.’<sup>139</sup> The court succeeded in securing the defeat of the motion by 20 votes. Strafford was among those who supported the ministry. Various commentators noted that the opposition had planned to renew calls for Oxford to be sent to the Tower had they carried their point.<sup>140</sup> The rumour was repeated early the following month in the <em>Post</em> <em>Boy</em>. The ministry’s decision not to permit Ormond to engage in active hostilities persuaded some that, despite his assurances, Oxford had settled for a separate peace with France and abandoned Britain’s allies.<sup>141</sup></p><p>On 9 and 21 June, the final day of the session, Oxford reported back to the House after attending the queen with messages. Following the end of the session, it was said that he was to be promoted to the dukedom of Newcastle. St John, it was thought, would be made earl of Bolingbroke.<sup>142</sup> The dukedom failed to materialize and St John was (much to his annoyance) granted the lesser title of Viscount Bolingbroke. He was introduced as such on 8 July by Oxford and Thomas Trevor*, Baron Trevor. The reports of Oxford assuming another prestigious title were perhaps the result of continuing negotiations with the dowager duchess of Newcastle for the marriage of Lord Harley to Lady Henrietta Cavendish.<sup>143</sup> Although Oxford was not promoted duke, as the summer progressed he was honoured with the wardenship of Sherwood Forest. It was also rumoured that he would be made a knight of the garter.<sup>144</sup> Encouraging reports of the progress of the peace negotiations provided a brief respite from Tory sniping. In notes of 10 July he commented that there was now ‘nothing for the queen to do but to draw herself out of the war’ and justified the peace as being both ‘just and necessary.’<sup>145</sup> Ferrers remarked that ‘the whole kingdom must be ungrateful if they do not acknowledge your lordship’s indefatigable labours’ in procuring the peace. Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, asserted fulsomely that</p><blockquote><p>such a blessing was never more wanted, or prayed for, and the steady measures wherewith your lordship conducted, and at last obtained it, convince us, that we owe as much to your prudence as to your courage, which no arts could frighten you out of.<sup>146</sup></p></blockquote><p>Later in the summer, Oxford received £700 from Rivers’ will, in which he was named as one of the trustees along with Shrewsbury. The trustees also stood to gain an additional £10,000 should Rivers’ daughter die before marriage. With the trust came an inevitable string of requests for preferment to offices left vacant by Rivers’ death and for the swift payment of the late earl’s debts. With it too came entanglement in a series of disputes between various members of Rivers’ family who all hoped to benefit from the estate.<sup>147</sup> Oxford’s efforts to secure lucrative matches for his son, Lord Harley, with the Newcastle heir, and for his daughter, Lady Elizabeth Harley, with Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen, later 3rd duke of Leeds, dominated much of his attention from the late summer onwards.<sup>148</sup> Although his negotiation with the duchess of Newcastle continued to involve him in her legal dispute with Pelham, it also offered the prospect of significant political rewards: the duchess claimed to be in a position to ensure the return of eight county members in the court interest at the next election (at a cost of £1,000).<sup>149</sup> The match with Carmarthen also brought problems, even though Carmarthen was said to be ‘sincerely pleased’ with his bride, on account of the marquess’s poor relations with his father, Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds.<sup>150</sup> To add to his travails, Oxford was once more troubled by a return of ill health at the beginning of the autumn.<sup>151</sup> In the first week of October, he was suffering from rheumatism and said to have been so unwell that he had not been at Westminster for 10 days.<sup>152</sup> On 9 Oct. he was still unable to leave his chamber, though by the middle of the month he appeared to be on the road to recovery, receiving renewed offers of service from Halifax and at the end of the month facilitating Marlborough’s journey abroad, though his health seems to have declined again, putting a stop to much business until the first week of November when he finally rallied.<sup>153</sup> The Carmarthen match made satisfactory progress: on 18 Nov. it was reported that Lady Elizabeth Harley was to have £10,000 on her marriage.<sup>154</sup> But with matters between the two families all but settled, in early December Leeds intervened, expressing himself amazed at news of the alliance, ‘it being contrary to your word to me [and] without my consent, which I told your lordship I should never give till he [Carmarthen] had reconciled himself to me’.<sup>155</sup> Oxford hastened to assure Leeds that there was no intention of the marriage being concluded until all such problems had been attended to.<sup>156</sup> In the event, it was celebrated on 16 Dec. with a number of issues unresolved.<sup>157</sup></p><h2><em>The Session of 1713</em></h2><p>Oxford was present in the House for a series of prorogation days in early 1713 before the new session, delayed by the negotiations over the Treaty of Utrecht, finally began in April. In the intervening period he continued to struggle with his health while attempting to mediate between the various factions and to satisfy the continual demands for preferment from his supporters in both Houses.<sup>158</sup> He was also faced with a series of legal actions and petitions relating to the settlement of Rivers’ estate.<sup>159</sup> The lengthy prorogation threatened to upset relations between Oxford and the normally amenable Bromley. On 22 Dec. Bromley had written for information on the recall of Parliament, alerting Oxford to rumours being spread by the Whigs.<sup>160</sup> Reports of meetings of senior Whigs at Pontack’s club in late January 1713 increased pressure on the ministry.<sup>161</sup> Although Oxford announced on 9 Feb. that the session was to commence imminently, the queen’s ill health caused a further delay.<sup>162</sup> By 18 Feb., with the session once more put off for a week, Bromley made plain his annoyance at having to inform his followers in the Commons of yet another postponement to proceedings:</p><blockquote><p>I hope there was an absolute necessity for a longer prorogation because it gives great dissatisfaction to country gentlemen to be kept thus in an uncertain attendance, and an opportunity to others to make ill impressions on them in which no art or industry are wanting.<sup>163</sup> </p></blockquote><p>Such tensions within the alliance may have been the reason for a rumour towards the end of the month that another six peers were to be created to bolster the ministry’s numbers in the Lords. In the event, there were no further creations until the summer, with the elevation of Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley.<sup>164</sup> Oxford was able, though, to take advantage of the translation of Philip Bisse*, bishop of St Davids, to the bishopric of Hereford, to press the claims of his own kinsman to succeed Bisse. Adam Ottley*, the new bishop of St Davids, was at least one sympathetic member of an Episcopal bench that had so far proved largely hostile to the administration.<sup>165</sup> He also ensured that the barons’ bench was strengthened by the summoning of Carmarthen to the House by a writ of acceleration and took care to remind the archbishop of York that his proxy had been vacated by the prorogation and needed to be registered again.<sup>166</sup></p><p>At the beginning of March 1713 a further postponement of the new session was announced, as Oxford was now intent on waiting for the signed peace treaty from Utrecht before facing Parliament again.<sup>167</sup> The delay, while adding to the frustration of some, provided further opportunities for pre-sessional meetings. On 7 Mar. Dartmouth requested that Oxford call on him the next day to meet some of his (Dartmouth’s) friends, and on 8 Mar. Benson reminded Oxford of the efficacy of including Guernsey in a meeting the following day, as a compliment to Nottingham.<sup>168</sup> The same day, Halifax undertook to give what support he could and hinted that Somers would also be willing to attend a meeting to concert measures relating to the peace.<sup>169</sup> On 15 Mar. Cowper noted a meeting with Oxford, at which Oxford had been intent on assuring him that the Protestant succession was safe in his hands. Cowper seems to have come away from their meeting far from reassured, recording that Oxford had spoken ‘as always, very dark and confusedly’: ‘Upon the whole his discourse was either obscure and broken hints, or imposing or absurd to the highest degree; and as far different from the manner of his predecessor’s discourse, as darkness from light and in the same manner.’<sup>170</sup> Oxford’s tendency to obfuscate appears, indeed, to have become more pronounced as his ministry progressed and was no doubt exacerbated by his increasingly desperate efforts both to hold together a disparate group of individuals and to attract back to his colours others who had little sympathy for his programme. Constant bouts of poor health and increasing reliance on alcohol no doubt added to the impression that he had lost his touch. By the end of 1713 the problem had become a general topic of conversation.<sup>171</sup></p><p>With the opening of the new session postponed once more in the middle of March, Oxford was said to have been cursed by Tories who had lost money by returning to London too soon.<sup>172</sup> They were also angered by his meeting with Halifax, Somers, Wharton and Orford, a move that seemed to confirm their suspicions that he was not to be trusted. Suspicion was not confined to the Tories. When Halifax attempted to hold a dinner party for members of the former administration, Oxford’s presence there caused Sunderland to refuse to enter Halifax’s house, while other Junto members declined breaking their bread with their arch-nemesis.<sup>173</sup> Even so, negotiations between Oxford and the Whigs continued, though little progress was made in them.<sup>174</sup> At the end of March, Oxford drafted one of a series of letters to the Electress Sophia, insisting on his ‘true zeal’ for her service and advising her to distinguish between those who were in her interest out of principle and those ‘who make use of your name only to express their anger against those who are in power’.<sup>175</sup> His efforts to convince the court at Hanover of his sincerity were rendered more difficult by the signing of the treaty of Utrecht that month, which delighted the Tories but infuriated the Whigs and the Hanoverians.<sup>176</sup> They were also contradicted by hostile reports from his critics later that summer, notably Marlborough, who insisted that Oxford was ‘too deeply engaged in another interest to do anything which would promote that of the Protestant succession.’<sup>177</sup> The ministry’s ability to appeal across the factions was also compromised by the dismissal of several Whigs, among them Sir Richard Temple*, future Viscount Cobham, and Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, for speaking out against the peace.<sup>178</sup></p><p>With his base of support appearing ever more vulnerable, Oxford took his seat at the opening of the long-delayed new session. There was controversy at once when it was debated whether it was appropriate for the House to vote the queen thanks for her speech relating to the peace before the terms of the agreement were known. At the forefront of those criticizing the proposed address were Oxford’s contacts Halifax and Cowper. Oxford responded that a vote of thanks in no way precluded a subsequent enquiry into the settlement and that he hoped questions would be asked about those who had been at pains to obstruct ‘so good a work’. The ministry secured the passage of the address by 32 votes.<sup>179</sup> The following day, there was renewed talk of Oxford’s promotion to a dukedom, with Bolingbroke expected to be advanced as an earl and Masham a viscount, but none of the suggested honours materialized.<sup>180</sup> By now, the relationship between Oxford and Bolingbroke had all but collapsed amidst mutual suspicion. Swift was present at a dinner hosted by Oxford on 11 Apr., which was attended by the lord treasurer’s ‘Saturday company’, but (perhaps significantly) neither Bolingbroke nor Ormond.<sup>181</sup> Throughout the session, Oxford compiled a series of memoranda detailing matters of policy, and individuals to be contacted in his efforts to shore up the ministerial alliance. As early as 29 Apr., however, a sense of pessimism, and of his complete reliance on the queen’s good-will, seemed to have crept into his reckoning underscored by his admission ‘I have no interest’.<sup>182</sup> Dependent on his brother for information from the Commons, Oxford was warned by Edward on 9 May of the numbers of those seeking to have the place bill tacked to the malt tax.<sup>183</sup> Two days later, he was contacted by George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, whose support he had bought with a promise of the payment of his pension arrears, and who was concerned that Oxford would not approve of the arrangements he had made for exercising his proxy.<sup>184</sup></p><p>Oxford failed to use his interest in the chancery dispute between the dowager duchess of Newcastle and Thomas Pelham*, 2nd Baron Pelham (later duke of Newcastle), in the middle of May.<sup>185</sup> His attention was perhaps more focused on attending to the disgruntled Scots members, intent on introducing a bill into Parliament for dissolving the Union, partly in response to the imposition of the malt tax, which they claimed was contrary to the terms of the Union Treaty.<sup>186</sup> On 1 June, having heard Findlater move for the dissolution of the Union during the debate on the state of the Nation, Oxford proposed that an expedient should be found to redress the Scots’ grievances. His suggestion was rejected by Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough. It also attracted a snide remark from Sunderland that Oxford appeared to be suggesting the establishment of ‘a despotic dispensing power’. When Oxford riposted that ‘his family had never been for promoting and advising arbitrary measures’, a reflection on the career of Sunderland’s father, Sunderland retorted by remarking on Oxford’s <em>parvenu</em> antecedents.<sup>187</sup> The court narrowly managed to have the bill for the dissolution of the Union rejected by four (proxy) votes.<sup>188</sup> Four days later, it secured the second reading of the malt bill by a slender majority of two. One of those siding with the ministry was Warrington, whose support seems to have been secured at a meeting with Oxford earlier in the day.<sup>189</sup> Once again, proxies were crucial in securing the victory, the ministry being in possession of 19 against the opposition’s eighteen.<sup>190</sup> It did not mean the pressure on the administration had relaxed, with the controversy in the middle of June over the bill for implementing the Anglo-French commercial treaty (the French commerce bill). Later that month Carmarthen confessed that he had been approached by a number of people intent on turning him against his father-in-law.<sup>191</sup> Carmarthen’s letter resulted in a swift response from Oxford, insisting on his continuing friendship for him and of his support in settling affairs with Leeds, even if it meant going to law.<sup>192</sup></p><p>The loss of the French commerce bill by nine votes in the Commons on 18 June appeared once more to hint that Oxford may have lost his touch. It was suggested that the measure would have passed with ease had it been brought before the House a few days earlier.<sup>193</sup> Oxford was said to have suffered from ‘convulsion fits’ on hearing the news of the bill’s rejection.<sup>194</sup> Some, however, speculated that he had been privy to the agreement made between Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, to throw the bill out, though others thought the move had been a deliberate snub intended to demonstrate to Oxford that the Tories would no longer ‘be put off with a trimming management, or longer endure the mingling of parties, for God or Baal is the word’.<sup>195</sup> The latter interpretation was supported by one observer (R.W.), who declared that the failure of the commerce bill had been the work of the high churchmen, intent on making</p><blockquote><p>the lord treasurer shake at root. The truth is he acts as if he were absolute and as if no body understood common sense besides himself… The loyal party [the Tories] have complained many times of his not altering the greatest part of the Whig lieutenancy… if there is not a clean house of all the Whigs before next Parliament: it will go hard with him.<sup>196</sup></p></blockquote><p>The prevailing view was that Oxford now had no option but to make his peace with the Tory October Club if he wished his ministry to survive, and that he would shortly be forced to undertake a reshuffle to the benefit of the Tories.<sup>197</sup> This no doubt gave rise to rumours towards the end of June that Sir Thomas Hanmer would replace Bolingbroke as secretary, with Bolingbroke removed to the lesser if still influential court position of master of the horse.<sup>198</sup> Pressure on Oxford came from outside the ranks of his supposed allies as well: soon after the loss of the commerce bill it was said that the Lords had agreed to consider a motion to bring an action against him.<sup>199</sup></p><p>In the face of these difficulties, Oxford marshalled his resources as best he could. Both he and Bolingbroke spoke in the debates in the House at the end of the month over the commerce bill. On 29 June he wrote to William North* 6th Baron North and 2nd Baron Grey of Rolleston, alerting him to ‘an attack being designed [next day] directly against the queen’s message for payment of her debts’ and requesting North’s presence in town to help defeat the attempt.<sup>200</sup> The following day (30 June) Oxford spoke in the debate resulting from the motion for an address calling for the Pretender to be expelled from Lorraine (engaging in ‘warm’ exchanges with Wharton). He also wrote to the duchess of Newcastle asserting his ‘attachment to your real interest’.<sup>201</sup> Soon after, Oxford was once more prostrated with ill health, which presumably explains his absence from the House for several days in the first week of July.<sup>202</sup> Although he rallied sufficiently to attend the final few days of the session, which was prorogued on 16 July, by the 20th he was said to be very much indisposed, suffering from gravel and sore eyes.<sup>203</sup> While ill, he had to deal with renewed manoeuvrings in the various cases in which he was involved, concerning the Newcastle estate and the settlement of affairs between Carmarthen and Leeds, as well as further pressure from Warrington to see to the payment of his arrears.<sup>204</sup> On 24 July he was still too unwell to leave his house, which in turn led to a postponement of the Garter ceremony at which he was to be installed as one of the new members.<sup>205</sup> Although he was expected to be well enough to go out toward the end of the month, Poulett sought to persuade him to agree to be installed by proxy so as not to risk his health any further.<sup>206</sup></p><p>The extent of the challenge facing Oxford at the close of July was underlined by one letter which spoke of his refusal ‘to be wise to himself’ by leaving business at a stand, with the ministry riven with internal feuding and his own fall spoken of as merely a matter of time.<sup>207</sup> Reports of likely alterations in the ministry, designed by Oxford to counter future rebellions such as that which had overturned the commercial treaty, only contributed further to the tension within the ranks of the government. Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, was said to be dismayed by the news that Bolingbroke was to be master of the horse, a post Beaufort hoped to secure for himself, and although by the close of July it was thought that Bolingbroke would instead be appointed lord privy seal, Beaufort remained disappointed in his ambition and the office of master of the horse was eventually restored to Somerset (the former holder) the following year.<sup>208</sup> Other changes made later in the summer, such as the advancement of Bromley to the place of secretary of state in place of Dartmouth, who had been ‘out of humour a good while’, and of Hanmer to be Speaker of the Commons (not to the chancellorship of the exchequer as had been speculated) proved more effective in restoring to Oxford a degree of control.<sup>209</sup> It may have been indicative of the hostility to Oxford, though, that several of his colleagues excused their attendance at the delayed ceremony at Windsor of his installation as a knight of the Garter.<sup>210</sup></p><h2><em>Retreat from the Court, 1713-14</em></h2><p>Oxford seems to have suffered a minor relapse of his illness in August 1713, but it was not serious enough to prevent him from waiting on the queen at Windsor on several days that month.<sup>211</sup> Later in August he removed to Wimpole for the marriage celebrations of his son and Lady Henrietta (Harriet) Cavendish, and he did not return to London until the first week of September.<sup>212</sup> The Harley-Cavendish-Holles match inspired Ralph Bridges to comment that Oxford had ‘indeed provided for his family without putting the public to any charge, which will cut off many occasions from the foul-mouthed gainsayers of this age.’<sup>213</sup> Bridges’ apparent compliment, if sincere, was out of line with the growing criticism of Oxford from all sides. It may have been an oblique reference to Oxford’s efforts to secure the dukedom of Newcastle for his son. In doing so, Oxford seems to have miscalculated badly: his request was refused out of hand by the queen. Despite Oxford’s (hardly credible) insistence that Lady Henrietta’s ‘virtues’ were ‘more valuable than any estate’ his pretensions for his son served to fuel tales of his increasingly overweening ambition.<sup>214</sup> According to Ralph Wingate, ‘neither Whig or Tory either love him or trust him’. On 7 Sept. Oxford compiled a memorandum referring to a combination being designed against him by his own friends.<sup>215</sup></p><p>A strong Tory showing in the elections of September 1713 added to Oxford’s difficulties, even though there were private successes, among them the re-election of his heir, Edward Harley, at New Radnor. The queen’s refusal of Oxford’s petition for the dukedom also appears to have affected him deeply. He castigated himself for reaching too far and the affair may have contributed to him turning to drink later that autumn.<sup>216</sup> On the surface, he continued with business as normal, resuming his regular attendance at Windsor for much of the remainder of September. Towards the end of the month he wrote to Findlater, welcoming him back into the queen’s service.<sup>217</sup> But divisions within the ranks of the ministry continued to develop. On 26 Sept. Russell Robartes<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Oxford seeking his assurance that he would be allowed to keep his place at the exchequer, which he hoped would not be imperilled by the disloyal behaviour of his brother, Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor.<sup>218</sup> Oxford’s authority was further compromised towards the end of the month when it was put about that the court of Hanover had released a declaration announcing that ‘they have no aversion to the Tories, but only to those concerned in making and forwarding the peace, that they are never to be forgiven.’<sup>219</sup> The Hanoverian announcement appeared to leave Oxford little room for manoeuvre, and diminished the prospect of him being able to maintain his position following the queen’s death. Even so, he seems not to have had anything but the most desultory negotiation with the Jacobites and from this point onwards (if not before) his overriding intention appears to have been a desperate effort to keep the Jacobite Tories from wresting control and to enable a smooth transition to the new royal house, even though he could expect few favours in return. This being the case, maintaining the support of a core in both Houses in the coming sessions became more significant than ever. Thanking Weymouth for his congratulations on the marriage of Lord Harley to Lady Henrietta, as well as taking the opportunity to congratulate Weymouth’s successes in the elections, Oxford insisted that he knew ‘not how to continue so valuable a friendship but by devoting myself and family to the interest, the true interest of my country, and therein to concur in measures with your lordship.’<sup>220</sup></p><p>Despite the professed friendship of men like Weymouth, Oxford’s difficulties showed no signs of diminishing by the autumn of 1713. Relations between Leeds and Carmarthen soured and Oxford was also troubled with an appeal by the Catholic John Savage*, 5th Earl Rivers, that he employ his interest to ensure that a dispute with Harcourt and Trevor was resolved.<sup>221</sup> On 3 Oct. he wrote to Leeds insisting that:</p><blockquote><p>I am sure I have made it my study with no small pains to obtain peace in your family and to procure that for your grace which [would] have made you easy… I am very sorry to find by your grace’s letter that I am an unprofitable servant, I am sure I had no view but the zeal of making peace.<sup>222</sup></p></blockquote><p>With his health once more on the wane, the same day Oxford recorded in one of his many memoranda how, ‘I am now ill spoken of by all sides – Why? Because some of both are against making peace.’<sup>223</sup> By the beginning of the second week of the month he confessed to be ‘very often in pain’ and was once more suffering from ‘the gravel’. Even so he rallied himself to travel to Windsor, where he was at last able to arrive at a settlement with Leeds.<sup>224</sup></p><p>With Parliament unlikely to meet until after Christmas, the final three months of the year were spent once more in a round of negotiations with wavering ministry supporters and Whigs whom Oxford hoped once more to attract to his colours.<sup>225</sup> Oxford’s memoranda reveal the efforts he made to remain in contact with a variety of individuals such as Bromley, Bolingbroke, Poulett, Somerset, General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope, and Warrington.<sup>226</sup> Although he was assured of the support of some of the Scots such as John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane [S], Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], and other members of the Hamilton clan, the elections of the summer offered Oxford no hope of a more balanced administration.<sup>227</sup> The poll returned an even stronger Tory House of Commons, despite the efforts of some Whig candidates to ‘deceive the people’ by standing as ‘Church Tories’, though there were some personal successes such as the return of Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> for Aldborough on the interest of the duchess of Newcastle (to whom he had been recommended by Oxford).<sup>228</sup> Oxford was also able to reply on the faithful support of another kinsman, Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>229</sup> Early in November, Warrington appealed once again to Oxford for his arrears of pay, promising that this would ‘lay such an obligation on me’ and heavily underlining his view that he had ‘hitherto kept my word to your lordship in some things where I was much pressed to the contrary.’<sup>230</sup> Oxford’s continuing efforts to moderate the administration resulted in renewed grumbling from the Tories, who let it be known that the lord treasurer had failed to meet their expectations.<sup>231</sup> Such matters were thrown into sharp relief by the sudden death of Lady Carmarthen in mid-November.<sup>232</sup> The loss of his favourite daughter, who had recently given birth to a son, left Oxford inconsolable.<sup>233</sup> Prostrated with grief, he was reported to have immured himself within his home refusing to see anyone except his son-in-law, whom he advised to ‘moderate your grief for the sake of the dear little one’.<sup>234</sup></p><p>The timing of Oxford’s loss and retreat from court could not have been worse. It permitted his rivals to inveigle themselves back into favour, damaging irreparably Oxford’s relationship with the queen. Even so, the bereavement in no way stemmed the constant flow of requests and petitions to the lord treasurer, which forced him back to his office at the treasury for two days in the first week of December, as well as into making the journey once more to Windsor.<sup>235</sup> On 9 Dec. he responded to a petition from Henry Grey*, duke of Kent, and explained that his ‘misfortune’ had prevented him from attending the council the previous day, but that he had seen to it that Kent’s request about the shrievalty of Bedfordshire had been attended to.<sup>236</sup> The next day, he attended Parliament when it was prorogued to the following month. A further round of demands from Warrington resulted in a warning from Russell Robartes (who credited himself with having persuaded Warrington to support the ministry) about the consequences of failing to gratify Warrington.<sup>237</sup></p><p>The series of afflictions that Oxford had endured over the previous few months no doubt added weight to rumours put about by the Whigs shortly before Christmas that he was on the point of resigning and that the treasury was to be put back into commission, although this was dismissed as ‘groundless whimsy’. A new round of quarrels were triggered by disputes over the disbursement of funds from a new lottery.<sup>238</sup> Oxford was quick to take political advantage of the windfall, seeking to secure the continued support of those in possession of household offices by ordering the payment of several pensions and two years’ worth of back wages.<sup>239</sup> News of the queen’s illness and unfounded reports spread shortly after Christmas of her death produced a new crisis, sending Oxford scurrying once again to Windsor to take control of the crisis.<sup>240</sup></p><h2><em>The year 1714</em></h2><p>The queen’s ill health appears to have been the reason why Oxford drew up a further memorandum in the middle of January 1714 listing those against and in support of the Hanoverian succession. Among the latter, he emphasized the presence of the queen and her servants.<sup>241</sup> In mid-January he joined Bolingbroke, Bingley and other commissioners of the South Sea Company at a dinner at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, which was also attended by representatives from the Africa Company to discuss the <em>Asiento</em>.<sup>242</sup> With Parliament due to reassemble in the coming weeks, he set about making preparations for the new session, inviting his son-in-law Carmarthen to lodge with him while he was in town, which he hoped would make the prospect of the return to London less melancholy.<sup>243</sup> Preparing for Parliament coincided with renewed wrangling over the settlement of the Newcastle estate, and Oxford gratefully accepted Pelham’s suggestion of Cowper to act as mediator. Clearly at pains to flatter the former lord chancellor, Oxford expatiated on his talents, declaring that ‘the world is full of those who out of envy or interest will promote strife and disputes amongst relations: but your lordship has that rare quality of studying peace and to do good.’<sup>244</sup></p><p>Not everyone could expect such effusiveness. A renewed appeal from Warrington towards the end of January for payment of part of his arrears, elicited a cautious response from Oxford, and Warrington was disappointed in his request once more.<sup>245</sup> On this occasion, he appears to have accepted Oxford’s explanation of the cause of the continued delay, and undertook to be patient and to remain in the lord treasurer’s interest for the time being.<sup>246</sup> The end of the month found Oxford struggling once more with poor health, though on 30 Jan. 1714 he compiled a memorandum reminding him to write to seven of the Scots peers as well as noting that ‘the same principle which made me so active for the first act of Parliament will continue me to act for the Protestant Succession.’ He also trusted that the recent alarm caused by the queen’s illness had demonstrated ‘how steadfast everyone is for the queen’s interest and that of the succession.’<sup>247</sup> On 7 Feb. another memorandum noted that an article about Hanover should be included in the queen’s speech.<sup>248</sup></p><p>Oxford took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714. He attended on 72 per cent of all sitting days. His efforts to keep the administration’s supporters in line once more proved a frustrating challenge. Reports that Hanmer, irritated by the ministry’s behaviour towards Hanover, meant not to stand as Speaker in the Commons, precipitated a brief crisis, but this was averted through the interposition of both Oxford and Bromley, and Hanmer was elected according to plan.<sup>249</sup> Oxford was also preoccupied with ensuring that other supporters of the ministry turned out in time for the first day. Having initially promised to be in attendance soon after the opening of Parliament, George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells, was late in returning to London.<sup>250</sup> Others plagued Oxford with constant demands for favours. Henry Paget*, 8th Baron Paget, later earl of Uxbridge, proved a perennial irritant with his demands for promotion in the peerage. Paget (one of Oxford’s dozen, who had sat in the House as Lord Burton before succeeding to his father’s barony) expressed surprise at having to ask again for the award: ‘I cannot but think myself treated with great unkindness and therefore hope your lordship will pardon me for now desiring to know whether I have done anything to deserve it.’ A few days later, Paget wrote again, blaming Oxford squarely for the lack of progress in his suit.<sup>251</sup> At the same time, Oxford faced continuing problems with the Scots peers and with his efforts to maintain relations with the court of Hanover. On 20 Feb. 1714 his frustrations relating to the former spilled over in a new memorandum, in which he complained that ‘I have done the utmost to support the [Scots] peers and at the same time to secure their reputations. They do all they can by their distrust to authenticate all the scandals that their enemies lay on them.’ On the following day, a further memorandum indicated his disquiet at the stance being taken by Hanover: ‘They have… showed only their desire to come in by a party and not by the whole which will never last in England.’<sup>252</sup></p><p>A week’s adjournment at the end of February offered Oxford space to review the situation further. In a memorandum of 24 Feb. he expressed his desperate resolution to ‘confine all to their respective offices and charge them to live well together.’<sup>253</sup> A rumour that there was to be another mass creation of eight peers reflected the precarious state of the ministry; although by the beginning of March it was reported that the idea had been laid aside, there was talk aplenty of some of the older peers being so disgusted at the progress of affairs that they had opted to retire: ‘never so much ill humour was seen at the beginning of a session.’<sup>254</sup> As ever, part of the reason for the Tories’ disgust was Oxford’s continuing negotiations with men like Halifax, but he faced equal criticism from the opposite side. Later that month he was lampooned, along with Bolingbroke, in a pamphlet that declared the two men were ‘given to drinking and whoring and are Jacobites and in the interest of France.’<sup>255</sup></p><p>Oxford resumed his seat following the adjournment on 2 Mar. 1714, on which day he was entrusted with the proxy of George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland. Later that month he was also entrusted with that of John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr. Following the queen’s speech he moved adroitly to Swift’s aid by seconding Wharton’s motion for <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em> to be censured and then supporting the motion for the publisher to be committed to black rod. Swift had penned the <em>Public Spirit</em> with Oxford’s connivance in response to Richard Steele’s<sup>‡ </sup>anti-ministerial <em>The Crisis</em> and Oxford’s apparent support for Wharton’s proposal was in fact a subtle piece of misdirection: while apparently co-operating with Wharton’s demands for an investigation he was careful to disown all knowledge of the identity of the author of the <em>Public Spirit</em> and to do all in his power to ensure that no progress was made in unearthing those responsible for it. He slipped Swift £100 to help defray any resulting legal costs in case of discovery.<sup>256</sup> At the same time, Oxford’s attention was also occupied with his private concerns. On 5 Mar. he joined Shrewsbury in submitting a joint answer to a legal bill relating to the Rivers estate that had been brought in by Rivers’ son-in-law, James Barry, 4th earl of Barrymore [I].<sup>257</sup></p><p>Perhaps unnerved by the tense opening of the session, browbeaten, suffering from poor health and drinking heavily, Oxford seems to have all but given up the struggle. On 15 Mar. he wrote to Harcourt conveying his intention to step down.<sup>258</sup> Although it is possible that this was intended as a bluff to jolt the warring factions back into line, there is good reason to believe that Oxford meant what he wrote.<sup>259</sup> Harcourt believed so, and responded the next day, begging Oxford not to act rashly.<sup>260</sup> Oxford meanwhile penned a further memorandum in which he bemoaned his current situation. Entitling it ‘Mr R.H. case’, he listed his grievances and concluded that ‘now is the time to retire.’<sup>261</sup> Oxford was not the only politician of his time to compile forecasts and assessments: Nottingham was also a copious record keeper. But Oxford was perhaps unusual in the degree to which he committed such personal thoughts and concerns to paper. He echoed the sentiment in a letter later that month, in which he asserted that for the past twelve months he had been seeking out an appropriate time to retire, ‘for though I do not fear the rage of my enemies… yet I neither love to be undermined; nor am so fond of anything as to stand in my friends’ way.’<sup>262</sup></p><p>In spite of his apparent readiness to throw in his hand, Oxford stepped back from the brink and turned his mind again to government business. On 17 Mar. he drafted his speech in response to the motion for an address to be presented to the queen seeking the Pretender’s expulsion from France and Lorraine.<sup>263</sup> The same day he was entrusted with the proxy of John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter. Two days later, he managed to rally sufficient numbers of courtiers to attend the House’s debates concerning the Catalans to ensure the failure of an intended assault on the ministry by the Whig opposition.<sup>264</sup> Oxford’s reluctant decision to carry on did not prevent former allies from continuing their efforts to displace him. Although Harcourt had appeared dismayed at Oxford’s intention to resign only days before, on 19 Mar. he summoned the lord treasurer into his chambers once the House had risen for the day to warn him that his position was indeed growing untenable: he had lost the support of Lady Masham and the queen was annoyed by his constant lateness when waiting on her.<sup>265</sup> Harcourt’s warning was probably delivered at the bidding of Bolingbroke, with whom the lord chancellor appears to have been in uneasy alliance.<sup>266</sup> Although Oxford seems to have been utterly unaware of his old friend Harcourt’s change of allegiance, he was clearly well aware that he was now under serious threat from Bolingbroke. His actions over the ensuing months appear to have been focused solely on impeding Bolingbroke’s seizure of the initiative. With this in mind, he proposed on 20 Mar. that a bill be brought in to make it treason to land foreign forces in Britain. Although some feared that this might be interpreted by the Hanoverian court as a move against the elector, it was correctly assessed elsewhere as an attempt to underwrite the Hanoverian succession and to obstruct efforts to bring in the Pretender.<sup>267</sup> It did not, of course, prevent his old foe, the duchess of Marlborough, spreading a rumour that ‘the sorcerer’ had sought to deter people from speaking out against the Jacobite court: he had, she alleged, spread his own rumour that the Pretender had offered £2,000 to anyone who brought him the head of the man responsible for offering a reward for the Pretender’s capture.<sup>268</sup></p><p>While Oxford may have been deserted by Harcourt, he was able to rely throughout the final months of his ministry on the support of Bromley, who also assured Oxford of Anglesey’s desire to use his interest on the ministry’s behalf. In return, Anglesey hoped for assistance in his efforts to prevent William Jephson, dean of Cashel in Ireland from being promoted to the bishops’ bench.<sup>269</sup> Oxford’s efforts in the House were focused on safeguarding the succession and protecting himself from assault by the Whigs. On 22 Mar. 1714, in response to a proposal by Wharton that an address be presented to the queen requesting that all pardons granted in the last three years should be laid before the House, Oxford was succeeded in amending it to include all pardons during the reign.<sup>270</sup> The challenge he faced, though, was emphasized by the narrowness of his majority in the Lords: towards the end of the month it was estimated that he was able to carry his business in the Lords by no more than six or seven votes.<sup>271</sup> Allies attempted to steel him to carry on: Ilay urged him to accept that it was in his ‘power to save the nation and yourself’ insisting that ‘whoever would serve their country at this juncture would be unwilling… to disserve your lordship.’<sup>272</sup> His brother Edward also sought to stiffen Oxford’s resolve with the evidence of divine intervention: ‘You have been protected and prospered almost miraculously, the favour of the Almighty has been your sole confidence which never forsakes those that trust in him.’<sup>273</sup></p><p>By the end of March, however, it was widely reported that divisions within the ministry were continuing to grow and that Oxford was to be turned out.<sup>274</sup> Evidently, the pressure on him to resign or be removed came from both sides. In his letter of 30 Mar. to his son-in-law, Carmarthen, he confessed to having ‘undergone a very sincere trial’ since he last saw him, and the same day he complained to Cowper that ‘the way your people drive is as extravagant and [as] unlikely to last as what our mad folks would have been at.’<sup>275</sup> On 1 Apr. it was rumoured that the alliance of Bolingbroke, Harcourt and Trevor was proving too potent for Oxford to combat. The state of indecision and disharmony was probably reflected in reports of 2 Apr. that the court was not ready to proceed with its business and that the day had been taken up with a series of cabinet meetings.<sup>276</sup> At the same time Oxford faced continuing demands for satisfaction from Rivers and Warrington. On 10 Apr. Warrington appealed, once more, for payment of his arrears, reminding Oxford how helpful he had been to the ministry and professing not to believe that he had only been promised his pension by Oxford in order to secure his vote. <sup>277</sup></p><p>With the ministry once again on the brink of collapse, Oxford was made aware of renewed requests from Hanover for the electoral prince of Hanover, Prince George, to be granted his writ of summons to the Lords as duke of Cambridge.<sup>278</sup> As Oxford had anticipated, the request infuriated the queen, but perhaps more significantly, as one of Oxford’s memoranda made plain, it also threatened to disturb the delicate balance within the Tory party. Tales of Tory members appearing on a black list compiled by the Hanoverian minister, Schütz, risked forcing some of them into the arms of the Jacobites.<sup>279</sup> Oxford feared this might be exacerbated by the rumours that Lady Masham and the queen were secretly opposed to the Hanoverian succession, an idea repeated to him earlier in the month by the dowager duchess of Hamilton.<sup>280</sup> He proposed that the queen summon a general assembly to assure them of her true interests.<sup>281</sup> Debates in the House on 20 Apr. 1714 touched on the question of the Pretender, and the proposal for a reward to be granted to anyone taking him dead or alive. When it was queried whether killing the pretender would be murder, Oxford confirmed that it would, and proposed an amendment, so that the reward would go to anyone who apprehended the Pretender on his landing.<sup>282</sup> The following day, he received another encouraging letter from Halifax, assuring him of his desire to help in making Oxford ‘the happy instrument of saving our country.’<sup>283</sup></p><p>Oxford was absent from the House from 21 Apr. to 7 May 1714. The intervening period found Bolingbroke insisting to Strafford that in spite of their disagreements he (Bolingbroke) remained Oxford’s friend and had proved it during the first part of the session. Tellingly, he also related that Oxford had been on the point of resigning but had been prevented by the queen. According to Bolingbroke, Oxford now had ‘the ball at his foot to drive as he pleases’.<sup>284</sup> A report of early May suggested that Oxford was enjoying a temporary rapprochement with Lady Masham. Nevertheless, he continued to be beleaguered on other fronts, fielding increasingly angry and frustrated petitions from Warrington and Paget, the latter now also irritated by the delay in his departure for Hanover on an embassy to dissuade the duke of Cambridge from coming to England. His decision to summon John Sharp*, archbishop of York, to the queen so that she could make public her support for the Hanoverian succession was regarded as a mistake.<sup>285</sup> In early May, the Whigs began to put it about that the discredited scheme to bring over the duke of Cambridge had been Oxford’s and on 3 May it was reported that although Oxford had for the while got the better of Bolingbroke, his credit with everyone else was spent.<sup>286</sup> Oxford’s memorandum of 5 May 1714 suggested that he was still striving to patch together some sort of alliance: it listed figures such as Halifax and Nottingham to be consulted, as well as making mention of a Hanoverian-backed scheme for Argyll to be appointed generalissimo of Scotland.<sup>287</sup> A week later, he wrote to Cowper relaying a conversation he had had with Harcourt about Cambridge’s summons to the House, fretting that what ‘is now in agitation about the duke of Cambridge will drive everybody to the wall’. He attempted to assure Cowper that ‘I speak the sense of many sober Whigs.’<sup>288</sup> In an account compiled the following day, Thomas Bateman, a regular correspondent of the former secretary Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, speculated whether Oxford would succeed in making his peace with his former party or whether the Whigs would simply make use of him to regain and power and then discard him.<sup>289</sup> He continued to be troubled by affairs relating to the Rivers estate and on 12 May he was warned that Barrymore had decided to take matters into his own hands and to take possession of the Rock Savage rents;<sup>290</sup> and he was subjected to yet another reproachful letter from Warrington, in which Warrington cautioned the lord treasurer to remember that ‘my poor service was once wanted, and may be so again, neither your lordship nor I know the future.’<sup>291</sup></p><p>In mid-May Oxford decided to reach out to the Hanoverian Tory, Sir Thomas Hanmer, with whom he hoped to able to unite in ‘joint endeavours’.<sup>292</sup> At the same time, Cowper advised Oxford to remove those from power ‘who will not so much as profess themselves to be for the true interest of their country.’ The reward for this, along with the benefit to the nation, would be Oxford’s personal security: ‘When that is done and there is a ministry of one mind in that great point, nothing of this nature can then drive you to the wall.’<sup>293</sup> The continuing uncertainties and concern about the duke of Cambridge’s imminent arrival in England gave rise to rumours that the Court was by now eager to see the session closed, even at the risk of losing supply.<sup>294</sup> The subsequent news that Cambridge no longer intended to make the journey from Germany may well have come as a relief to Oxford, who was said to have entangled himself in a muddle by trying to satisfy both Hanover and the queen over the question of Cambridge’s writ of summons.<sup>295</sup> But less reassuring were reports that he had once more fallen foul of Lady Masham, that she was again working closely with Bolingbroke, and that both of them had advised the queen that Oxford was responsible for all of the recent difficulties relating to Cambridge. The result, according to one commentator, was that Oxford would soon see ‘what condition double dealing and insincerity will bring anybody into.’ <sup>296</sup></p><p>Matters failed to improve over the following days. Oxford’s own memoranda confessed that ‘the public affairs are in great disorder’ and stated the need to ‘know whence these disorders spring in order to find the remedy’.<sup>297</sup> A further memorandum on the following day (23 May), considering his response to the schism bill and other matters, struck a more melancholy note still. Querying whether there had been anything he had ‘done or brought in but in concert’ the note concluded disconsolately, ‘I am useless. Let me be either in or out.’<sup>298</sup> Although one report of the time suggested that Bolingbroke might be dismissed, few seemed in any doubt that it was Oxford who would go.<sup>299</sup> On 25 May, Trevor informed the treasurer that he would be in town the next day, lamenting that Oxford appeared so apprehensive.<sup>300</sup> Pinioned between the Whigs and Tories, on 27 May Oxford was forecast by Nottingham as being a likely supporter of the schism bill, but there is no doubt that it was not a measure with which he would ordinarily have cared to be associated. Towards the end of May, news of a temporary reconciliation between Oxford and Bolingbroke was reported, but by then Oxford seems to have all but given up.<sup>301</sup> In a memorandum of 2 June he noted, ‘I stand still and let them attack me. I desire rather to withdraw/go out than [resist].’<sup>302</sup> The following day, it was reported that he would shortly be removed from his post, having once more fallen out with Lady Masham. According to the letter writer (the Scottish Whig, James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>), Oxford’s own friends by now were advising him to quit while his belated and apparently half-hearted overtures to the Whigs were viewed with little interest: ‘He is tampering with the Whigs, but words will not do.’<sup>303</sup></p><p>News of the death of the Electress Sophia on 4 June coincided with the first reading of the schism bill.<sup>304</sup> It also offered the court at Hanover a convenient excuse for suspending the duke of Cambridge’s planned journey.<sup>305</sup> Unwilling to give any more than the slightest countenance to the schism bill, Oxford left the House on 11 June before the vote on the dissenters’ petition for relief, but four days later, conforming to Nottingham’s assessment, he joined the slim majority that voted to pass the measure.<sup>306</sup> Although his grudging acceptance of this bill bought him more time with the Tories, by then his quarrel with Bolingbroke had become a matter of such public knowledge that it was referred to openly in the Commons. In a memorandum of 8 June, Oxford had noted, perhaps in preparation for an audience with the queen, ‘Madam: Godolphin is out, Harley out. Who will trust after that?’ Two days prior to the vote on the schism bill (13 June), he had pondered in another of his private jottings, ‘Can anyone that will not live with me live with anyone else?’<sup>307</sup></p><p>By the middle of June 1714 it was believed that Parliament would be prorogued within a fortnight, amidst rumours that Shrewsbury had at last come off the fence and made common cause with Bolingbroke against Oxford. Oxford, having failed to lay ‘a foundation for support or pity’, was thus unsurprisingly thought at the end of the month to be on the point of being replaced by Bolingbroke, though some thought that the treasury was to be put back into commission with Bolingbroke taking the place of first commissioner rather than lord treasurer.<sup>308</sup> Peter Wentworth recorded the general confusion and how the changes at court seemed not to be proceeding as some had assumed. He also noted how, embittered by his treatment, Oxford was said to have assured the Whigs that he would not oppose them if they tried to impeach the man intent on displacing him.<sup>309</sup> Despite this, Oxford remained unwilling to join wholeheartedly with the Whigs and some vestiges of collaboration within the ministry continued. On 30 June the House gave a first reading to the bill for examining accounts. It was then voted to be read a second time, by a majority of 11, the margin falling to just five on the subsequent motion to appoint a specific day for considering the measure. Thomas Bateman reckoned that it was ‘so tender a point, that… the two great ones [Oxford and Bolingbroke] will think it more prudent to unite their face in it, rather than by their disagreeing in it, let the Whigs get a censure passed upon the proceedings.’<sup>310</sup> Two days later, on 2 July, Oxford and Bolingbroke were both reported to have made ‘excellent speeches’ during the debate on the commerce bill.<sup>311</sup></p><p>There was no disguising, though, Bolingbroke’s steady rise and Oxford’s inexorable decline. Although, in a memorandum of 4 July, Oxford suggested that he still hoped to convince the queen to facilitate another reconciliation between himself and Lady Masham, the final weeks of his tenure of office were marked by reports of a new triumvirate emerging, comprising Bolingbroke, Harcourt and Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester.<sup>312</sup> Oxford himself, snubbed by his former colleagues, was now said to be ‘endeavouring to retrieve himself with the Whigs… a-courting them in order to save himself in that herd’.<sup>313</sup> His interest in terminal decline, he waited on the queen on three occasions on 9 July, the final day of the session, to secure her answer to the Lords’ address concerning the <em>Asiento</em>.<sup>314</sup> By the middle of the month alterations in the administration were anticipated daily. There were renewed rumours that Oxford was to be promoted to the dukedom of Newcastle and granted a pension of £4,000 or £5,000 as compensation for his removal from office.<sup>315</sup> Oxford himself seemed resigned to the inevitable but unwilling to act, behaving with ‘a negligence that looks like despair’.<sup>316</sup> On 21 July yet another report of him being soon to be turned out was qualified with the assessment that this was a state of affairs ‘he seems not averse to, though he will not lay down.’<sup>317</sup> This appears to have been Oxford’s attitude in the final weeks of his administration and, arguably, since the beginning of the year. However marginalized and disgruntled he seemed, convinced that the queen’s health could not hold out for long, his policy was to await his dismissal but to refuse to provide Bolingbroke with a moment longer in control than necessary by resigning.</p><p>Present at a meeting of the cabinet held at the Cockpit on 22 July, five days later Oxford’s wait was at last brought to a conclusion when his white staff was taken from him.<sup>318</sup> Although it was rumoured that Poulett and (improbably) Harcourt were to join him in laying down their places, by 30 July it was apparent that Oxford was to be the only senior casualty of the reorganization.<sup>319</sup> According to one report the queen remained ‘loath to part with’ him ‘but was teased into it’, the chief mover being Trevor rather than Bolingbroke.<sup>320</sup> Even though Oxford had long anticipated this eventuality he seems to have been genuinely dismayed by the vituperative nature of the queen’s criticism of his conduct. Reluctant to part with him or not, Queen Anne lambasted her former favourite for coming before her drunk, late, and garbling his reports to her.<sup>321</sup> Completely out of favour, he left office without compensation.<sup>322</sup></p><h2><em>Out of office and final years</em></h2><p>Oxford’s only satisfaction was that it was not Bolingbroke but Shrewsbury who succeeded him as lord treasurer, and a mere four days after being put out of office he was able to witness the safe succession of King George.<sup>323</sup> There his satisfaction no doubt ended. Omitted from the list of regents, Oxford was stripped of his remaining offices within days of the king’s accession and, following the king’s arrival in England, he was made more than aware that his presence was undesirable.<sup>324</sup> The following year, he was impeached and imprisoned in the Tower, where he remained for the following two years.<sup>325</sup> On his release in 1717, he resumed his attendance in Parliament, but there seems little doubt that, out of favour and suffering from the effects of a constitution wrecked by years of hard drinking (as well as his two years of confinement), he was less than a shadow of his former self. In January 1724 he complained that his recent attendance of the House and the ‘rudeness of the season’ had brought on poor health.<sup>326</sup> Even so, he continued to sit until April of that year before finally succumbing the following month at his house in Albemarle Street. According to Bromley he was ‘delivered from a miserable life, made so by the cruel effects of malice, ingratitude, and the iniquity of the times.’<sup>327</sup> The final decade of his career will be considered in detail in the second part of this work.</p><p>For all the hectic quality of the last months of his ministry, Oxford’s achievement in the last years of Queen Anne should not be doubted, first as chancellor of the exchequer and latterly as lord treasurer. His management of the Lords was never as adept as his management of the Commons. He was wrong-footed by procedural differences and found his style of leadership less well suited to the formality of the upper chamber. But to exaggerate his loss of control once he had left the Commons is to miss the point. Even before his promotion to the Lords his manipulation of both the administration and Parliament had been a hand-to-mouth operation, making it all the more remarkable that he was able to keep together for as long as he did such a disparate group of people. That he was able to hold back the tide of the immoderate Tories until within a few days of the queen’s death ensured the peaceful accession of George I. Accusations of latent Jacobitism are unconvincing.<sup>328</sup> He may, like many other courtiers, have engaged on occasion in desultory discussions with agents of the Jacobite court, but neither party was fooled. Oxford had as little interest in seeing a partial Catholic, ‘bred up in French measures’, on the throne as he did either a Junto or ultra-Tory ministry dominating the government.<sup>329</sup> The Jacobites were equally clear that as far as they were concerned, Oxford was ‘not to be trusted’.<sup>330</sup> Obfuscation may have been the hallmark of the man but for all his reputation as a devious and slippery politician, Oxford inspired affection and loyalty as well as dislike and suspicion. His administration was undoubtedly hampered by over-reliance on expediency but he remained a consummate parliamentary operator and a master of the arts of court management.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HASTINGS, George (1677-1705) |
<p><strong><surname>HASTINGS</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1677–1705)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1677-1701 Ld. Hastings; <em>suc. </em>fa. 30 May 1701 as 8th earl of HUNTINGDON |
|
First sat 13 June 1701; last sat 14 Feb. 1705 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 22 Mar. 1677, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and Elizabeth (1654-88), da. of Sir John Lewis, bt., of Ledstone Hall, Yorks. <em>educ</em>. Eton, 1690-2;<sup>1</sup> Tamworth School (tutor, J. Hope) 1692;<sup>2</sup> matric. Wadham, Oxf. 3 Apr. 1693; Foubert’s Academy 1696.<sup>3</sup> <em>unm.</em> <em>d</em>. 22 Feb. 1705; <em>will</em> 22 Feb. 1705, pr. 13 Apr. 1705.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. 1st Ft. Gds. 1696-7; lt.-col. 1697-1702; col. 33rd Ft. 1702-3.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>George Hastings, styled Lord Hastings, may have pleased his father Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon with his filial devotion in December 1688. The 11-year-old Hastings wrote to his father, incarcerated in the citadel at Plymouth for his adherence to James II, offering to replace him in prison if it would secure his freedom.<sup>6</sup> In the years following those expressions of childish affection, relations between father and son deteriorated to the point where Hastings submitted a petition against his father in the House of Lords, and Huntingdon came close to disowning him. Huntingdon had had high hopes for Hastings. He spent the years after his release from Plymouth, when his loyalty to James II pushed him into the political wilderness, supervising Hasting’s education at Eton, Tamworth and then Oxford and trying to arrange a lucrative marriage for him.<sup>7</sup> From as early as 1692 Hastings showed a rebellious streak, and in June of that year he wrote to his father from Eton assuring him that, despite what ‘some people who make it their endeavours and employment to represent me to your Lordship in the most odious colours’ were saying, he was a dutiful son who was not ‘so undutiful and so great a reprobate … as to wish your death’.<sup>8</sup> When Hastings was at Wadham College, Huntingdon was disturbed by his growing closeness and adherence to the Williamite regime, as exemplified by the young man’s willingness to kneel at prayers for the new monarchs. By May 1694 he had removed Hastings from the ‘ill counsels or company’ at Oxford.<sup>9</sup> Worse was to come. Early in 1696 without his father’s permission Hastings started attending Foubert’s Academy in London with an ambition to join William’s service in the war in Flanders. Despite reports that he ‘doth frequent bad company, of which he learns very filthy language’ and that he was ‘soft and slow in his exercises and very fickle in his humours’, he found a new patron, and perhaps a new father figure, in Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, who promised to defray Hastings’s expenses for the expedition to Flanders. He was given a troop of foot guards before leaving for the campaign. To Portland, Hastings’s importance probably lay more in the advantage of attaching a future earl to the regime than in his actual character or military prowess.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Hastings remained on campaign throughout the summer of 1696 and appears to have acquitted himself well. Portland tried to seal the young man’s allegiance by making him vague promises of a match with one of his daughters.<sup>11</sup> By the time of Hastings’s return to England in the autumn, Huntingdon had ceased direct communication with his son and assigned an agent to transmit his rebuff to Hastings’s offer of reconciliation and requests for maintenance, for as the earl emphasized ‘I love not dialogue’.<sup>12</sup> Hastings took this family squabble before the House of Lords and on 14 Dec. 1696 submitted a petition requesting that the House compel Huntingdon to waive his privilege so that Hastings could take legal possession of the Yorkshire properties of his maternal grandfather, Sir John Lewis; Hastings’s late mother had bequeathed these to him for his maintenance. Huntingdon, Hastings claimed, had taken control of the title deeds. He had been managing the estates as Hastings’s guardian during his minority and had even mortgaged them for £4,500 for his own benefit. Hastings complained that his father did not provide him with an allowance from these estates and that he stood on his privilege whenever Hastings tried to collect the rent from the tenants himself. Huntingdon disputed Hastings’s right to parts of the estate and insisted that he still controlled it as trustee and guardian for the underage Hastings. He also asserted that he would be willing to provide his son with an adequate maintenance if Hastings would only make a contrite and ‘dutiful submission’. On 21 Jan. 1697 the House appointed seven peers to try to effect a compromise between father and son: William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, were chosen by Huntingdon; Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, and Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, by Hastings; John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough was chosen by the House. Eight days later they reported that they were unsuccessful in their efforts at reconciliation but that the earl, nevertheless, agreed to waive his privilege if his son wished to go to law.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Relations between Hastings and his father remained strained for the some years, especially as Hastings rose further in the court’s estimation, being promoted to lieutenant colonel in the foot guards in April 1697 and made part of Portland’s retinue in his embassy to France later that year.<sup>14</sup> He was travelling around the continent during the peace in 1700-1 but made his way back to England after he inherited the title and estate upon the death of his father on 30 May 1701.<sup>15</sup> He arrived back in England sometime around 10 June and first sat in the House three days later, just in time to show his adherence to the court which had supported him by casting his votes on 17 and 23 June for the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. In the Parliament of early 1702 he again indicated his loyalty to the Williamite regime by signing in January 1702 the Association of 1696 and the address against the Pretender’s claims to the English throne; he later took the oath of abjuration. He was also nominated to the committee to draft an address against France’s military ambitions and was further named to 11 select committees, most of them on private bills, during the 41 sittings of the Parliament that he attended. His regional interest in Leicestershire was utilized for the elections of 1702, and in April it was reported to his friend and neighbour Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup> of Melborne, Derbyshire that Huntingdon ‘makes all the interest he can for the two lords’, i.e. Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Baron Sherard [I], and John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later 2nd duke of Rutland). Both were eventually beaten by Coke’s candidates John Wilkins<sup>‡</sup>, and John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]).<sup>16</sup></p><p>At about the time of Anne’s accession, Macky wrote of Huntingdon that:</p><blockquote><p>he hath a great deal of wit with a good stock of learning; speaks most of the modern languages well, understands the ancient; a great lover of the liberty of his country and is very capable of serving it when he please to apply himself to business; of good address, of a slow lisping speech, a thin, small, fair complexion, not twenty-five years old and something of a libertine.<sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sir Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup> remembered that he was ‘known and admired for his learning and politeness and bravery, but with an alloy of vices which derogated very much from his character’.<sup>18</sup> His bravery was in evidence in his military exploits during the campaign of summer 1702 in the renewed war against France when, while serving as a ‘volunteer’ (despite having been promoted to colonel of the 33rd Regiment of Foot in February 1702) he was seriously wounded at the assault on Keyserwaert.<sup>19</sup> He recovered sufficiently to attend the new Parliament on 18 Nov. 1702 and attended 44, just over half, of its sittings. His principal concern during this session was his appeal, submitted on 4 Dec. 1702, against a decree issued by chancery on 12 May 1702 in favour of his stepmother, Frances, the second wife of the late earl of Huntingdon, regarding the same properties of Sir John Lewis in Yorkshire which had been contested in 1696. The new earl of Huntingdon wished to have the decree affirming that the estate was part of the late earl’s legacy to his countess reversed, and after considering the arguments of counsel for both sides on 12 Jan. 1703 the House agreed to reverse that part of the decree to which Huntingdon objected. In other matters in this session, Huntingdon voted with the Whigs. He cast his voice in favour of the ‘penalty amendment’ in the first occasional conformity bill on 16 Jan. 1703. Three days later he protested against the decision to retain in the bill for the maintenance of George*, prince of Denmark (and duke of Cumberland), a clause which allowed the prince, although foreign-born, to sit in the House and to serve on the Privy Council after the death of the queen, considering that it was not a matter suitable to be included in what was in effect a supply bill.</p><p>Shortly after the end of the session Huntingdon, still recovering from his wound and perhaps thwarted in his courtship of Lady Mary Churchill, daughter of his commander Marlborough, set out on a long-delayed tour of the continent.<sup>20</sup> He resigned his military commission and in March 1703 received a pass to travel abroad without entering enemy territory.<sup>21</sup> His absence abroad during the second session of Anne’s Parliament forced Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, to subtract his name from his list of ‘good’ peers who would vote against the occasional conformity bill when it came before the House again in December 1703. He had returned to England by 15 Dec. 1704 when he first sat in the House again and went on to attend 17 more meetings of the House. He last sat on 14 Feb. 1705, a few days after which he caught a malignant fever. He died on 22 Feb., still a young man of 29. In his will he left annuities of £400 to his ‘bosom friend’ Colonel James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope, £200 to Henry Hastings, a ‘natural’ son of the late earl, £100 each to his friends Susanna Karmes and Henry Sike, and £600 to his beloved sister Lady Elizabeth Hastings, to whom he also bequeathed all of his maternal grandfather’s estates in Yorkshire which he had contested in 1696 and 1702. At his death she became the sole executrix and manager of the estate, to the point where by June 1711 contemporaries estimated that her fortune amounted to £100,000.<sup>22</sup> She never married and instead became a renowned religious benefactress and patroness. She also raised her younger half-siblings, children of the 7th earl’s second wife. Principal among these was Theophilus Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings, to whom the 8th earl had bequeathed the Hastings properties in Leicestershire and Derbyshire and who succeeded as 9th earl of Huntingdon upon his half brother’s death, although he did not reach his majority until 1717.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HASTINGS, Henry (1610-67) |
<p><strong><surname>HASTINGS</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1610–67)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>23 Oct. 1643 1st Bar. LOUGHBOROUGH |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 25 Sept. 1666 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Sept. 1610, 2nd s. of Henry Hastings<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Huntingdon, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1633), da. and coh. of Ferdinando Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Derby; bro. of Ferdinando Hastings<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Huntingdon. <em>educ</em>. Queens’, Camb. 1627; DCL Oxf. Nov. 1642. <em>d.s.p</em>. 10 Jan. 1667; <em>will</em> 1 Aug. 1665, pr. 15 May 1667.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Sheriff, Leics. 1642; Steward, Leicester Honor Sept. 1660–<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> ld. lt. Leics. 1661–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col.-gen. Leics. 1643.</p> |
|
<p>The Hastings, earls of Huntingdon, had from the sixteenth century been a prominent if impoverished Leicestershire family based at the manor of Ashby-de-la-Zouche. Hastings’ father served as lord lieutenant in the first half of the seventeenth century. The civil wars in England divided the family, Hastings declaring early for the king, while his older brother, Ferdinando, favoured the parliamentary cause. Hastings joined Charles I at York in the spring of 1642 and thereafter became one of the most significant royalist commanders in the Midlands. It was for his military efforts that he was rewarded with a peerage in October 1643. After a prolonged siege, he was forced to surrender his family seat at Ashby in February 1646, the terms of surrender including shipping to France or Holland for himself and 150 officers.<sup>3</sup> Loughborough fought in the second Civil War and was taken captive at Colchester, before escaping to Holland to re-join Charles II at The Hague in March 1649. In the years that followed he was involved in various royalist schemes to restore the king to the throne of England.<sup>4</sup> At the Restoration Loughborough was rewarded through appointment as lord lieutenant of Leicestershire. On 4 Sept. 1660 the mayor and burgesses of Leicester requested his presence at court when their recorder attended the king to present him with £300 and the surrender of a fee-farm rent, worth £17 a year.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Loughborough took his seat in the Convention on 1 June 1660, sitting on 65 days of the session before its adjournment on 13 September. According to one newsletter at the end of July 1660, when the Lords spent two days debating those behind the execution of the king, Loughborough was noted for his view that he desired ‘to revenge no private injuries by public power’.<sup>6</sup> On 30 Aug. he was a ‘bridesman’ at the wedding of ‘Squire Harpur’ to a daughter of the attorney-general, Sir Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>7</sup> He was present when the session resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, attending on 29 days (64 per cent of the total) of the remainder of the session. Over both parts of the session, he was named to three second reading committees.</p><p>On 18 Feb. 1661 Loughborough petitioned for a farm of the duty on beef, sheep and pigs imported from or exported to Ireland through various ports.<sup>8</sup> On 12 Mar. the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesely*, 4th earl of Southampton, reported on the petition, in which Loughborough had offered a rent of £300 p.a. The customs commissioners had estimated the farm might be worth £1,000 or £1,100 p.a., but did not object to the farming of it. Loughborough had claimed that he would gain advantage ‘not from the profits of the customs but the skill he hath in judging and trading in those beasts’.<sup>9</sup> The petition was successful and he received the farm for 21 years at a rent of £400 for the first seven years, and £500 afterwards.<sup>10</sup> His commissioners were certainly at work in October 1662.<sup>11</sup> However, on 7 Oct. 1663 a warrant was issued for a grant to Loughborough of £500 a year, for 19½ years from Michaelmas 1662, in compensation for the surrender of his farm of the duties for cattle exports.<sup>12</sup> A warrant was issued by Southampton for the payment of £500 on 24 Oct. 1663.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Loughborough was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 8 May 1661. He attended on 34 days (53 per cent) of the session, until its adjournment on 30 July. On 11 July he supported the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. When the House resumed in November 1661 he attended on 48 days (38 per cent) of the remainder of the session and was named to two committees.</p><p>Loughborough was present at the beginning of the 1663 session on 18 Feb. 1663. He was absent from the call of the House on 23 Feb. but named to the committee on petitions on the 25th. On 13 July Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that he would support the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. In all Loughborough attended 29 days of the session (24 per cent of the total) and was named to a further two committees, one of which was the bill for the improvement of the Forest of Ashdown and the Parke called the Broyle, of which he was named a commissioner.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Loughborough was present on the opening day of the 1664 session, 16 Mar., being named to the committee of privileges on the 25th and to one other committee. He was absent from the call of the House on 4 Apr. but he attended 18 days of the session, 50 per cent of the total. He attended the prorogation of 20 Aug. 1664. Loughborough was present on the opening day of the 1664–5 session, 24 Nov. 1664, being named to the committee of privileges on the following day. He was absent from a call of the House on 7 Dec. 1664 but attended on 29 days (59 per cent) of the session and was named to a further four committees. This session also saw the passage of a bill to allow Loughborough to make the river and shore navigable from near Bristow Causeway (modern Brixton Hill) to the Thames. He attended the prorogation on 21 June 1665.</p><p>Loughborough first attended the session that began in October 1665 on the 20th, being present on eight days in all, and he was named to two committees. He also attended the prorogation of 20 Feb. 1666. In June he was commissioned to raise a troop of horse in preparation for a possible French and Dutch invasion.<sup>15</sup> On 20 Aug. he wrote to Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, from Havant concerning which of the newly raised troops would be retained, and asking him for his favour, ‘expecting nothing at court but by his intercesssion’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Loughborough was absent from the opening of the 1666–7 session on 18 Sept. 1666, attending only on a single day (25 Sept.), when he was named to one committee. On 17 Dec. 1666 his proxy was registered in favour of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, it being vacated by Loughborough’s death in London on 10 Jan. 1667, whereupon his peerage became extinct. He was buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, beside the previous bearer of the title, his ‘great uncle’ Edward Hastings<sup>†</sup>, Baron Hastings of Loughborough, a son of the first earl of Huntingdon.</p><p>The executors of his will, Francis Colles, ‘now my agent in Ireland’, and Francis Eaton, ‘my servant at Baty Lodge, Sussex’, were enjoined to seek the advice of the will’s overseers, John Morris<sup>‡</sup> and (Sir) Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup>. Morris and Clayton were the most important bankers of the day and Loughborough had been a client of theirs since at least October 1662.<sup>17</sup> He placed his estate at Okethorpe, Derbyshire, in trust for 99 years to pay his debts and legacies. He bequeathed £200 per year from his coal mine at Okethorpe to his sister, Lady Alice Clifton, the seventh wife of Sir Gervase Clifton<sup>‡</sup>. Okethorpe and the residue of his estate were bequeathed to his nephew Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Loughborough’s brother had died in 1656, leaving Huntingdon as a minor and Loughborough as effective head of the family. Huntingdon was later to comment favourably upon Loughborough’s management of the family’s affairs.<sup>18</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
HASTINGS, Theophilus (1650-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>HASTINGS</surname></strong>, <strong>Theophilus</strong> (1650–1701)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1650-56 Ld. Hastings; <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Feb. 1656 (a minor) as 7th earl of HUNTINGDON |
|
First sat 20 Oct. 1673; last sat 26 May 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Dec. 1650, 4th but o. surv. s. of Ferdinando Hastings<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Huntingdon and Lucy (1613-79), da. of Sir John Davies<sup>‡</sup> of Englefield, Berks; <em>educ</em>. private (tutors, Jean Gailhard 1657-60, John Davys 1660-66, Howard Beecher 1666-?71). <em>m</em>. (1) 19 Feb. 1672 (with £4,000) Elizabeth (1654-88), da. of Sir John Lewis, bt. of Ledstone, Yorks., 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 6da. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.), <sup>1</sup> (2) 8 May 1690 Frances (<em>d</em>.1723), da. of Francis Leveson Fowler of Harnage Grange, Salop., wid. of Thomas Needham, 6th Visct. Kilmorey [I], 2s., 5da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 30 May 1701; <em>will</em> 18 Apr. 1698-13 Mar. 1700, pr. 19 June 1701.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Capt., gent. pens. 1682-9;<sup>4</sup> PC 28 Feb. 1683-24 Dec. 1688; commr. claims at coronation of James II 1685,<sup>5</sup> ecclesiastical causes 1687-8;<sup>6</sup> c.j. in eyre, south of Trent 1686-9; <sup>7</sup> groom of stole to Prince George of Denmark*, later duke of Cumberland, 1687-9.<sup>8</sup></p><p><em>Custos rot</em>., Leics. 1675-80, 1681-9; recorder, Leicester 1684-9;<sup>9</sup> steward, honour of Leicester 1685-9;<sup>10</sup> ld. lt., Leics. 1687-9, Derbys. 1687-9.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Col., regt. of ft. (later 13th Regt) 1685-9.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by Robert Williams, aft Sir Godfrey Kneller, c.1687, NPG D30851.</p> |
<h2><em>Youth and earliest days in the House, 1650-1676</em></h2><p>Theophilus Hastings’s distant ancestor William Hastings<sup>† </sup>was made Lord Hastings in 1461 for his services to Edward IV. He was granted the manor of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, which became the base of the family’s influence in the midlands for the next several centuries. George Hastings<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Hastings, a follower and companion of Henry VIII, was created earl of Huntingdon in 1529 and in succeeding years he helped the king to enforce and implement the Reformation settlement in the midlands. From that time the family became associated with the ‘puritan’ strand of protestantism. Theophilus was born, by his own account, on 10 Dec. 1650 into a troubled family, wracked by debt and with its principal seat at Ashby-de-la-Zouch sacked by Parliamentary troops while being used as a royalist garrison by Henry Hastings*, later Baron Loughborough, the younger brother of Theophilus’s father the 6th earl. Ferdinando died in February 1656 leaving his five-year-old heir an estate reduced to £900 p.a. From this point the late earl’s redoubtable and highly educated widow Lucy, the daughter of the former attorney-general of Ireland Sir John Davies and the notorious prophetess, Lady Eleanor Davies, became the main force in the new earl’s life, managing her own estates in Ireland efficiently and ensuring that sales her husband had made of land during the Interregnum were confirmed by parliamentary statute. Indeed Huntingdon began his experience of the House of Lords early, for in one of his many draft autobiographical accounts he reminisces that ‘this winter [i.e. 1661-2] it was that a bill was brought into the Lords house of Parliament to confirm the sales of Loughborough, Alton, etc[.] My mother attending the committees of both houses carried me (though not 11 years of age) several times with her to declare my consent to the passing of the bill into an act which was effected’. The bill to confirm the late earl of Huntingdon’s sales of some of his lands was first read in the House on 5 Dec. 1661, and committed nine days later. It was not actually discussed in committee until 16 Jan. 1662, where the crux of the matter was whether these sales, effected through an act passed by Parliament in 1653, benefited the new earl. On 8 Feb. the dowager countess insisted in committee that the bill was to the advantage of her young son, who otherwise she feared could be involved in suits over the lands for many years to come, and it was probably at this time that the young Huntingdon signified his own consent to the bill. Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, reported the bill on 14 Feb., it was passed by the House three days later and received the royal assent at the end of the session on 19 May 1662.<sup>14</sup> The dowager countess also took over the young earl’s education in political affairs so that he could later take his rightful place among the country’s governors, employing a multitude of newsletter writers to keep him informed of events in Westminster throughout the 1660s.<sup>15</sup> Another important figure in Huntingdon’s early life and education was his uncle Loughborough. As early as September 1660, when Huntingdon was still only nine years old, Loughborough, recently appointed lord lieutenant of Leicestershire, promised him that he would resign the office over to him ‘so soon as you are capable to serve so good and great a king‘. But when Loughborough died in January 1667 Huntingdon, the sole beneficiary of his will, was still too young to take up the office and it was given instead to John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, the head of a family rising in Leicestershire politics at the expense of the indebted Hastings family. Huntingdon was later to deeply regret Loughborough’s passing: ‘This noble person’s death was very much to my loss who, though by his will left me heir to all his estate which by his sudden death was so perplex that it did not prove any advantage to me, but his friendship and advice would have contributed very much to my first appearing in the world’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Huntingdon was ready to ‘first appear in the world’ when he reached his majority at the end of 1671, but at that time there was little scope for him to do so in the House of Lords, as Parliament had been prorogued at the end of April 1671 and was to remain so until February 1673. Whilst the political world became increasingly concerned with the effects of Charles II’s secret treaty with France—the third Anglo-Dutch war, the Declaration of Indulgence and the stop of the Exchequer—Huntingdon looked to more domestic and personal concerns. On 19 Feb. 1672, after negotiations for a match with Lady Mary Langham, a daughter of Sir James Langham<sup>‡</sup>, had fallen through, Huntingdon married Elizabeth, a daughter of Sir John Lewis. She brought with her a portion of £4,000 and the promise of the inheritance of land in Yorkshire worth £600 p.a.<sup>17</sup> He also gained by this match a brother-in-law and friend, Robert Leke*, Baron Deincourt (later 3rd earl of Scarsdale), who abducted and married Elizabeth’s underage sister Mary at about the same time. Huntingdon and his wife lived in the surviving Hastings family home of Donington Park on the Leicestershire-Derbyshire border from May 1672 but throughout this period he continued to receive news from his many correspondents in the capital.<sup>18</sup> Huntingdon made his first political inclinations clear when, through the offices of one of these correspondents, Benjamin Woodroffe, a canon of Christ Church, Oxford and chaplain to James Stuart*, duke of York, he registered his proxy with York on 11 Feb. 1673 for the session of Parliament which had begun, after the long prorogation of almost 22 months, on 4 February. <sup>19</sup> The Journal records that on 15 Feb. 1673 Huntingdon ‘sat first as a peer in Parliament, by descent, by his proxy’, the only known occasion where this unusual practice, a first sitting done by proxy, is noted in the Journal. The controversial session was adjourned on 29 Mar., when the Test Act against Catholic office-holders received the royal assent, to 20 October. After York had refused to take the Test in June 1673 and resigned his position as lord high admiral, Huntingdon may have been anxious to disassociate himself with a prince so clearly declaring himself a Catholic, and he vacated his proxy by appearing in the House himself in person on 20 Oct. 1673, when the tumultuous session was prorogued by the king. So efficient was his network of newsletter writers that he received a dispatch from one describing the events of that day, though he himself had been there.<sup>20</sup> Huntingdon proceeded to sit in all four meetings of the short, and ill-tempered, session of 27 Oct. to 4 Nov. 1673, but did not, however, attend any of the following three sessions in 1674-5. Instead he entrusted his vote to representatives of the court. He registered his proxy with the lord privy seal Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, on 14 Jan. 1674 for the session of the first two months of 1674 and the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), held his proxy for both sessions of 1675, registered on 29 Apr. and 25 Oct. 1675 respectively. Finch assured Huntingdon that his proxy would ‘be used to promote the king’s service’, as he did when he used the proxy to vote against the address to the king calling for a dissolution of the Parliament on 20 Nov. 1675.<sup>21</sup> In December 1675 the king rewarded Huntingdon for his loyalty to the court interest with the office of <em>custos rotulorum</em> in Leicestershire, made vacant by the death of Basil Fielding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, earlier that year.<sup>22</sup> Huntingdon tried to use his family’s long-standing interest in the borough of Leicester to promote the candidacy of Finch’s younger son Heneage Finch*, later earl of Aylesford, for burgess of the corporation in a by-election in the first days of March 1677. He wrote to the mayor personally in favour of Finch and even promised to spend £800 on the election and to appear in person in the borough with the candidate. When the corporation was resistant to this influence, Huntingdon threatened to issue a writ of <em>quo warranto</em> against its charter. Ultimately, with the support of Rutland and his son John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), John Grey<sup>‡</sup>, a younger son of Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, and brother of the parliamentary diarist Anchitell Grey<sup>‡</sup>, was selected for the borough.<sup>23</sup></p><h2><em>Court follower, 1677-9</em></h2><p>Huntingdon sat in the House again on 3 Mar. 1677, just over two weeks after Parliament had reconvened for business after another long prorogation of over 15 months. On his first day he was named to the committee to consider the bill to prevent the increase of new buildings in London. The notes for a speech on this bill among his papers suggests that, after several years of rural retreat, he had a deeply cynical attitude to the metropolis, seeing it as the ‘rendezvous of desperate seditious persons and the seminary of treasonable practises<em>’</em>, an attitude he was to retain well into the 1690s as he forbade his son and heir to live in the capital out of fear of its corrupting influence. <sup>24</sup> He also spoke against the bill to secure the Protestant religion through the education of the royal children by tutors chosen by the archbishop of Canterbury, which he saw as a derogation of the prerogative rights of the king both as a king and a father. He later dissented from the resolution to engross this bill on 13 Mar. and again when the bill was passed two days later. He prepared a speech against the bill for the more effectual conviction of papists, arguing strongly that there were already sufficient statutes and penalties in place to deter recusants and discourage conversions to Catholicism: ‘What are your fears, what are your apprehensions? Why will you make the world imagine such danger from an handful of men, who are loaden with penalties, who are under the terrors of death and excluded from all that can let them in, into places of honour or profit?’. He also made notes for a speech in favour of the bill to prevent clandestine marriages.<sup>25</sup> Having come to almost three-quarters of the sitting days of this first part of the session before the adjournment of 16 Apr. 1677, Huntingdon was not present for any of the meetings when the House reconvened briefly in the period 21-28 May. He had made suitable preparations by registering his proxy on 9 May once again with Finch. With such positions taken in the House, and such proxy recipients, it is not surprising that Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered the earl ‘triply vile’ at this time.</p><p>In his account of his own life Huntingdon notes that in early December 1677 he permanently ‘removed with his family to London’ (regardless of his suspicions of the capital expressed earlier in the year) and that ‘making his residence in and about that town [he] gave his constant attendance in the several parliaments’.<sup>26</sup> This is corroborated by his increased attendance levels; he came to all but two of the meetings held in the first five months of 1678, after a series of adjournments had postponed it for close to a year. He prepared a strongly-worded speech against the bill to prevent the growth of popery, which preoccupied the House for much of early March 1678, showing once again his view that this measure levied excessive and vindictive penalties on a small and harmless portion of the population. He even demanded in the House that the bill’s supporters produce evidence that the number of Catholics in England had increased since the 1673 Test Act and moved for the rejection of the bill. He also spoke on 15 Mar. against the Commons’ address urging the king to declare an ‘immediate’ war on France, arguing that it was foolish to act so precipitously when England was so clearly militarily unprepared.<sup>27</sup> The notes he took on 9 Mar. on the bill to raise money for the war through a poll tax show his concern with the breach of the rights of the peerage he saw in this measure and the final bill placed Huntingdon himself as one of the commissioners to assess and collect the poll money from his peers.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Indeed much of his attention throughout 1678 was devoted to matters involving the privilege and honour of the peerage, and these concerns may have sprung from Huntingdon’s own intense interest in the history and genealogy of individual noble families (including of course his own), as suggested by his ongoing correspondence and collaboration with William Dugdale, who looked to Huntingdon as a leading patron and indeed colleague. Judging by a brief marginal annotation in the manuscript Journal, on 12 Apr. 1677 he requested the clerk of the Parliaments to supply him with a copy of the order, based on a report of 6 Apr. from the Committee for Privileges, concerning the proper precedency of eldest sons of younger sons of peers, and his personal papers are mostly concerned with such antiquarian and genealogical interests.<sup>29</sup> He certainly showed his knowledge of obscure aspects of medieval peerage law and nobility in his contribution to the debate of early March 1678 on the petition of John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, to claim a more ancient barony than his 1665 creation through a writ of summons granted to a distant ancestor in 1297 which had descended to him through the female line. Huntingdon pointed out that ‘If it be objected that this barony is not an original and therefore cannot descend lower than one family, most of the baronies of England will be destroyed’, before going on to give copious examples of titles that had been transferred among families through female inheritance.<sup>30</sup> His concern for the rights and privileges of the nobility also led him to defend in late March 1678 the right of the violent Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, to be tried by his peers rather than by a grand jury. On 4 Apr. 1678 he was one of only 18 peers who found Pembroke not guilty of either murder or of the lesser offence of manslaughter.<sup>31</sup> There are also among his papers scrappy notes for a speech against the bill to allow the trustees of Brien Cockayne, 2nd Viscount Cullen [I] to sell land at Elmsthorpe, in Huntingdon’s own county of Leicester.<sup>32</sup></p><p>He was greatly exercised throughout the session of May-July 1678, when he was present at all but seven of the meetings, by the damage to the dignity of the peerage he saw in the petition of Robert Villiers, claiming the viscountcy of Purbeck. Villiers was the son of Robert Villiers or Danvers*, a bastard, who had voluntarily extinguished his title by a fine at the Restoration. Huntingdon felt (and may have so spoken in the House) that ‘From the times of Henry III to this day I dare be bold that if this [cause?] be admitted to be good there has not been so great a blow to the nobility of England as this would be’, and on 7 June 1678 he entered his dissent against the House’s decision to consider the matter as a whole, instead of debating the individual points raised by it.<sup>33</sup> On 5 July he also dissented from the decision to ascertain the relief due to Darrell in the cause of <em>Marmaduke Darrell v. Sir Paul Whichcot</em>, and there are among his papers brief notes for a speech on this matter.<sup>34</sup> In the debate of 8 July he supported the petition of Louis Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, claiming the portion promised to him in his marriage settlement, regardless of his inability to fulfil the conditions placed on him owing to the premature death of both his wife and father-in-law. He argued that ‘I cannot see but my Lord Duras has done all that lies in him for the performance of these articles and if so it is very hard he should suffer so extremely by his own default’.<sup>35</sup> In other matters, on 19 June he was appointed to manage a conference to inform the Commons of the king’s message that Louis XIV was refusing to vacate the Spanish Netherlands until the Swedes were restored to the places taken from them.</p><p>Huntingdon attended all but two of the meetings in the following session of the last three months of 1678. On its third day, 23 Oct., he was placed on the large committee assigned to examine the evidence of the Popish Plot and Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s murder. His notes of the testimony heard regarding the plot suggest that he was devoting much of his attention to this matter and seems to have believed the allegations. He made notes of the allegations of the queen’s complicity in the plot and on 28 Nov. was appointed a reporter for a conference on the Commons’ motion to remove her from Whitehall.<sup>36</sup> On that day he was also added to the committee to examine and interrogate the prisoners under suspicion of involvement in the Plot. He was also involved in framing the legislation against Catholics of this session. Huntingdon voted on 15 Nov. against the motion that the proposed declaration against transubstantiation in the test bill should be under the same penalties as the oath of allegiance.<sup>37</sup> In his notes for a speech which he may have delivered at the debate on 20 Nov., he argued in favour of the proviso exempting the duke of York from the Test. He felt that the bill was dangerous and unprecedented enough already, as by it the peers parted ‘with their inheritance, inheritances of the most valuable sort, by a new and unheard of example’. Nothing further, he felt, would be gained for the safety of the nation by also excluding York, for ‘it will make so ill a sound at home and abroad, and thereby his royal highness will be deeply touched in honour’.<sup>38</sup> Between 13 and 16 Dec. he was chairman of the select committee considering the bill to prevent children of Catholics from being sent abroad to be educated in foreign seminaries, and he reported the amended bill to the House on 17 December.<sup>39</sup> On 26 Dec. he voted to insist on the House’s amendment to the bill for the disbandment of the army which would place the funds raised in the exchequer and was appointed to the committee to draw up the House’s justification for their adherence. The following day he voted against committing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), pending his impeachment hearings.<sup>40</sup> The increasing attacks on the lord treasurer led to the prorogation of Parliament just a few days after this vote, and its eventual dissolution on 24 Jan. 1679.</p><h2><em>Country peer and Exclusionist, 1679-81</em></h2><p>In the days preceding the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679 Danby’s assessment of Huntingdon went from considering Huntingdon a likely supporter to marking him as an opponent. The lord treasurer’s political antennae were unusually alert, for between the time of the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament and the convening of the first Exclusion Parliament Huntingdon changed his political colours to the point where throughout 1679-81 he was as violent a partisan for Exclusion and the succession of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, to the throne as he had previously been for the rights of York, ‘loyal Catholics’ and Danby. Perhaps as a political opportunist Huntingdon felt that the wind was blowing in favour of the country opposition. He may also have felt betrayed by the court when, after having made an application to York to replace the ailing Rutland as lord lieutenant of Leicestershire in July 1677, insisting on his family’s traditional influence in that county, he found himself usurped by Rutland’s son and heir, Lord Roos, who was appointed to that position and continued in it as the 9th earl (and later duke) of Rutland well after his father’s death in 1679.<sup>41</sup> This may have also contributed to Huntingdon’s decision to decamp from Leicestershire to the capital at the end of 1677. Huntingdon certainly appears to have been keeping a close look at the composition of the Commons, perhaps to gauge the potential mood at Westminster, for there survives among his papers a printed list of the Members elected for the Parliament of spring 1679, with marginal annotations made by Huntingdon next to each name, probably with a view to classifying each as either court or country Members.<sup>42</sup> Huntingdon himself most likely had a role in the return of Sir Henry Beaumont<sup>‡</sup>, in the country interest, for the borough of Leicester in February 1679.</p><p>Huntingdon had the zeal of a convert and attended every meeting of the first Exclusion Parliament in the spring of 1679 and was named to all but five select committees established. He was now at the forefront of the attack against Danby. His notes show that he was paying careful attention to the debate of 18 Mar. 1679 which resolved that Danby’s impeachment proceedings of the last days of the previous Parliament were still in force and under consideration in the new Parliament.<sup>43</sup> When the Commons requested the House on 21 Mar. to commit Danby pending his impeachment trial a debate arose whether the House could comply with the Commons seeing as they had the day before resolved to give the lord treasurer a week’s freedom in order to submit his answers to the articles of impeachment. Both his own notes and those of a contemporary show that in the debate Huntingdon argued, from Jacobean precedents (Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, earl of Middlesex, and Francis Bacon<sup>†</sup>, Viscount St Albans) for the commitment of the lord treasurer, as by not committing him they were prejudging the case of the Commons.<sup>44</sup> The following day he was appointed a manager to consult with the Commons regarding the king’s royal pardon of the former lord treasurer and the proposed bill to bar Danby henceforth from the king’s presence or any office. Danby himself changed the stakes by, at the urging of the king, going into hiding to avoid prosecution. Both houses developed separate bills to force Danby to surrender himself, the Lords merely threatening him with banishment in case he did not comply, the Commons with the more serious alternative of attainder. The Commons rejected the House’s bill out of hand and when their bill of attainder was brought up on 2 Apr. there was a move by some of the House, principally Danby’s supporters, to treat it similarly. In the ensuing debate Huntingdon argued that the Commons bill should nevertheless be committed to a committee of the whole House. The following speaker in this debate, Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, also moved that it be committed, but with directions to the Committee ‘to leave out the attainder’, and indeed in the committee of the whole the content of the bill was so altered through amendments as to make it effectively another bill for Danby’s banishment. <sup>45</sup> On 4 Apr. Huntingdon voted for this altered bill to pass the House and then was appointed a manager for the conference at which it was presented to the Commons. Four days later he was involved in two further conferences as the Commons made clear its opposition to the lesser penalty the House envisaged for the Danby’s non-compliance. Huntingdon himself reported the results of the conference held on the afternoon of 8 Apr. and then attended three further conferences on 10 and 12 April. The Commons ultimately had the stronger argument, and on 14 Apr. Huntingdon voted to agree in extending the date by which Danby was to surrender himself and for the passage of the bill as originally envisaged by the Commons, with attainder as the threatened punishment.</p><p>Danby surrendered himself to black rod almost immediately after the bill’s passage by the House. From that point Huntingdon was closely involved in the discussions, and disputes, between the Houses on the pending trials of the impeached former lord treasurer and the five Catholic peers in the Tower and he kept among his papers manuscript accounts of the proceedings and debates of this Parliament.<sup>46</sup> On 23 Apr. 1679 he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill for regulating the trial of peers and the following day he was appointed to attend a conference to discuss the pleas and answers submitted by the Catholic peers. On 2 May he signed the protest against the resolution not to amend the bill for banishing popish recusants from London, as he felt the bill’s provisions could adversely affect Protestant nonconformists in the capital. There are also among his papers what appear to be scrappy notes on this bill and its debate.<sup>47</sup> On 7 May he delivered a ‘set elaborate speech’ against the right of the bishops to vote in capital cases, arguing, using the precedent of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who had been formally condemned by a fellow bishop, that ‘a bishop is a priest and so comes under the canon [law]. A priest cannot be of common jury [and] the proposition hold the bishop not to judge here’.<sup>48</sup> He was also a manager for a conference on 8 May concerning the supply bill to raise money for the disbandment of the army, which saw the House depart from its amendments in order to see the bill passed. On that same day he was assigned to manage a conference regarding the House’s decision to try the five Catholic peers before Danby and to request the king to appoint a lord high steward to preside over the trials. After it was reported that the Commons disagreed with the House’s decisions and requested the establishment of a joint committee of both houses to discuss this matter further Huntingdon was one of the country peers who dissented from the House’s peremptory rejection of this proposal, both on 8 May and again two days later when the Commons insisted on it with more urgency. After the protest he was appointed to manage a conference in which the contents of Danby’s petition to the House were to be conveyed to the Commons. He took the chair of another committee of the whole House on the bill for reforming the trial of peers on 12 May. By this time the two Houses were strongly disagreeing over the issue whether the bishops, as lords spiritual, could take part in Danby’s trial. On 13 May Huntingdon took part in the protest against the resolution that the bishops had a right to stay in the House and over the following days he took hurried notes on the continuing debates on this matter.<sup>49</sup> The House having eventually relented to the Commons’ insistence and established a committee of both Houses on the trials, Huntingdon on 23 May subscribed to the protest against the decision to instruct the House’s committee members to tell their counterparts from the Commons that the Lords would not shift from their decision regarding the bishops’ place in the trials. In the last week of May he continued to vote with the country peers against attempts to block the Commons’ prosecution of Danby. He protested against the instructions to the House’s committee to insist to the Commons that the Catholic peers be tried before Danby (23 May); was a manager for a conference in a last-ditch attempt to ‘preserve a good correspondence’ between the houses (26 May); and entered his dissent, again, from the House’s continuing insistence that the bishops had a right to sit in the House during capital trials (27 May). With that final protest the deadlocked Parliament was prorogued and eventually, and surprisingly, dissolved on 12 July.</p><p>During the long interim of May 1679-October 1680, as the king continuously postponed meeting Parliament, Huntingdon became one of the inner circle of the aristocratic fringe of the country opposition. In the newsletters and political gossip of the time his name appears frequently in tandem with Shaftesbury, Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, and James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, all of whom were notorious as ‘discontented lords’. This group of ‘opposition’ peers met regularly in the Swan Tavern in Fish Street in the winter of 1679, in order to devise a petition to the king to ensure a speedy sitting of the next Parliament. On 1 Dec. Huntingdon was at a dinner at the lord mayor’s house, at which were also present Shaftesbury, Grey of Warke, and most of the other members of the Swan Tavern group. An unexpected, and unwelcome, guest was the lord chief justice William Scroggs. After Huntingdon had proposed a toast to the duke of Monmouth, Scroggs replied with a toast to the duke of York, to which Huntingdon added ‘and to the confusion of popery’, which caused some consternation among the assembly.<sup>50</sup> A week later, on 7 Dec., Huntingdon, as the one among them with the highest precedence, headed a delegation of nine lords to present the king with a petition from sixteen peers calling for the speedy summoning of Parliament. They included, apart from himself and the six peers mentioned above, William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford; Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare; Henry Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford; William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele; Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles; and George Booth*, Baron Delamer. Charles II gave the group a frosty reception, ironically remarking that he wished others took as much care and concern with the welfare of the nation as those peers did.<sup>51</sup> He then proceeded to postpone Parliament for the following several months and personally punished Huntingdon by removing him from both the Leicestershire and Derbyshire commissions of the peace and divesting him of his office as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Leicestershire.<sup>52</sup> In June 1680 Huntingdon and his fellows took another tack, as they, in a great show of force and numbers, submitted to two separate Middlesex grand juries indictments of York as a recusant, and both juries were hurriedly dismissed before they could make their presentments.<sup>53</sup> </p><p>When the new Parliament did eventually meet on 21 Oct. 1680, Huntingdon was an assiduous attender, coming to all but nine of the meetings and named to all but two select committees. On 28 Oct., a week after Parliament was first convened, he reported the amendments made by the committee of the whole House to the bill for the regulation of the trial of peers, and on 8 Nov. was among those managers appointed by the House to deliver to the Commons in conference transcripts of papers recently received from the clerk of the Privy Council concerning the ‘Popish Plot’ in Ireland. His notes on the course of the debate on 15 Nov. 1680 on the Exclusion bill are among the only, if not the only, record we have of the arguments made by the different peers ranged for and against this bill.<sup>54</sup> He appears to have contributed to this debate himself at length in strongly urging the second reading of the bill, arguing that ‘Government is of divine right, but the forms, qualifications and limitations are human and various’, and to support his contention of the human, and thus changeable, nature of the succession he produced, yet again, several precedents from English history, largely from the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor period, when the succession to the throne was altered by parliamentary statute.<sup>55</sup> Huntingdon voted for the bill and registered his protest against the decision to reject it at its second reading. A week after the defeat of the exclusion bill he voted in favour of establishing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty, while 11 days later he entered his name in the dissent from the House’s rejection of the Commons’ proviso to the bill for regulating the trial of peers which would exempt from its provisions those peers impeached by the lower house, such as the peers still incarcerated in the Tower.<sup>56</sup> He joined in the attack on the lord chief justice, William Scroggs, dissenting from the resolutions of 7 Jan. 1681 not even to put the questions whether he should be committed or suspended from his duties pending his impeachment hearings. Three days after these tumultuous proceedings Parliament was prorogued, and shortly after dissolved on 18 January.</p><p>Huntingdon was one of the 16 peers who signed the petition of 25 Jan. 1681 requesting Charles II not to summon the forthcoming scheduled Parliament to Oxford, but to maintain it in Westminster, close to the Whig heartland of the city of London, instead.<sup>57</sup> Huntingdon had already used his interest in Leicester to promote the election of Sir Henry Beaumont for the previous two Parliaments. He threw his weight behind him again in the elections of February 1681, but also joined with Shaftesbury and ‘others of that association’ in trying to defeat the candidate backed by Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, in the borough of Christchurch in Hampshire, with which Huntingdon had no connection.<sup>58</sup> In the days preceding the Parliament at Oxford Danby still considered Huntingdon one of the peers who would be against his petition for bail. Yet he did advise his son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Latimer, his agent at Parliament, to present Huntingdon and the earl of Clare, James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, with compliments and his letters requesting their assistance to his cause, suggesting that he saw cracks in the united front of opposition against him now that the cause of exclusion was seriously weakened.<sup>59</sup> Huntingdon only arrived on the fourth day of the week-long session and does not seem to have taken part in the proceedings on Danby’s bail request. On 26 Mar. 1681 he did follow the opposition in dissenting from the House’s decision to try Edward Fitzharris by ordinary course of common law rather than by the impeachment brought against him from the Commons, and he also reported from a meeting of the committee of examinations which was still trying to dig up evidence and perpetrators in the Popish Plot.</p><p>Later testimony given in the wake of the Rye House Plot in 1683 consistently named Huntingdon as one of those involved in tentative plots to capture the king and set up a ‘Long Parliament’ in the wake of the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament.<sup>60</sup> That was largely unknown at the time but contemporaries in 1681 were more or less agreed that Huntingdon was ‘well-hung Balaam’ mentioned fleetingly and coupled with ‘cold Caleb’ (whom most thought was Grey of Warke) and ‘canting Nadab’ (universally assumed to be Howard of Escrick) among those ‘lords, below the dignity of verse’, ‘kind husbands’ and ‘mere nobles’ who were part of ‘Achitophel’s’ (i.e. Shaftesbury) circle manipulating ‘Absalom’ (Monmouth) in John Dryden’s satirical poem, <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em>, attacking Shaftesbury and the campaign for exclusion.<sup>61</sup> Dryden’s line clearly indicates a distinguishing physical characteristic of Huntingdon which, despite the attempts of Victorian critics to deny or gloss differently, contemporaries of a satirical bent were more than happy to comment on forthrightly. Another manuscript satire of 1681 on the earl and his fellows describes, ‘Huntington with his long tool/ Not as his mark of man but fool/ Whose tail and follies make his life/ Only useful to his wife’.<sup>62</sup> Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> wrote to William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> about Huntingdon in January 1686 (when the earl was being attacked for very different reasons than in 1681) that ‘he is a fellow whose abilities are all placed below the girdle and one would think nature took from his brains to enlarge his privities’.<sup>63</sup></p><h2><em>Tory and courtier, 1681-8</em></h2><p>The attacks of 1681, and the failure of the Exclusionist movement, may have led Huntingdon to perform in November 1681 his second radical switch of allegiances in less than three years and by the end of that year was once again firmly in the court’s orbit and favour. As the nascent Whig movement was weakened by the failure of Exclusion, the dissolution of Parliament and the purges in the commissions of peace, Huntingdon must have begun to feel that he had backed the wrong horse, as he saw his own local influence ebb away. In his brief autobiographical account, Huntingdon is coy about the period 1677-81, when he was so active in Parliament and during which he was briefly a leading member of the Whig opposition, but he positively revels in his re-entry into the king’s favour:</p><blockquote><p>The earl after this making his residence in and about that town [London] gave his constant attendance in the several Parliaments of King Charles the second, but coming very seldom to the Court, it was intimated to him that if he waited on the king he should be well received by his majesty, and accordingly he had the honour to kiss the king’s hand at Whitehall 21 October 1681 and received many gracious expressions of his favour, and from that time had access to him on all occasions.<sup>64</sup></p></blockquote><p>His own explanation of his change of heart, given, supposedly, when he attended the king on 21 Oct. was that he ‘had by experience found, that they who promoted the bill of exclusion were for the subversion of monarchy itself’. The court had made an important convert and on 15 Nov. 1681 Huntingdon was reinstated <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Leicestershire in the place of Basil Fielding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh, who voluntarily resigned the post to the king’s new supporter.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Huntingdon’s betrayal caused great anger among the Whigs and a brief print war flared up between Huntingdon and three of his former colleagues—Grey of Warke, Herbert of Chirbury and Monmouth—over the comments Huntingdon had reputedly made to the king concerning the exclusionists’ desire to subvert monarchy and which had been printed in Thompson’s <em>Publick Intelligence</em> of 25 October. The three Whig peers claimed to be satisfied by Huntingdon’s denials upon his honour that he had ever said these words, but demanded a published retraction from him to counter the damage done. Huntingdon refused to do this, insisting that his word should be sufficient, but did extract from Thompson a printed apology for being too free with publishing the earl’s reputed words. This was still insufficient for the other peers, who on 2 Nov. published their own defense and apology, with obscure aspersions on Huntingdon’s truthfulness. Huntingdon was prompted in turn to print his own broadside emphasizing his truthfulness, and making vague threats to the other peers for accusing him of slander. The matter became more ill-tempered when two of Huntingdon’s kinsmen, Knyvett and Ferdinando Hastings, tore down the Whig peers’ sheet from where it was posted up in Peter’s Coffeehouse in Covent Garden, leading to a series of challenges and counter-challenges between them and Herbert of Chirbury, which only the king’s intervention prevented from descending into bloodshed.<sup>66</sup></p><p>This marked the end of Huntingdon’s brief flirtation with the Whigs and, never one to do things by halves, Huntingdon now became as much a zealot for the court interest and the Tory reaction as he had ever been for exclusion and Monmouth. The king took advantage of this new convert and showered Huntingdon with the offices and honours the young man evidently felt were his due. In June 1682 he was, for a consideration of £4,500 which was raised by mortgage from his wife’s Yorkshire estates, appointed captain of the band of gentleman pensioners, replacing his brother-in-law Scarsdale in this office.<sup>67</sup> On 28 Feb. 1683 he was sworn to the Privy Council, a role which he appears to have taken seriously, for among his papers are notes he took at council on the withdrawal from Tangiers and on the Rye House Plot.<sup>68</sup> His status continued to rise at court, and in December 1684 he was considered one of the candidates to take over the lieutenancy of Derbyshire after the death of William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire, though Scarsdale got the post instead.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Despite this, Huntingdon was active in local affairs in Leicestershire for the court as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the county and through his family’s traditional influence in the borough of Leicester. The borough’s loyalty to the crown was suspect, as there was a large Dissenting population, and three of the four members for Leicestershire (two for the county and two for the borough) returned for the Exclusion Parliaments in 1679-81 had voted in favour of Exclusion in May 1679, including Huntingdon’s own former client Beaumont. From September 1684 Huntingdon worked closely with his chaplain the Reverend Dr John Gery, whom he had preferred to the Leicestershire livings of Swepstone and Stony Stanton, and who was later to be appointed archdeacon of Buckingham, to persuade the corporation to surrender their charter to Charles II, less than 20 years since they had received a new charter in 1665. Even though Leicester’s common hall had voted in October 1684, with only four dissenting voices, to surrender the charter voluntarily, the mayor and aldermen found numerous reasons for delaying the official surrender of the charter to the king, reflecting perhaps a more seated reluctance to part with it. This was much to the irritation of Huntingdon, who was keen to show his usefulness to the crown and also intent to be made recorder of the borough in the new charter. Only after the threat of a writ of <em>quo warranto</em> did the borough’s recorder Nathan Wright (later the lord keeper) hand the old charter to the king on 2 November. During the rest of that month Huntingdon, from his house on Gerrard Street, maintained a correspondence with Gery in Leicester discussing the composition of the new remodelled and ‘loyal’ corporation. In the new charter issued on 10 Dec. 1684 Huntingdon replaced Wright as recorder, although he maintained the future lord keeper as his deputy to placate local opinion, and the purge of the corporation was not extensive, although it was reduced in size from 72 to 36.<sup>70</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>By his own account Huntingdon was present in the royal bedchamber at the time of Charles II’s death on 6 Feb. 1685, suggesting (if true) that he was in the inner circles of the court.<sup>71</sup> Huntingdon remained heavily involved in borough affairs throughout the following weeks, during which he received frequent letters from the mayor of Leicester, Thomas Ludlam, telling him of the activities of a number of traitors in the borough and informing him of the unanimous election of two court supporters in the parliamentary elections in March: Sir Henry Beaumont, Huntingdon’s previous client, and Thomas Babington<sup>‡</sup>, who was now Huntingdon’s preferred candidate.<sup>72</sup></p><p>In the capital Huntingdon was well set to become a leading member of James II’s new regime. He was continued in his place on the Privy Council and helped to proclaim the new king throughout London. He played a prominent part in James II’s coronation, as a commissioner on the court of claims, captain of the gentlemen pensioners and cupbearer at the coronation banquet.<sup>73</sup> When the new king’s Parliament first met on 19 May 1685 Huntingdon attended all but two of the meetings and was left off only two of the select committees established on his days of sitting. On 23 May 1685 he was named to the select committee considering another version of the bill to prevent the clandestine marriage of minors and he chaired the committee and reported from it with amendments on 3 June. The following day he chaired a committee of the whole House which further considered these amendments. Throughout early June he also frequently chaired the select committee considering the bill for the trial of murders at sea.<sup>74</sup> It was during this session that a dispute in which he had been engaged since 1682 over the disposition of his father-in-law’s Yorkshire estate came to a head.<sup>75</sup> On 25 June 1685 Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup>, younger brother of John Granville*, earl of Bath, submitted a petition to the House complaining that Huntingdon was claiming privilege in order to obstruct a cause between Granville and Elizabeth Lewis, the countess of Huntingdon’s aunt who claimed a protection from the earl. Huntingdon put in his answer on 2 July, but before the House could consider the case more fully Monmouth’s rebellion caused the king to end the sitting that day by adjourning Parliament to 4 August.<sup>76</sup> Huntingdon himself was requested by the king to lead a regiment, but it is unlikely that he had raised enough men to take part in Monmouth’s defeat at Sedgemoor on 6 July. The regiment, though, was later incorporated into the new standing army, with Huntingdon as colonel, on 20 July 1685.<sup>77</sup> In late October 1685 his influence in Leicester borough was made formal by his appointment as steward of the honour of Leicester, an office in the duchy of Lancaster long held by members of his family, but which had been given to Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, in 1667 when Huntingdon was still a minor.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Shortly after Parliament reconvened on 9 Nov. 1685 it was ordered that Granville’s petition against Huntingdon’s privilege would be taken up again and on 14 Nov., after a fracas involving Huntingdon’s threats to Granville’s counsel, both the earl and Granville agreed to waive their privilege. For the next several years this dispute over Sir John Lewis’s estate, in which Huntingdon was joined by his brother-in-law and co-heir Scarsdale (whose wife had died in 1684), continued to rumble on in the lower courts.<sup>79</sup> Among the earl’s papers is a draft, dated 24 Sept. 1685, for a speech to introduce a bill to repeal the 1678 Test Act which, he claimed, ‘was a bill hurried into a law sent you by the then House of Commons to deprive your lordships of the most essential point of peerage, limitations to your seats in Parliament, by imposing oaths and tests which we nor our fathers ever knew before’, even during the days of Elizabeth I and James I, who, he pointed out, had much more to fear from rebellious Catholic subjects than the present king.<sup>80</sup> Huntingdon may have been the peer delegated to introduce this bill to the House when it reconvened, but if so he never had the opportunity, as Parliament was prorogued after only sitting for a week in the face of the Commons’ intransigence against James II’s catholicizing policies.</p><p>Huntingdon was at the centre of James’s government for the remainder of his reign. The Jacobite loyalist Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, later recorded in his own memoirs, with some gloating, Huntingdon’s change of heart from his days as an exclusionist in 1679-81. At the time of the sentencing of Titus Oates, whose claims he had once promoted, ‘the earl of Huntingdon owned he had been too credulous (and I am almost sure he was one of the guilty lords at the Lord Stafford’s trial [i.e., those who had found Stafford guilty]), but that now he was convinced that the prisoner was one of the worst and most perjured men’.<sup>81</sup> Huntingdon was also one of the select number of loyal peers chosen to try his former colleague Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), on 14 Jan. 1686. Here, though, he joined his other peers in unanimously acquitting the Whig peer.<sup>82</sup> Two days after the trial Huntingdon was appointed chief justice in eyre for lands south of the River Trent, replacing in this position his second cousin, Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, his local rival in Derbyshire, <sup>83</sup> He has been termed a ‘Whig collaborator’ of James II by some writers, but it is questionable whether he was ever a committed Whig in the first place, or whether his brief flirtation with the exclusionists was more an instance of self-serving opportunism than an attachment to the ideology. If he co-operated with James II because he appreciated the idea of religious indulgence to nonconformists (as many Whig collaborators did), it was Catholic rather than protestant nonconformists whom he wanted to see liberated. Huntingdon’s religious allegiances at this time and after are murky, but he veered so dangerously close to sympathy for Catholics and catholicism to convince many that he had indeed converted. There were rumours as early as 22 Jan. 1686 that Huntingdon ‘bended his left knee in the king’s chapel’ and in April it was reported to Sir Ralph Verney that Huntingdon, with James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and others, had turned Catholic, although Verney’s correspondent admitted ‘the truth [of this] I know not’.<sup>84</sup> At the time of the Revolution, the countess of Huntingdon strongly urged her husband to make a visible show of taking the Anglican sacrament ’to convince the world what your principles are’, and Morrice’s comments of the same time clearly show that Huntingdon was popularly seen as a Catholic.<sup>85</sup> However, a later family hagiographer of the earl insisted that he was always a faithful son of the English Church, to the point of being a ‘constant and bountiful benefactor’ to the non-juring clergy after the Revolution.<sup>86</sup> Huntingdon’s religious attitude may be exemplified by his approach in April 1693 to Anne Belasyse, daughter of the strongly Catholic John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and the dowager baroness of James II’s Catholic favourite John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, for a match between his son, George Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings (later 8th earl of Huntingdon), and one of her daughters. Huntingdon insisted to her that ‘neither my son or myself can be prejudiced with violence or animosity towards those of your communion’, but by instancing many examples of the successful marriages of daughters of Catholic families to Protestant sons, he clearly saw himself as a member of the Church of England.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Huntingdon’s acceptance of, indeed sympathy towards, the king’s religion was an unusual step for one who came from such a famously puritan family and when Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, having already resigned as lord treasurer in December 1686, was also removed from his place on the commission for ecclesiastical causes in January 1687, James II looked to the compliant Huntingdon to take his place. Huntingdon’s commission was dated 2 Jan. 1687 and he first took his seat on the commission eleven days later.<sup>88</sup> After the Revolution his role in this discredited body was seen as one of the darkest marks against him, and became the principal reason why he was exempted from the Act of Indemnity in 1689-90.<sup>89</sup> For this reason he drafted a retrospective defence of his role in the commission, claiming that, insufficiently versed in the law to have known that the body had been prohibited by previous statutes, he merely trusted the false advice of the king’s leading councillors and that, in addition, he was a reluctant member. Yet a separate table he or a secretary drew up showing his dates of attendance at meetings of the Commission shows that out of the 44 meetings from 13 Jan. 1687 to the commission’s last sitting on 30 Sept. 1688 Huntingdon was definitely present at 27 (while 9 are not accounted for), hardly suggestive of unwillingness. He insisted that he had had nothing to do with the suspension of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, from his office, which was true, as that had been effected before he had joined the Commission, and he further emphasized, with some accuracy, that he had not been involved in the actions taken against the fellows of Magdalen College, that he had stopped attending meetings after the decision to criminalize ministers who refused to read the Declaration of Indulgence was taken, and that he only returned for the final meeting on 30 Sept. 1688 in order to vote to reinstate Compton in his bishopric.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Huntingdon also tried to help further James II’s policies in the localities, and especially the Midlands. Morrice recounts a story from February 1687 when Huntingdon dissuaded James from appointing a gentleman, highly commended by two of the king’s other advisers (one Catholic and one Protestant), to the Staffordshire commission of the peace because that man had been bred a Catholic but had recently turned Protestant ‘and he thought no such gentleman whatsoever fit’ to serve the king.<sup>91</sup> On 11 Aug. 1687 Huntingdon was appointed lord lieutenant of Leicestershire in the place of his rival Rutland. That winter he was also made lord lieutenant of Derbyshire in the place of Scarsdale, although letters patent confirming this appointment were not issued until 23 Dec. 1687, one day after he also replaced Scarsdale as groom of the stole and a gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark, later duke of Cumberland.<sup>92</sup> Certainly from late 1687 he took a particular care in posing the ‘three questions’ to his officials in the counties, who did not answer as he would have wished, and in reshaping the commissions of the peace and other offices to suit the king’s purposes.<sup>93</sup> In 1688 he also extruded troublesome members of the Leicester corporation and replaced them with new men, to the point where 33 of those explicitly named in the charter of 1684 were forced out by mid-1688.<sup>94</sup> Another concern of Huntingdon at this time was the obvious opposition within his counties to the reading of the Declaration of Indulgence and he relied on his chaplain John Gery, now archdeacon of Buckingham (and mooted for translation to the bishopric of Lincoln), to ensure that the king’s wishes were complied with, despite the disdain with which his efforts were met.<sup>95</sup> Having already engineered the surrender of Leicester’s charter in 1684, he managed on 15 Sept. 1688 to extract a new charter for the city, which radically purged the corporation of officials who had not been co-operative with James’s policies, dispensed future office-holders from the requirement of the oaths and declarations to protect the Church of England and established a new restricted franchise which Huntingdon hoped would help the king’s electoral chances. By that time, plans for the projected election to a new Parliament were fully underway and an agent of Huntingdon’s wrote to tell him that the new franchise was likely to ensure the election of the lord lieutenant’s candidates, Sir Henry Beaumont, and Sir William Villiers<sup>‡</sup>, ‘persons of undoubted loyalty and fidelity’. On 13 Sept. 1688, as the new Leicester charter was being prepared, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, indicated to Huntingdon the king’s approval of these candidates, as well as his other choices: Sir John Gell<sup>‡</sup> and Cornelius Clarke for the county of Derby, and for the borough George Vernon<sup>‡</sup> (who led the celebrations in Derby for the birth of the Prince of Wales) and Sir Simon Degg.<sup>96</sup> The Leicester charter with its new franchise never took effect, as events overtook it and James II, in a last-minute bid to claw back some popular support in the localities on 17 Oct. 1688 revoked all changes made to the city’s liberties since 1679.<sup>97</sup> At that time he also tried to protect his supporter Huntingdon from any future prosecution by granting him a pardon for all treasons, or acts which could be construed as treason, performed during his reign.<sup>98</sup></p><h2><em>Revolution and Convention, 1688-9</em></h2><p>At the landfall of the Prince of Orange at Exeter on 5 Nov. 1688 Huntingdon rushed south from the Midlands to join his regiment at Plymouth, where it was then garrisoned and commanded in his place by his lieutenant-colonel and kinsman Ferdinando Hastings. Hastings and the town’s governor the earl of Bath had already colluded to declare for William of Orange and surrender Plymouth to him and on 28 Nov. Bath captured and imprisoned Huntingdon when he was having dinner at the governor’s house, while the rest of the garrison declared for William.<sup>99</sup> The rest of December was taken up by the strenuous efforts of Huntingdon’s wife and servants to secure his release from imprisonment as James’s regime crumbled around them. The countess relied on her connections with Princess Anne, in whose household she served, and succeeded in getting vague promises from John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later earl and duke of Marlborough), which made her think of a possible match between one of his daughters and their son Lord Hastings. She was also insistent that Huntingdon write to the prince of Orange assuring him of his loyalty and that he give proof of his attachment to the English Church by publicly taking the Anglican sacrament, even if the minister had to visit him in his cell.<sup>100</sup> Yet it was only the death of the countess, so busy on his behalf, in childbirth on 24 Dec. 1688, which sprung the earl from imprisonment, as he was released on 26 Dec. to make arrangements for her funeral.<sup>101</sup></p><p>He was sufficiently recovered from this tragedy to attend the Convention from its first day on 22 Jan. 1689. Although Clarendon was to remark of its important first days when the disposition of the crown was determined, that Huntingdon ‘had all along voted against the king’, in reality the earl had a distinctly idiosyncratic and inconsistent record.<sup>102</sup> Clarendon records that Huntingdon was absent for the vote on 29 Jan. 1689 in favour of a regency, but the Journal marks him as present for that day and he probably voted against the regency.<sup>103</sup> Huntingdon was absent for the next important vote on 31 Jan., but was back in the House on 4 Feb. when he voted against agreeing with the Commons on the use of the words ‘vacant’ and ‘abdicated’ and was then appointed to the committee to draw up reasons justifying the House’s decision. The following day he was made a manager to present these reasons to the Commons in conference.<sup>104</sup> On 6 Feb. the vote to agree with the Commons in the use of the controversial words came up again, and this time Huntingdon was among those former loyalists who, as Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, termed it, ‘went off’ and voted to agree with the Commons in the use of the words because, as Huntingdon himself explained in a speech, the force of the Commons’ arguments in favour of the words had changed his mind and had persuaded him that the word ‘vacant’ did not imply that the throne was elective.<sup>105</sup> There may however be a less lofty explanation for Huntingdon’s sudden change of heart, as years later, in May 1694, Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, wrote to William III setting forth among the reasons why he should be further elevated in the peerage, ‘the service I did, when there was such opposition made by the Jacobite party, in bringing Huntingdon, Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham (and 3rd Baron Crew), and my Lord Ashley [<em>recte</em> Jacob Astley*, 3rd Baron Astley, an obscure peer who died in March 1689] to vote against the regency and [for] your having the crown, which was passed but by those three voices and my own’. It is almost certain that Montagu is here referring to the vote of 6 February, as both Astley and Crew had first sat in the Convention the previous day, even though he is wrong with his numbers, as the contents won the vote with a majority of twenty.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Immediately following the offer of the crown to William and Mary on 14 Feb. 1689 Huntingdon’s attendance in the House was intermittent for a period. He became more involved in the House from mid-April as he took on a number of roles. He was busy as a chairman of and reporter from the committee for privileges. On 18 Apr. he reported on the dispute between James Annesley*, 2nd earl of Anglesey, and his wife over whether Lady Anglesey had breached her husband’s privilege by writing to one of his tenants concerning the non-payment of a rent charge owing to her. The committee left the decision of whether this was a breach of privilege to the House itself, which appointed a committee of four peers, one of whom was Huntingdon himself, to try to effect a reconciliation and agreement between Anglesey and his wife.</p><p>Huntingdon quickly became involved in the proceedings surrounding the bill for abrogating the oaths to James II and the House’s controversial amendment which aimed to allow William III to dispense chosen members of the clergy from the requirement of swearing the new oaths, a measure which Huntingdon undoubtedly would have supported, judging by his later actions. On 20 Apr. he was appointed a manager for a conference at which the Commons spelled out their objections to the amendment and Huntingdon was later that day placed on the committee to draw up the House’s arguments in defence of it. Two days later, on 22 Apr., he was a manager for two conferences on this matter where he took detailed notes on the arguments presented by Sir John Treby<sup>‡</sup> for the Commons and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, for the House. The following day the House gave in and agreed to the bill as envisioned by the Commons, without a special royal dispensation for members of the clergy.<sup>107</sup> After the report of the free conference on 22 Apr., Huntingdon reported from the committee for privileges with the important resolution that the exorbitant fine of £30,000 imposed by King’s Bench on William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, in 1687 for his assault at court on Thomas Culpeper, and Devonshire’s subsequent commitment, was ‘a great violation of the privileges of the peers of this realm’. He reported from the committee for privileges on another matter on 1 May as well. On 8 May 1689 he was a manager for the conference held that day on the bill for speedy and effectual disarming of papists. He supported the House’s demand for a clause in the bill for an additional poll which provided for the peers’ separate assessment by commissioners of their own appointment. He managed and reported from a conference on this amendment on 27 May 1689, and four days later he was a manager for a further two free conferences on this matter, in which the two houses continued to disagree.<sup>108</sup> At the end of May he also voted not to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates, and on 10 July he told (against the Whig Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford), in a division on whether to postpone discussion of part of the preamble of the bill to reverse the judgments against Oates.</p><p>Despite Huntingdon’s vote in favour of William of Orange’s claim to the throne, he was too heavily implicated in some of the more unpopular measures of the previous regime and retribution followed, as throughout the spring of 1689 he was stripped of all his offices. The worst blow came on 1 July 1689 when the Commons, considering the bill of indemnity recommended to them by William III, decided to exempt from its provisions of amnesty all those who had acted in the late commission for ecclesiastical causes, including Huntingdon.<sup>109</sup> Perhaps dispirited by this development Huntingdon left the House on 13 July and registered his proxy with Ailesbury two days later; Ailesbury used it to vote in favour of the House’s punitive amendments to the bill to reverse the judgments against Oates.</p><p>In a list compiled by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690 Huntingdon was classified as one of the supporters of the court, to be approached by John Sheffield*, earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby). Huntingdon came to just over three-quarters of the meetings when the Convention gathered again in late October 1689 and was named to thirteen committees, including the committee of inspections established on 2 Nov. 1689 to determine those responsible for the political trials and <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings of the previous reigns—an investigation which could cut very close to home.<sup>110</sup> Other than taking notes on the testimony of John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> before this committee and telling for the majority contents in a division on a legal appeal and once chairing a brief meeting of the committee considering the bill on small tithes, there is not much evidence of other involvement in the business of the House that winter.<sup>111</sup> His attendance level was even lower, at 53 per cent, in the first, spring, session of the new Parliament elected in 1690. On 8 Apr. 1690 he registered his dissent from the bill recognizing William and Mary as rightful and lawful monarchs and confirming the acts of the Convention.<sup>112</sup> The royal bill of grace, directly presented to the House by William III in order to avoid the delays which had been holding up the parliamentary bill of indemnity, was, after it was determined that a royal grant of pardon needed only a single reading and a single vote, unanimously accepted by the House on 20 May 1690 and received the royal assent three days later. As in the previous parliamentary bill, Huntingdon was purposely excluded from pardon and Morrice reported that the earl ‘made a speech by way of complaint, as if he had done nothing to be so dealt with’, while Clarendon recorded that the bill was only able to pass after Huntingdon had withdrawn his insistence to be heard by counsel.<sup>113</sup></p><h2><em>Under William III, 1690-1695</em></h2><p>Undoubtedly his loss of office and exemption from the Act of Grace encouraged him to withdraw from parliamentary business, but his new marriage, solemnized on 8 May 1690, to the young Frances Needham (née Leveson Fowler), widow of Thomas Needham, 6th Viscount Kilmorey [I], also played its part, especially as she quickly started bearing children and, as Huntingdon’s later family biographer explained it, ‘after [the Revolution] he lived chiefly at Donington Park, the better to provide for his children by his second lady’.<sup>114</sup> Furthermore he was becoming increasingly embroiled in Jacobite associations. As early as January 1690 he was receiving letters telling him of news from St Germain and of the late king’s efforts to reclaim the throne.<sup>115</sup> His most noticeable activity in the 1690-1 session, where he attended four-fifths of the meetings, was his defence of the Catholic 4th earl of Salisbury. On 6 Oct. 1690 he voted for the discharge of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower; on the following day he stood standing bail for Salisbury for £5,000; he then worked on devising arguments to defeat the bill to prevent him from cutting off the entail of his estate.<sup>116</sup> Huntingdon was apparently seen as a benefactor for distressed Catholic supporters of the late reign as on 20 Oct. the imprisoned Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I], James II’s former ambassador to the Papacy, wrote to him requesting him to stand as his bail as well <sup>117</sup> On 30 Oct. Huntingdon was discharged from his bail for Salisbury and on that same day he subscribed to the protest against the act clarifying the powers of the admiralty commissioners. In other matters in this session Huntingdon chaired on 22 Nov. 1690 a number of select committees on private bills and on 24 Nov. was able to report one of these bills, that for securing the portion of Elizabeth Lucy and for ensuring that she was raised as a Protestant, as fit to pass with amendments. On 11 Dec. he also chaired and reported from committee of the whole House on the bill against exporting or melting down gold and silver and was named to the consequent sub-committee established to draw up two clauses for this bill. Huntingdon served as a teller on the last day of 1690 in a division in the committee of the whole House on whether a proviso be made part of the public accounts bill. The Whig Delamer, now made earl of Warrington by William III, stood as his opposite teller.<sup>118</sup></p><p>He was present for only nine meetings at the beginning of the 1691-2 session, which began on 22 Oct. 1691, and left the House for the session on 14 November. During his last few days of attendance he was busy as a reporter of bills from select committees—a bill for naturalization (10 Nov.), a bill to take away benefit of clergy (11 Nov.) and a private estate bill (13 Nov.). Away in the country he received disturbing news that on 9 Dec. 1691 a young man named Fuller, previously a page to Mary of Modena, had made copious allegations of a Jacobite plot, which implicated Huntingdon as well as Scarsdale, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later Earl) Godolphin, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and several others.<sup>119</sup> Huntingdon did not take his brother-in-law’s advice to come to town to defend himself but did register his proxy with John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, on 23 Jan. 1692, an interesting choice as Ashburnham was a supporter of the Revolution.</p><p>On 16 Apr. 1692 Huntingdon received a letter from James II (signed ‘J.R.’ and with the royal seal, he noted) in which the late king requested his presence, as a member of his Privy Council, at the confinement of Mary of Modena in order to testify to the birth of the child (as Huntingdon had done with the prince of Wales in June 1688).<sup>120</sup> The earl forwarded James’s letter to the secretary of state the earl of Nottingham on 18 Apr. in order, he said, to request a license from the queen to travel to France according to James’s request. He was quickly summoned to London where he was instead closely questioned by the Privy Council why he dared to make such a request at a time of heightened fears of a French invasion.<sup>121</sup> On 5 May 1692 he and Marlborough, among other suspected Jacobites, were seized and incarcerated in the Tower.<sup>122</sup> While many of his fellow prisoners were released on bail on 15 June, Huntingdon was kept in prison because the radical Whig firebrand and conspirator Aaron Smith had made out an affidavit claiming that there were the requisite two witnesses who could accuse him of treason, but that this evidence was ‘not ready’ yet.<sup>123</sup></p><p>In mid-August Huntingdon was finally bailed from the Tower.<sup>124</sup> He was, however, again overlooked when many of his fellow prisoners were discharged on the first day of the new law term in October. One of the first items of business the House heard when it reconvened on 4 Nov. was the complaint of Huntingdon, Scarsdale and Marlborough that they had been imprisoned and were now under bail in time of Parliament, in breach of their privilege.<sup>125</sup> This complaint on 7 Nov. prompted a debate over the initial commitment of these peers on such tenuous evidence and Nottingham found himself on the defensive as he justified it, arguing that there was ‘an irreproachable witness’ against Huntingdon, although he remained unwilling to name him. The matter was referred that day to the committee for privileges which was empowered to see the terms of the original warrants for the arrest of the peers. Following the report from the committee, that matter was debated over 9-10 Nov. in the committee of the whole House, during which the House concentrated its attention on the long confinement of Huntingdon solely on the basis of Smith’s suspect and vague affidavit, which could only produce one sworn witness with positive information of Huntingdon’s treason; another could only produce evidence of a ‘circumstance tending to treason’. At the same time the senior judges averred, after much pressing from the House, that one sworn witness to fact and another providing merely circumstantial evidence was sufficient to remand a suspect in custody, a statement which Halifax and others thought ‘was a doctrine for which the late reign was much cried against by some’. After a further ‘fierce debate, which lasted several hours’ the committee of the whole resolved on 14 Nov. that, in compliance with the Habeas Corpus Act, no peer committed for treason could be refused bail unless there were two witnesses who could be produced that law term and sworn in court to give evidence against him. The following day the House resolved to address the king for the immediate discharge from bail of Huntingdon and his companions, but this was forestalled when on 18 Nov. the House was informed that Huntingdon and the other peers had been set at liberty by royal decree.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Now a free man, on 29 Dec. 1692 Huntingdon was placed on the committee to consider precedents for the Commons’ unusual action of presenting an address praising the action of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, the previous summer to the House’s reporters in a free conference which had been ostensibly been convened to discuss other naval matters. This committee was assigned to hold a conference with the Commons on this matter on 4 Jan. 1693, but Huntingdon was not there to attend it, for he left the House on the last day of 1692 and registered his proxy with Scarsdale on 3 Jan. 1693, who used it to vote in favour of the place bill on that same day. Huntingdon returned to the House on 9 Jan. and over the following days signed a number of dissents: from the decisions of 17 Jan. that Sir Charles Knollys had no claim to the earldom of Banbury; from the motions of 19 Jan. not to refer to the committee for privileges, and then to reject outright, the House’s amendments to the land tax bill; and then from the resolution of 31 Jan. not to proceed further with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, that day. Huntingdon found Mohun not guilty four days later. He was absent again from 17 Feb. to 6 Mar. 1693, when Mulgrave held his proxy. On 6 March he signed another dissent from the unwillingness of the House to share with the Commons the information it had received concerning the perilous condition of Ireland. On 7 Mar. he laid before the House his complaint of a breach of privilege against John Beesley who, during the time of Huntingdon’s imprisonment, had distrained the cattle of several of his tenants. Three days later he was a reporter for the conference on the duchy of Cornwall bill and helped to draw up reasons why the House insisted on its amendment. <sup>127</sup></p><p>Despite, or perhaps because of, his brush with royal power in 1692, Huntingdon became even more deeply involved in Jacobitism thereafter and from April 1693 James II’s secretary of state John Drummond, earl of Melfort [S], after having finally learnt the true identity of the ‘Mr Courtney’ who had been addressing supportive letters to St Germain, began a regular correspondence with their true author, Huntingdon.<sup>128</sup> It may have been at this time (if not before) that the former king began to address letters directly to his former supporter in England, using the ciphered name ‘Mr Morton’.<sup>129</sup> James certainly delegated Huntingdon as one of his agents to promulgate and explain his Declaration of 1693 to any sympathetic recipients, and the earl recommended to Melfort that in future similar declarations should be couched ‘shorter and so less particular’.<sup>130</sup> Huntingdon was also included in a list of Jacobite peers (including his constant proxy partner Ailesbury) who in 1694 sent an agent to St Germain with professions of their loyalty and an optimistic account of England’s readiness to accept the return of the king.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Huntingdon was absent at Donington Park for the first two months of the session beginning on 7 Nov. 1693, but a clerk of the House, John Relfe, supplied him weekly with copies of the minutes of meetings throughout November and December and accompanied his first packet of minutes with a blank proxy so that the earl could register his proxy with Ailesbury.<sup>132</sup> Huntingdon finally came to the House himself on 10 Jan. 1694 and proceeded to sit for another 43 meetings of the House, leaving it on 10 Apr., two weeks before it was prorogued. On 8 and 12 Feb. he was a manager for two conferences on the delays in dispatching the intelligence regarding the sailing of the Brest fleet to the allied admirals the previous summer. He voted to reverse chancery’s dismissal of the bill of the earl of Montagu in <em>Montagu v. Bath </em>on 17 February. On 3 and 5 Apr. he was involved in committees and conferences concerning the private bill of William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, regarding the House’s objections to a clause inserted by the Commons.</p><p>He did not attend any of the sittings of the following session of 1694-5. He was marked as absent at a call of the House on 26 Nov. 1694 and yet his name was not included when the House ordered on 3 Dec., following a subsequent call of the House, that letters be sent to the absent members demanding their presence by 18 December. This may have been because the House was already aware that Huntingdon was making arrangements to register his proxy, which was duly entrusted on 4 Dec. to Ailesbury. Nevertheless, when 18 Dec. came Huntingdon still felt the need to address a letter to the House asking that his absence be excused, as he was represented by proxy. There was still some controversy surrounding this excuse and the House ordered that a debate concerning proxies be held after Christmas, although this appears to have been quickly overtaken by the news of the death of Queen Mary.<sup>133</sup></p><h2><em>Final years, 1695-1701</em></h2><p>Although Huntingdon eventually came to only 35 per cent of the meetings of the 1695-6 session, the first of William III’s second Parliament elected in October 1695, he was among the most engaged members in the House in December 1695 when a whole series of issues around the ‘state of the nation’ were being debated. On 3 Dec. 1695 he was chairman of the committee of the whole House considering the state of the nation and the detailed notes he took of the debate concerning the crisis in trade and the coinage reveal the concerns of many members of the House. Huntingdon was once again in the chair the following day when the committee of the whole resolved to address the king calling for the prohibition of clipped coin. He was placed on the committee assigned to draw up the address and in this role was made a manager of the conference on the address held on 5 December.<sup>134</sup> On that same day he also chaired, and took notes on, the committee of the whole which heard the evidence of the customs commissioners and the East India merchants against the Scottish East India Company, whose privileges as guaranteed in the statute establishing it the previous summer were thought to damage English trade, and he reported that further evidence would be heard in another meeting.<sup>135</sup> The 6th saw him again as chair and note-taker of a committee of the whole discussing many matters regarding trade, the army (and its foreign-born officers) and the fleet and he was appointed to the committee to draw up an address regarding these matters. <sup>136</sup> He chaired the committee of the whole on 9 Dec. when it considered the Scottish East India Company in particular. His notes suggest that it was a long debate largely concerning the involvement of English merchants and investors in the Scottish company.<sup>137</sup> Three days later he reported that the committee of the whole had decided that an address should be drawn up to show the king ‘the great prejudice, inconveniencies, and mischiefs’ the establishment of the Scottish East India Company caused to the trade of the kingdom, and he was subsequently placed on the committee to draft this address. On the 13th, the committee of the whole considered the papers the English merchants had submitted, with Huntingdon again in the chair, and he was later placed on the select committees to further examine these papers and to draft points for a conference on the address against the Scottish company.<sup>138</sup> On 14 Dec. he was a manager for the conference which agreed upon the address to the king against the Scottish East India Company and he chaired another meeting of the committee of the whole on the 20th which decided that further legislation should be drafted to discourage English subjects from investing in the Scottish Company.<sup>139</sup> He chaired a meeting on this matter the following day as well, for which his brief notes survive.<sup>140</sup> On 23 Dec. he finally turned his attention to another matter and chaired (and as usual took notes on) two meetings of the committee of the whole dealing with the clauses to the treason trial bill setting a time limit to prosecutions and ensuring that a lord would be judged by the body of his peers.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Huntingdon left the House on 27 Dec. 1696, registering his proxy with Ailesbury three days later, and was absent throughout January and February 1696. While Huntingdon was away at Donington Park, the Assassination Plot against William III was revealed and Parliament drew up the Association. Huntingdon never signed this document, but returned to the House, vacating his proxy, on 9 Mar. 1696. <sup>142</sup> On 6 Apr. 1696 he was appointed a manager for a conference on the privateers bill and two days later he reported from the committee of the whole that the bill for taking away the custom of Wales which hindered the disposal of personal estates was fit to pass, with one proviso made in committee. For the following session Huntingdon registered his proxy with Scarsdale on 24 Oct. 1696, shortly after the commencement of the session. As the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> heated up the House demanded the presence of all its members, including the absent Huntingdon, under the threat of being taken into custody. Huntingdon duly appeared and over the following days showed his opposition to the bill to attaint Fenwick, dissenting from the decision to hear the written evidence of Cardell Goodman (15 Dec.), from the resolution to read the bill a second time (18 Dec.) and from the eventual passage of the bill (23 Dec.).</p><p>At this time Huntingdon was undoubtedly most preoccupied with the continuing problems with his wayward son and heir, George, Lord Hastings, which came to a head during this session of Parliament. Hastings had long been disobedient and unreceptive to his father’s efforts to provide him with a good education and marriage.<sup>143</sup> The final blow came when Hastings had deserted his father’s house to attend Foubert’s military academy in Westminster. Huntingdon had prohibited his son’s living in the capital ‘lest he should enter into the Whig measures’ there. As he feared, Hastings sought out as patrons William III and Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, who were probably only too happy to detach a future earl from his Tory and Jacobite father. Hastings was given a company of foot guards which he led in the 1696 summer campaign and Portland even made vague promises of a future match with one of his daughters.<sup>144</sup> When Hastings returned from campaign, he was financially cut off by his father and on 14 Dec. 1696 submitted a petition to the House requesting that Huntingdon be compelled to waive his privilege so that Hastings could take control of the Yorkshire properties of his maternal grandfather which Hastings’s late mother had bequeathed to him for his maintenance. These estates had long been controlled, and the rents retained, by Huntingdon acting as Hastings’s guardian during his minority (at this time Hastings was about three months shy of his majority). Hastings averred that Huntingdon had wrongly used these estates entrusted to him to raise a mortgage to pay the £4,500 he needed to become captain of the gentlemen pensioners. Huntingdon submitted his answer to these charges on 8 Jan. 1697 and 19-20 Jan. was spent in collecting written evidence from various Hastings and Lewis kin. On 21 Jan., after hearing counsel for both sides, the House resolved to appoint seven peers to effect a compromise between father and son: Rochester, William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, were chosen by Huntingdon; Richard Lumley [560], earl of Scarbrough, John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, and Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, by Hastings; and Marlborough by the House. A week later, on 29 Jan. 1697, Halifax had to report that they had been ineffective in this, but that Huntingdon nevertheless agreed to waive his privilege in case his son wished to go to law.<sup>145</sup> Huntingdon left the House for the session shortly thereafter, on 1 Feb., and on 12 Mar. he registered his proxy with his old companion among the former exclusionists, Chandos. Problems between him and Hastings continued for the next few years. Hastings was promoted lieutenant colonel of the foot guards in April 1697 and joined his new father figure Portland on his embassy to France after the Treaty of Ryswick in the autumn of 1697, complete with an allowance of £800 p.a.<sup>146</sup> Fresh attempts to forge a reconciliation between father and son in early 1699, with the Derbyshire Member Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup> acting as go-between, foundered on Huntingdon’s stubborn insistence that Hastings should not reside in the capital and should save his money (and his ‘Country’ attitude) by settling in the country. Instead the dilettante Hastings, with the backing of William III, continued his continental travels for several years until his father’s death in May 1701 recalled him to England. <sup>147</sup></p><p>The other matter which preoccupied Huntingdon at this time was the case of Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, who was his good friend. Watson, like Huntingdon, had distinguished himself as a willing and active follower of James II, and the earl may even have played a role in the elevation of the cleric to the see of St Davids in June 1687. The bond between the earl and the bishop was probably only strengthened when both were left out of the Act of Grace of 1690 and they supported each other in their objections to their exclusion.<sup>148</sup> Throughout the 1690s Watson and the Jacobite writer and antiquary Nathaniel Johnston, a client of both the earl and the bishop, were Huntingdon’s principal correspondents with news from the capital, including Watson’s sympathetic account of the death of William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, and non-juror.<sup>149</sup> Watson had long been in conflict with the chancellor of his diocese, Robert Lucy, who accused him of simony and extortion, among other things. Watson’s Jacobite sympathies also made him suspect to William III. Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, brought a number of cases against him, based on Lucy’s claims. For the next several years the hearings against Watson ground away; he and Johnston kept Huntingdon well abreast of the bishop’s continuing travails throughout 1696-9. <sup>150</sup> In October 1697 Huntingdon tried to help by writing a letter to his former deputy recorder of Leicester, Nathan Wright, now a serjeant-at-law, recommending the bishop’s cause, but Huntingdon’s advice to Watson in early 1698 to reconcile with the archbishop fell on deaf ears, and Watson was formally deprived of his bishopric by Tenison on 3 Aug. 1699. <sup>151</sup></p><p>With these problems with family and friends, Huntingdon barely attended the last few sessions before his death in June 1701. He did not appear at all in the 1697-8 session and registered his proxy on 15 Dec. 1697, in the early days of the session, with Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, and after Ferrers himself had left the House, entrusted his vote on 20 Apr. 1698 to Scarsdale. However he made clear to Watson his views on the divorce proceedings that Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, brought against his wife in early 1698, deeming them ‘against the ecclesiastical laws and canons of the Western church’, and concluding ‘If I were in the House I should be against the bill [of divorce]’.<sup>152</sup> On 17 Jan. 1699, near the beginning of the first session of the new Parliament elected in the summer of 1698, the House issued letters to Huntingdon and other absent lords demanding their presence. His letter explaining his ‘inability to attend’, presumably through illness, was read to the House on 4 Feb., when his excuses were accepted. Nevertheless, within two weeks he did sit in the House again, on 16 Feb. 1699, when he took the necessary oaths, but he soon absented himself again from 24 Feb. and another peremptory letter was sent to him on 13 Mar. demanding his attendance for the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, by 28 March. He actually appeared before that deadline, on 22 Mar., in order to submit his petition to be heard regarding some provisos to the bill to make the River Trent navigable which would protect his personal interests in the Midlands. Rochester reported the bill with Huntingdon’s two amendments on 14 Apr., which were accepted by the House. Having achieved his goal, Huntingdon on that day left the House for the session, after having sat in only 17 of its meetings.<sup>153</sup> He came to only seven sittings in the last days of the 1698 Parliament in April 1700 and on 9-10 Apr. served as a manager for a series of conferences on the House’s contentious amendments to the land tax and Irish forfeitures bill, disagreement over which ultimately saw the prorogation and eventual dissolution of Parliament. </p><p>He first sat on 25 Apr. 1701 in the new Parliament which had convened over two months previously. He may have come to take part in the impeachment proceedings against John Somers*, Baron Somers, and his fellow former Junto ministers. On 5 May Huntingdon was appointed to the committee to draft a message to the Commons urging them to submit the precise articles of impeachment against their targets, and four days later he was placed on another large committee assigned to consider the Commons’ improper way of delivering these impeachments. It is likely that Huntingdon would have supported the prosecution of the former Junto ministers, but he died before he was able to cast his vote on this matter. One of his last acts in Parliament was his subscription to the protest of 22 May against the passage of the Act of Settlement, which effectively put an end to Huntingdon’s long-held hopes for the restoration of James II. He died shortly after, on 30 May 1701, still only 50 years old. He was succeeded in his title by his estranged son George, Lord Hastings, who pursued his dispute with his father beyond the grave by actively supporting the Whigs and the Williamite court in the House. He also appealed, on 14 Dec. 1702, against a Chancery decree of 12 May 1702 which had granted to his stepmother, Frances Leveson Fowler, dowager countess of Huntingdon, then tending to his six young half siblings, the right to his maternal grandfather’s estates in Yorkshire. On 12 Jan. 1703 the House complied with the petition and the Lewis estates centered on Ledstone in Yorkshire fell under the 8th earl’s disposition, despite the scant provision for him made in his father’s will.<sup>154</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HASTINGS, Theophilus (1696-1746) |
<p><strong><surname>HASTINGS</surname></strong>, <strong>Theophilus</strong> (1696–1746)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>half-bro. 22 Feb. 1705 (a minor) as 9th earl of HUNTINGDON |
|
First sat 20 Mar. 1723; last sat 31 Jan. 1744 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 12 Nov. 1696, 2nd surv. s. of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, being 1st s. with his 2nd w. Frances (<em>d</em>.1723), da. of Francis Leveson Fowler of Harnage Grange, Salop; half-bro. of George Hastings*, 8th earl of Huntingdon. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 10 Oct. 1712. <em>m</em>. 3 June 1728, Selina (1707-91), da. and coh. of Washington Shirley*, 2nd Earl Ferrers, 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 13 Oct. 1746; <em>admon</em>. 4 Nov. 1746 to wid.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. Foundling Hospital 1739-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: mezzotint by John Faber, aft. Sir G. Kneller, 1733, NPG D30852.</p> |
<p>Theophilus Hastings was the younger half-brother of George Hastings, who had become 8th earl of Huntingdon at their father’s death in May 1701. The 8th earl had bestowed his Yorkshire estates centred on Ledstone on his sister, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, and it was at Ledstone Hall that Lady Elizabeth supervised the upbringing and education of her half-brother Theophilus and his five surviving siblings. He inherited the Huntingdon title, and its principal estates in Leicestershire and Derbyshire, upon the death on 22 Feb. 1705 of his unmarried and childless half-brother.</p><p>A minor of eight years old when he inherited the title, the 9th earl of Huntingdon did not reach his majority until late 1717 and did not take his seat in the House until 20 Mar. 1723. From that time to his last sitting on 31 Jan. 1744 he came to only 168 meetings of the House. He did not play an active role in public life and held no local or national offices. Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, was one of many contemporaries who regretted Huntingdon’s refusal to participate in public life, as he made clear in the epitaph he composed for his friend’s memorial in the church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch:</p><blockquote><p>Capable of excelling in every form of public life, He chose to appear in none. His mind fraught with knowledge, His heart elevated with sentiments of unaffected patriotism, He looked down from higher ground on the low level of a futile and corrupt generation. Despairing to do national good, He mingled as little as his rank permitted in national affairs.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HATTON, Christopher (1605-70) |
<p><strong><surname>HATTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Christopher</strong> (1605–70)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>29 July 1643 Bar. HATTON |
|
First sat after 1660, 5 June 1660; last sat 11 Apr. 1670 |
|
MP Peterborough 1625; Clitheroe 1626; Higham Ferrers 1640–2 |
<p><em>b</em>. 28 June 1605, 1st surv. s. of Sir Christopher Hatton<sup>‡</sup> and Alice, da. of Sir Thomas Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup> of Ware Park, Herts. <em>educ</em>. Jesus, Camb. 1620, MA 1622; G. Inn 1620; Oxf. DCL 1642. <em>m</em>. 8 May 1630 (with £2,400), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1672), 1st da. and coh. of Sir Charles Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, of Cranbrook, Barking, Essex, 2s. 3da. KB 1 Feb. 1626. <em>d</em>. 5 July 1670;<sup>1</sup> admon. 21 July 1670.</p> |
<p>PC 1643–6, 1662–<em>d</em>.; comptroller of the household 1643–6.</p><p>Commr. of array, Northants. and Rutland 1642; steward, Higham Ferrers 1637–49; gov. Guernsey 1662–<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1661.</p> |
|
<p>The Hatton family, originally from Cheshire, achieved prominence during the reign of Elizabeth I with the rise to fame of her lord chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton<sup>‡</sup>. Sir Christopher invested his considerable wealth in land in Cheshire, Dorset, Northamptonshire and several other counties, and at his death his estates were estimated to be worth £5,000 p.a. (though they were also encumbered with debts totalling some £40,000).<sup>3</sup> It was from a cadet branch of the lord chancellor’s family that the Lords Hatton descended. To them came many of the Northamptonshire lands, though only after protracted legal disputes following Lord Chancellor Hatton’s death. To these were added further estates in Essex, probably through the marriage of Sir Christopher Hatton (father of the subject of this piece) to Alice Fanshawe.</p><p>The Christopher Hatton who is the subject of this article formed part of an influential triumvirate in Northamptonshire, along with Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, and Thomas Brudenell*, later earl of Cardigan. The three men were noted for their patronage of the antiquarian William Dugdale and their interest in the arts, though Hatton’s friendship with the Catholic Brudenell did not prevent occasional disputes with him over land.<sup>4</sup> Hatton sat for three parliamentary seats before being disabled in 1642. He appears to have been an inactive Member but succeeded in acquiring a clutch of minor offices and in 1643 was appointed comptroller of the royal household.<sup>5</sup> An advantageous marriage to Elizabeth Montagu allied him to influential figures on both sides during the Civil War, including Edward Montagu<sup>†</sup>, Baron Montagu of Boughton, and Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. These connections offered a certain amount of protection for his estates during the conflict, in which he wholeheartedly supported the king. Despite this, by 1642 Hatton’s extravagant lifestyle meant that his debts had mounted to some £18,600.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Hatton proved to be a prominent member of the royalist court at Oxford, where he surrounded himself with high churchmen such as Peter Gunning*, later bishop of Ely, who became tutor to Hatton’s heir, and Jeremy Taylor. In 1643 he was elevated to the peerage but after the fall of Oxford three years later he begged leave to compound. On 30 Mar. 1647 his fine was set at £4,156, which was later reduced to £3,226.<sup>7</sup> Faced with heavy financial strictures, by 1648 Hatton had settled in France, where suspicion of his true loyalties caused the council of state to order their agents to keep him under surveillance.<sup>8</sup> He remained abroad for the next few years, though Lady Hatton lived in England for much of the interregnum. The family’s financial difficulties forced Lady Hatton to take drastic measures and by 1647 she had been obliged to order the felling of timber worth £2,000 in an effort to reduce the family’s debts.<sup>9</sup> Hatton associated himself initially with the exiled queen, Henrietta Maria, but disgruntled with the ‘pernitious’ influence of Henry Jermyn*, Baron Jermyn (later earl of St Albans), he seems to have tried to associate himself with the party dominated by Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond (later also created earl of Brecknock in the English peerage) and Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>. However, he secured permission to return to England in 1656 and the following year he was granted permission to reside in London ‘for the recovery of his health’. He continued to indulge in scheming in the hopes of bringing about the king’s return. One of his more implausible plans involved the marriage of Charles II to the daughter of Colonel John Lambert<sup>†</sup>.<sup>10</sup> His son and heir, Christopher Hatton*, later Viscount Hatton, was by far the more active, though, and he seems to have been responsible for securing the desertion to the royal cause of his cousin Edward Montagu*, later earl of Sandwich.<sup>11</sup></p><p>At the Restoration Hatton found himself disappointed once again in his quest to secure high office. He petitioned unsuccessfully to be appointed treasurer of the household.<sup>12</sup> His efforts to be advanced in the peerage as a viscount were also ignored, in spite of the existence of a warrant of 1649 authorizing the creation.<sup>13</sup> In January 1661 he wrote to Hyde to complain of being ‘the single person of his father’s council unrestored’ by the new king. Even so, a further year elapsed before he was finally admitted to the Privy Council.<sup>14</sup> In May 1661 he was informed that he had failed once again to get his way when the office of lord privy seal, which he was eager to secure and for which he was said to have had the support of James*, duke of York, went to John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor). Hatton’s eventual appointment as governor of Guernsey must have appeared a poor sop.<sup>15</sup> Guernsey was an island seriously divided between differing factions and Hatton was not a good choice for the position.<sup>16</sup> Such perceived slights precipitated another rupture with his former associate Hyde and help to explain Hatton’s increasingly ill-tempered behaviour during the final decade of his life.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Hatton took his seat in the House on 5 June 1660, after which he was present on 37 days (31 per cent of the whole). On 20 Aug. he was added to the committee considering the patent for creating Edward Somerset*, marquess of Worcester, duke of Beaufort. Hatton may well have been interested in the business given his own efforts to have his advancement to a viscountcy confirmed. Ten days later he was named to the committee considering the bill for draining the great level of the fens and he was then named to three further committees during the remainder of the session. He returned to the House at the opening of the second session on 6 Nov., following which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days. On the first day of the session he was one of the peers appointed to introduce Hyde as a baron. Although he was nominated to seven committees, there is no evidence that he played an important role in them and there appears to be no particular pattern to those to which he was named. On 8 Dec. and again on the 13th he registered his dissent at the resolutions to engross and then to pass the bill for vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines.</p><p>Hatton took his seat at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661. He was thereafter present on just under 60 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 14 committees. On 11 May, with Thomas Windsor, 7th Baron Windsor*, later earl of Plymouth, he introduced Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), into the House, though neither peer is known to have been particularly close to Ashley.<sup>18</sup> Hatton was reported as being opposed to Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his efforts to secure appointment to the office of lord great chamberlain on 11 July, and on the 17th, along with nine other peers, he protested again at the resolution to pass the bill vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines. On 19 July he was named to the committee deliberating on the bill for preserving deer. The measure may have been of interest to him as the proprietor of Pipewell woods within Rockingham forest.<sup>19</sup> It may also have been significant that Hatton, a peer with prominent high church sympathies, was one of those named to the committee considering the Quaker bill on 26 November.</p><p>Hatton took his seat in the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on just 24 days (28 per cent of the whole). He was named to three committees. Excused at a call of the House five days into the session, he resumed his place a fortnight later and that summer was assessed among those thought likely to support George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, in his efforts to have Clarendon (as Hyde had since become) impeached.</p><p>The spring of 1663 saw Hatton eager to intervene in the by-election for Northampton on behalf of his son Christopher, who was standing at the invitation of Sir James Langham<sup>‡</sup>. The alliance was an unlikely one as Langham represented the interests of the Dissenters and Christopher Hatton’s opponent was the sitting Member, his cousin Sir William Dudley<sup>‡</sup>. Bad blood caused by a dispute over the wardship of Dudley’s nieces had rumbled on between the Hattons, Montagus and Dudley since 1652, which may in part explain Hatton’s willingness to stand against his cousin.<sup>20</sup> The election brought into question the very nature of Northampton’s franchise. Concerned that the mayor, Brayfield, was prepared to use sharp practice on Dudley’s behalf, Hatton wrote to him extolling his son’s virtues and reminding Brayfield of his own former services to the town, with promises of more to come should they support him.<sup>21</sup> In the event Hatton’s influence was not sufficient to sway the corporation, which was eager to challenge the limitations placed upon it in 1660. Dudley was elected, though Christopher Hatton later unseated him on petition.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Hatton failed to attend the House for over six years from 27 July 1663 until October 1669. His appointment to the governorship of Guernsey in 1662 explains this in part, though he did not take up his post immediately.<sup>23</sup> Plans to depart in May 1663 were postponed and it was not until February of the following year that Hatton finally left England for his new command. Both the delay and his subsequent secretive departure appear to have been owing to his need to avoid his creditors. No doubt hoping that his new office would bring better fortune, Hatton quietly slipped out of England, leaving it to his ‘retainers to engage themselves’ on his behalf.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Arrival in Guernsey offered no respite to his problems and Hatton immediately set about making the worst possible impression. Over-zealous in his efforts to fulfil the king’s instructions to remove unqualified jurats, he proceeded to exploit his position to make what he could from it.<sup>25</sup> Early enthusiasm for his appointment among some local notables quickly soured. Even before his arrival Hatton had taken a firm dislike to the lieutenant governor, Nathaniel Darell, and he appears to have cared little about alienating many of the remaining prominent citizens as well.<sup>26</sup> He harangued the crowd and humiliated the jurats who had gathered to greet him, on one occasion describing them as ‘rebels’ and of forming ‘cabals to deliver the island to foreign princes’.<sup>27</sup> In one report he informed Clarendon that Dean Saumarez’s wife was a person of ‘so violent and imperious temper, heart and spirit that what was by him enacted at London was by her repealed in Guernsey’. In another despatch he complained that Guernsey was ‘the magazine of all contraband trade from England’ and that the people were ‘as extravagant in their ways as any savage nation’.<sup>28</sup> Far from doing anything substantive to counter such problems, Hatton appears to have done all in his power to milk the island.<sup>29</sup> He appropriated funds intended for the garrison and sold stock to the highest bidder.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Hatton’s new office once more brought him into contact with Lambert who was imprisoned on Guernsey. The renewed acquaintance led to further problems. Hatton apparently enjoyed a good relationship with his prisoner. It was reported by some that they were on such good terms that Hatton would have refused an order to execute the disgraced general, but the news that his younger son, Charles Hatton, had eloped with Mary Lambert caused him to descend into paroxysms of rage. Charles was cut off without a penny.<sup>31</sup> Hatton’s impatience with Darell eventually resulted in him imprisoning the unfortunate lieutenant governor and Darell was compelled to appeal to Hatton’s heir, Christopher, who also received petitions from other frantic inhabitants concerned at ‘the poverty of this island, and the great want of the soldiers’ pay’.<sup>32</sup> By the time of Hatton’s recall, arrears of pay were reported to have risen to over £3,099.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Meanwhile Hatton’s own financial predicament had continued to worsen. In 1664 he conveyed the majority of his estate into the hands of trustees in an attempt to salvage his position but in 1665 at least four creditors petitioned the king and council for satisfaction of their debts.<sup>34</sup> It was no doubt Hatton’s financial embarrassments that encouraged him to misappropriate the funds for his governorship. Hatton’s agents, George Jeffreys and Richard Langhorne, wrote continually to Hatton and his heir, Christopher, pleading for permission to settle affairs, the one fearful of being gaoled as a debtor on Hatton’s behalf, while the other vented his frustration at Hatton’s refusal to give him directions.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Increasingly fractured relations on Guernsey, combined with a petition against Hatton by Darell in May 1664, led to the decision to appoint Sir Jonathan Atkins deputy governor in November.<sup>36</sup> This was thought by some not to ‘look handsomely’ for Hatton.<sup>37</sup> The assessment was confirmed when Hatton was ordered to return to England a month later to explain the state of the island to the king.<sup>38</sup> Intransigent to the last, Hatton refused to quit his government.<sup>39</sup> He attributed the damning reports to his enemies seeking to supplant him with falsehoods and insisted that, although the two main factions on the island had united against him, he was ‘popular with the people’.<sup>40</sup> Hatton was eventually prevailed upon to return to England the following spring and the government was left in the control of his deputy.<sup>41</sup> He never returned to the island.</p><p>Back in England Hatton continued to deny the allegations against him. In July 1665 he complained to Clarendon of his hardships and demanded to be granted some form of recompense for his losses.<sup>42</sup> Despite confident predictions by Windsor that Hatton would clear himself of wrongdoing, he failed to make any headway in securing redress.<sup>43</sup> Although he was willing to believe that Hatton had not been guilty of malpractice, Clarendon had been vocally critical of Hatton’s management of the island and he accused him of encouraging nonconformists.<sup>44</sup> Hatton’s efforts to patch things up with his former associate, including an offer of providing free paving stones and flowers for the gardens of the lord chancellor’s new residence, failed to make an impression.<sup>45</sup> In January 1666 it was said that Hatton had ‘totally lost’ the government of Guernsey and Clarendon’s fall the following year ensured Hatton a lengthy period in the wilderness.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Despite his early return to England, Hatton continued to avoid Parliament. For much of the rest of his life he lived in lodgings in London, making his extended absence difficult to explain. On 25 Sept. 1666 he entrusted his proxy to John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, which was vacated by the close of the session the following year. He then covered his absence in the subsequent session by registering his proxy on 27 Nov. 1667 with John Granville*, earl of Bath.</p><p>During this time Hatton was far from inactive and despite continual setbacks, to his deputy Atkins’s amazement, in April 1667 Hatton confidently predicted his imminent return to Guernsey.<sup>47</sup> His optimism proved misplaced and two years later he was still attempting to stage a comeback.<sup>48</sup> He remained certain of success but in the event all that he was able to achieve was to ensure that the reversion of the office was settled on his far more capable son Christopher after his death.<sup>49</sup> Relations within the family also remained far from even. Christopher Hatton’s marriage to Lady Cicely Tufton in February 1667 appears to have provoked a quarrel between father and son over the marriage settlement and the portions intended by Hatton for his remaining children.<sup>50</sup> With Hatton still £8,700 in debt, payment of Lady Cicely’s £5,000 portion was dependent on the remainder of the arrears being settled.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Hatton returned to the House for the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on 72 per cent of all sitting days, though he was named to just three committees. He took his seat in the following session on 14 Feb. 1670 and was present on almost 88 per cent of all sitting days prior to the April adjournment. His increased activity in the chamber may have been part of his renewed attempts to clear his name from the Guernsey debacle and to secure permission to return to the island and resume his government there. Even so, at a call of the House on 21 Feb. 1670 he was absent without explanation and without having left his proxy. He resumed his seat the following day and was named to six further committees during the session. It was perhaps ironic that the first of these was the committee considering the bill for taking away benefit of clergy from robbers of cloth and the king’s stores. Hatton’s foolish decision to sell several pieces of ordnance to the French, among others, had been one of the reasons for his recall from Guernsey.<sup>52</sup> The same day (17 Mar.) Hatton entered his protest over the decision to pass the bill enabling John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to divorce. He sat for the last time just under a month later, on 11 Apr. 1670.</p><p>From 1665 until his death, Hatton appears to have been partially estranged from his family. Based in lodgings in Scotland Yard, he entertained himself with an extravagant lifestyle while his wife and son were left to cope with the estate.<sup>53</sup> Lady Hatton complained of her husband’s unkind treatment of her. On those rare occasions when Hatton so much as spoke to her the event was news worthy of reporting.<sup>54</sup> Hatton’s relations with his heir were little better.<sup>55</sup> By the end of his life, however, he appears to have salvaged a settlement and he returned to Kirby, where Dugdale noted that he died on 5 July 1670. He was buried the following month in Westminster Abbey and succeeded in the peerage by his long-suffering son, Christopher, as 2nd Baron Hatton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HATTON, Christopher (1632-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>HATTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Christopher</strong> (1632–1706)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 4 July 1670 as 2nd Bar. HATTON; <em>cr. </em>17 Jan. 1683 Visct. HATTON |
|
First sat 24 Nov. 1670; last sat 4 Dec. 1691 |
|
MP Northampton 1663-70 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 6 Nov. 1632, 1st s. of Christopher Hatton*, Bar. Hatton, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1672), da. of Sir Charles Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (Peter Gunning*, later successively bishop of Chichester and Ely); travelled abroad (France) 1654-6; DCL Oxf. 1683. <em>m</em>. (1) 12 Feb. 1667 (with £5,000),<sup>1</sup> Cicely [Cecilia] (<em>d</em>. 30 Dec. 1672), da. of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet, 3da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.);<sup>2</sup> (2) 21 Dec. 1675 (with £6,000),<sup>3</sup> Frances (<em>d</em>. 15 May 1684), da. of Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 1da. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p.</em>;<sup>4</sup> (3) Aug. 1685, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1706), da and coh. of Sir William Haslewood (Hazelwood), wid. of Francis Polsted, 3s. 3da. <em>d</em>. by 24 Sept. 1706; <em>will</em> 7 May 1695, pr. 19 Feb. 1707.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of privy chamber 1662-?70.</p><p>Steward, Higham Hundred, Northants. 1660-97, 1702-<em>d.</em>; commr. oyer and terminer, Midland circuit 1662, assessment, Mdx. and Northants. 1663-9; dep. lt. 1670-?78, <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. 1681-Feb. 1689, Sept. 1689-<em>d.</em>; freeman, Portsmouth 1680; dep. gov. Guernsey 1664-70,<sup>6</sup> gov. 1670-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. of ft. (Guernsey) 1664; capt. Lord Chamberlain’s Ft. 1667; capt. of grenadiers, earl of Huntingdon’s Ft. 1687-Dec. 1688.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: Sir P. Lely, oils, private collection.</p> |
<p>Far more capable than his curmudgeonly father, Hatton’s promising early career was marred first by the changing political landscape after the accession of James II and then of William and Mary and second by his dire health. He inherited an estate in disarray, but during his tenure of the peerage he succeeded in restoring his family’s fortunes.</p><p>Hatton joined his father in exile in France in 1654 but he had returned within two years, after which he was implicated in royalist plotting. In this he was able to call upon an extensive family network. Through his mother, Hatton was cousin to Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and to Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton. Other relatives included members of the influential Coventry family and Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth). Following the fall of Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, Hatton was credited with helping to recruit another cousin, Edward Montagu*, later earl of Sandwich, to the royalist cause. Although encouraged by the king to stand for election to the Convention and in spite of his assurances to Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, that he would ‘get chosen if possible,’ Hatton appears to have been reluctant to comply and he reported later that he had missed being returned. He maintained a steady correspondence with Hyde in spite of this disappointment and continued to recommend people worth cultivating. Among these was the wife of General George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, who he considered ‘would take it well to have encouragement from the king.’<sup>7</sup></p><p>Hatton’s father was appointed governor of Guernsey in 1662 but he delayed his departure and was on hand in 1663 to exert his influence in the by-election for Northampton, at which Hatton was at last prevailed upon to stand by the previous sitting member, Sir James Langham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup> Hatton’s agreement to stand on Langham’s interest is curious given his own high church credentials, as Langham was a champion of the dissenting interest. Other support was more predictable. He secured nominations from James*, duke of York, and his cousin, Montagu of Boughton.<sup>9</sup> For his part Montagu protested that his interest in the town was ‘but little’, and he recommended that Hatton look instead to his cousin Manchester, who as recorder wielded real authority within Northampton. Despite such high profile support, Hatton was defeated by another kinsman, Sir William Dudley<sup>‡</sup>, though he was eventually returned on petition. Hatton’s contested return offered him the opportunity of becoming acquainted with Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, brother-in-law to another cousin, Henry Montagu, whom Montagu of Boughton hoped might be prevailed upon to be present at the committee for petitions when Hatton’s case was heard.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Hatton accompanied his father to Guernsey in 1664. When the Baron was recalled to answer charges of maladministration the following year, Hatton was left behind to manage affairs in his father’s absence. He had returned to England by February 1667 when he married Cicely Tufton, despite difficulties created by Lord Hatton in the settlement of his estate.<sup>11</sup> The marriage further strengthened Hatton’s already extensive family connections within the peerage, allying him with the Sackville family, earls of Dorset.</p><h2><em>Governor of Guernsey 1670-84</em></h2><p>Hatton succeeded to the peerage in July 1670. He came into an estate valued at £1,370 p.a., and was also awarded a pension of £1,000 p.a. in recompense for losses caused by his father’s extravagance. It was not until 1677 that he was eventually able to settle all of the issues arising from his father’s dubious accounting practices.<sup>12</sup> He quickly moved to establish his claim to the reversion of the governorship of Guernsey, despite a rumoured offer of £14,000 to relinquish the office, and in September 1670 he arrived on the island to take command.<sup>13</sup> The lieutenant governor, Colonel Jonathan Atkins, viewed Hatton’s precipitate arrival with some distaste and pointedly refused the new governor any of the traditional trappings of welcome.<sup>14</sup> Atkins’ own regime had become increasingly unpopular and Hatton secured a swift revenge, ordering his immediate removal from the island. He justified the decision by accusing Atkins of several counts of malpractice, appropriately many of them reminiscent of the charges formerly levelled at his father.<sup>15</sup> Hatton remained on Guernsey until November and then left in time to take his seat in the House on 24 November.</p><p>Hatton’s duties on Guernsey meant that he was often absent from the mainland when Parliament was in session but he was present on 70 per cent of all sitting days in his first session as a peer. On 6 Dec. he was named to the committee considering an act for settling an agreement between Sir William Smith, Sir Thomas Hooke and others and on 12 Dec. to that considering the bill for discovering those that had defrauded the poor of the City of London. He was named to no further committees until January 1671 when he was named to those considering the assault on the lord steward, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], and that scrutinizing a bill to settle the affairs of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury. Hatton was acquainted with at least one of Shrewsbury’s trustees, Mervin Tuchet*, later 14th Baron Audley (earl of Castlehaven [I]), which may explain his inclusion. Hatton was named to a further eight committees in February and March, among them that concerning the bill to prevent the growth of popery, to which all present in the chamber were nominated.</p><p>From the summer of 1671 until early 1674 Hatton was in permanent residence on Guernsey and, consequently, absent from the House. Once there he immediately began an extensive programme of fortification concentrated on the bastion of Castle Cornet in St Peter Port.<sup>16</sup> In spite of his more diplomatic demeanour, like his father Hatton soon fell foul of the factional nature of island politics finding himself trapped between the influential Andros family and their rivals the de Beauvoirs and Careys. A disputed election over a new jurat necessitated the king’s intervention, while arguments concerning the quartering of troops encouraged renewed infighting.<sup>17</sup> Such disputes were temporarily silenced in December 1672 following the destruction of a large part of Castle Cornet in a massive explosion. Hatton himself escaped miraculously, being catapulted out of his chamber and onto the battlements, but both his wife and mother were killed.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In the aftermath of the disaster Hatton was allowed little respite. With its principal garrison in ruins, the island was in even greater straits over the unwelcome quartering of troops. Hatton expended over £1,243 on repairing Castle Cornet and difficulties with the Andros family continued to escalate.<sup>19</sup> Pressure of affairs in Guernsey made it impossible for Hatton to return to England for the new parliamentary session and in February 1673 he registered his proxy with Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington. Intriguingly, the proxy book records the proxy as having been entered on 1 Feb. while a copy of Hatton’s order entrusting the proxy to Arlington is dated five days later.<sup>20</sup> The following year found Hatton further disadvantaged on Guernsey with the appointment of William Sheldon as lieutenant governor. His authority was eroded still more when a dispute over the election of bailiffs on the island was decided against him.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Hatton returned to England in 1675 in time to take his seat at the opening of the new session on 13 April. It is perhaps indicative of his relative inactivity in the House, and also perhaps of a late resolution to attend, that shortly before the session opened he attempted, unsuccessfully, to borrow his cousin Montagu of Boughton’s robes for the occasion.<sup>22</sup> Although present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days Hatton was named only to four committees. He then took his seat in the subsequent session on 13 Oct. but was present on just over half of all sitting days before quitting the session ten days before the close. His early departure may have been to prepare for his forthcoming wedding to Frances, the daughter of Sir Henry Yelverton, on 21 December. Marriage to the new Lady Hatton brought Hatton less money than his agents had advised that he needed, and she proved to be a difficult woman, frequently at loggerheads with Hatton’s brother, Charles.<sup>23</sup> The connection did, though, strengthen his ties with the Finch family and especially with Daniel Finch*, the future 2nd earl of Nottingham. The trustees named in the marriage settlement offer further evidence of Hatton’s close associates. Predictably, his Montagu cousins Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, and Montagu of Boughton were among them, as were Windsor, Francis Brudenell, styled Lord Brudenell and Tuchet.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Hatton managed to cast off an attack of giddiness that seems to have left him very unwell at the close of 1676 and took his seat once more at the opening of the sixteenth session on 15 Feb. 1677.<sup>25</sup> Although he was present on just 58 per cent of all sitting days, he appears to have taken a far greater interest in the committee work of the House at this time. Named to the committees for privileges and petitions, on 19 Feb. he was also nominated to the committee examining the bill for preventing frauds and perjuries. The following day he was named to the committee considering a bill for Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, and that concerning the bill for augmentations to small vicarages. On 22 Feb. he was named to the committee examining a bill for his cousin, Manchester, and on the same day he was also named to the committee concerning the bill to explain the act concerning Popish recusants. Hatton was named to a further 24 committees during the remainder of the session. He seems to have taken an active role in managing the committee for the bill for settling a maintenance on the vicar of All Hallows, Northampton, chairing the uncontroversial meeting at which it was ordered that the bill should be reported without amendments.<sup>26</sup> The House then resolved to pass the bill on 7 April.</p><p>Hatton was absent from the chamber for over a month between 10 Apr. and 21 May but he was kept apprised of events in Parliament by his brother Charles.<sup>27</sup> Hatton’s closer concern with affairs in Parliament may have been in part owing to his involvement in a dispute with his former tutor, Peter Gunning (now bishop of Ely) over the payment of a rent charge of £100 out of Hatton Garden. Ely proved to be an unpredictable opponent. A meeting between him and Charles Hatton found Bishop Gunning at first ‘short and quick in his discourses’ but on discovering that Hatton wished to avoid a lengthy legal process if possible, ‘sweet and tractable.’ Even so, the dispute ground on beyond the bishop’s lifetime and was not resolved until 1691.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Although Hatton was sufficiently identified with the court party to be marked doubly vile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in 1677, the following year he exercised his interest on behalf of the country candidate, Miles Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>, at the by-election for Northamptonshire. Personal affection for Fleetwood and willingness to concur with the desires of his kinsman, Charles Yelverton*, 14th Baron Grey of Ruthin, appear to explain Hatton’s decision on this occasion. He returned to Guernsey soon after and entrusted his proxy to Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, on 26 Feb. 1678. The proxy expired with the close of the session on 13 May. Hatton remained absent from the House for the final two sessions of the Cavalier Parliament despite efforts made on his behalf by Grey of Ruthin to achieve his recall.<sup>29</sup> Attempts by one of Hatton’s servants to foment bad blood between his master and Hatton’s Northamptonshire neighbour, Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, only served to emphasize Hatton’s reputation as a fair man. Hatton generously offered that Cardigan should resolve the issue, though Cardigan, ‘knowing how we are all inclinable to partiality in our own causes’ declined and instead referred the matter to the arbitration of Montagu of Boughton.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Revelations of the Popish Plot during that year touched Hatton and his family nearly as one of their closest confidantes, Richard Langhorne, was arrested and charged with treason. As well as serving the Hattons, Langhorne was also lawyer to the Jesuits in England.<sup>31</sup> His faith had previously brought him under suspicion at the time of the Great Fire, though on that occasion he had been exonerated.<sup>32</sup> Thomas Langhorne attempted to seek Hatton’s interposition on his brother’s behalf, but Charles Hatton warned that, ‘though your lordship and twenty more should intercede, there would be no good done thereby in the condition the city and nation are in.’ Although both Charles Hatton, and the family’s other lawyer, William Longueville, visited Langhorne in prison, Hatton himself failed to intervene, and he appears to have avoided London for the duration of Langhorne’s ordeal.<sup>33</sup> Another family friend, Chief Justice Sir William Scroggs, presided over the unfortunate Langhorne’s trial in the summer of 1679, when he was found guilty and sentenced to death.<sup>34</sup> Hatton acted as a trustee for Langhorne’s widow Elizabeth and their children, the latter of whom Langhorne was eager to free from what he believed to be the unsuitable influence of his Protestant wife. This did not imply that Hatton himself was anything other than a firm Anglican.<sup>35</sup></p><p>As in 1678, Hatton found himself divided between family loyalty and loyalty to his political associates during elections to the first Exclusion Parliament in February 1679. Rumours that he was to support his cousin Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, elicited a cautionary letter from Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup> warning Hatton that such actions would cause both the king and Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) ‘great offence’.<sup>36</sup> Hatton took his seat on 3 Apr. 1679, the day before he joined with Ailesbury and Lindsey in subscribing the protest against Danby’s attainder, and on 10 May he entered a further protest at the failure to pass the resolution for establishing a committee to confer with the Commons about the trials of the lords in the Tower. He was named to no committees during the Parliament.</p><p>Hatton’s family continued to be closely affected by the Plot’s revelations and in November 1679 his cousin, Lady Powis, was sent to the Tower. Hatton appears to have returned to his government of Guernsey in 1680 but in August he received a letter from Danby acknowledging his support in the previous Parliament and hoping that he would be able to return to England for the new session.<sup>37</sup> Hatton duly returned to the House shortly after the opening of the new Parliament on 29 October. Present on almost 64 per cent of all sitting days, although he continued to sit until the dissolution on 10 Jan. 1681, he was named to just one committee, that concerning the bill to outlaw the import of Irish cattle. Inactivity in committees did not mean that Hatton was idle during the session; John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, commented to Lady Hatton on 16 Nov. that Hatton and the rest of the Lords had been confined for more than 12 hours the previous day considering the Exclusion bill.<sup>38</sup> Perhaps influenced by the experience of Langhorne’s execution, the following month Hatton found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of involvement in the Plot. No bitterness appears to have been attached to Scroggs’ involvement in Langhorne’s conviction, though, as Hatton and Charles Sackville*, 6th Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, agreed to stand surety of £5,000 for the former lord chief justice in January 1681. Hatton’s brother, Charles, was rumoured to be courting Scroggs’ daughter, which may have been a more immediate reason for their willingness to assist him.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Hatton took his seat in the new Parliament at Oxford one day after the opening on 22 Mar. 1681. He sat for its remaining six days without making any significant contribution but clearly remained an opponent of Exclusion. A letter of January 1682 from James*, duke of York, at Edinburgh thanked Hatton for his assurances of ‘steadiness’ on his behalf, and he declared that, ‘If others had followed your example, things had not been in the condition they are, nor I here; but wheresoever I am, you may depend upon my being a true friend to you.’<sup>40</sup> The same month Hatton was reported to have been engaged in suppressing conventicles in Northamptonshire and levying fines on those involved.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Hatton’s staunch loyalty was rewarded with a step in the peerage early the following year. A warrant of 1649 advancing his father to a viscountcy had failed to pass the Great Seal; 33 years later, the promotion was at last confirmed, in spite of Hatton’s own apparent disinclination to pursue the honour.<sup>42</sup> Nottingham may have influenced this promotion as well as Hatton’s earlier appointment as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Northamptonshire. Rumours that Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, had died led to some speculation that Hatton would succeed him in the county lieutenancy as well, but this proved not to be the case.<sup>43</sup> In May Hatton was further honoured when he was one of those awarded with the degree of DCL at Oxford.</p><p>Hatton returned to Guernsey in 1683 but he quit the island for the final time in April 1684 leaving the government in the hands of his brother Charles.<sup>44</sup> The following month his wife died from smallpox.<sup>45</sup> Hatton was soon encouraged to marry again, although Bishop Fell, with whom he was on close terms, expressed concern at Hatton remarrying before a suitable period of mourning was completed. Fell comforted himself that there was at least no suggestion that Hatton kept ‘a miss, or complied with the fashionable vices of the age.’<sup>46</sup></p><h2><em>James II and the Revolution, 1685-89</em></h2><p>The accession of James II appeared initially to favour Hatton and his family. Following the death of his late wife Hatton had remained closely involved with the education of her brothers, Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin, and Christopher Yelverton. In the spring of 1685 Hatton interested himself closely in securing Grey of Ruthin’s claim to the barony of Grey against the pretensions of Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent.<sup>47</sup> Grey’s right to the peerage was confirmed and, following further intervention from Hatton, he was permitted to carry the spurs at the king’s coronation.<sup>48</sup> He was also granted a writ of summons even though he was less than 21 years of age.<sup>49</sup> In July Hatton was approached by his distant cousin Brian Cokayne, Viscount Cullen [I], to use his interest with the king to prevent Cullen’s son from suffering the disgrace of having his troop disbanded. Hatton was less successful in his efforts to secure the return of the court candidates, Sir John Egerton and Sir Roger Norwich<sup>‡</sup>, for the county seats at the 1685 general election.<sup>50</sup> Many of Hatton’s tenants opted to support the opposition candidates and Egerton withdrew before the poll. Following a typically fractious election, Norwich was returned with the mild Tory Edward Montagu of Horton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>51</sup> Hatton’s brother-in-law, Christopher Yelverton, was unsuccessful at Higham Ferrers, in spite of his expectations of Hatton’s support and confident predictions that he had secured very nearly half of the votes. In addition to these reverses, Hatton continued to find himself troubled by the dispute with Bishop Gunning over the settlement of Hatton Garden. Fell attempted to conciliate Hatton by assuring him that though Gunning was ‘faulty by his endless uncertainty’, he should not be ‘thought guilty of artifice where he had none.’<sup>52</sup></p><p>Hatton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May, when he was introduced in his new dignity, after which he continued to attend on 93 per cent of all sitting days. During the summer adjournment, Hatton married for the third time. The new Lady Hatton, daughter of another Northamptonshire neighbour, had at one point been considered as a possible match for Grey of Ruthin. Grey had also been rumoured to be likely to marry Hatton’s daughter, Anne, but in the event she was married to Nottingham (as Daniel Finch had since become) with a dowry of £10,000.<sup>53</sup> The match between Anne Hatton and Nottingham was achieved through the interposition of Fell and Hatton’s aunt, Lady Anne Grimston. Nottingham was thereafter to prove one of Hatton’s staunchest allies.<sup>54</sup> Their close association did not prevent them from becoming embroiled in a dispute the following year arising out of the new Lady Hatton’s marriage settlement.<sup>55</sup> On Bishop Fell’s death in 1686, Hatton was one of the beneficiaries of his will, being left two portraits ‘as a memorial of his poor friend.’<sup>56</sup> The following January Hatton was summoned to give evidence in the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, for treason.<sup>57</sup></p><p>For all the early indications that Hatton and his family could expect continued favour under the new regime, in the summer of 1685 his brother, Charles, was displaced as lieutenant governor of Guernsey by the Catholic, Charles Maccarty. This may have contributed to Hatton’s growing disillusionment with James’s policies, which was reflected in a series of forecasts drawn up over the next few years. A staunch adherent of the Church of England, in May 1687 Hatton was listed as being opposed to the king’s policies and while he was noted as being undeclared on the subject of repeal of the Test Act that November, it seems reasonable to assume that he would not have supported such a move. The same year he was involved in a dispute with the dean of St Paul’s over his plans to build a new church in Hatton Garden. Henry Compton*, of London, appears to have supported Hatton’s project, wishing that ‘there were more such good works begun.’<sup>58</sup></p><p>The events of December 1688 found Hatton in something of a quandary. His brother-in-law, Grey of Ruthin, joined Bishop Compton’s rising in the Midlands though he was careful to hide his intentions from Hatton.<sup>59</sup> Compton appears to have attempted to recruit Hatton as well, stopping at Kirby during his perambulations in the summer of 1688.<sup>60</sup> Hatton chose to pursue a less risky strategy and waited out events. If he was reluctant to join the rebels, he was also unwilling to rally to the king and was notable as the only officer in the regiment commanded by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, to refuse to contribute to the fortification of Plymouth, excusing his inaction on the grounds of ill health.<sup>61</sup> He then delayed travelling to London until the issue was all but decided and in spite of Nottingham’s communications urging him to abandon Kirby, which he believed was likely to lie in the path of a marauding northern army.<sup>62</sup> Hatton’s lead was closely followed by his Northamptonshire neighbour, Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland.<sup>63</sup> Hatton finally bowed to the inevitable and presented himself at one of the hastily assembled meetings in London on 21 December. He was then present in the House of Lords the following day and at the two subsequent sessions on 24 and 25 December.<sup>64</sup> By this time he appears reluctantly to have accepted the Revolution, though he preferred a solution to the crisis short of settling the throne on the prince and princess.</p><p>Hatton took his place in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on a fifth of all sitting days. On 31 Jan. he voted against the insertion of the words declaring William and Mary king and queen and on 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’. The same day he was named to the committee for drawing up reasons for the Lords’ refusal to concur with the Commons on that issue. He was then one of a clutch of peers to absent himself from the House for the subsequent division on 6 February. It was to their failure to attend that Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, blamed the Lords’ subsequent agreement to give way to the Commons on the question of abdication.<sup>65</sup> He resumed his place on 8 Feb. and was then present on 19 occasions before absenting himself again for the whole of April. He attended on just two days in May before taking his place on a further six occasions before the close. On 17 June he was one of a number of officials requested to attend a meeting in the Prince’s lodgings the following day to consult about an address relating to the Isle of Wight and islands of Jersey, Guernsey and other dependencies, which was then reported to the House by Bridgwater.<sup>66</sup> Pleading ill health as the reason for his poor attendance of the House in the latter stages of the Convention, Hatton entrusted Nottingham with his proxy on 20 July 1689, which expired at the close of the session on 20 August. Nottingham exercised the proxy on 30 July to vote in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates.</p><h2><em>Selling Guernsey, 1689-1702</em></h2><p>Despite his lukewarm reception of the new regime, Hatton appears not to have suffered for his cautious approach. He remained influential enough to ensure that his candidate for the vacant office of deputy governor of Guernsey, Bernard Ellis, secured the post, in spite of the efforts of both the king and Fell’s nephew, William Lloyd*, then bishop of St Asaph, to press the claims of Captain Sidney Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>, ‘a very honest man and very fit for employment’. Godolphin was eventually appointed lieutenant governor of the Scilly Isles instead. Hatton himself appears not to have returned to Guernsey, claiming to be too ill to travel to his governorship, though his brother Charles insisted that his presence was required to calm the revival of old feuds on the island.<sup>67</sup> Hatton failed to attend the second session of the Convention but he ensured that his proxy was again entrusted to Nottingham on 30 October. It was vacated at the close of the session on 27 January 1690.</p><p>Although Hatton appears to have suffered genuinely from poor health, this did not prevent him from being eager to continue to exercise his influence in Northamptonshire. although his interest in the 1690 election, however, was adversely affected the activities of a number of members of his circle, including Sir Justinian Isham’s<sup>‡</sup> decision to stand bail for the Jacobite Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin. <sup>68</sup> In June Hatton was more nearly affected when Charles Hatton was summoned before the Privy Council to explain his authorship of a pamphlet criticizing the Revolution settlement and was imprisoned in the Tower. Hatton appears to have made a concerted effort to distance himself from his brother at this juncture and to have been remarkably unwilling or unable to rally to Charles Hatton’s cause in spite of appeals from his sister-in-law and Lady Nottingham.<sup>69</sup> Charles Hatton remained imprisoned until February of the following year.</p><p>Having failed to attend the first session of the Parliament of 1690, Hatton returned to the chamber for the second session on 15 Nov., after which he was present on just under 32 per cent of all sitting days. The following year the family’s long-standing dispute with the bishops of Ely was finally resolved by a private act settling Hatton Garden in Middlesex on Hatton and his heirs subject to their paying a fee farm rent of £100 to the bishop and his successors.<sup>70</sup> Hatton took his seat in the third session on 28 Nov. 1691 but he sat on just six occasions before quitting the chamber for the last time on 4 Dec. 1691. That month he was listed in an assessment compiled by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, among those believed to be doubtful with regard to his efforts to recover lands lost during the Interregnum.<sup>71</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1692 it was reported that Hatton, feeling the effects of advancing age, intended to resign his office at Guernsey.<sup>72</sup> By now Hatton appears to have been suffering from chronic ill health, though some commentators clearly believed that his ailments were primarily diplomatic. With Hatton unwilling or unable to resume his duties on Guernsey, Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), was appointed commander in chief of the island during the governor’s continuing absence. Hatton’s indisposition did not prevent him continuing to attempt to improve his financial position. In June he claimed to have discovered valuable mines on his lands, though the supposedly precious stones turned out to be of questionable value.<sup>73</sup> In November of the same year Hatton stood as a trustee for his brother-in-law Christopher Yelverton at the request of Viscount Longueville (as Grey of Ruthin was now styled).<sup>74</sup></p><p>In 1693 Monmouth entered into negotiations with Hatton in the hopes of purchasing the governorship of Guernsey from him, but although Hatton professed himself willing to sell the post as his ‘age and infirmities’ meant that he was no longer well enough to administer it, Monmouth was unable to offer the £1,000 p.a. that Hatton demanded.<sup>75</sup> Hatton’s ability to reject Monmouth’s offer may have been in part owing to his acquisition of the estate of Henry Fanshawe, 3rd Viscount Fanshawe [I], during that year. Fanshawe had left his lands to Hatton’s sister Alice but in 1693 she transferred them to her brother. They were eventually resold to Simon Fanshawe, 5th Viscount Fanshawe [I], by Elizabeth, dowager Lady Hatton, in 1714 for £1,898.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Hatton’s continuing absence from London and the House may have weakened his political position. In the summer of 1693 he was one of a minority of Northamptonshire grandees who did not attend the meeting at Althorp, not being, as his brother noted, ‘much addicted to caballing.’ His failure to participate in the gathering and his continuing attachment to Nottingham left him vulnerable but in spite of such marginalization he retained considerable interest. When the protracted case of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em> was decided in chancery in favour of the latter that December, Montagu appealed to the House of Lords. Expressing the hope that he would be well enough to attend in his support, Montagu also requested that Hatton use his influence with Nottingham on his behalf. Hatton remained too ill to rally to his cousin’s cause and in February 1694, despite ‘all the eminent speakers except the Lord of Rochester (Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester)’ supporting Montagu, the case was decided, again, in favour of John Granville*, earl of Bath.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Reports circulated early in 1694 that Hatton was to return to his post at Guernsey, following a peremptory summons, but they proved to be untrue.<sup>78</sup> With Hatton’s continuing absence from Parliament at the close of the year, Nottingham approached him in the hopes of acquiring his proxy for use in the forthcoming vote on the treason trials bill. Although Hatton appears not to have agreed wholeheartedly with Nottingham on this issue, it is a measure of how closely they were allied that he returned Nottingham his proxy within a week with instructions on how it was to be employed. Despite this, the proxy seems not to have been formally registered. A newsletter of the same month reported Hatton’s return from Guernsey on 26 Dec., but this is most likely an error, perhaps confusing him with his brother Charles.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Continuing non-residence may have fuelled speculation in 1696 that Hatton was to be put out of his governorship. In February he was noted among those who had failed to subscribe the Association, though Nottingham assured him that he had been able to persuade the House not to demand Hatton’s attendance as he was unable to undergo the journey to London. Moves to render those unwilling to sign the Association incapable of holding office soon after appear to have persuaded Hatton to make an effort to comply and on 17 Apr. he communicated his willingness to subscribe. Although he remained unable to attend the House in person to sign, his letter was accepted as sufficient evidence of his good will.<sup>80</sup> Hatton’s failure to answer his summons in November was treated with less patience and along with several other peers unwilling to attend during the trial of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, he was ordered to be arrested and brought up to town.<sup>81</sup> A frantic round of appeals and the intervention of Nottingham, his brother Charles Hatton ‘and other friends’ eventually persuaded the Lords that Hatton’s illness was not illusory and he was granted leave to be absent once more.<sup>82</sup></p><p>In February 1697 Hatton was approached once again, this time by Monmouth’s brother, Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, about selling the governorship of Guernsey. Like his brother, Mordaunt was unable to offer sufficient compensation.<sup>83</sup> Despite his permanently bedridden condition, Hatton appears to have remained reluctant to divest himself of his office and eager to exert his influence even if from a distance. The death of dean de Saumarez in Guernsey precipitated a complicated struggle between Nottingham, Monmouth, the archbishops of York and Canterbury, the bishop of Winchester and the king over who should replace him and it is a measure of Hatton’s abiding influence even as an absentee governor that it was his nominee, Nicholas le Mesurier, who was eventually appointed.<sup>84</sup> Not content with administering Guernsey from his sick bed, in July 1697 Hatton approached his distant relative Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, to secure for him the high stewardship of Higham Ferrers, only to be informed that Stamford, ‘sensible of your retirement from business’, had disposed of the position to Sir Rice Rudd<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>85</sup></p><p>The general election of 1698 found the grandees of Northamptonshire eager to manage the poll. Sir Justinian Isham was persuaded to quit his attempt to be returned for Northampton and stand for the county instead, and although Isham was clearly disgruntled at being manipulated, he comforted himself with the assurance of Hatton’s interest on his behalf, which Hatton confirmed eagerly. Despite his continuing involvement in local affairs, Hatton remained absent from the House but he was able to rely on the offices of his brother-in-law, Longueville, to be excused from attending the new Parliament.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Hatton’s interest was sought by several of the candidates standing for Northamptonshire in the general election at the close of 1701.<sup>87</sup> In advance of the poll Hatton approached Isham to find out his ‘resolution in relation to the election’ and to assure him of his intention of using his ‘uttermost endeavours’ to further his candidacy. Although Hatton had expected Isham to stand singly, on this occasion Isham joined with Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup> to form a partnership that they hoped would meet with Hatton’s approbation.<sup>88</sup> Isham appears not to have been wholly confident of Hatton’s support, and although he expressed himself to be gratified by ‘the concern your lordship is pleased to show for my election’, he still feared the ill feeling current in areas in the east of the county where Hatton was particularly influential. Despite such misgivings, Isham assured himself that nothing would ‘be wanting on your [Hatton’s], part which may be for my advantage,’ and in the event both he and Cartwright were successful.<sup>89</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Anne, 1702-6</em></h2><p>The accession of Queen Anne failed to rouse Hatton to return to Parliament, but he expressed himself heartened by the appointment to office of men like Sir John Leveson Gower*, later Baron Gower, which he considered to be ‘such a satisfaction to the most loyal part of her subjects as obliges them to take all opportunities of expressing it.’<sup>90</sup> The general election of 1702 once more found Hatton eagerly courted for his interest, which he exercised again in favour of Isham and Cartwright. In recompense for Hatton’s efforts on his behalf, Isham laid aside his own claim for the stewardship of Higham Ferrers in Hatton’s favour.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Hatton appears to have been suffering from poor health again in 1703, though he took the opportunity to recommend his physician’s brother to Nottingham for the chair of mathematics at Oxford. The news of the death of Captain Ellis on Guernsey that year found Hatton uncharacteristically unwilling to suggest a replacement. Instead he asked that Nottingham might ensure that ‘whoever comes into it is a discreet and well-tempered man, for he will have to do with a contentious wra[n]gling people.’ The following year Hatton was once more able to rely on Nottingham’s assistance in getting him excused from attendance in the House on the grounds of ill health.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Hatton supported Isham and Cartwright again in May 1705 but he appears not to have been nearly as active as in previous elections.<sup>93</sup> The same year Hatton was listed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage compiled in relation to the succession. It is highly unlikely that Hatton would have welcomed a Catholic Stuart restoration, and he was certainly not involved in Jacobite plotting but it is possible that he would indeed have been favourable to a restoration had the Pretender been prepared to renounce his religion.</p><p>In spite of his non-attendance of Parliament and near permanent invalid condition, Hatton remained influential to the end. In June 1706 he wrote to Isham urging him to provide him with an assessment of the number of Catholics in several of the Northamptonshire hundreds so that he could report to the Lords of the council. The following month he wrote to Isham again, this time in support of the grand jury of Northamptonshire’s address to the queen following the victory of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, at Ramillies. Hatton cautioned Isham, the author of the address, to ensure that ‘as many of your friends as can be’ should be admitted to the grand jury to bar any attempt on the Whigs’ part to alter the document.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Hatton died two months later at Kirby and was succeeded by William Seton Hatton*, his eldest son by his third wife, as 2nd Viscount Hatton. Hatton’s decline had been a steady one and his death was ‘long expected’.<sup>95</sup> Despite the care that he had taken in restoring his estate, in his will of 1695 Hatton explained that the property remained so heavily indebted and charged with annuities that he could not ‘well judge what further charge it may bear’ and he had been unable to make any formal provision either for his wife or any children by her. Characteristically, Hatton determined that after the payment of all debts and legacies, the entire remainder of his estate should be made over to his wife ‘in confidence … of her prudence and justice’ leaving it to her to arrive at a suitable settlement. As well as his wife, Hatton named Nottingham as one of his executors, along with his faithful adherents Sir Charles Lyttelton and William Longueville. In the event of his wife’s death, Nottingham, or failing him Lyttelton, was to act as guardian to Hatton’s young family. A suggestion that Hatton’s close friendship with a number of Catholics as well as his long absence from Parliament had raised question marks over his religious sympathies may have been the driving force behind his resolute declaration of his ‘constant adherence to the faith and doctrine of the Church of England.’ He was buried ‘wrapped in coarse woollen’ in the family vault at Gretton.<sup>96</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HATTON, William Seton (c. 1690-1760) |
<p><strong><surname>HATTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William Seton</strong> (c. 1690–1760)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Sept. 1706 (a minor) as 2nd Visct. HATTON |
|
First sat 27 Nov. 1711; last sat 1 Dec. 1747 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 7 Feb. 1690, 1st s. of Christopher Hatton*, Visct. Hatton, and 3rd w. Elizabeth Haslewood. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. MA 1708; travelled abroad (Italy) 1710.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 8 Sept. 1760; <em>will</em> 13 Aug. 1760, pr. 30 Dec. 1761.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Hatton succeeded to the peerage and to considerable property in London and Northamptonshire while still a minor. By his father’s will, Hatton’s education was entrusted to his mother, to whom management of the family estates was also entrusted along with the co-executors, Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup>, William Longueville and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, husband of Hatton’s half-sister, Anne. Through his other half-sisters by his father’s first and second marriages Hatton was related to the families of the earls of Thanet and Viscounts Longueville (later earls of Sussex). The 1st Viscount had also been a close friend of John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, and this connection was perhaps reflected in the choice of Christ Church for the young lord’s college at university.<sup>4</sup> Hatton graduated as a master of arts in 1708 and the same year, though still underage, he was included in a list of Tory peers.</p><p>Still a minor at the time of the trial of Henry Sacheverell in March 1710, Hatton finally took his seat in the House on the prorogation day of 27 Nov. 1711. In advance of the new session Hatton was noted by Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, as a potential supporter of the ministry and on 2 Dec. as a peer to be contacted over the issue of ‘No Peace without Spain’. Hatton took his seat on the opening day of the new session (7 Dec.) after which he was present on almost three-quarters of all sitting days. The following day he was one of 20 peers to subscribe the protest at the resolution to present the amended address of thanks to the queen, thereby placing himself at odds with his kinsman, Nottingham, who had proposed the addition of the clause representing that there could be no peace while Spain was left to the house of Bourbon.<sup>5</sup> Hatton was forecast as a possible opponent of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon on 19 Dec., and the following day he voted to bar Scots peers at the time of Union from sitting by right of post-Union British peerages. On 28 May 1712 he divided with the ministry in rejecting the proposal to address the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from mounting an offensive campaign.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Hatton attended six of the prorogation days between July 1712 and March 1713. In October 1712 he sent a pamphlet by Swift to his half-sister, Lady Nottingham, who reckoned the author to be ‘a very ingenious pamphleteer but I think would be a scurvy dean.’<sup>7</sup> Whatever Lady Nottingham’s reservations, Swift assessed Hatton as a likely supporter of the ministry in advance of the new session. Hatton took his seat in the House on 9 Apr. 1713. Present on just over 55 per cent of all sitting days, on 13 June he was included in a list of office holders likely to desert the ministry over the French commerce bill and the same day he was listed by Oxford as being doubtful over the measure.</p><p>Despite his less than impressive record in supporting the ministry, Hatton remained in close contact with Oxford following the prorogation, who assured him, ‘that you cannot anyway oblige me so much as by letting me know how I can be of any service to you for there is no one has a greater esteem for you than I have.’<sup>8</sup> Hatton took his seat at the opening of the first session of the new Parliament (16 Feb. 1714), but his attendance declined markedly compared to his previous record and he was present on just 16 per cent of all sitting days. Absent from the session after 8 Apr., on 14 Apr. he registered his proxy with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth. In May Hatton was forecast by his kinsman Nottingham as a supporter of the schism bill but he failed to attend and so was unable to back the measure in person.</p><p>Hatton was absent for the entirety of the brief session that met in the aftermath of the queen’s death. In September Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> sought his interest for the forthcoming election in Northamptonshire, but Hatton seems to have withdrawn from political activity and he failed to return to the House until July 1718.<sup>9</sup> The reason for his prolonged absence is unknown. Opposition to the new regime seems most unlikely as he was closely associated with the ‘Hanoverian Tories’ and after his return to Parliament he proceeded to attend regularly until December 1747.<sup>10</sup> Details of the latter part of his career will be considered in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Hatton died at his London residence in Great Queen Street on 8 Sept. 1760. In his will he constituted his kinsman, Daniel Finch*, 3rd earl of Nottingham and 8th earl of Winchilsea, and his brother, Henry Charles Hatton*, to whom the peerage descended, as executors. At the death of the 3rd Viscount two years later the peerage became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HAY, George (1689-1758) |
<p><strong><surname>HAY</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1689–1758)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1709-19 visct. of Dupplin [S]; <em>cr. </em>31 Dec. 1711 Bar. HAY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Jan. 1719 as 8th earl of Kinnoull [S] |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 13 Nov. 1755 |
|
MP Fowey, 1710-31 Dec. 1711 |
<p><em>b</em>. 23 June 1689,<sup>1</sup> s. and h. of Thomas Hay*, later 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], and Margaret (<em>d</em>.1696), da. of William Drummond, visct. of Strathallan [S]. <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>m</em>. 11 Aug. 1709 (with £6,000),<sup>2</sup> Abigail (<em>d</em>.1750), da. of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 6da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 29 July 1758; <em>will</em> 26 Nov. 1754, pr. 11 Aug. 1758.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. taking subscriptions to S. Sea Co. 1711.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Teller of the Exch. 1711-15.</p><p>Amb. to Turkey 1729-34.</p><p>FRS 1712.</p> |
|
<p>Hay’s father had succeeded a kinsman as earl of Kinnoull in May 1709 by virtue of a regrant of 1704. From then until his own succession to the earldom, Hay was known to his contemporaries by his courtesy title of Viscount Dupplin. His father was described in 1710 as a ‘court Tory’ with an income of nearly £4,000 per annum.<sup>6</sup></p><p>News of an impending match between Dupplin and the daughter of Robert Harley was being reported in London at the start of July 1709. Thomas Bateman added on 5 July that Dupplin was to have £6,000, ‘but what estate the gent. has I know not, however ’tis like to be much better by the death of the late Lord Kinnoull. This has been talked of for some time’.<sup>7</sup> The marriage had important ramifications. Almost immediately James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], went to see Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> in some concern ‘that there was some jealousy’ of himself, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar, and his other friends, ‘occasioned by the late marriage with Mr Harley’s daughter’. Queensberry claimed that Mar had attempted to scupper the match by persuading Kinnoull</p><blockquote><p>to carry his son into Scotland; but that he liked the woman and would not be governed. That it was a match purely of interest, and projected when it was thought Mr Harley had power with the lord treasurer [Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin], in order to get an arrear that they claim upon the customs. </p></blockquote><p>The gist of this had been confirmed to Maynwaring by Auditor Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, who had added that the marriage articles</p><blockquote><p>were ready to be signed the day before Mr Harley was turned out; and that he had fairly told his client that his brother would be out of his employment the next day; upon which there was some stop; but the young man had a liking to his mistress, and would not leave her.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote><p>As John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], wrote to James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], that the marriage ‘has done more than anything we could have done or said ourselves’.<sup>9</sup> It certainly made for better communications between Harley and the Scottish Tories, and no doubt facilitated better relations between Mar, who had married Dupplin’s sister, Margaret (<em>d</em>. 1707), and Harley.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Dupplin and his wife intended, initially at least, to reside in Scotland and on 19 Oct. 1709 Bateman reported that they had left Herefordshire for Scotland. By the 21st they had arrived at Dupplin Castle.<sup>11</sup> Dupplin was in Edinburgh in January 1710 for the funeral of the brother of Charles Hay, 13th earl of Erroll [S], and, he told Harley, ‘since I’m here I intend to make an end of any law business my father has before the judges in this place.’<sup>12</sup> Thus it was from Scotland that he viewed the Sacheverell affair, noting on 15 Mar. that ‘I think that gentleman in the right who thought it would have set the Dr and his sermon much better to have been examined in Westminster School and I don’t doubt but he had got his payment there for an impudent, hot headed gentleman.’ He remained in Scotland awaiting the birth of his first child, a son born on 4 July.<sup>13</sup> One particular patronage request was for Sir William Calderwood, ‘he being the only man my father employs in all his business’, who was being touted in August by Dupplin as a successor to the recently deceased John Maitland, 5th earl of Lauderdale [S], as a lord of session.<sup>14</sup> In the event he secured the next vacancy in November 1711. With a change of ministry expected, on 26 July Dupplin wrote to Harley hoping that ‘when a dissolution comes it will be easily managed to get our Scotch elections to your mind’.<sup>15</sup> He wrote again on 8 Aug. in response to a letter ‘which my father takes to be written by your direction’, which promised Dupplin an English seat ‘if my father and I desire it’. Both Dupplin and his father were agreed that he could ‘spend my time nowhere so well as in the House of Commons’.</p><p>Parliament was finally dissolved on 21 Sept. 1710, and Dupplin returned to England, where he was found a seat at Fowey. He carried a letter from John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S] (of 19 Sept.) informing Harley that he and Kinnoull were ‘taking measures to support the queen at this juncture in Scotland’, and one from Kinnoull (upon Dupplin’s departure on 27 Sept.) in which the earl explained that ‘finding that my son had so great a mind to be in the House of Commons and that he was impatient to be with you, your daughter and I have parted with him’. On 4 Oct. Dr William Stratford expressed surprise that Dupplin could ‘be spared at this time in Scotland’ given the need for ‘one of his interest and authority to countenance the elections there’.<sup>16</sup> Dupplin was expected in London early in October, ‘I suppose upon some earnest business’, leaving his wife to journey from Scotland later with Kinnoull.<sup>17</sup> Stratford need not have worried for Dupplin in London was involved in the organization of proxy votes for the Scottish peerage elections.<sup>18</sup></p><p>With Dupplin’s election to the Commons and Kinnoull’s to the Lords, both men were bound to play a role in Harley’s management of the Scottish members at Westminster. Dupplin’s role was to supply information, which allowed Harley to neutralize the influence of Queensberry, the Scottish secretary.<sup>19</sup> Indeed, on 9 Dec. Dupplin was described as ‘such an attender on public business that he is not to be seen’.<sup>20</sup> In April 1711, Dupplin and Kinnoull tried to secure the viscountcy of Strathallan [S] for Dupplin’s brother, seeking Harley’s assistance for a surrender of the peerage by the consumptive James Drummond, 3rd Viscount Strathallan [S]. Strathallan signed the surrender at Mar’s residence in the presence of Dupplin, Kinnoull and David Leslie*, 5th earl of Leven [S]. George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, who was also present, noted that ‘the persons concerned have a considerable interest at court’, which would be used to obtain the queen’s agreement to a regrant.<sup>21</sup> The attempt was unsuccessful because the Act of Union had made such regrants impossible after the loss of the great seal of Scotland. </p><p>Well integrated into Harleyite circles, Dupplin played a significant role as a mediator between Harley and his allies. In May 1711, he joined in the celebrations in London for Harley’s promotion to an earldom and the lord treasurership. On 30 June he wrote to Oxford from York Buildings relating to Atholl’s demands for recompense after Dupplin had sought his help in the 1710 elections. He then went into Herefordshire.<sup>22</sup> On 10 July Dupplin wrote Oxford a long letter from Eywood, Herefordshire, residence of Auditor Harley, where he was attending Lord Harley’s (Edward Harley*, later 2nd earl of Oxford) election to the Commons in place of his father. The letter dealt with the management of Scottish affairs and his father’s role in it.<sup>23</sup> Dupplin was a member of the Tory ‘society of brothers’, an exclusive club founded in June 1711 by Henry St. John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, serving as president on at least one occasion. He was also a member of the October Club. At the end of July 1711, Stratford had heard that Dupplin had been named a teller of the exchequer, and on 4 Aug. his appointment was announced in the press.<sup>24</sup> Responding to the news, Speaker William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, described him as ‘so pretty a gentleman, so generally well beloved’. His tellership dated from 3 September. On 7 Sept. he attended the christening of Abigail Masham’s son, a select gathering which included Oxford and Jonathan Swift.<sup>25</sup> Dupplin was in England in October and November, awaiting the birth of another child and receiving advice of Scottish affairs from his father, which he passed on to Oxford.<sup>26</sup> Dupplin recommended Alexander Murray<sup>‡</sup> for a place on the commission of chamberlainry and trade for Scotland. This was a subtle manoeuvre designed to undermine the Squadrone stalwart, Baillie, Murray’s father-in-law, by associating him with the commission, which had lost credit in Scotland. A similar tactic was used on Montrose, the ultimate aim being the removal of these Whigs from office.<sup>27</sup></p><p>On 22 Nov. Dupplin informed Oxford that he had summoned to London the Scottish peers including his father, following Mar’s strategy of writing to ‘a great many of our sixteen and to those of the Commoners he has influence with to come up immediately’.<sup>28</sup> Three days later Dupplin wrote to Oxford of Mar’s concern that the Scottish peers had not received more notice that they were required in London by 7 Dec., and that by his calculation the Scottish peers would not be in London before the 12th. To Kinnoull in Edinburgh, Dupplin was at fault. As he wrote on 3 Dec., ‘George, you sit in London and prescribe impossibilities to we poor worms in Scotland’, including settling the commission of trade, ‘and be at London against the seventh day of this month and behold if I had not been here your letters could not have been at Dupplin till the 26th of the last month, so that I had only twelve days to do all this.’ Kinnoull told Oxford the same day that he had collected ‘as many proxies as could be got ready’ from the Scottish representative peers and sent them express to London.’<sup>29</sup></p><p>The new parliamentary session began on 7 Dec. 1711 with ministerial benches in the Lords depleted by the delayed Scots (only five were present), and a ministerial defeat on an amendment to the address in the Lords over the question of ‘no Peace without Spain’. In the meantime Dupplin was returned unopposed on 18 Dec. at a by-election at Fowey after accepting government office. The creation of James Hamilton*, duke of Hamilton [S], as duke of Brandon in the British peerage, and the loss of the question in the Lords on 20 Dec. over Hamilton’s right to sit in the Lords under his new title, saw discussions involving Scottish peers on how they should respond, one of which took place at Kinnoull’s residence in London. Eventually their call for a petition to the queen asking for redress was signed by the representative peers present in London and by the Scottish commoners, including Dupplin.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Oxford’s response to his faltering majority in the Lords was to strengthen the ministry by persuading the queen to create 12 new peers on whom he could rely (and incidentally reduce his dependence on the Scottish representative peers). Dupplin was one such ally, and on 31 Dec. he was created Baron Hay in the British peerage, although he was almost universally referred to outside the House as Dupplin until he succeeded to the earldom of Kinnoull. Significantly perhaps, the other 11 creations were dated the following day, giving him precedence. Certainly Lady Strafford felt it worth noting on 1 Jan. 1712 that, ‘I find Lord Windsor [Thomas Windsor*, Viscount Windsor [I], created Baron Mountjoy] expected to have been the first but Lord Dupplin is before him’, Windsor being an Irish viscount, while Dupplin was the heir to a Scottish earl.<sup>31</sup> On 2 Jan. Dupplin was the last of the 12 to take his seat in the Lords, being introduced by Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, better known as earl of Arran [I], and Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle. According to Peter Wentworth there was some concern that Dupplin’s patent would be challenged as a consequence of the Hamilton ruling, on the grounds that as he was heir to a Scots earldom it would be seen as breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of the resolution that no Scottish peer given a British peerage could sit in the Lords under that title. In the event, the Lords seem to have accepted their new member without opposition, and on 17 Jan. Mar wrote that ‘Lord Dupplin being made a peer in my opinion is of service to us, for it makes a jest of the argument against us’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In his first session in the Lords, Dupplin attended just over three quarters of the available sittings after he had taken his seat and was named to 13 committees. On 26 Feb. 1712 he gave his proxy to Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham, vacated by his next attendance on 7 March. On 25 Mar. Masham returned the compliment, and on 31 Mar. Dupplin again gave his proxy to Masham, although he was present on the following day. On 3 May he received Boyle’s proxy (vacated on the 12th); on 7 May that of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (vacated on the 19th) and on 20 May that of William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon (vacated on the 22nd). He was recorded as present on the attendance list for 28 May but was recorded as absent in the printed division list on the ‘restraining orders’ given to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>33</sup> He attended the House on 21 June for the adjournment and on 8 July when the House was prorogued. </p><p>Dupplin continued to be heavily involved in Scottish political affairs, presenting to the queen an address from the burgh of Inverness in October 1712.<sup>34</sup> When David Carnegie*, 4th earl of Northesk [S], repaired to Scotland in August 1712 he left some papers with Mar, who in turn left them with Dupplin, for Oxford’s attention. On 11 Nov. Dupplin wrote to Oxford, ‘I had a letter from my Lord Northesk on Friday desiring I would let him know what was to be done with his money. I suppose your Lordship will not do anything in that till you take the whole Scotch affair into your consideration’.<sup>35</sup> The same day Dupplin and Lord Harley were at Old Windsor and thus unable to dine in Wimbledon with Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen (later 2nd duke of Leeds)—husband of another of Oxford’s daughters—to celebrate his 21st birthday, although he promised to be in London in two or three days. In about December Dupplin moved from Queen’s Square to Poland Street.<sup>36</sup></p><p>The central position of Dupplin in the network governing Scotland was made clear by letters written by Mar, such as that of 13 Jan. 1713 from Edinburgh, in which he informed Oxford that ‘I desired Lord Dupplin last post to let you know that I had yours of the 6th and the proxies safe’ for the by-election for a Scottish representative peer. On 27 Jan. Dupplin’s daughter was christened, with both Oxford and Swift in attendance. Early in February he presented an address to the queen from the burgh of Perth.<sup>37</sup> With the next parliamentary session delayed because of the peace, Dupplin attended six prorogations, on 3 and 17 Feb., 3, 10, 17 and 26 March. At the prorogation on 3 Mar. he and Masham introduced his brother-in-law Carmarthen into the House as Baron Osborne. On 24 Mar. Dupplin was one of a party, including Oxford, Lord Harley, Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> and Swift, who assembled at Dr Friend’s, whereupon they ‘went to the college [Westminster] and saw Ignoramus acted by the Queen’s scholars’.<sup>38</sup> Before the session began a list in Swift’s hand, amended by Oxford, classed Dupplin as expected to support the court. </p><p>On 9 Apr. Dupplin was present in the Lords for the start of the new parliamentary session. He attended on 37 days, 56 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. Bateman noted that Dupplin was not in the House on 19 May when the ‘duchess of Newcastle’s appeal from an order of the court of chancery’ was heard against Thomas Pelham Holles*, 2nd Baron Pelham (later duke of Newcastle), a matter of some interest to the Harleys, given the prospective alliance between Oxford’s heir and the duchess’s daughter.<sup>39</sup> Following the passage of the malt tax bill on 22 May by the Commons, on 26 May, a meeting took place of all the Scottish Lords and commoners currently in England with the exception of Dupplin, Kinnoull and George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], all of whom were ‘out of town’, which surprised many people ‘since the meeting was known of before they went’.<sup>40</sup> At this meeting it was decided to press for a bill to dissolve the Union. The Whigs were prepared to support the Scottish peers in airing their grievances, but would not back the substantive motion. Thus, when the Lords debated the motion on 1 June, the first vote was on whether to put the question for leave to bring in a bill, Dupplin being the only Scot to support Oxford and the ministry and to vote in the affirmative. Having seen this motion passed by four votes the court was then able to secure the rejection without a division on the motion for the bill itself.<sup>41</sup> However, the Whigs were prepared to back the attempt of the Scottish peers to derail the malt tax. On 5 June the Lords debated the second reading of the malt bill and the ministry won a division for an immediate reading rather than a delay by only two votes, with Dupplin voting with the ministry.<sup>42</sup> As Argyll observed to John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerinoch [S], ‘we had lost it by Lord Dupplin’s being with the court for his vote would have made us equal, and we being for the negative (not a second reading) we had carried it’.<sup>43</sup> Baillie concurred ‘had not Dupplin voted for the reading and Hume [Alexander Home*, 7th earl of Home [S]] been out of the house, we should have been free of it till the Commons had passed a new bill which they could not have entered upon without a prorogation’.<sup>44</sup> A further division on 8 June on the passage of the bill was again carried by the ministry (64-56), presumably with Dupplin’s assistance. About 13 June Dupplin was forecast as a supporter of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Oxford’s papers contain several lists in Dupplin’s hand from July 1713 appertaining to the forthcoming Scottish peerage elections, including one relating to their ‘pretensions to be dispatched before they go to Scotland’ and a ‘list of lords to whom it is proposed to give pensions’.<sup>45</sup> He attended the House for prorogations on 16 July and 12 Nov. 1713 and 12 Jan. 1714.</p><p>When in late September 1713 the recently married Lord Harley and his wife (Henrietta Cavendish Holles) went to Wimpole, a seat that had passed to Lady Harley on her father’s death, Dupplin went with them. This it would seem was mainly because ‘they have no company that comes near ’em’, and none of Lady Harley’s relatives ‘took any notice of her’, given the dispute with her mother. On 8 Oct. Dupplin wrote to Oxford from Wimpole, putting him ‘in mind’ of James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S]: ‘I told him by your order that he was to have £900 at three payments at Edinburgh which I suppose he’ll expect to hear of from the earl of Mar, when he comes there. I hope you will have good news from my Lord Mar the beginning of the week’, a reference to the forthcoming election of representative peers at Holyrood. Dupplin was expected in Old Windsor on the 15th. While his wife stayed in London with her sister, the marchioness of Carmarthen, who was expecting her first child, Dupplin returned to Wimpole on the 26th, leaving his wife to comment ‘when he returns I know not’.<sup>46</sup> He was still at Wimpole on 7 Nov. when he received news of the birth of Thomas Osborne*, the future 4th duke of Leeds.<sup>47</sup> Following the death of the marchioness of Carmarthen on 20 Nov. Dupplin’s residence in Poland Street became a refuge for Oxford.<sup>48</sup> On 12 Dec. Dupplin delayed a visit to Windsor on account of his wife, after the death of her sister. He was back to shuttling around a week later. On 19 Dec. he was reported to have ‘gone today to Windsor returns on Tuesday morning’ (21st).<sup>49</sup> On 3 Feb. 1714 Lady Dupplin gave birth to a daughter. Meanwhile, on 4 Feb. Dupplin’s sister, Elizabeth, married James Ogilvy*, Lord Deskford, the future 5th earl of Findlater [S], the groom having informed Oxford of it via Dupplin, as being more dutiful than a direct approach.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Dupplin was present in the House on 16 Feb. 1714 for the start of the session. Thereafter he attended on 59 days, 78 per cent of the total, and was named to four committees. He attended for the vote of 5 Apr. on the danger to the succession, but on 12 Apr. registered his proxy in favour of Thomas Mansell*, Baron Mansell (vacated the following day). This was almost certainly for anticipated close divisions on the response to be given to the queen’s reply to the address on dangers posed by the Pretender, which was carried by two proxy votes. On 20 Apr. he again assigned his proxy to Mansell (vacated by his return on the 23rd). On 24 Apr. his wife noted that he had gone to Old Windsor and would return on the following Monday (26th), a regular occurrence at this time.<sup>51</sup> At the end of May or beginning of June, Dupplin was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a supporter of the schism bill. With the House not sitting between 13 and 26 May, Dupplin appears to have retreated into the country with his family.<sup>52</sup> He returned to the House on 28 May. He missed only four days in June and on the 3rd he received the proxy of Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley (vacated on the 7th). He was also present on each sitting in July, bar the 9th when Parliament was prorogued.</p><p>Oxford lost office on 27 July 1714, but with the queen falling dangerously ill almost immediately, on 30 July George Granville*, Baron Lansdown, suggested to Oxford through Dupplin that he should attend the council meeting that had been adjourned until the following day.<sup>53</sup> Dupplin was present on the first day of the session called on the demise of the queen on 1 Aug. and attended four sittings in total (three of the first five). On 5 Aug. Bingley registered his proxy with Dupplin. Parliament was prorogued on 25 Aug. but Dupplin remained in London in September.<sup>54</sup> It was clearly expected that Dupplin would lose his office under the new regime as on 23 Sept. Oxford wrote ‘I suppose that Dupplin and Mansell must quickly make way’, in other words give up their tellerships.<sup>55</sup> On 25 Oct. Bateman reported Dupplin and Mansell’s removal and replacement by John Smith<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Roger Mostyn<sup>‡</sup>, Nottingham’s son-in-law.<sup>56</sup> The following day, Stratford reported that warrants had been sent to the attorney-general to effect this alteration, but this seems to have been incorrect as on 4 Nov. it was Mansell and Russell Robartes<sup>‡</sup>, who were replaced by Smith and John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr. Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, was given a regrant of his tellership. Perhaps this may account for Oxford’s letter of thanks of 11 Nov. to Charles Montagu*, earl of Halifax, the leading treasury minister, for ‘your favours to Lord Dupplin’. Even so, on 1 Nov., Stratford reported that Dupplin and his wife were ‘resolving to suit their expenses to their circumstances, they are going to part with their house in town, and to retire wholly to the country’.<sup>57</sup> Dupplin was eventually replaced by Mostyn as teller of the exchequer early in January 1715. During that year Dupplin came under suspicion of Jacobite plotting and on 21 Sept. he was taken into custody and later incarcerated in the Tower, although he was later released.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Dupplin died at Ashford, Yorkshire on 29 July 1758. He was succeeded by his son Thomas Hay*, as 2nd Baron Hay and 9th earl of Kinnoull [S], who had also served as Member for Cambridge, 1741-58. His second son Robert Hay Drummond, became archbishop of York.</p> |
B.A./S.N.H. |
|
HAY, James (c. 1612-60) |
<p><strong><surname>HAY</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (c. 1612–60)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1622-36 Visct. Doncaster; <em>suc. </em>fa. 25 Mar. 1636 as 2nd earl of CARLISLE |
|
First sat 28 May 1640; first sat after 1660, 25 Aug. 1660; last sat 25 Aug. 1660 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. about 1612, o. surv. s. of James Hay<sup>†</sup>, earl of Carlisle and Honora, da. of Edward Denny<sup>†</sup>, earl of Norwich. <em>m</em>. 21 Mar 1632, Margaret (<em>d</em>.1676), 3rd da. of Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford<sup>†</sup>, <em>s.p</em>. Kntd. 17 May 1623; KB 2 Feb 1626. <em>d</em>. 30 Oct. 1660; <em>will</em> 28 Mar. 1660, pr. 28 Nov. 1661.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Kpr. of Epping Walk, 1637.</p><p>Col. regt. ft., Germany 1624; regt. horse (roy.) 1642-6.</p> |
|
<p>A committed royalist, Carlisle fought for his king during the Civil War and then escaped to live on his West Indian properties in Barbados, returning to England in 1652. He was said to be sick at a call of the House on 31 July 1660. Four months earlier he had composed his will, a long and complicated document that recites various family settlements. The will reveals ownership of lands in Essex, centred on Waltham Abbey, and in Whalley (then in Yorkshire). Substantial legacies went to his godson, Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, to the sons of his cousin, James Fleetwood*, later bishop of Worcester, and to his kinsman, William Hay, 4th earl of Kinnoull [S]. Carlisle then sat in the House for just one day, 25 Aug., and died two months later. In 1667 his widow married Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HENRY, Prince (1639-60) |
<p><strong><surname>HENRY</surname></strong>, <strong>Prince</strong> (1639–60)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1639-60 duke of Gloucester; <em>cr. </em>13 May 1660 duke of GLOUCESTER |
|
First sat 31 May 1660; last sat 29 Aug. 1660 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 8 July 1639, 3rd surv. s. of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, da. Henry IV of France. <em>educ</em>. privately (Mr Lowell). Kntd. 1658. <em>unm.</em> <em>d</em>. 13 Sept. 1660.</p> |
<p>Col. English Regt of Ft. (Spanish army) 1656.</p><p>PC, 1658-<em>d</em>.</p><p>High steward, Gloucester, Jun. 1660-<em>d</em>.; Ranger, Hyde Park July 1660.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after Johann Boeckhorst, (c.1659), NPG 1932; line engraving by Robert White, mid-seventeenth century, NPG D29321.</p> |
<p>Although known as duke of Gloucester from birth and accorded precedence appropriate to a royal duke, Henry Stuart does not appear to have been formally created a duke until 1660. After his father’s execution he was effectively a prisoner of Parliament until late 1652 when Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> not only agreed to allow him to go abroad but granted him £500 towards the expenses of doing so. Gloucester joined his mother in Paris but was removed from her custody when her attempts to convert him to Catholicism became known to Charles II. Even as a young boy he had impressed observers: Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, described him as ‘a prince of extraordinary hopes both from the comeliness and gracefulness of his person and the vivacity and vigour of his wit and understanding.’<sup>2</sup> He was also brave: his service with the Spanish army, in which he fought alongside his brother James*, duke of York, was marked by conspicuous gallantry.</p><p>Gloucester returned to England in May 1660 with his brothers, Charles II and York. Royalist propagandists depicted the three brothers as a sort of triptych of aristocratic virtues: the just king supported on the one hand by the military prowess of York and on the other by the wise counsel of Gloucester.<sup>3</sup> His appointment in June 1660 as high steward of the former parliamentary stronghold of Gloucester suggests that had he lived he would have been expected to play a significant part in the electoral politics of that corporation. His only other known post, as ranger of Hyde Park, was almost immediately passed to James Hamilton.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Still not quite 21, Gloucester took his seat without ceremony on 31 May, the day that the Lords agreed that ‘matters of honour do belong to his Majesty’ and that consequently the Oxford peers could be summoned. He attended regularly throughout June and July. On 6 June he was named to the committee of petitions and on 14 June to the committee to consider the question of whether peers should take the oath of allegiance. From the end of July, when the bill of indemnity had become the major topic of discussion, he began to attend almost every day. During this time he made a number of speeches which were received ‘with great applause.’ Although we have no record of what he said, he was clearly defending the alterations to the bill that had been made by the Lords. In August he was named as one of the managers of the various conferences on the same subject. He was also named to the committee to consider the claims made by John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester.</p><p>Shortly after Gloucester’s last attendance at the House on 28 Aug., he was taken ill. Although his illness was soon identified as smallpox, it was not thought to be life threatening. His unexpected death was blamed on ‘the great negligence’ of his doctors, and some private letters even suggested that one of the doctors ‘may have to account for it by the loss of his life’, but a post mortem revealed that Gloucester had died of a massive internal haemorrhage.<sup>5</sup> He was buried with a private, but nevertheless lavish funeral, conducted by Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London.<sup>6</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
HERBERT, Arthur (c. 1648-1716) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Arthur</strong> (c. 1648–1716)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>29 May 1689 earl of TORRINGTON |
|
First sat 1 June 1689; last sat 2 Aug. 1714 |
|
MP Dover 1685, Plymouth 17 Jan.-29 May 1689 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1648, 3rd s. of Sir Edward Herbert<sup>‡</sup> (c.1591-1657), of Aston, Mont. and Margaret, da. and h. of Sir Thomas Smith<sup>‡</sup> of Parson’s Green, Mdx.; bro. of Charles<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Edward Herbert<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. ?abroad (Brussels and Paris) 1650-59? <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 2 Nov. 1672 Anne (<em>d</em>. c.1703), da. of George Hadley, of Southgate, Mdx., wid. of Walter Pheasant of Upwood, Hunts., <em>s.p</em>.; (2) c.1 Aug. 1704 (with £30,000?)<sup>1</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>. Apr. 1719), da. and coh. of Sir William Armine<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., of Osgodsby, Lincs., wid. of Thomas Crew*, 2nd Bar. Crew, and of Sir Thomas Wodehouse, of Kimberley, Norf., <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 14 Apr. 1716; <em>will</em> 30 Mar., pr. 19 Apr. 1716.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. admiralty 1683-84; groom of bedchamber to James*, duke of York, 1684-85; master of the robes 1685-87; PC 26 Feb. 1689-23 June 1692; first ld. admiralty 1689-90.</p><p>Freeman, Portsmouth 1675, 1689, Dover 1684, Guildford 1691;<sup>3</sup> conservator, Bedford level 1694-1700, bailiff 1700-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Lt., RN Mar. 1666; capt. Nov. 1666; v.-adm. 1678-80; adm. 1680-83, r.-adm. 1684-87; col. regt. of ft (later 15th Regt. of Ft.) 1686-87; lt.-adm.-gen., Dutch navy Oct.-Dec. 1688, adm., Anglo-Dutch fleet 1689-90; col. 1st Regt. of Marines 1690-91.</p><p>Mbr. R. Fisheries 1677; elder bro., Trinity House 1689-<em>d</em>., master 1689-90.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Closterman, c.1700, N. Lincs. Museum Service.</p> |
<h2><em>Admiral for two rulers, 1666-89</em></h2><p>Arthur Herbert came from a renowned legal family. His father had been attorney-general to Charles I and keeper of the great seal for the exiled Charles II between 1653 and 1654; his maternal grandfather was briefly master of requests under James I in 1608-9. Unlike these forebears (or his elder brother Edward, chief justice of king’s bench under James II) Arthur did not choose a legal career but from an early age turned to a life at sea. After sailing with Sir Robert Holmes<sup>‡</sup> in 1664 and 1665 he was commissioned lieutenant in the Royal Navy in March 1666 and captain in November. After several years of brave and reckless service in the Mediterranean and in both of Charles II’s wars with the Dutch, Herbert was appointed in February 1678 vice-admiral in the Mediterranean squadron fighting against the Algerian corsairs and, on 17 July 1680, admiral and commander-in-chief of the fleet protecting Tangier.<sup>5</sup></p><p>His bravery may have been well-known, but so too was his penchant for lechery and for ‘pride and luxury’. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, visiting Tangiers, heard</p><blockquote><p>of captains submitting themselves to the meanest degree of servility to Herbert, waiting at his rising and going to bed, combing his perruque, brushing him, putting on his coat for him, as the king is served, he living and keeping a house on shore and his mistresses visited and attended one after another, as the king’s are.</p></blockquote><p>Pepys also related that, ‘Herbert never lay aboard, but on shore in state, where besides other captains, the governor [of Tangier] himself was always there an hour before he was up every morning and stayed by him while he lay abed’. Pepys’s general, but hyperbolic, conclusion was that ‘of all the worst men living, Herbert is the only man that I do not know to have any one virtue to compound for all his vices’.<sup>6</sup> Such judgments were to stay with Herbert until his death, and after. Thomas Bruce* 2nd earl of Ailesbury, commented in his memoirs written in the 1720s that Herbert ‘loved nobody and it was well returned on him’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>He returned to England from his Mediterranean posting in 1683, from which point he was a favourite and client of York. The duke helped to make him a rear-admiral of the English fleet on 22 Jan. 1684 and placed him on the admiralty commission, first as a supernumerary member in August 1683 and then as a full member in April 1684, though the commission itself was revoked on 19 May 1684 when the king took the administration of the admiralty into his own hands.<sup>8</sup> York also placed Herbert in his own household, first as groom of the bedchamber and then, shortly after his accession as James II, as master of the robes.<sup>9</sup> He also first entered Parliament under the new king, being returned for Dover in May 1685, and was also made a colonel of a regiment of foot in 1686. </p><p>Despite his dependence on the king for his own advancement, Herbert refused to countenance James’s proposal to repeal the Test Acts and Penal Laws. After an uncomfortable ‘closeting’ with the king, in which Herbert tried to take a high tone of ‘honour and conscience’ with a king who knew only too well how Herbert ‘had blemished himself with some personal miscarriages, especially with women’, Herbert was dismissed from all his offices in March 1687. A correspondent of Herbert’s kinsman, Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, was full of praise for the admiral:</p><blockquote><p>It was put to him, that he had not been so regular a liver as to make the Test a case of conscience, to which your cousin replied, that every man has his failing. He is grown popular upon it, warm in everybody’s bosom and frequent in every man’s glass.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>Roger Morrice saw Herbert’s dismissal ‘as exceeding considerable, and a prognostic that there will be a universal purge, and those of the other persuasion placed in everywhere. Some thought if any subject had made his station necessary it had been this man’.<sup>11</sup> That a younger brother of the judge who had ruled in favour of the king’s dispensing power in <em>Godden v. Hales</em> could sacrifice his career for the sake of his Protestant ‘conscience’ did not bode well for the king. And by dismissing Herbert James threw into the arms of the growing Williamite opposition a highly experienced officer who maintained a large circle of clients and associates still serving in the navy.</p><p>William of Orange took advantage of Herbert’s disgruntlement and in June 1688 invited him, via Herbert’s fellow admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, to join him in the Netherlands.<sup>12</sup> In July Herbert sailed over to The Hague, carrying with him both the invitation of ‘The Immortal Seven’ and news that the Seven Bishops had just been acquitted. William appointed him lieutenant-admiral-general of Rotterdam in September and Herbert worked closely with him in planning the descent on England. Herbert was appointed commander-in-chief of the invasion fleet and William’s declaration to the English seamen of his intention to rescue Protestantism in England was conveyed to them through Herbert, to whom they were referred for more details on William’s motives and intentions.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Herbert was thus instrumental to the success of the Revolution, as his fleet, with the help of the ‘Protestant wind’ was able to evade that of his professional rival George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, and to land and disembark William’s army successfully at Torbay. While Herbert was cruising with the fleet off the southwest he was kept informed of William’s progress towards London through letters from Russell, Hans Willem Bentinck*, later earl of Portland, and particularly Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury. Burnet informed him gleefully of the decision to hold a Convention in a letter of 25 Dec. 1688 and Herbert was elected a burgess for the borough of Plymouth but had little involvement in that assembly as he was soon dispatched to fetch Princess Mary from the Netherlands in late January 1689.<sup>14</sup> Upon his return he was sworn on to the Privy Council on 26 Feb., appointed first lord of the newly-constituted admiralty commission and, in March, vice-admiral in command of the English fleet.<sup>15</sup></p><p>On 1 May Herbert engaged in a scrappy fight with the French fleet off Bantry Bay in south-western Ireland, during which the English were kept occupied while the French were able to unload a large amount of money and arms for the Irish forces under James II. William III nevertheless used the opportunity of the battle to confer a peerage on Herbert, who was created earl of Torrington by letters patent on 29 May, largely in recognition of his services to William at the Revolution. Torrington quickly took his seat in the House, only two days after his creation. He was introduced between his distant kinsman Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, and another soldier Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, but he left the House on 5 June to rejoin the fleet at Portsmouth. He spent that summer cruising off Brest to blockade the French fleet <sup>16</sup> He did not return to the House until 19 Oct. attending just on that day before the session was prorogued two days later.</p><p>He first sat in the second session of the Convention on 2 Nov., as the Commons took up an investigation of maladministration at the admiralty. By mid-December Torrington made it clear that he wished to resign his commission as first lord. Roger Morrice, who thought Torrington ‘one of the worst and most injudicious of men’ who ‘put in the worst officers into the ships’, suspected that Torrington wished to resign because he knew he was about to be pushed out. Burnet thought that it was because Torrington had found he could not ‘dictate to the board’. His resignation was delayed because of troubles in finding a suitable replacement, and when the commission constituting the newly modelled admiralty commission was issued on 20 Jan. 1690 Torrington’s kinsman Pembroke was placed at the head of it. At the time of this new commission, both he and Pembroke were given command of two new regiments of marines.<sup>17</sup> Torrington only remained in the House for a further week after this commission removed him from the admiralty but he was further rewarded in May with a pension of £1,000 p.a. (merely continuing the pension he had enjoyed while at the admiralty), and the grant of 10,000 acres in the Bedford Level, valued at £3,000 p.a., part of Mary of Modena’s jointure lands forfeited to the crown.<sup>18</sup></p><h2><em>The Battle of Beachy Head and its aftermath, 1690</em></h2><p>Torrington first sat in the new Parliament on its second day, 21 Mar. 1690, and continued to sit for 54 per cent of its meetings. In late April he was given overall command of the joint Anglo-Dutch fleet for that summer’s campaign. He joined the fleet after Parliament was prorogued on 23 May, and in late June warned the secretary of state Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, of the approach of a much larger French fleet: ‘the odds are great and you know it is not my fault ... Let them tremble at the consequence whose fault it was the fleet is no stronger’. But Nottingham, Russell (by this time a fierce rival of Torrington for naval command) and other members of the ‘Council of Nine’ advising Mary in William’s absence did not fully accept Torrington’s account of French strength, and on 29 June they issued positive orders to the admiral to give fight to the French.<sup>19</sup> The crisis of late June 1690 revealed the divisions and rivalries within Mary’s cabinet—but all their own divisions united them in blaming Torrington for what they saw as an unacceptable slowness and disinclination to fight. At the time Mary did not know whether this was because of Torrington’s illness or cowardice, but she was later sure to assert, when drawing up her memoirs, that Torrington ‘lay drinking and treating his friends, till the French came upon the coast and had like to have surprised him’.<sup>20</sup> In the battle of Beachy Head of 30 June, the Dutch portion of the fleet pressed ahead and took the brunt of the mauling from the French while Torrington, with his flagship in the central portion of the fleet, stayed behind, seemingly unwilling to engage in battle or to assist his Dutch allies despite his orders. As a result of the French victory, southern England was in the grip of widespread fear of invasion throughout the summer, but the French themselves were seriously low on supplies and men. After making the token gesture of sacking and burning the small fishing village of Teignmouth in Devon, they withdrew to Brest in early August. This result seemed to justify Torrington’s principal argument why he did not risk the destruction of the English fleet in battle against the numerically superior French: ‘Most men were in fear that the French would invade, but I was always of another opinion, for I always said that whilst we had a fleet in being they would not make the attempt’.<sup>21</sup> In later years this explanation that he had not engaged in battle to save the fleet appears to have been accepted in some quarters, even among some of his fiercest enemies. According to Ailesbury, the president of the council, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), who was to prove himself a foe of Torrington in the summer of 1690, later defended him in a debate on the conduct of Admiral Russell in the summer of 1692, saying:</p><blockquote><p>if I take the part of [Torrington, then in the House] it cannot be thought I can do it through partiality, since there never was any friendship between us, rather the contrary, but by doing his lordship justice by affirming that he saved our fleet in 1690 by anchoring after the battle, so I do affirm that [Russell] by anchoring deprived us of an entire victory, the French profiting by that false step of his, and had time to retire into their harbours. <sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>But in the immediate aftermath of the battle in 1690 the recriminations for the disaster started at once, and fell squarely on Torrington. Mary herself wrote to William in Ireland that ‘what Lord Torrington can say for himself I know not, but I believe he will never be forgiven here. The letters from the fleet, before and since the engagement, show sufficiently he was the only man there had not mind to fight’.<sup>23</sup> For his part Nottingham, too, was anxious to place the blame solely on Torrington and to be seen to be taking action against him, in order to help shore up the fragile alliance which was so damaged by this one-sided defeat. He wrote to William that the defeat ‘was occasioned by the base treachery and cowardice of my Lord Torrington, as there is great reason to believe’, and similarly assured the outraged States General that ‘my Lord Torrington is wholly and only guilty’ of the disaster which had befallen the Dutch fleet.<sup>24</sup> The queen, after further divisions within her council, dispatched Pembroke and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, to Portsmouth to investigate the matter and to bring Torrington up to London to account for himself.<sup>25</sup> On 10 July he was committed to the Tower on charges of high crimes and misdemeanours by a warrant from the Privy Council, presided over by Carmarthen, and the investigation of the debacle was placed in the hands of a committee consisting of Pembroke, Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup>, the last being the only one to have significant experience on the admiralty board.<sup>26</sup> On 19 July this commission reported that in their opinion Torrington alone had been responsible for the defeat.<sup>27</sup></p><p>The question of who should replace Torrington in command of the fleet and how and when he should be tried quickly revealed the divisions both within and between the Council of Nine, the admiralty commission and the parties which had representatives in each. The admiralty commissioners asserted their right to have a consultative role in the appointment of naval officers, yet at the same time were unwilling to take responsibility or authority for bringing those officers to account. It took a number of stormy interviews with the queen and her cabinet in late July and August 1690 before a bare majority of the commissioners acceded to the monarchs’ request and signed the commission for the new royal appointees as co-admirals. <sup>28</sup> At the same time the admiralty refused to sign a commission establishing a court martial for Torrington, arguing that they did not have the legal powers to do so. The commissioners were reluctant to try a nobleman, who could claim privilege of peerage and the right to be tried by his peers, on a capital charge. To avoid that responsibility they contended that the statute under which a court martial could be established, the Navy Act of 1661 (13 Ch II c. 9), explicitly vested such powers in a single lord high admiral, and did not give similar powers to a commission.<sup>29</sup> At the same time several members of the Commons called for his impeachment by the lower House, as the disaster was seen as grave enough to warrant judgment by the whole kingdom represented in Parliament.<sup>30</sup> Others saw this as a partisan ploy to remove Torrington from the threat of more speedy and potentially drastic punishment through court martial. The plans for impeachment were hatched, according to Burnet, by ‘the secret enemies of the government, who intended to embroil matters … proceedings in that way being always slow, incidents were also apt to fall in, that might create disputes between the two houses, which did sometimes end in a rupture’.<sup>31</sup> Carmarthen was clearly against the idea, complaining to William in August of the ‘scruples some of the admiralty raise upon all occasions’ and particularly their plan to bring Torrington’s case to Parliament, ‘to be tried there by a faction’.<sup>32</sup> Friedrich Bonet, the Brandenburg envoy, was more specific in his view of the way Torrington’s case and possible impeachment had become a partisan issue: ‘the Whigs wishing to lose him, that is enough for the Tories to try to save him’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Mary’s cabinet obtained a legal ruling that a power formally vested in the lord high admiral could be exercised by the commissioners appointed to execute his duties.<sup>34</sup> The admiralty commissioners, though, continued to delay and the matter of the method and timing of Torrington’s trial dragged on throughout September. It was Torrington himself, still in the Tower, who took the offensive when Parliament reconvened in the autumn. On 6 Oct. his petition complaining that his commitment to the Tower by the Privy Council had been a breach of privilege was laid before the House. To strengthen his case, he argued that this was a breach of both privilege of Parliament, as it had been done ‘in time of privilege of Parliament’ and privilege of peerage, ‘not knowing of what consequence such precedent may be to the privilege of peerage’. His argument rested on the point that he had been committed under the charge of high crimes and misdemeanours, without specific details of his offence, while as a peer he could only be imprisoned on charges of high treason. As Bonet explained it to his masters, ‘until this warrant for commitment is changed, and there is a formal accusation of high treason, it will be difficult to keep him prisoner according to the laws’.<sup>35</sup> The government thus renewed and increased its pressure on the reluctant admiralty to issue a commission for a court martial, in order to avoid having to release the earl and have him tried by his peers. On 13 Oct. Pembroke, as first lord of the admiralty, laid before the House both the admiralty’s original commission to Torrington as admiral of the fleet and a warrant, dated that very day, for his commitment to the custody of the marshal of the high court of admiralty. On 18 Oct. the House, following the opinion of the judges, resolved that Torrington’s commitment by the long-delayed warrant of the admiralty was legal, as it detailed specific charges against him under the terms of the commission which he had originally accepted from the admiralty. The House thus concluded that he could be tried by a court martial under the articles of war. The separate issue of the Privy Council’s warrant of 10 July caused long debate on 20 and 21 Oct. as the judges were consulted, and the House finally resolved, by 32 to 17, that Torrington’s commitment to the Tower by the Privy Council for high crimes and misdemeanours only was a breach of privilege, ‘which they think fit to enter on their books, that the same may not be drawn into example in the future’.<sup>36</sup> Bonet recounted that ‘there was a long debate in the chamber, and many, not content that this commitment was only declared a breach of their privileges, insisted that the nine councillors should also be called for and censured by the House’. The ‘principals’ of those so insisting were, he wrote, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, both, he added, ‘scarcely friends of the president of the council’ (Carmarthen).<sup>37</sup></p><p>There was still the question of whether the admiralty commissioners, acting with delegated powers originally vested in the lord high admiral, could exercise the power of life and death in capital punishment in courts martial. To push through the government’s agenda for a speedy court martial of the disgraced Torrington, and to stop the constant delays of the admiralty commissioners, on 25 Oct. the king’s chief ministers Nottingham and Carmarthen introduced into the House the admiralty commissioners bill, which ‘declared’ that the rights and powers legally enjoyed by the single lord high admiral were, and always had been, equally exercised by the commissioners assigned for executing that office. The bill met with opposition in the House, and when it was passed on 30 Oct. it provoked a protest of 17 peers. Many were concerned by what they saw as the retroactive justice inherent in the bill, by which Torrington would now be tried by a power and authority which had not existed at the time he had committed the offences with which he was charged. The protesters were also concerned at Torrington’s loss of privilege of peerage, and undoubtedly there was a fear that the bill gave too much power to a collection of commoners who could now try, and at the worst execute, a member of the peerage.<sup>38</sup> The protest and opposition to the bill were also partly driven by the ministers’ enemies from both sides of the political spectrum, as Halifax’s and Rochester’s stance in defence of Torrington’s privilege had been.<sup>39</sup></p><p>The bill was sent down to the Commons where it again ran into fierce opposition from the ministers’ foes. Torrington had an ally in the Tory John Granville<sup>‡</sup>, son of John Granville*, earl of Bath, the latter one of the protesters against the bill in the Lords. Granville had served under Torrington at Beachy Head and pushed for a motion to impeach Torrington in the Commons, which was lost at a division by a margin of three to one. <sup>40</sup> He then moved on 11 Nov. that Torrington be heard in his own defence.<sup>41</sup> Torrington delivered a long speech at the bar of the Commons the following day in which he placed the blame on the incorrect intelligence Nottingham had relied on concerning the size of the French fleet and the peremptory orders he had received from the council. Most contemporaries, though, felt that Torrington’s attempts to justify himself only made him more enemies.<sup>42</sup> The Commons passed the admiralty commissioners bill, which received the royal assent on 18 Nov., and orders were quickly relayed to the newly-empowered commissioners to prepare the court martial.<sup>43</sup> On 10 Dec. Torrington appeared before the court convened on board the ship <em>Kent</em> at Chatham, chaired by Admiral Ralph Delavall<sup>‡</sup> and including his defender Granville. The evidence presented against Torrington was weak and the proceedings clearly partial towards him. He was acquitted by his fellow officers unanimously and subsequently returned to the capital in triumph as he sailed upriver.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Reaction to the acquittal varied across parties and nationalities: ‘The Whigs generally are angry at it, and the Tories well pleased therewith; his Majesty is displeased with it, and the Dutch ambassador is very angry, and has sent an account thereof into Holland’.<sup>45</sup> The king quickly took steps to punish Torrington himself, and also those who had supported him, revoking his commission as admiral and as colonel of the regiment of marines.<sup>46</sup> On 23 June 1692 the king removed Torrington from his last official post when he ordered his name to be struck off the list of privy councillors, ‘as being under the displeasure of their majesties’.<sup>47</sup> The disgraced admiral never served again in any royal, ministerial or military office.</p><p>All he had left from his brief ascendancy under William III was the peerage that had been granted him (and the concomitant forfeited estates in the Bedford Level). For the rest of his life Torrington took advantage of this honour and was a reasonably serious member of the House of Lords. He first sat again only five days after his acquittal, on 15 Dec. 1690, but only came to a further four meetings, the last on 2 Jan. 1691, three days before the prorogation. In the 1691-2 session he sat on seven occasions in November 1691 and appears to have registered his proxy with Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury on 3 Jan. 1692, but this would have been vacated on 27 Jan. when he returned to the House to sit for a further four meetings before leaving it on 19 February. In 1692-3 he came to just under a quarter of the meetings, first sitting on 9 Nov. 1692. On 7 Dec. he subscribed to the protest against the resolution not to form a joint committee with the Commons to consider what advice to give to the monarchs concerning the state of the nation, and in particular the naval miscarriages of the previous summer—in which debates, as has been seen, his example was invoked by Carmarthen. He left this session on 23 Dec., but registered his proxy on 16 Jan. 1693 with his fellow protester of 7 Dec. Shrewsbury, who held it for the remainder of the session.</p><h2><em>Renewed activity in the House, 1693-97</em></h2><p>The three sessions from 7 Nov. 1693 to 27 Apr. 1696 saw his most engaged participation in the House of his entire career. It may be significant that he really came to the fore from 1695, after the death of Queen Mary, who had made her distrust of the former admiral so evident. His political stance however is difficult to determine. Despite the fact that by all accounts in the partisan battles of autumn 1690 Whigs and Tory ministerialists were his enemies and country Tories his defenders, he has most often been considered a Whig. This may largely be owing to his unusual deathbed bequest of the bulk of his estate to the Whig stalwart Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, and perhaps also to some Whig stances he took on particularly notable partisan issues—against the occasional conformity bills and the schism bill. One historian considered him a court Whig, but it is difficult to see him as such.<sup>48</sup> As for the ‘court’ aspect of this description he never held a position in any government after 1690 and in his letters to his second cousin Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, he presented himself, admittedly disingenuously, as a ‘poor country farmer’ on his Surrey estate who did not wish to be bothered with matters of state.<sup>49</sup> He voted with the Whigs on many matters in the reign of Anne, but during the reign of William III, and even occasionally in the later period, he often sided with the Tories in his protests and votes. It is probably then not helpful to think of Torrington in party terms. The stances he took could cut across both Whig-Tory and court-country divides and may have been determined more by personal opinion and experience, intermittent drives to curry favour with powerful political groups, and an enduring interest in naval affairs, mixed with personal bitterness of how he had been treated by the admiralty.</p><p>He came to slightly less than half of the sittings of the 1693-4 session. His naval expertise was relied on during hearings on the loss of the Smryna fleet.<sup>50</sup> On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against the motion to reverse chancery’s dismission of the petition of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the case of <em>Montagu v Bath</em>.<sup>51</sup> He reportedly spoke in favour of the treason trials bill—a matter which would have had personal relevance to him—when it was debated, and ultimately rejected, in the House on 26 Feb., with the king (who opposed the bill) present to hear the arguments.<sup>52</sup> On 1 Mar. he was also appointed to the small sub-committee of ten lords, many of them with military experience, entrusted with drawing up a clause for the mutiny bill following a resolution of the committee of the whole.</p><p>He was present for three-quarters of the sittings of the 1694-5 session. His more regular presence in the House is also indicated in that this session was the first in which he held a proxy, that of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, from 14 Jan. to 6 Feb. 1695. On 23 Jan. he protested with a large number of Tories, including his old antagonist Nottingham, against the resolution to accept the amendment postponing the implementation of the treason trial bill – which he had earlier supported in February 1694 – from 1695 to 1698. More noticeably he supported Nottingham’s criticisms of the Whig ministry delivered in a committee of the whole House considering the state of the nation on 25 January. Torrington limited his comments to his own naval expertise and a criticism of the dispatch of the fleet the previous summer to escort a merchant fleet, thereby drawing it away from defending the English coasts. This led the Dutch envoy L’Hermitage to comment ‘this one [Torrington] having been divested of the office of admiral, one is not surprised that he places himself among the malcontents’.<sup>53</sup> He again played a part in a naval issue when on 21 Mar. he acted as teller, against the ministerial Whig Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, in the division on whether the bill to allow foreign seamen to serve in English ships during the war should be reported from the committee of the whole House.<sup>54</sup> Two days previously he had subscribed to the dissent, which did not fall along party lines, against the resolution taken in the case of Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby of Broke, that if a single male heir survived from a period when a barony by writ was held in abeyance between two or more heiresses, that heir could claim the title.</p><p>On 11 Apr. he was made a manager for the conference on the treason trials bill, which was held four days later and on 18 Apr. he was appointed a reporter for a conference on the bill to make the Licensing Act and other laws perpetual. On that same day he was one of eight peers to enter a protest against the House’s resolution exonerating John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby) from the suspicion that he had received a lease from the City of London on beneficial terms as gratification for legislation favourable to the city. From 16 Apr. when he was named to the large select committee assigned to draw up the bill to indemnify Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> for the evidence he could supply, Torrington was heavily involved in the investigation into corruption in the East India Company and its bribes and payments for parliamentary favours. On 22 Apr. he was chosen by ballot to be one of the 12 peers to serve on a committee of both Houses charged with examining Cooke. After being a manager for two conferences dealing with this evidence, on 24 Apr. he was further named to a similar joint committee to interrogate Cooke’s colleagues, including Sir Basil Firebrace<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>55</sup> On 2 May he was placed on a small committee to draw up and present in conference the reasons why the House could not agree to the lower House’s amendments to the bill to imprison Cooke, Firebrace and the others suspected of bribery. In the last days of the session he was a manager for conferences on the dispute between the Houses on the bill to encourage privateers (1 May) and on the Commons’ attempt to impeach the duke of Leeds (as Carmarthen had become) for his reputed involvement in the bribery and corruption scandal (3 May).</p><p>Torrington came to just over four-fifths of the meetings of the first session of the new Parliament in 1695-6 – his highest rate of attendance of any parliamentary session. He first sat on 22 Nov. 1695 and in early December became very involved in the numerous matters regarding the ‘state of the nation’ discussed in committees of the whole House. On 3 Dec. he moved successfully in debate that the merchants of the East and West India companies should be heard as to the damages done to English trade by the establishment of the Scottish East India Company. The following day, in the debate on the coinage, he again was the first to move the resolution eventually adopted by the committee, that the king be requested to issue a proclamation prohibiting the import of debased English coin. He was named to the committee to draft the address and appointed to manage the conference where it was presented to the Commons. In the days following he kept up his attack on the Scottish East India Company, participating in the debates of the committees of the whole on 5 and 9 Dec. considering this matter and the general bad state of trade.<sup>56</sup> On 12 Dec. he was named to the committee assigned to draft the address stating the ‘prejudices and inconveniences’ done to England by the Scottish company and helped to present it to the Commons in conference two days later. On 6 Dec. he was also placed on the committee to prepare a request that the East India and other merchants submit papers detailing their losses at sea in the previous year and a week later he was named to the committee to inspect these papers after they were submitted. Having left the House on 19 Dec., he registered his proxy with Newcastle four days later, who held it until Torrington’s return on the last day of the year. He maintained his interest in maritime and trade matters in the new year. In the first week of January 1696 he was named to the committees assigned to consider the papers submitted to the House by the admiralty, the commissioners of customs and other bodies involved in trade, and in early February was named to sub-committees of the committee of the whole assigned to work in more detail on the bill to encourage privateers and to investigate closely the terms of the East India Company charter. Torrington later chaired on 23 Apr. the select committee to which he had been named nine days earlier, which was to draw up a defence of the House’s disputed amendments to the bill to encourage privateers. Torrington reported these the following day, but the matter was recommitted to the same committee, which never met again, as the matter was lost at the prorogation on 27 April.<sup>57</sup> He was also named to the committee to draft a defence of the House’s decision to adhere to its amendments to the bill for regulating the coinage, which he helped present to the Commons in a conference on 11 January.</p><p>At the same time in early 1696 his attention was directed towards a bill he had had introduced—in the Commons, strangely enough—on 14 Jan. to confirm the grant made to him of forfeited land in the Bedford Level, and to allow him to recover the arrears of rent due to him. The bill was not read a second time until 20 Feb., when it encountered opposition from James II’s former mistress Katherine Sedley, <em>suo jure</em> countess of Dorchester, who had been granted a rent charge of £600 p.a. on the land and who for several years had been frustrated in her attempts to claim the arrears of her pension because of the earl’s claim of privilege. When the bill was first reported from the Commons select committee on 14 Mar. it was recommitted so that a clause could be formulated for her benefit. After further delays, the bill was reported again on 18 Apr. when the clause in the countess’s favour was accepted, but the entire bill was lost when the question whether to engross it with the amendment was carried in the negative.<sup>58</sup></p><p>In early 1696 there were rumours that Torrington, at that time apparently thought of as a Tory, would come back into office, either at the admiralty itself or in charge of the fleet.<sup>59</sup> He may have strengthened his standing with William III when he signed the Association on 27 Feb., the first day available for subscription, for although Torrington did not receive the rumoured naval appointments, the king gave other indications that his attitude towards his erstwhile admiral might have been softening. In July he granted him a house at Oatlands Park, near Weybridge in Surrey and eight chambers in Serjeants’ Inn which had belonged to Torrington’s outlawed Jacobite eldest brother, Edward, then at St Germain where he had been created earl of Portland in the Jacobite peerage.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Torrington did not sit in the House again until 23 Nov. 1696. His absence had been noted at a call of the House on 14 Nov., and he was formally summoned to appear by the end of that month to participate in the proceedings concerning Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. Torrington was opposed to the bill for Fenwick’s attainder and put his name to the protest against the second reading of the bill on 18 December.<sup>61</sup> He was noted as one of the managers, along with his erstwhile enemies Nottingham and Leeds, for the opponents of the bill at its third reading on 23 Dec. and an account of the debate suggests he started the proceedings by proclaiming that he was ‘against passing the bill, but for all that would vie with anybody for his duty, loyalty and affection to the government’. He continued by stating that he ‘could not be for the bill though Sir John Fenwick were proved guilty, but [would] leave him to the law. We may by this way endanger many innocent lives’.<sup>62</sup></p><p>After having made his mark in the debate, and having voted against the bill, he appears to have left the House early for the Christmas recess, for that is the most plausible explanation for the absence of his name from all contemporary lists of dissenters and protesters to the bill, such as that drafted by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, on 23 Dec. itself, although his name does appear at the bottom of the list of dissenters in the manuscript and printed Journal for that day. On 23 Dec. those opposed to the bill received a special dispensation allowing them to subscribe to the protest whenever they next appeared in the House, with the deadline for subscription not limited, as usual, to the next sitting. As a result, it would appear that Torrington, despite being marked one of the leaders of the opposition to the Fenwick attainder, was probably the last to indicate formally his opposition to the act through his signature to the protest, as after sitting for some time on 23 Dec. he did not return to the House until 26 Feb. 1697, and all manuscript copies of the protest compiled between those two dates omit his name.<sup>63</sup></p><p>On 2 Dec. 1696 Torrington had been named to a large select committee to consider papers submitted by the commissioners of the admiralty. On 17 Mar. 1697 this committee was revived to consider the previous summer’s naval mishap when the Anglo-Dutch fleet failed to intercept its Toulon counterpart. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> noted that the chief members of this committee, ‘their lordships being resolved to find out in whom the fault lay’, were Leeds, Normanby, Rochester, Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, and, providing some naval experience, Torrington and Leeds’s nautical son Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen (who attended the House as Baron Osborne and later succeeded as 2nd duke of Leeds).<sup>64</sup> It was most likely concerning this investigation that Torrington wrote, in an undated letter, to his kinsman Herbert of Chirbury, chairman of this committee throughout March and April, condemning the ‘insipid ignorants’ who composed ‘that miserable commission of the admiralty, that has made the kingdom almost as wretched as themselves. I wish them with all my heart eternally confounded’.<sup>65</sup> In the last days of the session Torrington chaired a select committee on two occasions, and on 13 Apr., three days before the prorogation, he reported from committee William Hammond’s private bill aiming to rectify the wording of his marriage settlements, which the House ordered to be engrossed.<sup>66</sup></p><h2><em>Decreased attendance, 1697-1702</em></h2><p>Torrington came to only 16 sittings of the House in 1697-8. Although he was named a manager for two conferences in quick succession, on 10 and 13 Jan. 1698, concerning the House’s amendments to the bill against corresponding with James II and on the bill to continue the imprisonment of a suspect in the assassination plot against William III, he absented himself from the House entirely between 26 Feb. and 29 June. By his own account he was too ill to attend, but he was concerned by rumours that the Commons would introduce a bill to vacate all of William III’s land grants in England, and throughout the spring of 1698 he tried to enlist Herbert of Chirbury to manage his interest if and when this bill came up.<sup>67</sup> After his return he signed on 2 July the protest (first introduced in the House the previous day) against the decision to give the bill for establishing a new East India Company a second reading. The same day he was made a manager for a conference on the impeachments against Goudet and the other French merchants.</p><p>Torrington did not sit in the new Parliament elected in summer 1698 until 24 Jan. 1699, and only after the House had formally summoned him a week previously. He left the House again on 10 Feb. and in that brief period both voted and protested with the country movement against the resolution of 8 Feb. pledging the House’s assistance in maintaining the king’s Dutch guards in England. After having been summoned once again by the House on 13 Mar. he appeared a week later but remained only until 29 Mar. when the House formally dispensed him from further attendance because of his indisposition. He attended just 15 sittings during the session; but, despite his illnesses and lack of engagement, there were rumours in March that he would soon replace Orford at the admiralty.<sup>68</sup></p><p>This change did not take place, but the king did visit Torrington at Oatlands Park after a day’s hunting in the first days of 1700.<sup>69</sup> After this sign of royal favour, Torrington attended the House fairly regularly throughout January and February 1700. In these days he made clear his opposition to the House’s resolutions against the Scottish trading colony at Darien, subscribing, along with many other Tories, to the protests of 8 and 12 Feb. first against putting the question whether the colony was inconsistent with the good of the English plantation trade and then against presenting the king with an address of the House’s resolutions. He again joined the Tories in voting for the adjournment of the House into committee of the whole to consider amendments to the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation. After this vote on 23 Feb. he left the House for the remainder of the session, but a newsletter correspondent provided him with a full account of the proceedings of 10 Apr. and the stormy passage of the bill for resuming William’s grants of forfeited Irish land, which delighted in the discomfiture in these proceedings of Torrington’s former companions and correspondents in the Revolution, Bishop Burnet and the earl of Portland.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Torrington first appeared in the new Parliament on 25 Feb. 1701. He only came to 18 meetings in total, but crowded in a large number of protests and dissents in that time. On 8 Mar. he protested against the address to the king to take off the suspension of Captain John Norris, who two years previously had been, upon an address to the king from the House, deprived of his naval duties for failing to engage with a hostile French squadron. The similarity of Norris’s case to his own did not necessarily make Torrington sympathetic. He and the other protesters felt that Norris’s innocence had not been sufficiently proved to the House and that such matters should be determined by a court martial—as Torrington himself had had to undergo. He left the house for an extended period after 12 Apr. but returned in early June, perhaps to take part in the proceedings against the impeached Whig lords. He joined other Tories in calling for a joint committee of both Houses to handle the impeachments and signed two protests on 9 and 11 June against resolutions which tried to scupper the project of a joint committee or any sort of co-operation with the lower House. But he left the House again on 13 June, just as the impeachments were heating up, and was not present to vote against the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and of Orford on 17 and 23 June.</p><p>At the turn of 1701-2 rumours were again rife that Torrington would return to naval affairs as first lord of the admiralty and acting admiral of the fleet in the place of Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>. Luttrell observed ‘that the sea captains begin already to attend his lordship and make their court to him as though he was actually in that high station, but ‘tis not known how the Dutch will brook this’.<sup>71</sup> Apparently Dutch sensitivities could not be offended by the re-appointment of Torrington and these rumours proved once again to be unfounded. Perhaps with this possible promotion in view, Torrington began to attend the House more assiduously in early 1702. He first sat in the new Parliament on 7 Jan., after his absence had been noted at a call of the House two days previously, and continued to sit for 31 per cent of the sittings, although his attendance dropped noticeably after the death of William III on 8 Mar. and he only came to three more sittings of the Parliament after that date.</p><h2><em>Naval expert under Queen Anne, 1702-8</em></h2><p>Macky provided a pithy summary of Torrington’s career to his Hanoverian contacts in about 1702-3: he ‘came over Admiral of the fleet with King William, was in favour, made an earl, commanded at the Beachy Head engagement, where we were beat, and he was disgraced for his conduct therein, and hath never come into play since’.<sup>72</sup> Despite Macky’s terse dismissal of Torrington’s importance, the last Parliament of William III marked the beginning of a brief spurt of renewed activity from Torrington, and he was a fairly constant and active member of the House during the first Parliament of Anne lasting from 20 Oct. 1702 to 14 Mar. 1705. Across each of the Parliament’s three sessions he maintained a steady attendance rate of just over three-fifths of its sittings—his most constant attendance since 1694-6.</p><p>He was involved in a number of major matters. On 11 Jan. 1703 when the House debated whether the clause in the bill to grant a revenue to George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, which allowed the prince consort to retain his seat in the House after the queen’s death implicitly deprived other foreign-born peers of their right to sit in the House, Torrington moved:</p><blockquote><p>that an expedient might be considered on, how to grant the prince all that this bill pretended to give him in another manner, such as might not occasion any disputes betwixt the two Houses... and such as might be more for the honour of his highness, since this, if it passed at all, would be carried in this House by a very slender majority.</p></blockquote><p>Upon this motion Devonshire proposed that a separate declaratory bill be readied that would affirm the right of the foreign-born peers to sit in the House, regardless of the provisions against this in the Act of Succession. Torrington subscribed to the protest of 19 Jan. when the offending clause was confirmed by the House, and the plans for a separate declaratory act defeated.<sup>73</sup></p><p>He also took part in the debates and proceedings concerning the renewed war against France. On 9 Jan. letters from the States General to the queen requesting English assistance against the predicted French onslaught of that spring were laid before the House. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted that ‘the first that spoke to this was the earl of Torrington, who moved that the queen might be addressed with an assurance of the readiness of this House to comply (as the Commons had done) with the proposal of the Dutch, provided they would immediately prohibit all commerce and correspondence with France and Spain’. Torrington’s motion, with its suspicion of Dutch double-dealing, was voted to be incorporated in the address and Torrington was appointed to its drafting committee. He distinguished himself most of all by the prominent part he took in the investigation of Sir George Rooke’s role in the failure to capture Cadiz and the attack on the Spanish plate fleet in Vigo Bay that previous October. On 10 Dec. the House ordered the admiralty to submit to the House the journals of the flag officers involved in the action, but when five days later the secretary of the admiralty claimed that the journals ‘were making ready and some of them would be prepared’ for the following day, Torrington commented that ‘this was an odd way of obeying their lordships’ orders, to talk of preparing matters, when the original journals were required’. The same issue came up again in the new year when Nottingham could only produce for the House copies of Rooke’s correspondence of the previous summer with the secretary of state’s office. Torrington pointed out that the House had once again requested the originals. He was prominent in the select committee investigating the naval action, to which he was appointed on 17 Dec. 1702, and contemporaries reported the merciless grilling he and Orford, ‘the two old admirals’, gave Rooke in committee on about 23 Jan. 1703. Torrington in particular queried why he did not take greater measures to attack and secure Cadiz.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On 17 Dec. 1702 Torrington was appointed to help manage the conference on the Lords’ amendments to the occasional conformity bill, and the following day he was placed on the committee to draft a defence of them. Torrington attended another conference on these amendments on 9 Jan. 1703 and a week later voted to adhere to them, thus ensuring the bill’s demise that session. He again voted against the bill when it came up again on 14 Dec. in the following session. Both supporters and opponents of the bill forecast that he would vote this way, and this vote, and his protest against the clause in Prince George’s bill, marks a shift in his political allegiances, from Tory during William III to Whig under Anne. The reasons for this shift cannot be easily explained but it is clear that from late 1703 Torrington was associating both socially and politically with prominent Whigs. Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), recorded in his diary seeing Torrington at a number of grand consults of Whig leaders in the winter of 1703-4, such as the one on 17 Dec. 1703, the day after the defeat of the occasional conformity bill, held at the house of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, where Torrington was in the company of Devonshire, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and several others. Similarly on 13 Feb. 1704 he was present at another evening meeting at Sunderland’s house in St James’s Square where the Whig personnel was even more extensive—Wharton, Halifax, Somers, Cornwallis, Herbert of Chirbury and Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle among them. <sup>75</sup></p><p>This latter meeting took place only a few days after Torrington had introduced in the House on 9 Feb. 1704 a bill ‘for the effective manning of the navy’, which made its way through the House concurrently with a similar bill ‘for the increase of seamen and the protection of the coal trade’, brought up from the Commons on 1 February. But while this latter bill passed both Houses and received the royal assent on 24 Feb., Torrington’s bill was lost in committee in the Commons, suggesting that it had been devised as an alternative, and competitor, to the scheme of naval recruitment proposed by the lower House.<sup>76</sup> Torrington was later to return to this issue of the effective manning of the fleet with the act passed in this session particularly in his sights. In these years he was in general concerned with the navy’s many competitors for English manpower. On 21 Mar. he subscribed to three dissents against the progress and passage of the recruiting bill through the House. He and his fellow protesters, largely Tory, objected to it because of the large degree of power the bill gave to local magistrates forcibly to ‘recruit’ and enlist into the army those they deemed unemployed or ‘of no means of maintenance’, without the consultation of the parish churchwardens or overseers of the poor. Torrington himself may have also been concerned that such seemingly unlimited power to force men into the land forces would siphon off necessary man-power from the navy.</p><p>Ossulston reported that on 23 Mar. 1704 Torrington dined at the house of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, with such prominent Whigs as Wharton, Somers, Orford, Sunderland and Carlisle.<sup>77</sup> This meeting may have been held to coordinate actions in the ongoing campaign to discredit the secretary of state, Nottingham, for his role in the investigations into the ‘Scotch Plot’ and in particular the inadequacy of the examination he recorded from the informer Sir John Maclean. On the following day, 24 Mar., Torrington, according to Burnet, ‘made some reflections that had too deep a venom in them’ against Nottingham, suggesting that the secretary of state was complicit in the plot and had come to a tacit understanding with Maclean to have certain parts of his confession omitted from the final report.<sup>78</sup> Torrington, not surprisingly, subscribed to the protest of that day against the House’s resolution not even to put the question whether Nottingham’s account of Maclean’s examination was ‘imperfect’.</p><p>In the 1704-5 session Torrington held the proxy of his kinsman Herbert of Chirbury from 18 Nov. until Herbert’s first sitting on 11 Jan. 1705. He remained principally concerned with naval matters, and on 21 Nov. 1704 was added to the select committee, chaired by Orford, investigating the expenses and increasing debt of the Navy.<sup>79</sup> In a debate of December on the aliens bill, Torrington suggested a proviso, quickly accepted, that English admirals might have instructions and liberty to seize, and to treat as enemies, all Scottish merchant vessels trading with France. At the turn of 1704-5 there were once again rumours that he would be reappointed to an active command, this time as a replacement for Sir George Rooke, whom he had harried so insistently in the investigations of 1702-3.<sup>80</sup></p><p>In the final two weeks of the 1704-5 session he was very active in the House. On 2 Mar. he once again signed the protest against that session’s recruiting bill, but most of all during these final weeks he was involved in conferences. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to the large committee assigned to draw up heads for the conference in which the Lords would make clear their disapproval of the Commons’ prosecution of the ‘Aylesbury men’, and he was named a manager for this conference held the following day. He formed part of the House’s delegation again for another conference on this matter on 7 Mar., on which day he was also appointed to a committee of 18 lords charged with drawing up a representation to the queen of the state of the proceedings between the Houses on this matter. On 1 Mar. he was placed on a committee to formulate arguments against the lower House’s amendments to the bill to naturalize Jacob Péchels, and he was one of the lords appointed to manage the conference on this matter 12 days later. He was a manager for the conference of 12 Mar. on the Lords’ amendment to the militia bill, and was placed on the committee assigned to write a defence of the amendment and to present it to the Commons in conference the following day. Following this the lower House receded from its objections so the queen could assent to the bill at the prorogation on 14 March.</p><p>He remained relatively active in the new Parliament’s first session of October 1705-March 1706, when he came to almost half of the meetings (45 per cent). His absence was excused when he was found to be missing at a call of the House on 12 Nov. 1705, and he first sat in the House nine days later. He was named on 7 Feb. 1706 a manager for the conference on the disagreements over the Lords’ amendments modifying the Commons’ place clause in the regency bill. He was appointed to the committee constituted to draw up reasons in defence of the amendments, and took part in two subsequent conferences on this matter on 11 and 19 February.</p><p>His most prominent role in this session was not in the House, but in committee, and particularly the large committee of 49 lords established on 18 Dec. 1705 to ‘consider of proper methods for the more easy and effectual manning of the fleet of England, and to inquire into the present state and condition of the navy’. He quickly took the chair of this committee and on its first day, 19 Dec., was requested to speak to several naval officers in the Commons ‘to give notice to those gentlemen, that they might consider whether they were at liberty to attend without leave’. Torrington reported to the House on 9 Jan. 1706, after the Christmas recess, that the committee needed to hear from Sir Clowdesley Shovell<sup>‡</sup>, George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, Sir George Byng<sup>†</sup>, later Viscount Torrington, Sir John Jennings<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Stafford Fairborne<sup>‡</sup>. These members of the Commons, many of them former clients of Torrington from Tangier days, received dispensation from their own House and were heard before the committee on 14 and 19 January. They complained of the difficulty in tempting away seamen from the rival attractions of the merchant marine, which paid ‘great wages’, and the recent act of 1704 ‘for the better encouragement of navigation and security of the coal trade’, by which colliery owners could use young able-bodied seamen who would otherwise be destined for the navy. A bill ‘for the increase of seamen and speedy manning the fleet’ based on the recommendations set out by Torrington and his naval colleagues in committee was ordered to be prepared by the Commons on 23 January. The bill passed the Commons and was sent up to the Lords on 18 March.<sup>81</sup></p><p>The following day, the day of prorogation, was a busy one for Torrington. He chaired the committee of the whole House which passed the bill to provide more time to settle debentures on forfeited estates in Ireland. The bill for the encouragement of seamen, so much his work, was rushed through the House. He was then named to the committee to draft an address to the queen asking her to appoint a commission to prepare a report, to be ready before the next session commenced, on further ways of manning the fleet and restoring discipline in the navy. The queen confirmed that she would appoint such a committee, and then passed Torrington’s bill for the recruitment of seamen.</p><p>Torrington was, not surprisingly, a principal member of this committee and in May the lord high admiral, Prince George of Denmark, consulted with him and his fellow commissioners. A report on the means for manning the fleet was ready to be signed by Torrington and presented to the lord high admiral by late October 1706, but its recommendations appear to have been lost in the administrative morass of the prince’s council after that.<sup>82</sup> Torrington first sat in the next session on its second day, 4 Dec., and remained fairly attentive to affairs in the House throughout December 1706 and January 1707, but as the House turned its attention from the navy to the Union, Torrington’s attendance of the House dropped steeply. He came to just 15 meetings of that session and none during the brief session in April 1707. He did attend 22 sittings of the first session of the Parliament of Great Britain in October 1707-April 1708, but he first sat in this session only on 9 Jan. 1708, as the Whig attack on the administration of the admiralty board was in full swing. On that day Torrington and the House heard the answer of the lord high admiral and his council to the complaints of the merchants against the arbitrary actions and corruption of navy commanders such as Commodore Kerr in the West Indies, and the abuse of the press-gang. Perhaps out of sympathy he, along with Carmarthen and Buckingham, was one of the few English peers to support Kerr in a division of 29 Jan. on whether the merchants had made good their allegations against him (all the Scots peers, it was noted, voted ‘to bring off’ their compatriot).<sup>83</sup> Torrington was also in the House on 15 Jan. when another bill for the ‘encouragement of seamen’ was introduced. The House requested to know from the queen what had been done about their previous address of 19 Mar. 1706, with which Torrington had been so closely involved, to establish a committee to investigate the better manning of the fleet.</p><h2><em>Retirement, 1708-16</em></h2><p>After the elections of 1708 Torrington abandoned Parliament altogether. He did not come to a single meeting of the House between 16 Nov. 1708 and 21 Sept. 1710, the only Parliament in his career which he avoided in its entirety. When Robert Harley drew up a forecast of the potential support for his ministry of autumn 1710 he marked Torrington as ‘doubtful’, suggesting that Torrington’s political leanings remained unclear even at this time and particularly after such a long absence. Torrington initially showed the same unwillingness or inability to attend the House under the new ministry as he had in the previous three years, and came to only six sittings in the entire 1710-11 session, most in late November and early December 1710. When Parliament reconvened on 7 Dec. 1711 Torrington was present and voted against the Whig motion to present an address insisting that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’; Oxford (as Harley had become) included him in a list of loyal peers who were to be rewarded with office or pension. But only a few days later Torrington went against the ministry by voting to disable James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House under his British title of duke of Brandon. After sporadically coming to the House in January 1712, Torrington’s attention turned to the House again in April when his petition against Robert Depup’s alleged breach of privilege in felling wood on Torrington’s land in the Bedford Level was presented to the House in his absence on 3 April. Proceedings in the committee for privileges on this matter were suspended on 7 Apr., as Torrington’s illness prevented him from attending, but he made his way into the House for the first time since 28 Feb. on 14 April. The following day he was able to hear the report in his favour from the committee and to witness Depup’s reprimand and discharge on 7 May. He reappeared in the House on 28 May to vote with the Oxford ministry against the motion to present an address against the queen’s ‘restraining orders’ prohibiting English forces from engaging in offensive military action against France.<sup>84</sup> Only a few days later, on 7 June, he was one of the 12 lords whom one correspondent of William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, claimed ‘went off’ from the Whigs and joined the ministry in voting against the last-ditch motion to include a ‘guarantee clause’ for the benefit of the allies in an address of thanks to the queen for her communication of the peace terms. The reporter of these proceedings understood that:</p><blockquote><p>these [peers] had made a sort of agreement that the court should prevent a division, by which means they should not be discovered, but they were gudgeons, for the court wanted not a majority, but a triumph, to show the people the disparity of numbers [the ministry won the vote 81 to 36], and so they were caught like fools. A great deal of money and promises were spent to work this apostasy.<sup>85</sup></p></blockquote><p>Oxford may well have been trying to win Torrington over to support the ministry with ‘money and promises’. Certainly Torrington’s name appears frequently in the many lists which Oxford drew up in 1713-4 for his calculations of political support. <sup>86</sup> But even if Oxford was wooing Torrington, he remained as aloof and uncooperative as ever. He came to only four sittings of the 1713 session, when Oxford forecast that he would oppose the French commercial treaty, and attended a quarter of the meetings of the first session of the new Parliament in 1713-4. He held the proxy of his kinsman Henry Herbert* 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, for the entirety of the session from 10 May 1714, but only began to sit regularly himself from June 1714, most likely in order to register his opposition to the schism bill, against whose passage he formally protested on 15 June.</p><p>His last appearance in the House was on 2 Aug. 1714, the day after Anne’s death. From that date he took no part in the affairs of the nation. He died at his house at Oatlands Park on 14 Apr. 1716. He left behind no children by either of his wives. His peerage became extinct, although the title of Torrington was revived a few years later for his fellow naval officer and erstwhile client Sir George Byng. He bequeathed the bulk of his estate, including Oatlands Park, reckoned to amount to £6,000 p.a., to the impecunious but vigorous Whig earl of Lincoln.<sup>87</sup> According to a contemporary account this unusual bequest came about when Torrington was dining with his heir at law, most likely Herbert of Chirbury, ‘whom he hated’, and ‘the conversation turned upon the poor quality in England’. One of the party mentioned the worthiness and poverty of Lincoln, of ‘a noble family, with only £500 per annum’, after which Torrington, ‘though he never saw Lord Lincoln’, left him his estate at his death, ‘which happened a few days after’.<sup>88</sup> This legacy included, at least by one account, a bequest of £120,000 to Lincoln. An auction of some of Torrington’s moveable goods raised £3,000. Lincoln’s inheritance embroiled him and his agents in years of litigation and parliamentary lobbying to secure the estate.<sup>89</sup> A waspish correspondent of the duchess of Marlborough commented on Torrington’s impulsive generosity that ‘Everybody is surprised that my Lord Torrington should do so generous and right a thing as to leave his estate to Lord Lincoln, and in his will he says he leaves it him for his public virtue. This is very surprising in a man that had neither public nor private virtue himself’.<sup>90</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, Edward (1630-78) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1630–78)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 13 May 1655 as 3rd Bar. HERBERT of CHIRBURY (CHERBURY) and 3rd Bar. Herbert of Castle Island [I] |
|
First sat 12 May 1660; last sat 6 Dec. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. Feb. 1630,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Richard Herbert<sup>†</sup> (later 2nd Bar. Herbert of Chirbury) and Mary, da. of John Egerton<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bridgwater; bro. of Henry Herbert*, 4th Bar. Herbert of Chirbury. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) by Dec. 1655,<sup>2</sup> Anne, da. of Sir Thomas Myddelton<sup>‡</sup>, of Chirk Castle, Denb. 2da. <em>d.v.p.</em>;<sup>3</sup> (2) 20 Aug. 1673, Elizabeth (1651–1718), da and coh. of George Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 6th Bar. Chandos, <em>s.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 9 Dec. 1678; admon. 2 Jan. 1679.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>PC [I] Aug. 1669–<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Mont. 1660–<em>d</em>., Denb. 1666–<em>d</em>.; dep. lt. North Wales (Anglesey, Caern., Denb., Flint, Merion., Mont.) 1661–<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> col. regt. of militia horse, North Wales 1661–<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> capt. tp. of militia horse, Mont. 1661–<em>d</em>.;<sup>8</sup> chief forester, Snowdon Forest, Caern. 1661–<em>d</em>.; constable, Conway Castle, Caern. 1661–<em>d</em>.; steward, manor of Bardsey, Caern. 1661–<em>d</em>.;<sup>9</sup> freeman, Liverpool 1672.<sup>10</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Powis Castle, Mont.</p> |
<p>Edward Herbert’s ancestors had been officials and Members of the Commons for the Welsh county of Montgomery, with their base in the castle overlooking that borough, Montgomery Castle. His grandfather was the courtier, diplomat, and philosopher Sir Edward Herbert<sup>†</sup>, who in 1624 was created Baron Herbert of Castle Island [I], referring to the Irish property in co. Kerry which he held through his wife Mary Herbert, sole daughter and heiress of the Elizabethan adventurer Sir William Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, who had ‘planted’ the English settlement in the furthest reaches of south-western Munster. In 1629 he was further made Baron Herbert of Chirbury, in recognition of the Herberts’ own estate of Chirbury near Montgomery. Herbert of Chirbury tried his utmost to remain impartial during the civil wars and he surrendered Montgomery Castle to Parliament’s forces in 1644 in order to preserve his library there and in London. Relations had long been bad between the baron and his elder son and heir, Richard Herbert<sup>†</sup>.<sup>12</sup> Herbert of Chirbury therefore made his grandson Edward, Richard’s eldest son, the chief beneficiary of his will. Richard succeeded as 2nd baron in 1648. He was an active royalist and was fined £2,574 by the victorious Parliamentary party and forced to dismantle Montgomery Castle.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Edward Herbert, already the nominal chief beneficiary of the 1st baron’s will, succeeded to the title and the embarrassed estate upon his father’s death on 13 May 1655. Over the next few years he was involved in intensive work to shore up his estate in north Wales and in Ireland, where his grandmother’s estates in county Kerry had been severely damaged in the rebellion and ensuing Cromwellian conquest and were in danger of being confiscated by the land-hungry officers involved in that campaign.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Herbert’s father-in-law, Sir Thomas Myddelton<sup>‡</sup>, was the Parliamentarian officer who captured Montgomery Castle in 1644 but his moderate Presbyterianism made him distrusted by the officials of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Herbert joined members of his Myddelton kin in the western rising for Charles II led by Sir George Booth* (the future Baron Delamer). He later claimed that he raised a troop of 140 horse for the uprising but that they were ‘lost’ in the engagement and that he was subsequently ‘plundered and sequestered’. He reckoned that he lost £5,000 as the result of his participation in this venture.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Herbert was later to explain that poverty caused by his and his father’s adherence to the royalist cause, the depredations committed against his Irish estate during the 1641 rebellion and following wars, and the need to support his five sisters and two brothers prevented him from attending the king either at court or in Parliament.<sup>16</sup> He was never an assiduous or frequent attender of the House. After first sitting in the restored House on 12 May 1660, he was present for a total of 42 per cent of the meetings of the Convention, during which he appears to have been almost inactive and was not named to any committees. On 28 Aug. 1660 he left the House and registered his proxy with William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, which was vacated when he returned to the House after the summer recess on 17 Nov. for a further 25 sittings.</p><p>Herbert quickly showed that his interests really lay in the governance of Wales and in the management of his influence there. He had already given evidence during the elections to the Convention of his strong electoral interest in Montgomeryshire, which he shared with his Catholic cousins, the Herberts of Powis Castle (at this time represented by Percy Herbert*, 2nd Baron Powis) and the Vaughans of Llwydiarth. The head of this family, Edward Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, was arrested for royalism before he could stand, but both branches of the Herberts appear to have agreed with the Vaughans to return Vaughan’s nephew (and Herbert of Chirbury’s cousin) John Purcell<sup>‡</sup> for the county. Matters were less harmonious for the borough election, in which four separate boroughs were to have a voice in the selection of the candidate: the county town, Montgomery, controlled by Herbert of Chirbury; the ‘out-boroughs’ of Welshpool and Llanfyllin, under the influence of the barons of Powis; and Llanidoes, whose lords of the manor were the Lloyds of Berthllwyd. Herbert of Chirbury embarked on a campaign to have the outlying boroughs disenfranchised so that Montgomery could return Members. In April 1660 his brother-in-law Thomas Myddelton<sup>‡</sup> was returned for the borough constituency, withstanding a petition to the Commons from his principal rival, Charles Lloyd of Berthllwyd.</p><p>For the Cavalier Parliament, Herbert supported Purcell as knight of the shire and solicited Powis to support the candidacy of his uncle Sir Henry Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, the master of the revels, for Montgomery Boroughs.<sup>17</sup> Instead Purcell made way for Vaughan, now released, to represent the shire and transferred his ambitions to the borough constituency. In March 1661 Herbert insisted that ‘choosing a burgess will not lie in their [the outboroughs’] power unless Montgomery, being county town, may choose their own’.<sup>18</sup> At the election for the boroughs, two candidates were returned: Herbert’s man Purcell, with an indenture signed by ‘the mayor and bailiffs’ of Montgomery, and John Blayney of Gregynog, with one signed merely by ‘the burgesses’. The Commons determined, after a division, that Purcell, ‘being returned by the proper officer, should sit’. A later account of the Montgomery Boroughs constituency, arguing in favour of the rights of the outer boroughs, alleged that this was the only time that the burgesses of Montgomery elected a Member without the other boroughs. They did it ‘by surprise without notice to the other boroughs’, while Blayney, already an aged man, ‘would not spend his time nor money to bring it to question, and soon after the election died’.</p><p>Purcell died in 1665 and Herbert’s younger brother, Henry Herbert, only recently come of age, was returned on the family interest. This time, burgesses of all four boroughs signed the indenture returning him and, as a later account alleged, Herbert of Chirbury ‘declared our [the outboroughs’] right with much kindness, as he well might by way of retribution for our readiness to serve him’.<sup>19</sup> But by May 1676 the Privy Council had heard evidence that Herbert, having agreed as <em>custos rotulorum</em> to summon the quarter sessions to towns other than Montgomery occasionally, still refused to do so, to the point where a group of justices of the peace signed their own warrant for a sessions to be held in Llangellin before Herbert could issue his for Montgomery.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Herbert’s ambitions stretched well beyond the county town. In September 1660 he strongly urged the necessity of re-establishing the Council of Wales and the Marches, and hoped that Henry Stuart*, duke of Gloucester, could be solicited to take on the role of its president – ‘if it were not too bold a thing for me to attempt’.<sup>21</sup> Unfortunately he put forward this project at exactly the time that the duke succumbed to smallpox and he deeply regretted the death of ‘so great a pillar of their Protestant religion’.<sup>22</sup> At around the same time Herbert was made <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Montgomeryshire and was suggested as a deputy lieutenant for the six counties of north Wales, but it was not until December that his uncle Richard Vaughan*, Baron Vaughan (better known as 2nd earl of Carbery [I]), was formally appointed lord lieutenant of all 12 counties of Wales and, a month later, lord president of the newly constituted Council of Wales. In January 1661, Vaughan commissioned Herbert as a deputy lieutenant and colonel of a regiment of militia horse for North Wales, as well as a captain of another troop of horse in Montgomery itself.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Herbert quickly showed himself an enthusiastic deputy to his uncle in early 1661, when there were fears that Wales was acting as a haven for diehard opponents of the new regime such as Vavasor Powell.<sup>24</sup> At the same time he added to his local roles in north Wales, being appointed, following his petition, as chief forester of Snowdon, chief constable of Conway Castle, and steward of the manors formerly belonging to Bardsey Abbey.<sup>25</sup> He did reveal some resentment, and perhaps rivalry, at Carbery’s predominance in Welsh affairs and his continued absence from the region, when he wrote to a kinswoman in September 1661 concerning the lord lieutenant’s ‘long neglect of the king’s service’, although he did hold out the possibility of reconciliation if Carbery acted more ‘cordially in the king’s affairs’.<sup>26</sup> Herbert remained active in the governance and administration of north Wales over the following years and added to his offices that of <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Denbighshire in 1666.<sup>27</sup> The Quaker Richard Davies had many encounters with him and portrayed him in his autobiography as a magistrate sympathetic to the peaceable Friends of the region.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Herbert first took his seat in the Cavalier Parliament on 5 June 1661 and attended just under half of the sittings of the House before he left on 22 July, a week before Parliament was adjourned for the summer.<sup>29</sup> He was not named to a committee until 2 July, when he was added to the select committee considering the petition for the re-establishment of the Council of York – a matter on which he may have had strong views, considering his own advocacy of the Council of Wales. Thereafter he was named to a further three committees, including that on the militia bill, and was tipped to vote against the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the hereditary office of great chamberlain.<sup>30</sup> Strangely, the manuscript minutes of the Journal suggest that on 20 July 1661 Herbert registered his proxy with John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, even though Herbert would have been well aware that Rutland had been absent from the House for well over two months, having last sat on 10 May.<sup>31</sup> Rutland did not return to the House to exercise this proxy until 16 Dec. 1661. The proxy was vacated by Herbert’s attendance on 23 Jan. 1662; thereafter he came to slightly less than a quarter of the meetings, and was named to three committees.</p><p>In the following session, Herbert attended 26 meetings before he was formally excused from attending the House on 1 July 1663. Ten days after that, he registered his proxy with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury). Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, forecast that through this proxy Herbert would vote in favour of the impending impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, initiated by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. Ashley became Herbert’s constant proxy recipient over the following years: Herbert registered his proxy with him on 12 Mar. 1664, four days before the session of spring 1664, and again on 4 Dec. 1664, in the early days of the 1664–5 session. He did not assign his proxy at all for the Oxford session of October 1665.</p><p>Herbert also called upon Ashley to help him with his major project of these years, the granting of royal letters patent confirming his possession of the disputed lands of Castle Island in county Kerry. In the autumn of 1664, through Thomas Burton, his agent in Westminster, Herbert petitioned the king for a confirmation of his claim to the lands granted to Sir William Herbert in 1598, detailing the depredations and alienations committed on his land during the Irish rebellion and the sufferings of his family for their loyalty to the royalist cause in the civil wars.<sup>32</sup> Burton was distressed when the king referred the petition to the Irish lord lieutenant James Butler*, earl of Brecknock (and duke of Ormond in the Irish peerage), which he feared, correctly, ‘would occasion much delay and perhaps prove hazardous’. Herbert already had reason to be wary of Ormond, as the duke had previously rebuffed, or simply ignored, Herbert’s request for a commission in the Irish army; moreover, Ormond had landed interests in Kerry that had already brought him into conflict with Herbert’s agents there.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Ormond, trying to manage the tight competition for Irish land under the Act of Settlement, insisted that Herbert should only be confirmed in the possession of land that his ancestors actually held in 1641, by which date much of it had been alienated or wasted. Herbert and Burton endlessly repeated that Herbert’s possession of the land originally granted by Elizabeth I to his great-grandfather had been reconfirmed by a judgment in the Irish Exchequer in 1657, and they further enlisted Ashley, already distinguishing himself by his antipathy to Ormond, to help them in their suit. The matter dragged on and in May 1665 Ashley presented a new petition to the secretary of state, Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, who it was hoped would put pressure on Ormond to comply; ‘his [Arlington’s] interest is too prevalent for the duke to oppose’, Burton thought. Instead the matter was delayed again as Arlington referred the petition to the solicitor general, Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham. Finch reported in Herbert’s favour in June 1665 but the whole matter remained in abeyance throughout the remainder of 1665 and well into 1666, partly because of the disruption of the plague. By May 1666 the long process was reaching its positive conclusion, and Herbert wrote to Lord Chancellor Clarendon himself on 23 June 1666, urging him to see the patent through speedily.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Having finally received the confirmation of his title to the Castle Island lands, Herbert came to London, and to the House, for the first time in over three years, first sitting on 8 Oct. 1666, a week after he had been noted as ‘travelling to London’ at a call of the House. This time he stayed until the prorogation of 8 Feb. 1667, attending 70 per cent of the sittings, during which he was named to three select committees and was added to the committee for privileges. He may have been more than usually attentive because of the proceedings on the Irish cattle bill but he, unlike so many other peers with landed interests in Ireland, was not named to a single committee on this bill nor does his name appear in any of the protests against it. He does seem to have been concerned by it because after the prorogation he wrote to his brother-in-law Sir Richard Wynn<sup>‡</sup> on the subject. He told Wynn that the leading proponent of the bill in the House, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, ‘has caused much discourse’, while his lieutenants in the Commons – Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, and Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> – ‘walk London and the court as freely as any’, despite their role in promoting a bill that flew in the face of royal policy.<sup>35</sup> On 25 Oct. 1667 Herbert registered his proxy once again with Ashley, who would have been able to use it during the proceedings against Clarendon, but this was vacated when Herbert returned to the House on 10 Feb. 1668. Thereafter he came to 80 per cent of the meetings until Parliament was adjourned on 9 May. He was named to three committees during this time.</p><p>From late 1669 his attention turned to Ireland again. No doubt heartened by the fall of his former antagonist Ormond and his dismissal from the Irish lieutenancy, Herbert decided to throw in his lot with the new lord lieutenant, John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), appointed in May 1669. In August Herbert was appointed to the Irish Privy Council. As he waited for Robartes to pass through Wales so he could accompany him to Ireland, he wrote to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> expressing his ‘discontent and melancholy’ at having been unemployed for so long and reassuring the under-secretary that ‘I take more interest in business and public affairs than in hunting, hawking, or other country sports’.<sup>36</sup> After he had arrived in Dublin with Robartes in early October he wrote again to Williamson, full of praise for the new lord lieutenant: ‘his person … is very taking, his conversation is most pleasing, his dexterity in business amazes’. Most importantly for Herbert, Robartes’ ‘resolution to go through with his methods as he purposed needs not death to help the poor expectant to places, that he shall think worthy of them. … I only hope I may deserve his favour for a civil or military office’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Herbert appears to have been the only new member sworn to Robartes’ Privy Council but he did not receive any other major office in the Irish administration and his residence in Ireland was as brief as Robartes’ own tenure of the lieutenancy.<sup>38</sup> Herbert was back in Wales by May 1670, following Robartes’ replacement by John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and was in London by May 1672, probably trying to consolidate his position with Berkeley’s own successor, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex.<sup>39</sup> He was encouraged by Essex’s appointment and returned to Ireland in October 1672, probably in the lord lieutenant’s retinue, for his first letters to his family in England and Wales are full of news of the ‘admirable lord lieutenant’s’ recovery from a dangerous illness. By early February 1673 he had proceeded west to his estates in Kerry, where he stayed to watch over his own interest for several months. His correspondence of this period reveals some of his political instincts, most prominently the standard fear of Catholicism shared by most Protestant English (or Welsh) owners of Irish land. In early 1673 he was encouraged by the stance against popery taken by the English Parliament. ‘I hope you are all satisfied touching the growth of popery’, he wrote to his brother-in-law Richard Herbert of Oakley Park in Shropshire, ‘that that will never hurt us [in Ireland] with the jealousy of its flow flourishing in England.’<sup>40</sup></p><p>Herbert was absent from the House between May 1668 and October 1673, a period that saw a shift in his political networks. Although the context is not clear, there appears to have been some sort of falling out between Herbert and Ashley in 1669, in which Herbert allied himself with his uncle John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, against Ashley.<sup>41</sup> From around this time, Bridgwater became Herbert’s chief political contact and proxy recipient, despite Herbert’s earlier grumbling that his family connection to Bridgwater had not brought him the advantages he had expected.<sup>42</sup> Herbert registered his proxy with his uncle on 30 Dec. 1672, over a month in advance of the session which began on 4 Feb. 1673. While he was at Castle Island in early 1673, he turned to both Bridgwater and Ashley, the latter now earl of Shaftesbury and lord chancellor, to defend him against attempts by his rivals in Wales – probably the new lord lieutenant, Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort) – to have him removed as <em>custos</em> of Montgomeryshire, which suggests that some ties with Shaftesbury continued.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Herbert was probably in London in August 1673, when he married Lady Elizabeth Brydges, a daughter of the 6th Baron Chandos. He also pursued his battle with Worcester over his position in Wales.<sup>44</sup> His residence there allowed him to attend the House for the first time in many years – on 20 Oct. 1673, a prorogation day, and then for three of the four sittings of the brief session beginning a week after that. He lamented the sudden prorogation of 4 Nov. 1673:</p><blockquote><p>There is a general consternation in the looks of all men but papists upon the proroguing the Parliament this second time. … I pray God direct the king that against the next sitting … he may give his people some ease in mind that we shall not be overwhelmed by popery.<sup>45</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the same time he was disturbed by some of the more extreme stances taken by others and thought that ‘[16]41 to our great trouble and grief appears again in every action and circumstance almost’. He also commented on the general desire for a peace with the Dutch. When Parliament reconvened on 7 Jan. 1674 he attended just over two-thirds of the meetings of the session and was sufficiently concerned by its proceedings to send his brother-in-law an account of events in the House for 21–27 Jan., when the king announced to both houses the proposals for peace.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Herbert’s extended period managing his Irish lands had not ameliorated the dire financial situation caused (as he always claimed) by the expenses that his family had incurred through their loyalty to the crown. In February 1674, near the end of the parliamentary session, he petitioned Essex for the command of one of the troops of horse being raised for service in Ireland, as he was ‘sufficiently ashamed to be so often in Ireland without command’.<sup>47</sup> With no response from Essex, later that spring Herbert approached James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, asking him to act as his patron to procure for him an additional grant of land in north Wales for 99 years, preferably at a low rent. If this request was denied, he would conclude that ‘after three generations’ service’ by his family he was being totally laid aside ‘as a useless and unworthy person’.<sup>48</sup> The request was declined, which may explain Herbert’s retreat back to Wales for another three years.</p><p>The author of the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, in praising those peers who voted and protested against the Non-resisting Test between 21 and 29 April 1675, included Herbert among the ‘absent lords’ who ‘ought to be mentioned with honour, having taken care their votes should maintain their own interest and opinion’ through their proxies with opponents of the Test.<sup>49</sup> However, the official register is clear that Herbert only registered his proxy to Bridgwater (a leading opponent of the bill) on 29 May 1675, well after the important divisions on the Test had already passed. However, Herbert’s proxy with Bridgwater was registered well in advance of the following session, on 4 Oct. 1675, nine days before its commencement. A division list of the vote of 20 Nov. on whether to present the king with an address calling for the dissolution of Parliament shows that Bridgwater exercised Herbert’s proxy in favour of this motion but to no avail, as the motion was lost by two votes.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Herbert returned to the capital to attend the House on the first day of the following session, 15 Feb. 1677, and came to 57 per cent of the sittings before he left on 12 Apr., shortly before the adjournment. He was present for only two meetings when the House resumed for a week from 21 May. Shaftesbury, incarcerated in the Tower from February for claiming that the Parliament had been automatically dissolved, marked ‘Herbert of Chirbury’ as ‘doubly worthy’ in his analysis of the political standing of the peerage. However, the name of Herbert’s brother, ‘Henry’, is written above ‘Edward’ next to ‘Herbert of Chirbury’ on Shaftesbury’s list and it is not immediately apparent to which brother the designation is meant to apply.</p><p>Herbert appeared again in the House on 28 Nov. 1678 but he attended only five meetings, as he died unexpectedly on 9 Dec. ‘of an apoplexy’.<sup>51</sup> Despite his apparent sympathy for ‘country’ positions, as demonstrated by his choice of proxies, Shaftesbury’s approving comments in his analysis probably referred to the childless Herbert’s successor, Henry Herbert, who had already established himself as a member of Shaftesbury’s circle and who, as 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, was an active proponent of ‘country’ policies and Exclusion. This younger brother quickly made up for his elder’s lack of political involvement in the House and in national politics.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, Henry (c. 1643-91) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1643–91)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 9 Dec. 1678 as 4th Bar. HERBERT OF CHIRBURY (CHERBURY) and 4th Bar. Herbert of Castle Island [I] |
|
First sat 23 Dec. 1678; last sat 5 Jan. 1691 |
|
MP Montgomery Boroughs Oct. 1665-9 Dec. 1678 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1643, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Richard Herbert<sup>† </sup>(later 2nd Bar. Herbert of Chirbury) and Mary, da. of John Egerton<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bridgwater; bro. of Edward Herbert* 3rd Bar. Herbert of Chirbury. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. lic. 14 Dec. 1681, Katherine (<em>d</em>. 24 Apr. 1716), da. of Francis Newport* Visct. Newport (later earl of Bradford), <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 21 Apr. 1691; <em>will</em> 15 Aug. 1690, pr. 6 May 1691.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Cofferer of the household Mar.–May 1689.<sup>2</sup></p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Mont. Dec. 1679–Jan. 1680, 1689–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ensign, Ft. Gds. [I] 1662–5;<sup>3</sup> lt. of ft. Ludlow garrison, 1665–7;<sup>4</sup> capt. Admiralty Regt. 1667–80;<sup>5</sup> col. 23 Ft. Mar.–Apr. 1689.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Freeman, Skinners’ Company 1681.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by G. Soest, Powis Castle; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, Royal Welch Fusiliers Regimental Museum, Caernarfon, Gwynedd; oil on canvas, William Wissing, Weston Park Foundation.</p> |
<p>Henry Herbert was the younger surviving grandson of the courtier, diplomat, and philosopher Sir Edward Herbert<sup>†</sup>, Baron Herbert of Castle Island [I] and Baron Herbert of Chirbury. The family, prominent in the Welsh county of Montgomery, was damaged by the civil wars and particularly by the adherence of Herbert’s father to the royalist cause, for which the family stronghold of Montgomery Castle was demolished.<sup>9</sup> Both Henry Herbert and his elder brother, Edward, became involved in royalist circles and took part in the western rising led by Sir George Booth*, later Baron Delamer, in August 1659.</p><p>As a young man Henry Herbert benefitted from his elder brother’s activities in both Ireland and Wales. It was his brother who petitioned the king and the lord lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler*, earl of Brecknock (better known as the duke of Ormond [I]), to place Henry in an Irish regiment of Foot Guards.<sup>10</sup> In May 1665 Henry was commissioned to serve as a lieutenant in the garrison of Ludlow Castle, where the Council of Wales and the Marches held its courts.<sup>11</sup> Again it was his elder brother who later that same year was able to arrange Henry’s return as a burgess for the four Montgomery Boroughs, as part of a campaign to consolidate his electoral interest in the county town of Montgomery by effectively disenfranchising the ‘out-boroughs’ of Welshpool, Llanfyllin, and Llanidoes. When Henry Herbert inherited the barony he continued this campaign even more aggressively but, at his own election in 1665, burgesses of all four boroughs signed the indenture returning him. A later account alleged that the 3rd Baron on this occasion ‘declared our [the outboroughs’] right with much kindness, as he well might by way of retribution for our readiness to serve him’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Henry Herbert was never a particularly active member of the Commons. He was evidently more intent on pursuing his military career: in January 1667 he was further commissioned a captain in the Admiral’s Regiment of James Stuart*, duke of York; in 1672 he was seconded to the French army; and in May 1673 he served under Sir Edward Spragge<sup>‡</sup> at the battle of the Schonveld.<sup>13</sup> He returned to the Commons after the Treaty of Westminster, though in March 1678 he was briefly called upon to take his troops to serve in the expeditionary force in Flanders, before his company was formally disbanded in June 1679.<sup>14</sup> Throughout this period Henry’s childless elder brother expressed constant anxiety about the risk to the survival of the family line, and its title, by Henry’s dangerous military vocation – and urged him to marry instead.<sup>15</sup></p><p>By 1678 Herbert was siding increasingly with the ‘country’ party in the Commons.<sup>16</sup> This association was only further strengthened when he became the 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury in the closing weeks of the Cavalier Parliament, upon the death of his brother on 9 Dec. 1678. He first sat in the House on 23 Dec., on which day he joined in the dissent from the resolution that Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), did not have to withdraw from the chamber following the reading of the articles of impeachment against him. Over the remaining four days of the session Herbert voted against the motion to adhere to the amendment to the disbandment bill which would place the funds collected in the care of the exchequer, and for the commitment of Danby after his impeachment. It may have been at around this time that Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, altered his calculation of the political usefulness of members of the peerage to take account of the death of the 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury and the advent of his younger, and more active, brother, whom he deemed to be ‘doubly worthy’.</p><p>The new Baron Herbert inherited his brother’s interest in the town of Montgomery and continued his policy of asserting the monopoly of that borough in the choice of Members for Montgomery Boroughs. The by-election to replace Herbert in the borough seat after his elevation to the peerage was held only two days after the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament, and its result – a clear victory for Edward Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, standing on the right of the out-boroughs – was superseded by the need to call a new election. At the ensuing elections Vaughan won the Montgomery county seat. Herbert and his candidate, Matthew Pryce<sup>‡</sup>, took measures to ensure victory over the new advocate for the rights of the out-boroughs, Edward Lloyd of Berthllwyd. Lloyd’s later petition to the election committee asserted that the Montgomery bailiffs, who served as the returning officers, had been ‘influenced by certain great people in the neighbourhood’ when they formally closed the poll of 18 Feb. 1679 after only the votes of the Montgomery burgesses (overwhelmingly for Pryce) had been counted, while Lloyd’s adherents continued to collect sufficient votes from the out-boroughs to make him the victor. Considering the temper of the Commons at that time, it was not surprising that Lloyd’s petition was rejected and Pryce was allowed to sit on the merits of his return.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Danby was sure that Herbert would be an adversary in the forthcoming Parliament and appears to have entrusted his management to Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup>, Herbert’s colonel in the duke of York’s regiment. Herbert was certainly an active and engaged participant of the first Exclusion Parliament, attending 93 per cent of the sitting days in its substantive second session. He was one of only nine peers to subscribe to the protest of 7 Apr. 1679 objecting to the decision to commit John Sidway for the spurious information that he brought against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, and a week later he voted in favour of Danby’s attainder. He was named to two select committees, including one on 1 Apr. to consider the bill for freeing the City of London of papists, and to two subcommittees set up by the committee of the whole house, one on 15 Apr. to make the habeas corpus bill more coherent, and the other on 17 Apr. to draw up the names of places in Ireland which were in need of defence from the Catholic threat.<sup>18</sup> Following on from the latter committee, on 17 Apr. 1679 Herbert was one of seven peers with landed interests in Ireland who requested the king to order the lord lieutenant there to put the laws against Catholics into effect. Throughout May he joined in many of the large ‘country’ protests: against the rejection of the motion to establish a committee of both Houses to consider the methods of trying Danby and the five Catholic peers; against the decision to try the other peers before Danby; against the initial resolution that the bishops could stay in attendance while the House judged these capital cases; and then against the House’s continuing insistence on and adherence to this resolution.</p><p>In the elections following the dissolution of Parliament on 12 July 1679, Pryce was challenged by a more formidable opponent, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, but Herbert kept tight control; at the election on 6 Oct. the Montgomery bailiffs proclaimed the poll only a quarter of an hour before it was held, and only in Montgomery itself, and not surprisingly returned Pryce. Trevor petitioned, but the partisan elections committee made no report on the case, and it was lost at the dissolution of the Parliament on 18 Jan. 1681.<sup>19</sup></p><p>While Charles II continuously delayed the convening of this Parliament, Herbert was part of the group of nobles, led by Shaftesbury, who met weekly at the Swan Tavern in Fleet Street to plan the large petitioning drives and extravagant anti-Catholic demonstrations which marked the winter of 1679–80.<sup>20</sup> In late November this group of peers all attended the trial of Thomas Knox and John Lane, court collaborators and servants of Danby, to see the jury find them guilty of trying to fix a trumped-up charge of sodomy on Titus Oates.<sup>21</sup> These same peers were among the 16 peers who signed the petition to Charles II calling for an immediate summons of the Parliament, and Herbert was one of the nine who personally attended the king with the petition on 7 Dec. 1679.<sup>22</sup> For this involvement in the petition, and in the opposition movement in general, early in 1680 Herbert lost his commission in the duke of York’s regiment and his place as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Montgomeryshire, to which latter post he had been appointed only a few weeks previously.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Herbert attended the House on three of the days of prorogation by which Charles II kept the House in abeyance, and he was there when the House finally convened to conduct business on 21 Oct. 1680, thereafter being present on all but one of that Parliament’s sitting days. He was named to three select committees but his main concern was the bill for Exclusion, which he supported through his vote and his protest against the House’s rejection of it on 15 November. Eight days later he voted for the motion to establish a joint committee of the two Houses to consider the safety of the nation, and the following day, 24 Nov., he was added to the committee for the bill for a Protestant Association. On 7 Dec. 1680 he voted William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty, and in the days following took an active part in the scrutiny of the lists of suspect Catholics in the Marcher counties who were to be expelled by the bill ‘for the better securing the present peace of this kingdom’.<sup>24</sup> In the final days of the session he entered his protests against the unwillingness of the House to put the question whether Lord Chief Justice Sir William Scroggs should be committed, or even suspended, while impeachment charges were pending against him.</p><p>Within a week of the dissolution of Parliament on 18 Jan. 1681, Herbert had joined 15 of his Whig colleagues in signing a petition to the king urging him that the following Parliament should be held in Westminster.<sup>25</sup> Herbert and his allies among the Montgomery burgesses then used the same techniques of secrecy and collusion as formerly to ensure that Matthew Pryce was returned for Montgomery Boroughs for the Oxford Parliament. This time Trevor’s petition never even got before the elections committee before the Parliament was dissolved.<sup>26</sup> There is some indication that Herbert was involved in the elections of Shropshire as well; there the predominant interest was that of his second cousin (once removed), Viscount Newport.<sup>27</sup> This connection with Newport only grew tighter after Herbert married Newport’s daughter Lady Katherine Newport in December 1681.</p><p>Herbert, with Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), his close colleague at this time, was part of the large group of Whigs who accompanied James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, to the Oxford Parliament in a show of force.<sup>28</sup> Herbert, considered by Danby an enemy to his petition for bail, first took his seat on 22 Mar. 1681 and attended for a further four days until he and the other core members of the Whigs protested against the House’s resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than by impeachment.<sup>29</sup> He continued his interest in Fitzharris well after this protest and the ensuing abrupt dissolution of the Parliament. He was part of the ‘very great auditory’ who attended the preliminary hearings in Fitzharris’ trial in the king’s bench in early May and later formed part of the ‘great concourse of persons of quality’ who attended the ‘so expected trial’ on 9 June 1681, at which Fitzharris was found guilty of treason.<sup>30</sup> Herbert was also one of the petitioners in May for a royal pardon for the violent Whig Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, indicted for manslaughter for the second time.<sup>31</sup> He was one of the ‘persons of that faction’ who visited Shaftesbury in the Tower after his arrest on 2 July, and one of those present to hear the London grand jury’s <em>ignoramus</em> verdict in the indictment of Stephen College and the unsuccessful application for bail by Shaftesbury and his fellow prisoner William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, on 8 July, the last day of the law term.<sup>32</sup></p><p>When the new term commenced in October, Herbert once again threw himself into political activity. Most immediately galling to him was the betrayal of a former associate, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, previously one of the more ardent of the Exclusionists. On 21 Oct. 1681 Huntingdon kissed the king’s hands, supposedly pronouncing that his change of heart was because he ‘had by experience found, that they who promoted the bill of Exclusion were for the subversion of monarchy itself’.<sup>33</sup> When these words were printed in Nathaniel Thompson’s <em>True Domestick Intelligence</em>, Monmouth and his two loyal followers, Grey of Warke and Herbert, demanded a published retraction from Huntingdon, which he refused to give. Huntingdon did however extract a printed apology from Thompson for being too free with publishing his reputed words. A broadsheet battle broke out when the Whig peers published their own defence and apology on 2 Nov., with obscure aspersions on Huntingdon, only to be met by a more belligerent printed answer from Huntingdon emphasizing his honour and making vague threats against his erstwhile allies. The matter escalated when Herbert reaffixed the Whig response which had been torn down by two of Huntingdon’s kinsmen, Knyvett and Ferdinando Hastings. Herbert proclaimed that he would challenge anyone who dared to take it down again. John Parker, ‘a brisk, young man’ and officer in the Life Guards, who had previously been a captain with Herbert in the duke of York’s regiment, ripped down the offending paper, but he and Herbert were prevented from fighting their duel by the Life Guards. Many years later, when Parker was a colonel and trying to ingratiate himself with the Jacobite court, he was still prepared to hark back to this act of youthful loyalty to the crown. Huntingdon’s two kinsmen were also determined to remove Herbert’s poster and take up his challenge, but, finding it already gone, instead announced that they would challenge anybody who dared to assert that they had asked the three peers’ forgiveness for their first act of vandalism.<sup>34</sup></p><p>On 28 Nov. 1681, only a few days after his abortive duel with Parker, Herbert was present at king’s bench when Shaftesbury and Howard of Escrick were brought in on their writs of <em>habeas corpus</em>. Both were bailed, and Herbert stood as one of Howard’s sureties.<sup>35</sup> Herbert remained at the heart of the Whig agitation against the royal brothers, supporting Monmouth’s claims for the following few months, and on 31 Mar. 1682 the king ordered the lord mayor of London not to entertain the Whig leaders, listing Monmouth, Shaftesbury, Grey, and Herbert by name as those who, already <em>persona non grata</em> at the royal court, were likewise not to ‘receive any caresses or countenance’ from the corporation. Yet when Monmouth was arrested upon reaching London in September after his triumphant progress through Cheshire, he was initially paid a public visit by Herbert, Shaftesbury, and William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, among others, to the obvious displeasure of the king.<sup>36</sup> Howard of Escrick’s later testimony, made in the wake of his capture after the Rye House Plot, suggests that Herbert was at the periphery of the plotting against the royal brothers and that in October 1682 Shaftesbury had claimed that Herbert and Colonel John Rumsey would be able to raise 10,000 ‘brisk boys’ from among the London apprentices during the planned uprising.<sup>37</sup> Herbert not surprisingly fell under suspicion after the discovery of the plot, and appears to have been briefly placed in custody for it. He vigorously denied the allegations and relied on his second cousin Admiral Arthur Herbert*, (later earl of Torrington), and his father-in-law, Newport, to defend him at court. In 1684 Newport had cause to complain of harsh words by Herbert, especially after having ‘travailed’ so much in Herbert’s defence.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Despite these problems, Herbert was even more ambitious at the elections for James II’s Parliament, when he discarded Pryce (who was furious about being so casually let go) and put forward William Williams<sup>‡</sup> against his own kinsman, the moderate Tory Charles Herbert<sup>‡</sup> of Aston, elder brother of Arthur Herbert, instead. Williams had been Speaker of the Commons during the previous two Parliaments and was ‘a person reported much to be disgusted by the king’.<sup>39</sup> According to a contemporary account of the election of 4 Apr. 1685, the Montgomery bailiffs ‘so wisely surprised us in by a mock, indeed a private proclaiming the time of election’ that many ‘heard it not’. This time the petitions of Charles Herbert and the out-boroughs, which claimed that the Montgomery bailiffs had acted under pressure from ‘some great persons in that neighbourhood, upon whom they had dependence’, were received more favourably; Williams’ election was declared void and the Commons framed resolutions affirming the right of the Montgomeryshire out-boroughs in future elections. The new election had clearly taken place by 10 July 1685, for on that date Herbert of Chirbury wrote a letter to Williams accounting for his decision to support the election of Charles Herbert, who had promised to work to stop the <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings against the town and to have the fair recreated, ‘and that he would spend his moneys at Montgomery in treating his troop of voters there’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Herbert of Chirbury did not attend James II’s short Parliament in 1685 himself, nor any of the subsequent prorogations of Parliament before its dissolution on 2 July 1687. He retreated from the English capital, where he had resided in lodgings on Pall Mall for the first half of the 1680s, to his Welsh house of Lymore Lodge in Montgomeryshire.<sup>41</sup> However, he was kept informed of social and political events in the capital through the letters of his first cousin John Egerton*, then styled Viscount Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater), and of his wife’s paternal uncle (and his own second cousin) Andrew Newport<sup>‡</sup>, who had sat for the county of Montgomery in the Cavalier Parliament on the Herbert of Chirbury interest. In December 1685 Newport was entrusted with conveying Herbert’s proxy to an unidentifiable ‘noble person’, who at first objected that ‘it signified nothing, since the Act for the Test unqualifies <em>in terminis</em> any peer to sit or give a proxy till he has taken the oaths and subscribed the Test’, but eventually complied with the request, though by that time Parliament had already sat for business for the last time in James II’s reign. Newport also approached this ‘noble person’ to help in Herbert’s request for the office of chief forester of Snowdon Forest, formerly held by his elder brother, and which Herbert thought was his by right.<sup>42</sup> In March 1686 Newport had to report that when ‘your great friend’ approached the king about the patent for the office, James II answered ‘that you [Herbert of Chirbury] having made a very unsuitable return to his Majesty’s former kindnesses to you in your brother’s lifetime, he wondered you would ask them, further saying, you should not have them till you behaved yourself better towards him’. To Newport’s suggestion that Herbert make his peace with the king, Herbert answered:</p><blockquote><p>Since I cannot obtain what I look on as my inheritance but by doing something unhonest, I will patiently lose not only that, but the remainder of my estate and life also, rather than turn purchaser at a vile rate. And I hope God will fortify my frailties so far as that I shall maintain this resolution to my end. Those are the morals of the true Protestant you have so often contemned for his unthriving constancy.<sup>43</sup></p></blockquote><p>Throughout 1687–8 Herbert was consistently regarded as an opponent of the king’s policies. He made his views very clear in April 1687 when he wrote to Arthur Herbert upon the admiral’s dismissal from office for his refusal to countenance the repeal of the Test after an intensive ‘closeting’ session with the king:</p><blockquote><p>you have added undeniable virtue to the province of your known bravery and made your dominion over men greater than ever it was; particularly you have reduced my kindness, which formerly was a gift bestowed, to be now a tribute justly due for your worth. … your friends can justify you have done like a gallant Englishman.<sup>44</sup></p></blockquote><p>Herbert of Chirbury was an important figure in Wales and the Marcher counties during the events of 1688. Andrew Newport called upon him, as a major landowner in Shropshire, to take part in the meeting of gentry in that county scheduled for 27 Sept. to determine the candidate for the mooted elections.<sup>45</sup> Herbert of Chirbury ensured that Arthur Herbert’s brother, the sitting member Charles Herbert, was again nominated for Montgomery Boroughs for James II’s proposed Parliament. In December 1688 Herbert of Chirbury raised Williamite forces in Wales and captured Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, to which he appointed Charles Herbert as governor, before then moving on to occupy Hereford. William of Orange thanked him for his actions on his behalf, but discouraged Herbert from attempting the long march to join his army, advising him instead to keep control of the Marcher territories and to ‘encourage’ the inhabitants to enter into the Association and to contribute money to a loan for the increasing charge of the campaign.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Charles Herbert was returned ‘unanimously’ to the Montgomery Boroughs seat for the Convention, while Herbert of Chirbury was from the beginning a keen supporter of William of Orange, supporting throughout late January and early February 1689 the motion that James II had ‘abdicated’ and that ‘the throne is thereby vacant’. After he had thus helped to settle the disposition of the crown, he continued to sit diligently in the Convention, coming to a total of 94 per cent of the meetings of its first session and to just under three-quarters of those of its winter session. In February 1689 he was added to the select committees to investigate the death of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and to consider methods to prevent Catholics staying in London, and on 1 Mar. he was named to the small group of seven peers assigned to draft an address to the king on the pursuit of further enemies of the regime. Later, on 15 Nov. 1689, his first day back in the House after the prorogation, he was added to the committee for inspections examining the judicial ‘murders’ of many of his former Whig colleagues, and on 7 Dec. was placed on the committee to examine the evidence for James II’s attempt to suborn witnesses. Overall he was nominated to far more select committees in the Convention than ever before – 46 in total – and on 19 Dec., having returned to the House just four days previously, he was especially placed on all select committees at that point established. However he never chaired or reported from any of these committees, nor was he ever appointed to manage or report a conference with the House of Commons.</p><p>In late May and early June 1689 Herbert was active in support of the bill to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates, and in the final days of July he further protested against the House’s amendments to the bill which would prevent Oates from ever testifying in court again. On 25 June he registered his opposition to the decision to uphold the exchequer’s reversal of an original judgment in favour of the Whig Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>. Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, registered his proxy with Herbert on 13 June, the only occasion on which either of these Whig peers gave or received a proxy. However Cornwallis was actually continuously present in the House from the day of the proxy’s registration, which would have rendered it inoperative, although the proxy may have been used in the ten days from 13 July when Cornwallis was formally excused from the House. On 23 Nov. 1689 Herbert subscribed his protest against the decision to reject a proviso to the Bill of Rights which would require the approval of both Houses to any royal pardon which could be pleaded in case of impeachment. He also protested on 23 Jan. 1690 against the decision to leave out of a clause in the bill to restore corporations to their previous rights the statement that the surrender of charters under Charles II and James II had been ‘illegal and void’. During the Convention he became heavily involved in the work of the subcommittee for the Journal, perhaps owing to the influence of his cousin Bridgwater, the leading member of the committee. Often in the select company of only Bridgwater, North, and Grey, Herbert subscribed his name to 21 daily entries in the manuscript account of the House’s proceedings during the Convention.</p><p>Herbert was quickly rewarded for his exertions for the Williamite cause but seemed strangely unwilling to exercise his new honours. On 8 Mar. 1689 the force he had led to capture Ludlow Castle formed the nucleus of a new regiment that he was to raise for the Irish service (which later became the Royal Welch Fusiliers), but as early as 10 Apr. he resigned his colonelcy to Charles Herbert, who had by this time become his leading lieutenant and ally.<sup>47</sup> Herbert of Chirbury was also made cofferer of the royal household in March, but by May had entered into an arrangement with his father-in-law whereby Newport paid him £1,500 a year for the privilege of exercising the office, in tandem with his other post as treasurer to the household.<sup>48</sup> In August 1689 Herbert was reappointed <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Montgomeryshire and this local office he kept until his death less than two years later.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Herbert found his local influence in Montgomeryshire even further enhanced by the time of the election to William III’s first Parliament by the outlawry in February 1690 of the Catholic and Jacobite William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, the electoral patron of the out-boroughs of Welshpool and Llanfyllin.<sup>50</sup> In the 1690 election the townsmen of Welshpool even turned to Herbert of Chirbury, rather than their nominal patron, for his recommendation. His nominee was the sitting member Charles Herbert, on the encouragement of William III’s favourite, Torrington (formerly Arthur Herbert), who had specifically asked Herbert of Chirbury not to ‘forsake’ his brother. Herbert of Chirbury still suggested to the bailiffs of Montgomery that the Montgomery burgesses should return to ‘their old custom’ of returning the candidate from that borough alone, without the out-boroughs, and he even contemplated submitting two returns, one from Montgomery alone and the other from the shire town and the out-boroughs together. Perhaps suspicious, the out-boroughs did consider putting up their own candidate, Herbert of Chirbury’s nephew Francis Herbert<sup>‡</sup> of Dolgeog, but this plan, which Herbert of Chirbury saw as an ‘ungrateful’ act, came to nothing. He was at pains to reassure the Montgomery burgesses that Col. Charles Herbert would be given leave to return from his military service in Ireland to take his seat, and eventually he was returned by an indenture signed by the electors of Montgomery and the ‘out-burgesses’ together. For the remainder of the reigns of William and Anne the franchise was exercised ‘by the burgesses of Montgomery promiscuously with those of the out-boroughs’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>The government manager, the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become), considered Herbert a ‘court lord’ in the run-up to the first meeting of the new Parliament, when Herbert missed only one of the first session’s 54 sittings. He dutifully attended three of the days of prorogation in the late summer of 1690, but did not arrive for the second session until more than three weeks after its commencement on 2 Oct. 1690. He then went on to be present at a further 45 sittings, with an attendance rate of 60.5 per cent. His activity in the first two sessions of the Parliament appears to have been largely confined to his nominations to 43 select committees and to his monitoring and approving, with Bridgwater, the accounts of the House’s procedures in the Journal, which he did through his signature on 11 occasions. He also entered his protests against the decision to agree with the committee of the whole house’s compromise wording, which stated that the acts of the Convention ‘were and are good laws, to all intents and purposes whatsoever’ (on 5 Apr. 1690), and against the resolution not to allow counsel for the City of London more time to present their case in favour of the bill to restore the former charter of the Corporation (on 13 May).</p><p>In the October 1690 session he was particularly interested and involved in the proceedings concerning the now disgraced Torrington, of whose fate he had been kept informed by another kinsman, probably his cousin Henry Herbert of Ribbesford*, later Baron Herbert of Chirbury, who lamented that ‘I did not think any of our name should be put into ballad stanza, but so it is’.<sup>52</sup> On 30 Oct. Herbert was one of the 17 peers who protested against the passage of the Admiralty Commissioners bill, a government measure designed to enable the commissioners to exercise all the powers of the lord high admiral, including convening a court martial against Torrington. On that same day, Herbert joined seven other peers in the protest against the resolution to discharge James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough.</p><p>Herbert died on 21 Apr. 1691, through ‘violent vomiting and a secret issuing of corruption, blood and even his inwards, in nature of a diabetes’.<sup>53</sup> At his death the peerage was extinguished. It was reinstated only three years later for the benefit of his cousin, Henry Herbert of Ribbesford. By his will of August 1690, Herbert of Chirbury left his wife her jointure estate and placed the remainder of the estate in the care of trustees to raise portions of £6,000 each for his two unmarried sisters, after which the landed estate was to go to his nephew Francis Herbert<sup>‡</sup> of Oakley Park and his successors. Francis Herbert’s own son Henry Arthur Herbert*, later earl of Powis, was able in the space of a few short years in the 1740s to coalesce almost all the estates of the many branches of the widespread Herbert family – the Herberts of Bromefield and Oakley Park, of Chirbury, and of Powis Castle – to become one of the richest men of 18th-century Britain.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, Henry (1654-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1654–1709)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>28 Apr. 1694 Bar. HERBERT OF CHIRBURY (CHERBURY) |
|
First sat 12 Nov. 1694; last sat 13 Jan. 1709 |
|
MP Bewdley 10 Mar. 1677, 1689, 1690-28 Apr. 1694, Worcester 1681 |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 July 1654, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Sir Henry Herbert<sup>‡</sup> (1594–1673) of Ribbesford, Worcs., and 2nd w. Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1698), da. of Sir Robert Offley of Dalby, Leics. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Oxf. matric. 8 Feb. 1670; I. Temple 1671; L. Inn 1672. <em>m</em>. 12 Feb. 1678 (with £8,000), Anne (<em>d</em>. 12 July 1685), da. and coh. of John Ramsey, alderman of London, 1s.; 3s. 1da. illegit. with Frances Buckley. <em>suc</em>. fa. 27 Apr. 1673. <em>d</em>. 22 Jan. 1709; <em>will</em> 25 July 1707, pr. 15 Feb. 1709.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. bd. of trade 1707–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Freeman, Bewdley 1670; <em>custos rot</em>. Brec. 1695–1702; capt. militia horse, Worcs. by 1697–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p><em>Member for Bewdley, 1677–94</em></p><p>Henry Herbert’s pious and demanding father, Sir Henry Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, a younger brother of Edward Herbert<sup>†</sup>, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, made a deathbed wish that his only son and heir, Henry, would replace him as burgess for the Worcestershire corporation of Bewdley, a single-member constituency. Although underage at his father’s death on 27 Apr. 1673, Henry Herbert contested the Bewdley seat, unsuccessfully, against his opponent Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup>. The borough’s charter of 1605 established a franchise which was to provide ample scope for manipulation and contention in this and the years ahead. Herbert originally considered disputing Foley’s return by contesting the eligibility of several of the burgesses but, realizing that this line of attack would not get very far, he charged Foley instead with bribery. The committee for elections accepted this and placed Herbert in the Bewdley seat instead of Foley on 10 Mar. 1677. Despite all this effort, Herbert was initially a lacklustre parliamentarian and his agent in London had to chivvy him to come to Westminster to take part in the session investigating the Popish Plot.<sup>2</sup></p><p>At the Bewdley election for the first Exclusion Parliament Herbert lost against the deceased Thomas Foley’s younger son, Philip Foley<sup>‡</sup>, and once again petitioned. His petition was unsuccessful and he did not sit again until returned for the borough of Worcester in March 1681. He was not returned for any seat in 1685, a casualty of the growing Tory dominance in Bewdley instituted by the new borough charter issued in May 1685.</p><p>By the mid-1680s Herbert was identified with the Whigs. He joined William of Orange at The Hague in 1687–8, came over with the invasion fleet commanded by his second cousin Arthur Herbert*, later earl of Torrington, and was appointed one of the commissioners for managing the revenue at the Williamite base at Exeter. He was returned unanimously for Bewdley in 1689, and again in 1690, and at this point he became very active in the Commons as a Whig supporter of William’s government.</p><p>Throughout his career, both as a commoner and as a peer after April 1694, Herbert felt that he was insufficiently compensated for his services to the court, and constantly begged William III for office or royal favour.<sup>3</sup> He was finally rewarded for his attachment to the Whigs, and for his family connection to a renowned, but recently extinct, noble line, by his elevation to the peerage on 28 Apr. 1694 as Baron Herbert of Chirbury of the second creation, part of the large-scale creations and promotions of that spring which were a sign of William’s turn to the Whigs.</p><p>This honour did not stop Herbert’s importunities. Almost immediately upon receiving this new honour he addressed himself to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, requesting to be made envoy to the States General.<sup>4</sup> That request having failed, in September 1694 he turned to the lord keeper, Sir John Somers*, later Baron Somers, asking for a place as teller of the exchequer and complaining that he had received no mark of favour from the king except ‘what has been a charge to me’, perhaps referring to the expense of maintaining his new dignity as a peer, and reminding Somers that he had been ‘pleased to say my case was hard to be overlooked for venturing my all, when those who ventured not had rewards’.<sup>5</sup></p><p>The Junto Whig Somers became a key contact and colleague for Herbert of Chirbury; they were both from Worcestershire, had represented Worcester borough in the Commons, and had reason to resent the growing Foley–Harley interest in the Marcher counties. In the first days of 1700 Herbert once again begged Somers to fulfil the king’s reputed promise to him to put him in the place of Charles Montagu*, (later Baron Halifax), in the treasury and sounded the same old refrain:</p><blockquote><p>My Lord, I’ve neither been ambitious or pressing, as others have been and are; but if I’m to be the only one, who have continued in the same warmth for this Government as I brought over with me at the Prince of Orange’s landing, without any personal profit, (especially when enemies to our Government have stepped over me into most advantageous places) I shall retire. I confess my principal will never let me act, as some do, in opposition to the Government I’ve ventured my all for, and desire may have long continuance; but that’s no reason I should be forgot.<sup>6</sup></p></blockquote><p>The only office that William III ever did confer on him was that of <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Brecknockshire, granted to him in April 1695.</p><p><em>A busy chairman in the House of Lords, 1694–8</em></p><p>Herbert of Chirbury first sat in the House on 12 Nov. 1694, the opening day of the 1694–5 session, the last of William III’s first Parliament. He was introduced between Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, and Robert Bertie*, Baron Willoughby of Eresby (later duke of Ancaster). He was from the start, as he liked to point out to Somers, a zealous attender of the House and partisan for the government, as he had been in the Commons, being present at all but 16 of that session’s 127 sittings.</p><p>Herbert largely appears in the records of his first session in the House as a nominee to select committees on legislation – 25 in total. He was named to almost all select committees appointed to consider legislation in most subsequent sessions as well. In addition, on 23 Jan. 1695 he dissented from the resolution agreeing to the amendment which would postpone the implementation of the treason trials bill from 1695 to 1698, and on 19 Mar. he protested when the House reversed its previous decision in the matter of the peerage claim of Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, and resolved that a title held in abeyance between the daughters of a peer could be restored to the single surviving male heir. On 29 Apr. 1695 he was one of the 11 peers assigned to draw up the House’s objections to a Commons proviso to the bill for the encouragement of privateers, and he was named a manager for the conference on 1 May.</p><p>Herbert attended 78 per cent of the meetings of the 1695–6 session, the first of the new Parliament. He was involved in the debates in the committee of the whole in early December on the state of the nation, and was on 6 Dec. named to a subcommittee to draw up an address on matters arising from debates. A committee of the whole on 30 Dec. 1695 named him to the committee of 16 peers assigned to amend a clause in the bill for regulating the coinage, and in this capacity he was a manager for two conferences on the matter on 3 and 7 Jan. 1696.</p><p>Most prominently, he became closely associated with matters concerning the East India Company and its trade. On 12 Dec. 1695 he was named to a committee appointed by the committee of the whole House to draw up an address against the establishment of an East India Company by the Scots Parliament, and over the following two days was named a manager of the conference on this address and was also placed on a committee to examine papers regarding the East India trade. On 5 and 11 Feb. 1696 Herbert chaired two committees of the whole House which resolved that a select committee should be established to consider the charters of the existing East India Company in order to draft a new one. He chaired the first meeting of this committee on the following day, 12 Feb., and from that point chaired each of the following 12 meetings of the committee, which heard copious testimony from the East India Company and the opponents of its monopoly. He was ready to report to the House the lengthy proposed regulations of the new East India Company on 1 Apr. 1696.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The East India Company committee was Herbert’s first foray into chairing committees. He also stood in as chairman for meetings, usually quickly adjourned with little discussion, of four committees, including that on the bill for the naturalization of children of William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford, which he reported as fit to pass to the House on 10 Mar. 1696.<sup>8</sup> More prominently, he began his long-running activity as a chairman of committees of the whole House. From 21 Dec. 1695 he chaired eight committees of the whole, including the two on the East India trade in early February, one on the recoinage, another on regulating elections, and one, held in April near the end of the session, on the bill for the better security of the king’s person and government, convened in the wake of the information concerning the assassination plot against the king. On the first news of the plot, in late February he was placed on the drafting committee for the address to the king, and served as a manager for the conference seeking the Commons’ concurrence. Herbert loyally subscribed to the Association at the first possible moment.<sup>9</sup> On 17 Jan. 1696 he again made clear his opposition to Richard Verney’s claim to the barony of Willoughby de Broke by telling for the minority not contents on the question whether Verney was to be heard at the bar of the House. He acted as teller again on 24 Apr. at the report stage on the juries regulation bill.</p><p>Herbert’s attendance was even higher in the 1696–7 session, when he came to all but 13 of its 117 sittings. On 28 Nov. 1696 he chaired the committee of the whole House on the recoinage bill, and two days later was named a manager for a conference on the Commons’ bill for the waiving of parliamentary privilege. These and other matters quickly got lost in the controversy over the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, which legislation Herbert probably helped to draft, judging by his defence during the debate of 18 Dec. 1696 of the wording of the bill, particularly the words ‘of which treasons the said Sir John Fenwick is guilty’ against the objections of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.<sup>10</sup> Herbert duly voted for the passage of the bill when it came to its third reading five days later. He was then part of the small group of Whigs who on 15–18 Jan. 1697 objected to the decision to commit Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), to the Tower for his part in encouraging Fenwick to implicate Tory and moderate members of the ministry.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Herbert’s most prominent activity in this session came near its end, when he led the committee entrusted to examine the naval misadventures of the previous summer. On 2 Dec. 1696 he was named to a large select committee, comprising almost the entire House, assigned to consider papers submitted by the commissioners of the admiralty and on 17 Mar. 1697 this committee was revived to consider the previous summer’s naval mishap when the Anglo-Dutch fleet failed to intercept the Toulon fleet on its way to Brest. From the committee’s first meeting on 17 Mar. 1697 to its lengthy final report on 14 Apr., it was Herbert who consistently acted as chairman at its 23 separate meetings, during which the committee tried to extract information from the uncooperative admiralty commissioners.<sup>12</sup> It was probably concerning this investigation that in an undated letter to his first cousin and friend, the retired admiral Torrington, condemned the ‘insipid ignorants’ who composed ‘that miserable commission of the Admiralty, that has made the kingdom almost as wretched as themselves. I wish them with all my heart eternally confounded.’<sup>13</sup></p><p>In addition, from 8 Feb. to the end of the session on 16 Apr. 1697, Herbert was chair for eight select committee meetings, most quickly adjourned without discussion.<sup>14</sup> Between 27 Mar. and 8 April, as the session was drawing to a close, he also chaired committees of the whole House on four occasions, three of which were on the bill for the encouragement of lustring and alamode manufacture, which he reported to the House on 8 April. He was teller on 10 Feb. 1697 in the division on the motion to give a second reading to the bill to enable Susannah Smith to remarry; it was rejected by just one vote.</p><p>Herbert maintained his high attendance level in the 1697–8 session, when he came to 82 per cent of its sittings. The early weeks of the session were largely quiet for him. He chaired and reported from a number of select committees on 22 Dec. 1697, and on 7 Jan. 1698 chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill to prevent the circulation of hammered silver coin, which he reported fit to pass.<sup>15</sup> On 7 Feb. John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan (and 3rd earl of Carbery in the Irish peerage), formally complained that Herbert was breaching his privilege through his legal actions against him. Around 1693 the constantly importunate Herbert had been granted under the privy seal the right to the arrears due to the crown on the account of James II’s auditor of Wales, among which (wrongly, according to Carbery) was a debt reputedly due from the earl. The committee for privileges under Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, decided on 18 Feb. 1696 that Herbert’s continuing efforts to claim these arrears in the court of exchequer were indeed a breach of Carbery’s privilege.<sup>16</sup></p><p>The last weeks of the session, in the spring of 1698, were a busy time for Herbert. In March 1698 he played a prominent part in the Junto attack on the exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 4 Mar. he acted as a teller on the motion for a second reading of the bill to punish Duncombe, and the following day was appointed to the committee to prepare for a conference on the bill, for which he was a manager on 7 and 11 March. He voted to commit the bill in the House on 15 Mar. and entered his protest when that motion was rejected. Over the course of the following two days he subscribed to two protests against the attempt of James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> to claim the estate of his wife’s great-uncle John Carey<sup>‡</sup> in the appeal case of <em>Bertie v Viscount Falkland</em>, and on 14 Apr. he was a teller in another judicial case before the House. On 18 Apr. he chaired and reported from the committee for privileges dealing with a breach of privilege complaint from George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton.<sup>17</sup> In May he served as chair and reporter of the committee of the whole House on six occasions, twice on the bill against clipping coin, and four times on the bill for the preservation of timber in the New Forest, which was eventually passed on 27 May. He also served as a manager for the conference on the bill against blasphemy. On 20 and 21 May he chaired select committee meetings on three bills, including the bill against the Irish woollen manufacture, and on 24 May he led and reported from the select committee assigned to draft an order stating that the appeal of William King, bishop of Derry [I], to the Irish House of Lords in his case against the Irish Society of London was null and void.<sup>18</sup></p><p>At this time Herbert also led the committee which examined the validity of the sureties for the bail of John Goudet and the other French merchants impeached by the Commons, and he reported to the House on this on 23 May.<sup>19</sup> He was apparently named a manager for the free conference scheduled for 21 June to discuss the place for the Commons to stand during the trial, and he was more formally named to the small group of 15 established on 22 June, following the free conference, to examine the Journals for precedents for the next steps to be taken.<sup>20</sup> The Goudet trial did not halt his other activities. Over the two days 9 and 10 June he chaired the committee of the whole on another three matters – the bill to naturalize Hilary Reneu and others, the repeal of the Act for the Relief of Creditors, and the bill to settle the African trade – and on 29 June he chaired two select committees and reported to the House from one, on a bill to extend the time required for registering ships.<sup>21</sup></p><p>By this time Herbert was apparently seen by others as a key member of the House, with sufficient influence to promote causes. For example, throughout the spring of 1698 Torrington was concerned by rumours that the Commons would introduce a bill to resume all of William III’s land grants in England, including his lands in Oatlands Park and the Bedford Level, and he looked to the influence of Herbert to manage and defend his interests if and when this bill came before the House.<sup>22</sup></p><p><em>Hostile Parliaments, 1698–1702</em></p><p>In the summer of 1698 Herbert was also making preparations for the elections which would follow upon the prescribed dissolution of Parliament, and his growing place in Junto Whig circles may have led him to be more ambitious. In July Abigail Harley reported to her father, Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, that ‘Lord Herbert is making an interest for somebody’, unfortunately unidentified, in Radnorshire, and from that time Herbert continued to try to make inroads into the predominant interest of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, in that county, but with little success, as Harley’s cousin Thomas Harley<sup>‡</sup> was returned to the seat unopposed in every Parliament from 1698 until 1715.<sup>23</sup> The bulk of Herbert’s attention and energy was reserved for his attempt to re-exert his interest in Bewdley. At Herbert’s elevation to the peerage, Salwey Winnington<sup>‡</sup>, son-in-law of Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> and brother-in-law of Robert Harley, was returned at the Bewdley by-election of 19 Nov. 1694 and again at the general election of 1695.<sup>24</sup> Herbert worked hard to undermine the Foley–Winnington interest in the borough. The Worcestershire native William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>, whom Herbert had briefly put forward as his candidate in the 1694 by-election, wrote to their mutual friend Somers in late May 1698 expressing his misgivings about Herbert’s plans to procure a new charter for the borough whereby he could purge the corporation of his opponents.<sup>25</sup> Walsh’s fears that such a blatant act of manipulation would prove counter-productive on this occasion were proved correct and Winnington was returned once again unopposed at the election of July 1698.</p><p>Herbert did not abandon his scheme and in March 1699 petitioned the king for the restoration and confirmation of the original 1605 charter on the grounds that its surrender in 1684 had been done by surprise and underhand practices. The effect would have been to deprive all those members of the corporation named in the 1685 charter of office, and to reinstate all those who had been burgesses under the old charter, their number to be made up to a full complement by named appointments by the king – in effect Herbert’s supporters. The Privy Council at this point declined getting involved and left it to the courts to handle the matter where, despite Herbert’s request for the assistance of his friend and ally Somers, the lord chancellor, it became bogged down and lost in litigation in early 1700.<sup>26</sup></p><p>After his efforts to ensure a Whig victory at Bewdley were unsuccessful, Herbert’s own attendance in the House slipped slightly in the new Parliament, to 78 per cent. Nor was he particularly engaged in this session. With Hugh Cholmondeley*, Baron (later earl of) Cholmondeley, he introduced Christopher Vane*, Baron Barnard, to the House on 22 Dec. 1698. On 28 Jan. 1699 he chaired the committee of the whole House which found the Disbandment Act fit to pass, without any amendment, and on 23, 25, and 27 Mar. 1699 he chaired all three committees of the whole on the petition of Captain Desborow against his court martial. On the first day of May 1699 Herbert chaired committees of the whole House on two bills, both of which he reported as fit to pass. He chaired three select committees, and on 21 Apr. reported one of them to the House.<sup>27</sup> On 3 May, the penultimate day of the session, he was named a manager for a conference on the bill for a duty on paper.</p><p>Herbert returned to his usual attendance rate in the following session of 1699–1700, coming to 85 per cent of its meetings. Having in 1696 led the committee which had devised the charter of the new East India Company and having invested £1,000 in the venture since the company’s formation in 1698, he was not surprisingly predicted to oppose the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation, and he did vote against the motion to adjourn into a committee of the whole House to consider amendments to the bill on 23 Jan. 1700, entering his protest when the bill passed that day.</p><p>In early March Herbert was involved in another bill which affected him directly: that for the sale of part of the estate of Charles Hore, whose first wife had been Herbert’s sister Elizabeth. Herbert himself chaired two select committees on this bill, during which he declared his own consent to the bill and added a saving clause for the benefit (presumably) of his niece, whose guardian he was; he reported the bill as fit to pass on 22 Mar. 1700.<sup>28</sup>. Between 22 Feb. and 11 Apr. he was a frequent chair of committees of the whole House: on the act authorizing commissioners to negotiate for a union of England and Scotland; twice on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk; on the bill for taking away export duties on woollen manufactures; on the repeal of the 1697 Act to prevent foreign imports of bone lace; twice on the bill to determine the debts due to the armed forces; and on four other bills.</p><p>Herbert was closely involved in the disputes with the lower house in April 1700 which closed the session on such a sour note. On 2 Apr. he was named as a reporter for the conference requested by the Commons on their disagreements over the bill for taking off duties on woollen manufactures. On 5 and 6 Apr. he chaired the committee of the whole House which considered the Commons’ controversial provisions for the resumption of Irish forfeited land in the land tax bill; he was appointed a manager for the three conferences held on 9–10 Apr. on the dispute over the House’s own amendment to the bill; and on 10 Apr. he subscribed to the protest against the resolution, prompted by the king’s need to have the supply bill passed, not to insist on the amendment.</p><p>Herbert first sat in the new Parliament, following the dissolution of December 1700, on 6 Mar. 1701, a full month after the session had started, and attended only a little over half of the meetings. On 31 Mar. he reported from the committee for privileges that the committee declined to proceed further in the dispute between the dowager Viscountess Saye and Sele and her stepson Nathaniel Fiennes*, 4th Viscount Saye and Sele, until a proposed arbitration – to be conducted by William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford, Somers, and Herbert himself – had been allowed to take its course.<sup>29</sup> He was involved as a teller in three divisions, one on 26 May on whether to commit Perkins’s bill and two on 11 June on the motion whether to appoint a date to consider in a committee of the whole House the bill for the crown’s resumption of the charters of the American plantations. On 10 June he chaired, and reported from, a select committee on a naturalization bill, and on 19 and 20 June he chaired committees of the whole House on two other bills.</p><p>On 21 June Herbert acted as, in her own words, ‘a most zealous and unparalleled friend’ to Elizabeth, Lady Inchiquin (née Brydges) in her continuing dispute with her third husband, Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick. Her first husband had been Herbert’s cousin Edward Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury. After his death in 1678 she had married William O’Brien, 2nd earl of Inchiquin [I]. He had died in 1692, whereupon she married Howard of Escrick, who deserted her in December 1694 and, after arranging that the jointure of £1,000 p.a. settled on her by the 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury would be channelled to him, absconded to Holland with his first ‘wife’, Hannah Pike. The dispute between Lord Howard and Lady Inchiquin over the jointure rumbled on for many years in the courts. In February 1701 the court of delegates found their marriage null and void, after which Howard petitioned his peers for a commission of review to examine the judgment, which motion was debated by the House on 21 June. After a long debate, the vote, including proxies, was even, leading to a rejection of the motion.<sup>30</sup> Herbert, according to Lady Inchiquin herself, played a lead in achieving this razor-thin victory for her, as not only did he vote in her favour, but he appears to have brought George Nevill*, 13th Baron Abergavenny, to vote against the motion: ‘I see how heaven still makes you my only deliverer, by gaining my Lord Bergavenny. … Good God! how nicely did you deliver me! with but one voice!’<sup>31</sup> Further consideration of this matter was hindered by the prorogation of Parliament on 24 June because of the continuing rancour over the Commons’ attempt to impeach the Junto peers. Herbert unsurprisingly voted for the acquittal of his Worcestershire neighbour Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, in the last days of the session.</p><p>The situation in Bewdley was fluid in the weeks preceding the elections of November 1701. As William Walsh reported to Somers,</p><blockquote><p>Mr Winnington seems to stand upon very ticklish ground at Bewdley, they having been very angry at the proceedings of the Parliament the last session and he having been in London ever since. Mr Soley [John Soley, the recorder of the borough] whose interest in a great measure brought him in has declared very publicly his dislike of their proceedings and that he would never be for anyone who had been for the impeachments.</p></blockquote><p>Soley was not willing to support Herbert and his candidate either, perhaps because he opposed Herbert’s blatant attempts to make Bewdley a pocket borough through a new charter. Walsh tried to mediate and effect a working compromise whereby Herbert would support Soley against Winnington, but in the event these machinations came to nothing and Winnington was returned unopposed once again in November 1701 and May 1702.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Although Herbert was present for the first day of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701, he effectively stopped attending the session after April 1702, a month after William III’s death, and in total came to only three-fifths of the session’s sittings. On 22 Jan. he chaired and reported from the drafting committee for the address on the debts due to Col. Baldwin Leighton.<sup>33</sup> Throughout the first two months of 1702 he was almost exclusively involved in measures to protect the king, and the Protestant succession, from the threat posed by Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender as king of England. On 12 Jan. he chaired the committee of the whole House discussing the abjuration bill, and ten days later he also chaired the committee of the whole considering the bill to attaint the Pretender. On 6 Feb. he was a reporter for the conference where the Commons stated their objections to the House’s amendment to the bill, and he was named to the committee to draw up reasons for the House’s insistence on its amendment. The following day, Herbert told in two divisions on the motion to recommit the committee’s report, which passed, and he chaired the committee when it met again to reformulate the reasons for insisting.<sup>34</sup> This time the House approved of the reasons when Herbert reported them, but the lower house continued to object when Herbert presented these reasons at a conference on 10 February. After a free conference two days later, from which Herbert once again reported to the House, the House decided not to insist upon its amendment.</p><p>The issue at the heart of this disagreement appears to have been the House’s attempt to attaint Mary of Modena by an amendment to the Pretender’s attainder bill, a method which the Commons thought was insufficient for an attainder. To rectify this objection Herbert chaired a committee of the whole House on 17 Feb. which approved a separate bill to attaint the Pretender’s mother. On 7 March, one day before the king’s death, Herbert chaired a committee of the whole on a supply bill, but three days later he was in charge of the committee of the whole for the bill to explain a clause in the Act which established the Association in 1696. He left the House for good in that session on 11 April.</p><p><em>A new regime, 1702–6</em></p><p>Shortly after the prorogation of Parliament Herbert felt the effects of the Tory sweep of offices following the queen’s accession, when he was removed from his one and only office, as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Brecknockshire, on 8 June 1702 and was replaced by the Tory John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham. He continued his petitioning for office, initially looking to the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, and then concentrating on cultivating the favour of the lord privy seal, John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, with whom he became closely connected.<sup>35</sup> In a letter of 30 Mar. 1705 he emphasized to Newcastle ‘my desire of now coming into the queen’s service’ and suggested that he would be suitable for the place at the board of trade then held by the Tory Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth.<sup>36</sup> It was not, however, until 25 Apr. 1707 that he was appointed a commissioner of trade in a new commission which saw him and Stamford replace Weymouth and other members of the board, part of the entry of Junto Whigs into office.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Herbert first sat in Anne’s Parliament on 21 Nov. 1702, perhaps arriving at this time in order to help defeat the occasional conformity bill. It was he who, in the first week of December 1702, chaired the three committees of the whole House which amended the bill in ways which assured its rejection by the Commons. He was a manager for a conference on these amendments held on 17 Dec. and the following day was placed on the committee to draft reasons for the House’s insistence on them. In this role he was one of a small group of five peers who met with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, in the Jewel Tower on 23 Dec. to examine the parliamentary records to find precedents for bills originating in the House with pecuniary penalties; and as a member of the committee for the Journal Herbert placed his signature next to the long entry of 8 Jan. 1703 in which these precedents were detailed.<sup>38</sup> He managed two more conferences on these disputed amendments, on 9 and 16 Jan. 1703, and after the latter he voted to adhere to them, thus almost assuring the bill’s demise in the Commons. On 29 Jan. he ‘warmly opposed as irregular’ the last-minute attempt by Tories to let the clause regarding the Corporation Act remain as it was originally submitted in the Commons’ bill, despite the subsequent amendments.<sup>39</sup> On 19 Jan. 1703 Herbert also joined many of his Whig colleagues in protesting against the decision to maintain a clause in the bill to settle a revenue on Prince George of Denmark*, (duke of Cumberland), which seemed to exclude all peers of foreign birth, such as William III’s Dutch followers, from sitting in the House or the Privy Council.</p><p>On 4 and 5 Feb. 1703 he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill for extending the time allowed for taking the oath of abjuration, in which the controversial motion of Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, to add a clause making it treason to attempt to set aside the Hanoverian succession was adopted after being modified by the legal officers.<sup>40</sup> Between 13 and 26 Jan. 1701 he chaired four committees of the whole on other matters as well, including a bill to explain a clause in the Act of Settlement, and on 23 Feb. he chaired another committee on that year’s militia bill. He was also involved in select committees, chairing them on six occasions on four different matters. <sup>41</sup> On 20 Jan. he reported that the committee would not proceed on the divorce bill of Coursey Ireland because no bill of that kind had ever been before a committee, and on 12 Feb. he reported the bill for the better carrying on the war in the Indies as fit to pass.</p><p>Herbert missed the entire first month of the 1703–4 session, and came to only just over two-thirds of its sittings. That he first attended the House on 13 Dec. 1703, one day before the occasional conformity bill was to be brought in to the House, suggests that once again he felt strongly enough about it to attend just to help have the bill rejected at its second reading. In the new year of 1704 he resumed his usual role in committees of the whole House and on 17 Jan., 10 Feb., and 21 Mar. he led committees of the whole on a supply bill and on the controversial Recruitment Act, which garnered a sizeable protest against its passage on 21 Mar. 1704. In a committee of the whole House on 13 Mar. 1704 (which he was not chairing) Herbert told in a division on whether to include a clause in the bill for first fruits and tenths. On 3 Feb. he chaired and reported from the select committee on Mary Fermor’s estate bill, and between 28 Feb. and 2 Mar. he chaired four select committee meetings on as many bills, three of which he reported to the House on 4 and 7 March.<sup>42</sup></p><p>In these early years of Anne’s reign Herbert frequently attended social and political meetings of Whigs, as seen in Wharton’s account book and, more copiously, in the social diary of Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville). Judging by Ossulston’s diary, Herbert’s most frequent dining companions were, besides Ossulston himself, his kinsman Torrington, Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham. Herbert also appears to have been very close to Baron Abergavenny, whose vote he had been able to influence in June 1701. Abergavenny appears as one of Herbert’s most frequent companions in Ossulston’s diary and he later named Herbert as one of his executors in his will of December 1708, although in the event Herbert predeceased him.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Ossulston’s diary records that on 13 Feb. 1704 Herbert was part of a large gathering of Whig peers at the St James’s residence of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, presumably assembled to discuss tactics for the investigation of the Scotch Plot, then before the House.<sup>44</sup> Herbert’s only known involvement in this affair was his subscription, on 24 Mar. 1704, to the protest against the resolution not to put the question whether the information in the examination of Sir John Macleane – taken and recorded by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, the main target of the Whig attack – was imperfect. Three days after this Herbert was appointed one of the managers for the conference on the bill of public accompts.</p><p>On 18 Nov. 1704 Herbert registered his proxy with his cousin Torrington – the first and only time that he is recorded as either registering or receiving a proxy (although he may have registered a proxy in the preceding session, for which the register is missing). Torrington held this proxy until Herbert first appeared in the House for the 1704–5 session on 11 Jan. 1705 and, having arrived over two months after the start of the session, Herbert managed to attend just under half of its sittings, the lowest attendance rate of his parliamentary career. In the last three days of January 1705 he acted as a teller in two appeals before the House – <em>Prinn v. How</em> and <em>Godolphin v. Tudor</em> – and between 10 Feb. and 6 Mar. chaired committees of the whole House on seven occasions, three of them alone on the bill for the ease of sheriffs. He was also busy as a chairman of select committees on 5 Feb., on which day he chaired eight committees and reported from five of them. He chaired a further two committees on 8 Feb. and reported a week later.<sup>45</sup></p><p>In the last two weeks of the session in March Herbert was particularly busy in disputes between the Houses. On 7 Mar. he was named a manager for a conference on the bill to prevent traitorous correspondence, and was also placed in the group of ten members assigned to draw up an address to the queen on the proceedings on the Aylesbury men. Five days later he helped to manage the conference on the dispute over the House’s amendment to the militia bill, and he was made part of the drafting committee for the House’s insistence on this amendment. On 13 Mar., the penultimate day of the session, he attended another conference on the militia bill – one on the House’s disagreement with the Commons’ amendment to the naturalization bill of Jacob Péchels – and then was present for the report on the address on the Aylesbury men, which he may have helped draft.</p><p>After the statutory dissolution of the Parliament in April 1705, Herbert was again active for the Junto Whigs in elections. Somers contacted him on behalf of Wharton to insist that he be present to help at the Buckinghamshire election.<sup>46</sup> Herbert had inherited from his father a Buckinghamshire estate, Stokes Manor, part of Hanslope manor. He appears to have maintained a residence there, and to have had some influence in local life, serving as a justice of the peace since 1700 at least.<sup>47</sup> Most of Herbert’s attention, however, was directed towards Bewdley, where Winnington won again against Herbert’s own son Henry Herbert*, later 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, but only after some extremely sharp practice from the returning officer Henry Toye, who initially decreed the younger Herbert unqualified to stand as he was not a burgess of the corporation, but then subsequently readmitted him to the poll after a number of burgesses had switched their votes; in the end Winnington squeaked in by only one vote.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Herbert was again absent for much of the first month of the opening session of 1705–6, but he first sat on a significant day, 15 Nov. 1705, the day on which the Tories put forward the ‘Hanover motion’, calling for the presumptive heir, Sophia, Electress of Hanover, to be invited to reside in England. Herbert was involved in the many clashes over the next few weeks between the Whigs and the Tories, as the Whigs successfully put themselves forward as the natural protectors of the queen’s interests. A week after his arrival, on 22 Nov., Herbert chaired the committee of the whole House considering the state of the nation, in which the ousted secretary of state, Nottingham, made indirect attacks on the queen and the recent military campaign, and Wharton’s motions to prosecute the war against France more vigorously were accepted. On 6 Dec., in the committee of the whole House, Herbert voted in favour of the motion that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration.</p><p>He took part in the debates over the Whig regency bill, and its controversial ‘place clause’, and on 7 Feb. 1706 was made a manager for a conference on the House’s amendment to the bill. Following the report, the conference managers were assigned to draw up reasons for insisting on the amendment, which they argued before the Commons in two subsequent conferences on 11 and 19 February. On 9 Mar. Herbert was named one of the nine managers for the first conference on the Commons’ statement against the published letter which Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> had sent from Hanover to Stamford in support of Sophia’s residence in England. Along with the rest of the House he was again named a manager for two subsequent conferences on this matter on 11 March.</p><p>Otherwise Herbert continued in his usual role as a chairman of committees, both select and of the whole House. He chaired committees of the whole on eight occasions between 21 Dec. 1705 and 13 Mar. 1706. That on 15 Feb. 1706 was assigned to consider ways to manage the flood of private bills coming into Parliament, following a trenchant speech made by his colleague Somers against the ‘perfunctory and careless passing of such bills’.<sup>49</sup> The resolutions that Herbert reported the following day governing the treatment of private bills ultimately became standing orders of the House. Much of his attention was taken by the committee on the bill for the prevention of frauds by bankrupts, which he chaired on 7, 11, and 13 March. On 1 Feb. he reported to the House that the bill to enable Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Howe [I], to make provisions for his daughters was fit to pass – even though there is no record in the committee minute books that he ever handled this committee. On 16 Feb. he chaired select committees on two bills, one of which he reported two days later, while on 6 Mar. he chaired two more select committees, and a further one on 14 Mar., all of which he reported to the House on those days.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Having sat in 72 per cent of the meetings of this session, Herbert maintained roughly the same attendance level in the following session of 1706–7, coming to 69 per cent of its meetings. After the brief prorogation of 8–13 Apr., he came to eight of the ten meetings in late April 1707 before the last Parliament of England was prorogued. On 24 Jan. he attended a dinner hosted by Ossulston at his house in St James’s Square, where were also present such Whig luminaries as Wharton, Halifax, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Evelyn Pierrepoint*, marquess of Dorchester.<sup>51</sup> They may have discussed the bill of union there, but Herbert’s only recorded involvement in the debates on this matter during that session was his role as teller in a division on a motion, made in a committee of the whole House on 21 Feb. 1707, to agree to the 18th article in the bill. Otherwise he continued in his role as a chairman of committees. On 21 December 1706 he chaired two committees of the whole House on supply bills; between 14 Mar. and the prorogation on 8 Apr. 1707 he led six committees on as many bills; and on 23 Apr. he was chairman for the bill against ‘drawbacks’ in the trade between England and Scotland.</p><p><em>Return with the Whigs, 1707–9</em></p><p>Perhaps his new standing as a commissioner of trade (with Stamford, from 25 Apr. 1707), part of the increasing presence and influence of the Whigs in Queen Anne’s ministry, encouraged Herbert in his ambitions, for in contrast to his comparatively lacklustre attendance in previous sessions of Anne’s Parliament, he came to nearly all of the meetings of the first session of the Parliament of Great Britain in 1707–8 (93 per cent), and became even more busy as a chairman of the committees of the whole during this session. Above all, he played a principal part in the long-running examination into the administration of the admiralty and the alleged mismanagement of the naval war effort through his control of the chairman of the committee of the whole investigating, over the space of over two months, the ‘state of the nation’. On 19 Nov. 1707 he chaired the committee examining the petition of the merchants complaining of the damage to their trade through the lack of convoys and cruisers, and from 3 Dec. 1707 to 11 Feb. 1708 he was the sole chairman of the 15 meetings of the committee of the whole House which examined the failures of the naval campaign at Toulon and of the land war in Spain, and the recent defeat at Almanza.</p><p>The primary target of the Whigs’ investigation into the Navy was the Tory George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, leader of the council of the lord high admiral, George of Denmark, which body acted as the effective admiralty board. At the same time the Tories tried to use the committee on the state of the nation to attack the conduct of the land war in Spain, but under Herbert’s direction the committee still accepted Somers’ motion that there could be ‘no peace without Spain’ and Herbert was named to the committee established to draft an address to the queen emphasizing the importance of the Spanish campaign. The bulk of the relevant papers demanded by the committee were not delivered until the new year, and the committee’s most intense period was in January 1708, when separate committees on the navy and on the war in Spain were frequently convened. From 11 Feb. 1708 the committee’s meetings were continually postponed, and the last mention in the Journals of Herbert’s committee on the state of the nation is on 20 Feb. 1708.</p><p>At the same time as he was busy with this committee, Herbert also chaired (on 15, 18, and 20 Dec.) committees of the whole House on the bill for securing the duties of goods from the East Indian trade, on the annual supply bill for the land tax and customs revenue, and on the repeal of the Act of Security of the former Scottish Parliament. Between 12 Feb. and 26 Mar. 1708 he chaired a further 13 committees of the whole on almost as many bills. Some matters, such as the bill for cruisers and convoys and the East India Company bill, reflect his interests as a commissioner of trade. It was he who saw the Scottish militia bill through the committee of the whole on 25 Feb., before Anne vetoed it two weeks later – the last royal veto of a parliamentary bill. He also chaired the final meeting of the committee of the whole on the Scottish exchequer bill on 25 Mar., but it was the regular chairman on this matter, Stamford, who made the report to the House the following day. In another controversial Scottish matter, Herbert joined the ministry in protesting on 7 Feb. 1708 against the passage of the bill ‘to complete the Union’ which abolished the Scottish Privy Council, an instrument of royal policy north of the border.</p><p>Herbert also reported to the House twice with bills of private legislation – the estate bill of John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter, on 12 Feb. 1708 (although there is no record of him ever having chaired this committee), and the bill for the sale of part of the estate of the late James Hamilton, on 24 March.<sup>52</sup> He chaired the committee for privileges twice in this session. On 1 Mar. 1708 he led consideration of the peerage claim of the Dutchman William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon. On the penultimate day of the session (31 Mar.) he reported to the House that the committee had rejected the petition of the Catholic peer Marmaduke Langdale*, 3rd Baron Langdale, against the deputy lieutenants of the East Riding of Yorkshire, who had searched Langdale’s house and confined him during the time of the abortive French invasion of Scotland.<sup>53</sup> Herbert also told in the division on the motion to reverse the judgment in the appeal case of <em>Pole v Gardner</em> on 6 Mar. 1708.</p><p>The election of 1708 was marked by an unprecedented rancour in Bewdley, largely owing to Herbert’s aggressive acts since the disappointing outcome of the previous election. Throughout 1706–7 he had engaged in a number of <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings against the numerous ‘honorary burgesses’ who were being created to shore up Tory numbers in the electorate, and in one hearing it was judged that the 1685 charter was invalid because of a technical mistake in its wording. Over the strenuous opposition of the Tories in the corporation, Herbert and his supporters successfully petitioned for a new charter, by whose terms Herbert was personally to nominate the remaining 13 members who would make up a full complement of the capital burgesses.<sup>54</sup></p><p>The new charter was issued on 20 Apr. 1708, almost simultaneously with the dispatch of writs for the new election. The local Tories hardly saw this timing as a coincidence and considered this a concerted attempt at Whig manipulation of an existing corporation for purely electoral reasons. Their suspicions were justified, as the new charter and Herbert’s nominations ousted all of the Tory capital burgesses and replaced them with Whigs. Herbert’s son Henry, the Whig candidate for the seat at the election, was even specifically named the borough’s recorder in the charter. The town had now effectively split into two competing corporations, each of which refused to recognize the other, and each returned its own candidate to Westminster. Winnington, the choice of the ‘old’ corporation, petitioned but in the Whig-dominated Commons was unsuccessful, and Henry Herbert was able to take his seat.</p><p>Flush from his long-sought victory at Bewdley, exultant in Whig domination in the ministry and in Parliament, and personally rising in importance through his role at the board of trade and in the investigations into the admiralty, Herbert had much to look forward to in the new Parliament when he sat for the first time at its third meeting on 18 Nov. 1708. After chairing a committee of the whole House on the land tax on 22 Dec., his promising future in public life was suddenly cut short by his unexpected death, ‘of a fever’, on 21 Jan. 1709. With unseemly haste, a number of suitors – Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford), Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>, and Robert Molesworth<sup>‡</sup>, among others – clamoured for his place on the board of trade.<sup>55</sup> At the same time his son Henry Herbert, so often a disappointment to his exacting father, inherited the title and with it lost his hard-won place in the Commons. The Whig naval officer Charles Cornwall<sup>‡</sup> won the ensuing by-election easily, but the matter of the Bewdley charter of 1708 was to become a <em>cause célèbre</em> for the resurgent Tories after 1710, and the 2nd Baron Herbert had to watch as his and particularly his father’s efforts to entrench a Whig and Herbert hegemony in the corporation were undone by successive decisions and resolutions – and flaming rhetoric – in the Tory Commons.</p><p>The 2nd Baron later explained his poverty by commenting on the embarrassed estate he inherited, wrecked by his and his father’s involvement in electoral contests in the western English counties: ‘When I began these disputes, I owed not one shilling in the world, and at my father’s death was near £6,000 in debt, the allowance I had from him being little or nothing. I won’t besides mention the encumbrances he left me, which were very great.’<sup>56</sup> The encumbrances that Herbert placed on his son and sole executor were of the kind to cause resentment. It is almost certain that, after the death of his wife, Anne Ramsey, in 1685, Herbert had entered into a liaison with a widow, Frances Buckley, by whom he had four children – Frances, Henry, Richard, and Edward. He did not explicitly acknowledge them as his children in his will, but they were all born in the 1690s and the boys all bore names previously held by the four Barons Herbert of Chirbury of the first creation. Widow Buckley and her children were provided for generously in the will and one clause provided that, failing male issue of his other heirs, the young boys were to inherit the landed estate, on condition that they took the surname Herbert. Much of Herbert’s estate in Worcestershire, Shropshire, and Buckinghamshire was vested in trustees to pay for the Buckleys and the remainder – that set aside in his marriage settlement – went to his legitimate son Henry, and, failing his male issue, was to go to Herbert’s old friend and kinsman Torrington, and then to his nephew Charles Morley. It was Morley (who later changed his name to Herbert) who eventually inherited the estate when the Herbert of Chirbury title became extinct for the second time with the death without male issue of the 2nd Baron in 1738.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, Henry (aft. 1678-1738) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (aft. 1678–1738)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Jan. 1709 as 2nd Bar. HERBERT OF CHIRBURY |
|
First sat 29 Jan. 1709; last sat 1 Feb. 1737 |
|
MP Bewdley 1708-22 Jan. 1709. |
<p><em>b</em>. aft. 1678, o.s. of Henry Herbert*, later Bar. Herbert of Chirbury and Anne, da. and coh. of John Ramsey, alderman of London. <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1695-6; privately (Abel Boyer) 1699. <em>m</em>. 12 Dec. 1709, Mary (<em>d</em>. 19 Oct. 1770), da. of John Wallop of Farley Wallop, Hants, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 19 Apr. 1738; <em>will</em> 27 Jan. 1736-2 Feb. 1738, pr. 27 Nov. 1738.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Worcester 1705; steward, Bewdley 1708-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Henry Herbert was still a schoolboy in September 1696 when his master at Westminster school, Dr Thomas Knipe, wrote despairingly to the young man’s father of his ‘idle and careless fits’, his ‘unsufferable negligence and unwillingness to apply his mind to his business’ and his general ‘childishness’ for his age. Herbert was later tutored privately by the Huguenot exile Abel Boyer, who commented on his ‘averseness to books’ and his preference for country sports but reassured the father that ‘your lordship’s orders are a prevailing motive to bring him to his studies’. By October 1699 Henry Herbert was still underage, as Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury rebuffed the father’s efforts to have the young man made a deputy lieutenant of Worcestershire.<sup>2</sup></p><p>His demanding father quickly pushed Henry to the fore in his long-running campaign to control the single seat for the Bewdley borough constituency in Worcestershire. Herbert stood for the borough at the election of 1705 but lost to the standing member Salwey Winnington<sup>‡</sup> by one vote, owing to some sharp practice from the returning officer Henry Toye.<sup>3</sup> Herbert petitioned but the committee of elections found against him by a majority of 48 in a clearly partisan division.<sup>4</sup> After several expensive law suits and frequent solicitations of the ministry, Herbert of Chirbury and his Whig allies were able to have the borough’s charter of 1685 declared invalid, owing to a trivial mistake in its wording. A new charter was issued on 20 Apr. 1708, about the same time as writs were issued for new elections. The Tories refused to recognize the new charter, which effectively handed the borough to supporters of the Whig ministry. Consequently, two elections, each with a different set of electors, were held at Bewdley in May 1708. The indenture returning Herbert was accepted but his opponent petitioned, and the Bewdley election case became a <em>cause célèbre</em> among the defeated Tories, representing in their eyes the worst of Whig electoral manipulation.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Henry Herbert was declared, after a series of often close divisions, duly elected in late February 1709, but in the meantime he had succeeded to the peerage. Thus the decision of the House actually triggered another by-election to replace him, in which the Whig naval official, Charles Cornwall<sup>‡</sup>, was returned. The political forces were reversed at the next election of autumn 1710 when the return of the Whig, Anthony Lechmere<sup>‡</sup>, on the Herbert interest was immediately challenged by the Tories who continued to insist that the 1708 charter was invalid. On 20 Dec. 1710 the Tory-dominated Commons resolved that the 1708 charter ‘attempted to be imposed upon the borough of Bewdley against the consent of the ancient corporation is void, illegal and destructive to the constitution of Parliament’. The Tories continued their assault on the charter, and in 1710-11 both Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> made contributions in the ongoing partisan debate over this small borough.<sup>6</sup></p><p>The new Baron Herbert of Chirbury’s participation in this battle, and its attendant law suits, came at a great cost. Sometime during the reign of George I, Herbert informed a fellow nobleman, unfortunately unidentified, of his poverty arising from his long struggle for the Worcestershire borough, as well as from his participation for the Whigs in the elections for Worcester county and borough, and for Shropshire and its borough of Bridgnorth. ‘When I began these disputes’, he lamented, ‘I owed not one shilling in the world; and at my father’s death was near £6,000 in debt, the allowance I had from him being little or nothing.’<sup>7</sup></p><p>Like his father before him, a Whig, if not a Junto Whig, Herbert eventually found that he had to give his vote to the highest bidder; the party which could most effectively rescue him from his perilous financial situation. Initially, though, he was able to vote by his own inclination. He sat in 12 meetings of the 1708-9 session after first taking his seat on 29 Jan. 1709, and came to just under half of the sittings of the following session, where on 20 Mar. 1710 he voted Dr Sacheverell guilty. He attended just over half of the 1710-11 session, the first of the Tory-dominated Parliament, and over the period 11 Jan.- 8 Feb. 1711 subscribed to all seven protests against the proceedings against the Whig generals and ministers for their conduct of the campaign in Spain which had led to the defeat at Almanza. On 3 Feb. 1711, in a committee of the whole, he told for the minority not contents against agreeing to the resolutions of the committee, two of which resolutions he protested against when they were agreed to by the House later that day. On 9 Feb. when the House sought to expunge the text of the reasons given in one of the protests of that day, Herbert joined in the three Whig protests against this move. Herbert registered his proxy on 20 Mar. 1711 with William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, who had earlier been instrumental in the surrender of the 1685 Bewdley charter. He returned to vacate his proxy on 5 Apr. before he left the House for good on 18 May, registering his proxy with Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston) two days later.</p><p>The diary of the second-rank Junto Whig, Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), reveals that from the winter of 1710-11 Herbert was a peripheral member of a ‘Westminster Anglo-Scottish dining group’, which had as its inner core Ossulston himself, his close friend William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon, and the Scottish peers William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], William Livingstone*, 2nd Viscount Kilsyth [S], Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], William Keith*, 8th earl Marischal [S], John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerino [S], and the Scottish Member of the Commons, Sir James Abercromby<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup> Herbert first appears in this diary in an entry for Christmas Day 1710, when he was present at a dinner at Pontack’s ‘in the City’ with Ossulston, Hunsdon, Annandale, Kilsyth, Rosebery and Marischal. He dined again with this group, without Rosebery and Marischal, on 10 Feb. 1711, the day after he subscribed to the three dissents against the expurgation of the reasons for the protest of 3 Feb., and in early April he dined with Annandale and with Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Howe [I], at Ossulston’s homes, both in Westminster and in Middlesex.</p><p>The other entries in Ossulston’s diary in which Herbert appears show him associating in English Whig circles. On 3 May 1711 Herbert was at the Queen's Arms where he was joined by Ossulston, Hunsdon, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham. After both Herbert and Ossulston attended the prorogation on 13 Nov. 1711, they had dinner at the Red Lion tavern in Pall Mall with Hunsdon and Russell Robartes<sup>‡</sup>, while later that day Ossulston, Herbert and Hunsdon assembled for supper at the British Coffee House, with two of Herbert’s ‘friends’ (as Ossulston deemed them) – George Treby<sup>‡</sup> and a ‘Captain Caesar’.<sup>9</sup> On 8 Dec. 1711, the second day of the new session, Herbert was at a dinner at the Queen’s Arms at which were present his former proxy recipient Dorchester, as well as Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Ashburnham, John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu, Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, and James Craggs<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>10</sup></p><p>This meal was most likely convened for business as well as pleasure, as the assembled group consisted of some of the leading Whigs in Parliament, who earlier that day would have participated in the procedural debacle when Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford tried to hold a division, unwarranted by the rules of the House, to reverse the motion of the previous day that the address to the queen should include an insistence that there should be ‘No Peace without Spain’. Herbert was probably among those who voted for the clause, as suggested by Oxford’s own forecast of the abandoned division of 8 December. Herbert also joined the Whigs 12 days later when he voted to disable James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House under his British title as duke of Brandon. Yet despite this apparently anti-Scottish vote, Herbert appears to have remained on friendly terms with the Scottish peers he had befriended through Ossulston. A letter from Balmerino recounts how on 26 Jan. 1712, when he and Annandale were refusing to enter the House in protest against the vote disabling Hamilton, Herbert and Ossulston did them the favour of leaving the chamber early and providing them with an account of that day’s proceedings, after which the two English peers went off to dinner with the two Scottish ones. Later that evening Balmerino, Annandale and Rosebery supped at Pontack’s with Ossulston, Herbert and Hunsdon.<sup>11</sup> Only two days after this encounter, on 28 Jan. 1712, Herbert registered his proxy with the Junto Whig Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, who held it until Herbert returned to the House on 5 Apr. 1712.</p><p>Despite these Whig sympathies, sometime in early 1712 Herbert, most likely in exchange for financial support, lent his vote to the ministry. Although concrete evidence for this relationship comes only from 1713 and later, that Herbert felt bound to betray the ‘honest interest’ is evident in many of his actions in the last weeks of the 1711-12 session. The first occasion when Herbert’s wavering loyalties became clear is, if the contrasting sources relating to it are accurate, perhaps indicative of the conflict he must have felt. A contemporary printed division list contends that he was among the ‘not contents’ voting with Oxford’s ministry on 28 May 1712 not to present the queen with an address against the ‘restraining orders’ preventing an offensive campaign against France. Yet his signature appears clearly and prominently among those who protested against the rejection of this address.<sup>12</sup> Perhaps the best explanation of this seeming contradiction (barring that the printed division list may be incorrect) is that while he may have felt obliged to help the ministry obtain the majority it needed, he also wished to show that he still personally disagreed with its policies. The list of protesters to this resolution stretch over two pages in the manuscript journal, and it may be significant that Herbert’s signature appears at the bottom of the small group of six signatures at the top of the page turn. This suggests that he was one of the last peers to append his signature to the protest, after what might have been second thoughts and regrets, and may even have been allowed to subscribe to it at his next sitting in the House, 2 June, the second day of business after the vote and protest. In a list of sometime around June 1712 Oxford still marked Herbert as a ‘doubtful’ court supporter. His divided and wavering conscience may also be detectable in the account of the vote on the Whigs’ last-ditch motion on 7 June 1712 to include a ‘guarantee clause’ for the benefit of the Allies in an address of thanks to the queen for her communication of the peace terms. A correspondent of William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury) claimed that Herbert was among the 12 peers who ‘went off’ from the Whigs and joined the ministry in voting against the motion but suggested that they had only agreed to do so if their identities were kept secret:</p><blockquote><p>these [peers], had made a sort of agreement that the court should prevent a division, by which means they should not be discovered, but they were gudgeons, for the court wanted not a majority, but a triumph, to show the people the disparity of numbers [the ministry won the vote by a majority of 45], and so they were caught like fools. A great deal of money and promises were spent to work this apostasy’.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>This time Herbert did not sign the protest that would have shown his misgivings about his vote for the ministry. Herbert attended in total only 36 per cent of the meetings of this session, which was prorogued on 21 June 1712, but his voting record provides a clear example of the political arts of Oxford, who, with the proper application of government money, promises and influence, was able to turn a staunch Whig at the beginning, a supporter of ‘No Peace without Spain’, to a dependent, if unwilling, voter for the ministry by the end.</p><p>Yet even by the time of the third session in spring 1713, Oxford was still not entirely sure of Herbert’s loyalty to the ministry and marked him as one to be canvassed before the session and in advance of the debate on the bill confirming the French commercial treaty. This bill never got to the Lords, but Oxford’s pressure and canvassing did have some effect. Herbert was unusually attentive to the proceedings of this important session, as he attended 57 per cent of its meetings. His vote for the ministry was crucial in a tight division on the Malt Tax bill on 8 June 1713. As Balmerino lamented to Harry Maule, Herbert was one of three peers ‘who had all along been with us’, that is, the alliance of Scots and Whigs in opposition to the measure, but who ‘deserted to the enemy’ at the division. Without this defection, the ministry’s majority in this vote would have been cut to only two.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Throughout 1713-14 Herbert clearly looked to Oxford as his benefactor for present and future favour. Herbert pleaded for office, preferably ‘something out of England, no matter where, the farther the better’, even as far away as Barbados, to help him recover his fortune.<sup>15</sup> Herbert’s wretched state was well known to all parties by late 1713. Sunderland included him in his list of ‘Lords who always will be right out of principle, but are in the lowest condition’ and whom he thought could be maintained for the Whigs by a pension from Hanover. On Herbert himself, Sunderland could write that he ‘never failed but one vote’, probably thinking of the close vote on the Malt Tax Bill, ‘is poor and may be thoroughly fixed for £500 a year’.</p><p>To keep him on his side Oxford himself provided Herbert with that amount, £500, paid out of his own pocket during the first session of the 1713 Parliament.<sup>16</sup> Oxford’s first instalment to Herbert of £300 was paid in March 1714, but on 5 Apr. Herbert was one of three of Oxford’s previously reliable pensioners who voted against the motion that the Hanoverian Succession was not in danger under the present ministry.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Despite receiving another instalment of £200 in May, Herbert’s stance remained doubtful to political observers, and Nottingham was uncertain how he would vote on the schism bill.<sup>18</sup> Having attended only 24 of its sittings, Herbert left that session on 10 May 1714, and registered his proxy with his kinsman Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, who would have been able to use it to vote against the schism bill, against whose passage he protested on 15 June. Herbert returned to the House on 12 Aug. 1714, well into the session convened on the death of Anne, and sat for six meetings before it was prorogued on 25 August.</p><p>At the Hanoverian succession, the government of George I provided him with a pension of £600 a year but neglected his continuing requests to be given office as far as possible from his creditors in England.<sup>19</sup> This pension, which continued well into the reign of George II, allowed Herbert to return to his original Whig priorities in Parliament.<sup>20</sup> Admittedly he was not always a keen attender of the House and came to only 35 per cent of the sittings of George I’s first Parliament of 1715-22 and 46 per cent of the meetings of the 1722-27 Parliament. His attendance on the House steadily declined during the reign of George II, and he never attended more than 43 per cent of any session until his death in April 1738. He was in the House, however, to vote against his old benefactor Oxford in a preliminary division on his impeachment in June 1717 (although he later, following the wishes of the ministry, helped to acquit the former lord treasurer on 1 July).<sup>21</sup> In December 1718 he voted ‘with the Dissenters’ in favour of the repeal of the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts.<sup>22</sup> He made his political preference clear through his choice of proxies. He had among his many proxy recipients: his own brother-in-law, John Wallop<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Lymington (later earl of Portsmouth); Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend and his son Charles Townshend<sup>†</sup>, summoned in his father’s lifetime as Baron Townshend of Lynn Regis (later 3rd Viscount Townshend); Peter King<sup>†</sup>, Baron King; Lewis Watson*, earl of Rockingham; and William Coventry<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Coventry. His most frequent proxy recipients were Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland (on four occasions) and Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, Baron Parker (later earl of Macclesfield) (on five occasions). Herbert himself held the proxy of Harry Grey<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Stamford for the 1726 session. A more detailed account of Herbert’s activities in the Hanoverian Parliaments will be provided in the next phase of this series.</p><p>Herbert remained in dire financial straits throughout this period, and at one point he addressed his woes to an unidentified nobleman, pointing out his need for an office with income, the insufficiency of his pension and the continuing unreliability of its payment. This was especially galling considering his continued efforts to maintain ‘at great expense’ the Whig interest at Bewdley. ‘I can say without vanity,’ he wrote to his correspondent, ‘there were few Whigs when I came to live there, and at this time there are few very who are otherwise.’<sup>23</sup> Herbert’s interest was victorious at Bewdley, returning Grey James Grove<sup>‡</sup> in 1715 and Crew Offley<sup>‡</sup> for the following two elections, until the choice of burgess was wrested from him at the 1734 election by William Bowles<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>24</sup> This loss of local prestige and influence may have been the final blow after years of penury in the Whig cause and probably helped to lead him to commit suicide on 19 Apr. 1738. He appointed his wife Mary, sister of Viscount Lymington and first lady of the bedchamber to Anne, Princess of Orange, and his cousin Francis Walker as executors and trustees of his estate, charged with the onerous duty of paying his debts. Any residue was to go to his cousin Henry Morley who, to receive this bequest, changed his name to Henry Morley Herbert. Herbert had had no children, and at his death his peerage became extinct, for the second time within 50 years, although it was soon revived again, in 1743, in the person of Henry Arthur Herbert<sup>†</sup>, Baron Herbert of Chirbury of the third creation (later earl of Powis), a great-nephew of the last Herberts of Chirbury of the first creation.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, Percy (c. 1597-1667) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Percy</strong> (c. 1597–1667)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 7 Mar. 1656 as 2nd Bar. POWIS |
|
First sat 27 July 1660; last sat 30 July 1661 |
|
MP Shaftesbury 6 Mar. 1621-2, Wilton 1624-5 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1597, o.s. of William Herbert<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Powis, and Eleanor (<em>d</em>.1650), da. of Henry Percy<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Northumberland. <em>educ.</em> travelled abroad (Italy, France, Netherlands) 1644-9. <em>m</em>. 19 Nov. 1622 (with c.£30,000), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 8 Oct. 1662), da. of Sir William Craven (<em>d</em>. 18 July 1618), merchant taylor of Leadenhall Street, London, ld. mayor 1610-11, 1s. 1da. kntd. 7 Nov. 1622; <em>cr</em>. bt. 16 Nov. 1622. <em>d</em>. 19 Jan. 1667; <em>will</em> 5 July 1666, pr. 22 Mar. 1667.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Mont. 1624-44; collector (jt.) Forced Loans 1627-8; capt. militia horse 1633; cllr. of the marches of Wales, 1633.</p> |
|
<p>Percy Herbert was named after his maternal grandfather, Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. Little is known of his early life, but he was returned to the Commons to represent Shaftesbury in 1621, largely on the interest of his father’s cousin, Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke. Herbert made an advantageous marriage to an heiress, Elizabeth Craven, daughter of a wealthy merchant taylor and former lord mayor.<sup>2</sup> Herbert himself acknowledged that her ‘fortune made up’ his estate.<sup>3</sup> Herbert and his wife converted to Catholicism in 1634.</p><p>In January 1641 Herbert was accused in Parliament of seizing arms on behalf of the king and was declared a delinquent. Although impeachment proceedings were begun against him, he was released ‘from restraint’ on bail in June 1642.<sup>4</sup> He returned to Powis Castle and garrisoned it for the king, but (according to a later petition from his wife) his father took over the castle and made allegations that Herbert was betraying the king’s interest. Herbert was summoned by Charles I to Oxford where he remained without charge until September 1644 when he escaped during hostilities.<sup>5</sup> Later that year he was in the Low Countries with his son William Herbert*, later 3rd Baron Powis. He appears to have been back in London in early 1646 when he petitioned the joint committee for sequestration for access to one third of his estate, claiming that his recusancy was the only ground for his sequestration. The request was turned down when evidence was presented concerning the previous orders of the Commons.<sup>6</sup> Although prepared to support Charles I, Herbert seemed to have misgivings about his role as a Catholic fighting for the ‘true Protestant religion’ of the king.<sup>7</sup></p><p>When Herbert and his son travelled in Europe in the late 1640s they met up with Charles Berkeley*, later earl of Falmouth, and his brother, later Sir Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡, </sup>in Naples in 1646, together with their tutor Father Hugh (Serenus) Cressy, the Catholic apologist who promoted the concept of an oath of loyalty for English Catholics. Herbert had returned to England by 1650 to try to combat proceedings against his estate. His delinquency was upheld and his estates in Montgomeryshire and Middlesex were forfeited and sold.<sup>8</sup> His total wealth is difficult to assess. During the 1620s he is known to have possessed lands in Cornwall and Middlesex, and in 1662 an assessment put the value of his estate in Northamptonshire alone at £1,000 p.a.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Herbert disappeared from public life in the 1650s and was only allowed to travel within England under licence.<sup>10</sup> His wife, regarded as a woman of ‘strong character’, managed his affairs very capably during these years.<sup>11</sup> Herbert devoted himself to writing and published <em>Certaine Conceptions </em>(1650), a series of religious reflections prompted by the illness of his son and a belief that the events of the last decade had been due to ‘a secret poison long time ago engendered in the heart of this nation’ and the novel <em>Cloria and Narcissus</em> (1653-61).</p><p>On 22 May 1660, following a petition from Powis, the Lords granted an order preventing the felling of timber from and despoilation of his land. On 18 July, they ordered that he be put into possession of land that had been sold without his consent. A further order was made the same day to include also those estates which remained in the hands of the trustees for sale of delinquents’ estates. Powis first sat in the House of Lords on 27 July 1660, and then attended on 23 of the sittings before the adjournment of 13 Sept., 56 per cent of the total. He was not present when the House resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, first attending on the 15th and sitting on ten occasions, 22 per cent of the total. He was not appointed to any committees. He last attended the Convention on 13 Dec. 1660.</p><p>Powis was absent from the start of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament, on 8 May 1661. He was still absent when the House was called over on 20 May, attending for the first time on the 24th. Powis attended 37 days of the session before its adjournment at the end of July 1661, 58 per cent of total. However, he was absent when the session resumed on 20 Nov. and never attended again. At subsequent calls of the House his absence was usually excused on grounds of ill health. Powis’s proxy was registered in favour of his brother-in-law William Craven*, Baron (later Earl of) Craven, on 20 Feb. 1663, for the remainder of the session. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, believed that Craven would use Powis’s proxy to support George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, in his attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Powis again registered a proxy in favour of Craven on 22 Mar. 1664, which was discharged at the end of the session.</p><p>On 19 Dec. 1664, the Lords were informed that John Langford, a servant of Powis, had been detained as a prisoner in the common gaol of Montgomery by William Morgan, deputy sheriff of county, contrary to privilege of Parliament. Morgan was ordered to appear at the Bar on 17 Jan. 1665 to show why he had ignored the protection granted by Powis, but no further proceedings were recorded.</p><p>Powis died on 19 Jan. 1667 and was buried at Welshpool. In his will he left his estates to his son and successor William Herbert*, 3rd Baron Powis.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
HERBERT, Philip (1621-69) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Philip</strong> (1621–69)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Ld. Herbert 1636-50; <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Jan. 1650 as 5th earl of PEMBROKE |
|
First sat 26 Apr. 1660; last sat 9 May 1668 |
|
MP Wilts. Apr. 1640, Glam., Nov. 1640-53, 1653-60 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 21 Feb. 1621, 4th but 1st surv. s. of Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke, and 1st w. Susan (1587–1629), da. of Edward de Vere<sup>†</sup>, 17th earl of Oxford; bro. of William Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, James Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, and John Herbert<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (tutor, Griffith Williams),<sup>1</sup> Westminster sch.; Exeter Coll. Oxf., matric. 20 Apr. 1632; travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1635–7. <em>m</em>. (1) c. 28 Mar. 1639, Penelope (1620–c.1647), da. and h. of Sir Robert Naunton of Letherington, Suff. and wid. of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Visct. Bayning, 1s.; (2) 1649, Katherine (<em>d</em>. Feb. 1678), da. of Sir William Villiers, bt. of Brooksby, Leics. 2s. 5da. <em>d</em>. 11 Dec. 1669; <em>will</em> 28 Aug., pr. 22 Dec. 1669.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr., council of state 1651–2;<sup>3</sup> pres. council of state 3 June–13 July 1652;<sup>4</sup> commr. council of trade 1660–8.</p><p>Ld. lt. Som. (jt.) 1640–2,<sup>5</sup> Mon., Brec., and Glam. Mar.–July 1642; <em>custos rot</em>. Pemb. by 1650–<em>d</em>., Wilts. by 1650–60, Mont. by 1650–60, Derbys. by 1650–2?, Glam. 1660–<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Capt. earl of Pembroke’s Regt. of Horse 1639;<sup>7</sup> col. Regt. of Horse 1659.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Mbr., Co. of Royal Adventurers in Africa 1660–3,<sup>9</sup> Royal African Co. 1663–<em>d.</em>;<sup>10</sup> treas. Council of the Royal Fishing 1661–<em>d</em>.<sup>11</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by Sir Anthony van Dyck (group portrait of family of Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke), c.1634-5, Wilton House, Wilts.</p> |
<p>Philip Herbert’s great-grandfather William Herbert, ‘a mad fighting young fellow’ and from 1543 brother-in-law of Henry VIII, was granted the former monastic buildings and lands of the Abbey of Wilton in Wiltshire in 1544 and in 1551 was created earl of Pembroke. Over the next century the earls of Pembroke were powerful figures in both the family’s ancestral lands of south Wales and, increasingly, in Wiltshire, where they made the grand residence of Wilton House a centre for literary and artistic patronage, as well as the base of their regional power. The younger of the second earl’s two sons, Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, was in addition created earl of Montgomery in 1605, was made lord chamberlain in 1626, and became the 4th earl of Pembroke upon the death of his elder brother in 1630. Rich (his income from land and offices was estimated at £30,000 p.a.), powerful, irascible, and a supporter of godly Protestantism, Pembroke and Montgomery was an important figure in the opposition to Charles I.<sup>12</sup> During the civil wars he largely sided with the party against the king, although he continued to negotiate with the king and to advocate a settlement right up to Charles I’s execution. He was made a member of the council of state in February 1649 and was one of only three peers to stand as a commoner in elections to the Rump, being returned in April for Berkshire.</p><p>In March 1639, the 4th earl’s son and heir, then styled Lord Herbert, married Penelope, the widow of the very wealthy Paul Bayning, 2nd Viscount Bayning, as part of a concerted effort by the Herbert family to ‘swallow the whole of Bayning’s estate’.<sup>13</sup> He was returned, while still under age, for the county of Wiltshire in the Short Parliament and for Glamorgan in the Long but, unlike his father, he took no active part in the civil wars and withdrew from the Commons after Pride’s Purge. He returned to his seat in July 1649 and was elected to the council of state in December 1651, even acting as its president briefly during the summer of 1652.<sup>14</sup> During the Protectorate he was occupied with reprising the role of previous earls of Pembroke as patrons of literature, maintaining the Cavalier poet Sir John Denham<sup>‡</sup> and the linguist Sir Richard Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup>, both of whom served as tutors to his eldest son, William Herbert*, styled Lord Herbert (later 6th earl of Pembroke).<sup>15</sup> The earl was presumably also preoccupied during this time by his growing brood of seven children from his second wife, Katherine Villiers, even though this was a notoriously fractious marriage.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In May 1659 Pembroke re-entered politics when the Rump was reconvened upon the fall of the Protectorate; he and one of the only other peers still sitting in Parliament, William Cecil* 2nd earl of Salisbury, appear to have played a prominent part in its proceedings.<sup>17</sup> When the House of Lords reassembled in the Convention, these two peers were seen as traitors, both to their king and to their class. Rumours circulated in early May – spread by, among others, the former Cromwellian-turned-royalist Edward Montagu* earl of Sandwich – that Pembroke and Salisbury were going to be excluded from the House.<sup>18</sup> Perhaps not wishing to make himself too visible, Pembroke appears not to have exercised his electoral interest fully in Wiltshire, Glamorgan, or Monmouthshire in the elections to the Convention. His fellow parliamentary reprobate, Salisbury, seems to have been annoyed by Pembroke’s failure to support Salisbury’s son, Algernon Cecil, in the elections for Old Sarum, where Pembroke owned a deciding number of burgages.</p><p>Pembroke was able to take his seat on the second day of the Convention, 26 Apr. 1660, and sat for just under three-quarters of its meetings until the recess on 13 September. When he returned on 6 Nov. he was less attentive to the business of the House, coming to only one-third of the meetings before the Convention was dissolved at the end of December. The busiest period of his activity – in any of the Restoration Parliaments – was in May 1660, when the former parliamentarian peers were still the majority force in the House. On 27 Apr. he was named to the select committee assigned to draw up heads to be presented in a conference on the means to heal the ‘breaches and distractions’ of the kingdom; as a result of this conference, on 2 May 1660 he was placed on the joint committee which was to draft the answer to the Declaration of Breda. In total he was named to 13 committees in May, including those for the reception of the king and for settling the militia, and on 30 May he reported from the select committee on the bill to confirm the ordinance for a monthly assessment. From 1 June to the time of the recess in September he was named to only six committees, including those for the bills to provide supply for the disbandment of the army and for the confirmation of the judicial proceedings of the Interregnum. When the Convention met again in the winter of 1660 he was nominated to two committees on bills for the restoration of royalists to their estates and was added to the committee on the bill to abolish the court of wards.</p><p>On 2 May he was also named to the committee of petitions and it is here that Pembroke was most active in the Convention. It is difficult to estimate the extent of his leading role in the committee in its early weeks, as the minute books do not begin to indicate the committee’s chairmen until 1661, but the frequency of his reports to the House from the committee suggests his importance. The committee minutes note (as the Journal itself does not) that he reported to the House on 3, 7, and 12 May, first on Uriah Babington’s petition to be reinstated as keeper of Greenwich Park and House, and then on the dispute between Walter Long and Lady Jermyn over the office of registrar of chancery.<sup>19</sup> Pembroke almost certainly chaired the committee meetings on 14–19 May because on 16, 17, and 21 May he reported to the House on the different matters discussed over those days: the right of the royal bargemen to take into their care the barge <em>Brigantine</em>; the restoration of Thomas Bushell to his estates; the dispute between the East India Company and Daniel Skinner; the complaints of the Fellows of New College, Oxford; and the petition of John Baker.<sup>20</sup> From June his influence may have been diluted by the influx of royalist peers into the House, many of whom were added to the committee. In June he reported on the petition of Dr Nicholas to be Master of St Nicholas’ Hospital and on three occasions he reported from the committee on petitions arising from the ongoing disputes and violence over the drainage of the Hatfield Level.<sup>21</sup> Other matters with which he was involved were the petition of John Poulett* 2nd Baron Poulett, and the attempt to settle the differences between John Paulet* 5th marquess of Winchester, and his son, Charles Powlett*, Lord St John (later duke of Bolton).<sup>22</sup></p><p>Ironically, considering his past involvement with the regimes of 1649–53, Pembroke became heavily involved in the petitions from an old royalist family seeking revenge against its former Parliamentarian and republican oppressors. He was the principal chairman on the various petitions and bills of Charles Stanley* 8th earl of Derby, and his mother, Charlotte, the countess dowager of Derby. Their disputes included their own differences, as well as matters relating to the execution of James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby, and the 8th earl’s attempt to reclaim the sequestered Stanley estates which had been sold during the Interregnum. The countess dowager’s petition against her son’s title as hereditary lord of the Isle of Man was referred to the committee of petitions, and a subcommittee (of which Pembroke was a member) set about arranging an amicable agreement, which Pembroke reported to the House on 8 June.<sup>23</sup> The following day the dowager countess’s petition to have those men who had judged and sentenced to death her husband in the 1651 Parliament exempted from the Bill of Indemnity was referred to the committee for privileges. Pembroke had already played a part on this committee, having reported on 6 June regarding the right of the House in choosing its own Speaker. He chaired and reported from the committee meeting which decided to order the appearance of those named in the countess’s petition. The extensive testimony of Derby’s judges was heard from 6 to 30 July; Pembroke almost certainly conducted these hearings, as he reported to the House on a number of other issues heard before the committee during that period, and the minutes explicitly name him as chairman on 30 July. He reported to the House from the committee on 6 Aug. that the late earl had been tried by an illegal court martial.<sup>24</sup></p><p>In addition, on 13 June Derby’s bill for the recovery of his estates in north Wales (sold under duress, as he claimed, during the Interregnum) was introduced in the House and referred to the committee of petitions, which heard extensive testimony from 27 June to 12 July.<sup>25</sup> Pembroke was probably acting as chair during these meetings, for on 14 July he reported the Committee’s conclusion that there had been ‘force and fraud’ in gaining the conveyance from Derby. On 17 Aug. Pembroke was appointed to the committee on Derby’s bill to reclaim his lands but realization of the potential conflicts between this bill and the bill for confirmation of judicial proceedings, for which Pembroke was also a committee member, led to continuous postponements and the bill was dropped by the end of the Convention. Carrying on from his activities on behalf of victims of the Interregnum, on 30 July 1660 Pembroke also reported from a select committee that the bill for reparations to the marquess of Winchester for his many sufferings during the civil wars was fit to pass.</p><p>In the months of the recess Pembroke turned his attention to matters outside Parliament and became involved in many of the colonial projects then being discussed at court. In early November he was made a commissioner on the newly established council of trade and navigation, although he was not reappointed when new letters patent were issued in 1668. In early October Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> first noted Pembroke’s plans to join with James Stuart* duke of York, to finance an expedition to look for gold on the west coast of Africa, and Pembroke was among the members when the first charter for the Company of Royal Adventurers to Africa was issued in December 1660.<sup>26</sup> He was again included when this group was reincorporated as the Royal African Company in 1663.<sup>27</sup> He was made treasurer of the Council of the Royal Fishing in 1661, although Samuel Pepys was later to be highly critical of ‘the loose and base manner’ in which he handled the voluntary contributions for the welfare of fishermen.<sup>28</sup> His acceptance by the restored regime was signified by his role as cupbearer and bearer of the spurs at the coronation of Charles II in April 1661.<sup>29</sup></p><p>With renewed confidence, Pembroke exerted his influence in the elections to the Cavalier Parliament. The Welsh county of Glamorgan returned as one of its knights Pembroke’s eldest son and heir, William, the last occasion when the county returned a member of that family. By this time Pembroke was concentrating on building up the family influence in Wiltshire instead. There he was able to assure one of the candidates, Charles Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, son of Francis Seymour* Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, of all the votes under his control. In his own borough of Wilton he followed the preference of the local-born secretary of state, Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, whose father had served successive earls of Pembroke earlier in the century. He threw his influence behind the return of Nicholas’ ward Thomas Mompesson<sup>‡ </sup>and his eldest son, Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>. When the younger Nicholas chose to sit for Ripon instead, the elder Nicholas was able to persuade Pembroke to support the former royalist propagandist and current licenser of the press Sir John Birkenhead<sup>‡</sup>, a strange choice as Pembroke’s father, the 4th earl, had been one of the most frequent targets of Birkenhead’s sarcastic pen. For Old Sarum, where Pembroke appears to have been the dominant burgage owner, he ensured the return of Nicholas’ younger, and less able, son Edward Nicholas<sup>‡ </sup>and Sir John Denham<sup>‡</sup>, whom he had protected at Wilton during the Interregnum but who was now serving as surveyor of the king’s works.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Pembroke came to just over half of the sittings of the first (1661–2) session of the Cavalier Parliament. He was most involved in the first part of the session until the summer adjournment of 1661, being present at 83 per cent of the meetings. It was Pembroke who presented to the House on 15 June the petition for the office of lord great chamberlain of Aubrey de Vere* 20th earl of Oxford. Oxford was not only his mother’s distant kinsman but had been married to one of Pembroke’s stepdaughters. Pembroke was named to few committees – only nine – but in some of these he took an active part. Derby’s bill was reintroduced in the House on 24 May 1661 and the committee appointed on 7 June was first assigned to determine whether the bill infringed the provisions of the recently passed Act for Confirmation of Judicial Proceedings and Act of Indemnity. Pembroke chaired the meetings of 11 and 14 June which considered this issue and reported to the House on 15 June that both the judges assisting and the committee itself considered that the bill did not contravene those acts. On 18 June the House referred the many petitions against the bill to the committee, which, under the chairmanship of Pembroke, considered them in detail two days later. It was almost certainly he who reported a week later that the committee would leave it to the House to determine whether Derby should be relieved.<sup>31</sup> By this time the tide of sympathy was beginning to turn against Derby and on 16 July it was ordered that further consideration of Derby’s case would not be heard until after the recess.</p><p>One of the more significant of Pembroke’s activities in this early part of the Cavalier Parliament was his chairmanship of the committee considering the Quakers’ petition in late May 1661. This was very much to his heart because Pembroke had been dabbling in Quaker meetings in London since at least 1658. By 1659 contemporaries such as Pepys clearly considered him a Quaker.<sup>32</sup> In February 1660 he was gratefully singled out by a Friend as the only member in the Long Parliament, then in its final days, still supporting liberty of conscience.<sup>33</sup> Pembroke’s associations continued despite the more hostile atmosphere of the Restoration. Several of his trusted menial servants appear to have been dangerously close to the ‘Anabaptist and Presbyterian’ underground always suspected of rebellion, while by April 1664 the French ambassador considered Pembroke ‘the best friend and greatest partisan of all the fanatics of the world’.<sup>34</sup> A year later ‘the Quaking Lord the earl of Pembroke’ allegedly warned the king that the end of the world was nigh, but nevertheless declined Charles’s jesting offer to take Wilton House off his hands, replying ‘No, and please your majesty, it shall die with me’.<sup>35</sup> Charles II continued to find Pembroke a figure of fun and in 1668 regaled Pepys and other courtiers with accounts of the Quaker earl’s swearing oaths on the tennis court and his strange theories on Adam’s original sin.<sup>36</sup></p><p>It was only fitting, then, that Pembroke took the chair of the committee assigned in late May 1661 to consider the controversial petition of the Quakers and ‘to cure the distempers of these people’. He had the duty, presumably unpleasant for him, to report to the House on 31 May that the committee had rejected almost all of the Quakers’ requests – such as dispensation from being compelled to swear oaths in court, from removing their hats before their betters, and from attending the services of the national church.<sup>37</sup> He was involved in Quaker matters again when the House resumed proceedings in the winter of 1661–2 (of which he attended only 36 per cent of the meetings) and he was added to the committee for the bill concerning Quakers on 27 Nov. 1661. In committee on 12 Dec., with the high Churchman John Egerton* 2nd earl of Bridgwater, in the chair, Pembroke presented a paper from his religious brethren which appears to have concerned ‘the business of putting off or taking off their hats’.<sup>38</sup> Consideration of this bill was long and drawn out. By 16 Jan. 1662 the House was still not satisfied with the committee’s many alterations and ordered the bill to be recommitted for what was by then the third time, in order that the strictures of the bill ‘may extend only to Quakers’ and not other sectaries. This limitation in turn ran into opposition from the Commons; the final version reported and passed on 27 Feb. 1662 extended the bill’s penalties to all ‘those that shall maintain that all oaths are unlawful’.<sup>39</sup> Even with this last-minute widening of its targets, the passage of the Quaker Act must have been distressing to Pembroke.</p><p>On 13 Jan. 1662 Pembroke was named to the committee on yet another bill from the earl of Derby for the restoration of lands sold during the Interregnum. The chairmanship was now in the hands of other peers.<sup>40</sup> This time the bill actually passed both Houses of Parliament, albeit with a protest in the House led by Edward Hyde* earl of Clarendon, but it received the royal veto at the end of the session. Apart from the committees on the Quaker and Derby bills Pembroke was nominated to only five other committees during this latter part of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament and was added to that for the uniformity bill on 27 Feb. 1662 – a cruel irony, for that was the day that the Quaker bill was passed.</p><p>Pembroke attended just under a quarter of the meetings in the 1663 session and left on 8 May, when the House formally gave him dispensation to be absent. Four days later he registered his proxy with Anthony Ashley Cooper* Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), who had represented Wiltshire in the Nominated Assembly, all three Protectorate Parliaments, and the Convention before being raised to the peerage. Pembroke’s absence was similarly excused in the middle of the session of spring 1664, when he still managed to attend just under half of the sittings and was nominated to only one committee. He was more active in committees in the 1664–5 session, even though he only came to a quarter of the sittings. In late January and early February 1665 he was named to four committees and on two occasions chaired the committee on the bill to make the river Avon (which flowed through Wilton) navigable. At another meeting of this committee he desired that a proviso preserving his rights as bailiff and keeper of the river be included in the bill.<sup>41</sup> He also reported from the committee for privileges on 7 Feb. 1665 regarding the accusations made against Thomas Howard* earl of Berkshire, of having received stolen goods. He only came to three meetings of the short session of October 1665 and to none at all during 1666–7, for which he again registered his proxy with Ashley on 16 Jan. 1667.</p><p>Pembroke was more attentive to the proceedings of the winter of 1667, coming to 55 per cent of the meetings. He joined in the attack on Clarendon, perhaps blaming him for the persecution of his Quaker brethren. He subscribed to the protest of 20 Nov. 1667 against the House’s refusal to commit the lord chancellor without specific charges, and on 7 Dec. he was named to the committee on the bill for Clarendon’s banishment (his only committee for that session). On 17 Feb. 1668, shortly after Parliament resumed after its winter recess, Pembroke’s absence was formally excused. When he reappeared at the beginning of March he sat for just over a quarter of the meetings and was named to only one committee, that on the bill for the preservation of timber in the Forest of Dean on 28 April.</p><p>Perhaps he was already suffering from the illness which would eventually fell him, for he did not attend any of the meetings of the following session of autumn 1669 and died on the day that session was prorogued, 11 Dec. 1669. His peerage and principal estate at Wilton descended to his only child by his first wife, William. His cousin by marriage, George Villiers* 2nd duke of Buckingham, and his son-in-law, John Poulett* 3rd Baron Poulett (husband of his eldest daughter, Susan), were appointed as executors. They were directed to sell his fee simple lands in Berkshire and Wiltshire for the payment of his debts and for the benefit of Mary and Philip Herbert* (later 7th earl of Pembroke), his two eldest children by his second wife. His remaining four unmarried children were to get only five shillings each.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, Philip (1653-83) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Philip</strong> (1653–83)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>half-bro. 8 July 1674 as 7th earl of PEMBROKE and 4th earl of MONTGOMERY |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 24 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 Jan. 1653, 1st s. of Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke and 2nd w. Katherine (<em>d</em>.1678)<sup>1</sup>, da. of Sir William Villiers, bt. of Brooksby, Leics.; half-bro. of William Herbert*, 6th earl of Pembroke and bro. of Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 19 Dec. 1674,<sup>2</sup> Henriette Mauricette (<em>d</em>.1728), da. of Guillaume de Penancoët, sieur de Kéroualle, Brittany, France, 1da. KB 23 Apr. 1661.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 29 Aug. 1683; admon. 20 Dec. 1683 to wid.</p> |
<p><em>Custos rot</em>., Glam. 1674-<em>d.</em>, Pemb. 1674-<em>d.</em>, Wilts. 1675-<em>d.</em>;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. Wilts. 1675-<em>d.</em>;<sup>5</sup> preserver of game, Wilton, Wilts. 1675-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p> |
|
<p>From the time Philip Herbert, the elder of the two sons born to Philip Herbert, 5th earl of Pembroke and his second wife Katherine Villiers, succeeded, his half-brother William Herbert*, 6th earl of Pembroke in July 1674 at the age of just 21, he became an object of fascination and horror to newsletter writers. He appeared to embody some of the worst excesses and vices of Charles II’s court. He was clearly favoured by the king and, added to the existing office of <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the southern Welsh counties of Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire which he inherited from his brother at his death, he was also chosen to be lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> of Wiltshire in May 1675, while it was rumoured for a time that he would be made a gentleman of the bedchamber or even lord chamberlain.<sup>8</sup> He certainly enhanced his place in the king’s circles by his marriage in December 1674 to Henriette Mauricette de Kéroualle, sister of the king’s influential and infamous mistress, Louise de Kéroualle, <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Portsmouth.</p><p>But what truly amazed contemporaries was his capacity for inebriation – one contemporary commented ‘they say he [Pembroke], is a fine gentleman when sober, which I am told is seldom 24 hours together’ – and the consequent acts of random and manic violence committed, which went beyond the mere ‘rakishness’ for which aristocratic society was famed at the time, but verged on the pathologically homicidal.<sup>9</sup> The letters, both personal and newsletters, of the 1670s are full of accounts of his duels, drinking bouts, losses at gambling, and most frequently, his wounding or being wounded in late-night brawls in taverns or dark London streets.<sup>10</sup> In January 1677 alone he reportedly injured three people in the space of about ten days, including cutting off the fingers of Sir Bourchier Wrey<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>11</sup> In danger of being bound over for good behaviour for his misdeeds, he left London for the safety of Wilton House in Wiltshire with an extravagant retinue, ‘accompanied with some of his mad gang, besides a lion, three or four bears, and half a score mastiff dogs’. John Aubrey confirmed that the earl had a menagerie of over 80 dogs, both mastiffs and greyhounds, some bears, a lion, ‘and a matter of 60 fellows more bestial than they’ at Wilton.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Having returned to London, on Christmas Day 1677 he and his gang waylaid the chaplain of Charles North*, 5th Baron North and Grey, and physically forced him to get drunk with them, overriding his protestations that he was supposed to be preaching and administering communion with ‘many outrageous blasphemies against our blessed lord and the virgin mother’.<sup>13</sup> The blasphemy and abuse of the communion was seen as a step too far. Pembroke was committed to the Tower on the king’s order on 2 Jan. 1678 ‘and it is talked as if they resolve never to release him ... he being mad to such a degree as not to be permitted to go abroad’.<sup>14</sup> A correspondent of the diplomat Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> felt it was about time too, Pembroke ‘having for some time past committed so great extravagances that it was hardly safe for anybody to pass near him in the streets’, and he felt ‘that this session of Parliament he will be impeached for blasphemy and other great crimes’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Indeed, this was one of Pembroke’s first encounters with Parliament and his peers in the House. He had made a token appearance in the House when he inherited the title, taking his seat on the first day of the session of spring 1675, but thereafter only coming to nine of its meetings. He had registered his proxy with Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler of Moore Park, (better known as earl of Ossory [I]) on 10 Oct. 1675 before the second session of that year, but it had been vacated when Pembroke showed up in the House on 8 Nov., although he was only present for that and the following two days. Spending much of 1677 in self-imposed exile at Wilton, he had not attended any meetings of the House during that year, although only three days before the commencement of the session in February 1677, he had registered his proxy with his friend and fellow brawler and swordsman Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, deemed Pembroke ‘worthy’ in the spring of 1677, but it is difficult to know on what basis he made this judgment, apart from his long experience with the family (Pembroke’s two immediate predecessors had made Shaftesbury their principal proxy recipient).</p><p>On 28 Jan. 1678, about two weeks after Parliament had reconvened following its long adjournment from May 1677, the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham) informed the House of Pembroke’s imprisonment for ‘uttering such horrid and blasphemous words ... as are not fit to be repeated in any Christian assembly’. The next day Pembroke’s proxy Albemarle submitted the earl’s petition to the House in which he claimed to ‘detest and abhor’ the words attributed to him and hoped that, as he was accused by only one witness, and a commoner at that, his peers would not believe the horrid accusations against him. The House had a ‘serious’ debate on the petition but eventually voted – with a protest from James Stuart*, duke of York, George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, the two archbishops, and seven bishops – to address the king asking for Pembroke’s release, on the basis that the evidence of a single commoner was not sufficient against the word of a peer denying the fact upon his own honour.<sup>16</sup> However, the House expressed its horror of Pembroke’s blasphemy by ordering a bill to be brought in for the suppression of blasphemy, which eventually passed the House but was laid aside by the Commons at its first reading. Pembroke was released from the Tower on 30 January. He was almost immediately in trouble again, for on 5 Feb. Philip Rycaut complained to the House that the earl, unprovoked, had punched him to the ground and assaulted him on the Strand three days earlier. This time the House responded by ordering Pembroke to give security by a recognizance of £2,000 to keep the peace towards Rycaut and all other subjects, and Pembroke, sitting in the House for the only time in the entire long session of 1677-8, agreed.</p><p>The recognizance was already forfeit by the time Pembroke had entered into it, for on the previous night, 4 Feb., Pembroke had, in a drunken rage in a Haymarket tavern, punched a drinking companion, Nathaniel Cony, to the ground and then kicked and beaten his prone victim so violently that Cony died of internal wounds six days later. At least that was the judgment of the coroner at the inquest on 11 Feb., when Pembroke was found responsible for Cony’s murder. On 1 Mar. Pembroke submitted, through Albemarle (whom Pembroke had made his proxy once again on 23 Feb. 1678), a petition asking for a speedy trial before his peers assembled in time of Parliament, a request that was referred to the committee for privileges. On 6 Mar. the lord privy seal, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, reported from the committee that, a coroner’s inquisition being deemed too inferior a record on which to try a peer, the king should issue out a commission of oyer and terminer to examine the case and, if the grand jury indicted Pembroke, the earl would be tried by all his peers. On 19 Mar. it was reported that the Middlesex grand jury had found that Pembroke had a case to answer, and a writ of <em>certiorari</em> was issued to bring the case before the authority of the House. The trial was scheduled to be held in Westminster Hall on 4 Apr. 1678, and in the meantime the committee for privileges was to meet to consider the procedures and methods of the trial. One important decision made was that – despite the solitary protest of Shaftesbury – the bishops would be present at the trial to hear the evidence, although they would retire of their own accord at the vote, to avoid having a part in a (potential) sentence of death.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The trial caused great interest among contemporaries and, although it was not seen as a political trial, the earl’s closeness to the court made many contemporaries doubtful that justice would be done. ‘Tis not the general opinion that he will die upon this account, though it was found murder’ was one report.<sup>18</sup> On the day of the trial, on 4 Apr. 1678, members of the House reconvened in Westminster Hall, where the lord chancellor, Finch, was constituted lord high steward of the court by royal commission, while the attorney-general William Jones conducted the case against Pembroke and set out a version of the events of 4 February. He recounted how Cony had been the unsuspecting object of Pembroke’s drunken rage after Cony’s companion, Henry Goring, had been quickly hustled out of the room after dangerously taunting the earl. The case against Pembroke was weakened by the hazy memories of those who had been thoroughly inebriated the night of the attack and by the testimony of the physicians who examined Cony that they could see no external marks of a beating. Pembroke’s witnesses all gave evidence that Cony had long been prone to fainting fits and bad health because of his excessive drinking. The peers delivered their verdicts in Westminster Hall: six found him guilty of murder, 18 not guilty, while the majority, 40, deemed him guilty of manslaughter, judging that the attack had been done without premeditated malice. There was no clear political division between those who found him guilty and not guilty of murder – North and Grey, whose chaplain Pembroke had previously abused, not surprisingly found him guilty, as did the pious lord privy seal, Anglesey, while both the ‘court’ lord great chamberlain Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, and the ‘country’ Shaftesbury could find him not guilty on the basis of the evidence presented.<sup>19</sup> When the judgment was delivered to Pembroke, he claimed benefit of clergy so was merely fined. Finch pointedly warned Pembroke that he could only claim benefit of clergy once, ‘and so I would have your lordship take notice of it as a caution to you for the future’.<sup>20</sup> This advice fell on deaf ears. To celebrate his narrow escape Pembroke went off drinking all night – 22 glasses of wine by one account – and offered to pay some youths ‘to break every man’s head they met with’ and further wounded one of the drawers serving him in the tavern.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Sure enough, Pembroke was soon in trouble with his peers again, for on 10 May 1678 the House ordered that the earl, who had not formally sat in the House since 5 Feb., respond to the petition of William Gent against his debtor Elizabeth Clifford, who claimed Pembroke’s protection against any legal action. After Pembroke continuously refused to discuss the matter with Gent, or even to respond to his peers about it on his solitary day of attendance in the House (6 July) during the session of spring 1678, the House ordered that the protection be discharged.</p><p>So infamous has Pembroke become for his random and excessive violence that in more recent times it has been suggested that he was the murderer of one of the central figures in the Popish Plot hysteria, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, who had earned the earl’s animosity by acting as foreman of the grand jury which had indicted him in March 1678.<sup>22</sup> Whatever the merits of that theory, Pembroke was definitely involved in a tavern scuffle with a fellow peer Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset and earl of Middlesex, which was reported to the House on 27 Nov. 1678. The House ordered that both Dorset and Pembroke, the latter as usual absent from the House but summoned specially to hear the charges against him, be confined to their lodgings. The following day Pembroke’s cousin (once removed) George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, conveyed to the House the earl’s regrets and his wish to be allowed to retire to his seat at Wilton, far from the trouble that the London taverns and crowds inevitably caused him. The House acquiesced and Pembroke, perhaps in preparation for his departure, registered his proxy with Albemarle once again. He did not leave immediately and somehow he got back from reputed affrays in both Acton and Aylesbury in time to attend the House on 5 Dec. 1678.<sup>23</sup> Despite having been summoned to hear the charges against him on 27 Nov. this was his first and only appearance in the House that session. His appearance that day also vacated his proxy to Albemarle.</p><p>Presumably Pembroke was enjoying his exile back in his fastness of Wilton during the elections to the first Exclusion Parliament, but it is doubtful that he would have expended much thought or activity in exercising his electoral interest in Wiltshire or its boroughs – apart from Wilton itself, where he could oversee the return of his younger and far more upright brother Thomas Herbert, later 8th earl of Pembroke, along with a member of a family long associated with the earls of Pembroke, Thomas Penruddock<sup>‡</sup>. Although the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), consistently marked him as an absentee in his calculations of the forces ranged for and against him, Pembroke actually first sat in the House on 22 Mar. 1679, a week after the Parliament had commenced. He then attended the House on a further eight occasions, the greatest number of times he was present in any of the parliamentary sessions of his lifetime. Even when he was not present, he took care of his vote by proxy, and on 5 Apr. 1679 he registered it with Albemarle, only to vacate it when he returned to the House on 16 April.<sup>24</sup> It was Albemarle who, on 29 Mar., presented to the House Pembroke’s claim that his privilege had been breached by the arrest of one of his servants, Thomas Vile, but this was rejected on 2 Apr. after the House had heard evidence at the bar concerning the case.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Pembroke’s last attendance on the House was on 24 May 1679. He does not appear to have exerted himself in influencing elections in either Wiltshire or Glamorgan, apart from ensuring the election of his younger brother, Thomas, and Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, son of the former secretary of state Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> and grandson to a steward of the Pembroke household, for the borough of Wilton. Throughout these turbulent political times, Pembroke was occupied in his usual violent and dissolute activities, the most notorious of which was Pembroke’s murder in August 1680 of an officer of the watch, William Smeeth, who stopped his coach at Turnham Green while he was returning from another drinking binge.<sup>26</sup> He was once again indicted for murder and this time, if found guilty, could not claim benefit of clergy. In late May 1681 a petition asking for a royal pardon on his behalf was signed by 24 peers. The petitioners included two peers who had themselves previously had to sue the king for a pardon for murder, Albemarle and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as well as many of the committed core of the now-defeated Whig party, such as Shaftesbury, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury.<sup>27</sup> With such defenders lined up for him, and considering that during the early stages of the ‘Tory reaction’ he had shown himself reluctant to execute a purge of the county militia, Pembroke at this period should probably be considered a Whig.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Pembroke appears to have retired to Wilton permanently after this second narrow escape to avoid any further trouble; he may have already started his long descent into illness, no doubt exacerbated by years of excessive drinking. He died on 29 Aug. 1683. He left behind him £20,000 worth of debts, a seven-year-old daughter, Charlotte, as heir-general who settled in France and was raised a Catholic by her mother, and as heir to the title, his younger brother, Thomas Herbert – but no will. His wife took out letters of administration on the estate on 20 Dec. 1683, but disputes began almost immediately between the new earl of Pembroke and his sister-in-law over the division of the estate. The dispute initially came to a head in 1685, in the early days of the first Parliament since the 7th earl’s death, when the 8th earl submitted a bill that would give him control of the estate in Wiltshire, Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, provided he raise £10,000 for Charlotte’s portion, provide the dowager countess’s jointure and supply maintenance to other members of the family. The crux of the 8th earl’s argument was that their eldest brother, the 6th earl, had originally intended to place all the estate in tail male by his will, but by ‘unskilful penning’ in the will, only the Wiltshire estates had been entailed. This bill was introduced at the beginning of the Parliament but was dropped.<sup>29</sup> Matters later became more complicated when Charlotte, barely 13 years old but reputedly a heiress worth £70,000, was married to the son and heir of James II’s lord chancellor George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, who was quick to confirm the division of the Pembroke estate and Charlotte’s inheritance of the Welsh lands when the dispute came before chancery in 1688. Thus one consequence of the 7th earl’s dissolute life and reckless spending was the loss to the Herbert earls of Pembroke of the lands in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire which had been their original powerbase. In the future they would concentrate all their power and efforts on Wiltshire.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, Thomas (c. 1656-1733) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1656–1733)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 29 Aug. 1683 as 8th earl of PEMBROKE and 5th earl of Montgomery |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 25 May 1732 |
|
MP Wilton 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.), 1681 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1656, 3rd s. of Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, being 2nd s. by 2nd w. Katherine (<em>d</em>.1678), da. of Sir William Villiers, bt. of Brooksby, Leics.; half-bro. of William Herbert*, 6th earl of Pembroke and 3rd earl of Montgomery and bro. of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke and 4th earl of Montgomery. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 18 Mar. 1673, aged 16; travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1676-9. <em>m</em>. (1) 26 July 1684, Margaret (<em>d</em>. 17 Nov. 1706), da. and h. of Sir Robert Sawyer<sup>‡</sup> of Highclere, Hants, 7s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 5da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 21 Sept. 1708, Barbara (<em>d</em>. 1 Aug. 1721), da. of Sir Thomas Slingsby<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. [S] of Scriven, Yorks., wid. of John Arundell*, 2nd Bar. Arundell of Trerice and previously of Sir Richard Mauleverer, 4th bt. of Allerton Mauleverer, Yorks., 1da.; (3) 14 June 1725, Mary, da. of Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Visct. Howe [I] <em>s.p</em>.<sup>1</sup> KG 14 May 1700. <em>d</em>. 22 Jan. 1733; <em>will</em> 22 Dec. 1732, pr. 5 Feb. 1733.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 14 Oct. 1689-<em>d</em>., ld. pres. 1699-Jan. 1702, July 1702-8; first ld. Admiralty 1690-2; queen’s regency council 1690-4;<sup>3</sup> commr. inspection of hospitals 1691,<sup>4</sup> appeals in prizes 1694, 1695, 1697,<sup>5</sup> Greenwich Hosp. 1694, relief of Vaudois 1699,<sup>6</sup> union with Scotland 1706-7; ld. Privy Seal 1692-9; ld. justice 1695-1701, 1714; ld. high adm. 1702, 1708-9; ld. lt. [I] 1707-8.</p><p>Ld. lt., Wilts. 1683-8 (sole), Mar. 1688-May 1689 (jt.), 1689-<em>d</em>. (sole), S. Wales and Mon. 1694-1715; <em>custos rot</em>., Glam. 1683-1728, Pemb. 1683-1715; high steward, Salisbury 1683-<em>d.</em>,<sup>7</sup> Wilton 1685-<em>d.</em></p><p>Capt. ind. tp. of horse, June-Aug. 1685; col. regt. of ft. (Dutch establishment) 1685-8, 2nd Marine Regt. 1690-1.</p><p>Amb. extraordinary, States General 1689; first plenip. Congress of Ryswick 1697.</p><p>Freeman, E.I. Co. 1678; FRS 1685, pres. 1689-90; elder bro. Trinity House 1691-1707, master 1692-4; pres. Royal Lustring Co. 1692;<sup>8</sup> gov. Charterhouse 1697.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Greenhill, c.1676, NPG 5237; oil on canvas by W. Wissing, c.1685, Wilton House, Wilts.</p> |
<h2><em>Born into an infamous family</em></h2><p>In stark contrast to his infamous elder brother Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, Thomas Herbert led an exemplary youth in the 1670s which was ultimately to lead to his being one of the most respected and revered men of his age. John Macky in around 1703 claimed that in his youth Pembroke had ‘applied himself to the law and knowledge of the constitution of his country’ and had become ‘a good judge in all the several sciences; … a great encourager of learning and learned men’, while Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury described him as ‘a man of eminent virtue, and of great and profound learning, particularly in the mathematics’.<sup>11</sup> He was a close friend and patron of John Locke from the time they met in France during the young Thomas Herbert’s travels there in 1676, and Locke later dedicated his <em>Essay concerning Human Understanding</em> to him.<sup>12</sup> Pembroke later established himself as one of the foremost virtuosos and collectors of his day. He was briefly a president of the Royal Society and frequently conversed with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, on antiquarian interests.<sup>13</sup> The famous collection of paintings and classical sculptures, busts and coins at Wilton House is principally his work, acquired over several years as he grew evermore wealthy from his estates and the succession of high-ranking offices he held.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Burnet was later to claim (in relation to Pembroke’s role as plenipotentiary at the Rijswick negotiations) that, ‘There was somewhat in his person and manner that created him an universal respect, for we had no other man among us whom all sides loved and honoured so much as they did him’, while John Macky told his Hanoverian patrons that Pembroke was ‘a lover of the constitution of his country, without being of a party and yet esteemed by all parties’.<sup>15</sup> Even a more critical commentator such as Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup>, writing after Pembroke’s death, had to concede that ‘he was very firm to the government and constitution, but had no particular attachment to ministers or parties, and in that he preserved the dignity of his rank’.<sup>16</sup> Throughout his long political career – he was not once out of high office between 1689 and 1709 – he served an important role as the exemplary court Tory whose moderation and efficiency in office could offend neither party.<sup>17</sup> More often than not, and certainly in early 1702 and then again in 1708, he was put in office as a moderate place-holder until a more controversial and partisan appointment could be effected. Yet even his closest adherents cast occasional doubts on Pembroke’s ability; even Burnet qualified his praise by commenting that Pembroke’s knowledge of mathematics ‘made him a little too speculative and abstracted in his notions. He had great application, but he lived a little too much out of the world, though in a public station; a little more practice among men would give him the last finishing.’<sup>18</sup> Harsher commentators such as Onslow and Thomas Hearne cast doubt on the depth of Pembroke’s widely lauded learning and intelligence and claimed to be able to see traces of the Herbert family’s infamous propensity for quarrelsomeness and insanity in his behaviour, especially as he grew older and more eccentric.<sup>19</sup></p><p>As Member for the Wiltshire borough of Wilton, near the family’s famous residence of Wilton House, Thomas Herbert left little trace of his parliamentary activities. He is not known to have served on any committees or to have made any speeches, and he was conspicuously absent when the crucial division on the exclusion bill took place. He succeeded to the earldoms of Pembroke and Montgomery upon his elder brother’s death without male heirs on 29 Aug. 1683. A number of other Wiltshire peers stood ready to take over the lieutenancy of the county from the late unstable peer, but by early October it was confirmed that the young 8th earl would take up his late brother’s role governing Wiltshire. His local rival Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, however, was made <em>custos rotulorum</em>.<sup>20</sup> Pembroke was to remain lord lieutenant of Wiltshire for the next 50 years until his death in 1733. He was also appointed <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the Herbert family’s ancient Welsh bases in Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire. On 26 July 1684 he married Margaret, the sole daughter and heir of the attorney general Sir Robert Sawyer<sup>‡</sup> who was at that time spearheading the <em>quo warranto</em> campaign against corporations.</p><h2><em>Reign of James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>Pembroke sat in the House on the first day of James II’s Parliament on 19 May 1685 and a week later he introduced his own estate bill. The 7th earl of Pembroke had died intestate and had left behind him £20,000 worth of debt and a seven-year-old daughter, Charlotte, as heir-general. She had settled in France and was being raised as a Catholic by her French mother, Henriette Mauricette, the sister of Louise de Kéroualle, duchess of Portsmouth. The dowager countess of Pembroke had taken out letters of administration on the late earl’s estate, which consisted of lands in Wiltshire, Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, and disputes between her and the new earl had begun almost immediately. The bill would have given the earl control of all these lands, provided he raise £10,000 for his niece Charlotte’s portion, maintain the dowager countess’s jointure of £1,500 p.a. and supply portions and maintenance for his two sisters.<sup>21</sup></p><p>The bill was dropped after Pembroke left the House on 13 June to raise the Wiltshire militia against the invasion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth; these troops joined the royal forces in the latter stages of the battle of Sedgemoor.<sup>22</sup> James II followed this in September 1685 by urging on William of Orange the appointment of Pembroke as general of the English regiments serving the United Provinces, but this was not effected, apparently because of Pembroke’s military inexperience.<sup>23</sup> Pembroke was still in the House for five days in November 1685, before the prorogation, and served as one of the peers chosen to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) in January 1686.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Pembroke may have initially received personal tokens of the king’s favour, but progress in his career was blocked by his growing opposition to James II’s policies.<sup>25</sup> In early 1687 it was widely rumoured that the king would give the colonelcy recently surrendered by Richard Lumley*, Baron Lumley (later earl of Scarbrough) to Pembroke, provided he convert to Catholicism, but despite being aggressively ‘closeted’ by the king, Pembroke declined the honour as ‘he then should be thought obliged to vote in Parliament as he was directed, when he would preserve a liberty to himself of giving his vote there according to his judgment and conscience.’<sup>26</sup> From that point Pembroke was consistently listed among those peers who opposed the king’s policies to repeal the Test Acts and Penal Laws.</p><p>That the young earl already acted, and was seen, as a moderate, fundamentally loyal to the crown is suggested by the fact that Pembroke was one of the few lords lieutenant critical of the king’s policies who retained his position throughout 1685-8. In March 1688 he was merely ‘joined’ in his administration of Wiltshire by James II’s follower William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth, a Norfolk peer, who was sent to monitor Pembroke’s actions in the county without actually ousting him. Pembroke may well have been one of the few among the king’s critics who was allowed to debate with the king. As late as November 1687 Pembroke ‘has been several times in the closet with his Majesty and has at large very rationally debated the matter [the imposition of the Three Questions] with the king and tells [him] he is very confident it will not succeed, but he will propose his Majesty’s pleasure with all the advantage he can.’<sup>27</sup> In early October 1688 he formally offered his service to the king in case of William of Orange’s invasion, and he refused to subscribe to the petition of 16 Nov. calling on James to summon a ‘free Parliament’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>At the time of the king’s first flight on 11 Dec. Pembroke signed the Guildhall Declaration and, with his Wiltshire rival Weymouth, as well as Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, and Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, was delegated to present the Declaration to William of Orange at his camp at Henley.<sup>29</sup> Pembroke played a prominent role in the debate on 24 Dec. 1688 following the king’s permanent flight. Here he and his close colleague Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, ‘spoke with great moderation and tenderness towards the king’ and Pembroke argued that the king’s flight could not be considered an abdication and that the rights of the prince of Wales should be considered. Upon the proposal that Mary be declared queen in order to summons a formal Parliament, Pembroke made the suggestion, apparently the first to do so, ‘that this cannot be better done than by a Convention’, summoned without royal writs following the precedent of 1660.<sup>30</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention, 1689</em></h2><p>According to Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Pembroke was convinced that ‘all endeavours must be used in the Convention ... to provide for the safety of the government with regard to the king’s interest.’<sup>31</sup> In the debate of 29 Jan. 1689 he supported a regency, arguing that by his flight the king had not necessarily ‘thrown away the government’ and compared his leaving the kingdom to ‘a man’s running out of his house when on fire, or a seaman’s throwing his goods overboard in a storm, to save his life, which could never be understood as a renunciation of his house or goods.’<sup>32</sup> The following day Pembroke voted against the motion in a committee of the whole to declare William and Mary king and queen immediately and the day after did not join in the protest against the House’s rejection of the Commons’ claim that the ‘throne is vacant’. On 4 Feb. he was one of the 17 members of the House appointed to manage the conference at which the Commons put forward their objections to the Lords’ alternate wording to the declaration, and he voted with the majority against the motion to agree with the Commons in the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘vacant’ and was appointed to the large committee assigned to draw up the House’s reasons. On 5 and 6 Feb. Pembroke served as part of the House’s delegation who presented and then debated these reasons in conference, and on the latter day he took a major part in that part of the conference in which the Commons’ managers challenged the lords to name who filled the throne if it was not ‘vacant’, as the House alleged. Pembroke insisted that it was filled by James’s legitimate heir, although he and the other Lords’ managers were coy about explicitly naming which of James II’s children they had in mind as the occupant of the throne.<sup>33</sup> Pembroke voted not content in the ensuing question in the House whether to agree to the Commons’ words and subscribed to the protest against the passage of this motion, effected by an unexpected influx of Williamites.</p><p>Yet despite his manifest opposition, once this important vote had passed, Pembroke quickly reconciled himself to the new situation and regime. Like his loyalist colleague Nottingham, who had led the House’s managers in the conferences, his constitutionalist scruples were satisfied by the Convention’s vote and resolution of 6 Feb., and three days later he and Nottingham were the only two supporters of a regency, among a host of ardent Williamites, named to the committee assigned to draw up reasons justifying the House’s amendments to the Declaration of Right, among which was one which stated that William and Mary had the ‘sole and full exercise of the regal power’. When Clarendon tried to convince these two former loyalists to enter a protest against the amendment of 9 Feb. giving William and Mary full regal powers or, failing that, to boycott attendance of the House in protest, Pembroke and Nottingham both declined, Pembroke explaining that ‘it would be of ill consequence; the Government must be supported, or else we should all be ruined’, while Nottingham told Clarendon ‘we must support the Government as well as we can, and the Lords can never answer it, if they leave the House’.<sup>34</sup> One of James’s most faithful loyalists, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who never fully reconciled himself to the new regime, later wrote in his memoirs that Pembroke ‘had a behaviour like a great and generous nobleman … and when he accepted of an employment afterwards, he gave me this reason, that our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ answered when they came to tempt him, “Render unto Caesar”.’<sup>35</sup></p><p>Pembroke quickly showed as much loyalty, and application, to the new regime as he had previously shown for James II. His loyalties appear not to have been to individual monarchs but to the crown and government in place itself, as is suggested by his responses to Clarendon and Ailesbury and by a comment attributed to him by Roger Morrice. This may have arisen from Pembroke’s role in the committee appointed on 1 May to draft an address on the king’s desire to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, ‘that their Lordships might put what clauses they thought fit into acts of Parliament touching the prerogative, but the branches and roots of the prerogative were unalienable and inseparable from the crown, and such acts [i.e. the Habeas Corpus Act], did not bind the crown’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>On the same day he took the oaths to the new monarchs, 2 Mar. 1689, Pembroke chaired a meeting of the select committee considering the bill for the trial of peers and he took a major role in guiding this bill through its tortured proceedings, although he was not satisfied with its final outcome. The committee, following an order made in the previous meeting of 28 Feb., also chaired by Pembroke, considered and approved an amended clause of the bill which lowered the number of lords required to try a peer outside time of Parliament. Pembroke reported this amendment to the bill on 4 Mar., and then chaired the committee of the whole which considered and ultimately rejected them. Upon Pembroke’s report, the House divided, with Pembroke acting as teller for the minority contents (which side lost by one vote), on whether to put the question whether the new clause should stand. The following day, after further debate, the House rejected the committee of the whole’s amendments requiring the entire House to be summoned and passed the version of the bill with the reduced criteria. On 6 Mar. Pembroke entered his protest against this version of the bill.<sup>37</sup> He acted as a teller on 14 Mar. for the question whether to commit the comprehension bill to a committee of the whole and he was later named to the select committee on the bill. When on the following day, 15 Mar., the committee of the whole considering the bill to abrogate the oaths appointed a select committee to draw up a clause to dispense candidates for office from the requirement of taking the sacrament, Pembroke was again selected. From 28 Mar. he was involved in the dispute between the Houses on the Commons’ amendments to the bill for removing papists from London which was particularly aimed at the English Catholics in the household of the queen dowager, Catherine of Braganza. He reported from the small committee of nine peers who drafted the reasons for the House’s objections on 28 Mar. and was named as part of the House’s delegation to conferences on that day and on 8 April. He was that latter day named to the committee to draw up reasons justifying the House’s objections and took part in the three successive conferences on this matter on 16-18 Apr. On 18 Apr. the House sent down to the Commons its amended version of the bill for the abrogation of oaths, and Pembroke was one of the peers chosen to manage the ensuing conference on 22 Apr., although he had not been involved in the preceding conference on this matter. From 16 Apr. Pembroke also held the proxy of the Tory Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, which he held for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Pembroke showed his attachment to the regime in other ways and acted as the bearer of the third sword at the coronation of William and Mary on 11 April.<sup>38</sup> In May he was reinstated as sole lord lieutenant of Wiltshire, although Yarmouth had ceased to have any influence in the county since the Revolution. In April William III appointed him English ambassador to the States-General, where Pembroke was to formalize the military alliance between the two countries against France.<sup>39</sup> Pembroke set off for his new posting on 8 June, which allowed him time on the last day of May 1689 to vote against the motion to reverse the punitive judgments against Titus Oates, and on the day following, 1 June, to introduce (with Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford) his distant kinsman, Arthur Herbert*, into the House as earl of Torrington. On 3 June Pembroke registered his proxy with his colleague Nottingham, who was later able to use it on 31 July to cast two votes to adhere to the Lords’ amendments which would prohibit Titus Oates from ever testifying in court again.</p><h2><em>First Lord of the Admiralty, 1690-2</em></h2><p>Pembroke returned from his successful embassy in early October and was almost immediately rewarded for his efforts by being sworn on to the Privy Council on 14 Oct. 1689. Carmarthen classed him as among the supporters of the court in a list of October 1689 to February 1690. A new session of the Convention began on 23 Oct. and Pembroke was present on that day and for a total of 79 per cent of the ensuing sittings, but other than being named to various select committees with the other peers present he was not heavily involved in the affairs of the House throughout most of the winter of 1689. That winter saw his first entry into ministerial office – a position which he was to retain, though in different guises, for the following 20 years. Sometime around the turn of 1690 Pembroke and his kinsman Torrington were each commissioned to raise and command a regiment of marines.<sup>40</sup> There was also at this time intense manoeuvring about who would replace the disgruntled Torrington as first lord of the commission managing the Admiralty. Originally William had wanted to appoint the Tory admiral Sir Richard Haddock<sup>‡</sup>, but the Whigs, already restless by William’s preference for Tories in his ministry, made it clear they would not accept him.<sup>41</sup> When the commission constituting the newly modelled Admiralty Board was issued on 20 Jan. 1690 Pembroke, not strongly associated with either party, was placed at the head of it, despite his lack of naval experience. After George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, was removed as lord privy seal shortly after the dissolution of the Convention on 6 Feb. 1690, Pembroke stood out in popular rumour as one of the leading candidates to replace him, although at that point the king put the custodianship of the Privy Seal in the hands of a commission; Pembroke would have to wait two more years before he attained that office.<sup>42</sup> The king also appointed Pembroke as one of the councillors who was to assist Queen Mary in the government of the country during his absence in Ireland that summer.<sup>43</sup></p><p>For the elections to the new Parliament, and indeed for all the elections of this period, Pembroke, despite his growing prominence in Whitehall, did not exercise a predominant influence in the county of Wiltshire and even in his own borough of Wilton he was rarely able to return both members to the Commons. In March 1690 his client, the clerk of the Privy Council Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, of a family long associated with the Herberts, was defeated by a local Whig candidate, Sir Richard Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>44</sup> Pembroke himself attended 91 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the Parliament in spring 1690 – his highest level of attendance of any parliamentary session – and, as befitted a new privy councillor and minister, was prominent in the debates on the bill to recognize the Convention as a Parliament, and William and Mary as king and queen. The wording over the status of the measures taken in the Convention was debated in a committee of the whole House on 28 Mar., where the Whigs wished to have them ‘declared’ legal, while the Tories wished to have them merely ‘confirmed’ as such. The committee of the whole was inconclusive. Both wordings were reported to the House on 5 Apr., and Pembroke joined the Tory ministers Nottingham and Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds) in rejecting the Whig wording ‘declaring’ the acts of the Convention legal. However, he did not support Nottingham in his condemnation of the compromise wording developed by Carmarthen that stated that the measures taken ‘were and are good laws to all intents and purposes whatsoever’ and did not sign the protests of 8 and 10 Apr. against the passage of the bill with this wording. In a four-hour debate at the second reading of the abjuration bill on 2 May, Pembroke joined Nottingham, Carmarthen and Halifax in arguing against both the terms of the oath and its imposition upon all subjects, as ‘the oath of obedience [is] sufficient’ and there was a ‘danger to press things too far’. Though he was against a republic he would have no new oath, he concluded, and argued, ultimately fruitlessly, to reject the bill.<sup>45</sup></p><p>As trailed earlier in the spring, Pembroke was one of the ‘Council of Nine’ assigned to advise Mary during her tenure as regent while William was campaigning in Ireland from June 1690.<sup>46</sup> After working with him, Mary felt that Pembroke was ‘as mad as most of his family though very good natured, and a man of honour, but not very steady’.<sup>47</sup> A contemporary satirical poem ‘The Nine’, also played on the unfortunate reputation of the Herbert earls of Pembroke for bouts of madness and extreme and uncontrollable rages:</p><blockquote><p>A Grave Eye, and an Overthinking Face<br />Seems to distinguish him from all his Race.<br />But Nature’s proud and leaving all Restraint<br />By sudden start shows there’s a Mortal taint:<br />Which to a good Observer, makes it plain,<br />His frenzy will ere long break out again.<br />But after all to do him right it’s sad,<br />The best of all the Race should be stark Mad.<sup>48</sup></p></blockquote><p>Suspicions that he took after the more infamous members of his family dogged Pembroke throughout his career, but the only times he did appear to give vent to his family’s penchant for rages was when he was in his cups – as William III was happy to witness, for it reassured him that Pembroke was not, as commonly rumoured, ‘faultless’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>As first lord of the Admiralty, Pembroke was heavily involved in the major crisis of the summer of 1690 – the defeat of the Anglo-Dutch fleet off Beachy Head. He co-signed, with Nottingham, the positive orders to the admiral of the fleet, Pembroke’s kinsman Torrington, to engage the numerically superior French fleet in battle.<sup>50</sup> Torrington’s failure to lead his squadron into battle on 30 June 1690, while leaving the Dutch portions of the fleet to suffer a mauling at the hands of the French, was instantly condemned and provoked calls, especially from the Dutch allies, for Torrington’s swift and speedy punishment. On 3 July the queen sent Pembroke and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, to the fleet which had limped home from the battle to examine what had happened and to exact a promise from Torrington to come up to Westminster to account for himself before the council.<sup>51</sup> After Torrington was committed to the Tower on 10 July for high crimes and misdemeanours by a warrant from the Privy Council, Pembroke was also placed on a commission with Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup> (the only one of this commission, apart from Pembroke, to sit on the Admiralty Board), ‘to examine the whole behaviour of the admiral and every captain’. <sup>52</sup> On 19 July this commission reported that in their opinion Torrington alone had been responsible for the defeat.<sup>53</sup></p><p>The question of who should replace Torrington in command of the fleet, with a threatening French fleet still in the Channel, quickly engulfed and divided the Council of Nine. Within only a few days of the battle it was decided to entrust command of the fleet to two experienced naval commanders headed by a figurehead ‘man of quality’. At first the obvious candidate was Pembroke himself, and Mary seemed to have preferred him to some of the other more ambitious peers who were pushing themselves forward, such as Carmarthen, Devonshire or especially the wayward peer Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough). By 22 July, though, Pembroke had made clear that he was not willing to take the responsibility, and even ‘disapproved having a man of quality to go, saying it was only to send him to be knocked on the head, without the hopes of having any credit of what was well done.’ Instead the queen chose two experienced captains Sir Richard Haddock and Sir John Ashby and left it to the king to choose the third. Pembroke was then confronted with ruling over a divided Admiralty Board as three of the seven commissioners, led by the Whig Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup>, refused to countenance these royal choices and strongly asserted the Board’s right to have a consultative, and even deciding, role in the appointment of naval officers. A number of stormy interviews took place between the queen and the commissioners in late July and early August 1690, in which Pembroke stood in the difficult position of trying to be both the spokesman for the recalcitrant Board, ‘for form’s sake’, and a loyal servant to the monarchs. It was to Pembroke that the queen sent ‘positive orders’ on 5 Aug. that the commission for the Tory Sir Richard Haddock, the chief target of Lee’s partisan enmity, was to be signed and shortly afterwards a bare majority of four Admiralty commissioners, led by the first lord, Pembroke himself, signed the commission for the new royal appointees as co-admirals, while ‘the other three continue obstinate’.<sup>54</sup></p><p>At the same time the Admiralty commissioners, presided over by Pembroke, refused to sign a commission establishing a court martial for Torrington, arguing that by statute such a court martial could only be established by a single lord high admiral and not a commission. Despite the exasperation of the queen and her ministers, the Admiralty commissioners continued to delay and the matter of the method and timing of Torrington’s trial dragged on throughout September.<sup>55</sup> The Torrington matter thus continued to involve Pembroke when Parliament resumed for the winter session starting 2 Oct. 1690, of whose sittings Pembroke attended 64 per cent. On 6 Oct. Torrington petitioned the House complaining that he had been committed to the Tower by the Privy Council for misdemeanour only, and not treason, and thus in breach of his privilege. The House, or certainly the enemies to the Tory ministers Nottingham and Carmarthen, looked sympathetically on this petition. The ministry, fearing that Torrington would have to be released so he could be tried by his sympathetic peers, thus renewed and increased its pressure on the reluctant Admiralty to issue a commission for a court martial. Thus on 13 Oct. Pembroke, as first lord, laid before the House copies of the Admiralty’s original commission to Torrington as admiral of the fleet as well as a draft of the warrant for his commitment to the marshal of the Court of Admiralty pending a court martial. The House resolved that the Admiralty had the right to try Torrington under the terms of its commission to him, and that the warrant for his commitment to the earl marshal of the Admiralty was legal, but it withheld judgment on the question whether his original commitment to the Tower by the Privy Council was a breach of privilege. On 20 Oct. Pembroke was placed on the committee assigned to draft a resolution regarding the Privy Council’s commitment, and the committee’s decision that the council’s warrant was a breach of privilege was eventually passed by the House the following day after long debate. Torrington was on 10 Dec. acquitted by the court martial established by the Admiralty to try him, much to William III’s anger. Pembroke’s precise role or activity in the increasingly partisan debates on Torrington’s case cannot be determined nor can his position on the ensuing bill to clarify the powers of the Admiralty commissioners, put forward by Nottingham and Carmarthen to expedite the court martial of Torrington.<sup>56</sup> But that he was probably sympathetic to his kinsman Torrington, against the attacks of the king’s leading ministers, is suggested by the Admiralty’s reluctance to issue a court martial and particularly by Queen Mary’s comment that it was ‘in the business of Lord Torrington’ that Pembroke showed himself ‘not very steady’.<sup>57</sup> On the same day as Torrington’s petition had been heard, 6 Oct., Pembroke had voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower.</p><p>On 2 Jan. 1691 Pembroke reported from a committee of the whole with amendments and a proviso to the bill to suspend those parts of the navigation acts which prohibited the employment of foreign sailors on English ships during the war with France. Three days later, as the Houses were trying to wrap things up before the prorogation scheduled for that day, Pembroke acted as manager or reporter for a total of four conferences on the Commons’ disagreement with one of the provisos. It was only at the third conference that one of the parties budged, when, as Pembroke reported to the House, the Commons accepted one of the House’s amendments but wished to make the penalty against those infringing the act a term in gaol rather than a fine. The House still refused to accept this and Pembroke was one of five peers assigned to draw up reasons to adhere to their original amendment when the matter was lost by the prorogation of Parliament.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Pembroke’s marine regiment, of which he had been colonel since January 1690, was given instead to the admiral Henry Killigrew<sup>‡</sup> shortly after the prorogation, perhaps owing to Pembroke’s association with the disgraced Torrington, who similarly had all his commands removed.<sup>59</sup> That was the only immediate penalty suffered for his association with Torrington, the Admiralty and the disgrace of Beachy Head. After the prorogation Pembroke was once again entrusted to help Mary govern the realm during William’s absence in January 1691 for the congress of the allies at The Hague, as indeed Pembroke continued to do for every other period of regency until Mary’s death.<sup>60</sup> In William’s absence, Pembroke acted as a commissioner for the five prorogations between 31 Mar. and 5 Oct. 1691, and on three occasions (30 June, 3 Aug., 5 Oct.) was one of the five peers standing between the throne and the woolsack who summoned the lower House to hear the prorogation.</p><p>Pembroke attended three-fifths of the meetings of the 1691-2 session when Parliament resumed in October 1691, but apart from being named to the majority of select committees established, including the two small drafting committees assigned on 22 and 27 Oct. to formulate addresses of thanks to the king and queen each, Pembroke’s only notable intervention in the House in this session came on 9 Feb. 1692 when he acted as a teller at the report from a free conference on the question whether to agree with the Commons in their objections to the House’s amendments to the public accounts bill.<sup>61</sup></p><h2><em>Lord Privy Seal, 1692-9</em></h2><p>Pembroke was apparently more active in the Admiralty and in the council than he was in the House and his reputation for knowledge, loyalty and moderation, ensured that he would remain at the heart of William’s continuing efforts to put together a ‘mixed ministry’. Earlier, in February 1691, Carmarthen had put Pembroke’s name forward to William as a suitable lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>62</sup> That was not effected but in early March 1692 Pembroke was moved from the Admiralty Board, where he was replaced as first lord by Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, to the higher office of lord privy seal, in which position he remained until 1699.<sup>63</sup> That he survived at the heart of government far longer than his erstwhile companions among William’s early Tory ministry and that he remained in his office at the time of severe partisan wrangling and Whig dominance, attests to his quiet unassuming administrative ability and his lack of partisan zeal, which meant that he was unlikely to threaten either party.<sup>64</sup> In this new role Pembroke acted as commissioner for the six prorogations of Parliament between 12 Apr. and 26 Sept. 1692, and on four of these occasions (12 Apr., 24 May, 11 July, 22 Aug.) he formed part of the body of commissioners seated between the throne and woolsack, and on 12 Apr. and 22 Aug. it was he who formally announced the prorogation to the assembled parliament.<sup>65</sup> In early August he was part of the commission of the council sent to examine admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, recently returned to Portsmouth, concerning the reasons he did not sufficiently follow up his victory against the French at La Hogue, and he also participated in the debates in the cabinet council in mid August over the policies to be presented to Parliament in the forthcoming session, siding with Nottingham and Carmarthen against the insistence of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, that the land troops in Flanders be scaled back.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Pembroke, as lord privy seal, first attended the 1692-3 session on 10 Nov. 1692, a week after it had commenced, and a week after his arrival was named to the group of 16 peers assigned to draft the House’s response to the king’s speech and to thank the queen for her management of the government. In total he came to three-fifths of the sittings of this session. His attitude towards the contentious place bill at the turn of 1692-3 is ambiguous and difficult to disentangle. Ailesbury originally listed Pembroke under the ‘not contents’ in his division list on the question whether to commit the bill on 31 Dec. 1692 but then subsequently crossed the name through, either because Pembroke was not present at the vote – his name does not appear in the attendance list of the day – or because Ailesbury was mistaken in his assessment of Pembroke as an opponent of the bill. The Prussian ambassador, Bonet, for his part regarded Pembroke as the bill’s ‘great protector’, which would have made Pembroke unusual as one of the only, if not the only, Tory government ministers and office-holders who supported the bill. For 3 Jan. 1693, the day of the final vote on the bill, Ailesbury marked Pembroke as one of seven peers ‘that went away and for the bill’, that is, he abstained from the vote despite his support, perhaps because the court Whig Scarbrough (as Viscount Lumley had become at the Revolution), took Pembroke out to dinner that day to keep him away from the vote. Pembroke agreed to this invitation thinking that thereby both sides in the division would lose one vote but, according to Bonnet, Scarbrough managed to get back in time to cast his vote against the bill and even brought another court Whig with him. If Pembroke, as seems likely, had indeed been in favour of the bill, he did not publicly show it, as he did not subscribe to the protest against its narrow rejection that day.<sup>67</sup> At the same time Pembroke voted against the second reading of the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk on 2 Jan. 1693.</p><p>He was assigned by the committee of the whole House on 16 Jan. 1693 to draw up a clause for the Triennial Act, and two days later he reported from conference the Commons’ objection to the House’s amendment to the land tax bill. The House reluctantly agreed to recede from its amendment the following day, assigning Pembroke and a number of other peers to draw up a statement expressing the House’s dislike of the Commons’ bill but its willingness to concede for the sake of granting the king necessary supply. On that same day, 19 Jan., Pembroke introduced in the House a private bill which reflected the increasingly complicated and controversial disposition of the Herbert estate. In July 1688, the 7th earl of Pembroke’s only daughter and heir Charlotte, barely 13 years old but reputedly a heiress worth £70,000, had married the son and heir of James II’s lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys.<sup>68</sup> The lord chancellor had been quick to confirm Charlotte’s inheritance of the Welsh lands, said to be worth £4,000 p.a. at the Glamorgan Sessions, but he did this, so Pembroke claimed at the time and again alleged in this bill, by having the terms of various documents and writs involved in the fines and recoveries of the Welsh lands retrospectively altered and amended. Pembroke raised the issue again at this point as Charlotte’s husband John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, was about to reach his majority. The matter was delayed for several weeks and the bill did not receive its second reading until 21 Feb. 1693 and was passed three days later, after counsel, witnesses and the judges had been heard, and the committee of the whole had considered it. The bill fared less well in the Commons, where the motion to commit was rejected on 6 March.<sup>69</sup> Pembroke was present for all four days of the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on the first day, 31 Jan. 1693, he joined in the protest against the resolution not to proceed immediately with the trial, and four days later he joined the majority in voting Mohun not guilty. On 11 Feb. Pembroke was placed on a committee to draw up an address to the king with the House’s advice that he temper his reliance on foreign officers in the army and ordnance, and on 10 Mar. he was again called on to be part of the drafting committee to develop reasons why the House insisted on its amendments concerning officers’ fees in the duchy of Cornwall bill.</p><p>Pembroke’s star continued to rise and by late March 1693 it was widely rumoured that he would be appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland in the place of Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney).<sup>70</sup> He did not receive that post at this time, but he continued in his role on Queen Mary’s cabinet council during William’s summer absence, and was named a commissioner of prorogation on four occasions that summer, even though he was only actually present in the House as a commissioner sitting on the form between the throne and the woolsack on 3 Oct. 1693. In early May he acted as a commissioner to inspect the fleet and to attend a council of war of flag officers before the embarkation of the convoy under Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> assigned to accompany the Turkey Company merchant fleet to Smyrna.<sup>71</sup> After that expedition ended with the ignominious loss of the majority of the Smryna fleet to the French, it was further predicted that Pembroke would be appointed lord high admiral, in a single capacity, to replace the disgraced Admiralty commissioners whose miscommunication had led to the disaster.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Pembroke attended just less than half of the meetings of 1693-4 and on 11 Dec. 1693 the court Whig Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, registered his proxy with him for the remainder of the session. On 5 Jan. 1694, upon Pembroke’s report from conference, the House agreed to recede from its amendment to the place bill by which it sought to remove the Commons’ exemption of its speaker from the bill’s provisions. William, nevertheless, promptly vetoed this bill so offensive to him.<sup>73</sup> Pembroke later, on 17 Feb. 1694, voted against the proposed reversal of chancery’s dismissal of the petition of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu in the long-running cause of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>.</p><p>Once again after the prorogation, Pembroke was appointed to the council assigned to advise Mary during William’s absence – except this summer the council was notably slimmed down by William and reduced to five members. Although contemporaries gave varying accounts of the numbers and members of this new council, it had at its core the lord president of the council Carmarthen, now raised in the peerage to be duke of Leeds, the lord privy seal Pembroke, the lord keeper John Somers*, Baron Somers, and the secretaries of state Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury and John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup> – an indication of Pembroke’s continuing place at the heart of William and Mary’s government, despite the increasing turn to the Whigs in 1693-4.<sup>74</sup> In early May 1694, upon the death of the lord lieutenant of Wales, the earl of Macclesfield, Pembroke was made lord lieutenant of south Wales and Monmouthshire.<sup>75</sup> It was at this point that his legal battle with his niece, Charlotte, and Baron Jeffreys came to an end, as the court of exchequer to which he had resorted after the loss of his bill in Parliament found against him in late June and the family’s ancestral Welsh lands became permanently separated from the Herbert earls of Pembroke.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Pembroke was a commissioner for the three prorogations between 18 Sept. and 6 Nov. 1694, but it was only on the last of these that he was actually present to officiate. When Parliament reassembled on 12 Nov. Pembroke attended and proceeded to sit in over two-thirds of the meetings of this session (69 per cent). L’Hermitage reported to the States General that on 18 Dec., in the debates in the committee of the whole considering the triennial bill, Pembroke ‘harangued’ lengthily, insisting that the Parliament should be dissolved immediately after the end of the current session, regardless of the terms of the bill which allowed it to remain in being until November 1696.<sup>77</sup> Despite these views Pembroke did not put his name to the protest against the bill which passed without this amendment, and which was the version to which William III finally gave his assent on 22 Dec. In a debate on 25 Jan. 1695 on the state of the nation he successfully warned Rochester off from raising the ‘dangerous question’ of the legitimacy of the Parliament after the death of the queen in whose name it had been summoned.<sup>78</sup></p><p>The lord privy seal was most prominent in the proceedings at the end of the session. On 11 Apr. 1695 he was added to the group of delegates dealing with the Commons in conference on the Houses’ disagreements over the trials for treason bill and he attended conferences on 15 and 20 April. On 18 Apr. he was also named a reporter for the conference on the bill to continue various laws, including the law on press censorship. He was named on 16 Apr. to the committee entrusted with drawing up a bill to indemnify Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> for any evidence he provided about bribery and corruption in the affairs of the East India Company and on 22 Apr. was chosen by ballot as one of the 13 members of the House committee which, joined with a committee of the Commons, took Cooke’s testimony. He reported the result of these examinations to the House on the following two days and on 24 Apr. acted as principal spokesman for the House in a conference on this matter, upon which report he was further named to the committee which was to examine those implicated by Cooke’s testimony such as Sir Basil Firebrace<sup>‡</sup>. He reported from another conference the agreement that the joint committee which had investigated Cooke would do the same for the others implicated, and on 27 Apr. he delivered to the House the results of the joint committee’s examination of Firebrace and his accomplices.<sup>79</sup> As a result of these investigations into bribery and corruption the Commons soon brought in articles of impeachment against the duke of Leeds, and Pembroke reported from the conference on 3 May at which the Houses discussed the impeachment, but the widening investigation into corruption was stopped by William III’s prorogation of Parliament on the same day.</p><p>Pembroke had served on Queen Mary’s cabinet council during William’s absence for every summer since 1690. After the queen’s death in December 1694, Pembroke continued in this role as caretaker of the kingdom in the king’s absence, and was appointed one of the lords justices from May to October 1695.<sup>80</sup> He had the rare distinction of being one of only three ministers – the others being Devonshire and Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury – to serve as lord justice in each and every one of William III’s annual absences until the king’s death, just as he had done previously during the queen’s lifetime.<sup>81</sup> Upon the king’s return Parliament was dissolved on 11 Oct. 1695, and in the elections Pembroke was able to ensure the return of only one of the burgesses for Wilton, the Tory John Gauntlett<sup>‡</sup>, a protegé of Sir John Nicholas and a clerk of the privy council and under-keeper of its records.<sup>82</sup> Gauntlett was to be returned on Pembroke’s interest in every subsequent election in William III’s reign until defeated, temporarily, in the controversial election to Anne’s Parliament in 1702.</p><p>Pembroke attended the first day of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695 and continued to sit in 69 per cent of the meetings of its first session. In early December he took an active part in debates in the committee of the whole, at least according to the notes taken by the chairman of the committee, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. On 4 Dec. 1695 he supported Torrington in his argument, in the committee of the whole dealing with the state of the coin, that an address should be made to the king to prohibit the import of debased English coin. Pembroke also suggested the coins of smaller value, such as half-crowns, should be called in first to be made into smaller pieces first, to limit the loss in value in the recoinage. He also felt that an address had to be made to call in coins, and he was placed on the committee of 17 assigned by the committee of the whole to draft an address calling for a royal proclamation that no clipped money be accepted as valid currency and to present this address to the Commons in a conference.<sup>83</sup> On 13 Dec. he was named to the committees charged with inspecting papers from the East India Company regarding its merchants’ losses at sea and with making additions to the address against the Scottish East India Company. On 23 Dec. he also took part in debates in the committee of the whole House discussing the trials for treason bill, where he agreed with the motion that there should be a provision that a copy of the indictment be made available to the accused at least five days before the trial.<sup>84</sup> On the penultimate day of 1695 he was placed on a select committee, also arising from debates in a committee of the whole, entrusted with drafting an amendment for the bill to regulate the coinage and was appointed a manager to defend the House’s amendments in a series of conferences on 3, 7 and 11 Jan. 1696. These debates and conferences were interrupted by the furore surrounding the revelations of the assassination plot against William III, and the drafting of the Association. Pembroke, a loyal court servant, signed the Association on the first day he could, 27 Feb., in stark contrast to his former Tory colleague Nottingham who was struck off the council on 12 March.<sup>85</sup> He soon resumed his usual activity in conferences and on 6 Apr. reported from conference the lower House’s objections to the amendments made to the bill for the encouragement of privateers.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Pembroke first sat in the House on 2 Nov. 1696 when Parliament resumed and continued to sit for a total of 64 per cent of the meetings of the session. Vernon listed him, among a host of Whig managers such as Gilbert Burnet, the bishop of Salisbury, Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, and the earl of Monmouth, as one of the managers of the debate on the second reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> on 18 December. With many other court supporters he voted for the attainder bill’s second reading, though he stated in the debate that this was only done in order to encourage Fenwick to make a more full confession, and that he had still not decided how he would vote in the final stages of the bill. At the bill’s third reading on 23 Dec. 1696, he and several other ministers and court followers including the lord steward Devonshire, the lord chamberlain Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, went against their previous stance and voted against the bill, though they did not subscribe to the subsequent protest against its passage. This unexpected reversal of so many courtiers and ministers led Vernon to comment to Shrewsbury that he was surprised the bill passed at all ‘when one considers who they were that voted against it, particularly all the lords justices who had voices, except the archbishop of Canterbury’.<sup>87</sup> The king still chose him as one of the four peers commissioned to pass the act of attainder in his absence, along with its other opponents Devonshire and Dorset and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin; Pembroke was further named to the small committees which on 17 and 22 Jan. 1697 were assigned to compose addresses asking for a week’s reprieve for the attainted Fenwick and condemning Monmouth for his role in tampering with Fenwick’s evidence.<sup>88</sup></p><p>On 10 Mar. 1697 John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, registered his proxy with Pembroke, who was able to use it until his own departure from the House that session, intended for a more important duty, on 7 April. In late 1696 Pembroke had been appointed chief plenipotentiary for William III at the peace negotiations at Ryswick and on 11 Apr. 1697, five days before Parliament’s prorogation, he formally took leave of the king to travel to the United Provinces. He returned to the king’s presence, with the Treaty of Ryswick successfully concluded, on 26 December.<sup>89</sup> Parliament had already been in session for three weeks by the time of his return to the king’s presence and consequently he attended less than half (46 per cent) of the meetings of 1697-8. On 15 Mar. 1698 he joined the Whigs in voting in favour of committing the bill to punish the exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Another matter took up his attention in late March 1698. Pembroke and Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort had been made trustees of the estate of the Jacobite William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, shortly after his flight to France in 1689. In May 1695 William III had granted much of the forfeited Welsh land of the outlawed and exiled Powis to his close companion William Nassau van Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford. On 17 Mar. 1698 Rochford, with Powis’s son and heir William Herbert*, styled Viscount Montgomery in exile and deprived by outlawry of his title as 2nd marquess of Powis, submitted to the House a petition against the legal actions which Montgomery’s lawyers and agents had brought against many of Rochford’s tenants on the former Herbert lands in Wales. Exactly two weeks later, facing stiff opposition in the House from Powis’s trustee Pembroke, and perhaps sensing the general anti-Dutch mood in Parliament and the country, Rochford desisted and agreed not to insist upon his privilege in this matter.<sup>90</sup> On 15 Apr. Pembroke received the proxy of Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, which he held for the remainder of the session.</p><h2><em>Unruly Parliaments and ministerial reshuffles, 1699-1702</em></h2><p>Pembroke was present when the new Parliament commenced on 6 Dec. 1698, but attended only just over half of the meetings of the first session. This may have been because of illness, as on 28 Mar. 1699 his absence from the trial of Edward Rich [1553], 6th earl of Warwick, was excused for this reason, or perhaps out of distress at the lack of co-operation with the king shown by the Commons in the wake of the Treaty of Ryswick. This first session was prorogued on 4 May 1699 and two weeks later Pembroke was replaced in his position as lord privy seal by Lonsdale, and was made lord president of the Privy Council, in which he succeeded the dismissed duke of Leeds. This was part of William III’s major reshuffling of offices in his attempt to bring in moderate court Tories into a mixed ministry to counterbalance the increasingly unmanageable and ineffective Junto Whigs, who had let William down by their inability to prevent the country members in the Commons from passing the act disbanding the army. That Pembroke still ranked high in the estimation of all parties concerned during this highly partisan time is suggested by the anecdote that the political fixer Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on hearing that William was planning to abandon England altogether upon the passage of the Disbandment Act, commented, ‘Does he so? There is Tom of Pembroke, who is as good a block of wood as a king can be cut out of. We will send for him, and make him our king.’<sup>91</sup> This sentiment, that the tall, stooping ‘Long Tom’ Pembroke was suitable material to make an ideal English king was later repeated some time in Anne’s reign by Devonshire, who ‘was infinitely averse to the settling of the crown of England on the Hanover family’ and ‘pressed the finding out of an Englishman to give it to, and maintained that it was more eligible to set it on long Tom’s head.’<sup>92</sup></p><p>Pembroke was present for less than half (44 per cent) of the meetings of the session beginning on 16 Nov. 1699. In the first week of the new year he was named to drafting committees to compose addresses on the dispute between William King, bishop of Derry [I], and the Irish Society of London (10 Jan. 1700) and on the House’s resolution against the Darien colony of the Scottish East India Company (8 Feb. 1700). On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against the motion to adjourn into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation, a vote for the court which once again placed him alongside many Whigs. He came to the fore in the House as a prominent actor in the last days of the session as both Houses argued over the Irish forfeiture and land tax bill. The Commons had loaded the bill with amendments which appeared to many lords to be ‘tacks’ on a money bill. On 6 Apr. 1700 Pembroke voted to delete from the bill the ‘place clause’ which sought to exclude excise officials from sitting in the Commons, a move which set up the confrontation between the two Houses. Three days later he reported to the House from conference that the Commons did not agree with the lords’ amendments as they argued that the upper House did not have the right to amend money bills, and Pembroke chaired the committee subsequently assigned to draw up the House’s reasons for insisting on its amendments. Vernon explained to Shrewsbury that the lord privy seal Lonsdale and Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton ‘have been the great instruments in stirring up the lords to make the amendments in the bill’, and that it was through their exertions that Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, and Pembroke, also members of William’s cabinet council, ‘came blindly into it, as supposing the king had some scheme in reserve for carrying on the public business’ in case the measure was lost. But William did not have such a scheme in reserve and as the dispute between the Houses reached an impasse, he instructed his followers in the House to switch position and recede from the amendments. This message either did not get through to Pembroke, or he ignored it, and on 10 Apr. he continued to lead the opposition against the Commons’ bill and their ‘tacks’. He reported from the two conferences that day in which the Houses, with increasing bad temper, debated the right of the upper House to amend money bills, and upon his second report a sufficient number of peers heeded the king’s desire to let the bill pass and voted to recede from their amendment – but not Pembroke, who voted in favour of continuing to adhere and then subscribed to the protest against the amendment’s abandonment. With the bill passed and relations between the Houses tense, the king prorogued Parliament the following day.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Despite this brief bout of disobedience, Pembroke was honoured shortly after the prorogation by being made a knight of the garter, alongside William III’s favourite Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle. The formal installation at Windsor took place on 5 June 1700 and shortly afterwards it was rumoured, once again incorrectly, that Pembroke was to be further honoured with the lord lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>94</sup> On 19 Dec., after months of discussion and indecision, the unco-operative Parliament which had been prorogued on 11 Apr. was dissolved and new elections called, in which an election fight developed in Wilton for the first time since 1690, but Gauntlett was still able to see off his opponents. Pembroke himself came to surprisingly little of the meetings of the Parliament of early 1701, attending less than a quarter of the sittings. He may have wished to avoid the controversy relating to the second Partition Treaty. The House had taken up the matter on 14 Mar. 1701 and the Tories there condemned both the terms of the treaty and the manner in which it had been negotiated, signed and ratified over the winter of 1699-1700, principally putting the blame at the door of the king’s closest minister and ‘favourite’, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. On 15 Mar. Portland was at pains to point out that he had convened a meeting of a number of leading English ministers, including the lord president Pembroke, at his house in February 1700 to consider the terms of the treaty.<sup>95</sup> On 17 Mar. 1701 Pembroke, having been named by Portland, defended himself before the House on his role in these consultations on the Partition Treaty, presented to him as a <em>fait accompli</em>, saying that ‘he had offered the king those advices, that he thought were most for his service and for the good of the nation, but that he did not think himself bound to give an account of that to any other persons’. As Burnet concludes, Pembroke ‘was not the man struck at, so there was nothing said’.<sup>96</sup> The lords that were ‘struck at’ were the Whig ministers Somers, Orford and Portland, but Pembroke was absent from the House for most of the impeachment proceedings against them, including their acquittal. Following the death of John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater on 19 Mar., there was another reshuffle of ministerial offices, and on 4 Apr. Pembroke was formally appointed to replace Bridgwater as first lord of the Admiralty, in addition to his post as lord president.<sup>97</sup></p><p>On 11 Nov. 1701 William took the controversial decision to dissolve Parliament again, overriding the objections of Pembroke and some of his other moderate councillors. With a new Parliament William embarked on another reshuffling of his ministry, this time favouring the Whigs. In the last days of January 1702 William replaced Pembroke as lord president of the council with Somerset, but at the same time he took the Admiralty affairs out of commission and appointed Pembroke sole lord high admiral of the realm, a move widely thought to be merely a stop-gap until a more thorough-going Whig could be placed there.<sup>98</sup> By all accounts Pembroke was reluctant to take up the post, as ‘he saw it would draw a heavy load on him, and he was sensible that by his ignorance of sea affairs, he might commit errors’. To counteract such charges he resolved to go to sea himself, for the first time in his disjointed career with the Admiralty.<sup>99</sup> Pembroke would appear to have been primarily preoccupied with these new duties, as he barely attended any of the meetings of the Parliament of early 1702 at all, coming to only six of its sittings, and he did not attend the House at all between 9 Jan. and 16 Mar. 1702, although he was constituted one of the commissioners for passing bills on 2 and 7 Mar. 1702, during William III’s final illness.</p><h2><em>Anne’s Lord President of the Council, 1702-8</em></h2><p>Pembroke continued in his role as lord high admiral following the death of William III, and throughout April and May preparations continued for his first venture to sea. In the council Pembroke was a strong advocate, with John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, of war with France, refuting Rochester’s insistence that England act only as an auxiliary force.<sup>100</sup> The only occasion during this period when he attended the House was on 11 May, when he presented evidence to the committee of the whole considering the bill for the encouragement of privateers.<sup>101</sup> After Pembroke had spent £5,000 in preparation for his summer’s naval expedition, the queen made it known that she wished to make her husband, the prince consort George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, lord high admiral in his place.<sup>102</sup> Prince George’s patent for this office was passed on 20 May 1702, and Pembroke soon retired from court to his country house at Wilton, ‘being now out of all employments’.<sup>103</sup> He did not remain in that position for long, for the ‘duumvirs’ Marlborough and Godolphin, looking to counterbalance the preponderance of high Tories in Anne’s first ministry, soon turned to Pembroke again and reinstated him as lord president of the council on 9 July 1702, one week after the dissolution of William III’s last Parliament.</p><p>Pembroke’s borough of Wilton took on a new significance in the election of July 1702. It had long been a centre of Dissent and after the election of November 1701 the Whig mayor of the corporation had made at least 19 new freemen, all of them Nonconformists. In the election of July they returned two Whig members against the sitting members. The Tory-dominated Commons’ committee for elections seated Pembroke’s client John Gauntlett on petition instead, and although not the sole cause for the introduction of the occasional conformity bill, the evidence heard in the committee in November 1702 about the Wilton corporation’s manipulation and evasion of the Corporation Act only further heightened the temperature surrounding this issue in Parliament.<sup>104</sup></p><p>Pembroke’s role in the controversy surrounding this election is not clear, but he may have been moved by it and by his role as a government minister to support the occasional conformity bill throughout the three sessions of Anne’s first Parliament (Oct. 1702-Apr. 1705). He attended slightly more than half of the meetings of each of these sessions, and in the first two he voted to pass the occasional conformity bill. In November 1704 it was at least predicted that he would support the Commons’ tack, although he probably ultimately sided with the court position against it. He did not subscribe to either of the protests of 14 Dec. 1703 or 15 Dec. 1704 against the rejections of the bill. In other matters of the 1702 Parliament, Pembroke intervened in the debate on the bill to settle a £100,000 p.a. jointure on prince George by arguing that the controversial clause maintaining the prince in his place in the House and the Privy Council after the queen’s death was not a ‘tack’, as the Whigs insisted, but was a necessary provision for the effectiveness of the bill. He was not concerned with the consequences of the clause for the position in the House of the other peers of foreign descent, whom, he thought, ‘were already safe as to their peerage’.<sup>105</sup> He was also appointed a manager, among 16 other peers, for conferences held on 28 Feb. and 7 and 9 Mar. 1705 on the dispute between the Houses on the Aylesbury men.</p><p>In late August 1705, following the recent disagreements between Marlborough and the States General over the conduct of the war, it was proposed to send Pembroke to the United Provinces to ‘endeavour to unite them to us, in a more vigorous prosecution of the war’. It was felt that Pembroke’s ‘gentle temper would make that apparent that the queen’s intention was to heal and not to exasperate’, but Marlborough advised against this potentially inflammatory diplomatic mission and it was cancelled at the last minute.<sup>106</sup> Pembroke did not attend the first session of the new Parliament, of 1705-6, until 30 Nov. 1705, although his absence was excused by the House on 12 Nov., and he maintained his attendance rate of just over half of its sittings. On 6 Dec. he voted as a minister in favour of the motion that the Church was not in danger under the current administration.<sup>107</sup> William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted that on 23 Jan. 1706 Pembroke presented to the House a petition, ‘at the request of Lord Nottingham’, for a bill that would allow the executors of the estate of the late William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, headed by Nottingham himself, to sell some of the Savile lands to provide for the portions and annuities settled in his will. Halifax’s only sister Elizabeth, wife of Philip Stanhope*, styled Lord Stanhope (later 3rd earl of Chesterfield), who had a reversionary interest in the estate, refused her permission and blocked further progress on this bill.<sup>108</sup> On 9 Mar. 1706 Pembroke was named to the small committee of nine assigned to draw an address to the queen regarding the Houses’ condemnation of the libellous letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. After the prorogation ten days later, Pembroke was made one of the few Tory commissioners to negotiate the union with Scotland.<sup>109</sup> He appears to have attended meetings of the commissioners, and the Scots commissioner John Clerk<sup>‡</sup> noted him as being the first English lord in a meeting of 12 June 1706 to reply to the argument for an increased Scots representation in the Westminster Parliament.<sup>110</sup> Pembroke attended only 40 per cent of the meetings of the subsequent session of 1706-7, and after his first sitting on 27 Jan. 1707 was there fairly steadily for the debates on the union, although apart from nominations to select committees, his only activity recorded in the Journal was his appointment on 8 Apr. as a manager for a conference on the House’s amendment to the bill for the continuance of laws for the punishment of vagrants.</p><p>On 30 Apr. 1707 Pembroke was, after a number of previous false rumours, made lord lieutenant of Ireland as a compromise candidate in the place of the Tory duke of Ormond. This change took place in the midst of the constant demands for office by the Junto Whigs. The Junto hoped that the lord lieutenancy of Ireland would go to Wharton and Pembroke’s lord presidency to Somers. Both men were so strongly disliked by Anne that she stymied these plans, at least temporarily, by giving the lord lieutenancy to Pembroke at the end of April while still maintaining him as lord president, arguing that he was only going over to Ireland to oversee and manage that kingdom’s Parliament meeting that summer and would be back in September.<sup>111</sup> Pembroke arrived in Dublin on 30 June 1707 and the Irish Parliament commenced a week later.<sup>112</sup> Godolphin had little confidence in Pembroke’s ability to manage such a notoriously troublesome assembly, confiding in Marlborough that ‘our friend’, that is, Pembroke, was ‘not very good at easing of difficulties, though he is more dexterous than he appears to be at keeping them from himself’.<sup>113</sup> That old Irish hand Thomas Coningsby<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Coningsby [I], who was in Dublin for the Parliament, informed secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, of Pembroke’s difficulties with the members of the Irish Parliament:</p><blockquote><p>The principles upon which the generality of the people of the country act are so strange to the honesty and integrity of my lord lieutenant that it has been none of the least difficulties with those that knew them better that twas possible for my Lord to do, to prevail with him to guard himself against them. And the intrigues of one who expected to fill his place [Wharton], carried on by some of his emissaries sent over for that purpose, has been like to make this parliament very uneasy. But we have overcome both, and the vote for the support of the government was carried by so great a majority, and without a division, that I can’t but conclude from it that all here will end entirely to the satisfaction of her majesty.<sup>114</sup></p></blockquote><p>By early August the Irish Parliament had voted supply for the queen, but Pembroke was not able to finish his business there and embark for England until 28 November.<sup>115</sup> Consequently he did not first sit in the 1707-8 session, the first of the new Parliament of Great Britain, until 7 Jan. 1708, although he did manage to attend just less than half of the meetings of this session in total. On 7 Feb. he joined Godolphin and other members of the ministry in subscribing to the protest against the Whigs’ ‘bill to make the Union more perfect’, which to the despair of the ministry, legislated for the immediate abolition of the Scottish privy council, the body through which the court at Westminster could make its will known in Scotland. He supported the government of the ‘duumvirs’ the following day when at a meeting of the cabinet council he, in his usual moderate and placatory way, assisted Somerset in foiling the plan of the secretary of state Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, to have Godolphin dismissed as lord treasurer; instead it was Harley who was forced to resign.<sup>116</sup> On 13 Feb., Pembroke was made a commissioner to pass a number of bills in Parliament in the queen’s absence.</p><h2><em>Last office, 1708-14</em></h2><p>During the winter of 1707-8 the House engaged in a thorough and, under the leadership of the Whigs, highly critical investigation of the administration of the Admiralty under the governance of George of Denmark and his council led by George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. There were calls for the prince’s resignation and the Junto suggested that Pembroke, at that time still inoffensive to them, should return to his former post of lord high admiral in his place, in which case Somers would be able to take over as lord president and Wharton as lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>117</sup> Pembroke’s resumption of the admiralcy to make way for Somers in the presidency had been mooted as early as December 1704.<sup>118</sup> Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, the secretary and confidant of the Whig duchess of Marlborough, was certainly making such plans in April 1708: ‘I should think it might be possible, considering the vast advantages that the President enjoys under the government to make himself desire to resign his place in the council, since it is so much for her majesty’s service’.<sup>119</sup> By late April the queen was besieged. Not only Whigs such as John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, were pressing the queen to move Pembroke to the Admiralty and appoint Somers lord president, but they were supported by her chief minister Godolphin who saw an alliance with that party as a necessity for the survival of his ministry in the wake of Whig victories in the election to the new Parliament.<sup>120</sup> Pembroke could see the signs clearly himself, for in Wilton the two sitting members, both of them his candidates, were defeated at the poll by Whig candidates from outside the borough, who had co-operated with the borough’s corporation to ensure their victory.<sup>121</sup></p><p>The queen refused to acquiesce to Junto demands and refused to remove either her husband or Pembroke from their posts. This stalemate continued for the next few months, during which time Pembroke, whose first wife had died in November 1706, entered into a strange courtship with Lady Barbara Slingsby. Having already been twice widowed, most recently by the death of John Arundell, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, and with many of her own children to provide for, the dowager baroness was wary of attaching herself to another widower with nine children of his own and known for his eccentricities. She admitted she considered marriage with Pembroke only out of ‘mercenary’ concern for the interest of her children. The summer months of 1708 were spent in protracted marriage negotiations, which the dowager baroness recounted in detail to her friend the duchess of Marlborough, over her insistence on keeping her own fortune from her previous marriages while having a jointure of £4,000 settled on her. After Pembroke had eventually conceded to these demands, the couple were married on 21 Sept. 1708, prompting a number of caustic comments among observers. <sup>122</sup></p><p>On 22 Oct. 1708 Godolphin was able to alert Marlborough that the queen had been worn down sufficiently and that she was willing to persuade Pembroke to move aside so that Somers and Wharton could be placed in his two offices.<sup>123</sup> Then an avenue was unexpectedly opened to allow the queen to keep Pembroke in office when George of Denmark died less than a week later. Pembroke was offered the admiralcy, but he was reluctant to take up the post, well aware that in reality the Junto merely saw him as a stop-gap appointment before they could place their own candidate, Orford, there. Pembroke laid down conditions for his acceptance: a pension of £2,000 p.a. and the reversion of a tellership of the exchequer for his son. Arthur Maynwaring had initially recommended that his fellow Whigs be patient in accepting Pembroke at the Admiralty while the queen was ‘softened up’ for the appointment of the hated Orford.<sup>124</sup> By November 1708, however, as Pembroke’s negotiations dragged on, Maynwaring could not help but express the growing Whig anger at the Tory Pembroke’s high demands and his seemingly endless and tenacious hold on office:</p><blockquote><p>I am sure there is no longer occasion for the service of the earl of Pembroke. When it is necessary to look out for the fittest man for every place, ’tis high time to drop one who is fit for none at all... Having had so much more than his share of favour and advantage, he ought to have been contented to let others have their turns: especially since that party prevails in this Parliament which he was so far from being a friend so that he opposed it with all the little interest he has anywhere. ... But if the queen will have other measures kept with this strange man, yet I can’t help thinking that what he demands is monstrous and not fit to be granted. Must he have a pension of £2,000 per annum given him to accept a place of eight? ... But the teller’s place for his son is the best jest of all. It looks as if he meant to entail incapacity upon all the offices in the kingdom, and that no useful man should have an employment as long as any Herbert was alive. Those are almost the only places that any very considerable man in the House of Commons can be gratified with. ... Yet after all, if even this reversion and the pension will satisfy him, without the office, for so great a good I think it should be complied with, but if he has the office, I am sure the least consideration more cannot be added to it without enraging all the world.<sup>125</sup></p></blockquote><p>Pembroke’s conditions were met, but the queen and the ministry refused to acquiesce to the Whig demands for a public statement that this was only a temporary appointment, which Whigs such as Maynwaring saw as a sign of the weakness of the declining Godolphin ministry:</p><blockquote><p>Your Grace [the duchess of Marlborough] judges right that there is nothing intended in the business of Lord Pembroke. For when Lord Wharton spoke about it, the answer [by Godolphin] was very snappish, these words, ‘Lord! what would people have me do? It is impossible he [Pembroke], should hold it three months, but if such a declaration be made nobody will obey three days’. Lord Wharton asked me if he should mention it more. I told him I thought not, for that it was plain it must be the work of time, and I saw no use of angering people to no purpose. And having had some conversation with Mr Peyton [Craven Peyton<sup>‡</sup>], (who is of the mind of our Governors in the House of Commons) he thanked God that Lord Pembroke had accepted and that the [Whig], Lords had not carried their Admiral [Orford], too; for then Lord Treasurer could not have stood three months, so that it is plain this matter is laid deep, and that Lord Treasurer’s flatterers advise him to it as a necessary means of his own preservation. ... I have heard since, that Lord Somers is not dissatisfied about Lord Pembroke, but that rather, from the extreme niceness of his temper, he is pleased with the other’s being Admiral some time, that it may not be thought he turned him out.<sup>126</sup></p></blockquote><p>Pembroke was made lord high admiral on 29 Nov. 1708, a post which, according to Burnet, ‘he entered on with great uneasiness’.<sup>127</sup></p><p>Pembroke only attended one-fifth of the meetings of the 1708-9 session of the new Parliament beginning on 16 Nov. 1708, and on 21 Jan. 1709 he supported Godolphin and the ministry against a Whig attack by voting in favour of the motion that Godolphin’s ally James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], who sat in the House as duke of Dover, could vote in the election of the representative Scots peers. In this session Pembroke was also consistently named a commissioner for passing legislation (on 23 Dec. 1708, 26 Jan., 24 Feb., 23 Mar. and 21 Apr. 1709) and he was a commissioner for prorogation in the period between sessions. But he was primarily preoccupied for most of 1709 with his attempts to reform the Admiralty and with fending off Whig calls for him to be replaced by Orford. One historian has claimed that ‘throughout the year 1709 the question of the Admiralty was the most critical political problem with which Godolphin and Marlborough had to contend’.<sup>128</sup> With Somers threatening to resign over the issue and further obstruction of the Whigs in Parliament, the beleaguered lord treasurer wrote to Pembroke in late September urging him to resign.<sup>129</sup> By this point Pembroke was only too happy to oblige and to leave such an onerous and contested appointment, and Godolphin, relieved, told Maynwaring that Pembroke himself had thankfully provided him with the best argument he could use with the queen for Orford’s appointment.<sup>130</sup> Pembroke was rewarded with a pension of £3,000 for his long years of service, and formally stepped down from the Admiralty on 8 Nov. 1709, one week before the next session of Parliament began.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Pembroke, now out of office for the first time in his career since 1689, came to barely over a third of the meetings of the controversial session of 1709-10. On 20 Mar. 1710 he voted that Henry Sacheverell was not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, a vote which greatly surprised Marlborough on the continent.<sup>132</sup> As the Sacheverell crisis had led to the downfall of the uneasy Junto-Godolphin alliance which had forced Pembroke out of office, Robert Harley fully expected the moderate Tory Pembroke to support his new ministry. Indeed, Pembroke was once again foremost in Harley’s thoughts as he tried to form that ministry, and during the summer of 1710 it was rumoured that Pembroke was in line to be made either secretary of state or lord steward.<sup>133</sup> Later, at the time of Rochester’s death in May 1711, there was again speculation, indeed encouragement, that the earl of Oxford (as Harley became at about this time), would place Pembroke in the vacated office of lord president of the council in which he had already served for so many years.<sup>134</sup> If there were these approaches to Pembroke, he rebuffed them all and indeed attended few of the sittings of Parliament in 1710-13 – only 39 per cent of meetings in the 1710-11 and 26 per cent in that of 1711-12. Pembroke had been an advocate for the Hanoverian succession since at least 1705, and soon proved to be an opponent of the Oxford ministry and its plans for a separate peace with France. In January 1711 he defended the Whig generals who were under attack for the disastrous campaign in Spain.<sup>135</sup> He joined that other renegade Tory Nottingham on 7 Dec. 1711 in supporting the motion that there should be ‘No Peace without Spain’.<sup>136</sup> Two weeks later he also opposed the ministry by voting that James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], did not have the right to sit in the House under his British title as duke of Brandon, although he had tried to moderate the House’s decision by suggesting that Hamilton’s patent be limited for his life only.<sup>137</sup> Again on 28 May 1712 he acted against the ministry when he voted in favour of the address complaining of the ‘Restraining Orders’ that commanded the British army to desist from engaging in offensive actions against the French.<sup>138</sup> Similarly, in the following session of spring 1713, Oxford predicted that Pembroke (who only attended 15 sittings of that session) would oppose the ministry by voting against the French commercial treaty, while in the following Parliament beginning in February 1714 (just over half of whose sittings Pembroke attended), Nottingham forecast that Pembroke would be opposed to the schism bill. After attending three of the meetings of Parliament following Anne’s death in August 1714, he acted as one of the lords justices appointed by the elector of Hanover to govern the kingdom while he made his way to England to assume rule as George I.</p><h2><em>The Hanoverian Succession, 1715-33</em></h2><p>Despite this prominent role, and his previous support for the Hanoverian succession, Pembroke did not take in active part in the government or Parliament in the new regime and seldom attended the House in the reigns of the first two Georges. A full discussion of his activities in Parliament and in public life during these sparse years of attendance will appear in the next volumes in this series.</p><p>Pembroke died in his London townhouse at 12 St James’s Square on 22 Jan. 1733. He left behind him a wealthy estate, owing to his careful management of his Wiltshire lands and the proceeds of his numerous offices, and one of the most famous collections of antiquities, consisting of statues, busts and reliefs in England at his house at Wilton.<sup>139</sup> He was survived by a large brood of children – five sons and five daughters, all but one by his first wife Lady Margaret Sawyer (despite marrying a much younger wife in June 1725, his third marriage). His heir Henry Herbert*, 9th earl of Pembroke, was a leading courtier of George II and is famous as the ‘architect earl’ who followed in his father’s footsteps as an artistic patron and collector and helped to promote the Palladian style of architecture in England.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, William (c. 1624-96) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1624–96)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Jan. 1667 as 3rd Bar. POWIS; <em>cr. </em>4 Apr. 1674 earl of POWIS; <em>cr. </em>24 Mar. 1687 mq. of POWIS |
|
First sat 23 Oct. 1667; last sat 24 Oct. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1624/5, o.s. of Percy Herbert*, 2nd Bar. Powis and Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Craven; <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad (Italy, France, Netherlands) 1644-9. <em>m</em>. July 1654, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 16 Mar. 1691), da. of Edward Somerset*, 2nd mq. of Worcester and 1st w. 1s. 5da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 2 July 1696.</p> |
<p>PC July 1686-8.</p><p>Dep. lt. Suss. Feb. 1687; <em>custos rot</em>. Mont. 1687-9, Denb. 1688-9, Merion. 1688-9; ld. lt. Cheshire 28 Feb. 1688-25 Oct. 1688; steward of the royal manors Carm., Card., Rad., Denb. 7 Apr. 1688; recorder of Denb. 7 Apr. 1688.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, by François de Troy, National Trust, Powis Castle.</p> |
<p>The date of Herbert’s birth is unclear. His parents married in 1622 and his sister was born in November 1623.<sup>2</sup> If a reference to him being 67 in September 1691 is correct, he was born in 1624 or 1625. The conversion of his parents to Catholicism was followed in February 1638 by an unsuccessful attempt by the lord chamberlain, Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke, a distant relative, to press Charles I into having Herbert raised as a Protestant.<sup>3</sup> Herbert was out of England between 1644 and 1649, travelling with his father in Europe.</p><p>Powis succeeded to the title in January 1667, and took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. On 4 Nov. he was appointed to a subcommittee of the committee for privileges considering the precedency of foreign (that is Scottish and Irish) nobility. When the report of the subcommittee was read on 21 Nov., Powis seems to have offered some more material for consideration. On 9 Dec. he was named to a further subcommittee to prepare a declaration and address to be offered to the committee.<sup>4</sup> On 15 Nov. 1667 he informed the committee appointed to consider the practices used to avoid the act restraining the import of foreign cattle, that ‘divers gentlemen in Wales, who being coalminers’ sent coal into Ireland and carried back Irish cattle.<sup>5</sup> Powis was an opponent of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and protested against the Lords’ decision on 20 Nov. 1667 not to commit the former lord chancellor on a general charge. He attended on 42 days of the session, before its adjournment on 19 Dec., just over 82 per cent of the total and was named to ten committees.</p><p>Powis was present when the session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668. On 4 Mar. the House was informed that his servant, John Williams, had been arrested at the suit of Alexander Wood and detained a prisoner in the gaol of the sheriff of Shropshire, despite the fact that he had produced a protection from Powis. This being contrary to the privilege of Parliament and inconvenient for his business at the assizes, his release was ordered. On 2 May Powis chaired the committee of petitions.<sup>6</sup> Powis had attended on 59 days of this part of the session (89 per cent) and been named to 14 committees.</p><p>Powis was absent when the 1669 session commenced on 19 Oct., and on the 26th he was excused attendance on health grounds. He first attended on the 26 Nov., being present on 11 days (31 per cent) of the session. He was present when the next session opened on 14 Feb. 1670 and attended on 38 days (just over 90 per cent) of the session before its adjournment on 11 Apr. He was named to 18 committees and was an active committee member, chairing the bill to prevent the stealing of children (29 Mar.), and chairing (28 Mar.) and reporting (29 Mar.) from the committee on the bill for ascertaining the measures of corn and salt.<sup>7</sup> On 20 July he attended a meeting at the treasury board to consider the petition of the bishop of Derry, and the vexed question of fee farm rents and the renewal of corporation charters in Ireland.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Powis was absent when the session resumed on 24 Oct. 1670, first attending on the 31October. He attended on 117 days (94 per cent) of this part of the session. He was named to 38 committees, chairing (2, 13, 14 Dec.) and reporting (14 Dec.) the committees on the Worcester gaol bill; chairing (20, 27 Jan., 1 Feb. 1671) the bishops of Bangor and St Asaph lead mines bill, and reporting it (26 Jan., 8 Feb.); chairing the committee for the relief of poor prisoners (31 Jan.); chairing (1 Feb.) and reporting (15 Feb.) the bill to prevent delays in extending statutes, judgments and recognizances; chairing Booth’s estate bill (3 Mar.), and reporting it (9 Mar.); chairing an additional bill to ascertain the measures of salt and corn (18 Mar.), and reporting it (21 Mar.); and chairing the bill for paving London streets (18 Apr.), and reporting it (19 April).<sup>9</sup></p><p>Powis was present when the next session began on 4 Feb. 1673. He attended on 37 days (97 per cent) of the session before the adjournment on 29 Mar. He was named to 15 committees. He also attended when the session was resumed and Parliament prorogued on 20 Oct. 1673, and three of the four days of the session of October-November 1673.</p><p>Powis attended only the first six days of the 1674 session, 7-14 Jan., 16 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. On 8 Jan. the Lords had addressed the king to remove papists from London and its environs, to which the king assented on the 14 January. On 12 Jan. the House ordered all its members to take the oaths of allegiance, most of them doing so on 13 and 14 Jan., but Powis was not among them. Powis was, nevertheless, created an earl on 4 Apr. 1674 and introduced as such at the prorogation on 10 Nov. between his uncle, William Craven*, earl of Craven, and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey.</p><p>Powis was present on the opening day of the session of April-June 1675, on 13 April. On that day he appears to have been the only Catholic to have followed the lead of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in the debate on the address in opposing thanks in general for the king’s speech, although he did not join the protest.<sup>10</sup> During this session Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), listed Powis as a supporter of the non-resisting test. Powis attended on 36 days of the session (88 per cent), and was named to two committees. On 29 Apr. he was one of a number of lords noted as having not taken the oaths of allegiance, and although a group of peers duly took the oath on 3 May, he did not. He was present when the session of October-November 1675 opened on 13 October. On 20 Nov. 1675 he voted for the address to the king requesting the dissolution of Parliament. He attended on each of the 21 days of the session, and was named to four committees.</p><p>Powis was present when the 1677-8 session convened on 15 Feb. 1677. He attended on 48 days (98 per cent) of the session before the adjournment on 16 Apr., missing only one day (21 Feb). He was named to 37 committees, reporting from the committees on the bill for the preservation of fish (23 Mar.) and for taking affidavits in the country (7 Apr.). Shaftesbury described Powis as doubly vile and a papist, although this appears to have been altered to both vile and worthy.</p><p>Powis was present on each of the five days that Parliament sat from 21-28 May 1677. He did not attend the adjournments of 16 July or 3 Dec., but was present when Parliament was adjourned on 15 Jan. 1678 and when it resumed on 28 January. In this part of the session he attended on each of the 60 days (97 per cent) of the session and was named to 16 committees. On 8 and 19 Mar. 1678 he was named to manage a conference on the bill for the better regulation of fishing in several rivers. On 19 Mar. the House was informed that John Evans, a servant of Powis, and the receiver of his rents, had been detained a prisoner in Montgomery County gaol, contrary to the privilege of Parliament. Those arresting him were required to appear at the bar to answer the breach of privilege and Evans ordered to be discharged. When the House was informed on 30 Apr. that the persons concerned refused to obey the orders of the House, the serjeant-at-arms was ordered to arrest them and bring them before the bar to answer for their contempt. On 4 Apr. Powis voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Powis was present on the opening day of the session of May-July on 23 May 1678, when the order for the detention of those imprisoning Evans was reissued. On 22 June three of the men were released from custody by the House but a fourth man, Gerrard Herbert, was said to have, in justification of his offence, uttered words derogatory to the authority of the House, whereupon he was committed to the Fleet prison. After the intercession of Powis, he was released on 3 July. On 1 June Powis reported from the committee for the Severn fisheries bill. On 11 and 12 July he was named to manage a conference on the bill for burying in woollen. He was present on 41 days of the session (95 per cent) and was named to 16 committees.</p><p>According to his own testimony, Powis left Powis Castle on 1 Oct. 1678 and arrived in London on the 5 October.<sup>11</sup> He was present when the session began on 21 Oct., but only attended on the first four days, seven per cent of the total. He was named to three committees. On 25 Oct. lord chief justice Scroggs informed the House of the arrest of Powis and four other Catholic peers, upon the testimony of Titus Oates, and that he had been committed to the Gatehouse.</p><p>In his account of the alleged plot, delivered to the House on 31 Oct. 1678, Oates claimed that Powis was to have been lord treasurer if their scheme had succeeded, that he had 300 men ready to act and was prepared to risk his ‘life and fortune’ in the plot. Following a petition from Powis on 19 Nov., Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, reported to the House on 26 Nov. that nothing had been found among his papers relating to the plot and that they had been restored to him.<sup>12</sup> Richard Vaughan on 3 Dec. 1678 informed the Lords that letters had passed between Powis and his daughter, Lucy, who was a nun in France. On 4 Dec. a true bill against Powis and his fellow prisoners was found by the grand jury at Westminster.<sup>13</sup> On 5 Dec. Powis and the other four Catholic lords in the Tower were impeached by the Commons, charged with treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours. Miles Prance’s examination before the council on 24 Dec. was laid before the Lords on the 26th, in which he claimed that Powis was to be one of those in command of the rebel army.</p><p>When the next Parliament met, the Commons revived the impeachment and on 7 Apr. 1679, presented the Lords with articles of impeachment against Powis and the other ‘popish lords’. On 8 Apr. the Lords ordered that Powis and the others were to have legal counsel to plead for them in matters of law. Powis was brought before the bar of the House on 9 Apr., where the articles of impeachment were read and the House ensured that all the indictments relating to the case were brought under the cognizance of the Lords by a writ of <em>certiorari</em>. Powis entered his plea in writing to the Lords on 16 Apr. 1679, proclaiming his innocence. On 23-24 Apr. the Commons declared his answer to be ‘argumentative and evasive’, whereupon on 26 Apr. Powis reaffirmed his innocence in the Lords. On 6 May 1679 the Commons informed the Lords that they were ready to make good their articles, but there were further delays and Parliament was prorogued on 27 May, before any trials could begin.</p><p>Meanwhile, the countess of Powis attempted to help her husband by becoming involved with an informer, Thomas Dangerfield, and a Catholic midwife, Elizabeth Cellier, in the promotion of the so-called ‘Meal-Tub Plot’. Although Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Stuart*, duke of York, believed their story, when Dangerfield realized that the scheme might backfire, he revealed the conspiracy.<sup>14</sup> As a result Lady Powis was taken into custody in the Tower on 4 Nov. 1679 and not released until 12 Feb. 1680. Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Longford [I], complained on 9 Nov. 1679 of the damage done to the king’s affairs by the ‘madness and folly’ of Lady Powis and the other ‘intriguing ladies’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Powis was still in custody in the Tower when the next Parliament opened on 21 Oct. 1680. With the focus of the impeachment proceedings on the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, the House merely continued to collect evidence against Powis. On 28 Oct. 1680 Edward Turbervill testified that Powis’s chaplain, Father Morgan, had said that the ‘kingdom was in fever, but he doubted not but blood-letting would restore it to its health’. Turberville also testified to witnessing Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I], saying mass in Powis’s lodgings in Vere Street, Westminster. On 12 Nov. 1680 the Lords ordered that each of the impeached peers be kept separately from each other ‘as persons impeached and committed for high treason by law ought to be’. Dangerfield gave his testimony to the Lords on 15 Nov. 1680, in which he blamed Lady Powis and the lords in the Tower for instigating the ‘contrivance’ of the Presbyterian plot.<sup>16</sup> In December 1681, the Middlesex grand jury found a bill against Powis for recusancy.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Powis remained in custody until after William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre’s death in January 1684. He was then bailed on 12 Feb. in recongizances of £10,000 plus four sureties of £5,000 each.<sup>18</sup> His sureties were provided by Peterborough, Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke.<sup>19</sup> Powis’s fortunes took another downturn on 26 Oct. 1684 when his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields ‘that was very richly beautified’ together with ‘all his papers’ was destroyed by fire, his losses variously estimated at £20-30,000.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The accession of James II produced a more favourable context for Powis and his fellow Catholic peers. On 13 May 1685, writs of <em>certiorari</em> brought the recognizances of Powis and the other imprisoned peers before the Lords on the first day of the Parliament. On the opening day, 19 May 1685, Powis, Arundel and Bellasis duly appeared and presented a petition requesting that as the testimony of Oates had been discredited, they should be discharged. On 22 May the House annulled the order of 19 Mar. 1679 continuing their impeachments. On 25 May, the attorney general informed the House that the king had directed him to enter a <em>nolle prosequi</em> upon the indictments against the three peers, whereupon the Lords ordered their bail to be discharged.<sup>21</sup> He was formally discharged on 1 June but as a Catholic he remained excluded from the House. On 5 June the House gave a first reading to the bill for rebuilding his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It was reported from committee by Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, on 19 June and passed later that day. It made rapid progress through the Commons, being reported from committee on 24 June by Ailesbury’s son, Thomas Bruce*, styled Lord Bruce, later 2nd earl of Ailesbury.</p><p>Powis played an increasingly visible role as an adviser to the king. In March 1686 James II granted him a special dispensation allowing him to remain in the royal presence without taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.<sup>22</sup> On 18 June Powis, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and James Hamilton*, styled earl of Arran [S], the future 4th duke of Hamilton, dined with lord chancellor George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, a meeting ‘much observed because these were thought to be of the different factions’.<sup>23</sup> Powis was one of the beneficiaries of the decision on the dispensing power in <em>Godden v. Hales</em>: on 17 July he was sworn a member of the Privy Council.<sup>24</sup></p><p>In his role as a councillor, Powis became a conduit to the king for dispensations from the rigours of the penal laws, and other favours. In about July 1686 Sir William Williams<sup>‡</sup>, the erstwhile Speaker of the Commons who was facing financial ruin for his part in publishing Dangerfield’s <em>Narrative</em>, wrote of Powis’s ‘late and prevalent intercession for me in my distress hath not only procured me ease in my fine’, but also hope of his ‘help to confirm his majesty’s gracious inclinations to have the proceedings of the earl of Peterborough against me stayed’.<sup>25</sup> In August 1686 Powis introduced some Anabaptists from Tewkesbury to James II in order for them to present a petition for relief from the penal laws. In October Powis was enlisted by Sir John Baber to press Richard Baxter’s case in cabinet for his release from imprisonment. Powis agreed to present a petition on Baxter’s behalf to the Privy Council and to engage others to support it. In January 1687 Powis was reported to have said that he ‘would give his best assistance to any that were oppressed or otherwise injured to have them relieved if they made application to him’, and especially if they had ‘suffered upon scruple of conscience or dissatisfaction in point of religion’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>There was also the prospect of James II appointing Powis to high office. In the second half of 1686 there were rumours that he would replace Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, in Ireland; he was the candidate of those Catholics opposed to the more extreme measures advocated by Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I], such as the repeal of the act of settlement and the displacement of Protestants from the civil administration. Ailesbury later claimed that he had advised the king to send Powis to Ireland as lord lieutenant instead of Tyrconnel, but had been told that Powis had ‘a weak head’ and was not the man for the job.<sup>27</sup> Likewise, in July and October 1686 there were rumours that Powis would replace Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester as lord treasurer; at the end of December he was rumoured to be one of the commission likely to take over from him.<sup>28</sup> In November 1686 Powis was fully engaged in the debates in the committee of council appointed to inspect the composition of local benches of magistrates; in Herefordshire he promised to support the inclusion of John Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Scudamore [I], against the objections of Beaufort.<sup>29</sup> In January 1687 he was added to the commission of the peace for Middlesex.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In March 1687 Powis was promoted to a marquessate. On 28 Apr. 1687 Morrice’s <em>Ent’ring Book</em> incorrectly included him in James II’s commission to prorogue Parliament.<sup>31</sup> In July a warrant was issued to dispense Powis as <em>custos</em> of Montgomery from taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.<sup>32</sup> In September 1687 he was reported to have replaced Derby as lord lieutenant of Cheshire, but a commission was not issued until February 1688.<sup>33</sup> In November 1687 he had been appointed one of the commissioners to inspect and regulate corporations with a view to purging them of those who opposed the repeal of the Test Act and the penal statutes.<sup>34</sup> Powis was perceived as a supporter the policies of James II, specifically the repeal of the Test Act, being listed as a Roman Catholic on four such lists in 1687-8. In February 1688 he received a dispensation to act as lord lieutenant of Cheshire and in April one to act as steward of the royal manors in Wales.<sup>35</sup> In January 1688 Powis was rumoured to have been appointed lord lieutenant of Sussex, although he was actually given power to act as the deputy of Viscount Montagu whilst he was abroad.<sup>36</sup> In April it was reported that he had postponed a visit to his lieutenancy, following Bath’s unsuccessful trip into the West Country.<sup>37</sup></p><p>On 4 May 1688 he was present when the council agreed to the order for the declaration of indulgence to be read in churches.<sup>38</sup> On 8 June he was present when the order was given to prosecute the Seven Bishops and signed the warrant.<sup>39</sup> However, he was one of those moderate Catholics of ‘large estate and great influence’, who hoped to persuade James II’s to take a moderate course over the seven bishops.<sup>40</sup> Indeed, in verse at the time he was described as ‘mild and moderate’.<sup>41</sup> Later that month he provided ‘30-40 dozen bottles of wine’ to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Wales.<sup>42</sup> In July 1688 he was one of the lord lieutenants sent a letter asking them to assist James II’s electoral agents in their area.<sup>43</sup> A draft letter exists in which the bailiff and burgesses of Bishop’s Castle express their gratitude to Powis for his great help in their recent troubles, presumably over the surrender of their charter in 1688.<sup>44</sup> At the beginning of September Powis was still active in the committee regulating corporations.<sup>45</sup> Indeed, Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> was informed by Powis that he would be assisted in his campaign for a parliamentary seat, the king having given orders to the ‘lords for purging corporations’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Following the Dutch invasion, Powis was entrusted with the care of the Prince of Wales. Powis and his wife, who was the governess of the prince, were in attendance on the infant prince at Portsmouth on 26 Nov. 1688. On 7 Dec. Powis then accompanied the prince back to London. Powis and his wife then ‘fled away’ with the prince and the queen to France.<sup>47</sup> All this activity left Powis in an exposed position during the revolution. His house was attacked on 12 Dec. but escaped destruction, according to some because of his reputation for moderation, but mainly owing to the diligence of the trained bands.<sup>48</sup> Indeed, it may also have been saved because it was earmarked for occupation by William’s supporters, a paper being fixed it on 13 Dec. allocating it for the quarters of Charles Powlett*, styled earl of Wiltshire, the future 2nd duke of Bolton, or Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer.<sup>49</sup></p><p>With James II now installed at St Germain, on 12 Jan. 1689 Powis was created marquess of Montgomery and duke of Powis in the Jacobite peerage, ‘the first act of the great seal since his majesty quitting the kingdom’.<sup>50</sup> He accompanied James II to Ireland, where he served as a privy councillor and was often seen at Dublin Castle.<sup>51</sup> While in Dublin Powis officiated as lord chamberlain and helped to finance the funeral of Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, at Christ Church, Dublin.<sup>52</sup> Following the defeat at the battle of the Boyne in July 1690, Powis returned to France with James II.<sup>53</sup></p><p>As a consequence of Powis’s open adherence to the Jacobite cause, according to Roger Morrice on 16 Apr. 1689 it was moved in the Commons that his estate might be seized and given in recompense to peers like Ormond who had suffered losses in Ireland.<sup>54</sup> He was named in the bill attainting those in rebellion, which passed the Commons in July 1689 and which was still under discussion when Parliament was adjourned on 20 Aug. 1689 and fell at the prorogation in October 1689.<sup>55</sup> Several other attainder bills were promoted during 1689-91 but failed to pass. Meanwhile, at the sessions of oyer and terminer for City of London on 9 Oct. 1689 Powis was indicted for high treason and levying war in Ireland. The indictment was removed to king’s bench, where he was outlawed and his estates consequently forfeited to the crown. Outlawry also amounted to attainder and thus to the loss of the peerage.<sup>56</sup> Powis was excepted from the act of grace in May 1690.<sup>57</sup></p><p>The forfeited Powis estates were said to be worth £10,000 per year.<sup>58</sup> Their disposition was, however, complicated by the claims of Powis’s son, William Herbert*, styled Viscount Montgomery and eventually 2nd marquess of Powis. Montgomery claimed that Powis had transferred his estates into trusts and was thus only a tenant for life. A debt trust created on 8 Dec. 1688 had placed the lands in trust to Beaufort, Pembroke, Sir Edmund Wiseman and Richard Hughes, for the payment of debts, but was widely seen as fraudulent.<sup>59</sup> In addition the lands were subject to the terms of Powis’s marriage settlement of 20 Nov. 1654 and that of Montgomery, 22 May 1685.<sup>60</sup> Montgomery’s claims were supported by the trustees and a series of legal battles in Exchequer between William III and Powis’s trustees and his son. In the course of 1692 parts of the Powis estate were awarded to William III.<sup>61</sup> Then in 1695 parts of the Powis estates in Northamptonshire and Montgomeryshire were granted to William Henry Van Nassau Van Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford.<sup>62</sup> Further grants were made in 1696 so that by 16 May 1696 it was stated that all Powis’s real and personal estate, except Powis House, had been granted to Rochford.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Powis died on 2 July 1696 after breaking a vein in riding from Boulogne to St Germain.<sup>64</sup> Mary of Modena at least felt the loss keenly: ‘my partner has lost a most honest, zealous servant, and I a most faithful friend’.<sup>65</sup> As his peerage was extinguished by his outlawry, his son could not succeed as 2nd marquess of Powis until he obtained a writ of error overturning the outlawry in 1722. Four of Powis’s daughters married into the Catholic aristocracy, while a fifth, Lucy, became prioress of an English Augustinian convent at Bruges.<sup>66</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
HERBERT, William (1642-74) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1642–74)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1650-69 Ld. Herbert of Cardiff; <em>suc. </em>fa. 11 Dec. 1669 as 6th earl of PEMBROKE and 3rd earl of Montgomery |
|
Never sat. |
|
MP Glam. 1661-11 Dec. 1669 |
<p><em>bap.</em> 14 July 1642, 1st. s. of Philip Herbert*, <em>styled</em> Lord Herbert (later 5th earl of Pembroke) and 1st w. Penelope (1620-c.1647), da. of Sir Robert Naunton of Letherington, Suff.; half-bro. of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke and 4th earl of Montgomery and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke and 5th earl of Montgomery. <em>educ</em>. privately (Mr. Christopher Wace); travelled abroad (France, tutors: Sir John Denham<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Richard Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup>) 1658-9.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 8 July 1674; <em>will</em> 3 June 1674, pr. 3 May 1676.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Wilts. c.1660-?<em>d</em>., Glam. Jan. 1674-<em>d</em>.; freeman, Poole 1660; <em>custos rot</em>., Wilts. 1665-<em>d</em>., Glam. and Pemb. 1670-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>William Herbert was the only son from the short-lived marriage of the future 5th earl of Pembroke and his first wife Penelope Bayning, the widow of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Viscount Bayning. He travelled abroad in France in 1658-9, led by such recipients of his father’s literary patronage as Sir John Denham and Sir Richard Fanshawe. He was returned for Glamorgan at the elections for the Cavalier Parliament, but it is difficult to know his activities in the Commons because of the presence there at the same time of another Lord Herbert, Henry Somerset*, styled Lord Herbert of Raglan (later duke of Beaufort).</p><p>After his father’s death on 11 Dec. 1669, the newly elevated 6th earl of Pembroke never once attended the House before his death in July 1674. He was, however, reasonably diligent in ensuring that his vote was cast by proxy, first registering it on 13 Mar. 1670 with his kinsman Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, who had married Pembroke’s step-sister Lady Anne Bayning. On 1 Feb. 1671 a petition of some of the late earl’s creditors asking that his goods, then in the possession of the present earl, might be sold to satisfy his debts was dismissed by the House for being contrary to the privilege of Parliament.<sup>4</sup> Two weeks later, on 17 Feb. 1671, Pembroke’s own petition against ‘divers husbandmen’ who had occupied and made waste of part of his estate in the parish of Aldbourne, Wiltshire, was presented to the House but dismissed without even meriting an entry in the Journal.<sup>5</sup></p><p>For the following short session of spring 1673, Pembroke’s proxy in favour of the west country peer Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, a long colleague and proxy recipient of Pembroke’s father, was registered on 3 Feb. 1673, one day before the session formally opened, and cost Pembroke £4 10s. in fees. He once again registered it with Shaftesbury on 27 Dec. 1673, well in advance of the opening of the session of Jan.-Feb. 1674.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Pembroke was unmarried, although earlier he had been linked to the heiress Elizabeth Malet, when he died at an early age in July 1674.<sup>7</sup> He was succeeded by his half-brother Philip who, even as a teenager, was acquiring the reputation for drunkenness, violence and profligacy which was to make his future life infamous. To ensure the safety of the family estates from this reprobate, William, at least according to a later account of his other half-brother Thomas, intended to make Philip only a tenant for life of the estates, and established two trustees to manage the estate in Philip’s name. At least he thought that is what he had done, but according to a later petition of the 8th earl, the 6th earl, by an unfortunate slip of the pen, worded his will incorrectly so as to leave the spendthrift and disreputable 7th earl in full control of part of the estate.<sup>8</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERBERT, William (c. 1661-1745) |
<p><strong><surname>HERBERT</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1661–1745)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1674-87 Ld. Herbert; <em>styled </em>1687-1722 Visct. Montgomery; <em>rest. </em>1722 2nd mq. of POWIS |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1661, o.s. of William Herbert*, later mq. of Powis, and Elizabeth, da. of Edward Somerset*, 2nd mq. of Worcester. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. c. Aug. 1685 (with £30,000?),<sup>1</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 8 Jan. 1724), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Preston, 3rd bt. of Furness, Lancs., 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 2 July 1696. <em>d</em>. 22 Oct. 1745; <em>will</em> 6 Apr. 1742, pr. 1748.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Wales (Anglesey, Brec., Caern., Card., Carm., Denb., Flint, Glam., Merion., Mont., Pemb., Rad.), Mon. 26 Feb.-25 Dec. 1688.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Col., regt. of ft. 1687-8.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: attrib. Francois de Troy, oil on canvas, 1700-45, National Trust, Coughton Court, Warws.</p> |
<p>William Herbert, Lord Herbert, was styled Viscount Montgomery from the time his father William Herbert, earl of Powis, considered the leading Catholic peer in England and Wales, was raised in the peerage by his co-religionist James II as marquess of Powis in March 1687. After the Revolution, Powis served James II in both France and Ireland and was further granted another elevation when he was made duke of Powis in the Jacobite peerage, a title which was never recognized in England for him or his son.</p><p>In 1685 Montgomery married Mary, the daughter of the Catholic Sir Thomas Preston of Furness, Lancashire, a match which some contemporaries calculated would bring £30,000 to the Herbert family. In May 1687 he was commissioned colonel of a regiment of foot, and in Feb. 1688 he was made a deputy lieutenant in all 12 Welsh counties as well as in the marcher county of Monmouthshire.<sup>5</sup> At the Revolution, Montgomery was captured and secured by the Protestant officers of his own regiment garrisoned at Hull, who declared the port for William of Orange, but he did not otherwise suffer and on Christmas Day 1688 he received a licence to travel to France.<sup>6</sup> He returned before the declaration of war, for on 6 May 1689 he was imprisoned in the Tower for ‘dangerous practices’ against the government, William III personally indicating him as a threat. He was not discharged until 7 November.<sup>7</sup> The Commons initially included his father Powis in their proposed bill of attainder of June 1689, and in October 1689 after this bill failed to pass Powis, with other prominent followers of James II such as James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick, was indicted for being in rebellion against the crown. Failing to appear to answer these charges of treason as he was abroad with James II, Powis was proclaimed an outlaw in February 1690.<sup>8</sup> This outlawry amounted to attainder, extinguishing the peerages held by Powis so that Montgomery became in law a commoner. He was, nevertheless, still styled Viscount Montgomery by his contemporaries. As ‘Lord Montgomery’ he was included in a proclamation against Jacobite traitors issued on 14 July 1690, following the defeat at Beachy Head.<sup>9</sup></p><p>By the outlawry, the landed estate of the marquess of Powis, estimated to be worth £10,000 p.a. and with property principally in Middlesex, Northamptonshire and Montgomeryshire, where the ancestral home of Powis Castle was located, became forfeit to the crown.<sup>10</sup> In May 1695 the king granted part of the estate to his Dutch followers Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, and William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford (who received the major part of it, including Powis Castle).<sup>11</sup> Rochford’s free and unhindered possession of these lands was hampered by the multitude of encumbrances already charged on them, and Montgomery (as he shall continue to be called in this biography), through his and his father’s trustees, agents and lawyers, soon buried Rochford in a mountain of litigation which enabled Montgomery in many instances to benefit from the Herbert lands. However, the estates were not restored to his full legal possession until the reign of George II.</p><p>Montgomery became deeply involved in Jacobite circles in London, and he was heavily implicated when the assassination plot was revealed in early 1696.<sup>12</sup> On 23 Mar. 1696 a reward was offered for the apprehension of both Montgomery and his co-conspirator Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and on 27 May Montgomery was indicted for treason.<sup>13</sup> He absconded and went into hiding, during which time, on 12 July 1696, his father Powis died at St Germain.<sup>14</sup> In the view of Montgomery and his adherents he was now 2nd marquess, and even 2nd duke, of Powis, but because of his father’s outlawry and consequent attainder, neither of these titles was recognized by the English government. On 15 Dec. 1696 Montgomery surrendered himself in order to prevent his own outlawry for failure to appear to an indictment of treason, which would have made him liable to suffer execution without trial if apprehended.<sup>15</sup> James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> felt able to reassure Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, that this precaution was to no avail as the sentence of outlawry had already been passed just before Montgomery came out of hiding, but it soon transpired that the sheriffs of London had made a technical mistake when dealing with the legal papers which rendered it invalid.<sup>16</sup> When one of these sheriffs, Sir John Woolfe, died in 1711 he was praised for having done ‘a good office to my Lord Powis [sic] in not returning the outlawry … in time, by which the estate was preserved to the family, and a great favourite [i.e. Rochford] that had begged it of the king was disappointed of that sweet morsel’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Montgomery had already appeared as a central character in Fenwick’s second confession of September 1696, which targeted more well-known Jacobites such as Montgomery and Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, but did not provide sufficient evidence for a prosecution. Montgomery may have surrendered with a view to defend himself from any further allegations from Fenwick, then under threat of attainder and pressured to escape this fate by implicating his colleagues further.<sup>18</sup> Fenwick suggested to his wife that Montgomery was ‘afraid’ of Fenwick testifying more fully against him, but he was also sure that Montgomery was trying successfully to protect himself by making ‘conditions’, particularly by compounding with Rochford for £20,000 for the Herbert estate. There were rumours that Montgomery would be freed for making a ‘large discovery’ of the plot.<sup>19</sup> He did escape Fenwick’s fate, but remained in Newgate for several months. It was not until 19 June 1697 that he was bailed because of the unhealthy conditions in the gaol, aided by the absence from the country of William III, who had expressed strong opposition to Montgomery’s release.<sup>20</sup> Throughout the winter of 1697-8 Montgomery argued that he should be formally tried on his flawed indictment (for which mistake the government sued the sheriffs of London) or discharged from his bail.<sup>21</sup></p><p>The question of his legal status was resolved by the Act against Correspondence with the Pretender passed by Parliament in the wake of the Treaty of Ryswick, which required the banishment or prosecution of all persons who had gone to France during the war without licence. Montgomery’s petition to be dispensed from the provisions of the act was rejected outright, and he left the kingdom for France shortly before the deadline passed on 1 Feb. 1698.<sup>22</sup> That Montgomery was still formally under indictment did not seem to concern government supporters such as Vernon, who commented to Shrewsbury that ‘I suppose the king’s bench or session will discharge the bail of those that are bound by this act to quit the kingdom, when it shall be made appear they have done so in obedience to the act’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Montgomery left behind him the unresolved issue of his father’s forfeited estates and Rochford’s claims on them. The rumoured composition between them does not appear to have stopped the litigation conducted by the trustees of the first marquess, the influential peers Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, and Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort. In April 1697 Rochford invoked his privilege to forestall a number of actions of ejectment that were then in the law courts against his tenants on the Herbert lands. On 17 Mar. 1698, with Montgomery absent and in exile, Rochford submitted to the House a petition against these continuing contraventions of his privilege, but exactly two weeks later, facing opposition from Pembroke in particular and perhaps seeing that the mood of Parliament and the country at large was increasingly against the Dutch courtiers of William’s entourage, he agreed not to insist upon his privilege.<sup>24</sup> From that point Rochford effectively abandoned his claim to the Herbert estates, especially after he left England for his native Netherlands on the accession of Anne.</p><p>Montgomery continued to petition a hostile William III for a licence to return to England, but although Luttrell reported in 1701 that such a licence had been granted, Montgomery still had to petition the new queen in May 1702 to return.<sup>25</sup> He claimed that he had lived in exile in Flanders ‘above four years to the great prejudice of his private concerns and the undoing of his creditors’ as he could not raise money on his estates.<sup>26</sup> When Montgomery finally returned to England in late May 1703, still under indictment, he immediately surrendered himself and was admitted to bail, promising to appear immediately before either secretary of state upon summons.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Montgomery spent the remainder of his days in England petitioning to be allowed to bring in a writ of error to reverse his father’s outlawry and trying to rebuild his estate.<sup>28</sup> He still suffered for his open Catholicism and only slightly less open Jacobitism and, although ‘as innocent and harmless a man as any that suffered in the Popish Plot’ (as a sympathizer thought), he was imprisoned at the time of the Jacobite rising of 1715 and not released until April 1716.<sup>29</sup> It was not until 1722 that Montgomery was able to obtain the reversal of his father’s outlawry, presumably through the writ of error for which he had long petitioned, and was restored to full legal possession of his estates and of his peerage as 2nd marquess of Powis – but not as the 2nd duke of Powis in the Jacobite peerage, which title he always claimed to the extent that he even placed a ducal crest on his household furnishings. As marquess of Powis he was formally summoned to the House on 8 Oct. 1722, but still refused to take his seat, unwilling to take the requisite oaths and declarations renouncing his Catholicism.<sup>30</sup></p><p>He died on 6 Oct. 1745 and the title and estate passed on to his childless elder son and heir William Herbert*, 3rd marquess of Powis, who at his death in 1748 bequeathed the estate to his Protestant and Whig kinsman, Henry Arthur Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, who shortly after the 3rd marquess’s death was further made earl of Powis of a new creation. Thus within five years of his death the estates and title of the stalwart Catholic and Jacobite 2nd marquess of Powis passed safely into the hands of a Protestant and Whig branch of the family.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HERVEY, John (1665-1751) |
<p><strong><surname>HERVEY</surname></strong> (<strong>HARVEY</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1665-1751)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>23 Mar. 1703 Bar. HERVEY OF ICKWORTH; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of BRISTOL |
|
First sat 22 June 1703; last sat 28 July 1746 |
|
MP Bury St. Edmunds 1694-1703 |
<p><em>b</em>. 27 Aug. 1665, s. of Sir Thomas Hervey<sup>‡</sup> of Ickworth and Isabella, da. of Sir Humphrey May<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Bury St. Edmunds g.s.; Clare, Camb. matric. 5 July 1684, LLD 16 Apr. 1705. <em>m</em>. (1) 1 Nov. 1688, Isabella (<em>d</em>. 1693), da. of Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>, bt., sis. and coh. of Sir Edward Carr, bt., of Sleaford, Lincs. 1s. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 2da.; (2) 25 July 1695, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1741), da. and h. of Sir Thomas Felton<sup>‡</sup>, bt., of Playford Hall, Suff., 11s.<sup>1</sup> (at least 2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 6da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1694. <em>d</em>. 20 Jan. 1751; <em>will</em> 1 Dec. 1750, pr. 23 Feb. 1751.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Bury St Edmunds 1694; high steward, 1694.</p> |
|
<p>Heir to a considerable estate in Suffolk and Lincolnshire, Hervey first entered Parliament at the by-election triggered by the death of Henry Goldwell<sup>‡</sup> in 1694. He had previously been unsuccessful in contesting the seat at Bury for the Convention.<sup>4</sup> Hervey proceeded to represent the seat for the following nine years as a loyal supporter of the Whig interest. This was no doubt bolstered by his friendship with John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and (perhaps more significantly) with Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, and it was almost certainly through the Marlboroughs’ influence that in March 1703 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Hervey of Ickworth. The new Lady Hervey was certainly in no doubt to whom she and her husband were indebted and in her memoirs the duchess confirmed this by claiming the credit for securing the barony. This, she insisted, was the only time she used her influence to procure a peerage, having previously promised Sir Thomas Felton that she would acquire the award for his son-in-law.<sup>5</sup> Of the five new barons created at that time, Hervey was the only Whig, and his elevation was said to have been achieved in the teeth of vigorous opposition from the other new barons.<sup>6</sup> He took as his motto ‘<em>je</em> <em>n’oublieray</em> <em>jamais</em>’ (‘I will never forget’).<sup>7</sup></p><p>Hervey was not present in the House in April 1703 when the majority of the new members were presented (possibly a deliberate effort to distance himself from men of a different political stamp). It was not until the prorogation day on 22 June that he was introduced between James Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley (later 3rd earl of Berkeley), and Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>8</sup> The ceremony cost him fees amounting to £10 12<em>s</em>. payable to the various officers of the House.<sup>9</sup> He took his seat a month into the subsequent session of November 1703, after which he was present on just under 54 per cent of all sitting days. Noted as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill in two forecasts compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in the division of 14 Dec. Hervey voted as predicted. On 17 Dec. he was one of a number of peers noted as being present at a gathering at Sunderland’s London residence in St James’ Square and he joined Sunderland again for a similar meeting on 13 Feb. 1704.<sup>10</sup> Following the close of the session, he offered his support to his friend Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup>, who had been unsuccessful in contesting Gloucestershire in the previous election, assuring him that ‘at the next election your county will retrieve its former faults by doing you justice, and thereby not only do themselves but the nation right’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Hervey appears to have enjoyed peppering his thoughts with classical epithets and allusions. In June, when advising his heir, Carr Hervey<sup>‡</sup>, he recommended that the young man should consider how ‘Tacitus inspires the firmest politics; and Thucydides instructs you how to speak well in either House of Parliament … Plutarch will furnish various subjects for conversation; and Plato fill your mind with noble and sublime ideas’. He was delighted to welcome the appointment of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] as the new commander in Portugal that summer. He trusted that the campaign there would ‘now proceed as prosperously, since they have at last thought fit to send a man who has <em>tam Martis quam Mercurii</em> [as much Mars as Mercury], in him; no less than a master in both qualifications being necessary for that post.’<sup>12</sup> He was also pleased to be able to convey his congratulations to Marlborough on his victory at Blenheim, noting how:</p><blockquote><p>it seems a just reverse of fate, that the honest patriots … in an English reign, should become the happy instruments of retrieving those mercenary, almost irrecoverable false steps of a French one; for one can’t readily forget that it was to England’s connivance, if not cultivation, that the principal root and growth of France’s threatening greatness is chiefly owing.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>Hervey took his seat in the third session on 13 Nov. 1704, after which he was present on just under 52 per cent of all sitting days. He was noted by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, at a call of the House as ‘the Puny Baron’. This may have been a reference to his diminutive size or a reflection of his status within the House as a Marlborough hanger-on, but it was also reflective of his position in the House as the junior baron.<sup>14</sup> Absent from the session after 10 Mar. 1705, on 13 Mar. Hervey registered his proxy with Sunderland and the following month he was noted as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession in an analysis of the peerage.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Hervey accompanied Henry Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, on his progress through Suffolk.<sup>15</sup> He was then active in employing his interest in the county for the general election in May. At Bury he was successful in securing a seat for his father-in-law, Sir Thomas Felton, though his other nominee, Sir Dudley Cullum<sup>‡</sup>, was defeated by his Tory rival, Sir Robert Davers<sup>‡</sup>. The contest for the county of Suffolk proved equally charged, with Cullum being defeated by Davers there as well. In the event, Davers chose to sit for the county, enabling Hervey’s brother-in-law, Colonel Aubrey Porter<sup>‡</sup>, to secure the seat at the December by-election.<sup>16</sup> The election also proved the occasion of Hervey interceding with John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, on behalf of a neighbour, Mr. Hunt. Hervey assured the bishop that Hunt was:</p><blockquote><p>a person zealously affected towards his [<em>sic</em>] majesty and government; and (for ought I know) for that reason chiefly, or at least, for his being a useful, stirring man in our county election, he is likely to be involved in an expensive dispute, where if your lordship’s influence could justly show him any favour towards settling the difference to his satisfaction it would very much oblige all your lordship’s friends on this side of the country …<sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>Excused at a call of the House on 12 Nov. 1705, Hervey took his seat in the new Parliament on 7 Dec., after which he was present on 47 per cent of all sitting days. He was missing from the House for a week at the beginning of February 1706, thereby preventing William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), from settling a case in which he appears to have been involved with a Mr. Park over enclosing common land within a parish, presumably lying in Wake’s diocese.<sup>18</sup> In the subsequent session of December 1706 Hervey’s attendance increased slightly and he was present on approximately 56 per cent of all sitting days. On 18 Jan. he was again present at a party of Whig peers (this time held at Lord Ossulston’s), among them Marlborough and John Somers*, Baron Somers.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Hervey blamed the malice of the Tories for spreading rumours that the Parliament would be extended beyond its constitutional life in November 1707. He believed that they intended thereby ‘to blacken our friends the Whigs by an insinuation of their being become unnatural enough to destroy their own issue for the serving a present purpose’. He returned to the House six weeks into the new session on 1 Dec. 1707, after which he was present on 54 per cent of all sitting days. In April 1708, following the dissolution, he acted as mediator between Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, and Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> (who despite his Toryism was a close friend of Hervey’s) to ensure ‘good correspondency’ between the two at the election at Thetford, where Hanmer believed his interest was under threat from the resurgent Whigs. At Bury Hervey was again complimented by the corporation with the return of his kinsmen, the sitting members.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Unsurprisingly marked as a Whig in a list of members of the first Parliament of Great Britain, Hervey took his seat on 27 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on 39 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election of Scots representative peers. Hervey took his seat in the second session on 23 Nov. 1709, after which he attended on two-thirds of all sitting days. The following month he assured Cocks that, in spite of suffering from a ‘defluxion of rheum’, he was using his best efforts to get his friend’s bills passed by the Lords (though it is unclear what these were).<sup>21</sup> On 21 Dec. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the malt bill, which was passed without amendment. Despite a concerted effort made by some Whigs to recruit William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, to their ranks, Hervey ranged himself against the young earl when the latest of a series of actions in the protracted legal struggle <em>Albemarle v Bath</em> came before the House in January 1710.<sup>22</sup> In March he fell back into line and found the arch-Tory cleric Henry Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Notwithstanding his support for the ministry in the Sacheverell vote, by the spring of 1710 Hervey was thoroughly dissatisfied with the administration’s conduct. In a long screed to Cocks he outlined his complaints at the ministry’s abandonment of what he considered to be true Whig principles:</p><blockquote><p>I have for some time disapproved the measures of several persons, from whose conduct I expected wiser and better things; but it is (I fear) as much too late for them to recover those fatal false steps as my endeavours proved too weak to hinder their being ever taken. I would not here be understood to arraign the counsels which set on foot the doctor’s prosecution, for sure it was high time to put some signal stop to such pulpit doctrines as must again bring upon us the sad necessity of more revolutions. The errors I mean were the incredible (though not unaccountable) treatment the motion met with from them for calling over the Protestant successors; the longer continuance of that den of tyrants, the Scots Privy Council; and the rejection of that most necessary bill for lessening the exorbitant number of officers in the House of Commons etc; all of which were carried in such a courtly manner as thoroughly verified the satirical remark, viz. that the parties had swapped principles …<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>In advance of the elections for the new Parliament, Davers drew Hervey’s by now well-known discontent at the current state of affairs to the attention of Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford), but in October Harley (quite correctly) still marked Hervey down as a likely opponent of his new ministry.<sup>25</sup> Hervey had other matters to complain of besides the conduct of the former administration. In particular he was concerned at the poor attendance during the previous session of his brother-in-law, Porter, whose lethargy threatened both his seat and Hervey’s interest at Bury:</p><blockquote><p>upon the first rumour of a dissolution I wrote to know your mind concerning your next election, and to acquaint you with their resentments at your last winter’s absence, which you have not furnished me with excuses for. I need not tell you what coy mistresses boroughs are, and that they never were more courted than at present. Some are so enamoured as to desire I would assist them in making their addresses there, concluding by your cold attendance that you have given over the pursuit. But my answer was, I had not yet heard from you, and that as long as you desired the little help I was master of, I could not think of lending it elsewhere.<sup>26</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite Porter’s poor record, the resilience of Hervey’s interest at Bury was reflected in his brother-in-law’s re-election along with the other sitting member, Joseph Weld<sup>‡</sup>, as well as by the borough’s strident loyal address of that year, full of praise for Marlborough and for the ‘holy war’ against Bourbon France.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Hervey took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on 38 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Jan. 1711 he subscribed the protests both at the resolution to agree with the committee resolution that the defeat at Alamanza had been occasioned by the opinions of the allied commanders, Galway, Sir Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope, and at the resolution to reject Galway and Tyrawley’s petitions concerning the conduct of the war in Spain. The following day he protested again at the resolution to censure the conduct of the ministers for approving the offensive in Spain. The following month, on 3 Feb., Hervey entered two further protests, first at the resolution agreeing with the committee’s findings that the regiments in Spain had not been properly supplied and second at the resolution to agree with the committee that the ministers’ failures amounted to a neglect of the service. He also remained active in the service of the Marlboroughs, noting in his diary how he ‘travelled all the night between the 11th and 12th of April [1711] from Newmarket to London to choose governors and directors of the Bank <em>at the earnest request of the duchess of Marlborough</em>’.<sup>28</sup> On 19 Apr. he registered his proxy once more with Sunderland, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 3 May.</p><p>In November 1711, in advance of the new session, Lady Hervey wrote to the duchess of Marlborough conveying her surprise at the prospect of Parliament meeting again so close to Christmas. She had understood it ‘would not meet till after the holidays’ but although, according to her, Hervey ‘had no thoughts of leaving this place [Ickworth] till then’, she assured the duchess that ‘if your Grace will let us know whether there is any business extraordinary, I believe he will take his measures accordingly, for I know nobody can so soon bring him either for business or pleasure as yourself’.<sup>29</sup> It is to be assumed that the duchess did have business for which she required Hervey’s presence as he subsequently took his seat at the opening of the session on 7 December. The following day he was marked in an assessment of those opposed to the presentation of the address containing the no peace without Spain motion. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon, and the following day he voted as expected to bar all Scots peers from sitting by right of post-Union British titles.</p><p>Hervey played host to a number of prominent peers, including Marlborough, Sunderland, Somers, and Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, as well as the Hanoverian resident Hans Kaspar, Baron von Bothmer, on 1 Jan. 1712 at his lodgings in St James’.<sup>30</sup> On 13 Feb. he registered his proxy with Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, which was vacated by his return to the House on 21 Feb.; he registered it again on 1 Mar., this time with William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat three days later. Towards the end of May he voted with the opposition in pressing for an address to the queen overturning the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging the French.<sup>31</sup> On 7 June he entered a further protest at the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace.</p><p>The extent of Hervey’s antipathy to Oxford (as Harley had since become) was revealed in a warning sent to the lord treasurer by Davers, in which he noted that he could not ‘omit telling you [Oxford] how much you are threatened by Lord Hervey, who in all company says you must lose your head and talks very impertinently’.<sup>32</sup> The same year the by-election for Bury was again carried in favour of Hervey’s candidate, Samuel Batteley<sup>‡</sup>. Hervey took his seat in the new session on 9 Apr. 1713 but having attended on just that day he then retired from the chamber for the remainder of the month. The reason for his absence appears to have been ill health brought on by an attack of the stone but he was sufficiently well to instruct his wife to lodge his proxy while he remained away.<sup>33</sup> Although Lady Hervey informed her husband that she had sent in his proxy ‘the minute I received it’, this cannot be confirmed as the proxy book is missing.<sup>34</sup> Hervey resumed his attendance on 11 May but was present for just seven more days in the session (approximately 12 per cent of the whole). In June Oxford estimated him a probable opponent of the bill for confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Hervey employed his interest on behalf of his son Carr at Bury that August, noting confidently that ‘unless I am much deceived you’ll not meet with one negative there’.<sup>35</sup> Hervey was not deceived and his son was returned <em>in absentia</em> (still being abroad at the time on his grand tour). Even so, Hervey was compelled to spend at least £40 on wooing the electorate at a banquet and Carr Hervey’s election was later challenged in the Commons by the defeated Tories, Jermyn Davers<sup>‡</sup> and Gilbert Affleck<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>36</sup> Having successfully overseen his son’s return to the Commons, Hervey took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on two-thirds of all sitting days. On 12 May he received Grafton’s proxy, which was vacated by Grafton’s resumption of his seat on 26 May, and at or about that time he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being opposed to the schism bill.</p><p>Hervey attended just 4 of the 15 days of the brief session that met in the wake of Queen Anne’s death in August. His long-standing support for the Hanoverian succession ensured his preferment under the new regime and in October he was advanced in the peerage as earl of Bristol. In selecting his title he was assisted by his kinsman Sir John Vanbrugh, who sent Hervey a list of what he believed to be 11 vacant titles.<sup>37</sup> His heir, Carr Hervey, was also preferred, with his appointment in September 1716 as one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to George*, Prince of Wales (later George II).<sup>38</sup> Bristol continued to attend the House until the summer of 1746, after which he was absent for the remaining years of his life. Details of the latter part of his career will be dealt with in the second part of this work.</p><p>Bristol died on 20 Jan. 1751 aged 85. Of his 12 sons, four represented Bury in the Commons but the deaths of his two eldest sons, Carr Hervey, styled Lord Hervey until his death in 1723, and the notorious courtier and wit, John Hervey<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Hervey from 1723 and summoned by writ of acceleration as Baron Hervey in 1733, meant that at his demise the peerage descended to his grandson, George William Hervey<sup>†</sup>. Bristol nominated his heir sole executor of his estate. Sir William Bunbury, Sir Robert Smith, James Compton*, 5th earl of Northampton, and Lionel Tollemache, 4th earl of Dysart [S], were nominated as joint trustees.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HOLLES, Denzil (Denzell) (1598-1680) |
<p><strong><surname>HOLLES</surname></strong> (<strong>HOLLIS</strong>), <strong>Denzil (Denzell)</strong> (1598–1680)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 Bar. HOLLES |
|
First sat 10 May 1661; last sat 16 May 1679 |
|
MP Mitchell 3 Mar. 1624, Dorchester 1628-9, 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.)-1660 (did not sit after Pride's Purge, readmitted 21 Feb. 1660), 1660, 26 Mar.-20 Apr. 1661 |
<p><em>b</em>. 31 Oct. 1598,<sup>1</sup> 2nd s. of John Holles<sup>†</sup> (c.1567–1637), later earl of Clare, and Anne (1576–1651), da. of Sir Thomas Stanhope,<sup>‡</sup> of Shelford, Notts.; bro. of John Holles*, later 2nd earl of Clare. <em>educ</em>. Christ’s, Camb. matric. June 1611, BA 1613, MA 1616; G. Inn 1615; travelled abroad 1618–19.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 4 June 1626, Dorothy (<em>d</em>. 21 June 1640), da. and h. of Sir Francis Ashley<sup>‡</sup>, of Dorchester Friary, 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 12 Mar. 1642, Jane (<em>d</em>. 1666), da. and coh. of Sir John Shurley<sup>‡</sup> of Isfield, Suss., wid. of Sir Walter Covert of Slaugham, Suss. and John Freke of Cerne Abbey, Dorset, <em>s.p.</em>; (3) 14 Sept. 1666, Esther (<em>d</em>.1684), da. and coh. of Gideon Le Lou, of Colombières, Normandy, France, wid. of Jacques Richer, of Cambernon, Normandy, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 17 Feb. 1680; <em>will</em> 26 July 1670–9 Mar. 1679, pr. 27 Feb. 1680.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. cttee. of safety 1642,<sup>4</sup> Uxbridge negotiations 1645, admiralty 1645, propositions for relief of Ireland 1645, abuses in heraldry 1646, exclusion from sacrament 1646, bishops’ lands 1646, indemnity complaints 1647, compounding 1647, appeals from Oxford 1647, scandalous offences 1648,<sup>5</sup> trade 1660–72, plantations 1660–70, appeals for prizes 1666;<sup>6</sup> council of state 25 Feb.–31 May 1660;<sup>7</sup> commr. to try regicides, 1660;<sup>8</sup> PC 1 June 1660–7 Jan. 1676, 22 Apr. 1679–<em>d</em>.; high steward, queen consort 1662–<em>d</em>.;<sup>9</sup> amb. extraordinary to France 1662–6; amb. plenip. Breda 22 Mar.–13 Sept. 1667.</p><p>Freeman, Dorchester 1628, Poole 1671;<sup>10</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. Dorset 1641–2, Mar. 1660–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Bristol 1642.</p><p>Col. of ft. (parl.) 1642.<sup>11</sup></p> |
|
<h2><em>Before the Restoration</em></h2><p>Holles, the second and favourite son of John Holles, created earl of Clare in 1624, began his long parliamentary career that same year when his elder brother was returned for borough seats in both Nottinghamshire and Cornwall, and bequeathed the west country seat to Denzil. He subsequently married into two Dorset families, his first father-in-law, being recorder of Dorchester, helping to establish his interest in the borough. In the 1628 Parliament Holles quickly became known for his opposition to the policies of the crown and on 2 Mar. 1629 he and Benjamin Valentine<sup>‡ </sup>forcibly held the weeping Speaker in his chair while Sir John Eliot’s<sup>‡</sup> declaration against Arminianism and non-parliamentary tonnage and poundage was passed. Holles was arrested and lodged in the Tower, and on 12 Feb. 1630 king’s bench fined him 1,000 marks, a judgment which Holles ensured was reversed when in a more powerful position in the House of Lords in 1668.<sup>16</sup></p><p>He was again elected for Dorchester in both the Short and Long Parliaments, during both of which he was prominent among the king’s opponents and a supporter of the measures against episcopacy ‘root and branch’. He was one of the five Members marked out by Charles I for arrest in January 1642. After the failure of the presbyterian occupation of Parliament in July 1647, Holles went into exile in France, where he remained for almost a year, but was able to resume his seat on 14 Aug. 1648. He was one of the principal members of the commission which negotiated the Isle of Wight Treaty with Charles I and he presented these terms to the Commons on 4 Dec. 1648. Two days later he was excluded by Pride’s Purge. After a further spell in France, he returned to tend his damaged Dorset estates in 1654; he stayed out of politics or conspiracy for the remainder of the 1650s, although he remained bitterly opposed to Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>The early years of the Restoration, 1660–2</em></h2><p>Holles resumed his seat in the Commons on 21 Feb. 1660, and two days later was appointed to the Council of State.<sup>18</sup> In these uncertain weeks he became part of the ‘Suffolk House Cabal’ or ‘Presbyterian Knot’, a group of former parliamentarians who met at the London residence of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland. According to John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, they planned to place conditions on the return of the king and to limit the power of the resurgent Cavaliers in the lower house by restricting membership in the reconstituted House of Lords to those peers who had sat there in 1648.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Holles was elected to represent Dorchester in the Convention, and he was an active Member of the Commons in its early days, when he tried to implement the projects of the Suffolk House Cabal by insisting that before his return Charles II should agree to the terms of the 1648 Treaty of Newport. The moderate terms of the Declaration of Breda may have softened his views, for he reported from the committee appointed to draw up the response and was one of the 12 delegates from the Commons assigned to go over to the Netherlands to present Charles II with this answer. There he delivered a fulsome speech to the king, begging him to return to his benighted people.<sup>20</sup> Barely a week after the king’s return, Holles was appointed to the Privy Council, probably on the advice of George Monck*, the future duke of Albemarle, and served on the committee for Irish affairs. His interest in Ireland continued with his appointment in both July 1671 and January 1673 to commissions reviewing the settlement of Ireland.<sup>21</sup></p><p>For the rest of 1660 Holles became, both in council and in Parliament, a vigorous advocate of the restoration and of the king’s policies.<sup>22</sup> He took part in the negotiations at Worcester House as ‘friend’ to Richard Baxter and the Presbyterian ministers and with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, he was named as a moderator to resolve any differences in wording which the bishops could not agree upon. Holles, Baxter noted disappointedly, was ‘for episcopacy and the liturgy’, and thus not a ‘Presbyterian’ in theological terms, but was considered as such by contemporaries merely because he ‘endeavoured to procure any abatement of their impositions, for the reconciling of the parties, or the ease of the ministers and people who disliked them’, but in reality he ‘would have drawn us to yield further than we did’.<sup>23</sup> On 26 Mar. 1661 Holles was returned once more for Dorchester, but he never took his seat as he was raised to the peerage on 30 Apr. 1661, as Baron Holles of Ifield, a property in Sussex inherited through his second wife, the widow of Sir Walter Covert.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Holles first sat in the House of Lords on 10 May 1661, and was formally introduced on the following day by John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, and Robert Sutton*, Baron Lexinton. Over the 1661–2 session as a whole, he proceeded to sit for almost 70 per cent of the sittings, and he sat on 55 days before the adjournment at the end of July 1661, nearly 86 per cent of the total. He quickly became an active member of the House, and was named to 15 committees before the adjournment. On 18 May he reported from the committee on the estate bill of Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, and on 17 July he and Anglesey were delegated to redraft a proviso in the bill to vacate the fines levied by Sir Edward Powell. On 11 July he was listed as voting against the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to be great chamberlain.</p><p>Holles was not present when the Lords resumed on 20 Nov. 1661, after the adjournment, and he was absent from a call of the House on 25 November. He first attended on 20 Dec. and he was then absent until 14 Jan. 1662. Thereafter, he attended regularly, being present on 80 days before the prorogation on 19 May, 61 per cent of the total. He was named to 21 committees, in addition to being appointed to manage a conference on the bill for the execution of attainted persons (4 Feb. 1662), reporting Neville’s estate bill (4 Apr.), and being named on 13 May to draw up reasons to present to the Commons to explain why the House had preferred to use the term ‘lord lieutenant’ in the militia bill. Most significantly, he was appointed on 8 Apr. to draw up a clause to the bill of uniformity allowing the king to make provision for such of the deprived clergy as he should think fit, an ameliorative clause which fell in the Commons.<sup>25</sup></p><p>As early as 29 Mar. 1662, Sir William Morrice<sup>‡</sup> was indicating in correspondence that Holles would be ‘speedily’ sent to the French court, ‘to lie resident there’, but his departure was delayed for over a year until July 1663.<sup>26</sup> He was not present when the next session began on 18 Feb. 1663, being excused attendance on the 23rd owing to sickness and not attending for the first time until 13 March. Although he was not listed as present, on 19 Mar. he was named to the large drafting committee to bring in a bill repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. On 23 Mar. he was named to draft a petition to the king requesting the expulsion of Jesuits and Catholic priests from England and this committee was charged with the management of a series of conferences on issues with the Commons on 26–30 March.</p><p>On 7 May Holles complained of the arrest of his servant Thomas Chamberlen, with the result that the eight men responsible were ordered into custody for that offence and for speaking ‘unfitting words’ of Holles. They were released on 27 May, having applied to Holles and promised to be more careful in the future. On 8 June Holles was one of the commissioners who ‘began the French treaty’ with the ambassador, the comte de Cominges.<sup>27</sup> He last attended the Lords on 25 June, having been being present on 32 days of the session, 39 per cent of the total, and been added to a further two committees. On 3 July he registered his proxy with his elder brother. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, then listed Holles (through Clare’s proxy) as likely to support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><h2><em>Diplomatic interlude, 1662–7</em></h2><p>This assessment of Holles’ relationship with Clarendon was at odds with the reports of the French ambassador d’Estrades in 1662–3 that ‘at this court [Holles] is accounted to be a member of no faction other than the chancellor’s’, that ‘he is a great friend of the chancellor’, and that ‘he is completely attached to Chancellor Hyde’; and with that of the diplomat Comminges that Holles was ‘entirely dependent on the chancellor’.<sup>28</sup> For his part, Clarendon appears to have had a good deal of respect for Holles, having earlier written about his career in 1640–1 (a time when they were both opponents of the policies of Charles I) that Holles ‘was as much valued and esteemed by the whole party [of the king’s opponents] as any man, as he deserved to be, being a man of more accomplished parts than any of them’.<sup>29</sup> D’Estrades was concerned with Holles’ political alliance because foreign policy was hotly contested between Clarendon and his rival, the pro-Spanish Henry Bennet*, the future earl of Arlington, who was also agitating to be the ambassador to France. Holles’ embassy was a victory for the Clarendon faction, which was more sympathetic to France.</p><p>Despite consistently good relations with French diplomats, going all the way back to negotiations in the 1640s over the search for a settlement between king and Parliament, Holles’ embassy was marked by constant battles with the court of Louis XIV over diplomatic protocol and slights which Holles perceived to his station and the honour of his royal master. Although he arrived in Paris in July 1663, he did not have his first formal royal audience until March 1664 because of a long-running dispute over the precedence of his coach in the planned formal entry to the court. The embassy ended on a bad note when, despite his efforts, France joined with the United Provinces in the war against England, and at his departure Holles refused to accept the gifts offered him, ‘by which, it seems, he intends to triumph over all the greatness of this court’.<sup>30</sup> Nevertheless Holles was to remain a francophile for the rest of his life, despite his opposition to the Catholic and expansionist policies of Louis XIV.</p><p>Having been abroad, and recognized as such at calls of the House in April and December 1664, Holles was ready to return to England in January 1666, only to be delayed by the gout and the fatal illness of his wife.<sup>31</sup> On 14 Feb. he wrote of his desire for a ship to transport him from Le Havre, ‘as nearer to Weymouth, where I must land, for I desire to carry my wife’s body into that country, where she had in her life expressed her desire to be buried’.<sup>32</sup> On 27 Mar. it was reported that his ‘stay at Paris occasioned by his gout and some other incidents of his own business causes much discourse and is construed an inclination to peace, but it is all a mistake’.<sup>33</sup> On 8 May Arlington referred to Holles’ departure as imminent, although ‘if a new fit of the gout should take him France would make good use of it and again persuade the world we keep him there to beg peace of them’.<sup>34</sup> His return to England was followed by that of his future wife, whose departure was scheduled for 1 Sept. in the company of Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans.<sup>35</sup> On 13 Sept. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> was informed that St Albans had arrived in London with ‘my Lord Holles’s Lady (some say married in France, others say not married but come to be married)’.<sup>36</sup> The marriage took place in Westminster Abbey on the following day.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Holles resumed his seat in the House on the second day of the 1666–7 session, 21 September. On 12 Oct. he was named to prepare reasons for a conference over the vote of the Commons to petition the king for a proclamation prohibiting all French imports, which led to his appointment to manage the subsequent conferences on 15, 17, 23, and 30 October. On 14 Oct. he complained that one John Skilling had taken possession of a house of his in Cerne, Dorset, and denied access to Holles’ servants; Skilling was ordered to appear to answer for his offence on 2 Nov., but the House did not sit that day and nothing further was recorded in the Journal. Generally, Holles was not happy at the turn of events, Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> being told on 14 Nov. that Holles in conversation with Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup> had ‘wept to think in what condition [we] are fallen’.<sup>38</sup> He last attended on 12 Jan. 1667, almost a month before the end of the session, having been present on 45 days, half of the meetings of the session, and been named to a further 15 committees. Also of importance was the naturalization bill of his wife, which passed through the Lords rapidly in October 1666, but which was not passed and returned by the Commons (unamended) until 18 Jan. 1667, having been somewhat neglected in committee.</p><p>Shortly after the prorogation in February 1667, Holles was appointed one of the plenipotentiaries to treat with the Dutch at Breda over peace terms. The meetings took place between May and September.<sup>39</sup> On 26 June 1667 Sir Nathaniel Hobart reported that Holles ‘is in this town incognito, full no doubt of a generous disdain, for having been employed in so dishonourable a treaty and the rather because he foresaw it’.<sup>40</sup> On 16 July Holles wrote from Breda of his perception from some ‘letters out of England it is not generally approved what we have done here, and it is but what I expected, but my conscience tells me that in this conjuncture we could not have done better service to our king and country’.<sup>41</sup> He was not present for the meeting of Parliament on 25 and 29 July, when the king revealed that peace had been concluded. In mid-September, the French agent de Ruvigny reported that he had visited the newly returned Holles and Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, finding them ‘very well-disposed, but they are regarded as friends of the Chancellor. Their master said not a word to them, even though they spent two hours with him.’ In October Holles was one of those named as a commissioner to confer with de Ruvigny on a commercial treaty with France.<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>Back in the Lords, 1667–75</em></h2><p>In retrospect, James Stuart*, duke of York, considered Holles a leading member of ‘the disaffected party’ of the ‘Presbyterian and Commonwealth gang’, who met ‘in private meetings and cabals’, particularly at Guildford, with the intention of fomenting opposition before Parliament met in October 1667.<sup>43</sup> Presumably he was wrong, since Holles did not support an attack on Clarendon. Holles was present on 10 Oct., when the 1667–8 session began. A week later he was ordered to attend the committee on the estate bill of his late brother, Clare, which provided for the new earl (his nephew, Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare) to dispose of some parts of the estate to pay debts and portions. He duly attended the committee on 7 Nov. and gave his consent to some provisions of the bill, which passed on 10 December.<sup>44</sup></p><p>It was effectively from this session beginning in October 1667 that Holles resumed the position that he had enjoyed in the 1640s as one of the busiest parliamentarians. From this point until his death he was constantly named to select committees, often appointed a manager or reporter for conferences, and, from what can be gathered from the surviving evidence, frequently contributed to debate. He defended the privileges of the peerage and of the House as aggressively as he had previously done for the rights of the Commons. On 23 Oct. 1667 he reported that he had recently been a witness in a case in the prerogative court and had entered his deposition upon his honour, but that the court would only receive it if upon oath. This he was wary of doing in case it breached the privilege of the peerage. The matter was referred to the committee for privileges; its report on 12 Nov. listed precedents, but finding the business ‘too weighty’ referred it back again to the House. After debating the matter on 19 and 21 Nov. the committee allowed it to lapse.</p><p>On 22 Nov. 1667 Holles was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the methods of proceedings between the Houses, which had arisen as a result of Clarendon’s impeachment, duly managing the conferences on the 23rd. On 25 Nov. he was named to manage a conference charged with delivering to the Commons the resolution of the Lords not to sanction the sequestration of Clarendon or his imprisonment without particular charges of treason being specified, and was named to manage one further conference on the impeachment on 27 Nov., in which he duly took part.<sup>45</sup> On 10 Dec. he was named to manage a conference on the freedom of speech in Parliament. This conference, as it transpired when the matter was reported to the House on the 11th, concerned the old case of 1630 of the crown against Holles, Eliot, and Valentine, whereupon the Lords agreed to a Commons’ resolution that the judgment given against them in king’s bench was illegal, and ‘against the freedom and privilege of Parliament’. Subsequently, on 10 Feb. 1668 the House moved that Holles bring in a writ of error to reverse the judgment, which he promised to do. The lord chief justice bought in the writ on 9 Mar. and, after hearing counsel at the bar on 15 Apr., ordered the judgment to be reversed.</p><p>On 12 Dec. 1667 Holles was one of five peers to enter their dissent to the bill banishing Clarendon. Two days later he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the Lords’ refusal to join with the Commons in addressing the Crown for a proclamation to be issued for Clarendon to surrender himself, duly being appointed to manage the conference. Holles had attended on 48 days before the adjournment of 19 Dec., 94 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 17 committees. Following the adjournment, there was talk that he, his cousin, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and Anglesey were going to be removed from the Privy Council, Pepys noting on 30 Dec. that ‘these men do suffer only for their constancy to the chancellor, or at least [for being] against the king’s will against him’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Holles attended on the second day of the resumed session, 10 Feb. 1668. He was present on 63 days from February to May 1668, more than 95 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 17 committees. In this part of the session Holles put his knowledge of parliamentary history and his researches in the rolls of Parliament to good use on the side of the Lords in the battles with the Commons over the judicial rights of the House, most notably in the matter of <em>Thomas Skinner v the East India Company</em>. In this he was assisted by his long friendship with William Prynne<sup>‡</sup>, who not only revealed details of the Commons debates on the subject but who, as keeper of the records in the Tower, was well placed to assist in trawling for precedents.<sup>47</sup> On 12 Mar. 1668 Holles was appointed to the committee to consider what damages Skinner had sustained from the Company. On 5 May he was named to report a conference with the Commons on a petition they had received from the Company. Following this conference, on 6 May, in the committee of privileges, Holles and Anglesey were assigned the task of preparing ‘previous matter for votes and protestation to be offered to the committee’ on the following day. On that day Anglesey offered what Holles had proposed and it was agreed to report that to the House. Holles, ‘who had taken pains in perusing the ancient records’, then duly reported to the House 45 precedents, which were approved of by the Lords. On 8 May Holles was given the task of speaking to the ancient records at the conference.<sup>48</sup> According to Heneage Finch*, the future earl of Nottingham and lord chancellor, Holles spoke after James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, and ‘undertook to show the ancient use of this power by several precedents’ from the reign on Edward IV onwards. Before he began, he</p><blockquote><p>said he could almost sit down and weep to see the good agreement between the two Houses, the foundation of our peace and the ligament of the present government so much in danger. That for the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart, Reuben was the first born, and the house of Lords is the Reuben.</p></blockquote><p>Holles continued, ‘the kingdom consists of the king and his people, the people are the Parliament. The peers of the realm, whatever others think have an inherent trust for the whole body of the people, and for every village and borough in it.’ The Lords were not claiming a new power and were careful not to make a continual practice of it.</p><p>After an interruption from Anglesey, Holles then showed that the ancient practice of making triers of petitions in the beginning of every Parliament was to no purpose if the Lords could give no relief upon such petitions. He went on to cite a vast array of precedents. This obviously provoked a reaction because on 9 May Finch recorded that Edmund Waller<sup>‡</sup></p><blockquote><p>took notice of my Lord Holles’ expression and turned it upon him thus that if the scarlet thread was upon the house of Lords, it was a plain sign the Commons were born first, and it must needs be so, for sure there were Commons before ever there were Lords.</p></blockquote><p>Others were offended against Holles because he had said that ‘the Lords were trusted for all the Commons in England’, which Finch thought ‘true in a qualified sense, for so is every court of justice, and every public magistrate, but they understood his lordship as if he had meant it by way of representation’.<sup>49</sup> According to John Rushworth, the conference on 9 May was ended only when the king came to adjourn the House, having lasted four hours. Rushworth noted that by ‘spinning out the debate about privilege and jurisdiction there was no spare time left to finish the bill concerning conventicles’; preventing the passage of this bill was a particular aim of Holles.<sup>50</sup></p><p>In October 1668 Colbert produced more evidence of Holles’ essentially pro-French orientation, noting that Buckingham had told him that Holles, Ashley, and Anglesey ‘understand as well as he does that there is at present nothing which would be so advantageous to England as a good union with France, have promised him to second him when he judges it the right moment to make the proposition’, but that Arlington was too powerful to allow it at present.<sup>51</sup> In the wake of the ministerial changes surrounding the removal of James Butler*, duke of Ormond, from the lieutenancy of Ireland, in February 1669 Holles was reported to be a likely replacement for Robartes, as lord privy seal.<sup>52</sup> Ironically, in June 1670 Holles was then touted by some as a likely lord deputy of Ireland, in place of Robartes.<sup>53</sup> Ill health also started to trouble Holles and in July 1669 Verney was informed that ‘my Lord Holles is ill still, and not likely to recover’.<sup>54</sup> On 11 Oct. 1669, Holles was at the Council meeting which considered at length and then rejected Barker’s appeal, thereby confirming the judgment given in Ireland. In this he apparently favoured Barker’s appeal and was therefore against Ormond.<sup>55</sup></p><p>On the eve of the parliamentary session of October 1669, Colbert reported that Charles II was ‘really angry’ at Holles because at a time when the king was working to minimize the differences between the Houses, Holles had printed a book explaining the position of the Lords, adding that he hoped that he escaped punishment for ‘I would be annoyed if anything happened to him, having received many courtesies and tokens of his good intentions from him’. A few days later Colbert added that Holles’ book was seen as deliberately sowing the seeds of division, because as one of the main leaders of the Presbyterians he saw no better way of serving his party than by raising discord in Parliament, so that the king would react to the deadlock by sanctioning a dissolution.</p><p>Disrupting Parliament in this way was almost certainly Holles’ primary goal in composing his work. As Colbert had written to Louis XIV in September 1668, ‘the presbyterian party’, which must have included Holles, wished to see Parliament dissolved, in order to secure a number of goals, such as a grant of toleration or comprehension to Dissenters, basing their plans on a belief that a new Parliament would be more sympathetic to such aims.<sup>56</sup> Holles was presumably one of the ‘presbyterians in the Lords’ identified by John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, whose passion over the Skinner case ‘makes it be looked on by sober men as a design to break this Parliament, which all factions are desirous to accomplish’, and no doubt one of the ‘presbyterians’ identified by Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup> as being ‘out of hope of any good from this Parliament, or that their work should be done [in it]’.<sup>57</sup> Thomas Barlow wrote in January 1669 that ‘all men believe that the Presbyterians and all nonconformists desire and endeavour the dissolution of this, and the call of another Parliament hoping to choose such members as may give a toleration (if not a greater encouragement or establishment) of their sect and way’.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Holles’ book was based on the precedents researched by him for the Skinner case. Published anonymously during the prorogation of Parliament, <em>The Grand Question Concerning the Judicature of the House of Peers Stated and Argued</em> provided a strongly partisan case for the Lords’ judicial rights to hear cases and appeals in the first instance. With the subsequent obliteration of all records of these debates from the pages of the official Journal, his book remains one of the few existing accounts of the proceedings in this case.<sup>59</sup> In response, the council ordered copies of the unlicensed book to be seized, while, on the first day of the session, the Commons launched an investigation to ascertain the author and spent its first week treating little else.<sup>60</sup> Dr Denton recorded on 19–20 Oct. that Holles’ ‘book is not to be come at, the [Lord] Keeper had one, but I never saw other, those that are are at 10<em>s</em>. a piece but I could never get one at that rate’. Further, the Commons on 20 Oct. ‘sent for the printer and discoursed of Holles book as a libellous pamphlet’, information having being given to the House of the printing and publishing of a non-licensed book tending to create a division and misunderstanding between the two Houses.<sup>61</sup> Richard Chiswell, a bookseller, duly appeared before the house on 22 Oct. to answer about the book, which he said was ‘sent to him by a privy councillor, the Lord Holles, with direction and order to print it’.</p><p>Holles had been present on the opening day of the 1669 session, 19 Oct., attending on 31 days (nearly 89 per cent of the total) and being named to four committees. He had held the proxy of his nephew William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, from 8 Nov. 1669 to the prorogation on 11 December. Shortly after the prorogation Holles told Colbert that the Commons was ‘so ill-tempered’ that the king was ‘well-advised that he should not reassemble them’.<sup>62</sup> He was absent from the start of following session, 10 Feb. 1670, although he registered Strafford’s proxy again on 16 Feb. until Strafford vacated it by his return to the House on 2 Dec. 1670. He was excused a call of the House on 21 Feb., ‘being not well’, and first attended on 17 March. In the session, up to the adjournment in April 1670, he attended on 15 days (almost 36 per cent of the total) and was named to 10 committees. About 26 Feb. 1670 his eldest son was killed ‘by a groom which had married my Lord Cullies’ daughter, which indignity he thought to avenge’.<sup>63</sup> On 17 Mar. Holles complained of a breach of privilege, following an assault on a servant of his the previous December during which one of his horses had been impounded. The assailant, Isaac Symball, was brought before the bar on 23 Mar., and on 26 Mar. was ordered to be released following an acknowledgement of his offence and making due submission to Holles.</p><p>Holles opposed the second conventicle bill, protesting against its passage on 26 Mar. 1670. On 30 Mar. he was named to a conference on a naturalization bill. The same day he was named to report a conference on amendments made to the conventicles bill, also being named to manage conferences on the bill on 2 and 4 April. He was particularly incensed against the proposed measures concerning searches of peers’ houses and he formally objected to these amendments in a protest of 5 April. Three days later he also dissented from the passage of the act for settling an imposition on brandy.</p><p>Holles was absent when the House resumed after the adjournment on 24 Oct. 1670, first attending on the next sitting, 27 October. In this part of the session he attended on 99 days, 79 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 27 committees. Overall, Holles maintained his usual busy activity in the 1670–1 session, attending 68 per cent of the sittings. On 24 Nov. the Lords referred to the committee of privileges a complaint from Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland, that he had been wrongly dispossessed by Holles of the manor of Aldenham, Hertfordshire. Holles put in his answer on 5 Dec., denying Westmorland’s title to the lands, and on the 6 Dec. the committee of privileges referred the complaint back to the House. When the cause was heard on 15 Dec., it was established that Westmorland held the land as a trustee and so could not invoke privilege. Westmorland was in effect acting as a proxy for Sir Erasmus Harby (<em>d</em>. 1674), who had married Frances, daughter of Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, and had sold Aldenham to Holles in the early 1660s. Further, the manuscript minutes reveal that, on 16 Dec. when a vote was taken rejecting Westmorland’s paper as aspersing Holles, Francis Newport*, 2nd Baron Newport, later earl of Bradford, had taken the paper from the table and torn it up, with Anglesey collecting the pieces and carrying them away.<sup>64</sup> As Benjamin Chancy reported ‘there was a great cause argued between’ Holles and Harby ‘where the knight came off with the worst of it, and Mr Rainsford told me he was ruined if he miscarried in this cause, which held until the House rose’.<sup>65</sup></p><p>On 18 Jan. 1671 Holles reported the bill for making Haslington, Cheshire, into a parish. On 26 Jan. he was named to report a conference on the bill to prevent malicious wounding, being appointed on 3 Feb. to prepare reasons for maintaining the Lords’ amendments to the bill and to manage conferences on 4, 6, 9, and 11 February. On 1 Mar. he was named to prepare heads for a conference on the Commons’ petition against the growth of popery; the following day he was named to report a conference on the subsidy bill. On 9 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution not to engross the bill concerning the privilege of Parliament. On 13 Mar. he was named to report on two conferences, one on the Boston and Trent navigation bill and the other on the merchants’ ships bill. The same day he was also nominated to recommend the marchioness of Worcester’s case to the king following her petition about the king’s indebtedness to her late husband.</p><p>Holles brought forward his own complaint of breach of privilege on 1 Mar. 1671, complaining of ‘some indignities’ put upon him by Lord Chief Justice Keeling at the trial of some French gentlemen, falsely accused of robbery. The case was heard on 6 and 10 Mar., after which the House ordered Keeling to apologize for having said in open court that Holles had been involved in ‘a foul contrivance’ in his attempts to prove the defendants innocent, and to ask Holles’ pardon.<sup>66</sup> Holles later attended the prorogation on 16 Apr. 1672.</p><p>On 16 May 1672 Holles provided a clear sign of his religious sympathies by applying for licences under the Declaration of Indulgence to dispense at least a dozen Dissenting ministers from the requirements of conformity.<sup>67</sup> Although he himself apparently conformed to the established Church, his own religiosity was steeped in the Calvinism of his upbringing earlier in the century, as is made manifest by the fervent language of his will of 1670. He was closely related to active promoters of nonconformist ministers in the persons of his sister, sister-in-law, and nieces, although the identification of his wife as subscribing £5 in 1675 to the church being built for Baxter, and in 1676 attending his conventicler in Great Russell Street, is probably a mistake for his niece, Lady Eleanor Holles, the daughter of the 2nd earl of Clare.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Holles himself was a patron of other Dissenting clergyman and some on the more latitudinarian wing of the conforming clergy. These included Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, whom Holles hosted during his embassy in Paris and later recommended for a position to Harbottle Grimstone<sup>‡</sup>, although there is some anecdotal evidence that he found Burnet tiresome.<sup>69</sup> Ejected ministers were in Holles’ employ in various capacities: Edward Damer was his steward, John Hodges lived with Holles for a time before 1679, and Nicholas Cary acted as the peer’s physician and was later to gain notoriety for his steadfast refusal to name Holles as the author of a work arguing that Parliament was dissolved in February 1677. Most significant was Holles’ long association with Roger Morrice, who probably acted as his chaplain from about 1666 and for whom he was probably one of the principal sources for information on parliamentary affairs.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Holles was present on 4 Feb. 1673, the opening day of the session. On 19 Mar. he chaired the adjournment in committee of the bill on the wages of servants and apprentices.<sup>71</sup> Given his religious beliefs and role in the upheavals of the previous decades, he was concerned by York’s conversion to Catholicism, which had become public knowledge by the session of 1673, and as a result he was closely involved in the development of the Test bill. On 15 Mar. he was one of eight lords appointed by the committee of the whole to draw up clauses relating to financial matters in the Test, which they duly did on the 17th. On 24 Mar. he was named to report a conference on the bill, and following that he was named to prepare reasons for a conference on the two outstanding matters, the provision for the queen’s servants and the <em>non vult ulterius prosequi</em>, duly attending the conference on the 25th. He had attended on 21 days of the session, 55 per cent of the total, and been named to six committees, one of which (17 Feb.) was to mediate between the Hamburg Company and its creditors; during its deliberations on 20 Feb. he cited several precedents for their relief.<sup>72</sup></p><p>On 7 Oct. 1673, three weeks before the scheduled start of the next parliamentary session, Holles wrote to Sir Edward Harley from Peper Harrow, Surrey (a former Covert property), hoping to meet him ‘in London ere many days, which is one benefit of the Parliament, to bring friends together, and when we come there if we can make it produce more I shall be very glad’. At the end of his letter, he added, ‘the best was we did no hurt as we did no good. I wish we may say so after this great meeting.’<sup>73</sup> In the event Holles did not attend the short session of October–November 1673. He was also missing from the beginning of the next session on 7 Jan. 1674, first attending on 12 Jan., the day on which the House was called over. Having taken the oath of allegiance himself before the Lords’ sitting on 14 Jan., when York took it later in the day, ‘with a protestation, by reason he is heir apparent’, Holles joined Shaftesbury and ‘soon cleared that point and told him he was not heir apparent, but heir presumptive, for the king might have a child’.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On 27 Jan. Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, referred to a ‘cabal’ meeting at Holles’ house in Covent Garden, consisting of Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, to discuss tactics for the forthcoming session.<sup>75</sup> Baxter listed Holles, Halifax, and Holles’ nephew, Clare as among those who joined with Shaftesbury and who ‘spake very freely’ against York during this session.<sup>76</sup> On 22 Jan. 1674 de Ruvigny listed Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, Shaftesbury, James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later Earl) Fauconberg, and several others as meeting at Holles’, ‘where they agree together the things that should be proposed in the Lower Chamber’.<sup>77</sup></p><p>On 3 Feb. Holles was named to report a conference on a joint address about a peace treaty with the States General. On 9 Feb. he was named to mediate in a dispute involving the dowager marchioness of Worcester.<sup>78</sup> He attended on 31 days of the session (more than 81 per cent of the total), being named to seven committees. After the prorogation on 24 Feb. there were rumours that in retaliation for their plotting the king would remove Holles, Shaftesbury, Halifax, and Carlisle from the Privy Council, but Holles kept his place and on 15 Apr. 1674 he was reported to have left London for his country house.<sup>79</sup></p><h2><em>The campaign against Danby and the Popish Plot, 1675–80</em></h2><p>Holles was opposed to the emerging strategy of the new treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), which was to rely upon the Anglicans to manage Parliament and govern the country. While Danby and the bishops were conferring about their strategy, William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> reported on 9 Jan. 1675 that York had approached Holles, among others, to counteract it.<sup>80</sup> Thus, when Danby’s negotiations with the bishops resulted in a proposal that the Privy Council issue a proclamation for the enforcement of the penal laws against Catholics and the enforcement of the conventicle act, ‘all the Presbyterians, and fanatics as well as the popelings’ were opposed to it. A warm debate followed in the council meeting on 3 Feb. in which Holles joined Carlisle, Anglesey, and Halifax (none of whom signed the resultant proclamation), who ‘at last brought it to this, that the proclamation shall issue out and contain very large directions for prosecution of papists. But concerning the Protestant Dissenters, there is to be nothing more or less than that the king (from Lady Day next) hath taken off his licences’.<sup>81</sup> According to the Venetian secretary in England, in response to the proposed crackdown, Holles, Halifax, Carlisle, and Dorchester had ‘asked for time to examine it that the laws might not be disadvantageously enforced’, but York had been responsible for any limitation of the order to the execution of the penal laws.<sup>82</sup> Meanwhile, Shaftesbury, absent in Dorset, wrote his much copied and published letter to Carlisle, in which he insisted that no offer of a position at court would deflect him from his goal of ensuring the dissolution of the present Parliament, and instructed Carlisle to distribute copies to Holles, Salisbury, and Fauconberg, ‘and when you four command me up [to the capital] I shall obey’.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Holles first attended the April–June 1675 session on the fourth day, 16 April. He was closely involved in its two major battles: opposition to Danby’s non-resisting Test and the dispute with the Commons over the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>. He was a leader of the opposition to Danby’s Test bill and on 21 Apr. protested against the resolution not to throw the bill out as a breach of privilege of peerage. Although he is marked as present in the attendance list for 26 Apr. ‘his sickness forced him out of the House’ and he was not able to put his name to the protest against the commitment of the bill made that day. Three days later there was a debate on whether the protest of 26 Apr. was scandalous because it reflected upon the honour of the House. ‘Great officers and bishops raised a storm against the protesting lords … but that was defended with so great ability, learning and reason by the Lord Holles that they quitted the attempt’, remarked the author (possibly John Locke) of the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, who then recounted that Holles offered to put his name to the protest of 26 Apr., even though he had not been present at the time, so that he could share the fate of the other ‘protesting lords’ who were being threatened with the Tower. His dramatic offer appears to have been declined, but he joined in the protest of that day, which rejected the proposition that the previous protest had been derogatory to the honour of the House.<sup>84</sup></p><p>In May Holles was at the heart of the dispute with the Commons over the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, which raised the issue of the right of the House of Lords to summon and hear Members of the lower House in appeals. In a series of conferences on 17, 19, and 21 May, Holles and his ‘country’ colleagues vigorously insisted on the right of the House to judge and hear all parties concerned in appeals brought before it. The Commons were equally enraged by two similar appeals, the cases of <em>Stourton v. Onslow</em> and <em>Crisp v. Dalmahoy</em>, brought against other Members of their chamber, and Holles took a prominent part in defending the judicial rights of the House in the bad-tempered disputes and conferences on 31 May and 2 and 3 June. Following the referral on 28 May of the petition of John Crew*, Baron Crew, to the committee of privileges, Holles was one of the peers charged with discussing the matter with Strafford before the committee reported; no further proceedings were recorded.<sup>85</sup> In this session, he was regular in his attendance, being present on 35 days (85 per cent of the total) and being named to 10 committees.</p><p>When Parliament reconvened on 13 Oct. 1675 tempers remained high, stoked by the publication, just prior to the session, of an anonymous book, <em>The Case Stated Concerning the Judicature of the House of Peers in the Point of Appeals</em>, which almost all contemporaries attributed to Holles and which resoundingly defended the right of the House to hear all appeals, both from common law and equity (the latter jurisdiction had been disputed by the Commons in May) and from all parties.<sup>86</sup> As intended, this had the same effect as Holles’ previous intervention in <em>Skinner v East India Company</em>: it curtailed the session, which was prorogued on 22 November. By this time Holles was firmly in the camp that was taking all measures to convince the king to dissolve Parliament. To disrupt proceedings further, he argued that Sherley’s resubmitted petition be considered immediately, instead of being deferred until the king’s business was settled, citing precedents in committee on 27 October. He was one of four peers assigned on 9 Nov. to draft the address to the king calling for the recall of all his subjects fighting for the French king. On 11 and 15 Nov. Holles contributed to the debate in the committee of the whole on the manner of entering protests.<sup>87</sup> On 20 Nov., five days after he had left the House for the session, he registered his proxy in favour of Salisbury, who used it in the division that day to vote in favour of an address for the dissolution of Parliament. Holles had attended the first 12 days of the session of October–November 1675, and 13 days in all (nearly 62 per cent), being named to six committees.</p><p>By now Holles’ prominent role in the opposition to the policies pursued by Danby had become too much for the king to bear and on 7 Jan. 1676 he and Halifax were dismissed from the Privy Council, neither being present, having had intimation of it on the previous night. The final straw may have been their opposition to the government’s attempt to close down the coffee houses.<sup>88</sup> In May 1676 Holles wrote to Sir Edward Harley, ‘I have at this present a most severe fit of the gout upon me, that in good truth I know not almost what I write’.<sup>89</sup> This illness may explain why he was summoned to, but failed to attend the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis on 30 June.<sup>90</sup></p><p>In the absence of employment at the council board, Holles may have found time to write works on English politics. A number of anonymous works from 1676 were attributed to him, although his authorship of some is questionable.<sup>91</sup> A brief pamphlet, <em>A Letter to Monsieur van B[euningen] at Amsterdam</em> (1676) was ascribed to him but its racy, pamphleteering style and scurrilous francophobic sentiments are both alien to Holles’ temperament, suggesting that the attribution is doubtful. Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup> wrote in some manuscript notes titled ‘Observations upon My Lord Holles’s Book, or Notes in Order to a Conference’ that Holles’ authorship of <em>The Case Stated of the Jurisdiction of the House of Lords in the Point of Impositions</em> was a fact ‘sufficiently known’ and, obviously disagreeing with its points, observed that it was ‘a work began in his declining age’.<sup>92</sup> Holles’ view was that there were clear precedents to prove that in ancient times the Lords and the Commons ‘did join in the gift, that the one could not give without the other, except they had otherwise agreed on it among themselves, and that they would give separately, as they have sometimes done, and but rarely’. In this tract, which may have been written as early as 1671, Holles thought that if the rights of the Lords to amend financial legislation were not defended it would ‘utterly overthrow the being of this House, rendering it altogether useless to the general good of the nation’, with its role reduced to saying ‘amen to what the House of Commons hath resolved’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Holles seems to have been involved in encouraging peers to attend the session due to begin on 15 Feb. 1677; a letter of 2 Feb. purporting to be to him, probably from Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, is full of apologies for his likely absence, and giving Holles a ‘disappointment after so kind an invitation as you have been pleased to give me to join head and heart with your Lord and those noble Lords with you in a service of so noble and high a concern’.<sup>94</sup> Three works of late 1676 that argue that the long prorogation had automatically dissolved Parliament have been attributed to Holles – <em>The Long Parliament Dissolved</em>, <em>Some Considerations upon the Question whether the Parliament is Dissolved by its Prorogation for 15 Months?</em>, and a manuscript work, ‘The Grand Question Concerning the Prorogation of the Parliament’. Suspicion, both in Holles’ own lifetime and later, has most plausibly focused on this third work, which was never published in full because the manuscript, in the possession of Holles’ personal physician, Dr Nicholas Cary, was seized by the authorities on its way to the press.<sup>95</sup> When the matter of the dissolution was debated on the first day of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677, Burnet wrote that Holles authored ‘a book for it: but a fit of the gout kept him out of the way’.<sup>96</sup> The gout may only have delayed his arrival, for Holles spoke late in the debate and ‘with great temper and moderation’, arguing, in contrast to Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and Salisbury, that, whereas a dissolution was desirable, the 15-month long prorogation did not automatically trigger it.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Holles was absent on the second day of the session, 16 Feb., when the House appointed a committee to investigate the authorship of the ‘libels’ arguing for the dissolution of Parliament, quickly targeting ‘The Grand Question’. Cary proved remarkably resilient to questioning both by the king and by the Privy Council and never explicitly named Holles, although it was rumoured in early March that Holles ‘is like to go to the Tower about writing the book’. On 1 Mar. Cary was fined £1,000 and committed to the Tower by the House for contempt in refusing to divulge all he knew of the pamphlets. Holles silenced his critics by coming to the House on 2 Mar. (the day after the committee on the libels had made its report), where he ‘took notice that his name had been tossed about there concerning a book’ and openly challenged his peers to state their complaints and charges against him explicitly, to which he would answer. There was a long silence and then the House proceeded to other matters.<sup>98</sup> Having made his point, Holles then stayed away from the House for the following three weeks, being allowed leave of absence at a call of the House on 9 Mar. owing to sickness, and only coming a further six times before Parliament was adjourned on 16 Apr., last attending on the 9th. Before the adjournment he had attended 12 days of the session, just under a quarter of the total, and had been named to 11 committees. He did not attend when the session resumed in May 1677. On 5 Sept. and 20 Nov. 1677 he received permission to visit Shaftesbury in the Tower.<sup>99</sup> During his stay in the Tower Shaftesbury classed Holles as ‘doubly worthy’ in his evaluation of the members of the House, perhaps an indication that they did not see eye to eye on all political matters.</p><p>Holles next attended on 29 Jan. 1678, but was excused attendance on the House on 16 Feb. and then was not present until 20 Feb., being present in all on 40 days before the prorogation of 13 May, two-thirds of the total, although his attendance was poor at the end of March and beginning of April. He was named to 11 committees. Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, registered his proxy with Holles on 2 March. On 8 and 19 Mar. he was appointed to manage a conference on the Commons’ amendments to the bill for regulating fishing in the rivers of England. Over the whole session of February 1677–13 May 1678 he attended 52 days, 45 per cent of the total.</p><p>Holles’ main concern was to protect the liberties and constitution of England. Throughout the spring, he, Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, had several conferences with the French agent de Ruvigny in order to concert measures for their common goals of disbanding the English army, procuring the dissolution of Parliament, and effecting the dismissal of Danby. Holles and his colleagues were concerned that Charles II was merely using the threat of war with France as a means of raising an army and receiving a generous supply from Parliament, which, after abandoning the war, he would use to exercise despotic rule in England without Parliament. De Ruvigny reassured them that there was no secret arrangement between the English and French kings to establish absolutism or Catholicism in England, and that France looked on the mustering of the English army with as much anxiety as the ‘country’ opposition did.</p><p>De Ruvigny offered to provide bribes to Members of the Commons to exert themselves to deny supply to the king or to put such conditions on any money bill that it would prove too distasteful for the court to accept. The French agent and his English associates hoped that by this means Charles II would be forced to turn to Louis XIV for funds. The French king would then, de Ruvigny promised, demand of the English king the dissolution of Parliament and dismissal of Danby. De Ruvigny’s master, the French ambassador Barrillon, reported that Holles was less easily persuaded than Russell of the feasibility of this plan and was</p><blockquote><p>so embittered against the court and the ministry, that he [de Ruvigny] did not dare to say anything to him of the desire which the king of England shows for peace, lest he should bring his cabal, from his desire to oppose all the designs of the court, to be partisans for the war.<sup>100</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the House Holles, Halifax, Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and Wharton further hoped to flush out Charles II and make him reveal his true intentions in the military preparations by insisting on an ‘immediate’ declaration of war against France in the address to the king, which the Commons sent to the Lords on 15 Mar. and which was debated on 16 and 18 Mar. 1678.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Holles next attended on 23 May, the opening day of the May–July 1678 session. From 25 May he held the proxy of William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele. In the hearings surrounding the appeal of York’s favourite, Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, against a chancery decree against him, Holles joined with Shaftesbury in arguing that the House still had to obey the rules of equity (by which Feversham would lose his case) even if it did act as the highest court of the land, ‘for though we are above forms, yet certainly we are not above rules’.<sup>102</sup> He last attended on 10 July, shortly before the end of the session, having sat on 29 days (two-thirds of the session), and been named to 21 committees.</p><p>Holles was absent when the next session convened on 21 Oct. 1678. He first attended the House on 1 Nov. and on that very day was thrown into the thick of business by being asked to be a reporter for a conference on the Test bill. On 6 Nov. he was added to the committee considering the evidence of the Popish Plot, but Burnet considered that in this affair Holles ‘had more temper than I expected from a man of his heat’.<sup>103</sup> On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of the motion in the committee of the whole on the Test bill that the penalties for refusing to take the declaration against transubstantiation should be the same as those for refusing to swear the oaths. After this vote he was absent for about a month, registering his proxy with Wharton from 19 November. He next sat on 14 Dec. and on the 20th he protested against the amendments to the disbandment bill which would place the supply raised in the exchequer. He last attended on 21 Dec. so was not present for the debates on the impeachment of Danby. He appeared on only 14 days, not quite a quarter of the sittings of the session.</p><p>Following the prorogation on 30 Dec. 1678 Holles became a principal actor in the secret negotiations leading to the dissolution of Parliament. In mid-January the court physician and nonconformist patron Sir John Baber, ‘a neighbour and intimate’, contacted Holles to discuss means of procuring a dissolution.<sup>104</sup> Over the following days Baber acted as intermediary between Holles, working with his associate Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> and Danby, but Danby himself took the step of making a surprise visit to Holles one night to thrash out the details of the agreement. The lord treasurer agreed that he would convince the king to disband the army, dissolve Parliament, summon a new one and make a formal declaration that no Parliament in the future would last for less than six months nor longer than three years, and ensure that the Plot was investigated fully. In return, Holles and his colleagues in the Commons offered the king an immediate loan to tide him over until the calling of Parliament, and promised to vote him a reasonable supply in the new Parliament. They also demanded that Danby resign as lord treasurer, but promised to mitigate the terms of the impeachment and not to prosecute it vigorously.</p><p>Danby’s informants kept him apprized of the legislation that Holles wished the new Commons to pass, the first priority being ‘the enacting of some laws whereby the liberty and property of the subject might be preserved’, such as that ‘a habeas corpus might be procured at any time, as well out of term, as in term’, and that judges be made for life and the treason trials procedure for peers be reformed.<sup>105</sup> Morrice recorded the details of these negotiations in his <em>Ent’ring Book</em>; significantly, this particular section is in secretive shorthand. He noted that the business ‘was carried on and transacted solely by’ the king, Danby, Holles, Baber, and Littleton with Morrice ‘privy to it all along from the beginning to the end and no man else’. Baber, however, had also put Holles directly in touch with Barrillon, who had previously only followed Holles’ activities through the reports of de Ruvigny. Holles also kept Barrillon up to date with these negotiations and the ambassador frequently dispatched reports on them to Louis XIV, in which he portrayed Holles as the leader of a group of Members of the Commons which included Littleton, Harbord, and Henry Powle<sup>‡</sup>. Burnet added Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> to this group.<sup>106</sup> Holles also appears to have been acquainted with Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, at least on a social basis, dining with him on 17 Nov. 1677.<sup>107</sup></p><p>The exact relation of Holles to these Members of the Commons is not clear; certainly the foremost members of the ‘country’ opposition in the Commons respected Holles for his past heroic actions in the defence of Parliament against the encroachment of the crown and for his staunch advocacy of the rights of nonconformists. They may have consulted with him for advice born from his long experience but it is unlikely that they took direct orders and instructions from the aged baron. Most of them were far more radical and vociferous in their opposition to the court – and especially in their hatred towards Danby and Catholics – than the more moderate Holles, who was to spend the last months of his life defending both Danby and York from the more extreme measures projected against them.</p><p>When Charles II dissolved Parliament on 24 Jan. 1679, he did not include many of the other conditions to which he had agreed, such as Danby’s resignation, the declaration setting limits on the duration and frequency of Parliaments, and an interim committee to investigate the Popish Plot, which suggests that Barrillon may have been exaggerating Holles’ influence in the political life of the period. Holles attended on the opening day of the new Parliament, 6 Mar., and on every day before the prorogation on 13 Mar., being named to four committees. He was in his place again when the new session began on 15 Mar., and missed only four of the first 15 days before 1 April. On 19 Mar., the House considered the report of the committee for privileges on whether petitions of appeal and impeachments determined with the Parliament. Holles argued apropos of impeachments that there was ‘no abatement by dissolution if the attorney-general dies’, so there was no abatement as the knights of the shire and burgesses never die.<sup>108</sup> On 9 May he was excused at a call of the House because of sickness, but was present on the following day and every day except 15 May, until his final attendance on 16 May.</p><p>It has been suggested that Holles’ absences were strategically planned to coincide with periods of the aggressive prosecution of Danby, as he may have felt duty bound to protect Danby owing to his part in securing the dissolution. According to Morrice, Holles said during a debate in the House</p><blockquote><p>that if the lord treasurer … were not only guilty of all those crimes and misdemeanours he was accused of but of far greater, yet this common blessing that he had had the happiness and honour to be the chief instrument in procuring from his majesty did at least merit a pardon from the kingdom.<sup>109</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although in or about March 1679 Danby initially considered Holles a likely opponent in his impeachment hearings, two lists of a slightly later date indicate Holles’ position as ‘doubtful’ and then merely noted him as ‘absent’.<sup>110</sup> On 22 Mar. he was named to the committee established to draw up a bill disabling Danby from holding office or sitting in Parliament, but he was absent from the House on the following day and for the succeeding four meetings, until 28 March. He was absent again from 2 Apr., the day after the bill for Danby’s attainder was first read in the House, until 10 May.</p><p>Holles was appointed to the revamped Privy Council on 20 Apr. 1679. On the day following his return, 11 May, he was named to the joint committee of Lords and Commons discussing the procedures for the trial of the treasurer and the Catholic lords. On 16 May, stricken with gout, he left the chamber again, this time never to return, being noted as absent from a debate on the bishops on 19 May as ‘his gout has changed his stomach for his foot’.<sup>111</sup> He had attended 17 days of the session, 28 per cent of the total, and had been named to a further six committees. In May 1679 he was given responsibility for Sussex (along with Shaftesbury and Essex) in the regulation of the bench undertaken by the council.<sup>112</sup></p><p>At the beginning of July, Barrillon noted that the presbyterians ‘would be stronger if Lord Holles had more health and energy to attend to affairs, but his great age keeps him away from business. He is however consulted by all the parties and his advice is followed’. The goal of Holles and the presbyterians, Barrilon went on to note,</p><blockquote><p>is to establish a good form of government according to the laws of England [and] not to push the Catholics to the limit and make them desperate by their complete ruin. They hate episcopal government and greatly fear that these disorders will provide an opportunity to the court to establish a greater authority.</p></blockquote><p>Before the dissolution of July 1679 Barrillon emphasized to Louis XIV Holles’ political importance as the leader of these ‘presbyterians’ who held the important swing votes in any division and whose adherence and alliance both Shaftesbury and Sunderland (whom Barrillon saw as the leaders of the two parties which divided the court) actively solicited.<sup>113</sup> Although plagued by ill health, Holles remained well informed: when a visitor attempted to persuade him to attend the council at Hampton Court on 10 July, he was able to recount the events of the previous meeting on 3 July, when the dissolution was debated, noting ‘I think the French ambassador told me so, and who were for it and who were against it particularly by name, thus you keep the king’s secrets’.<sup>114</sup> Two days after the dissolution of 12 July, Henry Sydney*, the future earl of Romney, recorded Charles II as saying that he had ‘great hopes of this Parliament, and had more because Lord Holles was so angry at it’.<sup>115</sup></p><p>Holles’ attitude towards Danby remained ambivalent. He may have wished to protect Danby from the full extent of the penalties that the Commons envisaged in thanks for his role in achieving the dissolution of Parliament, but he was also annoyed that Danby and the king had not fully upheld their part of the agreement of January 1679. He was especially angry at the king’s pardon to the lord treasurer, which tried to circumvent Parliament’s impeachment proceedings. He attacked Danby indirectly, through the bishops who had been a prop to his ministry and were to play such an important role in the defence of the lord treasurer. Reprising his role as a ‘root and brancher’ from 1641, he vigorously opposed the right of the bishops to vote in capital cases in the House and made his views clear, ‘with great vehemence’, on the issue in a work published anonymously immediately after the prorogation, and he responded to the many attacks on this work in another book, published posthumously.<sup>116</sup> His intemperate animus against the clerical pretensions of the bishops led him to make a number of contradictory arguments in these works. An opponent of popery, Holles found himself having to uphold the validity of Catholic canon law, which prohibited clergymen from judging in cases involving the shedding of blood. At the same time he denied that the bishops were a separate clerical estate in Parliament, and claimed instead that they only sat in the House because of their status as holders of temporal baronies, an argument which could be used to allow bishops to sit in judgment in capital cases as just another set of temporal peers. Other authors such as Edward Stillingfleet*, the future bishop of Worcester, dismissed Holles’ arguments in more reasoned scholarly tomes.<sup>117</sup></p><p>On 6 Dec. 1679 Holles was one of the signatories of the petition presented to the king on the following day, calling for the immediate convening of Parliament.<sup>118</sup> On 9 Dec. Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> sent to Ormond a proposed bill promoted by some moderate men stressing expedients, rather than exclusion, noting that Holles and Littleton had particularly ‘laboured in it’.<sup>119</sup> Barrillon, too, reassured Louis XIV in a dispatch of early December that Holles ‘is very moderate on the subject of the duke of York, and declares he cannot consent to his exclusion; but, at the same time he is of opinion that the power of a Catholic king of England should be limited’. Holles was important as ‘the man of all England for whom the different cabals have the most consideration. He is respected in general by all parties, but principally by the presbyterians.’ Further, ‘although he does not often go to Parliament, he is consulted by many people, and his advice has great weight’.<sup>120</sup> In a later letter written just before Holles’ death in early 1680 the French ambassador wrote that Holles ‘would like to see both sides restrain themselves within legitimate limits, and would be satisfied to see England governed according to the laws which are established there’, a fitting summary of the political principles which had guided Holles throughout his long parliamentary career.<sup>121</sup> York, too, was favourably disposed to Holles, writing from Scotland on 29 Jan. 1680, to ensure that Holles be informed that he had not spoken ill of him,</p><blockquote><p>for I have long looked on him as very much my friend, and when so ever it has come in my way to talk of him have always said it, and that I knew him to be a man of as great honour as any man living, tho in some things we did not agree, I do not remember I so much as named him, I am sure if I did, it must have been what I have now said, and nothing to his prejudice.<sup>122</sup></p></blockquote><p>Holles died on 17 Feb. 1680, at his house in Covent Garden, and was buried in the parish church of St Peter’s, Dorchester on 10 Apr., at which ceremony Morrice observed that ‘as great respects and honour [were] paid to his memory by the town and country as hath ever been known, and more coaches and horsemen attended his corpse out of the city than (as it’s said) has ever been seen’, Anglesey recording on 6 Apr. that he had ‘sent my coach to Lord Holles, his funeral’.<sup>123</sup> Strafford wrote to Halifax about the death of his uncle, who would be ‘much wanted by the public’ as well as himself.<sup>124</sup> And it seems that the event removed an influential figure capable of mediating between the different factions of the opposition.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Holles left to his only surviving son, Francis Holles*, 2nd Baron Holles, an estate which creditors anxious for payment of Holles’ substantial debts claimed was worth between £3,000 and £6,000 p.a. in land and with ‘a magnificent and noble personal estate in money, debts, plate, jewels’ worth between £20,000 and £50,000.<sup>126</sup> The ultimate beneficiary of his estates was his great nephew, John Holles*, duke of Newcastle. Indeed, when on 8 Apr. 1699 Lady Anne Clinton reported seeing Holles’ <em>Memoirs</em>, she noted it had ‘a dedication to Oliver Cromwell, but not in his praises at all. Whoever puts it forth is nameless but dedicates it to the duke of Newcastle.’<sup>127</sup></p><p>Holles had one of the longest and most active parliamentary careers of any figure of the seventeenth century. He had made his mark in the Commons as a young man in the late 1620s, and was a leader of the ‘peace party’ and of the presbyterians in the Long Parliament before Pride’s Purge, and helped to oversee the restoration of Charles II. His later years and membership of the Lords have usually been glossed over on the assumption that he had passed his prime. Yet a closer examination of his activity in the Lords in the 1670s suggests that, however old-fashioned some of his political precepts may have been, he remained an important figure in the House and was probably the most aggressive and respected defender of its judicial rights and privileges. Holles was always keen to protect his rights and his dignity, bringing a case of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> in 1678 against one Edward Brisco for saying, when challenged about hunting on Holles’ land, that Holles was ‘so greedy and covetous, that none but rogues and Frenchmen will serve him’, and that he was a gentleman before Holles was a lord.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Holles was respected by figures in the ‘country’ opposition in both the Lords and Commons and was an influential figure to be reckoned with by all parties in Parliament and the government, even in the months leading up to his death. His posthumous reputation has seen many changes. Revered as a Whig hero after the Revolution, especially following the efforts of his eventual heir, Newcastle, to claim a direct political lineage, more recent judgments have concentrated on his ‘failures’, especially in the 1640s, when it has been claimed that his political judgment was overwhelmed by his fiery passions and overweening pride.<sup>129</sup> Perhaps the final word should belong to Burnet, who knew Holles well from the time of the French embassy, and relied on his recollections of events in the 1640s for sections of his <em>History of My Own Time</em>. Holles was ‘a man of great courage, and as great pride; he was counted for many years the head of the Presbyterian party. He was faithful and firm to his side, and never changed through the whole course of his life’. ‘Well versed in the records of Parliament’, he ‘argued well, but too vehemently, for he could not bear contradiction’. Burnet likened his soul to that ‘of an old stubborn Roman . . . He was a faithful but rough friend, and a severe but fair enemy. He had a true sense of religion, and was a man of unblamable course of life, and of a sound judgment when it was not biased by passion’.<sup>130</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L./S.N.H. |
|
HOLLES, Denzil (1675-94) |
<p><strong><surname>HOLLES</surname></strong>, <strong>Denzil</strong> (1675–94)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 2 July 1692 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. HOLLES. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 26 Apr. 1675, o. s. of Francis Holles*, 2nd Bar. Holles and 2nd w. Anne (<em>d</em>. 8 Mar. 1682), da. of Sir Francis Pile, bt., of Compton Beauchamp, Berks.; <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 24 Jan. 1694; <em>admon</em>. 10 Feb. 1694 to cos. Ann Smith.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Denzell Holles was the only surviving son, and indeed only surviving child, of Francis Holles, 2nd Baron Holles. He died while still a minor of pleurisy, and at his death the barony of Holles became extinct. His estate, estimated to be worth £5,000-6,000, passed to his closest male Holles relation, his 2nd cousin John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle).<sup>2</sup> When Clare inherited the estate, with its lands in Sussex, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Kent, Wiltshire, Dorset and Yorkshire, it was encumbered with a debt of over £40,000, including interest. The income was calculated at £6,000 p.a. but at least half of the lands were mortgaged as well.<sup>3</sup> In February 1697, the duke of Newcastle (as Clare had become), pushed through Parliament an ‘Act for the speedy satisfaction of the debts of Francis, Lord Holles’, which effectively allowed him to set aside the detailed charges placed on the estate in the 2nd baron’s will and devote the entirety of the income and sales of the Holles estate to clearing his debts.<sup>4</sup> However, as late as 1715, when the estate had passed to Thomas Pelham Holles*, duke of Newcastle, creditors were still petitioning Parliament for the satisfaction of their claims on the estate.<sup>5</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOLLES, Francis (1627-92) |
<p><strong><surname>HOLLES</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1627–92)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 17 Feb. 1680 as 2nd Bar. HOLLES |
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1680; last sat 12 Apr. 1690 |
|
MP, Lostwithiel 20 Jan. 1647, Wiltshire 1654, Dorchester 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.)-17 Feb. 1680 |
<p><em>b</em>. 19 Aug. 1627, o. surv. s. of Denzil Holles*, later Bar. Holles, and 1st w. Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1640), da. of Sir Francis Ashley<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1645-8;<sup>1</sup> M. Temple 1648, called 1661; Clare, Camb. 1651. <em>m</em>. (1) 22 Aug. 1661 (with £6,000), Lucy (<em>d</em>. 15 Sept. 1667), da. of Sir Robert Carr, 2nd bt., of Sleaford, Lincs., 2da.( <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 9 June 1670, Anne (<em>d</em>. 8 Mar. 1682), da. of Sir Francis Pile, 2nd bt., of Compton Beauchamp, Berks. 1s. 1da. (<em>d.v.p</em>.)<sup>2</sup> <em>cr</em>. bt. 27 June 1660. <em>d</em>. c. 28 June 1692;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 3 Sept. 1680, pr. 4 Mar. 1695.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>J.p., Dorset 1647-8, 1650-?53, Mar. 1660-80, 1682-5, Wilts. 1653-80; commr. assessment, Dorset and Wilts. 1648, 1657, Dorset Aug. 1660-80, Westminster 1673-80, militia, Dorset and Wilts. 1648, 1660.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>The obscurity and inactivity of Francis Holles stand in marked contrast to the fame and industry of his father; perhaps he decided from early in his career that it was not worth competing on the public stage with his energetic father. In the midst of the elder Holles’s struggles as leader of the Presbyterians in the Long Parliament, Francis was given a pass to travel in France in 1645, and he appears to have been there, with his cousin Gilbert Holles*, later 3rd earl of Clare, in 1646. He was elected as a recruiter for Lostwithiel in 1647 but did not return from France to take his seat until a year later, in January 1648, and was excluded at Pride’s Purge at the end of the year.<sup>6</sup> He sat again, this time for Wiltshire, in the first Protectorate Parliament in 1654 and resumed his seat in the Long Parliament at the readmission of members in February 1660. In June 1660 he stood for the Yorkshire constituency of Northallerton after Francis Lascelles<sup>‡</sup> had been deprived of his seat because of his involvement in the trial of Charles I. Holles had no known connection with Yorkshire and may have been put forward because of his connection with his father, at that point the leading Presbyterian in the Commons. He was involved in a double return with the local squire George Marwood<sup>‡</sup>. No proceedings on this case in the elections committee are recorded in the Commons Journals, and neither candidate appears to have taken his seat.<sup>7</sup></p><p>He was created a baronet of Winterbourne St Martin in Dorset on 27 June 1660, property he had inherited from his grandfather Sir Francis Ashley<sup>‡</sup> in 1648, although he had mortgaged it heavily by the time of his baronetcy.<sup>8</sup> This honour was perhaps a prelude to the eventual elevation of his father to a barony less than a year later. In August 1661, Sir Francis married Lucy Carr, daughter of Sir Robert Carr. Baron Holles did not approve of his son’s marriage at first, presumably because of Carr’s shaky financial affairs and the known dissension within his family. The bride’s portion of £6,000 was not firmly secured before the marriage, which prevented Baron Holles from finalizing his part of the settlement. ‘It was Sir Edward Rossiter<sup>‡</sup> [Denzil Holles’s nephew by marriage and Lucy Carr’s cousin] that first proposed the match, who did manage the treaty of it and perfect it’, Holles later complained. ‘And if my son would have been ruled by me, and followed my advice, he had not been married before he had received his portion, and then all the trouble that hath since followed would have been prevented’.<sup>9</sup> The ‘trouble’ really arose after Sir Robert and Lucy Carr’s deaths within about a month of each other in late 1667, after which the 3rd baronet, also Sir Robert<sup>‡</sup>, who had long been at war with his parents over the estate, effectively stopped the payment of the portion. From 1671 the Holleses, father and son, launched a number of suits in chancery to force payment of the £6,000 and the interest due on it.<sup>10</sup> In May 1682 chancery ordered Carr and his heirs to pay Holles £10,360 as arrears of the original portion with the interest due and further ordered that the estate was to be sold to pay these debts. In February 1686 Lord Chancellor George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, decreed that Carr’s heirs and trustees (Isabella, his only surviving child, being at that time a minor) had to pay additional interest on the existing debt of £10,360, amounting to a new sum of over £16,000.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Sir Francis seems to have acted as his father’s agent in England during Lord Holles’s embassy in France and earned himself stinging rebukes from his father for his shortcomings, especially for his tardiness in sending on the bills of exchange which were to serve as the ambassador’s salary.<sup>12</sup> He was elected for the first two Exclusion Parliaments for Dorchester, although he had long ceased to have any local connections with the borough. Shaftesbury considered him ‘honest’ but he appears to have been largely inactive.<sup>13</sup> He did not sit in the Commons during the second Exclusion Parliament, as his father’s death in February 1680 propelled him into the Lords before the Parliament actually sat. He first appears in the House’s attendance list on 20 Nov. 1680, but he did not take the oaths until six days later. Having conveniently missed the controversial vote on exclusion, he proceeded to sit only a further seven times during the first week of December. On his penultimate day in the House he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later Duke of Leeds), considered him one of ‘such as I conceive if they vote not for me will be neuters’ during his attempt to win bail from the Tower in March 1681, but Holles did not attend the Oxford Parliament.</p><p>Similarly, he only attended the very first day of James II’s Parliament and never came to the House again during that reign. It is not immediately clear whether this was caused by opposition to the new king’s policies. His loyalty appears to have been suspected, at least locally, for one of his country houses was searched and his arms seized by the deputy lieutenants in Dorset during Monmouth’s rebellion.<sup>14</sup> In the spring of 1687 one political observer suggested that Holles was a possible supporter of James’s attempts to repeal the Test Act. This may have been due to Holles’s known Presbyterian sympathies, inherited from his father and characteristic of the extended Holles clan. Holles allied with an equally Presbyterian family in his second marriage, and Roger Morrice, his father’s former chaplain, described his second wife, Anne Pile, at her death in 1682 as ‘a most prudent and serious lady’.<sup>15</sup> Holles may also have been deemed sympathetic to James’s policies at first because of the favour recently shown Holles by Jeffreys’s punishing ruling against the Carr estate. Later lists of late 1687 and early 1688 alter this view though, and regarded Holles as an opponent of the king’s policies.</p><p>He did not take an active part in the Revolution nor in political life after the change of the regime. When he was summoned to attend the House in late January 1689 he responded with a letter explaining that he was unable to come as he was ‘under several infirmities, accompanied with old age, being about sixty years’.<sup>16</sup> He later thanked George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, for being the means of procuring his dispensation from attendance on the House.<sup>17</sup> In the end he only attended two days of the Convention, on 16 and 18 Mar. 1689, well after the most contentious votes on the disposition of the crown were over. Although absent during that session, he was involved in a piece of business. On 28 Mar. 1689 John Hervey*, later earl of Bristol, and his wife Isabella, only daughter and heir of Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>, submitted their petition against the chancery decrees levelled against them in 1682 and 1686. The petitioners argued, among other points, that the first Baron Holles had never performed the conditions of the marriage settlement and had not provided Lucy Carr with a jointure.<sup>18</sup> The House considered the arguments of both sides in early May. On 9 May it upheld the original 1682 decree but reversed that of the now reviled Jeffreys, whose punitive judgment may have amounted to an act of posthumous revenge against the active Whig and Exclusionist Sir Robert Carr.</p><p>Holles was not present for any of the proceedings of his case and appears to have only come to the House once more, on 12 Apr. 1690. He lived in obscurity, and most likely ill health, at his manor house in Aldenham in Hertfordshire, which the first Baron Holles had purchased in 1664. He died in late June 1692. His long, detailed and pious will placed a number of charges on his estate to provide for diverse charitable and religious bequests as well as to build and adorn monuments for various family members. What he did not take into consideration when composing this will in 1680 were the many debts which he and his father had accumulated and which remained outstanding at the time of his death. An act was passed in 1697 which allowed his eventual heir John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, to bypass the terms of his will and devote the estate’s income to the payment of debts, but as late as 1715 creditors were still petitioning Parliament to introduce measures to satisfy their claims.<sup>19</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOLLES, Gilbert (1633-89) |
<p><strong><surname>HOLLES</surname></strong>, <strong>Gilbert</strong> (1633–89)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1637-66 Ld. Haughton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 2 Jan. 1666 as 3rd earl of CLARE |
|
First sat 3 Dec. 1666; last sat 28 Apr. 1687 |
|
MP Nottinghamshire 1660 |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Apr. 1633, 2nd but o. surv. s. of John Holles*, 2nd earl of Clare and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1683), da. and coh. of Horace Vere<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Vere of Tilbury. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Holland, Germany, France, Italy) 1645-55.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 9 July 1655 (with £8,000), Grace (<em>d</em>.1702), da. of William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>, of Thoresby, Notts., 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. <em>d</em>. 16 Jan. 1689; <em>will</em> June 1686-28 May 1687, pr. 20 July 1689.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. militia, Notts. and Lincs. 1660;<sup>3</sup> dep. lt. Notts. 1660-6.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Holles was born in Hackney, the sixth child of 16. He spent much of his youth abroad, travelling with Francis Holles*, son of Denzil Holles*, the future Baron Holles.<sup>5</sup> He was brought up in a strict Presbyterianism which helped him develop, judging by his long and introspective will, into a stern and dour Calvinist in his later years. His mother, daughter of the great military leader of the Protestant cause, obviously had an important influence on him, and he devoted much of his will to praising her for her ‘eminent virtue and piety’ and the ‘assurance’ she had at her death of ‘the joy set before her in a spiritual view’. When the dowager countess of Clare died in 1683 she was also lauded by Roger Morrice as ‘a very eminent example of self-denial, charity and practical godliness’.<sup>6</sup> The Holles clan were patrons of nonconformist ministers and meeting-houses. In 1676 a list of conventicles in the capital noted that the dowager countess of Clare and the 3rd earl’s sister Lady Clinton (widow of Edward Clinton<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Clinton and mother of Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln) were frequenters of conventicles in Westminster and in Covent Garden. Richard Baxter also noted among his chief benefactors at this time, Lady Clare, Lady Clinton, and another of Clare’s sisters, Lady Eleanor Holles.<sup>7</sup> In his political formation, Clare’s uncle Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, may have been important as after the Restoration he was an acknowledged leader of the Presbyterian party urging a relaxation of the restrictions on membership of the Church of England. His father-in-law, William Pierrpont, had also been a leading member among the Parliamentarians during the Civil War and maintained his Presbyterian sympathies well after 1660.</p><p>By the end of his life Clare did not think highly of his father-in-law and he was most scathing about his own father. He saw fit to comment in his will that ‘my father’s severity to me none can be ignorant of who know anything of my family’, an upbringing which may have made him, as he himself described, ‘much addicted to a natural melancholy’. In his later years he wrote bitterly of the ‘low condition my father left me’ and ‘the great necessity I was reduced to’, complaining that he was kept on an allowance of £300 a year until his marriage in July 1655<strong>. </strong>Clare suspected that his father-in-law had taken advantage of him when arranging a £7,000 p.a. jointure for Grace in the marriage settlement, and resented him for foisting on him a lively wife with whom he was thoroughly incompatible. He spent much of his long will of 1686-7 accusing his wife, whom he never even mentions by name, of stealing from his measly inheritance to fund her own ‘gadding usually from morning to night’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In 1660 Lord Haughton and his father-in-law were elected as knights of the shire for Nottinghamshire in the Convention. He did not stand in 1661 and Pierrepont was defeated, probably owing to their Presbyterian sympathies.<sup>9</sup> On 2 July 1662 Haughton fought a duel with Sir George Savile*, the future marquess of Halifax. Haughton ‘sent the challenge by Frescheville Holles<sup>‡</sup>, provoked by some words, wherein he saith Sir George had unhandsomely reflected upon him: it was accepted, next morning they met with their seconds, Francis Holles and Charles Bates: all four fought together’, Haughton wounding his opponent, before the quarrel was composed.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Clare succeeded his father at the beginning of 1666 but did not take his seat in the Lords at the first opportunity. He was excused attendance at a call of the House on 1 Oct. 1666 and first took his seat in the Lords on 3 Dec., almost halfway through the session of 1666-7. He continued to attend that session regularly thereafter, being present on 49 days of the session, just over 55 per cent of the total, and being named to six committees. Barely two weeks into his attendance, Clare’s uncle by his Pierrepont wife, Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, was involved in a violent and embarrassing altercation with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, at a conference with the Commons. Dorchester quickly submitted to the House and Clare was assigned on 22 Dec. the task of retrieving him from his incarceration in the Tower and bringing him before the House to receive its commands to keep the peace.</p><p>Clare was present on the opening day of the 1667-8 session on 10 Oct. 1667. His primary interest in the first part of the session, before its adjournment on 19 Dec., was the passage through Parliament of a bill for settling part of his father’s estate and allowing him to dispose another part in order to pay his father’s debts and the portions of his siblings. His later strictures on his father had some foundation, as the 2nd earl left his heir about £26,000 in debt and four unmarried daughters, each entitled to a portion of £4,000. Clare’s freedom of manoeuvre had been curtailed by his father placing his valuable Middlesex properties in a debt trust. The bill returned to him control of the whole estate and allowed him to sell off parts of it, including the entailed Nottinghamshire properties, to pay the debts and provide the marriage portions for his sisters and for his own young daughters. The bill received a first reading on 15 Oct. 1667, spent most of November in committee with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey in the chair, and with Richard Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset chairing a final meeting on 6 Dec., where amendments were tabled. It was managed through the Commons by Sir Thomas Gower<sup>‡</sup>, and eventually received the royal assent on the day of adjournment, 19 December.<sup>11</sup> Clare had attended on all but two days of the session before the adjournment, 49 in all, 96 per cent of the total and was named to nine committees. Clare was absent when the session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668, being excused attendance at the call of the House on 17 Feb. and first attending on 13 April. He was present on 22 days, a third of the total, and was named to two committees.</p><p>Clare attended on each day of the 1669 session, 36 in all, and was named to seven committees. On 21 Oct. 1669 he registered Dorchester’s proxy. On 20 Oct. Clare had complained to the House of the breach of privilege by James Vosper and Samuel Francklyn, a proctor of the prerogative court of Canterbury. Together they had tried to have the will of Clare’s sister, Lady Frances Holles, proved in the archdeaconry court of Middlesex, in order, Clare claimed, to avoid the caveat he had entered against the will in the prerogative court of Canterbury. Franklyn appeared on 25 Oct., acknowledging that he had known about Clare’s caveat and the proceedings of the Lady Eleanor and Lady Diana Holles in proving the will in the archdeacon’s court, but claiming that he had not acted in it himself. The matter was then turned over to the committee for privileges. On 29 Oct. a judge, Sir Thomas Twysden, and Dr Timothy Baldwyn, a civilian, were ordered to assist the committee. The matter was not determined during this session, principally because Vosper failed to attend the committee for privileges when summoned.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Clare was present when the 1670-1 session opened on 14 Feb. 1670. On the following day he registered Dorchester’s proxy, which he retained until 24 October. On 21 Mar. 1670 he registered the proxy of John Poulett*, 3rd Baron Poulett. He may have used this extra vote when voting against the second conventicle act, to whose passage he dissented on 26 March. On 8 Apr. he dissented to the acceptance of the brandy duty in the supply bill. In the first part of the session until the adjournment on 11 Apr., he was present on 30 days, 71.4 per cent of the total and was named to ten committees.</p><p>Clare was absent when the session resumed on 24 Oct. 1670, being excused at a call of House on 14 Nov., and first attending on 23 November. Thereafter he attended on every day of the remainder of this part of the session, 108 days in all, 86 per cent of the total and was named to 27 committees. Two days before his first recorded attendance, the unresolved privilege case against Vosper and Franklyn was raised in the House, whereupon Vosper was ordered to attend the committee for privileges on 28 November. On 10 Dec. Francklyn and Vosper were again summoned to appear before the committee. On 19 Dec. the two men and other witnesses were heard, and the committee determined that Clare could not sufficiently prove a breach of privilege and he agreed to withdraw his complaint. His sister’s will was later proved in the prerogative court of Canterbury on 8 Apr. 1671.<sup>13</sup> Clare made a major intervention in the House on 28 Feb. 1671 on the day when John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, made his infamous speech against the subsidy bill. Clare seconded the motion and then inveighed against the king’s presence in the chamber, urging him to depart so that the House could debate matters freely, but he was not supported by any other lords, and the king, ignoring his comments, continued to attend that day and the following days.<sup>14</sup> On 9 Mar. Clare dissented from the resolutions not to commit and then not to engross the bill concerning privilege of Parliament. He attended for the prorogation on 30 Oct. 1672.</p><p>Clare attended on all 38 days of the 1673 session, which began on 4 Feb., and was named to 12 committees. On 19 May 1673 Clare wrote to Sir Edward Harley<sup>†</sup> from Haughton of his disappointment at not meeting Harley again in town after they had met at the home of Horatio Townshend*, Baron Townshend, noting that, as a courtier, Townshend would be able to serve him much better: ‘alas what can a poor country gentleman do but wish you well, and that your merit must needs gain from all’.<sup>15</sup> He did not attend the four-day session in October-November 1673.</p><p>Clare was present on the opening day of the 1674 session on 7 January. He attended on 36 of the 38 days of the session, nearly 95 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. His political colours were now clear even to Dorchester. Always a supporter of the king and court interest, Dorchester switched his proxy to James Stuart*, duke of York, who was to become the target of Clare and his associates during the session. According to Sir Gilbert Talbot<sup>‡</sup>, Clare was part of the ‘combination betwixt the discontented and turbulent commons in the south-east corner of our house and some hotspurs in the upper’ noted during that session and, with Halifax, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, was considered one of the ‘most forward’ in the House.<sup>16</sup> Clare overreached himself on 24 Jan. 1674, when his associates including Salisbury, Halifax and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, proposed a series of measures against York. He also attacked the king for talking to some peers privately by the fireside and again complained of the king’s presence in the House, ‘for it was an overawing of them’. This time he was called upon to make good his allegation, ‘but he did it so ill he was called to the bar to beg pardon and confess his fault’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In late April 1674 Clare seems to have been taking advice on a possible tutor for his sons, which seems to have been the prelude to a journey abroad, as in early August Clare was expecting to leave England in about two weeks.<sup>18</sup> On 2 Sept. Anglesey reported that he had seen the king ‘and moved the earl of Clare’s business’, which was followed on the 6th by Anglesey attending ‘the king with the earl of Clare and his sons’.<sup>19</sup> According to the licence granted on 4 Sept. the ostensible reason for his trip was for his own health and the education of his two sons, but he may also have been anxious to avoid the increasingly controversial politics in the country.<sup>20</sup> On 24 Nov. 1674 he was reported to have ‘gone for Rome’.<sup>21</sup> In January 1675 it was noted that ‘Clare’s stiffness at Rome make many smile here, and enquire what made him there’, and by February 1675 he was in Venice but expected to back in England by Michaelmas.<sup>22</sup> He was listed as outside the country at the calls of the House on 29 Apr. and 10 Nov. 1675 and 9 Mar. 1677 and was therefore unable to lend his voice against the non-resisting Test Bill in 1675. The educational value of the journey may not have been apparent, for at the end of 1679 Clare was sounding out the advisability of sending his two younger sons to Samuel Birch’s dissenting academy at Shilton.<sup>23</sup></p><p>While incarcerated in the Tower in 1677-8 Shaftesbury classed Clare as ‘thrice worthy’ in his assessment of peers. On 6 Feb. 1678 Clare wrote to Harley suggesting that his ‘stay in the country’ would not be long, ‘if you continue sitting, for I judge it my duty to be there, though I signify one of the least in our House, nor to say truth, does the whole much, especially not till yours affords us work, so that our absence at the first may be excusable, however you’ll give me leave to use it as an argument to justify myself’.<sup>24</sup> Although he was excused attendance at the call of the House on 16 Feb. 1678, Clare was true to his word, first attending on 26 February. On 15 Mar. 1678 he signed the address asking for an immediate declaration of war against France.<sup>25</sup> He attended on 30 days of the session, 49 per cent of the total and was named to six committees. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. Clare was present when the next session opened, a few days later, on 23 May 1678. He attended on 39 days of the session, 90 per cent of the total and was named to 21 committees. On 7 June he protested against the resolution to proceed with the consideration of the claims of Robert Danvers*, alias Villiers, to the viscountcy of Purbeck and on 8 July against the decision in favour of the appeal of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, in his dispute in equity with Lewis Watson*, later earl of Rockingham.</p><p>Clare was absent from the Lords when the session began on 21 Oct. 1678. On 31 Oct. the House ordered the lord chancellor to write to absent peers; Clare was one of the recipients.<sup>26</sup> He first attended on 25 Nov., being present on 28 days of the session, almost 48 per cent of the total and was named to four committees. On 29 Nov. he was one of 11 peers who agreed with the Commons for an address to the king to remove the queen and all Catholics from Whitehall, and then he was one of only three to protest against the rejection of this motion. He dissented to the resolution of 20 Dec. to agree with the amendments to the disbanding bill. Then on 26 Dec. he voted against adhering to the Lords amendment placing the receipt of the money in the exchequer and entered his protest against it. Yet he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for a conference to discuss the House’s resolve to adhere to its amendments. Clare also joined in the attack on Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), entering his protest on the 23 Dec. at the failure of the motion that Danby should withdraw, and voting on the 27th to commit him and protesting against the House’s failure to so order.</p><p>In about March 1679 Danby listed Clare as a likely opponent in any parliamentary proceedings against him. In March-April 1679 two of Danby’s assessments still had him as an opponent, although one had a query about his reliability. On 12 Mar. he was listed as an absent opponent, and indeed Clare did miss the short session of 6-13 Mar. 1679. He was also absent when the new Parliament met on 15 Mar. 1679, first attending on 29 March. He then attended most days of the session, being present on 47 days of the session, just over 77 per cent of the total, and was named to eight committees. In April 1679 Danby listed him as supporting the early stages of the attainder bill against him, and on 4 Apr. he was content to pass the bill, as he was again on the 14th, after it had been agreed that the attainder would come into force if Danby had not surrendered by 21 April.</p><p>On 7 Apr. 1679 he also registered his dissent against the commitment of John Sidway for his spurious allegations against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely and other bishops. He took issue with the proposed reformulation of the Privy Council, complaining against Charles’s extraordinary appointment of his cousin Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, as a ‘prince of the blood … which his lordship observed was a language not so well understood in England’.<sup>27</sup> He entered his dissent on 8 and 10 May to the refusal of the House to sanction the appointment of a committee of both Houses to discuss the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, having been listed as voting for it on the 10th. He entered other dissents on 13 May against the resolution that the bishops had a right to stay in court in capital cases until the judgment of death was pronounced; twice on 23 May on procedural matters on Danby’s impeachment, which meant that the trial of the five Catholic Lords would precede Danby’s; and on 27 May against the motion re-affirming the rights of the bishops in capital cases.</p><p>Clare attended the prorogations on 26 Jan., 15 Apr., 17 May and 1 July 1680. On 28 Nov. 1679 Clare may have been one of the ‘addressing Lords’, endeavouring to persuade the lord mayor to call a common council to support their petition for the sitting of Parliament. He was certainly present on 1 Dec. when at least seven peers dined with the lord mayor with the same end in view. One account has Clare proposing a toast to Monmouth.<sup>28</sup> He was one of the peers who signed on 6 Dec. and presented the petition to the king on the following day requesting that Parliament be convened the following month.<sup>29</sup> This advice was ignored, and with the new Parliament still prorogued, he joined with Shaftesbury and others at the end of June 1680 to submit a presentment against York as a recusant, although this action was quickly thrown out of court.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Clare was absent from the opening of the 1680-1 Parliament on 21 Oct., first attending on the 30th. From 8 Nov. he was very regular in his attendance, being present in all on 43 days of the session, just over 74 per cent of the total, and being named to four committees. On 6 Nov. 1680 Clare ‘took several informations’ against the duchess of Portsmouth before the committee of the Lords investigating the Popish Plot and then reported them to the House, but this line of inquiry was diverted by the king, Shaftesbury and others, ‘who had then the Irish Plot before them’.<sup>31</sup> Not surprisingly, he supported exclusion and dissented against the resolution rejecting the exclusion bill on its first reading on 15 Nov. 1680. He voted on 23 Nov. in favour of the establishment of a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom, and protested its rejection; he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford guilty on 7 Dec.; and dissented on 18 Dec. from the House’s rejection of a proviso in the treason trials bill; and twice on 7 Jan. 1681 against the rejection on the previous question of whether the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs, should be committed, and then against the refusal of the House to address the king in favour of his suspension.</p><p>Danby was informed in January 1681 that, in anticipation of the planned forthcoming meeting of Parliament, Clare had hosted a group of ‘the protesting lords’ for a dinner at his Westminster residence of Clare House, where Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Clare himself and six other peers signed a petition calling for the king to convene Parliament in Westminster rather than in Oxford.<sup>32</sup> The petition was not successful and Clare went to the Oxford Parliament in the company of a number of other Whig lords and accompanied by the ‘Protestant joiner’, Stephen College, as a bodyguard.<sup>33</sup> Although Danby was not above attempting to influence Clare through correspondence, he had little hope of gaining his support.<sup>34</sup> On 17 Mar. Danby forecast Clare as an opponent of any moves he might make to secure bail in the forthcoming session. Clare was present for only four of the seven meetings of the Parliament, being named to a single committee. He entered his dissent on 26 Mar. against the House’s resolution to reject the Common’s impeachment of Edward Fitzharris.</p><p>Clare continued to align himself with the opposition. He was present to support Fitzharris when he was brought before the King’s Bench to plead on 7 May.<sup>35</sup> On 8 July Clare was again in court, this time to support College at his trial and to offer himself as a surety for Shaftesbury’s bail.<sup>36</sup> On 28 Nov. 1681 he stood bail for William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, and in September 1682 he put up £2,000 as a surety for James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, when he was arrested for breaking the peace.<sup>37</sup> On 18 Oct. 1682 Clare and Howard of Escrick dined at Anglesey’s.<sup>38</sup> In March 1683 one of Clare’s tenants, a blacksmith named Rejoice Fox, went to Newmarket to depose before Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland that in spring 1682 Clare’s steward, George Cauthorne, had tried to enlist him in a plot to kill the king. Lacking further evidence, the government did not immediately take any action on this deposition, but Morrice suspected that they were keeping it in reserve to use it to strike later.<sup>39</sup> These allegations took on a new significance after the discovery of the Rye House Plot, and in the general crackdown against Whigs in the summer of 1683 Fox testified to the Privy Council that Cauthorne had said that ‘any man was an honest man that would murder the king’ and that he had exerted himself to prevent Fox from travelling to Newmarket to make his deposition to Sunderland.<sup>40</sup> In a separate action Clare was fined £320 for permitting 16 nonconformist conventicles to be held in one of his houses in St Clement Danes, although this was the subject of further legal proceedings.<sup>41</sup> In September 1683 Clare was informed by a prisoner in the Gatehouse that another detainee had attempted to get him to swear treason against Clare. By early October Morrice was able to report ‘that business of his Lordship’s [Clare], is quite at an end and Fox removed his habitation out of Clare Market … and many of the inhabitants made a bonfire and drank his lordship’s health’, and by June 1684 Clare was in turn pursuing Fox through the courts, charging him with <em>scandalum magnatum</em>.<sup>42</sup> In late 1683 and early 1684 he even acted as a defence witness for Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> and John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> at their trials, as he could testify to the inconsistencies in the main evidence given by the chief prosecution witness, the Whig turncoat Howard of Escrick.<sup>43</sup> Clare had long been a friend of Sidney, who had also been implicated in Fox’s testimony. It may even have been Clare who was the ‘person of eminent quality’ who had presciently told Sidney in April 1683 that he would ‘infallibly be made a prisoner’ and that the government would exert itself to discover some machination to find him guilty.<sup>44</sup> Cauthorne was not as fortunate as his master and was targeted by Roger L’Estrange, who felt that ‘he is a mortal enemy to the government’.<sup>45</sup> In February 1684 Cauthorne was hauled before King’s Bench for speaking seditious words and in May was found guilty.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Clare was still part of a nexus of old Presbyterian families. Indeed, on 4 and 15 July 1684 Sir Edward Harley reminded his son Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, that Clare was one of the people he should wait upon in London (as he did again in June 1688).<sup>47</sup> In 1684 Clare suffered a serious blow when his second son, his favourite child William, died of smallpox in Rotterdam while returning from the continent, where he had tried to continue the tradition of his Vere forebears by fighting for the Prince of Orange. Clare was devastated by this and two years later, when he redrafted his will in 1687, he spent most of the preamble praising the excellency of his deceased son for, among other attributes, ‘detesting those false errors of Pelagians or semi-Pelagians which I doubt this age too much abounds in’.</p><p>Clare was present on the opening day of James II’s Parliament, on 19 May 1685, being present on 29 days of the session, 93.5 per cent of the total and being named to 12 committees. He continued an opponent of James II and his policies. In the early days of the new king’s Parliament he was one of only six who voted against the motion that impeachments, such as those against the Catholic peers still in the Tower, were annulled at Parliament’s dissolution and was then one of only three to further protest on 22 May against the passage of this resolution.<sup>48</sup> He also dissented from the passage of the bill on 4 June 1685 to reverse Stafford’s attainder. He attended the adjournment of 4 Aug. 1685. He was not present when the session resumed on 9 Nov. 1685, sitting first on 16 Nov. and attending five days of the remainder of the session, almost 46 per cent of that part of the session.</p><p>In an event of some significance for the future, in May 1686 his youngest daughter, Grace, married Thomas Pelham*, the future Baron Pelham. Clare attended the prorogation on 28 Apr. 1687. Throughout 1687-8 Clare was grouped among the opponents of James II’s religious policies and the repeal of the Test Act. Henry Compton*, bishop of London, later suggested Clare as a surety for Thomas Ken*, of Bath and Wells, one of the ‘seven bishops’. On 16 Nov. 1688 Clare was one of those who subscribed to the petition to James II calling on him to summon a free parliament. Although summoned to attend meetings of the peers assembled at the Guildhall on 20 and 27 Dec. 1688, he did not do so, probably for health reasons.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Clare died in Warwick House on 16 Jan. 1689, having apparently been ‘reconciled to his lady’, with whom he would ‘not be persuaded to any accommodation’ as late as July 1688.<sup>50</sup> He was succeeded in his title and estate by his eldest son John Holles*, the future duke of Newcastle. He entailed on his only other surviving son, Denzil, a moiety of his Nottinghamshire manors and gave him a rent charge of £100 p.a. until he came of age. He gave all his personal estate to John, but specified that because the young man aped the French fashion by having liveried footmen behind his coach, and furthermore changed his livery for no reason, he was to pay his younger brother, Denzil, £2,000. He was even harsher towards his wife, consigning all her personal estate to the heir John until she repaid what he deemed she had stolen from his estate.</p> |
C.G.D.L./S.N.H. |
|
HOLLES, John (1595-1666) |
<p><strong><surname>HOLLES</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1595–1666)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Ld. Haughton 1624-37; <em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Oct. 1637 as 2nd earl of CLARE |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 5 May 1660; last sat 24 Feb. 1665 |
|
MP Gatton 1621–7 Feb. 1621; [Mitchell 1624]; East Retford 1624, 1625, 1626 |
<p><em>b</em>. 13 June 1595, 1st s. of Sir John Holles<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Clare) and Anne Stanhope (<em>d</em>. 18 Nov. 1651), da. of Sir Thomas Stanhope<sup>‡</sup> of Shelford, Notts.; bro. of Denzil Holles*, Bar. Holles. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France and Low Countries) 1605, 1615–16;<sup>1</sup> Christ’s, Camb. 1611–12;<sup>2</sup> G. Inn Feb. 1612. <em>m</em>. 4 Sept. 1626, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. Dec. 1683), da. and coh. of Horace Vere<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Vere of Tilbury, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 14da. (6 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 2 Jan. 1666; <em>will</em> 12 Aug. 1659, pr. 30 May 1666.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. northern assoc. Notts. 1645, militia. Notts. 1660;<sup>5</sup> bailiff, Barstelow and honour of Tickhill, Notts. 1642–?;<sup>6</sup> recorder, Nottingham 1642–<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> ld. lt. (parliamentarian) Notts. 1642–3; warden, Sherwood Forest Mar. 1646–at least 1654;<sup>8</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. Westminster 1660–<em>d</em>.<sup>9</sup></p> |
|
<p>Holles’ father devoted his life to consolidating and expanding the family estates in north Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, centred around Haughton, and to developing his property in the manor of St Clement Danes, Westminster. His estate, the subject of a bitter testamentary dispute between his two sons, John and Denzil, was valued at £6,800 at his death.<sup>10</sup> In 1616 Sir John bought the barony of Haughton for £10,000 and then in 1624 purchased another title, the earldom of Clare, whereupon his eldest son and heir, John, was styled Lord Haughton until he succeeded to the earldom in 1637.<sup>11</sup> Haughton was elected for both Mitchell in Cornwall and East Retford in Nottinghamshire for the 1624 Parliament and, after giving the Cornish seat to his younger brother, Denzil, he sat for the Nottinghamshire borough for that and the following two Parliaments.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Haughton’s cousin Gervase Holles<sup>‡</sup> thought him very like his grandfather, in being ‘very pleasant company, both witty and affable’, but suspected that he was too concerned with enlarging his own estate to be trustworthy.<sup>13</sup> Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, similarly felt that Clare had little political ambition, but ‘was a man of honour and of courage, and would have been an excellent person if his heart had not been too much set upon keeping and improving his estate’.<sup>14</sup> Clare displayed a bewildering political inconsistency during the civil wars. Lucy Hutchinson judged that he ‘was very often of both parties, and I think never advantaged either’.<sup>15</sup> He signed the Covenant in April 1645, although his request early in 1647 to be readmitted to the House was narrowly voted down.<sup>16</sup> Despite this, he remained a constant servant of the Parliamentarian regime and its successors in his local base of Nottinghamshire.</p><p>Clare became heavily involved the development of his property around Drury Lane in particular, where he had his principal London residence, Clare House.<sup>17</sup> In 1657 the act preventing the multiplicity of buildings in and about London made reference to the ‘great charge’ he had been at in ‘erecting several new buildings upon his inheritance in Clements-Inn Fields’, which had been ‘useful for a market’, and in protecting his rights in the area. After the Restoration, he petitioned for and was granted the right to hold a market there three times a week, he having ‘erected the needful buildings’ for it.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Clare supported the Restoration and may even, if the later testimony of the self-aggrandizing royalist soldier Sir Philip Monckton<sup>‡</sup> is to be believed, have engaged in meetings in Sherwood Forest with Monckton, Edward Rossiter<sup>‡ </sup>and Henry Cavendish*, Lord Ogle, the future 2nd duke of Newcastle, to discuss means of suppressing the insurgency led by John Lambert<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>19</sup> In the spring of 1660, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, marked Clare as one of the Lords who ‘withdrew a little’ in his assessment of attitudes towards Presbyterian peers. On 13 Apr. 1660 James Butler*, duke of Ormond, was informed that Clare, who had been with the king at Oxford ‘and so disabled from sitting in Parliament’ was ‘now resolved to sit, and encouraged by the other peers so to do’, although he wished to clear the decision with the king.<sup>20</sup> On 27 Apr. the newly gathered House of Lords wrote to Clare requesting his presence, and he took his seat on 5 May. He was formally pardoned by the king on 30 May.<sup>21</sup> Clare attended on 69 days (59 per cent) of the session, before its adjournment on 13 Sept., and was named to five committees. He did not attend when the session reconvened in November 1660.</p><p>Clare was present on the opening day of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661 and attended on 34 days (53 per cent) before the adjournment at the end of July. He was named to a single committee, on the bill for reversing the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, his former brother-in-law, whom he had tried to save back in 1640–1. He also supported another royalist kinsman when he voted on 11 July in favour of the claim of his distant relation on his wife’s side Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. He was not present when the session resumed in November 1661, and first attended on 1 Feb. 1662, sitting on 45 days (34 per cent) of this part of the session, and being named to six committees. On 14 Feb. he complained of a breach of parliamentary privilege as a warrant for his arrest had been issued on the information of William Egerton, the scavenger of Westminster. The matter was referred to the committee for privileges. On the 17th Egerton appeared at the Bar, claiming that he was illiterate and did not know that Clare’s name had been included in the warrant. Later the same day the committee took evidence from one Fountaine, clerk to Humphrey Weld<sup>‡</sup>, and from Egerton. The former they found ‘fit only to reprove him and direct that he acknowledge his fault against’ Clare, while they found Egerton more culpable and it was decided that he should be committed during the pleasure of the House. When the committee reported these findings on the 19th, Clare requested clemency towards Egerton, and he was admonished and released the following day.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Clare remained active in Nottinghamshire affairs, but in November 1662 the local commissioners entrusted with enforcing the Corporation Act, including the lord lieutenant, the marquess of Newcastle, tried to remove the earl from his place for his compliance with the preceding ‘usurping’ government. Clare, who does not appear to have generally been on close terms with his brother, on this occasion turned to Denzil for advice, and managed to procure from both Charles II and Clarendon letters assuring the commissioners that Clare’s ‘good affection and zeal to our service we have no cause at all to doubt’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Clare was not present from the beginning of the 1663 session and was absent from a call of the House on 23 February. He first attended on 29 Apr., was present on 36 days (44 per cent) and was named to three committees. He held the proxy of his brother from 3 July 1663. Holles was known as a leader of the presbyterian party opposed to the restrictive religious legislation associated with Clarendon, and in thus registering his proxy he was probably assuming that his brother held similar views. Wharton marked both brothers as probable supporters of the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon in mid-July and he explicitly noted that Clare held Holles’ proxy.</p><p>Clare attended on only three days of the March–May 1664 session, and was absent from a call of the House on 4 April. He also missed the beginning of the 1664–5 session, being absent from a call of the House on 7 Dec. 1664. Notwithstanding his absence, he was able to prosecute a complaint of breach of privilege on 1 Dec. 1664 against a verdict of ejectment that had been decreed against tenants in his property in the manor of St Clement Danes, with the House ruling on the 5th that if Clare owned the properties to be his, the verdict and the proceedings on it would be laid aside. He first attended on 17 Feb. 1665, sitting on six days (12 per cent) of the session and being named to two committees. He last sat on 24 Feb. 1665.</p><p>Clare died on 2 Jan. 1666. At the time of his last recorded rentals, from 1664–5, he had an income of £6,626 (his son later estimated the income at £7,000 p.a.).<sup>24</sup> Having settled his estate on the marriage of his son in 1655, Clare’s brief will gave his personal estate in Clare House to his wife, in lieu of her customary rights under the province of York, and directed that his personal estate at Haughton and his house in Nottingham should be sold for the payment of his debts, amounting to about £26,000, and raising portions of £4,000 each for his four unmarried daughters. If she did not renounce her right, his wife was to be replaced as executor by his brother-in-law, Sir John Wolstenholm<sup>‡</sup>. By previous deeds he had conveyed lands in Middlesex to trustees to help pay his debts and his daughters’ portions.<sup>25</sup> He was succeeded by his son Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, who, within two years of coming into his inheritance, petitioned Parliament for a private bill giving him control of both the Nottinghamshire and the Middlesex properties in order to settle his father’s outstanding debts.<sup>26</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L./S.N.H. |
|
HOLLES, John (1662-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>HOLLES</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1662–1711)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1666-89 Ld. Haughton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 16 Jan. 1689 as 4th earl of CLARE; <em>cr. </em>14 May 1694 duke of NEWCASTLE |
|
First sat 24 Jan. 1689; last sat 7 June 1711 |
|
MP Nottinghamshire 14-16 Jan. 1689 |
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Jan. 1662, 1st s. of Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, and Grace (<em>d</em>.1702), da. of Hon. William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> of Thoresby, Notts. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France and Italy) 1674-?8.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 1 Mar. 1690 (with £20,000), Margaret (1661-1716), da. and coh. of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, 1 da. KG 30 May 1698. <em>d</em>. 15 July 1711; <em>will</em> 29 Aug. 1707, pr. 6 July 1715.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1689-91; PC 29 Mar. 1705-<em>d</em>.; ld. privy seal 1705-<em>d</em>.; commr. union with Scotland 1706.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Mdx. Mar. 1689-Feb. 1692, June 1711-<em>d</em>., Notts. June 1694-<em>d</em>., Yorks. (E. Riding) Aug. 1699-<em>d</em>., Yorks. (N. Riding) Apr. 1705-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Mdx 1689-92, Notts. 1694-<em>d</em>., Yorks. (E. Riding) 1699-<em>d</em>.; warden, Sherwood Forest 1699-<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> gov., Kingston-upon-Hull 1699-<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> high steward, Dorchester 1701-<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> c.j. in eyre, Trent North May 1711-<em>d</em>. </p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, University of Nottingham; line engraving by R. White aft. Sir G. Kneller, c.1698, NPG D19764.</p> |
<p>The young Haughton was educated abroad, his father making enquiries for a tutor for ‘his young blade’ in April 1674.<sup>7</sup> Shortly after his return in the mid-1670s, Haughton was marked out as a young man of promise, destined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a defender of the Protestant faith against Catholic machinations. John Dryden, whose anti-Catholic play <em>The Spanish Friar</em> was first performed in November 1680, dedicated its published version in 1681 to Haughton, ‘a Protestant play to a Protestant patron’, of a noble family ‘who have been always eminent in the support and favour of our religion and liberties. And if the promises of your youth, your education at home, and your experience abroad, deceive me not, the principles you have embraced are such as will no way degenerate from your ancestors’.<sup>8</sup> Dryden’s characterization was not wrong. Haughton distinguished himself as a Whig and an opponent of James*, duke of York, while he was still young. In September 1682 he was one of those who waited on James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, in London upon his return from a triumphant tour of the north.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Haughton fought a duel in February 1687 with Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, on Wharton’s provocation. He was in touch with William of Orange’s agent Dijkvelt during his trip to England the same year.<sup>10</sup> According to the later testimony of Robert Molesworth<sup>‡</sup>, Dijkvelt travelled to England six weeks before the 1688 invasion to alert William’s supporters, such as Haughton, to be ready.<sup>11</sup> Haughton joined Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), in the seizure of York in December, and acted as an arbitrator in a dispute between Robert Bertie*, styled Baron Willoughby de Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), and Richard Lumley*, 2nd Viscount Lumley [I] (later earl of Scarbrough). Later that month he was sent by Danby to Nottingham, accompanied Princess Anne to Oxford and then waited on William of Orange, before travelling to London.<sup>12</sup></p><h2><em>Inheritance of the peerage and consolidation of his estates</em></h2><p>Haughton succeeded his father on 16 Jan. 1689, only two days after he had been elected knight of the shire for Nottinghamshire in the Convention. He took his seat in the Lords on 24 January. He marked himself as a committed Williamite, when on 31 Jan. he voted in the committee of the whole to declare William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted to agree that James II had ‘abdicated’ and that ‘the throne was vacant’, formally dissenting from the House’s initial rejection of that wording. On 6 Feb. he voted again to use this form of words. The new monarchs bestowed their favour on their young supporter. At the coronation he carried the queen’s sceptre and the cross and about the same time he was made a gentleman of the bedchamber and lord lieutenant of Middlesex, this latter appointment owing to his family’s extensive properties in St Clement Danes.<sup>13</sup> He was active in this role, rounding up papists and acting to foil rumoured insurrections and invasions throughout 1689-90. Clare last attended the Convention on 26 July, and by the adjournment on 20 Aug. he was at Haughton. On 30 July his proxy was registered with Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, a kinsman through his grandmother, Elizabeth Vere. Clare used the clerk of the peace for Middlesex as his agent in the matter, and the proxy may have been used by Oxford in the Oates case on the 30th.<sup>14</sup> In all he had attended on 98 days of that part of the session, 61 per cent of the total, and been named to 22 committees.</p><p>Clare did not attend the second session of the Convention when it resumed in October, spending the autumn and winter on his Midland estates, being at Haughton in both November 1690 and January 1691.<sup>15</sup> On 28 Oct. 1690 he was listed as absent from a call of the House and on 14 Nov. Dr Phineas Andrews and William Awton attested on oath at the Bar, that Clare was ‘so ill and lame’, that he was not able to travel. The Midlands may have held other attractions, too, namely his forthcoming marriage. A match to one of Newcastle’s daughters had been speculated upon since as early as 1682 and Lady Margaret Cavendish apparently inclined towards Haughton in August 1686.<sup>16</sup> The match was first planned by Clare’s mother Grace (née Pierrepont) and her sister Frances, duchess of Newcastle.<sup>17</sup> Clare skillfully convinced Newcastle that he would be able to rescue the estate by having a £12,000 mortgage assigned to him and offering Newcastle a further mortgage of £20,000.<sup>18</sup> Contemporary reports were even more lavish, a portion of £27,000 and £4,000 p.a. after the duke’s death being one estimate. Clare further ingratiated himself with the duke by willingly accepting securities on the payment of Margaret’s eventual dowry of £20,000. The marriage took place on 1 Mar. 1690, with a post-nuptial settlement being agreed in October.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Clare’s marriage may explain his absence from the beginning of the 1690 Parliament, which he first attended on 31 March. On 13 May he protested against the resolution not to allow the City of London more time to make its case against the revocation of its charter under James II. He attended on 42 days of the session, 78 per cent of the total, his highest rate of attendance for any session during his entire parliamentary career and was named to four committees. Around May he was one of those who lent money to the king: £6,000 in his case.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Clare now manoeuvred to secure the bulk of the Holles estates, taking advantage of his aged father-in-law. Newcastle was clearly impressed by his son-in-law, telling one of his agents on 19 May 1691:</p><blockquote><p>I will not divide my estate, my daughter Clare shall have it, she shall have Welbeck too. I have given it to her and I would have her give it to my Lord Clare if she have no children and I have left her power to do so… I am more beholden to my Lord Clare then to any man. He will pay all that I owe and he will take my name. I had been seized at York when I was there last but that my Lord Clare opposed it. My Lord Clare is a very prudent and a very great man.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>In May 1691 Newcastle revised his will accordingly to leave the entirety of the Cavendish estate to his daughter Margaret (following the death of his wife), with the injunction, ‘I do honestly desire my said daughter Clare to give the same to her husband the earl of Clare and his heirs forever’, and the duke also signed over some of his property to the use of his son-in-law.<sup>22</sup> Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> estimated his inheritance at £9,000 per annum. One commercially-minded contemporary considered that even with Clare paying certain sums out of it, he had received the estate at the rate of about four-years’ purchase.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Newcastle died on 26 July, shortly after revising his will, and with this windfall inheritance of land Clare felt he should also inherit Newcastle’s title. In April Clare had reminded William III of his promise of a dukedom, noting that he had been pressed to write by Newcastle and referring to the humours of his father-in-law ‘whom I am obliged to gratify’ and his own early service during the Revolution. At the end of October Clare wrote to the king again, claiming that his earlier request had ‘proceeded purely because your majesty had since assured me whenever you made any duke I should certainly be one, it being a general received opinion that what honours had been bestowed upon a parent, the heir had the best right to the king’s favour’.<sup>24</sup> He followed this up by a presumptuous verbal request in the bedchamber on 1 Nov. for both Newcastle’s title and his garter. Denied both, he resigned his place in the bedchamber and the lieutenancy of Middlesex in a fit of pique.<sup>25</sup> As Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, explained his decision, Clare’s ‘friends say because he did not like the management and his enemies give out because he was refused a garter and to be a duke.’<sup>26</sup></p><p>Clare had now to defend his inheritance, as Newcastle’s erratic behaviour had provided his other son-in-law, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, with a means to try to invalidate the will on the grounds on insanity.<sup>27</sup> Clare spent the years from 1691 to 1694 fighting Thanet (whose wife had been cut out entirely from the will) in the prerogative court of Canterbury and the court of delegates over the will’s validity.<sup>28</sup> Nor was the dispute between the two earls confined to the courtroom. On 13 May 1692 Clare and Thanet wounded each other in a duel in Lincoln’s Inn Fields ‘upon some words arising at a hearing yesterday before the commissioners’ about the Newcastle inheritance.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Matters became further complicated with the marriage in September 1692 of another of Newcastle’s daughters, the duchess of Albemarle, to Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu. This marriage was thought likely to produce ‘great disorder’ in Clare, because, as Abigail Harley wrote on 13 Sept. Montagu ‘resolves to have a suit of law with my Lord Clare for a share of the duke of Newcastle’s estate’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On 12 Oct. 1693 the hearing began before the lord keeper, John Somers*, later Baron Somers, and two judges, with depositions being read from ‘those taken for the earl of Thanet to prove the late duke of Newcastle was <em>non compos mentis</em>, and consequently uncapable to make any deed or will by which that estate is conveyed to the earl of Clare’.<sup>31</sup> Verney commented on what he thought was the third day of the hearing on 18 Oct.: ‘there were 15 counsel of a side, among whom were the eminent common lawyers as well as the Chancery men’, with fees of ‘10 guineas a man.’<sup>32</sup> In the spring of 1694, the lord keeper and other judges in Chancery dismissed Thanet’s bill, thereby confirming Clare (or more precisely, his wife) in the possession of the Newcastle estate. However, an appeal to the Lords was expected from Thanet.<sup>33</sup> A further challenge came from John Campbell<sup>†</sup>, Lord Glenorchy, the future 2nd earl of Breadalbane [S], the widower of Newcastle’s daughter, Lady Frances Holles (<em>d</em>. 1690), presumably over her unpaid portion. Much of 1693 was spent in Glenorchy and his father using Thanet’s suit to negotiate for a better settlement, the claim finally being settled in 1702.<sup>34</sup></p><p>By an indenture of 17 Jan. 1693, Clare obtained the rights over the property his wife had inherited, in return for taking responsibility for discharging her father’s debts.<sup>35</sup> By his own self-assessment, made for the purposes of taxation in September 1689, Clare was already a wealthy man, having a personal estate of £8,000.<sup>36</sup> To the Clare estates he was now able to add Newcastle’s extensive inheritance, albeit one heavily encumbered with debt. At the time of Newcastle’s death it was worth about £10,000 p.a., but his debts were estimated at £72,580, and £4,000 of interest payments were charged on the estate. Nevertheless, his new possessions made Clare the largest and one of the richest landowners in Nottinghamshire with a total rental of £8,500 p.a. Clare signalled his new position in the country by abandoning his plans to rebuild the Holles residence of Haughton and moved into his father-in-law’s rambling mansion of Welbeck Abbey.<sup>37</sup> Furthermore, his only surviving brother, Denzil, died unmarried in August 1692, whereupon some of his claims on the estate set out in their father’s will reverted to the elder brother.<sup>38</sup> The earl enjoyed another windfall by the death in January 1694 of his unmarried and underage second cousin Denzil Holles*, 3rd Baron Holles. His estate, consisting of widely dispersed lands in Sussex, Surrey, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Kent, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire was estimated to be worth about £5,000-£6,000, but the lands were heavily mortgaged and charged with debts totalling about £42,000 with interest payments of nearly £4,000 p.a.<sup>39</sup> Through skilful and attentive, almost obsessive, estate management, Clare began to settle the debts on these estates, aided by a private bill in 1697 to enable him to by-pass some of the conditions in the will of Francis Holles*, 2nd Baron Holles. He continued to add to his estate, spending an additional £225,000 between 1701 and 1711. Indeed, following the composition of his will, in August 1707, he spent about £100,000, on four estates in Lincolnshire, Otron in Huntingdonshire, Keysoe in Bedfordshire and Wimpole.<sup>40</sup> Finally, just prior to his death he purchased an estate in Marylebone in June 1711 for £17,000, which was said to be worth £25,000.<sup>41</sup> So by the time of the accession of Anne, Macky could say of him that ‘he hath the best estate in England, and employs most of his time in improving it’.<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>Service in the Lords 1691-5</em></h2><p>Clare missed the opening of the 1690-1 session, first attending on 3 Nov. 1690. He attended on 24 days of the session, approximately a third of the total, and was named to four committees. He was present when the 1691-2 session opened on 22 October 1691. From 8 Jan. 1692 he also held the proxy of his kinsman (first cousin once removed) William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford. He attended on 57 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total and was named to nine committees. He attended the prorogation of 24 May 1692. There were rumours in September that Clare was to be made a duke, but these came to nothing.<sup>43</sup> Clare was present on the opening day of the 1692-3 session, 4 November 1692. At around the turn of the year, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, forecast Clare as a likely supporter of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of reading the bill. He supported the place bill, voting both to commit it and then to pass it on 3 January. On 2 Feb. he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.<sup>44</sup> He attended on 61 days of the session, 60 per cent of the total and was named to four committees. Clare attended the prorogation on 2 May 1693. In September, as Henry Boyle*, the future Baron Carleton, put it, one of the ‘three famous weddings mightily talked of now in town’ was ‘between old Mr [Hugh] Boscawen<sup>‡</sup> and Lady Mary Holles, Lord Clare’s ugly sister’.<sup>45</sup> This would seem to have been a useful alliance between two Whig families, Boscawen being a privy councillor.</p><p>Clare was present on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 November 1693. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against the motion to reverse Chancery’s dismission in the case <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. He attended 70 days of the session, 55 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. By the end of April, with the earl established as a leading magnate in several counties, William III was ready to accede to Clare’s repeated request for a dukedom, and on 14 May he was able to take his father-in-law’s title of duke of Newcastle.<sup>46</sup> Almost immediately he was named lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire in place of his local rival at Chatsworth, William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, who was raised to a dukedom at the same time as Clare.<sup>47</sup> Clare’s dukedom may also indicate a growing closeness to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, as he certainly promoted it along with other claimants.<sup>48</sup></p><p>After receiving his dukedom, Newcastle tried to cement this political alliance by forming a personal one, negotiating a marriage between his only unmarried sister-in-law Arabella, the 2nd duke of Newcastle’s youngest daughter, and Sunderland’s son, Charles, Lord Spencer*, the future 3rd earl of Sunderland. Newcastle’s uncle through his Pierrepont mother, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and his brother-in-law Thomas Pelham*, the future Baron Pelham of Laughton, acted as intermediaries between the two families and they may have helped arrange the dowry of £25,000 that Arabella was to bring to the marriage (and which Sunderland frankly admitted he intended to use to pay his debts). It was an unequal marriage in terms of wealth, as Sunderland could barely scrape together a £2,000 jointure and maintenance payments of £2,000 p.a. for his new daughter-in-law, the minimum her sisters had received upon their marriages.<sup>49</sup> In late July Sunderland wrote to thank Halifax for his assistance in the marriage negotiations. In mid-August the negotiations had reached the stage of discussions over ‘present maintenance and jointure’, with Newcastle pressing for £2,000 for Lady Arabella, as her sisters had the same.<sup>50</sup> But by late September the arrangements were all made and agreed to and the marriage took place in January 1695.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Newcastle was in the country in September 1694, where he received a visit from Charles Hutchinson<sup>‡</sup> and although he was expected in town on 30 Oct., well in advance of the beginning of the session on 12 Nov., he did not attend for the first time until the 20th when he was introduced into the house as duke of Newcastle by Devonshire and Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond.<sup>52</sup> He attended on 26 days of the session, 22 per cent of the total, and last attended on 16 Feb. 1695, being named to a single committee. He entrusted his proxy to Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington from 14 Jan. 1695 until he vacated it by his return to the House on 6 February. He then registered it again, this time in favour of Devonshire, from 18 Feb. until the end of the session in May. Towards the end of March he wrote to John White<sup>‡</sup> (and presumably other Nottinghamshire Members) with his ‘well wishes of a speedy period to this sessions’.<sup>53</sup> On 31 Aug. Newcastle predicted ‘great stickling between high and low Church’ in the forthcoming elections.<sup>54</sup></p><h2><em>Local magnate</em></h2><p>By the 1695 election, Newcastle was a great territorial magnate, with attendant political interests, and from then until the end of his life he exercised an important role in elections in many parliamentary constituencies. His influence was based primarily on his extensive estates, backed up by great wealth as well as central and local office. </p><p>In Yorkshire, Newcastle combined territorial power with local office, serving as lord lieutenant of the east riding, coupled with the governorship of Hull from 1699, and adding the north riding lieutenancy in 1705. This allowed him a major influence in the county, although always in alliance with other Whigs. In 1706, for example, his earlier advocacy of the candidacy of Conyers Darcy<sup>‡</sup> was dropped for Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Fairfax [S].<sup>55</sup> More under Newcastle’s control, and hence used to return his most trusted servants and clients, were the burgage consitutencies of Aldborough and Boroughbridge. By 1703 he owned enough to determine the selection of both seats at Aldborough, which his agents Robert Monckton<sup>‡</sup> and William Jessop<sup>‡</sup> represented in every Parliament from 1702 to 1713, and one seat at Boroughbridge, for which another of Newcastle’s men, Craven Peyton<sup>‡</sup>, sat from 1705 to 1713. Nevertheless, Newcastle would not pay too heavy a price for burgages, arguing that ‘the buying little single burgages at such extravagant rates has given the townsmen a handle to enhance their prices beyond measure; for it is certain that a great many boroughs in England may be bought for half the rate that is now at your borough’ In other Yorkshire seats, such as Pontefract, his residual interest never came to much as other interests succeeded in fighting him off. Sir John Bland<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt. wrote in 1708, that the intervention of Newcastle’s ‘myrmidons’, John Bright and Monckton had failed to prevent him topping the poll. Further, his interest at Hull was always exercised with the powerful corporation and a series of uncontested elections ensued.<sup>56</sup></p><p>The old Holles interest in Nottinghamshire enabled Newcastle to exercise some political power in all four constituencies, although only in East Retford and Newark could he claim a significant interest of his own. Indeed, his interest could be endangered by alienating the freeholders, as occurred when his stewardship of the Forest led to the deer damaging local farms.<sup>57</sup> In counties like Sussex, Newcastle was solicited by his fellow Whig magnate, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, to influence his tenants in Ifield (an old Holles property) to vote for the Whig candidates in 1710.<sup>58</sup> Newcastle owned estates in Derbyshire, but the most imposing magnate in that county was the duke of Devonshire. Newcastle assisted William Cavendish*, styled marquess of Hartington, later 2nd duke of Devonshire, in 1695 and at other elections, before again aiding him when he switched to Yorkshire after 1702. Interestingly, in the Staffordshire election of August 1698 (a rare event), Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and Newcastle, although they ‘always differ’ from Robert Shirley*, Baron (later Earl) Ferrers ‘in their opinions in the House of Peers’, had ‘given their interest’ for his heir, Hon. Robert Shirley against Edward Bagot<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>59</sup></p><p>The traditional Holles influence in Dorchester was revived by the appointment of Newcastle as high steward in 1701, and his candidates Awnsham Churchill<sup>‡</sup> and Denis Bond<sup>‡</sup> recorded some victories in Anne’s reign. In Westminster, his property was backed up briefly by two short spells as lord lieutenant of Middlesex. He apparently backed a court candidate in the by-election of 1691, Sir Henry Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> in December 1701, and in 1710 he was asked by Somers to support James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope. Newcastle’s part guardianship of the duchess of Albemarle, with its attendant influence at Clitheroe, also saw the promotion of a candidate, Ambrose Pudsay<sup>‡</sup>, in the 1710 election.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Even in areas where he had no influence, Newcastle might seek to project an influence by virtue of his financial power. Thus, in 1710 he allegedly offered Christopher Vane*, Baron Barnard, £1,000 to defray the election expenses of his son Hon. William Vane<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Vane [I]) should he stand for Durham; the same year George Whichcot<sup>‡</sup> approached him to help defray the expenses of his campaign for Lincolnshire.<sup>61</sup></p><p>In October 1695, in the midst of the elections, William III made a tour of some midland and eastern counties. After leaving Lincoln, the king was met at the border of Nottinghamshire by Newcastle, who escorted him to Welbeck Abbey for a spot of hunting in Sherwood Forest.<sup>62</sup> Newcastle spent lavishly on this royal visit, the bill totalling over £5,600, and making a statement of his arrival as a major political and local power. If his intent was to curry favour for the garter vacant by Strafford’s death, he being seen as a pretender to it, he was unsuccessful.<sup>63</sup></p><h2><em>In the Lords 1695-1702</em></h2><p>Newcastle was absent from the opening of the 1695 Parliament on 22 Nov., first attending on 11 December. This time Torrington registered his proxy with Newcastle on 23 December. On 24 Feb. 1696 Newcastle was appointed to draw up an address following the king’s speech concerning the assassination attempt against him and named to manage the subsequent conference with the Commons on a joint address. He signed the Association on 27 February. Then, on 9 Apr. both Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, registered their proxies with him. On 24 Apr. he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for the Lords insisting at a conference on their amendments to the bill prohibiting trade with France. Newcastle was present on the last day of the session, 27 Apr. and in all attended on 69 days of the session, 56 per cent of the total, and was named to a further ten committees. He was active in the suppression of the suspected conspiracies in Nottinghamshire during the following summer.<sup>64</sup> He also continued to take a close interest in the <em>Montagu v. Bath</em> case. His papers contain an account of the suit in common pleas in 1696 and also a letter from one of Newcastle’s witnesses in November 1697, informing him that he had heard that ‘when the cause between my Lord Bath [John Granville*, earl of Bath] and Montagu was ended they would go on with the old cause again’.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Newcastle was absent from the beginning of the 1696-7 session on 20 October. His absence was noted at a call on 14 Nov. and he was ordered to attend on the 30th. Still absent on that date, he was ordered to attend by 7 Dec. under threat of being taken into custody. He duly attended on 5 December. Newcastle voted for the passage of the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> on 23 Dec. and on 15 Jan. 1697 he was one of ‘twelve or thirteen dissenting lords’, the majority of them Whigs, who voted against committing Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), to the Tower for meddling in the Fenwick affair.<sup>66</sup> He also looked to his own estate affairs and in February 1697 a bill ‘for the speedy satisfaction of the debts of Francis, Lord Holles’, passed rapidly through both Houses, being managed through the Commons by Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, the Harleys being distant kinsmen (through their Vere ancestors). This act effectively allowed him to set aside the detailed charges placed on the estate in the 2nd Baron’s will and devote the entirety of the income and sales of the Holles estate to clearing Holles’s debts.<sup>67</sup> On 4 Mar. John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, registered his proxy with Newcastle. Newcastle had attended on 49 days of the session, 43 per cent of the total and was named to eight committees. At the end of the session it was reported that he had subscribed £20,000 ‘towards answering the exchequer notes’.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Newcastle was present on 3 Dec. 1697 when the next session convened. At the end of December, when Sunderland resigned as lord chamberlain, Luttrell and Thomas Hopkins<sup>‡</sup> thought that Newcastle had a good chance of replacing him.<sup>69</sup> On 15 Apr. 1698 Sir Cornwall Bradshaw brought into the Lords an appeal against a number of chancery and exchequer decrees ordering him to pay arrears of rent on land he leased in Newcastle’s property in St Clement Danes. On 17 May, upon Bradshaw’s petition, the appeal respecting the chancery causes was dismissed. On 6 June the decree relating to the exchequer was affirmed, but with an amendment.<sup>70</sup> During 1697-8 Newcastle again sided with the Whigs in the move to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 5 Mar. he was named to prepare material for a conference to establish the grounds upon which the Commons were proceeding with their bill for punishing Duncombe for the false endorsement of exchequer bills, being duly named to manage conferences on the matter on 7th and 11th. On 15 Mar. he voted for the commitment of the bill, entering his dissent following its rejection. On 15 June he was named to manage a conference on the trial of John Goudet. He had attended on 89 days of the session, 68 per cent of the total and been named to 13 committees.</p><p>In the summer of 1698 Arabella Spencer, who had provided the necessary link between Newcastle and Sunderland, died of smallpox, thus severing the tie. During 1698-9 Newcastle achieved some of the long-term goals and ambitions he had been harbouring since 1691. He had long felt that he deserved to inherit his father-in-law’s many offices and honours, as well as his title and fortune. He made another step in this direction when he was made a Knight of the Garter in the place of the king of Sweden at the end of May 1698, being installed at the start of July.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Newcastle was absent when the 1698 Parliament opened on 6 Dec. 1698, first attending on 17 Jan. 1699. He last attended on 4 Apr. having been present on 32 days of the session, just under 40 per cent of the total and been named to five committees. Well before the end of the session (4 May), he wrote to his wife on 18 Apr. ‘I neither go to the House nor do any earthly thing but in order to get out of town’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Newcastle was a beneficiary of the disgrace of the duke of Leeds (as Danby had since become) in the spring of 1699. Leeds had been granted many of the posts of the 2nd duke of Newcastle at the accession of William and Mary, and Newcastle now reclaimed the lieutenancy of the East Riding of Yorkshire and governorship of Hull, Vernon noting in August that Newcastle had ‘shown some inclination to the government’ of them before the king left for the campaign.<sup>73</sup> Although Newcastle had dined with Leeds at Thorpe Salvin, Yorkshire in August 1698, relations were somewhat frosty two years later when Leeds wrote to Glenorchy that he could not mediate between him and Newcastle because ‘I am one of those (amongst some others) who have no correspondence with his grace although we are now but four miles distant from one another,’ Newcastle presumably then being at Welbeck.<sup>74</sup> He was also made warden of Sherwood Forest in March 1699, which formed the basis of one of his great interests, stag-hunting in Clumber Park. This made relations with Devonshire somewhat better for at the closely fought election for Derbyshire in January 1701, ‘Mr Wild, the duke of Newcastle’s agent, came to Derby with a body of freeholders for both Lords’ (i.e., Hartington and John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, later 2nd duke of Rutland). Further, Newcastle backed Hartington when he switched to Yorkshire in 1702.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Newcastle was absent from the start of the 1699-1700 session on 16 Nov., first attending on 9 Jan. 1700. Already, on the 4th, he had written to Robert Harley asking him to attend at the report from the committee of elections on the petition relating to Newark.<sup>76</sup> He voted against the motion of 23 Feb. to adjourn into a committee of the whole House to discuss amendments to the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation.<sup>77</sup> He attended on 35 days of the session, 44 per cent of the total during which he was named to two committees. At some point after 10 July, his name appears on a marked list, which seemed to indicate that he was a Whig peer and Junto supporter.</p><p>Newcastle was absent from the start of the 1701 Parliament on 10 Feb., first attending on 23 April. On 15 Mar. the duke in a letter to his brother-in-law Pelham listed ‘the Harleys’ together with Hugh Boscawen, Henry Paget*, later earl of Uxbridge, Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup> and Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> as Members to be relied upon should his actions in his lieutenancy come under question in the Commons.<sup>78</sup> On 14 June he was added to the managers of a free conference with the Commons about the actions of John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, at a previous conference on the 13th relating to the impeachment of the Whig ministers. On 17 and 23 June, respectively, he voted to acquit the former Junto ministers Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, from the articles of impeachment levelled against them. He was present on 32 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total and was named to three committees.</p><p>Newcastle did not attend the 1701-2 session until well after the death of William III, first sitting on 24 March 1702. However, he was not averse to writing to Members such as Sir Charles Hotham<sup>‡</sup> on 7 Jan. 1702 to call on them to attend the committee of elections.<sup>79</sup> He sat on only 11 occasions, 11 per cent of the total and was named to four committees. He served as one of the pallbearers at the king’s funeral on 12 April. The death of William III brought Newcastle uncertainty, particularly concerning his relations with the new ministers. He wrote to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, in June, seeking reassurance. Godolphin replied that the queen ‘never had the least thought of not continuing you in all your authorities’ and even intended to give the duke further marks of her favour.<sup>80</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Anne</em></h2><p>Newcastle was absent from the opening of the 1702 Parliament on 20 Oct., first attending on 15 Dec., although he signed the resolution of 9 Dec. against tacking as unparliamentary and tending towards the destruction of the constitution. According to the analysis of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Newcastle was expected to oppose the occasional conformity bill in January 1703. In keeping with this view, he voted on 16 Feb. in favour of adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause of the bill. He was present on 23 days of the session, 27 per cent of the total and was named to five committees.</p><p>Newcastle missed the first month of the 1703-4 session, first attending on 8 December 1703. In about November Sunderland had forecast Newcastle likely to oppose the occasional conformity bill, and at the end of the month he confirmed this analysis. He duly voted against the bill on 14 December. On 17 Dec. he attended a large gathering of the Whig Junto and their adherents at Sunderland’s house in St James’s Square. He attended further dinners hosted by Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury (11 Feb. 1704), and at the Westminster townhouse of the 3rd earl of Sunderland (13 Feb. 1704), where ‘tea drunk and our discourse was only about the Scotch Plot’ and the papers on it before the Lords.<sup>81</sup> On 15 Feb. he was one of two dukes, the other being Charles Powlett, 2nd duke of Bolton, delegated to present the queen with an address asking that more papers concerning the Scotch Plot be laid before Parliament. He attended on 25 days of the session, but after 24 Feb. on only one day (9 Mar.) until the end of the session, 26 per cent of the total. He was named to seven committees.</p><p>Despite Newcastle’s whiggery, Harley was keen to include him in the ministry. In April 1704, Harley proposed that Newcastle should follow Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, as lord chamberlain, and hold the office till he could succeed John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, as lord privy seal. On 27 Apr. Godolphin waited on Newcastle ‘at his own house’, and explained ‘it was not possible for me to answer when the thing he seemed to pitch upon would be ready to receive him’, but that he would endeavour to ‘dispatch it’.<sup>82</sup> On 5 Sept. 1704 Harley wrote to Newcastle that ‘I have been long of opinion how necessary your grace is to the support of the government’ and assuring him on 21 Oct. of Godolphin’s agreement in this project. On 2 Dec. Harley, now increasingly disgruntled with the Tories in Parliament, continued to encourage Newcastle, and also recognized the best way in which the duke could be useful to the ministry, in ensuring ‘that the succeeding Parliament may consist of men in the public interest of the nation’. Newcastle ‘must be the corner stone of this fabric, and therefore I hope you will let your thoughts descend to particulars as to persons as well as things, how matters should be modelled here, and what is to be done in order to elections’.<sup>83</sup> When the subject was being mooted again prior to the 1704-5 session, John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, recounted his view that Newcastle was ‘too much of a party man’, although Newcastle’s advocate on this occasion, Anthony Guidott, said that he would be ‘everything that the queen would have him’. To which Marlborough noted, if the queen were assured of this, ‘his estate is so very great, that he would certainly be of use’.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Newcastle registered his proxy with Sunderland on 26 Oct. 1704, two days after the beginning of the 1704-5 session, and only vacated it when he finally arrived in the House on 6 December. On 15 Nov. he was at Welbeck, amidst preparations for his journey to London, which was ‘fixed’ for 27 November.<sup>85</sup> He may well have arrived in London on that date, for in a letter, probably of 29 Nov. Godolphin told Harley, ‘I am to see the duke of Newcastle tomorrow, and will try to please him’.<sup>86</sup> A few days after Newcastle’s arrival, the duke of Devonshire entrusted him with his proxy for the four days of 14-18 December. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to manage a conference on the Aylesbury case. He sat on 35 days of the session, 35 per cent of the total and was named to 10 committees.</p><p>Around about the time of Parliament’s prorogation, on 14 Mar. 1705, Newcastle was classed as a Hanoverian in an analysis of the peerage in relation to the Succession. On 28 Mar. he was summoned to attend the queen on the following day, when he was sworn into the Privy Council and a warrant ordered for his appointment as lord privy seal.<sup>87</sup> The appointment, as Harley’s letter suggested, may have also been with an eye towards harnessing Newcastle’s electoral interest in the service of the new government. On 11 Apr. Newcastle complained to Harley about the inconvenience he was suffering over the delay to his lieutenancy of the North Riding, a matter of some significance with an election due, and one of his successful candidates, Robert Molesworth, recorded on 12 Apr. that he had been kept up by the duke until half-past twelve while at Clerkenwell.<sup>88</sup> It is likely that Newcastle had more influence in the elections of 1705 than in any other previous election. Indeed, it has been estimated that in the last two sessions of the 1705 Parliament he ‘controlled’ a tight personal following of at least ten members of the Commons who owed their election wholly or in large part to his efforts, a figure maintained after the 1708 election.<sup>89</sup></p><p>In May 1705 it was reported that Newcastle had bought Powis House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for £7,000, designing it for a London residence and a place to execute his office of lord privy seal.<sup>90</sup> On 4 July Newcastle was at Welbeck, much afflicted: ‘my rheum does still so affect me and particularly in my eyes that I hope you will forgive me this not being all in my own hand’, but hopeful that he would soon be able to fit up Powis House, if Wright was replaced as lord keeper. By 23 July he had moved on to Haughton, from whence he wrote to Harley about a pamphlet reflecting upon Marlborough and defending his right of appointment in the privy seal office.<sup>91</sup></p><p>On 1 Aug. 1705 Newcastle wished for confirmation that Parliament would sit at the beginning of November, ‘the certainty of which I am desirous to know, because I would be up before they meet. It is always most for her majesty‘s service’. On 18 Aug. Somers urged Newcastle to ‘leave the divisions and the business of the country’ and come up to London, asking that he ‘absolutely require all your friends to be present the first day at the choice of the Speaker’. On 25 Aug. Newcastle was ‘in such pain by a bile [boil] which was unskillfully lanced before it was ripe that he is not able either to sit or go’.<sup>92</sup> He was still at Haughton on 10 Sept. when he thanked Harley for ‘diverting from me a troublesome embassy’ to protest against the recalcitrance of the Dutch generals.<sup>93</sup> Although in March Newcastle had originally backed lord chief justice, Thomas Trevor*, the future Baron Trevor, a friend of Harley’s, he seems to have been happy with the appointment of William Cowper*, later Earl Cowper, as lord keeper.<sup>94</sup> When term began in October, Newcastle showed his political credentials by accompanying Cowper to Westminster.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Newcastle was present on the first day of the Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 when he received the proxy of Scarbrough (formerly Lumley), which he held until Scarbrough’s return to the House on 11 December. On 31 Oct. he reported from committee the address on the Queen’s Speech, and was duly directed to ask her when the House should wait upon her with it. On 26 Nov. the secretary of state, Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> sent Newcastle several translations of letters mentioned in the queen’s speech on that date, relating to the Spanish campaign, which the duke laid before the House on the 27th.<sup>96</sup> Newcastle voted on 6 Dec. that the Church was not in danger under the current administration. He was named to prepare for a conference with the Commons on a joint address, and appointed on the 7th, 12th, 14th and 17th to manage a number of conferences on the matter. On 13 Dec. Godolphin wrote to him about the crisis surrounding the Tory invitation to Electress Sophia to come to England, warning Newcastle of the need ‘to prepare ourselves with some defences against’ Haversham’s ‘great guns tomorrow’. Godolphin suggested that the duke meet with Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, ‘whose house lies in your way’ and other lords before the session the next day to concert means of deflecting the attack – a letter being necessary ‘because as I remember you said last night you did not intend to come to the House today.’<sup>97</sup> He was present on 40 days of the session, 42 per cent of the total and was named to a further eight committees.</p><p>In January 1706 it was reported that Newcastle had subscribed £12,000 towards a loan for the Emperor, although by March this had become £2,000.<sup>98</sup> On 30 Apr. Sir William Simpson recorded the common opinion that Somerset and Newcastle were ‘out of the cabal and set up for patrons of the virtuous Whigs such as Molesworth and Stanhope’. Further Newcastle had declared his support for Harley, thereby ensuring that the Junto was not able to remove him and install Sunderland as secretary.<sup>99</sup> Newcastle was an absentee commissioner in the negotiations for the Union with Scotland.<sup>100</sup> On 12 June he was at Haughton, concerned that ‘the rheum which I feared was coming upon me before I came out of town is now so much increased in my eyes by stirring so violently in my journey, that it prevents me writing all in my own hand.’ Still at Haughton on 17 June, he expressed surprise at the generous representation accorded to the Scots in the Commons, attributing it to Junto hopes of steering the new Members. On 1 July he was stag-hunting, but this caused a relapse in his condition, although by the 3rd he was writing more thoughts on the Union and hoping to have the articles sent into the country for him to sign.<sup>101</sup> On 6 July he sent to Harley an address from Welbeck from the corporation of Hull, ‘which I desire you will present to her majesty and be pleased to let it be inserted in the <em>Gazette</em> that it was sent up by me’. Although he was ‘not fond of seeing my name in print’, the town of Hull ‘will expect to see it, as I know all that send their addresses to me do. The address is well meant but you will easily perceive by the wording of it I never saw it, till after it was brought me.’<sup>102</sup> Indeed, in July it took some urgent letters to ensure that he came to the capital to sign the articles, rather than have the treaty dispatched to Welbeck.<sup>103</sup> Newcastle wrote on 13 July that he hoped to be in London, the latter end of the next week, ‘tho very unfit thro my indisposition for such a journey’.<sup>104</sup> He duly signed the Union articles on 22 July. He then retreated back north and was at Welbeck on 21 Sept. and 5 October. On 13 Nov. he wrote to Harley that ‘when I don’t exercise I find I am much out of order, which that, as well as a great deal of my affairs that I am to set straight before I come up’, meant he was unlikely to be in London before the first week in December, ‘tho I don’t doubt but that will be early enough for any business of moment the Parliament will go upon.’<sup>105</sup></p><p>Newcastle missed most of the opening month of the 1706-7 session, writing on 16 Nov. that he still hoped to have finished his country business by the first week in December, but that the floods were so bad that the Trent was impassable.<sup>106</sup> He crossed the Trent at Newark, and was at Orton on 1 Dec., where he intended to stay ‘to receive my letters that come out of town by Tuesday’s post [3rd] and then set forward for Lincoln’s Inn Fields.’<sup>107</sup> He first attended on 31 December. On 14 Mar. 1707, perhaps in the context of the debates on the Union, he received Barnard’s proxy, and from 28 Mar. he again held Scarbrough’s proxy. On the last day of the session (8 Apr.) he was named as a manager of a conference on the bill against vagrants. He attended on 26 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total and was named to a further two committees. Newcastle then attended on four of the nine days of the short session of April 1707.</p><p>On 24 June 1707 Newcastle wrote to thank John Moore*, Bishop of Norwich, for his prescription of lozenges and drops, adding that the queen had been so ‘indulgent in my short stay, that she has been pleased to excuse my attendance at Windsor’ on the 30th, although Lord Chancellor Cowper had desired that he ‘would stay two or three days longer in town to pass a new commission for the prince and lord treasurer etc’, post Union.<sup>108</sup> By 25 July Newcastle was at Welbeck.<sup>109</sup> On 11 Aug. he was at Haughton, commenting on the design of a new, post-Union privy seal. On 18 Aug. Newcastle was back at Welbeck from where he announced his intention of being in London before the beginning of the next session, and also made a bid for the office of chief justice in eyre north of the Trent, which had been in his family since the Restoration, until given to Devonshire (who was on his deathbed).<sup>110</sup> While at Welbeck Newcastle made a new will, prompted by having the previous day a ‘violent fit of an apoplexy and that by the violence thereof his face was turned black and his head and tongue much swelled and he lay and continued speechless for some time and was looked on to be in great danger of death or as a dying man’.<sup>111</sup> Controversy was to erupt over this will after his death.</p><p>Certainly, his illness was known about, for on 6 Sept. 1707 Molesworth recorded getting ready to go from Edlinton to visit Newcastle, who had ‘lately had a fit like an apoplectic one’.<sup>112</sup> On 17 Sept. Newcastle himself recounted his ill-health to Harley and his decision to have ‘two issues made in my shoulders’, after he arrived in town, which he expected to be ‘a little before’ 23 Oct., the expected start of the session.<sup>113</sup> It seems likely then that ill health caused Newcastle to miss the opening month of the 1707-8 session, as he first sat on 24 November. Newcastle then acquired further importance as one of a number of Whigs (along with Devonshire, Somerset, John Poulett*, 4th Baron and later Earl Poulett, John Smith<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Boyle, Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Wilmington, and Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Orford), who would not join with the Junto and the Tories in pressing the queen over the admiralty and the Spanish campaign and thereby helped to preserve the ministry.<sup>114</sup> Nevertheless, when the crisis of February 1708 came to a head, Newcastle was one of the members of the Cabinet that refused to sit to do business with Harley, in the absence of Marlborough, apparently at last pressing the queen to part with him.<sup>115</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 1 Apr. 1708, having attended on 36 days, just over a third of the total and been named to a further two committees. However, by the 6th Henry Boyle was reporting that Newcastle was still in town, though ‘not well enough to stir abroad’.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Newcastle was now an integral part of the Junto’s campaign to force their way into office. Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> referred to ‘the dukes’, namely Newcastle and Devonshire, as having seen the queen on 21 Apr. about the need to employ Somers, even if merely as a member of the Cabinet without office.<sup>117</sup> Marlborough revealed the strategy of the Whigs when he replied to the queen’s letter informing him of the visit; she should ‘consider what may be the consequences of refusing the request of’ Newcastle and Devonshire, ‘since it will be a demonstration, not only to them, but to everybody’ that Godolphin and himself had ‘no credit with your majesty but that you are guided by the insinuation of Mr Harley.’<sup>118</sup> In about May 1708, he was classed as a Whig, with an additional marking, the meaning of which cannot be determined.</p><p>Before he left London, Newcastle joined Halifax and Wharton in standing bail for James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], thereby helping to forge the alliance between the Squadrone and Hamilton which the Whigs hoped would dominate the Scottish peerage elections.<sup>119</sup> Newcastle having recently departed for the country, on 27 May Sunderland wrote to him on behalf of Devonshire, Somers and Halifax about the patent creating James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], duke of Dover, which Newcastle had objected to, and which Sunderland felt should not be passed without a further written representation from Newcastle to protect himself from future parliamentary proceedings.<sup>120</sup> Writing from Haughton on 29 May, Newcastle informed Sunderland that he had already affixed the privy seal to Queensberry’s patent, ‘your Lordship agreeing as well as all others that after I had said my thoughts before the queen I should be under a necessity of passing it when it came to me, all concluding that there was nothing in the letter of the articles of Union against it, and looking upon it as my duty to do so, I accordingly passed it’. Further, he solicited a visit from the Whig lords should they travel northwards during the summer, because ‘tho at all times that company is extremely pleasing to me, yet before the meeting of this new Parliament, I hope it would not be time misspent’.<sup>121</sup> On 9 Aug. Sunderland wrote to Newcastle at Welbeck of the ‘accidents’ which had prevented Somers, Halifax and himself waiting upon him to discuss ‘the present posture of our affairs, which tho they are very fortunately and unexpectedly mended abroad... yet seem to grow worse and worse every day at home’. That being the case he wished ‘to conjure’ Newcastle</p><blockquote><p>not to defer coming to town too long, till just [before] the Parliament meets, for whatever is proper to be done must be concerted beforehand and that cannot be done without your presence and influence. I know you are very averse to coming to town before your time, but three weeks or a month sooner or later I hope will break no squares.</p></blockquote><p>On 19 Oct. Sunderland outlined to the absent Newcastle, Whig plans, endorsed by eight Whigs beside himself, to attack the admiralty and force changes to the ministry. This consisted chiefly of installing Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, at the admiralty and Somers as lord president. On 26 Oct. Sunderland wrote again to chivvy Newcastle to London and to enlist his help in getting Members to support Sir Peter King<sup>†</sup>, later Baron King, in opposition to the ministry’s choice of Sir Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup>, to which end they solicited his instructions to William Jessop<sup>‡</sup>, Robert Monckton<sup>‡</sup> and Craven Peyton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>122</sup> On 16 Nov. Horatio Walpole<sup>‡</sup> wrote that although Newcastle, Devonshire and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, had left the Junto last year in some questions, ‘now they had joined with them in the ‘new scheme’ of opposing Onslow for speaker unless changes were made to the ministry, which the death of Prince George had facilitated.<sup>123</sup> Now that these changes had occurred, on 4 Nov. Sunderland wrote to inform him that the planned assault on the speakership was laid aside.<sup>124</sup> When Molesworth used Newcastle in an approach to Godolphin in December 1708, he suggested that if the lord treasurer favoured him it would be ‘against their minds’, implying, perhaps, that Newcastle was not subordinate to the Junto, but an independent magnate.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Newcastle was present at the opening of the 1708 Parliament on 16 November. On 11 Dec. he attended a great meeting of Whigs and the Squadrone about Scottish matters before Parliament.<sup>126</sup> On 23 Dec. he reported from committee an address on the reduction of Ghent. On 11 Jan. 1709 Newcastle was present at Devonshire’s with a ‘great many other Lords to consult about the Scotch election’.<sup>127</sup> He voted in the division on 21 Jan. against the right of Scottish peers, who also had British titles, to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers.<sup>128</sup> On 3 Feb. Newcastle joined John Sharp*, archbishop of York, Sir George Savile<sup>‡</sup>, 7th bt. and William Pennington in petitioning for a bill in which lands in the vicarage of Walesby in Nottinghamshire would be vested in him and his heirs in lieu of payment of an annual rent of £10 payable to the vicar. The petition was referred to the judges, who reported favourably on the request on 10 Feb. and the bill that was introduced the following day, passed rapidly through the House and was returned by the Commons without amendment on 24 March. On 28 Feb. Newcastle hosted a dinner with Ossulston, Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Howe [I], Henry Paget and Sir John Guise<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. ‘and several other parliament men who I did not know’, possibly about the papers before the Commons about the Scottish invasion.<sup>129</sup> He attended until 20 Apr., the penultimate day of the session, having sat on 41 days, 45 per cent of the total, and been named to a further four committees.</p><p>The death of the duke of Montagu in March 1709 led to ‘great contending who shall have the keeping of the duchess of Albermarle’, it lying between Thanet and Newcastle, whose wives were the sisters of the ‘mad duchess’.<sup>130</sup> That same month it was reported that Newcastle and Thanet had obtained a commission to inspect the dowager duchess of Albemarle and Montagu for lunacy, the aim being to set up a trust to control her extensive estates.<sup>131</sup> Indeed, on 29 Mar. Glenorchy approached Newcastle, asking for control of the duchess of Albemarle’s affairs.<sup>132</sup> Newcastle, Thanet and Sunderland (on behalf of his daughter) applied for a lunacy commission, and were duly granted one in April. The matter even came up at the cabinet attended by Newcastle on 3 April. By October 1709 Newcastle’s agents were at work organizing the local government of Clitheroe, although agreement was necessary with the agents of Thanet and Sunderland. The three peers, Newcastle, Thanet and Sunderland jointly answered a chancery on her behalf in February 1710.<sup>133</sup></p><p>At the end of April 1709, Newcastle was being mentioned as a possible plenipotentiary for the peace congress.<sup>134</sup> However, on 3 May James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> informed Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> that Newcastle was one of the men who had refused to be involved in the peace negotiations being conducted by Townshend.<sup>135</sup> On 4 June Marlborough noted that the preliminaries being sent over, ‘there ought to be no great need of the duke of Newcastle’s hand, or anybody else, to make this peace be liked’.<sup>136</sup> Newcastle seemed to be keeping a watching brief, telling Henry Paget on 6 Aug., ‘I am afraid the Peace is not so near a conclusion as is talked’. On 28 Nov. Newcastle informed Paget that his wife’s ‘great illness’ had ‘prevented my coming up sooner yet I hope to wait upon you in town in a very little time’.<sup>137</sup> In the event he did not attend the 1709-10 session until 9 Jan. 1710.</p><p>In the crisis of January 1710, Newcastle was not involved in the initial discussions of the Whig leaders on the morning of 16 Jan. but was summoned to a meeting in the afternoon. Maynwaring reported that Newcastle was very zealous for supporting Marlborough, although he also noted that the Lords were of different opinions about sending an ultimatum to the queen, demanding the dismissal of Abigail Masham.<sup>138</sup> On 20 Mar. Newcastle voted Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. He last sat on the penultimate day of the session (4 Apr.) having been present on 37 days of the session, 40 per cent of the total and been named to two committees.</p><p>By the end of the session, Newcastle was being cultivated by his old friend Harley to engage in a new ministerial scheme. Harley very much needed Whigs such as Newcastle to remain in office in order to avoid being overly dependent on the Tories, and as Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> noted in August, Newcastle was ‘very well with Mr Harley, for whom, they say, he has formerly a great friendship and esteem’.<sup>139</sup> Thus, on 11 May Newcastle met with Shrewsbury for three hours. Godolphin imagined the ‘chief drift of this meeting’ was for Shrewsbury to convince Newcastle of his sincerity to Marlborough and the difficulty in keeping the queen from ‘running headlong’ into the Tories.<sup>140</sup></p><p>On 12 May, when there were rumours of Sunderland’s impending dismissal, Godolphin told Maynwaring that Shrewsbury felt a coldness in the Whigs towards him and that Newcastle was meeting Shrewsbury that day about it. Maynwaring distrusted Newcastle, not thinking him ‘a good man to treat with’ Shrewsbury about the Whigs ‘because I know he has a correspondence with’ Harley who had ‘made all the professions imaginable to’ Newcastle and Somerset ‘at the time he was betraying’ Marlborough, presumably in 1708.<sup>141</sup> Possibly on 24 May Maynwaring wrote ‘I am just now come from’ Newcastle’s, ‘where was the same company that dined at Lord Halifax’s on Saturday [?20 May], but I heard nothing of any consequence’.<sup>142</sup> On 29 May Godolphin thought that the Whigs were making applications to Harley and using Newcastle to reach both Harley and Shrewsbury. On the same day Newcastle ‘had a great deal of talk’ with Harley, Shrewsbury and Poulett, about the queen’s determination to dismiss Sunderland. Newcastle opposed this, but was chiefly successful only in derailing the chosen successor, John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey.<sup>143</sup> By 1 June the duchess of Marlborough had concluded that Shrewsbury, Halifax, Newcastle and Harley ‘are pretty near of one mind’, while Poulett was equally sceptical for the Tories, reminding Harley on 7 June that Newcastle once ‘quietly parted with you in danger and disgrace’ (in 1708), and questioned ‘is not he so much above his place as to be beneath it, are not his great riches golden chains to him, has he now for 50 years ever once exerted himself for a friend or the public’?<sup>144</sup></p><p>By 1710 Newcastle had over £4,000 of Bank stock, so he was an obvious point of contact for Bank directors with the ministry.<sup>145</sup> Early in June, the Bank directors, Sir Gilbert Heathcote<sup>‡</sup>, William Scawen<sup>‡</sup>, John Eyles<sup>‡</sup> and Nathaniel Gould<sup>‡</sup> approached Devonshire to convey to the queen their opposition to any changes in the ministry. When Devonshire fell ill, Newcastle delivered their petition on 13 June. The queen then ordered Newcastle to bring them to her on the 15th, but they were reluctant, Sunderland having been put out the day before. Newcastle reminded them that ‘they were obliged in honour to go, and his honour was concern[ed]’, so he duly introduced them on 15 June.<sup>146</sup> In between times, on 14 June, Newcastle was a signatory to the letter from leading Whigs asking Marlborough not to resign over Sunderland’s dismissal.<sup>147</sup></p><p>Newcastle was back in the country by 5 July, when he wrote to Halifax.<sup>148</sup> On 2 Aug. Newcastle wrote from Welbeck to Cowper, of his disappointment that ‘some who call themselves Whigs should fall into intrigues for bringing in Tories when they find their own particular persons are become unacceptable by their own behaviour; and the Tories could not have the least hopes of prevailing without the underhand assistance of those infatuated Whigs.’<sup>149</sup> On 10 Aug. when Marlborough was considering the merits of the Whigs quitting en masse, he did not expect Newcastle to join them, ‘believing he will for some little time be imposed upon’.<sup>150</sup> A fortnight later, though, Sunderland expressed his confidence to Marlborough that Newcastle would join his fellow Whigs in opposition to the new ministry, ‘tho a place of £3,000 a year is a temptation to his inclinations’.<sup>151</sup> Meanwhile, Monckton on 21 Aug. was still urging Harley to follow Newcastle’s advice to include more Whigs in his scheme, especially Cowper.<sup>152</sup></p><p>Still at Welbeck on 9 Sept. Newcastle again wrote to Cowper from Welbeck that he was ‘so vain to make the comparison betwixt your lordship and myself that you would not do anything in office which you would not do the same if you was out’, and of his sorrow when ‘men of such noble principles of integrity are removed’ and hoping that Cowper will not contribute towards it.<sup>153</sup> On 19 Sept. Cowper recorded that Monckton had been sent to him from Harley to persuade him to remain as chancellor. He ‘pressed me vehemently, used all arguments over again said he had undertaken for me; that the D[uke] of Newcastle depended on’t; that he knew not what the D[uke] of Newcastle w[oul]d do at this rate; that he could not shew himself, if I failed; that he must do as Mr Temple did, throw himself into the Thames’.<sup>154</sup> Newcastle refrained from such precipitous action, although at the beginning of November he told Cowper he could not ‘forbear acquainting you how all good Englishmen here are concerned at your resigning’.<sup>155</sup> On 23 Sept. Newcastle was out hunting, noting the views of his Tory fellow huntsmen that ‘they all seemed to be pleased with one of your great offices but all cried out of the other and wondered what use could be made of him’, perhaps a reference to the appointments of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Buckingham on the 21st.<sup>156</sup> Marlborough was thus not surprised at Newcastle continuing in office, although he noted that same day (23 Sept.) ‘I can’t but think when he comes to Parliament he will act so as not to please them, for he is a sordid honest man’.<sup>157</sup> Despite much pressure from the Whigs to come up to London, Newcastle found a plausible excuse for staying in the country, citing concern for the protection of his electoral interests. He explained, ‘should I come up to town for ever so short a time there would be such tricks played, every election being attacked, that it could not be retrieved’. Somers accepted this excuse: ‘I can see no greater usefulness than that of taking care of elections’. By late September, after the resignations of Cowper and Orford, Newcastle was the only Whig still in office, and Halifax looked to him to ‘keep the little footing we had now you are left alone’.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Not that by staying in office, Newcastle wished to forgo the accumulation of important local offices. On 30 Sept. he again outlined his case to be chief justice in eyre and his view that ‘all sides should come into the queen’s interest and to make her and her administration easy.’<sup>159</sup> Further to that although he had been ‘unfortunate not to succeed with some of the leaders by my being at so great a distance I hope to do it better in the beginning of the winter with many of the party which will be chosen’. Despite some rumours, the office did not fall into his grasp until May 1711.<sup>160</sup></p><p>On 3 Oct. 1710, in his analysis of English Lords, Harley classed Newcastle along with the Court Whigs and other doubtfuls. On 18 Nov. Newcastle promised Harley that he intended to set out for London on the 20th. He anticipated breaking his journey at Wimpole and leaving there on Saturday 25 November. As soon as he arrived in town he would ‘send to your house the moment I arrive that I may have the happiness to see you without being troubled with other company’.<sup>161</sup> He was absent from the opening of the 1710 Parliament on 25 Nov., first attending on 4 December. His attendance at cabinet and committees of the cabinet was also somewhat irregular.<sup>162</sup> Nor was his position deemed secure by all observers. On 21 Dec. both Peter Wentworth and Mungo Graham<sup>‡</sup> thought that Newcastle would be replaced by Nottingham. The former believed that the defeat of two of his Members, who were thrown out of the Commons, now meant ‘his interest in that House is judged very small’, referring to the committee of elections proceedings on the East Retford petition, which were confirmed by the Commons on 11 Jan. 1711.<sup>163</sup> There is some evidence that following the Lords’ vote of censure on Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and Stanhope on 11 Jan. 1711, when on 12 Jan. they censured the council for their advice on the Spanish campaign, Newcastle joined the opposition (having been a member of the council at the time).<sup>164</sup> He registered his proxy with his fellow Whig and Nottinghamshire neighbor, Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston) on 1 Feb. but vacated it later that month when he returned to the House on 19 February. During those days of his absence in early February his brother-in-law, Pelham, gave his proxy to the duke (registered on 5 Feb. 1711). Newcastle was present at the cabinet on 8 Mar. when Guiscard stabbed Harley.<sup>165</sup> On 13 Apr. again during one of Newcastle’s periods of absence, Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, registered his proxy in favour of the duke. This pattern of proxies suggests that Newcastle still associated himself with the Whigs and may indeed even have gained stature in the party as the only one remaining in the ministry. </p><p>On 24 Apr. 1711 Maynwaring wrote about the vote in the Commons that day which referred to the missing £35m and was aimed at James Brydges*, future duke of Chandos. He noted that Brydges ‘has had two accounts ready above two years, that have been stopped only by’, Newcastle as lord privy seal, whose</p><blockquote><p>over-caution, in refusing the act as all his predecessors have done and taking advice of lawyers in matters that are plain and usual, for no foreign payments can pass here without a privy seal, and he is so rich, and consequently so timorous, that he dares not sign, what nobody else would scruple.<sup>166</sup></p></blockquote><p>Newcastle’s fussiness was confirmed by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, who noted that most of the accounts presented by Brydges had not been passed ‘through the great caution and exactness’ of Newcastle, who was ‘very slow and would allow nothing without hearing of counsel on every article’.<sup>167</sup></p><p>The reshuffle necessitated by Rochester’s death offered the opportunity to move Newcastle from his post but on 5 May Poulett told Harley that the duke was opposed to becoming lord president, ‘thinking it a place of less consequence than that he has’.<sup>168</sup> On 10 May Maynwaring’s political gossip came from an intimate friend of Newcastle’s, ‘who was always that to’ Harley, and he believed that Newcastle was the source of his informant’s news about the political reshuffle attendant upon Harley’s rise to the treasurership. On that day Newcastle was one of eight pall-bearers at Rochester’s interment in Westminster Abbey. Newcastle was absent from the Lords between 17-31 May, and it seems that he left London for a time, using George Granville to remind Oxford of a patronage case.<sup>169</sup></p><p>According to Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> Newcastle had proposed a match between Harley’s son, Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, future 2nd earl of Oxford, and Newcastle’s daughter, Henrietta, ‘who will be the richest heiress in Europe’ as early as January 1711. Newcastle also suggested to the queen in the spring of 1711 that Harley himself, who had proved himself worthy through his ‘fidelity and sufferings in her service’, be given the title of earl of Oxford, previously in the possession of the de Vere family, to whom both Newcastle and Harley were related.<sup>170</sup></p><p>Newcastle last sat in the House of Lords on 7 June 1711, five days before its ending, having attended on 30 days, 27 per cent of the total. By 21 June he was at Orton and although he pointedly underlined the fact that he had not had a response to a letter of his from Wimpole, he proceeded to suggest ways to Oxford (as Harley had since become) by which ‘all parties may contribute to make your business easier’. One suggestion was that Orford be offered the lieutenancy of Cambridgeshire. Nottingham, on the other hand, he thought ‘however he may be represented to you now he would not be much to your satisfaction for reasons I can tell you’. For himself, Newcastle would not accept the lieutenancy of Middlesex without being named custos as well.<sup>171</sup></p><p>Newcastle did not have long to enjoy his new office or the summer in the country, for on Friday 13 July he fell from his horse while stag-hunting and died in ‘great pain’ two days later. Some contemporaries attributed his death to his continuing to hunt for two hours after his fall, until the stag was killed, and the complications which set in afterwards.<sup>172</sup> It was intended to bring the corpse from Welbeck for burial in Westminster Abbey, and on 9 Aug. at about 10 a clock in the evening it ‘was brought to town and carried directly to his interment attended only by 15 shabby tattered hired coaches and not by any of the nobility and the mob appeared very rude and indecent at his interment: instead of sprinkling his ashes with tears’.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Oxford was deeply shocked by this unexpected turn of events. He wrote to the duchess while Newcastle was still on his sickbed, ‘no person less concerned than your grace can conceive the disorder I am under, and indeed the agonies I endure while I consider the man in the world I most entirely loved should be under any unfortunate accident’.<sup>174</sup> He was, of course, under no illusion as to its political implications: it cut one of Oxford’s main lines of communication with the Whigs.<sup>175</sup> Contemporaries such as Burnet described Newcastle at the time of his death as ‘the richest subject that had been in England for some ages’, with an estate estimated at above £40,000 p.a., ‘and was much set upon increasing it’.<sup>176</sup> Newcastle’s own records suggest that it did come close to this sum.<sup>177</sup> Indeed, John Bridges had heard a ‘manager of his estate’ say ‘that by a modest computation the rental might then amount to £37,000 per annum and his personal estate could never be less than £100,000.’<sup>178</sup></p><p>Newcastle had one surprise left in store after his unexpected death. The terms of his will shocked contemporaries and were roundly condemned. Unlike his father-in-law he divided his extensive estates, bequeathing to his only child Henrietta a marriage portion of £20,000 and the Cavendish properties in Staffordshire, Northumberland and Yorkshire, together worth about £5,000 p.a. All his other property – the remainder of the Cavendish estate, the inherited lands of the earls of Clare and Barons Holles, and the land purchased by Newcastle himself -- went to his nephew Thomas Pelham*, later duke of Newcastle, son of his youngest sister Grace and Pelham of Laughton, provided that he took the names Holles.<sup>179</sup> John Bridges added this commentary on 20 July, that since he made his will he had purchased ‘about £6,000 per annum, which, if he made no new publication, goes all to the daughter’, and it was said that it is also directed by the will that they should marry together, which seems probable’.<sup>180</sup></p><p>The dowager duchess of Newcastle and Henrietta (who was to marry Harley’s heir in August 1713), contested the settlement against the pretensions of Pelham. They claimed that the duke had not had the right to dispose of the Cavendish estates, as he held them by right of his wife. Significantly Newcastle had never fulfilled one of the key conditions in the 2nd duke of Newcastle’s will, by refusing to adopt the name of Cavendish as his own.<sup>181</sup> After the death of Margaret, dowager duchess in 1716, an agreement was reached between Henrietta Cavendish-Holles (by then styled Lady Harley) and Thomas Pelham-Holles (by then duke of Newcastle), which became official by statute in 1719. Henrietta received all the Cavendish properties her father had inherited from the 2nd duke of Newcastle, including Welbeck Abbey, as well as the land purchases Newcastle had made since making the will in 1707, which were estimated to be worth £100,000. Henrietta thereby improved on the original terms of the will, but the lion’s share of the Newcastle estate still went to the new duke of Newcastle, who used it as a base during the remainder of the eighteenth century for his preponderant power in English politics.</p><p>Newcastle was most commonly described as ‘covetous’.<sup>182</sup> His main concern seems to have been local office and prestige, and in terms of patronage, he was what Godolphin called ‘a general recommender’.<sup>183</sup> He was known to have little need for money, and was a heavy investor in land.<sup>184</sup> With land came political power, to which he added by an assiduous build up of voting strength in certain boroughs, allowing a considerable electoral influence. With this came a certain stubbornness, as Oxford wrote in August 1713, specifically about the marriage of his daughter, ‘it was impossible for anyone to make proposals to his grace, he must do what he would’.<sup>185</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L./S.N.H. |
|
HOWARD, Charles (1610-81) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1610–81)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>half-bro. 3 Oct. 1642 as 3rd earl of NOTTINGHAM, 4th Bar. HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM |
|
First sat before 1660, 19 Dec. 1642; first sat after 1660, 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 1 Apr. 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Dec. 1610, 5th s. of Charles Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Nottingham and 2nd w. Margaret, da. of Elizabeth Stewart <em>suo jure </em>countess of Moray [S] and James Stewart, 2nd Ld. Doune [S] and <em>jure uxoris</em> earl of Moray [S]; <em>educ</em>. Christ Church Oxf. matric. 1626, BA 1627; G. Inn adm. 1633; <em>m</em>. bef. 30 June 1627, Arabella (<em>d</em>.1682), da. of Edward Smith of Middle Temple, <em>s.p</em>.; kntd. 2 Apr. 1624; <em>d</em>. 26 Apr. 1681; <em>will</em> 2 Dec. 1675, pr. 27 Apr. 1681.</p> |
<p>High Steward, Kingston upon Thames 1642-57; cttee. for Ireland, 1646; commr. (parliamentarian) to army 1647, to Scotland 1648.</p> |
|
<p>Although born into a minor branch of the wealthy and influential Howard family, much about Nottingham’s life remains obscure. The family had once been based in Surrey but what little correspondence survives suggests that Nottingham had taken up residence in Bristol and what little is known of his parliamentary career after 1660 suggests strong West Country loyalties. Nottingham seems to have possessed little in the way of family estates and his sole source of income appears to have been a royal pension worth just over £1,000 a year. This was over £4,000 in arrears by 1645 and reduced to £500 in 1646. It was increased in 1659 to £1,000, although £400 was earmarked for the countess.<sup>1</sup> During the Civil War he was associated with the parliamentarian cause and he continued to attend the House after the death of the king.</p><p>On the list made by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in the spring of 1660, Nottingham was noted as a lord that had sat previously. His Civil War attendance meant that there was no objection to his resumption of his seat, a point recognized by John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, when writing to Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, on 19 Apr. 1660.<sup>2</sup> On the opening day of the Convention he was one of the peers written to by Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, requesting him to take his seat. He duly did so two days later on 27 Apr. 1660, when he was named to the committee for privileges and also, perhaps significantly, to the committee for settling the affairs of the nation. On 3 May a crossed out attendance list suggests that he was present at the first meeting of the committee of privileges.<sup>3</sup> On 4 May he was one of four peers who signed an order to prevent riots in London. He was present on 83 days, before the adjournment in September 1660, some 71 per cent of the total. Nottingham was present when the Convention reconvened on 6 Nov. 1660. He attended on a further 20 days, 49 per cent of the total. In total, he was named to a further three committees during the Convention.</p><p>Nottingham was not present when the new Parliament convened on 8 May 1661. He was absent from a call of the House on 20 May 1661, first attending on the following day. He was present on 25 days before the adjournment at the end of July, 39 per cent of the total. On 11 July he was expected to vote against the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. At the end of July 1661 his original pension was confirmed.<sup>4</sup> Nottingham was absent when the session resumed on 20 Nov. 1661, but attended on the 22nd. He was present on 49 days, 37 per cent of the total. He was named to three committees in January and February 1662, the bills for allowances to curates (8 Jan.), for William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington (25 Feb.) and for Ellen Brisco (27 Feb.).</p><p>When the 1663 session began on 18 Feb. 1663, Nottingham was absent. He was also absent at a call of the House on 23 Feb., and on 28 Feb. he was excused attendance on the grounds of ill-health. He first attended on 4 May, but was absent from a call of the House on 23 May, and was not listed as attending between 20 May and 12 June. He was named to only one committee, for the bill on the herring fishery (14 July). He was present on 18 days, 22 per cent of the total. Nottingham was not present when the 1664 session met on 16 Mar., but attended on the 22nd. He was present on 31 days, 87 per cent of the total. He was named, as was everyone present, to the committee for petitions on 23 Mar. 1664. On the main business of this session, the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon, Wharton listed him as doubtful as to his intentions.</p><p>Nottingham was not present on the opening day of the 1664-5 session, 24 Nov., but attended on the 28th. He was present on 11 days, 22 per cent of the total. On 7 Dec. 1664 he was absent from a call of the House. He was present on only one day in January 1665. His only committee appointment, Sir Robert Carr’s<sup>‡</sup> bill (22 Feb. 1665), came during a period of attendance in February. At some point he examined the Journals, signing as such on 2 Mar. 1665, and on the prorogations of 21 June, 1 Aug. 1665 and 3 Oct. 1665. Nottingham was present when the session of October 1665 began on the 9th. He attended on 12 days, 75 per cent of the total. He was named to the committees for privileges and the journal (12 Oct.), as well as to committees for the bills to unite churches in cities (11 Oct.), ‘taking away damage clear’ (17 Oct.), restraining non-conformists from inhabiting in corporations and for the monthly assessment (both 27 October).</p><p>Nottingham was present on the second day of the 1666-7 session, 21 Sept., but was present on only 12 days in total, 13.5 per cent of the total. He was appointed to the committee for privileges on 24 Sept. 1666. He only attended once after the turn of the year (4 Feb. 1667) a visit that was probably associated with the attempted impeachment of Viscount Mordaunt. Nottingham first attended the 1667-9 session on 15 Oct. 1667, when he was named to the committee for the bill to suppress atheism. He was present on seven days of the session before the adjournment of 19 Dec., 14 per cent of the total. He was not present when the session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668, first attending on the 11th. He was present on 26 days of this part of the session before the adjournment in May, 39 per cent of the total. On 17 Feb. 1668 he was excused at a call of the House, and attended the following day. On 12 Mar. 1668 he was named to the committee to consider the sum to be awarded for relief to Skinner, and also to the committee on Sir John Weld’s<sup>‡</sup> bill.<sup>5</sup> His last attendance of the session was on 7 May 1668. Nottingham was apparently facing severe financial embarrassment during 1668 and approached the secretary of state, Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, to expedite payment of his pension, which had been unpaid for 18 months.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Nottingham did not attend the session of October-December 1669 until 25 Oct. when he was named to the committee to consider the decay of trade. He was present on 22 days of the session, 63 per cent of the total. On 25 Nov. 1669 he signed a protest against the resolution that the appeal of West Countryman Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup> and Cuthbert Morley against a decree in Chancery in the case usually listed as <em>Grenville v Elwes</em> was properly before the House. On 9 Dec. he was added to the committee on accounts.</p><p>The end of the 1669 session saw the effective end of Nottingham’s parliamentary career. He did not attend any of the three sessions held between 1670 and 1673, probably because of ill health. He was absent at calls of the House on 21 Feb. 1670, 14 Nov. 1670 (sick), 10 Feb. 1671, and 13 Feb. 1673 (sick). He was absent from the House at the beginning of the 1674 session on 7 Jan., was absent from a call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674, and only attended on 28-29 Jan. 1674. Despite his absence from Parliament, a canvassing list compiled by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later Duke of Leeds), during the first session of 1675 indicates that Nottingham was expected to support the non-resisting test and it was presumably at Danby’s request that Nottingham registered his proxy in favour of Danby’s ally Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey on 21 Apr. 1675, and as such he was listed as having left a proxy at the call of the House on 29 April. On 11 Oct. 1675, two days before the commencement of the second session, Nottingham registered his proxy in Danby’s favour, and was noted as having done so at the call of the House on 10 November.</p><p>Danby had used his position as lord treasurer in Nottingham’s favour. In September 1673, Danby had issued a warrant for the payment of the arrears of Nottingham’s creation money, and he seems to have paid some of Nottingham’s pension.<sup>7</sup> However, on 3 July 1676 Nottingham wrote to the countess of Danby, referring to the many favours he received from her father, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey. He noted that his pensions were ‘the only means of my subsistence’, and that they were three and a half years in arrears from before Danby was appointed lord treasurer and a further one year in arrear to the previous midsummer.<sup>8</sup> On 9 Sept. 1676 Nottingham wrote to Williamson of his being ‘reduced to a condition little better than miserable, being old, lame and wanting what should supply me with food and raiment and those necessary helps of physic my age and infirmities need’, and asking for his assistance in presenting his petition to the king ‘for all arrears of my pensions’, both before and after Danby became lord treasurer. On 27 Sept. his petition, claiming over £4,900 pension arrears, was referred to Danby.<sup>9</sup> Nottingham’s lobbying may have had some effect, for on 25 Oct. the secretary to the treasury was ordered to show Danby what had been paid ‘in his time’ to Nottingham and then he would give some directions in the earl’s business. On 5 Dec. 1676, a warrant was issued for a half-year payment on his pensions of 1,000 marks and £500 per annum.<sup>10</sup> Nottingham acknowledged Williamson’s assistance in February 1677.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Nottingham was again absent for the whole of the 1677-8 session when his proxy (registered on 8 Feb. 1677) was given in favour of the west country peer John Granville*, earl of Bath (and brother of Bernard Granville), and he was noted as having left a proxy at the call of the House on 9 Mar. 1677 and on 16 Feb. 1678. At around this date Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, classed Nottingham as ‘vile’ in his analysis of Parliament. Nottingham was absent for the sessions of May-July, and October-December, registering a proxy on 6 Nov. 1678 in favour of Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice. Danby’s canvassing lists drawn up in the spring of 1679 show that he expected to be able to count on Nottingham’s support. On one he was listed as being deputed to the care of Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, Lindsey’s brother; on another he was listed as doubtful (absent); on a third as a supporter and on a fourth as an absent supporter, although this was scored through; Nottingham having struggled into the House on 1 Apr. 1679 when Danby’s bill of attainder received its first reading. This was to be his last appearance in the House, as that same day he signed a proxy in favour of Arundell of Trerice. On 12 Mar. 1679 he was listed as a court lord. He was excused attendance at a call of the House on 9 May 1679, and at a call of the House on 30 Oct. 1680 he was again excused on grounds of illness. He was listed as absent on the division on exclusion on 15 Nov. 1680.</p><p>Nottingham died at his Surrey house on 26 Apr. 1681. By his will he left over £100 in gold coins, his clothes and a substantial quantity of furniture and household goods to his servant John Syddall; the remainder went to his executor and ‘well deserving and faithful friend’ Richard Thorne, one of the king’s sergeants at arms. He made no other bequests.<sup>12</sup> At his death the earldom of Nottingham became extinct; it was recreated less than a month later for Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch. Nottingham’s cousin, Francis Howard*, succeeded as 5th Baron Howard of Effingham.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
HOWARD, Charles (c. 1615-79) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1615–79)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Visct. Andover 1626-69; <em>cr. </em>3 Nov. 1640 Bar. HOWARD of Charlton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1669 as 2nd earl of BERKSHIRE |
|
First sat before 1660, 19 Nov. 1640; first sat after 1660, 2 July 1660; last sat 23 Nov. 1678 |
|
MP Oxford 1640 (Apr., Oct.-Nov.), Oxford Parliament 1644 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1615, 1st s. of Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Exeter; bro. of Thomas Howard*, (later 3rd earl of Berkshire), Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, and Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>. <em>m</em>. 10 Apr. 1637, Dorothy (<em>d</em>. 6 Dec. 1691), da. of Thomas Savage<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Savage, and Elizabeth <em>suo jure</em> Countess Rivers, <em>s.p.m</em>. KB 1626. <em>d</em>. bef. 16 Apr. 1679; <em>will</em> 5 Sep. 1673–24 Oct. 1678, pr. 4 June 1679.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Charles Howard was summoned to Parliament in his father’s barony of Howard of Charlton in 1640; until he succeeded to his father’s earldom he was better known to his contemporaries by his courtesy title of Viscount Andover and so that name will be used here. He was a member of the powerful Howard clan and had many relatives in both Houses. His brother, Philip, who was clearly a Protestant, joined the household of Prince James*, duke of York, at the Restoration and was regarded as a court supporter until the early 1680s. Another brother, Sir Robert Howard was also a court supporter apart from a brief but important period of opposition c. 1667–70.</p><p>Andover’s summons to the House of Lords so soon after his election to the Commons in 1640 was no doubt meant to bolster royal support there. His royalist credentials were confirmed when, together with eight other peers, he joined the king at York in May 1642. As a result of their flight all nine were impeached and found guilty on 20 July 1642. He compounded for delinquency in 1646 and obtained a pass to go abroad in 1648.<sup>2</sup> By 1655 he was in Brussels, where he seems to have become involved in a quarrel with his cousin Henry Howard*, later 6th duke of Norfolk.<sup>3</sup> Together with his siblings Thomas and Mary Howard, he was actively involved in plots to restore the king.<sup>4</sup></p><p>At the Restoration Andover undoubtedly expected to reap the rewards of his loyalty. On 4 May 1660, even before he had taken his seat, the House voted to overturn the impeachment of 1642. He took his seat on 4 July and was then present on all but two of the remaining days of the session. That month he was thought to be in favour of the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford to the great chamberlaincy. He was appointed to a wide range of committees; it is difficult to trace any consistent pattern to his nominations, but it is possible that there was a personal (or family) interest in one of them, the committee for the bill for tanning leather, since a patent for a new tanning process was granted to a Charles Howard in October 1661.<sup>5</sup> He may also have had a personal interest in the committees for the bill for John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and to examine Winchester’s patent to be duke of Somerset, since his brother Robert was a close friend of Winchester’s estranged son.</p><p>During the 1661–2 session Andover was present on all but three days. He was granted a pension of £1,000 a year in February 1661, and in August was instructed by the king to go into Hampshire and Somerset in search of concealed jewels, plate, and other goods belonging to the crown.<sup>6</sup> He was again appointed to a wide variety of committees. That he was an active committee member is suggested by his willingness to report from the committee on the Parsons Green bill on 3 July 1662, even though there is no indication in the committee minute book that he had chaired the committee, and by his activity on 11 July in securing the acceptance of alterations proposed by the Commons to the bill for Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset. He was instrumental in bringing the petition of the distressed royalist Jane Hone to the attention of the House and in transmitting petitions for office to the crown.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Andover was present on every day of the 1663 session and held the proxy of the Catholic peer Francis Browne*, 3rd Viscount Montagu, from 2 Mar. 1663 until it was cancelled on 6 April. He was named to the committee for privileges, and may also have chaired one of its meetings. The pattern of nomination to committees considering a wide range of subjects continued. He occasionally reported from committees, such as that to consider the bill of Richard Byron*, 2nd Baron Byron, and three naturalization bills. He also chaired sessions of the committees considering bills for the marquess of Winchester, for Philip Smythe, Viscount Strangford [I], and for subsidies.<sup>8</sup> In March he petitioned the crown for compensation in lieu of an abortive embassy to Venice in 1642; he also claimed to be in poor health and ‘almost ruined’ by his services to Charles I. He soon received his reward: the right to nominate two candidates for baronetcies. Given his impeccably royalist background it is interesting to note that even at this early stage there were signs that his allegiances were changing: he nominated two strong Presbyterians, Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup> of Brightwell Hall, Suffolk, and Thomas Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup> of Kedington, Suffolk.<sup>9</sup> On 18 July 1663 Andover was appointed one of the commissioners to assess the peerage. Wharton thought that he would support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, but Andover himself seems to have been more concerned with problems caused by the apparent stasis in government affairs created by the crisis.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Andover was present on every day of the short sessions of spring 1664 and 1664–5. He was again named to a variety of committees, including the sessional committees, chairing several of them.<sup>11</sup> In September 1664 he petitioned the crown for payment of his pension, claiming that he was so hard up that he was ‘upon the uttermost confines of starving’. His complaints must have been heard for in May 1665 he was given £500 as the king’s free gift.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Andover was absent for the whole of the brief session in October 1665. On 19 Oct. he was excused attendance by the House as having been granted leave by the king and having sent a proxy. The proxy was held by John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), for the whole of the session. Andover was again absent at the opening of the 1666–7 session, but attended every sitting day after his arrival on 1 Oct., when his name was added to the committee for privileges. He held the proxy of Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, from 21 Nov. to 11 Dec. 1666. He was again named to a wide range of select committees. On 12 Oct. he was named to the committee to draw up heads for a conference on the need to prohibit the importation of French commodities, and presumably went on to act as a manager of the subsequent conferences. In January and February 1667 he chaired several sessions of the committee on the bill for James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), which he reported on 8 February.<sup>13</sup> On 23 Jan. he entered a dissent at the resolution not to give a right of appeal to the House of Lords in disputes concerning houses burned in the Fire of London. Meanwhile, although his brother Robert was one of the leading managers of the Commons’ campaign against John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, on 4 Feb. 1667, Andover protested against the resolution to grant the Commons’ request for a conference solely relating to a matter of judicature as ‘a very great derogation to the privileges of this House’.</p><p>During the recess, Sir Francis Doddington described Andover to Clarendon as one ‘who is capable of doing good in these times’.<sup>14</sup> He was certainly diligent, being present for nearly every day of the long and troubled session of 1667–9. In September 1667 the Frnech agent Ruvigny identified him, together with his brother Robert, as one of the leaders of a third faction in Parliament. Both were said to be in the pay of Spain and were widely identified as followers of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. James II’s later reference to the earl of Berkshire as one of Buckingham’s ‘great confidents’ in the period 1667–9 almost certainly refers to the 2nd earl rather than to his father.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Andover was appointed to the sessional committees on 11 Oct. 1667 and again served on a wide range of select committees. In November he was involved with Buckingham and Bristol in encouraging Lady Dacres to bring in a private bill to reclaim lands previously leased to Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>16</sup> On 20 Nov. he protested against the decision not to commit Clarendon on a general charge. In November and December 1667 he chaired several sessions of the committee for privileges and joined a subcommittee to discuss the issue of the relative precedence of English and ‘foreign’ (i.e. Irish) nobility.<sup>17</sup> On 4 Dec. he was named as one of the managers of the conferences to discuss Clarendon’s petition and then on 14 Dec. to draw up reasons for disagreeing with the vote of the House of Commons.</p><p>Early in March 1668, in what was presumably an attempt to repair the political damage caused by Buckingham’s duel with Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, Andover was involved in moving for the committal of the bill against atheism and blasphemy, explaining to Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, that ‘some had turned all the bible into bawdy burlesque’.<sup>18</sup> On 26 Mar. he reported from the select committee concerning Lady Savill’s bill. On 5 May 1668 he was named as one of the reporters for the conference with the Commons in the case of <em>Skinner v East India Co.</em> The minutes of the committee for privileges indicate that his task was to ‘open the petition’. Andrew Marvell reported that Andover and his fellow speakers held both Houses captive for five hours. Andover was also named to subsequent conferences on the subject. <sup>19</sup> Despite (or perhaps because of) the deadlock that ensued, he was awarded £500 just a month later. Another warrant for £500 was issued in June 1669.<sup>20</sup> He succeeded to his father’s earldom in July 1669, prompting William Dugdale to make a series of notes pondering the precise status of peers summoned by writ of acceleration. Did such a writ divest the father of his barony or did it create a new one that was capable of a different descent? Dugdale left the questions unanswered.<sup>21</sup></p><p>During the autumn session of 1669 Berkshire was again present nearly every day and was added to the sessional committees. His attendance was even higher for the 1670–1 session, when he did not miss a single day and held Buckingham’s proxy for one day in March. On 8 Mar. 1670 he objected on behalf of his kinsman Thomas Howard*, 5th duke of Norfolk, to the claim of Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, to take precedence of all barons then sitting. As in previous sessions he was named to a variety of select committees and in March 1670 chaired meetings of the select committee on bills for Lady Rowth and for the divorce of John Manners*, Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland). The brief notes in the minutes of the committee on Roos’s divorce bill suggest that all present voted in favour of the bill, and Berkshire reported favourably upon it to the House on 24 March. When the bill reached the Commons, Sir Robert Howard also spoke in its favour.</p><p>Ever anxious to defend the privileges of peerage, on 5 Apr. Berkshire entered a dissent against the inclusion of a clause in the conventicles bill permitting peers’ houses to be searched. In May he was awarded another ‘free gift’ from the crown, this time of £1,000.<sup>22</sup> In November he chaired three meetings of select committees on naturalization bills. He may also have been the Lord Howard who chaired a meeting of the select committee on the poor of London on 4 Jan. 1671, on which day he certainly did chair meetings of the select committee on the creditors of the Hamburg Company and the bill to prevent the importation of brandy. The select committee in the Commons on this last bill was chaired by his brother Robert.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Berkshire’s extensive committee involvement continued to the end of the session. On 26 Jan. and 4 Feb. 1671 he was one of the managers of the conferences on the bill to prevent maiming. On 14 Feb. he again spoke for the interests of his cousin Norfolk, in the matter of the precedence claim entered by George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later of earl of) Berkeley. On 18 Mar. he reported from the committee for privileges on the legality of sequestrations in chancery. On 10 Apr. he was named to the conferences on the foreign commodities bill. Eight days later he chaired a meeting of the select committee to consider the bill for his kinsman Charles Howard.<sup>24</sup> On the same day he was named as a manager of the conference on the Smithfield market bill. On 22 Apr. he was named to a further conference on foreign commodities and was one of those asked to present the thanks of the House to the king for his answer to the address for the encouragement of the constant wearing of the manufactures of the kingdom.</p><p>During the first session of 1673 Berkshire was again present every day. He was added to sessional committees on 4 Feb. and yet again was named to numerous select committees. In February he chaired committees considering the ‘multitude’ of attorneys and for the bill for James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury. On 1 Mar. he was named to the committee entrusted with the task of drawing up an address of thanks to the king for communicating the complaints of the Commons over the declaration of indulgence.</p><p>Berkshire was present on three of the four sitting days of the brief autumn session of 1673 and was added to the sessional committees on 30 Oct. 1673. He attended every day of the 1674 session and was predictably added to the sessional committees on the first day of the session. On that day, together with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, he defended Buckingham against a petition from the trustees of the infant Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke of) Shrewsbury, concerning the death of his father, Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, and the relationship between the widowed Lady Shrewsbury and Buckingham.<sup>25</sup> On 13 Jan. he reported from the committee for privileges concerning the petition of Catherine, Lady O’Brien’s claim to the barony of Clifton of Leighton Bromswold. After the adjournment of the House he took the oath of allegiance.</p><p>During the first session of 1675 Berkshire was present almost every day until 21 May, after which he was absent until the end of the session on 9 June. He was again an active committee member and was added to the sessional committees on 23 Apr. 1675. In April and early May he entered four separate protests during the passage of the bill to prevent dangers presented to the government by disaffected persons, including one on 29 Apr. emphasizing the right to protest in the face of the resolution that an earlier protest reflected on the honour of the House. On 6 May he entered another protest, this time in the case of <em>Sherley v Fagg</em>, alleging that a conciliatory answer to the Commons was likely to be interpreted by the other House as ‘in some measure to acknowledge that the House of Commons have a claim to some privilege in judicature’. During the second brief session of 1675 his attendance slumped markedly: he was present on just over 54 per cent of the sitting days. He was absent on the opening day of the session and so was not named to the sessional committees until 8 Nov. 1675. On 20 Nov. he entered a protest at the failure of the House to address the king to dissolve Parliament.</p><p>During the 1677–8 session Berkshire’s attendance recovered slightly to approximately 65 per cent of sitting days. On the first day of the session, 15 Feb. 1677, he was, as usual, appointed to the sessional committees. In stark contrast to the position adopted by his brother Robert in the Commons, he supported the right of Buckingham, Salisbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, to give their opinion that Parliament was dissolved, although he did not himself join with them.<sup>26</sup> A month later, on 15 Mar. 1677, together with Charles North*, Baron Grey of Rolleston (later 5th Baron North), he was given permission to visit the four peers in the Tower. That same day he also joined with supporters of York, to enter a dissent to the third reading of the bill to secure the Protestant religion.<sup>27</sup> On 20 Mar., together with George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, and Clarendon, he supported the unsuccessful motion of George Booth*, Baron Delamere, for the release of the imprisoned peers.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Berkshire was once again an active committee member. On 23 Mar. 1677 he reported from the committee for privileges on the claim of the countess dowager of Huntingdon to privilege. On 6 Apr. he reported from the same committee concerning the disputed precedency of the eldest sons of younger sons of peers. A week later he was named to the committee to draw up the heads of arguments for a conference on the supply bill. In January 1678 he presented Buckingham’s petition for enlargement to the House.<sup>29</sup> He was absent from the House between 7 Feb. and 12 Mar. and for part of that time (20 Feb.–11 Mar.) his proxy was held by the Catholic peer William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre. Given the level of anti-Catholic feeling at the time, this may well have been a public indication of a conversion to Rome. On 23 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw up an address to the king for an immediate declaration of war against France, although he was almost certainly in the pay of the French at the time.<sup>30</sup> On 4 Apr., he voted that Thomas Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, was not guilty in his trial for murder.</p><p>Berkshire was present on just over three-quarters of the sitting days of the summer session of 1678. He was again named to the sessional committees and on 4 July reported from the select committee on bankers. He was absent for the first ten days of the autumn 1678 session, but he then attended nearly every day until 23 November. On 7 Nov. he was added to the committee for privileges. On 20 Nov. he entered his dissent to the passing of the Test Act, alongside James, duke of York, and six other Catholic peers. The previous day he had been granted a pass to go overseas with four servants and by 26 Nov. he had left for France. Rumour had it that he had been forced to flee for fear of what would be revealed about him by the confiscation of Edward Coleman’s papers.<sup>31</sup> His avoidance of the need to take the new oaths suggests that he had converted to Catholicism, but revelations about his religion were not all that he had to fear: documents belonging to the French ambassador show that a Lord ‘Barker’ received payments totalling £1,000 during the period 1677–81. ‘Barker’ was identified as a Howard and is clearly a faulty rendition of Berkshire. A further description of ‘Barker’ as ‘a great haranguer’ in Parliament is more suggestive of the 2nd earl than of his successor.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Various lists of potential supporters drawn up by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) in the spring of 1679 include Berkshire, but it is likely that they refer to the 3rd rather than to the 2nd earl, since the latter died early in April 1679 in Paris. His precise date of death is unknown, but it must have been before 16 Apr., when a writ of summons was issued to his brother and heir, Thomas Howard, 3rd earl of Berkshire, who took his seat the following day.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, Charles (1628-85) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1628–85)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 earl of CARLISLE |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 24 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Cumb. and Westmld. 1653; Cumb. 1654, 1656-10 Dec. 1657, 1660; Mbr. of the ‘Other House’ as Visct. Howard, 1658, 1659 |
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Feb. 1628, 2nd s. of Sir William Howard (<em>d</em>. 8 Jan. 1642) of Naworth, Cumb. and Mary (<em>d</em>.1638), da. of William Eure [Ewer]<sup>†</sup>, 4th Bar. Eure; bro. of Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (tutor Robert Howard); travelled abroad (Holland) 1646-7. <em>m</em>. c. Dec. 1645, Anne (<em>d</em>.1703), da. of Edward Howard*, Bar. Howard of Escrick, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 24 Feb. 1685; <em>will</em> 16 Jan., pr. 11 May 1685.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Cllr. of State Apr.-Dec. 1653; [S] 1655-8; PC 2 June 1660-21 Apr. 1679, ld. trade and plantation 12 Mar. 1675-21 Apr. 1679; farmer, wine customs [I], 1660-81; commr. trade 1656-7, 1668-72, security [S] 1656, earl marshal 1662-73,<sup>2</sup> northern borders 1663, 1675,<sup>3</sup> prizes 1664-7, trade with Scotland 1668-74;<sup>4</sup> dep. earl marshal 1673-84.</p><p>Sheriff Cumb. 1649-50; commr. scandalous ministers, Cumb., Westmld., Northumb. and co. Dur. 1654, security of Protector, Cumb. and Westmld. 1655-6, statutes, Durham College 1656, militia, Cumb., Northumb., Westmld. and Yorks. Mar. 1660; ltcy. of co. Dur. 1672-4; freeman, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1656, Portsmouth 1680; alderman, Carlisle ?1658-<em>d</em>., mayor 1677-8; <em>custos rot.</em> Cumb. Mar. 1660-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Cumb. and Westmld. 1660-8 (sole), 1668-<em>d.</em> (jt.); v. adm., Cumb., co. Dur., Northumb. and Westmld. 1661-<em>d</em>.; c.-in-c. militia, Cumb., co. Dur., Northumb. and Westmld. June-Aug. 1667; warden, Barnard Castle, Teesdale Forest and Marwood Chase, co. Dur. 1672-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt., coy. of Life Gds. to Protector 1651-Jan. 1655, Sept. 1655-6, independent coy. of horse 1666-7, <sup>5</sup> coy. Prince Rupert’s Horse June-Aug. 1667; col. regt. of horse Jan.-Sept. 1655, Feb.-Oct. 1660, regt. of ft. 1656-Apr. 1659, 1673-4; gov. and col., Carlisle by Jan. 1655-Apr. 1659, Feb.-Dec. 1660, 1678-<em>d</em>., Berwick-upon-Tweed, Tynemouth Castle by Jan. 1655-Apr. 1659; <sup>6</sup> dep. maj. gen. Cumb., Northumb. and Westmld. 1655-6; lt. gen. June-Aug. 1667.</p><p>Amb. extraordinary, Russia, Poland, Denmark and Sweden 1663-5, Sweden 1668-9; gov. Jamaica 1678-81.</p><p>Mbr. Roy. Adventurers into Africa 1661-72, asst. 1670, Soc. of Mines Roy. 1667, Roy. Fishery Co. 1677; freeman, Merchant Adventurers’ Co. 1664;<sup>7</sup> FRS, 1665-82.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving, William Faithorne, 1669, NPG D22660; oil on canvas, unknown, 1677, Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, 1914.6.4; line engraving, Abraham Bloteeling, 1679, NPG D29509.</p> |
<h2><em>Cromwellian and royalist 1651-61</em></h2><p>Charles Howard, earl of Carlisle, came from a younger branch of one of the great noble houses of England. Through the marriage of his great-grandfather, Lord William Howard, a younger son of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, 4th duke of Norfolk, to Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Dacre<sup>†</sup>, 5th Baron Dacre of Gilsland, this branch of the family had acquired the extensive Dacre properties in Cumberland and Northumberland which were to form the basis of its wealth and influence in the northernmost English territories. An orphan and heir of the estate by 1644, the young Charles Howard was captured by parliamentary troops while trying to escape to France. His estate was in danger of being sequestered, but upon promising that he would willingly surrender himself to Parliament, the committee for sequestration found him ‘a fit subject for favour’ and left his estate intact.<sup>9</sup> To cement the young man’s new position in the parliamentary camp further in 1645 he married Anne, daughter of Edward Howard, Baron Howard of Escrick, a kinsman and an increasingly influential (and corrupt) member of the committee for the advance of money.</p><p>In April 1651, under the patronage of Sir Arthur Heselrige<sup>‡</sup>, Howard was appointed captain of Cromwell’s personal life guard and quickly rose to prominence in this role, especially after conducting himself well against the exiled Charles II at the battle of Worcester. He was chosen to represent the four northernmost counties in the Nominated Assembly in July 1653, while at the same time he was also appointed a councillor of state. Following the failure of this experiment in ‘godly rule’ in December 1653, he continued to rise under the newly established Protectorate. He effectively became Cromwell’s principal agent in the northernmost counties of England, and was the principal ‘major-general’ there in 1655-6 (although officially only deputy major general under Colonel John Lambert<sup>‡</sup>). His influence even extended into Scotland. A fuller list and description of his many offices and commissions in the north during the Interregnum appears in his entry in the volumes on the Commons 1640-60. Most prominently he sat for Cumberland in the two Protectorate Parliaments, until the protector conferred on him on 21 July 1657 the hereditary titles of Lord Gilsland and Viscount Howard of Morpeth, (although this promotion was reported to have been effected as early as January 1657).<sup>10</sup> Under these titles Howard took his seat in the Cromwellian ‘Other House’ when it first met on 20 Jan. 1658 and proceeded to attend it regularly. He supported Richard Cromwell in his struggle with the army leaders in 1659, although he came far more intermittently to the embattled ‘Other House’ when it starting meeting again under the new Protector from late January 1659.<sup>11</sup> The Protectorate’s fall in late April brought about Howard’s own dismissal from his military posts, and he was placed under scrutiny for his communications with the exiled court and was even arrested for his suspected involvement in the rising of August 1659.<sup>12</sup> On 25 Feb. 1660, on his expedition from Scotland, George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, appointed Howard governor of Carlisle and a colonel of the regiment of horse previously commanded by Col. John Desborough<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup> Howard and his brother Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>, made captain in the Life Guards at the same time, became some of Monck’s most trusted allies in the purge and re-indoctrination of the army which preceded the Restoration. Throughout May he maintained a correspondence with both Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, and the king in which he expressed his duty to the royalist cause, receiving positive assurances from Charles II for ‘the part you have acted for the advancement of my service’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Howard was elected to represent Carlisle in the Convention and in June 1660, most likely on the recommendation of his patron Monck, he was one of four former Cromwellians sworn to the new Privy Council.<sup>15</sup> Throughout the remainder of his career he was a diligent and frequently active member of the council.<sup>16</sup> From this point he turned his back on his former political and religious allegiances and stood as a firm supporter of both monarchy and episcopacy. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, later caustically commented on the varied career of Charles Howard, and noted that when captain of Cromwell’s Life Guards, he ‘had then run into a high profession of religion, to the pitch of praying and preaching in their meetings. But after the restoration he shook that off, and ran into a course of vice. He loved to be popular, and yet to keep up an interest at court; and so was apt to go forward and backward in public affairs’.<sup>17</sup> Always a keen observer of the prevailing political wind, Howard was notorious for constantly trimming his sails accordingly.</p><p>In October 1660 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland but in December, owing partly to local opposition, he was deprived of the governorship of Carlisle conferred on him earlier by Monck. This post was given instead by the king to the ardent royalist Sir Philip Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, Howard’s local rival, whom he had particularly targeted and harassed while acting as a loyal agent of the Protectorate.<sup>18</sup> At least on this occasion Howard’s Cromwellian past came back to haunt him, but he still had sufficient interest in the corporation to ensure the return of his younger brother Sir Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup> as member for Carlisle in 1661, a seat which he shared with Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, son of the town’s governor, for the next three Parliaments.<sup>19</sup> As lord of the manor of Morpeth, Howard was similarly able to have his brother-in-law Sir George Downing<sup>‡</sup> (who had married Howard’s sister in 1654) selected as representative for that borough for all of Charles II’s Parliaments, from which position Downing was able to exercise his extraordinary influence on English trade and financial legislation.<sup>20</sup></p><h2><em>Earl of Carlisle, 1661-7</em></h2><p>Howard’s loss of the Carlisle governorship was more than recompensed when on 20 Apr. 1661 he was created earl of Carlisle at the coronation of Charles II (without any acknowledgement being made of his previous Cromwellian titles). James Stuart*, duke of York, further made him vice admiral of the Cumberland and Northumberland coasts in June.<sup>21</sup> Carlisle first sat in the restored House of Lords on the first day of the Cavalier Parliament, on 8 May 1661, and was formally introduced to the House three days later, when the 11 newly created or promoted peers from the coronation all submitted their writs of summons. He continued to come to the House for just over four-fifths of this long first session. During the first weeks of the sittings of spring and summer 1661, when he came to three-quarters of the sittings, he was almost never nominated to committees, at least not according to the Journal. He reported on 27 June from a select committee with the amended bill for John Nevill*, 10th Baron Abergavenny, even though there is no previous indication of his being nominated to that committee. On 1 July he acted as the spokesman from the Privy Council referring to the House the two petitions from the northern counties praying for the re-establishment of the court of York. Carlisle had a personal interest in this matter, as he had signed the petition submitted by the northern peerage and gentry; indeed his name appears near the head of the signatories.<sup>22</sup> Carlisle was further named to the committee established that day to consider the petitions and on 18-19 July, just before the summer adjournment, he was placed on the committees for the corporation bill, the militia bill and the bill for preserving deer.</p><p>He came to a full 84 per cent of the sitting days after the session resumed on 20 Nov. 1661, but during the winter of 1661-2 he was still placed on only three committees, including those for the uniformity bill and for the Admiralty jurisdiction bill. As a privy councillor, and perhaps as a former Cromwellian, he signed the protest of 6 Feb. 1662 against the bill to restore to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, the lands in north Wales he had conveyed by legal instruments during the Interregnum. As Carlisle is marked as absent in the Journal for that day and his signature appears at the bottom of the signatures in the manuscript Journal with no additional signatures appearing beneath it, it is likely that he either arrived late that day or that he appended his signature to the protest when he arrived in the House the day following the division and protest.<sup>23</sup> From this point the number of his committee nominations increased – 15 between 13 Feb. and the prorogation of 19 May 1662. One matter concerned him particularly, the government of the north, especially the lawless Anglo-Scottish borderlands. On 26 Apr. he was placed on the committee for the bill to prevent theft and rapine on the northern borders, and he took a sufficiently prominent role on it, that on 7 May he reported from committee with the amended bill. He was to continue to be involved in further bills on this matter in succeeding sessions.</p><p>Carlisle was in the House for a little less than two-thirds of the meetings of the 1663 session. During the session he was named to seven committees on legislation, and on 18 Mar. 1663 he was consulted, in his role as one of the commissioners of the office of earl marshal, by the committee considering the heralds’ bill. He and his fellow commissioners were consequently added to this committee the following day.<sup>24</sup> On 4 Apr. 1663 he was appointed to the committee for the bill to settle an annuity on Charles Weston*, 3rd earl of Portland, which he chaired on 7 Apr., along with that for the bill to vest the lands of John Copleston in trustees. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton further predicted that Carlisle would support George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, in his attempt to impeach Clarendon in late July 1663, and Carlisle later in 1667 signalled himself as one of the lord chancellor’s leading opponents.</p><p>In June 1663 Carlisle was sent on an embassy to Russia to reaffirm the good relations that had been established between Charles II and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in the 1650s and to reinstate the highly advantageous trading conditions that the Muscovy Company had enjoyed before the tsar had abrogated them as a gesture of support for the Stuarts. Unfortunately, owing to Carlisle’s high-handed manner, his obsession with the punctilios of diplomatic etiquette, his readiness to perceive slights to his and his king’s honour and his unwillingness (or inability) to offer the Russians anything in return for the trading concessions, the embassy ended in failure. Carlisle, embittered by what he saw as the deviousness of the Russians, went so far as to refuse to accept the gifts which the tsar presented to him to take back to Charles II. On his return from Russia in the winter of 1664-5 Carlisle paid additional ambassadorial visits to Sweden and Denmark, and in Sweden, still angry at the tsar, he sounded out the government there about the possibility of an Anglo-Swedish alliance against Russia. In his dispatches to the English ministers he espoused the Swedes’ offer to blockade Archangel and have the English staple port moved to the Baltic ports of Narva or Riga.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Carlisle was back in England by February 1665, for he sat in the House again on 3 Feb. 1665 and proceeded to attend 17 further sittings in that last month of the 1664-5 session, during which he was named to one committee on legislation. Here, on 16 Feb., he brought to the attention of the House a breach of his privilege involving the arrest of one of his servants. The perpetrators were discharged at Carlisle’s request two days later. Carlisle was involved in the defence of the north-western English counties in the summer of 1665, as the second Anglo-Dutch War commenced.<sup>26</sup> He took time off from his duties in the north to attend four days of the session at Oxford beginning on 25 October. There he promoted the bill to prevent the importation of Irish cattle. He was named to the committee on the bill on 26 Oct. and chaired the first three meetings of it, all held four days later, although these meetings were adjourned without proceedings while opponents of the bill were allowed to prepare their arguments. On 26 Oct. he was also placed on the committee for the bill to prevent the spread of plague, and was nominated a reporter for a conference on the bill held on 31 Oct., where the Commons made clear their objections to provisos of the bill that appeared to exempt the peerage from its provisions.</p><p>In the following months he continued his involvement in military preparations in the north, both against the Dutch and the dreaded ‘mosstroopers’ on the Anglo-Scottish border.<sup>27</sup> In late June 1666 he was commissioned a captain of an independent, non-regimented troop of horse, apparently intended for the defence of the vulnerable port of Newcastle. The government also relied on him to keep an eye on developments in Scotland during the war.<sup>28</sup> At a by-election in Morpeth in September 1666, held after the death of the Member Henry Widdrington<sup>‡</sup>, Carlisle initially promised Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, that he would provide the empty seat for undersecretary Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>. The corporation defied the earl by electing Carlisle’s own son Edward Howard*, then styled Viscount Morpeth (later 2nd earl of Carlisle) instead. Carlisle himself was angered by this, and this disappointment may well have caused some bitterness between Williamson and the Howards in the following years.<sup>29</sup> Carlisle was more than usually attentive in the session of winter 1666-7, when he attended 71 per cent of the sittings and was named to eight committees on legislation. He was prominent in the proceedings on the Irish cattle bill and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, included Carlisle in a list of privy councillors who defied the government’s wishes and supported the bill.<sup>30</sup> On 17 Nov. 1666 he was placed on the committee assigned to draft a proviso to the bill which would allow the Irish to send slaughtered and barrelled cattle to London as a charitable gesture after the devastation of the Fire. The resulting malicious proviso, framed by some of the most anti-Irish members of the House, in effect ‘aspersed the intention of the givers, and called the contribution a contrivance to mischief England’. On 21 Nov., after debating this measure further, the House appointed Carlisle, Anglesey and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), to amend the proviso further according to the House’s wishes. It was Carlisle who later that day reported from this small working group with a proviso which allowed for an effective ‘charitable’ import of live cattle from Ireland, which was duly passed.<sup>31</sup> The following day, 21 November, Carlisle was also assigned to devise heads for a conference, which he was also to manage, concerning the Commons’ request for the establishment of a joint committee of both Houses to examine the public accounts.</p><p>Carlisle’s involvement in all these matters was suddenly interrupted by an express on 24 Nov. 1666 from the king ordering him to the north to raise forces against the Covenanter insurgents in the ‘Pentland Rising’, whose forces were perilously close to the English border.<sup>32</sup> The uprising was quickly crushed by Scottish forces at Rullion Green and Carlisle was back in the capital by 22 December. He was able to report personally to the king, ‘that those who engaged in the late rising were zealous, hot-headed people, like our fifth monarchy men [but], incited by the gentry to try the issue and success’, and he further predicted that if the French were to send troops to the northern kingdom, Scotland would quickly rise in rebellion.<sup>33</sup> In the wake of this incident the security of the northern borders again came to Parliament’s attention. On 22 Dec., the day when Carlisle first sat again in the House, his son Morpeth brought up from the Commons the bill to continue the act to prevent theft and rapine on the borders. Carlisle himself was not added to the committee for this bill at first, but it must have been thought that those involved in the government of the north should have a voice in the bill, and consequently Carlisle with Edward Rainbowe*, bishop of Carlisle, and the Northumbrian peer William Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke, were added to the committee on 4 Jan. 1667. The bill was passed by the House on 12 Jan. 1667 and received the royal assent six days later. On 8 Jan. Carlisle was also added to the committee on the bill concerning lead mines in county Durham, and three days before the end of the session, on 5 Feb., he was placed on the committee for an additional bill on the Bedford Level.</p><h2><em>Opponent of Clarendon and the court, 1667-74</em></h2><p>By 20 June 1667 the government’s estimation of Howard’s military abilities and activities in the north had risen sufficiently for him to be commissioned joint commander-in-chief of all the forces in the four northern counties and lieutenant general of all the forces of the kingdom against the Dutch and French. Carlisle confined his efforts largely to the north and throughout July was instrumental in once again preparing the defences of Newcastle and the mouth of the Tyne against attack.<sup>34</sup> He had a personal stake in protecting Newcastle, for in March 1667 he had been granted an annuity of £1,000 p.a., derived from the customs duties on the export of coal.<sup>35</sup> Carlisle did not attend any of the sittings of the short session of late July 1667 where the peace was discussed, but during the autumn and winter of 1667, he was among the principal opponents of the disgraced Clarendon and his allies. In the Privy Council in early October he sided with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, (whose sister had married Carlisle’s brother in 1664) and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, in attacking the interests of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (also earl of Brecknock), in the case of an appeal from Ireland submitted to the council.<sup>36</sup> Carlisle came to 90 per cent of the meetings of the House in the winter of 1667, and was very quickly placed on a committee in which his expertise was needed, that ‘to consider and examine how the present condition stands between England and Scotland in point of trade’, which was to be the genesis of the bill for free trade between the two kingdoms. In this first part of the session he was named to eight other committees, including that on another northern matter, the bill of John Cosin*, bishop of Durham. On 15 and again on 19 Nov. he represented the House in conferences discussing the Commons’ insistence on the commitment of the former lord chancellor. On 20 Nov. the House adhered to its decision that it could not order the commitment of Clarendon without specific charges of treason, and Carlisle signed the protest against this resolution. Carlisle was appointed a reporter or manager for subsequent conferences on this dispute on 21 and 28 Nov., but as Carlisle’s name does not appear in the attendance register for that latter day, it is likely that he did not take part. After Clarendon’s flight, made known to both Houses on 3 Dec., a bill for permanently banishing and disenabling the former lord chancellor was brought in, and Carlisle was placed on the committee for this bill on 7 December. Three days later Carlisle was named as a reporter for a conference where the Commons presented their recent votes affirming their right to free speech in Parliament. On 14 Dec., two days after the passage of the bill for Clarendon’s banishment, Carlisle helped to draft, and then presented in conference, the reasons why the House could not agree with the lower House in its address to the king calling for Clarendon’s apprehension to face impeachment.</p><p>On the last two days before the adjournment, 18-19 Dec. 1667, Carlisle watched the rapid passage through the Houses of the bill to establish free trade between England and Scotland. He had a stake in this act, for from 4 Jan. 1668 he was a prominent and assiduous member of the English commission to put this act into execution, although he was later described by one of the Scots commissioners as ‘still in earnest in the union, but backward in the trade’.<sup>37</sup> He attended 83 per cent of the sittings of February-May 1668 but, apart from nominations to six committees, there is little indication of significant involvement in the affairs of the House. James II’s later memoirs suggest that in this same period Carlisle and Ashley were the two leading promoters of the scheme to have Charles II recognize James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as his legitimate heir, and according to Burnet, Carlisle and Buckingham suggested to the king that they would introduce a motion in the House leading to his formal recognition of his ‘marriage’ to Lucy Walters.<sup>38</sup> Carlisle does appear to have been becoming more fractious with members of the court at this time, and the French ambassador Ruvigny reported to his master Louis XIV in late April 1668 that the secretary of state Arlington had complained to the king of Carlisle’s ‘violent behaviour’. At this juncture, Charles II, ‘chose the part of silence, and letting things remain as they are’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>In view of the recently concluded Triple Alliance, Carlisle was entrusted in November 1668 with an embassy to Sweden to confer the order of the garter on the king Charles XI. He performed the investiture ceremony in Stockholm ‘with very much state’ in June 1669. Carlisle returned to England from his mission on 26 Oct. 1669, and sat in the House again three days later.<sup>40</sup> He proceeded to come to just over four-fifths of the meetings of the session of winter 1669, and he was present at all but two of the meetings from March and April 1670. Here he was named to 20 committees, including that for the bill for commissioners to discuss a treaty of union between England and Scotland. On 24-25 Mar. 1670 he was the recipient of the proxies of both William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington, and Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, neither of which was vacated until the session resumed in the autumn of 1670. He represented the House in three conferences on the amendments to the bill for highways, two on 2 Apr. and the last on 6 Apr., after which the House decided to agree with the Commons. On 5 Apr. he subscribed to the protest against the House’s resolution to accept the clause in the conventicles bill allowing searches of peers’ houses and attachment of their persons. On 11 Apr. 1670 he reported from the committee considering the bill for jurors concerning a controversial proviso. That afternoon the session was adjourned for the summer, but not before the king gave his royal assent to the act for negotiating a union between England and Scotland, with which measure Carlisle must have had an interest, if not an active involvement. Carlisle was far less attentive and active when the session reconvened on 24 Oct. 1670 and he did not resume his seat in the House until a week into proceedings. He came to only 42 per cent of the sittings of this part of the session until the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1671, and during this period was named to ten committees. He became heavily involved in conferences in the last busy days of the session. He reported and managed conferences on the amendments to the bill against abuses in the selling of cattle at Smithfield market on 18 and 20 April. In the afternoon of 22 Apr. he was a reporter for the conference where the Commons made clear their objections to the amendments to the bill against the export of wool, but before the House could proceed further on this matter, the king arrived to prorogue the session, which had descended into acrimony between the Houses and the bill was lost.</p><p>At the death of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, in May 1671 there were rumours that Carlisle was one of the many ‘competitors’ to take over his office as lord chamberlain, but instead the white staff was given to Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans.<sup>41</sup> Carlisle, however, soon found other ways to fulfil his interest, if not obsession, with ceremonial, prestige and privilege. On 29 May 1671 he stood in for, and represented, Charles XI of Sweden in a ceremony in St George’s Chapel in Windsor confirming his investiture as a knight of the Garter.<sup>42</sup> In early June 1673 Carlisle was also appointed deputy earl marshal. Since 1662 he had been one of the commissioners to exercise the office of earl marshal, in the place of his mentally disabled, and permanently absent, kinsman Thomas Howard*, 5th duke of Norfolk, the hereditary earl marshal. Norfolk’s younger, English-based brother, Henry Howard*, Baron Howard of Castle Rising (future 6th duke of Norfolk), was created earl of Norwich in October 1672, and Carlisle was present on the prorogation of 30 Oct. 1672 to help to introduce him to the House under this new title. Norwich briefly took on the hereditary earl marshalship until he, as a Catholic, fell afoul the provisions of the 1673 Test Act. He deputized his office to a number of peers, the principal of whom was his kinsman Carlisle, who over the ensuing years delighted in the prestige and ceremony he was able to indulge in this role.<sup>43</sup> However, Carlisle’s principal usefulness to the crown in the period 1672-4 lay in his military abilities and authority in the north, and these were relied upon heavily during the third Anglo-Dutch War, when he was commissioned colonel of an infantry regiment in January 1673.<sup>44</sup></p><p>These years of 1673-4 were also his busiest days in the House. He came to all of the sittings in February-March 1673, although he did not come to any of the four sittings of the session of late October 1673. In the first, longer, session of 1673 he was appointed to ten committees. On 5 Mar. 1673 he was appointed to the committee to draft an address to the king confirming that his recent referral to Parliament of the controverted Declaration of Indulgence in order to have it settled by legislation ‘is good and gracious’, while the next day he was named a manager for a conference on the address to the king regarding the dangerous growth of popery.<sup>45</sup> He was also named a reporter for a conference considering the House’s amendments to the Test bill on 24 Mar., although he was not placed on the committee established after the report which was to draft reasons why the House adhered to its amendment concerning the number of Catholic servants attending the queen consort. On 25 Mar. he chaired committees on the bills to provide the palatinate of Durham with parliamentary representation and to continue existing legislation on the coinage, both of which he reported to the House on that same day, as well as on the bill to lift the duties on alien merchants trading in English manufactures, which he reported two days later.<sup>46</sup> On 28 Mar. he, most likely in his role as a commissioner for the office of earl marshal, informed his colleagues that the king had given leave to the House to hear the claim of James Percy for the title and estate of the earl of Northumberland. The House duly heard Percy’s case and subsequently rejected both his petitions and branded him an impostor.<sup>47</sup> On 29 Mar. Carlisle was appointed to represent the House in two conferences on the House’s amendments to the bill for the ease of dissenters, but these proceedings were cut short with the arrival of the king and the announcement of the adjournment of the tumultuous session to 20 Oct. 1673, when it was peremptorily prorogued.</p><p>By this time Carlisle was openly associating with the growing country opposition to the duke of York and Charles II’s pro-French policies. In December 1673 Colbert reported to Louis XIV that Buckingham was strengthening his ties with Carlisle, and York numbered the earl among his enemies in the session which began on 7 Jan. 1674. Carlisle came to all but one of the sittings of that session, during which he was named to five committees. York told the French ambassador Ruvigny in late January that Carlisle, with Shaftesbury (as Ashley had become), Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later Earl) Fauconberg (a long-standing colleague of Carlisle’s, from the days when they sat in Cromwell’s ‘Other House’ together) and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, were meeting regularly at the house of Holles ‘where they concerted together the matters which were to be proposed in the lower house, where those lords had great influence’.<sup>48</sup> York also recorded the story of how Monmouth’s supporters Carlisle and Shaftesbury, on being told by the king that he had never married Lucy Walters, assured him ‘let him but say it, they should find such as would swear it’.<sup>49</sup> In the House on 26 Jan. 1674 Carlisle seconded the motion of Salisbury for a bill to ensure the Protestant education of the York’s children and further moved a bill forbidding the marriage of a member of the royal house without Parliament’s permission.<sup>50</sup> Two weeks later, on 10 Feb., when the House was further discussing this bill, Carlisle proposed, and was seconded and supported by Shaftesbury and George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, that the penalty for any infringement of this condition should be exclusion from the royal succession, a suggestion that raised the ire of the majority of the House and foreshadowed the debates on exclusion five years later.<sup>51</sup> On 7 Feb. Carlisle also brought a breach of privilege case before the House against the Catholic workman Ezekiel Linke, who had called him ‘a heretic rogue’ and had further added, ‘You think that we Roman Catholics are cast down, but you are mistaken’. Ten days later Linke duly made his submission to both Carlisle and the House and was discharged from his commitment.<sup>52</sup> It was said that Shaftesbury and Carlisle were also planning to propose the disbandment of the York’s regiment of guards whilst at the time of the prorogation on 24 Feb. a correspondent of Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> reported the ‘whisper’ that Carlisle, Shaftesbury, Holles and Halifax were to be removed from the Privy Council for their behaviour during the session.<sup>53</sup> De Ruvigny described Carlisle in April as one of those ‘who during the parliamentary session had seemed to be the most venomous towards the interest of his Highness’.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Carlisle’s hostility to Catholicism is noteworthy considering his Catholic upbringing and the adherence of many of his kinsmen to the old faith. Indeed, many contemporaries, such as Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, widely suspected him of being a Catholic himself.<sup>55</sup> Yet as Burnet noted he had adopted Protestant ‘enthusiasm’ in the 1650s and seems to have maintained a sympathy for that style of worship, or at least an opposition to its persecution. He was apparently concerned by the projects of the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), in consultation with the bishops, to press from January 1675 for the full enforcement of the penal statutes against Dissenters and Catholics alike. York was equally concerned at the effect on his co-religionists and even approached Carlisle and other of his foes from the 1674 session to work together on a policy that would give relief to both religious groups.<sup>56</sup> Carlisle, however, did not wish to extend York’s campaign for toleration or comprehension to Catholics. According to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, there was a ‘very warm’ debate at the Privy Council on 3 Feb. 1675, when Carlisle, with Holles, Halifax and Anglesey, approved a proclamation containing ‘very large directions for prosecution of papists’ but with the similar instructions regarding Protestant nonconformists made much more lenient.<sup>57</sup> Carlisle also joined with Halifax in ‘encouraging’ the plans for an ‘act of comprehension and union’ formulated between Dissenters such as Richard Baxter and moderates of the Church such as John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester.<sup>58</sup> He was seen as a leading member of the country opposition and on 3 Feb. 1675 Shaftesbury, then in a brief retirement in Dorset, addressed a letter to Carlisle – with explicit instructions to convey its contents to Holles, Fauconberg, and Salisbury – to reassure his colleagues that he was not about to abandon their campaign for the dissolution of Parliament in favour of the rumoured offer of high office under the crown. This letter, quickly copied, printed and published became notorious in its time, and contemporaries took it to be a public expression of Shaftesbury’s defiant attitude towards the court in the weeks before the next session of Parliament:<sup>59</sup></p><blockquote><p>I hear from all quarters that a great office with a strange name [there had been rumours that Shaftesbury was to be made ‘vicar-general in ecclesiastical affairs’], is preparing for me and such like. … But I will assure your Lordship there is no place or condition will invite me to Court during this Parliament until I see the king thinks frequent new Parliaments as much his interest as they are the people’s right. For until then I cannot serve the king as well as I would or think a great place safe enough for a second adventure. In the mean while no kind of usage shall put me out of my duty and respect to the king and duke but I think it would not be amiss for the men in great offices, that are at ease and where they would be, to be ordinarily civil to a man in my condition, since they may assure themselves that all their places put together shall not buy me from my principles. <sup>60</sup></p></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <h2><em>Court rapprochement and colonial office, 1675-80</em></h2><p>Despite this apparently high position in Shaftesbury’s confidence and his opposition to Danby’s Anglican policies, Carlisle surprisingly did not subscribe to any of the protests against Danby’s non-resisting test in the session of spring 1675. His only recorded intervention in that session, of which he attended 82 per cent of the sittings, was his protest on 10 May 1675 against the resolution to overturn the 1642 parliamentary decree in the case of <em>Dacre Barret v. Viscount Loftus</em>. By the spring of 1675 there appears to have been another notable shift in Carlisle’s political allegiances. His sudden abandonment of the opposition to side with the court may in part have been owing to his position as governor of Jamaica, the reversion of which had been promised him late in 1674. In any case his political affiliations after spring 1675 were remarkably different. On 14 Oct. 1675 he registered his proxy for the first and only time in his parliamentary career, in favour of Danby’s kinsman and ally Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey. This would have been vacated by his appearance in the House on 4 Nov. for the short session of autumn 1675, of which he only attended 21 sittings. By June 1676 he was writing in a friendly vein to Danby on northern matters, telling him how ‘I am now very busy in doing justice upon our border thieves’, the ‘mosstroopers’ whom Carlisle persecuted so mercilessly.<sup>61</sup> Danby relied on his influence among northern members of the Commons in 1675 and 1677 and considered the earl as one of his supporters, though absent from the House at the time, during his impeachment hearings in the spring of 1679.<sup>62</sup> By spring 1677 Shaftesbury for his part regarded Carlisle as ‘doubly vile’, quite a reversal from the position of two years previously. Shaftesbury drew up his estimation of Carlisle and other peers when he was imprisoned in the Tower for asserting that the Parliament which reconvened on 15 Feb. 1677 was automatically dissolved by its fifteen-month prorogation. According to one account, at this time Carlisle undertook to promise the king on behalf of Shaftesbury that if the disgraced earl were released from captivity, he would retire to the country. After the unrepentant Shaftesbury did eventually procure his release in late February 1678 he denied that he had ever given permission to Carlisle to make such a promise to the king. Carlisle sent a challenge to Shaftesbury by his son-in-law, Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, but Shaftesbury refused to engage in a duel, explaining that if Carlisle killed him in a duel, he was likely to be pardoned, but if he in turn killed Carlisle there was little chance he would receive royal mercy. The narrator of this account saw the resentful exchanges between the men as a prime example of ‘how uncertain friendships are in their perpetuity’.<sup>63</sup></p><p>During 1676-8 Carlisle was principally involved in local northern politics and particularly with his long feud against the Musgraves, both the father Sir Philip Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, governor of Carlisle, and his son Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Carlisle, for the predominant influence in that town.<sup>64</sup> Sir Christopher found a sympathetic listener in Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, and in December 1677 he informed the secretary of the grave illness of Sir Philip and warned him that, ‘If his distemper reached Lord Carlisle’s ears it would fire his zeal to secure the government’ of the northern garrison. Williamson could not keep this important secret hidden for long, and at Sir Philip’s death in early February 1678, Carlisle secured his re-appointment to the governorship of Carlisle, which he retained for the remainder of his life, although often delegating the actual duties to his son, Viscount Morpeth.<sup>65</sup> In national politics, Carlisle only came to a little less than two-thirds of the gatherings of the House in the session of 1677-8. He first appeared in the House on 19 Mar. 1677, and a year later he made his only intervention in the House during that session, when on 11 Mar. 1678 he brought before the House notice of a breach of his privilege involving the arrest of one of his servants. Reportedly when Powell, Carlisle’s servant, had claimed Carlisle’s protection to the attorney prosecuting the arrest, that attorney had insouciantly replied that ‘he had been lately before the House of Lords, and he knew the way thither again’. The following day it was ordered that he should make his submission to the House for his ‘saucy and insolent words’.<sup>66</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Carlisle had long been interested in trade and colonial matters, having been appointed to several successive councils and committees of trade from 1656 onwards. He appears to have been soliciting for the governorship of the island of Jamaica as early as 1670.<sup>67</sup> In late 1674 or early 1675, after having joined the ‘Lords of Trade’ the subcommittee of the Privy Council which dealt with the plantations, he was promised the post attendant upon the retirement of the incumbent governor John Vaughan*, later 3rd earl of Carbery [I], and 2nd Baron Vaughan. His commission finally passed the Great Seal on 1 Mar. 1678, while Vaughan was still <em>en route</em> from the island.<sup>68</sup> As one of the lords of trade, Carlisle himself helped to draft his instructions for the government of the island. The goal of the subcommittee, to be effected through Carlisle’s governorship, was to impose on the distant colony the constitution then in effect in Ireland under Poyning’s Law, whereby the council in England drafted the laws for the colony which the local legislative body, the Assembly, would merely approve. When he left for the island sometime in May 1678 (his last appearance in the House that session was on 29 Apr.), Carlisle took with him 40 such bills which were to be passed by the Jamaican Assembly in this manner, including one which was to make the revenue remitted by the colony to the treasury permanent. The local planters who met the new governor in the Assembly when it convened in early September 1678 were not at all pleased by this curtailment of their legislative powers and, before Carlisle exasperatedly dismissed them on 11 Oct., rejected all but four of the 40 bills, taking particular offence at the revenue bill. The lords of trade were preoccupied with the Popish Plot for much of 1679. Carlisle sent increasingly anxious and frustrated letters complaining of the committee’s neglect and taking the side of the local planters by insisting on the impracticalities of Westminster trying to govern the island at such a distance. A modern historian notes ‘the curiously ambiguous part [Carlisle], took throughout his years in Jamaica; on the one hand, protesting [to the lords of trade], his eagerness to obey his instructions, although he disapproved of them; on the other, assuring the planters of his entire disapproval of the new system, and of his earnest efforts to have it altered’.<sup>69</sup> Perhaps this is another example of Carlisle’s constant attempt, as Burnet would have it, ‘to be popular, and yet to keep up an interest at court’ by trying (unsuccessfully) to please all parties. He called another gathering of the Assembly, this time without the authorization of the lords of trade, only for the colonial legislature to reject the majority of his bills again and to send an address to the king and the lords of trade complaining of the new model of government. Carlisle, heartily sick of the problems of governing the island, was only too pleased to receive, via his agent Sir Francis Watson, the king’s verbal permission to leave the island (which had not been communicated to the lords of trade). He left Jamaica on 27 May 1680, ‘having put that colony into great disorder’ and bringing his two principal opponents back with him to have their differences settled before the lords of trade.<sup>70</sup></p><h2><em>Return from Jamaica, 1680-5</em></h2><p>Carlisle had been in Jamaica during the first Exclusion Parliament and was absent when he had been removed from the Privy Council at its reorganization in April 1679.<sup>71</sup> He was able to attend regularly (89 per cent attendance) the second Exclusion Parliament where he opposed the exclusion bill on 15 Nov., although the reasons given in his speech on the day suggest that he was more concerned by the threat of war, with either or both Scotland and France, that exclusion would bring than by any attachment to York or the hereditary principle. Instead he thought that measures should be taken ‘to take off the appetite or zeal of popery’ and that ‘we are more secure in the banishment of the duke of York during the king’s life than [by], the bill’.<sup>72</sup> He also voted in favour of the establishment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. He voted his Catholic kinsman William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason but in the days leading up to his execution acted as an intermediary between the condemned man and the House, conveying on 18 Dec. Stafford’s offer to make a full confession to the House of what he knew of the Popish Plot. York felt that Carlisle and his brother-in-law William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, really went on their mission to Stafford ‘to get somewhat out of him [Stafford], against the duke of York’, but as the lords would not allow them to speak to Stafford alone, and they were accompanied by Burnet and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, ‘their project was disappointed’.<sup>73</sup> At the end of the Parliament, on 7 Jan. 1681, Carlisle signed the protest against the resolution not to divide on the question whether to address the king for the suspension of chief justice William Scroggs during his impeachment hearings. Danby relied on Carlisle to support his petition for bail during the 1681 Parliament, and on 23 Mar. Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, regretfully wrote to his father that Carlisle was among Danby’s ‘friends’ who had not yet arrived in Oxford.<sup>74</sup> Fauconberg on 22 Mar. doubted whether Carlisle would be able to make it at all as Carlisle had sent his fellow northern peer (then living in Middlesex) a letter ‘which speaks doubtfully of your motion southwards’. Fauconberg in any case despaired of the tone of proceedings, judging by a printed copy of the king’s speech he saw, ‘which is very brisk, and forbids meddling with the title of succession’.<sup>75</sup> Carlisle did manage to come for one sitting on 24 Mar. and then stayed away from the House for the remainder of the Parliament. That was his last day in the House of Lords.</p><p>By June 1681, when the king ordered him back to Jamaica, Carlisle was either too unwilling or too ill of the gout to return there, and a commission was drawn up for Carlisle’s successor as governor, Sir Thomas Lynch, on 6 Aug. 1681.<sup>76</sup> After 1681 most of Carlisle’s attention was taken up with a long-running and acrimonious dispute with Sir George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Cumberland during the Cavalier and Oxford Parliaments, and a prominent figure in that county and Carlisle, who had been deprived of many of his local offices by Morpeth in 1680 and who further annoyed Carlisle upon his return from Jamaica.<sup>77</sup> Fletcher efficiently allied himself with interests at court such as Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> and Colonel George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth. Carlisle even warned Legge in July 1682 that by his continuing support of Fletcher, ‘you lay a foundation of perpetual enmity betwixt us, for as in general I am a very easy man to live with, yet in what concerns my honour I cannot be removed’.<sup>78</sup> The king-in-council eventually heard Fletcher’s case in late April 1683 and gave formal orders that he was to be restored to all his positions on the Cumberland bench, lieutenancy and militia, and this time Carlisle reluctantly accepted the royal will.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Ormond described Carlisle in July 1683 as ‘the decripidest man that ever I saw out of bed’ and in the years after 1681 he was wracked and crippled by gout.<sup>80</sup> Carlisle died on 24 Feb. 1685 and was buried at York Minster. By his will he left his personal estate to his widow, who survived him 18 years, and his real estate as well as the remainder of the term of his £1,000 annuity and a lone southern manor in Yarnfield in Somerset, to his only surviving son (his second son having been killed at the siege of Luxembourg in 1684) Edward Howard, now 2nd earl of Carlisle.<sup>81</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOWARD, Charles (c. 1663-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1663–1715)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Apr. 1694 as 4th Bar. HOWARD of Escrick |
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1694; last sat 28 Mar. 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1663,<sup>1</sup> o. surv. s. of William Howard*, 3rd Bar. Howard of Escrick, and Frances, da. of Sir James Bridgeman, kt. of Prestwich, Lancs. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (?1) July 1689, Hannah, wid. of Edward Pike, citizen of London, 2s? <em>d.v.p</em>., 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>);<sup>2</sup> (2) Aug. 1694 (annulled 4 Feb. 1701), Elizabeth (1651-1718), da and coh. of George Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 6th Bar. Chandos, wid. of Edward Herbert*, 3rd Bar. Herbert of Chirbury, and of William O’Brien, 2nd earl of Inchiquin [I]. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 29 Apr. 1715; <em>will</em> 17 Apr. 1704-14 Apr. 1715, pr. 25 June 1715.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. duke of Norfolk’s regt. of ft. (later 12th Regt.), 20 June 1685-by 7 July 1686;<sup>4</sup> lt. col. duke of Norfolk’s Regt. of Ft. (later 22nd Regt.), Apr.-Oct. 1689.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>Charles Howard served as a subordinate officer in infantry regiments led by his third cousin Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, on two separate occasions in the 1680s. For the latter, a regiment raised in 1689 for the Irish campaign, Norfolk commissioned his kinsman to be his lieutenant colonel, and it was thus as a young military officer that Howard met and courted Hannah Pike, a widow of a citizen of London. According to later testimony, they married secretly in July 1689 in the church at Stafford, where the regiment was quartered on its way to Ireland. Howard laid down his commission in October 1689 when his colonel Norfolk was himself replaced and went to live with ‘Mrs Pike’ in College Street in Westminster. The marriage had been kept secret from Charles’s father, William Howard, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, but at Charles Howard’s succession to the title on 24 Apr. 1694, Hannah Pike reputedly started to go by the name of Lady Howard. Nevertheless, in August of that year, perhaps worried about the prospects of his fortune, and, according to one later account, compelled by his mother, the new Baron Howard of Escrick contracted an advantageous marriage with Elizabeth Brydges, already twice a widow. Howard deserted Lady Inchiquin, as she was known, in December 1694. He sold her jewels, arranged that the jointure of £1,000 settled on her by her first husband be channelled to him, then absconded to Holland with his first wife. By April 1695 he was back in England, but he continued to live openly with Hannah Pike thereafter.<sup>8</sup> In that same year John Read, steward of Lady Inchiquin’s lands in Shropshire, brought a suit in chancery against Howard claiming that he had no right to the jointure income because his marriage to Lady Inchiquin was void through his bigamy. Chancery found in favour of Lady Inchiquin, but Howard responded by bringing the case before King’s Bench which, after a very long hearing at the Guildhall in July 1697, found in his favour.<sup>9</sup> Lady Inchiquin then turned to the Court of Arches to have the marriage annulled, but even before a judgment had been reached there, she persuaded the king to issue a commission for the court of delegates to hear her case. After a long time gathering and hearing evidence, five of the six delegates decided on 4 Feb. 1701 that Howard’s marriage to Lady Inchiquin was null and void. Three weeks later Howard petitioned the king to set up a commission of review to re-examine the case, but the request was rejected despite the lord keeper’s initial advice in favour. Throughout his life Howard continued to deny that he had married ‘Mrs Pike’ and insisted that the claim was a stain on his name which could affect the transmission of property and title in a ‘great and noble family’.<sup>10</sup> In his will, written in April 1704, he left a bequest to his daughter by Hannah Pike, Charlotte, whom he openly claimed as his own, but nevertheless stated that ‘I do hereby in the presence of God Almighty declare as I hope for mercy from him that I never was married to the said Mrs Pike nor any other woman but my most wicked wife the Lady Inchiquin’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>John Macky was most likely referring to this marital imbroglio when he wrote early in Anne’s reign that Howard ‘is brave in his person, hath been under some unhappy characters and circumstances, which hath hindered his advancement, both in the last reign and in this; he was against King William’s ministry, and takes all occasions to show it’.<sup>12</sup> The complications from his bigamous marriage to Lady Inchiquin probably affected his activity in his first sessions of Parliament. He came to only 16 additional meetings of the House in the 1694-5 session after his first sitting there on 20 Nov. 1694, but his attendance steadily increased as the next Parliament elected in the spring of 1695 progressed – 62 per cent of the sitting days in 1695-6, 76 per cent in 1696-7 and 88 per cent in 1697-8.</p><p>Howard’s initial activity in Parliament did not identify him as an opponent of the ministry. On 28 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association recognizing William III as ‘lawful and rightful’ king, and on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> (despite the fact that Fenwick was married to a Howard).<sup>13</sup> By the 1697-8 session his opposition to the Junto Whig ministry was becoming more pronounced. He signed the protest of 4 Mar. 1698 against the decision to give the bill to punish the exchequer official, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, a second reading and again voted against the committal of the bill on 15 March. He was further involved in this matter, for from 11 Apr. to 9 May he chaired every one of the six meetings of the committee established to investigate the practice of placing false endorsements on exchequer bills, and under his guidance a great deal of testimony on corrupt practices was gathered.<sup>14</sup> On 7 Mar. he was appointed a manager for the conference concerning the House’s amendments to the bill to rectify defects in the poor laws. He later subscribed to the protest of 1 July against the bill establishing the Whig-based new East India Company. Throughout this period Howard held Norfolk’s proxy, first from 13 Apr. to the time of Norfolk’s return to the House on 4 May, and then again during Norfolk’s extended period of absence from 19 May to 22 June.</p><p>There were strong links between Howard and Norfolk. Howard was probably Norfolk’s own personal choice as lieutenant colonel in his regiment formed in April 1689 and Howard felt enough loyalty to throw in his own commission when Norfolk lost the colonelcy in early October 1689.<sup>15</sup> Howard had made Norfolk godfather to Charlotte, his daughter by Hannah Pike.<sup>16</sup> Perhaps most significantly, both men were involved in litigation concerning their troubled marriages, but while Howard may have been an active supporter of Norfolk’s attempt at divorce, he himself took all possible measures to prevent his lucrative marriage to Lady Inchiquin being annulled.<sup>17</sup> Howard’s increased attendance and engagement in the House in the 1697-8 session, which saw the highest attendance level of his career in the House, may be largely attributable to the way that his dispute with Lady Inchiquin was now coming before the House. On 15 Dec. 1697 she petitioned the House that Howard should not be allowed to use his privilege to avoid hearings of her cause in the Court of Arches. In his answer submitted on 22 Dec. Howard railed that the petition was ‘scandalous and irrelevant’ and begged the House not to insist that he give up his privilege in this matter. The House put off hearing counsel for both sides until after the Christmas recess and it was on 7 Jan. 1698 that Howard, at the insistence of the House, reluctantly agreed to waive his privilege.<sup>18</sup></p><p>It was also during 1697-8 that Howard’s work in committees on legislation increased greatly, perhaps in a bid to increase his standing and support among his peers in the face of his legal difficulties. Over the first two sessions of 1695-6 and 1696-7 he was nominated to a total of 50 committees; in 1697-8 alone he was placed on 45 committees on legislation. On 10 Feb. 1697 he chaired the committee on the bill to vest the estate of Edward Kerry in trustees and reported it as fit to pass to the House, but in the succeeding session of 1697-8 he was even more active as a chair of select committees. Between 17 and 21 Mar. 1698 he chaired five committee meetings on four different personal bills, including those for John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Lisburne [I] (reported by Howard 21 Mar.) and for Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde<sup>‡</sup>, (reported 23 Mar.). As noted above, between 11 Apr. and 9 May 1698 he was the principal chairman of the important committee investigating corrupt practices in the exchequer. During this period he also managed to chair three committee meetings on as many bills, and throughout May and June 1698 he chaired a further seven meetings on six different bills. Some of these he saw through to the report stage – the estate bill of John Lewin (reported 11 May), the bill to sell the London properties of the late Joseph Smith (reported 30 May), and that to establish workhouses in Kingston-upon-Hull (reported 7 June ).<sup>19</sup></p><p>In the Parliament elected in the summer of 1698, his attendance dropped to 59 per cent in the first session of 1698-9, when he was named to 21 committees on legislation, and to 68 per cent in 1699-1700, with 16 committees. He showed his opposition to William III’s court on 8 Feb. 1699 when he voted against, and then signed the dissent from, the motion to exempt William III’s personal Dutch guards from the provisions of the disbanding bill<em>.</em> It was forecast that he would support the bill to maintain the old East India Company as a corporation against its new Whig rival, and at a division on 23 Feb. 1700 he did vote with the majority to further the bill through the House. At the end of the session, on 10 Apr., he joined in the large protest against the House’s last-minute decision to accede to the wishes of the court and to abandon its amendment to the Commons’ supply bill which included provisions for the parliamentary resumption of the royal grants of Irish lands.</p><p>Howard attended 64 per cent of the sitting days of the tumultuous and partisan Parliament convened in the first months of 1701, and was placed on 19 committees on legislation. On 8 Mar. he joined in the Tory protest against the proposed address to the king requesting that Captain John Norris be allowed to resume naval service despite the charges of neglect of duty still pending against him. A week later, on 15 Mar., he signed the two protests against the decision to omit the second and third heads of the House’s report condemning the questionable methods used in negotiating the Partition Treaty with France. On 16 Apr. Howard was one of the many protesters against the address requesting the king not to punish or censure, pending their trials, the Junto ministers impeached by the Commons. He joined in the following protest against the House’s decision to expunge from the Journal the reasons given in that day’s earlier protest, asserting the fundamental privilege of the peers to assign reasons in their protests. Throughout June he supported the Commons’ move to impeach the Junto ministers, principally John Somers*, Baron Somers, and he signed two protests on 3 June against moves by the House which attempted to hinder or prevent this objective. Six days later, on 9 June, he further registered his opposition to the House’s rejection of the proposal for the establishment of a joint committee to discuss the outstanding disagreements between the chambers, principally the delay of the Commons in producing specific articles of impeachment. On 17 June he desperately tried to prevent the apparently inevitable acquittal of Somers by an impatient House, at first protesting against the decision to proceed to Westminster Hall to conduct the trial before the Commons were ready with their case and then protesting against the decision to put the question to acquit Somers. Unsurprisingly, he voted in the minority against the acquittal of Somers.</p><p>At the same time as this conflict between the Houses was being played out, Howard was involved in a far more personal issue. After many months of gathering and hearing testimony, on 4 Feb. 1701 the court of delegates had found his marriage to Lady Inchiquin null and void. On 28 May, Howard petitioned the House to support his application to the king to have a further commission of review established to examine the evidence once again. On 12 June the House ordered instead that Howard be prosecuted for bigamy. The attorney general reported back on 21 June that such a prosecution would be impossible as bigamy fell under William III’s general pardon and the attorney general himself would be liable to prosecution if he proceeded with it. It was then moved that the House request the king for a commission of review of the case. The division, with George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, acting as tellers, produced an equal number of voices, but before the motion could be pronounced thus defeated, it was reported (in the event incorrectly) that Edward Ward*, 7th Baron Dudley and 2nd Baron Ward, whose proxy had proved instrumental in equalizing the division, was dead and his proxy thus vacated. It was decided to put off the declaration of the vote for a further three days, but on the scheduled day, 24 June, the unruly Parliament was prorogued and the decision on Howard’s request for a commission of review was never formally entered in the Journal. Considering that Dudley was not dead at this point – he died in early August – and that Howard never did obtain a commission of review, it is certain that the division stood and the motion for an application to the king was defeated by the equality of voices. Indeed this vote was an even more close-run thing than the numbers in the division suggest. Lady Inchiquin later saw cause to thank Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, for acting as ‘a most zealous and unparalleled friend’ to her in this matter. Herbert was cousin to Lady Inchiquin’s late first husband, the 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, the source of the jointure now being pilfered by Howard. He played a leading role in achieving her razor-thin victory. Not only did he vote in her favour, but he appears to have brought George Nevill*, 13th Baron Abergavenny, over to vote against the motion for a commission of review as well. ‘I see how Heaven still makes you my only deliverer, by gaining my Lord Bergavenny’, she thankfully wrote to her Herbert cousin, ‘Good God! how nicely did you deliver me! with but one voice!’<sup>20</sup></p><p>Howard does not appear ever to have been prosecuted for bigamy, but his access to Lady Inchiquin’s jointure income was effectively stopped with these decisions of 1701. He did not give up his fight and in June 1703 turned to the Privy Council, petitioning them for a commission of review and perhaps hoping for better treatment by a new monarch with whom he was more sympathetic. The cause between the two disputants was heard by the queen in council in a long session on 24 June and after four long hours, in which Howard argued that when he ‘married’ Mrs. Pike <em>her</em> first husband was still living, thus invalidating his marriage to her and freeing him to marry Lady Inchiquin, the queen and council rejected his request for a commission of review, ‘so that his lordship is now foreclosed the law’.<sup>21</sup> Howard drew up his will the following year, in April 1704, in which he made clear his anger about the proceedings against him commenced by his ‘most wicked wife the Lady Inchiquin, whom God forgive and grant her repentance for her horrible subornations and perjury against me’.</p><p>Despite, or perhaps because of, these setbacks, he continued attending the House fairly regularly. He was present at 78 per cent of the sitting days of the Parliament which first met on the penultimate day of 1701, after another surprise dissolution earlier that year. In the first days of the session he signed the declaration of the House against Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender as king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the following day was placed on the drafting committee for the address reassuring the king of the House’s continuing willingness to join with him in reducing the ‘exorbitant power of France’. Such expressions of loyalty were made redundant by William’s death on 8 Mar. 1702, when Howard, along with the rest of the House present that day, was appointed a manager for a conference to discuss the procedures for the proclamation of Anne as queen. After her accession his involvement in the House became greater and more noticeable. He was named to about the same number of committees, ten, before the accession of Anne as after it, but in the first few weeks of the new reign he chaired two committees on legislation: for Sir Samuel Thompson’s bill for the sale of Parkbury on 24 Mar. 1702 and for the general naturalization bill for Daniel van Ryssen and several others, which he reported to the House on 16 May.<sup>22</sup> William III’s last Parliament was dissolved on 2 July 1702 and in the first session of Anne’s Parliament, from October 1702 to February 1703, Howard was present at 69 per cent of the sitting days. He continued to side openly with the Tories, and on 16 Jan. 1703 voted against the amendments to the penalty clause of the Occasional Conformity bill which the Whigs used to scupper that bill in the Commons. He also continued and even increased his activity in select committees. On 10 and 22 Dec. 1702 he chaired meetings of the committee assigned to consider whether the petition of Edward Morgan to introduce a bill in Parliament should be accepted and he reported to the House the committee’s approbation of the request on 22 December. On 12 Jan. 1703 he chaired and reported from the committee concerned with the bill to allow Edmund Fowler to partition his estate in Kent, and 15 days later he chaired the committee on the bill for repairing the highways in Essex, which he reported to the House as fit to pass on 1 February.<sup>23</sup></p><p>On the basis of his voting in the previous session, the Whig leader Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, fully expected Howard to vote for the Occasional Conformity bill in the session of 1703-4. Howard, though, only attended this long session once, on 11 Dec. 1703, three days before the controversial bill was voted on in the House. Howard may have been feeling the effects of his poverty or, perhaps more likely, was seriously ill, for his prolonged absence through ‘indisposition’ was formally excused by the House on 12 Jan. 1704. He may well have covered his absence by registering his proxy with a colleague, but unfortunately the proxy registers for this particular session are missing. The ‘Lord Howard’ who is sometimes recorded as voting against the Occasional Conformity bill on 14 Dec. 1703 was Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham, a young man who had only recently come of age, after inheriting the title as a minor in 1695, and who had first sat in the House on 9 Nov. 1703. From this point there is occasional confusion between the two Lord Howards in the House resulting in the error in Cobbett’s printed copy of the division list in which he identifies Howard of Escrick as voting against the Occasional Conformity bill rather than Howard of Effingham.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Howard was sufficiently recovered to attend 57 per cent of the sittings of 1704-5 from its first day on 24 Oct. 1704. He was included in a list drawn up in late 1704 of those who were thought likely to support the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to ‘tack’ another version of the Occasional Conformity bill to a necessary supply bill. Once again, though, he had more pressing personal matters to keep him occupied in the House. Macky, writing at about this time, described Howard as ‘poor’ and the loss of Lady Inchiquin’s jointure income does appear to have forced him to sell much of his remaining estate.<sup>25</sup> He had already sold his Essex manor of Tollesbury in 1702 to the Turkey merchant Peter Whetcomb, and on 27 Nov. 1704 he petitioned the House to be allowed to bring in a bill to enable him to sell Wheldrake in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the last remaining part of the far-flung estate accumulated by his grandfather Edward Howard*, Baron Howard of Escrick.<sup>26</sup> The bill was read the first time on 1 Dec. 1704 and committed three days later. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted that the committee meetings on this bill, chaired by Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, on 19 and 20 Dec., were ‘troublesome’, and indeed a special clause did have to be inserted for the benefit of the two daughters of one of the tenants. The bill was passed by the House on 21 Dec., was returned by the Commons on 7 Feb. 1705 and received the royal assent on 14 March. From 3 Feb. 1705 to the end of the session Howard also held the proxy of the 2nd earl of Warrington, one of the tellers in the division of 1701. Howard continued to be busy in committees in the first two months of 1705. Nicolson recorded that Howard was present at a committee meeting on 9 Jan. on a bill to divide the parishes of Bletchingly and Horne in Hampshire.<sup>27</sup> In the period 2-17 Feb. he chaired seven committee meetings on five different personal bills and reported from four of them to the House, on the bills to allow Richard Lister to sell his late father-in-law’s estate (reported 9 Feb.), to allow Edmund Waller to charge his estate for the settlement of debts (reported 9 Feb.), to discharge a mortgage of Edward Baines (reported 10 Feb.), and to allow Thomas Holford to sell part of his estate (reported 23 February).<sup>28</sup></p><p>In the period between the dissolution of Anne’s first Parliament on 5 Apr. 1705 and the first meeting of the new Parliament on 25 Oct., Howard was marked as a Jacobite in a contemporary analysis of the attitudes of the peerage. This was undoubtedly owing to his strong Tory leanings, though it is not clear whether they amounted to Jacobitism. Certainly in the 1705-6 session, when he was present for half of the sittings, he joined the Tories in their controversial suggestion on 15 Nov. 1705 that an address be prepared requesting the queen to invite the heir presumptive, the dowager electress Sophia of Hanover, to reside in England during the queen’s lifetime. He even signed the protest against the decision not to put the question on that motion. The Tories’ embarrassment from this misjudged proposal was only compounded when they, including Howard of Escrick, voted against the proposition put forward in the committee of the whole House on 6 Dec. that ‘the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration’. Howard also signed the protest against the vote approving this motion.<sup>29</sup> On 11 Mar. 1706 Howard was assigned, along with the rest of the House then present, to consult with the Commons in conference on the ‘libellous’ published letter of Sir Rowland Gwynn<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, which advocated the dowager electress’s residence in England during the queen’s lifetime. He maintained his activity in committees and on 6 Dec. 1705 reported from the committee he had chaired on the bill for the sale of part of Thomas Chute’s estate. On 5 Mar. 1706 he also reported from committee on the bill to vest the estate of Richard Bold in trustees for the payment of debts.<sup>30</sup></p><p>His attendance dropped to 36 per cent in the 1706-7 session, during which he made clear his opposition to the Scottish Union. On 3 Feb. 1707, in a debate on the bill to secure the Church of England against the threat of the Presbyterian Kirk’s influence, he signed the protest against the decision not to instruct the committee of the whole House to insert a clause in the bill declaring that the 1673 Test Act was ‘perpetual and unalterable’. On 23 Feb. in the debates on the bill for Union itself, he registered his protest against the resolution setting the amount to be raised by the cess in Scotland to be a fixed proportion of the land tax in England. Following the passage of the Act of Union he came to only one meeting of the brief session of ten days which took place in April 1707, and then showed up for just over half of the meetings of the 1707-8 session, the first in which Scottish representative peers sat in the House.</p><p>Howard’s attendance continued at this low level throughout the Whig-dominated Parliament elected in the summer of 1708. In each of its sessions, of 1708-9 and 1709-10, he was present for 39 per cent of the sittings. He did have one unusual vote in this Parliament when he sided with the Junto and the Whigs against the ministry of the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, by voting on 21 Jan. 1709 against the right of Godolphin’s Scottish ally, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], to vote for Scottish representative peers while holding the British title of duke of Dover. The more overtly partisan battle over the firebrand minister Dr Henry Sacheverell in the 1709-10 session more clearly brought out his Tory inclinations, as he consistently defended the doctor and tried to thwart the proceedings against him. On 14 Mar. 1710 he joined in protests against the motion that the articles of impeachment were valid and actionable even without specifying the alleged criminal words attributed to Sacheverell. On 16 and 17 Mar. he protested against the resolutions of the House that the Commons in their arguments had made good their first four articles against the doctor and on the 18th he registered his objection to the insistence that members of the House could only submit one single vote of guilty or not guilty upon all the articles against the doctor. At Sacheverell’s trial on 20 Mar. Howard found the doctor not guilty and joined in the protest against the guilty verdict, while the following day he was part of another protest against the severity of the censures levelled against the minister. Three days later, on 24 Mar., Howard turned from this matter and chaired and reported from the committee on the bill for the sale of part of the estate of Anthony Preston, 9th Viscount Gormanston [I].<sup>31</sup></p><p>Throughout the weeks before the convening of the new Parliament in November 1710, the new chief minister of the queen, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, considered Howard to be a reliable supporter of the new ministry. Indeed, throughout the Parliament of 1710-13 Howard was consistently considered a stalwart of the Harley ministry and was included in the lord treasurer’s political calculations.<sup>32</sup> From the first session of 1710-11, when Howard attended 42 per cent of the sitting days, he took a larger and more responsible role in the House than heretofore, and was often relied on to act as an acolyte and representative of the ministry. On 2 Jan. 1711 he was placed on a committee of 14 members assigned to draw up an address of thanks for the queen’s message concerning the disasters in the war in Spain, an address which led to the controversial resolutions later that month condemning the previous Whig ministry for its conduct of the Spanish campaign. Howard registered his proxy with the Tory leader John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham and Normanby, on 24 Jan., but this was vacated by his return to the House two weeks later on 9 February. Howard may well have been registering his proxy with Buckingham or other Tory leaders in previous sessions in which he was absent for long periods of time, but this cannot be determined owing to the loss of the proxy registers for the sessions from 14 Apr. 1707 to 5 Apr. 1710. After his return to the House he took up a new role, and was chairman for committees of the whole House considering the bills to continue the acts against mutiny and desertion (22 Mar. 1711) and to confirm the divorce of Benedict Leonard Calvert<sup>‡</sup> (later 4th Baron Baltimore [I]) (9 April). Towards the end of the session he was again placed on a drafting committee, this one for a response to the queen’s message of 20 Apr. 1711 announcing the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I. After his activities in the House in that session, Howard was included in a list of <em>True English Patriots</em> published in June 1711.</p><p>From the fifth day of the following session, 12 Dec. 1711, to the prorogation on 21 June 1712, Howard held the proxy of his distant kinsman Henry Bowes Howard*, 4th earl of Berkshire (later 11th earl of Suffolk). Howard himself was present for 68 per cent of the sittings of this session. He was a stalwart of the ministry from the session’s first day, 7 Dec. 1711, when he voted against the motion to insert the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the address to the queen. Oxford, as Robert Harley had become by this time, included him on his list of ‘loyal peers’ who were to be gratified for their vote in this division. Two weeks later, on 20 Dec., Howard voted in favour of the eligibility of the Tory James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House under his British title as duke of Brandon. He chaired the committee of the whole which on 7 Apr. 1712 considered a bill to reform aspects of an old Jacobean bill against bankrupts, and he delivered the committee’s report to the House two days later. On 8 Apr. he reported from the select committee he had chaired on the estate bill for John More the younger. Later, on 3 May, he chaired a meeting for the bill to settle land free of rent charges on John Hillersdon, which he reported to the House as fit to pass two days later.<sup>33</sup> He rounded out the session by voting with the ministry on 28 May against the proposed address to the queen expressing unease with the orders sent to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, not to engage in offensive military actions against the French in that campaigning season.<sup>34</sup> He came to all the days of prorogation throughout the first two months of 1713, and then attended 70 per cent of the meetings of that spring, when the news of the Treaty of Utrecht was announced and debated. He was forecast in June to vote in favour of the ministry’s French commerce bill, but that measure never made its way past the Commons to even reach the House.</p><p>He continued to attend prorogations over the winter of 1713-14 and was present for the first day of the session of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714. He attended exactly half of the sittings and registered his proxy with Buckingham again from 16 Apr. until his return to the House 12 days later. Later in that session he gave his proxy to Berkshire, from 8 to 30 June, before returning for the last week of the session. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, classified him as a supporter of the Schism bill, but as he was absent during the proceedings on the bill it was most likely Berkshire who handled his vote in favour of this legislation. He was present in the House when it was hastily summoned on 1 Aug., following the death of the queen, and continued to attend until 5 August.</p><p>In late 1713 a report prepared for the elector of Hanover, perhaps by Sunderland, had considered Howard one of those lords who ‘vote with the Court’, but who could possibly be brought over to the Hanoverian interest with a pension of £500 a year. The future George I did not follow this suggestion, either as elector of Hanover or as king. Howard could not expect any favours from the new regime in 1715 and, after sitting for four days at the beginning of George I’s first Parliament, he left the House on 28 Mar. 1715 and registered his proxy with Buckingham the following day. This assignment was short-lived as Howard died a month later, on 29 Apr., reputedly of asthma.<sup>35</sup> He had never seen fit to alter the will he had written in April 1704, at which time he still owned the Wheldrake estate in Yorkshire. His will bequeathed this property, sold in 1706, to his mother, the dowager Lady Howard, who was still alive at her son’s death and acted as principal legatee and executrix, responsible for disbursing the £2,450 of legacies to family members and friends, including £200 to his only surviving child by Hannah Pike, his daughter Charlotte. As he did not have any surviving male children by either of his marriages, the barony of Howard of Escrick became extinct at his death.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOWARD, Charles (1669-1738) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1669–1738)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1685-92 Visct. Morpeth; <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Apr. 1692 as 3rd earl of CARLISLE |
|
First sat 11 Nov. 1692; last sat 9 May 1735 |
|
MP, Morpeth 1689, 1690-23 Apr. 1692 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1669, 1st s. of Edward Howard*, Visct. Morpeth, later 2nd earl of Carlisle, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1696), da. and coh. of Sir William Uvedale<sup>‡</sup> of Wickham, Hants., wid. of Sir William Berkeley; bro. of Hon. William Howard<sup>‡</sup>; <em>educ</em>. Morpeth g.s., travelled abroad (Netherlands, Germany, Italy) 1688-91; <em>m</em>. 25 July 1688 Anne (<em>d</em>. 14 Oct. 1752), da of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, 2s., 5da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 1 May 1738; <em>will</em> 13 Mar., pr. 8 June 1738.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1700-2; dep. earl marshal May 1701-6; PC 19 June 1701-<em>d</em>.; first ld. of Treasury 1701-1702, May-Oct. 1715; commr. union with Scotland 1706; ld. justice Aug.-Sept. 1714; master, harriers and foxhounds 1730-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov, Carlisle 1693-<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> ld. lt., Cumb. and Westmld 1694-<em>d</em>., Tower Hamlets 1717- 22; <em>custos rot</em>. Cumb. 1700-14, 1715-<em>d</em>.; freeman, Southampton 1697, Carlisle 1700, Beverley 1703; alderman, Carlisle 1700; mayor, Carlisle 1700-1; constable, Tower of London 1715-22, Windsor Castle 1723-3.</p><p>Freeman, Merchant Adventurers, 1689.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir Godfrey Kneller, c.1700-1710, NPG 3197; oil on canvas by William Aikman, 1729, Castle Howard, Yorks.; unknown, oil on canvas, c.1700-1712, The Green Howards Regimental Museum, Richmond, Yorks.</p> |
<h2><em>A northern magnate and election manager, 1693-1700</em></h2><p>Charles Howard, 3rd earl of Carlisle, was described by a fellow Whig in the early years of Queen Anne as ’a gentleman of great interest in the country, and very zealous for its welfare, hath a fine estate, and a very good understanding, with a grave deportment; is of a middle stature, fair complexion’.<sup>5</sup> Styled Viscount Morpeth from the time his father became 2nd earl of Carlisle in 1685, he married the thirteen-year old daughter of the Whig martyr, the earl of Essex, in July 1688. He embarked on his grand tour through Europe only twelve days after William of Orange had landed at Torbay, as it was deemed that ‘through the greenness of their years’ the underage couple should not yet cohabit together.<sup>6</sup> He was abroad for the next three years. During that time he was considered for the position of governor of Carlisle as his father was incapacitated by gout, but the post was given to Sir John Lowther*, later Viscount Lonsdale.<sup>7</sup> Despite his absence, he was elected to the family seat of Morpeth in Northumberland for both the Convention and William III’s first Parliament. He succeeded his father on 23 April 1692 and first entered the House one week into the following parliamentary session, on 11 Nov. 1692.</p><p>Within two weeks of his first sitting in the House, Carlisle was summoned to account for his protection of an Edward Howard, and on 24 Nov. 1692 he submitted to the will of the House and agreed to have Howard’s name struck off the register of protections. Carlisle voted against the commitment of the place bill on 31 Dec. 1692, a vote in favour of the court which strongly opposed the bill, but he appears to have abstained from voting to reject the bill at its third reading on 3 Jan. 1693, for he was marked as present for that day in the Journal but does not appear in the division list drawn up for the vote by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury. As Ailesbury forecast he would, on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted to give the divorce bill of his kinsman Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, a first reading. On 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder, along with the majority of the House. In total he came to 44 per cent of the meetings of this session of 1692-3, but he was named to only two committees throughout his attendance, the first being on 20 Jan. 1693. His engagement with the House at this point was sporadic in other ways. On 1 Mar. 1693 he was named one of the nine reporters for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions. The conference was abandoned that day because of the late arrival of the acting speaker of the House, Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>, owing to the bad condition of the roads. When the conference was held two days later, Carlisle was not in the House, or at least his name does not appear in the presence list for that day. The following day, 4 Mar. 1693, he was, according to the manuscript minutes, initially proposed to sit on the drafting committee for an address on the situation in Ireland, but his name does not appear among the committee nominations in the formal Journal.<sup>8</sup> He did not attend any of the meetings of the following two sessions, and on 11 Dec. 1693 registered his proxy with Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, for the remainder of the 1693-4 session. On 29 Jan. 1695 Norfolk solicited Carlisle’s proxy for the 1694-5 session, explaining that ‘I was put in mind by an accident the other day of a vote’s being got by one single voice to look in the book of proxies where I did not find your Lordship’s’, and enclosing a blank proxy for Carlisle to fill in.<sup>9</sup> Carlisle however did not take him up on this offer and did not register a proxy at all for that session.</p><p>Carlisle’s long absences from the House may be explained by the new regional responsibilities that were thrust upon him in 1693-5. He was appointed governor of Carlisle on 1 Mar. 1693, in succession to Jeremiah Bubb<sup>‡</sup>, and a little more than a year later he replaced Lowther as lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland. Carlisle’s correspondence of 1694-5 shows that, when he was not discussing horse racing at Newmarket with his fellow northern magnate Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, he was busy in his family’s seat of Naworth Castle with garrison and lieutenancy matters.<sup>10</sup></p><p>As governor of Carlisle, Carlisle exercised a preeminent influence in parliamentary and municipal elections there. He united this interest with the Lowthers, both the senior branch of Lowther represented by Sir John Lowther and the cadet branch of Whitehaven, against the Musgraves of Edenhall, led by one of the great figures among the Tories in the Commons, Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. The first instance where Carlisle could exercise his new influence was at the by-election of November 1694, prompted by the death of the sitting member for Carlisle William Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, a half-brother of Sir John Lowther of Lowther. Lowther and his namesake and cousin Sir John Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, of Whitehaven, solicited Carlisle’s patronage for Lowther of Whitehaven’s son James Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, who was elected without a contest. In the following two general elections Carlisle and the Lowthers united again to send a representative of each of their houses—James Lowther and the earl of Carlisle’s brother Hon. William Howard<sup>‡</sup>—to Westminster, defeating the aspirations of the Musgraves to have Sir Christopher’s second son, Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> elected.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Carlisle also worked with the Lowthers and with the other major landowners, Somerset and the Junto Whig Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, in the county elections for Cumberland and Westmorland. The Cumberland elections during the 1690s were largely calm and straightforward affairs, as Sir George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven<sup>‡</sup>, moderate court supporters, were always returned without a contest. Carlisle’s other county of Westmorland was also dominated by the Lowthers, as Lowther of Lowther sat in the Commons for that county until called to the Lords in 1696 as Viscount Lonsdale. Carlisle generally took Lonsdale’s lead in Westmorland politics. Away from those areas where he exercised a governing control, Carlisle also maintained significant electoral influence in Northumberland, which he worked in partnership with the duke of Somerset. In Morpeth, where his family were lords of the manor, he was always able to ensure that at least one candidate of his choosing was returned for a borough seat.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Having worked hard to ensure the election of Whigs in the 1695 and 1698 Parliaments, Carlisle himself attended less than half of the sittings of the House between 1695 and 1700. He was relatively diligent in the session of 1695-6, when he attended 68 per cent of the sittings, but his attendance in the remaining five sessions between 20 Oct. 1696 and 11 Apr. 1700 ranged between 33 and 44 per cent. He stood out in the session of 1696-7, however, through his prominence in the events surrounding the bill of attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. Carlisle’s paternal aunt Mary was Fenwick’s wife, and from the moment of Fenwick’s arrest in June 1696 the earl became one of his staunchest supporters. It was Carlisle, one of the few people allowed to confer with the prisoner, who in July conveyed to the lord steward William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, Fenwick’s offer to expose prominent Jacobite plotters.<sup>13</sup> Ailesbury, a fellow prisoner in the Tower, attributed the relative ease of access Lady Mary Fenwick had to her husband to ‘her near relations of the House of Carlisle and the rest of the Howards having credit at Court’.<sup>14</sup> Carlisle first sat in that winter’s session on 30 Oct. 1696 and was an assiduous attender for the last weeks of the year, especially after the bill to attaint his uncle was brought up from the Commons on 26 November. Carlisle was absent from the House on 15 Dec., which meant that he was not present to vote against the House’s acceptance of the evidence of Cardell Goodman against Fenwick. He was present on 18 Dec. when he subscribed to the protest against giving the bill of attainder a second reading. Over the following days he and his Howard kinsman the duke of Norfolk were frequently mentioned in the testimony of both Sir John and Lady Mary Fenwick as potential sureties for bail, confidants, advisers and middlemen for the beleaguered couple, and they were indirectly implicated in Lady Mary’s contacts with Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, later 3rd earl of Peterborough. Carlisle voted against the bill of attainder and signed the protest against it on 23 December. Nothing could save him, Fenwick wrote to his wife in the days before his execution, ‘but my Lord Carlisle’s going over to him [the king], backed by the rest of the family of the Howards to beg it, and offering that I will live abroad all his time where I cannot hurt him and that I will never draw sword against him’. Carlisle did try to save him and on 22 Jan. 1697, just five days before Fenwick’s execution, he was named to a committee to petition the king for reprieve, one of only five committees to which the earl was named throughout this session. <sup>15</sup></p><h2><em>Peak of career, 1700-1702</em></h2><p>Other than the Fenwick attainder, there is little record of Carlisle’s activities in the House in the second half of the 1690s. He was not even nominated to committees very often, no more than five in any session. However in the 1699-1700 session, on 15 Feb. 1700 Carlisle presented to the House the petition of his kinsman Norfolk to bring in a bill for his divorce, and on 23 Feb. he voted to adjourn into a committee of the whole House to discuss further amendments to the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation, an indication that he supported the bill.<sup>16</sup> He was absent, perhaps purposely, from the House on 10 Apr., the day on which the House reluctantly voted to accept the Commons’ controversial bill for the resumption of William III’s Irish land grants, even though he had been present for all the previous days when this matter was mentioned.</p><p>Even with such an unremarkable record of activity in the House, and his opposition to the court-driven attainder of Fenwick, Carlisle was seen as a firm supporter of the crown and of William III personally. In March 1700 Fenwick’s remaining personal estate was granted to Carlisle, to satisfy his own claims and to help satisfy Sir John’s many creditors.<sup>17</sup> In June Carlisle replaced Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney (who had been promoted to be groom of the stole), as a gentleman of the bedchamber—but only after the position had been turned down by William Cavendish*, styled marquess of Hartington, later 2nd duke of Devonshire, because he was ‘so much a friend’ John Somers*, Baron Somers (who had been dismissed from office in April 1700), ‘that he would not now be obliged’.<sup>18</sup> Carlisle would also probably have considered himself a ‘friend’ of Somers, for contemporaries considered him closely associated with the Junto and one who would remain loyal to that group, now out of favour, as William tried to remodel his ministry throughout the summer of 1700.</p><p>Throughout 1700 he aggressively threw his interest behind Whig candidates in a host of elections in the northern counties. The year saw many changes in the parliamentary personnel in Cumberland and Westmorland. William Fleming<sup>‡</sup>, a commissioner of excise, resigned as a member for Westmorland following the passage of the Land Tax bill in April 1700 with its place clause concerning excisemen. Lonsdale died on 10 July; one of the sitting Members for Cumberland, Sir George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup> followed suit on 23 July. In Cumberland, Carlisle invoked his authority as lord lieutenant and insisted that no candidates for Fletcher’s replacement be selected until he had returned to the county to convene a general meeting of freeholders, despite the vociferous complaints of Sir Christopher Musgrave about ‘peers meddling in elections’. The Lonsdale interest was in the hands of the viscount’s widow during the minority of Richard Lowther*, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, and she agreed to follow the directions of Carlisle. The Lowthers were worried by the increasing effectiveness of the Musgraves, who used Carlisle’s absence to augment their own interest, which, Lowther of Whitehaven confided to Lady Lonsdale, ‘is more than my Lord Carlisle will approve of’. Carlisle finally arrived in early September when he and the Lowthers, along with Somerset and Wharton, chose Gilfrid Lawson<sup>‡</sup> to stand and heavily promoted his candidacy. Carlisle followed a similar interventionist policy in Westmorland, where James Grahme, father of the candidate Henry Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, of one of the leading Tory (if not Jacobite) families of the county, was incensed by Carlisle’s heavy involvement in this campaign and his support for Richard Lowther<sup>‡</sup>. Grahme pointed out to the freeholders of the county that Carlisle did not actually own any land in in Westmorland and ‘that it is a new thing for any man who has no lands in a county to concern himself in elections there’. The first two earls of Carlisle, also lieutenants of the county, had never dared to do it, ‘and I am sure this noble Lord is too good an Englishman to think the power he has over the militia proper to be made use of in this occasion’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Parliament was dissolved during the by-election campaigns, on 19 Dec. 1700. At the general election that followed Carlisle’s candidate Lawson was elected for Cumberland with Richard Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, member of a cadet branch of the Musgraves. In Westmorland, Carlisle was not able to defeat the Tory interest and Henry Grahme and Sir Christopher Musgrave were returned. Carlisle was more successful elsewhere. In Northumberland he reached his apogee of influence in this election as his brother William, although absent abroad at the time and initially standing for his seat at Carlisle, was returned for both Morpeth and for the county and chose to sit for the county. In Carlisle, James Lowther and Carlisle’s cousin Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup> (whom Carlisle, after much indecision, had presented as William Howard’s replacement) were eventually returned after a stiff fight. <sup>20</sup></p><p>Carlisle’s determined zeal for the Whigs in the northern counties was well noted and rewarded. He was a rising man at court in 1701-2. In Feb. 1701, as the new Parliament convened, there was talk that he would be sent as ambassador to Madrid, at this most diplomatically sensitive time following the death of Carlos II the previous November. Ultimately it was decided not to send an embassy at all.<sup>21</sup> He was even less attentive than usual, however, to this Parliament for which he had spent so much energy ensuring the return of Whig members to the Commons. He came to only just over a third of the meetings and was named to three committees on legislation. He may have been preoccupied by new duties, for on 22 May 1701 the king appointed Carlisle earl marshal, to act in place of his underage and Catholic kinsman Thomas Howard*, 8th duke of Norfolk, the hereditary earl marshal. On 9 June Carlisle was in the House to inform it of his new appointment, and a week later, at the same time as the House was being exercised by the impeachment of the Junto peers, it was moved to consider what precedency Carlisle as earl marshal could take for the purpose of the trials. It was decided on 17 June that Carlisle could assume the ranking of a full earl marshal, without prejudice to any future decision as to his proper place, and on that day Carlisle, listed as earl marshal, voted for the acquittal of Lord Somers. On 19 June Carlisle was sworn a member of the Privy Council and four days later further voted to acquit Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. The following day Carlisle was chosen by his peers by ballot to be one of the nine members, all of them Whigs, to consider the proposals for a union between England and Scotland. The committee was short-lived for on the same day, 24 June, the king prorogued this Parliament in anger at the partisan stalemate over the impeachments of the Junto ministers. William fled to his palace at Het Loo to draw some respite from English politics, where Carlisle visited him in late summer to complain about Sir Christopher Musgrave’s actions in trying to place more Tories on the commissions of the peace for Cumberland and Westmorland.<sup>22</sup> Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, alleged that Carlisle was the principal emissary for the Whigs who travelled to Holland to negotiate with William for the dissolution of Parliament.<sup>23</sup> This interpretation was supported by John Macky. Carlisle had returned by early October 1701, one month before the Parliament was dissolved, where he allegedly became ‘the great instrument of procuring from the country the addresses upon the French king’s declaring the prince of Wales’.<sup>24</sup> William heeded the advice of Carlisle and others and dissolved Parliament on 11 Nov. 1701. Carlisle’s central role in these negotiations and proceedings is suggested by the rumour that appeared only a few days after the dissolution that Carlisle would be made a secretary of state.<sup>25</sup> He again played a central role in the elections in the northern counties. His choices won in Morpeth, Carlisle and Cumberland, where he withdrew his support from Gilfrid Lawson because he had disappointingly voted with the Tories throughout the previous Parliament. Carlisle tried to influence the Westmorland election again as well, letting it be known that he was ‘all for keeping out Sir Christopher Musgrave and rather than fail would have Sir Richard Sandford<sup>‡</sup> and Grahme join’. In the event Musgrave conducted a surprisingly lacklustre campaign and Sandford and Grahme, although they had not formally joined, came top of the poll, providing the county with a politically divided representation. <sup>26</sup></p><p>Carlisle reached his brief pinnacle of influence when he was appointed first lord of the Treasury on 30 Dec. 1701, following the resignation of Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin. This was also the first day of the new Parliament during which he attended 57 per cent of the sittings, more than his usual rate. Within the first days of the session, on 2 Jan. 1702, Carlisle was placed on the drafting committee for the address to the king affirming the House’s willingness to stand by the king ‘to redress the balance of power in Europe’. At the same time James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> reported to his father in Cumberland:</p><blockquote><p>I am afraid my Lord Carlisle will have enough of his place and business too. In a little time he may grasp both in town and country at more than he can hold. Very likely he will find himself overloaded with business here and my Lady Lonsdale may find fault in a little time that he is endeavouring to engross the Parliament men for the 2 counties. My Lord Carlisle has set up a meeting of the members of the six northern counties that are of our side to dine together every week. Yesterday was the first day. My lord was with us and there were 29 of us. We hope to be 50 next week. My lord does this, I suppose, to make the king believe that he governs the north of England.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>This brief climb to high office and influence was suddenly halted with the unexpected death of William III on 8 Mar. 1702. During William’s final sickness, Carlisle was appointed on both 2 and 7 Mar. a commissioner to give the royal assent to bills in the king’s absence, and in his capacity as earl marshal Carlisle played a central role in planning both the funeral of William III and the coronation of Queen Anne.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>Loss of office and influence, 1702-10</em></h2><p>Carlisle’s position in the new queen’s eyes was not helped by a speech he made in the House on 12 Mar. responding to her speech of the previous day, in which he objected to her phrase ‘that her heart was entirely English’. Carlisle ‘would have strained it to a reflection on the memory his late Majesty and moved that it might be enquired who were the advisers of it’. He was ‘smartly’ answered by Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, and several others, and was only saved when Devonshire made a ‘mollifying speech’ on his behalf.<sup>29</sup> He was anxious to defend the reputation of the late king again when he moved in the House, seconded by the Junto Whigs Wharton and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, that a formal inquiry should be made into the charges recently levelled against William III that he had had plans to set aside the succession of Anne.<sup>30</sup> Carlisle was one of those delegated by the House to present the queen on 4 May with the report that no evidence of this project could be found among the late king’s papers and, according to one account, the queen took the opportunity of this public audience to dismiss him, telling him ‘that she had no further occasion for his Lordship’s service in the Treasury’.<sup>31</sup> Earlier that day he had been one of the 16 members placed on the committee to draft the address of thanks for the queen for her announcement of the declaration of war. Carlisle thus lost his place in the Treasury and, naturally, the bedchamber, but he did remain as a privy councillor and as earl marshal. In northern matters, Ailesbury recorded in his memoirs, inaccurately, that Anne replaced Carlisle in the lieutenancy of Cumberland and Westmorland with Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, the leading Tory peer of the region and hereditary sheriff of Westmorland, only to reinstate Carlisle in that post at the Tories’ fall from grace in 1704. The reports of Luttrell and other contemporaries confirm that this change was considered in early 1703, although it was not put into effect. <sup>32</sup></p><p>With Carlisle’s pretensions to ‘govern the north of England’ now under threat, the shift in his political world brought on by the accession of Anne was shown in the elections of 1702, and indeed in all the subsequent elections of her reign. Cumberland in 1702 saw the return of two Tories, Richard Musgrave and Gilfrid Lawson, despite the best efforts of Carlisle. Thereafter the county had a divided representation of one Tory and one Whig (from 1708 James Lowther, who had transferred his seat from Carlisle, despite some initial hesitation on Carlisle’s part) throughout the remainder of Anne’s reign. In Carlisle itself Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> (Sir Christopher Musgrave’s son), supported by William Nicolson*, recently made bishop of Carlisle, topped the poll in 1702, followed by a popular local army officer Thomas Stanwix<sup>‡</sup>, leaving Carlisle’s kinsman Philip Howard without a seat, a decision which Carlisle did not even try to petition against. Stanwix thereafter had Carlisle’s support and continued to sit for the borough for the remainder of Anne’s reign. His colleague in the Commons from 1705 to 1713 was Carlisle’s other nominee Sir James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, brother of the Whig Junto lord Halifax<em>.</em> In Westmorland the interests of Carlisle, Wharton and Lady Lonsdale were effectively counter-balanced by those of the earl of Thanet, who had inherited the Clifford estates in Westmorland, and of the Musgraves and Grahmes. Carlisle was never (despite his controversial pretensions in 1701) able to exercise the predominant electoral patronage in Westmorland that he could in those areas where he did hold substantial land or office. In Northumberland he continued to work with Somerset in trying to return Whig members to Parliament, and from 1708 Somerset’s son and heir Algernon Seymour<sup>†</sup>, earl of Hertford, later 7th duke of Somerset, always held one of the county seats. <sup>33</sup></p><p>Carlisle attended half of the sittings of the first session of the 1702 Parliament in 1702-3, and he marked himself out as an associate of the Whig Junto, now in opposition to the government, from the very start. He joined the Whig attack against the government’s reluctance to accede to the request from the United Provinces for 10,000 more troops. He seconded a motion from Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, condemning the Tory ministers for insisting that such a request could only be granted if Parliament was prorogued and another bill of supply voted in a new session. Carlisle ‘offered a form of words’ to avoid this impasse, ‘which were such as none seemed to regard’, but he nevertheless reported from the committee assigned to frame an address to the queen on this matter. On 19 Jan. 1703 he spoke and subscribed to the protest against the clause that would specifically allow Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, to continue holding office and sitting in the House after the death of the queen, arguing strongly that this measure was a ‘tack’ on what was otherwise a supply bill to provide the prince with a pension, and that it effectively disabled the other foreign peers (principally William III’s Dutch followers) then in the House from continuing to sit after the succession. He was also involved in the debates on the bill to extend the length of time permitted to take the oath of abjuration. This was originally a bill brought in by the Tories, but he and other Whigs such as Wharton turned it against its original intent by adding a number of amendments which made it more disadvantageous to those who objected to the Williamite settlement. Carlisle’s suggested amendment was that the oath and the penalties for non-compliance be extended to Ireland, and on 5 Feb. he submitted the report from the committee on the amendment, which was ‘a long one’ and accepted by the House.<sup>34</sup> Throughout the winter he opposed the bill against occasional conformity, and took an active part in the debates surrounding it. He was a manager for conferences on the bill on 17 Dec. 1702 and 9 Jan. 1703 and on 16 Jan. he voted to adhere to the House’s amendment to the penalty clause which was sure to wreck the bill in the Commons.</p><p>When that bill came up for the vote again on 14 Dec. 1703, during the following session of 1703-4, Carlisle (listed on the division list as earl marshal) once again voted against it. He came to just over half of the meetings of this session, but was present in the House during the hearings on the Scotch Plot in early 1704, and took an active part in them. On the evening of 13 Feb. he was part of a large group of nineteen Junto-allied peers—including Wharton, Somers, Halifax, Townshend, another close contact Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston and the recorder of this gathering Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston—who met at the St James’s Square townhouse of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland where ‘tea drunk and our discourse was only about the Scotch Plot which the papers was before the House of Lords’. A week after this meeting, on 19 Feb., the House was ‘in a very great heat’ about the Scotch Plot and Carlisle in particular made ‘very great reflections’ against the secretary of state Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham.<sup>35</sup> Carlisle was still having meetings with the Junto peers later in the session, as the proceedings on the Scotch Plot rumbled on, and Ossulston recorded meeting him on 18 Mar. 1704 at the Queen’s Arms in Pall Mall with Halifax, Kingston and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers. A larger gathering took place at Sunderland’s house on St James’s Square on 21 Mar. where Ossulston found Carlisle, Wharton, Halifax, Somers, Orford, Townshend, Kingston, Somerset and a number of others at nine in the evening after a long day in Parliament. Two days later Ossulston dined with Somerset where he was joined by Carlisle, Wharton, Somers, Townshend, Sunderland, Orford, Rivers and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester.<sup>36</sup> They may have been meeting to discuss further strategy on the Scotch Plot proceedings for on the following day, 24 Mar., Carlisle joined seven other of his dinner companions of the previous day in signing the protest against the House’s refusal to put the question whether Nottingham’s record of the testimony of Sir John Macleane on the Scottish conspiracy was ‘imperfect’. After this activity, Carlisle did not appear at all in the House during the following, 1704-5, session, but on 12 Nov. 1704 he did register his proxy with Wharton. Not surprisingly a contemporary political analysis of the peerage listed Carlisle as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.</p><p align="left">He was in the House for only four days during the 1705-6 session, between 11 and 15 Mar. 1706. In April 1706, however, he was appointed a commissioner for the Union with Scotland, most likely owing to his influence and government of the northern border, and his most sustained attendance during any of the sessions of the 1705 Parliament was between late January and early April 1707, at the time the Union was being debated. Ossulston’s diary reveals that Carlisle was involved in the meetings and dinners of the Junto that occurred frequently during this time. On 15 Feb. 1707, after the House had passed a number of articles from the Union bill, Carlisle dined at the Queen’s Arms with Ossulston, Wharton, the marquess of Dorchester (as Kingston had become in 1706), Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, and some others. The same group of Junto peers and their associates, with the addition of Halifax and many others, met again nine days later for a meal at Wharton’s house after a marathon session lasting until six in the evening, during which the House went through all the articles of the union. <sup>37</sup> Judging by the company he kept and that he signed none of the protests against the bill it is certain that Carlisle supported the Union with his Whig colleagues.</p><p align="left"> In August 1706 Carlisle had lost the office of acting earl marshal to his kinsman, Henry Howard*, earl of Bindon (later 6th earl of Suffolk).<sup>38</sup> By the time of the 1708 Parliament, Carlisle was disappointed in his hopes of attaining high political office and largely retired from public life. Since 1700 he had been engaged in turning the small hilltop farming community of Henderskelfe in the North Riding of Yorkshire into the site of his imposing country seat, Castle Howard, originally conceived as a fitting symbol of his arrival on the political scene. When those ambitions failed to be realized he looked to this monument to his family’s ambitions as his retreat from the disappointing world of Westminster. As the years wore on he spent more and more time there and less at his town house in Soho Square, the base of most of his earlier political activities, or his family’s other residences in Cumberland and Northumberland.<sup>39</sup> By 1707 construction of the edifice was well underway, often drawing the architect John Vanbrugh far from his other projects, such as Blenheim Palace. Carlisle, with his increasing stake in Yorkshire, also became involved in elections there, often in collaboration with the Junto’s election manager Wharton, who held estates in Yorkshire as well as Cumberland and Westmorland.<sup>40</sup> Carlisle did not abandon his Cumbrian connection, either in the county itself or when he was in London. When in the capital he frequently met William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle. The editors of Nicolson’s London diaries estimate that from about 1706-7 the bishop had more contact with the earl than with any other single peer, and that about a quarter of the bishop’s meetings with peers consisted of encounters with Carlisle. Unfortunately the bishop’s diaries seldom specify the topic of their conversations or meetings.<sup>41</sup></p><p align="left">Having all but given up on Parliament, Carlisle came to only 35 of the 198 sittings of the Lords between 16 Nov. 1708 and 5 Apr. 1710. His only attendance during the 1709-10 session was during the trial of Dr Sacheverell, whom he voted guilty on 20 March. It was Carlisle who was deputized by the Junto lords to move, on the day following this verdict, that Sacheverell’s punishment consist of seven years’ suspension from preaching, incapacity for further preferment and three months imprisonment in the Tower. These harshly punitive measures were immediately objected to, even by some who had voted the doctor guilty, and were whittled down to a much more lenient sentence.<sup>42</sup></p><p align="left"> </p><h2 align="left"><em>In opposition, 1710-14</em></h2><p>The Tory victory of autumn 1710, which Carlisle was unable to halt in his own counties in the north, appears to have roused the earl to action and he came to 29 per cent of the sittings of the House in 1710-14, more than he had attended in either of the previous two Parliaments of 1705-8 and 1708-10. In early 1711 he opposed the attack on the previous ministry and its conduct of the war in Spain, subscribing to two protests on 3 Feb. against resolutions condemning the handling of that campaign. He was more concerned than he had been previously to keep up his party’s numbers in the House, and assiduously registered his proxy with colleagues in the sophisticated Whig proxy network that was so effective in these sessions. On 8 Feb. 1711 he registered his proxy with Cornwallis, and vacated it eighteen days later when he returned to the House, while on 2 April he gave it to Sunderland, but this too was vacated two weeks later, on 16 April.</p><p align="left">The 1711-12 session was his best attended, at 47 per cent, since 1703-4. On the session’s first day, 7 Dec. 1711, he supported the motion to add a clause calling for ‘No Peace without Spain’ in the address to the queen. The following day, after a tumultuous morning in the House which saw the ministry’s division on whether to present the queen with the address abandoned in the middle of counting, Carlisle met a number of his fellow promoters of the address at the Queen’s Arms for dinner – Dorchester, Bolton, Ossulston, Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, and Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset, among others.<sup>43</sup> On 20 Dec. Carlisle joined other Whigs again in voting against the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House by right of his British title of duke of Brandon. In the first months of 1712 he became a linchpin in a network of proxy exchanges with his colleagues Dorchester and Wharton. Dorchester registered his proxy with Carlisle on the first day of 1712, the day before Parliament was set to reconvene after the Christmas recess with the addition of 12 new Tory peers in the House, created <em>en masse</em> by the queen on 1 January. Carlisle was a teller, almost certainly for the minority Not Contents, in the division the following day on whether the House should adjourn for another two weeks, a vote held so that the ministry could show its new majority with the addition of the twelve new peers. On 12 Jan., two days before Parliament was set to resume, Carlisle registered his proxy with Wharton, who held it until Carlisle’s return on 4 February. On 2 Apr. 1712 both Dorchester and Wharton registered their proxies with Carlisle. Wharton’s was vacated just over a week later when he returned to the House, but he gave his proxy to Carlisle again on 26 April. Carlisle continued to hold both these proxies until early May, when both Wharton, on 5 May, and Dorchester, on 8 May, sat again in the House, although he held Dorchester’s again between the 16th and 20th of May. These three – Carlisle, Dorchester and Wharton – formed a tight set of friends, and both Dorchester and Carlisle were named in Wharton’s will as trustees for his son and daughters, along with the Whig Nicholas Lechmere<sup>†</sup>, Carlisle’s son-in-law from 1719 and Baron Lechmere from 1721.<sup>44</sup></p><p>On 28 May 1712 Carlisle joined with others opposed to the Tory peace negotiations by voting and protesting against the House’s decision to reject the Whig address against the ‘restraining orders’ that prevented British troops from engaging in offensive actions against France during the peace negotiations.<sup>45</sup> He signed a protest on 7 June against the resolution not to insert a clause in an address to the queen insisting on co-operation with England’s allies to form a ‘mutual guarantee’ to ensure the Protestant Succession in Britain. Throughout the remainder of the Parliaments of Anne Carlisle remained in opposition to the ministry, and it is not surprising that after the contentious session of 1711-12 Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt, grandson and heir of the Tory grandee of Carlisle’s earlier days, asked Oxford to grant him the governorship of Carlisle in place of the Whig earl so that he could exercise a Tory interest for the next election.<sup>46</sup> Oxford did not accede to the request. In the 1713 Parliament Nottingham rightly considered Carlisle an enemy to the Schism Bill, which Carlisle did protest against when it was passed on 15 June 1714. Barely a week after signing that protest, Carlisle registered his proxy on 21 June 1714 with Wharton, who retained it until the end of the session.</p><h2><em>Under the Hanoverians, 1715-38</em></h2><p>Carlisle’s steady adherence to the Whigs positioned him to benefit from the Hanoverian succession, and he was named by the elector one of the lord justices to manage the realm in the period between Anne’s death and the arrival of the new king. In October 1714 Carlisle expressed disappointment to Bothmer that he was not made a gentleman of the bedchamber while others, who had not proved themselves as loyal to the Hanoverians as he had, were being preferred to both him and his son, Henry Howard<sup>†</sup>,styled Viscount Morpeth (later 4th earl of Carlisle).<sup>47</sup> He was, however, confirmed in his positions as lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland and governor of Carlisle, through which he was able to continue to exercise influence in the elections of those counties and the city, as well as neighbouring Northumberland. The reasons for George I’s mistrust of Carlisle are not clear, but it remained a feature throughout the new reign. On the death of Halifax in May 1715, Carlisle took his place as first lord of the treasury, but this new honour was almost as short-lived as his first time in 1702, and he was dismissed five months later to make room for Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, eventually earl of Orford.</p><p>Carlisle effectively retired to Castle Howard after 1715, making only occasional visits to the capital to attend the House or court. An account of Carlisle’s activities in the House and northern politics after 1715 will be provided in the succeeding part of this work. He died at Bath on 1 May 1738. His estate and title passed to his son, Henry Howard, 4th earl of Carlisle, who had already served a long political apprenticeship in the Commons as Member for Morpeth.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOWARD, Edward (c. 1602-75) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (c. 1602–75)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>12 Apr. 1628 Bar. HOWARD OF ESCRICK |
|
First sat before 1660, 14 Apr. 1628; first sat after 1660, 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 17 Apr. 1675 |
|
MP Calne 1624, 1625, Hertford 10 Mar.-12 Apr. 1628, Carlisle 26 Apr. 1649-25 June 1651 |
<p><em>b.</em> c. Oct. 1602, 8th but 5th surv. s. of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Suffolk) - and 2nd w. Catherine, da. and coh. of Sir Henry Knyvett<sup>‡</sup> of Charlton, Wilts. and wid. of Richard Rich of Rochford Hall, Essex; bro. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd earl of Suffolk, Thomas Howard*, later earl of Berkshire, Henry Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir William Howard<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad, 1620–3. <em>m.</em> 30 Nov. 1623, Mary (<em>bur.</em> 30 Jan. 1634), da. of Sir John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, bt. (later Bar. Boteler), of Bramfield Place, Herts. 7s. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 1da. KB 3 Nov. 1616; <em>suc</em>. to Escrick estate 1622. <em>d.</em> 24 Apr. 1675; <em>will</em> 22 Apr., pr. 26 Apr. 1675.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Farmer of greenwax fines (jt.) 1631–aft. Mar. 1639; Cllr. of State 1650.</p><p>Ld. lt. Worcs. 1642–at least 1644; commr. Northern Assoc. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1645, militia, northern cos. 1648, Herts. and Yorks. 1648, propagating gospel, northern cos. 1650; sewers, Yorks. (E. Riding), 1654–67.</p><p>Mbr. cttee. of safety 1642, cttee. for advance of money 1642, cttee. for sequestrations 1643, of both kingdoms 1643, Westminster Assembly 1643, cttee. for compounding 1647.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1660.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Edward Howard was the youngest son in the large family of Thomas Howard, created earl of Suffolk in July 1603. His two eldest brothers also became peers: the first son, Theophilus Howard, succeeded their father as 2nd earl of Suffolk in 1626, while Thomas Howardwas created Viscount Andover in 1622 and earl of Berkshire in 1626. Three of his other brothers sat in the Commons, Sir Robert Howard, a country leader in the Cavalier Parliament, being the most prominent among them.</p><p>In 1622, Howard inherited the manor of Escrick and other property in the East Riding of Yorkshire through his mother, Catherine Knyvett, the heiress of her childless uncle, Thomas Knyvett<sup>†</sup>, Baron Knyvett of Escrick. Almost immediately he took a prominent part in the local government of the East Riding, serving as a justice of the peace there from as early as 1623. At his father’s death in May 1626 he came into a further inheritance, of land in Essex, particularly centred around Tollesbury Hall. Here too he was quickly appointed to local offices and responsibilities, being first named to the Essex magistrates’ bench as early as July 1626. For most of his career the far-flung territories of the East Riding of Yorkshire and Essex remained the two centres of his local activity and influence. A full account of his career in the Commons, together with a detailed list of his many offices and commissions in those areas and elsewhere, before the Restoration, appears in the relevant Commons volumes of the History of Parliament. Within a month of his return as Member for the borough of Hertford in 1628, Howard was raised to the peerage as Baron Howard of Escrick, through the influence of his wife’s uncle George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham. He took his seat in the House only two days after his creation.</p><p>According to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, Howard was ‘absolutely governed’ by his benefactor Buckingham. After Buckingham’s murder, however, and the death of Howard’s own wife in 1634 and father-in-law in 1637, he withdrew from court and ‘delivered himself up body and soul to be disposed of by that party which appeared most averse and obnoxious to the government’.<sup>4</sup> He became a particularly prominent figure on the committee for the advance of money from 1644, a position which gave him great influence and a readily available source of funds to siphon off for his personal use. He gained a reputation, both among royalists and his fellow parliamentarians, for naked self-interest, embezzlement, and peculation. He did not do his already damaged reputation any good by joining the Rump as Member for Carlisle shortly after the abolition of the House of Lords – one of only six peers to join the Commons after 1649. It is probable that his selection for this borough was due to the interest of his son-in-law Charles Howard*, later earl of Carlisle, husband of his daughter Anne, who was just beginning his sharp rise in the Cromwellian regime. Howard of Escrick was further appointed a member of the Council of State on 20 Feb. 1650, albeit with some difficulty, as he initially received the lowest number of votes of all the candidates.<sup>5</sup></p><p>In only a few short months his fortunes began to unravel. On 30 July 1650 a commission was established to investigate the allegations that Howard had taken ‘divers bribes for the excusing delinquents from sequestration, and easing them in their compositions’.<sup>6</sup> On 25 June 1651 the committee found him guilty, and Parliament excluded him from office and from his seat, imprisoned him, and fined him £10,000. Howard was probably merely meant to serve as a scapegoat to deflect public anger at generalized corruption in the Rump, for he was able to escape the severest penalties – imprisonment and the fine – by the flimsy plea of old age, illness, and poverty. He did remain excluded from Parliament and office, however, and retired from public life for the rest of the decade.</p><p>The Restoration provided Howard with an opportunity to revive his political life and fortunes. Between 1660 and his death in 1675 he attended the House of Lords for at least three-quarters of the sitting days of every session except one. He took his seat on 27 Apr. 1660, the third meeting of the Convention, maintaining an attendance level of 81 per cent and being chosen in the Convention’s early days to take part in committees entrusted with effecting a smooth transition to the new regime. On 1 May 1660 he was a manager of a conference with the Commons ‘to make up the breaches and distractions of this kingdom’, and the following day he was appointed to the committee to consider an ordinance to make George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, captain general of the forces in England. He chaired a committee on 14 May which discussed the proper methods for the reception of the king and a week later he was placed on the committee to consider an ordinance for a monthly assessment.<sup>7</sup> After the king’s return he was named to a further 11 committees in the Convention, including those for the bill to confirm and restore ministers in their parishes (8 Sept.) and to collect the arrears of the last assessment of the Interregnum (24 November). He seems to have had a particular concern regarding the continuing validity of judicial proceedings and decisions made during the Interregnum, many of which closely involved him and the executive committees which he had chaired in the 1640s. He was placed on the committees for the bills to continue pending judicial proceedings (30 May) and to confirm the legal decisions of the Interregnum (19 July). His one protest in the Convention also reveals this concern. On 13 Dec. 1660 he subscribed to the protest against the bill to vacate fines levied by Sir Edward Powell in 1653. Along with a host of royalist and ministerial peers – including Clarendon, and James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I] (sitting in the House as earl of Brecknock), he objected ‘that fines are the foundation of the assurances of the realm, upon which so many titles do depend’, and that vacating those of the past 20 years would shake the foundations of society.</p><p>Howard was present on the first day of the Cavalier Parliament, on 8 May 1661, and attended 78 per cent of its long first session of 1661–2, being named to 11 committees. He was forecast by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, to be opposed to the claims (presented to the House on 11 July) of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of lord great chamberlain. Two days after this the House heard evidence that the rents of a manor in Hertfordshire had for several years been paid to Howard as guardian to his mentally incapacitated brother-in-law William Boteler*, 2nd Baron Boteler. The House thus ordered a halt to an action of ejectment against one of the manor’s tenants, as a breach of Howard’s privilege.</p><p>The next year, on 22 Feb. 1662, Howard complained to the House that he had been served with an order to appear before the justices of sewers at king’s bench to answer to presentments made against him. The House referred the matter to the Committee for Privileges, which considered the case on 1 Mar., but its final decision does not appear to have been reported to the House. He also defended the legislative rights of the House against the claims of the Commons: on 19 May 1662 he subscribed to the protest against the resolution to drop two provisos from the bill for mending the common highways, made in the face of objections from the Commons that the House could not add or initiate clauses to a money bill.</p><p>Howard maintained a similarly high attendance rate in all subsequent sessions of the Cavalier Parliament, except for that of October 1665, which he did not attend at all. He attended 85 per cent in spring 1663; 83 per cent in spring 1664; 90 per cent in 1664–5; 89 per cent in 1666–7; 40 per cent in the five-day session of July 1667; 97 per cent in 1667–8; 92 per cent in winter 1669; 75 per cent in 1670–1; and 79 per cent in spring 1673. He came to every meeting of the brief four-day session of late October 1673 and then again to every meeting of the session in early 1674. Yet, although he was a constant presence in the House, he seems to have made little impact on its business. His activity appears to have been largely confined to nominations to committees, and even in this regard he was hardly named to every committee established by the House and was often omitted. He was named to only 31 committees across the eight sessions from February 1663 to December 1669.</p><p>It is difficult to determine a specific legislative agenda or political stance for Howard of Escrick. His Civil War background, when he was closely connected to the Independents and religious radicals, suggest that he should be considered a presbyterian peer in the Restoration. Wharton predicted that he would be a supporter of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, in his attempt to impeach Lord Chancellor Clarendon on 10 July 1663, perhaps on the basis that Howard opposed the religious restrictions of what has come to be known as the ‘Clarendon code’. Later, on 26 Mar. 1670, he protested against the passage of the second Conventicle Bill in the House and on 5 Apr. he further dissented from the resolution to agree with the Commons in their rejection of the House’s amendment to the bill which would exempt peers’ houses from search. At the same time, on 17 Mar. 1670 he had joined a group of high churchmen – 12 bishops, Prince James*, duke of York, and 21 lay peers – in protesting against the second reading of the bill allowing John Manners*, then styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to remarry after his divorce. On 8 Apr. 1670 Howard also subscribed to the protest against the passage of the bill setting an imposition on the import of foreign brandy.</p><p>Howard was still attending the House right up to his death. He came to the first five days of the session of spring 1675, but then left the House. Five days after his last sitting on 17 Apr. 1675 he wrote his will, ‘being sick of body’, and died four days later, on 26 April. The will suggests that by the time of his death he had lost much of his land and local influence in the north. His interests in Yorkshire had been acknowledged in his appointment in the early 1660s as a commissioner of sewers for the East Riding, but his position there was damaged by the sale of Escrick to the local merchant Sir Henry Thompson<sup>‡</sup> in 1668, followed two years later by his disposal of Wigginton manor, in the North Riding, to Christopher Hewley of York.<sup>8</sup> The only real estate mentioned in his will is the manor of Tollesbury (or Toulsbury) Hall in Essex, part of his paternal inheritance. What influence he may have retained in the north probably came through his son-in-law Charles Howard, created earl of Carlisle in 1661. Howard seems to have valued his relation with Carlisle above all his many other Howard kin, for he made him executor of his will and reserved the greater share of his bequests to the earl’s children, his own grandchildren. To his two younger sons, William Howard*, later 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, and Sir Cecil Howard, he left £250 each; to various servants and friends he gave annuities or bequests totalling £80; and to the earl and countess of Carlisle and their daughters he left legacies totalling £600, as well as his favourite bed and tapestries. The residue of the estate and the title itself passed to his eldest son and heir, Thomas Howard*, 2nd Baron Howard of Escrick.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOWARD, Edward (1646-92) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1646–92)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1661-85 Visct. Morpeth; <em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Feb. 1685 as 2nd earl of CARLISLE |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 7 May 1690 |
|
MP Morpeth 27 Sept. 1666, 1679 (Mar.); Cumb. 1679 (Oct.); Carlisle 1681 |
<p><em>b</em>. 27 Nov. 1646, 1st and o. surv. s. of Charles Howard*, later earl of Carlisle, and Anne, da, of Edward Howard*, Bar. Howard of Escrick. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1662-6.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. lic. 27 Apr. 1668, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 15 Dec. 1696), da. and coh. of Sir William Uvedale<sup>‡</sup>, of Wickham, Hants, wid. of Sir William Berkeley, 5s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 23 Apr. 1692; <em>will</em> 7 Mar. 1690-29 June 1691, pr. 6 May 1692.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. (jt.), Cumb. and Westmld. 1668-85; dep. gov. Carlisle 1678-85;<sup>4</sup> alderman, Carlisle by 1680-June 1688, Oct. 1688-<em>d</em>.; mayor, Carlisle 1683-4.</p><p>Cornet, English Gens d’Armes (French army) 1667;<sup>5</sup> capt., Sir John Sayer’s Regt. of Ft. 1667, earl of Carlisle’s Regt. of Ft. 1673-4, Carlisle garrison regt. 1678-85;<sup>6</sup> col., Ld. Morpeth’s Regt. of Ft. 1678-9.</p><p>Freeman, Merchant Adventurers, 1664.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, 1691, Castle Howard, N. Yorks.</p> |
<p>Edward Howard, styled Viscount Morpeth, the heir of Charles Howard earl of Carlisle, first entered Parliament in September 1666 when, while still underage, he was returned as Member for his namesake borough, Morpeth in Northumberland. Morpeth may have sat for a Northumbrian borough, but it was in neighbouring Cumberland where he, with his father, exercised his predominant local influence. As early as 1664, well before he was of age, he was first appointed by Parliament as a commissioner of assessment for that county and he was consistently placed on its commission of the peace from 1667 until his death. In December 1668 Morpeth was appointed joint lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland with his father to govern those counties while Carlisle was absent, serving as ambassador in Sweden.<sup>10</sup> Over the following years Morpeth increased his influence in Cumberland and especially in the garrison town of Carlisle by acting as deputy during his father’s frequent travels abroad, and especially in 1678-81 when Carlisle was in Jamaica as governor.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Morpeth was not a particularly active member of the Cavalier Parliament and appears to have followed his father in his political allegiances, adhering to the court and to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), by spring 1677, if not earlier.<sup>12</sup> He was rewarded for his loyalty with a commission to command his own regiment for the projected war against France in 1678. He became dangerously ill while stationed in Flanders.<sup>13</sup> Having recovered, he was returned again for Morpeth in the first Exclusion Parliament, when he voted against the commitment of the exclusion bill and was considered ‘vile’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. He was chosen a knight of the shire for Cumberland for the second Exclusion Parliament and sat for Carlisle in 1681.<sup>14</sup></p><p>After succeeding to his father’s peerage in February 1685, the new earl of Carlisle came to only 19 meetings of James II’s Parliament, most of them in June and early July. Undoubtedly, he felt little warmth for the new regime as James II had quickly appointed others to replace the late earl of Carlisle – Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, as lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland and Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> as governor of Carlisle – even though the second earl had been effectively acting in those posts for several years. By 1687 Carlisle was consistently listed as an opponent of the king’s attempt to repeal the Test Act and penal laws. He supported the seven bishops in their trial in 1688 and was suggested as a surety for the bail of John Lake*, bishop of Chichester.<sup>15</sup> His attitude towards James would not have been improved by the borough of Carlisle’s new charter of spring 1688, in which the king explicitly ordered the removal of Carlisle from his offices in the corporation. On 10 July Carlisle addressed a letter to William of Orange pledging to him his loyalty and service.<sup>16</sup> In light of this, it is surprising that he refused to subscribe to the petition for a free Parliament in November 1688. Carlisle did regularly attend the meetings of the provisional government of December 1688 and signed the Guildhall Declaration of 11 December.<sup>17</sup> When the council of lords was debating on 13 Dec. what to do with the king, recently seized at Faversham while trying to escape to France, Carlisle insisted that they had to inform William of this development, as they had presented their Declaration to the Prince on the grounds that the king had removed himself from the kingdom.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Carlisle supported William of Orange’s claims to the throne during the scant six days during which he came to meetings of the Convention. His brief period of attendance was concentrated on the crucial days of late January and early February 1689. Although he was marked as ‘sick’ at a call of the House on 25 Jan. he made his way into the House four days later and appears to have been there on 31 Jan. when Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, recorded him as voting to declare William and Mary king and queen, although his name does not appear in that day’s presence list in the Journal. Carlisle voted to agree with the Commons on the use of the word ‘abdicate’ on 4 Feb. and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, included him among the four peers ‘who never used to come’ whose unexpected appearance, ‘brought [in] upon his crutches’, in the House on 6 Feb. was decisive in tipping the crucial division that day in William’s favour.<sup>19</sup> Carlisle’s northern neighbour Sir John Lowther*, later Viscount Lonsdale, also described Carlisle in early 1689 as ‘a cripple with the gout’ and explained that he, Lowther, was granted the lord lieutenancy of Cumberland and Westmorland in April 1689 ‘for want of a proper person to give it to’, the debilitated earl ‘refusing to act or be concerned with the lieutenancy of these counties’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>So weakened by illness was Carlisle that he stopped attending the Convention altogether after 18 Feb. 1689. On 28 May 1689 the House sent a summons demanding his presence by 16 June, but formally excused him on 6 June ‘in regard of great lameness’.<sup>21</sup> He still managed to drag himself into the House on 11 Apr. 1690, when he took the oaths for the new Parliament, but he did not attend again until 7 May, which was his last appearance in Parliament. On 9 Jan. 1692 he registered his proxy for the first and only time, entrusting it to Francis Howard*, 5th Baron Howard of Effingham. Carlisle died on 23 Apr. 1692, ‘after a life of so much pain that he scarce had any ease in this world’, at his wife’s property of Wickham in Hampshire, where he was also buried.<sup>22</sup> His will included complicated arrangements for his three younger children, assigning to each of them a portion of the income he received from over £15,000 worth of mortgages he held. He did not make specific provisions for his first son Charles Howard* as he inherited his father’s vast northern estates.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOWARD, Francis (1643-95) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1643–95)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 1681 as 4th Bar. HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM |
|
First sat 3 May 1685; last sat 20 Mar. 1695 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 17 Sept 1643, s. of Sir Charles Howard of Eastwick, Gt. Bookham, Surr. and Frances, da. of Sir George Courthope. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) 8 July 1673, Philadelphia (1654–85), da. of Sir Thomas Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and 3rd w. Margaret Vane, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 5 other ch. <em>d.v.p.</em>; (2) 20 Jan. 1690, Susan (c.1650–1726), da. of Sir Henry Felton<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Playford, Suff. and Susan Tollemache, wid. of Philip Harbord, <em>s.p.</em> <em>suc</em>. fa. 20 Mar. 1673. <em>d</em>. 30 Mar. 1695; <em>will</em> 20 Dec 1694, pr. 1 June 1695.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. Virginia 1683–93.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, school of Sir G. Kneller, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond.</p> |
<p>Francis Howard succeeded to the barony of Howard of Effingham at the death of his distant cousin Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham. By the modern convention for referring to peers he would be known as Lord Howard but his contemporaries regularly referred to him as Lord Effingham and his own acceptance of that title is shown by his adoption of the single word Effingham as his signature. Little money accompanied the honour and the new baron was therefore dependent on his own patrimony and court favour. His first marriage brought him into a useful if somewhat inactive parliamentary connection: his wife’s brother, Sir Nicholas Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, her half-brother, Sir John Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, and her brother-in-law, Sir John Monson<sup>‡</sup>, all sat in the Commons, as did two of Sir John Monson’s sons, Henry<sup>‡</sup> and William<sup>‡</sup>. Effingham remained on friendly terms with his first wife’s family for the rest of his life, naming Sir Nicholas Pelham, another brother-in-law, Thomas Methwold, and George Monson as his executors.</p><p>His own family connections were also useful. Effingham’s kinsman Henry Howard*, 6th duke of Norfolk, the recognized head of the Howard clan, and his kinsman by marriage, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, were both close to James*, duke of York, and it appears to have been their influence that secured the post of governor of Virginia for the new peer. As governor Effingham pursued a resolute policy of supporting and extending the royal prerogative, the corollary of which was the diminution of the power of the local representative assembly. Although he was later suspected of Catholicism, he seems to have been a committed Anglican: at his departure for Virginia in 1683, John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, wrote to him expressing his confidence that Effingham would support the interests of religion.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Effingham’s governorship of Virginia did not mean that he was permanently absent from England. He was in London early in 1685, perhaps to compliment James II on his accession, and took his seat at the opening of the 1685 Parliament. Presumably he then returned to Virginia, as he was absent for the remainder of the session. What little survives of his correspondence indicates that he was kept informed of the growing crisis at home. Henry Compton*, who, as bishop of London, claimed a supervisory role over the colonial Church, wrote in November 1686 of his belief that ‘my jurisdiction would not be long in your parts …’, and the following year Effingham’s cousin Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, wrote, somewhat enviously, that ‘You could never had found a more seasonable time to be where you are’.<sup>3</sup> Even though Effingham was abroad and therefore powerless to vote, his name was still included on various lists detailing the names of peers and their attitudes to James II’s policies. Four lists drawn up between 1687 and 1688 agree that, if present in the House, Effingham would vote in favour of the repeal of the Test Acts. This notional support for the repeal of the Test appears to have been the basis of suspicions of his Catholicism.</p><p>Effingham’s problems with the colonial opposition, concerns about his health, and perhaps a touch of self-interest impelled him to return to England shortly after the revolution of 1688. At a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689 he was listed as being abroad, but he appeared in the House on 3 May on a writ of summons dated 2 Apr. and this was erroneously recorded as his first appearance. He took the oaths to the new regime and was named to the committee to reverse the attainder of Dame Alice Lisle. Thereafter he was present on nearly half the remaining sitting days. In May 1689 he voted against reversing the judgments against Titus Oates. He was named to several committees, including the committee for the Journal and that to consider the bill for Arundel Ground promoted by his kinsman the duke of Norfolk. In a list compiled by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), between October 1689 and February 1690 he was classed as among the supporters of the court, although one to be spoken to.</p><p>During the 1689–90 session of the Convention Parliament Effingham was present on just over one-third of sitting days and was named to four committees. During the first session of the 1690 Parliament his attendance rose to some two-thirds of sitting days. On 21 Mar. he was named to the usual sessional committees and to a further eight select committees. There is no clear pattern to his attendances and it is likely that they were dictated as much by his state of health as by the business before the House. His health was still precarious – in July 1690 he was said to be ‘very ill at Tunbridge’.<sup>4</sup> Nevertheless he was anxious to secure reappointment as governor of Virginia and probably saw attendance at the House as a way of signalling the reliability of his support for the new regime. His reappointment was announced in June 1690 but he did not return to Virginia, arranging for his office to be executed by deputy instead.<sup>5</sup></p><p>During the 1690–1 session Effingham was present for just over 40 per cent of sittings. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions on the first day of the session but was then absent until 18 Oct., when the main business before the House was the controversy over the Privy Council’s commitment of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington. During the session he was named to seven committees. The business of Virginia remained unsettled and in November 1690 he was the subject of a complaint to the Privy Council from three seamen whom he had arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of piracy; the matter was still unresolved in May 1692.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Effingham attended 58 per cent of the sitting days during the 1691–2 session; he was named to the committees for privileges, the Journal, and petitions, and to 15 further committees. He held the proxy of Edward Howard*, 2nd earl of Carlisle, from 9 Jan. until Carlisle’s death on 23 Apr. 1692, and that of William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, from 18 Jan. 1692 until the end of the session. Although there is no evidence to confirm it, it seems likely that the proxies were solicited for use in the passage of the divorce bill of their mutual kinsman Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, rather than for the debates over treason trials which provided the other major concern of the session. On 16 Feb. Effingham was one of the peers who protested against a decision of the House to disallow proxy voting in the case of the Norfolk divorce.</p><p>That same month he was involved in a case of privilege resulting from a dispute with Charles Shaw and Robert Paston<sup>‡</sup> (brother of William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth), husbands of Lady Effingham’s daughters by Philip Harbord. The dispute itself concerned the distribution of Harbord’s estate but the privilege issue centred on whether Lady Effingham was acting as executrix or as a trustee. During the course of the proceedings it was suggested that Lady Effingham had paid all legacies due and that the residue was hers absolutely. The inference appears to be that Effingham had made a very advantageous match, although it is clear from his will that his marriage settlement allowed the new countess to retain control of her own personal estate notwithstanding coverture. On 20 Feb. the Lords voted by an overwhelming majority that neither Effingham nor his wife were entitled to privilege in this case.</p><p>Effingham was present at the opening of the 1692–3 session, when he was again named to the committees for privileges, the Journal, and petitions. He was then present for some 60 per cent of sitting days and was named to nine further committees. On 22 Dec. 1692 he was recorded as having told, probably for the not contents, in a motion to adjourn the House relating to the hearing of evidence in the Norfolk divorce case. He held the proxy of Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas of Shenfield, between 27 Dec. 1692 and 23 Jan. 1693, and that of Howard of Escrick from 30 Dec. to the end of the session. The proxies were probably for use against the place bill; Effingham voted against it on 31 December. On 2 Jan. 1693 he was a teller for the division on whether to read the revived Norfolk divorce bill.</p><p>Effingham attended the opening of the 1693–4 session, when he was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal; he was also named to 12 other committees. Over the course of the session his attendance fell to approximately 35 per cent. During the following (1694–5) session he was present on 63 per cent of possible sitting days until his last appearance on 20 Mar. (47 per cent overall) and was again appointed to the committee for privileges. He was also named to 12 select committees. On 23 Jan. 1695 he joined with other predominately Tory peers to protest against the resolution to postpone implementation of the provisions of the bill for regulating treason trials.</p><p>His will, drawn up in December 1694, suggests that his financial affairs had considerably improved since his succession to the peerage. He had built up his landholdings in Surrey, had lent £1,200 to the crown under an act of Parliament of 1694, and was able to leave a portion of £3,000 for his daughter Elizabeth. At his death he also held shares worth some £400–£600 in the East India Company.<sup>7</sup> At the time of making the will Effingham stated that he was in good health, but at the end of March 1695, just ten days after his last appearance in the House, Luttrell reported that Effingham had been ‘given over’ by his physicians.<sup>8</sup> Although he left little mark on the House or society at least one contemporary lamented his passing, for ‘he was a very good man’.<sup>9</sup> He was succeeded by his under-age son Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, George (c. 1625-91) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (c. 1625–91)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 7 Jan. 1689 as 4th earl of SUFFOLK |
|
First sat 23 Jan. 1689; last sat 22 Oct. 1690 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 21 May 1625, 3rd s. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk, and Elizabeth, da. of George Home, earl of Dunbar [S]; bro. of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk and Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (tutor Francis Tallents) 1642–4. <em>m</em>. (1) (date unknown) Catherine, da. of John Alleyne of Moggerhanger, Blunham, Beds. <em>s.p.m.</em>; (2) in or bef. 1686, Anne (<em>d.</em>1710), da. of John Wroth of Loughton, Essex, wid. of James Cowper<sup>‡</sup> of Westminster, <em>s.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 21 Apr. 1691.</p> |
<p>Master of the horse (parliamentary) to James*, duke of York, 1647; gent. of bedchamber to James, duke of York, in exile.</p><p>Capt. Dutch service, 1646.</p> |
|
<p>George Howard emerged as the heir to the earldom of Suffolk after the death of his older brother Thomas Howard, which occurred sometime between July 1685 and January 1689. Given the turmoil of the times it is perhaps not surprising that he took his seat at almost the first available opportunity: the second day of the Convention. He was promptly appointed to all three sessional committees, as he would be in each succeeding session. Despite his early association with James, duke of York, his sympathies were decidedly anti-Catholic and on 31 Jan. he voted to declare William and Mary king and queen. His son-in-law Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup> similarly deserted James II in favour of William III. Suffolk was present on some 63 per cent of sitting days and was named to three committees. On 4 Feb. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons that the king had abdicated and left the throne vacant; he entered his dissent when these questions failed, and had no difficulty in taking the oaths to the new regime on 2 March.</p><p>Although he was not named to the committee, he and his younger brother Henry Howard*, later 5th earl of Suffolk, appear to have been active behind the scenes attempting, unsuccessfully, to amend the bill to abolish the hearth tax. This was a matter of considerable interest to them as it effectively removed their security for the unpaid balance (£20,000) for the crown’s purchase of Audley End.<sup>1</sup> Suffolk’s finances were precarious. In response to the self-assessment taxation exercise carried out in the autumn of 1689 he replied that he was</p><blockquote><p>as ready as any subject whatsoever to assist their majesties to the utmost of my estate, but their lordships cannot but know that I was a younger brother and under many misfortunes &c. The earldom is very lately descended and the estate annexed to it hath not yet defrayed the charges that the honour hath required me to expend to pay my duty to their majesties at their coronation and since in Parliament. By this means it hath not been possible for me to acquire any personal estate but have been constrained to incur debt for the ordinary support of my honour though without furnishing or keeping any house suitable to my quality.<sup>2</sup></p></blockquote><p>During April 1689 Suffolk also became involved in supporting the complaint of Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, about the right of peers to wear hats in the king’s presence in his chapel and in the playhouse.<sup>3</sup> On 17 May he was named to the committee considering the bill for the development of Arundel House sponsored by his cousin Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.</p><p>Suffolk was away from the House for the whole of June, when the first suspicions that he might have been selling protections began to surface. On 18 June Oliver Clobery, who had fought and won a long battle through chancery and the House of Lords against Ezekiel Lampen, protested to the House that Suffolk had issued a protection to Lampen as one of his menial servants, even though Lampen was a merchant living in London. Suffolk returned to the House early in July 1689 and was named to six committees. On 10 and 12 July he entered protests against amendments to the bill to reverse the judgment of perjury against Titus Oates, arguing, inter alia, that they impugned the reality of the Popish Plot and left Oates with no more than the illusion of a remedy. In August he was named to two further committees.</p><p>Suffolk was present on approximately 56 per cent of sitting days during the second (1689–90) session of the Convention, and he attended 77 per cent of the sitting days of the first session of the 1690 Parliament. In March 1690 he was again in trouble with the House concerning protections and on 28 Mar. agreed to withdraw two of the three that he had issued.<sup>4</sup> During both sessions he was again named to several committees but there is no evidence to suggest that he had a personal interest in any of them or that his appointment was anything other than a formality.</p><p>Suffolk was present on the prorogation days between the adjournment of 23 May 1690 and the opening of the new session on 2 October. He was then present every day until his final attendance on 22 October. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge fo James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. On his last day of attendance he raised an issue of privilege in which he alleged that Simon and Edward Price (also Prise or Pryse) were disturbing his ‘quiet possession’ of a silver mine in Cardiganshire. In reality, Suffolk was acting on behalf of the Society of Mines Royal. His opponent was Sir Carbery Pryse<sup>‡</sup>, who mounted his own complaint of privilege in the Commons.<sup>5</sup> The arguments about privilege dragged on until 20 Dec. when a compromise was announced, though the issues at stake were not finally settled until 1693. Suffolk himself was not in the House to lead the arguments, nor did he obey an order of the House made on 26 Dec. to attend for questioning concerning irregularities in the use of protections. Presumably he was ill, but on 27 Dec. the Journal merely recorded that he was not in town. He died on 21 Apr. 1691 when his honours passed to his next brother, Henry Howard.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, Henry (1627-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1627–1709)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 21 Apr. 1691 as 5th earl of SUFFOLK |
|
First sat 26 May 1691; last sat 7 Nov. 1705 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 18 July 1627, 4th s. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk, and Elizabeth, da. of George Home, earl of Dunbar [S]; bro. of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk and Henry Howard*, 4th earl of Suffolk. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) between 30 Nov. 1660 and 1670, Mary (c.1648–82), da. and h. of Andrew Stewart, 3rd Bar. Castle Stuart [I], at least 1s. and 1 da.; (2) 22 Nov. 1691, Mary (c.1650–1721), da. of Rev. Ambrose Upton, canon of Christ Church, Oxf., wid. of (1) Charles Vermuyden, MD, (2) Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup>, sjt.-at-law, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 9 Dec. 1709; <em>admon</em>. 6 Feb. 1710 to wid.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commissary general of musters, 1667–697.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>As the fourth son of the 2nd earl, Henry Howard could have had little expectation of succeeding to his father’s earldom. He was as impoverished as his two immediate predecessors in the earldom and in December 1690 was committed to the Fleet Prison as a result of an ongoing dispute with Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers (later earl of Jersey), about arrangements to raise portions for Villiers’ sisters. Much about his early life and allegiances remains determinedly obscure, although it seems likely that, like his older, brothers he was in the political orbit of James*, duke of York. He was probably also close to his brother-in-law, Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I] as his first wife, Mary Stewart, was Orrery’s ward. It may have been Orrery’s influence that gained him an appointment as commissary general of musters in 1667, a post that he was to hold for almost 30 years. Presumably he was also something of a scientist, for shortly after his succession to the earldom he petitioned the crown for a patent to protect his invention of latten (copper alloy) plates made from ‘material native to the kingdom’.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Like his nephew-in-law Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup>, and other military men associated with him, Suffolk seems to have had little difficulty in transferring his allegiance from James II to William and Mary. The new earl’s first opportunity to attend Parliament would have been on 28 Apr. 1691, an adjournment day. He took his seat instead on 26 May when Parliament was formally prorogued. He seems to have been keen to play a part in parliamentary life as he also attended the non-sessional day on 30 May. During the 1691–2 session he was present on just under 50 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges, the Journal, and petitions, and to 11 select committees, mainly for estates and naturalization bills. He may well have had a personal interest in the deliberations of some of these committees. His love of country sports may have influenced his appointment to the committee to consider the bill to punish deer stealers, and his military background and allegiance to William III was almost certainly a factor in his nomination to the committee to consider the naturalization of the Dutch army officer Meinhard Schomberg*, duke of Leinster [I] (later 3rd duke of Schomberg), but it is perhaps a step too far to suggest that his chronic indebtedness may have influenced his appointment to the committee for the bill to lessen interest on money.</p><p>Suffolk also became involved in three cases of privilege. One, on 7 Dec., involved a dispute between his countess (formerly Lady Maynard) and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, although (probably as a result of a clerical error) the actual entry in the Lords Journal refers to the previous earl of Suffolk, George Howard*. The second, on 11 Dec., involved the widow of Joseph Maynard<sup>‡</sup>. Both appear to have resulted from chancery actions relating to the claims of Joseph Maynard’s daughters to the estate of their grandfather Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup>. The third case related to the revival of his dispute with Villiers.</p><p>On 15 Dec. Suffolk was present for the first reading of the bill for the sale of some of the estates of his older brother James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk. He was also present on 17 Dec. for the second reading of the bill, and the same day was named as one of the managers of the conference on trials for treason. On 29 Dec. yet another issue of personal interest was raised when his great-niece Elizabeth Felton laid claim to the barony of Walden. This peerage had been held by his older brother James, but as a barony by writ the rules for its descent were unclear. Elizabeth Felton and her aunt Lady Essex Griffin both laid claim to the peerage, claiming that it had fallen into abeyance at the death of the 3rd earl and that the crown had the right to determine the abeyance by choosing between the female heirs. The 5th earl, emphasizing that he had no peerage other than his earldom, insisted that it should descend with the earldom. Indeed, the title continued to be used by his son as a courtesy one. On 12 Jan. 1692 the committee for privileges, undoubtedly embarrassed by the various competing claims, reported that the case was one ‘of great intricacy’ and threw the decision back to the House, which failed to make a decision.</p><p>In the summer of 1692 Suffolk was granted a pass to travel to Holland, where he probably remained for some time. <sup>4</sup> He did not attend the 1692–3 parliamentary session at all and in July 1693 was reported to have drowned when an English packet boat sank after being attacked by French privateers.<sup>5</sup> He was back in London for the opening of the 1693–4, session when all but 2 of his 21 attendances were concentrated in the period before 9 Jan. 1694. He was again named to the committees for privileges and the Journal but otherwise appears to have taken little part in parliamentary life.</p><p>During the 1694–5 session Suffolk’s attendance rose to some 65 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committee for privileges and to 17 other committees, including that to consider the arrangements for the procession of peers at Queen Mary’s funeral and the committee to consider in what manner a loose sheet should be entered in the Journal. Most of the committees, however, in this session as in others, were concerned with estate and naturalization bills. On 13 Apr. he was named as one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill to oblige Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> to account for monies from the East India Company and on 3 May he was named to the conference about the impeachment of Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds. During the course of the session he was named as the first recorder of the newly incorporated borough of Saffron Walden, an appointment that probably reflected his interest in the borough through his ownership of the manor of Chipping Walden.<sup>6</sup></p><p align="left">Suffolk failed to attend the opening months of the 1695 parliament, making his first appearance on 11 Jan. 1696. He was then present for some 30 per cent of the remaining sitting days during which he was named to two committees. It is difficult to identify which of the many political issues of this fraught session attracted his attention but one that may have engaged his personal interest was the attempt of Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to revive his claim to a writ of summons as Baron Brooke. Verney’s claim, which was heard in January and February 1696, was to an abeyant barony by writ and potentially bore uncomfortable similarities to the Felton claim to the barony of Walden. On 17 Jan. Suffolk entered a formal protest at the passage of the resolution that Verney’s counsel be heard at the bar on the subject, but he did not join the protest on 13 Feb. when the House resolved that Verney could be summoned as Lord Willoughby de Broke. On 27 Feb. he signed the Association. He then absented himself from the House until 7 Mar. 1696, which proved to be his final attendance before prorogation in April.</p><p align="left">Suffolk was absent at the opening of the 1696–7 session and was thus one of those peers who, in anticipation of the forthcoming attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, was subjected to the order of the House on 14 Nov. that those peers who neglected the service of the House be sent for in custody. He appeared in the House pursuant to the order on 24 Nov. 1696. He was then present for nearly 70 per cent of sitting days until his last attendance of the session on 18 Feb. 1697. In December 1696 he voted in favour of Fenwick’s attainder. He was named to nine committees, including the committee to consider the answers of the commissioners of the Admiralty and the committee to consider the state of trade. On 16 Mar. 1697 his proxy was registered in favour of his kinsman and namesake, Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, who held it for the remainder of the session. During the course of the session he relinquished his post as commissary of musters in favour of his son, Henry Howard*, later earl of Bindon and 6th earl of Suffolk.</p><p>Suffolk was present at the opening of the 1697–8 session on 3 Dec. 1697 and then attended on some 57 per cent of sitting days until 20 Apr., after which he absented himself from the House. On 3 Dec. he, together with George Compton*, earl of Northampton, acted as supporters at the introduction of his old opponent Edward Villiers, now created earl of Jersey. He was named to 20 committees, including that to consider the indictment of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. On 7 Mar. 1698 he was named as a manager of the conference to discuss amendments to the bill on poor relief. Six days later he voted for the committal of the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡ </sup>and entered a protest against the failure to do so. On 29 June, after an absence of over two months, his proxy was registered in favour of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, perhaps for use in votes over the Goudet case.</p><p>The first session of the 1698 Parliament opened and then promptly adjourned on 24 Aug. 1698 without Suffolk in attendance but he took his place on 6 Dec., which was effectively the first full day of the new session. He was present once more for the next day's sitting (9 Dec.) when he was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal but then absented himself until 14 Feb. 1699; thereafter he was present on approximately 35 per cent of sitting days, attracted perhaps by an interest in the proceedings against Mohun and Edward Rich* 6th earl of Warwick. He was named to 16 committees, including the committee to consider the expense of repairing forts and batteries on the River Medway and the committee to inspect precedents for the trial of Warwick. On 27 Apr. he and eight other peers, both Whig and Tory, entered a protest against the inclusion of a clause appointing commissioners for the forfeited estates in Ireland in the supply bill, on the grounds that it was effectively a tack and thus prejudicial to the privileges of the peerage.</p><p>Suffolk was present for a mere 14 days during the 1699–1700 session. He attended the opening of the session on 16 Nov. 1699 when he was named to the committee for privileges, but did not return to Parliament until 4 Mar. 1700, when the controversial Norfolk divorce bill was under discussion. He was named to two committees. During the first 1701 Parliament, he was present on less than 30 per cent of sitting days; however, as he attended on the first day of the session he was named to the committee of privileges and to three select committees. He was in the House on 17 June to vote in favour of the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, but ceased to attend on 20 June and so was unable to vote in the case of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, on 23 June.</p><p>During the second Parliament of 1701, Suffolk attended the House just five times, of which two were for the second and third readings of the succession of the crown bill on 23 and 24 Feb. 1702. He was present on just one day, 4 Dec. 1702, of the first session of the 1702 Parliament. In January 1703 Daniel Finch*, earl of Nottingham, estimated that his position on the issue of the occasional conformity bill was doubtful and on 16 Jan. he is recorded as having voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the penalty clause. If this record is accurate he must have voted by proxy, for he was not in the House that day; unfortunately the relevant proxy book does not survive. Suffolk did not attend the House at all during the 1703–4 session but in November 1703 Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, nevertheless included him as an opponent of occasional conformity in his two forecasts of supporters and opponents of the bill, and he was recorded as having voted against the bill in November by proxy and again (presumably also by proxy since he was not present) in December 1703.</p><p>Once again, Suffolk attended none of the 1704–5 session and in November 1704 he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset. In April 1705 he was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. His final appearance in the House was on 7 Nov. 1705. Thereafter he appears to have retired to his country estate at Acton, Suffolk, where he died on 9 Dec. 1709.<sup>7</sup> He was succeeded by his son, also named Henry Howard, who had been created earl of Bindon three years earlier.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, Henry (1628-84) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1628–84)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1669 Bar. HOWARD of Castle Rising; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1672 earl of NORWICH; <em>suc. </em>bro. Dec. 1677 as 6th duke of NORFOLK |
|
First sat 24 Oct. 1670; last sat 30 Nov. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 12 July 1628, 2nd s. of Henry Frederick Howard<sup>†</sup> (1608–52), then styled Ld. Mautravers (later earl of Arundel), and Elizabeth (<em>d.</em> 23 Jan 1674), da. of Esme Stuart, 3rd duke of Lennox [S]; bro. of Thomas Howard*, later 5th duke of Norfolk; nephew of William Howard*, Visct. Stafford. <em>educ</em>. Oxf. MA 1642, DCL 1668. <em>m</em>. (1) bef. 21 Oct. 1652, Anne (1631–c. 1 Oct. 1661),<sup>1</sup> da. of Edward Somerset*, 2nd mq. of Worcester, and Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Dormer, 2s. 3da.; (2) bef. 23 Jan. 1678, Jane (c.1644–93), da. of Robert Bickerton, gent. of the king’s wine cellar, and Anne Hester, 4s. 3da. <em>d</em>. 23 Jan 1684; <em>will</em> 20 Jan. 1683–8 Jan. 1684, sentence 5 Feb. 1684.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Amb. Morocco 1669; Earl Marshal 1672–<em>d.</em></p><p>High Steward, Guildford 1663–73, Honor of Peverell 1672.</p><p>FRS, 1666.</p> |
|
<p>Henry Howard, often styled Lord Howard of Norfolk, was described by Comminges as ‘a man of great quality but of mediocre talent’.<sup>3</sup> He became the effective head of his family at the death of his father in 1652 because his older brother Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel (later 5th duke of Norfolk), had suffered catastrophic brain damage that left him functioning at the level of toddler. The family had been exceptionally wealthy. According to Sir Edward Walker, Howard’s grandparents had taken some £100,000 worth of goods out of the country when they left England in 1641. They also owned substantial estates in Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex, Nottinghamshire, Cumberland, and Westmorland. By 1652 a variety of factors had combined to reduce the value of Henry Howard’s inheritance. His grandfather had left massive debts, much of the estate was vested in his older brother as the beneficiary under various entails, and his grandfather’s will had been challenged in a series of costly legal actions. The extravagances of his uncle, Stafford, had also contributed to the depletion of the family coffers. At the death of Howard’s grandmother in 1654, only £30,000 of the original £100,000 remained.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Having managed to arrange an amicable settlement to the disputes over his grandfather’s will, Howard then found himself in dispute with Stafford over his grandmother’s estate. Stafford claimed that his mother had made a nuncupative will in which he was named as residuary legatee. Henry and his brother Charles Howard successfully counter-claimed that their grandmother was too ill in mind and body to make any such disposition of her estate. Stafford took his revenge in 1659 by convincing the House of Commons that the Catholic Henry Howard was conspiring to keep Thomas Howard out of the country ‘solely because he is a Protestant … [in order to] enjoy his goods’ with the result that the Commons ordered that he be sent for and that his estate be secured.<sup>5</sup> Since Stafford did not seriously doubt Arundel’s incapacity and shared the family shame at his condition, the request was almost certainly meant to embarrass Howard rather than to extricate Arundel from Padua.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Henry Howard seems to have spent much of his early life abroad, but he was back in England by the mid-1650s and, despite his supposedly straitened circumstances, had already started on one of the many building projects that would occupy much of his time (and money) for the rest of his life.<sup>7</sup> As a committed royalist, albeit a Catholic one, and despite his ‘mediocre talent’, the Restoration brought hopes of reward.<sup>8</sup> In the late summer of 1660 he was undoubtedly behind the petition to the crown ‘subscribed by most of the lords’ for the restoration of the dukedom of Norfolk, which had been forfeited in 1572. The act passed in Dec. 1660 and was confirmed by the Cavalier Parliament a year later, though not apparently without difficulty or without still more enquiries into his brother’s mental incapacity.<sup>9</sup> In theory, the restoration of the dukedom benefited Howard’s older brother; in reality, since his brother’s condition precluded him from marrying, the dukedom would inevitably pass either to Howard or to his eldest son. Howard also petitioned for a grant of the right to make farthing tokens and in 1661 was he was granted the right to hold a weekly market and three yearly fairs at Worksop in Nottinghamshire.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Howard was technically a commoner but his reversionary interest in the dukedom meant that he was treated with the deference due to the rank that he was expected to attain, and in 1668 he was given the formal status of the son of a duke, as if his father rather than his brother had been restored.<sup>11</sup> Furthermore, his control of the family estates gave him considerable electoral influence. He had charge of the appointment of burgesses in the borough of Castle Rising, and had interests in Aldeburgh, Thetford, and Arundel. The extent to which he was either able or willing to use his influence varied over time. At the elections for the Convention in 1660, Howard appears to have been content to nominate only one candidate for Castle Rising, the former parliamentarian Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>. The following year he nominated both candidates, Sir Robert Paston<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Steward<sup>‡</sup>. He seems to have been unable to exercise his influence in Aldeburgh in 1660, though those returned (Robert Brook<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Bacon<sup>‡</sup>) were both presbyterian royalists of a mould similar to Holland, who took one of the seats on Howard’s nomination in 1661. He appears to have nominated one of the members for Thetford in 1660 and 1661. He also intervened, unsuccessfully, in the Northamptonshire election of 1661.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In 1663 Howard’s electoral interests were extended to include Guildford. His appointment as high steward was undoubtedly connected to the remodelling of the corporation the previous year. As high steward, he helped elect the court candidate, Thomas Dalmahoy<sup>‡</sup>, when the seat fell vacant in 1664, which suggests a comparatively early alliance with the interests of James*, duke of York.<sup>13</sup> Another link to the court was provided by his steward, a Mr Marriott, who was also clerk to the queen’s council.<sup>14</sup> His interests in Norfolk assured the election of his candidate as town clerk of Norwich, even though the corporation would have preferred to appoint another.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Quite apart from the influence that he was able to exert as an individual, Howard headed an extended family with a significant parliamentary presence. Several members of the Howard family sat in the House of Lords as peers in their own right: his uncle Stafford and his cousins, the Barons Howard of Charlton, the Barons Howard of Escrick, the earls of Berkshire, Carlisle, Nottingham, and Suffolk. Further members of the family sat in the Commons during Howard’s lifetime: Charles Howard<sup>‡</sup> of Naworth, Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup> of Westminster and Kent, Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup> of Westminster and Wiltshire, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup>, and William Howard<sup>‡</sup>. The Howards did not form a homogenous political grouping but they could and did act together very effectively in order to push through private bills on matters of common interest.</p><p>The death of his wife in 1661 was said to have left Howard deeply depressed, while his Catholicism prevented him from playing as full a part in public life as he would have liked and left him feeling like ‘a useless drone’ and ‘a cypher’.<sup>16</sup> He was also at odds with Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. In January 1664, in the aftermath of the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon, the court tried to tempt Howard back to court and to engineer a reconciliation between him and Clarendon. Even though Howard was a member of neither House, he was a desirable political ally – his ‘mediocre intellect’ was more than offset by his wealth, the strength of his Howard connections, and the reputation he enjoyed for ‘magnificence and liberality’ – but he continued to show his disgust with the ministry by refusing to go to court or to form political alliances.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Early in 1665 Howard left England in order to travel through Europe and the Near East; he returned towards the end of 1666, having formed a close friendship with Heneage Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea. In England he became involved in the affairs of the Royal Society, though more as patron than as practitioner.<sup>18</sup> He also struck up an alliance with Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, joining with him in an application for the right to make farthings.<sup>19</sup> In the course of a correspondence with Father Lesley on the subject of reviving Catholicism in England he made it clear that in his opinion ‘the poor Catholics of England are not really under such a heavy persecution as may be supposed’ and that the greatest threat to Catholicism in England came from the thoughtlessness of Catholic extremists.<sup>20</sup></p><p>In 1669 Howard was created Baron Howard of Castle Rising, almost certainly to give him additional status for his embassy to Morocco – one in which it was predicted that his equipage would ‘be the most magnificent that has been seen in Europe these many ages’.<sup>21</sup> He left Plymouth on 23 July 1669 and returned to England almost exactly a year later, his journey having been so interrupted that he never got any further than Tangier.<sup>22</sup> During his absence he supported the unsuccessful candidacy of Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> (York’s nominee) at the 1669 by-election for Aldeburgh.<sup>23</sup> Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> counted on support from Howard and Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington, at the Thetford by-election of the same year. Although he was returned he was warned that Howard’s absence had permitted a local faction to emerge which ‘endeavours to play a game destructive to his lordship and Lord Arlington’s interests’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Howard attended Parliament at the first opportunity after his return to England, and was present on almost 73 per cent of sitting days in the 1670–1 session. He was nominated to several select committees on bills. Occasionally it is possible to discern a personal interest, for example in the bill for Sir Phillip Howard and Francis Watson (4 Jan. 1671) and that for Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, for whom Howard was a trustee (14 Jan. 1671), and perhaps also for the bill to explain the duke of York’s bill (29 Mar. 1671). It is unclear whether he was personally implicated in an assault, in January 1671, on James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (later also duke of Ormond in the English peerage), by one of his servants.<sup>25</sup> If so it did not cloud his prospects for at this point in his life Howard was full of optimism about his own future.</p><p>In February 1671 he was appointed to the committees for the Journal and petitions. From March 1671 he held the proxy of Marmaduke Langdale*, 2nd Baron Langdale, which was vacated at the end of the session. On 9 Mar. he entered two dissents concerning the failure to commit or engross a bill to reduce parliamentary privilege. In April he attended, as a witness as well as a member, the committee (chaired by his kinsman Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire) considering a bill to settle the estates of yet another kinsman (possibly his brother), also named Charles Howard.<sup>26</sup> On the last day of the session (22 Apr.) he was also named as one of the members of the House to present thanks to the king for his encouragement of the wearing of English manufactures.</p><p>In the autumn of 1671 Howard entertained king and court magnificently in his as yet unfinished palace at Norwich.<sup>27</sup> His close relationship to his brother Philip, Catholic chaplain to Catherine of Braganza, meant that he was able to influence the royal couple’s itinerary in order to gratify his neighbours, as well as becoming the recipient of otherwise confidential court information.<sup>28</sup> He later confided to Evelyn his belief that a projected marriage between his heir, also named Henry Howard*, later 7th duke of Norfolk, and one of the king’s daughters by the duchess of Cleveland meant that he was about to come into ‘might[y] favour’. A rumour to the same effect even reached Archbishop Michael Boyle in Dublin.<sup>29</sup></p><p>At or about this time he spoke of converting to the Church of England, or of persuading his son to do so ‘for he thought most religions alike’. Quite how serious he was about changing religion remains a moot point. According to Evelyn, Howard had taken to ‘base and vicious courses’ and had become ‘very inconstant, for he has fits of good resolutions … and then of things quite contrary’.<sup>30</sup> During the interregnum he had assured his grandmother that he would rather die than take the oath of abjuration but since he was desperately trying to engage her interest (and money) for himself he may well have exaggerated the depth of his commitment to Catholicism.<sup>31</sup> Even so, Howard’s continued closeness to his brother Philip and Evelyn’s decision to remove his son from Howard’s custody in the early 1660s ‘for fear he might be perverted with their religion’ suggests that Howard’s religious attitudes were not quite as flexible as he liked his Protestant friends to believe.<sup>32</sup> His hints about a change of religion nevertheless seem to have done the trick for in 1672 he was appointed earl marshal, a post that had been held by his ancestors and which he had long desired. The grant even turned the office into a hereditary one, probably in the mistaken belief that it had been held on those terms in the past. In recognition of his new status Howard was promoted to the earldom of Norwich.</p><p>Norwich was present on the first day of the new session in February 1673. He attended every sitting day, so was somewhat neglectful of the need to marshal the Howard interest at the Norfolk by-election of 1673. Perhaps his withdrawal from direct involvement was strategic, for it seems that even a rumour of a Howard candidate was sufficient to spur the nonconformists into focussing their efforts in support of Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>33</sup> In Parliament Howard was nominated to the committees for privileges and for petitions. On 21 Mar. he informed the House that, following information from John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, he had taken John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, into custody along with Belasyse’s son-in-law, Robert constable, Viscount Dunbar [S], and their seconds, in order to prevent a duel between them. When the two men appeared in the House the following day Rochester refused to incriminate himself and Dunbar insisted that he had sent no challenge and that ‘he was very good friends with his lordship’ but the House clearly did not believe him and they were forced to promise to take the matter no further.</p><p>Although there is no record of Norwich’s activities or voting intentions, it seems reasonable to suppose that he opposed the passing of the Test Act that year. Had he been serious about conforming to the Anglican Church the Test Act would have forced his hand, since it prevented him from exercising the coveted office of earl marshal. Instead he remained a Catholic and in June 1673 delegated the duties of the office to his kinsman Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle. When Parliament reconvened briefly in October he was again nominated to the committees for privileges and petitions. In November 1673 he used his patronage at Castle Rising to ensure the return of Samuel Pepys, at the request of James, duke of York.</p><p>Norwich was present on less than 30 per cent of the sitting days in the short session of 1674. On 12 Jan. he obtained a pass to travel abroad and requested leave from the House, explaining that his health required him to travel overseas. He promised to leave a proxy. No such proxy was registered and it is not clear whether Norwich did go abroad. His illness may have been a political one: with heightened fears of popery, both he and his sons were under threat of prosecution for recusancy. On 27 Jan. his attempt to claim privilege of Parliament in order to protect his sons Henry and Thomas from prosecution was referred to the committee for privileges, although his own claim was allowed. On 6 Feb. he was instructed, in his capacity as earl marshal, to ensure that some enquiry be instigated into the burial of the infant child of Lady Shrewsbury by her lover George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. Six days later the committee for privileges agreed that privilege of Parliament did extend to Norwich’s sons and ordered an end to prosecutions for recusancy against them. Meanwhile Norwich was under attack from the House of Commons, who were incensed at his intervention in the Castle Rising election; during their scrutiny of the return they revived the old demand that his brother Norfolk should be returned to England.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Norwich obtained another pass to travel abroad in February 1675 but during the difficult first session of the year he was present on all but two of the sitting days.<sup>35</sup> Although there is no evidence of his attitude to the attempted impeachment of Danby or the dispute over <em>Sherley v Fagg</em>, his previous record suggests that he would have supported the court. At the Norfolk by-election of May 1675 his interest was managed by Sir John Holland in favour of Sir Robert Kemp<sup>‡</sup>, who commanded substantial nonconformist support.<sup>36</sup> In the increasingly polarized political and religious atmosphere of the day, Norwich’s ability to command support cannot have been helped by the widespread publicity given to the announcement in the summer of 1675 that his brother Philip (recently expelled from England along with other Catholic priests) had been appointed a cardinal by Rome. His private correspondence confirms that he and his brother remained on very close terms.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Norwich was present when Parliament reconvened on 13 Oct. 1675 and with the exception of the day of prorogation was present on each day of the session, but there is no evidence to indicate whether he supported the court or preferred to join York’s uneasy alliance with the opposition. During the 1677–8 parliamentary session he was present on some 72 per cent of sitting days. By now he was facing a variety of difficulties. In March 1677 a local dispute between the gentlemen of Norwich and Yarmouth prompted the former parliamentarian sympathizer and court opponent Sir John Hobart to bemoan the failure of the earl of Norwich and ‘the great and numerous families of the Howards and alliances [to] find out some way of accommodation to prevent this public and desperate way of their proceeding’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>As if this were not enough, Norwich’s younger siblings were challenging his administration of the family estates, claiming that he had defrauded them of the portions due to them under their father’s will. As in previous family disputes they petitioned for the duke of Norfolk to be brought back to England.<sup>39</sup> Early in March the House set up its own informal committee of Howard peers and their allies, including Ormond, to mediate. A report of ‘some rough words’ between Norwich and his brother Bernard also led to an order ‘that there be no resentment of what passed between them’. These orders were to be omitted from the Journal.<sup>40</sup> Despite the intervention of the House, relationships between the earl and his brothers continued to deteriorate. Later that month Norwich’s younger brothers Edward and Bernard embarrassed him still further by petitioning the House about his relationship with Jane Bickerton. According to Reresby, before becoming Norfolk’s mistress Jane Bickerton had been ‘common about the town’.<sup>41</sup> The couple had been co-habiting for several years and had a number of children. Edward and Bernard Howard now claimed that their own reversionary rights in the dukedom of Norfolk were endangered because Norwich was encouraging a belief that these children were legitimate.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Norwich was also embroiled in something of a battle over his claim to be able to appoint the next Garter King of Arms.<sup>43</sup> In addition to these personal issues, his Catholicism drew him into national controversies. In March 1677, he entered his dissent to the bill to secure the Protestant religion. Not surprisingly, in May Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, categorized him as an opponent – although a manuscript alteration leaves it difficult to be sure whether he counted Norwich as triply or merely singly vile.</p><p>In August 1677 Norwich’s eldest son and heir, Henry Howard married Lady Mary Mordaunt. Although Norwich was keen on the marriage, it seems that his son was somewhat reluctant and was persuaded by his father’s threats to leave his property elsewhere if Howard refused to comply with his wishes.<sup>44</sup> The marriage underlined still further Norwich’s connection to the court and the duke of York, for the bride’s father, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, was one of York’s oldest and closest associates. A number of references to Norwich and his son during the summer and autumn of 1677 describe them incorrectly as duke of Norfolk and earl of Arundel, titles which the two men could assume only on the death of Norwich’s elder brother.<sup>45</sup> It was not until late in December 1677 that Norwich finally succeeded his brother as duke of Norfolk. Within a month he had declared his marriage to Jane Bickerton, much to the disgust of Evelyn.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Norfolk’s allies greeted his long-awaited promotion with undisguised pleasure. Despite the increasing antagonism towards Catholics and the campaign against York, at the Norwich by-election in February 1678 Norfolk confidently declared his intention to ‘undo’ the ‘fanatic’ mayor of Norwich and was able to use his influence to help secure the election of the court candidate, William Paston<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>47</sup> He was also involved in negotiations over the surrender and reissue of the town charter, exerting his influence in order to secure the reappointment of William Long as town clerk.<sup>48</sup> The distractions of the by-election were presumably responsible for Norfolk’s absence from Parliament for most of February 1678, even though he was once again under attack from his siblings. He was back in London by 25 Feb. when he testified to the committee considering Lord Audley’s bill. His testimony, like that of his fellow Catholic, Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, confirmed that the Benedictine monk George Tuchet, second son of Mervyn Tuchet<sup>†</sup>, 12th Baron Audley and 2nd earl of Castlehaven [I], wished to be omitted from the bill.</p><p>Norfolk’s relationship with his siblings continued to be confrontational and in March 1678 they petitioned the House again, alleging that Norfolk’s unreasonable behaviour was preventing a settlement, thus leaving them ‘as far as ever from receiving one farthing of what is due to them’. The publicity forced Norfolk’s hand. He declared himself willing to end all differences and the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), announced that he would hear all the parties and settle the matter within a week.<sup>49</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Norfolk was present on just under a quarter of the sitting days in the short session of May–July 1678. When Parliament resumed in October 1678 he attended on almost every sitting day until 30 November. Throughout November he consistently voted against the Test. He also acted as one of the managers of the two conferences for the preservation of the king. Although he was not arrested during the Popish Plot, his close association with York meant that he had much to fear. That same month Bedloe was thought to have named him, along with York, as one of the two ‘persons of quality’ who had been involved, along with the queen, in discussions about killing the king in May 1677. Bedloe later claimed that he not named them at all but that, when asked if the two persons were York and Norfolk, he had replied that ‘for anything he knew they might be’.<sup>50</sup></p><p>It was widely rumoured that Norfolk was somehow implicated in the death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey: Norfolk’s house in the Strand was the last place at which Godfrey was seen alive and some claimed to have seen Norfolk’s coach returning from Primrose Hill, the site at which the body had been dumped.<sup>51</sup> In November the attention of the House and Council was drawn to a letter allegedly found in the street. Addressed to Norfolk it advised him to leave town immediately ‘for there should be such a stroke to the enemies of the Church as never any the like since the creation’. Two of Norfolk’s servants who intervened to protect their master were reprimanded by the House and warned to be more cautious for the future.<sup>52</sup> Unwilling to take the oaths under the new Test Act, Norfolk sat for the last time on Saturday, 30 Nov. 1678. His last act as a member of the House was to inform those present of the lord chancellor’s opinion that unless some of them took the new oaths at once, it would be questionable whether the House would be able to reassemble on the following Monday. Members of the House insisted that this could not be so but nevertheless took the oaths ‘for avoiding all scruples and objections’ and also took pains to record their thanks to Norfolk for his ‘good service’.</p><p>Norfolk may have feared becoming the target of Titus Oates’s allegations: he had once employed (and rapidly dismissed) Oates as a chaplain in his household. In obedience to the king’s proclamation he left London, only to petition the House on 16 Dec. 1678 for permission to return for medical treatment. So fragile had Norfolk’s influence become that he refused his interest to any of the parliamentary candidates at the February 1679 election in Norfolk on the grounds that his support was more likely to damage than to assist them. At the same election Castle Rising returned Sir Robert Howard on the instructions, not of Norfolk, but of his son Henry, now styled earl of Arundel.<sup>53</sup> Perhaps wisely, Norfolk sought leave to go abroad with his family. It was granted on condition that none of the children were ‘to be bred up or left abroad in any popish seminaries’, that he take no priests with him and that he should not visit Rome’. He left the country early in March.<sup>54</sup> His absence abroad created a new and interesting problem for Parliament, for on 26 Mar. Norfolk’s agent attempted to invoke privilege on behalf of a tenant who had become involved in a dispute over the duke’s fishing rights. The question of whether a peer could claim privilege from beyond the sea was recognized as a novel one, but although it was referred to the committee for privileges it appears never to have been discussed.<sup>55</sup></p><p>In April 1679 Arundel (who had been summoned to the House under a writ in acceleration in January 1678 as Lord Mowbray) conformed to the Church of England.<sup>56</sup> Already in litigation with his father, he took advantage of his father’s absence the following month when he introduced a bill, supported by fellow members of the Howard clan – including James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, Thomas Howard*, 3rd earl of Berkshire, and William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick – to settle the family estates. Norfolk’s debts were estimated at some £52,000, another £5,000 was required to finish the building works on Norwich Palace and Arundel House, and provision needed to be made for Arundel and his siblings. Apart from generalized allegations of mismanagement, the clear subtext to the bill was Arundel’s determination to inhibit his father’s ability to provide for his children by his second wife. It specified that whereas Arundel’s full sister Lady Frances Howard was to receive a portion of £8,000, the duchess and her many children were to receive only about £4,000 a year. Arundel’s counsel assured the committee dealing with the bill that Norfolk knew and approved of it. Norfolk not only denied approving the bill but claimed he had no idea of its contents. It was designed, he said, ‘to gratify an insatiable son’ who was impatient for his father’s death.<sup>57</sup> Not surprisingly the bill failed.</p><p>Norfolk seems to have returned to England early in 1679 but by June he was once again applying for a pass to travel abroad. It was a short trip: he left in August but was back in England by the end of the month to face recusancy charges and in September was recorded as being at Greystoke Castle.<sup>58</sup> Problems caused by the Popish Plot still haunted him, for it was somewhat cryptically reported that one of his servants had been seized along with several letters, ‘but of what moment is uncertain’.<sup>59</sup> He was in London during the trial of his uncle Stafford, but seems to have been unconcerned about his fate.<sup>60</sup> He soon left the country yet again but returned in April 1681.<sup>61</sup> In January 1682 a long-running dispute with his brother Charles Howard over their father’s complex arrangements to ensure that ownership of Greystoke would pass from Henry to Charles Howard, if and when Henry Howard succeeded to the dukedom, resulted in a ruling in which Lord Chancellor Finch overruled all three of his fellow judges.<sup>62</sup> The case later went to appeal and resulted in the landmark legal ruling against perpetuities.</p><p>Norfolk was facing an increasingly hostile world. In January while in Flanders he was reported to have killed the brother of the Prince of Ligny (Ligne) in a duel over ‘some abusive words’ uttered in contempt of the duchess.<sup>63</sup> He returned to England in February, where he found himself sued for a debt of £20,000 for money borrowed from Sir Edmund Pye<sup>‡</sup>, but which Norfolk claimed had been repaid some 30 years previously.<sup>64</sup> He was also pursued by the seneschal of Hainault, who arrived in England towards the end of April 1682 determined to seek revenge for the incident in Flanders. Charles II ordered both men to be apprehended in order to prevent a duel but although Norfolk was imprisoned it appears that, despite their earlier differences, Arundel fought the seneschal on his father’s behalf.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Nothing is known of Norfolk’s activities over the next 20 months. He died in January 1684, possibly of ‘a thrush in his throat’.<sup>66</sup> He left substantial properties to his widow for her life, including the estate at Rotherham, where she died in August 1693. Her second husband, Thomas Maxwell, was killed at the battle of Marsaglia two months later. Norfolk was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry Howard, as 7th duke of Norfolk.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, Henry (1655-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1655–1701)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1677-84 earl of Arundel; <em>accel. </em>14 Jan. 1678 Bar. MOWBRAY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Jan. 1684 as 7th duke of NORFOLK |
|
First sat 28 Jan. 1678; last sat 24 Mar. 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Jan. 1655, 1st s. of Henry Howard*, 6th duke of Norfolk and 1st w. Anne, da. of Edward Somerset*, 2nd mq. of Worcester. <em>educ.</em> travelled abroad 1664-7 (Flanders, France, Italy), 1674; Magdalen, Oxf. MA 1668; DCL 1684. <em>m</em>. 8 Aug. 1677 (with £10,000), Mary (<em>d</em>. 17 Nov. 1705), da. and h. of Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, div. by act of Parliament 11 Apr. 1700, <em>s.p</em>. KG 1685. <em>d</em>. 2 Apr. 1701; <em>admon</em>. 7 May 1701 to cos. Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Col. 12th Ft. 1685-June 1686, 22nd Ft. 1689.</p><p>PC 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Constable and capt. of ft. Windsor Castle 1682-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt., Berks, 1682-<em>d</em>., Surrey, 1682-<em>d</em>., Norfolk, 1683-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>., Berks, 1689-<em>d</em>., Norf. 1689-<em>d</em>., Surr. 1689-<em>d</em>.; high steward, King’s Lynn, 1684-<em>d.</em>, Norwich Cathedral 1684-<em>d</em>., New Windsor 1685-<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> ranger Windsor forest 1700-1.</p><p>Steward, Hon. Artillery Co. Apr. 1682, capt. gen. 1690;<sup>3</sup> high steward, Peverell, Notts. and Derbys. 1684-?<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>FRS 1672.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint published by J. Smith, after Sir G. Kneller, NPG D 11973.</p> |
<h2><em>Early Years</em></h2><p>Howard was brought up as a Catholic and travelled extensively in his father’s entourage. On 29 June 1664 his father was granted a pass to travel with his two sons to Flanders, France and Italy. Howard and his brother returned to England in May 1667, and stayed at Arundel House where in October they witnessed some proceedings of the Royal Society.<sup>6</sup> In 1669 he studied at Magdalen, Oxford, but did not matriculate.<sup>7</sup> He went abroad again but was reported to have returned to England in December 1670. In July 1672 it was reported that Howard and his father were serving as volunteers under James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>8</sup></p><p>As Howard was the heir of his father, and thus to the extensive Howard patrimony, he was an eligible marriage prospect. In October 1672 it was reported that his father was hoping to cement an alliance with the court through a marriage between Howard and Lady Charlotte Fitzroy, illegitimate daughter of Charles II with the duchess of Cleveland, a project his father confirmed to Evelyn later that month.<sup>9</sup> In February 1673 Howard was presumably the son of Lord Howard, who was rumoured as a possible candidate in the Norfolk county by-election.</p><p>Marriage was again mentioned on 24 Apr. 1676, when Robert Paston*, Viscount (later earl of) Yarmouth, asked ‘how the match goes on with my Lord Howard’.<sup>10</sup> This inquiry probably related to a match with Lady Henrietta Wentworth, which was reported on 12 June to be ‘at a stand at present’. On 13 July Howard’s father referred to ‘being close to settling the marriage of his eldest son’ but in August, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, reported that negotiations had been ‘broken off’. The following year another match was being discussed, but in July 1677 it was reported that there was ‘a great stop’ put to the match between Howard and Lady Mary Mordaunt, although it had been ‘thought matters had been fully agreed on.’<sup>11</sup> Under pressure from his father, who threatened to leave his estates elsewhere, Howard somewhat reluctantly married Lady Mary, whose father, Peterborough, was closely allied to York.<sup>12</sup></p><h2><em>1678-85</em></h2><p>On 14 Jan. 1678 a warrant was issued for Howard, now styled Lord Arundel, to be summoned in his father’s barony of Mowbray.<sup>13</sup> Arundel took his seat on 28 Jan. but his arrival in the Lords was somewhat marred by a dispute about his precedency, which was ‘something disputed’ by James Tuchet*, 13th Baron Audley (and 3rd earl of Castlehaven [I]). After a long debate it was agreed that he should be placed at the upper end of the barons’ bench, following the example of his grandfather who had been similarly summoned by a writ in acceleration as Mowbray in 1640.<sup>14</sup> He was then introduced by his uncle, William Howard*, Viscount Stafford and another kinsman, Thomas Howard*, 2nd Baron Howard of Escrick. Presumably he had been summoned in the expectation that he would bolster the court interest led by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby. Several years later, a passing reference to the ennoblement of Richard Lumley*, 2nd Viscount Lumley [I] (later earl of Scarbrough), suggested that Danby believed that Arundel was ‘called immediately after his conversion’, but this would appear to be incorrect.<sup>15</sup> Following his elevation to the Lords, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, added Arundel’s name to his analysis of lay peers, classing him as both ‘worthy’ and a papist. Arundel was present on 43 days of the remainder of the session, 72 per cent of the total and was named to three committees in early February 1678, although he was excused attendance on 16 February. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. He was present on 13 May when Parliament was prorogued.</p><p>Arundel was present on 23 May, the opening day of the session of May-July 1678, attending on 21 days of the session, nearly 49 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. He was present when the new Parliament met on 21 Oct. 1678 and was named to the three sessional committees on 21 and 23 October. He attended on 28 days of the session, which represented nearly 78 per cent of the total, before his decision to withdraw from the House under the Test Act on 30 Nov. 1678. In the election of February 1679 he was instrumental in securing the return for Castle Rising of his cousin, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, an enemy of Danby. Despite this, Danby listed Arundel was a possible supporter and assigned Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> to lobby him. Two more lists drawn up by Danby indicate his belief that Arundel would vote for him, while a third adds him to the list, which probably meant that he hoped to secure his support later.<sup>16</sup> It also suggests that Danby thought his return to the Lords possible. In this he was correct. A month after the new Parliament convened Arundel signalled his conversion to the Anglican Church by taking the sacrament.<sup>17</sup> He returned to the House on 11 Apr. 1679, taking the oaths in the only business of the House that day before the peers decamped to the Abbey to keep a fast day. He was present on 31 days of the remainder of the session, nearly 51 per cent of the total. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Arundel’s decision to conform had long seemed a possibility. In 1671, when his father had prevaricated about turning Protestant, he had told Evelyn that ‘he would have his son Harry go to Church’.<sup>18</sup> William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, later picked this up, relating that his father, George Legge*, Baron Legge, had encouraged Howard to turn Protestant.<sup>19</sup> Conformity was a sensible family strategy in uncertain times, especially as some of the Popish Plot informers had linked his father to the murder of Edmund Berry Godfrey and to the plot in general. It may also have been influenced by a desire to defend his inheritance. Arundel clearly resented his father’s second marriage to the somewhat disreputable Jane Bickerton, especially as his father’s plans to provide financially for his second family were eating into his own inheritance. It was to this that Yarmouth was referring on 20 May 1678 when he asked if ‘there were any accommodation between’ the duke and Arundel and his younger brothers.<sup>20</sup> The family quarrel resulted in the introduction on 2 May 1679 of a bill for vesting some of the lands of Norfolk and Arundel in trustees, for the payment of debts and annuities charged on their estate, raising a portion for Lady Frances Howard (Arundel’s full sister), for the rebuilding of Norfolk House, and for continuing the residue of the lands (after the trusts had been performed) with the dukedom of Norfolk. As the bill affected Norfolk’s interests, the House also ordered that Arundel take care that his father, who was abroad, had a copy of the bill and demanded proof that this had been done. On 15 May the bill received a second reading and was committed. The family estates according to Arundel had been ‘much impaired’ by his father’s attempts to raise ‘a great estate’ for his new duchess and their children. Arundel’s bill was backed by an impressive list of Howard peers (Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham, James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, Thomas Howard*, 3rd earl of Berkshire, Edward Howard*, Viscount Morpeth, the future 2nd earl of Carlisle, William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick) and on 16 May 1679 the Lords gave permission for Arundel’s Catholic uncles Edward and Bernard Howard to come to London in order to take care of their interests in the bill. Although Arundel tried to convince the House that his father agreed to the terms of the bill, the peers were soon disabused of this belief when they received a thundering letter of opposition to this ‘most false and scandalous bill’ which was required ‘merely because the writer does not die as soon as his son and his governors would have him.’ Norfolk’s letter was read to the House on 20 May and referred to the committee on the bill, who were ordered to send for Henry Keymour, the servant who had waited on Norfolk in Flanders. On 24 May counsel for the duke asked for more time to answer, and on 26 May the House ordered that Norfolk have a fortnight after receiving notice to appear himself to offer his reasons against the bill or to empower some person to do it for him. The matter was thus unresolved when Parliament was adjourned the following day and prorogued on 12 July.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Presumably as a result of this failed legislation, Arundel resorted to a chancery suit against his father concerning the development of the family’s estate in London.<sup>22</sup> As Peterborough wrote in October 1679, Arundel was ‘very far from thinking to grieve or molest his father in anything’, but wished ‘to secure what he can, in way of reversion to his family and whilst his pretences are no more unjustifiable I believe his friends will stand by him all they can’. Peterborough wished for a ‘good agreement’, that the duchess and her children ‘might be fittingly provided for’, and the duke return to a ‘natural love of his eldest son, and a fast consideration of his family, and its interests’.<sup>23</sup> In 1680 Arundel and his father came to an agreement to end the suits between them.<sup>24</sup> On 23 Nov. 1680 the two men created a debt trust, in which Francis Howard*, the future 5th Baron Howard of Effingham, (Sir) Paul Rycaut and Cuthbert Browne, a Yorkshire clergyman, became trustees for lands in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Yorkshire. A draft conveyance exists dated a day later conveying the Strand estate to the same trustees. Many accounts exist of the operation of this trust.<sup>25</sup> After the death of his father Arundel came into conflict with his trustees, who felt that continued progress in reducing the late duke’s debts should take priority over the new duke’s need for liquidity.<sup>26</sup> In 1693 the surviving trustee, Rycaut, a friend of the previous duke and a stickler for attempting to ensure that debts were paid off according to the schedule laid down in the trust, opposed Arundel’s attempts to siphon off income set aside for the trust.<sup>27</sup> Indeed, there exists a draft bill for better enabling Rycaut and others to sell lands to pay off the 6th duke’s debts.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Arundel attended the prorogation on 17 May 1680 and was present on the opening day of the 1680-1 session, 21 Oct., attending on 39 days, just over 67 per cent of the total. On 15 Nov. he voted to reject the exclusion bill on its first reading. On 7 Dec. he was the only member of the Howard clan to vote Stafford not guilty of treason.<sup>29</sup> In March 1681 Danby’s pre-sessional forecast suggested that if Arundel attended the Oxford Parliament, he would vote in favour of the earl’s bail. On 23 Mar., two days after the opening of Parliament, Danby’s son included Arundel on a list of absent lords, ‘your friends’, although he did turn up on the last day of the Parliament, 28 March.<sup>30</sup> On 4 May Arundel attended the trial of Edward Fitzharris in King’s Bench, watching along with the rest of the ‘loyalists’ from the gallery, whilst Shaftesbury and his acolytes remained below.<sup>31</sup> He also attended on the trial on 11 May and 9 June 1681.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In July 1681 Arundel was in Derby, where it was reported that he would sign that county’s loyal address.<sup>33</sup> In April 1682, when York appeared to public acclaim at the feast of the Hon. Artillery Company, Arundel was elected one of the stewards.<sup>34</sup> In November he succeeded Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, as constable of Windsor and lord lieutenant of Berkshire and Surrey. He added Norfolk to his lord lieutenancies on Yarmouth’s death the following year, prompting Roger Morrice to worry that between them Arundel and his uncle, Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort (also a convert from Catholicism) had jurisdiction over some 20 counties.<sup>35</sup> Having succeeded his father in January 1684, Norfolk quickly assumed the role of earl marshal, issuing several orders in February.<sup>36</sup> Also in February he acted as bail for William Herbert*, earl of Powis, upon his release from the Tower.<sup>37</sup> In May 1684, he facilitated the surrender of the King’s Lynn charter and was appointed the new high steward.<sup>38</sup></p><p>During the final illness and death of Charles II, Norfolk took steps to ensure the peaceful accession of James II through regular communication with his deputy lieutenants, as he did during the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>39</sup> A close relationship with James II was perhaps suggested by his rapid appointment as a knight of the Garter, although James insisted that the honour was not bestowed ‘for any particular merits’ but merely because Norfolk was the first duke in the kingdom.<sup>40</sup> He was installed on 22 July 1685.<sup>41</sup> The duchess had become a lady of the bedchamber in April 1685, not surprisingly given that her parents were in high favour.<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II</em></h2><p>During the election of 1685, Norfolk was active in support of court candidates for the counties of Berkshire, Norfolk and Surrey, and may well have intervened in those boroughs where his family had a traditional interest, such as Arundel, Castle Rising, Horsham, King’s Lynn and Thetford.<sup>43</sup> Nevertheless, he was anxious to promote a consensual approach to the elections. In Norfolk he not only expected his deputy lieutenants to call a meeting of the gentry but encouraged them to consult Horatio Townshend*, Viscount Townshend and Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>. He expressed every confidence in the choice to be made ‘since we may say (without bragging) that no county affords so many loyal gentlemen.’<sup>44</sup> Townshend actually attended Norfolk at Norwich ‘upon the account of settling the election for this county’.<sup>45</sup> In Surrey a meeting of the deputy lieutenants produced a shortlist of three candidates, which Norfolk then encouraged them to reduce to two, but this did not prevent a contest or allegations of trickery.<sup>46</sup> He was also able to use his influence in Windsor where in March 1685 he was appointed lord high steward, alongside George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, who became recorder under the new charter.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Norfolk was present on the opening day of the 1685 Parliament, 19 May, and attended each of the 31 days before the adjournment on 2 July, being named to six committees. One reason for his exemplary attendance was because of a legal cause. On 1 June his uncle, Charles Howard, promoted an appeal to reinstate the landmark ruling on perpetuities promulgated by the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, concerning the Howard estate at Greystoke, which had been overturned by a commission of review. On 19 June the House affirmed the original ruling.<sup>48</sup></p><p>In September 1685 Norfolk was engulfed in a public humiliation. As Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> put it, his duchess had been ‘found in bed’ with another man, ‘to her great scandal’.<sup>49</sup> Her response had been to ‘run away’, and a report of 3 Oct. confirmed that she had left the court ‘upon a quarrel betwixt her grace and her Lord upon his unfortunate finding a gentleman’s shirt and waistcoat in bed with her’, items which belonged to a Dutch adventurer named John Germaine<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>50</sup> Norfolk reacted by obtaining a pass on 26 Sept. for himself and his duchess to travel to France where he intended to place her in a nunnery.<sup>51</sup> The duchess’s detention was entirely involuntary ‘for she would escape if she could’, and she later claimed not only that the duke had abandoned her but that her incarceration had caused her conversion to Catholicism.<sup>52</sup> Norfolk returned to England at the end of October, but the stress of the situation appears to have taken its toll: there were rumours that his nails and hair had fallen out as though he had been poisoned, and in November he was said to have been ‘indisposed of a hypochondriac melancholy.’<sup>53</sup></p><p>Norfolk’s marital difficulties may have been bound up with his financial problems. In August 1685 he had conveyed Sheffield Park (part of his wife’s jointure) to John Coggs, a goldsmith, as security for a mortgage on some of his other lands, and on 3 Nov. 1685 Danby was informed that Norfolk ‘can make no estate for he’s only tenant for life’.<sup>54</sup> There is even a suggestion that Norfolk was later moved to try to divorce his wife because the jointure settled on her made it impossible to sell the manors upon which it was secured in order to discharge a debt.<sup>55</sup> Norfolk was certainly searching for additional sources of income. In about November 1685, Norfolk, Peterborough and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, drew up articles of agreement commissioning John Irving to act as their deputy in licensing pedlars and petty chapmen, in return for £10,000.<sup>56</sup> On 25 Jan. 1686 a licence was issued for continuing the office for 21 years at an annual rent of £5,000, but their licence was cancelled on 15 Nov. 1686.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Norfolk was present when Parliament resumed on 9 Nov. 1685 but that was the only day he attended. Interestingly, given his marital problems, on 14 Nov. his proxy was, nevertheless, given to his father-in-law, Peterborough. Norfolk was therefore absent at a call of the House on 16 Nov., when it was recorded that he had left his proxy, and from yet another appeal against his management of the Norfolk estates.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Norfolk attended the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), on 14 Jan. 1686, finding him not guilty.<sup>59</sup> He attended the prorogations on 10 May 1686 and 28 Apr. 1687. In June 1686, he had ‘laid down’ the command of his regiment.<sup>60</sup> On 13 July 1686 a newsletter report had Norfolk sending over a gentleman to France to fetch the duchess back to England.<sup>61</sup> The duchess returned to England in November; she was in London on 12 Dec. 1686 and expected to reside at Drayton.<sup>62</sup> In February 1687 the duchess took advantage of the creation of the ecclesiastical commission to petition for alimony proportionate to the fortune she had brought to the marriage. The court ruled in April that Norfolk should cohabit with his duchess by Michaelmas 1687. When this failed to happen, the duchess returned to the court on 6 Oct. and on 12 Jan. 1688 was granted £400 a year from her father’s estate, £600 from the duke and £500 alimony during the separation.<sup>63</sup> Even then Peterborough had to petition on 1 Mar. 1688 for a writ of <em>ne exeat regnum</em> to prevent Norfolk from leaving the country before he had given security for the payment of alimony and answered a suit in chancery begun by Peterborough on his daughter’s behalf.<sup>64</sup> He was also summoned by the ecclesiastical commission on 26 Apr. and 12 July 1688 (when he was abroad), and quickly fell into arrears with his payments.<sup>65</sup></p><p>In August 1687 Norfolk was instructed to revive the court of chivalry for the first time since 1641, convening a meeting in October.<sup>66</sup> Amongst the first cases to be heard was that of the misuse of the arms of Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and the claim of the trunk-maker James Percy to the earldom of Northumberland. An indication of the potential political use of the court was given in November when Norfolk was instructed to end the prosecution of Sir James Tillie for displaying false arms and to give him ‘an easy dismission’ because of his loyalty to the crown.<sup>67</sup> Meanwhile, Norfolk seems to be have been having difficulty making up his mind about James II’s policies. One list of peers grouped Norfolk as against the repeal of the Test Acts, and in May 1687 a list of peers and their attitudes to the policies of James II marked him as doubtful. In September he wrote somewhat plaintively to his cousin and trustee, Howard of Effingham, in Virginia that ‘you could never had found a more seasonable time to be where you are.’<sup>68</sup> Danby listed Norfolk among opponents of James II in the Lords, but a list of November 1687 decided that his views were still undeclared, and according to the Dutch agent, van Citters, he spent much of December in a vain attempt to persuade the deputy lieutenants and justices of Norfolk to support the repeal of the Test Acts.<sup>69</sup> Morrice reported his failure with the Berkshire gentry in January 1688, by which date another list, published in Holland, had him opposed to repeal.<sup>70</sup> In mid February when he received what he considered to be illegal orders from Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to name several new deputy lieutenants, including at least five Catholics, and rumours were circulating that he was to be replaced as lord lieutenant of Norfolk by William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth, he received permission to go abroad.<sup>71</sup> At the end of February he was reported still to be making enquiries about the reactions of the gentry of Berkshire to the three questions, after they were reluctant to meet him. Norfolk originally planned to leave on a visit to France on 10 Mar. and to return in May. However, not until he had ‘settled his duchess’s allowance’ was he allowed to depart, along with Charles Knollys, the self-styled 4th earl of Banbury, and Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper.<sup>72</sup> He received a pass to go abroad on 20 Mar. and left on the 22nd.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Norfolk returned to England on 30 July 1688 and within a month had been ordered to go to his lieutenancies, as one newsletter would have it, ‘to take care to promote the elections to the next Parliament.’<sup>74</sup> In August, Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> found him ‘firm to the Protestant religion’ and ‘not satisfied with the Court’.<sup>75</sup> In September Sunderland sent him a list of approved candidates for election to Parliament. On 5 Oct. the duchess was given a pass to go to France, and on 16 Oct. both the duchess and her father were granted an amended pardon.<sup>76</sup> She remained out of the country during the Revolution, sending presents to her mother from abroad in February 1689.<sup>77</sup> When she returned to England in April 1691 she and her companions were objects of suspicion.<sup>78</sup></p><p>As the threat of invasion increased and the king’s confidence in his own policies wobbled, Norfolk reported that he had been unable to reinstate the displaced magistrates of the county of Norfolk as they had all refused to act with unqualified justices, but he stressed that they were all ‘truly loyal’, that ‘neither the Prince of Orange nor none of his party have the least correspondence in this county’ and that the militia were ready to defend the coast.<sup>79</sup> He was summoned to London on 15 Oct. and returned to Norfolk with instructions to replace all Catholics and Dissenters in the county militia by churchmen.<sup>80</sup> He continued to hold the militia in readiness and to transmit the king’s orders for the defence of the realm to the deputy lieutenants and magistrates.<sup>81</sup> On 6 Nov. when it was clear that the Dutch fleet had moved westward, he was ordered to leave Norfolk and to settle matters in Surrey and Berkshire instead.<sup>82</sup> Before he left the gentlemen of the county approached him about petitioning for a free Parliament, ‘but the duke took an occasion to divert it at that time.’<sup>83</sup> A newsletter suggested that Norfolk had intended to sign the petition promoted by the bishops, but opposed by George Savile*, marquess of Halifax and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and had then changed his mind: Norfolk declared with great warmth on Thursday night [15 Nov.],</p><blockquote><p>that it would be an eternal infamy to any person of honour yet pretended to be of the Church of England to refuse the subscribing of it, and yet sent an excuse yesterday morning, and I am not assured that he has since subscribed it; I believe he has not, tho’ ’tis commonly reported he did.<sup>84</sup></p></blockquote><p>Norfolk’s name accordingly appears on the list of those refusing to subscribe to the petition on 16 November. Having received his writ for the forthcoming session of Parliament on 29 Nov. 1688, William Lloyd*, then bishop of Norwich, wrote hopefully to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury that Norfolk would act so that some good men might be elected, not least because the duke seemed ‘very steady for the established government and among several instances he drank your grace's health at my table with great expressions of service to your grace and this was the same day known everywhere in this place and reckoned as a mark of his zeal for the Church of England’.<sup>85</sup></p><p>In truth, at the end of November 1688, Norfolk’s position was far from clear. He met with the deputy lieutenants, the militia and other gentlemen in Norwich market place where he declared for a free Parliament but prevented disorder by assuring those assembled that the king had himself decided to call a Parliament in January; he then repeated the performance at King’s Lynn where he assured the mayor and aldermen that ‘no man will venture his life more freely for the defence of the laws, liberties and protestant religion than I will do.’ Barely a week later, the tone of his speeches sounded very different as he began to talk of the need ‘to procure the settlement in church and state in concurrence with the lords and gentlemen in the north and pursuant to the declaration of the Prince of Orange.’ He assured his deputy lieutenants, ‘that there is a very fair prospect of all things being settled by a Parliament’ and invited as many as possible of the Norfolk gentry to go with him to London so that the king would be left in no doubt about gentry solidarity, insisting that,</p><blockquote><p>I take a great deal of pride to appear accompanied by so many worthy and honest gentlemen who have never left me and whom I will never forsake: I assure you I would not move this if your own and your country’s honour were not in my opinion concerned in it.<sup>86</sup></p></blockquote><p>As Morrice reported, Norfolk and most of the gentlemen had declared in Norwich their acquiescence in the king’s decision to call a Parliament and had not continued in arms, but had been sent home by Norfolk.<sup>87</sup></p><p>In London Norfolk was one of the peers that dined with Prince William at St James’s on 20 Dec. 1688.<sup>88</sup> On 21 Dec. he attended the meetings of the peers who had taken charge of the government, where he signed the Association and was dispatched to find out when William wished the peers to wait upon him. He also attended on 22, 24 and 25 December. On 24 Dec., at Norfolk’s instigation, an order was given for the release of the children of his brother, Lord Thomas Howard. They had been left behind when Lord Thomas left to join the exiled king and were imprisoned in Faversham.<sup>89</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of William III</em></h2><p>Norfolk was present on the first day of the Convention, 22 Jan. 1689, attended on 85 days, 52 per cent of the total and was named to ten committees. His first task was to ask William to return the instrument by which he had been asked to take on the administration of government so that more signatures could be added to it, which he brought back into the House on 25 January. Norfolk’s next action on 23 Jan. was to petition the House for an order to prevent the sale of his grandfather’s art collection by his stepmother’s second husband, Colonel Thomas Maxwell; the committee on petitions reported in his favour on the 24th, in so far that any sale was postponed until Norfolk could put his case before chancery.<sup>90</sup> On 21 Sept. 1691 Norfolk gave a quitclaim to the dowager duchess and Maxwell in respect of certain pictures, and on 28 Jan. 1692 Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup> referred to Norfolk selling his pictures at auction.<sup>91</sup></p><p>On the settlement of the constitution, Norfolk was reported to have been the only duke to have voted against a regency on 29 Jan. 1689. On 31 Jan. he voted against declaring William and Mary to be king and queen, but by 4 Feb. he was prepared to agree with the Commons that James II had abdicated rather than deserted the throne, and on 6 Feb. he voted in favour of the proposition that James had abdicated and that the throne was thereby vacant. Norfolk’s support for the new regime was clearly important, not just because his wealth and influence stretched over several counties but also because as earl marshal he played a significant role in the ceremonial life of the monarchy and the nation, including the proclamation of the new monarchs.<sup>92</sup> One of William III’s first acts as king was to confirm Norfolk in his three lord lieutenancies and appoint him a gentleman of the bedchamber and a member of the Privy Council. On 12 Feb. Norfolk carried the message to the prince and princess on when Parliament should attend them with their Declaration of Rights. On 6 Mar. he joined the protest against the passage of the bill for the better regulation of the trials of peers, arguing that it ‘strikes at the root of all the privileges of the peers’. In May he obtained an act to permit the building of tenements on Arundel ground, which passed its third reading on 23 May. It was returned without amendment by the Commons on 28 May, having been managed through the lower House by George England<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>93</sup> Henceforth, Norfolk appeared to live a somewhat peripatetic existence when in London. In December 1693 he was described as having lately lived in a house in ‘the Old Spring Garden’, which technically lay within the verge of the court.<sup>94</sup> In June 1695 he was about to leave the house he had rented from George Stepney in Scotland Yard.<sup>95</sup> On 20 Feb. 1699 he leased a house on the east side of St James’s Square for three years at an annual rent of £200 per annum.<sup>96</sup></p><p>On 31 May 1689 Norfolk voted against reversing the convictions of Titus Oates for perjury. On 5 July he was granted leave to go into the country for ‘some time’ for health reasons. He returned on 10 Aug., but after attending on 12 Aug., he missed the remainder of the sittings before the adjournment on 20 August. In September Norfolk demonstrated his active support for the new administration, refusing to accede to requests from his deputy lieutenants in Norfolk for more time before disarming those who had failed to take the new oaths and insisting that those who changed their minds were more likely to do so out of self interest than from ‘any affection to the present government’. Further, ‘no man, I believe, has shewn himself less willing (ever since I have had any concern in Norfolk) to do a hard thing to any gentleman than I’, as he had ‘always used these particular gentlemen with as much respect and friendship as any in the county, yet when it comes to the owning a government which we must support or fall with it there is no jesting.’<sup>97</sup></p><p>When the session resumed, Norfolk was in attendance on 19 and 21 Oct. 1689. In a list drawn up between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen classed him as among the supporters of the court. He was present when the next session opened on 23 Oct., attended on 31 days, a little over 43 per cent of the total and was named to six committees. Norfolk remained sympathetic to the plight of those Catholics who fell foul of the government. In November he stood bail for William Herbert*, styled Viscount Montgomery, the future 2nd marquess of Powis.<sup>98</sup> In the Lords he was again involved in promoting private legislation, this time a bill to discharge himself and the trustees of the previous duke, upon payment of certain sums of money to Lady Elizabeth Russell, wife of Bartholmew Russell, which was reported by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester on 8 Jan., and passed the Lords on 9 Jan. 1690. It was managed by Sir Joseph Tredenham<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons and received the royal assent on 27 January. Norfolk last attended on 17 Jan., his absence probably being explained by his mission to Spithead to greet the queen of Spain, who received him on 28 January.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Norfolk was present when the new Parliament assembled on 20 Mar. 1690, when he took the new oaths. He was present on 35 days, nearly 65 per cent of the total, being named to five committees, including one for a conference on the regency bill (12 May). When the House investigated the misuse of protections in March, Norfolk denied issuing those that were listed under his name.<sup>100</sup> He was excused attendance at a call of the House on 31 March. During the recess when fears of invasion were high, he was active in promoting the arrest of suspected Jacobites, openly writing of the need for ‘some exemplary punishment’ on those who had betrayed the fleet, although he left the question of bail to the discretion of his deputy lieutenants.<sup>101</sup> In April he was allegedly behind a petition from the county of Norfolk for relief for the non-juring clergy, the county having many such clerics.<sup>102</sup> In May he had been given a pension of £3,000 a year for his ‘good and noble service’, backdated to March 1690.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Norfolk was absent when the 1690-1 session convened on 2 Oct. 1690. On 6 Oct. Carmarthen noted that he ‘needs only to be spoken to to attend’, and he was accordingly present on the next day.<sup>104</sup> On 9 Oct. he led the deputation of Surrey gentlemen when they presented an address to William III congratulating him on his success in Ireland.<sup>105</sup> He was present on 32 days, 44 per cent of the total, and was named to three committees. Despite his commitment to the new regime, he was still attentive to the needs of his Jacobite brother, offering a proviso on his behalf to the bill attainting rebels in December 1690.<sup>106</sup> Lord Thomas Howard drowned at sea that same month before his outlawry could be formalized and Norfolk successfully petitioned on 9 May 1691 to prevent his brother’s estates from being confiscated by the crown.<sup>107</sup> His nephew, Thomas Howard*, the future 8th duke of Norfolk was now his heir.</p><p>Following the adjournment on 5 Jan. 1691, Norfolk attended the king into Holland.<sup>108</sup> This seems to have been an occasion for another show of conspicuous wealth, with Norfolk and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, vying for the finest livery.<sup>109</sup> In March it was rumoured that he was about to become master of the horse.<sup>110</sup> He paraded his Anglicanism by attending the consecration of John Tillotson*, as archbishop of Canterbury in May, but this may have been because of the accompanying festivities, for Norfolk’s way of life was somewhat at odds with the reforming religious fervour of the day: in August he was fined £5 for gambling on the Sabbath.<sup>111</sup> Ever the moralist, John Evelyn dismissed Norfolk as ‘a dissolute Protestant’.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Norfolk was present when the next session began on 22 Oct. 1691; he attended on 79 days, a little over 81 per cent of the total and was named to six committees. On 4 Dec. a petition from Norfolk was referred to the committee for privileges, asking for a declaration that writs of prohibition issued in exchequer chamber to the court of chivalry should be declared null and void, and citing three cases in particular, including <em>Domville v. Oldys</em>.<sup>113</sup> On 12 Dec. Gilbert Burnet*, of Salisbury reported from the committee that having heard Norfolk’s counsel and the barons of the exchequer, they had ‘some doubts concerning the way of bringing that matter before the House’, whereupon Norfolk was granted leave to produce some precedents before the committee at their next sitting. Nothing else seems to have occurred. On 17 Dec. he was named as one of the reporters of the conference on the trials for treason bill, duly reporting back and being named to the committee to draw up reasons why the Lords insisted on their amendments. On the same day he was deputed by the House to request the king to withdraw the military guard from playhouses following the assault on Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, which had been reported to the House the previous day. According to Luttrell, Norfolk was also involved in the affray but this was not confirmed by the Journal.<sup>114</sup> On 22 Jan. 1692 he acted as teller in opposition to Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough) on a motion to agree a resolution in the committee of the whole on the bill against corresponding with the enemy.</p><p>The reason for Norfolk’s increased attendance was almost certainly his desire to push through a bill to divorce his wife and enable him to remarry. This was a controversial piece of legislation. Just two years earlier John Lewknor<sup>‡</sup>, facing a similar situation, had obtained a separation in the ecclesiastical court and then went on to obtain an act of Parliament to bastardize any children that might be born to his adulterous wife. He had not been able to obtain the right to remarry. The only comparable proceedings in living memory, the divorce of John Manners*, then styled Lord Roos, now 9th earl (and later duke) of Rutland, had taken place more than 20 years earlier and included a clause which specifically prevented its use as a precedent. The only previous example of parliamentary divorce was that of William Parr<sup>†</sup>, marquess of Northampton, in the time of Edward VI. Many people (and most bishops) believed divorce to be a matter for spiritual rather than secular jurisdiction. Not only was there no consensus about the limits of Parliament’s power, but the House had no agreed procedures for this kind of legislation. This was particularly unfortunate since, like the Roos divorce, the Norfolk case entwined personal and financial issues with procedural and constitutional ones as well as with questions of national politics. Norfolk, once a Catholic but now a Protestant and deeply involved with the government of William and Mary, was trying to divorce a woman who had once been a Protestant but was now a Catholic and who was believed to be equally deeply involved in Jacobite plotting. Furthermore, as matters stood the clear heir to the dukedom was Norfolk’s young nephew, only nine years old, but since he was being brought up by his Catholic mother at the exiled court, there was little doubt that at Norfolk’s death the premier dukedom of England would pass to a Catholic Jacobite sympathizer. The duchess alleged that Norfolk had been plotting to divorce her for three years and that her husband was as concerned for his pocket as for his religion or posterity. His real motive was a determination to gain control of her fortune and specifically to prevent her from blocking the sale of the manor (and therefore the constituency) of Castle Rising to Sir Robert Howard. Another participant who had designs on the duchess’s estate (in this case her manor of Drayton) was her Whig cousin Monmouth. Lyttelton thought the king and queen for the duke, but that the duchess had ‘a strong party in the House’ and ‘the court faction to support her’, although Nottingham was against her.<sup>115</sup></p><p>On 7 Jan. 1692 the Lords ordered that Norfolk’s divorce bill be introduced the following day by William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford. On the 8th the Lords debated whether to hear counsel on the bill, settling on the 12th. It was then that the first real debate took place, when the duchess’s counsel argued that the duke ought first to seek a separation in the ecclesiastical courts.<sup>116</sup> As all present knew, Norfolk was unlikely to take such a course of action: the ecclesiastical courts would not grant him a separation on the grounds of his wife’s adultery, since he himself was also a known adulterer. Norfolk won the vote to receive the bill by eight; Monmouth acted as teller for those voting in favour and Lumley, now earl of Scarbrough, for those against. Nineteen peers, of solidly Tory persuasion, entered a formal protest, significantly they included only four of the episcopal bench, Henry Compton*, of London, Peter Mews*, of Winchester, Thomas Watson*, of St Davids and Thomas Sprat*, of Rochester, prompting suspicion that those entrusted with the religious health of the nation were actually following a political directive from above. Burnet somewhat unconvincingly condemned high Anglican opposition to the Norfolk divorce as a symptom of Catholic indoctrination rather than party politics.<sup>117</sup> The bill was then given a first reading, prompting the countess of Nottingham to note, ‘I think it very strange so infamous a woman should find any friends would publicly countenance her’.<sup>118</sup> On the 13th the duchess petitioned, which resulted in three prominent civil lawyers being ordered to attend before the second reading debate, Sir Richard Raynes, Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>, and Dr George Oxenden<sup>‡</sup>. Directed to respond, on 16 Jan. Norfolk exhibited a charge of adultery by his duchess with Germaine in 1685 and at other times since. The duchess’s counsel countered that the charge was too general and over six years old, for most of which time she had ‘at the advice and by the approbation of the duke, was and continued beyond the seas, to ease him in his charge and port; he frequently declaring, that when he should be more easy in his fortune, they should live together’. The duke then amended his charge and after several divisions on matters of procedure concerning the manner in which the duchess should deliver her answer, she duly gave in her answer on 21 Jan., including a counter charge of adultery against Norfolk.<sup>119</sup> The duchess petitioned on 25 Jan. for an allowance from her husband during the suit. Between 26 Jan. and 9 Feb. witnesses were heard on both sides and on 12 Feb. counsel and civil lawyers summed up, continuing until eight in the evening.<sup>120</sup> On 16 Feb. the House voted on the use of proxies. Proxies were used in the initial vote on whether to put the question on the use of proxies. The House agreed to put the question by a majority of only three, and the distribution of proxies in that vote suggested that Norfolk could count on substantially more (17) than his opponents (9). When the main question on proxies was put (without proxies) Norfolk’s slim advantage fell away. The motion to use proxies failed by 13 votes. On 17 Feb. the House had to mediate in a quarrel between Rochester and Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, over remarks made by Lincoln in the course of a debate on Norfolk’s bill. Rochester had accused Lincoln of taking ‘great liberty with the House’ in response to which Lincoln had retorted, ‘I do not take so much liberty with the House, as you do with the nation’. Lincoln was then reprimanded. Then the motion that the bill be given a second reading was rejected by only five votes after a debate that lasted until eight in the evening.<sup>121</sup> As Robert Yard<sup>‡</sup> reported, ‘it happened that some of the duke’s friends were indisposed, and some others went out not long before the question was put, thinking it was not so near and that they should be back time enough, by which the duke lost six or seven voices’.<sup>122</sup> It was fairly clear that had proxies been used, ‘the duke had carried it’. Some contemporaries detected a division between the older lords and civilian lawyers (against) and the younger lords (for the bill); another view had ‘all the new bishops were for’ the duke, but London, Winchester, Rochester and St Davids against him. Another analysis had some lords against the bill because they had daughters, while their sons supported it because they had wives.<sup>123</sup> The hearings had attracted widespread interest, and the proceedings were published as pamphlets, including one in Dutch.<sup>124</sup> A French newsletter described the evidence as so filthy as scarcely to be repeatable, and the king, attending incognito, was reputed to have found the proofs offered by the duke ‘so obscene that he stayed but little.’<sup>125</sup></p><p>Norfolk only attended one of the following six days before the adjournment on 24 Feb. 1692. On 26 Sept. 1692, as the senior commissioner present, he prorogued Parliament. Despite his disappointment over the divorce, Norfolk was unwilling to give up and so set about remedying the defects in his case as best he could, chiefly his lack of a legal ruling against the duchess. Discouraged from using the ecclesiastical courts by his own adultery, he substituted instead a suit against Germaine in King’s Bench for criminal conversation. On 24 Nov. his counsel, including Sir John Somers*, the future Baron Somers, asked for £100,000 damages, but even with the overtly partisan lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup> on his side, the jury awarded him a mere 100 marks, because ‘they were not fully satisfied with the evidence’.<sup>126</sup> Charles Hatton thought that the award had ‘disappointed his grace in his intention to bring in a bill of divorce into the Lords’ House again upon the credit of his verdict’, but Yard disagreed, thinking that ‘it will serve the duke’s end by opening a way to bring this business again into Parliament’.<sup>127</sup></p><p>Norfolk was present when the next session began on 4 Nov. 1692, attending on 53 days, 52 per cent of the total and was named to eight committees. On 21 Nov. he was ordered to attend the House to explain two of his protections. Norfolk’s second divorce bill was offered to the House on 22 December. On 29 Dec. the House ordered production of a copy of the record of judgment against Germaine and instructed Lord Chief Justice Holt to attend. On 2 Jan. 1693 when the Lords learned that the duchess had not been a party to the action against Germaine, Norfolk’s bill was rejected on its first reading by seven votes (this time after proxies had been counted).<sup>128</sup> Evelyn thought that Norfolk had no one but himself to blame ‘he having managed it so very indiscreetly’, but Luttrell pointed once again to Norfolk’s failure to secure a ruling in the ecclesiastical courts.<sup>129</sup> Norfolk took the defeat badly, saying ‘he would not come any more amongst them’, and that the queen wished ‘those who opposed the bill might be all made cuckolds’.<sup>130</sup> He threatened the man who had printed an account of the proceedings with an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> and planned to take out a writ to seize the duchess and ‘keep her from all company.’<sup>131</sup> Meanwhile, on 31 Dec. 1692 Norfolk voted against committing the place bill, and on 31 Jan. 1693 entered a protest against the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. On 4 Feb. he found Mohun not guilty of murder. On 7 Mar. he sought permission of the House to waive his privilege so that a dispute between himself and his uncle Charles Howard could be settled by arbitration. By April 1693 Norfolk was petitioning the treasury, alleging that he was over two years in arrears of his pension, and proposing to lend money in return for a more certain payment of his pension.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Norfolk was present when the session of 1693-4 began on 7 November. He attended on 57 days, around 45 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. On 14 Nov. 1693 he was involved, as earl marshal, in a case of privilege. Peers Mauduit claimed that as Windsor Herald he was a sworn servant of the crown and thus entitled to privilege. When on 23 Nov. the House voted against extending privilege to such persons, Norfolk protested against it. On 1 Dec. he was a teller, in opposition to Monmouth, on whether to adjourn the House in the case of <em>Grafton v. Holt</em> and on the same question on 21 Dec., in opposition to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset. On 5 Jan. 1694 he was teller, again in opposition to Somerset, on whether to appoint another day to consider whether to agree to the amendments to the bill for the free proceedings in Parliament. On 17 Feb. he voted against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the case of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. On 6 Mar. he was appointed one of the managers of the conference on the mutiny bill. On 13 Mar. he was ordered to attend on the following day, concerning protections granted by peers. On 14 Mar. when, in the midst of the scandal caused by the flagrant abuse of protections by Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, the House ordered that no peer should be able to enter a written protection in the book of protections until he had personally attended the House in that same session, Norfolk entered a solitary protest on the grounds:</p><blockquote><p>that the taking off any part of the undoubted privileges which every peer of England enjoys by his birthright, by a vote in a pretty thin House, especially when a peer of this House moved, on the behalf of the absent Lords, that a day might be appointed for the debate of a matter in which they were so much concerned, seems, in the manner of it, to make too light of what this House ought to esteem so sacred as the privileges of the peerage of England.</p></blockquote><p>Norfolk’s financial situation was improved when on 28 Apr. 1694 he was at last able to settle his long dispute with his duchess. By articles of agreement she agreed to the sale of Castle Rising and of her interests in the manor of Sheffield and in return he conceded her right to live apart from him as she wished and to have the financial independence of a single woman. She was later to claim that she had always been willing to live in accordance with her husband’s wishes and that she had promised to leave him her estate if she predeceased him. Castle Rising was bought by Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup>, son of Sir Robert Howard. In June 1694 the Sheffield estate was re-organized so that the duchess could receive £600 p.a. for her sole use and separate maintenance, and £800 p.a. as part of her jointure. These jointure lands were to be held separately for the joint lives of the duke and duchess.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Norfolk was present when the next session began on 12 Nov. 1694. He was present on 57 days of the session, 47.5 per cent of the total and was named to six committees. He found that the queen’s death had ‘taken away the little mirth there was’ at court, however he was sufficiently engaged, politically, to ask his cousin Charles Howard, 3rd earl of Carlisle, on 29 Jan. 1695 for a blank proxy and to send him a form for that purpose.<sup>134</sup> On 8 Feb. the Lords ordered that Norfolk should have sole control over the role of those peers who had an office to perform at the queen’s funeral. Norfolk, as earl marshal, laid before the Lords on 15 and 25 Feb. a scheme of the procession at the funeral. On 19 Mar. he entered a protest at the resolution that if a peer summoned by writ died leaving two or more daughters, and all the daughters died with only one leaving issue, that this issue has a right to a writ of summons. He argued that the resolution was not only in conflict with several precedents but that the House should have allowed the heralds sufficient time to produce further precedents. As earl marshal, Norfolk was probably also particularly wounded that the House had refused to follow his lead on an issue in which he could justifiably claim considerable expertise. Further, one of the baronies by writ, either originally or allowed by descent from heirs female, was ‘Howard Lord Mowbray’, now ‘in the duke of Norfolk’.<sup>135</sup></p><p>On 11 May 1695, shortly after Parliament was prorogued, Norfolk was shocked to discover that he had been left out of the commission of regency. It was rumoured that in retaliation he had threatened to resign his lord lieutenancies and the constableship of Windsor Castle but soon thought better of it.<sup>136</sup> At the Norfolk election in 1695 he told the general meeting that he wanted them to choose ‘two men that would be true and faithful to the king and government in church and state’ but refused to nominate candidates himself. The emergence of electoral rivals diminished his ability to influence elections in Norfolk and the sale of Castle Rising had deprived him of a useful pocket borough.<sup>137</sup> He exercised his interest at Arundel successfully, but later felt obliged to write a letter on behalf of the constable of the borough, who had been bound over to appear at the assizes, so Norfolk thought because he had voted for the duke’s interest.<sup>138</sup></p><p>In November 1695, shortly before the new Parliament met, he composed a long letter to the secretary of state, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>:</p><blockquote><p>by what you have told me, as well as by what passed when I spoke to the king myself, I am convinced it is more to the negligence of the friends I employed than to the mean or ill opinion the king had of me, that I owe my being left out of the commission of the regency, which considering the title I bear, the honour I have of bearing one of the great offices of the Crown and the steadiness of all my actions to support his government ... I thought I had so fair a pretence to, yet my being left out was so great a slight ... that I could not help resenting it and thinking it a less blemish to leave all myself than stay to be used worse. The favourable expressions of the king towards me make me very willing to return to his service, especially if I could do it upon a foundation past mortifications of this kind for the future and when I reflect that the reason the king gave me was that he had left all in the hands of his Cabinet Council, I wish he would allow me the honour to be of that number, which not only would be a great encouragement to me in the ambition I have to serve him, but would put me in a post to do it with that credit and honour to myself that I should not despair of being a useful as well as a diligent servant.</p></blockquote><p>Trumbull seems to have taken the view that Norfolk was more concerned about money than office, for the letter is endorsed ‘will grant his pension and pay it.’<sup>139</sup></p><p>Norfolk was absent from the start of the 1695 Parliament, first attending on 10 Dec. 1695, nearly three weeks into the session. He attended on 43 days, 35 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. In January 1696 he tried to persuade the Tory Edmund Soame<sup>‡</sup> to stand for the vacant seat at Thetford, but although Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> insisted that it was foolish for anyone to ‘think of raising a pretension there without the support of the duke of Norfolk,’ his influence proved to be inadequate, and Soame preferred to withdraw rather than contest the election.<sup>140</sup> On 31 Jan. Norfolk complained of a breach of privilege by reason of the arrest of his servant, Zachary Wilson, the matter being referred to the committee for privileges. He signed the Association on 27 February. He was in the House to hear the arguments and vote on the writ of error in <em>Oldys v. Domville</em> (relating to the prohibition to the court of chivalry obtained by Domville in 1691) which was dismissed on 10 March. Throughout that month he was probably engaged in arrangements for entertaining the Venetian ambassador, who made use of Norfolk’s house (March) and even his barge (May).<sup>141</sup> In April 1696 he sent an Association signed by himself to the Norfolk assizes, ‘which hath put the country to do the matter over again after it had in a manner gone through every parish before’.<sup>142</sup></p><p>The illness and then death of Henry Capell*, Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, in May 1696 suggested new possibilities for advancement and for the next month Norfolk lobbied hard to replace him as lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>143</sup> When Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury broached the matter with the king, one of the points he stressed on Norfolk’s behalf was the duke’s belief that ‘it would much contribute to the putting his affairs at ease’, hinting again at financial troubles.<sup>144</sup> In July Norfolk officiated at the installation of the duke of Gloucester into the order of the Garter.<sup>145</sup> Norfolk attended the assizes for Norfolk in Norwich in August 1696, but scandalized the gentry by bringing his mistress, ‘Mrs Lane’, and being offended, in turn, when county society boycotted his attempt to hold a ball.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Norfolk missed the opening five days of the 1696-7 session, first attending on 2 Nov. 1696. He was present on 41 days of the session, 40 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. During September he became embroiled in the proceedings concerning the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. As the acknowledged head of the Howards, he seems to have felt some obligation to assist Lady Fenwick, a daughter of Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle. At her request he was given leave to speak privately to Fenwick in the Tower in an attempt to persuade him to co-operate more fully. Norfolk was also involved by association because his wife acted as an intermediary between Monmouth and Lady Fenwick and advised her about the conduct of the trial.<sup>147</sup> Fenwick told his wife that he thought the duchess was involved as ‘she has a mind to bring her duke upon the stage’.<sup>148</sup> Nevertheless, on 23 Dec. 1696 Norfolk voted to pass the bill.</p><p>On 11 Jan. 1697 Norfolk was desired to attend the House on the following day, presumably in relation to the papers delivered to the House by Matthew Smith concerning the Fenwick affair. Monmouth certainly believed that Norfolk’s testimony of what Smith had said concerning the correspondence between the exiled James II and ‘some great men in this government’ would assist his own intrigue against the ministry.<sup>149</sup> It probably explains why the House on 13 Jan. ordered that lord chief justice Holt bring to the House the record of a trial in King’s Bench between Norfolk and Germaine. Norfolk was present on 19 Jan. when questions were raised about the protection that had enabled his kinsman James Howard to defraud his creditors, and on 27 Jan. when all written protections were vacated.<sup>150</sup> In February Norfolk offered to stand as one of the sureties for Montgomery, and eventually put up £5,000 bail when he was released in June.<sup>151</sup> He held the proxy of Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk from 16 Mar. to the end of the session. Also in March he interested himself in the trial of Henry Howard*, styled Lord Walden, the future 6th earl of Suffolk, convinced that the jury at the Sussex assizes would be packed against him.<sup>152</sup> In July, together with ‘several persons of note’, he attended the Oxford assizes when Charles Hamilton, 5th earl of Abercorn [S], was tried and acquitted for murder.<sup>153</sup></p><p>In October 1697 Norfolk hoped that John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, would attend Parliament as ‘we stand in need of lords who understand and pursue the interest of England as much as you do’. However, possibly of more importance to Norfolk was the opportunity to exercise the right to the first refusal of a horse owned by Lonsdale.<sup>154</sup> During the autumn he was deeply involved in planning and organizing the ceremonial welcome for William III’s return to London, and not surprisingly, therefore, he ‘made the best show’ during the king’s procession into London in mid November.<sup>155</sup> Norfolk was present when the next session convened on 3 Dec. 1697. He attended on 33 days, just over 25 per cent of the total and was named to three committees. His attention to other duties seems to have been somewhat careless. On 6 Dec. Evelyn reported that he and the principal gentlemen of Surrey had attended at Kensington to present an address to the King (it was actually on 8 December). Norfolk was supposed to lead them ‘but came so late that it was done before he came.’<sup>156</sup> On 19 Jan. 1698 Norfolk stood bail for Montgomery upon his release from King’s Bench.<sup>157</sup> On 15 Mar. he voted in favour of committing the bill against Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He was away from Parliament between 2 Apr. and 3 May, covering his absence by a proxy on 13 Apr. to Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick. He signed another proxy in favour of Howard on 3 May, and having attended on 4 May, he was absent until 14 May. A third proxy registered in favour of Howard on 19 May was vacated by Norfolk’s presence on 22 July.</p><p>At the election for Thetford in the summer of 1698, Norfolk once again failed to return Soame, support for whom was interpreted as resentment against the ministry. As James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> put it at the beginning of September 1698, ‘the true reason why the duke of Norfolk acts so indifferently; he has a grant of a pension, but it is not paid’.<sup>158</sup> Norfolk did not attend the new Parliament until 16 Jan. 1699, probably because he was ill. On 8 Dec. he was said to have been indisposed, but it was presumably serious since a few days later it was rumoured that he had died.<sup>159</sup> By January 1699 he was sufficiently recovered to attempt another intervention in the Thetford by-election. Yarmouth complained that Norfolk was opposing his interest and that he was exploiting his position as lord lieutenant to use ‘the king’s authority ... to the prejudice of his service’. Yarmouth’s son, Charles Paston<sup>‡,</sup> styled Lord Paston, was nevertheless returned without difficulty. On 8 Feb. Norfolk voted against the resolution in favour of retaining the Dutch guards and entered a formal protest when the resolution was carried. Overall, Norfolk was present on 17 days, 21 per cent of the total and was named to one committee. He was absent for the whole of March and April (being one of the peers written to by the lord chancellor on 13 Mar. to attend a trial), but attended the last three days of the session in May.</p><p>Norfolk attended on the opening day of the next session, 16 Nov. 1699, but on only one other day (4 Dec.) before Christmas, altogether he was in total present on 40 days of the session, nearly 51 per cent of the total and was named to three committees. The reason for his absence was ill-health. By the end of December he was in Norwich suffering from a condition described as a ‘lethargy’, which led doctors to fear he might succumb to an apoplexy. He seemed reluctant to accept doctors’ orders and Dean Prideaux on 11 Jan. 1700 felt that during the quarter-sessions ‘if the duke gives himself the liberty’, normal at gentry gatherings, ‘I know not how far it may go to the carrying him off the stage’.<sup>160</sup> After 16 Jan. he was much more regular in his attendance in the Lords as he again attempted to secure a divorce act. Norfolk now had the precedent of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, who had obtained a divorce without a verdict against his wife in the ecclesiastical courts. As early as 19 Jan. it was said that ‘the town rings’ with the news of a divorce ‘which will come to nothing but ... publishing each other's infamy.’<sup>161</sup> Despite the Macclesfield precedent, Norfolk’s bill remained contentious, spawning something of a propaganda war in which both sides produced pamphlets to explain and justify their positions; Norfolk even published the arguments used by John Cosin*, bishop of Durham in connection with the Roos divorce some 30 years previously.<sup>162</sup></p><p>On 15 Feb. 1700 Carlisle delivered in a petition for another divorce bill, which was brought in and given a first reading on the following day.<sup>163</sup> As Yard commented, Norfolk did ‘not accuse her of anything before the time the last bill was rejected, but only upon what she has done since that time’.<sup>164</sup> In presenting his case to the House, Norfolk emphasized that, like Macclesfield, he too stood in danger of being succeeded by spurious issue. Since the duchess was by now 42 and had been sexually active for over 20 years without producing a child, this was a somewhat exaggerated fear. Norfolk was also able to produce two witnesses who were able to testify to the duchess’s adultery with Germaine at various times since the failed divorce bills of 1692-3. Both were discarded servants of Germaine’s whose testimony was open to considerable doubt. On 17 Feb. the duchess petitioned to be heard by counsel against the bill, complaining that Norfolk’s bill had been sprung on her with inadequate notice, that it took away her jointure and that ‘the case is a suit begun nine years since. If this was a case of 40<em>s</em>. it would not do, or be allowed.’<sup>165</sup> After many hearings the House was ready for the second reading debate; Yard writing on 7 Mar., the eve of that debate, ‘I believe the duke will hardly make anything of it this sessions’.<sup>166</sup> On the following day the Lords gave the bill a second reading by 17 votes, with 20 dissenting lords, including six bishops, signing a protest. The bill was committed to a committee of the whole. The duchess’s cousin, formerly Monmouth, now earl of Peterborough, acted as teller on both divisions on the bill; the tellers on the other side were Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham and John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys. Immediately after the committal, a petition from the duchess was presented pointing out that the bill as it stood, set aside her jointure and marriage agreements and praying to be heard by counsel. The 9 and 11 Mar. saw the bill examined by a committee of the whole and amendments made, which were accepted by the House on the latter day, forcing Norfolk to repay her £10,000 marriage portion, and specifying that unless the money was repaid by 25 Mar. 1701 the provisions for her jointure should remain in place. It passed its third reading on 12 Mar., with 16 dissentients entering a protest, including four bishops.</p><p>In the Commons the duchess petitioned on 14 Mar. 1700, alleging that she and the duke had executed an agreement, ‘whereby the duke obtained his desired advantage, and hath fully enjoyed the benefit thereof’, and praying to be heard by counsel against the bill, which received a first reading on 16 Mar. 1700. Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> moved that Germaine should be summoned as the person ‘with whom the duchess had an adulterous conversation’. Vernon thought ‘the friends to the bill suspected that this was a trick to make it miscarry, and yet they were puzzled how to oppose it, since it would not look well to acquit Germaine and punish the duchess’. The question therefore passed:</p><blockquote><p>Those who were for summoning Germaine talk as if they intend that Germaine shall be condemned to pay the duchess the £10,000 which by the bill she was to secure from the duke within a year, being her marriage portion. If this amendment should be made in the bill and it were like to pass so, the duke of Norfolk would have a good deal of reason to be satisfied with it but his friends apprehend the Lords may boggle at it, and let the bill drop rather than pass it so amended.<sup>167</sup></p></blockquote><p>Of the committal debate on 19 Mar., Vernon noted that it was opposed by Musgrave, William Thursby<sup>‡</sup>, and Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, who doubted ‘whether it were allowable to differ from the constitutions of the Church restrains the liberty of remarrying’. However, few Members opposed the bill, and even Jack Howe<sup>‡</sup> supported it.<sup>168</sup> On 20 Mar. the duchess petitioned for the names of the duke’s witnesses but failed to get their places of abode. When the committee of the whole dealt with the bill on 25 Mar. with Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> in the chair, he reported that the duke had produced witnesses, but that the duchess only had counsel heard against the bill. Luttrell reported that the Commons sat until 9 p.m. on the bill, and Yard that the ‘duchesses counsel made no defence, only desired more time, which the House would not allow of’.<sup>169</sup> At the third reading stage on 27 Mar. three riders were rejected by the House and the bill passed without amendment, receiving the royal assent on 11 April. In the course of the proceedings a complaint was made on 25 Mar. 1700 against a ‘scandalous libel’, <em>A Letter to a Friend concerning the Duke of Norfolk’s Bill</em>, which reflected on Norfolk and those who voted for the bill as ‘the most immoral of the House’.<sup>170</sup> In response, the duke ordered ‘the proceeding and other papers’ relating to the case to be published, ‘with a prohibition that no other person do presume to print the same’. This work was advertised for sale later in April 1700.<sup>171</sup></p><p>Financial distress, which could be alleviated by a second marriage, was seen as one of Norfolk’s prime motives. On 16 Feb. 1700 Vernon surmised that Peterborough was ‘so busy in this matter upon an expectation that the duke will marry his daughter’.<sup>172</sup> Cary Gardiner agreed that Norfolk wished to remarry, but believed it would be to ‘a great fortune of £1500 a year £20,000 in money which is my Lady Coventry’, the widow of Thomas Coventry*, earl of Coventry.<sup>173</sup> There was also the question as to whether, given a satisfactory settlement, the duchess might have favoured a divorce, allowing her to marry Germaine. His divorce apart, in February Norfolk was forecast as being in favour of retaining the East India Company as a corporation, and on 10 Apr. he entered a dissent to the resolution not to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill.</p><p>Norfolk may have been present on the opening day of the 1701 Parliament, 10 Feb., when he was named to the committee for privileges, but he was not noted as attending in the presence list until the following day. He last attended on 24 Mar., nine days in all, just under 9 per cent of the total. On 22 Mar. he presented a petition to the House announcing that ‘hindered by sickness and other accidents’, he would be unable to repay Lady Norfolk’s marriage portion by 25 Mar. as required in his divorce act, so he sought to amend the divorce act in order to give himself further time. Leave was granted after his petition was debated on 24 March.<sup>174</sup> No further action was taken for Norfolk died suddenly in his sleep on 2 Apr., an autopsy revealing that his internal organs were well but ‘destroyed with coagulated blood' suggesting that Evelyn was probably correct in attributing his death to apoplexy.<sup>175</sup> Six months later his discarded duchess married Germaine.<sup>176</sup> Norfolk was succeeded by his Catholic nephew, who inherited £12,000 a year ‘which is but the third part of what that family had’, and whose religion debarred him from the earl marshal's place which was exercised instead by Carlisle, ‘being the next of that family as is Protestant’.<sup>177</sup></p><p>Norfolk’s chief trait appears to have been his unbounded extravagance. In July 1676 Yarmouth reported that ‘his garden’ had hosted a gathering of 50 coaches with ‘the walks as full as Spring Gardens.’<sup>178</sup> On 1 Aug. 1697, like many of the court, Norfolk was at Tunbridge where he ‘bowls and dances at all’, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury having previously referred to balls given by Norfolk at the bowling greens at Tunbridge.<sup>179</sup> On 4 Nov. 1699 Norfolk attended a ball hosted by Princess Anne, ‘in scarlet embroided with gold’.<sup>180</sup> Inherited indebtedness and his own extravagance led to financial difficulties. He had to borrow £250 against the militia stock in March 1700 ‘to carry on the business I am now about in Parliament, (which is very expensive).’<sup>181</sup> As Cary Gardiner noted after his death, Norfolk had been in such financial straits that he hired his horses by the week from his own coachman: ‘there is not a servant goes into mourning for him and he is buried by charity, for he owes more than I can name, but he is like to undo all his servants, as well as many more’. Such was his status that he ‘puts more in mourning than any six noblemen and yet dies in all the dishonour imaginable’.<sup>182</sup></p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
HOWARD, Henry (1670-1718) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1670–1718)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Walden 1691-1706; <em>cr. </em>1706 earl of BINDON; <em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Dec. 1709 as 6th earl of SUFFOLK |
|
First sat 30 Dec. 1706; last sat 19 Dec. 1717 |
|
MP Arundel 20 Jan.-22 Feb. 1694, 1695-1698; Essex 1705-30 Dec. 1706 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1670, 1st s. of Henry Howard, 5th earl of Suffolk, and Mary, da. and h. of Andrew Stewart, 3rd Bar. Castle Stuart [I]. <em>educ</em>. Mr Froholk’s sch. Panton Street, London; Magdalene, Camb. 1685. <em>m</em>. (1) 6 Aug. 1691, Aubery Anne Penelope (<em>d</em>.1703), da. of Henry O’Brien, 7th earl of Thomond [I], 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da.; (2) Apr. 1705, Henrietta (<em>d</em>.1715), da. of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, sis. of Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, mq. of Worcester, and wid. of 1st wife’s bro. Henry Horatio O’Brien (<em>styled</em> Ld. O’Brien or Ld. Ibrackan), <em>s.p</em>.<sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> 19 Sept. 1718; <em>admon</em>. 16 Oct. 1718 to Charles William Howard, 7th earl of Suffolk.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commissary gen. of musters 1697–1707; dep. earl marshal 1706–<em>d.</em>; PC 26 June 1708–<em>d</em>.; commr. claims for coronation 1714; first ld. of trade 1715–18.</p><p>Ld. lt. Essex 1715–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Although the Walden peerage was in dispute between Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk, and the female descendants of his older brother James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, the title was nevertheless used by the future 6th earl of Suffolk as a courtesy title in the period between his father’s accession to the earldom of Suffolk and his own creation as earl of Bindon. Walden’s own son also used the title after his father’s accession to the earldom of Suffolk. Walden had served a long apprenticeship in the Commons before his elevation to the Lords in 1706. Early signs of country loyalties were dissipated after his appointment (in succession to his father) as commissary general of musters and by 1698 he was regarded as a court placeman. By 1705 he had thrown his lot in with the Whigs but was nevertheless listed as a ‘churchman’.<sup>3</sup></p><p>As an undistinguished parliamentarian it seems unlikely that Walden’s elevation to the earldom of Bindon was closely related to a desire to strengthen the Whig presence in the upper House. Rather more prosaically, it probably stemmed from the need to appoint someone of appropriate rank to stand in for Thomas Howard*, 8th duke of Norfolk and hereditary earl marshal of England. Norfolk had come of age in December 1705 and, despite early predictions that he would conform to the Church of England, had remained a Catholic. The post of deputy earl marshal had been held by Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, during Norfolk’s minority and Norfolk now petitioned for it to be handed to Walden.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Walden was duly appointed deputy earl marshal in August 1706; he sold his post of commissary general shortly afterwards.<sup>5</sup> Letters patent creating him earl of Bindon were issued on 30 Dec. 1706 as was his writ of summons and he took his seat the same day, being introduced between Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, and Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor. He was also given a lesser peerage as Baron Chesterford, which may have been meant as a solution to his father’s complaint that if deprived of the Walden peerage the earls of Suffolk would be bereft of a junior title. Despite his eagerness to take his seat, Bindon showed little interest in attending Parliament regularly. His attendance over the remainder of the session averaged at just under 30 per cent of sitting days and for part of the session (14–23 Mar.) he covered his absence by registering his proxy in favour of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset. During the short April 1707 session Bindon was present on six of the ten sitting days and was named to the committee for the Journal. In the same year his personal finances were much improved by the resolution of the long-running dispute about the crown’s non-payment of the purchase money for Audley End.</p><p>Bindon was present for some 45 per cent of the sitting days during the first Parliament of Great Britain. A printed list of the members of the House marked him as a Whig. On 21 Nov. 1707 he brought an appeal against a decree in chancery concerning the distribution of the estate of his uncle, the 3rd earl of Suffolk; the case was briefly considered at various stages through the session but was not heard until 3 Feb. 1708 when Bindon secured the reversal of the decree in question. His last attendance for this Parliament was just a week later, on 10 Feb. 1708.</p><p>Despite his lack of performance in the House, Bindon was appointed to the Privy Council in June 1708. His attendance continued low: during the first session of the 1708 Parliament he was present on only a third of the sitting days. He was absent from the House for most of November and throughout December 1708 but returned on 17 Jan. 1709 when the House heard the report on the elections for Scots representative peers. He was again present on 21 Jan. when he voted against allowing Scots peer with British titles to vote in the election of Scots representative peers. The issue of the Scots representative peers and their election also dominated the business of the House on 26 and 28 Jan. when he next attended. Although the rumours of an invasion of Scotland were not considered by the House until 25 Feb. Bindon’s earlier attendances that month were probably linked to an awareness of the continuing importance of Scots issues. Most of his attendances in March can again be directly linked to debates over Scotland, including the address to the crown for papers relating to the defence of Scotland and the bill to improve the Union. His last attendance of the session was on 25 March.</p><p>Bindon was not present during the first two months of the 1709–10 session. Overall his attendance averaged 25 per cent of sitting days but, as in the previous session, the pattern of his attendance was dictated by the business before the House. By the time he took his seat on 9 Jan. 1710 he had succeeded to his father’s earldom of Suffolk. His attendance on that date appears to have been firmly focussed on the expectation that John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, would be delivering one of his great set speeches on the state of the nation. Haversham’s failure to appear (he was ill) was clearly a great disappointment.<sup>6</sup> Suffolk was then absent until 23 Feb. when the attraction was very different – the forthcoming trial of Dr Sacheverell; thereafter he attended the House regularly until 24 March. Together with all the lords spiritual and temporal then present, he was named to the committees to investigate the disorders associated with the trial and to inspect precedents of impeachments. On 14 Mar. (in company with a number of high church Tories) he entered a protest at the failure of the House to adjourn after receiving the committee’s report on precedents. Two days later he entered a protest against the resolution to put the question as to whether the Commons had made good the first article against Sacheverell but did not follow it through with a protest against the resolution that the Commons <em>had</em> made good the first article. Strangely, Suffolk was not present to vote for or against Sacheverell on 20 Mar., although he was certainly present when the House passed censure the following day. His support for Sacheverell amazed John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and is probably indicative of a flirtation with Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford.<sup>7</sup> Suffolk was also present on 22 Mar. when his stepmother, the dowager countess of Suffolk and former Lady Maynard, entered an appeal against a decree in favour of Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. His last appearance of the session was on 24 March.</p><p>By the time the new parliamentary session had opened in November 1710, Suffolk was listed by Harley as a possible supporter. His usefulness to Harley was limited because his overall attendance dropped still further, averaging less than 25 per cent of sitting days. He was present on 18 Dec. when his mother-in-law, the dowager duchess of Beaufort, successfully appealed against a chancery decree concerning the distribution of her late husband’s estate, but then absented himself until mid-January when the House considered the progress of the war in Spain in the wake of the battle of Almanza. Although he was present throughout many of the debates on this contentious subject, he absented himself on 3 Feb. when the House voted on resolutions concerning the ministry’s neglect of the service. Attempts to link his subsequent attendances to the business of the day remain conjectural but some at least seem to reflect personal or family interests. He was present, for example, on days on which the order paper included discussion of private bills for his kinsman Henry Bowes Howard*, 4th earl of Berkshire (future 11th earl of Suffolk), and his first wife’s brother, Henry O’Brien, 8th earl of Thomond [I]. His last attendance of the session was on 16 May 1711.</p><p>Suffolk did not attend the second session of the 1710 Parliament until 20 Mar. 1712. He had registered a proxy in favour of the dissident Whig Somerset on 6 Dec. 1711 but this was vacated when Somerset covered his own absence from Parliament by a proxy to John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland, on 15 December. The following day Suffolk registered a second proxy, this time in favour of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. The issue for which such careful arrangements had to be made was the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as duke of Brandon in the British peerage. A forecast of voting intentions suggests that Suffolk intended to vote in favour of Hamilton but this is almost certainly wrong since Somerset, Orford, and Rutland were expected to vote against him and the two who were actually present at the division on 20 Dec. (Rutland and Orford) did indeed vote against Hamilton.</p><p>Suffolk was present for four days in March 1712 and was then absent until 4 June. Part of his absence was covered by a proxy to Somerset registered on 14 May. It is tempting to speculate that the proxy may have been required in connection with the bill to examine grants since the revolution, but there is no evidence for this. On 7 June Suffolk joined with a mixture of Whig and Tory peers and bishops to protest at the rejection of an amendment to the address to the crown on the peace. The other major national issue under discussion during his June attendance was the bill to enlarge the time within which ministers in Scotland could take the oath of abjuration.</p><p>Suffolk was not present when the third session of the 1710 Parliament opened in April 1713. His first appearance on 18 May seems to have been prompted by debates over Anglo-French trade, and Oxford listed him as likely to vote against the French commercial treaty. His attendances for the session totalled a mere 18 days. His record for the first session of the 1713 Parliament was little better: he arrived on 2 Apr. 1714, some six weeks after the commencement of the session, and was then present for 21 of the remaining sitting days. Initially his attendance seems to have been impelled by questions relating to the imminent peace, uncertainties about the Protestant succession, and fears of invasion by the Pretender. In May Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, expected him to vote against the bill to prevent growth of schism but if he did do so he did not follow it up by protesting against the passage of the act. His last attendance of the session was on 18 June; the following day his proxy was registered in favour of Somerset.</p><p>Suffolk attended the House twice in August 1714, but was not present thereafter until his final appearance on 19 Dec. 1717. Despite his failure to play even a passive part in the life of the House he received significant rewards from the new dynasty. He was appointed lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Essex, and first lord of trade at a salary of £1,000 a year. He also hoped to settle his family’s claim to the barony of Walden. In a petition to the crown, which can be dated by internal evidence to a period after 18 Oct. 1714, he asked the king to use his royal prerogative to end the abeyance by summoning Suffolk’s son and heir, Charles William Howard*, the future 7th earl of Suffolk, to Parliament as Baron Howard de Walden. Bolstering his claim by citing a number of precedents concerning the claims of earls to abeyant baronies, Suffolk also argued that his son was a better choice for a peerage than the rival claimant, Elizabeth Hervey (née Felton), countess of Bristol. Unlike the countess, Charles William Howard could serve the crown in Parliament which ‘was the original foundation of summoning peers by writ’. Suffolk’s arguments failed to convince and the barony was left in abeyance. He died, after a long illness, at his house in Gunnersbury on 19 Sept. 1718 and was succeeded by his son, Charles William Howard, as 7th earl of Suffolk.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, Henry Bowes (1687-1757) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry Bowes</strong> (1687–1757)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>gt.-uncle 12 Apr. 1706 (a minor) as 4th earl of BERKSHIRE; <em>suc. </em>3rd cos. 22 Apr. 1745 as 11th earl of SUFFOLK |
|
First sat 10 Jan. 1709; last sat 6 Mar. 1750 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Nov. 1687, o. s. of Craven Howard<sup>‡</sup>, of Elford Hall, Staffs., and 2nd w. Mary, da. of George Bowes, of Elford. <em>educ</em>. Oriel, Oxf. 20 Mar. 1703. <em>m</em>. 5 Mar. 1709 (settlement 1708),<sup>1</sup> Catharine, o. surv. da. and h. of Col. James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> (Graham) of Levens, Westmld. 6s. (4 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 3da. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 21 Mar. 1757; <em>will</em> 23 July 1756, pr. 23 May 1760.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. earl marshal 1718–25.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Recorder, Lichfield 1755.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, English school, c.1709, English Heritage, Kenwood House.</p> |
<p>Howard succeeded to the earldom of Berkshire at the death of his octogenarian great uncle, Thomas Howard*, the 3rd earl. Orphaned by the age of 13, before inheriting the peerage Howard had already succeeded to property in Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, the former based on his maternal family’s manor of Elford, which had been in the family since the mid-sixteenth century.<sup>8</sup> His inheritance was considerably encumbered thanks to his father’s ill-advised litigiousness and equally ill-considered first marriage, but the interposition of Howard’s kinsman Sir Robert Burdett<sup>‡</sup>, who took on the guardianship of both Howard and his sisters following the deaths in rapid succession of their father, mother and grandmother, ensured that such problems had been largely eradicated by the time he arrived at his majority.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Although still underage, and thus before he had made his first appearance in the Lords, Berkshire was included in a list of Tories of the first Parliament of Great Britain in May 1708. He celebrated his 21st birthday shortly before the opening of the 1708 Parliament in mid-November but it was not until January 1709, nearly two months after he was qualified to sit, that he took his place in the House for the first time. He proceeded to attend on a further 26 days in the session (approximately 29 per cent of the whole) and on 21 Jan. he voted against permitting Scots lords with British titles to vote in the elections for the Scottish representative peers.</p><p>Shortly before the close of the session, Berkshire married his cousin Catharine, daughter of the Jacobite colonel James Grahme. The alliance brought with it the expectation of additional interest in the north-west of England.<sup>10</sup> Berkshire had previously been party to a legal action along with Grahme (who had married Berkshire’s aunt Dorothy Howard) and was ultimately to inherit Grahme’s estate at Levens.<sup>11</sup> Although the match could be taken as an indication that Berkshire was inclined to the cause of the Pretender, his political inclinations seem to have tended more towards independent Toryism than to the Jacobite Toryism of his father-in-law.<sup>12</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the second session on 15 Nov. 1709, after which he was present on 76 per cent of all sitting days. On 16 Feb. 1710 he entered his dissent at the resolution not to require Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates to attend the Lords. He then entered two more dissents on the same day, first at the resolution to agree with the Commons’ address to request the queen to order the immediate departure of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, to Holland and second at the resolution not to adjourn the House. Following on from these points of conflict, the session came to be dominated for Berkshire, as it was for so many others, by the Sacheverell trial. Between 14 and 18 Mar. he subscribed six protests to the proceedings, all indicating his support for the embattled clergyman. On 20 Mar., having found Sacheverell not guilty, he protested again against the guilty verdict. He then subscribed a further protest in response to the vote of censure against Sacheverell the following day.</p><p>In advance of the new Parliament, Berkshire was reckoned a likely supporter of the administration by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.<sup>13</sup> He took his seat on 25 Nov., after which he was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. On 22 Jan. 1711 he petitioned the House for leave to bring in a bill for the sale of some of his Wiltshire manors as well as that of Reavesby in Lincolnshire, in order to discharge a £10,000 debt and to enable him to settle his Staffordshire estate. Motivation for the new settlement may have been the birth of his heir, Henry Howard, styled Lord Andover, the previous December (Andover died underage in 1717). On 5 Feb. Berkshire registered his dissent at the resolution to reject the bill for repealing the General Naturalization Act. Three days later, the judges presented the House with their report on Berkshire’s projected bill, which was committed on 10 February.<sup>14</sup> On 26 Feb. the measure (the committee for which had been chaired by Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester) was recommended as being fit to pass with amendments. The Commons made some further minor alterations, after which the bill was enacted on 26 March.</p><p>With his own business settled, Berkshire seems to have been readying himself to head out of London towards the end of May 1711. Although James Grahme noted in a letter of 27 May to Oxford (as Harley had recently become) that Berkshire had ‘gone this day’ and was thus unable to wait on him, the attendance list recorded that Berkshire was present once more on 28 May before quitting the session approximately a fortnight before the close.<sup>15</sup> On 1 June he was included in a list of the Tory Patriots of the 1710 Parliament and towards the end of the year he was again noted as a supporter of Oxford’s administration. On 2 Dec. 1711 he was listed as one of those to be canvassed in advance of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. He took his seat in the new session on 7 Dec. and the following day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to present the address to the queen containing the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause. On 19 Dec. he was reckoned to be a likely supporter of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in his efforts to be permitted to sit as duke of Brandon and the following day Berkshire voted as expected against barring Scots members from sitting in the House by virtue of their British titles. On 22 Dec. he registered his proxy with his kinsman, Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick, after which he was absent for the remainder of the session, having attended on only six days (just over 5 per cent of the whole).</p><p>The reason for Berkshire’s sudden disappearance from the session and his failure to return to his seat until February 1713 is unclear. Oxford noted that he ought to be contacted during the 1711 Christmas recess so presumably expected him to resume his place in the new year. Oxford also included Berkshire in one of his memoranda of 29 Dec., which perhaps indicates that he was considering finding him a place within the administration.<sup>16</sup> A letter of February 1712 from Berkshire’s college friend Thomas Hare might indicate that spleen was one of the reasons for Berkshire’s early retreat from the session:</p><blockquote><p>why should the vigour which has been exerted lately in making alterations in the highest sphere droop and languish when it comes to the lower? In short the ministers have a hard game to play: if no removes are made it is a general disgust; and since the number of places is not equal to that of petitioners for them, when they do change hands, a great part of the members of both houses must be necessarily disappointed.<sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>By June 1712, when a new list of the ministry’s supporters was collated, Berkshire, perhaps prey to the disgust that Hare mentioned, had been relegated to one of those thought to be doubtful. Even so, on 27 July his father-in-law, Grahme, assured Oxford that Berkshire remained ‘most sensible of your kind expressions to him’ and also took the opportunity to recommend Berkshire as a potential lord lieutenant of Westmorland, should Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, decline the post. Grahme did his best to emphasize his son-in-law’s qualification for the place being ‘well beloved and known there and likely to succeed to the little I shall leave’.<sup>18</sup> This recommendation was echoed by a similar suggestion made by Hugh Todd the following year.<sup>19</sup> Despite this, Berkshire remained without office, which no doubt prompted Grahme to trouble Oxford again in December, hoping that the ‘young man, because he neither asks or craves anything, will not be forgotten’.<sup>20</sup> Although he remained overlooked for office, late in the summer of 1712 Berkshire attempted to use his own interest on behalf of a kinsman, one Dyott of Lichfield, for whom he sought a place in the duke of Hamilton’s gift.<sup>21</sup> Writing to Grahme, Hamilton regretted being unable to oblige his ‘noble and worthy friends’ as he would like, as the places on offer in the ordnance were ‘so very mean’ that they were barely worth having.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Berkshire returned to the House to attend a series of prorogation days in February and March 1713. On 26 Feb. he was listed by Oxford as someone to be contacted in advance of the session and on 15 Mar. Jonathan Swift included him in a list of likely ministry supporters. Berkshire took his seat in the new session on 9 Apr., after which he was present on just under 35 per cent of all sitting days, and on 31 May he was listed among those to be contacted concerning the commercial treaty. He failed to attend after 1 June but on 13 June he was listed among those now thought doubtful on the question of the bill of commerce. In his absence Hare kept him abreast of affairs, complaining of the weight of business even though peace had been signed and wishing that ‘the sword of attendance’ might be ‘removed from over my head’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session, Berkshire again attempted to exert his interest, recommending Hugh Todd to Oxford as dean of Carlisle and a Laurence Crofts to be a land- or tide-waiter.<sup>24</sup> In this last he was successful to the extent of securing the offer of a post at Aylmouth (Alnmouth) for Crofts, though it was pointed out that the salary would fall short of the £50 a year for which he had asked.<sup>25</sup> Besides this, Berkshire seems to have remained semi-detached from affairs in London, perhaps caught up with domestic troubles. Towards the close of the summer his heir, Andover, was taken ill, and in December his countess miscarried.<sup>26</sup> On 16 Jan. 1714 Hare wrote to remind him of the date of the new Parliament, emphasizing the tense situation and how ‘it follows that a sure majority of steady heads is of the greatest importance’. This being the case he urged Berkshire to ‘turn this in your thoughts and set your face towards Westminster’.<sup>27</sup> Almost a month later (on 13 Feb.) Hare was still hopeful that he would see his friend at the opening of Parliament, emphasizing that</p><blockquote><p>I dare say nothing will be attempted by the ministry in which you would not conscientiously join; and in that case, I am sure, you would be sorry that any scheme advantageous to the country should fall to the ground for want of your being present to give a helping hand.<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>Hare’s blandishments failed to have the desired effect and it was almost a month into the session that Berkshire finally took his place. He was then present on just over 35 per cent of all sitting days. By the time of his return to the House, he appears to have thrown in his lot with Oxford’s ministerial opponents. On 14 Apr. he registered his proxy with Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, which was vacated two days later, and on 27 May he was reckoned a likely supporter of the Schism bill. On 8 June he was entrusted with Howard of Escrick’s proxy.</p><p>Berkshire quit the session on 21 June; following the death of Queen Anne, he rallied to attend just two days of the brief August session. His Tory proclivities may have been out of step with the tone of the new regime but, as a Protestant member of the Howard clan, he was nominated deputy earl marshal by the debarred Catholic Thomas Howard*, 8th duke of Norfolk, in November 1718 in succession to Henry Howard*, 6th earl of Suffolk.<sup>29</sup> He was also awarded an annual pension out of the civil list of £1,000.<sup>30</sup> It is perhaps indicative of the fact that Berkshire’s nomination as deputy earl marshal was unsatisfactory to some that at least one newspaper reported inaccurately that his appointment had been put aside in favour of Lord Frederick Henry Howard.<sup>31</sup> In spite of such opposition, he retained the post until 1725 when he was replaced by the more suitably Whig Talbot Yelverton*, earl of Sussex.</p><p>Berkshire appears to have taken a more prominent role in the House in the early years of the new reign, acting as teller in a number of divisions. Over the ensuing years he benefited in terms of land and interest from the deaths of his father-in-law, Grahme, and his kinswoman Lady Diana Feilding. From the former he inherited Levens Hall and from the latter property at Castle Rising, which had been in Lady Diana’s possession since the death of her first husband, Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup> of Ashtead.<sup>32</sup> Berkshire was also ultimately to benefit from the demise of his cousin Suffolk, thus enabling him to unite the estates and titles of the Berkshire and Suffolk Howards. His Jacobite connections appear to have resulted in him receiving a protection confirming him in possession of his estates from the Young Pretender in November 1745.<sup>33</sup> It is not clear whether Suffolk (as he had since become) had actively sought such assurances from the invading prince but he does not appear to have suffered any repercussions following the rebellion’s suppression the following year. Full details of his career post-1715 will be considered in the next part of this work.</p><p>Suffolk died in March 1757 at Bath and was buried at Charlton as he had requested in his will, it being where ‘several of my deceased children lie’. He bequeathed sums amounting to 800 guineas to provide his immediate family with mourning but otherwise gave directions for a simple funeral ceremony without escutcheons. He was succeeded by his grandson (and sole executor) Henry Howard<sup>†</sup>, as 12th earl of Suffolk and 5th earl of Berkshire.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HOWARD, James (1620-89) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1620–89)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld.Walden, 1626-40; <em>suc. </em>fa. 3 June 1640 (a minor) as 3rd earl of SUFFOLK |
|
First sat before 1660, 11 Jan. 1641; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 10 Jan. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 10 Feb. 1620, 1st s. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk, and Elizabeth, da. of George Home, earl of Dunbar [S]; bro. of George Howard*, 4th earl of Suffolk, and Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk. <em>educ.</em> Oxf. MA 1663; incorp. Camb. 1664. <em>m</em>. (1) 1 Dec. 1640, Susanna (c.1637–49), 3rd da. of Henry Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holland, and Isabel, da. and h. of Sir Walter Cope<sup>‡</sup> of Kensington, 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 1da.; (2) <em>aft.</em> 19 Feb. 1651, Barbara (1622–81), da. of Sir Edward Villiers, pres. of Munster, and Barbara, da. of Sir John St John<sup>‡</sup>, wid. of Richard Wenman, 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (3), settlement 10 June 1682, Anne (c.1660–1720), 1st da. of Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, and Anne, da. of Sir Christopher Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, bt.; <em>d</em>. 7 Jan. 1689; <em>will</em> 10 July 1688, pr. 11 Feb. 1689.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Jt. commr. to the king (parl.), 1646, earl marshal 1673–84; gent. of the bedchamber, 1665–81.</p><p>Jt. ld. lt. Suffolk 1640–2; ld. lt. Suffolk (parl.) 1642, 1660–81, Cambs. 1660–81; <em>custos rot</em>. Cambs 1646, Suffolk 1660–<em>d.</em>; high steward, Ipswich 1653; gov. Landguard Fort, Essex 1666.</p> |
|
<p>The heir to substantial estates in East Anglia, Suffolk’s civil war career was full of contradictions. He was one of a handful of peers who continued sitting in the House of Lords after Charles I had raised his standard at Nottingham. Suffolk was first recorded as present in the House on 11 Jan. 1641 but the attendance lists for this period are somewhat erratic and it is possible that he had taken his seat earlier. Appointed lord lieutenant of Suffolk by Parliament on 16 Feb. 1642, he went on to serve as one of the parliamentary commissioners to the king at Newcastle in 1648 and as high steward of Ipswich in 1653. Yet he was impeached by the Commons for high treason in December 1647, was associated with plans for a royalist uprising in 1659, and received a certificate of loyalty and a pardon from Charles II in 1660.<sup>2</sup> Financial difficulties may well have lain at the root of his equivocation, for his involvement in a number of legal actions suggests that his estates were already deeply encumbered with debt and that he could not afford to risk his remaining estates for either cause.<sup>3</sup> Personal loyalties probably also played a part. The allegiances of Suffolk’s immediate family were complex. His sister Margaret married Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Broghill [I] (later earl of Orrery [I]), who fought for Parliament before joining the royalists and playing a leading role in persuading the Irish army to accept the Restoration. Another sister, Elizabeth, also married a parliamentarian-turned-royalist, Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland. Yet another, Catherine, married the royalist James Livingston<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Newburgh [S]. Suffolk’s younger brother George Howard*, later 4th earl of Suffolk, was also a royalist and came to be closely associated with James*, duke of York. The loyalties of Suffolk’s wider family were equally confused. The senior line of Howards, direct descendants of the dukes of Norfolk and earls of Arundel, were Catholic royalists but the Howard earls of Carlisle were Protestant parliamentarians. By 1658 Suffolk was clearly in the royalist camp and, according to Roger Morrice, he was one of the cavaliers who spied on meetings of the presbyterians in the early months of 1660.<sup>4</sup></p><p>At the Restoration the ambiguities of Suffolk’s civil war allegiance were promptly forgotten. He was appointed to the prestigious and politically influential lord lieutenancies of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and in 1665 was granted the profits of sealing writs in the king’s bench and common pleas for a term of 21 years.<sup>5</sup> He was also on sociable terms with James*, duke of York, and the two men were expected to hunt often together.<sup>6</sup> His ties to the royal family were strengthened still further by the marriage of his nephew James Howard to Charlotte Fitzroy, one of Charles II’s illegitimate daughters. He took his seat on the first day of the Convention and was almost immediately engaged in trying to persuade the ‘young lords’ to take their seats against the known wishes of George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle.<sup>7</sup> He was present on over 90 per cent of sitting days and held the proxy of Robert Rich*, 2nd earl of Holland, throughout. On 1 May 1660 he was appointed to the committee to consider an answer to the king’s letter. On 9 May he was appointed to the committee for settling the militia; on the same day the House granted him possession of Greenwich Park until further order. On 19 May he obtained a further order of the House favouring his possession of Somersham in Cambridgeshire and on 22 May the House ordered his restoration as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.</p><p>On 2 July he was added to the committee to consider the bill of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, and was involved in seeking the House’s protection against Richard Baxter, who was accused of speaking contemptuous words against him. He was thought to be opposed to the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford to the office of great chamberlain. On 11 Aug. he obtained an order empowering him and his agents to search for arms taken from his house at Audley End. On 13 Dec. he entered a dissent to the resolution to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell and two days later he was named to the committee for the Hatfield Level bill. For much of this month both he and the House were preoccupied with his attempts to invoke privilege against Alexander Peper, who was alleged to have called Suffolk ‘a fool and a knave’ and ‘a base stinking fellow’. The House accepted the advice of the judges that the criminal or public wrong element of Peper’s offences, having been committed before 24 June 1660, was excused by the Act of Oblivion; Suffolk was left to take his own remedy for the private wrong that he had suffered.</p><p>Suffolk’s attendance fell markedly in the first session of the Cavalier Parliament, when he was present on just over 53 per cent of sitting days. In April 1661 he was appointed earl marshal for the purposes of the coronation. On 11 May he acted as supporter at the introductions of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and of his cousin Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, and (as would become usual practice) was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. At a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661 he was excused as sick. The reduction in his attendance seems to have little effect on his access to royal patronage, possibly because his wife was one of the king’s favourites.<sup>8</sup> In February 1662 she was appointed first lady of the bedchamber, groom of the stole, and keeper of the privy purse to the new queen, although the appointments were not officially confirmed until the following year.<sup>9</sup> On 16 Feb. 1662 he entered a protest at the passage of the bill to restore the earl of Derby’s estates. On 3 May he appeared as a petitioner at a meeting of the committee to consider Sir Robert Hitcham’s bill: Suffolk had been involved in a dispute about the title of the lands concerned for nearly 20 years.<sup>10</sup> It was a sign of continuing royal favour that in July 1662 Lady Suffolk acted a witness at the christening of Lady Castlemaine’s child.<sup>11</sup> In November 1662 Suffolk was granted the farm of licensing the sale of ale and beer in Ireland for a term of 21 years.<sup>12</sup></p><p>He was present on just over 60 per cent of sitting days in the 1663 session, and continued to receive indications of royal favour, including a licence to build in Suffolk Stable Yard.<sup>13</sup> Nevertheless, Wharton listed him as a probable supporter of the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Suffolk attended the brief session of spring 1664 almost every day but his attendance fell back to 76 per cent of sitting days during the 1664–5 session. On 22 Feb. 1665 he invoked privilege of Parliament to secure the release of his servant John Loanes. The improvement in his attendance may have been a factor in winning further royal favour. Early in March 1665 he learned that he had been appointed as a gentleman of the bedchamber and in July he was given a grant of Irish lands forfeit to the crown through intestacy.<sup>14</sup> He was present on only four days at the end of the October 1665 session, possibly because he had been deeply involved in preparations to resist the threat of a Dutch assault on the coast of East Anglia. On 26 Oct. he was named to the committee to consider the Irish Cattle Bill.</p><p>In the spring of 1666, during the prorogation of Parliament, Suffolk was one of the king’s companions at Newmarket and used the opportunity both to entertain him and to showcase his magnificent house at Audley End. The ploy was successful; although negotiations dragged on for several years, the king agreed to buy Audley End for £50,000 but left Suffolk in possession of house and lands as keeper, with a salary of £500 a year.<sup>15</sup> In the summer of 1666 he was appointed governor of the strategically important Landguard Fort and ensured that it was put in good order in case of Dutch attack.<sup>16</sup> A letter to Secretary Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> conveys a hint of discontent, suggesting as it does that Suffolk was responsible for spreading the rumour that ‘all business of concern is entrusted to Secretary Morrice<sup>‡</sup>, that the generals send their dispatches to him, and that he burns them, after communicating to the king only’; but the accuracy of the information is at best doubtful and the idea that the king was over-reliant on favourites was scarcely a novel one.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Suffolk was present on some 80 per cent of sitting days during the 1666–7 session, and was named to a number of committees to consider bills. On 24 Jan. 1667 he was also named as one of the three peers to be commissioners for accounts. During this year he became involved in a quarrel with Lord Chief Justice Kelyng<sup>‡</sup> about the rights associated with the grant for the office of sealer of writs in the king’s bench and common pleas.<sup>18</sup></p><p>His attitude to the marriage of his daughter Essex Howard to Edward Griffin*, later Baron Griffin, remains puzzling. The marriage was being discussed as early as April 1666 and seems to underline Suffolk’s close relationship with York, as Griffin was one of York’s most trusted companions. Nevertheless the actual marriage, in March 1667, seems to have taken place without his knowledge and was said to have left him so angry that he refused to see his daughter.<sup>19</sup> Whatever the truth of this matter, it is clear that Suffolk was still a trusted ally of the court. In the summer of 1667 he took personal charge of the militia who fought the Dutch after their landing near Harwich and in September his wife stood godmother to York’s baby son, Prince Edgar, duke of Cambridge.<sup>20</sup></p><p>When Parliament reconvened in October 1667 Suffolk’s attendance level dropped to just over 56 per cent of sitting days. His only recorded parliamentary activity was that, as was usual, he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. In May 1668 it was rumoured that his countess was to lose her position as groom of the stole to the queen to the duchess of Richmond, but the size of compensation suggested, £10,000, is not suggestive of a fall from favour and the rumour soon proved to be unfounded.<sup>21</sup> That the countess was still close to the court was amply demonstrated in February 1669 when she, together with Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, was granted up to £5,000 from the proceeds of the prize goods of the captured ship <em>Sancta Maria</em>.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Suffolk was present on 30 of the 36 sitting days of the brief autumn 1669 session, when he was named to the committee to consider the reports of the commissioners of accounts and to the committee to consider the bill for preventing fraud in the exportation of wool. He attended some 61 per cent of the sitting days in the 1670–1 session and held the proxy of John Granville*, earl of Bath, from 15 Mar. to 31 Oct. 1670. He was named to nine select committees to consider bills on subjects ranging from the estates of Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, to the enrolment of deeds and the prevention of popery. Two of the bills concerned members of his wider family: that for Sir Philip Howard and Francis Watson, and the Arundel House bill, which related to the administration of the estates of the brain-damaged Thomas Howard*, 5th duke of Norfolk. On 14 Jan. 1671 Suffolk was named to the committee to investigate the assault on James Butler*, duke of Ormond. On 15 Mar. he entered a dissent to the decision of the House of Lords to suspend judgment against John Cusack in a cause that had been heard first in the Irish court of claims and that appears to have raised constitutional issues about the right of appeal from that court.</p><p>That Suffolk was still on good terms with the duke of York is suggested by the involvement of his daughter Elizabeth in the baptism ceremony for York’s infant daughter in February 1671.<sup>23</sup> It was at about this time that the king ceased to make payments for the purchase of Audley End.<sup>24</sup> In the short term this had little effect on Suffolk’s loyalties, and he was certainly still hoping for favour. The death of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, saw him throwing his hat into the ring as one of the competitors for the office of chancellor of Cambridge University. He was unsuccessful.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Suffolk was present on nearly 80 per cent of sitting days during the first session of 1673. On 28 Mar. he and his cousin Carlisle were instrumental in having the claim of the trunk-maker James Percy to the earldom of Northumberland referred to the consideration of the House. As the brother of the dowager countess, Suffolk was unlikely to have been advocating James Percy’s claim; he was probably trying to ensure that it was quashed in an authoritative manner. In the summer of 1673 he was appointed one of the deputy earl marshals to officiate on behalf of his Catholic cousin Henry Howard*, earl of Norwich (later 6th duke of Norfolk), and thereafter regularly played a role in the ceremonial life of the House.<sup>26</sup></p><p>He was present on three of the five sitting days of the brief second session of 1673 and on just over 85 per cent of the sitting days of the spring 1674 session. He was named to several committees and on 17 Feb. 1674 was also nominated as one of the mediators between the Hamburg Company and its creditors. He was again present for 85 per cent of the first session of 1675. It is tempting to wonder whether his high attendance in 1673–5 was in any way related to his polite but nevertheless relentless pursuit of Essex (then lord lieutenant of Ireland) for payment of monies owed to him from the Irish revenues.<sup>27</sup> Meanwhile, during 1674 he and his wife had been estranged from their daughter Elizabeth, a noted court beauty, because of her marriage to Thomas Felton<sup>‡</sup>. They were reconciled by September 1675, when the king made Elizabeth a lady of the bedchamber and settled £1,000 a year on her husband.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Two days before the opening of the autumn 1675 session Williamson wrote to Suffolk explaining that, since the king suspected him to be ‘too keen a jockey to leave Newmarket for the Parliament’, a proxy was required.<sup>29</sup> Clearly, as far as the court was concerned, Suffolk still seemed to be a reliable ally. Sure enough, William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, held Suffolk’s proxy until 25 Oct. 1675, the day that Suffolk made his first appearance in the House that session. He attended for just three days.</p><p>When Parliament reconvened in February 1677, Suffolk was absent; his proxy was held by Maynard until his arrival on 9 April. Three days later he was named to the committee on the Yarmouth Pier Bill. He was present almost every day until 16 July 1677 but was then absent for the remainder of the session. He was also absent for the whole of the following session and did not resume his seat until the opening of the final session of the Cavalier Parliament on 21 Oct. 1678, after which he was present on some 82 per cent of sitting days. There is no information available with which to track his political activities during this period, although Shaftesbury’s willingness to list him as worthy suggests a breach with York and the court. The decline in his wife’s health may have been a contributory factor. In or about the autumn of 1677 she became so ill that her duties at court had to be supplied by Lady Arlington, wife of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington.<sup>30</sup> By the end of 1678 Suffolk was clearly aligned with the attack on Catholicism in government: on 15 Nov. he voted against watering down the provisions of the Test Act by leaving out the declaration against transubstantiation.</p><p>Early in March 1679, at the start of the first Exclusion Parliament, Suffolk was listed by Danby as a possible supporter, to be spoken to by the king. Two further lists (probably compiled just a few weeks later) indicate that Suffolk had joined Danby’s opponents. Lists of those who actually voted in the early stages of the bill of attainder also include Suffolk as one of Danby’s opponents. These cannot be accurate: Suffolk attended the House on 19 Mar. 1679, early in the Parliament’s second session, but then absented himself until 7 April, his absence ensuring that he missed all the vital votes on the subject. He may well have joined Danby’s opponents but he seems to have had no intention of upsetting the court. He registered his proxy in favour of Maynard, a known supporter of Danby, so may well have voted <em>in absentia</em> in Danby’s favour. Yet if his absence was strategic it is difficult to explain why he attended the House when it considered the Commons bill of attainder passed on 14 Apr. 1679. On this occasion he was again listed as having voted for the bill. Since the bill passed by a very narrow majority, Suffolk’s vote was crucial to its success. During May 1679 he was named to two select committees; he was also one of the three peers who on 20 May were ordered by the House to attend the king to ask that the gates of the Tower of London be closed at 10 pm each night. On 27 May he dissented to the resolution to insist on the right of bishops to sit in blood cases – another indication of hostility to Danby. Overall, he was present on 56 per cent of sitting days in the second session.</p><p>During the second Exclusion Parliament Suffolk attended the prorogation day on 26 Jan. 1680 and some 33 per cent of sitting days once the session had opened on 21 Oct. 1680. He was by now solidly aligned with the exclusionists. He was present on 15 Nov. for the first reading of the exclusion bill and not only voted in its favour but entered his dissent to the decision to reject it. On 7 Jan. 1681 he entered two dissents concerning the failure to commit Sir William Scroggs or to address the king for his suspension. In the ensuing months he paid the price for his opposition. By mid-February it was clear that he would lose his lord lieutenancies and this was soon common knowledge.<sup>31</sup> He was also suspended from his post as one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber.<sup>32</sup> In March Lady Suffolk’s continuing ill health provided an excuse to remove her from court in favour of Lady Arlington (whose husband had replaced Suffolk as lord lieutenant of Suffolk). The queen ‘did put her out with many kind expressions, but ’tis said the king would have her out’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Suffolk did not attend the 1681 Parliament but he was clearly still politically active for he was one of the spectators at Fitzharris’ trial in June.<sup>34</sup> He also still had hopes of reward and petitioned Ormond for renewal of the grant of licensing ale and beer in Ireland.<sup>35</sup> Despite his own ill health, within five months of his wife’s death he created a minor society sensation by marrying the 22-year-old daughter of Robert Montagu, 3rd earl of Manchester, thus, it seems, acquiring a portion of £6,000 and a nurse in one go.<sup>36</sup> He was reconciled to the court by the summer of 1683.<sup>37</sup> Crippled by gout, he seems to have found the political events of the following reign passing him by. He died early in January 1689. At his death he was still owed £20,000 as the unpaid balance of the purchase price of Audley End and a further £2,000 for tapestries and other furnishings there.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Suffolk had no sons and his next brother predeceased him. The earldom therefore passed to his next surviving brother, George Howard. Suffolk’s junior peerage, the barony of Walden, fell into abeyance at the death of the 3rd earl but successive earls of Suffolk nevertheless continued to use it as a courtesy title for their eldest sons. The 3rd earl’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Felton, made an unsuccessful attempt to claim the barony for herself in 1691.<sup>39</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, Thomas (1587-1669) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1587–1669)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>22 Jan. 1622 Visct. ANDOVER; <em>cr. </em>earl of BERKSHIRE. 7 Feb. 1626 |
|
First sat 25 Feb. 1624; first sat after 1660, 2 May 1660; last sat 9 May 1668 |
|
MP Lancaster 1605-11; Wilts. 1614; Cricklade 1621-22 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 8 Oct. 1587<sup>1</sup>, 2nd s. of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Suffolk and 2nd w. Catharine, da. and coh. of Sir Henry Knyvett<sup>‡</sup>, wid. of Hon. Richard Rich; bro. of Edward Howard*, Bar. Howard of Escrick, Henry Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk, Sir William Howard<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Magdalene, Camb. 1598, MA 1605; G. Inn 1606; I. Temple 1607; MA Oxf. 1636; travelled abroad (France, Spain, Low Countries, ?Italy) 1608-9.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 12 May 1614,<sup>3</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. Aug. 1672), da. and coh. of William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Exeter and 2nd w. Elizabeth, da. of Sir William Drury, 9s. (?1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). 4da.<sup>4</sup> <em>suc</em>. mo. 1638; KB 6 Jan. 1605; KG 1625. <em>d</em>. 16 July 1669.</p> |
<p>Embassy to Spain, 1605.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Jt. lt. Braydon Forest, Wilts. 1607-at least 1623;<sup>6</sup> steward, Newark 1616-at least 1625; commr. oyer and terminer Western circ. 1617-42, 1660-<em>d</em>., the Verge 1617, Oxf. circ. 1632-42, 1660-<em>d</em>., London and Mdx. 1660-<em>d.</em>; <em>custos rot</em>. Oxon. 1632-at least 1636; ld. lt., Oxon (jt.) 1628-32, (sole) 1632-42, Mdx. (jt.) 1660-2; high steward, Oxf. 1632-49, 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> constable, Wallingford Castle, steward hon. of Ewelme 1632-?42; commr. array Berks., Oxon., Wilts. 1642; commr. Savoy, 1661-at least 1663.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Master of the horse to Prince Charles<sup>†</sup>, 1614-25;<sup>9</sup> mbr. Prince’s Council 1617-25;<sup>10</sup> jt. farmer of greenwax 1625-?41, 1657-<em>d</em>.;<sup>11</sup> PC Mar. 1639-at least 1645, May 1660-<em>d</em>.; commr. to treat with Scots 1639,<sup>12</sup> treaty of Ripon 1640,<sup>13</sup> gov. to Prince of Wales 1644-6;<sup>14</sup> mbr. Council of War 1644-5;<sup>15</sup> Prince of Wales’s Council 1645-6.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Patentee glass monopoly 1615;<sup>17</sup> gov. earl of Berkshire Guiana Co. 1631-2;<sup>18</sup> mbr. Fisheries Soc. by 1632.<sup>19</sup></p> |
|
<p>As a younger son Howard could not expect to succeed to his father’s titles, but the family settlement ensured that at his mother’s death in 1638 he inherited her considerable estates centring on Charlton, Wiltshire. His creation as a peer reflected the size of his inheritance, but since he held only minor office it seems likely that he was not highly regarded at court. Although Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed him in 1660 as one of the lords with the king, it seems likely that he was something of a lukewarm royalist, and many of his relatives including his younger brother Howard of Escrick and his cousin James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, were associated with the parliamentary cause. Although Berkshire fled to Holland in 1646, on 18 Aug. 1646 the Lords granted him permission to return to England and compound for his estates, a decision that produced a flurry of activity by his brother, Lord Howard of Escrick. Claiming to be one of his brother’s major creditors, Escrick on 28 Aug. successfully opposed the sequestration of Berkshire’s personal estate, consisting of a house at Ewelme, Oxfordshire and another in St James, Middlesex. According to Escrick the remainder of Berkshire’s property was so tied up by entail and mortgages that it was unable to bear any further claims. His arguments were supported by Berkshire’s wife and their eldest son, Charles Howard*, the future 2nd earl of Berkshire, but whether they were genuine or the product of collusion is unclear. Henceforth, Berkshire’s life was marred by chronic indebtedness, although he exercised influence as a member of a formidable parliamentary family. Apart from his brothers and his eldest son, his younger sons, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> and Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup> both sat in the Restoration House of Commons during their father’s lifetime. Through Philip Howard, Berkshire was connected with the household of James Stuart*, duke of York.</p><p>Berkshire resumed his seat in the Lords on 2 May 1660. According to Francis Newport, writing on 5 May 1660, he was the only representative of ‘the king’s party’ to have taken his seat by that date, although his motive for so doing was not to serve the king but to secure himself from his creditors.<sup>20</sup> Berkshire had written to Charles II before taking his seat to ask for instructions on how the Lords should be ‘filled up’, and his attendance was encouraging for, as Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> pointed out, ‘as Lord Berkshire sits in the House many will speedily follow.’<sup>21</sup> He attended on 140 days of the Convention, 86 per cent of the total and was named to 27 committees, including the committee to consider the king’s goods, to which he was added on 9 May, the minutes indicating that he was present at the meeting of the committee held on 19 May.<sup>22</sup> On 31 May Berkshire informed the House that the king had decided that the lords created by patent by Charles I at Oxford should be permitted to take their seats. On 3 July he reported from the committee for petitions on the case of Mrs. Burleigh, and on 12 July, on the orders of the king, he delivered the letter that led the House to send for Daniel Axtell<sup>‡</sup> from Ireland in order that he might be tried for regicide. On the same day Berkshire obtained an order from the House facilitating the recovery of goods taken from his house at Ewelme during the Interregnum. From 23 July to the prorogation on 29 Dec. 1660 he held the proxy of his daughter’s father-in-law, Conyers Darcy*, 5th Baron Darcy.</p><p>On 6 Aug., it was reported from the committee on the Indemnity bill that all provisos relating to private matters should be left out of the bill and that no new bills would be allowed that removed its protection, except for those bills currently before the House, and for a short list of peers, including Berkshire, who would be permitted to bring in bills for their own benefit. On 8 Sept. Berkshire reported from the committee on the Newport school bill. On 8 Sept. Berkshire reported from the committee on the Newport school bill. Probably at around this time he was seeking payment of his pension of £1,000 a year out of exchequer arrears, claiming to have found debts that would cover it.<sup>23</sup> Throughout 1660 Berkshire would petition the crown for financial reward in the form of leases, grants or patents.<sup>24</sup> On 13 Dec. 1660 he signed the protest against the resolution to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell.</p><p>Despite his somewhat ambivalent past Berkshire soon seems to have put himself if not at the centre of affairs then in a reasonably important position on their fringes. Early in 1660 he was restored to the Privy Council as well as to the high stewardship of Oxford from which Parliament had removed him in 1649, though in practice he seems to have had little influence over the corporation and parliamentary elections. Berkshire was also appointed joint lord lieutenant of Middlesex, a crucial post given the volatility of the London crowds.</p><p>At the election of 1661 Berkshire and his countess canvassed vigorously for the adoption of one of their sons to represent the nearby constituency of Malmesbury. Although they were unsuccessful, they received an assurance that their wishes would be gratified at the next opportunity.<sup>25</sup> Before the opening of the next Parliament, Berkshire had been given, jointly with his son Sir Robert, a 48 year lease of post fines in the court of common pleas.<sup>26</sup> Berkshire still had an interest in the fines of the green wax which had been awarded to him in 1625, and then confirmed to his son Sir Robert by the protectorate in 1657.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Berkshire was present on the opening day of the 1661-2 session, and attended on 112 days of the session, almost 60 per cent the total. He was named to 16 committees. From 10 or 11 June 1661 he again held the proxy of Darcy. In July he was thought to be in favour of the claims of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the lord great chamberlaincy. On 29 July he sought privilege to ensure the release of his servant and solicitor Benjamin Bungey from imprisonment in the Poultry Compter. It is possible that he opposed the restitution bill of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, on 6 Feb. 1662, for although absent and not listed as a protester in the Journal, his name appeared on a later unofficial list of protesters against the bill.<sup>28</sup> On 13 Feb. 1662 the electors of Malmesbury fulfilled their promise and returned Berkshire’s son, Philip, at a by-election caused by the death of Lawrence Washington<sup>‡</sup>. Perhaps the distractions of the election explain why Berkshire did not attend the House between 4 Feb. and 26 Mar. 1662. When he did attend on the latter day, he was granted leave of absence for his ‘urgent occasions’, which he put into effect after attending on 30 Mar., returning to the House on 21 Apr., shortly after he had been awarded a grant of £8,000 to be paid by yearly instalments of £1,000 from the revenues of the county of Yorkshire.<sup>29</sup> The grant may have softened the blow of losing his post as joint lord lieutenant of Middlesex. Problems with the militia there were attributed to Berkshire’s laxity and in the summer of 1662 Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and the king discussed which of them was best placed to suggest that Berkshire resign the post on grounds of age and infirmity.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Berkshire was present at the opening of the session of 1663, attending on 77 days, almost 90 per cent of the total, and was named to ten committees. His loyalty and attendance were probably linked to a grant of £15,000 connected with his activities as a commissioner of the Savoy.<sup>31</sup> On 6 July 1663 he again claimed privilege, this time concerning the service of ejectments on his tenants in Charlton, but although the perpetrators of this alleged breach of privilege were ordered to attend on the 8th, the matter remained unresolved by the House. In Wharton’s forecast of voting intentions, Berkshire was listed as opposed to the motion to impeach Clarendon. On 25 July along with other high Anglicans he signed the protest against the clause in the bill to amend the Act of Uniformity stating that the declaration and subscription were to be understood only as to the practice and obedience to the Act on the grounds that it was ‘destructive to the Church of England as now established’. Berkshire was absent when the March-May 1664 session began on 16 Mar. 1664, first attending on 2 April. He was present on 22 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total. During the summer recess a group of prominent Jewish merchants secured the king’s intervention in order to prevent Berkshire from using the edict of expulsion to extort money from them. A further allegation of malpractice, concerning the confiscation of a merchant’s goods, made the following December, is also suggestive of extortion.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Berkshire attended the prorogation of 20 Aug. 1664 and was present when the next session began on 24 November. He attended on 38 days, 76 per cent of the total and was named to three committees. He held Darcy’s proxy for the whole of the session. On 12 Jan. 1665 he again sought to invoke privilege, this time against the London merchant Godfrey Depremont for speaking ‘scandalous words’, in accusing Berkshire of receiving goods stolen from him. Berkshire’s complaint was heard by the committee of privileges on 16 Jan. and 6 February. Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, reported on the 7th that it was ‘a matter of conspiracy and a matter of scandal’, with two witnesses having proved that Depremont had said that Berkshire ‘had received stolen goods of his’. Depremont was ordered to attend the House along with the two witnesses. Further evidence was taken by the committee on 13 Feb. (chaired by Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset), and on 16 Feb. the witnesses were ordered to appear before the House. Nothing further happened.<sup>33</sup> Berkshire again invoked privilege on 28 Feb. when he informed the House that two of his servants had been arrested, the culprits being ordered to attend the House. His financial situation was still precarious and he hoped to sell Berkshire House to the king for £8,000, plus recompense for a grant of £8,000 in April 1662 for his losses in the late king’s cause, which had yielded nothing, with the whole sum of £16,000 to be paid in cash as he was ‘very anxious to pay his creditors’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>During the short session in October 1665, Berkshire attended just three times, almost 19 per cent of the total, and was named to a single committee. In November 1665 allegations of his extortion again surfaced, this time in the form of complaints to the king from the judges. Berkshire it seems interpreted his right to fines and forfeitures levied in courts of law to mean that he could take money to waive or compound fines before conviction. Those who were subjected to his attentions saw this as extortion, while the judges interpreted it as an ‘obstruction of public justice’. The king ordered Clarendon and the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, to investigate the matter and to stay all relevant proceedings and announced his intention of cancelling the patent under which Berkshire claimed to act, subject to ‘a reasonable compensation.’<sup>35</sup> By his own account Berkshire was certainly extremely hard up, and by June 1666 he claimed to be so embarrassed, financially, that he was in danger of losing his house.<sup>36</sup> Just a few months earlier (on 28 Mar. 1666) he had indeed been driven out of his house when Ralph Marshall together with John and James Tisser assaulted him so severely that he was forced to seek shelter in his coach which was then standing in the courtyard. His assailants promptly drove coach and earl out into the street and left him there. He found a bed for the night only through the charity of a woman who had once been his mother-in-law’s servant.<sup>37</sup> Although the full story is impossible to piece together, the likelihood is that these were creditors. Despite his poverty, he was still hanging on at court, Pepys recording his surprise at seeing Berkshire waiting at table and serving the king at a royal public dinner in July 1666.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Berkshire was present when the 1666-7 session convened on 18 Sept. 1666, attending on 68 days, 76 per cent of the total. He was named to four committees. He again held Darcy’s proxy for all but the first few days of the session. On 10 Nov. 1666 Anglesey reported that Berkshire was one of those in favour of the Irish cattle bill during its passage through the Lords.<sup>39</sup> He attended Parliament on 29 July 1667, when Charles II informed Parliament of the conclusion of a peace. Berkshire was present on the second day of the next session, 11 Oct. 1667, and attended on 101 days, 86 per cent of the total, before the adjournment on 9 May 1668 (84 per cent in all). He was named to seven committees. He held Darcy’s proxy for the whole of the session. On 20 Nov. 1667 he joined in the protest at the resolution not to commit Clarendon without a specific charge. On 24 Feb. 1668, together with his brother-in-law, Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, and Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, he petitioned the House for possession of the manor of Hedingham, Essex but the petition was dismissed on 30 March. In the meantime, Berkshire had complained to the House on 7 Mar. about the way he had been assaulted two years earlier by Marshall and the Tissers and had them brought to the bar. It is unclear why he had waited so long to complain, perhaps because he was facing further claims for debt. In the event, after hearing one of the alleged assailants on 9 Mar., the House ‘appointed to consider of this business some other time’, in effect declining to take cognizance of the matter, it having taken place outside the sitting of Parliament.<sup>40</sup> On 16 Mar. Berkshire was given leave to go into the country ‘about his occasions’, returning 9 Apr. having missed 11 days. He then sat every day until the prorogation of 9 May 1668.</p><p>Although Berkshire was well enough to dine on 4 June 1669 at the home of Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, with John Evelyn and others, he died on 16 July and was buried in Westminster Abbey four days later .<sup>41</sup> He was succeeded by his eldest son as 2nd earl of Berkshire.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
HOWARD, Thomas (1619-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1619–1706)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. by 16 Apr. 1679 as 3rd earl of BERKSHIRE |
|
First sat 17 Apr. 1679; last sat 6 Mar. 1689 |
|
MP Wallingford 1641-44 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 14 Nov. 1619, 2nd s. of Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of William Cecil<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Exeter<em>;</em> bro. of Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> and Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> travelled abroad 1638.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) by June 1641,<sup>2</sup> Frances (<em>d</em>. 8 May 1658), da. of Sir Richard Harrison<sup>‡</sup> of Hurst, Berks. 2da. (?1 <em>d.v.p.</em>);<sup>3</sup> (2) Mary (1637-bef. 1706), da. of Sir Thomas Parker<sup>‡</sup> of Ratton, Suss. ?1da. <em>d</em>. 12 Apr. 1706; <em>will</em> 24 Sept 1705, pr. 21 June 1706.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Col. regt. of horse (roy.) 1643.</p> |
|
<p>Much of Howard’s early life is difficult to disentangle from that of his cousin and namesake, Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup>, the son of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk. Like his brothers Howard had been a royalist during the Civil War. He may have been the father of Moll Davies, a mistress of Charles II, with whom she had a daughter, Lady Mary Tudor.<sup>5</sup> Soldiering may have been his lot before he succeeded to the peerage, given the reference of John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) in 1679 to Thomas Howard ‘of the guards’ (see below), although references to Thomas Howard in army lists have generally been taken to refer to Thomas Howard*, 2nd Baron Howard of Escrick.<sup>6</sup></p><p>The exact date of Thomas Howard’s succession to the earldom of Berkshire is unknown. His writ of summons was issued on 16 Apr. 1679, so his brother’s death must have taken place before that date. The peerage seems to have been something of an empty honour, as John Verney wrote on 17 Apr. that the death of Berkshire ‘prefers his brother Thomas Howard (of the Guards) to the title, though very little income accompanies it to support the grandeur.’<sup>7</sup> Berkshire took his seat on 17 Apr. and unlike his brother clearly had no qualms about taking the requisite oaths. He was present on 23 days of the session, nearly 70 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session (but 38 per cent of the whole), and was named to two committees.</p><p>As his brother had been abroad and disabled from sitting as a Catholic, it seems plausible that the forecasts made by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), about the likely voting in the proceedings against him refer to the 3rd earl of Berkshire, rather than the 2nd. Berkshire was listed as a potential supporter, with Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Dunblane [S], the future 2nd duke of Leeds, given the task of canvassing his support. He appeared on two more lists as a probable supporter, and finally his name was added to a list which may indicate that the 3rd earl voted against Danby but that Danby had not given up hope of securing his support. On 10 May 1679 Berkshire voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached peers and entered his dissent to the resolution not to do so. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>In August 1680 Berkshire wrote to Danby, referring to his obligations to that peer and assuring him that ‘it was never a principle of mine to run down any man of honour and quality upon a vulgar report without a legal trial to direct my judgment’.<sup>8</sup> He was not present at the opening of the 1680-1 session, excusing his absence at a call of the House on 30 Oct. by assuring the House that he was on his way. He arrived on 9 Nov. and attended on 33 days of the remainder of the session, 75 per cent of the total, although he did not sit after the Christmas adjournment on 23 December. On 15 Nov. he voted to reject the exclusion bill and on 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.</p><p>In anticipation of his attendance at the 1681 Oxford Parliament Danby included Berkshire’s name in his pre-sessional forecast of peers who might vote in favour of bailing him, but on 23 Mar. Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, noted that Berkshire was one of Danby’s absent friends and the attendance lists confirm that Berkshire did not attend the House at all during this brief session.<sup>9</sup> Berkshire blamed his absence on the gout and assured Danby that, ‘I did intend to have been there if they had sat three days longer’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Berkshire was present on the first day of the 1685 session and attended on 17 days until 18 June (being excused at the call of the House on 26 May and missing on 23 May and 4 June), 53 per cent of the total before the adjournment in July, being named to six committees. According to the attendance lists, when the House resumed, he was only present on 12 Nov. 1685, but he was named to a select committee on 18 Nov. as well which suggests that he was in the chamber. He was by now in receipt of a government pension of £300.<sup>11</sup> On four lists of the peerage drawn up over the autumn and winter of 1687-8 he was thought likely to oppose the repeal of the Test Acts.</p><p>There is no evidence to suggest that Berkshire was involved in the events of the Revolution of 1688. He attended the Convention for the first time on 15 Feb. 1689. He was again present on 18 Feb. and on 6 Mar. when he confirmed his allegiance to the new regime by taking the oaths before being allowed leave of absence on grounds of ill health. He never attended the House again. On 21 Sept. 1689 he replied to the request of George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, for an assessment of his personal estate for the 12<em>d</em>. in the pound levy, charging himself on £400.<sup>12</sup> On 28 Oct. he was excused attendance, and later he sent a letter to Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), asking him to acquaint the House that he was suffering from gout.<sup>13</sup> From then on it seems that illness prevented his attendance. On 31 Mar. 1690 he was excused as sick; on 2 Nov. 1691 and 21 Nov. 1692 he was merely recorded as absent, and on 14 Nov. 1693 he was noted as sick. In November 1696 he wrote from Charlton to explain to the Lords that ‘besides being near fourscore years of age, he has the gout to that extremity that he has lost the use of his limbs for some years past’ and there seems little reason to doubt that he was genuinely incapacitated.<sup>14</sup> He was excused again on 12 Nov. 1705. Berkshire died on 12 Apr. 1706 and was buried at Charlton. He was succeeded by his cousin Henry Bowes Howard*, as 4th earl of Berkshire (later 11th earl of Suffolk). Berkshire settled most of his personal estate, including his household goods on his unmarried daughter, Lady Mary Howard. His other daughter, Lady Frances Winchcombe was made executor, with John Hearne, clerk, of St James’s, Westminster, as the overseer.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
HOWARD, Thomas (1625-78) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1625–78)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Apr. 1675 as 2nd Bar. HOWARD OF ESCRICK |
|
First sat 30 Apr. 1675; last sat 13 July 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 24 Oct. 1625, 1st s. of Edward Howard*, later Bar. Howard of Escrick, and Mary Boteler, da. of John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Boteler of Brantfield; bro. of William Howard*, 3rd Bar. Howard of Escrick. <em>educ.</em> Corpus Christi, Camb. 1637; travelled abroad (France) c.1642–6.<sup>1</sup> <em>m.</em> (1) 21 July 1646, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em>1676),<sup>2</sup> da. of John Mordaunt<sup>†</sup>, earl of Peterborough, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) June 1677, Jane (<em>d.</em>1716), da. of [unknown] Drake, of Som., <em>s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 24 Aug. 1678; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
<p>Capt. ‘King’s Company’, 1st Regt. of Ft. Gds. 1660–76; lt. col. 1st Regt. of Ft. Gds. 1676–<em>d</em>.; col. regt. of ft. Feb. 1678–<em>d</em>.; lt. gen. English army in Flanders, c. Mar. 1678–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>The amours of Thomas Howard’s youth are described in the autobiography of Anne, Lady Halkett (née Murray), whom he was incessantly and unsuccessfully courting in 1644–6, before his attention was diverted by Lady Elizabeth Mordaunt: ‘it might be her wit had taken him but certainly not her beauty’, remarked the embittered Lady Halkett.<sup>4</sup> Howard’s connection with the Mordaunts probably led him in the 1650s to be involved in projects for the restoration of the king, as did perhaps the secret negotiations of his younger brother William Howard, later 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, with the exiled king on behalf of the ‘Anabaptists’.<sup>5</sup> In March 1660, Lady Mordaunt, wife of one of Charles II’s leading supporters in England, John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt (who was also Thomas Howard’s brother-in-law), thought that marks of favour should be bestowed on ‘my brother Thomas Howard’ upon the king’s return.<sup>6</sup></p><p>At the Restoration Howard was commissioned a captain of one of the principal companies in the 1st Foot Guards. He followed a military career until he succeeded to the barony of Howard of Escrick in April 1675, taking his seat on 30 Apr., only 17 days into the tumultuous session of spring 1675. In total he attended just over half of the meetings of this session but was named to only one select committee. In this and the following autumn session of 1675, when he attended all but one of the sittings and was appointed to three select committees, he showed a firm adherence to the court. He appears to have supported, or at least did not object to, the non-resisting Test bill of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), for his name does not appear among its opponents in any of the four protests signed against it in late April and early May 1675, nor does he appear among the country opposition in the <em>Letter of a Gentleman of Quality</em>. On 20 Nov. 1675 he voted with the majority against the motion to address the king for a dissolution of Parliament. Although his name does not appear in the printed <em>State Trials</em>, the account of the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, drawn up by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, indicates that Howard was one of the small number of 35 peers who were named to the court of the lord high steward in June 1676 and that he, along with the majority of peers, found Cornwallis not guilty of murder.<sup>7</sup></p><p>After the long period of 15 months between parliamentary sessions, Howard quickly resumed his attendance in the House when Parliament recommenced on 15 Feb. 1677. He came to all but eight of the meetings of the spring 1677 session before the House was adjourned on 16 April. He was named to nine select committees, but the most important for him was that established on 7 Apr. for the bill to allow his brother-in-law Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, to sell land in the name of his young daughter, Lady Mary Mordaunt, at that point a minor. Howard’s wife Elizabeth Mordaunt had died by the time of this bill, but her estate and inheritance were undoubtedly concerned in it, and Howard was able to have a proviso in which he was specifically appended to the bill before it received the royal assent on 16 April.<sup>8</sup> When Parliament resumed on 21 May 1677, he came to all but one of its five meetings before it was adjourned again. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered Howard ‘worthy’ in his political analysis of the lay peers, drawn up initially in the spring of 1677. The judgment may, however, refer more to Howard’s younger brother, William, who became one of Shaftesbury’s principal political allies, for Shaftesbury also marked Howard of Escrick as ‘dead’, suggesting that this annotation dates from, or was altered after, the 2nd baron’s death in August 1678.</p><p>Howard’s usually very high attendance rate was altered when Parliament resumed for business on 28 Jan. 1678; he attended only 13 meetings of the House and was named to only two select committees. His last attendance in this session was on 25 Feb. 1678, for the following day he was commissioned colonel of a regiment to be raised and sent to Flanders for the impending war with France.<sup>9</sup> The forces sent were officially under the command of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, but early in March 1678 Monmouth returned to England and gave Howard overall command of the army.<sup>10</sup> Howard himself resumed his seat in the following session of Parliament on 17 June, probably returning from Flanders to monitor, and perhaps obstruct, the progress of the disbandment bill, which would directly affect his career. He sat 14 times in this session, and was named to two select committees, before he left the House on 13 July to return to the English military camp in Ostend. He died in Bruges on 24 Aug. 1678, a casualty of the ‘great mortality’ that struck the army in the late summer and autumn of 1678.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Howard’s body was returned to England and buried with suitable pomp and military honours in St Martin-in-the-Fields.<sup>12</sup> He left behind an embarrassed financial and personal situation: he had no children and had made no will, and the king was forced to settle a pension of £500 p.a. on his widow, ‘because his lordship had no power to settle a jointure on her’. This was Howard of Escrick’s second wife, Jane Drake, whom he had married in June 1677. Her origins appear to have been lowly and somewhat suspicious. The identity of her father is not known and Edith Harley wrote cryptically to her brother-in-law Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> that ‘I suppose you know who and what she was before’ her marriage.<sup>13</sup> At Howard’s death it was suspected that she was pregnant. The uncertainty surrounding her condition led to a delay in a writ of summons being issued to the person who did eventually take the title, Howard of Escrick’s younger and more radical brother William.<sup>14</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HOWARD, Thomas (1627-77) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1627–77)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1646-52 Ld. Mautravers; <em>suc. </em>fa. 17 Apr. 1652 as 23rd or 16th earl of ARUNDEL and earl of SURREY; <em>rest. </em>29 Dec. 1660 as 5th duke of NORFOLK |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Mar. 1627, 1st s. of Henry Frederick Howard, <em>styled</em> Lord Mautravers, (later 22nd or 15th earl of Arundel, and Surrey) and Elizabeth, da. of Esme Stuart, 3rd duke of Lennox [S]; bro. of Henry Howard*, later 6th duke of Norfolk. <em>educ</em>. Utrecht. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. Dec. 1677.</p> |
|
|
<p>Thomas Howard appears to have suffered catastrophic brain damage as a result of an illness contracted in 1645 whilst travelling in Italy with his grandfather also named Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup> (earl of Arundel and Surrey).<sup>1</sup> A commission of lunacy issued in 1654 refers to his having been in a state of lunacy ‘by visitation of god’ only since 30 July 1653, but it is probable that the need to have him formally declared a lunatic related to questions of inheritance after his father’s death rather than to the actual onset of mental disability.<sup>2</sup> Howard was cared for by an English ‘governor’, Henry Yerbury, who was allowed £120 a year for his maintenance.<sup>3</sup> Howard’s lunacy was probably convenient for the family since it protected the estates from sequestration on grounds of delinquency. Allegations that Howard was not a lunatic but was a Protestant being detained at the instigation of his Catholic brother (and heir) Henry Howard, later 6th duke of Norfolk, for nefarious purposes, resulted in 1659 in Parliament ordering his return to England.<sup>4</sup> The order was not carried out and such evidence as is available suggests that the allegations were unfounded. They seem to have originated with William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, who had a claim on the estate.<sup>5</sup> Similar allegations made in 1674, and again after his death in 1677, also seem to have resulted from family disputes over the distribution of the estate.<sup>6</sup> Despite his mental incapacity, Howard was restored to the dukedom of Norfolk, which had been forfeited in 1572, by an act of the Convention in 1660 and confirmed by a second act in 1661. The acts contained the equivalent of a special remainder, ensuring that the succession to the dukedom would pass to his younger brother, Henry.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, Thomas (1682-1725) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1682–1725)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 30 Mar. 1695 (a minor) as 6th Bar. HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM |
|
First sat 9 Nov. 1703; last sat 15 Dec. 1724 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 7 July 1682, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Francis Howard*, 5th Bar. Howard of Effingham, and Philadelphia, da. of Sir Thomas Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Laughton, Suss; bro. of Francis Howard<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Effingham.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1701–2 (Italy and Austia).<sup>2</sup> <em>m. </em>(1) 25 Feb. 1707, Mary (<em>d</em>.1718), da. and h. of Ruishe Wentworth of Sarre, Kent, and Ireland, 2da.; (2) 25 Jan. 1722, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1741), da. of John Rotherham of Much Waltham, Essex, and wid. of Sir Theophilus Napier, 5th bt. <em>s.p. d</em>. 10 July 1725; <em>will</em> 14 May 1725, pr. 5 Aug. 1725.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber to Prince George*, of Denmark, 1706–8.</p><p>Officer, 1st tp. of Horse Gds. 1706.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Thomas Howard, who, like other members of his dynasty was known by the territorial appellation of Effingham rather than as Lord Howard, was well connected to the political and aristocratic elite. On his father’s side he was related to the earls of Carlisle and the dukes of Norfolk; through his mother he was connected to the Pelhams. His parliamentary career up to 1715 was somewhat inactive and has been confused by the concurrent presence in the House of Lords of his kinsman Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick.</p><p>Effingham was already reputed to be of Whiggish political sentiments when he took his seat at the first opportunity after attaining his majority. He attended the session for 55 per cent of sittings. Early in November 1703 and again on 26 Nov. he was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland as being opposed to the legislation against occasional conformity; on 14 Dec. 1703 he duly voted against the bill. Throughout the winter of 1703 and spring of 1704, he dined on almost a daily basis with the Whig Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>5</sup> Effingham attended the session for the last time on 22 Mar. 1704, missing the last week of business before the prorogation. On 24 Oct. 1704 he was present for the first day of the new session and thereafter attended one-third of all sittings. His attendance was at best sporadic and on 23 Nov. he was noted at a call of the House as being excused attendance. He was present during the passage of the re-introduced occasional conformity bill and continued to attend in fits and starts until the prorogation on 14 Mar. 1705.</p><p>Effingham attended the first (1705–6) session of the new Parliament for 34 per cent of sittings. He was not recorded as being present on 6 Dec. 1705 for the ‘Church in danger’ debate, but quite possibly came into the chamber after prayers since a division list records, plausibly, that he voted with the Whigs in favour of the motion that the Church was not in danger. His main involvement in the business of the House was personal: on 19 Feb. 1706 for the first and only time he reported from a committee, the bill under consideration being for the benefit of William Hugessen, who was married to his wife’s kinswoman Elizabeth Adye.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Although the Junto was in need of Whig support in the Lords, Effingham attended for only 22 per cent of sittings in the 1706–7 session. On 30 Dec. 1706 he helped to introduce both William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, and his own kinsman Thomas Pelham*, Baron Pelham of Laughton. On 11 Jan. 1707, in company with the Catholic Thomas Howard*, 8th duke of Norfolk, and the non-juror Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, he attended the funeral of the Tory Henry Grahme<sup>‡</sup>. Grahme’s mother was a Howard and the two men were also connected through the court of Prince George (from which Grahme had been dismissed the previous year). Another member of the House who attended the funeral was Grahme’s Cumberland neighbour, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, with whom Effingham often exchanged visits and correspondence.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Somewhat oddly Effingham appears to have registered a proxy in favour of the court Whig Robert Darcy*, 3rd earl of Holdernesse, on Sunday 2 Feb. 1707. If he did so, the proxy was technically vacated the following day when Effingham attended the House. On 19 Feb. he attended the session for the last time, missing the last seven weeks of business, when the union with Scotland was the most pressing item on the parliamentary agenda. He does not appear to have registered his proxy again for this period, nor did he attend the brief session of April 1707. He resumed his seat on 6 Nov. for the 1707–8 session, of which he attended 30 per cent of sittings. After the dissolution a printed list of peers’ party allegiances recorded him inaccurately as being a ‘papist’, probably confusing him with his kinsman and namesake, Norfolk.</p><p>Effingham attended a third of sittings in the 1708–9 session. On 21 Jan. 1709 it was thought that he might vote with the Tories over the voting rights of Scottish peers, although, given his ongoing closeness to Ossulston, it seems unlikely that he would have broken ranks with the Whigs at this time. He was also involved in attempts to convert Norfolk, visiting William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, in February 1709 (together with Henry Howard*, earl of Bindon) to ask for the bishop’s assistance in bringing over ‘the head of their family’ to the Church of England. Wake agreed to debate the issues with Norfolk and a Catholic priest but Norfolk appears to have changed his mind and the attempt at conversion was abandoned.<sup>8</sup> Effingham did not attend the Junto meeting of 17 Mar. 1709 hosted by Ossulston to discuss the Scottish treason bill, but he dined with Ossulston two days later.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Effingham missed the first part of the winter session of 1709–10, even though a complaint of breach of privilege was presented on his behalf on 19 Dec. 1709. Surprisingly, the complaint does not appear to have aroused any controversy, despite concerning a dispute over lands in Ireland rather than in either England or Scotland and which appear to have been the subject of an action in the Irish court of chancery. Effingham also alleged that the actions he complained of occurred while he was attending the Westminster Parliament on 17 Feb. 1709, although his last recorded attendance that month was on 14 February. The House upheld his petition, ordering the offender to be taken into custody by the serjeant-at-arms and the sheriff of co. Meath to restore Effingham’s lands.<sup>10</sup> Effingham came to the House only once that session, on 9 Jan. 1710 but the parliamentary agenda for that day offers no obvious explanation for his decision to attend. He missed the entire trial of Henry Sacheverell and when the Lords divided on the verdict on 20 Mar. 1710, Effingham was noted as being in the country.</p><p>Following the dissolution in Sept. 1710, Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, calculated the amount of support on which he could rely in the Lords. He listed Effingham as a court Whig who was unlikely to support the new Tory ministry. Effingham attended the new Parliament on 27 Nov. 1710, the third day of business, but again came to the House only sporadically, this time for 24 per cent of sittings. On 3 May 1711 he attended for the last time that session, later joining Henry Herbert*, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, at the Queen’s Arms, together with his long-standing friend Ossulston.<sup>11</sup> Four days later Effingham registered his proxy in favour of John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr; it was vacated at the end of the session on 12 June 1711.</p><p>In advance of the winter 1711 session, Effingham registered his proxy in favour of Pelham of Laughton. It was not required since Effingham attended the House on the first day of business on 7 Dec.; he was present thereafter for 21 per cent of sittings. On 2 Dec. 1711 he was listed by Oxford as one of the peers to be canvassed before the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion and on 10 Dec. Effingham predictably voted against the ministry. On 19 Dec. he was also listed by Oxford as being a probable opponent in the Hamilton peerage vote the following day. Yet, in the new year, Effingham was listed by Oxford as a possible supporter, a calculation almost certainly reflective of the former’s straitened financial circumstances. Effingham had been award a royal pension but payment had been in arrears since June 1710, probably as part of a deliberate political strategy by Oxford.<sup>12</sup></p><p>On 28 May 1712, in the vote on the restraining orders given to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, Effingham joined a number of other court Whigs to vote with the ministry.<sup>13</sup> On 7 June, after the queen’s speech in the House on the succession, Effingham was again one of the lords who abstained from voting as a result of court manipulation.<sup>14</sup> Three days later he attended the session for the last time, missing the remainder of business before the prorogation on 8 July.</p><p>It may be no coincidence that, with Effingham’s arrears of pension paid up at Christmas 1712, in mid-March 1713 Swift again listed him as an opponent of the ministry. Yet he did not attend the following session, his absence perhaps prompted by renewed difficulty in securing payment of his pension. During May and June 1713 he was listed by Oxford as a likely opponent of the French Commercial Treaty. On 5 Jan. 1714 he was pleased to hear from one correspondent that the queen held ‘a good opinion’ of him; he was also anxious to present his ‘duty’ to Oxford and expressed satisfaction on learning that his arrears were to be paid.<sup>15</sup></p><p>After Parliament assembled in Feb. 1714, Effingham attended the session on only three days: 29 Apr. (to take the oaths), 1 May, and 12 May 1714. Just why he chose to attend on those days is unclear. His absences are perhaps easier to explain, suggesting a desire to avoid overtly partisan divisions in the House. He was absent in April for the critical votes on the supposed danger to the Protestant succession and the queen’s response. On 13 May 1714, the day after visiting the House for the last time that session, he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax (vacated with the prorogation on 9 July). Despite his dalliance with Oxford, it seems that he remained a supporter of the Whigs: in May 1714 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast that Effingham would oppose the Tory schism bill.</p><p>Effingham did not attend the brief Parliament in August 1714 following the death of the queen. His political and parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next part of this work. He died at Spa in July 1725, in comfortable financial circumstances, leaving his extensive landed estates in trust for the benefit of his second wife, Elizabeth. She (who later married Conyers Darcy<sup>‡</sup>) was named as sole executor. Effingham was buried at Lingfield on 4 Aug. 1725 and, in the absence of male offspring, was succeeded by his brother Francis as 7th Baron Howard of Effingham (later earl of Effingham).</p> |
B.A. |
|
HOWARD, Thomas (1683-1732) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1683–1732)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>uncle 2 Apr. 1701 (a minor) as 8th duke of NORFOLK |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Dec. 1683, s. and h. of Lord Thomas Howard of Worksop, Notts. and Mary Elizabeth, da. of Sir John Savile, bt. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (inc. Italy), 1703-5.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 26 May 1709 (with £30,000), Mary Winifreda Francisca, da. of Sir Nicholas Shireburn (Sherborne) bt., of Stonyhurst, Lancs., <em>s.p. d</em>. 23 Dec. 1732; <em>will</em> 26 May-6 June 1730, pr. 27 Jan. 1733.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Grand master, Grand Lodge of England 1729-30.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: Oil on canvas by Richard van Bleeck, 1725, Burton Constable Hall, E. Yorks.</p> |
<p>Thomas Howard’s father, also named Thomas Howard, was a younger brother of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. This Thomas Howard threw his lot in with James II. He fought with his king in Ireland and was drowned on 5 Dec. 1690 as he attempted to escape to France. Like others who were in arms for James II, he was due to be attainted by process of outlawry, but since he died before his outlawry was formally pronounced, his brother, Norfolk, argued that the attainder was erroneous and secured a writ of error to reverse it.<sup>4</sup> The young Thomas Howard thus escaped the consequences of his father’s actions.</p><p>The young Thomas Howard was raised as a Catholic at the court in exile in France (where his mother was governess to the prince of Wales). His Catholicism was used as a lever by his childless uncle, Norfolk, to secure support for his divorce bill which, he argued, would enable him to remarry and provide instead a protestant heir to his dukedom.<sup>5</sup> Norfolk’s untimely death meant that he was succeeded by his Catholic nephew after all. There were soon rumours that the new duke might follow his uncle’s example and abandon Catholicism.<sup>6</sup> Nevertheless, when he came of age in 1704 his failure to take the oaths suggested that he was indeed a committed Catholic. Early in 1706 an attempt to tighten the laws that disabled Catholics from inheriting landed estates prompted Norfolk to petition the House against the proposed bill.<sup>7</sup> At or about this time he was in secret negotiations for a marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury. When her brother, Charles, the future 3rd earl, discovered the intrigue he was horrified. He insisted that he would never give his consent to her marrying a Catholic, though he seems to have been just as worried about the ‘worldly concerns’ of Catholics who were ‘in a very precarious way’, as about their religious beliefs, citing the bill to limit their rights of inheritance which was then before Parliament.<sup>8</sup> It was presumably the financial aspects of such a marriage that most worried him, for two years later Elizabeth married the Catholic George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan, and at that point Charles Bruce cannot have known that his new brother-in-law would eventually convert to Protestantism.</p><p>Norfolk’s financial position is unclear. At his accession to the dukedom he was said to have inherited an estate worth £12,000 a year, ‘which is but the third part of what that family had’. His determination to live up to his status – he was reported to live ‘great both in table and equipage’ – seems to have imposed a strain on his finances, and by 1706 he appears to have been contemplating selling land.<sup>9</sup> He seems to have been determined to secure a wealthy wife. By September 1706 he was said to be angling after Sir Nicholas Shireburn’s daughter, then aged only 13.<sup>10</sup> Two years later he was said to be on the verge of marriage to a still wealthier Catholic heiress.<sup>11</sup> Hopes of his conversion still persisted and in the spring of 1709 various Protestant relations tried to persuade him to meet William Wake*, then bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), ‘in order’ as Wake recorded in his diary ‘to the gaining the head of their family … to our Church’.<sup>12</sup> The attempt had been engineered by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and it was to Somerset that Norfolk wrote that,</p><blockquote><p>Having considered that the meeting which was to have been at your lordships can have no effect, since I am fully convinced of what I believe to be entirely true, and fearing such a meeting should make a noise, as it needs must, I hope your lordship won’t take it amiss, if I desire it may be put off. I should be sorry to trouble the Bishop of Lincoln for nothing.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>In May 1709 Norfolk’s adherence to Catholicism was underlined by his marriage to Mary Shireburn, the wealthy heiress that he had courted in 1706.</p><p>The Norfollk electoral interest, already diminished by the sale of the pocket borough of Castle Rising to Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup>, the son of Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>, in 1695, continued to decline during the 8th duke’s lifetime.<sup>14</sup> Presumably preferring to concentrate on repairing his estates, until 1727 he ‘seldom intervened in elections’.<sup>15</sup> Bolstered by his wife’s fortune, he increased his wealth through commercial investments and headed at least one consortium to exploit mineral resources in Argyllshire.<sup>16</sup> In 1720 he secured an act of Parliament regarding the fee simple of Arundel Buildings and his estates in Norfolk and Suffolk.<sup>17</sup> Another act of Parliament in 1724 allowed him to develop lands in the Westminster parish of St Clements Danes.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Norfolk and his duchess both espoused the Jacobite cause, funnelling money to the exiled court, but Norfolk’s support was considerably more lukewarm than that of his wife. The duke became a member of the mock corporation of Walton in Lancashire, a social club with decided Jacobite overtones. Another leading member was James Radclyffe*, the Catholic 3rd earl of Derwentwater who was executed in 1716 for his part in the Jacobite rebellion of the previous year.<sup>19</sup> Norfolk’s brother and heir, Edward Howard*, the future 9th duke of Norfolk, was also implicated in the 1715 rebellion. Norfolk’s involvement in attempts to save his brother and in the abortive negotiations prompted by Thomas Strickland (the Catholic bishop of Namur) for a compromise oath that would allow English Catholics to swear allegiance to the new king, broke his marriage and left him in an awkward position, not quite trusted by the Jacobites nor yet by the Hanoverians. The Jacobites complained that he was in a position to contribute far more money than he did to the cause; the Hanoverian ministry arrested him in October 1722 on suspicion of involvement in the Atterbury plot.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Norfolk continued to play a prominent role in the social life of the metropolis. He was welcome at court and hosted weekly assemblies at his London house.<sup>21</sup> His eagerness to participate in public life continued to prompt rumours that he would renounce Catholicism. When he died at the age of only 49 of an acutely painful and lingering illness that puzzled his doctors, it was even said that ‘he was poisoned by the Jesuits some months since, on account of his having made some declarations that carried the appearance as if he intended to turn Protestant’.<sup>22</sup> Dying without issue, Norfolk’s complex will confirmed the entail of his estates in Norfolk, Suffolk and Nottinghamshire which went in large part to his brother Edward Howard, his successor in the dukedom and sole executor. A codicil bequeathed cash sums totalling more than £7,000 to his mother, brother Philip, cousins Bernard and Betty, and William Stafford-Howard<sup>†</sup>, the Catholic 2nd earl of Stafford.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
HOWARD, William (1612-80) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1612–80)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>12 Sept. 1640 Bar. STAFFORD; <em>cr. </em>11 Nov. 1640 Visct. STAFFORD |
|
First sat 12 Jan. 1641; first sat after 1660, 15 May 1660 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Nov. 1612, 5th but 2nd surv. s. of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Arundel and Aletheia, 3rd da. and coh. of Gilbert Talbot<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Shrewsbury; uncle of Thomas Howard*, 5th duke of Norfolk, and of Henry Howard*, 6th duke of Norfolk; and gt.-uncle of Henry Howard*, (later 7th duke of Norfolk). <em>educ</em>. privately (Samuel Harsnett) 1620–3; St John’s, Camb. 1624. <em>m</em>. 22 Oct. 1637,<sup>1</sup> Mary, da. of Edward Stafford<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Stafford, 3s. 6da. KB 1626. <em>Executed</em> 29 Dec. 1680.</p> |
<p>Commr. ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 1633.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: miniature, watercolour on vellum, by unknown artist, NPG 2015.</p> |
<p><em>Marriage and money </em></p><p>William Howard entered early into public life, serving on Charles I’s Commission of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and accompanying his father in his embassy to Germany in 1636 and Holland in 1637. As a younger son his expectations should have been limited but he nevertheless managed to rack up debts of either £6,000–£7,000 (by his own reckoning) or £2,300 (according to his nephews) by the time he was 25 years old.<sup>2</sup> The death of the young Henry Stafford<sup>†</sup>, 5th Baron Stafford, on 4 Aug. 1637 provided an answer to his financial problems. Henry Stafford’s sister Mary inherited the Stafford estates. Like her brother she was a ward of William Howard’s father, who was thus ideally placed to secure the Stafford estates for his son by arranging for him to marry the heiress. William Howard later claimed that his marriage settlement included a promise from his father to pay his debts, as well as to provide him with an annuity of £520 a year.<sup>3</sup> This unfulfilled promise later provided the background to bitter disputes within the family.</p><p>Although brought up a Protestant, William Howard had become a Catholic, presumably through the influence of his mother. Against Arundel’s wishes, but by the connivance of Lady Arundel, Mary and William were married by a Catholic priest.<sup>4</sup> Not content with the Stafford estates, Arundel was also determined to obtain the barony for his son. The heir male was a distant and impoverished cousin, Roger Stafford, but Arundel claimed that William Howard was entitled to the barony in right of his wife. The contesting claims were submitted to the king on 1 Dec. 1637, when Stafford undertook to abide by the king’s decision. In referring the matter to a commission, Charles I specifically drew attention to Stafford’s unfitness for a peerage by virtue of his ‘very mean and obscure condition’ and in September 1639 he instructed Stafford to surrender the barony, which was accordingly effected by fine early in Hilary term 1640.<sup>5</sup> Roger Stafford seems to have died shortly after, so that the legality of the submission was never tested by the House. In September 1640 Howard and his wife were created Baron and Baroness Stafford by letters patent, with a controversial proviso that they were to enjoy the precedency of the ancient barony. When it became clear that the precedency of the barony would be challenged, the king removed any cause for debate by promoting Stafford to a viscountcy.<sup>6</sup> As a result of his marriage and his Howard inheritances, Stafford held substantial estates in Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, and Bedfordshire, but they were so heavily encumbered with debt that it is difficult to be sure either of their capital value or of his income from them.</p><p><em>Civil wars and Interregnum</em></p><p>Stafford’s movements during the period of the civil wars and Interregnum are difficult to reconstruct. He was probably still in England in May 1642 for he mentioned the conciliatory speech in Parliament of John Digby<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bristol, in a letter to his mother.<sup>7</sup> However, he was living in Antwerp by August 1642. Various orders of the House suggest that in the period 1646–7 he was regularly travelling between England and mainland Europe.<sup>8</sup> Although he was later said to have been bitterly disappointed at the restored king’s failure to reward him for his sufferings, it is unlikely that he ever took up arms in favour of the royalist cause; when his estates suffered sequestration in 1649 it was for recusancy rather than for delinquency.<sup>9</sup></p><p>By the autumn of 1652 he was in Germany, where he was arrested on a charge relating to immorality by order of the Elector Palatine and imprisoned at Heidelberg. The nature of the charge remains obscure but Evelyn’s choice of words – ‘a vice that need not be named’ – mimics the legal description of sodomy, suggesting that the particular immorality of which he was accused was unlikely to have been a heterosexual one.<sup>10</sup> Lady Arundel ranked the accusation alongside the deaths of her husband and eldest son and the brain damage suffered by her grandson as one of the four great tragedies of her life. It cost her some £3,000 to secure Stafford’s freedom, and ‘Notwithstanding she could not but know the cause of his restraint … she would never confess or seem to believe it.’<sup>11</sup></p><p>After his release Stafford went to live with his mother in Amsterdam. He was outlawed for failing to respond to an action by one of his creditors in October 1654.<sup>12</sup> He later contested this, claiming that he had then been resident in Westminster for several years, but it is clear that he was with his mother when she died in Amsterdam in May 1654 and had been living with her for some time.<sup>13</sup> Whether he did or did not use undue influence in order to persuade her, when virtually comatose, to leave him the bulk of her goods or whether he simply fabricated the whole tale were questions that were to be fought through several courts over many years and which became inextricably mixed with Stafford’s resentments over his father’s disposition of his estate. The quarrels and Stafford’s refusal to abide by negotiated settlements left a lasting legacy of enmity between him and his nephews, Henry (the future 6th duke of Norfolk) and Charles. In the course of the dispute Sir Edward Walker, one of the few witnesses who seems to have been genuinely independent, remarked that Lady Arundel considered Stafford to be of ‘careless and expensive disposition’ and that she had commented on ‘his disaffection to business’. Accordingly, she employed her young grandson Charles Howard to manage her estates in preference to Stafford.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Part of Stafford’s strategy during the dispute with his nephews was to demand that their older brother, the severely brain-damaged Thomas Howard (earl of Arundel and the future 5th duke of Norfolk), be returned to England from Italy. The way he went about this suggests more than a little double dealing. In a letter to his wife written in the summer of 1654 Stafford wrote that ‘I hope, and doubt not, but that so much discretion will be used, as no occasion will be given to have it made appear more publicly to the world what a condition he is in.’<sup>15</sup> That this remark was a threat rather than conciliatory became apparent a year later when he not only challenged the legality of the commission that had declared Arundel to be a lunatic but also made several serious allegations about the way in which he was cared for. Stafford claimed that his nephew Henry Howard was ‘a man of a violent passion and whose hand is already dipped in blood’ who was interested only in gaining and keeping control of the vast Norfolk family estates. To this end he kept Arundel ‘in a dungeon and sometimes in chains’, in what amounted to a condition of ‘slavery’.<sup>16</sup> Stafford made a further attempt to have Arundel returned to England in 1659.<sup>17</sup> His allegations seem to have been decisively refuted by a report from a committee of the Lords on 13 Nov. 1660 to the effect that Arundel was kept in the best house in Padua, attended by a physician and 12 servants ‘and all things fitting for his quality’. Descriptions of Arundel’s condition preserved among the family papers leave no doubt that the young man had suffered catastrophic brain damage and was severely mentally incapacitated.<sup>18</sup></p><p><em>House of Lords workhorse, 1660–78</em></p><p>Stafford’s confession in 1680 includes the information that early in 1660 he waited on Charles II at Breda in hopes of securing an indulgence for Catholics, an issue that would remain close to his heart for the rest of his life.<sup>19</sup> He was probably back in England by March for that was when the arbitrators met to try and settle the disputes between Stafford and his nephews over Countess Alatheia’s will.<sup>20</sup> Although he did not take his seat in the Convention until 15 May he attended Parliament on 3 May in connection with his dispute with Henry Howard over the detention of Arundel in Padua, when the House referred the matter to the committee for privileges. He took his seat on 15 May 1660. From the outset he was clearly a prominent and energetic member of the House. Yet, while it is easy to build up a catalogue of his extensive parliamentary activities, it is difficult to be sure that his contributions were valued. Very little survives in terms of his own family papers and he is rarely mentioned in the correspondence of other peers. As would become apparent at his trial in 1680, he was a relatively isolated figure whose social and political circle was probably restricted to fellow members of the elite Catholic community.</p><p>Once he had taken his seat Stafford was present on over 92 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session. On 30 June 1660 he obtained an order from the House for the restoration of his goods and on 2 July was added to the subcommittee for petitions. During the course of the session he was named to 14 select committees. On 10 Sept. he complained of a breach of privilege of peerage arising from the actions of William Foster and John Walker in taking possession of lands in the manors of Wyboston and Soke in Bedfordshire. This related to a long-running dispute over security for a debt contracted as far back as 1639.<sup>21</sup> On 17 Nov. he was added to the subcommittee for the Journal. On 8 Dec. he dissented to the second reading of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell and protested against its third reading on 13 December. Although he was not recorded as being named to the committee to consider the Piedmont Collection bill, he reported from it on 15 Dec. and entered a lone protest against the passing of the bill to abolish the court of wards on 20 December.</p><p>During the 1661–2 session of the Cavalier Parliament, Stafford was present nearly every day. He was added to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions, and the Journal as well as to 44 select committees, including that for his future son-in-law John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester. On 25 June he again claimed privilege in connection with his Bedfordshire lands. In July he was expected to vote against the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the lord chamberlaincy. He chaired two meetings of the committee for privileges on 15 July,<sup>22</sup> while on 17 July he again protested at the bill to vacate Sir Edward Powell’s fines. On 19 July he was the only member of the house to dissent to the passing of John Orlibeare’s bill.</p><p>He chaired a further meeting of the committee for privileges on 26 July and the following day became the only member of the House to dissent to the passage of the act for restoring ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He also protested, on 6 Feb. 1662, at the decision to allow Derby’s bill to pass into law. The following day he chaired a single meeting of the committee for the tenants of Clitheroe bill. During March 1662 he chaired a meeting of the committee for privileges and two meetings of the committee on the Protestants of Piedmont bill on 10 and 11 Mar. from which he reported to the House on 12 March.<sup>23</sup> He also made a further complaint of privilege on 28 Apr. concerning incursions on his lands in Bedfordshire in defiance of the House’s previous order. On 19 May he entered a protest against accepting the Commons’ rejection of provisos concerning the repair of two bridges in the Highways bill because it implied accepting the Commons’ claim to have sole rights of taxation.</p><p>During the 1663 session Stafford was present on nearly 90 per cent of sitting days. He held the proxy of his fellow Catholic William Stourton*, 11th baron Stourton, from 20 Feb. 1663 to the end of the session. The pattern of his activity in previous sessions was repeated. He was named to the sessional committees as well as to 20 select committees dealing with subjects that varied from the registration of descents to glass bottles, from congestion in the streets to naturalization, from family settlements to the observation of the Sabbath, from the herring fishery to the Bedford Level, and which took in the grant of revenues to James*, duke of York, on the way. On 14 Mar. 1663 he complained of breach of privilege in connection with a suit affecting his title to lands in the manor of Brockton in Shropshire. According to Wharton he was expected to vote in favour of the attempt to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>In January 1664 Stafford petitioned the crown for the restoration of his wife to the earldom of Stafford but without success. In the course of 1663 he had managed to win the support of the king in his dispute over his parents’ estate but that support was now withdrawn.<sup>24</sup> Stafford’s attendance during the brief spring 1664 session fell to 75 per cent. He was appointed to the sessional committees and to five select committees.</p><p>Stafford was present every day of the 1664–5 session and was again added to the sessional committees as well as to 15 select committees. He was clearly an active committee member: he chaired several sessions of four of these committees.<sup>25</sup> He did not attend the brief session of October 1665 and although he was present for the prorogation day on 23 Apr. he was also absent for the 1666–7 session, probably because he was abroad. He travelled to the Hague in August 1666 and by November 1667 was at Louvain in what is now Belgium, from whence he wrote to his son Henry Howard*, (later Stafford-Howard, earl of Stafford), encouraging him to attend Parliament ‘for it will be advantageous to you, especially this sessions, which as I hear is like to have much business, and I pray send me a particular account, in particular of what concerns my Lord Clarendon’.<sup>26</sup> At a call of the House on 17 Feb. 1668 it was noted that he had left a proxy. The entry presumably meant that Stafford intended to send his proxy for it was not until 13 Mar. that Stafford’s future son-in-law, Winchester, reported receiving the proxy and asked the House for its opinion as to whether a peer outside the realm could assign a proxy or not. The matter was referred to the committee for privileges; the proxy was never registered.</p><p>Stafford was next present on the prorogation day, 1 Mar. 1669. In April his links to the Catholic and royalist community were reinforced by the marriage of his 25-year-old daughter Isabella to Winchester, a man who was some 14 years older than her own father. Stafford resumed his regular attendance when the new session commenced on 19 Oct., missing only two days of the short session. He was again appointed to the sessional committees and was named to four select committees. He held Stourton’s proxy from 26 Oct. and another from Winchester (6 Nov.) to the end of the session. On 22 Nov. he was one of four peers who entered a dissent at the passage of the bill concerning privilege and judicature in Parliament.</p><p>He was present every day of the 1670–1 session, reporting with some satisfaction in mid-February that ‘the old royal and loyal party are so firmly united that they bear all before them’.<sup>27</sup> He was again appointed to the sessional committees, and to over 40 select committees on bills before the House, chairing two of them (Stroude and the dowager countess of Southampton’s bill and Lord Irwin’s bill).<sup>28</sup> As in previous sessions they covered a wide variety of subjects but it is clear that he had a personal interest in at least some of them. The bill for Thomas Leigh*, Baron Leigh, for example, concerned the lands of a Staffordshire neighbour; another bill was promoted by a kinsman, Sir Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>. His nephew, the future 6th duke of Norfolk, was involved in two bills, as a trustee for Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, and for the development of Arundel House, though given the difficult relationship between the two men, his appointment to these committees may have been obstructive rather than facilitative.</p><p>On 17 Mar. 1670 Stafford entered a dissent to the passage of the Roos divorce. He held Winchester’s proxy from 19 March. During the autumn he was involved in trying to secure an act to confirm an agreement settling the customs of his manors in Gloucestershire; he was not only named to the committee for the bill on 9 Nov. 1670 but also appeared as a witness before it.<sup>29</sup> On 24 Nov. he reported from the committee for privileges in a privilege dispute involving Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland. On 16 Mar. 1671, in a case that concerned the validity of appeals from the court of claims in Ireland to the House of Lords at Westminster, Stafford entered a dissent to the resolution to suspend judgment against John Cusack for two months. Although no reasons were given, the implication is that the dissenting peers believed that such a jurisdiction did exist.</p><p>Stafford was present on every day of the first 1673 session and again held Winchester’s proxy. He was appointed to the sessional committees and to ten select committees. On the final day of the session he stood supporter at the introduction of Thomas Osborne*, (later duke of Leeds) as Viscount Latimer and of Robert Paston*, as Viscount Yarmouth. He was then present every day of the brief sessions in autumn 1673 and spring 1674 and was again added to the sessional committees and to several select committees. On 29 Jan. 1674 he was appointed as one of the mediators in the privilege dispute between the dowager marchioness of Worcester and William Hall. From 2 Feb. he held Winchester’s proxy.</p><p>Early in April 1675 Danby (as Latimer had since become) listed Stafford as a potential supporter of the non-resisting test. Stafford was again present on every day of the first session of 1675, and his pattern of activity was very similar to that of previous sessions. He was appointed to the sessional committees and named to eight select committees. On 5 May he entered a lone dissent to the passage of the act for the explanation of an act for preventing dangers which may happen by popish recusants. On 27 May he entered another lone protest against the decision of the House to agree to a conference arising from Sir Nicholas Stoughton’s appeal against Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he joined with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in a protest against the dismissal of the appeal of Sir Nicholas Crispe and others against the dowager Lady Cranborne.</p><p>Stafford was absent for the entirety of the second session of 1675. At a call of the House on 10 Nov. he was said to be abroad, but according to evidence given at his trial he returned to England at Christmas. He was at Bath the following summer.<sup>30</sup> He resumed his parliamentary attendance on 15 Feb. 1677, the first day of the 1677–8 session, and was then present on all but three days of the session. Once again he was named to the sessional committees; he was also named to 50 select committees. On 22 Feb. 1677 he reported from the committee considering the bill of William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard. On 7 Mar. he entered a lone dissent to the third reading of the bill to explain the Act concerning popish recusants. Six days later he joined the small group of peers who protested against engrossing the bill for further securing the Protestant religion and entered another protest on 15 Mar. when the bill passed its third reading. On 30 Mar. he delivered the answer of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, to the petition of Sir Scroope How requesting a waiver of privilege. On the same day he entered a lone protest against the third reading of the bill for more the effectual conviction of popish recusants. On 3 Apr. he was appointed one of the mediators to settle the dispute between Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and his wife. On 14 Apr. he was named as a mediator in the dispute between Rutland and How. He also entered another lone dissent to the passage of the fire in Southwark judicature bill. Unsurprisingly, in May Shaftesbury dubbed him as either a doubly or triply vile papist.</p><p><em>On trial: Stafford and the Popish Plot 1678–80</em></p><p>In August 1677, in the midst of a long period when Parliament was not sitting, Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> reported that Stafford had been to see the imprisoned Shaftesbury, apparently on behalf of James*, duke of York, and had suggested that the only way for him to secure his freedom was to turn Catholic.<sup>31</sup> On 28 Jan. 1678 he was a supporter at the introduction of his great-nephew, Henry Howard, under a writ of acceleration as Baron Mowbray. On 14 Feb. he entered a protest against the dismissal of the appeal of Dacre Barrett. During February he complained of a breach of privilege by John Cox, who had pastured nearly 40 beasts on Stafford’s property at Thornbury in Gloucestershire; Cox was discharged on making submission on 22 February. On 13 Mar. he entered another lone protest, this time against the poll bill, which was designed to raise money for the war against France, and on 27 Mar. he reported on Sir John Rivers’ bill. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Stafford was again present on every sitting day of the 1678 session that began in May. As usual he was added to the sessional committees, and named to a wide variety of select committees, 20 in all. On 3 July the House learned of a quarrel between Stafford and York’s ally, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and instructed them ‘not to resent any thing as passed between them this day’. On 10 July, together with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey. he entered a dissent at the resolution of the House to order relief to Louis Durfort de Duras*, earl of Feversham.</p><p>Stafford arrived on 21 Oct. 1678 for the beginning of the new session. Despite the unfolding revelations of a popish plot he was again added to the sessional committees and on 23 Oct. was named (along with everyone in the chamber) to the committee to investigate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s death. On 25 Oct. he informed the House that there was a warrant for his arrest as one of five Catholic peers accused of treason by Titus Oates, and he voluntarily surrendered himself into custody. Initially detained in the king’s bench prison, he was removed at the end of the month to the Tower, by request of the House.<sup>32</sup> Articles of impeachment were delivered to the House on 7 Apr. 1679; counsel were assigned on 9 and 12 April. On 16 Apr. Stafford, like the other accused peers, entered a plea objecting to the generality of the charges against him and on 26 Apr. he entered a formal plea of not guilty. His trial was scheduled for May but it was delayed by squabbles over the impeachment of Danby. On 15 May 1679 the House ordered a search of his house at Tart Hall and on 21 May it assigned him additional counsel.</p><p>Squabbles over the procedures for impeachment, particularly those relating to the trial of Danby, meant that the trials of the Catholic peers were repeatedly postponed. To some this smacked of favouritism and suggested an intimacy with prominent figures at court: as proof of this, John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, later Viscount Fermanagh [I], told his father that Stafford knew of the prorogation in autumn 1679 long before most members of the Privy Council, but he was almost certainly wrong for there is little indication that Stafford had any communication with the court.<sup>33</sup> In May 1680 Stafford himself pushed matters further forward when he applied to the king’s bench for a writ of <em>habeas corpus</em>. Bidding for the moral high ground he cited the words of Magna Carta ‘that justice and right should not be denied or deferred to any man’. He argued, with some justification, that impeachments could not be held over from one session to another and that his request was for ‘no more than the known law, which was as much due unto every cobbler as unto me, and that what I demanded was no more than what was due to every subject who were every one as much concerned in their freedom as myself’. He also claimed that his prolonged imprisonment had damaged his estate and health ‘having almost lost the sight of one of my eyes’. The application was refused. Stafford was at pains to correct the report in the <em>Gazette</em> which stated that the judges said they could not grant the writ. According to him they had said that it was ‘not fit’ for them to grant it because Parliament was scheduled to meet on 1 July and had recommended that he apply to the king for his liberty instead.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Early in November, when Stafford learned that he was at last to be tried, he petitioned the House about the behaviour of the lieutenant of the Tower. The complaint seems to have been largely based on a perception that he was being treated with a lack of respect. The lieutenant had told him that he could not talk to the other imprisoned Catholic peers and moved him to a warder’s house. This was a matter both of honour and of practicality. Stafford insisted that he had ‘never heard that persons of our quality before were lodged in warders’ houses’ and that as a result he was no longer able to eat with his daughter, who was also lodged in the Tower. When he asked for permission to consult the relevant records, it was refused on the grounds that his counsel could do it, even though ‘I said my counsel could not come so often being employed at the other end of the town’.<sup>35</sup> His petition was read on 18 Nov. and the House deputed his kinsmen Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, and William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, to enquire further into the matter. Two days later Howard of Escrick reported that he could find no evidence of any incivility to Stafford. In his memoirs James II insisted that Howard of Escrick was fishing for information to bolster the case for exclusion but there is no evidence to suggest that this was anything other than the product of James’s own paranoia.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Stafford was tried by the House of Lords sitting as the court of the lord high steward. Although to modern eyes much of the evidence against Stafford seems poor, there is little doubt that his contemporaries thought that the prosecution case against him was a strong one. To be successful a prosecution for treason required two witnesses; in Stafford’s case there were three. According to Colonel Cooke, ‘most think it will go hard with him, and that no other expedient (confession excepted) can save his lordship’.<sup>37</sup> The trial opened on 30 Nov. 1680. The evidence against Stafford consisted of various allegations of his having said and written that Catholicism was about ‘to come in’, an allegation by Oates that Stafford was to be paymaster general of the invading popish army, and an accusation by Stephen Dugdale that Stafford had offered him £500 to kill the king.</p><p>Although the recent acquittal of Sir George Wakeman suggested that the Popish Plot allegations might be running out of steam, Stafford virtually assured his own conviction by putting up an astonishingly poor defence. He began by pointing out that the prosecution had outlined a plot by Catholics but had advanced no proof that Stafford was one of them; that the peers knew him to be a Catholic was not pertinent. He returned to this point at the end of the trial, claiming that since he had been imprisoned after the passage of the Test Act his failure to take the oaths could not be used against him. He also demanded copies of affidavits so that he could compare the various versions of evidence given by the prosecution witnesses in order to detect inconsistencies and perjuries. It is clear from notes in Stafford’s possession that identifying inconsistencies in this way was a major part of his defence strategy, which makes it all the more remarkable that he had not obtained such copies before the trial. The prosecution was entirely justified in complaining that the most rational explanation for Stafford’s failure to obtain copies earlier was because he was using it as a time-wasting tactic. Even more foolishly, Stafford then went on to argue that the charge against him should fail because the delay in bringing him to trial meant that it was out of time. For some reason Stafford had concluded that he was charged under the statute for the safety of the king’s person, which required a charge to be brought within six months of the relevant event, rather than the main statute against treason of 25 Edward III. Such an insistence suggests that he was very poorly advised. To those who heard him make it, it almost certainly produced an impression of guilt, which was not dispelled by his examination of the witnesses against him.</p><p>The most telling evidence against Stafford was that of Stephen Dugdale, who claimed that Stafford had been present at a Jesuit ‘consult’ to discuss the assassination of the king at the house of his Staffordshire neighbour, Walter Aston, Lord Aston [S], at Tixall in late August or early September 1678, and that he had offered Dugdale money to kill the king at a meeting on 21 Sept. 1678. Stafford could prove that Dugdale had been dismissed by Aston and had threatened revenge against him but this scarcely provided a motive for Dugdale to lie about Stafford. Stafford could also prove that he was not at Tixall in August and did not arrive there until 12 Sept. but he could not deny that he had indeed had a private meeting with Dugdale on 21 September. All he could do was to deny the purpose of the meeting. His denials were almost certainly perceived to have been tainted because his fellow peers knew that he was an outspoken Catholic with a record of opposition to measures to prevent the growth of popery. It is a measure of his isolation that in calling witnesses to testify to discrepancies between the testimony given by Dugdale in his own case and in that given at Wakeman’s trial, Stafford was forced to rely on his daughter, Lady Winchester, and another kinswoman. He also made a fool of himself in challenging the evidence of Edward Turberville. Stafford insisted that an error in Turberville’s affidavit of 9 Nov. 1680 meant that he was perjured, even though Sir William Pulteney<sup>‡ </sup>testified that Turberville had voluntarily acknowledged the error and corrected it less than a day later. Stafford also accused him of being a coward and deserting his colours, even though Turberville was able to produce an honourable discharge.</p><p>Stafford’s most fluent and scathing attack came during his cross-examination of Oates. He insisted that Oates’s pretended Catholicism meant that his testimony was unreliable because ‘he pretends and dissembles with God almighty’ and ‘he was no Christian but a devil and a witness for the devil’. Stafford seems to have been completely unaware that the assembled Protestant peers were unlikely to share his outrage at the way in which Oates had trifled with Catholic sacraments. Stafford’s attempt to undermine Dugdale’s credibility also backfired on him. He was so badly prepared that he used witnesses whom he had never seen to attack Dugdale’s character and was then completely taken aback when the prosecution produced, among others, Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, and Stephen College to refute their allegations.</p><p>To undermine Turberville’s evidence Stafford picked on a circumstantial detail: Turberville’s description of Stafford as having been lame with gout and having put his foot up on a cushion. Stafford first claimed that he had not been lame for many years then admitted that he had been lame ‘with weariness’ but insisted that he had never put his foot on a cushion or a stool. Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, both testified that they had seen Stafford lame. It was almost unnecessary for Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup> to point out that a lame man was highly likely to put his foot up occasionally. In summing up his case, Stafford argued that the prosecution had not met the legal requirement for two witnesses to an overt act of treason. The witnesses had testified to different acts; offering rather than actually giving money as an inducement to kill the king could not be considered an overt act. He also argued that impeachments could not be held over from one Parliament to another.</p><p>There were a few who thought that Stafford’s defence, poor as it was, might result in an acquittal because of doubts about the credibility of the witnesses and the definition of an overt act. It was even reported that ‘many believe the better of my lord for his weak management, for never was a poorer defence made’.<sup>38</sup> Rather more agreed with Lady Manchester that it ‘was so well proved, that I believe not many was unsatisfied, except those, that out of favour to some of the party might wish it other ways’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>On 7 Dec. Stafford was found guilty by a vote of 55 to 31. York attributed the vote to malice against Stafford and the government but he was far away and those closer to the spot noted that Stafford had been found guilty by all but one of the gentlemen of the king’s bedchamber.<sup>40</sup> Stafford and York both drew parallels between his fate and that of the earl of Strafford in 1641 and the subsequent descent into civil war, but it seems that the king was genuinely convinced of Stafford’s guilt.<sup>41</sup> Predictions that Stafford would barter for his life by revealing full details of the plot proved ill-founded. His ‘confession’ simply confirmed what everyone already knew: that he had actively campaigned for the introduction of Catholicism and that he had done so in alliance with York. When he added that he had also conspired with Shaftesbury to bring about a toleration through the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament, Shaftesbury declared ‘that it was evident my Lord Stafford trifled with their lordships, for instead of making a discovery he justified his own innocency and abused their lordships’ and successfully moved that he be heard no more.<sup>42</sup> The standard sentence of being hanged, drawn, and quartered was commuted to one of beheading in respect of his noble status.<sup>43</sup></p><p>There is little doubt that, despite his record of attendance and commitment to the work of the House, Stafford was, in life, a deeply unpopular man.<sup>44</sup> In death he was rapidly transformed into a sacrificial figure. In his memoirs James II declared that ‘it was his misfortune to play his game worst when he had the best cards, or rather the will of god to shorten his life a few days, to crown him with the blessing of dying for his religion’.<sup>45</sup> Stafford himself seems to have regarded his imminent demise as a form of martyrdom for the faith: shortly before his death he commissioned a portrait in which he was to be depicted with ‘un rayon de gloire’.<sup>46</sup> A letter written to him shortly before his execution also glorified his coming martyrdom: ‘you are called from an abyss of misery to the top of felicity … it is palpably manifest you die for your religion’.<sup>47</sup> Dressed in white satin, he was beheaded on 29 Dec. 1680 before a crowd of some 20,000 people. Before dying he made a speech protesting his innocence and declaring his loyalty to the crown. Whether the speech was his own was doubted by at least one reporter, who declared it to be ‘drawn up in matter and style above his capacity’ and who attributed it instead to the priests who attended him to the scaffold.<sup>48</sup> Friends and enemies alike declared that he faced his execution ‘with great courage’. He died, wrote Edmund Verney, ‘like a Roman’.<sup>49</sup> Many of the Catholics who gathered to witness his death dabbed their handkerchiefs into his blood. Protestants, on the other hand, were offended to learn that he had been buried later under the rails of the communion table in the chapel of the Tower.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Stafford’s honours were extinguished by his conviction and execution. At Turberville’s death in 1681 it was reported that he had confessed to perjuring himself at Stafford’s trial, but an attempt to reverse the attainder in May 1685 failed, apparently because the preamble seemed to favour the Catholic religion.<sup>51</sup> Stafford’s lands were restored to his widow in November 1681. She was given the rank and precedence of countess of Stafford by James II in 1688. By the same letters patent their eldest son and heir, Henry Howard, who now assumed the surname of Stafford-Howard, was created earl of Stafford and ‘all forfeitures whatsoever accrued or to accrue from the attainder of the Viscount Stafford’ were remitted as far as lay in the power of the king to do so.<sup>52</sup> By 1690 Stafford’s widow and his eldest son had conveyed Stafford castle and other lands in England to the use of the Catholic Church for the celebration of masses for the martyred viscount and to begin the process of canonization.<sup>53</sup> William Howard, Viscount Stafford, was declared Venerable by Pope Leo XIII in 1886; he was beatified by Pius XI in 1929.</p> |
R.P. |
|
HOWARD, William (c. 1631-94) |
<p><strong><surname>HOWARD</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1631–94)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 24 Aug. 1678 as 3rd Bar. HOWARD OF ESCRICK |
|
First sat 7 Nov. 1678; last sat 6 Mar. 1689 |
|
MP Winchilsea 1660 |
<p><em>b.</em> c.1631, 2nd s. of Edward Howard*, Bar. Howard of Escrick, and Mary Boteler, da. of John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Boteler of Brantfield; bro. of Thomas Howard*, 2nd Bar. Howard of Escrick. <em>educ.</em> Corpus Christi, Camb. 1646; L. Inn 1648, called 1654. <em>m.</em> 21 July 1661, Frances (<em>d.</em> 19 Dec. 1716), da. of Sir James Bridgeman, kt. of Prestwich, Lancs. 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 2 da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. c. 19 Apr. 1694.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Likenesses: wash drawing, G.P. Harding, Scottish NPG.</p> |
<p>Long before he acquired his reputation for treachery and betrayal, William Howard had already made a name for himself by his nonconformist religion and his strident opposition to both Catholicism and the established Church, as well as for his quick wit, powers of persuasion, and unscrupulousness. In the early 1650s he had served as a trooper in Oliver Cromwell’s<sup>‡</sup> life-guard, but was purged from the troop in early 1656 because of his opposition to Cromwell’s government and his leading role in a group of radical Anabaptists who aimed for a republic.<sup>6</sup> Howard offered Charles II the services of his Anabaptist congregation in any planned overthrow of Cromwell and, after a period of imprisonment in 1658, began to correspond regularly with the exiled court, passing on political news from the capital.<sup>7</sup> Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, described him at this time as ‘a person of very extraordinary parts, sharpness of wit, readiness and volubility of tongue, and yet an Anabaptist … he had sucked in the opinions that were most prevalent’.<sup>8</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, who became bishop of Salisbury after the revolution of 1688, was later to repeat much of this assessment: ‘He was a man of wit and learning, bold and poor, who had run through many parties in religion. … He set up in opposition to Cromwell, as a great commonwealth man … But he was always poor, and ready to engage in any thing that was bold’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>During the third Dutch War Howard worked with Peter du Moulin in the service of the United Provinces, providing William of Orange with intelligence from England and working to build an anti-war party to overturn the Anglo-French alliance. He spent several months in the Tower for his espionage and was released to return to the United Provinces to act as a double agent.<sup>10</sup> He returned to England again for good in October 1674, where, with the Dutch war over, he threw himself into further anti-court activities. By 1678 he was a member of the Green Ribbon Club and a lieutenant of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in the ‘country’ opposition.<sup>11</sup></p><p>His elder brother Thomas Howard, 2nd Baron Howard of Escrick, died without a male heir, on 24 Aug. 1678. William Howard was not immediately recognized as the heir because there was a suggestion that the late baron’s widow, Jane Drake, was pregnant, possibly with a posthumous male heir.<sup>12</sup> On 6 Nov. 1678, with this question still apparently unresolved, the House heard William Howard’s petition setting out his claim to the title and requesting his writ of summons, arguing that:</p><blockquote><p>his lordship, apprehending it to be his duty, as well as his privilege, to attend the service of this House, doth humbly acquaint their lordships, that he is waiting at the door; and prays that he may be admitted to his place as a member of this House, according to the ancient laws of this realm, to serve his majesty and the kingdom.</p></blockquote><p>The House did not immediately allow him entrance, but ordered that a writ of summons be issued to him, apparently no longer willing to wait to see the outcome of the suspected pregnancy. He took his seat the following day and the Journal notes that the writ of summons he produced bore the date of 10 Oct., suggesting that it had been prepared before the beginning of the session.</p><p>Upon taking his seat Howard threw himself into the parliamentary proceedings and missed only four sitting days throughout the rest of the session. In the wake of the allegations of the Popish Plot he joined with his colleagues in the country party in promoting legislation against Catholics and to reduce the feared standing army. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of the motion that the declaration against transubstantiation should be added to the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in the Test Bill; eight days later he represented the House in two conferences where the Lords’ amendments to exempt the servants of the queen and the duchess of York from the bill’s provisions were debated. On 22 Nov. he was also placed on a select committee to examine statutes to determine the number of days that an armed militia could be kept on foot in the country. He joined with the other members of the country party in a series of protests in late December, by which he registered his disagreement with the House’s amendment that the money raised by the Disbandment Bill should be placed in the exchequer instead of the Chamber of London (20 and 26 Dec.), and with its decision that Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), should not have to withdraw nor be committee after the articles of impeachment against him had been read (23 and 27 December).</p><p>Howard came to only 79 per cent of the sitting days of the first Exclusion Parliament’s principal session in spring 1679. In the weeks preceding the opening, Danby had forecast that Howard would oppose him in the House. Howard did indeed support the Commons’ expedient of a bill threatening Danby with attainder if he did not surrender himself, voting for the bill’s passage in the House on 14 April. On 5 Apr. he was also named to the committee for the bill requiring all clergymen of the Church of England to subscribe to the oaths and declaration, and the following day he entered his dissent from the resolution that John Sidway should be committed for his allegations against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely. On 24 Apr. he was placed on another committee, to consider the answers of the five Catholic peers under impeachment. Throughout May he took the side of the Commons in the exchanges between the two houses about the trials of Danby and the Catholic lords. On 8 May 1679 he was named a reporter for the conference to discuss the impeachments’ procedure. He did not sign the protest that day against the House’s rejection of the Commons’ proposal for a joint committee of both Houses to discuss proper procedure for the trials, but two days later he did subscribe to another protest against the House’s continuing opposition to this motion, and he was a manager for two free conferences on 11 May where the two chambers continued to debate the issue.</p><p>In the last two weeks of the Parliament he was named to four select committees on legislation, including the bill to clear London and Westminster of papists. On 23 May he joined in the protest against the resolution that the Catholic lords should be tried before Danby. One of the Catholic peers was a kinsman, William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, and on that day Howard of Escrick also received permission from the House to visit him, for one time only. Howard was also opposed to the motion that the bishops had a right to participate in these trials, despite their capital nature, and he signed protests against the House’s continuing adherence to this resolution on 13, 23, and 27 May.</p><p>Through his family’s estates in Essex, and his own manor of Tollesbury, Howard was able to exert influence in the Essex elections of August 1679, which saw the return of the country Members Col. Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup> and John Lamotte Honeywood<sup>‡</sup>. The author of a pamphlet on the Essex election places Howard, along with Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), among the ‘Gentlemen of estates, and men of quality’ who were present at the polling vociferously supporting these candidates.<sup>13</sup> In April 1681 a witness for the government claimed that he had been with Howard at Chelmsford for these elections and that Howard had encouraged him to shout out the slogan, ‘No bishops, no bishops’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>During the long prorogations of Parliament of 1679–80 Howard was among the group of peers who frequently gathered at the Swan in Fish Street to discuss opposition strategy against the royal brothers and who attended trials to show their support for the reality of the Popish Plot allegations. He was a signatory of both the petition from 16 lords of 6 Dec. 1679 and the ‘Monster Petition’ from Southwark and Westminster of January 1680 calling for the immediate summoning of the suspended Parliament.<sup>15</sup> He was also one of those who personally tried to present James*, duke of York for recusancy at the court of king’s bench in the summer of 1680.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Howard attended all but four of the Parliament’s sitting days when it did finally meet for business again in October 1680. He became an active member of the subcommittee for the Journal, signing his approval of its record for a number of days during the long prorogation. After the House ordered on 13 Nov. 1680 the deletion from the Journal of all records of the proceedings against Shaftesbury, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and others in spring 1677, Howard helped to oversee and sign off on the erasure. He voted for the bill to exclude the duke of York, from the succession on 15 Nov. 1680 and subscribed to the protest against its rejection. Howard continued to promote an opposition and anti-Catholic agenda after the defeat of Exclusion. On 20 Nov. he was named to the committee to consider remodelling statutes on recusants so that Protestant nonconformists could be protected and he was specifically added to the committee for the bill for a Protestant ‘Association’ on 23 November.</p><p>Viscount Stafford, with his trial imminent, complained to the House of his treatment in prison, and on 18 Nov. Howard of Escrick and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, were assigned to visit him in the Tower in order to report on his petition. Two days later Howard gave an account to the House which cast doubt on Stafford’s claims that the lieutenant of the Tower had been ‘uncivil’ towards him. On 27 Nov. Howard was placed on the small committee of five members to meet with a committee of the Commons to adjust together the methods for Stafford’s trial; a few days later, on 7 Dec., he voted his kinsman guilty of treason. Almost immediately after this verdict had been delivered he and Carlisle moved to change Stafford’s sentence from execution to perpetual banishment. This motion having failed, they requested permission to visit Stafford again. James II later recorded that they were motivated by a desire ‘to get somewhat out of him against the duke of York. But the Lords would not allow them to see him alone, without a recorder present.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>On 7 Jan. 1681 Howard joined in the protests against the decisions not to proceed in holding divisions on the commitment or even suspension of Chief Justice Scroggs.<sup>18</sup> Parliament was dissolved three days later, with the announcement that the following one would be held in Oxford. Howard was one of the 16 peers who on 25 Jan. 1681 presented a petition requesting the king to convene Parliament at Westminster instead.<sup>19</sup> Nevertheless, he was present for four days of the Oxford Parliament, where on 24 Mar. he strongly opposed the consideration of Danby’s petition for bail.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The Oxford Parliament also brought to a head Howard’s shadowy relationship with the court agent, turned Whig informer, Edward Fitzharris. In 1680 Fitzharris had been acting as an intermediary between the needy Howard and the court, in the person of his chief contact there, the duchess of Portsmouth. He had taken Howard to visit Portsmouth on several occasions and she even brought the king to talk to the peer on two or three occasions, at which the king offered him a place in a ‘new frame of his ministry’ once an agreement with the Whigs could be reached.<sup>21</sup> In early 1681 Fitzharris was accused of authoring a treasonous pamphlet, <em>The True Englishman</em>, which he had planned to plant on leading Whigs in order to gain government reward. To save himself, Fitzharris then claimed that he could provide evidence for the Whigs against Danby and other members of the court. Both the court and the Whigs now had an interest in controlling Fitzharris’ testimony and the method of his prosecution and interrogation became an issue in the Parliament. Howard did not join his fellow Whigs in signing the protest of 26 Mar. 1681 against the House’s insistence that Fitzharris be tried by common law instead of by impeachment and there were rumours in the weeks after the dissolution that Howard had somehow been ‘turned over to the court side’.<sup>22</sup> He was present at the hearings of Fitzharris’ case in king’s bench in early May and at the trial on 9 June, where he was called upon as a witness for the defence.<sup>23</sup></p><p>After his conviction, Fitzharris persuaded his wife and her maid to claim that Howard himself was the author of <em>The True Englishman</em>. On 11 June Howard was apprehended and committed to the Tower, and his papers were searched, during which an allegedly treasonous pamphlet was found. Burnet recorded his involvement in these events:</p><blockquote><p>The report of Lord Howard’s being charged with this was over the whole town a day before any warrant was sent out against him; which made it appear, that the court had a mind to give him time to go out of the way. He came to me, and solemnly vowed he was not at all concerned in that matter: so I advised him not to stir from home. … I had no liking to the man’s temper: yet he insinuated himself so into me, that without being rude to him, it was not possible to avoid him. He was a man of a pleasant conversation: but he railed so indecently both at the king and the clergy, that I was very uneasy in his company.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> commented that ‘some scruple not to think this a sham, and only an accusation to draw in others’. The indictment against Howard was returned <em>ignoramus</em> by a Middlesex grand jury on 21 June, but another grand jury found it a true bill. His contemporaries, including the usually moderate Luttrell, saw the heavy hand of the government in this attempt to prosecute a prominent Whig lord by any means necessary.<sup>25</sup> On 2 July Howard was joined in the Tower by Shaftesbury, and from that point their cases became closely linked, both in the government’s plans and in the public imagination. The two peers worked together to petition for bail by writ of <em>habeas corpus</em> on 21 October. The writ was granted on 28 Nov., when Grey of Warke, Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, and Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, stood as sureties. The two peers were finally discharged on 13 Feb. 1682, after the prosecution case against them had collapsed.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Howard remained at the heart of conspiracies against the royal brothers throughout 1682–3. In July 1683 he recounted in detail his role in October and November 1682 as a mediator between an anxious and angry Shaftesbury, feverishly preparing for an immediate rising in London, and his colleagues James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, whom Shaftesbury accused of dithering in performing their roles in fomenting risings in Cheshire and the south-west. Both Howard himself and Grey, in his confession of June 1685, stated that, after the death of Shaftesbury in January 1683, a new group consisting of Howard, Monmouth, Russell, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, and Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> – the so-called Council of Six – was formed to plan further insurrections against the government in England and Scotland.<sup>27</sup> According to Grey, Monmouth had confided to him his mistrust of Howard, whom he thought ‘was zealous for no government but that under which he could get most’.</p><p>In 1685 Grey was at pains to disassociate himself from Howard, stating that he had refused to attend meetings where Howard would be present, ‘of whom I could have no good opinion; though they had thought fit to trust him with their lives’.<sup>28</sup> Both Burnet and Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, suggest that Russell and Essex were also initially reluctant to take Howard into their counsels; Burnet credited Algernon Sydney, who was Howard’s greatest protector when he was in the Tower (‘for that lord hated both the king and monarchy, as much as [Sydney] did’), with easing his entry into their group. Burnet also claimed that it was Howard who, by an elaborate ploy, first got Sydney to converse with Monmouth, even though Sydney had initially spoken very slightingly of the young man and his pretensions. Howard’s own views of Monmouth were probably similar, but he saw his utility for a republican agenda and put forward the idea that a prince with a flawed title would be more dependent on, and obedient to, the will of the people than one with a more solid claim.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Howard also confessed that he had been in consults with Robert West, Thomas Walcot, and other of the more radical conspirators where ‘some dark hints were given me … of striking at the head, of shortening the work by removing two persons’. In July 1683 he claimed that he had never been informed of any further details, but Burnet recounted a perhaps apocryphal anecdote where Howard was present with West, Robert Ferguson, and John Rumsey when they were discussing plans to execute the king and York in the royal playhouse, to which suggestion Howard replied ‘he liked that best, for then they would die in their calling’. Burnet commented that ‘This was so like his way of talk that it was easily believed, though [Howard] always denied it’. When information of the plot to kill the brothers began to emerge in June 1683, Howard repudiated it</p><blockquote><p>in his spiteful way with so much scorn, that I [Burnet] really thought he knew of nothing, and by consequence I believed there was not truth in all these discoveries. … and with eyes and hands lifted to heaven, he vowed to me, that he knew of no plot, and that he believed nothing of it.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite these denials, he was implicated in Robert West’s confession of 26 June and was arrested in his house in Kensington on 9 July 1683, after having hidden in his chimney for four hours. Immediately upon his arrest he begged for an ‘expedient’ whereby ‘he may do his majesty service and take care of his own preservation’ and ‘fell acrying’, telling the details of the plans for insurrection in late 1682.<sup>31</sup> He thus served as the government’s principal witness in the trials of his fellow members of the Council of Six.</p><p>Only four days after his own capture, Howard was the principal witness at Russell’s trial. In the trial of Algernon Sydney he was the only witness, thus forcing the prosecution to make use of Sydney’s manuscript writings as the second witness necessary to convict him of treason. Burnet was particularly outraged by Howard’s role in Sydney’s death after the care that Sydney had taken of Howard and his family during his imprisonment: ‘None but a monster of ingratitude could have made him the return that he did’.<sup>32</sup> Similarly, in the case of John Hampden, Howard provided the only evidence for the prosecution, which constrained the government to limit itself to the lesser charge of misdemeanour, by which Hampden was landed with an onerous and unpayable fine of £40,000.<sup>33</sup> Howard was thus held responsible for the judicial deaths of Russell, Sydney, and even, indirectly, Essex – all of whom came to be regarded as Whig martyrs. When Monmouth reconciled with his father in 1684, the royal brothers were both keen to claim that the young man, the last remaining member of the Council of Six, had confirmed the details of Howard’s testimony, an allegation that the duke quickly and eagerly denied.<sup>34</sup> Howard’s name became a byword for treachery, both among the Whigs whom he betrayed so signally and unscrupulously and the Tories who cynically made use of his cowardice and self-interest. Charles II himself remarked that Howard ‘was so ill a man that he would not hang the worst dog he had on his evidence’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Howard’s disgrace made him dependent on the favour of the Stuart brothers whom he had once opposed so fiercely and he dutifully attended every single session of James II’s Parliament in 1685 until its hurried adjournment at the time of Monmouth’s landing, although he did not attend the Parliament at all when it reconvened briefly in November. In this Parliament Howard not surprisingly kept a low profile: his activity was confined to his nomination to 13 select committees. In January 1686 he had to submit to the ‘drudgery of swearing’ in court once again, as he was called as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), who was accused of involvement in Monmouth’s rebellion. Howard seriously weakened the government’s case as he made clear from the start of his testimony that he could provide no evidence against Delamer in particular but only information about the plans for insurrection in 1682 in general:</p><blockquote><p>I am called not to be an evidence against my Lord Delamer, but against myself; that is, to repeat what I have often delivered at several trials in the courts of justice, and which I must always repeat, with shame and confusion for my guilt, as I cannot but always reflect upon it with sorrow and horror.</p></blockquote><p>Howard’s testimony in Delamer’s trial was, as he promised, ‘a very long story that had no relation to the present cause’. Predictably, the peers sitting in judgment against Delamer had little choice but to acquit him.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Contemporary observers in 1687–8 consistently considered Howard as one of those lords likely to support James’s attempt to repeal the Test Act and penal laws. This unexpected conclusion reflects Howard’s compromised position and dependence on James II’s continuing tolerance. His role in the Revolution is unknown; it is most likely that he took no action at all. He first sat in the Convention on 28 Jan. 1689 and on the following day he voted against the motion for a regency. He then voted on 6 Feb. to agree with the Commons that James II had abdicated and that the throne was vacant.<sup>37</sup> He was present for only 16 sittings in total until he left on 6 Mar. 1689, never to return to the House. He did register his proxy with his kinsman Francis Howard*, 5th Baron Howard of Effingham, on 18 Jan. 1692 and again, for the succeeding session, on 30 Dec. 1692. He lived on for some years in obscurity in York, close to some of his remaining Yorkshire manors (his father had sold many of the manors, including Escrick itself).<sup>38</sup> He died in late April 1694, apparently intestate, and there is not even evidence of a grant of administration.<sup>39</sup> The title and estate was inherited by his only surviving son, Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick, who was to lead an equally scandalous and notorious life.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
HYDE, Edward (1609-74) |
<p><strong><surname>HYDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1609–74)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>3 Nov. 1660 Bar. HYDE OF HINDON; <em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 earl of CLARENDON |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 29 July 1667 |
|
MP Wootton Bassett 1640 (Apr.); Saltash 1640 (Nov.)-11 Aug. 1642; Oxford Parliament, 1644-6 |
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Feb. 1609, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Henry Hyde<sup>‡</sup> of Purton, and Mary (<em>d</em>.1661), da. of Edward Langford of Trowbridge.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Magdalen Hall, Oxf. matric. 31 Jan. 1623, BA 14 Feb. 1626; M. Temple 1 Feb. 1626, called 22 Nov. 1633. <em>m</em>. (1) 4 Feb. 1632, Anne (<em>d</em>. 2 July 1632), da. of Sir George Ayliffe of Grittenham, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) 10 July 1634, Frances (<em>d</em>. 9 Aug. 1667), da. of Sir Thomas Aylesbury of Westminster, 6s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 29 Sept. 163.<sup>3</sup> Kntd. 22 Feb. 1643;<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 9 Dec. 1674.</p> |
<p>PC 22 Feb. 1643-30 Jan. 1649, 13 May 1649-4 Dec. 1667; under-treas. and chan. of the exch., 3 Mar. 1643-June 1660;<sup>5</sup> mbr. council of war, by 14 Mar. 1643-aft. Dec. 1644;<sup>6</sup> commr. treasury, 25 July 1643-?,<sup>7</sup> 19 June-8 Sept. 1660; mbr. prince of Wales’s council, 28 Jan. 1645-Jan. 1649;<sup>8</sup> all commissions, 14 May 1661-Feb. 1668;<sup>9</sup> commr. sale of Dunkirk, 1662.</p><p><em>Custos brevium</em> ct. of common pleas (in reversion), 4 Dec. 1634-1 Feb. 1644;<sup>10</sup> ld. high chan. 29 Jan. 1658-30 Aug. 1667.</p><p>High steward, Cambridge 19 June 1660-70,<sup>11</sup> Abingdon, 15 June 1661-?,<sup>12</sup> Norwich Cathedral 1661-70, Yarmouth 1661-<em>d</em>., Salisbury, Oct. 1662,<sup>13</sup> Winchester, 17 June 1667-?,<sup>14</sup> Woodstock 1667-?, bishopric of Rochester, Allerton and Allertonshire, deaneries of Chichester and Norwich, Yarmouth<sup>15</sup>; ld. lt. Oxon. 23 July 1663-Nov. 1667,<sup>16</sup> Wilts. June-Nov. 1667; ranger of Wychwood Forest, 1661.</p><p>Council of Royal Fishing of England, Aug. 1661<sup>17</sup></p><p>Chan. Oxf. Univ. 22 Oct. 1660-20 Dec. 1667;<sup>18</sup> FRS, 8 Feb. 1665-?<em>d</em>.<sup>19</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by A. Hanneman, c.1648-55, NPG 773; medal, by T. Simon, c.1662, NPG 4361; oil on canvas, by Sir P. Lely, Chequers Court, The Chequers Trust, Bucks.</p> |
<h2><em>The Restoration</em></h2><p>In the memoir he wrote around ten years after the Restoration, the earl of Clarendon surveyed the court at the moment of the king’s return to England in 1660. At that time he (then Sir Edward Hyde, lord chancellor since 1658 as well as chancellor of the exchequer) was ‘highest in place, and thought to be so in trust, because he was most in private with the king, had managed most of the secret correspondence in England, and all despatches of importance had passed through his hands.’<sup>20</sup> Despite the advice of James Butler*, marquess, later duke of Ormond [I], and earl of Brecknock, that he should give up the lord chancellorship with its administrative and judicial burdens in order to concentrate on advising the king, he claimed to want no more than that office, ‘which though in itself and the constant perquisites of it is not sufficient to support the dignity of it, yet was then, upon the king’s return; and after it had been so many years without a lawful officer, would unquestionably bring in money enough to be a foundation to a future fortune, competent to his ambition, and enough to provoke the envy of many, who believed they deserved better than he’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Envy was undoubtedly one element in the irritation that many of his contemporaries felt in his prominence, but Hyde’s determined struggle against Catholics, Scots, Presbyterians and others whom he regarded as false friends in the struggle to return the king to his dominions, the self-confidence and the sharpness with which he dismissed those who disagreed with him, as well as the constant factional tensions of the royal court of the Interregnum had left him with a trail of enemies. Many of those he knew about were closely attached either to the retinue of the queen mother (he continued to be intensely suspicious of her key adviser, Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans) or that of the king’s brother, James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>22</sup> Many more may have existed among key political figures among those who had remained in England in both the old royalist and old parliamentarian camps, and in the weeks before the court’s return to England in May 1660, he had to gauge their reaction towards a Restoration and towards him personally. Most significant was the military architect of the Restoration, General George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, whose intentions were analysed endlessly by all of Hyde’s correspondents; crucial too were a clutch of Presbyterian leaders, one of whom, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, was thought himself to be angling for appointment as lord chancellor, though Charles Rich*, 2nd earl of Warwick, was able to reassure Hyde on the point. <sup>23</sup></p><p>During April and May 1660 Hyde’s allies and agents – Allen Apsley<sup>‡</sup>, Allen Broderick<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt and others – kept a watchful eye on potential threats as the Convention Parliament assembled: they probed the attitudes of Monck’s adviser Dr Clarges and the formidable presbyterian politician Denzil Holles*, later Baron Holles, though also clearer supporters of the court including George Villers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham (whom Apsley concluded ‘will quite depart from any ill endeavours against you’) and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford (disgruntled ‘because of the slights put upon him in the House of Lords in which Hyde was concerned’).<sup>24</sup> Many more whose service to the crown had been equivocal complimented Hyde or appealed to him to help them back into favour, including Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, and Richard Vaughan, earl of Carbery [I].<sup>25</sup> The Catholic Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester offered him his London house, Worcester House, with repairs paid for, and four weeks later was telling Clarendon that he had chosen him as his ‘bosom friend’.<sup>26</sup> George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, a close, if erratic, friend and ally up to his conversion to Catholicism in early 1659, and later one of Hyde’s most volatile antagonists, still regarded Hyde and Ormond as most likely to help him to return to the king’s favour and to office.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Hyde listed the central figures of the council and his political allies at the Restoration as Ormond, John Colepeper*, Baron Colepeper and Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, the secretary of state.<sup>28</sup> Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton would soon be added: a key voice in the peace party in the royalist camp at Oxford during the Civil War, he was regarded with some reverence by Hyde.<sup>29</sup> Mordaunt on 10 May reported visiting Southampton with Hyde’s former chaplain and long-standing friend George Morley*, later bishop of Worcester and Winchester, to meet the lawyers Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup> and Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> (both of whom, like Southampton and Hyde, had been among the royalist commissioners at the Uxbridge negotiations in 1645).<sup>30</sup> All of these would become important figures in Clarendon’s circle.</p><h2><em>The Convention Parliament and the York affair</em></h2><p>Hyde’s position as the fulcrum of the king’s administration in exile would translate naturally into a role as effective chief minister of the royal government as soon as the king landed, with Hyde in attendance, at Dover on 25 May. Hyde referred to a small group – involving Southampton, Ormond, Albemarle and the secretaries of state – as the ‘secret committee… which under the notion of foreign affairs, were appointed by the king to consult all his affairs before they came to a public debate’. It was often referred to by others as the ‘junto’.<sup>31</sup> But he was incontestably the central figure within a government faced with the enormous agenda of the Restoration settlement, though he vigorously rejected the idea that he should adopt the style of first minister.<sup>32</sup> In addition, Clarendon remained chancellor of the exchequer and a member of the treasury commission appointed on 19 June until Sept. 1660, when Southampton was made lord treasurer, and was therefore closely involved in the early stages of the settling of the revenue.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Clarendon wrote that he ‘took his place in the House of Peers with a general acceptation and respect’.<sup>34</sup> Hyde first presided in the Lords on 1 June, when he delivered his speech to both Houses. Shortly afterwards, however, he left in order to preside in chancery. The House appointed the earl of Manchester to resume his position as temporary Speaker. The following day the House gave Hyde thanks for his ‘excellent’ speech. The chancellor acted as the routine conduit for messages from the House to the king, and managed conferences such as one on the Queen’s jointure. <sup>35</sup> But within the first week of the chancellor’s sitting, his absence had given rise to a problem. Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke on 6 June reported from the committee of privileges concerning the choice of a Speaker when the chancellor was away. Citing a vote of 10 Aug. 1641 and the Triennial Act, the committee argued that unless the Lords were able to choose their own Speaker, the ‘lord chancellor, or any other Speaker, may, if they will, absent themselves voluntarily; the House thereupon should be disenabled to sit’. The matter was referred back to the committee of privileges for further reconsideration, and when John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor) reported again on 9 June, their report was significantly altered: ‘it is the duty of the lord chancellor, or lord keeper of the great seal of England, ordinarily to attend the Lords House of Parliament; and that in case the lord chancellor or lord keeper of the great seal be absent from the House of Peers, and that there be none authorized under the great seal from the king to supply that place in the House of Peers, the Lords may then choose their own Speaker during that vacancy’. The resolution was entered as a standing order. A few days later the chancellor notified the House that the king had given a commission to Sir Orlando Bridgeman (now lord chief baron) to preside in the House whenever the chancellor was absent. Bridgeman sat as Speaker for the first time that day (13 June). The chancellor was probably responsible for the order on 8 June reminding the House of a previous order concerning petitions which were brought into the House, ‘which are proper to be relieved in any other court of law or equity’. A number of petitions were subsequently referred by the House to the chancellor.<sup>36</sup></p><p>After Bridgeman’s first occasion on the woolsack, the chancellor was absent for the following eight sitting days (14 to 21 June). He was present on 22 June to hear the reference back to chancery of petitioner Edmund Veale, and was then for the most part present until the middle of July (although for a few days, while Hyde is not listed in the presence list, there is no notice in the journals indicating that Bridgeman had taken over). He was present for most of the debates in committee of the whole House on the indemnity bill in early August (except 6 and 7 Aug.), and continued to represent the House at conferences with the Commons, many of them on the three cornerstone bills on indemnity, disbanding the army and confirming ministers in their livings (31 July, 9 Aug., 13 Aug., 15 Aug., 20, 21, 22, 25 Aug., 1, 8, 11 Sept.) and to convey messages to and from the king (3, 31 Aug., 3, 6, 8 Sept.). In total he was present for around 75 per cent of sitting days in the first session of the Convention.</p><p>Clarendon’s key objective for the session was the passage of the bill of indemnity. He wrote later in his memoir of the criticism he had received for his insistence on its passage with few exceptions: the indemnity, he argued, was the price for the successful disbandment of the army.<sup>37</sup> By contrast, it was plain that the court wanted to avoid leaving the religious question to the current Parliament (although this had been promised in the Declaration of Breda), and while the ministers’ bill was given a grudging royal assent on 13 Sept., the chancellor in his speech announced discussions with ‘learned and pious men of different persuasions’ to be followed by a declaration which would demonstrate the king’s ‘great indulgence to those who can have any protection from conscience to differ with their brethren’.</p><p>Outside Parliament, negotiating the new regime’s relationship with foreign powers was the preoccupation of the late summer and early autumn. Negotiations focused on the question of a marriage alliance for the king. French and Catholic concern about the chancellor’s attitudes to them combined with long-standing court intrigues to produce a crisis that threatened the chancellor’s position, and perhaps more. Intensely suspicious of Cardinal Mazarin, Hyde regarded as a deliberate insult his decision to reappoint Antoine de Bordeaux-Neufville, an influential envoy to the court of the lord protector, as ambassador to the king.<sup>38</sup> Bordeaux, who according to Hyde was close to Hyde’s old antagonist the earl of St Albans, regarded him as hostile to France, and reported St Albans’s story that ‘the chancellor’s faction’ wanted to excite animosity between the two countries in order raise obstacles to Henrietta Maria’s return. <sup>39</sup> Correspondence between Walter Montagu (the earl of Manchester’s brother, abbot of Pontoise and Henrietta Maria’s confidant), and Richard Bellings (the Irish confederate politician closely associated with Ormond, but also friendly with Hyde), suggests that plans were already being hatched by the circle around the queen at the beginning of September to secure the removal of Hyde.<sup>40</sup> An opportunity soon presented itself in the revelation that Hyde’s clever daughter, Anne Hyde, was not only pregnant by the duke of York, but had clandestinely married him. Subsequent investigations confirmed that they had become engaged on 24 Nov. 1659 at Breda, and married at Worcester House on 3 Sept. 1660, by York’s chaplain Joseph Crowther, witnessed by Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] and later Baron Butler, and Eleanor Strode, Anne’s servant.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Hyde’s own memoir suggests that the liaison was well known at court to all except himself, and had been encouraged by the associates of the duke of York, particularly by John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, York’s former governor and factotum of his household, as a way of damaging the chancellor himself. According to this account, Hyde’s reaction to the news was one of extreme distress. Regarding the affair as a threat to his position, he claimed to have proposed that she be tried for treason, and tried to prevent her from seeing the duke, which the duke and she easily subverted. The king took a more level-headed view, while time, and the chancellor’s understanding that the marriage was genuine, overcame his initial horror.<sup>42</sup></p><p>However, the arrival at court of the Princess Royal (she arrived at Whitehall from France on 25 Sept.) together with a letter to York from the queen, brought about a change in the duke’s attitude to his daughter, Hyde believed. Bartet described the rumours emanating from the Queen’s circle both in France and in England that Anne Hyde had had affairs with a number of men including Sir Charles Berkeley*, later earl of Falmouth, and Henry Jermyn*, later Baron Dover and 3rd Baron Jermyn (the earl of St Albans’ nephew, master of the horse to the duke of York).<sup>43</sup> York visited Hyde on 10 Oct. after a council meeting, and told him that he never wanted to see his daughter again. The princess royal, the earl of St Albans and Lord Berkeley badgered the king over how to get out of the apparently valid marriage. Ruvigny reported that it seemed impossible to do so except by an act of parliament, and talked of the potential for the affair to destroy the chancellor.<sup>44</sup> However, on 22 Oct. Anne Hyde gave birth to a boy at Worcester House. In Clarendon’s account the king happened to be there for a meeting when she went into labour. He sent for the marchioness of Ormond, the countess of Sunderland and George Morley*, the bishop of Worcester-elect, who asked who was the father of the child, whether she had slept with anyone else, and whether the parents were married. Her responses satisfied them. Even Ruvigny seemed convinced.<sup>45</sup></p><p>The meeting in Worcester House that day was the culmination of the negotiations between the Presbyterian and Church of England divines on a church settlement, attended by the king, with Hyde leading the discussion on the draft of a royal declaration on ecclesiastical affairs. The accounts of this meeting by participants Richard Baxter, George Morley and Hyde himself convey different impressions of the tone and focus of the negotiations. Baxter was particularly suspicious of a proposal for the toleration of other groups, which he said arose from the petitions of Independents and Anabaptists, but he suspected as intended to favour Catholics. Much has been read into the delegation to two laymen present, Denzil Holles and Arthur Annesley*, Viscount Valentia [I], later earl of Anglesey, both inclined to Presbyterianism, to act as arbiters of the points at issue following the departure of Hyde and the king. The declaration published on 25 Oct. surprised Baxter and others in its acceptance of many Presbyterian concerns with the original draft. After the publication of the Declaration, Baxter visited Hyde, who tried to persuade him to accept a bishopric; Baxter turned it down, writing to him on 1 Nov. to explain why.<sup>46</sup> Clarendon’s own account written at the end of the 1660s highlights what he regarded as the presbyterians’ bad faith in the negotiations – seeking the removal of one passage concerning encouraging the use of the Book of Common Prayer on the grounds that it would not help to achieve the end desired, while making it plain in private correspondence that they were hostile to the aim altogether.<sup>47</sup></p><p>On the same day as the issue of the declaration, 25 Oct., the duke of York and the Princess Royal left London to escort the queen to the capital.<sup>48</sup> The report of Bartet of 29 Oct. seemed to acknowledge that at least some of the rumours about Anne Hyde had been false (with Berkeley admitting to having made up his liaison with her in order to help his master out of what his camp regarded as a fix), but described Hyde with some distaste:</p><blockquote><p>[The king] goes every morning to the chancellor. [Hyde] praises his own capacity and conduct with affectation, even to us. M. d’Aubigny told [Bartet] that he heard from the king’s mouth that the chancellor had foretold to him his Restoration a thousand times, by the same ways that it came about, excepting the death of Cromwell... it is still true that [Hyde] is deeply rooted in [the king’s] heart and mind, and that he keeps himself there by continuous work, and by the intelligence he has of the internal affairs of the three kingdoms.<sup>49</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the beginning of November, the consensus seemed to be that the king was content for the marriage to stand, and would be very reluctant for Parliament to get involved in an issue so close to the royal power.<sup>50</sup> But Henrietta Maria’s arrival in London on 2 Nov. along with the earl of St Albans still determined to secure a marriage between York and the daughter of the Duc d’Orleans, revived the dissipating tension for an intense few days.<sup>51</sup> The new French ambassador, the Comte de Soissons, reported the formal meeting of welcome from the Privy Council to the queen on the day after she arrived, and the coldness between the chancellor and her.<sup>52</sup> It is unclear when the interview between the duke and Hyde described in the <em>Life </em>took place at which York accused Hyde of planning to complain about him in Parliament, and reiterated the allegations against his daughter.<sup>53</sup> The king, though, Bartet reported, forcefully and publicly defended the marriage, attacking the earl of St Albans personally for besmirching the honour of the royal family and the duke of York, and for leading the campaign against Clarendon.<sup>54</sup></p><p>By the time the Convention resumed on 6 Nov., with the issue still undecided, Hyde had already become Baron Hyde of Hindon, the honour sending a clear signal to Hyde’s enemies of the king’s favour (Hyde nevertheless claimed to have turned down the garter when that was offered to him).<sup>55</sup> Hyde was introduced to the House by the lord great chamberlain, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, Robartes and Holles. According to Bartet, the king had been prepared to make him a duke, but he preferred to be only a baron, because it had been the custom for his predecessors in the office; Hyde himself wrote that he was offered a barony, and tried to turn it down; the king insisted, sending a warrant the day before he left London to meet the queen, also providing him with a grant for £20,000.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Such firmness on the king’s part indicated that those hostile to the marriage would find it very difficult to overturn. Bartet reported on the 8th talk about St Albans’ proposal of a commission to determine its validity, but also that he had begun to recognize defeat.<sup>57</sup> Five days later, Bartet’s next despatch indicated that the queen was backing off from support for St Albans’ proposal. While Bartet referred to claims by his enemies that Hyde had been profiting from his office by selling favours and pardons, his message to Mazarin was to make friends with Hyde, ‘it is impossible to get any sort of service from this court without the friendship and confidence of the chancellor, and whatever anyone says to the contrary, time and experience have taught us that without him you can never undertake any meaningful business’. In order to achieve this, he advised, Mazarin needed to ‘make the queen of England his [Hyde’s] friend’, or arrange for a separate channel of communication.<sup>58</sup></p><p>The message seems to have got through, albeit slowly: on 22 Nov. Bartet reported a more hopeful meeting between the queen and Hyde.<sup>59</sup><sup>60</sup> On 6 Dec. Bartet reported that the duke of York was now badgering the king to allow him to announce his marriage.<sup>61</sup> Within a week he was openly going to bed with her, ‘in the presence of the chancellor and his wife, and stayed there until eleven in the morning, when his servants came for his levee.’<sup>62</sup> Bartet despondently noted the declining number of opponents of Hyde and of the marriage: only the earl of St Albans, Montagu, the princesses, the duke of Buckingham and his sister Lady Richmond had not visited the new duchess.<sup>63</sup> A letter from St Albans to Hyde from Portsmouth of 18 Dec. suggests that ostensibly, at least, even St Albans was offering an olive branch.<sup>64</sup></p><p>While all this was going on, the chancellor was probably present every day of the autumn session of the Convention (he was not listed on 20 Nov., although it is not indicated that Bridgeman was present either). The bill uniting England’s interregnum conquests, Dunkirk and Jamaica, to the crown was one theme of the second session of the convention, possibly intended by the government as an instrument of its policy in relation to France and Spain. (The Comte de Soissons noted a remark that month by Hyde – perhaps a hint – that Dunkirk and Jamaica were very expensive to maintain and unproductive.)<sup>65</sup> Introduced and read a first and second time on 11 Sept., the bill was discussed in committee of the whole House on 21 Nov. On that day Montagu wrote to Mazarin about it, reporting a conversation with the chancellor over the provisions for the maintenance of the Catholic church in the articles of surrender.<sup>66</sup> The debate on 21 Nov. was probably the occasion for the ‘friendly contest’ in the House on the subject between the chancellor and Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, to which the latter referred the following year, when Winchilsea said he now understood the point of Hyde’s preference to avoid making ‘so public a declaration’.<sup>67</sup> The bill never emerged from committee of the whole.</p><p>Hyde continued to act as a conduit to the king (19, 21, 22 Nov.) and to the lord chief justice (26 Nov.). He was one of the 26 peers who protested on 13 Dec. at the passage of the bill to vacate the fines unduly procured to be levied by Sir Edward Powell and Dame Mary his wife.<sup>68</sup> Towards the end of the session the chancellor was engaged in a number of conferences, including those on the court of wards, the six months’ tax, college leases, and on the poll bill.<sup>69</sup> Hyde’s highly rhetorical speech at the dissolution on 29 December congratulated the parliament on its work and emphasized the harmony with which it had gone about its business and celebrated the progress made since the Restoration in re-establishing stability.</p><p>The mood of Hyde’s speech seems to have entered the court as well, with the queen gently persuaded into a more helpful attitude to the chancellor, despite some difficulties in arranging a meeting which would serve as a formal reconciliation.<sup>70</sup> Hyde was exchanging letters with Walter Montagu in January paying respects to the queen, as she was returning to France.<sup>71</sup> A special meeting of the Council on 18 Feb. confirmed the legality of the marriage, and drew a line under the business, to the satisfaction of the king and the duke, though the queen continued to believe that the king had aimed to humiliate York all along (not, Bartet thought, untruthfully).<sup>72</sup> Hyde’s letter to Buckingham of 24 Feb. saying that he had always had great affection and duty for him was perhaps another indication of the general peace that was breaking out over the court.<sup>73</sup></p><p>The end of the affair removed an obstacle to Anglo-French relations, also facilitated by the death of Mazarin, of whom Hyde was highly suspicious, in March 1661, and made it easier to negotiate the king’s marriage to the Portuguese infanta. Hyde claimed in his memoir that the initiative for the alliance had come from the Portuguese themselves, and that he would have preferred a Protestant, but the king’s enthusiasm had given him no opportunity to oppose the idea. He, Southampton, Ormond, Manchester and Secretary Nicholas were appointed to confer on the subject at Worcester House.<sup>74</sup> Negotiations with Portugal began in earnest in February, when the Portuguese ambassador returned bearing broad acceptance of the terms requested by Charles II. The Spanish ambassador entered a series of protests and alternative offers, including money for the restitution of Dunkirk and Jamaica and an alternative marriage alliance, and strongly advocated the Princess of Parma.<sup>75</sup> Hyde’s account of the affair suggests that the king’s own enthusiasm for the Portuguese alliance cooled, particularly because of stories that the Portuguese infanta was incapable of bearing children. He despatched the earl of Bristol to inspect the Princess of Parma around the middle of February.<sup>76</sup> With Bristol away, however, Hyde wrote in early April that the Parmesan option had been dropped.<sup>77</sup> Negotiations concerning the marriage of the king’s sister, Henrietta, with the duke of Anjou, helped to support the idea of a ‘nearer union’ with France.<sup>78</sup> Clarendon (perhaps before the outcome of the elections to the new parliament was clear) was looking to France for a loan in mid-April to tide the kingdom over until other matters were settled and it was the right time to ask for a parliamentary grant.<sup>79</sup></p><h2><em>The Clarendon regime</em></h2><p>Pepys witnessed Hyde being created earl of Clarendon in the Banqueting House on the day of the coronation, 20 April.<sup>80</sup> Clarendon himself professed to have been reluctant to accept the advancement in the peerage, though he felt that it would have offended the duke of York, who had obtained it for him, to have turned it down; and also to have been unaware that the king had advanced him in precedence over a number of other barons, which had considerably upset them.<sup>81</sup> Many would have regarded his professions of innocence as disingenuous, whether it concerned honours, power or wealth. While Clarendon defended himself against the idea that he had engrossed power—it was, he said, only because the king failed to apply himself to business that meant he had to deal with so much—many regarded him as determined to hoard power to himself. John Maitland*, earl (later duke) of Lauderdale [S], in 1668 recounted a remark of the king’s that one of Clarendon’s greatest faults was ‘his not induring any man of sense about the king unless he were his creature.’<sup>82</sup></p><p>Despite this, Clarendon seemed positively to reject opportunities to consolidate his power using patronage. In his autobiographical writings, Clarendon claimed to be shocked by the barely disguised determination of courtiers to pursue grants and favours from the king.<sup>83</sup> Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>, in a remark to Pepys in 1667, seemed to confirm this distaste for the business of patronage: the chancellor was not accustomed to ‘do any kindness of his own nature’, though this seems ironic, given that Carteret was one of the greatest beneficiaries of his protection, particularly in relation to his position as treasurer of the navy board.<sup>84</sup> John Evelyn made a similar remark to Pepys a few months earlier while also apparently confirming Hyde’s avaricious reputation: ‘of all the great men of England, there is none that endeavours more to raise those that he takes into favour then my Lord Arlington; and that on that score, he is much more to be made one’s patron then my lord chancellor, who never did nor will do anything but for money’.<sup>85</sup> His responsibility for authorizing grants and patents with the great seal provided an opportunity both to prevent appointments of which he did not approve (which he thought was one of the principal duties of his office), and to secure fees for passing those he did.<sup>86</sup> He was often blamed for preventing the passage of patents – such as that for George Goring*, earl of Norwich, an old adversary in royalist politics of the 1640s – even when he was not responsible, as he said when the earl of Bristol sought to make trouble by trying to persuade the king’s mistress the countess of Castlemaine (wrongly) that the chancellor had withheld sealing her patent (presumably for her to be a lady of the bedchamber). <sup>87</sup><sup>88</sup></p><p>Clarendon insisted that he himself took nothing other than the legitimate perquisites of his office (which were considerable) and ‘presents that could not be refused without affectation’. <sup>89</sup> He ostentatiously turned down an offer of money from France, a story told at some length in his memoir, and corroborated by the correspondence of the French ambassador, and a careful minute by Clarendon’s son around March 1661.<sup>90</sup> Such resistance to receiving gifts was supposed to have extended to offers from the crown itself. He claimed to have turned down proposals to give him a large estate: Ormond advised him (with the king’s approval) to apply to the king for a grant of the king’s estate in the Bedford Level, either to keep or because ‘they, who were unjustly possessed of it, would be glad to purchase the king’s title with a considerable sum of money’. Clarendon disapproved of the idea of alienating such a large amount of land from the royal estate. He claimed to have made a ‘resolution to himself, which he thought he should not alter, not to make haste to be rich’.<sup>91</sup> Nevertheless, Clarendon owed a great deal to royal patronage. Clarendon’s inherited land seems to have amounted to the estate at Purton, near Swindon, bought by his father. He described a gift of the king of £20,000 during the crisis over his daughter’s relationship with the duke of York.<sup>92</sup> Much of his estate was owed to the redistribution of lands confiscated from regicides. The Cornbury estate in Oxfordshire had belonged to Henry Danvers<sup>†</sup>, earl of Danby, whose origins lay in Dauntsey, a parish close to where Hyde’s father had settled in the 1620s, and had been inherited by the earl’s brother, Sir John Danvers. Danvers would become one of the regicides, and although he died in 1655, the estate was excepted from the Act of Indemnity, and subject to confiscation under the 1661 act declaring the pains and penalties of the regicides. The estate was formally granted to Clarendon in July 1662.<sup>93</sup> Other Danvers lands were granted to his son, Henry Hyde*, styled Viscount Cornbury (and later 2nd earl of Clarendon) in December 1661.<sup>94</sup> (The Danvers family was still litigating about them in 1676.)<sup>95</sup> The manor of Withcote, in Leicestershire, was granted under the Great Seal to Clarendon in March 1661. Land in Wychwood Forest was leased under the Great Seal to Clarendon and his heirs in early 1662.<sup>96</sup> Clarendon also received a grant under the Great Seal of the custody of the manor of Woodstock in August 1666.<sup>97</sup> The Clarendon Park estate close to Salisbury was a royal estate mortgaged during the civil war and granted to the duke of Albemarle in December 1663; Clarendon bought it from him in 1664 for a total of £18,000.<sup>98</sup> Clarendon acquired the land north of Piccadilly, London, on which Clarendon House was built, in part from the crown in 1664 and 1665. York Farm, in Twickenham, was bought from the earl of Manchester.<sup>99</sup></p><p>The provision for Clarendon of a grant from Ireland seems to have been originally proposed by John Clotworthy, Viscount Masserene [I] in May 1661. Clarendon was made a formal grant in April 1662 of part of the Leinster portion of the half year’s profit being paid by the adventurers and soldiers of their lands in Ireland under the king’s declaration on Irish affairs of 30 Nov. 1660.<sup>100</sup> According to Clarendon, he became aware of it only when he heard from Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], that around £12,500 was available, with a similar sum to come. Clarendon used it to buy Blunsden, an estate adjoining his father’s Purton lands in Wiltshire in early 1662 from John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace as part of a deal to resolve a dispute concerning Bulstrode Whitelocke’s<sup>‡</sup> purchase during the Interregnum of the land from the latter. Clarendon was placed in severe difficulties when in 1663 he received only half of the sum that he had been promised, forcing him to borrow money to complete the sale.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Despite the claim that Hyde made a poor patron, there were plenty of people who counted themselves as his clients – Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, told Pepys in 1663 that the chancellor was ‘his most sure friend and to have been his greatest’ – and there are numerous instances of him recommending individuals for office or favour, especially in the correspondence of the duke of Ormond. <sup>102</sup> Clarendon complained in 1663 that the importunity of friends and relations made him make more recommendations for Irish army offices than he would like to do.<sup>103</sup> He was particularly closely involved in ecclesiastical patronage, and not just that in his own hands as lord chancellor: Lauderdale wrote in 1668 that the king since he returned and up to the chancellor’s dismissal had given all church preferments by the advice of Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London and from 1663 archbishop of Canterbury, and the chancellor.<sup>104</sup> John Hacket*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, called him ‘the greatest patron that I have living’.<sup>105</sup> Clarendon irritatingly nagged his friend and ally Sheldon on appointments such as his attempts to make his chaplain, Walter Blandford*, the bishop of Oxford, while apologizing for interfering ‘which God knows nothing could have led me into but my truthful and filial duty to the Church’.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Despite his profession to want to concern himself only in the business of the chancellorship, his involvement in most government business meant constant work: Clarendon wrote to Ormond in May 1664 that:</p><blockquote><p>since I have been able to go out of the doors, I have been upon very hard duties, between Westm. Hall, the Parliament and the Council and it was this day, after 4 of the clock before we rose out of the House, so that if I had more to write, I should hardly recollect my self, being absolutely dazed.<sup>107</sup></p></blockquote><p>Pepys described going to see the chancellor at Worcester House in August 1660 at a sealing-day held in his great hall, ‘where wonderful how much company there was to expect him at a seal’.<sup>108</sup> The French ambassador the Comte D’Estrades referred in a 1662 letter to Clarendon’s practice of never visiting anyone (for which he made an exception to visit him concerning negotiations concerning Dunkirk), though he did not say whether this was because of the pressure of business or for reasons of status, or the gout, whose effects were increasingly debilitating.<sup>109</sup> Clarendon himself confirmed in his memoir that he felt that his office ‘excused him from making visits, and exempted him from all ceremonies of that kind’.<sup>110</sup> Clarendon’s second son, Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, wrote to Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington in February 1666 giving as an excuse for his failure to write earlier that he had heard that Burlington was afflicted with the gout, and ‘if you are as unquiet in it as my father is, you would not care no more to read than to write letters.’<sup>111</sup> Clarendon’s lack of acquaintance with foreign languages (despite his long sojourn abroad) hampered his dealings with other states (which he probably largely conducted in Latin or English). Mazarin’s attempts to pay compliments to Ormond and Hyde were responded to by William Crofts*, Baron Crofts on the latter’s behalf because of Hyde’s monolingualism.<sup>112</sup></p><p>The affairs of Ireland, in particular the Irish land settlement, were a preoccupation for much of the time, taking up many meetings in London and the bulk of a voluminous correspondence with Ormond. Scotland he was less concerned with, though John Middleton, earl of Middleton [S], appointed lord commissioner in 1660, was considered a close ally, and Lauderdale at least a potential enemy, though despite their very vigorous disagreement in the 1650s, Clarendon wrote to Middleton at the end of March 1661 that since the Restoration he and Lauderdale had ‘lived very civilly together’ and neither had interfered in the affairs of the other’s country. He explained that he could not interfere in Scottish business without involving Lauderdale.<sup>113</sup> Even so, he would receive news from Scotland from Middleton, William Cunningham, 8th earl of Glencairn [S] (the Scottish lord chancellor), and John Murray, earl (later marquess) of Atholl [S], and John Livingston, Lord Newburgh [S], provided a regular channel of communication.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Parliament was often at the centre of Clarendon’s activity. He had become a significant politician in 1640-42 largely because of his effectiveness in the House of Commons. He described his practice in parliamentary management in his <em>Life</em>. Up to 1663 the king left parliamentary business to Southampton and Clarendon,</p><blockquote><p>who had every day conference with some select persons of the House of Commons, who had always served the king, and upon that account had great interest in that assembly, and in regard of the experience they had and their good parts were hearkened to with reverence. And with those they consulted in what method to proceed in disposing the House, sometimes to propose, sometimes to consent to what should be most necessary for the public; and by them to assign parts to other men, whom they found disposed and willing to concur in what was to be desired: and all this without any noise, or bringing many together to design, which ever was and ever will be ingrateful to parliaments, and, however it may succeed for a little time, will in the end be attended with prejudice.<sup>115</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sir Hugh Pollard<sup>‡</sup>, the comptroller of the household, was one of the key figures concerned. The arrangements were disturbed after the appointment of Sir Henry Bennet*, (later earl of Arlington) as secretary of state in late 1662, when, according to Clarendon, he, along with his friend William Coventry, began to build up his own parliamentary following, using patronage more explicitly to encourage members to serve the king.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Clarendon’s parliamentary management might have seemed over-cautious: he seemed to deprecate the numbers of courtiers who had become members of the Commons by 1663, and while he certainly was closely involved in the business of ensuring the election of key candidates – he was responsible for getting Bennet elected at Callington in 1661, for instance – he did not necessarily have the court in mind when he did so.<sup>117</sup> In 1662 he provided Sir Francis Henry Lee<sup>‡</sup> with a writ for a Malmesbury by-election, despite competition among courtiers to get it: Clarendon’s connections with the Lee family, and especially with his mother, the countess of Rochester, may have contributed to this. Clarendon asked Lee to tell his mother that she should avoid putting in any of ‘Presbyterian principles’. Both Lee and the candidate who was elected in 1662, Hon. Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>, seem to have operated in support of Clarendon during moments of crisis in 1663 and 1667.<sup>118</sup> The duke of Albemarle, asking him to help get Sir Thomas Clarges elected at Salisbury in 1664, reminded him that when the king had agreed to ‘to restore Torrington’ (presumably to make it into a parliamentary borough as it had been in the early Middle Ages) that he had not taken forward the proposal ‘because your Lordship thought it inconvenient’ (and indeed, the creation of a new borough by charter might well have been controversial).<sup>119</sup></p><p>Clarendon was presumably able to manage the Lords in a much more personal way. An obvious ally was Sheldon, to whom he wrote in advance of the Oxford session of Parliament in 1665, asking him to ensure that a third of the bishops attend.<sup>120</sup> He seems not, however, to have been meticulous in managing proxies in general: he told Ormond to renew his proxy on the death in 1663 of Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, and give it to his close ally John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, but in December 1666 Ormond had still not done so.<sup>121</sup> He was thought by many peers, he believed, to be insufficiently protective of the privilege of the peerage. In his memoir, Clarendon deprecated the Lords’ tendency to be over-precise on insisting on their privileges in small matters, and remarked upon its tendency to irritate the Commons and encourage them in turn to be more assertive.<sup>122</sup> His formal role in parliament included introducing the business at the beginning of each parliamentary session in a lengthy (and highly rhetorical) speech. He also habitually wrote the king’s speeches too. Clarendon’s own drafts would be laboriously written out by the king in his own hand, presumably for transmission to the House, and afterwards to the printer.<sup>123</sup></p><p>Clarendon’s position involved him in endless minor issues. Many of them concerned relationships between members of the peerage, and included the delicate negotiations between the earl and countess of Pembroke over their disharmonious marriage, or sorting out a dispute between Marmaduke Langdale*, 2nd Baron Langdale and Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland over sewers in 1665.<sup>124</sup> Many of them thought it worth applying to him to help resolve their legal problems. Lady Herbert, wrote anxiously to Cornbury in 1663 to try to ensure a case in which she was interested would be heard by Clarendon because of concern that ‘there may be some way made’ to other judges.<sup>125</sup> Her husband, Henry Somerset*, Lord Herbert of Raglan (later duke of Beaufort), asked Clarendon to intervene over the inclosure of the Forest of Dean in 1665, which had been formally committed by the council to Southampton, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Lord Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury) and others because he must be ‘concern’d in the consequence of it, as much if not more, then any, it being of so public a concern and being probable enough to have an influence upon the peace of the Kingdom.’<sup>126</sup> Hearing a suit in chancery in 1667 that related to Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, he ‘granted a decree without putting your honour to the charge or trouble of examining witnesses in the country by commission’, despite pressing time and an appointment with the king.<sup>127</sup></p><p>His most difficult problem, though, as with all of Charles II’s ministers, was the management of the king: Matthew Wren<sup>‡</sup> told Pepys a year after fall of Clarendon that ‘there is no way to rule the King but by briskness, which the Duke of Buckingham hath above all men.’<sup>128</sup> Clarendon complained regularly of how the king could undermine his work by accepting and following advice from others without discussing it with him.<sup>129</sup></p><h2><em>The first session of the Cavalier Parliament, 1661-2</em></h2><p>The new earl of Clarendon spoke at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May, and responded to the Speaker’s speech two days later. On 11 May he was introduced in the Lords in his new title, between Ormond and the Northumberland. On 20 May he read out a letter sent to the king from the Parliament of Scotland requesting the removal of the English army based in the northern kingdom.<sup>130</sup> He managed or reported conferences on the bill for the security of the king and on the practice in holding conferences (31 May, 5 June, 10 June) and conveyed a message from the king of the case of Nicholas Knollys*, titular 3rd earl of Banbury (6 June). He was absent from the House for the first time in the session on 17 July, when he was reported as being sick, and was replaced by Bridgeman, now lord chief justice of the common pleas. He would be absent for the remainder of the period up to the summer adjournment, meaning that he attended 81 per cent of the sittings for the first half of the 1661-2 session. Absence meant that Clarendon did not sign the protest at the passing, again, of the bill for Sir Edward Powell on that day, though many of those who had protested against the bill in 1660 did. He also missed the second reading of the bill on ecclesiastical jurisdiction (which would restore the bishops to the Lords) on 19 July, though when it was reported from committee on 22 July by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, it was recommitted, with the committee to meet on the following afternoon in the lord chancellor’s lodgings. Two days after that, Lucas reported from the committee that ‘upon further consideration, the Committee are of opinion, that the said bill should pass, without any alterations’. In his memoir, Clarendon wrote of the earl of Bristol’s attempt to persuade the king to delay the passage of the bill until something had been done to relieve the Catholics, and that this resulted in delay in committee; though the king initially agreed, Clarendon managed to get him to reverse the decision, provoking great annoyance in the earl of Bristol. Clarendon regarded this as the point at which Bristol became a real enemy.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Clarendon was widely blamed for ensuring the failure on the discussions of Catholic relief in July 1661. A Lords committee was appointed in June to consider the repeal of some anti-catholic legislation, and heads for a draft bill were sent to the attorney general for drafting; the bill, though, was never brought into the House. William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, at his trial nearly twenty years later, strongly asserted that Clarendon was responsible.<sup>132</sup> D’Estrades wrote that Clarendon had blocked the discussions, though because of his hostility to Bristol, rather than out of any animosity towards the Catholics. The Catholics, apprehensive that Clarendon would oppose their pitch for liberty of conscience and abolition of the penal laws, he wrote, had gone to the king, who had made Clarendon promise to act in accordance with the king’s intentions. But Clarendon had instead stirred up others to oppose the Catholic requests, and encouraged Presbyterian opposition, postponing the whole issue to the winter.<sup>133</sup> Clarendon blamed divisions among the Catholics, with the Jesuits principally at fault.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Clarendon did not return to the House before the adjournment on 30 July, when the king responded himself to the speech of the Speaker of the House of Commons. By then, the court was deep in international negotiations. D’Estrades’ instructions assumed Clarendon was pro-Spanish, but the two soon established a good relationship. His despatch of 15 July took it as read that Clarendon and Bristol, now returned from Italy, were now enemies, and the determination of the latter to overthrow Clarendon as the dominant figure in government now became the standard theme of court gossip.<sup>135</sup> The appointment of Bennet to the position of keeper of the privy purse, which he had previously promised Clarendon for one of his friends or relations, was widely taken as an indication of the king’s displeasure over the failure of the initiative over Catholic worship in the summer, though when Bristol and Bennet tried to follow up their success, the king firmly indicated that the chancellor was too useful to him to abandon.<sup>136</sup></p><p>Negotiations with the French moved on from the Portuguese marriage to other matters in the later summer, though Louis XIV tried to avoid D’Estrades getting drawn into a negotiation by the chancellor, and attempted to reserve substantive discussions on his side of the channel, and became outraged by Clarendon’s negotiating positions.<sup>137</sup> In early September. Clarendon made his first formal visit to Oxford as chancellor.<sup>138</sup> The fight between the staff of the Spanish and French embassies just before Parliament reopened was a severe embarrassment: Clarendon was said to have been trying to suppress the affair by providing a chance for those most involved to flee.<sup>139</sup></p><p>Clarendon was absent when Parliament reassembled on 20 Nov.; indeed he was absent from the House continuously until 19 Dec. when he returned to inform it about intelligence of a planned uprising. He was one of the committee of 13 peers to meet as a joint committee with the Commons to consider the issue over the Christmas adjournment, with the first meeting taking place at the lord chancellor’s lodgings in Whitehall. On the first day after the recess, 7 Jan. 1662, the chancellor reported back that the committee had met several times, though as a result of ‘some imaginary jealousies abroad of the end and intent of this Committee’s meeting’, it had decided to remit the issue back to the hands of both Houses. Thereafter Clarendon was present every day the House sat except for 22 Mar. until 3 May: he missed almost all of the last two weeks of the session. The result was an overall attendance for the second part of the 1661-2 session of 69 per cent.</p><p>The plan to revive the council of the North, about which the king and Clarendon had exchanged notes on 20 Dec., may have been linked to concern about a possible rebellion.<sup>140</sup> The issue provoked anger in the House on the second reading of a bill to reintroduce the court on 25 Jan., with the earl of Northumberland and the duke of Buckingham exchanging insults and then blows, and the chancellor giving the formal reprehension of the House. Burlington reported that Clarendon was in any case unhappy with the bill, remarking after the House returned to the bill following the altercation that ‘he thought it was impossible to make a good bill of it’.<sup>141</sup> On 15 Feb. the earl of Burlington recorded in his diary a deputation to Clarendon of peers and members of the House of Commons to make plain their opposition to the revival of the council.<sup>142</sup></p><p>During early February Clarendon was reporter on the conferences on the bills for the attainted persons (3 Feb.) and the bill for confirming three acts of the Convention, critically the act confirming ministers, drastically altered by the commons, which would have resulted in wholesale ejections of Presbyterian ministers (4 February). Clarendon made strenuous efforts among peers to moderate the bill (Sir William Morrice‡ reported him speaking ‘very rationally and pathetically’ against it, causing irritation in ‘some warm spirits’).<sup>143</sup> Dr Pett reported to Bramhall a heated debate on the ministers’ confirmation bill on 8 Feb., at which his efforts had paid off: he had succeeded in persuading seven bishops, including his allies Sheldon and Morley, and his son-in-law, the duke of York, to overturn the Commons amendments. Pett reported that the Presbyterian ministers sent Calamy, Baxter and Bates that day to the chancellor to thank him.<sup>144</sup> The bill was returned to the Commons – though in returning it, a promise may have been given (it is unclear by whom) to the Commons that similar provisions to those just removed from the ministers act would be reintroduced into the uniformity bill.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Clarendon was one of the 25 peers listed in the Journal who signed the protest against it the passage of the bill for restoring Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby to his lands on 6 February. He presided when the attainted judges of Charles I appeared before the House (7 Feb.), managed or reported conferences on the bill against Quakers (19 Feb., 1 Mar.), and conveyed messages from the king about the Book of Common Prayer (23 February). The Book had been accepted by the council on 21 Feb., following minor alterations, probably with the support of Clarendon, Southampton and Bishop Morley, and perhaps against the opposition of York and Sheldon (according to York), designed to make it more acceptable to Presbyterians.<sup>146</sup></p><p>The addition by the committee on the uniformity bill of most of the amendments made by the Commons to the ministers act was a huge blow to Clarendon’s carefully studied strategy of moderation.The bill was reported to the House on 13 Mar.; there followed a series of debates which brought to a head the tensions over both that issue and the power struggle at court. On 17 Mar. after the House formally agreed to incorporate the new Book of Common Prayer into the bill of uniformity, the chancellor brought forward a proviso with the king’s recommendation: it would allow the king to dispense with the requirement of wearing the surplice and signing with the cross in baptism. On the following day the earl of Bristol caused a sensation by claiming firstly that the recommendation of a proviso from the king was a breach of privilege, and second that, despite the recommendation, the king was ignorant of it and it did not accord with the king’s own views. Bristol’s motion to enter a salvo in the journal saving the privilege of the House was rejected, and his claim about the king’s view contradicted by Ormond and York. Clarendon, according to Sir William Morrice, responded to Bristol with ‘great moderation’, saying ‘that the earl reminded not his religion nor what the laws enacted concerning the resort of those of his profession to the king, and in prudence he ought to have concealed what intercourse he had with his majesty’; Bristol furiously asserted his rights of access to the king ‘whom he had served so faithfully, and the flame rose high and some fuelled it on either side, but few on the earl’s’.<sup>147</sup> On the 19th, Bristol made another attempt to persuade the House to abandon the proviso; it was perhaps then that John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, also strongly opposed it. After ‘many hours debate’, during which Bristol accused Clarendon of trying to prevent Cosin from speaking, just as the question was about to be put Bristol introduced a new proviso to enable the King to give liberty of worship to anyone. ‘This my Lord Chancellor said was to admit popery, and desired the question might be put whether it should be rejected or else desired he might enter his protestation’. Bristol’s proviso was rejected on a division, and in a second vote the first proviso was accepted, upon which the proviso was referred, with the bill itself, to the committee which had initially dealt with it. News of the row between Clarendon and Bristol was widely reported.<sup>148</sup> There were reports from Dorset of people associated with Bristol, especially Winston Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, speaking ‘very disgracefully’ about Clarendon.<sup>149</sup> Probably on 4 Apr., Clarendon attempted to introduce another provision to make the Act less draconian, allowing dispensation from the requirement to renounce the Covenant. A committee of bishops was set to consider whether they thought the covenant had all to be renounced, and they (predictably) confirmed that it did. Despite their report, Clarendon continued to argue for the proviso, but defeated in a vote by 39 votes to 26.<sup>150</sup></p><p>Clarendon was one of those managing conferences with the Commons on 10, 24 and 30 April concerning the uniformity bill and the bill for paving the streets of Westminster. Taken ill on 2 May, apart from an appearance on 14 May, he did not preside again for the rest of the session. (He was said to be still ‘much in disorder’ at the death of Cornbury’s wife, Theodosia, daughter of Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Baron Capell of Hadham, of smallpox, during March) <sup>151</sup></p><p>The new queen finally landed at Portsmouth on 14 May. Last minute difficulties about the form of the marriage ceremony were reported to Clarendon by frustrated and sleepless envoys Portland and Sheldon.<sup>152</sup> It was unfortunate in the extreme that a ‘lusty black boy’ (Charles Fitzroy alias Palmer*, later duke of Southampton and 2nd duke of Cleveland) was born to the king’s mistress, Clarendon’s distant cousin, Barbara Palmer, countess of Castlemaine (daughter of William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison, a friend of Clarendon’s killed in 1643), about a month after the queen’s arrival.<sup>153</sup> The queen’s reaction to the king’s determination that she be a gentlewoman of the queen’s bedchamber created a new court crisis, which Clarendon, reluctantly, tried to resolve. Although the queen was persuaded to back down, Clarendon retrospectively felt that the affair had helped to weaken his own influence with the king.<sup>154</sup></p><p>The affair was occupying the court at the same time as the prospect of the Act of Uniformity coming into effect was beginning to unnerve ministers. Clarendon received a petition from Presbyterian ministers asking for ‘a connivance or grace of toleration’ before 2 June.<sup>155</sup> Clarendon’s sharp remark to Richard Baxter, when he visited the chancellor sometime before 16 June, may have been a sign of the growing tension as the deadline approached.<sup>156</sup> Clarendon appears to have been behind another attempt to mitigate the effect of the Act just after it came into effect, which was successfully resisted by Sheldon at a council meeting on 28 August. The attempt leaving Sheldon resentful and bitter for the lack of support from the chancellor – he wrote to him two days later complaining of his ‘great unkindness … in offering to expose me to certain ruin by the parliament, or the extreme hatred of that malicious party in whose jaws I must live, and never giving me the least notice of it’.<sup>157</sup> Morley wrote to Clarendon on 3 Sept. 1662 regretting the latter’s ‘sad apprehensions, who are not naturally apt to be surprised or affected with them’.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Also in August and September discussions were continuing with the Dutch over a Treaty (concluded in September), and with the French over the sale of Dunkirk. The French envoy D’Estrades was in England in July (<em>en route</em> to The Hague) to conclude a treaty – the Abbé Montagu told his successor the following year that he thought that Clarendon had been able to manipulate D’Estrades, though many subsequently thought that it had been the other way around.<sup>159</sup> The French had been interested in acquiring Dunkirk for some time.<sup>160</sup> Clarendon claimed to D’Estrades in Aug. 1662 that the proposal to sell Dunkirk had been his own, and was supported by the king and the duke of York, but not yet accepted by Monck, Southampton and Sandwich, ‘whom he could not hope to win over without large sums of money’.<sup>161</sup> (In his memoir Clarendon attributed the first proposal for sale of the territory to the earl of Southampton, and suggested that he had been initially against it).<sup>162</sup> Haggling was going on in August, but negotiations were far enough advanced for the king on 1 Sept. to issue a formal commission to Clarendon, Southampton, Albemarle and Sandwich to conduct negotiations on the sale.<sup>163</sup> Clarendon was clearly attempting to ensure that the price paid was as high as possible; D’Estrades complained about slow progress, and Louis XIV himself protested to D’Estrades about the ‘apparent little artifices I have noticed quite often in various dialogues the said chancellor has had with you’.<sup>164</sup> D’Estrades did at least acknowledge in two despatches in October the political risks Clarendon was running through his strong personal support for the treaty.<sup>165</sup></p><p>Certainly the coalition of court forces against Clarendon was mobilizing again in autumn 1662. The appointment of Lord Hollis to be ambassador to France, rather than Sir Henry Bennet, had been interpreted as a success for Clarendon and for France.<sup>166</sup> But it was followed by a signal defeat for him in the replacement of Nicholas as secretary of state by Bennet. The initial moves in this were attributed to Daniel O’Neill, and the background to it was the legal objections raised by Clarendon to a proposal concerning Henry Bishop’s lease of the post office, which were said to have irritated the king, and provoked him into forming an alternative scheme to gratify Bennet, as well as the renewed hostility to Clarendon of both the queen mother and the countess of Castlemaine.<sup>167</sup> When the king announced his intention to appoint Bennet to the secretaryship of state, D’Estrades worried about the growth of his faction.<sup>168</sup> Nicholas, initially reluctant to leave his post, was generously bought out.<sup>169</sup> In a letter to Ormond of 19 Oct. 1662 Clarendon wrote that the rumour that the change in secretary of state was the first step to other alterations was malicious, though he discussed the assumption that behind it were the earl of Bristol and the earl of St Albans, and ‘Somerset House’ – the queen mother.<sup>170</sup> Clarendon’s letter crossed with Ormond’s, which counselled him to cultivate a good relationship with the new secretary.<sup>171</sup> The advice was not taken. Over the next couple of months, relations between the chancellor and secretary were extremely uneasy.<sup>172</sup></p><p>With the Scottish billeting controversy in September, in which his ally Middleton had sought to exclude from power former covenanters including Lauderdale, Clarendon was plainly aware of pressure on him in the autumn and early winter. Already on 24 Dec. Pepys was hearing about a potential charge against ‘some great man’ when Parliament met, which he took to mean the chancellor.<sup>173</sup> On the basis of a conversation with the king in early January the new French ambassador, the comte de Comminges, thought that Clarendon might have been right to be worried about Bennet; he pointed out that Clarendon’s illness was also a problem, as it meant that there was no ‘very easy access to those who have business with him, and could well fall into the hands of Sir [Henry] Bennet, who is approachable, and would certainly not turn them away’.<sup>174</sup> While Bennet assiduously courted those who might help him, Clarendon made little effort to gain friends. He upset George Goring, earl of Norwich by (the latter claimed) misleading him over the grant of the customs.<sup>175</sup> Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, son of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton abused Clarendon and said that Bennet was his only friend, even if he was a Catholic.<sup>176</sup></p><h2><em>The Indulgence and the Bristol affair, 1663-4 </em></h2><p>The brewing conflict between the two ministers came to a head over the Declaration of Indulgence. Published the day after Christmas 1662, it was prepared by Bennet, and declared an intention to bring forward a bill in the next session of parliament to clarify the king’s power of dispensation with the ecclesiastical laws, as well as to attempt to secure relief for loyal catholics.<sup>177</sup> It was probably, in principle, approved by Clarendon, since it was not clear that it would go beyond the efforts to moderate the Act of Uniformity that he had put forward earlier in the year. It was quite soon, however, that rumours began to circulate that he was hostile to it. In mid-January, Bennet wrote defensively to Ormond insisting that the chancellor had approved the Declaration.<sup>178</sup></p><p>Clarendon’s objections, recorded in his <em>Life</em>, were to the bill to give effect to the Declaration, rather than to the Declaration itself. Clarendon referred to a reading of the bill at Worcester House, attended by Lord Robartes and Lord Ashley, its principal drafters.<sup>179</sup> When the second session of the Cavalier Parliament opened on 18 Feb. 1663, Clarendon was not there, and he did not attend for the first ten sitting days of the session (overall he would attend 74 per cent of the sittings during the session). With the lord chief justice apparently unable to take over either, the lord privy seal, Robartes presided instead. Clarendon’s eventual appearance in the House on 12 Mar. followed the poor reception received by the bill in the Lords, as well as the mauling the Declaration had received in the Commons. On that day, the House met as a grand committee on the bill, with the lord chamberlain in the chair. Clarendon’s job was to effect a climbdown over the bill, and seems to have done a good job, the French ambassador praising his success in managing ‘his master’s reputation, parliament’s will and his own conscience, which he thinks is concerned if the declaration stands’.<sup>180</sup> It was probably on the following day that Clarendon was goaded into an outburst against the bill by Lord Ashley’s intervention – referring to it as ‘ship-money in religion, that nobody could know the end of, or where it would rest; that if it were passed, Dr Goffe [Stephen Goffe, the oratorian and chaplain to Henrietta Maria] or any other apostate from the church of England might be made a bishop or archbishop here, all oaths and statutes and subscriptions being dispensed with’.<sup>181</sup></p><p>The speech caused Clarendon the worst crisis of his chancellorship so far, deeply offending the king.<sup>182</sup> It was almost certainly not a coincidence that very shortly after the debate Clarendon found an obstacle in the way of his Irish grant.<sup>183</sup> The duke of York intervened with the king, though clearly Clarendon’s enemies took as much advantage as they could. By the 21st Clarendon and his allies hoped that the worst might be over, with Clarendon writing to Ormond ‘that the king doth begin to find that he hath been misled by those who were themselves never in the right way’.<sup>184</sup> The penalty was that he had to go and pull the teeth of the latest attack on Catholics. On 23 Mar. Comminges reported that he was expected to respond to the votes of the Commons demanding the expulsion of all priests and Jesuits by trying to limit the action to Jesuits.<sup>185</sup> It was on the 23rd that the House debated the votes of the House of Commons against priests and Jesuits. It nominated a committee to draft a petition to be presented to the king. The chancellor was one of its members, and probably the instigator of the alternative petition which emerged from it, asking for much more moderate action. Clarendon’s speech on behalf of the court’s proposals (possibly at the conference with the Commons on the 26th, which Clarendon managed) failed to convince the lower House, and the Lords gave in to the Commons, accepting their version of the proclamations, with (as was reported on the 29th) only three dissenters, ‘for all the great harangue was made to seduce them’.<sup>186</sup> Clarendon presented the petition – in the Commons’ terms – to the king on 31 March.</p><p>Between April and June there was a huge tussle for power at court. Comminges reported on 30 Mar. that the queen mother had been displaying her dislike of the chancellor, but that the earl of St Albans had now ‘brought all the interests together’, and the duke of York had been demonstrating their determined support for Clarendon.<sup>187</sup> Clarendon’s role in the Catholic affair, however, may have lost him some of the support among anti-Catholics that he had gained with his opposition to the Indulgence bill, particularly when the proclamation against priests that emerged was much less specific than had been expected. Comminges reported that ‘his creatures have lost heart, seeing that he varies his behaviour depending on whether he feels himself strong or weak in his master’s eyes’. Ashley, whom Comminges regarded as ‘the only man who can match him in intellect and resolve, does not refrain from freely expressing his sentiments on it, and contradicting him to his face’.<sup>188</sup> About ten days later he was writing of the confidence of Bristol’s faction, though he remarked that it would be impossible to ‘take from the chancellor the knowledge of the majority of affairs, for it is certain he has put down such mighty roots that it would take a long time to bring down the tree’.<sup>189</sup> Others, including the earl of Sandwich, regarded the chancellor as ‘irrecoverably lost’.<sup>190</sup> An investigation into the sale of offices in the Commons was thought to be aimed at him.<sup>191</sup> By 15 May Pepys believed that ‘the present favourites’ – Bristol, Buckingham, Bennet, Ashley, and Sir Charles Berkeley – had cast my lord chancellor upon his back, past ever getting up again; there now being little for him to do, and waits at court attending to speak to the king as others do’. Pepys thought that Southampton might be the next victim. <sup>192</sup></p><p>Pepys was wrong. Instead, at the end of May strenuous efforts seem to have been made by the king to effect a reconciliation between the two key figures, Clarendon and Bennet.<sup>193</sup> By 1 June Comminges wrote that the chancellor and Bennet were in the ‘closest concert imaginable through the care taken by the king’.<sup>194</sup> On 6 June Clarendon wrote warily to Ormond that ‘I can only say, that a man who hath not been deceived so much as I have been, would think that opinions are much changed, and that another course will be steered, than hath lately been’.<sup>195</sup> Part of the reconciliation was probably an agreement that the two factions should work together in the Commons, with Bennet, his sidekick Sir Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, and Winston Churchill joining Clarendon’s regular meetings about managing the Commons.<sup>196</sup> The reconciliation clearly excluded, or was taken to exclude, the earl of Bristol, who was said by Comminges to be bitter about Bennet’s betrayal. According to Ruvigny, the reconciliation finally came at the initiative of the earl of St Albans, who persuaded the king that the contest was having a serious effect on government business; Bennet made the calculation that an alliance with Clarendon represented a more solid foundation for power than one with Bristol.<sup>197</sup></p><p>Cut out of the deal, Bristol reacted with his customary impetuosity. He mounted (or continued, now more exposed) a concerted campaign in the Commons to obstruct royal business while he tried to approach the king with an offer to manage the Commons and made efforts to prepare charges against Clarendon.<sup>198</sup> On 12 June, probably as a result of the new alliance, the court succeeded in getting a vote for supply passed, over the opposition of Bristol’s ally Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>. On the following day Henry Coventry was sent to the Commons with the authority of the king to reveal that Temple had offered, via an intermediary, to manage the House, though without naming the intermediary.<sup>199</sup> By the 20th, Bristol had been banished from the court.<sup>200</sup> His name was given to the Commons on the 26th as the instigator of Temple’s offer to manage Parliament. Bristol asked the Commons to address it on 1 July, when in a much admired speech he managed to evade the question of what offers he had made to the king, and anticipated several of the charges that he would later make against Clarendon; returning to the Lords, in response to the complaint that he had attended the Commons without the permission of the House, he repeated his claims. Having refused to send the king his speech via an intermediary, on Monday 6 July, the king had an interview with Bristol at which Bristol gave him the speech and stated his intention to charge Clarendon with treason.<sup>201</sup></p><p>There being little time left before the end of the session (the chancellor had already conveyed the king’s proposal for a recess on 2 July), Bristol, it was said, planned to do so the following day, but was prevented by the chancellor’s prompt adjournment of the House. On Thursday 9th he was in the House of Lords, talking to other peers (as was, on the other side, the duke of York), and on the 10th he came to the House early. According to one account the chancellor attempted to prevent him from speaking by introducing other business, but Bristol nevertheless succeeded in doing so, introducing his impeachment articles against Clarendon. <sup>202</sup> He demanded the chancellor’s commitment, and that the king’s counsel should draw up a charge and commissions to examine witnesses. Of the charges, the claim that Clarendon had ‘arrogated to himself a supreme Direction in all His Majesty’s Affairs both at Home and Abroad’ was the most plausible. Other charges were perhaps conceivable, such as that he had said that the king was ‘inclined to popery, and had a design to alter the religion established in the kingdom’, and that catholics had ‘such access and such credit with him, that unless there were a careful eye had unto it, the Protestant religion would be overthrown in this kingdom’. However, they seemed contradicted by a number of other charges in which Clarendon appeared to be encouraging Charles for favour Catholics, including sending Richard Bellings to negotiate at Rome to secure a cardinalate for Ludovic Stewart, Seigneur d’Aubigny, effectively acknowledging the Pope’s ecclesiastical sovereignty. Most of the charges, however, were intended to convey the impression that Clarendon had tried to exacerbate anti-Catholic feeling or were a compendium of recent rumours and everything that had caused discontent with the court, including removing the army of occupation from Scotland, selling Dunkirk, fostering a difference between York and the king by spreading the story that the king planned to legitimize James Scott*, duke of Monmouth; and so on. If it was baffling why Bristol, a Catholic, might have made these charges, there was little doubt about why he might obtain support: in one letter to the young Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, Bristol’s allies were listed, including ‘all the nobility, disobliged (not to say abused) by the chancellor’, in particular Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, the duke of Buckingham, William Cavendish*, marquess, later duke, of Newcastle, Christopher Hatton* Baron Hatton ‘(baffled in his pretentions to the privy seal)’, Lord Ashley ‘on many old and new scores’, Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, almost all the rest of the peers, and ‘the whole body of the Commons unlesse a lawyer or two preferred by the chancellor; nay shall I say all the People of England, that have been sound in their religion and constant in their loyalty’.<sup>203</sup></p><p>The debate on Bristol’s articles began with a short vindication of himself by Clarendon and a vigorous denunciation of Bristol by the duke of York; the earl of Southampton successfully proposed a commitment of the articles to the judges, for an opinion on whether they amounted to treason. At court the charges were said to be ridiculous, and more dangerous for Bristol than for the chancellor; the queen mother was said to have tried very hard to prevent Bristol taking his action.<sup>204</sup> Ruvigny reported that even the Jesuits were distancing themselves from him. He reported that on Saturday 11 July, Bristol had complained to the House about the duke of York’s speech the previous day, and then the rest of the day ‘passed in wrangling’; Bristol was attempting to get the Commons involved, ‘which is stronger, and where he has many friends, who have no links to or hopes in the court’.<sup>205</sup> Notes by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, on the presence of bishops in capital cases suggests that some preparations were being made for a possible impeachment.<sup>206</sup></p><p>On Monday 13 July the Lords heard a message from the king, delivered by the chancellor himself, stating that many of Bristol’s allegations were untrue, and indicating that he regarded them as ‘a libel against his person and government’. The judges’ opinion was delivered on the same day. Bristol (opposed, unsuccessfully by Southampton) called for the judges to provide their reasons, and asked for time to summon witnesses from Ireland and Scotland.<sup>207</sup> On the following day lord chief justice Bridgeman gave the ‘reasons and grounds’ for the judges’ unanimous opinion: that ‘a charge of high treason cannot, by the laws and statutes, be originally exhibited by one peer against another, unto the House of Peers’ and even if the charges were true, they did not amount to treason. The House agreed with them without dissent. Some barely legible notes by Wharton of the debate on the 13th and 14th suggest considerable.<sup>208</sup> In response to Bristol’s request for time, the Lords were said, at the chancellor’s request, to have given Bristol until the first week of the next session of Parliament to bring his evidence. Comminges suggested that there was discussion about the possible arrest of Bristol, and Clarendon’s attempt to adjourn the House (possibly to prevent some request for his privilege), which ran into some difficulty until supported by courtiers.There was no formal conclusion to the debate, and beyond the agreement with the judges, no decision is recorded in the Journal.<sup>209</sup> O’Neill wrote in early August that there had been protests against Clarendon for adjourning the House without its consent, but he had claimed at the next sitting that he did not hear anyone oppose the adjournment. ‘My Lord Wharton’s proposition’, seconded by the duke of Buckingham – presumably relating to Bristol’s protection from arrest – ‘would have carried if it had been formed into a question’. After that, the king’s attitude ensured that there was no attempt to revive talk of privilege, despite Bristol’s best efforts.<sup>210</sup></p><p>The tactics of dealing with Bristol seem to have been the subject of continuing controversy at court, and the decision to let the issue continue until the next session may have been the result of poor communication.<sup>211</sup> Comminges wrote on 23 July that many of the chancellor’s supporters had wanted to have some sort of trial of Bristol’s charges before the end of the Parliament, but they had failed to attract support, and that the chancellor himself was complaining that they had allowed the proposal to allow Bristol more time to collect evidence; to which they had responded that since it was he who made the proposal they had not unnaturally assumed that it was what he, and the court, had wanted.<sup>212</sup> Clarendon was said to be suffering from the gout at the end of July, explaining his poor attendance at the end of the session. He was absent for six of the remaining sittings including the prorogation on 27 July, when the king again spoke without a closing contribution from the chancellor.<sup>213</sup></p><p>At the end of the session, Bristol vanished, evading a warrant out for his arrest, and amid much speculation that he planned a dramatic appearance at the beginning of the next session.<sup>214</sup> Comminges reported that the king had never seemed more affectionate to Clarendon than since the Bristol affair.<sup>215</sup> Clarendon went into the country for August and September, staying rather longer than intended because of the king’s to Oxford. <sup>216</sup> In September £6,000 of his money from Ireland was paid.<sup>217</sup></p><h2><em>1664-5: the aftermath of the Bristol affair</em></h2><p>Back in London in October Clarendon was again laid up with the gout, dealing with chancery business from his home. Isolated from the court, he was prone to suspicions about business being done behind his back at the beginning of November. The complexities of the Irish settlement occupied a good deal of the autumn. <sup>218</sup> Clarendon was well enough to preside in Westminster Hall on 28 Nov. ‘within a quarter of an hour after the day broke’, but on 12 December he wrote that he had had the worst fit of the gout ever in the previous four days.<sup>219</sup> He was said to have recovered by 22 Dec., but in mid-January, Viscount Fitzharding [I] (as Sir Charles Berkeley had become) blamed delays in the Irish settlement on the lord chancellor’s indisposition. <sup>220</sup></p><p>Despite Bristol’s disappearance, tension at the court remained high. The French ambassador in his despatch of 25 Jan. reported a provocative reappearance of the earl of Bristol at his house in Wimbledon, and a farcical encounter in which John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, visiting the chancellor, was mistaken by a servant for the earl and seized.<sup>221</sup> Pepys heard on 1 Feb. that the Bristol/Clarendon struggle still ‘runs high’, and Ashley and Lauderdale were openly supporting Bristol.<sup>222</sup> Clarendon himself was still enfeebled by gout: the letter he wrote to Ormond on 30 Jan, he said, was the first he had written himself for nine weeks. There hung over the court the threats of Bristol and his friends and what they might do when Parliament met in March. <sup>223</sup> The king’s maintenance of favour for Lauderdale as well as Bristol’s ostentatious behaviour – having his house done up and keeping a magnificent livery – helped to keep speculation alive.<sup>224</sup></p><p>A newsletter noticed Clarendon’s first appearance out of doors for 14 weeks on 29 Feb., though he paid for it the following day.<sup>225</sup> In anticipation of a new session of Parliament, there were a number of initiatives to try to negotiate an end to the Bristol affair, involving Bristol’s ally Sir Kenelm Digby, the Catholic d’Aubigny, and the earl of St Albans. Clarendon was said to have resisted any notice of the affair in parliament (such as an act vindicating him, or giving some assurances to Bristol that he would be allowed to return to the country after a period in exile), on the grounds ‘that it would be too strong an attack on the king’s authority, and would fortify that of Parliament’.<sup>226</sup></p><p>Clarendon was still not well enough to attend the House at the beginning of the spring 1664 session (and overall attended 52 per cent of sittings), and so was not there during Bristol’s attempt to petition the king and the House. Nevertheless, he was intimately involved in the decisions made by the government on the affair. Lord Anglesey, the recipient of one of Bristol’s approaches assured Ormond on 19 Mar. that he was not ‘likely to hazard my lord chancellor’s friendship for my Lord Bristol’s compliment’, ‘though perhaps when all’s done’, he added, ‘I should rather have advised the open calling for my Lord Bristol to justice in parliament than to take the course that is now held.’<sup>227</sup> That course involved a last minute adjournment on the 16th, with peers dressed in their robes and the queen ready to enter to watch the ceremony, in an attempt to arrest Bristol and prevent him from arriving to claim privilege. The French ambassador reported a council meeting at the chancellor’s home on the 17th to discuss the affair, and possibly a letter from Bristol to the king, in which he requested a ‘secret audience’ in order to reveal a ‘great secret’ which Clarendon was withholding from him – and threatened to reveal it in Parliament if he was not granted the audience.<sup>228</sup></p><p>Clarendon was still absent from the House on 21 Mar. (with his cousin, the recently elevated lord chief justice Sir Robert Hyde presiding as speaker in his absence) when the countess of Bristol brought her husband’s petition to the House. The duke of York, backed by the earl of Southampton ensured in a debate the following day that the petition was not read, but directed straight to the king.<sup>229</sup> The French ambassador wrote on 28 Mar. that Clarendon’s supporters were suggesting that as soon as he was able to attend parliament he would urge that Bristol be allowed to make his accusations.<sup>230</sup> Although Clarendon was still not well enough to ‘find my feet’ on 2 Apr., he attended for the first time on 26 Apr., and for the last three weeks of the session.<sup>231</sup> He reported messages from the king concerning the resolutions of both Houses on action against the Dutch, but otherwise is not specifically indicated in the Journal. The action taken by the king and court had largely succeeded in suppressing the Bristol affair; on 22 Mar. Huntingdon heard that Ashley and Lauderdale were ‘silent’, perhaps now ‘taken into the chancellor’s friendship’,<sup>232</sup> and Pepys wrote at the end of April that the business had been ‘hushed up, and nothing made of it – [Bristol] gone and the discourse quite ended’.<sup>233</sup> With Bristol’s departure some sort of calm seems to have descended over the court. Clarendon attended to his building project: he told Ormond of his plans for Clarendon House on 9 Apr. 1664, and in October he and his wife took John Evelyn to see the construction works.<sup>234</sup></p><h2><em>The opening of the Dutch War, 1664-66</em></h2><p>The influence of Bristol’s charges, though, was visible in the fact that in early 1665 the new building was being referred to as ‘New Dunkirk’.<sup>235</sup> Moreover the quiet at court during 1664 was not exactly harmony: the relationship beween Bennet and Clarendon remained a subject of gossip and anxiety throughout.<sup>236</sup> The main preoccupation over the summer was with the prospect of war with the Dutch republic following clashes in Africa and a series of unsuccessful negotiations. Clarendon was closely involved in the discussions about it. He described in his <em>Life</em> a meeting at Worcester House in advance of the 1664-65 session of Parliament at which the question of raising money for the war was discussed, at which he and the earl of Southampton insisted (against Bennet and Coventry) that a large grant was requested to take advantage of the relative enthusiasm for fighting the Dutch, and plans were laid for a group of Norfolk MPs to propose the unprecedented grant in the Commons.<sup>237</sup></p><p>Clarendon himself was not present at the beginning of the winter 1664-5 session: the narrative of dealings with the Dutch given at the opening of Parliament on 24 Nov. was read on the king’s behalf, instead of being a presentation by the chancellor, though it was drafted by him, or under his direction.<sup>238</sup> But he was clearly closely involved in pursuing the strategy that had been fixed on: the proposer of the grant in the Commons, Sir Robert Paston<sup>‡</sup>, wrote to his wife on 29 Nov. that he had recently been at Worcester House and ‘sufficiently caressed by the chancellor’, and early the following year Paston was noting how ‘all the chancellor’s friends’ were supporting his efforts to get his private bill through the Commons.<sup>239</sup> The chancellor remained away from the House for the entire session, which lasted until March, replaced for most of the time by Bridgeman, although at the end of January 1665 the lord privy seal received a new commission to serve as Speaker, and did so for the rest of the session.<sup>240</sup></p><p>Despite the success of the 1664-65 session, the preparations for the war and Clarendon’s continuing illness may have helped to erode his central position in the administration, in particular over attracting the support of members of the House of Commons. (William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker [I], told Pepys in mid-December 1666 that the ‘it is the chancellors interest… to bring peace again, for in peace he can do all and command all; but in war he cannot, because he understands not the nature of the war’.<sup>241</sup>) In January 1665 Thomas Salusbury was again telling the earl of Huntingdon about how Lauderdale, Ashley and Fitzharding were gaining over the chancellor in the king’s favour.<sup>242</sup> Ashley and Bennet seem to have been active in soliciting support among members of the House of Commons. Paston referred in February to ‘a back friend of mine that loves not the chancellor, my Lord Ashley by name, told the king this morning he would give me four thousand pound a year for my bill’.<sup>243</sup> Clarendon himself wrote about Bennet and Sir Charles Berkeley ‘caressing’ Paston, and encouraging him to expect a barony.<sup>244</sup> The appointment of a prize commission and sub-commissioners, most of whom were members of the lower House, was organized by Bennet (raised to the peerage as Baron Arlington in March), Ashley and William Coventry, and much disapproved of by Clarendon, as a means of by-passing the normal exchequer financial controls.<sup>245</sup> Clarendon himself reckoned that his dislike of the war – and his encouragement of the king’s own doubts – had cooled his relationship with the duke of York.<sup>246</sup> Another affair, which was preoccupying the court sometime in the late summer of 1665 – the appointment of a successor to Edward Montagu as master of the horse to the queen, which the duke and duchess of York and Clarendon himself expected to go to Montagu’s brother Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, – Clarendon saw as being manipulated in order to drive a wedge between himself and Southampton.<sup>247</sup> The appointment of Sir William Coventry to the Privy Council in June 1665, and his joining the foreign affairs committee, or ‘junto’, was seen by Clarendon as a particularly grievous blow to his own dominance, as it had also introduced some coolness between himself and the duke of York – as had York’s desire that Sir George Savile*, (Coventry’s nephew and later marquess of Halifax) be made a viscount, against Clarendon’s defence of what he claimed was the king’s determination not to swell the ranks of the peerage (Savile’s viscountcy was delayed until 1668).<sup>248</sup></p><p>French ambassadors arrived in mid-April in an attempt to mediate between England and the republic. They felt that they were negotiating between Arlington, Lauderdale and Ashley, all advocates of war, on the one hand, and Clarendon on the other. By late June they thought the chancellor was losing his grip on the discussions: Ormond and Southampton were still very much on his side ‘but that he would rather let the war go on than admit to these two gentlemen that he needed their voices to bring the king his master to any resolution’.<sup>249</sup></p><p>The final negotiations before the outbreak of the war at sea in the summer of 1665 coincided with Clarendon’s negotiations with the earl of Burlington for marriage of his second son, Laurence Hyde, to the earl’s daughter Henrietta. The subject seems to have been first broached by the duchess of York to the countess of Burlington in Mar. 1665. The chancellor seems to have found it difficult to supply the expectations required for his second son, and the match had to be vigorously supported by the duke of York, and even the king himself, who promised that Laurence Hyde would receive preferment.<sup>250</sup> Clarendon’s old acquaintance, Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, Burlington’s sister, seems to have acted as a go-between. By mid June Burlington had agreed to the marriage, though he had insisted on an entail when an estate was purchased (presumably with the dowry). The wedding took place at the end of June, the service performed by the archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth in the presence of Clarendon, Ormond and the bishop of Winchester.<sup>251</sup></p><p>Shortly after this, the plague caused the court to move out of London. When Clarendon wrote to Sandwich on 26 July from Twickenham, he was expecting shortly to go to Salisbury, where the court had fled.<sup>252</sup> He spent September at Cornbury (‘one of the pleasantest places in England’, he told Sheldon). <sup>253</sup> The plague meant a relocation of the forthcoming parliamentary session to Oxford and Clarendon in his capacity as chancellor of the university, personally approved the arrangements for accommodation of members. <sup>254</sup> In late September he was also consulting on whether there should be a law term or not.<sup>255</sup></p><p>Clarendon was present at the opening of the Oxford session on 9 Oct., and delivered a speech on the following day, but for the last eleven days of the short session he failed to attend (he was present for just a 26 per cent of the total number of sittings). The court secured its supply bill very quickly, although there was considerable controversy within it over the proposal of Sir George Downing<sup>‡</sup> for a new system of government borrowing, incorporated within the bill much to the regret of Clarendon and Southampton, and also, to Clarendon’s surprise, of Lord Ashley. Clarendon had interpreted the origins of the proposal, or at least the support for it from William Coventry and Arlington, as an attempt to replace Southampton as treasurer; his own anger at Downing for proposing it produced, in Clarendon’s own account, some annoyance in the king, the incident offering more encouragement to his enemies.<sup>256</sup></p><p>Despite success with the supply bill, the government were dismayed to encounter pressure for a total ban on the importation of Irish Cattle.<sup>257</sup> Edward Conway*, Viscount (later earl of) Conway, told Ormond of his shock when he arrived at Oxford to hear about it, and how Clarendon had assured him of his support.<sup>258</sup> The bill was suppressed that session, only to return the following year. Clarendon’s absence from parliament was, as usual, caused by gout. By the end of November, the king and council were said to be meeting three times a week in his lodgings.<sup>259</sup> Clarendon wrote to Ormond on 11 Dec. from Oxford that he was ill again, adding ‘what I think of the war, you know. I pray God put an end, or take me out of the world’.<sup>260</sup> Clarendon was at Cornbury in early January 1666, where a misunderstanding resulted in his being woefully unprepared when the king came for dinner, a fact which Arlington reported to Ormond not without amusement.<sup>261</sup> A few days later he left for Twickenham.<sup>262</sup></p><p>Well enough to preside as lord high steward at the trial of Lord Morley in Westminster Hall on 30 Apr., the chancellor’s speech on the occasion congratulated the peers ‘for being restored to that high and invaluable part of your privilege, birthright, that no person of your own rank how great an offender soever shall be tried but before your selves’. He warned them not to give way to compassion or to ‘indignation to see a nobleman stoop to mean and sordid actions at which nobility blushes and hides its face to see a great lord unpeer himself’. <sup>263</sup> With the desperate need to find money for continued naval operations, particularly early in the fighting season, Clarendon was instrumental in persuading the City to lend £100,000 in June, and was dealing with the financial and legal implications of raising troops to oppose a possible Dutch attack on the coast in July, though this was ended by the victory of the Four Days’ Fight later that month.<sup>264</sup></p><p>Clarendon had moved to Berkshire House, opposite St James’s Palace and recently vacated by the French ambassadors, by October 1666, where Burlington found him on his arrival from Ireland. The move was explained as avoiding the damp of the river, but may also have been in preparation for the completion and occupation of Clarendon House, a short distance away on Piccadilly, or to get further away from the danger and devastation caused by the Fire of London in the first week of September.<sup>265</sup> Clarendon House, which as Orrery observed was as far away from the river again as Berkshire House, was sufficiently complete by Christmas Day for Burlington to take communion in the chapel there.<sup>266</sup></p><h2><em>The session of 1666-7</em></h2><p>The move to Berkshire House may have improved Clarendon’s health, for the chancellor was present to preside at the beginning on 18 Sept. of the autumn/winter session 1666-7, missing only six days’ business before Christmas, and therefore present at the debates on the Irish cattle and public accounts bills and the inquiry into the Canary Company, while the government desperately sought to obtain a grant of supply to carry on the war. A month into the session, Pepys attended a meeting of the Tangier committee of the council, on 13 Oct., from which he came away ‘mad in love with my lord chancellor, for he doth comprehend and speak as well, and with the greatest easiness and authority, that ever I saw man in my life’.<sup>267</sup></p><p>The Irish cattle bill came to the Lords on 16 Oct., and took up many hours of debate in committee of the whole House in the last two weeks of October, reaching a climax after a break on 8, 9 and 10 November. Clarendon complained bitterly of the conduct of the debates, ‘so disorderly and unparliamentary that the like had never been known: no rules or orders of the house for the course and method of debate were observed’.<sup>268</sup> Conway wrote to Ormond praising Clarendon’s determined, but unsuccessful, opposition to the bill, and conveying the chancellor’s willingness to support measures to mitigate its effects in Ireland.<sup>269</sup> A few days after the passage of the bill in the Lords on Friday 23 Nov. he reported to Ormond how he had thanked Clarendon for his support, adding that ‘though the blow seemed chiefly to be struck at your grace, yet I was certain, and should glory in the honour of it, that we did also suffer upon the account of being his servants’. When he said that he thought part of the conspiracy was to replace Ormond with the duke of Monmouth, Clarendon responded that ‘they had not wit enough to drive on such a design’. Conway wrote that he had told him ‘he was a better statesman, than a soldier, for a soldier ought not to despise his enemy’.<sup>270</sup></p><p>When the Lords debated the Commons’ rejection of the Lords’ amendments to the bill on 17 Dec., Clarendon vigorously argued that the description of the importation of Irish cattle as a ‘nuisance’, designed to prevent the exercise of the king’s discretion to override the ban, was ‘against the king’s prerogative, an affront, and diminution to him, an unreasonable, improper, unusual and nonsense word’: he was opposed, though ultimately unsuccessfully, by Buckingham, Ashley and Lucas.<sup>271</sup> The reasons for leaving out the word were reported to the House on 29 Dec., when, Conway wrote to Ormond, ‘my Lord Ashley seemingly to compose the difference, moved it might be changed into felony, or a praemunire, my lord Chancellor drolled very well, and said he thought it might as reasonably be called adultery’. <sup>272</sup></p><p>The investigation into the patent for the Canary Company, launched in the Commons at the beginning of October, was seen as potentially harming Clarendon, regarded as a sponsor of the incorporation of the company, though in his memoir he had defended at length the decision to do so as a collective one and done by the assent of the Canary merchants.<sup>273</sup> The Commons voted the patent illegal and sent to the Lords for a joint appeal to the king to withdraw it on 29 October. The Lords put off the issue, while the court considered how to react: they finally settled on a line that the matter should be dealt with judicially, and that the Commons’ vote was a usurpation of the judicial privilege of the Lords. The Commons agreed to present their arguments against the patent to the Lords on 19 Dec., and there was a further hearing on 7 Jan., at which one speech, possibly by Ashley, may well have been directed against Clarendon; but no further action was taken.<sup>274</sup></p><p>The Commons’ move for an examination of government accounts by a joint committee, initiated in Nov., was rejected by the Lords on 22 November. Clarendon described the reaction to the proposal within government in his memoir, including his own determination that it should be resisted, telling the king that although he should be a defender of the privileges of parliament, he should be ‘equally solicitous to prevent the excesses in parliament, and not to suffer them to extend their jurisdiction to cases they have nothing to do with; and that to restrain them within their proper bounds and limits is as necessary as it is to preserve them from being invaded’.<sup>275</sup> The Commons’ alternative proposal, a bill to create a statutory committee, was worse. In the debate on the bill on 19 Dec., the House of Lords agreed to propose instead that both Houses should petition the king for a royal commission to review the accounts. Clarendon paid careful attention to the king’s reply and the membership of the proposed commission (excluding government members, who all happened to be allies of Arlington, including Sir Thomas Clifford and Sir William Coventry).<sup>276</sup> Lord Conway understood at the end of December that ‘because this was a contrivance of my lord chancellor’s’, Lord Ashley, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton and others had decided not to participate in the commission, and firmly expected an impeachment to be mounted against Clarendon.<sup>277</sup></p><p>The decision to adjourn only for a few days over Christmas – in the hope that a thin House might secure the supply bills – was taken against Clarendon’s advice. Clarendon’s ally, Brodrick, told Ormond how it had been counterproductive.<sup>278</sup> Clarendon himself succumbed again to the gout early in the new year. After attending the House for the first few days after Christmas, he was absent from 8 Jan. for the rest of the session.<sup>279</sup> An impasse had been reached by the middle of January over the word ‘nuisance’ in the Irish Cattle bill. The decision to concede the point was taken at a meeting on Sunday 13 Jan. at Berkshire house, with Clarendon the only one to hold out against it.<sup>280</sup> A week later Clarendon told Conway that Arlington had persuaded the king reluctantly to accept the bill by arguing that it would change the attitude of the Commons: the king was already regretting his decision.<sup>281</sup> Though the Lords were also encouraged to drop their objections to an amended version of the accounts bill in the same week, the bill was lost between the Houses at the end of the session.</p><p>Clarendon recognized that the 1666-67 session had gained him many enemies in the Commons because of a number of apparently contemptuous remarks he freely made in the Lords, encouraging the latter (as he described it in his memoir) to ‘be more solicitous in preserving their own unquestionable rights and most important privileges, and less tender in restraining the excess and new encroachments of the house of commons, which extended their jurisdiction beyond their limits’.<sup>282</sup> There seem to have been moves towards an impeachment towards the end of the session. Three petitions were presented to the Lords during January against chancery decrees made by Clarendon, to follow up one presented back in mid-November.<sup>283</sup> The duke of Buckingham was said to be soliciting complaints against the chancellor.<sup>284</sup> On 2 Feb. Conway told Ormond of a meeting he and the earl of Anglesey had had with the chancellor, when Clarendon ‘read us his answer to a petition brought up against him into the House of Lords, about a decree [which] he made in chancery, which is very handsomely drawn, we also discoursed of many insolencies, and insufferable behaviours of the House of Commons both in their private and public capacities’. Clarendon’s response was read in the Lords on 4 Feb. by his ally the earl of Bridgwater, just a few days before the prorogation on the 8th.<sup>285</sup></p><h2><em>The 1667 crisis</em></h2><p>By the end of the session Burlington was able to report that Clarendon was well enough to be instrumental in arranging a match for Ormond’s granddaughter, and he was also, Anglesey reported, deeply involved in discussions on averting economic crisis in Ireland as a result of the passage of the Irish Cattle Act.<sup>286</sup> Following the reluctant, risky, but inevitable decision at the end of February not to set out a fleet for the summer’s campaign, over March, April and May, Clarendon carried out lengthy exchanges with the earl of St Albans in Paris in the hope of negotiating a peace treaty and preventing the Dutch from setting out their fleet.</p><p>In early April, Clarendon moved into Clarendon House, and was said to ‘come abroad again’ around the middle of the month.<sup>287</sup> As usual he was deeply concerned in various private businesses: he advised Katharine, Viscountess Ranelagh on a marriage settlement (though he resisted her discussing Yorkshire militia business on Burlington’s behalf); he was appealed to by the earl of Winchilsea for help in avoiding his son contracting an unsuitable marriage; he acted as a broker between Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield and Charles Henry Kirkhoven*, Baron Wootton; and he was called on to support the commissioners responsible for the duke of York’s Irish affairs.<sup>288</sup></p><p>The earl of Southampton’s death was generally expected well before it happened on 16 May, and it was commonly assumed that it would have a serious impact on the chancellor’s hold on power.<sup>289</sup> The chancellor wrote that he had unsuccessfully opposed the king’s plan to replace him with a commission, failed to persuade the king to base the commission on previous precedents, and managed only to get the king to include the chancellor of the exchequer.<sup>290</sup> Anglesey noted that the failure to include the chancellor himself on the commission was ‘wondered at’, though Sir Alan Brodrick commented that Clarendon’s ‘extraordinary’ advocacy of the claim of the earl of Bridgwater as treasurer may have helped his opponents.<sup>291</sup> Southampton’s death was the first of a series that closely affected the chancellor: the young duke of Kendal died only a few days later, and by the end of May the condition of the countess of Clarendon was giving acute cause for alarm.<sup>292</sup></p><p>The Dutch attack on the English fleet in the Medway took place on 10-14 June. Clarendon wrote feelingly of the panic at court that ensued.<sup>293</sup> Over the next ten days of lengthy debates in the council, one theme was whether to recall Parliament. York, Clarendon and Sir George Carteret were said to be the key voices resisting the widely supported proposal.<sup>294</sup> One account of the debate suggested that Anglesey had proposed a new parliament, which was ‘sharply opposed’ by Sheldon; Sir William Coventry seconded Anglesey, and was ‘more moderately’ responded to by Clarendon. In a second debate, perhaps on the 19th, Coventry argued, and prevailed, for a recall of the existing Parliament to a closer date than was initially decided. In his memoir, Clarendon wrote that the time was ‘so unseasonable for the council of a Parliament, that if it had been then sitting, the most wholesome advice that could be given would be to separate them’.<sup>295</sup> Clarendon seems to have advised that the king should rely on his prerogative to raise money in an emergency, rather than rely on parliament; in his memoir he also wrote that he had proposed the dissolution of the present parliament and the election of another, in order to overcome the difficulty that the present parliament was prorogued to October. The king, however, determined on a recall, which was announced on 25 June for a month ahead.<sup>296</sup></p><p>Opposition to the government was likely to come from the duke of Buckingham, whose arrest – on a dubious charge relating to fomenting rebellion – had been ordered by the king shortly after the end of the previous parliamentary session. Before giving himself up on 28 June, Buckingham (identifying Arlington as his principal antagonist) had sought support from Clarendon.<sup>297</sup> Clarendon’s secretary, Matthew Wren, told Pepys a year later that Clarendon had refused to discuss a deal with Buckingham, perhaps then or possibly after Buckingham’s release from the Tower on 14 July.<sup>298</sup> His stance made him an obvious target of parliamentary attack, compounded by his support for Sir George Carteret, one of the figures who were most strongly identified as responsible for the disaster. <sup>299</sup> Ormond offered support to Clarendon by sending his son Lord Ossory over with Burlington.<sup>300</sup></p><p>The progress towards conclusion of a peace treaty with the Dutch gave Clarendon sufficient confidence to tell Burlington not to hurry over on 13 July, expecting Parliament to disperse shortly after it met on the 25th. He claimed not to be worried about the rumours, ‘and have no apprehensions of the effects of them as to my own particular’.<sup>301</sup> Others thought Clarendon was much more at risk than this: Pepys reported on 17 July that after Buckingham had met the king, Clarendon and Arlington had been ‘delivered up’ to Buckingham’s revenge, and also told a new story about how York and Clarendon had become concerned about the king’s interest in Frances Stewart, and had done all they could to ensure that she was married hastily to Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond.<sup>302</sup></p><p>Clarendon was present for the two days of the brief and abortive, but very well-attended, meeting of Parliament on 25 and 29 July, hastily prorogued following news of the peace.<sup>303</sup> He does, however, seem to have been making his own preparations for the forthcoming session. Following the prorogation, one of Ormond’s correspondents told him on 10 Aug. of the chancellor’s contacts with nonconformist ministers, including John Owen.<sup>304</sup></p><p>The public crisis coincided with an acute personal one. In late June the countess of Clarendon had been taken seriously ill, and she died on the evening of 9 August.<sup>305</sup> Clarendon’s dismissal from office, within two weeks of her funeral on the 17th, resulted from something between political calculation, conspiracy (the Clarendon camp blamed Arlington and Coventry) and misunderstanding. Clarendon himself suggested that the king had decided within a couple of weeks of his wife’s death that he should surrender his position in order to protect him from the wrath of the forthcoming session of Parliament.<sup>306</sup> Other accounts suggest a farcical confusion, in which, suffering profoundly from his several bereavements – his wife, his two grandsons, and his closest political ally – Clarendon gave the impression to York that he really wanted to retire from political life.<sup>307</sup> Encouraged by Sir William Coventry, York secured the king’s agreement, only to find subsequently that Clarendon was not at all willing to give up office. Over the next few days there was an acute struggle over the chancellor’s future. Clarendon’s defenders may even have included Buckingham, suspicious of Arlington.<sup>308</sup> The tussle placed Ormond, and especially his son, Ossory, in an intensely awkward position because of his relationship with Arlington.<sup>309</sup> Clarendon’s enemies certainly included Castlemaine whose animosity was later said to have intensified because he had stopped some grants of £2,000 a year to her brother Lord Grandison, for the use of her children (a story which helped to enhance the fallen chancellor’s reputation).<sup>310</sup> The struggle caused a deep rift between York and his secretary, Coventry, whom he dismissed, replacing him with Clarendon’s secretary, Matthew Wren.<sup>311</sup> Lady Ranelagh recommended to Burlington on the 27th that he should stand by the chancellor in his declining fortunes, especially because it was said that the king was still expressing his esteem to him, and because he was still extremely solicitous of his daughter-in-law, Burlington’s daughter.<sup>312</sup></p><p>Clarendon recounted a meeting between the king, York and himself on 26 Aug., at Whitehall, at which he made it clear that he was not prepared to give up his office voluntarily.<sup>313</sup> The king’s decision to dismiss the chancellor came on the 30th. The seals were given to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, now made lord keeper. Ossory wrote to Ormond on the following day, saying he had been to see Clarendon, who planned to remain in town until the end of the next session of Parliament, ‘when he purposes to show himself and says he fears not all that can be done unto him’. The king’s displeasure with Clarendon was clear, though his reasons for finally sacking him less so, particularly after having so long dithered about it.<sup>314</sup> Coventry wrote that the king had explained that, among many other reasons for his dismissal, ‘my lord chancellor took so much upon him that it took away the liberty of debate in the council; but the king says his tenderness toward his royal highness made him endure it thus long’.<sup>315</sup> In the absence of a formal explanation, Ormond found it difficult to know what to make of events in London.<sup>316</sup> His letter to Clarendon offering him his sympathy was late and rather careful, which Clarendon may have resented slightly.<sup>317</sup> Clarendon wrote to Ormond on 24 Sept. that he was ‘accused of insolence and sauciness in debates’ and defended himself for speaking out; his statement that ‘it is not impossible that I may yet do him more service under his displeasure, than I have been able to do in his favour’ was perhaps a risky indication that, aggrieved, he intended to pursue and independent political line.<sup>318</sup> Sheldon’s complaint, in a letter to Ormond, that the two of them ‘shall not fare the better, for being supposed to have a kindness for one that had none’ for them took Ormond aback; Sheldon’s response to his request for more details of how Clarendon had failed them, just as proceedings on Clarendon’s impeachment were getting into their stride, was remarkably bitter: ‘God knows, for these divers years, I have had little reason to be fond of him. Whether you have had so, Your Grace best knows... I wish him innocent; but if he prove guilty, let him suffer.’ <sup>319</sup> Clarendon’s enemies were naturally delighted: John Grenville*, earl of Bath, and Lord Berkeley at Bagshot were said to be ‘not a little pleased with this disgrace of my Lord Chancellor’.<sup>320</sup> Burlington’s personal alliance with Clarendon placed him in an awkward position, and he noted in his diary an interview with the king on 20 Oct. in which he sought and secured his permission to visit Clarendon as often as he wished.<sup>321</sup></p><p>With the new parliamentary session looming, Clarendon took care to avoid being seen to be creating a cabal. Though he had been dissuaded from going into the country by the duke and duchess of York, he asked the new French ambassador in early September not to visit him.<sup>322</sup> Pepys heard that the removal of the chancellor was a step on the way to an attack on York with a declaration of the legitimacy of the duke of Monmouth.<sup>323</sup> The intense negotiations in anticipation of the new session encompassed attempts to reconcile Arlington and Buckingham: Buckingham, nursing what had become a settled hostility to Arlington, was still reluctant to jettison Clarendon, and the two were reported, in the days before Parliament met, to be ‘frequently together, locked up.’<sup>324</sup> James recorded his assumption that Northumberland – leading an attempt to bring in a comprehension bill, along with Lord Holles and (improbably) Robert Sydney*, 2nd earl of Leicester – was a friend of the chancellor’s.<sup>325</sup></p><p>On 30 Sept. Ruvigny understood that an impeachment was under preparation, although it was not intended to extend to capital charges. Clarendon’s offer to leave London until the beginning of the session was dismissed by the king, referring to his failure to depart when the king had wanted him to earlier.<sup>326</sup> This indication of the king’s firm displeasure seems to have rattled Clarendon: when Evelyn visited him, two days before the opening of Parliament, he found him in ‘continual apprehension’.<sup>327</sup> By then, however, the impeachment had become entangled in the political responses to the French incursion into the Spanish Netherlands. Ruvigny wrote to his master that Clarendon was now in touch with the Imperial ambassador, Isola, in the belief that reaction to the invasion might interrupt the impeachment. For similar reasons, Clarendon’s enemies were trying to suppress interest in the situation in the Netherlands. Ruvigny reported a conversation with Buckingham on 13 Oct., in which the latter – who had now plumped for the anti-Clarendon camp – had promised him to prevent a call for a Spanish alliance, and said that tomorrow they would start to work on the ruin that had been resolved for Clarendon. The king had insisted that York should not oppose votes of thanks to the king in both Houses for the removal of the chancellor. York reluctantly agreed, but reserved his right ‘if the enemies of the chancellor pushed him too far’.<sup>328</sup></p><p>Clarendon was absent when Parliament resumed on 10 Oct., and never sat in the House again. Neither the king nor the lord keeper referred to his dismissal in their respective speeches. The Commons’ address of thanks in response to the king’s speech, drawn up by a committee whose first member was Sir Thomas Littleton and reported to the House on the 14th, offered thanks for a series of recent measures, and particularly the chancellor’s removal.<sup>329</sup> Sir Job Maynard<sup>‡</sup> spoke in his defence, but the debate was dominated by an intensely hostile speech by the respected lawyer (and former friend of the chancellor) John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>330</sup> The Lords concurred with the vote the following day, with only two earls speaking against it, although the duke of York, and the earls of Peterborough, Bridgwater and Burlington and perhaps others left the House to avoid voting.<sup>331</sup> (Clarendon’s own claim that an original motion by Thomas Tomkins<sup>‡</sup> to thank the king for his dismissal was not accepted, and only passed after the king intimated that it was not unacceptable to him, and insisted that the Lords should accept it too, does not seem reconcilable with the evidence).<sup>332</sup> When the vote was presented to the king on the 15th, his response that he never intended to employ Clarendon again in a place of trust was ‘received with a great hum’.<sup>333</sup></p><p>In his memoir, Clarendon wrote that while the king had no intention to take matters further, others did, and considerable efforts were made to uncover information against him, including investigating (unsuccessfully, according to him) whether Francis Willoughby*, 4th (<em>CP</em> 5th) Lord Willoughby of Parham, had given him a bribe for the governorship of Barbados.<sup>334</sup> A number of initiatives in the Commons during the first few days of the session were indeed clearly aimed at Clarendon or his allies: committees were appointed to consider the bill on public accounts, privilege and freedom of speech in Parliament, ‘innovations’ in trials of people for their lives, the restraints put on juries (all of these with their first member John Vaughan), the miscarriages of the war, the reasons for the sale of Dunkirk, ‘and whether any money were paid into the hands of any private person’.<sup>335</sup> A new petition from William Taylor suggested a revival of the last session’s impeachment of Lord Mordaunt, seen as an ally of Clarendon.<sup>336</sup></p><p>Manoeuvres in the Lords too may have been preparatory to an assault against Clarendon, including the underage summons to the John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, later duke of Buckingham and Normanby, and the bill for regulating the trials of peers (probably the same as that presented in the 1666-7 session).<sup>337</sup> Petitions against a chancery decree made by Clarendon presented by Robert Selvin and Robert Blackstone and others, and another petition against chancery proceedings by Henry Petit were no doubt also connected.<sup>338</sup> A hearing at the bar of Petit’s petition on 18 Nov. had to be put off, because Hyde had been unable to find counsel – an indication of the perception of the dangers involved in supporting the Hyde family – and the decree was reversed on 25 November.<sup>339</sup> A petition from Cuthbert Morley and Bernard Grenvile asking the House to set aside the dismissal of their bill in chancery possibly tapped into sentiment against the failure to protect the estates of royalists sequestered and sold during the war.<sup>340</sup> John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> wrote to his father, former secretary of state Sir Edward Nicholas, about how Lady Dacre was planning to revive her litigation with him, since she had been unable to obtain justice previously, Clarendon having been ‘so much your friend’.<sup>341</sup></p><p>The struggle began in earnest when Buckingham on 23 Oct. proposed that the king’s response to the address should be entered into the Journal: he was opposed by York, but eventually the motion was accepted once an argument over precedent was overcome. On the same day in the Commons Sir Thomas Littleton proposed that a day be appointed to hear an accusation against Clarendon; surprisingly, it was unsuccessful and a second attempt on the 26th, only secured a committee to review precedents on impeachments.<sup>342</sup> One MP, Robert Spencer, the nephew of the earl of Southampton, wrote that evening of how he had rebutted the claim that although his uncle had been treasurer, ‘my lord chancellor disposed of all the money’.<sup>343</sup> John Vaughan reported the conclusions of the committee on the 29th: the debate that ensued focused on whether an impeachment could be sent to the Lords and Clarendon’s committal to prison requested before witnesses were examined as to the truth of the articles. Although a committee was established to draw up an impeachment, the procedural question was left in the air.<sup>344</sup></p><p>Ruvigny’s analysis in late October suggested that the war over Clarendon was in part a proxy war over the position of York: those most vehemently calling for an impeachment were principally worried about the influence of the ex-chancellor on York. They were hoping to persuade the king that Clarendon had schemed to set up his own family in line to the throne and (according to Buckingham) was instilling in the heir to the throne ‘violent thoughts capable of overthrowing all of England; that he had to be stopped’. Buckingham was telling the king that he ‘should put himself at the head of Parliament, which had no other intention than to establish his authority and render England so powerful that she would be no less redoubtable in all Europe than she had been at the time of his usurper.’ In a running dispatch Ruvigny reflected on how powerful this group had become, with Arlington and others unable to contradict it, though he also reported that he had seen the articles of impeachment drawn up by Bridgeman, which contained ‘nothing weighty or convincing enough to bring down a man of such importance, who is supported by the bishops, by the men of justice, by the bankers, and above all, by M. the duke of York’. The drive to use the Commons to destroy Clarendon could only, in the long run, have a serious impact on the king’s authority (a point which, according to Clarendon’s memoirs, he himself made forcibly to the king).<sup>345</sup> The duke of York had forced the king to agree that there was no truth in the claim that the chancellor had advised him to abolish Parliament and govern his kingdoms in future by the army. York had then instructed Matthew Wren to pass on the king’s admission, to the latter’s annoyance. About this time, however, York’s capacity to fight Clarendon’s corner was compromised when he was struck down with smallpox: although he escaped lightly, he was incapacitated for several weeks. <sup>346</sup></p><p>By now, speculation was also encompassing a possible impeachment of Ormond as well: Arlington denied the rumours when asked by Lord Conway, attributing them to ‘the shop at Clarendon House’, though Conway thought the real source was Clarendon’s opponents. ‘I never knew any man as confident as [Clarendon] is of his innocence, and integrity’, Conway wrote on 5 Nov., reporting that the man himself believed that Lord Berkeley was his strongest opponent, though Conway repeated the current suspicion that behind it all was a scheme to block the duke of York from the succession, either through a divorce or a bill legitimizing Monmouth.<sup>347</sup></p><p>On the same day the king was said to have removed from Clarendon all his remaining commissions, particularly the lord lieutenancies of Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, and commanded him not to attend the council.<sup>348</sup> This may have helped Clarendon’s opponents in the Commons gain the upper hand. On the 6th, Sir Thomas Littleton reported the heads of the impeachment. An attempt to have a committee to review the evidence and report was defeated in a division, with Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, (ultimately duke of Leeds), the tellers for the majority, Col. Birch<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup> the tellers for the minority. The House accepted on 8 Nov. that the charges were sufficient to mount an impeachment. Whether they amounted to treason, and were therefore both capital and enough to justify an immediate committal to the Tower, was more arguable. Ormond commented, for example, in relation to the 15th article, that he could ‘not well conceive from whom, in this kingdom, Lord Clarendon could receive £50,000. What an Act of Parliament gives can hardly... be called a bribe.’<sup>349</sup> The articles were argued over at considerable length on 9 Nov., debate focusing initially on the first, that he had recommended suspending the rule of law during the crisis of the summer. The claim that this accusation amounted to treason was defeated in a division, with the equivocal position of John Vaughan*, later 3rd earl of Carbery [I]on the subject apparently a key factor in the vote. The outcome was a serious blow to the campaign against Clarendon, making it unlikely that he could be tried for his life.</p><p>The situation was reversed, however, on the next sitting day, Monday 11 Nov., when the 16th article – an allegation that Clarendon had ‘deluded and betrayed’ the king in negotiations relating to the war – was amended on the floor of the House (according to Clarendon, by John Vaughan into a slightly more specific claim that he had ‘betrayed’ secrets to the king’s enemies, a claim made possible by information from the Imperial ambassador, Baron Isola, possibly when he dined with Buckingham the previous night. More details of the charge emerged later: the leaking to France of a decision to allow English troops to go into Spanish service, and a correspondence Clarendon was alleged to have had with Lionne.<sup>350</sup> It was difficult to argue that this was not treason (whether or not it was accurate, and leaving aside the suspect origins of the information, to which a number alluded), and it was voted to be so on a division.<sup>351</sup></p><p>On the next day an impeachment of Clarendon for treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours was carried up to Lords by Edward Seymour, accompanied by a demand that Clarendon be committed into custody, and a message that the Commons planned, ‘within a convenient time’, to bring in their specific charges.<sup>352</sup> On receiving the accusation, the Lords went into committee. Debate went on from 10 in the morning until well into the evening, covering a wide range of precedents, and continued on 14 Nov., when the House finally resolved to tell the Commons that it Clarendon had not been imprisoned since they had ‘only accused him of treason in general and have not assigned or specified any particular treason’.<sup>353</sup> The message was delivered at a conference the following day.</p><p>On the 16th Pepys was told about the king’s growing animus against the chancellor, fed by Buckingham and Bristol, ‘his only cabinet council’, who were also encouraging him to quarrel with the duke of York; how Henry Coventry had gained great reputation by his refusal to obey the king’s instruction not to defend Clarendon; and how there was even speculation of an impeachment of York.<sup>354</sup> According to his memoir, Clarendon wrote to the king on 16 Nov., requesting permission to go into exile: the king burnt the letter, saying only that he was surprised that he had not gone away already.<sup>355</sup> On the 18th Ruvigny referred to the possibility of deadlock between the two Houses. If that happened, he thought Clarendon might seek vindication through the courts after the end of the session, or the king might try to constitute a lord steward’s court to try the case.<sup>356</sup></p><p>The Commons’ response to the Lords was delivered at a conference on 19 November. They claimed that the Lords had complied with their requests before in similar cases, that it was lawful for the judges to remand a person to prison on a general commitment for high treason; that if particular reasons were given ‘it would be a ready course that all complices in the treason might make their escape’. They asserted that Parliament had ‘unconfined discretion’ for the safety and preservation of parliament itself: ‘it cannot be malicious to a part of itself, nor affect more power than already it hath, which is absolute over itself and parts, and may therefore do, for preservation of itself, whatsoever is not repugnant to natural justice’. On the 20th the Lords reaffirmed their decision not to commit Clarendon to prison. There were protests from 29 peers, three of whom were bishops. Ruvigny a couple of days later referred to those who had protested as a ‘party’, with Buckingham and Albemarle at its head, who supported the king and the privilege of the Commons against a majority of the peers, and were deliberately seeking to create a political crisis. He talked also of an attempt by Lords Ashley and Anglesey to create a rival ‘moderate’ group in the Lords, headed by the earl of Northumberland and encompassing Arlington, as a counterweight.<sup>357</sup></p><p>Clarendon wrote in his memoir how he had for a long time resisted the advice of his friends to leave the country. After more than a week in which the two Houses wrangled about the proper procedure for holding conferences, his departure was widely expected although Clarendon was still reluctant to invite the assumption of his guilt by taking flight.<sup>358</sup> Clarendon’s own account mentions an approach by Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford – which he would not confirm or deny came at the instigation of the king – saying that he would not be prevented if he were to leave the country; Clarendon’s request for a passport, though, was turned down, on the grounds that it might infuriate the Commons.<sup>359</sup> Clarendon also wrote that Ruvigny offered him asylum in France.<sup>360</sup></p><p>Eventually the Lords agreed to hold a conference on the 28th – apparently against the duke of Buckingham’s will, still set on creating a crisis between the two Houses – on the question of Clarendon’s committal.<sup>361</sup> The debate between the two Houses now focussed on the value of the precedent of Strafford’s trial in 1641 and whether it could or should be used, given that the attainder against him had been repealed; the Lords attacked the Commons’ demand for Clarendon’s imprisonment in more general terms too, citing the Petition of Right against it.<sup>362</sup> Afterwards, the Lords voted to stand by their previous decision.<sup>363</sup> On the next sitting day, Monday 2 Dec., they sent a message to the Commons to inform them of their vote.</p><p>One report suggested that Buckingham’s strategy was working and that the contest was seen in some quarters as an unjustified defence of their privileges by the House of Lords, against a supreme power in the Commons.<sup>364</sup> Ruvigny thought that ‘The king of England has taken the side of the Commons, who can make him powerful, and so it seems; but also by taking authority they may set terrible limitations on his own.’<sup>365</sup> Lord Anglesey (later regarded as ‘imprudent’ for pushing the argument so far) clearly shared the view that the dispute really was one for precedence between the Lords and Commons:</p><blockquote><p>should the Lords yield to what the Commons would have in this matter, it were to make them worse then any Justice of the Peace (whereas they are the highest court in the Kingdom); that they cannot be judges whether an offender be to be committed or bailed, which every Justice of the Peace doth do.<sup>366</sup></p></blockquote><p>Clarendon, however, had decided to leave, following a visit from the duke of York, now sufficiently recovered from the smallpox, on the morning probably of Sat. 30 November. He left that same night, though he did not reach Calais for several days. On 3 Dec., Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, announced to the Lords that he had been asked by Lord Cornbury to present a paper to the House, which turned out to be Clarendon’s petition and vindication. It was read to the House, reported to the king, and a message sent to the Commons; on the 4th it was debated and voted to be communicated to the Commons as scandalous and seditious.<sup>367</sup> Anglesey wrote to Ormond that ‘the wisest’ generally thought Clarendon’s move was misguided.<sup>368</sup> The paper (though admired ‘for the style’) was regarded with some scorn. Lauderdale wrote to Moray that it was ‘almost as full of impudent lies as of lines’, and that ‘the little man’ (perhaps Lord Ashley) said in the House ‘that it is a justification of the Commons, for it is evident how he hath done the king’s business these 7 years who does his own so extraordinarily.’<sup>369</sup> His departure was taken both as proof of his guilt and as likely to resolve the crisis between the two Houses.<sup>370</sup> On the 5th the earl of Northampton brought in a bill to banish Clarendon: it was read a second time on the 7th and passed on the 12th.<sup>371</sup> Sir Robert Howard returned Clarendon’s vindication from the Commons on the 6th and reported the lower House’s own resolution that it be burnt by the hangman. In the Lords, it was said to be Clarendon’s friends who supported burning it, perhaps to demonstrate disinterestedness. They agreed with the Commons on the 9th and the petition was burnt on the 12th. (It was on sale, at 2d a sheet, within two weeks.) <sup>372</sup> After a first reading of the Lords’ bill, the Commons voted that the king be asked to issue out a proclamation for summoning the earl to appear by a certain day, and for his apprehension for a trial. The Lords argued that the vote was incompatible with their own process.<sup>373</sup> The Commons eventually agreed to proceed with the Lords’ bill which received royal assent on 19 December.<sup>374</sup></p><h2><em>Final Exile, 1667-74</em></h2><p>Clarendon had headed for France. He wrote to the vice-chancellor of Oxford from Calais on 7 Dec. to resign his chancellorship of the university.<sup>375</sup> When Cornbury wrote to Ormond on the 8th to provide ‘some account of the sad condition of our miserable family’ he tried to explain his father’s decision to leave: his explanation included the ‘very credible’ rumour that ‘there was a design to prorogue the Parliament on purpose to try him by a jury of peers (by which means he might fall into the hands of the protesting lords)’. Cornbury mentioned another story ‘very industriously’ spread by Lord Berkeley that Ormond had abandoned his own friendship for Clarendon.<sup>376</sup> The earl of Burlington took over Clarendon House, it having been surety for the jointure of his daughter, married to the chancellor’s second son.<sup>377</sup></p><p>The French were placed in an embarrassing dilemma. Ruvigny had consulted Charles II on 6 Dec. what they should do if Clarendon turned up in France, who responded that where he went was of no importance to him. Intitially, at the request of the earl of St Albans, English ambassador in Paris (although St Albans said he had no instructions from Charles II on the subject, and a Ruvigny letter subsequently suggested that it was at the request of the queen mother), Louis XIV issued a pass for Clarendon to travel to Rouen and remain there. But having heard from Ruvigny that the Spanish were spreading rumours about a conspiracy between France and the duke of York, he sent another message to Clarendon via an envoy, the hapless M. de la Font, on 16 Dec., telling him to leave immediately. De la Font was to accompany him to the frontier.<sup>378</sup> For the French the issue was one of extreme delicacy: when Ruvigny met York, the latter expressed some anger at their treatment of his father-in-law. Clarendon, though, was going nowhere: ill and uncertain, he talked about going to the Spanish Netherlands or Germany, then decided on Avignon. Cornbury complained to Ruvigny on 2 Feb. that his father was in a wretched state, but de la Font was continually pestering him to leave. <sup>379</sup></p><p>At Whitehall the dukes of Buckingham and Albemarle and Lord Arlington pressed the king to remove Clarendon’s allies from the court, though by 6 Jan. 1668 the king was wavering in his resolution to do so.<sup>380</sup> The Clarendon camp was itself in turmoil, with the duchess of York accusing Ossory of deserting her father and implying that Ormond had been less of a friend than expected.<sup>381</sup> Ormond himself found the need to write to Cornbury and rebut the claim that he had been quick to drop Clarendon, defending himself by describing the difficulty, at a distance, of judging the truth of anything, as well as referring to his duty to the king.<sup>382</sup></p><p>There were new attacks on Clarendon when Parliament met again: on 3 Mar. it was reported that the Commons had been hearing the case of Mr Lenthall and Lady Stonehouse against Clarendon for taking away an estate at Witney from them.<sup>383</sup> Yet the issue was becoming of less significance: Cornbury, though ordered not to come to court at the beginning of the session, was not dismissed from his court offices.<sup>384</sup> By 5 Mar. Ruvigny could write to his government saying that Clarendon ‘is no longer spoken of’, and that a less harsh treatment would do no harm to the king’s interests.<sup>385</sup> On this basis Louis XIV agreed to let Clarendon remain in the country.<sup>386</sup> The earl went to Rouen, staying only briefly there before moving on south: on the way, at Évreux on 23 Apr., he was assaulted and badly beaten in an inn by English seamen in French service (de la Font was seriously injured trying to defend him). Having recovered, he continued to the spa at Bourbon, to Lyon, and Avignon, though in the end he continued on to Montpellier, where he was installed by the end of July. Montpellier was a customary destination for English exiles, but was chosen partly because of the presence of Lady Mordaunt, who had preceded her disgraced husband there. <sup>387</sup></p><p>Clarendon remained a presence in English political life. He should have been isolated: the Act for his banishment banned correspondence with the former chancellor to anyone except his children or others licensed by the king in council ‘concerning his estate and domestic affairs’, and the Oxford don and cryptographer John Wallis was employed in deciphering his correspondence.<sup>388</sup> But it is clear that Clarendon was aware of political developments in England. Montpellier, his home from the summer of 1668 until spring 1671, was a resort for English visitors, including one of his principal antagonists, Sir Richard Temple. One of his visitors described how Clarendon had supplied him with recent news from England and was avid for more.<sup>389</sup> Mordaunt wrote to him with English news in 1669.<sup>390</sup> In mid-1668 Arlington was still worrying about his return, and the ‘chancellor’s party’ was frequently invoked.<sup>391</sup> Astonishingly, Colbert wrote early in 1669 that Castlemaine was working with the duchess of York to achieve the restoration of Clarendon and shortly afterwards that Clarendon had written to the duchess of York to instruct his friends to support Arlington.<sup>392</sup> Pepys in April 1669 reported the involvement of Clarendon in discussions about a French alliance, and viscount Mordaunt wrote to him in August that year suggesting that Arlington might now support Clarendon’s return. In October 1669 Arlington, apparently at the motion of Louis XIV, and possibly ingratiating himself with the Yorks, was talking to the king about the banished earl’s rehabilitation.<sup>393</sup></p><p>As in the 1640s, when he found himself in exile, Clarendon occupied himself with writing. He worked on a vindication of himself, completed on 24 July 1668, a memoir, completed up to the Restoration by August 1670, and a large devotional work. He revised the history of the Civil War that he had begun in exile in 1646, editing it together with the recently completed memoir, and then continued the memoir into the Restoration. A critique of Hobbes’s <em>Leviathan </em>was completed in May 1673.</p><p>The conversion to catholicism of the duchess of York marred Clarendon’s last few years, though it also was the cause of a good deal of his writing. Her move towards Rome began, according to her own account, in Nov. 1669.<sup>394</sup> Rumours of her conversion had reached Clarendon at least by the autumn of 1670 and might, wrote his son, ‘shorten his days’.<sup>395</sup> Clarendon’s two much-circulated letters to the duchess and duke regretting her change of religion are undated, but presumably written in late 1670 or early 1671. The conversion was the background for a number of Clarendon’s last major works, directed against the Catholic Church. Clarendon had moved to Moulins, close to Bourbon spa in 1671, a step closer to a return to England. By 1674 Charles II agreed to allow him to move back to Rouen. He wrote from the city thanking him in August.<sup>396</sup> He would, however, live only a few more months. He died at Rouen on 9/19 Dec., days after a stroke, and having written a second will, mainly concerned with his literary legacy. His body was returned to England and buried in Westminster Abbey on 4 Jan. 1675.<sup>397</sup></p><p>Clarendon wrote in his <em>Life</em> of how he had told the Lords ‘to be more solicitous in preserving their own unquestionable rights and most important privileges, and less tender in restraining the excess and new encroachments of the house of commons, which extended their jurisdiction beyond their limits’.<sup>398</sup> On the other hand he complained that the House of Lords had failed to inquire into or consider ‘the public state of the kingdom’, or to provide ‘remedies for growing evils’, or indeed to take any serious interest in ‘any thing in the government till they were invited to it by some message or overture from the House of Commons’. He noted that they sat less and less frequently, often not meeting until ten, and then adjourning as soon as they met. But:</p><blockquote><p>When any thing fell in their way, that they could draw a consequence from that might relate to their privileges, they were so jealous of an invasion, that they neither considered former precedents, nor rules of honour or justice; and were not only solicitous for that freedom which belonged to themselves and their menial servants, who ought not to be disquieted by private suits and prosecutions in law, whilst they are obliged to attend upon the service of their country in parliament, but gave their protections ‘ad libitum’, and which were commonly sold by their servants to bankrupt citizens, and to such who were able but refused to pay their just debts.</p></blockquote><p>He criticized the House’s tendency to insert clauses protecting their privileges into bills, using up much time, and provoking the Commons, a provocation that was often encouraged ‘and indeed induced by those who had near relation to the king and were trusted in his service’, often ‘to compass some crooked end of their own, to the prejudice of another person who was in their disfavour’. He wrote of his opposition to the ‘over-captious insisting upon privilege’ by the peers, ‘either when in truth there was not a just ground for it, or when they would extend it further than it would regularly reach’, underlining the need to ensure that they could protect what was really necessary to protect, their greatest privileges and their highest jurisdiction.<sup>399</sup></p><p>It was a remarkably frank assessment of the shortcomings of the upper House, and one that dovetailed with his sometimes contemptuous remarks on the lower, as well as with his concern about the effective operation of the Privy Council. In his writings Clarendon would analyse the process of decision-making within court and Parliament in a more sophisticated way than any of his contemporaries and the great majority of historians for long afterwards. For all his many faults – his brusqueness, cupidity (a common fault among lawyers who achieved high office), and high opinion of his own worth – Clarendon’s commitment to the monarchy he served and to the propriety and efficient working of the institutions of government could certainly not be called into question.</p> |
P.C.S. |
|
HYDE, Edward (1661-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>HYDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1661–1723)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1674-1709 Visct. Cornbury; <em>suc. </em>fa. 31 Oct. 1709 as 3rd earl of CLARENDON |
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1710; last sat 26 Mar. 1723 |
|
MP Wiltshire 1685–7, 1689–95; Christchurch 1695–1701 (Nov.) |
<p><em>b.</em> 28 Nov. 1661, o. s. of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and 1st w. Theodosia, da. of Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Capell. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1675; <em>Académie Foubert</em>, Paris 1676;<sup>1</sup> Padua Univ. 1678; ?Académie de Calvin, Geneva 1680–2. <em>m</em>. 10 July 1688, Katherine (<em>d</em>.1706), from 1702 <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswold, da. and h. of Henry O’Brien<sup>‡</sup>, variously styled Ld. O’Brien [I] or Ld. Ibrackan [I], of Great Billing, Northants. 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 31 Mar. or 1 Apr. 1723;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 30 Mar. pr. 3 July 1723.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the horse to Prince George of Denmark*, 1683; master of the horse to Prince George of Denmark 1685–90;<sup>5</sup> PC 1711–14;<sup>6</sup> envoy extraordinary to Hanover June–Sept. 1714.</p><p>Gov. New York 1701–3,<sup>7</sup> New York and New Jersey 1703–8.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Lt.-col. R. Drag. 1683, col. 1685–9.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Freeman, King’s Lynn c.1687, Reading 1689, Wilton 1689–<em>d</em>.</p><p>SPG 1712; assistant, Welsh Copper Miners Co. 1721.<sup>10</sup></p> |
|
<p>A man of ‘slender abilities, loose principles, and violent temper’, Clarendon succeeded to the peerage while languishing in gaol in New York.<sup>13</sup> Long before this he had proved a severe worry to his family and in 1690 his father, the 2nd earl, had voiced his fears concerning his son’s demeanour, exhorting ‘God send he does not at one time or other run himself into some great inconvenience by his passion.’<sup>14</sup> Cornbury (as he was styled before his succession) had accepted office as a colonial governor to escape his financial woes in England. He had then proceeded to run up further debts and on his dismissal from the governorships of New York and New Jersey in the summer of 1708 he was imprisoned by his creditors, encouraged (as he claimed) by his political enemies.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Cornbury had distinguished himself during the Revolution when he was one of the first army officers to desert his kinsman King James II for William of Orange, a defection that caused his loyalist father enormous distress.<sup>16</sup> Although his defection ought to have been welcomed by the invaders, Cornbury’s action appears to have been greeted with undisguised hostility by some of William’s inner grouping.<sup>17</sup> As a prominent member of the Cockpit circle and with a poor reputation as a military commander, Cornbury was subsequently stripped of his regiment by the new regime.<sup>18</sup> A recommendation by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, that he might be appointed envoy to Spain had no effect and, having joined his father in supporting Princess Anne’s position in the succession over that of William III, he was soon after put out of his remaining office as master of the horse to Prince George of Denmark as well.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Cornbury failed to secure a seat at Reading in the election to the Convention but, following a hard-fought contest, he was returned for Wiltshire, where his family and its allies exercised considerable interest.<sup>20</sup> In February 1689 he narrowly avoided death in a duel fought with the lieutenant-colonel of his regiment, being spared by ‘the mere mercy of the latter’.<sup>21</sup> He remained deeply unpopular on both sides of the political divide. In spite of his father’s decision not to acknowledge William and Mary as king and queen, Cornbury was one of those excepted from the exiled James II’s general pardon. He also continued to be treated with deep suspicion by the Williamite regime and in 1692 he was falsely implicated in Robert Young’s Jacobite plot. Excluded from office, by 1697 Cornbury’s financial problems were extreme, his situation exacerbated by an unprofitable marriage, which his father had opposed vigorously, and by his falling out with his uncle, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.<sup>22</sup> In November, Cornbury and his wife were reported to be ‘starving’.<sup>23</sup> Earlier that same year he had been compelled to apply to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> for a loan of just £7.<sup>24</sup> A report of early 1698 noted that Cornbury ‘for some time past’ had been driven to lock up his wife, though it was not clear whether this was owing to poverty or suspicion that he was being cuckolded.<sup>25</sup> To help alleviate his state of abject penury, that year he was granted a royal bounty of £260 and a pension of £10 a week.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Cornbury was provided with a further royal handout in March 1701 when he was granted Petersham Lodge in Surrey, worth an estimated £40 a year in rental income. In June he was appointed to the governorship of New York, vacant following the death of Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Bellomont [I], which brought with it an annual pension of £600. Before he was able to take up his post he was arrested in August at the suit of a mercer (perhaps coincidentally) for arrears of £600 but was released shortly afterwards and urged by the lords justices to embark for New York as soon as possible.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Cornbury finally took up his post in New York the following May (1702) and in September 1703 the governorship of New Jersey was added to his responsibilities. He quickly caused a stir in American society by his eccentric behaviour, the most notorious expression of which was his reputed insistence on conducting business in female attire. It was said that he argued that as the queen’s representative it was appropriate that he should appear as the queen. The identification of a portrait from the period as a depiction of him in a woman’s gown and headdress has caused considerable controversy.<sup>28</sup> Rather more seriously, he failed to curb the factionalism in the colony and added to it by establishing a clique of his own.<sup>29</sup></p><p>By 1707 Cornbury had caused sufficient irritation that the council of New Jersey drew up a list of grievances against him and in September of the following year New York followed suit.<sup>30</sup> The accusations against him ranged from embezzlement to the taking of bribes, charges that enabled the new Whig administration in England to put him out and replace him as governor with John Lovelace*, 4th Baron Lovelace.<sup>31</sup> Cornbury’s difficulties were compounded when he was thrown into gaol at the suit of Stephen de Lancey, a French merchant, and several other creditors. Although Cornbury claimed that de Lancey ‘would never have done it’ without the encouragement of certain members of the colonial administration, one of his agents found the aggrieved creditor ‘in such a passion on the ill usage he says he has received, that more I spoke [the] more I found him ulcerated’.<sup>32</sup> Cornbury complained bitterly at the ‘lies’ that were being circulated about him by several of the colonial officers. Chief among them was Roger Mompesson<sup>‡</sup>, who had been promoted chief justice of New York and New Jersey through Cornbury’s interest but whom Cornbury now considered to be ‘the most ungrateful rascal to me that ever was’.<sup>33</sup> Cornbury also contested that the true level of his debts had been greatly exaggerated and that rather than the £10,333 for which he had been arrested, the actual sum was £3,814 14<em>s</em>. 11<em>d</em>. In addition, he stressed that he was owed in excess of £4,500.<sup>34</sup> Writing to his father in March 1709, he appealed for his aid (and that of his uncle, Rochester) in securing his return to England so that he could face his accusers. He lamented that, ‘if what I proposed to your lordship last fall, which was that I might be made a baron of England, had been done, all the trouble I have already undergone would have been saved’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Cornbury’s desire to be made a baron may have been connected with the death of his wife in August 1706 and the succession of their son, Edward Hyde*, to the barony of Clifton. He was evidently also eager to acquire the protection from arrest for debt associated with privilege of peerage. The death of his father in October 1709 transformed the new earl’s situation, enabling him to claim his privilege as a peer and secure his release from gaol. Even so, it was a further year before he was able to return to England.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Clarendon at last took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he attended for more than 90 per cent of all sitting days. The following month, he was again the subject of royal generosity when the queen granted him lodgings in Somerset House. For the remainder of Queen Anne’s life he received annual handouts of between £200 and £2,000.<sup>37</sup> On 5 Feb. 1711 he registered his dissent at the resolution to reject the general naturalization act. Most importantly, Clarendon rapidly emerged as one of the foremost committee chairmen in the House, overseeing a vast amount of business.<sup>38</sup> Between March 1711 and the close of the session in June he reported from at least six select committees as well as chairing at least five committees of the whole House. He was also active on the committee for the Journal. In addition to establishing himself as committee stalwart, Clarendon appears to have been eager to consolidate his political position by attempting to align himself with Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford and Mortimer. He was one of a clutch of prominent Tories to be spoken of as likely recipients of office in Oxford’s administration and in May it was rumoured that Clarendon’s daughter, Lady Theodosia Hyde, was to marry Oxford’s son, Edward Harley*, Lord Harley (later 2nd earl of Oxford). In both cases Clarendon was disappointed.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Clarendon attended five of the prorogation days between July and November 1711, on one of which (9. Oct.) he introduced William Legge*, as earl of Dartmouth. Clarendon took his seat at the opening of the second session on 7 December. Present for approximately 95 per cent of all sitting days, on 8 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to present the address to the queen containing the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion and two days later he again supported the ministry over the peace. He was forecast as being in favour of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon on 19 December. The following day he voted against barring Scots peers from sitting by virtue of post-Union British peerages, subscribing the protest when the motion to bar them was carried.</p><p>Again active as a committee chairman, between 22 Dec, when he chaired the committee of the whole considering the land tax bill, and the close of the session he reported from at least 16 committees of the whole House as well as 14 select committees and three sessions of the committee for privileges. On 17 Jan. 1712 he moved an address expressing the Lords’ concern at the queen’s indisposition, which, following some procedural quibbles that he had made the motion ‘out of order’ for which he apologized, being ‘not well acquainted with the order of the House’, was ‘agreed to readily’.<sup>40</sup> The following month, Clarendon chaired the committee for privileges considering the ongoing dispute between the duke of Hamilton and Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, over the inheritance of the Gerard estate, and on 8 Feb. he reported to the House the committee resolution to uphold Mohun’s claim to privilege.<sup>41</sup> Absent from the House briefly from 19 to 26 Feb. on 21 Feb. Clarendon registered his proxy with his Wiltshire neighbour Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat. Following his return to the House he resumed his heavy committee workload, chairing a further case before the privileges committee in mid-April.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Still eager to rescue his precarious financial situation, in April 1712 Clarendon appears to have approached Oxford about appointment to the admiralty commission, hoping to secure the rights to certain perquisites from which he anticipated being able to secure £1,000 a year.<sup>43</sup> Luttrell had reported Clarendon’s appointment as first commissioner of the admiralty in January 1712 but there is no record of his being admitted to the board at this time. Clarendon’s approach to Oxford seems to have provoked the ire of the lord chancellor, Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, who was presumably referring to this when he wrote to Oxford in November scoffing that ‘the proposal of £1,000 p.a. to Lord Clarendon’ was ‘ridiculous’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Clarendon was struck with further misfortune in February 1713 with the death of his heir, Clifton (usually styled Viscount Cornbury), who died as a result ‘of a fever got by a surfeit of drinking’.<sup>45</sup> Clarendon accounted his loss a ‘very great misfortune, a load of grief too heavy for man to bear without the assistance of the mercy of God’.<sup>46</sup> Cornbury was buried at the queen’s expense in Westminster Abbey.<sup>47</sup> His death left Clarendon with one remaining child, Lady Theodosia Hyde, who now attracted attention as the heiress to her mother’s Kent estates centred on Cobham Hall. One rumour suggested that John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Ashburnham, ‘likes her’, but the reporter was uncertain ‘whether enough to think of marrying’.<sup>48</sup> She subsequently married John Bligh (later earl of Darnley [I]) with a £10,000 portion provided for her by the queen.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Despite his loss, Clarendon returned to the House for the opening of the third session on 9 April. In advance of the session, Oxford had listed him as a peer to be canvassed, and in March, Jonathan Swift listed him as someone likely to support the ministry. Present on each day of the session, he continued to be active as a committee chairman, reporting from four committees of the whole and six select committees in the course of the session, among them that considering the bill enabling his late wife’s kinsman Henry O’ Brien* [1322], 7th earl of Thomond [I] (later Viscount Tadcaster), to convey freehold leases on his estates.<sup>50</sup> On 1 June Clarendon acted as one of the tellers for the division arising from the Junto-backed attempt to dissolve the union with Scotland and on 5 June he was one of the tellers for the division whether to read the malt bill a second time. On 13 June Oxford estimated him as being in favour of the eighth and ninth articles of the treaty of commerce.</p><p>Clarendon took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714 and proceeded to attend on approximately 79 per cent of all sitting days. Again active as a committee chairman, in the course of the session he reported from six select committees and six committees of the whole. On 4 Apr. he was present at the meeting of the committee for the Journal chaired by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, and on 14 Apr. he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to commit the House of Commons officers’ bill.<sup>51</sup> Two days later he proposed an address to the queen thanking her for the conclusion of peace with Spain:</p><blockquote><p>since no objection can be raised against the Spanish Treaty, we should address her majesty, to return her our most humble thanks, for having, by a safe, honourable, and advantageous peace with Spain, delivered these nations from a long, consuming land war; and to desire her majesty, notwithstanding any obstructions that may be thrown in her way, to proceed to the settlement of Europe, according to the principles laid down in her majesty’s most gracious speech.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>Clarendon was the subject of rumours of an imminent marriage with a wealthy Widow Parker towards the close of the month, probably Anne Parker, widow of Hugh Parker<sup>‡</sup>, the former member for Evesham, who was said to have £1,000 in jointure and the prospect of a further £20,000 from her father, John Smith.<sup>53</sup> In May he was assessed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being in favour of the Schism bill, and on 4 June he was one of the tellers for the division over the rejection of the Dissenters’ petition concerning the measure. On 11 June he acted as one of the tellers again for the division over whether to adjourn into a Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the schism bill.</p><p>Later the same month, Clarendon was appointed envoy to Hanover. The queen’s personal intervention was an important factor in his selection for the post and she saw to it that he was awarded £500 for equipage and £5 a day for expenses out of the privy purse (not the derisory £50 for equipage as reported in a contemporary newsletter).<sup>54</sup> The choice of Clarendon was widely regarded as a triumph for Henry St. John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, whose nominee he was, over Oxford, who had proposed Henry Paget*, Baron Burton (later earl of Uxbridge).<sup>55</sup> Certainly this was an impression to which Oxford was happy to give credence and he confided to Kreienberg that ‘he knew very well his lordship [Clarendon] would not speak well of him at Hanover: a certain sign that it is Bolingbroke who sent him’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Clarendon’s appointment met with a mixed reception. The Hanoverian envoy, Johann Kaspar von Bothmer, lamented the selection of ‘the earl of Clarendon and his Jacobitish secretary’ and (making reference to his inglorious behaviour in America) proceeded to criticize him as:</p><blockquote><p>a selfish and presumptuous fool, and a fool to such a degree, that being appointed governor by the queen in the Indies [sic], he thought it was necessary for him, in order to represent her majesty, to dress himself as a woman, which he actually did. <sup>57</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 22 June 1714 Clarendon registered his proxy with William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth, and the following month he set out on his embassy.<sup>58</sup> His tenure of office proved short-lived and his future prospects were blasted by the queen’s death on 1 August. Clarendon professed that the news ‘struck me dumb’, bringing as it did ‘an account of the only misfortune I had to fear, it being not only the loss of the best queen, the best mistress, and the best friend, but the only friend I had in the world’.<sup>59</sup> His fears for the future were not misplaced. Although George I assured him of his friendship and Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, insisted that ‘honest men will be uppermost in this reign and then your lordship can’t fail of being distinguished’, as a creature of Bolingbroke he was ignored by the other British emissaries paying their respects to the new monarch and faced returning to England with little hope of employment under the new regime.<sup>60</sup> Poor health delayed him in his journey home. Once back, despite the confident rumours, his marriage with Widow Parker (‘a great fortune and a lady of a singular merit’) also failed to come to fruition.<sup>61</sup></p><p>In spite of the predictions of his imminent loss of employment, in January 1715 Clarendon was included in a list of those Tories still in office.<sup>62</sup> Although he was appointed to no further significant office of state, he continued to play an important role as one of the most active chairmen of committees in Parliament during the remainder of his career. This will be considered more fully in the next phase of this work. Said to be very ill towards the close of January 1723, Clarendon attended for the final time two months later, on 26 March.<sup>63</sup> On 30 Mar. he composed his will and he died the following day (or early in the morning of 1 Apr.) at his lodgings in Chelsea. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, the cost of his funeral amounting to £170.<sup>64</sup> Clarendon had never been able to restore the family finances. Thus, all his children having predeceased him, in his will he bequeathed what little remained of his estate (‘so inconsiderable that I should not have mentioned it but that it should go in the following manner’) to his grandson Edward Bligh<sup>†</sup>, Baron Clifton (later earl of Darnley [I]), and his cousin Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester. The latter succeeded him in the peerage as 4th earl of Clarendon.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HYDE, Edward (1691-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>HYDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1691–1713)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>mother 11 Aug. 1706 (a minor) as 9th Bar. CLIFTON of LEIGHTON BROMSWOLD; <em>styled </em>1709-13 Visct. Cornbury |
|
First sat 13 Jan. 1713; last sat 3 Feb. 1713 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 6 Oct. 1691, o.s. of Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, and Katherine O’Brien, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Clifton. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1707; travelled abroad (Low Countries) 1712.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 12 Feb. 1713; <em>will</em> 25 May 1710, pr. 17 June 1713-8 Feb. 1723.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Clifton succeeded to the barony underage, presumably while living in New York where his father was governor. He had returned to England by 1707, when he was entered at Christ Church and where he seems to have suffered from the family’s habitual impecuniousness.<sup>3</sup> From 1709 with his father’s inheritance of the earldom of Clarendon, he was usually styled Viscount Cornbury. A record, in which he is listed as ‘Clifeton’, including him among the peers who found Dr. Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours in March 1710, must be erroneous (and is certainly at odds with other printed records of the Sacheverell vote), though it perhaps reflects his likely sympathies.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Cornbury travelled abroad in 1712, where he was watched over by his father’s friend, Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford. He returned in time to take his seat in the House on 13 Jan. 1713 as Baron Clifton but sat just once more before succumbing to a fever brought on by ‘a surfeit of drinking’ in which he ‘drank as many quarts of uskquebath [whisky] as is usual to be drank of wine’.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Unsurprisingly, Cornbury’s loss affected his family severely. His father described his premature demise as ‘a load of grief too heavy for man to bear’.<sup>6</sup> The queen was said to have taken a close interest in the young man and had intended to offer him the command of a regiment. He died ‘much lamented’ and was buried in Westminster Abbey at the queen’s expense.<sup>7</sup> At his death the barony of Clifton passed to his sister, Lady Theodosia Hyde, who was also the principal beneficiary of his will. Through her the barony was eventually inherited by the Bligh earls of Darnley [I].</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HYDE, Henry (1638-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>HYDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1638–1709)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1661-74 Visct. Cornbury; <em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Dec. 1674 as 2nd earl of CLARENDON |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 11 Feb. 1689 |
|
MP Lyme Regis 1660; Wilts. 1661-74 |
<p><em>b</em>. 2 June 1638, 1st s. of Edward Hyde*, (later earl of Clarendon) and 2nd w. Frances (<em>d</em>.1667),<sup>1</sup> da. of Sir Thomas Aylesbury; bro. of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Edward Hyde<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Oxf. (MA by diploma 1661); M. Temple 1661. <em>m</em>. (1) Jan. 1661 Theodosia (1640-62), da. of Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Capell of Hadham, 1s.; (2) 1670 Flower (Flora) (<em>d</em>.1700), da. of William Backhouse of Swallowfield, Berks., wid. of Sir William Backhouse, bt. (<em>d</em>.1669) and of William Bishop (<em>d</em>. 1661) of South Warnborough, Hants, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. KB 1661. <em>d</em>. 31 Oct. 1709;<sup>2</sup> <em>admon</em>. 11 May 1713 to Alexander Denton, 2 Mar. 1748 to Robert Ord.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for trade 1660-68; PC 1679, 1680-89;<sup>4</sup> ld. privy seal 1685-7; ld. lt. [I] 1685-7.</p><p>Private sec. to Queen Catharine of Braganza 1662-5; ld. chamberlain to queen consort 1665-68, 1670-5;<sup>5</sup> treas. to queen consort 1679-86; kpr. Somerset House 1679-89.<sup>6</sup></p><p>High steward Reading 1674, Salisbury 1685, Univ. of Oxford 1686-<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> dep. lt. Oxon 1663,<sup>8</sup> <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. 1663-89; ranger Wychwood forest.<sup>9</sup></p><p>FRS 1684.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Sir P. Lely, with his first wife, c.1661; oil on canvas, studio of Sir P. Lely, c.1670.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Clarendon was the eldest son of Sir Edward Hyde, Charles II’s principal counsellor during the exile, who emerged after the Restoration as one of the dominant figures in the new regime. In 1661 he was promoted earl of Clarendon and during the brief six-year period before his fall built a substantial interest in his native Wiltshire, in Oxfordshire and Hampshire; the marriage of his daughter Anne to James*, duke of York (later King James II), made the Hyde family appear to be one of the most powerful in the country. Though the family’s influence was severely jeopardised by the first earl’s fall in 1667, his son augmented the family estates, and by his second marriage to Flower Backhouse he acquired an interest in Berkshire; through his friendship with James Butler*, duke of Ormond, he gained an interest at Oxford University, where he was later elected high steward. As brother-in-law to James II, uncle to Queen Mary II and Queen Anne and kinsman by marriage to Ormond, Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, Clarendon and his brother Rochester were among the best-connected peers in the country. In summarizing his character, his political opposite, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, reckoned Clarendon ‘a friendly, good-natured man… naturally sincere, and punctual to tediousness in all that he related’.<sup>13</sup></p><h2><em>Viscount Cornbury, 1660-1674</em></h2><p>In exile with his father prior to the Restoration, Hyde was returned for Lyme Regis at a by-election in 1660 and the following year was elected for his home county of Wiltshire. Styled Viscount Cornbury following his father’s elevation to the earldom of Clarendon, he acted as his father’s private secretary, as well as his eyes and ears in the Commons and was appointed to the household of Queen Catharine of Braganza. In March 1667 he attracted the king’s displeasure when he was suspected of assisting in the flight of Frances Stuart from court and her elopement with Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond and 6th duke of Lennox [S].<sup>14</sup> Cornbury’s involvement in the Richmond marriage may have originated again with his father, as Clarendon was accused of promoting the match for his own aims; but Cornbury may have known Richmond at the court in exile and he was sufficiently well acquainted with the duke and his new duchess to be named as one of the trustees in the marriage settlement of April 1668.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Although he did so in a less prominent manner than his brother, Cornbury played an active part in his father’s defence in the autumn of 1667.<sup>16</sup> Following Clarendon’s exile Cornbury and George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, were suspected of caballing during their frequent meetings with Cornbury’s sister and brother-in-law, the duke and duchess of York, as a result of which Bishop Morley was dismissed from the chapel royal and Cornbury was put out as chamberlain to the queen.<sup>17</sup> He was restored to his place two years later through the intercession of the duchess of Orleans.<sup>18</sup> The same year (1670) he married Flower (or Flora) Backhouse, daughter of the noted alchemist, William Backhouse, through whom he acquired Swallowfield and an interest in Reading. It was also probably as a result of this match that he came into contact with William Lloyd*, later bishop of St Asaph, who had served as chaplain to the Backhouse family.</p><p>The growing evidence of the conversion to catholicism of Cornbury’s sister Anne, duchess of York, was a cause of serious concern to him. His letter to York of 26 Oct. 1670 outlined his worries, first raised much earlier in the year, and relayed the common talk that her conversion cannot have been without York’s knowledge: he pointed out with some prescience that ‘her conversion would have ill consequences’ for the duke.<sup>19</sup> Cornbury’s refusal to swear the duchess of Portsmouth as a lady of the queen’s bedchamber in early 1673 echoed his father’s difficulty with the position of Barbara, countess of Castlemaine eleven years before, and suggested a revulsion either with the king’s public avowal of his mistresses, or of their catholicism, or both.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The collapse of the ministry at the beginning of 1674 offered Cornbury an opportunity to vent his spleen against those he saw as being responsible for his father’s fall – although it was possibly without his father’s approval.<sup>21</sup> In January he joined in the attacks in the Commons on George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and on Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, seconding the motion put forward by Sir Gilbert Gerard<sup>‡</sup>, bt. on 13 Jan. that Arlington should be charged with high treason. By the end of the month, Cornbury and his associates were reported to be turning every stone to find evidence against Arlington; by the end of February, although most had given up on the attempt, ‘Cornbury and one or two other inveterate men’ were still said to be unwilling to give up and ‘though they can prove nothing will nevertheless continue their cry and show their teeth.’<sup>22</sup></p><h2><em>Clarendon and the ‘Country’ opposition, 1674-8</em></h2><p>Cornbury was granted permission to travel to France to visit his ailing father in May 1674, who that summer appealed to the king for permission ‘to return to England to die among his own children’.<sup>23</sup> Permission not being forthcoming, Cornbury returned with his brother Laurence Hyde at the beginning of December, when the brothers were constituted joint-executors of the old earl’s will.<sup>24</sup> On his father’s death on 9/19 Dec. Cornbury succeeded as 2nd earl of Clarendon at Rouen.<sup>25</sup> (It has sometimes been assumed that the first earl’s death occurred on 19 December o.s.)<sup>26</sup></p><p>The new earl of Clarendon accompanied his father’s corpse to England for private burial in Westminster Abbey on the evening of 4 Jan. 1675, the arrangements for which he communicated only to members of the family and to ‘two or three of his friends who I am sure loved him’.<sup>27</sup> Although he inherited the estates in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire to add to his lands in Hampshire and Berkshire, at the time of his succession Clarendon was already at least £19,680 in debt. In an effort to rectify his disastrous financial situation he immediately set about seeking a buyer for Clarendon House, the mansion in Piccadilly created by the 1st earl at an estimated cost of £50,000, entering into negotiations with Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire. He also sought a purchaser for his office of chamberlain to the queen.<sup>28</sup> Evelyn, who knew Clarendon well, could find no explanation for his indebtedness, concluding only that it was a ‘mystery’ he ‘being no way a prodigal’, and much of it was probably due to his father’s building projects. A case brought against Clarendon by Daniel Sheldon is indicative of his struggle to finance the debt. Sheldon complained that on his death, the 1st earl owed the London drapers, Sir Joseph Sheldon and Nicholas Charleton, £821. They were also owed a further £1,200 by his successor. Clarendon proceeded to borrow a further £4,000 from them, consolidating the debt into a round £6,000 and secured his loan against his manor of Witney in Oxfordshire. By 1682 when the case was brought, Sheldon asserted that not a penny had been repaid.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Clarendon took his seat in the House on 13 Apr. 1675, after which he attended on every day of the session bar one. He lost no time in registering his position as an associate of the opposition to the regime of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), who had been a key participant in the moves to impeach his father in 1667. He subscribed the protest against the resolution to address a vote of thanks for the king’s speech on his first day in the House. Named to the standing committees on 14 Apr., the following day he was named to the committee for the bill for preventing frauds and perjuries. On 29 Apr. it was noted that he and a number of other peers had failed to take the oaths of allegiance, an omission remedied the following day. Although Clarendon was forecast at the beginning of April as a likely supporter of the non-resisting test, between 15 Apr. when it was introduced into the House by Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, until 2 June when it was finally dropped, he consistently opposed the measure.<sup>30</sup> This was probably on account of his personal opposition to its architect and chief promoter, Danby.<sup>31</sup> On 21 Apr. Clarendon subscribed the protest against the resolution that the bill did not encroach upon the privileges of the Lords to the extent that it should be thrown out and on 26 Apr. he protested again at the resolution to commit the bill to the committee of the whole House. The following day, after this protest had been entered, a number of government supporters in the House attempted to have the protesting lords sent to the Tower.<sup>32</sup> Two days later (29 Apr.) Clarendon subscribed the protest against the resolution that the contentious protest of 26 Apr. reflected upon the honour of the House and on 4 May he put his name to a final protest at the resolution to agree with an amendment to the bill that would impose an oath on all members of both Lords and Commons. Clarendon’s concerted opposition to the non-resisting test resulted in his being once more put out of office, though the ostensible reason was that he had offended the king by striking one of the yeomen of the guard.<sup>33</sup> Clarendon’s dismissal came as no surprise to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, who commented that, ‘I am sorry for Lord Clarendon, but the taking away his key is not more than I have long expected, for he would never comply with the court.’ Out of favour once more, Clarendon at last succeeded in finding a buyer for Clarendon House later in the year but he was said to have been forced to accept just half the amount it had cost to build.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Clarendon was present every day of the session that began in October 1675. Named to eight committees, on 20 Nov. he voted in favour of addressing the king to dissolve Parliament and subscribed the protest when the motion was rejected.<sup>35</sup> He remained a prominent member of the ‘country’ opposition associated particularly with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, over the following two years. Their alliance was apparently unaffected by a suit brought against Shaftesbury (and others) by Clarendon over common land in Wiltshire where they both held estates.<sup>36</sup> In April 1676, during the prorogation, Clarendon was himself summoned to answer a bill in chancery brought against him by John Danvers, probably part of a protracted dispute in which he was involved with Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, and James Bertie* 5th Baron Norreys, subsequently earl of Abingdon, brought on behalf of their wives. Both were daughters of Anne, Lady Lee, of whose will Clarendon was one of the trustees. Clarendon and the other trustees had previously brought their own action against Wharton and Norreys over complaints against the management of the estate.<sup>37</sup> In November 1679 Clarendon would be cited as one of the defendants in a case in chancery relating to the estate of Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield.<sup>38</sup> In June 1676 Clarendon was among the majority in finding Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of murder.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Although Clarendon found himself unable to comply with a request from Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup> that he use his interest on behalf of one of Clayton’s clients for a collector’s post (being already engaged for someone else) he attempted to show his continuing friendship by offering Clayton ‘a parcel of very fine fruit trees’, presumably for Clayton’s seat Marden Park, which he believed to be new varieties in the country.<sup>40</sup> Later in 1676 he was given a pass to travel to France with his son, Edward Hyde*, styled Viscount Cornbury, later 3rd earl of Clarendon, who was entered in Foubert’s academy in Paris. Clarendon passed just over a fortnight in the city in company with his travelling companion, Henry Savile, with whom he planned ‘debauching’ Savile’s brother, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, ‘hither in the spring’.<sup>41</sup> Clarendon had returned to England by November, when he was congratulated on his safe arrival by Bishop Morley. The bishop seems to have been eager to lure Clarendon, whom he had known well at least since he was close to the first earl in exile in the 1650s, away from opposition and assured Clarendon that ‘the queen does still continue her kindness to you’. He also said that the lord chancellor’s (Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham) ‘respects to you have exceeded your expectations from him, which I hope will make you have a better opinion than formerly you have had of him’. He avoided a lengthy discourse on the forthcoming session, understanding that ‘your lordship and I are not of the same opinion in this particular.’<sup>42</sup></p><p>Clarendon took his seat at the opening of the following session on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he was present on 97 per cent of all sitting days. The following day he was nominated to the committee enquiring into the authorship of the book questioning whether Parliament was dissolved. Although he did not add his voice to that of Shaftesbury and the other peers advancing that view, in March he was one of only three to support the motion put forward by George Booth*, Baron Delamer, that the lords in the Tower should be released having been imprisoned ‘upon a punctilio only’.<sup>43</sup> He was given permission by the House on 14 Mar. to visit Shaftesbury in the Tower. Clarendon was named to a further 56 committees in the course of the session.<sup>44</sup> On 1 May Shaftesbury noted his cautious support by assessing him as ‘worthy’.</p><p>In January 1678 Laurence Hyde made a concerted effort to bring his brother back into the court fold. Referring to his influence over ‘a great many of the House of Commons’, Hyde suggested that if Clarendon would direct them to vote with the court, his own rehabilitation would soon follow. He assured him that ‘your great friend my lord chancellor (Nottingham) and I agree in that, that there will be an opportunity now to make yourself well again with the king.’<sup>45</sup> The appeal was unsuccessful, at least in the short term. On 14 Feb. 1678 Clarendon supported Shaftesbury’s petition to be released. On 4 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the bill of Brien Cokayne, 2nd Viscount Cullen [I], reporting it as fit to pass with amendments. The same month he joined with Shaftesbury in speaking in favour of an immediate declaration of war against France in opposition to the line taken by Danby and York.<sup>46</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted to find Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder.</p><p>In May Clarendon’s attendance of the House prevented him from accompanying his sister-in-law when she travelled to join Laurence Hyde at The Hague (where he was serving as envoy), but Clarendon took the opportunity of warning Hyde of opposition accusations being levelled against him.<sup>47</sup> Clarendon’s worsening financial situation made reconciliation with the court increasingly desirable. He discussed with his brother the possibility of selling his estate at Blunsden in Hampshire, though Hyde opposed this, both because of his own recent purchase of a neighbouring estate and because he believed it had been their father’s intention to ‘plant’ his family in that county. Advising that Clarendon seek expert assistance to address his financial situation, he urged him, ‘for God’s sake trust somebody, and take advice, and do not be ashamed to lay the whole state of your affairs before that body, whosoever he be.’<sup>48</sup></p><p>Clarendon took his seat at the opening of the new session on 23 May 1678 after which he was present on 93 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 27 committees.<sup>49</sup> On 7 June he reported from the committee for the butter and cheese bill and on 1 July from that concerning the bill for preventing abuses in returning jurors. On 5 July he subscribed the protest against the resolution to grant relief to the petitioner in the case <em>Darrell v. Whitchcot</em>. The same month he supported William Barker<sup>‡</sup> in the by-election at Berkshire but the result was a double return with Henry Alexander, 4th earl of Stirling [S], and no resolution was arrived at before the dissolution of Parliament.<sup>50</sup> On the death of his first wife’s sister, the countess of Carnarvon, at the end of July, Clarendon sought the assistance of his friend, Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, in discovering the result of a case involving the countess of Lincoln, as his lack of mourning clothes made it indecent ‘to appear in so public a place’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Absent on the opening day of the ensuing session, Clarendon took his seat the following day on 22 Oct. 1678 and was present on 93 per cent of all sitting days. Added to the sub-committee for the Journal on 23 Oct. Clarendon was thereafter named to a further 12 committees during the session including the committee nominated to examine Edward Coleman in Newgate.<sup>52</sup> Burlington’s proxy was registered with Clarendon on 21 Oct., although it was vacated when the test act came into force on 30 November.<sup>53</sup> Clarendon was closely involved in the examination of the evidence concerning the Popish Plot. On 1 Nov. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons concerning the preservation of the king’s person. The following day he was appointed to the committee to examine the lords in the Tower and on 8 Nov, presumably on account of his previous position within the queen’s household, he was deputed to examine the queen’s closet at Somerset House. He later pronounced on the impossibility of Godfrey’s murder having been carried out in the room Oates suggested.<sup>54</sup> Having voted on 15 Nov. against the motion that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths in the bill for disabling papists from sitting in Parliament, on 23 Nov. he was again nominated a reporter for the conference with the Commons concerning amendments to the bill for the more effectual preservation of the king’s person.<sup>55</sup></p><h2><em>Exclusion and reaction, 1678-85</em></h2><p>By the end of November, with Clarendon said to have been ‘very zealous’ in support of the duke of York, he was becoming more acceptable at court and less so among members of the opposition. It was rumoured that Clarendon was to be sent as ambassador to Spain.<sup>56</sup> On 28 Nov. 1678 he was added to the committee of examinations, perhaps to strengthen the position on the committee of the sceptics, and on the same day, while speaking in a heated debate in the House on a report from the committee concerning Oates’s testimony, Clarendon was interrupted by his Hampshire rival and close ally of Shaftesbury, Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester, later duke of Bolton, who was heard to mutter ‘he lies, he lies’. In response to Winchester’s intervention Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, declared that, ‘if he had had the lie given him he would stab him as gave it.’ Although when challenged Winchester denied that he had been referring to Clarendon and begged the House’s pardon, both men were bound over to remain in the chamber until the close of the day to prevent them from coming to blows outside.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Clarendon reported from the committee for examinations the testimony of one of the servants of Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, on 3 December. Following his report, on 6 Dec. it was resolved to summon the recusant, Sir Henry Tichborne, to London from his imprisonment at Winchester. Clarendon was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the disbanding of the army on 9 Dec. On 17 Dec. he again reported from the committee examining papers concerning the plot relating to further evidence involving Arundell of Wardour. On 26 Dec. Clarendon voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill. Although he voted against committing Danby the following day, he was also said to have warned York off from ‘espousing a man so universally hated’.<sup>58</sup> Clarendon reported from the committee for examinations again on 28 Dec, when he informed the House of the seizure of the papers of one John Hall, a catholic priest. By the close of the year, Clarendon was said to be ‘extreme well’ at court and was once more a servant to the queen.<sup>59</sup> The following year he was appointed to the privy council and it was rumoured (though inaccurately) that he was to succeed Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> as secretary of state in February 1679. The same month it was also reported that he had been employed to ‘stifle’ Oates’ and Bedloe’s testimony concerning the popish plot.<sup>60</sup></p><p>During the elections for the new Parliament in February, Clarendon ensured the election of Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, with the other seat going to Henry Tulse<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>61</sup> In advance of the new session, Clarendon’s well-known antipathy to Danby but close personal friendship with a number of Danby’s allies was reflected in a series of contradictory assessments of his likely position on the question of Danby’s bail. Thus on 1 Mar. he was reckoned as a likely supporter who should be spoken to by the king, but the following day (perhaps as a result of an interview with the king) as against or unreliable, and on 3 Mar. he was listed as opposed to Danby.<sup>62</sup> Taking his seat at the opening of Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679 Clarendon attended on six days of the abortive first session. He returned to the House at the opening of the second session on 15 March. He was present on 98 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to 12 committees.<sup>63</sup> Towards the close of a heated exchange in the House over the commitment of Danby, Clarendon offered to the House an affidavit drawn up by Oates in which the informer claimed to have overheard Danby mutter on seeing him, ‘there goes one of the saviours of the nation but I hope to see him hanged.’<sup>64</sup> Again prominent in the committees examining the plot, on 22 Mar. Clarendon was named one of the managers of a conference concerning Danby’s attainder and the same day he reported evidence from the committees for examinations and information. On 24 Mar. he was one of the three peers ordered by the House to examine the lords imprisoned in the Tower. The following day he reported from the committee for examinations vindicating Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> over the supposed suppression of Dugdale’s evidence and reported that the Jesuit, Edward Turner, had been taken into custody.<sup>65</sup> Clarendon reported again from the committee for examinations on 27 Mar. (including an undertaking from the keeper of Newgate that the prison harboured no infectious diseases); on 29 Mar. (that chests found in Humphrey Weld’s garden were to be examined) and on 31 Mar. (concerning Oates’s complaints that his allowance was insufficient and that he desired a further grant of £100). On 1 Apr. he was added to the committee for the bill for clearing London and Westminster of papists.<sup>66</sup> The same day he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning Danby’s attainder, after which he voted in favour of the early stages of the bill. On 2 Apr. he spoke in favour of considering the attainder in a committee of the whole.<sup>67</sup> Named one of the managers of the conference concerning the attainder, on 4 Apr. he again voted in favour of passing the bill and on 14 Apr. voted to concur with the Commons in the measure.<sup>68</sup></p><p>In the midst of the progress of the Danby attainder, Clarendon continued to report back from the committees concerning the plot: on 5 Apr. he reported Oates’s complaint over publication of a book that claimed to reproduce his examination before Godfrey, in which ‘he considered himself much injured’; on 9 Apr. he relayed Oates’s desire to publish his own account, which was duly authorized; on 12 Apr. he told of the ongoing searching of Weld’s seat at Lulworth Castle and information concerning a fire started in Fetter Lane, believed to have been started at the behest of a catholic named Stubbs, butler to the countess of Shrewsbury. The petition of one Christopher Hurt to be paid a reward of £20 for apprehending a papist priest, conveyed to the House by Clarendon on 14 Apr, was rejected as it transpired that the priest was a foreigner. On 21 Apr. Clarendon reported information concerning a plot to imprison Oates and Bedloe and on 2 May he reported the examination of Oates’ servants. Clarendon was omitted from the remodelled Privy Council in April 1679 and it was not until May 1680 that he regained his place.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Despite his removal, Clarendon continued to be prominent in key business in the Lords. He chaired the committee of the whole House considering the supply bill on 3 and 5 May. On the 3rd and the 8th he was nominated to report from conferences concerning the habeas corpus bill, and on the 10th he was nominated a reporter of the conference concerning the trials of the impeached lords. The same day he voted in favour of appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against them and, along with many members of the council, subscribed the protest when it was resolved not to do so.<sup>70</sup> Again a manager of the conference concerning the impeached lords on 11 May, four days later he communicated further findings from the committee for examinations. On 22 May he intervened in the debate concerning the reprieving of certain Catholic priests. When the lord president (Shaftesbury) warned of the ‘ill consequences’ of reprieving them and how it had ‘revived the spirits of the papists’, Clarendon interjected that it had been on Shaftesbury’s motion that the priests had been reprieved in the first place, causing Shaftesbury to respond evasively that ‘if he had any fault it was tender-heartedness.’<sup>71</sup> Shortly before the close of the session, on 26 May, Clarendon was nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning the importance of preserving a good correspondence between the two Houses, concerning the arguments surrounding the impeachments of Danby and the catholic peers. On 27 May, he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Clarendon’s loyalty to York identified him as an opponent of York’s exclusion. In the second election of 1679 at Christchurch, Henry Tulse, who had voted for the exclusion bill, was replaced by George Fulford<sup>‡</sup>, presumably at his insistence.<sup>72</sup> With the recovery of York’s influence in late 1679 and 1680 Clarendon became an increasingly prominent figure. He was appointed keeper of Somerset House in December 1679 and in May 1680 he was readmitted to the Privy Council. His appointment elicited a letter of congratulation from his old companion, Henry Savile, and was viewed as a further sign of his resurgent interest ‘if he can sit fast now’.<sup>73</sup> In August it was rumoured that he was to be made lord chamberlain to the queen and he was accounted one of a powerful triumvirate (the others being his former brother-in-law, Essex, and John Robartes*, earl of Radnor) who were arguing for the postponement of a Parliament in Ireland.<sup>74</sup> Clarendon attended the meeting on 13 Oct. at which the question of the duke of York being sent out of the country in preparation for a meeting of Parliament was debated. He was one of the majority to vote against the duke being forced out, although within a few days the king was persuaded to ignore their advice and agree to order York’s return to Scotland.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Clarendon took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680. He was again regular in his attendance, being present on 88 per cent of all sitting days. He was also again one of the principal chairmen of the committee examining the plot, though his handling of this role was called into question on 26 Oct. by the testimony of one Berry, formerly secretary to the Portuguese ambassador, who claimed that he had offered testimony to Clarendon concerning the planned assassination of Shaftesbury, Oates and Bedloe, which Clarendon had neglected to pass on. Clarendon denied that Berry had given such detailed information. Towards the end of the month rumours were spread that he was one of those concerned in the ‘sham plot’.<sup>76</sup> Clarendon reported several sets of information from the committee for examinations on 6 November. On 9 Nov. York wrote to him from his Scottish exile concerning the forthcoming vote on the exclusion bill, with the assumption that, ‘before this, or at least before you receive it, you will have spoken against the bill in the house of lords as well as your brother [Laurence Hyde] did in the house of Commons.’<sup>77</sup> Clarendon’s efforts to deflect attention from York and his by now frosty relations with Shaftesbury were revealed on 10 Nov. when he was overheard in the House whispering to the latter, ‘my Lord we can never be well as long as that ill woman the duchess of Portsmouth is with our king so I hope you will give your helping hand to remove her.’ To this Shaftesbury was said to have responded, ‘my Lord we are now hunting tigers and bears and birds of prey and now you would be a cony catching.’<sup>78</sup> Clarendon was named to the committee considering the Irish cattle bill on 12 November. His fundamental disagreement with Shaftesbury and the exclusionists emerged on 15 Nov. when Clarendon voted in favour of putting the question that the exclusion bill should be rejected on first reading.<sup>79</sup> He then voted to reject the bill. On 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation.<sup>80</sup> The same day, from his exile in Scotland, York again wrote to Clarendon asking that he would pass on his thanks to all those who had combined to defeat the exclusion bill.<sup>81</sup> Clarendon’s increasingly important role in York’s circle was doubtless one of the reasons for Clarendon’s inclusion in the Commons’ list of courtiers who should be dismissed from the king’s councils as promoters of popery. They perhaps felt that their point had been underlined when on 7 Dec. Clarendon voted against condemning William Howard*, Viscount Stafford.<sup>82</sup> Seven days later (14 Dec.) he was one of the members of the sub-committee for the journal to note at their inspection of the record covering the trial that a small error had been made in recording the tally of votes.</p><p>Following the dissolution in January 1681, Clarendon was busily concerned with the elections for the new Parliament. He declared of his home county of Wiltshire that ‘no county can be better affected’ and hoped that ‘two very worthy men will be knights of the shire… if Lord Pembroke does not spoil all.’ At Christchurch in Hampshire, where as lord of the manor he expected the return of at least one (and usually both) of his nominees, he found his interest under assault by a combination led by Shaftesbury, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and Charles Powlett*, styled earl of Wiltshire (later 2nd duke of Bolton), who hoped to overturn his influence in the borough. Clarendon complained to Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> of their attack, insisting that ‘the borough of Christchurch is my own borough, the manor is my own and one or both of the burgesses have been always elected on the recommendation of the lords of the place’. According to Clarendon the root of the ‘mischief’ was the lord chancellor’s delivery of the writ to Lord Wiltshire rather than Clarendon himself, enabling Wiltshire to dictate the timing of the poll.<sup>83</sup> The ensuing campaign proved bitter: Clarendon brought a writ of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> the following year against one of the candidates, Thomas Hooper, for calling him a papist.<sup>84</sup> When the case came to be heard in June 1682, Hooper was convicted, but the Hampshire jury revealed their sympathies by awarding Clarendon only 100 marks and 40 shillings costs rather than the £5,000 (one source believed £10,000) he had sought.<sup>85</sup> Hooper had claimed that Clarendon had been equally abusive during the election, that the earl had called him ‘a jesuited, equivocating papist and a rascal’ and offered to ‘fillip him on the nose’.<sup>86</sup> Despite this hullabaloo, Shaftesbury and Wiltshire’s efforts to persuade the corporation to throw off Clarendon’s patronage and elect exclusionist members proved unsuccessful and Clarges and Fulford were returned once more.<sup>87</sup></p><p>On the night of 17/18 Mar., Clarendon played host to the king at Cornbury.<sup>88</sup> He was present on each of the seven sitting days of the brief Oxford Parliament. He had been included in a forecast for Danby’s bail of 17 Mar. 1681 as ‘neutral’.<sup>89</sup> On 24 Mar., however, he joined with Norreys in speaking on behalf of the imprisoned former lord treasurer, perhaps on account of Norreys’ influence.<sup>90</sup> Clarendon had been earlier in the year involved in land transactions around Cornbury with his Oxfordshire neighbour Norreys and would remain on close terms with him for the rest of his life.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Reported to be sick and thought to be in ‘some danger’ following the dissolution of the Parliament at Oxford, Clarendon had recovered by the summer when he was one of the members of the Privy Council to sign the warrant for committing his erstwhile ally, Shaftesbury.<sup>92</sup> In October, he proposed Sir Philip Harcourt<sup>‡</sup> to Norreys as the most suitable partner for Sir William Walter of three proposed by Norreys to contest Oxfordshire for the anticipated new Parliament. This initiative followed the withdrawal of Sir Robert Jenkinson<sup>‡</sup>, whose resolution not to stand Clarendon feared would ‘much cross your lordship’s measures, which were so excellently laid for his majesty’s service’. In the event, Norreys persuaded Anthony Carey<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Viscount Falkland [S], to accept the nomination instead.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Over the next couple of years, Clarendon’s association with York made him a target for smears and potential political and legal action. He was again accused of being a papist by one informer in September and in December it was reported that designs were afoot to impeach, among others, Clarendon and his brother Laurence (since promoted Viscount Hyde).<sup>94</sup> During the summer of 1682 Clarendon found himself the unwelcome subject of public derision not only on account of his <em>scandalum magnatum</em> case against Thomas Hooper but also over his involvement in the tortuous dispute between his distant kinswoman, Bridget Hyde, her supposed husband, John Emerton, and Danby’s younger son, Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds), with whom Bridget Hyde had eloped. Clarendon was reported to have encouraged the issue coming to trial in the court of delegates, ‘in hopes it is said to get her for his son’; Dunblane’s clandestine marriage to Hyde on 25 Apr., which would eventually result in the overturning of the Emerton marriage in his favour, caused him embarrassment and considerable annoyance, as well as rendering his own efforts and expenditure in vain.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Clarendon was at Newmarket in March 1683, one of the ‘very little company’ there with the king. Clarendon lost his carriage in the fire that destroyed much of the town and brought the visit to a premature close. The fire also accidentally foiled the Rye House plot to assassinate the king.<sup>96</sup> The subsequent arrest and imprisonment in the Tower of his former brother-in-law and colleague, Essex, and even more Essex’s suicide, stunned the Hyde circle. Clarendon had been one of the last people to visit the imprisoned peer.<sup>97</sup> The details of Clarendon and Essex’s last interview are unknown but may have involved an agreement that Clarendon would look after Essex’s children as, soon after Essex’s demise, Clarendon was often to be seen accompanying his heir, Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, at court, and it was also into Clarendon’s custody that Essex’s body and papers were finally released in July.<sup>98</sup> On the death that year of Clarendon’s Wiltshire rival, the irascible Pembroke, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, speculated that either Clarendon or his brother (now promoted earl of Rochester) would expect to replace him in the county lieutenancy, but in the event the office was conferred on Pembroke’s heir, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, who held the post until the Revolution.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Clarendon stood bail for Lord Arundell of Wardour when he was released from the Tower in February 1684.<sup>100</sup> Prominent in Hampshire, Arundell’s family had previously held the lordship of Christchurch, which may explain Clarendon’s interest. The following month it was rumoured that Clarendon was to be granted the office of conservator of the river Thames and the same year he was elected high steward of Salisbury in succession to Shaftesbury.<sup>101</sup> The family’s resurgence was further underlined when Lady Clarendon was appointed groom of the stole to Princess Anne as part of the re-organization of her household following her marriage to Prince George of Denmark*, later duke of Cumberland. Despite these marks of favour in September Clarendon was put out as treasurer to the queen and replaced with Richard Lumley* 2nd Viscount Lumley [I] (later earl of Scarbrough).<sup>102</sup> Despite his lack of legal training, Clarendon was said to be one of the pretenders for the newly vacant office of master of the rolls at the beginning of 1685, though the office was not conferred on him.<sup>103</sup></p><h2><em>James II and the Revolution, 1685-1690</em></h2><p>With the death of Charles II in February and the accession of James, Clarendon and his brother found themselves in positions of considerable influence in their brother-in-law’s new regime. Clarendon was appointed lord privy seal and it was ‘whispered’ that he would succeed Ormond in Ireland.<sup>104</sup> He was able to assure Abingdon (as Norreys had since become) of his continued employment in Oxfordshire, the king ‘being satisfied that none can do it better.’<sup>105</sup> The Hyde brothers’ hegemony was threatened, however, by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, who made little secret of his ambition of being rid of them.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Clarendon employed his interest on behalf of the court in the elections of March. Writing to Abingdon, Clarendon expressed his pleasure that the elections in Oxfordshire ‘are (though with some difficulty) like to go your mind’.<sup>107</sup> His own interest at Christchurch, however, again came under assault from Thomas Hooper. In March he wrote to one Goldwyer warning of the danger. Noting the number of towns that had submitted loyal addresses undertaking not to elect those who had supported exclusion, Clarendon advised that:</p><blockquote><p>if the town of Christchurch do not address in the like manner, yet if they show their duty in their practice, by electing men to this parliament of known loyalty to the crown, and such as have given testimony against it [exclusion] they will sufficiently testify their loyalty to his majesty and the government.<sup>108</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the event Hooper appears to have backed down and Clarendon’s candidates, Clarges and Anthony Ettrick<sup>‡</sup>, were returned, probably unopposed. At Reading the borough experienced three elections in the course of the year in March, June and November. The first election, which had seen the return of the Tories Thomas Coates<sup>‡</sup> and John Breedon<sup>‡</sup> was declared void following a petition from Sir Henry Fane<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Rich<sup>‡</sup>, only for Coates and Breedon to be elected again at the second poll in June. Breedon’s death soon after necessitated a by-election in November at which William Aldworth was returned on Clarendon’s recommendation.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Clarendon took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May, when he introduced his brother as earl of Rochester, and Halifax, who had been promoted to a marquessate. He also presented the petition from the Catholic peers seeking their release from bail.<sup>110</sup> Present for almost all (98 per cent) the days on which the House sat, Clarendon was named to 13 committees during the session.<sup>111</sup> On 18 June he reported from the committee on the post office and excise bill. On 21 June he received the proxy of his Oxfordshire neighbour, Lichfield, which was vacated by the session’s close, and on 29 June he reported from the committee concerning the St James’s church bill.</p><p>On news of the rebellion led by James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, found Clarendon, overwhelmed by the ‘glut of business’ generated by the crisis, closely involved in liaising with Abingdon and John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, over the Oxfordshire militia, and the creation of a force in the university of Oxford.<sup>112</sup> After Monmouth’s defeat and capture, Clarendon visited him with his estranged duchess, although when Monmouth asked him to help secure his pardon he could offer the condemned man no hope of reprieve.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Over the summer Clarendon was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland in succession to Ormond.<sup>114</sup> Although this was a post that Clarendon coveted, and it was warmly welcomed by the Irish Protestants, the appointment was the result of Sunderland’s careful manipulation.<sup>115</sup> The king had not forgotten Sunderland’s desertion over exclusion and had intended the post for him as a way of limiting his influence at court. By nominating Clarendon for the place instead, Sunderland both gained Clarendon’s gratitude and ensured the weakening of the Hydes’ interest at court.<sup>116</sup> Clarendon’s removal to Ireland also undermined his influence with Princess Anne. Anne already shared the distaste of her principal confidante, Sarah, Lady Churchill, to Lady Clarendon, (describing the countess as ‘nauseous’) and was delighted to have an excuse to be rid of her. Anne was also engaged in an argument with Rochester that further undercut her relationship with the Hyde family.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Clarendon was again present in the House for the brief November session that followed the summer adjournment. On 17 Nov. he reported from the committee of privileges the dispute over the title of Grey of Ruthin, claimed both by Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin (later Viscount Longueville), and by Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent; Clarendon informed the House that the committee had found in favour of Grey of Ruthin. The following day he was nominated to the committee for Sir George Crooke’s bill. Still a loyalist, on 19 Nov. he objected to the proposal to take the king’s speech into consideration, arguing that the House had already passed a vote of thanks for it, and he questioned the legality of the motion.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Clarendon set out on his journey to Ireland towards the end of December. On 7 Dec. Robert Yard<sup>‡</sup>, the clerk in the office of the secretary of state, had written to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> that Clarendon had put off his departure so many times that ‘people will not believe it till they see him on his way.’<sup>119</sup> The long delay was said to have been in order to avoid Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell [I], currently in Ireland, ‘whose blustering temper would perhaps get the better of a peaceful governor’, though Tyrconnell did not come back to England until after Clarendon’s arrival.<sup>120</sup> During Clarendon’s absence the privy seal was put into commission, contradicting reports that the office was to be awarded to Sunderland.<sup>121</sup> Leaving town amid ‘as great pomp and state as any subject has done in our days’, Clarendon was fêted along the route of his progress from London to Holyhead.<sup>122</sup> Along the way he worried about his finances and from his stopping place at Conway, Clarendon wrote to Rochester revealing the extent of his debts. Computing that £15,000 would ‘clear Blunsden and Christchurch, or thereabouts’ he estimated that securing that sum would leave £6,000 to go towards reducing his remaining debts of £30,000.<sup>123</sup> Two years prior to this he had acknowledged debts amounting to £17,400 owing to three of his creditors, not including his arrears of interest payments to them.<sup>124</sup></p><p>During his absence Clarendon maintained a close correspondence with his contacts in England, making a particular point of welcoming the professions of friendship from George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth.<sup>125</sup> Clarendon’s replacement of Ormond in Ireland had no effect on their relationship: while Clarendon was established at Dublin, Ormond rented Clarendon’s vacant seat at Cornbury Park, and Clarendon was elected high steward of Oxford University in November 1686 through Ormond’s interest.<sup>126</sup> According to his friends in London, Clarendon was ‘extremely beloved as any that ever was in that place before’.<sup>127</sup> Clarendon, however, felt much less cherished in London, where Tyrconnell, who had already done much to remodel and include Catholics in the Irish army, was engaged in undermining Clarendon’s authority by persuading James to appoint Catholics to the judiciary and Privy Council. Although there had been rumours in March 1686 that Clarendon, Rochester and some other peers were to be promoted to dukedoms, that same month Clarendon wrote to his brother complaining of a series of slights.<sup>128</sup> He assured Rochester that it was ‘not in any man’s power to say he has seen me in the least passion since my being here’, but in a series of plaintive letters to Sunderland, he complained about the latter’s failure to support him or keep him informed of alterations in policy.<sup>129</sup> Angry that he only heard of developments ‘by letters to other people or common newsletters’, he wrote on 23 Mar. to say ‘how little I shall be made in the opinion of people here without some support from your lordship, when so many and great alterations are made here, and I know nothing of them but from common fame’.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Sunderland slapped down his colleague in response, eliciting a wounded reply from Clarendon on 17 Apr.:</p><blockquote><p>as to what your lordship is pleased to say of not advising with me beforehand about the alterations his Majesty has thought fit to make here, I hope I am rightly understood and that I shall not be thought to aim at anything upon my own account but in order to the king’s service; and as I shall be always pleased with whatever method the King will prescribe for the doing of his business, so I shall always depend upon your lordship’s friendship and kindness, and if my zeal to serve the king as well as anybody can do, does make me sometimes apprehend that I want countenance I hope your lordship will believe… that I make my moan to none but yourself.<sup>131</sup></p></blockquote><p>Tyrconnell returned to Ireland in June 1686, and now with full command of the army, was able to extend his campaign to bring Catholics in the army. Clarendon commented bitterly that it was perhaps ‘a new practice for some officers to meet and agree whom they will endeavour to have removed and the general of the army no way consulted with.’<sup>132</sup> Tyrconnell was also working with the Catholic lawyer, Sir Richard Nagle, to overturn the land settlement. By October the extent of Clarendon’s loss of influence was commonly known, and the following month it was widely reported that he was to be removed from his post.<sup>133</sup> For the time being he survived, following a vigorous campaign on his behalf by Ormond and members of the Irish nobility, but throughout the winter, well aware of the general expectation of his replacement, he felt beleaguered or ignored, writing desperate missives to London, questioning the orders to arm the Catholics and put out Protestants from their offices and complaining that in response to his own detailed reports he barely received a single line from Sunderland.<sup>134</sup> In England, Rochester, destabilized by Sunderland, resigned the lord treasurership at the end of 1686. The Hydes’ reversal of fortune made Clarendon, he told his brother, ‘shut myself up as much as I can, that I may play the hypocrite the better, and look cheerful when I come into company’.<sup>135</sup> On 4 Jan. he received a copy of Nagle’s ‘Coventry letter’, setting out proposals for drastic changes to the Irish land settlement; In January 1687, Sunderland’s triumph was complete when, in spite of a forecast that month that he would support repeal of the Test, Clarendon was also put out of office and replaced with Tyrconnell, leaving him able only to ‘thank God, without practising the greatest villainy, I cannot be charged with any fault in my administration here; which though it will not preserve me, is a great comfort.’<sup>136</sup> His friend, Sir John Arderne, was under the (mistaken) impression that Clarendon had not seen his replacement coming, and that none of his contacts had warned him ‘of that Boanerges coming over your successor since it was so long since resolved at court; and spread all over the kingdom’.<sup>137</sup> In spite of his best efforts, Clarendon was unable to hide his dismay and bitterness at the manner of his dismissal: ‘whether I have been well used by my lord president in this affair: or whether, in truth, I have been well used by him in the whole time of being here, I leave to all men to judge’.<sup>138</sup> Tyrconnell arrived on 6 February. On handing over his charge to Tyrconnell just under a week later Clarendon took the opportunity to underline the dangers of alienating the Anglican interest: ‘we of the Church of England can brag that when rebellion over spread the three kingdoms not one orthodox member of our churches was engaged against the crown and in our late disorders we can boast that we were opposers of the bills of exclusion.’<sup>139</sup> His chief secretary, Paul Rycaut, several years later remembered Clarendon’s remark to him on receiving the news of his replacement by Tryconnell: ‘thus hath the king lost his crown.’<sup>140</sup></p><p>Clarendon also complained that he had not been able to take advantage of his office to rectify his crippling financial predicament and now faced ruin.<sup>141</sup> The tour of duty had cost him several thousands of pounds and now he could only ‘pray God to give me constancy and resolution to demean myself so, as becomes a man and a Christian; that my friends may have no cause to be ashamed of me.’<sup>142</sup> He returned to England in March 1687.<sup>143</sup> In spite of the manner of his recall, he was warmly received at court. Noted as being ‘much in private with the king’, both Clarendon and Rochester were provided with pensions as compensation for their loss of office (though Clarendon’s £2,000 annuity proved thoroughly inadequate for his needs).<sup>144</sup> Nevertheless, Clarendon also lost his the office of lord privy seal, replaced by the Catholic, Lord Arundell of Wardour.<sup>145</sup> Clarendon retreated into the country: in a forecast of May 1687 he was noted as ‘doubtful’ with regard to the king’s policies.<sup>146</sup> The same month he took the opportunity of Dijkvelt’s return to Holland to convey to his nephew, William of Orange, the assurance of his ‘most obedient duty’ and that he would ‘take it for a great honour to have any commands from your highness’.<sup>147</sup> In November he was reckoned to be opposed to repeal of the Test. In December he wrote to the Prince of Orange again advising that the tenor of the responses to the Three Questions did not bode well for a compliant Parliament.<sup>148</sup></p><p>At the beginning of January 1688 Clarendon was in London, noting in his diary regular encounters with relations, particularly his brother, and friends such as Bishop Lloyd, Sir Richard Bellings and Sir Thomas Clarges, and occasionally attending the king’s court.<sup>149</sup> His position with regard to the Test was reckoned to have changed and he was noted (implausibly) as being in favour of repeal. That month, his attention was taken up by the beginnings of a legal dispute with the queen dowager concerning payments owed to him from his term as chamberlain of her household. The case rumbled on for the following four years.<sup>150</sup> Although in a rather frosty interview Halifax offered his assistance, Clarges warned that he doubted he would do much to help: on 21 Jan. Clarendon noted that Halifax and Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, had made some efforts to appeal to Queen Catharine, but without success. Clarendon recorded glumly, ‘This is but what I expected; and, I suppose, Lord Halifax will think he has acquitted himself of his promise to do me what service he can.’<sup>151</sup> Clarendon was apprehensive of ruin when he discovered that the king had forbidden his attorney general (Sir William Williams<sup>‡</sup>) to appear on his behalf, and that the queen’s lawyer Roger North<sup>‡</sup> had, in a ‘superabundant act of officiousness’, raised the question of the king’s prerogative being involved.<sup>152</sup></p><p>In April the king’s agents, examining the prospects for a new Parliament to repeal the Tests, reported that Clarendon had ‘so absolute an interest’ in Christchurch, that it would be ‘impossible to have anybody chosen but such as he shall appoint, or at least approve.’<sup>153</sup> On 12 May Clarendon was present at a dinner at Lambeth attended by William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Compton, bishop of London, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids. Once the last two had departed, neither being trusted, the diners discussed drafting a petition to the king against his demand that the Declaration of Indulgence be read in churches. Over the next few days Clarendon had a number of other meetings with Turner and Lloyd, and Thomas Tenison*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and Simon Patrick*, later bishop of Chichester and bishop of Ely, and noted in his diary on 18 May (relayed to him by Lloyd) the reaction of the king on presentation of the bishops’ petition.<sup>154</sup> On the 21st he wrote at length to his niece, Princess Mary, explaining what had happened, and summarising the attitudes of the remaining clergy. He expressed doubts about the position of Thomas Wood*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln – ‘they are old, and very odd men’, and expressed scorn for ‘the two scabby sheep Chester and St Davids’, ‘who are indeed very bad men; as they have no reputation or interest, so they are despised by those whom they court’.<sup>155</sup> The king had heard by 23 May of Clarendon’s presence at the Lambeth meeting; in the interim before the bishops’ hearing at the council on 8 June he met and discussed the hearing with Turner, Tenison, Lloyd, Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, and Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells, advising them to find the best lawyers and lending them some of the Journals which they thought might be useful for their defence.<sup>156</sup></p><p>The Seven Bishops’ subsequent imprisonment forced Clarendon, an upholder of the Anglican interest, into more outright opposition. On 10 June he congratulated the king on the birth of the prince of Wales and then went straight to call upon the bishops in the Tower.<sup>157</sup> He was at the Tower again on 12 June, when he found that Halifax had been there before him, and was irked by his advice that the bishops should arrange for three peers to be ready to stand bail for them. The bishops were inclined not to take it, although Bishop Compton initially proposed Clarendon as a possible surety for his friend, St Asaph, though he later replaced his name with that of James Butler*, 2nd Baron Butler of Moore Park, styled earl of Ossory [I], who succeeded shortly after as 2nd duke of Ormond).<sup>158</sup> Clarendon professed not to ‘understand his lordships notions’ and instead recommended to Sancroft that they should simply ensure that there were sufficient friends present at the hearing at king’s bench to whom they might appeal should bail be required. After their appearance at king’s bench on 15 June, when the court accepted their own recognisances, Clarendon took Lloyd home with him in his coach.<sup>159</sup> In the days before the trial he had several more meetings with the bishops and their supporters, as well as discussing the case with a very apprehensive lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys. Clarendon was in Westminster Hall for the bishops’ trial on 29 and 30 June, recording in his diary that their acquittal was accompanied by a ‘most wonderful shout, that one would have thought the Hall had cracked’.<sup>160</sup> On 5 July Clarendon had another encounter with Jeffreys, who told him that the king was persuadable to moderate his policies; Clarendon agreed to meet him from time to time in order to provide a channel of communication with Archbishop Sancroft. Clarendon’s meeting with the queen a couple of days later, who asked him why he did not come to court more often, suggested an attempt to put out feelers towards him.<sup>161</sup></p><p>In the month after the trial, Clarendon’s attention was diverted to a family crisis, the elopement of his heir, Viscount Cornbury, with Lady Katherine O’Brien, the daughter of the deceased heir to the Thomond title, Henry O’Brien, Lord O’Brien (or Lord Ibrackan) [I].<sup>162</sup> Although he had discussed the marriage earlier in the year, he had ceased the negotiations on discovering that Lady O’Brien had no portion until the settlement of the debts of her deceased uncle, Charles Stewart*, duke of Richmond, and considered it ‘the most inconvenient match that could have been for me; a young woman oddly bred, no manner of advantage, and an unavoidable charge.’ Despite this inauspicious beginning and the continued opposition of Lady Katherine’s mother and stepfather, Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, Clarendon was persuaded by his brother and his wife to reconcile himself to the marriage, ‘reflecting with myself, that this young man, who I doubted had made himself unhappy, was my son and only child; that I ought to make the best of a bad market, and not to add misery to misery’.<sup>163</sup> Clarendon’s acceptance of the match may have been aided by the assurances of Sir John Skeffington, 2nd Viscount Massareene [I], that he was well acquainted with the new Lady Cornbury’s family and of the ‘probability… that an extraordinary fortune must accompany the other benefits in this conjunction.’<sup>164</sup> John Fell, bishop of Oxford, also regarded the match as ‘very desirable’ though he conceded that ‘it comes often to pass that rich widows prove poor wives.’<sup>165</sup> Following Ormond’s death in July, Clarendon (who had been closely involved in discussions with the lord chancellor about protecting the copyright of Oxford university press over the previous year) helped to ensure that the chancellorship of the university went to Ormond’s heir, over the king’s initial opposition.<sup>166</sup></p><p>The king’s agreement over the chancellorship of Oxford might have been an encouraging sign of a new moderation; Jeffreys told Clarendon on 13 Aug. that he had good hopes that it would be evident in a meeting of Parliament in the autumn.<sup>167</sup> Jeffreys told him on 22 Sept. of the king’s wish to meet Clarendon, Rochester, Sancroft and others of his ‘old friends’, to discuss his affairs. Clarendon saw the queen and Princess Anne on the following day, both of whom berated him for not coming to court more often, though the latter mentioned her father’s concerns at the preparations in the Netherlands. Anne, he thought, seemed to want to say something, ‘yet is upon a reserve’. He saw the king himself on 24 Sept. who, clearly agitated about William of Orange’s plans, said to him ‘And now my lord, I shall see what the Church of England men will do’. He saw the princess again that day, on the 26th and on the 27th, but found her brief moment of openness over: on the second occasion ‘she answered she never spoke to the king on business. I said her father could not but take it well to see her royal highness so concerned for him… The more I pressed her, the more reserved she was.’<sup>168</sup> Over these few days, Clarendon met frequently with Sancroft, Turner, and Rochester, and it was said that he, Rochester and Halifax made a pointed effort to be seen at court ‘to avoid suspicion’. On 27 Sept., though, after seeing the princess, he met Jeffreys, who told him that ‘all was nought; some rogues had changed the king’s mind; that he would yield in nothing to the bishops’. Nevertheless, over the next few days, Clarendon heard back from the interview of the king with the archbishop on 30 Sept. and with the bishops on 3 Oct., from Jeffreys, and at the council on 5 Oct. of further concessions offered by the king.<sup>169</sup> On 4 Oct. Samuel Foley (later bishop of Down and Connor) even assessed him to be ‘much again in the king’s favour’.<sup>170</sup> Nevertheless, Clarendon continued to pressure Princess Anne to encourage the king for further changes. Before the council meeting of 22 Oct. at which depositions were taken on oath concerning the birth of the prince of Wales and to which all peers in London, as well as councillors, were summoned, Clarendon, along with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, requested the king to allow him to attend as a peer rather than a councillor so that he should not be required to sit with Father Petre. In the midst of the gathering political crisis, another hearing in Clarendon’s litigation with the queen dowager, was on 31 Oct. once more put off resulting in further legal expenses that he could ill afford. On the same day he was disturbed to have a conversation with Princess Anne at which she talked about the doubts about whether a prince of Wales really had been born to the queen.<sup>171</sup></p><p>On 3 Nov. the king in his closet showed Clarendon the prince of Orange’s declaration, and interrogated him about his knowledge of the invasion. Rochester and Clarendon afterwards went to dine at Lambeth with Sancroft, and over the next few days discussed with the bishops the king’s request that they make a declaration against the prince of Orange. On 8 Nov. Clarendon met with Rochester, Turner of Ely and White of Peterborough to discuss drawing up an address requesting the king call a Parliament ‘to prevent the shedding of blood’, which the two bishops undertook to recommend to Archbishop Sancroft. Three days later Clarendon had similar discussions with Halifax, who also suggested an address. Clarendon agreed to put his name to it ‘with all my heart’. But on the 12th Clarendon was taken aback to be presented with a petition approved by Halifax, and asked for his signature; at a subsequent meeting Halifax made difficulties about amendments, about how to consult on the document, and who should sign it, saying that he would refuse to do so himself if those who had been members of the ecclesiastical commission (such as Rochester) did. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, who had been party to Halifax’s draft, dismissed Clarendon’s objections to the petition as ‘not very material, much less deserving the weight he laid upon them’, justified the exclusion of the ecclesiastical commissioners, and denied that it had been done as a result of the ‘pique’ between Halifax and Rochester. The plan for an address collapsed amidst general suspicion and Halifax withdrew his text.<sup>172</sup> The same day the news reached London of his son’s defection to the invaders, though the king responded with remarkable sympathy.<sup>173</sup> The following day Clarendon added his signature to a new petition for a free Parliament arranged by Rochester and others. It was boycotted by Halifax and Nottingham. James, when it was presented to him by Sancroft on 17 Nov., was ‘not pleased’, saying there could be no Parliament while the country was being invaded.<sup>174</sup></p><p>On 22 Nov. Clarendon spoke to the queen forthrightly about the need for a Parliament to approve changes of the law for liberty of conscience. He was as shocked at the flight from London of Princess Anne on 26 Nov. as he was by his son’s defection.<sup>175</sup> One report said that he and her nurse ‘went up and down like mad persons, saying the papists had murdered her.’<sup>176</sup> His panic at her action was probably quite as much the result of disappointment that he had not been trusted to be included in her plot with Bishop Compton and Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset and earl of Middlesex.<sup>177</sup> On the following day (27 Nov.) he spoke at the great council hastily summoned by the king in response to the invasion ‘with great warmth and severity of invaders of laws and liberties’. His ‘indiscreet and seditious railing’ (according to the king’s memoirs) was much resented by the king, who interrupted him in the middle of his harangue to deny his accusation that a regiment had recently been raised from the French traders of London in which ‘none were to be admitted but papists’; Halifax and Nottingham were regarded as having spoken with a good deal more discretion, or, Clarendon wrote ‘very flatteringly’. A number of the peers present were also said to have disapproved of Clarendon’s performance (Ailesbury felt that he had behaved ‘like a pedagogue towards a pupil’).<sup>178</sup> The king’s decision to issue writs for a new Parliament and send commissioners to treat with William of Orange was, though, as Clarendon had recommended. Since a proclamation was under way for men to leave London to prepare for the elections, Clarendon seized hold of it to go to the prince’s camp.<sup>179</sup></p><p>He received a notably warm welcome when he met the Prince at Hindon on 3 Dec. having travelled down with his kinsman (the brother of his first wife Theodosia Capell), Sir Henry Capell<sup>‡</sup> and others. The warmth of his welcome may have encouraged expectation in Ireland that he would be restored to his lieutenancy there.<sup>180</sup> At the beginning of December Clarendon was included in a catalogue of the nobility said to be in arms for the prince.<sup>181</sup> Though this was not accurately true, Clarendon remained in the prince’s entourage as it travelled on its way to London. He was pleased with conversations with the Prince and with the Dutch ambassador indicating that the Prince planned to do no more than he had promised in his declaration; but he met Abingdon at Salisbury, who pointed to the presence with the prince of Major Wildman and Robert Ferguson and other republicans or exclusionists; and Clarendon was disturbed by the brusque behaviour of Bentinck and by conversations with Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, about who might be appointed to serve in government, and who dismissed the idea of a treaty negotiation with the king. On the arrival of the king’s commissioners (among whom Clarendon was said to have been disappointed not to have been included), William appointed Clarendon, Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, and Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, as his representatives to convey messages to them. He was also put on another large commission to advise the prince on the treaty, whose vote on 8 Dec. to request the writs for summoning Parliament to be annulled Clarendon argued against, and with which the prince, to his relief, disagreed.<sup>182</sup></p><p>News of the king’s flight and recapture reached Clarendon left Clarendon uncertain how to proceed. He was astonished by Henry Pollexfen’s suggestion that ‘the Prince of Orange had nothing to do, but in the head of his army to declare himself king’. Practically speechless, Clarendon could only note, ‘Good God bless me! what a man is this?’<sup>183</sup> He dined with the prince at Windsor on 16 Dec., where he found to his astonishment Bishop Lloyd talking about having ceded the government. On the following day the prince summoned a meeting of peers to decide what to do with the king; Clarendon was appalled to be amidst a discussion about placing the king effectively under restraint. It was, he wrote in his diary, ‘the most melancholy day I had ever seen in my whole life’. (It would later be rumoured, apparently maliciously, that at Windsor Clarendon had recommended the imprisonment of the king, something which Clarendon vehemently denied when it was put to him by Abingdon about a year later.)<sup>184</sup></p><p>Over the next few days Clarendon attended Whitehall despite the crush of people trying to see the prince, and discussed sending a message to the king offering his support. His absence from London at the time of James’ first flight meant that he was not initially involved with the meetings of the provisional government but he attended the session held in the queen’s presence chamber in St James’ on 21 Dec. when he joined others in moving a vote of thanks for the prince’s declaration, but opposed adjourning to the House of Lords the following day but having failed in the House on 22 Dec., where in response to the motion to remove all papists from London he moved that an exception should be made for Catholics in the service of his old mistress, the queen dowager.<sup>185</sup> In his diary, he wrote that ‘nothing of moment passed.’ Following the session, he recorded dining with Rochester and Sancroft at Lambeth, with the two earls urging the archbishop to attend the House on the following Monday, ‘to which he was extremely averse: but at last we prevailed with him’. The following day (23 Dec.), Clarendon was informed by William of James’ second flight. While the prince was unable to contain his pleasure at James’ departure, Clarendon was thrown into despair. He could do little but rail, ‘Good God! what will become of this poor, distracted, and distempered nation?’; ‘it is like an earthquake’, he added.<sup>186</sup> At the meeting of the Lords on 24 Dec., after George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, mentioned the king’s letter to Charles Middleton, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], Clarendon moved for it to be sent for, ‘since it will be of great consequence to know whether the king is absolutely gone, which perhaps the letter shows.’ The assurance of Godolphin that the letter would not answer the point, though, prevented it from being adopted. Clarendon also remembered having called for the prince’s declaration to be read, and for a discussion about the prince of Wales; the formal record makes no mention of this, but indicates that he contributed to the debate on calling a free Parliament. He referred to the prince’s proclamation calling for all members of the Parliaments of Charles II to attend apparently calling it a ‘legate as well as a free Parliament’. He suggested ‘as an expedient only’ that about 180 members of the Commons returned on the 16 writs that had gone out before the king’s flight might be summoned, who could then appoint further writs to be issued from the remaining constituencies. This proposal seems to be attributed just to ‘some’ in his own account.<sup>187</sup> Once again, Clarendon’s advice was overlooked.</p><p>By the close of the year Clarendon’s relations with Prince William had deteriorated significantly and (according to Halifax) the prince now dismissed both Clarendon and his brother Rochester as ‘knaves’.<sup>188</sup> His relations with some of his friends were splitting over the question of the position of the king: at dinner with Bishops Turner and Lloyd on 29 Dec., he and Turner were ‘moved’ by James’s published reasons for leaving the kingdom, but Lloyd referred to it as a ‘jesuitical masterpiece’, to Clarendon’s dismay.<sup>189</sup> On New Year’s Day, though he saw the prince, he gained the distinct impression he was no longer welcome at court. Over the next few weeks, though he still gained access to the prince, particularly on Irish business (on which he was regarded as reliable by many Irish Protestants), it was on increasingly distant terms; Gilbert Burnet, visiting Clarendon on 11 Jan., told him that it was said that he was part of a cabal plotting the king’s return: Clarendon denied it, though he did not deny his sympathy with the aim. He received a similar message from Dijkvelt on 14 Jan.: in response to the envoy’s argument that James’s departure had completely altered circumstances since the prince had issued his November declaration, he told him that ‘our religion did not allow of the deposing of kings; and I believed he would find few of the Church of England would come up to it’.<sup>190</sup></p><p>During these weeks, Clarendon prepared to defend his views in the Convention, clearly apprehensive of its outcome. He wrote to Abingdon on 10 Jan. 1689 urging his attendance: ‘as men of your lordship’s principles and temper are most necessary in these public assemblies, so I shall not care to be so much of any one man’s opinion as your lordship’s, knowing very well, that yours is always grounded upon the surest foundation.’<sup>191</sup> On 16 Jan. Nottingham, through Rochester, appealed to Clarendon to use his interest with Archbishop Sancroft to ensure his presence in the Convention also, but he was unable to persuade the primate to attend. Clarendon, with Tenison, had already on 3 Jan. tried to persuade Sancroft to see the king, and to begin making plans for religious toleration as had been outlined in the petition of the seven bishops in June; Sancroft, however, refused to do the former and referred the latter to a meeting of convocation. Nor would he, in a subsequent conversation on 15 Jan., agree to come to the Convention.<sup>192</sup> On 17 Jan. he harangued Princess Anne, encouraging her to take action to head off the talk of William and Mary becoming king and queen. As momentum passed from the Hyde-Nottingham grouping to that dominated by Halifax and the Whigs, Clarendon wrote to the Princess of Orange on 20 Jan. lamenting that if she had ‘been here sooner some difficulties might have been kept off.’ Outlining the various forms of government then being debated, Clarendon told her that</p><blockquote><p>England is an hereditary monarchy and if the claim of succession be skipped over, all the rest will fall to pieces. The notion of the government being devolved to the people is a chimera… Miscarriages in the government may be rectified but to pluck up the foundations will bring all into confusion.<sup>193</sup></p></blockquote><p>Clarendon was present at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689. On the same day he was nominated to the committee appointed to draw up an address of thanks to the Prince of Orange. He thereafter attended on 18 days before seceding from the House. On the 23rd he was named to the standing committees and to that investigating the death of his kinsman, Essex, and on 24 Jan. he reported from the committee considering the petition of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, requesting a stay of the sale of heirlooms by Colonel Maxwell.<sup>194</sup> During the debates in the House on 25 Jan. Clarendon and several other peers ‘opposed with great warmth’ the motion put forward by William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, to defer considering the state of the nation to the following Tuesday.<sup>195</sup> Clarendon saw Princess Anne and Prince George on 27 Jan., and urged her again to deny the rumours that she had agreed that William and Mary be queen. He also continued to urge Sancroft’s attendance, on 28 Jan. telling him to ‘come over the bridge in case the river be unpassable’. The same day he was nominated to the committee considering what collects in the <em>Book of Common Prayer</em> ought to be omitted on the day of thanksgiving.<sup>196</sup> The following day (29 Jan.), Clarendon and Rochester, both pressing for a regency, were among the first to speak in what proved to be a particularly ill-tempered debate on the settlement of the kingdom in the course of which Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, demanded that Clarendon should be called to the bar to answer for his assertion that the civil war had been a ‘rebellion’.<sup>197</sup> Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, commented on the manner in which Clarendon ‘spoke much and somewhat in peevish strain, and incensed the Prince of Orange, the more for his having gone into and so soon leaving him.’ Ailesbury, almost certainly unfairly, attributed Clarendon’s apparent change of heart to disappointment at his failure to be restored to the lieutenancy of Ireland, ‘which was the height of his ambition, and his low purse required it’.<sup>198</sup> At the end of the debate, Clarendon, who was appointed one of the tellers for the division, voted in favour of the motion for establishing a regency as the best method of preserving the nation. The motion was defeated by 48 to 51 (though he recorded in his diary that the margin was just two).<sup>199</sup> Two days later Clarendon, again nominated a teller with Devonshire, voted against acknowledging the throne to be vacant in a committee of the whole and voted against declaring the prince and princess king and queen.<sup>200</sup> According to Roger Morrice, both Hyde brothers urged the accession of Princess Mary alone instead, moving her succession ‘with great passion and impetuousness.’<sup>201</sup></p><p>On 2 Feb. Clarendon’s Oxfordshire neighbour, the firebrand John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, attempted to present a popular petition to the House but he was instantly challenged by Clarendon and Robert Shirley*, 7th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, who argued that Lovelace had not brought the petition in correctly. Clarendon wrote in his diary that the petition was ‘from the rabble, of whom there were come great numbers this morning to Westminster, conducted or invited thither by Lord Lovelace or William Killigrew’.<sup>202</sup> On 4 Feb. Clarendon was one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning the king’s abdication. Having reported its result, he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’. He was nominated to the committee to prepare heads for a further conference on the subject.<sup>203</sup> On 5 Feb. Clarendon had an angry meeting with Princess Anne and her husband at which he confronted them with the fact that she seemed to have been telling some that she accepted the offer of the throne to William and Mary, while telling him and others the opposite.<sup>204</sup></p><p>On 6 Feb. he was again appointed one of the managers of a conference with the Commons, during which he and Rochester countered the assertion of John Somers*, later Baron Somers, that Richard II provided a precedent for a king abdicating his throne. The Hyde brothers argued instead that as Richard II’s abdication was the only such example and his successor, Henry IV, was later declared a usurper by Edward IV it could not justify the current situation.<sup>205</sup> In the subsequent Lords’ debate, Clarendon wrote how Halifax had argued that the decision on abdication would mean that the crown had become elective for this time only; in response he queried how the crown should descend if it was not intended to make it ‘elective perpetually’.<sup>206</sup> At the close of the debate, Clarendon again voted against the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’ and was dismayed by the actions of a number of his former associates who ‘under one pretence or other… were not in the House at putting the question’ thus enabling the vote to be carried by a broad margin.<sup>207</sup> Once again, Clarendon’s figures differ slightly from the official tally. He recorded that the vote was lost by 62 votes to 47, whereas the official count was 65 in favour and 45 against.<sup>208</sup> At the end of the day he went to dinner with Bishop Turner and wrote that it had been ‘the most dismal day I ever saw in my life’.<sup>209</sup> The following day he entered his dissent at the resolution to concur with the lower House but he was unsuccessful in his efforts to marshal a second dissent at the resolution to proclaim the prince and princess king and queen.<sup>210</sup> In spite of his clear opposition to the settlement, Clarendon was then nominated one of the peers to draw up two new oaths to replace the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, which he reported to the House on 7 February.<sup>211</sup></p><p>Dejected, on 8 Feb. 1689 Clarendon noted in his diary that he ‘went to the House of Lords: but there was very little to do; and besides I had but little heart to take notice of any thing.’ Although his diary failed to record it, that day he reported from a further conference; but it is clear that he had by then all but resolved to retire from the House. Three days later he declared publicly his inability to take the oaths which he had had a hand in devising and ‘resolved to go no more to the House of Lords as things now stood’. The following day (12 Feb.) he left London for Swallowfield, so that he could be ‘quite alone’. Leaving his wife in London, sending him messages about the unfolding events, he undertook to return to town within a few days and on 16 Feb. he returned to London briefly ‘to gratify my friends’.<sup>212</sup> Clarendon took the opportunity of his retreat from London to offer some justification for his position to his niece, the newly proclaimed Queen Mary. Insisting that ‘the opinions I have been of in our late transactions, were not hastily or rashly taken up, but upon the most mature deliberation’, Clarendon argued that ‘it was the prince’s declaration which gained him the hearts (generally speaking) of the whole kingdom, but there are very many of the best men, whose consciences would not give them leave to come into the measures which seem to have been since taken.’ Acknowledging himself to be one of those, he concluded by asking only for ‘your pity rather than your displeasure.’<sup>213</sup></p><p>Clarendon resolved not to take the oaths after talking to Sancroft on 28 Feb., puzzling over Bishop Lloyd’s ability to swallow them the following day. Urged on by Bishop Turner, Clarendon resolved on voluntary exile and appears to have approached Nottingham to secure a pass to travel abroad.<sup>214</sup> It was not forthcoming and in May he was one of a number of peers who had not yet taken the oaths summoned to attend the House on 6 June.<sup>215</sup> Rochester advised his brother to leave town, as did Lord Wharton. Clarendon noted in his diary on 1 June how he had received word from John Cecil*, 5th earl of Exeter, that ‘he would not take the oaths, and that he would do as I did.’ That evening Nottingham also cautioned Clarendon to stay out of town and convey his excuses to the House rather than present himself and refuse to take the oaths.<sup>216</sup> Accordingly, Clarendon wrote to the Lords the following day, desiring to be excused so that he could attend to his affairs at Cornbury.<sup>217</sup> The letter was read out on 6 June and no further action taken for the time being. Later that year, Clarendon was put out as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Oxfordshire. In May, Halifax was said to have talked in Privy Council about the revival of the queen dowager’s suit against him, though when Clarendon and he met in the autumn Halifax pressed him to return to Parliament and made professions of kindness to him.<sup>218</sup> Clarendon’s diary thereafter describe a largely humdrum existence mostly at Swallowfield, which he started to rebuild, and Cornbury, with occasional visits to London and Oxford. He was widely suspected, however, of continued dabbling in clerical and Jacobite politics.</p><h2><em>Non-juror, 1690-1709</em></h2><p>The Revolution caused severe strains within Clarendon’s circle. On 7 Jan. 1690 he dined with his old friends, Bishop Lloyd of St Asaph, Francis Turner and Thomas Tenison*, later archbishop of Canterbury, but the evening descended into a furious argument between Clarendon, Lloyd and Tenison over the philosophy of non-resistance, which concluded with Clarendon angrily dismissing Lloyd’s argument in favour of accepting the new regime: ‘if he preached such doctrine, he should not preach to me.’ Although Clarendon found the bishop’s resolution unconscionable, he had no difficulty in advising his friend Abingdon to equivocate. At a dinner in February, Abingdon lamented the course the Revolution had taken and suggested resigning his lieutenancy of Oxfordshire: Clarendon advised him to keep his post rather than allow it to go to Lovelace.<sup>219</sup> Clarendon also appears to have found no contradiction in supporting his son’s continued involvement in Parliament: the same month he sought Abingdon’s assistance in securing Cornbury’s return for Wiltshire in the forthcoming elections. In return he promised his own support for Abingdon’s son, Montagu Venables Bertie* styled Lord Norreys, later 2nd earl of Abingdon, at Berkshire.<sup>220</sup></p><p>Clarendon stood bail for Colonel Lundie, the commander of the Londonderry garrison suspected of having planned to surrender the city, on 12 February. The following few weeks was dominated by electoral business. On 14 Feb. Clarendon sent his agent Thomas Apreece to ‘look after my concerns’ at Christchurch, where Francis Gwyn and William Ettrick were standing on his recommendation in opposition to Winchester’s candidates Hooper and Thomas Dore<sup>‡</sup>. Although Clarendon’s interest prevailed in the borough and Gwyn and Ettrick were returned, Dore and Hooper petitioned on 28 Mar. and at regular intervals until November 1691 when their petition was finally withdrawn. In March 1690, Cornbury sent word that he was facing greater opposition than he had expected in Wiltshire, requiring Clarendon to despatch another agent into the north of the county ‘to see what friends I could make there.’ The election for Oxfordshire also developed into a heated contest, though Clarendon’s friend, Sir Robert Jenkinson and Abingdon’s son, Norreys, were eventually returned in opposition to Sir John Cope<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Wheate<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>221</sup></p><p>Clarendon again refused to take the oaths in March. His retirement from London attracted the incredulity of his former secretary Sir Paul Rycaut, who wrote to him from his diplomatic posting in Hamburg, ‘I cannot but wonder at your lordship’s retirement to Cornbury at a time when you can have no company and conversation either in your own family or by your neighbours.’<sup>222</sup> More attuned to his brother’s predicament, Rochester wrote in April concerning the prospect of Clarendon braving London. He conceded that he had ‘no very good reason against it, for there never was or can be less notice taken of the absent lords, not so much as once any mention or motion made concerning them’ but he feared that in spite of appearances, ‘there is something more intended against them than appears.’<sup>223</sup> Rochester told him in May of an interview he had had with the king (whom Clarendon continued to refer to as the prince), who told him that he was aware that Clarendon</p><blockquote><p>had been very busy in caballing against him; that he was satisfied I had been so, and could show it under my hand; that he had been moved to except me out of the Act of Grace, but that he would not do it, for the Queen’s sake; that I would do well to be careful, for it would be no jesting matter.<sup>224</sup></p></blockquote><p>The following month (June) Clarendon was one of a number of peers arrested on suspicion of treason and conveyed to the Tower. Sir Henry Capell had attempted to speak up for him in council but had been overruled by the queen who insisted that ‘there was too much against him to leave him out of the list.’<sup>225</sup> On 26 June he appeared at King’s Bench to request to be bailed or tried but he remained incarcerated until August when he was released on bail in the absence of any positive evidence against him. In October he appeared at King’s Bench on the first day of term and was continued on recognizance.<sup>226</sup></p><p>Clarendon may have travelled to the continent in October 1690 though it must have been a very brief visit.<sup>227</sup> In December he wrote to the duchess of Beaufort excusing his inability to assist her with a case before the House, though he insisted that he would not be ‘backward in soliciting my friends’ and was confident that Rochester would use his interest on her behalf. By the middle of the month he was able to celebrate being granted his full liberty once more.<sup>228</sup> It proved to be a brief respite. The king’s warning and his relatively brief period of imprisonment failed to deter Clarendon from communicating with the exiled court and in January 1691 he was arrested again on a charge of treason for his involvement in the plot co-ordinated by Richard Grahme, Viscount Preston [S]. According to information later provided by Matthew Crone, Clarendon was involved in co-ordinating a landing in the west country.<sup>229</sup> Although Clarendon had initially benefited from his connection to the royal family there now appeared a serious desire to see him punished for his obstinacy. Macaulay noted that ‘a party among the Whigs’ were vocal in calling for Clarendon’s head and this time his imprisonment was far stricter.<sup>230</sup> In February he was granted leave to exercise in the Tower’s grounds but he was kept in close confinement until July when he was granted permission to live at Cornbury under house arrest for the sake of his health on a bond of £10,000, for which Rochester and Lovelace provided sureties of £5,000 each.<sup>231</sup> He appears to have owed his eventual release largely to his brother’s earnest campaigning on his behalf. Via Nottingham, Rochester also pleaded that the king would not ‘suffer him to be tried, if there be no other witnesses against him but pardoned men, whose testimony… is indeed strictly legal but not very credible.’<sup>232</sup> In any case the eagerness to proceed against Clarendon had diminished by the summer of 1691. Lack of evidence may have been one reason. Carmarthen (as Danby had since become) had advised shortly after Clarendon’s arrest that the king should defer Preston’s execution, as he was ‘the only witness both against my Lord Clarendon, the bishop of Ely (Turner) and Penn’. The House’s concern for one of its own seems to have been another. Clarendon’s release from the Tower coincided with a resolution not to try him on Preston’s evidence while the House was in recess, which as Godolphin explained to the king, stemmed in part from ‘the vote in the House of Lords in the last session that a peer should not be tried but in Parliament.’ Nottingham also stressed that, while there were two witnesses against Clarendon, the consensus was that it would be ‘best to delay Lord Clarendon’s trial, as many peers would probably decline attendance, which would be prejudicial to his majesty’s service.’<sup>233</sup> In November, Clarendon was finally bailed with Rochester, Francis Holles*, 2nd Baron Holles, Sir William Turner and Sir John Parsons providing sureties of £500 each.<sup>234</sup> At the end of January 1692 he was discharged and retreated to Swallowfield. Later that year, in May, he was also freed from his ongoing legal tussle with the queen dowager. Rycaut thought that Clarendon owed his change of fortune to Queen Catharine’s ‘great generosity’, though he was certain that the case had only been contrived because of ‘ill offices’ the work of ‘those who were neither friends to your lordship nor firm to their own words.’<sup>235</sup></p><p>In spite of two periods of incarceration and (on the second occasion) a very real danger of his being forced to stand trial for his life, for the remainder of King William’s reign Clarendon continued to correspond with Jacobite agents, providing detailed information to assist a possible invasion. A letter of December 1693 from Sir George Barclay purported to convey Clarendon’s advice to the exiled King James ‘that, at any time within three months, your majesty may make a descent with success’ and warning against further delay as the Channel would be ‘unguarded all winter’.<sup>236</sup> Such activities no doubt persuaded Princess Anne that it was not appropriate to allow her uncle to wait on her at the opening of 1695. In the wake of the Assassination Plot, Clarendon’s name was again mentioned in examinations concerning those in contact with the exiled court and he was one of a number of peers for whom warrants were made out for their arrest.<sup>237</sup></p><p>Despite his seclusion from the House, Clarendon continued to take a keen interest in parliamentary affairs. In the elections of 1695 he maintained his interest in Berkshire and in Oxford. He also wrote to Thomas Turner, president of Corpus Christi College, in October to convey his satisfaction that ‘the elections for the university are so well over’ and hoped that those ‘for the county will succeed as well for our friends.’<sup>238</sup> If his political interest endured in spite of his situation, proscription from office worsened dramatically Clarendon’s already dire financial predicament. In March 1697 his personal affairs were further complicated by the beginning of a legal dispute with Lady Cornbury’s family.<sup>239</sup> By November, he faced the prospect of being turned out of Swallowfield, while his son and daughter-in-law were said to be ‘starving’.<sup>240</sup> This bleak situation led to his brother, Rochester, entering into negotiations with Shrewsbury for the sale of Cornbury, though Clarendon remained reluctant to make away with his paternal estate and by the autumn of 1698 negotiations with Shrewsbury had broken down.<sup>241</sup> Clarendon still attempted to make use of his interest on behalf of his acquaintance and in May 1698 he provided a letter of recommendation on behalf of Sunderland’s son-in-law, Donogh Maccarty, 4th earl of Clancarty [I], a noted Jacobite, who had been imprisoned in the Tower but eventually granted permission to reside abroad with his countess following a highly publicized scandal.<sup>242</sup> Clarendon was reported to be dangerously sick in April 1699.<sup>243</sup> His indisposition perhaps compelled him to accept his brother’s advice and in early 1700 Cornbury was conveyed secretly to Rochester. That summer Clarendon was further shaken by the death of his countess, a loss that left him ‘most miserable’.<sup>244</sup></p><p>Clarendon’s hopes for his rehabilitation at court on the succession of Queen Anne were dashed as it was reported that his request for an audience had been turned down until such time as he qualified himself by taking the oaths.<sup>245</sup> There were rumours that Clarendon, along with a number of other nonjurors, had complied and that preferment would swiftly follow.<sup>246</sup> These proved unfounded but the following year the queen agreed to provide her uncle with a pension of £1,500 <em>per</em> <em>annum</em>.<sup>247</sup> Clarendon was listed as a Jacobite in an assessment of the peerage of April 1705.<sup>248</sup> Two years later he sought the assistance of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, in procuring him the housekeeper’s lodgings at Somerset House, in which Clarendon claimed to have been granted a life interest while a member of the household of Queen Catharine.<sup>249</sup> His continuing financial problems finally resulted in Clarendon Park and the manor of Christchurch being offered for sale early in 1707. Although Clarendon found a willing purchaser in Lady Bathurst, a search of the records of the courts of queen’s bench, common pleas and exchequer at her behest revealed an unresolved case dating back to 1675 involving a debt of £1,000 owing to Sir Thomas Morley; Lady Bathurst refused to part with the purchase money until the issue was resolved. Clarendon was compelled to seek an order from chancery to subpoena Lady Morley to settle the matter. The estate ultimately passed to Peter Mews, nephew of the former bishop of Winchester, the following year.<sup>250</sup></p><p>Clarendon suffered ‘a fit of my old distemper the strangury’ in the summer of 1707.<sup>251</sup> An assessment of the peerage of the following year listed Clarendon as a Tory, but by then he was almost entirely marginalized. Even so as late as April 1709 he was appealed to by the mayor and corporation of Reading to employ his interest with the queen on behalf of one James West.<sup>252</sup> He died in October of that year following an asthmatic attack brought on by a short illness.<sup>253</sup> He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Administration of his estate was granted to Alexander Denton in May 1713, though a further grant of administration was made to Robert Ord in March 1748 as a result of a case brought by Henry Howard*, 4th earl of Carlisle, concerning an unresolved dispute of 1688. Clarendon’s dissolute son, Cornbury, at the time of his father’s death still incarcerated in a debtors’ prison in New York, succeeded to the peerage as 3rd earl of Clarendon.</p> |
R.D.E.E./R.P. |
|
HYDE, Henry (1672-1753) |
<p><strong><surname>HYDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1672–1753)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1682-1711 Visct. Hyde; <em>suc. </em>fa. 2 May 1711 as 2nd earl of ROCHESTER; <em>suc. </em>cos. 31 Mar. 1723 as 4th earl of CLARENDON. |
|
First sat 28 May 1711; last sat 20 Jan. 1741 |
|
MP Launceston 1692-1711. |
<p><em>b</em>. 1672, o. s. of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Lady Henrietta Boyle, da. of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1683-7;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (Italy, Germany, Holland) 1687-90;<sup>2</sup> Oxf. Univ. DCL 1700. <em>m</em>. 8 Mar. 1692 (lic. 2 Mar. 1692) (with £16,000) Jane (<em>d</em>.1725), da. of Sir William Leveson Gower<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt., sis. of Sir John Leveson Gower*, Bar. Gower, 3s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.,<sup>3</sup> 5da. (4 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 10 Dec. 1753; admon<em>.</em> 9 Feb. 1754- June 1783 to da. Catherine, duchess of Queensberry.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Treas. to Queen Mary 1693-4;<sup>6</sup> first clerk of writs in Chancery 1703-10; jt. v.-treas. and paymaster-gen. [I], Sept. 1710-16; PC 19 Oct. 1710-Sept. 1714; commr. building 50 new churches 1711-15.<sup>7</sup></p><p>High steward, Oxf. Univ. 1711-<em>d</em>.; kpr., Richmond New Park 1711-27; ld. lt. Cornw. 1711-14.</p><p>Guidon and maj. 2nd tp. Horse Gds. Oct. 1691, cornet and maj. Dec. 1691-3.</p><p>Gov. Merchant Adventurers 1690.<sup>8</sup></p> |
|
<p>Hyde was described by Jonathan Swift as ‘a good, civil, simple man’.<sup>9</sup> He lacked the political weight of his father or grandfather, but through a combination of marriage and inheritance he commanded significant interest in Cornwall and Wiltshire and was sufficiently well thought of to be able to retain the keepership of Richmond Park and the high stewardship of Oxford University after the death of Queen Anne, in spite of his unequivocal Toryism.</p><p>Having gained military experience in two campaigning seasons in Flanders in the early 1690s, Hyde returned to England in 1692 to marry Jane Leveson Gower and to take the Commons seat at Launceston left vacant by the death of William Harbord<sup>‡ </sup>on the nomination of his Granville in-laws.<sup>10</sup> He continued to hold the seat until his succession to the earldom. During that time he acquired a number of minor offices but a rumour of March 1703 that he was to be summoned to the Lords by a writ in acceleration proved unfounded.<sup>11</sup> Over the next few years it was his wife who was most forward in exercising the family interest (notably on behalf of Tory candidates in Newcastle-under-Lyme). She was also instrumental in preventing the marriage of her nephew Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup> to Lady Henrietta Somerset on the grounds that Lady Henrietta’s maternal family (the Childs) was prone to madness. As Lady Hyde pointed out, ‘there are millions of Tory families without the objections in this.’<sup>12</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1710 rumours circulated once more that Hyde was one of three heirs to earldoms to be summoned to the Lords by writs in acceleration.<sup>13</sup> Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, listed him as one of the lords to be provided for on 12 Sept. 1710 and it was thought, incorrectly, that he was to be offered a place in the new administration.<sup>14</sup> In October he was appointed to the Privy Council and the following summer he at last secured his place in the Lords on the death of his father. He took his seat in the House towards the end of the session on 28 May (after which he was present on eight days). On 12 June he was actively involved as a member of the journal committee. The death of Rochester’s father (which according to one report left his daughter-in-law unmoved) left his family (according to Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup>) in need of protection. Soon after (moved or not) the new countess of Rochester took it upon herself to write to Oxford, as Harley had since become, requesting a meeting, so that his ‘advice and interest may not be wanting to two people that you will never find very unreasonable in their wishes.’ By the 1st earl of Rochester’s death both the places of high steward of Oxford University and the lord lieutenancy of Cornwall fell vacant. The latter was soon warmly contested by Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, and the young John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret (later Earl Granville), in opposition to George Granville*, later Baron Lansdown, who represented the prevailing Granville interest. Fearful of losing his sway in the county should Radnor secure the lieutenancy, Granville chose to put his weight behind Rochester as a more suitable alternative. In a missive of 19 May to Oxford he enquired, ‘where is the difficulty in the person of Lord Rochester? Is any man more loved or more esteemed by all the gentlemen of the county? You can do nothing more to put them in good humour, and they already expect his appointment.’<sup>15</sup> Granville had his way and Rochester was duly appointed in October.</p><p>The high stewardship invited quite as spirited a response on Rochester’s behalf by his countess, who contacted Oxford after hearing a rumour that he (Oxford) was to succeed to the place. Wishing to prevent any ‘misunderstanding between our families’ she advised him roundly ‘to let the duke [James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, chancellor of the university] know it is what you do not desire’. She continued to threaten openly that Oxford’s acceptance of the position ‘would breed ill blood in the world, and between you and my lord… though I with reason believe you will do nothing towards him but kindness.’ In return for Oxford’s acquiescence, she assured him of the support ‘of a sincere and honest faithful friend.’<sup>16</sup> Like that of her cousin, Granville, Lady Rochester’s brinkmanship paid off and the stewardship was granted accordingly to her husband.</p><p>Rochester returned to the House a week into the new session on 13 Nov. 1711 (of which he attended 82 per cent of all sitting days). On 19 Nov. he wrote to the lord treasurer in response to Oxford’s offer of patronage, asking that he ‘would do me the honour to introduce me to the queen’.<sup>17</sup> Rochester’s countess, meanwhile, continued to show greater boldness and independence by sparring openly with Lady Sunderland at Hampton Court, where she was heard one day to enquire, ‘what was become of the Whigs, she had heard nothing of them of late, she believed they were all dead.’ Lady Sunderland riposted with equal bravura that, ‘if they were all dead they would soon have a glorious resurrection’.<sup>18</sup> Less provocative, but an equally committed Tory, Rochester voted against barring Scots peers with British titles from sitting in the Lords by virtue of post-Union British peerages in the division held on 20 December. Two days later he delivered the report compiled by the commissioners for building churches, which it was ordered should lie on the table, and the same day (22 Dec.) he received the proxy of Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, which was vacated by Lexinton’s return to the House on 14 January. On 17 Jan. 1712 Rochester was nominated to the select committee appointed to draw up an address to be presented to the queen and on 15 Feb. he received the proxy of Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, which was vacated on 7 March. On 7 May he reported from the committee for Moore’s bill and on 19 May acted as teller for those opposed to resuming the House from a committee of the whole considering the grants bill (the motion to resume was defeated by three votes).</p><p>Rochester attended nine of the prorogation days between the close of the session on 21 June 1712 and the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. the following year. In advance of the session, Swift listed him as a likely supporter of Oxford’s ministry. Rochester demonstrated his earnest support for the peace policy by encouraging the corporation of Wootton Bassett, over which he wielded some influence as lord of the manor, to compose a loyal address in favour of the treaty.<sup>19</sup> He took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session, after which he was present on almost 78 per cent of all sitting days but he seems to have made little or no impact on the House’s business.</p><p>Rochester took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on 89 per cent of all sitting days. On 24 Apr. he reported from the committee for Walter Hele’s bill (concerning a settlement of lands lying in Devon) and four days later received Lexinton’s proxy again, which was vacated by the session’s close. In May inaccurate reports circulated both that Lexinton had married Rochester’s daughter, Catherine (later duchess of Queensberry) and that Rochester himself was busy with preparations for his own supposed marriage to ‘Lady Belle Bentinck’.<sup>20</sup> The source of the confusion is uncertain. There was certainly no truth in either of the reports (particularly given that Rochester’s wife did not die until 1725), though Lady Isabella Bentinck was married that summer to Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston), a name somewhat similar to Rochester. On 4 May Rochester reported from the committee for Tregagle’s bill (in which he had perhaps taken an interest as it concerned lands lying within his lieutenancy) and on 11 May from that for Wynne’s bill. At the close of the month he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a supporter of the schism bill. On 7 Aug. he again received Lexinton’s proxy, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>Rochester attended 13 of the 15 days of the brief session that met following the death of Queen Anne in August. He was quick to assure the new king of his intention of demonstrating the ‘same duty and steadiness to your majesty which I ever paid to the late queen.’<sup>21</sup> His efforts appear to have paid off. In January of the following year he was noted as a Tory still in office and although he relinquished the lieutenancy of Cornwall to Radnor soon after, he retained a number of less prominent places.<sup>22</sup> Details of the latter part of his career, including his succession to the earldom of Clarendon, will be considered in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Despite fathering three sons and five daughters, at his death in 1753 only one of Clarendon’s children remained alive. His son and heir, Henry Hyde<sup>†</sup>, styled Viscount Cornbury (who had been summoned to the Lords in 1751 by a writ in acceleration as Baron Hyde) had died in a riding accident in Paris earlier in the year. To make matters worse, contemporary gossip cast doubt upon the paternity of his surviving daughter, Catherine (Kitty), duchess of Queensberry [S], who was rumoured to have been fathered by Henry Boyle*, Baron Carleton, his kinsman.<sup>23</sup> If Clarendon had an opinion on the subject he took it with him to his grave at Wootton Bassett (not, as the <em>Complete Peerage</em> suggests, in Westminster Abbey).<sup>24</sup> He died without leaving a will and in the absence of any other children to dispute her title, administration of his estate was granted in February the following year (with a further confirmation in June 1783) to the duchess of Queensberry. Both the earldoms of Rochester and Clarendon were rendered extinct, though the earldom of Clarendon was later revived for Thomas Villiers*, husband of Clarendon’s granddaughter Charlotte Capel.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
HYDE, Laurence (Lawrence) (1642-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>HYDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Laurence (Lawrence)</strong> (1642–1711)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>23 Apr. 1681 Visct. Hyde; <em>cr. </em>29 Nov. 1682 earl of ROCHESTER |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 1 May 1711 |
|
MP Newport 1660; Oxford University 1661; Wootton Bassett 1679 |
<p><em>b</em>. 15 Mar. 1642, 2nd s. of Edward Hyde*, (later earl of Clarendon) and Frances Aylesbury; bro. of Edward Hyde<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Hyde*, (later 2nd earl of Clarendon). <em>educ</em>. M. Temple 1660. <em>m</em>. bef. 14 June 1665, Lady Henrietta Boyle (<em>d</em>.1687), da. of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 4da.<sup>1</sup> KG 29 June 1685. <em>d</em>. 2 May 1711, <em>admon</em>. 16 May 1711 to s. Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of robes 1662-78; amb. extraordinary, Poland 5 July 1676-13 Feb. 1677; plenip., Nijmegen 30 Aug. 1677-14 Feb. 1679; envoy, The Hague 1677; commr. treasury 26 Mar. 1679, first ld. 21 Nov. 1679-9 Sept. 1684; PC 19 Nov. 1679-Dec. 1688, 1 Mar. 1692-1702, 18 Mar. 1702-8, 21 Sept. 1710-<em>d</em>.; ld. pres. 1684-5, 1710-<em>d</em>.; extraordinary gent. of the bedchamber 1680-5;<sup>3</sup> ld. lt. [I] 1685,<sup>4</sup> 1700-3; ld. treas. 16 Feb. 1685-4 Jan. 1687; postmaster gen. and chan. to Queen Mary of Modena 1685-9; commr. ecclesiastical affairs 1686-7;<sup>5</sup> commr. appeal for prizes 1694-5.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Freeman, Portsmouth 1661; commr. assessment, Westminster 1677-9, Oxf. Univ. 1677-80, Wilts. 1679-80; kpr. Richmond New Park 1683-?<em>d</em>.; recorder, Salisbury 1685-Oct. 1688; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>., Herts. 1686-9, Cornw. 1710-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt., Herts. 1687-9, Cornw. 1710-<em>d</em>.; high steward, Oxf. Univ. 1709-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov. Merchant Adventurers’ Co. 1684-c.1692.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by G. Kneller, 1685, English Heritage, Kenwood, London; oil on canvas, by G. Kneller, 1685?, NPG 4033; oil on canvas after W. Wissing, c.1685-7, NPG 819.</p> |
<p>Second son of the lord chancellor, ‘honest Lory’ Hyde was more able than his older brother, Henry, though his talents were offset by a tendency to drink too much and by a reputation for being ‘easily wound up to a passion.’<sup>9</sup> This assessment was echoed by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, while, according to Macky, in time his opponents became wise to this weakness and were able to exploit it by making him lose his train of thought when speaking in debates.<sup>10</sup> William Cowper*, later Earl Cowper, thought him ‘a good natured man, though hot’ and was so struck by his kindness during proceedings in the House on one occasion that he declared in his diary that if it should ever be in his power, he would be ‘glad to do him a kindness, though a violent man of a contrary party’.<sup>11</sup> Rochester’s occasionally splenetic temperament sat uneasily with his role as a courtier and diplomat. While on the one hand he was credited with being ‘the smoothest man in court’, he was also notorious for his tendency when roused to ‘swear like a cutter.’<sup>12</sup> Drunken escapades also reflected on his reputation. One anecdote of the 1680s told how he and George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, both became so drunk at one civic dinner that they stripped naked and had to be prevented from clambering up a signpost to drink the king’s health.<sup>13</sup></p><p>During his career of almost three decades in the Lords, Hyde proved to be one of the foremost leaders of the high Tory interest and a stalwart of the Church of England. In spite of this he was more willing to work with men of differing views than is often acknowledged. Though not a very accomplished orator, he grew to be one of the most respected members of the House on account of his close knowledge of procedure.<sup>14</sup> This was reflected in his prominence as an assiduous committee chairman and manager of conferences alongside his role as the holder of a succession of senior governmental offices.</p><h2><em>Early career to 1681</em></h2><p>Following much of his youth spent with his family in exile, Hyde returned to England at the Restoration when he was elected (while still underage) for Newport in the Convention. The following year he transferred to Oxford University, which he proceeded to represent until the dismissal of the Cavalier Parliament. Through his father’s interest he was also preferred to the household office of master of the robes. Three years later it was reported that he was also to be made keeper of the privy purse but this proved not to be the case.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The fall of Clarendon in 1667 seems not to have damaged Hyde’s career. He made a rare speech in the Commons in defence of his father but managed the affair so dexterously that he inspired comparison with Brutus. Thus while he protested his father’s innocence, he insisted that he would be the first to call for his punishment should he be guilty. Such careful handling of a situation that could have proved terminal to his prospects meant that he remained largely untarnished by his father’s fall, despite murmurings that ‘some wonder that the earl of Clarendon’s two sons should still keep their places’ and rumours that circulated between December 1667 and February 1668 that he would be forced to give up the mastership of the robes.<sup>16</sup> According to one report, the real reason for his ability to keep his place was that he was able to subsist ‘(like Geneva) by the jealousy of competitors.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>Having survived this crisis, and a subsequent bout of smallpox, Hyde continued to thrive. In 1673 it was rumoured that he was one of three courtiers to be granted peerages. Although this failed to come to pass, by the mid 1670s he had developed a career as both courtier and parliamentarian, and in 1676 he was despatched on his first diplomatic mission (though this posting later caused him some embarrassment after it was reported that he had delivered a speech espousing Catholicism).<sup>18</sup> Following further speculation of likely appointments in 1678, in the spring of the following year he was appointed one of the new commissioners at the treasury. That November it was again rumoured that he was to be granted a peerage.<sup>19</sup> In all this he was assisted by his connection to his brother-in-law, Prince James*, duke of York, though he was also said to have benefited from the patronage of the duchess of Cleveland.<sup>20</sup> York had been active in promoting Hyde’s marriage to Lady Henrietta Boyle and had assured her father that he would ‘make it my business not only to have a care of him, but of their children.’<sup>21</sup> The subsequent marriage of York’s daughter, Princess Mary, to William of Orange in 1677 proved more complex; the prince did not wish either Hyde or his wife in his household, being wary of him as an avowed member of York’s circle.<sup>22</sup></p><p>For the first two Exclusion Parliaments Hyde transferred to Wootton Bassett, a manor that he had previously purchased for £30,000 and where he exercised considerable interest.<sup>23</sup> He was one of only two members of the Privy Council in the Commons to stand out against the exclusion bill in January 1680, by which time Hyde had emerged alongside Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Sidney Godolphin*, later earl of Godolphin, as one of a new leading triumvirate of young ministers. Dubbed ‘the Chits’ they had come to the fore in the wake of the fall of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).<sup>24</sup> In May Hyde’s continued dominance of the treasury was reflected in reports that he was to be made sole treasurer. He was also engaged in efforts to supplant the king’s mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth, with Hortense de Mazzini, duchesse de Mazarin. Such manoeuvrings underscored the divisions at court and helped make prominent ministers, such as Hyde, vulnerable to attack. Along with George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, he was one of those the Commons asked to be removed from the king’s presence. He was also subject to assault in the Lords and only narrowly avoided being impeached.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Hyde failed to stand for the Oxford Parliament, though he remained a close adviser to the king and was said to have counselled terminating the session early. He also featured in <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em> as the loyal Hushai. The following month he was raised to the peerage as a viscount, an honour that the king was said to have intended to confer on him some time before.<sup>26</sup> Morrice recorded the title as being Viscount Killingworth (Kenilworth), but the style adopted was Viscount Hyde which prompted Colonel Cooke to remark to James Butler*, duke of Ormond, that he thought it ‘unusual for a viscountship to be annexed to a name.’<sup>27</sup> However unusual the style, Hyde’s promotion (rumours of which had been current since November of the previous year) prompted some to speculate that his elevation to the peerage was ‘the first step to his sole lord treasurership’ and by the close of April he was noted by Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I] (Baron Butler) as ‘the greatest man in favour at court now.’<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>The Tory Reaction, 1681-5</em></h2><p>One of Hyde’s first actions following his ennoblement (acting in concert with his brother) was to recommend their father’s former chaplain, William Levett, to the post of principal of Magdalen Hall in Oxford, left vacant by the death of their kinsman, Dr Hyde. Although there were other contenders for the place, Ormond agreed to the appointment.<sup>29</sup> At the beginning of July, Hyde was one of those to sign the order for the commitment of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. Soon after he sounded a cautionary note in his correspondence with Richard Legh over plans for a loyal address from Cheshire in response to the king’s declaration setting out his reasons for dissolving the Oxford Parliament. Hyde’s attitude to the address perhaps reflected his qualms at the wisdom of the king’s decision: ‘I do not give you any advice one way or other concerning an address (of which I am as little fond as you can be) and I am sure, if there ever be any good in them, it can only consist in the unanimity of it’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>The same month Hyde was present at an interview between the king and the prince of Orange and in August he attended a ‘noble treat’ laid on for the prince by Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle.<sup>31</sup> That month at least one newsletter reported renewed rumours of the appointment of a lord treasurer in which ‘some cry up Hyde others Seymour [Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>]’. Although this failed once more to transpire, Hyde’s burgeoning influence was more than apparent. Later that month he was one of four laymen appointed to act alongside William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, ‘to dispose of all ecclesiastical preferments’.<sup>32</sup> In September Hyde was despatched to Edinburgh, possibly at Halifax’s urging, to confer with the exiled York and to inform him why his ‘presence in this conjuncture may be inconvenient to his majesty’s affairs.’<sup>33</sup> He also attempted in vain to persuade his brother-in-law to abjure Catholicism and resume attendance at Anglican services. By the close of the month Hyde had returned to the court assembled at Newmarket, where he was closely involved with negotiations between Charles and the French.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Hyde’s growing interest at court was not simply owing to his managerial abilities. Colonel John Churchill*, (later duke of Marlborough) reckoned him ‘the best man living’.<sup>35</sup> There was a seamier side to his progression as well. Prior to his departure for Scotland, according to gossip emanating from Berkeley House, Hyde had been seen in St James’s Park with the duchesse de Mazarin, ‘in preparation to some amour’. This had been consummated shortly after, ‘he manfully twice performing.’ The tale, though of dubious provenance, was communicated to the incapacitated James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, as part of his regular news, ‘for some divertissement as well as intelligence.’<sup>36</sup></p><p>Hyde’s return from Scotland coincided with growing tensions within the administration concerning the direction of foreign policy, financial mismanagement and over affairs in Ireland. Disagreement over these and other matters helped provoke a spectacular falling-out between Hyde and Halifax. Fears of other divisions were no doubt reflected in the fact that Ormond was forced to assert on more than one occasion that his relationship with Hyde remained entirely amicable.<sup>37</sup> Relations with Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I] were less so, and following one meeting in the treasury chamber at which they were said to have engaged in ‘a brisk repartee’, Arran concluded that ‘open war is begun betwixt them two.’ By the close of the year there was talk of York and several of his followers (among them Hyde) being impeached over the promotion of the ‘Presbyterian sham plot.’<sup>38</sup> Once again, Hyde avoided his father’s fate, and by the spring of the following year rumours were once more current of his advancement to the post of lord treasurer. With his interest once more resurgent, Hyde was eager to assure potential allies of his good wishes. The early months of 1682 found him in correspondence with the duke of Hamilton concerning the prospects of Hamilton’s heir, James Hamilton*, earl of Arran [S] (later duke of Hamilton [S] and Brandon).<sup>39</sup> He was also at pains to improve his relations with his father’s old friend, Ormond:</p><blockquote><p>I shall never be able to do the part of my father either to his grace, or in any other share of the king’s service, but I will never be wanting in all the duty I can pay both to the memory of the friendship that was between my lord duke and my father.<sup>40</sup></p></blockquote><p>Hyde’s family suffered a further loss in May 1682 when his younger brother, James Hyde, and about 150 others went down with the <em>Gloucester</em> while in attendance on York. Although York was severely criticized for the way in which he managed his own escape from the wreck while leaving others to perish, the affair appears to have done nothing to damage York’s relationship with Hyde.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Over the summer Hyde was distracted by other family issues. First by the crisis that arose over the disputed marriage between Hyde’s cousin, Bridget, and Peregrine Osborne*, styled Lord Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds), and later by a more positive event when Hyde’s daughter, Henrietta, married Ormond’s grandson, James Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (later 2nd duke of Ormond).<sup>42</sup> Danby attempted to assure Hyde that he was not responsible for Dunblane’s behaviour and hoped Hyde would not think him ‘capable of so mean a contrivance.’<sup>43</sup> Sir Gilbert Talbot<sup>‡</sup> on the other hand was able to hope that Ormond would take satisfaction from the Hyde-Butler match, Hyde being ‘a man after your grace’s own heart, well principled towards his prince and a generous friend.’<sup>44</sup></p><p>As Hyde’s interest continued to grow, at the close of July 1682 it was again put about that he was on the point of being made lord treasurer.<sup>45</sup> The following month, in spite of his wariness over relying too much on a man so closely connected to York, William of Orange was said to be actively seeking Hyde’s ‘powerful influence’ in securing the king’s agreement to an alliance against Louis XIV. Hyde was also increasingly involved with Ormond. In September Hyde was one of those to persuade Ormond to remain in London assuring him that his ‘reputation in the world, and especially with the old loyal party, is of use in the present conjuncture’. At the end of October, Ormond claimed that his recent advancement to an English dukedom had been promoted by Hyde. No doubt gratified by the distinction, Ormond declared Hyde to be ‘the best and honestest minister among us.’<sup>46</sup> By the middle of November it was said that Hyde ‘rules all’. Indeed, as early as August he was described by Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S] as ‘first minister of state to the king of England’.<sup>47</sup> Hyde was believed to have been instrumental in securing the disgrace of John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby). The immediate cause of Mulgrave’s fall was his rumoured liaison with Princess Anne, but Hyde was thought to have objected to Mulgrave paying too much attention to his wife as well.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Hyde’s continuing domination of court was recognized by his promotion to the earldom of Rochester. That said he was one of a dozen men to be granted new titles between November and December 1682 and the king’s largesse at the time led at least one commentator to joke to one of his correspondents not to come to London for fear that he too would be made a peer. As was often the case, there was at first some uncertainty over what the title was to be. At least two commentators reported that Hyde had been created earl of Falmouth.<sup>49</sup> The earldom of Rochester was only recently vacant, and the new earl was clearly conscious that in taking on a title that had until so recently been in another family he risked overstepping the bounds of propriety. Writing to his heir, Henry Hyde*, styled Lord Hyde (later 2nd earl of Rochester), he insisted that the title of Viscount Hyde was one that ‘I part with, with trouble, for I was best pleased with that which my father and myself had been so long known by.’ He continued to offer his heir advice on his future conduct:</p><blockquote><p>be sure to make it your perpetual care to be known for an honourable man, a religious man to God, an obedient subject to the king, and a good friend to all that have been kind to me … be sure no increase of honour, and greatness make you proud, it is the most impertinent of all the imperfections a man can be guilty of.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>The new year found Rochester once more engaged with affairs at court, which it was noted was now divided between ‘Tories Whigs and Trimmers.’ Rochester was among the foremost members of the ‘thoroughest Tories’.<sup>51</sup> He was also, according to the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, unusually forward in employing his interest on behalf of the diplomat, Edmund Poley.<sup>52</sup> Towards the end of the month his feud with Halifax resurfaced over the farm of the hearth tax. Bad blood had existed between them since Rochester had attempted to prevent Halifax’s appointment as lord privy seal. Halifax now sought to bring his rival down over allegations that Rochester had been complicit in a fraud perpetrated by the hearth tax farmers.<sup>53</sup> The newly ennobled Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, worried at Halifax’s choice of opponent: ‘for though I am satisfied that you would not begin any thing of that nature without being very well grounded, yet I am not sure it will prevail, where interest and great friends take the other side’.<sup>54</sup></p><p>For the time being Rochester was able to counter Halifax’s accusations, but the assault on his character brought out his most choleric side and left the two men more bitterly divided than ever. When Halifax proposed a new financial scheme, Rochester not only opposed it but advised other speculators to have nothing to do with Halifax’s plan.<sup>55</sup> In all this Rochester’s standing at court offered him powerful protection. In March 1683 it was to his house that the queen, York and his duchess resorted following the fire at Newmarket. The following month it was rumoured that he was to be made lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>56</sup> Such reports no doubt encouraged Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, to seek his support in securing justice there.<sup>57</sup> In the meantime Rochester was one of those engaged in settling a dispute between Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, and the groom of the stole, John Granville*, earl of Bath, over access to the king’s bedchamber.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Rochester’s feud with Halifax persisted throughout the summer and in July it was reported that the two peers had exchanged words at a meeting of the council.<sup>59</sup> A bout of poor health offered Rochester an opportunity to retreat to Twickenham but divisions in the council continued.<sup>60</sup> In mid October it was reported that Jenkins and Halifax were keen to see Parliament recalled; Sunderland and Rochester were opposed to the notion.<sup>61</sup> By the close of the year, in the aftermath of the trial and execution of Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>, and the other Rye House plotters, such divisions had become more entrenched. Halifax was said to have had ‘a great hand’ in bringing in James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, with the sole motivation of outdoing Rochester, who remained steadfastly loyal to York.<sup>62</sup></p><p>If relations within the council remained tense, Rochester continued to benefit from his leading role in government. Following the suppression of London’s charter, part of a broader governmental crackdown, he was one of the commissioners appointed to supervise affairs in the city.<sup>63</sup> Moreover, rumours circulated through March, April and into May 1684 that Rochester was shortly to be appointed lord treasurer, though the post continued to elude him.<sup>64</sup> Weight of business seems to have made Rochester rather elusive. One suitor related how he had been forced to lie to Rochester’s servants that he was waiting on their master by appointment in order to secure access to him.<sup>65</sup></p><p>While pressure from Halifax continued to build, Rochester seems to have made a positive effort to cultivate alternative allies. Towards the end of April he agreed to lend his support to the nomination of John Lake*, bishop of Sodor and Man (later bishop of Chichester) to become the new bishop of Bristol at the instance of his friend, Francis Turner*, then of Rochester (later of Ely) even though his ‘inclinations were leaning towards another.’<sup>66</sup> By July even the duchess of Portsmouth, formerly heartily opposed to Rochester, was said to be making ‘great professions’ of friendship towards him.<sup>67</sup> At the close of the month, though, the omens appeared less positive amid reports that Halifax’s nominees, Henry Frederick Thynne (Weymouth’s brother) and Sir Dudley North<sup>‡</sup>, had been added to the treasury commission. Writing from Paris, Preston certainly thought that they were ‘looked upon to be of ill abode to my Lord Rochester in whom they here seem to repose trust and to augur something of a parliament.’<sup>68</sup> The erosion of Rochester’s position persisted through August and at the end of the month he was ‘kicked upstairs’ to the prestigious, if less powerful, office of lord president of the council instead.<sup>69</sup> At the beginning of September it was speculated that further changes were also afoot and that Ormond would share in Rochester’s fall. Halifax was thought to be the likely beneficiary of the new state of affairs.<sup>70</sup> Putting a brave face on it, Rochester informed Ormond that he was relieved by the change to his own position and glad to have been removed from an office that had made him bad-tempered.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Discussion of continuing changes at court persisted into the following month but by October 1684 such reports appeared to be on the point of being settled by the king’s decision to replace Ormond with Rochester as lord lieutenant of Ireland. Informing Ormond of his resolution, the king insisted that Rochester was ‘every way fit for it, and in one respect fitter than any other man can be, which is that the near relation he has to you makes your concerns and those of your family to be his.’ York echoed this by assuring Ormond that Rochester would ‘have all the care imaginable of you and your family’s concerns.’ Although Ormond responded that had he been asked to name a successor Rochester would have been his choice, the appointment threatened to sour relations between the two men, with Ormond convinced initially that Rochester had plotted to supplant him.<sup>72</sup> Rochester’s other rivals were said to have been delighted by the turn of events, believing that Rochester had demonstrated the extent of his untrustworthiness.<sup>73</sup> Although Rochester attempted to pacify his father’s old friend, confessing that he had ‘suspected something of this kind coming in almost ever since you went from hence’, it was only when the chronology of events became apparent that Ormond expressed himself satisfied that Rochester had not been behind the decision.<sup>74</sup> Despite a request by Ormond that his removal might be delayed until the end of winter, Rochester’s appointment was widely reported during the first week of November, though it was noted that it was unlikely that he would take up the place before the spring.<sup>75</sup> On 12 Nov. the appointment was announced formally to the council. The king insisted that Ormond was ‘very well pleased’ with the change. Relations between Rochester and Ormond remained uneasy to the close of the year, though they collaborated closely over the arrangements for Lord and Lady Ossory’s establishment in Ireland. Although Rochester also appears to have enjoyed very civil relations with Ormond’s son, Arran, their alliance was threatened by the publication of part of their correspondence (probably through Arran’s auspices).<sup>76</sup></p><p>Rochester’s appointment to Ireland was interpreted as a sign of his weakening interest. John Dolben*, archbishop of York, doubted that he would have agreed to take on the post had he been in a freer position at that point.<sup>77</sup> Even so, in January 1685 it was rumoured (incorrectly) that he was to be promoted in the peerage once again to a marquessate. The same month found Rochester and Ormond united by the loss of Rochester’s daughter, Lady Ossory. Some thought her death greatly reduced the likelihood of Rochester taking up his new post in Ireland.<sup>78</sup></p><p>The downturn in Rochester’s fortunes coincided with continuing disputes with Halifax over the hearth tax. By February 1685 Halifax was convinced that he had sufficient evidence against Rochester to present to the king but he was forestalled by Charles’s sudden collapse and death on 2 February.<sup>79</sup> The king’s demise robbed Halifax of his opportunity and saved Rochester from a damaging investigation. Nevertheless, when Rochester wrote to Ormond five days later informing him of the king’s death, he confessed that he was still so stunned by his own loss that he was as yet unable to pay much attention to the loss to the public. Charles’s death signalled a transformation in Rochester’s fortunes, and within days of the accession of James II he was again being described as ‘a great man’ and once more tipped to be likely to be appointed lord treasurer.<sup>80</sup> By 14 Feb. he was able to inform Ormond that he would no longer be taking up his post in Ireland and over the next few days reports abounded of his appointment to the treasurership.<sup>81</sup> John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, noted that Rochester’s ‘new honours do certainly now supersede his employment in Ireland.’<sup>82</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II 1685-8</em></h2><p>Rochester’s emergence as chief minister in the new administration signalled his reward for years of clear loyalty to his former brother-in-law. With his renewed supremacy came expectations and at the beginning of April, the lord chief justice, Jeffreys, sought his intervention to dissuade Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup> from assisting the opposition in Buckinghamshire.<sup>83</sup> In April it was rumoured that Rochester would be further rewarded with promotion to a dukedom, though as with the marquessate this failed to come to pass.<sup>84</sup> On 19 May Rochester was at last introduced into the House between his brother, Clarendon, and William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby.<sup>85</sup> He was present on each of the 43 sitting days in the session and was nominated to nine committees including that for the bill permitting his former son-in-law, Ossory, to raise a jointure for a new wife. He acted as speaker by commission on 4 August. In the meantime, he was the recipient of one more clear mark of favour when he was awarded one of the vacant garters, being installed at Windsor on 23 July.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Alongside attending to his increasing responsibilities, Rochester’s attention was also taken up with family issues. Towards the end of July he had the difficult experience of writing to the new countess of Ossory (Lady Mary Somerset). He directed that the letter should be delivered to her ‘at her coming out the chapel’ and assured her of his ‘concern and tenderness in particular for my Lord of Ossory’, whose second marriage had come only months after the death of the previous countess, Rochester’s daughter.<sup>87</sup> To Ossory himself Rochester declared:</p><blockquote><p>I doubt not but you do me the right to believe that no man in the world is more concerned that I am, for all manner of satisfaction to you, and besides that your marriage was absolutely necessary for the good of your family, and … I assure you, there is no family in England that I should have been half so well pleased to see you allied with, as that you have chosen.<sup>88</sup></p></blockquote><p>While Rochester was engaged in assuring his former son-in-law of his good wishes, the ‘peevish’ Lady Rochester became embroiled in an angry dispute with Princess Anne, in whose household she was employed as a lady of the bedchamber.<sup>89</sup> As the summer progressed, Rochester’s position within the administration also proved to be less secure than it had first appeared. By September 1685 Morrice was reporting that ‘some think the lord treasurer has some potent enemies.’<sup>90</sup> Within months of the king’s accession, Rochester’s security had been threatened by the resurgent Sunderland, who was able to sidestep an effort to send him to Ireland by proposing that Clarendon should go instead. The position was sufficiently important to appear a compliment to the Hyde brothers but the effect of Clarendon taking up the position was to dilute their interest at a crucial juncture. At the close of December further tensions were revealed when the elections for the town clerk of Bristol resulted in a drubbing for the ministers’ preferred candidate.<sup>91</sup></p><p>At the opening of 1686 Rochester waded into the middle of a long-running dispute between James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S] (later duke of Dover), and the Hamiltons in an effort to reconcile the two parties. His efforts backfired, with the duke of Hamilton refusing ‘to be wheedled with fair words’ and later attributing to Rochester the management of all ‘underhand projects’ conducted against his family.<sup>92</sup> As the year progressed further divisions were revealed between Rochester and the king. In January it was reported that Rochester was growing ‘somewhat popular’ as a result of his forthright behaviour at the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), where he was the ‘loudest not guilty’ of those presiding.<sup>93</sup> The central cause of dissension between king and minister, though, was Rochester’s adherence to the Church of England in the face of the king’s developing policy of preferring his Catholic co-religionists. In this Rochester’s approach was entirely consistent. In the winter of 1679-80 he had warned James while still duke of York that he could not support the policy of relief for Catholics.<sup>94</sup> Even so, efforts by Sunderland to blacken Rochester’s reputation by encouraging rumours that his rival was attempting to set up the king’s Protestant mistress, Catherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester, as an official <em>maîtresse</em> <em>en</em> <em>titre</em> after the manner of the duchess of Cleveland failed to take effect. In March 1686 there was further talk of a dukedom for Rochester (as one of a clutch of new promotions to be conferred).<sup>95</sup> At the close of the month, he intervened in a dispute between the treasury and a number of customs officers who had complained that they had not been paid since the last king’s death. In response to their petition, Rochester pointed out that they would not receive any payments until they agreed that their places were held only at the king’s pleasure.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Divisions in the council were once more to the fore by the early summer of 1686. Jeffreys was now thought to be attempting to forge a new alliance with Rochester in opposition to Sunderland in the hopes of encouraging the adoption of ‘moderating counsels.’ Despite this, Rochester’s position seemed increasingly under threat and at the beginning of June it was rumoured that he was to be put out for being a good Protestant. The same month he was said to have indulged in a furious argument with Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I], over the appointment of the vice-treasurer of Ireland. In July Morrice concluded that Rochester’s interest was ‘broken’.<sup>97</sup> Others speculated that Rochester was to be put out and replaced by William Herbert*, earl (later marquess) of Powis.<sup>98</sup> It may have been indicative of his waning interest that Rochester was not the only person approached by those involved in settling Sir William Williams’<sup>‡</sup> fine for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> to mediate with the king. Despite these troubling omens, for the time being Rochester maintained his grip on power. If others had doubted Rochester’s ability to secure a settlement in the case, Williams acknowledged that he owed ‘his liberty, the benefit of my profession, the remains of my fortune and reputation to your lordship.’ On 8 July Rochester was among those appointed to the new ecclesiastical commission.<sup>99</sup> His decision to participate in a body viewed by a number of courtiers to be illegal was something that was thereafter raised frequently to question his credentials as a true adherent of the Anglican Church. It also served to prompt some to bring to mind his supposed speech in favour of Catholicism during his diplomatic mission to Poland.</p><p>Rochester was present at the inaugural meeting of the commission on 3 August.<sup>100</sup> He was able to use his bolstered interest in the church on behalf of William Levett, who was promoted to the deanery of Bristol in the summer of 1686, though he appeared to bear out the concerns of his critics when he was among the most prominent critics of the bishop of London, when Compton was called before the commission and upbraided for failing to suspend John Sharp*, later archbishop of York. Even so, he was said to have been opposed initially to suspending Compton before changing his mind after having been drawn to one side by the king and subjected to a private lecture.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Rochester was indisposed in mid September 1686. The following month was marked by renewed reports of alterations at court. Speculation of ‘mighty endeavours of late to remove not only the lord lieutenant of Ireland but the lord treasurer of England also’ circulated in several quarters, with others reporting that Rochester was to be put out and his office put into a commission comprising Powis, Godolphin and John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse.<sup>102</sup> Another report suggested (again) that he was to be made a duke, presumably by way of compensation.<sup>103</sup> Rochester struggled to counter this latest assault, though he was successful in raising a substantial loan without needing to resort to Parliament. The sums involved were reckoned to be anything between £200,000 and £400,000: sufficient to keep his brother in Ireland ‘and to hinder the designs of my Lord Tyrconnel’.<sup>104</sup> Despite this, by the close of November he was once more under pressure. He was the subject of a court action brought against him by Sir Robert Viner, who was intent on securing damages following the dissolution of Bridget Hyde’s marriage to John Emerton by the court of delegates.<sup>105</sup> He was also subjected to a concerted effort on the part of the king to secure his conversion to Catholicism as the price for his continuing in office.<sup>106</sup> Between 30 Nov. and 19 Dec. a series of interviews and debates took place involving James, Rochester and the French ambassador along with two Protestant divines of Rochester’s nomination and two Catholics, nominated by the king. The debates failed to sway him and James was said to have been annoyed by the poor performance of the Catholics who had been outmanoeuvred by their rivals. The result was Rochester’s removal from office.<sup>107</sup> On 19 Dec. the king informed him that he could no longer place his trust in someone who professed different opinions in religion and on 27 Dec. he was relieved of his post. Three days later Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, summing up the affair, questioned, ‘if his lordship cannot support himself with all that mighty stock of interest and relation, what is to be expected from other men who want those advantages?’<sup>108</sup> Roger Morrice’s assessment was not dissimilar:</p><blockquote><p>It may be supposed that his nieces [Princesses Mary and Anne], and all his interest has mediated to their utmost power with many tears. It is in vain here to plead merit or obedience, for never man was more obsequious to the will of another than this treasurer has been to the king’s will.<sup>109</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although James had determined not to continue Rochester in post, he professed himself eager to demonstrate that it was not on account of any wrongdoing that he was being supplanted. On 6 Jan. 1687 Colonel Werden informed Clarendon that Rochester had had ‘the good fortune to leave [his place], with as much honour and reputation, and with as signal marks of his having served the king well, as ever any man left any place.’<sup>110</sup> Werden’s assessment was not mere rhetoric. Rochester received a pension to compensate for his loss, and the treasury was once more placed in commission in acknowledgement that it was an office too burdensome for one man to exercise on his own.<sup>111</sup> In return Rochester remained loyal to the regime and in January 1687 he was assessed as being likely to support the king’s policy for repealing the Test Act. Although he seems to have continued to attend the ‘secret council’ for a time, he was unwilling to continue as a member of the ecclesiastical commission and at the close of the month he was absent from one of their meetings amid reports that he had been replaced on the board by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Rochester was named as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 15 Feb., but he failed to attend the sitting and by the following day he had retreated to Twickenham to be with his wife, who was said to be in a ‘weak condition’.<sup>113</sup> She died just over two months later.<sup>114</sup> Still assessed as a supporter of the king’s policies in May, two months later Rochester was said to be on the point of travelling to Spa in company with Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>115</sup> His decision, during the visit, not to wait on his niece and her husband, Prince William, made a very poor impression on the couple.<sup>116</sup> In spite of efforts made by Clarendon to reconcile Rochester with Princess Mary, she proved slow to forgive and Rochester’s miscalculation no doubt contributed to an initially poor reception in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Rochester had returned to England by November when he was again noted as a supporter of repealing the Test. His attitude attracted criticism and at the close of the month he was castigated by some for having been over zealous in persuading the people in his lieutenancy to vote in favour of the king’s measures. Morrice, on the other hand, reported to the contrary that Rochester’s advice to his deputies had been deliberately couched in such a way as to encourage them to refuse to comply.<sup>118</sup> The middle of the following month, he was informed by the local justices and deputies in Hertfordshire that they were unable to comply and that the county would refuse to elect members who would support repeal.</p><p>The beginning of 1688 found Rochester still noted among the supporters of repeal. He spent the early weeks of the year in a bustle of activity shuttling between meetings at his brother’s house, which were also attended by Bishop Turner, the ostensible reason for these being Clarendon’s ongoing legal struggle with the Queen Dowager. In March he joined Clarendon at Cornbury and the following month he was one of a large party at Clarendon’s smaller seat of Swallowfield.<sup>119</sup> By May he had returned to his own estate at New Park, but in June it was rumoured (probably inaccurately) that he was to travel to France.<sup>120</sup> In July he was again on the road travelling to Windsor to present his former son-in-law, now 2nd duke of Ormond, to the king following Ormond’s election as chancellor of Oxford University: a choice the king had opposed.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Rochester seems to have played no role in the trial of the seven bishops, opting instead to retreat to Bath during the proceedings.<sup>122</sup> By September 1688, with reports of the imminent invasion of England by William of Orange current, Rochester was one of a number of high-ranking Protestant peers to be summoned by the king to discuss the state of affairs. James was said to have taken notice ‘of the nobles that are in town keeping from the court’, prompting Rochester, Clarendon and Halifax to make their appearances ‘much to his majesty’s satisfaction’.<sup>123</sup> At the close of the month he was said to have assured the king of his loyalty, but he was at pains to put the queen right in her mistaken assumption that the king’s meeting with the bishops had gone well.<sup>124</sup> Through late October Clarendon and Rochester were again frequently in each other’s company, and on 3 Nov. they were present at a dinner at Lambeth Palace also attended by Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, though most of the company refused to discuss any matters of importance while those two bishops were within earshot.<sup>125</sup> Rochester seems to have held a further meeting with Archbishop Sancroft on 3 November.<sup>126</sup> Five days later, with the situation worsening, Clarendon and Rochester met again to discuss plans for drawing up an address requesting that Parliament be summoned. The following day it was rumoured that he might be appointed lord president as a result of the fall of Sunderland.<sup>127</sup> Rochester was with Clarendon again on 12 November. The same day Halifax and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, made exception to Rochester’s signing the petition to the king in view of his role on the ecclesiastical commission. On 15 Nov. Rochester attended a meeting convened at the home of Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, and the following day he was one of those to subscribe the petition to the king to summon a free Parliament, ‘to obviate the miseries of a war now breaking forth in the bowels of this kingdom,’ which was delivered to James on 17 November.<sup>128</sup> With the country in a state of emergency, the king refused to contemplate summoning Parliament. He left the capital the same day to link up with the army at Salisbury. Rochester left London to join him two days later.</p><p>Rochester’s role in the drafting and signing of the petition to the king was said to have provoked the annoyance of the queen. His apparent abandonment of the king by supporting the petition may also have helped give rise to a later rumour that he was by now (improbably) embroiled in a pro-Orangeist conspiracy to overthrow James. At a meeting held the night before James left for Salisbury, Rochester, Bishop Compton, Churchill and others were said to have agreed to the seizure and, if necessary, assassination of the king. Rochester’s role was to accompany the king to Salisbury so that he could pass on details of the king’s counsels to the prince. The role of assassin was reserved for Churchill.<sup>129</sup> There seems no reason to believe that such a conspiracy existed.</p><p>Rochester returned to London on 26 Nov. and the following day he was present at the ‘hastily summoned great council’. Convinced of the need to sue for peace he advised sending for the prince and summoning Parliament.<sup>130</sup> James was in no position to resist and two days later Rochester was said to have been one of half a dozen peers and bishops named by the king to go as commissioners to the prince to seek a resolution to the crisis.<sup>131</sup> A few days later it was reported that he had been replaced by Nottingham owing to his ongoing feud with Halifax, who refused to serve with him.<sup>132</sup></p><p>The ensuing negotiations between the commissioners and the prince were brought to a close by the king’s flight from London in the early hours of 11 December. James’s decision to flee set in motion a plan that had been devised by Rochester and Bishop Turner to call a provisional government into being to fill the void. Later the same day, Rochester, Turner and 25 other peers and bishops assembled at the Guildhall to take command of the situation. Rochester’s pre-eminence at this point was indicated both by the appointment of his former treasury secretary, Francis Gwyn, as secretary to the assembly and also by the fact that once William Sancroft had declined to do so it was Rochester who presided at the opening session. Over the next few days Rochester maintained a hectic pace of work within the provisional government. On their first day he informed the assembly of information that Catholics had been seen in arms at Hounslow, prompting an order for them to be disarmed. More importantly, he was also one of four members nominated to draw up a declaration to the prince, though he declined being named one of those to present the declaration and requested that some older earls should do so instead. Rochester continued to attend the majority of the ensuing sessions but he was soon supplanted as chairman by his rival, Halifax. Rochester and Halifax’s fractious relations soon came to the fore. News of the king being taken in Kent prompted disagreement over how best to deal with the men who claimed to have captured James; though they concurred that Prince William should be informed of the latest events. They also each backed calls for only a small number to be sent to escort the king back so that it would not appear as if he was being brought back under restraint.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Rochester attended the morning session of 14 Dec. but then absented himself in the afternoon to inform his brother of the king’s capture. He resumed his place the following day, when he was the signatory of a number of orders, and on 16 Dec. he accompanied his brother to Windsor, where Prince William had since established himself. Snubbed by the prince, who pointedly invited only Clarendon to dine with him, Rochester retreated to New Park.<sup>134</sup> Rochester was apparently undeterred by his frosty reception and waited on the prince again in London on 18 December.<sup>135</sup> Three days later he took his place in the meeting of Lords convened in the queen’s presence chamber when he signed the Association.<sup>136</sup> He was present once more the following day (22 Dec.) when he moved that Catholics ought to be secured to protect the Irish Protestants. He also signed the order confirming Gwyn as the assembly’s secretary.<sup>137</sup> That afternoon Rochester joined Clarendon and Bishop Turner in dining at Lambeth, where they attempted to persuade Archbishop Sancroft to agree to attend the House.<sup>138</sup></p><p>Events were once more thrown into confusion by news of the king’s second flight early in the morning of 23 December. The following day Rochester was one of three lords to demand an enquiry into the circumstances of the king’s escape, and he was also to the fore in proposing that the council should have questions put to it in writing and that its answers should be recorded. On 25 Dec. Rochester signed the two addresses, calling for the convening of a convention and asking the prince to take on the government of the kingdom until such time as the convention could meet.<sup>139</sup> Writing to George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, of the latest turn of events, Rochester advised his former colleague starkly, ‘your lordship will judge that you have nothing to do, but to continue to obey the prince’s orders. … I have nothing more to say to your lordship at this time but again to advise you, to follow strictly all the prince’s orders.’<sup>140</sup></p><p>In spite of his resolution to co-operate closely with William and Mary, Rochester faced considerable obstacles in overcoming their early suspicion. As the year drew to a close there was little indication that he would be likely to benefit from the new regime and his relationship with the prince and princess seems not to have offered him any special access. As Sir Philip Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> informed Dartmouth, Rochester now professed himself to be, ‘a great stranger to all affairs, and it is visible that he is not countenanced more than any other nobleman.’<sup>141</sup></p><h2><em>William and Mary, 1689-94</em></h2><p>Rochester’s campaign to reassert himself began early in the new year. He was at last able to secure a private meeting with the prince, though there were few signs of improved relations. Prince William upbraided him for failing to visit him when he had been in the Low Countries in 1687 and appeared unimpressed by Rochester’s explanation that he had been strictly forbidden from doing so. Rochester’s subsequent activities in the early stages of the Convention can have done nothing to reassure William about his intentions.</p><p>Rochester took his place at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on 90 per cent of all sitting days. On the opening day of the session he was one of 14 lords nominated to draw up an address to the prince. A week later, on 29 Jan., having spoken ‘with great passion and violence’, Rochester acting in concert with Clarendon and Nottingham, moved and then voted for the establishment of a regency.<sup>142</sup> The motion was defeated by 51 votes to 48. Having failed to carry his first point, Rochester fell back on the next best option. Two days later, in a division held in a committee of the whole, he voted against declaring the prince and princess king and queen, preferring instead the claims of Princess Mary to be sole monarch.<sup>143</sup> On 4 Feb. he voted to reject the Commons’ employment of the word ‘abdicated’ and when the Commons voted to adhere to their original phrasing on 5 Feb. it was Rochester’s lieutenant, Gwyn, who acted as one of the tellers for the minority.<sup>144</sup> The following day, during a conference between the two Houses, Rochester, Clarendon and Nottingham, eager to establish whether the hereditary principle was at stake, all asked whether the vacancy alluded to by the Commons embraced James’s heirs as well but were unable to secure an answer. The same day (6 Feb.), Rochester voted once more against agreeing with the Commons in their use of the word ‘abdicated’ and the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He then entered his dissent when the resolution was carried. Events continued to go against Rochester. He was unable to persuade his brother to return to town and on 16 Feb. noted that he had been snubbed by Queen Mary. He conceded that William had been civil enough. By 19 Feb. there was no sign of the queen’s attitude improving and it was also said that she refused to receive Rochester’s children.<sup>145</sup></p><p>In spite of these early setbacks, of the two brothers it was Rochester who was to prove the more amenable to the new state of affairs. Clarendon proved unwilling to accept James’s replacement and retired from court and Parliament while Rochester opted for grudging acceptance. It is possible that there was some deliberate coordination between the brothers in this but for the while Rochester continued to attempt to persuade Clarendon to do as he had done and take the oaths. On 3 Mar. he was able to report that he had finally succeeded in being received by the queen at Hampton Court.</p><p>Rochester’s gradual rehabilitation coincided with a growing crisis in Clarendon’s affairs. Although Rochester succeeded at last in convincing his brother to return to town on 6 Mar., he was unable to persuade him to take the oaths and at last agreed to approach Nottingham about procuring Clarendon a passport to leave the country. Despite their differing attitudes to the new regime, Clarendon and Rochester continued to see each other frequently, but there are indications that Rochester grew less inclined to discuss affairs with his brother and on 22 Apr. their plans to dine together were scrapped as the House continued to sit until after 4pm.<sup>146</sup></p><p>In the absence of ministerial responsibilities, Rochester steadily acquired a commanding role in Parliament as one of the most prolific chairmen of committees. On 8 Apr. he reported from the bill to permit Isaac Searcy to change his name to Searle, which was considered fit to pass without alteration, and the same day he reported from the conference for considering the bill for removing papists from London. On 17 Apr. he was named one of the subcommittee of six charged with making the remainder of the Dissenters’ toleration bill agree with the amendments. He then reported from a further conference concerning the bill for removing papists, noting that the Commons had refused to agree to the proviso recommended by the Lords, ‘because it was not parliamentary’. The following day he reported from the Lords’ committee appointed to re-examine the proviso as amended by the Commons, which was at last agreed to by the Lords as well. Rochester was one of a number of peers to register their protests against the passage of the recognition bill on 1 May. A week later, on 8 May, he reported from the committee considering the bill for rectifying mistakes in the bill for removing papists.<sup>147</sup></p><p>While Rochester steadily developed a new career for himself in the House, his relations with his brother appear to have deteriorated. On 15 May he entertained his brother at dinner but was annoyed to be upbraided by Clarendon for having been present at the instalment of William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, and Frederick Herman Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg, as knights of the Garter the previous day. The Lords’ adjournment from 17 to 22 May allowed Rochester to retreat to New Park for a few days, but he resumed his seat on 22 May when he reported from the committee for the bill for the development of Arundel Ground and was again nominated manager of a conference. Three days later he acted as one of the tellers for the motion concerning Titus Oates, which was carried by 29 votes to 18. Clarendon and his family dined with Rochester again on 29 May at which Rochester advised his brother to leave town, but the brothers were together the following day at a dinner also attended by the archbishop of Dublin and bishop of Leighlin.<sup>148</sup> On 31 May Rochester voted against reversing the perjury judgments against Oates. The same day he reported from the committee for a naturalization bill and from two conferences concerning proposed amendments to the additional poll bill.</p><p>Throughout the early summer of 1689 Rochester continued to bear a heavy burden of committee work. On 7 June he was also entrusted with Ormond’s proxy as well as that of Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton. On 15 June he was noted as having been present in the House, but later the same day he retired once again to New Park. The following day (a Sunday) he entertained his brother there and discussed the current proceedings in the House, reassuring him that the brouhaha over the absent lords seemed to have abated for the while.<sup>149</sup> Back in his place on 17 June, four days later Rochester offered the Lords an account of the matters in difference between Lords and Commons over the great seal bill and the same day reported from a conference with the Commons concerning the bill. On 26 June he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to give the bill to illegitimate Popham’s children a second reading (which was rejected by 24 votes to 19) and the same day was one of five peers appointed to examine the Journals to consider precedents for impeachments from the Commons. He reported from this subcommittee the following day after which the House proceeded with reading the impeachments of Blair, Vaughan and others. On 2 July Rochester registered his dissent at the resolution to proceed with the impeachment. The same day he reported from the committee for the Newcastle court of conscience bill, which was recommended to be fit to pass. He also registered his dissent at the resolution to proceed with the impeachment of Blair and Vaughan.</p><p>Rochester’s workload continued unabated through July. On 5 July he reported from the committee for the bill for investing in Oxford and Cambridge the right to present clergy to livings held by papists and on 10 July from the committee for the tanned leather bill. On 15 July he reported from the committee for the succession bill and the following day, having reported from a further select committee, he reported from the conference with the Commons concerning the bill. On 19 July he reported from the committee for privileges and on 24 July from the select committee concerning the bill for imposing duties on coffee and tea. Two days later he reported from the committee concerning the Lords’ reason for insisting on their amendments to the Titus Oates bill and then reported from the ensuing conference with the Commons. On 27 July he reported from the committee established to draw up the Lords’ response to the Commons’ rejection of the Lords’ amendments to the coffee and tea bill and two days later reported from a further conference on the succession bill. On 30 July he was one of several managers to report from a conference held with the Commons concerning Oates. The same day he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments concerning the reversal of perjury and the following day he reported from two further select committees. He then reported from one final conference concerning the attainder bill before the House was adjourned.</p><p>In the midst of this full programme, Rochester was himself the subject of interest in the Commons over whether or not he ought to be excepted from the bill of indemnity. In the event the Commons resolved without a division to include him within the bill’s provisions.<sup>150</sup> Having headed off this latest threat he was able to maintain an interest in his brother’s affairs, and towards the close of July 1689 he warned Clarendon that the affair of the absent lords was once again being talked about. In September Rochester and his children travelled to Clarendon’s seat at Cornbury to spend the summer. Clarendon and Rochester spent at least some of the time liaising with other local landholders in preparation for the new elections, and on 6 Sept. James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, and his heir, Montagu Venables Bertie*, styled Lord Norreys (later 2nd earl of Abingdon) arrived to confer with Rochester. On 21 Sept. a party travelled to Astrop in the north of the county close to Banbury to visit a neighbouring landowner, St John, and two days later Rochester dined at Abingdon’s seat at Rycote.<sup>151</sup></p><p>Following a month of combined political negotiation and relaxation, Rochester returned to London in the first week of October in preparation for the new session. He took his seat on 21 Oct. after which he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days. Following a call of the House of 28 Oct., he warned his brother to keep away from London as the House seemed likely to summon peers who had failed to attend. On 15 Nov. Rochester reported from the committee for the bill for preventing minors’ clandestine marriages. The same day he wrote to his brother now urging him to return to London where Lady Clarendon lay seriously sick. He had left the capital for New Park by the time Clarendon arrived there the following day.<sup>152</sup></p><p>By the late autumn of 1689 the court was once again riven by familiar ministerial squabbling. Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough) attempted to persuade Rochester to ally with him against Halifax but Clarendon urged his brother not to allow himself to be motivated by revenge. By the opening of December the king’s attitude had hardened. Rochester reported to his brother Nottingham’s conviction that the king intended to turn against the Church of England interest. Clarendon thought the rumours merely ‘fine stories, given out to amuse and wheedle people.’<sup>153</sup> A list compiled by Carmarthen between October 1689 and February 1690 reckoned Rochester to be an opponent of the court.</p><p>Neither the infighting at court nor William’s apparent resolution to turn to the Whigs curbed Rochester’s indefatigable committee work. Over the course of the next two months he reported from nine committees, including that considering the draft bill for relief of those Catholics willing to take the oath of fidelity. The session also brought to light unwelcome reminders of Rochester’s association with the controversial policies of Charles II’s administration in its final years. On 20 Dec. he was present at the cabinet council when John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, was examined about the death of Lord Russell. The same day he was again entrusted with Lexinton’s proxy, having already received that of Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, two days previously.</p><p>Although Rochester seems to have had no qualms about working closely with the new regime, his immediate circle retained a large proportion of men unwilling to accede to the revolution settlement. Rochester celebrated the beginning of the new year by dining with his brother, and on 18 Jan. 1690 he was again present at a dinner with his brother also attended by Bishop Turner and Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells. On 25 Jan., two days before the close of the session, he was the only Tory peer not to oppose putting the question that the king should be requested not to go to Ireland. On 28 Jan., the day following the prorogation, Clarendon called on Rochester at his London home, having pointedly avoided doing so while Parliament was in session. The brothers then returned to Clarendon’s home, where they were joined at dinner by James II’s former mistress, the countess of Dorchester.<sup>154</sup> News of Halifax’s removal as lord privy seal in February led to speculation that the place might go to Rochester instead, though Roger Morrice considered it more likely that the office would be placed in commission.<sup>155</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution, Rochester was successful in employing his interest on behalf of his old Commons’ ally, Francis Gwyn, at Christ Church.<sup>156</sup> He took his seat two days into the new Parliament on 22 Mar. 1690. He attended 94 per cent of all sitting days and on 8 Apr. subscribed the protest against the act declaring that the acts of the convention ‘were and are laws’. By the middle of the month his disillusionment with the current state of affairs was reflected in a letter to his brother in which he informed Clarendon of the latest proceedings in the House relating to the recognition bill. He excused himself from a full recital, considering it impossible:</p><blockquote><p>to give you a particular account by letter of all the turns, not to say tricks used in the getting it through our House and how many times some of our greatest lords absolutely changed their minds in their votes while it was committed … in short I have not seen a more complete contrivance and the rest you shall know when we meet.</p></blockquote><p>To add to the confusion of the times, Rochester continued to relate how ‘the white marquess [Carmarthen], and I are quite out, so I think he is with Lord Nottingham, and that he is, I mean the white, quite struck up with the dissenters, and all the fine promises concerning the church and the good bishops quite vanished.’<sup>157</sup> Disputes over the nature of the post-revolution settlement continued to dominate the session and it was reported that Rochester was openly in agreement with Nottingham’s opinion that William was king <em>de facto</em> and not <em>de jure</em>.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Rochester’s concerns over such matters did not prevent him from continuing to dominate in committee work and other aspects of the House’s business. On 23 Apr. 1690 he reported from the committee for Sir Robert Fenwick’s bill and on 2 May acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to adjourn during debates on procedure in engrossed bills. The motion to adjourn was defeated by 41 votes to 52. Rochester reported from another committee on 3 May and on 8 May he was again entrusted with Lexinton’s proxy. On 13 May he reported from the committee considering the amendment to a proviso drawn up by the Commons to the bill for enabling the queen to act as regent in the king’s absence. Two days later he reported from the committee for the Hudson Bay Company bill, and on 17 and19 May he reported first from the committee of the whole and then from the select committee appointed to consider the white paper manufactory bill.</p><p>Despite the brothers’ troubled relationship with the king and queen, Rochester remained close enough to the monarch for William to advise him to warn Clarendon to be careful, as the king professed to know full well that Clarendon was plotting against him.<sup>159</sup> Rochester was not, though, able to convince Princess Anne to grant his nephew, Edward Hyde*, styled Lord Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon) permission not to accompany her husband, Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, to the campaign in Ireland. In the event, Cornbury was removed from his place in the prince’s household and replaced by Lexinton.</p><p>During the parliamentary recess, Rochester was frequently in his brother’s company and in mid June 1690 the brothers visited Bishop Turner at Putney, where they also found Bishop Ken, and Thomas White*, of Peterborough. Their summer was rudely interrupted by news received late at night on 24 June that a warrant was out for Clarendon’s arrest. Rochester advised his brother not to abscond and the same night officers arrived to take Clarendon into custody. The following day Clarendon was committed to the Tower.<sup>160</sup> Rochester spent the ensuing days bustling about on his brother’s behalf. He took members of Clarendon’s family to visit the imprisoned peer and waited on Nottingham to petition for an early release. Rochester’s involvement may have given rise to reports towards the end of the month that he too had been imprisoned, ‘rather on suspicion than accusation’.<sup>161</sup> Although these proved inaccurate, the administration was clearly wary of permitting the brothers too much contact and, on 28 June Clarendon recorded that his brother had been refused permission to visit him. Rochester resolved instead to retreat to New Park for a few days, though he left one of his agents behind to continue to petition Nottingham for Clarendon’s enlargement. Rochester was finally granted permission to visit his brother again in mid July prior to travelling to Tunbridge, and a few days later he was informed that there was some possibility of the imprisoned lords being set free as soon as the French fleet had been dispersed.<sup>162</sup> Having spent over a week on further efforts to secure his brother’s release, Rochester finally set out for Tunbridge on 22 July, where he remained for much of the remainder of the summer. His stay there was interrupted by a brief visit to London in August when he accompanied his brother to the office of the lord chief justice so that Clarendon could give in his recognizance prior to his release.<sup>163</sup></p><p>In spite of having such a close association with a suspected Jacobite, Rochester’s position at court seemed strengthened rather than lessened by the close of the summer. In September he was listed as one of the peers of the Privy Council.<sup>164</sup> On 2 Oct. 1690 he returned to the House for the new session, after which he was present on 90 per cent of all sitting days. Four days later, he was entrusted with the proxy of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset. The same day he reported from the committee nominated to draw up an address to the king thanking him for his expedition to Ireland. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. On 30 Oct. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill clarifying the powers of the Admiralty commissioners. Over the next two months rumours circulated that Rochester was coming back into favour. It was even said that he might return to the treasury and was in contention for the lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>165</sup> Such reports proved illusory and he continued instead to concentrate on parliamentary management. On 10 and 11 Nov. he reported from the committee nominated to consider the bill for preventing cutting off the entail of the estate of the earl of Salisbury, and on 17 Nov. he reported from two further committees. Towards the close of November he attempted to intervene in a legal dispute between the duchess of Beaufort and Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, advising Ailesbury not to bring in his bill at that time. On finding Ailesbury obdurate, Rochester reported to the duchess that, ‘I know of nothing more that can be done for your grace’s satisfaction, but to obtain a competent time for your grace to be heard’, assuring her that when she did so he would be ready to offer her his support. The following month Clarendon also undertook to solicit his friends on the duchess’ behalf and reiterated on more than one occasion that Rochester would be willing ‘to serve your grace to his utmost.’ At the close of the month, the duchess’ agent confirmed that Rochester had been one of those active on her behalf.<sup>166</sup></p><p>Rochester was added to the committee for the orphans bill on 1 Dec. and between 17 and 18 Dec. he reported from two further committees as well as reporting from the conference for the earl of Salisbury’s bill. At the close of December he was elected one of the commissioners for inspecting the public accounts. In common with all the other peers elected he sought, and was permitted, to be excused.<sup>167</sup> On 5 Jan. 1691 he reported from one last committee in the session: that for drawing up the reasons for the Lords insisting on their proviso to the bill for the suspension of the navigation and corn acts.</p><p>Rochester’s concentration on business was interrupted once more at the beginning of 1691 when his brother was again arrested and incarcerated in the Tower, though it was not until 15 Jan. that he was able to ‘surprise’ Clarendon with a visit. The ensuing few weeks were punctuated by further visits to his captive brother.<sup>168</sup> Once again this seems not to have had a detrimental affect on his standing with the king. Towards the end of April rumours were once more afoot of a string of promotions and alterations in the ministry, no doubt encouraged by news of the king dining with Rochester at New Park as well as by the gradual rehabilitation of Sunderland at court.<sup>169</sup> By mid May Rochester was noted to be a frequent attendant at court and by the beginning of June he was thought to have made common cause with Carmarthen.<sup>170</sup> Meanwhile he continued to petition for his brother’s release. In mid June Nottingham approached the king at Rochester’s request asking for Clarendon to be bailed on the grounds of ill health. Rochester also hoped that his brother would not be subjected to a trial, arguing that the only evidence against him came from pardoned men whose testimony was thus of little credibility.<sup>171</sup> On 14 Nov. Clarendon was bailed for £1,000 with Rochester, Francis Holles*, 2nd Baron Holles, Sir William Turner<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Parsons<sup>‡</sup> each entering into sureties of £500 apiece.<sup>172</sup> It seems not to have been until the summer of the following year, though, that Clarendon was at last permitted to retire to Cornbury under house arrest in return for a bond of £10,000 and sureties of £5,000 apiece provided by Rochester and his political opposite, John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace.<sup>173</sup></p><p>The early autumn of 1691 found Rochester much courted amid continuing speculation of his imminent return to office, though opinion was divided over whether he would be lord lieutenant of Ireland, lord president or lord privy seal. The only condition thought likely to be imposed upon him was that he would be required to ‘come zealously into the service of the court’. According to Richard Hill, such reports were grounded on a belief that by then William was able to turn to ‘few men of capacity whom he and Lord Portland [Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland], will trust.’ Towards the end of the year Hill had revised his opinion in response to reports that Carmarthen’s position appeared increasingly vulnerable, pointing out that Carmarthen’s enemies would not press the point for fear of bringing in Rochester in his place.<sup>174</sup></p><p>It was in this uncertain state of affairs that Rochester took his seat in the new session on 27 Oct. 1691. Present on 85 per cent of all sitting days, he proved once more to be active as a chairman of committees and manager of conferences. On 6 Nov. he was again entrusted with Somerset’s proxy. On 11 Nov. he carried the sword before the king, sparking further comments that he was ‘in much favour.’<sup>175</sup> On 14 Nov. (the same day his brother was bailed) Rochester reported from the committee of the whole considering the oaths in Ireland bill but desired that another day might be named for further consideration of the matter. He reported from the same committee two days later and on 17 Nov. he reported from the select committee appointed to consider additional clauses for the bill. On 21 Nov. he reported from the committee for George Montagu’s bill, which was agreed as fit to pass without amendment, and on 25 Nov. he acted as teller in two divisions. The first, over whether to appoint a day for the House to sit, was rejected by 34 votes to 35; the other, for which Halifax acted as the other teller, over whether to adjourn the debate in <em>Brown v. Wayte</em> was also rejected following a tied vote at 36 votes each.</p><p>As well as concentration on the House’s business, Rochester was also intent on defending his privilege. On 23 Nov. the House ordered that John Wilkins of Wootton Bassett should be taken into custody for arresting Rochester’s bailiff, Charles Cruse, in defiance of Rochester’s privilege. On 1 Dec. the House heard that Cruse had been arrested at the suit of Hugh Jones the elder and Hugh Jones the younger. Wilkins and both Joneses were ordered to be brought to the bar along with another man, Charles Skull, to account for their actions. Ten days later the House accepted Wilkins’ submission.</p><p>Rochester’s brief alliance with Carmarthen seems to have faltered by the close of 1691. In early November Rochester was said to have allied himself with Godolphin in support of the suspected Jacobite plotter, Monmouth, and in opposition to Carmarthen. On 16 Dec. he was listed by Derby, among those Derby believed to have been in favour of his efforts to reclaim some of his family estates in 1685.<sup>176</sup> Alongside such court manoeuvrings, Rochester continued to dominate as a committee chairman. Between 4 Dec. and the close of the month he reported from seven committees. He also reported from the conference concerning the oaths in Ireland bill on 5 Dec. and from the conference considering intercepted papers on 15 December. He maintained this activity into the new year and on 2 Jan. 1692 reported from the committee considering the heads for a conference about the printed vote of the House of Commons relating to the regulation of the East India Company. Two days later he was added to the committee for privileges and over the course of the remainder of the month he reported from a further seven committees.</p><p>Private concerns once again came to the fore towards the close of January 1692. On 22 Jan. the House read a petition submitted by Rochester seeking leave to resort to the law courts over a dispute with Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), concerning lands that had been stripped from Grey and awarded to Rochester in the wake of the Monmouth Rebellion. On 2 Feb. the matter was referred to the committee for privileges.</p><p>Along with defending his own possessions, Rochester continued his activities in the House as he became increasingly embroiled in the disputes over the accounts bill. On 27 Jan. he was entrusted with Burlington’s proxy. During February he reported from three committees and on 5 Feb. he informed the House that the managers had delivered the public accounts bill to the Commons. Three days later he reported from the subsequent conference with the Commons concerning the public accounts and he reported from a further conference on 10 February. The measure was one to which Rochester was said to be firmly opposed. It had been reported in January that he was at the head of those lords wishing to insist on the appointment of additional commissioners as a means of wrecking the bill and by the beginning of February he was thought to be ‘the great opposer of the bill of accounts.’<sup>177</sup> On 23 Feb. he subscribed two protests relating to the resolution to pass the supply bill and to the Commons’ addition to the bill of a clause establishing the commission of accounts. With tempers already frayed, on 17 Feb. Rochester was also involved in an angry exchange with Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, during the debate over the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. Rochester had already registered his dissent at the resolution to receive the bill; now, in answer to Rochester’s assertion that Lincoln had taken ‘great liberty with the House’, Lincoln was reported to have rejoined, ‘I do not take so much liberty with the House, as you do with the nation’. Lincoln was ordered to withdraw and later summoned to the bar to ask the House and Rochester’s pardon.<sup>178</sup></p><p>In spite of his heated opposition to various measures before the House, the beginning of February 1692 was once more marked by feverish reports of Rochester’s likely return to government. According to one account, Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> was to be secretary or lord privy seal, Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney) was to go to Ireland while Rochester would be ‘prime minister’.<sup>179</sup> Following such reports, Rochester’s restoration to the Privy Council but to no particular office in March 1692 came as something of an anticlimax, though Queen Mary professed herself glad of her uncle’s return.<sup>180</sup> At least one report of early February had predicted just such an outcome.<sup>181</sup> The appointment of Rochester and Seymour signalled a strengthening of the Tory group at court as the king increasingly lost patience with his Whig ministers.</p><p>If Rochester’s relations with the king and queen were vastly improved, the same can not be said for Princess Anne. She complained to the countess of Marlborough of an interview she had held with Rochester in February 1692, during which he ‘talked a great deal of senseless stuff’ concerning the effort of the king and queen to force her to dismiss Lady Marlborough. She refused to comply.<sup>182</sup> Towards the end of April Rochester was again involved in the continuing efforts to force the princess to remodel her household. The countess was in no doubts that Rochester was the driving force behind the moves to put her out. Despite this, he was said to have been responsible for persuading the queen to visit her estranged sister at Sion House following an unsuccessful pregnancy that spring.<sup>183</sup></p><p>June 1692 found Rochester involved in council meetings held aboard a battleship preparing for a descent on France and, later in the month, needing to respond to news of the latest Jacobite plot.<sup>184</sup> Bishop Sprat of Rochester later claimed that Rochester was ‘absolutely of my opinion’ about the importance of producing certain papers relating to the conspiracy that would help to exonerate both him and Archbishop Sancroft.<sup>185</sup> Rochester was again with the fleet at the beginning of August, and in the middle of that month he advised the king of the necessity of reducing the numbers of English forces deployed in Flanders, an argument that he repeated later in council.<sup>186</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat on 4 Nov. 1692 after which he was present on 89 per cent of all sitting days. The same month his heir, Lord Hyde, was returned for Launceston at a by-election.<sup>187</sup> On 6 Dec. Rochester was again entrusted with Ormond’s proxy. He received Burlington’s proxy on 19 Jan. 1693. The session was dominated by a series of contentious actions relating both to the management of the administration and to the aftermath of the summer’s campaigning season. Rochester voted against committing the place bill on 31 Dec. 1692. Four days later he voted against passing the bill. Forecast as a likely opponent of the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill in early January 1693, he voted accordingly against reading the bill on 2 January. The next day he reported from the conference with the Commons concerning the lower House’s vote approving the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, in the recent naval campaign. The same day he acted as one of the tellers in the division held in the committee of the whole over the Lords’ amendment to the land tax bill. The question, whether to refer the matter to the privileges committee, was rejected by 36 votes to 50. The following day (20 Jan.), Rochester reported the amendments to the House and on 21 Jan. he reported from two further select committees considering private bills. On 25 Jan. he opposed the committal of the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On 24 Jan. the House heard a complaint relating to the privilege case involving Rochester and Hugh Jones elder and younger, being informed that William Hill, a messenger employed by Black Rod, had been arrested by the Joneses on a charge of false imprisonment. Rochester reported from the committee for privileges on 27 January. The same day he reported from the committee considering the bill for hiving off two chapels from the parish of Petworth, and on 28 Jan. he reported the bill to enable Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Bangor, to lease Bangor House in Holborn. On 31 Jan. he acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to proceed with the trial of the 15-year-old Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun for murder, which was rejected by 50 votes to 30. Both Rochester and Nottingham were reported as believing that Mohun was guilty. Following the trial on 4 Feb. Rochester confirmed this by voting (along with 13 others) to convict the young peer.<sup>188</sup></p><p>Rochester reported from a further three committees during the remainder of the session. On 16 Feb. 1693 he was the somewhat unlikely recipient of Lovelace’s proxy, and on 24 Feb. he again acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to repeat the order in <em>Dashwood v. Champante</em>, which resulted in a tied vote. On 4 Mar. he was one of three peers appointed by the House to attend the king to discover when the Lords might wait upon him with their address. Three days later the same three peers (Rochester, Bridgwater and Nottingham) were appointed to attend the king again to inform him about the mutiny bill.</p><p>In the middle of May Rochester was one of a number of privy councillors ordered down to Portsmouth to enquire into the management of the fleet. Later that month his enquiries took on a very personal dimension when he appears to have suffered a further bereavement by the death of a younger son, who was said to have been serving as a volunteer on board a ship commanded by Sir Francis Wheeler bound for Barbados.<sup>189</sup></p><p>Rochester remained in town for much of the early summer of 1693 and in June he was present at the hearing for the case <em>Bridgman v. Holt</em>.<sup>190</sup> His lingering in town seems not to have been entirely of his own choosing: in early July it was reported that Rochester had been prevented from leaving the capital by the queen who required his counsel in the king’s absence.<sup>191</sup> Meanwhile, he continued to cultivate his interest and on 15 Aug. he assured Lexinton, who was absent on a diplomatic mission, of his ‘constant interest in your welfare’. Later that month reports of his growing influence at court were reflected in rumours that he, in conjunction with Sunderland, had succeeded in securing the office of lord high admiral for Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, and of lord privy seal for Shrewsbury. It was believed that Sunderland would replace Nottingham as secretary of state.<sup>192</sup> Such reports were no doubt strengthened by the news of a conference held at Sunderland’s seat, Althorp, at the close of the month attended by Rochester, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Godolphin, Admiral Russell, Thomas Wharton*, (later marquess of Wharton) and Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu.<sup>193</sup> The following month Rochester seems also to have attended a rival congress held at Petworth, the seat of Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset. Rochester’s commanding interest was also reflected in rumours that circulated at the beginning of October of a marriage between one of his daughters and Francis Scott*, Lord Dalkeith [S] (later duke of Buccleuch [S]), son of the executed duke of Monmouth. The marriage was eventually celebrated the following January.<sup>194</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, on which day he was again entrusted with Somerset’s proxy. He was present on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days, during which he reported from three committees and as many conferences. Soon after the session’s commencement, the House ordered the attachment (again) of Hugh Jones, elder and younger, for breaching Rochester’s privilege. The debates surrounding the passage of the triennial bill found Rochester in rare alliance with Halifax, speaking in favour of the measure in opposition to Carmarthen and Nottingham.<sup>195</sup> It seems likely that this would have been raised during the meeting at Althorp over the summer but the bill was ultimately vetoed by the king. On 22 Dec. Rochester subscribed the protest against the resolution to permit the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman to withdraw their petition in the cause <em>Bridgeman v. Holt</em>.</p><p>Rochester remained active into the new year. On 5 Jan. 1694, he protested again at the resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendment to the place bill. On 11 Jan. Rochester and Godolphin were ordered to attend the king to request his permission for members of the council to provide the Lords with an account of the intelligence sent to the lords of the Admiralty relating to the sailing of the French fleet out of Brest. Rochester reported the king’s initial response the following day and on 15 Jan. he reported again, that although the king believed the House was in possession of all the information it needed, he would accede to their request. On 7 Feb. he reported from the committee preparing heads for a conference with the Commons about the intelligence relating to the Brest fleet, and on 12 and 15 Feb. he reported the results of the conference. Two days later Rochester acted as one of the tellers in the division whether to adjourn the debate over the dispute <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. The motion was rejected by ten votes and Rochester then proceeded to vote against reversing the dismission of the court of chancery. On 26 Feb. he spoke in favour of passing the treason bill but it was thrown out without a division after it was made plain that the king was opposed to its passage.<sup>196</sup> On 23 Apr. he was among the most vocal in stressing his opposition to the erection of the Bank of England.<sup>197</sup> The following day he registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the supply bill.</p><p>Rochester’s support for at least two measures opposed by the king may have contributed to his exclusion from the council of advisors to the queen during the summer. Sunderland’s hostility was a more serious factor and Sunderland had advised a reduction in the overall size of the body to help ease Rochester out. Nevertheless, later in the summer it was rumoured that efforts were being made to reconcile the two men.<sup>198</sup></p><h2><em>William III’s reign, 1694-1702</em></h2><p>Rochester’s exclusion from the queen’s council did not prevent the continuation of his pension of £4,000 from the civil list nor did it preclude him from participating in debates in the Privy Council concerning the summoning of the Irish Parliament. In common with Nottingham he thought should it should be recalled in September rather than delaying to the following spring.<sup>199</sup> He then took his seat in the new session on 12 Nov. 1694 and was thereafter present on approximately 89 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>The queen’s sudden death from smallpox threatened to throw affairs into some uncertainty. Although Rochester does not seem to have been concerned by William continuing as monarch without the legitimizing presence of Mary, he joined with Nottingham to raise the question whether Parliament was dissolved as a result of the queen’s death (writs having been issued in the names of both monarchs).<sup>200</sup> Their temporary alliance was clearly not all-encompassing. On 12 Jan. 1695, Rochester and Nottingham acted opposite each other as tellers on the question whether to reverse the judgment in the cause <em>bishop of London v. Birch</em>. The motion was rejected by 30 votes to 40. On 23 Jan. Rochester again acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to postpone consideration of the amendments to the treason trials bill. The motion was again rejected, by 40 votes to 41, following which he entered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendment to postpone implementation of the bill until 1698. The following day (24 Jan.) he entered a further dissent against the addition of a further clause proposed by committee.</p><p>On 25 Jan. 1695 Rochester spoke in Nottingham’s support during the committee of the whole considering the state of the nation.<sup>201</sup> He also attempted once more to raise the question whether the session was valid but was warned off the subject by the lord privy seal (Pembroke).<sup>202</sup> Rochester was entrusted with Brooke’s proxy once more on 28 Jan., and on 12 Feb. he also received the proxy of Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond. Meanwhile, he continued to be active in managing committees. On 8 Feb. he reported from the committee for the bill for rebuilding Warwick and during the remainder of the month he reported from three more select committees. On 23 Feb. the House dismissed the petition of Hugh Jones, elder and younger, to be released from their imprisonment.</p><p>In the middle of February 1695 Rochester’s attention turned to other matters. On 16 Feb. he participated in the debates surrounding the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to be granted a writ of summons. Rochester argued against the restoration of the Willoughby barony.<sup>203</sup> Two days later he registered his protest at the resolution that the judges presiding over the Lancashire Plot trials had done their duty according to law. The following month he returned to the question of Verney’s petition. He marshalled the opposition to the request ‘with all the industry and skill imaginable’ and on 19 Mar. acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to adjourn the debate concerning the descent of baronies by writ.<sup>204</sup> The motion was rejected by 35 votes to 22, following which Rochester subscribed the protest against the resolution to allow those claiming baronies by writ to be summoned to the House. The previous day (18 Mar.) he had also acted as one of the tellers in a further division in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. The question whether the petition had been brought before the House properly was rejected by 35 votes to 37.</p><p>Having failed to get his way on several key pieces of legislation, Rochester resumed his position as one of the most active committee chairman during the final weeks of the session. On 11 Apr. 1695 he reported from the committee for examining John Maurice and on 16 Apr. he informed the House of the proceedings of the committee nominated to investigate Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he reported from the committee taking the examination of Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup> and then reported both from the committee appointed to consider what should be raised at the conference with the Commons concerning Cooke, as well as from the conference itself. Five days later (22 Apr.) he informed the House that the committee had examined the ballots for the peers elected to meet with the Commons to examine Cooke and that 13 peers had been chosen (of whom he was one). Rochester reported from one final committee on the last day of April, and on 2 May he reported the reasons to be offered at a conference why the Lords could not agree with the Commons’ amendments to the bill concerning Cooke. He then, once more, reported the conference’s proceedings.</p><p>Rochester turned his attention to Ireland during the summer. It was reported that his nephew by marriage, Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton, who had spent part of the summer at New Park, intended standing for the speakership of the Irish Parliament: his prospective candidature, promoted by Rochester, was illustrative of Rochester’s willingness to continue to co-operate with a family member even though Boyle had deserted the Tories for moderate Whiggery.<sup>205</sup> In the event Boyle decided not to throw his hat into the ring.<sup>206</sup> The general election that November also found Rochester active in promoting his interest. He was noted as having paid a bill amounting to £63 10<em>s</em>. at Wootton Bassett, where two Tories, Thomas Jacob<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Pinnell<sup>‡</sup>, were returned, presumably with Rochester’s blessing.<sup>207</sup></p><p>Rochester took his place in the House three days into the new session on 25 Nov., after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days. The focus of his attention during the session appears to have been the question of trade and the coinage. Soon after taking his seat he urged the House to turn its attention to the question of the coinage, participating in two committees of the whole on 3 and 4 December. He urged the necessity of addressing the bad condition the coin was in, of the need to recall clipped specie and of the need for an address to the king to request that all coin above sixpence be called in. He also reported the committee’s opinion that merchants trading in the Indies should attend the House to provide evidence of the ways in which the Scots East India Company might damage their trade.<sup>208</sup> On 5 Dec. he reported from the committee for the address to the king about clipped coin and then reported from the subsequent conference held with the Commons about the matter. The following day Rochester was again to the fore in a committee of the whole concerning the state of the armed forces, urging that the king be asked to provide a list of all those in English pay. On 9 Dec. he was again vocal during the proceedings concerning the Scots East India Company, and on 13 Dec. he reported from the committee appointed to draw up an address to the king about the issue. The same day he also reported from the committee considering what ought to be offered at a conference with the Commons about the Scots company. For the remainder of the month and into the new year he continued to take the lead in committees and conferences considering the issue of the coinage and the Scots East India Company. On 23 Dec. he was also a prominent participant in the debates in the committee of the whole for the treason bill. He argued in favour of limiting the bill to three years and for the assassination of the king to be excepted from its provisions.<sup>209</sup></p><p>Besides his activities relating to trade and currency, Rochester was again assiduous in his management of select committees and in other areas of the House’s business. He also, once more, offered his assistance (with his brother, Clarendon) in mediating between the duchess of Beaufort and earl and countess of Ailesbury in their ongoing dispute.<sup>210</sup> On 4 Jan. 1696 he reported from two select committees and on 6 and 7 Jan. from the committee of the whole considering amendments to the oaths in Ireland act. On 7 Jan. he received the proxy of Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, and two days later he was again in receipt of Brooke’s proxy, which may have been related to his continuing opposition to permitting Verney to sit in the House. The same day he subscribed two protests relating to resolutions not to insist on parts of the bill for regulating the silver coinage and on 24 Jan. he protested again, this time at the resolution to pass the bill for preventing false and double returns of members of the Commons.</p><p>On 17 Feb. Rochester reported from the committee considering the act for continuing the act prohibiting trade with France.<sup>211</sup> He reported from the same committee eight days later, and during the remainder of February and throughout March 1696 he reported from a further 14 committees. On 21 Mar. he was again entrusted with Brooke’s proxy and on 26 Mar. he also reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for preventing frauds in the plantation trade, for which he desired more time for the committee to continue its deliberation. He then chaired subsequent sessions over the next two days and on 27 Mar. registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for an increase of seamen. On 31 Mar. he dissented once more at the resolution to pass the bill for encouraging the bringing in of plate to the Mint. Less active the following month, he confined his activities to reporting from the committee for the Irish linen bill on 24 April.</p><p>Rochester was one of a number of peers to express their concern at the wording of the Association at the close of February and on 13 Apr. he joined Nottingham and Normanby (as Mulgrave had become) in urging moderation during the debates in the committee of the whole concerning the bill for securing the king’s person.<sup>212</sup> Unsurprisingly, such a stance, attracted notice, and in September 1696 he was one of a number of peers thought likely to be implicated by Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Fears for his own reputation may have been behind reports that Rochester had behaved himself ‘like a friend’ to the embattled secretary, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, who was also under assault from Fenwick’s revelations.<sup>213</sup></p><p>With the Fenwick affair dominating the parliamentary agenda, Rochester took his place in the House almost a fortnight after the opening of the session on 2 Nov. 1696, after which he was present on almost 86 per cent of all sitting days. On 2 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to insist on amendments to the bill for remedying the state of the coinage. The following day he reported from a committee for a private bill and on 10 Dec. from the committee considering information from the Admiralty. In spite of his apparent sympathy towards Shrewsbury, Rochester proved hostile to the efforts to proceed against Fenwick by bill of attainder. On 15 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to read Goodman’s information, and on 18 Dec. he spoke out against a statement made by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, in which Bolton had asserted that no one could be for the government and yet against the bill. He then proceeded to vote against giving the bill a second reading and registered a further dissent when the resolution was carried. Rochester laid out his reasons for opposing the bill in detail. He listed five points, among which was the lack of credible witnesses against Fenwick (an echo of his former complaint about the proceedings against his brother Clarendon). He argued that:</p><blockquote><p>passing the bill would encourage enemies to the government showing it to be in a very tottering condition, when for its preservation, it’s forced to leap over all our laws and fly to so extraordinary a method to take away the life of one poor man.<sup>214</sup></p></blockquote><p>Rochester continued to oppose the proceedings, commenting critically on 22 Dec. that, ‘a government that must be supported by cordials cannot be long lived.’<sup>215</sup> He then seconded the proposal put forward by Devonshire that Fenwick might be subjected to perpetual imprisonment rather than death. According to some reports, this idea had been concocted between the two. Unsurprisingly, Rochester voted against passing the bill the following day and subscribed the protest when the bill was carried.<sup>216</sup></p><p>The new year saw no abatement in Rochester’s involvement in the aftermath to the proceedings surrounding Fenwick as he became similarly involved in the subsequent investigation into Monmouth’s activities. Following Monmouth’s three-hour speech in his own defence on 9 Jan. 1697 and an intervention by Leeds, Rochester was said to have ‘emptied the House’, though it is not clear whether this was by an unusually rambling speech or by a call for strangers to be removed from the chamber.<sup>217</sup> On 18 Jan. he reported from the committee appointed to draw up a report to be presented to the king concerning the House’s resolutions and Monmouth’s commitment. Two days later he reported from the committee appointed to read the letters delivered to the House by Matthew Smith, and on 22 Jan. he reported from the committee appointed to prepare an address seeking Fenwick’s reprieve for a week.<sup>218</sup></p><p>In the midst of such great national events Rochester continued to involve himself in more peripheral issues, and on 21 Jan. he was appointed one of the mediators to attempt to bring about a reconciliation between Huntingdon and his heir, George Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings (later 8th earl of Huntingdon). On 23 Feb. 1697 he was entrusted with the proxy of George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley. Rochester also continued to report from numerous committees, informing the House of proceedings in 11 committees between 27 Jan. and 10 April. On 19 Mar. he reported from the conference considering the bill for prohibiting India silks and on 14 Apr. from the committee of the whole for the bill for the imposition of duties on tin and drugs. The following day he subscribed the protest against the resolution not to agree to the committee’s amendment to the bill for restraining the number of stock-jobbers.</p><p>In spite of his refusal to vote in favour of the Fenwick attainder, Rochester was again said to be very friendly with Shrewsbury at this time and on 23 Jan. Shrewsbury wrote to thank Rochester for his assistance during the proceedings.<sup>219</sup> The letter elicited a rather self-deprecatory response, in which Rochester declared himself puzzled that ‘there could be so advantageous an account given to your grace of the small share I had in serving you in the House of Lords.’<sup>220</sup> Following the close of the session, rumours circulated that Sunderland intended to bring Rochester, Marlborough and Godolphin ‘into play’.<sup>221</sup> Rochester’s improved position no doubt assisted him in petitioning successfully to be permitted to act as his brother’s deputy in Whichwood Forest. The following month Rochester and Sunderland met on one or two occasions, a rapprochement which it was said, ‘alarms some people very much’, and on 23 Oct. Sunderland was entertained at Rochester’s seat, New Park, which was also attended by Ranelagh and Boyle.<sup>222</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the new session on 7 Dec. 1697, after which he was present on 85 per cent of all sitting days. By the close of the month it was put about that the Whigs were growing increasingly suspicious of Sunderland and Rochester’s continuing alliance.<sup>223</sup> Such concerns did not prevent Rochester from taking the chair of the committee considering Mohun’s indictment for the murder of William Hill, from which he reported on 23 December. Rochester’s family were expected to take part in a three-week progress in early January 1698 but it seems unlikely that he was of the party.<sup>224</sup> He was present in the House on 3 Jan. and was present on 19 days during that month alone. On 27 Jan. he reported from the committee for John Lewins’ bill and on 3 Feb. he reported from two further committees, including that concerning the petition of Charles Knollys to be recognized as 4th earl of Banbury. Rochester related further information to the House relating to the Banbury case on 7 February. On 16 Feb. he reported from the committee for drawing an address seeking an order discouraging the wearing of clothing not manufactured in England and on 19 Feb. from the committee investigating the best way to restrain over-lengthy and over-expensive law suits.</p><p>During the remainder of the session, Rochester reported the findings of a further 16 committees as well as taking the chair in committees of the whole and serving as a conference manager. On 28 Feb. 1698 he reported from the committee of the whole considering the act requiring retailers of salt to sell by weight, and on 3 Mar. he entered his protest against the resolution to pass the divorce bill of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield. On 4 Mar. he reported from the committee considering Mohun’s petition to be brought quickly to trial. The same day he presented to the House the bill for restraining excessive law suits. He then reported from the committee for the bill later that month and between 31 Mar. and 4 Apr. also reported from two committees of the whole considering the further refinement of the measure.</p><p>The focus of the session proved to be the proceedings against the Tory member, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Having already registered his dissent at the resolution to read the bill for punishing Duncombe a second time, Rochester reported from the committee for devising heads for a conference with the Commons about the business on 7 Mar. and the same day reported from the ensuing conference. He reported from a subsequent conference concerning Duncombe’s punishment on 11 Mar. and on 15 Mar., having been consistent in his opposition to the measure throughout, he voted to throw the bill out. Two days later he revealed once again his willingness to support a political opposite by reportedly speaking up for the lord chancellor (John Somers*, Baron Somers) against the aspersions made by Robert Bertie<sup>‡</sup> that Somers was guilty of corruption. On 18 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the libel penned by Bertie reflecting on the proceedings in chancery relating to the case <em>Bertie v. Viscount Falkland</em>.<sup>225</sup></p><p>Rochester was entrusted with Weymouth’s proxy on 3 May 1698 and on 19 May he also received that of Nathaniel Crew*, Baron Crew (bishop of Durham). The following month he was one of a trio of peers approached by John Methuen over Methuen’s fears for the effects the woollen bill was likely to have on Ireland. All three undertook ‘to secure it for this session’. They proved as good as their words and succeeded in having the measure put off for a week, ‘in such a manner that I hope we shall certainly gain our point’. On 3 June Rochester was present at a meeting at which were also Methuen and Godolphin (another of the three) as a result of which the woollen bill was laid aside.<sup>226</sup></p><p>Rochester reported from the committee appointed to draw up the heads for a conference concerning the trial of Jean Goudet on 16 June. He then reported from the ensuing conference later the same day and from a subsequent conference on 21 June. In the midst of this, he also reported from the committee nominated to draw up the reasons for the Lords failing to agree with the Commons’ amendments to the bill confirming to the bishop of Winchester (Peter Mews*) his lease of Alverstock waterworks.<sup>227</sup> On 23 June he reported from a further two conferences and on 27 June he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for the relief of creditors. On 1 July he subscribed the protest at the resolution to give the bill for establishing the two million fund a second reading, and on 5 July he was one of the peers in the subcommittee for the Journal to sign off the record of the day’s proceedings.</p><p>The close of the session found Rochester involved in negotiations with Shrewsbury, who was eager to find a suitable country seat, for the lease or purchase of Cornbury Park. By this time Clarendon’s financial difficulties had become so acute that Rochester considered the sale of the family estate the only way to save his brother from disaster. In August 1698 he admitted to Shrewsbury that a report that he was minded to purchase it himself ‘was not without ground’, but he assured the duke that his ‘pretensions shall be no hindrance to your designs.’ Despite the urgency of the situation, Clarendon proved obdurate and by mid October Rochester was forced to inform Shrewsbury of his inability to persuade Clarendon to part with the house.<sup>228</sup> Besides his continuing efforts to assist his brother that summer, Rochester also undertook to be ‘serviceable’ to the duchess of Monmouth (mother-in-law to Rochester’s daughter, Lady Dalkeith) in securing the payment of her pension.<sup>229</sup></p><p>For all Rochester’s earlier willingness to speak on Somers’ behalf, he remained eager to keep the Junto in check. To this end he prepared to employ his interest to thwart the Junto-backed Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> in his efforts to secure the speakership in the new Parliament. In October Rochester joined Leeds and Nottingham in offering his backing to John Granville*, later Baron Granville of Potheridge, for which he also seems to have secured Abingdon’s support.<sup>230</sup> Rochester’s activities on this score were interrupted at the beginning of November when he was reported to be so sick with the gout that he was unable to receive visitors and was thus incapacitated from seeing Nottingham, who was by then eager to persuade him to withdraw his support from Granville, who was threatening to split the Tory vote.<sup>231</sup> Nottingham was unable to prevent Granville from standing and the result was a victory for Littleton.</p><p>Having presumably rid himself of gout, Rochester finally took his seat in the new Parliament on 3 Jan. 1699, after which he was present on almost 88 per cent of all sitting days. The following day he introduced Henry Nassau d’Auverquerque*, as earl of Grantham. Reports soon circulated of anticipated alterations in the ministry with Godolphin tipped to become secretary of state and Rochester (again) lord treasurer.<sup>232</sup> Once more, the rumoured appointment failed to materialize and Rochester resumed his steady management of committees in the House. On 31 Jan. he reported from the committee considering the reasons for adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for preventing the exportation of corn, and he then reported from the conference at which the Lords’ reasons were communicated to the Commons. He reported from a second committee touching the same business the next day as well as reporting from the committee for a naturalization bill. Over the course of the session, Rochester reported from a further 33 committees, a number of them relating to naturalization bills as well as taking the lead as a conference manager and as an active member of the subcommittee for the Journal. The extent of his interest was also hinted at in a report of 2 Feb. that related how the king had sent for Rochester and Leeds the previous week to seek their advice about the disbanding bill and that it was as a result of their careful management that the bill passed the Lords so smoothly.<sup>233</sup> Even so, on 8 Feb. Rochester voted against agreeing with the resolution offering to assist the king in retaining his Dutch guards and then signed the dissent when the motion was carried. On 2 Mar. he reported from the conference concerning the bill to prevent the distillation of corn, and on 12 Apr. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for limiting the time within which writs of error might be brought. On 27 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the supply bill, and towards the end of the month he reported from the conference between the two Houses triggered by the Commons’ refusal to agree to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for naturalizing Richard Legge. He then reported from a second conference on the same matter on 1 May. Two days later he was added to the committee for the Journal: a curious oversight as he had already been involved with examining the record during the session.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Rochester spent much of the summer in progress around the country. At the beginning of July it was reported that he was to travel to Chippenham (in Wiltshire) with Ormond and Ranelagh and on 16 July he was expected in the environs of Longleat.<sup>234</sup> Rochester was one of several peers to have said to have declined offers of a return to office that summer.<sup>235</sup> Meanwhile, he continued to engage in a series of high-profile meetings and on 6 Sept. was noted as being present at a dinner hosted by Grantham and also attended by Ormond, Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans, and Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough.<sup>236</sup> In November the appointment of Richard Hill to the new treasury commission was also read as a sign of Rochester’s increasing influence. Hill was a diplomat and former deputy paymaster to the army in Flanders. His promotion was said to have been particularly urged by Ranelagh and Rochester.<sup>237</sup></p><p>Rochester returned to the House almost a fortnight into the new session on 29 Nov. 1699, after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Jan. 1700 he resumed his familiar role in the House reporting from the committee considering a report concerning the bishop of Derry, and during the remainder of the session he reported from a further 11 committees, including that appointed to draw an address relating to the Scots colony at Darien. On 1 Feb. he voted in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the East India bill.<sup>238</sup> On 8 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to read the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill a second time and four days later registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the measure.</p><p>Rochester’s intense concentration on business in the House hindered him from responding to renewed queries by Shrewsbury about leasing Cornbury that month, but by the end of the first week of March he was able to report to the duke that he had at last ‘finished the bargain with my brother that I have been some time about, and so the house and park and all belonging to it is in my hands’ and the whole ‘not the less at your service.’<sup>239</sup> In the event, Shrewsbury chose not to lease Cornbury and the estate remained in Rochester’s possession. With estate business settled for the time being, Rochester once more engaged with business in the House. On 2 Apr. he reported from the conference concerning the bill for taking off duties on woollen manufactures and on 17 Apr. he reported from the conference for the address. The following day, and again on 22 Apr, he was one of those to sign off the Journal’s record of proceedings in February and April.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Rochester was again the subject of rumours that he was one of those expected to be brought in as a member of the cabinet council and as a lord justice during the king’s absence.<sup>240</sup> At the close of the month it was reported that both Rochester and Shrewsbury had been offered the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, but that each had declined the place.<sup>241</sup> Negotiations persisted into the summer, with Rochester actively involved in talks with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. He was briefly distracted by the death of Lady Clarendon in the latter half of July, which kept him in town to comfort his grief-stricken brother.<sup>242</sup> The charged atmosphere contributed to a very public falling out between Rochester and Godolphin towards the end of the summer, but by the end of the first week of September reports were put about that they had reconciled.<sup>243</sup> Rochester returned to town in the second week of October and on 15 Oct. he was engaged in further talks with Godolphin in advance of a meeting with Harley. Early in November it was reported that Rochester had at last been prevailed on to accept the lieutenancy of Ireland and this was repeated in a newsletter later the same month.<sup>244</sup> His central role in the negotiations throughout the year no doubt contributed to talk that he was to be the ‘prime minister’ in the new administration.<sup>245</sup></p><p>By mid November the shape of affairs was becoming clearer. Rochester, it was said, would not leave for Ireland until after the close of the forthcoming parliamentary session, but he would be empowered to appoint a deputy, ‘a favour not usually granted’.<sup>246</sup> In early December he and Godolphin were admitted to the cabinet council and five days later, Rochester was declared as the new Irish lieutenant by the king at Kensington (though it was not until 28 Dec. that his commission was formally ratified). On 26 Dec. the <em>Flying Post</em> reported that he had commissioned a ‘very fine coach’ for the occasion.<sup>247</sup></p><p>Rochester’s restored credit may well have been behind rumours circulating in January 1701 that one of his daughters was to marry the recently ennobled Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax.<sup>248</sup> No such alliance proved forthcoming but the suggestion may well have indicated amicable relations between the high Tory Rochester and the Whig Halifax. If so, their bond was perhaps brought about by working together on the recoinage scheme the previous decade and by a mutual interest in the records committee. A further example of Rochester’s new influence at court was the summoning of Convocation in February, which was said to have been in response to a direct request from Rochester to the king.<sup>249</sup> By the second week of February Rochester was said to be working ‘hand in glove’ with Harley, the country party’s preferred candidate for the speakership of the Commons.<sup>250</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the new session on 10 Feb. 1701. Present on 86 sitting days in the session (more than three-quarters of the whole), his new responsibilities seem to have had some impact on the extent of his activities in the House, but he still found time to report from the committee considering the state of the fleet on 21 and 22 February. He proceeded to report from a further three committees during the course of the session, including that for vesting the estate of Humphrey Hyde in trustees, as well as from at least one case brought before the committee for privileges. On 27 Feb. he was nominated by James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, as one of four lords to attempt to mediate with Anglesey’s estranged countess. On 3 Mar. Rochester reported the peers’ failure to convince Lady Anglesey to return to her husband and read out her reasons for refusing to be reconciled. This failure did not prevent Rochester from again being named as a mediator between another warring couple at the close of the month. On this occasion, he was more fortunate and by the end of April he was able to report a successful outcome with Nathaniel Fiennes*, 4th Viscount Saye and Sele, and the dowager viscountess (his stepmother) coming to an agreement.<sup>251</sup></p><p>In the midst of such efforts, Rochester was also prominent in working to thwart efforts by the Junto to regain the initiative. On 18 Mar. he registered his dissent against a resolution relating the passage of the partition treaty and the same day he was one of a number of peers to oppose (unsuccessfully) an amendment to the address put forward by Wharton. On 20 Mar. he dissented again at the resolution not to send the address relating to the partition treaty to the Commons for their concurrence, and on 16 Apr. he protested once more at the resolution to address the king to desire him not to punish the impeached lords until their impeachments had been tried. He then protested at the resolution to expunge the text of the former protest from the Journal. Rochester continued to put his name to protests relating to the impeachments through early June and on 17 June he voted against acquitting Somers. He then subscribed two further protests at the resolution to acquit.<sup>252</sup></p><p>The close of the session brought the question of Rochester’s impending departure for Ireland back to the head of the agenda. The issuing of a warrant on 18 July allowing him £3,000 for equipage prompted expectation that he would leave later that week.<sup>253</sup> A series of delays ensued and by the end of August Rochester was still clinging stubbornly to the mainland. Reports began to circulate that his failure to take up his post was creating serious problems in Ireland.<sup>254</sup> By the second week of September Rochester had made it as far as Chester, where he was subject to further delays by the adverse weather conditions.<sup>255</sup> It was thus not until the second half of September that he finally set foot on Irish soil. While Rochester battled the elements, he deputed to James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> the task of petitioning the king on behalf of Charles Granville*, 2nd earl of Bath, for the office of warden of the stannaries, which he hoped would secure the quiescence of crucial members of the Granville clan in Cornwall.<sup>256</sup></p><p>Rochester’s sojourn in Ireland proved relatively brief. Although in late October he claimed to know nothing of a time for his likely return to England, in early December he was granted leave to return in time to take his place in the new session of Parliament. Later that month it was speculated that the king would be forced to turn to a triumvirate of Rochester, Marlborough and Godolphin to oversee the ‘conduct of his affairs’ and that Rochester would be replaced in Ireland by Ormond.<sup>257</sup> Hindered once again by bad weather, which prevented him from attending the start of the parliamentary session as he had planned, Rochester eventually landed in Wales early in January 1702. On 10 Jan. it was reported that he was expected in London later that day. Rochester’s route from Wales to London allowed him to call at Althorp on the way. His decision to confer with Sunderland at this time was said to have given ‘matter for speculation’ and led to some reports that he was to be offered the lord treasurership, though at least one commentator dismissed such rumours.<sup>258</sup> Rochester’s true standing at court was certainly not as assured as those who expected him to take on the treasury believed. Although he was well received at court, on 15 Jan. it was put about that he would be unlikely to retain the Irish lieutenancy. Less than ten days later, it was reported that he had resigned. He was dismissed the following day (25 January). This was confirmed by a subsequent report of 27 Jan. that described his audience and noted that the lieutenancy ‘was not voluntarily parted with but according to the king’s pleasure.’<sup>259</sup></p><h2><em>The Church in danger, 1702-7</em></h2><p>Out of office once more in spite of the great expectations of the previous year, Rochester took his seat in the House on 3 Feb. 1702, after which he was present on 27 occasions in the session (27 per cent of all sitting days). The king’s death on 8 Mar. offered Rochester the prospect of renewed interest as it appeared likely that his niece, Queen Anne, would look with greater favour on the high Tories than her predecessor had and would offer to men like Rochester greater opportunities for securing the Church of England. On 18 Mar. he was sworn of the new Privy Council and the following day it was also said that he was expected to resume his place in Ireland: an oversight by which his commission had never been revoked formally facilitating an early resumption of his duties there.<sup>260</sup> On 20 Mar. it was speculated that he and Normanby along with Marlborough and John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland, would be promoted to dukedoms. A similar rumour was repeated later in the month and on 23 Mar. he resumed his place at the cabinet council.<sup>261</sup> As an indication that all might not be well, though, Cary Gardiner noted that one motivation for posting Rochester back to Ireland was because ‘the Parliament would not like him here.’<sup>262</sup> Further talk of promotions for Rochester and his kinsmen persisted over the ensuing weeks. In mid April, Rochester’s daughter-in-law was said to have been appointed to the queen’s bedchamber (though this was not confirmed until May) and over the next few weeks it was speculated that either Rochester himself or his son-in-law, Dalkeith, would be made master of the horse.<sup>263</sup></p><p>In the midst of such speculation, Rochester proceeded to participate in negotiations with Godolphin, Harley and Nottingham over the text of the queen’s speech.<sup>264</sup> Although Rochester was not present on the attendance list for 25 May 1702, when the queen delivered her address dissolving Parliament included within it was the clause on which he and Nottingham had insisted, in which the queen asserted that ‘my own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the interests and religion of the Church of England and will incline me to countenance those who have the truest zeal to support it’.<sup>265</sup></p><p>Soon after the dissolution, Rochester was said to be readying himself again for his return to Ireland.<sup>266</sup> As before, he showed little inclination to hurry his departure. On 2 June he wrote to Marlborough from his lodgings in the Cockpit to assure him of his ‘faithful service’ and by the middle of the month he was still in England.<sup>267</sup> According to John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, Rochester was by this time one of six figures dominating government.<sup>268</sup> In mid July it was reported that he was expected in Ireland the following month, but he continued to drag his heels. Although a new commission constituting him lord lieutenant passed the Privy Council on 19 Aug., Rochester continued to show no obvious signs of preparing for his departure.<sup>269</sup></p><p>Business in London seems to have been chiefly responsible for keeping Rochester from his duties on the island. He also seems to have been engaged with using his interest on Dalkeith’s behalf.<sup>270</sup> He did, though, find time to visit Oxford at the beginning of October to deliver copies of the second volume of Clarendon’s <em>History</em> and to discuss other matters relating to its publication with the governors of the university press.<sup>271</sup> Rochester had returned to New Park by 12 Oct. and later that month he was noted as one of the executors of the recently deceased duchess of Richmond, responsible for seeing to the settling of her £60,000 personal estate.<sup>272</sup></p><p>Having apparently remained in the vicinity of London throughout the summer, Rochester took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Oct., after which he was present on 55 per cent of all sitting days during which he reported from three committees. By then an authority on parliamentary procedure, in early January 1703 Rochester intervened during the third reading of one bill when Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough, attempted to insert an amendment. Rochester objected that the bishop’s action was irregular, but he desisted when it was pointed out that the amendment was merely intended to correct an error in transcription. The point of Rochester’s principal interest in the session, though, was the occasional conformity bill. He was critical of the timing of the bill, but his argument that it was a just measure if unseasonable did not prevent him from being assessed as a likely supporter of the bill, and on 16 Jan. 1703 he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. He was prominent too in other matters brought before the House. On 9 Jan. he intervened in the debate over the wording of the address, which brought him into conflict with Somerset, and on 11 Jan. during the debates in a committee of the whole considering the bill for Prince George of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, Rochester moved that a clause relating to the act of succession should be read before they continued with the debate. When it was moved to resume the House, Rochester objected and called for the committee of the whole to continue where they would be able to speak with greater freedom. His motion was rejected by 54 votes to 46. Ten days later (21 Jan.) he again drew upon his knowledge of parliamentary procedure to argue against permitting Richmond to bring in an appeal as this would have the effect of stopping the case when Parliament was prorogued. On 22 Jan. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to dismiss the petition of Squire and Thompson in their appeal against Wharton.<sup>273</sup></p><p>Aside from his activities in Parliament, Rochester maintained a close interest in his family and in the latter part of November 1702, he approached Lady Marlborough to ask the queen to secure a place in the bedchamber for his daughter, Lady Dalkeith, a move that the countess found all the more surprising given his previously ‘very barbarous’ behaviour towards her. Rochester’s willingness to appeal to someone with whom he was on such bad terms echoed a tale told by Bishop Burnet and recorded by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, that Rochester had approached Burnet to ask his assistance in restoring Rochester to Queen Mary’s favour, citing the gospel justification that he had always been the bishop’s enemy.<sup>274</sup> The result of his approach to Lady Marlborough was a refusal as the queen decided not to increase the number of her attendants at that time.<sup>275</sup> As well as being unable to secure the place for his daughter, Rochester also seems to have been experiencing financial difficulties. At the beginning of 1703 it was reported that Clarendon’s library was to be sold as Rochester had failed to pay the money charged on it the week before.</p><p>By the beginning of February 1703, it was clear that Rochester had no intention of making the journey back to Ireland. He was relieved of the position and replaced by Ormond. There was some uncertainty how Rochester might be compensated for the loss, though the lord treasurership was again mentioned. His behaviour seems to have raised questions about his standing at court. On 11 Feb. it was noted that he had returned to London after a break at New Park, but that he had not been at court, though two days later another report emphasized that he had been there and insisted that he remained firmly in the queen’s favour.<sup>276</sup> Although he appeared eager to demonstrate his continued interest in the administration, for example by arriving ‘pretty early’ for a meeting of the cabinet council convened in the dean of Westminster’s lodgings on 14 Feb., his apparent disinclination to act raised fears among his natural supporters.<sup>277</sup> John Isham commented to his brother, Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup>, that he hoped ‘Lord Rochester’s example will not be followed by Ld. N[ottingham?], – or any other, if they throw up the cards we know into whose hands the game will fall.’<sup>278</sup> Isham’s advice was not heeded and Rochester walked away from the ministry irritated both by its apparent refusal to safeguard the church and by the continuing policy of conducting a land war in preference to a blue water strategy. This was something that Rochester had long advocated and was reflected in his voting record in the previous reign on matters relating to the armed forces.<sup>279</sup></p><p>Rochester joined his son and granddaughters in contesting a case with John Granville*, Baron Granville of Potheridge, in the early summer of 1703 over the raising of money to pay portions to, among others, Rochester’s younger grandchildren.<sup>280</sup> Shortly before the opening of the new session of Parliament, he provoked the queen’s indignation by putting his hand to an inflammatory dedication to the second volume of his father’s <em>History</em>, in which he expressed his concerns over the direction of government policy. The queen wrote to Lady Marlborough that she found it ‘wonderful that people that don’t want sense in some things should be so ridiculous as to show their vanity.’<sup>281</sup> Copies of the volume presented to members of the Hanoverian royal family by Edmund Poley at Rochester’s request met with an apparently better reception.<sup>282</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the new session on 10 Nov., after which he was present on two-thirds of all sitting days. In advance of the session, he was assessed again (this time by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland) as a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill. Sunderland’s prediction was then mimicked in a later forecast of 26 Nov., and Rochester was among those listed as having voted in favour of the bill on 14 December. He then registered his dissent against resolutions not to give the bill a second reading and to throw the measure out. Personal matters also proved significant during the session for Rochester. On 9 Dec. he brought before the House a complaint against William Townshend, whom he accused of taking possession of one of his estates at Witney in Oxfordshire. Townshend was ordered to be attached, but he was later discharged having acknowledged his offence. On 21 Dec. Rochester was also involved as one of those named in a bill presented to the House for making an agreement between him, Grey of Warke and Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville) relating to lands in Durham, Northumberland and Berwick.</p><p>Besides these matters, Rochester seems not to have made much impression on the early weeks of the session. His lack of activity clearly weighed upon him and on 17 Dec. he wrote to Harley (who had attempted to wait on Rochester) assuring him that, ‘if I did know one minute that you could be at leisure for so idle a man as I am, to wait on you, you would be troubled with me.’ In a subsequent letter five days later, Rochester again assured Harley of his intention to wait on him, though he was eager that it should not be thought he had any business to discuss, ‘when indeed I have none.’<sup>283</sup> In spite of these apparently friendly exchanges, by the beginning of the new year, it was reported that relations between Harley and the Tories had deteriorated over Harley’s reputed ingratitude to Rochester.<sup>284</sup> Having spent the Christmas holiday at New Park, Rochester returned to the House in January 1704. More active than he had been prior to Christmas, during the remainder of the session he reported from a dozen committees, including that examining papers from the Admiralty, and on 14 Jan. he registered his dissent at the resolution to reverse the judgment given in the cause <em>Ashby v. White</em>.</p><p>Rochester’s greater activity in the House did not disguise the increasing tensions within the administration. In January it was reported that Ormond was ‘governed by my lord Rochester endeavouring to divide the Irish protestant interest into high church and low church.’<sup>285</sup> Through March Rochester put his name to a series of dissents relating to the so-called gibberish letters (coded information relating to the Scots plot), to amendments made to the commission for accounts and to the bill for raising recruits for the army. On 25 Mar. he registered further dissents at resolutions concerning the failure to pass a censure on Ferguson. Retreat from holding office in no way negated the extent of Rochester’s interest at this time, though, and on 25 Apr. it was reported that Godolphin, ‘jealous of the earl of Rochester’s strength, is forming an interest to support himself.’<sup>286</sup> Rochester, on the hand, appears to have been keen to stress that he was no longer at the heart of things. In a letter to Marlborough that July, congratulating him on his victory at Blenheim, he excused his temerity in writing, noting that it was ‘hardly decent for a man out of world to be crowding with the first to make his compliments.’<sup>287</sup></p><p>In September 1704 Rochester was in town, busy with overseeing the publication of the final volume of his father’s <em>History of Rebellion</em>.<sup>288</sup> The following month it was reported that he had joined with Buckingham (as Normanby had since become) and Nottingham with the intention of doing all in their power to obstruct business in the forthcoming session.<sup>289</sup> On 1 Nov. he was accordingly noted as a likely supporter of the Tack.<sup>290</sup> Rochester took his seat in the House two days later, after which he was present on almost 60 per cent of all sitting days in the session, and on 10 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton. On 7 Nov. he seconded the lord treasurer’s motion that care should be taken ‘to prevent those confusions in the House which have been common of late when the queen appeared’, and on 15 Nov. he reported from the committee for privileges to which the problem had been referred, noting that the committee had met with Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> to discuss plans for improving the House during the queen’s appearances.<sup>291</sup> Rochester reported from a further seven committees during the session as well as reporting from the committee of the whole considering the Irish linen bill in February 1705. On 23 Nov. 1704, he spoke in support of Haversham, following the latter’s long diatribe about the ill consequences of the Scots act of security, continuing to press for a select committee to be appointed to consider the state of the coinage. When it was proposed that this might be considered in a committee of the whole, Rochester rejected the suggestion. He complained that it would be too much like the House and would achieve nothing.<sup>292</sup> Marlborough concluded that both Rochester and Haversham’s behaviour had been ‘very impudent.’<sup>293</sup> Rochester then returned to his theme in the committee of the whole appointed to consider the issue on 29 Nov., lambasting his fellow peers for their behaviour and moving that the printed act of security should be read.<sup>294</sup></p><p>Rochester’s evident irritation with the state of affairs had in no way abated by the beginning of December. He was said to have been one of the Tories whose zeal had turned to rage, ‘and they resolve to leave nothing undone to bring back their party to a majority.’ Their first target was said to be the Speakership of the Commons and once that had been achieved it was reported that they intended to bring Rochester in at the head of a new ministry.<sup>295</sup> It may have been as part of an effort to bolster Tory support in the House that Rochester was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, on 2 December. Debates on the Scots bill that month found Rochester ranged once more with Nottingham and Haversham against the principal Junto peers, Wharton, Somers and Halifax. On 6 and 10 Dec. he spoke in the debates concerning Scotland, moving for an address to the throne, as had been done previously in 1695 and 1699.<sup>296</sup> On 15 Dec. he was again one of those to speak in favour of the occasional conformity bill. He registered his dissent at the resolution to throw the measure out once more and on 20 Dec. he warned the House of the consequences of bringing in the union bill, observing that it was more likely to ‘provoke the high-spirited nobility of Scotland, than compass the end proposed.’<sup>297</sup> The culmination of the agitation in the House by the Tories was Haversham’s motion of 15 Jan. 1705 that the Electress Sophia should be invited to Britain, which Rochester supported.<sup>298</sup> On 17 Jan. Rochester then subscribed one further protest in the session against the resolution to read the Bath estate bill.</p><p>Rochester was noted (inaccurately) as a Jacobite sympathizer in a list of peers compiled in April 1705.<sup>299</sup> He continued to espouse the cause of bringing the electress to England and later that summer sponsored a mission to Hanover undertaken by Dr Hutton, to inform her of the Tories’ plans to raise the question of the invitation again in the forthcoming session.<sup>300</sup> He took his seat in the House on 27 Oct. and was thereafter present on over 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Nov. he moved that there should be a call of the House the following Monday. On 13 Nov. he was one of only seven peers (and one bishop) to be present at the committee for the address.<sup>301</sup> He then seconded Haversham’s motion for the Lords to be summoned as he (Haversham) had something of importance to convey to them and two days later he was one of a minority in the House to support Haversham’s renewed call for the electress to be brought over to England.<sup>302</sup> He then subscribed the protest at the resolution not to put the question whether such an address should be drawn up. On 23 Nov. he seconded Somers’ motion that the whole Scots act be repealed and on 29 Nov. ‘with a warmth more than common’ he moved that the Act of Uniformity should be entrenched within the union bill, declaring that ‘though he would not say that the Church of England was in danger during her majesty’s life, he could not help thinking that it would be so upon her demise’.<sup>303</sup></p><p>The following day (30 Nov. 1705), Rochester seconded the motion proposed by Halifax (though from a rather different motivation) for a day to be set aside to consider reports that some were disaffected to the church and prompted that it should be set down on the order sheet as a day to debate whether or not the church was in danger under the current administration.<sup>304</sup> He then registered his dissent at the resolution not to give any further instructions to the committee of the whole to which the bill for securing the Protestant succession was referred. On 3 Dec. he subscribed three further protests concerning the bill. On 5 Dec. Rochester was again prominent in voicing his concerns during the debates on the regency bill. He and his supporters were eager to exclude Godolphin from being one of the lords justices as well as being adamant that a clause should be inserted limiting the justices’ power so that they would not be capable of altering the act of uniformity.<sup>305</sup> The following day he returned to the theme of the church in danger. Rochester was the first to speak in the debate and, having resumed his seat, the House was said to have fallen silent for a quarter of an hour before Halifax rose to counter his argument.<sup>306</sup> Wharton later objected that the only danger appeared to be that neither Rochester nor Buckingham were currently in office before proceeding to reflect on Rochester’s role as a member of the ecclesiastical commission. Unsurprisingly, Rochester endorsed the protest drawn up that day against the resolution that the church was not in danger.</p><p>Rochester’s assault on the government coupled with his agitation for an invitation to Electress Sophia undoubtedly did him considerable harm in his relations with the queen. As the duumvirs’ administration became more entrenched and increasingly dependent on Whig support, Rochester’s interest also underwent a significant decline. In December Richard Hill was thought to have been removed from his place on Prince George’s council at the Admiralty and replaced by Sir Stafford Fairborne<sup>‡</sup>, a move that prompted one commentator to note how ‘my Lord R[ochester], has not interest enough to protect his friends.’ In the event Fairborne was forced to wait until the following year before joining the council and Hill retained his place.<sup>307</sup> Gradual erosion of his interest and continuing passion about the causes then before the House seems to have made Rochester even more querulous than usual. On 11 Dec. he was engaged in a heated argument with Halifax in the chamber as part of ‘a great dispute in the House of Lords between high church and low church’, which resulted in a challenge to settle the affair in a duel. It is not clear whether the intended combat ever took place.<sup>308</sup></p><p>In the midst of such heats, Rochester continued to dominate in committee work. He was also entrusted with the proxy of his son-in-law, Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, on 8 Dec., which was vacated by Conway’s return to the House a month later. From late January until the beginning March 1706 Rochester reported from committees on 22 occasions. From late December he was also an active member of the committee for the records, along with his Junto rivals Halifax and Somers.<sup>309</sup> On 15 Jan. during a session of the committee for regulating proceedings at law, he voiced his opposition to a proposal made by lord chief justice Holt to permit juries to take refreshments during a trial, arguing that this would lead to the undesirable extension of proceedings.<sup>310</sup> On 31 Jan. he entered three dissents against the bill for securing the Protestant succession. On 21 Feb. he moved for dispensing with a standing order relating to the management of private bills, in which he was seconded by Nottingham and Somers, but opposed by Wharton, Halifax, Godolphin and Marlborough. The following day, although the House seemed inclined to agree to the motion proposed by Mohun and others to throw out the Parton Harbour bill, Rochester requested that the commissioners for customs might first be heard before the measure was dismissed and was able to secure his point.<sup>311</sup> On 28 Feb., having earlier chaired the committee for Conway’s bill, Rochester reported from the select committee nominated to draw up reasons to be presented to the Commons at a conference concerning the lower House’s amendment to another bill. He then reported from the ensuing conference concerning the measure. Rochester joined with a dozen of his colleagues in registering his dissent against the 9 Mar. resolution to agree with the Commons that Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> letter defending the invitation to Electress Sophia was a scandalous libel. In doing so they stood apart from a majority on both sides, who for differing reasons were eager to castigate Gwynn for his actions. Three days later Rochester also argued against passing the censure against Gwynne, objecting that it would appear to have been published by authority of the court of Hanover.<sup>312</sup></p><p>Despite his uneasy relationship with the administration, Rochester maintained an ostensibly amicable correspondence with Marlborough during the summer.<sup>313</sup> He also seems to have been eager to remain on terms with Harley and undertook to do nothing towards recommending a successor to Colonel Soames as deputy governor of the New River Company without first seeking Harley’s advice.<sup>314</sup> He took his place in the new session on 5 Dec. 1706, after which he continued to attend on 77 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Feb. 1707 he was again entrusted with Conway’s proxy (vacated by the close) and on 4 Feb. with that of Price Devereux*, 9th Viscount Hereford. During the course of the session he reported from committees on 20 occasions as well as reporting from the committee for privileges twice and from a session of a committee of the whole considering the vagrants bill towards the close. On 14 Jan. 1707 he was one of those to second Nottingham’s insistence on drawing up of an act providing for the security of episcopacy in the light of the union bill, and on 3 Feb. he subscribed the protest at the failure to insist on the committee of the whole being instructed to insert a clause making the Test Act of 1673 ‘perpetual and unalterable.’ On 15 Feb. he again lent his support to moves to make amendments to the measure and on 27 Feb. subscribed four further protests to resolutions relating to Scots representation at Westminster.<sup>315</sup> Rochester revealed his awareness that he was thought to be hostile to the Scots union in a letter to Queensberry on 6 Mar. in which he confessed, ‘I know how I am represented as not very well affected to this matter, but upon my word, I am very well satisfied with it, and particularly with the honour you have had in it.’<sup>316</sup> When Queensberry arrived in London the following month, Rochester was one of the nobility to turn out to greet him. Rochester attended five days of the brief nine-day session of April 1707, time enough for him to register his dissent at the resolution to consider the following day the judges’ refusal to answer the question whether existing laws were sufficient to prevent frauds relating to the payment of duties on East India goods. In May it was noted that he was one of a number of former members of the Privy Council absent from, and so left out of, the new (post-Union) body.<sup>317</sup></p><h2><em>The Scots and Sacheverell, 1707-11</em></h2><p>As part of his efforts to undermine the administration of Godolphin and Marlborough, Rochester appears to have turned his attention to Marlborough’s duchess, whom he sought (once again) to displace from the queen’s favour. Over the next few years the queen distanced herself from Duchess Sarah turning instead to Abigail Masham. How significant Rochester’s role was in bringing this about is uncertain, but the duchess appears to have become suspicious even of close kin, including her brother-in-law, Edward Griffith, who she accused of entering ‘into my Lord Rochester’s project’ of separating her from the queen.<sup>318</sup> Members of the administration became increasingly aware of their vulnerability to attack in other areas as well, and in July 1707 Marlborough warned Godolphin not to raise the question of the management of the war in the forthcoming parliamentary session as he considered it something that Rochester ‘and all his friends would be extreme glad of.’<sup>319</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the first British Parliament on 30 Oct. 1707, after which he was present on almost 72 per cent of all sitting days, during which he reported from eight committees. On 20 Nov. he was noted as one of those to second the call made by Wharton for a committee to be appointed to hear the testimony of a number of merchants relating to the condition of the fleet. Others supporting the motion included the Junto peers Orford, Somers and Halifax.<sup>320</sup> Having combined with such improbable allies, Rochester drew further attention to himself by requesting an adjournment for a week. This prompted at least one commentator to query ‘whether he did not like his company, or what other reason he had, the vulgar are at a loss to know.’<sup>321</sup> On 24 Nov. Rochester reported from the committee considering the presence of peers’ sons in the House and he proceeded to report from a further seven committees during the course of the session as well as from four committees of the whole and the conference considering the bill for encouraging trade to America. The focus of the session proved to be the Tories’ assault on the conduct of the war in Spain, for which Rochester opened the attack in the House on 15 December. A report of 16 Jan. 1708 concerning the investigation of Peterborough’s expedition noted that ‘enough has passed there to show that the duke of Normanby, Lord Rochester etc. are well-wishers to his lordship’s cause.’ During the debate about the dissolution of the Scots privy council on 7 Feb. (a measure that he espoused) Rochester attempted to rebuke John Campbell*, duke of Argyll [S] (who sat as earl of Greenwich) for his intemperate language, though Argyll then rounded on Rochester in turn, protesting that he was ‘surprised to be censured by a peer who was the most passionate in his discourse of any in the whole house.’<sup>322</sup> The same day, he moved that Somers’ bill for securing the future quiet of cathedrals should be committed. Rochester’s predilection for being a stickler on points of order was emphasized once more on 13 Feb. when he ‘severely checked’ his colleagues for sitting uncovered when the annuity bill was granted the royal assent by commission.<sup>323</sup></p><p>It was an indication of Rochester’s continuing centrality in politics that during the ensuing crisis in government precipitated by the Whig ministers refusing to continue in office with Robert Harley, Rochester’s name was put about as a likely successor to Godolphin in the event of Harley succeeding in retaining his post as secretary.<sup>324</sup> Rochester himself was not thought to have been a party to the intended redistribution of offices, and in the event the Whigs prevailed and Rochester remained outside of the administration.<sup>325</sup> This did not prevent him from demonstrating once more his willingness to co-operate with unlikely allies when he seconded the motion put forward by Wharton on 20 Feb. for the House to take into consideration the state of the navy.<sup>326</sup></p><p>Rochester was, unsurprisingly, listed as a Tory in an assessment of May 1708. Later that summer Sunderland commented to the duchess of Marlborough the difficulty of predicting how Rochester (and Haversham) might behave in the forthcoming session, pointing out that, ‘As for what they will do in anything it’s pretty hard to judge of them because they don’t act upon any steady principle.’<sup>327</sup> Such uncertainty may have been in part the result of Rochester proving so disarmingly willing to concert with the Whigs on occasion. In August it was reported that Rochester, Harley and William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> were to be reconciled and that they were thought certain of securing the favour of the queen and Prince George: ‘a very dismal prospect.’<sup>328</sup> Rochester took his seat in the new session on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on just over 70 per cent of all sitting days, but he was less active in committee work than formerly, reporting from just four committees during the course of the session. Marlborough was caustic in his assessment of Rochester’s tactics commenting that he would pay court to the devil if he thought it would damage the duumvirs and duchess of Marlborough.<sup>329</sup> On 10 Dec. it was reported that Rochester was again in favour at court and that he would be reconciled with Lord S (perhaps meaning Somers).<sup>330</sup></p><p>Matters relating to Scotland dominated the opening of 1709. Following a characteristically lengthy opening harangue by Haversham, Rochester spoke in the House on 12 Jan. concerning the recent attempted Jacobite invasion of Scotland.<sup>331</sup> On 21 Jan. he joined with Godolphin ‘and a great many other lords, who used not to vote together’ in supporting the motion that Queensberry should be permitted to sit by virtue of his English dukedom, though this was successfully opposed by Wharton and Somers.<sup>332</sup> The same day Rochester voted to permit Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for the representative peers. Three days later Rochester found himself again siding with an unlikely set of allies, among them Somers and Cowper. Such curious realignments may have led to speculation at the beginning of February that there had been some ‘tampering between Rochester and Somers’ during the previous summer. In early March it was put about that the Junto’s strategy was being driven by concern not to be ‘outrun by Rochester and Haversham.’<sup>333</sup></p><p>Rochester’s support for the rights of Scots peers may have been one of the reasons for his selection as godfather to one of Hamilton’s sons in November 1709. The same month he suffered the loss of his brother, Clarendon.<sup>334</sup> Clarendon’s death left the high stewardship of the university of Oxford vacant, for which Marlborough was proposed by some, though this elicited an unflattering response, enabling ‘others of more sense’ to nominate Rochester instead. He was accordingly confirmed by the university convocation on 21 November.<sup>335</sup></p><p>Rochester’s personal affairs did not prevent him from taking his seat in the House two days later, after which he was present on 77 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Dec. he seconded another long speech made by Haversham calling for a debate on the state of the nation, though the duchess of Marlborough remarked that Rochester did so in only ‘a very few words’ and that he ‘looked very dejected and old.’<sup>336</sup> On 10 Jan. 1710 Rochester successfully requested an adjournment on the motion proposed by Haversham as the latter was unwell, and on 14 Jan. he presented to the House a petition by the impeached cleric, Henry Sacheverell, though Sacheverell’s request to be bailed was turned down.<sup>337</sup> The following month Rochester spoke in the parallel case concerning Greenshields, arguing that nothing might be done until all the papers had been sent down from Edinburgh for the House to peruse.<sup>338</sup> On 14 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn the House and then entered his protest against the decision that it was unnecessary to include the words supposed to be criminal in an impeachment. On 16 and 17 Mar. he protested on three occasions against the resolutions that the Commons had made good their articles against Sacheverell, and on 18 Mar. he protested again at the decision to limit peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty. Reported to have been one of several peers reduced to tears by Sacheverell’s performance during his trial, on 20 Mar. Rochester (unsurprisingly) found the doctor not guilty of the charges against him.<sup>339</sup> He then registered his dissent against the guilty verdict and on 21 Mar. dissented again against the terms of the censure.</p><p>In addition to these activities, and in spite of the duchess of Marlborough’s assessment that he looked old and jaded at the turn of the year, Rochester remained a prominent member of the House. He was to the fore in registering his dissent to measures that did not agree with him. On 16 Feb. he registered three dissents concerning resolutions relating to Greenshields and to the Commons’ address to the queen requesting Marlborough’s immediate departure for Holland. Between the beginning of February and first week of April 1710, he also reported from 20 committees. On 17 Feb. he reported from the privileges committee considering the petition of Lawrence Fiennes*, 5th Viscount Saye and Sele, to be permitted a writ of summons. On 27 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the Lords’ reasons for disagreeing with an amendment to Southwell’s bill and the same day reported from the ensuing conference with the Commons about the measure. Three days later he reported from the conference concerning amendments to the Edistone lighthouse bill, and on 5 Apr. he reported from a further conference considering the copyright bill.</p><p>The changing political situation that emerged in the aftermath of the Sacheverell trial and that saw Shrewsbury brought back into the administration as lord chamberlain, also found Rochester again at the centre of negotiations among Tory peers expecting to benefit from the new state of affairs. In May Ormond was said to have been actively promoting a reconciliation between Rochester and Leeds.<sup>340</sup> Although Shrewsbury contradicted claims made by Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> that Rochester was once more advising the queen, reports of his likely role in a new ministry persisted, and the following month the duchess of Marlborough warned the queen starkly that the City would not tolerate an administration dominated by Harley and Rochester.<sup>341</sup> Having at first been reluctant to step into the light, by July Rochester seems to have decided to play a more active role. That month he emphatically denied being engaged with Harley, claiming that he ‘never was nor ever would be concerned with him’, but it was noticeable that he returned to court that month and according to some reports he did so because he had been ‘sent for’. It was also thought that there may be a post in the new administration for his heir.<sup>342</sup> The following month it was said that he would have been offered the treasury had Harley not determined to take control of the department himself.<sup>343</sup></p><p>For all his denials of being engaged in the formation of the new administration, Rochester was subjected to verbal abuse from a small group of ‘evil disposed persons’ in early August, who gathered outside his lodgings in the Cockpit to drink ‘confusion to his lordship and all his friends and damnation to Dr Sacheverell.’<sup>344</sup> Outwardly, Rochester, so it was reported, remained ‘highly disgusted’ with Harley. The duchess of Roxburgh expressed her indignation at the manner in which Nottingham and Rochester had been denied places in the new administration. As the summer progressed, though, and Harley found himself unable to persuade several key members of the former regime to remain in place under him, it became increasingly apparent that Rochester would have to be offered something.<sup>345</sup> Rochester was all too eager to muscle his way in and to do his best to deny all but the most minor places to Whig rivals.<sup>346</sup> On 2 Sept. he was appointed to the lord lieutenancy of Cornwall, during the minority of William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, and a few days later he was nominated to the lord presidency of the council in the place of Somers. On 9 Sept. James Lowther commented that there was to be ‘a most universal change of the ministry as ever was, and all places that can any ways influence elections are putting as fast into the hands of the high party.’<sup>347</sup> Three days later Harley noted Rochester as a peer to be provided for. At the close of the month, following pressure from Rochester, Harley also bowed to the appointment of Rochester’s heir, Lord Hyde, as joint vice treasurer of Ireland.<sup>348</sup> The result of these awards was that by the beginning of October Harley was able to credit Rochester as a likely supporter of his new ministry.</p><p>Rochester’s return to power did not come without opposition. Charles Boyle*, 4th earl of Orrery [I] (later Baron Boyle) strove to impress on Harley that it could not be for his (Harley’s) interest ‘to fling more power into my Lord Rochester’s hands than was absolutely necessary’.<sup>349</sup> Rochester’s efforts to employ his interest in Cornwall by interposing at the elections for Liskeard also met with some resistance.<sup>350</sup> Some professed disbelief at Rochester’s willingness to co-operate with Harley, and by the close of the year there were predictions that, given the tensions between the various parties involved in the new alliance, the ministry could not last long.<sup>351</sup> Foreshadowing such prognostications, in mid October, Godolphin reckoned that Harley would find it difficult not to be jealous of Rochester’s influence over the Tories.<sup>352</sup> Such expectations no doubt led to reports in early November of alterations in the ministry with Rochester to be promoted lord treasurer and Harley confined to the post of master of the rolls, but these failed to transpire.<sup>353</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on almost 73 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had been entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex, and between 12 and 14 Dec. he also held his son-in-law, Conway’s proxy. In spite of the difficulties he had met with in Cornwall, the elections had served to increase Rochester’s interest in the administration with his party reckoned the strongest grouping in the Commons.<sup>354</sup> This gave rise to an expectation that he might even challenge Harley, though Rochester seems no longer to have craved the place of premier minister. His crucial position at the head of a major cohort in Parliament was, however, reflected in the appointment of his follower, Francis Gwyn, known as ‘Lord Rochester Gwyn’, to a place as a commissioner of trade early the following year.<sup>355</sup> Towards the close of December Rochester called on John Elphinstone*, Lord Balmerinoch [S] to warn him of ‘warm work’ ahead concerning the conduct of the war in Spain.<sup>356</sup> On 9 Jan. 1711 he was one of those to participate in the examination of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] questioning whether the earl had anything more to add to his account, and on 11 Jan. he cautioned his colleague, Peterborough, to restrict himself to the matter before them.<sup>357</sup> Rochester held Conway’s proxy again on 14 Feb. (it was vacated the following day). On 3 Mar. Rochester moved that the House should adjourn its discussion of the affair of the Edinburgh magistrates as some of the Scots peers were not present in the House.<sup>358</sup> Later that month, on 21 Mar., Rochester was also entrusted with the proxy of Edward Leigh*, 3rd Baron Leigh.</p><p>Rochester was one of those present in council in March 1711 when the marquis de Guiscard made his attack on Harley. He was also one of those to examine Guiscard in gaol two days later (19 March).<sup>359</sup> By this time, in spite of early accounts of the extent of Rochester’s interest in Parliament, it was reported that he had all but lost his influence and was therefore unlikely to challenge Harley at the head of affairs.<sup>360</sup> Writing to Harley in mid April, Rochester sought to assure him that ‘no man can more truly congratulate your recovery’. He professed himself to be ‘zealously concerned for you and shall never fail of expressing it.’<sup>361</sup></p><p>Rochester’s death came as a considerable surprise. On 1 May he was present in the House for the debates over the land grants bill, and the same day he wrote to the secretary of state, William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, to inform him that there would be no need of a cabinet meeting the next day.<sup>362</sup> On 2 May, having attended a meeting at the war office, he returned to his house near the Cockpit and promptly collapsed and died.<sup>363</sup> In spite of their uneasy relationship, Rochester’s death was said to have caused the queen considerable grief.<sup>364</sup> His older brother having died two years before, Rochester’s death marked the end of a tie with the pre-Revolution court. It was also notable that, having made his career as a hot-headed and intemperate high Tory, in his last few months in office Rochester proved an ameliorating presence in government. Rochester’s heir remarked in a letter to the queen that the improved relations between queen and uncle had been a considerable comfort to his father.<sup>365</sup> Rochester’s daughter-in-law, Lady Hyde, on the other hand was said to be ‘not much afflicted’ by his demise.<sup>366</sup></p><p>Although by the time of his death Rochester was no longer the dominating figure he had once been, his long career both in Parliament and in prominent roles within a variety of administrations made his loss a significant one. His interests had spanned trade and finance as well as support for the church and monarchy. His expertise as a parliamentary man of business is one of his lesser known qualities. So too was his ability to work constructively with men of very different principles. An appreciation of these sets his more choleric tendencies in a somewhat different light.</p><p>Rochester was buried on the evening of 10 May at Westminster Abbey. Although Godolphin in a parting spiteful jibe remarked that it would ‘not be a great funeral’, a number of the great officers of state were in attendance.<sup>367</sup> Ormond acted as chief mourner and the pall was borne by Shrewsbury, Leeds, Buckingham, Queensberry, Pembroke, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, and Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg.<sup>368</sup> Among the celebrations of his career that appeared in print were <em>The Life and Glorious Character of the Right Honourable Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester</em> and <em>An Essay towards the Life of Laurence Earl of Rochester</em> (1711). The suddenness of Rochester’s death may explain the lack of a will but administration of Rochester’s estate was granted soon after his death. He was succeeded in the title by his only surviving son, Henry, Viscount Hyde, as 2nd earl of Rochester.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
JAMES, Prince (1633-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>JAMES</surname></strong>, <strong>Prince</strong> (1633–1701)</p> |
<em>designated </em>14 Oct. 1633 duke of York; <em>cr. </em>27 Jan. 1644 duke of YORK; <em>cr. </em>10 May 1659 earl of Ulster [I]; <em>cr. </em>31 Dec. 1660 duke of Albany [S]; <em>suc. </em>bro. 6 Feb. 1685 as James II, king of England and James VII, king of Scotland |
|
First sat Oxford 1644; first sat after 1660, 31 May 1660; last sat 1 July 1680 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 14 Oct. 1633, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Charles I, king of England and Henrietta Maria, da. of Henry IV, king of France and Navarre. <em>m</em>. (1) 3 Sept. 1660, Anne (1638-1671) da. of Sir Edward Hyde*, later Bar. Hyde and earl of Clarendon, and Frances, da. of Sir Thomas Aylesbury bt., 4s. <em><em>d.v.p</em></em><em>.</em>, 4da. (2 <em><em>d.v.p</em></em><em>.</em>); (2) 21 Nov. 1673 Mary Beatrice Eleanora (1658-1718) da. of Alphonso IV, duke of Modena and Laura, da. of Hieronymus (or Girolamo) Martinozzi, 2s. (1 <em><em>d.v.p</em></em>), 4da. (3 <em><em>d.v.p</em></em><em>.</em>); 2s. 2da. (illegit.) with Arabella Churchill. KG 1642. <em>d</em>. 6 Sept. 1701.</p> |
<p>Jt. commr. preservation of law and order, city and univ. of Oxf. and Oxon., Berks. and Bucks., 1645; PC by 31 Aug. 1649; PC [S] 1674, ld. high commr. to Parl. [S] 1681.</p><p>Vol. French service 1652-5 (lt. gen. 1654), Spanish service 1655-58 (capt. gen. 1657); ld. high adm. England 1660-June 1673, 1684-88, colonies 1662, Scotland Feb. 1673; Generalissimo of all the forces 1673</p><p>Gov. Jersey 1650; const. Dover Castle, ld. warden and ld. lt. Cinque Ports 1660-73; kpr. and capt. Portsmouth 1661-73; ch. commr. government of Tangier 1662-73; gov. New York 1664.</p><p>Capt. gen. artillery coy. London 1660-1688; gov. Co. of Royal Fishery of England 1661, Co. of Royal Adventurers trading into Africa (later Royal African Co.), 1664; Hudson’s Bay Co., 1683-85; council of trade 1669, foreign plantations 1671.</p><p>FRS 1665.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas (as duke of York, with duchess of York), by Sir P. Lely, c.1661, NPG 5077; oil on canvas (as duke of York), by Sir P. Lely, c.1665-70, NPG 5211; oil on canvas (as duke of York), by Sir G. Kneller, c.1684, NPG 666; oil on canvas (as duke of York), attrib. to studio of Sir G. Kneller, National Trust, Wallington Hall.</p> |
<h2><em>The Convention and the Hyde marriage, 1660-1</em></h2><p>Educated on the battlefields of The Civil War, the subject of a daring escape from captivity and with a distinguished record of bravery as a soldier in the French and Spanish service, the young James, duke of York was on the verge of accepting a prestigious though probably powerless post as High Admiral of Spain or ‘Prince of the Sea’ when the English Republic suddenly imploded.<sup>1</sup> York and his brother Henry Stuart*, duke of Gloucester, took their seats on 31 May 1660. Their presence underlined the message from the king, conveyed that day, that all those with peerages created since 1642 should be able to sit. The presence of York and Gloucester in the upper House meant that no others ‘dared to contest the proposition’.<sup>2</sup> Over the remaining period of the convention Parliament he was present on just under 60 per cent of sitting days. On 6 June he was initially named to the committee for petitions, then added to all the committees of the House. His name was also included on 7 June to the list of those for whose welfare the House prayed. On 14 June he was named to the committee to consider the oath of allegiance. From late June and for much of the summer his attendance slackened. He did, however, attend to the affairs of the navy, of which he had been appointed lord high admiral before the Restoration: on 27 June he presented a paper to the Privy Council concerning the reorganization of the navy, which set up a commission, under himself. He would, nevertheless, retain a close interest in naval business, and immediately sought information on the state of the navy.<sup>3</sup></p><p>It is possible that York was in the first months after the Restoration diverging from his brother the king and his as future father-in-law, Edward Hyde*, later Baron Hyde and earl of Clarendon, Charles’s lord chancellor and most powerful minister. Charles II under the influence of Hyde and James Butler*, earl of Brecknock and duke of Ormond [I], took the continued presence in England of the French ambassador Antoine de Bordeaux-Neufville (who had been ambassador to the English republic and Cromwellian protectorate) as a calculated insult by Cardinal Mazarin, with whom they had crossed swords often in the past. York, however, went out of his way to maintain cordial relations with the ambassador and to assure him of his gratitude to France. Bourdeaux would become closely involved in plans closely related to the circle around the queen and the French court to topple the chancellor.<sup>4</sup></p><p>On 1 Sept. the House of Commons voted York an annual income of £10,000 and asked the king not to dispose of the estates of those excepted from the act of oblivion until provision had been made for him. York was in the Lords chamber on the 3rd, when the House passed similar votes to the Commons; on the same day he was named to the committee on the drainage of the Lincolnshire fens and on the 7th was nominated as one of the commissioners for disbanding the army. On the same day as the Lords’ vote providing him with an annual income, York formalized his marriage contract with Anne Hyde, the daughter of the lord chancellor, in a furtive ceremony at Hyde’s Worcester House conducted by York’s chaplain Joseph Crowther, witnessed by Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] and later Baron Butler, and Eleanor Strode, Anne’s servant. The wedding followed an engagement of 24 Nov. 1659 at Breda, and the evidence of Anne’s pregnancy.<sup>5</sup></p><p>The marriage—apparently a genuine commitment on the part of York, and according to Clarendon having sought the consent of the king—created a political crisis. Apart from the <em>mésalliance</em>, felt deeply by the queen mother and her circle, it wrecked her plans to cement relations with France through a diplomatic marriage for her second son. Hyde himself claimed to have been initially convinced that the affair was part of a plot to discredit him; the king seems to have quickly accepted that the marriage was legally binding, genuinely the product of his brother’s affection for Anne Hyde, and there was nothing to be done.<sup>6</sup> York’s attitude changed, possibly following the arrival of his sister, the Princess Royal, from France at the end of September, but also on account of a concerted campaign to blacken anne’s reputation originating from the queen mother’s associates.<sup>7</sup> By 10 Oct. York had become so disillusioned he told Hyde that he wished never to see his daughter again, and that ‘he would have no better friend if he did not pursue the matter, but that if he did, then the two of them could not live in the same place, and that one or the other would have to leave England.’ Enormous pressure was placed on the king to find a way to annul the marriage. He did little to help, insisting that York could extricate himself from the situation only if a solution could be found that ‘did not violate divine law and that of his state.’<sup>8</sup> Some observers would conclude that he was happy to humble his brother and to destroy their mother’s high opinion of him.<sup>9</sup> York and his circle discussed seeking assistance from Parliament in repudiating the marriage: the option was dismissed on the grounds that it might jeopardize the fragile basis of the Restoration settlement, provoking an attack on Hyde which in turn would force the king to declare a dissolution ‘and from there we move into matters unknown and infinite which nobody could foresee and would bring fear to all wise people’.<sup>10</sup> Charles was equally unwilling to create a precedent which might encourage Parliament to take an interest in matters relating to the succession to the crown.<sup>11</sup> An alternative solution apparently proposed by one of York’s friends, Charles Berkeley*, later earl of Falmouth, who offered to kidnap and murder both mother and baby did not receive serious attention.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Anne Hyde’s firm insistence when she gave birth on 22 Oct. that York was the father, the marriage was valid, and that she had not slept with anyone else were convincing enough to dispel the whispering campaign, although the queen mother’s arrival in London on 2 Nov., bringing new tales of Anne’s alleged promiscuity, gave fresh impetus to the attempts to overturn the marriage, particularly as York seemed unable to admit to her that he was, indeed, married.<sup>13</sup> The king’s firm defence of the status quo, as well as the marks of favour given to Hyde when the Convention met again on 6 Nov. after a late summer break, with a peerage and a gift of £20,000, forced the queen to retreat, and even to make some moves towards a reconciliation with Hyde, encouraged by Mazarin, who seems to have recognized the damage the affair was doing to Anglo-French relations. During November Hyde began to treat his daughter as duchess of York.<sup>14</sup> In early December it was well known that York had been resuming evening visits to his wife, and that ‘he is more in love than ever’.<sup>15</sup> On 8 Dec. York had a long talk with the chancellor after a Privy Council meeting; for the following week he went through an elaborate charade of retiring to his apartment at ten, when the queen mother went to bed, and then going on to the lord chancellor’s to sleep with his wife, returning before daybreak to Whitehall and going back to bed. On the 12th, however, he openly went to bed with her, ‘in the presence of the chancellor and his wife, and stayed there until 11 in the morning, when his servants came for his levée.’<sup>16</sup> In January a careful series of meetings was held to formalize the reconciliation, culminating in a meeting of the Privy Council on 18 Feb. 1661, which reviewed the evidence for the marriage and concluded that it was valid.<sup>17</sup> York recognized the role of Mazarin in securing his mother’s acceptance (albeit somewhat grudgingly given) of the reality of his marriage and expressed gratitude to the French for their support.<sup>18</sup></p><h2><em>York and the Restoration regime</em></h2><p>York was provided with estates and income by the crown that perhaps made him the richest individual in the country. It is difficult to be precise about York’s finances: estimates of his income range from £40,000 a year to £150,000, and it changed over time, as a result of a long drawn-out process of sorting out a complex portfolio of land and other investments.<sup>19</sup> After the overthrow of his regime in 1688 one estimate put the value of his Irish estates alone at over £7,500 a year; another valued them at £30,000 a year. <sup>20</sup> Of the two the lower figure is probably more realistic, certainly during the earlier part of the Restoration, though the higher figure may be close to what York would have received had his estates been less encumbered by disputes.</p><p>Apart from the £10,000 voted by Parliament in 1660 and a further £120,000 in 1665 following the early victories of the Second Dutch War, York was granted in 1661 the profits from the post office and wine licences, a grant that was confirmed in 1663 by Act of Parliament.<sup>21</sup> He received an annuity from royal funds of £20,000 plus a one-off payment of £15,000 in 1661. He was given confiscated regicide estates scattered through the City of London and several counties: Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Surrey. He was also given substantial estates in Ireland, and large tracts of land in New England. The title to many of these properties, however, was disputed for reasons that ranged from prior commitments such as family settlements, the demands of dispossessed royalists like the Penruddocks and the claims of those who had, in good faith, bought lands from the estates of parliamentarians such as Henry Ireton and Thomas Pride. Thoughout the 1660s and beyond York’s name appears regularly and frequently in the records of the court of exchequer as one of that court’s most active plaintiffs. His many and varied disputes almost all stemmed from his attempts to secure the regicides’ lands. His opponents included former royalists like Lady Anne Sydenham, City merchants like Francis Dashwood and powerful institutions like the East India Company. His pursuit of the regicides – or their heirs – was relentless. He was involved in litigation with Dame Alice Lisle, widow of the regicide John Lisle, until at least 1674 and probably later.<sup>22</sup> Her claim to jointure, which presumably lasted until her execution in 1685, effectively blocked York’s attempts to gain possession of significant parts of John Lisle’s properties.<sup>23</sup> Similarly, the grant to him of land confiscated from the regicides immensely complicated the Restoration land settlement in Ireland, as it pre-empted the settlement of disputes resulting from the dispossession of the Irish after the 1641 rebellion in the Irish court of claims, and many other competing titles to the land. In addition to lands, York, as Lord High Admiral, received a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of all prizes.</p><p>Apart from his enormous property portfolio, York built up substantial investments in trading companies. By 1662 he was the largest single shareholder in the Company of Royal Adventurers trading into Africa (later rechartered as the Royal African Company).<sup>24</sup> The management of his financial affairs was largely in the hands of Sir Allen Apsley<sup>‡</sup>, the duke’s cofferer, and Thomas Povey, his treasurer and receiver-general, whose relationship became dysfunctional as they struggled to deal with York’s growing debt: despite the scale of his income, extravagant expenditure and gifts to cronies (by both the duke and the duchess, who had her own reputation for reckless generosity) eroded it rapidly: it has been estimated that the annual deficit between 1663 and 1667 ran at over £20,000 a year.<sup>25</sup> The creation of a commission of revenue in December 1667 to oversee the Yorks’ financial affairs, the displacement of Povey, and Apsley’s appointment as treasurer and receiver general resulted in a considerable amelioration of the situation: York’s expenditure was brought under control, and his income grew considerably during the 1670s. </p><p>York’s circle had formed in exile, largely around military figures with whom he had served in the armies of France. John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, had been appointed his governor in 1648: now his steward, he was an old rival of the earl of Clarendon, and had been closely involved in attempts to discredit Hyde in the 1650s as well as the Hyde marriage (and Clarendon) in late 1660. So had Charles Berkeley, the future earl of Falmouth, a groom of York’s bedchamber since 1656, and nephew of Lord Berkeley, who was also closely involved in the efforts to discredit Anne Hyde. Many other of York’s closest associates would have military backgrounds, such as George Legge*, the future Baron Dartmouth, or Louis Dufort de Duras*, earl of Feversham, or John Churchill*, Baron Churchill, (ultimately duke of Marlborough). York’s land holdings, his generosity to his followers, the size of his household, his trading interests and his offices, particularly the patronage at the disposal of the admiralty, gave him the potential for considerable parliamentary influence. A total of 47 members of the Commons (including Speaker Edward Turnor<sup>‡</sup>, and York’s successive secretaries, Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> and Matthew Wren<sup>‡</sup>, and his treasurer, Sir Allen Apsley) were members of, or closely related to members of, York’s household; a further 15 held commissions either in his regiment or in the navy. His three brothers-in-law, Edward<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Hyde*, later 2nd earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, had experience of both Houses, as did his close friends Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I], who sat in the Lords as Baron Butler of Moore Park, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford. Among others personally associated with York who were in the House of Commons at some point were Sir Allen Apsley, Francis Hawley<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Hawley [I], Henry Brouncker<sup>‡</sup>, William Legge<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Dalmahoy<sup>‡</sup>, Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, Christopher Hatton*, later Viscount Hatton.</p><p>Numerous Members are known to have sought, and obtained a recommendation or other form of direct support from the duke of York in order to secure election, many of them in the Cinque Ports where his interest was strongest, or in one or other of the ports where the navy was a major source of weath. Some were officers or officials of the navy, such as Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup> (at Portsmouth), Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> (at Castle Rising), Sir Richard Haddock<sup>‡</sup> (at Aldeburgh), William Penn<sup>‡</sup> (at Weymouth), John Robinson<sup>‡</sup> (at Rye).<sup>26</sup> Others included Sir John Banks, bt.<sup>‡</sup> (at Winchelsea), Thomas Kendall<sup>‡</sup> (at Dartmouth), Baptist May<sup>‡</sup> (at Winchelsea), Edward Noel<sup>‡</sup> (for Hampshire), Richard Spencer<sup>‡</sup> (at Rye), John Strode<sup>‡</sup> (at Sandwich), Robert Werden<sup>‡</sup> (at Chester), Sir Richard Wiseman<sup>‡</sup> (at Maldon), Henry Wright<sup>‡</sup> (at Harwich) and Thomas Wyndham (at Minehead).<sup>27</sup></p><p>York, though he had strong political views, was only episodically a powerful figure in English politics. He was, however, constantly involved in the inner counsels of his brother’s government, almost always present at significant discussions of policy and a routine attender in the Privy Council.<sup>28</sup> From the time of his marriage until the chancellor’s exile in 1667, or even after it, York was deemed to be close to the chancellor, and they formed a powerful political alliance. Apsley, who was also close to Clarendon, was an important figure in maintaining it. The Hyde-York relationship during the 1660s helped to ensure that York was never seen at this time as a reversionary interest, although a powerful undercurrent within court politics concerned the duke’s expectation of succession to the throne given the increasing likelihood of the king’s childlessness; it was only in the months after Clarendon’s dismissal that York came to be seen as in some sense a challenge to the king, until his conversion to catholicism came to meant that he was a different type of challenge entirely.</p><h2><em>Clarendon, 1661-8</em></h2><p>York attended the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May and was then present on over 77 per cent of sitting days. On 28 June he was named to the committee to consider the sanguinary laws concerning religion and on 1 July he was named to the committee to consider former proceedings relating to the court of York. Later, in August John Parker, bishop of Elphin [I], who was in London trying to influence Parliament over the question of impropriations in the Church of Ireland reported that in the process of his lobbying activities he had made contact with York ‘who is a zealous and active friend to the Church.’<sup>29</sup> York had shown his hand on church affairs when he showed impatience with the objections of Presbyterian peers to the bill that repealed the 1641 Act abolishing the coercive powers of the church courts, insisting on 26 July that the bill would pass, despite their opposition.<sup>30</sup> He was also named on 10 July to the committee to consider the bill for regulating the navy and on 18 July to that for regulating corporations (the latter of which drastically altered the Commons’ bill to provide the government with considerable powers to appoint municipal officials). He was thought to be a supporter of Oxford’s claim to the office of great chamberlain. </p><p>On 19 Dec. 1661 York was named to the committee to meet with the Commons to consider rumours of a plot. Closely associated now with his father-in-law (now earl of Clarendon), in early February 1662 he helped the chancellor to oppose the Commons’ amendments to the Convention’s Act for Confirming Ministers, which would have ensured the early removal of many more ministers than had the original act.<sup>31</sup> Later that month, however, he shared with Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London (later archbishop of Canterbury), his disapproval of amendments to the Book of Common Prayer that were designed to placate nonconformists. In March he was involved in an acrimonious exchange with Clarendon’s rival George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol over the proviso proposed by Clarendon with the king’s recommendation to soften the effect of the uniformity bill, allowing the king to dispense with the requirement that ministers wear the surplice and use the sign of the cross as a concession to Presbyterians. Bristol’s claim that when he had spoken with Charles ‘the king was of another opinion’ was contradicted by York, who regarded it as a slight on his brother. Bristol also wanted a saving clause relating to the privileges of the peerage but the House rejected it.<sup>32</sup> On 7 May York delivered his brother’s message to the House asking it to give a speedy despatch to public bills.</p><p>During the late summer, York was closely involved in negotiations surrounding the controversial sale of Dunkirk to the French. He claimed credit for persuading his brother to accept the French offer, though it was the duchess who received Louis XIV’s ‘deepest appreciation’ for her help in arranging the sale, though it is not quite clear what for.<sup>33</sup> It was originally intended that York would personally be in control of the arrangements to hand Dunkirk over to the French; in the event he remained in England because worries about riot and disturbances.<sup>34</sup> In December 1662 the first rumours began to circulate of a plan to legitimize James Fitzroy*, (later Scott) duke of Monmouth. The legitimization contemplated was a device under Scots law to safeguard the inheritance rights of any children that Monmouth might have by his planned marriage to the duchess of Buccleuch but even at this early stage the use of the term ‘legitimation’ led to misinterpretations south of the border and to rumours that Monmouth would displace York in the succession, though it does not seem to have York himself any cause for concern.<sup>35</sup></p><p>York attended just over 72 per cent of the sitting days during the 1663 session. At the opening of the session he was again named to the committees for privileges and for petitions. Shortly after the beginning of the session, in the debates in the Lords on the Declaration of Indulgence, he was said to have acted as his brother’s mouthpiece, suggesting new laws against Catholics—presumably he was laying before the House some of the proposals to prevent the growth of popery that the king had offered when opening the session.<sup>36</sup> After Clarendon incurred the king’s displeasure when he seemed, in a debate on 12 Mar., to have criticized the bill introduced to give effect to the Indulgence, York acted as an intermediary between the two men. The affair for a while appeared likely to upset his dominance at court, and revived hopes for his enemies (including the queen mother) of toppling him from his position. But on 19 Mar. Clarendon was said to have been ‘locked up’ with York and the king’ for a long interview, which gave rise to speculation that ‘the river will take its old channel’<sup>37</sup> Over the next ten days the efforts of Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans was said to have ‘brought all the interests together’ and the duke and duchess of York on 30 Mar. were said to have assiduously courted the queen mother.<sup>38</sup> On 19 Mar. York had also been named to the committee to prepare a bill to repeal the acts of the Long Parliament. Court politics remained in a febrile state, however, for the next two months, fought partly through attempts in Parliament to undermine Clarendon, while the king gave little sense of direction. Clarendon’s enemies—Bristol, Ashley, and Bennet—were worried by the association between York and Clarendon.<sup>39</sup> By the end of May, though, the destabilizing effects of the uncertainty became sufficiently destructive for the king to have to take action: Bristol was frozen out of government and Bennet reconciled to Clarendon. Charles rebuilt his inner circle of councillors, including York, Clarendon, Thomas Wriothesely*, 4th earl of Southampton, Albemarle and Henry Bennet* (later earl of Arlington), and excluding Bristol and his allies.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Bristol’s obvious determination to hit back may have been the reason for an increase in York’s attendance at the House—he was present on all but two of the sitting days in July. The day before Bristol was expected to accuse Clarendon of high treason on 10 July, York was lobbying his friends to oppose him, and on the 10th itself, following Bristol’s delivery of his charges, he counter-attacked with a speech in which he accused Bristol of being a ‘sower of sedition.’<sup>41</sup> The French ambassador noted that his speech was the more forceful because he was known to be speaking on behalf of his brother as well as of himself and Clarendon.<sup>42</sup> Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in his estimate of support for Bristol’s motion against Clarendon, oddly reckoned York to be doubtful rather than unlikely.<sup>43</sup> The day after Bristol’s allegations had been referred to the judges Bristol returned to the House to wrest the and in so doing to complain of the way in which he had been treated by York. ‘All the rest of the day’ remarked one observer, ‘passed in wrangling.’<sup>44</sup> The session ended with debates on a revived attempt to make the Act of Uniformity more acceptable to Presbyterians, with a clause weakening the effect of the requirement on ministers to signal their assent and consent to the Book of Common Prayer: on 25 July York headed the list of those protesting at the clause and arguing that it was destructive of the Church of England. One of the small number of acts passed during the session was one settling the profits of the post office and wine licences on York. Bristol absconded after the end of the session, evading likely arrest, and leaving Clarendon and his backer, York, without significant opponents at court.</p><p>Tensions between the king and his brother were, though, said to exist. There was a rumour in December 1663 that York was to replace Ormond as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and another in February 1664 that he was to be given the government of the low countries by the king of Spain. Neither was true, though they may be indicative of moves to take him away from the court.<sup>45</sup> One bone of contention appears to have been signs of favour conferred by the king on his illegitimate son Monmouth: the king in January had permitted Monmouth to wear deep mourning dress for the duchess of Savoy, as though he were a royal prince ‘which gives great offence’.<sup>46</sup> The king’s gentlemen of the bedchamber were said in February to have ‘nourished and fermented’ jealousies between the king and his brother by ‘always speaking to him of the inequality of his marriage and the fertility of his wife.’<sup>47</sup> Yet when Parliament reassembled in March 1664 the French ambassador reported that the king did nothing without the consent and approval of York and Clarendon.<sup>48</sup> When James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton delivered a letter from Bristol appealing to be heard and proposed that it be read to the House on 21 Mar., it was York who led the opposition and who moved successfully that it be put off until the next day.<sup>49</sup> On 22 Mar. York arrived early in order to lobby the peers; he made a particular target of Bristol’s ally John Lucas*, Baron Lucas. Northampton, supported by Lucas, put up a well reasoned case based on an appeal to privilege, but York argued that ‘for ought appeared it might come from any foreign prince’ and be a matter of state and cited the precedent of a letter sent by the prince elector in 1660.<sup>50</sup> The House voted to send the letter to the king unopened.<sup>51</sup></p><p>York was present on every day of this session. As usual, he was named to the committee for privileges. On 21 Mar. he presented the petition of Robert Robartes, then heir apparent to his father John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor) in an appeal against a chancery decree.<sup>52</sup> He held the proxy of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon from 6 Apr. 1664 to the end of the session. Once the Bristol affair had receded the principal issue of the day was the prospect of war with the Dutch. York, as lord high admiral and as an investor in the Royal Adventurers trading into Africa, stood to gain profit as well as glory from war. The Commons committee on the general decay of trade whose report resulted in the resolution that the Commons would assist his majesty ‘with their lives and fortunes’ was packed with York’s friends and clients. Although in May the French ambassador was convinced that neither York nor the king were keen on a war, and their stance was a negotiating tactic, writing several years later Sir William Coventry, who had at the time been his secretary, recorded York’s enthusiasm for it, he being ‘willing to have an occasion to show his courage in the sea as well as at land’. Louis XIV had come to believe by early 1665 that a war had been contrived by the court to distract attention from Bristol’s complaints and that York was one of its leading proponents.<sup>53</sup></p><p>In the early autumn of 1664 York was preoccupied with preparations for war: naval duties would ensure his absence from the opening of Parliament.<sup>54</sup> He covered his absence by entering a proxy in favour of Clarendon, which was vacated by York’s arrival in the House on 5 Dec. 1664, after which he was present on all but three days of the session. From 28 Jan. 1665 York again held the proxy of Carnarvon and from 24 Feb. he also held that of John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse. Both proxies were vacated at the end of the session.<sup>55</sup> On 20 Feb. 1665 he invoked privilege after the arrest of his gentleman usher, Sir Hugh Middleton. On 22 Feb. he was named to the committee to consider Sir Robert Carr’s bill. Following the end of the session, York was demonstrating his continued concern for the Hyde family when in April he wrote to promote an advantageous marriage for his brother-in-law Laurence Hyde, the future earl of Rochester, promising that if the chancellor was unable to make adequate provision for the couple he would do so himself.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Two days after the end of the 1664-5 session war was declared and York joined the fleet. York was, according to Clarendon, a strong supporter of the war.<sup>57</sup> The French, though, hoping even up to the last minute to prevent a war into which they would be dragged by virtue of their treaty with the Dutch, thought in June that York was the key figure in determining whether serious fighting would break out, and was at the centre of arguments between a pro-war and a pro-peace party; the French ambassador on 21 June heard that after having been harangued by Arlington, John Maitland*, earl of Guilford and duke of Lauderdale [S], and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), he had firmly come down on the side of the war party. The chancellor, the French concluded, at this point had abandoned his opposition to the war, no longer speaking about finding an accommodation.<sup>58</sup> Once war was joined, York’s success at the battle of Lowestoft won him considerable credit; but two of his closest friends, Charles Berkeley, earl of Falmouth and Charles MacCarthy More, earl of Muskerry [I] were killed by his side. Their deaths underlined the danger to York (and the succession) of active participation in battle, and the king refused to allow him to return to the fleet, replacing him with Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich.<sup>59</sup> In August York travelled north, in what effectively became a triumphal progress. The idea that York intended to raise an army in the north and to become its general probably dates to about this time.<sup>60</sup></p><p>The war put strains on York’s relationship with his father-in-law, who had been opposed to it.<sup>61</sup> York’s insistence on the promotion of his secretary, Sir William Coventry, to the Privy Council (he was admitted at the end of June) had caused a row; and after he returned to the court (based in Oxford because of the plague in London) from his northern trip in in mid-September he clashed with the chancellor over the grant of a viscountcy to Coventry’s nephew, Sir George Savile*, later marquess Halifax, who had treated him and the duchess on their journey. In October Clarendon found himself in a difficult position between York and his close political ally, the lord treasurer, the earl of Southampton, over the appointment to the position of the queen’s master of the horse.<sup>62</sup></p><p>York was present for the opening of Parliament in Oxford on 10 Oct. 1665. Thereafter he attended on nine of the fourteen days of the session and again held Carnarvon’s proxy. In his speech to both Houses at the beginning of the October 1665 session of Parliament, the chancellor told how the king had refused to allow York to return to command the fleet, and both Houses voted thanks on 10 and 11 Oct. to the king for his care of the duke’s person. On 24 Oct., the Commons voted an additional sum of £120,000 on top of the main supply bill, designed to be given to the duke. York was present in the Lords on 30 Oct. when, in alliance with the bishops, he ensured that the bill to prevent nonconformists from living in corporations (which would become the Five Mile Act) was passed without being re-committed.<sup>63</sup> His standing in Parliament was not however sufficient to convince the Commons that the peers should be exempted from the provisions of the bill to prevent the spread of the plague; despite his ‘vehement intercession’, backed up by ‘passionate letters’ from George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. The peers’ insistence on a proviso protecting their privileges resulted in the bill being lost at the end of the session.<sup>64</sup></p><p>York’s reputation had been considerably enhanced by his success at sea; now frustrated at being barred from further military service, rumours now suggested his ambition and greater assertiveness towards his brother. Towards the end of October 1665 Albemarle was reported to be resentful at a story that York was to be given command of an army in the north.<sup>65</sup> In November the royal brothers were said to have fallen out over their mutual infatuation with Frances Stewart (later duchess of Richmond) and York was said to have given leave to his servants to speak slightingly of the king in his presence, and to be ‘not so obsequious as he used to be’, threatening to take a command under the king of Spain unless he could be general of all the forces with Albemarle as his deputy.<sup>66</sup> Over the course of 1666 he argued with both Albemarle and Prince Rupert* over the appointment and dismissal of commanders, including the young Louis de Durfort Duras, marquis de Blanquefort (later Baron Duras and earl of Feversham), who was said to have ‘the same command over’ York as Coventry did; towards the end of the year his devotion to his mistress, Lady Denham, was seen as distracting him from navy business. <sup>67</sup><sup>68</sup></p><p>York did gain some credit from his intervention in fighting the Fire of London.<sup>69</sup> Present at the opening of the 1666-7 session two weeks after the fire on 18 Sept. 1666, he was absent from the House on only five occasions during the session. He held Carnarvon’s proxy from 24 Sept. to the end of the session and that of Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield) from 7 Jan. to 8 Feb. 1667.<sup>70</sup> He was named to the committee for privileges. Although there is no surviving evidence it is likely that he was involved in drawing up objections to the bill for preventing the importation of French commodities, since (as the Lords made clear to the Commons in the course of a conference) the proposed ban materially affected his income from wine licences.<sup>71</sup> On 29 Nov. he together with Clarendon secured a postponement of the case against the Canary Company in the face of opposition from George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham and Lucas.<sup>72</sup> On 22 Dec. 1666, three days after Buckingham and Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester had been sent to the Tower for quarrelling at a conference between the Houses, York presented Dorchester’s petition for release to the House. In the contentious issue of the Irish Cattle Bill he seems at first to have taken little part, even though he was himself a major Irish landowner and the bill was opposed by Clarendon’s ally Ormond . York’s allies Dorchester and Oxford were amongst those identified as supporters of the bill.<sup>73</sup> By 13 Nov. Edward Conway*, 3rd Visct. Conway (later earl of Conway), one of the leaders of the resistance to the bill, told Ormond that ‘The Duke of York begins to be more our friend, than he was at first, and to think himself a little concerned in it.’<sup>74</sup> Like a number of those opposed to the bill, when the king decided to abandon the court’s rejection of the inclusion of the word ‘nuisance’ in the bill, thereby making executive dispensation from it impossible, York abstained in the vote on 14 Jan. 1667, even though he had himself informed the court’s supporters in the House that his brother had commanded them to pass it.<sup>75</sup> In February York was named to the committee for the bill for rebuilding London. He also had some involvement in a claim for privilege by Gerard of Brandon, for which he is known to have drafted a motion which was not used.<sup>76</sup></p><p>The difficulties in which the government found itself after an exceptionally unsuccessful session, with supply agreed far too late to make it possible to raise credit for setting out the navy, no doubt contributed to growing tensions in the court. A week after the end of the session it was reported that York was openly quarrelling with Albemarle in council.<sup>77</sup> York had also become involved in a dispute over Irish lands with Ormond.<sup>78</sup> In June, the naval disaster in the Medway, the predictable result of the failure to set out a fleet in the summer, precipitated a huge political crisis, with the duke of Buckingham placing himself at the forefront of a demand for political reform and renewal. York, closely associated with the war and with Clarendon—who seemed to embody the current regime and its failures—and also, as heir, the beneficiary of the king’s childlessness, was one of the targets. In mid-June, as the court struggled to decide whether a recall of Parliament would help solve the crisis or just make it worse, it was said that York opposed it and proposed instead to raise an army to enforce royal rule.<sup>79</sup> In early July, it was rumoured that the king might declare that that he had been married before his contract with Catherine of Braganza (which, it was claimed, was not itself a valid marriage), which would rob York of his expectations of succession.<sup>80</sup> The death of both of York’s young sons in May and June were further blows.</p><p>Clarendon’s removal from the lord chancellorship at the end of August was the result of a confused and farcical process initiated by York’s secretary Sir William Coventry, and supported by York, who seems mistakenly to have believed that it was Clarendon’s wish, following the death of his wife in June, to retire from public life. Coventry told Pepys ‘that he did first speak of it to the duke of York, before he spoke to any mortal creature besides, which was fair dealing; and that the duke of York was then of the same mind with him and did speak of it to the king, though since, for reasons best known to himself, he was afterward altered’.<sup>81</sup> The king, happy to accept Clarendon’s resignation as a way of pre-empting the inevitable calls for investigation and retribution when Parliament was due to sit again in October, now insisted on it. When York realized both that he had mistaken his father-in-law’s wishes he took on Clarendon’s cause as ‘his own.’ He and his wife lobbied the king unsuccessfully in Clarendon’s favour.<sup>82</sup> Following Clarendon’s dismissal, both initially encouraged him to remain in London rather than leave for the country, arguing that his absence would strengthen his enemies.<sup>83</sup> The alliance between Clarendon and York was increasingly seen as a major problem by those determined to call the former chancellor to account: ‘people are working hard’ reported Ruvigny in the middle of September 1667 to separate York from Clarendon; Pepys again heard talk in mid-September of finding ways of ensuring York’s exclusion from the throne through the legitimation of the duke of Monmouth.<sup>84</sup> York may have had less personal concerns about the consequences of the parliamentary onslaught expected to follow Clarendon’s removal: he recorded a conversation with Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland at around this time in which he became concerned about Northumberland’s plans to complain about the existence of the king’s army. Clarendon, who told the king that he should not give in to parliamentary pressure, may have encouraged York in his anxieties for the maintenance of royal power.<sup>85</sup> York himself emphasized his continuing commitment to naval power, military glory and royal authority by naming his new-born son (baptised on 15 Sept.) Edgar after a legendary Anglo-Saxon king who ‘vanquished seven kings who were dominating this island; and having made it into one kingdom, every year he sailed around it with a thousand ships’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>York was present at the opening of the 1667-9 session of Parliament on 10 Oct. and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. Overall he was present on some 63 per cent of sitting days. He was at the House every sitting day in October. The king extracted from him a promise not to oppose the proposal for votes of thanks by both Houses for Clarendon’s removal, although he was said to have insisted that he would defend Clarendon ‘if the enemies of the chancellor pushed him too far.’<sup>87</sup> On 15 Oct. when the House returned thanks to the king for dismissing Clarendon, he (together with Burlington, Bridgwater and Peterborough) left the chamber.<sup>88</sup> On 23 Oct. he was said (unsuccessfully) to have opposed Buckingham’s motion that Parliament’s thanks recorded in the Journal.<sup>89</sup> With impeachment proceedings getting under way in the Commons, on 31 Oct. York incensed his brother, and Buckingham, by publicizing, via his new secretary (Clarendon’s former secretary, Matthew Wren, William Coventry having resigned from his service shortly after the chancellor’s dismissal) the king’s private assurance that Clarendon had never suggested abolishing Parliament in favour of military rule.<sup>90</sup></p><p>After attending the House on 6 Nov., however, York was taken ill with small pox. Although it proved in the end to be relatively minor illness, it took him out of the acrimonious debates over the impeachment of Clarendon over the next month.<sup>91</sup> Matthew Wren was involved in the proceedings in the Commons on the impeachment, and York himself ensured his vote counted by registering his proxy on 8 Nov. to his friend and ally Peterborough.<sup>92</sup> The proxy was vacated on his return to the house. He was later thankful for his illness, fearing that he might otherwise have been drawn into actions from which it would have been hard to recover and his realization of the strategic value of his absence may explain why he did not return to the House until after the long winter adjournment on 10 Feb. 1668, although he had recovered his health well before the end of November.<sup>93</sup> During November, with encouragement from Buckingham and Bristol, the crisis was brought much closer to York and his position. The king was reported in the middle of November to have said that ‘the quarrel is not between my Lord Chancellor and him, but his brother and him’ and to have shut York out of the cabinet council.<sup>94</sup> (When he was asked to provide information to the Commons relating to his command he sought the permission of the House of Lords to do so—more than a month after the original request on 9 Nov. 1667—on 12 Dec., but he sent Peterborough with the request rather than attending himself.<sup>95</sup>) Clarendon’s flight to France at the end of November brought to an end the immediate crisis, which had become a confrontation between the Lords and the Commons over whether the former chancellor should be committed to prison; but it did not end the whispering against York, suggesting to many that York and his ‘cabal’ were in close communication with the French.<sup>96</sup> The French did see York as supportive of their interests and their proposal for a formal alliance between England and France, as they did Buckingham, and their ambassador went out of his way to reconcile the two dukes; but Clarendon’s treatment by the French government became a subject of extreme sensitivity as they sought to reconcile York’s concern and Charles II’s hostility towards him.<sup>97</sup></p><h2><em>After Clarendon: Conversion and the Dutch War, 1668-72</em></h2><p>In the aftermath of Clarendon’s departure, a purge of his supporters was expected. The French ambassadors were convinced that Arlington, working in the Spanish interest, was stoking up Charles’s hostility to his brother, ensuring that he was excluded from negotiations with the Spanish and Dutch and that York faced a concerted campaign to remove him from office. The rumours that either the duke of Monmouth or the king would be persuaded to divorce and remarry became more insistent in January and February, and the idea of cool relations between the king and York persisted, the king being said to be afraid of York ‘yet neglects and incenses him’.<sup>98</sup> In January 1668 York seems to have been determined to assert himself once more in the navy, telling Pepys and others of his disapproval at the officer appointments that Albemarle and Prince Rupert had made, and his plans to tell the king to let him take personal command of the fleet again: to ‘desire the King to let him be what he is, that is, admiral’.<sup>99</sup></p><p>York returned to the House on 10 Feb. 1668 to hear his brother’s announcement of the new treaty. Said to be concerned over the continuing Commons’ investigations into the war and the navy, York was present on all but two of the remaining days of the session and contrary to expectation found himself, unlike Buckingham, relatively popular and respected: ‘the duke of York’ reported Ruvigny at the beginning of March, ‘sits well.’<sup>100</sup> He again held Carnarvon’s proxy, from 21 Feb. to the end of the session; and from 24 Feb. he held Ossory’s proxy.<sup>101</sup> On 21 Feb. 1668 he was added to the committee to consider trade. Burlington wrote in his diary about a conversation with York during the debates on comprehension in March which revealed that the two men shared common beliefs on the subject, though not, unfortunately, what they were. (It was in April 1669, almost certainly after his conversion, that York talked to the French ambassador of his support for an alliance between the Church of England and the Catholics and his suspicion of the attempt to secure the backing of the ‘Presbyterians and sectaries’: whether York would have been quite so pro-Catholic in early 1668 is uncertain.)<sup>102</sup></p><p>The crisis in the relationship between York and his brother seems to have passed by early April, perhaps as it became clear that Buckingham’s offer to manage Parliament was unreliable; York’s assiduous performance of his naval functions seems also to have attracted some admiration, and perhaps won support. Even Arlington ‘who until now had insolently crossed him in all things’, was said to have come to see him to ask his pardon; and Lady Castlemaine went out of her way to make friends with the duchess. The French ambassador Ruvigny reported that ‘the duke is reassuming his rightful place’.<sup>103</sup> Given the widespread dismay caused by the king’s pardoning of Buckingham for his part in the fatal duel against Shrewsbury, it is possible that when on 6 Apr. York presented a bill to the House of Lords against duelling and communicated the king’s declaration that he would not in future pardon duellers, some message was being sent both about the king’s closeness to York and his disapprobation of Buckingham’s activities. Ruvigny noted with approval a few days later that York’s ‘court is increasing from day to day and his credit has grown’.<sup>104</sup> York may not have been concerned by the expulsion from the House of Commons on 21 Apr., of his former groom of the bedchamber, Henry Brouncker<sup>‡</sup>, whom he had dismissed the previous year because of his support for the attack on Clarendon, and who was seen as the person responsible for the failure to follow up the victory at Lowestoft in 1665. York was more concerned for the fate of William Penn<sup>‡</sup>, as he suggested to Pepys at a meeting on 23 Apr. when he told him of the introduction of the impeachment against him that day in the Lords.<sup>105</sup> York’s letters to the corporation of New Romney failed to secure the election of his close friend Louis de Duras, later 2nd earl of Feversham, as a replacement for Brouncker; Sir Charles Sedley was elected instead.<sup>106</sup> York was present at the conference on 8 May with the Commons on the subject of <em>Skinner v. The East India Company</em>.<sup>107</sup> The following day he reported from the committee on the bill for monies due to the crown. The committee minute book indicates that he also chaired the committee considering the bill for rebuilding the City of London, although the list of committee members in the Journal does not include his name. The bill was lost with the ending of the session.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Despite the apparent recovery in York’s position over the first half of 1668, he seems to have been acutely aware of the threats to his position, particularly as the duke of Buckingham recovered some of his favour with the king in the second half of the year. He was keen over the summer of 1668 to ‘do something’ about miscarriages in the navy office, in order, Pepys thought, to secure his position, because ‘the world is labouring to eclipse him’.<sup>109</sup> One of Charles II’s attempts to bring about a reconciliation with Buckingham in September 1668 rapidly collapsed.<sup>110</sup> In October James was forced to accept the king’s dismissal of Arthur Annesley* earl of Anglesey as treasurer of the navy and his replacement by Sir Thomas Osborne* (later earl of Danby and duke of Leeds) and Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>. Pepys had no doubt that the instigators of the change were Buckingham and Arlington who thought that any strengthening of York’s position threatened their own; and that they aimed at his removal from his post.<sup>111</sup> In early November, rumours were rife of James’s imminent replacement at the admiralty by a commission.<sup>112</sup> In mid-December it was said that York was one of the enemies to whose confusion a toast was drunk at Arlington’s house December 1668, while York himself rebuffed overtures from Buckingham.<sup>113</sup> A week later a newsletter reported that the king had repudiated any intention of displacing York from the succession, that all differences at court had been reconciled and that what was described as the chancellor’s party had promised ‘to lay his [the chancellor’s] interest aside and mention it no more’, though the writer confessed that it was impossible to give an accurate account of what was going on, as everything changed from day to day.<sup>114</sup></p><p>The attempt at a reconciliation probably coincided with the beginnings of discussions between the duke and his brother over the Catholic religion, recorded by James himself in the surviving part of his memoir: it suggests that James had determined on becoming a Catholic through a series of discussions with the Jesuit, Joseph Simons; that he had been told that it was not possible for him to be received into the Catholic Church but still attend Anglican communion (even with the pope’s dispensation); that he had established that Charles was also interested in conversion; and that at an extraordinary meeting on 25 January 1669 with Arlington, Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, and Sir Thomas Clifford, later Baron Clifford, at York’s apartments, Charles discussed how it might be possible for him to declare his own conversion, and concluded that it would only be done in alliance with France.<sup>115</sup> From this discussion Buckingham was, naturally, excluded, and the effect was in some way to strengthen James’s relationship with the king; though York’s enthusiasm for the conversion policy seems to have been inconvenient for Charles’s tortuous diplomacy over the following year, and the extent to which he was actually involved in the protracted negotiations with the French is uncertain. The conversion plan also added a new layer of complexity to the competition of the factions over the winter of 1668-9 and the spring of 1669.</p><p>The issues around which the competition was immediately focused were Parliament and religious policy. While Buckingham argued for a dissolution of the existing Parliament and the calling of a new one, York took the contrary view.<sup>116</sup> The issue was partly behind his discussion with Colbert in the middle of March about religious policy, arguing that the king’s best interests would be served by relying on an alliance between the Church of England and the Catholics, whom he took to be the largest and most powerful religious groups, and so loyal that ‘it would be prudent and politic to support them as far as possible, and suppress the others’. He was also convinced that keeping the existing Parliament would assist negotiations for an alliance with France.<sup>117</sup> A series of arguments and slights over the spring and summer entrenched the hostility between Buckingham and York, including Buckingham’s deliberate insult to Sir William Coventry, and Coventry’s challenge to the duke in March, in which York took Coventry’s part; Buckingham’s continued advocacy of a royal divorce; and an argument over the use of the king’s horses by the duchess of York (Buckingham was master of the horse).<sup>118</sup> In July York argued openly with Buckingham at a meeting of the Privy Council. York opposed toleration, demanded the enforcement of laws against Dissenters and virtually accused Buckingham of being in league with sectarian plotters. Buckingham’s response enraged York still further and the king had to intervene to preserve the peace. He later rebuked York and forced the two men to reconcile. Buckingham was the more anxious to reconcile because:</p><blockquote><p>Milord Arlington, with whom he is not on the best of terms at the moment, is doing all he can to outdo him and get in with the duke of York; and while this prince protests that he would rather lay down his life than make use of the power he has in Parliament to ruin those who have the greatest part in the running of affairs, nevertheless, as it appears that the credit he has among those who compose the assembly is growing every day, these ministers can well see that his friendship is not to be neglected in view of the decision the king seems to have taken not to dissolve Parliament.</p></blockquote><p>The king’s decision to retain the existing Parliament and to issue a proclamation against conventicles both represented victories for York and his allies over Buckingham.<sup>119</sup></p><p>Over the late summer, the improvement in the relationship between the royal brothers was consolidated. They spent some time together hunting in Epping Forest.<sup>120</sup> York and his wife were also said to be on terms of ‘intimacy and friendship’ with Lady Castlemaine, who, both the French ambassador and John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt concluded, was having a helpful impact on York’s relations with the king. Colbert concluded in early August that ‘it is no longer to be doubted that from now on the duke of York will have a great part in the most important of affairs.’ York told him of his support for the project of a treaty between England and France, though he acknowledged that</p><blockquote><p>we could conclude nothing until the assembly of Parliament was finished because, he said, the people of England, who do not care for novelty in religion, would not fail to declaim against this alliance, and Parliament would be of the same sentiment, and would refuse the king the means of paying his debts, and of executing the treaty he would have made; instead of which, if one were to wait until it were finished, one would have plenty of time before it reassembled to give them a taste of this alliance, and even let them appreciate its advantages.<sup>121</sup></p></blockquote><p>The death of the queen mother in France at the end of August may have had some effect in cementing the new relationship between the king and his brother. In September York told his sister that the king was ‘much kinder’ to him than he used to be and in October Colbert reported that Arlington had begun to work closely with York, and that York ‘sits better than ever with the king, and still promises to bring about a close union between France and England.’<sup>122</sup></p><p>When Parliament met in October, the strategy that York outlined to Colbert over the summer appears to have been followed closely. York was present at the opening of Parliament on 19 Oct. 1669 when he was named to the committee for privileges, and he was present on all but the final day of the session. On 25 Oct. his name was added to all committees including those not yet formed. He held Darcy’s proxy from 20 Oct. as well as that of Leicester Devereux*, 6th Viscount Hereford (from 22 Nov.) for the remainder of the session.<sup>123</sup> When, early in the session, Anglesey rose to speak of the danger to England posed by France, York was said (by the French) to have contained his anger and his tongue with difficulty.<sup>124</sup> York seems to have been closely concerned in the business of the session: Colbert reported that he was always present at the meeting of the committee to draw up a bill on the jurisdiction of the House, the issue that had been so disruptive to the business of the previous session; he was responsible at least in part for the ‘sweeteners’ that were inserted in it in an attempt to defuse the dispute over <em>Skinner v. the East India Co</em>.; and Colbert reported that when the bill was rejected by the commons, York ‘hoped no more would be heard of it.’<sup>125</sup> In November he clashed with Buckingham over the latter’s proposal for the abolition of the court of the lord steward (no doubt a move against the duke of Ormond, who held the position) in favour of trial by the whole House. The principal speaker against the proposition was Viscount Halifax (as Sir George Savile had since become), whom York supported ‘vigorously’: after ‘a great contestation’ with Buckingham the House followed their lead and voted for the retention of the court.<sup>126</sup> The jurisdictional disputes, as well as the renewed outbreak of factional warfare in the Commons resulting in the attempted impeachment of Orrery, wrecked the session sufficiently for the king to decide on a prorogation, urged to do so, apparently, by York.</p><p>York was again present at the opening of the 1670-1 session (which was adjourned between April and October 1670) on 14 Feb. 1670, and attended for every sitting day until the adjournment on 11 Apr. 1670. He again held Darcy’s proxy for the whole of the session as well as that of Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), from 15 Mar. to 9 Nov. 1670 and again from 19 Dec. 1670 to the end of the session. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions, and to the committee for the bill to prevent frauds in the exportation of wool and then on 8 Mar. 1670 was added to all committees; once again the term ‘all committees’ included those yet to be formed. Despite this rubric he was specifically named to the committee considering the bill initiated by the king on the sale of fee farm rents on 18 March. On the same day he reported from the committee considering the bill to remove benefit of clergy from those convicted of stealing cloth from the rack or stealing from the king’s stores. The success of the session in damping down the jurisdictional disputes of the previous two owed something to a firm assertion of his authority by the king and his decision to allow the conventicle bill to proceed. During March the two major political issues confronting the House of Lords were the divorce bill for Lord Roos (John Manners*, later duke of Rutland) and the conventicle bill. Although the king insisted that he supported Roos’s bill only because ‘he is happy to oblige all persons of quality who are his kinsmen or in his interests’ the duke of Buckingham in particular was keen to promote the idea that it had implications for the king’s own marriage. York and the queen were said to be working together to oppose the bill.<sup>127</sup> York not only voted against it but entered protests when it passed its second and third readings on 17 and 28 Mar. respectively. Colbert, the French ambassador, thought his opposition was unwise, and gave others the opportunity to claim that he was trying to protect his own position as heir to the crown.<sup>128</sup> York was also concerned with a rather more prosaic issue, the admiralty bill, and chaired a session of the committee considering it on 18 March.<sup>129</sup> York does not seem particularly to have been involved in the debates over the conventicle bill, perhaps because the king’s own presence in the House from 21 Mar. coincided with debates in committee of the whole House on the subject and York’s personal intervention less necessary. </p><p>Immediately after the adjournment of 11 Apr. 1670 York went with his brother and most of the court to Newmarket. In May they went to Dover to meet their sister, the duchess of Orleans at Dover, where the Secret Treaty of Dover, committing Charles to making his conversion to Catholicism and allying with the French in war against the Dutch republic, was signed on 22 May.<sup>130</sup> In mid-July, shortly after his sister’s death, York’s health broke down and necessitated his withdrawal to the country. Some thought he would not recover.<sup>131</sup> It is perhaps not a coincidence that it was in August that the duchess wrote a note explaining her own movement towards conversion to Rome, which the duke would publish much later, after he was king. It is perhaps from around this time, or shortly afterwards, that the gossip began about James’s own commitment to Protestantism. By 26 Dec. that year her brother, Clarendon’s son and heir Viscount Cornbury, wrote a deeply alarmed letter to the York underlining that the rumours ‘do not only prejudice her, but reflect upon your Highness, by men’s believing that she never does anything without your knowledge, and therefore that you must needs be privy, at least, to all her intentions, what further inferences they draw, your Highness may imagine’.<sup>132</sup></p><p>James had recovered sufficiently to attend Parliament when it reconvened on 24 Oct. and he was then present on some 85 per cent of sitting days up to the end of the session in April 1671. On 23 Jan. 1671 he invoked privilege of Parliament to secure the arrest of George Thompson and his accomplices for arresting William Foakes in a dispute over oyster beds in which York claimed ownership. In the spring of 1671 he was present for all three readings of the bill to explain a proviso in the act that had settled the profits of the post office on him; he appears to have taken no part in the activities of the committee considering the bill other than to signify his consent to its provisions.<sup>133</sup> The death of the duchess of York on the last day of March 1671 confirmed the speculation about her conversion.<sup>134</sup> For the House of Lords grief, if any, was less important than their concern over questions of status. On 4 Apr., the day before the funeral, they declared that they would attend in a body ‘according to their places in this House’ and that ‘no foreign nobility shall interpose’. On 20 Apr. York informed the House of his brother’s intention to prorogue Parliament on the following Saturday. </p><p>Despite the relative success of the 1671 session, early in July York told the French ambassador that the king should be ‘very wary’ of calling Parliament together again, adding ‘that affairs are at present here in such a situation as to make one believe that a king and a Parliament can no longer live together’.<sup>135</sup> He may have found particularly troubling the revival of concern about catholicism, resulting in a petition against the growth of popery initiated by the Commons and finally agreed by the Lords on 10 Mar. and a bill against the growth of popery.<sup>136</sup> York was again ill during the summer of 1671.<sup>137</sup> Almost as soon as he had recovered it was rumoured that he was again contemplating marriage. The widow of Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, was suggested, as her extensive kinship network ‘could be more useful to him on occasion than a foreign alliance’ but the match seems to have been prevented by the ‘implacable hatred’ of the countess of Castlemaine, now duchess of Cleveland.<sup>138</sup> In September it was reported that York had ‘submitted his fancy and liberty in the choice of a wife’ to the king.<sup>139</sup> Charles II vetoed a suggested marriage to Falmouth’s widow, with whom York ‘was very much in love’ and then agreed to a marriage to the Archduchess Claudia Felicitas of Innsbruck. Although Colbert reported that Charles II had agreed to the marriage at his brother’s desire, he told the king that the union would ‘greatly facilitate the negotiation he needed to effect to dispose Spain to neutrality in the war which your majesty and he were to wage on the Dutch.’ Charles II also made it clear that negotiations would be broken off if the Spanish asked for any condition prejudicial to the interests of Louis XIV.<sup>140</sup></p><p>The major preoccupation of 1671, however, were the negotiations with France about their joint assault on the Dutch republic. Over the year, York had to recognize that Charles II’s enthusiasm for the secret Treaty of Dover ‘Catholicity’ project had cooled considerably since January 1669 and was considerably less than his own: the project had become much more focused on an aggressive war against the Dutch. Diplomatic and military planning for it continued throughout 1671 and into early 1672, naturally involving York as lord admiral; and his naval role dominated once the war began in March 1672.</p><h2><em>The Second Dutch War, 1672-4</em></h2><p>York participated in the discussions in the foreign affairs committee on the Declaration of Indulgence: at a meeting at Lord Arlington’s lodgings on 7 Mar. which discussed how best to give effect to the Declaration, he spoke (with Arlington) in favour of a cautious approach to the question of ‘regulation’ of the religious groupings freed by the Indulgence.<sup>141</sup> His conversion was by now generally assumed, and linked to the war. James took personal command of the navy again at the beginning of the 1672 naval campaign. In April, it was noted that York’s ‘retreat onto the ships’ at Easter (when he joined the fleet) was being interpreted as ‘a formal renunciation of the Protestant communion’; the French ambassadors had noticed even Baptist May<sup>‡</sup>, a former servant of the duke and now a member of the royal household commenting that the war was ‘only being undertaken for the downfall of the Protestant religion’. They worried even more about York’s ‘inflexible zeal’ and his determination that his brother should declare his conversion.<sup>142</sup> He was, Colbert wrote in September, ‘passionately’ opposed to any delay, ‘his zeal making him blindly put reasons of religion before those of state’.<sup>143</sup></p><p>The naval campaign of 1672 was indecisive, with a bloody engagement at Sole Bay in late May leading to recriminations between the allies, and failing to enhance York’s reputation. York’s marriage was a preoccupation over the winter of 1672-3, as it was becoming clear that negotiations for York’s Austrian marriage were getting nowhere (the archduchess would in the end be married to the Emperor Leopold I).<sup>144</sup> Of greater immediate significance was Parliament, and raising money for a continuation of the war: over the winter of 1672-3 York participated in the discussions in the foreign affairs committee in preparation for the forthcoming session of Parliament, postponed from October to February.<sup>145</sup> Added to the committees for privileges and petitions, York was present every day of the session. The proxy book records that he held the proxy of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon from 11 Feb. 1673 until the end of the session on 20 Oct. 1673, but technically this should have been invalidated when Huntingdon took his seat on 15 Feb. 1673.<sup>146</sup> York also held the proxy of Conyers Darcy*, 5th Baron Darcy from 1 Feb. 1673 until the end of the session. Huntingdon’s agent in London, Benjamin Woodroffe, who seems to have been confused about the arrangements for making proxies by black rod, was told by the duke that York had refused to Carnarvon&rquos;s proxy in order to receive Huntingdon’s.<sup>147</sup> On 10 Feb. the Commons voted in effect to reject the Declaration of Indulgence and the claim that the crown had the right to suspend statutes on matters ecclesiastical. In the debate two days later in the committee on foreign affairs, York, along with Shaftesbury, supported the idea that the Commons should be encouraged to seek the Lords’ concurrence in their vote, in the knowledge that the Lords would not agree with them; it was also hoped that the Commons might agree to the drafting of a bill to achieve the same ends as the declaration. York does not appear to have contributed to the discussions in the committee following the rejection by the Commons on 14 Feb. of the proposal to seek the concurrence of the House of Lords was rejected by the Commons, but was clearly closely involved in the strategy of confrontation with the Commons reflected in the king’s approach to the House of Lords on 1 Mar. seeking their advice on the addresses he had received from the Commons.<sup>148</sup> York’s presence in the chamber along with the king on 4 Mar. may have helped to secure the acceptance of a motion that the king’s proposal for a bill of indulgence was an appropriate way to proceed, and on the following day, York was named to the committee to prepare a bill of advice to the king (although this very large committee probably contained everyone in the House at the time).<sup>149</sup> On the 3rd, however, the Commons had agreed an address to the king requesting that all officers and soldiers be required to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, to which the Lords agreed, and on the 5th they gave a first reading to a bill to prevent the growth of popery, which would become the Test Act. The king’s acceptance of the address against the growth of popery and his cancellation of the Declaration of Indulgence on 8 Mar. signalled a major climb-down; York, according to the Venetian ambassador, had vehemently opposed it, attempting to persuade the king to dissolve Parliament instead.<sup>150</sup> Attention then focussed on the Test bill (the bill for preventing the dangers which may happen by popish recusants), which was brought up to the Lords on 13 Mar., given a second reading on the 14th, and occupied the House’s attention for much of the following week. York is not known to have personally intervened in the debates on the bill themselves, although it was said that it was at his instance that an attempt was made to exempt several catholics by name as well as servants of the various royal households.<sup>151</sup> But in the arguments that went on at court over it, in which it was seen as the price of finally clinching supply, he was said to have opposed it bitterly, complained about the king’s weakness, and encouraged Clifford in his extraordinary attack on the bill on 20 March. The French ambassador wrote to the duke to persuade him not to oppose the bill.<sup>152</sup> It passed, and Parliament was prorogued on 29 March.</p><p>Even at this stage the question of York’s religion was a matter of rumour rather than open knowledge: his reaction to the passage of the Test Act was uncertain, and since a considerable period was allowed for taking the oaths and making the declaration required to hold office under the act, it remained uncertain for some time. Nevertheless, the French ambassador, at least, was in no doubt of the popular fury that was brewing against York, and the determination among a number of senior politicians, including Shaftesbury, to persuade the king to find some way to remarry and father legitimate children in order to exclude James from the throne.<sup>153</sup> In April it was noted that he again did not take the sacrament with his brother on Easter Day 1673.<sup>154</sup> In mid-May it was still expected that he take command as ‘generalissimo’ of the armed forces.<sup>155</sup> The row over popery in the session also became a factor in James’s search for a new marriage: the proposed match to the archduchess of Innsbruck having fallen through, discussions continued with the French ambassador as to an alternative, with Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, conducting a search through Europe on York’s behalf. At one point in May it was even rumoured that he was to take a Protestant bride, Lady Susan Belasyse (he had promised her marriage shortly after the death of his first wife, but this idea had been squashed then by the king).<sup>156</sup> It was by then almost certain that Clifford would resign the Lord Treasurership and that ‘a much greater person than he’ would also resign his offices.<sup>157</sup> The royal brothers seem to have expected York to take command of an expeditionary force into the Netherlands on the grounds that the Test Act did not apply outside England, but Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury refused to put the great seal to the patent with the result that ‘it is certain the duke can have no new commission... and so his expedition is blown up.’ (The king seems to have been keen on the idea in order to get York out of the way before the next parliamentary session.)<sup>158</sup> On 15 June York resigned all his offices. He was replaced in his command of the navy by Prince Rupert although in practice he continued to wield influence (a source of evident tension between the two of them thereafter).<sup>159</sup> He continued to attend meetings of the Privy Council, and he was still closely involved in political discussions with the king. Nevertheless, his political power and influence had received a severe blow; and his status as the king’s heir and a now confirmed Catholic was now one of the major political issues faced by the king, widely expected to bring about a new storm in the session of Parliament scheduled to sit on 20 October.</p><p>With it deemed essential for York’s marriage to a Catholic to be concluded before Parliament met, he and the king settled in late July on Maria Beatrice d’Este, daughter of the duke of Modena, within the sphere of influence of the king of France.<sup>160</sup> News of his choice was current in London within days of the decision, and considerable efforts were made to change minds before the formalities were completed (by the earl of Peterborough, by proxy in Italy on 20 Sept., and despite numerous difficulties placed in the way by the pope in particular).<sup>161</sup> It was known that they had been by the time the new session began. The king complained to the French ambassador that York was the author of all of the difficulties that he anticipated during the session, and Arlington told him that he was braced for a violent reaction against the duke.<sup>162</sup> At some point, though it is not clear whether it was before or after the opening of the session, an attempt was made to persuade York to leave the country.<sup>163</sup></p><p>York was still present for the opening of the new session on 20 October, when the king imposed a further prorogation for a week, with the intention that the new duchess should have arrived in England and the marriage consummated before Parliament sat. The Commons, nevertheless, succeeded in using the time taken in the Lords for the introduction of new peers at the beginning of the session, to pass an address requesting that the marriage should not be consummated and that York should only marry a Protestant. Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury was generally assumed to have ensured sufficient time was taken up with routine business in the Lords for the Commons to pass their vote.<sup>164</sup> Over the further prorogation there was some unrealistic speculation that the king would decide against allowing the marriage to be finalized (even the French ambassador seems to have been nervous on this account); Anglican divines were still hopeful that York could be brought back to the Church of England through the intervention and teachings of George Morley*, bishop of Winchester and Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford.<sup>165</sup> When the Lords sat again on 27 Oct. York was added to the committees for privileges and petitions. The king’s response to the address of the Commons of 20 Oct. told them, rather baldly, that the marriage had been completed ‘according to the forms used among princes’. It resulted in a vote for a further address from the lower House, carried on a division in which York’s associates Sir Allen Apsley and Francis Hawley<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Hawley [I] were tellers for the minority. The text of the address was agreed the following day, and presented on 3 November. On the following day, the king prorogued Parliament again until January.</p><p>Over the interim, the court’s policy showed the influence of Viscount Latimer (as Osborne had since become), the protégé of Buckingham, whose appointment as Lord Treasurer on Clifford’s resignation in June York had supported.<sup>166</sup> The dismissal of Shaftesbury as Lord Chancellor, on 9 Nov. was very much in line with York’s wishes, something he had been pressing for for some time.<sup>167</sup> Latimer, emerging as chief minister, rapidly eclipsing a demoralized Arlington, was faced with the related problems of the reaction to York’s religion (to emphasize which, it was noted that no bonfires were lit to celebrate the eventual arrival in London on 24 Nov. of the new duchess of York) and the need to extricate England from the war with the United Provinces, given that there was little chance of securing parliamentary support.<sup>168</sup> Perhaps to balance the effect of the new duchess’s arrival, prosecutions of Catholics were stepped up in late November, and in December more formal measures were taken to enforce the laws against them.<sup>169</sup> On Christmas day, James appeared at the chapel royal, but left after the sermon, without taking communion.<sup>170</sup></p><p>The new session opened on 7 Jan. 1674. York, who was present on every sitting day, held Dorchester’s proxy from 16 Feb. for the remainder of the session. He was again added to the committees for privileges and petitions. On 8 Jan. he, Northampton and Arthur Anglesey*, earl of Anglesey were the only peers to vote against a motion initiated by Shaftesbury for an address to the crown for a fresh proclamation against papists: even the Catholic peers recognized the need to assuage anti-catholic opinion and voted in favour of the address. York seems to have been taken aback by the continued hostility to him in Parliament, having (he told the French ambassador, Ruvigny) relied on assurances from Arlington and Ormond that it had declined.<sup>171</sup> On 14 Jan. the House revived the practice of taking the oath of allegiance prescribed under the statute of 3 James I. York took the oath, albeit with a protestation not recorded in the Journal that he ought to be exempt as heir apparent. Shaftesbury (as Ashley had since become) and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, soon disabused him, pointing out that he was ‘but heir presumptive, for the King might have a child’ and citing the precedent of York’s uncle, Prince Henry, who had taken the oath despite being heir apparent. Another account of the same incident adds that Shaftesbury also insisted that York should take his place on the duke’s bench rather than in the chair to the King’s left which he usually occupied, since that place was reserved for a Prince of Wales.<sup>172</sup> It may well have been a garbled account of the taking of this oath that led to a false report that York had taken the sacrament.<sup>173</sup> On the same day (14 Jan.) York heard the king’s announcement of his compliance with the address concerning Catholics. York seems have responded in a long meeting with the king and the lord treasurer, complaining bitterly about Parliament, and he laid out to Ambassador Ruvigny his intelligence of the cabals of Shaftesbury, Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, James Cecil*, Salisbury, Thomas Belasyse*, Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg and others at Holles’s house: he told the ambassador that he determined to break up Parliament ‘in good time’.<sup>174</sup> Shortly after these meetings, in a debate on securing the Protestant religion on 24 Jan., York had to listen to the proposal of Salisbury, backed by Carlisle, that he be compelled to bring up his children as Protestants, and to a second motion by his former protégé, Halifax, proposing the disarming of all Catholic recusants.<sup>175</sup> On 10 Feb., during the further proceedings in committee of the whole House on another proposal made on 24 Jan., that a prince of the blood should not be entitled to marry a Roman Catholic without parliamentary consent, Carlisle proposed that any such prince who did would be excluded from the throne. Backed by Halifax and by Shaftesbury, the proposal was described as a ‘horrid notion’ by York’s associate Peterborough and attacked by the bishops. York told the French ambassador again shortly afterwards that it was essential that Parliament be dismissed.<sup>176</sup> The bill for the better securing the Protestant religion received its first reading in the Lords on 21 February. The fears of the consequences of the accession of the duke of York were also the background to a series of attempts in the Commons to introduce measures that would remove Catholics from the Lords, and restrict the powers of the crown to dismiss judges.<sup>177</sup> The introduction of the bill for securing the Protestant religion and rumours that Shaftesbury and Carlisle intended to propose the disbanding of the duke of York’s regiment were two of the many reasons contributing to the decision to prorogue Parliament on 24 Feb., though it was facilitated by the ratification of the Treaty of Westminster, confirming England’s exit from the continental war.<sup>178</sup></p><h2><em>Between Danby and the Country Party, 1674-8</em></h2><p>The Treaty opened the possibility of the marriage of York’s eldest daughter and heir, Mary, to Prince William of Orange, something mooted by the lord treasurer and the lord keeper in April, but York resisted, discussing with the French ambassador a match with the dauphin instead.<sup>179</sup> Always nervous of the king’s commitment to him, he was concerned to hear in late April of a meeting between Carlisle and the king: though the king had talked about a further prorogation, his announcement (to quell speculation) that he intended to let Parliament sit in November, the date to which it was prorogued, was very unwelcome to the duke.<sup>180</sup> York was approached through the physician Sir John Baber in July by a group of nonconformists seeking his support for the dissolution of Parliament, though he seems not at that point to have done much to encourage them.<sup>181</sup> Edward Colman, whom York had appointed to be secretary to the duchess in 1673, was in correspondence by the end of June 1674 with the confessor of Louis XIV, in which he outlined York’s intention to achieve a dissolution of Parliament and its replacement with a new one, fearing that a new session would lead to further attacks on Catholics and to demands for an anti-catholic alliance with the Dutch against the French. He was as concerned about the ‘furious Protestants and… malcontents’ in the upper House, as much as about the Commons. Colman’s first letter suggested that the French king might offer interim financial support to Charles II to adopt this policy.<sup>182</sup> The extent to which York knew of the details of Colman’s exchanges with the French and of his attempts to persuade Louis XIV to ‘offer his purse’ to the king is not clear. York wrote in his memoir that he had cautioned Colman on his activities, but the views expressed, including condemnations of the king’s ‘weakness’ and complaints about the continuing uncertainty of his commitment to York, were clearly close to York’s own, one of the letters appears to indicate that the correspondence was carried on with York’s knowledge and approval and it seems likely that Colman was authorized to declare ‘that money is the only means of bringing the king into the duke’s interest and of disengaging him from the Parliament’.<sup>183</sup> Ruvigny also reported in early August that York was discussing with him a payment from Louis in return for a further prorogation of Parliament, and referred to the apparent concert between York, the lord treasurer (who had in June been promoted to be earl of Danby) and the duke of Lauderdale, at least in their suspicion of the activities of the earl of Arlington, and in finally persuading the king to postpone the meeting of Parliament to the new year.<sup>184</sup> York was extremely agitated by Arlington’s efforts in November to negotiate the marriage of Princess Mary to Prince William, an agitation fully shared by Arlington’s rivals, Lauderdale and Danby. However, over the winter of 1674-5 Danby and York went in separate directions as Danby developed his strategy of seeking an alliance with the bishops against nonconformists and Catholics as a means of conciliating the Cavalier Parliament. Lauderdale seems to have encouraged York to cultivate his contacts with the Presbyterians, and James did, indeed, show some greater interest than before in protecting Protestant Dissenters and supporting demands for religious liberty, though Lauderdale too became identified with the Anglican turn of Danby’s policy in late 1674 and early 1675.<sup>185</sup></p><p>Plans to forge an alliance with some of his enemies in the previous session, based around religious liberty, may have been the point behind Mordaunt’s visit (who was now expecting the reversion to a place as gentleman of the bedchamber to the duke) to Shaftesbury at his home in Dorset in January 1675, in advance of the expected meeting of Parliament: contemporaries were confused as to whether Mordaunt was acting for the king, for York or on behalf of an independent grouping of peers, and the origins of it certainly seem to have been complex, but did involve York.<sup>186</sup> This may have been linked to York’s continued interest in the dissolution of the existing Parliament, which he discussed with the French ambassador in the middle of January.<sup>187</sup> Meanwhile, Danby was further developing his policy of making the existing Parliament more amenable: over January he and his allies came to an agreement with the bishops on a policy of the suppression of both Catholics and court and elsewhere and of Protestant nonconformity. When this was promulgated as a new policy in early February it seems to have infuriated York, against Danby and Lauderdale in particular.<sup>188</sup> At the end of March the French ambassador found himself attempting to argue York out of a plan to use the forthcoming session of Parliament to undermine and destroy his new enemies and to achieve popularity that way.<sup>189</sup> There were said to have been contacts between York and Shaftesbury and others of his confederates.<sup>190</sup></p><p>York was present on 13 Apr. 1675, when Parliament opened, and on every day of the session thereafter. He was, as usual, nominated to the committees for privileges and petitions. He again held Darcy’s proxy from 1 Apr. 1675 to the end of the session. Despite his opposition to Danby’s scheme, he intervened in the debate over the king’s speech on the first day to oppose Shaftesbury’s efforts to appeal for allies among the Catholics in the House. Shaftesbury had said that there were elements of the speech on religion which many in the House had no reason to like; York argued sophistically that what the king had said did not imply persecution, and was said to have thereby ensured that all but one of the Catholic peers supported the vote of thanks. It was said in a newsletter that the duke could have courted popularity and become the patron of nonconformists, but chose instead duty to the king his brother, and effectively lost his opportunity to forge an alliance with the Presbyterian opposition against Danby.<sup>191</sup> During the lengthy debates in committee of the whole House on the test bill proposed by Danby York continued to loyally support the line decided on by the king, although he supported the unsuccessful amendment to the oath proposed by Charles North*, Baron Grey of Rolleston (later 5th Baron North) which would have qualified the prohibition against endeavouring to change the government by adding the words ‘by force or fraud’.<sup>192</sup> When in the debate on 30 Apr. he proposed that the House pass a standing order that no other test should ever be introduced to the prejudice of any peer’s right to sit in Parliament, it was greeted with ‘great content and applause’. York’s purpose appears however to have been to remove from the Catholic peers the threat of a further test aimed at them from being brought forward in a future session, and thus facilitating the passage of the bill.<sup>193</sup> The effective manipulation of the <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> privilege case to hold up business put an end to the session with a prorogation on 9 June.</p><p>During the course of the session, York’s hostility to Danby had intensified, particularly as, as the French ambassador reported about a week after its end, the king was relying much more on the treasurer, and consulted his own brother much less frequently than before.<sup>194</sup> Following the session, York and his circle seem initially to have been keen, as before, on securing a dissolution and even negotiating with Shaftesbury.<sup>195</sup> Within a few months, however, their focus had shifted to working with the existing Parliament. Colman wrote to a new French correspondent at the end of Sept. outlining plans for a new session of Parliament, based on forming a coalition with non-conformists and ministerial opponents in order to restore York to his offices and to make him ‘much greater than ever’ by providing a convincing demonstration to the king that parliamentary opposition did not arise from ‘any aversion … to his R[oyal] H[ighness]’s person, or apprehension they had of him or his religion; but from faction and ambition in some and from a real dissatisfaction in others’. The scheme would also be aimed at achieving religious toleration. Colman wrote that he thought that it would have been possible in the previous session to obtain a parliamentary address to the crown demanding that York be restored to the office of High Admiral, but York, who had been willing to give it a try, had been persuaded against it.<sup>196</sup> Colman explained that simply to dissolve Parliament would not meet the interests of either York or of his French allies, since it would leave Danby and Arlington free</p><blockquote><p>to govern what way they list, which we have reason to suspect will be to the prejudice of France and the Catholics, because their late declarations and actions have demonstrated to us, that they take that for the most popular way for themselves, and the likeliest to keep them in absolute power; whereas should the duke get above them after the tricks they have served him, they are not sure he will totally forgive the usage he has had at their hands.<sup>197</sup></p></blockquote><p>But if Parliament could be persuaded or bribed into following York’s policies, it would provide a more solid foundation for York to consolidate his power with a dissolution rather later: ‘for everybody will then come over to us, and worship the rising sun.’<sup>198</sup> Throughout the summer of 1675 the French, themselves hostile to Danby, were open to Colman’s appeals for support, though it is not known whether they supplied the £20,000 Colman requested in order to distribute among Members of Parliament and annul the advantage that Danby possessed from the patronage of the treasury, though Ruvigny was busy distributing his own £20,000.<sup>199</sup></p><p>Parliament reconvened on 13 October. York once again attended every day and was added to the committees for privileges and petitions. He again held Darcy’s proxy for the whole session. Between 8 Oct. and 25 Oct. he also held the proxy of James duke of Monmouth and from 16 Oct. to 20 Nov. he held that of Lord Windsor.<sup>200</sup> In spite of the complicated thinking laid out by Colman before the session, York emerged as an open advocate of dissolution, voting in favour of a dissolution in the division on 20 Nov. 1675, although he did not sign the resulting protest when the vote was lost.<sup>201</sup> As a result, he received a message via the Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford complimenting him on his vote, and assuring him that a dissolution would be the best way to achieve toleration for the Catholics.<sup>202</sup> A revival of the <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> case put paid to any prospect of progress in the session and the king prorogued Parliament two days after the vote on the dissolution, for nearly fifteen months, until 15 Feb. 1677.</p><p>The ensuing long prorogation may have made York feel less constrained. He ceased to attend Anglican services, publicly declaring at the end of March 1676 that ‘he would never more come under the roof of Whitehall Chapel’.<sup>203</sup> He still felt, however, seriously eclipsed by Danby, whose hold over the king and policy was generally regarded as stronger than ever. Danby worked increasingly closely with his clerical ally, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, who had been charged with bringing up the Princesses Mary and Anne in the Church of England, and who earned the lasting hostility of the duke by securing the king’s permission to conduct confirmation services for them in January 1676.<sup>204</sup> Danby and York were frequently in disagreement: a row over policy between them at Newmarket in April was widely noticed, particularly as it was said to have required the intervention of the duchess of Portsmouth, hastily summoned from her sick bed after a miscarriage, to reconcile them.<sup>205</sup> York continued to urge the king to dissolve Parliament, while Danby advised him to retain it; he supported the French alliance, while Danby pointed out its political inexpediency; Danby and Compton continued to work on Charles to stamp out Catholic practices at court wherever they could. In October 1676 James was incensed by the success of Danby and Compton in securing the passage of an order in council aimed at preventing attendance at the mass by in the queen’s chapel.<sup>206</sup> Compton and Danby ensured that the king insisted on Colman’s removal from the queen’s service towards the end of the year, after he had been found responsible for leaking confidential information concerning the navy, though his interventions in religious polemic seem to have been the real reason. Although he spent a short period in exile, Colman was soon back in the service of the duke.<sup>207</sup> York did his best to avoid any imputation of factional activity: in his contacts with the new French ambassador, Honoré de Courtin, over the summer and autumn he insisted on his determination solely to strengthen the authority of the king, while he argued throughout on a dissolution as the means of doing so. In this he was very much supported by Courtin, and the two discussed in August how they would work jointly to attempt to prevent Parliament reassembling, and if it did reassemble, to ensure that arguments about privilege would disrupt its proceedings and result in another prorogation. In December 1676 York discussed with Courtin the argument, expected to be advanced in the following session by Buckingham, Shaftesbury and Holles, that the long prorogation meant that Parliament had been <em>ipso facto</em> dissolved.<sup>208</sup></p><p>Despite his preference for a dissolution, York seems to have been reasonably confident before Parliament finally met on 15 Feb., having been courted by the key opposition leaders. He had had at least some contact with Holles about the proposed motion about the dissolution and with Shaftesbury, from whom he sought assurances that no impeachment of him was planned. A few days beforehand, he had an interview with Henry O’Brien<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Ibrackan, in which he discussed the forthcoming business in the Commons and prospects for supply and for the Catholics.<sup>209</sup> He may, though, have been put off by the reference in one of the opposition peers’ pamphlets, <em>Some Considerations upon the Question whether Parliament is Dissolved</em>, to Parliament’s power to alter the succession, a reference that they insisted had been included by mistake.<sup>210</sup> York was present when Parliament met on 15 Feb. 1677 and was added to the committees for privileges and petitions. He again held Darcy’s proxy for the whole of the session. He may also have held the proxy of Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex between 10 Feb. 1677 and 30 Apr. 1678, but the entry in the proxy book is too unclear for certainty. He attended every sitting day of the session (which was abnormally extended into the middle of 1678 by a series of lengthy adjournments) except 10 Apr. 1678 when he absented himself in the knowledge that the business of the House that day was to proceed to Westminster Abbey in a body to keep the fast ordered by the king.</p><p>In the end, York seems to have baulked at joining in with the pressure for a dissolution. Despite his earlier interest in the subject, not only did he not support Buckingham’s motion that Parliament had been dissolved by the long prorogation, but he may also have seconded motion proposed by his own associate, the earl of Peterborough, on the subsequent day, 16 Feb., that he be sent to the Tower for making it.<sup>211</sup> His failure to support the motion, or to deliver the support of Catholic peers that the opposition peers had hoped for, marked the end of his flirtation with the dissolutionists over the last year or more, and the beginning of a rapprochement with Danby. He was said to have accepted the necessity for the introduction of a bill which would place some limits on the power of a catholic king in ecclesiastical matters.<sup>212</sup> These provisions were incorporated in the bill for further securing the Protestant religion which covered included the usual list of anti-Catholic measures which were debated at the beginning of the session. When the bill passed its third reading on 15 Mar., however, York was one of 14 peers entering a protest against it, along with a short list of associates and advocates of religious toleration—Peterborough, Dorchester, Anglesey and Grey of Rolleston among them. On 11 Apr. 1677 York carried a message from his brother to inform the House that Sir Francis North would act as speaker during sickness of Finch* [1675], Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham). Two days later he invoked privilege of Parliament to secure the release of his servant Cave Underhill.</p><p>Parliament was adjourned at the end of May 1677, in the midst of a row about the unwillingness of the Commons to commit to a grant before the king committed himself to an alliance with the Dutch: the Commons’ action seems to have produced the usual reaction from York, furious at its temerity and deeply antipathetic to breaking the link with France.<sup>213</sup> But over the following months York seems to have increasingly accepted the logic of Danby’s arguments for a move away from the French alliance, though his proposal for raising an army for an intervention in the continuing continental war on the other side (an army which, he thought, might have assisted the project to dispense with Parliament) may have helped to persuade him.<sup>214</sup> Danby and he were far from entirely in concert: his support for the reinstatement of the duke of Ormond as lord lieutenant of Ireland in the first half of 1677 seems to have been in the teeth of Danby’s opposition and advocacy of the claims of the duke of Monmouth.<sup>215</sup> In August York joined with Danby and Monmouth, however, in remonstrating with the king over the release of Buckingham, arguing that in so doing the king was allowing ‘his authority to be trampled on’.<sup>216</sup> He also seems to have encouraged Stafford to suggest to Shaftesbury that he gain his liberty by turning Catholic.<sup>217</sup> An indication of York’s change of mind and acceptance of Danby’s advice was his agreement to the marriage of his daughter Mary to the Prince of Orange, grudging though it may have been. Initiated by the visit to the English court of William’s agent Hans Willem Bentinck*, later earl of Portland, in June, the marriage was concluded in November during William’s visit to the English court and in between negotiations on the terms on which England would help to bring about an end to the war between France and the Dutch republic.<sup>218</sup> Louis’s rejection of the proposed terms (conveyed to him by York’s associate Lord Feversham) opened the possibility of English military intervention, and over the winter York would emerge as the main advocate of military action to force Louis XIV to come to terms with the Dutch.<sup>219</sup></p><p>York’s propensity to intervene in decisions relating to the Church was in evidence during the competition for the replacement of Sheldon of Canterbury, who died in early November. His attempt to promote the candidacy of Michael Boyle, archbishop of Dublin, fell flat as Boyle realized what a ‘great disadvantage’ it was to have York’s recommendation.<sup>220</sup> On the other hand, his hostility to Compton, the leading candidate, ensured that he was overlooked.<sup>221</sup> York was back in the House of Lords for the brief sitting on 15 Jan. 1678, when the king ordered it to adjourn until the 28th, and on the 28th, when the king laid out his agreements with the Dutch for the defence of Flanders, in the hope of approval from both Houses, and funding for the consequential naval preparations. On 29 Jan. 1678 York protested at the House’s resolutionto release Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who was imprisoned on a charge of blasphemy. When on 14 Feb. Halifax brought Shaftesbury’s petition for release to the House, York successfully led the opposition ‘so fiercely that he is yet kept in’, although Shaftesbury would be released on another application to the House on 25 Feb., albeit after a long debate, in which York was said to have often spoken in support of the argument of Danby and Lord Arundell of Trerice that Shaftesbury had made remarks ‘of a dangerous nature’ during his habeas corpus appearances in king’s bench in the course of his imprisonment.<sup>222</sup> By then the government had secured, on 18 Feb. a vote of £1 million from the Commons, to York’s relief, who told Ormond that it was not sufficient to prepare for a war with France, which would ‘be sufficient to set us a work, but more had been better’.<sup>223</sup> On 16 and 18 Mar., when the House debated in committee the address proposed by the Commons requesting an immediate declaration of war on France, Finch, Danby and York led the opposition to the insistence that the declaration should be immediate, York in particular pointing out that the military preparations had yet to be made, and that a number of (presumably trade) fleets were on their way home and vulnerable to attack.<sup>224</sup> The Lords’ proposed amendments to the address were rejected by the Commons, and with an impasse reached, both Houses adjourned until 11 Apr., with the required supply uncompleted. In the period before they reconvened, on 4 Apr., York had voted with the majority in Pembroke’s trial, to find him guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Intensive diplomatic negotiations (including Danby’s notorious letter to the English ambassador in Paris, Ralph Montagu*, later 3rd Baron Montagu of Boughton (future duke of Montagu), soliciting a subsidy failed to produce a peace, and Danby’s efforts to bolster his support in the Commons were also unsuccessful (his efforts included an attempt to ensure that Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, elected at a by-election at Aldborough, survived an attempt to unseat him in the committee of elections on 21 Apr.: Reresby was defeated, by two votes, much to the irritation of York, who explained to Reresby how he had spoken to several of his servants to ensure that they were present, and told him ‘who had promised, who had failed, who had attended, who had not; and knew all particulars of the trial as if he had been upon the place’).<sup>225</sup> York’s correspondence with William of Orange showed him closely concerned with preparations for military intervention.<sup>226</sup> The recruitment of the army had been underway for some time, with most of the new regiments up to strength by the middle of March. York, under his existing commission of generalissimo (which it was said would be effective outside the kingdom, despite his failure to comply with the provisions of the Test Act), prepared to command it, though it was Monmouth who would actually go as its commander in July.<sup>227</sup> Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln made a stirring speech in the House on 30 Apr. likening York’s military prowess to that of Henry V.<sup>228</sup> But the suspicion and dilatory action of the House of Commons over completing supply were deeply frustrating to James, let alone the renewal of complaints about the growth of popery (Shaftesbury, during the debate on a Commons proposed address against popery on 4 May, made a clear, though indirect, reference to York, as one of the ‘great personages’ who posed the main danger by aiming to introduce arbitrary government and the Catholic religion’.<sup>229</sup> The French ambassador Barillon quoted him in April as considering using the army to strengthen the king’s power; and he wrote to William of Orange on 21 May complaining bitterly of the encroachment of the House of Commons on royal authority.<sup>230</sup> York was also drawn into the argument over the government of Scotland which resulted in the vote in the Commons of 7 May requesting the removal of Lauderdale: in both May and June 1678 James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon) involved him in his attempts to present his grievances against Lauderdale to the king.<sup>231</sup> After the Commons failed to vote supply the king prorogued Parliament on 13 May for ten days, returned to negotiations with Louis XIV.</p><p>When Parliament met again on 23 May 1678 York was again added to the committee for privileges. He was present every day except for 29 May when the House attended the Abbey Church in celebration of the king’s birthday. On 5 July he entered a protest at the decision of the House in <em>Darrell v Whitchcot</em>. That he was still able to command considerable support in the House seems to have been demonstrated by the verdict delivered on 8 July in favour of Feversham’s appeal. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> was convinced that Feversham was in the wrong ‘but the duke hath a great interest, and he is for Feversham.’<sup>232</sup> York held the proxy of William Widdrington, 3rd Baron Widdrington from 6 June and that of Ossory proxy from 8 July for the remainder of the session.<sup>233</sup> Once they were aware of the prospects for a general peace, the Commons quickly voted the money required for the disbandment of the troops, setting a date of 30 June for the task to be accomplished; shortly afterwards, however, came the news that Louis XIV had reneged on his agreement to conclude the war, throwing open again the question of how to employ the army. The large expeditionary force which the king and York reviewed on Hounslow Heath on 22 June was a visible reminder of York’s concerns about the state of English government and what was generally thought to be his prescription for overcoming them; though its employment in England was quite possible, York’s reaction to the news of Louis XIV’s change of mind, saying in the foreign affairs committee ‘that nothing could be more evident than that France intended an universal monarchy, and nothing but England could hinder them’, suggested that he was also still spoiling for continental war, and had moved well away from his previous position of seeking a close alliance with France.<sup>234</sup> The English troops, however, had barely joined the allies when a truce was agreed, and the war ended in August.</p><h2><em>The Crisis, 1678-80</em></h2><p>Before Parliament met again rumours of a Popish Plot were already spreading. During the investigation by the Privy Council on 28 and 29 Sept. one of those named as involved in the Plot was Edward Colman, whose person and letters were seized (Colman had failed to take the duke’s advice to destroy his papers and to leave).<sup>235</sup> The letters were read to the Privy Council on 4 October. York denied knowledge of the correspondence. But even if York’s involvement in the conspiracy was dismissed, it was widely understood that his religion amounted was an incentive to the plotters to dispose of the king.</p><p>The new session opened just over three weeks later, on 21 Oct. 1678. York was present on every sitting day of the session except 5 and 13 Nov. when the House attended the abbey church. He was as usual named to the committees for privileges and petitions, and again held Widdrington’s proxy. On 23 Oct. he was also named (with every member present that day) to the committee to examine papers and witness about the plot and the death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> reported that</p><blockquote><p>His Royal Highness is at present surrounded with infinite perplexities, which all good men must lament. He has been always present at the Committee of the Lords while the papers of Coleman and Sir William Throgmorton have been read. Each of them have dared to name and interest His Highness in their dangerous contrivances, which he hears with indignation and appeals to the improbability of his confiding either to the folly of the one or the madness of the other. And yet this does not satisfy the warm spirits of that House, and much less is it likely to do that of the Commons.<sup>236</sup></p></blockquote><p>Southwell also reported that York had been approached secretly by all sorts of groups who claimed to be able to secure his ‘deliverance, but that he knows not whom to trust or what to choose.’<sup>237</sup> The initial interrogations of Edward Colman by a Lords’ Committee, reported to the House on 29 Oct. enhanced suspicions of York’s involvement: York tried to prevent his own letters being read to the House, but Shaftesbury and Bishop Compton succeeded, after a division, in insisting that they should be. York defended himself and called Colman a liar, and Shaftesbury’s proposal that the information the committee had elicited be communicated to the Commons was defeated, but some observers, including the king himself, seriously feared a possible impeachment.<sup>238</sup> The pressure was released a little when on 30 Oct. Titus Oates was interviewed in the House of Lords (apparently at the instigation of James Annesley*, styled Lord Annesley, later 2nd earl of Anglesey) and explicitly exculpated York from any involvement in the plot to assassinate the king. Nevertheless, a further debate in the Lords on 2 Nov. was initiated by Shaftesbury, who proposed an address to the king to remove the duke from the council and the king’s presence; Lord Gerard of Brandon was said to have spoken much more vehemently than Shaftesbury, suggesting that there had been two kings, rather than one. Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon, opposed it: York himself was dissuaded from attempting his own defence. On the following day, the king persuaded James that he should stay avoid intervening in public business. On 4 Nov., York made a public declaration in the Lords that he would withdraw from the council of foreign affairs and the admiralty. Shaftesbury attempted to have the declaration made public through a proclamation, though this was not agreed.<sup>239</sup> On the same day, the Commons read the Colman correspondence and began a debate on a motion for the removal of the duke from the king’s presence and counsels, although the debate was adjourned rather than concluded, probably with the assistance of secretary Henry Coventry’s<sup>‡</sup> report of the duke’s declaration in the Lords.<sup>240</sup> Colman, who had initially insisted that he had acted with the full knowledge of both York and Arundell of Wardour, soon realized that preservation of catholic hopes depended on shielding York and began to claim that he had acted on his own.<sup>241</sup></p><p>On 9 Nov. the king made his appearance in the Lords to promise that he would accept a bill or bills for the security of the Protestant religion under a Catholic successor, so long as it did not ‘impeach the right of succession, nor the descent of the crown in the true line, and so as they restrain not my power, nor the just rights of any Protestant successor’: though the statement was widely and enthusiastically but inaccurately hailed as presaging a change in the succession, its actual effect was limited. York successfully opposed the Commons’ address to the king to allow the publication of the Colman letters on 11 November.<sup>242</sup> The Commons had sent up their test bill, the bill for disabling papists from sitting in Parliament, as early as 28 October. On 15 Nov., in committee of the whole House, after Catholic peers had succeeded in taking out the requirement for them to take the declaration against transubstantiation and the invocation of saints (though the provision was put back later by the House itself), York moved for a provision specifically to exempt himself from the terms of the bill. He tearfully declared that his religion, whatever it might be, was ‘a private thing between God and his own soul’, and made professions of loyalty and earnest sincerity. The motion was passed, though York particularly noted and resented the fact that Monmouth left the chamber before it came to a vote, which he took as an indication of the king’s son’s increasing identification with Shaftesbury, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex and his other antagonists.<sup>243</sup> The bill was reported from committee on 20 Nov. and read a third time. York voted against it, and together with seven other Catholic peers entered a formal protest at its passage. Remarkably, the exemption for the duke survived the bill’s return to the House of Commons, largely because Danby, whose support for the duke so far had not seemed whole-hearted, did throw his support behind it.</p><p>New threats to York came with the attempts to implicate the queen in the Plot in late November (which promised to open a new route to change the succession by allowing the king to marry again), and by Bedloe’s equivocal evidence about whether York had been present at some of the meetings at which the Plot had been discussed.<sup>244</sup> Danby’s impeachment, brought up from the Commons on 23 Dec., left York in something of a quandary. The French ambassador Barillon had already judged in the middle of November that the Presbyterians, especially, were much less concerned with York than they were with Danby and his alliance with the bishops.<sup>245</sup> York’s own close associates Clarendon and Feversham were said to have advised him not to risk becoming involved in defending ‘a man so universally hated’; Danby’s friends feared that York’s studied neutrality would be interpreted as thinly disguised enmity and tried to ensure that the king would ‘engage the duke’s zeal’ for Danby.<sup>246</sup> On 26 Dec. York voted in favour of insisting upon the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill taking out the provision relating to the payment of tax money into the chamber of London, and making it payable, as usual, into the exchequer instead. The following day York voted against committing Danby.<sup>247</sup> Three days later, on 30 Dec., Parliament was prorogued to 4 Feb. 1679.</p><p>The prorogation provided an opportunity for a series of negotiations: Presbyterians, represented by Holles and various associates in the Commons seem to have agreed not to proceed with the prosecution of Danby; Shaftesbury was said to have approached York probably in order to ensure that the prosecution of Danby succeeded.<sup>248</sup> The negotiations with the Presbyterians were the basis on which the king decided, at last, to dissolve the Cavalier Parliament and summon a new one to meet on 6 March. Another Danby-inspired attempt by Archbishop Sancroft and Bishop Morley to convince the duke of York to return to the Church of England having failed, the king accepted Danby’s advice that York’s absence from the country was an essential basis for the smooth operation of the new Parliament. With a formal letter from the king, dated 28 Feb., instructing him to leave but assuring him that it would be for as short a time as possible, York left on 3 Mar., writing to Ormond that ‘I take even less pleasure in going out of England, than I did in making so insignificant a figure, as I have for sometime past’, but slightly mollified by the king making a solemn declaration in the Privy Council that he had not been married to Monmouth’s mother, nor to anyone but the queen.<sup>249</sup> York’s intervention a little earlier in the Hampshire election in favour of Richard Norton<sup>‡</sup> probably had more to do with Norton’s relationship with George Legge, York’s master of the horse, than with any political deal, despite Norton’s Presbyterian associations.<sup>250</sup></p><p>York settled in Brussels, with his duchess, keeping a low profile, refusing to allow any of those named in connection with the plot to attend him and performing his own devotions ‘as privately as I can.’<sup>251</sup> He relied especially on George Legge, whom he urged to write to him without ceremony, for information about English politics, and for conveying his thoughts to the king.<sup>252</sup> He fretted in mid-April that ‘the longer people are used to be without me, the harder it will be, in my mind, to come back’.<sup>253</sup> He looked on with some dismay at the remodelling of the Privy Council, bringing Shaftesbury and other opponents onto the board. He wrote to Legge in early May that, although he was reluctant to make the first move he was nevertheless prepared to use intermediaries to make limited overtures to Shaftesbury in order to assure him that ‘I can very willingly forgive, and not only that, but live well with any that have been my greatest enemies, if they behave themselves as they ought to his Majesty, and will live well with me’.<sup>254</sup> With the development of the exclusion proposal in the Commons in England, however, York became less sanguine. The king had offered limitations again on 30 Apr., and after a long period of discussion away from the floor of either House it was not until 11 May that the subject was discussed in the Commons, when Shaftesbury’s associate Thomas Bennett proposed that the duke of York should not return without the approval of Parliament; the bill was read a second time on 21 May, and the king prorogued Parliament on the 27th.<sup>255</sup> On 20 May, York wrote to Legge that ‘now or never is the time to save the monarchy’ and urged the king to be resolute and to take advantage of his control of the fleet and the army and of the kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland: ‘All these circumstances considered, the hazard will not be so great as some knaves and fainthearted men would make him believe.’ His only fear was that the king’s political opponents might secure the leadership of the duke of Monmouth ‘the only dangerous man that can do it, if he does not, no man of quality will dare’.<sup>256</sup> He was reassured by William of Orange’s professions of support but was increasingly hostile to Monmouth.<sup>257</sup> Brooding on his exile, Monmouth’s success in quelling the Scottish rebellion in June, and the king’s failure to recall him even after the dissolution of the 1679 Parliament on 10 July, York became increasingly gloomy and suspicious, convinced that the king was being turned into ‘a duke of Venice’, complaining that that ‘I am not used like a brother nor a friend’. He gloomily insisted that he would not convert and that he was prepared to suffer death</p><blockquote><p>for the true catholic religion, as well as banishment; what I have done was not hastily but upon mature consideration and foreseeing all and more than has yet happened to me; and did others enquire into the religion as I have done, without prejudice, proposition, or partial affection, they would be of the same mind in point of religion as I am.<sup>258</sup></p></blockquote><p>When the king fell seriously ill at the end of August 1679, sparking fears of an attempt to seize the throne by Monmouth, York, summoned by the secretary of state, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, raced back to England, arriving in London on 2 September. He was warmly received by the king, to some extent effacing the impression that York had obtained from his silence during the exile, and also by many others for whom he represented continued stability. Once the king had recovered, however, his presence was still seen as politically inconvenient, particularly as Shaftesbury had begun thinking about an attempt to impeach him at the forthcoming meeting of Parliament.<sup>259</sup> Over York’s protests, Charles insisted that he should return to exile, though to a more acceptable and influential Scottish, rather than continental, exile. The pill was sugared, too, by the dismissal of Monmouth from the command of the army, and the king’s insistence that he, too, should go into exile. Monmouth was despatched to the Netherlands at the end of September, the lack of attendants of any rank contrasting with the crowds surrounding York and suggesting that the king’s discountenancing of his illegitimate son had had an effect.<sup>260</sup> Having made a brief trip back to Brussels to collect his wife and household, York himself delayed his departure for Scotland until the end of October, enjoying some public demonstrations of support, including participation as guest of honour at the annual feast of the Artillery Company, but also experiencing plenty of barely veiled hostility.<sup>261</sup> York’s influence at court was reckoned to be growing. Shaftesbury’s furious objections to the change of York’s exile arrangements (it was rumoured that he had called for York’s arrest), as well as to the further prorogation of Parliament on 17 Oct., precipitated his dismissal from, and the effective break-up of, the Privy Council that had been established in April.<sup>262</sup> It initiated a new, and increasingly dangerous, phase of the crisis, in which any semblance of court unity collapsed. Soon after the duke’s departure London was rendered more febrile by the discovery of the Meal-Tub Plot; by a dramatic and threatening pope-burning procession on 17 Nov.; Monmouth’s unauthorized return to London on 27 Nov., having apparently been summoned home by Shaftesbury; and the petitioning movement, initiated by Shaftesbury, for Parliament to be allowed to sit.</p><h2><em>Scottish Exile, 1680-2</em></h2><p>On his trip northwards York received a mixed reception, though in some places supporters made significant demonstrations in his favour.<sup>263</sup> In Scotland he was careful to avoid involvement in local factional politics.<sup>264</sup> It was feared that Monmouth’s return to England in late November would precipitate the return of York, ‘and then’ wrote one of Ormond’s correspondents ‘what is next God knows.’<sup>265</sup> York himself, who received the news on 3/4 Dec., was dismayed by it, fretting about the messages it might send about the king’s commitment to himself, and anxious to be recalled himself. He insisted that ‘nothing could encourage the loyal party more and persuade them, and all the world, that his majesty is in earnest, then the sending for me’, and welcomed the efforts of the king’s mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth, York’s brother-in-law Laurence Hyde (newly appointed to the council and replacing Essex as first lord of the treasury), and of Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> to persuade the king to recall him.<sup>266</sup> Unsettling rumours that Monmouth was to be legitimized and that William of Orange was meddling on his behalf persisted throughout the winter of 1679-80.<sup>267</sup> York became convinced that Monmouth aimed at a republic ‘hoping then to make his self their general and Stadtholder, as the Prince of Orange is in Holland’.<sup>268</sup> A constant refrain of his correspondence was that ‘all things are a running on to a commonwealth’ and that ‘no time must be lost by his Majesty, to put a stop to all these destructive proceedings’.<sup>269</sup></p><p>The king’s reaction to the petitioning movement was the further prorogation of Parliament on 26 Jan. to April; by then there was already an expectation of York’s recall from Scotland. Shaftesbury reacted to it by attempting to persuade all of his allies on the council to resign <em>en masse</em>, though with limited success.<sup>270</sup> He arrived on 24 Feb. 1680 to a 61-gun salute, and in the middle of negotiations for an anti-French alliance. The king and the duke dined with the lord mayor and aldermen on 8 Mar., and two days later went together to Newmarket.<sup>271</sup> The lord mayor turned down a request from Shaftesbury for a similar invitation to Monmouth. Several of the opposition peers were wavering in their open hostility to York, with Baron North and Grey eliciting Shaftesbury’s contempt at a meeting on 17 Mar. for kissing York’s hand; William, Lord Cavendish*, later 4th earl and duke of Devonshire, had also kissed York’s hand.<sup>272</sup> The duke for a time appeared to be in an influential position, with a number of recently appointed ministers—Sidney Godolphin*, later Baron, then earl of Godolphin, and Daniel Finch*, later 2nd earl of Nottingham, as well as Laurence Hyde—on good terms with him: ‘the duke governs all’ claimed the Dutch ambassador.<sup>273</sup> York attended Parliament for its further prorogation on 15 Apr. 1680 and was present at the special meeting of the Privy Council on 26 Apr. at which the king denied reports that proof of Monmouth’s legitimacy was concealed in the so called ‘black box’. York’s apparently good standing, however, rested on weak foundations, given that it was generally regarded as inevitable that Parliament would have to sit eventually if only in order to secure supply. The king’s declaration failed to put an end to the speculation over Monmouth’s legitimacy: a pamphlet by Robert Ferguson, which appeared on 15 May, shortly after the king had again fallen ill albeit not so seriously as before, brought additional arguments to claim that Monmouth’s mother had married Charles, and exposed the king’s failure to pursue further inquiries after the authors of the ‘black box’ rumours.<sup>274</sup> York and his allies were engaged in negotiations in May and June, which suggested a potential deal with some elements, possibly Presbyterian politicians, might be available.<sup>275</sup> The king was persuaded to publish another declaration that he had never married anyone other than the queen, which appeared on 2 June.<sup>276</sup> York’s last attendance at Parliament as a peer was on the day of further prorogation on 1 July 1680. </p><p>The possibility of a resolution to the crisis was probably illusory, given the determined efforts at least of Shaftesbury to undermine it. The bold move of Shaftesbury and his supporters to present York as a recusant at the Middlesex assizes on 26 June had been prevented by the action of the judges, and further attempts to do so, though rumoured, were not carried out: but the action was a blow to York’s prestige, and dramatically publicized the case against him, especially as Shaftesbury, as usual, ensured its publication as <em>The Reasons for the Indictment of the Duke of York presented to the Grand Jury of Middlesex</em>.<sup>277</sup> They had also presented Lady Portsmouth as a common nuisance, which helped to unnerve her sufficiently (though the efforts of Hyde and possibly York as well to set the duchess of Mazarin up as her rival may have contributed) to push her into negotiations with the anti-Yorkists. She was increasingly close to Sunderland, who by late August seems to have concluded that it was impractical for the king to continue to defend York. Successive monthly prorogations, to 22 July, 23 Aug. and then 21 Oct., and negotiations Sunderland and others had with opposition leaders produced a sense of growing expectation and uncertainty as each of them passed.<sup>278</sup> Monmouth’s triumphant progress in the west from July to September added to the impression that York’s position was crumbling. Monmouth’s supporters were said to be actively toasting the ‘bold Briton’ who would accuse York of high treason at the next parliamentary session. York’s impeachment seemed highly probable.<sup>279</sup></p><p>York’s continued presence in London was thought to be obstructive to any success in achieving a resolution of the crisis as it became difficult to postpone a meeting of Parliament any longer, especially by Sunderland, Godolphin, Essex and Halifax. Halifax claimed that ‘there is now as much anger against him at Whitehall as there can be at the other end of the town [i.e., in the City], so industrious his highness hath been to spoil his own business; the waves beat so high against him that a great part of the world will not hear of any thing less than exclusion’.<sup>280</sup> Halifax was not the only one to condemn York for his political naivety.<sup>281</sup> A Privy Council meeting on 13 Oct. decided he should stay; three days later, less than a week before Parliament was due to meet the decision was reversed, and the king insisted on his departure. Speaking to the French ambassador on the day of the meeting, York told him that he had been betrayed by Sunderland and others whom he had believed to be his friends, and laid out his (not unjustified) suspicions that the prince of Orange would be the beneficiary of his departure.<sup>282</sup> In the meantime the king’s continued meetings with Monmouth encouraged him, and many others to conclude that ‘if pressed hard the King will part with the duke’.<sup>283</sup> Fearing impeachment, York sought a pardon: the king refused, on the grounds that it would be highly provocative. It gave the duke, he later wrote ‘a melancholy apprehension of what his future fate might be’.<sup>284</sup> Sent back to Scotland, though this time with full vice-regal powers, York left on 20 Oct. 1680, the day before Parliament assembled.</p><p>James’s second period of exile in Scotland would last almost 18 months, until April 1682. As commissioner, he summoned the Scottish Parliament in 1681, securing from it taxation to strengthen the forces at his disposal, a confirmation of his right of succession, and a Test Act, based on the 1675 English Act, requiring all office holders to uphold the Protestant religion, defend royal prerogatives and not to alter the government of Church or state. The act became a means of crushing the power of Archibald Campbell, earl of Argyll [S], charged in November 1681 with treason for entering a verbal reservation when required to swear the Scots test. Argyll’s conviction and subsequent flight into Holland removed an economically and politically powerful presence from Parliament and council.</p><p>Within two weeks of York’s departure from London in October 1680, and the opening of Parliament in England, the exclusion bill had been introduced into the Commons. It passed the Commons on 11 Nov. and arrived in the Lords on the 15th. The duchess of Portsmouth and Sunderland were said to have attempted to kindle some expectations that it would be passed, 55 votes having been promised ‘and his majesty being contrived into a passive neutrality.’<sup>285</sup> The king had in fact made his opposition to it clear on 9 Nov. with a message to the Commons that he would accept remedies other than exclusion. That it met with a resounding defeat was attributed in part to the oratory of Halifax, but (as York wrote to Legge in response to his account of the debate) any gratitude that York might have felt towards him was dispelled by Halifax’s introduction the following day of a bill to limit the prerogative of a catholic king. It was, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>as bad as a stab with a dagger to hear, after Lord Halifax had spoke so handsomely for me, and managed the whole debate, he should make such a proposition as he did the next day… I would willingly not be thought of of not being very sensible of kindnesses done me, and I am as sensisble as possible of his doing his part so very well at the rejecting of my bill, but can I or any body think him really my friend, that would have me banished from his Majesty’s presence, for he moved it… and to say the truth what I hear they are agoing on with in the House of Lords, will be of as bad consequence if not worse to me, and much worse for the monarchy, then the bill that was thrown out.<sup>286</sup></p></blockquote><p>He was bitter about Sunderland and others who not only voted in favour of exclusion but then entered a dissent at its rejection.<sup>287</sup> The debate on the 16th had gone over a number of alternatives to exclusion, including the divorce (opposed by Halifax and the king), and a Protestant association, and limitations, and these options were further explored over the following days, with a limitations bill read a second time on 10 December.<sup>288</sup> There were further attempts to put pressure on York and his associates: York heard how Halifax had been attacked in the Commons for his opposition to exclusion, with an address presented against him to the king on 25 Nov.; on 29 Nov. there was another attempt to present York for recusancy by a Middlesex grand jury; on 21 Dec. Shaftesbury and others attacked in the Lords York’s servants, including Laurence Hyde, Legge himself and Feversham; on the same day the Commons presented an address demanding York’s exclusion.<sup>289</sup> On 4 Jan. 1681, after the king’s unsatisfactory response, there were further assaults in the Commons on Halifax, Hyde, Feversham and others. On 10 Jan. the king put an end to the session, and on the 18th he announced its dissolution and the summons to a new Parliament on 21 March.</p><p>James himself, who had continually urged the king to allow him to return to England, arguing that his presence helped to discourage the exclusionists and other enemies of the monarchy, in his correspondence with Legge continued to reflect on the danger posed to the monarchy (and himself) by Parliament, warning that ‘honest gentlemen’ would not stand at the forthcoming elections and insisting that ‘I shall be ruined’ if the new Parliament were to be allowed to meet. Talk of ‘an expedient’ to be presented to the Oxford Parliament as a way of taking the heat out of anxieties about York was interpreted by York and his opponents as a proposal for his banishment; and indeed, something along these lines was laid out by the king to the Privy Council on 23 Feb., although other ideas, including Halifax’s regency proposal were still current. At the same time, Hyde was becoming a much more influential figure, while a series of appointments to the Privy Council in late January and early March of associates of York—the earls of Chesterfield, Oxford, Ailesbury and Craven—seemed to suggest a resurgence in the duke’s interest.<sup>290</sup></p><p>When Parliament opened in Oxford on 21 Mar. the king’s offer to put the administration into ‘Protestant hands’, and vague mention of expedients, encouraged discussion of a wide variety of proposals: Shaftesbury’s open suggestion that Monmouth be designated successor, regency, exclusion, and limitations. The rejection of regency and probably provoked the Parliament’s dissolution on 28 Mar., just as the exclusion bill was being introduced. On 2 Apr. York wrote to Legge jubilant at the dissolution, and again urging his return to England: ‘unless I be sent for, the generality of the world still apprehend a want of steadiness and not believe there will be any ... till Godolphin, and all the rotten sheep are turned out ... fearful ministers and irresolute counsels have contributed more than any thing else to bring things into the condition they are’. It was a ‘great mortification’ to discover, within a few days, that he would still not be summoned home’.<sup>291</sup> He looked on changes at court and in the judiciary (the dismissal of Sir William Scroggs) as further symptoms of ministerial fear, though Halifax and his ‘timorous counsels’ still had too much credit; and he condemned the duchess of Portsmouth’s attempts ‘to bring in the duke of Monmouth.’<sup>292</sup> The same month, part of the response to the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and the king’s declaration setting out his reasons for it was an attempt to revive the indictment of the duke for recusancy; in a transparent move to prevent a trial, it was removed to the comparative safety of the king’s bench.<sup>293</sup></p><p>In the months following the end of the Oxford Parliament, as the Tory reaction gathered pace, the apparent violence of Whig efforts to remove him and their association with the opponents of the Church of England made York seem a more plausible object of loyalty for dedicated churchmen than had once been the case. James’s Anglican chaplain, Francis Turner*, later bishop of Rochester and Ely, who had had numerous opportunities to study and talk to him during the long Scottish exile, was one of those who not only believed York’s assurances but also campaigned on his behalf, assuring William Sancroft*, the archbishop of Canterbury, that</p><blockquote><p>upon all occasions, I find he places his hopes altogether upon that interest we call the Church of England, upon the episcopal party, and mainly upon the bishops themselves, your Grace especially, wishing and desiring that your Grace will take all opportunities of encouraging the king (that was the duke’s own word) to be steady in well-chosen resolutions, and laying before his Majesty how fatal a thing it would be now to trace back again the ground he has gained and how mighty safe to stick to his old friends.<sup>294</sup></blockquote></p><p>In a further sign of the increased prestige of York’s associates, Hyde was made Viscount Hyde in April. In June Henry Sydney*, later earl Romney penned a long description of affairs at court, where ‘nobody hath any credit but the duke’s creatures, and they study what is good for the duke and themselves’.<sup>295</sup> This again was a little misleading: York’s own account suggested that most of the central members of the government were against his return to London; Halifax was probably the most influential adviser to the king (despite his lack of ministerial office), and while York seems to have been warming to him over the summer, perhaps as he pursued Shaftesbury and as York found that he was instrumental in preventing the duke of Monmouth’s readmission to his father’s presence, Halifax was still determined to keep York at a safe distance.<sup>296</sup> York was suspicious to learn of William of Orange’s visit to England in the summer of 1681, particularly as he lobbied for a meeting of Parliament.<sup>297</sup></p><h2><em>Return and Retribution, 1682-5</em></h2><p>Whether or not a Parliament would be held was the determinant of the king’s response to the duke’s plea to be allowed to return home, though (in his own account at least) it was pure pique on Halifax’s part that thwarted a proposal that he return simply in order to report to the king on the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament, and despatched Hyde to Scotland in September with orders to have another doomed go at persuading York to abandon his religion.<sup>298</sup> From mid-December, York’s recall looked increasingly likely, Parliament or no Parliament, possibly in part because of Hyde’s success in winning over the duchess of Portsmouth with a promise of £5000 a year from York’s revenue.<sup>299</sup> Halifax complained that York had</p><blockquote><p>a sort of hungry servants about him that were still pressing his return, and would never let him alone til, out of interest to themselves, they put him upon that which would turn to the prejudice of their master by the ill timing of it. The truth was, whilst the duke was near the king everybody believed him led most by his advice, and consequently that popish councils were most prevalent; and he did a great deal of good in Scotland by his influence and watchfulness in that mutinous kingdom.<sup>300</sup></p></blockquote><p>York seems initially to have secured permission from the king in late February to return for a ‘visit’: landing at Great Yarmouth, he met Charles in Newmarket on 11 March. Received warmly by the king, it was soon expected that his return would become permanent; the crowds coming to see him at Newmarket suggested some new level of popularity, and shortly after he returned to London on 8 Apr., he was again the guest at the annual feast of the Artillery Company, where the throng of well-wishers was so great that he was unable to leave for an hour and ‘was never better pleased ... in his life.’<sup>301</sup> A rival Whig feast celebrating delivery from popery was banned as seditious.<sup>302</sup> A brief return to Scotland in May in order to collect the duchess ended in disaster when the ship in which he was travelling, the <em>Gloucester</em>, struck a sandbank and sank. York escaped, but over 100 were drowned.</p><p>York’s return to London and to a role in government meant a process of establishing, or not establishing, relationships with those who had either opposed him, or failed to defend him. York’s former ally in the 1670s, turned exclusionist, Annesley was received coldly in April, and would be turned out of office in early August.<sup>303</sup> Hyde and the duchess of Portsmouth secured York’s reconciliation with Sunderland, who managed to overcome his support for exclusion and York’s exile in October 1680 to become a privy councillor once more by September 1682, and secretary of state by January 1683.<sup>304</sup> In May, Monmouth, willing to have a reconciliation with the king, was refusing to meet York, though finally, on 11 Aug., on a chance encounter in Hyde Park, he bowed to the duke, opening the way to a reconciliation.<sup>305</sup> There seems even to have been an approach from Shaftesbury in September.<sup>306</sup></p><p>York was now seen by a significant segment of Tory opinion—albeit one with existing strong connections to himself—as a powerful asset and potential defender of the Church, despite his religion. Alexander Burnet, archbishop of St Andrews, referred in February 1683 in correspondence with Turner, who had perhaps initiated the idea, to his determination ‘to cast himself, and all his concerns upon the old royal party, and the true sons of the Church of England’.<sup>307</sup> James’s brother-in-law, Clarendon, wrote to Sancroft at about the same time, that although it was ‘a great misfortune’ that he was a Catholic, he might, ‘if he be well-instructed’, ‘be an instrument of great good’.<sup>308</sup> He clearly identified his opponents with Presbyterianism: later that year he applauded the application of the Scots presbyterian Sir John Cochrane for a large tract of land in Carolina, ‘I told him I was glad he and others of his persuasion thought of going there, because they would carry with them disaffected people.’<sup>309</sup> When, in May 1683, York was splendidly received at Oxford, it set a seal on his status as the figurehead of the Tory reaction.<sup>310</sup></p><p>From the summer of 1682 York began to hit back at his political opponents through the courts. A combination of criminal prosecutions and actions for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> was used to neutralize them with heavy damages or requirements to find sureties wealthy enough to guarantee high levels of bail for their future good behaviour. Some were forced into exile; some to make their peace with York and the court; a few unfortunates, like John Culliford, suffered long and gruelling periods of imprisonment. The first of York’s actions for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> was against Thomas Pilkington<sup>‡</sup> in the summer of 1682. He procured damages of £100,000 and ‘another mortification to the Whigs’.<sup>311</sup> York is also known to have taken action ‘Mr Arrowsmith an apothecary in Friday Street’ in November 1682 (whom he pursued for £80,000), against John Culliford sometime after May 1683, Hugh Speke in October 1683, Titus Oates (for £100,000) in May 1684, and former member of the Commons John Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> in April/ May 1684.<sup>312</sup> Another former MP, Scrope Howe<sup> ‡</sup>, was prosecuted in January 1685, though it is not clear whether for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> or for treason, and was cowed into submission, and the mere threat of an action of <em>scandalum</em> was sufficient to force one more, Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup> out of the country.<sup>313</sup> York’s allies Ormond, North, Clarendon, Beaufort, and Peterborough and Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort all took similar action. The former Speaker, William Williams<sup>‡</sup>, fared particularly badly as the subject of a criminal prosecution instigated by York in June 1684 for licensing the publication of Dangerfield’s <em>Narrative of the Late Popish Designs</em>, and a personal action for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> by Peterborough. Any inclination to renege on this agreement was kept in check by Peterborough’s studied reluctance to abandon his own prosecution until Williams’s Whig credentials were totally compromised.<sup>314</sup> Speke, on the other hand, was first prosecuted in the king’s bench for seditious libel and then sued by York for scandalum.<sup>315</sup> Attempts by York’s opponents to exploit the law in a similar fashion faltered because of the judges’ complicity in ensuring that their actions were removed to jurisdictions where the juries would favour the crown.<sup>316</sup> York’s personal <em>scandalum magnatum</em> campaign was closely linked to the government’s campaign against the Whigs, especially in the City of London. York began his action against Pilkington a few months after the initiation of the <em>quo warranto</em> against the City of London, and close to the time of the June shrieval elections. The threat to his opponents was further underlined when his success in dealing with Pilkington was followed up in May 1683 by an accusation of perjury against one of Pilkington’s witnesses, Sir Patience Ward<sup>‡</sup>, who was forced to flee abroad.<sup>317</sup> Another early attack on a charter was that led by York’s ally Beaufort on the corporation at Leominster in May 1682. Two of the victims of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>, John Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> and William Williams, were heavily involved in defending the charter but both were rendered impotent first by the threat and then by the reality of the <em>scandalum </em>proceedings.<sup>318</sup></p><p>York’s growing influence within the court in 1682 and 1683 was closely connected to the increasing significance of the earl of Rochester (as Viscount Hyde became in late 1682) in royal counsels, and to York’s rather complicated prestige among Tories. The commission for ecclesiastical promotions, originally established in early 1681 to advise the king on clerical appointments, had become an ‘instrument of Tory reaction’, particularly given the addition to it in July 1681 of lay commissioners, Halifax, Hyde and Edward Seymour, and although Halifax’s presence and Sancroft’s use of it to maintain his own influence tempered its character as a simply Yorkist body, the triangular relationship between Hyde, York and Sancroft was a powerful driver of its activities.<sup>319</sup> The appointment of York’s chaplain, Francis Turner to the vacant see of Rochester (with a further promotion the following year to Ely), was plainly an indication of his significance, though Turner himself was anxious that the world should attribute his good fortune to Sancroft rather that to ‘the partiality of my master’.<sup>320</sup> York never accomplished, in his brother’s reign, Rochester’s promotion from first lord of the treasury to the position of lord treasurer that the latter coveted, despite it being a routine subject of rumour after 1682, and Rochester’s influence was always contested by the continued presence of Halifax as lord privy seal, who continued to be a (relatively lonely) voice within the administration calling for a new meeting of Parliament, and would continually seek to undermine Rochester. Sunderland was also treated with suspicion by Rochester and the Tories, but with the duchess of Portsmouth’s protection, he was both irremovable and increasingly indispensable. It was Rochester and Sunderland who negotiated with the French and Danes to secure the marriage of York’s daughter Anne to Prince George of Denmark*, who would become duke of Cumberland, which was announced in May 1683, and took place at the end of July. York took delight over the way it had upset the Whigs, presumably because of the prince’s Protestantism.<sup>321</sup></p><p>York’s restoration to a (nearly) complete role in politics and administration was largely the result of the revelation of the Rye House Plot in June 1683. Shortly afterwards, the king brought him back into the informal meetings of the committee of foreign affairs; by the end of the year he was once more closely involved with the king in decisions on foreign policy, particularly the crisis resulting from Louis XIV’s attack on Luxembourg.<sup>322</sup> The evidence of Monmouth’s involvement in the Plot, gratifyingly for York, produced a new crisis in the relationship between the king and his favourite son. His reappearance in England in November, and his confession to the king and reconciliation with him on 25 Nov. was an unpleasant surprise to York, who was suspicious of Halifax’s role within it—although it was principally the king himself who had determined how to deal with his son.<sup>323</sup> The Whigs, York complained on 6 Dec., ‘are grown very insolent’ as a result.<sup>324</sup> York insisted that a report of Monmouth’s confession be published in the <em>Gazette</em>.<sup>325</sup> On subsequently disowning the report Monmouth was banished from the court. He migrated to Holland: in July 1684 York was scandalized at the ‘kind usage’ he received there from the Prince of Orange.<sup>326</sup></p><p>By Charles’s final year James was clearly exercising a much greater influence on royal business than perhaps ever before, despite the formal disabilities that he still laboured under. Burnet declared that all ‘application and dependence was visibly on the Duke’ and Sir John Reresby agreed that ‘The duke of York did now chiefly manage affairs’.<sup>327</sup> Though this remained an exaggeration given the continued significance of the duchess of Portsmouth and the effective political skills of her sidekick, Sunderland, as well as the broodingly powerful figure of Halifax, York’s reach into many parts of the administration would grow over the course of 1684. James had continued his involvement in Scottish military affairs after his return: a letter from John Grahame of Claverhouse, later Viscount Dundee [S], shows him exercising a detailed control over Scottish military appointments in March 1683 (Grahame wrote with a touch of exasperation that ‘the duke thinks the army his own province, and that he understands both the men and business of it better than any, and he has his own maxims that it is hard to put him off’).<sup>328</sup> But he was now involved again with the military in England, clearly exercising a strong influence over naval affairs: many senior officers and officials were his close allies, including George Legge, now Baron Dartmouth, and Arthur Herbert*, later earl of Torrington, although Halifax was also a significant figure behind some members of the admiralty commission. York’s plans to retake full control of the navy was achieved with the king’s revocation of the admiralty commission on 11 May 1684, when Charles took the position of lord admiral himself, leaving the exercise of it to York.<sup>329</sup> York was said to have begun again to attend meetings of the Privy Council in late May, although his name was not included in the register’s attendance lists.<sup>330</sup></p><p>York’s rehabilitation did not mask the continuing struggle for power between Rochester and Halifax, in which Halifax, despite his virtually open efforts to frustrate James, was proving the more effective, diluting Rochester’s command at the treasury by placing two of his political allies there in June, to York’s annoyance: Rochester, increasingly irritable and difficult, was manoeuvred into the post of lord president as one of a series of changes among senior ministers in late August, and then shifted to replace Ormond as lord lieutenant of Ireland in October.<sup>331</sup> The mutual antipathy between Rochester and Halifax, who by the end of the year had virtually fought each other to a standstill, would provide the opportunity for Sunderland to ease himself firmly into a commanding position of ministerial power.</p><p>With York’s voice in government more powerful in the second half of 1684, certain aspects of its policy appeared to take on a more authoritarian, Catholic line. Ormond’s replacement was intended to make it easier to remodel the Irish army, eliminating Protestant radicals, and transferring military control from the lord lieutenant to a general answerable directly to the English government, a project that was masterminded by Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell [I], who would become the cornerstone of James II’s scheme to restore the Catholic position in Ireland. part of an attempt to assert a much greater degree of royal control In November James also began to prepare to summon and preside over another Scottish Parliament in which he would complete his destruction of Argyll and others.<sup>332</sup> He had not yet, however, changed his views on indulging Protestant Dissent: though the issue was discussed in the last few months of Charles’s reign, he was clearly opposed to it. In January 1685 he was able to reassure the Scots that rumours of a new declaration of indulgence were false for although some favours were intended for loyal Catholics ‘the king knows too well both the principles and practices of the fanatics’.<sup>333</sup></p><p>The king’s short illness and death on 6 Feb. put an end to James’s plans for Scotland, and brought him to the throne after 36 years as his brother’s heir and at least 12 as the biggest problem in English and Scottish politics. Along the way, he had garnered greater experience of Parliament in England than perhaps any other reigning monarch ever had done, and some experience of how it worked in Scotland as well. It had made him well-informed about it, displaying his knowledge about how proceedings on an election petition worked in 1678 to the surprise of Reresby; but it had given him very little patience for it, complaining in his memoir of Parliament as ‘refractory and insolent’ or ‘impertinent’.<sup>334</sup> He had also gained a considerable appreciation of the law as both an obstacle for government to be worked around, and a potential weapon in its hands. But impatient and confident in his own ‘maxims’, James had developed a view of political skill as about the effective imposition of his own will, and regarded the key political qualities as being steadfastness and determination, rather than stealth, flexibility and negotiation. York had attracted sufficient friends and supporters in the seven years since the problem of his Catholicism erupted into a crisis in 1678 to make his reign viable. Over the next four, he would shed them again through his determination, his ‘maxims’ and his faith.</p> |
R.P. |
|
JEFFREYS, George (c. 1644-89) |
<p><strong><surname>JEFFREYS</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (c. 1644–89)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>15 May 1685 Bar. JEFFREYS |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 28 Apr. 1687 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1644, 5th s. of John Jeffreys and Margaret, da. of Sir Thomas Ireland, of Bewsay, Lancs. <em>educ</em>. Free sch. Shrewsbury bef. 1659; St Paul’s School, London c.1659–1661; Westminster sch. 1661–2; Christ Church, Oxf. 1662; I. Temple 1663; called 1668. <em>m</em>. (1) 23 May 1667, Sarah (1644–78), da. of Rev. Thomas Neesham [Nesham, Needham] of Stoke d’Abernon, Surr., 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>). 2da.; (2) 10 June 1679, Ann (<em>b.</em>1656), da. of Alderman Sir Thomas Bludworth<sup>‡</sup>, of London, merchant, wid. of Sir John Jones, of Fonmon, Glam., 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 5da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KB 1677; bt. 1681. <em>d.</em> 20 Apr. 1689; <em>will</em> 15 Apr. 1689, pr. 30 July 1690.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Common sjt. City of London 1671–8; solicitor gen. to James*, duke of York 1677; bencher, I. Temple 1678; recorder of London 1678–80; KC 1677; King’s Sjt. 1680; c.j. Chester 1680; sjt.-at-law 1680; chairman Mdx. justices 1681–?; LCJ k.b. 1683–5; ld. chan. 1685–11 Dec. 1688; ld. high steward 1686; commr. ecclesiastical affairs 1686–?<em>d</em>.</p><p>PC 1683–Dec. 1688.</p><p>Ld. lt. Salop, Bucks. 1687–?Apr. 1689; <em>custos rot.</em> Salop, Bucks. 1686–?Apr. 1689; high steward, Wallingford 1681, Buckingham 1688; recorder New Windsor 1684, Plymouth 1684.</p> |
|
<p><em>The ambitious young lawyer</em></p><p>George Jeffreys’ career in the House of Lords was short, constrained both by the prolonged absence of a Parliament and by his own premature death. He was nevertheless an important political figure; the focus of this biography is therefore on how he came to be a peer rather than what he did after his elevation. He came from a well-established if minor gentry family that claimed to have been settled in north Wales since before the Saxon conquest; they had certainly lived at Acton Park near Wrexham since at least the mid-sixteenth century. Jeffreys’ grandfather had been a Welsh judge under James I; his father and nephew both served as high sheriffs of Denbighshire. Jeffreys’ father had suffered financially for his royalism in the civil wars and had a large family to support: seven of his eight children survived to adulthood. Since John, the eldest son, was to inherit the family lands, the younger sons were equipped to enter the professions. George and Edward Jeffreys both trained as lawyers; another brother, Thomas, became a successful merchant; the remaining brothers, William and James, entered the Church.<sup>2</sup></p><p>His enemies and his later detractors have tended to cast doubt on George Jeffreys’ professional competence. Charles Hatton famously damned him as having ‘in great perfection, the three chief qualifications of a lawyer, boldness, boldness, boldness’. There seems little doubt that he was an extremely promising student who attracted favourable attention very early in his career. Yet he does not seem to have built up his reputation or his practice in conventional ways. His practice was concentrated in the London area and on criminal rather than the more prestigious private (or, as we would now term them, civil) cases. The most important factor in his meteoric rise seems to have been his acquisition of influential connections in the City of London. His point of entry into City society appears to have been through his fellow Welshman Alderman John Jeffreys, with whom he was on very affectionate terms, although, despite their common surname, the two men were not related. Alderman Jeffreys stood godfather to George Jeffreys’ eldest son, also named John Jeffreys*, later 2nd Baron Jeffreys of Wem; he left substantial legacies both to George and to John Jeffreys. Alderman Jeffreys’ circle included his nephews John<sup>‡</sup> and Jeffrey Jeffreys<sup>‡</sup>, as well as Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡ </sup>and Sir Thomas Bludworth and yet another unrelated namesake, Sir Robert Jeffreys. All were financially well established; all served at various times as aldermen of London. George Jeffreys’ brother Thomas was also connected with this circle, serving as Alderman John Jeffreys’ agent in Spain.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Just how wealthy Jeffreys became remains a matter for speculation. He certainly acquired a great deal of land – mainly in Buckinghamshire but also in Leicestershire and Shropshire – but it was heavily mortgaged. In February 1687, Roger Morrice reported that Jeffreys’ agents ‘now very openly say that he has the honour indeed of a peer of England, but has got very little by his place, having lived in good equipage, nor has had no casual advantages and is still very low in estate’.<sup>4</sup> After his death much of the estate had to be liquidated to pay his debts.</p><p>By January 1669 Jeffreys was able to establish himself in an expensive set of chambers in King’s Bench Walk. In March 1671, less than two and a half years after being called to the bar, he was elected common serjeant of the City of London. The office, while prestigious in itself, did not preclude Jeffreys from private practice and probably enhanced his opportunities to attract business. It also appears to have been at this point that he first developed connections with the king’s court, reputedly providing it with intelligence about the activities of City aldermen.<sup>5</sup> He became embroiled in City politics and in 1675 he was temporarily suspended from office as a result of his actions at a meeting of common council, but was restored to office after apologizing to the king.<sup>6</sup> The setback seems to have had little impact on his prosperity for in 1676 he bought Bulstrode, an estate of almost 800 acres in Buckinghamshire, and he continued to build up his landholdings in the area over the remainder of his life.<sup>7</sup> In 1676 his first bid to become recorder of London failed, but he was now building up considerable credit at court, partly because he was regularly passing his observations on attitudes in the City to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).<sup>8</sup></p><p><em>Consolidating the power base, 1677–85</em></p><p>In 1677 Jeffreys was appointed solicitor general to the duke of York, and received a knighthood; early the following year he became a bencher. In August 1678 he entertained the king, his mistress Louise de Kéroualle (duchess of Portsmouth), and other courtiers to dinner at Bulstrode. His friendship with Louise de Kéroualle, and through her with Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, was to be an important factor in his career. Given the duchess’s later reputation as a pardon broker and Jeffreys’ subsequent influence within the criminal justice system, it is not difficult to imagine that their relationship may have been to their mutual financial benefit. It is not clear when or how it began, but it may be significant that the duchess’s sister, Henriette de Kéroualle, had married Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, in 1674. Although the centre of the Pembroke estates after the civil wars was in Wiltshire, the earl was also a major landowner in Wales, with estates in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire; his daughter would subsequently marry Jeffreys’ son, John. Reports of that dinner in August 1678 concentrated, however, on the putative relationship between Jeffreys and the king rather than that of Jeffreys and the duchess: ‘The king caused Sir George to sit down at table with him and drank to him seven times’.<sup>9</sup> Such a signal mark of favour caused considerable speculation about his future. His election as recorder of London on 22 Oct. following was no more than a formality, for the result was mentioned in a private letter sent into Wales four days earlier, even before the City had received a letter from the king commending Jeffreys to them.<sup>10</sup></p><p>In 1679 Jeffreys married for the second time. His marriages mirror his meteoric rise: his first wife had been the daughter of a modest country clergyman; his second was an heiress, albeit one with a sharp tongue who was reputed to have been pregnant by Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup> on their wedding day, though Jeffreys’ continuing friendship with Trevor and his affectionate relationship with his wife suggest the slur was unjustified.<sup>11</sup> So successful did Jeffreys seem that it was scarcely surprising that by October he was tipped for yet another promotion – this time to be attorney general.<sup>12</sup> Although this prediction proved to be unfounded, Jeffreys, a determined opponent of exclusion, was certainly consolidating his position at court. In the winter of 1679–80 he distanced himself from the City authorities by encouraging the king to issue a proclamation against disorderly petitioning and followed this up, in April 1680, by joining with Francis Wythens<sup>‡</sup> in an address to the crown abhorring tumultuous petitioning. Like Sunderland his devotion to the court did not prevent him from retaining relationships with moderate Whigs such as Robert Clayton, though whether this particular relationship was one of friendship or of financial expediency is difficult to tell: Clayton was deeply involved in Jeffreys’ financial affairs. Almost the only survival of Jeffreys’ personal papers is a small cache preserved among Clayton’s at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies.<sup>13</sup></p><p>At the end of April 1680 Jeffreys replaced the popular and well-respected old royalist Sir Job Charlton as chief justice of Chester, at a salary of £500 a year.<sup>14</sup> He may have wanted the post as a way of flaunting his success to his fellow countrymen. A stray list of ‘presents sent to Flints’ suggests that he was keen to maintain his ties with the Welsh gentry: among other items, it includes a quarter of beef to Sir Roger Mostyn, father of Thomas Mostyn<sup>‡</sup>, as well as bottles of claret and canary for the high sheriff and oysters for the sheriff.<sup>15</sup> It was also, despite the high salary, a relatively undemanding post that would not interfere with either his private practice or his duties as recorder of London. Roger North ascribed the promotion to the influence of the duke of York, but others attributed it to Jeffreys’ friendship with the duchess of Portsmouth.<sup>16</sup> Charlton was unwilling to relinquish his position even though he was appointed instead to the more senior post of judge in common pleas, but Jeffreys’ interest at court was by now ‘so prevalent’ that Charlton’s protests were ignored.<sup>17</sup></p><p>It is tempting to speculate about a political motive for Jeffreys’ appointment. Shortly after this, Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), carried out an extensive purge of the Welsh magistracy, but that purge reflected personal as well as political grudges and there seems to be no reason to believe that the court really needed someone more pliant than Charlton.<sup>18</sup> Perhaps what it needed was someone more aggressive: one possible explanation for Jeffreys’ appointment relates to a perceived need to counter-balance the Cheshire influence of the recorder of Chester and Whig ‘spaniel’, William Williams<sup>‡</sup>, who was not only an exclusionist but also Jeffreys’ much disliked professional rival.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Jeffreys had been involved in a number of cases arising from the Popish Plot, both as counsel for the crown and in his capacity as recorder. Where reports of these cases exist, they indicate that his conduct was, if not entirely unexceptionable, certainly far from the caricature of the judicial bully that has become legendary. Yet his association with the court and particularly with the Catholic duchess of Portsmouth would in itself have raised suspicions of partiality. His role in the otherwise obscure case of Philip Doughty, convicted of murder in August 1680, led to rumours that he was somehow acting on behalf of Portsmouth, or her servants.<sup>20</sup> His treatment of the grand jury empanelled in September 1680 to consider a presentment against the bookseller Francis Smith for publishing a libel against the lord mayor and sheriffs was an example of precisely the sort of misbehaviour that has come to be associated with his name. According to Smith, Jeffreys refused to accept the grand jury’s <em>ignoramus</em> verdict and forced them to reconsider three times. When the grand jury still refused to return a true bill, Jeffreys committed Smith to Newgate anyway, insisting that he find sureties for good behaviour.<sup>21</sup> Jeffreys clearly believed Smith to be guilty, especially as Smith’s co-defendants had all compounded, a process that involved an admission of guilt.</p><p>Jeffreys’ open political partisanship now led to an attempt to remove him from the recordership of the City on the grounds that his activities made him ‘dangerous and destructive to public peace, unity and prosperity’. During the proceedings Henry Booth*, later 2nd Baron Delamer and earl of Warrington, who was closely allied to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, described Jeffreys as behaving like a ‘jack-pudding’, accused him of browbeating witnesses, and reported rumours that he regularly drank until two o’clock in the morning.<sup>22</sup> Thomas Pilkington<sup>‡</sup> contented himself with remarking that Jeffreys was ‘a common enemy to mankind’.<sup>23</sup> The committee considering the charges found that Jeffreys ‘by his discountenancing of the petition for the meeting of the Parliament he has betrayed the rights and privileges of the people of England’, as a result of which the Commons voted to present an address to the king asking that Jeffreys be turned out of his offices. <sup>24</sup> The king appeared to take no action but Jeffreys promptly resigned the recordership, thus taking the heat out of the campaign against him.<sup>25</sup> Whether he did so of his own volition or as part of a strategy agreed by the king remains unclear.</p><p>Despite this setback, Jeffreys’ ties to the City remained strong. In April 1681 he was appointed to the City militia, and early in May to the City lieutenancy. Later that month he presented a loyal address from the citizens of Southwark, together with his father-in-law, Sir Thomas Bludworth, who presented a similar address on behalf of the City. In August Jeffreys was one of those deputed to attend the feast for Tory apprentices at Sadlers Hall.<sup>26</sup> During the summer he was also elected chairman of the Middlesex bench of justices – an unusual appointment for a professional lawyer and one that must have been influenced by the court through the lord lieutenant, William Craven*, earl of Craven. Early in October, in what must have been an integral part of the government’s strategy for a concerted counter-attack on the exclusionists, he ordered the Middlesex constables ‘to fall upon meeting houses with all severity’. To this end, over the coming months the order was not only distributed to the constables but also printed and posted up in ‘divers public places’. When the Middlesex sessions convened on 10 Oct. Jeffreys refused to accept the jury panel returned by the sheriff. Those to whom he objected were men of substance, but of Whig politics.<sup>27</sup> Since the sheriffdom of Middlesex was held by the two sheriffs of the City of London, this precipitated yet another dispute with the City authorities.</p><p>Throughout 1682 Jeffreys continued to ingratiate himself with the court. It may have been he who suggested the revival of the custom of toasting at the City of London’s Bridgehouse feast, which was used in 1682 to ensure the appointment of a Tory sheriff.<sup>28</sup> He acted as prosecuting counsel in a number of cases with political overtones, including the trials of Pilkington, Fitzharris, Plunket, and College.<sup>29</sup> It was at his suggestion that a special commission was issued to remove the trials of those accused of riot during Monmouth’s progress from the jurisdiction of the court of the recorder of Chester (William Williams) to one presided over by Jeffreys himself, even though such an action was arguably in direct contravention of Chester’s charter. York rewarded him handsomely, granting him the profits of the penny post in November 1682, and perhaps also influencing the appointment in May 1682 of Jeffreys’ younger brother James as a prebendary of Canterbury cathedral.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In March 1683, when Lord Chief Justice Saunders fell ill, Sunderland immediately proposed Jeffreys as his replacement. At that time the suggestion was unwelcome to the king, who protested that such a promotion would arouse professional jealousies among the existing judges and that Jeffreys ‘had not law enough’.<sup>31</sup> Jeffreys continued to ingratiate himself. When the City of London’s charter was declared forfeited in June 1683, Jeffreys was one of those appointed to the commission to govern the City. One of his explicit instructions was to secure juries that would be prepared to prosecute conventicles.<sup>32</sup> In July he was a member of the legal team that prosecuted the first of the Rye House plotters to conviction. In September the king accepted Sunderland’s advice and appointed Jeffreys lord chief justice; he joined the Privy Council a month later.</p><p>Like many of Charles II’s judicial appointments, Jeffreys was appointed ‘at pleasure’ rather than during ‘good behaviour’. His appointment amounted to a virtual declaration of war on those who opposed the court in general and the duke of York in particular. In the ensuing term he presided over a whole series of trials relating to the Rye House Plot, most notably that of Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>. His handling of Sydney’s trial has attracted much attention, largely because of the publicity accorded to Sydney’s own objections.<sup>33</sup> Many of Sidney’s complaints were unjustified: defendants were not entitled to a copy of the indictment against them; they were not entitled to counsel except on questions of law; and precise details of statutes were never given in indictments. He was on rather firmer ground with his objections to the way in which Jeffreys interpreted both the law of treason and the nature of the evidence required to prove it. Arguably Sydney <em>was</em> convicted by ‘the partial, malicious and unjust directions and sentence of the judge who made that law by his declaration which was not ever imposed without act of Parliament’. Jeffreys’ pronouncement that <em>scribere est agere</em> (‘to write is to act’) stretched the definition of treason to include what otherwise might have been a non-capital charge of conspiracy.<sup>34</sup> Jeffreys certainly asked the rest of the bench whether they agreed, but, given the political pressure from above, one can scarcely be surprised at Sydney’s observation ‘I do not remember that any made reply.’<sup>35</sup></p><p>Within five months of his appointment Jeffreys had released Danby from prison, in direct opposition to Sunderland’s wishes and against the advice of the lord chancellor, Francis North*, Baron Guilford. Power was now concentrated in Jeffreys’ hands to an extent unprecedented for a professional lawyer. In the City he was at the centre of the <em>quo warranto</em> campaign against livery companies and was consulted in everything from applications for places as coal-meters, to the appointment of clerks and other officers appointed to the livery companies under their new charters, it being essential that such persons be ‘of a steady loyalty and unbiased affection to the established government of Church and state’. When the coal-heavers petitioned for incorporation and the surgeons and periwig makers asked for their own companies, it was to Jeffreys that the government turned for advice.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In the provinces he was similarly involved in the government’s <em>quo warranto</em> campaign against the corporations. He had been appointed high steward of Wallingford in 1681; now he became recorder of New Windsor and of Plymouth; and it was Jeffreys who accepted the surrender of the charters of Liverpool, Lincoln, Carlisle, Kendal, Lancaster, York, and probably many others. In September 1683 he presided at the Chester assizes when a packed grand jury, under the chairmanship of the court Member Sir Thomas Grosvenor<sup>‡</sup>, presented Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, and 27 other Whig magnates as a danger to the king and kingdom. Jeffreys also persuaded Chester’s corporation to surrender its charter.<sup>37</sup> Those who did not surrender their charters voluntarily faced an expensive action in the court of king’s bench in the full knowledge that Jeffreys was not only directing the campaign against them but would also preside over their cases.<sup>38</sup> Nevertheless, to many he was a popular rather than a fearsome figure: John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, later Viscount Fermanagh [I], wrote in March 1684 that some 500 horsemen were expected to greet Jeffreys on his return from circuit ‘so well is he beloved’.<sup>39</sup> A year later, news that a report of Jeffreys’ death was false led the people of the Montgomeryshire town of ‘Kanevyllyn’ (probably Llanfyllin) to ring the bells and to celebrate so hard that they were drunk for three days.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Jeffreys believed that part of his function was to mount an aggressive campaign against the government’s critics, complaining on one occasion that ‘every pitiful mechanic rascal instead of mending their shop tools pretended to mend the government’.<sup>41</sup> Despite his association in the public mind with the Catholics who surrounded York, he appears to have been a sincerely committed Anglican. He denied being a Catholic in the will that he drew up just days before his death, and emphasized his loyalty and commitment to the Church of England. Indeed, the list of Anglican divines to whom he left mourning rings –Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, Robert Frampton*, bishop of Gloucester, John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York, and Dean Stratford (many of whom braved public opinion to visit him in the final days of his life) – suggests a very firm allegiance to the Tory wing of the Church of England.</p><p>As one of the commissioners for London Jeffreys was responsible for turning out ‘those persons in hospitals and other public places who are whiggishly inclined’ and encouraging the stricter use of laws against conventicles.<sup>42</sup> As lord chief justice he presided over both criminal and private causes. In keeping with his pronouncement in the case against Algernon Sydney, he adopted an extreme definition of high treason, enabling convictions for words that were politically offensive rather than overtly seditious or rebellious. When Alderman William Wright<sup>‡</sup> was accused of writing that ‘the king and duke are brothers in iniquity’, Jeffreys made a ponderous joke about the constitutional benefits of a long rope (for a hanging) and questioned whether Wright should be bailed ‘because his words were rather high treason than grand misdemeanour’. When he did admit Wright to bail he required four sureties of £5,000 apiece; Wright could find only two, so he was imprisoned instead.<sup>43</sup> By imposing high fines and extortionate bail requirements Jeffreys ensured that opponents of the government faced financial ruin or an indeterminate period of imprisonment during which they would be kept under unusually harsh conditions.<sup>44</sup> When on circuit he undermined local government by enquiring into disorders and alleged sedition, sometimes at the order of central government, and sometimes of his own volition. In Lancaster he called a local justice before him, accused him in open court, as a sympathizer to Dissent, of being ‘a rogue and a snivelling canting fanatical rascal’, and forced him into a recognizance of £1,000 to appear in king’s bench.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Private causes heard in Jeffreys’ court included several actions of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> in which James, duke of York, was awarded extortionate damages against his political opponents. They also included cases that, although outside the mainstream of factional politics did have important constitutional implications, such as <em>Lady Ivy’s case</em>, which centred on the ownership of lands that had been alienated from the Church in the sixteenth century. This case almost certainly opened up possibilities for the crown to reclaim ownership of former Church lands that had been granted to commoners at the Reformation. Little wonder that in July 1684 the king ‘as a signal favour’ presented Jeffreys with a diamond ring pulled from his own finger.<sup>46</sup></p><p>In September 1684 Jeffreys was at the centre of negotiations for a new City charter, the terms of which he had personally approved.<sup>47</sup> By the end of the month it was confidently reported that he had been admitted to the inner circle of the crown’s advisers.<sup>48</sup> It was as a member of that inner circle that in October 1684, with the complicity of York but to the consternation of George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Lord Chancellor Guilford, he proposed the abrogation of the recusancy laws. Sunderland urged a general declaration suspending proceedings against Catholics, but York was not yet prepared to defy Parliament so Jeffreys achieved the same end by instigating a case-by-case review. The following month, during a discussion about the constitutional settlement of New England, and specifically about whether there should some form of representative government there, Jeffreys made his unquestioning support for unchecked royal supremacy abundantly clear when he declared that ‘whoso capitulateth, rebelleth’ – meaning that any attempt to define, in any way, the limits of the crown’s power, was equivalent to rebellion.<sup>49</sup></p><p>In January 1685 there were rumours that Jeffreys was to be elevated to the peerage as Viscount Wrexham.<sup>50</sup> Although the suggestion of a viscountcy turned out to be an exaggeration, it is clear that the procedures for creating Jeffreys a peer must have been instigated by Charles II, if only because Jeffreys was being congratulated on his elevation to the peerage before Charles’s death on 6 February.<sup>51</sup> It was a singular honour to confer on a mere lawyer: Jeffreys appears to have been the first judge (apart from lord chancellors or keepers) to have been made a peer. Some, like Burnet, were suspicious of what appeared to be yet another Stuart constitutional innovation, believing it to be ‘inconsistent with the character of a judge’.<sup>52</sup> In what was perhaps a reflection on the Jeffreys’ major source of wealth, the letters patent creating him a baron included a special remainder: his new honour was to descend to his sons by his second wife, reverting to his eldest son only if that line failed.</p><p>Predictably, Jeffreys’ conduct in the early days of James II’s reign demonstrated a continuing commitment to the cause of the crown. He seems to have run a virtual blacklist of selected lawyers. In February 1685 he warned representatives of Oxford University against employing John Wallis as their counsel in any forthcoming trial in his court, ‘lest their cause fare the worse’; Wallis’ offence was to have hosted meetings of defence witnesses during the trial of Stephen College.<sup>53</sup> In May he told Richard Baxter, before his trial had even commenced, that he was one of ‘the greatest rogues and rascals in the kingdom’. At the trial later that month he described Baxter’s lawyers as ‘a company of rogues and rascals of the gown’ and ‘wondered they had confidence to be of counsel for such very seditious persons’.<sup>54</sup> His decisions in private cases continued to favour the crown. His resolution of <em>East India Company v Sandys</em> early in 1685 was not simply a confirmation of the East India Company’s charter but was also a confirmation of the (controversial) prerogative powers of the crown to issue such charters. At a more prosaic level, his decision in favour of Sir Francis Holles*, (2nd Baron Holles), in a case about a disputed dowry is thought to have secured that individual’s support for the Court.<sup>55</sup></p><p><em>Jeffreys and Parliament, 1685–9</em></p><p>Meanwhile, Jeffreys threw himself wholeheartedly into the election campaign, combining electioneering with his circuit duties.<sup>56</sup> He is known to have intervened to a greater or lesser degree in the elections in Bedfordshire, Bedford, Amersham, Buckingham, Lancaster, Aldborough, Beverley, and Denbighshire and it is likely that his influence was felt in many other places: his cousin Sir John Trevor certainly consulted him over the problems of the Montgomeryshire out-boroughs.<sup>57</sup> Jeffreys’ brother-in-law Sir Thomas Bludworth<sup>‡</sup> was returned for Bramber. Ironically, he was least successful in his adopted county of Buckinghamshire where even transferring the election to another town at short notice and taking over every single inn could not prevent the victory of the anti-court candidates. A dispute about the governance of the corporation of Bridgwater, Somerset, was also settled by Jeffreys.<sup>58</sup> He was reappointed to the City lieutenancy and continued to advise on the content of charters to livery companies.<sup>59</sup> So great was his power in the City, that it seemed to have eclipsed that of the lord mayor who complained:</p><blockquote><p>that whatever was well done in the City was attributed to his influence and contrivance; that himself and the aldermen were but looked upon at court as his instruments; and that … his lordship used them contemptibly … and that many were laid aside from their employments, not being suffered to make their defence …<sup>60</sup></p></blockquote><p>Jeffreys took his seat in the House on 19 May 1685, the first sitting day of the new Parliament, and attended 36 of the 43 sitting days that year. His cousin (and friend) Sir John Trevor was Speaker of the House of Commons. Jeffreys held the proxy of Ralph Stawell*, Baron Stawell, from 13 June 1685. In October, when Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, sent his proxy to the king, ‘to be disposed of as his majesty thinks fit’, this too was given to Jeffreys.<sup>61</sup> He was recorded as present on 22 May 1685 when the House voted that all impeachments fell by the dissolution of Parliament and that the popish lords should be freed; presumably he voted for the motion since Roger Morrice did not list his name among the not-contents.<sup>62</sup> When Sir Robert Owen<sup>‡</sup> was denied the constableship of Harlech Castle, William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, consoled him that no other outcome could be expected since Owen’s opponent was backed by Jeffreys, whose interest ‘is too great this time for any ordinary man to contend against’.<sup>63</sup> So great was Jeffreys’ ascendancy that in May 1685 there was ‘a very hot report’ that he was to be promoted to the lord chancellorship.<sup>64</sup></p><p>In August 1685, in the aftermath of Monmouth’s failed rebellion, Jeffreys led the special commission to try the rebels. Some 300 people – the precise number is unknown – were executed, and another 800 were transported. The quartered bodies of the executed were displayed for several years as a salutary warning of the consequences of rebellion. There were so many of them that it created an ‘exceeding chargeable and troublesome’ logistical nightmare for local officials.<sup>65</sup> The extent to which Jeffreys was responsible for the savagery of the repression has been a matter of debate ever since. Yet even if it is true that the account of one of the most notorious of the trials, that of Alice Lisle, was embellished after the revolution of 1688 to Jeffreys’ disadvantage, it remains clear that in this as in other trials Jeffreys acted more like prosecuting counsel than judge and that he virtually directed the jury to convict, even though some wanted to acquit.<sup>66</sup> His conduct was particularly reprehensible in an age when it was part of the presiding judge’s function to supply some of the deficiencies caused by the rule against the use of defence counsel.</p><p>Jeffreys himself is said to have claimed, shortly before his death, that ‘what I did I had express orders for, and was so far from exceeding my orders, that I was not half bloody enough for the man who sent me thither’.<sup>67</sup> Apologists for James, in contrast, have denied his involvement, insisting that he ‘abhorred what had passed in that Commission’.<sup>68</sup> The surviving correspondence in the state papers makes it quite clear that Jeffreys kept Sunderland and the king well informed about the progress of the trials and that the king was well pleased with the effects of what he termed Jeffreys’ ‘campaign’ in the West. It is also clear that, whatever the initial motivation for the trials, financial considerations came to play an important role. The rewards from selling convicts into colonial servitude and accepting bribes for pardons provided a lucrative source of patronage bordering on the corrupt even by the standards of the day.<sup>69</sup> Jeffreys himself was said to have made between £50,000 and £80,000.<sup>70</sup> In the controversial case of Alice Lisle, the king himself may have been personally involved in insisting on her conviction. Lisle was the elderly widow of the regicide John Lisle<sup>‡</sup>, whose property (along with that of the other regicides) had been awarded to James at the Restoration. Her own claim on the lands as part of her jointure had frustrated attempts to confiscate them and had resulted in extensive litigation in the 1660s and 1670s.<sup>71</sup> The decision to carry out the sentence of execution clearly <em>was</em> taken by the king rather than by Jeffreys, and one of the consequences of Lisle’s conviction was that James was at last able to seize her estate, as all her property became forfeit to the crown.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Jeffreys’ role in the repression of Monmouth’s rebellion was simply a more extreme version of the consistently savage subjugation of rebellion that had been seen since Farnley Wood in the early years of the Restoration. The surprise after Monmouth’s rebellion was not that there were executions but that there were so many of them.<sup>73</sup> Unlike William III, neither Jeffreys nor his royal masters ever seem to have grasped the importance of managing the theatre of death: a few carefully chosen token executions could be used to strengthen reciprocal ties of deference and loyalty but mass killings (especially when one of the victims was an otherwise inoffensive elderly woman like Alice Lisle) simply caused revulsion and festering resentment.<sup>74</sup> Chillingly, Jeffreys was later reported to have told the king that ‘he must execute threescore hundred before the government could be safe’.<sup>75</sup> As was soon to become apparent, in the particular social and political circumstances of the day, this massive, and necessarily isolated, show of judicial force far from assuring James’ future enjoyment of the crown, threatened to destabilize his regime.</p><p>In August 1685 Jeffreys was tipped as a candidate for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, but that post went instead to Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon. Roger Morrice concluded that Jeffreys had been opposed by ‘some very potent person’ but the reality was probably rather more prosaic: that Jeffreys’ name had been tossed about as part of the continuing infighting at court. Jeffreys’ sights were now set on the lord chancellorship, which was at last made vacant by the death in September 1685 of the ailing Guilford. Although he must have been the most obvious candidate for the post, he did have rivals, including Francis Turner*, the recently appointed bishop of Ely, and Robert Sawyer<sup>‡</sup>, the attorney general.<sup>76</sup> Accordingly he lost no time in asking Sunderland for his patronage and protection.<sup>77</sup> As lord chancellor, Jeffreys added yet more areas to his already considerable powers of patronage. What little survives of his personal and official papers shows him presiding over an avalanche of requests for appointments: masters in chancery, masters extraordinary in chancery, commissioners to take affidavits in the country, and even parish clerks.<sup>78</sup> Somewhat to his embarrassment, the king even consulted him over appointments to the Irish judiciary before discussing the issues with Clarendon, the lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>79</sup></p><p>On 17 Oct. 1685 Jeffreys sat for the first time as lord chancellor and, much to Roger Morrice’s surprise, ‘gave satisfaction to all’. A few days later his speech to mark the inaugural sitting of his successor as lord chief justice, Sir Edward Herbert, set out the political objectives of the judiciary with an uncompromising attack on the Whigs, ‘a pestilent sort of men … that were implacable enemies … and therefore must have the utmost vengeance of the law taken upon them’. Although there was no outward sign of it, according to Roger Morrice Herbert had been appointed against Jeffreys’ wishes, demonstrating that even at the height of his influence his interest had considerable limitations.<sup>80</sup></p><p>As lord chancellor Jeffreys was also now at the centre of the crown’s campaign to appoint loyal magistrates.<sup>81</sup> Unsurprisingly his correspondents emphasized both their own loyalty and that of those they recommended: ‘I shall make it my chief endeavour in that employ’ wrote William Clarke of Somerset, ‘to shew that it is no less the interest than the duty of every man of an estate and office to be exactly loyal.’ Occasionally the requests reveal interesting alliances: somewhat unexpectedly the exclusionist Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton), referred to ‘having the honour’ of Jeffreys’ favour, but when he wanted to have his steward added to the commissions of the peace for Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, he nevertheless thought it politic to approach Jeffreys via the City financier Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. At other times they illustrate just how difficult it was to conduct such a wholesale purge of the political nation: Sir Thomas Chicheley<sup>‡</sup> reacted with horror to the nomination of one justice, remarking that ‘his father was butler to his family and that if he be made none of the gentry … will sit’.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Having prorogued Parliament in November, the first major test of Jeffreys’ new office was to preside over the court of the lord high steward for the trial of Henry Booth, now 2nd Baron Delamer, on a charge of high treason arising from his alleged role in Monmouth’s rebellion. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, was later at pains to suggest that James II went out of his way to convince his subjects that Delamer would receive a fair trial. Since he then went on to state that the peers summoned for the trial included only household officers, army officers, and lords lieutenants, any suggestion that the trial was not rigged is almost impossible to accept at face value.<sup>83</sup> After the revolution of 1689 it was disclosed that Jeffreys was among those who had promised a reward and a pardon to entice testimony from a potential prosecution witness and that when the individual concerned had failed to provide such evidence he had been condemned to 36 weeks’ imprisonment in virtual isolation in Newgate.<sup>84</sup> Jeffreys prepared for the trial carefully – two copies of a draft of his opening speech survive – but not carefully enough, for Delamer does not seem to have received answers to some very basic questions about procedural issues and the evidence was too poor to secure a conviction. The failure of this trial may have been a setback to Jeffreys’ position at court. It reinvigorated the Whigs to the point that, as Roger Morrice pointed out, ‘The grand enquiry is now who advised the trial of this peer when the evidence was so incompetent’.<sup>85</sup></p><p>Throughout the spring of 1686 there were signs that Jeffreys was being outflanked at court by those who were politically even more extreme than he was himself, though whether the issues he questioned stemmed from genuine ideological concern, from a fear of criticism from the Parliament that was due to meet in the autumn, or from a belief that backing Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, was now a better bet than backing Sunderland is something of an open question. He expressed concern on a range of subjects, from the revision of the judicial bench to the appointment, against the Henrician statutes, of the Catholic Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I], as ambassador to Rome. He disagreed with the burning of Claude’s account of the persecution of French Huguenots and began to support Rochester’s arguments in the closet and on the ecclesiastical commission, but neither Rochester nor his brother Clarendon were prepared to accept his overtures.<sup>86</sup> During June, Lord Chief Justice Herbert, who was said to owe his preferment to Jeffreys’ enemy at court, Father Petre, was said to be ‘daily proclaiming’ against Jeffreys’ exorbitances after Monmouth’s rebellion.<sup>87</sup> Fortunately for Jeffreys, he managed to encourage a settlement of claims and thus avoided too close an enquiry into his own profits.<sup>88</sup> The international situation also favoured Rochester and his pro-Dutch allies at court.<sup>89</sup> Rumours that Jeffreys’ credit at court was in decline continued to spread.<sup>90</sup> Meanwhile, the survival among Jeffreys’ papers of what appears to be Judge Powell’s initial opinion in <em>Hales v Godden</em> suggests that even though Jeffreys was disturbed by the king’s purge of the judges, he was nevertheless deeply involved in persuading them to agree to the dispensing power.<sup>91</sup></p><p>In June 1686 Jeffreys commenced an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against Margaret Lilburn, who was said to have called him ‘a bloody man’, to have wished to see him hanged, and to have criticized the way in which he had profited from the treatment of Monmouth’s rebels. Lilburn, ‘a woman of very mean estate and employment’ who could not defend herself, was forced to disappear after a verdict for £10,000 damages. That same month Jeffreys was reported as intending ‘to search into all the Inns of Court’.<sup>92</sup> Yet reports of dissension in the king’s inner council of advisers confirm that Jeffreys’ influence was under threat. According to the Spanish Ambassador, Ronquillo, Sunderland was bent on destroying Rochester and ‘getting rid of the Catholics’ and had joined forces with Jeffreys, who ‘is still firm for the prerogative and on the penal laws, but does not show the same vigour against those who have insulted the Catholics’.<sup>93</sup> A meeting, later that month, at Jeffreys’ house, of the factional leaders Sunderland, William Herbert*, earl (later marquess) of Powis, and James Hamilton*, then styled earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S]) confirmed Jeffreys’ alliance with Sunderland and the ‘French faction’.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Also brewing behind the scenes was a dispute between Roger L’Estrange and Jeffreys. According to Roger Morrice, Jeffreys had already taken umbrage at certain remarks published by L’Estrange in the <em>Observator</em> in May. The relationship between the two men further deteriorated when L’Estrange alerted the king to Dean Sharp’s sermon and its strictures on papists. Sharp was a friend of Jeffreys, who attempted to smooth matters over. He was so confident of his success that he informed all the interested parties that no action would be taken. L’Estrange and Jeffreys also fell out over the prosecution of Dissenters. Roger Morrice reported that prosecutions and harrying of conventicles in the London area continued throughout the first half of 1686. Among the meetings targeted was one held at the house of Thomas Spencer in Newington and frequented by Charles Fleetwood, the former parliamentarian general. The informers, members of the notorious Hilton gang, tried to collect over £600 in fines, then offered to compound for £200 or £300. Their victims refused to pay and entered an appeal. The following month instead of prosecuting their appeal at the Middlesex sessions of the peace, they entered formal complaints against William Cleeve, the justice who had convicted them. The informers were indicted for perjury and the assembled justices, clearly acting on advice from Jeffreys, drew up a representation of Cleeve’s misconduct. This was presented to Jeffreys as a prelude to Cleeve’s removal form the bench. Cleeve, who claimed to be acting on the king’s ‘special commands’, promptly threatened to represent the justices to the king. It was no idle threat. It now emerged that Cleeve was under the protection of Roger L’Estrange. Cleeve alleged that Spencer’s conventicle was frequented by people who were openly sympathetic to anyone claiming to have been involved in Monmouth’s rebellion. Jeffreys was forced to humble himself to L’Estrange and to give him ‘great matter of triumph’ by clearing Cleeve of all charges.<sup>95</sup></p><p>In July 1686 Jeffreys was named to the ecclesiastical commission. It was also thought, erroneously, that his interest would be sufficient to secure the see of Chester for his brother James; Jeffreys was so piqued when Thomas Cartwright*, was not only given the bishopric but also a living that Jeffreys had designed for his own chaplain, that he refused to pass the royal assent and left town for a few days.<sup>96</sup> In August he was appointed high steward of Buckingham. He also presided over the hearing of the case against Henry Compton*, bishop of London, for failing to suspend Dean Sharp. Roger Morrice cannot have been the only person to have condemned Jeffreys’ rudeness to the bishop, or to have remarked on the disparity of status between the nobly born Compton and Jeffreys, who had been ‘raised to what he was by the king’s mere favour’, for Jeffreys subsequently apologized for his behaviour.<sup>97</sup></p><p>In October 1686 Jeffreys was trusted to make a royal visitation of the deanery of Windsor. He was also named to the committee to regulate the commissions of the peace, yet when the regulation took place at a meeting of the council in November, the king listened to his Catholic advisers and Jeffreys ‘was never at all consulted nor bore any figure in this matter’. His status at court was only just sufficient to protect him from a threat of assault by one of Rochester’s adherents, George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth. In January 1687 Jeffreys was one of the electors at the Charterhouse, where his support for a Catholic candidate provoked an argument about the dispensing power. Jeffreys and Sunderland argued in vain against Danby, who, supported by James Butler*, duke of Ormond, Halifax, and William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, declared the dispensing power to be illegal and ‘the judges’ opinions … unwarrantable by the laws of England’.</p><p>In April 1687 a case that tested the validity of capital punishment in cases of desertion from the army precipitated Herbert’s removal as a justice of the king’s bench. It was believed that the case had been contrived by Jeffreys in order to ensnare his rival, and when, in the course of his deliberations, Herbert deplored the use of judicial proceedings for ‘personal advantage and lucre’, his words were widely interpreted as a reference to Jeffreys. Yet, although Jeffreys may have engineered Herbert’s fall, he was by no means in the ascendant at court, for he was unable to prevent the removal of his friend and ally Francis Wythens<sup>‡</sup> from the bench later the same month.<sup>98</sup></p><p>As lord chancellor, Jeffreys was called upon to seal the Declaration of Indulgence and to arrange for it to be printed and published, and also to insert a dispensing clause into every commission of the peace and all other commissions and patents that were to be sealed by him in the future.<sup>99</sup> In April 1687, when the Declaration of Indulgence had been issued, Jeffreys summoned Thomas Cartwright of Chester, Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, and Samuel Parker*, bishop elect of Oxford, to a meeting at his house at which he and Sunderland told them that the king expected an address of thanks from them for his care of the Church of England in the Declaration.<sup>100</sup> In May he was again being tipped as lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>101</sup> In June, as one of the ecclesiastical commissioners investigating the Magdalen college case, and in a fine display of the partiality that had come to be associated with him, he assured the vice-president of the college that ‘the commissioners would not be so hasty in adjudging him as he had been in disobeying and contemning the king’s authority’.<sup>102</sup></p><p>In August 1687 Jeffreys was appointed lord lieutenant of Shropshire, and to the commission of lieutenancy for the City of London. He obtained the post of ranger of St James’s Park for his son in September and in November he became lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire.<sup>103</sup> He was still influencing decisions on the minutiae of public affairs: it was Jeffreys, for example, who advised on the crown’s response to a petition for the grant of a market in Old Soho, and another for a monopoly of printing musical books.<sup>104</sup> Yet these apparent successes concealed the increasing fragility of his position at court. He was well aware that ‘as the Popish interest grows so his declines’.<sup>105</sup> The proposed regulation of the corporations and revision of the commissions of the peace meant that the Tory allies that he had so carefully placed in office were now to be purged. His lack of enthusiasm for the task provoked accusations of failure that were orchestrated by Father Petre and his Catholic allies, even though Jeffreys had personally added some Catholic names to the lists of those being pricked for sheriffs. Although in mid-November he was added to the new commission for the inspection of offices (intended to regulate more general ‘offices, employments or preferments’ in a manner similar to the regulation of local government) his position was increasingly uneasy. Nevertheless he was reassured about his position after he had told the king that if he were to be dismissed as lord chancellor the country would no longer be safe for him.<sup>106</sup> By the end of November he had regained some support by promising to get 30 or 40 lords to ‘a concurrence’ on the repeal of the Test Acts and penal laws, but since he was unable even to get agreement from the gentry of Buckinghamshire, it proved to be a very temporary return to favour.<sup>107</sup></p><p>On 7 Jan. 1688 Jeffreys was called to a long interview with the king from which he emerged ‘so greatly disordered and discomposed’ that his friends concluded that he had been threatened with dismissal. His refusal to become a Catholic without some guarantee of retaining his position was a contributory factor to his fall from favour, since it implied a lack of trust in his sovereign; what was more important, however, was his lack of sympathy with the king’s new policies: ‘it cannot but be a pressure upon him to the very breaking of his heart to see the Tories thus depressed, and to see the Protestant Dissenters enjoy the liberty they now have’. The king had given him some £2,500 in new year’s gifts, but in anticipation of his removal from office Jeffreys cut back on his expenses by dismissing several servants.<sup>108</sup> He was saved only by the intervention of Sunderland, whose isolation at court was such that he in turn had to call on the assistance of the queen.<sup>109</sup> Jeffreys and Sunderland then tried unsuccessfully to interest the king in a new policy: using the judges in their travels on circuit ‘to dispose the country for the choice of a right Parliament’. Nevertheless Jeffreys’ renewed alliance with Sunderland seemed to have brought him back into favour; it certainly convinced Roger Morrice that a fresh attack on Dissenters was on the way.<sup>110</sup> At the end of February Jeffreys was ordered to add schedules to each commission of the peace in order to facilitate future piecemeal alterations.<sup>111</sup> He was still in a position to influence the distribution of offices and royal favour, and conducted a major reform of the Six Clerks’ Office in the court of chancery. When, in March 1688, Thomas Cartwright criticized Jeffreys and Sunderland ‘as not being true to their trust’ and giving ‘ill advice’, the king forced him to apologize.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Later that month Jeffreys wrote a series of letters to the gentry and deputy lieutenants in Shropshire on the subject of the three questions. He did not give his own views, suggesting that to do so when the king had expressed his intentions so fully would be impertinent, but ‘humbly’ (and unsuccessfully) requested their compliance.<sup>113</sup> He fared rather better in Buckingham. The borough had long been threatened with a <em>quo warranto</em> but was determined not to surrender its charter voluntarily. When Jeffreys learned that the mayor and aldermen had said ‘That the lord chancellor had got an hundred thousand pound by the rebellion, or by pardons &c that many an honester man had been hanged’ he seized the opportunity to bring them to heel with an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>. Imprisoned for four days while they found bail of £40,000, the mayor and aldermen were so terrified that they quickly agreed to surrender the charter in return for an end to the action.<sup>114</sup> In August 1688 their new charter named Jeffreys as high steward.</p><p>In July 1688 Jeffreys’ merchant brother Thomas referred to him as having ‘his head … full of business and I fear his mind full of discontent’ and asked for information about his affairs. Even in Alicante he had heard about troubles at court: ‘I hear various reports of him, some that he stands as fast as ever, others that he is much declined at court and is abundantly uneasy and out of humour.’<sup>115</sup> Jeffreys did have much to worry him, for his position was still precarious.<sup>116</sup> He was said to have welcomed the acquittal of the seven bishops, partly because some of them were his friends, partly because it vindicated his own advice, and partly because it put his old rival William Williams in a bad light at court.<sup>117</sup> Early in September he was named to the committee to superintend the forthcoming elections.<sup>118</sup> By the end of the month the deteriorating political situation had led the king to reverse his earlier policies and order the restoration of those who had so recently been purged from local government office. Jeffreys received the king’s commands as ‘a matter of joy’ and ‘he spent that night in drinking healths and prosperity to the Tories’.<sup>119</sup></p><p>Jeffreys’ surviving correspondence for September and October, meagre as it is, is sufficient to indicate that he was inundated with work arising from the task of restoring justices to the county commissions.<sup>120</sup> He was also involved in regulating the bench of judges.<sup>121</sup> On 4 Oct. he restored the City seal, carrying it hung on the boot of his coach so that it might be seen by the populace. According to one account, Jeffreys and the seal were ‘huzza’d in the streets’, but according to Roger Morrice the level of popular suspicion was too high to permit any rejoicing: ‘people said “There was the fellow that took away their charter, they could expect no good from him”’.<sup>122</sup> Perhaps they were right, for in November, when the City attempted to elect a new common council, it was discovered that Jeffreys had taken care to ensure that a clause be inserted into the precept requiring candidates to forswear taking up arms against the king or seeking any alteration in government.<sup>123</sup> The king granted him a free pardon on 12 October.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Meanwhile Jeffreys was taking steps to settle his family affairs. His eldest daughter, Margaret, had been married to the son of his fellow lawyer Sir Thomas Stringer<sup>‡</sup> in a ceremony conducted by Sprat of Rochester, in October 1687. In July 1688 his eldest son, John Jeffreys, married Lady Charlotte Herbert, the 13-year-old daughter of Philip Herbert, the deceased 7th earl of Pembroke. Lady Charlotte was a substantial heiress, said to be worth £70,000. Unfortunately, her inheritance had been secured by a decision in chancery handed down by Jeffreys himself in the full knowledge of his son’s forthcoming marriage. Jeffreys of course denied any partiality, but his decision nevertheless provoked controversy, a series of appeals, and ultimately, long after Jeffreys’ death, a private act of Parliament. Lady Charlotte was also a Catholic, so the marriage identified Jeffreys even more closely in the public mind as a supporter of popery. On 7 Oct. 1688 he drew up a settlement for his daughters, appointing as their trustees Sir Robert Clayton, his younger brother Dr James Jeffreys, Henry Pollexfen<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Colston, and Edward Jennings. On 25 Oct. he settled his estate at Bulstrode, naming Thomas White of Peterborough and Sir Thomas Bludworth as trustees.</p><p>By early December the political situation had deteriorated to such an extent that Jeffreys was forced to move with his goods from his house in Duke Street to Father Petre’s lodgings in Whitehall.<sup>125</sup> He was said to have been angling for the post of governor of Jamaica in succession to the recently deceased Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and in confirmation of his fall from power the benchers of the Inner Temple ordered the removal of his portrait from its prominent place in their hall.<sup>126</sup> Although the king took the great seal from him shortly before his flight to Kent, Jeffreys stayed on transacting business in chancery, carrying an empty purse.<sup>127</sup> It is not clear whether he was attempting a show of normality in order to cover the king’s flight, or whether, as Roger Morrice alleged, he genuinely believed that the king would not flee without him. As is well known he was arrested at Wapping as he attempted to secure a passage to Newcastle. He was said to have been trying to take 35,000 guineas with him.<sup>128</sup> Those who captured him were careful to observe the legal niceties: they made no move until they had obtained a warrant for his arrest. He was taken first to the lord mayor and then to the Tower, guarded by three or four constables sitting with him in the coach and others alongside armed with blunderbusses and drawn swords or bayonets. They were not there to prevent his escape but to protect him from the crowd that rapidly assembled to witness his humiliation. Jeffreys, terrified of mob violence, kept putting his head out of the window to calm them, calling out ‘It is I. It is I. I am in your custody and at your mercy.’ ‘Thus’, remarked Roger Morrice with evident satisfaction, ‘the chancellor that vomited out such rude unmannerly and brutal language (that was a reproach to the bench on which he sat) … is a sad subject of counter passion and the mobile pour out the same vomit upon him.’<sup>129</sup></p><p>There were great expectations of the confessions that Jeffreys might make, as well as fears that he might prove a rallying point for counter-revolution.<sup>130</sup> When he applied for a <em>habeas corpus</em>, the judges ran for advice to the peers at Guildhall, ‘who told them they were not to direct them in their own business, but advised them to take notice he stood charged with high crimes and misdemeanours’.<sup>131</sup> Jeffreys remained in the Tower. He had long been subject to periodic and painful bouts of ill health and, while these were undoubtedly exacerbated by his heavy drinking, it is also possible that he treated alcohol as a painkiller. Now he was reported to be drinking continually, sometimes consuming as much sherry and brandy in one day ‘to have killed 5 or 6 men’.<sup>132</sup> He died in the Tower on 20 Apr. 1689 and was buried there, but his body was removed to St Mary’s Aldermanbury four years later. His will, drawn up just a few days before his death, provided an opportunity to make a last political statement as well as to settle his estate. He declared that,</p><blockquote><p>I was in hopes notwithstanding my long indisposition of body I might by the blessing of almighty god have recovered so much strength as to have been able to vindicate myself if called to an account and made out that I never deserved to lie under the heavy censures I now do. I am sure I could have excused myself from having betrayed that Church whereof I have lived and die a member, I mean the Church of England which I take to be the best Church in the world and in the words of a dying man I declare I never contrived the ecclesiastical commission nor ever acted therein save in order to the service not overthrow of that Church.</p></blockquote><p>His sons by his second wife having predeceased him, his only surviving son by his first wife, John Jeffreys, succeeded him as 2nd Baron Jeffreys.</p> |
R.P. |
|
JEFFREYS, John (1673-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>JEFFREYS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1673–1702)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 18 Apr. 1689 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. JEFFREYS |
|
First sat 12 Nov. 1694; last sat 5 May 1702 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 16 July 1673, o. surv. s. George Jeffreys*, later Bar. Jeffreys, and Sarah, da. of Rev. Thomas Neesham of Stoke d’Abernon, Surr. <em>educ</em>. Westminster Sch.; Christ Church, Oxf. 1688. <em>m</em>. 17 July 1688, Charlotte, da. and h. of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, 1s. <em>d.v.p. </em>1da. <em>d</em>. 12 May 1702; <em>admon</em>. 23 May 1702 to wid.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ranger, St James’s Park 1688.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Despite being his father’s eldest son, John Jeffreys was not brought up as his heir. The settlement drawn up at the time of his father’s second marriage specified that the family estates would descend to the children of that marriage. Similarly the descent of his father’s barony was directed to the eldest son of the second marriage. John Jeffreys’ future was secured by an advantageous marriage, albeit to a Catholic: his wife’s fortune was reputed to be some £70,000. In the event, the early deaths of his two younger half-brothers meant that John Jeffreys inherited his father’s peerage under the terms of the special remainder, as well as substantial landholdings in Shropshire, Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire. His marriage brought him additional properties in Wales. Although it seems unlikely that a man with such extensive estates was unable to exercise electoral influence, there is no evidence that he did do so and, initially at least, his financial situation was precarious. His father’s estates were heavily mortgaged. In 1690 Jeffreys’ trustees had to fight off an attempt by members of the Commons to force the payment of substantial damages to Edmund Prideaux<sup>‡</sup> (a wealthy landowner implicated in Monmouth’s rising) from whom the 1st Baron Jeffreys had extorted over £14,000. His wife’s inheritance was secured by means of a controversial decree in chancery delivered by his own father. Jeffreys’ financial position was improved by the decision of the House of Lords to confirm his father’s judgment, but it was not fully secured until 1696 when a private act of Parliament endorsed his wife’s marriage settlement. Although some property was sold during his lifetime, his only child nevertheless inherited a considerable fortune and her dowry (£20,000) was a magnificent one. Suggestions that Jeffreys dissipated his fortune through extravagance and high living appear to be extremely exaggerated. The story that he drunkenly hijacked Dryden’s funeral appears to be similarly apocryphal.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Jeffreys may have contemplated a legal career for he took chambers in the Temple shortly before his eighteenth birthday.<sup>4</sup> His future career in the Lords certainly suggests an interest in the law, but there is no record of his having been admitted to any inn of court nor was he ever called to the bar. He was summoned to Parliament on 3 Nov. 1694 and took his seat on the first day of the 1694-95 session. His attendance thereafter was consistently high, never dropping below 62 per cent of possible sitting days even in the year of his death, and more usually running at over 75 per cent. His political and religious allegiances, as might be expected from his parentage, were to the Tories and the Church of England. He was regularly named to committees and that this was more than mere formality is evidenced by his activity as a reporter from committees, usually those dealing with bills to settle estate disputes. Occasionally there are indications that his involvement in estate bills may have been politically motivated: in 1701, for example, Jeffreys reported on estate bills for the deceased Rawlin Mallock<sup>‡</sup> and for Sir Thomas Stanley<sup>‡</sup>. Mallock had been a court Member of the Commons before the revolution of 1688, whilst Stanley was associated with the country opposition to William III’s government.</p><p>In January 1695, like Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, he opposed the decision to postpone the implementation of the treason bill until 1698, but unlike Leeds he also entered a formal dissent. He entered a further dissent to an amendment to the bill the following day. During the 1695-96 session, on 11 Jan. 1696 he was one of the managers of the conference on the bill for regulating the silver coinage and on 25 Jan. entered a dissent against the passing of the Act to Prevent False and Double Returns which regulated the conduct of returning officers. On 27 Feb. he followed the lead of Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham*, and refused to sign the Association. On 31 Mar. and early in the following session of 1696-97, on 28 Nov. 1696, he entered further dissents against measures to improve the coinage.</p><p>On 15 Dec. 1696, during the preliminary proceedings concerning the attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, Jeffreys entered a dissent to the admission of Goodman’s depositions, and then went on to enter dissents to the second and third readings of the bill on 18 and 23 Dec, although he did not join the committee to petition for a temporary reprieve that was appointed on 22 Jan. 1697. On 18 Dec. 1696 during the debate on the second reading of Fenwick’s attainder bill, he was so angered by reflections on his father made by Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, that it required the intervention of the House on the 23rd to prevent a duel. On 22 Dec. it was Jeffreys who brought to the House Fenwick’s petition to be heard at the bar before the third reading of the bill.<sup>5</sup> On 23 Jan. 1697 Jeffreys opposed the bill to regulate parliamentary elections; on 18 Feb. he was a teller, probably for the not contents, on the motion for the second reading of the wrought silks bill. He held the proxy of the suspected Jacobite, Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, between 27 Mar. and the end of the session on 16 April. During the 1697-98 session, roles were reversed when Jeffreys’ proxy was held by Scarsdale from 20 Dec. 1697 to 3 Jan. 1698. On 4 Mar. 1698 Jeffreys was a teller on the motion for the second reading of the punishment of bill of Charles Duncombe‡ and joined with 20 other peers in registering his dissent against it; he also voted against the third reading on 15 March. Between 11 Apr. 1698 and the end of the session on 5 July, Jeffreys held the proxy of Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea; he also held the proxy of Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter, from 28 June to the end of the session. On 1 July he entered a protest against the second reading of the bill to establish a new East India Company.</p><p>The following year, on 8 Feb. 1699, together with Nottingham and Leeds, he opposed the resolution to consider expedients to enable the king to retain the Dutch guards. On 2 Mar. he was one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prevent the distilling of corn, and on 27 Apr. he opposed the supply bill and was one of the managers of the second conference on the Billingsgate market bill. In July he was involved in a hearing at Lambeth of an allegation of simony against Thomas Watson*, the Tory bishop of St Davids.<sup>6</sup></p><p>His attendance at the House during 1700 dropped to just over 65 per cent of sitting days. On 1 Feb. he supported the continuation of the East India Company, voting on 23 Feb. in favour of adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to discuss the bill further. On 8 and 10 Feb. he opposed the court-sponsored motion condemning the Scots Darien venture; on 8 and 12 Mar. he opposed the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, acting as teller for the not contents on the motion for a second reading of the bill on 8 March.</p><p>The opening of the new Parliament in the spring of 1701 signalled a revival of Jeffreys’ interest in Parliament; perhaps he was hoping to benefit from the changes in the ministry. He was recorded as present on over 83 per cent of the sitting days in 1701. On 8 Mar. he protested against the resolution to address the king to lift the suspension of Captain Norris. On 15 and 20 Mar. three protests recorded his opposition to the second Partition Treaty. He then joined in the clamour for the impeachment of the four Whig lords and on 16 Apr. not only protested at the resolution to draw up an address asking the king not to punish the impeached lords until their impeachments had been heard but then entered a second protest at the decision to expunge the reasons given in the first protest. On 22 May he entered a protest at the passing of the succession bill; on 3 and 17 June he entered further protests against the proceedings in the impeachment of the Whig lords and voted against the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers. He was a teller for the third reading of the new Deal fresh water bill on 4 June, for both motions to appoint a date for a committee of the whole to consider the American plantations bill (11 Apr. and 11 June) and for the second reading of the public accounts bill on 21 June. He was also concerned about aspects of legal procedure and possible judicial corruption. On 5 June during a House of Lords hearing on a writ of error, he informed the House that he had been told that ‘the judges before whom the cause was heard seem to make bargains in the courts below.’ The allegation was that Mr Justice Powell had said at an earlier hearing that ‘Provided you will not bring a writ of error in Parliament, you shall have a new argument.’ Powell denied the allegation but ‘asked pardon if he said anything that seemed wrongful.’<sup>7</sup></p><p>In the short-lived second Parliament of 1701, on 16 Feb. 1702 Jeffreys was a teller for the division on the motion to resume the House on the perjury punishing bill. On 20 Feb. he told for the not contents on the motion to pass the bill to attaint Mary, widow of James II, for treason, then entered a protest when the bill passed, as he did on 24 Feb. to the bill for the further security of his majesty’s person. On 27 Apr. he told in the division on the motion to adjourn the debate in <em>Ranger v. Ashmead</em>. On 8 Mar., at the death of William III, Jeffreys was appointed as one of the managers of the conference on the succession. Not yet 30 years old, and with a reputation as an active, reliable and intelligent member of the House, he may well have believed that the new reign opened up equally new possibilities for advancement. In the event he contracted a fever and died, suddenly and unexpectedly, just two months after Anne’s accession.<sup>8</sup> His only son had predeceased him and so the peerage was extinguished. His widow subsequently married Thomas Windsor*, Viscount Windsor [I] (later Baron Mountjoy).</p> |
R.P. |
|
JERMYN, Henry (c. 1605-84) |
<p><strong><surname>JERMYN</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1605–84)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>8 Sept. 1643 Bar. JERMYN; <em>cr. </em>27 Apr. 1660 earl of ST ALBANS |
|
First sat Oxford 1644; first sat after 1660, 1 June 1660; last sat 26 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Bodmin 1625-6; Liverpool 1628-9; Corfe Castle 1640. |
<p>?<em>bap</em>. 29 Mar. 1605;<sup>1</sup> 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Thomas Jermyn<sup>‡</sup> and Catherine, da. of Sir William Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of Robert<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Jermyn<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1618. <em>unm</em>. (1 child illegit.). KG 1672. <em>d.</em> 2 Jan 1684; <em>will</em> 6 Dec. 1681, pr. 3 Mar. 1684.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. usher, privy chamber to Queen Henrietta Maria by 1627-39; master of queen’s horse 1639-44; gov. Jersey 1644-51, 1660-3, 1664-5;<sup>3</sup> chamb. to the queen 1644-69; treas. and recvr. gen. to queen mother ?-1669;<sup>4</sup> amb., France and United Provinces 1645, France 1660-1, 1662, 1666, 1667-8, 1669; PC c.1651-79. registrar of chancery 1661-76; commr. for prizes 1664-6; kpr. Greenwich House and Park from 1662; ld. chamb. 1671-4.</p><p>Commr. survey, bailiwick of St James’s c.1640; high steward, Kingston-upon-Thames 1671-?<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. Queen’s Regt. of Horse Gds. 1643-4.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, 1674, National Trust, Kedleston Hall, Derbys.</p> |
<p>The scion of a substantial gentry family, Jermyn rose to prominence at court largely through his intimacy with Henrietta Maria. The Jermyn family commanded considerable influence in Suffolk, where they had been settled since mediaeval times and where Jermyn’s father and older brother both served as Members for Bury St Edmunds. On his mother’s side Jermyn was related to a family of court hangers-on. Before the Civil War, Jermyn sat in the Commons as member for Bodmin through the interest of his uncle, Sir Robert Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>, for Liverpool through that of another relative, Sir Humphrey May<sup>‡</sup>, and Corfe Castle through the patronage of the attorney general, Sir John Bankes<sup>‡</sup>. It was his appointment at court as gentleman usher of the privy chamber to the queen in 1627, however, and then as master of the queen’s horse in 1639 that helped secure his position as a courtier of significant interest.</p><p>In addition to his experience in the Commons and at court Jermyn was also early on introduced to the world of diplomacy. In 1623 he was a member of the household of John Digby<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bristol, when the earl was serving as ambassador to Madrid, and in 1627 Jermyn was sent as the queen’s personal envoy to the court of France to convey his mistress’s sympathies following the death of the duchesse d’Orleans. He was again in France in 1632 to congratulate Marie de Medici on her recovery following a coach accident, for which assignment the king and queen rewarded him with a gift of jewels worth £2,000.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Jermyn appears to have played little role in the Commons, preferring to concentrate on his career at court. By the 1640s his influence with the queen was such that his interest was considered vital in securing patronage.<sup>10</sup> Having initially been in favour of accommodation with the king’s critics Jermyn soon abandoned this policy and became deeply embroiled in the First Army Plot.<sup>11</sup> He fled the country to avoid arrest, probably with the king’s connivance, and by 21 May he was reported to be across the Channel at Rouen.<sup>12</sup> Despite a furore in Parliament and widespread support for Jermyn’s impeachment, no trial ever took place. Jermyn was pointedly excepted from all further attempts by Parliament to reach an agreement with Charles I.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Jermyn did not remain in exile for long. In February 1643, Henrietta Maria landed in Yorkshire to raise troops for the royalist cause and by the early summer Jermyn had joined her at York. He was appointed colonel of the queen’s horse guards and later that year elevated to the peerage as Baron Jermyn.<sup>14</sup> Soon after his elevation, he was wounded at the battle of Auburn Chase but, besides this encounter, his participation in the fighting was minimal. His principal occupation during the conflict was the procuring of arms and support for the royalist cause from the continent. Continuing hostility towards him was reflected in the unflattering soubriquet then current of ‘Butcherly Jermyn, contemptible Harry’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1644 Jermyn accompanied the queen back into exile in France. He remained there for the ensuing 16 years, becoming one of the central figures of the queen’s grouping standing in opposition to Sir Edward Hyde*, (later earl of Clarendon). He became closely associated with Mazarin and towards the end of the Interregnum corresponded with the cardinal on the state of affairs in England.<sup>16</sup> When the majority of royalists were forced to leave France in 1654 as a consequence of the French alliance with England, Jermyn was permitted to remain.</p><p>Jermyn’s intimate relationship with the queen gave rise to rumours that they had been married secretly and even that he may have been the true father of Charles II.<sup>17</sup> One satire of 1680 advising the king to attend to the question of the succession repeated the suspicions of Jermyn’s involvement in his own conception:</p><blockquote><p>Dukes thou creat’st, yet want’st an heir,<br />Thy Portuguese is barren;<br />Marry again and ne’er despair:<br />In this lewd age we are in<br />Some Harry Jermyn will be found<br />To get an heir fit to be crown’d.<sup>18</sup></p></blockquote><p>However unlikely such tales were, Jermyn’s influence as a result of his connection with the queen is undeniable. He was thought to be sympathetic to Catholicism if not a convert himself, and, left in Paris after the departure of the rest of the court in 1654, he connived in the queen’s plans to convert her youngest son, Prince Henry*, duke of Gloucester, which earned him a stinging rebuke from the king.<sup>19</sup> He was not without rivals. Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton, was particularly jealous of Jermyn’s influence. Hatton dismissed Jermyn’s counsels ‘as pernicious and destructive as ever and his power as vast and exorbitant.’ Jermyn’s relations with his former patron’s son, George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, were similarly difficult and in 1648 the two narrowly avoided fighting a duel.<sup>20</sup> Despite this, when Bristol wished to be created a Garter knight, he was forced to turn to Jermyn to exert his influence on his behalf.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In the early 1650s, the extent of Jermyn’s influence was such that it was rumoured that he was to be created secretary of state.<sup>22</sup> His position as governor of Jersey further cemented his authority. Even so, Jermyn’s ascendancy was widely perceived to be damaging to the king. Hyde in particular was a bitter critic of Jersey’s influence, complaining that:</p><blockquote><p>If the King will suffer himself or any of his council to be not only openly censured but in a jeering way publicly flouted by any person whatsoever and all his counsels and actions to be made table-talk in his court by every busy-body or sycophant to please the Queen or Lord Jermyn … his Majesty must never expect to be quiet.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Jermyn’s sway had diminished considerably towards the end of the exile, which may have encouraged him to offer at least tacit support to some fairly absurd conspiracies. In 1659 reports were circulating that Jermyn and the queen were plotting to poison Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> and, in the weeks preceding the Restoration, Jermyn was also involved in an attempt to persuade Charles II to return to France to stage his restoration from there. The plot came to nothing and the advice was not heeded.<sup>24</sup></p><h2><em>The Restoration, 1660-3</em></h2><p>Having failed to convince the king to make France his base, Jermyn joined his master at Breda towards the end of April 1660 and it was there that he secured his promotion in the peerage to the earldom of St Albans. By the beginning of May he had returned to Paris, presumably to undertake further preparations for the Restoration.<sup>25</sup> In advance of the meeting of the Convention Jermyn was assessed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as a papist. Early in May St Albans arrived in England. He brought with him a message of support for Charles’s restoration from the French. In return he hoped that, ‘there will be no great obligation to the Hollanders, because “our” interest is to curb them in matters of trade.’ Such advice no doubt prompted the king to accuse St Albans at one point of being ‘more a French than an Englishman.’ Always hampered in his political ambitions by his reputation of being too sympathetic to the French, to the Catholics and too close to the queen, St Albans continued to promote closer Anglo-French relations. In the summer of 1660 he was a lone voice in counselling the king not to command the French envoy, Bordeaux, to leave the country.<sup>26</sup> In the spring of 1661 he again pressed French desires for ‘a nearer union’.<sup>27</sup> Yet if St Albans’ relationship with the queen and his association with the French were in some ways a hindrance to his progress, in other respects they were his strongest suits. His earldom was almost certainly owed to the queen’s influence.<sup>28</sup></p><p>At the beginning of June 1660 St Albans was one of the first returning royalists to take his seat in the Lords. Some confusion had attended his creation as an earl and suggestions were made that the patent had been made out incorrectly but no protest was raised when he took his seat.<sup>29</sup> Thereafter he was present on 14 days prior to the September adjournment (approximately 12 per cent of the whole). St Albans provided several assessments of the new state of affairs for the French envoy, reckoning Hyde and James Butler*, duke of Ormond in the Irish peerage and later also in the English peerage, to be the men most likely to benefit from the redistribution of honours. The first, St Albans considered, was the most likely to prevail.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Although St Albans’ much vaunted close relations with the French generated suspicion, they proved to be invaluable to the new regime. As early as the middle of June 1660, he was expected to be on the point of returning to France to inform the French king about York’s forthcoming marriage to Anne Hyde and to assist the queen dowager in her preparations for returning to England.<sup>31</sup> He continued to attend the House until the middle of July but was then absent for almost two months, presumably undertaking this mission. Returning by the end of September, he brought news of the queen mother’s decision to remain in France ‘to avoid inconvenience.’<sup>32</sup></p><p>St Albans took his seat in the House following the adjournment on 21 Nov., after which he proceeded to attend 31 per cent of all sitting days. The winter of 1660 was dominated, for St Albans, by the aftermath of the scandal involving York’s marriage to Anne Hyde. The affair offered St Albans an unrivalled opportunity to lambast the lord chancellor.<sup>33</sup></p><p>St Albans seems not to have played a significant role in the elections for the new Parliament. Although the Jermyns traditionally exercised interest at Bury St Edmunds, there is little indication of St Albans exerting his authority in the area. He was missing from the opening months of the session, away on another diplomatic mission to France to negotiate the marriage between Princess Henrietta and the Duc d’Anjou.<sup>34</sup> The Venetian resident in England commented disparagingly to the doge and senate that St Albans was, ‘really servant of the queen mother and has only come to arrange many things for her return to England.’<sup>35</sup> The assessment neglected to take into account other areas in which St Albans exerted his interest as ambassador. For one, he was instrumental in assisting Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, in his endeavours to ensure that the unrepresented French denizens of Constantinople were brought under the protection of the English embassy, following their own ambassador’s imprisonment.<sup>36</sup> St Albans began his preparations for leaving France towards the end of October and it was thus not until 2 Dec. 1661 that he finally returned to his place in the House.<sup>37</sup> He then proceeded to attend on 36 occasions (just 19 per cent of the total) during the remainder of the session.</p><p>In the course of 1662 St Albans forged an alliance with Henry Bennet*, (later earl of Arlington) and with the earl of Bristol, who were united in their antipathy towards Clarendon.<sup>38</sup> The new alliance bolstered St Albans’ position and Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> considered the group responsible for his removal from office in the autumn of 1662. Soon after, it was rumoured that St Albans was one of those being considered to succeed Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, as lord treasurer, though there seems little reason to credit such reports.<sup>39</sup> Nicholas was convinced that more removals were imminent and warned Ormond that he (Nicholas) was not their only target.<sup>40</sup> In spite of earlier suggestions that St Albans had attempted to undermine Ormond, after the Restoration their relations improved noticeably. At some point in 1667 St Albans entrusted his proxy to Ormond during one of his frequent absences in France and Ormond was later the tenant of one of St Albans’ numerous houses.<sup>41</sup></p><h2><em>Development of St James’s and Piccadilly</em></h2><p>Shortly after the Restoration, St Albans acquired a lease of land in the bailiwick of St James as one of Henrietta Maria’s trustees. He then proceeded to petition to secure further land in St James’s Fields in order to build houses, ‘fit for the dwelling of persons of quality.’<sup>42</sup> This was possibly in direct response to Southampton’s development of Bloomsbury. St Albans’ new project received the king’s support as a useful means for providing appropriate housing for the nobility. In 1662 he consolidated his influence in the area with his appointment to the statutory commission for paving in Westminster.<sup>43</sup> Initially, St Albans had trouble attracting buyers for houses on short leases, and he was compelled to petition the king for more favourable terms arguing that, ‘men will not build palaces upon any term but that of inheritance.’<sup>44</sup> Southampton’s opposition to the amendment was overlooked and the lease was extended until 1720.<sup>45</sup></p><p>St Albans continued to develop his interest in the area over the coming decade and in 1674 he attempted to strengthen his position further as part of his negotiations with the king settling debts accrued during the exile.<sup>46</sup> While half of the plots in St James’s Square appear to have gone to speculative builders, the most important sites were reserved for St Albans’ close acquaintances: Bennet was one purchaser, while another plot became the French Embassy, appropriately enough.<sup>47</sup> St Albans’ Francophile tendencies were reflected in the architecture of the area, too, which was modelled on the <em>Palais Royal</em>.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Development of St James’s also had an impact on the local ecclesiastical establishment. In April 1664 the inhabitants of the bailiwick, responding to their transformed condition, petitioned Parliament to be constituted a separate parish. Leave was given in the Commons to bring in a bill, but in spite of St Albans’ patronage, the bill was unsuccessful, as were three more, in late 1664, in 1668 and in 1670. Particular opposition was encountered from the vestry of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Despite this, in 1674 St Albans set aside land for the construction of a new church in St James’s and on 3 Apr. 1676 he laid the foundation stone with Henry Compton*, bishop of London. The cost of the church, designed by Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>, was £7,000, provided by St Albans and members of the future parish, but it was not until after St Albans’ death that freehold of the site was granted and thus the ability to consecrate the new building.<sup>49</sup> It was not just the church that had reason to be suspicious of the area’s transformation. For the City too, the process was of concern. During the early stages of its development the lord mayor speculated that ‘the building of St James’s by my lord St Albans, which he is now about (and which the City stomach I perceive highly, but dare not oppose it), were it now to be done, it would not be done for a million of money.’<sup>50</sup></p><h2><em>Opponent of Clarendon 1663-7</em></h2><p>With his building works still early in their infancy, St Albans took his seat at the opening of the second session of the Cavalier Parliament on 18 Feb. 1663. He attended for 58 per cent of all sitting days that session. In March he took a prominent role in the debates arising from the Commons’ request that the king expel all Catholic priests from the country. As Henrietta Maria’s steward, on 19 Mar. St Albans was required to procure the details of the queen dowager’s marriage settlement concerning her employment of chaplains. On 23 Mar. he reported that he had been unable to find the documents but this did not prevent him from being appointed one of the managers of the conference with the Commons debating the proposed petition. Despite St Albans’ pronounced opposition to Clarendon, he was noted by Wharton as being opposed to Bristol’s attempt to impeach the lord chancellor that summer. Wharton’s division list on this issue may be unreliable but it is equally possible that St Albans thought the impeachment ill-timed and he preferred not to run counter to the court.</p><p>Having avoided direct association with Bristol’s abortive putsch, St Albans returned to the House for the new session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. He was reported to be a likely replacement for Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, who was rumoured to be on the point of being recalled from his French embassy following a running dispute with the French court over matters of precedence. In the event Holles remained in post for a further two years.<sup>51</sup> St Albans attended the prorogation day of 20 Aug. before taking his seat once more on 24 November. On 28 Jan. 1665 the House was informed of the arrest of one of St Albans’ chaplains contrary to privilege. Those responsible were summoned to appear at the bar of the House and the chaplain was ordered to be released.</p><p>St Albans was overseas once more in October 1665. In spite of his hopes of returning in time to participate in the session convened in Oxford he was absent throughout. To Arlington he wrote optimistically that, ‘I have been so constant an admirer of the affections of this Parliament and am so still that I take it for granted they have already complied with the king’s desires.’<sup>52</sup> He returned towards the end of the year, ostensibly to arrange Henrietta Maria’s affairs, but according to the Venetian ambassador:</p><blockquote><p>actually to smooth matters and also to sound the inclination of the leading members of Parliament, and conciliate their good will in some way. His return is awaited with great eagerness, for upon it they will shape the definite form of their resolutions.<sup>53</sup></p></blockquote><p>St Albans took his seat once more on 1 Oct. 1666 but his attendance proved lacklustre with him present on just 11 per cent of all sitting days. On 24 Oct. he registered his proxy for the remainder of the session with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey. On 22 Jan. 1667 the House heard a further case relating to a breach of St Albans’ privilege. On this occasion, not only had one of St Albans’ agents been arrested but those prosecuting the suit were also accused of speaking disparagingly of the earl and of tearing up his written protection. Once again, St Albans’ privilege was upheld and on 25 Jan. the House ordered the release of the offending parties after they had apologized.</p><p>In 1667 St Albans was dispatched to France once more to undertake preliminary negotiations for ending the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Besides the principal business of his embassy, he also engaged in private negotiations on behalf of Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, to secure the latter’s claim to the seigneury of Aubigny.<sup>54</sup> Although the mission should have been overseen by Arlington, the king insisted that Clarendon draw up St Albans’ instructions. St Albans proceeded to infuriate the chancellor with his wilful refusal either to understand or to abide by the terms of his mission.<sup>55</sup> He protested against accusations that he had exceeded his authority and guaranteed that his French opposite Ruvigny was equally free from blame in that regard.<sup>56</sup> He protested to Ormond that it was ‘a great grief’ to him that it was thought he had offered such ‘unskillful’ accounts of the business in hand and insisted that, ‘it would be a great fault if the suspicion that lies upon me of being such a Monsieur should keep me from being as good an Englishman as I am in duty bound to be.’<sup>57</sup> At one point during the discussions, St Albans was also said to have fallen out with Louis XIV, who, ‘made him to go out of his sight in great displeasure.’<sup>58</sup> Despite this hiatus St Albans returned from his embassy advising Charles II that the French were in a ‘good temper’ and that, ‘if his majesty would make any advance towards a peace, the queen would be able to dispose that king to hearken to it, and to be a mediator between England and Holland.’<sup>59</sup> The Venetian ambassador in France’s interpretation of affairs was somewhat different. He commented only that, ‘Lord Germen [sic] brought for the king compliments from his Britannic Majesty rather than projects for peace. It would seem that he has not succeeded in penetrating to the core of that government, or that he did not find a soil prepared for his operations.’<sup>60</sup></p><p>St Albans’ poor relations with Clarendon were apparent when Clarendon was forced to flee to France later in the same year. St Albans, once more in France with the queen mother and clearly eager to maintain good relations both with the French and English, responded to Clarendon’s first appeal for help with ‘a very dry letter.’<sup>61</sup> When Clarendon was then ordered to leave France, St Albans ‘did not vouchsafe to return any answer.’<sup>62</sup></p><h2><em>1668-74</em></h2><p>St Albans’ French mission meant that he was absent from the opening months of the autumn session of 1667. He returned to the House on 10 Feb. 1668 but proceeded to attend on just 11 days (approximately nine per cent of the whole).The ensuing year was dominated for St Albans by management of the queen dowager’s affairs and, in the aftermath of her death, in overseeing the winding up of her estate. Gossip had it that, for all their supposedly close relationship, and the queen mother’s entrusting to him of the management of her finances, St Albans treated her ‘extremely ill, so that, whilst she had not a faggot to warm herself, he had in his apartment a good fire and a sumptuous table.’<sup>63</sup> During the exile it had been claimed that he designed ‘to possess himself of all the queen is worth.’<sup>64</sup> In 1668, when the king was forced to retrench his expenditure, the queen mother’s income was reduced by a quarter. St Albans protested to Arlington on her behalf that, ‘you will perceive how unlooked for this blow is aimed, and with what inconveniences it will oblige her to struggle with, if the resolution of this retrenchment do stand.’<sup>65</sup> At the same time he commented disloyally to another that:</p><blockquote><p>The reasons of retrenching the queen was grounded, in my opinion, upon so invincible necessities, that if I could have prevailed I should rather have wished that at first she would have applied herself to have secured that which you were pleased to write to me was the state of the resolution, than to have struggled for a change at present.<sup>66</sup></p></blockquote><p>When St Albans was engaged with undertaking negotiations for the queen mother’s return the following year, his involvement inspired familiar rumours of his underhand dealings.<sup>67</sup> On Henrietta Maria’s death in September 1669 the English resident, Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, named along with St Albans as one of the commissioners for overseeing the late queen’s estate, took steps to ensure all her goods were sealed fearing that St Albans would attempt to ransack the goods. Montagu wrote to Arlington that ‘I am sure without this my lord St Albans would not have left a silver spoon in the house.’<sup>68</sup> St Albans was infuriated, though he showed no sign of it in his report to Arlington the day after the queen mother’s death.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Settling the late queen’s affairs was presumably the reason for St Albans’s absence from the entirety of the brief session of October 1669. He finally took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670 and was thereafter present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. The following month, on 17 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill permitting John Manners*, Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to divorce. That summer St Albans was said to have been one of those present at a drunken feast attended by the king which resulted in the poet, Edmund Waller<sup>‡</sup>, tumbling downstairs and cracking his head open.<sup>70</sup></p><p>The loss of his mistress did not mark the end of St Albans’ influence. On the death of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, in 1671 St Albans beat off the pretensions of a number of other peers to succeed him as lord chamberlain. According to one correspondent, the satisfaction St Albans felt in securing the post had a rejuvenating effect upon him and made him ‘as youthful … as when he was Harry Jermyn.’<sup>71</sup> Shortly after assuming the post St Albans was involved in a dispute over precedence with his counterpart, the lord great chamberlain (Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey). The case was settled in Lindsey’s favour.<sup>72</sup></p><p>St Albans returned to the House for the prorogation day of 30 Oct. 1672 and then took his seat once more in the new session on 1 Mar. 1673, of which he attended almost 54 per cent of all sitting days. He attended three out of the four days of the brief session convened that October before returning to the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Jan. 1674, of which he proceeded to attend 55 per cent of the whole. Later that year, he stood down as lord chamberlain, surrendering his staff to his former protégé, Arlington.<sup>73</sup></p><p>St Albans was missing from the opening of the new session in April 1675 but covered his absence by registering his proxy with Ormond. The proxy was vacated when he took his seat on 21 Apr. after which he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days. In October his attendance fell off markedly and he was present for just two days of the 21-day session convened that month. On 15 Nov. he entrusted his proxy to Louis de Duras*, Baron Duras (later earl of Feversham), which was vacated by the close. Missing from the opening of the new session of February 1677, St Albans again covered his absence by entrusting his proxy to Ormond. It was vacated by his return to the House on 12 Mar. and he was thereafter present on approximately 52 per cent of all sitting days. In May he was listed by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, unsurprisingly enough, as triply vile. The same year a bill was introduced into the Commons aiming to prevent the erection of any more new buildings in London. This appears to have been at St Albans’ instigation, eager to monopolize his position in St James’s.<sup>74</sup> The bill failed. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder.</p><p>St Albans returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 23 May 1678. He attended on almost 77 per cent of all sitting days and was then present for the prorogation day of 1 Oct. before taking his seat once more on 21 Oct., after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days. In December he was one of a handful of peers required to take the oaths twice, though it was unclear what objection had been made to his initial declaration.<sup>75</sup> On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill and the following day he voted against committing Danby. St Albans seems not to have exerted any particular influence over the elections for the new Parliament. He returned to the House on 6 Mar. 1679 and sat once more during the abortive session before taking his seat at the opening of the new session on 15 March. He was thereafter present on 69 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had been noted by Danby as a likely supporter and on 14 Apr. he voted as expected against drawing up a bill of attainder. The following month on 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee of Lords and Commons to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>St Albans took his seat once more a day into the new Parliament on 22 Oct. 1680 and on 15 Nov. he voted in favour of putting the question to reject the Exclusion bill, and then in favour of rejecting the bill on its first reading. The following month he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty. He attended just three days of the brief Oxford Parliament of March 1681 but he was again assessed by Danby as likely to support his attempts to secure bail. Even so, he appears as ever to have been eager to play a role in securing some sort of accommodation between the various factions. This was certainly the opinion of James*, duke of York, who reported as much to Ormond that autumn:</p><blockquote><p>At his Majesty’s first going to Newmarket, I was somewhat alarmed at the report of some offers [which] were made to his Majesty by the party, and great endeavours were used to persuade him they would serve him, many of the jocks were for this, and poor lord St Albans as busy in it as any body else, which I do not wonder at knowing the dealings he has always had, with many of the Presbyterians, but now I hope that is over and sure his Majesty cannot be deceived by them again.<sup>76</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>Death and legacy</em></h2><p>By the end of his life, St Albans had fallen prey to blindness but this did not prevent him from continuing to indulge his hedonistic pleasures. His friend, the French exile and <em>bon viveur </em>Saint Evremond rebuked him for retiring to the country when ‘the great and good town of London expects you … if you stay in the country with your deep spleen you’ll never live six months to an end.’<sup>77</sup> John Evelyn, coming across him at the duchess of Grafton’s remarked that, ‘It is incredible how easy a life this Gent has lived, and in what plenty even abroad, whilst his Majesty was a sufferer … He is with all this a prudent old Courtier, and much enriched since his Majesty’s return.’<sup>78</sup> Grammont in his memoirs concluded that St Albans, ‘a man of no great genius, had raised himself a considerable fortune from nothing, and by losing at play, and keeping a great table, made it appear greater than it was.’<sup>79</sup> Clarendon, who more than any other had reason to dislike St Albans, concluded that, ‘He was not mischievous in his nature or inclinations, yet did more mischief than any man of the age he lived in.’<sup>80</sup></p><p>St Albans had been thought on the point of death in December 1682.<sup>81</sup> He survived for just over a year before succumbing to a fit of apoplexy in January 1684. According to one report the cause of death was a surfeit of toasted cheese.<sup>82</sup> By then he was sufficiently retired from the public gaze that his demise was noted cursorily in one newsletter alongside reports of the river freezing over.<sup>83</sup> No longer prominent at court, St Albans was reported to have died massively in debt. In March 1682 he had attempted to economize by retreating to Suffolk.<sup>84</sup> Even so, his funeral cortège was said to have consisted of 69 coaches, 27 of them accompanying the hearse all the way to Suffolk. He bequeathed £10,000 to one nephew Henry Jermyn*, later Baron Dover, while the remainder of his estates, including plate valued at £600 went to another, Thomas Jermyn*, who succeeded him as 2nd Baron Jermyn.<sup>85</sup> In the absence of direct heirs, St Alban’s earldom reverted to the crown. The source of St Alban’s wealth can only be described as mysterious. He had benefited from generous grants from the king, including one for the quit rents from lands restored to the marquess of Antrim [I], as well as his access to the queen dowager’s revenue, yet by 1667 he was so heavily in debt that he was compelled to seek £5,000 for one of his houses to alleviate his crippled finances.<sup>86</sup> The crisis clearly passed and by the close of his life, St Albans had rebuilt his fortune. Montagu perhaps got closest to the truth with his assessment that St Albans had managed throughout ‘by his wits and by play.’<sup>87</sup> St Albans’ most abiding legacy was his development of St James’s and his influence at court as a Francophile-leaning diplomat. His demise was marked by an elegy, which proclaimed him, disingenuously and far from accurately, to have been:</p><blockquote><p>Great without title, in thy self alone,<br />A mighty lord, thou stood’st oblig’d to none<br />But heaven and thy self.<sup>88</sup></p></blockquote> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
JERMYN, Henry (c. 1636-1708) |
<p><strong><surname>JERMYN</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1636–1708)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>13 May 1685 Bar. DOVER; <em>suc. </em>bro. 1 Apr. 1703 as 3rd Bar. JERMYN |
|
First sat 21 Jan. 1707; last sat 1 Apr. 1708 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 29 Nov. 1636, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Thomas Jermyn<sup>‡</sup> of Rushbrooke, and Rebecca, da. and coh. of William Rodway, merchant of London; bro. of Thomas Jermyn*, later 2nd Bar. Jermyn. <em>educ</em>. ?Bury g.s. <em>m</em>. 17 Apr. 1675 (with £8,000),<sup>1</sup> Judith (<em>d</em>.1726), 2nd da. of Sir Edmund Poley<sup>‡</sup> (Pooley), of Badley, Suff, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>suc</em>. uncle 2 Jan. 1684.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 6 Apr. 1708; <em>will</em> 14 Jan.-3 Feb., pr. 26 June 1708.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Master of the horse to James*, duke of York, by 1659-1673;<sup>4</sup> PC 17 July 1686-Feb. 1689; ld. of the treasury 1687-8.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Cambs. 1686-89; high steward, Kingston-upon-Hull 1688-9, Cambridge 1688-9; gov. Portsmouth 1688.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Capt. tp. of horse 1666;<sup>7</sup> col. 4th Horse Gds. 1686-88.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, National Trust, Ickworth, Suff.</p> |
<p>Henry Jermyn’s career is inextricably linked with that of his master, York, whom he served as master of horse from the years of exile through to 1673, when he was disabled because of his religion. On York’s accession as James II, Jermyn was one of those to benefit from the new regime, but although he joined his king in exile at the Revolution, he was quick to seek reconciliation with the new government of William and Mary.</p><p>The younger son of an established Suffolk family, Jermyn appears early on to have been taken under the wing of his courtier uncle, also named Henry Jermyn*, later earl of St Albans. Jermyn joined the court in exile at some point in the 1650s, and it was presumably during this period that he converted to Catholicism. By 1656 he was a member of York’s household and by 1659 serving as master of horse to the duke at a salary of £400 p.a. As such, Jermyn was part of the group closely associated with York that included John Berkeley*, later Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and his nephew Charles Berkeley*, later earl of Falmouth.<sup>9</sup> Jermyn’s older brother, Thomas Jermyn, later 2nd Baron Jermyn, may also have been part of this circle. Jermyn’s unsavoury influence was noted long before the Restoration. As a Catholic, his religious convictions were suspect, but more particularly he quickly acquired a reputation as a lothario, chief among his many conquests said to have been the Princess Royal.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Jermyn accompanied his master back to England at the Restoration. Following the revelations of York’s secret marriage to Anne Hyde, Jermyn was prominent among those eager to persuade the duke to renounce the relationship. He even went so far as to claim to have been one of the duchess’ many lovers. In December 1660 he was at the centre of another potential royal scandal, when it was rumoured that he had married his supposed former mistress, the Princess Royal.<sup>11</sup> He was involved in further controversy when York insisted that his master of horse should ride behind him in the coronation procession, which was criticized as a French innovation.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Jermyn’s rakish behaviour continued throughout the 1660s. In 1662 he and another member of York’s household, Colonel Giles Rawlings, fought a duel with Thomas Howard (possibly Hon. Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup>) and Colonel Dillon (younger son of Thomas Dillon, Viscount Dillon [I]). The affray, in which Rawlings was killed, had supposedly arisen out of a quarrel over the notorious countess of Shrewsbury.<sup>13</sup> Two years later, in February 1664, it was reported that a ‘daughter of the duke of Lennox’ (possibly a Miss Lawson, niece of James Stuart<sup>†</sup>, duke of Richmond and 4th duke of Lennox [S]) was compelled to seek the king’s protection to prevent her being married to Jermyn by force.<sup>14</sup> By 1667 Jermyn had attracted the attention of Barbara Villiers, countess of Castlemaine, who, it was said, was incandescent at reports that her beau was to be married to Falmouth’s widow. Pepys summed up the situation, ‘The king, he is mad at her [Castlemaine] entertaining Jermyn, and she is mad at Jermyn’s going to marry from her, so they are all mad’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Jermyn was forced to resign his offices as a result of the Test Act in 1673. Two years later he married the daughter of one of his Suffolk neighbours, a lucrative match that brought with it £8,000 from the bride’s uncle, William Crofts*, Baron Crofts, while St Albans undertook to settle a further £7,000 p.a. on his nephew. The Poleys’ only reservation was Jermyn’s catholicism, but despite their stipulation that he should promise not to convert their daughter and a report that Jermyn ‘being a great bigot’ had refused to make the undertaking, the match went ahead.<sup>16</sup> Jermyn was appointed one of the executors of Crofts’ will in 1677 (and was promised a legacy of £4,000).<sup>17</sup> St Albans’ death in January 1684 presented Jermyn and his brother (now 2nd Baron Jermyn) with greater difficulties as they had to settle their uncle’s substantial debts (estimated to be in excess of £65,000). In theory, Henry Jermyn stood to inherit £10,000 as well as a share of St Albans’ property, but over the ensuing three years he expended almost £15,000 of his own money as well as £37,386 from his uncle’s estate in an effort to pay off the debts.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Following the accession of James II, Jermyn was created Baron Dover (one of three members of James’ circle to be ennobled at that time) and appointed to the council of the queen dowager (Catharine of Braganza).<sup>19</sup> During the new king’s brief reign, Dover swiftly acquired considerable power both in local offices and as a commanding figure in James’ inner councils. Risking James’ displeasure early in 1686, Dover joined with Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I] and Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, in attempting to force the king’s protestant mistress, the countess of Dorchester, from court.<sup>20</sup> Her continued presence there was said to be a ‘reproach of the government and was as dangerous to it as the rebellion it self and a scandal to the Catholic religion’. According to Morrice, the king seemed not to be ‘disturbed at what they spoke’.<sup>21</sup> This appeared to be borne out in February when it was rumoured, inaccurately, that Dover was to purchase the office of master of the horse from George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, for £20,000 (half of which was to be paid by the king).<sup>22</sup> Instead he was appointed colonel of the 4th Horse Guards, a specifically Catholic unit. In May it was speculated that Dover had acted as a mediator between the former Speaker, William Williams<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, over payment of Williams’ fine for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em>.<sup>23</sup> Dover was appointed to the Privy Council in July, and in September he succeeded as lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire; a rumour that he was also to be lord lieutenant of Kent proved to be unfounded.<sup>24</sup> Anxiety about Dover’s presence on the council was enhanced by concerns about his probity. As early as October, complaints were circulating of corruption in his new regiment.<sup>25</sup> It was said that ‘a Turk’ might gain a place provided he was able to pay the expected bribe of 50 guineas.<sup>26</sup> The king refused to believe it and Dover remained prominent at court. By the close of the summer rumours were circulating that he was to be promoted to an earldom; by early autumn it was reported both that he was to be made a duke and would replace Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, as lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>27</sup></p><p>By the end of 1686 Dover was said to be in league with Tyrconnel and Sunderland against Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. When Rochester was displaced as lord treasurer shortly after, Dover was one of those appointed to the new treasury commission.<sup>28</sup> Unsurprisingly, lists of peers and their attitudes to the king’s policies compiled in January and May 1687 simply noted that Dover was a Catholic. He accompanied the king on his western progress later that summer, during which he appears to have acted as lord chamberlain.<sup>29</sup> He was expected to succeed to the post, which had previously been held by his uncle, St Albans, and was then vacant.<sup>30</sup> As a further indication of Dover’s commanding influence at this time, the elevation of Thomas Watson*, a spy on behalf of the court, to the bishopric of St Davids was also said to have been through his interest.<sup>31</sup> Despite flourishing under the new regime, he appears to have been increasingly frustrated by affairs, and it was reported that he intended to leave England if the king was unable to secure a Parliament willing to repeal the Test Act within six months.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Active in Cambridge and in Suffolk in the winter of 1687, recommending potential members for the anticipated Parliament (though with little success), Dover was again included among the Catholics in a third assessment of likely attitudes to repeal of the Test in January 1688. <sup>33</sup> Said to be ‘very ill-satisfied’ with the corporation of Bury St Edmunds, over the ensuing months Dover oversaw a series of purges in the town. In May he was appointed high steward of Cambridge, which enabled him to employ his interest in the city to rebalance the corporation there, nominating the majority of the new non-resident freemen. By June he had managed to engineer a satisfactory loyal address from Bury St Edmunds (much of which was his own work), but he still struggled to secure suitable potential candidates for the anticipated Parliament.<sup>34</sup> His labours did not go unrecognized, and during the summer there were renewed rumours of further honours: an earldom and the lord chamberlaincy or lord stewardship being suggested.<sup>35</sup> Although Dover was one of the signatories to the order for committing the Seven Bishops, he was also said to have been one of those urging the king to moderation at the time of the bishops’ trial.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Dover was in London towards the end of November 1688, when he announced the news of the defection of Prince George*, of Denmark (later duke of Cumberland), and others to the Prince of Orange.<sup>37</sup> Late that month he was appointed to the crucial governorship of Portsmouth and was given secret instructions to ensure that the infant Prince of Wales was safely evacuated: instructions which he failed signally to fulfil.<sup>38</sup> Early in December he escorted the infant prince back to London accompanied by William Herbert*, marquess of Powis. The same month he was put out of the treasury commission.<sup>39</sup></p><p>The king’s flight in the early hours of 11 Dec. caused a number of his close advisors, Dover among them, ‘to complain most bitterly of him that has betrayed them and utterly ruined them in that he gave them no notice neither to provide for the security of their persons nor for any part of their estates.’<sup>40</sup> Although he had been one of a number of prominent members of the court to secure general pardons from the king at the beginning of the month, this (unsurprisingly) failed to prevent Dover’s possessions being targeted by rioters during the chaotic days of November and December, during which his house at Cheveley was attacked and the chapel pulled down.<sup>41</sup> Dover resolved to quit the country, but although he was able to secure a passport from William of Orange, he was recognized and briefly arrested before effecting his escape to the continent where he joined the former king.<sup>42</sup> In his absence, Dover’s estates appear to have been managed by his brother, Jermyn.</p><p>In July 1689 Dover was at last promoted earl of Dover by the exiled king, although his new honour was not recognized in England.<sup>43</sup> That month he was included in a bill of attainder as one of those known to be with the former king. Despite a number of witnesses providing testimony that they had seen Dover with James II in Ireland, the House of Lords, where Dover appears still to have enjoyed significant interest, insisted on excepting him out of the attainder’s provisions; the bill was subsequently shelved by the Commons.<sup>44</sup> In France, entrusted by James II with diplomatic tasks, Dover proved himself to be woefully inadequate to the task. When John Drummond, earl of Melfort [S], visited the French court in October, while <em>en route</em> to Rome, he reported to the king (James) that the French, ‘pitied your majesty for having been reduced to the necessity of sending such a man.’<sup>45</sup></p><p>Following the failure of the Commons’ attainder bill, Dover was indicted as a rebel at the Old Bailey in October 1689.<sup>46</sup> He was then outlawed, a process which amounted to attainder and consequent forfeiture of lands and peerage. By November 1689 Dover’s enthusiasm for the Jacobite cause was waning and he was reported, while still in France, to have declared openly that, ‘the best [that] could befall him was to be taken by the way and carried to England, he had friends there, and the Prince of Orange would be kind to him …’.<sup>47</sup> He was exempted from the general bill of indemnity in May 1690 but equally was also excepted from the provisions of another attainder bill drafted by the Commons in early 1691.<sup>48</sup> Eager to return to England, he turned to his brother, Jermyn, and to John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, and Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, to use their interest on his behalf.<sup>49</sup> Writing to Marlborough in June 1691 from Bruges (‘this ugly place’) Dover complained of his and Lady Dover’s extreme want and appealed to his former associate to save them from ‘downright begging’,</p><blockquote><p>I know this is no time for a poor private man to be thought on, but really I am brought to such a pass, that I am forced to speak untimely as it is. I write to my Lord Sidney [Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, later earl of Romney] pray help me with him if you can … you helped me out of England, he out of Ireland … both together get me thither again, though it be to the Tower and from thence to the scaffold, it will be more friendly to help me to die there than to let me beg for bread here.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>Dover’s prayer was answered. In October he was pardoned and given leave to return to England, though he was not immediately restored to possession of his estate.<sup>51</sup> In the Easter term of the following year (1692) he sued successfully for a writ of error for reversal of his outlawry.<sup>52</sup> Nevertheless, his name was included on a list of outlawed peers that was presented to the House of Lords in 1699.<sup>53</sup> He remained under suspicion. In June 1692 the deputy lieutenants of Cambridgeshire seized his horses and, before he could acquire an order for their restitution, sold them.<sup>54</sup> He suffered similar poor fortune in January 1694 when goods worth £200 were stolen from his London residence.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Despite his prominent association with James II’s regime and reduced circumstances, Dover retained considerable interest, and in January 1695 it was suggested that a motion in the Commons for excusing recusants from paying double taxes who had taken an oath of fidelity had been ‘set on foot’ by Dover’s friends.<sup>56</sup> In 1698 he was given special licence to remain in England by the king.<sup>57</sup></p><p>In 1703 he succeeded his brother as 3rd Baron Jermyn, thereby finally reuniting the Jermyn lands with St Albans’ property (comprising much of Queen Henrietta Maria’s former possessions), which had been divided between the brothers at St Albans’ death. Noted as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage in relation to the succession in or about April 1705, on 21 Jan. 1707, 22 years after having first been elevated to the peerage, Dover was listed for the first time as attending the Lords. His extraordinary appearance elicited no comment in the Lords Journal. Why he chose to attend the House at this point is uncertain. It is similarly unclear whether he submitted to taking the oaths in order to do so.</p><p>On 1 Apr. 1708 (the fifth anniversary of his succession to his brother’s barony) he attended the House for a second time. Once more, no comment was made. Five days later, he died at his house at Cheveley. In the absence of any children of his own, he directed that his considerable wealth be distributed among his many great-nieces (of which there were at least 13), making bequests in excess of £26,700. He was buried at the Carmelite priory in Bruges.<sup>58</sup> At his death, both the baronies of Dover and Jermyn became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
JERMYN, Thomas (1633-1703) |
<p><strong><surname>JERMYN</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1633–1703)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>uncle (by special remainder) 2 Jan. 1684 as 2nd Bar. JERMYN |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 7 Dec. 1702 |
|
MP Bury St Edmunds 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.), 1681 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 10 Nov. 1633, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Thomas Jermyn<sup>‡</sup> of Rushbrooke and Rebecca, da. and coh. of William Rodway, merchant, of London, bro. of Henry Jermyn*, later Bar. Dover. <em>educ</em>. ?Bury g.s.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 1659, Mary (<em>d</em>.1713), da. of Henry Merry of Barton Blount, Derbys., 6s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p.</em> 7da. (3 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 11 Nov. 1659.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 1 Apr. 1703; <em>will</em> 19 Jan., pr. 29 Apr. 1703.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. of ft. Jersey garrison 1661-79; capt. of grens. (later 12 Ft.) 1685-7; lt.-gov. Jersey 1660-79;<sup>5</sup> gov. 1684-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Commr. assessment, Suff. 1673-80; j.p. 1674-<em>d</em>., commr. recusants 1675.</p> |
|
<p>The heir to a substantial, if dissipated, East Anglian inheritance, Jermyn’s family were distinguished both as prominent courtiers and Members of the Commons. One of his forebears had sat for the county in 1584, but it was really with the accession of the Stuarts that the Jermyns came into their own. Jermyn’s father and grandfather held court office and sat for Bury St Edmunds in the Long Parliament but it was to his uncle, Henry Jermyn*, created Baron Jermyn in 1643 and earl of St Albans in 1660, that Jermyn was indebted for his elevation to the peerage.</p><p>Jermyn’s father had accompanied the king to Oxford at the opening of the Civil War and later retreated to France, where he remained until 1648 when he began the lengthy process of reconciliation with Parliament. Already heavily indebted, Thomas Jermyn senior was fined £2,800 (later reduced to £2,750) by the committee for compounding in January 1651.<sup>8</sup> Jermyn’s movements during this period are uncertain. In April 1654 he was granted a passport to travel to France, where he presumably joined his uncle (at that time Baron Jermyn) and younger brother, Henry Jermyn, later Baron Dover at the court in exile.<sup>9</sup> He returned to England by 1659 when he was present at his father’s deathbed. The same year he married Mary Merry (a report of a previous marriage to a member of the Hervey family is almost certainly mistaken).<sup>10</sup></p><p>Following the Restoration, Jermyn was rewarded with minor office, in 1660 taking up the post of lieutenant governor of Jersey where his uncle, now promoted in the peerage as earl of St Albans, was absentee governor. On the death of St Albans in January 1684, Jermyn succeeded to the barony of Jermyn of St Edmundsbury by virtue of a special remainder, and in July he was appointed to the governorship of Jersey (a post to which the Jermyns had held the reversion for a number of years). St Albans’ death posed Jermyn and his brother Henry with considerable problems, for while the earl had left a substantial personal estate (estimated at over £60,000) he had left even greater debts, reckoned to exceed £65,000.<sup>11</sup> Jermyn departed for his governorship later in the year. He confessed to liking it ‘better than I expected’, but in January 1685 he petitioned for leave to return to England to settle his affairs.<sup>12</sup> He seems to have changed his mind the following month, for when some of his friends took it upon themselves to petition for his early recall, Jermyn disassociated himself from the request:</p><blockquote><p>Some of my friends, upon an accident lately happened to my wife and mother, have (unbeknown to me) moved for my leave to come over. This I have received, but thinking it was desired at an improper time, choose to lose this opportunity of seeing them rather than not be here to expect his Majesty’s commands.</p></blockquote><p>Putting aside concerns for his wife and mother’s condition, Jermyn preferred to delay his return to coincide with the sitting of the new Parliament and instead took the opportunity of reporting the ‘great demonstration of joy and allegiance’ with which the king’s proclamation had been greeted on the island.<sup>13</sup> The issue of St Albans’ estate was still unresolved the following year, when Henry Jermyn (by then elevated to the peerage as Baron Dover) brought a case against his brother complaining that he (Dover) had overseen payment of more than £52,000 of the outstanding debt and seeking settlement of the remaining £13,000 and restitution of the amount he had paid out of his own resources. In response Jermyn countered that Dover had complicated matters by ignoring the stipulations of St Albans’ will as to how the debt was to be satisfied.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Jermyn took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 after which he attended approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions on 22 May, and to a further 12 committees before the summer adjournment. He was assessed as a likely supporter of the bill introdu ced by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, to secure the restoration of estates that had been sold during the Interregnum.<sup>15</sup> He then resumed his seat on 11 Nov. after which he attended on a further seven days, during which he was named to one committee. Unlike his brother (and despite being married to the daughter of a recusant) Jermyn was not a Catholic, and on 1 Jan. 1687 he was listed among those believed to oppose the repeal of the Test Act. His Catholic connections perhaps explain why on 1 May he was inaccurately marked as a Catholic in a grouping of lords according to their expected attitudes to the king’s policies. To muddy the waters further, Jermyn’s attitude may have shifted, for by November he was listed as in favour of repealing the Test. He was absent in January 1688 when a further list was compiled.</p><p>Despite his apparently wavering attitude to the king’s policies, on the news of the expected Dutch invasion, Jermyn was among the first to offer his services to King James.<sup>16</sup> In October he declared his disappointment that the Dutch invasion still appeared likely despite damage inflicted by the weather, but he was confident ‘that his majesty’s forces are now in such order as will soon make them repent their undertaking.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>Following the king’s flight, he joined the peers who assembled at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. when he signed the declaration to the Prince of Orange and subscribed the orders constituting Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas, governor of the Tower, and commanding George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, to dismiss all Catholic officers from their commands in the fleet.<sup>18</sup> Jermyn attended the meetings of the provisional government conscientiously for the remainder of the month, and on 13 and 14 Dec. he subscribed his name to orders for ensuring that the forces in London received payment and for requiring the Lord Mayor to provide barges to convey troops under Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, to Tilbury.<sup>19</sup> At the elections for the convention, Jermyn’s son-in-law, Sir Robert Davers<sup>‡</sup>, was returned for Bury on the Jermyn interest in the face of strong competition from the Herveys.<sup>20</sup> Jermyn took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 23 Jan. 1689, when he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions; he was thereafter present on almost 69 per cent of all sitting days. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour of establishing a regency, and on 31 Jan. he voted against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’. Two days later he again voted against employing the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’, entering his dissent when the resolution was passed.</p><p>Jermyn’s diligent attendance in the session was reflected in the high number of committees to which he was named. Added to the sessional committee for the Journal on 17 May, he was named to a further 29 committees in the course of the session. On 31 May he voted in favour of reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates, and on 15 June he was one of the peers named to the committee for drawing up an address to the king for seeing to the fortification of, among other places, Jersey. Speaking in a committee of the whole on the matter of the address, Jermyn outlined the supplies and reinforcements he thought necessary for the island’s defence, emphasizing that in its present state, ‘the island is not to be kept against 3,000 men, nor the castle without provision.’<sup>21</sup> Jermyn dissented to the resolution to proceed with the impeachment of Blair, Vaughan, Mole, Elliott and Gray on 2 July, and on 30 July he was listed as having voted in favour of adhering to the lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing Oates’ conviction (in which division he also acted as one of the tellers). The same month Jermyn was compelled to petition the House to obtain security for a loan of £1,000 he had paid to his brother, Dover, who had been included in the bill of attainder drawn up by the Commons.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Jermyn’s careful balancing act between acceptance of the new regime and continued involvement with his brother’s affairs was threatened in July by a local dispute over the nomination to the living at his brother’s manor of Cheveley in Cambridgeshire. On his brother’s behalf, Jermyn nominated Thomas Warren to succeed the former incumbent, Hugh Lloyd, precipitating a challenge from two churchwardens who accused Warren of Catholic tendencies and of having been present at mass with Dover.<sup>23</sup> Dover’s adherence to King James caused Jermyn greater concerns than a mere parish dispute. He was later compelled to request that his own affairs would be unaffected by his brother’s inclusion in the abortive attainder of July 1689 which was resubmitted the following year.<sup>24</sup> Although the attainder was shelved, Dover was then outlawed, a process that amounted to attainder and led to attempts to confiscate his estates, again raising questions about Jermyn’s rights to his brother’s property.</p><p>In advance of the new session, Jermyn responded to the request for a self-assessment of his personal estate, wishing ‘it were such a one as might contribute to their majesties’ service’ but regretting that much of what he had was encumbered by annuities. Even so, he acknowledged a personal estate of £2,000 and submitted himself ‘to the judgment of the Lords commissioners and if the £2,000 aforementioned be to be paid, notwithstanding the annuities I pay, upon the first notice it shall be willingly complied with.’<sup>25</sup> Jermyn resumed his seat for the second session of the Convention on 28 Oct. 1689, after which he was present on approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to a dozen committees. Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (and later duke of Leeds), classed him as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding that he was to be approached by ‘Mr Folkes’, presumably Martin Folkes with whom both he and Carmarthen had many dealings. Following the dissolution, he along with Grafton and reputedly most of the gentry of the county lent his interest to Davers and Sir John Playters at the election for Suffolk in March 1690. They were defeated by candidates supported by the Whig lord lieutenant, Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Taking his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Mar. 1690, Jermyn was nominated to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions and the journal and to a further 15 committees in the course of the session, of which he attended almost 93 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill recognizing William and Mary as rightful and lawful sovereigns, and two days later he protested again at the resolution to expunge the reasons for the former protest from the Journal.</p><p>The shade of Jermyn’s exiled brother made its presence felt again in September when Dover appealed to Jermyn (and others) to make use of their interest to procure his return to England. Jermyn professed great pleasure at his brother’s resolution and promised to use ‘all the interest I have to effect it’. He sent a copy of his brother’s letter to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in order to be advised of ‘the method of proceeding.’<sup>27</sup> Jermyn resumed his seat at the opening of the 1690-1 sessions. His rate of attendance declined slightly, with him being present on just 55 per cent of all sitting days, but he was still named to a substantial series of committees (15 in addition to the sessional committees), and on 17 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the mutiny bill. Another attempt to attaint individuals in exile with King James prompted Jermyn to try once again to protect his rights to those parts of St Albans’ estates that had been settled on Dover.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Jermyn took his seat for the 1691-2 session on 10 Nov. when he was nominated to the committee considering Stydolph’s bill. Named to a further seven committees in the session, he was present for a little over 42 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Feb. 1692 he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the supply bill. The same day he entered a further protest at the resolution to make an entry in the Journal concerning the Commons’ addition to the bill of a clause establishing a commission of accounts.</p><p>With the threat of French invasion looming, Jermyn was ordered back to Jersey in April; he remained there for less than six months before petitioning for leave to return to England.<sup>29</sup> Having taken his seat for the 1692-3 session on 4 Nov. 1692, Jermyn was present on approximately 56 per cent of all sitting days and was named to eight committees. On 21 Nov., although missing from the attendance list, he was not among those listed as absent at a call of the House. In December tragedy struck the family, when his only remaining son, also Thomas Jermyn, was accidentally killed.<sup>30</sup> Jermyn’s attendance, nevertheless, remained relatively unaffected. He sat on 16 days during that month, and in February 1693 he presented the loyal address from Jersey to the king.<sup>31</sup> On 4 Feb. he joined with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of the murder of William Mountford.</p><p>Jermyn’s continuing association with his brother gave rise to doubts about his suitability for the Jersey posting and during the summer complaints were raised about his government of the island. These ranged from misgivings about his overly friendly behaviour to French captives to specific charges against his officials, notably his secretary and the lieutenant governor, Edward Harris, who was described as being ‘almost always in bed’ and guilty of keeping up ‘open communications with France.’<sup>32</sup> Despite such rumblings, Jermyn retained his place. He resumed his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on 52 per cent of all sitting days. Midway through the session (in January 1694) he was again despatched to Jersey in anticipation of a French invasion, and in February he waited on the king with details of the French forces’ preparations.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Although Jermyn was again granted leave to return to England in September 1694 for the forthcoming session of Parliament, he was absent at its opening and excused at a call on 26 November.<sup>34</sup> He took his seat on 8 Jan. 1695, after which he attended some 41 per cent of the whole and was named to nine committees. Jermyn does not appear to have been active in the elections for the new Parliament, and his attendance declined markedly in the first (1695-6) session. Present for just under a quarter of all sitting days, he was named to just three committees. Rallying in the 1696-7 session, he was named to 20 committees. He consistently opposed the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He entered dissents against the proceedings on 15 and 18 Dec. and voted against the third reading on 23 Dec., registering another dissent at its passage. Jermyn received the proxy of Edward Devereux*, 8th Viscount Hereford, on 27 Feb. 1697, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 15 Apr. he entered his protest at the resolution not to agree with the committee’s amendment to the bill for restraining stock-jobbers.</p><p>While attending the lord mayor of London’s procession through the city on 28 Oct. 1697, and in spite of an order of 13 Oct. of the mayor and aldermen charging the beadles to arrest anyone involved in such activities, Jermyn was struck by a ‘squib’ hurled from the crowd.<sup>35</sup> Reports varied as to the seriousness of the injury, but it seems clear that he lost at least one eye in the attack and narrowly avoided being carried off by a subsequent fever.<sup>36</sup> It was presumably in response to this kind of accident that Sir Henry Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> introduced a bill into the Commons on 15 Dec. to prohibit the use of such fireworks. Colt’s bill was brought up to the Lords on 17 Jan. 1698, heard in committee on 29 Jan. and reported without amendment by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, on 3 February.<sup>37</sup> Jermyn’s injuries presumably explain the dramatic decline in his attendance in the final session of the 1695 Parliament which he attended on just 17 of its 138 days. He had recovered sufficiently to resume his seat in the House on 7 Mar. 1698 when he was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning amendments to the bill explaining poor relief. On 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Jermyn took his seat in the first (1698-9) session of the new Parliament on 29 Nov. 1698, after which he was present on approximately half of all sitting days. In December he suffered a further bereavement with the death of his daughter, Henrietta Maria Bond.<sup>38</sup> On 28 Jan. 1699 he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning amendments to the bill prohibiting the exportation of corn, and on 20 Apr, although he was missing from the attendance list that day, he was nominated to the committee for Conway and Seymour’s bill. On 3 May he was named a manager of the conference concerning the bill for duty on paper. Jermyn attended just one day of the second session on 7 Feb. 1700. Although he was reported to be ‘very ill’ that September, he had recovered from this sickness by the middle of the month and was able to resume his seat in the new Parliament the following year on 13 Feb. 1701.<sup>39</sup> Although present on just 17 per cent of all sitting days, on 17 June he subscribed two protests, first at the resolution to adjourn to Westminster Hall to proceed with the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and second at the resolution to put the question to acquit. The same day he voted against acquitting Somers. Jermyn was marked indisposed at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, but he resumed his seat in Queen Anne’s first Parliament on 23 Feb. and on 23 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conference considering the queen’s accession. Having attended for just 20 per cent of all sitting days, he retired from the House for the final time on 20 May.</p><p>Jermyn was estimated as being in favour of the occasional conformity bill in January 1703, but he played no further part in the House’s affairs. Reports of his death began to circulate from the end of March; he died at his house in Westminster on 1 April.<sup>40</sup> In his will he made provision for a portion of £3,000 for his daughter, Penelope Grove, and bequeathed the value of a number of tallies to his widow (amounting to £1,600). He divided the arrears of rents from his Suffolk estates between his four surviving daughters and the children of Henrietta Bond; he also bequeathed all arrears out of his governorship of Jersey to the poor of the island’s 12 parishes. Bequests to his brother, Dover, other members of his family and servants amounted to a further £380. Following Jermyn’s death, an act of Parliament was passed to allow his son-in-law, Sir Robert Davers, to purchase Rushbrooke and a number of other estates from the co-heirs for £33,000.<sup>41</sup> Jermyn was buried at Rushbrooke and was succeeded in the peerage by his brother, Dover.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
KEPPEL, Arnold Joost van (1670-1718) |
<p><strong><surname>KEPPEL</surname></strong>, <strong>Arnold Joost van</strong> (1670–1718)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>10 Feb. 1697 earl of ALBEMARLE |
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1697; last sat 15 June 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 30 Jan. 1670, 1st surv. s. of Oswald van Keppel, heer van der Voorst, baron van Keppel [Dutch], (<em>d</em>.1685) and Reinira Anna Geertruid, da. of Johan van Lintelo. <em>educ</em>. unknown; L.L.D., Camb. 1705. <em>m</em>. 15 June 1701, Geertruid Johanna Quirina (<em>d</em>. Dec. 1741), da. of Adam van der Duyn, heer van St Gravenmoer [Dutch], 1s. 1da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1685; KG 14 May 1700. <em>d</em>. 18 May 1718; <em>will</em> 11 May 1718, pr. 13 July 1721.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Page of honour 1689-90; groom of the bedchamber 1690-5; master of the robes 1695-by 1701; gent. of the bedchamber 1701-2.</p><p>Col., regt. of carabineers (Dutch Army) 1694-1713, regt. of Swiss (Dutch Army) 1698-1713,<sup>2</sup> regt. of ft. (Dutch Army) 1701-13; maj.-gen. of horse (Dutch Army) 1697-1701; lt.-gen. 1701-9; gen. 1709-13; capt. 1st tp. Life Gds. 1699-1710; gov. Tournai May-July 1713.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Arnold Joost van Keppel, earl of Albemarle, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, by (oils, c.1700, NPG); Arnold Joost van Keppel, earl of Albemarle by Sir Godfrey Kneller (oils, 1702, Chatsworth, Derbys.)</p> |
<p>Having succeeded to his father’s lordship of Voorst in Gelderland in 1685 while still a minor, Arnold Joost van Keppel accompanied the stadtholder, William of Orange, on his invasion of England. He was made a page of honour shortly after the king’s coronation and a groom of the bedchamber in 1690. Known for his good looks, generosity, and affable and courtly manners, he quickly rose in William’s favour and became a rival of William’s older and most long-standing adviser Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. In May 1695, some months after the death of Mary, Keppel was promoted to be master of the robes, replacing William’s childhood companion and veteran Dutch follower, William Henry van Nassau van Zuylestein*, who was created earl of Rochford. The king even arranged that Keppel’s suite of rooms in Kensington Palace communicated directly with his own, while leaving Portland without access to the king. There was speculation then, and has been since, that the widowed king and the young favourite had homosexual relations, facilitated by this arrangement of rooms. There is no evidence, however, outside of the libels of opponents to support this allegation, and it would appear that the two men spent the early hours of the morning closeted together on state business. What is not in doubt is the increasingly bitter and open dislike between Portland and Albemarle caused by William’s clear preference for the younger man, which almost led to a duel between the two rivals in 1696.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Keppel was naturalized by an act of Parliament in January 1697.<sup>6</sup> Just a few days after the act received the royal assent, a warrant was issued to raise him to the English peerage as earl of Albemarle. The choice of title was in part intended as a rebuff to John Granville*, earl of Bath, who had opposed the ministry. Bath, who had long claimed that the reversion of the Albemarle title had been promised him by Charles II, was furious and fruitlessly entered a caveat against its grant to Keppel.<sup>7</sup> Adding to the controversy, in March William further granted Albemarle 108,000 acres of forfeited Irish lands, at an income of about £4,000 p.a., even though Keppel had taken no part in the Irish campaign.<sup>8</sup> Albemarle had been colonel of a Dutch regiment of carabineers from about 1694 and shortly after his elevation to the peerage was made a major-general of the Dutch horse, followed by a further commission as colonel of a regiment of Swiss soldiers fighting in the Dutch service. He was given the prestigious command of the first troop of Life Guards in England in 1699, instituted in the order of the garter the following year and made a gentleman of the bedchamber the year after that. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, judged that Keppel</p><blockquote><p>was raised from being a page into the highest degree of favour that any person had ever attained about the king … he disposed of every thing that was in the king’s power. He was a cheerful young man, that had the art to please, but was so much given up to his own pleasures, that he could scarce submit to the attendance and drudgery that was necessary to maintain his post. He never had yet distinguished himself in any thing, though the king did it in every thing.</p></blockquote><p>In contrast to Portland, ‘the earl of Albemarle had all the arts of a court, was civil to all, and procured many favours’. <sup>9</sup></p><p>Macky described him in about 1702-3 as having ‘a great influence over the king; is beautiful in his person; open and free in his conversation; very expensive in his manner of living’. Albemarle was closely connected to some of Portland’s enemies at court: Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, who became a close friend and colleague of the young earl, and his sister, Elizabeth Villiers, Lady Orkney, the king’s former mistress and frequent political intriguer. Macky even suggested that Albemarle’s rise at court was engineered by ‘Mrs Villiers’ and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, ‘to pull down my Lord Portland’.<sup>10</sup> In 1699 Portland’s resentment grew so great that he resigned all his positions and retired from court, despite the king’s best efforts to retain him. Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, informed his daughter in April 1699 that ‘the feud betwixt [Portland], and my Lord Albemarle [is], now grown so great to live in one house, and the king was willing to permit Portland’s retreat rather than Albemarle’s’.<sup>11</sup> Burnet confessed himself bewildered by the succession of two such different ‘favourites’ of the king, ‘they being in all respects men, not only of different, but of opposite characters: secrecy and fidelity were the only qualities in which it could be said that they did in any sort agree’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Albemarle first sat in the House of Lords on 18 Feb. 1697, a week after his creation as an English peer, but he only came to 12 of the remaining sittings of that session. He registered his proxy with Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, on two occasions in this session during brief absences from the House of a few days – on 9 Mar. 1697 and then again on 19 Mar., which proxy he vacated three days later. He came to barely a quarter of the meetings in 1697-8 and on 4 Mar. 1698 received the proxy of Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans. Albemarle himself left the House on 7 Mar. and three days after that registered his own proxy with Jersey. Albemarle did not return to the House until 2 Apr., and on 20 June 1698 he received two proxies on the same day, from Jersey and Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton. Jersey’s proxy was vacated upon his return to the House the following week but on 30 June 1698 in its stead William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard registered his with Albemarle.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Albemarle was most involved in the House during the 1698 Parliament. He came to about a third of the sittings in 1698-9 and only slightly more in 1699-1700. It is very likely that he was as active in the giving and receiving of proxies during these sessions as he had been in 1696-7 and 1697-8 but this cannot be positively determined as the proxy registers do not survive. On 23 Feb. 1700 he followed the preference of William III and voted against the motion to adjourn into a committee of the whole to discuss the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation. The principal matter with which he was concerned in the 1699-1700 session was the Irish Forfeitures Resumption bill. He was involved both as one of the principal grantees of forfeited Irish land targeted by the bill and as one of the king’s parliamentary managers entrusted with ensuring the House followed William’s own shifting views. At first William was opposed to the measure, and it was rumoured that Albemarle, with Portland and Lady Orkney (all three grantees of Irish land) were ‘supposed to have hardened the king against the bill’, for which advice John (‘Jack’) Howe<sup>‡</sup> was threatening Albemarle with impeachment.<sup>14</sup> The session, however, descended into stalemate as the two Houses argued over the Lords’ amendments to what the Commons considered a supply bill. William, apparently persuaded by Jersey, changed his mind and sought to convince the Lords to allow the unamended bill to pass in order to secure supply. Albemarle, Portland and Jersey did vote for the second reading of the bill on 4 Apr. 1700 but on 9 Apr. the House voted to adhere to its wrecking amendments. Albemarle missed this important division but coming to the House later that day, claimed that he had come on purpose to vote for the bill without the amendments.<sup>15</sup> William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, later recounted that the following morning, 10 Apr., Jersey and Albemarle informed him that the king feared the rejection of the bill and urged Dartmouth to keep his Tory colleagues in the House until William’s ministers could muster a majority for the bill, ‘which they brought about at last, though they could prevail with nobody to come over to us besides themselves’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> had a different story. He told Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, that Albemarle was a reluctant opponent of the bill and all along was trying to play a double game. Vernon thought that while Portland continued to agitate against the bill in the Lords in his speeches and votes, Albemarle desisted only in his vocal opposition, ‘as to the soliciting part’, but that his votes told a different story. He told Shrewsbury that Albemarle’s absence at the vote of 9 Apr. was intentional and that he still voted in favour of adhering to the wrecking amendments on 10 Apr., when the motion to adhere was only lost by the equality of the votes after proxies were counted. Apparently only Jersey among the king’s agents actually obeyed their master’s wishes in this very tight division. The Commons targeted Portland in a resolution of the same day for an address to the king to remove all foreigners from the Privy Council. Vernon suggested that if the Commons had known Albemarle had continued to vote in favour of the amendments, they may have also agreed to a second motion made on 10 April. This asked the king to rid himself of all foreign-born commanders of English troops – such as Albemarle, a captain in the Life Guards. Indeed, earlier that day ‘some young Member’ had moved for the impeachment of both Portland and Albemarle.<sup>17</sup> The rancorous end of the session on 10 Apr. also saw the Commons addressing the king for the dismissal of the Junto leader John Somers*, Baron Somers. William was inclined to agree as he was convinced that Somers had mismanaged Parliament during the session. In the following weeks Jersey successfully worked on Albemarle to convince him, and through him the king, of the necessity of sacking Somers and bringing the Tories back into the ministry.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Albemarle only came to 19 meetings of the first Parliament of 1701 and had left the House for that session by the time the vote on the impeachment of Somers and the other Junto ministers came before the House. During the summer of 1701 he was in the Netherlands discussing with the States-General preparations for the impending war with France, but he probably did not regret having to miss a potentially embarrassing vote, as he had pressed for Somers’s dismissal the previous year. He may well have entrusted a proxy to a colleague, but the proxy registers for this Parliament are not extant. He was similarly absent for most of the last Parliament of William III’s reign but returned from the Netherlands in December 1701 in time to attend William at his deathbed. William entrusted to him his papers (Jacobite rumour had it that William ordered him to burn them), made him one of his executors, and further bequeathed him 200,000 guilders in his will.<sup>19</sup> Albemarle, who was reported to be ‘very ill of grief for the king’, attended seven more sittings of the House after William’s death. <sup>20</sup> He was one of the peers assigned by the House to inspect the late king’s papers in order to refute the rumour that William had tried to pass over Anne in the succession.<sup>21</sup></p><p>At the accession of Queen Anne, Albemarle lost his place as gentleman of the bedchamber, although he did not surrender his place in the Life Guards, to Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland, the heir of his old rival, until 1710. He retired to his home country in whose affairs he had long been involved through his military posts and his frequent sojourns as William III’s aide-de-camp during the summer campaigns in the Netherlands. In the summer of 1701, during his diplomatic mission to the States-General, he had married a Dutchwoman, the daughter of the governor of Bergen op Zoom and master of William III’s buckhounds. With the prospect of another war with France looming, he was that same year given his own regiment of infantry and promoted to lieutenant general of the Dutch horse. With these many commands he remained an important figure in the ensuing War of the Spanish Succession, during which he worked closely with his friend John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough.<sup>22</sup> He fought at Ramillies, Oudenarde and successfully led a convoy of arms and supplies to the besieging forces at Lille in 1708. After his success in these ventures he was promoted to general of the Dutch horse in 1709 but then suffered a devastating defeat at the battle of Denain in July 1712, where his 10,000 or so Dutch troops suffered a high rate of casualties and he was himself captured.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Occupied with the Dutch war effort on the continent he barely ever attended the House of Lords at Westminster. He only came to ten sittings in the reign of Anne, during a brief span of time between 15 Feb. and 14 Mar. 1705, when he may have been in England to join Marlborough in the victory celebrations for Blenheim. During this short visit he was also awarded with an honorary law degree by Cambridge University. He did not take part in the domestic politics of the reign of Anne and did not even register his proxy for any of the sessions; at least his name is not among the few remaining proxy registers. Nor is it possible to determine Albemarle’s position in English politics. When Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, was forecasting the division for the second vote on the occasional conformity bill in December 1703 he commented that Albemarle ‘probably will come, uncertain what he will be, more likely bad’, that is, he predicted he would vote with the Tories in favour of the bill. Albemarle did not come over for the division. In a printed list of the Parliament of Great Britain, published in May 1708, Albemarle is clearly marked as a Whig. It is likely that his main agenda was the defeat of France and support of Marlborough’s war effort at home and abroad. Such reasons led him to follow the duke’s own changing political alliances and positions in English domestic politics.</p><p>After the death of Anne, Albemarle was entrusted by the States-General to convey their congratulations to the Elector of Hanover on his accession to the English throne and to receive him formally at the Dutch border as he proceeded on his way to England.<sup>24</sup> With the installation of the new king, Albemarle attended 11 meetings of the House in the spring of 1715, before registering his proxy with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, on 20 June 1715. During the winter recess Albemarle transferred his proxy to the duke of St Albans on 22 Dec. 1715 and vacated his proxy with Somerset by letter early in the new year, on 18 Jan. 1716. In the two subsequent sessions of George I’s Parliament, Albemarle assigned his proxy to Evelyn Pierrepont*, duke of Kingston (registered on 14 Feb. 1717 and 25 Nov. 1717 for the following session). Albemarle died at The Hague on 18 May 1718, barely a week after writing his last will, in which he entrusted the education and maintenance of his surviving son and daughter to his wife. His heir William Anne van Keppel<sup>†</sup> – named after his godmother, the queen – succeeded as 2nd earl of Albemarle while still a minor and was to enjoy a long career of service to the Hanoverian monarchs, establishing through his many children a long-lasting dynasty of servants to the British crown.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
KIRKHOVEN, Charles Henry (1643-83) |
<p><strong><surname>KIRKHOVEN</surname></strong> (<strong>VAN DEN KERCKHOVE</strong>), <strong>Charles Henry</strong> (1643–83)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>31 Aug. 1650 Bar. WOTTON of Wotton; <em>cr. </em>9 Dec. 1680 earl of Bellomont [I] |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1663; last sat 26 Mar. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 9 May 1643,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Jan van der Kerckhove, heer van Heenvliet (Holland) (<em>d</em>.1660), and Katherine (<em>d</em>.1667), da. of Thomas Wotton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Wotton of Marley, wid. of Henry Stanhope<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Ld. Stanhope (<em>d</em>. 29 Nov. 1634), and from 29 May 1660 <em>suo jure</em> countess of Chesterfield; half-bro. of Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 25 Aug. 1679, Frances (1642–1714), da. of William Willoughby*, 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 5 Jan. 1683; <em>will</em> 6 Oct. 1682, pr. 14 July 1688.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Intendant?, household of princess of Orange Mar.–Dec. 1660;<sup>3</sup> officer?, household of prince of Orange 1660–?.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Warden, preservation of game, Hampstead, Mdx. 1666–?<em>d</em>., Swarkeston, Derbys. 1681–<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Capt. tp. of horse, ‘Holland Regt.’ 1660–?.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, 1650, double portrait with half-brother Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, as children, sold at Sotheby's, 12 June 2003.</p> |
<p>Charles Henry Kirkhoven (as his name was anglicized) was named after Charles I and Frederick Henrik, prince of Orange, an indication of both his royal connections and his complicated Anglo-Dutch inheritance. He was the son of the Dutch noble and diplomat Jan van den Kerckhove, heer van Heenvliet, who had come to England in the late 1630s on the mission to arrange the marriage of Charles I’s daughter Mary to William, the young son of the prince of Orange. While in England he had courted and eventually married Katherine, Lady Stanhope, whose deceased husband had been heir apparent to Philip Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, earl of Chesterfield. Heenvliet returned with his new wife (who continued to be known as Lady Stanhope) to the United Provinces, where they were placed in charge of the household and person of the young Princess Mary.<sup>8</sup> When their first son was born in May 1643 both Princess Mary and her father-in-law, Frederick Henrik, prince of Orange, stood as his godparents.</p><p>During much of the 1640s Heenvliet and his wife pressed for some guarantee that their Dutch-born son would be able to inherit Lady Stanhope’s English properties.<sup>9</sup> In June 1649 the exiled Charles II formally renounced any intent to seize Lady Stanhope’s property in case she died before her foreign husband. On 31 Aug. 1650, when in Scotland for his ill-fated attempt on England, he further issued letters patent creating Charles Henry an English peer, as Baron Wotton of Wotton, in honour of the Dutchman’s maternal grandfather. Wotton’s father, Lord Heenvliet, died in March 1660, and at the time of the Restoration Wotton’s attention shifted to England, especially when his widowed mother was rewarded for her contribution to the royalist cause upon Charles II’s arrival in London on 29 May 1660, when he created her <em>suo jure</em> countess of Chesterfield. The king appears to have earlier intervened with the States-General to convince them to grant a troop of horse in the Scots brigades stationed in the United Provinces to Wotton, who had already replaced his late father (though only 17 years old) as intendant of the princess of Orange’s household; he also held a post in the young prince of Orange’s establishment.</p><p>On 13 Sept. 1660 a bill to naturalize in England the countess of Chesterfield’s two Dutch-born children, Wotton and his sister, Emilia, received the royal assent, after which Wotton was eligible to inherit his mother’s English estate. A source of patronage for him and his mother was cut short with Princess Mary’s unexpected death in December 1660, but the countess quickly moved on to a position in the household of the duchess of York, Anne Hyde, and was later made a lady of the bedchamber of the new queen, Catherine of Braganza. Some time around 1662 she also married, as her third husband, the prominent courtier and former royalist agent Daniel O’Neill<sup>‡</sup>, who built for her the grand house of Belsize Manor in Hampstead. After the Restoration the countess established herself permanently in England.</p><p>Wotton at first had less cause to devote himself entirely to England and in the early years of the 1660s appears to have maintained a connection with his place of birth, where he had considerable interests.<sup>10</sup> He was still underage at the Restoration and he first sat in the House as an English peer on 21 March 1663, although even at that point he would not have been of age. He only sat for a further two days until 24 Mar., at which point he registered his proxy with John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. In July 1663 Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in drawing up his forecast of the divisions in the House over the impeachment of Clarendon initiated by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, recorded that Berkeley of Stratton controlled Wotton’s proxy. Whether Wotton shared in Berkeley’s personal animus towards the lord chancellor is not known; Wharton marked the Dutchman as an enemy of Clarendon because of his proxy recipient.</p><p>Although Wotton managed to come to just over half of the sittings in the spring 1664 session, his Dutch affairs may have kept him away from the House thereafter and on 9 Nov. 1664 he registered his proxy with Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, for the entirety of the 1664–5 session. He was caught on the wrong side of the North Sea during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and seems to have spent 1665 in the Netherlands. In April 1665 he wrote to Henry Bennet* (later earl of Arlington), explaining that he had been prevented from returning to England to express his fidelity to Charles II by the dowager princess of Orange, Amalia van Solms-Braunfels (the deceased Princess Mary’s mother-in-law), who threatened that if he did so she would ‘deprive him of all he has under the Prince [of Orange], which is very considerable’.<sup>11</sup> He was, however, back in England by early 1666 for a prorogation on 20 Feb. and came to half of the meetings of the House in 1666–7, though he was placed on only one select committee.</p><p>Wotton may have wished to return to England, even in the midst of the war, because his fortunes there were improving. In October 1664 Daniel O’Neill had died a very wealthy man and left everything to the countess of Chesterfield – Belsize Manor, a monopoly on the manufacture of gunpowder and the lease of the office of postmaster-general. Lady Chesterfield herself died in April 1667, leading Katherine, Lady Ranelagh [I], to comment that ‘my Lady Chesterfield has left this world and in it a greater stock of plate and fine goods (besides bonds and a great revenue) than has been owned by any private person here’. The countess had made her two sons – Wotton and Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield – her two heirs, and Lady Ranelagh estimated that she had given Wotton ‘much the greater share’ of her estate, including the grand house of Belsize Manor in Hampstead’.<sup>12</sup> Wotton soon set about improving the house’s fabric and gardens. In August 1668 Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> visited Belsize with Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> and was impressed with the gardens, ‘being indeed the most noble that ever I saw’ – indeed, they were ‘too good for the house’.<sup>13</sup> In June 1676 John Evelyn, a more exacting horticulturist, visited the house; he was less impressed, finding the gardens ‘very large, but ill kept’.<sup>14</sup> The countess had jointly bequeathed to Wotton and Chesterfield O’Neill’s patent for the monopoly of making gunpowder, which they surrendered back to the crown for £9,000.<sup>15</sup> She also left to Wotton her lease of 492 hectares of St John’s Wood, which she had bought from Arlington in 1666. In 1673 the crown gave Wotton the freehold of this estate as part payment of a debt that Charles II owed the baron, probably from his days of impecunious exile.<sup>16</sup> This inheritance and the grand house in Hampstead made Wotton a significant figure in the social life of the capital and a desirable item on the marriage market, his ‘person and fortune being considerable’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>After the peace in the Second Dutch War, and flush from his inheritance, Wotton came to the House for 34 per cent of the sittings in 1667–9, was named to one committee on the preservation of timber in the forest of Dean and was added to two other committees. He was more active in the winter of 1669 when he came to all but 15 of the short session’s meetings, but he was named to no select committees on legislation, although he was placed with the majority of the House on the committees to investigate the decay of trade (25 Oct.) and to consider the report submitted by the commissioners of accounts (9 Nov.). He first sat in the 1670–1 session on 17 Mar. 1670, when he signed the protest (his first and only one) against the second reading of the divorce bill of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland). A week later, having attended on only five days, he registered his proxy with Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond.</p><p>This was vacated when Wotton appeared in the House again on 24 Oct. 1670 once Parliament had resumed, and a week after his return he was placed on a committee to prepare bills for the punishment of perjury and for preventing abuses in breaches of trust. Later he was assigned to the committee to settle the dispute between the Hamburg Company and its creditors. He was present at almost two-thirds of the meetings of the short session in early 1673, when he was named to two committees on legislation, but missed the next session of late 1673 entirely and attended just under a quarter of the meetings in January 1674. He was present for 45 per cent of the sittings in the spring of 1675. On 21 Apr. 1675 he was named to the committee on the bill for preventing dangers from recusants. He probably supported the court in the debates on the Non-resisting Test, as his name does not appear on any of the protests against this measure. He later came to one-third of the sittings of the session of late 1675.</p><p>It is only from around 1677 that there is any indication of the positions that Wotton took in the partisan politics of the period. From about this point he became more active in the House, or at least more visible because of the greater survival of division lists and forecasts. The number of his committee nominations increases substantially from this point as well. He was present for two-fifths of the meetings of the long and turbulent session beginning in February 1677, and was named to ten select committees, most of them on private bills. On 4 Apr. 1678 he joined with the majority to vote Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.<sup>18</sup> Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered Wotton ‘doubly vile’ for his perceived support of the court, but Shaftesbury’s estimate was initially belied by Wotton’s votes in the session of winter 1678. He was very active in this session, coming to 87 per cent of the sitting days, the highest attendance rate of his career. He appears to have at first shared many of the concerns and views of the country party, being named to committees to examine the evidence of the Popish Plot (23 Oct. 1678), to consider the bills for raising the militia (26 Nov.) and to prevent recusants from sending their children abroad (12 December). On 15 Dec. he voted in the debates on the Test Act that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalties as the other oaths. He was marked as an ‘opposition lord’ in a division list on the votes in late December concerning the House’s insistence that money raised for disbandment be deposited in the exchequer and on the commitment to the Tower of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>Danby himself evidently thought that Wotton could be turned, and considered him one of his supporters in the weeks preceding the first Exclusion Parliament. Wotton attended five of the six days in the abandoned first session of 6-13 Mar. 1679, and then 70 per cent of the sitting days of that Parliament’s second substantive 61-day session of 15 Mar.-27 May. A list drawn up by Danby in the early days of proceedings on the bill for his attainder suggests that Wotton initially abstained from voting, and that the lord treasurer still hoped to bring him on side. By the time that the attainder bill came to a head Wotton had been won over, perhaps by his half-brother Chesterfield, a prominent supporter of Danby; he voted against the bill on 14 Apr. 1679. On 27 May, he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Wotton continued to side with the court for the remainder of that and the following two Parliaments. He voted against the establishment of a joint committee to consider the method of trying the impeached peers and at the end of the first Exclusion Parliament supported the right of the bishops to remain in court during the hearing of capital cases. In the second Exclusion Parliament, where he came to almost three-quarters of the meetings, he was added on 25 Oct. 1680 to the committee to consider evidence about the Popish Plot, but he voted to throw out the Exclusion Bill (15 Nov.), rejected the motion of having a joint committee to consider the state of the nation (23 Nov.) and found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty (7 December).</p><p>It was probably for his support of the court in its hour of need that Wotton was rewarded with a promotion in the peerage, being created earl of Bellomont in the Irish peerage by a patent dated 9 Dec. 1680, though this was not enrolled in Ireland until 11 Feb. 1681.<sup>19</sup> The decision to give him an Irish, rather than an English, title may have been determined by his connection with his step-father O’Neill. In August 1680 Wotton had submitted a petition to be granted the lease of the duty on French tonnage shipped to Ireland, which had formerly been held by O’Neill and Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>. The lord lieutenant, James Butler*, duke of Ormond (whose son-in-law was Wotton’s half-brother Chesterfield), opined that the lease could be granted, under certain conditions, and Wotton’s Irish title may have been a recognition of his new position in that kingdom.<sup>20</sup> Bellomont sat in the English House of Lords as Baron Wotton in the Oxford Parliament of March 1681, where he was present for all but the final two days. Danby counted him among the supporters of his petition for bail and the lord treasurer’s son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, included Bellomont among a list of Danby’s ‘friends’ who had arrived in Oxford by 20 Mar. in order to promote this petition.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Bellomont died unexpectedly on 5 Jan. 1683 of an apoplexy.<sup>22</sup> In August 1679 he had married Frances Willoughby, daughter of the 5th (or 6th) Baron of Parham, and widow of John Harpur of Swarkeston, Derbyshire. Through this connection Wotton had been made warden for the preservation of game in Swarkeston in 1681. There were no children of this marriage and Wotton, after assigning a rent charge of £600 p.a. to his wife, left his whole estate, including property in Norfolk, Kent and Flanders, to his nephew Charles Stanhope, the younger son of Chesterfield, with a reversion to Chesterfield’s elder son and heir, Philip Stanhope*, styled Lord Stanhope (later 3rd earl of Chesterfield), on the condition that the heir take the surname Wotton. Charles Stanhope followed these instructions and changed his surname, but he died young and childless in 1704, by which the residue of the countess of Chesterfield’s large estate was united with that of the earls of Chesterfield.<sup>23</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
KNOLLYS, Nicholas (1631-74) |
<p><strong><surname>KNOLLYS</surname></strong>, <strong>Nicholas</strong> (1631–74)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. June 1645 (a minor) as titular 3rd earl of BANBURY |
|
First sat 4 June 1660; last sat 21 Nov. 1660 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Jan. 1631, 2nd s. Elizabeth, countess Banbury; bro. of Edward Knollys<sup>†</sup>, later titular 2nd earl of Banbury. <em>m</em>. (1) <em>c</em>.1649<sup>1</sup> (with £8,000), <sup>2</sup> Isabella (<em>d</em>.1655), da. of Montjoy Blount*, earl of Newport, 1da; (2) 4 Oct. 1655, Anne (<em>d</em>. 6 Mar. 1680), da. of William Sherard, Bar. Sherard (I), 2s. 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 14 Mar. 1674; admon. to wid. 21 June 1681 and 4 July 1683.</p> |
|
|
<p>Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Suffolk, had married William Knollys<sup>†</sup>, Baron Knollys (later earl of Banbury) as his second wife in 1606, when he was 58 and she was 19. Lady Banbury’s elder son, Edward (later titular 2nd earl of Banbury), was born at her husband’s house in 1627, but at the birth of her second son she was living at Harrowden Hall, the home of Edward Vaux*, 4th Baron Vaux, whom she subsequently married. Both boys appear to have been known in infancy by the surname Vaux and, not unnaturally, Vaux was suspected of being their biological father. Such suspicions were confirmed by the knowledge that the 1st earl of Banbury had secured a re-grant of the manor of Cholsey after the birth of Edward, and of the manor of Greys after the birth of both Edward and Nicholas on the grounds that his childless state meant that they would otherwise revert to the crown on his death. On both occasions his ‘next heir male’ was identified as his nephew, Sir Robert Knollys.<sup>4</sup> Although by statute peerages were accorded precedence with respect to their date of creation, the letters patent creating the earldom of Banbury in 1626 had directed that it be given precedence as if it were the first earldom created after the accession of Charles I. This clause, which displaced six other earls, was much resented as an infringement of privilege. On 28 Mar. 1628 the House was informed of the king’s desire that they accept Banbury’s precedence in a message that specifically referred to Banbury’s childlessness; at that date Edward Knollys, the future titular 2nd earl of Banbury, was already nearly a year old. Banbury made no mention of, or provision for, any children in his will. A report from the committee for privileges on 25 Nov. 1669 noted that when questioned about the Banbury pedigree, garter king of arms had insisted that there was no record of any children of the 1st earl and pointed out that there was no mention of an earl of Banbury in a list of peers created for Parliament in 1640. In 1687, during a chancery action, a witness referred in passing to ‘the Lord Vaux, father of Nicholas, late earl of Banbury’.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Although the biological paternity of Edward and Nicholas Knollys may have been doubtful, there was a well-established common law maxim that children born in wedlock should be presumed to be the children of the husband. Accordingly, on the death of the 1st earl of Banbury, Edward Knollys assumed the title, and his right to be regarded as the earl’s heir was acknowledged by the courts in 1641.<sup>6</sup> Nicholas Knollys claimed the earldom at his brother’s death. In March 1660, when Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, drew up his list of ‘lords whose fathers sat’ he had no hesitation in including the 3rd earl of Banbury amongst them.</p><p>Nicholas Knollys’ right to sit in the House of Lords was soon challenged. He attended only twice in June 1660 and was then absent until 13 July. On that day an unknown peer moved ‘That there being a person that now sits in this House as a peer, who, as is conceived, hath no title to be a peer; <em>videlicet</em>, the earl of Banbury’, as a result of which the House ordered that the matter be argued by counsel at bar. No proceedings ensued and Banbury began to attend assiduously. Between 13 July and his final appearance in the House on 21 Nov. he missed only eight sittings. Banbury was named to three committees, that for continuing the excise on 24 July, for Newport Free School on 8 Sept. and for the highways on 10 November. He also attempted to promote a bill of his own to enable him to sell property at Boughton Latimer for payment of debts. The bill received its first and second readings on 20 and 24 Aug. respectively but went no further.</p><p>Whether he was an active participant in any of these committees remains a mystery; nor is there any record of his activity in any debates, divisions, protests, or dissents. The sole indicator of his political loyalties is the survival of two proxies, one undated and one merely dated 1660, given in favour of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. He appears to have been a Protestant, although his mother and his probable biological father were both Catholics.<sup>7</sup> An effective evaluation of his character and politics is hampered by a lack of personal papers, although even if an archive did survive, it seems unlikely that it would alter the perception of a man who was unimportant in himself but who attracted a great deal of attention because of the oddities of his claim to a peerage and as a person whose indeterminate status within an intensely hierarchical society made others extremely uncomfortable.</p><p>On 21 Nov. 1660 the self-proclaimed earl of Banbury was granted ‘leave to be absent for some time.’ He never sat again for no writ of summons was issued when the new Parliament met on 8 May 1661. On 6 June his petition to the king both for a writ and for the precedence accorded to the 1st earl was read to the House after which the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, informed the House that the writ had been withheld at the command of the king ‘upon some question that was made last Parliament in this House concerning him.’ The matter was then referred to the committee for privileges.</p><p>Discussion within the committee centred on the question of Knollys’ biological parentage particularly whether his and his brother’s births had been kept secret. The committee clearly found it difficult to believe that a man as elderly as the 1st earl (who would have been 80 in the year that Edward was born and 83 at the birth of Nicholas) could father a child. It was also noted that Banbury’s only lands were those settled on him by Vaux. Nevertheless, in view of the common law presumption, the committee decided ‘the matter of fact that according to the law of the land he is legitimate’ and they reported accordingly on 1 July 1661.<sup>8</sup> The House ordered the committee to reconsider the matter. The committee’s second report (19 July) also declared him to be legitimate but recommended that his precedence should be according to the date of creation of the earldom rather than according to the letters patent.<sup>9</sup> A bill to bastardise Knollys was introduced on 19 Dec. 1661 but did not get beyond a first reading. Banbury’s claim to a writ of summons was revived several times during his lifetime but was never resolved.</p><p>In the absence of a clear decision from the House, his contemporaries carried on referring to him as earl of Banbury. He was listed as such in a directory of peers, although, as noted above, no earl of Banbury was recorded in garter’s roll of peers.<sup>10</sup> Knollys himself continued to insist that he was entitled to the earldom, and he paid poll and benevolence money accordingly.<sup>11</sup> However, Knollys’ finances (and hence his prestige) were precarious. In 1655 he was said to have been imprisoned in the upper bench prison for a debt of £10,000, his attempt to sell Boughton Latimer for debts has already been mentioned and in 1673 £4,500 was levied on his lands for failing to appear to answer a plea of debt in the court of exchequer.<sup>12</sup> The size of his wives’ marriage portions is unknown, but he was clearly not in a good bargaining position: £2,000 of his first wife’s portion was secured against his father-in-law’s London house, under conditions that ensured payment was a very distant prospect indeed.<sup>13</sup> He appears to have provided for his eldest daughter’s marriage portion, in part, by settling on her lands that her stepmother claimed as jointure.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Although the Knollys family had once been one of the leading gentry families of Berkshire and Oxfordshire, the 1st earl seems to have left only a small amount of property, little or none of which passed to the titular 3rd earl. Vaux settled his estates on Knollys, to the exclusion of his own heirs but these too seem to have been insignificant, consisting of the manors of Great and Little Harrowden and lands in Irthlingborough and Boughton Latimer in Northamptonshire.<sup>15</sup> The sequestrators had valued them at £300 a year and Vaux himself provided a similar figure.<sup>16</sup> During a family dispute about the lands of Great and Little Harrowden in the 1680s they were said to be worth between £1,100 and £1,200 a year, but even this sum (which was probably overstated) was scarcely enough to maintain the dignity of an earl.<sup>17</sup> In 1665 Knollys succeeded in securing the honour of a visit to his house by James*, duke of York, and his duchess only by the expedient of forcibly stopping their coach and pulling the duke’s leg so hard ‘that he had almost drawn off his shoe.’<sup>18</sup></p><p>Knollys’ descendants continued to use the title of earls of Banbury and the associated title of Viscount Wallingford until 1813, when the House finally rejected their claim. A further petition in 1922 was similarly unsuccessful.<sup>19</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
LANGDALE, Marmaduke (c. 1598-1661) |
<p><strong><surname>LANGDALE</surname></strong>, <strong>Marmaduke</strong> (c. 1598–1661)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>4 Feb. 1658 Bar. LANGDALE |
|
First sat 19 June 1660; last sat 13 Sept. 1660 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1598, o.s. of Peter Langdale of Pighill, Yorks. (E. Riding) and Anne, da. of Michael Wharton<sup>‡</sup> of Beverley, Yorks. (E. Riding). <em>educ.</em> St John’s, Camb. matric. 1613. <em>m.</em> 12 Sept. 1626, Lenox, da. of Sir John Rhodes, of Barlborough, Derbys. 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da. (1 <em>d. v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> kntd. 1628. <em>d.</em> 5 Aug. 1661.</p> |
<p>Sheriff, Yorks. 1639-40; ld. lt. Yorks. (W. Riding), 9 Oct. 1660-<em>d</em>., city and ainsty of York 4 Mar. 1661-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr., array 1642; c.-in-c., ‘Irish Brigade’ of Horse 1643; maj. gen., ‘Northern Horse’ 1644-6,<sup>3</sup> king’s forces in five northern counties 1648.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by William Humphrey, published 1774, NPG D29430.</p> |
<p>Marmaduke Langdale came from a prominent Catholic gentry family with lands centred around Holme-upon-Spalding Moor in the area west of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire.<sup>5</sup> He was a leading figure in the opposition against Charles I’s extra-parliamentary taxation, for which he was punished by being ‘pricked’ as sheriff of Yorkshire in November 1639 so that he would be forced to comply with the government’s demands.<sup>6</sup> However, during the Civil War Langdale became the leading royalist cavalry commander in the north, and after the battle of Marston Moor he led the remnants of the cavalry divisions of the shattered Northern Army in a number of important engagements. In 1648 the prince of Wales commissioned him major general of the forces of the five northern counties for the concerted royalist uprisings of the Second Civil War and he led the English capture of Berwick and Carlisle in support of the Scottish invasion. He continued to campaign with the Scots until he was decisively defeated by Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> at Preston in August 1648.<sup>7</sup> After the execution of the king Langdale was, in March 1649, formally proscribed and banished by the Rump and sentenced to a summary death if found anywhere in the kingdom.<sup>8</sup> In September 1649 he was in Paris, and from 1652 he was based in the Low Countries, from whence he wrote frequent letters to Charles II’s secretary Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, offering himself as the leader of any projected royalist rising in the north, for he was seen as ‘the most popular, and the most entrusted both by Catholics and Protestants, in all the North; they desire to have none else sent to them there’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Neither Nicholas nor Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, saw fit to employ Langdale in the abortive uprising of 1655 and appear to have found him and his constant promotion of the Catholic cause wearisome.<sup>10</sup> Langdale came from a Catholic family, but, according to John Aubrey, had been a Protestant before his exile.<sup>11</sup> He probably converted to open Catholicism while on the continent and in his letters from 1653 he argued constantly that religious toleration in England and a military alliance with Spain were the only means for the king to be restored, to the point where Nicholas wrote to Hyde that ‘Sir Marmaduke is as eager in pursuing the papists’ interest as any new popish proselyte ever was’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>From at least late December 1657 there were plans to make Langdale a peer, but it was not until 4 Feb. 1658 that his letters patent were sealed, creating him Baron Langdale of Holme on account of the ‘great fortitude, fidelity, prudence and industry’ he had showed in his service to Charles I.<sup>13</sup> Langdale probably returned to England with the restored king in May 1660, and he first took his seat in the House on 19 June 1660, perhaps prompted and encouraged by the order made by the House the previous day freeing his estate from sequestration. On that first day he was added to the committee considering the acts and ordinances passed since the Long Parliament and he proceeded to be placed on a further 12 committees over the course of the remaining 66 sitting days that he attended before the summer adjournment. Among these committees were four which dealt with bills to assist fellow royalists reclaim their estates or pay their debts. On 6 Aug. he was among a select group of royalists given special licence by a committee of the whole House to bring in private bills against those otherwise protected by the bill of indemnity. In the last week before the adjournment of 13 Sept. 1660 Langdale was named to six committees alone, including those for the bills to protect the English shipping trade (the Navigation Act), to disband the standing army, and to annex Dunkirk, Mardijk and Jamaica to the English crown.</p><p>He never returned to the House after 13 Sept. 1660. Poverty played a part in keeping him away from Westminster. Civil war and exile had ruined Langdale’s estate : the royalist memorialist, David Lloyd, wrote that he returned to it ‘satisfied for £160,000 loss in his Majesty’s service, with the conscience of having suffered it in a good cause, and acquitted himself bravely’.<sup>14</sup> In April 1661 Langdale wrote to Nicholas asking him to convey his apologies to the king for his absence from the coronation, explaining that he was too poor to travel south and that his neighbours were unwilling to lend him money to enable him to do so.<sup>15</sup> He was, however, conscious of his responsibility to the House and he registered his proxy with the lord treasurer Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, on 28 May 1661, three weeks into the first session of the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Something else keeping him in the north was his appointment in October 1660 as lord lieutenant of the largest and most populous of the newly created lieutenancies of Yorkshire, that of the West Riding, even though his own principal estates were in the East Riding.<sup>17</sup> In March 1661 the separate city and ainsty of York was added to his remit and Langdale was anxious to show Nicholas that under his government corporations such as York ‘do not aim for an absolute government’.<sup>18</sup> Langdale was active in his northern office, writing letters to the secretary of state throughout 1661 in which, among other matters, he inquired about the proper procedures for raising a militia in the absence of a Militia Act and the king’s views on the proper treatment of Quakers, whose ‘exemplary lives’ he admired. He was also concerned about the large number of cashiered parliamentary officers and troops in his region ‘ready to fall into their old trade’.<sup>19</sup> Langdale’s government of the West Riding was cut short when he died, apparently intestate, in August 1661, whereupon he was succeeded in his title by his elder surviving son, also named Marmaduke Langdale* as 2nd Baron Langdale.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
LANGDALE, Marmaduke (1628-1703) |
<p><strong><surname>LANGDALE</surname></strong>, <strong>Marmaduke</strong> (1628–1703)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Aug. 1661 as 2nd Bar. LANGDALE. |
|
First sat 6 Dec. 1661; last sat 9 June 1675 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 14 Jan. 1628, 1st. s. of Sir Marmaduke Langdale*, later Bar. Langdale, and Lenox, da. of Sir John Rhodes of Barlborough, Derbys. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) c<em>.</em>1652, Ann Pettit, of Colkins, Yorks. <em>d.s.p.</em>; (2) c<em>.</em>1655, Elizabeth, da. of Hon. Thomas Savage, of Beeston Castle, Ches. 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em><em>.</em>), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.)<sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> 25 Feb. 1703; <em>will</em> 27 Dec. 1701, pr. 9 Mar. 1703.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. money owing from recusants, northern counties. 1687-8;<sup>3</sup> gov. Kingston-upon-Hull, 1687-8; recorder, Kingston-upon-Hull, 1688; dep. lt. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1688.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Col., regt. of horse 1687;<sup>5</sup> capt., coy of gren., Mq. of Powis’s Regt. of Ft. Kingston-upon-Hull, 1687-8. <sup>6</sup></p> |
|
<p>Marmaduke Langdale inherited the depleted estates and the Catholic faith of his father. He spent much of the rest of his life trying to recover what he could of his damaged patrimony in the East Riding of Yorkshire.<sup>7</sup> Although he did not succeed his father as lord lieutenant of the West Riding, Langdale remained active in northern affairs. In February 1662 he was part of a delegation of northern peers who visited Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in order to emphasize their opposition to plans to reinstate the court of York for the northern counties, ‘as believing it not for the service of the king or good of the country’.<sup>8</sup> He was an active member of the commission of sewers in the East Riding throughout the 1660s, which led him into disputes with such powerful figures as Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, and John Cosin*, bishop of Durham.<sup>9</sup> In the summer of 1667 he joined with the then lord lieutenant of the West Riding, Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, in examining the decayed pier at Bridlington and in 1672 he and Burlington endorsed the petition of the port’s inhabitants for its repair and rebuilding.<sup>10</sup> Fittingly, in the parliamentary session of 1664-5 he was named to four committees (13 and 17 Dec. 1664, 21 Jan. and 3 Feb. 1665) which considered bills to make various waterways throughout England more navigable.</p><p>Langdale’s public life was marked above all by his Catholicism. When he was not in the House, which was often, he registered his proxy with fellow Catholics. He first sat in the House on 6 Dec. 1661 but only remained for a further 38 days, before receiving leave of the House on 15 Feb. 1662 to be absent ‘for some time’. The absence lasted over two years. He registered his proxy with the Catholic Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, on 12 Mar. 1663 for the session of 1663, which led Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, to consider Langdale a supporter of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. It was almost certainly Arundell of Wardour who presented to the House on 3 June 1663 Langdale’s complaint that he was being prosecuted for recusancy in the court of the archbishop of York, a matter which appears to have been lost in the committee for privileges to which it was referred. Langdale returned to the House on 5 May 1664 for only eight sittings at the end of the spring 1664 session, but he came to 69 per cent of the sitting days in the following session of 1664-5. He was most likely so assiduous in order to ensure that another breach of his privilege was quashed, for on 2 and 5 Dec. the House examined his complaint that a writ of <em>exigent</em>, which could lead to an outlawry, had been entered against him by his Yorkshire neighbour John Millington. It was not until the last week of January 1665 that both Millington and his attorney were discharged after being reprimanded by the House. Millington’s legal action was probably related to Langdale’s indebted estate, but the peer may have also been seen as vulnerable because of his continued recusancy.</p><p>After missing all of the sittings of the Parliament held in Oxford in October 1665, Langdale registered his proxy with John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, the Catholic lord lieutenant of the East Riding, on 24 Nov. 1666. Belasyse held the proxy for the remainder of the 1666-7 session. It was Belasyse who on 1 Feb. 1667 brought to the House’s attention information of further proceedings against Langdale for recusancy, leading the House to order that all peers and their families were to be exempt from such actions in the ecclesiastical courts during time of Parliament.</p><p>Langdale did not appear again in the House until 17 Feb. 1670 and did not cover his intervening absence with another proxy. He was accordingly missing at a call of the House on 28 Oct. 1669, resulting on 9 Nov. in an order that he be fined £40. The impoverished peer later successfully petitioned to have the fine remitted.<sup>11</sup> Perhaps the fine encouraged him to attend, for he was present on the third day of the session of 1670-71 and proceeded to sit in just under half of its meetings, when he was also named to 18 select committees, the largest number of such nominations he received in any session. He left the House on 6 Mar. 1671, when he was again given leave by the House to be absent for some time, and the following day he registered his proxy with another Catholic peer, Henry Howard*, Baron Howard of Castle Rising (later 6th duke of Norfolk), for the remainder of the session. He remained away from the House for the next several years, without registering a proxy, until he took up his seat again on 19 Apr. 1675, about a week into the session of spring 1675, during which he attended 81 per cent of the sitting days, the highest attendance rate of his entire parliamentary career. Despite this near-constant attendance, Langdale appears to have made no impact or impression on the proceedings concerning the Test Bill proposed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), for his name does not appear in any of Danby’s working papers on the bill nor in any of the material produced by the country opposition against it. He was absent, without a proxy, for the following session of autumn 1675, but on 10 Mar. 1677 registered his proxy once again with Arundell of Wardour for the remainder of the 1677-8 session. At around this time in spring 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury marked Langdale as a papist and considered him ‘triply vile’ in his analysis of the political affiliations of the peerage. From December 1678 Langdale was prevented from sitting in the House by the Test Act.</p><p>James II not surprisingly saw Langdale as a supporter of his religious policies and in March 1686 dispensed him from taking the oaths enjoined by the Test Acts.<sup>12</sup> From 1687 Langdale was given a succession of military and municipal commissions. On 22 Jan. 1687 he was commissioned colonel of the regiment of horse recently removed from the command of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, though by 15 Feb. he had resigned this commission.<sup>13</sup> More successful were the local responsibilities in the northeast he was given from 4 Nov. 1687, after the death of Thomas Windsor*, earl of Plymouth. He was commissioned governor of the citadel of Hull and captain of a company of grenadiers based in that garrison.<sup>14</sup> In the following months he was made commissioner for all the northern counties to enquire into moneys still owing from recusants and dissenters (December 1687), deputy lieutenant for the East Riding (March 1688) and perhaps even <em>de facto</em> lord lieutenant of the East Riding from August 1688 (although he never formally received a commission).<sup>15</sup> It was also Langdale who was entrusted with administering the three questions in the East Riding in December 1687.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In Hull Langdale tried to influence the corporation’s choice in the planned parliamentary election of 1688, backing the government candidate Sir John Bradshaw, in place of the corporation’s preferred representatives Sir Willoughby Hickman<sup>‡</sup> and John Ramsden<sup>‡</sup>, and threatening the corporation with dire consequences if it failed to comply. When the corporation refused to obey, James ordered 1,199 soldiers, under the command of Langdale, to be quartered in the town.<sup>17</sup> The town’s charter was surrendered to the Crown in June 1688, and the new one of September inserted Langdale as recorder of the town with his fellow Catholic, Henry Jermyn*, Baron Dover, as high steward.<sup>18</sup> During October 1688 Langdale was active in the many preparations for the defence of Hull against an expected northern invasion by William of Orange.<sup>19</sup> After news of William’s unexpected landing in the southwest, Langdale suspected that the protestant officers and the troops of the Hull garrison would rise in his support and made plans to capture them. Instead on the night of 3 Dec. 1688, the protestants of the town and garrison captured Langdale and the Catholic officers as they travelled from the citadel to the town for their attack.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Langdale was quickly released and by the time of a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689, three days into the Convention, he was ‘out of the country’. In July 1690 a proclamation was issued demanding his arrest for treason, but in January 1698 he was granted licence to return to England after the cessation of hostilities with France and a writ was issued summoning him to the House (which, as a Catholic, he was unable to attend).<sup>21</sup> Undoubtedly, this period of exile would have further damaged his already weakened estate, much of which he had been forced to sell or mortgage in the mid 1670s.<sup>22</sup> In October 1689, whilst overseas, he responded to the government’s inquiry about the value of his personal estate with the statement, ‘I am so unfortunate as not to have any personal estate, nor at the present any real estate, for I am informed it is seized on by those to whom I am indebted’.<sup>23</sup> In 1700, back in England, he assigned all his remaining property and income from rectories to trustees in order to secure payment of his debts.<sup>24</sup> Langdale died, ‘at a great age’, on 25 Feb. 1703.<sup>25</sup> He was succeeded by his only son, Marmaduke Langdale*, as 3rd Baron Langdale, who was also nominated as sole executor of his small estate.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
LANGDALE, Marmaduke (c. 1657-1718) |
<p><strong><surname>LANGDALE</surname></strong>, <strong>Marmaduke</strong> (c. 1657–1718)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 25 Feb. 1703 as 3rd Bar. LANGDALE |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1657 1st and o. surv. s. of Marmaduke Langdale*, (later 2nd Bar. Langdale) and Elizabeth Savage, da. of Thomas Savage of Beeston Castle, Cheshire. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 1676 Frances Draycott, da. of Richard Draycott of Paynesley, Staffs., 1s. 2da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 12 Dec. 1718; <em>will</em> 4 Dec. 1718, pr. 3 Aug. 1723.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Yorks. (E. Riding) 1688.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>A scion of one of the leading Catholic families in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Marmaduke Langdale came into a brief moment of prominence during James II’s reign, when, in March 1688, he was appointed a deputy lieutenant of the East Riding alongside his father Marmaduke Langdale, 2nd Baron Langdale.<sup>4</sup> While his father went into exile shortly after the Revolution, Marmaduke Langdale may have remained in the country, for his name appears in the list of those Jacobites suspected of treason and ordered to be apprehended during the invasion scare of summer 1690.<sup>5</sup> Shortly thereafter he appears to have joined his father on the continent, as both were given permission to return to England in 1698.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Langdale succeeded to the barony in 1703 and as a Catholic was unable to sit in the House; he was also considered to be a Jacobite.<sup>7</sup> He made his one significant intervention in the affairs of the House when he was incarcerated during the round-up of suspected papists in the northern counties during the invasion scare of March 1708.<sup>8</sup> From his cell in Beverley he addressed a letter to John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham and Normanby, in which he complained of his capture and continued,</p><blockquote><p>I cannot but look upon this act as a breach of the right of peerage … by which we are exempted from all such seizures. … having the honour of being a member of your noble House, I could not think of quitting any point of its privilege without acquainting your Grace and the House of Lords with it.<sup>9</sup></p></blockquote><p>The letter was read before the House on 30 Mar. and referred to the committee for privileges, which, considering the recently passed Act for the Security of Her Majesty’s Person and Government, and invoking the precedent of 24 Feb. 1692, in which it had been decided that ‘privilege of Parliament shall not extend to Lords that have not first qualified themselves to sit in Parliament, by taking the Oaths and Test’, determined that there was no breach of privilege in this case.<sup>10</sup> When the report was made to the House the following day, it was further proposed that a clause be added to the decision, explaining ‘he [i.e. Langdale] not having qualified himself to sit in Parliament by taking the oaths and test, pursuant to the Statutes’. On a division the proposal to add these words was defeated, although six Tory peers, led by Buckingham and Normanby, entered their dissent from this decision. It is not clear why the inclusion of this clause should have been considered a Tory measure requiring a defeat by the Whigs. To further emphasize its decision against Langdale, the House ordered that John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, lord lieutenant of the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire, should signify to his deputy lieutenants that they had done their duty in confining Langdale, and thank them for their care in this matter. The feared invasion having failed, on 1 Apr. 1708 the Privy Council ordered the northern lord lieutenants to release all those seized, including Langdale, after which he did not pursue the question of privilege.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In 1716, after the abortive Jacobite rising, Langdale’s manor of Holme upon Spalding Moor was valued at £599 8<em>s</em>. 8<em>d</em>. by the commissioners for ‘traitors’ estates’. His marriage to Frances Draycott of Paynesley in Staffordshire appears to have helped the Langdales’ fortunes by bringing three manors in Staffordshire into their possession and these estates, valued at £960 13<em>s</em>. 7<em>d</em>., were registered in 1716 as in the possession of the 3rd Baron’s son, Marmaduke Langdale<sup>†</sup>, who succeeded to the barony upon his father’s death in 1718 as 4th Baron Langdale.<sup>12</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
LEE, Edward Henry (1663-1716) |
<p><strong><surname>LEE</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward Henry</strong> (1663–1716)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>5 June 1674 (a minor) earl of LICHFIELD |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 11 Feb. 1689 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 4 Feb 1663, 1st s. of Sir Francis Henry Lee, 4th bt. and Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Pope, 2nd earl of Downe [I]. <em>educ.</em> G. Inn 1675, travelled abroad (France) 1678-9.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 6 Feb. 1677 (with £20,000),<sup>2</sup> Charlotte Fitzroy (c.1664-1718), da. of King Charles II and Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, 13s. (at least 7 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 5da. (?1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) <em>suc</em>. fa. as 5th bt. 4 Dec. 1667. <em>d.</em> 14 July 1716; <em>admon</em>. 3 Aug. 1716 to s. George Henry*, 2nd earl of Lichfield.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Extra. gent. of the bedchamber 1680-3, gent. 1683-8.</p><p>Ranger, Woodstock Park 1680-1705;<sup>4</sup> high steward, New Woodstock 1685-92, Oxford 1687-8;<sup>5</sup> ld. lt. Oxon. 1687-9.</p><p>Col., 12th Ft. 1686-8, 1st Ft. Gds. 1688.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Sir G. Kneller (attrib.), Kiplin Hall, N. Yorks.; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, Ditchley Park.<sup>11</sup></p> |
<p>‘A worthy man’ and of a ‘good temper’ but ‘too credulous’, Lee was advanced to the peerage while still underage following a contract to marry one of the king’s favourite children, Charlotte Fitzroy.<sup>12</sup> Reports of the match being imminent had circulated earlier that year when it was also speculated that Lee was to be created earl of Danby. His expected title was soon after corrected to Lichfield, a peerage recently extinct by the death of the king’s cousin, Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond (Lichfield having been Richmond’s peerage before his accession to the dukedom).<sup>13</sup> The decision to grant Lee this peerage may have been intended as a deliberate snub to Richmond’s widow.<sup>14</sup> At the time of the contract in May 1674 both Lee and his bride were minors and it was not until February 1677 that the marriage was confirmed.<sup>15</sup> The king’s affection for his daughter was reflected in a series of generous grants: the countess was granted a portion of £20,000, from which the earl received an annual pension of £2,000, and a further £600 for ‘house keeping’ and he was also granted the reversion to the rangership of Woodstock Park (then held by his kinsman, John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester).<sup>16</sup> The profits from Woodstock were estimated to be worth approximately £800 per annum.<sup>17</sup> They were also presented with a house on Downing Street, where they proved intolerant of anyone seeking to build anywhere near their land.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Lichfield’s interests were concentrated in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, his influence there reinforced by his connection to a number of prominent families in both counties. Lichfield’s grandmother, Anne St John, married as her second husband Henry Wilmot<sup>†</sup>, earl of Rochester. Lichfield’s cousins Eleanor and Anne Lee, daughters of Sir Henry Lee, also made influential matches: Eleanor marrying James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), while Anne was married to Thomas Wharton*, (later marquess of Wharton). Connection to the Bertie family was then further underpinned by the marriage of Lichfield’s mother to Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey.</p><p>Much of the time between Lichfield’s elevation to the peerage and attainment of his majority was taken up by the young peer’s trustees securing his title to lands and pensions settled on him at his marriage. In 1678 he was granted a warrant to hold a weekly market and four fairs each year at Charlbury.<sup>19</sup> That summer he was also promised the next bedchamber place that should fall vacant, after which he departed on a foreign tour to France. Lady Lichfield was said to have wept bitterly at her husband’s abandonment of her while Lady Lindsey sought to assure herself that the marriage had been consummated before allowing Lichfield to depart. He was said to have assured her that he had ‘lain with his wife 40 times for certain.’<sup>20</sup></p><p>Lichfield was expected back from his foreign journey in the spring of 1679, but he failed to return in time to be present at the birth of his first daughter. At the same time reports circulated of additional preferment headed his way and that he was to replace John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, as ranger of Woodstock.<sup>21</sup> For all the appearance of wealth and favour shown to Lichfield and his wife, by the summer of 1679 they were said to have been in desperate straits with Lichfield lacking even ‘6<em>d.</em> to buy him bread.’ The principal cause of their troubles seems to have been Lady Lindsey, who had encumbered the estates with her debts, as well as a long-running legal suit with his Bertie kinsmen over the settlement of his estate. By the close of June his allowance was nine months in arrears with no prospect of a solution in sight.<sup>22</sup> Later that summer Lichfield and his countess waited on the king at Windsor, presumably in the hopes of securing his intercession, but by the beginning of October it was reported that they would not be in town during the winter, presumably on account of the need to retrench.<sup>23</sup> Lichfield’s problems continued to go unsolved, and by the spring of 1680 John Cary commented to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> how great a grief it was to him ‘to think what will become of him or how he will live.’ With the king unwilling to intervene all that was left was to him was to sell off his property.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Matters failed to improve for Lichfield for much of the year. Efforts to sort out his finances were still unsettled by the autumn and in October he suffered the loss of his heir, styled Viscount Quarendon, who had been born a few months before.<sup>25</sup> It was not until December that agreement was finally arrived at for settling Lichfield’s finances, but this was almost immediately thrown into doubt when he was commanded by the king to settle his estate on Sir Caesar Cranmer’s son in (false) anticipation of a marriage with another of the king’s daughters by Moll Davis. Lichfield was said to have been so upset by the command that he retreated to his chamber and refused to see any visitors.<sup>26</sup> By the spring of 1683 matters seem to have improved. In April he was sworn of the bedchamber in place of the recently deceased Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, and on 4 Feb. 1684 he finally came of age.<sup>27</sup> He busied himself with his responsibilities as ranger at Woodstock, where he appears to have taken a very active role in the management of the deer and it was noted that he ‘loves to be at the killing of all himself.’<sup>28</sup> He also seems to have been interested in building his interest in the locality, and following the death of Charles II and with the summons for a new Parliament, he was approached by the countess of Rochester to lend his support to the nomination of Montagu Venables Bertie* (later 2nd earl of Abingdon) as member for Woodstock, despite the fact that the boy was only 13 years old.<sup>29</sup></p><p>The accession of James II promised Lichfield the expectation of an improvement in his fortunes as he proved himself amenable to many of the new king’s policies. Lichfield took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, introduced between Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex. He was thereafter present on 53 per cent of all sitting days, and on 6 June was named to the committee considering the bill for rebuilding the house of William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. News of the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, inspired Lichfield to join the army opposing the insurgents but he appears to have been too late to participate at Sedgemoor. By September he was back at Woodstock.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Lichfield’s close relations with the court were indicated by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Lady Anne Spencer standing godparents to his daughter in the summer of 1686. That summer Lichfield and other members of his family were faced with a new crisis over his brother’s <em>mésalliance</em> with Miss Williamson, daughter of a serjeant-at-arms. Lichfield’s annoyance with his brother was not confined to his poor match, and by September it was reported that they were to resort to the courts over a disputed legacy amounting to £10,000.<sup>31</sup></p><p>The early autumn of 1686 found Lichfield engaged in his favourite pursuit of hunting, though a bad fall brought an early end to his activities and resulted in him being laid up with a dislocated leg. He had recovered by the middle of November when he returned to London in order to be on hand for the court case with his brother.<sup>32</sup> In a series of assessments compiled between January 1687 and January 1688, Lichfield was noted among those believed to be in favour of repealing the test acts and as a supporter of the king’s policies in general. The king took advantage of Lichfield’s sympathetic stance by commissioning Catholic officers into Lichfield’s foot regiment as a means of gauging support for his policies, but all save two Catholics in the regiment refused to co-operate.<sup>33</sup> In November 1687 Lichfield replaced his kinsman, Abingdon, as lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire, though Abingdon retained his colonelcy in the county militia. Having delayed quitting London, Lichfield was back in his new lieutenancy in mid January 1688 in order to put the three questions to the gentlemen of the county. The results, it was thought, were not encouraging but equally it was not believed that Lichfield had made much effort to press the matter.<sup>34</sup> After the birth of the prince of Wales in the summer of 1688 Lady Lichfield, as one of the ladies of the bedchamber to the queen, was one of those who gave depositions confirming the circumstances of the prince’s birth while Lichfield was quick to communicate the news to his deputies in Oxfordshire commanding them to ‘show all such testimonies of joy and gladness as are usual on such a public thanksgiving’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Despite a royal policy of retrenchment that led to Lichfield’s pension being reduced to £1,200 a year, at the Revolution of 1688 Lichfield remained loyal to James II.<sup>36</sup> Reports of 27 Nov. and of 6 Dec. that he was among those deserting to the Prince of Orange were inaccurate as was a report that he had been promoted major general or lieutenant general.<sup>37</sup> He was, though, one of the beneficiaries of the desertions from James’s army as he was awarded the command of the guards regiment formerly commanded by his brother-in-law, Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton.<sup>38</sup> On the afternoon of 13 Dec. he took his place in the council chamber for the meeting of the provisional government when he was one of four peers ordered to travel to Faversham to rescue the king after James’s failed attempt to leave the country.<sup>39</sup> Lichfield then resumed his place for the final two sessions of the provisional government held in the Lords on 24 and 25 December. His close relations with the deposed monarch no doubt encouraged rumours that he accompanied the king into exile at the time of his second flight.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Unsurprisingly, given his close association with the former regime, Lichfield was soon stripped of most of his offices. In early January 1689 it was reported that he had lost command of his regiment to Thomas Wharton while the Oxfordshire lieutenancy was returned to Abingdon.<sup>41</sup> Lichfield took his seat at the opening of the Convention but was thereafter present on just 16 days (ten per cent of the whole) before quitting the House for the last time. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour of establishing a regency, and two days later he voted against the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word abdicated and he maintained this position in the second division on the same issue two days later. He then subscribed the dissent when the resolution was carried. Once it was clear that the throne would be offered to William and Mary, Lichfield retired from the chamber. He was granted a warrant excusing him from attending the coronation and soon after the opening of the second session he communicated his inability to attend citing ‘affairs of great consequence in the country’.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Although absent from the chamber for the rest of his career, Lichfield remained a significant political broker in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. He was also cited frequently over the next few years among those engaged in low level Jacobite intrigue. According to Ailesbury, Lichfield’s mentor was major general Sackville, and it was Sackville that Ailesbury blamed for a breach in relations between the two earls over their respective ambitions to be made lord chamberlain should James ever succeed in achieving his restoration.<sup>43</sup> Whether Lichfield was ever truly interested in securing office or not, his attention at the close of 1689 was once again taken up with his ongoing dispute with his brother, which his friends hoped it would be possible to settle without ‘the great expense of a suit in law and the unavoidable animosities that may arise thereon.’ Over the next few weeks the prospect of achieving agreement without resorting to the courts faded with Lichfield’s brother apparently intent of driving the action on, even though it was thought it would be ‘much to his prejudice’. The resulting case overshadowed Lichfield’s affairs for much of the first half of 1690.<sup>44</sup></p><p>At the close of June a warrant was issued for Lichfield’s arrest along with a small number of other high profile adherents of the former regime.<sup>45</sup> Lady Lichfield insisted that her husband had done ‘nothing he needs be afraid of but the expense and charge of a long imprisonment’, but for all her assurance as soon as Lichfield heard of the seizing of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, he was quick to abscond.<sup>46</sup> On 14 July he was included in a list of people for whose apprehension a proclamation was issued, and at the close of the month it was reported that he had at last surrendered himself.<sup>47</sup> His decision to hand himself in coincided with reports of a final settlement of his cause with his brother and also of a successful intervention on his behalf by his wife and Grafton who were able to secure his continuance in place as ranger of Woodstock Park in the face of a concerted campaign by Lovelace to supplant him.<sup>48</sup> He was only permitted a brief respite, though. By the close of the summer it was understood that his brother intended to revive his suit by appealing to the Lords and at the beginning of October he was ordered to attend King’s Bench to be bailed ‘on the same conditions with others in his lordship’s circumstances.’<sup>49</sup> Lichfield’s family was dealt a further blow in October 1690 with Grafton’s death in Ireland. To add to his own problems Lichfield was named in the duke’s will along with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl) Godolphin, as one of the guardians of the young Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Lichfield and his fellow non-jurors had been released by the close of the year. He was also, once more, said to have arrived at a final agreement with his brother.<sup>51</sup> In spite of his experiences in the summer of 1690, Lichfield remained an adherent of the exiled monarch, and in the winter of 1691-2 he was one of those named by Fuller as having subscribed an address to the French king seeking his help in restoring James II.<sup>52</sup> He was also included by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, among those Derby thought likely to be sympathetic to his efforts to recover estates alienated during the Commonwealth.<sup>53</sup> In May 1692 a fresh warrant was issued for Lichfield’s arrest along with several others but he again avoided being taken up immediately. On 14 May it was reported that he had been seized and sent to the Tower. It was also rumoured that he had been injured while resisting arrest.<sup>54</sup> Lichfield was expected to be bailed from King’s Bench once again in mid June, and by the beginning of July he was resident at his house at Blackheath.<sup>55</sup></p><p>For the next few years Lichfield avoided any further scrapes with the ministry, but he continued to feature in occasional news reports, such as one of January 1694 that relayed a tale of him having died after drinking bad wine in a tavern in company with two other peers (who were also supposed to have perished). In November of that year the newsletters again announced his premature demise.<sup>56</sup> News of the assassination plot in the spring of 1696 found Lichfield once more implicated in Jacobite affairs, as he was named by Peter Cook as one of the peers in correspondence with the exiled king.<sup>57</sup> At the beginning of March orders were made out for his arrest once more, and by 23 Mar. it was reported that he was either held under house arrest or had been taken into custody again.<sup>58</sup> Once more, Lichfield avoided serious repercussions and at the beginning of September he was free to grumble to Sir Ralph Verney about the inconvenience of his wife giving birth to yet another daughter, ‘which is no very welcome news to my family.’<sup>59</sup> The same year while travelling to Epsom, he was seriously injured in a fall from his coach when the wheels ran over his hip.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Lichfield survived this latest accident without long lasting consequence and for the rest of his life he concentrated on his local interests. Although he avoided Parliament, he was not averse to involving himself in elections. In December 1696 in response to a request from Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) he undertook to do all he could on Verney’s behalf in the Buckinghamshire by-election, where Verney was opposed by Henry Neale<sup>‡</sup>, standing on Wharton’s interest.<sup>61</sup> In the event, in spite of all that Lichfield could do, the Wharton interest proved too strong and Neale topped the poll beating Verney into third place. Two years later, Lichfield encouraged Verney to stand again for the general election of 1698. The decision appears to have been made rather hastily and once again Verney was unsuccessful, but Lichfield was compensated with the return of William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], a former associate of Wharton’s, whom he had undertaken to support alongside of Verney.<sup>62</sup> He was also successful in his quiet promotion of the moderate Whig, Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>, at Woodstock, though it contributed to a fraught relationship with his Bertie relations in the weeks following on from the election.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Lichfield was faced with more immediate anxieties by the news of the conversion of his daughter, Charlotte, to Catholicism in the autumn of 1699. Her decision proved ‘a great affliction’ to him, not least because he insisted that he had used the ‘utmost care to have her well grounded in the Protestant religion.’ Others doubted the extent of his sorrow and reckoned that he was on the point of converting himself, ‘He is accounted but a weak man which the world says is all as can be said for him.’<sup>64</sup></p><p>Expectations of a dissolution before the close of 1700 found Lichfield eager once more to use his interest on behalf of Newhaven in Buckinghamshire. He also enquired after Verney’s intentions, being willing to support his candidature again. In spite of Lichfield’s resolve to send out his bailiff and command everyone over whom either he or his mother had any influence to be for Verney and to ‘highly resent it of any person that is not’, the result was the same with Newhaven securing a seat and Verney again unable to compete against the Wharton interest.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Lichfield’s rights to the Oxfordshire estate at Adderbury, which had been left to him by his grandmother Anne, countess of Rochester, were challenged in 1701 when Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, John Vaughan, Viscount Lisburne [I], and Francis Greville petitioned the House on behalf of other members of the family. In the event Lichfield’s possession of the manor was upheld, but three years later he faced further difficulties over his rights there when a challenge was launched by Sir Edward Cobb. Once more Lichfield resisted the attempt, but he was still being harried by Cobb at the end of the decade.<sup>66</sup></p><p>The accession of Queen Anne sparked early rumours that Lichfield and other non-jurors might be willing at last to take the oaths but these were quickly ended. In March it was again put about that he was one of those to have taken the oath of allegiance, but this too proved to be fanciful and when Lady Litchfield sought leave to wait on the queen, she was informed that she might not do so until her husband had qualified himself.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Lichfield never did fulfil the queen’s condition, and in April 1705 he was noted as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage. The decision to reward John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, with the royal estates at Woodstock that year left Lichfield stripped of his remaining interest there, but it was reported that he had been handsomely compensated with an estimated £20,000 for his ‘pretensions’.<sup>68</sup> Lichfield had settled the estate on his son-in-law, Benedict Leonard Calvert<sup>‡</sup>, (later 4th Baron Baltimore [I]), in 1699 at the time of his marriage to Charlotte Lee, so it was the latter who was the real beneficiary.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Lichfield was assessed as a Tory in a list of peers’ party affiliations in the early summer of 1708. He failed to rally to the cause of Dr Sacheverell two years later and was noted as being in the country at the time of Sacheverell’s trial. Despite this and for all his declining interest in Oxfordshire, Lichfield retained his influence in Buckinghamshire, and in December 1710 he wrote to Viscount Fermanagh (as Sir John Verney had since become) congratulating him on his return in the autumn election, trusting that his servants had ‘obeyed my orders in speaking to all those I can influence to be for your lordship.’ His efforts on behalf of one of the other candidates, Sir Henry Seymour, were less effective and Seymour was left trailing in last place.<sup>70</sup></p><p>From the beginning of 1711 Lichfield’s health seems to have been on the wane, and he complained of a weakness of the legs that prevented him from walking up and down stairs without difficulty. Even so, there seem to have been rumours of his return to office, though he professed himself uninterested being only too ‘sensible of the vanity of employments and the trouble that attends them.’ Two years later he again undertook to use his interest on behalf of Fermanagh, this time in partnership with John Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>. Both men were successful in defeating their Whig opponents, though Lady Fermanagh complained of Lichfield’s failure to give directions to a number of his tenants who would otherwise vote the other way, their ‘inclinations’ being ‘for the low party.’<sup>71</sup></p><p>Lichfield did not long outlive the Hanoverian accession, which spelled the end of what remained of his interest. Even at the height of his influence, he appears to have been only modestly effectual and he was always dependent on acting in concert with others. William Lloyd*, bishop of Norwich, thought him ‘a very sober good tempered gent’, while the duchess of Marlborough admitted ‘a respect for his character because he is plain and fair’, even though he was ‘not in the interest I wish for.’<sup>72</sup> He remained a non-juror and died, ‘much grieved at the iniquity and distraction of the times,’ at his house in Greenwich in the summer of 1716.<sup>73</sup> A monument was erected afterwards to Lichfield and his countess in Spelsbury Church.<sup>74</sup> He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, George Henry Lee*, as 2nd earl of Lichfield.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEGGE, George (1648-91) |
<p><strong><surname>LEGGE</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1648–91)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>2 Dec. 1682 Bar. Dartmouth |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 30 June 1691 |
|
MP Ludgershall 1-6 Feb. 1673, 12 Feb. 1673-1679 (Jan.); Portsmouth, 1679 (Mar.)-1681 |
<p><em>b.</em> 1648, 1st s. of Col. William Legge<sup>‡</sup> and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 14 Dec. 1688), da. and coh. of Sir William Washington of Packington, Leics; bro of William Legge<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Westminster, King’s Camb. 1664; L. Inn 1672.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 17 Sept. 1667,<sup>2</sup> Barbara (<em>d</em><em>. </em>28 Jan. 1718), da. and h. of Sir Henry Archbold of Abbots Bromley, Staffs. 1s. 7da. <em>d.</em> 25 Oct. 1691. <em>suc</em>. fa. 14 Oct. 1670. admon. 21 Nov., 1 Dec. 1691.</p> |
<p>Groom of bedchamber to James Stuart*, duke of York 1668-73; gent. of bedchamber 1673-75; master of the horse to James, duke of York, 1675-85, as James II, 1685-Dec. 1688; lt. of Ordnance, Apr. 1679-81, master Jan. 1682-Apr. 1689;<sup>3</sup> PC 3 Mar. 1682-14 Feb. 1689.</p><p>Lt. RN 1665, capt. 1667, 1672-3; adm. 1683-4; adm. and commander of the fleet, Sept. 1688-9; capt. of ft. 1669-78; col. 1678-9, 1685-9 (R. Fusiliers); gen. of artillery (Spanish Netherlands) May 1678.</p><p>Kpr. Alice Holt and Woolmer forests, Hants 1670-<em>d</em>.; lt. gov. Portsmouth 1672-3, gov. 1673-82; dep. lt. Hants 1684<sup>4</sup>-9; ld. lt. Tower Hamlets and constable of the Tower June 1685-Apr. 1689; master Trinity House 1683-5, elder bro. 1683-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Freeman, Portsmouth 1672, 1682, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1682; burgess and gild bro., Edinburgh 1682;<sup>5</sup> high steward, Kingston-upon-Thames 1685-9, Dartmouth 1687;<sup>6</sup> recorder, Lichfield Mar. 1686-Oct. 1688;<sup>7</sup> common councilman, Berwick-on-Tweed 1686-Oct. 1688;<sup>8</sup> master, Shipwrights’ Co. of Rotherhithe, Surr. 1686-7.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after John Riley, c.1685-90, NPG 664.</p> |
<p>Legge was the grandson of Edward Legge of Geashill, King’s County, Ireland, former vice-president of Munster. His father, a royalist commander in the Civil Wars, served with distinction under Prince Rupert*, later duke of Cumberland, and was later taken prisoner and involved in conspiracies against the Cromwellian regime. Legge himself was a first cousin of Sir Edward Spragge<sup>‡</sup>, which may have assisted his naval career, although he received a captain’s commission from rear admiral John Kempthorne<sup>‡</sup> in April 1667.<sup>10</sup> In December 1684 Legge seems to have repaid this patronage by commissioning Rupert Kempthorne as an ensign in his independent company in the Tower.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Legge entered the household of the duke of York as groom of the bedchamber in 1668. In October 1669 he succeeded his father as a captain of a foot company in the Tower. On the death of his father in 1670, he inherited the family lands in England and Ireland. In 1671 he was appointed captain of <em>The Fairfax</em> by York. In November 1672 he was named as the lieutenant governor of Portsmouth, again under York, succeeding as governor when York declined to take the Test in August 1673.<sup>12</sup> Meanwhile, Legge (and his brother, William) were admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1672 courtesy of Francis Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>, reader of the Inn, and the uncle of Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>, who had married Legge’s sister in 1668. In February 1673 he was elected with court backing to the Commons for Ludgershall<strong>. </strong> Legge was elected to the Exclusion Parliaments for Portsmouth, consistently supporting the court and the duke of York.<sup>13</sup> Throughout his time in exile in Europe and Scotland, York maintained a correspondence with Legge who remained in London, effectively acting as one of the duke’s points of contact with the king throughout the political crisis.<sup>14</sup> Indeed, the duke referred to him with great affection as a ‘man of conscience as well as of honour’.<sup>15</sup> In the wreck of the <em>Gloucester</em> in 1682, Legge saved the duke’s life by drawing his sword and personally preventing the overcrowding of a lifeboat in which they both escaped.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Legge’s reward for his loyalty was a peerage. Initial reports suggested he might take the title of Tilbury, an extinct barony.<sup>17</sup> His was one of what was, by the standards of the day, a mass creation of 12 peers in November and December 1682, leading Dr William Denton to joke in a letter to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, that ‘I would not have you come near London a good while for fear you should be made a Lord’.<sup>18</sup> Some contemporaries were certainly underwhelmed by his promotion, Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, referring to Legge and John Churchill*, later Baron Churchill (the future duke of Marlborough), as being ‘scarce gentlemen’.<sup>19</sup> Legge may have hankered after an Irish peerage too because he tried, somewhat belatedly and unsuccessfully, at the beginning of 1683 to prevent Sir William Stewart from being created Baron Mountjoy [I], ‘the land or castle of that name being my lord of Dartmouth’s proper inheritance’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Dartmouth’s position as a member of two groups—followers of the duke of York and court Tories—saw him play a key leadership role in attempting to unite both to act as a counterweight to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland and George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax. Thus, following the disgrace of Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, asked Dartmouth in February 1683 how he should act towards him.<sup>21</sup> In March Legge conferred with Seymour and Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, at Littlecote, Wiltshire and was also negotiating with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, although any plans were aborted by the court’s sudden return to London after a fire at Newmarket.<sup>22</sup> Dartmouth approached Charles II for clemency for William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, before his execution in July 1683, arguing that it would lay an obligation on the whole family and also referring to the services of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, whose daughter had married Russell.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In June 1683 Evelyn described him as ‘a great favourite of the duke’s, an active and understanding gent. in sea affairs’.<sup>24</sup> He was heavily involved in the planning of the expedition to evacuate Tangier and demolish its fortifications, and, indeed, he was a major opponent of the alternative policy of selling it to the French. Dartmouth was not originally slated to take command of the expedition, that honour being meant for Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton. His appointment certainly ruffled a few feathers, Grafton’s mother, the duchess of Cleveland, remarking that ‘William Legge’s son should not have been disparaged to go vice-admiral under the king’s son’.<sup>25</sup> At the end of July he was commissioned as admiral of the fleet and on 2 Aug. he received the command of the expeditionary forces.<sup>26</sup> The expedition left on 19 Aug. 1683. Almost as soon as he had departed, Weymouth noted that ‘I perceive there are engines at work to lessen Lord Dartmouth, which may succeed in the duke’s family. The princess has sent for a coach and some horses, which he had taken to himself.’<sup>27</sup> Dartmouth himself was aware of his vulnerability, having to be reassured by York in November that ‘ill men that write stories to you without any manner of colour’.<sup>28</sup> Nevertheless, he wrote to Rochester on 29 Dec. 1683, craving the earl’s assistance, being ‘very sensible what advantage my enemies will endeavour to take of my long stay here’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>While Dartmouth was absent he left Sir Christopher Musgrave and Richard Graham in charge of his affairs. They suggested that in order to clear his ‘considerable’ debts he should dispose of his mastership of the horse to York. Rochester, consulted on the idea, pointed out that Dartmouth was unwilling to sell the post ‘being desirous to continue in the duke’s immediate service’.<sup>30</sup> At Dartmouth’s return he was assured by both Rochester and Sunderland that the king regarded his expedition as a success.<sup>31</sup> This being the case, his support was eagerly sought by the court factions headed by Halifax and by Sunderland, Rochester and the duchess of Portsmouth. Dartmouth spurned both and attempted to steer a middle course, being ‘averse to fanaticism on one hand, and to popery and a French interest on the other’. Although Dartmouth’s brother-in-law, Sir Henry Goodricke, found that Danby, incarcerated in the Tower, was in favour of such a strategy, in reality Dartmouth lacked the support to make it work.<sup>32</sup></p><p>John Dolben*, archbishop of York, commended Dartmouth in April 1684 for following the advice of his friends ‘in mastering his passions and all the resentment and ill-usage’ he had during his absence.<sup>33</sup> However, in May he also commented on Dartmouth being ‘undermined at Whitehall’ and hoped that he would not ‘blow up’.<sup>34</sup> In August 1684 Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], in Paris, wished that ‘something were done for our poor Lord Dartmouth’, but bemoaned that ‘he hath enemies as well as other people’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Despite his many offices or perhaps because of them, Dartmouth had some difficulty living within his means and securing his family’s financial future. On the occasion of his promotion to master of the ordnance, the future duke of Marlborough wrote to him that</p><blockquote><p>I wish that you may live long to enjoy it, and as I wish you as well as any friend you have, so I will take the liberty to tell you that you will not be just to your family, if you do not now order your affairs so as that you may, by living within your self, be able in time to clear your estates. I will say no more on this subject at present, but when we meet you must expect me to be troublesome if I find you prefer your own living before your children’s good.<sup>36</sup></p></blockquote><p>By the end of 1683, despite York’s better fortunes and his own promotion, Dartmouth was somewhat depressed about his prospects and feared the actions of his enemies. York reassured him however that he would ‘stand by’ him, and that the combined favour of himself and the king would prevail.<sup>37</sup> Dartmouth’s presence at the royal court at Whitehall and Windsor continued throughout 1684.<sup>38</sup></p><p>On 10 Jan. 1685, Weymouth evinced to Halifax his unhappiness over plans to appoint Dartmouth as recorder of Lichfield under a new charter for the city. Weymouth blamed the corporation’s espousal of Dartmouth on ‘a little physician’, Sir John Floyer, Dartmouth’s brother-in-law.<sup>39</sup> At the 1685 election Dartmouth joined with Shrewsbury, Weymouth and Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers to recommend successfully Richard Leveson<sup>‡</sup> to Lichfield.<sup>40</sup> The charter was eventually issued in March 1686 with Dartmouth duly named as recorder.<sup>41</sup> Dartmouth was also heavily involved in the negotiations which led to a new charter for Hull, mainly due to the interest he took in its fortifications.<sup>42</sup> The death of William Alington*, Baron Alington, the constable of the Tower, coinciding with Charles II’s fatal illness, Dartmouth was put in charge of the Tower by the Privy Council on 2 Feb. 1685, a measure confirmed by the new king in June 1685.<sup>43</sup></p><p>One of York’s first appointments upon ascending the throne was to name Dartmouth as master of the horse. Dartmouth was now at the centre of the Court and perceived as a key patron in the search for royal favour.<sup>44</sup> He had easy access to the monarch, his Whitehall lodgings being described as ‘just over against the door that led into the king’s private rooms’.<sup>45</sup> By virtue of his influence, he also became a target. A rumour was spread that he had said ‘there could never come any good to England as long as the queen is so priest-ridden’, although the king dismissed it as ‘a malicious practice of such that had a mind to raise a misunderstanding between him and his best friends’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Dartmouth first sat in the Lords on 19 May 1685, the first opportunity after the succession of James II. He was introduced to the House by Ferrers, and John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. At the next sitting, on 22 May, he was appointed to the committee for privileges and the committee for petitions. On his last day in attendance, 1 July, he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis on the question on whether the privilege cause of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, should be heard the following day. He had sat on 23 days of the session, before its adjournment on 2 July, a little over 74 per cent of the total. He had been named to a further ten committees. He attended the prorogation of 4 Aug., and was also present on 9 Nov., when the session resumed, attending on each of the 11 days before the prorogation on 20 November. Indeed, on 10 Nov. he wrote to Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, on behalf of the king to hasten him up to London, intimating that the House would be called over on the following Monday.<sup>47</sup> Dartmouth attended the prorogations on 10 Feb., 10 May, 22 Nov. 1686 and 15 Feb. 1687.</p><p>On 14 Jan. 1686 Dartmouth was one of the peers summoned for the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), and acquitted him of the charges.<sup>48</sup> His continuing friendship with the king was demonstrated when, in April 1686, he travelled back in the king’s coach following a viewing of the ground for the army’s camp on Hounslow Heath and went hunting with the king the following month.<sup>49</sup> In late 1686 Dartmouth was a member of the committee of the Privy Council which was set up to review the commissions of the peace.<sup>50</sup></p><p>In December 1685 Reresby had noted that Dartmouth was a supporter of Rochester and his brother Henry Hyde*, 2nd ear of Clarendon, rather than of Sunderland, Churchill and the lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys.<sup>51</sup> That factional alignment may explain an incident in December 1686: Roger Morrice reported that following some discourse with Jeffreys, Dartmouth had accused him of ‘unmannerly and rude’ language, and only deference for the king prevented him from kicking the chancellor.<sup>52</sup></p><p>On 28 Apr. 1687 Dartmouth entertained the king with a splendid dinner at Blackheath.<sup>53</sup> In September he accompanied the king in a visit to Oxford.<sup>54</sup> In October, it was reported that Dartmouth had invited Seymour to wait upon the king at Bath, but that Seymour had declined.<sup>55</sup> This may have been of a piece with Dartmouth’s successful attempts to prevent Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, from resigning with the argument that the king needed English servants around him.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Probably because Dartmouth was a known confidante of James II, other contemporaries throughout 1687-8 accounted him as a supporter of the king’s religious policies. Although in January 1687 Morrice reported that Dartmouth would not ‘declare’, presumably meaning his support for repeal of the Test Act and penal laws, by February he thought that Dartmouth had concurred ‘to the great point’.<sup>57</sup> Ailesbury thought that Dartmouth was exempted from being asked the ‘three questions’ but he was presumably acquiescent in the process for he was present in cabinet in October 1687 when the three questions were delivered to Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort by James II.<sup>58</sup> Dartmouth was on the committee of the Privy Council appointed on 20 Nov. 1687 to give effect to the decisions of the commission of regulation.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was present at the birth of the Prince of Wales on 10 June 1688, and was reported to have celebrated it afterwards.<sup>60</sup> His essential loyalism was recounted by Clarendon, who reported that on 28 June Dartmouth had tried to persuade Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, ‘to make application to the king’ and to submit before the trial of the seven bishops.<sup>61</sup> As it became apparent that the Dutch were planning to intervene in English affairs, Dartmouth was one of the Anglican Tories, along with Jeffreys, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who urged the king to change his policies to win back the co-operation of the Church.<sup>62</sup> Thus, on 21 Sept. Dartmouth was one of those behind the declaration by the king that Parliament would be called as soon as possible, Dartmouth having summoned Rochester and Turner to town to back efforts to ensure the king kept to his resolution of supporting the Church of England.<sup>63</sup></p><p>On 24 Sept. 1688 the king appointed Dartmouth overall commander of his fleet, his main objective being to prevent William of Orange landing his forces in England.<sup>64</sup> In this he failed as unfavourable weather conditions allowed the Dutch fleet to pass through the Channel while Dartmouth’s ships were trapped by the wind on their station on the Gunfleet off Harwich.<sup>65</sup> Although he thought that the king had been tardy in recognizing the threat from the Dutch, a point acknowledged in his memoirs by James II, equally Dartmouth seemed surprised by the Dutch manoeuvres, regarding naval operations at that time of the year as rash.<sup>66</sup> Despite this setback, he remained in favour with James II, the new secretary of state, Preston, writing on 17 Nov. that ‘notwithstanding the malice of a party at court, which hath already almost wrought our destruction, your lordship is extremely safe and happy in the king’s justice to you’.<sup>67</sup> Indeed, on 1 Dec. the king recommended Dartmouth to the university of Cambridge as chancellor in succession to Albemarle. </p><p>Others were not so charitable: in December 1688 Roger Morrice reported that Dartmouth had challenged James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, for the ‘base reflections’ made by the earl to the king ‘for his ill conduct of the navy’.<sup>68</sup> Ailesbury later responded to criticism of Dartmouth by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), by suggesting that the pension Dartmouth later received from William was for what he had not done, that is the fleet did not obstruct the landing of the Dutch army.<sup>69</sup> Even James II later felt on reflection that ‘whether it was religion, faction, or interest, that weighed most heavily with him, ’tis certain his loyalty was worsted in that conflict’.<sup>70</sup> James also thought that Dartmouth wished to retain the mastership of the ordnance and Morrice pointed out in January 1689 that Dartmouth stood to lose offices in the court, ordnance and fleet worth £16,000 per annum by adhering to James.<sup>71</sup> In reality, it seems that the decisions made by Dartmouth were taken in conjunction with his senior captains in councils of war, and inevitably, perhaps, given the uncertainty, not least in the weather, caution prevailed and offensive action was not risked.<sup>72</sup></p><p>On 28 Nov. 1688 Dartmouth wrote to the king advocating that he call together his ‘great council and see which way a Parliament may be best called for I fear nothing will give a stop but that’.<sup>73</sup> Upon receipt of news that the king had decided to call a Parliament, Dartmouth organized an address from the fleet on 1 Dec. thanking the king, noting in a separate letter to him that it would reveal to the world the prince of Orange’s real motives.<sup>74</sup> As the king’s position deteriorated he asked Dartmouth to assist Henry Jermyn*, Baron Dover, in arranging for the prince of Wales to be conveyed to France. Believing that this would be a disastrous move, Dartmouth refused to co-operate, suggesting that to follow such an order would be high treason and referring to ‘how prophetically I have foretold you your misfortunes’, and stating that ‘the Church of England will defend you in all your just rights’.<sup>75</sup></p><p>On 29 Nov. the prince of Orange invited Dartmouth to join his fleet with that of the Dutch and to declare for the Protestant religion and English liberties. Dartmouth accepted the invitation on 12 Dec., following James II’s first flight from London. He stressed that he had always been a true son of the Church of England, and welcomed William’s intervention for ‘supporting our religion, laws, liberties and properties; not doubting, according to your highness’s declaration, but you will prosecute the same with the utmost regard and tenderness to the person and safety of the king, my master’. The king’s withdrawal he attributed to an unwillingness ‘to be a witness of, or consenter to what the laws and a free Parliament (which myself and the fleet addressed for 11 or 12 days ago) shall inflict on his evil advisors’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Ironically, two days later Dartmouth received James II’s orders (dated 10 Dec.) to take the fleet to Ireland to join with Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell [I].<sup>77</sup> Faced with contradictory orders, from two different sources of authority, Dartmouth described his own position as ‘almost insupportable’. His wife had counselled him on 12 Dec. to ‘be so wise to yourself and family as to do what becomes a reasonable man who I am sure is left in the most deplorable condition of any subject or servant’. She had also solicited Rochester’s advice, which was sent on the 13th, suggesting that he stay with the fleet to ensure its discipline and to write to the peers at the Guildhall for further orders, thereby avoiding any blame. Lady Dartmouth’s comment on the 15th that ‘I am in great concern for fear you should be ignorant of proceedings here to direct you how to steer’, suggests that she regarded her husband as a pragmatist. She then added in a postscript that Lord Churchill had offered to recommend Dartmouth to William.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, the peers assembled at the Guildhall had sent letters on 11 Dec. to Dartmouth to ensure the two fleets did not fight with each other and to remove Catholic officers. On receipt of this letter Dartmouth called a council of war on the 13th, and replied on the 15th, referring to the assembled peers as the means ‘to preserve the king, my master, and establish the laws and properties and the protestant religion’.<sup>79</sup> At the same time he wrote in a similar vein to Rochester, referring to both of them as ‘honest loyal Church of England men’, whose aim must be the re-establishment of the king in government and the resettlement of ‘holy religion, laws and properties’.<sup>80</sup> </p><p>In response to Dartmouth’s missive, William communicated on 16 Dec. his approval of Dartmouth’s actions, particularly his purging the fleet of Catholic officers and asked that he might have the benefit of the admiral’s advice once the fleet had returned to the Nore. On James II’s second departure, Dartmouth rhetorically asked Feversham, ‘what could make our master desert his kingdoms and his friends’? When Rochester informed Dartmouth that the Lords at the Guildhall had recognized William as head of the government and that a Convention would meet on 22 Jan. 1689, he counselled him to do nothing but obey William’s orders strictly. On 10 Jan. William ordered Dartmouth to attend him, and on 15 Jan. Dartmouth finally met William at Whitehall and delivered a full account of the state of the fleet. He was relieved of his commands in the navy and the ordnance.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Dartmouth attended on the opening day of the Convention, on 22 Jan. 1689. On the following day, he was named to the committee for privileges and the committee for petitions. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour of the resolution that a regency was the best way to preserve the Protestant religion and the nation’s laws.<sup>82</sup> On 31 Jan. he voted against the resolution declaring William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons in using the word ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’. On 6 Feb. he voted against the decision of the Lords to agree with the Commons that the king had abdicated, rather than deserted, and that the throne was thereby vacant. He entered his protest when the motion passed. On 2 Mar. Dartmouth took the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, but on the 12th a warrant was signed for his replacement as constable of the Tower and lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets militia.<sup>83</sup> On 19 Apr. he received the proxy of Ferrers. On 31 May he voted against a motion to reverse the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates, and on 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to bill reversing the judgments.<sup>84</sup> When Parliament adjourned on 20 Aug., Dartmouth had attended on 117 days, 72 per cent of the total and been named to a further ten committees. </p><p>On 27 May 1689 Halifax recorded a conversation with William III about Dartmouth, ‘upon the occasion of his brother Legge, he said he had some thought of allowing him a pension, but he would see how he behaved himself’.<sup>85</sup> According to Halifax’s notes, Dartmouth, at the ‘king’s first coming pretended to his pension of £1000 p.a. he had from K. James’.<sup>86</sup> On 3 July Halifax recorded another conversation with William III in which the king asked why ‘Dartmouth voted perpetually against him’.<sup>87</sup> When the adjourned session of the Convention resumed on 19 Oct., Dartmouth was absent, but he attended on 21 Oct., when the Convention was prorogued.</p><p>Dartmouth was present when the new session began on 23 Oct. 1689, being named to the committee for privileges, the committee for the Journal and the committee for petitions. On 13 Nov. he again received the proxy of Ferrers. On 19 Nov. he entered his protest against the passage of the bill to prevent clandestine marriages. He was present on the last day of the session, 27 Jan. 1690, having attended on 66 days, just over 90 per cent of the total, and been named to a further six committees. Dartmouth waited on the king at the end of the session and was respectfully received. When Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, gave up the vice-admiralty in April 1690, the king offered the post to Dartmouth, who declined it saying ‘he would live peaceably and quietly under his government, but could not serve him in that place; for he had been brought up under King James, and always professed friendship to him, and received great advantages from him, and in gratitude could not fight against him’.<sup>88</sup></p><p>In February 1690 Dartmouth backed the candidature of Nottingham’s brother, Edward Finch<sup>‡</sup> at Cambridge University.<sup>89</sup> Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), grouped Dartmouth with the ‘opposition Lords’ in an undated analysis, probably drawn up in advance of the new Parliament and with the instruction that he be approached by Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>90</sup> Dartmouth was absent from the opening of the 1690 Parliament, first attending on 28 Mar., when he took the oaths. On 8 Apr. he registered his protest against the passage of the bill recognizing William and Mary as right and lawful sovereigns, and confirming the acts of the Convention. He attended on 45 days of the session, a little over 83 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. He also attended the prorogation of 28 July 1690.</p><p>Dartmouth took his seat for the 1690-1 session when it opened on 9 Oct. 1690. On 30 Oct. he protested against the passage of the bill to clarify the powers of the admiralty commissioners. He again received the proxy of Ferrers on 8 December. He attended on the day the session was adjourned, 5 Jan. 1691 (when he was named to several conferences on the bill to suspend the navigation acts), at the further adjournments of 31 Mar., 28 Apr., and on 26 May (when Parliament was prorogued), having been present on 58 days, nearly 80 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 18 committees. He also attended the further prorogation of 30 June 1691.</p><p>James II’s secretary of state, Preston, had been captured, at the end of 1690, together with various documents from the exiled king’s supporters concerning his restoration. None of the documents were signed by Dartmouth, but he was implicated by Preston. By February 1691, Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney), had passed the information on to William III.<sup>91</sup> In late June the attorney general reported that there was only one witness against him, and that the queen had decided against prosecuting him for misdemeanour in the face of divided legal opinion on it. The king however was ‘clearly of opinion it is absolutely necessary to clap up Dartmouth’.<sup>92</sup> On 12 July Dartmouth was served with a warrant for arrest on a charge of high treason. He was examined by the cabinet council on 14 July about whether he had received a commission from James II or given intelligence about naval and other military matters.<sup>93</sup> So convincing were his answers that Nottingham released him back into the custody of the serjeant-at-arms while the king’s further orders were sought.<sup>94</sup> Only when William again expressed surprise that he was still at liberty was he committed to the Tower on 31 July.<sup>95</sup> Dartmouth denied having betrayed military intelligence about the weaknesses of Portsmouth’s defences and receiving a commission from James II’s queen. He was said to have blamed his arrest on Jacobite enemies and an ‘old antagonist’ (perhaps Marlborough was meant), who had long sought the mastership of the ordnance and felt it was being kept open for Dartmouth to return to it.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Dartmouth offered £30,000 bail which was refused.<sup>97</sup> In pleading his innocence, Dartmouth reiterated, ‘I am a plain man, and I desire to answer plainly; I positively protest I have received nothing from [King James], directly or indirectly’. He insisted that he had stayed in England though ‘sure to die’ rather than ‘go to live in France’. In his last letter to Sydney, he said, ‘to find myself thus stigmatised as a traitor to my country, and that in the behalf of France, is the grieviousest burthen can possibly be laid upon me’.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Dartmouth died in the Tower on 25 Oct. 1691, while ‘in bed with his lady’.<sup>99</sup> His body was quickly released and he was buried at Holy Trinity Minories in the Tower Liberties on 27 October.<sup>100</sup> He was succeeded by his son and heir, William Legge*, 2nd Baron and later earl of Dartmouth.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
LEGGE, William (1672-1750) |
<p><strong><surname>LEGGE</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1672–1750)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 25 Oct. 1691 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. DARTMOUTH; <em>cr. </em>5 Sept. 1711 earl of DARTMOUTH |
|
First sat 22 Nov. 1695; last sat 1 Aug. 1746 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 14 Oct. 1672, s. and h. of George Legge*, later Bar. Dartmouth (1648-91) and Barbara (<em>d</em>. 28 Jan. 1718), da. and h. of Sir Henry Archbold of Abbots Bromley, Staffs. <em>educ</em>. St Paul’s 1684;<sup>1</sup> Westminster; King’s, Camb. 1688, MA 1689; travelled abroad (Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy) 1693-5.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 18 July 1700, with £8,000, Anne (<em>d</em>. 30 Nov. 1751), da. of Heneage Finch*, later Bar. Guernsey and earl of Aylesford, 6s. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 2 da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 15 Dec. 1750; <em>will</em> 22 Jan. 1748; pr. 4 Jan. 1751.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>PC 23 June 1702-Sept. 1714; commr. Bd. of Trade, 1702-10; sec. of state (S) 1710-13; jt. kpr. of signet [S] 1710-13;<sup>5</sup> ld. privy seal Aug. 1713-Sept. 1714; ld. justice Aug-Sept. 1714.</p><p>High steward, Dartmouth 1710-<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> gov. Charterhouse 1713-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas attrib. to Sir G. Kneller, c.1713, Government Art Collection.</p> |
<p>As the son of an influential courtier, Dartmouth was often introduced to important people or a witness to significant events. While his father was serving in Tangier in 1683, Legge was taken by his uncle, Colonel William Legge<sup>‡</sup>, to visit the court at Winchester, where he stayed three or four days, impressing Charles II with his behaviour and becoming ‘the greatest favourite’ there.<sup>9</sup> He visited George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, at Farnham shortly before his death in 1684 and was present at Westminster School when Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, read the Declaration of Indulgence in the Abbey on 20 May 1688. He was at Whitehall when James II returned from Faversham following his failed attempt to flee the country and he was ‘behind the woolsack’ on 4 Feb. 1689 when the Lords voted that the throne was not vacant. He also witnessed the arrival in Whitehall of Princess Mary on 12 Feb. 1689.<sup>10</sup> He attended King’s College, Cambridge, where he was when his father communicated with him about the candidates a few weeks before the poll of the 1690 election.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Following his father’s sudden death in the Tower on 25 Oct. 1691, it was reported by Anne Nicholas that ‘the king has promised to settle £1000 a year on his son for he is dead very poor’.<sup>12</sup> Dartmouth was excused attendance on the Lords, on three occasions, 2 Nov. 1691, 21 Nov. 1692 and 26 Nov. 1694, all on account of being underage. On the latter occasion this was incorrect for he had attained his majority, but was abroad. On 10 Apr. 1693 he had received a pass to travel into Holland in order to travel in Germany and Italy.<sup>13</sup> While abroad he left his mother to deal with estate matters, such as leases for the Irish lands.<sup>14</sup> In July 1693, at the time of the battle of Landen, he was in Hanover, and, after spending some time in Vienna, he proceeded to Italy.<sup>15</sup> In September 1694 Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> had heard that Dartmouth had recovered from a fever and gone to Padua, although he did not sign the university’s register, as his long-term friend Robert Benson*, later Baron Bingley, did in September 1694.<sup>16</sup> Dartmouth then went to Rome, from where in May 1695 it was reported that he had left ‘in order for England’, and by mid-October Dartmouth was definitely on his way home.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>Under William III, 1695-1702</em></h2><p>Dartmouth took his seat in the Lords on 22 Nov. 1695, the opening day of the Parliament, and he attended on 74 days of the session, 60 per cent of the total, and was appointed to seven committees. He signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696. On his return, many issues clamoured for his attention: there was a back-log of estate matters; on the day after he took his seat he was advised to ‘suffer a recovery as soon as possible to safeguard the estates for his sister should he die’; and he was encouraged to visit his Irish estates. In February 1696 Dartmouth’s mother confirmed that her son ‘doth fully resolve of his journey into Ireland as soon as the Parliament rises’, it being ‘extremely necessary before he settles in the world to see his estate there and put it into such a method as it may yield a better revenue’. Once he had returned from Ireland he could then ‘find a good wife’.<sup>18</sup> He duly arrived in Dublin on at the end of May, and in June he compiled a memorandum about granting leases in co. Louth.<sup>19</sup> He also benefited from the ground rents on Dartmouth Street, Westminster.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1696-7 session, 20 October. On 2 Dec. he entered his dissent from the decision of the House not to insist upon their amendments to the bill for further remedying the ill state of the coinage. He signed three protests against the campaign to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt: on 15 Dec. against the decision to allow the evidence of Cardell Goodman to be used; on the 18th against the second reading of the bill for Fenwick’s attainder; and on the 23rd, after voting for the rejection of the bill, against its passage. He later recorded that the dispute was about whether Fenwick ‘a man of no fortune (besides an annuity) with a very indifferent reputation and actually in custody, was a subject proper for the legislature to exert its utmost authority upon’. He also noted that ‘the violent unrelenting usage I met with in the last reign, after Sir John Fenwick’s trial, I thought justly entitled me to oppose anything that was for his majesty’s advantage or personal satisfaction’.<sup>21</sup> On 23 Jan. 1697 he entered his protest against the resolution not to give a second reading to the bill for further regulating elections to Parliament. He had attended on 77 days of the session, 68 per cent of the total and had been named to 13 committees.</p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1697-8 session, 3 Dec. 1697. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 16 Mar. he entered his dissent from the resolution to give relief to James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and his wife in their appeal against Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Lord Falkland [S] and others, while the following day he dissented from the resolution that the relief would consist of the appellants enjoying Falkland’s estate during the life of Mrs Bertie. On 10 May Dartmouth was named as a manager of a conference on the bill for erecting hospitals and workhouses in Colchester, while two weeks laterhe was appointed a manager for a conference on the bill for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness. On 15 June he was named to draw up the heads for a conference on the resolution of the Lords concerning the venue for the impeachment of Goudet. Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, registered his proxy with Dartmouth on 30 June, and the following day Dartmouth entered his protest against giving a second reading to the bill for raising two million pounds and for settling the trade to the East Indies. He was present on the last day of the session, 5 July, having attended on 110 days of the session, 84 per cent of the total, and been named to 53 committees.</p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1698 Parliament, 6 Dec. 1698. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against and entered his dissent from the resolution that the Lords were ready to enter into any expedient, consistent with the forms of Parliament, for retaining the king’s Dutch Guards. On 28 Mar. 1699 he was excused from attending the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, owing to sickness. Dartmouth was present on the last day of the session, 4 May, having attended on 66 days, 82 per cent of the total and been named to 17 committees. He also attended the prorogation on 24 Oct. 1699.</p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1699-1700 session, 16 Nov. 1699. On 8 Feb. 1700 he entered his dissent from putting the question whether the Scottish colony at Darien was inconsistent with the good of the plantation trade and two days later he further protested against the Lords’ address on the Darien scheme. He was forecast as likely to support the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 2 Apr. he was named as a manager of a conference on the bill for taking off the duties on woollen manufactures. According to his later account, Dartmouth played a role in resolving the impasse between the Houses over the land tax bill, to which the Commons had tacked a bill resuming Irish forfeited estates. Upon discovering that the king intended to dissolve Parliament, Dartmouth sent Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, to inform the Commons, who forestalled the matter by an adjournment. Dartmouth was then used by the court to ensure that the bill’s supporters in the Lords remained in the House until, on 10 Apr., the courtiers had convinced sufficient of their peers to drop the wrecking amendments to the bill.<sup>22</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 11 Apr., having attended on 67 days, 85 per cent of the total and been named to 16 committees. He also attended the prorogation on 23 May 1700.</p><p>At the end of June 1700, news broke that Dartmouth would marry.<sup>23</sup> Speculation about his marriage had been current since June 1697 when it was rumoured that Dartmouth would marry Lady Frances Jones, daughter of Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I].<sup>24</sup> On 18 July 1700 Dartmouth married instead Anne Finch, daughter of the prominent lawyer and Member for Oxford University, Heneage Finch, the brother of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and himself later Baron Guernsey and earl of Aylesford. This match may have heralded a search for investment in land, for in April and June 1701 arrangements were being made for the purchase of Sandwell in Staffordshire, which became the focus of Dartmouth’s estate building. Indeed, in 1703 he considered buying land at Handsworth, near to the estates of William Digby<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Digby [I], at Coleshill in Warwickshire.<sup>25</sup> In 1703 William Smith of Tettenhall began work on rebuilding the house at Sandwell, which was finished in 1711. Dartmouth also engaged in coal-mining nearby.<sup>26</sup></p><p>After attending the prorogation on 21 Nov. 1700, Dartmouth attended on the opening day of the 1701 Parliament on 10 February. On 17 Feb. he was named to manage a conference on the Address. On 14 Apr. Dartmouth witnessed the debate in the Commons in which John Somers*, Baron Somers defended his conduct in putting the seals to the Partition Treaty. He was unimpressed by his performance: ‘I never saw that House in so great a flame as they were upon his withdrawing’, which led to the Commons’ impeachment of the former lord chancellor and three of his colleagues from the previous ministry.<sup>27</sup> On 16 Apr. Dartmouth entered his protest against the resolution for an address asking the king not to pass any censure or punishment against the four impeached lords until they had been tried, and then that same day subscribed a second protest against the decision to expunge the reasons for the first protest. Throughout June he signed a series of protests against decisions of the House that furthered the likelihood that the impeached peers would be acquitted: on 3 June against both the second and last paragraphs of the Lords’ answer to the Commons over the impeachments; on 9 June against the decision not to agree to establish a committee of both Houses regarding the trials; and on 14 June against, first, the Lords’ asking for a second free conference before the first conference had been determined, and then against the Lords’ insisting on not having a committee of both Houses on the impeachments. On the day of the trial, 17 June, he protested against the resolution to go into Westminster Hall to proceed with the trial, voted against the acquittal of Somers and then protested against the verdict of not guilty. On 5 June he also acted as a teller, in opposition to Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, on the question whether to reverse the decree in the case of <em>Grosvenor v. Coy</em>. Concerning the bill of settlement, Dartmouth later commented that the death of the duke of Gloucester made it ‘a necessity for this declarative act; there being so many intermediate heirs that were papists, who are as incompatible with our constitution as Jews or Mahometans’.<sup>28</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 24 June, when he acted as a teller, in opposition to Mohun, on the question of whether to adjourn the House into a committee of the whole to discuss an address to the king concerning the commission for public accounts. He had attended on 84 days of the session, 80 per cent of the total and been named to a further 22 committees. Following the end of the session, he examined the journals for the session on 25 and 30 June.</p><p>In early July 1701 the king restored Dartmouth’s pension in the ‘cofferer’s office’, which ‘was to have been paid him on the exchequer list’.<sup>29</sup> This was perhaps the pension which had been promised him after his father’s death and which may have been withdrawn following the Fenwick trial. He attended the prorogations on 7 Aug. and 6 Nov. 1701. Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1701-2 Parliament, 30 Dec. 1701. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address condemning the recognition of the Pretender by Louis XIV. On 20 Feb. he entered his protest against the passage of a bill of attainder against Queen Mary, James II’s widow. As he was present on 8 Mar. he was probably a manager of the conference over the death of the king and the proclamation of Queen Anne. On 21 May he acted as a teller, in opposition to Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, on the question whether to dismiss Dr Davenant from attendance on the House in the hearings on the bill for the relief of Jane Lavallin, with relation to forfeited estates in Ireland.<sup>30</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 25 May, having attended on 86 days of the session, 86 per cent of the total, and been named to 33 committees.</p><h2><em>Under Queen Anne, 1702-10</em></h2><p>At the beginning of Anne’s reign it was proposed to send Dartmouth as envoy to Hanover, but he feared this was a poisoned chalice, in that ‘whoever was employed between her majesty and her successor, would soon burn his fingers’, and so he refused the appointment.<sup>31</sup> Instead he was appointed to the board of trade, possibly owing to the influence of Nottingham, where he was able to liaise between the board and the House on trade matters.<sup>32</sup> He attended an average of almost 36 per cent of the meetings of the board, ranging from almost 56 per cent in his first year to only just over 21 per cent in 1710. He attended no meetings at all in 1708, nor indeed any before May in 1709.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1702 Parliament, 20 October. As a commissioner for trade and plantations, he laid before the House on 20 Nov. 1702 an account of the state of the trade of the kingdom since the previous session. On 11 Dec. he acted as a teller in opposition to John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, on the question whether to proceed further that day on the case of <em>Sherard v. Harcourt</em>. He was forecast by Nottingham in January 1703 as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity and on the 16th he duly voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendments to the penalty clause of the bill. However, Dartmouth was a lukewarm adherent of ‘this impertinent bill’, which ‘was afterwards frequently taken up to inflame parties and distress the court, as opportunities offered themselves to either side’.<sup>34</sup> On 22 Jan. he entered his protest against the dismissal of the petition of Robert Squire and John Thompson in their appeal against Wharton.<sup>35</sup> He entered his protest on 22 Feb. against the failure of the Lords to commit the bill to ensure a landed qualification for Members of the Commons, and two days later he subscribed the protest against the resolution that the bill against occasional conformity, including the Lords’ amendments and the report of the conference with the Commons on these amendments, be published and printed. Dartmouth was present on the last day of the session, 27 Feb., having attended on 73 days, 85 per cent of the total and been named to 33 committees.</p><p>Dartmouth attended the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1703, when he introduced into the House his father-in-law Heneage Finch, as Baron Guernsey, John Granville*, as Baron Granville, and Francis Seymour*, as Baron Conway. He also attended the prorogations on 14 Oct. and 4 Nov. 1703. He was present again on the opening day of the session of 1703-4, 9 November. In about November 1703 he was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity, as he was again when Sunderland made his second forecast in early December. He duly voted for the bill on 14 Dec. 1703, but did not sign either of the protests against its rejection. He was closely involved in proceedings concerning the recruiting bill. On 21 Mar. 1704 he acted as a teller in the committee of the whole, in opposition to Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrrers, on the question whether to add some words to the bill. That attempt to amend the bill having failed, it was then proposed to adjourn the third reading of the bill to the following day, when a rider to it could be proposed. When the motion to adjourn was defeated, Dartmouth entered his protest, but he did not protest when the proposed rider itself was rejected. The bill was then passed, against which Dartmouth entered his protest because it contained the clause that any three justices were empowered ‘to raise and levy such able-bodied men as have not any lawful calling or employment, or visible means for their maintenance and livelihood, to serve as soldiers’. His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’, and on 25 Mar. he entered a protest when it was agreed to put the question on whether the failure to pass a censure on Robert Ferguson was a great encouragement to the queen’s enemies; he then entered his protest to the adoption of the resolution itself. He was present on the last day of the session, 3 Apr., having attended on 69 days of the session, 70 per cent of the total, and been named to 35 committees. Of the legislation passed that session to establish Queen Anne’s bounty and alleviate clerical poverty, Dartmouth later commented somewhat critically that ‘no Christian church has a better provision’, but proposed a redistribution of dean and chapter lands to the poorer clergy, and equalization of revenue between bishops to prevent ‘the great scandal given by commendams and translations’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>With the removal of many Tories from office in 1704, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, proposed that Dartmouth ‘might be willing to be out of the way for a little time’, by serving as envoy to Venice. Dartmouth refused, pointing out that he could be out of the way at his house in Staffordshire.<sup>37</sup> He was present on the opening day of the 1704-5 session, 24 October. In about November he was listed on what was probably a forecast of those likely to support the tack. On 30 Nov. he delivered into the Lords the commissioners of trade and plantations’ report on trade. Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey registered his proxy with Dartmouth on 5 Dec., which was vacated when Jersey returned to the House on 10 Jan. 1705. On 27 Feb. Dartmouth was named to the committee to prepare the heads of a conference on the resolutions voted by the House on the case of the Aylesbury men. He entered his protest on 2 Mar. against the passage of the recruitment bill because it again contained a clause giving justices extensive powers to levy recruits, as in the bill of the previous session. On 3 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, in the committee of the whole on a question whether a clause should be made part of the bill to make several expiring acts perpetual. He was present on the last day of the session, 14 Mar., having attended on 66 days of the session, two thirds of the total, and been named to 32 committees. Following the end of the session, he was classed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage in relation to the succession. In July Dartmouth was arranging for Townshend to be a godparent to his son, who ‘is so large a boy that I have some thoughts of making him a bishop (if the High Church last long enough)’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was not present when the 1705 Parliament first assembled on 25 Oct. 1705, and he first attended on 6 November. As he was present on 11 Mar. 1706 he may have been a manager at two conferences to discuss an address on the pamphlet <em>A Letter from Sir Rowland Gwynne to the earl of Stamford</em>. On 13 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on the militia bill. He was present on the last day of the session, 19 Mar., having attended on 58 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total and been named to 30 committees. He attended the prorogations on 21 May, 17 Sept., 22 Oct. and 21 November. A character sketch described him at about this time as one who ‘sets up for a critic in conversation, makes jests, and loves to laugh at them; takes a great deal of pains in his office, and is in a fair way of rising at court’.<sup>39</sup> The duchess of Marlborough concurred in some of this, albeit more waspishly, when she noted Dartmouth as ‘a jester himself, and a jest to all others’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1706-7 session, 3 Dec. 1706. He last attended on the penultimate day of the session, 7 Apr. 1707, having attended on 46 days of the session, 54 per cent of the total. Despite a lower rate of attendance this session he was appointed to 30 committees. He then attended on the first day of the short session of April 1707, 14 Apr., and was named to two committees. On 23 Apr. he entered his protest to the resolution to consider the following day the refusal of the judges to answer in the committee of the whole the question of whether the existing laws were sufficient, now that the Act of Union had been passed, to prevent the fraudulent use of drawbacks by Scots to avoid English duties. In all he attended on four days, 44 per cent of the total.</p><p>Dartmouth was absent from the beginning of the 1707-8 session, first attending on the second day, 30 Oct. 1707. He was present on the last day, 1 Apr. 1708, having attended on 74 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, and been named to 21 committees. He attended the prorogation on 13 Apr. 1708. In about May 1708 an analysis of the post-Union Parliament classed him as a Tory. Dartmouth found his place on the board of trade under some pressure after the Union, with Godolphin being pressed to have him removed as one that ‘commonly’ voted against the court, but Godolphin countered this by pointing out that Dartmouth enjoyed the queen’s protection.<sup>41</sup> It was this royal protection which explains his continuance in office during the period 1706-10, although his family links were with Tories. From the summer of 1707 Dartmouth appears to have been involved in the negotiations for a marriage between Nottingham’s daughter, Dartmouth’s own cousin and the widow of William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, and John Ker* duke of Roxburghe [S], which finally took place in January 1708.<sup>42</sup> Similarly, on 2 Dec. 1708 Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), reported that Dartmouth had stood in for Nottingham at the christening of Roxburghe’s son, Robert Ker<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd duke of Roxburghe [S], by John Sharp*, archbishop of York.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Dartmouth attended on the opening day of the 1708 Parliament on 16 Nov., but was absent from 27 Nov. to 21 December. Dartmouth’s support for his cousin Roxburghe, a Squadrone peer, made him take some actions contrary to the view of the court. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against Scottish peers with British titles, such as James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S] (duke of Dover in the British peerage), being able to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. Later, on 31 Jan., the Junto leader Sunderland, informed Dartmouth of a ‘trick’ intended by the ‘enemy’ at the following day’s report on the election of the representative peers and their intention to bring up the matter of Queensberry’s right to vote. Sunderland asked that Dartmouth ‘summon’ Guernsey ‘and their friends early to the committee’.<sup>44</sup> In view of Dartmouth’s attitude, on 25 Mar. 1709 Godolphin wrote to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, ‘I find you have talked of what I said to you about the carriage of Lord Dartmouth, for today I was told by a friend of his that he was in great concern to hear that I was not pleased with him.’<sup>45</sup> Dartmouth was present on the last day of the session, 21 Apr., when he was named to manage a conference on the bill to continue the acts for the prevention of coining. He had attended on 56 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total, and been named to 18 committees. Following the end of the session he examined the journals on 27 April.</p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1709-10 session on 15 Nov. 1709, and next attended on 1 December. He was very busy with protests on 16 Feb. 1710 when first he entered his protest against the decision not to send for James Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates to be present at the hearing of Greenshields’ appeal. Then on the matter of the address from the Commons which requested that the queen send Marlborough immediately to Holland, Dartmouth protested against the decision not to adjourn the House before the consideration of the address, and then against agreeing with it. Concerning the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell, on 14 Mar. he entered his protest against the decision not to adjourn the House before considering the impeachment articles and then against the resolution that the particular words supposed to be criminal were not necessary to be expressly specified in the charges. Two days later he protested against the decisions to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment, and then against the resolution affirming it. On the 17th he protested against the resolution that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth articles of the impeachment and the following day against the decision that peers could only provide a simple verdict of guilty or not guilty to all the articles. He not surprisingly voted Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours at his trial on 20 Mar., and duly protested against the guilty verdict. He did not, however, protest against the censure laid down against Sacheverell on 21 March. He was present on the last day of the session, 5 Apr., when he was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the bill vesting the copyright of printed books in their authors. He had attended on 53 days of the session, 57 per cent of the total, and been named to 21 committees. He attended the prorogations on 2 May and 5, 20 June, 18 July and 1 Aug. 1710.</p><h2><em>Oxford’s administration, 1710-14</em></h2><p>Meanwhile, Dartmouth had emerged as the compromise candidate to succeed Sunderland as secretary of state, in preference to John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, John Poulett*, Earl Poulett and John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, and very much with the queen’s support. Indeed, she apparently asked Somers if he was acceptable to the Whigs and was told, according to Dartmouth, that ‘though I was looked upon as a Tory, I was known to be no zealous party man; and he was sure the Whigs would live very well with me’. He took office on 14 June 1710, with the Whigs in agreement that they could live easily with such a moderate Church Tory, who had, in any case, been in office since the start of the reign.<sup>46</sup> Some Whigs, such as Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Coningsby, were somewhat scathing about his appointment, saying he ‘could not write true English and was an utter stranger to all business’.<sup>47</sup> Lady Rachel Russell noted on 15 June that William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, with whom he had been great friends at Westminster, said that ‘he is very pleasant conversation, but application to business has not yet been his talent.<sup>48</sup> The £3,750 Dartmouth received from the crown was perhaps arrears from his pension under William III.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was an assiduous secretary and attended 168 meetings of the cabinet and lords of the committee between 18 June 1710 and 17 June 1711, the longest gap between meetings being five days.<sup>50</sup> From the exercise of his office some idea of his religious views can be gleaned. He held no truck with the non-jurors; in August 1710 it was reported that he had issued out a warrant for the arrest of Charles Leslie, author of <em>The Good Old Cause</em>.<sup>51</sup> Further, on 25 Aug. the Rev. Ralph Bridges noted the placement by Dartmouth of the address from the clergy of London in the <em>Gazette</em>. This he perceived was a riposte to ‘a very pernicious book called the good old cause’, ‘designed particularly against the said wicked pamphlet’.<sup>52</sup> Similarly, Dartmouth felt that William Whiston’s <em>Sermons and Essays</em> (1709) ‘struck at the essentials of a Christian religion’, but that Pierre Bayle’s ‘naughty book about a comet’ was designed chiefly ‘to prove that idolatry was worse than atheism, and that false worship was more offensive to God than none’.<sup>53</sup></p><p>There is some evidence of secret manoeuvrings by Dartmouth with Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset and Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, in the summer of 1710, as Harley plotted the downfall of the ministry.<sup>54</sup> Some Tories were encouraged by Dartmouth’s promotion. On 7 Aug. William North*, 6th Baron North [and 2nd Baron Grey], congratulated Nottingham on ‘the happy turn the public affairs seem to take’, and Dartmouth’s advancement:</p><blockquote><p>his own steadiness to the Church interest in Parliament does not make all good men more secure under his protection, than the alliance that he has to you; and ‘tis the least thing that is expected from such birth, education, and alliance to be negatively good; not to attempt upon the Church, habeas corpus act &c as who he succeeds did [Sunderland]’.<sup>55</sup></p></blockquote><p>Dartmouth’s close ties to the Finches had other advantages for Harley, who, as Lady Roxburghe informed her father, Nottingham, on 31 Aug. ‘brags that both you and my uncle Guernsey are now so pleased that my Lord Anglesey and my Lord Dartmouth are employed, that you both must do journey man’s work under them, or else keep out of the way of opposing’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>On 1 Sept. Dartmouth dined with his fellow secretary, Henry Boyle* (the future Baron Carleton), Somerset and, as Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> put it, ‘a great deal of such choice company’, possibly as part of a failed charm offensive to keep Boyle in the government, for Boyle was replaced as secretary of state for the northern department by Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, on 21 September.<sup>57</sup> Indeed, Dartmouth does not appear to have been all that effective as a conciliator of the Whigs, for on 18 Sept., when Harley was lobbying William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, to remain in office, the lord chancellor in reply referred to having ‘already tasted mortifications from Lord Dartmouth’.<sup>58</sup> Harley also used Dartmouth as an agent in an attempt to lure Mohun into accepting a seat on the admiralty board.<sup>59</sup> With the administration installed, on Harley’s analysis of 3 Oct. Dartmouth was expected to support the new ministry.</p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1710 Parliament, 25 Nov. 1710. In December there were rumours of Dartmouth’s removal, along with those of Queensberry and St John, and his intended replacement by Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton or Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>60</sup> On 8, 11, 17 and 22 Jan. 1711 he delivered in papers to the Lords to assist into their investigations into the war in Spain. In February, having attended a meeting with Nottingham, he denounced what he saw as the earl’s attempts to force extreme policies on the ministry, such as the prosecution of all the former Whig ministers.<sup>61</sup> Dartmouth was also one of those ministers called to attend a dinner early that month aimed at reconciling Harley with St John, who was accused of setting up to govern the Commons himself.<sup>62</sup> At that same time Swift wrote in the <em>Examiner</em> that Dartmouth was ‘a man of letters full of good sense, good nature and honour, of strict virtue and regularity in his life; but labours under one great defect, that he treats his clerks with more civility and good manners, than others, in his station, have done the queen’.<sup>63</sup> Swift wrote this even though, as he later noted in September, he could ‘never work out a dinner from Dartmouth’ (although Dartmouth had remedied this omission by April 1713).<sup>64</sup> In April 1711 Dartmouth approached Harley with a request that the queen ‘knight him again’, on the grounds that ‘since the Revolution half the House of Lords have had brevets granted over my head, and by a late transaction half the world’.<sup>65</sup> This may have been the opening shots in a campaign which resulted in his earldom later in the year. Among the rumours circulating in April was that Dartmouth would become postmaster-general in place of Sir Thomas Frankland<sup>‡</sup>, or that he would be replaced by Townshend, as part of a turn to the Whigs which encompassed Cowper and Somers.<sup>66</sup> On 11 May it was rumoured that Dartmouth would be replaced by Boyle as secretary.<sup>67</sup> Before the end of the 1710-11 session, he was listed as a ‘Tory patriot’. He last attended on 9 June 1711, having attended on 64 days, 57 per cent of the total, and been named to 12 committees. He attended the prorogations on 10 July.</p><p>The death of Queensberry on 6 July 1711 saw the third secretaryship lapse and a redistribution of duties between Dartmouth and St John, with the provinces returning to their old spheres of responsibility, except that St John retained the Spanish Netherlands and therefore strengthened his position in relation to Dartmouth. Dartmouth backed Jersey for the vacancy as lord privy seal caused by Newcastle’s death on 15 July.<sup>68</sup> On 16 Aug. Oxford (as Harley had become the previous May) wrote to the queen that `Lord D[artmouth] came hither from Windsor very much out of humour, but upon discourse with him, he was satisfied and the paper which Mons. Mesnager [a French diplomat involved in preliminary negotiations for peace] brought was put into his hands, which his Lordship produced to the Lords at the Cockpit’.<sup>69</sup> Harley was later to note that between the 1710-11 and the 1711-12 sessions, he spent much time ‘reconciling or calming quarrels’ between Dartmouth, St John and Abigail Masham.<sup>70</sup> Dartmouth’s promotion in the peerage on 5 September to the earldom of Dartmouth (with the viscountcy of Lewisham) was announced in the <em>Gazette</em> along with other promotions.<sup>71</sup> On 27 Sept. Dartmouth and St John signed the peace preliminaries with France.<sup>72</sup> When Dartmouth attended the prorogation on 9 Oct. 1711, he was introduced into the House as an earl by Oxford and Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon. On 16 Nov. Oxford wrote hoping that Dartmouth had received the names of the commissioners for the Scottish chamberlaincy so that they could be sent by express to Scotland and the peers hurried down for the forthcoming session.<sup>73</sup> Dartmouth, at Oxford’s prompting, ensured that the Whig demonstration against the Peace scheduled for 17 Nov., which was to include the burning of effigies of the pope and the Pretender, was cancelled.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1711-12 session, 7 Dec. 1711, but did not contribute to the debate on the amendment to the Address in favour of adding a commitment to ‘No Peace Without Spain’.<sup>75</sup> However, he had no sympathy for Nottingham’s defection to the Whigs on this occasion, accusing him of accepting bribes from his erstwhile foes.<sup>76</sup> On 8 Dec. he was listed as one who would have voted in favour of presenting the address containing the clause, if the division had not been abandoned, yet on.10 Dec. Dartmouth appeared on Oxford’s list of ‘loyal’ peers in this matter. He had opposed the creation of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], as a duke in the British peerage when the matter had been discussed in Cabinet, probably on the grounds that it infringed article 22 of the Union which governed the number of representatives from Scotland in Parliament. He remained consistent in his opposition against Hamilton, being forecast by Oxford on 19 Dec. as likely to vote against Hamilton’s right to sit in the House as a British peer, as he duly did the following day. Hamilton’s reaction was to press the queen to dismiss Dartmouth over a matter which was seen as limiting the royal prerogative, and there were rumours in the days after the vote that he would indeed lose his post.<sup>77</sup> Others reported that Hanmer would be secretary and Dartmouth treasurer of the household, or even that Dartmouth would become master of the horse.<sup>78</sup> Dartmouth’s own later account stressed the protection he received from the queen, who told Hamilton that Dartmouth ‘understood it to be against law, and she believed I acted sincerely, with affection to her service, and zeal for my country; therefore had deceived nobody; and had refused to sign the warrant for the patent at first’.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, the ministry was in crisis and on 19 Dec., Swift reported that ‘things do not mend at all. Lord Dartmouth despairs, and is for giving up’.<sup>80</sup> On 25 Dec. Lady Strafford had heard rumours that Dartmouth was a candidate to succeed Somerset as master of the horse, which she dismissed as he was ‘not one of consideration enough for a place of that profit’.<sup>81</sup> On 27 Dec. (or early on 28th) the queen ‘drew a list of twelve lords out of her pocket and ordered me to bring warrants for them’, thereby implementing Oxford’s plan for regaining control of the Lords through creating court peers. Given his attitude to the dilution of the peerage, Dartmouth was somewhat critical of the measure, making no objection to the legality of the move, but only its ‘expediency’, fearing it would have ‘an ill effect’ in the Lords ‘and no good one in the kingdom’. To Oxford he was less polite, calling it ‘so odious a course’.<sup>82</sup> Following his visit to England early in 1712, Prince Eugene wrote of Dartmouth that he was ‘very pliable, a great stickler for the Tory party, but not much bred to business, of a tolerable sense, and easily led’.<sup>83</sup></p><p>On 17 or 18 Jan. 1712, when Dartmouth made a motion that satisfaction should be given to the Scottish peers concerning the Hamilton peerage case, another peer asked ‘what satisfaction that should be’. The ensuing silence saw the matter put off to another day.<sup>84</sup> On 9 Mar. Oxford was concerned at ‘all these meetings of the enemy’, and asked Dartmouth what the Whigs designed to do.<sup>85</sup> In April Ralph Bridges thought that when Hanmer returned from Flanders, he would replace Dartmouth as secretary, who would in turn become treasurer of the household or lord chamberlain.<sup>86</sup> Dartmouth received the proxy of William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, on 28 May. This was a time of acute stress for the ministry over the ‘restraining orders’ sent to the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, forbidding him to engage in offensive military actions against France. Dartmouth duly voted, presumably using Berkeley of Stratton’s proxy entrusted to him that day, for the ministry in the division of 28 May on the address against these ‘restraining orders’.<sup>87</sup> Berkeley returned to the House, thereby vacating his proxy on2 June, but that same day registered it again with Dartmouth, who held it until Berkeley next showed up in the House three days later. This was another testing period for the ministry, as on 7 June the Whigs almost saw through an amendment to the Address on the peace which would require the queen to enter into a ‘mutual guaranty’ with the Allies to ensure the Hanoverian Succession. Dartmouth was obviously concerned with mustering as many ministry votes as possible during these fraught days, as Berkeley once again entrusted his proxy with him during another period of absence from 10 to 21 June. Dartmouth’s role as a ministerial ‘whip’ can also be seen by Bishop Sprat’s favourable response to a letter of 12 June, in which Dartmouth requested his attendance the following day, when the protest of 28 May against the rejection of the ‘restraining orders’ address was ordered to be expunged.<sup>88</sup> Dartmouth was present on the day the session was adjourned, 21 June 1712, and when it was prorogued on 8 July, having attended on 68 days of the session, 64 per cent of the total.</p><p>One of the things that irked St John when he was only offered a viscountcy in June 1712 was that Dartmouth had been promoted to an earldom a year previously: ‘I am sure his birth nor fortune do not give him much better pretensions than mine are’, he complained.<sup>89</sup> In general Dartmouth did side with Oxford in cabinet battles, such as the debate, probably on 24 Sept., which saw him join with Oxford and Poulett in successfully arguing against the dissolution championed by Bolingbroke (as St John was eventually created in July), and Dartmouth duly attended the further prorogation of Parliament the following day. <sup>90</sup> There were more serious causes of friction. Following the return of Bolingbroke from his embassy to Paris in late August 1712, Oxford had accused him of exceeding his instructions in the negotiations, and they had been handed over to Dartmouth, in whose southern province they lay. Since Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> kept Bolingbroke informed of developments in France, Dartmouth faced problems dealing with his fellow secretary. Clashes in cabinet followed, including at least one tirade, on 12 Oct., by Bolingbroke against Dartmouth. Faced with such treatment Dartmouth was only with difficulty persuaded not to resign by Oxford and the queen.<sup>91</sup> As Erasmus Lewis<sup>‡</sup> reported to Oxford after the stormy cabinet meeting Bolingbroke treated Dartmouth ‘on two or three occasions in so rough a manner that he believes it will be impossible for you to find any expedient to keep them together’. As Dartmouth regarded Bolingbroke as essential to the peace negotiations, he was willing to retire.<sup>92</sup> On 20 Oct. 1712, ‘an uneasy’ Dartmouth asked the queen’s leave at Windsor to go into the country. The queen felt that he was determined to quit the secretaryship, which she thought would be prejudicial to her service.<sup>93</sup> However, before he went, he attended the dinner at Goldsmiths’ Hall on 29 Oct. celebrating the swearing in of the new lord mayor, Sir Richard Hoare<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>94</sup> Although he remained in post, Bolingbroke regained control of most of the important diplomatic correspondence with France.<sup>95</sup></p><p>By the beginning of 1713 Dartmouth was a fixture at the regular Saturday dinners for ministers hosted by Oxford.<sup>96</sup> Letters abound from Oxford reminding him that ‘tomorrow is Saturday and ... your company at dinner as usual will be a great favour’.<sup>97</sup> He attended the prorogations on 17 Feb., 3 and 26 Mar. 1713 while the peace was still being negotiated in Utrecht. Dartmouth in February told Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, as ever seeking military promotion, that he had ‘no other part in any military promotions than barely to lay the commissions before her majesty upon a signification of her pleasure by the secretary of war’.<sup>98</sup> In February Dartmouth was in correspondence with the East India Company over their ‘Memorial’ about ‘the trade with France in East India goods, on the treaty of commerce to be settled’; and Company records show that ‘Mr Dawson and Mr Herne’ were to attend Dartmouth ‘with the Company’s thanks’.<sup>99</sup> February 1713 saw more rumours of his replacement as secretary, this time the post office being earmarked for him.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Dartmouth as secretary was probably at the heart of the government’s organization of political matters. On 7 Mar. 1713 he sent almost identical letters to North and Grey and to Oxford arranging a meeting at his house in St James’s Square for noon on the 9th.<sup>101</sup> Dartmouth was present on the opening day of the 1713 session, 9 April. At the end of April he introduced the Members for Dartmouth when they presented an address to the queen in favour of the Peace.<sup>102</sup> Around 13 June Oxford forecast that he would support the bill confirming the French commercial treaty, should it reach the Lords. On a personal matter, for the past several years the executors of the late marquess of Halifax’s estate - Nottingham, Guernsey, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, Francis Gwyn and John Conyers<sup>‡</sup> - had borrowed money from Dartmouth to execute their trust. As they had been unable to pay him back, Dartmouth had obtained a decree against them (possibly in collusion with them), which facilitated their approach to Parliament for a bill for the sale of the reversion and inheritance of the manor of Morley in Yorkshire, which was passed in June.<sup>103</sup> On 15 June Dartmouth suggested the omission of part of the draft speech intended to close the parliamentary session. As he put it ‘thanking heaven is a poetical expression, and I believe never used from the throne before’, and ‘thanks to the affection of my people, is not good English’.<sup>104</sup> Neither reference appears in the speech delivered, in Dartmouth’s presence, on the last day of the session, 16 July. In all he had attended on 49 days of the session, 74 per cent of the total.</p><p>Oxford’s ministerial reshuffle of July-August 1713 saw John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol, translated to London, and Dartmouth replace him as lord privy seal on 21 August.<sup>105</sup> This retained Dartmouth in cabinet, where he acted as a loyal counterweight to Bolingbroke, but removed him from the burdensome secretaryship and the wearing battles with Bolingbroke.<sup>106</sup> This was very much to the queen’s liking for, as Abigail Masham had informed Oxford on 6 Aug., the queen had ‘commanded me to let you know she will endeavour to persuade Lord Dartmouth not to give up the seals, but she has thought him out of humour a good while by things he has let fall to her.’<sup>107</sup> At the beginning of September Dartmouth wrote to Oxford that the queen had given him ‘leave to go to Staffordshire for some time’, but that he hoped to see Oxford in London before he went, adding ‘I shall not fail to acquaint Lord Bingley with the honour you do him’.<sup>108</sup> He was in the country at the end of September.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Dartmouth’s loyalty to Oxford continued to antagonize Bolingbroke. On 18 Nov. Bolingbroke wrote that Dartmouth gave the queen ‘near two hours of his conversation every night. His Lady does the same honour to the duchess of Somerset’.<sup>110</sup> On 19 Nov. Dartmouth, about to depart for Windsor, rather presciently warned Oxford that ‘your absence lately (though upon a much better occasion) was not neglected by some you had the least reason to expect it from’, namely Bolingbroke.<sup>111</sup> By 3 Dec. Bolingbroke was referring to Dartmouth thus, ‘the pigmy stretches and struts and fancies himself a giant’.<sup>112</sup> On 20 Jan. 1714 Dartmouth attended a dinner for Bingley, given by the court of directors of the South Sea Company upon his appointment as ambassador to Spain.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was absent when the 1714 Parliament convened on 16 Feb., first attending on the 18th. On 1 Apr. Dartmouth wrote to Oxford, commenting on the ‘diminution in that favour and protection you have been pleased to honour me with’, thinking that it proceeded from ‘other people’s uneasiness at my being in the queen’s service, or a desire to have somebody else in my place’. In which case, he offered to resign.<sup>114</sup> On 4 Apr. Oxford wrote to deny any alteration in his demeanour, referring to Dartmouth having received ‘your share of the impertinent humour of some people, though I believe at that time I was chiefly aimed at’.<sup>115</sup> Dartmouth held Bingley’s proxy from 15 to 20 April. On 7 May Dartmouth reported to Oxford that the extended Finch family had been at his house this evening, ‘from whence’, he commented, ‘I conclude they are all under great apprehensions’ of the queen’s displeasure, possibly over plans for the electoral Prince to reside in England.<sup>116</sup> At the end of May or beginning of June he was forecast by Nottingham, as likely to support the schism bill. On 4 June he was one of four Harleyites who voted with the Whigs against rejecting the petition of the Dissenters to be heard by counsel against the bill.<sup>117</sup> Dartmouth received the proxy of Berkeley of Stratton on 1 July. Dartmouth himself was present on its last day, 9 July, having attended on 53 days, 70 per cent of the total.</p><p>Bolingbroke’s ascent to power and Oxford’s dismissal saw it assumed that Dartmouth would be dismissed; indeed, rumours had been current to that effect since June 1714, with Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, the expected replacement.<sup>118</sup> Dartmouth had as little time for Atterbury, later noting that he was ‘just such another busy hotheaded confident churchman’, albeit with a ‘superior understanding’.<sup>119</sup> However, on 29 July a newsletter suggested that ‘we hear now the lord p[rivy] s[ea]l will keep in’.<sup>120</sup> Following the death of the queen, on 1 Aug., Dartmouth signed the proclamation of George I as king.<sup>121</sup> He first attended the session of August 1714 on the 5th, on which day he took the oaths and was named to the Address committee. By virtue of his office, Dartmouth was one of the lord justices, and on 21 Aug. he was one of 13 acting as commissioners for the passage of bills. He sat in the same capacity on 25 Aug. when Parliament was prorogued. In all he had attended on four days of the session, 27 per cent of the total.</p><p>There seems little doubt that at this point Dartmouth retained his links to Oxford; while he was still lord privy seal he wrote to Oxford about meeting him at Oxford’s house or that of his son, Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, the future 2nd earl of Oxford, adding that, `I had a very long conversation last night with lord treasurer [Shrewsbury], but more of that when I see you.’<sup>122</sup> On 12 Aug. Oxford told Dartmouth that he had ‘seriously thought upon our Saturday night’s conversation’ [on 7 Aug.], and after his conversation that day with Shrewsbury, he pledged not to take any steps without discussing it with Shrewsbury, Ormond and Dartmouth. He also wished to propose something to Dartmouth ‘on that head’. Dartmouth met Oxford at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 18 Aug. 1714.<sup>123</sup> Dartmouth retained his respect for Oxford, later writing that ‘no man had more affectionate zeal for the interest of his country or less for his own’.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Dartmouth was rather unceremoniously deprived of his office of lord privy seal, which was given to Wharton the day after the king arrived at St James’s in September 1714. However, as he wrote on 1 Oct. he was ‘not conscious of having done anything to deserve so early a mark of his majesty’s displeasure and had many assurances that it was not designed in that sense’. He would however retire into Staffordshire the following week ‘without fixing any time for my return’.<sup>125</sup> On 28 Feb. 1715, Dartmouth was granted a pension of £2,000 p.a., dating from Christmas 1714.<sup>126</sup> His long-term friendship with Townshend also protected Dartmouth from impeachment from his role in negotiating the Peace.<sup>127</sup></p><p>Dartmouth had one further contribution to make to the history of the period, as an assiduous annotator of the <em>History</em> written by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, which Dartmouth thought ‘the most partial, malicious heap of scandal and misrepresentation that was ever collected’. From the viewpoint of the 1730s Dartmouth burnished his image as a moderate, whom the queen thought ‘less engaged in party than any of her servants’, and referred to Whigs and Tories as ‘unhappy distinctions’. He revealed his poor opinion of some clerics, noting that even the ‘meanest of them’ was ‘always very able’ on the subject of ‘promoting the authority and wealth of churchmen’. He criticized James I for propagating the ‘doctrine of unconditional allegiance’, and ‘whose arbitrary, illegal administration could be justified by no former rules of government’ was ultimately put upon ‘a set of flattering clergymen’ who started the ‘notion’ of divine right. Dartmouth attributed to the flattery of clergy the one part of the liturgy he felt uncomfortable with: ‘thanking God for the king’s being what we ought to pray he should be’, which had led to prayers to continue James II in the true worship of God when he went publicly to mass. Above all Dartmouth was a traditionalist, who disliked the ‘provoking, insolent manner of speaking’ and the ‘familiar style’ brought up from the Commons by Wharton and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax.<sup>128</sup></p><p>In 1715 Dartmouth had a long career left in the Lords before his death on 15 Dec. 1750. This will be treated in detail in the succeeding volumes of this work.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
LEIGH, Edward (1684-1738) |
<p><strong><surname>LEIGH</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1684–1738)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 12 Nov. 1710 as 3rd Bar. LEIGH |
|
First sat 13 Mar. 1711; last sat 6 May 1723 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 13 Jan. 1684, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Bar. Leigh, and 2nd w. Eleanor, da. of Edward Watson*, 2nd Bar. Rockingham; bro. of Charles Leigh<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Balliol Oxf. matric. 1702; ?travelled abroad (Italy) 1711.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 11 Sept. 1705 (settlement 20 May 1706),<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>.1743), da. of Thomas Holbech, of Fillongley, Warw; 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 2da. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 9 Mar. 1738; <em>will</em>, 26 July 1737, pr. 7 Apr. 1738.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Closely related to a number of influential Midlands families, Edward Leigh inherited an estate that should have enabled him to command considerable political interest. Stoneleigh Abbey, the family seat, was the largest house in Warwickshire, assessed at 70 hearths in 1660.<sup>5</sup> Leigh was a cousin of Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron Rockingham (later earl of Rockingham), William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup>, the head of the Northamptonshire Tories. The marriage of Leigh’s sister, Eleanor, to Thomas Verney, grandson of Richard Verney*, 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, further underpinned his Warwickshire connections.<sup>6</sup> Despite such influential relations, Leigh appears to have turned his back on regional and national politics, choosing instead ‘a retired country life … assisting and relieving the poor’ and concentrating his efforts on the development of his seat at Stoneleigh Abbey.<sup>7</sup> As a result of his marriage in 1705 to the wealthy heiress, Mary Holbech, a bill was introduced in Parliament for vesting estates in the hands of trustees on behalf of the young couple.<sup>8</sup> In the bill both were cited as being under age, though Leigh was already 21 years old. Leave was given for the bill to be presented to the House but it was not brought in.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Leigh took his seat in March 1711. He attended for a mere seven days before retiring for the remainder of the session, but on 21 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. Leigh may have travelled abroad again at this time.<sup>10</sup> He appears to have returned to England in time for the funeral of his neighbour, William Craven*, 2nd Baron Craven, but he then failed to attend the 1711-12 session which opened in December 1711.<sup>11</sup> Leigh’s disinclination to attend was a disappointment to Bromley, who had previously assured Oxford that he would be able to prevail on Leigh, ‘a young man of good understanding and very well inclined’, to turn out. As late as 3 Dec. Bromley still believed Leigh to be <em>en</em> <em>route</em> to Westminster but, two days later, he was forced to admit that Leigh’s proxy was the best that they could expect. Leigh had sent in a blank proxy form to Bromley directing that it be entrusted either to George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, or Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth. Bromley then referred the matter on to Oxford, declaring himself to be ‘sorry at this time to lodge his vote amiss, I therefore beg your lordship will please to let me know how I shall fill up the proxy.’<sup>12</sup> Bromley need not have concerned himself as the proxy had already been registered in Northampton’s favour four days earlier. In December 1711 Oxford listed Leigh as a likely supporter. The same month Leigh was listed among those voting in favour of barring Scots peers holding post-Union British peerages from sitting in the House although he was not present that day and proxies were not taken. On 29 Dec. Leigh was listed by Oxford as one of the peers to be contacted during the Christmas recess.</p><p>Leigh remained absent from the House for the following three years, but in March 1713 Swift again listed him as a likely government supporter. He attended for just one day in April 1714. This brief appearance may have coincided with his being in London seeking advice about obtaining an act of Parliament, though Leigh’s undated account book for the period makes no mention of the nature of the act required.<sup>13</sup> On 3 May he again registered his proxy in favour of Northampton, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 27 May he was listed by Nottingham as being likely to support the bill to prevent the growth of schism. In spite of his poor attendance, on 19 June he was named one of the commissioners for executing the River Trent navigation amendment bill.<sup>14</sup></p><p>From 1714 Leigh’s principal concern surrounded his redevelopment of Stoneleigh Abbey, a project that was to last 12 years.<sup>15</sup> The initial estimate for a three-storey addition was £545.<sup>16</sup> In the event Leigh expended over £3,000 on his building works.<sup>17</sup> Speculation that Leigh harboured Jacobite sympathies is not supported by any substantive evidence, though there is a tradition that Leigh had a private chapel constructed so that he and his family could avoid offering prayers for the House of Hanover.<sup>18</sup> While his attendance in the House following the Hanoverian succession remained sporadic, his supposed support for the exiled Stuarts did not prevent him from making occasional appearances after the death of Queen Anne. The latter phase of his career will be considered in detail in the second part of this work.</p><p>Leigh sat for the final time on 6 May 1723. Four years later, he declined to attend the coronation of King George II, pleading poor health. Despite encouragement from his sister Eleanor Verney, he also failed to attend the new Parliament.<sup>19</sup> Although Leigh played no further role in parliamentary affairs, he maintained a close interest in events at Westminster and beyond, remaining informed through a regular supply of newsletters.<sup>20</sup> Leigh composed his will on 19 Apr. 1736. Political or family rivalries appear to have been at the forefront of his mind as he specified that in the event of his heir, Edward Leigh, marrying a daughter of George Montagu<sup>†</sup>, earl of Halifax, or of ‘Lord Lumley’ (probably Thomas Lumley-Saunderson<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Scarbrough from 1740) he was to be deprived of a possible inheritance of £12,000 which was to be conveyed instead to Leigh’s younger son, Thomas Leigh<sup>†</sup> (later 4th Baron Leigh). Leigh composed a new will the following year in which this proviso was reiterated.<sup>21</sup> Although rumours of a marriage between Edward Leigh and Anne Montagu continued to circulate, the stipulation proved to be unnecessary. Less than a week after signing his new will, Leigh’s heir, Edward Leigh, died from smallpox.<sup>22</sup> Leigh survived him by just eight months. He was succeeded by his favoured younger son, Thomas Leigh, as 4th Baron Leigh.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEIGH, Thomas (c. 1595-1672) |
<p><strong><surname>LEIGH</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1595–1672)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 July 1643 Bar. LEIGH |
|
First sat Oxford 1644; first sat after 1660, 4 June 1660; last sat 15 June 1661 |
|
MP Warws. 1628. |
<p><em>b</em>. c. 1595, 1st s. of Sir John Leigh of Hamstall Ridware, Staffs. and Ursula Hoddesdon. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen, Oxf. matric. 4 Nov. 1608. <em>m</em>. 11 Nov. 1610, Mary (<em>d</em>.1669) da. of Sir Thomas Egerton<sup>‡</sup> of Dodleston, Cheshire, and Elizabeth Venables, 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 6da.<sup>1</sup> <em>suc</em>. grandfa. 3 Feb. 1626. <em>d</em>. 22 Feb. 1672;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 6 Jan. 1671, pr. 6 Apr. 1672.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Staffs. 1627–at least 1628, Warws. by 1639; sheriff, Warws. 1636–7; commr. array Warws. 1642.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>The Leigh family originated in Shropshire, owing the rise in its fortunes to the successful career of the prosperous merchant Sir Thomas Leigh (<em>d.</em>1571), who became lord mayor of London and left extensive estates to his three sons. The second son, also Thomas, inherited Stoneleigh in Warwickshire. Stoneleigh was the largest house in the county and was assessed at 70 hearths in 1660.<sup>6</sup> Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh was created a baronet in 1611 and was succeeded in 1626 by his grandson, the subject of this piece. The latter was a prominent member of Warwickshire society but also had significant interests in Staffordshire and Bedfordshire. By marriage he was connected with the Egerton family, and his aunt Alice, duchess of Dudley, was reported to have been a great benefactress to Stoneleigh.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Leigh was for the most part a loyal supporter of the king during the civil wars and owed his elevation to the peerage to service in the king’s cause. Yet he maintained good relations with some of his neighbours of the other party and was the beneficiary of assistance by at least two major parliamentarian figures, Robert Greville<sup>†</sup>, Baron Brooke, and Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh. Leigh attended the Oxford Parliament but in 1646, following the king’s defeat, he petitioned to compound, pleading that he had been compelled to open his gates to the king in 1642 and that he had never been ‘in arms nor assisted the king with men, horses or money’. This was demonstrably false: Leigh had at one point been taken prisoner while in command of a company of royalist horse and he had contributed funds for the king’s coffers in return for his peerage. The assessors evidently paid little heed to his account. He was said to have ‘suffered much’ at the hands of the grand commissioner and was forced to pay a substantial composition, which was increased in 1648 after it was determined that Leigh had underestimated his income by approximately £1,000.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Leigh was watched carefully during the Interregnum and was arrested as a precaution during the rising led by George Booth*, later Baron Delamer, but he does not appear to have been an active royalist plotter and he was not incarcerated for long. At the Restoration, he was among the first of the royalists to gather in London, arriving in the capital on 17 May, but in common with the majority of those in possession of Civil War peerages he delayed taking his seat in the House. He first attended on 4 June 1660, after which he was present on a third of all sitting days. He appears to have been an inactive Member. He was named to no committees and on 7 Aug. he was given a month’s leave to go to Bath on account of his health.<sup>9</sup></p><p>He did not sit again until the following year, covering his absence in the second session of the Convention by registering his proxy with his kinsman Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, on 10 November.<sup>10</sup> Leigh focused his efforts instead on the recovery of property lost in the wars. He petitioned the dean and canons of Windsor to restore his lease on the lordship of Leighton Buzzard, which he had been compelled to sell to one of the regicides, Colonel John Okey<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>11</sup> Leigh was assured privately that the dean and canons intended to settle in his favour but he was also encouraged to seek the king’s approval, ‘to break through all oppositions’. Another property dispute was settled in chancery.<sup>12</sup> Leigh took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 May 1661 but he attended just three days of the session before quitting the House for the final time. On 6 Aug. he registered his proxy with Southampton once more. Thereafter, he was excused attendance on the grounds of ill health on several occasions. On 12 Oct. 1667 he entrusted his proxy to another kinsman, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, who was the recipient of the proxy once again on 11 Feb. 1670.</p><p>Leigh became guardian to his grandson, another Thomas Leigh*, later 2nd Baron Leigh, in 1666, following the death of his son and heir four years previously. By this time, his financial situation appears to have deteriorated further. Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], appealed to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, to encourage Leigh ‘to clear his grandchild’s fortune of its encumbrances’.<sup>13</sup> It may have been in response to this that Leigh agreed to marry his grandson to the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Browne in 1669, ‘Lord Leigh prudently considering that a portion in moneys would be more adequate than lands to his grandson’s occasions’. The alliance soon descended into acrimony. Leigh appears to have been frustrated in an attempt to clear his own debts by using Elizabeth Browne’s assets.<sup>14</sup> Unable to settle his business that way, on 23 Nov. 1670 he introduced a bill into the House to enable him and his grandson to sell lands in Staffordshire to provide portions and to pay off the remaining debts. Leigh’s granddaughter-in-law seems to have been convinced that Leigh aimed to deprive her of her dower and objected to the measure as it failed to consider the interests of any children she might have. The committee considering the bill decided not to proceed any further in the matter, bearing in mind that the debts had been contracted since the war, despite an intervention on Leigh’s behalf by Bridgwater.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Leigh was again said to be suffering from poor health in January 1672.<sup>16</sup> On 6 Jan. he drafted a new will, leaving some £4,000 to be divided between three of his daughters for portions, as well as substantial grants to his sons Charles and Christopher.<sup>17</sup> He died the following month and was buried at Stoneleigh.<sup>18</sup> According to Sir Roger Burgoyne, Leigh had suffered from a steady degeneration of health and, commenting on his death, he remarked that ‘his nose went long before’.<sup>19</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEIGH, Thomas (1652-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>LEIGH</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1652–1710)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 22 Feb. 1672 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. LEIGH |
|
First sat 21 Jan. 1674; last sat 24 Mar. 1710 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 17 June 1652, s. of Sir Thomas Leigh<sup>‡</sup>, and Jane, da. of Patrick Fitzmaurice, Bar. Kerry and Lixnaw [I]. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf., MA 1667. <em>m</em>. (1) Apr. 1669, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1678), da. of Richard Browne, <em>s</em>.<em>p.</em>; (2) 23 Oct. 1679, Eleanor (<em>d</em>.1705), da. of Edward Watson*, 2nd Bar. Rockingham, 4s. 4da. <em>suc.</em> fa. 5 Apr. 1662. <em>d</em>. 12 Nov. 1710; <em>will</em> 26 Oct.-5 Nov. 1710, pr. 16 Mar. 1711.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Leigh’s father died in 1662, leaving his upbringing to his grandfather, Thomas Leigh*, Baron Leigh, who was formally appointed his guardian in 1666. Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], discussed with Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, the benefits of sending Leigh to Oxford, commenting that, ‘such places often teach debauchery instead of learning; one unruly youth will infect more by his example than ten tutors will reclaim by their precepts.’<sup>2</sup> In spite of Orrery’s concerns, Leigh was sent to Christ Church, where he took his MA in 1667.</p><p>Two years later, Leigh married the heiress Elizabeth Browne. The match was engineered by his grandfather eager to resolve his own and his grandson’s financial predicament. The marriage was not a success and wrangling over the marriage settlement broke out almost at once. In 1670 Leigh’s grandfather introduced a bill to enable the sale of lands in Staffordshire to finance portions and to pay off debts. Elizabeth Leigh, concerned that it was prejudicial to any children she might have, opposed the bill and accused Leigh of attempting to debar her from her dower by conveying Stoneleigh and other manors fraudulently.<sup>3</sup> In spite of the support of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, the bill was dropped in committee.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In 1672, the year in which Leigh succeeded to the barony, he petitioned for his three sisters to be granted precedence as daughters of a baron, a status denied to them by the premature death of their father. Leigh argued ‘that it may be of some advantage to them in point of preferment, considering that their portions by reason of the great debts which their father contracted through his sufferings in the late wars … are like to be but small.’<sup>5</sup> The request was permitted ‘in recognition of the many services of their father and grandfather.’<sup>6</sup> Leigh’s sisters had been left £4,000 between them by the 1st baron, but in 1674 on the marriage of the eldest sister, Honora Leigh, to Sir William Egerton<sup>‡</sup>, one of Bridgwater’s younger sons, Leigh undertook to provide security to pay a portion of £4,500 in return for which Honora Leigh resigned her claims to any other part of the Leigh estate.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In 1673 Lady Leigh suffered a miscarriage; supported by her mother, she submitted a petition to the Privy Council not long after complaining of her husband’s maltreatment.<sup>8</sup> A reconciliation proved to be temporary.<sup>9</sup> In 1674 Lady Leigh tried to exhibit articles of the peace against her husband, but in a landmark ruling Sir Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup> approved a husband’s right to chastise his wife by ‘confinement to the house in case of her extravagance.’<sup>10</sup> Perhaps, unsurprisingly, Hale’s judgment failed to improve matters.</p><p>Leigh was marked (inaccurately) under age at a call on 12 Jan. 1674. A few days later he received his writ of summons, and on 26 Jan. he took his seat in the House for the first time, after which he was present on almost 16 per cent of all sitting days. Although Leigh’s presence in the House served to give his domestic dispute an increasingly parliamentary focus, he was absent from proceedings after 3 February. The following day he registered his proxy with his Warwickshire neighbour, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, which was then vacated by the close.</p><p>Leigh was said to be recovering from smallpox late in 1674. His poor health seems to have made little impact on his continuing legal tussle with his baroness, which resumed in February 1675.<sup>11</sup> That year, Dean Prideaux noted how John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, head of Leigh’s Oxford college had travelled ‘to the Lord Leigh’s to reconcile him and his wife if possible.’ His efforts were in vain. Leigh attended just one day of the first session of 1675 (7 June). He was missing at the opening of the following session in October 1675. On 22 Oct. he registered his proxy with Bridgwater, which was vacated by his arrival on 20 November. He was then absent again for the remainder of the session.</p><p>He returned to the House one day into the 1677-8 session, after which he was present on 32 per cent of all sitting days and was named to a number of committees. Once again his marital dispute formed the focus of his activities. In spite of the family connection with Bridgwater, Leigh appears to have possessed little influence in the House or knowledge of parliamentary procedure. Before the session he sought advice, stating that he would prefer to answer before the bar of the House rather than see the case referred to a committee which he feared could be packed with her supporters.<sup>12</sup> Both Lady Leigh and her mother had already appealed directly to the king, claiming that she had been forced to seek a writ of habeas corpus when Leigh imprisoned her in her chamber.<sup>13</sup> They blamed ‘the malevolent influence’ of Sir William Bromley, Leigh’s uncle, for many of Lady Leigh’s woes and detailed the manner in which Leigh demonstrated ‘the highest aversion to her, publicly exposing her to contempt, and endeavouring to make her condition insupportable.’ Leigh was reported to have treated his wife, ‘with all manner of opprobrious language’, called her ‘whore’, severed her contact with her family and denied her a fair allowance. Leigh denied imprisoning his wife or denying her proper maintenance and, while he admitted that he had called his wife ‘slut’ and ‘his little whore’, he claimed only to have done so ‘in the highest caresses of affection.’ Besides, Leigh stated that his wife was ‘of a loose deport, frequently overtaken in drink’ and gave ‘her lord provocations insupportable.’<sup>14</sup> In spite of his mother-in-law’s much vaunted interest at court, Leigh remained confident that his wife’s petition would be dismissed commenting that,</p><blockquote><p>I am informed it’s very libellous, but hope that a wife shall not be countenanced to libel her husband, or that her petition will be admitted till the affair comes by appeal into the House (and the house having voted against original causes to be brought thither) I hope this cause will not be allowed there.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 27 Mar. 1677 Lady Leigh presented her petition to the House complaining of ‘her rigorous usage’ by her husband and of how she was denied any remedy because of his privilege. When Leigh replied that he was willing to waive his privilege to allow his wife’s complaint to be heard in the lower courts, the House dismissed the petition. Four days later Lady Leigh submitted a bill seeking the voiding of a fine levied by Leigh during his minority, and on 3 Apr. the House ordered that a committee be assembled to seek to reconcile the two. Lady Leigh’s bill struck at the heart of the matter as the real issue of the case appears to have been a difference over the original marriage settlement driven by Lady Leigh’s mother, Mrs Temple. One witness provided an affidavit stating that Mrs Temple had attempted to have Leigh assassinated and that Lady Leigh, far from fleeing Leigh’s maltreatment, was engaged in an affair with John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester.<sup>16</sup></p><p>With the matter entrusted to referees, the Leigh dispute retreated into the background. Widespread knowledge that Lady Leigh was not expected to live long may equally have persuaded the House not to waste any further time on the matter. In December 1677 the dispute was settled, the final manoeuvrings taking place at a meeting held at the home of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey.<sup>17</sup> As a result Leigh parted from his wife, a decision that inspired the publication of at least one scandal sheet. As part of the agreement, Leigh agreed to pay his wife’s uncle £250 towards her maintenance during their separation and to pay the costs for both parties. Any further wrangling was brought to an abrupt close by Lady Leigh’s death in July of the following year. In spite of the brouhaha occasioned by the proceedings, Leigh and his wife’s relations appear to have achieved some measure of reconciliation by the end of 1677, and Leigh contributed £200 to her funeral expenses.<sup>18</sup> The following year Leigh remarried.</p><p>Freed from entanglement in his matrimonial dispute, Leigh appears to have taken the opportunity to retreat from regular attendance of the House. In May 1677 he had been noted by Antony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, as twice worthy, perhaps reflecting his perceived opposition to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). On 16 Feb. 1678 he was excused at a call, but the following month the lord keeper, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), wrote to Leigh requiring his attendance in the House to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.<sup>19</sup> Leigh chose instead to register his proxy with Bridgwater once more, and he was absent for the entirety of the session of May to July 1678. It was not until 28 Nov. that he returned to the House. Present on a quarter of all sitting days, he left on 21 Dec. and two days later registered his proxy with George Booth*, Baron Delamer, for the rest of the session.</p><p>Leigh took his seat in the new Parliament on 12 Apr. 1679, after which he was present on just over 51 per cent of all sitting days in the 61-day session. In advance of the session he had been noted as a likely opponent in a series of forecasts drawn up by Danby. On 10 May he was one of those to vote against appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, and on 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to remain in the House during consideration of capital cases. Absent at the opening of the new Parliament the following October, he was excused as being <em>en route</em> to London on 30 Oct. 1680 and eventually took his seat on 13 November. He was then present on 23 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Two days after taking his seat, he voted against the Exclusion bill. The following month he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.</p><p>Prior to the summoning of the Oxford Parliament the following year, Leigh agreed to support Danby and his efforts to secure his bail from the Tower, though his letter made it apparent that there were limits to his willingness to assist,</p><blockquote><p>Your lordship’s letter … is now arrived me, and I cannot read it without regret, to consider your lordship should have the occasion of the service of so inconsiderable a person as my self … I shall … render myself in Oxford the first day of the sitting of the parliament: with resolves to serve your lordship (according to my judgment) as far as justice and honour enlargeth; & further (I presume) your lordship expects not …<sup>20</sup></p></blockquote><p>Danby’s own list estimating his supporters reflected this lukewarm response, and he included Leigh among his ‘doubtful’ supporters. Reflecting more positively on Leigh’s offer, Edward Conway*, Viscount (later earl of) Conway, a man for whom Leigh was said to have had ‘a great honour’, assured Danby that Leigh had ‘promised as much for your lordship’s service as any man.’<sup>21</sup> Leigh took his seat in the House on 22 Mar. and he then attended on six of the session’s seven sitting days.</p><p>The close of the session at Oxford and four-year interlude before the summoning of another Parliament gave Leigh some opportunity to develop his local interest in Warwickshire. In 1685 he was counted as a supporter of the Whig Sir Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup> in attempting to forestall the attempt by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to impose court candidates on Warwickshire.<sup>22</sup> The majority of the local gentry rallied to Sunderland, though, and Newdigate lost his seat.<sup>23</sup> In spite of his support for Newdigate, Leigh’s sympathies were, for the most part, Tory and his refusal to fall into line with Sunderland was almost certainly owing to religious scruples. The Tory peer William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, also reckoned Leigh to be doubtful when he compiled an assessment of those he thought likely to support his bill for the recovery of estates that had been alienated following the Civil War.<sup>24</sup> Leigh took his seat in the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, after which he was present on just 21 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>Leigh’s support for the Church of England left him opposed to the king’s policy of toleration for Catholics, but his opinions were either poorly known or ambiguous for he was listed as both an opponent and doubtful in a listing of lords and their likely attitudes to repeal of the Test compiled at the beginning of 1687. In the late summer of that year he was one of the Warwickshire peers to wait on the king during his progress in the county.<sup>25</sup> Rather than opposition to the king’s policies, Leigh’s principal concern during the latter part of James II’s reign seems to have involved his efforts to protect his family’s exclusive rights to their coat of arms. In 1687 a case was brought before the court of chivalry against a Mr Lees, a former secondary of London, and a heraldic painter called Howells, who were accused of usurping the family’s name and arms. Lees’ defence for appropriating the arms was that his own family was more ancient than that of Lord Leigh; he claimed descent from a thirteenth-century landed family, while Leigh’s pedigree only reached back to the Tudors.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Leigh was noted as being ‘undeclared’ on the question of repeal in November 1687. By the beginning of the following year Danby included him in a list of peers opposed to the king’s policies, though another assessment drawn up at the same time merely listed Leigh as ‘absent.’ As difficult to pin down as Leigh’s reaction to James’ policies was, his activities during the Revolution are equally uncertain. He was not one of the peers to assemble in London during the proceedings of the provisional government. Nor was he one of those to be summoned to attend William of Orange on 28 December. He took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 23 Jan. 1689 and was then present on just 13 per cent of all sitting days. On 29 Jan. he supported the establishment of a regency, and on 31 Jan. he voted against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ employment of the word ‘abdicated’ and two days later divided again with those opposed to declaring the throne to be vacant. He then registered his dissent when the question was carried in the affirmative.</p><p>Although Leigh was clearly dissatisfied with the establishment of William and Mary on the throne, he did not join some of his colleagues in boycotting the House. He was classed by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) as a supporter of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690: Carmarthen added that he was to be approached by James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon. Leigh was, though, tardy in taking his seat in the second session, not returning to the House until 16 Nov. 1689. He was thereafter present on 22 per cent of all sitting days. Missing at the opening of the new Parliament in March 1690 he did not take his seat until 11 Apr., after which he was present on almost 39 per cent of all sitting days. Leigh’s attendance remained dilatory, and he was regularly noted as being absent at a series of calls over the next few years, but although he remained a distinctly inactive member, he continued to employ his interest in his native Warwickshire. Following the close of the session, he wrote to his neighbour Gilbert Coventry*, later 4th earl of Coventry, assuring him that he had done all he could to prevail upon Coventry’s father, Thomas Coventry*, 5th Baron (later earl of) Coventry, to help settle a dispute within the family, though he was forced to conclude that he was unable to do any good in the affair. He continued to interest himself in Coventry’s affairs over the following years.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Leigh failed to attend the following two sessions, and it was thus not until 20 Dec. 1692 that he reappeared in the House. He was then present on just under 30 per cent of all sitting days. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill, and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of passing the measure. Prior to this, on 1 Jan., he was assessed as being opposed to permitting Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce, and the following day he voted against reading Norfolk’s bill. Leigh joined the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder on 4 Feb., but he was then one of four peers fined £100 for failing to return to the House following the trial.<sup>28</sup> He was absent once again for the ensuing two sessions, failing to return to the House until December 1695.</p><p>Leigh’s lacklustre record of attendance persisted into the following year. He returned to the House a month after the opening of the new Parliament on 23 Dec. 1695, after which he was present on just seven days (5 per cent of the whole). By this point he appears to have become reconciled to the Revolution Settlement, if grudgingly, and on 17 Mar. 1696 he signed the Association but only after the House summoned him to do so.<sup>29</sup> He continued to attend until 24 Mar. and on 9 Apr. registered his proxy with John Holles*, duke of Newcastle. He resumed his place in the House in the second session on 27 Nov. 1696, after which he was present on approximately 30 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Dec. he voted against passing the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and protested against it. Absent from the final two months of the session, on 13 Mar. he registered his proxy with Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>Leigh failed to attend the 1697-8 session; on 11 Apr. 1698 he again registered his proxy with Bolton. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Dec. 1698 and was thereafter present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against offering to assist the king in retaining his Dutch guards. Leigh did not attend the 1699-1700 session but towards the end of 1700 was active in the preparations for the ensuing elections by convening the gentry in Warwickshire in association with Richard Verney*, 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke.<sup>30</sup> Although he failed to attend the first Parliament of 1701, he was again active in his locality as one of those present at an election meeting held at the Swan in Warwick on 25 November.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Leigh took his seat in the new Parliament on 3 Feb. 1702 and was thereafter present on 22 per cent of all sitting days. The accession of Queen Anne failed to inspire Leigh to improve his attendance but the altered political balance increased his influence, and during the last decade of his life he came to be associated with those peers willing to co-operate with his cousin, William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>32</sup> Bromley was also appointed a trustee by Leigh’s will. Despite this, Leigh was again absent for the first two months of the opening session. He finally took his seat on 17 Dec. 1702 but was recorded as attending on just one more day before quitting the chamber for the remainder. At the beginning of 1703 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, estimated him a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill, and on 16 Jan. 1703 Leigh was included among those voting against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause although his name does not appear on the attendance list for that day.</p><p>Leigh was absent for the entirety of the 1703-4 and 1704-5 sessions when his frequent absences were normally excused on the grounds of ill health.<sup>33</sup> He was nevertheless included (as a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill) in two forecasts composed by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in November 1703. On 14 Dec. he was included among those who had divided in favour of the bill by proxy. On 2 Dec. 1704 he entrusted his proxy to Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.</p><p>Leigh was again excused at a call on 12 Nov. 1705. He finally returned to the House on 15 Nov., after which he was present on a fifth of all sitting days. His motivation in resuming his place appears to have been family business. In December he petitioned the House to allow him to bring in a bill concerning the marriage settlement of his eldest son, Edward Leigh*, later 3rd Baron Leigh, and Mary Holbech, both being under age.<sup>34</sup> Leave was granted but no further progress was made in the measure.</p><p>Leigh was missing once again at the opening of the following session in December 1706. He was absent without explanation at a call of the House on 29 Jan. 1707, and it was not until 10 Feb. that he resumed his place, after which he was present on 30 per cent of all sitting days. On 4 Mar. he voted in favour of the rider to the Union bill declaring that nothing in the measure should be construed as supporting presbyterianism as a true form of worship. Leigh attended on four of the nine days of the April 1707 session. He was present on just ten per cent of all sitting days during the first (1707-8) session of the new British Parliament.</p><p>Leigh was absent from the first four months of the 1708 Parliament. A somewhat unclear marking in a printed list of lords’ party affiliations probably noted Leigh among the Tories. He took his seat once more on 19 Feb. 1709 but then quit the chamber again on 4 Mar. having attended on just four days. He was missing again at the opening of the following session in November, but despite suffering from gout, his high Church principles led him to surprise the House by taking his place on 10 Jan. 1710 in preparation for the proceedings against Dr Sacheverell, ‘that he might have an opportunity of showing his zeal for the Church.’<sup>35</sup> On 20 Mar. he voted, unsurprisingly, in favour of acquitting Sacheverell. Having sat for the last time on 24 Mar. he was then one of several Warwickshire peers to entertain Sacheverell during his progress through the county later that summer.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Leigh was reckoned by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as a likely supporter of the new administration in October 1710. A little over a month later, on 14 Nov., a newsletter communicated that Leigh was ‘dead or dying having been given over some days past by his physicians.’<sup>37</sup> By then he was already dead, having died two days previously ‘by a mortification in his foot.’<sup>38</sup> In his will he requested that £800 be raised from his estates to provide for a school and schoolmaster for Stoneleigh, and he gave £50 towards the building of a new church in Birmingham.<sup>39</sup> Leigh’s younger son, Charles Leigh<sup>‡</sup> defeated the Greville interest to be elected for Warwickshire in the month following his father’s death, while his eldest son, Edward, succeeded as 3rd Baron Leigh.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEKE, Nicholas (1612-81) |
<p><strong><surname>LEKE</surname></strong>, <strong>Nicholas</strong> (1612–81)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Apr. 1655 as 2nd Bar. DEINCOURT and 2nd earl of SCARSDALE |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 10 Jan. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 1 Oct. 1612, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Francis Leke<sup>†</sup>, bt., later earl of Scarsdale, and Anne, da. of Sir Edward Carey<sup>‡</sup> of Aldenham, Herts., sis. of Adolphus Carey<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Henry Carey<sup>‡</sup>, Visct. Falkland [S], and Sir Philip Carey<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. c.1653, Frances (<em>d</em>.1692), da. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick, and 1st w. Frances Hatton, 3s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 1da. <em>d.v</em>.<em>p</em>.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 27 Jan. 1681; admon. 10 Feb. 1681.</p> |
<p>J.p. Derbys. 1650, 1661, Notts. 1661.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>The Leke family had been prominent in the north Midlands since the fourteenth century and were the greatest landholders in the Scarsdale Hundred of Derbyshire.<sup>4</sup> The majority of the family’s holdings lay here and in Nottinghamshire. Their principal seat, Sutton Hall, was comparatively modest, being assessed at just 26 hearths in 1670, making it only the twelfth greatest house in the county and dwarfed by the likes of Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth and Bretby House, which were assessed at 114, 79 and 68 hearths respectively.<sup>5</sup> In 1624 Nicholas Leke’s father, Sir Francis Leke, who had been one of the first baronets created by James I, was elevated to the peerage as Baron Deincourt through the interest of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, and in return for payment of £8,000.<sup>6</sup> On the outbreak of Civil War, the Lekes were divided with Deincourt, his younger sons and his cousin, another Francis Leke<sup>‡</sup>, taking the side of the king, while Nicholas Leke supported Parliament. Deincourt was promoted in the peerage as earl of Scarsdale in 1645.</p><p>Leke succeeded his father as earl of Scarsdale in 1655. At the Restoration he was noted as being one of those willing to delay their entry into the House until given leave to do so by George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle.<sup>7</sup> As a Civil War creation, the earldom of Scarsdale was initially not recognized; it was consequently as Baron Deincourt that he took his seat in the House on 27 April. He then attended for approximately 62 per cent of the session before the adjournment of September. On 1 May he was named one of the managers of the conference considering methods to heal breaches within the kingdom, but two days later he was granted leave of absence as a result of his mother’s death. He resumed his seat on 5 May and on 2 June, following the king’s order that Civil War peerages should be recognized, he took his seat on the earl’s bench as earl of Scarsdale. Scarsdale was absent from the House from 24 July to 18 August. On 30 July his brother-in-law, Henry Hildyard<sup>‡</sup>, was returned at the by-election for Hedon in Yorkshire (though whether the election was related to Scarsdale’s absence from the House is uncertain).<sup>8</sup> Scarsdale attended the second part of the session on 6 Nov., after which he attended on almost 87 per cent of all sitting days. The previous day (5 Nov.), he had been commended to the lord chamberlain, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, by George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley (later earl of Berkeley).<sup>9</sup></p><p>Scarsdale does not appear to have been active in the elections for the Cavalier Parliament in Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire. The Cavendishes held a commanding interest in both counties, rivalled in Nottinghamshire only by the Byrons, Chaworths and Pierreponts.<sup>10</sup> Scarsdale took his seat at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he attended on three-quarters of all sitting days. On 6 Feb. 1662 he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill to restore the estate of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby. On 13 July 1663 Scarsdale was listed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as a supporter of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon (as Hyde had since become).</p><p>Scarsdale attended the 1664 session for approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Apr. he was named to the committee for the gaming bill. Scarsdale’s attendance during the 1664-5 session increased markedly. Present on just under 89 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to six committees in addition to the sessional committees. His attendance declined during the brief session of October 1665, in which he attended just six of its 19 days, but he was named to four committees, including that considering the bill for preventing the importation of foreign cattle. He was summoned for the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle, at the end of April 1666 and found Morley guilty of manslaughter.<sup>11</sup></p><p>His attendance was particularly assiduous during the 1666-7 session when he was present on almost 97 per cent of all sitting days and was named to nine committees. On 29 Oct. his cousin, the former cavalier Sir Francis Leke, was returned for Nottinghamshire (though there is no reason to believe that Scarsdale employed his interest on his cousin’s behalf in the election). On 23 Jan. 1667 Scarsdale entered a dissent to the refusal to grant a right of appeal from the fire court to the king and the House of Lords.</p><p>During the 1667-9 session he attended on approximately 68 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 14 committees. His rate of attendance increased once more in the following (1669) session. Taking his seat at its opening on 19 Oct., he attended each of its 36 days and was named to three committees. He demonstrated a similarly high level of attendance in the following session (1670-1), attending approximately 92 per cent of all sitting days and being named to 41 committees.</p><p>Scarsdale sold the lease on his London home in Pall Mall to Nell Gwyn in May 1671, reputedly for £2,500.<sup>12</sup> The following year his heir, Robert Leke*, styled Lord Deincourt (later 3rd earl of Scarsdale), caused consternation when he eloped with the under-age daughter of Sir John Lewis. Lewis’ widow and her father, Sir Thomas Foote, sought to prosecute the pair, despite the efforts of Sir William Morton<sup>‡</sup>, the presiding judge, to persuade them to accommodate the matter with Scarsdale, ‘an honest and honourable person, and of great estate.’<sup>13</sup> The marriage endured but led to a series of court cases between Deincourt, his brother-in-law, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and Lewis’ executors over rights to Lewis’ estate.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Scarsdale resumed his seat for the first session of 1673 and was again assiduous in his attendance. Present on 39 of the 41 sitting days, he was named to 11 committees. He returned to the House for the brief second session of 1673, attending each of its four days. The 1674 session also saw a remarkably high level of attendance; he sat on each of the session’s 38 days during which he was named to five committees.</p><p>During the first 1675 session he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days and was again named to five committees. He was then present on each of the 21 days of the second 1675 session, during which he was named to seven committees. On 20 Nov. he voted in favour of addressing the crown for a dissolution of Parliament.</p><p>During the long prorogation, Scarsdale joined with James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, in petitioning the king to grant letters of incorporation to the Company of the Royal Fishery of England, in which he had invested.<sup>15</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the following (1677-8) session on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he maintained his typically high rate of attendance, being present on 96 per cent of all sitting days and being named to 49 committees. In acknowledgement of his association with the opposition, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, noted him as doubly worthy. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. He was present on approximately 88 per cent of sitting days during the summer session of 1678 and was named to 14 committees. The second session of that year (the last of the Cavalier Parliament) saw him present on almost 94 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Nov. 1678 he voted in favour of disabling Catholics from sitting in the House and on 26 Dec. voted against the supply bill. The following day he voted in favour of committing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>Scarsdale’s heir, Robert Leke was returned for Newark on the interest of his cousin, Sir Francis Leke, at the first Exclusion election in 1679. There is no suggestion that his candidature was in any way supported by Scarsdale.<sup>16</sup> Deincourt and his father (repeating the example of the previous generation) were opposed politically, but Deincourt’s election may have been one of the reasons for Danby mistakenly assessing Scarsdale as a likely supporter in March 1679. Subsequent assessments more realistically noted Scarsdale as ‘doubtful’. Scarsdale attended nearly every day of the brief 1679 Parliament. Named to eight committees in the course of the session, on 1 Apr. he voted in favour of the early stages of Danby’s attainder. On 4 Apr. he again voted in favour of the attainder, and he voted to agree with the Commons on 14 April. On 10 May he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, and he then registered his dissent at the resolution not to do so. On 27 May he registered a further dissent at the resolution to insist upon the vote confirming the right of the bishops to remain in court during capital cases.</p><p>During the second Exclusion Parliament, despite advancing age, Scarsdale was present for approximately 85 per cent of sitting days. On 15 Nov. 1680 Scarsdale voted in favour of rejecting the exclusion bill, and on 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a committee to consider the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.</p><p>Scarsdale continued to sit in the session until its close on 10 Jan. 1681. He died, without leaving a will, just over two weeks later on 27 Jan. and was buried in the Hunsdon vault at Westminster Abbey. He was succeeded by his heir, Deincourt, as 3rd earl of Scarsdale.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEKE, Nicholas (1682-1736) |
<p><strong><surname>LEKE</surname></strong> (<strong>LEAK</strong>), <strong>Nicholas</strong> (1682–1736)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>uncle 27 Dec. 1707 as 4th earl of SCARSDALE |
|
First sat 8 Jan. 1708; last sat 28 Feb. 1735 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 6 Nov. 1682,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Hon. Richard Leke and Mary, 2nd da. of Sir John Molyneux<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., of Teversall, Notts. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Austria, Germany and Italy) 1702-3;<sup>2</sup> ?Oxf. DCL 26 Apr. 1706. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 17 July 1736; <em>will</em> 30 Aug. 1734, pr. 7 Dec. 1736.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Derbys. 1711-14.</p><p>Amb. to Vienna 1712 (did not go).<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Little is known of Leke prior to his succession to the earldom. Fatherless at the age of five, his upbringing was presumably left to his mother until her death in 1691, after which he was probably taken under the care of his uncle, Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale. His maternal uncles, Sir Francis<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Molyneux<sup>‡</sup>, were active in Nottinghamshire and Lancashire politics, but they were on opposite sides of the political fence to Scarsdale, and as Leke’s inclinations were in sympathy with those of the latter it seems reasonable to assume that Scarsdale’s influence was the more important. At about the age of 20, Leke left England for a foreign tour to complete his education. He was present at a dinner hosted by the Prince of Liechtenstein in Vienna in December 1702, and he was probably the ‘Mr Leke’ noted as being in Berlin the following year.<sup>6</sup> It also seems likely that he was the Nicholas Leake advanced DCL by Oxford in 1706. With the peerage he succeeded to estates in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, but his inheritance was significantly depleted by debt and encumbered with the payment of bequests amounting to £8,500 (including £3,000 each to his sisters, Frances and Lucy Leke).<sup>7</sup></p><p>Scarsdale took his seat in the House on 8 Jan. 1708, midway through the first Parliament of Great Britain, after which he attended for much of the remainder of the session (approximately 44 per cent of all sitting days). On 7 Feb. he acted as teller for the contents for the division in the committee of the whole on the question of whether a proviso should be added to the bill for completing the Union, and on 31 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution that the committal of Marmaduke Langdale*, 3rd Baron Langdale, was not a breach of privilege.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Scarsdale was noted as a Tory on a list drawn up in or about May 1708. In September it was reported that he had injured himself in a fall from his horse while drunk, but he recovered in time to attend the opening of the new parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 after which he attended on 76 per cent of sitting days.<sup>8</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the election of Scots representative peers and on 15 Mar. subscribed the protest at the resolution to commit the general naturalization bill. On 28 Mar. he acted as teller on the question of whether to read a rider to the union improvement (treason) bill a second time and protested when the rider was given a second reading. Scarsdale acted as teller again on 11 Apr. when he told for those in favour of committing the bill for Robert Bertie*, marquess of Lindsey.</p><p>Following the prorogation, Scarsdale became one of the founder members of a club established by Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, as a Tory rival to the Whig Kit Kat Club. Dubbed at first ‘the Uncaptious Brothers’, it was soon after renamed ‘the Board of Brothers’. Scarsdale continued to attend the meetings regularly over the following years.</p><p>Scarsdale took his seat at the opening of the 1709-10 session, after which he was present on 78 per cent of sitting days. On 16 Feb. 1710 he entered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the Commons in the address requesting the queen to order John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, to depart at once for Holland, and the same day he registered two further dissents at the resolutions not to adjourn and not to require Greenshields to attend the House. On 28 Feb. he acted as teller for the not contents on the question of whether to agree to a motion concerning the defence in the Sacheverell trial, and he continued to register a number of dissents over the course of the ensuing month. On 14 Mar. he dissented at the resolution not to adjourn and the same day subscribed the protest at the resolution that it was not necessary to include in an impeachment the particular words supposed to be criminal. On 16 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment against Sacheverell and on 17 Mar. at the resolution that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth articles, then on 18 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to limit peers to a single verdict covering all the articles against him. On 20 Mar. Scarsdale, unsurprisingly, found Sacheverell not guilty and registered his dissent against the guilty verdict. On 21 Mar. he registered a further dissent at the censure passed against Sacheverell.</p><p>Scarsdale’s fellow member of the Board of Brothers, Beaufort, was at pains to employ his interest over the summer of 1710 in an attempt to secure the lord lieutenancy of Derbyshire for Scarsdale (‘who above all things desires it’).<sup>9</sup> Although the lieutenancy remained elusive for the time being, Scarsdale was successful in employing his interest in the county elections on behalf of Godfrey Clarke<sup>‡</sup> and John Curzon<sup>‡</sup> to the disparagement of Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>10</sup> Coke, who had represented the county for the previous nine years, had supported the Sacheverell impeachment and now wrote plaintively to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, ‘I hope I shall not have the mortification to hear my Lord Scarsdale is our lord lieutenant.’<sup>11</sup> Harley reckoned Scarsdale to be a likely supporter in October and in November included his name in a memorandum of people to be contacted.</p><p>Scarsdale resumed his seat at the opening of the 1710 Parliament and was present on approximately 81 per cent of sitting days during the 1710-11 session. Active in the debates in the House on 9, 11 and 12 Jan. 1711 concerning the conduct of the war, during which he was one of several peers to complain of the delays in acquiring information about the campaign, on 11 Jan. he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to reject the petition of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I]. The following day, he proposed:</p><blockquote><p>That it appears by the earl of Sunderland’s [Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland], letter to Mr Stanhope, that the design of an offensive war in Spain, was approved and directed by the cabinet-council, notwithstanding the opinion of General Stanhope [James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> later Earl Stanhope]) in case of an attempt upon France, which they knew was then concerted with the duke of Savoy; which contributed to our misfortunes in Spain, and to the disappointment before Toulon.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>Scarsdale’s motion provoked a heated debate, which was then continued in a committee of the whole chaired by Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon (another member of the Board). On Scarsdale repeating his motion in the committee but altering the term ‘cabinet-council’ to ‘ministers’, his right to do so was challenged by the Whigs. Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, defended Scarsdale’s right to adjust the terminology, and Scarsdale himself explained that he had done so ‘because the word ministers is better known than that of a cabinet council.’<sup>13</sup></p><p>On 29 Jan. 1711 Scarsdale acted as teller for the not contents again on the question of whether to agree to a reversal of the judgment in the cause of <em>Paul v. Shaw,</em> and on 5 Feb. he registered his dissent at the resolution to reject the bill for repealing the general naturalization act. Scarsdale was absent briefly from 14 to 20 Mar. but ensured that in his absence his fellow Brother, Beaufort, held his proxy. On 9 Apr. he reported from the committee considering Sir Jeffrey Palmer’s bill, and on 16 Apr. he reported from that considering Sir Henry Robinson’s estate bill. Scarsdale was the cause of a violent altercation at a meeting of the Board of Brothers held on 27 Apr. when Sir Cholmley Dering<sup>‡</sup> claimed that another member, Richard Thornhill, had insulted Scarsdale. In the resulting duel, fought on 9 May, Dering was killed.<sup>14</sup> Thornhill was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.</p><p>Scarsdale does not appear to have been a participant in the Thornhill-Dering duel, and the fight failed to interrupt his activity in the House. On the day that Dering was killed, Scarsdale was involved with the conference considering amendments to the act for repairing highways. The following day (10 May) he was involved with the conference considering amendments to the act for the preservation of pine trees in the American colonies, and on 12 May he was active in the conference over the bill for the preservation of game. The following day he reported from the committee considering the bill to enable James Griffin*, titular 2nd Baron Griffin, and his son Edward Griffin*, later 3rd Baron Griffin, son and grandson respectively of the outlawed Jacobite peer, Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, to raise money for the payment of debts. On 17 May Scarsdale was active in another conference for the bill for the preservation of game, and the same day he reported from the committee of the whole considering the naval stores bill. On 31 May he was again involved with the conference concerning the bill for the preservation of game. The same month a warrant was passed appointing him lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Derbyshire.<sup>15</sup> In June he was included in a list of Tory patriots.</p><p>Following the prorogation, Scarsdale attended the single sitting day on 27 Nov. 1711, on which occasion he introduced Ferrers, newly promoted in the peerage as Earl Ferrers. He resumed his seat in the second session on 7 Dec. and was thereafter present on almost 79 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was noted as one of Oxford’s supporters and on 2 Dec. as one of those to be canvassed prior to the motion on no peace without Spain. Scarsdale protested at the resolution to present the address to the Queen on 8 Dec., and on 10 Dec. he remained loyal to the government in the vote on no peace without Spain. On 19 Dec. he was reckoned to be in favour of allowing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon and 20 Dec. acted as teller on the question of whether to refer Hamilton’s patent to the judges. Despite the prediction of support for Hamilton he voted in favour of preventing Scottish peers at the time of Union from sitting by virtue of post-Union British peerages.<sup>16</sup></p><p>During the Christmas recess of 1711, Scarsdale was noted by Oxford as one of those to be contacted prior to Parliament reconvening in January. He returned to the House on 2 Jan. 1712 and was again prominent in its deliberations. When John Somers*, Baron Somers, opposed the queen’s desire that the House should be adjourned on 4 Jan., Scarsdale replied, hoping that ‘nobody would mind what that lord had said, but comply with her majesty’s desire and adjourn forthwith.’<sup>17</sup> On 8 Feb. Scarsdale acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to agree with the resolution of the committee for privileges that Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, should be granted privilege in his case with Hamilton over the disputed inheritance of the Gerard estates. On 29 Feb. he again acted as a teller on the question whether to commit the bill for limiting officers in the House of Commons.</p><p>Despite securing the coveted lieutenancy of Derbyshire, Scarsdale appears to have become increasingly discontented with his lack of recognition by the government, and in March it was reported that he was, ‘so angry that he has no place that he declares he’ll turn Whig, and as a mark of that he led the duchess of Marlborough out of the opera.’<sup>18</sup> Irritation with the administration did not stand in the way of his continued participation in the House’s business. On 13 Mar. he acted as teller for the motion to reverse the decree in <em>Conway v. Buckingham,</em> and on 19 May he was again teller on the question put in the committee of the whole whether the words ‘exorbitant and other’ should stand part of the bill for commissioners to examine grants made since the revolution. His annoyance also failed to prevent him from dividing with the ministry on 28 May on the question of the ‘restraining orders’ that had been imposed on James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.</p><p>Scarsdale’s grumbling paid off in August when it was reported that he was to be appointed ambassador to Vienna. Rumours of the appointment continued to circulate during the next two months, but although it was reported in October that he had kissed the queen’s hand for the place, he eventually requested to be released from it without ever having taken up the post.<sup>19</sup> His appointment gave rise to a squabble in the press; one paper reported his audience with the emperor whilst another recorded that he had been seen by ‘five hundred persons, in and about this city [London]; where he still continues.’<sup>20</sup> Besides Scarsdale’s evident reluctance to take up the place, diplomatic factors were also an issue. In December it was noted that he would not ‘set out on his embassy to the court of Vienna, till the issue of the negotiations at Utrecht be known.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>With matters thus undecided, Scarsdale appears to have been content to while away the time in London and Derbyshire. He was also said to have entertained ‘Papists and Jacobites’ at his seat that year.<sup>22</sup> Present in the House on nine of the prorogation days that followed the closing of the previous session, in spring 1713 Scarsdale was listed by Jonathan Swift as a likely supporter of the ministry, and he was again included in a memorandum prepared by Oxford in February 1713, possibly noting people he intended to see before Parliament reopened. Scarsdale was present on approximately two thirds of sitting days in the 1713 session. He spoke in the debate on the state of the nation on 1 June and on 4 June reported from the committee for the estate bill for Sir John Brownlow‡. On 13 June he was estimated as a likely supporter of confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French treaty of commerce. The following month, he was one of those deputed to greet the new French ambassador, the duc d’Aumont.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution, Scarsdale attended the single sitting on 10 Dec. 1713 and then resumed his seat at the opening of the first session of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714. Present for almost 89 per cent of all sitting days, towards the end of the month he received a letter from Oxford encouraging him to set out for Vienna. Oxford emphasized that he would ‘find your way made easy for your intended embassy’ and it was presumably in response to this that Scarsdale asked to be released from the appointment.<sup>24</sup> On 15 Mar. he received the proxy of another member of the Board, James Cecil*, 5th earl of Salisbury, which was vacated on 11 May. Scarsdale featured in another of Oxford’s memoranda on 2 April. On 13 Apr. he acted as teller for those in favour of inserting the words ‘and industriously’ to the address to the queen concerning the safeguarding of the protestant succession, and on 17 Apr. he was teller for those opposed to passing the House of Commons officers bill. Oxford wrote to Scarsdale again on 19 Apr., apologizing for missing ‘an opportunity of making your lordship my sincere and most respectful compliments before you went out of the House’ and hoping that he would ‘accept this letter to testify the sense I have of your services.’<sup>25</sup> Scarsdale was teller on the question of whether to reverse the court’s decree in <em>Roper v. Hewet</em> on 1 May, and on 27 May he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being in favour of the schism bill. The same day, he reported from the committee for Simon Scroope’s bill. Scarsdale received Salisbury’s proxy again on 3 June (perhaps to be employed in the division of 5 June whether the House should read the malt bill a second time), which was vacated by Salisbury’s resumption of his seat on 15 June; on 7 June he was teller for those opposed to discharging Peckham from custody. Two days later he acted as one of the tellers in a division in a committee of the whole over the retention of the clause in the schism bill stipulating a penalty of three months’ imprisonment without bail. On 28 June he reported from the committee of the whole concerning Thomas Edwin’s bill. The same day he again received Salisbury’s proxy (vacated by the close of the session) and on 3 July that of another Board member, Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, vacated by Plymouth’s return to the House on 8 July. The same month he was a supporter of the bill for the commissioners for accounts being given a second reading. Following the death of the Queen Anne, Scarsdale returned to the House for the brief 15-day session of August 1714. Present for 70 per cent of these, on 6 Aug. he again held Salisbury’s proxy from 6 Aug. to the close of the session.</p><p>Scarsdale was put out of his lieutenancy during the summer of 1714. Despite earlier threats to defect to the Whigs, he remained an assiduous member of the Tory opposition for the remainder of his life. Closely associated with a number of committed Jacobites, Scarsdale was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower during the 1715 rising; in 1728 he paid for the funeral of William Tunstall, one of those who had been captured at Preston during the rebellion but who was subsequently pardoned.<sup>26</sup> The latter part of his career will be covered in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Scarsdale died, unmarried, ‘after a tedious indisposition of the gout’ on 17 July 1736 at his house in Duke Street.<sup>27</sup> He left £500 apiece to George Henry Lee*, 2nd earl of Lichfield, Rev. Thomas Feild and Henry Wood (his executors), and £200 to his surviving sister, Lucy Leke. The remainder of his estate was divided between two relatives, Nicholas Leke and Seymour Leke (then aged 15), who was being educated at Westminster at Scarsdale’s expense and intended for the Church.<sup>28</sup> Scarsdale was buried at Sutton Scarsdale in Derbyshire on 4 August.<sup>29</sup> Although it was reported that he left an estate worth an annual income of £7,000, he died massively in debt on account of his expensive building works at Sutton Hall, and in the absence of a direct male heir the peerage became extinct.<sup>30</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEKE, Robert (1654-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>LEKE</surname></strong> (<strong>LEAK</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (1654–1707)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1655-81 Bar. Deincourt; <em>accel. </em>22 Oct. 1680 Bar. DEINCOURT; <em>suc. </em>fa. 27 Jan. 1681 as 3rd earl of SCARSDALE |
|
First sat 22 Oct. 1680; last sat 19 Dec. 1707 |
|
MP Newark 1679 (Mar.) |
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Mar. 1654, 1st s. of Nicholas Leke*, 2nd earl of Scarsdale, and Lady Frances Rich. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1668.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. Feb. 1672, Mary (<em>d</em>.1684), da. and coh. of Sir John Lewis, 1st bt., of Ledston, Yorks., 1da. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 27 Dec. 1707; <em>will</em> 9 Jan. 1703, pr. 2 Jan. 1708.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. gent. pens. 1677-82; groom of the stole to Prince George of Denmark*, later duke of Cumberland, 1685-7; ld. sewer at coronation of Queen Anne 1702.</p><p>Kpr. Sherwood forest 1677?-90; ld. lt. Derbys. 1685-7.</p><p>Capt. Lord Gerard’s regt. of horse 1678-9,<sup>3</sup> indep. tp. 1685, col. Princess Anne of Denmark’s (8th) regt. of horse 1685-7.</p> |
|
<p>A riotous womaniser who was described by Queen Anne as a ‘pitiful wretch’, Deincourt (as he was styled before his succession to the earldom) achieved notoriety long before his formal entrance onto the political scene for absconding with the underage daughter of a wealthy merchant.<sup>5</sup> His young wife, Mary Lewis, was sister-in-law to Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and for much of his career Deincourt and Huntingdon were close associates. Appointed to the minor court post of captain of the gentlemen pensioners in 1677, in August of the same year Deincourt accompanied the king’s natural son, Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth, to observe the siege of Charleroi, and in December he was prevented from fighting a duel with Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, through the king’s personal intervention.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Two years later Deincourt was elected one of the borough members for Newark in the first Exclusion Parliament. At odds with his father on most matters, Deincourt owed his return to the interest of his cousin, Sir Francis Leke<sup>‡</sup>. He was noted by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, as ‘base’ and absented himself from the vote on the exclusion bill on 21 May.<sup>7</sup> Although said to have been considering standing for the following Parliament, he was reluctant to spend money on doing so, and Deincourt seems not to have contested Newark again. He was instead summoned to the Lords in his father’s barony, taking his seat one day into the second Exclusion Parliament on 22 Oct. 1680. He was introduced between Charles Henry Kirkhoven*, earl of Bellomont [I] (who sat as Baron Wotton), and Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. Present for approximately 79 per cent of all sitting days in the remainder of the session, the following day Deincourt took the oaths and was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of putting the question that the exclusion bill should be rejected at first reading, and he then voted against passing the bill later the same day. On 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a committee to join with the Commons in considering the state of the kingdom, and on 7 Dec. (once more at odds with his father) Deincourt found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason.</p><p>Deincourt succeeded his father in January 1681 as 3rd earl of Scarsdale.<sup>8</sup> Shortly before the opening of the new Parliament at Oxford, he suffered the loss of his only child, Lady Frances Leke, but in spite of this bereavement he assumed his seat in his new dignity on 22 Mar. and attended five days of the brief seven-day session.<sup>9</sup> Before the opening of Parliament Scarsdale was forecast as being in favour of bailing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). In May he was one of several of the nobility to attend the trial of the informer, Edward Fitzharris, and the same month he joined with a number of fellow peers in petitioning for the pardon of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who had been indicted for the murder of William Sneeth.<sup>10</sup> In July he was one of a number of members of the local elite expected to sign the Derbyshire address.<sup>11</sup> In June of the following year, Scarsdale was put out of his place as captain of the gentlemen pensioners in favour of his brother-in-law, Huntingdon.<sup>12</sup> In August, he dined in company with Danby’s heir, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, where the continuing efforts to secure Danby’s release were doubtless discussed.<sup>13</sup> In spite of his removal from office, Scarsdale continued to co-operate closely with Huntingdon over the inheritance of their father-in-law’s estate, co-operation that was in no way diminished by the death of Lady Scarsdale ‘of the spotted fever’ in February 1684.<sup>14</sup> The same month, Scarsdale was one of four peers to stand surety for the Catholic, Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In January 1685 Scarsdale was appointed to the lieutenancy of Derbyshire, a brief interruption of its usual tenure by a member of the Cavendish family. Shortly afterwards he was also made groom of the stole to Prince George of Denmark as a reward for supporting the new king, James II, during the exclusion crisis.<sup>16</sup> In May Scarsdale’s unsavoury sexual reputation was enhanced with the reports of Lady Elizabeth O’Brien having fallen ‘raving mad’: her malady said to be ‘for love of Lord Scarsdale who refuses to marry her.’<sup>17</sup> His own attentions were presumably taken up with his service in the army suppressing the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and he sent some of the earliest reports of the rebels’ defeat to court.<sup>18</sup> In October of the following year Scarsdale’s name was again to the fore in connection with a bizarre incident when he was said to have broken into the home of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon. Scarsdale, in company with Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, and Charles Spencer*, Lord Spencer (later 3rd earl of Sunderland), were reported to have whipped the unfortunate Carnarvon and to have performed ‘some other peccadilloes of that kind in his castle besides.’<sup>19</sup></p><p>In conjunction with indulging in a riotous private life, Scarsdale continued to attend the House. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 and was thereafter present on approximately 83 per cent of all sitting days. He was thought to have been one of those sympathetic to the passage of the bill revived by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, to secure the restoration of lands that had been sold during the Interregnum.<sup>20</sup> In November he was one of a number of the nobility to attend the trial of Charles Gerard*, Viscount Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), in whose father’s regiment Scarsdale had previously served as a captain.<sup>21</sup> Despite his earlier refusal to countenance exclusion, he quickly demonstrated his opposition to King James’s policies. In November 1686 it was rumoured that he was to resign his commission, while a report of January 1687 speculated that he was one of a number of peers to be removed from their commands.<sup>22</sup> An assessment drawn up at about the same time noted him as being opposed to repeal of the Test, and in or about May he was again noted as an opponent of the king’s policies. In spite of this Scarsdale retained his places, and in June he accompanied Prince George to Denmark in his capacity as groom of the stole.<sup>23</sup> The reprieve proved to be only temporary and, following a further negative assessment in or about November and his unsatisfactory response to the three questions, he was put out of both his lieutenancy and command of his regiment and replaced (in the former) by Huntingdon.<sup>24</sup> His replacement came as no surprise to Roger Morrice, who commented before the news broke that, ‘if it should be so it’s not at all strange to me for I have thought him for this year or two to be more likely to go off then almost any of those that are gone.’<sup>25</sup> Despite the prince and princess of Denmark’s unwillingness to follow suit and the prince’s determination that Scarsdale’s office of groom of the stole should ‘sink’ rather than that he should have another ‘imposed upon him’, he was shortly after removed from his position in their household at the king’s behest.<sup>26</sup> Scarsdale’s kinsman, Anthony Carey<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Viscount Falkland [S], succeeded him.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Bereft of office Scarsdale was again noted an opponent of repeal of the Test in January 1688, and the same month he was also listed as being among the opposition to the king in the Lords. In June his name was suggested as one of the sureties for Sir Jonathan Trelawny*, bt., bishop of Bristol, but despite being present in town at the time of the seven bishops’ trial, he failed to attend.<sup>28</sup> His absence elicited a caustic comment from Morrice, who supposed that he ‘had some valuable reason wherefore he was absent.’<sup>29</sup> At the revolution Scarsdale joined a number of other Midlands peers in rallying to Princess Anne at Nottingham, but along with Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, and Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, he angered the princess by refusing to subscribe the Association.<sup>30</sup></p><p>By the close of December, Scarsdale was back in London. He was one of a number of peers to dine with the prince of Orange at St James’s, and on 21 Dec. he took his place at the meeting of the provisional government that convened in the queen’s presence chamber.<sup>31</sup> He then continued to attend the subsequent meetings held in the House over the next few days, but by the end of the year he had become disillusioned with the revolution.<sup>32</sup> He was dismayed at the king’s overthrow and the presence of Dutch troops in London, and although he remained thereafter a loyal supporter of his former master and mistress, the prince and princess of Denmark, they came to view him with considerable suspicion.<sup>33</sup> In January 1689 the princess confided to Henry Hyde* [769], 2nd earl of Clarendon, that her husband, Prince George, ‘was at a great loss for want of some person of quality about him; that he had thoughts of taking Lord Scarsdale again, but that he proved so pitiful a wretch, that they would have no more to do with him’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Despite his reservations at the course the revolution had taken, Scarsdale took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and sat thereafter on approximately two-thirds of all sitting days, during which he was named to four committees. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour of establishing a regency and two days later voted against inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen. His actions attracted the attention of Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, who noted Scarsdale, along with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, and ‘some other lords who had all been active to bring in the prince’ spoke ‘in another strain’: ‘some said the thing was gone further than they expected, others that they never believed the prince would contend for the crown; and all were of opinion the crown ought to be set upon the princess’s head, and so descend in its right course.’<sup>35</sup> Scarsdale maintained his position throughout the course of the session, voting against agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ on 4 Feb. and against the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’ on 6 February. The same day he entered his dissent when the House resolved to concur with the Commons. On 23 Apr. Scarsdale acted as teller for the not contents on the question of whether to agree with the Commons in the bill for abrogating oaths, and on 31 May he voted against reversing the two perjury judgments against Titus Oates. Scarsdale again acted as a teller on the question of whether the House should proceed with the impeachment of Blair, Vaughan, Mole, Elliott and Gray on 2 July, and he then entered his dissent when the motion was carried. On 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates.</p><p>In advance of the second session (1689-90) of the Convention, Scarsdale responded to a request for a self-assessment declaring that he had, ‘no money at interest, nor any personal estate’, that fell within the scope of the act.<sup>36</sup> Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed him as among the supporters of the court in a list of October 1689 to February 1690. He resumed his seat in the new session on 23 Oct. 1689, after which he was present on approximately 66 per cent of all sitting days. On 30 Oct. he was named to the sub-committee appointed to consider the bill for preventing minors’ clandestine marriages, something of which he had notorious personal experience, and on 6 Nov. he was added to the committee for inspections.</p><p>Scarsdale was missing at the opening of the new Parliament in March 1690. Earlier that month (6 Mar.) he had written to Huntingdon from Stamford where he was enjoying the diversions of ‘cocking at day and cards at night with the ladies at Burghley’, which may explain his tardy return to the House, but he resumed his seat on 1 Apr. after which he attended on almost 69 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>37</sup> On 8 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill recognizing William and Mary as rightful and lawful sovereigns, and on 15 Apr. he was named to the committee examining precedents concerning writs of error brought before the House without having been argued previously in the court of exchequer. The same day he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether counsel should be heard in the case of <em>Macclesfield v. Starkey</em>. On 5 May he acted as a teller again on the question of whether to affirm the decree in <em>Vincent v. Parker</em>.</p><p>Following the prorogation Scarsdale attended the single sitting day on 8 Sept. before resuming his seat in the second (1690-1) session on 2 Oct. 1690. Named to two committees during the session, he was present for just 36 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and the earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. He took his seat for the third (1691-2) session on 4 Dec. 1691 after which he attended just under half of all sitting days. Again named to just two committees, towards the close of the year he was named by Fuller as one of those peers involved in a plot to achieve King James’s restoration.<sup>38</sup> Scarsdale wrote to Huntingdon to warn him that he was also included on Fuller’s list and advised him to come to London. The case continued to excite interest into the following year when Fuller appeared before the Commons with his evidence.<sup>39</sup> Although Fuller’s information was dismissed, for the remainder of the reign Scarsdale was viewed with some suspicion by the authorities. On 23 Feb. 1692 he subscribed the protest at the resolution to include an entry in the Journal concerning the Commons adding a clause to the poll bill establishing a commission of accounts and the same day protested again at passage of the supply bill.</p><p>Present in the House on the prorogation day on 12 Apr., the following month Scarsdale was named in the proclamation among those being sought as Jacobites.<sup>40</sup> His inclusion in this list appears to have been the result of a singularly indiscriminate effort on the part of the ministry to ‘clap up a certain number’ of known opposition figures, but he was sufficiently concerned for his safety to disappear from view for a few days.<sup>41</sup> In his memoirs, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, claimed that he (Ailesbury) ought to have headed the list, but on the queen taking exception to his inclusion she proposed Scarsdale’s name be inserted instead, suggesting to Daniel Finch* 2nd earl of Nottingham, that, ‘if titles please you, there is an earl for an earl. What is sauce for one is sauce for another.’<sup>42</sup> In May it was rumoured in some reports that Scarsdale had already been committed to prison, while others maintained that he had fled and was still being sought.<sup>43</sup> The following month, presumably unaware of the haphazard manner in which he had found himself on the list of those being sought, Scarsdale at last surrendered and was sent to the Tower.<sup>44</sup> Following his release on parole, he was bailed for £5,000 thus enabling him to be present in the House for the single sitting on 14 June.<sup>45</sup> No formal charges were brought against him.</p><p>Scarsdale resumed his place at the opening of the new session on 4 Nov. 1692. He was quick to lodge a complaint about the manner in which he had been arrested. The business of both Houses between 10 and 18 Nov. was dominated by consideration of the matter, with Scarsdale joining with his brother-in-law Huntingdon, and John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, to protest that their arrests constituted a breach of privilege.<sup>46</sup> On 31 Dec. Scarsdale voted in favour of committing the place bill. On 1 Jan. 1693 he was forecast by Ailesbury as being opposed to the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on the next day he voted against reading the bill. Huntingdon registered his proxy in Scarsdale’s favour on 3 Jan. (possibly to be employed in the division on the place bill), which was vacated six days later. The same day (3 Jan.), Scarsdale voted in favour of the place bill. On 17 Jan. he registered his dissent at the resolution that the claimant to the earldom of Banbury had no right to the peerage and the same day dissented again at the resolution not to hear all the judges regarding Banbury’s claim. On 19 Jan. Scarsdale registered further dissents at the decisions to recede from the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill and not to refer consideration of those amendments to the committee for privileges. He found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder on 4 Feb. and on 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause between Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and John Granville*, earl of Bath. On 20 Feb. Scarsdale acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to insist on amendment to the treason trials bill, and on 6 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to communicate to the Commons the information concerning Ireland that had been presented to the Lords at the bar of the House.</p><p>Scarsdale resumed his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he attended on approximately 48 per cent of all sitting days and was named to three committees. On 22 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to allow the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman to withdraw their petition during the cause <em>Bridgeman v. Holt</em>. Scarsdale was absent from the opening of the following (1694-5) session. He took his seat on 12 Nov. 1694, but he was then absent until the end of the month and excused at a call on 26 November. On 10 Jan. 1695 he was named to the committee appointed to determine the procession for Queen Mary’s funeral and to a further four committees in the course of the session, of which he attended just under 60 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Jan. he registered his dissent at the resolution to agree to an amendment postponing the implementation of the bill for regulating treason trials to 1698 and on 20 Feb. acted as teller for the contents on the question of whether to insist on certain amendments to the bill.</p><p>Towards the end of the session Scarsdale took time away from Westminster to indulge in his passion for horseracing at Newmarket.<sup>47</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695 after which he was present for just over half of all sitting days in the 1695-6 session but was named to just one committee. On 23 Dec. he acted as teller for the not contents in a division held in a committee of the whole over whether to append a clause to the treason trials bill, and on 9 Jan. 1696 he acted as teller for the contents on the question of whether to insist on amendments to the coinage bill.<sup>48</sup> The following month he was heavily involved on behalf of his brother-in-law, Huntingdon, in attempting to prevent Huntingdon’s heir, George Hastings*, <em>styled</em> Lord Hastings (later 8th earl of Huntingdon), from travelling to the war in Flanders: ‘I do think it a hundred pound to a penny that you never see him again if he go over, for he is so miserable a horseman, besides being very weak on horseback, that it is impossible for him to undergo the least difficulty.’<sup>49</sup></p><p>Scarsdale refused to take the Association in February, but he appears to have avoided any further attention over his reputed Jacobitism.<sup>50</sup> Although he was absent from the opening of the session on 20 Oct. 1696, Scarsdale was entrusted with Huntingdon’s proxy on 24 Oct., which was vacated on 10 December. He resumed his seat in the House a fortnight into the new session on 6 Nov., after which he was present for approximately 48 per cent of all sitting days and named to two committees. On 15 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to read Goodman’s information concerning Sir John Fenwick’s<sup>‡</sup> attainder, and on 18 Dec. he acted as teller for the not contents on the question of whether to read the Fenwick attainder bill a second time. He then registered a further dissent when the question was carried. On 23 Dec. he voted against Fenwick’s attainder and subscribed the protest against the bill when it was passed. The same month Scarsdale was named in the evidence Huntingdon presented to the House as part of his dispute with his son, Hastings, over the inheritance of land formerly belonging to the Lewis family.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Scarsdale was absent from the House for several days from 23 Mar. 1697. On 27 Mar. he registered his proxy with John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat for a single day on 12 April. He returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 6 Dec. 1697 after which he was again present for just under half of all sitting days. On 20 Dec. he received Jeffreys’ proxy, which was vacated on 3 Jan. 1698, and on 7 Jan. he was named to the committee considering the proper method of appealing from decrees made by the Irish court of chancery. Named to a further six committees in the course of the session, on 16 Feb. Scarsdale was one of those to present evidence to the House relating to Lady Macclesfield’s behaviour during the hearing of Macclesfield’s divorce bill.<sup>52</sup> Scarsdale registered his dissent on 4 Mar. at the resolution to read the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> a second time, but on 15 Mar. he voted in favour of committing the bill. The following day (16 Mar.) he registered a further dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the cause between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Scarsdale’s kinsman, Falkland, and on 17 Mar. dissented again at the resolution that Bertie should enjoy Cary’s estate during his wife’s lifetime.</p><p>Scarsdale was noted as being among ‘a great deal of company’ present at Newmarket in April 1698, but despite being a prominent participant in the entertainments in town, it was observed that he avoided the court.<sup>53</sup> On 24 Apr. he received Huntingdon’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 1 July he subscribed the protest at the resolution to read the bill for settling the East India trade a second time. Scarsdale took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, and on 9 Dec. he was named to the sessional committee for privileges. Named to a further 14 committees in the course of the session, there was also a significant increase in his level of attendance, being present on approximately 60 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against assisting the king in retaining his Dutch guards, and the same day entered his dissent when the House resolved to do so. Scarsdale was missing from the attendance list on 16 Mar. but presumably did take his seat as he was named to two committees during the day’s proceedings. In April the House finally settled a dispute over an estate worth £600 p.a. that had been in train between Scarsdale and Bernard Granville since 1687 in Granville’s favour.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Scarsdale took his seat in the second session of the 1698 Parliament on 23 Nov. 1699, but although he was again present for just under 60 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to just three committees. On 1 Feb. 1700 he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss the East India bill. On 8 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to read Norfolk’s divorce bill a second time, and on 12 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill. Scarsdale acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to add a proviso to the land tax bill in a division in a committee of the whole on 6 Apr., and three days later (9 Apr.) he again acted as a teller on the question of whether to insist on the proposed amendments.</p><p>Scarsdale was in Paris in the summer of 1700.<sup>55</sup> He returned to England in time to participate in the elections for the new Parliament later that year and took his seat in the new assembly on 6 Feb. 1701.<sup>56</sup> On 10 Feb. he was named to the committee for privileges and to a further 14 committees during the course of the session of which he attended on approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to reject the second head of the report relating to the partition treaty, and on 20 Mar. he subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to send the address concerning the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. Scarsdale subscribed two protests on 16 Apr., first at the resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address requesting the king not to punish the four impeached lords until their impeachments had been tried, and second at the resolution to expunge the reasons for the former protest from the Journal. On 22 May Scarsdale entered a further dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for further limiting the crown and securing the rights of the subject. On 17 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to adjourn to Westminster Hall for the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and the same day he voted against Somers’ acquittal. He subscribed a further protest following the resolution to acquit.</p><p>Scarsdale was able to bring his interest to bear successfully in the second election of 1701, helping to secure the return of Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup> and John Curzon<sup>‡</sup> for Derbyshire.<sup>57</sup> He resumed his seat in the House for the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701, thereafter attending on 47 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 Feb. 1702 he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill of attainder of Queen Mary Beatrice, and four days later he subscribed a further protest at the resolution to pass the bill for the security of the king’s person. In March he was noted as being one of those yet to take the oath of abjuration.<sup>58</sup> Absent from the House from the close of April to 21 May, on 14 May Scarsdale registered his proxy with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, possibly to be employed in the division held the following day over whether the House should adjourn. He sat on just one further day (25 May) before the close of the session.</p><p>Scarsdale took his seat in the new parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on 77 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether the Lords should wear their robes to a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, and on 3 Dec. he again acted as a teller on the question of whether to agree to an instruction to a committee of the whole on the occasional conformity bill. Four days later he again acted as a teller in the division in a committee of the whole on whether certain words in the clause relating to penalties should stand apart in the occasional conformity bill, and on 17 Dec. he told once more on the question of whether to proceed to the report of the conference on the occasional conformity bill. Nottingham estimated Scarsdale to be in favour of the bill in or about Jan. 1703. Scarsdale continued to be employed frequently as a teller for the remainder of the session. On 11 Jan. he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to resume the House from a committee of the whole deliberating on the bill for Prince George of Denmark, and the same day he told again on the question of whether to adjourn the debate on the rights of peers under the Act of Settlement. The House’s business on 12 Jan. was dominated by Huntingdon’s appeal for the reversal of a decree made in favour of his stepmother, the dowager countess. Scarsdale intervened decisively in the debates being ‘privy to all the secrets of the cause’ and was able to give ‘the House a much better light than all the counsel could do.’ As a result the decree was reversed in Huntingdon’s favour.<sup>59</sup> The following day Scarsdale acted as a teller for the motion to appoint a second day for reading the River Derwent bill. He voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause in the occasional conformity bill on 16 Jan. in which vote he once again served as teller. On 19 Jan. he was one of the tellers in a division in the committee of the whole proposing that a clause should stand apart in the Prince of Denmark’s bill. The same day he told again on the question of whether to resume the House from the committee of the whole and on the question of whether to make a report on the case between the attorney general and the mayor of Coventry. On 22 Feb. Scarsdale subscribed the protest at the resolution that the bill for the landed qualification of Members of the Commons should not be committed.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Following the prorogation Scarsdale attended the single sitting day on 22 June, before resuming his seat in the second session on 22 Nov. 1703. He was thereafter present for 72 per cent of all sitting days. Both of Sunderland’s forecasts for the occasional conformity bill listed him as a supporter of the bill. On 14 Dec. he voted for it. In December he appears to have been among those lords who requested to be excused from serving on the committee examining Boucher, Ogleby and others. The request was denied and the record expunged from the minutes.<sup>61</sup> He entered his dissent on 14 Jan. 1704 at the resolution to reverse the judgment in <em>Ashby v. White,</em> and on 3 Mar. he registered a further dissent at the decision that the key to the ‘gibberish letters’ be made known only to the queen and members of the Lords committee examining the Scotch Plot. His name was included on a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support over the Plot. Scarsdale registered his dissent again on 16 Mar. at the resolution to agree with the decision of the committee of the whole to remove the name of Byerley from the list of commissioners for examining public accounts, and the same day he dissented once more at the resolution to agree to replace Byerley with another three commissioners. Scarsdale registered two further dissents on 25 Mar., first at the resolution to put the question that the failure to pass a censure of Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the crown’s enemies, and second when that resolution was passed.</p><p>Scarsdale resumed his seat in the ensuing session on 24 Oct. 1704, after which he was present for 65 per cent of all sitting days. Listed as likely to support the tack in November, on 30 Nov. he received the proxy of Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea (vacated 13 Dec.), and on 1 Dec. that of William Stawell* 3rd Baron Stawell (vacated 20 Jan. 1705). On 15 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to read the occasional conformity bill a second time and later the same day at the resolution to reject the bill. Scarsdale acted as teller for the not contents on 17 Jan. on the question of whether to read the bill of William Henry Granville*, 2nd earl of Bath, a second time.</p><p>In or about early 1705 Scarsdale was listed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 31 Oct. 1705, after which he attended on just under half of all sitting days, and on 15 Nov. he was again entrusted with Stawell’s proxy (vacated on 8 December). On 20 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers on the question put before the committee of the whole whether the lord mayor of London should be included as one of the seven lords justices in the Protestant succession bill. Two days later (22 Nov.), in a further session of the committee of the whole, he again acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to make an address to the queen concerning the state of the nation. Scarsdale registered his dissent on 30 Nov. at the resolution not to provide the committee of the whole, to which the bill for securing the queen’s person and the Protestant succession had been committed, with instructions. On 3 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to read a second time a rider to the bill preventing the lords justices from giving the royal assent to any bills repealing or altering the Habeas Corpus Act, Act of Toleration or Treason Trials Act. The same day he subscribed two further protests, first at the resolution not to read a second time a rider to the same measure preventing the lords justices from giving the royal assent to the repeal of the Test Acts of 1673 or 1678, and second at the resolution not to read a second time one preventing them from giving the royal assent to any bill repealing the Act of Succession. On 6 Dec. he protested once more at the resolution to concur with the committee in its opinion that the Church was not in danger, and on 31 Jan. 1706 he subscribed a further protest at the resolution to insert an additional phrase into one of the clauses of the bill for securing the queen’s person proposed by the Commons. The same day he entered his dissent at the resolution that the words ‘regulated and altered’ should not stand as part of the Commons’ contentious addition. Scarsdale acted as a teller on 26 Feb. on the question that the House be adjourned during the Parton Harbour bill, and on 9 Mar. he registered a further dissent at the resolution to agree with the Commons that Gwynne’s letter to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, was a ‘scandalous, false and malicious libel.’</p><p>Scarsdale resumed his seat in the second session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on approximately 47 per cent of all sitting days. On 3 Feb. he protested at the decision not to instruct the committee of the whole to which the bill for securing the Church of England had been referred to insert a clause declaring the 1673 Test Act to be perpetual and unalterable. On 7 Feb. he was noted as one of those dining with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), at the George in Pall Mall.<sup>62</sup> The following month, on 4 Mar., he lent his support to a rider to the bill for ratifying the Union, declaring that Presbyterianism was not to be recognized as the true Protestant religion. The same day he registered dissents when the rider was rejected and at the passage of the bill for Union with Scotland.</p><p>Scarsdale attended three days of the brief ten-day session of April 1707 and resumed his seat in the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct. 1707. He attended on just 13 days before sitting for the final time on 19 December. He died eight days later. In his will he made bequests totalling £8,500 including a bequest of £1,000 to the actress, Anne Bracegirdle, with whom he had long been associated. One poem addressed to the ‘fragrant earl’ had enjoined him to ‘espouse the dame’ in spite of her humble birth, and to ‘damn’ society’s dim opinion of such a match but Scarsdale did not follow the poet’s advice.<sup>63</sup> He was buried at Westminster Abbey in the same vault as his father, wife and mother, and was succeeded in the peerage by his nephew (a suspected Jacobite), Nicholas Leke*, 4th and last earl of Scarsdale.<sup>64</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LENNARD, Francis (1619-62) |
<p><strong><surname>LENNARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1619–62)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 21 Aug. 1630 (a minor) as 14th Bar. DACRE |
|
First sat before 1660, 6 Nov. 1640; first sat after 1660, 4 May 1660; last sat 25 Mar. 1662 |
|
MP Sussex 1654 |
<p><em>b</em>. 11 May 1619, 1st s. of Richard Lennard<sup>†</sup>, 13th Bar. Dacre and 1st w. Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 19 Feb. 1622), da. of Sir Arthur Throckmorton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Merton Coll. Oxf. 1634; travelled abroad (France) 1635-40. <em>m</em>. (contr. 16 Apr. 1641, with £20,000) Elizabeth (1624-1679) (later countess of Sheppey), da. and event. coh. of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Bayning, and Anne, da. of Sir Henry Glemham<sup>‡</sup>, 3s. 3da. <em>d</em>. 12 May 1662; <em>will</em> 18 Sept. 1655, pr. 12 May 1662.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Herefords. Feb.-Aug. 1642.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir Peter Lely.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Lennard succeeded in 1630 to extensive estates in Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, and Ireland, and less important properties in Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Suffolk and Berkshire. In 1634 he made a claim to the estates of the Dacres of Gilsland which was not settled until a compromise in 1650 resulted in the acquisition of several lordships in Cumberland and Westmorland. Since he was a minor the estates fell into the hands of the court of wards. His guardian, Sir Francis Barnham<sup>‡</sup>, had to pay £5,000 a year to the crown as well as 4,000 marks for the composition of his marriage. This, together with cost of litigation, severely depleted his wealth, both real and personal. Dacre’s financial difficulties appear to have been compounded by difficulties in obtaining his wife’s marriage portion. </p><p>Dacre attained his majority shortly after the dissolution of the Short Parliament in May 1640. His name does not appear on the presence lists for that Parliament. It seems likely therefore that his first attendance at the House of Lords was at the opening of the Long Parliament on 3 Nov. 1640, and he was certainly present on 6 Nov. when he was named to the committee for privileges. A supporter of Parliament in the Civil War, he would oppose the trial of Charles I, taking a similar political trajectory to that of his guardian, his uncle Sir Thomas Parker<sup>‡</sup> (who had married his father’s sister, Philadelphia, and whose relationship with Lennard continued to be close) his stepfather Chaloner Chute<sup>‡</sup> (c. 1595-1659) and his brother-in-law, also named Chaloner Chute<sup>‡ </sup>(1631-66).<sup>4</sup></p><p>Dacre sat in Barebone’s Parliament in 1654, but left England to travel abroad in 1655. His decision may have been motivated by disaffection to the Protectorate but at least one of his contemporaries thought he was escaping marital difficulties.<sup>5</sup> He had returned to England before the Restoration, and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton listed him as having sat in both Houses. No objection was made to him taking his seat in the restored House of Lords on 4 May 1660. He was present on 87 days of the Convention (before the adjournment in September), 74 per cent of the total. On 11 Aug. 1660 he was given leave to be absent for four or five days, and although he was present on the 13th he next attended on 23 August. </p><p>Dacre was absent when the Convention resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, first attending on the 21st. He was present on 20 days of this part of the session, 36 per cent of the total. On 13 Dec. 1660 he entered a protest against the passage of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell. He also had a personal interest in the issue since his brother-in-law Chute had purchased part of the estates in question, though he may have shared the broader concerns about security of tenure of many other protestors against the bill. During the Convention he was named to four committees.</p><p>Dacre was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 8 May 1661. In the first part of the session, before the adjournment in July 1661, he was present on 40 days, 62.5 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. On 20 May he was listed as present and as having missed a call of the House. On 25 May he was granted a week’s leave of absence, but was in attendance until 30 May and then absent until 17 June. On 11 July he was listed as being ‘supposed to go out of the House before the vote’ on the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford to the great chamberlaincy. He last attended on 17 July. </p><p>Dacre was absent when the session resumed on 20 Nov. 1661, first sitting on 5 Dec. 1661, After sitting on 6 Dec., he was then absent until 22 Jan. 1662. On 31 Dec. he obtained a pardon for any ‘evil deeds done or attempted to be done’ before 29 Dec. 1660.<sup>6</sup> After 22 Jan. he was present regularly until 14 Feb., and then missing until 8 March. He last sat in the session on 25 March. In all he sat on 23 days of the resumed session, 26 per cent of the available days. He was named to one further committee. According to the later reflections of James Butler*, duke of Ormond, Dacre signed the protest of 6 Feb. 1662 against the passage of the bill restoring the Flintshire estates of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, although the Journal does not record his name nor that of several others believed to have protested on this occasion.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Dacre died at his lodgings in St Martin’s Lane on 12 May 1662 and was buried at Chevening in Kent. He bequeathed £3,000 to each of his daughters for their portions as well as generous legacies to his servants. His debts at his death were reputed to have been in the region of £18,000 and his personal estate worth a mere £8,449. Subsequent litigation estimated his estate at £3,500 (his executors) and £6,000 (parties to the lawsuit). Perhaps significantly, in view of the rumours about his marriage, the will made no reference to his wife at all and appointed his brother Thomas Lennard, his cousin Robert Barnham<sup>‡</sup> and his uncle Parker as his executors. Dacre’s widow, his children and his executors all became involved in litigation over the distribution of the estate.<sup>8</sup> Lady Dacre remarried in 1664 (to David Walter of Oxfordshire) and was created countess of Sheppey in her own right in 1680, probably through the influence of Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, mother of her daughter-in-law, Anne Palmer. Dacre was succeeded by his elder son Thomas Lennard*, 15th baron Dacre.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
LENNARD, Thomas (1654-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>LENNARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1654–1715)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 12 May 1662 (a minor) as 15th Bar. DACRE; <em>cr. </em>5 Oct. 1674 earl of SUSSEX |
|
First sat 21 May 1675; last sat 20 July 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 13 May 1654, 1st s. of Francis Lennard*, 14th Bar. Dacre and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Bayning. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen, Oxf. matric. 23 Nov. 1667, MA 1669; travelled abroad (Paris) 1667-74.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 11 Aug. 1674 (with £20,000), Anne (1662-1722), illegit. da. of Charles II and Barbara Palmer, countess of Castlemaine [I] (from 1670 duchess of Cleveland),<sup>2</sup> 2s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 2da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 30 Oct. 1715; <em>admon</em>. 14 Nov. 1715 to wid.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber, 1677-80 (extra), 1680-5.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<h2><em>Charles II’s son-in-law, 1674-85</em></h2><p>Thomas Lennard succeeded to the peerage as a minor and was raised by his mother and her second husband David Walter, a groom of the bedchamber. His stepfather undoubtedly helped foster his connections at court, but the most important relation for Lennard’s future life and career was his cousin (both were grandchildren of Viscount Bayning), Lady Castlemaine, who became Charles II’s mistress after the Restoration. Lady Castlemaine looked to further the prospects of her Bayning relations and from May 1674 it was openly rumoured that the young Lord Dacre was to be married to Castlemaine’s first daughter by the king, Lady Anne Fitzroy, ‘who is above 13 years old and extraordinary handsome’, and was to be raised in the peerage.<sup>10</sup> The marriage took place on 11 Aug. 1674 and Dacre was created earl of Sussex on 5 Oct. 1674, only four days after the king’s and Cleveland’s third son George Fitzroy*, was created earl (later duke) of Northumberland. Sussex’s rise at court seemed set and when in April 1675 Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, was removed from his place as the queen’s lord chamberlain, it was rumoured that Sussex and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland were the leading candidates for the post; in the event neither was appointed.<sup>11</sup></p><p>The king also promised his new son-in-law a portion of £20,000 and an annuity of £2,000 p.a. until that dowry was raised. The annuity was only paid for a few years and the £20,000 was never paid. This, coupled with Sussex’s own expensive habits and tastes, meant that much of the remainder of his life was spent petitioning for arrears of this portion, or for additional grants or loans.<sup>12</sup> He was possessed of lands calculated to amount to around £3,000 p.a., with the greatest estates in Sussex, centred on his grand residence of Herstmonceux Castle, with lesser ones in Cumberland, around Dacre Castle, and Kent, where he had the reversionary interest of the house at Chevening, part of the jointure of his step-grandmother Dorothy, dowager baroness Dacre, until her death in 1698. But a later descendant lamented how Sussex ‘coming very young to court fell (as was natural enough to do at his age) into the expensive way of living he found the fashion there’ and by gaming and other expenses fell deeper into debt until in the latter part of his life he was forced to sell large parts of his estate.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Connected by marriage to the king, he was seen as a certain court supporter in the Lords. He conveniently reached his majority in the middle of the contentious session of spring 1675 and was introduced in the House on 21 May, barely three days after his 21st birthday. He very quickly showed himself to be a lacklustre member of the House, and after his introduction he came to only a further five meetings before the prorogation on 9 June 1675, and only came to five meetings of the following session of autumn 1675.</p><p>Domestic matters kept him preoccupied during the late 1670s, for it had quickly become apparent that his new wife took after her mother, becoming a figure of scandal at court. The social correspondence of the winter of 1676-7 was full of tales of the disagreements between Sussex and his wife as he forced her to accompany him to his seat at Herstmonceux Castle to remove her from the bad influence of the duchess of Mazarin at court.<sup>14</sup> She, increasingly bored with country life, eventually left him sometime after September 1677 to join her mother, now duchess of Cleveland, in Paris where Lady Sussex had herself earlier been educated as a Catholic. Lady Cleveland took the precaution of putting her daughter in a nunnery, but the story quickly did the rounds that the English ambassador in France Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, had removed the countess from her nunnery and cohabited with her for a number of days, ‘he being always with her till 5 o’clock in the morning, they two shut up together alone’, before returning her there – and this only a few days after he had been carrying on an affair with her mother the duchess herself. This scandalous incident ‘made so great a noise a Paris, that she is now the whole discourse’, as Cleveland herself complained to the king, who removed Montagu from his post in France, prompting him to return to England. A contemporary satire included the countess of Sussex with her mother the duchess of Cleveland, and the duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwynne as ‘strangers to good, but bosom friends to ill / As boundless in their lusts, as in their will’.<sup>15</sup> Lady Sussex returned to England in about 1681, and the king took pains to reconcile the couple, even buying Warwick House near St James’s Square for them.<sup>16</sup> In the years following she bore Sussex three children, including two sons who died young.</p><p>Sussex, trying to keep his wife sequestered in Sussex, remained absent from the House for all of 1677. Five days before the session that ended the long prorogation since 15 Feb. 1677 he registered his proxy with his wife’s uncle James Stuart*, duke of York. Unsurprisingly, such court connections led Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, to consider Sussex ‘vile’. They were only strengthened when in September 1677 he was made an ‘extra’ gentleman of the bedchamber, to serve without pay until one of the existing regular places became vacant. Nevertheless, he was absent from the House for most of 1678 as well, during which year he only attended the final three days of the long session of 1677-8, one day in that of spring 1678 and missed the final session of the Cavalier Parliament in the winter of 1678 completely. When summoned by the House he sent two representatives to attest to his incapacitating illness, which excuse the House accepted on 21 Dec. 1678.</p><p>In the weeks preceding the new Parliament Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), considered Sussex a court supporter who could be encouraged to attend the House by the king himself; the lord treasurer also placed him under the watchful eye of his son Peregrine Osborne*, then styled Viscount Osborne [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds). Sussex dutifully came to almost all of the meetings of the short session of 6-13 Mar. 1679 and attended 64 per cent of the meetings of the longer session of 15 Mar.-27 May, during which he was named to only one select committee. Yet although Danby initially listed Sussex among those who voted against the bill for his attainder, the earl’s name was subsequently crossed out when it became clear to the lord treasurer that Sussex was inclining against him. Sussex was clearly a waverer (or else a nonentity) to the extent that different sources disagree on the stance he took: Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton marked Sussex as voting to agree with the Commons on the attainder bill when it came to a final vote on 14 Apr., while a list on the same division in the Hatton-Finch papers placed him among the not contents. He probably voted on 27 May for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Despite this wavering, Sussex became a full gentleman of the bedchamber in August 1680. He was present for a little under three-quarters of the meetings of the second Exclusion Parliament and came to every sitting but one of the short Oxford Parliament. He was present in the House on 15 Nov. 1680 to vote for the rejection of the Exclusion bill, and again on 7 Dec. to cast his vote of guilty against William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. In March 1681 Danby considered Sussex among those who would support his petition for bail, and indeed Sussex did later subscribe in support of Danby’s petition for bail in February 1684.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>Under James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>Sussex lost his place in the bedchamber after the death of Charles II and was never appointed to another position at court, but he still came to 61 per cent of the sittings of the first part of James II’s Parliament, and on its first day introduced his brother-in-law Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, like him the husband of a daughter of Charles II and the duchess of Cleveland. He did not attend any of the sittings when Parliament reconvened in November 1685. Never having been active in politics, his views and actions could never be easily predicted, and Sussex remained a cipher during the reign of James II, as he would continue to be for the remainder of his career. Contemporaries in the mid 1680s did not know how he stood on James II’s policies. It was probably his old position as a courtier and client of James II (even if he was no longer associated with the bedchamber) and his marital connections with an overtly Catholic family which led so many contemporaries to forecast that Sussex supported the king’s ambition to repeal the Test Acts. At the same time some other commentators, including Danby, felt that he was opposed to the king’s measures. The view that he was a supporter of the king was perhaps borne out by his refusal to subscribe to the petition of 16 Nov. 1688 calling for a free Parliament, and it could have been in order to protect the king that he became so active in the provisional government established at the Guildhall following the king’s first flight in December 1688. He signed the Guildhall Declaration on 11 Dec. 1688 and a number of the council’s other declarations, orders and warrants intending to prevent bloodshed and maintain order over its first few days. He also remained a frequent attender of its sessions until the prince of Orange established himself in Whitehall, the king had fled and elections were called for the Convention.<sup>18</sup></p><h2><em>Courting William III, 1689-95</em></h2><p>Within the first few days of the Convention, Sussex revealed himself as a committed Williamite. He showed a dedication to its proceedings not previously seen and attended 140 of its meetings, 86 per cent – his highest rate of attendance of any parliamentary session in his 40 year career. Between 29 Jan. and 6 Feb. 1689 he consistently worked to make William and Mary king and queen of England, voting against the motion for a regency, in favour of immediately declaring them king and queen and in favour of the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘vacant’ in the Commons’ resolution. He also signed the protests of 31 Jan. and 4 Feb. when the Commons’ phrasing was rejected. He was also on 2 Feb. one of ten peers added to the committee to examine the case of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and was on 8 Mar. named to the committee to consider the bill for reversing the attainder of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell. He was also named to the committees to consider the comprehension bill (14 Mar.) and a bill to prevent simony (19 Apr.). Throughout the remainder of this first session of the Convention he continued to be nominated to select committees, 28 in total, far more than in any previous session. He was present in the House on 31 May but, according to the division list drawn up by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, he abstained from the vote of that day on whether to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates. Yet on 12 July Sussex joined with Whigs in protesting against the amendments to the bill which would prohibit Oates from ever giving evidence in court again, and two weeks later he was part of a smaller group of six peers, the others being staunch Whigs, who protested against the decision not to have a free conference with the Commons on the matter of the amendments. At the very end of July he again voted against the motion to adhere to these amendments, which he and others saw as excessively punitive against the discoverer of the Popish Plot. On 16 August he acted as a teller, against William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, on a division on the question whether to accept a clause in the tanned leather bill which would exempt various chartered trading companies from the free trade provisions of the bill; the motion was passed. He was less attentive to the session of winter 1689, although he still came to almost three-fifths of its meetings.</p><p>Sussex may have been more than usually active in the early days of the Convention for the Williamite cause in order to counteract the effect that the actions of other members of his family could have on his standing with the new regime, and its potential bounty. Too many members of his family sided with James II to make him seem entirely trustworthy. His nominal father-in-law, the Catholic Roger Palmer<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Castlemaine [I], was imprisoned in the Tower from February 1689: Sussex was given special dispensation to visit him and was even approached to act as his bail.<sup>19</sup> His sister’s husband, Daniel O’Brien, 3rd Viscount Clare [I], was a privy councillor and lord lieutenant of county Clare under James II’s short-lived rule in Ireland, and Clare was active in the armies that sought to use Ireland as a springboard for James’s restoration in England. Even more damaging was the fact that Sussex’s own brother Francis fought for the Jacobite armies in Ireland in 1689-90, while his estranged wife Anne, taking their elder daughter Barbara with her, left England shortly after the Revolution (preparations were made for her departure as early as 25 Dec. 1688) to join her Catholic uncle at St Germain, where she and her daughter both received positions at court.<sup>20</sup> Despite Sussex’s earlier efforts to procure permission for them to return home, the countess and her daughter were not allowed to return to England until January 1698, following peace with France.<sup>21</sup> Sussex’s troubles with Catholic kin did not end there, as shortly after her return home his elder daughter Barbara was able to convert her 15-year-old sister, Anne, to Catholicism, ‘after her father had bred her in the Protestant religion’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>As Sussex looked to the new regime to help him financially, he needed to emphasize that he did not share in his kin’s sympathy with the deposed king. In July 1689 Sussex was one of the signatories and leaders of a petition presented to the Commons from Charles II’s former gentlemen of the bedchamber requesting that the grants and pensions bestowed on them in their letters patent not be infringed by the bill for new impositions on sugar, tobacco, coffee and tea.<sup>23</sup> Eventually Sussex and the majority of the other petitioners were each granted a pension of £1,000 p.a. for life.<sup>24</sup> Later that summer, in August 1689, Sussex also petitioned the king for a grant of land in Spring Garden near his London residence of Warwick House, promised him, so Sussex claimed, by Charles II before his death.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Knowledge of Sussex’s dependence on court favour to relieve his financial distress persuaded the marquess of Carmarthen, as Danby had become, that Sussex would be a ‘court lord’ in the new Parliament, and one who could be managed by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham).<sup>26</sup> Sussex was initially a fairly regular member of the House. He came to 63 per cent of the first session in the spring of 1690 and was named to two select committees. During the summer of 1690, while William III was on campaign in Ireland, Sussex continued to petition him for financial relief, this time on two fronts. First, he asked William III to pay both the original portion promised him by Charles II and the arrears on the annual maintenance of £2,000 p.a., which altogether Sussex calculated amounted to £26,600.<sup>27</sup> This petition was still being considered in April 1691, by which time the amount Sussex claimed had risen to £28,600, but William III was even more unwilling than Charles II to disburse such large sums and Sussex never did receive the full amount.<sup>28</sup> Sussex also took a different tack, and on 21 July 1690 wrote to William III expressing his ‘great sorrow and confusion’ that his brother Francis Lennard had taken up arms for James II in Ireland. ‘By his horrid crime he hath most deservedly forfeited his life and fortune’, but Sussex was most concerned with the latter and begged the king that he would bestow Francis’s forfeited estate to him, as he had a reversionary interest in it.<sup>29</sup> This petition was not rewarded with success either. Sussex renewed his claim when a bill was brought into the House during the 1690-1 session (of whose meetings Sussex attended less than half) for the attainder of the Irish rebels and the forfeiture of their estates. Sussex, with his other brother Henry, his sister the countess of Meath [I] and a niece, who insisted they were ‘all Protestants and have contributed as much as in them lay to this happy Revolution’, successfully petitioned the House that Francis Lennard’s estate should be excepted from the bill.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Sussex attended 62 per cent of the 1691-2 session, but after that session until well into Anne’s reign his attendance declined. He came to only half of the meetings of 1692-3. He was summoned to appear by 5 Dec. 1692 to explain the ‘protections’ he had been distributing to his servants; he first appeared well before that time, on 24 Nov., and his involvement with protections was not subsequently raised by the House. On 17 Dec. 1692 he was involved in a family matter when he told, almost certainly for the contents, against Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on the question of whether to reverse a chancery decree that had been found against his own sister the dowager countess of Meath [I], now married to William Moore, regarding the settlement of the late earl of Meath’s estate. Unfortunately for him and his sister the decree was upheld. Two weeks later, on 31 Dec., he was marked as present in the House but appears to have been absent for, or abstained from, the vote on whether to commit the place bill. Three days later, on 3 Jan. 1693, he voted to pass the bill. The previous day he had also voted against giving the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, a second reading.</p><p>Sussex’s financial situation had become so dire by 1693 that he felt the need to bring in an estate bill to allow him to sell some of the jointure lands of his wife and settle other lands on her instead, so that he could raise money to pay his debts of £20,000, ‘partly contracted by his late father Francis, Lord Dacre, and partly occasioned by the great expense he has been put to by his marriage’. The bill was first read in the House on 26 Jan. but was not proceeded with further, not even receiving a second reading.<sup>31</sup> Sussex was marked as present on 31 Jan. 1693, the first day of the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, in Westminster Hall, when the House was called over and a fine threatened against any peer who was absent for the subsequent days of the trial. Sussex left the House later that same day and was not present for the subsequent days of the trial, even though, strangely, his name is marked on the attendance lists. The House did notice his absence on the third day of the trial, Friday 3 Feb. 1693, but formally excused him the following day when two of his servants testified before the House, ‘That the earl of Sussex, after he went hence on Tuesday last, fell ill of the gout, and hath kept his bed ever since’. He did not return to the House until nine days later, on 13 Feb., and on 1 Mar. 1693 he was, for the first time in his career, named a reporter for a conference, on the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions. This conference was disrupted by the absence of the acting Speaker of the House, Robert Atkyns, kept away by bad roads, but two days later Sussex again served as a reporter at a subsequent conference on this bill. Sussex was largely absent for the following session, but he was more attentive in 1694-5, when he came to just over half of the meetings.</p><h2><em>Disappointment and absence, 1695-1702</em></h2><p>Sussex did not attend more than half of the sittings of any of the three sessions of the 1695-8 Parliament. He expressed his support for the regime by signing the Association on 27 Feb. 1696, but at the end of that same year showed once again that he was not always a reliable follower of the court line by consistently opposing the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He protested against giving the bill a second reading on 18 Dec. 1696, and then again protested against its passage five days later. On 26 Jan. 1697, although he appears to have been in the House when the attendance register was drawn up, he was absent by the time the House moved on to discussing vacating his written protections of menial servants.<sup>32</sup> Sussex registered his proxy with the court Whig Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, on 8 Mar. 1697 – his first registered proxy since February 1677 – when he was absent for most of that month, not returning until 7 Apr., a week before that session’s prorogation. By late 1697 his attendance was dropping precipitously and he came to only 24 of the meetings of the 1697-8 session. In the period 15-17 Mar. 1698 he was present in the House to vote against the motion to commit the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and to subscribe to two dissents against the House’s decision to grant relief to the appellants in the cause <em>Bertie v. Viscount Falkland</em>.</p><p>He missed the 1698-9 session of the Parliament of 1698-1700 entirely, and on 27 Jan. 1699 the House accepted his reasons for his ‘inability to attend’. He only came to just over a quarter of the meetings of the following session and stayed away for the vote on 23 Feb. 1700 regarding the bill to maintain the East India Company as a corporation, even though parliamentary managers knew he was ‘in town’ and in favour of the bill. He was in the House, though, on 8 Mar. 1700 to subscribe to the protest against the decision to give the bill to divorce the duke of Norfolk a second reading, as he had done earlier in January 1693. A month later, on 9 and 10 Apr. 1700, he acted as a representative of the House in three increasingly ill-tempered conferences with the Commons over the House’s amendments to the land tax bill, with its controversial provisions for parliamentary resumption of William’s Irish land grants, but he did not enter his protest against the House’s eventual decision not to adhere to its own amendments. He was largely absent during the last two turbulent Parliaments of William III’s reign – 11 sittings in the Parliament of early 1701 and 19 in that of early 1702, and in the latter he only first took his seat two days after the death of William III.</p><h2><em>Anne’s first Parliaments, 1702-10</em></h2><p>His attendance rate was only slightly better in the 1702-3 session of Anne’s first Parliament, at 30 per cent, perhaps in a half-hearted effort to ingratiate himself with the new Tory regime. After this initial effort at maintaining a presence in the House, he quickly slipped back into his persistent absenteeism, but when he did take action in the House in the reign of Anne it was usually in support of the court. In the 1702-5 period he appears to have come to the House specifically to lend support to the various bills against occasional conformity. He voted against the Whig ‘wrecking amendments’ to the occasional conformity bill on 16 Jan. 1703, and his first day (of a total of 16) in the session of 1703-4 was significantly 14 Dec. 1703, when he voted against the rejection of the bill, although he did not feel strongly enough on the matter to sign either of the two protests against its rejection. Similarly his six attendances in the session of 1704-5 were all in late November and early December 1704, at around which time his name appeared on a list of members of Parliament who were likely to support the effort to ‘tack’ the occasional conformity bill on to a supply bill. His last day in the House for that session was 15 Dec. 1704, when the bill was brought up from the Commons and immediately rejected by the House. Perhaps because of the tacit approval of the court and the queen’s ministers for this bill’s demise, Sussex did not sign either of the protests against this, its third rejection.</p><p>Before the convening of the 1705-8 Parliament a contemporary considered Sussex a supporter of the Hanoverian Succession, but the earl was hardly active enough in this Parliament to give any evidence of his commitment to this cause. During Anne’s second Parliament, 25 Oct. 1705-1 Apr. 1708, he came to the House on only 49 occasions, the majority of them in the 1707-8 session of the new Parliament of Great Britain. He came to only five sittings in the 1705-6 session, but significantly one of those was 6 Dec. 1705, when he voted against the motion that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration.<sup>33</sup> In the following session, on 3 Feb. 1707, he signed the protest against the decision not to instruct the committee of the whole to insert a clause in the bill to secure the Church of England stating that the 1673 Test Act was ‘perpetual and unalterable’. With very little evidence of parliamentary activity to judge by, a contemporary placed him in the Tory camp at about the time of the first British Parliament in the autumn of 1707.</p><p>He continued his low attendance at the beginning of the Parliament of 1708-10, but that changed in the 1709-10 session when he was present for over two-thirds of the meetings, apparently gripped, as were so many others, by the trial of Dr Henry Sacheverell. He was named on 28 Feb. and 13 Mar. 1710 to the large committees, comprising almost the entire House, dealing with aspects of the trial and was among the core group of peers, largely Tories, who protested against every step in the impeachment. In the period 14-18 Mar. 1710 he put his signature to all six protests against the motions that furthered the trial and on 20-21 Mar. he voted the doctor not guilty and then protested both against the guilty verdict and the censure laid against him.</p><h2><em>Client of Oxford, 1710-14</em></h2><p>Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, considered Sussex a sure supporter of the Tory ministry he formed in the autumn of 1710. Sussex did register his proxy on 7 Nov. 1710, well in advance of the convening of the new Parliament, with the stalwart Tory, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. However this would have been vacated by Sussex’s appearance on the first day of the session on 25 Nov., after which he did not appear in the House again until late January 1711. He came to the House only four times in total during the entire session. Despite the little evidence of political activity he provided, Sussex was still considered a ‘Tory Patriot’ in an analysis drawn up shortly after the end of the 1710-11 session.</p><p>The earl of Oxford, as Harley had become in May 1711, and all the other party managers sought to take advantage of Sussex’s continuing financial problems. Increasingly pressed by his debts and the obligation to provide portions for his two daughters, Sussex had placed his estates in Sussex, Kent and Cumberland in the hands of trustees, including his wife’s brother, now the duke of Northumberland, and in 1707-8 he and they disposed of a large number of his properties, culminating in the sale of the family’s grand fifteenth-century manor house of Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex, and all its grounds, for the princely sum of £38,215 to the rising Whig star George Naylor<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>34</sup> Even that sale was not sufficient to rescue him, and in 1712-13 he was considered a ‘poor lord’. Whig managers such as John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, were quick to advise the elector of Hanover to supply him with a pension of £500 p.a. as one of those ‘lords that vote with the court, but may be had by money’. Oxford got there first, though, and sometime in late 1711 he promised Sussex a pension of £2,400 p.a., as part payment of the long-unpaid marriage portion. Throughout 1712 Sussex sent letters reminding Oxford of the payments due him and in April pressed for an immediate payment of £1,100, ‘my plate and jewels being in pawn for that sum, for which I’m afraid to lose [that] which is really worth £3,000’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Sussex’s dependence on the lord treasurer and his ministry was reflected in his radically different parliamentary activity in the session beginning December 1711. He attended 72 per cent of the sittings – his highest attendance rate since the Convention – and was there for Oxford from the first day. Oxford may have had some doubts how he would vote on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, particularly on the attempt to remove the clause by a controversial and unparliamentary division on 8 Dec. 1711, but Sussex appears to have fallen in line with the ministry. He was not noted by Oxford as one who voted against him that day and Sussex duly entered his protest against the resolution to present the address with the clause to the queen. He again sided with the Oxford ministry when he voted against the Whig motion to disable James Hamilton*, 4th Duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House under his post-Union title as duke of Brandon. Sussex left the House for a period after 21 Dec. but again, in marked contrast to his many previous long periods of absence when he neglected to assign a proxy, on the following day he registered his proxy with none other than Oxford himself, who held it until Sussex returned to the House on 14 Jan. 1712. After his return Sussex gave further key support for the ministry when on 28 May he voted against the Whig motion to present the queen with an address against the ‘restraining orders’ recently issued to the captain general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. He was also for the first time active in the subcommittee for the Journal, and his signature appears three times in the Journal for that session – on 29 February, 5 April and 14 June – to indicate his approval of the record of the House’s proceedings. Similarly, he broke new ground in the long-delayed session of spring 1713, 61 per cent of whose sittings he attended, when for the first time in his career he reported, on 28 May 1713, from the select committee on the bill to invest the lands of the late Sir Roger Burgoyne, in trustees – even though he had not even been originally named to this committee. Not surprisingly Oxford forecast that Sussex would support the bill confirming sections of the controversial French commercial treaty – if it got beyond the fierce opposition in the Commons. During his periods of absence Sussex may well have assigned his proxy to Oxford or a peer designated by Oxford, as he did at other times in 1710-14, but the lack of proxy registers for this session precludes certainty on this matter.</p><p>Nor was his involvement confined to the House. Sussex had never been a particularly avid election manager, either in Sussex or Cumberland.<sup>36</sup> Now as a client of Oxford, he became far more engaged in local electoral matters. By this time Sussex had abandoned the family’s centre of Sussex, where he had sold the family seat, and had established himself in Chevening in Kent, where the house (Chevening Place) and manor had been held by his aged step-grandmother, Dorothy, dowager Baroness Dacre, as jointure lands until her death in 1698. As early as August 1712, well before the election was even called, Sussex wrote to Oxford from his base in Kent to tell him ‘I’m not idle in keeping up the interest, for all the gentlemen on this side are very soon to dine with me that we may concert matters for the next election which the Whigs begin to be very busy about’. A year later he was still busy, as he had to apologize to Oxford in mid-August 1713 for not having called on him recently, being ‘so pressed in time going out of town to make interest for our election’.<sup>37</sup> His efforts, such as promising to establish a market in the town of Brasted, were rewarded in the Kent election of September as the Tories, Sir Edward Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup> and Percival Hart<sup>‡</sup>, triumphed over the Whig candidates, Edward Watson<sup>‡</sup> and Mildmay Fane, at the poll ‘by above 650 voices ... which is a deadly blow to the Whiggish interest in the county’.<sup>38</sup> A contemporary commentator noted that though the Tories won by a large majority, almost all the county’s peers, except for Sussex and Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, were Whigs, so the party had faced an uphill struggle.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Yet at precisely this time things began to grow sour between Sussex and Oxford, as they often did with the lord treasurer’s pecuniary clients. Sussex was working unusually hard at the Kent elections of 1713 in the hope that his efforts would spur Oxford to fulfil his part of the bargain they had agreed upon, and shortly after the election he was desperately reminding Oxford of the promise he had made on his</p><blockquote><p>word of honour in as solemn a manner as is possible that you would pay me £2,400 p.a. within the year and my Lord I have not lived so long in a court not to know the power of a lord treasurer when he has a mind to oblige his friends and I am not conscious to myself I have done anything to forfeit the least good opinion you were pleased to conceive of me.<sup>40</sup></p></blockquote><p>Oxford seems to have placated him temporarily, apparently by paying him £200 out of his own pocket in September, but nevertheless Sussex felt compelled to write to the lord treasurer again on Christmas Day reminding him of ‘your word and honour you gave me, as earl of Oxford and Robert Harley that I should be punctually and regularly paid within the year, which is what I rely upon entirely, and the obligations you lay upon me ought to convince how much I’m your creature to you and your family’.<sup>41</sup> Sussex was forced to write similar letters, in turns suppliant and remonstrative, throughout the spring of 1714. It was in late 1713 that Sunderland suggested to the elector of Hanover that Sussex, although usually voting with the court, might be won over to the Whigs with a measly pension of £500 p.a.</p><p>This disenchantment with Oxford may explain Sussex’s lack of application in the 1713 Parliament for which he had been so busy making an interest in Kent. He came to only seven meetings of the session beginning in February 1714 and left the House for a period of four months on 3 March. At about this time he apparently looked to register his proxy with Oxford but, learning that Oxford ‘was full’, that is, he held his full complement of two proxies, he requested him ‘to let me know any of our friends that wants one, and I will give it’.<sup>42</sup> It was thus probably on Oxford’s recommendation that on 16 Mar. Sussex registered his proxy with the Tory William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth, who held it until Sussex briefly returned on the penultimate day of the session, on 8 July.</p><p>With the advent of a new monarch, Sussex was fairly attentive to the proceedings of the first Parliament of George I and attended the House fairly regularly in June and July 1715 before he became ill with his final sickness. He died on 30 Oct. 1715, aged 61 and intestate. He left a troubled legacy. Of the four children born to him by his estranged wife Anne, his two sons had predeceased him, so the earldom of Sussex became extinct, while the older barony by writ of Dacre was held in abeyance for several years between his two daughters Barbara and Anne, until at Barbara’s death in 1741 the younger daughter Anne became the Baroness Dacre. His surviving widow and daughters, all Catholics, continued to live in financial straits and in 1715 the dowager countess of Sussex sold the Cumberland manor of Dacre, including Dacre Castle, to Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, and in 1717 the house and grounds of Chevening for £28,000 to the Whig politician James Stanhope*, Viscount (later Earl) Stanhope.<sup>43</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
LENNOX, Charles (1672-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>LENNOX</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1672–1723)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>9 Aug. 1675 (a minor) duke of RICHMOND; <em>cr. </em>9 Sept. 1675 duke of Lennox [S] |
|
First sat 14 Nov. 1693; last sat 19 Mar. 1723 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 July 1672, illegit. s. of King Charles II and Louise Renée de Penancoët de Kéroualle (later <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Portsmouth). <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>m</em>. Jan. 1693, Anne (<em>d</em>.1722), da. of Francis Brudenell, <em>styled</em> Ld. Brudenell, wid. of Henry Belasyse*, 2nd Bar. Belasyse, 1s. 2da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> KG 1681. <em>d</em>. 27 May 1723; <em>will</em> 24 May, pr. 10 June 1723.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of the horse 1681-5; gent. of the bedchamber 1714-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov. Dumbarton castle 1681; high steward York 1683; ld. high adm. [S], 1694-1704;<sup>3</sup> PC [I], 1715.</p><p>Grand master of freemasons, 1696-7; gov. mine adventurers co. of Wales 1720.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by W. Wissing, c.1681, Goodwood House, West Sussex; mezzotint by I. Beckett, aft. Wissing, NPG D29467; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1703-10, NPG 3221.</p> |
<p>Described by John Evelyn as ‘a very pretty boy’, Charles Lennox was later rather less enthusiastically assessed by Thomas Hearne as ‘a man of very little understanding.’ John Macky reckoned him ‘good-natured to a fault’ but ‘an enemy to business’ and ‘very credulous’.<sup>5</sup> At least one scurrilous poem written during Queen Anne’s reign also drew attention to the impression that he was not a serious man, but he does not seem to have been entirely devoid of wit. When he was elected high steward of York, he wrote to the city thanking them for the honour and trusting that as the king had ‘been pleased to give him a Yorkshire title’ that he would be ‘of a true Yorkshire temper.’<sup>6</sup></p><p>The only son of the union of King Charles II and his French mistress, Louise de Kéroualle, duchess of Portsmouth, his creation as duke of Richmond in August 1675 represented a triumph for his mother. She succeeded in ensuring that the patent for his dukedom was signed before that of Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, son of her arch-rival, Barbara Palmer, duchess of Cleveland, thereby ensuring Richmond’s seniority in the peerage.<sup>7</sup> In September Richmond was also created duke of Lennox in the Scottish peerage, and his education was entrusted to a Scots peeress, the Countess Marischal.<sup>8</sup> Portsmouth’s success in acquiring these honours for her son owed much to her alliance at that time with Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. Sunderland was also instrumental in securing the French king’s agreement to promote the seigneury of Aubigny into a dukedom for the duchess during her lifetime with reversion to Richmond.<sup>9</sup></p><p>By 1679 Portsmouth appears to have been active in attempting to establish her son as an alternative to his half-brother James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as a potential heir to the throne.<sup>10</sup> Although Portsmouth denied being responsible for having Monmouth stripped of his offices, Richmond was tipped as his replacement as master of the horse.<sup>11</sup> Portsmouth even appears to have requested the attorney general (Sir Cresswell Levinz) to draw up a patent appointing her son to the post, only for Levinz to point out to her that it could not be so easily reassigned.<sup>12</sup> It was thus not until three years after that Richmond replaced Monmouth as master of the horse, by which time he had also provoked further dissension in the royal family by being awarded a garter in advance of Nell Gwyn’s son, Charles Beauclerk*, earl of Burford (later duke of St Albans).<sup>13</sup> Portsmouth’s tireless efforts on her son’s behalf proved insufficient to secure his marriage to Lady Elizabeth Percy, sole heiress to Josceline Percy*, 5th earl of Northumberland (King Charles himself appearing to favour an alliance for Lady Elizabeth with another of his bastards).<sup>14</sup> When the match with Elizabeth Percy failed to materialize, Portsmouth sought a foreign bride for her son, and in 1684 he was naturalized in France. The following year, on the death of King Charles II, Richmond was put out as master of the horse by the new king. His loss of office was almost certainly owing to King James’s personal enmity towards Portsmouth. In August 1685 Richmond and his mother travelled to France, where they remained for the duration of James II’s reign.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Richmond converted to Catholicism in 1685, but following the Revolution he was reported to have spoken disparagingly of King James’ exiled court, and he was refused permission to join the expedition to Ireland being considered too young and too small.<sup>16</sup> Complaining of his poor prospects in the service of the French king and of ‘having met with great abuses in France, as others of his countrymen have done’, in February 1692 Richmond turned coat and having, reputedly, purloined his mother’s jewels, he made his way back to England.<sup>17</sup> In May he reconverted to Anglicanism, expressing his ‘hearty contrition and repentance for having publicly renounced and abjured the reform religion’, and the same month joined a number of noble volunteers accompanying King William to the campaign in Flanders.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Rumours that Richmond was to marry a daughter of the fabulously wealthy Sir Josiah Child<sup>‡</sup> (with a reputed portion of £40,000) circulated in October 1692 but these proved inaccurate.<sup>19</sup> Instead in January of the following year he married the widowed Anne, Lady Belasyse, ‘a lady of extraordinary beauty and virtue’, apparently ‘against the wishes of her best friends.’<sup>20</sup> On 14 Nov. 1693 he took his seat in the House, a week into the 1693-4 session, introduced between his half-brothers, George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, and St Albans. His introduction, intended for 7 Nov., had been delayed by the discovery that he had left his patent in France forcing him to wait while an exemplification was prepared.<sup>21</sup> Present on approximately 37 per cent of sitting days that session, on 8 Dec. he acted as teller on the question of whether the House should read a proviso to the bill for frequent Parliaments.</p><p>Richmond was appointed to two Scots offices in May 1694, which had previously been held by William Hamilton, 3rd duke of Hamilton [S].<sup>22</sup> Following a quarrel with a Mr Leonard at the playhouse on 28 June, Richmond was prevented from fighting a duel by the king’s Dutch guards, but when a further challenge was sent in July he was taken into custody.<sup>23</sup> He was released in time to take his seat for the final (1694-5) session of the 1690 Parliament on 12 Nov. 1694 when, with Meinhard Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg, he introduced the newly promoted Charles Talbot*, as duke of Shrewsbury; on 20 Nov. he was one of the peers to introduce John Holles*, earl of Clare, as duke of Newcastle. Despite being present on the first day of the session, Richmond’s name was omitted from the committee for privileges, and he was thereafter named to just two select committees during the session, which he attended for approximately 46 per cent of sitting days.</p><p>Richmond was absent from the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695. On 12 Dec. he registered his proxy with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, which was vacated by his presence on 13 Mar. 1696. He appears to have spent part of the intervening time in hiding. Although he signed the Association, Richmond was suspected of complicity in Jacobite intriguing early in 1696. He was one of a handful of peers who were ordered to be placed in custody, though he seems to have avoided this by maintaining a low profile at his country retreat in Sussex.<sup>24</sup> Having returned to the House, Richmond attended just 13 of the 124 days in the session. He was named to no committees and appears to have played little part in the House’s business.</p><p>His attendance improved slightly in the following (1696-7) session. Although he was missing from the attendance list on the opening day (20 Oct.), he was named to the committee for privileges and was then present on 28 per cent of the remainder of the session. Absent at a call of the House on 14 Nov., he resumed his seat in accordance with the House’s order, on 23 November. On 30 Nov. he was nominated a manager of the conference with the Commons concerning the ease of the subject, and on 2 Dec. he was named to the committee considering the answers provided by the Admiralty commissioners. On 23 Dec. Richmond found Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> guilty of treason. Richmond attended just eight further days in the session, absenting himself after 5 Mar., but on 8 Mar. 1697 he registered his proxy with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin (perhaps to be used in the divisions on the amendments to the wrought silks bill held on 9 and 19 March). The proxy was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Richmond purchased an estate at Goodwood in 1697 for £4,700 (it was not until 1720 that he appears to have secured the entire manor). At first intended as a hunting lodge the house and estate, which had been confiscated from the Catholic Carylls, came to be his principal seat. He was present on almost half of all sitting days during the 1697-8 session and was named to seven committees. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. In April Richmond’s mother, Portsmouth, began ‘bothering’ the English ambassador at Paris, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, to allow her to return to England from her French exile.<sup>25</sup> When her request was at last granted that summer, Richmond, with whom she had apparently reconciled since the supposed theft of her jewels, met her at Dover.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The early autumn of 1698 found Richmond engaged in the pleasures of the chase in company with Shrewsbury and Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, in Sussex.<sup>27</sup> He had returned to London to take his seat in the new Parliament by 6 Dec., after which he was present on 36 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just one committee. He resumed his seat in the second session on 16 Nov. 1699, after which he was present for approximately 30 per cent of all sitting days. The same month he was one of the peers to offer (unsuccessfully) to stand bail for Captain Kirke, cousin of the duchess of St Albans, who was indicted for killing Popham Seymour Conway in a duel.<sup>28</sup> On 1 Feb. 1700 Richmond was forecast as being opposed to continuing the East India Company as a corporation. Later that month he appears to have taken a break from his duties in the House to accompany Hugh Cholmondeley*, Viscount (later earl of) Cholmondeley, with whom he shared a love of hunting, to Gloucestershire.<sup>29</sup> He had returned to London by 4 Apr. when he subscribed the protest at the resolution to read the land tax bill a second time. The following day he acted as teller in a division held in a committee of the whole considering the land tax bill, and on 9 Apr. he was nominated a manager of the conference concerning the measure. Named a manager of two further conferences on 10 Apr., on the same day he protested at the resolution to pass the land tax bill.</p><p>Richmond took his seat in the new Parliament on 24 May 1701 but attended on just six days of the session. His poor attendance may have been connected with the birth of his heir, Charles Lennox<sup>†</sup>, styled earl of March (later 2nd duke of Richmond) on 18 May 1701.<sup>30</sup> In September he again joined Cholmondeley and his brother, St Albans, for a hunting party at Cholmondeley’s seat.<sup>31</sup> Richmond resumed his seat in the second Parliament of 1701 on 30 Dec. after which he was present on 56 per cent of sitting days. On 8 Mar. 1702 (along with most of those present in the chamber) he was named one of the managers of the conference following the king’s death. Active in the elections in Sussex following the dissolution, in July he was able to report that, ‘we have had very good luck in our parliament men hereabouts’ continuing to ‘hope it may be so all over England’.<sup>32</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on just over half of the 1702-3 session. In December he stood surety for the chevalier du Chastel, a French prisoner of war, employing his interest to procure Chastel better lodgings.<sup>33</sup> Estimated as being in favour of the occasional conformity bill in or about January 1703, on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. On 21 Jan. he presented a petition to bring in an appeal from a decree in chancery (though this was later withdrawn with the petitioner’s consent), and on 22 Apr. he introduced John Sheffield*, as duke of Buckingham.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Richmond again took his seat at the opening of the 1703-4 session which he attended for 62 per cent of sitting days. Before the session he was again forecast as being in favour of the occasional conformity bill, but by late November or early December his support was reappraised as doubtful. The second forecast proved to be prescient as on 14 Dec. he voted against the measure. Three days later, he was noted as being in company with the Whig Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), at the home of Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton.<sup>35</sup> On 24 Mar. 1704 Richmond registered his protest at the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir James Maclean was imperfect.</p><p>Richmond was obliged to part with several of his Scottish offices, including that of lord high admiral, during the summer for which he was paid £3,000.<sup>36</sup> Absent at the opening of the 1704-5 session, on 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. He arrived on 7 Dec. 1704, after which he was present on 43 per cent of sitting days. Curiously, despite his adherence to the Whigs, he was noted as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage drawn up on or about 1705. Perhaps this was indicative of his reputation for political untrustworthiness, or a reflection of his status as almost a prince.</p><p>During the general election in May 1705 he set up Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> at Chichester in the Whig interest. Following Littleton’s success at the polls, it was reported that Richmond, ‘was so transported with joy for his victory, that he wrote a short account of his success upon an open piece of paper and sent it as the news of Blenheim came’ to the duchess of Marlborough.<sup>37</sup> Richmond had less success in the county elections for Sussex. Appearing at the poll at Lewes with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, in support of Sir Henry Peachey<sup>‡</sup> and John Morley Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, the two dukes were ordered off the bench by the sheriff, who insisted that peers had no right to participate in the election. Somerset and Richmond had to spend the remainder of the day kicking their heels at a puppet show.<sup>38</sup> The result of the election was a compromise with Trevor being returned with the Tory candidate, Sir George Parker<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>39</sup> Richmond was adamant that Peachey, who was just 19 votes adrift from Parker, should have carried the vote and would be successful in an appeal:</p><blockquote><p>if Sir Harry demands a scrutiny I am sure he must carry it by 40. My business of coming to Chichester was to get more votes for I intended to ride all night to have got to Lewes … to morrow by nine in the morning and if the poll had not been closed last night Sir Harry would have carried it out of sight for I had a hundred freeholders to have gone with me. But now it is too late. I am sure I did what I could to throw out a damned Jacobite and get in an honest Whig …<sup>40</sup></p></blockquote><p>Richmond’s efforts to influence events in Worcestershire proved only partially effectual. Although his preferred candidate, William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>, was beaten into third place, he promised that his tenants would give their second votes to Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned with William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Richmond was absent from the opening of the new Parliament in October 1705. He took his seat on 30 Nov., after which he was present on approximately 57 per cent of all sitting days. The same day he proposed a facetious amendment to the motion made by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, for securing the church, proposing that King William’s act for the preservation of game should also be assured.<sup>42</sup> The same day he acted as teller in a committee of the whole concerning the Protestant succession bill, and on 6 Dec. he voted against the assertion that the Church was in danger. Richmond again acted as teller on 18 Jan. 1706 on the question of whether to adjourn the House, and on 22 Feb. he was named one of the managers of the conference for Cary and Hartley’s bill. On 11 Mar. he was named a manager of both conferences held that day concerning Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> letter to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford.</p><p>Richmond attended just over half of the sitting days during the 1706-7 session. He was absent from the House on 24 Jan. 1707 but was again noted as dining with Ossulston and other senior Whig peers; he took his seat four days later.<sup>43</sup> Present on just four days of the nine-day session of April 1707, Richmond resumed his seat in the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct., after which he was present on almost 62 per cent of sitting days. In November it was reported that he was to be the beneficiary of a life interest in the estate of the recently deceased John Fitzgerald, 18th earl of Kildare [I].<sup>44</sup> Present in the House on 5 Feb. 1708 for the debate held in a committee of the whole concerning the dissolution of the Scots Privy Council, Richmond divided with the majority, voting for it to be terminated in May rather than delaying to October.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Richmond was noted as a Whig in a list of party classifications drawn up in about 1708. During the elections he again backed Sir Thomas Littleton at Chichester, this time unsuccessfully.<sup>46</sup> As duke of Lennox, Richmond also commanded some influence in Scotland. In May 1708 John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], sought his support in the election for Scots representative peers. Although Richmond confessed his ignorance of the process, he informed Mar that he had already sent his proxy to William Ross*, 12th Lord Ross [S], but undertook to write to Ross to have Mar’s name added to his list.<sup>47</sup> Having succeeded (whether by accident or design) in eluding most court commentators as to the manner in which he had employed his interest in Scotland, Richmond was one of a number of peers to have his proxy challenged at the election.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Richmond’s lack of reward for his commitment to the Whigs was clearly beginning to rankle. In March 1708 he appears to have attempted to secure a command in the army at the expense of Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle.<sup>49</sup> Six months later, he approached Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, for his assistance in gaining him a post:</p><blockquote><p>Your lordship knows I have received so many rebukes from the court that I am a little shy of being refused again therefore will not ask any body’s favour till I have some encouragement first from you … I hope your lordship is sensible that it is not the salary of a place makes me ambitious of one but being the only man of our party that yet has never been countenanced I think I have reason to desire my friends to show themselves so.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>His quest for recognition remained frustrated. His attendance during the 1708-9 session declined slightly to just under 37 per cent. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against allowing Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election for Scottish representative peers, and on 22 Mar. he acted as teller for the contents in a division in a committee of the whole concerning the Union improvement (treason) bill. Two days later the protracted legal case that had resulted from Richmond’s inheritance of Kildare’s estates was debated by the House, but some aspects of the management of the case in Ireland remained unsettled at Richmond’s death.<sup>51</sup> On 26 Mar. he acted as teller again in a further division in a committee of the whole considering the Union improvement bill.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Richmond was present on approximately two thirds of all sitting days. In November 1709 he brought an action in queen’s bench against William Costerman (or Costello), an alderman of Chichester, for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> and was awarded £50 damages.<sup>53</sup> On 11 Mar. 1710 Richmond was again noted as being in company with Ossulston and several other peers at the George, and three days later (14 Mar.) he acted as teller on the question of whether to adjourn during the trial of Henry Sacheverell.<sup>54</sup> Two days later, during the Lords’ debate on the Sacheverell impeachment, Richmond interrupted the ‘tediously long speech’ being delivered by Peregrine Osborne*, then styled marquess of Carmarthen, later 2nd duke of Leeds (sitting as Baron Osborne), complaining that it was ‘a long story’.<sup>55</sup> Carmarthen ignored the interruption and persevered with his speech. Richmond found Sacheverell guilty on 20 March. He was also responsible for ensuring that his notoriously weak-willed half-brother, Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Cleveland, did likewise. Richmond undertook to guide him in the House, having rescued Cleveland from his chamber, where he had been imprisoned by his pro-Sacheverell duchess.<sup>56</sup> The following day (21 Mar.) Richmond acted as teller on the question of whether to make an amendment to the details of Sacheverell’s punishment.</p><p>Richmond convened a special meeting of the Kit Cat Club in April 1710 in response to rumours that his fellow member and former associate, Somerset, had been engaged in secret talks with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer. Somerset was duly expelled from the club.<sup>57</sup> Richmond took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710 and the same month seconded the motion proposed by Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, to thank John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, for his services in the war.<sup>58</sup> In January 1711 he attracted criticism for being a ‘time server’ when he backed the move to censure Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I].<sup>59</sup> Present for just under half of all sitting days in the 1710-11 session, on 22 May he lodged a petition against the coal trade bill, which he claimed infringed his rights to collect revenue on coal from Newcastle. His petition (and that of other interested parties) was heard on 26 May, and following deliberation in a committee of the whole on 30 May, the bill was passed with amendments. Richmond had received St Albans’ proxy on 29 Apr. which was vacated the day after the passing of the coal trade bill (31 May) when he registered his own proxy with his son-in-law, James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley. This was vacated by Richmond’s resumption of his seat on 4 June. On 7 June he received Berkeley’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Before the 1711-12 session Richmond was one of those peers listed by Harley to be canvassed on the question of ‘No Peace without Spain’. He resumed his seat on 20 Dec. 1711 and the same day voted in favour of barring Scots peers at the time of Union from sitting by virtue of post-Union British titles. Richmond attended approximately 38 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 14 Feb. 1712 he registered his proxy with Berkeley again; it was vacated by his return to the House the following day. He registered his proxy with Berkeley once more on 26 May, who held it to the end of the session.</p><p>Richmond’s attendance of the House declined markedly in the last years of Queen Anne’s reign. He also appears to have undergone a change of political loyalty as he was listed by Oxford as a possible or doubtful supporter in June 1712. His apparent <em>volte-face</em> seems to have elicited a bewildered missive from his mother. In August Richmond undertook to explain his actions to her:</p><blockquote><p>You must allow me to justify myself in some way, and let you see that I have been misrepresented. You know well that I have always been attached to the Whig party, and that for four years in succession in parliament I have always obeyed the Queen’s commands. It is not for me to enter into the reasons for changing the ministry, for so long as the crown is well served I shall be content. But permit me to remind you that, as I have the honour to be a king’s son, and an English duke, I cannot change with whatever wind may blow …<sup>60</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his apparent reconciliation with Oxford, Richmond maintained close connections with his old friends, and in November 1712 he was in company with Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and General George Macartney at the Queen’s Arms the day before Mohun’s fatal encounter with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S].<sup>61</sup> After the affray Richmond secured ‘whatever he thought of value’ for the widowed Lady Mohun.<sup>62</sup> He was also responsible for concealing Macartney and facilitating his escape to the continent. For this last action he was again upbraided by Portsmouth, which elicited a further spirited response:</p><blockquote><p>Is it enmity to the queen to try to save one’s intimate friend that has been unfortunate enough to be second to poor ill-fated Lord Mohun? … I am sure that when poor Macartney asked my protection you would not have had me betray him. Think well of it; you would have saved him as I did … One word more and I have done. I do not understand why, because the duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun killed each other because they could not agree, it should be a matter of state importance. I cannot make it out.<sup>63</sup></p></blockquote><p>Richmond was undoubtedly unashamed of his role in the affair and took great umbrage at the government’s action in having his house searched in their quest for Macartney.<sup>64</sup> He recounted at least one version of the duel himself at Tom’s coffee house in Covent Garden, and he was subsequently the subject of a Tory satirical poem, in which Mohun’s troubled ghost urged him to desist from opposing the peace:</p><blockquote><p>Cease R––d, cease to rage, ’tis all in vain<br />For Machavillian Plots to rack your Brain:<br />’Tis now for Politick Intrigues too late,<br />Fix’d is the irrevocable Will of Fate<br />Albion no more the rage of War shall mourn,<br />But Halcyon Days to her shall soon return …<sup>65</sup></p></blockquote><p>Richmond was again noted by Oxford as a peer to be contacted in a list of 26 Feb. 1713, and in or about March Jonathan Swift estimated Richmond as a likely supporter of the ministry. Despite this, Richmond attended just two days of the third session in April 1713 and one day of the new Parliament in March 1714. His low attendance at this time is in part explained by lengthy periods in France, where Richmond appears to have been active in pressing his claims for at least the previous four years.<sup>66</sup> On 17 Apr. the marquis de Torcy wrote to Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, to assure him that:</p><blockquote><p>The duke of Richmond is at liberty to come hither whenever he pleases; but, my Lord, beware how you send over such dangerous personages as the duchess of Richmond, and her daughter: let us remain true to the English church, but depend upon it, that ministerial functions and philosophy, are a poor defence against certain modes of seduction.<sup>67</sup></p></blockquote><p>Richmond was in Paris between May and July 1713. He attended the court at Fontainebleau and was also noted as having been in company with James II’s natural son, James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick, at a dinner hosted by his mother, Portsmouth.<sup>68</sup> Before departing on his journey he left a blank proxy form with the queen (at her request), who gave it to John Poulett*, Earl Poulett,<sup>69</sup> The duchess of Richmond (who had remained in England no doubt to de Torcy’s relief) assured her husband that, ‘no mortal could take more caution in using your proxy than he [Poulett], did, and I am almost sure he never did use it but once.’<sup>70</sup> During his absence Richmond continued to feature on Oxford’s lists. In May he was noted as a possible opponent of the French commercial treaty, though a subsequent list of 13 June noted him as a supporter. Towards the end of June Richmond entered into negotiations with Oxford and Bolingbroke to procure a pension for the duchess of Portsmouth, writing to the former:</p><blockquote><p>to thank you for all your favours, and if you will add one more to them be as sincere a friend to the duchess of Portsmouth as you have been to me. She has great pretensions, and very just, but she is not unreasonable, therefore I beg to know what is fitting for her to do, and when it may be consistent and convenient for her to pay her respects to the queen.<sup>71</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 30 July Bolingbroke responded to Richmond’s request excusing the delay in settling the matter:</p><blockquote><p>Till the bill passed for enabling the Queen to pay the civil list debts, it was in vain to apply in the duchess of Portsmouth’s behalf; and since that time, the Treasurer has been so ill, that for many days together, his most intimate friends have not had access to him…<sup>72</sup></p></blockquote><p>In August Richmond’s brother-in-law, James Brudenell<sup>‡</sup>, was returned for Chichester on Richmond’s interest in partnership with William Elson<sup>‡</sup> (a Tory).<sup>73</sup> Despite this success, in January 1714 Richmond was involved in a heated dispute with one of the town’s worthies. Describing the affair to his mother, Richmond related how his adversary, Sir John Miller<sup>‡</sup>, ‘attempted to be insolent. I took him by the scruff of the neck and told him that if he didn’t leave the room I would have him given a hundred strokes with a stick by my servant! He took my advice.’<sup>74</sup></p><p>A frequent traveller to France throughout his life, Richmond appears to have been eager to put his extensive foreign connections to good use. In May 1714 he wrote to Oxford to volunteer his services as an envoy to the French court to convey the queen’s sympathies on the death of the duke of Berry. He was consequently out of the country at the time of the queen’s death, only returning to England in mid-August.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Confirming his notoriety as a political weathervane, Richmond was rewarded by the new regime with a place in the king’s bedchamber in October 1714, and the following year he was appointed to the Irish Privy Council.<sup>76</sup> In his latter years Richmond appears to have gained a reputation as a hardened drunkard, but he continued to attend the House regularly for the remainder of his life and to exercise his interest.<sup>77</sup> In April 1715 he wrote to Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, on behalf of a candidate for a place as chaplain to the king, emphasizing that ‘were it not for the indisposition of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord Wharton [Thomas Wharton*, marquess of Wharton], they would both join with me heartily.’<sup>78</sup> In the aftermath of the 1715 uprising he joined with his half-brother, St Albans, in presenting a petition for some of the condemned men to be reprieved but was then prevailed upon to vote against it.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Richmond struggled to maintain his electoral interest into the new reign. James Brudenell was beaten into fourth place in the election for Chichester of January 1715. Richmond’s heir, the earl of March, was returned in March 1722, but by that time Richmond, ‘extremely decayed’, appears to have all but disappeared into an alcoholic stupor.<sup>80</sup> Thus, although March was returned on the family interest, he owed his election rather to the efforts of his uncle, Brudenell, and father-in-law, William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, Earl Cadogan, than to his father who, according to the duchess was ‘no longer capable of any business’ and who ‘has never appeared for you [March], nor will he pay a forty shilling bill … to get a vote.’<sup>81</sup> Richmond attended the House for the final time on 9 Mar. 1723. He died at Goodwood on 27 May and was buried in Westminster Abbey the following month at a cost of £665 3s. 1d. In 1750 his body was exhumed and re-interred in the newly constructed family vault in Chichester cathedral.<sup>82</sup> In his will Richmond made a number of substantial bequests totalling £2,900, including £1,000 to his daughter Anne, countess of Albemarle. Richmond’s brother-in-law, James Brudenell, was constituted an executor with Richmond’s son, March, who succeeded as 2nd duke of Richmond.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEVESON GOWER, John (1675-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>LEVESON GOWER</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1675–1709)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>16 Mar. 1703 Bar. GOWER |
|
First sat 6 Dec. 1703; last sat 19 Nov. 1707 |
|
MP Newcastle-under-Lyme 1692-1703 |
<p><em>b</em>. 7 Jan. 1675, o. surv. s. of Sir William Leveson Gower<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt., of Stittenham, Yorks. and Jane, da. of John Granville*, earl of Bath. <em>educ</em>. James Linfield’s sch., Westminster 1690-1. <em>m</em>. Sept. 1692 (with £15,000), Katherine (<em>d</em>.1722), da. of John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland, 4s. (inc. William Leveson Gower,<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Leveson Gower<sup>‡</sup>), 2da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 22 Dec. 1691. <em>d</em>. 31 Aug. 1709; <em>will</em> 28 Aug. 1709, pr. 27 Feb. 1710.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 21 Apr. 1702-20 May 1707; chan. of the duchy of Lancaster 1702-6; commr. union with Scotland 1702, 1706.</p><p>Steward, Newcastle-under-Lyme 1694-8; freeman, Preston 1702.</p> |
|
<p>Sir John Leveson Gower was the beneficiary of the union of the old gentry Yorkshire Gower family with the former mercantile Staffordshire and Shropshire Levesons, the latter of whom commanded a powerful interest in Newcastle-under-Lyme.<sup>3</sup> The Gowers had held land in Yorkshire since the twelfth century but had been largely content to maintain their position in society rather than seek to improve on it. The accidental coming together of the Gower and Leveson estates at the death of the Levesons’ direct heirs proved a turning point for the family. Sir John’s father, Sir William Leveson Gower, had started life as the son of a fairly modest country gentleman; by his death in 1691 he was the owner of 20,000 acres and possessed of an income in excess of £8,000 p.a.<sup>4</sup> It was left to his son to make the final step onto the peerage ladder.</p><p>Leveson Gower was returned for his father’s seat at Newcastle under Lyme in 1692, and the same year he secured an advantageous match with Lady Katherine Manners. Negotiations between the families almost broke down when the Leveson Gowers demanded a portion of £20,000, but they eventually settled for the £15,000 proposed by the earl of Rutland.<sup>5</sup> The marriage brought Leveson Gower into close contact with the influential Midlands families of Manners, Cavendish, Noel and Bertie. Leveson Gower’s own relations were no less prestigious and included the Granville earls of Bath, the Hyde earls of Clarendon and Rochester, and the Carterets.</p><p>An uncompromising Tory, Leveson Gower established his reputation in the Commons with his rejection of the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, his refusal to sign the Association and later by promoting the assault on the Whig Junto.<sup>6</sup> He moved the impeachment of John Somers*, Baron Somers, in April 1700. The following year he was deeply involved in the impeachment of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. Closely associated with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, the accession of Queen Anne improved Leveson Gower’s prospects. He was made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in May 1702, an office that broadened his electoral influence considerably, and rumours of a peerage soon followed.<sup>7</sup> Presumably referring to the imminent election at Preston in July, Gower assured Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, of his readiness ‘to perform everything on my part that either your lordship or the country can expect from me’, but although he was successful in supporting his uncle, Sir Cyril Wych<sup>‡</sup>, he found that his interest was far from unchallenged.<sup>8</sup> Gower faced problems closer to home in December when his father-in-law, Rutland, proved reluctant to admit a number of Tories to the commission of the peace in his lieutenancy. Galled by the queen’s insistence, Rutland resolved not to attend the coronation. Leveson Gower attempted to win Rutland round, emphasizing that the queen was ‘resolved not to follow the example of her predecessor in making use of a few of her subjects to oppress the rest’. He found a more potent means of persuasion by goading Rutland about his petulant behaviour, ‘Shall it be said my lord Devonshire [William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire], my lord Carlisle [Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle], and others could forget the affronts and disappointments they had met with, in their several countries, and that my lord Rutland alone would not?’<sup>9</sup></p><p>In March 1703 Gower’s Herculean efforts were rewarded when he was elevated to the upper House as part of a concerted effort to bolster the ranks of the Tories in the Lords. During the same month, he was closely involved with moves to promote his troublesome father-in-law, Rutland, in the peerage.<sup>10</sup> Gower was not among the new peers taking their seats in the House on 22 Apr., possibly because he was incapacitated by poor health.<sup>11</sup> He took his seat in the House on 6 Dec. 1703 introduced between his cousin, John Granville*, Baron Granville, who had himself only recently been ennobled, and John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr. Gower attended on 45 per cent of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to 14 committees. In November he had been listed by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely supporter of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, and although Gower was absent from the House from 13 Dec. until the following January, a division list of 14 Dec. recorded him as having voted in favour of the bill by proxy, though the manuscript minutes do not record the use of proxies.</p><p>Gower resumed his seat in the House on 12 Jan. 1704. Two days later he entered a dissent against reversing the judgment in the case of <em>Ashby v. White.</em> On 3 Mar. he subscribed the dissent against the resolution to reveal the key to the ‘Gibberish letters’ only to the queen and those lords who were members of the committee examining the ‘Scotch Plot’. Nottingham included his name among those of other members of both Houses in a list which may indicate his support over the plot. On 16 Mar. he dissented again from a resolution to agree with the committee of the whole in removing R. Byerley’s name from the list of commissioners for examining public accounts and on the same day dissented once more from the resolution to replace Byerley and to name two more commissioners. Two days later, Gower reported from the committee of the whole appointed to consider the act for the better paying of annuities as fit to pass. On 21 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill for raising recruits for the army and marines, and on 25 Mar. he dissented from the resolution concerning the failure to censure Robert Ferguson. The same day he dissented again from the resolution to put the question on the same matter.</p><p>Gower failed to attend the House for almost two years after 30 Mar., but he ensured that his proxy was registered for the 1704-5 session with his cousin, Granville. In spite of this apparent lack of activity, the election of May 1705 found Gower courted on several fronts by prospective candidates. At Lichfield Sir Henry Gough<sup>‡</sup> approached him for his interest, and it was thanks in part to Gower’s recommendation that Gough was returned unopposed.<sup>12</sup> Matters ran less smoothly at Newcastle-under-Lyme, where the firm Anglican candidates Sir Thomas Bellot<sup>‡</sup> and Rowland Cotton<sup>‡</sup> were unseated on petition and in Gloucestershire where Gower employed his influence on behalf of John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Ralph Dutton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup> In Shropshire, where the county was fairly evenly divided between the parties, Gower’s interest was sought by the Whig Sir Robert Corbet<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>14</sup> The sometime darling of the Whig party, Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, professed himself ‘inclined to help those that Lord Gower approves’ for Middlesex, despite concerns that by opposing Sir John Wolstenholme<sup>‡</sup> he might prejudice his own interest in Bedfordshire.<sup>15</sup> In the event, Bedford ordered his agents ‘not to stir on either side’ and Wolstenholme and Scorie Barker<sup>‡</sup> were successful against the Tory candidates backed by Gower.<sup>16</sup> With the patronage of the duchy of Lancaster at his disposal, Gower was in a much stronger position at Preston, where his candidate, Francis Annesley<sup>‡</sup>, secured his seat with ease.<sup>17</sup> James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], lord lieutentant of Lancashire, complimented Gower on recommending such a deserving man for the town.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Absent once more from the opening of the new Parliament, Gower was excused at a call of the House on 12 Nov. 1705. It is not clear why he failed to sit, though disgruntlement with the Tories’ performance at the polls may be part of the reason.<sup>19</sup> Reports that he was expected to be put out from the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster may also have sapped his enthusiasm.<sup>20</sup> Retirement from the House did not prevent him from maintaining a close interest in family business, and in December he sent his father-in-law, Rutland, a copy of a bill that had been presented to the House by Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Howe [I]. Howe had been married to one of Rutland’s other daughters and members of the Manners family had an interest in its contents.<sup>21</sup> As a result of Gower’s intervention, Howe agreed to put off the committee considering the bill and to confer with Rutland about the measure.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In January 1706 John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, replied to an approach made by Gower for support but found himself ‘unable to make any answer that is like to be agreeable.’ Marlborough explained that Gower could not:</p><blockquote><p>but be sensible that both my lord treasurer [Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin] and myself have given sufficient proofs of our desire and inclination to serve you, and I believe I may answer for him and for myself that we were both very sorry when you and your friends thought fit to put it out of our power to continue doing so.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Gower eventually returned to the House on 7 Feb. 1706, but he sat for a mere two days before once more absenting himself. Another lengthy absence ensued, during which time he was removed from the commission for the Union with Scotland and put out as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, as part of a broader replacement of Tories with Whigs.<sup>24</sup> Attempts to remove him from the latter post and to replace him with William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, had been made the previous year and perhaps contributed to the defeat of the reluctant Henry Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> in the Preston by-election.<sup>25</sup> His removal also elicited some confusion in the House’s business. William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, was compelled to confirm with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, whether Gower had indeed been put out, as he was still in the commission for proroguing Parliament and as Cowper worried, ‘it will not be proper to have him so styled under the great seal and read in the House of Lords if he be removed as is commonly said.’<sup>26</sup></p><p>One of a number of notables to flock to Bath in the autumn of 1706, Gower was absent without explanation at a call held on 29 Jan. 1707, but he registered his proxy with Granville again on 1 February. Gower’s absence was almost certainly owing to ill health, but he was said to have ‘perfectly recovered’ by the beginning of March.<sup>27</sup> Even so, it was not until November that he returned to the House, attending on just two days on 18 and 19 Nov., after which date he failed to sit again. During that year Gower found himself at variance with Granville and other members of his family at the prospect of the forthcoming marriage of his nephew, Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup>, but in spite of Gower’s protestations the marriage proceeded the following year.<sup>28</sup></p><p>A printed list of the Parliament of Great Britain of May 1708 unsurprisingly recorded Gower as a Tory. The election for Newcastle-under-Lyme that year proved to be almost a repeat of the previous contest, with Gower complaining of ‘the villainy and roguery’ at play in the town. Once again the Tory members’ elections were overturned on petition, suggestive perhaps of Gower’s weakening influence in the area.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Gower was named one of the trustees of the agreement brokered in February 1709 between Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu, and William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, to settle the long-disputed Albemarle inheritance.<sup>30</sup> He appears otherwise to have retired from public and political life, probably because of failing health. A sufferer from acute gout, Gower also appears to have been afflicted with some form of bowel disease, which eventually led to his death at his father-in-law’s house at Belvoir. The cause of his demise was variously described as being the result of ‘a suppression of urine’ and of ‘the gout in his stomach.’<sup>31</sup> Condoling with the dowager Lady Gower on her husband’s death, Baptist Noel saw some mercy in his demise, considering ‘how miserably afflicted poor Lord Gower was with the gout and what wracking tortures he endured whilst alive.’<sup>32</sup> In his will Gower gave direction for a private funeral ‘without show pomp escutcheons or any solemnity whatever’ and made provision for substantial sums for his surviving children comprising portions of £6,000 each for his unmarried daughters Katherine and Jane, and lump sums of £2,000 as well as annuities of £200 for his three younger sons. An inventory of Gower’s goods at Lilleshall Lodge in Shropshire valued them at £70 19s. 6d.<sup>33</sup> Gower was buried at Trentham on 10 Sept. and succeeded as 2nd Baron Gower by his eldest son, John Leveson Gower*, later 1st Earl Gower, then aged just 15 years.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEVESON GOWER, John (1694-1754) |
<p><strong><surname>LEVESON GOWER</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1694–1754)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 31 Aug. 1709 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. GOWER; <em>cr. </em>8 July 1746 Earl GOWER. |
|
First sat 9 Feb. 1716; last sat 20 Mar. 1752 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Aug. 1694, 1st s. of John Leveson Gower*, (later Bar. Gower), and Katherine, da. of John Manners*, duke of Rutland; bro. of Baptist<sup>‡</sup> and William Leveson Gower<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Westminster; Christ Church, Oxf., DCL 1732. <em>m</em>. (1) 13 Mar. 1712, Evelyn Pierrepont (<em>d</em>.1727), da. of Evelyn Pierrepont*, mq. of Dorchester, later duke of Kingston, 4s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 6da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); (2) 31 Oct. 1733, Penelope (<em>d</em>.1734), wid. of Sir Henry Atkins, bt., da. of Sir John Stonhouse<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., 1da. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); (3) 16 May 1736, Mary (<em>d</em>.1785), wid. of Anthony Grey*, Bar. Lucas, styled earl of Harold, da. of Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, 3s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 1da. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 25 Dec. 1754; <em>will</em> 22 Dec. 1749-27 Dec. 1750, pr. 8 Feb. 1755.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. justice 1740, 1748, 1750, 1752; ld privy seal 1742-3, 1744-<em>d</em>.; PC 1742.</p><p>Ld. lt., Staffs. 1742-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by S. Slaughter, aft. 1742, Dunrobin Castle, Sutherland; oil on canvas by J.B. van Loo, aft. 1742, Staffordshire County buildings collection; mezzotint by J. Faber jnr., after Vanloo, NPG D34659.</p> |
<p>As head of the Staffordshire Tories and that rare exhibit, a Tory official in the Pelhamite (Whig) administration of the 1740s and 1750s, Gower was successful in maintaining and developing his interest during his career in and out of Parliament. Gower succeeded to the peerage as a minor following the death of his father from what appears to have been a genetic urinary problem.<sup>4</sup> Reported by the <em>Post Boy</em> to be ‘a very hopeful and promising youth’, with the peerage he also inherited a claim to the Bath inheritance as well as a considerable interest in the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme and in the counties of Staffordshire and Yorkshire.<sup>5</sup> It is probably testament to his mother’s strength of character that her son’s minority did not significantly alter the family’s standing in these areas. In the election of 1710, for instance, William Burslem<sup>‡</sup> was returned for Newcastle on the Gower interest in spite of previous allegations of bribery that had been levelled against him by his Whig opponents.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Noted a minor in an assessment of support for Henry Sacheverell in March 1710, in June of the following year Gower was marked as a Tory in a list of the patriots of the previous year’s session. By October 1711 he had begun to attempt to exert his interest by joining with a kinsman, Peyton, in offering his support for Mr Herbert for a living on part of the Bath estate disputed between several competitors, of which Gower was one.<sup>7</sup> In the winter of 1711 he also had early experience of the House, when he petitioned for permission to bring in a bill to enable him to make a settlement for his forthcoming marriage to Lady Evelyn Pierrepont. The petition was referred to the judges for their opinion on 10 Dec. and then committed just under a fortnight later following the judges’ favourable report. On 17 Jan. the House ordered that the committee should be revived and two days later Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, reported that the committee had proposed a few amendments but otherwise found the bill fit to pass. On 9 Feb. 1712 it received the royal assent.</p><p>Although he was still underage at the time of the queen’s death, Gower soon found himself the subject of several requests for his interest in the forthcoming elections. In October 1714 Gower was applied to for his interest on behalf of Thomas Paget<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Paget, in the elections for Staffordshire, Paget’s father Henry Paget*, 8th Baron Paget (later earl of Uxbridge) entreating that Gower would prove ‘merciful to the young man at first setting out,’ and the same month, Henry Dawnay<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Downe [I], also sought Gower’s support for his candidature for Yorkshire in partnership with Sir Arthur Kaye<sup>‡</sup>. It was not until February 1716 that Gower eventually took his place in the House, following a concerned appeal to his mother from his father-in-law, Kingston, in the autumn of 1715 urging that the young man should assure the new king of his allegiance and quash the suspicions that he, like other members of his Granville kindred, harboured Jacobite sympathies.<sup>8</sup> Although Gower subsequently took his seat in the House and kept clear of overt Jacobite plotting, such suspicions continued to dog him for much of his career. His second wife, Penelope Atkins, was daughter of a member of the Commons who also seems to have flirted with Jacobitism half-heartedly. Gower threw in his lot with the Pelhams following the fall of Walpole (Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Orford), was brought into the administration as lord privy seal in 1745 and was then rewarded for his steadfastness with promotion in the peerage to an earldom. His career will be further considered in the next part of this work.</p><p>Gower succumbed at the age of 60 and was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest surviving son, Granville Leveson Gower*, then serving as Member for Lichfield, as 2nd Earl Gower (later marquess of Stafford).</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LEY, James (1618-65) |
<p><strong><surname>LEY</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1618–65)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1629-38 Ld. Ley; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1 Apr. 1638 as 3rd earl of MARLBOROUGH |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 20 Nov. 1660; last sat 6 May 1664 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Jan. 1618, o. s. of Henry Ley<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Marlborough, and Mary, da. of Sir Arthur Capell, of Little Hadham, Herts. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 2 June 1665; <em>will</em> 26 Mar.–29 May, pr. 22 June 1665.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Lt. RN, capt. 1661; adm. of detached squadron 1662–3.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>In his memoirs Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, recalled Marlborough as ‘a man of wonderful parts in all kinds of learning, which he took more delight in than his title’.<sup>3</sup> He was known for his particular skill in mathematics, which found practical application in a career as a navigator, colonizer, and naval commander.<sup>4</sup> His financial position was precarious. Shortly after succeeding to the title Marlborough had to sell the family estate at Westbury and was left with only a small cluster of Wiltshire manors centring on Teffont Evias and worth just £200 a year.<sup>5</sup> By 1643 he was an ‘admiral’ at Dartmouth, responsible for assembling and equipping a squadron of ships and vessels ‘for [the] suppressing of rebels’.<sup>6</sup> Very soon afterwards he left English shores for the Caribbean.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s lifelong involvement in this region was initially prompted by a long-running dispute resulting from an arrangement made by his grandfather, also named James Ley<sup>†</sup>, earl of Marlborough, with James Hay<sup>†</sup>, earl of Carlisle, over rights to govern the ‘Caribbee’ (i.e. Leeward) Islands. Marlborough’s efforts to establish English predominance on the Leeward island of Santa Cruz during 1645–6 ended in bloody failure at the hands of the Spanish and it may have been his inability to sustain the consequent personal financial loss that forced him to sell off the Teffont Evias estate in 1652.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Like so many of his fellow adventurers, Marlborough saw the Restoration as providing rich opportunity for new initiatives in the Caribbean. Towards the end of 1660 he was one of many who submitted proposals for the improvement and settlement of Jamaica, which had been seized from the Spanish by Cromwellian forces five years earlier. To hasten the process of settlement under English rule he advocated the intercession of the Royal Africa Company ‘to make Jamaica the staple for the supply of blacks’, and was willing that religious toleration be granted ‘to all who desire it’. Whether Marlborough’s Jamaica proposals preceded, and therefore helped to promote, his appointment on 1 Dec. to the new council for foreign plantations is unclear, but the combination of his aristocratic status and first-hand experience of colonial management qualified him ideally for membership of this body. <sup>9</sup> Among his fellow councillors were Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, a friend of many years standing, and a cousin, Sir William Glascock<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>A call of the House on 31 July 1660 revealed that Marlborough was absent by ‘leave of the king’, although further details of the business on which he was engaged are unknown. His decision to take his seat in the House on 20 Nov. 1660 may have been prompted by his interest in the bill (later aborted) for the annexation of Dunkirk and Jamaica to the crown. The bill had been scheduled to be debated that day but was not considered until the following day. Marlborough was then present for just over 37 per cent of the remaining days of the Convention.</p><p>Marlborough’s last attendance during the 1661–2 session of the Cavalier Parliament was on 6 Mar. 1662. His attendance before that date was somewhat sporadic, amounting to some 24 per cent of sitting days. In March 1662 he sailed for the East Indies as commodore of a small squadron on what proved to be an abortive mission to take possession of Bombay (Mumbai), ceded by the king of Portugal as part of Catherine of Braganza’s marriage dowry.<sup>10</sup> Setting out from India on 5 Jan. 1663, he was back in attendance in the Lords on 14 July.<sup>11</sup> There were a mere 11 days of the session left; Marlborough managed to attend 4 of them.</p><p>Marlborough was also determined to use his alliances to pursue his dispute over the Caribbee Islands. Apart from Clarendon, who held him in high esteem, he may also have been able to count on the assistance of two particular friends, Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Hugh Pollard<sup>‡</sup>, both of whom were senior officials of the court. The privy council arrived at a final settlement of the several claims arising from the original grant of the Caribbee Islands to Carlisle in June 1663. It was ordered that £500 a year be paid to Marlborough out of the Islands’ revenues for the duration of his life and after him to his uncle and heir, William Ley*, later 4th earl of Marlborough.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In September 1663 there were rumours of Marlborough’s imminent appointment as governor of Jamaica but in February 1664 the king’s choice fell instead on Sir Thomas Modyford, who, unlike Marlborough, had long experience of the institutions of government in the plantation islands.<sup>13</sup> There is a hint that Marlborough bore this outcome with some hurt, as during the ensuing session of Parliament (March–May 1664) he troubled to appear in the Lords at only five sittings and during the next session failed to attend at all. In a letter he wrote shortly before his death he spoke of having lately withdrawn himself from the ‘deceitful vanity of the world’ and as Clarendon later observed, ‘having no great estate descended to him, he brought down his mind to his future and lived very retired, but with more reputation than any fortune could have given him’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Early in 1665, at the commencement of Anglo-Dutch hostilities, Marlborough was brought onto the council of war, and took his place alongside the nine flag officers by virtue of his position as ‘captain of a ship by commission’.<sup>15</sup> The prospect of naval encounter with the Dutch filled him with a strong foreboding that he would soon fall in action. From his command, the <em>Old James</em>, off the coast of Holland, he wrote farewell letters to his cousin Sir William Glascock and to Sir Hugh Pollard. These pious epistles reveal Marlborough’s extreme remorse at having previously been ‘a great neglecter’ and ‘despiser’ of religion but now saw him comforted in his contemplation of God and exhorting his old companions to seek the same path.<sup>16</sup> Marlborough was killed a few weeks later at the great naval battle off Lowestoft.<sup>17</sup> He was buried at Westminster Abbey on 14 June, ‘several lords of the council carrying him, and with the heralds in some state’.<sup>18</sup> His will, signed on 26 Mar. 1665, appointed his ‘ever worthy and true friend’ Sir George Carteret as executor. It consisted mainly of cash bequests amounting to about £1,000, including £500 to his uncle and heir, and a range of smaller sums to cousins and distant relatives remembered from many years previously.</p> |
A.A.H./R.P. |
|
LEY, William (1612-80) |
<p><strong><surname>LEY</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1612–80)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew 2 June 1665 as 4th earl of Marlborough. |
|
First sat 17 Mar. 1670; last sat 28 Mar. 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 10 or 12 Mar. 1612, 3rd s. of James Ley<sup>†</sup>, earl of Marlborough and 1st w. Mary, da. of John Pettie, of Stoke Talmage, Oxon. <em>m</em>. Margaret (<em>d</em>.1713), da. of Sir William Hewett of Breckles, Norf. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. May 1680; <em>admon</em>. 9 June 1680 to wid.</p> |
|
|
<p>Although Marlborough’s father, the first earl, had enjoyed a career which had elevated him to the lord high treasurership under James I and Charles I, he had amassed little landed wealth.<sup>1</sup> Much of what there was appears to have been parcelled out as marriage dowries for the earl’s eight daughters, while most of the core of the estate, in Wiltshire, was either seriously depleted by sale or, in the case of the principal landholding at Westbury, was effectively alienated from the family through the marriage in 1647 of the 1st earl’s widow to Colonel Thomas Wancklyn<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>2</sup> William Ley, the 4th earl, had been granted an annuity of £100 at his father’s behest in 1628, a source of income on which he relied heavily for the rest of his life.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Almost nothing is known of Ley’s early career. The <em>Complete Peerage</em> attributes him with an ensignship in ‘the Coldstream Guards’ in 1655 and appointment to the Privy Council on 22 Nov. 1662, but both seem improbable and the evidence for either is lacking. The death of his unmarried nephew, James Ley*, 3rd earl of Marlborough, in the naval battle off Lowestoft brought him the title but little else except £500 under the terms of his nephew’s will.<sup>4</sup> In a petition to the council in August 1669 the 4th earl stated that the family estate had been ‘consumed by loyal services during the rebellion’ and now consisted of only a small tenement worth £50 p.a.<sup>5</sup> He possessed a small amount of land at Weston, near Bath, quite possibly a remnant of his father’s estate, where he lived in what he described as little more than ‘a poor thatched house and but little belonging to it’, and which on another occasion he likened to a ‘poor enchanted hermitage’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>A writ of summons to the Lords was issued on 15 Mar. 1670.<sup>7</sup> It seems highly unlikely that he himself would have actively sought this, especially as keeping himself in London in order to attend the House regularly was a financial impossibility. Yet the timing of the summons may be significant; in August 1669 Marlborough had been compelled to petition the council for payment of his annuity and ‘creation money’ which had fallen four years into arrears.<sup>8</sup> The prompt acknowledgement of this debt may have been conditional on his support in the Lords. He was unsuccessful in obtaining payment of the ‘Caribbee pension’ to which he had become entitled on the death of his nephew.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Marlborough took his seat on 17 Mar. 1670 and attended sittings on the next two days, and again on 25 and 31 Mar., but his subsequent appearances were sparse. Further visits to London brought him to the Lords on isolated occasions, once in November that same year, once more on an adjournment day in April 1672, and for ten days during February-March 1673 (which amounted that session to 23 per cent of sittings). His primary need to retain ministerial goodwill and punctuality in the payment of his annuity kept him firmly on the side of the court. He safeguarded himself in this respect by entering his proxy in favour of peers whose loyalty to the court was not in doubt: on 5 Jan. 1674 and 8 Jan. 1677 to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), on 12 May and 14 Oct. 1675 to John Granville*, earl of Bath, and on 28 Oct. 1678 to Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice. Unsurprisingly, he was recorded by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury as ‘vile’.</p><p>Marlborough’s chief support in his impoverished circumstances was his nephew John Harington<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1700) whose seat at Kelston, Somerset, was a short distance from Marlborough’s modest residence. Harington appears to have played some part in the management of Marlborough’s straitened affairs, and was a convenient source of cash when his limited funds ran short. In his letters to Harington, Marlbrough usually made appeal as an object of pity by signing himself off as ‘your poor uncle and servant’. Preparing for a visit to London in September 1675, he offered to use his government connections, such as they were, to save Harington from nomination as high sheriff, but it is doubtful whether his voice could have carried any significant weight.<sup>10</sup> In April 1677 he wrote to Danby stating that ‘the titles I now bear I have found to be very ponderous to me unless I had a greater estate or some beneficial office to carry so great a burden’, to which purpose he asked if he might ‘upon reasonable terms’ relinquish his earldom and retain the barony of Ley. His intention was that the money raised from the sale of his senior title would allow him ‘to repurchase part of the estate that my relations sold away’, and he ventured to suggest that Danby’s son-in-law, Edward Cooke, might like to have first refusal. His wishes were either rejected or ignored.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Having attended the Lords on a single occasion at the end of 1678, the first time since 1673, Marlborough was summoned to take the oaths and subscribe the declaration as required by the recently passed Test Act.<sup>12</sup> He duly attended on 27 Mar. and again the next day, but registered his proxy on the 29th. For the first time he did not nominate a courtier. It is possible that his choice of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, to exercise his proxy was determined purely out of family loyalty (Essex being the great-nephew of Mary Capell, wife of his elder brother Henry Ley<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Marlborough). Yet it seems far more likely that his choice of a supporter of the country party had been prompted by Danby’s recent downfall and was intended to signify his general disenchantment with the court in the light of his own pitiful situation. Danby, too, in his calculations of support in anticipation of impeachment, was now uncertain of Marlborough, in one forecast noting him as a likely adherent, and in another as an opponent. Marlborough had always been careful to express his gratitude to Danby for the small scraps of favour he received, but the contrast between his own circumstances and those of the court was difficult to bear.<sup>13</sup> More specifically, the non-payment of the £500 ‘Caribbee pension’ had evidently become a major grievance by this time, as in April or May it was petitioned for by his nephew’s executor, Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>; the explanation given in August was that the Caribbee revenues were required for the upkeep there of militia forces.<sup>14</sup></p><p>By early May 1680 Marlborough had fallen seriously ill and had taken to imbibing large amounts of brandy, presumably to alleviate pain. Even before he was dead his wealthier relatives, the Longs of Draycot, Wiltshire, were concerned to scotch any suggestion of a funeral befitting the rank of earl, and on 8 May Marlborough’s nephew Sir James Long<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Harington suggesting that the burial be immediate and private. Administration of the estate, such as it was, was granted in June 1680 to his widow who herself was to die in poverty in 1713. Marlborough was buried at the parish church at Weston, the cost, it seems, borne chiefly by Harington.<sup>15</sup></p> |
A.A.H./B.A. |
|
LOVELACE, John (1616-70) |
<p><strong><surname>LOVELACE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1616–70)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Apr. 1634 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. LOVELACE. |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 16 May 1660; last sat 2 Apr. 1670 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. Feb. 1616, s. of Richard Lovelace<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Lovelace, and Margaret, da. of William Dodworth, of London. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1632. <em>m</em>. 11 July 1638, Anne (<em>d</em>.1697), da. of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, and Anne Crofts, 1s. 3da. <em>d</em>. 24 Sept. 1670; <em>will</em> 7 Oct. 1664, pr. 25 Nov. 1670.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Berks. 1660-<em>d</em>; steward and lt. of Woodstock Manor and Park 1668-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Notorious for keeping ‘ill company’ and for his habit of drinking ‘to distemper himself,’ Lovelace succeeded to a substantial estate in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, estimated as being worth £6,000 a year, much of which he contrived to fritter away in the course of his life.<sup>3</sup> His dubious reputation – ‘so much addicted to mean company and so easily drawn to debauchery’ – disturbed one prospective mother-in-law, the countess of Leicester, so much so that she eventually resolved ‘to break off with him’, although ‘his estate is good, his person pretty enough, and his wit much more than ordinary.’<sup>4</sup> Deprived of ‘Doll’ Sidney, in July 1638 Lovelace instead secured a match with Cleveland’s daughter, Anne Wentworth. The marriage was not a happy one, and by 1660 they were barely on speaking terms. Lady Lovelace attempted to turn their son, John Lovelace*, later 3rd Baron Lovelace, against her husband and did her utmost to frustrate Lovelace’s attempts to marry his heir to one of the daughters of Baptist Noel*, Viscount Campden.<sup>5</sup> In this she was successful, but she gained no hold over her equally dissolute son and, following his father’s death, the younger Lovelace moved swiftly to bar his mother from the family property.<sup>6</sup></p><p>A staunch royalist, Lovelace was one of the few peers who willingly rallied to the king’s cause at the close of the 1630s.<sup>7</sup> At the outbreak of Civil War he remained in London initially as part of the ‘peace party’ in the House of Lords working towards accommodation between the king and Parliament. In 1642 he was one of the 40 lords and counsellors who put their names to a declaration that the king had no intention of making war on Parliament, but in 1643 with the peace party effectively broken, Lovelace had little alternative but to join the king at Oxford. As someone, ‘of whose good affections to his service the king had always assurance,’ Lovelace received a warm welcome there, though Prince Maurice viewed his arrival with suspicion attributing it solely to, ‘the recent successes of the king’s armies in the north and west.’<sup>8</sup> Although he did not take an active part in the military campaigns, he was declared delinquent by Parliament and, after petitioning to compound, was fined £7,057 7s. 5d.<sup>9</sup> His loyalties remained suspect, and in 1655 he was arrested and committed to the Tower of London.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Lovelace’s estates suffered greatly during the Interregnum. He made no secret of the extent of his losses, declaring at the end of the civil wars that, ‘he was tenant for life of the Manor of Water Eaton … worth before these wars £1,000, but … now not worth anything,’ and that he owed ‘£8,000 at the least besides interests for four years for the same.’<sup>11</sup> Two years after the Restoration, Lovelace’s estates in Berkshire and Oxfordshire were estimated to be worth in excess of £4,000 annually, but by then his debts were reckoned to amount to over £20,000.<sup>12</sup> Along with a number of impoverished royalists, he viewed the Restoration principally as an opportunity to recover his position. He petitioned the king for a grant of the estate of his former brother-in-law, Henry Marten<sup>‡</sup>, which had been forfeited by act of attainder, arguing that, ‘it would little profit his Majesty or the duke of York [James*, duke of York], to whom it, with others similar, is granted, but might serve the petitioner, by enabling him to compound for his recognizance.’<sup>13</sup> In 1667 Lovelace petitioned for grants of two further estates.</p><p>In advance of the meeting of the Convention, Lovelace was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as having been one of the ‘lords with the king’. He resumed his seat in the restored House on 16 May 1660: two days after the House had ordered that letters should be sent to him and six other peers requiring their attendance. Present on approximately 76 per cent of all sitting days in the Convention, he was added to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions after which he was named to six committees prior to the September adjournment and to a further nine committees during the remainder of the session.</p><p>Although Lovelace seems to have wielded little local political influence, his son, John Lovelace, was returned for Berkshire in the 1661 election, perhaps benefiting from his father’s patronage. Lovelace returned to the House at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament in May 1661, after which he was present on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was nominated to 45 committees. Excused at a call on 20 May 1661, he resumed his seat the following day. On 11 July he was estimated as being opposed to the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the lord great chamberlaincy.</p><p>Following the prorogation, Lovelace’s attention was taken up with the management of affairs in Berkshire. The county was home to a large number of nonconformists, and in the summer of 1662 Lovelace turned out several of Newbury’s aldermen, including the mayor, for refusing to take the oaths, though he did not offer them an opportunity to do so.<sup>14</sup> Despite this, Lovelace does not appear to have been a particularly stern enforcer of the laws against Dissenters, or to have been averse to working with those formerly in opposition to the king as evidenced by the fact that the government refused to employ at least one of his nominated deputies.<sup>15</sup> In October Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, wrote to Lovelace demanding that he ‘suppress private and dangerous meetings in Berkshire, and more especially to take up teachers, joining military with civil power therein’. In 1663, however, Peter Mews*, later bishop of Winchester, complained that one ejected minister, Christopher Fowler, had refused to desist from holding meetings at his house protesting that he had ‘satisfied the lord lieutenant.’<sup>16</sup> When Fowler was imprisoned in 1664, Lovelace took security for his good behaviour, despite an appeal from Sir William Armorer to the chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, that he should not allow Lovelace to do so.<sup>17</sup> Lovelace’s support for a broad church settlement, encompassing some dissenting opinion, appears to have been reflected both in the presence of the Independent minister, John Owen, as chaplain at Hurley between 1640 and 1650 and in Lovelace’s attitude to the nonconformists in his lieutenancy.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Lovelace resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. Named to seven committees in the course of the session, on 7 May he was one of several peers nominated to arbitrate between the dowager Baroness Abergavenny and George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergavenny. On 13 July Wharton assessed Lovelace, who was still broadly a supporter of the court interest, as unlikely to support the attempted impeachment of Clarendon orchestrated by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. Four days later, he registered his proxy for the rest of the session with Clarendon’s close associate, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater. Lovelace returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 16 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on over 80 per cent of all sitting days, but he was named to just two committees.</p><p>Between 1662 and 1666 Lovelace was engaged in a long-standing dispute with Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> over Whitelocke’s purchase of the manor of Blundesden. With the assistance of Whitelocke’s brother-in-law, Francis Willoughby*, 4th (<em>CP</em>5th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, Lovelace had persuaded Whitelocke to buy the estate to enable him to pay off his creditors.<sup>19</sup> Whitelocke suspected ‘ill dealing’ and was proved right when Lovelace refused to honour their agreement, saying that, ‘Whitelocke might sue him upon his covenant’. Such a course of action, as Whitelocke knew full well, would be of no benefit to him, as Lovelace, ‘had made over all his estates to others, to defeat his creditors, and that no suit against him could have any effect by reason thereof, and because he was a peer.’ A resolution was eventually arrived at whereby Clarendon bought Blunsden, paying £6,000 to Lovelace and £7,000 to Whitelocke.<sup>20</sup></p><p>In the midst of this, Lovelace resumed his seat in the House just over a week into the new session on 6 Dec. 1664, after which he was present on 58 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to five committees. He took his seat in the subsequent session on 9 Oct. 1665 (attending 11 of its 16 days and being named to three committees). During the 1666-7 session he was present on 81 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 13 committees, including that concerning a bill for his father-in-law, Cleveland. On 24 Jan. 1667 he was named one of the commissioners for accounts. Lovelace attended two days in July 1667. He resumed his seat in the 1667-9 session on 10 Oct. 1667, after which he was present on almost 87 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 14 committees, the session was dominated for Lovelace by a dispute between him and other members of his family over the settlement of the Cleveland estate (Cleveland having died in March 1667). Lovelace’s sister-in-law Philadelphia, Lady Wentworth, complained to the under-secretary of state, Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, that Lovelace was attempting to ‘prejudice his wife against her’ and warned that ‘if his lordship disquiet the family affairs, he will only hurt himself.’<sup>21</sup> Although present in the House for the debates surrounding the proceedings against Clarendon in November and December, Lovelace did not sign the protest at the resolution to pass the bill banishing the former lord chancellor, but it seems reasonable to assume that he would have been opposed to Clarendon’s impeachment. On 12 Mar. 1668 Lovelace was one of the peers named to the committee for Sir John Weld’s bill, a measure designed to settle Weld’s claims on the Cleveland estate. The following month, on 3 Apr., Lady Wentworth submitted a petition to the House objecting to a clause in Weld’s bill, but although counsel was heard in the matter ten days later, the business was continually put off and by the close of the session no resolution had been reached. Disputes over the settlement of the Cleveland estate continued to be argued through the courts and wrangling over the inheritance rumbled on until after Lovelace’s death.<sup>22</sup> The close of the session offered Lovelace no relief either as he found himself engaged once more in disputes with Whitelocke.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Lovelace’s prodigality and reputation for deceitfulness always stood in the way of achieving a real financial recovery. He refused to curb his extravagant expenditure, and in 1668 he was reported to have lost £600 during one race at Newmarket alone.<sup>24</sup> In spite of these shortcomings, the same year he succeeded the disgraced Clarendon as steward and lieutenant of Woodstock Park.<sup>25</sup> He spent some effort in restoring the crumbling buildings on the estate, and he appears to have lodged in the gatehouse for the remainder of his life.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Lovelace took his seat in the House a few days after the opening of the new session on 25 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days, but he was named to just three committees. He returned to the House for the new session on 14 Feb. 1670, sitting on 26 occasions before attending for the final time on 2 April. During the course of the session he was named to 13 committees. Two days after his final attendance, Lovelace submitted a petition to the House concerning a dispute with William Thorowgood over lands conveyed to Lovelace by Cleveland as part of his wife’s marriage portion. The petition was ordered to be read the following day, though in the event it was not considered until 9 Apr. and no further progress was made during the session. Lovelace died less than six months later, apparently reduced to near poverty and forced to eke out his days in the gatehouse at Woodstock. He was buried at Hurley. In his brief will, devised six years previously, he left what little remained of his property to his son, the future 3rd baron.<sup>27</sup> Lovelace left an estate encumbered by debts and a family riven by feuding. He was assessed dismissively by Whitelocke as an ‘unworthy and dishonest man.’<sup>28</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LOVELACE, John (c. 1641-93) |
<p><strong><surname>LOVELACE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1641–93)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Sept. 1670 as 3rd Bar. LOVELACE |
|
First sat 24 Oct. 1670; last sat 16 Feb. 1693 |
|
MP Berkshire 1661-70 |
<p><em>bap.</em> 6 Mar 1641, o.s. of John Lovelace*, 2nd Bar. Lovelace, and Anne, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Wentworth, da. of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland. <em>educ.</em> Wadham, Oxf., matric. 1655, MA 1661. <em>m.</em> 28 Aug. 1662, Martha (<em>d</em>. c.1704), da. of Sir Edmund Pye, bt., 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p.).</em> <em>d</em>. 27 Sept. 1693; <em>will</em> 26 July 1693.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>C.j. Trent S. 1689-<em>d.</em>; capt. of gent. pens. 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Dep. lt., Berks. 1662-7, by 1670-82,<sup>2</sup> Oxon. by 1670-83, 1689-93;<sup>3</sup> j.p., Berks., Bucks., Oxon. 1663-7, by 1670-80 Beds., Essex., Herts., Kent, Westminster to 1680, Woodstock 1675, Mdx., Oxon.; steward of Woodstock Manor 1670-79,<sup>4</sup> 1691-3; kpr. Woodstock Park 1674-?<em>d.</em>;<sup>5</sup> high steward, Woodstock,<sup>6</sup> Wallingford 1689-<em>d.</em>, Wycombe 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. regt. of ft. 1689.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by M. Laroon, Wadham, Oxf.; oil on canvas, c.1660, Dulwich Picture Gallery.</p> |
<p>Reckoned by one contemporary commentator to be ‘hot headed’ and apt to ‘do the wildest things imaginable’, Lovelace was described more generously by Macaulay as being ‘distinguished by his taste, by his magnificence, and by the audacious and intemperate vehemence of his whiggism.’<sup>8</sup> A member of the Green Ribbon club and a notable supporter of Exclusion, Lovelace was prominent in the Revolution of 1688 as a participant in one of the few bloody exchanges of William of Orange’s invasion of England. As such Lovelace proved to be a contrast with earlier members of his family who had been firm upholders of the monarchy. Closely associated in politics with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, Lovelace was also an adherent of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury.<sup>9</sup> He was likewise a partisan of Charles II’s bastard, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>10</sup> Through his mother Lovelace was a cousin of Monmouth’s mistress, Lady Henrietta Wentworth, and after her death he was the eventual beneficiary of the majority of her estate.<sup>11</sup> An active force in Berkshire politics, where Lovelace commanded support in the environs of Windsor, towards the end of his life he also attempted to extend his influence into Suffolk.<sup>12</sup> In addition to these areas Lovelace also wielded hefty influence in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, his interest in the last bringing him into conflict with his Tory rival, James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon).</p><p>While their political outlook may have differed, in common with his father Lovelace early on acquired a reputation as a drunkard and man of decidedly loose morals. He was closely associated with his equally dissolute neighbour, John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester; their antics in and around their Oxfordshire estates giving rise to all sorts of lurid gossip.<sup>13</sup> Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, a regular visitor to Lovelace and his family, was clearly familiar with his host’s tendency for intemperance. He noted his successful avoidance of drunkenness during one visit to Woodstock when he ‘suffered no excess in drinking, using caution against it.’<sup>14</sup> A more typical episode that occurred towards the end of Lovelace’s career in 1691 was when, along with Richard Savage*, styled Viscount Colchester (later 4th Earl Rivers), and the riotous Charles Livingston<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Newburgh [S], he was reported to have been seen ‘scowring the streets’ and committing ‘some disorders’.<sup>15</sup> His extravagant lifestyle soon forced him into debt, and despite enjoying several lucrative offices he was never able to free himself of his financial embarrassments.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Lovelace succeeded to the title in the late summer of 1670 on the death of his father. With the peerage he inherited estates based on Water Eaton in Oxfordshire worth over £1,200 p.a. as well as lands centred on Hurley in Buckinghamshire. His inheritance also included the manor of Easthamstead in Berkshire, but within a year he was in debt to Richard Johnson of Reading, and by 1673 he had been forced to give up Easthamstead to Johnson.<sup>17</sup> Lovelace took his seat in the House on 24 Oct., after which he attended on a further 34 days (21 per cent of all sitting days in the session) and was named to seven committees. On 17 Jan. 1671 the House took into consideration a petition presented by Lovelace complaining of the actions of two bailiffs who had seized cattle from his estate contrary to privilege. The House ordered the two men to be attached and brought to the bar to answer for their actions; they were released on 31 January.</p><p>Lovelace failed to attend the House for the entirety of March 1671. He appears to have preferred to spend his time at Newmarket, where it was reported that he had lost £600 gambling.<sup>18</sup> He had better fortune that September when he was able to resolve a dispute in chancery with his mother and sister over a case that presumably arose out of the settlement of his father’s estate. In spite of this early the following month, in a foreshadowing of the problems that were to dog him for the rest of his life, he was warned to do something ‘to reduce your very great expenses’, which were already thought to be running at three times his annual income.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Absent from the opening of the new session of February 1673, on 13 Feb. Lovelace was still missing without explanation at a call of the House. He resumed his place five days later, on which day he was added to the committee for Sir Ralph Banks’ bill. He then continued to attend on 39 per cent of all sitting days. He returned to the House later that year for the brief four-day session of October, of which he attended three days. He was then present again for the session of January 1674, attending on 20 days (almost 53 per cent of the whole) but was only named to the sessional committees. A week’s absence from 27 Jan. to 3 Feb. was covered by a proxy to Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland.</p><p>Having attended the prorogation day on 10 Nov. 1674, Lovelace took his place the following year on 26 Apr., but he was in attendance on just nine of the 42 sitting days in the session, and on 29 Apr. he was noted as being excused at a call of the House. On 4 June 1675 Lovelace informed the House that its privilege had been breached by the arrests of Sir John Churchill<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Porter<sup>‡</sup>, lawyers involved in the jurisdictional dispute between the Houses. Neither were Members of the Commons at that time but both were in possession of protections from the Lords. The House ordered the arrest of the Commons’ sergeant at arms, the officer responsible for the outrage. Lovelace returned to the House that autumn when he was present on just over half of all sitting days, but he made little impact on the session being named to just one committee in addition to the sessional committees, though he did vote in favour of addressing the king to request a dissolution of Parliament.</p><p>Although Lovelace appears at this time to have been a relatively inactive member of the House, he remained a significant force in the counties where he held property. As steward of the manor of Woodstock and lieutenant of Woodstock Park, Lovelace commanded considerable political influence both there and in neighbouring Oxford. He aimed to keep Woodstock ‘solely at his devotion’, filling the electorate with non-resident partisans, among them Titus Oates.<sup>20</sup> He also attempted to underwrite his interest in Woodstock by patronizing schemes such as the building of almshouses.<sup>21</sup> His prominent position in the town was confirmed with the purchase of a seat in the parish church for him and ‘his heirs and assigns for ever’ in 1678.<sup>22</sup> His custodianship of the park was called into question in 1675 when he was ordered to put a stop to unauthorized tree felling; later that year Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), wrote to Lovelace and Rochester, who held the place of ranger of Woodstock, requiring them to investigate ‘the considerable waste of wood in the parks of Woodstock by under officers and others.’<sup>23</sup> Lovelace’s relationship with Rochester, a neighbour and fellow graduate of Wadham, was occasionally strained and on one occasion seems to have broken out into an open quarrel.<sup>24</sup> Otherwise they appear to have co-operated closely in terms of their politics, their management of Woodstock and enjoyment of excess.<sup>25</sup> Equally active in Oxford, in 1676 Lovelace sought to prevent Sir Thomas Chamberlaine from being chosen sheriff.<sup>26</sup> When Buckingham, lord high steward of the city, was invited to a celebration in his honour by the mayor and aldermen in 1677, Lovelace was a prominent member of his retinue.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Lovelace resumed his place in the House on 21 Feb. 1677, after which he was present on 28 per cent of sitting days and named to a dozen committees. On 13 and 15 Mar. he registered dissents at the progress of the bill for further securing the Protestant religion. Personal issues came to the fore on 4 Apr. when the House gave a first reading to a bill to enable Lovelace to raise money for payment of debts and for his daughter’s portion. It seems to have made no further progress before the close of the session.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Noted ‘worthy’ in an assessment drawn up by Shaftesbury that May, Lovelace seems to have spent part of the summer of 1677 at Woodstock, where he was observed among ‘much good company’ when his neighbour Anglesey visited the bowling green there.<sup>29</sup> That December a fantastical rumour circulated that Lovelace had been killed in a brawl with one of his own servants. There is no evidence to confirm that, as reported, he had been run through with a roasting spit.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Lovelace resumed his seat in the House on 18 June 1678 but was present on only seven of the session’s 43 sitting days, and he was nominated to just one committee. On 4 July he registered his proxy with John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, which was vacated by the close of the session. The following month, on 23 Aug., he dined with Anglesey.<sup>31</sup> Later that summer he appears to have been involved in a quarrel with his neighbour, Norreys, presumably over local issues, but it was resolved by the interposition of lord treasurer Danby.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Lovelace returned to the House on 22 Oct. 1678 after which he was present on 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Oct. he was named to the committee appointed to examine papers about the plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and the following day he was nominated to that for examining constables to determine whether or not they were papists. On 26 Oct. he informed the committee for examinations of the arrest of one suspected person and pressed for the suspect to be brought before them at once as he was currently waiting in the Painted Chamber where the press of people threatened to allow him the opportunity to abscond.<sup>33</sup> From 14 to 21 Nov. his proxy was held by Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex. On 26 Nov. he was named to one further committee, that considering the bill for raising the militia. On 20 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendments to the supply bill, and on 23 Dec. he dissented from the resolution permitting Danby to remain in the chamber following the reading of the impeachment articles against him. Three days later he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and then registered his dissent when the vote went against him. The following day he voted in favour of committing Danby and then registered his dissent at the resolution not to do so.</p><p>Following the dissolution Lovelace was active in campaigning on behalf of candidates in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. He was also called upon to assist with the election of Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, in Buckinghamshire, in spite of his unpredictable behaviour.<sup>34</sup> In alliance with Buckingham, Lovelace successfully achieved the election of two of Oxford’s leading Whigs, Brome Whorwood<sup>‡</sup> and William Wright<sup>‡</sup>, as the borough representatives.<sup>35</sup> Lovelace’s identification with the opposition led to the loss of his places at Woodstock, which were conveyed instead to Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, husband of the king’s natural daughter, Lady Charlotte Fitzroy.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Lovelace attended three days of the abortive session of March 1679 before resuming his place in the new Parliament on 15 March. Before the session he was assessed by Danby as a likely opponent in three forecasts (though one of March qualified the assessment with ‘unreliable’). Present on 57 per cent of all sitting days, Lovelace was missing from the House for the final week of March, but he ensured that his absence was covered by a proxy to Shaftesbury. He was listed as voting in favour of passing the Danby attainder bill on 4 Apr. but if so his vote must have been lodged by Shaftesbury as the proxy was not vacated until his return to the House on 5 April. Three days later his attention was distracted briefly when he was again involved in a privilege case concerning Robert Hicks, who had refused to answer a summons made out by Lovelace. Hicks was ordered to appear before Lovelace and make his submission. On 14 Apr. Lovelace divided in favour of Danby’s attainder by voting to agree with the Commons over the measure. The following month, on 8 May, he registered his dissent at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request for a committee of both Houses to consider the manner of proceeding against the impeached lords. Two days later he divided again in favour of appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the business and then registered his dissent when the motion was lost. On 13 May he dissented again this time at the resolution to allow the bishops to remain in court during capital cases until sentence of death was pronounced, and on 23 May he dissented twice more against resolutions insisting on the Lords’ decisions to proceed with the trials of the five Lords before that of Danby and to allow the bishops their places in court. On 27 May he registered a further dissent relating to the bishops’ rights in capital cases.</p><p>Following the dissolution Lovelace again proved active in campaigning in attempting to secure places for those in his interest at Woodstock. In July John Cary reported to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> how ‘the old contest is up already between my Lord Lovelace and Sir Thomas Spencer<sup>‡</sup>, but who will carry it I know not.’ In the event the seats went to Sir Littleton Osbaldeston<sup>‡</sup> (possibly with Spencer’s assistance) and Nicholas Bayntun<sup>‡</sup>, who seems to have been Lovelace’s candidate.<sup>37</sup> Lovelace and Buckingham appeared at the Buckingham assizes in July in support of Sir Ralph Verney, an intervention that seems to have taken John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) by surprise as he noted it was ‘more than I expected from him for I have been told he’s given to railing.’<sup>38</sup> In September Lovelace called on Anglesey in company with the two new Woodstock burgesses and, as Anglesey complained, ‘lost me most of the day.’<sup>39</sup></p><p>Lovelace attended two of the prorogation days in January and May 1680. During the interval he brought a case of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> at the Buckinghamshire assizes against a shopkeeper from Marlow, securing £500 in damages.<sup>40</sup> Although the court had previously registered its displeasure with Lovelace by having him put out of the commission of the peace for Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire at the beginning of the year, in July he was admitted a freeman of Oxford, his admission being celebrated with a toast ‘to the confusion of all Popish princes’.<sup>41</sup> He was also present, along with the two burgesses, when Monmouth was admitted to the freedom of the city in September.<sup>42</sup> Riding about the town Lovelace was heard to cry out that he was ‘for a protestant duke, no papist, and god damn him, he was for the protestant religion.’<sup>43</sup></p><p>He resumed his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680 after which he was present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days. Nominated once again to the committee for receiving information about the plot, on 25 Oct. he was appointed along with Shaftesbury and Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), to report back to the committee concerning a number of suspicious Catholic papers.<sup>44</sup> The following month Lovelace voted consistently in favour of the Exclusion bill, entering a dissent to the decision to reject the bill on first reading. On 23 Nov. he joined with Buckingham, Monmouth and a number of other peers in voting in favour of appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom and then subscribed the protest when the resolution was rejected. The following month he was, unsurprisingly, among the majority finding the Catholic peer, William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. The same day (7 Dec.) he registered his proxy with Buckingham, which was vacated a week later (14 December).</p><p>The elections for the new Parliament found Lovelace again to the fore in attempting to employ his interest, though some of his efforts met with little success:</p><blockquote><p>After he had drunk 3 days with all the rag tag of Woodstock, he found that he had gained so little to the end he designed, that, to avoid the disgrace of an open baffle, he took horse the night before the election and rode from them; and at Wallingford they have made an open protest against him that they will have nothing to do with him or any that belong to him, and unanimously resolved that Taverner Harris<sup>‡</sup>, a factious gentleman in the neighbourhood, shall never be chosen to serve in Parliament for their town, because his Lordship recommended him.<sup>45</sup></p></blockquote><p>In spite of such protests Harris was duly returned on Lovelace’s interest.<sup>46</sup> Concerned that a similarly divisive election in Oxfordshire might have a harmful effect upon the general population, John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, attempted to mediate between the partisans of Lovelace and Abingdon (as Norreys had since become) before the county elections.<sup>47</sup> On this occasion Lovelace appeared ready to be conciliatory. He admitted to Fell that he was aware of his being ‘represented as a turbulent person’ and when Fell proposed a meeting of the local gentry to discuss the election ‘Lovelace with great calmness … assured me that he was convinced of the reasonableness of this procedure, and … would not fail to wait upon [Abingdon].’<sup>48</sup> Such an example of Lovelace’s more malleable disposition was rare. Lovelace attended each of the seven days of the brief Parliament that met in Oxford in March 1681. Before the session Danby assessed him as a likely opponent, and on 26 Mar. he joined with Monmouth, Shaftesbury and a number of other opposition peers in subscribing the protest at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ impeachment of Fitzharris and to proceed against him by common law instead.</p><p>Opposition influence in Oxford remained strong at the time of the election of a new town clerk later that summer.<sup>49</sup> Prince, the Whig candidate, was elected despite the efforts made by Thomas Baker, Abingdon’s nominee, to secure a majority in the council.<sup>50</sup> Abingdon did his best to ensure that Prince was foiled, advising Secretary Jenkins that:</p><blockquote><p>as my Lord Lovelace, Mr Ford, Brome Whorwood and that clan have stickled with all violence for Prince and count it no small victory to have carried it so I presume it will not be thought for his majesties service to confirm him if he can avoid it …<sup>51</sup></p></blockquote><p>Abingdon got his way. The king vetoed Prince’s appointment and, two years later, the government insisted that the place go to Baker.<sup>52</sup></p><p>In addition to his direct campaigning on behalf of his candidates, Lovelace also made use of his passion for horse racing to promote the Whig cause in Oxfordshire, instituting a regular competition to be held at Woodstock each September. Lovelace brought Titus Oates to the meet in 1679 and encouraged him to preach. A vigorous supporter of Oates, Lovelace pressed for his being awarded a DD at Oxford, though Wood noted that his support for Oates was motivated by pique at the loss of his office in Woodstock.<sup>53</sup> In 1680 the race was moved to Port Meadow in Oxford as a result of Lovelace’s rivalry with Abingdon.<sup>54</sup> Permanently in financial difficulties, Lovelace was unable to maintain his support for the trophy, and in 1681 the competition had to be cancelled when Lovelace could not find anyone willing to stand him credit for the plate he had commissioned, so that: ‘… after all his huffing, he was forced to un-invite his company and carry away his race horses … and our blessed townsmen were deprived of the so much expected happiness of seeing the gracious duke [Monmouth], here again.’<sup>55</sup> Disappointment there did not prevent Lovelace from joining Monmouth at another race hosted at Quainton, though the turnout was said not to have been ‘so great as was expected.’<sup>56</sup></p><p>By the summer of 1681 Lovelace’s identification with the opposition appears to have proceeded beyond mere campaigning. That August, along with Monmouth, Shaftesbury, and several others, he was named as being implicated in an abortive plot.<sup>57</sup> Although he turned the tables on his accusers and was reported to have been awarded £2,000 in damages following a successful action for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> at the Reading assizes in March 1682, in June he was put out of the deputy lieutenancy for Berkshire.<sup>58</sup> The ministry’s efforts to restrain his influence met with considerable resistance. The following year Abingdon complained to Jenkins that Henley remained ‘full of men of those principles’ and that Adam Springall, whom he had cashiered from being a lieutenant in the Oxfordshire militia on account of his Whiggism, had been made a captain in that of Berkshire through Lovelace’s interest.<sup>59</sup> The year 1683 found Lovelace once more under suspicion, but although he was arrested for his expected involvement in the Rye House plot, under examination he ‘professed so much abhorrence’ for the conspiracy that the king agreed to his release. Sir Robert Sawyer<sup>‡</sup> was later credited with being instrumental in securing Lovelace’s discharge.<sup>60</sup> Even so, he was required to provide a bond of £2,000 and sureties of £1,000 each to guarantee his keeping the peace.<sup>61</sup> His rival Abingdon took the opportunity of his fall to remind Secretary Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> that Lovelace should be removed from the list of deputy lieutenants.<sup>62</sup></p><p>By the beginning of 1684 Lovelace’s fortunes were in sharp decline. He also appears to have been struck down with poor health. ‘Weak in body’ he made a will devising his estate at Hurley to his daughter, Anne, and his manor of Water Eaton to his second daughter, Martha. To his ‘beloved nephew’, Sir Thomas Noel, he left all his ‘horses mares and geldings fit for racing or hunting’ along with all of his hounds.<sup>63</sup> Lovelace’s sickness did not prove fatal but the combination of political marginalization and illness meant that by the accession of James II in 1685, Abingdon effectively dominated Oxford, though he faced occasional challenges from Lovelace and other prominent opposition figures.<sup>64</sup> When the Whigs, led by Lovelace and Wright, opposed surrendering the city charter in 1684, Abingdon’s interest proved stronger.<sup>65</sup> Even so, Lovelace was able to persuade Abingdon not to proceed against Robert Pawlin, one of the city officials turned out when the charter was renewed, over some ‘scandalous’ and actionable words against Abingdon. Lovelace lived to regret his patronage of Pawlin, who refused to take up his place again on the restoration of the charter and made further insinuations about Abingdon. Following the Revolution Lovelace was reported to be so incensed at his former associate that, ‘he says he will never own him again and be so far from helping him to a place that he will hinder him all he can.’<sup>66</sup></p><p>Lovelace’s declining interest appears to have driven him to more violent measures. In April 1685 he was summoned before king’s bench to answer charges that he had been involved in ‘encouraging and abetting’ his servant John Cole in beating Thomas Foster, one of the candidates for the county seat in Berkshire.<sup>67</sup> The summons gave rise to unfounded rumours that Lovelace had once again been taken into custody.<sup>68</sup> When he attempted to join Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, in waiting on the king shortly after this affair, both men were denied an audience.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Lovelace took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, but he attended just 11 of the 42 sitting days (26 per cent). On the opening day of the session Lovelace called for the clerk to be sworn, but he was overruled by the lord keeper (George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys) who insisted that he ought to have been sworn in the morning following prayers.<sup>70</sup> Missing without explanation at a call of the House on 26 May, Lovelace returned on 30 May. On 4 June he was nominated to the committee for the bill for exporting leather. The same day he registered his proxy with Anglesey after which he remained away from the House until November. Despite his previous close association with Monmouth, Lovelace avoided being implicated in the rebellion that summer and, no doubt eager to maintain a low profile, he seems to have remained in retirement in the country. Following the adjournment he was again absent at a call of the House held on 16 November. He resumed his seat the following day and on 18 Nov. was named to one further committee before the prorogation.</p><p>Listed as an opponent of the repeal of the Test at the opening of 1687, Lovelace was again the subject of investigation by the authorities in March when it was reported that he was to be reprimanded for his role in a misdemeanour involving a number of army officers at Reading.<sup>71</sup> In May he was again included among those thought opposed to the king’s policies and the same month he stood bail for William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire.<sup>72</sup> Subsequent assessments consistently listed him as an opponent of the king’s policies. In February he was once more under suspicion and brought before the council to answer charges amounting to ‘a high misdemeanour’.<sup>73</sup> The investigation appears to have stemmed from Lovelace’s refusal to accept the order of a Catholic magistrate concerning the burial of an illegitimate child at Hurley. Rejecting the magistrate’s competence to act, and hence questioning the king’s dispensing power, Lovelace was said to have threatened to ‘wipe his breech with the warrant.’ When he was summoned before the privy council, apparently for the fifth or sixth time, he refused to answer the charge insisting ‘that he had not been informed of his crime; that there was matter of law in the case’. Lovelace was eventually dismissed and advised by James that if he believed he was the victim of perjured evidence he should pursue the witnesses with an action of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em>.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Although Lovelace does not appear to have been admitted to the private deliberations of the ‘Immortal Seven’, he may have played a role as a courier between the Prince of Orange and some opposition figures. In September 1688 he was granted leave to travel to Spa for his health.<sup>75</sup> He took advantage of the opportunity to meet with the prince and on his return was careful to offload a servant bearing the prince’s instructions before his arrival in port.<sup>76</sup> The same month a warrant was again drawn up for his apprehension.<sup>77</sup> Having succeeded in evading his pursuers, Lovelace was one of the first peers to mobilize in support of William of Orange.<sup>78</sup> He raised a troop of 100 horse, thereby honouring a promise he had made to the prince that summer, but was then waylaid by the local militia at Cirencester <em>en</em> <em>route</em> to the west country from Oxford. Following a brief skirmish the militia succeeded in capturing Lovelace,</p><blockquote><p>the gentlemen [striving] to fight their way out one Mr Whitlock was shot through the belly and my Lord with two or three more taken, the rest are got off with the loss of their horses and baggage, my Lord is a little bruised with a pistol which his silk armour resisted, and is very cheerful as usually.<sup>79</sup></p></blockquote><p>Another account of the affray cast doubt upon the likelihood that Lovelace had truly exhibited such heroism noting that he was not renowned for his courage, ‘unless at a drinking engagement.’<sup>80</sup> Lovelace was imprisoned in Gloucester gaol, though the lord lieutenant, Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, was concerned that it was ‘not fit for a man of his quality.’ Beaufort also worried that ‘there being no garrison in the town and in an ill neighbourhood enough … very probably a rescue will be attempted.’<sup>81</sup> News of Lovelace’s capture provoked Prince William to write to Beaufort warning him that he would answer for Lovelace’s safekeeping and even, according to another source, threatening to burn Badminton if his supporter were not released.<sup>82</sup> The prince then took a number of Catholic prisoners to put pressure on Beaufort to set his troublesome charge at liberty.<sup>83</sup> Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, imprisoned for adhering to James II, hoped that he might be exchanged for Lovelace.<sup>84</sup> Beaufort’s concerns about the security of the prison were then proved right when Lovelace was sprung from gaol.<sup>85</sup> His rescuers were Captain Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, Abingdon’s brother, and a number of Gloucester citizens discontented with James II’s policies.<sup>86</sup> On his release Lovelace was indulged with ‘a great treat’ courtesy of the dean of Gloucester before assuming control as quasi-governor of the city. He took command of the local troops to put down the disorders there before leading a detachment into Oxford in triumph.<sup>87</sup> On his way he took advantage of his new superiority to descend on Woodstock and exact a minor revenge on John Cary (Lichfield’s man of business) by relieving him of ‘those few arms of swords and guns I had, upon an information that I sent after him to Eaton to cause him to be taken.’<sup>88</sup> The arrival of his motley cavalcade of ‘myrmidons’ at Oxford and Lovelace’s ‘smart speech’ to the city was satirized in a poem by John Smith:<sup>89</sup></p><blockquote><p>His horse wore a halter amongst all the rest,<br />Nor had the dull wight half the sense of his beast:<br />And he of the two deserved the rope best …<sup>90</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lovelace’s prominence in the Revolution appears to have encouraged him to reassert his interest in the elections to the Convention. A report circulated at the opening of 1689 that Lovelace meant to ‘interpose’ in the election for Buckingham. Although Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup> protested at first that he could not believe it, a few days later he related a further report that Lovelace and Wharton meant to set up their interest in opposition to his candidature and that of Verney. In the event Lovelace’s influence proved unequal to the task and the two sitting members were returned unopposed.<sup>91</sup> He enjoyed greater success at New Woodstock, though even here a bargain appears to have been struck with the Berties resulting in the return of Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> on Lovelace’s interest and Sir John Doyley<sup>‡</sup> who was probably the Bertie candidate.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Lovelace returned to London in time to take his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689. Present on 79 per cent of all sitting days, he was soon to the fore in the proceedings. Nominated to 30 committees during the course of the session, on 23 Jan. he was named to the committee appointed to investigate Essex’s death. Two days later having initially been among the most vehement in insisting that the former king’s most recent creation, Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, should be prevented from sitting, he then performed a dramatic <em>volte</em> <em>face</em> and demanded Griffin’s formal introduction. The reason was believed to be the Whigs’ fear that George Carteret*, Baron Carteret, might also be prevented from taking his place. Given his strong backing for the Revolution it is unsurprising that Lovelace was a firm supporter of awarding the crown to William and Mary. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring the prince and princess king and queen and registered his dissent at the resolution not to agree with the Commons in using the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant.’ Lovelace’s enthusiastic embracing of the new state of affairs was not confined to the chamber. On 2 Feb. he presented the House with a petition demanding that William and Mary be proclaimed king and queen at once. On being asked who supported the petition, ‘Lord Lovelace withdrew the petition, saying it was not signed; but there should be hands enough to it.’ Lacking any signatures the Lords refused to consider the document.<sup>93</sup> The petition was then passed about the coffee houses where it was rumoured it amassed some 10,000 signatures. Unwilling to be swayed by such unruly popular pressure, the prince was said to have ordered the petition to be suppressed by the lord mayor.<sup>94</sup> In spite of such setbacks Lovelace’s boisterous support for awarding the throne to the prince and princess continued unrestrained. On 4 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons in the employment of the term ‘abdicated’ and entered a further dissent when the House once more rejected the proposal. Two days later he again divided in favour of using the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant.’ Once the matter had at last been settled to his satisfaction, Lovelace was then closely connected with several of the Members of the Commons involved in drafting the Bill of Rights.<sup>95</sup> He also appears to have put pressure on those not willing to accept the new state of affairs. At the end of March King William was reported to have cautioned Lovelace ‘not to be so severe upon the archbishop [William Sancroft*, of Canterbury] about his absence from the House.’<sup>96</sup></p><p>Active in other matters before the Lords during the session, on 28 Feb. Lovelace informed the House of the activities of Robert Clarke who had travelled from France bearing suspicious messages. The House then agreed with Lovelace’s request for Clarke to be secured. On 21 and 23 Mar. he subscribed two protests in opposition to the resolutions refusing to add clauses repealing the 1673 Test or extending the time to be permitted for taking the Test to the bill for establishing new oaths. On 27 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers for a division concerning the case <em>Roper v. Roper,</em> and on 5 Apr. he protested once more at the rejection of an amendment to the bill for uniting the kingdom’s protestant subjects. Three days later he was nominated one of the managers of the conference convened to consider the bill for removing papists from Westminster. Lovelace was named to two further conferences considering the same business on 16 and 17 Apr., and on 23 Apr. he acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to agree to the resolution relating to the clergy in the abrogating oaths bill. On 27 Apr. he was entrusted with the proxy of Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, which was vacated on 1 May. On 17 May Lovelace registered his own proxy with Bolton, and on 22 May he was noted as missing at a call of the House. He resumed his seat, thereby vacating the proxy, on 6 June. That month he informed the House that he had ordered the arrest of a Catholic who had been overheard drinking toasts to the confusion of Protestants and how ‘he hoped to see all their throats cut.’<sup>97</sup> Lovelace was named a manager of the conferences held on 20 and 21 June to consider the bill for enabling the commissioners of the great seal, and on 10 July he demonstrated his belief in the reality of the Popish Plot by registereing his dissent against ‘all the questions touching the bill concerning the reversal of the judgments against Titus Oates.’ On 15 July he was again entrusted with Bolton’s proxy, and the following day he was named a manager of the succession bill. Lovelace was absent from the House for the first vote on the reversal of Titus Oates’ conviction for perjury, but he returned in time to support his old comrade by opposing the Lords’ amendments to the bill on 30 July. He then protested against the resolution to adhere to the Lords’ amendments. The same day he was granted leave to be absent but he continued to sit until 20 August.</p><p>In spite of his reputation as the very loosest of cannons, Lovelace seems to have enjoyed some influence with the prince and was rewarded for his part in the Revolution with a number of offices. He interceded successfully on behalf of Capt. Edward Elliott, who had been taken in flight along with Richard Grahme, Viscount Preston [S], in 1688.<sup>98</sup> He was also successful in securing a pardon for a convicted murderer.<sup>99</sup> In February 1689 he was made captain of the band of pensioners (a post previously enjoyed by his father-in-law, Cleveland).<sup>100</sup> The same month he was awarded the highly prized office of chief justice in eyre of Trent south. He was also restored as a deputy lieutenant in Oxfordshire under his old foe Abingdon. Lovelace was accused posthumously of abusing his position as chief justice, Trent south. Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, told Abingdon, Lovelace’s successor, that, ‘I do believe your predecessor has been a great destroyer and therefore a restraint is necessary. But he put a restraint and in the mean time destroyed as much as he could.’<sup>101</sup></p><p>Lovelace’s rebellious temperament came to the fore in his assertion of his rights as chief justice. When his warrant for a buck out of St James’s Park was refused, he went to the park himself the following day and killed one. The queen, furious at his presumption reprimanded him severely, but she later relented and Lovelace’s impetuosity gained for him and his successors the right to take a doe and a buck from the park each season without warrant.<sup>102</sup> Impetuosity and impecuniousness were the two traits that marked out Lovelace throughout his career. He responded to the request for a self-assessment sent out that September by declaring that rather than being possessed of any personal estate he was ‘much in debt.’<sup>103</sup></p><p>Lovelace resumed his seat in the second session of the Convention on 28 Oct. 1689, after which he was present on 47 per cent of sitting days. That month Lovelace again demonstrated his unpredictability by offering to stand bail for Griffin, who had been committed to the Tower accused of being implicated in the ‘pewter pot plot’.<sup>104</sup> Lovelace was one of a dozen peers who protested on 23 Nov. at the failure to pass an amendment to the bill precluding parliamentary impeachment from being subject to royal pardon. Missing from the House for the final week of December, between 31 Dec. and 13 Jan. 1690, his proxy was held by Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough). During his absence the Commons took into consideration an election petition from the town of Abingdon, where the return was disputed between Sir John Stonhouse<sup>‡</sup> and John Southby<sup>‡</sup>. Reports of the election noted that Lovelace had been responsible for splitting the Whig vote when he refused to countenance Southby.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution the general elections found Lovelace eager once more to assert his interest. In alliance with Wharton he was said to be intent on using his influence in Buckingham in opposition to Sir Richard Temple, while in Berkshire he was, unsurprisingly, a prominent opponent of Abingdon’s heir, Montagu Venables Bertie*, styled Lord Norreys (later 2nd earl of Abingdon).<sup>106</sup> Lovelace took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690. Present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days, in April he was said to have been so incensed by the actions of Sir William Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>, one of those in his interest, over the rejection of the abjuration bill that he swore he would ‘never use his interest for a lawyer again as long as he lives.’<sup>107</sup> On 1 May he acted as one of the tellers on whether to refer the state of the London militia to a select committee, and on 2 May he acted as teller once again on whether to commit the security of the crown bill. The same day the House was forced to interpose to prevent Lovelace and William North*, 6th Baron North, from coming to blows following an altercation, though the cause of the dispute is unknown.<sup>108</sup> On 3 May Lovelace told once more in the division held in a committee of the whole concerning the addition of a clause to the same measure. The question was rejected by three votes. From 7 May until his return to the House on 13 May Lovelace’s proxy was held by Bolton. On 13 May he protested against the resolution not to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard.</p><p>Lovelace attended two of the prorogation days that summer. The focus of his attention appears to have been Woodstock where he oversaw the appointment of Wharton as lieutenant of the park in July in place of the disgraced Lichfield.<sup>109</sup> By doing so Lovelace seems to have acted without full authority as, shortly after he had displaced John Cary, Lichfield’s man of business, Lady Lichfield and her brother, Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, arrived in the area armed with an order from the queen to stop Lovelace’s proceedings. By the end of the following month Lovelace appears to have conceded defeat and to have assured Grafton that he would make no further disturbances. By the close of the year Lichfield had successfully reasserted his rights in the park.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Lovelace took his seat in the House for the new session on 2 Oct. 1690. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. Present on just under 74 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 31 Oct. he was granted leave of absence for a few days, but he resumed his seat on 3 November. On 11 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers for a division concerning the bill relating to the earl of Salisbury. On 1 Dec. the House ordered the arrest of Samuel Alstone, a printer, for publishing a libel against Lovelace entitled <em>The Case of The Band of Pensioners</em>. Alstone’s paper argued that members of the band could not be removed without the king’s consent but that since taking up his place as captain Lovelace had ‘turned out above half … without any cause assigned, to make way for friends of his own.’<sup>111</sup> Alstone was ordered to answer at the bar of the House, but no further action was taken. Lovelace was again the subject of the House’s attention on 8 Dec. when he informed the Lords that he had ordered Black Rod to arrest a Catholic who had been found loitering in the court of requests. The man in question, Thomas Burdett, explained that he was there to present a petition from some of the market traders in London, and on 15 Dec. it was ordered that Lovelace (who was absent from the House that day) should be given notice to attend the following morning to settle the matter. He resumed his place accordingly on 16 Dec. when Burdett was discharged.<sup>112</sup> Lovelace continued to attend until the final day of the session on 5 Jan. when he acted as one of the tellers for a division on whether to agree to an amendment to the bill for prohibiting French trade.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Lovelace attended three of the prorogation days in April, May and June. In July he joined Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, in standing surety in £5,000 for Rochester’s brother, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon. The incident may be indicative of Lovelace’s waning support for the new regime, though it may simply demonstrate his willingness to assist a neighbour.<sup>113</sup> He resumed his seat in the new session on 22 Oct. 1691 but attended on just two days before absenting himself for the entirety of November. In November there were several reports of his death; all were erroneous.<sup>114</sup> Lovelace returned to the House on 7 December. He thereafter attended the remainder of the session without further interruption, being present on approximately half of all the sitting days. In January 1692 rumours circulated that he was on the point of being given additional preferment.<sup>115</sup></p><p>By several reports Lovelace, permanently drunk, fell downstairs and broke his arm in April 1692.<sup>116</sup> He took his place for the 1692-3 session but was present on just over a quarter of all sitting days. Absent from 18 Nov. to 5 Dec., in the interval Lovelace was ordered to attend to account for a number of protections he had issued. His response was to request that all such protections be struck out and he undertook to make no more. Having attended just four days, on 8 Dec. Lovelace registered his proxy with Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, and on 3 Jan. 1693 the proxy was exercised against the resolution to pass the place bill. The proxy was vacated by Lovelace’s return to the House on 13 January. Although he was present for the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, in Westminster Hall on 4 Feb. (in which he found Mohun not guilty), Lovelace then failed to rejoin the Lords for their deliberations for which he was fined £100, though this was later remitted.<sup>117</sup> He sat for the last time on 16 Feb. 1693.</p><p>Lovelace found himself in increasingly difficult circumstances towards the end of his life. Fighting off his creditors, he mortgaged his estate of Water Eaton to Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, but then sold the reversion to his son-in-law, Sir Henry Johnson<sup>‡</sup>, without informing him of his arrangement with Burlington. By the summer of 1693, Lovelace’s affairs looked desperate. He relied upon his privilege as a peer to protect him from the bailiffs, but on 1 June he was facing a writ of ejection from Water Eaton, which had been awarded to Burlington.<sup>118</sup> Lovelace wrote to Johnson appealing for help in raising the £1,200 necessary to save his estate but his other creditors were also losing patience and combined forces in an attempt to recover their debts.<sup>119</sup> One of Lovelace’s agents, John Hungerford, wrote to warn him that his house in London in Suffolk Street was also ‘in manifest danger of being seized.’ At the same time relations with Johnson were breaking down.<sup>120</sup> Lovelace’s relations with other members of his family were just as fragile. On succeeding to the peerage in 1670, he had engaged in a law suit with his sister Dorothy, his brother-in-law Henry Drax and his mother, concerning disputes over his sister’s portion. He dropped the case the following year, but relations with his mother remained tense throughout his life.<sup>121</sup></p><p>By the beginning of September 1693 the vultures were circling around Lovelace. Premature reports of his demise encouraged Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> to petition the queen to appoint him along with George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, to one of Lovelace’s offices (probably the chief justiceship).<sup>122</sup> Reports continued to circulate that he had died.<sup>123</sup> By 22 July it was thought that Lovelace had cheated death once again though Sir Henry Johnson cautioned him to ‘keep close to your physicians’ directions for a relapse is generally worse than the distemper.’<sup>124</sup> Johnson’s warning proved prescient, and five days later Lovelace succumbed, his demise said to have been accelerated by a broken heart over tensions with his only surviving daughter, Martha, and his son-in-law.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Shortly before his death Lovelace revoked his will of 1684, disinheriting his daughter and leaving what was left of his possessions to his godsons instead.<sup>126</sup> Johnson clearly had no inkling that relations had deteriorated so much, for even after Lovelace’s death he wrote confidently to Colonel Charles Godfrey<sup>‡</sup>, one of the numerous creditors, assuring him that he would honour his debt once the will made clear that he was the executor, ‘as I am apt to believe it will.’<sup>127</sup> Lovelace’s estate remained under siege from all those to whom he owed money. Godfrey attempted to take possession by force of the horses he was owed.<sup>128</sup> Lovelace’s mother, the dowager baroness, insisted that the tenants of Water Eaton continue to pay rent to her. When one refused, Lady Lovelace and a posse of retainers forced their way into the house, pistols and blunderbusses in hand, and committed the tenant’s servants to Oxford gaol.<sup>129</sup> Johnson continued to receive letters demanding payment years after Lovelace’s death, and in 1696 he agreed to waive his own parliamentary privilege to allow the creditors freedom to proceed against him for the recovery of their money.<sup>130</sup> On Lovelace’s death the title passed to his cousin, another John Lovelace*, who succeeded as 4th Baron Lovelace. The new peer inherited little more than his predecessor’s debts.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LOVELACE, John (1672-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>LOVELACE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1672–1709)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 27 Sept. 1693 as 4th Bar. LOVELACE. |
|
First sat 7 Nov. 1693; last sat 31 Mar. 1708 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1672, 1st s. of William Lovelace of Godstone, Surr. and Mary, da. of Sir Edward Nevill, bt. <em>educ</em>. Jesus, Camb. 1690, LLD 1705. <em>m</em>. 20 Oct. 1702, Charlotte (<em>d</em>. 1749), da. of Sir John Clayton,<sup>1</sup> 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 1 da. <em>d</em>. 6 May 1709;<sup>2</sup> <em>admon.</em> 1 Feb. 1714 to wid.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Guidon and maj. 1st Horse Gds. 1699–1706;<sup>4</sup> col. ft. regt. 1706–7; gov. of New York and New Jersey 1708-<em>d</em>. <sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>Lovelace succeeded to the title on the death of his cousin, John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace. His predecessor left little but debts and acrimonious family disputes, which continued to trouble the family for more than a decade after his death.<sup>7</sup> The manor of Hurley was eventually sold by decree of chancery and bought by Vincent Oakley, who had previously married the dowager Viscountess Saye and Sele.<sup>8</sup> The other family seat at Water Eaton remained bound up in disputes between the dowager Lady Lovelace and Sir Henry Johnson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup> The new Baron Lovelace was consequently reported to be extremely poor, a situation he failed to improve by his marriage to Charlotte Clayton in 1702. Lovelace’s poverty was apparent at the most basic level: even his chaise was said to be made of ‘a piece of wood which plays a good deal, and … must be … apt to break’.<sup>10</sup> One of the few things that Lovelace appears to have inherited from his predecessor was a thorough commitment to the Whigs. Throughout his time in the House he proved to be a consistent upholder of the Whig interest, though he appears to have made little impact on the Lords, concentrating instead on his career in the army.</p><p>Lovelace took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, following which he was present on 45 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Feb. he voted against overturning chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. He returned for the following session on 20 Nov. 1694 but his attendance fell significantly, with him attending a mere 22 per cent of the total. There is little evidence of Lovelace having any interest to employ in the general election. He took his place in the new Parliament on 23 Nov. 1695, and was again lacklustre in his attendance, being present on just over 30 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>In the spring of 1696, following the news of the Assassination Plot, Lovelace took the Association. Although far from assiduous as a member of the House, later that year he rallied, as expected, to the defence of the Whig ministers named by Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Having returned to the House on 30 Nov. 1696, on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of Fenwick’s attainder.</p><p>Lovelace’s pattern of attendance continued in similar vein over the coming sessions. He was present for just 18 per cent of the session of 1697–8 and, although he attended the following two sessions with greater regularity, his rate of attendance remained under half of the total sitting days. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against continuing the East India Company as a corporation and in July he was noted among those Whigs thought potential supporters of the new ministry.</p><p>Lovelace took his place in the first Parliament of 1701 on 6 February. Once again, he proved willing to support his Whig colleagues and towards the end of the session, on 17 and 23 June, he voted in favour of acquitting the Whig lords John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, of the articles of impeachment against them. Lovelace returned to the House early the following year, on 12 Jan. 1702, but attended just 39 per cent of all sittings. He took his seat once more on 27 Oct. and early the following year he was noted by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as doubtful over the passage of the occasional conformity bill. On 16 Jan. 1703 he voted accordingly in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Three days later he registered his protest at the resolution not to concur with the committee recommending the omission of a clause permitting George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, to continue to attend the House and serve on the Privy Council in the event of him surviving the queen, a vote that reflected concern about the status of other foreign-born peers rather than enmity towards Prince George.</p><p>Lovelace’s position on the occasional conformity bill remained consistent throughout the following session, of which he attended a third of all sitting days. In two assessments of November 1703 Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, noted Lovelace as an opponent of the measure and on 14 Dec. he voted with the majority to reject the bill. Two days later he was present at a dinner at the Red Lion attended by a number of other Whig peers, possibly a gathering connected with the business of the session.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Lovelace continued to out for about a third of all days in the next two sessions (1704–5 and 1705–6) but he remained a fairly innocuous figure in Parliament, apparently concentrating instead on developing his military career, though with mixed results. In 1699 he had been commissioned as major and guidon of the Horse Guards in succession to Vere Fane*, 5th earl of Westmorland, and in 1706 he was raised to a colonelcy. His new regiment was despatched to Ireland in November of the same year but his troops’ lack of equipment and training was roundly condemned and the unit was dismissed as ‘no regiment for service’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Lovelace took his seat once more on 17 Jan. 1707 but he was present on less than 13 per cent of all sitting days. His attention was presumably concentrated on attempting to rectify the deficiencies of his command. The year also witnessed continuing efforts to achieve the sale of the family’s estates. John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, seems to have displayed some interest in the property but warned his duchess that ‘The particular you have sent of Lord Lovelace’s estate seems to be very unreasonable, but they will not be able to sell it till they bring it to a reasonable price.’<sup>13</sup></p><p>Lovelace attended just two days of the brief session of April 1707. He returned to the House for the first Parliament of Great Britain on 17 Jan. 1708, for which he was present on just over a quarter of all sitting days. In March he was at last successful in securing office with his appointment as governor of New York in succession to Henry Hyde*, Viscount Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon). Lovelace’s appointment coincided with an upturn in Junto fortunes. His grandfather Francis Lovelace had been governor from 1668 to 1673, which may also help to explain the choice. Lovelace’s departure for his governorship was delayed until later in the year, possibly so that he could participate in the summer campaigning season that culminated in the battle of Oudenarde in July.<sup>14</sup> He was reported to have left the capital in mid-September but his departure may have been delayed as he was noted present in the House on 16 November.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Having at last set out in late autumn, Lovelace and his entourage endured a tempestuous voyage and narrowly avoided being shipwrecked.<sup>16</sup> He eventually landed in America on 15 Dec. and sent his first despatch describing his journey three days later.<sup>17</sup> With him travelled the evangelical minister Joshua Kochertal and some 40 ‘poor Palatines’ who formed one of the first German communities in New York. The Privy Council had approved their accompanying Lovelace to New York, wishing to be seen to be assisting members of Protestant communities suffering from Catholic aggrandisement, while also reluctant to invite criticism from the Tories by allowing them to remain in England.<sup>18</sup> Lovelace earned Kochertal’s followers’ lasting gratitude by providing them with ‘bread, beef, beer, wood and habitations’. After his death the Council continued to provide towards their subsistence.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Lovelace arrived in New York to find the colony sharply divided between a ‘court’ faction that Cornbury had supported and an opposition grouping associated with the executed merchant Jacob Leisler. The new governor quickly identified himself with the latter. In April 1709 he dissolved the general assembly and convened a new, predominantly Leislerian one. The majority of the new assembly members who had resented the previous governor’s regime warmly welcomed Lovelace’s appointment.<sup>20</sup> Lovelace also appears to have made some attempt to restore confidence by returning suspended office-holders to their posts.<sup>21</sup> His address to the assembly of New Jersey made it plain that he intended to alleviate the difficulties created by his predecessor but also emphasized the need to keep the administration properly supplied:</p><blockquote><p>Her Majesty would not be burdensome to her people, but there being an absolute necessity that the government be supported, I am directed to recommend that matter to your consideration. You know best what the province can conveniently raise for its support, and the easiest methods of raising it.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>The assembly agreed to raise £2,500 towards government expenditure, of which £1,600 was intended for Lovelace, but after Lovelace’s death they refused to make any further contributions.<sup>23</sup> With an apparently compliant assembly behind him, Lovelace turned his attention towards an expedition against Canada (a policy that again identified him with the Leislerians). This was generally welcomed by the New Yorkers but Lovelace’s eventual successor, Governor Hunter, found the militia in no fit state to undertake the operation, which also threatened to upset the colony’s delicate financial predicament.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Lovelace’s plans were brought to an abrupt halt by his sudden collapse. Weakened by the rough crossing from England and a perishing winter, on 6 May 1709 he succumbed to a fit of apoplexy. Two of his young sons also died at about the same time.<sup>25</sup> Lovelace was buried in New York, leaving his widow to struggle to secure the £1,600 voted to him by the assembly in the face of spirited opposition mounted by his temporary successor, Colonel Ingoldsby. She also protested that, having laid out £4,000 in expenses, her husband had received only £400 in return. Ingoldsby was soon after removed from his post, in part because of his reputed ‘ill usages’ towards Lady Lovelace and her family. Unsurprisingly, Ingoldsby declared himself ignorant of any such wrongdoings.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Although Lovelace seems to have been respected as ‘a man of integrity’, his early death makes it impossible to judge how effective his governorship might have been. He was succeeded in the peerage briefly by his eldest surviving son, also John Lovelace*, who died within a fortnight of his father. The young lord was in turn succeeded by his brother, Nevill Lovelace*.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LOVELACE, John (aft. 1702-09) |
<p><strong><surname>LOVELACE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (aft. 1702–09)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 6 May 1709 (a minor) as 5th Bar. LOVELACE. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. aft. 1702, 1st s. of John Lovelace*, 4th Bar. Lovelace and Charlotte, da. of Sir John Clayton; bro. of Nevill Lovelace*, 6th Bar. Lovelace. <em>educ</em>. unknown. unm. d. May 1709.</p> |
|
|
<p>Lovelace accompanied his father to New York in the winter of 1708. At the time of his succession to the peerage in May of the following year he can have been no more than six years old. He enjoyed the title for less than a fortnight before succumbing to disease probably brought on by a particularly hazardous journey the previous winter. He was succeeded in the peerage by his brother, then aged about one.<sup>1</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LOVELACE, Nevill (1708-36) |
<p><strong><surname>LOVELACE</surname></strong>, <strong>Nevill</strong> (1708–36)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. May 1709 (a minor) as 6th Bar. LOVELACE. |
|
First sat 13 Jan. 1730; last sat 20 May 1736 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1708, 2nd surv. s. of John Lovelace*, 4th Bar. Lovelace and Charlotte, da. of Sir John Clayton. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Italy).<sup>1</sup> unm. <em>d</em>. 28 July 1736; <em>admon</em>. 24 Sept. 1736 to sis. Martha Lovelace.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Lovelace succeeded to the title while still an infant following the deaths of both his father and brother in New York.<sup>4</sup> Two other brothers, Wentworth and Charles Lovelace also died young. Thus by the time of his succession only Lovelace himself, his mother and sister, Martha, remained of the family. Besides the title, there was little else for the young lord to inherit. The Lovelace estates based on the manors of Hurley and Water Eaton had descended to Sir Henry Johnson<sup>‡</sup> on the death of the 3rd Baron and it had been in part financial necessity that had led the 4th Baron to accept the post of governor of New York, having previously attempted to sell most of his remaining lands.<sup>5</sup> At his death, his baroness pleaded destitution.<sup>6</sup> She was compelled to petition for payment of expenses and although it appears that there was no improvement in the family’s fortunes in the ensuing years, the dowager Lady Lovelace presumably wielded what residual influence remained throughout Lovelace’s minority.<sup>7</sup> At barely two years old he was included as a minor in a list detailing the Lords’ votes on the Sacheverell trial. Details of the later part of his (brief) career will be covered in full in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Lovelace died of consumption at Rumsford in Essex in July 1736, ‘greatly esteemed, greatly lamented’.<sup>8</sup> He was buried at Water Eaton leaving his sister, Martha, who later married Lord Henry Beauclerk<sup>‡</sup>, as his sole heir.<sup>9</sup> He did not leave a will but was prudent enough to have insured his life with the Amicable Society.<sup>10</sup> At his demise the barony became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
LOWTHER, Henry (1694-1751) |
<p><strong><surname>LOWTHER</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1694–1751)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 1 Dec. 1713 (a minor) as 3rd Visct. LONSDALE. |
|
First sat 2 Aug. 1715; last sat 10 Apr. 1750 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 13 Aug. 1694, 4th but 2nd surv. s.<sup>1</sup> of Sir John Lowther*, 2nd bt., (later Visct. Lonsdale), of Lowther and Katherine, da. of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne of Kempsford, Glos.; bro. of Richard Lowther*, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale and Anthony Lowther<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Lowther Sch., Lowther Hall; travelled abroad (Netherlands) 1713-15; <sup>2</sup> Cambridge LLD 1717. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 7 Mar. 1751; <em>will</em> 27 May 1747-8 June 1749, pr. 28 Mar. 1751.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1717-27; PC 4 Nov. 1726; ld. privy seal 1733-5.</p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Westmld. 1715-<em>d.</em>; ld. lt., Tower Hamlets 1726-31, Cumb. and Westmld 1738-<em>d</em>.; constable, Tower of London 1726-31.</p><p>FRS 1742.</p> |
|
<p>Henry Lowther was still a minor when he inherited the viscountcy of Lonsdale on 1 Dec. 1713 after the unexpected death of his unmarried and childless elder brother Richard Lowther, 2nd Viscount Lowther. The new Viscount Lonsdale was travelling on the continent when he inherited the title. He attended the funeral in January 1714 and was still in England in May when he was visited by his family’s supporter, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle.<sup>5</sup> Much of the remainder of that year was spent travelling on the continent, particularly in the Netherlands. Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, suggested that he was sent to Holland, in part, so that he could escape the danger of infection from smallpox, which had already killed his elder brother and which for a time also threatened the life of his younger brother, Anthony Lowther. The duchess’s concern for the two remaining Lowther brothers suggests the Whig hopes that were placed on these young men: ‘I heartily wish he [Lonsdale], may not have the smallpox for his elder brother died of it, and these two that remain are very extraordinary good young men’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>He was back in the English capital by 2 Apr. 1715 when he was visited by Bishop Nicolson.<sup>7</sup> He first sat in the House on 2 Aug., most likely as soon after his twenty-first birthday as he could. However, he quickly showed that he preferred the country to life in Westminster. Having stayed only a few days in the House and registered his proxy with the Whig, Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, he returned to his family’s base in Cumberland and Westmorland to direct the military defence against the Jacobite rebellion in the Scottish borders and Northumberland. When he was offered a post at court in July 1717 as a gentleman of the bedchamber, he took it up reluctantly, writing to his distant cousin, James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> of Whitehaven, that he was ‘afraid that a court employment will require more attendance than I (who am at present very fond of the country) can have inclination to give’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Despite his frequently stated preference for rural country, Lonsdale was a courtier in the capital for several years, where he was known as a compulsive gambler who ‘lives from morning till night in Exchange Alley and at South Sea’. <sup>9</sup> He engaged in the political life of the time and attended the House intermittently and with various degrees of commitment. Generally considered a Whig, he was not always predictable, and on a number of occasions in the early years of George I he voted against the court and with the ‘discontented Whigs’.<sup>10</sup> Lonsdale remained unmarried and at his death on 7 Mar. 1751 his titles became extinct. A fuller and more detailed account of his political career will appear in the 1715-90 volumes of this project.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
LOWTHER, John (1655-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>LOWTHER</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1655–1700)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>28 May 1696 Visct. LONSDALE |
|
First sat 13 Jan. 1697; last sat 11 Apr. 1700 |
|
MP Westmld. 29 Mar. 1677, 1679 (Mar.), 1681, 1685, 1689, 1690, 1695–28 May 1696 |
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Apr. 1655, 1st s. of Col. John Lowther<sup>‡</sup> of Lowther (<em>d</em>.1668) and 1st w. Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1661), da. and coh. of Sir Henry Bellingham, 1st bt. of Hilsington, Westmld.; half-bro. of William Lowther<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Kendal g.s. 1668; Sedbergh sch. Yorks. 1669; Queen’s, Oxf. matric. 1670; travelled abroad (France) 1672–3; I. Temple c.1675, called 1677. <em>m</em>. 3 Dec. 1674 (with £5,000), Catherine (<em>d</em>.1713), da. of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne of Kempsford, Glos. 5s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 9da. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. grandfa. 30 Nov. 1675 as 2nd bt. [Nova Scotia]. <em>d</em>. 10 July 1700; <em>will</em> 16 Sep. 1698–8 Mar. 1699, pr. 18 Oct. 1700.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 19 Feb. 1689–<em>d</em>.; v.-chamberlain 1689–94; first ld. of treasury Mar.–Nov. 1690, ld. of treasury Nov. 1690–2; commr. inspecting hospitals and houses of charity 1691, appeals for prizes 1694, 1695, 1696, of appeals in admiralty cases 1697; ld. privy seal 1699–<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1699, 1700.</p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Westmld. 1678–May 1688, Oct. 1688–<em>d</em>., Cumb. 1689–<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Cumb. and Westmld. 1686–<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> gov. Carlisle Mar.–Dec. 1689; ld. lt. Cumb. and Westmld. 1689–94; freeman, Portsmouth 1699.</p><p>Gov. Ironmakers’ Co. 1693, Charterhouse by 1700; commr. Greenwich Hosp. 1695. FRS 1699-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas by Hyacinthe Rigaud, c.1690, Government Art Collection; oil on canvas, attrib. Mary Beale, 1677?, Longleat, Wilts.</p> |
<p>Sir John Lowther of Lowther was the heir of an ancient, prominent and wealthy Westmorland family which had long sent representatives to Parliament. He was effectively raised by his redoubtable grandfather Sir John Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, after the death in 1668 of his own father, also named John Lowther. In the space of a few short years in 1675–7 he entered fully into his role as leader of the county. In December 1674 he married his own choice for a bride (as he later claimed), Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne and sister of Thomas Thynne*, later Viscount Weymouth, with a portion of £5,000, and in November 1675 he inherited his grandfather’s baronetcy and estate of £6,000 p.a. (with an additional £7,000 in cash).<sup>3</sup> Financially secure, he was in 1675, when still not quite of age, placed on the commission of the peace for Westmorland for the first time, and in February 1678 was made <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the county, an office which he maintained, save for a brief period in 1688, for the rest of his life.</p><p>Lowther was clearly destined by virtue of his family and inheritance to represent the county in Parliament, especially as one of the sitting members for Westmorland, Sir Thomas Strickland<sup>‡</sup>, was a Catholic recusant disqualified from sitting under the terms of the 1673 Test Act. Nevertheless, presumably by a collusive agreement, Strickland did not vacate the seat until Lowther came of age. Lowther was returned at the by-election in March 1677 and continued to represent Westmorland for every subsequent Parliament (except the second Exclusion Parliament) until he was raised to the peerage in May 1696. He quickly became, in the estimation of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, a ‘worthy’ member of the Commons and he later opposed the measures of James II both in Parliament and out.<sup>4</sup> His star began to rise after he tried to secure the north-west for William of Orange at the Revolution, though he was beaten to it by his local rivals, Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> and Sir George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup>, who captured the important garrison town of Carlisle on 15 Dec. 1688.<sup>5</sup> Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), was impressed by Lowther’s Williamite enthusiasm and became his patron in his quick rise in government, seconded by William III himself, who appears to have taken a personal liking to the young man.</p><p>Sworn a privy councillor in February 1689, Lowther was made vice-chamberlain of the household that same year and was also given the governorship of the garrison of Carlisle and lord lieutenancy of Cumberland and Westmorland.<sup>6</sup> In 1695 he claimed that these responsibilities were forced on him ‘without search or solicitation of mine’ and he quickly ‘studied how to obtain a dismission, but finding that could not be had without offending more than I was advised was proper, I thought it better to divest myself by degrees’. He began by resigning from the governorship of Carlisle at the end of 1689, but his escape plans were thwarted by his surprise appointment as first lord of the Treasury on 18 Mar. 1690; ‘thus instead of my wished retirement behold me faster bound than before to my service’.<sup>7</sup> He was one of the nine councillors advising Queen Mary on the government of the realm during William’s absence in Ireland in the summer of 1690. The author of the satirical poem ‘The Nine Worthies’ described him at this time as:</p><blockquote><p>… An empty piece of misplaced eloquence<br />With a soft voice and a moss-trooper’s smile,<br />The widgeon fain, the Commons would beguile.<br />But he is known and ’tis hard to express<br />How they deride his northern gentleness<br />Whilst he lets loose the dull insipid stream<br />Of his set speeches made up of whipped cream.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote><p>There were rumours upon the king’s return in the autumn of 1690 that Lowther would be further promoted in the king’s favour, either as a secretary of state or even into the peerage, but his lack of success as a speaker for the Treasury or government interest in the Commons, and his own evident dislike of office, brought such plans to nought. Instead he gratefully stepped down a rung to be second lord of the Treasury on 15 Nov. 1690, replaced as first lord by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin.<sup>9</sup> He retired altogether from the Treasury on 21 Mar. 1692, but ‘the general vogue of the town’ had it that he would be made secretary of state in the place of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in November 1693, after Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, had turned down the office.<sup>10</sup> Lowther finally divested himself of his last central office (he remained <em>custos rotulorum</em> and vice-admiral of Cumberland and Westmorland until his death) in February 1694, when he ‘laid down his gold key [as vice chamberlain] upon his own desire, in order to retire into the country’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Lowther was nevertheless still actively involved in the parliamentary elections of 1695 for Westmorland, when he refused to join with Sir Christopher Musgrave in a single ‘Church interest’ against the increasingly powerful Whigs. After a hard-fought campaign, he was returned again for the county with his partner, the nineteen-year-old Sir Richard Sandford<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>12</sup> He even saw this electoral victory as a curse, for he wrote to his cousin and namesake Sir John Lowther<sup>‡</sup> of Whitehaven, in October 1695, that ‘I am now absolutely of opinion that I ought to beg an honour of the king’, for ‘I find by the humour of the people that I am condemned, as long as I live, to serve them in Parliament, and both the attendance of the elections and the uneasiness of that house are intolerable’. He even specified that he did not wish to be made a baron because then, as the lowliest, newest peer in the House, he would have to cast his vote first in any judicial trial conducted by the House, another onerous responsibility he wished to avoid.<sup>13</sup> Presumably through the representations of Lowther of Whitehaven, or the duke of Leeds (as Danby had become), the king heeded his requests and on 28 May 1696 raised him to the peerage as Viscount Lonsdale.</p><p>Lonsdale was, as could be expected from his comments on public life, an infrequent member of the House and sat only 137 times (31 per cent of the total sittings of the House available to him) until his death in July 1700. The first session of the House for which he was eligible to sit began on 20 Oct. 1696, but Lonsdale did not take his seat until 13 Jan. 1697, when he was introduced in the House between his brother-in-law Weymouth and Basil Fielding*, 4th earl of Denbigh. He thus avoided, probably purposely, the controversial and divisive proceedings on the attainder of the conspirator Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. At the time of Lonsdale’s belated arrival, Fenwick was still desperately trying to find a way to escape his impending execution, and advised his wife Mary to ‘engage Sir John Lowther the new lord who hath more interest than anybody’ to be his advocate for a reprieve.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Lonsdale only sat in a total of 26 meetings of the House in this session, and was named to eight select committees on private bills as well as the large committee to examine the letters in the Fenwick affair delivered to the House by Matthew Smith and that to consider the state of trade. On 21 Jan. he was named by the Williamite army officer George Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings (later 8th earl of Huntingdon), as one of his three representatives to arbitrate a settlement with his father, the Jacobite sympathizer, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. He was placed on the committee of 14 assigned on 9 Mar. to draw up reasons for the Lords’ insistence on their amendments to the bill to prohibit the wearing of East Indian silks. That was his last day in the House for the session and the following day he registered his proxy with Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, for the remaining few weeks of the session until its prorogation on 16 April.</p><p>Lonsdale was named a commissioner for the seven prorogations of Parliament which took place over the summer months of 1697, while the final terms of the Treaty of Rijswijk were being hammered out. He was not actually present at any of the formal prorogations in Westminster, however, and in the weeks before the beginning of the 1697–8 session he was harangued and encouraged by Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven, Leeds, Godolphin and Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to come down from Westmorland for the session. The king’s principal minister, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, emphasized that his presence would be needed in a session in which it was predicted that the terms of the peace with France would be attacked and attempts would be made to disband the army. To Portland Lonsdale could only comment on 9 Dec. 1697 that he could not travel because of the high snows in Cumberland and confessed his surprise and disappointment that, ‘after the many obligations of the greatest moment amongst mankind laid upon us by the king, and after the plain necessity there is of securing ourselves by a considerable force … there could be a party sufficient to endanger our happiness’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Despite sending these concerns to William III’s chief minister, Lonsdale did not appear in the House until over a month after its commencement, on 17 Jan. 1698, at which time there were again rumours that he would be appointed either lord chamberlain or secretary of state; he closely monitored the lingering illness of the incumbent secretary Shrewsbury, with both concern for the duke and anxiety for his own ease.<sup>16</sup> He sat in only 24 meetings of the House in this session, during which he was nominated to five select committees on private legislation, as well as the large committee to consider methods to restrain the expense and length of legal suits and the drafting committee for the address against wearing foreign manufactures. He left the House on 28 Feb. 1698, apparently ‘discontented’, which led one observer to conclude ‘that there is no intention to make any change in the ministry at present’.<sup>17</sup> He did not register a proxy with any peer for the remaining four months before the dissolution of Parliament on 7 July 1698. During his months of absence his former colleague at the Treasury Godolphin kept him informed of political news, and in early June Lonsdale delegated Godolphin to forward in the House the bill to make the Aire and Calder rivers navigable, a project which would be to the advantage of merchants in Cumberland and Westmorland, but was seen as against the interests of many lords in the northeast.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Lonsdale retained political importance and influence in his native county, where he was a major landowner with a landed income of £6,387 in 1694–5. He was also a local benefactor, having converted part of his grand Lowther Hall into a private school ‘for none but gentlemen’s sons’, perhaps to rectify some of the deficiencies under which he felt he suffered as the result of his own imperfect gentle education.<sup>19</sup> In the Westmorland elections in July 1698 he actively supported the return of the sitting members, William Fleming<sup>‡</sup> (his replacement after his elevation to the peerage) and Sir Richard Sandford<sup>‡</sup>. Sir Christopher Musgrave had made it known that he did not intend to stand in this election and William Nicolson*, archdeacon of Carlisle (later bishop of Carlisle), saw this as an opportunity to relieve the animosity between the Lowthers and Musgraves which had long divided the county, suggesting that Lonsdale could heal the breach by agreeing to support the candidacy of Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, the son of Sir Christopher, as partner to Fleming. Lonsdale made his political and personal preferences clear by rebuffing the offer, stating that although he was ‘ready and anxious to heal all breaches and will support a Musgrave if there is a vacancy … I cannot turn against the present friendly members’.<sup>20</sup> He also helped his cousin John Lowther of Whitehaven in having his son James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> elected for the Cumberland borough of Carlisle, despite allegations levelled against James that he frequented conventicles.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Lonsdale himself was once again absent for most of the 1698–9 session of the new Parliament, which began on 6 Dec. 1698. He was not present when on 27 Jan. 1699 Thomas Wybergh of Westmorland brought an appeal before the House requesting the reversal of the dismission by Chancery of his bill against Lonsdale concerning Wybergh family property that, as Lonsdale explained at length to his kinsman William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, when enlisting his support, had been mortgaged to the Lowthers in the 1640s and subsequently occupied by them.<sup>22</sup> This, and the House’s order of 17 Jan. for Lonsdale’s presence, gave both Godolphin and Portland another reason to urge Lonsdale’s appearance in the House, or at least his speedy response to the House’s request to an answer to the petition within eight days.<sup>23</sup> Lonsdale earned the irritation of the House by failing to submit his response to Wybergh by the deadline and first sat in the House for the session on 25 Mar. 1699, both to obey a peremptory summons to appear for the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, and to answer Wybergh’s petition, which was eventually dismissed on 4 April.<sup>24</sup> He sat to the end of the session on 4 May 1699, but in total came to only just over a quarter of the sittings. In that time he was named to eight select committees and acted as manager for conferences on the bills for Blackwell Market (20 Apr. 1699), for Billingsgate Market (21 Apr. 1699) and for a duty on paper (3 May 1699).</p><p>Lonsdale had managed to miss most of the more heated debates early in the session on the disbandment of William’s army and the attacks on the king and his Dutch courtiers. He could not escape politics forever, however, for he had also come down to the capital in March to answer a specific summons of the king. In the face of fierce country opposition in Parliament in 1698–9 William undertook after the session’s end a complex reconstruction of the ministry, by which he wished, in part, to dilute the strong Junto element. He aimed to put the faithful court Tory Lonsdale in the post of lord privy seal in the place of Pembroke, who was moved to the lord presidency of the Council. After much cajoling and flattery from the king, and at one point flashes of royal anger at the viscount’s consistent reluctance to take up office again, Lonsdale eventually accepted.<sup>25</sup> The seals were given to him on 18 May and at the end of that month he was appointed one of the lord justices of the realm during William’s absence abroad.<sup>26</sup> With his new offices came renewed political responsibility, and James Lowther reported to his father that Lonsdale stayed in the capital over the summer and, despite being ‘sometime indisposed … never stayed within any one day while he was in town’.<sup>27</sup> As such he was able to be present to preside over two of the prorogations of that summer, on 1 June and 24 Oct. 1699.</p><p>Lonsdale had a 70 per cent attendance rate in the House during the session beginning 16 Nov. 1699, his highest in any session in his career in the House. During the first months of 1700, although he was increasingly wracked by illness, he was more than usually active and was named to six select committees on legislation, as well as a committee assigned to consider procedures to be followed in causes heard before the House. On 23 Jan. he subscribed to a protest against the resolution that the judgment be reversed in the writ of error appeal of <em>Williamson v. the Crown</em>. He was an advocate of the proposals for a union with Scotland, and James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Shrewsbury on 11 Jan. that ‘My Lord Privy Seal can no sooner hear the word union named, but he runs blindfold into it, and said all he could think of, for pressing it’.<sup>28</sup> On 13 Feb. he was named to the drafting committee for the bill of union, which he twice chaired and where he was concerned to know whether the commissioners to negotiate the union were to be chosen by Parliament or the king.<sup>29</sup> He reported the bill to the House from the committee on 16 Feb. and when it was passed a week later Lonsdale was on the committee assigned to draw up what was to be offered to the Commons when the bill was presented to them in conference. On that same day, 23 Feb. 1700, he also voted in favour of the motion to discuss in a committee of the whole House amendments to the bill to retain the old East India Company as a corporation, which was also passed that day.</p><p>In early April 1700, following the initial instruction of the king his master, Lonsdale was one of the leading opponents of the Commons ‘Tack’ on the land tax bill which provided for the resumption of William III’s Irish land grants. Vernon informed Shrewsbury that Lonsdale, though not as extreme as John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, who wanted to throw the bill out in its entirety, was, with Thomas Wharton*, 4th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, one of ‘the great instruments in stirring up the lords to make the amendments in the bill’. Vernon singled out Lonsdale as the author of one of these controversial amendments which were the source of the acrimonious dispute between the two Houses.<sup>30</sup> Lonsdale was a manager in the three conferences over 9–10 Apr. at which these amendments were fiercely argued. Even when William III himself wished the Lords to back down from their insistence on the amendments so that the necessary revenue from the land tax could go through, Lonsdale refused, ‘mightily zealous for the insisting upon them’, and on 10 Apr. he signed the protest against the House’s eventual decision not to stand by them.<sup>31</sup> The following day, in the wake of the animosity fuelled by the amendments, Parliament was prorogued. Lonsdale never sat in the House again.</p><p>Throughout the proceedings on the Irish land resumption bill in April 1700, Lonsdale had been noticeably ill. During late April and early May Portland, having himself resigned from William’s service, wrote anxious letters to his friend, solicitous of his health. Lonsdale confessed to him that he felt ‘suffocated’ in the capital and he went first to Richmond and then to Bath to recuperate.<sup>32</sup> Neither of these succeeded and on 23 May William III allowed him to take the seals back with him to Westmorland to recover (as he had done in the summer of the previous year), but was insistent that Lonsdale not even consider resigning the office.<sup>33</sup> The absent Lonsdale was still appointed a lord justice of the realm on 30 June, but he died only a few days after, on 10 July 1700.<sup>34</sup> His death may have saved him from the ignominy of impeachment, as Portland was later to tell the Commons that Lonsdale as lord privy seal was one of the few ministers who had been informed in January 1700 of the terms of the secret second partition treaty.<sup>35</sup></p><p>At the time of Lonsdale’s death his heir, Richard Lowther, who became 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, and most of his other surviving eight children were underage. He left his wife, Catherine, as their tutor and guardian, as well as executor of the will, to be assisted by her brother Weymouth and his cousin Lowther of Whitehaven. He also bequeathed to his widow his electoral influence in Westmorland and specific instructions on whom she should support.<sup>36</sup> Her patronage was heavily solicited by all parties and she was not hesitant to use it during the controversial elections of 1701–2 and thereafter during the minority of her son the 2nd viscount, despite the advice of her brother to remain politically neutral.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Lonsdale was held in high esteem, as evidenced by the continuing favour bestowed on him by William III despite his reluctance to accept office. However imperfect his political skills may have been, his honour and probity were often remarked on and earned him respect from all parties.<sup>38</sup> On 13 July 1700, on hearing of Lonsdale’s fatal illness, James Brydges*, later duke of Chandos, wrote that</p><blockquote><p>if he dies his party will lose one of the greatest supports they have, since he was certainly a man very eminent for many great qualities which, joined with the opinion the world had of his integrity, could not fail to add very great strength to the side he was of.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
LOWTHER, Richard (1692-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>LOWTHER</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1692–1713)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 July 1700 (a minor) as 2nd Visct. LONSDALE. |
|
First sat 9 Apr. 1713; last sat 10 July 1713 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 13 Mar. 1692, 3rd but 1st surv. s.<sup>1</sup> of Sir John Lowther*, 2nd bt. (later Visct. Lonsdale), of Lowther and Katherine, da. of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne of Kempsford, Glos.; bro. of Henry Lowther*, 3rd Visct. Lonsdale, and Anthony Lowther<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. ?Lowther Sch., Lowther Hall; travelled abroad (Netherlands, Germany, Italy) (tutor, Alexander Cunningham) 1710-12. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 24 Dec. 1713; <em>will </em>5 May 1710, pr. 10 Mar. 1714.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>The brief life, and even briefer political career, of Richard Lowther, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, is not significant for any of his actions in the House of Lords but does cast an interesting light on the intensity of partisan conflict in the years 1710-15. As the heir of a prominent Westmorland family, and the son of one of William III’s most respected and trusted courtiers, the young man had great hopes and expectations pinned on him. Politicians watched anxiously to determine, and try to affect, where he would place his partisan loyalties once he was of age and could take an active part in the House.</p><p>Lonsdale inherited his father’s title and estate in 1700 when he was only eight years old. His mother Katherine, Viscountess Lonsdale, was insistent on keeping her late husband’s political influence alive during the long years of her son’s minority. The first viscount even appears to have provided his wife with specific deathbed instructions to promote the candidacy of his uncle Richard Lowther<sup>‡</sup> in the by-election to find a replacement for the office holder William Fleming<sup>‡</sup>, ‘in my opinion a very improper legacy to his country, for I never heard that knights of the shire were disposed of by will’ grumbled James Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, father of Lowther’s opponent.<sup>3</sup> In January 1701 Lady Lonsdale claimed that she was ‘resolute to do as my Lord would have done had he been alive’. Throughout the many elections of the first decade of the eighteenth century she opposed the candidates in the interest of her husband’s old rivals the Musgraves and joined Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, in promoting Whig candidates, even though her brother Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, was a prominent Tory.<sup>4</sup> James Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, Lonsdale’s second cousin, reported to his father, Sir John Lowther<sup>‡</sup> of Whitehaven, in December 1702 that ‘my Lady Lonsdale calls herself a Whig’.<sup>5</sup> She was certainly vital in ensuring that James Lowther was returned as knight of the shire for Cumberland in every election after the death of his father (who had held the seat from 1665 to 1701) in 1706.</p><p>The young Viscount Lonsdale was already being involved in election campaigns at the age of nine. During the campaigning for the second election of 1701 a correspondent informed James Grahme, a supporter of the Musgrave interest, that the Lowther candidate, Sir Richard Sandford<sup>‡</sup> had come to Kirkby Lonsdale with Lonsdale and ‘complimented every man he met’. Together Sandford and Lonsdale spent £40 on treating the electors, and then they moved on to Kendal, where they were met by the mayor and aldermen, who informed ‘my Lord who had been for his father’s interest and who against it’.<sup>6</sup> On 6 Nov. 1705, now aged 13, Lonsdale was ‘brought in’ the House by Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, in a cannily staged piece of political theatre which effectively staked the Junto’s claim on the young man, or so William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, saw it. Nicolson suggested that Lonsdale’s uncle, Weymouth, was ignorant of Lonsdale’s intention to come to the House, even though Weymouth had supped with Lonsdale and his mother the previous evening. The following day Lonsdale came to the House again, this time accompanied by Nicolson himself, where he was ‘brought … to my Lord of Canterbury [Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury]’.<sup>7</sup> Nicolson appears to have taken a particular interest in the young man, pinning on him, as so many others did, the Whig hopes of the county. Certainly Lonsdale’s visits are frequently recorded in the bishop’s diaries, both those he kept while attending Parliament and those maintained in his northern diocese.<sup>8</sup> During the campaigning of early 1708 Lonsdale, not yet 16 years old, wrote letters to Cumberland electors, ‘with his own hand’, encouraging them to vote for James Lowther, his kinsman and the candidate ‘zealously’ supported by his mother the dowager viscountess, for the county seat.<sup>9</sup></p><p>After his education, probably at the school established by his father at Lowther Hall, Lonsdale embarked on a tour across friendly Europe (he by-passed France entirely) in 1710. He was accompanied by Alexander Cunningham, a diplomat and ‘active agent of the Whig party’, who had previously been the tutor of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (later duke of Greenwich).<sup>10</sup> Cunningham was later to be British ambassador in Venice and author of the <em>History of Great Britain from the Revolution in 1688 to the Accession of George I</em> (originally written in Latin). Despite his Whiggish sympathies, Cunningham’s friendships were non-partisan (as he constantly emphasized in his letters), and he wrote frequently to the lord treasurer Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, during the course of the two-year tour telling him of his travels and antiquarian discoveries and enthusing about the progress of his young charge.<sup>11</sup> ‘He’ll make a pretty gentleman, and as good a subject as he is a dutiful son; I have great pleasure in his company’ he informed Oxford from Rome.<sup>12</sup> He also kept Horatio Walpole<sup>‡</sup>, secretary to the embassy at The Hague, informed, to whom he commented that ‘my Lord Lonsdale is a might hopeful youth, so that ’tis a pleasure to me to be abroad at this time’ and that ‘he travels with reputation wherever he goes and I must say he’s one of the hopefulest young gentlemen I have ever known’.<sup>13</sup> With these glowing reports Lonsdale returned to England in 1712, and was back at Lowther Hall by 18 Sept. 1712, when bishop Nicolson recorded his impressions on seeing him for the first time since his return: ‘His Lordship staunch and good’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Lonsdale reached his majority in March 1713, shortly after the death in January of his influential mother. He took his seat in the House at the first opportunity, when Parliament reconvened on 9 Apr. 1713 after a long prorogation. He attended just over half of the meetings of the brief session of April-July 1713 and was infrequently named to committees. On at least one occasion he made his partisan loyalties known; on 8 June 1713 he was one of the four English Whig peers who joined 15 Scottish representative peers in signing the protest against the passage of the Malt Tax. By June there was talk that he would marry a sister of Richard Boyle*, 3rd earl of Burlington, ‘not the eldest, but the prettiest’.<sup>15</sup> A northern correspondent of Oxford’s reported from a visit to Westmorland in October 1713 that,</p><blockquote><p>I have several times waited upon my Lord Lonsdale, who is a great hunter and a good natured, courteous gentleman, but I fear in ill hands … My Lord Lonsdale usually drinks first the Queen, then every man in course toasts his lady; for the church, nor no man’s health, is in fashion amongst the great ones hereabout … [even though] … this country of all ranks (except the justices of the peace and lieutenancy) are five in six High Church.</p></blockquote><p>The writer went on to recount how, finding Lonsdale amongst a party of Whigs, he dared to dispute with them their political principles and while some were offended, Lonsdale himself treated him generously and invited him to Lowther Hall, where ‘I have gone several times, and upon all occasions have acted as before, and always toasting (when my toast) High Church ladies’. He concluded by advising Oxford that ‘I verily believe that with good management he might be brought off from the Whigs, which would be a public good and a great happiness to this country, for his Lordship’s interest and Musgrave’s jointly would lead these two counties which way they would’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Obviously seen as a desirable ‘catch’ by both parties, this young man’s promising future was abruptly cut short when he died of smallpox on 1 Dec. 1713, three months before his twenty-second birthday. Nicolson, when he heard ‘the surprising news’ was shocked, as ‘this sudden snatching away of a young nobleman (of so promising goodness) [is], a heavy affliction to the whole country’. The funeral at Lowther church on 8 Jan. 1714 was ‘attended by a great number of true mourners’. Lonsdale died unmarried, and the title passed to his younger brother Henry, 3rd Viscount Lonsdale, who was on his own continental travels at this point; Nicolson recorded that an express had to be sent ‘to the new lord at Utrecht’.<sup>17</sup> The 3rd viscount was still a minor, and Nicolson and other north-western Whigs had to wait another two years, until 1715, before they could see the participation of a Viscount Lonsdale in the business of the House.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
LUCAS, Charles (bef. 1649-88) |
<p><strong><surname>LUCAS</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (bef. 1649–88)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>uncle 2 July 1671 as 2nd Bar. LUCAS of SHENFIELD. |
|
First sat 4 Feb. 1673; last sat 10 Feb. 1686 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. bef. 1649; 1st s. Sir Thomas Lucas and Anne, da. of Sir John Byron; bro. of Robert Lucas*, later 3rd Bar. Lucas. <em>m</em>. Penelope, da. of Francis Leke<sup>†</sup>, earl of Scarsdale, and Anne Carey, 2da. <em>suc</em>. fa. bef. 19 Oct. 1649.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. bef. 29 Oct. 1688.</p> |
|
|
<p>Charles Lucas succeeded to the barony under the special remainder attached to its creation. His date of birth is unknown, but it must have been before his father’s death sometime in 1649. Lucas is one of those enigmatic peers who took his role in the House of Lords seriously but for whom there is little evidence to establish why he attended so assiduously or what he did there. As the family estates had been left to his cousin, the countess of Kent, Lucas was almost certainly to be classified as one of the ‘poor’ peers. In 1675 Charles II conferred on him an annuity of £500 perhaps to assist him to maintain an appropriate lifestyle. Lucas was, however, sufficiently prosperous to have made a gift of a silver cup and patten to the parish church of St. Leonard’s, possibly to commemorate his elevation to the peerage.<sup>2</sup> He appears to have taken little interest in local electoral politics, but the family’s holdings in Lexden were enough to secure the return of his son-in-law, Edward Cary<sup>‡</sup>, for Colchester in 1690, two years after Lucas’s death.</p><p>Unlike his uncle, whose sympathies had been decidedly with the ‘country’ cavaliers, Lucas was firmly identified with the interests of the court. He took his seat at the first opportunity, at the opening of the 1673 session on 4 Feb. 1673 and as in each subsequent session was named to the usual sessional committees. Thereafter he was present for nearly 59 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees. He missed only one of the five days of the second 1673 session and was named to the only select committee of the session.</p><p>During the 1674 session Lucas was present on 75 per cent of sitting days. The following session, the first of 1675, saw him present on all but two days. He was now firmly identified with the interests of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). Danby listed him as a potential supporter of the proposed non-resisting Test Act. Lucas was soon rewarded for his support. In June he was granted an annual pension of £500, backdated to the previous Lady Day (25 March). Unlike many royal pensions, it seems that it was regularly and promptly paid.<sup>3</sup> Lucas was present on all but four days of the short second 1675 session and on 20 Nov. voted against requesting a dissolution of Parliament.</p><p>Lucas’s attendance dropped back to 58 per cent during the 1677-8 session; he covered one of his absences, from 21 Feb. 1678 to 4 Mar. 1678 with a proxy to Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham. He was named to 12 select committees. He continued to be regarded as a supporter of Danby, leading Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, to list him as doubly vile. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. The following session, of the summer of 1678, Lucas’s attendance recovered to 88 per cent; he was named to six select committees. During the second session of 1678 he was present on 88 per cent of sitting days. He missed the crucial vote on the test bill on 15 Nov. but took the requisite oaths on 2 December. On 27 Dec. he voted against committing Danby.</p><p>During the first Exclusion Parliament Lucas’s attendance reached nearly 92 per cent and he was appointed to three select committees. Danby’s surviving parliamentary lists consistently indicate Lucas as one of his supporters. Lucas’ subsequent votes bore out this assumption. On 22 Mar. he entered a dissent to the decision of the House to appoint a committee to prepare a bill for banishing and disabling Danby; he voted against the bill of attainder on 4 Apr. and not only voted against it but entered a dissent on 14 April. On 10 May he voted against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Lucas attended two of the prorogation days between the dissolution of the first Exclusion Parliament and the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament. His attendance at the Second Exclusion Parliament was surprisingly low, only just over 52 per cent. Most of his absences were concentrated in the opening and closing weeks of the session, but he was also frequently absent in November 1680 when arguments over the exclusion of James*, duke of York, were at their height. Nevertheless, he loyally turned out on 15 Nov. to reject the exclusion bill at its first reading and he was present on 23 Nov. to vote against the resolution to appoint a committee in conjunction with the Commons to consider the state of the nation. He was also present in December for the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, and on 7 Dec. was one of the few members of the House to find him not guilty. By this time his loyalty to the court may have been wearing thin. Despite Danby’s expectations, Lucas did not attend the Oxford Parliament at all.</p><p>During the 1685 session of Parliament Lucas was present on nearly 77 per cent of sitting days and was named to six select committees. His pension was continued by James II, to whom he was close.<sup>4</sup> A stray reference in Bramston’s <em>Autobiography</em> describes an incident at court involving James II and Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle. He recorded that this had been related to him by ‘Lord Lucas who was in the bedchamber.’ Lucas was not a gentleman of the bedchamber so his presence indicates the possibility of a friendly personal relationship with the king.<sup>5</sup> Although Lucas is listed as ‘undeclared’ on one of the surviving parliamentary lists of 1687, others identify him not simply as sympathizing with James’s pro-Catholic policies, but as a Catholic himself. John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) also believed Lucas to be a Catholic.<sup>6</sup> His mother may well have been a crypto-Catholic: she was related to the Catholic Walmsley family of Lancashire and in 1650 was in possession of their estate at Dunkenhalgh.<sup>7</sup> In the event Lucas’s loyalties were not to be put to the test; he died about a week before William of Orange landed at Torbay. His honours passed to his younger brother, Robert, but in so doing parted company from the remainder of the Lucas estate at Lexden, which passed instead to Lucas’s daughters Anne, wife of the former monk and future Tory Member of the Commons, Edward Cary, and Penelope, later wife of Isaac Selfe.<sup>8</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
LUCAS, John (1606-71) |
<p><strong><surname>LUCAS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1606–71)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>3 Jan. 1645 Bar. LUCAS OF SHENFIELD |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 22 Apr. 1671 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 23 Oct. 1606, 2nd but 1st legit. s. of Thomas Lucas and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of John Leighton of London. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. lic. 17 Dec. 1628, Anne (c. 1611–60), da. of Christopher Nevill, KB; 1s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da. <em>suc</em>. fa. Sept. 1625; kntd. 1638. <em>d.</em> 2 July 1671; <em>will</em> 22 Mar. 1668, pr. 20 Jan. 1672.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>John Lucas’ main territorial base was in and near Colchester and Shenfield, Essex, where his great-grandfather (also named John Lucas<sup>‡</sup>) had acquired St. John’s Abbey and its lands; he also owned an estate in the order of 4,000 acres in Crudwell, Wiltshire, Greenham Manor, lands in Stratfield Mortimer in Berkshire, and other unspecified lands in Surrey.<sup>2</sup> The main family residence was an imposing mansion built to the south of the old abbey church of St. John, Colchester. Lucas’ father, Thomas Lucas, had been outlawed as a young man after killing an opponent in a duel. As a result, he spent several years in exile and he was unable to marry Elizabeth Leighton, to whom he was betrothed, before the birth of his first child, also named Thomas (later Sir Thomas) Lucas. John Lucas, although the second son, was therefore the legal heir to the family estates, except for the manor of Lexden, said to be worth £600 a year, which was settled for life on his older brother, Thomas; Horsey, which went to his younger brother, Charles; and £10,000 reserved for the marriage portions of his sisters.<sup>3</sup> At the death of his father, John Lucas was a minor and the Lucas estate became subject to wardship proceedings. Speedy action and a payment of £1,700 ensured that Lucas became the ward of Peter (later Sir Peter) Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>, who was about to marry his sister Mary.<sup>4</sup></p><p>According to Margaret Cavendish, his youngest sister, the Lucas family was prosperous, happy, and close-knit. They managed their estates efficiently and were able, as a result, to indulge themselves in all the trappings of wealth, including costly clothes ‘for we were so far from being in debt, before these wars, as we were rather beforehand with the world; buying all with ready money’. Conspicuous consumption of this kind, she pointed out, was no mere flaunting of wealth: it promoted generosity of spirit and prevented the development of ‘sharking qualities, mean thoughts and base actions’. As a result of their upbringing, the Lucas brothers,</p><blockquote><p>loved virtue, endeavoured merit, practised justice and spoke truth; they were constantly loyal, and truly valiant; two of my three brothers were excellent soldiers … My other brother, the Lord Lucas, who was heir to my father’s estate and as it were the father to take care of us all, is not less valiant than they were, although his skill in the discipline of war was not so much, being not bred therein, yet he had more skill in the use of the sword, and is more learned in other arts and sciences than they were, he being a great scholar, by reason he is given much to studious contemplation.<sup>5</sup></p></blockquote><p>Many of their contemporaries viewed the Lucas family in a rather different light. John Lucas was an unpopular and grasping landlord who became embroiled, despite his sister’s insistence that the family never had ‘any law suits, but what an attorney dispatched in a term with small cost’, in a number of disputes with the burgesses of Colchester and other local residents in the decade before the civil wars. His enclosure of common lands, his high-handed action in cutting off the town’s water supply in 1633 because of the damage allegedly caused by the town’s water pipes to Lucas property, and the activities of Colchester saltpetre-men digging at the abbey all fuelled animosities.</p><p>There was probably also a religious element both to their unpopularity and to their aloofness from their neighbours. John Lucas’ parents had been on close terms with the high Anglican divine Samuel Harsnett, and Lucas himself was probably suspected of Catholic tendencies. He was sympathetic to William Laud<sup>†</sup>, the controversial archbishop of Canterbury, and his entertainment of Marie de Medici, mother to the queen, on her way from Harwich to London in 1638, did nothing to dispel suspicions of his religious loyalties.<sup>6</sup> Catholic sympathies are also suggested by his sister-in-law’s possession of the Walmsley estate at Dunkenhalgh, Lancashire.<sup>7</sup> As high sheriff of Essex in 1637, his wholehearted commitment to the efficient collection of ship money rendered him still more obnoxious to his neighbours.<sup>8</sup> In 1641, Lucas cemented his unpopularity yet further by prosecuting those involved in an enclosure riot at Rovers Tye in the House of Lords, even though the borough court had jurisdiction.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Lucas’ political sympathies were well known and the following year rumours that he was stockpiling ammunition for the royalist cause precipitated a confrontation; his house was attacked and rifled, the fences in his park pulled down. He himself was arrested and imprisoned. He secured his release with bail of £40,000 and fled to the king at Oxford.<sup>10</sup> The siege of Colchester in 1648 saw the house once again under attack; the damage was never fully repaired and it was sold soon after 1671.<sup>11</sup> Thereafter Lucas’ main residence was probably in nearby Lexden, which is likely to have been reunited with the main Lucas lands after the death of his older brother, Sir Thomas. Lucas was fined just over £2,000 by the committee for compounding in 1647 but in 1650 a fresh investigation was ordered into his ‘much obscured’ estate, resulting in a further fine of £590. In 1652 the Act of Pardon discharged further undervaluations.<sup>12</sup> His manor at Greenham seems to have escaped sequestration, possibly because it was part of his mother’s jointure.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Hated by parliamentarians, Lucas was a hero to the royalists. He fought at Newbury and was one of those imprisoned for plotting against Cromwell’s regime in 1655. At the Restoration his reputation stood high, not only because of his own record of support for the exiled court but also because of the reflected glory of his dead brothers and wider family. Both were killed in the service of their king, but the circumstances of Sir Charles Lucas’ death – executed after surrendering Colchester in 1648 on Fairfax’s orders – had raised him to the status of a royalist martyr. The civil war service of one brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Pye<sup>‡</sup>, was equally impeccable, if not quite as distinguished. Another brother-in-law, Peter Killigrew, did hold local office under Cromwell but a convincing display of loyalty after the Restoration, including consecrating a newly built church in Falmouth to the cult of King Charles the Martyr, ensured that this was soon forgotten.<sup>14</sup> Lucas’ remaining brother-in-law was the royalist soldier (and playwright) William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle.</p><p>Lucas’ service to the crown was presumably a major factor in his ennoblement in 1645 but an equally important factor was his willingness to pay for the distinction: it was said to have cost him £6,000.<sup>15</sup> Initially barred from the House as one of the Oxford creations, he took his seat at the earliest opportunity on 1 June 1660. Thereafter he played an active and very full role in the life of the House. Once he had taken his seat, his attendance for the remainder of the Convention was just over 74 per cent, and would have been still higher but for a long absence beginning on 22 Aug., which was almost certainly related to his wife’s death on that date. His prolonged absence on this occasion proved to be exceptional. From the first meeting of the newly elected Cavalier Parliament to his death in 1671, Lucas’ attendance was exemplary; he missed only ten days in the whole of those ten years. He became one the workhorses of the House, taking a leading role in the work of committees and conferences, often working alongside a fellow Anglican, his sister’s stepson-in-law, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater. He was regularly named to the sessional committees and his signature as one of the examiners shows that he was an active member of the committee for the Journal.</p><p>The pattern of Lucas’ parliamentary activity indicates an involvement in a wide range of social, religious, and economic concerns. Although he professed to have no legal knowledge, he was also interested in the constitutional role of the law and legal process.<sup>16</sup> He rarely reported back to the House from committees but entries in the minute books suggest that he often chaired individual committee meetings. Much of his work in the House related to the passing of private bills. In the case of some of these bills, including those of Sir Anthony Browne in 1661 and of John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his son Charles Powlett*, then <em>styled</em> Lord St John (later duke of Bolton), in 1663, the committee minutes make it clear that Lucas was acting as a mediator.<sup>17</sup> The sheer volume of committees to which he was named makes it difficult to identify those in which he took a close personal interest except in the most obvious of cases, such as the passage of the bill for restoring the lands of his brother-in-law, Newcastle, which he himself reported on 20 Aug. 1660. He was not, however, named to the committee on the bill to confirm his own daughter’s marriage settlement on 6 Apr. 1663.</p><p>Within a month of taking his seat in the Convention Lucas had become deeply involved in negotiations with the Commons over the Bill of Indemnity. The first (1661–2) session of the Cavalier Parliament saw him present on all but five days. On 14 Dec. 1661 he was named as one of the managers of the conference on confirmation of private acts, during which the Lords insisted that amendments to bills must be made on parchment rather than paper. On 19 Dec. he was named to the joint committee of both houses which was to meet during the recess to discuss threats to the new regime and the augmentation of the army, later acting as one of the managers of the conference that dissolved the committee on 7 Jan. 1662. On 24 Jan. the House resolved to repeal all the acts of the Long Parliament since 3 Nov. 1640 but that such acts that ‘were for the good of the nation should be made anew’.<sup>18</sup> Lucas chaired all but three of the eight meetings of the Lords’ committee that took the subject into consideration.<sup>19</sup> On 8 Feb., in a report that probably reflected his own views (the committee minutes show that its decisions were passed by eight votes to three), he recommended that ‘a court of like nature to the late court called the star-chamber’ should be created. The committee specifically asked the House for advice about the character of the proposed court, including the appointment of judges, its jurisdiction, and the nature of proceedings there. The House, presumably worried about potential controversy, gave no directions and so the matter lapsed.</p><p>In February 1662 Lucas was involved in the dispute over the precedence of Irish peers that erupted after an incident at the funeral of the queen of Bohemia. In the course of discussions in the committee for privileges, he declared that the Irish ‘were a conquered nation’. The committee resolved ‘that all the peers of England were to take place of all foreign ones either Scotch or Irish’ and their view was endorsed by an address from the House to the king on 4 March.<sup>20</sup> On 13 Feb. Lucas reported from the committee for the bill of John Scudamore, Viscount Scudamore [I]. On 8 Apr. he was named to the committee to draw up a clause to enable the king to make provision for those deprived of their livings by the act of uniformity. On 16 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the militia bill and then as one of the committee to draw up a proviso to be included in it.</p><p>During the 1663 session Lucas was again present nearly every day. On 20 Feb. he was nominated as one of four peers to draw up an order restricting the use of protections except to Members’ ‘menial servants, or persons necessarily and properly employed about their estates’. On 23 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw up a petition to the king concerning Jesuits and priests and was one of the managers of the three subsequent conferences on 26, 28, and 30 Mar. at which the Lords tried to moderate the Commons’ demand for their expulsion. The committee minutes also show that during April he was active in the committees considering the repeal of the acts of the Long Parliament, at which the revival of star chamber was again discussed, and that in July he was active in the committee on the subsidy bill.<sup>21</sup> Meanwhile, on 18 June 1663 he was named as one of the referees to settle the dispute between George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergavenny, and the dowager Lady Abergavenny. On 25 July he entered his protest against the lords’ proviso concerning subscriptions to the Act of Uniformity.</p><p>At this point in his life Lucas appears to have been well regarded by the court, so much so that in July 1662 he had been awarded £1,000 from the estate of the recently executed Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup> in repayment of a debt, ‘the king being willing to gratify the petitioner for his good services, although the estate, as forfeit for treason, is not liable to any debt’.<sup>22</sup> Early in 1663 his only surviving child, Mary, married Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent. It was yet another sign of royal favour that he was able to obtain the promise of a new barony (Lucas of Crudwell) for her ‘in reward for the services of her father, John Lord Lucas, and his brother, Sir Charles Lucas’.<sup>23</sup> The creation was a remarkable one in that it specified, against all custom and precedent, that the new honour was to descend by common law inheritance rules, thus maximizing the chances that the peerage would survive. Lucas probably already knew or suspected that his own peerage would become extinct within a generation. A special remainder in the original creation meant that it would pass to his nephews, but neither had a male heir and it may have already seemed unlikely that there would be one. An alternative and perhaps more convincing explanation, given that Lucas’ nephew fathered a daughter in or about 1664, is the existence of tensions within the family. The special remainder that accompanied Lucas’ creation specified descent first to descendants of his legitimate younger brother, Sir Charles, and only then to those of his illegitimate older brother, Sir Thomas. The execution of Sir Charles Lucas, without heirs, in 1648 meant that the peerage would descend via the illegitimate line, and this may well have been something that Lucas found unacceptable. He may also have been at odds politically with his successor, his nephew, also named Charles Lucas*, later 2nd Baron Lucas, son of Sir Thomas.</p><p>Such marks of royal favour might seem to indicate that Lucas’ services were appreciated and rewarded; Lucas himself was, however, dissatisfied and disillusioned. Whether his discontent was based in ideology, failure to win high office, or because he was under economic pressure is unclear; it may well have been a mixture of all three. Lucas’ finances are difficult to piece together accurately. His sister Margaret implied that, despite sequestration, the family was quite well off during the civil wars. They were able to maintain her, during her time as a maid of honour at the exiled court, so well ‘that I was in a condition rather to lend than to borrow, which courtiers usually are not’. Lucas’ own estimate of the value of his Essex lands in 1662–3 put them at £1,300 a year and it seems likely that he received a similar income from lands elsewhere.<sup>24</sup> The debt due to him from Sir Henry Vane suggests that before the civil wars he had been able to act as something of a moneylender. In the years immediately after the Restoration he continued to lend money: in 1663 he lent £3,000 to the countess dowager of Derby, in return for an assignment of her life pension of £1,000 a year.<sup>25</sup> It proved to be a bad investment: the countess died a year later, leaving Lucas to beg the crown for payment of the single year’s pension that was due to him, a payment which he did not receive until late in 1668.<sup>26</sup> This may not have been his only bad investment for, as noted below, in 1667 he was responsible for the proceedings that resulted in the outlawry of the notoriously indebted Sir Henry Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>27</sup> A detailed inventory of his personal property at his death does not survive, but a summary indicates that he had a mere £1,000 in ready money, goods, and debts due, together with books and clothing worth £300. He was owed a further £5,000, in what were described as ‘desperate debts’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>By 1663, Lucas was already sufficiently antagonistic to court policies to have become involved in the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Wharton’s somewhat unreliable prediction of voting included Lucas as one of Clarendon’s supporters – perhaps because Lucas’ political sympathies chimed with those of James, duke of York, Clarendon’s son-in-law – but subsequent events demonstrated otherwise. Despite the king’s threats and imprecations, Lucas was one of the few individuals who continued to support Bristol.<sup>29</sup> He again revealed his political credentials when on 25 July he joined with York and other royalist zealots to protest at the resolution to agree that the declaration required under the Act of Uniformity related solely to practice and obedience to the act.</p><p>Despite the failure of Bristol’s attempt to dislodge Clarendon, Lucas remained one of the most active members of the House, regularly involved in committees and conferences. He was again present on almost every day of the 1664–5 and brief 1665 sessions. In March 1664 he demonstrated his continuing loyalty to Bristol by speaking in favour of the House receiving Bristol’s letter.<sup>30</sup> He chaired sessions of the committees discussing the conventicle bill in May 1664 and the bill for Deeping Fen in February 1665, and was an active member of the committee discussing the Yarmouth bill promoted by Sir Robert Paston*, later Viscount Yarmouth.<sup>31</sup> He also invoked privilege of Parliament to protect his own interests: in January 1665 he complained about incursions on the copyhold estate of one of his manorial tenants by Giles Earle, ‘whereby the inheritance of his lordship is concerned’. The House ordered that Earle be imprisoned; there is no indication that it was informed that Earle was nearly 80 years of age and too infirm to travel to London.<sup>32</sup></p><p>At the opening of the 1665 session, in a somewhat petty attack on Clarendon, Lucas unsuccessfully opposed the customary vote of thanks to the king and lord chancellor for their speeches, arguing that only the king should be thanked, for Clarendon’s speech ‘was but an enlargement upon the king’s speech and by the king’s command’.<sup>33</sup> On 30 Oct., in company with Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, he mounted an attack on the passage of the five mile bill, but the strength of the proponents of the bill, led by York and the bishops, proved impossible to overcome.<sup>34</sup> On 31 Oct. he was named as a manager of the conference on the bill for distress of rent and for the free conference on the plague bill. In April 1666, when Parliament was not sitting, he was one of the lords summoned for the trial of Thomas Parker*, Baron Morley; Lucas found him guilty of manslaughter rather than murder.</p><p>He was present every day of the 1666–7 session. On 12 Oct. 1666 he was named as one of the committee to draw up heads for a conference to explain the Lords’ objections to the Commons’ vote to prohibit the importation of French commodities; then on 17, 23, and 30 Oct. he went on to become one of the managers of the ensuing conferences and presumably assisted in arriving at the compromise that resolved the dispute. In the meantime an even more contentious dispute had broken out over the proposed Irish cattle bill. Together with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), Lucas opposed the controversial proviso, subsequently abandoned, for the importation of 20,000 head of cattle as charity for the City of London.<sup>35</sup> Again in company with Buckingham and in direct opposition to York and Clarendon, on 29 Nov. and 1 Dec. he intervened in the dispute over the Canary Company, insisting that the patent be brought in and read.<sup>36</sup> On 17 Dec. in a committee of the whole House, Lucas, Buckingham, and Ashley argued strongly against Clarendon’s objections to the use of the word ‘nuisance’ in the Irish cattle bill.<sup>37</sup> He was nevertheless named to the committee to draw up reasons for the objections of the House for use at a free conference.</p><p>On 19 Dec. he was named to the committee to assist in drawing up the petition to the king to create a commission for public accounts; at Clarendon’s suggestion he was then appointed to the commission itself.<sup>38</sup> On 29 Dec. 1666 he was appointed one of the managers of the several conferences (Irish cattle, the poll bill, and public accounts) that were to be held on 2 Jan. 1667, although there is no record that the conference on the Irish cattle bill actually took place that day. He was involved in further conferences on the same subjects on 9, 12, and 14 Jan. 1667. On 23 Jan. he entered two dissents to the bill for resolving disputes concerning houses burned in the fire of London: one was to the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords; the other was to the passage of the bill itself. On 24 Jan. he was named to the conference on public accounts although there is no record that the conference actually took place. The following month he was one of the managers of the conferences on the plague bill (1 Feb.) and on 4 and 7 Feb. was one of the managers of the conferences that wrangled over the procedural issues of the proposed impeachment of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt.</p><p>When Parliament reassembled in October 1667, Lucas was again present almost every day over a long session that lasted, with long intervals of adjournment, until March 1669. If his appointment to the commission for accounts had been intended to lure him into support for the government, it had failed. He was more than ready for the renewal of the attack on Clarendon. In October he seconded Ashley’s failed motion that care might be taken to prevent enlarging chancery’s jurisdiction. Then on 24 Oct. he presented a petition from Robert Selvin and others appealing against an ‘unjust’ decree made by Clarendon in chancery.<sup>39</sup> He was one of the managers of the conferences on Clarendon’s impeachment on 15, 19, 21, and 28 Nov. 1667 and made his sympathies even more obvious when, on 20 Nov., he entered a protest at the failure of the House to commit Clarendon without a specific charge. In December, as business appeared to be settling back into its normal channels, he chaired meetings of the committee on the Fen bill.<sup>40</sup> On 16 Mar. 1668 he parted company with erstwhile critics of Clarendon when he entered a dissent to the decision of the House to reverse the chancery decree in <em>Morley v Elwes</em>, a case in which the original decree was tainted by suspicions of Clarendon’s corruption. The following day, together with Manchester, he offered a new clause for the bill for Sir John Weld<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Meanwhile, Lucas’ financial difficulties had led him into a suit against Sir Henry Vaughan<sup>‡</sup> whom he pursued to outlawry. In April 1668 the publication of a pamphlet criticizing his actions led him to invoke privilege and to secure the opinion of the House ‘that his lordship hath proceeded as any person legally ought to do’.<sup>41</sup> Later that month, on 24 Apr., he was one of the managers of the conference concerning the impeachment of William Penn, as well as an active member of the Lords committee considering the case of the creditors of the Hamburg company.<sup>42</sup> He was also one of the managers of the conferences of May 1668 sparked by the case of <em>Skinner v East India Company</em>. Not surprisingly, in view of his own earlier use of the House of Lords as a court of first resort, he spoke in favour of the right of the Lords to hear cases in original jurisdiction. At the conference on 8 May he argued that ‘there is no country in the world where the highest court may not take all things into their own consideration’ and that ‘their Lordships suffer justice sometimes to be administered by inferior courts, yet may administer justice themselves when they please’. Lucas&rsquo involvement in Skinner’s case was symptomatic of his uncompromising view of the importance of the House of Lords, which he declared to be ‘necessary and essential to the being of this kingdom’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>In July 1669 Lucas was deputed to act as one of the arbitrators in the dispute between Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, and Edward Rainbowe*, bishop of Carlisle, over dilapidations at the bishop’s palace, Rose Castle.<sup>44</sup> Parliament reassembled in Oct. 1669 for what proved to be an extremely brief session; Lucas was once more present nearly every day. He again reached for privilege to protect himself and his tenants in a land dispute. The incident in question had occurred just over a year earlier in September 1668; he brought it to the attention of the House on 25 Oct. 1669 when he also complained that the same individuals had uttered scandalous words against him, ‘contrary to the honour due to the peerage of this kingdom’, as long ago as Nov. 1664. He had been called a ‘land lob’ – a phrase whose meaning is obscure but which was certainly meant to be highly derogatory.<sup>45</sup> In a show of false magnanimity on 6 Nov. Lucas agreed to the offenders being released after they had paid their fees and received the reprehension of the House on their knees. On 25 Nov. when the case of <em>Morley v Elwes</em> was again under consideration by the House he entered a protest at the resolution that the case was properly before the House and the following day was named as one of the small group of leading peers who were to seek expert advice on the reasons for the decay of trade and on ways of reducing interest rates. A week later, on 8 Dec., he raised another privilege issue, this time relating to an individual who had dug a ditch across his land.</p><p>During the 1670–1 session Lucas was yet again present almost every day. Early in the session he was involved in the privilege dispute brought by the dowager Lady Gerrard of Gerrards Bromley against William Spencer, apparently being deputed to move the House on her behalf.<sup>46</sup> He was also active in defending the privileges of his family: a petition from George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, claiming higher precedence was presented to the House on 19 December. Lucas countered by arguing that his son-in-law, Kent, possessed a more ancient barony as Baron Hastings.<sup>47</sup></p><p>The spring of 1670 was dominated by the Roos divorce and a new bill against conventicles. Lucas, in company with the duke of York and his followers, opposed the divorce. On 17 Mar. he protested against the decision to give the bill a second reading; during the debate on the third reading on 28 Mar. he argued that such a bill opened the way to a more general facility of divorce and that it would encourage adultery and aristocratic feuds. He entered another protest when the bill passed.<sup>48</sup> On 26 Mar. he was one of four peers to vote against the bill for a union with Scotland.<sup>49</sup> That same day, in company with a number of Presbyterian peers, he entered a dissent to the passage of the bill against conventicles. No reasons for the dissent were given but it seems likely that it was sparked by the inclusion of a controversial clause saving the king’s supremacy in matters ecclesiastical; he went on to act as one of the managers of the ensuing conferences with the Commons on 4 April.</p><p>Lucas entered a dissent to the passage of the supply bill on 8 Apr. 1670 and was active during May and June in the committee considering the regulation of bills of Middlesex.<sup>50</sup> On 2 Dec. he entered a dissent to the passage of the general naturalization bill. He continued to be active in committee work, chairing sessions of the committee on the bills for Worcester gaol and one of three sessions of the committee considering the bill for preventing arrests of judgments.<sup>51</sup> Towards the end of the session, on 4, 6, 9, and 11 Feb. 1671, he acted as one of the managers of the four conferences on the bill to prevent maiming which had been drafted in response to the attack on Sir John Coventry<sup>‡</sup>. On 8 Feb., during the debate over the dispute between Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and his mother, the dowager countess, the House was forced to intervene after ‘words of provocation’ passed between Lucas and Peterborough. What caused the quarrel remains obscure but the next item of business concerned the need to establish a convention ‘concerning the manner how and when peers shall withdraw themselves when any matter wherein they are concerned is to be debated in this House’, which suggests that Lucas may have objected to Peterborough’s presence during the debate.</p><p>On 22 Feb. Lucas made the speech on the supply bill for which he is now most remembered. The speech encapsulated cavalier frustration at the failure of the new regime to deliver a society in which every man could ‘sit under his own vine enjoying the fruit of peace and plenty’ and which had so signally failed to reward those who had suffered in the royalist cause:</p><blockquote><p>How many at the time of his majesty’s happy restoration were worth little or nothing and now the same can purchase land and keep their coach and six horses, their pages and lackeys and live in all the affluence and plenty of the world whilst in the mean time those that have faithfully served the king are exposed to penury and want and have scarce sufficient left to buy them bread, and is this (my lords) the rewards of our services? Have we for this bore the heat of the day and been imprisoned, sequestered and ventured our lives, estates and families? And must we after all this, sacrifice so much of our poor remainder to the will of a few particular men and to the maintenance of their vanities …<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lucas’s speech, delivered in the presence of the king, and accusing him of being cozened by his courtiers and warning that granting so liberal a supply would simply encourage it to be ‘vainly and prodigally’ misspent, provided a rallying call for the discontented. Copies were circulated far beyond the House, in printed form as well as in manuscript; many still survive to this day, scattered in record offices throughout the British Isles. The king soon signalled his displeasure. Andrew Marvell reported that when a copy of the speech was brought into the House, ‘Lord Lucas was asked whether it was his. He said part was, and part was not. Thereupon they took advantage, and said it a libel, and to be burned by the hangman. Which was done; but the sport was, the hangman burned the Lords’ order with it.’<sup>53</sup> Marvell was one of the few to see the joke. Others clearly found the investigation into the printing and distribution of the speech to be an extremely uncomfortable experience.<sup>54</sup> Lucas himself disowned the copy that was circulating and ‘to vindicate his own honour he tendered them a true copy desiring that if they burnt the false one that might be entered in the journals of the house’.<sup>55</sup> The Venetian ambassador declared that the whole episode illustrated the way in which ‘the royal authority gains ground daily’ and reported that the king had thereby ‘stopped the mouths of those who even covertly attempt to play the part of agitators, so that at the moment there is no one left in Parliament who dares to speak disrespectfully of his majesty’.<sup>56</sup> Others agreed: ‘You cannot imagine what strange effects that unlucky paper called my Lord Lucas’s speech hath wrought in most men’s brains, who took too much boldness from the warrant thereof to prate unbecomingly; but since the news of how the House of Lords resented it, their tongues are tied.’<sup>57</sup></p><p>Despite the outcry, Lucas was named as one of the managers of the conference on the subsidy bill on 2 Mar., as well as to that on the bill for an additional excise on beer on 6 March. Despite his own use of privilege, he entered dissents on 9 Mar. 1671 to the failure of a bill that appears to have been intended to restrict the use of privilege of Parliament in private suits. Meanwhile he appears to have been closely involved in negotiations over the implementation of the Commons’ petition to the crown to prevent the growth of popery. The version of the petition agreed by the House on 10 Mar. 1671 included a request ‘that no office or employment of public authority, trust, or command, in civil or military affairs, be committed to, or continued in, the hands of any person being a popish recusant, or justly suspected to be so’. On 24 Mar. he was named (along with almost everyone present in the House) to the committee to consider the resultant bill. When the committee met on 13 Apr. Lucas was named to a subcommittee to draw up ‘the test or oath’ that would prevent Catholics from holding office.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Lucas died unexpectedly in July 1671, after suffering for six days from ‘an extraordinary vomiting’ and ‘a great burning in his stomach’.<sup>59</sup> His honours descended to his nephew Charles, son of his illegitimate elder brother, Sir Thomas Lucas, thus parting company from the estate, which passed to his daughter, the countess of Kent. In his will, made in 1668, Lucas left careful instructions for his daughter’s trustee (his sister Ann) to ensure that his son-in-law could not gain control of the property. In default of direct heirs, his lands were to be divided between the heirs of each of his three married sisters; he made no provision for them to pass to either of his nephews. Although Lucas clearly had some interest in the welfare of the poor – he had founded a free school at Crudwell either before or during the civil wars – his will contained no bequests to his servants or to the poor.</p> |
R.P. |
|
LUCAS, Robert (?bef 1650-1705) |
<p><strong><surname>LUCAS</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (?bef 1650–1705)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 29 Oct. 1688 as 3rd Bar. LUCAS of SHENFIELD. |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 17 Jan. 1705 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> ?bef. 1650; yr. s. of Sir Thomas Lucas and Anne Byron; bro. of Charles Lucas*, 2nd Bar. Lucas. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 31 Jan. 1705;<sup>1</sup> <em>will </em>30 Nov. 1704-31 Jan. 1705, pr. 12 Mar. 1705.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Constable of the Tower 1688-1702<sup>3</sup>; ld. lt. Tower Hamlets, 8 Apr. 1689-1702; capt. Huntingdon’s ft. regt. 1688; capt. Jacob’s ft. regt. 1695; col. regt. of foot (34th), 1702-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likeness: miniature by T. Forster, Holbourne Museum, Bath.</p> |
<p>Robert Lucas is believed to have been born in Ireland before the death of his father in 1650.<sup>4</sup> Little is known about his life before succeeding to the title, except that he was an impoverished career soldier; in 1681 he was said to be ‘of good principles’ and to have nothing but ‘a bare lieutenant’s pay to support him.’<sup>5</sup> His will reveals that he did own some 1400 acres of land in Ireland, mainly in Kildare, but with smaller estates in Meath and Dublin. These were bequeathed to trustees for the use of his ‘dear niece’, Anne Cary, the only surviving daughter of his brother, Charles, and widow of Edward Cary<sup>‡</sup>. A clause in the will which specifically exempted the trustees from accounting for ‘any more ... than what shall actually come to their respective hands’ suggests that securing the income from these estates may have been problematic. Obtaining the revenues cannot have been helped by the exiled James II’s decision to grant part of the Lucas lands in Kildare to Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell [I]. Lucas certainly thought that his title was sufficiently compromised to ask for confirmation in 1691; he was still waiting for the necessary letters patent a year later when his Irish agent advised that ‘We must have patience a little longer.’<sup>6</sup></p><p>The 3rd Baron Lucas inherited his title in the midst of the crisis caused by the threat of invasion by William of Orange; from 12 Dec. he was a regular attender at the meetings of the provisional government.<sup>7</sup> At the time he was the senior serving Protestant officer at the Tower of London. It seems to have been this, together with his peerage and the memory of his family’s Civil War services, that convinced the peers who met at Guildhall after James II’s desertion of London that he should be appointed to the command of the Tower. In the uncertainties of the day this post played an important role in preserving order.<sup>8</sup> Unlike his older brother, who had been suspected of Catholicism and had been a supporter of James II, the new Lord Lucas appears to have been an unequivocal Protestant, who had suffered for his failure to change religion.<sup>9</sup> In his capacity as governor of the Tower he was responsible for the custody of several of James II’s supporters including the former lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys. As a result of a ‘discourse’ with Jeffreys he was able to report that Jeffreys had personally placed the great seal in the hands of James II and that Jeffreys claimed to have sent writs for elections to counties with Protestant sheriffs. On 15 Dec. Lucas acquainted the peers with evidence of a Catholic plot to assassinate the Prince of Orange. Presumably conscious of the dubiety of the legal basis for Jeffreys’ detention, when on 22 Dec. he was ordered to place Jeffreys in close confinement, he insisted on receiving the order in writing. On 25 Dec. he was one of the signatories to the addresses to Orange asking him to issue writs for a Convention and in the meantime to take the government of the kingdom upon himself.<sup>10</sup> William III confirmed Lucas’ appointment to the Tower at an annual salary of £700 the following spring; the post also carried a number of valuable perquisites such as the gift of deer, and seafood.<sup>11</sup> Lucas was additionally appointed lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets militia, and lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the Tower Hamlets. He received several small gifts of royal bounty and was commissioned as colonel of a regiment of foot in February 1702.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Lucas’s correspondence survives mainly in the archives of the central government and therefore reflects the varied nature of his official duties rather than his political views or personal concerns. His duties included the protection and safety of the Tower from Jacobite infiltrators.<sup>13</sup> He also protected the Tower Hamlets from potential rioters and discontented seamen, investigated those suspected of being sympathetic to the Assassination Plot and organized the militia for ceremonial duties.<sup>14</sup> In the absence of family papers it is impossible to tell whether his conduct after the Revolution was influenced by pragmatism or ideology. Macky implies the former:</p><blockquote><p>It was great chance that made him a lord and governor of the most considerable garrison in the nation, both at the same time; to neither of which he could ever have aspired, if they had not dropped upon him whether he would or not; he made his court very assiduously to the king, and by that means he got his majesty to excuse several slips which happened in his government.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>Whichever it was, it dictated a rapid conversion to the cause of the Prince of Orange.</p><p>Lucas took his seat at the opening of the first session of the Convention and was then present for just under 75 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. On 31 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen and entered his dissent at the failure of the House to agree that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. he supported the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’, again subscribing to a dissent when the resolution that the throne was vacant was lost and on 6 Feb. again voted, this time with the majority, in favour of the resolution to agree with the Commons that James II had abdicated and that the throne was thereby vacant. On 2 Mar. he was amongst the first groups of peers to take the new oaths. On 6 Mar. he subscribed to the protest at the passage of the bill for the regulation of trials of peers (which subsequently failed in the Commons), arguing that resort to a statute amounted to a derogation rather than either a confirmation or improvement on the rights and privileges of the peerage. On 8 Mar. he was named, along with almost every member present, to the committee for the bill to reverse the attainder of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell. On 21 Mar. he was appointed to a similarly full committee for the bill to revive proceedings at law. By the end of the session he had been named to a further 20 committees on a variety of public and private bills, ranging from the abolition of hearth tax and the reversal of the attainders against the remaining Whig martyrs to estate and naturalization bills. His wholehearted belief in the reality of the Popish Plot is suggested by his vote on 31 May in favour of the bill reversing the judgments against Titus Oates and on 30 July against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill.</p><p>Lucas’s attendance fell back slightly to just under 66 per cent during the 1689-90 session. On 23 Oct. 1689 he was appointed to the committees for privileges, the Journal and petitions and during the course of the session to a further 12 committees. During the remainder of his parliamentary career Lucas was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal whenever he arrived sufficiently early in the session, but since his signature does not appear on the various lists of those who inspected the Journal until 1704, he was presumably not an active member of that committee before that date. Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen and later duke of Leeds, classified him as a court supporter in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690. On 22 Nov. 1689 the House intervened in a quarrel between Lucas and his kinsman William Byron*, 3rd Baron Byron, requiring them to ‘pass by those words; and that there should be no further proceedings in the business but continue friends.’ The quarrel seems to have related to a piece of sharp practice by Lucas and a rift between Byron and his heir, also named William Byron*, later 4th Baron Byron. Byron senior accused Lucas of luring him to the Tower in order to encourage him to drink</p><blockquote><p>so high that I knew not were I was, nor what I did and then brought me writings to seal which I never had read, nor the contents I know not of; but by my sister report my estate is all made over to my son and in trust with my Lord Lucas till he is of age … in February next.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>When Byron took his case to the court of exchequer he included Lucas’s name as one of the confederates but this was later scratched out. The case continued until at least July 1690.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The first session of the new Parliament opened on 20 Mar. 1690. Lucas was present on just over 67 per cent of sitting days. He was named to 16 committees covering a heterogeneous range of public and private interests but otherwise left no mark on the session. Between sessions he attended all but one of the prorogation days. The next (1690-1) session saw him present on 75 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the three sessional committees and to 21 other committees. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. Like other peers, Lucas was concerned for his privileges. During the recess he caused James Dudley to be arrested and committed to Newgate for publishing ‘false and scandalous news’ about him. Dudley was released in February 1691 at the command of the queen after Lucas had indicated his willingness to forgive him.<sup>18</sup> Just what Dudley had said remains unknown, but the involvement of the queen suggests that perhaps Lucas’s loyalty had been impugned.</p><p>Lucas attended all of the prorogation days before the opening of the 1691-2 session. He was present on 75 per cent of sitting days and was named to 33 committees. He held the proxy of Ralph Eure*, 7th Baron Eure, from 9 Feb. to 17 Feb. 1692. It is likely that the proxy was for use during the Norfolk divorce case, for when the hearings began on 16 Feb. Lucas was one of several court supporters who protested against the decision to exclude proxies. That he intended to use the proxy in favour of Henry Howard*, duke of Norfolk, is suggested by a remark that he was overheard to make during the hearing, praising one of Norfolk’s witnesses as ‘an honest man’.<sup>19</sup> During the recess he again attended all of the prorogation days. In the aftermath of concerns about a projected Franco-Jacobite invasion he committed two Jacobite ministers to Newgate for praying for the exiled King James II and was responsible for securing the arrest of James’s secretary, Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S].<sup>20</sup> He was also credited with preventing a riot of seamen on Tower Hill in October 1692.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Lucas was once again present on each of the prorogation days. During the 1692-3 session he was present on just over 49 per cent of sitting days, and he was named to 11 committees. On 30 Nov. 1692 he invoked privilege of Parliament to protect a servant who had been arrested and imprisoned. On 1 Dec. the House ordered the arrest of the bailiff involved; his release on payment of fees was ordered a week later, on 9 December. Lucas was absent from the House for over a month, between 16 Dec. 1692 and 23 Jan. 1693. His proxy was registered on 27 Dec. to Francis Howard*, 5th Baron Howard of Effingham, and was almost certainly for use in the proceedings on the Norfolk divorce case as well as, perhaps, for the place bill. Howard of Effingham’s views on his kinsman’s attempt at divorce chimed with those of Lucas, and it seems reasonable to conclude that as a court dependent Lucas was in agreement with Howard on the need to oppose the place bill. On 4 Feb. 1693 he voted that Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, was not guilty of murder.</p><p>Unusually, Lucas attended only one of the prorogation days before arriving for the opening of the 1693-4 session on 7 November. He was probably ill, for he was granted a month’s leave from the Tower on 16 Sept. 1693 and earlier in the summer had been at Bath, where his illness was not sufficiently serious to prevent him from arresting some fiddlers who had been induced to play Jacobite songs.<sup>22</sup> Presumably his health was fully restored for his attendance rose during this session to 74 per cent. His relationship with Byron was presumably also restored for he held that peer’s proxy from 21 Nov. 1693 for the remainder of the session. As usual he was named to the committee for privileges but to only three other committees. He was once again present on each of the prorogation days.</p><p>His relative poverty and lack of English estates meant that he had little influence over parliamentary elections. His one known foray into electioneering came at the by-election for Colchester in 1694, caused by the death of Samuel Reynolds<sup>‡</sup>. Edward Cary<sup>‡</sup>, husband of Lucas’s niece, Anne, had previously represented Colchester, and Lucas now considered promoting the election of Isaac Selfe, husband of Anne’s sister, Penelope, and owner of the former Lucas interest at Lexden. However, he decided instead to back the candidature of Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> and his support was apparently instrumental in securing Cooke’s election. The London merchant, Thomas Haynes, had approached Lucas on Cooke’s behalf. Lucas agreed to ‘write to the town and go down afterwards and lay out what moneys were necessary’, but he claimed that he did so only as a front man for Haynes and Cooke. During the course of the election, Lucas spent nearly £300 in cash, gave a note for £50 and borrowed a further £400 from the London financier, Sir Stephen Evance<sup>‡</sup>, to defray the expenses involved in ‘taking up of several houses for entertainment of the electors’. After the election, Cooke made Lucas a present of £500 and Lucas, claiming that Haynes had promised to repay the note to Evance, successfully sued him for £400.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Lucas’ attendance rose to nearly 86 per cent during the 1694-5 session, perhaps because he had a need to ingratiate himself at court. In August 1694, during Lucas’s absence to recover his health in the country, the Jacobite prisoner Colonel John Parker had escaped from the Tower. During a detailed investigation into the affair by the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, several witnesses suggested that Parker had escaped via the chimney and implied that he was assisted to do so in part by Lucas’s decision to remove the attendant warder from his room. Lucas himself insisted that Parker must have bribed his way out.<sup>24</sup> The privy council concluded, nevertheless, that ‘that the orders that had been given for his safekeeping, had been very negligently observed ...’, and it was widely, but incorrectly, rumoured that Lucas was to be dismissed for negligence.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Along with others present Lucas was appointed on 10 Jan. 1695 to the committee for the procession to attend the queen’s funeral. During the course of the session he was named to a further 18 committees. He held Byron’s proxy from 24 Dec. until it was vacated by Byron’s return to the House on 15 Feb. 1695, but there is no indication of the purposes for which it was to be used. During the recess, he was again present on each of the prorogation days. According to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup>, he was also the recipient of a welcome financial legacy, £400 a year, following the death of Sir Edward Sutton.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Lucas’s attendance during the 1695-6 session dropped to 65 per cent; he was named to 15 committees. On 26 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association. He attended two of the three prorogation days during the recess, and his attendance remained at 65 per cent in the following, 1696-7, session. On 20 Oct. 1696 he was appointed to the committees for privileges and the Journal, and on the same day, together with Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford), he introduced John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, to the House. He was named to 27 other committees. He was present on 23 Dec. 1696 to vote in favour of the Fenwick attainder. His relationship with the court may still have been a difficult one, for in February 1697 John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, seems to have been re-investigating the Parker escape.<sup>27</sup> His management of the Tower was again under investigation in June following reports that James II had been seen there in the house of the Catholic former chief engraver of the Mint, John Roettier.<sup>28</sup> The following month he was again called to account in connection with complaints from the master and wardens of the Mint about his obstruction of the re-coinage.<sup>29</sup></p><p>During the recess he attended five of the seven prorogation days; he was then present for just over 69 per cent of the 1697-8 session when he was named to 39 committees. On 14 Feb. 1698, in his capacity as governor of the Tower, he told the House that Mohun’s behaviour was such that he had to be kept under close confinement. The following month, on 16 and 17 Mar., in one of the few cases in which a personal interest can be established, he entered dissents to the decisions of the House to overthrow the verdict in <em>Bertie v. Lord Falkland and others</em>. The losing party was Lucius Henry Carey, 6th viscount of Falkland [S], Lucas’s great nephew. On 17 Mar. he was named to the committee to consider a published libel in the case and on 24 Mar. as one of the managers of a conference on the subject. He registered a proxy in favour of Bridgwater on 2 Apr. 1698 and was then absent from the House until 3 May. On 24 May he was named as a manager for the conference on the bill for the effectual suppression of blasphemy and profaneness and again on 15 June for conference concerning the trial of Goudet.</p><p>Lucas attended 79 per cent of the first session of the 1698 Parliament and was named to 27 committees. On 3 May 1699 he was appointed one of the managers of the conference on paper duties. During the recess he attended four of the six prorogation days. Despite references to the onset of illness in the late summer, his attendance over the 1699-1700 session was still high, reaching just over 70 per cent.<sup>30</sup> However, his absence at the opening of the session meant that he was not named to the committees for privileges and the Journal. He was named to a further 17 committees.</p><p>He missed three of the six prorogation days during the recess, probably through illness as he was given three months’ leave in August 1700.<sup>31</sup> On a list drawn up during the recess his name is marked as a Whig, in a way suggestive of his support for the new ministry. He was present for two-thirds of the first session of the Parliament of 1701 and was named to 19 committees. On 12 May 1701 he acted as a teller in the case of <em>Farrell v. White</em>. On 17 and 23 June he voted in favour of the acquittal of the Junto lords, John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. On 20 and 23 June he reported from committees of the whole in favour of the bills to appropriate £3,700 weekly from the excise for the use of the king and his household and to impose duties on low wines, coffee, tea and chocolate.</p><p>Although Lucas attended all the prorogation days before the opening of the second parliament of 1701, it seems likely that his health was precarious. He was given three months’ leave in September 1701 and did not attend the new session until 13 Jan. 1702, some two weeks after it had begun and so was not named to the sessional committees.<sup>32</sup> He was then present for 51 per cent of sitting days. He apparently added his name retrospectively to the address to the king deploring the actions of the French in recognizing the Pretender which was presented to the House for its approbation on 1 Jan. 1702. He was regularly named to committees, including that to draw an address of thanks to Queen Anne on 30 Mar. 1702. Additionally, he reported from committees of the whole in favour of bills for Singleton (18 Apr.), Lee <em>et al.</em>, Domville <em>et al.</em> and Eustace <em>et al.</em> (all on 22 May). Each of these bills involved Irish interests.</p><p>At the accession of Queen Anne, Lucas was dismissed as governor of the Tower and as lord lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets, although he retained command of the regiment to which he had been appointed shortly before William’s death.<sup>33</sup> His parliamentary attendance now began to dip markedly. During the 1702-3 session it dropped to just under 48 per cent; he was, nevertheless, named to 14 committees. Perhaps it was thought that loss of office would affect his political allegiances, for in January 1703 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, believed that Lucas would support the bill to prevent occasional conformity. Later that month, on 16 Jan., Lucas voted instead to adhere to the Lords’ wrecking amendments.</p><p>Lucas again missed the beginning of the 1703-4 session, arriving on 9 Dec. a full month after the opening of the session, but his attendance, nevertheless, recovered somewhat, reaching 58 per cent. He reported from a committee of the whole concerning the land tax bill on 16 Dec. 1703. His name appears on the first forecast compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a possible opponent of the occasional conformity bill. By the time Sunderland compiled his second forecast it was clear that Lucas would oppose the bill and subsequent division lists confirm this. For the first time his name also appears on 6 and 29 Feb., and 23 Mar. 1704 as one of those who had inspected the Journal.</p><p>The 1704-5 session was Lucas’s last. He again missed the start of the session, arriving a month late on 21 November. He attended for the rest of the month, but in December his attendance became sporadic. His last appearance was on 17 Jan. 1705; he died two weeks later. An undated list, usually ascribed to 1705 but probably earlier, classified him as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. Whilst several of his contemporaries remarked on the fact of his death, none expressed regret or lauded his character. Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who claimed to have been instrumental in securing Lucas’s original appointment to command the Tower, found being a state prisoner under Lucas’s management intolerable, but it seems unlikely that he would have regarded another governor any more favourably.<sup>34</sup> Macky described Lucas as ‘very fat, very expensive, and very poor’ and implied that he was incompetent.<sup>35</sup> A newsletter report merely remarked that his honours were ‘now extinct as the estate was long before.’ Lucas did possess some property, albeit of a size more appropriate to an affluent gentleman than to a peer. He left the bulk of his property to his niece, Anne Cary. His cash bequests amounted to nearly £700 and included exceptionally generous amounts for his servants. The largest single bequest, £300, went to Ann Hudson, a young milliner who was presumably his mistress.</p> |
R.P. |
|
LUMLEY, Richard (c. 1650-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>LUMLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (c. 1650–1721)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 1662 (a minor) as 2nd Visct. Lumley of Waterford [I]; <em>cr. </em>31 May 1681 Bar. LUMLEY; <em>cr. </em>10 Apr. 1689 Visct. LUMLEY of LUMLEY CASTLE; <em>cr. </em>15 Apr. 1690 earl of SCARBROUGH |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 11 Dec. 1721 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1650, 1st s. of John Lumley (<em>d</em>.1658) and Mary, da. of Sir Henry Compton<sup>‡</sup>, of Brambletye, Suss.; bro. of Hon. Henry Lumley<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (tutor Richard Lascelles) 1667-c.1669 (France).<sup>1</sup> m. 17 Mar. 1685<sup>2</sup> Frances (<em>d</em>.1722), da. of Sir Henry Jones, of Aston, Oxf., 7s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 4da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d.</em> 17 Dec. 1721; <em>will</em> 11 Jan. 1717-12 Apr. 1718, pr. 22 Dec. 1721.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1689; master of the horse to Queen Catharine of Braganza 1681-?4;<sup>5</sup> treas. to Queen Catharine 1684-?; gent. of the bedchamber 1689-1702; chan. duchy of Lancaster 1716-17;<sup>6</sup> v.-treas. [I] 1717.</p><p>Ld. lt. Northumberland 1689-<em>d</em>., Durham 1690-1712, 1715-<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Durham and Northumberland (held concurrently) 1689-1702, 1710.</p><p>Vol. in Navy 1672, at Tangier 1680; cap. independent tp. of horse 1685; col. 9th (Queen Dowager’s) Regt. of Horse (later 6th (Carabiniers) Regt.) 1685-7; col. 1st tp. Life Gds 1689-99; major-gen. 1692; lt-gen. of ft. 1694-7, 1702.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, school of Jonathan Richardson, c.1690, National Trust, Lacock Abbey, Wilts.</p> |
<p>Although originally a northern family with extensive interests in Durham and Northumberland that dated from before the Norman Conquest, the Lumleys also possessed significant estates in Sussex as a result of an inheritance from the Fitzalan family dating from the 16th century.<sup>11</sup> Lumley was also connected to the families of Spencer, Compton and Sackville. Shortly after the Restoration, Lumley inherited the Irish viscountcy of Lumley from his grandfather. The first Viscount Lumley’s date of death is uncertain but as he was cited in a chancery action in May 1662, it appears that Lumley inherited the title between that date and March of the following year, when his grandfather’s will was proved.<sup>12</sup> It had been a condition of the will that Lumley make Stansted Park in Sussex his principal seat and it was accordingly in Sussex that Lumley came to exercise the greatest of his political interest.<sup>13</sup> Despite holding the offices of lord lieutenant of both Durham and Northumberland for much of the period, Lumley appears to have been content to allow others to manage elections in those counties, though he may have had some hand in influencing the composition of Northumberland’s commission of the peace in the opening years of the eighteenth century, saving a number of Whig justices from the kind of purges experienced in other parts of the country.<sup>14</sup> Having said that, politically, Lumley was difficult to categorize. While he tended towards the Whigs after the Revolution, he combined this stance with a thorough dislike of Dissenters and viewed matters relating to the great military conflicts of the period more through the prism of a professional soldier than that of a committed Whig placeman.<sup>15</sup></p><h2>Irish peer and soldier, 1667-88</h2><p>Raised a Catholic under his mother’s auspices, in 1667 Lumley was granted a licence to tour the continent for the following three years accompanied by his mother, brother, sisters and a dozen servants, on the understanding that he avoided contact with seminaries.<sup>16</sup> He returned to England in 1672 and embarked on a military career. He served aboard Admiral Sir Joseph Jordan’s flagship during the third Anglo-Dutch war and he may have been present at the battle of Sole Bay, where Jordan earned notoriety for ignoring a plea for assistance from his immediate superior, Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, so that he could protect James*, duke of York, the commander-in-chief, whose ship was also under heavy fire. Jordan’s action contributed to the loss of Sandwich’s ship, and Sandwich’s own death.<sup>17</sup> Four years later, Lumley was himself the subject of controversy when he was indirectly involved with the death of a fellow peer. Lumley was one of those embroiled in an argument that erupted at court involving Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish, later duke of Devonshire, and an Irish officer, Captain Power, as a result of which Mohun was mortally wounded in a subsequent duel.<sup>18</sup> Lumley escaped serious repercussions from the incident and in 1677, once more seeking military experience, he joined a number of English nobles, among them James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, later duke of Buckingham and Normanby, serving as volunteers in the French army.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Lumley’s return to town in November 1678, in defiance of the proclamation requiring all Catholics to remain away from London, prompted speculation that he may have abjured his religion and taken the oaths. His way of life had already been the cause of censure from members of the Catholic elite. He had responded unenthusiastically to efforts to persuade him to marry in the middle of the decade, being too taken up with the ‘loose and pleasurable condition he lives in’ during which he fathered at least one ‘illegitimate brat’.<sup>20</sup> Early in 1679, contradicting the former report, it was rumoured that he was to be committed as a papist for being in London without license. By then he appears to have resolved to abjure his religion and in April of that year he began attending Church of England services openly. It was also speculated that he was to marry one of the daughters of Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester, later duke of Bolton, though no such match resulted.<sup>21</sup> Early rumours of his elevation to an English barony circulated in October of that year and in November he accompanied York to Scotland.<sup>22</sup> The following year (1680) he joined the volunteers recruited by Mulgrave to reinforce the garrison at Tangier.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Lumley owed his eventual elevation to an English barony to the need for the embattled former lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds, to bolster his support in the House to free him from imprisonment. Danby was compelled to plead with the king to speed the process in spite of concerns that seem to have been voiced about the impropriety of advancing so recent a convert from catholicism. Writing in February 1681, Danby pointed out that:</p><blockquote><p>Neither the pretence of his being a new convert nor the pretensions of others to new honours can be any real or good objections against him because he has given a sufficient testimony of his being a true convert… and everybody has so well known of his lordship’s having a warrant so very long that nobody can pretend to take any just exception to it.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the event, in spite of Danby’s entreaty and reports from the second week of May 1681 that his promotion was imminent, Lumley’s advancement to an English barony was delayed until the end of the month: too late for him to attend the Oxford Parliament and assist Danby.<sup>25</sup> The same month he was one of a number of lords to rally to the defence of another peer, subscribing the petition for the king to grant a pardon to Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who was accused of being a party to the killing of William Sneeth.<sup>26</sup> He was also one of those to attend at king’s bench for the proceedings against Fitzharris.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Reports that Lumley was also to receive an Irish earldom proved inaccurate but the same year he was rewarded with further marks of distinction when he replaced Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, as master of the horse to the queen.<sup>28</sup> Lumley’s tenure as master of the horse proved brief and ill-tempered as a result of disputes with his counterpart, Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, the master of the horse to the king, or more probably with Richmond’s mother, as Richmond was at that stage still a minor, and the commissioners responsible for discharging the office.<sup>29</sup> On his appointment, Lumley had insisted on being permitted a greater degree of independence of the king’s master of the horse than the place had hitherto been allowed but within a year reports circulated of tension existing between the two departments. Lumley was rumoured to be on the point of resigning his place in January 1682 and the following month Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that Lumley had laid down the office.<sup>30</sup> Although this proved premature, two years later, in February 1684, Lumley was ordered out of Whitehall and removed from his post.<sup>31</sup> The following month it was reported that he intended to travel to Flanders to join the prince of Orange’s army for the forthcoming campaign.<sup>32</sup> Lumley’s discomfiture at home proved short-lived, as in October he replaced Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, as treasurer to the queen. Notwithstanding his own travails, Lumley remained loyal to Danby whose efforts to be bailed in June 1682 and again in February 1684 he supported.<sup>33</sup> One of several adventurers to be reprimanded over unlicensed trading into the East Indies in February 1685, he nevertheless continued to invest actively in a number of trading companies, attracting further censures on occasion. <sup>34</sup></p><p>Lumley finally took his seat in the House at the opening of the first Parliament of the new reign on 19 May 1685 introduced between Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, and Richard Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, more usually known as earl of Arran [I], after which he was present on just under 40 per cent of all sitting days. He seems not to have taken a prominent role in the House’s business during the session and was not named to any committees. The following month, in response to Monmouth’s rebellion, he raised a troop of horse and in July he was instrumental in the capture of both Monmouth and his neighbour, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, later earl of Tankerville, following their defeat at Sedgemoor.<sup>35</sup> He later interposed with the king personally on two occasions to secure Grey’s pardon.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Following the successful suppression of the rebellion, Lumley’s regiment was despatched to Holland in September 1685, but it seems unlikely that he accompanied it on campaign at this time.<sup>37</sup> Appointed one of the peers to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, later earl of Warrington, in January 1686, by November of that year reports circulated both that Lumley had resigned his commission and had been put out of office.<sup>38</sup> Although these proved to be premature it is clear that by that time he had already developed connections with the opposition. In January 1687 he was listed among those opposed to repeal of the Test and the following month he finally relinquished his command.<sup>39</sup> In April Lumley’s brother Henry also converted to the Church of England and the following month Lumley was one of those peers to be assessed an opponent of the king’s policies.<sup>40</sup> Being, according to Macaulay, well aware that he was by now ‘abhorred at Whitehall, not only as a heretic but as a renegade’, Lumley proved a willing recruit to those plotting against the regime. In May he travelled to Holland to wait on the prince of Orange in company with Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, and he was later sought out by the prince’s envoy, Dijkvelt, during his mission to England.<sup>41</sup> In November 1687 Lumley was again listed among those opposed to repeal.<sup>42</sup> The same month a report was lodged against Lumley again for trading in the East Indies in contravention of the king’s charter as a result of which Lumley was ordered to pay £300 to the East India Company.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Listed among the opposition to repeal once again in January 1688, the same month Lumley was also included in a list compiled by Danby of those opposed to the king’s policies in general. Lumley’s connections within the army no doubt made him a useful recruit to the conspiracy within the officer corps hatched that year. Working with Shrewsbury, he was active in attempting to mobilize a petition on behalf of the seven bishops and he was also mentioned as a possible surety for Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Bristol, at the time of the bishops’ trial.<sup>44</sup> Following their acquittal, Lumley secured his place in the mythology of the Revolution of 1688 by joining Shrewsbury and his kinsman, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, as one of the ‘immortal seven’ signatories of the invitation to William of Orange to intervene in the country’s affairs.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Noted among those involved in meetings in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire in advance of the Revolution, on the news of William of Orange’s invasion Lumley was one of the first to rise against James’s regime in the winter of 1688.<sup>46</sup> He joined Danby and a number of other peers at York, having evaded half-hearted attempts made to seize him by Henry Cavendish*, duke of Newcastle, on the orders of James’s secretary of state, Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S].<sup>47</sup> The instability of the coalition that had been cobbled together as well as Lumley’s naturally quarrelsome nature was demonstrated by reports of Delamer and Hugh Cholmondeley*, Viscount (later earl of) Cholmondeley, being discontented with Lumley and Danby’s leadership as well as by Lumley nearly coming to blows with Robert Bertie*, styled Lord Willoughby de Eresby, later duke of Ancaster, during the rising. The two were forced to agree to arbitration to resolve their differences.<sup>48</sup> Lumley more than proved his worth for the rebels by making use of his contacts in the north-east to ensure the taking of Durham and Berwick, though he appears to have had less success at Newcastle in spite of early reports.<sup>49</sup> As a former Catholic, his motives clearly excited local suspicion and one commentator, unconvinced of his sincerity, professed that ‘if King James bid him set up a golden calf, he would do it.’<sup>50</sup> He secured Durham, acting as well as a point of contact for members of the Scottish nobility rising in support of the Revolution, but before he could complete the operation in Northumberland, Lumley was despatched to convey the congratulations of the northern lords to the prince.<sup>51</sup> He then took his place amongst the majority of the nobles gathered in the provisional government at the meeting in the queen’s presence chamber on 21 Dec. and the following day in the House of Lords.<sup>52</sup> On 24 Dec. in response to the debates about whether or not the House should read the king’s letter to Middleton, Lumley interposed that, ‘if it had been a public letter, it would have been communicated, otherwise it is not to be sent for.’<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of William III, 1689-1702</em></h2><p>Despite his activities in the far north securing strategic locations for the prince, Lumley seems not to have exercised much interest in the northern boroughs during the elections for the Convention. Nor does he seem to have exerted himself in Sussex at this time. He took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 (of which he attended approximately 47 per cent of all sitting days) and on 31 Jan. he voted in favour of the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen. He then registered his dissent when the Lords resolved not to concur with the Commons in declaring the throne to be vacant. On 4 Feb. Lumley again voted to concur with the Commons in employing the term ‘abdicated’, registering a further dissent when this, too, was rejected. Two days later he again voted in favour of employing the term ‘abdicated’ and the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the Lords’ amendments to the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen on 9 February. Later that month, he was rewarded for his role in the Revolution and his support for the new king and queen with appointment to the Privy Council and to a place in the king’s bedchamber.<sup>54</sup> Lady Lumley was appointed to the queen’s bedchamber.<sup>55</sup> Lumley was not, though, appointed to the office of treasurer of the household, to which he had been recommended by Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury.<sup>56</sup> On 8 Mar. 1689 he was one of a handful of peers ordered to attend the king with the House’s thanks for his answer to their address. The same month he was appointed lord lieutenant of Northumberland.<sup>57</sup> Further advancement followed in April with his appointment as colonel of the first troop of Life Guards and with a step in the peerage.<sup>58</sup> Following the king’s instructions, the patent for Lumley’s viscountcy was passed in time for him to attend the coronation of 11 Apr. in his new dignity. Two days later (on 13 Apr.) he was introduced in the House between Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport, later earl of Bradford, and Thomas Thynne*. Viscount Weymouth.<sup>59</sup> On 10 May he received the proxy of his friend, Grey of Warke, which was vacated by Grey’s return to the House on 30 May. Granted leave of absence to go about the king’s affairs on 22 May, he registered his own proxy with Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, later earl of Romney, the same day after which he was away from the House for two months. Engaged with lieutenancy business during this period, a report in June revealed that he was in the north ‘in pursuit of an association made in behalf of King James’.<sup>60</sup> He returned to the House on 2 July 1689, thereby vacating the proxy, and was then present through much of the remainder of the month and for six days in August and one in October. On 27 July he acted as one of the tellers in the division over whether to hold a free conference with the Commons to discuss the amendments to the bill for reversing Titus Oates’s sentence for perjury. The motion was rejected by 31 votes to 18 and the Lords instead appointed the conference to be held the following Monday.<sup>61</sup> Lumley returned to the House for the second session of the Convention on 23 Oct. 1689, of which he attended 62 per cent of all sitting days. Excused at a call five days later, he resumed his seat once more on 30 Oct. and on 11 Nov. he was added to the committee for inspections. On 28 Nov. he again received Grey of Warke’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Reckoned as among the supporters of the court in a list compiled by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690, although one who needed to be spoken to, Lumley was reported to be one of those to be appointed a lord justice in the king’s absence at the beginning of 1690 and in March it was further speculated that he was to be appointed lord privy seal, though nothing came of this latter suggestion.<sup>62</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar, after which he was present on just under 80 per cent of all sitting days. Absent at a call on 31 Mar. he resumed his seat the following day and two weeks later he was advanced in the peerage once more as earl of Scarbrough. He took his place in his new dignity on 21 Apr., John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, introducing him. Later that month (April) the Commons sent for him, as lord lieutenant of Northumberland, to explain reports of unrest in the north.<sup>63</sup> Scarbrough accompanied the king to Ireland in June and the following month he was present at the Boyne as colonel of the 1st troop of Horse Guards.<sup>64</sup> Although his conduct during the battle was called into question and, according to one (Jacobite) source, he was upbraided by the king for refusing to obey an order to advance against the enemy cavalry being rather too anxious to preserve his own skin, imputations of cowardice or incompetence were rapidly scotched and it was broadly accepted that ‘he acted according to the best of his judgment and conscience, and was no way defective in point of fidelity nor courage.’<sup>65</sup></p><p>For the remainder of the Irish campaign, Scarbrough may have acted as master of the ordnance in place of the previous holder of the post, Frederick Herman Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg, who had been killed at the Boyne, but if so it proved a temporary expedient and the office was left vacant until 1693 when it was awarded to Romney.<sup>66</sup> Scarbrough returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 9 Oct. after which he was present on 40 days of the 73-day session. On 29 Nov. he was added (along with two other peers) to the committee for the bill concerning the distressed orphans of the City of London and on 2 Jan. 1691 he acted as one of the tellers for the division concerning the adoption of a proviso within the bill for suspending the navigation acts, which was voted down by a single vote.<sup>67</sup> Three days later, the final day on which he sat in the session, he acted as one of the managers of a series of four conferences concerning the same business. Scarbrough accompanied the king on campaign again in May.<sup>68</sup> The following month his quarrelsome nature again came to the fore when an argument with Bolton’s son, Charles Powlett*, styled marquess of Winchester (later 2nd duke of Bolton), over the ‘good service to the government’ of Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup> (which Scarbrough was eager to defend) resulted in a duel, during which Winchester was disarmed and slightly wounded.<sup>69</sup> Scarbrough took his seat in the House for the new session on 22 Oct. after which he was present on approximately 44 per cent of all sitting days. On 9 Jan. 1692 he received the proxy of Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, which was vacated on 1 Feb., and on 12 Jan. he acted as teller for those opposed to receiving the divorce bill of his Sussex neighbour Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, though the House resolved in favour of receiving the bill by 51 to 43 votes (including proxies).<sup>70</sup> Absent from the House from 19 Jan., on 22 Jan. Scarbrough registered his own proxy with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. He returned to the Lords on 17 February. His absence may have been the result of the birth of his third son, William, for whom the king stood godfather that month.<sup>71</sup> Following the close of the session it was again rumoured that Scarbrough was to be appointed master of the ordnance.<sup>72</sup> Although he was again unsuccessful in securing the post, he travelled to Flanders in April at the head of his regiment ‘having prepared a splendid equipage’. The following month he was promoted major-general.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Scarbrough returned to England at the close of the campaign season in company with the king and took his seat in the new session on 4 Nov. 1692 (after which he was present on almost 73 per cent of all sitting days).<sup>74</sup> On 8 Nov. he was involved in a debate in committee of the whole House concerning a reduction in the ordnance. On 19 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers for the division over reversing a chancery decree in the cause <em>Newton v. Ballett</em>: the motion was rejected by 24 to 19 votes.<sup>75</sup> The following month, Scarbrough complained to the House that one John Slaughter, a plumber from Rochester, had counterfeited a protection in his name. Following further investigation of the matter, the House ordered Slaughter to be attached.<sup>76</sup> Scarbrough acted as a teller again on 7 Dec. for the division over holding a conference with the Commons to consider the state of the nation, which proposal was rejected by 48 votes to 36, and the following day he acted as teller again following a vote in a committee of the whole on the question of whether to agree to a reduction in the ordnance, which was passed by three votes.<sup>77</sup> Scarbrough voted against committing the place bill on 31 December. In spite of his former opposition, he was forecast as a likely supporter of Norfolk’s second divorce bill the following month, the first having been thrown out by the House the previous year. The reason for his change of heart is uncertain, but on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted accordingly in favour of reading the bill. One of the other <em>causes</em> <em>célèbres</em> of the session was the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, in which Scarbrough took a close interest. On 31 Jan. he subscribed the protest at the decision not to proceed with the trial. On 3 Feb. he was one of several peers to submit queries to the judges on technical points surrounding the law of murder and the following day he found Mohun not guilty of murder.<sup>78</sup> On 15 Feb. he registered his proxy with Carmarthen, which was vacated when he resumed his seat on 21 February.</p><p>Scarbrough was rumoured to be one of two senior officers to be promoted lieutenant-general in February 1693.<sup>79</sup> In March he was granted a post warrant to travel to Durham but the following month he returned to Flanders for the new campaigning season.<sup>80</sup> He returned to England in time to take his seat in the House for the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on just over half of all sitting days. On 8 Dec, following the third reading of the bill for frequent parliaments, he acted as one of the tellers in the division over giving a third reading to a proviso, which was rejected duly by a margin of 18 votes. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission of the case <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. The same day he entered his dissent at the decision to dismiss the petition submitted by Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and on 24 Feb. Scarbrough entered a further dissent at the order to dismiss Montagu’s petition for exhibits in the case to be produced. On 23 Apr., following debate in a committee of the whole, he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to allow a clause in the tonnage bill to stand apart but the motion was carried by 12 votes. The same month, Scarbrough was mentioned in correspondence between Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, in which the duke commented that he had put a stop to Scarbrough’s design. It is unclear what he meant by this but it may have been related to their rival interests in Sussex.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Scarbrough returned to England from another campaigning season in early October, narrowly avoiding being drowned on his journey home.<sup>82</sup> He was finally promoted lieutenant-general that autumn and in December it was speculated that he was also to be appointed constable of the Tower, though this failed to transpire.<sup>83</sup> He delayed taking his seat for more than a month after the opening of the new session, only returning to the chamber on 21 Dec. 1694. Thereafter he was present on a further 65 days (55 per cent of the whole). On 21 Jan. 1695 he acted as teller following two divisions in committee of the whole concerning the treason trials bill. The first motion, to read for a second time an amended clause requiring that in the case of peers’ treason trials all peers with a right to sit should be summoned at least 20 days in advance of any trial, was carried by two votes and the second, that the clause should be adopted as part of the bill, was carried by a majority of seven. On both occasions Scarbrough acted as teller for those in favour of the motion. The clause was subsequently rejected by the Commons but insisted on by the Lords. The following day (22 Jan.), he again acted as teller in the same business, though this time on behalf of those opposed to a clause preventing prisoners from challenging the charges against them on the basis of scribal mistakes in the indictment. On this occasion, Scarbrough sided with the minority.<sup>84</sup> Scarbrough’s efforts throughout the debates on this ultimately failed piece of legislation were governed by an interest in protecting the rights of those indicted from ‘arbitrary government’ which accords well with his justification for rebellion against the previous regime. Scarbrough was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons considering the bill on 16 February. On 19 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the passage of the bill permitting the heirs of the sole surviving daughters of peers summoned by writ to a writ of summons and on 21 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to allow the bill for foreign seamen to be reported to the House (which was approved by three votes). Scarbrough was again named a manager of a conference considering the bill to oblige Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> to account for money received from the East India Company on 13 April. Two days later he was again a manager of a further conference concerning the treason trials bill and of a subsequent conference on the same business on 20 April.</p><p>Present as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 18 June and 30 July, Scarbrough took his seat in the House for the new Parliament on 22 November.<sup>85</sup> Thereafter he was present on almost 68 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was nominated one of the managers of two conferences concerning the bill for regulating silver coinage on 3 and 7 Jan. 1696. On 10 Jan. he registered his proxy with Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat three days later. The following month (10 Feb.) he introduced his friend Grey of Warke as earl of Tankerville. Scarbrough again acted as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 28 July and during the recess was engaged in building work at Stansted.<sup>86</sup> He took his seat in the following session on 30 Oct. after which he attended approximately 68 per cent of all sitting days. Scarbrough took a prominent role during the debates on the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, bt, responding to one speech made by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, questioning the proceedings, by justifying the use of attainders in general and the Fenwick attainder in particular, as ‘there never was a fairer than this.’<sup>87</sup> On 15 Dec. he acted as teller on the question of whether to read information concerning the case, which was passed by a majority of 20. On 23 Dec. the House was forced to interpose between Scarbrough and John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, to prevent them from coming to blows in a heated exchange during the Fenwick debate.<sup>88</sup> Unsurprisingly, Scarbrough voted in favour of attainting Fenwick the same day, acting as one of the tellers on the motion (presumably on behalf of those in favour of passing the bill).<sup>89</sup></p><p>Scarbrough was named one of the peers appointed to arbitrate in a long-running dispute between Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and his heir, George Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings, later 8th earl of Huntingdon, on 21 Jan. 1697. The following day both Scarbrough and Bishop Compton were ordered to attend the king with an address requesting that Fenwick’s execution should be delayed, following a petition to the House submitted by Lady Fenwick. Scarbrough reported the king’s answer on 23 Jan. communicating his somewhat grudging agreement to the House’s request. Scarbrough continued to be active during the session, being nominated a manager of a conference concerning the bill to prohibit India silks on 5 Mar. and on 19 Mar. he subscribed the dissent at the Lords’ insistence on their amendments to the order for restraining the wearing of wrought silks and calicoes. A few days before, on 9 Mar., he had received the proxy of Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, which was vacated by Albemarle’s resumption of his seat on 17 March. He received the proxy once again on 19 March. It was vacated three days later. On 15 Apr, in a committee of the whole, Scarbrough told in favour of the motion for adopting a clause within the stock-jobbing restraint bill, though this was rejected by a single vote.</p><p>Scarbrough served as a commissioner for proroguing Parliament on 22 July, 26 Aug. 30 Sept and 23 Nov 1697. He then took his seat in the new session on 3 Dec. after which he was present on 57 per cent of all sitting days. On 10 Jan. 1698 he received the proxy of Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby, later earl of Strafford, which was vacated by Raby’s return to the House on 21 June. On 7 Mar. Scarbrough was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the amendments to the bill for explaining poor relief and on 15 Mar. he voted in favour of committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, subscribing the dissent of the same day when the House rejected the bill. On 12 May he reported from the committee of the whole on the malt bill, which was declared fit to pass, and on 30 June he received the proxy of William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford, which was vacated by the close of the session. The same month he was mentioned as one of several peers with an interest in blocking the progress of the Aire and Calder Navigation Act.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Scarbrough was expected in Sussex towards the end of July 1698, where he employed his interest in the elections in the county along with Tankerville and Somerset.<sup>91</sup> He returned to London for the beginning of the new session, riding with the king in his coach to the opening of Parliament on 6 December.<sup>92</sup> Such cordial relations with King William no doubt encouraged rumours that circulated early the following year that he was to be appointed lord chamberlain.<sup>93</sup> Having taken his seat he was thereafter present on 48 days of the 81-day session. Early in 1699 he was one of several ‘persons of note’ to withdraw their deposits from the Bank of England. Scarbrough was reported to have taken £3,000 out of the bank at that time, contributing to a significant decline in the bank’s stock.<sup>94</sup> On 29 Mar. 1699 he reported from the committee considering the bill concerning Lordington Manor, an estate close to his lands in Sussex, which was considered fit to pass with amendments. Although Scarbrough’s regiment was exempted from disbandment at the time, he retired from the army in 1699. He sold his colonelcy to Albemarle for a reputed £12,000.<sup>95</sup> Scarbrough was noted as being one of those present at entertainments hosted by Leeds (as Carmarthen now was) and Henry d’Auverquerque*, earl of Grantham, in the late summer of 1699.<sup>96</sup> He returned to the House for the new session on 13 Dec. but was then present on just over a third of all sitting days. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning into committee of the whole House to discuss amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation.</p><p>The summer of 1700 found Scarbrough one of several local magnates hosting a series of political meetings at various seats in Sussex.<sup>97</sup> In the subsequent election of January 1701 Scarbrough’s brother, Brigadier Henry Lumley, successfully contested Sussex with Somerset’s support, though it seems reasonable to assume that he was also able to call upon his brother’s local interest.<sup>98</sup> Scarbrough took his seat in the first Parliament of 1701 on 11 Feb. (of which he attended a little under two thirds of all sitting days) and on 17 June he voted for the acquittal of the Junto peer, John Somers*, Baron Somers. He also voted to acquit Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, on 23 June.<sup>99</sup> Nominated that month to the committee for a union with Scotland, on 18 Sept. he acted as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Scarbrough joined Somers, Orford and three other peers in bearing the pall at the funeral of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, in November.<sup>101</sup> He then took his seat in the new Parliament on 19 Jan. 1702 after which he was present on 54 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 22 Jan. the House concurred with a recommendation made by Scarbrough and Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, to recommend Colonel Baldwin to the king and on 2 Mar. the Lords upheld Scarbrough’s complaint against one John Batchelor, who had stolen one of the earl’s horses and absconded. Although Batchelor was ordered to present himself at the bar, a few days later he was discharged at Scarbrough’s request.<sup>102</sup> Included among the managers of the conference appointed to consider the death of the king and accession of Queen Anne on 8 Mar, on 23 Mar. Scarbrough reported from the committee for Edward Mansell’s bill as being fit to pass with amendments. Towards the close of the session, on 4 May, he was then one of those appointed to lay before the queen a report concerning documents that were said to have been discovered among the late king’s papers to the prejudice of the queen’s succession.</p><h2><em>The Reign of Anne, 1702-14</em></h2><p>Although Scarbrough’s countess was preferred by being appointed to the queen’s bedchamber, it was rumoured that Scarbrough himself was to be removed from his lieutenancy shortly after the queen’s accession.<sup>103</sup> In the event he maintained his position but the threat to his local office may explain his apparent intention of resuming his military career that summer and his request to be awarded a commission without pay. The request caused John Churchill*, earl (soon to be duke) of Marlborough, to comment caustically to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, that, ‘I do not well see how the queen can refuse it, although it were much better that none had commissions but such as are proper to serve.’<sup>104</sup> Scarbrough took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on half of all sitting days. On 17 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the occasional conformity bill and about Jan. 1703 Nottingham noted him as doubtful over the measure. On 9 Jan. he was again a manager of a second conference considering the bill and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the penalty clause.<sup>105</sup> In the midst of his involvement with this bill, Scarbrough also took an interest in the bill for providing for Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, seconding an objection raised by Carlisle in a debate in committee of the whole, against part of the measure that it amounted to tacking.<sup>106</sup> Scarbrough’s association with the army appears to have revived at this time and in January he presided over the court martial of Sir Charles O’Hara, later Baron Tyrawley [I], who was subsequently acquitted of the charge of plundering the inquisitor general’s house at Cadiz.<sup>107</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session, Scarbrough was assessed by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill in two forecasts drawn up in November. Having taken his seat on 6 Dec. 1703 (after which he was present on approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days), he was again listed among those opposed to the measure in a further assessment compiled a few days later. The same day (14 Dec.), Scarbrough informed the House of the contents of a letter sent to his brother, Henry Lumley, by Boucher, who was one of a number of suspected Jacobites lately taken into custody.<sup>108</sup> In response to the letter’s revelations, the House ordered the arrest of a number of other suspects and Scarbrough was subsequently one of the seven lords chosen by ballot to examine the Scottish prisoners, though he received the fewest votes of the seven.<sup>109</sup> He then joined with five of his colleagues in seeking to be excused from serving but the House overruled all of the excuses submitted and the entry was expunged from the minutes.<sup>110</sup> On 19 Feb. 1704 he was one of eight peers nominated to examine William Keith and three days later was again one of a select committee appointed to examine the Scottish conspiracy. On 24 Mar. he subscribed the protest when the House voted not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect. Following the close of the session, Scarbrough travelled to his northern lieutenancy where he was presented with information that had been seized from a suspected Jacobite.<sup>111</sup> He seems to have returned to London by June when he was involved as a referee in a dispute involving James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, and his sister-in-law, the dowager countess.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Scarbrough took his seat in the new session on 23 Nov. 1704 (of which he attended approximately 43 per cent of all sitting days) and the same day he seconded Halifax’s motion for an adjournment. On 15 Dec. he joined with Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, Mohun and Somers in opposing giving the occasional conformity bill a second reading.<sup>113</sup> Named to the committee appointed to consider the heads for a conference with the Commons concerning the Ailesbury men on 27 Feb. 1705, on 12 Mar. Scarbrough reported from the committee for the militia bill. The following day, he reported from the committee again and, having been nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning amendments to the militia bill, he reported the effect of the conference to the Lords. The same day he was also named a manager of the conference for the amendments to the act for naturalizing Jacob Pechels and others. The following month he was noted as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.<sup>114</sup></p><p>In spite of all his efforts on behalf of his brother standing for Sussex in the 1705 general election, Scarbrough’s ‘great interest’ combined with the active support of John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, on behalf of ‘cousin Lumley’ was able only to secure 895 votes, while Richmond’s candidate, Sir Henry Peachey<sup>‡</sup> was forced into third place by Sir George Parker<sup>‡</sup> leaving the other seat to be taken comfortably by John Morley Trevor<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>115</sup> Scarbrough resumed his seat on 25 Oct. but the same day he registered his proxy with John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 11 December. Thereafter he attended a further 36 of the 95 sitting days of the session, and on 19 Mar. 1706 he reported from the committee for the low wines bill as fit to pass. Named one of the commissioners for Union with Scotland that year, following the close of the session he was mentioned alongside Wharton by one John Bell as a friend, prepared to use his interest to enable him to move from collection of the salt duty to that of customs in Newcastle.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Scarbrough introduced William Carr<sup>‡</sup> to the queen with the loyal address from Newcastle-on-Tyne in August.<sup>117</sup> He then took his seat in the House on 9 Dec. 1706 after which he was present on 57 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Active in the discussions surrounding Union, on 3 Feb. 1707 he was one of several peers noted by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, to pick holes in the archbishop of Canterbury’s bill concerning the status of the Church of England, taking the opportunity to lecture the House on various aspects of Anglo-Scottish history including Glencoe and the experience of the Darien company.<sup>118</sup> It has been pointed out since that the speech’s impact was undermined by Scarbrough’s muddling of John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], (at whom he levelled much of the blame for the current ills of the Scots nation) with his father, the first marquess.<sup>119</sup> On 15 Feb. Scarbrough pushed for amendments to the five articles of the Union bill considered that day, though the House overwhelmingly rejected the motion to postpone the first article that provided for the union of the two kingdoms on 1 May. The following week (21 Feb.) he again expressed his reservations over parts of the bill, worried that the 18th article, relating to trade, would have an adverse effect on English manufacturing towns such as Halifax and Leeds, but he again found himself in the minority.<sup>120</sup> On 28 Mar. he registered his proxy with Newcastle again, which was vacated by the close of the session. Absent for the entirety of the brief third session of April 1707 he took his seat in the new Parliament on 23 Oct. 1707 after which he was present on 71 per cent of all sitting days. In December, he was the only peer to voice his opposition to Somers’ ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, desiring that:</p><blockquote><p>it might be considered how lightly they run over a thing of the greatest moment. That this motion if approved by the House would tie up their hands from making peace, even though misfortunes of war should make it become our interest. That they had not yet debated whether a peace might not be made by dividing the Spanish monarchy, and that we should take care of involving ourselves too far, for that if our allies should ever think of peace by a partition, we should be obliged to comply, and eat our own words, or else obstinately carry the war on singly to our undoing.</p></blockquote><p>Scarbrough’s objections were answered by Godolphin and Halifax.<sup>121</sup> Scarbrough reported from the committee for the Caldecott estate bill on 12 Feb. 1708 and on 23 Feb. he acted as teller for those in favour of hearing the remainder of the evidence in the case <em>Bunker v. Cooke</em> the following day. On 26 Mar. he reported from the committee for Sir Ralph Milbanke’s estate act.</p><p>Reckoned (unusually) a Tory in a printed list of peers’; political affiliations in May 1708, the following month Scarbrough again demonstrated his anti-Scots prejudice by laying the blame for the decision to bring up several Scottish lords as prisoners on their own countrymen rather than on the English peers as others had suggested.<sup>122</sup> In August he seems to have played host to the duchess of Marlborough at his house in Sussex.<sup>123</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Nov. after which he was present on approximately 70 per cent of all sitting days. Shortly after the session’s opening, Sir Henry Peachey’s decision to opt to sit in the Commons for Sussex, rather than Arundel left the way open for Scarbrough’s heir, Henry Lumley<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Lumley, to take Arundel at the ensuing by-election, assisted no doubt by his father’s interest in the borough. Lumley’s success marked the beginning of a 40-year dominance of the town by Scarbrough and his successors, who were able to secure at least one of Arundel’s seats at each election during that period.<sup>124</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 Scarbrough voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the elections for Scots representative peers. The following month he appears to have joined with Godolphin in opposing the petition presented by the Scots representative peer, William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], about electoral malpractice in the recent elections.<sup>125</sup> On 4 Mar. he reported from the committee for the Smithfield cattle bill. Scarbrough continued to be an active member of the House for the remainder of the session. On 15 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers following a division held in the committee of the whole for the foreign protestants’ naturalization bill on the motion whether certain words should stand apart, which was carried by a majority of 30. On 28 Mar. 1709 he subscribed the protest at the decision not to give a second reading to a rider to the treason bill requiring that all those accused of treason should receive a copy of the indictment at least five days before the trial. On 8 Apr. he reported from the committee of the whole for the sewers bill and on 14 Apr. he acted as one of the tellers during consideration of the Union improvement bill on a Commons amendment to the bill. Four days later (18 Apr.) he reported from the committee of the whole on the Bank of England bill and on 21 Apr. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference on the bill for the continuation of acts to prevent coining.</p><p>Scarbrough took his seat in the second session on 15 Nov. 1709, and attended approximately 63 per cent of all sitting days. In January he seconded Rochester’s motion for the Lords’ debate on the state of the nation to be adjourned owing to the indisposition of John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, and on 16 Feb. 1710 he registered his dissent at the failure to require James Greenshields to attend the House before his appeal was received.<sup>126</sup> Rebelling against his usual Whig sympathies though, Scarbrough rallied to the cause of the disgraced cleric, Henry Sacheverell, in March (one of only two Whigs to do so, the other being Shrewsbury).<sup>127</sup> The reason for his refusal to condemn Sacheverell is unclear but was presumably connected with his fierce dislike of Dissent. On 14 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the decision that it was unnecessary to include in an impeachment the actual words deemed criminal and the same day dissented at the resolution not to adjourn. Two days later he protested again, first at the decision to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article against Sacheverell and second at the House’s concurrence with the Commons. On 20 Mar. Scarbrough found Sacheverell not guilty of the charges against him, entering a further dissent at the ensuing guilty verdict.<sup>128</sup> The following day he dissented again from the censure passed against the doctor. On 22 Mar. Scarbrough reported from the committee of the whole for the gaming bill, informing the House that the committee had made some progress but requested more time, which was granted accordingly, and on 27 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning amendments to the act concerning Edward Southwell’s marriage settlement. The following day, responding to the aftermath of the poor harvest of the previous year, he moved for the prohibition of the exportation of corn and on 30 Mar. he was one of the managers of a conference concerning amendments to the Eddystone lighthouse bill.<sup>129</sup></p><p>Scarbrough was shaken by the premature death of his heir, Viscount Lumley, in April 1710. Both he and his countess were reported to be ‘in true affliction’ for their loss, which came just a year after the death of their younger son, Hon. William Lumley, while serving with the navy in the Mediterranean.<sup>130</sup> Scarbrough had recovered sufficiently to return to town by the beginning of November.<sup>131</sup> He then took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, in advance of which Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, had listed him as ‘doubtful’. Present on almost 54 per cent of all sitting days, shortly after the opening of the session he moved for an address of thanks to be drafted for John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, in acknowledgement of his services. The proposal was seconded by Richmond but opposed by other peers, notably by Marlborough’s rival John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], sitting as earl of Greenwich, and it was later dropped by the advice of Marlborough’s friends.<sup>132</sup> Scarbrough spoke in the debate about the war in Spain on 9 Jan. 1711, urging that ‘the principal point which they ought to take into their consideration, and strictly examine into, were the council of war held in Valencia and the joining of the troops’ led by Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, with those commanded by Henri du Massue du Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I]. Scarbrough spoke again on 11 Jan. during the ongoing debates, demanding that the petitioners might be heard upon oath.<sup>133</sup> He then subscribed the consequent protests at the resolutions to reject Galway and Tyrawley’s petitions and to agree with the committee that the defeat at the battle of Almanza had been occasioned by the opinions of Lords Galway, Tyrawley and General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope). The following day (12 Jan.) he protested again at the resolution to censure the conduct of ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. On 1 Feb. he acted as one of the tellers following a division in committee of the whole concerning the state of the war in Spain and the following day acted as teller for those opposed to reading the House of Commons officers bill a second time, which was carried by 16 votes. On 3 Feb. he protested again first at the resolution to agree with the committee investigating the campaign that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament amounted to a neglect of the service and second at the resolution that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment had not been properly supplied. On 9 Feb. he subscribed three further protests at the resolution to expunge part of the text of the previous protest. The following month, on 9 Mar. Scarbrough was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the queen’s security.</p><p>Scarbrough’s heir Richard Lumley<sup>†</sup>, styled Viscount Lumley, was the focus of scandal in the autumn of 1711 when he was accused of fathering a child on the marchioness of Lindsey.<sup>134</sup> Scarbrough returned to the House for the new session on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present on 80 per cent of all sitting days. Although he had been listed among the Tory patriots of the previous session in a pamphlet published during the summer, he was included in a list compiled by Nottingham in advance of the session, which was possibly an assessment of those thought amenable to joining Nottingham’s alliance with the Whigs. He was also one of several peers interviewed by the queen in an effort to shore up the government’s majority in the House.<sup>135</sup> The queen’s arguments, clearly, failed to sway him and on 8 Dec. he was reckoned to be in favour of presenting the address with the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. On 15 Dec. he supported the motion to bring in the occasional conformity bill and on 19 Dec. he was forecast as being opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from taking his seat in the House as duke of Brandon. The following day, predictably, he voted in favour of preventing Scots peers with post-Union British titles from sitting in the Lords. On 17 Jan. 1712 he raised a point of order objecting to a motion made by Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, for an address of thanks to be voted to the queen before the House had heard her speech.<sup>136</sup> Absent for approximately a fortnight after 29 Feb. 1712, on 1 Mar. he registered his proxy with Charles Cornwallis*. 4th Baron Cornwallis, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 13 March. He registered the proxy with Cornwallis again on 7 Apr, which was vacated by his return to the House a week later on 14 April. On 17 May he acted as teller for those opposed to reading the grants bill a second time, which was carried in favour of the motion by two votes, and two days later registered his proxy with Cornwallis once more, which was vacated the following day. On 28 May he voted in favour of the opposition motion for overturning the orders preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from initiating an offensive strategy against the French.<sup>137</sup> He then subscribed the protest when the motion failed to carry. On 7 June he protested again at the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace. Two days later he received Orford’s proxy, which was vacated by Orford’s return to the House on 13 June. On 14 June he reported from the committee of the whole for the East India goods bill.</p><p>Scarbrough’s disgruntlement with the handling of the war presumably explains his ejection from the lieutenancies of Durham and Newcastle in the spring of 1712 and no doubt drove him further into the arms of the opposition.<sup>138</sup> His behaviour caused Lady Strafford to wonder how ‘Lady Scarbrough keeps her place, for Lord Scarbrough opposes the Queen in every thing that’s in his power with all the violence in the world.’<sup>139</sup> In advance of the new session, Jonathan Swift listed Scarbrough as someone likely to oppose the ministry. He took his seat on 9 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on approximately half of all sitting days. In June he spoke in the debate on the state of the nation. On 8 June he subscribed the protest at the passage of the malt tax bill and on 13 June he was reckoned by Oxford to be opposed to the eighth and ninth articles of the French treaty of commerce. Scarbrough returned to the House for the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on 80 per cent of all sitting days. On 25 Feb. he registered his proxy with Sunderland, which was vacated by his return to the House on 19 March. At the beginning of May, Scarbrough submitted a petition for leave to bring in a bill to enable him to enclose land at Thormarton (or Farmington) in Gloucestershire. The bill was committed just over a week later, and on 28 May Halifax reported the bill fit to pass with one amendment. The same day Scarbrough reported from the committee for the bill confirming a mortgage made by Lord Howe, which was also passed with amendments.</p><p>In the midst of these proceedings, Scarbrough complained of a breach of his privilege by the arrest of one of his servants on a warrant issued by one of the Sussex justices, Richard Peckham. The matter was referred to the committee for privileges and on 27 May John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, reported that the committee had concluded in Scarbrough’s favour recommending that Peckham should be attached. Peckham was discharged soon after having petitioned for his release on the grounds of being ‘ancient, very infirm and in danger of his life.’ Scarbrough was estimated by Nottingham as being opposed to the schism bill at the close of May. On 4 June he acted as teller for those opposed to rejecting the dissenters’ petition against the measure and on 9 June he acted again as a teller for those opposed to the schism bill following a division in a committee of the whole. On 15 June he protested at the resolution to pass the bill and on 30 June he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to read the accounts bill a second time (which was passed by 11 votes). On 8 July he entered a further protest at the resolution not to make representation to the queen stating that the benefit of the <em>Asiento</em> contract had been obstructed by the efforts of certain individuals to obtain personal advantages.</p><p>Scarbrough attended just two days of the brief August session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. In spite of his maverick tendencies and a report that circulated shortly after the coronation that he had been ‘turned out’, he prospered under the new regime. Having been appointed one of the lords justices at the commencement of the reign, he was later appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and vice treasurer of Ireland before his death from apoplexy at the close of 1721.<sup>140</sup> His heir, Richard, Viscount Lumley, was also preferred, being appointed master of the horse to George*, prince of Wales, later King George II.<sup>141</sup> Four of his other sons later sat for Parliament. Full details of the latter part of Scarbrough’s career will be considered in the second part of this work.</p><p>In his will, Scarbrough made careful provision for his children, bequeathing £7,000 apiece to his younger daughters for their portions and providing for his younger sons out of his estates in London and interests in the Russia and Tobacco companies. He requested that he be buried at Chester-le-Street, close to the family seat of Lumley Castle, and that the cost of his funeral should not exceed £100. Execution of the will was entrusted to his widow, his son-in-law George Montagu<sup>†</sup>, earl of Halifax, his brother, Henry Lumley, and his heir, Richard Lumley, who succeeded as 2nd earl of Scarbrough. By the time of his succession the new earl was already sitting as a peer following his summons by a writ of acceleration shortly after the beginning of the new reign.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MAITLAND, John (1616-82) |
<p><strong><surname>MAITLAND</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1616–82)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1624-45 Visct. Maitland [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Sept. 1649 as 2nd earl of Lauderdale [S]; <em>cr. </em>26 May 1672 duke of Lauderdale [S]; <em>cr. </em>25 June 1674 earl of GUILFORD |
|
First sat 10 Nov. 1674; last sat 10 Jan. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em><em>b</em></em>. 24 May 1616, 1st surv. s. of John Maitland, Visct. Lauderdale [S] (later earl of Lauderdale [S]), and Isabel, da. of Alexander Seton, earl of Dunfermline [S]. <em><em>educ</em></em>. St Andrews Univ. 1631; LLD Camb. 1676. <em>m</em>. (1) contr. 23 Aug.- 6 Sept. 1632, Anne (<em>d</em>.1671), da. of Alexander Home, earl of Home [S], 1 da.; (2) 17 Feb. 1672, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1698), suo jure countess of Dysart [S], da. and coh. of William Murray<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Dysart [S], wid. of Sir Lionel Tollemache [Talmash], 3rd bt., <em><em>s</em>.<em>p</em></em>. KG 1672. <em><em>d</em></em>. 24 Aug. 1682; <em>will</em> pr. Jan. 1683.</p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1660-?73.</p><p>PC [S] 1661; sec. of state [S] 1661-80; extr. ld. of session [S] 1661-<em>d</em>.; commr. of treasury [S] 1667-82; ld. high commr. parl. [S] 1669, 1670, 1672, 1673, and convention [S] 1678; pres. of council [S] 1672-81; commr. admlty. July 1673-May 1679.</p><p>Gov. Edinburgh Castle 1664;<sup>1</sup> capt. of the Bass 1671.</p><p>Chan. of King’s Coll. Aberdeen 1660-62.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Huysmans, c.1665, NPG 2084; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely (school of), c.1680, V&A HH. 1-1977.</p> |
<p>Although he began his political career as a Covenanter, by the end of the civil wars Lauderdale was completely identified with the Royalist cause. Heavy-lidded and lugubrious in appearance, Lauderdale’s reputation, thanks to a damning portrayal of him in the memoirs penned by Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, is almost wholly negative.<sup>2</sup> He has been perceived as a brutal, cynical politician, willing to sacrifice almost any principle for personal gain. If the judgment was not quite fair, in his management of Scotland he exhibited a cunning, mercenary ruthlessness; and in the years following the fall of Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, by aligning himself closely with Charles, he emerged as one of the king’s most trusted ministers. As such he proved a divisive figure and was the subject of a number of attacks in response to his perceived dominance of affairs. In spite of his portfolio of offices in Scotland, Lauderdale’s post-restoration career was as much in England but it was not until 1674 that he was finally granted a seat in the House of Lords.</p><p>Part of the reason for his pre-eminence dated back to the king’s experience of the earl during Charles’s unsuccessful bid to take back the throne in 1650-51. Lauderdale was a prominent participant in the Scots’ invasion of England and, after being captured at the battle of Worcester, spent the ensuing decade as a prisoner of the Cromwellian regime. Another reason was identified by the French ambassador mid-way through Charles’s reign. Lauderdale, he noted, ‘always, and rightly, ranges himself on the side to which he sees the king his master inclining’.<sup>3</sup> Lauderdale was finally released in the early March 1660. He was immediately active in the service of the Crown, writing to the king to advise him of the progress being made towards his restoration: he had already sought to reassure the Presbyterian divine, Richard Baxter, of the king’s suitability to rule.<sup>4</sup> In April he received a letter from the king at Brussels, in which Charles expressed his pleasure at the earl’s release and testified to the esteem in which he held him: ‘I am confident you have the same opinions and judgment you had when we parted. I am sure I have, and the same kindness for you, and believe you entirely my own as any man, and that no other men’s passions can work upon you.’<sup>5</sup> Encouraged, Lauderdale embarked for the Netherlands, where he was, according to Hyde, ‘very well received by the king’. His arrival was less welcome to Hyde who observed that he and Lauderdale ‘as often as they had been together… had had a perpetual war’, though he did his best to reassure the chancellor that his Presbyterian days were behind him.<sup>6</sup> Hyde, thus, could hardly have been pleased with the decision to appoint Lauderdale secretary of state for Scotland, rather than his own candidate, James Livingston, earl of Newburgh [S]. It was equally unwelcome to Lauderdale’s rival, John Middleton, earl of Middleton [S], a client of Hyde’s, who had been appointed to the senior post of lord high commissioner to the Scottish Parliament. Lauderdale would make the post of secretary of state, based in London and linked to a Scottish Privy Council held there, the foundation of an unusual dominance of Scottish politics, at least after the disgrace and removal of Middleton.<sup>7</sup></p><h2><em>Secretary of State for Scotland</em></h2><p>Picking his way carefully through the minefields of early Restoration politics, Lauderdale steered a careful line in the debates in the Scottish Privy Council at the end of 1660 and beginning of 1661 over the Scottish political settlement, winning a point over the end of the English occupation of Scotland and the removal of English garrisons. On the question of the settlement of the Church, Lauderdale at first tended towards a settlement that would embrace moderate Presbyterian opinion. Eventually, he bowed to the king’s wishes over the reintroduction of episcopacy, no doubt swayed by the king’s clearly articulated dislike of Presbyterianism.<sup>8</sup> Despite their mutual hostility, by March 1661 Hyde (now earl of Clarendon) was able to report to Middleton that he and Lauderdale now ‘lived very civilly together’. But relations between Lauderdale, based in London, and Middleton, in Edinburgh, were made more difficult by Middleton’s programme of strikingly authoritarian legislation in the Scottish Parliament in the course of 1661, crowned by the restoration of episcopacy. Though Lauderdale acquiesced in Middleton’s plans, the relationship soon descended into a struggle for power, which reached its climax in Middleton’s attempt in September 1662 to have Lauderdale and others of his party excluded from office through exemptions from the Act of Indemnity selected by means of a rigged ballot. The ‘billeting affair’ infuriated the king and ended Middleton’s political career, though he clung on for a long time: he was sacked in May 1663, at a moment when his patron in London, Clarendon, was politically weakened by the challenge from George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. On 12 May Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> informed James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], earl of Brecknock in the English peerage, that the ‘dispute between the earls of Middleton and Lauderdale is not yet determined, but it is generally believed… the latter will have the advantage’. Middleton was replaced as commissioner to the Scots Parliament by John Leslie, 7th earl (later duke) of Rothes [S], who had bank-rolled Lauderdale in the weeks immediately after his release from prison. According to Coventry, Middleton’s removal annoyed the Commons, but Lauderdale retained the king’s ‘good opinion, though for all I see he stands single in our English court, whatsoever party he has amongst his own countrymen’.<sup>9</sup> Certainly, his defeat of Middleton came as an unpleasant surprise to men such as Ormond, who viewed with concern the triumph of the former covenanter Lauderdale over a solid Anglican royalist like Middleton.<sup>10</sup> Lauderdale’s success at the Restoration court, and particularly with the king, may have owed something to his role in arranging the marriage of the king’s young illegitimate son, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, in 1662 to Anne Scott, countess of Buccleuch [S], the daughter of Francis Scott, 2nd earl of Buccleuch [S] and Margaret, the daughter of John Leslie, 7th earl, and later duke, of Rothes [S]. Lauderdale would be a member of the commission set up on Monmouth’s majority in 1665 to look after his affairs, in which he would take a close interest.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Lauderdale was despatched to Scotland in June 1663, leaving his ally Sir Robert Moray behind in London as his deputy.<sup>12</sup> He secured a series of bills vindicating episcopal authority, outlawing conventicles and establishing a militia, while he finally finished off any remaining power that Middleton possessed.<sup>13</sup> Still in Scotland in July, Lauderdale was embroiled in the dispute between Clarendon and Bristol, which resulted in Bristol’s botched attempt to have Clarendon impeached. The articles against Clarendon were presented on 10 July. Four days later, Bristol requested that commissions be sent into Ireland and Scotland summoning Ormond and Lauderdale to appear as his ‘witnesses’. This was generally interpreted as a delaying tactic, and Bristol’s attempt was brought to a halt by the king’s intervention.<sup>14</sup> Amongst Bristol’s accusations had been a charge that Clarendon had ‘persuaded his majesty, against the advice of the lord general’—George Monck*, duke of Albemarle—‘to withdraw the English garrisons out of Scotland, and to demolish all the forts built there at so vast a charge to this kingdom’. Lauderdale denied any involvement in Bristol’s plans in a letter of 18 July, asserting that even ‘the boldest and most impudent liar could not suggest me accessory to my Lord Bristol’s paper, seeing the advising the removal of English garrisons and demolishing those badges of our slavery is by it made treason.’ Lauderdale was confident that although some ‘may have the impudence to question my duty to my master, yet no rational man will believe me so little a Scot as to be consenting to a paper with that into it’. He returned to the attack three days later, noting that Bristol ought to have remembered that the Lords had no power to examine in Scotland and insisting that ‘we will submit to no examinations but what flow from the king’s command’.<sup>15</sup> Lauderdale returned to London at the beginning of November, his success having helped him to mend his fences, at least to some extent, with English royalists. Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, wrote that it had served to make him ‘very welcome to those that cared not much for him before’.<sup>16</sup> Lauderdale’s insistence that he had played no part in Bristol’s intrigues was not believed by Clarendon. The French ambassador noted Lauderdale as one of Clarendon’s principal enemies. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> considered Lauderdale as one of a group of half a dozen favourites who were able to monopolize the king’s attentions and prevent others from getting close to him. Another commentator, though, reckoned that by March 1664 both Lauderdale and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury, had given up their campaign and made their peace with Clarendon.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>The Fall of Clarendon, Anglo-Scots Trade and Union Negotiations</em></h2><p>Relations between Clarendon and Lauderdale were never easy, however. Lauderdale’s efforts to ease the burdens borne by Scotland’s trade were opposed by the chancellor: during the summer of 1665 there had been some discussions at Southampton House, the residence of the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, about ‘abating the half of the imposition on salt’ but no further progress had been made owing, it was said, to Clarendon’s opposition. In November 1666, Lauderdale joined with Ashley in lobbying for a provision in the Irish cattle bill to exempt Scottish cattle: it was suspected that the two, together with Arlington, were planning a scheme to expand the Scottish cattle trade and settle the profits on the duke of Monmouth.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In late 1666 opposition in Scotland to the reimposition of episcopacy erupted in the Pentland rising, quickly crushed, but leading to some recognition that the existing policy was not sustainable. In its aftermath, Lauderdale secured the removal of Rothes from offices carrying significant power; he was replaced as lord president by Lauderdale’s close ally, John Hay<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl (later marquess) of Tweeddale [S]. Between them, Lauderdale and Tweeddale gradually shifted Scottish ecclesiastical policy in a more moderate direction. The removal of Clarendon at the end of August 1667 (which he welcomed very enthusiastically) also offered an opportunity for Lauderdale to assert greater control over Scottish affairs. It perhaps also enabled him to return to the question of trade.<sup>19</sup> On 14 Sept. Lauderdale advised of a petition from some English merchants presented to the council. This requested the removal of certain duties on Scots imports ‘and the settling the trade between the two nations’. The ensuing discussion resulted in the appointment of a committee (of which Lauderdale was a member) tasked with drawing up proposals to be set before the next session of Parliament.<sup>20</sup> During the autumn Lauderdale kept Tweeddale informed of the committee’s progress, reporting to him on 10 Oct. the lord keeper’s address to Parliament in which he had ‘recommended the trade in general and particularly the balance of trade with Scotland, that nothing hurtful to England might be brought, and that Scotland might be so eased that they might not be compelled to carry their trade elsewhere’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>As well as reporting back on the state of trade, Lauderdale also noted the votes of thanks given by both Houses for the removal of Clarendon and the king’s response, promising not to employ the former chancellor again, the last being ‘received with a great hum’.<sup>22</sup> Proceedings against Clarendon, which resulted in the act banishing him for life, dominated the session until the close of the year, so it was only in the new year that the question of trade once more returned to the agenda. On 11 Jan. 1668 Lauderdale wrote to Archibald Primrose, lord clerk register, requesting a copy of the 1607 union bill for the consideration of the commissioners delegated to consider the question of Anglo-Scots trade as well as certain technical details relating to former acts that had underscored the king’s authority over management of trade.<sup>23</sup> The commissioners met for the first time two days later at the Inner Star Chamber in Westminster, with Lauderdale and Rothes among those representing the Scots. The English commissioners comprised George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, and three others. Neither set was complete with absentees on both sides.<sup>24</sup> Reporting the day’s proceedings to Tweeddale (one of the missing Scots representatives), Lauderdale noted the privations the commissioners were forced to put up with, neither heating nor chairs having been prepared for them in the chamber they occupied. They were compelled to stand to read through their commissions.<sup>25</sup> Further meetings were arranged for 17 Jan. and on 20 Jan. the Scots met by themselves to settle points to be drafted by Lauderdale for the ensuing discussions. They presented a paper to the English commissioners the following day.<sup>26</sup> On 25 Jan. the English party reciprocated with a paper of their own, requesting a full set of the Scots’ proposals, which the Scots grudgingly agreed to, drawing up a comprehensive set of proposals on 1 February. Lauderdale reported it to Tweeddale, ‘we would not let the bone remain in our foot for wanting the giving in particulars’.<sup>27</sup> At the same time, they stuck to their resolution of insisting on a formal response to their paper before turning to anything else. It was not until 19 Mar. that Lauderdale was able to send Tweeddale the ‘English commissioners’ long and long expected answer with my sense of it and a little short paper which we have given them to turn their hands’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>On 31 Mar. a select number of commissioners, among them Sir George Downing<sup>‡</sup>, met together in conference with the king at Whitehall. The discussions were solely taken up with trade to the plantations in which, as Lauderdale informed Tweeddale, Downing ‘made a bitter tedious speech. The king answered him smartly and home so that there was little for me to say yet I have him jolly wipes’. It was agreed that the English commissioners would reach a resolution within two days and that once the Scots had responded to that, they would bring the matter back before the king.<sup>29</sup> Hostility to an agreement with the Scots was not confined to Downing and by 23 Apr. the Scots had begun to consider other ways of achieving their aims. Lauderdale explained, ‘We have resolved not to pursue the treaty any further unless they do it (which I do not expect) but that the king shall do it himself in council, for by the law his majesty may dispense with the act of navigation’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Attitudes had hardened by the end of the month when Tweeddale learnt that even before Lauderdale received his advice, he had decided ‘not to give our list of ships till we see whether they will make any good use of it’.<sup>31</sup> Aware that the Scots were intent on making a direct appeal to the king over their heads, on 22 May the English commissioners demanded to be heard by the Privy Council. The lord keeper suggested that a sub-committee, made up of two sets of commissioners, should be appointed ‘to try to bring the differences to a head to be reported to his majesty when he returned’. This was opposed by Buckingham, who demanded that both sets of commissioners should be heard before the council and, in reference to Lauderdale’s refusal to deliver a list of Scottish ships to the English commissioners, alleged that ‘the matter stuck at my Lord Lauderdale who would not give in the list’. Lauderdale resorted to brinkmanship in the face of the English commissioners’ intransigence. He insisted to Tweeddale ‘I justified myself well enough and show how many delays we had had and what little hopes there was’. He also did his utmost to have the business referred back to the king, which resulted (he considered) in the other side becoming ‘alarmed with my seeming coldness and with my desire to have leave from the king to treat with others, what this will produce a little time will show’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>As the trade negotiations teetered on the brink of deadlock the Scots began to consider options other than an appeal to the king, namely recourse to the duke of York, who had already indicated his appreciation of Lauderdale’s efforts in managing Scotland. The question of union was also revisited. Lauderdale’s subsequent championing of this new scheme was particularly ironic given his prominent role in advising the king to dismantle the Cromwellian union soon after the restoration.<sup>33</sup> At first it appeared that negotiations towards the union and the ongoing efforts to secure a commercial treaty would be pursued simultaneously. In advance of his own return to Scotland, Lauderdale gave Tweeddale ‘a full account of the proposition concerning the union’ and revealed that on 3 June he had raised the issue with the lord keeper, who had assured him that all the trade commissioners were ‘most earnest for it’ and that he thought the scheme ‘both feasible and very probable.’ At the same time Lauderdale considered that the ‘discourse of the union will I am confident advance and not retard the matter of trade’.<sup>34</sup> Lauderdale’s optimism was not shared by Tweeddale, who by September 1668 was expressing his doubts about the strategy and now concluded ‘I have small hope of the trade with England, and I apprehend the matter of the union was proposed to divert it’.<sup>35</sup> Lauderdale meanwhile remained upbeat and from Newmarket concluded the following month with regard to trade, ‘I have some hopes of it, when we come back, but more of the union, in which all seem most earnest’. Buckingham was one of those he considered in favour: Lauderdale considered he was now ‘very great’ with the duke. Carlisle too he believed to be ‘in earnest in the union, but backward in the trade’. Even Sir George Downing now seemed more willing to come to a resolution with the Scots. Even so, he advised caution. ‘I must not seem to press anything, but let nature work’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>By the end of October, Lauderdale was still reporting back to Tweeddale optimistic appraisals relating to union and how the lord keeper and dukes of Buckingham and Albemarle were ‘all equally zealous’ for it.<sup>37</sup> A meeting held a month later, though, proved a serious disappointment, with only four men (of whom Lauderdale was one) turning out. Lauderdale was commissioned to prepare some preliminaries for a further meeting. Anticipating Tweeddale’s annoyance that he had not raised the question of the union while the king was at Newmarket, Lauderdale explained that his backwardness had not been on account of his ‘love of hawking or air, but because I would not begin it without the duke of Buckingham (who is most zealous in the matter)’. In the absence of this key figure he resolved instead to remain at Hampton Court ‘to be merry in good company till the king should return’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. Lauderdale despatched to Tweeddale ‘an account of our yesterday’s excellent meeting’. He enjoined Tweeddale to secrecy about the details while recommending that he should confer with ‘confident persons’ about it. This letter, amended by Tweeddale and then forwarded to Rothes by Lauderdale, revealed the state of the negotiations about the projected union. Lauderdale had written that there ‘is a business of weight enough that a knot of good fellows have been hammering upon times and which now begin to look as if something might be made out of it by God’s blessing and good guiding’. The union, Lauderdale explained, was ‘a work our master is much set upon, as it looks now to me as something probable’. He also asserted that ‘all that talk together seem very forward and but few differences are among us’. Once his compatriots had delivered their response, he aimed to ‘offer something to the king as a discourse between friends without any formal authority’. He then warned Tweeddale to be sure that there was no indication on the papers he was to communicate to Rothes that ‘you had them long ago’.<sup>39</sup> A week later Tweeddale reported back, having conferred with Archibald Campbell, 9th earl of Argyll [S], noting the principal concern to be the small number of Scots peers who were to sit in the House of Lords. Tweeddale insisted that Lauderdale ‘must either prevail for a greater number or get some assurance of sitting more speedily, which I suppose must be in the king’s power or you will have a hard task’.<sup>40</sup> Lauderdale admitted the strength of the objection but considered even so that such small numbers of Scottish peers would be willing to make the journey to Westminster (not least given the lack of allowances), that it was not a material bar. He concluded by assuring Tweeddale (again) of a speedy response following the ensuing meeting.<sup>41</sup></p><p>The secrecy which Lauderdale insisted on in his letters to Tweeddale and Rothes obscured much of the proceedings on the proposed union during the first half of 1669. By the summer of that year Lauderdale had drawn up a paper advising the appointment of commissioners from each Parliament to take the business forward.<sup>42</sup> Discussion then turned to the best way to select the commissioners. It was assumed initially that the nomination would lie with the king, as appeared to have been done during the negotiations under James I, but on 31 Aug. this met with ‘a stumble’ after the lord keeper advised that on that occasion it had been Parliament and not the king who had named the commissioners.<sup>43</sup> A meeting was arranged between Lauderdale, Lord Keeper Bridgeman and the two secretaries of state to settle the matter before Parliament was convened.<sup>44</sup></p><p>The gradual shift of Scottish ecclesiastical policy had resulted in July 1669 in the promulgation of an indulgence, promising that ‘peaceable’ Presbyterian ministers would be allowed to return to their parishes without episcopal collation. Lauderdale departed for Scotland early in October 1669 to preside over the new session of the Scottish Parliament that was to coincide with its Westminster counterpart. (It would also pass an act asserting a remarkable level of royal control over the Church and giving legal authority to the indulgence. In England, to ‘sweeten’ the prospect of union, it was reported that a number of dissenting ministers had been restored to their livings.<sup>45</sup>) When the lord keeper addressed the two Houses at Westminster on 19 Oct. informing them of the need to appoint commissioners for the union, he noted that Lauderdale had similar instructions for the Scots Parliament. Despite this, the question of nominating the commissioners was dealt with differently at Edinburgh, where the Parliament resolved to leave the nomination of its commissioners to the king. York responded to Lauderdale’s success in securing this, writing to him on 28 Oct. expressing his pleasure that the ‘union goes on so well where you are’ convinced that, ‘were his majesty as well served here as he is where you are’ there would be no doubt of it being achieved. At Westminster, the Commons refused to turn their attention to the matter before settling other business. By the end of the month Sir Robert Moray was complaining to Lauderdale about the problem ‘of moving the houses to despatch the business of the union’. He had spoken to the king, Arlington and Sir Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, stressing ‘the inconvenience of the parliament of Scotland’s sitting long fully enough’ and, with Clifford’s encouragement, suggested that if the English Parliament continued to delay consideration of the union, he should request Lauderdale to have an act passed granting the king a commission under the great seal of Scotland for ‘empowering such persons as he shall think fit to treat about the union’. This would leave the Scottish Parliament free to adjourn to the spring to await the resolution of its English counterpart.<sup>46</sup> Lauderdale’s response was quick and emphatic. On 2 Nov. he wrote to Moray about ‘your pretty proposition in yours of 28 October’ but rejected it firmly, stressing ‘God forbid such an order come to me for such an act as you propose’. Moray, he felt, did not realize the extent of the hostility to union in Scotland itself. The ‘endeavour to have made us slaves by garrisons and the ruin of our trade by severe laws in England frights all ranks of men from having to do with England’. More particularly, Lauderdale had an eye to his own position and warned that ‘to press more before England take notice of the matter would render the proposer most odious as a betrayer of his country’. Consistent with his overarching policy of fidelity to the king’s wishes in all things he concluded that if the command came ‘I shall not dispute but obey what can come’, while repeating that ‘it does quite overthrow the service and render the union here impossible’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Lauderdale’s warning was not heeded and he received soon after an express commanding an act to be passed for establishing a commission, the terms of which were to be left to the king. Lauderdale complained that the way this was sent prevented him from trying to argue against the policy: ‘by the ordinary packet I could have quietly returned my humble opinion to his majesty without noise, but the return of the express fills all the parliament men with curiosity, what has the express brought? And I have nothing to answer’. Faced with this, Lauderdale sought advice from the lords of the articles. All of them advised against putting the king’s request before the Scottish Parliament. Lauderdale reported back once again promising to go ahead if the king insisted, but disclaiming ‘all promises of success in this or in the treaty if this shall be pressed’.<sup>48</sup> With matters effectively at a standstill, Parliament at Westminster was prorogued on 11 Dec. and Lauderdale adjourned the Scots Parliament until the following June.</p><p>Lauderdale’s delayed return to England may in part have been caused by his suspension of the archbishop of Glasgow, Alexander Burnet, shortly before Christmas.<sup>49</sup> By the beginning of February he had arrived in England, ‘having settled that kingdom [Scotland] according to instructions’. It was reported that he was to be rewarded ‘for his good service’ there with being made a knight of the garter. It was also rumoured that he would be promoted to a Scottish dukedom and awarded an English peerage.<sup>50</sup> In the event he was made to wait a further two years for the garter and dukedom, and four years for the English peerage. The English Parliament reconvened on 14 Feb. 1670 when, at the king’s request, the lord keeper reminded both Houses that as the Scots Parliament had already settled the question of the appointment of commissioners (if not the terms of the commission), they too should now ‘take the matter effectually into your consideration’. Following the proceedings in the House of 26 Feb., Lauderdale reported to Tweeddale that the ‘debate toward the union went fairly on only three did speak bitterly but all conclude the house will do this week just what Scotland did, so a treaty is more than probable’. On 3 Mar. the Lords took the subject into consideration and resolved that the king should appoint commissioners, as had happened in Scotland. The next day a message was sent to the Commons desiring their concurrence, which was forthcoming on 10 March. The ensuing draft act, drawn up by the English solicitor general, proved so unacceptable to Lauderdale that he and the lord keeper drafted another. This was examined by the king on 17 Mar. at the foreign affairs committee and again on 19 March.<sup>51</sup> Two days later, the king made a surprise visit to the House of Lords accompanied, according to Lauderdale, by none but his Scottish secretary of state. He did so again on 22 March. By reviving a practice last taken advantage of by Henry VIII, of attending debates informally, the king, so Lauderdale opined, ‘does raise the decayed reputation of the peers’.<sup>52</sup> The immediate cause of the intervention now was said to be the divorce bill brought in by John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, later duke of Rutland: a measure supported by Lauderdale, Ashley and Buckingham in the teeth of bitter opposition from York. According to Gilbert Burnet it was on Lauderdale’s advice that the king attended to help stifle opposition to the bill.<sup>53</sup> Meanwhile, progress of the union bill continued and on 26 Mar. Lauderdale was able to announce that it had passed the Lords with only four peers voting against.<sup>54</sup> It enjoyed a similarly swift passage through the Commons before being sent back to the Lords early in April.</p><p>Lauderdale’s clear influence with the king was no doubt behind reports of the middle of April that he was one of five members of the cabinet council ‘who do all things’.<sup>55</sup> This presumably referred to the members of the ‘Cabal’, which had effectively been in existence since the fall of Clarendon. Towards the end of May it was reported that Lauderdale was once more on the point of heading back to Scotland to take charge of the new session of Parliament there, though in the event it was not until the middle of July that he finally set out.<sup>56</sup> Lauderdale’s instructions were to continue the business that had been left hanging at the close of the former session and to secure an act empowering the assembling of a commission to treat with their English counterparts.<sup>57</sup> Once this had been achieved Lauderdale adjourned Parliament once more and by the middle of September was back at Whitehall. On 14 Sept. the 17 Scots commissioners met in the Exchequer Chamber with the 14 members of the English commission. Lauderdale and Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, sat together around a large table with the Scots leading off to Lauderdale’s left and the English to the archbishop’s right. The lord keeper presented the English commission, following which two versions of the Scots commission were offered by Lauderdale, one in English and the other in Latin. The latter version was preferred and the two sets of papers were then exchanged after which this initial, rather ceremonial meeting was adjourned to the following Saturday.<sup>58</sup> There followed a series of meetings, with the Scots meeting on their own on 19, 20 and 21 Sept., the early agenda dominated by debates surrounding the question of the succession, how best to secure each nation’s laws, and in particular the method by which the two Parliaments would be merged.<sup>59</sup> Towards the end of October it was resolved to shelve further discussion of the settlement of laws until the proposal for uniting the Parliaments had been attended to. In this point, as Lauderdale had warned Tweeddale, the ‘great stick is concerning the peers’ precedence’. He was confident that the king was ‘positively for us that it must be according to creation’ but when the king summoned both sets of commissioners to discuss the matter it was the Scots who were dissatisfied, pointing out ‘the unreasonableness and impossibility of taking any less than all our parliament’. The English pointed out in their turn the impossibility of proposing any such thing to the Westminster Parliament. With neither side willing to compromise, a further adjournment was commanded to the following week.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Lauderdale’s warning that ‘the difficulties will appear so great that no further progress can be made at this time’ was quickly borne out. On 1 Nov. the lord keeper asked to hear the Scots’ proposal about their representation in the new united Parliament. Lauderdale declared that ‘they did not see how their number should be less, than is in the Parliament of Scotland’, reminding his English colleagues that he would have to persuade the Scots Parliament to accept any treaty that was drawn up. The lord keeper, however, made plain that incorporating the whole Scots Parliament would not be acceptable to the English side.<sup>61</sup> Although the commissioners were due to meet again a week later, this was subsequently put off until 12 November. The day before the commissioners were due to meet the king intervened to announce an adjournment until the following March (1671), thereby bringing the negotiations to an end.</p><p>Some commentators, such as Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, a commissioner for Ross-shire, considered that the suspension of the negotiations proved that neither the king nor Lauderdale had ever been serious about the question of union. Lauderdale, he thought, had too much to lose from the experiment. With the kingdoms distinct, Lauderdale was able to present himself to the English as an expert on Scots affairs; with the kingdoms united he would quickly have lost ground to other favourites, ‘who would be very ready to undermine him, when they found him to stand in their way’.<sup>62</sup> In reality, Lauderdale’s view closely shadowed that of the king. For as long as he believed union to be something desirable to the king and something that would enhance his own authority, Lauderdale worked hard for the project.<sup>63</sup> Once the king turned his back on the scheme, he was willing to let it drop. Whatever his private view of the thing, Lauderdale’s relations with Tweeddale steadily deteriorated following the failure of the negotiations.</p><h2><em>Under attack 1670-74 </em></h2><p>Lauderdale was widely regarded as one of the five most prominent ministers to emerge at the head of the administration following the fall of Clarendon in 1667: the so-called ‘Cabal’. The extent of his influence within it has been questioned, partly because of his close identification with Ashley and Buckingham, and partly because his chief preoccupation was with Scottish, rather than English, politics. Nonetheless, his overall influence at court remained acute: he was included in, and regularly attended, the meetings of the foreign affairs committee which constituted the effective decision-making body that surrounded the king at this time. His dominance was no doubt assisted by his close relationship with, and then marriage to the equally forceful countess of Dysart in February 1672, a match that enabled him to establish his own court at Ham House. Whether inspired by his duchess or in emulation of Arlington, Lauderdale made significant changes to the house later in the decade, filling it with fashionable embellishments.<sup>64</sup></p><p>In Scotland, the efforts to achieve an accommodation with Dissent made very little headway under the guidance of Robert Leighton, who replaced the suspended Burnet as archbishop of Glasgow in 1671. Lauderdale himself became disenchanted with the negotiations; he also became estranged from some of his key allies, in particular Sir Robert Moray, for reasons that are obscure, and John Hay, 4th earl of Tweeddale, whose son, Lord Yester, had married Lauderdale’s daughter in 1666: the break with Tweeddale was caused by a family dispute stemming from Lauderdale’s second marriage, though it also had its roots in Lauderdale’s increasing tendency to regard his former friend and relation as a rival.<sup>65</sup> No meeting of the Scottish Parliament was held, as had been initially planned, in the summer of 1671, because of the breakdown of the union negotiations. Although he had not been party to the 1670 secret treaty with France, towards the end of 1671 Lauderdale was one of five commissioners appointed by the king to treat with the French, a negotiation which led to the so-called ‘Traité simulé’.<sup>66</sup> He was advanced to a dukedom in May 1672 and awarded the Garter shortly before a new session of the Scottish Parliament opened in June 1672: another success for Lauderdale, it produced a generous supply and further laws against Dissent. Lauderdale returned south after it closed in September, leaving his brother, Charles Maitland of Hatton, later 3rd earl of Lauderdale [S], as his deputy, and having promulgated a second indulgence.<sup>67</sup> The new indulgence, along with the effects of the increasing political instability in England would, in fact, contribute to a distinct worsening of the political situation in Scotland, and set off a more difficult period for Lauderdale.</p><p>Following the fall of Clifford in the summer of 1673 Lauderdale was one of those credited with having supported the succession to the lord treasurership of Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby and ultimately duke of Leeds, in preference to Arlington.<sup>68</sup> He was appointed in July one of the new commission for the admiralty following York’s resignation as lord high admiral. But the French ambassador by now considered him to be ‘so mortally hated in parliament and at this court that it is enough for him to have an opinion to make all the others oppose it’.<sup>69</sup> The following month, it was reported that he had successfully negotiated with the king to sell the pension attached to his office as gentleman of the bedchamber, while retaining the place. By this it was thought he would receive £6,000 from the king, ‘a good bargain’.<sup>70</sup> At the beginning of September, he was said to be one of those (with the duke of York and the duke of Monmouth) advising the king to delay summoning the English Parliament, too, contrary to Arlington’s recommendation, and possibly because of expectations of attacks on him.<sup>71</sup> Around the same time, Lauderdale met in London Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury: his conversation with the young and ambitious divine, in which he asked his views on whether a Scots army might be used against the political opposition in England, indicates why suspicion about him was mounting in England. Though initially welcoming to Burnet, Lauderdale soon regarded him with suspicion, particularly when he turned up back in Scotland before the ensuing session of Parliament.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Parliament was expected to meet in Scotland in November, a few weeks after the English Parliament was due to assemble, on 20 Oct. 1673 (though the latter was prorogued for another week pending the arrival of the duke of York’s new wife). While Lauderdale prepared for the next session of the Scots Parliament, speculation continued that ‘if any sacrifice be offered the next session’ of the English Parliament, it would be him.<sup>73</sup> The French envoy, Colbert, reported being informed on 27 Oct. by Richard Vaughan*, earl of Carbery [I] and Baron Vaughan in the English peerage, that Lauderdale was to be attacked during the coming session and that Parliament would insist on his recall to answer the charges against him relating to his perceived mismanagement in Scotland.<sup>74</sup> By then Lauderdale had probably left for Scotland: he was still in London on 14 October, when he was due to meet Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, but by the beginning of November he had returned to Scotland for the new parliamentary session, which began on the 12th.<sup>75</sup> On 4 Nov. he reported back to the king how necessary it had been to send someone ‘to quiet the minds and secure the peace’ of the kingdom following a resurgence of religious and political dissent. His principal concern, though, was the evident co-ordination between his enemies in London and Edinburgh and he noted that ‘the disaffected here have divers sorts of correspondents at London, which much hardens them’. He was proved correct when, at the opening of the Parliament on 12 Nov. William Douglas Hamilton, 3rd duke of Hamilton, asserted his leadership of the discontents by demanding that the Parliament discuss grievances—copying what had just taken place at Westminster—before it moved to other business. Lauderdale, stunned by this turn of events, wrote on the following day to his brother, Hatton, that he had ‘met with such a spirit as I thought never to have seen here, which makes me with the more assurance repeat what I hinted before in my first coming into the kingdom, that there have been industrious tamperings from London here’. Burnet evidently fell under suspicion for precisely this reason.<sup>76</sup> During the following adjournment, a week after his report to his brother, Lauderdale informed the king that he had identified the leading figures in the opposition both in England and Scotland and that he had good reason ‘to believe the earl of Shaftesbury plotted long to get me out of this employment, and perhaps another who is about you who you know has long huffled [sic] at me’.<sup>77</sup> Tweeddale, who had at first been ‘an underhand contriver’, also now came out into the open against his former ally. Lauderdale struggled to negotiate with his opponents during a series of adjournments; the last, on 2 Dec., put off another meeting until the end of January; in the interim, Hamilton and other of Lauderdale’s opponents, hot-footed it to London, leaving Edinburgh around 8 Dec., and obtaining a meeting with the king on the 28th. Lauderdale remained in Scotland, in an attempt to find a means to secure a more cooperative meeting of the Parliament.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Hamilton and Lauderdale’s other opponents were clearly seeking to stimulate hostility to the commissioner in Westminster. The English Parliament, briefly prorogued on the 20th, had assembled at Westminster on 27 Oct. and promptly turned its attention to a series of grievances. On 4 Nov. Sir Robert Thomas<sup>‡</sup> moved for the question of ‘evil counsellors’ to be taken into consideration, naming Lauderdale. However, ‘the word was no sooner out of his mouth but the user of the black rod knocked at the door, and the serjeant gave notice of it to the Speaker, who forbade Sir Robert proceeding any further’.<sup>79</sup> The Commons were summoned to the upper House, where the king adjourned the session until 7 January 1674. Undeterred by the failure of their first attempt to attack Lauderdale, his adversaries prepared themselves for January. Tweeddale drew up a new indictment of Lauderdale and at the same time it was noted that a ‘very powerful faction in Scotland’ was now being supported by Shaftesbury and his allies in England.<sup>80</sup> On 13 Jan. Lauderdale was ‘hunted in the House of Commons’.<sup>81</sup> Thomas gave the speech he had intended in November, supported by Sir Nicholas Carew, Sir Thomas Littleton, Lord St John, Sir Scrope Howe, and others. Lauderdale was charged with ‘endeavouring to infringe the laws of the land, and introducing arbitrary government’ by advising the king that royal edicts were equal with the law. His activities during The Civil War prior to his decision to join his fortunes with those of the king were also dredged up. After a long debate it was resolved <em>nem</em>. <em>con</em>. ‘that the king be addressed to remove Lauderdale from all his employments, and from his presence and councils, for ever; being a person obnoxious and dangerous to the government’.<sup>82</sup> A similar motion was made against Buckingham. It was anticipated that Arlington would be treated in like fashion, though it was observed out that he ‘falls more leisurely than they have done’. It was later reported that Arlington had the benefit of ‘many friends in the House else it had gone as hard with him as with the two dukes’.<sup>83</sup> The king responded the next day by writing to Lauderdale to assure him of his continuing ‘kindness to you, which nothing shall alter’. Lauderdale expressed his gratitude at the king’s ‘gracious letter’ which he regarded as ‘a sovereign cordial against the storm raised against me there’.<sup>84</sup> On 4 Feb. 1674 the Commons presented their formal censure of Lauderdale to the king, who assured them two days later of a speedy answer.<sup>85</sup> He made no further response, though, and on 24 Feb. prorogued Parliament until the autumn. An order to prorogue the Scottish Parliament was sent to Edinburgh, prompting Lauderdale to acknowledge ‘my joy for your proroguing your Parliament of Scotland, where mad motions were prepared against your service, but you have like yourself dashed them in a moment’. Eager to return south, he professed his willingness to rid the king ‘of the trouble of Scots Parliament, which I swear are now useless at the best’.<sup>86</sup> The Scottish Parliament when it met on 3 Mar. was adjourned again to October.</p><p>Lauderdale finally departed Edinburgh in mid-April accompanied by ‘a very great train of nobility and gentry’, the city provost and ‘above 500 citizens’ as far as Berwick.<sup>87</sup> Soon after his arrival in London, the Scottish Parliament was dissolved, by proclamation issued on 19 May, and a number of his adversaries, including Tweeddale, put out of the council. Sir Ralph Verney thought Lauderdale had come back ‘in great state and is in great favour’. The French envoy echoed this, adding the detail of Tweeddale’s discomfiture. Writing on 4 June he observed that Tweeddale, ‘a declared enemy of this duke and who pursued him during the last sitting of Parliament, was yesterday chased from this Privy Council’.<sup>88</sup> As a further mark of favour, as well as to help protect him from future assaults from the Commons, Lauderdale was granted the English earldom of Guilford. It was also speculated that Lauderdale’s stepdaughter was to marry Charles Fitzroy*, earl of Plymouth, but this proved not to be the case.<sup>89</sup> Towards the end of the year it was reported that Lauderdale and his duchess had been granted a pension of £3,000 and early in 1675 there were further rumours, this time that Lauderdale was to be sent to Spain as ambassador.<sup>90</sup></p><h2><em>Earl of Guilford</em></h2><p>Lauderdale took his seat as earl of Guilford on 10 Nov. 1674, introduced between Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, and William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford. Parliament was then prorogued until the following April. In the interval, both Lauderdale and Danby were said to have been ‘irate’ at being kept in the dark about Arlington’s trip to Holland, which it was believed was intended to lay the groundworks for a marriage treaty between Princess Mary and the Prince of Orange.<sup>91</sup> In advance of the new session Lauderdale was one of a select group of councillors appointed to meet with an equal number of bishops to determine the best ways to suppress Catholicism and bolster the Church of England, the result of which was a series of proclamations for enforcing the penal laws. By the beginning of February 1675 he was noted as ‘very zealous in his conversation among the bishops’ and ‘very sincere for the Church of England’.<sup>92</sup> It was indicative of a further shift in Lauderdale’s views on ecclesiastical policy against any further concessions to Scottish Dissent, signalled by the return of Alexander Burnet as archbishop of Glasgow, and a new alliance with Archbishop Sharp of St Andrews.<sup>93</sup> It also corresponded with reports of a falling out with York: a theme that was to persist over the coming years. There was also renewed talk of an expected attack on Lauderdale in the new session.<sup>94</sup></p><p>In early April Lauderdale was one of those assessed to be in favour of the non-resisting test. He returned to his place on the opening day of the session (13 Apr. 1675), after which he was present on every day except one. He was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions as well as to the committee for the bill for preventing frauds and perjuries. On 21 Apr. he was also named to the committee for the bill for explaining the Act for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish recusants (the 1673 Test Act). On 14 Apr., the day after the opening of Parliament, the Commons returned to the offensive, appointing a committee to draw up an address to the king complaining at Lauderdale’s actions in Scotland and calling for his removal. One of those called to give evidence was Gilbert Burnet, described the previous December as ‘a mortal enemy’ to the duke.<sup>95</sup> Burnet testified before the committee that when he had sought Lauderdale’s assistance on behalf of his kinsmen in 1672 and had expressed his concern at the possibility of rebellion, Lauderdale had replied, ‘he could wish that those rogues would rebel, that he might send for some Irish Papists to suppress them’. Burnet subsequently refused to confirm his tale when called before the House, leaving the Commons to fall back on the earlier accusation that Lauderdale had proclaimed royal edicts to be superior to the law. The Commons agreed on 23 Apr. a new representation to the king calling on him to remove Lauderdale from his offices.<sup>96</sup> At the heart of their complaint was Lauderdale’s responsibility for the two Scottish militia acts. There were further complaints, particularly concerning Robert Murray’s imprisonment, which had initially been referred to by Burnet. On 5 May the House voted a further address against him. The king’s evasive answer to the first one, given on 7 May, told them that the first Militia Act had been passed in 1663, well before Lauderdale was commissioner for the Parliament, and that the other offence mentioned had been covered by the last act of general pardon. Lauderdale continue his attendance of the House for the remainder of the session unmolested. It was even speculated that Lauderdale was ‘so strong in the House’ that he would have a motion brought in for clearing him of all such aspersions ‘and so come off with honour’, though nothing of the kind appears to have been advanced.<sup>97</sup> The king continued to indicate his own favour to Lauderdale.<sup>98</sup> Lauderdale took his seat once more on 13 Oct. for the autumn 1675 session of Parliament. He was present on every possible sitting day. In the course of the session he was named to six committees in addition to the standing committees. On the penultimate day of the session, 20 Nov., he rallied to the court side to vote against the proposed address to the king requesting that Parliament be dissolved. According to one account the motion had been brought in after Lauderdale and a number of other court peers had left the chamber and Lauderdale only returned late in the day, having been engrossed in cards all afternoon, to help swing it for the court.<sup>99</sup></p><p>The absence of a Parliament in Scotland after 1674 did not prevent the expression of political dissent there, and a series of issues—the rights of the faculty of advocates, the qualifications for membership of the convention of burghs—all had their origin in the suppression of Parliament. Hamilton was back in London in December 1675, making further complaints against Lauderdale; the corruption of Hatton, Lauderdale’s effective deputy in Scotland was a constant theme of complaint from many quarters. In July 1676 more of Lauderdale’s opponents, including Hamilton, were purged from the council following their further complaints about his Scottish regime.<sup>100</sup></p><p>During the long prorogation of the English Parliament Lauderdale had voted on 30 June 1676 with the majority in the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, finding him not guilty of murder. He took his seat in the House once more the following year on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he was present on just under 30 per cent of all sitting days (his attendance being interrupted by his return to Scotland following the adjournment). In advance of the session it was stated that efforts had been made to reconcile Lauderdale and Shaftesbury, but on 16 Feb. he intervened in the proceedings over whether or not to commit Buckingham to the Tower, telling the House that ‘he thought it was the custom of that House that a question being put, when one lord said aye and no lord said no, it was to pass for an order of the House’. No one sought to contradict him and the order for Buckingham’s commitment was drawn up accordingly.<sup>101</sup> Lauderdale was entrusted with two proxies in the course of the session. Between 24 Feb. and 19 Mar. he held Strafford’s and between 4 and 9 Apr. that of the duke of Monmouth. An assessment compiled by Shaftesbury in May listed Lauderdale as triply vile. In April Lauderdale acted as one of the assistants at the introduction of Danby and Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, as garter knights and afterwards hosted a celebration at Ham House.<sup>102</sup></p><p>That summer, Lauderdale returned to Scotland. According to Thomas Thynne*, later Viscount Weymouth, Lauderdale intended to make the trip by sea ‘to avoid wearisome ceremony and public receptions’.<sup>103</sup> The journey was mainly concerned with the marriage of two of his step-daughters, though while in Scotland, Lauderdale looked for a new strategy to deal with the problem of religious and political dissent: his initial discussions with nonconformists made no progress, and having abandoned them he sought to raise a new, irregular, militia, the ‘Highland Host’, to suppress disorder, a project which would raise the political temperature of Scotland to new heights.<sup>104</sup> Lauderdale seems to have sought leave to return to England after only a few months in Scotland: on 16 Oct. Danby informed him of the king’s satisfaction with his services while insisting that he ‘does believe for some time that you will be more useful to him in that place than here, so that though he leaves it to your discretion, he thinks your stay this winter may be best’.<sup>105</sup> In the event, raising and organizing the Host, and dealing with the mayhem it caused when let loose from January to April 1678, kept Lauderdale in Scotland, and it was not until the following summer that Lauderdale was able to return to England. On 29 Jan. 1678 he registered his proxy with William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>In his absence Lauderdale was the subject of yet another assault in the Commons. In the spring of 1678 a deputation led by Hamilton travelled to London to represent their grievances to the king. Having left Scotland without securing permission, though, they were at first denied an audience. An appeal to Monmouth secured them admission to the cabinet council.<sup>106</sup> Lauderdale sent his own agents—Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh and Alexander Burnet—down to London to respond to their argumentsThe Commons proved far more receptive to their complaints. On 27 Apr. Ormond was advised that some ‘of the faction against the court in the House seem inclined to favour the Scotch complaining lords, and wonder his majesty does not let them be heard’.<sup>107</sup> The new session opened, with Lauderdale absent, on the 29th. On 7 May, the Commons resorted to the by now familiar expedient of an address seeking Lauderdale’s dismissal. Debate continued into the following day, with a series of divisions. On this occasion Lauderdale’s supporters, led by Thomas Dalmahoy<sup>‡</sup>, succeeded in making an amendment to the address in a division of 161 votes to 157 which may have had the effect of rendering it incoherent. An attempt to recommit it was then rejected by the Speaker. On the 10th, however, it was agreed to add a line about Lauderdale to a general, omnibus address about advisers.<sup>108</sup> This elicited an infuriated response from Charles in a speech to the Lords only on 13 May, who promptly ordered a brief prorogation ‘in hopes they will consider better what they ought to do at their return’.<sup>109</sup></p><p>In late May the Scots delegation, now backed by York, tried once more to present their grievances to the king.<sup>110</sup> The king continued to support Lauderdale, and they found themselves wrongfooted by the summoning of a Convention of Estates in their absence, intended to raise the money to pay for the Host. They hastened back to Scotland, but the elections to the body, held on 7 June, had already taken place before they could return. The Convention itself assembled on 26 June, and despite the efforts of Hamilton and his allies (now often referred to as ‘the Party’) to object to those who had been elected, and arguments against the supply bill over which Hamilton led a walkout of the chamber, Lauderdale had secured a grant of supply by 11 July. The Estates was formally dissolved that day.<sup>111</sup> Shortly after, the king congratulated him on his success, granted him leave to return to London, and assured him of his continuing favour: ‘you need not in the least fear your enemies shall have more credit with me to your prejudice than they have hitherto had, but that you shall always find [me] your true friend.’<sup>112</sup> Lauderdale, though, recognized that the efforts of Hamilton in London had done him some damage in the eyes of the king.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Lauderdale returned to London in mid-August ‘in pomp’.<sup>114</sup> He took his seat in the House when it sat on 29 Aug. when the session was prorogued to the beginning of October. He was present again at a further prorogation on 1 Oct. and at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. when he was named to the standing committees. He was also entrusted with the proxy of Edward Ward*, 2nd Baron Ward. Two days later he was named to the committee to consider papers relating to the Popish Plot. Lauderdale joined Danby in speaking against the motion for York to be asked to withdraw from the king’s presence on 2 November. On 15 Nov. he supported the inclusion of the declaration against transubstantiation within the Test Act.<sup>115</sup> On 26 Nov. he was named to the committee discussing the bill for maintaining the peace by raising the militia and on 12 Dec. to that for the bill for preventing the children of Catholic recusants from being sent overseas. Towards the end of December, Lauderdale voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill. The following day he opposed committing his close ally Danby.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Lauderdale claimed to have ‘turned the scale’ in a debate in council over whether or not to prorogue Parliament to a later date than first intended. A separate report suggested that Lauderdale’s influence was declining and that he had ‘fallen off’ from supporting the embattled Danby.<sup>116</sup> In each of a series of assessments compiled by Danby at the beginning of March 1679, however, Lauderdale is noted as a likely supporter in the coming proceedings against the imprisoned earl. Lauderdale attended six days of the abortive session of 6 Mar. 1679 before taking his seat once more on 15 March. He was thereafter present on 98 per cent of all sitting days. On 19 Mar. he contributed to the debate on the impeachment of the imprisoned peers and on 21 Mar. spoke in favour of allowing Danby to remain at liberty until the time originally granted him. His support for the former lord treasurer continued on 1 Apr. when he spoke and voted against the early stages of the bill for attainting him; and in the ensuing divisions of 2 Apr., when he voted against the committal of the bill, and on 4 and 14 April. Danby wrote to thank him for his support.<sup>117</sup> On 10 May he voted against appointing a committee of both Houses to consider how best to proceed against the imprisoned lords.</p><p>By then Lauderdale was operating in an increasingly hostile political world. The creation of a new English Privy Council in April exposed him to much more open criticism. He was again subject to attack in the Commons. That he no longer expected the same level of protection from the king is indicated by a comment made by Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, at the beginning of May. Reporting a dinner with Lauderdale, Conway recorded that the duke ‘expects to march off’ and that the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham, expected to do the same.<sup>118</sup> On 6 May the Commons resolved once again to submit an address to the king seeking Lauderdale’s removal from his offices and from all other places of trust.<sup>119</sup> The address, reported by Sir John Trevor and agreed by the House on 8 May, claimed that the House was ‘sensibly affected with trouble to find such a Person (notwithstanding the repeated Addresses of the last Parliament) continued in your councils at this time, when the affairs of your kingdom require none to be put into such Employments but such as are of known abilities, interest, and esteem’. It was ignored for a long time: the lack of a response was raised on 12 May and it eventually received a curt response from the king. According to one newsletter Charles reiterated that Lauderdale was ‘wholly innocent of what they imputed to him, and so it is now hoped that great storm is over.’<sup>120</sup> The Commons were said to be considering ‘something extraordinary and very different from an address’ as they continued their campaign to have Lauderdale removed. A delay in compiling material for this latest initiative meant, though, that proceedings were brought to a halt by the prorogation on 27 May (on which day he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases). Lauderdale was one of a handful of ministers blamed for counselling the king to terminate the session.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Events at Westminster took place against a background of escalating violence against the government in Scotland, most notably Archbishop Sharp’s murder on 17 May, culminating in the outbreak of open rebellion at the end of the month, and the routing of a party of dragoons at Drumclog on 1 June.<sup>122</sup> Though York was no friend to Lauderdale, towards the end of May the duke wrote from Brussels offering his opinion that the king should continue Lauderdale in Scotland and Ormond in Ireland. This he considered would ‘make men of estates consider well before they engage against the king’.<sup>123</sup> The events in Scotland, however, increased the clamour against Lauderdale. Hamilton and Tweeddale drafted more complaints against him in June.<sup>124</sup> On 9 June, it was reported that the council had met twice to discuss the rebellion, with Lauderdale on both occasions coming in for severe criticism: both times, the king continued to back him ‘to the wonder of everybody’, though Anglesey recorded in his diary for 16 June how he had been present at council that day, ‘where all but I were mealy mouthed in Duke Lauderdale’s concern’.<sup>125</sup> Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> queried whether the constant pressure might not induce Lauderdale to retire, ‘for certainly this cannot end with any good to him, if he stand out’.<sup>126</sup> Monmouth, who left London in the middle of the month for Scotland to suppress the rebellion, was said to resent the way in which Lauderdale’s management of affairs in Scotland had left him with ‘great arrears of rent’.<sup>127</sup> Monmouth’s success, defeating the rebels at Bothwell Brig on 22 June, was seen by his opponents as weakening Lauderdale’s standing with the king further: ‘surely these accidents will at last cure my master of his infinite passion for his beautiful paramour of Lauderdale’, wrote Henry Savile from Paris on 5 July NS.<sup>128</sup> Certainly, on 14 July the king held a conference at Windsor at which the complaints of Hamilton and his associates were fully aired. Though Lauderdale survived it, thanks largely to a robust defence from Sir George Mackenzie, it was generally taken to show that Lauderdale was unlikely to survive for much longer. He took the precaution of taking out a pardon in late September.<sup>129</sup></p><p>Lauderdale did not travel to Scotland with York that October when the latter took up his post as governor of the kingdom. He may have tried to portray York’s appointment as taken on his advice, since Sir Robert Southwell wrote to Ormond that he had been told ‘in great secret’ that it was Secretary Coventry, and not Lauderdale, who had suggested it.<sup>130</sup> James’s presence in Edinburgh inevitably affected his power in Scotland; and dependent in part on his royal pension, retrenchment at court sapped Lauderdale’s ability to entertain as lavishly as formerly. A report of the middle of January 1680 noted that he excused himself to his guests ‘that his table was no better’ owing to the king’s decision to cease paying out pensions.<sup>131</sup> Lauderdale remained theoretically in office as secretary, although displaced as commissioner, and his reach was still thought to be significant: the removal of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, from office was believed by some to have been Lauderdale’s work; if nothing else it was widely put about that Lauderdale and Sunderland had ‘irreconcilably fallen out’.<sup>132</sup> But having suffered a collapse in his health in the spring of 1680, he finally resigned his position as secretary of state for Scotland in September and retreated to Bath.<sup>133</sup> On 13 Sept., prior to his departure for Bath, he wrote from his Surrey residence, Ham House, for ‘an ample and full exoneration and discharge’ to be drawn up covering his activities in office, mindful that an earlier document (presumably the pardon drawn up the previous year) had been defective.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Lauderdale’s diminished role was evident at the time of the second Exclusion Parliament. Although he was present in the Lords for the opening day (21 Oct.) and subsequently attended well over three quarters of all sitting days, on 26 Oct. Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later Earl) Fauconberg, informed Tweeddale that ‘Lauderdale concerns not himself at all in our affairs, nor has been at council since he divested himself of his secretaryship’. Fauconberg repeated the assessment later in the session, observing that the duke ‘makes no figure here at all’.<sup>135</sup> On 15 Nov. Lauderdale voted to reject the exclusion bill at first reading and on 23 Nov. he rejected the motion for appointing a committee of both Houses to meet to consider the state of the kingdom. His last act of note was to vote in favour of the attainder of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford.</p><p>Lauderdale failed to attend the Oxford Parliament, though a pre-sessional forecast suggested that had he done so he would have supported a motion for Danby to be bailed from the Tower. His retirement from affairs failed to protect his former allies who were gradually stripped of their offices. According to one of Northampton’s correspondents, writing in the autumn of 1681, ‘Lauderdale’s party in Scotland are either already displaced from their employments or intended to be. I fear the duke is not gratefully used; but there is a knack in it, and we are not anywhere in this false age to expect gratitude’.<sup>136</sup> Rumours of proceedings against him and his wife dogged him to the end. In April 1682 it was reported that although no articles were anticipated at that time, there was ‘sufficient proof’ that his duchess had received £22,000 from the city of Edinburgh.<sup>137</sup> Lauderdale died that summer at Tunbridge Wells, where he had spent much of his retirement. Writing from Windsor on 25 Aug. 1682 Ormond announced the death as having occurred either ‘last night or early this morning’.<sup>138</sup> His funeral was delayed until the following April, 1683. On 6 Apr. his brother, Charles, who had succeeded to his Scottish earldom but not the dukedom nor the English peerage, communicated an account of the event, which was held at Haddington, to Lauderdale’s widow. The duke had been laid to rest in St Mary’s church at 5 in the afternoon, ‘next to his father’s body but raised higher upon a base of stone made of purpose’. The ceremony was attended by ‘two thousand horse at least: insomuch that they filled the highway for full four miles in length, there was 25 coaches’. Neither Tweeddale nor Yester attended, which some considered ‘strange carriage’.<sup>139</sup></p> |
G.M.T./R.D.E.E. |
|
MANNERS, John (1604-79) |
<p><strong><surname>MANNERS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1604–79)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>2nd. cos. 29 Mar. 1641 as 8th earl of RUTLAND. |
|
First sat 18 May 1641; first sat after 1660, 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 24 Mar. 1670 |
|
MP Derbyshire 1626, 1640 (Apr.) |
<p><em>b.</em> 10 June 1604, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir George Manners<sup>‡</sup> of Haddon, Derbys. (<em>d</em>.1623) and Grace, da. of Sir Henry Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> of Holme Pierrepont, Notts. <em>educ</em>. Queens’, Camb. 1619, MA 1621; I. Temple 1621; travelled abroad (France) 1622-3; Académie d’Equitation d’Angers 1623. <em>m</em>. 1628, Frances (<em>d</em>. 19 May 1671), da. of Edward Montagu<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Montagu of Boughton, 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 7da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 23 Apr. 1623. <em>d</em>. 29 Sept. 1679; <em>will</em> 29 Apr., pr. 1 Dec. 1679.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr., to conserve peace bet. Eng. and Scot. 1643, 1646, 1647, to the Scottish Parliament 1643, Great Seal 1643, New Model Army 1645, 1647, excise 1645, treaty with Scots 1645, to reside with the armies at Newark 1645,<sup>2</sup> exclusion from sacrament 1646, 1648, sale of bishops’ lands 1646, appeals in visitation of Oxford Univ. 1647, indemnity 1647, navy and customs 1647.</p><p>Commr., forced loan, Derbys. 1626-7, Derbys. 1627, charitable uses, Derbys. 1629, 1632, 1635, sewers, Lincs., Lincoln and Newark Hundred, Notts. 1642, 1660, 1664, 1669, Lincs. and Northants. 1646, 1654, 1657, 1658,<sup>3</sup> Notts. 1669, array, Derbys. 1642,<sup>4</sup> militia, Derbys., Lincs. 1648, Lincs. 1660; sheriff, Derbys. 1632-3;<sup>5</sup> dep. lt. Derbys. by 1634-at least 1640;<sup>6</sup> ld. lt., Derbys. (parliamentarian) 1642, Leics. 1667-77; <em>cust. rot</em>. Derbys. Mar-Oct. 1660; c.j. in eyre, Trent north Trent 1646-61; recorder, Grantham 1662-77.</p> |
|
<p>The Manners family had originally settled in Northumberland but acquired extensive estates in the north Midlands, centred around the manor and castle of Belvoir in Leicestershire. Their barony of Roos (or Ros), dated (as it was claimed) from a writ of summons to the Parliament of 1265 and descended through the marriage in 1469 of Sir Robert Manners<sup>‡</sup> to Eleanor Ros, daughter and heir general of Edmund Ros, 10th Baron Ros. The family obtained an earldom in 1525. John Manners was the grandson of the first earl’s second son, Sir John Manners<sup>‡</sup>, who had acquired numerous properties in Derbyshire, including the medieval residence of Haddon Hall, through his marriage into the Vernon family. John Manners, already possessed of the Derbyshire estates from 1623, inherited the earldom of Rutland, and Belvoir Castle in March 1641 upon the death of the last of a string of three second cousins from the elder branch of the family, none of whom had left a male heir. Significantly, by law the family’s older title of Baron Roos did not pass to him since, as a barony by writ it descended to the heir general, Katherine, dowager duchess of Buckingham, mother of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. The descent of the barony would become a point of contention in later years.</p><p>The 8th earl of Rutland was described in the 1670s as ‘a harmless soft man’.<sup>8</sup> Throughout his life he appears to have had little inclination for an active public life in Westminster, professing himself ‘the worse [<em>sic</em>] in the world at words’.<sup>9</sup> He was more of a force to be reckoned with in his own territory of the midlands, as he served in many local commissions and offices there and in 1628 had married Frances, the second daughter of the Northamptonshire magnate, Montagu of Boughton. Throughout his life he caused social conflict through his fierce opposition to the customary rights and privileges claimed by the ‘free miners’ working the lead mines on his land in Derbyshire.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Rutland was one of the peers who remained in Westminster and attended the House after Charles I had set up his headquarters at Oxford, but he always remained a lukewarm and half-hearted parliamentarian, evading the commissions his peers loaded him with through claims of ill health and consistently voting throughout the 1640s with the Presbyterians in favour of a negotiated peace with the king and against the growing power of the army.<sup>11</sup> His country seat of Belvoir had been seized and garrisoned in the king’s name at the beginning of the war, and in 1645 he claimed that he had lost more than £20,000 from the royalist occupation of his ‘whole estate’ in Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire.<sup>12</sup> Rutland was restored to Belvoir in October 1647, but in April 1649 the council of state ordered it to be slighted, compensating him with a paltry £1,500.<sup>13</sup> Rutland’s principal occupation for the next few years was the rebuilding of his grand castle, completed in 1668. He was aided in this by the income of the Belvoir and Haddon estates, which hovered at around £10,000 p.a. for much of the late 1650s; Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> calculated sometime in the 1670s that the earl was worth £8,000 p.a.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Rutland first sat in the Convention on its third day, 27 Apr. 1660, and he came to a little over half of the meetings of the House until 13 Sept. 1660. In August he was named one of the eight peers to solicit a loan of £100,000 from the City of London. Apart from this appointment and another one made on his first day in the House he was never again placed on a select committee during the Convention, or indeed in any subsequent Parliament, and the first part of the Convention was the only time during which he showed a sustained attendance. He did not come to any of the winter meetings of the Convention and only came to the opening two days of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament, on 8 and 10 May 1661, before being formally excused from the House ‘in regard of his ill health’ and registering his proxy in favour of his son-in-law John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, on 1 July 1661. Strangely, the manuscript minutes of the Journal suggest that on 20 July 1661 Edward Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, registered his own proxy with Rutland, even though Herbert, up to that time a fairly constant attendant, would have been aware that Rutland had already been absent from the House for well over two months.<sup>15</sup> Rutland did not return to the House until 16 Dec. 1661; Herbert vacated the proxy by his own presence on 23 Jan. 1662. It may have been Rutland’s lack of engagement, and also his ill health, which convinced the crown in the summer of 1661 to reject his petition to continue in office as chief justice in eyre north of Trent and instead to give it to the healthier, and far more steadfastly royalist, William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle. Perhaps it was in recompense that Rutland was granted the less onerous post of recorder for the borough of Grantham from 31 Jan. 1662.<sup>16</sup></p><p>From about this point, Rutland only ever attended the House when it was dealing with matters that affected his family, and especially the marital problems of his son John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (and later duke of Rutland). In 1658 Roos had married Lady Anne Pierrepont, a daughter of another Midlands magnate Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester.<sup>17</sup> Relations between the couple, and between Lady Roos and her imperious mother-in-law, had broken down shortly after the marriage, and mutual recriminations of adultery and of sexual incompetence were flung back and forth.<sup>18</sup> In September 1661 Lady Roos gave birth to a son whom Lord Roos refused to recognize as his own. To stop this boy from eventually inheriting the Manners estate, Rutland introduced into the House on 19 Apr. 1662—his first day in the House since 28 Jan.—a bill to declare this child illegitimate. Despite Rutland’s continued attendance on the House over the next two weeks, the bill was lost at the prorogation on 19 May. In the years following Lady Roos gave birth to a further two children who were definitely not Roos’s, and in 1666 Roos procured from the court of arches a formal separation, a divorce ‘from bed and board’, which he then used to support another parliamentary bill which would render all the children born to Lady Roos illegitimate.<sup>19</sup> This bill was introduced in the House on 22 Oct. 1666, but Rutland did not appear in the House until 14 Nov. when the bill was to be more fully debated. Rutland stopped attending after 19 Nov. but on 26 Nov. 1666 he entrusted his proxy to his wife’s cousin Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, in order to take care of the family’s interests on his behalf.</p><p>During Rutland’s absence, Buckingham petitioned the House in December 1666 for the sole right to use the title of Lord Roos, as heir general of the title.<sup>20</sup> Rutland did not bother to appear and used the services of another Montagu, his wife’s brother (and the queen’s attorney-general) William Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, to answer the complaint. Buckingham himself soon asked the king to make an amicable settlement as James I had done earlier in the century when he had resolved a similar dispute between two branches of the Manners family. In 1616 James I had tried to compose the dispute between the heir general of the Roos/Ros title, William Cecil, and the heir male, Francis Manners<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Rutland. In accordance with the decision of the earl marshal’s court he granted Cecil the Ros title originally established by writ, but in compensation allowed Rutland to take the title of Lord Ros of Hamlake (i.e. Helmsley in Yorkshire). Rutland and his son followed the reasoning of the 6th earl in thinking that Buckingham’s claim failed because the title could not pass through the female line. There was some justification for their belief since there was great confusion throughout the seventeenth century concerning the heritability of baronies by writ. Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, who was engaged in a similar dispute over the Clifford barony by writ, recorded that under his prompting Buckingham came to an agreement with the Manners family that he would be known as Lord Roos of Helmsley and Trebut (the older part of the title) while the heir to the Rutland earldom would be designated Lord Roos of Belvoir.<sup>21</sup> Although there does not appear to have been any formal statement of this compromise, the Manners family continued to call their male heirs Lord Roos until 1703, without any further opposition from Buckingham. In 1703 elevation to the dukedom supplied them with the courtesy title marquess of Granby. In any case, at Buckingham’s death in 1687 his title of Lord Roos fell into abeyance among the descendants of his two great-aunts, sisters of Francis, 6th earl of Rutland, and the Manners family had no competitors for the use of the title.</p><p>In February 1667 Rutland was appointed lord lieutenant of Leicestershire upon the death the previous month of the incumbent lieutenant Henry Hastings*, Baron Loughborough, at a time when Loughborough’s chosen successor, his nephew Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, was still a minor. Far from this being a stop-gap measure, the Manners family was to remain in control of Leicestershire for the next few decades, much to the consternation of Huntingdon. Apart from these local affairs and the rebuilding of Belvoir Castle, Rutland was also concerned throughout the 1660s with the marriages of his many daughters, unions which connected him with some of the leading political and aristocratic families of the Restoration. His eldest daughter Frances (<em>d</em>.1669) had long been married to John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, and in 1665 another daughter, Margaret, married James Cecil*, styled Viscount Cranborne (later 3rd earl of Salisbury). About the same time another, Grace, had been joined to Patrick Chaworth, 3rd Viscount Chaworth of Armagh [I]. The year 1669 saw many changes, as two more daughters, Elizabeth and Dorothy married, respectively, James Annesley*, styled Lord Annesley (later 2nd earl of Anglesey) and the weak-minded Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury. These marriages connected the Manners family to both branches of the powerful Cecils, as well as to the leading statesmen Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury).</p><p>In contrast to his sisters, the divorced and childless Lord Roos, the only surviving son in the family, was forced to rely again on Parliament to relieve him of his marital predicament, and on 5 Mar. 1670 a bill was introduced in the House that would allow him to marry again. Rutland was eager to support the progress of his son’s bill and before arriving in Westminster collected on 7 Mar. the proxies of Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, and Charles Stanhope*, Baron Stanhope of Harrington. He arrived in the House on 10 Mar., his first appearance since November 1666, only to find that the debate was postponed once again for another week. The bill was highly controversial. It faced the steady opposition of James Stuart*, duke of York, the majority of the Catholic peers and all the bishops save two. It was favoured by many of those, particularly Rutland’s Montagu kinsmen, William Montagu<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, and his recently acquired kinsmen by marriage Anglesey and Ashley, who saw it as a trial run to see if a similar bill could be brought in for the divorce and remarriage of the king.<sup>22</sup> Rutland was present on 19 Mar. for the second reading of the bill, when it and a petition of Lady Roos were committed. He came again for the last time that session five days later, on 12 Mar., when Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, reported from the committee that they found the bill fit to pass with one amendment. The bill was read a third time and passed on 28 Mar., prompting a protest by 29 peers headed by York himself; the Commons returned the bill unamended on 2 Apr., on which day Rutland, confident of its success, registered his proxy with Anglesey and left Westminster. Roos quickly took advantage of the act and in 1673 married the sixteen-year-old Katherine Noel, daughter of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, by whom he had three children who survived him, including the long-desired legitimate son and heir.</p><p>Rutland never sat again in the House after this session and, as Williamson’s contemporary description of him as ‘a harmless soft man’ suggests, he was at this time largely seen as a politically innocuous and disengaged character. He was consistently excused during the sessions of the 1670s because of illness or because he had registered a proxy. Considering the wide array of peers in his kinship group, his choice of proxy recipient is surprising: from October 1673 to October 1678 he consistently entrusted his vote to Prince Rupert*, who sat in the House as duke of Cumberland. Rupert held his proxy from 24 Oct. 1673 for the session of autumn 1673, from 27 Dec. 1673 in advance of the session of January-February 1674, from 26 Mar. 1675 for the spring 1675 session, from 6 Feb. 1677 for the long session of 1677-8 and from 14 Oct. 1678 for the final session of the Cavalier Parliament. The <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, describing the session of spring 1675, states that Rutland was among those peers who ‘ought to be mentioned with honour, having taken care their votes [i.e. their proxies], should maintain their own interest and opinion’ in opposing the non-resisting test brought in by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).<sup>23</sup> Prince Rupert, however, did not make his opposition to Danby’s test known by signing any of the protests against the bill, and Danby even considered him, albeit belatedly, a supporter of the bill. Yet he was by this time increasingly moving in the ‘country’ political circles of Shaftesbury (as Ashley had become), and it may have been Shaftesbury who was somehow responsible for persuading Rutland to entrust his proxy with his political ally Rupert and for placing the glowing review of Rutland’s intent in the <em>Letter</em>. Shaftesbury considered Rutland ‘worthy’ in his political analysis of the peerage in spring 1677.</p><p>In April 1672 Rutland’s last unmarried daughter Anne unexpectedly eloped with the commoner Sir Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Howe [I]) a union which Rutland initially refused to recognize.<sup>24</sup> On 12 Mar. 1677 Howe petitioned the House desiring that Rutland waive his privilege so that Howe and his father could take the matter of Lady Anne Howe’s unpaid marriage portion before chancery. Rutland still refused, or was unable, to come down to the capital. On 21 Mar. a servant of his deposed before the House that he had seen Rutland read the petition and comment that he saw nothing unreasonable in it; on 30 Mar. William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, formally conveyed Rutland’s willingness to submit the matter to the determination of the House. The House in turn appointed nine peers, including Rutland’s proxy holder Rupert, his spokesman Stafford and his relation Anglesey, to come to some composition. When they failed to reconcile the parties, they bounced the dispute back to the House, where on 23 May 1677 a long and complicated settlement concerning the marriage portion was reached and entered <em>in extenso</em> in the Journal.</p><p>That was not the end of the antagonism between Howe and his father-in-law for later in the same session, on 21 Feb. 1678, Howe complained to the House that he had tried to bring an action against a John Mason for felling trees on his property, only to find that Rutland claimed and protected Mason as a servant of his household. On 2 Mar. after the House heard testimony that Mason was well known in the area as a freelance day labourer and not a household servant, the House dismissed Rutland’s protection of Mason and allowed Howe to proceed at law against him.</p><p>By this time illness—on 20 Dec. 1678 servants of Rutland swore before the House that the earl was ‘so lame, that he is not able to go or stand’—or general lethargy led Rutland to abdicate all his responsibilities to his more active son Roos, now securely married and producing future heirs for the family. In 1677 Rutland resigned both the lord lieutenancy of Leicestershire and the recordership of Grantham, both of which entailed significant electoral patronage, to his son, even though the earl of Huntingdon, now of age, made a desperate plea to the duke of York to resume what he saw as his family’s rightful position in Leicestershire.<sup>25</sup> Roos even took over his father’s role in the House, so long neglected, before the old man died. Having been unseated from his Leicestershire seat in the Commons in the Exclusion Parliament because of electoral malpractice, Roos was in late April 1679 summoned to the Lords in his father’s lifetime as Baron Manners of Haddon (and not under the title of Baron Roos, perhaps to avoid any further complaints from Buckingham), and first sat there on 2 May 1679. He did not have long to wait until he inherited his father’s earldom and estate as well, for Rutland died on 29 Sept. 1679 at his Derbyshire estate of Nether Haddon, and was buried shortly afterwards in the Manners vault at Bottesford, Leicestershire.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
MANNERS, John (1638-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>MANNERS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1638–1711)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1641-79 Ld. Roos; <em>cr. </em>30 Apr. 1679 (by writ) Bar. MANNERS of Haddon; <em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Sept. 1679 as 9th earl of RUTLAND; <em>cr. </em>29 Mar. 1703 duke of RUTLAND |
|
First sat 2 May 1679; last sat 10 Apr. 1690 |
|
MP, Leics. 1661, 27 Feb.-29 Apr. 1679 |
<p><em>b</em>. 29 May 1638, 3rd but o. surv. s. of Sir John Manners*, later 8th earl of Rutland, of Haddon Hall, Derbys. and Frances, da. of Edward Montagu<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Montagu of Boughton. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad, c.1662-5. <em>m</em>. (1) 13 July 1658 (with £10,000), Anne (d.1697), da. of Henry Pierrepont*, mq. of Dorchester, <em>div</em>. <em>a mensa e thoro</em> 1666, right to remarry conferred by statute, 11 Apr. 1670, 1s. <em>d.v.</em>p. 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>.;<sup>1</sup> (2) 10 Nov. 1671, Diana (<em>d</em>. 1672), da. of Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, wid. of Sir Seymour Shirley, 5th bt., 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (3) 8 Jan. 1674 (with £8,000),<sup>2</sup> Katherine (d.1733), da. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. <em>d</em>. 10 Jan. 1711; <em>will</em> undated, pr. 26 Mar. 1711.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. militia, Leics. Mar. 1660; dep. lt., Derbys. 1660-70, Leics., by 1667-77;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt., Leics. 1677-87, 1689-1703, 1706-<em>d.</em>; recorder, Grantham 1677-<em>d.</em>;<sup>5</sup> steward, queen’s manor of Grantham 1682;<sup>6</sup> <em>custos. rot.</em>, Leics. 1702-3, 1706-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by J-B. Clostermann, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.</p> |
<p>John Manners was known by the courtesy title of Lord Roos (to which it later transpired he had no legal claim) from the time his father, also John Manners, succeeded his second cousin George Manners<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Rutland, as 8th earl of Rutland in 1641. It is under the name of Lord Roos that he is most famous in the history of the House of Lords for the controversy surrounding the private act of Parliament passed in 1670 which allowed him to remarry while his first wife was still alive. On 13 July 1658 Roos married his second cousin Lady Anne Pierrepont, with a dowry of £10,000, but almost immediately the marriage was troubled and it steadily deteriorated. The years 1658-61 were filled with constant arguments between Lady Roos and her imperious and disapproving mother-in-law, the countess of Rutland; mutual recriminations between the young couple of drunkenness, sexual incompetence and adultery; separations and desertions followed by enforced reconciliations; even a challenge to a duel between Roos and his father-in-law Dorchester.<sup>8</sup> Lady Roos gave birth at least two children by Roos in 1659 and 1660 but both died in infancy.<sup>9</sup> The paternity of the next male child born to Lady Roos on 7 Sept. 1661, shortly after another reconciliation had been negotiated between the couple, was more suspicious. By Lady Rutland’s own calculation there was no way that Roos could have fathered it, as he had joined his wife at the Manners lodge in Croxton Park after it had been conceived.<sup>10</sup> Roos himself, almost certainly under his mother’s prompting, refused to acknowledge the boy as his own and had him baptized as 'Ignotus', that is, unknown. A bill to illegitimate the child was introduced in the House in April 1662 but was lost in the mass of other business. During the prolonged absence of Roos travelling on the continent, Lady Roos gave birth to at least two more children. On his return he made use of this clear example of her adultery to procure from the ecclesiastical court of arches a separation in the form of a divorce ‘from bed and board’ in 1666. On 22 Oct. 1666 another bill to illegitimate all of Lady Roos’s children born since 1660 received its first reading in the House and was committed on 14 November. Witnesses were heard before the bar with scurrilous evidence of Lady Roos’s adulterous liaisons, and Roos himself was impelled to swear before the assembled House that he had not had carnal knowledge of his wife since 4 Mar. 1660. On 11 Jan. 1667 the bill was reported from committee, and the House passed it at the third reading <em>nemine contradicente</em>. The bill, having been returned from the Commons after the countess of Rutland’s agent, Durand Allsopp, had plied many of the members of the Commons with a dinner and drink, received the royal assent on 8 February.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Consideration of this matter was interrupted and complicated by the complaint George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, made in committee in late November 1666 that the bill made mention of John Manners as Lord Roos of Hemblack [i.e. Helmsley], Trusbut and Belvoir when, he claimed, that title properly belonged to him.<sup>12</sup> The Roos title was a barony by writ, supposedly dating from a writ of summons of 1265, but it was as yet unclear whether baronies by writ descended to the heir male, as the 8th earl of Rutland was, or to the heir general. Buckingham was clearly the heir general of the last earl of Rutland of the senior line, as his mother had been the only daughter and heir of Francis Manners<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Rutland (the 7th earl had died childless).<sup>13</sup> The select committee considering the bill of the so-called Lord Roos tried to determine these competing claims, but Buckingham petitioned the king personally in mid-December and he referred the matter back to the whole House.<sup>14</sup> Buckingham himself soon asked the king to make an amicable settlement just as James I had done in 1616 when he had resolved a similar dispute between two branches of the Manners family. James had ruled that the heir general of the title, William Cecil, could (in accordance with the decision of the earl marshal’s court) take the Roos title originally established by writ, while in compensation he allowed the heir male, Francis Manners<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Rutland, to take the title of Lord Roos of Hamlake. By his own account it was Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, engaged in a similar dispute over the Clifford barony by writ, who convinced Buckingham of this solution and who negotiated that Buckingham should assume the older part of the title as Lord Roos of Helmsley and Trebut, whilst the heir to the Rutland earldom be designated Lord Roos of Belvoir.<sup>15</sup> With the approval of the House this compromise was presented to the king and, although there does not appear to have been any formal statement of this settlement, the Manners family continued to call their male heirs ‘Lord Roos’ without any further opposition from Buckingham, until elevation to the dukedom in 1703 supplied them with the courtesy title of marquess of Granby.</p><p>The problems with Roos’s marriage continued. On 22 Feb. 1668 Lady Roos submitted a petition to the House begging for some sort of maintenance from Roos. She detailed the cruel treatment she had suffered from him and his mother and her present straitened circumstances, having fled to Ireland to escape her creditors and her shame.<sup>16</sup> The situation was untenable for Roos, or more particularly for his mother, concerned as she was to ensure the continuity of the family line. By early 1670 her brother, the queen’s attorney-general, William Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, was enlisted to advise on the possibility of a parliamentary bill which would allow Roos, divorced only ‘from bed and board’ by the ecclesiastical courts, to remarry while his wife was still living. Montagu warned that ecclesiastical and common law were against such a remarriage. However he also stated that as marriage after divorce was ‘consistent with the bible, not contrary to god’s law and no scripture against it’ and the prohibition on remarriage was merely a ‘positive human law and not <em>malum in se</em> [wrong in itself]’, such a marriage after divorce could be allowed by an act of Parliament and was preferable to the current act illegitimating Lady Roos’s children.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The bill was introduced into the House of Lords on 5 Mar. 1670 and instantly caused a stir. The debate on its introduction took up the whole day and had to be adjourned to five days’ time. The House went into a committee of the whole and after strenuous debate, and in the face of a protest by 35 signatories, the bill received a second reading on 19 March. The motion to commit the bill barely passed, by between six to eight votes (accounts disagree on the exact difference and whether that count included proxies).<sup>18</sup> The bill was reported from committee five days later and was passed on 28 Mar. on its third reading, though with a final protest of 29. Those most concerned with the maintenance of canon law, the bishops and the Catholic peers, made up the majority of the opposition, with the notable exceptions of John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, and John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester, who broke rank with the other members of their bench to support the bill. The royal heir James Stuart*, duke of York, acted as leader of the opponents of the bill.<sup>19</sup></p><p>On the other hand Roos was assisted by his kinsmen, including his mother’s brother William Montagu and her cousins the lord chamberlain, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, who was persuaded to abstain from proceedings, and especially Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, who was later said by another cousin to have been ‘most active to assist the bill’, and who kept a detailed account of the debates in his journal.<sup>20</sup> More recent additions to the Manners family circle were also invaluable. In 1669 two of Roos’s sisters, Dorothy and Elizabeth, had married, respectively, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury, and James Annesley*, styled Lord Annesley (later 2nd earl of Anglesey). Thus Roos had acquired as the fathers-in-law of his sisters two of the most powerful and active figures in the House in that period, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey and, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury). ‘It is hard to say whether Lord Anglesey or Lord Ashley did most service, both were so diligent’, an informant later told Lady Rutland.<sup>21</sup> Ashley in particular vigorously argued for Roos’s right to remarry, not so much out of consideration for his new kinsman but as a test case to see if a similar bill could be brought in to enable the king to divorce his barren Catholic wife, Catherine of Braganza, and to marry a wife who could bear him a suitably Protestant heir. This was the overarching context of the Roos Divorce bill, which, though formally only a private bill, made it one of the most controversial and closely watched pieces of legislation of the period. The tension surrounding it was not eased by the presence of the king at the proceedings and debates, whose unprecedented action suggested to all, and certainly to Sandwich, that the king had a personal interest in seeing the bill through and explained the duke of York’s vigorous opposition to it.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The bill passed the Commons, although not without similar difficulties, and received the royal assent on 11 Apr. 1670.<sup>23</sup> Roos moved almost immediately to secure a new wife, and by June 1670 his sister, Grace, wife of Patrick Chaworth<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Chaworth [I], was inundating him with suggestions for prospective brides.<sup>24</sup> As early as August 1668 Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, was approaching the countess of Rutland for an alliance in case Roos’s plans for remarriage were successful, and shortly after his bill was passed Roos was in negotiations with the earl for a match with his daughter Diana. The marriage, solemnized on 10 Nov. 1671, proved to be short-lived as the new Lady Roos died in childbirth on 15 July 1672 and the son born to her did not survive for long either.<sup>25</sup> Roos, still without a legitimate heir, soon tried again, and on 8 Jan. 1674 he celebrated his marriage to the sixteen-year-old Katherine Noel, daughter of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, and connected, through her mother, Elizabeth Bertie, to the extended Bertie kinship group. She brought with her a £8,000 portion and received a jointure of £1,400.<sup>26</sup> This marriage turned out to be long-lasting and fruitful for Roos after many years of unhappiness.</p><p>From the time of his bill’s passage, Roos gradually took over many of the local and county responsibilities of his aged and inactive father Rutland. Roos had long hated London, perhaps associating it with the dissolute life of his first wife. Even though he was a member of the Commons, he increasingly spent all his time in the Manners’ residences of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire or Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, where he was informed of events in the capital by the chatty letters of his sister, Lady Chaworth.<sup>27</sup> Rutland appears to have increasingly abrogated the management of Leicestershire and the borough of Grantham to Roos. As early as 1669 Lady Chaworth was submitting her nomination for a replacement of the aged Grantham burgess, Sir William Thorold<sup>‡</sup>, not to her father but to her brother Roos.<sup>28</sup> In the winter of 1676-7 John Grey<sup>‡</sup> turned to Roos to solicit his support at a by-election for Leicester borough. Roos complied, addressing a letter to the electors demanding that ‘all and every one of you who have any commission from my father in the militia or have any other dependence upon him and me’ give their vote to Grey.<sup>29</sup> These informal activities for his father were made official in 1677 when Roos was made, first, lord lieutenant of Leicestershire in July and then recorder of Grantham in December.<sup>30</sup> Roos’s uncle by marriage, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, the lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire, welcomed this latter appointment. He may have helped to arrange it as he was involved in a struggle with Lincolnshire’s leading ‘country’ member Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup> over control of Grantham. At a by-election for the borough in March 1678 Lindsey and Roos mustered the militia in the borough in support of Sir Robert Markham<sup>‡</sup> against Carr’s candidate Sir William Ellys<sup>‡</sup>. Despite some irregularities in counting at the poll, they had the aldermen return Markham as burgess. Carr and Ellys petitioned against the return, and Lindsey told Roos that his presence was absolutely necessary at the committee meeting to ‘countenance’ the election and to encourage the other members for Leicestershire seats to support the court candidate. He further warned him that if Markham were to be unseated ‘the king will then observe that, notwithstanding he hath lately conferred upon your lordship the recordership of Grantham and the lieutenancy of Leicestershire, yet that Sir Robert Carr hath a greater interest, and this I look upon as not for your Lordship's service’. Despite these oblique threats, Roos does not appear to have attended the committee for elections, which initially found in Ellys’s favour. The report was then rejected by the full house and Markham seated in what was seen as a victory for Lindsey, Roos and the court.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Although he had played little part in the proceedings of the Cavalier Parliament, Roos came top of the poll for the county at the elections of spring 1679. His election with another aristocrat, Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Baron Sherard [I], when traditionally the gentry chose the second member for the county, was controversial, and Roos’s election was declared void by the committee for elections.<sup>32</sup> This was evidently seen as a blow by the court and shortly after, on 30 Apr. 1679, Roos was summoned by writ to the House in his father’s lifetime (his father having given up attending the House by this time) as Baron Manners of Haddon. It seems likely that the court meant this to be a writ in acceleration but as no such barony existed the summons effectively created a new barony by writ. He first sat in the House as Baron Manners on 2 May 1679 and attended a further 19 meetings, 33 per cent of the session in all, during which he supported his wife’s uncle, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), by voting against forming a joint committee of both Houses to discuss the trials of the impeached peers and (on 27 May), probably for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. On 29 Sept. 1679 the 8th earl of Rutland died and Manners was able to sit in the following Parliament under that title.</p><p>Despite having assured Danby that he would dutifully attend to the lord treasurer’s business in the House, the new earl of Rutland only attended from 9 Nov. to 23 Dec. 1680, 41 per cent of the sittings.<sup>33</sup> He opposed the exclusion bill and voted William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty before registering his proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath, on 31 Dec. 1680. Danby relied on Rutland for support in his petition for bail that was to be presented at the next Parliament and counted on him to stand as security for him if his bail was granted.<sup>34</sup> The countess of Rutland assured Danby that Rutland ‘will be sure to attend you the beginning of the sessions at Oxford’, but once again Rutland avoided Parliament for as long as he could, later protesting that he would have been glad to have obeyed Danby’s commands ‘but that there was no occasion’; he only arrived at Oxford in time for the last day of the brief Parliament.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Rutland was more at home at Belvoir Castle and in his role as lord lieutenant. He proved himself diligent and obedient during the Tory reaction and the mopping up after the Rye House Plot, when he led the search of the house of his local and political rival Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford.<sup>36</sup> As both lord lieutenant of Leicestershire and recorder of Grantham he exercised local influence which the court of James II was keen to use in the elections of 1685. His former father-in-law Ailesbury asked Rutland ‘who you think [are] the most proper persons to serve in Parliament for both the town and country Leicester that I may join my interest with yours’ and strongly advised Sherard and John Verney<sup>‡</sup> for the county, both of whom were ultimately returned. Lindsey, on the other hand, was unsuccessful in his exhortations to Rutland to help get the court candidates, Sir Richard Markham and the outsider Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, elected for Grantham. Lindsey presumed that Rutland had ‘an interest much greater and more considerable than mine, your lordship being there recorder, and a near neighbour to that corporation’ and that he wielded enough influence with the alderman Thomas Harrington<sup>‡</sup> to persuade him to create freemen who ‘will be firm to your lordship’s interests, and really have a dependence on you’.<sup>37</sup> Rutland was evidently favoured by the new regime and he bore the queen’s sceptre with the cross at the coronation in April. He was present on the first day of James II’s Parliament and came to all but seven of the meetings of the sittings in May and June 1685, his highest attendance rate of any session of Parliament while he was in the House. When he left the House on 23 June 1685 he registered his proxy with Ailesbury for the remainder of the session. By July 1685, in the wake of Monmouth’s Rebellion, he made it clear to his Derbyshire neighbour, Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, that he was not intending to appear at the Parliament when it reconvened in the autumn.<sup>38</sup> He registered his proxy with John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, on 12 Nov. 1685 for those short-lived meetings.</p><p>Over the course of James II’s reign, Rutland turned against the king and his policies. James II replaced him in his office of lord lieutenant with one of his more enthusiastic, and opportunistic, followers, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Rutland became involved in, or at least informed of, the early plotting for the invasion of William III, for his kinsman Danby stopped by Belvoir Castle in his forays north in the summer and autumn of 1688 and most likely told him of his intentions or used his visits as scouting missions for the projected invasion.<sup>39</sup> Later accounts, letters and newsletters place Rutland among the northern peers assembled in Nottingham in late November 1688, but his involvement in the Revolution probably did not go beyond declaring his support for William to Henry Compton*, bishop of London, in September and sending £1,000 to his brother-in-law, the ardent Williamite Sir Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Howe [I]), to recruit cavalry for the Nottingham forces.<sup>40</sup> Rutland did rouse himself sufficiently to attend the House assiduously during the first weeks of the Convention, where throughout late January and early February he voted to place William and Mary on the throne as king and queen. On 5 Mar. he was named a manager for the conference on the address expressing Parliament’s willingness to assist the king in his war against France, and in April he bore the sceptre with the dove for the new monarchs at their coronation.<sup>41</sup> In April 1689 he also was involved in the dispute between his sister Elizabeth and her husband the 2nd earl of Anglesey, concerning money she claimed was due to her from the marriage settlement and actions by her which Anglesey considered to be a breach of his privilege. On 18 Apr. 1689 Rutland was named by the committee for privileges as one of four peers assigned to work out a reconciliation between the couple, and on 2 May Rutland’s steward, Roger Herbert, recorded the receipt of a partial payment of the amount due to the countess from Anglesey.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Rutland had left the capital by that time, having registered his proxy with Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen, on 18 Apr. 1689. He last sat in the House two days after that and for the remainder of his life only once attended Parliament again – on 10 Apr. 1690. For the rest of William’s reign he pleaded illness, such as ‘a violent fit of convulsive cholic in his stomach’, to excuse him from the many peremptory commands from the House and unsubtle hints from the king urging him to attend.<sup>43</sup> He relied on members of his extended kinship network to represent and defend him at court: Carmarthen initially and then, from the time of the marriages in 1692 of his heir John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later 2nd duke of Rutland) to Lady Katherine Russell, daughter of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, and of his daughter Katherine to John Leveson Gower*, later Baron Gower, the members of his children’s extended families. The countess of Rutland enthusiastically enlisted her new Russell relations in her long-held ambition to increase her passive husband’s interest and prestige at court. Although there were rumours that he was to be made a duke in 1694, the countess had to watch with chagrin as Rutland’s uncle Carmarthen, his son’s grandfather-in-law William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, and his Midlands neighbours William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire (whose son was married to Lady Roos’s sister) and John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare, gained dukedoms.<sup>44</sup> The new duke of Bedford did protect Rutland when he was in danger of censure for refusing to come to the House to sign the Association and suspicions arose about the loyalty of some members of his household.<sup>45</sup> The dukes of Leeds (as Carmarthen had become) and Devonshire took it upon themselves to make Rutland’s excuses to the House in early November 1696 for his absence during the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. This occasion was Rutland’s closest shave and the House came very close to enforcing its threat to take Rutland into custody for his persistent absence.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Rutland devoted what energies and attention his illness left him to local affairs. He was formally reappointed lord lieutenant of Leicestershire in April 1689 but throughout the summer Rutland was threatening his sponsor Carmarthen that he would be forced to throw up his commission unless he were also made <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the county. The office had been given to his local rival, the earl of Stamford. Both Carmarthen and Rutland’s other uncle by marriage, Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, tried to persuade Rutland to retain the lieutenancy. They assured him that the king had not intended to slight him but had had no choice but to keep Stamford in the post of custos by the provisions of the Act appointing Commissioners of the Great Seal, which confirmed all appointments of <em>custodes</em> made by the commissioners before 1 May 1689.<sup>47</sup> Carmarthen then offered him the lieutenancy joined with the <em>custos</em> of the neighbouring county of Rutland, alongside the lieutenancy of Leicestershire. The earl remained adamant—‘it is impossible for me to serve the king in the lieutenancy of Leicestershire without I had been <em>custos rotulroum</em>’ he continued to insist, adding that he could not take up the Rutland posts because he knew few of the people there and ‘I am afraid my own health will not give me leave to attend there so often as I ought, or as it must be requisite for me to do’.<sup>48</sup> It took a full year, until July 1690, for Rutland’s pride to allow him formally to take up the lieutenancy for Leicestershire.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Rutland, considered a nominal Whig, was always more concerned with prosecuting his personal rivalry with the more radical Stamford in the county than party politics. In the elections of 1695 and 1698 he was willing to promote for knights of the shire the moderate Tory, John Verney, and the gentry candidate, John Wilkins<sup>‡</sup>, against Stamford’s more whiggish choices George Ashby<sup>‡</sup> and a Mr. Bird.<sup>50</sup> The three elections of 1701-2 revealed both the heights and depths of Rutland’s electoral influence. For the first election of 1701 he wished to put forward Verney and his own son Lord Roos for the county against Stamford’s candidates, Ashby and Bennet Sherard*, 3rd Baron Sherard [I] (later earl of Harborough). Roos, however, was persuaded by the discarded sitting member, Wilkins, to stand for Derbyshire with his brother-in-law William Cavendish*, styled Lord Hartington (later 2nd duke of Devonshire), instead. The two young lords were returned for that county, while Verney and Wilkins squeaked by at the Leicestershire poll. In the process Wilkins had seriously alienated himself from Rutland’s favour by working against his wishes and interest.<sup>51</sup> For the second election of 1701 Roos stood for both Derbyshire and Leicestershire, as his father had chosen this inopportune time to abandon the ancestral Manners residence of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire and to move permanently to Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire.<sup>52</sup> Although Roos promised Hartington that if he won in both counties he would sit again for Derbyshire, his increasingly fragile links with Derbyshire and gentry dislike of being represented by two aristocrats led to a heavy defeat for both him and Hartington at the polls.<sup>53</sup> Roos was successful for Leicestershire with his eventual brother-in-law, Lord Sherard, in the face of opposition from Rutland’s old client Verney, who had switched more firmly to the Tories. <sup>54</sup> The earl’s success in this election led William III to promise him the long-awaited dukedom, although the king died before he was able to effect this elevation.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Anne also showed Rutland favour upon her accession and appointed him <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Leicestershire in place of Stamford. However, in the spring of 1702 Lords Roos and Sherard were defeated for that county by the previous sitting members, Verney and Wilkins, in a notable reversal of the earl’s electoral influence so soon after his triumph in the winter of 1701.<sup>56</sup> In a fit of pique at this defeat of his son at the poll and at the pressure put on him by the incoming ministry to make two Tories he considered enemies deputy lieutenants, Rutland resigned his commission as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of the county in March 1703. He was replaced by the dependable Tory, Basil Fielding*, 4th earl of Denbigh. His family, particularly Lady Russell and his son-in-law Leveson Gower, appointed Anne’s chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in May 1702, tried to dissuade him from this rash course but to no avail.<sup>57</sup> Nevertheless, Leveson Gower persisted in acting as ‘a very good solicitor’ at court in his father-in-law’s interest and he and Roos, who had his own interest in inheriting a higher title, were instrumental in persuading the queen to follow through with the late king’s promise and to raise the earl to a dukedom. The formal elevation was postponed by Rutland’s typical delay in informing his agents in London of the titles he wished to hold, and the patent was not sealed until 29 Mar. 1703, two weeks after the queen had created Leveson Gower a peer as Baron Gower.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Despite his new title and increased prestige, Rutland still refused to come to the House throughout Anne’s reign, not even to thank the queen for his elevation.<sup>59</sup> His Russell kinsmen continued to present his excuses to the House on the frequent occasions when his presence was demanded. In July 1706, as part of the gradual insertion of the Whigs into offices and the ministry at the expense of the high Tories, Rutland was reinstated as lord lieutenant of Leicestershire but by now he was a recluse in Belvoir Castle. He did not actively intervene in county or borough elections, except for a brief period in the autumn of 1710 when he roused himself to oppose the candidacy of the Tory, Sir Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup>, in Derbyshire and successfully encouraged his son the marquess of Granby (as Roos had been styled since his father had been elevated to the dukedom) who had retreated to the safe seat of Grantham for the last two Parliaments, to stand for Leicestershire again.<sup>60</sup> Granby did not have long in his new seat, as his father died at Belvoir Castle on 10 Jan. 1711, propelling him into the upper House as the 2nd duke of Rutland.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
MANNERS, John (1676-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>MANNERS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1676–1721)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1679-1703 Ld. Roos [Ross]; <em>styled </em>1703-11 mq. of Granby; <em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Jan. 1711 as 2nd duke of RUTLAND. |
|
First sat 5 Mar. 1711; last sat 31 Jan. 1721 |
|
MP, Derbys. Feb. 1701, Leics. Dec. 1701, 1710-10 Jan. 1711, Grantham 1705, 1708. |
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Sept. 1676, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John Manners*, <em>styled</em> Ld. Roos (later duke of Rutland), and 3rd w. Katherine (d.1703), da. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden; bro. of Thomas Baptist Manners<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) 17 Aug. 1692 (with £15,000), Katherine (<em>d</em>.1711), da. of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Ld. Russell, 5s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da.; (2) 1 Jan. 1713, Lucy (<em>d</em>. 27 Oct. 1751), da. of Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Bar. Sherard [I], 6s. 2da. KG 16 Oct. 1714. <em>d</em>. 22 Feb. 1721; <em>will</em> 20 Feb., pr. 9 Mar. 1721.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. union with Scotland 1706.</p><p>Ld. lt. and <em>custos rot.</em> Leics. 1714-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: portrait miniature, enamel on metal, by Charles Boit, c. 1715, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.</p> |
<p>John Manners, styled Lord Roos until 1703, was the eldest and only surviving son by the third marriage of John Manners*, 9th earl of Rutland. Rutland was an enthusiastic supporter of William of Orange at the Revolution but evinced a strong distrust of the capital and never came to London to attend the House at anytime after the Convention. This may explain his failure to obtain a coveted dukedom in 1694. Instead he stayed in his Midlands fastness of Belvoir Castle, serving as lord lieutenant of Leicestershire from April 1689 and exerting a predominant electoral interest not only in that county but in the neighbouring regions of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, as well as in the borough of Grantham, located near his seat and well within his sphere of influence.</p><p>He also maintained a strong influence over his son and heir and in 1692 arranged for his marriage, when the boy was just short of 16 years of age, with Katherine, the daughter of the Whig martyr William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell. Katherine brought Lord Roos a portion of £15,000 (some reports had it as much as £25,000) and catapulted him into the higher echelons of the Whig aristocracy.<sup>3</sup> He and his brother-in-law William Cavendish*, styled marquess of Hartington (later 2nd duke of Devonshire), whose wife was Lady Roos’s sister, represented Derbyshire in the Parliament of January 1701. In the December election of that year Roos dismayed Hartington by standing for both Leicestershire and Derbyshire. He came bottom of the poll in Derbyshire but was elected for his father’s county of Leicestershire.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Roos, and particularly his wife, served as Rutland’s representatives and agents in the capital he despised so much. When the king approached Lady Roos to know why he never saw Rutland at Westminster, she replied that he had sent his two sons (Roos and his younger brother, Thomas Baptist Manners) to serve in his stead. Roos, his wife and his mother-in-law also pressed William III in the early months of 1702 to grant Rutland a dukedom, but although he promised, William III died before the patent could be sealed. Rutland and Roos found themselves out of step with the political complexion of the early days of Anne’s rule. Roos came bottom of the poll in the Leicestershire election in July 1702. Rutland then resigned from his offices as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum </em>of the county in protest over his son’s failure to be elected and the pressure placed on him to appoint Tory deputy lieutenants. Despite Rutland’s stance, Anne fulfilled the promises of her predecessor and awarded Rutland, now out of local office and still refusing to attend the House, with a dukedom on 29 Mar. 1703, whereupon Roos took on a new courtesy title, as marquess of Granby. Granby, always a reluctant candidate wary of the drudgery of canvassing and competition, settled for sitting for his father’s borough of Grantham in the Parliaments of 1705 and 1708. He was elected again in October 1710 but was unseated upon a petition claiming that many of his voters were disqualified on 11 Jan. 1711, just one day after he had succeeded to his father’s title.</p><p>Like his father, the new duke of Rutland was seen and categorized as a Whig who would have among his enemies Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham.<sup>5</sup> Furthermore, like his father he was not an enthusiastic or committed member of the House. It was not until 5 Mar. 1711, almost two months after inheriting the title, that the 2nd duke came to the House where he, and his dukedom, were formally introduced as his father had never bothered to come to the House once during all the years he had been a duke. Rutland was introduced to his peers by his brothers-in-law, the 2nd duke of Devonshire (as Hartington had become) and Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford. These three peers exchanged proxies with each other throughout the latter months of the 1710-11 session. First Rutland registered his proxy with Bedford when he left the House for a period on 28 Mar. 1711, vacated when Rutland returned on 3 May; Devonshire in his turn registered his proxy with Rutland on 6 June, although Rutland only attended for a further two sittings before the session was prorogued. The family bond that kept these three peers close was broken at the end of October 1711 when Rutland’s wife Katherine, sister of Bedford and sister-in-law of Devonshire, died in childbed having already borne Rutland nine children, seven of them still surviving.</p><p>Despite this loss, he came to 40 per cent of the sittings of the following (1711-12) session, his highest attendance rate at any session in his career in the House and was there from its very first day on 7 Dec. 1711. He may have been among those Whigs who negotiated with Nottingham about attacking the ministry’s peace policy for he almost certainly voted to address the queen emphasizing that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’. On 15 Dec. Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, registered his proxy with Rutland. Rutland voted on 20 Dec. against the right of the Scots peer James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, to sit in the House as the British duke of Brandon. Two days later he was one of 17 peers appointed to a committee assigned to draw up an address to the queen requesting her to instruct her negotiators at Utrecht to work ‘in the strictest union’ with the allies and to seek a guarantee of peace for all the allies. On 15 Feb. 1712 he was one of 19 assigned to draw up another address showing the indignation of the House against the French proposal that they would only recognize Anne as queen of Great Britain after the peace had been signed. He registered his proxy with Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, on 24 Mar. 1712, vacated by his return on 13 May. Two weeks later, on 28 May, he voted in favour of addressing the queen to remove her orders restraining the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond from conducting an offensive war against France. He further entered his protest when this motion was rejected.<sup>6</sup> On 6 June he again protested, this time against the resolution not to amend the address of thanks to the queen concerning her recent speech with a clause insisting on a mutual guarantee clause with the other allies.</p><p>On the first day of 1713, Rutland celebrated his marriage to his second wife, Lucy, sister of Bennet Sherard*, 3rd Baron Sherard [I] (later earl of Harborough), a fellow Whig magnate in the Midlands, who had shared the Leicestershire representation with Rutland in William III’s last Parliament. This further confirmed Rutland’s attachment to the Whigs, but nevertheless Oxford seems to have believed that he could still turn Rutland to his side, for he included him in a list of peers to be canvassed for votes before the session of spring 1713. Rutland attended less than a quarter of the sittings, and eventually Oxford had to assume that he would oppose the French commercial treaty if it ever came before the House. Rutland came to only four sittings in the first session of the 1713 Parliament, all in March 1714, and for much of that session his proxy was registered with members of the Whig Junto, first with Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, from 25 Mar. 1714, then transferred to Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, from 1 May. It may have been because of his proxy with Halifax that Nottingham forecast in May 1714 that Rutland would oppose the schism bill. Rutland was not present for any of the meetings of the brief session of August 1714 convened upon the death of the queen.</p><p>In the months following the queen’s death, the new king George I favoured Rutland for his adherence to his and the Whig cause. In late September 1714 it was reported that Rutland, with Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, and John Somers*, Baron Somers, had been offered places at court which they had refused.<sup>7</sup> He did not turn down the garter when it was offered to him on 16 Oct., as part of a group of favoured peers which included Halifax, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, and Lionel Cranfield Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset. Together these four Whigs were instituted into the order on 9 Dec. 1714.<sup>8</sup> With the advent of the Hanoverians, in December 1714 Rutland replaced the Tory Basil Fielding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Leicestershire. In this position he tried to further the Whig cause in the elections to George I’s new parliament by supporting the candidacy of Thomas Bird. He was opposed by one of the sitting members for the county, the country gentleman and Tory, Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup>, who had initially received Rutland’s interest when he replaced him in the county seat upon his elevation to the upper House in 1711.<sup>9</sup> Cave complained to his father-in-law John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fermanagh [I], in December 1714 that,</p><blockquote><p>the duke of Rutland supports him [Bird], with money and interest and resolves to have Bird elected at any costs, and that they must and shall throw me out. ... We flatter ourselves with nothing but having taken a great deal of pains and fatigue if possible to conquer the vast Armado equipped with the great peers ... all against us.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the polling in February 1715 the sheriff, ‘a rank Whig’ as Cave characterized him, refused to certify the poll that would have returned Cave and his fellow Tory and sitting member Sir Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup>, claiming that there had been a riot, though ‘there never was a more quiet election known’. The contest was held again two months later, at which time the Tory former lord keeper and recorder for Leicester, Nathan Wright<sup>‡</sup>, came to observe the poll, declaring that he would ‘spend his blood and estate before this county shall be nosed by any duke in Christendom’. Cave and Palmer’s ‘stubbornness’ won through against the machinations of Rutland and his brother-in-law Harborough (as Bennet Sherard had become).<sup>11</sup> Rutland’s influence was felt four years later when Cave died and one of the lord lieutenant’s many sons, Lord William Manners<sup>‡</sup>, was returned to the county seat in December 1719, as ‘the gentlemen of the county in general, both Whig and Tory, agreed to make a compliment to my lord duke of choosing his son whenever a vacancy should happen’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Rutland himself maintained his same low rate of attendance on the House in the reign of George I, coming to only a fifth of the sittings from the first session of the new king’s Parliament in 1715-16 to the end of the session of 1719-20, just before he died at a premature age of 44. A more detailed account of his parliamentary career under George I will be found in the next phase of this work. Throughout 1715-17 even when he was not present in the House himself he was sure to register his proxy with a member of his growing extended family: his nephew John Leveson Gower*, 2nd Baron (later Earl) Gower; Gower’s father-in-law, Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess (later duke) of Dorchester; or his own brother-in-law Harborough.</p><p>Although he continued to be considered a Whig lord under George I, he was not exempt from displeasing his king by his votes and actions on a number of occasions. He was in favour of the acquittal of Oxford throughout 1715-17, voted against the repeal of the Triennial Act in 1716 and, despite being warned by the king, insisted on visiting the court of the prince of Wales.<sup>13</sup> During the Whig schism he supported the faction centred around Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, as from July 1717 to April 1720 he consistently registered his proxy with him or with other peers sympathetic to him such as Devonshire and Orford. He had long been, both socially and politically, very close to these latter two Russell kinsmen and as far back as September 1712 had made them trustees for the provision of maintenance of his two younger sons and four daughters by his first wife, Lady Katherine Russell.<sup>14</sup> When he was felled with an attack of smallpox in early February 1721 he hurriedly wrote his will just two days before he died on 22 Feb. 1721 at his first wife’s residence, Southampton House. In his will he confirmed the arrangement made for the maintenance of his younger children and added more lands for their benefit. By his second wife, he had an additional eight children to provide for, and he tried to do this by entrusting her with £14,000 worth of South Sea Company stock to invest and distribute when these young children reached their majorities. He gave her an additional £3,000 worth of stock for herself as well as his coach and horses. He still had enough money to bequeath a little over £2,000 to individual family members, servants, and the hospital at Bottesford that his father had established. His executor was the heir to the bulk of his estate and his title, the eldest of his many surviving sons, John Manners*, styled marquess of Granby, but now 3rd duke of Rutland.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
MANSELL, Thomas (1667-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>MANSELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1667–1723)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. MANSELL. |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 24 July 1721 |
|
MP Cardiff Boroughs 1689-98; Glamorgan Dec 1701.-1 Jan. 1712. |
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Nov. 1667, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Edward Mansell<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt., of Margram Abbey and Soho Square and Martha (<em>d</em>.1703), da. and coh. of Edward Carne of Ewenny, Glam. <em>educ</em>. privately (?Samuel Jones);<sup>1</sup> Jesus, Oxf. 1685, BA 1686; New Inn Hall, MA 1699. <em>m</em>. 18 May 1686 (with £10,000),<sup>2</sup> Martha (<em>d</em>.1718), da. and h. of Francis Millington, merchant of London, of Newick Place, Suss., 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 5da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>);<sup>3</sup> 1s.; 2da. illegit. <em>suc.</em> 2nd cos. Thomas Mansell<sup>‡</sup>, of Briton Ferry, Glam. (life interest) 7 Jan. 1706; suc. fa. as 5th bt. 17 Nov. 1706. <em>d</em>. 10 Dec. 1723; <em>will</em> 8 Dec. 1723, pr. 18 Mar. 1724.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Sheriff, Glam. 1700-1; constable Cardiff Castle 1706-<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> chamberlain, S. Wales c.1706-<em>d</em>.,<sup>6</sup> Carmarthen 1706;<sup>7</sup> v. adm. S. Wales and gov. Milford Haven Jan. 1714.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Comptroller of the household Apr. 1704-Feb. 1708, June 1711-July 1712; PC 27 Apr. 1704-May 1708, 14 June 1711-Sept. 1714; commr. treasury Aug. 1710-May 1711; teller of exchequer July 1712-Oct. 1714.</p> |
<p>Likeness: Oil on canvas by Michael Dahl, Penrice Castle.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Mansell was a long-time friend and ally of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford. After joining Harley in office in 1704, Mansell resigned with him in February 1708 and remained a close confederate during the 1708 Parliament.<sup>10</sup> When Harley emerged as the leading minister in 1710, Mansell was given a seat on the treasury board which included Harley. When Harley was ennobled and became lord treasurer, Mansell returned to his old post as comptroller of the household.</p><p>When Oxford needed an influx of reliable supporters into the Lords to ensure the passage of his peace policy in 1711-12, Mansell was an obvious choice as one of the dozen so created. He was widely seen as possessing sufficient social status and wealth to merit the award of a peerage. According to the later testimony of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, about 1703, Mansell was one of the ‘overgrown commoners of vast estates and men of worth that would have done honour to the peerage’.<sup>11</sup> As early as March 1705 rumours were current that he would be raised to the peerage, along with Thomas Foley*, the future Baron Foley, and Sir Michael Warton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>12</sup> Thereafter his wealth had increased by the life interest he acquired in the Briton Ferry estate of his cousin, Thomas, and the death of his own father.<sup>13</sup> In 1707 there were again rumours of a peerage, as there were in April 1711.<sup>14</sup></p><p>He was created Baron Mansell on 1 Jan. 1712, and that very day it was reported that he would replace Hugh Chomondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, as treasurer of the household, and in turn be replaced as comptroller by Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup>, but this turned out to be mere speculation.<sup>15</sup> On 2 Jan. he was introduced into the Lords by William Berkeley*, 4th Baron of Berkeley of Stratton and Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway. He attended on 82 days (78 per cent) of the session (having been created a peer on the 13th day of the session).</p><p>One of Mansell’s main strengths was his extensive electoral interest, which stretched beyond Glamorgan. On 10 Jan. 1712 Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, informed James Gunter<sup>‡</sup> that ‘I have been likewise with my Lord Mansell who will despatch letters this post to his servants to secure you what voices are about him’, for a by-election for Monmouthshire.<sup>16</sup> It was in this capacity with Members of the Commons that he acted as one of Oxford’s canvassers before the vote against John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, on 24 Jan. 1712.<sup>17</sup></p><p>On 25 Feb. 1712 Mansell registered his proxy with Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham, another of the recent peerage creations and an ally of Oxford. Somewhat oddly, given the requirements of the Test Act, Mansell did not take the requisite oaths until 24 May. On 28 May Mansell voted with the ministry against an address to the queen asking her to send orders to Ormond to act offensively against France in concert with her allies in order to obtain a safe and honourable peace, in other words to take off the ‘restraining orders’ sent to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.</p><p>Towards the end of the session, on 17 June 1712, L’Hermitage reported that John Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Baron Fitzhardinge [I], and John Smith<sup>‡</sup>, ‘both tellers of the exchequer, have been dismissed and replaced by’ Mansell and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, later earl of Aylesford.<sup>18</sup> This was premature, but on 2 July Thomas Bateman reported that Mansell would be a teller, taking Smith’s post, which was officially granted him on 23 July.<sup>19</sup> Mansell’s removal to this plumb sinecure allowed George Granville*, Baron Lansdown, to succeed to the comptroller’s post and in turn enabled Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup> to take up the post of secretary of war.</p><p>Mansell was obviously perceived to be of some influence, probably because of his closeness to Oxford. Abraham Stanyan<sup>‡</sup>, writing from Milan in February 1712, requested his help in obtaining his ‘removal from Switzerland to some other court’.<sup>20</sup> Penry Williams thought it worthwhile to approach Mansell that December to get his brother-in-law, George Bowen of Wolfsdale, excused from being chosen as sheriff for Pembrokeshire, and with apparent success, for he did not serve in that post.<sup>21</sup> Mansell was wealthy enough to have been a creditor of some note. On 30 May the same year Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds received a letter from Mr. Gibson, a scrivener, giving notice that £7,000 ‘lent long since on my daughter [-in-law] Carmarthen’s estate did now belong to the Lord Mansell's children’, who wanted repayment.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Although Mansell attended the prorogation on 8 July 1712, he was absent from the subsequent prorogation on 31 July, arriving that very day at Margam having ‘rode from the waterside home in one day, being 48 miles’.<sup>23</sup> A local cleric added that there was ‘good wine and noble venison’ awaiting at Margam, if Oxford’s son, Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley, the future 2nd earl of Oxford, and his son-in-law George Hay*, Baron Hay (better known as Viscount Dupplin [S]), should care to ‘vouchsafe to honour this country with your company and bright conversations.’<sup>24</sup> Mansell seems to have remained at Margam for some time, writing from there to Oxford on 23 Oct. that ‘when you have any commands for me your secretary may transmit them and I shall obey, without them I shall not be in town till Xmas.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>On 16 Dec. 1712, one of Mansell’s clerks in the tellership office reported that Mansell would arrive in London that week.<sup>26</sup> He was in plenty of time for the parliamentary session, the opening of which was in any case delayed. He attended the seven prorogations between 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713. On Jonathan Swift’s list compiled in mid March to early April, and amended by Oxford, Mansell was listed as being expected to support the ministry. He attended the opening day of the session, 9 April. He acted as a teller for the ministry in opposition to John Hervey*, Baron Hervey (later earl of Bristol), in favour of retaining the words ‘and to congratulate her majesty upon the success of her endeavours for a general peace; and for what her Majesty has done to secure the protestant succession’ in the Lords’ address on the queen’s speech.</p><p>On 29 Jan. 1713 he had been informed by Sackville Gwynne that by the recent death of John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan and 3rd earl of Carbery [I], the stewardships of several lordships had become vacant, which, he suggested, Mansell might like to ‘secure’ to himself.<sup>27</sup> Mansell was carefully considering how to consolidate and extend his local power; a note in Oxford’s papers around this date records that ‘Lord Mansell desires only the offices of vice admiral and chamberlain. His Lordship would not have the government of Milford.’<sup>28</sup></p><p>On 9 May 1713 Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> advised his brother, Oxford, that Lords Mansell and Lansdown should speak to their friends in the Commons, as part of the lobbying campaign against tacking the provisions of the place bill to the malt tax, which threatened to disrupt the ministry’s supply legislation.<sup>29</sup> About 13 June Oxford listed Mansell as likely to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. All in all Mansell attended on 57 days (86 per cent) of the session. On 1 Aug. he rather cryptically wrote to Oxford:</p><blockquote><p>I dare say your Lordship will excuse my attendance at the instalment [presumably as a knight of the Garter], when I tell you that I dare not be there for reasons I need not name. I am now very uneasy at being longer here and it would grieve me very much not to have the honour to see you before I go, therefore if you would admit me this afternoon for quarter of an hour to wait on you.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>No doubt Mansell’s perceived connections with Oxford explain why on 15 Aug. he received a letter in favour of Marshall Bridges, a canon of Wells, seeking preferment to a vacant see, presumably that of John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol, who had just been nominated to London.<sup>31</sup> Mansell was at Margam on 3 Sept., when he wrote to congratulate Oxford on Lord Harley’s marriage and was still there on 26 Nov., when he wrote to condole with Oxford upon receiving a letter (of 21 Nov.) containing news of the death of the latter’s daughter, Lady Carmarthen, on the 20th: ‘the contents of it truly surprised and grieved my heart being sensible how near it has touched yours who are with so much reason tender of all your children.’<sup>32</sup></p><p>Mansell attended the opening day of the 1714 session, 16 Feb., when he joined with Henry Paget*, 8th Baron Paget (later earl of Uxbridge), in introducing Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley, into the Lords. On 19 Mar. he acted as a teller, again in opposition to Hervey, on the question of appointing the following Monday for further consideration of the queen’s speech. This division was lost 66-44, and the long adjournment until 31 Mar. favoured by the ministry was ordered instead. On 12 Apr. and 20 Apr. the proxy of Oxford’s son-in-law, Hay, was registered with Mansell. At the end of May and beginning of June, he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being in favour of the schism bill. On 4 June Mansell was one of four Harleyite peers who voted with the Whigs against the rejection of a petition from Dissenters asking to be heard by counsel on the schism bill, and presumably he helped to secure amendments to the bill.<sup>33</sup> As an Oxford loyalist, on 25 June Mansell attended a dinner at the home of Thomas Harley<sup>‡</sup> to celebrate the previous day’s success in imposing a reward of £100,000 on the capture of the Pretender.<sup>34</sup> On 7 July he acted as a teller in opposition to William North*, 6th Baron North, on the committal of the bill for the examination of public accounts. All in all, he attended on 68 days (92 per cent) of the session.</p><p>Following the death of Queen Anne on 1 Aug. 1714, Mansell attended the Lords on 3 August. In all he attended on four days of the session of August 1714, including the last day, the 25th, when Parliament was prorogued. On 25 Oct. Bateman reported that Lords Dupplin and Mansell ‘are removed from their tellers’ offices.<sup>35</sup> Mansell remained active as a supporter of Oxford until the 1720-1 session. He died on 10 Dec. 1723.</p><p>Mansell’s significance for contemporaries can perhaps be summed up by Swift’s comment that he was ‘of good nature but a very moderate capacity’, which made him a congenial dinner companion.<sup>36</sup> In William Shippen’s <em>Moderation Displayed</em> (1704) he was ‘a fluttering empty fop’ known for his ‘sprightly converse’ and wit.<sup>37</sup> He was one of the few Welsh ‘ministerial politicians of the second rank’, but he owed this to his relationship with Harley.<sup>38</sup> Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Coningsby recognized this when in 1720 he referred to Glamorganshire as ‘a county under the influence of my Lord Mansell, who is directed absolutely by Lord Oxford.’<sup>39</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
MASHAM, Samuel (c. 1679-1758) |
<p><strong><surname>MASHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>Samuel</strong> (c. 1679–1758)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. MASHAM |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 4 July 1757 |
|
MP Ilchester 1710-May 1711; New Windsor May 1711-Jan. 1712 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1679, 8th but 1st surv. s. of Sir Francis Masham<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. and Mary, da. of Sir William Scott, bt., marquis de la Mezansene, of Rouen, Normandy. <em>m</em>. c. June 1707 (with 2,000 guineas),<sup>1</sup> Abigail (<em>d</em>.1734), da. of Francis Hill, Levant merchant, of London, cos. of Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford), 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. <em>d.v.p. suc</em>. fa. as 4th bt. 1723. <em>d</em>. 16 Oct. 1758; <em>will</em> 10 Feb., pr. 8 Nov. 1758.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Page of honour to Princess Anne by 1692; equerry to Prince George*, of Denmark, by 1702-6; groom of bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark 1706-8; cofferer of household 1711-14; remembrancer of Exchequer in reversion 1713.</p><p>Ensign, Coldstream Gds. 1697, capt. 10 Jan.1704, brevet col. 20 Oct. 1704, col. of regt. of horse (Visct. Windsor’s) 1707, brig. gen. 1710.</p> |
|
<p>Despite having a family pedigree ‘of the superior order’, a position in the royal household and a career in the military, Samuel Masham has tended to be overshadowed by his politically more active wife, Abigail. Innocuous or not, Masham made the most of the opportunities presented to him. In 1707, whilst employed as groom of the bedchamber to George, Prince of Denmark, Masham married Abigail secretly in the presence of the queen (and to the fury of Abigail’s cousin and patron, Sarah Churchill, duchess of Marlborough). The marriage, which had probably been encouraged by Abigail’s kinsman, Robert Harley, not only secured Masham improved finances by virtue of a dowry of 2,000 guineas granted to his wife by the queen, but led to a decisive change of political outlook. Like his wife Masham had owed some of his early career advancement to the Marlboroughs (through acquaintance with the Fortrey family); his own family, which was related to Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, had been associated with the Whig policies of the Junto (and had provided a home for John Locke in his later years). Masham’s father exercised significant interest in Essex on behalf of the Whigs. Despite this, Masham now embraced fully his wife’s Tory politics. Military and political advancement thereafter were the product of Abigail’s relationship with the queen and the influence of Harley. It also brought him the enmity of the duchess of Marlborough who dismissed Masham as a ‘soft, insignificant man’.<sup>3</sup></p><p>In advance of his marriage Masham had been granted the colonelcy of the regiment commanded by Thomas Windsor*, Viscount Windsor [I], (later Baron Mountjoy). Reports of further preferment for the couple soon followed. In the late spring of 1708 it was even rumoured (but quickly contradicted) that Masham was to be advanced to the peerage and was to take the recently vacated title of Dover.<sup>4</sup> That October the couple’s high standing with the queen was made apparent when she stood godmother to their daughter (Prince George of Denmark, stood godfather).<sup>5</sup> By September 1709 Masham’s wife had, to the ‘greatest mortification imaginable’ of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, replaced his duchess as the queen’s favourite. Further, Masham was encouraged by Abigail to ‘talk very impertinently’ of the duke’s military career and the war.<sup>6</sup> Following the Sacheverell impeachment in spring 1710, the dismissal of the ministry of Sidney Godolphin, earl of Godolphin, and the resignation of the duchess of Marlborough from her places at court ensured the continuation of Masham’s career advancement.<sup>7</sup> By 18 Apr. 1710, the queen was ‘very ready’ to promote him to the rank of brigadier. This was ‘a step further’ than desired by Marlborough, but the duke deferred to the queen’s wishes.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In the general election that autumn, Masham was returned for Ilchester on the interest of John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, probably at Harley’s instigation, thereby adding to the ‘astonishing’ number of Harley relations in the Commons.<sup>9</sup> An inactive career in the lower House was marked only by his listing as a ‘worthy patriot’ in the crusade against the previous Whig ministry.<sup>10</sup> In May 1711 (the same month that Harley was elevated to the peerage as earl of Oxford), Masham was appointed royal cofferer. Earlier that year his wife had been appointed keeper of the privy purse in succession to the duchess of Marlborough. Coinciding with Masham’s appointment as cofferer, rumours circulated once more that he was to receive a peerage as well, though some believed that he would be made to wait for the time being. The promotion to cofferer, reports of which had circulated from the close of 1710, was viewed by Marlborough as ‘very nauseous and … shameful’; Arthur Mainwaring<sup>‡ </sup>mocked that it was appropriate for someone who had ‘seen no service, nor ever can be an officer’ to quit the army and ‘retreat to some good employment since he may have which he pleases, and rise as fast as he pleases’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Masham’s appointment as cofferer required him to relinquish his seat and stand again. Rather than continue at Ilchester he transferred to New Windsor, standing successfully on the Tory interest after the court persuaded the high steward of the borough, George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, to withdraw support from his own nominee.<sup>12</sup> The debt to Oxford was clear. ‘Mr. Cofferer’, Abigail wrote to Oxford, ‘is your most humble servant’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Within a few weeks of the opening of the new session in December 1711, Oxford was forced to seek the queen’s agreement to a mass creation of peers to ensure a majority in the Lords over the passage of the peace negotiations.<sup>14</sup> His confidence in the queen’s willingness to intervene to save the ministry may have been behind Masham informing Swift on 15 Dec. that ‘he had it from a very good hand, that all would be well’, though it was probably not until well over a week after that that the resolution to seek new peerages was broached.<sup>15</sup> Masham himself seems not to have been expected to be among the main body of new creations. In an Oxford planning memorandum of 27 Dec., Masham’s name was written in a separate column to the majority, suggesting that he may have been considered a reserve candidate. This was largely because of the queen’s concern that the ennoblement of Masham would necessitate the loss of Mrs. Masham from her relatively humble role as the queen’s dresser. In a subsequent memorandum, Oxford noted that the queen had dismissed the idea of Masham being ennobled, insisting that Mrs. Masham did not want the honour. Oxford pressed on, no doubt convinced that Abigail Masham would greet the offer more warmly than the queen supposed, but Anne only capitulated following a final approach by William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth. She did so, on condition that Abigail retained her position and in spite of her concerns that it might cause offence to other peeresses to know that one of their number occupied a relatively menial position. Masham’s eventual inclusion was probably the result of Sir Michael Warton<sup>‡</sup> declining Oxford’s offer of a peerage. Swift maintained on the 29th that it was still ‘a mighty secret that Masham is to be one of the new lords; they say he does not know it himself; but the queen is to surprise him with it’. The creation was finally gazetted on 31 December. Masham was one of four members of the Tory Saturday dining club (the other three being George Hay*, Baron Hay, George Granville*, Baron Lansdown, and Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later Earl) Bathurst) to be elevated on 1 Jan. 1712.<sup>16</sup> Interestingly, given his late inclusion, Masham was awarded precedence over both Bathurst and Thomas Foley*, Baron Foley: his patent bearing the time 2pm, with Foley’s 3pm and Bathurst the last of the day at 4pm.<sup>17</sup> Almost certainly as a response to mutterings about the merits of his peerage as the husband of a royal favourite (and contemporary spite about his social and economic fitness to enter the nobility), a justification of his elevation was published to the effect that ‘this accomplish’d gentleman’ had thoroughly recommended himself to the queen. A similar publication subsequently justified the elevation of Henry St John as Viscount Bolingbroke.<sup>18</sup></p><p>On 2 Jan. 1712, Masham was introduced to the House by John West*, 6th Baron de la Warr, and William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron. The government duly carried an adjournment division with the support of the new Tory peers.<sup>19</sup> In the House Masham acted alongside Poulett and Dartmouth as one of Oxford’s most dependable ‘whips’.<sup>20</sup> Masham attended nearly 67 per cent of sittings in his first session in the Lords. He immediately became involved in the business of the House and within weeks of his introduction, had acted as teller for the ministry in three divisions: on 11 Feb. for the division on whether to postpone the second reading of the episcopal communion (Scotland) bill, on 26 Feb. in the division on whether to agree with the Commons’ pro-episcopalian amendment of the bill and on 29 Feb. in the division of whether to appoint a day for a committee of the whole to sit on the officers in the House of Commons bill (place bill).</p><p>On 25 Feb. Masham received the proxy of one of his fellow new peers, Thomas Mansell*, Baron Mansell (vacated on 3 Mar.); on 26 Feb. he received Hay’s proxy (vacated with Hay’s return on 7 Mar.) and on 25 Mar. he registered his own proxy in Hay’s favour (vacated with his return on 1 April). On 7 Apr. he also received the proxy of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers which was vacated on Rivers’ death. On 6 May Masham acted as teller for the ministry in the division on the wording of the report in the county elections bill, and on 13 June he again told in the division on the Tory motion: whether to expunge reasons for the Whig protest of 28 May. He also supported the ministry in the division on the restraining orders to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>21</sup></p><p>As well as playing an active involvement in the life of the House, Masham also seems to have been intent on employing his interest. In March he was said to have echoed Poulett in advocating an ecclesiastical promotion for Henry Moore, who had recently married Sir George Rooke’s<sup>‡</sup> widow, though Moore seems to have been overlooked.<sup>22</sup> Masham attended the House on 21 June 1712 when Parliament was adjourned. Five days later, he received the proxy of the Tory Nathaniel Crew*, 3rd Baron Crew and bishop of Durham. It was vacated at the end of the session. He attended for six prorogation days over the winter of 1712 and on 3 Mar. 1713 introduced to the House (together with Baron Hay), Peregrine Hyde Osborne*, the future 3rd duke of Leeds, as Baron Osborne. Unsurprisingly, on both 1 June 1712 and 15 May 1713 Masham was listed as a supporter of the court. Although Masham exercised patronage over posts at the excise commission, he also served an important function as an intermediary between his wife and Oxford. On 26 Nov. 1712, for example, Masham relayed to Oxford a request from the countess of Strafford that had come via Abigail.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Masham attended the House for the first day of the April 1713 session, after which he was present on 70 per cent of sittings. During the session he played a significant role in assisting Oxford in his management of both Houses of Parliament. On 9 May Oxford’s brother, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, warned Oxford that unless Masham spoke to Charles Aldworth<sup>‡</sup> (his successor in New Windsor), Aldworth would vote for the tack of the provisions of the place bill onto the malt bill.<sup>24</sup> On 3 June Masham wrote to Henry Grey*, duke of Kent, requesting his presence in the House for the second reading of the malt bill, there being ‘a great deal of pains … to throw it out, which if it should, would be of prejudice very much at this time to her Majesty’s affairs’.<sup>25</sup> Masham was present on 8 June for the contentious debate and third reading. Later that month, he was predicted by Oxford as a supporter of the bill to confirm the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Masham seems not to have been directly involved in the elections following the August dissolution. Both he and his wife were, however, preoccupied over the autumn months of 1713 with his son’s illness.<sup>26</sup> In early December, in reply to an enquiry made by Oxford, Lady Masham informed the lord treasurer that her husband was out of town visiting William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell.<sup>27</sup> Towards the close of the year the couple were back in attendance on the queen at Windsor, where Masham resumed his role as intermediary between his wife and Oxford. He was also engaged in attempting to secure the passing of a patent for ‘the reversion of some place’, which was reckoned to be worth £1,000 a year.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Masham returned to the House one week after the start of parliamentary business in February 1714. His delayed return to the House may have been connected with the birth of another son around that time.<sup>29</sup> He attended nearly 60 per cent of sittings. On 2 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke (a fellow member of the Saturday dining club).<sup>30</sup> It was vacated on 15 March. At this time Oxford was still issuing instructions to Lady Masham, but it was widely rumoured that she had abandoned Oxford in favour of Bolingbroke, in part because of Oxford’s opposition to the plan to invade Canada.<sup>31</sup> The succession was also a cause of division. On 19 Apr. an Oxford memorandum noted public rumours that the queen, Lady Masham and the chief royal servants were opposed to the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Masham, like his wife, shifted his political alliance towards Bolingbroke and became one of the latter’s ‘principal allies’. He seems to have joined the Tory ‘Board of Brothers’, also apparently known as the ‘Society for rewarding merit’, according to a later comment by Delarivier Manley.<sup>33</sup> On 5 Apr. he acted as a teller in the division as to whether the Protestant succession was in danger.<sup>34</sup> Eight days later, he was present when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to an address on the danger of the Pretender. On 17 Apr. he received Byron’s proxy. The same day, Masham acted as teller for the ministry in a division of a committee of the whole on the place bill. The bill was rejected. On 30 Apr. (presumably anticipating Byron’s imminent return on 1 May) he registered his own proxy in favour of Byron (vacated on 7 May), and on 25 May he was once again entrusted with Byron’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Early in May it was reported that Oxford and Lady Masham had made up ‘and so got the better of Lord Bolingbroke’.<sup>35</sup> The same month Jonathan Swift tried to broker a reconciliation between Oxford and Bolingbroke in Lady Masham’s St James’s lodgings.<sup>36</sup> The meeting was unsuccessful; and when Oxford asked the queen to remove any ministers with Jacobite tendencies, the request was denied. Indicative of the fragility of Oxford and Lady Masham’s reconciliation, Masham continued to support Bolingbroke’s initiatives to outmanoeuvre Oxford. By 21 May it was reported that Lady Masham and Bolingbroke were ‘together again’.<sup>37</sup> On 27 May it was predicted by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, that Masham would support the schism bill, the brainchild of Bolingbroke and the high-flying clergy. Masham attended the House throughout the passage of the bill. On 7 July he received the proxy of Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S]; it was vacated at the end of the session. Masham attended the House until the penultimate day of the session in early July 1714. Oxford was forced from office at the end of the month.</p><p>In the midst of the jostling for position that characterized the queen’s last days, Masham continued to develop his estates. In the middle of July he bought the estate of Langley from Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>. The same year he also purchased the manor of Little Laver in Essex for £2,100.<sup>38</sup> With the death of the queen, both Masham and his wife left court and took up residence at the newly acquired Langley Park. He attended 11 days of the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. Masham’s parliamentary career after 1715 (during which he opposed the attainder of Bolingbroke) will be examined in the next part of this work. Masham outlived his wife by over 20 years and died on 16 Oct. 1758 at his house in Burlington Street. He was succeeded by his second, but only surviving son, also named Samuel*, as 2nd Baron Masham.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
MAYNARD, Banastre (1642-1718) |
<p><strong><surname>MAYNARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Banastre</strong> (1642–1718)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 6 Feb. 1699 as 3rd Bar. MAYNARD. |
|
First sat 18 Jan. 1700; last sat 13 Apr. 1716 |
|
MP Essex 1663–79. |
<p><em>b</em>. 1642, s. of William Maynard*, 2nd Bar. Maynard and Dorothy Banastre. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France, Italy, Germany and Holland) 1660–3.<sup>1</sup> m. 9 Nov 1665, Elizabeth Grey (d. 1714), da. of Henry Grey<sup>†</sup>, 10th earl of Kent, and Amabel Benn, 8s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), at least 3da. <em>d</em>. 3 Mar. 1718; will 6–21 Dec. 1705, pr. Apr. 1718.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Likeness: portrait bust, part of monument at St Mary, Little Easton, Essex.</p> |
<p>In addition to inheriting the family estates in Essex and East Anglia, Banastre Maynard acquired properties in Lancashire from his maternal grandfather, Sir Robert Banastre. As the heir to a relatively recent barony his social status was substantially lower than that of his wife, who took care to ensure that she would continue to enjoy the status and precedence of an earl’s daughter.<sup>3</sup> He was on good terms with his brother-in-law, Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, who appointed him as one of the trustees for his daughter Amabel.<sup>4</sup> Maynard was elected to represent Essex in March 1663 without a contest, which was probably fortunate since he did not return to England until the autumn of that year; his tutor while travelling was Charles Henchman – probably the younger son of Humphrey Henchman* of London.<sup>5</sup> Maynard sat in the Commons until the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament and was tipped to stand again in 1688 as a candidate on whom the Dissenters could rely, although his father was by that date a firm Anglican who intervened in the election to the Convention in March 1689 on behalf of the Church party.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Maynard was an inactive member of the Commons and proved to be similarly inactive in the Lords. He delayed taking his seat until almost a year after his father’s death. Between 1700 and the end of 1702 he attended on less than one third of sitting days. Thereafter he hardly attended at all, managing a total of 10 sitting days in 16 years, with the result that his political affiliations are extremely difficult to establish. An examination of his proxy network during Anne’s reign leaves one no wiser. In the 1704–5 session and again in the spring of 1707 his proxy was held by his wife’s nephew, Henry Grey*, 12th earl (later marquess and ultimately duke) of Kent; in December 1711 by Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun; and in the spring of 1714 by James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.</p><p>In February 1700 Maynard voted against the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. In January 1703, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, counted him as a supporter of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. In fact he was said to have voted against the bill on 16 Jan. 1703, although he is not listed as having attended the House on this date and there is no record of the registration of a proxy. In November of that year, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, twice listed him as a supporter of the bill, and it seems likely that Maynard’s three attendances that year (on 24, 26 and 29 Nov.) did relate to the controversy over occasional conformity. In December 1703 he is recorded as having voted for the bill by proxy, but no register of proxies survives for that session and it is not possible to identify the holder. Maynard was listed as a supporter of the Tack in November 1704, but there is no record that he attended to vote; instead on 18 Nov. he registered a proxy with his wife’s nephew, Kent. In or about April 1705 he was said to be a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He covered the 1707 session (the last of the English Parliament) with another proxy to Kent. In 1708 he was described as a Whig. In 1710 his failure to attend and vote at the trial of Dr Sacheverell was explained by illness.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Despite the fact that Maynard had not attended the House for three years, in October 1710 Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, considered him certain to oppose the ministry. A year later he recorded Maynard as a supporter and included him (albeit with a query) in the list of peers to be canvassed before the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, but Maynard had already registered a proxy (on 7 Dec. 1711) with Mohun, who was a Whig. In February 1713, Oxford included Maynard in a list of peers to be canvassed before the forthcoming session, and in March Jonathan Swift considered him to be a supporter of the ministry. In June 1713 he was forecast as a supporter of the French commercial treaty, but he did not attend and once again there is no record of a proxy. In May 1714 Nottingham listed him as a supporter of the Schism bill, but yet again he did not attend and his proxy, which had been registered to Ormond on 17 Mar. 1714, was vacated by his presence in the House on 19 March. After the Hanoverian succession Maynard’s politics seems to have been less equivocal. His son-in-law, Sir William Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, his younger brother, Thomas Maynard<sup>‡</sup>, and his nephew, Robert Wroth<sup>‡</sup>, were all considered to be supporters of the administration after 1715. Support for the ministry is also indicated by the recipients of his proxies after the Hanoverian succession: Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, from 14 Apr. 1716, and Kent on 2 Apr. and 27 Nov. 1717.</p><p>Maynard died in 1718 at Little Easton, Essex, and was succeeded by his son Henry Maynard<sup>†</sup>, 4th Baron Maynard. His will made in December 1705 bequeathed his robes and coronet to his then eldest son, William, directed that he be ‘privately and decently buried … but not in a vain pompous manner’ and provided generously for the poor.</p> |
R.P. |
|
MAYNARD, William (1623-99) |
<p><strong><surname>MAYNARD</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1623–99)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 17 Dec. 1640 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. MAYNARD |
|
First sat before 1660, 10 July 1644; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 3 May 1695 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1623, o. surv. s. of William Maynard<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Maynard and Anne Everard. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1641, Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1649), da. of Sir Robert Banastre, 2s. ?2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) bef. 6 June 1661,<sup>1</sup> Margaret (<em>d</em>.1682), da. and coh. of William Murray, earl of Dysart [S], 1s. d.v.p., 1da. <em>d</em>. 6 Feb 1699;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 31 May 1698, pr. 22 May 1699.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1672-9; comptroller of the household 1672-87.</p><p>Jt. ld. lt., Cambs. 1640-88; <em>custos rot</em>. Essex Sept. 1673, Feb. 1685.</p><p>Capt. regt. of horse 1666.</p> |
|
<p>The Maynard family fortune was founded by the 2nd baron’s grandfather, Henry Maynard<sup>‡</sup>, who served at the court of Elizabeth I. Henry Maynard’s son, also named William Maynard, was a Member of the Commons during the reign of James I; he received an Irish peerage in 1620 and an English one in 1628. The 1st Baron and his brother Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup> (not to be confused with the judge of the same name) were both associated with the Presbyterians, as was the 2nd Baron Maynard. Through his mother the 2nd Baron was related to the fiercely Protestant families of Barnardiston and Armine which included Sir Thomas Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Crew*, later 2nd Baron Crew.</p><p>Maynard was initially supportive of the parliamentarian cause. He came of age after the decisive split of 1642 and chose to attend the House of Lords at Westminster. Opposition to the army led to a charge of treason in 1647, but the prosecution was dropped and by the end of 1648 he was one of only 28 peers that the Commons deemed eligible to sit in the House of Lords. In January 1649 he was a member of the majority group in the Lords which voted against the ordinance for the trial of the king, thus helping to precipitate the final abolition of the House. Thereafter he was associated with the royalists. He was imprisoned by Cromwell in 1654 and was involved in the organization of a rising in 1659.<sup>4</sup> Yet he remained sufficiently close to the parliamentarians to be invited to the first sitting of the House of Lords on 25 Apr. 1660, and on 27 Apr. was named as one of the managers of the conference on ways and means to make up the breaches and distractions of the kingdom. Together with Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick, he took command of a militia regiment of foot in Essex.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Maynard’s landholdings were concentrated in Essex and East Anglia. His parliamentary influence after the Restoration was exerted in favour of the court; his son, Banastre Maynard*, later 3rd Baron Maynard, represented Essex in the Commons from 1663 to 1679, and his cousin, Sir William Maynard<sup>‡</sup>, sat for the county in 1685. According to Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup>, who wrote with approval of Maynard’s ‘good correspondencie’ with the gentlemen of Essex, he was well esteemed in the county.<sup>6</sup> At the return of the king, Maynard’s troop of ‘richly habited’ gentlemen assembled ready to greet him should he choose to land on the Essex coast, and Maynard was one of the peers who accompanied the king on his entrance to the City.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Maynard was present on just under 59 per cent of sitting days during the Convention. On 23 July 1660 he dissented to the resolution to omit Matthew Tomlinson’s name from the warrant to apprehend the regicides. On 24 Aug. he presented a petition concerning sequestrated lands. As a Protestant and a parliamentary sympathizer, Maynard’s own lands had escaped seizure, but he was anxious to recover lands once owned by his father-in-law, Sir Robert Banastre, and now claimed by Maynard’s son and heir, Banastre Maynard.<sup>8</sup> His second wife, Anne Murray, and her sisters, had their own claims for compensation from the crown, ‘None have suffered more than they by the late times, being twice plundered, sequestered, and forced to purchase their land at an unreasonable rate.’<sup>9</sup></p><p>During the first session of the Cavalier Parliament (1661-2) Maynard was present for 51 per cent of sitting days. On 19 May 1662 his signature to a protest concerning the rejection of by the Commons of amendments to the highways bill amounted to unequivocal support for the Lords’ right to alter money bills. Maynard’s attendance during the 1663 session remained at 51 per cent. A brief absence between 7 and 12 Mar. was covered by a proxy to Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend. In 1663 Maynard was listed as an opponent of the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. His dissent on 25 July 1663 to the passage of the amendment to the Act of Uniformity to the effect that the declaration and subscription solely related to practice and obedience to the act, suggests that he had moved firmly into mainstream Anglicanism.</p><p>Over the next several sessions Maynard’s attendance dropped: to 33 per cent in 1664; 22 per cent in 1664-5; 29 per cent in 1666-7. He failed to attend the brief session of October 1665 at all. In April 1666, when Parliament was not sitting, he was summoned as one of the triers of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, who was accused of murder. He found Morley not guilty. The contentious 1667-8 session saw him present for 33 per cent of sitting days. Perhaps significantly, he was absent for the first three weeks of November 1667. His return to the chamber on 20 Nov. coincided with the division on whether Clarendon could be committed on a general charge. There is no evidence to show which way he cast his vote, but he did not sign the protest at the House’s decision not to commit Clarendon.</p><p>During the 1669 session Maynard was present for just under 53 per cent of sitting days; this dropped to just over 45 per cent in the following (1670-1) session, but he left no mark of his parliamentary activities. A stray reference to his presence at the house of Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington, together with his sister in law, Elizabeth Tollemache, <em>suo jure</em> countess of Dysart [S], may be indicative of his factional alliances at court.<sup>10</sup> Lady Dysart’s marriage in 1672 to John Maitland*, then earl (but soon to be duke) of Lauderdale [S], brought Maynard into a valuable political network. In 1672 through Lauderdale’s influence, he was appointed comptroller of the household, a post which not only brought him close to the centre of power but which also meant that he was trusted with huge sums of money; his accounts show that he was handling some £58,000 a year.<sup>11</sup></p><p>His new responsibilities may explain his increased attendance in the House. During the first session of 1673 his attendance rose to 69 percent; he was present on each of the four days of the second session of that year and missed only one day of the 1674 session. He was even present for the prorogation day of 10 Nov. 1674. On 13 Jan. 1674 he voluntarily took the oath of allegiance, as prescribed under the statute of James I. His high level of attendance continued in both sessions of 1675; he was present on 90 per cent of the sitting days in the first session and missed only one day of the second. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), now considered him to be a supporter of the non-resisting test, and it was perhaps as something of an incentive to support the court that in February 1675 the king and James*, duke of York, both asked the brethren of Trinity House to grant Maynard a reversionary lease of the ballast office.<sup>12</sup> So firmly was he now attached to the court interest that shortly before the opening of the second 1675 session, when secretary Williamson wrote to James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, at Newmarket asking him to send a proxy for use by the government, he named Maynard as the likely recipient. Suffolk replied that he and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, had already sent their proxies to Maynard, and this is confirmed by the House of Lords proxy books.<sup>13</sup> Both proxies were vacated within a fortnight – when the race meeting was over. In November 1675 Maynard was one of those called to the House by Danby to support the crown by voting against the address requesting a dissolution. It was reported that he and Lauderdale had been playing at cards that afternoon and arrived in the House in the nick of time to save the government.<sup>14</sup> Between 1675 and 1677 he also had personal reasons for attending the House, since he was trying to secure a private bill to alter his son’s marriage settlement. His first bill went through the House in May 1675, but was then lost, probably because it was too late in the session to receive attention in the Commons. A second bill met a similar fate in November 1675. His third bill began its passage through the House in February 1676 and received the royal assent in May 1677. In June 1676 in the court of the lord high steward, he was one of only six peers to find Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, guilty of manslaughter.<sup>15</sup> A rare surviving letter corroborates his firm adherence to the Anglican Church, suggests a somewhat fawning attitude to Danby, and provides almost the only glimpse of his political attitudes. He told Danby that it was essential for the king to continue,</p><blockquote><p>firm to the resolutions he now has, of encouraging loyalty and obedience in his subjects … but when we are fixed to no steady principles; and that none or very few are rewarded but for flying in the king's face it’s no wonder to have it grown so much in fashion; but when people see that that is not the way to preferment, they will grow wiser and follow those ways that will bring them to it.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>The long 1677-8 session saw Maynard present for all but four sitting days. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, listed him as triply vile. Between 12 Feb. and 9 Apr. 1677 he again held Suffolk’s proxy. He also held that of Lauderdale (now created earl of Guilford in the English peerage) from 29 Jan. and that of Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, from 9 April. Both were vacated at the end of the session on 13 May. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder. His high attendance continued in the May to July session of which he missed only one day, and in the autumn 1678 session of which he missed just three. In November 1678 he voted against the declaration against transubstantiation being under same penalty as the oaths, and in December he voted in favour of the Lords amendment (concerning the payment of money into the exchequer) to the bill for disbanding the army. Throughout the winter and spring of 1678-9 he was consistently marked as a supporter of Danby, voted against his committal and against the bill of attainder.</p><p>During the brief first Exclusion Parliament he attended on all bar one of the brief six-day session and again all bar one of the full 61-day session. From 19 Mar. to 7 Apr. 1679 he again held Suffolk’s proxy. On 10 May he voted against the appointment of a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against impeached lords; on 14 May he entered a dissent to the passing of the bill for the regulation of trials of peers; and on 27 May, he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. He was present at the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament on 17 Oct. 1679 and for the prorogation days on 26 Jan., 15 Mar. and 17 May 1680. He then attended for all but one day of the ensuing session.</p><p>In March 1679 he was one of the witnesses to the king’s declaration that he had never been married to the mother of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>17</sup> At the remodelling of the Privy Council in April he was left out, but he was more concerned to discover in October that he had also been left out of the commission for taking the oaths of members of the Commons.<sup>18</sup> That month he deputized for the lord chamberlain at the opening of Parliament.<sup>19</sup> On 15 Nov. 1680 he voted to reject the Exclusion bill at its first reading and also opposed the appointment of a committee to consider the state of the nation. The following month he found Stafford guilty.</p><p>Maynard’s association with Danby was such that in December 1680, he wrote to warn his patron of a rumoured grant that had the potential to damage Danby’s daughter, the widowed Lady Plymouth.<sup>20</sup> On 19 Jan. 1681 Danby sought to use Maynard to lobby Banastre Maynard’s brother-in-law, Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, in his favour. Early in March as part of his preparations for the Oxford Parliament, he instructed his son ‘to speak to my Lord Maynard to see if he can make earl Kent for my bail or to be present.’<sup>21</sup> Maynard loyally attended and, unsurprisingly, was expected to vote in favour of bailing Danby. That Maynard was more than a fair weather friend to Danby was shown by events after the dissolution of Charles II’s last Parliament. Appointed as a member of the court of delegates to consider the legality of the Hyde-Emerton marriage, he voted in favour of the case for Danby’s son.<sup>22</sup> Early in 1684 he added his name in support of Danby’s petition for release.<sup>23</sup> At the accession of James II he was still in favour and was re-appointed comptroller of the household. He attended all but two days of James II’s Parliament in 1685. Kent’s proxy was registered to him on 14 Nov. but as Kent was present the following day it is not clear whether it was actually used.</p><p>Maynard soon found himself out of sympathy with the new government. In 1686 he was one of the triers who found Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), not guilty of treason.<sup>24</sup> Despite this show of opposition, there were those who believed that he was about to turn Catholic to please the court.<sup>25</sup> Early in 1687 Maynard proved the rumours wrong when he was summoned to an interview with James II. Maynard not only told the king of his opposition to the repeal of the test acts but virtually accused him of planning to pack the House of Lords with Catholics.<sup>26</sup> As a result he was dismissed as comptroller of the household.<sup>27</sup> Throughout 1687 he was listed as an opponent of the king’s policies, yet for all his fears of Catholicism, he continued to support James during the revolution of 1688. On 7 Dec. 1688 he wrote to assure Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], that although he had left London, he had not fled to the prince of Orange but stood ‘ready to obey any summons or commands that the king or your lordship shall lay upon me.’<sup>28</sup> Possibly he was anxious to distance himself from the actions of his former son-in-law, John Wroth<sup>‡</sup>, who had assisted Princess Anne’s escape from London. On 26 Dec. it was reported that he was one of the few peers who had refused to sign the association.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Maynard was present for just over 82 per cent of the sitting days in the first session of the Convention. In January 1689 he voted in favour of a regency and against declaring the prince and princess of Orange to be king and queen. The following month he opposed the Commons resolution that James II had abdicated. In March 1689 he held the proxy of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington. In May he opposed reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates, following this up in July with support for the adhering to the Lords’ amendments on the subject. On 2 July he entered a dissent to the impeachment of Blair, Vaughan, Mole, Elliot and Gray. From 23 July he held the proxy of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington and Cork [I]. The second session saw a slight dip in Maynard’s attendance, down to 71 per cent. On 19 Nov. he entered a protest against the clandestine marriages bill, arguing that a marriage once celebrated and consummated could not be nulled. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) assessed him as a supporter of the court, albeit one who needed to be spoken to.</p><p>At the general election of 1690 together with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, and Henry Compton*, of London he led the Essex opposition to the election of the Whig Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>30</sup> His attendance during the first session of the new Parliament rose significantly; he missed only three days, but then fell back to just under 59 per cent in the second (1690-1) session. During the winter of 1691-2, in a list of questionable accuracy, William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, forecast that Maynard would support his bill for the restoration of lands lost during the Interregnum. Maynard’s attendance in the following two sessions (1691-2 and 1692-3) rose slightly to just under 66 per cent, but there is no evidence of his activity other than his dissent on 12 Jan. 1692 to the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, his opposition to the passage of the place bill (including a dissent on 12 Dec. 1692 to its committal) and his continuing resistance to Norfolk’s attempts to divorce his wife.</p><p>Maynard’s attendance revived for the 1693-4 session, rising to 85 per cent. Just what had attracted his attention is unclear. On 22 Dec. 1693 he protested against the resolution to allow the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgman to withdraw their petition in the case of <em>Bridgman v. Holt</em>. On 17 Feb. 1694 he supported Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in his attempt to overturn a decree in the notorious Albemarle inheritance case, entering a dissent at the decision to dismiss Montagu’s petition and entering a further dissent on 24 Feb. when Montagu’s request for the production of exhibits in the case was also dismissed.</p><p>Maynard did not attend any further sessions of Parliament. When the House attempted to secure the attendance of all its members for the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> in 1696, Maynard responded to the request with an account of the sickness he had endured since December 1695 and for which he begged to be excused, his age giving him ‘little hope of improvement.’<sup>31</sup> After 1695 his sole recorded parliamentary activity is the giving of his proxy on 30 June 1698 to Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, possibly for use in the impeachment of John Goudet and other merchants accused of trading with France.</p><p>Maynard died in 1699. His will specified that he be buried privately in flannel; he bequeathed his parliament robes and coronet to his son and heir, Banastre Maynard, and endowed a charity to be set up for the benefit of the church and poor of Thaxted.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
MILDMAY, Benjamin (1646-79) |
<p><strong><surname>MILDMAY</surname></strong>, <strong>Benjamin</strong> (1646–79)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. Mar. 1662 as de jure 17th Bar. FITZWALTER; <em>sum. </em>10 Feb. 1670 as Bar. FITZWALTER |
|
First sat 14 Feb. 1670; last sat 12 Apr. 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. ?Feb. 1646, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Robert Mildmay (<em>d</em>.1646) of Overton, Northants. and Mary, 3rd da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Edmonds. <em>m</em>. 6 Dec. 1669 (lic. vic. gen.) Catherine (<em>d</em>.1725), o. da. of William Fairfax, 3rd Visct. Fairfax [I], and Elizabeth, da. of Alexander Smith, 2s. 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.)<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 1 June 1679; <em>admon</em>. 27 June 1679.</p> |
|
|
<p>The Mildmay claim to the ancient barony of Fitwalter, first made in 1641 by Sir Henry Mildmay of Moulsham, was contested by another Essex family, the Cheekes of Pirgo. Although his claim was not heard, Sir Henry did in practice assume the title.<sup>2</sup> Sir Henry’s grandson, another Henry, entered his own claim in 1660 but died shortly afterwards. Henry’s younger brother Benjamin revived the claim in 1667, although, like his grandfather, he was already using the title.<sup>3</sup> Mildmay had copies of his pedigree printed and circulated: 50 copies still survive amongst his private papers.<sup>4</sup> The case did reach a full hearing with counsel heard at bar in 1668 ‘but weightier affairs interposing’, no judgment could be had before the prorogation of Parliament.<sup>5</sup> The following October Mildmay petitioned the king again.<sup>6</sup> The claim raised two major issues. The barony of Fitzwalter was a medieval creation by writ, but it had been held in tandem with the viscountcy of Fitzwalter and earldom of Sussex, both of which were peerages created by letters patent at a later date. At the death of Robert Ratcliff<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Sussex, in 1643 the earldom and viscountcy were both extinguished for failure of male heirs. The Mildmay claim to the ancient barony rested on descent through the 5th earl’s half sister. An additional issue for consideration was whether, irrespective of the rules of descent, such a barony could part company from the earldom with which it had long been associated. The case was heard and resolved in Mildmay’s favour at a meeting of the Privy Council on 19 Jan. 1670. Mildmay’s ability to have his case heard in council was the more surprising given that his closest political connection seems to have been with his cousin and brother-in-law, the former parliamentarian activist Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup> of Little Baddow, and that another cousin, Sir Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup> of Wanstead, was regarded as a regicide. It may be significant that one of the privy councillors present at the hearing of his claim was the former parliamentarian, Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle. The two men were allies: Carlisle held Fitzwalter’s proxy for most of 1670. Mildmay also took steps to get support from former royalists; he was reputed to have paid George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, 1,000 guineas and to have courted the friendship of Charles II’s mistress, Barbara Palmer, duchess of Cleveland.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Fitzwalter’s writ was issued on 10 Feb. 1670, enabling him to take his seat on 14 Feb., the first day of the 1670-1 session, and to secure nomination to the committees for privileges and petitions. On 8 Mar. he claimed precedence over all other barons then sitting. This issue touched the prestige of ancient baronies held alongside higher titles, such as the dukedom of Norfolk (Baron Mowbray) and the earldom of Northumberland (Baron Percy). Sensitivities were such that the House refused to decide the case immediately. A full hearing was scheduled for 22 Mar., but on that and following days the House was deeply involved in debates over the conventicles bill and the Roos divorce. On 24 Mar. the House voted to postpone the case until the first sitting on a Wednesday after midsummer. In the event a long mid-sessional adjournment meant that the first sitting after midsummer was not until October. Fitzwalter attended on 25 Mar. but was then absent until 27 Oct., covering himself with a proxy in favour of Carlisle. His next attendance was on 4 Nov., the day appointed by the House to hear his case. His claim met with strenuous opposition; it was even argued that despite the decision of the Privy Council his precedence should be calculated only from the date of his own writ of summons.<sup>8</sup> The House made its decision on 10 Nov. when Fitzwalter agreed to be seated as the last baron of Edward I, a compromise that left the superior precedence of his major opponent, George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley (later earl of Berkeley) intact. Fitzwalter continued to attend the House for several days, perhaps to underline his newly acknowledged seniority. He made only one other appearance that session, on 11 Feb. 1671, when the business of the day again involved a claim of precedence, this time that of Berkeley. Over all, his attendance had scarcely risen above ten percent of sitting days and he had been named to only two select committees.</p><p>Fitzwalter was present on 23 of the 38 days of the first session of 1673 and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions as well as to two select committees. Once again his attendance appears to have been driven by self interest, this time a complaint of breach of privilege in an attempt to bolster his position during a long running and bitter dispute with local fishermen about fishing rights in the River Burnham.<sup>9</sup> The even briefer second session of 1673 saw him present on only one of its four days.</p><p>Fitzwalter’s attendance reached 71 per cent in the similarly short session of 1674. He missed the opening of the session and so was not added to the committees for privileges or petitions. He took the oath of allegiance on 14 Jan. but apart from one nomination to a select committee, nothing is otherwise known about his parliamentary activities.</p><p>During the spring session of 1675 Fitzwalter’s attendance fell to approximately 39 per cent, and he was again absent when the committees for privileges and petitions were named. In the course of the session he was named to only one select committee. Nevertheless, this session provides the first indication of his political sympathies. He was present in the House on 26 Apr. when several peers signed a protest against the decision to commit the non-resisting test bill. Although he himself did not sign this protest, he did sign the protest of 29 Apr. at the resolution that it reflected on the honour of the House and which emphasized the right to protest as one of the privileges of peerage. The second session of 1675 saw him again missing the opening of the session. He was present for half the sitting days and was named to one select committee. He was thought to be in favour of the address to the Crown for a dissolution of parliament but was absent for the division on 20 November.</p><p>As political controversies grew deeper, Fitzwalter faded from the scene. Listed by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury as triply worthy his low attendance (just over 27 per cent) during the 1677-8 session devalued any support he might have to offer. He was as usual added to the committees for privileges and petitions. On 8 Feb. 1678 he once more sought the benefit of privilege, again in relation to the dispute over fishing rights in Burnham River. The depth of bitterness engendered by the dispute led to a challenge to the authority of the House. On 19 Feb. the House learned that whilst attempting to arrest the offenders, the sergeant at arms’ servants had been attacked and beaten ‘by a great number of fishermen and their servants with clubs and hedge stakes’. The sheriff of Essex was accordingly instructed to raise a force to assist in the arrest of the offenders both for their offence against Fitzwalter and for their high contempt of the House. During the debates about the release of Shaftesbury in spring 1678 Fitzwalter’s proxy was held by George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax. Fitzwalter did not attend the last few days of the session, but with rising anxieties about the popish plot, registered his proxy on 18 Nov. to Shaftesbury.</p><p>Fitzwalter attended on only seven of the 43 sitting days of the first session of 1678. He did not attend the next (the second of 1678) at all. In response to a call of the House on 19 Dec. 1678 his servants told the House that Fitzwalter was ‘so sick of a fever, that he is not able to attend this House without danger of his life.’</p><p>He first attended the first Exclusion Parliament on 11 Mar. 1679, during the abortive first session, when he took the new oaths and was as usual added to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was again added to the committees for privileges and petitions as well as to the committee to receive informations concerning the popish plot when the session opened properly on 17 March. He attended intermittently until 12 Apr. before once again succumbing to illness, only appearing on 25 per cent of all sitting days. Despite the indications that he was closer to Shaftesbury’s opposition group than to the court, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) wrote to solicit his proxy. Fitzwalter was too ill to reply; his wife sent a polite acknowledgement referring to some as yet untraced ‘former favours’ from Danby but explaining that,</p><blockquote><p>in a business of this import he believes he should not use that great privilege so justly as he ought to do it without hearing the business he gives his vote for: if his condition of health will permit him to be at the hearing you may be assured he will not disserve my lord.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>Not surprisingly, in the lists that Danby drew up that spring, Fitzwalter was marked as ‘doubtful’. Fitzwalter died the following June and was succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Charles Mildmay*, as 18th Baron Fitzwalter.</p> |
R.P. |
|
MILDMAY, Charles (1670-1728) |
<p><strong><surname>MILDMAY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1670–1728)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1 June 1679 (a minor) as 18th Bar. FITZWALTER (FITZWATER). |
|
First sat 6 Nov. 1691; last sat 10 July 1727 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 31 Aug. 1670, 1st s. of Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Bar. Fitzwalter, and Catherine Fairfax (<em>d</em>. 1725);<sup>1</sup> bro. of Benjamin Mildmay<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Fitzwalter. <em>educ</em>. Clapham sch. c.1680. <em>m</em>. 8 June 1683 (with £9,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1738), da. of Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, of Uffington, Lincs., grandda. of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, <em>sep</em>. by Jan. 1715, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 16 Feb. 1728; <em>will</em> 25 Mar. 1726, pr. 27 Feb. 1728.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Fitzwalter succeeded to the family estates centred around their seat in Moulsham, Essex, at the death of his father in the summer of 1679. Although the poor survival of family papers leaves much about his life obscure, it is known that he attended a school in Clapham kept by a Mr Tanner and that his schoolfellows included Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, and two of the grandsons of William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard. The Maynards attended church but Fitzwalter, like Tanner and the schoolmaster, regularly attended a conventicle. Fitzwalter must have become aware of religious persecution at a young age, for in the mid-1680s Tanner and his schoolmaster both fell victim to the ‘Tory reaction’ and were prosecuted in the church courts.<sup>5</sup> In view of this experience, it is perhaps not surprising that, although Fitzwalter was underage at the time, his name was included in a list of peers who opposed the policies of James II drawn up in the late spring of 1687. He was still underage at the 1690 election but was nevertheless active in support of Whig candidates in Essex, one of them being his kinsman Sir Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup>. After the poll, the successful candidates, Mildmay and Sir Francis Masham<sup>‡</sup>, were entertained by Fitzwalter and the other peers who had backed them and they later accompanied Fitzwalter to church.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Although he was eligible to attend Parliament from the opening of the 1691–2 session on 22 Oct., Fitzwalter delayed taking his seat for a fortnight. Having taken his place at last on 6 Nov. he was then present for 51 per cent of the remaining sitting days (53 per cent of the whole) and was named to four committees. The following month he was one of those who ‘pressed it very much’ for the motion introduced by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, calling for the suppression of playhouses following the attack on Henry Grey*, Viscount Longueville.<sup>7</sup> On 12 Feb. 1692 he registered his proxy in favour of Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>During the 1692–3 session Fitzwalter’s attendance dropped to just over 41 per cent of sitting days; he was named to five committees. On 7 Dec. 1692 he entered a protest against the failure of a proposal to form a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. Although he was not present for the division on the second reading of the place bill on 31 Dec. he was in the House on 3 Jan. 1693 to vote for it and to subscribe the protest at its failure. The following month, in common with the majority of his colleagues, he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1693 Fitzwalter married Elizabeth Bertie.<sup>9</sup> The marriage brought financial reward, though the marriage settlement reveals the lady’s portion to have been £9,000 rather than the £10,000 recorded by Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>10</sup> It also allied him with an extensive clan, closely connected to Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), whose Tory sympathies were very different from what until that date had seemed to be his own whiggish inclinations. Whatever the reason might have been, the marriage proved to be an unhappy one. Formal articles of separation were drawn up in 1714, apparently at Lady Fitzwalter’s request, but it seems likely that the couple had parted earlier for it was remarked that ‘Lady Fitzwalter does well to leave her Lord since he left her’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>During the 1693–4 session Fitzwalter was present for just under 47 per cent of sitting days and was named to 12 committees. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted in favour of the appeal submitted by Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the Albemarle inheritance case. During that month he was also active at the Essex by-election in collaboration with Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, on behalf of his younger brother, Benjamin.<sup>12</sup> Fitzwalter’s intervention was somewhat clumsy and resulted in splitting the Dissenting vote. Moreover, both he and Manchester infuriated the Commons by voting at the poll.<sup>13</sup></p><p>The 1694–5 session saw a slight rise in his attendance, which now averaged 50 per cent of sitting days. He was named to nine committees in addition to the sub-committee for the Journal, one of which concerned the claim of Richard Verney* to the barony of Brooke, a case in which Fitzwalter may have had an interest on account of the descent of his own peerage. His father’s example was later cited as supporting evidence for Willoughby de Broke (as Verney became) not needing to pay fees on his first appearance as he was deemed to be a lord by descent rather than as a new creation.<sup>14</sup> On 23 Jan. 1695 he entered a dissent at the resolution that the implementation of the provisions of the bill for regulating treason trials be put off until 1698.</p><p>Fitzwalter was active once more in his native Essex for the election in the autumn of 1695. He joined with Manchester in support of Sir Francis Masham and another kinsman, Francis Mildmay, in opposition to the Tory candidate, Sir Charles Barrington<sup>‡</sup>. The result was victory for Barrington and Masham.<sup>15</sup> During the first session of the 1695 Parliament Fitzwalter’s attendance fell to just over a third of sitting days. He was named to six committees and signed the Association in the House on 5 Mar. 1696 as well as signing it locally.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Fitzwalter was absent for the first few weeks of the contentious 1696–7 session and was one of the peers ordered by the House to attend. He responded to the command and thereafter attended the House conscientiously for the period of Sir John Fenwick’s<sup>‡</sup> attainder. He was also present for the subsequent disputes about the role played by Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), but, in common with his Bertie in-laws, he used his attendance to oppose the court. On 23 Dec. he voted to acquit Fenwick and entered a protest at his conviction stressing the procedural irregularities that had occurred during the course of the trial. Although listed as present on 15 Jan. 1697 Fitzwalter was not named to the committee to draw up a representation to the king concerning the resolution to imprison Monmouth. That the omission was deliberate is suggested by an account of the debates by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, which indicates that Fitzwalter was one of about a dozen disgruntled peers who voted against the resolution and whom Godolphin accused of ‘idle and frivolous impertinencies as well as … strange and extravagant madnesses’. All were excluded from the committee.<sup>17</sup> Fitzwalter was back in the House on 20 Jan. when he informed James Brydges*, later duke of Chandos, of the imminent promotion to the peerage of Arnold Joost van Keppel*, as earl of Albemarle.<sup>18</sup> Thereafter his attendance tailed off and overall averaged just over 38 per cent of sitting days. He was absent from the House between 10 Feb. and 7 Apr. but did not register his proxy until 13 Mar., when it was entered in favour of Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become). During the course of the session he was named to 12 committees.</p><p>Over the summer of 1697 Fitzwalter was responsible for committing John Leatherhead to gaol in Chelmsford on suspicion of having come into the country from France. Leatherhead was summoned to appear before the secretary of state, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>19</sup> Fitzwalter returned to his place for the following 1697–8 session, during which he was present for approximately 37 per cent of sitting days and was named to 14 committees. On 4 Mar. 1698 he protested against giving a second reading to the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 16 June he acted as one of the tellers for the vote concerning amendments to the Russian trade bill, which had been proposed by the Russia Company. His last attendance of the session was on 17 June, on which day he was named to the committee for Trafford’s bill, but it was not until 28 June that he registered his proxy in favour of John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys.</p><p>During the 1698–9 session Fitzwalter’s attendance rose to 44 per cent of sitting days. He was appointed to eight committees, including that for enlarging the trade to Russia. In February he opposed the king’s retention of the Dutch guards and entered a protest at the passage of the resolution in their favour. The increase in his attendance proved to be a temporary one, for during the 1699–1700 session he was present on just under 23 per cent of sitting days, and did not attend the first half of the session at all. He first took his seat on 8 Feb. 1700, when he was clearly attracted by the debates over the Darien scheme and entered a protest against the decision to put the question that the settlement at Darien was inconsistent with the good of the plantation trade of England. Two days later he was missing from the attendance list but presumably took his place later on in the day as he was then named to his only committee for the session. Later that month he voted in favour of adjourning into a committee of the whole House to discuss whether to continue the East India Company as a corporation.</p><p>During the first Parliament of 1701 Fitzwalter’s attendance recovered to just under 38 per cent of sitting days, probably because of the political excitement caused by the impeachment of the Whig lords. Although he was missing from the attendance list (and from the list of those lords taking the oaths – an omission which he rectified the following day) at the opening on 10 Feb., he appears, once more, to have taken his place later that day as he was included in the list of lords nominated to the committee for privileges. Besides this, he was named to seven committees. In June 1701 he voted for the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford.</p><p>The Tory resurgence during the next Parliament (1701–2) probably explains why his attendance again fell back to 18 per cent (though he was named to ten committees during this period). In February 1702 he wrote to Somers, apparently assuring him of his continued support in response to news that the Commons intended to turn on the impeached lords again as ‘the cocks to be set up for that day’s sport’.<sup>20</sup> During the first (1702–3) session of the new Parliament Fitzwalter’s attendance dropped to just under 12 per cent. The election had seen him willing to flout the Commons’ order prohibiting peers from voting in elections, which had in part been inspired by his behaviour together with Manchester at the elections in 1694, as well as the experience of the Maldon poll for 1698. The Commons seem to have paid no attention on this occasion.<sup>21</sup> Fitzwalter’s attendances during the session were concentrated in December 1702, when the major issue was the bill to prevent occasional conformity. Since Fitzwalter was almost certainly an occasional conformist himself, he was not surprisingly listed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as an opponent of the bill.</p><p>During the 1703–4 session his attendance fell still further, to just under 6 per cent of sitting days. On 4 Jan. 1704 he was one of a number of peers sent letters demanding that they appear in the House. It may have been in response to this that he was noted as having given his proxy to Somers (though this is not recorded in the proxy book) and it was not until 14 Feb. that he took his place; his subsequent attendances were concentrated in the remaining days of that month.<sup>22</sup> While it is tempting to link them to worries about the Scotch conspiracy, it is more likely that he was in pursuit of an opportunity to raise an issue of privilege relating to a longstanding local dispute about fishing rights in Burnham Water.<sup>23</sup> Despite his apparent lack of concern about attendance in the Lords, he nevertheless remained anxious to exert his interest in parliamentary elections. In April 1704 he seems to have been keen to back Sir Thomas Webster<sup>‡</sup> as a potential knight of the shire for Essex.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Fitzwalter was present for the opening of the session on 24 Oct. 1704. He was again present on 3 Nov. but, despite the political controversies of the day, he was then absent for the following three months. His proxy was held by Mohun from 22 Nov. until his return to the House on 1 Feb. 1705. This, like his support for Somers and the other Whig lords, suggests a growing distance between Fitzwalter and his Bertie relatives. He attended the House almost daily until the end of the month but it is difficult to relate his attendance to any specific issue or issues. His presence on 12 and 13 Mar. was almost certainly related to discussions on the militia bill, since it was later reported that there had been several changes to the Essex militia ‘ever since the Whig party came in fashion’ and that one of the beneficiaries had been Fitzwalter’s brother, Benjamin.<sup>25</sup> In April 1705 he was unsurprisingly listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.</p><p>At the 1705 election Fitzwalter backed the election of Tory-turned-Whig Henry Howard*, then styled Lord Walden (later earl of Bindon and 6th earl of Suffolk).<sup>26</sup> During the 1705–6 session he was present on just over a quarter of sitting days, but, although the session began on 25 Oct. 1705, he did not arrive in the House until 21 Jan. 1706. He was named to eight committees, one of which concerned a private bill promoted by an Essex neighbour, William Forbes, and another whose task was to draw up an address to the queen for a census of Catholics living in England. In August 1706 Narcissus Luttrell reported the appointment of Benjamin Fitzwalter as equerry to Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland.<sup>27</sup> During the next session, 1706–7, Fitzwalter was present for just under a third of sitting days. Again his attendances were concentrated in the spring and again there is no obvious political or local issue to which his presence can be ascribed: some of his attendances coincided with discussions of union with Scotland, others did not. Although his name was omitted from the attendance list in the printed Journal for 14 Mar. 1707, the manuscript minutes indicate that he acted as one of the tellers during a division on the game bill that day in a committee of the whole House.</p><p>Fitzwalter was present for just two days of the brief April session in 1707, for three days during the 1707–8 session of the first Parliament of Great Britain and for four days during the first (1708–9) session of the 1708 Parliament. His somewhat mercurial attendance was presumably responsible for him being classified both as a Whig and as of unknown party loyalty in a list of affiliations drawn up in May 1708. The revival of political and religious controversy caused by the Sacheverell affair brought about a similar revival of Fitzwalter’s interest in Parliament. Over the course of the 1709–10 session his attendance increased to some 40 per cent of sitting days, almost all of which were concentrated into the period after 26 Jan. 1710. On 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell guilty.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Following the fall of Godolphin and his Junto allies in the summer of 1710, Fitzwalter was listed by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as one of a group of peers of ‘doubtful allegiance’ whose support Harley was eager to gain for the ministry. Fitzwalter was recruited by Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, who had clearly promised him some reward in return for his support. As such he appears to have been relatively unusual among Whig peers brought into the fold, but the importance of securing these two peers’ votes was apparent enough.<sup>29</sup> Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, wrote anxiously in October 1710 that ‘If something be not done for Lord Fitzwalter that will lose him and disgust Lord Rivers, who engaged for it’.<sup>30</sup> Fitzwalter’s attendance over the 1710–11 session remained at what for him was a fairly high level, some 35 per cent of sitting days. The pattern of attendance in January 1711 suggests concern about the state of the war with Spain after the defeat at Alamanza, but thereafter there is little indication as to what attracted his attention and it is noteworthy that he did not attend the House for the hearings in the Greenshields case.</p><p>By the end of 1711 Fitzwalter was in receipt of a court pension worth £600 a year.<sup>31</sup> He was present for the prorogation days of 10 July, 9 Oct. and 17 November. On that of 9 Oct. he introduced the lord keeper, Simon Harcourt*, as Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt. Nevertheless, his attendance dropped to some 28 per cent of sitting days in the 1711–12 session. His presence on 8 Dec. 1711 ensured his nomination to the committee for privileges but his real purpose in attending the House was to vote against the ministry on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. His vote seems to have become the subject of a bidding war, for Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, acting on behalf of the Hanoverian resident, Bothmer, offered Fitzwalter £1,200, which he accepted, as he later wrote, ‘with the more pleasure’ as he had become aware of the bad intentions of the ministry.<sup>32</sup> Oxford’s subsequent list of ‘poor lords’ indicates that Fitzwalter’s failure to support the court led directly to the loss of his court pension. A forecast in December 1711 predicted that Fitzwalter would vote in favour of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (duke of Brandon), but in the event he abstained by leaving the House.</p><p>Fitzwalter’s somewhat maverick behaviour probably explains why his name appears on Oxford’s list of peers to be canvassed over the Christmas recess. In January 1712 Bothmer, having concluded that Fitzwalter’s loyalty to the ministry and the Hanoverian succession could indeed be bought, included his name on a list of ‘poor lords’ sent to the elector (the future George I), recommending payment of the £1,200 a year pension.<sup>33</sup> Fitzwalter’s commitment to the Whigs is indicated by his pattern of proxy-giving. On 16 May 1712 he entered his proxy in favour of Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend. The proxy was vacated by Fitzwalter’s return to the House on 22 May and seems to have been intended for use in the divisions over the bill to examine grants since the Revolution. On 28 May he again sided with the opposition by voting in favour of the motion to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from pursuing an active campaign against the French.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Having paid the price of his disloyalty with the loss of his court pension, Fitzwalter was dismayed to discover just how difficult it was to secure payment of his Hanoverian one: it was paid only until Christmas 1712.<sup>35</sup> He was present for just over 31 per cent of sitting days during the 1713 session. In June Oxford forecast that he would oppose the confirmation of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Later that year his name was again included on a list of ‘poor lords’, with a recommendation for a pension from Hanover.</p><p>Whether it was renewed hope for a pension or the result of political uncertainty, Fitzwalter’s attendance rose over the spring/summer session of 1714 to nearly 39 per cent of sitting days. He covered most of an absence in May by entering a proxy in favour of Manchester, his old comrade in the Essex elections, on 8 May, which was vacated by his return to the House on the 28th. Nottingham predicted that Fitzwalter would oppose the Schism bill but he appears to have told in its favour (he was first teller marked on the list) on 15 June. Another absence (during the first week of July, when the only consistent item of business was the commercial treaty with Spain) was covered by a proxy in favour of John Campbell*, earl of Greenwich (better known as 2nd duke of Argyll [S]). During the brief session that met in the wake of Queen Anne’s death, he was present on only three occasions. His career after the death of Queen Anne will be considered in the next section of this work.</p><p>Fitzwalter died in 1728, leaving his entire estate to his brother, Benjamin, who succeeded him as 19th Baron Fitzwalter and who was elevated to an earldom two years later.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
MOHUN, Charles (1649-77) |
<p><strong><surname>MOHUN</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1649–77)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 12 May 1665 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. MOHUN. |
|
First sat 16 Nov. 1670; last sat 26 Mar. 1677 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 May 1649, 1st s. of Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Bar. Mohun and Catherine Welles. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad ?1663-5.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 7 May 1674, Philippa (<em>d</em>.1715), da. of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey and Elizabeth Altham, 1s. 1da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 29 Sept. 1677; admon. 8 May 1688-7 Nov. 1724.</p> |
|
|
<p>Mohun was born in the year of Charles I’s execution. His family, which had been royalist, chose to submit to the times and reached an accommodation with the Protectorate but was later successful in reasserting its position after the Restoration. Little is known of Mohun’s early life or education, though he seems to have travelled overseas before attaining his majority. He was still abroad at the time of his father’s death but presumably returned soon after as he was noted as being on the point of going to sea with James*, duke of York. His imminent departure was the occasion of an order from the king to the dowager baroness requiring her to release into the new lord’s custody the deeds of his estate in accordance with a chancery decree, and in spite of the express desire of the 2nd Baron in his will that his wife retain control of the estates for a year after his heir attained his majority.<sup>6</sup></p><p>With the barony Mohun inherited a substantial estate in Devon and Cornwall, but it was heavily indebted and encumbered by bequests.<sup>7</sup> In May 1667 a warrant was made out committing Bridget Dennys, a collateral relative of the Dennys family of Devon, to Mohun’s care in the event of her being found to be an idiot. Such arrangements were often profitable, but it seems that the Mohun family were unable to reap the expected profit for in July 1668 custody and guardianship of Bridget Dennys went instead to Charles II’s physician, Sir Alexander Fraizer.<sup>8</sup> Later, on 19 Dec. 1667, Mohun’s own guardians were compelled to appeal to the House to be allowed privilege of Parliament to protect them from legal action, which was granted accordingly. The same month Mohun was caught up in a lurid scandal involving John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester. Mohun was accused of being the bishop’s catamite. Although at least one reporter thought that ‘no sober man gives it credit’ and the bishop was ultimately exonerated, the taint of the story lingered.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Mohun took his seat in the House on 16 Nov. 1670, after which he proceeded to attend on 67 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He was named to 21 committees besides the sessional committees, including that examining the ‘assaulting, wounding and robbing’ of the lord steward, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (then sitting in the House as earl of Brecknock), the committee for the bill to prevent the growth of popery and the committee to take accounts of money given to indigent officers. On 22 Apr. he was added to the committee for the Journal. Mohun soon came to be identified with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, whose father had secured the peerage for Mohun’s grandfather, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), an associate from the West Country.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Such influential friends did not prevent Mohun’s family from continuing to experience the tribulations of indebtedness. On 14 Jan. 1671 Mohun’s mother submitted a petition to the House of Lords complaining of breach of privilege in the arrest of her domestic servant, Eleanor Burford. Lady Mohun’s petition brought to the fore the issue of the ‘privilege of peeresses’, which the committee for privileges was ordered to consider. The Lords later decided that noblewomen and the widows of peers should enjoy privilege of Parliament.<sup>11</sup> On 8 Feb. Mohun presented a petition to the House in an effort to improve his own precarious financial situation. Consideration was put off to the following day and it was not until 10 Feb. that the petition was finally read. Mohun rehearsed how he had inherited his peerage while overseas and complained that his mother had brought a writ of dower against him. She had also taken possession of all the papers relating to his estate making it impossible for him to answer the action. Having brought two chancery actions against her, he now sought the Lords’ intervention. Nothing came of his request but by the close of the year he appears to have succeeded in making progress in his actions in chancery. Perhaps more significantly, he also seems to have used the opportunity to begin to court some of his Cornish countrymen from whom he expressed regret that his long absence from the county had estranged him.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Mohun achieved further redress when his case was heard by the council in November.<sup>13</sup> He took his seat in the subsequent session on 4 Feb. 1673, after which he was present on 93 per cent of sitting days. He was named to more than a dozen committees in addition to the sessional committees. On 18 Mar. he reported from the committee for William Gery’s bill, which was recommended as fit to pass, though the measure was then the subject of further debate after it was suggested that Gery’s consent had not been fully obtained. On 20 Oct., the final day of the session, Mohun introduced Richard Butler*, as Baron Butler of Weston (better known as earl of Arran [I]).<sup>14</sup></p><p>Alongside such activities, Mohun continued to seek a resolution to his financial woes. He looked to marriage as a solution and in April 1673 began courting Lady Philippa Annesley.<sup>15</sup> Lady Philippa’s father, Anglesey, seems to have been attracted by Mohun’s desperation and hence his willingness to accept a relatively modest settlement. The eventual settlement, which was agreed almost exactly a year after Mohun had first made his suit, failed to alleviate Mohun’s monetary worries. The marriage proved similarly disappointing. Within little more than a month Anglesey was forced to intervene after his daughter almost expired from a fit brought on by Mohun’s (reputed) ill-treatment. It proved to be the first of many occasions when Anglesey was called upon to mediate between the two. Both parties seem to have been at fault though after one such incident, Anglesey recorded how he thought his daughter was most to blame: describing her as ‘an impudent baggage … if she had not been married I had beat her … she carried herself like a whore’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Mohun returned to the House for the brief four-day session that convened towards the end of October 1673, of which he attended three days. He took his seat once more at the opening of the ensuing session on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on each of the session’s 38 sitting days and was named to a total of six committees, including the sessional committees. Mohun then attended all bar one of the sittings of the House between 13 Apr. and 9 June 1675. Again he was named to a number of committees, but from the outset Mohun’s identification with the opposition was firmly apparent. On 13 Apr. he joined those registering their dissent at the resolution to thank the king for his speech. The following day the House took notice of an ill-tempered exchange between Mohun and John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, following which Mordaunt was obliged to apologize for his conduct. Both peers were charged not to allow their conflict to continue beyond the floor of the House. Later that month Mohun was to the fore in managing the opposition to the non-resisting test. Between 21 and 30 Apr. Mohun subscribed a series of protests against the passage of the bill, which those opposed to the measure considered an ‘invasion of the liberties and privileges of the peerage’ as well as being ‘destructive of the freedom which they enjoy as members of Parliament.’<sup>17</sup> On 30 Apr. the House resolved that no oath should be imposed on peers but a further decision of 4 May 1675 contradicted this and added a clause to the bill enforcing an oath. Once again Mohun was among those who lodged a protest against this clause. On 27 May he subscribed a further protest against rejecting the ‘opportunity to justify and preserve the right of the Lords in judicature’ in the case of <em>Stroughton v. Onslow</em>.</p><p>Following on from his opposition to the non-resisting test, Mohun also proved to be a central participant in the dispute caused by the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>. Mohun intervened personally to prevent the serjeant at arms from serving a warrant on Sherley in the Lords’ lobby. He then confiscated the document and presented it to the Lords for their consideration. The Commons complained about Mohun’s actions and demanded that the Lords censure him for his behaviour. Although the Lords agreed to consider the Sherley affair, the House insisted that Mohun had done nothing wrong. Perhaps significantly, Anglesey and Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, registered their dissents at this resolution.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Following the prorogation Mohun joined Shaftesbury in campaigning on behalf of Thomas Moore<sup>‡</sup> against John Digby*, styled Lord Digby (later 3rd earl of Bristol) in the Dorset by-election. Shaftesbury had initially offered to back Digby but then reneged on the agreement, which helped to contribute to a particularly fractious election. The result was a landslide victory for Digby, but he was later sued for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> and ordered to pay £1,000 to Shaftesbury, in part as a result of compelling evidence provided by Mohun.<sup>19</sup> The case did not end there as Digby subsequently sought an arrest of judgment on the grounds that Shaftesbury’s lawyers had made some errors in their drafting of the complaint. The prospect of the suit failing was said to have caused considerable disquiet for a number of other peers prosecuting similar actions. Mohun himself was one of these, having brought an action against someone who had accused him of being ‘good for nothing but to sit in ladies’ chambers and thread their needles.’<sup>20</sup></p><p>Mohun returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 13 Oct. 1675, after which he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days. He was nominated to the three sessional committees and to an additional five select committees, including that considering the explanatory bill for the act against popish recusants and the committee for discovery of the publishers of the <em>Letter from a person of quality</em>, which was ordered to be burnt. The early stages of the session were again dominated by the dispute between Lords and Commons over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>. Mohun continued to play an active role in the affair, and on 19 Oct. he presented Sherley’s petition to the House. The Lords later resolved that Sherley, the king’s physician, was entitled to privilege as he had a suit pending before them.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Family disagreements emerged once more in November 1675 when the House was informed of differences between Mohun and his mother over finances. Shaftesbury, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, were appointed to arbitrate but the dispute was never resolved.<sup>22</sup> On 20 Nov. Mohun moved that the House address the king to request the dissolution of Parliament. The motion was seconded by Shaftesbury and attracted the support of both Buckingham and York.<sup>23</sup> During the ensuing debate intemperate words passed between Bristol, who opposed the motion, and Shaftesbury and Mohun. Bristol’s demeanour was undoubtedly the result of the ill-feeling that had been apparent in the Dorset election but the House took Mohun and Shaftesbury’s part. Bristol was censured and ordered to apologize. Following the failure of the motion to address for a dissolution, Mohun was one of those to register his protest.</p><p>Mohun was not one of those summoned to act as a tryer for the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in July 1676 but it was noted that throughout the proceedings he, Shaftesbury and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, ‘sat in the king’s sight, whispering together all the time.’<sup>24</sup> The same month he was included within a list of politicians who met as a club (other members including Sir William Cope, a member of Shaftesbury’s circle and Paulet St John*, later 3rd earl of Bolingbroke, though it was pointed out that he had not been so regularly in attendance of late.<sup>25</sup> That autumn Mohun was again the subject of an embarrassing incident when two exchange women, to whom Lady Mohun was indebted, presented themselves at Mohun’s residence to demand what they were owed. They were supported by ‘four bravos’, one of them a trooper in the lifeguards and said to be related to Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton. In the altercation that ensued the women were said to have spat in Lady Mohun’s face while their associates harangued Mohun as the ‘son of a whore’. Mohun and a servant, armed with swords and pistols, confronted the men and a shot was fired. The men fled leaving Mohun injured in his hand but the women were detained. Subsequent attempts by the high constable and 12 bailiffs to take the men into custody failed.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The following month, on 17 Nov. Mohun again found himself embroiled in a violent altercation. The occasion was a duel against an Irish officer in the French army, John Power, in which Mohun acted as second alongside his friend William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire).<sup>27</sup> Cavendish had apparently caused offence to two Irish women and Power at a ball the previous night in Whitehall. In the resulting duel that took place behind Southampton House, Cavendish and Mohun faced off against Power and Edward Bermingham (later Baron Athenry [I]). Mohun and Cavendish disarmed their opponents and with honour satisfied returned Power and Bermingham their swords. As they left the field a second brawl broke out between Power and Mohun. The cause was said to have been a disagreement about who had best acquitted themselves in the previous encounter, though it seems possible that other factors were in play. Mohun may still have been smarting from his earlier encounter with Power’s compatriots, though it is possible that the quarrel arose from a family feud as Power may have been related to the former viscounts Valentia, whose title had been recreated for Mohun’s father-in-law, Anglesey. Whatever the reason, in the second bout, Mohun was ‘run through the guts’.<sup>28</sup> In spite of this he managed once more to disarm his opposite number.</p><p>Medical opinion was divided about the severity of Mohun’s injuries. Within a few days of the encounter he was believed to be making a good recovery, but his case was uncertain and over the next few months his condition remained in the balance. In December, with his prospects for recovery fading, it was noted that he had very generously signed a declaration seeking to clear Cavendish of any involvement in the second duel. Cavendish on the other hand was heavily criticized for showing scant regard for his companion’s condition.<sup>29</sup> By the beginning of 1677, with Mohun now believed to be on the point of death, he was persuaded by Shaftesbury to ‘get his wife out of the way’ and put his affairs in order. Whatever settlement was decided upon, it did not meet with the agreement of Anglesey and there was said to be ‘great anger and trouble amongst them’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Mohun defied his doctors’ predictions and rallied in February.<sup>31</sup> As the new session approached Edmund Verney expressed the hope that Mohun would be well enough to attend the House being a ‘good Commonwealth’s man’, but he was still too sick to take his seat at the opening, opting instead to register his proxy with Shaftesbury.<sup>32</sup> On 9 Mar. 1677 he was excused at a call on the grounds of ill health. The proxy was vacated by Mohun’s return to the chamber on 26 Mar. but he attended on just that day before retiring for the last time. On 11 Apr., in his absence, his privilege was upheld in the case of the arrest of his two servants Elizabeth Morrell and Anne Gay. In May, unsurprisingly, he featured in Shaftesbury’s analysis of lay peers as ‘thrice worthy’. By then Mohun was again seriously ill, the relapse blamed on the poor treatment he had received from his French physician. Throughout the summer of 1677 Mohun’s health continued to decline, and by early September he was once more close to death.<sup>33</sup> His demise was reported prematurely on 25 September.<sup>34</sup> He lingered for a further four days before succumbing at last to the wounds he had received in the duel almost a year previously. On 30 Sept. his corpse was subjected to an autopsy following which the coroner’s jury concluded that Mohun’s death should be treated as murder. Despite this, Power appears never to have been tried.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Mohun was buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 3 Oct. 1677. He was succeeded in the peerage by his six-month-old son, Charles Mohun*, as 4th Baron Mohun.<sup>36</sup> Lady Mohun continued to be embroiled in controversy. In April 1678 she was involved in another indecorous row in lodgings belonging to one Love, where it was reported that ‘ill words and candlesticks’ were thrown. Lady Mohun claimed privilege and her father Anglesey brought Love’s suit before the House of Lords only to have it thrown out after evidence was brought against Lady Mohun. The gossip apparently amused the king who offered to check Lady Mohun’s knee for bruises.<sup>37</sup> She later remarried and remained a troublesome presence in the family for the remainder of her life. A bill enabling the new lord’s trustees to sell property for payment of debts was presented to the House on 5 Apr. 1679. It passed the Lords but was later lost in the Commons, overtaken by greater national events.</p> |
A.C./R.D.E.E. |
|
MOHUN, Charles (1677-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>MOHUN</surname></strong> (<strong>MOON</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1677–1712)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Sept. 1677 (a minor) as 4th Bar. MOHUN |
|
First sat 4 July 1698; last sat 18 June 1712 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Apr. 1677, o.s. of Charles Mohun*, 3rd Bar. Mohun and Philippa, da. of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey. <em>educ</em>. sch. in Essex.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 1691, Charlotte (<em>d</em>.1705), da. of James or Thomas Manwaring (Mainwaring) and Lady Charlotte Gerard, da. of Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, 1da.; (2) 1711 (owned 1712), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1725), da. of Dr Thomas Lawrence, queen’s physician, wid. of Col. Edward Griffin, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 15 Nov. 1712; <em>will</em> 23 Mar. 1711, pr. 6 Mar. 1713.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Devon 1701-?,<sup>4</sup> Cornw. 1706-?<sup>5</sup></p><p>Capt. regt. of horse 1694; col. regt. of ft. 1702-<em>d</em>.; brig. gen. 1705;<sup>6</sup> maj. gen. 1708; lt. gen. 1710.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: G. Kneller, oils, Beningborough Hall, NPG 3218.</p> |
<p>‘A very violent, hot and passionate person’, the rather paunchy figure captured by Kneller seems to be at odds with a man whose life, according to Macaulay, ‘was one long revel and brawl’.<sup>8</sup> Mohun succeeded to the peerage while still an infant as a result of his father’s early death from wounds sustained in a duel some months before. By the time he was 16, he had been tried for murder and was dismissed by John Evelyn as ‘exceedingly dissolute’.<sup>9</sup> Yet while Mohun was undoubtedly a violent man, involved in a series of brawls in his early years and who should, arguably, have swung on more than one occasion for murders in which he was closely involved, to concentrate on this facet of his career alone is to do him a considerable injustice. In his later years he proved a competent lieutenant for the Junto in the House, managing committees and acting as teller in a number of divisions. He was also deemed sufficiently useful (and no doubt financially needy) to be considered by Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford) and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, as ripe for poaching from his Junto colleagues and thus as a contender for one of the posts in the remodelled Admiralty commission in 1710. Such potential was ultimately wasted, though, and at the age of 35 Mohun became another statistic in the category of noblemen brought to an early grave by the propensity for settling old scores on the field of honour.</p><h2><em>Early years and trial for murder</em></h2><p>Mohun succeeded to substantial estates in Cornwall based on Boconnoc, which had been in the family since the late 16th century, but in reality his inheritance comprised a series of crushing debts, and he seems not to have exerted much interest in the area. Mohun’s grandmother held on to the majority of the family estates as her jointure prior to her death in 1692, thereby precipitating a series of lawsuits over rights to various parts of the property.<sup>10</sup> Although he was entrusted to the guardianship of the Lincolnshire magnate, Sir Charles Orby, Mohun appears to have spent much of his youth alternating between the various seats of his family in Cornwall and of his grandfather, Anglesey.<sup>11</sup> Noted as a minor at a call of the House on 16 Feb. 1678, the following year Mohun was included by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) in a list of peers and their likely voting intentions in the proceedings against him, with Danby noting him as both ‘doubtful’ and a minor. A report of March 1684 that Mohun was to accompany Charles Gerard*,styled Viscount Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield) and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, to the campaign in Flanders was presumably a mistake for one of his older kinsmen.<sup>12</sup> Despite his marginal interest in Cornwall, in March 1685 Mohun may have been included as a freeman in the new charter for Liskeard (incorrectly transcribed as Lord Bohun) alongside James Mohun (in all probability his uncle). Two years later, in March 1687, Mohun’s mother married again, and it was Mohun’s stepfather, William Coward<sup>‡</sup>, who answered the request for a self-assessment from the young peer following the Revolution (Mohun was then at school in Essex). Coward insisted that his charge was ‘so far from having any moneys or personal estate that he has no real estate and the whole real estate being either in jointures or in the hands of mortgagees and others who have incumbrances upon it.’<sup>13</sup></p><p>In April 1691, Mohun’s sister, Elizabeth, was appointed one of the queen’s maids of honour and, later that year, Mohun further strengthened his ties to the Orby family by marrying Charlotte Mainwaring, stepdaughter of Sir Thomas Orby (her mother’s second husband who seems to have been his guardian’s brother). The new Lady Mohun was also granddaughter to the earl of Macclesfield. The marriage proved woefully unhappy, but the connection was the beginning of a long association with Macclesfield’s heir, Brandon (who was clearly already known to the family). Mohun’s continuing connection with the Orby family may have encouraged speculation that the young peer was sympathetic to the Jacobite cause.<sup>14</sup> It is not clear whether the Charles and Thomas Orby investigated for plotting against the government in 1689 were the same men as Mohun’s guardian and father-in-law, but in any case Mohun distanced himself from any suspicion of such an allegiance early on, and for the majority of his life he was a firm supporter of the Revolution and of the Hanoverian succession.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Over the next few years Mohun lived a rakehell existence. Before he turned 21 he was involved in a series of quarrels and duels, at least two of which resulted in deaths. In December 1692 he quarrelled publicly with John Kennedy, styled Lord Kennedy (heir to John Kennedy, 7th earl of Cassillis [S]). The nature of the provocation is uncertain, but as Kennedy was a kinsman of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], (later duke of Brandon) it was an early brush with a family with whom Mohun was to spend much of his adult life at loggerheads. The initial drunken brawl resulted merely in ‘pulling of noses and a cut or two’, but despite the king’s order that the two young men should be apprehended to prevent a duel, Mohun and Kennedy ignored the prohibition. In the subsequent swordplay both were wounded.<sup>16</sup></p><p>A few days after the duel with Kennedy, Mohun was caught up in a far more serious affray as one of the participants in the botched kidnapping of the well-known actress, Anne Bracegirdle, and the murder of her fellow actor, William Mountford.<sup>17</sup> The principal in this, Captain Hill, succeeded in absconding to Scotland and appears later to have been pardoned, but Mohun was tracked down the following day and taken into custody.<sup>18</sup> Although he was bailed shortly after with Brandon and Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, standing as his sureties, he was subsequently recommitted on a charge of murder after the coroner’s inquest found against him as well as Hill. On 11 Jan. 1693 he petitioned the House to be bailed and for a speedy trial to be arranged. Two days later, while Mohun sauntered in the antechamber awaiting an answer to his petition, the House ordered him into Black Rod’s custody and then to be committed to the Tower.<sup>19</sup> The same day the committee for privileges, chaired by George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, convened to discuss precedents for the forthcoming trial, and on 23 Jan. the committee appointed to determine the manner of conducting the proceedings met, chaired by John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater. The ensuing trial, presided over by Carmarthen (as Danby had since become) as lord high steward, opened on 31 Jan. in Westminster Hall and lasted for the following five days.<sup>20</sup> It proved, unsurprisingly, to be a major social event. The king attended incognito and it was said that there was ‘such a glorious appearance of ladies … that it was the fairest trial that ever was seen’. No one argued that Mohun had given the fatal blow; the case against him revolved around the question of whether he should be accounted as culpable as the actual murderer. A series of questions to the judges underscored that this was the principal concern.<sup>21</sup> By the standards of the day this was a long trial and according to one commentator it took longer than expected.<sup>22</sup> Although it was predicted early on that Mohun would be acquitted, reports suggested that the judges considered him to be culpable, and that both Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, also thought Mohun guilty.<sup>23</sup> In spite of this, the earlier predictions were proved correct and on 4 Feb. the Lords brought in a verdict of not guilty by 69 votes to 14.<sup>24</sup> Four peers were fined £100 each for absenting themselves during the trial (though these fines were later rescinded).<sup>25</sup> The trial provoked debate as to whether Mohun had been the recipient of special treatment on account of his age and (more particularly) his social standing. The author of one newsletter describing the proceedings was taken into custody for suggesting that the evidence against Mohun had been strong enough to hang a commoner.<sup>26</sup> Queen Mary appeared to agree with him. She committed to her diary her opinion that the verdict was unjust and symptomatic of the ‘universal corruption’ at the heart of society.<sup>27</sup> At least one peer took a different view and justified his decision to find Mohun not guilty on the grounds that all actors were ‘fiddlers and rogues’. Mohun’s own conduct during the trial was also the subject of comment. One observer considered that he demonstrated precocious skill in his cross-examination of some witnesses. Another reported that Mohun ‘behaved himself so oddly and childishly at his trial, that a near relation of his said he should be taken away and whipped.’<sup>28</sup></p><p>The true reason for the acquittal is hard to determine. No doubt some peers were uncomfortable at sacrificing one of their own when he was still so young, but Mohun also appears to have been the beneficiary of a concerted effort on his behalf by his Macclesfield kinsmen. An attempt by Mountford’s widow to bring a private prosecution in the King’s Bench by using a process known as appeal of murder provoked ‘great discourse’ and threatened to perpetuate the matter, but when Mohun attempted to petition the House to prevent her from doing so, the Lords refused to act as no appeal had as yet been lodged.<sup>29</sup> Later that year it was reported that Mountford’s widow had been advised to drop her prosecution in return for the queen looking favourably upon a parallel suit to secure her father’s pardon, he having been convicted and sentenced to death for coining.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In addition to the considerable disruption generated by his trial, Mohun also continued to be involved in disputes within his family about the control of the Mohun estates. On 21 Feb. Mohun’s mother presented an appeal to the House, complaining that Mohun had seized lands settled on her for her jointure, relying on his privilege to prevent any action being taken against him. The Lords refused to take any direct action in the matter in hand, but they did respond by drafting a new standing order denying to minors and to the widows of peers recourse to parliamentary privilege while saving their right to claim privilege of peerage.<sup>31</sup></p><h2><em>1693-1702</em></h2><p>In the aftermath of the proceedings against him that spring, Mohun’s health took a turn for the worse, and in October 1693 he was said to be lying dangerously sick at Bath. He had recovered by the spring of the following year when he was commissioned into the cavalry regiment commanded by his patron, Macclesfield (as Brandon had since become). In March he joined Macclesfield in taking part in the Flanders campaign.<sup>32</sup> His military experiences offered Mohun new opportunities for getting himself into hot water, and in October 1694 he wounded at least two men following a scuffle in the Pall Mall chocolate house. The cause of the affray was said to have been on account of Mohun having ‘a fancy to the killing of a poor coachman’. He was prevented from doing this by the intervention of Francis Scobell<sup>‡</sup>, a Cornish Member, whom Mohun then narrowly avoided murdering in turn ‘for hindering him’.<sup>33</sup> Mohun was reported to have regretted this last incident, but at least one observer commented prophetically, ‘I perceive the Lords will have more blood to answer for than Mr Mountford’s by saving the Lord Mohun, for he is far from mending.’<sup>34</sup></p><p>Mohun seems to have avoided further serious trouble for the next two-and-a-half years, but in April 1697 he was again the subject of press attention following a duel with Captain Bingham in St James’s Park.<sup>35</sup> Mohun was also increasingly embroiled in family disputes over the disposition of his depleted estates. The month before the duel with Bingham, the House had considered a dispute between Mohun, his mother and other members of the family arising out of a case in chancery over rights to part of his estate. The case was the result of years of confused management of the estates in the West Country, which had been brought to a head by the death of the 2nd Baron’s widow in 1692. The dowager Lady Mohun and her second husband, Coward, as well as Mohun and his guardians had each subsequently attempted to seize control of the property.<sup>36</sup> Although in this case judgment was given in Mohun’s favour, it failed to resolve a broader disagreement within the family that continued to simmer for the remainder of his life.<sup>37</sup> Later that year, Mohun was at the centre of yet another brawl that resulted in him fatally stabbing another Captain Hill (not the same as his former colleague) at the <em>Rummer</em> in Charing Cross. Mohun fled the scene, but he was rapidly tracked down to the house of a comrade in arms from the Brest campaign, Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick and Holland. Taken before lord chief justice Holt, Mohun was released on bail having called on Warwick, Macclesfield, Colonel Coote and Sir Robert Tyrrell to stand as his sureties;<sup>38</sup> (Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> recorded that the sureties were Warwick, Halifax and Mohun’s cousin, James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey.) The following month the Middlesex grand jury brought in a true bill against him for Hill’s murder and committed him to King’s Bench prison. On 20 Dec., having petitioned the House for his removal from his present quarters, Mohun was handed over to Black Rod once again. On 10 Jan. 1698 he petitioned for a speedy resolution to his predicament and was once more committed to the Tower.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Incarceration seems to have done nothing to dampen Mohun’s spirits and in February the governor of the Tower, Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas, informed the House that he had been forced to confine Mohun to his chambers because he was ‘so exceeding rude that he could not tell how to deal with him’.<sup>40</sup> Still without a date set for his trial, Mohun petitioned the House once more at the beginning of March. On 3 Mar. Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> informed the Lords that it would take 16 days to ready Westminster Hall for the occasion. Although the House then ordered that scaffolds should be erected, a meeting of the treasury commissioners shortly after took exception to Wren’s quotation for the cost of making the hall ready and insisted that he limit himself to a budget of £500 at the most.<sup>41</sup> On 15 Apr., with the trial still in the planning stages, Mohun was successful in seeking his release from the Tower on bail on the grounds of ill health, a plea that was confirmed by his physician who testified that Mohun had suffered some form of apoplectic fit. Once again, Warwick undertook to be one of his sureties, joined by Orby, Thomas Windham and James Mohun as the other guarantors.<sup>42</sup> By this time it was widely reported that Mohun would escape a further trial. Believing that the evidence against him would at most only secure a conviction for manslaughter, it was thought that such a result would not justify the estimated £3,000 it was thought the trial would cost.<sup>43</sup> In June a warrant was drawn up pardoning Mohun for Hill’s murder, and on 4 July Mohun, by then 21, presented himself at the House on the penultimate day of the session with his pardon from the king along with his summons to attend. He was admitted accordingly to his place on the barons’ bench.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Mohun’s second brush with the hangman failed to curb his excesses. Along with Warwick he continued to provide the gossip sheets with plentiful instances of lurid bad behaviour, such as ‘their leading of some thousands of people, who heartily cursed them for it, out of Fleet Street, to see them shit in a saw-pit.’<sup>45</sup> Mohun was absent at the opening of the new Parliament and towards the end of October he was involved in yet another fatal brawl. Having spent the evening in company with Warwick and a few companions, the two peers ended the night engaged in a duel acting as seconds to Captain Coote (probably the son of Mohun’s former guarantor, Colonel Coote) against three other members of the party. In the fray Coote was killed and French (his opponent) seriously injured.<sup>46</sup> Mohun and Warwick fled the scene and absconded to France.<sup>47</sup> There they indulged in a series of brawls that resulted in Mohun being run through in one quarrel. In February 1699 both peers were ejected from Calais following an attempted rape.<sup>48</sup></p><p>By the close of the month they were back in England but Mohun delayed surrendering himself into Black Rod’s custody (as his companion had done), being advised by his friends to await the result of Warwick’s trial for Coote’s murder.<sup>49</sup> On 20 Mar. Mohun petitioned the House once more, explaining that he had decided not to hand himself in, being unable to stand the costs and fearful for the consequences for his health of a lengthy imprisonment in the Tower. Four days later he capitulated and surrendered himself. On 28 Mar. Warwick stood trial. It rapidly became apparent that the crown’s case was that although Warwick and Mohun had ostensibly acted as Coote’s seconds, the whole affair had been prearranged with the aim of killing Coote.<sup>50</sup> Proof for this theory not being forthcoming, Warwick was convicted of Coote’s manslaughter while Mohun was acquitted after it was accepted that he had not played any role in the engagement save trying to part the combatants.<sup>51</sup> Reprieved for a third time, Mohun took his seat in the House once more on 31 Mar., after which he was present on 14 of the remaining days in the session (17 per cent of the whole). On 24 Apr. he informed the House of a report that a French squadron with 20,000 troops on board was at Dunkirk and on the point of launching an invasion, and on 3 May he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the bill on paper duties.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Mohun was sick again during the summer following the close of the session and was thought once more to be in some danger of losing his life. The news was greeted by at least one correspondent with little sympathy, the writer confiding, ‘I believe you will be of my mind that his death will be no loss to the nation.’<sup>53</sup> Having rallied once more, Mohun took his seat in the new session on 16 Nov. 1699, after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation and later the same day he subscribed the dissent at the resolution to pass the measure. The following month, in the wake of the proceedings in the divorce case brought by Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, it was reported that Mohun was one of several peers also contemplating divorce. Although one observer reported that ‘the town believes Lady Mohun virtuous’, elsewhere it was gossiped that early on in the marriage she had been seduced by Mohun’s uncle, probably James Mohun.<sup>54</sup> It was certainly the case that by the time of Lady Mohun’s death, drowned during a crossing to Ireland in company with one of her ‘gallants’, Mohun and his baroness had long ceased to cohabit.<sup>55</sup> If Mohun had serious intentions of pursuing a divorce, he took it no further at this time. For the remainder of the session he appears to have focused his attention on the land tax bill instead. On 4 Apr. Mohun subscribed the protest against the resolution to pass the bill, and on 9 and 10 Apr. he was nominated one of the managers of a series of conferences concerning the measure.<sup>56</sup> On 10 Apr. he subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the land tax. Following the close of the session, he was included on an annotated list of Whig lords, noting him as a likely supporter of the new ministry.</p><p>Mohun attended the prorogation day of 24 Oct. 1700, before taking his place in the House at the beginning of the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Feb. he was appointed one of the managers of the conference considering the Lords’ address to the king, and on 12 May he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to agree to the motion to reverse a decree in the cause <em>Farrell v. White</em>. On 4 June he served as a teller for the motion whether to pass the new Deal fresh water bill, which was carried by 26 votes, and the following day he acted as teller once more in the division whether to reverse a decree in the case <em>Grosvenor v. Coy</em>. Named one of the managers of the conferences concerning impeachments on 6 and 10 June, Mohun reported from two committees on 12 June, and on 24 June he was one of four peers nominated to inspect the balloting glass and determine which members of the House had been selected to act as commissioners for the union. The same day he was one of the tellers in the division whether to adjourn the House during discussion of the report of the commissioners for public accounts. The same month Mohun voted in favour of acquitting the Junto peers, John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford.</p><p>Shortly after the close of the session, Mohun accompanied his patron, Macclesfield, on the embassy to Hanover.<sup>57</sup> Although one of Mohun’s companions, John Toland, was at pains to recommend Mohun’s ‘exemplary’ behaviour during the embassy, in September Cary Gardiner reported rumours of Mohun having been involved in killing another man. If there was any foundation to the rumour no further action seems to have been taken.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Mohun returned to England in October.<sup>59</sup> The following month his prospects were transformed by Macclesfield’s sudden death and his succession to the vast majority of his patron’s personal estate.<sup>60</sup> Luttrell reckoned Mohun’s windfall to be worth £20,000, though another reporter estimated it as being worth as much as £51,000.<sup>61</sup> Mohun joined the new earl, Fitton Gerard*, 3rd earl of Macclesfield, acting as chief mourner at his former patron’s funeral later that month, before taking his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 December.<sup>62</sup> Shortly after it was rumoured that Mohun was set to succeed Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, as colonel of a foot regiment; Essex was said to be busy attempting to secure the command of the yeomen of the guard. The report was confirmed in February.<sup>63</sup> Present on 89 per cent of all sitting days in the session, early on there were soon indications of problems relating to Mohun’s succession to the Gerard estates. On 7 Jan. 1702 he informed the House that one of his servants, Thomas Shepherd, had been arrested on a charge of trespass at Macclesfield’s suit. On 19 Jan. Mohun acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to agree to the House’s resolution concerning Fuller’s books, and on 6 and 10 Feb. he was named one of the managers of the conferences concerning the bill of attainder against the Pretender. On 16 Feb. he acted as teller again on the motion whether to resume the House from a committee of the whole considering the bill for punishing perjury, and on 21 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the mutiny bill. In common with the majority of peers present in the House, Mohun was named a manager of the conference following the death of King William and accession of Queen Anne on 8 Mar., and on 9 May he was entrusted with the proxy of George Nevill*, 13th Baron Abergavenny, which was vacated by the close. Abergavenny had been one of a select group of peers summoned to Macclesfield’s home to witness the reading of the second earl’s will and to oversee the proper disbursement of Macclesfield’s papers.<sup>64</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Anne 1702 to death </em></h2><p>Mohun’s change of fortune looked likely to be of short duration as, within weeks of the queen’s accession, it was rumoured that he was one of four new colonels likely to be removed from their commands.<sup>65</sup> The expected dismissal failed to transpire. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Oct. after which he was present on over 80 per cent of all sitting days. On 19 Nov. he joined Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, in seconding a motion proposed by Charles Boyle*, 2nd earl of Burlington, on behalf of William Lloyd*, of Worcester, and on 9 Dec. he acted as one of the tellers (presumably for those in favour of the resolution) on the motion to enable the Lords to sign the declaration on tacking, which was carried by 17 votes.<sup>66</sup> The death of Macclesfield that month left Mohun in possession of the remainder of the vast majority of the Gerard estate.<sup>67</sup> Macclesfield’s death ended one source of dispute over the Gerard property but ushered in the opening of a long-running legal dispute between Mohun and a number of claimants, among them Hamilton, who claimed the manor of Gawsworth in Cheshire in right of his wife. A report at the close of December that Hamilton was to be granted an English earldom and that he was to take the title of Macclesfield, was perhaps an early indication of the favour with which Hamilton’s suit was viewed by the new regime. Despite this, the result of one action in chancery early the following year was a decree in Mohun’s favour.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Prior to the Christmas recess Mohun had been appointed one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for preventing occasional conformity and in January 1703 he was estimated a likely opponent of the bill in a forecast compiled by Nottingham. Named a manager of a further conference concerning the measure on 9 Jan., on 16 Jan. Mohun voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the bill’s penalty clause. Three days later Mohun subscribed the protest at the resolution not to agree with the committee in omitting a clause from the bill for settling a revenue on Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, specifying that the prince could serve as a member of the Privy Council and sit in the House in the event of his outliving the queen. On 16 Feb. he acted as a teller for the division on whether to read the bill to establish a qualification for members of the Commons a second time (which was rejected by two votes) and the following day he served as one of the tellers on the question whether to agree to the motion concerning Admiral Sir George Rooke as well as being named one of the managers of the conference concerning the commissioners of public accounts. The same day he reported from the committee nominated to draft an address to the queen thanking her for her great care in not granting further licences to French immigrants and for her proclamation to apprehend those already present in the country without licence. Mohun had previously moved for an address to be presented to the queen requesting such an order from her.<sup>69</sup> Mohun was nominated one of the managers of two further conferences concerning the same business on 22 and 25 Feb., and on 26 Feb. he was a teller once more for the motion to adjourn from discussion of Whitaker’s accounting bill (which resulted in a tied vote).</p><p>After the close of the session, Mohun stood proxy to George Lewis, elector of Hanover (later King George I) at his installation as knight of the Garter.<sup>70</sup> In June his attention was taken up with further legal proceedings surrounding the Macclesfield inheritance. On this occasion the case went Hamilton’s way when Macclesfield’s will was declared void on account of Macclesfield’s failure to enter the reversal of his attainder in the court’s records, thereby leaving the property in the hands of the crown.<sup>71</sup> Subsequent proceedings in Queen’s Bench later in the year also served to make Mohun’s case seem ‘dubious’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Mohun returned to the House for the new session on 9 Nov. 1703, after which he was present on just over three-quarters of all sitting days. Early in the session he was again forecast as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill in a list drawn up by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. The assessment was replicated in Sunderland’s second forecast later in November, and on 14 Dec. Mohun was, unsurprisingly, one of those to vote against the measure. Besides this, Mohun’s attention was again taken up with his own affairs. He lost no time in lodging an appeal against the decree overturning Macclesfield’s will, which handed an estate worth £3,000 per annum to the crown.<sup>73</sup> No doubt eager to secure the assistance of his colleagues in the House, Mohun joined a number of peers attending a dinner at Sunderland’s London residence in December and, the following month, after deliberation of the matter had been delayed on numerous occasions by Hamilton’s absence in Scotland, he was successful in securing the reversal of the chancery decree concerning part of Macclesfield’s personal estate, though no further progress was made in the main action.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Mohun’s efforts to cultivate support for his legal action may explain his presence at a series of Whig entertainments held during the session, noted by Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville). On 9 Feb. 1704 Mohun was present at one such dinner in company with Ossulston, Abergavenny and others, and two days later he attended a dinner hosted by Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Cherbury. On 22 Feb. he dined again with Ossulston, Abergavenny and Herbert in Black Rod’s chambers, and on 16 Mar. he dined once more in company with Abergavenny. On 24 Mar. Mohun subscribed the protest at the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in Sir John Maclean’s evidence was imperfect. Three days later he joined Ossulston, Essex and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester at a party at the Queen’s Arms.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Mohun took his seat at the opening of the new session on 24 Oct. after which he was present on just under 80 per cent of all sitting days. He was again the recipient of Abergavenny’s proxy on 20 Nov. (which was vacated on 4 Dec.) and two days later he was also entrusted with that of Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter, which was vacated on 1 Feb. 1705. On 11 Dec. he proposed inhibiting the importation of Scots wool into England or Ireland. Three days later he moved a vote of thanks to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough and on 15 Dec. he again spoke out against the occasional conformity bill.<sup>76</sup> On 20 Dec. he reported from the committee for the act vesting the estate of Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick, in trustees to be sold for the payment of debts: a subject with which Mohun was no doubt more than familiar. Between 27 Feb. and 7 Mar. Mohun was named one of the managers of three conferences considering the case of the Ailesbury men, and on 13 Mar. he was named a manager of two further conferences, considering the amendments to the Jacob Pechels naturalization bill and the amendments to the militia bill. The same day (13 Mar.), Mohun was entrusted with Orford’s proxy, which was vacated by the prorogation.</p><p>Mohun was reported to have resigned his colonelcy later that month, supposedly piqued at his failure to be promoted to the rank of brigadier (an omission that was rectified two years later).<sup>77</sup> In April he was (unsurprisingly) listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. Active in the elections in Cheshire over the summer on behalf of the Whig candidates, Mohun took his seat two days into the new Parliament on 27 Oct. 1705, and on 29 Oct. he was again entrusted with Orford’s proxy (which was vacated on 12 November). Absent for ten days in mid November, Mohun was excused at a call of the House on 12 Nov., but he resumed his place on 19 Nov. and on 23 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of John Lovelace*, 4th Baron Lovelace. Lovelace’s proxy was vacated on 15 Jan. 1706. Named a manager of three conferences considering the resolution that the Church of England was in no manner of danger between 7 and 14 Dec., on 16 Feb. 1706, Mohun again received Orford’s proxy, which was vacated three days later. Rallying to Wharton’s assistance, Mohun was foremost among a group of peers who moved that the Parton harbour bill should be thrown out after hearing evidence by counsel for the bill in the House on 22 February. Wharton had vowed to oppose the measure as part of a broader dispute within the borough of Cockermouth.<sup>78</sup> On 25 Feb. Mohun reported from the committee considering the act for vesting a mortgage belonging to Humphrey Courtney in trustees to be sold for the payment of debts.</p><p>In April Mohun was successful in securing a favourable judgment in a parallel action with Lady Henrietta Orby, who also had a claim on part of the Macclesfield estate, but concentration on his various legal suits to the exclusion of his other responsibilities began to cause comment. At the beginning of June Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, complained to Marlborough that Mohun was avoiding his duty as a serving officer, noting with disgust, ‘here is Major General Harvey [Daniel Harvey<sup>‡</sup>], and my Lord Mohun, a brigadier walking in St James’s Park and every day in the chocolate house, while both their regiments are serving abroad.’<sup>79</sup> Although Marlborough agreed that the two men ‘ought to be ashamed’ and sought to assure Godolphin that he had ‘no partiality’ for Mohun, he conceded that although ‘If I were in Lord Mohun’s circumstances, no law suit should be an excuse for my staying from my command; but it being for his whole estate, it might look hard to punish him for it.’<sup>80</sup></p><p>Mohun returned to the House for the new session on 22 Oct. after which he was present on approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Feb. 1707 he was one of a large party at the London home of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and on 3 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers for the division which saw the successful passage of the first enacting clause of the union treaty.<sup>81</sup> On 11 Mar. he was once more entrusted with Orford’s proxy (which was vacated by Orford’s resumption of his seat on 24 Mar.), and two days later he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to agree to the proposed amendment to the Fornhill highways bill. The following day (14 Mar.) he was also entrusted with the proxy of the Tory peer, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, which was vacated by Ormond’s return to the House on 25 March.</p><p>Mohun attended four days of the brief nine-day session of April 1707 before taking his seat in the new Parliament on 23 Oct. 1707, of which he attended 52 per cent of all sitting days. The following spring Mohun sought permission to sell his regiment to Colonel James Dormer, though he was at pains to assure Marlborough that his request was not on account of ‘any dislike to the service and that I shall always be as much your humble servant as if I continued in the service.’<sup>82</sup> Unsurprisingly, the request met no opposition from either of the duumvirs. Godolphin recommended that ‘he were better out of the army than in it’ while Marlborough endorsed warmly Mohun’s recommendation of Dormer, who he thought ‘a very good officer’.<sup>83</sup> It was later reported that Mohun was compensated with £3,000 for the command.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session, Mohun was noted a Whig in a printed list of the Parliament of Great Britain (though the annotation may have been appended some time later in response to the Sacheverell trial). Despite his assurances to Marlborough, Mohun appears to have become disheartened at his failure to benefit more obviously from his support for the Junto and duumvirs, and in December 1708 it was reported that in common with a number of the erstwhile supporters, ‘Somerset and Lord Moon [sic], are outrageous against the Junto.’<sup>85</sup></p><p>It was, thus, apparently with some disgruntlement that Mohun returned to the House two days after the opening of the new Parliament on 18 Nov. 1708. Present on three-quarters of all sitting days, on 17 Jan. 1709 he reported from the committee considering the petitions of four Scots peers disputing the returns in the election for the representative peers. Four days later (21 Jan.) Mohun voted in favour of permitting Scots peers in possession of British titles to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers (also acting as one of the tellers for the division), and on 1 Feb. he reported from the committee nominated to calculate the numbers of votes entered for those Scots peers standing for election. Despite his apparent irritation with the Junto, Mohun’s adherence to the Hanoverian succession and to the Whig cause in general remained undiminished, and in March he moved for the removal of the Pretender from French dominions to be included in the address to the queen.<sup>86</sup> The following month, on 3 Apr., he was noted among a number of other peers present at an entertainment hosted by Somerset and ten days later he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for the relief of non-commissioned officers as fit to pass.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Mohun returned to the House at the beginning of the new session on 15 Nov. 1709, after which he was present on just over 70 per cent of all sitting days. Between 10 and 11 Jan. 1710 he reported from two sessions of committees of the whole considering William Hayward’s bill, which was adjudged fit to pass with amendments. Prominent in the business surrounding the trial of Dr Sacheverell during the session, Mohun acted as a teller in three votes relating to the proceedings (on 25 Feb., 14 and 16 Mar.) as well as chairing the committee appointed to examine the riots that had erupted in London in the wake of the opening of the trial, from which he reported on 2 March. During the subsequent debates he become embroiled in a heated exchange with Hamilton and on 20 Mar., unsurprisingly, found the doctor guilty of the charges laid against him.<sup>88</sup> The following day he served as a teller again for the motion to bar Sacheverell from holding a benefice for three years. On 1 Apr. he acted as a teller again for the division over whether to reverse a decree in the cause <em>Hammersmith Inhabitants v. Bishop of London</em>.</p><p>Mohun’s well-known dissatisfaction with the Junto was no doubt the reason for his inclusion in one of Harley’s memoranda in July 1710 of those he hoped might join his new ministry. In October, although he assessed Mohun as a possible opponent, Harley continued his efforts to secure Mohun’s services, employing first the renegade Whig, Henry Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, and then Mohun’s former mother-in-law, Lady Charlotte Orby, as intermediaries. Mohun explained to William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, that he had been informed he might expect ‘any preferment he would choose if he would come into them’ and, perhaps more alluring still, that the new ministry had offered him the prospect of a satisfactory end to the ongoing legal battle with Hamilton. Despite this, Mohun remained unwilling to enter directly into measures with Harley, undertaking only that, ‘while they acted the interest of his country, he was already with them; if they should do otherwise, nothing should make him assist them.’<sup>89</sup> Nevertheless, the new ministry continued to cultivate Mohun, and in November Shrewsbury informed Harley that he had secured the queen’s consent for Mohun to be one of the new Admiralty commissioners, provided he was not made first lord.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Mohun took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. Absent for a few days between 29 Nov. and 4 Dec. Mohun covered his absence by registering his proxy with Ormond. Mohun spent the Christmas recess at Epsom thereby missing an attempt made by Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, to call on him, presumably with a view to discerning how Mohun was likely to behave in the forthcoming debates on the peace.<sup>91</sup> Mohun resumed his place on 2 Jan. 1711. On 11 Jan. he subscribed the protests at the resolution rejecting the petitions of the commanders in the Spanish campaign, Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] and Henry de Massue, Viscount Galway [I] desiring time to answer, and at the resolution that blamed Tyrawley, Galway and their fellow general James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope, for the defeat at Almanza. The following day, having voiced his concerns at the motion to censure the ministers responsible for approving the offensive in Spain on the grounds that, ‘he knew not who was meant by the ministry’, that ‘the advice of an offensive war was, at that time, no ill advice’ and finally ‘because he would be just to all mankind and not censure anybody that gives his opinion to the best of his understanding’, he subscribed the protest when the resolution to censure the ministers was carried.<sup>92</sup> On 5 Feb. he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to read the general naturalization bill a second time, and the same day he was entrusted with Wharton’s proxy. The proxy was vacated ten days later and on 10 Feb. Mohun also received that of John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron Ashburnham, which was vacated on 13 February. Mohun received Wharton’s proxy again on 2 Apr., which was vacated on 16 April. Absent for the last three weeks of the session, on 8 June Mohun registered his own proxy with Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln.</p><p>During the summer relations between Mohun and Hamilton reached a new low point and in August there were reports of a ‘mighty noise’ concerning the two over their ongoing legal dispute.<sup>93</sup> Having attended the two single sitting days of 13 and 27 Nov., Mohun took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec., on which day he received the proxy of Banastre Maynard*, 3rd Baron Maynard, which was vacated by the session’s close. Present on over three-quarters of all sitting days in the session, on 22 Dec. Mohun was also entrusted with the proxy of Maurice Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham. The same month he was included by Nottingham in a list of peers who were perhaps expected to co-operate against the ministry’s peace policy, and on 8 Dec. he was listed among those thought to be in favour of presenting the address containing the no peace without Spain motion. Aside from these great issues, the session was dominated by Mohun’s continuing efforts to secure the Macclesfield inheritance from his rival Hamilton. On 19 Dec. he was noted among those expected to oppose moves to permit Hamilton to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon, and the following day he voted to bar Scots peers holding post-union British titles from sitting in the Lords.</p><p>Early the following year Mohun was successful in securing the House’s leave for him to insist on his privilege during the continuing legal action with Hamilton, and it was with a noticeably generous spirit that he granted Peter Minshull and his family (who were engaged in parallel suits with Mohun over part of the Macclesfield estate) further time to respond to his petition to overturn a chancery decree that had been awarded in their favour.<sup>94</sup> On 26 Feb. 1712 he acted as one of the tellers for the division on whether to agree to the Commons’ amendment to the episcopal communion (Scotland) bill. On 11 Feb. and again on 25 May he received Lincoln’s proxy (vacated respectively on 13 Feb. and 30 May), and on 7 Mar. he also received that of Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, which was voided by Bolton’s resumption of his seat on 24 March. A few days later, on 29 Mar., Mohun was entrusted with the proxy of John Sydney*, 6th earl of Leicester, and on 1 Apr. he was entrusted with Bolton’s proxy once more (vacated by Bolton’s return to the House on 12 May). On 19 and 20 May he acted as teller for two divisions concerning the commitment and passing of the grants bill, though the latter failed after the votes were tied at 78 each, and on 28 May he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to address the queen to request her to order an offensive war against France. Mohun subscribed a final protest on 7 June at the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech relating to the peace. The reasons for both these protests were obliterated from the Journal.</p><p>Amidst the increasing antagonisms caused by the legal actions over the Macclesfield estate, there were also signs that Mohun’s temper was beginning to give way. In March Peter Minshull, hoping to achieve redress from the Lords, complained to Oxford of the ‘violence and manifest injustice’ he had been subjected to both by ‘the late lords Macclesfield and present Lord Mohun’ in his efforts to settle the issue.<sup>95</sup> On 28 May, following an angry exchange between John Poulett*, Earl Poulett and Marlborough, during the debate on the ‘restraining orders’ Mohun was employed by the latter to convey a challenge to Poulett, though in the event Poulett declined to fight.<sup>96</sup> The same day, unsurprisingly, Mohun divided with those in favour of demanding that the queen order her commanders on the continent to resume offensive operations.</p><p>Having failed to resolve their dispute in the course of the session or during the months following the prorogation in June, in November 1712 Mohun and Hamilton tried once more to reach some form of settlement. On 13 Nov. a meeting between the two men and their lawyers descended into an acrimonious argument after Hamilton cast doubt upon the credibility of one of Mohun’s witnesses, only for Mohun to respond in kind that his man was quite as honest a man as the duke himself. The result was yet another challenge and on the morning of 15 Nov., having spent the night before carousing in a bagnio, Mohun along with his second, General George Maccartney, arrived at Hyde Park for his long-awaited confrontation with Hamilton. The result was a notoriously brutal and swift affair with neither of the principals apparently interested in wasting time with parrying. Mohun appears to have suffered a fatal stab wound almost at once. In the subsequent enquiries, there was some dispute as to whether it was Mohun himself or Maccartney who then dealt Hamilton a mortal blow. Some reporters claimed that Maccartney butchered Hamilton after Mohun’s death, but it seems likely that it was Mohun who succeeded in stabbing his enemy through the chest while he was on the floor with Hamilton leaning over him.<sup>97</sup></p><p>In the aftermath of the duel, some commentators, with Swift in the vanguard, claimed that the affair had been ‘a whiggish contrivance’ to prevent Hamilton from taking up his post as ambassador in Paris.<sup>98</sup> Many thought that Maccartney was most to blame for the final resort to violence, though his friend, Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, with whom he sought refuge after the duel protested in a letter to the duchess of Portsmouth ‘I do not understand why, because the duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun killed each other because they could not agree, it should be a matter of state importance.’<sup>99</sup> The practical result of the affray was to perpetuate the legal wrangling over the settlement of the Macclesfield estate. The dispute was further complicated by Mohun’s own will, in which he left all, bar £1,000, to his widow and former mistress, Elizabeth ‘Duck’ Griffin, marriage to whom he had only recently owned. He left £1,000 to his ‘pretended’ daughter, Elizabeth Mohun, and a £100 annuity to Jeremiah Thompson, steward of his Cheshire estates.<sup>100</sup> Mohun was interred close to his father in an unmarked grave at St Martin-in-the-Fields. His widow later married Colonel Charles Mordaunt, one of Peterborough’s nephews. In the absence of a male heir, the barony of Mohun became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MOHUN, Warwick (1620-65) |
<p><strong><surname>MOHUN</surname></strong>, <strong>Warwick</strong> (1620–65)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 28 Mar. 1641 as 2nd Bar. MOHUN. |
|
First sat 25 May 1641; first sat after 1660, 9 June 1660; last sat 31 Jan. 1665 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 May 1620, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John Mohun<sup>†</sup>, later Bar. Mohun, and Cordelia, wid. of Sir Roger Aston, da. of Sir John Stanhope and Catherine Trentham. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. bef. 1648, Catherine (<em>d</em>. bef. 22 Apr. 1692), da. of ? Welles, of Brambridge (Bambridge, Brember), Twyford, Hants. 3s (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 4da.<sup>1</sup> <em>suc</em>. cos. in estates Apr. 1646.<sup>2</sup> <em>bur</em>. 12 May 1665; <em>will</em> 30 Apr. pr. 28 July 1665–22 July 1667.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Recorder Lostwithiel, 1661–<em>d.</em>, Okehampton ?by 1661–<em>d.</em><sup>4</sup></p><p>Col. of ft. 1642–3.</p> |
|
<p>Mohun was a member of a cadet branch of the Mohuns of Dunster, who claimed descent from one of the companions of William the Conqueror and included among their ancestors one of the original 25 knights of the garter.<sup>6</sup> His father had been raised to the peerage in 1628, largely through the patronage of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham.<sup>7</sup> Casual violence seems to have been habitual for the Mohuns. In 1637, Mohun’s older brother, John, was committed to the Fleet following an assault on Richard Lumley, Baron Lumley [I], on Ludgate Hill.<sup>8</sup> Both Mohun’s son and grandson were later to die in politically motivated duels. John’s death in 1639 (the same year as that of Mohun’s grandfather, Sir Reginald Mohun<sup>‡</sup>) left Mohun heir both to the barony and to the majority of the family estates. Given the family’s prominence in the borough, it is possible that he was the Mr Mohun involved in a disputed return at Grampound for the first Parliament of 1640, though this may have been his cousin Reginald Mohun<sup>‡</sup> or another of his kinsmen.</p><p>Mohun’s father had been a prominent supporter of the king in the West Country in the years immediately preceding the Civil War. Following his succession to the peerage Mohun espoused the royalist cause too (though apparently after some initial hesitation). In August 1642 the House ordered his arrest after he put into execution the king’s commission of array in Cornwall. His younger brother, Charles, later lost his life in the king’s service at Dartmouth. Although Mohun resigned his colonelcy in 1643, following the king’s defeat he appears to have continued to agitate on behalf of the royalists. He was released from the House’s restraint on bail of £2,000 in 1646 but in June 1655 he was accused along with several others of involvement in a plot against Cromwell. Mohun subsequently ‘submitted to the Protectorate’ in 1656 and, according to John Thurloe, the then secretary of state, renounced the king.<sup>9</sup></p><p>At the Restoration, Mohun attempted to re-establish the family’s local influence in Okehampton for the elections to the Convention. The result was a double return but Mohun’s candidate, Robert Reynolds, was ultimately unsuccessful and the local candidates, Edward Wise<sup>‡</sup> and Josias Calmady<sup>‡</sup>, took both seats. There is no indication that Mohun made any effort to make his presence felt in his native Cornwall, even though he commanded significant interest at Lostwithiel.<sup>10</sup> He took his seat in the House on 9 June. A few days later, he was challenged about his submission to the Protectorate as a result of an investigation by the committee for privileges ordered on 13 June but was able to play down the incident and to convince the House that he had not taken the oath of abjuration.<sup>11</sup> With the Lords thus satisfied, he proceeded to attend 55 per cent of all sitting days prior to the summer adjournment. He was named to some 15 committees, including those considering the act to confirm the privileges of Parliament and the fundamental laws of England, the bill to confirm judicial proceedings and the poll-money bill. He was also appointed to report from the committee to prepare heads for a conference with the Commons to press for the return of deeds and evidences belonging to peers.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Like many former royalists Mohun appears to have been eager to secure redress for his experiences during the Interregnum. He also seems to have been one of a small cadre of peers determined to stiffen the terms of the Indemnity bill.<sup>13</sup> On 12 July the House took into consideration a petition submitted by Mohun that his privilege had been breached as a result of him being sued by common process in the 1650s. On 7 Aug. Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, reported from the privileges committee in Mohun’s favour, and on 16 Aug. it was resolved that Mohun ought to be paid damages by his opponents, Kegwin and Dandy. The vote prompted three peers to enter their dissents, among them Mohun’s Cornish rival, John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor). After a series of delays, consideration of the level of damages to be awarded was deferred to the beginning of December.</p><p>Mohun reported from the committee for the bill for naturalizing the countess of Derby on 29 Aug. and the following day he also reported from that considering the bill for Robert Sutton*, Baron Lexinton. The same day Mohun entered a solitary dissent against the resolution to pay £2,150 15<em>s</em>. 10<em>d</em>. to Francis Willoughby*, 4th (<em>CP </em>5th) Baron Willoughby of Parham. Willoughby had been one of the three peers objecting to payment of damages to Mohun so this appears to have been little more than a tit-for-tat response. On 1 Sept. Mohun reported from the committee appointed to frame an agreement between the aldermen and inhabitants of Exeter, something in which he may have had local interest.</p><p>Following the adjournment, Mohun took his seat on 16 Nov. 1660, after which he was present on 67 per cent of all sitting days. On 19 Nov. the House considered further instances of Mohun’s privilege being infringed over cases brought against him in common pleas by one Stepkin and by Edmund Fettiplace. The Lords resolved that Mohun should not be required to answer the suits unless he chose to waive his privilege. On 22 Nov. Mohun once more registered a solitary dissent at the resolution to throw out the bill for vacating information relating to compositions for adhering to the former king. Despite his earlier successes in defending his privilege, on 1 Dec. his case with Kegwin and Dandy was revived in the House as a result of the passage of the Act of Indemnity. The Lords’ former order for Mohun to be granted damages was overturned but he was able to secure a concession that the former proceedings would not prejudice any subsequent appeal to the common law courts.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Mohun was again active in the elections for the new Parliament. He almost certainly espoused his kinsman Sir Thomas Hele<sup>‡</sup> at Okehampton and probably supported the candidacy of Sir Chichester Wrey<sup>‡</sup> at Lostwithiel, where he had recently been elected recorder. Another kinsman, Charles Roscarrock<sup>‡</sup>, was returned for Camelford, though Mohun was unlikely to have had any hand in this: the two men had been on opposite sides of the legal suit in the 1650s arising from the distribution of Mohun’s grandfather’s estate.</p><p>Mohun failed to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament and it was not until November 1661 that he finally returned to the House. In his absence the Lords took into consideration two more privilege cases in which he was involved. On 13 May 1661 the House was informed that one of Mohun’s servants, Joseph Bastard, had been arrested contrary to privilege, but following debate it was resolved to defer discussion until Mohun resumed his place because there was some dispute as to whether or not Bastard was indeed in Mohun’s employment. On 17 May a chancery case involving lands in Bloomsbury was brought to the Lords attention as it was contested that Mohun had an interest in the property. Although the House ordered a stay on the case, following subsequent debate the order was overturned on 6 June, after it was established that Mohun was only a trustee and his privilege was not concerned in the matter.</p><p>Having at last taken his seat on 20 Nov. Mohun was thereafter present on just under 60 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to almost 30 committees, among them the committee delegated on 8 Apr. to draw up a clause in which it was left ‘to the king to make such provision for those of the clergy as his Majesty shall think fit’, who were to be deprived of their livings under the terms of the Act of Uniformity. On 25 Feb. 1662 Mohun joined Antony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and several other peers in speaking out angrily in a session of the committee for privileges against the precedence claimed by William Brouncker<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Brouncker [I], at the funeral of the queen of Bohemia in violation of the rights of the English peerage.<sup>14</sup> On 2 May he chaired sessions of the committees considering the advowsons bill and leather bill. The former was ordered to be reported to the House the following day but on 6 May Mohun was once more in the chair of the committee considering the measure. He continued to preside over this committee and the committee for the leather bill over the next few days, reporting to the House from the former again on 9 May and from the latter on the 15th. On 13 May he also chaired a session of the committee considering the problem of stoppages in the streets, but that was adjourned without further discussion.<sup>15</sup> The following day he reported the effect of a conference with the Commons concerning the distribution of funds to indigent officers who had served in the royalist army; this was one of a clutch of conferences from which Mohun reported in the course of the session.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Mohun returned to the House for the ensuing session of February 1663, during which he was present on 79 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 20 committees, among them committees on bills to repeal the acts of the Long Parliament, for highways, the poor, and for the encouragement of trade. In March he and the lord privy seal (Robartes) were appointed to address the king in the matter of evidences concerning advowsons and other papers which had been taken from royalist peers during the Interregnum. These had been delivered to the king by the clerk of the Commons, and Mohun and Robartes were deputed to request that the king release the papers to the clerk of the House of Lords.</p><p>On 8 May Mohun presided over a session of the committee for Briscoe’s bill, reporting the committee’s findings to the House three days later. The following month he was added to a board of referees appointed by the Lords to arbitrate in the case of George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergaveny, and Elizabeth, dowager Baroness Abergaveny. Later in June he reported to the Lords from the committee for privileges in the matter of the conspiracy against Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield).<sup>17</sup> On 8 July he chaired sessions of the committees for the trade bill and the bill for John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, but after that date he retired from the remainder of the session and was consequently absent during the attempted impeachment of the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Mohun took his seat in the ensuing session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he was present for 92 per cent of sittings of the House. He was named to 13 committees, including the committee for the bill to continue the regulation of the press, and was delegated to inform the king that Parliament had decided to pass the bill repealing the Triennial Act.<sup>19</sup> On 21 Apr. he chaired a session of the committee considering the Falmouth church bill, which he had previously presented to the House.<sup>20</sup> He was also appointed one of the managers of a series of conferences concerning foreign trade and the conventicles bill, and was one of the Lords deputed to draft and examine provisos within the latter.</p><p>Mohun’s attendance declined in the following session of November 1664. Having taken his seat on 24 Nov. he was present on just 53 per cent of sitting days. On the opening day he was among the Lords appointed to present the House’s thanks to the king for making preparations against the Dutch and to the City of London for their financial support of the king. He proceeded to be named to four committees in the course of the session in addition to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. He was alone in recording a protest on 29 Nov. against an amendment to a chancery decision relating to a case involving his Cornish neighbour, Robert Robartes (son of the 2nd Baron Robartes), his wife and son. Mohun argued that the merits of the case had not been heard at the bar of the House and as a result the ‘will of the dead may be overthrown, infants decreed out of legal estate, and provision made by the testator to pay honest debts defeated and avoided’.</p><p>Absent from the House after the close of January 1665, presumably because of declining health, Mohun died in or about early May 1665 and was buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. On the last day of April, ‘weak in body’, he composed a new will in which he appointed his wife and three sisters co-executrices with full power to manage his estates during his heir’s minority and for one year after the new baron came of age. Mohun devised the vast majority of his holdings to his heir on condition that he would raise £2,000 a piece to his younger siblings on their attaining the age of 21. In 1668 his widow (a Catholic) gave an undertaking to bring up their children in the Protestant faith.<sup>21</sup> Mohun was succeeded by his son, Charles Mohun*, as 3rd Baron Mohun.</p> |
A.C./R.D.E.E. |
|
MONCK, Christopher (1653-88) |
<p><strong><surname>MONCK</surname></strong>, <strong>Christopher</strong> (1653–88)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Torrington 1661-70; <em>suc. </em>fa. 3 Jan. 1670 (a minor) as 2nd duke of ALBEMARLE |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 22 Nov. 1686 |
|
MP Devon 1667-70 |
<p><em>b</em>. 14 Aug. 1653,<sup>1</sup> o. surv. s. of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, and Ann (<em>d</em>.1670), da. of John Clarges. <em>educ</em>. privately (Thomas Lisle).<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 30 Dec. 1669 (with £20,000), Elizabeth (1654–1734), da. and coh. of Henry Cavendish*, <em>styled</em> Ld. Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), <em>s.p.</em> KG 1670. <em>d</em>. 6 Oct. 1688; <em>will</em> 4 July 1687 (disputed).</p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber, 1673–85; PC 1675–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. for assessment, Devon 1667–9; freeman Harwich 1674, Exeter 1675, Plymouth 1676, Preston 1682, Portsmouth 1683, Plympton Erle 1685; ld. lt. (jt.) Essex, 1675–<em>d</em>., Devon 1675–85; <em>custos rot</em>. Devon 1675–85; recorder, Colchester 1677–Feb. 1688, Tiverton 1683–Jan. 1688, Sandwich 1684–<em>d</em>., Dover,<sup>3</sup> Harwich, Saffron Walden, and Gt. Torrington 1685–<em>d.</em>; high steward, Exeter 1676,<sup>4</sup> Reading 1683,<sup>5</sup> Dover, South Molton, and Totnes 1684–<em>d</em>., Colchester and Barnstaple Sept. 1688–<em>d</em>.; high constable, Carolina c.1680.</p><p>Capt. of ft. 1666–7; col. 1673–4; col. Queen’s Horse 1678–9, 1st Horse Gds. 1679–85.</p><p>Chan. Camb. Univ. 1682; founding mbr. Hudson’s Bay Co. 1670.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas attrib. T. Murray, Old Schools, University of Cambridge; mezzotint, I. Beckett, aft. T. Murray, NPG D304843.</p> |
<p><em>Too rich, too young</em></p><p>The pampered only child of one of the most powerful men in the country, elected to Parliament at the age of 13, and married to a daughter of one of the wealthiest and most powerful noble families in the land, Christopher Monck was clearly intended for a glittering public career. His father’s early death was something of a setback: as a minor the new duke was unlikely to be summoned to the Lords but as a peer he was no longer eligible to sit in the Commons. Even so, his potentially extensive influence was readily recognized by Charles II, who immediately promised to confer his father’s garter on the new duke and also offered him a place as gentleman of the bedchamber when he came of age. The lord lieutenancy of Devon went to his kinsman John Granville*, earl of Bath, who was to hold it in trust during Albemarle’s minority.</p><p>Little is known of Albemarle’s education, other than that he was taught in the company of his cousin Walter Clarges<sup>‡</sup> by Thomas Lisle, a displaced Presbyterian minister.<sup>7</sup> The education he thus received may have been somewhat desultory for ‘The dull head of General Monck’, according to Burnet, ‘would have his son instructed no further than to make speeches in Parliament.’<sup>8</sup> Albemarle inherited a vast estate, consisting of lands in at least 12 English counties (including Essex, Middlesex, and Devon), as well as over 15,000 acres in Ireland, the Carolinas, and the West Indies that produced an income variously estimated at between £13,000 and £22,000 a year. In addition he inherited more than £70,000 (perhaps as much as £180,000) in ready money from his father and perhaps a further £50,000, plus jewels said to be worth £50,000, from his mother, who died less than two weeks after her husband.<sup>9</sup> These estimates of his wealth did not include the £20,000 portion that he acquired from his marriage settlement. It has been suggested that, after members of the royal family, he was probably the third richest man in England. When, during the 1670s, his cousin Elizabeth Pride asked him for £500 to add to her dowry, he replied that as he was living on nothing but the revenue from his estates ‘I can spare nothing from my ordinary expenses’, but this was surely disingenuous for, in his first known will, drawn up in 1675, he was sufficiently confident of his resources to provide an additional £6,000 a year to augment his wife’s jointure of £2,000 a year.<sup>10</sup></p><p>By his father’s will, ‘the tuition and breeding’ of Albemarle was left to his mother and to his father’s friends and political allies, William Craven*, earl of Craven, Sir William Morice<sup>‡</sup>, Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Edward Turner<sup>‡</sup>, Sir William Doyley<sup>‡</sup>, Robert Scawen<sup>‡</sup>, John Howell, and Sir Thomas Stringer<sup>‡</sup>. Christopher Monck was appointed sole executor, although as a minor he was incapable of entering into contracts. A private act of Parliament, piloted through by his maternal uncle, Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, was required to regularize the position. The act effectively appointed Albemarle’s father-in-law, Lord Ogle, his wife’s uncle, Charles Cheney<sup>‡</sup>, and his kinsmen John Granville*, earl of Bath, Sir James Smith<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir Thomas Clarges, together with his father’s old friend, Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, as trustees of the young duke’s estates.</p><p>A later allegation that Albemarle had fallen out with Clarges is supported by the latter’s statement that he had no role in managing the Albemarle estates during the last 15 years of the duke’s life.<sup>11</sup> The two men were certainly on difficult terms by 1675 when Albemarle withdrew his support for the candidacy of Clarges’ son, Sir Walter Clarges<sup>‡</sup> at Clitheroe in favour of Sir Thomas Stringer<sup>‡</sup>. Earlier in the year, Clarges had cautioned Albemarle that ‘honour and estate are very insignificant without esteem and respect’ and warned him of an impending crisis in his finances caused by his ‘unhappy purchase’ of Clarendon House – a criticism that Albemarle clearly resented.<sup>12</sup> It was said that their strained relationship resulted from the way in which Clarges had taken advantage of Albemarle’s minority to create a reversionary interest in some of the Albemarle lands for himself and his son. While it is not unlikely that Sir Thomas was guilty of sharp practice, Albemarle seems to have been somewhat naïve financially and provided an easy target for the rapaciousness of those who were supposed to act in his best interests. Some ten years, later Bath’s handling of the sale of Albemarle (formerly Clarendon) House also led to well-substantiated allegations of financial misconduct. A more plausible explanation of the deterioration in their relationship may therefore lie in court politics. Albemarle was a fervent royalist and a close friend of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, so it is likely that he shared Charles II’s displeasure with Clarges over the role that he had played in linking Monmouth to the attack on Sir John Coventry<sup>‡</sup> and with Clarges’ subsequent opposition to government policies.</p><p>Possessed of a considerable fortune and free of parental control, Albemarle embarked upon a life at court: a life in which horse and greyhound racing, hunting, heavy gambling, and hard drinking played an important role. In 1670 he invoked privilege of peerage to protect Samuel Rich, one of his chaplains, who had been arrested in spite of Albemarle’s written protections.<sup>13</sup> In February 1671, together with a group of high-ranking but thuggish friends that included Monmouth, Edward Griffin*, later Baron Griffin, Peter Savage, Robert Constable (Viscount Dunbar [S]), and the future Jacobite conspirator Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, he was involved in a brawl with the local peace officers after a visit to a brothel in Whetstone Park (near Holborn). Faced by a gang of youths with drawn swords all but one of the peace officers fled. The remaining officer, Beadle Peter Virnell or Vernell, ‘defended himself with a quarter staff but was ran through some say in two places some say in 16’ and died of his injuries.<sup>14</sup> The authorities quickly took action to protect the perpetrators. In what Andrew Marvell‡ described as ‘an act of great scandal’ all those responsible for the murder were pardoned before a trial could be held.<sup>15</sup> The terms of Albemarle’s pardon, together with the fact that it was the first to be issued, suggests that he was the most culpable of the youths involved, and this impression is further confirmed in a contemporary poem,</p><blockquote><p>‘No mercy!’ cries our late great Gen’r’l’s heir,<br />Who presses on more boldly when he sees<br />The wretched beadle sinking on his knees<br />And leaps upon him with that elusive force<br />(His father ne’er slew Scot with less remorse)…<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>Yet Albemarle remained a favourite at court and in 1673 he was made a gentleman of the bedchamber. In the same year he was made colonel of a new regiment and was given confirmation of title to lands in Ireland that had been bestowed on his father during the interregnum. He also began to exert himself on behalf of Thomas Monck, an impoverished Irish soldier who had been recognized as a kinsman by his father and whose precise relationship to the Albemarles would later become the subject of a long-running dispute over the Albemarle fortune.<sup>17</sup> Early in 1674 Albemarle was reported to have asked the king for permission to serve with the prince of Orange but was refused.<sup>18</sup></p><p><em>The loyal courtier, 1675–85</em></p><p>On attaining his majority Albemarle entered public life in earnest. As early as 1670, during the run-up to the election for his successor as knight of the shire for Devon, his involvement in the contest had been so intense that he threw two glasses of wine in the face of Sir William Courtenay<sup>‡</sup> during celebrations for the wedding of Sir James Smith.<sup>19</sup> Already in possession of considerable electoral influence by virtue of his landholdings, between 1674 and 1677 he reinforced that influence still further by collecting a series of local offices at borough and county levels. His first known foray into electoral politics was his intervention in the 1675 Clitheroe by-election mentioned above.</p><p>In the Lords, as he had been in the Commons, Albemarle was a reliable supporter of the court. As he once explained to Bath, he saw himself as dedicated ‘without any faction or other interest’ to the king ‘being ready to venture my life and fortune as frankly for his majesty as my father did, and would ever have done, as often as his majesty’s service required it’.<sup>20</sup> He took his seat on the first day of the 1675 session and was then present for some 85 per cent of sittings. He was named, as he would be in every session that he attended, to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. Even before he had taken his seat, he was listed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), as a probable supporter of the non-resisting Test. On 14 May he indicated his support for the Lords’ assumption of jurisdiction in the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> when, together with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, he entered a dissent against the Lords’ compliance with the Commons request for an explanation of the grounds upon which Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, had detained the Commons’ warrant against Dr. Sherley.</p><p>During the recess in the summer of 1675, Albemarle completed negotiations for the purchase of the palatial Clarendon House for £25,000.<sup>21</sup> Occupying the house built by his father’s old enemy may have been intended to convey a message about his own aspirations for public life. It also provided an ostentatious symbol of wealth and status, one that was perhaps all the more necessary because it was already rumoured that he had managed to dissipate most of his father’s fortune: ‘’tis strangely wasted’, wrote Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, ‘and hath ever been wasting since he killed the poor beadle in Whetstone’s Park’.<sup>22</sup> Sir Thomas Clarges, who was in a position to be even better informed about Albemarle’s finances than Verney, warned his nephew that the purchase was an extravagance that would lead to almost irrevocable financial difficulty, adding for good measure that ‘Young men never see their unhappiness till they feel it.’<sup>23</sup></p><p>During the short autumn 1675 session Albemarle held the proxy of the elderly Charles Stanhope*, 2nd Baron Stanhope of Harrington. While it is tempting to speculate that the proxy was intended for use in connection with the controversy over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, Albemarle’s attendance pattern suggests otherwise. He was present on only half of the 20 sitting days. These included the first five days of the session, when detailed discussion of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> was repeatedly postponed, but at a call of the House on 10 Nov. he was listed as having been excused attendance by the king and so was not present when the issue was debated in a committee of the whole or for the debates over the publication of <em>A Letter to a Person of Quality</em>.</p><p>In the course of 1676 it was believed, probably correctly, that Albemarle’s influence might be sufficient to secure the support of Sir Richard Everard<sup>‡</sup> for the court.<sup>24</sup> Meanwhile, in the autumn of that year he was busy with his new local government responsibilities in Devon. The gentry and aristocracy of Devon turned out in force to meet him as he made a grand progress through the county that culminated in a magnificent entrance into Plymouth, where he was greeted by members of the corporation and admitted to the freedom of the borough.<sup>25</sup> Over the winter of 1676–7 he was in contact with Dr. Thomas Skinner, whose desire to ingratiate himself with those capable of promoting his preferment had led to the suggestion that he write a biography of Albemarle’s father. Albemarle, who took considerable pride in his father’s reputation, made his family papers available to Skinner and also provided ‘a very honourable testimony of his bounty’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Albemarle attended the 1677–8 session for some 76 per cent of sitting days, with most of his absences concentrated in February, March, and April 1678, when he was away, presumably on military duties. He held the proxy of his friend Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, from the beginning of the session in February 1677 to 5 Feb. 1678. The proxy was vacated on that date by Pembroke’s attendance to answer a complaint made against him; it was re-registered on 23 February. During the course of the session Albemarle was named to only two select committees. In May he joined with Bath in recommending that the king bestow a mark of favour on Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>27</sup> His role in the dispute in Colchester between the recorder Sir John Shaw<sup>‡ </sup>and the corporation is unclear. In May Shaw had hopes that Albemarle would support him, then in November resigned the recordership in his favour.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In the meantime (in August 1677) Albemarle travelled to Holland, ostensibly to join the Dutch forces but possibly on a mission connected with the marriage of Princess Mary to William of Orange or the negotiations for a peace between France and Holland. He was at Harwich to greet William on his arrival and appears to have remained on good terms with him thereafter. From 14 Jan. 1678 he held the proxy of his father-in-law, Henry Cavendish, now 2nd duke of Newcastle, who was anxious to avoid his parliamentary duties, considering ‘the times and businesses … now on foot’.<sup>29</sup> On 29 Jan. Albemarle delivered a petition to the House from Pembroke, who had been imprisoned by the king for blasphemous words.<sup>30</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted Pembroke guilty only of manslaughter. His friendship for Pembroke survived that lord’s increasingly bizarre behaviour; three years later, in May 1681, he was one of the signatories to a petition that Pembroke be pardoned for murder.<sup>31</sup></p><p>The military duties that distracted Albemarle from his parliamentary ones were clearly very important to his sense of self-worth. Admiring observers of a muster held on Hounslow Heath in June 1678 noted that ‘The commanders were gloriously fine, but above all the duke of Albemarle for splendour and the great number of rare lead horses which he had’.<sup>32</sup> Splendid he may have been, but his military abilities were not highly rated and there were rumours in September 1678 that he would resign rather than serve under Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham.<sup>33</sup></p><p>During the ensuing short session Albemarle attended only 16 per cent of sitting days and was named to just one select committee. His attendance rose again for the autumn 1678 session, reaching some 76 per cent. During this session he again held the proxies of Newcastle and Pembroke. On 26 Nov. he voted in favour of including the declaration against transubstantiation in the Test bill. His attendance record would have been higher but for an absence in December. On 17 Dec. he asked and was granted the permission of the House to</p><blockquote><p>have leave to go into the country for ten days, in order to public service of his majesty, by some further discovery (his grace hopes to make) of the plot; and that in the mean time he will be ready to attend the House at a day’s warning, whenever he shall have notice thereof.</p></blockquote><p>Such information as is available suggests that the alarm in the west country related not so much to the Popish Plot as such but to reports of a French landing in or near Purbeck.<sup>34</sup> Albemarle’s December absence meant that he was not called upon to divide on contentious issues relating to the disbanding of the army or the related question of payment of money into the exchequer. His political allegiances were nevertheless clear. Throughout this period he continued to be strongly associated with Danby, voting against his commitment on 27 Dec. 1678. Not surprisingly, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, listed him as doubly vile.</p><p>Although an infrequent attender at meetings of the privy council, Albemarle remained a member even after it was remodelled early in 1679; he also served as one of the lords of trade and plantations, probably because of his interests as one of the lords proprietors of Carolina and as a founder member of the Hudson’s Bay Company.<sup>35</sup> He was actively involved on behalf of the court in the elections to the Exclusion Parliaments. In February 1679 he was in correspondence with Danby about the impending electoral contest for Essex but his influence was insufficient to secure the return of the court candidates for the county constituency.<sup>36</sup> He was also active in the elections for the Essex boroughs. As high steward for Colchester he was well placed to secure the return of his cousin, the anti-exclusionist Sir Walter Clarges. At Maldon, he initially supported the candidature of Sir Richard Wiseman<sup>‡ </sup>but, when Wiseman decided not to stand James*, duke of York, ordered him to support William Scroggs, son of the lord chief justice.<sup>37</sup> In the event Scroggs did not stand and Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> was elected on the court interest instead. At Harwich it seems likely that he supported the election of York’s admiralty candidates, Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Anthony Deane<sup>‡</sup>, although there is no documentary evidence to confirm this.</p><p>Albemarle’s pro-court sympathies, so clearly demonstrated in his activities in the House and in the Essex elections were somewhat diluted in Devon. The infrequency of his visits there meant that his role in the county was a more distant and difficult one, requiring the active support and co-operation of his deputy lieutenants. His support did, however, help to re-elect Danby’s enemy, the Speaker, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>. Albemarle’s role in the Devon borough elections is unclear, possibly because he was able to rely on Bath, but perhaps also because of his extensive kinship network there and because of his father’s complex religious and political legacy. In Exeter, for example, he was instrumental in securing the council’s condemnation of the ‘seditious and factious proceedings’ during the election of the nonconformist sympathizer William Glyde<sup>‡</sup> in 1679; Glyde had been elected to the Exeter corporation on the recommendation of Albemarle’s father.<sup>38</sup> What little survives of Albemarle’s correspondence amply demonstrates his active interest in electoral issues, including as it does letters from Samuel Rolle<sup>‡ </sup>explaining his conduct at the 1679 Exeter election; a letter from the ‘Loyal Party of Tiverton’ in 1680 requesting a new charter to help them cope with ‘conventicles, faction and disorder’; and one from William Glyde defending himself against allegations made by the aldermen of Exeter in 1683.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s attendance during the 61-day session of the first Exclusion Parliament in 1679 rose to 85 per cent. On 18 Mar. 1679, together with Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton), he secured an order from the House permitting the Catholic Bernard Howard to return to London for a month despite the king’s proclamation. On 15 Apr. he delivered a box of papers belonging to Sir William Andrewes, who had been arrested in connection with the Popish Plot. He also exerted his influence (unsuccessfully) on the Commons committee on elections, in an attempt to secure Sir John Reresby’s<sup>‡</sup> seat at Aldborough.<sup>40</sup> Although Danby consistently listed Albemarle as an opponent of the proceedings against him, in April 1679 he included Albemarle on the ‘additional’ list of those who had voted him guilty. Presumably this was an error, for in May Danby reported that Albemarle had defended him in an exchange involving ‘hot words’ with Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>41</sup> On 27 May Albemarle probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. Over the summer Albemarle again exerted himself in the election for Essex, organizing a splendid cavalcade of gentry and clergy in support of the court candidates, who were nevertheless trounced.<sup>42</sup> He did, however, secure the election of one of the failed court candidates, Sir Thomas Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, for Harwich.<sup>43</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1680 Albemarle was disappointed when the king refused to permit him to go as a volunteer to Tangier.<sup>44</sup> He also had hopes of succeeding to the command vacated by the death of Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] and Baron Butler of Moore Park, but despite assurances of his devotion to York’s service he was again thwarted.<sup>45</sup> Discussions about offering him the government of Portsmouth similarly foundered, although rumours to that effect persisted until at least December.<sup>46</sup> When Parliament finally reconvened for the 1680–1 session, he was present for 78 per cent of sittings. In November 1680 he opposed attempts to exclude York from the succession and voted against the creation of a committee to consider the state of the kingdom. In December 1680 he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. The same month he also had some involvement in settling disputes within the corporation of Dover.<sup>47</sup> The following March he was listed as a supporter of the motion to bail Danby.</p><p>Throughout 1680 Albemarle continued to exert his influence against exclusion, ensuring that the Essex assizes did not endorse the county’s petition for the continued sitting of Parliament, and promoting instead an address of abhorrence.<sup>48</sup> With the exception of Sir Walter Clarges, the sitting members for all four borough constituencies were again returned in 1681. The emotions roused by fears of a Popish Plot still ran high and Clarges was defeated when Titus Oates smeared Albemarle and his fellow lord lieutenant, Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, as Catholic sympathizers.</p><p>Albemarle also exerted influence in Lancashire, where his interest was probably managed by his steward (and cousin by marriage), Curwen Rawlinson<sup>‡</sup>. As in Devon, local politics were complicated by kinship and local allegiances. Despite his dependence on Albemarle’s patronage, Rawlinson supported ‘country’ candidates in 1679. In 1681 he was instrumental in presenting a loyal address from the Lancaster sessions, referring to Albemarle in the process as a great ‘promoter of loyal endeavours’, but he earned the enmity of William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, for alleged sharp practice as a lawyer and justice of the peace and for his reluctance to prosecute Dissenters.<sup>49</sup> In 1685 Rawlinson was a potential candidate for Lancaster but stood down in favour of the Whig Charles Gerard*, (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield). Albemarle’s support helped elect his father’s old friend, Sir Thomas Stringer, for Clitheroe in 1675 and to re-elect him in 1679 and 1681, even though Stringer had become increasingly associated with exclusionists.</p><p>Although close to York and a determined opponent of exclusion, Albemarle was a committed Anglican.<sup>50</sup> He was said to have used his new post as commander of the Life Guards to purge it of papists; he also backed the campaign against Dissenters.<sup>51</sup> Military matters occupied much of his time. In the summer of 1680, as high constable, he was appointing all military officers in Carolina.<sup>52</sup> As lord lieutenant of Devon, he was also concerned to ensure that the militia – the county’s frontline defence against both internal and external enemies – should be in good order, ‘especially in these times when loyal men ought frequently to meet and join together to disappoint the wicked designs of rebellious and seditious people for the preservation of the peace of the government as it is established in church and state by law preserved’.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Although anxious to reassure his deputy lieutenants that the king intended to rule according to law, he was clearly associated with a somewhat heavy-handed attempt to stamp out local opposition to the court, including the dismissal of ‘country’ sympathizer Samuel Rolle from almost all his local appointments because of his failure to sign the loyal address approving the dissolution of Parliament in 1681. Rolle somewhat pathetically complained that he had been unable to sign the address as it had been sent off before he even knew of it.<sup>54</sup> The suggestion that Albemarle was appointed joint lord lieutenant of Wiltshire at about this time appears to be erroneous. A warrant for a commission, mentioning the incapacity through absence of Pembroke,], was issued in January 1681 but no letters patent have been traced.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s key role in the promotion of popular Toryism was underlined by his election in April 1682 as one of the stewards for the feast of the Artillery Company, at which York was besieged by a crowd of supporters.<sup>56</sup> He also attended the Tory feast for loyal young men and apprentices held in the Merchant Tailors’ Hall on 9 Aug. 1682, at which he was elected as a steward for the following year’s entertainment.<sup>57</sup> Meanwhile his support for Danby was shown by his presence in court in June 1682 to support Danby’s request for release. It was further shown by his activity as a member of the court of delegates empowered to hear and determine the validity of the Hyde–Emerton marriage and his decision in April 1683 to return a verdict in favour of Danby’s son.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s military career was extremely important to him but just how efficient a military officer he was remains a matter for debate. Monmouth, who had good reason to decry the achievements of his successor, claimed that the discipline of the guards had deteriorated under Albemarle’s command and found himself challenged to a duel as a result of his remarks. Monmouth may well have been right, for a description of Albemarle’s guards at an inspection in Hyde Park three years later was far from complimentary.<sup>59</sup> Monmouth’s resentment was fuelled still further when Albemarle replaced him as chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Albemarle’s subsequent installation, in May 1682, was a major social occasion, involving hundreds of students and alumni, as well as an elaborate (and extremely expensive) entertainment. Political enmities between Albemarle and Monmouth led to the escalation of a number of trivial incidents in June 1682. These included a duel between Albemarle and Monmouth’s ally, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), and a brawl between Albemarle’s and Monmouth’s servants.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Albemarle was clearly still very much a favourite at court, involved in various wagers with the king, accompanying him hunting and to the races, and often entertaining him at New Hall. He was entrusted with diplomatic tasks, such as the entertainment of William of Orange in 1681 and of the Moroccan ambassador in 1682, and in the winter of that year was tipped to become ambassador to the court of Fez.<sup>61</sup> He was also active in factional politics at court, involving himself, probably as an ally of York, in the rivalry between George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.<sup>62</sup> In 1683, he and his guardsmen were present at the execution of William Russell‡, Lord Russell; according to one account, Albemarle was so horrified at the botching of the execution that he drew his pistol, intending to end Russell’s sufferings, but was prevented by the crowd, who chanted ‘Murder, murder.’<sup>63</sup> Early the following year he was one of the signatories to the petition to the crown for Danby’s release and when the petition was granted stood bail for him in the sum of £5,000.<sup>64</sup></p><p>By the early 1680s Albemarle’s way of life had severely damaged both his fortune and his health. As Sir Thomas Clarges had predicted, the cost of buying Clarendon House was simply too much for his finances to bear, especially given his extravagance and his habitual gambling. In 1682 he was bargaining the sale of lands in Yorkshire to Danby and at the same time he was negotiating to buy the Cockpit in Whitehall from him.<sup>65</sup> He was in need of a new London house as he was having to sell Albemarle House (as he had renamed Clarendon House) to rectify the ‘prodigious waste’ that he had made of his inheritance.<sup>66</sup> In 1683 the property was sold for £36,000 and Albemarle moved into the Cockpit.</p><p>His sojourn there proved to be a temporary one; in 1684 he was ‘hurried’ into selling it and forced to look for temporary lodgings before accepting his father-in-law’s hospitality and moving into Newcastle House in Clerkenwell.<sup>67</sup> The proceeds of the sale were used to pay Albemarle’s debts. At the same time Albemarle was coping with his wife’s fragile mental health. His own health was also poor, so much so that in the summer of 1683 Sir Ralph Verney reported a rumour that ‘the duke of Albemarle is dead, or very like to die’.<sup>68</sup> Notes made by his physician, Hans Sloane, suggest that he was an alcoholic; he ate little other than crusts of bread, was prone to prolonged bouts of heavy drinking, and exhibited symptoms suggestive of cirrhosis of the liver.<sup>69</sup></p><p><em>Out of favour, 1685–8</em></p><p>The accession of James II brought expectations of fresh parliamentary elections and Albemarle was deeply involved in the ensuing preparations, working closely with Oxford, publicizing the names of his preferred candidates, and even threatening prosecution against an Essex clergyman whose behaviour in the pulpit had led the king to regard him as ‘obnoxious’. At the same time he was orchestrating the surrender and regranting of borough charters.<sup>70</sup> In Essex he secured the return of his candidates Sir William Maynard<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup> with the aid of an impressive cavalcade of local gentlemen, including the Catholic Thomas Petre*, 6th Baron Petre. Remodelled charters at Colchester and Harwich helped Albemarle to secure the return of Sir Walter Clarges and Samuel Pepys.<sup>71</sup> At Maldon, where the contest was closer than initially expected, the electorate were nevertheless ‘caressed’ by Albemarle into voting for the two court candidates, Sir John Bramston and Sir Thomas Darcy<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>72</sup> Although he expected Cambridge University to accept his nomination to one of their seats, he was unable to persuade them to do so. His candidate, Arthur Farewell<sup>‡</sup> (who acted as his secretary and was married to a cousin), was elected for Dartmouth instead.<sup>73</sup> Finally, he was successful in securing the return of court candidates for Sandwich, although the election was then disputed.<sup>74</sup></p><p>The poor survival of sources makes it difficult to assess Albemarle’s role in the Devon elections and charter campaign but a letter from his deputy lieutenants complimenting themselves on having the ‘most reformed’ county in the kingdom, where ‘The most stubborn of the sectaries do conform either for fear or conscience sake’, certainly suggests that it was considerable, and he was kept informed of the success of the Tory candidates there.<sup>75</sup> The charter campaign in Devon was spearheaded by Bath but Albemarle’s involvement is suggested by his inclusion as a burgess in several of the new charters (including Plymouth, Exeter, and Plympton).<sup>76</sup> The Exeter connections were particularly strong: Albemarle was related to Robert<sup>‡</sup>, James<sup>‡</sup>, and Thomas Walker<sup>‡</sup>, who all served in the Commons for Exeter. James Walker was later appointed governor of Port Royal, Jamaica, by the duke. Kinship also linked him to another former Exeter Member, Sir James Smith<sup>‡</sup>. Moreover he had influence in Dover and Dartmouth.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Despite these electoral successes Albemarle’s reputation at court was low, partly because of his problems with alcohol; he was reputed to have earned the displeasure of James II by being drunk in the presence of the queen.<sup>78</sup> When news of Monmouth’s intended invasion broke in the spring of 1685, Albemarle saw his chance to redeem his reputation and to live up to that of his father. He immediately went to Exeter to take command, alongside Bath, of the militia there. Things did not go well from the start. At least two of his officers suddenly discovered themselves to be unfit for duty.<sup>79</sup> His instructions, according to Bramston, were to stay there and to secure the county; Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland certainly told him to ‘forbear to attempt anything … except upon great advantages’.<sup>80</sup> In command of a force of some 4,000 men and facing an enemy who had landed with less than 100, he followed his instructions to the letter, thus allowing Monmouth time to establish himself.</p><p>An attempt to head off Monmouth’s march out of Lyme went disastrously wrong and demonstrated the unreliability of the militia. John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), reported that many of them ‘threw down their arms and fled … half, if not the greatest part, are gone to the rebels’.<sup>81</sup> The Somerset militia were equally unhappy about opposing Monmouth. The confusion of leadership was resolved with the appointment of Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham, as commander of the forces over Albemarle’s head, while the problems created by the divided loyalties of members of the militia were overcome by the arrival of the guards. Ironically, given the criticism that he subsequently faced, it was Albemarle’s own troops (led by Feversham) who defeated the rebels at Sedgemoor, while Albemarle and the Devon militia occupied themselves by tearing down handbills left behind by Monmouth’s supporters in Taunton. Observing from a distance, James Butler*, duke of Ormond, expressed a widespread belief when he condemned Albemarle’s handling of the military operation, declaring that there had been ‘time enough to have suppressed that rebellion with the bare militia, if tolerable conduct and courage had been employed in it. Now it will cost more time and some lives.’<sup>82</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s firm Anglicanism had probably already brought him into some disfavour at court. Now his indecisiveness, his inability to act on his own initiative, and his reluctance to hang rebels without trial all combined to convince James that he was dispensable.<sup>83</sup> Perhaps James even suspected Albemarle’s loyalty; Albemarle certainly thought it worthwhile to circulate multiple copies of an exchange of letters between himself and Monmouth, in which Albemarle declared ‘that I never was and never will be a rebel to my lawful king, who is James the Second, brother to my late dear master, King Charles the Second’.<sup>84</sup> Albemarle himself was convinced that his activities had been unjustly represented, but was unable to persuade the king of this. On 30 July 1685, Sir John Bramston was in another room while the king reproved Albemarle ‘so that the tears stood in his eyes’. Later that evening Albemarle protested about Feversham’s promotion, reminding the king of his own commission to command all the forces, only to be told that his commission had expired with Charles II’s life. The next day he resigned his military commands and his lord lieutenancies. He also wrote to Cambridge announcing his retirement from court and recommending the university to the care of William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>85</sup> Bath succeeded Albemarle as lord lieutenant of Devon. Anxious to preserve his relationship with Albemarle, whose estate he hoped to inherit, he protested to Sunderland that Albemarle’s influence over the Devon militia was invaluable and assured Albemarle that his interest would be protected and that the Devon militia would continue to march under his name and colours.<sup>86</sup> According to his wife, Albemarle was not impressed by Bath’s intervention, believing that far greater efforts could have been made on his behalf.<sup>87</sup></p><p>In January 1686 Albemarle was summoned as one of the triers for the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) in the court of the lord high steward but failed to appear.<sup>88</sup> The king continued to visit Albemarle at New Hall but a letter written by the duke in or about 1687 in response to the threat of a <em>quo warranto</em> against the lord proprietors of Carolina reveals that he was still very conscious of being under the king’s displeasure.<sup>89</sup> In the meantime, in the spring of 1686, Albemarle was appointed governor of Jamaica.<sup>90</sup> The appointment caused considerable surprise for, as one observer put it, ‘most as goes to those parts are men of desperate fortunes’.<sup>91</sup> One of Albemarle’s acolytes even went so far as to draw up a schedule of ‘Reasons humbly offered to the Duke of Albemarle against his going governor to Jamaica’.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Within a few months he had become the talk of the town for another reason. By investing £800 in an operation to salvage treasure from a shipwreck near Hispaniola he had secured a return variously reputed to be between £40,000 and £75,000.<sup>93</sup> According to one account he had been on the point of selling New Hall but the huge profit from the salvage operation not only prevented this but encouraged him to look for yet another home in Wiltshire.<sup>94</sup> Albemarle still had not left England when, in the following year, the University of Cambridge sought his assistance in dealing with the king’s request that Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, be admitted to the degree of Master of Arts without taking the oaths of supremacy and obedience. Knowing that to do so would invoke the king’s further displeasure, Albemarle nevertheless interposed on their behalf, albeit unsuccessfully.</p><p>Throughout 1686 and 1687, Albemarle was negotiating the terms under which he would serve as governor in Jamaica. At least one of his advisers, presumably drawing on the experience of the duke’s inability to defend himself against his enemies at court during Monmouth’s rebellion, advised him to insist that the council for foreign plantations be prevented from discussing matters relating to the government of Jamaica unless Albemarle were actually present.<sup>95</sup></p><p>The returns on Albemarle’s salvage operation may have given him useful bargaining power since the king was keen to share in them. Additional letters patent were issued in March 1687 granting him mining and mineral rights in all the American colonies, and when he left England for Jamaica in September he took a contingent of Devon miners with him.<sup>96</sup> Further concessions followed; they included the power to confer up to six knighthoods and a dispensation from the rule preventing governors from returning to England without express permission to do so.<sup>97</sup> In return he was offered an opportunity to rebuild James II’s confidence in his political abilities. It was perhaps to be expected that he was ‘to give all protection, countenance and encouragement’ to Catholics, but more importantly he was to bring the Jamaican assembly under control. A long-running constitutional dispute about the respective powers of the crown/governor and of the Jamaican assembly to make laws and raise supplies had ended in 1680 with what was in effect a capitulation by the king and his council. Nevertheless, the crown still sought to limit the assembly’s ability to exercise its powers and to prevent it from infringing the royal prerogative. In particular it sought to persuade the assembly to grant a perpetual revenue.<sup>98</sup></p><p>The assembly was initially unwilling to co-operate, fearing that the crown’s objective was to dispense with an elected assembly altogether. They were so suspicious of the crown’s motives that they even refused to grant a revenue for a seven-year term. In 1683, Governor Thomas Lynch had managed to overcome ingrained opposition to crown policies and had obtained a revenue act for 21 years. Albemarle, either on his own initiative or, more probably, acting on unwritten instructions, was determined to turn this into the perpetual revenue that the crown so much desired. Early in 1688 he summoned an assembly but when, after six weeks, it had refused to pass the perpetual revenue act that he demanded, it was dissolved.</p><p>Albemarle then embarked on a campaign to purge the opposition and to secure a new and more compliant assembly, adopting similar tactics to those used by James II to secure a compliant Parliament. Lynch’s enemies, Roger Elletson and the buccaneer Henry Morgan, were restored to favour. Albemarle suspended councillors, dismissed militia officers and appointed new justices of the peace, provoking complaints that ‘men of the best estates and qualifications … have been turned out of all authority and command, and their places, as well civil and military, filled up with needy and mechanic men, such as tapsters, barbers and the like’.<sup>99</sup> In the summer of 1688 fresh assembly elections were called, which Albemarle, declaring that it was his ‘chiefest care, how to render his majesty my best service in this place’, hoped would provide ‘a true and satisfactory demonstration’ of his devotion. Determined electoral management, including voting by ‘sham’ freeholders and the imprisonment of several of those ‘who factiously and tumultuously opposed the Government’, provoked serious rioting.<sup>100</sup> According to Albemarle’s successor, scarcely five members of the assembly of 1688 were elected legally.<sup>101</sup> Early in August, Albemarle wrote triumphantly that,</p><blockquote><p>his majesty need not in the least doubt, but that his commands here shall at all times (at least I hope during my stay) meet with no opposition as has been heretofore but with a steady obedience as becomes his most dutiful and loyal subjects. … The assembly have not sat many days, but the business they have dispatched will plainly demonstrate that they are met truly to serve their king and country … it is not in the least to be doubted but that this good beginning will have a good ending, for I am very certain that whatsoever shall be offered for the service of his majesty will not now meet with any manner of opposition, so that since I have the good fortune to do with such good men, I shall not very easily part with them.<sup>102</sup></p></blockquote><p>Among the bills passed was the much-desired perpetual revenue act.</p><p>Albemarle’s formal letters to the Privy Council were supplemented by private letters to Bath, on whose influence and ability to counter any hostile reports he counted. At home, his achievement met with much approval, until the king and his council began to realize the extent of the opposition he had stirred up and lost their nerve. One of the last orders of James II, made in December 1688, was that all councillors or officers dismissed by Albemarle should be reinstated. William III confirmed the order and, although he was as desirous of a perpetual revenue act as his predecessor, refused either to confirm or to disallow the 1688 act.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Albemarle died in October 1688 as a result of illness brought on by three days’ heavy drinking, for which the ostensible excuse was a celebration of the birth of the prince of Wales. A list of his debtors drawn up at or about the time of his death reveals that he had lent sums of money to a large number of individuals. His debtors included the one-time lord mayor of London, Sir Robert Vyner; Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale; Sir Anthony Abdy; Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford; Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland; Thomas Windsor*, earl of Plymouth; and William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth. The sums involved ranged from 50 to over 3,000 guineas. His largest single debtor was Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, who owed him £15,000.<sup>104</sup></p><p>Although Albemarle’s wealth was much diminished, it was nevertheless still considerable – and worth fighting over. He had no children, his wife was mentally unstable, and he was determined to prevent his fortune from going to his common-law heir, his cousin Elizabeth Sherwin, a direct descendant of the regicide Thomas Pride. During his lifetime he made many promises about his intended bequests and seems to have made several wills. His last will, made shortly before his departure for Jamaica, provided generously for his widow and for a monument to his parents, leaving the residue of his estate to his namesake, Christopher Monck. Christopher Monck’s deceased father, Colonel Thomas Monck, had been something of a protégé of both dukes of Albemarle, who referred to him as a kinsman. The precise relationship is unclear and, if it existed at all, was probably a very distant one.</p><p>Albemarle’s will was disputed by Bath, who had been named in an earlier one as residuary legatee. He contested it through several courts, including the House of Lords, using privilege of peerage to delay and intimidate his opponents. The duchess of Albemarle’s case (including her claim to an income of £8,000 a year from the Albemarle estates) was taken up by her second husband, Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu. Further litigation resulted from claims that the 2nd duke was illegitimate and therefore had no right either to inherit his father’s estate or to dispose of it. Bath and Montagu apparently believed that, despite her comparative youth, the duchess of Albemarle’s mental frailty meant that they would outlive her. They were mistaken, and the estate was not finally settled until her death in 1734.</p> |
R.P. |
|
MONCK, George (1608-70) |
<p><strong><surname>MONCK</surname></strong> (<strong>MONK</strong>), <strong>George</strong> (1608–70)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>6 July 1660 duke of ALBEMARLE |
|
First sat 16 July 1660; last sat 4 Nov. 1669 |
|
MP Devon 1653, c. Apr.-7 July 1660. |
<p><em>b</em>. 6 Dec. 1608, 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Thomas Monck<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>. 1629) of Potheridge, Devon, and Elizabeth, da. of Sir George Smith<sup>‡</sup> of Madworth House, Exeter; bro. of Nicholas Monck*, bp of Hereford from 1660. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. 23 Jan. 1653, Anne (<em>d</em>. 29 Jan. 1670), da. of John Clarges, farrier, of Drury Lane, Westminster, presumed wid. of Thomas Radford, of New Exchange, Strand, Westminster, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KG 26 May 1660; <em>suc</em>. bro. May 1647. <em>d</em>. 3 Jan. 1670; <em>will</em> 8 June 1665, pr. 4 Jan 1670.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for settlement [S] 1651–2, admiralty 1652–9, Feb.–July 1660; councillor of state [S] 1655–May 1660; commr. for security [S] 1656, army Oct. 1659; councillor of state 2 Jan.–28 May 1660; PC 27 May 1660–<em>d</em>.; master of the horse May 1660–8; ld. of treasury June–Sept. 1660, first ld. 1667–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. [I] June 1660–1; master, Trinity House June 1660–1, commr. for trade Nov. 1660–<em>d</em>.; gent. of the bedchamber Nov. 1660–<em>d</em>.; commr. for coronation claims Dec. 1660–1, loyal and indigent officers 1662, Tangier 1662–<em>d</em>., sale of Dunkirk 1662, prize appeals 1665–7; assessment of peers 1663;<sup>2</sup> dep. ld. high adm. 1665; commr. for public accounts 1668.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Commr. for assessment, Devon 1652, 1657, Jan. 1660; freeman, Portsmouth 1653; commr. for militia, Devon 1659, Devon and Mdx. Mar. 1660; kpr. St. James’s Park Feb. 1660–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Devon Mar. 1660–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Devon July 1660–<em>d</em>., Mdx. 1662–<em>d</em>.; commr. for sewers, Lincs. Aug. 1660, Yorks. (E. Riding) 1664;<sup>4</sup> kpr. Hampton Court Aug. 1660–<em>d</em>.; bailiff, Teddington, Byfleet, and Ashtead Aug. 1660–<em>d</em>.; warden, Finkley forest by Dec. 1660–<em>d</em>.; member, corp. for propagation of the Gospel in New England 1661; high steward, Kingston-upon-Hull 1661–<em>d</em>., Exeter 1662–<em>d</em>., Barnstaple 1664–<em>d</em>.; commr. for oyer and terminer, Home, Midland, Norfolk, Northern, and Oxford circuits 1662; commr. York 1662;<sup>5</sup> ld. proprietor Carolina 1663, palatine 1669–<em>d</em>.; asst. Royal Adventurers into Africa 1664–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ensign 1627–8, 1629 (Dutch army); capt. of ft. c. 1631–8; lt. col. of ft. (roy.) 1639–44; adj. gen. of ft. [I] (parl.) 1646–9; gov. of Carrickfergus 1648–9, Wexford 1661–<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> col. of ft. 1650–<em>d</em>., Coldstream Gds. 1661; lt. gen. 1651; c.-in-c. [S] 1651–2, 1654–Jan. 1660; gen. at sea 1652–3, 1666; col. of horse 1654–61; ld. gen. Nov. 1659; capt. gen. Aug. 1660–<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1665.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: watercolour miniature, by S. Cooper, c. 1658, Royal Collection); oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c. 1660, NPG 423, version in NMM; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely (Garter Robes), National Galleries of Scotland, PG 900; engraving, by D. Loggan, 1661, NPG 833.</p> |
<p><em>Early life and military career</em></p><p>The Moncks were one of the oldest gentry families in Devon, having been settled at Potheridge since the twelfth century. Although the family had social pretensions (they claimed descent from the Plantagenets) Sir Thomas Monck’s finances were precarious and were not alleviated by his marriage to the daughter of Sir George Smith, a wealthy Exeter merchant. Nevertheless the young George Monck was initially brought up by his maternal grandfather and Sir Thomas confidently expected that this close personal relationship would result in a substantial legacy to the Monck family at Sir George’s death. Sir George died in 1619 but the expected legacy did not materialize, with the result that Sir Thomas’ finances deteriorated still further, to the point that he had difficulty in satisfying even minor creditors.</p><p>It was almost certainly some episode relating to his debts that precipitated a quarrel with John Battyn, under-sheriff of Devon, who was accused of having committed ‘some wrongs’ against Sir Thomas. Since Sir Thomas is known to have been in a debtor’s gaol by January 1626, it seems likely that (as described by Gumble, one of Monck’s earliest biographers) Battyn had reneged on a deal to permit Sir Thomas to appear in public without fear of arrest for debt during Charles I’s passage through Devon in the autumn of 1625. On 30 Sept. 1626 the teenage George Monck, together with his older brother Thomas and John Pollard, avenged Sir Thomas’ humiliation by mounting a vicious and otherwise unprovoked attack on Battyn at an Exeter inn. Although Gumble described the incident as though it were a somewhat minor cudgelling, surviving depositions show that this was a brutal beating in which George Monck played a leading part. He also stabbed the unarmed victim, who later died of his injuries.<sup>7</sup></p><p>George Monck was lucky to avoid trial and conviction for murder especially as the attack clearly violated the clear but unwritten rules of honourable combat, even in terms of combat against a social inferior. Some thought he was more than lucky – that his family’s influence coupled with powerful local interests had connived to protect him. They were probably right: by April 1627 Monck was either in hiding or had fled; by the summer he was serving as an ensign in the company captained by his kinsman Sir Richard Grenville, as part of the expedition against the Isle of Rhé.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Monck became a professional soldier campaigning across Europe until his return to the British Isles in or about 1638.<sup>9</sup> At the outbreak of the civil wars he fought for the king, but his loyalty was suspect and in 1643 he had to justify himself in an interview with the king. He then rejoined the royalist army but shortly afterwards was captured by the parliamentarians at the battle of Nantwich (1644) and imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of high treason. During this period he is said to have met and to have made a mistress of his future wife.</p><p>By the summer of 1646 the royalist cause was clearly lost. On 1 July 1646 the Commons learned that Monck was prepared to take the negative oath and that if discharged from his imprisonment in the Tower would leave the country.<sup>10</sup> By November he had changed sides and the committee of both kingdoms reported ‘That Colonel Monk hath been at this committee; and hath engaged his honour that he will faithfully serve the Parliament in this war in Ireland, if he may be employed thither; that he hath taken the negative oath, and is ready to take the covenant’. Both Houses then accepted his offer of service in Ireland.<sup>11</sup> It seems unlikely that later legends that he swore never to be an enemy to the king had any basis in reality; there is no corroboration of the story later retailed by Gumble that Monck received the blessing of the royalist Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely, and even if there were it would be open to an interpretation that Monck was somewhat cynically ensuring his ability to attach himself to whatever side emerged victorious.</p><p>In the aftermath of the execution of Charles I Monck’s actions in Ireland again called his loyalties into question but he was able to explain his conduct to Parliament, and Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> was sufficiently convinced of his reliability to use his services in the invasion of Scotland (1650) and to give him command of a regiment of guards. In 1651, when Cromwell returned to England, Monck was left behind as commander-in-chief of Scotland. He subsequently served with distinction as one of the three generals of the fleet and was returned to Parliament as knight of the shire for Devon in 1653. His services were well rewarded: in 1652 Parliament passed an ordinance granting him the barony of Kinneil, confiscated from James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton [S], which he sold for over £5,000. He did so without guaranteeing the purchaser’s title, allegedly telling him that he must ‘take the hazard of the turn of the times’.<sup>12</sup> He also received substantial grants of land in Ireland.</p><p>Monck’s loyalty to the Cromwellian regime was demonstrated by his prompt action against potential rebels in his own regiment and by his active promotion of a marriage between his niece, Elizabeth Monck, and Thomas Pride, eldest son and namesake of the regicide colonel who had grown wealthy under the Cromwellian regime.<sup>13</sup> In 1647 Monck had succeeded to the somewhat modest family patrimony at Potheridge on the death of his older brother. Long after his own death it was alleged that he had fraudulently claimed possession of the estate under a non-existent entail and that it should have passed instead to Elizabeth Monck as the common-law heiress. As there is no surviving family archive and since the majority of Devon wills were destroyed in the Blitz in World War II, it is now almost impossible to establish the truth of this allegation. Notes compiled in the course of later litigation include references to an entail of 1627 but do not clarify its provisions.<sup>14</sup> Whether guilty of sharp practice or not, Monck did his best to guarantee his niece’s future as carefully as he could, including insuring against the possibility of a royalist revival: while he required his purchasers to accept that there could be no guarantee of title to confiscated lands, he protected his niece by insisting that her marriage settlement (made in or before 1653) specifically forbid the use of her portion to buy land formerly belonging to the king, bishops, deans and chapters, or delinquents.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In 1653 Monck married. In later years this marriage became the topic of much gossip. Despite the poverty of his early life, he was of unquestionable gentry lineage, with pretensions to an aristocratic background. This, together with his wealth and his status as the hero of the Restoration, ensured that his lack of social graces could be interpreted as a bluff, soldierly manner. His wife’s behaviour was treated less kindly: ‘Her former station’ wrote one commentator, ‘shows itself in her manners and dress, being in no way remarkable for elegance or gentility.’<sup>16</sup> Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, and Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> went further, calling her ‘a filthy woman’ and ‘the veriest slut and drudge’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Although it is possible that John Clarges was rather more than a working craftsman, the very fact that a duchess’s father could be described as a farrier was considered risible, and it was widely assumed that her social background was vastly inferior to that of her husband. That the duchess was devoted to the duke was understandable; that the duke should be devoted to the duchess, who was but ‘a plain, homely dowdy’, and that, despite all his bravery in the field, he should be wary of upsetting her, seemed inexplicable.<sup>18</sup> In the course of a long and tangled series of disputes over the Albemarle estate that began after the death in 1688 of Monck’s only surviving son, Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, it was alleged that Anne Clarges’ first husband, Thomas Radford, was still alive at the time of her second marriage. Whatever the truth of the matter, the claim was clearly vexatious, since the marriage had not been challenged either in Monck’s lifetime or in the lifetime of their son. Not surprisingly, her nephew Sir Walter Clarges<sup>‡ </sup>described it as ‘a scandal to common justice’.<sup>19</sup></p><p><em>Architect of the Restoration?</em></p><p>In the confusion and uncertainty that characterized the period after the death of Cromwell, Monck came to be seen as a key figure in any future political settlement. Shortly after the succession of Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, John Colepeper*, Baron Colepeper, told Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, that ‘the person my eye is chiefly on as able alone to restore the king and not absolutely averse to it, neither in his principles nor in his affections … is Monck’.<sup>20</sup> Monck’s younger brother, Nicholas Monck, the future bishop of Hereford, who owed his early preferment to their royalist cousin John Granville*, later earl of Bath, was said to have attempted to convert Monck to the king’s cause on a visit to Scotland in the summer of 1659. After the Restoration it was claimed that Monck knew of, and would have joined, Booth’s rebellion had the rising not been defeated so quickly but it is difficult to accept such claims at face value, especially as John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, was never sure whether he could count on Monck’s support.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Shortly after Booth’s rising, John Lambert<sup>‡</sup> expelled Parliament. News of this reached Monck in mid-October 1659. He embarked upon a purge of commissioned and non-commissioned officers whose loyalty could not be relied upon, stating his intention to defend the rights of Parliament and to oppose any attempt to institute government by ‘a single person’, whether king or army officer.<sup>22</sup> In his parting letter to the magistrates of Scottish burghs he specifically warned them against holding any correspondence with Charles Stuart or his adherents.<sup>23</sup> He delayed moving his army south until he learned of Parliament’s favourable reaction to his declaration. Difficulties with communications meant that this did not arrive until early December.<sup>24</sup> The delay puzzled contemporaries. Early in November 1659, Hyde thought Monck still to be feared but he soon came to realize that – just as Lambert and his supporters had foretold – events were playing into the hands of the royalists: ‘we shall not lose this winter, all things being as ripe for us in England as can be wished … some officers and soldiers run every day from Monck to Lambert, and others from Lambert to Monck … Indeed the confusion is great throughout the kingdom.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>Monck began his march into England in January 1660, arriving in London just over a month later. Cooperation from Henry Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax [S], who had agreed to join Monck in opposing a restoration of the king, ensured that no opposition was offered by Lambert’s troops.<sup>26</sup> Monck’s opposition to restoration was confirmed in his letter to the gentlemen of Devon, warning them that the growth of new interests, such as Dissenting sects and those who had benefited from the purchase of forfeited church and royalist lands, required the protection of a republic and therefore the continued exclusion of the secluded Members.<sup>27</sup> Yet demands for the return of the secluded Members and for calling a free Parliament continued to grow. Many of the addresses were handed to Monck himself.<sup>28</sup></p><p>At Monck’s suggestion all the forces in London, except his own, were dispersed to new and scattered quarters in order to prevent any attempt at a military <em>coup d’état</em>. On 6 Feb. he addressed Parliament, choosing his words with so much care that ‘most men know not what construction to make of it’.<sup>29</sup> The next day Pepys reported that Monck ‘hath now the absolute command and power to do anything that hath a mind to do’, but his remarks were premature, for on 9 Feb. Monck complied with an order from the Rump to take action against the City of London.<sup>30</sup> On 11 Feb. he ordered the Rump to issue writs for fresh elections and to dissolve itself, but wrangling about the qualifications that should be imposed on candidates – and therefore the political complexion of any new Parliament – continued.</p><p>Monck then presided over several meetings between representatives of the Rump and of the secluded Members, but no agreement was reached. According to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later earl of Shaftesbury, on the night of 20 Feb. he, with Mrs. Monck, her brother, Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, John Cloberry,<sup>‡</sup> and Ralph Knight<sup>‡</sup>, sat up arguing with Monck until three in the morning about the need for the immediate readmission of the secluded Members. That Anne Monck had considerable influence over her husband and that she used it in favour of a restoration is highly probable. There were suggestions that the exiled king should make a point of encouraging her.<sup>31</sup> Whether Shaftesbury’s account is accurate is another matter. There are indications that something may have been brewing earlier, for Pepys reported a meeting of the secluded Members with Monck on 17 Feb. and another meeting of the secluded Members on 19 Feb. at the house of John Crew*, later Baron Crew, which – considering Crew’s Calvinism and it ‘being the Lord’s day’ – he thought must be suggestive of ‘something extraordinary in the business’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>On 21 Feb. Monck forced the readmission of the secluded Members, thus significantly altering the balance of power in Parliament in favour of the presbyterians. The presbyterians however were divided, and even those who favoured a restoration were determined to make it a conditional one, with a limited monarchy and a moderately puritan religious settlement. In order to achieve this it was necessary to ensure that former cavaliers were disbarred from becoming parliamentary candidates and that if the House of Lords were to meet as part of the new Parliament it should exclude those peers who had been in actual service with the king, the post-1642 creations, and those ‘young lords’ who had been minors in the civil wars.</p><p>Even at this stage, Monck was still speaking in favour of a commonwealth and against the restoration of Charles Stuart but all his actions, including a report in early March that he had sent for the keys of the doors to the House of Lords and had set a guard there, were open to widely differing interpretations, including the possibility that, given his claims to royal ancestry, he sought the crown for himself.<sup>33</sup> Some cavaliers grew bold, triumphantly proclaiming ‘all things in such a fair way to the re-establishment of our master, that we look every day for some invitations home’.<sup>34</sup> Most remained puzzled, changing their interpretations of Monck’s intentions from day to day. Monck, still worried that opposition from within the army carried with it the threat of renewed civil war,</p><blockquote><p>was much distracted in my endeavours for the peace and settlement of the nation and put to several and different postures in the managing of them, I being forced to use the force of power to some, and friendship and fair promises of security to others, till I had at last reduced matters to such a consistency that all were removed from command and trust in arms that would not engage to acquiesce in whatsoever the then succeeding Parliament should act.<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>In particular he was extremely anxious about the reaction of Charles Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Arthur Hesilrige<sup>‡</sup>. Fleetwood’s allegiance seems to have been secured with minimal promises on Albemarle’s part but Hesilrige’s command of Berwick, Carlisle, Newcastle, and Tynemouth, and his extensive influence over the army, made him a potentially far more dangerous enemy. Monck undertook to secure Hesilrige’s ‘life and estate’ in return for his promise not to interfere with the course of events, and on 19 Mar. Hesilrige submitted peacefully to the new council of state.<sup>36</sup> Monck’s endeavours ‘to leave as little as I could to the uncertainty of the event’ puzzled and infuriated the exiled king and his adviser, Edward Hyde, who concluded that ‘the man is less steady than they expected’, adding that ‘If he mean well he will quickly commit those notorious fellows in the army and elsewhere who are likely to give trouble and then allow the Lords to sit.’<sup>37</sup></p><p>Monck, who had consistently refused to receive royalist agents, consented to a private interview with his cousin, the royalist Sir John Granville*, later earl of Bath, on 19 Mar. 1660. Granville handed him a letter from the king, written some nine months earlier, and Monck pledged his loyalty to the crown, declaring himself ready ‘to sacrifice my life and fortune in his service’, but even at this late stage of events he was unwilling to commit himself on paper and made Granville take a verbal answer back to the exiled court.<sup>38</sup> Granville’s notes of the meeting suggest that Monck’s priorities were the confirmation of land titles and payment of the army rather than the religious settlement. The theological ferment of the civil wars and interregnum seems to have left little mark on Monck, who readily conformed to the Anglican Church after the Restoration. Granville’s notes also include Monck’s instructions that Charles II write to him with letters for the Speakers of both Houses and the lord mayor of London.<sup>39</sup> Plans for elections continued and Monck’s support was much in demand by candidates. Towards the end of March the council of officers of the army had agreed to ‘acquiesce in what the next Parliament should determine as to the settling a government in the nation’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>By mid-April it was rumoured that the new Parliament would include a House of Lords.<sup>41</sup> It was also reported that Monck was going to remove the guard on the Lords and that he would refuse to act against those royalist peers who had announced their intention to sit.<sup>42</sup> Yet just days before the new Parliament was due to meet on 25 Apr., the presbyterian peers, led by Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, were reported to have persuaded Monck that the House of Lords should sit but that its presbyterian character should be preserved by preventing the royalist and ‘young lords’ from taking their seats there.<sup>43</sup> The uncertainty of the situation was such that rumours that the Commons would refuse to recognize the House of Lords were still circulating on 24 Apr. 1660, just one day before the Convention was due to meet.<sup>44</sup> On 25 Apr., after having ‘deeply considered’ the issue, all but one member of the Commons assented to a <em>de facto</em> recognition of the upper House by agreeing to respond to the Lords’ request for a day of national fasting.<sup>45</sup> Royalist and Catholic peers, together with the ‘young lords’, began to trickle back to the House; Monck initially discouraged them but soon changed his mind and allowed them to take their seats.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Whether Monck’s role in the Restoration was one that he planned of his own volition, was in obedience to the wishes of the exiled king, or was simply a reflection of his inability to control events remains a moot point. The presbyterians certainly believed that Monck had betrayed them and this view was probably substantiated still further when, according to Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, Monck’s objections ensured that there was no discussion of the proposals for a conditional restoration put forward by Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup>. Yet once the secluded Members had been readmitted an unconditional restoration became increasingly likely. Monck continued to be wary of military insurrection and ensured that the Declaration of Breda was read and approved by the army and the fleet. His opposition to Hales’s proposals for a conditional restoration and his insistence that the fleet set sail to meet the king as soon as possible seem to have been based in fears that any delay might lead at best to unrest and at worst to renewed rebellion.<sup>47</sup> In the meantime, elections to the Convention continued. Monck was returned to the Commons, as were several of his allies: Thomas Clarges, John Cloberry, Lord Fairfax, Ralph Knight, and William Penn<sup>‡</sup>. He assisted in the election of Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup> as Speaker of the Commons and, according to Sir John Bramston, ‘tho’ no great talker, governed all’.<sup>48</sup></p><p><em>The Restoration 1660–1</em></p><p>Even before the Long Parliament finally dissolved itself, Monck had been generously rewarded with office (appointed commander-in-chief of all land forces in the three kingdoms, joint general at sea, and a member of the council of state) and money (a grant of £20,000). With the return of the king, his rewards multiplied still further. The royal family’s gratitude to Monck was obvious from the moment they landed at Dover when Charles II embraced Monck and called him ‘father’ and ‘Whilst all the rest were shouting God Save the King, the duke of Gloucester [Henry*] threw up his hat and cried “God bless General Monk”’. Shortly afterwards Monck was invested with the order of the garter, the honour thus done him being exalted still further by the way in which James*, duke of York, personally put the garter on him. Monck’s high standing was further underlined by his physical proximity to the king on the journey to London. Still a mere commoner, he nevertheless sat with the king and his brothers in the royal coach, while George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham rode in the boot. When the royal party swapped to horses, the king was flanked on his right by his brothers and on his left by Monck; only when they reached London did Monck ride behind the king, and even then he rode with the duke of Buckingham.<sup>49</sup></p><p>One diplomat remarked that Monck was ‘almost revered by the king’ and was ‘the author of the prosperity and repose which these realms at present enjoy’.<sup>50</sup> As the man in effective control of the army he was also, of course, a potential threat. It was fortunate for the king that Monck had no ambition to exercise supreme political power. It was nevertheless necessary to placate him. Thus Monck was appointed to the new council, made master of horse, captain general of the forces in all three kingdoms, a gentleman of the bedchamber, and lord lieutenant of Devon, and was tipped as a possible lord treasurer.<sup>51</sup> It was also suggested that he be appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. According to the French ambassador this was because the king was tired of Monck’s importunities and wished to send him away from court, but it is unlikely that Charles really did wish to remove the man whom he regarded as the military mainstay of his fledgling regime.<sup>52</sup> The well-known story of the way in which Monck simply passed a list of names of his clients to Charles without any expectation that the king would be able to satisfy their demands suggests that he was well aware of the limits of Charles’s patronage opportunities. In his memoirs Clarendon suggested that Monck wanted the post to protect his interests in his Irish estates, worth some £4,000 a year, ‘though he was willing to have it believed in the city and the army, that he retained it only for the good of the adventurers, and that the soldiers might be justly dealt with for their arrears’.<sup>53</sup> Disputes over the appointment caused friction at court, which were exacerbated by Monck’s reluctance to take on the duties of the office personally. His rivals for the post were James Butler*, marquess of Ormond [I] (later duke of Ormond), and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor). An attempt at a compromise in which Robartes was appointed lord deputy failed over questions of status, Robartes not liking ‘to be deputy to any man but the king himself’.<sup>54</sup> No letters patent were issued to Monck under the English seal but he was regarded as lord lieutenant of Ireland until the appointment of Ormond in 1662.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Although Monck’s relationship to the Prides was now something of an embarrassment, it did not affect his reputation as the saviour of the monarchy. If the French ambassador were correct, his position may have been strengthened still further by a judicious alliance with Edward Hyde.<sup>56</sup> It was certainly believed that he had become one of the king’s closest advisers: during the Commons debates on the Act of Oblivion, when the arguments threatened to become acrimonious, he ‘told ’em that he knew his majesty’s mind (and had come to declare it)’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>He was not of course to remain a commoner long. In July 1660 he was given a dukedom, thus becoming one of only three non-royal dukes in the English peerage. His choice of the title of Albemarle reflected a conscious reference to his supposed Plantagenet origins, although it is perhaps an interesting reflection on the way in which his contemporaries perceived him that they continued to refer to him as the lord general.<sup>58</sup></p><p>After the Restoration, Monck’s reputation as a military man led him to assume something of a policing role both at court and elsewhere. Even at the coronation banquet he had had to intervene to prevent a quarrel between the king’s footmen and the barons of the Cinque Ports. In the autumn of 1660, after a spate of robberies, he arranged for military patrols to protect the approach roads to London; and when fears about highway robberies again became acute in 1667, it was to him that the Commons turned for advice.<sup>59</sup> In 1663 he disarmed several nobles who fell out after an entertainment at the house of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, and kept them under a guard of soldiers until tempers cooled.<sup>60</sup> In May 1664 or 1665 he was entrusted with the king’s message to Edward Montagu banning him from court.<sup>61</sup> In December 1667, on the instructions of the king, he forced Buckingham and Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, to promise on their honours not to enter into a duel; both he and the king were furious when the promise was broken.<sup>62</sup> Early in 1668 he was busy ‘composing a quarrel’ between Oxford and Charles Sackville*, then styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset).<sup>63</sup> The following year he prevented a duel between Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, and James Hamilton.<sup>64</sup></p><p>In keeping with his newly elevated status Albemarle also received considerable financial rewards – and it was money rather than political power that interested him. He was given grants of land worth £7,000 a year (including Theobalds Park and estates in the duchy of Lancaster), as well as substantial estates in Ireland. Sometime after 1662 he acquired New Hall, a once royal palace in Essex formerly owned by the Buckingham; he was also given the use of the Cockpit in Whitehall as his London residence. 1662 also saw him become one of the original proprietors of Carolina. Meanwhile the Albemarles received costly gifts from members of the royal family, among them a pearl necklace from Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles I, said to be worth some £2,500.<sup>65</sup> Estimates of the duke’s wealth vary: his annual income may have been between £13,000 and £22,000; he was said to have left £70,000 or perhaps as much as £180,000 in ready money; one estimate adds to this £50,000 in jewels and £50,000 in Lady Albemarle’s possession.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Albemarle had a wide range of public commitments and was a member of the inner circle of the council. His wealth and his position at the centre of the new regime ensured his ability to command considerable patronage. His correspondence with Ormond underlines his continuing interest in the Irish land settlement and regularly included patronage requests for a wide range of individuals, an astonishing number of whom were described as kinsmen. Those closest to Albemarle naturally benefited most. His brother, Nicholas, became bishop of Hereford; his brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, received a baronetcy, the lease of Reading Abbey, and a perpetual pension of £500 a year; his trusted officers Ralph Knight and John Cloberry were each knighted and given pensions of £600 a year; his kinsman John Colleton received a baronetcy and the sinecure office of commissioner of wine licences; another kinsman, William Morice<sup>‡</sup>, was appointed secretary of state; and his cousin Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup> was promised the reversion of the post of groom of the bedchamber.<sup>67</sup> Other rewards were almost certainly granted on his recommendation and naturally included many former parliamentarians; as lord lieutenant of Devon, for example, he retained an unusually high proportion of former parliamentarian deputies and he appointed his kinsman Arthur Bassett to command the Barnstaple militia.<sup>68</sup> Some of his influence was exerted by his wife: it was her intervention that secured the post of surveyor at Windsor Castle for William Tayleur<sup>‡</sup> against objections advanced by Mordaunt.<sup>69</sup></p><p>While Albemarle claimed to have been careful to ensure that his recommendations to the king were restricted to ‘such as have always been faithful to his majesty or instrumental in his restoration’, it was widely suspected that his wife (and by implication the duke himself) was eager to turn the couple’s newfound influence into cash by trading in places. She was said to have demanded £500 from one applicant and in 1664 it was said to be her demand for payment in full rather than over a period of years that led to the collapse of negotiations between Albemarle and Buckingham for the sale of the office of master of the horse.<sup>70</sup> According to Clarendon, who may not of course have been entirely unprejudiced in the matter, Anne Monck’s ‘vile good housewifery’ meant that ‘such men, who had been most notorious in the malice against the crown from the beginning of the rebellion, or had been employed in all the active offices to affront and oppress his party, were for money preferred and admitted into those offices’. There were other opportunities too for ‘an immoderate lover of money’ to turn a profit.<sup>71</sup> Monck reaped considerable financial benefits from his brother’s short tenure as bishop of Hereford and was also accused of corruption in the settlement of claims in Ireland.<sup>72</sup></p><p>The extent of Albemarle’s parliamentary patronage is difficult to determine, partly because his landholdings were so scattered, partly because his personal papers do not survive, and partly because he made no attempt to build up an organized personal following. It was perhaps only to be expected that his opinion would be sought in the course of elections to the Convention and it is known that he was instrumental in the election of William Penn but it was after the Restoration and his acquisition of lands, wealth, and offices that his influence became more significant, although his scattered landholdings and consequent lack of a compact territorial base tends to disguise the extent of his authority. His standing in the south-west of England and his friendship with Sir Hugh Pollard<sup>‡</sup> may well have been an important factor in the parliamentary management of an area that returned a disproportionate number of Members to the Commons.<sup>73</sup> His family’s long association with Devon meant that he was either related or had ties of friendship to almost all the leading west country families. A chance survival of documents reveals that he was deeply implicated in early attempts to purge the corporation of Barnstaple by his kinsmen Arthur Bassett and Sir John Chichester<sup>‡ </sup>and it is not unreasonable to assume that he was involved in similar local power struggles elsewhere.<sup>74</sup> His appointment as one of the mediators of a dispute between the freemen and inhabitants of Exeter and the mayor and aldermen on 23 Aug. 1660 certainly suggests considerable influence in that city. He fostered the election of Thomas Stringer<sup>‡</sup> to the Commons and was clearly on friendly terms with other prominent individuals who either were or would later become Members of the lower House.</p><p>Albemarle exercised electoral influence in Essex and Lancashire by virtue of his estates in those counties. Less obviously he probably also exerted some control over elections in the north and east ridings of Yorkshire. He was on good terms with the powerful magnate and lord lieutenant of the North Riding, Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg. As a former Cromwellian collaborator, Fauconberg had good reason to be thankful to Albemarle, who had been instrumental in securing him a royal pardon. Fauconberg’s uncle, John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, was a Catholic royalist but he too wanted the new government to overlook his links to important figures in the Cromwellian regime. Belasyse was lord lieutenant of the East Riding and governor of Hull, where Albemarle became high steward in 1661 and where he was at least partially successful in protecting the puritan preacher at Trinity Church, Hull (John Shaw) from the enmity of Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London, later archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>75</sup> Belasyse and Albemarle were both appointed commissioners for York under the Corporation Act and were responsible, in part at least, for the drastic purge of that corporation in 1662.<sup>76</sup> Meanwhile, correspondence relating to the activities of commissioners of sewers in the East Riding reveals that Albemarle was also an important landowner there and that the (mainly aristocratic) commissioners were careful to respect his interests.<sup>77</sup></p><p>In May 1660, while still a member of the Commons, Monck chaired a meeting of the committee for privileges which discussed the arrangements for the reception of the king. He was introduced to the House of Lords on 13 July 1660 to the apparent delight of the House, which ordered two of its members to wait on the king to thank him for the honour so conferred. Albemarle was immediately nominated to the committee for privileges; thereafter he was a consistently high attender, being present for just under 90 per cent of the remaining sitting days that session, and was named to eight further committees, including those for disbanding the army, the annexation of Dunkirk and Mardike, and the draining of the great level of the fens, in which his connection with the Berties (major landholders in Lincolnshire) may have given him a personal interest. On 30 July Fauconberg’s proxy was registered to him – perhaps because the business of the day was scheduled to include an attempt by the royalist Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to reclaim lands that his family had lost during the interregnum. Albemarle was almost certainly interested in opposing any claim that threatened to upset the land settlement and Derby was also a political rival in Lancashire. On 27 Aug. he was one of those deputed by the House to recommend its chaplain, Thomas Hodges, to the king for some mark of favour.</p><p>By September 1660 his relationship with Hyde seems to have deteriorated; it was now said that his dislike of the chancellor had become obvious.<sup>78</sup> Perhaps he was jealous of Hyde’s position. It was Hyde’s intervention in the autumn of 1660, rather than Albemarle’s, that enabled Nicholas Monck to retain the provostship of Eton after his appointment as bishop, which suggests that by then Hyde was better able to act as an intermediary to the king than Albemarle.<sup>79</sup> Later that year the duchess of Albemarle stood godmother to the duke of York’s infant son, but according to the French ambassador the Albemarles were now becoming more closely associated with the queen’s faction than with the developing Hyde–York axis.<sup>80</sup></p><p>In October 1660 Albemarle sat on the trials of the regicides at the Old Bailey, alongside the lord mayor, Sandwich, and ‘such a bench of noblemen as hath not been ever seen in England’.<sup>81</sup> During the same month he was present at the Worcester House conference but it is not clear whether he took an active part in the proceedings or was merely an observer.<sup>82</sup> His connections with moderate Presbyterians suggest a possible antipathy to episcopacy but in practice he had little difficulty in accepting the restoration of the Anglican Church or in seeking promotion for his brother within it. He was perhaps less worried about inappropriate forms of religious observance than some of his contemporaries and had no hesitation in enjoying a play in a place that would on a Sunday be reserved for a sermon.<sup>83</sup></p><p>In November 1660 Albemarle intervened to protect his ally Sir John Robinson<sup>‡</sup>, lieutenant of the Tower, in a dispute about privilege of Parliament, and in the same month he presented the House with an account of the costs of disbanding the army.<sup>84</sup> His close relationship to the royal family was also underlined by Princess Henrietta’s decision to use him to deliver her thanks to the House for the gift of £10,000 that had been voted to her. In December he entered a protest at the passage of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell.<sup>85</sup> The validity of title to land sold or confiscated during the interregnum had been one of the questions about which Monck’s presbyterian allies had been most worried during discussions about a restoration. He had himself been a major beneficiary of interregnum land sales. For Albemarle, therefore, opposition on this issue was not simply a point of principle but was also a deeply personal one. In the summer of 1661 he was expected to vote against the claim of Oxford to the great chamberlaincy. There was almost certainly a personal motive involved in this vote: Oxford’s rival (Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey) had a distinguished record as a royalist soldier but one of his sons had served under Albemarle’s command at the Restoration and the two men were clearly close.<sup>86</sup> Referring to Albemarle as ‘my most noble friend’, Lindsey appointed him as an executor and as one of the guardians of his underage son, James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). He also marked their friendship by bequeathing Albemarle his best horse.<sup>87</sup></p><p>It was symptomatic of Albemarle’s reputation as the architect of the Restoration that he became the target, along with the king and York, of an assassination plot. Then, early in January 1661, the instability of the new regime and its need for a military strong man seemed to be underlined by Venner’s rising. In reality the actions of ‘a few desperate enthusiasts … who had first lost their wits before they did their loyalty’ posed little threat, but fears of what might have happened had the rebels been better organized prompted the retention of what was effectively a small standing army, in which Albemarle took command of a troop of guards and a regiment of foot.<sup>88</sup></p><p><em>Settling the nation 1661-3</em></p><p>Albemarle’s attendance during the 1661–2 session dropped to just under 60 per cent of sitting days. Although he was seriously ill in the summer of 1661, this illness coincided with the recess and so did not affect his attendance.<sup>89</sup> The decline in his attendance rate is largely attributable to a long absence from Parliament between 7 Feb. and 26 Mar. 1662. As might be expected he was appointed early in the session to the committees for privileges and petitions and during the course of the year was also named to five other committees. On 23 July 1661, in response to a petition from the Commons in favour of the children of Sir Arthur Hesilrige, he made a statement to the House concerning his promise to Sir Arthur ‘to endeavour the saving of his life, and preserving of his estate’ and was then deputed to present the petition to the king.</p><p>According to Louis XIV, who insisted that his source of information was impeccable, in September 1661 Albemarle, together with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, and Ashley, led the opposition to the king’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza (and by implication to the influence of Clarendon). They were supported in this endeavour by Ormond and by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.<sup>90</sup> Circumstantial evidence suggests that there may have been some truth in the French king’s assertions. Clarendon’s relationship with the king had certainly cooled over the summer of 1661 and his position was perceived to be weak; Albemarle was thought to dislike Clarendon and Bristol was known to support the rival Spanish match.<sup>91</sup> Albemarle seems to have been involved in some way with assisting the Spanish ambassador, to the annoyance of Louis XIV, and it is highly likely that he did play some part in the factional rivalries that disturbed the court in the summer and early autumn of 1661, although there is little indication that his role was as important as Louis XIV’s comments would suggest. On the contrary, Charles II may well have been playing power games of his own. The French ambassador reported that the king was well aware of factional rivalries at his court and that he was using the fear of ‘troubles in his realm … [to] … draw greater concessions’ from Parliament at its next meeting and that ‘as regards Monck, the duke of Ormond and the earl of Bristol, he was sure they could not do anything he would not know about well in advance’.<sup>92</sup></p><p>During 1661 and through into early 1662 rumours of plots and rebellion triggered extensive discussions about ways of ensuring military security, first by the creation of a ‘select’ militia and then by an enlarged standing army. Although little documentary evidence survives, Albemarle must have been deeply involved in these discussions: one of the plans under consideration was drawn up by his secretary and trusted adviser, Sir William Clarke, and on 19 Dec. 1661 he was named as one of the committee to meet with a similar committee from the Commons during the recess to discuss ‘ways of securing the peace of the kingdom’ in the wake of revelations of a plot against the government.</p><p>Throughout 1661 Albemarle had almost certainly been involved in the lengthy discussions on the subject of the validity of acts and ordinances that had been passed between 1641 and 1660. When Parliament reconvened in January 1662 after a short Christmas break, he was named to the committee to consider the issues. Although no attendance lists survive, he was almost certainly present at some of the heated discussions that continued throughout January and into early February.<sup>93</sup> He was definitely present on 25 Jan. when the debate over the reinstatement of a court at York provoked uproar in the House, but, although his links to York and Yorkshire suggest that he must have had an interest in the outcome, nothing is known of his part in the debate. He was appointed to the committee on the bill for uniformity and to three other committees, some of which, such as those relating to the confirmation of title to estates in the duchy of Lancaster, were of personal interest. He was so concerned about the effect of one of these bills (relating to titles in the Honour of Clitheroe) that he employed counsel to state his case to the committee.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Albemarle was almost certainly also interested in his public capacity in the bill pertaining to the jurisdiction of the court of admiralty, but, as indicated above, he was away from Parliament for much of February and March, so cannot have taken a leading role in the committee’s discussions. Since the business of the House during this period largely concerned the passage of the Act of Uniformity, it is possible that his absence was strategic, but a genuine incapacity through illness is probably more likely. In late February 1662 he was said to be ‘struggling with a churlish ague’ from which he seems to have take a month to recover.<sup>95</sup></p><p>His own bill, confirming the various grants of land that he had received from the king, was piloted through the House during his absence. It is impossible to tell who managed the process but it is perhaps significant that the bill was reported by the reliable government supporter Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, who had not been named to the committee but who had recently begun to chair a number of important committees. It seems unlikely that Albemarle had left the passage of the bill to chance for later that year he sought a similar bill for confirmation of his Irish estates and was careful to send a copy of the draft to Ormond and to ask him to canvass support for it in both Houses of the Irish Parliament.<sup>96</sup> On 30 Mar., towards the end of a difficult session, Albemarle and Manchester were deputed to attend the king and to secure an appointment for the presentation of the petition against Jesuits and Romish priests.</p><p>Rumours of some sort of estrangement between the king and Albemarle early in the summer of 1662 seem to have been no more than gossip, for fears of unrest in London led in July to his appointment as lord lieutenant of Middlesex, displacing the previous joint lord lieutenants, Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, and Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset.<sup>97</sup> The government anticipated trouble from the imminent ejection of those ministers who failed to subscribe to the new Act of Uniformity, especially in London where some one-third of the ministers were deprived. As Albemarle also held the lord lieutenancy of Southwark, he had control of the militia throughout those parts of London that were outside the City walls. By placing him in charge of preserving the peace of the metropolis the king was both acknowledging his confidence in Albemarle’s loyalty and undermining any residual confidence that the Presbyterians might have had in his benevolence. Yet, for all the fears of others, Albemarle himself seems to have been confident of the security of the new regime, writing in December 1663 that ‘Now and then there are some little designs amongst the Anabaptists and Fifth Monarchy men … but their designs are so weak and inconsiderable that I am confident they will not be dangerous to his majesty and the kingdom.’<sup>98</sup></p><p>In August 1662, in private discussions with the French ambassador about the sale of Dunkirk, Clarendon made it clear that, although Albemarle was one of the commissioners for the sale, he was not initially party to the negotiations. Albemarle’s opposition to the deal was such that when Sir William Morice was slow in arranging for the documents to be copied, his actions were suspected of being orchestrated by Albemarle as part of a last-ditch attempt to abort the treaty.<sup>99</sup> Later in the year he was expected to receive further rewards in the form of a grant of lands in the West Indies, and he organized a military show of strength in London in order to ward off yet another sectarian plot.<sup>100</sup> Yet he was (according to Pepys) losing ground at court.<sup>101</sup> Whether this related in any way to his attitude to the Declaration of Indulgence issued in December 1662 is unknown.</p><p>During the 1663 session Albemarle was present at nearly 85 per cent of sittings. He was named as usual to the committees for privileges and petitions and to ten others, including some in which he had a clear personal or official interest, such as the preparation of a bill to repeal the acts passed by the 1640 Parliament, the prevention of duels, the care of indigent commissioned officers, and the organization of the militia (which he also chaired). On 21 Mar. he was appointed with Anglesey to attend the king about arranging the return of deeds concerning the right to present to advowsons which had been confiscated from various royalist peers during the civil wars and interregnum. It was perhaps in anticipation of continuing difficulties in Parliament, including continuing attacks on Clarendon by Bristol, that on 24 Mar. Albemarle received the proxy of William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington. This was an interesting alliance since Widdrington, a former royalist, had no obvious connection to Albemarle other than through his marriage to a member of the Bertie family.</p><p>In April 1663 Albemarle and Anglesey were deputed to present the thanks of the House to the king for his response to the petition against Jesuits and Catholic priests, and Albemarle was nominated as a member of the delegation to request that the petition and the king’s response be printed. It is difficult to assess his position at court at this time. He continued to receive financially valuable rewards, including a grant in May 1663 of lands in Carolina.<sup>102</sup> According to Pepys, although the duke was still much favoured by the king he was, as far as policy was concerned, increasingly marginalized, being ‘none of the cabinet’.<sup>103</sup> Nonetheless he was attending the meetings at which policy was discussed and formulated for presentation to the privy council and early in June (when the Clarendonian forces were rallying) he was named as one of a new group of advisers: a group that pointedly excluded Bristol.<sup>104</sup></p><p>It seems likely that Albemarle was regarded as an ally by Bristol, who attempted to use him as an intermediary to deliver a letter to the king on 26 June 1663, the very day that Bristol’s involvement in Sir Richard Temple’s offer to secure a supply was revealed to the Commons.<sup>105</sup> If Albemarle’s admiring early biographers are to be believed, his dislike of faction and his loyalty to the court made it improbable that he would have been prepared to voice his opposition to Clarendon publicly, let alone join in attempts to impeach him. Nevertheless, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that Albemarle would vote in favour of Bristol’s attack on Clarendon and that he would use Widdrington’s proxy to the same purpose. From 9 June Albemarle also held Belasyse’s proxy and Belasyse, too, was listed as one of Clarendon’s opponents. On 18 July 1663 Albemarle was named as one of the commissioners to assess peers under the subsidy bill. After the end of the session, when the government ordered a drastic retrenchment, Albemarle fought hard to protect his own people from the effects of the measure.<sup>106</sup></p><p><em>The 2nd Dutch War, 1664-7</em></p><p>During the short 1664 session Albemarle’s attendance dropped to 61 per cent. He was as usual named to the committees for privileges and petitions. When Bristol tried to secure an audience with the king in March, he again chose Albemarle as an intermediary.<sup>107</sup> The following month Albemarle was unsuccessful in an attempt to gain Clarendon’s support for the election of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Clarges, as a burgess for Salisbury.<sup>108</sup> He was still actively involved in preparations for defence but he was perhaps beginning to suffer declining health: in September 1664 it was reported that ‘The general is insistently demanding to be relieved of his duties, under the pretext of his disabilities.’<sup>109</sup></p><p>By the time that Parliament reconvened for the 1664–5 session the prospect of war with the Dutch had become increasingly likely. Given the combination of his military background and his membership of the Royal Adventurers, it is not surprising that in January 1665 Sir Allen Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> identified Albemarle as one of those keen to declare war.<sup>110</sup> Louis XIV believed that Albemarle and York were the leading proponents of war and his diplomatic representatives confirmed Albemarle’s bellicosity, attributing it to variously to Spanish subornation, his lack of knowledge of international affairs, his mistaken belief that there was ‘nothing to fear from foreigners’, and his desire for prize money. The French even believed that Albemarle was passing intelligence to the Spanish, suggesting that, being ‘very avaricious’ and governed by his wife who was even more avaricious, he was taking money to do so.<sup>111</sup></p><p>One of the few pieces of information that we have about Albemarle’s activities in this period relates to his adjudication of a dispute about the status of Portland and Sandsfoot castles. His role in settling this disagreement demonstrates not only his continuing importance as a military adviser but also his ability (and willingness) to intervene in local power struggles.<sup>112</sup> He was present on just under 59 per cent of sitting days during the 1664–5 session. His absences were concentrated in January 1665 and he continued to attend Parliament right up until the prorogation of 2 Mar., so the decline in attendance cannot be attributed directly to preparations for war. Throughout the session Albemarle held the proxy of John Poulett*, 2nd Baron Poulett, and from 25 Jan. 1665 he again held Widdrington’s proxy. He was named to the committee for privileges and to two other committees, one of which (that for Sir Robert Carr’s bill) included all those present in the chamber; the other, in February 1665 for ‘settling and improving’ Wildmore in the fenlands of Lincolnshire, was probably directly related to the Widdrington and Bertie interests in that county.</p><p>An account of the battle of Lowestoft (3 June 1665) by Sir Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, indicates that Albemarle was not only present but was struck and bruised by the cannonball that caused the death of Sir William Clarke.<sup>113</sup> Perhaps his narrow escape encouraged a sense of mortality for a few days later Albemarle made his will. He was soon back in London, dealing with the consequences of the outbreak of plague. At the prorogation meeting held in London on 1 Aug. he informed the House of the illness of Lindsey and then deputized for him as lord great chamberlain for the introduction of William Craven*, now elevated to an earldom. He was again present for the prorogation of 3 Oct., when he was just one of four members of the House to hear the formal announcement that the next session would be held in Oxford. Albemarle did not attend the short Oxford session but remained in London, taking charge of affairs there in the absence of the court.<sup>114</sup> Nevertheless he contributed to parliamentary discussions from a distance, especially the need for legislation to control the spread of plague. When the proposals came up to the Lords after passing through the Commons, the House, being obstinately and ‘ridiculously tender’ of the privileges of its members, insisted on adding provisos to the effect that no part of the bill should apply to any peer of the realm and that no peer’s house should be shut up even if infected. Thus, despite York’s ‘vehement intercession’ and Albemarle’s ‘passionate letters’, the bill failed when the Commons refused to accept the Lords’ amendments.<sup>115</sup></p><p>When Albemarle finally arrived in Oxford late in November 1665 it was, according to one observer, to carry the news that the danger of plague was now diminishing and that it would be safe for the king and the court to return to London. Another report rather more credibly insisted that it ‘was to consult about the affairs of the navy in which his grace is known to be particularly necessary’.<sup>116</sup> The contradictory accounts reflect the beginnings of a confused period during which a variety of conflicting rumours about the future of the armed forces began to circulate. Those close to the court knew that Albemarle was in favour with the king (who greeted him at Oxford ‘with all the demonstrations of joy one friend could give to another, hugging, kissing, etc.’) and that, in the wake of the corruption scandal that had discredited Sandwich, Albemarle was about to be declared general at sea.<sup>117</sup> There was no public announcement at that time, however, apparently because Monck thought that his wife would oppose the appointment, as indeed she did.<sup>118</sup> Yet at the same time Pepys reported rumours that York’s military role would be enhanced at Albemarle’s expense.<sup>119</sup> Since Pepys was firmly allied to Sandwich, who had good reason to destabilize the fragile relationship between York and Albemarle, it is possible that these rumours represented something of a pre-emptive strike by Sandwich in his anxiety to protect his position. Sandwich was probably counting on the probability that even those who disliked Albemarle would find the prospect of his replacement a worrying one: as he told Pepys, in a coded reference to distrust of York, ‘if it were not for him, God knows in what troubles we might be from some private factions, if an army could be got into another hand, which God forbid’.<sup>120</sup></p><p>For those in the know, Albemarle’s appointment was tantamount to a guarantee of continuing military success: ‘Money comes in freely … upon easier terms than before’, remarked William Sancroft,* [940], later archbishop of Canterbury, ‘upon the great reputation of that good man’, and the government was quick to take advantage of the possibility for easy credit.<sup>121</sup> In April 1666, a month after his appointment as joint general at sea was confirmed, Albemarle attended the court of directors of the East India Company. He assured them of the king’s gratitude and favour, offered his services to assist them, and then asked for an additional loan of £50,000 to the crown.<sup>122</sup> He also took advantage of the situation to promote his own interests – or rather those of his extended family – by seeking the intervention of the king in a dispute with John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, over the marriage portion of Cosin’s daughter to Albemarle’s cousin Denis Granville (Bath’s younger brother).<sup>123</sup></p><p>In the aftermath of the inconclusive Four Days Battle of June, underlying tensions between York and Albemarle again came to the surface.<sup>124</sup> The subsequent victory over the Dutch in the St. James’s Day Battle and the successful raid on Dutch merchantmen moored at the entrance to the Zuider Zee did much to ensure that Albemarle’s popularity remained high, although there were clearly those at court who realized that the heavy losses of men and ships were potentially disastrous. Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> was sure that ‘outrages’ committed by Albemarle in searching for contraband prize would never have been tolerated if committed by the king or York.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Early in September 1666 Albemarle was persuaded to return to London to take charge of arrangements for dealing with what has since become known as the Great Fire of London. The privy council unanimously agreed with the king that civil disorder would follow the devastation of the fire and that Albemarle was the only person with sufficient expertise and credibility to prevent this. It is a telling tribute to the awe in which he was held that he was again seen as the saviour of the nation, able ‘to give the king his kingdom a second time’.<sup>126</sup> One commentator even thought that if he had arrived earlier ‘the town might have been saved’.<sup>127</sup></p><p>Others thought they discerned an ulterior motive in Albemarle’s recall, which, according to Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, also had the useful effect of removing the difficulties created by having the navy ‘commanded by two heads, that were in danger of disagreeing’.<sup>128</sup> It may have been this sort of reaction that spawned the rumour that Albemarle had been dismissed from the government. Albemarle’s relationship with York was certainly deteriorating. He may have resented York’s appointment as lord high admiral and the two men were in any case at odds over the management of the navy. Albemarle’s comments on the poor calibre of his officers in June 1666 suggest that he was worried about discipline. Pepys, whose comments on Albemarle’s ability were coloured by his allegiance to Sandwich, makes it clear that disagreements between Albemarle, York, and Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, over the appointment of officers and other issues had left the navy in a parlous state.<sup>129</sup> Albemarle was probably also worried about the consequences of the crisis in government finances that had left the seamen unpaid and that caused them to riot in October and December 1666. His army career had shown him to be a stern disciplinarian but one who was extremely concerned about the morale of his troops and who was always determined to ensure that they were paid.</p><p>In the meantime Albemarle was still very active in Parliament, although feuds at court made him vulnerable to factional backstabbing. Arlington’s secretary told Pepys that ‘my lord general is become mighty low in all people’s opinion … that he hath received several slurs from the king and the duke of York [and] … is grown a drunken sot’.<sup>130</sup> During the 1666–7 session Albemarle was present on just over 75 per cent of sitting days. He was again named to the committee for privileges, as well as to three other committees to consider bills, including that for seamen and naval stores. On 29 Dec. 1666 he presented a petition, endorsed by the king, in favour of a bill to reverse the attainder of Francis Scawen, son of his Commons ally the court supporter Robert Scawen<sup>‡</sup>, for stealing a horse. On 17 Jan. he was deputed by the House to inform the king that the poll bill had passed. In February he was named to the committee to recommend the condition of Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, and his wife to the king. Although he was not present in the House on 29 Jan. when the estate bill for James Bertie, now 5th Baron Norreys, was read for a second time and so could not be named to the committee, it is nevertheless clear that he was involved in negotiations over the substance of the bill, perhaps in fulfilment of his duties as executor of the 2nd earl of Lindsey’s will.<sup>131</sup></p><p>By the time that the 1666–7 session ended early in February it was already apparent that the government was in disarray over the cost of the war and the collapse of naval finances. Albemarle was believed to have opposed the decision (reputedly made at the suggestion of Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>) to save money by laying up the great ships in harbour – a decision that contributed to the disaster in the Medway the following June – although in reality he had advised the king that Dutch ships in the Thames could do no harm.<sup>132</sup> Whatever the reason, in February 1667 it was reported that ‘some smart repartees’ at a meeting of the council had ended with York pushing Albemarle away. To the consternation of the king, Albemarle immediately resigned all his commissions. After considerable persuasion he agreed to continue as general but he was adamant in his refusal to accept a renewal of his commission for the navy.<sup>133</sup> Rumours of problems in government spawned exaggerations, including the suggestion that ‘there is a design to bring in popery … [and] that the duke of Albemarle and two or three lords are clapped up in the Tower’. It was perhaps partly to defuse such tensions that York made a point of breaking his journey to Harwich in mid-March to oversee naval preparations in order to dine with Albemarle at his Essex house.<sup>134</sup> Albemarle’s return to London shortly afterwards thus ‘discredits that report of his having retired from court upon discontent’.<sup>135</sup></p><p>In April Albemarle was said to be indisposed and Pepys remarked that the duke ‘is not well and doth grow crazy’. In this context the word crazy did not carry its modern connotations of actual mental unbalance, for only a month later Pepys was complaining of actions by Albemarle that amounted to a very rational and deliberate attempt at extortion.<sup>136</sup> The word was used in its older sense of physical frailty. According to Gumble, Albemarle’s health had never fully recovered from his illness in the summer of 1661.<sup>137</sup> His health was now increasingly precarious and it may well have been an awareness of this, rather than the avarice that Arlington was so willing to ascribe to him, that encouraged him in his attempts to sell the mastership of the horse during the spring and early summer of 1667.<sup>138</sup></p><p><em>After Clarendon, 1667-70</em></p><p>It was perhaps in the hope that Albemarle would assist in his fight against Coventry that Clarendon proposed his name as nominal head of the treasury commission in May 1667. Albemarle’s involvement in the events that led to the fall of Clarendon is by no means straightforward. In June 1667 he was being tipped to act as high constable at any impeachment proceedings.<sup>139</sup> In August he was sent by the king as ‘the only man fit for those works’ to take the purse from Clarendon, who refused to surrender it to anyone other than the king himself, yet he was also said to have joined with a somewhat strange grouping that included Buckingham as well as York and Archbishop Sheldon in support of the chancellor.<sup>140</sup> Albemarle’s relationship with York had certainly improved, for the following month he stood godfather to York’s infant son, Edgar (later duke of Cambridge), together with Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort).<sup>141</sup></p><p>During the 1667–9 session Albemarle’s attendance dropped to just under 61 per cent. His attendance was high until the spring of 1668 but he was ill and so absent from the House for most of March 1668. Even when he returned in April his attendance that month was somewhat erratic. Thereafter, however, he resumed his normal high levels of attendance until his last illness in November 1669, although, according to Gumble, he had ‘relapsed into his old distempers’ towards the end of 1668 and was neglecting his health in order to fulfil his public duties.<sup>142</sup> Either before or shortly after the session opened Albemarle was one of three peers who were named, along with the two secretaries of state, to the privy council committee for foreign affairs. The French agent de Ruvigny professed shock at the appointments, claiming that all but one of the members of the committee (including Albemarle) were ‘very ignorant of foreign affairs and cannot speak a word of French’.<sup>143</sup> It seemed likely that Albemarle would escape censure for the naval setbacks of the summer, for while the Commons clearly wanted to blame someone, their approach to Albemarle and Prince Rupert for information was couched in terms that suggested both men had already been exculpated. The House resolved to send a committee to wait on them and ‘to present to them, the thanks of this House, and the great esteem they have of their eminent merit in the late war’.<sup>144</sup></p><p>In the course of the autumn Albemarle was named to eight committees, many of which (such as the committees for trade between England and Scotland, for the trial of peers, for assigning exchequer orders, for the banishment of Clarendon, and for public accounts) represented major issues of public policy to which most of those present were also named. In November, according to de Ruvigny, the king, Buckingham, and Albemarle were trying to destroy the ‘third party’ set on foot by Ashley and Anglesey and had decided ‘to get rid of M. the chancellor completely, and vigorously to oppose the plans of those who would like to save him through the dispute they have brought about between the two chambers’. To this end they proposed to make a public protest.<sup>145</sup> On 27 Nov. Buckingham and Albemarle did indeed support the attempts of the Commons to imprison Clarendon without a specific charge and entered a protest against the Lords’ refusal to comply with the Commons’ request. Albemarle’s son, Christopher Monck, spoke against Clarendon in the Commons. As Christopher Monck was barely 14 at the time, his words were naturally interpreted as an expression of Albemarle’s own views.</p><p>By December 1667, Charles II was said to be holding regular meetings with the Albemarles and Buckingham.<sup>146</sup> Various lists of the king’s inner circle of advisers agree that the central figures were Buckingham, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, and Albemarle but there is little information about the part that Albemarle played in this trinity.<sup>147</sup> Some said he was absent from council when the decision to enter into the triple alliance was taken; others thought that he, Bridgeman, and the king were in the secret together.<sup>148</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s failure to prevent the duel between Buckingham and Shrewsbury in January 1668 was ascribed to a lack of communication at the centre of government that meant that everything ‘doth fall between two stools’, but barely a month later the relationship between Albemarle and Buckingham was described as ‘a confederacy offensive and defensive’ aimed squarely at Ormond as their common enemy.<sup>149</sup> In April 1668 Albemarle was said to have been responsible for the king’s decision not to dissolve Parliament, threatening to leave the country in the event of a dissolution in the belief that that opposition to the king’s policies would be even greater in a new Parliament and ‘not seeing that there could be any security for their heads’.<sup>150</sup> Early in the summer of 1668 he sold the mastership of the horse to Buckingham for a sum variously said to be £10,000 or over £20,000.<sup>151</sup></p><p>With the government still in disarray, Albemarle was appointed one of the commissioners to examine miscarriages of justice in Ireland, and then in September he was named as one of the commissioners to negotiate with the French over the proposed commercial treaty. In late September and early October the French ambassador reported that Albemarle was dissatisfied and that, egged on by his wife, he was demanding the post of lord treasurer.<sup>152</sup> How accurate this assessment was is difficult to tell. It is not even clear whether Albemarle was at court at this time; he may well have been at his house in Essex because we know that on 10 Oct., before leaving London, Charles II summoned him from his house at New Hall to the capital in order to cover the king’s absence and that as a result ‘he sits daily with the commissioners of the treasury who are very busy in settling the king’s revenue’. Albemarle’s continued importance, at least in the public mind, was underlined by the discovery of a plot to kill him and the execution in December 1668 of his would-be assassin. Amid reports of reconciliations at court, it was said that Albemarle had joined with York and those still attached to Clarendon in an attempt to prevent the king from announcing that the next meeting of Parliament would be postponed from March 1669 to the following October.<sup>153</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s health was by now visibly declining. In February 1669 he was said to have ‘grown very apoplectical’ and ‘not like to live long’. For the next six weeks, newsletters and private correspondents provide us with an almost daily commentary on the fluctuating state of his health. Even after the immediate fears for his life had dissipated, regular accounts of his condition continued to appear in newsletters.<sup>154</sup> Despite his infirmities (he was said to be suffering from difficulty in breathing, scurvy, and dropsy all at the same time) he still maintained an important public role. In March, when the king left London for Newmarket, he again put Albemarle in charge of affairs during his absence; it was even said that Albemarle had at last been offered the post of lord treasurer.<sup>155</sup> French observers, who had considered him to be one of the most active opponents of a dissolution of Parliament, wondered briefly whether his demise might tip the balance of power in favour of a dissolution after all, but by July, when the duchess of Albemarle had also fallen gravely ill, reports of his recovery began to circulate and by early August he was ‘very well recovered’ and was once again on his way to London to take charge of affairs in the king’s absence. <sup>156</sup></p><p>Albemarle was present when Parliament reconvened on 19 Oct. 1669; he even held a proxy, that of Richard Vaughan*, Baron Vaughan (and 2nd earl of Carbery [I]). He managed just three more attendances before his final illness. According to his early biographers he spent his final months in great discomfort and virtually unable to move, yet he was still involved in public affairs and on 23 Nov. sent his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Clarges, to warn the Commons of the dangers presented by ‘the great resort of dangerous and disaffected persons to this Town’.<sup>157</sup> He was also determined to secure the future of his dynasty. Negotiations for the marriage of his son, Christopher, to the daughter of Henry Cavendish*, styled Lord Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), secured a portion of almost royal size, £20,000, and resulted in a wedding that took place on 30 Dec. 1669. Albemarle died just four days later. Unable to lie in his bed, he died sitting in his chair.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s will, made in 1665, was a simple one, leaving the residue of his estate to his son, Christopher, whose ‘tuition and breeding’ were entrusted to his wife and to his close friends Craven, Sir William Morice, Sir John Maynard, Sir Edward Turner,<sup>‡</sup> Sir William Doyley,<sup>‡</sup> Robert Brown the elder, and John Powell. The will refers to an earlier settlement of lands. Details of this settlement do not survive but it was later alleged that it ensured the descent of Albemarle’s ancestral estates, in case of failure of issue by Christopher Monck, to Albemarle’s niece Frances Moore, with remainder to the daughters of his younger brother Nicholas Monck. Frances Moore’s older sister, Elizabeth Pride, was allegedly cut out of the succession because of her marriage to the son of a regicide but that did not stop her from claiming that she was entitled to the ancestral estates after the 2nd duke’s death under the terms of her own father’s settlement.<sup>159</sup></p><p>Albemarle’s reputation as the regime’s military strongman may have outlived the reality of his abilities but to some his death at a time of acute and continuing political crisis left the government dangerously exposed to disorder and rebellion by ‘fanatics’.<sup>160</sup> So acute was the sense of national loss that Charles II immediately announced his intention of paying for the funeral himself, and the duke’s body was removed to Denmark House in preparation for a lying-in-state at Somerset House. The funeral was delayed until 30 Apr. 1670. Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> commented somewhat waspishly on the delay, suggesting that it meant that Albemarle had been forgotten, but it is more likely that plans for the funeral were thrown into disarray by the death of the duchess of Albemarle just three and a half weeks after that of her husband. Albemarle was finally buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey on 30 Apr. 1670, at a cost of over £5,500.<sup>161</sup> No monument was erected until the disputes surrounding his son’s estate were finally settled in 1720. Two biographies, by his chaplains, Thomas Gumble and John Price, appeared very soon after his death and another, by his doctor, Thomas Skinner, existed in manuscript until published early in the eighteenth century.<sup>162</sup> All three were adulatory and helped to preserve and confirm Albemarle’s reputation as the saviour of the kingdom.</p><p>The epithet most often associated with George Monck is ‘honest’ and, in the midst of a dispute about the marriage portion due to Elizabeth Monck, Colonel Pride and his son went out of their way to pin the blame (if any) on Elizabeth Monck’s maternal relatives, assuring the court that George Monck was a man of ‘so great honour and integrity’ that he could not possibly be involved in an attempt to defraud his niece.<sup>163</sup> Yet Albemarle had an uncanny ability to profit from the situations in which he found himself. There was surely a certain conflict of interest inherent in his ability to appoint trustees to consider and mediate the claims for arrears of pay due to those officers who had served the king in Ireland before 1649 when he had himself bought up a share in the rights to those arrears.<sup>164</sup> Pepys was not the only contemporary of Albemarle who thought that he and his duchess were profiting financially from his position. As a young man George Monck had had to be content with a younger son’s portion of £80 a year. The ancestral estate at Potheridge, which he inherited at the death of his older brother, was said in 1690 to have a capital value of £10,000, but this was almost certainly an overestimate and at the time Monck inherited it the estate was in any case burdened with debt and with portions for his nieces. He died one of the wealthiest individuals in the country and in possession of estates in at least 12 English counties, in Ireland, and in Carolina.<sup>165</sup> It therefore seems likely that in this context the word ‘honest’ refers not so much to his financial dealings as to his political ones. Albemarle was undoubtedly a man with a potentially extensive power base, yet he did not attempt to build a following in either the Lords or the Commons and, although he forged alliances and enmities at court, he nevertheless seems to have maintained considerable political independence.</p><p>Albemarle’s role in the Restoration of Charles II has naturally attracted much historical attention. Since his political papers do not survive and since his communications at the time were necessarily both verbal and secret, historians have found it difficult to reconstruct his intentions with any clarity. His contemporaries also found his intentions difficult to interpret. Even under the best of circumstances Monck was famously taciturn and secretive: ‘He is a silent man’, observed Sir Philip Percivalle in 1647; a decade later he was if anything even more inscrutable: ‘Monck is so dark a man’, wrote Mordaunt in 1660, ‘no perspective can look through him.’<sup>166</sup> If General Monck did have a master plan, the complexities of the political situation of 1658–60 did not encourage him to declare it. Perhaps, as some of his royalist critics believed, his actions were those of a man jockeying for power against his fellow generals. Perhaps, if his response to Parliament’s attempts to change his officers in the summer of 1659 is to be taken at face value, his ideal was that the army should be under the control of the civil authorities: ‘Obedience is my great principle’, he once said, ‘and I have always, and ever shall, reverence the Parliament’s resolutions in civil things as infallible and sacred.’<sup>167</sup> Perhaps Clarendon summed him up correctly when he observed ‘that he was instrumental in bringing mighty things to pass which he had neither wisdom to foresee nor courage to attempt nor understanding to continue’.<sup>168</sup> Perhaps, unlike so many others drawn to the court of Charles II, he was simply not interested in becoming a political leader.</p><p>Above all, his actions demonstrate just how anxious he was both to avoid another civil war and to enjoy the fruits of being on the winning side. Idolized in his own time for his undoubted courage, his reliability, and his role in the Restoration, he was nevertheless an unexciting hero, ‘a dull, heavy man’ as Pepys described him.<sup>169</sup> He was perhaps best summed up by his friend, Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury: ‘A man great of performance, little of speech, no lover of waste words, or fine composed orations, but a great affector of what was short and plain, easy and unaffected.’<sup>170</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
MONTAGU, Charles (1661-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong> (<strong>MOUNTAGUE</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1661–1715)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>13 Dec. 1700 Bar. HALIFAX; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of HALIFAX |
|
First sat 11 Feb. 1701; last sat 11 May 1715 |
|
MP Maldon 1689-95, Westminster 1695-1700 |
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Apr. 1661, 6th but 4th surv. s. of Hon. George Montagu<sup>‡</sup> of Horton, Northants. and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Anthony Irby<sup>‡</sup> of Whaplode, Lincs; bro. of Christopher<sup>‡</sup>, Edward<sup>‡</sup>, Irby<sup>‡</sup> and James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1675; Trinity Coll. Camb. 1679, fell. 1683-8, MA 1689, LL.D. 1705. <em>m</em>. c. Feb. 1688<sup>1</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1698),<sup>2</sup> da. of Sir Christopher Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, bt. wid. of Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, <em>s.p</em>. KG 1714. <em>d</em>. 19 May 1715; <em>will</em> 10 Apr. 1706-1 Feb. 1713, pr. 18 June 1715.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Clerk to PC Feb. 1689-Mar. 1692;<sup>4</sup> commr. of Treasury Mar. 1692-May 1697, 1st ld. May 1697-Nov. 1699, Oct. 1714-<em>d</em>.; chan. of exch.1694-1699; auditor of receipt 1699-1714; PC 1694-1702,<sup>5</sup> 1714-<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1698-9,<sup>6</sup> 1714.</p><p>Envoy to Hanover 1706.</p><p>Commr. preventing export of wool 1689, appeals for prizes 1694, trade and plantations 1696, union with Scotland 1706; trustee, receiving loans to Emperor 1706.</p><p>High steward Camb. Univ. 1697-<em>d</em>.; ranger Bushy pk. 1709; ld. lt. Surrey 1714-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1695, president 1695-98.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1690-95, NPG 800; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1701-3, NPG3211; oil on canvas attrib. to M. Dahl, 1715, Royal Society.</p> |
<p>Although Montagu achieved distinction both as a minister and as the godfather of the Bank of England in the decade following the Revolution, after his elevation to the Lords in 1700 further significant responsibilities eluded him until the Hanoverian succession at the close of his life. His career under Queen Anne was marked by thwarted ambition, which gave rise to fractious relations with his Junto colleagues, who never seem to have been wholly persuaded of his fidelity to the cause. For Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, quoting what he believed to be a well-informed source, Montagu was ‘like the fly upon the wheel, that would always thrust himself upon people and fancy he did great matters, when in truth he only made himself ridiculous.’<sup>10</sup></p><p>His colleagues were right to doubt Montagu’s zeal. Unusually for one of the central figures in the Junto and, in spite of his close friendship with the group’s acknowledged head, John Somers*, Baron Somers, Montagu seems not to have been a staunch adherent of party.<sup>11</sup> He was willing to co-operate with politicians of very different political hues in the name both of national interest and personal aggrandizement or enthusiasm. His negotiations with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, throughout the first decade of the eighteenth century were no doubt largely motivated by ambition but it also seems fair to conclude that the two men enjoyed a genuine friendship. At times this appeared to offer the prospect of a political rapprochement between moderate Whigs and moderate Tories. Such behaviour and his occasionally prickly manner earned Montagu the distrust of more stalwart Whigs. Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, thought him &lquo;as ill a man as ever I knew’ and some other Junto followers regarded &lquo;Mouse Montagu’, as he was commonly known on account of his diminutive stature, as little better than a traitor for his carryings-on with &lquo;Robin the Trickster’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Opinion was similarly divided on Montagu’s merits as a literary patron. Jonathan Swift, who at one point was close to him, later derided his &lquo;patronage’ of artists and writers as amounting to little more than &lquo;good words and good dinners’.<sup>13</sup> Alexander Pope protested that Montagu was &lquo;rather a pretender to taste than really possessed of it’ while others suggested that far from being an original wit himself, Montagu rode on the back of other men’s ideas.<sup>14</sup> Fellow Kit Cat members Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Steele<sup>‡</sup> were, unsurprisingly, more generous, the one hailing him as &lquo;one of our greatest orators’ while Steele eulogized that &lquo;it is to you we owe that the man of wit has turned himself to be a man of business’.<sup>15</sup> As an orator, Montagu was undoubtedly significant, bringing to the House a more informal style, which helped to transform the nature and quality of debate in the chamber. He was also a firm friend to some of his less fortunate contemporaries such as George Stepney, who relied on his former schoolfellow to promote his diplomatic career.<sup>16</sup></p><h2><em>Early career to 1700</em></h2><p>As the younger son of a younger son of Henry Montagu<sup>†</sup>, earl of Manchester, and possessed of little more than a small annuity, Montagu needed to make his own way in the world.<sup>17</sup> Through the king’s patronage he was awarded one of only two lay fellowships at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his cousin, John Montagu, was master.<sup>18</sup> Following Charles II’s death Montagu came to the attention of Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, and Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup>, who were impressed by his verses commemorating the late king.<sup>19</sup> At the Revolution, Montagu joined his cousin, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, in rallying to Princess Anne at Nottingham. Earlier that year he had scandalized society by marrying Manchester’s mother, Anne, dowager countess of Manchester, his senior by more than 30 years. Following the Revolution, his association with key figures at court continued to serve him well. It was on Dorset’s recommendation that he was returned for Maldon on the interest of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, while in February 1689 he purchased the clerkship of the Privy Council for £1,500 through the influence of George Savile*, marquess of Halifax.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Instrumental in the establishment of the Bank of England, Montagu invested £2,000 of his own money in the venture and in May 1694 he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer. He over-reached himself the following year in his efforts to oust Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and the attempt was followed by a rather hollow reconciliation.<sup>21</sup> He retained sufficient interest to set up his brother, Irby, at Maldon in the general election leaving himself free to contest Westminster with the support of Princess Anne, William Russell*, duke of Bedford, and John Holles*, duke of Newcastle.<sup>22</sup></p><p>By the middle of the decade, Montagu had become closely associated with several of the men who were to form the backbone of the Whig Junto. A close personal friend of Somers, Montagu was acknowledged one of the Whigs’ principal managers in the Commons, a role made the more vital by the removal of Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, to the Lords in 1696. By the following year, he was the only member of the Junto leadership still in the Commons. A report that year that he was to be created earl of Glasgow came to nothing.<sup>23</sup> In the Commons he was instrumental in unseating the disgraced Speaker, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, and in mounting the assault on Sunderland’s henchman, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He was also reported as being on the brink of an attack on Sunderland himself.<sup>24</sup> Characteristically unable to restrain himself, Montagu was called to the Commons’ bar early in 1698 to apologize for implying that a number of his fellow Members were Jacobites. He then faced another backlash in the lower House following revelations of his knowledge of the partition treaties.<sup>25</sup> In December 1700, his usefulness in the Commons compromised, he was saved from immediate retribution with his advancement to the peerage as Baron Halifax. His promotion was said to have &lquo;much dejected his friends’ and he caused considerable resentment both in his choice of title (William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, having died only three months previously) and by the florid wording of his patent (penned by Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>) the tone of which was thought to be tasteless and self-important.<sup>26</sup> Jack Howe<sup>‡</sup> later complained in the Commons about its wording, while Robert Molesworth<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Molesworth of Swords [I]) claimed it made him feel sick to his stomach: &lquo;since the Creation’, he complained, &lquo;there never was anything so insolent, arrogant and assuming … It deserves in my opinion an impeachment itself’.<sup>27</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1701</em></h2><p>Following the dissolution of Parliament in December 1700, Halifax was working with his Junto partner, Wharton, to secure the return of Whig candidates and campaigning on behalf of his brother, Irby, at Maldon. Cary Gardiner, writing to the Tory Sir John Verney, speculated that Halifax’s kinsman, Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, would use his interest on behalf of pro-Church candidates, even though Halifax was thought to be ‘too great’ with him.<sup>28</sup> Halifax took his seat in the House five days into the new Parliament on 11 Feb. 1701, introduced between Wharton and George Nevill*, 13th Baron Abergavenny. Present on almost 82 per cent of sittings in the session, he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on 17 Feb. on the Address. On 14 Mar. he joined with several other peers who had been named by Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, as being involved with the drawing up of the Partition Treaty, in acknowledging that he had had sight of the draft agreement, but insisting that the document had been Portland’s responsibility.<sup>29</sup> Halifax was again nominated a manager of two conferences with the Commons concerning the Partition Treaty on 2 and 10 April. Also on 10 Apr. the Commons investigated information that Halifax had hosted Captain Kidd on his release from Newgate but found it to be unreliable.<sup>30</sup> Despite the Commons’ inability to prove conclusively that Kidd and Halifax had met on that occasion, their suspicions formed part of the motivation for the renewed assault on him and his other Junto colleagues. A few days later, he was impeached along with Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, as well as Portland for their role in the negotiations surrounding the Partition Treaties.<sup>31</sup> On 16 Apr. the Lords addressed the king requesting that he would undertake not to pass any censure upon the impeached lords while the case was under consideration. Over the following month, the Lords also periodically troubled the Commons with addresses requiring that they hasten the trials.<sup>32</sup> On 14 June, the Commons at last sent up the articles against Halifax, in which they accused him of profiting from illegal grants of land out of forfeited estates in Ireland as well as failing to hinder the passage of the Treaty. Halifax submitted his answer two days later, denying the accusations made against him, and on 17 June Somers was tried and acquitted by the Lords (without the Commons’ participation). Halifax and Orford were granted leave to withdraw for the duration of their colleague’s trial and the following day a date for their own trials was reported, at which it was assumed they would both be discharged.<sup>33</sup> On 21 June Halifax &lquo;desired the House of Lords not to press his trial upon the impeachment, being unwilling to retard his majesty’s journey to Holland’ but the case against him and the other peers collapsed three days later amidst general acrimony from the lower House.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Halifax was one of three people nominated to oversee the prospective union of the old and new East India companies in September 1701. The following month he was present at a committee of the East India Company.<sup>35</sup> Halifax took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. after which he was present on 79 per cent of all sittings in the session. On 6 and again on 10 Feb. 1702 he was appointed a manager of the conferences concerning the attainder of the Pretender. Following the death of William III, Halifax was one of a number of peers to be nominated managers of a conference concerning the queen’s accession. The same month he was dismissed from the Privy Council. It marked the beginning of a lengthy period out of office.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In the absence of ministerial responsibilities, Halifax devoted his energy to business within the House, concentrating in particular on financial and economic measures. On 13 Mar. 1702 he reported from the committee of the whole concerning the bill for preventing the counterfeiting of coin. It was Halifax, according to his biographer, who introduced the complaint about the publication of libels claiming that King William had planned to secure the succession of the electress of Hanover instead of Princess Anne which led on 4 May to an address to the queen for the prosecution of their authors, and the subsequent interrogation of Dr Drake, author of <em>The History of the Last Parliament</em>, on 9 May.<sup>37</sup> On 7 May he was nominated one of the managers of a conference for the bill for altering the oath of abjuration and the following day he reported from a committee of the whole for the bill for encouraging privateers. Halifax reported progress from a second committee of the whole considering the same measure on 11 May. On 15 May he reported the bill fit to pass with amendments. Halifax reported again from the committee for the address for the prevention of all intercourse between England and its allies with France and Spain on 18 and 20 May he was nominated a manager of a conference concerning amendments to the privateers’ bill and to a further conference for preventing correspondence with France and Spain. The following day he reported from the committee of the whole House considering an act for the relief of William Spencer and the wife and children of the late Alexander Gordon, 5th Viscount Kenmure [S], who, despite having fought against the Jacobite forces at Killiecrankie, had subsequently joined the court at St Germain.</p><h2><em>Out of office: the Parliament of 1702</em></h2><p>In the space between the dissolution and the new Parliament, Halifax’s attention was divided between his efforts to settle a dispute with Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen (the future 2nd duke of Leeds), over the place of auditor of the receipt, to which both laid claim, and his activities on behalf of various friends and kinsmen in the elections. Following hearings in the treasury council between May and July 1702 and, in spite of the warnings voiced by Halifax’s counsel, Sir Thomas Powys<sup>‡</sup>, that should &lquo;another be admitted there would be a scuffle between two auditors at the same time’, the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, ruled that the dispute would have to be settled at law.<sup>38</sup> Having taken his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Oct. (after which he was present on 85 per cent of all sittings) Halifax was drawn into angry exchanges with Carmarthen’s father, Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, over the affair. Halifax challenged the duke to a duel when Leeds goaded him, saying that his family had been raised by rebellion.<sup>39</sup> The duel was averted by the House’s interposition and Halifax was confined to his house by black rod to prevent the quarrel erupting again. Although violence was averted, litigation between Halifax and Carmarthen over the auditor’s office persisted during the spring and early summer of 1703.<sup>40</sup></p><p>In the new Parliament Halifax was closely involved in the opposition to the Commons’ occasional conformity bill. He was said by his biographer to have been the author of the motion declaring the practice of ‘annexing any clause or clauses to a bill of aid or supply, the matter of which is foreign to, and different from, the matter of the said bill of aid or supply’ to be ‘unparliamentary, and tending to the ‘destruction of the constitution of this government’, agreed by the House on 9 Dec. 1702 in anticipation of another attempt to tack the occasional conformity bill.<sup>41</sup> On 17 Dec. he was appointed one of the managers of a conference on the bill against occasional conformity. At the beginning of 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a likely opponent of the bill. On 7 Jan. he reported from the committee for Fane and Vesey’s bill and, having managed a further conference concerning the occasional conformity bill on 9 January. On 16 Jan., he was one of the principal managers of a conference with the Commons on the subject, delivering, according to his biographer, the main speech in favour of the commons’ amendments, as well as adding words of his own emphasizing the Lords’ objections to the penalties.<sup>42</sup> Later that day he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Halifax courted the queen’s displeasure three days later when he was one of two peers to dissent from the decision on the bill for Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, to leave out a clause that would allow the prince to serve as a member of the Privy Council, sit in the Lords and benefit from a number of grants in the event that he outlived the queen, although many of his Junto colleagues subscribed against it for other reasons.</p><p>That month he faced renewed attacks upon him in the Commons. The report of the commissioners for public accounts, presented on 26 Jan. revealed malpractice in the exchequer, which was pinned in the Commons’ resolutions of that day principally on Halifax as Auditor of Receipt; on the following day a resolution passed to address the queen to prosecute him. The Lords, however, defended Halifax, discussing the report of the commissioners for accounts on 2 Feb., when they established their own committee to examine it, and the accounts, in more detail. The commissioners themselves failed to attend it, but nevertheless, on 5 Feb. the committee reported their findings, concluding that Halifax was innocent of any neglect or breach of trust, and agreed that they should be printed. Their vindication produced a resentful exchange of conferences between the two houses on the subject, which raised an old dispute about the extent to which the Lords should participate in business relating to the accounts. Halifax himself was nominated one of the managers of three conferences on the subject on 17, 22 and 25 February. The commissioner later discovered another issue, the apparent appropriation of £500 a year out of the annuity office. Several months later, Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, who was alleged to have received precisely this sum from Halifax as payment for the detection of smugglers, wrote from his self-imposed exile in Hanover to apologize for Halifax’s trouble in this session, asserting that &lquo;if there was any fault, it was mine, not yours’. Gwynne had also written to Sir Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup> to explain his role in the affair and invited Halifax to lay the letter before the Commons ’or wherever else it might be of service to your lordship if you desire it.’<sup>43</sup> On 24 Feb. he was also appointed one of the managers of the free conference for the occasional conformity bill. His biographer asserted that ‘towards the non-passage of that Act, none contributed more, by his interest with the peers, and strength of argument, than the Lord Halifax’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Having come through the difficulties of the last few months relatively unscathed, Halifax appears to have marked the occasion with a change of motto. The rather defeatist <em>fuimus</em> (we have been) was altered for the more confident and patrician <em>otium</em> <em>cum</em> <em>dignitate</em> (leisure with dignity).<sup>45</sup> Halifax attended meetings of the Junto at Chippenham and Althorp during August. The same month he referred a case from Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> concerning the assizes at Gloucester to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>46</sup> Halifax took his seat in the new session on 9 Nov. 1703, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sittings. He was again a principal opponent of the occasional conformity bill, forecast in November to be against it in two assessments drawn up by his Junto colleague, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. At its second reading on 14 Dec. he was said to have demanded that the bill be thrown out, and voted either against reading the occasional conformity bill a second time or in favour of rejecting the measure outright.<sup>47</sup> According to his biographer, it was at Halifax’s initiative that on 17 Dec. the Lords took custody of those involved in the Scotch plot and set up a committee to examine them, and it was Halifax who, when the Commons’ address to the queen objecting to their actions was debated on 12 Jan. 1704, who most vigorously asserted the Lords’ rights to examine suspects: he luridly painted the dangers of ‘the Houses of Parliament appealing against one another to the Crown… There are examples abroad, where proceedings of this kind have ended in the overthrow of the liberties of the people’.<sup>48</sup><sup>49</sup></p><p>On 10 Dec. 1703 Halifax had reported from the committee of the whole House drawing up heads for a bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices and he reported again from committee of the whole House on the same business on 15 December. Present at a dinner hosted by Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, on 17 Dec., three days later he chaired the first meeting of a committee established to enquire into the keeping of public records, which was to become his principal passion over the ensuing decade.<sup>50</sup> During the period December 1703 to July 1713 he chaired the vast majority of some 50 meetings of the committee, in which he was joined by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, with whom he developed a close working friendship as a fellow antiquarian.<sup>51</sup></p><p>As a result of his activities, Halifax was regarded as a particular target by high Tories in the Commons – ‘singled out’, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> wrote on 24 Dec. 1703.<sup>52</sup> Following the Christmas recess, Halifax waived his privilege to allow the Commons to continue their investigation of his financial dealings.<sup>53</sup> The charges against him were further raised in the Commons on 10 and debated on 11 Jan., though, as reported by Vernon a few days later,</p><blockquote><p>My Lord Halifax is come off easier than some intended he should: he was well advised to make it known that he insisted on no privilege. However, the information against him was ordered to be brought in, that a further charge might be added to it out of the last year’s report of the commissioners of the accounts, that he had taken 500l. per annum out of the annuity fund, for the gratification of persons employed under him, to recompence their additional trouble, which was represented as contrary to the act granting that fund. But the law being looked into, no such thing appeared; the remainder of the fund was no way disposed of, and therefore the Treasury might, as they did, by the king’s order, give convenient salaries out of it to those who did the business, and it was then observed that this cold be no peculiar crime in the auditor, but was the same in the tellers, who had 300l. per annum among them for keeping four clerks to attend the annuity payments.<sup>54</sup></p></blockquote><p>And so, Vernon wrote, ‘it passed over’, although the original charges remained to be decided at law over the summer.</p><p>On 28 Jan. 1704 he reported from the committee for the bill of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, as fit to pass and on 13 Feb. he was present at a gathering at Sunderland’s, where the Scotch Plot, then being considered by the House, dominated the discussion. On 23 Feb. Halifax reported from a committee on a bill concerning personal estates in York. On 18 Mar. he dined with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), at the Queen’s Arms, and three days later he attended at much larger Whig gathering at Sunderland’s house, both of which probably related to proceedings on the Scotch Plot.<sup>55</sup> On 24 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect. Three days later he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the public accounts bill and on 30 Mar. he reported from the committee appointed to consider the keeping of public records. The following month he hosted a ‘great feast’ attended by Somerset, William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, at which ‘ about 50 persons of honour and quality were present all men of a kidney.’<sup>56</sup></p><p>During the summer, a report circulated that Halifax was shortly to marry the countess of Warwick but it turned out to be groundless.<sup>57</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 24 Oct. 1704, after which he was present on 88 per cent of all sittings. On 3 Nov. he received Dorset’s proxy and the following month on 5 Dec. that of Montagu, both of which were vacated by the close of the session. On 23 June the case against Halifax which the Commons had demanded to be prosecuted eighteen months before had come to trial, but ended with the attorney general entering a nolle prosequi after legal argument made it impossible for the case to be proved. The formal record was called for by the Commons and read on 18 Nov.; although there was a debate, the House was adjourned on a division. Elizabeth Burnet reckoned the failure of the Tories to make more of the case revealed</p><blockquote><p>the weakness or disunion of the high party, for the matter of the debate had the advantage of being a pretended privilege of the House of Commons, which is a dear thing and against Lord Halifax, a man who has there very many who hate him heartily and yet the majority was very considerable.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Commons had, however, agreed to bring in another occasional conformity bill on the day (14 Nov.) on which they called for the record of the trial. An unlikely story from Halifax’s biographer suggests that it was Halifax who was behind the attempt in the Commons to tack the bill to the supply bill, as a way of defeating the Lords’ veto: he had suggested it to Harley, as a means of wrecking the unity of the high Tories. If untrue, it was some indication of a relationship between Halifax and Harley. When the occasional conformity bill came into the Lords, to be as usual rejected on first reading on 15 Dec., Halifax spoke in response to John Sharp*, archbishop of York.<sup>59</sup> Halifax’s sharp response to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham’s remarks on King William’s role in the Partition Treaty and his argument for a union of Scotland and England probably came in the debates on the Scottish Act of Security on 29 Nov. and 6 Dec., though his biographer’s claim that he was the first to propose the Scottish union was overblown.<sup>60</sup></p><p>At some point early in this session – perhaps shortly after the vote on the occasional conformity bill – Halifax mounted an attack on the recently-elevated high Tory bishop, George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells. Having spent the morning with Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, who had drawn it to his attention, Halifax presented the House with a sermon that had been preached by Hooper before the Commons some three years previously which he insisted should be censured.<sup>61</sup> Hooper rejected Halifax’s assertion that the sermon smacked of popery and said that Halifax had misinterpreted his argument. The House was said to have agreed to hear the whole sermon so that the offending passage could be heard in context, following which they backed the bishop and Halifax’s motion of censure was over-ruled: none of this, however, appears in the Journal.<sup>62</sup> On 31 Jan. 1705 Halifax reported from the committee concerning public records, communicating its recommendations for the improvement of storage facilities, and on 7 Feb. from the committees for Thomas Whitley’s bill and the Gainsborough vicarage bill. On 12 Feb. he once more brought to the House’s attention a question concerning his privilege, informing them that he had been sent a summons two days earlier contrary to his rights as a peer. The following day he acted as one of the tellers in a division held in the committee of the whole House on the promissory notes bill. Halifax was named to the committee to draw up the heads of a conference with the Commons concerning the long-running case of the Aylesbury men on 27 Feb., in which Halifax, Wharton and Sunderland strove to neutralize the Tory majority in the Commons.<sup>63</sup> He managed a further conference the following day and on 3 Mar. he reported from the committee for Pitkin’s creditors’ bill as well as from the committee of the whole concerning the bill for prohibiting trade with France. On 6 Mar. he reported progress from the committee of the whole considering the mutiny bill, and on 7 Mar. he was appointed a manager of two conferences, one concerning the Aylesbury men and the other examining the bill to prevent traitorous correspondence. Halifax reported from a further committee of the whole on the mutiny bill on 8 Mar. and, the following day, reported the measure fit to pass without amendment. On 13 Mar, the penultimate day of the session, he was appointed a manager of the conference considering amendments to the Pechels’ naturalization bill.</p><h2><em>The 1705 Parliament and the quest for office</em></h2><p>Parliament was dissolved in April 1705. According to his biographer, Halifax wrote a response to a speech by the high Tory champion of occasional uniformity William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> (1663-1732), called <em>An Answer to Mr B’s speech</em>, which was printed, though no copy has been found. The pamphlet, which particularly attacked the practice of tacking, had, he claimed, a ‘great influence’ on the elections.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Noted a supporter of the Hanoverian succession in April, Halifax visited Newmarket, accompanying the queen (who also dined with one of the Junto, Orford, at Chippenham), and took the opportunity to oversee business involving his friend, George Stepney. At Cambridge Halifax received his honorary degree, and his brother a knighthood.<sup>65</sup> A major preoccupation was the forthcoming election. John Morley Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, husband of Halifax’s niece, Lucy Montagu, approached Halifax to employ his interest with Somerset on his behalf for the Sussex elections. Trevor subsequently topped the poll, securing 1,867 votes, though Sir Henry Peachey, who had also sought Halifax’s favour in the county, was pushed into third place.<sup>66</sup> The same month Halifax made the most of his interest with John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, by recommending Captain Ralph Congreve and Ensign Barton for promotions. The latter may possibly have been the brother of Halifax’s companion (believed also to be his mistress or secret wife) Catherine Barton, a niece of Sir Isaac Newton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>67</sup> It is perhaps no coincidence that Robert Barton was listed in 1702 as an officer in the regiment commanded by Emanuel Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, whose election expenses at Morpeth the previous year had been paid for by Halifax.<sup>68</sup> Other efforts to employ his interest were less successful. In May he recommended his brother James Montagu to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond for the place of steward of the Westminster courts, but Ormond insisted that he was pre-engaged to support Thomas Medlycott<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>69</sup> The elections were also, by and large, a disappointment. In spite of lavish treating of the town, Halifax’s brother-in-law, John Lawton<sup>‡</sup>, was unsuccessful in his bid to secure re-election at Newcastle-under-Lyme (though both Lawton and his partner Crew Offley<sup>‡</sup> were later returned on petition).<sup>70</sup> Halifax condoled with Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, who had been subjected to a similar disappointment in the elections at St Albans. Nevertheless, he was at pains to refute the Tory press’s accounts of runaway victories and professed himself otherwise largely heartened by the results.<sup>71</sup> Although Halifax was later vilified by the duchess, who accused him of consorting with Harley and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, at this time in an effort to ‘crush’ Godolphin, at this juncture she and Halifax appeared to have been on good terms.<sup>72</sup> Halifax used his interest with her to secure financial assistance for Daniel Defoe, who had penned some verses in praise of her husband.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Halifax was involved with Somers and Godolphin in the early stages of the union negotiations that autumn.<sup>74</sup> Halifax was said to have been the first to propose ‘the Equivalent; without which, that happy agreement between both nations, had never been accomplish’d’.<sup>75</sup> In advance of the sitting of the new Parliament, he and Somers interposed with Godolphin on behalf of William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, to ensure a favourable settlement of the restoration of the temporalities of his new see.<sup>76</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, and was present on 81 per cent of all sittings. On 6 Dec. Halifax was the first to respond to the speech by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester setting out the case that the ‘Church was in danger’. He pointed out several examples of dangers to the Church which had emanated from Tory circles, such as the act establishing presbytery in Scotland and the occasional conformity bill. He ended by dismissing the Tory attacks on the grounds that ‘there’s always a cry for the Church when a certain faction is disregarded.’<sup>77</sup> Not surprisingly he supported the motion at the end of the debate which pronounced that the Church was not in danger, but in a safe and flourishing condition. A few days later, it was reported that in response to their ‘great dispute’ over the matter that a challenge had been issued for a duel in Hyde Park (although it is unclear whether a duel took place). On 7 Dec. he reported from the committee for Peter Silvestre’s naturalization bill and the same day he was appointed one of the managers of the conference considering the resolution that the Church of England was in no manner of danger. Another duel, this time with Carmarthen over their continuing dispute concerning the place in the exchequer was also narrowly averted at about this time.<sup>78</sup> Halifax was appointed to manage further conferences on the issue of the Church in danger on 14 and 17 December. The same month he wrote to Marlborough to ask him to help Lionel Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst, later duke of Dorset, who was abroad with the army in the low countries and whose ‘father has sent for him home, and all his relations were under the utmost difficulty what they should advise him to do.’<sup>79</sup></p><p>Halifax attended a dinner at the beginning of 1706 which it was said was intended to help bring about a reconciliation between him, Somers and Harley.<sup>80</sup> The dinner coincided with Shrewsbury’s return to England, after his five-year-long self-imposed exile in Italy. Unlike the rest of his Junto colleagues, who resolved not to forgive the duke for abandoning them in their hour of need, Halifax had maintained a friendly correspondence with Shrewsbury in the intervening years. He had also entrusted his nephew to the duke’s care when he visited Rome.<sup>81</sup> With Shrewsbury back in England, though, Halifax was disappointed by the duke’s disinclination to rejoin the Whig leadership. Regretting that Shrewsbury was possessed of ‘too much fine silver in his temperament,’ Halifax asserted that had he only been ‘made of coarser alloy, you had been better fitted for public use.’<sup>82</sup> Halifax continued his interest in the question of safeguarding public records. On 4 Jan. 1706 he attended a session of the records committee taking evidence from the trustees of the Cotton Library and the officers of the rolls.<sup>83</sup> He reported from the committee on 17 January. The following month he was instrumental in persuading some of the country Whigs to drop their advocacy of aspects of the regency bill. John Chamberlain wrote to him on 27 Feb. to</p><blockquote><p>congratulate the same spirit, that has had so great a share in the happy conclusion of the affair of the regency &c; my lord, your conduct in turning their own cannon upon those persons whose real grief it has been that the dangers of the Church, and the dangers of the Protestant succession are only imaginary and chimerical, is matchless and inimitable; and a good account of that whole transaction will be one of the brightest periods of your lordship’s story.<sup>84</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 7 Feb. 1706 Halifax had been appointed one of the managers of a conference concerning the regency bill. After the Commons had put off discussing the Lords’ amendments to the bill, Halifax seems to have been instrumental in persuading at least one of the country Whigs, Robert Eyres<sup>‡</sup> to give up the ‘Whimsical’ clause.<sup>85</sup> On the 19th he was again appointed manager of a further conference on the regency bill. On 18 Feb. he had reported from the committee of the whole considering Rice’s bill and on 22 Feb. he was named a manager of the conference for Cary and Hatley’s bill. On 2 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conference appointed to consider the bill making the exemplification of the will of Edward Conway*, earl of Conway and other documents originating in Ireland, evidence in trials at law. Two days later Halifax reported from the records committee and the same day he again received Montagu’s proxy (which was vacated by the close of the session). Along with the majority of those present in the House at the time, Halifax was named a manager of the conferences of 9 and 11 Mar. considering Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter to Stamford</em>, namely Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and on 13 Mar. he was named a manager of the conference for the militia bill. Shortly before the end of the session, on 15 and 18 Mar., he again reported from the records’ committee.</p><p>Having taken an early lead in the negotiations, Halifax was appointed one of the commissioners for union with Scotland in April 1706. The same month he was despatched to Hanover as envoy to the Electress Sophia.<sup>86</sup> <em>En route</em> he participated in the negotiations with the Dutch over the barrier treaty (and was invited into their synagogue in Amsterdam by the Portuguese Jews), before presenting himself at the electoral court in June.<sup>87</sup> His return in August 1706 was warmly welcomed by Sunderland, who confided to Newcastle, ‘as he has done a great deal of good abroad, so I am sure he will join very zealously to do all he can at home’.<sup>88</sup> His efforts were less enthusiastically greeted at court. When Halifax presented the queen with the request that the Electoral Prince George*, the future duke of Cambridge (and later George II), should be awarded an English peerage, it met with a decidedly muted response.<sup>89</sup> He (and his Junto colleagues) faced a similarly uphill struggle in their negotiations with Godolphin for ministerial places for the Whigs. In September Halifax and Sunderland postponed a trip to Woodstock, fearing that the queen would assume they were caballing with the duchess of Marlborough.<sup>90</sup> The conspiratorial climate no doubt encouraged Harley to authorize Defoe to communicate with Halifax. Between December 1706 and January 1707 Halifax was also engaged in correspondence with Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, over the progress of the peninsular campaign.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Halifax took his seat in the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, and was present on 77 percent of all sittings. The opening of the session coincided with a series of removals from office of Tories and concessions to the Whigs, including those of the Junto: elevations for Wharton and Cowper, and appointment of Sunderland as secretary of state. Halifax’s brother was made solicitor general, though Halifax himself obtained no appointment. Prominent in the union debate on 14 Jan. 1707, he joined with Wharton and Somers in arguing that the House should delay further consideration of the business until the treaty had been ratified by the Scottish parliament.<sup>92</sup> Although Halifax and Somers fell out during the Union negotiations, they were able to patch up their differences and prevent news of their disagreement circulating too widely. Halifax for one, begged Somers’ pardon, ‘if my very great trouble has given you any’ and desired that he would ‘take no notice of what has passed, which would be a triumph to some.’<sup>93</sup> Halifax dined at Ossulston’s with other Whigs including Wharton and Somerset on 24 Jan., presumably to discuss the Union.<sup>94</sup> On 27 Jan. he combined with Somers in an effort to deal with the conflict in Spain between the expedition’s commanders Rivers and Henri de Massue du Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I]. Halifax suggested that Galway’s errors, the cause of Rivers’ particular resentment, were the result of his over-fondness for ‘the old rogue’ John Methuen<sup>‡</sup>, now conveniently deceased.<sup>95</sup> Towards the end of the month he was one of those to gather at Bishop Wake’s to discuss amendments for the bill for securing the Church of England in advance of passing the Union bill.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Halifax received Montagu’s proxy once more on 4 Feb. 1707 (again vacated by the close). On 6 Feb. he dined with Somerset. He spoke in the debates on the Union bill on 15 and 24 Feb., speaking especially to the proportion of the land tax to be paid by the Scots and on the Equivalent payment. After the second occasion he joined the company at Wharton’s.<sup>97</sup> Halifax reported from the records committee on 3 Mar. on the bill for purchasing Cotton House. On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the Hertford highways bill and on 8 Mar. from the committee for the bill for Henry O’Brien*, 7th earl of Thomond [I] and the future Viscount Tadcaster. On 20 and 21 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for amending the form of the royal assent, which provided for the abolition of archaic French from proceedings. On 7 Apr. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for duties on salt. The following day he reported from the records committee again and the same day was nominated one of the managers of a conference for the vagrants bill. Halifax attended six days of the brief nine-day session of April 1707.</p><p>At the end of March, Halifax had written to Marlborough expressing his unhappiness that his credentials had been passed over when choosing an envoy for the Netherlands: Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, had gone instead, despite Halifax’s service the previous year in Hanover and at The Hague, and his efforts to encourage Somers to consider the Dutch concerns about peace. He had, he wrote, been treated ‘with great contempt, or unkindness’. (A note by the duchess of Marlborough on the letter suggests that her husband had found him in the previous embassy ‘so troublesome that he could not bear him’.)<sup>98</sup> The disappointment may have contributed to his increasing disenchantment with the duumvirs. During the summer he joined with his colleagues in protesting at the proposed elevation of more Tories to the episcopate, though he confided to Manchester that he believed the matter would soon be ‘compounded’ and the most offensive Tory candidate withdrawn.<sup>99</sup> Towards the end of July he joined with the lord chancellor and lord treasurer, officers of the mint and a deputation from the goldsmiths, to test the purity of the gold and silver coinage.<sup>100</sup> The following month, he again attended a gathering of the Junto at Althorp intended ‘to fix measures for the approaching’ session.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Halifax returned to the House for the new session, the first following the Union, on 23 Oct. 1707, after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sittings. The altered condition of the House, with the introduction of Scottish peers, gave rise to a belief that there would be a change of party distinctions. One correspondent thought he discerned the formation of a new court party when he saw Wharton, Halifax and Rochester going ‘hand in hand in the great debate in the House of Lords about the admiralty.’<sup>102</sup> On 12 Nov. Halifax joined with Somers in seconding Wharton’s motion to adjourn into a committee of the whole to consider the state of the nation regarding trade and convoys and on 19 Nov. the Junto peers were joined again by Rochester and Haversham in moving for a committee to be established to hear the merchants’ complaints about the convoy system.<sup>103</sup> On 26 Nov. and again on 15 Dec. Halifax reported from the committee considering proposals for fitting out and encouraging privateers in the West Indies. He was, according to his biographer, behind the moves to prosecute Commodore Kerr for his misbehaviour in Jamaica, originally raised on 1 December.<sup>104</sup> On 19 Dec. he intervened in the debate considering the conduct of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough in the Spanish campaign, recommending that a vote of thanks should be put off until his conduct had been properly examined. Reflecting on Peterborough’s behaviour he noted sardonically ‘that he had never met with the like exploits anywhere but in Quintus Curtius’ (the controversial biographer of Alexander the Great).<sup>105</sup> He also joined Wharton in seconding a motion put forward by Somers that ‘no peace could be safe or honourable’ until Spain and the West Indies had been recovered by the House of Austria.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Halifax reported from the committee considering the state of trade on 7 Jan. 1708 and the following day from that considering the address for papers and accounts relative to trade. Between 21 and 23 Jan. he chaired the committee of the whole for the bill for the increase of seamen and manning of the navy and on 10 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the succession to the crown bill. On 5 Feb. Halifax had supported the motion to abolish the Scots Privy Council in May rather than delaying until October. He was also elected by ballot on 9 Feb. to the committee of seven charged with investigating the activities of William Gregg, Harley’s under-secretary. On 20 Feb. Joseph Addison referred to Halifax as the ‘chief promoter’ of ‘one of the greatest affairs before the House of Commons at present’ namely a scheme which sought to reform the system for awarding naval prizes, as part of the general reform of the admiralty.<sup>107</sup> The state of the coinage remained another area of interest for him. On 27 Feb. and again on 5 Mar. he reported from the committee for the act for ascertaining the rates of foreign coin in the American plantations. On 31 Mar. Halifax was appointed one of the managers of the conference for the bill for encouragement of trade with America. The following day he was also appointed a manager of the conference for the waggoners’ bill.</p><p>In the late spring of 1708 he was forced to respond to concerns that efforts had been made to drive a wedge between him and his kinsman, Manchester, who was encountering difficulties in his embassy in Venice. Halifax insisted that he would ‘always espouse your interest and promote your good.’<sup>108</sup> Halifax was marked, unsurprisingly, as a Whig in a list of peers’ party affiliations compiled in about May 1708. According to Maynwaring, writing in one of his regular bulletins to the duchess of Marlborough, Halifax was the person at that juncture most able to sway matters either for or against the Whigs: ‘if one could understand what would fix or please him’ he continued, ‘it would be of great use.’<sup>109</sup> Halifax’s concerns were not just for his own advancement but also for that of his kin. That summer he employed his interest on behalf of his brother James, who was under threat of being dismissed from his place as solicitor-general. He insisted that the matter must be decided ‘in his favour or to his disgrace’ while emphasizing the extent to which the decision reflected upon him directly.<sup>110</sup> Later in the year, Halifax was still at work on his brother’s behalf and one report of October attributed to Halifax a deliberate effort to destabilize the House and to encourage rivalries between his colleagues, ‘in hopes of carrying by a high hand his brother’s pretensions.’<sup>111</sup> Always preoccupied with advancing the interests of trade, Halifax made a point of making an early start to head into the city in July 1708 in order</p><blockquote><p>to push the American project, for now is the time to set that adventure afloat, when people’s hearts are up, when they [despise] the French and think a peace so near… my brains do so crow with our great success, that I cannot help drawing schemes for destroying the French in other places besides America.<sup>112</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>The Parliament of 1708</em></h2><p>Halifax returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 (after which he was present on over 90 per cent of all sittings). In advance of the session he had been engaged in further negotiations with Harley, which precipitated a falling-out with his some of his Whig colleagues. They were convinced that he was pursuing underhand dealings with both Harley and Shrewsbury to bring about a change of ministry. It was no doubt such concerns that gave rise to the unlikely rumours circulating early the following year that he was to be appointed lord treasurer.<sup>113</sup> Thwarted ambition was probably at the root of Halifax’s posturing. At the close of the year he sought the duchess of Marlborough’s assistance in securing him a role in the peace negotiations but his request was opposed roundly by several senior members of the ministry.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Halifax voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the election of Scots representative peers in the division held on 21 Jan. 1709. Despite his faltering relations with the duumvirs, he retained sufficient interest to attempt to assist Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], that month in his efforts on behalf of Sir Andrew Hume (presumably a kinsman).<sup>115</sup> He responded to Haversham on the state of the garrisons and fortifications in Scotland when the latter procured a debate on the subject on 25 Feb. 1709.<sup>116</sup> He also continued to play an active part in the House’s management. On 9 Feb. he reported from the committees for Granger’s bill and George Penne’s bill and on 1 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the address to the queen that set out a series of demands for peace negotiations with France. It was presumably this that earned him the warm approbation of the electoral court: Ruperta Howe, daughter of Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, and the wife of Halifax’s former client, Emanuel Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, observed from Hanover on 18 Mar. how Halifax’s speech in the Lords had been very well received there and how, ‘they express great obligation to him for procuring the address of both houses to the queen’ (a pencil note on this letter gives the date 1708, but it seems more likely to relate to 1709).<sup>117</sup> He reported from the committee of the whole considering the Whitehaven harbour bill on 5 Mar. and 10 days later from the committee of the whole considering the general naturalization bill. This may have been the occasion for the exchange with the earl of Rochester, in which he responded to Rochester’s question, ‘what… could be the consequence of inviting thither, by a general naturalization, multitudes of poor foreigners, who would only employ themselves in trade and otherwise’, at a time when many families were destitute of work throughout the kingdom. ‘The increase of people’, Halifax argued, ‘was the means of advancing the wealth of a nation’.<sup>118</sup> On 22 Mar., during the committee of the whole for the Union improvement bill, Halifax served as one of the tellers for the division on an amendment to the procedure on treason trials in which a list of witnesses would be delivered to a prisoner five days before the trial: the vote was carried by six votes.<sup>119</sup> Two days later he reported from the committee considering proceedings between Robert Fitzgerald, 19th earl of Kildare [I], and Sir Arthur Shaen and on 14 Apr. he ‘spoke at large’ during the debates in the House concerning the Commons’ amendments to the Union improvement bill relating to the date upon which the provisions relating to treason became operative. Halifax considered the measure ‘unseasonable’ and moved for the amendments to be reserved until after the Pretender’s death.<sup>120</sup> Two days later he reported from the committee of the whole House for the act to prevent coining. Halifax’s personal project, the scheme for the better accommodation of public records, continued to attract his attention during the session and on 20 Apr. he reported from the records committee with satisfaction how, ‘the great confused heap, which before lay covered with dust, has been thoroughly cleansed and put into chests and shelves, in order to be sorted.’ The same day he chaired the committee of the whole for the act for continuing former acts for the encouragement of the coinage.</p><p>Halifax’s relations with the duchess of Marlborough continued to decline. She accused him of implying that she had obstructed his brother’s admission as attorney general, and also of writing to the Electress Sophia asserting that the cause of their falling out was that he was a friend of Hanover and she was not.<sup>121</sup> Relations with the duke remained more cordial. In July 1709 Halifax wrote to Marlborough on behalf of his cousin, John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu, who had expressed himself to be ‘very fond of seeing an army.’ Although Halifax had done his best to dissuade the young man, he had agreed to represent his wishes to Marlborough and conceded that a tour of Brussels and Lille ‘would be a great satisfaction to him and perhaps do him some good.’ The following summer Halifax was still on sufficiently good terms with the duke to secure his continued interest for Catherine Barton’s brother in the army.<sup>122</sup></p><h2><em>Ranger of Bushy 1709-10</em></h2><p>It was not just Halifax’s relations with the duchess of Marlborough that were under strain. By November 1709 reports were circulating that Somers and Halifax were no longer ‘as well together as they used to be’. Sunderland added to the jealousies within the ranks of the Junto by criticizing Halifax roundly and making it known that he did not think it ‘at all necessary that Halifax should be in the cabinet’. During the summer, Halifax had been presented with the very minor sop of the rangership of Bushy Park and although it could be argued that by giving him responsibility for Hampton Court and thus access to the queen it was a more significant place than at first sight appears, it was in truth a paltry role that only served to emphasize his isolation from the rest of the Junto leadership, who had by now all secured senior places in the administration. By the close of the year Halifax claimed to have accepted his situation and professed that if his offer to aid the ministry was not taken up, he would retire quietly from the scene. Commenting on such avowals Maynwaring concluded tellingly, ‘if he keeps his word, the ministers will have less trouble upon that head.’<sup>123</sup></p><p>Halifax took his seat in the new session on 15 Nov. 1709 (of which he attended 74 per cent of all sittings) and almost at once demonstrated the uneasiness of his current relations with his associates. The day before the opening he was waited on by Maynwaring at the bidding of Somers and Sunderland, and asked to move the address of thanks to the queen’s speech. Halifax’s initial response was said to have been a hearty oath followed by a flat refusal but by the next day he had succumbed to further pressure. He agreed to move the Address, ‘to which motion he has artfully (as they said) named the duke of Marlborough, so that nobody else can be mentioned but very improperly’: the text of the motion reported by Halifax to the House on the 16th referred to the success of the queen’s arms, under Marlborough’s command. The following month he had a conference with Marlborough and Godolphin. Although Maynwaring was unable to puzzle out the result of the discussions, he seemed to think that it was conducted on friendlier terms than previously.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Halifax seems not to have been closely involved in the House’s committee work during the remainder of the session, though on 13 Feb. 1710 he reported from the committee for the Northampton and Stoke Goldington highways bill. Shortly after, however, he cooperated with his Junto colleagues in the efforts to impeach Dr Henry Sacheverell. The day after the trial opened in Westminster Hall, Halifax hosted the queen at supper.<sup>125</sup> On 16 Mar. he voiced his support in debate for the motion that the Commons had made good the first article of their impeachment. On 18 Mar. Halifax was one of those engaged in the debate on the precise form of the question and response to be asked of peers when judging Sacheverell (he favoured content or not content) and whether judgment should be given on each article separately or collectively (he favoured the latter.<sup>126</sup> On 20 Mar., he found Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.<sup>127</sup> Despite this, according to his biographer, Halifax then seconded the proposal made by John Campbell, duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich in the English peerage) for a more lenient sentence than that initially proposed by the earl of Carlisle. If so, perhaps this reflected a desire to distance himself from his Junto colleagues. He may also have sought to keep his options open with Harley.<sup>128</sup> No sooner had the trial concluded than Halifax resumed his role as a committee chairman and conference manager. On 24 Mar. he chaired the committee of the whole considering the Liverpool docks bill. On 27 Mar. he was appointed one of the managers of the conference for amendments to the act concerning the marriage settlements of Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup> and on 30 Mar. he acted as manager of the conference for the Eddystone lighthouse bill.</p><p>That summer there were renewed rumours that Halifax was to marry again. Once more, the reports (this time that he was to marry Juliana, dowager countess of Burlington) proved inaccurate.<sup>129</sup> Halifax’s main concern though was with building a new political alliance. He held a series of talks with Harley during July 1710, the extent of which were hinted at in a draft in Harley’s hand in which he posed questions such as ‘I am in the dark – how far would you go’. They gave rise to reports that he had been ‘very instrumental in reconciling the contending parties.’ Later in the month, rumours circulated that Harley had been involved in meetings with ‘the great duchess’ (presumably Marlborough) hosted by Halifax.<sup>130</sup> Halifax appears at the same time to have been offering his services to Godolphin, though the duchess of Marlborough was later emphatic that Halifax had all along been ‘underhand’ with Shrewsbury and Harley. His energetic wooing of all parties appears to have borne fruit with the promise of his appointment as ambassador to the States General. Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton, could offer no explanation for Halifax’s selection though others postulated that the position had been gained for him through Shrewsbury’s influence, and by the close of the month it was still being said only that ‘overtures’ were being made to Halifax to join Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend as an additional plenipotentiary.<sup>131</sup> Halifax sought Marlborough’s approval of his proposed new role:</p><blockquote><p>the queen has been pleased to offer to send me over to assist at the making of the peace … as I shall not be willing to accept this commission till I see a better prospect of maintaining our credit at home, so I would by no means enter upon so nice an affair without the hopes of your favour and directions.<sup>132</sup></p></blockquote><p>Illness prevented him from taking up the post, however: out of town suffering with gout in July, Halifax was still struggling with poor health by the end of August.<sup>133</sup> Harley continued to try to win him over during the ensuing weeks, though Harley complained to Newcastle of the impossibility of bringing Halifax and Cowper ‘out of general terms to particulars.’<sup>134</sup> Nevertheless, on 10 Aug. Halifax wrote to congratulate Harley on the formation of his new administration, wishing him</p><blockquote><p>much joy in the station you have accepted, which, as you foresee, will be attended with so great difficulties, that I tremble at them. Your great abilities and your knowledge of the revenue, will soon make you master of all the business, but how you will restore credit, and find money for the demands that will be upon you exceeds my capacity.<sup>135</sup></p></blockquote><p>In his correspondence with Newcastle, Harley reckoned Halifax to be ‘very sincere’ in his intentions but he thought that ‘others are underhand doing all the mischief possible.’ He later contrasted Cowper’s unwillingness to ‘come out of his reserve’ with Halifax’s more ‘frank’ approach.<sup>136</sup> Harley’s belief in Halifax’s genuine interest in arriving at an accommodation appears to be borne out by the duchess of Marlborough’s annoyance with Halifax’s behaviour. She later asserted that Halifax had played the Whigs false at this time in his quest to secure a position for himself and that he ‘almost lived with the duke of Shrewsbury’, whom he had previously condemned.<sup>137</sup></p><p>Halifax and Harley’s friendly relations did not save Halifax’s brother from being turned out of his place as attorney general in September.<sup>138</sup> Halifax affected a stoical resignation to the development. It was a reversal that Halifax claimed long to have expected, ‘so it was no surprise or mortification to me when the edge of battle is against us I have so much of the Spartan temper in me, I had rather my friends and relations should fall honourably discharging their duty, than escape by basely avoiding it.’<sup>139</sup> He also professed to Newcastle to be content to accept the situation, conceding that ‘our private interest must give way to the public good.’<sup>140</sup> It did, perhaps, ensure that his brother was able to fight off a petition against his return for Carlisle in the ensuing election.<sup>141</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1710-14</em></h2><p>In spite of the Whigs‘ doubts about Halifax’s steadfastness (they were said to have dubbed him van der Dussen – the middle-way steering Dutch diplomat), reports from the Tory camp as well as Harley’s concerted wooing, by the end of the summer it was clear that Halifax would not be recruited into the new ministry.<sup>142</sup> In October he entertained Swift at his lodgings at Hampton Court, where Swift recorded that he drank a health to ‘the resurrection of the Whigs, which I refused unless he would add their reformation too: and I told him he was the only Whig in England I loved, or had any good opinion of.’<sup>143</sup> Halifax wrote a short pamphlet for the elections, <em>Seasonable Questions Concerning a New Parliament</em>, that clearly attacked the new ministry, the Tory reaction to Sacheverell, and Tory plans to pull out of the war.<sup>144</sup> Unable to come to terms with his friend, Harley included Halifax’s name in a list compiled on 3 Oct. of those expected to oppose his administration.</p><p>Having failed to bring about an alliance with Harley, Halifax did all in his power to persuade Newcastle to come up in time to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament. He emphasized the continuing downturn in the public finances, ‘though I must do Mr Harley the justice, he does what he can to support it.’<sup>145</sup> Halifax took his own seat on 25 Nov. 1710, and was present on 80 per cent of all sittings. Prominent in the debates on the war in Spain in the new year, he spoke in support of Galway at the beginning of January 1711, and on 9 Jan. rallied to the support of Galway’s colleague, Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], who had requested to know whether he was accused before agreeing to answer questions put to him by the House. Halifax reasoned that Tyrawley’s question ‘was not altogether ill grounded. That anything that tends to a censure, may be looked upon as an accusation; and that the House of Peers, being the supreme court of judicature, they ought to observe the forms of justice, as well as inferior courts.’ He then joined with Wharton in opposing the motion submitted by Poulett to debate whether Galway’s advice submitted to the council of Valencia had been the cause of the allies’ defeat at the battle of Almanza. Two days later, having again appealed to the House to show fairness to the commanders under examination, insisting, ‘pray, my lords … proceed according to the rules of justice’, during debate in the committee of the whole on Poulett’s motion he queried how, ‘since the duke of Savoy was for an offensive war in 1706, he wondered how it could be a crime in 1707.’ He then subscribed the protests drawn up that day, first at the rejection of Galway’s and Tyrawley’s petitions and second at the resolution that the defeat at Almanza had been brought about by the actions of the three allied commanders, Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope. Tempers flared the following day (12 Jan.) when Halifax objected to what he believed had been a request that the queen should give the Lords an immediate reply to their address. On being corrected on this point, he backed down explaining that he had been out of the House when the address was sent. On 3 Feb. he subscribed two further protests at the resolutions that the regiments on the Spanish establishment had not been properly supplied and that the failure of ministers to supply the regiments satisfactorily amounted to a neglect of the service.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Halifax hosted a dinner on 6 Feb. 1711, and also attended a gathering of Whigs on the 8th, possibly relating to the recent votes about the war in Spain.<sup>147</sup> However, his activities over the next few months pointed to continued attempts to bring about an alliance with Harley. On 11 Feb. he wrote to Harley in support of the new lottery scheme, declaring himself ‘extremely pleased with the contrivance’, which he thought ‘more advantageous and more inviting than the last’. On 18 Apr. Halifax communicated his support to Harley once again, assuring him that ‘men’s eyes are turned towards you, expecting their safety from your interest and prudent management under the present difficulties.’ The sentiment was echoed in a letter of the same day to Harley from Poulett, in which Poulett reported that, ‘Lord Halifax, upon common talk which I told him you would not hear of, said he had power to assure you might command him, Somers, and every Whig in England.’<sup>148</sup> Halifax’s boast may have been exaggerated but he could at least offer to wield the proxy of his young kinsman, Montagu, with which he had also been entrusted on the same day (and which was vacated by the close of the session). The possibility of some sort of accord between Harley and the Whigs appeared all the more credible following Rochester’s death in May. The day after the funeral Halifax wrote to Harley promising that he had ‘something to offer which I hope you will approve’.<sup>149</sup> This may have related to financial policy; once again, however, expectations of an accord failed to transpire.</p><p>Appointed one of the managers of the conference for amendments to the act for the preservation of pine trees in America on 10 May, on 12 and 17 May 1711 Halifax was also appointed manager of a further two conferences concerning the preservation of game. Halifax received the proxy of William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, the following day (which was vacated by the close of the session). Assuring his colleague that it was in safe hands, he advised Cowper to work on his recovery from illness and to leave it to him to take care of the business then before the Lords: ‘we have raised a spirit in the House against the Scotch naval stores more than I expected and we have made amendments to it’.<sup>150</sup> On 31 May he reported from the committee for the public records and the same day was again nominated a manager of the conference for the preservation of game.</p><p>Following the close of the session, rumours abounded that the Junto had split and that Halifax and Somers were on the point (once again) of aligning themselves with Oxford (as Harley had since become).<sup>151</sup> Halifax certainly persisted in making the most of his good relations with Oxford at this time to seek his help following the death of the duke of Montagu, the late ‘chief branch of our family’ on behalf of himself and Somers, the duke’s executors, particularly to help with difficulties with the commissioners of accounts.<sup>152</sup> In July Halifax and Somers were forced to put in an answer to a bill entered by one of the duke’s creditors.<sup>153</sup> Eager to demonstrate his usefulness to Oxford, towards the end of the month Halifax wrote warning the lord treasurer of the potential dangers of the peace negotiations:</p><blockquote><p>The hints you gave me of a greater affair are very noble, and well secured will gain you immortal honour. But pray allow me to say you can never be secure of anything from that quarter, unless they think the queen’s affairs in such a posture, as to be afraid of her; while she is feared, you may command, and make the best figure ever man did in England, but you can obtain nothing, if they see you under difficulties.<sup>154</sup></p></blockquote><p>Negotiations between Oxford and Halifax continued into the autumn. The participation of Somers was also clearly still being sought. In November Halifax assured the treasurer that Somers was ‘as much disposed to wait upon your lordship as you can desire’ and on 2 Dec. he wrote to excuse their failure to visit on account of Somers’ current indisposition, but he was at pains to emphasize that ‘when you shall be informed of a certain negotiation now on foot and what treatment it has met with, you will judge better of the sincerity of our professions.’<sup>155</sup></p><p>Despite Halifax’s dalliances with Oxford, his name appeared on a list of December 1711 in Nottingham’s hand of 19 Whig peers, in preparation for the attack on the ministry at the opening of the session. The day before the new session opened (6 Dec.) Halifax wrote to Oxford again in an effort to suggest a way forward in the expected clash in the House over the peace:</p><blockquote><p>You best know your own calculation, but according to mine there will be a majority in our House against the terms of peace offered by France. If that be so, why should [the] lord treasurer struggle and labour that point, he has been willing to hearken to proposals of peace, he has communicated them to the allies, invited them to meet and consider of the terms, gone hand in hand with Holland in the steps that have been made; if their Lordships think the nation in a condition to insist on higher demands, and that their resolutions will obtain them, he wishes it as much as anybody. If you thought it not improper to turn the debate in this manner, you would remove the difficulties from yourself, leave room for reasonable measures, and throw the blame of extravagant ones on others.<sup>156</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax took his seat in the new session the following day (7 Dec. 1711) after which he was present on 59 per cent of all sittings, a significant falling off from his usual level of attendance. He voted, naturally, for the ‘No Peace without Spain’ amendment of the Address, and on the 8th he was listed among those in favour of retaining the amendment in the Address, in the ‘abandoned’ division of that day. Also on 8 Dec. he received the proxy of William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, which was vacated by the close of the session, adding the proxy of George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, to his tally on 9 Dec. (which was vacated on 14 Feb. 1712). On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being likely to oppose the motion to allow James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] to sit in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon. On 20 Dec. he spoke in the House in answer to a ‘moving speech’ by Archibald Campbell*, earl of Islay [S], who had stressed the awful consequences if the queen’s power to appoint to the Lords was curtailed. Halifax responded, ‘if we were to consider of consequences we of south Britain had some consequence to consider as well as they’. He then voted in favour of excluding Scots peers holding post-union British peerages from attending the House by virtue of those creations.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Despite standing in opposition to Oxford in the early manoeuvres of the session, Halifax wrote to the treasurer on 26 Dec. 1711 to assure him once again of his willingness to assist him, insisting that ‘I do sincerely desire to promote the good of my country in your lordship’s hands, rather than struggle for it, any other way, which is less natural, more difficult and must prove less effectual.’ Within a few days, though, Halifax’s mood had changed. He now confessed to Oxford:</p><blockquote><p>I must own I am in a most desponding way, till very lately I thought it was in your lordship’s power to save this nation, but I have now doubts of that. However since you think there is one way left, pray let me know it. I have the same inclination to serve the queen and my country, the same disposition impartially to pursue that end, though less hopes of attaining it.</p></blockquote><p>Halifax agreed to meet with Oxford the following day when he would be ‘very ready to explain anything to you that makes me think it so difficult even for your lordship to save us.’<sup>158</sup> Halifax resumed his seat in the House after the Christmas recess on 2 Jan. 1712, but when the lord treasurer engineered an further adjournment to the 14th, Halifax used the intervening time to negotiate with Oxford. On 10 Jan. he communicated to Oxford that he had passed on information to two other members of the House, ‘who are very desirous to serve your lordship’ and the following day he announced his intention of waiting on him that evening.<sup>159</sup> During the month he was also one of several prominent peers to play host to Prince Eugene.<sup>160</sup></p><p>On 31 Jan. 1712 Halifax acted as one of the tellers for the division held in a committee of the whole concerning the adoption of the preamble to the bill repealing the general naturalization bill (the motion was carried by 18 votes). On 11 Feb. he acted as a teller once again for the vote over whether to postpone the second reading of the Scots episcopal communion bill (which was rejected by eight votes). Two days later, after counsel had been heard on behalf of the Scots Presbyterians who opposed the measure, he spoke in the debate in the committee of the whole, emphasizing the ‘inconveniences and danger of such a bill’.<sup>161</sup> On 15 Feb. he was able to capitalize on a general sense of irritation against the ministry within the House resulting from the circulation of the ignominious French peace proposals by moving that an address should be presented to the queen requesting her to reject the offers.<sup>162</sup> The ministry’s attempts to delay further consideration of such an address were ineffective and the same day Halifax reported from the committee for preparing it.<sup>163</sup> On 23 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole for the Whitehaven harbour bill and three days later he received the proxy of Townshend, which was vacated two days later. Rumours circulated in April that both Halifax and Nottingham were engaged in attempting to win over opponents of the peace and the same month, Prince Eugene estimated that Somers, Halifax and Cowper were ‘for winning over the treasurer to their interest and reducing all things into the right channel, or in case of necessity to invite over the duke of Hanover to dissolve the new ministry.’<sup>164</sup></p><p>Halifax received Warrington’s proxy on 7 Apr. 1712; it was vacated by the close of the session. On 12 Apr. he was reported to have been amongst those who spoke ‘a great many bold things but to no purpose’ in opposition to the Scottish episcopal patronage bill, but the court’s backing for the measure ensured that it was committed.<sup>165</sup> For all his forwardness in making trouble for Oxford in the session, towards the close of the month Halifax again made known his willingness to assist him, while thanking him for continuing William Congreve ‘in his little office’.<sup>166</sup> Nevertheless, the friendliness by now may have been wearing a little thin, as party competition became rather more intense. Halifax spoke in the debate on 19 May over the bill for appointing commissioners to examine lands granted by the Crown since the Revolution, saying that by drawing the line at the Revolution, the bill gave ‘too much credit to a ministry who, by the passing of the said bill, would have the means in their hands to ruin and oppress those who had not the good luck to please them’; according to his biographer, Halifax replied sarcastically to an intervention from Oxford that he ‘would not at all call in question what a Lord of such known probity and sincerity had advanced’. The bill was lost in a division on its third reading – as a result of Halifax’s contribution, his biographer implied. On 27 May, towards the close of the day’s proceedings, acknowledging that ‘they were fatigued’ after the debates on the Scots appeal, he moved that all lords should be present the following day to hear important information he had received.<sup>167</sup> Following a meeting held at Orford’s the following morning, Halifax opened the debate triggered by Prince Eugene’s complaint about the restraining orders imposed on Ormond, voted for an address to the queen to order Ormond to act offensively, and duly subscribed the protest at the resolution not to do so: Halifax’s biographer wrote that he drew up the protest.<sup>168</sup> The protest, which was subsequently printed, stated that the orders were ‘derogatory to her Majesty’s honour, to public faith, and to that justice which is due to her Majesty’s allies’; the publication led to a committee to inquire after the printer, and action to obliterate the protest. On 13 June Halifax acted as one of the tellers in a division on the motion to expunge the first reason from the protest of 28 May, presumably against the motion, especially as the other teller was the solid ministry supporter Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham. The motion to expunge was carried by 36 votes. All of the reasons were removed from the Journal.<sup>169</sup> Before this, on 7 June, Halifax had moved an amendment to an address thanking the queen for communicating the details of the proposed peace, and supporting the ministry’s actions, that emphasized the need to work with the allies. The amendment was defeated on division, a defeat blamed partly on proxies not being called for.<sup>170</sup></p><p>Despite their considerable differences, Halifax’s correspondence with Oxford continued, though he betrayed some impatience with the treasurer on 14 June 1712 pointing out irritably, ‘I wish I knew the meaning of your lordship’s questions, for you should govern in that which is most to the purpose. It is miserable to see a nation undone knowingly, and willingly for want of resolution.’<sup>171</sup> The same day Halifax reported from the committee of the whole for the East India Company bill. Halifax was evidently frustrated with his failure to make any impact in the session. In August, while expressing a desire of visiting Cowper, he conceded:</p><blockquote><p>to confess the truth I am so out of humour for reasons that are too visible that the freedom, the familiarity and openness that makes the conversation of an intimate friend so agreeable at any other time serve to aggravate and heighten one’s uneasiness. It is better methinks to fly to the next trifling amusements for relief against the remembrance of our calamities than by looking nicely and freely into the circumstances of a foolish deluded people.<sup>172</sup></p></blockquote><p>By December, however, he was once more to be found tantalizing Oxford with his offers of assistance. On 21 Dec. he suggested ways in which to dispose of the office of chancellor of the exchequer and on 26 Dec. he apologized for the downturn in their relationship, insisting that, ‘whatever accidents or whatever fatality have hitherto hindered our clearly understanding each other, the loss, the misfortune, has been wholly mine.’<sup>173</sup></p><p>Halifax was one of those present at a great meeting of the Whig leadership at Pontacks in January 1713.<sup>174</sup> The assembly provoked Swift into commenting that the party evidently had ‘some damned design’.<sup>175</sup> If that was so, Halifax’s participation was limited by his poor health. He was ill with gout the following month, though his indisposition perhaps gave him an opportunity to develop his plans for improving the state of the economy and for countering the clipping of coins by introducing a paper currency. By 7 Feb. he was ‘able in a great shoe to get abroad’ but was again obliged to apologize to Oxford for their latest misunderstanding. Halifax feared that ‘the plainness and freedom I showed in my last to your lordship might have given some offence though I do profess my heart is not only full of zeal for the good of my country but real affection and service for your lordship.’<sup>176</sup></p><p>Despite such assurances Halifax was noted as a likely opponent of the ministry in a list compiled in March by Jonathan Swift with Oxford’s additions. That month his continuing efforts to negotiate the party divide provoked the ire of another of his colleagues when he hosted a dinner party for members of the former ministry. The presence of Oxford at the event caused Sunderland to turn back at the door and most of the rest of the Junto also chose to leave rather than break their bread in his presence.<sup>177</sup> Aware of the ructions his decision had caused, Halifax was insistent in a letter to Oxford of 4 Apr. that he had done the right thing by welcoming him to his house for all the trouble it had caused:</p><blockquote><p>The honour of your last visit gave occasion to a great many idle stories, but I hope you do not much regard such impertinence, and I am sure I would not lose one opportunity of showing my respect to you, and contributing anything to your service, and the establishing the queen, and the protestant succession, to avoid anything can be said of me.<sup>178</sup></p></blockquote><p>In spite of his blandishments, having taken his seat in the House in the new session on 9 Apr. 1713, Halifax contested the claim that a ‘general’ peace had been negotiated, and proposed an amendment to the Address in response to the queen’s speech, asking for the treaties of peace and commerce with France to be laid before the House.<sup>179</sup> Present on three quarters of all sittings, by the middle of the session matters had altered once more amid the crisis over the Union. Towards the close of May Halifax again proffered his services to Oxford, hinting now that he was no longer a lone broker. This was underscored in a letter of 28 May (the last of three composed over consecutive days) when he confided,</p><blockquote><p>I should be wanting to the confidence and favour your lordship showed me in your last letter, if I did not acquaint you that I have so far discoursed some of my friends as to be able to assure you that your lordship may depend upon their being ready to concur with your lordship, if you think fit to oppose the wild proceeding with which we are threatened.<sup>180</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite the renewed overtures, the peace as ever proved a sticking point and it proved far too tempting for the Junto leadership to ignore the opportunity to court the disgruntled Scots peers. Both Somers and Halifax went some way towards offering the Scots’ calls for the dissolution of the Union a sympathetic hearing, though they balked at the more radical measures advocated by their colleague, Wharton. Consequently, when Halifax spoke in the House in the debate considering the state of the nation on 1 June, he said he supported dissolution, as long as the succession could be secured, but backed the calls for the debate to be adjourned so that more time could be given to consider the arguments.<sup>181</sup> Predictably enough, Halifax was reckoned by Oxford on about 13 June to be likely to oppose the ministry over the French commerce bill. He reported from the committee for the Leighton estate act on 19 June. On 30 June, Halifax supported Wharton’s proposal for an address to ask the queen to negotiate with allies to ensure that they offered no protection to the Pretender, a motion which was designed to ‘render the Tory party suspected of being in the interest of the Pretender’.<sup>182</sup> On 11 July, he reported from the committee enquiring into the state of the queen’s remembrancer books. Shortly before the close of the session, the Lords threw out the tobacco bill, which had originated in the Commons, believing it to be ‘so many tacks.’ Halifax proposed summoning the lower house to a conference to discuss the business, but John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, rejected Halifax’s motion, arguing that ‘it was more becoming the dignity of their house to throw it out with contempt.’<sup>183</sup></p><p>Halifax’s championing of the cause of dissenting congregations was called to mind during the summer amid divisions within the parish of Westminster over the intention to admit Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), as a vestryman. The dispute inspired the new dean of Westminster (Francis Atterbury*, who would later become bishop of Rochester), ‘to desire them to have a care of bringing lords into the vestry, and to put them in mind that when they chose Lord Halifax they had soon after the Palatines brought in upon them.’<sup>184</sup> That October, Halifax conveyed one of his more unusual messages of thanks to Oxford for overseeing the presentation of his lion to the queen (presumably an addition to the royal menagerie and perhaps connected with Halifax’s role as keeper of Hampton Court).<sup>185</sup></p><p>Halifax took his seat in the new Parliament two days after it finally opened on 18 Feb. 1714 (after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sittings). The following month he was to the fore in the debates on the peace, and on 5 Mar. he received Somers’ proxy, which was vacated a month later on Somers’ resumption of his seat on 5 April.<sup>186</sup> Halifax’s attack on 9 Mar. on the Tory pamphlet <em>The Publick Spirit of the Whigs</em>, planned with Wharton, was a retaliation against the attack in the Commons on Halifax’s ally Richard Steele and his pamphlet, <em>The Crisis</em>.<sup>187</sup> On 17 Mar. Halifax joined with Wharton, Nottingham, Sunderland and Cowper in alerting the House to the danger of the succession occasioned by the failure of the French to force the Pretender out of Lorraine and on 31 Mar. he again joined Wharton, Sunderland and Cowper in insisting that the British promises to the Catalans should be honoured. Halifax’s motion (of 5 Apr.) for an address to be presented to the queen for the speedy removal of the Pretender from Lorraine was accepted without opposition and three days later he moved for a further address to be drawn up for putting in execution the laws against Jesuits and Papist priests and bishops, though in this case consideration of the motion was put off to the next day.<sup>188</sup> Halifax received Cowper’s proxy on 13 Apr. (vacated the following day), which was presumably employed in the division held that day over the insertion of additional material into the protestant succession bill. Halifax received Somers’ proxy once again on 14 Apr. (which was vacated on 30 Apr.) and Manchester’s proxy on 19 Apr, which was vacated nine days later. On 16 Apr., following an impassioned speech by Cowper against the peace, Halifax lamented ‘the vile usage given my lord duke of Ormond’, wondering at the ‘anguish it must give his noble and generous heart, to receive such shocking orders, restraining the noble ardour of the soldiers, flushed with former victories, and hopes of still greater still.’<sup>189</sup> He then acted as one of the tellers (the other being Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley) on the motion to convey an address of thanks to the queen for the peace treaty, which was carried for those in favour by a margin of 20 votes. Again, although listed as the first teller it is inconceivable that Halifax, who ‘strenuously opposed’ the motion, could have been anything other than against.<sup>190</sup> Halifax’s pointed repartee with Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, over the terms of the peace settlement appears to have precipitated a duel between the two men, ‘the one to prove the peace honourable, advantageous and lasting, the other <em>au contre</em>’.<sup>191</sup></p><p>At this late stage, Halifax still appeared persuaded that he would be able to arrive at an accommodation with Oxford. On 21 Apr. 1714 he wrote, ‘I can’t help saying I think in this juncture much good might be done, and I am zealous to do my part, that I will be so impertinent to desire to know if I could no way assist in making your lordship the happy instrument of saving our country which I think on the brink of ruin.’<sup>192</sup> Halifax received the proxy of John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland on 1 May (vacated by the close) and on 13 May he also received those of Somers (vacated on 1 June) and Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham, which was vacated by the close of the session. Concentration of great national issues did not prevent him from continuing to oversee local business and on 26 May he reported from the committee of the whole for the River Nene navigation bill and on 28 May from the committee for the bill for enclosing lands at Farrington. Assessed by Nottingham as likely to be opposed to the schism bill at the end of May or beginning of June, on 4 June he spoke against the bill, asserting that it would be ‘a piece of barbarity to make an act, which should debar many French protestants of means of subsisting, either by keeping public schools, or teaching in private families.’ He concluded with a reminder of the dire consequences that had resulted from Charles I’s alienation of dissenters.<sup>193</sup> Following the order for the bill’s second reading, he then Halifax spoke again ‘extremely well’ in the debate concerning whether to receive a petition from the Dissenters, which the House rejected 71-66.<sup>194</sup> In the committee of the whole on the bill on 9 June, Halifax proposed that nonconformists should be permitted their own schools. His motion was supported by Cowper and Sunderland but opposed vigorously by Bolingbroke and several others. It was defeated at last by a margin of 13 or 14 votes.<sup>195</sup> He then served as teller in a tied vote for those in favour of resuming the House. On 15 June Halifax joined more than 30 peers in subscribing a protest against the bill’s passage.<sup>196</sup></p><p>On 24 June 1714 Halifax found himself in the unusual position of concurring with Bolingbroke, when his habitual adversary proposed the introduction of a bill making it high treason to enlist in the Pretender’s service. Although Halifax asserted that such a bill was hardly necessary, the Pretender’s adherents already being attainted, he continued that ‘he should be glad such a bill were brought in; because, with some alterations, it might be made a very good one’. He subsequently moved the second reading and was vocal at the committee stage on 26 June. Their show of unity proved short-lived. On 2 July Halifax and Bolingbroke were once more ranged against each other over the question of trade, to Spain, Halifax arguing that ‘the most beneficial branch of commerce, the trade, for the recovery of which we entered into the late expensive war, had been notoriously neglected, and given up.’<sup>197</sup> On 7 July, Halifax reported from the committee for equivalent accounts and the following day he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to make a representation to the queen stating that the benefit of the <em>Asiento</em> had been obstructed by the efforts of certain individuals to gain personal advantages from the contract.</p><h2><em>The Hanoverian accession and final year</em></h2><p>Halifax was named by the Elector as one of the regents on the death of Queen Anne, and this may explain why he attended on just two days of the brief session that assembled following the queen’s death.<sup>198</sup> He also attended the prorogation of 23 Sept. 1714. The accession of George I promised Halifax long overdue recognition. He was restored to the Privy Council in September, nominated a garter knight and advanced to an earldom in mid-October and at the close of the year appointed lord lieutenant of Surrey.<sup>199</sup> He remained frustrated in his ambitions to become lord treasurer, in spite of confident predictions that he would soon be confirmed in that post, and was forced to be contented with the first place in a new treasury commission.<sup>200</sup> Such honours were overshadowed by a collapse in Halifax’s health and in November he found himself unable to head to the country being laid low by ‘a violent fit of the strangury and gravel.’<sup>201</sup></p><p>Unlike most of his allies, Halifax determined to pursue ‘moderate measures’ in an effort to attract broad support for the new regime.<sup>202</sup> He also proved a loyal friend to Oxford in the months following the former lord treasurer’s fall.<sup>203</sup> However, his career was cut short by his death at his Westminster home on 19 May 1715, his demise at first attributed to pleurisy but later found to have been caused by an inflammation of the lungs.<sup>204</sup> Halifax was buried in the Albemarle vault at Westminster Abbey. On his death the earldom reverted to the crown but he was succeeded as 2nd Baron Halifax by his nephew George Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, according to the terms of a special remainder.<sup>205</sup> An account of his life, dedicated to his heir, together with his will and a selection of his verse was published within a few months of his death and reissued the following year. In his will, Halifax left £1,000 a piece to his brothers Christopher and James Montagu and, in a codicil of 1 Feb. 1712, £5,000 along with his interest in the rangership of Bushy Park to Catherine Barton, whom at one stage he was thought to have married.<sup>206</sup> Bishop Wake’s diaries make several references to a Lady Halifax, though it seems more likely that the bishop meant by this the dowager marchioness (by then more correctly duchess of Roxburgh).<sup>207</sup> In all Halifax made bequests totalling in excess of £10,000, not including servants’ wages and reversions on annuities, though according to one estimate the real value of his bequest to Catherine Barton was closer to £20,000. The remainder of Halifax’s estate, which, according to some estimates, amounted to as much as £150,000, descended to his heir.<sup>208</sup></p><p>Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> (son of Oxford’s brother, Auditor Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>) noted Halifax’s death as ‘a great loss to his party, though some of the violent men don’t think so.’<sup>209</sup> Elsewhere it was reported that he was ‘much lamented by all moderate men, especially the Tories who now say publicly in coffee houses Mr Caesar [Charles Caesar<sup>‡</sup>] and Goulston [Richard Goulston<sup>‡</sup>] had he been alive had not been turned out of the House.’<sup>210</sup> It is possible to argue that Halifax’s continual offers of assistance to Oxford amounted to no more than cynical posturing and that his behaviour during Queen Anne’s reign was simply that of a man willing to do practically anything to secure advancement. The duchess of Marlborough certainly thought so, though her bitterness was in part due to his having dissatisfied her over Blenheim after George I’s accession. However, Halifax’s continuing commitment to constructing a broad-bottomed coalition when it was no longer necessary to do so seems to suggest that this was a project in which he was genuinely interested.<sup>211</sup> It may also explain his Junto colleagues’ suspiciousness of his motives throughout as well as their reluctance to press too firmly for his advancement.</p> |
R.D.E.E./P.C.S. |
|
MONTAGU, Charles (c. 1662-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong> (<strong>MOUNTAGUE</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1662–1722)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1671-83 Visct. Mandeville; <em>suc. </em>fa. Mar. 1683 as 4th earl of MANCHESTER; <em>cr. </em>28 Apr. 1719 duke of MANCHESTER |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 21 Dec. 1721 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1662, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, and Anne Yelverton; bro. of Robert<sup>‡</sup> and Heneage Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. St Paul’s Sch.; Trinity, Camb. matric. 1678, MA 1680; travelled abroad (Low Countries, Italy) 1686-7.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 26 Feb. 1691 Dodington (<em>d</em>. 1721),<sup>2</sup> da. of Robert Greville*, 4th Bar. Brooke, and Anne, da. of John Dodington, of Breamore, Hants., 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.),<sup>3</sup> 4da. <em>d</em>. 20 Jan. 1722; <em>will</em> June 1721, pr. 6 Apr. 1722.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. of Yeomen of the Gd. 1689-1702; PC 1698-<em>d</em>.; amb. Venice 1697-8, 1706-8,<sup>5</sup> Paris 1699-1701; sec. of state [S] 3 Jan.-2 May 1702;<sup>6</sup> gent. of the bedchamber 1714-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt. Hunts. 1689-<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> freeman, Maldon 1695;<sup>8</sup> high steward, Univ. of Camb. 1697-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. tp. of horse 1685.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, NPG 3216.</p> |
<p>Although a considerably more impressive figure than his father, Manchester was treated rather dismissively by Macky as ‘a gentleman of greater application than capacity; of good address, but no elocution; is very honest; a lover of the constitution of his country, which he takes pains to understand and serve’. While he was able to command substantial interest in Essex and Huntingdonshire and he was appointed to a number of prominent positions during his career, disappointment appears to have been one of the hallmarks of Manchester’s life. Although he was involved in a number of the central events of the period, he seems always to have lingered on the fringes, outshone by more talented rivals.</p><p>Shortly after his succession to the peerage, rumours circulated that Manchester was engaged in courting the daughter of the fabulously wealthy city merchant, Sir John Cutler<sup>‡</sup>, bt. but it was speculated that he was unlikely to be successful as the king had her in mind for one of his sons, Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans.<sup>12</sup> Reports of this projected match circulated again a few years later in the autumn and early winter of 1687.<sup>13</sup> In the event, Cutler’s daughter eventually married his Cornish patron, Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor. Manchester officiated at the coronation of King James as carver to the queen consort and he continued to undertake ceremonial functions at subsequent coronations. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 and the same day introduced Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham into the House. Manchester attended three quarters of all sitting days in the session during which he was named to four committees. By the close of the year he was already noted among those in opposition to the king’s policies and he was stripped of his command in the army.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Manchester took the opportunity of his removal from office to travel abroad the following year.<sup>15</sup> He was at Brussels early in the summer of 1686 and in August he wrote from Utrecht to Bevil Skelton, ambassador at the Hague, passing on snippets of information about the movements of Ferguson and some of the other fugitives from Monmouth’s rebellion. Much of the information conveyed was public knowledge but it does appear that Manchester was attempting to curry favour with the regime by offering this intelligence.<sup>16</sup> Despite this, later that month he met with William of Orange at Dieren and it appears to have been as a result of this that Manchester became committed to the conspiracy to bring the prince over to England.</p><p>Reckoned an opponent of moves to repeal the Test in January 1687, Manchester was estimated an opponent of the king’s policies in May of that year. In estimates compiled in November 1687 and January 1688 he was again listed among those opposed to overturning the Test act and in January 1688 he was also included by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), among the opposition. In June he was one of those proposed as a surety for Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, and on 15 June he was reported to have been one of those to offer to stand bail for the bishops.<sup>17</sup> Rumours of an impending match with the widowed Lady Irwin that September failed to come to fruition. In the late autumn the invasion of William of Orange seems to have driven such considerations from Manchester’s mind as he was among the first to turn out for the Prince, leading a party of retainers from Huntingdonshire first to Northampton and then to the rallying point at Nottingham.<sup>18</sup> Present in the cavalcade that joined Prince William at Oxford, Manchester took his place among the Lords gathering in the Queen’s Presence Chamber on 21 Dec. and then attended three sessions in the House.<sup>19</sup> On 28 Dec. he was again in attendance at St James’s to hear the Prince’s speech.<sup>20</sup></p><h2><em>After the Revolution</em> </h2><p>Manchester took his seat in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 after which he was present on 83 per cent of all sittings. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen in a division held in the committee of the whole. He then entered his dissent when this was negatived. On 4 Feb. he again voted to support the Commons’ employment of the term ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’, dissenting once more at the Lords’ refusal to concur and two days later he voted the same way again. He subscribed the protest on 6 Mar. against the passage of the bill for better regulating the trials of peers. A report that Manchester’s support for the Revolution had been acknowledged with his appointment as captain of the Yeomen of the Guard circulated in March. It was confirmed the following month.<sup>21</sup> On 15 Apr. he joined with Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, in introducing into the House the new king’s favourite, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. Manchester protested again on 10 July against all of the resolutions that day concerning the reversal of the Oates’s judgments. A fortnight later (24 July) he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to insist on the amendments to the reversal of the Oates judgments and on 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing Oates’s conviction for perjury. Later that summer, Manchester responded to the request for a self-assessment sent out on behalf of George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, insisting that he had ‘not any moneys upon security or otherwise, nor any personal estate whatsoever than what is excepted in the late act.’<sup>22</sup> Lack of money would be a recurrent theme throughout Manchester’s career. He took his place in the House for the second session of the Convention on 23 Oct. 1689 of which he attended 86 per cent of all sitting days. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Carmarthen (as Danby had become) reckoned Manchester to be an opponent of the court.</p><p>Active in employing his interest in the elections of early 1690, Manchester saw the return of his brother, Robert Montagu, for Huntingdonshire. He was also successful in supporting Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Francis Masham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. for Essex in the face of a concerted challenge by Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, who appeared for Sir Anthony Abdy, 2nd bt. and Eliab Harvey<sup>‡</sup> as well as from Henry Compton*, bishop of London, who also set his weight behind Harvey.<sup>23</sup> Manchester took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 after which he was present on 94 per cent of all sitting days. On 29 Apr. he introduced his kinsman Henry Yelverton*, as Viscount Longueville, and on 13 May he subscribed the protest when it was decided not to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard over the bill for restoring the corporation. The following month Manchester accompanied the king to Ireland where he served alongside him at the Boyne. He returned to England in September and the following month it was reported that he was to be married ‘very favourably’ to Dodington Greville, one of the daughters and coheirs of Robert Greville, 4th Baron Brooke.<sup>24</sup> Further reports of the match circulated early in 1691 and they were married shortly after on 26 Feb. in the parish church at Hale, close to the new countess’s maternal home in Hampshire.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Manchester’s marriage may have been the reason for his early departure from Parliament. Having taken his place in the House at the beginning of the new session on 2 Oct. 1690, he was absent from the final month of the session of which he attended 41 per cent of all sitting days. He reported the optimistic tone of the Commons’ debates over the army estimates to one correspondent noting that, ‘most of the speeches tended as if they did expect 40,000 men to land in France.’<sup>26</sup> On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment that he was ‘not willing to lose his place’.<sup>27</sup> The same month he joined with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, in standing bail for Peterborough, at £5,000 a piece.<sup>28</sup> Having attended the prorogation day on 28 Apr. 1691 Manchester took his seat in the new session on 22 Oct., after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Nov. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference for the safety of the kingdom and a month later (on 17 Dec.) he was named one of the managers of the conference for the treason bill. The same month he joined with his Essex neighbour, Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, in pressing ‘very much’ for the suppression of playhouses, following an incident during which Longueville was assaulted.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Manchester was present for the prorogation of 24 May. He then returned to the House for the new session on 4 Nov. 1692, after which he was present on 89 per cent of all sitting days. On 5 Dec. he and his brother-in-law, William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>, submitted a petition to the House in right of their wives, who were locked in a legal dispute with Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, over the former Lord Brooke’s personal estate. On 22 Dec. Manchester chaired sessions of committees concerning Sir William Mannock’s bill and Sir Robert Smith’s bill. The following day, chairmanship of the committee for Smith’s bill was assumed by John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, though Manchester was in the chair again for a further session of the committee for Mannock’s bill that day, which was eventually reported to the House by Longueville on 30 December.<sup>30</sup> In addition to undertaking his duties as a committee chairman, Manchester also registered his dissent at the order to reverse the judgment in the cause <em>Leach v. Thompson</em> on 23 December. Although he voted in favour of committing the place bill on 31 Dec, four days later, on 3 Jan. 1693, he voted to reject the bill (a division list for the business noting his apparent change of heart). Manchester presided over a session of the committee for Alwood’s bill on 2 Jan. 1693, which was adjourned without discussion and the chairmanship was again later taken over by Bridgwater. On 5 Jan., having in the meantime chaired two further sessions, Manchester reported from the committee for Smith’s bill. On 17 Jan. he chaired a session of the committee for Pitts’ bill, which was again adjourned without discussion, and the same day he registered a further dissent at the resolution not to hear the judges over the Banbury peerage claim.<sup>31</sup> On 28 Jan. Stamford reported from the privileges committee concerning Manchester’s dispute with Brooke, which was concluded in Brooke’s favour. Manchester found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder on 4 February.<sup>32</sup> The following month, on the final day of the session, Manchester was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the bill prohibiting trade with France.</p><p>Present for the prorogations of 2 May and 26 Oct. 1693 Manchester took his seat in the new session on 7 Nov., after which he was present on 81 per cent of all sittings. The death of Manchester’s brother, Robert, from a fever, necessitated a by-election in December, but Manchester was successful in securing the return of his candidate, John Proby<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>33</sup> He was named one of the managers of two conferences concerning the admirals who commanded the summer fleet on 3 and 15 Jan. 1694. On 17 Feb. he demonstrated predictable family loyalty by voting in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission of the case between his kinsman, Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and John Granville*, earl of Bath. Manchester acted as one of the tellers for the division and the same day he also registered his dissent at the order to dismiss Montagu’s petition. Manchester was again to the fore in a by-election at Essex brought about by the death of John Lemott Honeywood<sup>‡</sup> in January 1694. Both Manchester and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, were said to have been active in supporting the candidate of the ‘factious party’, Fitzwalter’s younger brother, Benjamin Mildmay*, later 19th Baron Fitzwalter. Their efforts on Mildmay’s behalf proved to be even more controversial when it was revealed that Manchester and two other peers had actually voted in the poll on 23 February.<sup>34</sup> Despite this, they were frustrated in their attempt and Sir Charles Barrington,<sup>‡</sup> bt. was elected instead.<sup>35</sup> Manchester returned to the House the following day and on 28 Feb. he was one of the peers to sign off the Journal. He was also nominated one of the managers of two conferences concerning the mutiny bill on 6 and 29 March. Manchester was again active as a committee chairman; in January he chaired sessions of select committees on an estate bill on behalf of Sir Charles Barrington; in February one on behalf of Nathaniel Brent; and in March he presided over a series of committees considering bills for Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup>, Brewer, Turner and the bill vesting the estates of the Mildmay heiresses in trustees to be sold for satisfaction of debts.<sup>36</sup> On 8 Mar. he reported from the committee on Maynard’s estate bill. Manchester reported from the committee considering Mildmay’s bill on 19 Mar. (presumably a cause in which he had some local interest) and on 31 Mar. he again signed off the Journal record for the day. The following month, on 16 Apr., in the absence of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, he officiated as lord great chamberlain for the day and the following day he chaired the committee of the whole considering the bill for the better discovery of coin clippers. Manchester chaired a further committee of the whole for the militia bill on 18 Apr. and on 25 Apr. he again put his name to the Journal.</p><p>Manchester took his seat in the House on 12 Nov. 1694, after which he was present on 91 per cent of sitting days in the session. On 6 Jan. 1695 he reported from the committee for Henry Northleigh’s bill (though there seems not to be any record of his having previously chaired any meetings considering the bill) and on 26 Jan., he reported from the committee for John Estoft’s bill (of which he had presided over two sessions in committee).<sup>37</sup> Manchester was also active in a series of divisions on the treason trials bill early in the year, acting as teller on three separate divisions on 8 Jan. (alongside Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham), on a further division on 23 Jan. (alongside Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester) and again on 20 Feb. (alongside Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale). Manchester was one of those to subscribe the protest of 18 Apr. against exonerating John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham) from any wrongdoing over accusations that he had benefited financially from the passage of certain bills during the session. Four days later he was among the dozen peers to be selected by ballot to undertake examination of Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Manchester’s good standing with the regime was reflected in the king’s agreement to stand godfather to his heir, William Montagu, styled Viscount Mandeville, in February 1695.<sup>39</sup> The elections that autumn saw the Manchester interest successful in several contests with Heneage Montagu<sup>‡</sup> returned for Huntingdonshire and John Pockington<sup>‡</sup> at Huntingdon. Manchester took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, after which he was present on 85 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Dec. he acted as teller for those in favour of adding a clause to the treason trials bill requiring all the peers to be summoned to attend the trial of a peer or peeress, which was carried by a majority of 17 votes.<sup>40</sup> Manchester chaired the committee considering the papers from the commissioners for customs on 8 Jan. 1696, reporting back to the House the following day. He chaired a subsequent session of the same committee on 16 Jan. and reported back once more four days later.<sup>41</sup> On 31 Jan. he reported from the committee considering the bill enabling trustees to sell part of the manor of Berkhampstead, which was passed with the committee’s recommended amendments. Prior to this, on 9 Jan. Manchester acted as one of the tellers for the division over the reading of the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to be granted a writ of summons and on 17 Jan. he was one of 11 peers to subscribe the protest at the resolution to allow Verney’s counsel leave to be heard at the bar.<sup>42</sup> On 13 Feb. Manchester again served as one of the tellers for the division on whether the House should continue during discussions of the Verney barony, which was carried by 43 votes to 31. Although Manchester was listed as the first teller, it seems reasonable to assume that he told for those opposed to the motion on this occasion. A newsletter of 15 Feb. reported that Manchester then joined with more than 20 peers in subscribing the protest at the resolution that Verney was entitled to be summoned as Baron Willoughby de Broke, though only one protest was recorded in the Journal on this occasion, which was signed by just five peers, Manchester not being one of them. The following day (14 Feb.) he was one of 15 peers nominated to the select committee to draw up a report to the king concerning the Verney peerage.<sup>43</sup> The following month, on 9 Mar, Manchester acted as teller in the division held in a committee of the whole for the elections regulation bill and, following this, he was again active as chairman of a series of committees of the whole. On 25, 26 and 27 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for the encouragement of seamen. On 6 Apr. he reported from the committees of the whole concerning the bill requiring lawyers to take the oaths and the bill for the better regulation of juries: he asked that more time be given for discussion of the latter. The same day he was nominated a manager of the conference for the privateers’ bill. On 7 Apr. he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for prohibiting the wearing of India silks and calicoes, which was ordered to be recommitted. Manchester reported from a second committee of the whole touching this business on 20 Apr. and three days later from a further committee of the whole for the bill for better regulating juries, which was recommended as being fit to pass with certain amendments but was then ordered to be recommitted. Two days later he reported from a third committee of the whole concerning this bill, after which it passed with the recommended amendments.</p><h2><em>Embassy to Venice and after, 1697-1702</em></h2><p>Manchester dined with the Venetian ambassadors on 12 May 1696 and on 16 June he was present in the House for the prorogation.<sup>44</sup> He then took his seat in the second session on 20 Oct, after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 Nov. he presided over the committee for the bill to enable trustees to sell part of Edmund Warner’s estate, which he reported to the House on 24 November.<sup>45</sup> On 23 Dec. he voted in favour of attainting Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, bt.<sup>46</sup> Although he continued to attend the House conscientiously, it was not until 5 Mar. 1697 that Manchester was again prominent in chairing a committee of the whole, this one concerning the bill for continuing additional duties on certain types of merchandise. The same day he was also nominated one of the managers of a conference for the bill prohibiting India silks.</p><p>That spring Manchester was appointed ambassador to Venice, for which he was granted £1,500 for equipage and £10 a day for his expenses.<sup>47</sup> He delayed his departure until later in the year and in June he and Mr Pocklington (presumably John Pocklington<sup>‡</sup>, a lawyer closely associated with Manchester, and Member of the Commons for Huntingdon), appeared before the lords justices to request that Huntingdon be spared from having troops quartered on the town, complaining that the inhabitants had lost all their hay the previous year.<sup>48</sup> The following month it was reported that Lady Manchester, by then reputed an ‘eminent toast’ and much ‘followed by the fine gentlemen’, was retiring to the country for the duration of her husband’s embassy, for which Shrewsbury had by then recommended Manchester should be ‘putting himself in readiness.’<sup>49</sup> In August Manchester was ordered by the king to hasten his departure but he continued to drag his heels.<sup>50</sup> Part of the reason was no doubt the need for him to settle his affairs before leaving the country but there also appears to have been some dispute over the size of his establishment and particularly whether he would be permitted to take a secretary. He considered it a ‘diminution’ to have less than the previous ambassador was allowed. Such matters seem to have been settled by the middle of the summer and on 7 Sept. Manchester informed Shrewsbury that he would be ready to set out within a fortnight.<sup>51</sup> Later that month Manchester finally departed on his embassy accompanied by his brother, Heneage Montagu, who was inaccurately described by at least one correspondent as being heir presumptive to the earldom after Lady Manchester suffered a miscarriage.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Manchester arrived at Venice in December 1697 where he remained until the spring of the following year. The embassy proved an unhappy experience, tainted towards the end by the death of Heneage Montagu from a fever.<sup>53</sup> In his distress over the loss of brother, Manchester omitted to inform Shrewsbury of his intention to leave his posting.<sup>54</sup> Having secured permission to depart from the Venetian senate in March, he returned to England on 19 May 1698. The following day he arrived in London and on 21 May waited on the king to present his formal report of his return.<sup>55</sup> He took his place in the House two days later and proceeded to attend on 28 days during what was left of the session. On 25 May he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the blasphemy bill. The following month, Manchester’s nominee, Robert Apreece<sup>‡</sup>, was returned in the by-election for Huntingdonshire caused by the death of Heneage Montagu. On 17 June Manchester chaired the committees for the Shaftesbury workhouses bill and for the bill for preventing the coining of half-pence and farthings.<sup>56</sup> He reported from the former the same day and from the latter committee on 20 June. The same day he reported from a further two meetings of the committee of the whole: first, on the bill to increase the time for purchasing annuities and second on the bill for preventing frauds in collecting duties on marriages. The following month, on 5 July, Manchester was added to the committee for the Journal.</p><p>Active in the elections that summer, Manchester was again to the fore voting in both the county election and the election for Maldon, actions that precipitated an order of the following year forbidding peers from voting in elections for the Commons.<sup>57</sup> Manchester took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present on 83 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Mar. 1699 he chaired and then reported from the committee established to inspect the Journals for precedents in preparation for the trial of his kinsman, Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick. The same day he also chaired sessions of two other committees, though both were adjourned to later dates when the chairmanship was taken over by Rochester. Manchester chaired further sessions of the committee concerning Warwick’s trial on 22 and 23 Mar. and the following day he reported the committee’s opinion that no peer who failed to attend the trial should be provided with tickets for places in the court, as well as their findings concerning the previous trials of Pembroke and Mohun.<sup>58</sup> The following month, Manchester was appointed by the court of arches to act as one of the commissioners considering the appeal lodged by Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, against his suspension.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Towards the end of spring 1699, Manchester was again entrusted with an embassy, this time with the post at Paris, which had fallen vacant following the king’s decision to promote Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, to the office of secretary of state.<sup>60</sup> Again granted £1,500 for his equipage, Manchester was allowed £100 a week for his ordinary expenditure.<sup>61</sup> In his absence his London residence in Duke Street was leased to the lord privy seal, John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale.<sup>62</sup> Manchester arrived in France towards the end of July. He was absent from England and the House for the ensuing two years.<sup>63</sup> His expedition was again marked with sorrow by the death of his heir, Mandeville, who appears to have succumbed shortly before Manchester’s departure, by his own poor health during the first weeks in Paris and also by warnings from the outgoing ambassador of the activities of Jacobite intriguers in France.<sup>64</sup> During his absence he was kept informed of events in Parliament through a series of newsletters conveyed to him by Robert Yard<sup>‡</sup> and by a regular correspondence with his friend, Jersey, and protégé, Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>65</sup> These enabled him to comment in May 1700 on the turbulent alterations at home surrounding the attempts to impeach John Somers*, Baron Somers, and others:</p><blockquote><p>I do not doubt but that the king will take such measures as will be for his service and should be sorry if the Whigs should carry themselves so as not to be as zealous for the king’s interest out of employment as ever they was when they was in. You may easily think Lord Somers cannot but have a great many friends, but they may show their friendship and yet continue their duty to the king; I suppose all affairs are to be managed by other hands, which I hope will make the Parliament more reasonable, though I very much fear it, and it will be well if they do not come at last to name our ministers; for my part, as I have always acted on a principle with little regard to my own advantage, so I shall continue, let the consequence be what it will.<sup>66</sup></p></blockquote><p>In July Manchester was included in a list of Whigs peers thought likely to support the Junto.<sup>67</sup></p><p>The majority of Manchester’s embassy was dominated by the need to tread carefully within the French court while avoiding unwelcome encounters with members of the exiled Jacobite household.<sup>68</sup> Shortly after his arrival he was said to have been involved in an embarrassing encounter with the former queen, Mary Beatrice, when his retinue barred her way in a narrow lane. When he refused to give way, she threatened to pistol him, to which he was reported to have said, ‘she might if she pleased’ before allowing the guards to lead his horses past her carriage.<sup>69</sup> Such comical episodes hinted at the more serious diplomatic tensions Manchester was required to negotiate in France. At the opening of 1700 he gave it as his opinion that, ‘I cannot think there is any method taken now at St Germain, the late king being so ill that he cannot last long’, but in May he hinted at the unsettled state of affairs that still persisted:</p><blockquote><p>the little hopes our friends at St Germain have is now in Scotland and if that fails, all things will be quiet till the next meeting of our Parliament. I should think instead of a change in the ministry, we had a new Parliament, it would be more for the king’s service, not much good can be expected from a last sessions.</p></blockquote><p>Besides his general concerns about the consequences of a change in the ministry, Manchester was also bothered by the repercussions of the expected removal of Jersey to Ireland. ‘It will be a concern to me, having now to deal with a man of honour and one who is true to the king.’ Matters were rendered more delicate still by the unexpected death of Princess Anne’s last remaining child, the duke of Gloucester, towards the end of July. Not long before this, Manchester had written to Prior expressing his agreement with him that, ‘it is now of great consequence who dies in case the king is well, whose life is all we have to trust to’, thereby emphasizing the slight thread by which men of Manchester’s stamp hung their hopes at this point.<sup>70</sup> Manchester alerted London to the refusal of the Jacobite court to go into mourning for Gloucester, and the appointment of Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], as governor to the Pretender in an effort to woo protestant opinion in England.<sup>71</sup> Other reports suggested that it was only the former king and queen (and not their entire court) who had decided not to adopt mourning for the young prince.<sup>72</sup> Manchester himself fell dangerously ill towards the end of August, but he had recovered by the following month when he agreed reluctantly to visit the French king at Fontainebleau.<sup>73</sup> Warned that the Pretender was also expected to be there, Manchester reported the effect of his visit triumphantly and claimed to have humbled the Jacobites ‘mightily’; he noted that he had seen ‘several faces I knew in England but I hope never to see them there again.’<sup>74</sup></p><p>Manchester wrote to his cousin (and former stepfather), Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, in December 1700, congratulating him on his elevation to the peerage, but bemoaning the fact that he could not ‘comprehend what we are doing or what measures we intend to take with France.’<sup>75</sup> More particularly, he sought information from Halifax about the state of affairs in England. He complained of his continuing financial difficulties, worrying about his future given the recent ministerial alterations: ‘when I see all my friends in a manner laid aside, what can I expect?’ Understanding that there was likely to be a new post in Spain he queried whether he might be better off there as ‘the expense will be less and the allowance the same.’ At the same time, Prior sought Manchester’s assistance in the forthcoming elections at Cambridge University, although in the event he withdrew and was returned at East Grinstead on Dorset’s interest instead.<sup>76</sup></p><p>By the following year, Manchester’s mission appeared to be in trouble. It was reported that he was received coldly at Versailles and in February 1701 that he was to be recalled ‘suddenly’ from his embassy.<sup>77</sup> Lady Manchester, who was expecting another child, was granted leave to return to England in April to lie in (an heir, William Montagu*, later 2nd duke of Manchester, and for now styled Viscount Mandeville, had been born in Paris the previous year), but the order for Manchester’s return was delayed until the end of the summer.<sup>78</sup> At that point he was summoned home without first taking his leave in protest at the decision of the French court to recognize the Pretender’s succession to the throne of Britain upon the death of the James II.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Manchester returned to town in October, after which he travelled to Windsor to wait on Princess Anne and her husband, Prince George*, duke of Cumberland.<sup>80</sup> He took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701 and then proceeded to attend 78 per cent of all sitting days in the session. The previous month it had been rumoured that he was to be appointed lord privy seal as compensation for the loss of his place as ambassador.<sup>81</sup> In December reports circulated of further changes in the ministry and that either he or William Cavendish*, styled marquess of Hartington (later 2nd duke of Devonshire), was to succeed Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> as secretary of state.<sup>82</sup> Although Manchester’s appointment as secretary was confirmed early the following year, a promotion that in all probability owed not a little to his being Halifax’s kinsman, some confusion ensued over whether he would be permitted to retain his place as captain of the Yeomen of the Guard.<sup>83</sup> The king eventually ruled that he saw no reason why holding the one post should be incompatible with maintaining the other.<sup>84</sup> Sworn in as secretary of state on 4 Jan. 1702, on 19 Jan. Manchester was mentioned in Fuller’s examination before the House. On 8 Mar. it fell to him to inform the House of the king’s death and of the queen’s proclamation later that day. Towards the end of the following month he was one of the early ministerial casualties when he was put out of the office he had by then held for less than four months.<sup>85</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Queen Anne 1702-6</em></h2><p>Manchester took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on 88 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Between 24 Nov. and 2 Dec. he chaired four sessions of the committee concerning the trade commissioners and the following day (3 Dec.) he acted as one of the tellers for the division over the resolution to agree to the instruction to the committee of the whole concerning the occasional conformity bill. On 14 Dec. he chaired and then reported from the committee for John Cowper’s bill, in which he may have had some local interest, Cowper’s estate lying in Essex.<sup>86</sup> Later that month, on 23 Dec. he was one of several peers present at a meeting in the Parliament office to search for precedents of bills with penalties begun in the Lords, a number of examples from the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII being unearthed in the search.<sup>87</sup></p><p>At the beginning of January 1703, Nottingham estimated Manchester to be an opponent of the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. Manchester voted accordingly in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Three days later, he courted the queen’s displeasure by subscribing the protest when the House failed to agree with the committee’s recommendation concerning the bill for Prince George. Manchester was nominated one of the managers of a series of conferences towards the close of the session between 17 and 25 February. Following the prorogation, Manchester was one of several former envoys to be alarmed by news that the queen had given orders for all plate issued prior to her reign to be returned, though it was predicted that he and his cousin, Montagu, would be likely to be allowed to retain theirs in lieu of debts owed to them.<sup>88</sup> Manchester returned to the House just under a fortnight into the following session on 22 Nov. and was present on 69 per cent of all sittings. In advance of the session he had been noted by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill and was noted similarly in Sunderland’s subsequent forecast at the end of November or beginning of December. On 14 Dec. Manchester voted accordingly against passing the bill. On 1 Feb. 1704 he chaired and then reported from the committee for Sir Robert Kemp’s bill (another Essex landholder) and on 5 Feb. he reported from the committee considering the bill for his kinsman, Edward Henry Rich*, 7th earl of Warwick, which was recommended as fit to pass with one amendment. On 17 Feb. he reported from the committee for the bill enabling the treasury to compound with one John Ferrar (a session of which he had chaired two days previously) and the same day he also reported from the committee for the estate bill of Thomas Harlackenden Bowes. Four days later (21 Feb.) Manchester reported from the committee for a naturalization bill, though this appears to have been presided over by Stamford.<sup>89</sup> Present at a gathering held at Sunderland’s on 21 Mar., and again at the home of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, two days later, on 24 Mar. Manchester signed the protest at the decision not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect. Many of his fellow subscribers had also attended the dinner the previous night. On the 27th Manchester was one of a number of peers present at a dinner held at the Queen’s Arms.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Manchester took his seat in the following session on 3 Nov. 1704, after which he was present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days. The following month he invited the Essex gentlemen to his seat at Leez to settle on candidates for the forthcoming county election, as a result of which Sir Francis Masham<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Howard, styled Lord Walden*, later earl of Bindon, were selected. Back in the House, on 16 Feb. Manchester reported from the committee, which had met the previous day, for the bill to allow the lord treasurer or treasury commissioners to compound with John Mason and John Pickering Silkman. On 27 Feb. he was nominated to the committee to consider the heads for a conference concerning the Aylesbury men.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution, Manchester was noted in a list compiled in April as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.<sup>92</sup> The elections of the following month saw the Whigs successful in Essex. Manchester was also able to secure the return of his nominee, Pocklington, for Huntingdonshire, but he was subjected to a humiliating reception at Cambridge University, where he should have expected to wield some interest as its high steward but was instead abused by the chaplain of Trinity.<sup>93</sup> Having taken his seat in the new Parliament on 7 Nov. 1705, on 15 Nov. he officiated as lord great chamberlain for the introduction of his kinsman, Ralph Montagu, now duke of Montagu.<sup>94</sup> Manchester attended approximately half of all sitting days in the session and on 23 Nov. he reported from the committee of the whole concerning resolutions relating to Scotland. The following year, on 15 Feb. 1706 he reported from the committee for Vorbes’s bill, though Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, had served as chairman of the committee.<sup>95</sup> On 28 Feb. he was nominated to the committee to draw up reasons in advance of a conference on a bill for settling the estate of Edward Conway*, earl of Conway. Manchester reported from the conference on 2 Mar. and on 11 Mar. he was one of those nominated to manage the conference concerning letter sent by Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Stamford.</p><h2><em>Return to Venice and after, 1706-9</em></h2><p>Manchester was visited by William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, during the summer recess and in June 1706 he introduced the mayor and aldermen of Huntingdon to the queen so that they could present her with their loyal address.<sup>96</sup> In September it was reported that he would once again be sent ambassador to Venice in an effort to convince the Venetians either to join the grand alliance or to provide supplies for the war effort. (Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Raby (the future earl of Strafford), had refused to take on ‘an employ so remote.’<sup>97</sup>) The following month it was suggested by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, that Manchester should also to be given credentials to wait on the duke of Savoy on his way to his embassy, though John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough requested that no such decision should be made until his own return to England.<sup>98</sup> With the extent of his mission still undecided Manchester attended the prorogation of 22 Oct. and he was then recorded as having been engaged in further discussions with Bishop Wake and others at the House on 18 Nov. in advance of the new session.<sup>99</sup> He took his seat in the House at the opening of the session on 3 Dec. after which he was present on just over half of all sitting days. On 25 Dec. he attended Christmas Eucharist with Nicolson, Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough, and Henry Bentinck*, styled Viscount Woodstock (later 2nd earl of Portland), at St Margaret’s, Westminster.<sup>100</sup> On 30 Dec. Manchester introduced a clutch of his colleagues who had been promoted within the peerage: Robert Bertie*, formerly 4th earl, now marquess of Lindsey; Henry Grey*, marquess of Kent; Lord Walden as earl of Bindon; and Godolphin as earl of Godolphin.</p><p>On 18 Jan. 1707, Manchester dined at the home of Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston, along with Marlborough, Somers and Somerset, amongst others.<sup>101</sup> The same month he was ordered ‘to make all diligence’ in hastening his departure for his embassy, taking in Vienna on his way where he was to encourage the Austrians to support the allied assault on the French coast while dissuading them from undertaking their own invasion of Sicily.<sup>102</sup> Despite this, Manchester continued to delay his journey. He dined at the Queen’s Arms with Ossulston and at least seven other peers on 15 Feb. and, despite reports of 18 Feb. that he was shortly to set out on his journey, on 24 Feb. he was present in the House for the debates concerning Union, after which he again dined with Ossulston at a party hosted by Thomas Wharton*, earl of Wharton. Towards the end of the month it was reported that Manchester had put off his departure for a few days, which no doubt prompted a further command in March ordering him to make all haste for Vienna.<sup>103</sup> Later that month he arrived at The Hague en route to his embassy.<sup>104</sup> By April Manchester was at Vienna where he and the ministers from several other allied states proved to be utterly unsuccessful in their efforts to secure an undertaking not to assault Sicily.<sup>105</sup> Manchester was on the road again by the end of May, taking in Turin, where he waited on Prince Eugene and the duke of Savoy, by way of Milan, on his way to Venice. He arrived at his embassy towards the end of June.<sup>106</sup> During his absence, Godolphin recommended Manchester’s restoration to the captaincy of the Yeomen of the Guard, which was likely to be rendered vacant by the succession of the marquess of Hartington (the current holder of the captaincy) to the office of lord steward on the death of his father, William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire.<sup>107</sup> Writing to Marlborough on Manchester’s behalf, Godolphin recommended him as having ‘always behaved himself well, so that it would be a sort of injustice not to restore him, and consequently, all pretenders will more easily submit to him, than they would to one another.’ In the event, although Marlborough repeated to his duchess Godolphin’s recommendation that Manchester had ‘always behaved himself well’, the post fell to Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Writing from Venice in October 1707, Manchester expressed his impatience for ‘some good address from the Parliament for carrying on the war, which will set all things right again’ and warned that the Venetians were convinced that a peace treaty was imminent, which, he conceived, ‘if true is another thing, but otherwise it will do prejudice’.<sup>109</sup> With matters thus balanced, Manchester found his posting at Venice quite as frustrating as he had his Viennese mission and by the beginning of 1708 he was again eager to be sent his letters of recall, recommending Christian Cole to be appointed resident in his place. Manchester heartily concurred with Parliament’s plan to send Prince Eugene to Vienna, though he noted pessimistically that ‘if anything will prevail with the court of Vienna I should think that should, but I am far from thinking it will.’<sup>110</sup></p><p>By the spring of 1708 Manchester’s embassy to Venice appears to have all but ground to a halt. News of the Pretender’s projected invasion of Britain he believed would make the Venetians ‘the longer defer saying anything to me, and they know so little the disposition of England that they easily give into it he may be received.’<sup>111</sup> Rumours of the impending dismissal of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as one of the secretaries of state prompted Manchester’s brother-in-law, Edwin, ‘to assure your lordship you are not out of everyone’s mind, there are some that talk you into his place.’<sup>112</sup> In May and June Manchester appealed to be sent his letters of recall. Before he was able to quit Venice, Manchester was subjected to further indignity when his private gondolas were searched by Venetian customs officials for contraband cloth said to have been smuggled aboard Manchester’s vessels by one Brown, son of a city of London merchant. Manchester was accordingly compelled to make a formal complaint to the Venetian senate, though the affair looked set to rumble on as the Venetians proved ‘very unwilling to do what they ought’. Pressure from London seems to have reconciled the Venetians to making amends. By the beginning of July Marlborough predicted confidently that Manchester would soon ‘have just satisfaction’ and moreover that the queen would ‘readily grant your desire of returning home.’ In the event it was not until the middle of September that the matter was resolved.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Manchester finally secured his letters of revocation towards the close of the summer.<sup>114</sup> By the time he received them Manchester was making no effort at all to hide the frustrations he found with his employment, complaining to Marlborough of Venice that it was &lquo;a place that a minister can be of no real service.’<sup>115</sup> By the beginning of September Manchester was busy with his preparations for his departure but almost a month went by before he set out at last for Hanover leaving the redoubtable Cole behind as resident.<sup>116</sup> By the middle of November he was at the Hague and by the beginning of December had set foot in England once more.<sup>117</sup></p><p>In his absence, Manchester was noted a Whig (+) in a list of party affiliations and in May 1708 his nominee Pocklington was returned once again for Huntingdonshire on the family interest. Manchester returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 7 Dec. 1708. He proceeded to attend on 67 per cent of all sitting days. Despite his apparent discontent with his foreign journeyings, at the close of the month he approached Marlborough seeking his recommendation for Manchester to be one of the plenipotentiaries at the forthcoming peace congress. He insisted that:</p><blockquote><p>It is a justice due to the services I have performed, as also to my reputation abroad, having always maintained to the last degree the dignity of the crown and the honour of the nation… It must be owned I have had but a hard fate, but I have ever preserved what is most dear to me, my honour and reputation in the world and I should not desire this were I not sensible all abroad will be surprised at such a conjuncture I should not be thought of.</p></blockquote><p>Although Marlborough asserted that he would be glad of Manchester’s ‘assistance in concluding the peace’ he professed himself unable to assure Manchester of his desire given the number of other pretenders.<sup>118</sup> In the event he was disappointed in his ambition. Reputation aside, Manchester’s true concern increasingly came to be dominated by his woeful financial predicament, the result of his vast expenditure in his diplomatic postings. In December, Edward Harley*, later 2nd earl of Oxford, informed Abigail Harley that he had heard that ‘a white staff will not do Lord Manchester’s business, he must have a post that will reimburse the extraordinary expenses he has been at in his embassies.’ He understood that Manchester was therefore to be made paymaster of the army, a post formerly occupied by Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I]. Harley did not doubt that Manchester would ‘tell the money as carefully over his grate as the other did over his.’<sup>119</sup> The following month it was said that Manchester had responded to rumours that he was to receive the unprofitable position of lord chamberlain by letting it be known that he sought a more profitable situation. Talk of the paymastership of the army persisted, but in February 1709 Manchester asserted that he was unaware of any place being intended for him and in the event he was appointed to neither post.<sup>120</sup> Manchester voted in favour of permitting Scots peers holding British titles to vote in the election of Scots representative peers on 21 Jan. and, although by this time he appears not to have been so prominent in the House as a committee chairman, on 2 Mar. he both chaired and then reported from the committee for Gideon Haydon’s bill.<sup>121</sup></p><h2><em>Out of office, 1709-14</em></h2><p>Manchester seems to have identified himself strongly with the Churchill-Godolphin interest. In August Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> reported to the duchess of Marlborough an encounter with Manchester, during which the earl was said to have been ‘full of the common complaint that you are not more with the q[ueen], upon which I told him the story of your office and of the new bedchamber woman. This changed his opinion so much that he agreed with me in everything afterwards.’<sup>122</sup> Towards the end of September 1709, it was reported that Manchester had resolved to travel abroad again, aiming to visit Hanover and the Hague. If he made the visit, he had returned by the middle of November. He took his seat in the House on 15 Nov., after which he was present on 73 per cent of all sitting days. In mid-January 1710 rumours circulated that he was set to be appointed constable of the Tower in succession to Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, but again the hoped-for appointment failed to be realized.<sup>123</sup> Two months later, Cole reported from Venice that ‘Mr Godolphin’ was handing out gifts in acknowledgement of those who had helped press his lawsuit and that Manchester was expected to be the recipient of a gratuity of 1,200 ducats, presumably a reference to the ‘famous lawsuit betwixt the Godolphins and the Jesuits’ over part of the estate of William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>124</sup> Manchester was one of those present at a dinner held in the House on 17 Mar. attended by Ossulston, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, and a handful of other peers, presumably in anticipation of the forthcoming trial of Henry Sacheverell.<sup>125</sup> Three days later, predictably enough, he found Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. The previous month he had been noted as delivering tickets to the Lords to ensure their attendance at the trial.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Manchester lingered in town in September, remaining there in the hopes of securing payment of a pension of £1,000 promised to him by the queen.<sup>127</sup> The elections that autumn again resulted in a victory for the Montagu interest in Huntingdonshire, the two candidates having once more been decided on in advance of the poll.<sup>128</sup> In an assessment taken in advance of the new session, Harley noted Manchester as being unlikely to support his new ministry. Manchester took his seat in the new Parliament on 29 Nov, but he was then absent for the remainder of the year, only resuming his seat on 2 Jan. 1711. Present on 44 per cent of all sitting days, he was one of a number of peers to dine at Halifax’s house on the queen’s birthday.<sup>129</sup> On 16 Apr. he reported from the committee for Robert Jones’s estate bill.</p><p>Despite his former commitment to the duumvirs, the quest for financial recompense appears to have proved more important for Manchester, leading him to enter into negotiations with Harley, now lord treasurer and earl of Oxford. Manchester was thus included in one of Oxford’s memoranda in May 1711, and the following month he approached Oxford about waiting on the queen in hopes of securing payment of his pension. Insisting that he would be ‘glad to get out of town, but cannot well do it till you have done something in my affair’, Manchester asked that he might be granted £2,000, insisting that he had not been properly reimbursed for his last embassy. The sum, he emphasized, ‘would be very convenient for my affairs at present.’<sup>130</sup> Manchester’s name appeared on a further memorandum compiled by Oxford in September.<sup>131</sup> The same month Manchester enquired again about his ‘affair’ disappointed at the lack of progress, ‘notwithstanding all the assurances I have had.’<sup>132</sup> His complaint was repeated in November. His failure to receive payment was, he insisted, ‘a great disappointment to me having depended upon it’ and he hoped that Oxford would ‘not defer it any longer. I believe I am the only one in my case that has not received something.’<sup>133</sup></p><p>Manchester had remained in London, and had attended the prorogations of 21 Aug, 9 Oct. and 27 Nov. 1711. Noted on 2 Dec. as a peer to be canvassed about the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, Manchester took his seat in the House for the new session on 7 Dec. and presumably voted for the amendment of the address to the queen, for on 8 Dec. he was included in an assessment of those thought likely to oppose the court’s attempt to prevent the presentation of the address as amended. Further, on 10 Dec. he was noted in a list of office-holders as having voted against the ministry. Although Manchester was listed as a potential supporter of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon on 19 Dec. there was a query by his name and he was not listed as voting on the matter on the 20th, although listed as present in the Journal. By the close of the year his patience over the continued failure to pay his pension was wearing thin and on 27 Dec. he complained to Oxford:</p><blockquote><p>I did not well understand what your lordship meant by the commissioners of accounts preventing you keeping your word with me… The way to meet with a grateful return is to do as one would be done by, and if after all the promises I should find myself deceived in a case of mere justice, I cannot reasonable [<em>sic</em>] expect any favour, though I shall always show that duty to the queen to serve her to the utmost of my power in anything that is consistent with her preservation, and the good of my country, which has been my constant practice even from the Revolution, when I had the honour to wait on her majesty, though my services have not been thought considerable enough to have had any return.<sup>134</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nevertheless, Oxford’s peculiar talent for politicking ensured that Manchester did not remained wedded to the Whig cause. On 28 May he voted against the Whig motion to address the queen to order James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, to act offensively against France. On 7 June he was noted as one of the Lords ‘that went off’ from the opposition and voted with the ministry over the address in response to the queen’s speech on the peace.<sup>135</sup> Manchester last attended on 13 June 1712, having been present for 58 per cent of all sittings.</p><p>Manchester attended the prorogation on 17 Feb. 1713 and the following month he was listed by Jonathan Swift as a likely opponent of the ministry in a forecast compiled in advance of the new session. Manchester took his seat on 9 Apr. after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sittings. Behaving as Swift had surmised, on 13 June he was noted by Oxford as being likely to oppose passage of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French treaty of commerce. Following the dissolution, Manchester was successful in securing the return of Robert Pigott<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Matthew Dudley,<sup>‡</sup> bt. for Huntingdonshire in the face of a new challenge from his kinsman, Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, who had set up his heir, Edward Richard Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke, and Nicholas Bonfoy<sup>‡</sup> for the Tories.<sup>136</sup></p><p>In advance of the new Parliament, Manchester reminded Oxford once again about the non-payment of his pension, grumpily excusing the manner of this latest supplication because ‘I pass most of my time in the country and can very ill solicit especially if I see it is to little purpose.’<sup>137</sup> Manchester took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on 55 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Mar. he registered his dissent at the failure to amend the address requesting a proclamation for the discovery of the author of the <em>Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>. On 19 Apr. he registered his proxy with his kinsman, Halifax, which was vacated by his return to the House on 28 April. On 7 May Manchester reported from the committee for Kirchoff’s naturalization bill and the following day he was entrusted with the proxy of his Essex neighbour, Fitzwalter, which was vacated by Fitzwalter’s return to the House on 28 May. Towards the end of May, Manchester was forecast by Nottingham as likely to oppose the schism bill. On 2 June he registered his proxy with his fellow court Whig, Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, which was vacated by his return to the House on 7 June. Having attended a further five days, he last attended on 15 June then registered the proxy with Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester on 16 June.</p><h2><em>After 1714</em></h2><p>Manchester attended seven days of the brief session that met in response to the queen’s death at the beginning of August and on 2 Aug. he received Dorchester’s proxy. The accession of the new king offered Manchester improved prospects at last, though in the event his preferment was confined to his appointment as one of the new gentlemen of the bedchamber and his promotion to a dukedom in 1719. Manchester remained an active member of the House until shortly before his death in early 1722. Details of the latter part of his career will be covered in the second phase of this work. In his will of June 1721 (the precise dating of which is obscured) Manchester made a series of bequests, including grants of £5,000 a piece to three of his daughters and a further £1,000 to another daughter, Lady Charlotte Montagu, whose reduced inheritance was explained as being on account of money she had already received from Manchester’s sister, the countess of Suffolk and widow of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk. To his younger son, Lord Robert Montagu, Manchester bequeathed an annuity rising to £600 after he attained the age of 21. Manchester named his heir, Lord Mandeville, and his brother-in-law, Sir James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, as his executors. He was buried along with other members of his family at Kimbolton and succeeded by his son, Mandeville.<sup>138</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MONTAGU, Edward (1602-71) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong> (<strong>MOUNTAGUE</strong>), <strong>Edward</strong> (1602–71)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1626-42 Visct. Mandeville; <em>accel. </em>22 May 1626 Bar. KIMBOLTON; <em>suc. </em>fa. 27 Nov. 1642 as 2nd earl of MANCHESTER. |
|
First sat before 1660, 22 May 1626; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 22 Apr. 1671 |
|
MP Huntingdonshire 1624, 1625, 1626-22 May 1626. |
<p><em>b</em>. 1602, 1st s. of Henry Montagu<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Manchester), and 1st w. Catherine, da. of Sir William Spencer<sup>‡</sup>, of Yarnton, Oxon.; bro. of James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1613-17; Sidney Suss. Camb. 1618; travelled abroad (France, Low Countries) 1621-2; MA, Oxon. 1665. <em>m</em>. (1) 6 Feb. 1623 Susanna (Susan) (<em>d</em>. 1625), da. of John Hill, innkeeper of Honiley, Warws. 1da. <em>d.v.p.</em>;<sup>1</sup> (2) 1 July 1626 (with £6,000), Anne (<em>d</em>. 1642), da. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick, 1s. 2da.;<sup>2</sup> (3) 20 Dec. 1642, Essex (<em>d</em>. 1658), da. of Sir Thomas Cheke (Cheeke)<sup>‡</sup>, of Pirgo, Essex, wid. of Sir Robert Bevill, of Chesterton, Hunts., 6s. 2da.;<sup>3</sup> (4) settlement 15 July 1659, Eleanor (<em>d</em>. 1667),<sup>4</sup> da. of Sir Richard Wortley, of Wortley, Yorks.,<sup>5</sup> wid. of Sir Henry Lee, bt., Edward Radcliffe<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Sussex, and Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick, <em>s.p.</em>; (5) 5 Aug. 1667,<sup>6</sup> Margaret (<em>d</em>. 1676),<sup>7</sup> da. of Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford, wid. of James Hay*, earl of Carlisle, <em>s.p.</em><sup>8</sup> KB 2 Feb. 1626; KG 1 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 5 May 1671; <em>will</em> bef. 5 May 1671, pr. 5 June 1671.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>PC, 1641-2, 1660-<em>d</em>., PC [S] 1661-?<em>d</em>.; speaker, House of Lords 1642-8, Apr.-June 1660; commr. gt. seal 1660; ld. chamberlain 1 June 1660-<em>d</em>.; commr. Marshalsea ct. 1662.</p><p>Dep. lt. Hunts. 1624-?42, ld. lt. (sole) 1642-4, (jt.) 1660-<em>d</em>., Northants. 1643; serj.-maj.-gen. Essex, Herts., Cambs., Norf., Suff., Hunts., Lincs. 1643-5; jt. chamberlain, Chester 1647-50; jt. ranger, Weybridge forest, Hunts. 1627-<em>d</em>; chan. S. Wales (jt.) 1635, (sole) 1660-<em>d</em>., Camb. Univ. 1649-51,<sup>10</sup> 1660-<em>d</em>.; chamberlain, Chester, Cheshire (jt.) 1647-50, S. Wales 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>11</sup> recorder Northampton 1642-?58, 1663-<em>d</em>.;<sup>12</sup> high steward, Westminster 1660-<em>d</em>.,<sup>13</sup> Kingston-upon-Thames, Surr. 1660-?<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. of ft. (parl.) 1642-5; gen. of horse (parl.) 1643-5; col. of ft. regt. 1667.</p><p>FRS 1665-<em>d</em>.<sup>14</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: P. Lely, oils, NPG.</p> |
<p>‘Universally acceptable and beloved’, Mandeville was also considered by the French diplomat, Antoine de Bordeaux, to be ‘among the cleverest men in the land’.<sup>15</sup> Having initially been associated with James I’s favourite, George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, Mandeville progressed to become one of the central figures in the opposition to Charles I. He was one of a dozen peers to petition the king to summon Parliament in 1640 and was the only member of the House of Lords among the members the king sought to arrest for treason in January 1642. At the head of the most influential of the branches of the Montagu clan, Mandeville commanded interest in the Midlands and East Anglia (particularly in Huntingdon and Essex). He was related to both the royalist Henry Spencer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland, and the parliamentarian Rich earls of Warwick and Holland.<sup>16</sup> Although Manchester was himself a Presbyterian and from an avowedly Protestant family, his brother, Walter Montagu, was a Catholic abbé and closely associated with the household of Queen Henrietta Maria.</p><p>At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mandeville became one of the key Parliamentarian commanders. Having raised a regiment of foot at the outset of the conflict, in 1643 (by which time he had succeeded to the earldom of Manchester) he was promoted to be general of horse and awarded overall command of the army of the Eastern Association. In 1645 he was one of two Parliamentarian peers to be recommended for promotion to a marquessate by the Commons, but following the conclusion of the First Civil War (1642-5) Manchester supported moves to reach an accommodation with the king. As a result he became increasingly isolated from his former protégé and subordinate in the army, Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>. Although he was deprived of his military command by the self-denying ordinance, Manchester remained an important figure as Speaker of the Lords until he was put out at the time of Pride’s Purge. He then opposed the king’s trial and execution and from the mid-1650s onwards became increasingly involved in the movement to secure the restoration of the monarchy.</p><p>Although he was nominated by Cromwell in 1657 to be a member of the ‘Other House’, in common with almost all of the peers similarly honoured, Manchester refused to take his seat. In April 1659 he was sent a letter by the king, and by June, according to John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, he was actively engaged in plotting a rising: Mordaunt and other royalists were hopeful that his interest would also engage the participation of William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele, his young kinsman, Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick, who had only recently succeeded to the peerage, and the Cornishman John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor).<sup>17</sup> That summer, Manchester’s connection with Warwick’s family was further strengthened with his controversial and arguably incestuous marriage to his former mother-in-law, Eleanor, dowager countess of Warwick.<sup>18</sup> Both Manchester and his new countess had by then been married three times previously.<sup>19</sup> It was a liaison that attracted the attention of Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> and of Robert Creighton*, later bishop of Bath and Wells, who (according to Bramston) remarked incredulously of his successive marriages to Warwick’s daughter, niece and widow, ‘could any but a Presbyterian do this?’<sup>20</sup></p><h2><em>The Restoration Settlement, 1660-2</em></h2><p>In the early months of 1660 Mordaunt was at pains to assure the royalist court in exile of Manchester’s good will. In February he conveyed a request from the countess of Northampton for Manchester to be considered for the office of lord treasurer.<sup>21</sup> By the spring of that year Manchester was one of the foremost members of the ‘Presbyterian junto’ or ‘knot’ closely involved in the continuing efforts to secure a political settlement.<sup>22</sup> In February he dined with Richard Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington) and the following month he hosted a dinner at which were present his cousin, Admiral Edward Montagu*, soon to be created earl of Sandwich; another kinsman, Sir Dudley North*, the future 4th Baron North; Lord Saye and Sele's son, Nathaniel Fiennes<sup>‡</sup>; and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley.<sup>23</sup> A letter of 23 Mar. from one royalist agent reported frequent meetings of a ‘junto’ sometimes at Manchester’s London residence and sometimes at that of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton.<sup>24</sup> Reports that month suggested that Manchester, as the last Speaker of the Lords, had already written ‘to all the Lords to come and take their places in the House’ in the forthcoming sitting of the Convention. The report was at least in part mistaken, as Manchester was far from wanting all the peers in attendance, adamant that former royalists and their heirs should be excluded, and fearful of the consequences for his own safety should ‘so much as a kitchen boy’ of the royalist party be readmitted to his place.<sup>25</sup> There were, though, a number of members of the House whose presence he considered to be of the first importance. Saye and Sele entrusted to Manchester the task of convincing Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, to join the returning Lords, Northumberland having previously expressed his doubts at the wisdom of the peers asserting their rights before it was clear that there was a more general demand for the restoration of the upper House.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Although Wharton in March had listed Manchester among those Lords who had sat in the House during the Civil War and might, therefore, be expected to be sympathetic to a Presbyterian settlement, by then Manchester appears to have been shifting his stance.<sup>27</sup> In April he was promising George Morley*, later bishop of Worcester and of Winchester, that he would help to reconcile the leading Presbyterian clergy with the Anglican Church,<sup>28</sup> although towards the end of March one royalist agent was reporting to Sir Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, that Manchester was one of at least three of the ‘Presbyterian party’ on the Council of State who had resolved to ‘issue terms to the king before Parliament meets’.<sup>29</sup> On 19 April Mordaunt reported that Manchester and Northumberland had ‘debauched’ a number of senior political figures, among them Denzil Holles*, later Baron Holles, and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later earl of Shaftesbury, and that, suspicious of the intentions of General George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, they were proposing that only those Lords who had remained in the House in 1648 should be allowed to take their places.<sup>30</sup> On 24 Apr., the day before the Convention was due to meet Thomas Bunce, one of the king’s agents, told the king that on the 20th Manchester had told him that he would ‘endeavour what lay in his power to make the propositions easy’ for the king.<sup>31</sup> However, Mordaunt’s assessment of Manchester and his circle and their significance, made the same day, was that they carried little weight. In his letter to the king of 24 Apr. in which he mentioned Manchester’s attendance at a conventicle with William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> and Oliver St John<sup>‡</sup>, Mordaunt sought ‘to acquaint your majesty with the plain truth Northumberland and Manchester we fear are not to be made yours, neither have they any interest … to do good or ill.’<sup>32</sup> Although Manchester’s ability to influence the shape of the Restoration was limited, he remained one of the major figures among the Presbyterian peers. Prior to the opening of the Convention, Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> noted how ‘the Lords do meet every day at my Lord of Manchester’s’, and that they had determined to take their seats on the first day that Parliament sat.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Manchester was one of 10 peers to take their seats in the House at the opening of the Convention on 25 Apr. 1660, on which day he was also appointed Speaker <em>pro</em> <em>tempore</em>.<sup>34</sup> He continued to fulfil this role until 1 June when the chair was assumed by Lord Chancellor Hyde. By the close of the first day the original intention that the Lords should only be attended by Presbyterian peers had been thrown into confusion by the arrival of a handful of former royalists, who had ignored Monck’s request that they should ‘bide their time.’<sup>35</sup> Their admission, which it was said was greeted by the older peers with ‘some distaste… but no disturbance’, marked the beginning of a steady return to the House of all of those who had been qualified to sit prior to its abolition.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to at least 27 committees, on the first day Manchester was one of those nominated to deliver the Lords’ message to Monck of thanks for his role in restoring the House. He reported delivery of the message to the House the next day when he was also appointed to the committee to prepare an ordinance declaring Monck captain general. The following day (27 Apr.) Manchester was nominated one of the commissioners of the great seal. The Lords’ proposal on this was held up in the Commons but they later consented to the nomination by message on 7 May.<sup>37</sup> When Mordaunt reported this to Hyde that day, he told him that Manchester had been assiduously spreading damaging stories about Hyde himself: Manchester had, he wrote, been ‘set on from beyond sea’, possibly a hint at the Abbé Walter Montagu, his brother, and the circle around the queen mother in Paris. The appointment of commissioners, Mordaunt suggested, was intended to ensure that the executive power would be kept out of the king’s hands.<sup>38</sup> On 1 May Manchester was appointed one of the managers of a conference with the Commons to consider a reply to the king’s letter and on 3 May he reported from the committee considering the draft response, which was approved. Manchester reported from the conference considering the settling of the great seal on 10 May and on 19 May he also acted as one of the managers of a conference concerning the late king’s judges, from which he reported three days later.</p><p>The speed with which the old junto had lost any control of events appears to have unsettled Manchester: it was said that his ‘hope of some high office is making him very circumspect’, and in common with Saye and Sele and Northumberland, Manchester was said to be concerned for his safety under the new regime (a recurrent theme in his career).<sup>39</sup> Although he was not among those nominated to greet the king at this arrival in England, his heir, Robert Montagu*, styled Lord Mandeville, and later 3rd earl of Manchester, was included in the party.<sup>40</sup> As Speaker he also retained a central role in mediating between king and the Lords. On 29 May he led the House when it waited on the king at Whitehall. In his speech, which was reported to the House on the 30th, he assured the king of the Lords’ ‘great joy for his majesty’s safe return’. Emphasizing the natural ties between king and peers, he continued:</p><blockquote><p>I shall not reflect upon your majesty's sufferings, which have been your people’s miseries. Yet I cannot omit to say, that as the nation in general, so the peers with a more personal and particular sense, have felt the stroke that cut the Gordian Knot which fastened your majesty to your kingdom, and your kingdom to your majesty.</p></blockquote><p>Manchester reported the king’s answer to the House’s address on 30 May and the same day he conveyed the thanks of the royal princes, James Stuart*, duke of York, and Henry Stuart*, duke of Gloucester, for the House’s ‘civility’ towards them, and communicated their desire to take their seats. Manchester was admitted to the Privy Council at the close of May and appointed lord chamberlain at the beginning of June.<sup>41</sup> On 16 June he proposed that the queen mother’s dower should be paid, which was approved <em>nem. con.</em> On 27 July he was appointed to move the king for permission for his speech encouraging the Lords to pass the indemnity bill to be printed. Four days later he reported the king’s answer concerning the impact on the royal revenue of arrears owed the king being forgiven in the bill. Manchester received North’s proxy on 30 July, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 8 Aug. he also received that of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, which was vacated when Campden resumed his seat the following day.<sup>42</sup> Four days later, Manchester hosted a dinner attended by his cousin, now earl of Sandwich.<sup>43</sup> The following day (13 Aug.) he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning public bills and the establishment of a joint committee to go to the City to seek a loan of £100,000. On 15 Aug. Manchester was appointed a manager of the free conference considering amendments to the indemnity bill. On 8 Sept. (Saturday) he communicated the king’s willingness to defer the adjournment to the following Tuesday (11 Sept.), though in the event the House continued sitting for a further two days beyond that, allowing Manchester to report on the 12th from the committee for the bill explaining defects in the poll money bill before the House adjourned.</p><p>Manchester’s influence was seen as important in a series of letters exchanged by members of the Verney family towards the end of October 1660 over a cause they had pending. Cary Gardiner hoped Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> (who had been one of the parties to Manchester's marriage settlement with Countess Eleanor) would make Manchester ‘our friend, who is a very considerable person and he will draw many after him.’ The following month, Gardiner reported that Manchester had been appointed lord privy seal and that Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, was to be made lord chamberlain in Manchester’s stead, but these rumours proved to be inaccurate.<sup>44</sup> During the recess, Manchester (according to Richard Baxter’s account of its proceedings) was one of a number of peers with Presbyterian backgrounds who participated in the conference at Worcester House on 22 Oct. to hear the proposals of the lord chancellor to deal with the religious settlement: the others were lords Albemarle, Annesley, and Hollis, although it was Annesley and Hollis who were commissioned to draft the final deal, rather than Manchester.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Manchester resumed his seat in the House following the adjournment on 6 Nov. 1660, after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days and was named to at least 11 committees. On 14 Dec. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill to attaint the late king’s killers and, the following day, he reported from the committee for the college leases bill. Two days later (17 Dec.) he reported the effect of the committee for privileges’ ruminations on the militia bill and on 21 Dec. he reported part of the conference concerning the abolition of the Court of Wards relating to the bill for confirming marriages.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Manchester was successful in recommending Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, bt. to his kinsman, Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, as a ‘worthy person’ to be one of the members for Northamptonshire in the elections for the new Parliament held that spring but he otherwise fared poorly in securing the return of his candidates.<sup>46</sup> According to Bramston, Manchester was ordered by the king to restrain his kinsman, Warwick, from appearing at the Essex poll and he appears to have avoided attempting to use his own interest at Cambridge University, expecting a reversal there. More damaging still, he was subjected to an unexpectedly severe battering at Huntingdon, where his own tenants refused to support his nominees.<sup>47</sup> Manchester took his seat in the new Parliament on 8 May 1661. He was present on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days of the first session and was named to some 35 committees. On 13 May he reported from the committee considering the address of thanks, which was ordered to be presented to the king and on 17 May he informed the House that the king had appointed him to deliver a petition concerning precedence in the House, which had been submitted by Berkeley. At the end of the month, on 31 May, the House ordered that Manchester should move the king for a proclamation for a fast day to be appointed: Manchester reported from the conference on the subject and (on 6 June) the king’s response. Five days later, the House took into consideration a case referred from the court of delegates in which Manchester and Northumberland were involved as executors of the late earl of Essex (Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex). Proceedings in the court were stayed as a result. On 19 June Manchester reported from the committee of the whole House which had considered the bill for a free gift to the king. The same day, the House heard further evidence relating to the affair in the court of delegates but made no alteration to its previous order in the business. On 25 June Manchester was appointed with William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, to act as teller on the question whether the words ‘or new matter’ should be added to the order concerning the petition of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to be restored to the lord great chamberlaincy. The following month, Manchester opposed Oxford’s suit, presumably preferring the claims of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey.<sup>48</sup> Manchester was excused attendance on account of sickness on 17 July but he was well enough to resume his place two days later. During his absence he appears to have registered his proxy with Leicester Devereux*, 6th Viscount Hereford, though no record of this was entered in the proxy book.<sup>49</sup> Appointed a manager of the conference on the corporations bill on 26 July, the following day he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the bill of pains and penalties and two days after (29 July) he was named a reporter of the conference for the printing bill. Following the close of the session, Manchester continued to be courted by members of the Verney family, who hoped he would employ his interest on behalf of Sir Ralph's sister, Margaret Elmes, in a case involving the settlement of her jointure, Manchester being involved as one of the trustees.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Manchester resumed his seat after the recess on 20 Nov. 1661. On the following day he was one of six peers appointed to attend the king concerning the proclamation about the removal from London of former soldiers and other suspicious people. On 4 Dec. the House ordered Manchester to attend the king to remind him of the House’s former order recommending that the House’s chaplain, Dr. Hodges, should be rewarded for his dutiful service. Two days later Manchester reported from the committee of the whole considering the manner of swearing witnesses at the Bar and on the following day (7 Dec.) he was nominated one of the managers of a conference to consider the same business. On 17 Dec. he was also appointed one of the managers of a further conference for the corporations bill. Towards the close of January 1662, Manchester became involved in a heated dispute between Northumberland and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, that had arisen out of Buckingham’s motion for the reconstitution of the northern marcher court. Although the House ordered the two peers to desist from quarrelling, Manchester overheard the two men continuing to berate each other as a result of which they were ejected from the chamber.<sup>51</sup> Manchester reported on 1 Feb. 1662 from the committee of the whole House considering the bill for the execution of those regicides who had been excepted from pardon in the Act of Indemnity. He was then named one of the managers of three conferences concerning the same business held that day, and on 3 and 4 February. On 3 Feb. he also chaired a session of the committee considering the bill for collectors of public money. The bill and a proviso were read and orders given for witnesses to attend two days later, but when the committee reconvened on 5 Feb. it was chaired by the lord privy seal, Lord Robartes.<sup>52</sup> On 6 Feb. Manchester joined with at least 25 other peers in subscribing the protest at the resolution to pass the estate bill for Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby.<sup>53</sup> The Verney family’s efforts to secure a resolution to the settlement of Margaret Elmes’s jointure continued that spring and towards the close of March Elmes pressed her brother, Verney, to bring the matter to a conclusion before Manchester retired to the country ‘for fear his stay there should be long.’<sup>54</sup> Manchester continued to attend the House until the middle of the following month and on 9 and 10 Apr. he was appointed one of the managers of a conference for the bill for mending streets and highways. On 14 Apr. it was reported that he was to be one of the officials to travel to Portsmouth to greet Queen Catherine. He attended for the last time during that session on 19 Apr. and was then absent for the final month occupied with his duties at Portsmouth.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Such influence as Manchester had was waning by the end of 1662, when Pepys reported talk that the court had become weary of Albemarle and Manchester and that none that had been in arms for Parliament in the Civil War would be permitted to retain their offices.<sup>56</sup> Neither, in fact, was removed, and Manchester retained at least significant local influence: in January 1663 Edward Montagu wrote to Christopher Hatton*, later Viscount Hatton in advance of a by-election at Northampton, where Manchester wielded considerable authority as recorder, assuming that Hatton had secured Manchester’s support for his candidacy.<sup>57</sup></p><h2><em>1663-68</em></h2><p>Manchester continued to play an active role in the life of the House. Although he was missing from the attendance list at the opening of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, he was named to the standing committees for privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal that day, so it is to be assumed that he was present. He had certainly taken his place by 20 Feb. when his name appeared once more on the attendance list, and he attended on approximately 90 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 22 committees in the course of the session, on 27 Feb. he was chosen chairman of the committee of the whole House during its consideration of the extent of the king’s power in ecclesiastical affairs. Manchester reported from the committee on 6 Mar. and chaired further sessions on 12 and 13 March. At the close of the month Manchester informed the House of the king’s desire to be waited on with the petition concerning Jesuits and Catholic priests. At the same time, he was embarrassed by a case brought before the committee for privileges prompted by the activities of one of his servants, Bird, who had sold a counterfeit protection to one Shawcliffe, then engaged in a dispute with John Carey*, 5th Baron Hunsdon (later 2nd earl of Dover). On 2 Apr. Manchester conveyed his appreciation to the committee for the manner in which the case had been handled and left it to their discretion how the disgraced Bird was to be proceeded with.<sup>58</sup> Two days later, the House requested Manchester to attend the king to discover when the Lords and Commons should present themselves to him.</p><p>On 14 Apr. 1663 Manchester received the proxy of William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury (which was vacated by the session’s close). On 12 June he provided the House with an account of the recent quarrel between John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, and Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, adding to this three days later with a plea on Bridgwater’s behalf for the House to show some compassion for Bridgwater, who was by then confined under house arrest in the same place where his wife had recently died. Manchester was entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman Robert Rich*, 2nd earl of Holland, on 20 June and on 2 July he chaired a session of the committee considering the bill to settle differences between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his heir, Charles Powlett*, the future duke of Bolton. Having read the record of the previous session’s progress in the matter, it was resolved to proceed with the bill only for further consideration to be adjourned to the following Saturday. Manchester chaired and then reported from the committee considering the bill to prevent butchers from selling fat cattle alive on 7 July, even though he had not been named to the committee when it had been established the previous day.<sup>59</sup> On 13 July he reported the king’s response to a request for a fast day to be appointed and the same day he communicated the king’s message concerning the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Wharton noted Manchester as a probable supporter of Bristol's efforts.<sup>60</sup> Named one of the reporters of a conference for the bill for licensing wine on 23 July, four days later Manchester chaired and then reported from the committee considering Pitcairne’s bill, the committee resolving that the bill should be returned to the House without amendments by a majority of four voices.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Manchester found himself the subject of unwanted attention in the early autumn of 1663 when one Captain Atkinson named him alongside Wharton and Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S], as having been made aware of the northern rebellion, which had finally stuttered to a halt a few weeks before in the near-farcical rising at Farnley Wood.<sup>62</sup> Manchester and Fairfax denied all knowledge of the insurrection. Their denials appear to have been believed quite readily and there seems to be no reason to believe that they were not sincere in their protestations.<sup>63</sup> Later that year, Manchester was at the heart of a violent altercation at the exchange in the City of London. With the help of a local justice, he succeeded in closing the place down after a fight resulted in one of the king’s coachmen losing an eye. Following an appeal by the brokers, the king allowed the exchange to be reopened.<sup>64</sup> Manchester resumed his seat in the House on 16 Mar. 1664 and on the following day he was entrusted with North’s proxy. Present on approximately 92 per cent of all sitting days in the session, Manchester was named to three committees as well as continuing with his ceremonial role as the principal point of contact between the court and the House. He dined with Burlington (the former Baron Clifford of Lanesborough) on 29 Mar. and on 5 Apr. he was appointed to wait on the king to give the House’s thanks for the king’s speech. On 13 Apr. he was again entrusted with Salisbury’s proxy and later that month, on 22 Apr, he reported from the conference concerning foreign trade. On 3 May he chaired and then reported from the committee considering the bill for confirming land in Frome forest on Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I].<sup>65</sup> Manchester’s own petition concerning an action before the court of delegates over the administration of Warwick’s will was read on 9 May and referred to the committee for privileges.<sup>66</sup> On 14 May he reported the king’s response to the House’s request that the recess should be put back a few days.</p><p>Manchester was present in the House for the prorogation of 20 Aug. 1664 before taking his place in the new session on 24 November. He was present on 81 per cent of all days in the session. Named to 10 select committees during the course of the session, he was also named to the standing committee for privileges on the opening day, but was not included on the list of those nominated to the other two sessional committees. On 2 Dec. Manchester reported the answer of the City of London to the House’s vote of thanks for their loans to the king in anticipation of the war with the Dutch. On 7 Feb. 1665 he reported from the committee of the whole House considering the bill for granting an aid to the king and two days later he was ordered to attend the king to acquaint him with the passing of the bill. On 20 Feb. Manchester informed the House of the king’s desire to bring the session to a conclusion in just over a week’s time but following the House’s request to be permitted to sit a little longer, at the close of the month Manchester was able to assure them of the king’s agreement to extend the session by two or three days. That month Manchester earned the thanks of Robert Paston*, later earl of Yarmouth, for his assistance in seeing his bill for the development of Yarmouth harbour passed. Paston had dined with Manchester and ‘150 people’ during the passage of his bill through Parliament. It had received warm support from a variety of peers with interests in East Anglia and the Fenlands such as Manchester.<sup>67</sup> Because of Paston’s role in persuading the Commons to grant an unprecedented level of supply for preparations for war with the Dutch, the bill had also attracted the support of the king who had insisted that it be passed prior to the prorogation. Named one of the reporters of the conference to consider the bill for Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, on 1 Mar, the same day Manchester informed the House that he had waited on the king to seek his permission to be attended with an address and the following day, he communicated the king’s agreement to a fast day.</p><p>Manchester attended the prorogation of 21 June 1665 on which day he officiated as lord great chamberlain in Lindsey’s absence and introduced the newly created peers Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington and John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville. Two months later, amid growing concern at the inactivity of the fleet, Manchester advised his kinsman, Sandwich, to put to sea and engage the Dutch to prevent the continuation of such complaints at home:</p><blockquote><p>I cannot omit the tendering my service to you, and to give you this account of my friendship that the sooner you can put to sea it will be the more to your advantage for if the Dutch get back into their own harbours without some blows I find there are those that will make discourses…<sup>68</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the end of the year Manchester advised Sandwich again on dealing with the controversy over his handling of prize goods captured from the Dutch, in a letter to which Clarendon appended a postscript.<sup>69</sup></p><p>In September 1665, Manchester travelled to Oxford to prepare for the king’s arrival in advance of the session of Parliament to be held there. Arriving in company with Clarendon, he was accommodated in the dean’s lodgings at Christ Church and treated to a series of ceremonial welcomes in his capacity as chancellor of Cambridge University.<sup>70</sup> On 9 Oct. he took his seat in the temporary chamber which had been set up in the geometry school, after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>71</sup> On the opening day of the session Manchester informed the House of the indisposition of his kinsman, Warwick. Two days later, he moved that the House should present its address of thanks to the king on the first season of the war, which was ordered accordingly. Manchester was named to five committees in the course of the session. On 20 Oct. he chaired the committee considering the bill to raise a month’s assessment for the king, which he reported to the House ten days later.<sup>72</sup> The same day (30 Oct.) he joined Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, and John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, in voicing his opposition to the five mile bill, arguing that he thought the measure ‘unseasonable’ and objecting to the manner in which ‘those concerned were used worse than common beggars.’<sup>73</sup> He then seconded the motion to have the bill recommitted but this was rejected after a concerted effort by York and the bishops.<sup>74</sup> The following day, Manchester was named one of the reporters of a conference for the additional plague bill. That afternoon he reported from the committee for the bill for the attainder of the regicides Dolman, Bamfield and Scott.</p><p>Having attended two of the prorogations following the close of the session held at Oxford, Manchester returned to the House on 18 Sept. 1666, after which he was present on 81 per cent of all sitting days and was named to at least 19 select committees. In the period in between the close of the previous session and the opening of the new one, Manchester’s attention had been taken up by a legal challenge to the will of his kinsman, Sir Francis Wortley, who had died leaving only one bastard child as his heir. The claim of this girl, Anne Wortley, to inherit Wortley's estates was opposed by the widowed Lady Wortley, but without success.<sup>75</sup> Noted as one of the principal advocates of the bill for preventing the importation of Irish cattle, Manchester’s support for the measure may have been a demonstration of his suspicion of the current regime in Ireland and its relative leniency towards Catholics, which he may have shared with other former Parliamentarian proponents of the measure such as Ashley and Robartes.<sup>76</sup> With tempers running high, on 29 Oct. he informed the House of a quarrel between Buckingham and Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler of Moore Park (better known as earl of Ossory [I]), arising out of this business and on 3 Nov. Manchester was involved in a meeting at which Buckingham and Ossory were compelled to reconcile.<sup>77</sup> Manchester again received North’s proxy on 5 Nov. (which was vacated by North's death).</p><p>On 19 Nov. 1666 Manchester chaired the committee on the controversial measure to render illegitimate the children of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, the future duke of Rutland, by his estranged wife, Lady Anne Roos. On 26 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of her father-in-law, John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland. On 29 Nov. 1666 he reported from the committee that Buckingham wanted to be heard by counsel before the bill was reported, as he regarded himself as the rightful holder of the title of Lord Roos. On 6 Dec. the committee was ordered to find some expedient to settle this matter, and Manchester continued to preside over the committee, reporting on the 12th that none could be found. However, after further debate the problem was recommitted to the same committee. On 7 Jan. 1667 Manchester reported the bill together with a proviso dealing with Buckingham’s claim to the title of Roos.<sup>78</sup> Underscoring once again his role as a mediator between court and Parliament Manchester was supposed to have been ordered by the king to scour the playhouses and brothels in search of absent members to force them to attend the House and forestall the business, though despite his best efforts, he was not able to secure the attendance of sufficient members to prevent the passage of a measure which was said to have made ‘the king and court mad’.<sup>79</sup> </p><p>Manchester had been present at York’s installation as a Garter knight at the beginning of December 1666, the ceremony being performed in the king’s drawing room at Whitehall.<sup>80</sup> Towards the end of the year attention returned to the question of prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle. Manchester was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the Irish cattle bill on 14 Dec. and on 17 Dec. he was appointed to the committee named to draw up reasons why the Lords chose to insist on opposing the use of the word ‘nuisance’ within the bill, which had been inserted by the Commons in order to prevent any attempt to issue dispensations to individuals from complying with it. On 19 Dec. Manchester informed the House of another dispute involving Buckingham: a dispute with Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, during a conference in the Painted Chamber over the Canary patent. Once again, the two peers were ordered to appear before Manchester and Albemarle and undertake not to quarrel any more. The following day Manchester reported from the committee considering the petition to the king for a commission for examining the public accounts, and chaired a session of the committee concerning the inheritance of the Bodvile estate by Hon. Robert Robartes<sup>‡</sup>. He reported the latter bill to the House on 29 December. On 2 Jan. 1667 he was again named one of the managers of conferences for the Irish cattle bill and the poll bill. On 10 Jan. he reported from the committee for the Swaffham churches bill. On 12 Jan. he reported from the conference concerning the public accounts bill and three days later from the committee of the whole House considering the same business.</p><p>From the middle of January reports circulated that Lady Manchester was at the point of death. Manchester was missing from the House for just over a week at the close of the month, presumably to deal with the consequences after his countess finally succumbed on 23 Jan. 1667.<sup>81</sup> In his absence, the House was informed on 29 Jan. of his desire to be heard along with two other trustees who were involved in the passing of the bill settling the lands of James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), during his minority. He resumed his place on 31 Jan. and on 2 Feb. he appeared before the committee considering Norreys’s bill. Although Manchester informed the committee that Colonel Cooke, another trustee, had much to offer on the subject and asked that he might be summoned, the committee resolved in a series of votes against delaying proceedings until Cooke could attend.<sup>82</sup> In a move perhaps intended to safeguard the trustees’ position, Manchester was added to the committee on 4 February. On the same day he reported from the committee for privileges concerning the House of Commons’ desire to have a conference concerning the Lords’ judicature. He then reported from a subsequent committee of the whole concerning the bill to explain the poll bill.</p><p>During the summer of 1667 Manchester was involved in discussions surrounding the prospective marriage of his kinsman, Edward Montagu*, styled Lord Hinchingbrooke (later 2nd earl of Sandwich), to Lady Anne Boyle.<sup>83</sup> He also appears not to have allowed grief over the loss of his own wife to trouble him for long: reports circulated at the same time that he intended to marry for the fifth time.<sup>84</sup> By July, it was clear that Manchester had set his cap at the widow of James Hay, earl of Carlisle, reports being put about that he was ‘so in love with the Lady Carlisle that he runs after her like one of twenty’.<sup>85</sup> The king took a personal interest in Manchester's new suit, writing to Clarendon that:</p><blockquote><p>I have long foreseen my lord chamberlain had a design to enter again into the bonds of matrimony, you know I never fail a friend at a dead list, I will do my part, if he can perform his, all’s well, the failings will not be on the widow’s side.<sup>86</sup></p></blockquote><p>By the middle of July it was spoken of confidently that the marriage between Manchester and Lady Carlisle would ‘soon follow’. They were secretly married early the following month.<sup>87</sup> At the same time, Manchester was one of a number of peers granted permission to raise a regiment. He was appointed along with Bridgwater and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, to a committee that was established to advise on the retrenchment of royal expenditure at the end of July, of which Manchester, presumably because of his responsibilities as chamberlain, was a member.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Manchester took his seat in the House two days after the opening of the new session on 10 Oct. 1667. The same day, he received Holland’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. Present on approximately 90 per cent of all sitting days, Manchester was named to at least 20 committees during the session and the same month he was also active as one of the commissioners deputed to negotiate with the French ambassador, Ruvigny, over the terms of the commercial treaty with France.<sup>89</sup> In a letter to Sandwich he expressed his surprise at the reports that Clarendon was to be put out of office and ‘hoped that it will go no further.’ On 12 Oct. Ossory reported that he had also expressed support for James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] and earl of Brecknock, in the House in the face of criticism of him led by Buckingham and others.<sup>90</sup> On 29 Oct. Manchester informed the House that he had received a message from the king in response to concerns that a writ of summons had been sent to John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), though still under age. In the event, Mulgrave defused the situation himself by avoiding taking his seat for a further two years. On 11 Nov. Manchester was entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman, Montagu of Boughton, who had by then all but retired from court. The proxy had been delivered to him by another relative, Montagu Lane. Four days later Manchester was himself excused attendance in the House on account of ‘extraordinary occasions’ at Whitehall for the queen’s birthday.<sup>91</sup> Having returned to his place, Manchester was nominated on 21 Nov. one of the reporters of the conference concerning the Lords’ failure to commit Clarendon and the resulting crisis in relations between the two Houses. The following day, he was named to the committee appointed to draw up the heads for a conference about the same business, from which he reported on 23 November. Again named a manager of two conferences concerning Clarendon on 25 and 27 Nov., on 29 Nov. he reported the effect of the second conference at which the Lords had rejected the precedents offered by the Commons for allowing impeachments to be brought without specific charges contained in them.<sup>92</sup> On 3 Dec. he was appointed by the House to inform the king that Clarendon had withdrawn and the following day he reported the king’s response. The same day (4 Dec.) he was also named to a subsequent conference from which he reported two days later. On 11 Dec. he reported (with Ashley) from the conference concerning freedom of speech in Parliament. Three days later (14 Dec.) Manchester reported from the committee nominated to draw up reasons why the Lords dissented from the Commons’ vote about Clarendon.</p><h2><em>Final years, 1668-71</em></h2><p>At the opening of 1668 there were rumours that Manchester was likely to be put out as lord chamberlain. Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup> was at pains to quash this as a misunderstanding, emphasizing that ‘we never talked here of the removal of the lord chamberlain to the king but only to the queen’s.’ (The queen’s chamberlain was Clarendon’s son, Henry Hyde*, Viscount Cornbury, later 2nd earl of Clarendon).<sup>93</sup> Manchester wrote to Arlington in February 1668 to recommend the head bailiff of Westminster as one of the commissioners for the wine tax.<sup>94</sup> He remained active in the House, informing the Lords on 5 Mar. 1668 of the time appointed by the king to receive their address relating to foreign nobility and on 14 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole House debating the bill against atheism and profaneness. He reported again from the committee of the whole considering the same business at the close of the month. On 7 Apr. he was added to the committee for trade. Manchester reported from the committee for the Ashdown forest bill on 13 Apr. and on 23 Apr. he was one of the peers nominated to join with a Commons committee to present the king with the votes of both Houses relating to the wearing of English manufacture. The following day, Manchester and Anglesey reported from the conference concerning Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup>, and on 5 May he informed the House that he and Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, had attended the king with a message concerning Sir John Wintour. The same day Manchester was one of three peers ordered to request a delay to the adjournment so that the House could to respond to the Commons’ questioning of certain matters of privilege.<sup>95</sup> Later that afternoon, he reported the king's agreement to the postponement.</p><p>Manchester entertained the king, York and Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, at his house at Waltham in July, treating them ‘with much magnificence.’<sup>96</sup> The following month he attended for the adjournment of 11 Aug. when he informed the House of the king’s determination, ‘considering the season of the year, and that there are but few Lords in town’ to adjourn to 10 November. The House was then adjourned again to 1 Mar. 1669 before finally resuming in October. The king’s declaration of March 1669 that he would put into execution the laws against holding conventicles threatened to cause Manchester some embarrassment when it was pointed out to the king that Manchester was a member of the congregation at Manton’s meeting house. Manchester advised Manton to forbear from preaching, but the following week it was reported that he had resumed his services. Margaret Elmes believed that the Presbyterians had ‘prevailed with the king to let them alone, notwithstanding he said so much against them, which shows they have a great interest.’<sup>97</sup> Manchester was presumably involved in securing the concession. In June he was one of five peers named to a standing committee of the council appointed to investigate the question of conventicles.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Shortly before the opening of the new session, it was reported that he was very sick, and that in the event of his death he was to be succeeded as lord chamberlain by Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle.<sup>99</sup> He was absent at the opening of the session and although he rallied sufficiently to take his seat on 25 Oct, he attended just two days before absenting himself for a further fortnight. He returned to the House again on 10 Nov. after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days. Speculation about his likely successor continued nevertheless to circulate that month. Richmond’s name was added to those believed to have pretensions to the office.<sup>100</sup> Manchester’s poor health seems to have limited his activities in the session. He was added to the committee for the bill to prevent frauds in the exportation of wool on his first day in the chamber and on 16 Nov. he was added to the committee for accounts, but he was otherwise named to just one further committee in the session.</p><p>By the spring of 1670, however, Manchester appears to have recovered much of his old vigour. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 14 Feb., after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to some 39 committees. On 3 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the proposed union between England and Scotland and on 10 Mar. he and the lord steward, Ormond, were requested to wait on the king to arrange when the House might attend him with their votes concerning union. Manchester reported from the committee for Lady Lee’s bill on 18 Mar. and on 30 Mar. he was appointed one of the reporters of the conference for the conventicles bill. Nominated a reporter of two further conferences on the subject on 4 Apr., the following day he registered his dissent from the resolution to agree with the Commons’ amendment, which allowed peers’ houses to be searched.</p><p>Manchester took his seat following the summer recess on 24 October. On 17 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman, Warwick, which was vacated by the session’s close, and two days later he was added to the committee for the naturalization bill. On 8 Dec. Manchester appeared before the committee considering the bill to empower the executors of his son-in-law, Henry Ingram, Viscount Irwin [S], to sell lands for payment of his debts, and reassured the committee that enough would remain to honour the payment of his daughter's £1,000 jointure.<sup>101</sup> Continuing to sit after a break of just four days over the new year, on 16 Jan. 1671 Manchester informed the House (in the absence of the lord great chamberlain) of the appointment of Sir Edward Carteret as black rod. Two days later he was added to the committee for the bill for examining the accounts of money given to the poor during the last plague and on 20 Jan. he reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill to prevent maiming and wounding. He was heavily involved in the progress of this bill (the consequence of the unprovoked assault on a Member of the Commons, Sir John Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, by army thugs responding to his off-colour joke about the king’s taste for actresses): he reported from the select committee on 22 Jan., from a conference on 27 Jan., chaired a further committee on 4 Feb. and a conference on 6 February. He reported the result of a conference on the bill for the bishops of Bangor and St Asaph on 6 Mar. and three days later he reported from the committee concerning the assault on Lord Steward Ormond. Two days later, along with the lord steward, he informed the House that he had attended the king about the presentation of the House’s petition against the growth of popery and on 13 Mar. he was nominated one of the reporters of the conference for the additional corn and salt measures bill. The following month, Manchester was appointed one of the managers of the conference for the bill imposing additional penalties on foreign commodities, from which he reported two days later (12 April). Ordered to attend the king to confirm when he would receive the House’s address concerning the wearing of garments of English manufacture on 17 Apr., Manchester reported back three days later and on 22 Apr. he was asked for the last time to attend the king to convey the House’s thanks.</p><p>Manchester died during the night of 5 May 1671, following the onset of an acute attack of colic.<sup>102</sup> In spite of aspersions cast upon him by Bramston that he had indulged in selling offices, an accusation that seems to have been reflected in an inquiry into the sale of places in 1663, Manchester seems not to have profited much from his years as lord chamberlain.<sup>103</sup> For a man of his rank, his income appears to have been comparatively modest: an assessment of 1662 valued his lands in Northamptonshire at £700 per annum.<sup>104</sup> In his will, which he had drawn up ‘not a fortnight ago’ and which his kinsman, Sandwich, thought was not ‘over kind to his lady’, he named his heir, Mandeville, his younger sons, Edward and Henry Montagu, and his brother, George Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, as executors. A loose paper accompanying the will conveyed an estate at Weybridge to the countess of Manchester, though Sandwich thought that it could not be disposed of in this way and further commented that the reason for Manchester’s relative lack of generosity to his wife was the result of a difference over the repayment of £1,500 to a Mr. Cheeke, Lady Manchester having pressed her husband to pay the debt, ‘which he was in no condition to do’.<sup>105</sup> In addition to the Weybridge property, Manchester bequeathed a variety of furniture and jewels to his wife in the will proper; to his daughter, Lucy Montagu, he bequeathed £2,000 to be raised from his personal estate. To three of his seven sons, Manchester made provision for an annual rent charge of 500 marks to be divided between them, while he was at pains to explain the omission of another son, Henry Montagu, from any bequests, noting that it was ‘not for any dislike of him but by his own consent I having made a good provision for him by the place I gave him.’ He also gave instructions for his executors to secure the payment of a debt of £4,000 owing to him by the king.<sup>106</sup> Manchester was buried, according to his wishes, at Kimbolton. The procession from London to the place of burial was reported to have been accompanied ‘by so many coaches as showed the high respect he was held in’. <sup>107</sup> That respect was corroborated by Burnet, who referred to him as a man of ‘a soft and obliging temper, of no great depths, but universally beloved being both a virtuous and a generous man’, and by Ossory, who called him ‘one of the most obliging persons that ever I was acquainted with’.<sup>108</sup> He was succeeded by his eldest son, Mandeville, as 3rd earl of Manchester.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MONTAGU, Edward (1616-84) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong> (<strong>MOUNTAGUE</strong>), <strong>Edward</strong> (1616–84)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 June 1644 as 2nd Bar. MONTAGU of BOUGHTON. |
|
First sat 10 July 1644; first sat after 1660, 10 May 1660; last sat 31 Mar. 1670 |
|
MP Huntingdon 1640-4. |
<p><em>b</em>. 11 July 1616, 1st surv. s. of Edward Montagu<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Montagu of Boughton, and Frances, da. of Thomas Cotton<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of Hon. William Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Oundle g.s.; admitted fell. com. Sidney Sussex, Camb. 2 Mar. 1631. <em>m</em>. 1633, Anne (<em>d</em>.1642), da. of Sir Ralph Winwood<sup>‡</sup> of Ditton, Bucks., 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 1da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 10 Jan. 1684; <em>will</em> 14 Oct. 1673, pr. 14 Jan. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for assessment, Northants. 7 Apr., 7 Dec. 1649, 26 Nov. 1650, 10 Dec. 1652, 9 June 1657, 26 Jan. 1660;<sup>3</sup> kpr., Rockingham forest by Sept. 1659-<em>d.</em>;<sup>4</sup> recorder, Northampton 1681-2.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by Robert Walker, Boughton House, Northants.</p> |
<p>Montagu of Boughton represented one of the branches of a prolific family that dominated several areas of the country. The Montagus claimed descent from one of the companions of William the Conqueror and bore the arms of Warwick the Kingmaker’s brother, John Neville<sup>†</sup>, marquess of Montagu (<em>d</em>.1471), but their true fifteenth-century forebear was said to have been Richard Ladde of Hanging Houghton, who adopted the surname of Montagu in about 1448.<sup>7</sup> It was Ladde’s grandson, Edward Montagu, lord chief justice successively of king’s bench and common pleas under Henry VIII, who established the family estates in Northamptonshire. In 1528 he purchased Boughton as the family seat, which in 1662 was assessed at 45 hearths.<sup>8</sup> Although the family’s principal holdings and influence lay in Northamptonshire, other lands were acquired in Kent, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.<sup>9</sup> Edward Montagu’s son (also Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>) sat as knight of the shire for Northamptonshire and two of the younger Edward Montagu’s sons lived to be elevated to peerages. One, Henry Montagu<sup>†</sup>, was created earl of Manchester in 1626, the other, Edward Montagu<sup>†</sup>, father of the subject of this article, was created Baron Montagu of Boughton in 1621.</p><p>Montagu was brought up believing firmly in the family myth of his clan’s antiquity, a conceit that was no doubt underscored by his extensive connections. Besides his cousins, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, Montagu was also brother-in-law to Robert Bertie<sup>†</sup>, earl of Lindsey, and to John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland. Firmly embedded in Northamptonshire society, he was also a distant relative (and close friend) of Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Despite close relations with the royalist Berties and Ishams and his own father’s imprisonment for adhering to the king’s cause, Montagu supported Parliament during the Civil War for which he was dubbed ‘the Roundhead’.<sup>11</sup> Even so, the activities of father and son are occasionally confused during this period.<sup>12</sup> Following his father’s death in captivity and his own succession to the peerage, Montagu was nominated one of the lords to take possession of the king from the Scots.<sup>13</sup> However, he opposed Charles I’s trial and execution, and from that point until the Restoration he played no further role in national affairs, preferring instead to retire to his estates in the country. During the 1650s he concentrated on consolidating his lands, and by 1662 Montagu was in possession of four residences and estates valued at £2,300 p.a. in Northamptonshire alone.<sup>14</sup></p><p>By the close of the 1650s Montagu had become favourable to the king’s return.<sup>15</sup> His eldest son, another Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, played a significant role at the time of the Restoration by assisting in recruiting Admiral Edward Montagu (shortly after created earl of Sandwich) to the royalist cause.<sup>16</sup> Montagu of Boughton remained a reluctant participant in politics, but he appears to have given his backing to the Northamptonshire address promoted by Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup> in January 1660 calling for the return of the secluded members and to have offered his interest to Yelverton as knight of the shire for Northamptonshire in the election in March on the recommendation of his cousin, Manchester.<sup>17</sup> Noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in March 1660 as one of the lords who sat during the Civil War, Montagu of Boughton took his seat in the House on 10 May, after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days prior to the September adjournment. On 19 July he was named to the committees considering the bills for poll money and for confirming judicial proceedings and on 23 July to the committee examining the bill for John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester. On 9 Aug. Montagu was granted leave of absence on account of poor health after which he was absent from the House for the remainder of the Convention.</p><p>Montagu returned for the opening of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661. Three days later, along with his Northamptonshire neighbour, Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, he introduced another fellow countryman, John Crew*, as Baron Crew. Named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions, on 17 May he was also named to the committee considering the bill for Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset. Montagu was nominated to a further three committees before again being granted leave of absence on 11 June. Having sat on just one more day (13 June) he then absented himself from the House for the remainder of the session having attended just 12 per cent of all sitting days. At a call of the House of 25 Nov. 1661 he was noted as having entered a proxy, but the proxy book for this date is missing.</p><p>Montagu was sick in June 1662, and he was again excused at a call of the House on the grounds of ill health on 23 Feb. 1663.<sup>18</sup> He rallied sufficiently to offer cautious support for Christopher Hatton*, later Viscount Hatton, at a by-election in Northampton the following month, and he was sufficiently well to resume his place midway through the second session on 11 May.<sup>19</sup> Four days later he was present at a dinner attended by his brother, William, and cousin, Sandwich, where the conversation was dominated by the recent brouhaha at a party hosted by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford.<sup>20</sup> Despite this, Montagu’s attendance in the session was limited to just 12 days, during which time he was named to no committees. Montagu’s disinclination to involve himself with the court or Parliament appears to have been as much a matter of principle as of poor health. He disapproved strongly of his two sons, Edward and Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, both of whom were competing for offices at court.<sup>21</sup> Nevertheless, he was not averse to campaigning in his own interests. In September 1663 he wrote to Dorset, one of the commissioners assessing the peers, to request that he not be assessed according to the rates from his father’s time, explaining that ‘I have £1,500 a year lesser than my father had’ as a result of the loss of an annuity enjoyed by his father in right of his wife, and provision of a £1,000 annuity for his brother, William Montagu.<sup>22</sup> Montagu’s complaint was heard before the commissioners, but no immediate action was taken.<sup>23</sup> Concerned that he was being ‘unkindly dealt with’ by his fellow peers, Montagu appears to have turned for support to his cousin, Sandwich. Montagu’s appeal reached the king’s attention as a result of which Sir Henry Bennet*, (later earl of Arlington), told Montagu that the king regarded his being rated beyond his means as an ‘act of malice’ and assured him that the situation would be remedied.<sup>24</sup> When the king reneged on his promises, fearful of ‘introducing a precedent that would have been of very ill consequence’, he assured Montagu that ‘care shall be taken of you’ in the following two subsidies.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Perhaps disappointed at his experience, Montagu failed to attend the House for the ensuing six sessions. Excused at a call on 4 Apr. 1664, the following month he was again said to be ‘sick in the country’; his condition was not alleviated by the news that his eldest son, Edward Montagu, had been ordered from court in disgrace.<sup>26</sup> Disgusted with the immorality of court life, Montagu determined not to send the traditional New Year’s present to the king, a gesture that was met with dismay by his relative Montagu Lane who attempted to alter his resolution:</p><blockquote><p>I make it my humble request that your lordship will be pleased not to omit the presenting one this year (though you never do it more) in regards your honour has been so long absent from the Parliament, and your son under some disfavour at court: least it be thought at court that your lordship does forebear presenting one now out of a sullen or discontented mind.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>A year later, Montagu was still plagued with difficulties resulting from his children’s behaviour, though this time the culprit was his second son, Ralph, about whose ‘undutiful carriage towards me’ he complained to his kinsman, Henry Hyde*, styled Lord Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon) in a long letter of December 1665.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Montagu was excused once more at a call of the House on 1 Oct. 1666. His absence did not prevent him from retaining an interest in family affairs, and on 16 Nov. he wrote to his sister, Lady Rutland, to encourage her to consider seriously the match then in train between Lady Dorothy Manners and Francis Brudenell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Brudenell.<sup>29</sup> The following year, on 29 Oct. 1667, he was again excused at a call on the grounds of poor health, and a few days later he finally got around to registering a proxy to cover his extended absence, employing his kinsman, Montagu Lane, to retrieve the appropriate form from the clerk of Parliaments. On 11 Nov. 1667 the proxy was duly registered with his cousin, Manchester, and vacated only by the close of the session.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Although Montagu retained his distance from Parliament, he was unable (or unwilling) to escape the draw of political life completely, and he appears to have hosted a number of gatherings at Boughton in the intervening period. One correspondent noted how ‘all the great persons I think come to Boughton to see your lordship for truly I hear of none else of our country lords that entertains them.’<sup>31</sup> Missing again at a call of 26 Oct. 1669, when it was noted that he was travelling to London, Montagu eventually resumed his seat three days later on 29 October. For all his entertaining in the intervening years, Montagu appears to have made little impact in the House, and although he was present on 72 per cent of all sitting days, it was not until 10 Dec. that he was finally named to a committee. When the session closed the following day, Montagu was again absent.</p><p>At about this time Montagu was embarrassed by a series of incidents involving a distant relation, Francis Lane, who appears to have been mentally unstable. Lane declared publicly that his own mother was Montagu’s mistress, and that Montagu himself was ‘an enemy to the king’ and of ‘very mean extraction.’ Rehearsing the story of Richard Ladde, Lane did not confine himself to Montagu but proceeded to slander the entire family accusing Sandwich of being a coward and that, ‘he hoped he should see in a short time never a Montagu in England have their head upon their shoulders.’ Montagu appears to have displayed unusual patience in the face of Lane’s fulminations, which must have been particularly galling as Lane appears to have made formal statements both to Arlington and Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Montagu was again excused at a call of the House on 21 Feb. 1670. He resumed his seat a few weeks later, on 10 Mar. but was present on less than ten per cent of all sitting days in the session. His indifferent level of attendance did not prevent him from receiving the proxy of Robert Rich*, 2nd earl of Holland, on 14 Mar., which was vacated on 1 April. On 15 Mar. he was named to the committee considering an act to enable Anthony Ashley Cooper*, styled Lord Ashley (later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury), to acknowledge fines and suffer recoveries of lands despite being under age. Four days later, Montagu was named to the committee considering the bill enabling his nephew John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to remarry, and on 24 Mar. Montagu was named to the committee examining the bill to prevent the malicious burning of houses. Two days later, he was one of those to enter his protest against the conventicle bill. He was entrusted with a further proxy on 28 Mar., that of his Northamptonshire neighbour, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, but he sat for the last time three days later on 31 Mar. 1670. On 2 Apr. he registered his own proxy (thereby vacating Sunderland’s) with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey.</p><p>For the remaining 14 years of his life Montagu remained absent from the House. On 14 Nov. 1670 he was again excused at a call of the House on account of sickness, with no mention being made of his proxy, still registered with Anglesey, but at a subsequent call of 10 Feb. 1671 the proxy was the reason allowed him for his continued absence. His failure to attend did not mean that he was divorced from politics or society. In April 1671 he seems to have been present at Newmarket, where he was noted among those to have lost money (despite his poor luck on this occasion, horseflesh appears to have been an interest that endured for the remainder of his life).<sup>33</sup> The same month he gave his assent to the passage of the river Wey bill, which was considered in committee on 18 April. In March 1672 he subscribed £100 for the building of a new sessions house in Northampton.<sup>34</sup> Montagu was missing without explanation at a call of 13 Feb. 1673, but Montagu remained jealous of his privileges as a peer. In June 1673 he brought an action of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> against one Hall, a clergyman in one of his livings, who had had the temerity to describe his patron as ‘a scoundrel and a rogue’. Montagu was awarded £1,000 in damages; Hall, unable to pay, committed suicide.<sup>35</sup></p><p>The same year Montagu’s son, Ralph (now heir to the barony following the death of his older brother), married Elizabeth, dowager countess of Northumberland, daughter of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton.<sup>36</sup> It was a match in which Montagu was able to take particular delight, later describing it as ‘a great blessing of God to my family’, and he marked the alliance by settling his estates and a £2,000 annuity on his heir.<sup>37</sup> His efforts to secure a match for his granddaughter (probably one of the daughters of Daniel Harvey<sup>‡</sup> and Montagu’s daughter Elizabeth) with Samuel Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, son of Sir Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, at about the same time were unsuccessful.<sup>38</sup> A far more prestigious alliance with Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, was secured instead, but the marriage proved to be a disaster. Montagu’s daughter, Lady Hervey, engaged in a series of feuds with her new son-in-law, which threatened to engulf Montagu as well.<sup>39</sup> Two years after the marriage Lady Hervey importuned her father, ‘if my Lord Stamford should have the confidence to wait on your lordship, I hope you will be pleased to resent his ingratitude to me so much as to give him but a very cold welcome.’<sup>40</sup></p><p>Montagu was again absent without explanation at a call of 12 Jan. 1674, but the following day he registered his proxy with James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury. The following year, on 10 Apr., he registered his proxy with Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), perhaps in the hopes of furthering a bill which he appears to have been involved in drawing up, which also involved Sir Thomas Leventhorpe and a neighbour, one Bedell, but it is unclear whether the business ever came before the House.<sup>41</sup> Montagu registered the proxy with Danby again on 10 Oct. 1675, which was noted at a call a month later. The following year, always eager to consolidate his own holdings, he petitioned for a grant of Geddington Woods, part of Rockingham Forest, as a private chase.<sup>42</sup> For this he turned once more to Danby for assistance, and through Danby’s offices he was successful.<sup>43</sup> The profits from Geddington Chase thereafter provided Montagu with a further annual income of £150.<sup>44</sup> Danby appears to have used his influence on Montagu’s behalf on more than one occasion, and on 6 Feb. 1677 Montagu entrusted him with his proxy once again.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Montagu received encouragement to return to town from several quarters in 1677, but he continued to avoid court and Parliament and in May he was assessed as ‘vile’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury.<sup>46</sup> He may have been the Edward Montagu approached by the 2nd Baron (later Viscount) Hatton to employ his interest at Stamford in the by-election of February 1678, but if so, he declined to act.<sup>47</sup> On 16 Feb. he was again missing without explanation at a call of the House. Later that year Montagu also came under pressure from his son, Ralph, who hoped that his father would use his influence on his behalf. Eager to steer Montagu away from Danby’s sphere of influence, Ralph informed him that he had found ‘many people very inquisitive why your lordship does not come to town. I wish, if your lordship thinks fit, you would be pleased to send your proxy to my Lord Salisbury, Bedford [William Russell*, 5th earl, later duke, of Bedford], or Wharton, or who else you shall like best.’<sup>48</sup> Despite such appeals, Montagu remained disinclined to exercise his interest either on his son’s behalf in the House of Lords or at Stamford where his brother William Montagu had previously been one of the burgesses.<sup>49</sup> Contrary to his son’s wishes, on 24 May 1678 he entrusted his proxy to Danby once more. Even so, in October when Ralph Montagu stood for Northampton at the by-election triggered by the death of Henry O’Brien<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Ibrackan [I], Montagu did mobilize his interest on his son’s behalf, family loyalty presumably overcoming political scruple. Between them they were said to have spent almost £1,000 on ale in their efforts to secure his election.<sup>50</sup> Despite this, and Montagu’s reputed ‘good interest in the parsons’ in the corporation, there was a double return and the seat was eventually only secured on petition.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Such local activity did not encourage Montagu to return to the House for the new session in October 1678, though he may have registered his proxy with William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby (no record of this survives in the proxy book).<sup>52</sup> He showed no greater inclination to rouse himself for the opening of the new Parliament in 1679 either. Danby assessed him as doubtful but unreliable in an assessment of March or April 1679, correcting this to ‘absent’ in a subsequent forecast. On 12 Mar. Montagu was included in a list of absent peers.<sup>53</sup> His continuing recalcitrance clearly provoked irritation. At Montagu’s request, James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), one of Danby’s kinsmen and associates, undertook to inform the House that he was too sick to attend, but Norreys warned that the Lords would be ‘so strict as to receive no answer but what is sworn by two of your disability of your coming up.’<sup>54</sup> On 22 Mar. two of Montagu’s servants accordingly swore to his being ‘so ill with the flux of blood that he cannot travel to attend this House without danger of his life’ for which his attendance was excused. Despite this, a little under three weeks later Montagu received a letter from the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham) commanding his attendance.<sup>55</sup> On this occasion his continuing absence was excused only (according to his brother William Montagu) ‘by the favour and kindness of Lord Halifax [George Savile*, Viscount, later marquess of, Halifax], and our three countrymen, lords Peterborough [Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough], Rockingham and Hatton.’ Even with their intervention it required William Montagu himself to remind the clerks to record the excuse in the minutes.<sup>56</sup> Montagu received a further message requiring his attendance in the House in November 1680 but he remained unmoved.<sup>57</sup> Reports of his demise had circulated the previous month and his unfitness to attend was attested once again by two of his servants.<sup>58</sup> The same month he was listed among those absent from the divisions on the Exclusion bill.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Montagu was forced back into the forefront of politics in December 1681 with his election as recorder of Northampton.<sup>60</sup> The election had little to do with Montagu himself, who presumably remained in an enfeebled condition. The driving force behind his nomination was his son, Ralph Montagu, who hoped to secure a pliant corporation sympathetic to his ambition for the parliamentary seat.<sup>61</sup> The scheme split the corporation, and the plan further misfired when the king refused to endorse Montagu as recorder.<sup>62</sup> In July 1682 he was replaced by Peterborough.<sup>63</sup> Despite this setback, Montagu himself seems not to have been tarnished by the affair, and in December 1682 he was still able to rely upon the interest of the new lord treasurer, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Montagu played no further role in politics, and for the final year of his life he was left in moderate peace. He died in January 1684, according to one source of a sore throat that had proved ‘very fatal to several of the men of quality’ at that time.<sup>65</sup> Another queried whether the decision of his son, Ralph Montagu, to enclose Barnwell and demolish the castle there ‘did any ways hasten his death.’<sup>66</sup> In his will Montagu made a series of modest bequests and otherwise merely confirmed the ‘bountiful portion’ he had provided for his daughter, Lady Hervey, at her marriage and the settlement of most of his estate on his heir. He was buried at Weekley and succeeded in the barony by Ralph Montagu as 3rd Baron Montagu of Boughton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MONTAGU, Edward (1625-72) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1625–72)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>12 July 1660 earl of SANDWICH |
|
First sat 26 July 1660; last sat 22 Apr. 1671 |
|
MP Hunts. by 13 Oct. 1645, 1653, 1654, 1656-10 Dec. 1657; Dover 23 Apr.-12 July 1660 |
<p><em>b</em>. 27 July 1625, 2nd and o. surv. s. of Sir Sidney Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, of Hinchingbrooke, Hunts. and Paulina (<em>d</em>. 17 Sept. 1638), da. of John Pepys of Cottenham, Cambs. <em>educ</em>. Huntingdon g.s., M. Temple 1635. <em>m</em>. 7 Nov. 1642 Jemima (1625-74), da. of John Crew*, later Bar. Crew, of Steane, Northants., 6s., 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 25 Sept. 1644; KG 1660. <em>d</em>. 28 May 1672; <em>will</em> 21 Nov. 1669, pr. 7 Sept. 1672.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr., army cttee. 1645; treasurer-at-war 1646, 1647; cllr. of state 1653-9, Feb.-May 1660,<sup>2</sup> pres. Nov.-Dec. 1653; commr. customs 1653,<sup>3</sup> foreign affairs 1653,<sup>4</sup> treasury 1654-9, June-Sept. 1660, trade 1655-7, 1660-68, 1669-<em>d</em>., Admiralty 1655-9, Mar.-July 1660, sale of Dunkirk 1662,<sup>5</sup> Tangier 1662,<sup>6</sup> appeals for prizes 1666;<sup>7</sup> co-patentee of ballastage 1657-8; PC 14 June 1660-<em>d</em>.; master, Great Wardrobe 1660- 70, king’s swans 1661-<em>d</em>.; clerk, privy seal 1660-<em>d</em>.; register, ct. of requests 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>8</sup> pres., Council of Plantations 1670-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. eastern assoc. 1643; New Model ordinance, Hunts. 1645, militia, Hunts. Mar. 1660, swans, Beds., Hunts. and Cambs. 1661;<sup>9</sup> dep. lt., Hunts. 1643-60; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>., Hunts. 1653-9, 1660-<em>d</em>.; freeman, Dover 1660, Portsmouth 1661; ld. lt., Hunts. (jt.) 1660-71, (sole) 1671-<em>d</em>.; bailiff, Whittlesea Mere 1661;<sup>10</sup> recorder, Huntingdon 1663-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col., regt. of ft. (Parl.) 1643-5, of horse Sept. 1658-Aug. 1659; Apr.-Nov. 1660;<sup>11</sup> gov. Henley-on-Thames, Jan.-Mar. 1645; general-at-sea (jt.) 1656-9, (sole) Feb.-May 1660; lt.-adm. and capt.-gen. of the Narrow Seas 1660-<em>d</em>.; adm. 1661-<em>d</em>., c.-in-c. of fleet July-Sept. 1665.</p><p>Plenip. The Sound, Denmark Mar.-Sept. 1659; amb. extraordinary Portugal June 1661-May 1662, Apr.-May 1666, Jan.-Mar. 1668, Spain 1666-8.</p><p>Elder bro., Trinity House 1660-<em>d</em>., warden Nov. 1660-61, master, 1661-2; mbr., R. Adventurers into Africa 1660, asst. 1664-6, 1669-71, R. Fishing Co. 1664; FRS 1661, council 1668.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1655-9, NPG 5488; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1666, NMM BHC3007; oil on canvas aft. Sir P. Lely, 1668, Govt. Art Collection; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1670, Yale Univ. Cent. for Brit. Art.</p> |
<h2><em>Long Parliament and Protectorate, 1645-59</em></h2><p>Edward Montagu’s father, a younger brother of Edward Montagu<sup>†</sup>, Baron Montagu of Boughton, and Henry Montagu<sup>†</sup>, earl of Manchester, served as a master of requests and a groom of the bedchamber to James I, and in 1627 purchased the former nunnery of Hinchingbrooke outside the town of Huntingdon.<sup>13</sup> During the first Civil War, Edward turned against his father’s royalist inclinations and joined with his father-in-law, John Crew, his brother-in-law Sir Gilbert Pickering<sup>‡</sup>, his first cousin Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and most notably his Huntingdonshire neighbour Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, in supporting Parliament. From as early as June 1643 he was made a deputy-lieutenant of the county and once he had passed his eighteenth birthday that year he was made a colonel of his own regiment of foot in the army of the Eastern Association commanded by Manchester. He and his regiment saw action at Marston Moor, the second battle of Newbury and Naseby. In the conflict between Manchester and Cromwell, Montagu firmly sided with Cromwell, which may help explain the favour he received from that quarter in later years. Montagu retired from military service when he was returned to Parliament for his late father’s seat of Huntingdonshire in 1645. He was at the heart of Parliament’s government of that county, both militarily and administratively, throughout the Civil War. Although he was not secluded at Pride’s Purge, he retired from national politics, but returned to public life when his friend Cromwell appointed him to the Huntingdonshire seat in the Nominated Parliament of 1653.</p><p>He quickly became one of the pillars of the Protectoral regime of Oliver and his son Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, serving on the council of state and in a number of influential roles, both nationally and locally.<sup>14</sup> He sat in all the Protectorate Parliaments, and was summoned to Cromwell’s ‘Other House’ in December 1657 as Baron Montagu. In 1656 he was first appointed joint general-at-sea with Robert Blake<sup>‡</sup> and then, having distinguished himself in his naval responsibilities, was in early 1659 sent to negotiate a peace between Sweden and Denmark. After the deposition of Richard Cromwell, he found himself at odds with the restored Rump government, which sent two commissioners to Montagu’s fleet stationed in the Baltic. This was ostensibly to help the admiral in his negotiations, but in reality to keep an eye on him, as he was suspected (most likely accurately) of being in touch with royalist agents. Montagu was deprived of all his posts and military commands when he prematurely brought the fleet back to England in late August 1659, suspiciously coinciding with the outbreak of the royalist rising of that summer.</p><h2><em>Restoration, 1660</em></h2><p>He did not re-emerge from his enforced retirement until the Members secluded at Pride’s Purge were readmitted and the Long Parliament reconvened. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> welcomed this development, as now his master, employer and cousin Montagu (whose mother was a Pepys) and Montagu’s father-in-law John Crew ‘are likely to be great men’.<sup>15</sup> On 21 Feb. Montagu was elected a member of the newly-established council of state and on 2 Mar. was made a commissioner of the Admiralty and general-at-sea, in which he was joined by George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle.<sup>16</sup> On that same day he attended a dinner at his cousin Manchester’s house, accompanied by another Montagu kinsman, Sir Dudley North*, later 4th Baron North, and others, where plans for a conditional restoration of the king may have been made<strong>.</strong><sup>17</sup> From this time at least Montagu was in regular but secret communication with the exiled royalist court, and on almost familiar epistolary terms with both Charles II and James*, duke of York. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, in particular recognized Montagu’s importance for any future restoration of the Stuarts and encouraged this contact.<sup>18</sup> Montagu later told Pepys that he had converted to the cause of bringing back the king during the time of his mission to the Sound when, with his every move being watched ‘he found what usage he was likely to have from a Commonwealth’, but he also attributed his change of heart to a sense of gratitude to the Stuarts for the favour James I had shown his father.<sup>19</sup> Montagu was deputized by the council of state (and perhaps informally by Hyde) to oversee the elections to the Convention in the Cinque Ports, where he pushed forward the candidacy, first at Hastings and then at Sandwich, of his cousin Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, the intermediary in his correspondence with the exiled court. Montagu himself was returned for both Dover and Weymouth, choosing to sit for the former (where he was also made a freeman).<sup>20</sup> He was, however, hardly in the Commons at all, as from late April he was readying the fleet to sail to the Netherlands to fetch Charles II back to England. Even on board ship, though, he kept his eye on politics in London. In a discussion with Pepys on 29 Apr. he showed that he was distancing himself from the Presbyterian party to which he had formerly been so attached. He told Pepys that:</p><blockquote><p>the Presbyterians are quite mastered by the Cavaliers and he did fear Mr Crew did go a little too far the other day in keeping out the young Lords from sitting [in the House of Lords]. That he doth expect that the King should be brought over suddenly, without staying to make any terms at all, saying that the Presbyters did intend to have brought him in with such conditions as if he had been in chains. But he shook his shoulders when he told me how [George] Monck had betrayed them [Montagu and Crew], for it was he that did put them upon standing to keep out the Lords and the other Members [of the Commons] that came not within the Qualifications - which he did not like; but however, he hath done his business, though it be with some kind of baseness.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Montagu acted as a protector for his father-in-law Crew, and did procure a favourable letter from the king, ‘but my Lord tells me that he is afeared that [Crew] hath too much concerned himself with the Presbyterians against the House of Lords – which will do him a great discourtesy’. Montagu was also willing ‘to do all the honour in the world to Monck and to let him have all the honour’ of the restoration of the king, ‘though he will many times express his thoughts of him to be but a thick-skulled fellow’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Montagu returned from the Netherlands with the restored king on 25 May 1660 and was promptly showered with honours. The following day he was made a knight of the garter; he also received a letter from Hyde informing him that he was to be raised to the peerage and enquiring by what title he wished to be known.<sup>23</sup> The patent creating him Viscount Hinchingbrooke and earl of Sandwich was formally sealed on 12 July, with an additional grant of £4,000 p.a., paid to him by fee farm rents, to maintain the dignity of his title. He had already been given other positions of responsibility and potential wealth throughout June, being made a privy councillor, a commissioner of the treasury and master of the great wardrobe, which latter role provided him with an office and accommodation in the capital (though destroyed in the Fire of 1666).<sup>24</sup> Sandwich was also appointed a commissioner on the council of trade and master of the king’s swans. Other honours were bestowed on him over the next few years. Locally, he was in the autumn of 1660 made <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> and joint lord lieutenant, with his cousin Manchester, of Huntingdonshire, and he continued to hold other offices and commissions in Huntingdonshire and East Anglia in general. Most importantly, he remained an officer in the navy, and as such was occupied throughout much of 1660-1 with conveying members of the extended royal family back and forth between England and the continent. In March 1661, in recognition of these duties, he was commissioned, under the new lord high admiral the duke of York, lieutenant-admiral and captain-general of the Narrow Seas. From June 1661 to May 1662 he served as ambassador extraordinary to Portugal, entrusted with seeing through the final stages of the treaty with Portugal, formally taking possession of England’s new north African base of Tangier, and escorting the new queen, Catherine of Braganza, to England.<sup>25</sup></p><h2><em>First years of Charles II, 1660-65</em></h2><p>Owing to these duties he only sat in the House for a total of 26 sitting days in the Convention from the time of his introduction there on 26 July. He sat for only 15 meetings prior to the September adjournment and was not nominated to a single select committee. On 14 Aug. he was granted permission to leave the House and registered his proxy with Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, who held it until the last day of the month when Sandwich returned for two days prior to the adjournment on 13 September. In early October Sandwich sat as a commissioner of oyer and terminer at the trials of the regicides at the Old Bailey alongside the lord mayor, Albemarle (as Monck had become) and ‘such a bench of noblemen as hath not been ever seen in England’.<sup>26</sup> The earl then attended 11 sittings in November and December, where he was nominated to a committee on a private bill, his only committee nomination in the Lords throughout the Convention.</p><p>He came to only 15 sittings at the very beginning of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in May 1661 and left the House on 11 June, when he was given leave by the House to be absent, ‘he being to go to sea upon his Majesty’s service’. He registered his proxy with Albemarle.<sup>27</sup> From that time he was abroad on ambassadorial duties in Portugal. On his return from his mission, Sandwich attended 39 per cent of the meetings of the 1663 session, largely from May, and was named to eight select committees. On 18 May he was added to the committee for the bill for the highways in Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire and, with his local knowledge, quickly took over the chairmanship of the committee, as he reported the amended bill from committee two days later. He was also appointed to the committees considering, among other matters, the bills to grant the post office and wine licenses revenues to the duke of York (9 July), to clarify the bill to provide money for former royalist officers (18 July), for settling the militia (18 July), and to amend the Act of Uniformity to provide relief for those ministers who had not taken the oaths in time (24 July). On 24 July he reported from the committee he had chaired earlier that day on the bill for regulating the herring and other fisheries, whose title the House saw fit to enlarge before passing.<sup>28</sup> He attended all but one of the sittings of the 1664 session, which saw the highest attendance level of his career. He was named to seven committees considering such legislation as the bills to transport felons (29 Mar.), to preserve naval stores (18 Apr.), to prevent gaming (21 Apr.) and for regulating the press (10 May), and on 10 May he also reported from the committee on the bill to prevent the delivering up of merchant ships.</p><p>Sandwich’s views on most of the pressing issues in Parliament of the time are hard to determine. On 16 May 1662 he wrote to Clarendon from Portsmouth, where he had just returned from his Portuguese embassy, informing him that with ‘una voce’ the commanders and sailors under his command, whom he sought to represent, were upset by a measure recently passed in Parliament which he claimed took away the benefits of the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion from those in naval service, while those in the land forces remained secure.<sup>29</sup> Sandwich appears to have seen religious uniformity as a necessary condition for social order. As early as 15 May 1660 Pepys discoursed with his master about religion and found him ‘wholly sceptical ... saying that indeed the Protestants as to the Church of Rome are wholly fanatics. He likes uniformity and form of prayer’. In subsequent discussions in October 1660, Pepys found Sandwich ‘grown a man very indifferent in all matters of Religion’ and ‘a perfect sceptic’, who ‘said that all things would not be well while there was so much preaching, and that it would be better if nothing but Homilies were to be read in churches’. The admiral in general appears to have removed himself from dealing with the religious issues which convulsed Parliament but in August 1662, after the Act of Uniformity had been passed, he and Pepys agreed that ‘the discontents of the times … would not come to anything of difference, though the presbyters would be glad enough of it; but we do not think Religion will so soon cause another war’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On military and diplomatic matters he was more active and his views more clear. Sandwich was sent to Portugal in 1661 because he had long, from the time of his first cruise with Blake in 1656, advocated the necessity of a permanent English base in the Mediterranean and he thus supported the treaty with Portugal and England’s possession of Tangier. From October 1662 he was one of the original members of the Tangiers committee and for the next several years he continued to receive regular dispatches from the African port informing him of the condition of the garrison there and the efforts to build the mole to harbour English ships.<sup>31</sup> In these concerns his views matched those of Clarendon. The two men were very close and acted as political allies, despite their vastly different experiences of the Civil War. Sandwich also supported the lord chancellor in his controversial decision to sell Dunkirk and in October 1662 Sandwich was, at Clarendon’s request, made one of the commissioners to negotiate with the French for the sale of the garrison.<sup>32</sup> He made clear to Pepys his own views on the matter, opining that ‘he wonders any wise people should be so troubled thereat, and scorns all their talk against it, for that he says it was not Dunkirk, but the other places, that did and would annoy us, though we had that, as much as if we had it not’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>As early as June 1662 Sandwich was becoming enmeshed in the rivalries and factions then emerging at court. He felt that York, the lord high admiral, sought to keep him out of naval command and that he was aided in this by his secretary Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, whom Sandwich considered ‘his greatest obstacle’ Sandwich’s rivalry with both York and Coventry was to becoming a recurring theme in his conversations with Pepys, which put the latter in a difficult situation as he was at the same time becoming closer to the duke and his secretary, which may have led to the slow but steady cooling of relations between Pepys and his cousin Sandwich. In a conversation with Pepys of 27 Oct. 1662, Sandwich also first ‘took notice of’ the new secretary of state, Sir Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, and by April 1663 Sandwich felt that his patron the lord chancellor was ‘irrecoverably lost’ under the constant attacks of his enemies, such as Bennet and Coventry. He emphasized to Pepys that ‘he will not actually join in anything against the chancellor, whom he doth own to be his most sure friend and to have been his greatest, and therefore will not openly act in either, but passively carry himself even’.<sup>34</sup> Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, not surprisingly forecast that Sandwich would oppose the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon in the House on 10 July. Sandwich’s later actions bore out this assessment. As Sandwich pointed out to Pepys in November 1663, since the time the impeachment articles had been brought up, he was</p><blockquote><p>the only man that hath several times dined with him [Clarendon] when no soul hath come to him, and went with him that very day home when the earl impeached him in the Parliament House, and hath refused ever to pay a visit to my Lord of Bristol, not so much as in return to a visit of his. So that the Chancellor and my Lord are well known and trusted one by another.<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>This relationship, though, was increasingly complicated by Sandwich’s growing friendship with Bennet. In April 1663, at the same time he was lamenting the growing attacks against the lord chancellor, Sandwich was making approaches to the increasingly influential secretary of state, even presenting him with a gold cup worth £100 (which Bennet refused). In July 1664 he told Pepys that he considered Bennet a good friend and patron, and that ‘though they were always kind, yet now it is become to an acquaintance and familiarity above ordinary; that for these months he [Bennet] hath done no business but with my Lord’s [Sandwich’s] advice in his chamber; and promises all faithful love to him, and service upon all occasions’. Sandwich was tentative in knowing how to act with both Bennet and Clarendon:</p><blockquote><p>in case there doth lie anything under the embers about my Lord Bristol, which nobody can tell. For then…I must appear for one or the other, and I will lose all I have in the world rather than desert my lord chancellor, so that I know not for my life what to do in that case.<sup>36</sup></p></blockquote><p>Clarendon for his part later gave Sandwich a glowing profile in the ‘Continuation’ of his autobiography:</p><blockquote><p>He was a gentleman of so excellent a temper and behaviour that he could make himself no enemies; of so many good qualities and so easy to live with, that he marvellously reconciled the minds of all men to him, who had not intimacy enough with him to admire his other parts ... They who had constantly followed the King while he as constantly adhered to Cromwell, and knew not how early he had entertained repentance, and with what hazards and dangers he had manifested it, did believe the King had been too prodigal in heaping so many honours upon him. And they who had been familiar with him and of the same party, and thought they had been as active as he in contributing to the revolution, considered him with some anger, as one who had better luck than they without merit, and who had made early conditions. When in truth no man in the Kingdom had been less guilty of that address; nor did he ever contribute to any advancement to which he arrived, by the least intimation or insinuation that he wished it, or that it would be acceptable to him.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>The Anglo-Dutch War, 1665-8</em></h2><p>This character sketch was written during Clarendon’s exile after 1668 and was framed principally to defend Sandwich from the many attacks upon his character that arose from his actions in the first summer of fighting in the Anglo-Dutch War. The conflict and its preparations brought many of Sandwich’s simmering rivalries at court into the open. Initially York, as lord high admiral, did not want Sandwich involved in naval command at all, fearing the rivalry of the more experienced seaman, and convoluted negotiations had to be undertaken between Sandwich’s and York’s private secretaries, Pepys and Coventry respectively, to finalize Sandwich’s agreement to serve under York as admiral of the Blue Squadron.<sup>38</sup> For the parliamentary session of 1664-5, Sandwich assigned his proxy on 26 Nov. 1664 to another of Clarendon’s followers, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, and came to a total of four meetings at the turn of March 1665. Shortly thereafter he rejoined the fleet and distinguished himself for his bravery and skill at the battle of Lowestoft on 3 June when his ship broke through the Dutch line. His good friend John Evelyn remembered later, ‘his own ship was pierced like a collander’. However the official account of the battle compiled by Coventry barely mentioned Sandwich’s role and instead heaped all the praise on York and Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, a matter which further alienated Sandwich from Coventry.<sup>39</sup> In early July, however, Sandwich was placed in overall command of the fleet after the king had removed York from his post out of fears for the safety of the royal succession. The glory of Lowestoft was quickly obscured by the humiliation of the attack on Bergen, when a portion of Sandwich’s fleet tried unsuccessfully to capture a fleet of Dutch merchantmen sheltering in the Norwegian harbour. Sandwich himself was not in command of the squadron engaged in this action, but he was nevertheless blamed for its failure.</p><p>Returning from the Baltic in early September Sandwich was able to capture in the North Sea a number of Dutch men-of-war and merchant vessels separated from their convoy by a storm, including two richly-laded East India merchantmen. Early reports of the action considered it an auspicious omen for the Parliament shortly to meet at Oxford. Such optimism, though, quickly gave way to controversy upon his arrival ashore when it transpired that Sandwich and several of his fellow officers had embezzled a large proportion of the cargo of these merchant ships, prize goods which should have been apportioned by the parliamentary committee set up for that purpose. Sandwich was later able to procure royal warrants after the fact allowing this division of the goods among the flag officers.<sup>40</sup> At the time, though, Parliament and the public were shocked by this example of embezzlement among officers who had signally failed to make great gains against the enemy during that summer’s campaign. Pepys had to admit to Sandwich that ‘nothing in all my life ever went so near my heart, as the apprehensions of the dishonour threatened to your Lordship by several that I have understood are concerned in the inquisitions now on foot’.<sup>41</sup> To salvage his reputation at court, where Clarendon’s enemies in particular were speaking out against him, Sandwich left the fleet and arrived at Oxford on 7 Oct., in time to attend the House for seven of the meetings of the session of October 1665, where he was named to three select committees – on the bills for uniting churches in cities (11 Oct.), for speedier proceedings in cases of distresses for rent (13 Oct.), and to take away damage clear (17 October). His arrival at Oxford only further exacerbated his troubles, as he was now accused of abandoning the fleet and his responsibilities there, although Clarendon’s speech on 11 Oct. the first day of the session, tried to counter this impression by arguing that Sandwich ‘by Tempest, and other Reasons, which no Wisdom of his could prevent, [was] obliged to put into our own Harbours’. Nevertheless, Sandwich later still considered Clarendon’s speech oddly cold and unsupportive.<sup>42</sup> During the session the Commons brought in a bill which would have made it a felony to ‘break bulk’ on a prize ship, which Pepys deemed ‘a foolish act and will do no great matter – only, is calculated to my Lord Sandwich’s case’. According to Pepys, some members aimed to insult the admiral further by awarding him a mere half a crown for his services in the summer, contrasted to the £10,000 to be given to Rupert. Hearing that the Dutch were threatening to block the Channel, Sandwich rushed back to the fleet on 23 October.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Before embarking Sandwich had a meeting with Pepys in which he set out his views on the factional politics of the time and his place in them. He claimed that the court was divided between ‘the king’s party’ and that of the duke of York, and that the king favoured Sandwich to keep him on his side against York’s faction. Sandwich again named Coventry foremost among his enemies, despite Pepys’s protestations. Among his supporters and allies, he now included Rupert (‘in appearance kind’ according to Pepys) and Bennet, now Baron (later earl of) Arlington, ‘his fast friend’ by Sandwich’s reckoning and ‘firm to my Lord’ in Pepys’s view. His growing closeness with Arlington Sandwich feared was alienating him from Clarendon, who he thought was growing cold to him, though Pepys thought the lord chancellor was also still ‘firm’ to the earl.<sup>44</sup></p><p>In December 1665, to remove him from the line of fire, Sandwich was appointed ambassador extraordinary to Madrid, ‘to go with all speed away’. Pepys was in no doubt as to the politics behind this move – ‘his enemies have done him as much good as he could wish’. In preparation for his absence, in January 1666 Sandwich felt it necessary to request a royal pardon for all offences for which he and his officers could be charged by the court of exchequer or the commissioners of prizes. The pardon was still going through the necessary channels in October of that year, despite its active promotion by both Clarendon and Arlington.<sup>45</sup> Shortly before his departure in late February Sandwich had a final meeting with Pepys in which he once again laid out his position in the factional politics of the period, with a view that Pepys would maintain his interest during his absence. He left, he told Pepys, ‘fully assured of the king’s favour’ and listed his ‘friends’ whom Pepys could ‘trust to’ and that ‘he may rely on’ in his absence. Among the Members of the Commons were Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I] (‘his father almost in affection’); Hon. William Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, a kinsman and attorney-general for the queen consort; Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford and lord treasurer; and Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup>, bt., vice-chamberlain of the household, treasurer of the Navy and father-in-law of Pepys’s daughter Paulina. Among his peers in the House Sandwich listed Arlington; James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk; Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, the lord treasurer; and Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury. Sandwich told Pepys that Clarendon still</p><blockquote><p>seems his very good friend, but doubts that he may not think him as much a servant to the duke of York’s as he would have him; and indeed my Lord tells me he hath lately made it his business to be seen studious of the King’s favour, and not of the duke’s, and by the King will stand or fall – for factions there are, as he tells me, and God know how high they may come.</p></blockquote><p>As for York himself, Sandwich expressed a concern that he was assuming too much power to himself, especially in the military, at the expense of Albemarle. In this complicated and shifting political state, Sandwich left England, telling Pepys with foresight that ‘he fears there will be some very great revolutions before his coming back again’<sup>46</sup></p><p>Over the next two and half years until his return to the king on 11 Oct. 1668 Sandwich was absent in Spain, where he negotiated a commercial treaty, mediated a peace between the warring neighbours Portugal and Spain, and examined the fortifications of Tangier in order to make a report on its condition to the king. Throughout this long absence dispatches, sent at least weekly from Arlington, and less frequently from Carteret and even Coventry, kept him abreast of events in England, such as the naval campaigns of the summer of 1666, the Great Fire, the calamitous reverses of 1667 in the war, and the impeachment and eventual exile of his old friend Clarendon.<sup>47</sup> Throughout 1667 his connection with Clarendon was only strengthened by the lord chancellor’s role, in tandem with Carteret, in the negotiations for the marriage of Sandwich’s son and heir Edward Montagu*, styled Lord Hinchingbrooke, later 2nd earl of Sandwich, to Lady Anne Boyle, a daughter of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington (and 2nd earl of Cork [I]), who was already strongly allied both politically and by marriage to Clarendon and was also brother to Sandwich’s ‘friend’ Orrery.<sup>48</sup> The marriage was celebrated in Sandwich’s absence in January 1668, shortly after Clarendon had fled the country in the face of the impeachment against him. One of the articles of impeachment against the lord treasurer concerned the sale of Dunkirk, in which Sandwich had been so closely involved, although the charge did not specifically name or target him.</p><p>Nevertheless, even while far away in Spain, Sandwich fell afoul of the general campaign against Clarendon’s followers conducted by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in the months after the lord chancellor’s fall and he continued to be the target of parliamentary attacks. In the days before Parliament resumed in February 1668 Sandwich’s cousin Hon. George Montagu<sup>‡</sup> warned him not to think of returning, for his own safety, and three days after Parliament was prorogued on 9 May, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, informed Sandwich that his name had been ‘much upon the carpet’ in the Commons.<sup>49</sup> Sandwich’s involvement in the prize goods affair was raised frequently throughout 1668, and after many weeks of debate on 24 Apr. the Commons presented articles of impeachment against Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup>, one of the vice-admirals whom Sandwich had reputedly authorized to break into the bulks of the East India merchant ships. Sandwich’s friends in Westminster, such as Thomas Clifford in the Commons, Peterborough in the Lords, and Sandwich’s own servant John Creed, saw clearly that this was an indirect attack on Sandwich – some of the Members of the Commons were calling for the ambassador’s recall – and hastened to reassure Sandwich in Spain that his friends, and the king in particular, were standing firm to him. Sandwich’s involvement in the prize goods affair was also considered by the commissioners of accounts established in 1668 and meeting at Brooke House, a body which Sandwich later considered a tool of his enemy Buckingham, ‘wherewith he hoped to crush all that join not with him’.<sup>50</sup> There had long been bad feeling between Sandwich and Buckingham, dating back to March 1661 when Sandwich had come close to challenging him to a duel after Buckingham had cheated him in a game of cards, and perhaps exacerbated by Buckingham’s failure to call on Sandwich while staying in Huntingdon en route to York.<sup>51</sup> After Sandwich returned from Spain in late 1668 the commissioners of Brooke House directed their attention to him and hounded him for the copies of the warrants he was supposed to have given to his officers. From June 1669 he made careful records in his journal of his correspondence with the commissioners, and the many excuses he used to avoid sending them copies of these controversial documents.<sup>52</sup></p><h2><em>Last (active) years, 1669-72</em></h2><p>To this point Sandwich had not been a prominent figure in the House, even when not otherwise occupied with naval or ambassadorial affairs. Pepys’s description of Sandwich’s presentation before the Tangier committee on 9 Nov. 1668, that ‘ he did it with a mine [i.e. mien] so low and mean, and delivered in so poor a manner, that it appeared nothing at all, nor anybody seemed to value it’, may suggest why Sandwich maintained a low profile in the House, preferring to be at sea rather than in the debating chamber.<sup>53</sup> Yet from the time of his return from the Spanish embassy, Sandwich began to attend the House more assiduously and took a greater role in its business, perhaps to defend his reputation. He came to three-quarters of the sittings in the session of winter 1669 and came to almost as high a percentage in the following session of 1670-1. For both these sessions he kept a journal detailing the significant debates and other proceedings he witnessed in the House. </p><p>At this time Sandwich was also becoming more involved and interested in issues surrounding trade, the national economy and the American colonies. He had been appointed to the council of trade from its establishment in November 1660, but was briefly excluded for a few months in 1668-9 when he was out of political favour before being re-appointed to the enlarged council established in April 1669. His journal entries reveal him recording ideas on issues of trade well before his official appointments and his notes for the winter session of 1669 show that he was making careful observation on the proceedings of the committee on the decay of trade, to which he had been appointed on 25 October. He reproduced at length in his journal a detailed analysis of interest rates heard by the committee on 11 November.<sup>54</sup> He also transcribed into his journal the report submitted on 26 Oct. to the House by the Brooke House commissioners on their findings in the affair of the prize goods, which, luckily for him, were largely inconclusive and merely stated that the commissioners had had difficulty getting to the bottom of the matter and requested more time.<sup>55</sup> On 6 Nov. he was assigned, along with most of the rest of the House, to the committee to consider this report: his only committee assignment of the session. Sandwich noted that the Commons’ anger in this report was directed principally against Sir George Carteret and that they used him with ‘exceeding great fury and severity’. On the other hand the Lords treated the Navy treasurer ‘very fairly and civilly’ and that among both the lords and the people Carteret ‘gained much ground and the commissioners an ill opinion of having proceeded with cruelty and injustice’. This, in Sandwich’s analysis, was just one example of the growing conflicts between Lords and Commons that winter, the most signal being the dispute over privilege in the case of <em>Skinner v. East India Company</em>. Sandwich recorded a detailed account of a debate in the House on the Commons’ bill to limit the Lords’ right to hear causes in the first instance.<sup>56</sup></p><p>In his entry on the prorogation of Parliament on 11 Dec. 1669, Sandwich supplied his own analysis of the opposing factions in Parliament, which had brought the session to deadlock. One group were followers of Buckingham, which:</p><blockquote><p>is found not so strong in the House of Commons as was supposed, and only is strong when in point of liberty of conscience, or trade, when the Country gentlemen or the Presbyterians join with them, but they dare not undertake anything alone. His interest in the house of peers I take not to be great. How it is with the king his master, God knows.</p></blockquote><p>In his list of ‘Buckingham’s party that appeared in this session’, Sandwich listed eight Members of the Commons, but only four peers: Bristol, Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire; John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover, and William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington. Against that was the faction centred around James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (who sat in the House as earl of Brecknock), which ‘consists of the duke of York’s friends, the Church, the old Cavaliers, and the Clarendonians’. ‘These two parties have levelled one at the other all this while’, and Buckingham in particular used his ‘great engine’ of the Brooke House Commission, ‘wherewith he hoped to crush all that join not with him and to weaken the other party’, including Sandwich himself. Sandwich thought that after this tumultuous session Ormond’s faction had five goals: ‘to stick unto the present Church government’; ‘to uphold the Cavalier party’; ‘to frame a test without which none should be eligible to Parliament or any place of trust’; ‘to adhere to the duke of Ormond against all opposition’; and ‘to prosecute Lord Orrery as an enemy to the principles aforesaid’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Sandwich continued his high attendance in the following session of 1670-1, coming to 72 per cent of its sitting days and being named to 20 select committees, from two of which he reported with finished legislation: Hammond’s Bill (on 5 Dec.) and the bill against stealing and transporting children (on 18 Mar. 1671). One bill whose committee he was not initially named to, but in which he evidently took a keen interest, was the measure promoted by York ‘for declaring and ascertaining’ the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty’, for Sandwich took detailed notes of the testimony heard before the committee on 28 Mar. 1670.<sup>58</sup> In his notebook he also recorded the proceedings of the opening day of the session, including the principal heads of the king’s speech and the proceedings on the petition of Benjamin Mildmay*, to be recognized as 17th Baron FitzWalter, a matter which seems to have greatly exercised Sandwich and appears frequently in his journal. He also provided a record of the proceedings surrounding the king’s order of 22 Feb. 1670 that all records of the dispute of <em>Skinner v East India Company</em> were to be erased from the Journals of both houses, a decision the Commons were happy to comply with but the Lords, ‘at their return [from the king at Whitehall] showed more discontent in their faces than has ordinarily been seen’. Nevertheless, the House also reluctantly voted to erase the proceedings from their Journal.<sup>59</sup> Many pages of his journal are taken up with a detailed account of the proceedings in March 1670 on the controversial bill to allow John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, later duke of Rutland, to remarry after his divorce from Lady Anne Pierrepont. Sandwich was particularly concerned by this matter as Roos’s mother, and the real force in the Manners family pushing forward the bill, was his cousin Frances, countess of Rutland, a daughter of Baron Montagu of Boughton. He took careful notes of the arguments and speakers in the debates on the bill, and the signatories of the protests against it, and after it passed successfully he wrote to his cousin assuring her that he had done everything he could to promote it. Another Montagu cousin also assured the countess that Sandwich had been ‘most active to assist the bill’. <sup>60</sup> Sandwich made it clear in his journal that he knew full well the real context and import of this bill:</p><blockquote><p>Divers discourse that the king espoused this case of my Lord Roos not only for the justice thereof, but because it was in his intention to put away the Queen for which occasion this would be a profitable precedent. And on the contrary the Queen and Duke [of York] opposed it to the highest as tending to the separation of the one and the cutting off the succession of the other. The Duke therefore by all manner of vigour in the House of Peers, speaking against it, browbeating the favourers of it and almost violently haling out Lords upon the division of the House of Peers, brought it to have one voice more of the Lords present against it (though the proxies over balanced and carried it) and afterward the Duke himself and all the party protested against it; so that the King to save the house from the impetuousness of his brother and to secure the business he wished might succeed and justly ought to do so, renewed the ancient practice of the king’s being present at debates.<sup>61</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sandwich was so intrigued by this recent development – the king’s attendance at the House’s debates – that on 27 Oct. 1670, the second day of business after the session reconvened after the summer recess, he noted that the king ‘came into the House and sat upon the throne for half an hour and retired again’. Sandwich had his opinions of this: ‘I suppose [it was] not for anything his Majesty then designed to transact with his house, but to continue a practice he began last session in my Lord Roos his cause, that it might not seem to have been taken up out of partiality.’ In the last weeks of 1670 he recorded in his journal accounts of the debates on Fitzwalter’s continuing petitions regarding precedence and on the cause of <em>Fry v. Porter</em>, in which Sandwich voted with the minority in favour of the plaintiff.<sup>62</sup></p><p>In late July Sandwich had been sworn in as president of the newly-constituted council of plantations, with a salary of £700 p.a., and his journal shows that he took to his new post with energy, interest, and intelligence, as he interviewed a number of officials on the state of the colonies and their trade with England.<sup>63</sup> He thus took a particular interest in the controversial bill for impositions on foreign produce, and especially the matter of the prohibitive duty the Commons wished to place on refined sugar shipped from the colonies. When the Lords moved to reduce the imposition on this one product, the Commons objected that the Lords were infringing the Commons’ privilege to formulate supply bills, and the bill quickly became another arena for an argument between the two houses over their privileges. Sandwich was named to the committee considering the bill on 29 Mar. 1671 and his lengthy account of its proceedings in his journal makes it clear that his primary concern was colonial and trade policy and that his principal quarrel with the Commons was over their refusal to abate the imposition on refined sugar, rather than constitutional or privilege issues. Before embarking on his campaign for lowering the impost he checked with the king whether he had permission to interfere in a matter which could potentially affect the royal revenue. Charles allowed him to do what he thought best with the bill. Sandwich became the chief spokesman of the Lords in defence of their reduction of the duty, ‘though’, he added in his notes, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), who chaired most of the meetings of the Lords’ select committee on this bill, ‘also was fully of the same mind and did a good part therein’. On 10 Apr. Sandwich was first named one of ten managers for the conference proposed for the following day to discuss both the House’s amendment reducing the imposition and its proposed address to the king on trade. That conference was postponed because of a procedural dispute between the Houses, and it was only on 12 Apr. that Sandwich presented to the House a long set of detailed economic and mercantile arguments defending the Lords’ abatement of the imposition. These reasons were presented to the Commons in conference on that day and Sandwich acted as a manager or reporter for the four increasingly bad-tempered conferences dealing with the bill, and the constitutional and privilege issues surrounding the amendment, which took place between 12 and 22 April. His copy of the arguments presented on 12 Apr. were inserted in his journal, and he also saw fit to keep copies of the Commons’ answer to these from the conference on 15 April. His copious notes on this issue go into great detail about the economic arguments against the duty, and he included in his journal a copy of the West Indian planters’ long set of arguments against the impositions, which he noted were ‘good for information more full, but were too large and not thought apposite enough to oppose to the reasons of the house of Commons’ on the day (22 Apr.) on which Parliament was suddenly prorogued by the king.<sup>64</sup></p><p>With the coming of the third Anglo-Dutch War, Sandwich’s naval skills were called on again and he was made admiral of the Blue Squadron once more. By this time he was excluded from government policy-making. Even though he had commanded the fleet that brought Charles II’s sister ‘Minette’ to Dover in 1670 and fully took part in the festivities surrounding her visit, he appears to have had no suspicions about the true purpose of her visit and the signing of the Treaty of Dover which led to the renewed conflict with the Dutch. Indeed in March 1672 he recorded a conversation with Sir Henry Blount espousing a mercantile union with the States General.<sup>65</sup> He reluctantly took his command, knowing the war to be a mistake, but as he told his good friend John Evelyn, he felt he had to save his reputation after the mauling it had undergone over the prize goods and the aspersions that had been cast on his courage by rivals such as Albemarle. This he did gloriously. He was in the thick of the fighting at Sole (Southwold) Bay on 28 May and was the last on board his flagship the <em>Royal James</em> after it had been set on fire. His body, recognizable from the sash of the Order of the Garter which it still wore, was recovered from the sea days after the battle.</p><p>Sandwich was given a hero’s funeral at Westminster Abbey and the public and his friends quickly lined up to sing his praises. Evelyn depicted him as a Renaissance man: ‘He was learned in the mathematics, in music, in sea affairs, in political; had been in divers embassies, was of a sweet obliging temper, sober, chaste, infinitely ingenious and a true nobleman, an ornament to the Court and his Prince’.<sup>66</sup> By his will of November 1669 he left £3,000 to each of his three surviving daughters and £2,000 to each of his six sons. He divided his landed estate between his widow, who survived him by only two years, and his first two sons. The title and principal estate of Hinchingbrooke descended to his eldest son, Edward, who was already a widower by the time of his father’s death. He did not approach his father in energy or ability and, after a very brief attempt at public life, retired to France to nurse his fragile health. Sandwich himself had placed his hopes on his second son Sidney Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, to whom he bequeathed his estates at Lyvenden and Oundle, and who was later the father-in-law of the traveller Mary Wortley Montagu. It was not until the succession of the first earl’s great-great-grandson John Montagu*, 4th earl of Sandwich, that another descendant matched him in his vigour and devotion to the British navy.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
MONTAGU, Edward (1648-88) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1648–88)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Visct. Hinchingbrooke 1660-72; <em>suc. </em>fa. 28 May 1672 as 2nd earl of SANDWICH |
|
First sat 30 Oct. 1672; last sat 29 Mar. 1673 |
|
MP Dover 3 Nov. 1670-28 May 1672. |
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Jan. 1648, 1st s. of Edward Montagu*, later earl of Sandwich, and Jemima (1625–74), da. of John Crew*, Bar. Crew; bro. of Sidney Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, Oliver Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, and Charles Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Twickenham (Dr. William Fuller) 1660–1; Academie du Plessis, Paris 1661–4; travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1664–5.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 13 Jan 1668 (with £10,000), Anne (1644–71), da. of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, 2s. 1da. <em>d</em>. Nov. 1688; <em>will</em> 29 Dec. 1680–31 Mar. 1687; pr. 30 Mar. 1690.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Hunts. 1681–<em>d</em>., Cambs. 1685–6.</p><p>Col. militia, Hunts. 1667–?.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: line engraving, Abraham Blooteling (after Sir Peter Lely), c. 1680, NPG.</p> |
<p>Edward Montagu appeared to have a glittering future in store in May 1660 when, barely 12 years old, he first met the king, ‘who kissed the child very affectionately’, and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, ‘who spoke very merrily to the child’.<sup>4</sup> At the time he was accompanying his father, and Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, to the Netherlands to bring the restored Charles II back to England. When his father became earl of Sandwich Montagu was styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke. He returned to England in August 1665 after travelling in France and Italy, when Pepys was pleased to find him ‘a mighty sober gentleman’ of ‘few words’.<sup>5</sup> In January 1668, after several months of negotiations conducted by Sir George Carteret<sup>‡</sup> and Clarendon himself, Hinchingbrooke made an advantageous marriage to Lady Anne Boyle.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In November 1670, having just reached his majority, Hinchingbrooke was returned for the port of Dover in a contested by-election where he ran on his father’s interest and had the support of the ‘fanatics’ there as well.<sup>7</sup> He inherited the earldom of Sandwich in May 1672 after his father died a hero’s death at the battle of Solebay. He took his seat in the Lords on 30 Oct. 1672, a day of prorogation. He then came to all but five of the meetings of the session of February–March 1673, when he was named to 12 committees.</p><p>The last day of this short session, 29 Mar. 1673, was also Sandwich’s last day in the House, as shortly after he obtained a pass to go to France to recover his health, which had never been robust.<sup>8</sup> He spent the rest of his life there and was consistently marked as ‘abroad’ at the many calls of the House in the following years. Nor did he ever register a proxy during his long years of foreign convalescence and his disengagement with the affairs of the House meant that his political views could never be determined by contemporaries. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, marked him as ‘doubly worthy’ in the spring of 1677, while he was considered a ‘court lord’ in the weeks preceding the first Exclusion Parliament. Late in the reign of James II he was consistently classed as an opponent of the king’s attempt to repeal the Test Acts and penal laws. Although absent, his local standing in the east of England was still acknowledged. Early in 1681 he was appointed to replace his disgraced kinsman Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, as lord lieutenant of Huntingdonshire, and in February 1685 he was made lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire in the place of the deceased William Alington*, Baron Alington. It was Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, and later his son Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who actually executed these two lieutenancies during the absence of Sandwich.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1686 Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, confided to the English ambassador in France, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, that he hoped that the departure of Sandwich’s French Protestant servants from his service, following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, would convince Sandwich to return home, for ‘his living so long at Saintes in the manner he has done, in so profound a retirement, seems very strange’, especially when back in England ‘he has two very hopeful sons to whom he is quite a stranger’.<sup>10</sup> It was the elder of these two ‘hopeful’ sons, Edward Montagu*, who was to succeed as the 3rd earl of Sandwich when Sandwich finally succumbed to his lingering illness sometime before 29 Nov. 1688. The earl had made ample provision for his second son, Richard, and his daughter, Elizabeth, to whom he assigned a £10,000 portion upon her marriage, in his will of December 1680.<sup>11</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
MONTAGU, Edward (1670-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1670–1729)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1672-88 Visct. Hinchingbrooke; <em>suc. </em>fa. Nov. 1688 (a minor) as 3rd earl of SANDWICH. |
|
First sat 24 Dec. 1691; last sat 16 Apr. 1728 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Apr. 1670, 1st s. of Edward Montagu*, <em>styled</em> Visct. Hinchingbrooke (later 2nd earl of Sandwich), and Anne (1644–71), da. of Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington; bro. of Hon. Richard Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Eton c.1682–5; Trinity, Camb. 1686; DCL Oxf. 1702. <em>m</em>. 11 July 1689, Elizabeth (1674–1757), da. of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 1da. d<em>.v.p</em>.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 20 Oct. 1729; <em>will</em> 30 May 1726, pr. 20 Feb. 1730.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of horse to Prince George*, of Denmark 1694–1705.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oils on canvas by John Closterman, 1688, Hinchingbrooke House.</p> |
<p>In 1686, as the young Lord Hinchingbrooke set out for France to visit his invalid father, he was described by Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, as a ‘very hopeful’ youth disadvantaged by the long absence of his sickly father, who was ‘quite a stranger’ to his two young sons.<sup>5</sup> Once Hinchingbrooke succeeded as 3rd earl of Sandwich in 1688 he led an active political life, but from 1703 he was likewise afflicted by an incapacitating illness and debility, verging on madness, which removed him from public life and led contemporaries either to lament or scorn him. Jonathan Swift added to Macky’s terse comment that Sandwich was ‘a tall, thin, black man … of very ordinary parts’, his own assessment that he was ‘As much a puppy as ever I saw; very ugly and a fop’.<sup>6</sup> ‘Meek, but worthy’ is how the antiquarian Mark Noble later described him.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Sandwich’s true character and condition always remained, and still remains, largely overshadowed by the forceful characters who surrounded him. In July 1689 he was married to the wilful 15-year-old Lady Elizabeth Wilmot. According to Noble, the new countess of Sandwich (whose mother had previously been intended for Sandwich’s father) ‘partook of all the fire and vivacity of her father’ and she later had a string of admirers who relished her wit and high spirits. Strong-willed, ‘she detested restraint herself, but put her lord into “durance vile” in his own house’, supposedly keeping him in captivity there.<sup>8</sup> A descendant of the earl was later to admit that ‘much mystery hangs round her extraordinary proceedings’ and presented as evidence of her actions that there was a room at Hinchingbrooke House still known as the Starved Chamber.<sup>9</sup> Lady Sandwich was not the only dominant, and domineering, force in Sandwich’s life. His estate was heavily mortgaged to his uncle Sidney Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, who had also acted as principal trustee of the burdened estate during Sandwich’s minority and thus exerted an economic control over the earl. Sandwich was often little more than a pawn between his wife and his uncle, both of whom vied for control of the earl’s person and estate and the local influence in the borough of Huntingdon that accompanied it.</p><p>Macky’s and Swift’s comments appear to reflect Sandwich’s domestic situation after 1705, for from 1691 to that time he was, by and large, engaged in the affairs of Parliament and was reasonably attentive to it. His forceful wife was a high Tory and by 1718 a professed Jacobite, trying to win people over to the cause of the Old Pretender.<sup>10</sup> She may have encouraged, if not forced, Sandwich to adopt Tory positions in the House, although his actions were hardly consistent or reflective of partisan loyalties. He first sat in the House on 24 Dec. 1691, after he had come of age, and proceeded to sit in another 42 meetings of that session. On 16 Feb. 1692 he joined the protest against the resolution that proxies could not be used in the proceedings on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He came to 56 per cent of the sittings in the following session of 1692–3 and supported the Place bill, subscribing his name to the protest against its rejection on 3 Jan. 1693. He registered his proxy with John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), for a few days between 7 Jan. and his return to the House on the 18th. The day after his return Sandwich signed the protests against the resolutions not to refer to the committee for privileges the House’s amendments to the Land Tax bill and then to recede from these amendments in face of opposition from the Commons. On 4 Feb. 1693 he was one of only 14 peers who found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Sandwich’s attendance continued to increase and he came to 61 per cent of the 1693–4 session. On 27 Jan. 1694 he brought to the House’s attention a breach of his privilege after his coach and horses were distrained for debt. The House swiftly took action against the offender, Benjamin Walbrook, who was discharged on 5 Feb. after submitting to Sandwich.<sup>12</sup> On 17 Feb. Sandwich voted against reversing chancery’s dismissal of the bill of his distant kinsman Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in his long-running dispute with John Granville*, earl of Bath. On 24 Apr. he dissented from that part of a supply bill which incorporated the Bank of England. In early 1694 Sandwich was also honoured with his first and only court appointment, when he replaced Basil Fielding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, as master of the horse to George of Denmark.</p><p>In the 1694–5 session Sandwich was present for 77 per cent of the sitting days – his highest attendance at any parliamentary session – and on 24 Jan. 1695 he served as a teller in three divisions concerning adding clauses to the Treason Trials bill. He was later one of only four Tories who protested on 18 Feb. against the resolution that the judges acting in the ‘Lancashire Plot’ trials had done their duty according to the strict letter of the law. In February 1695 the House was also busy considering a bill to settle the estate of the late 2nd earl of Rochester, in which Sandwich had a personal stake as his wife was one of the principal surviving children and heirs of the earl.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Sandwich’s attendance declined slightly in the Parliament elected in 1695. He still came to 69 per cent of the meetings of the first session in 1695–6, where he was a teller in a division about the recommitment of the Small Tithes bill on 27 Jan. 1696 and was appointed a manager for a conference on the Greenland trade bill on 25 April. However, his attendance decreased to 44 per cent in the 1696–7 session. On 23 Dec. 1696 he, somewhat surprisingly, voted to pass the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, but on that same day was one of those to request, and be granted, leave to be absent from the House for ten days over the Christmas period.<sup>14</sup> He was back in the House on 7 Jan. 1697 and only a few days later joined about a dozen Whigs in a conclave at the house of Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, to concert measures to defend Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), against allegations that he had unduly interfered in coaching Fenwick in his defence and in implicating other peers in the supposed Jacobite plot. He later joined these other peers in voting against a motion to censure and commit Monmouth.<sup>15</sup> He again showed his support of the Place bill by signing the protest of 23 Jan. 1697 against the resolution not to read it a second time.</p><p>From the 1696–7 session Sandwich began a proxy alliance with John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, who was to be the only peer to whom Sandwich ever entrusted his proxy. The connection lay in the household of Princess Anne and her consort, Prince George. Sandwich may have looked upon Marlborough and his wife, Sarah, both the princess’s favourites, as his patrons and protectors (which makes his earlier support of Monmouth, who wished to tar Marlborough as a Jacobite, even more unaccountable). He first registered his proxy with Marlborough on 26 Feb. 1697 and vacated it upon his return to the House on 17 March. The following day Sandwich again left the House for an extended period, whereupon he gave his proxy to Marlborough, who held it until Sandwich’s return on 8 April. Sandwich’s attendance rate in the following session of 1697–8 was again 44 per cent. On 15 Mar. 1698 he was a teller in the division on the question whether to commit the bill to punish the exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He himself voted against the commitment and the motion ultimately failed by one vote, so both his vote and his telling were important in defeating this Junto-inspired measure. In May Sandwich and his wife took advantage of the recently concluded peace to travel to France, a country that Lady Sandwich was said to always prefer to England.<sup>16</sup> Sandwich registered his proxy with Marlborough on 20 May 1698 before setting off across the Channel.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The earl and countess of Sandwich spent the rest of 1698 and almost all of 1699 in Paris. While there Lady Sandwich became famous for her wit and liveliness and acquired a number of admirers, including the English diplomats Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> and the French literary patron Ninon de l’Enclos. Sandwich himself was clearly eclipsed by his wife, but they had to return to England in late 1699 because of the expense of her lifestyle in the French capital. Charles de St. Evremond informed de l’Enclos of his encounter with her at a dinner held by Jersey, himself recently returned from his mission in France. He assured de l’Enclos that Lady Sandwich ‘was admired in London as she had been in Paris’.<sup>18</sup> Sandwich’s stay in France meant that he missed the first session of the 1698 Parliament entirely but, having returned to England in the autumn of 1699, he came to 54 per cent of the sittings of the second session, of 1699–1700. He supported the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation and on 23 Feb. 1700 voted to adjourn the House into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 18 Mar. he dissented from the passage of the bill to prevent the further growth of popery and further participated, at the end of the session, in the disputes surrounding the House’s amendments to the Land Tax and Irish Forfeitures bill. Against the wishes of the court he was an adherent of the House’s amendments, which excised a ‘tacked’ clause and thus promised to wreck the bill in the Commons, and in debate on 10 Apr. 1700 he joined Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford), and others in attesting before the House that Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, had disrespectfully muttered disparaging comments during a speech made by James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, in defence of the amendments and the privilege of the peerage.<sup>19</sup> Sandwich then went on to add his name to the protest of 10 Apr. against the decision not to insist upon the amendments.</p><p>He was present at 64 per cent of the meetings of the Parliament of early 1701, called after William III had dissolved the uncooperative Parliament which had forced the Irish Forfeitures bill on him and dismissed many of the Junto ministers who had failed to manage the Parliament. Early in the new Parliament’s proceedings, on 25 Feb. 1701, Sandwich and his wife presented to the House, in tandem with his wife’s sisters and their husbands, an appeal against a decree in chancery dismissing their bill against Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, which had claimed that the manor of Adderbury in Oxfordshire, part of the Wilmot estate, had been wrongly conveyed to Lichfield by the dowager countess of Rochester. At a hearing before the House on 8 Mar. Lichfield’s counsel successfully argued that the dowager countess had purchased the estate outright in her own name and that it had been in her disposition to bequeath it to Lichfield. On 22 Mar. the House upheld chancery’s decree and dismissed the appeal.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Sandwich was against the impeached Junto lords from the beginning of proceedings against them and on 16 Apr. 1701 subscribed to the protest against the address to the king requesting that he not punish the impeached lords before they had been tried. When the House moved that same day that the reasons given in this protest be expunged from the Journal Sandwich entered his protest against this measure too. He served as a teller in a division on 21 May 1701 on whether the New Deal fresh water bill should be read a second time, but he left the House for that session on the last day of May and was not present to engage in the trial of the impeached peers, nor to enter his protest against their eventual acquittal.</p><p>It is highly likely that Sandwich registered his proxy with Marlborough before he left in that session, as he may well have done in the preceding two sessions of 1698–9 and 1699–1700. The proxy registers for those three sessions are no longer extant, but Sandwich had given Marlborough his proxy in the last session for which we have records, 1697–8, and was to do so again, for a brief period of two days between 3 and 5 Jan. 1702, in the Parliament of early 1702 summoned in the wake of another dissolution by the king, angered by the attack on his ministers. Sandwich only attended 34 per cent of the sittings of this Parliament but never saw fit to assign his proxy again during his other periods of absence.</p><p>After the death of William III he acted as an adherent of the new queen, as he was already serving her husband as master of the horse, and in the House shortly after William’s death he ‘smartly replied’ against a motion of Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, that an enquiry be made to discover the identity of those who had advised the queen to include the last clause of her address to Parliament, which Carlisle and his fellow Whigs saw as an insult to the memory of the late king. Carlisle was only saved from the ire of the House by a ‘mollifying speech’ from William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire.<sup>21</sup> Sandwich later took part in the proceedings on the bill for Lavallin’s relief, which involved the old issue of the forfeited Irish lands. On 20 May 1702 a committee of the whole established a subcommittee to draft a new preamble to the act according to the instructions of the committee, and the following day Sandwich reported from this subcommittee with the amended preamble.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In the early years of Anne’s reign Sandwich sided with the Tories. In the first session of her first Parliament in 1702–3 he came to 69 per cent of the sittings. He served as teller on 17 Feb. 1703 in a division on a motion condemning the handling of the invasion of Vigo and Cadiz in the previous summer’s campaign. Five days after that he signed the protest against the resolution not to commit the bill for the landed qualification of Members of the Commons. Most prominently, he supported the Occasional Conformity bill. He was a teller on 7 Dec. 1702 in the division on the question whether to adjourn the committee of the whole on the bill and on 16 Jan. 1703 he voted against the Whig amendments to the bill. On 24 Feb. he signed the protest against the decision of the victorious Whigs to publish the text of the bill with the amendments which had wrecked the chances of the bill’s passage in the Commons. This session saw the effective end of his parliamentary career under Anne. He attended just 20 sittings in the 1703–4 session, and left the House on 11 Dec. 1703, five days before the vote on the Occasional Conformity bill, which he is marked as voting for by proxy, probably through Marlborough again (the proxy registers for this session are missing). He came to just one sitting of the House in 1704–5, on 25 Jan. 1705, when he was listed as likely to support ‘the Tack’ of the Occasional Conformity bill. After that one sitting he was completely absent from the House until he returned over 20 years later, on 10 Feb. 1727.</p><p>The reason for this absence was that, by late 1703, some sort of debilitating illness or distemper had befallen Sandwich, which cut short his participation in public life. In June 1703 Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> and the queen herself feared that Sandwich had died of a serious illness, but were disabused of this by the end of the month.<sup>23</sup> The queen, and perhaps equally importantly the duchess of Marlborough, used this illness and its undoubted effects on Sandwich’s health and mental stability as a means of edging him out of his office of master of the horse to Prince George. The queen and her favourite had long disliked Lady Sandwich, both for her character and for her increasing demands for royal favour.<sup>24</sup> Shortly after Sandwich’s illness they moved to replace him with Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater, who in February 1703 had become Marlborough’s son-in-law. The court still had to deal with the forceful countess of Sandwich, who fought for her husband’s right to maintain his post even though he had been granted permission to absent himself to recuperate in the country, ‘but I do not take it that that ties one up to keep a mad man always in one’s family’, as the queen commented to the duchess.<sup>25</sup> Sandwich was also formally ‘excused’ at the call of the House on 23 Nov. 1704 and he registered his proxy with Marlborough once again, perhaps to cement the duke’s faltering protection of him, on 2 Feb. 1705.</p><p>In early July 1705 Sandwich was removed as master of horse to the prince, ostensibly because of his long-term absence from court, and was recompensed for the loss of this position with an annual pension of £1,000.<sup>26</sup> In November 1706 Marlborough had a last difficult interview with the countess, who claimed that Sandwich merely suffered from ‘a sickness, a melancholy which amounted to vapours and no more’, to which Marlborough responded that his illness was ‘of a nature … to promise long life attended with an impossibility of ever serving’. In a last desperate attempt to salvage some court favour, she asked that the post go to her 14-year-old son, Edward Richard Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke, for ‘though he was not a man, he soon would be one, and could ride on horseback now very well …. To all this I did not think it necessary to give any other answer than a smile.’ Thus the duke terminated the discussion and Sandwich’s career.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Local affairs also had a great deal to do with Sandwich’s disappearance from national politics, indeed society itself, from around 1705. He and his estate had long been the subject of a tug-of-war between his Tory wife and his Whig uncle, Sidney Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, and this only increased after his illness had set in. As trustee and principal manager of the estate, with its ‘noble and ancient seat’ of Hinchingbrooke House dominating Huntingdon, Wortley Montagu was the principal electoral patron in borough politics; from 1690 he always controlled at least one seat in the Huntingdon borough representation. Sandwich’s younger brother Richard Montagu<sup>‡</sup> was Member for the borough from 1690 until his death in 1697, when he was replaced by Wortley Montagu’s son Francis<sup>‡</sup>. In the 1695 election the countess of Sandwich had turned her attention to the country, where she successfully used her husband’s interest to ensure the election of her candidate, the Tory Anthony Hammond<sup>‡</sup>, and it was not until the election of early 1701, after her return from Paris, that Lady Sandwich set herself against Wortley Montagu. ‘Vive la guerre’, Lady Sandwich’s admirer Matthew Prior wrote to Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, when he heard that the countess was bringing in the young Oxford graduate, and a distant maternal relation of her husband’s, Charles Boyle*, later 4th earl of Orrery [I] and Baron Boyle, to set him up for the election.</p><p>Over the course of the next three elections in 1701–2 Lady Sandwich pitched Boyle against Francis Wortley Montagu (in 1702 pairing him with her other candidate, Hammond) – and was successful in getting her candidates elected each time. Sandwich himself appears to have been a visible presence in the election of January 1701, for a petition by a defeated Wortley Montagu candidate John Pedley<sup>‡</sup> alleged that Sandwich,</p><blockquote><p>with the assistance of others, with swords and clubs, did menace, assault and strike the recorder of the borough [Francis Wortley Montagu], and others of the petitioner’s voters. Some being wounded, others were carried under a strong guard to give their votes for Mr Boyle, but were not permitted to give their second votes, which they would have done, for the petitioner, nor his friends, could speak with them.<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>Boyle himself in his maiden speech in the Commons defended Sandwich from the allegations of interference in the election, pointing out that the earl had, following orders of the Commons, refused the compliment of receiving the freedom of the borough when it was offered to him, which would have given him even more power in corporation politics. Boyle asserted that Sandwich had only been exercising the hereditary and legitimate influence of a local lord of the manor and took umbrage at the Commons’ insistence that peers remove themselves from all involvement in elections, even when it was merely to support a friend and relation. Pedley withdrew his petition on 25 Apr. 1701, but not before Boyle and his fellow member for Huntingdon, Francis Wortley Montagu, had fought a near-fatal duel over some of the allegations raised in the petition.<sup>29</sup></p><p>The 1702 election was even more fiercely contested, when the Sandwich interest, ‘being much increased since the last election’, fielded two Tory candidates, Boyle and Anthony Hammond against Francis Wortley Montagu and his Whig partner. The election came to a contest, with the Sandwich candidates emerging victorious. Sandwich and his countess further put forward a Tory candidate for the 1705 election, who was initially returned but then unseated upon petition, and on 10 Nov. 1705 the earl, no longer attending Parliament himself, petitioned the Commons that the elder Wortley Montagu should not be able to use his privilege to avoid a chancery case involving his management of the estates.</p><p>At or around this time, and from at least 1710, Wortley Montagu was able to convince or compel Sandwich to exchange houses with him and the earl began his long residency, or captivity, at Wortley Castle near Leeds.<sup>30</sup> Contemporaries were astonished at his treatment. In February 1707 attempts were made by a minister to extract Sandwich from his long seclusion, living as he was ‘in the power of his servants’, and in the years after Sandwich’s death in 1729 there were still rumours in both Yorkshire and Huntingdonshire that about 25 years previously the earl had been ‘in the hands of mercenary, vile creatures’ who had tried to poison him.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Sandwich’s only son and heir apparent, Edward Montagu, styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke, came of age in time for the 1713 election. He was already a captain in a regiment of dragoons and was later to pursue a successful military career. He had been raised a ‘strenuous Tory’ by his mother. He stood for both the county and borough in the election of that year, and to improve his chances he engineered the return to the county of his father, who, according to the Tory <em>Post Boy</em>, ‘has for about three years past resided at Wortley Castle in Yorkshire’. Sandwich was met at the county border upon his return by Hinchingbrooke and ‘near 1,500 of the loyal clergy, gentry and freeholders … and was received upon the road, and at Huntingdon, with the utmost joy and satisfaction of all people’. Hinchingbrooke was returned for one of the borough’s seats, Sidney Wortley Montagu ensuring that he himself was selected for the other, for both the 1713 and 1715 elections. In 1722, having been appointed lord lieutenant of the county only a few months previously, Hinchingbrooke was returned as knight of the shire. He was set to take over his father’s putative position as county leader when he died on 3 Oct. 1722, shortly after taking his seat for the county.<sup>32</sup></p><p>It may have been the unexpected death of his son and heir apparent that brought Sandwich back to the House for, surprisingly after so many years of absence and virtual confinement by his kin, he returned to Parliament on 10 Feb. 1727 and proceeded to sit fairly regularly for a year, until his last attendance of the House on 16 Apr. 1728. An account of his brief parliamentary career under the Hanoverians will be found in the next phase of this work. Sidney Wortley Montagu, who had had such an influence on Sandwich’s life, died in November 1727 and Sandwich followed him two years later, dying on 20 Oct. 1729 in Yorkshire. By his brief will, Sandwich left his personal estate to his redoubtable wife, who took advantage of his death by returning to Paris, where she maintained a glittering social circle until her own death in 1757. The heir to the title and the estate was Sandwich’s 11-year-old grandson, John Montagu<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Sandwich, who in his naval and political activities was to hark back more to his great-great-grandfather Edward Montagu*, the 1st earl of Sandwich, than to either his reclusive and unstable grandfather or his sickly great-grandfather.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
MONTAGU, John (1690-1749) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1690–1749)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1702-05 Visct. MONTHERMER; <em>styled </em>1705-09 mq. of MONTHERMER; <em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Mar. 1709 (a minor) as 2nd duke of MONTAGU. |
|
First sat 5 Apr. 1711; last sat 26 May 1749 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Mar. 1690, s. of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu and 1st w. Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Wriotheseley*, 4th earl of Southampton, wid. of Josceline Percy*, 5th earl of Northumberland. <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad 1702 (France and Italy). <em>m</em>. 20 Mar. 1705 (with at least £3,800 p.a.)<sup>1</sup> Lady Mary Churchill (<em>d</em>.1751), da. and coh. of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, 4s. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 3da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). KG 1718, KB 1725. <em>d</em>. 6 July 1749; <em>will</em> 10-18 June, pr. 3 Aug. 1749.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of the gt. wardrobe 1709-<em>d</em>; PC 1735; ld. justice 1745, 1748.</p><p>Ld. lt., Northants. 1715-<em>d</em>., Warw. 1715-<em>d</em>; <em>custos. rot</em>., Warw. 1728, Northants. 1735; gov., St. Lucia and St. Vincent 1722, Isle of Wight 1733-34.</p><p>Col. 1st. tp. of Horse Gds. 1715-21; capt. gent. pensioners 1734-40; maj.-gen. 1735; lt.-gen. 1739; col. 3rd cav. regt.; master. gen. of ordnance 1740-1, 1742-49; gen. 1746.</p><p>FRS 1717; grand master grand lodge of English freemasons 1721-22; FSA 1725.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by Sir G. Kneller, c. 1709, NPG 3219; oil on canvas (with James O'Hara, 2nd Bar. Tyrawley) by J. Verelst, c. 1712, NPG 2034; oil on canvas (with 2nd wife, Lady Mary Churchill) by Gawen Hamilton, English Heritage, Marble Hill; oil on canvas by unknonw artist, National Trust, Trerice, Cornwall; mezzotint by J. Faber after M. Dahl, c. 1725, NPG 5698.</p> |
<p>Famed for his puckish demeanour and fondness for practical jokes, John Montagu (styled Lord Monthermer from 1702 until his succession as duke of Montagu) became heir to his father’s dukedom following the early death of his two older brothers, the latter of whom (Winwood Montagu, styled Lord Monthermer 1689-1702) had drunk himself to death following an embassy to Hanover.<sup>5</sup> John, Lord Monthermer’s passions appear to have been more sober, embracing horticulture and antiquarianism as well as enthusiasm for military affairs, though it seems he was not averse to joining his <em>confreres</em> in sampling the delights of the latest fleshpots on occasion.<sup>6</sup> Monthermer represented the senior branch of one of the country’s most successful families, which at the time of the accession of George I could boast two dukedoms and two earldoms among its various members. Yet he seems to have exercised little parliamentary interest in the closing years of Queen Anne’s reign. An interest at Clitheroe, exercised by his father in right of his stepmother, the dowager duchess of Albemarle, appears to have been all but broken by his father’s death.<sup>7</sup> Even so, as the eventual holder of extensive estates in Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire, Monthermer was undoubtedly a figure of considerable political influence, which was further reinforced by his marriage to Lady Mary Churchill in March 1705. The alliance was vigorously promoted by his father and was supported by Lady Mary’s mother in preference to at least three other noble suitors.<sup>8</sup> Nevertheless, Lady Mary’s father, Marlborough, expressed reservations about Monthermer’s suitability. Marlborough was concerned particularly by his prospective son-in-law’s reputed immaturity and thought Lady Mary ‘too much a woman for him.’<sup>9</sup> Lady Marlborough also came to despair of Monthermer’s irrepressible exuberance, later commenting dismissively that:</p><blockquote><p>All his talents lie in things only natural in boys of 15 years old, and he is about two and fifty; to get people into his garden and wet them with squirts, and to invite people to his country houses, and put things into their beds to make them itch, and 20 such pretty fancies like these.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>As a result of such reservations it was agreed as a condition of the match that the young couple should not cohabit until Monthermer had attained the age of 16.<sup>11</sup> Immediately after the marriage Monthermer departed for the continent with Dr. Peter Silvestre. By the early summer of 1706 he was with Marlborough on campaign in the Low Countries. In spite of his lifelong interest in the army Monthermer seems not to have relished the grim reality of battle, and by May he was already seeking permission to return to England.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Having succeeded both to the dukedom of Montagu and the office of master of the great wardrobe on his father’s death, the new duke was confronted by Duke Ralph’s debts, which were reputedly in excess of £40,000 as well as the £20,000 mortgage on the sumptuous town house built by the 1st duke in Bloomsbury.<sup>13</sup> He had to deal with the problem of his stepmother, the lunatic dowager duchess of Albemarle, whose wealth meant that her remaining relations fought for her custody.<sup>14</sup> He also inherited his father’s influence. One of Montagu’s first actions after his succession was to petition Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, on behalf of Thomas Colthurst for the office of chief justice of New York, something for which his father had already supplicated Sunderland. Montagu now made it his ‘earnest request that my father’s solicitation in his behalf may now be remembered.’<sup>15</sup></p><p>Montagu wanted to rejoin his father-in-law on campaign in the summer of 1709. Attempts by his kinsman, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, to dissuade him proved to be unnecessary as he received a firm refusal from Marlborough, who recommended that he postpone his expedition to the following year.<sup>16</sup> Montagu’s interest in joining his father-in-law abroad may have been connected to deteriorating relations with his wife. Although the duchess’s later none too discreet affair with William Villiers*, 2nd earl of Jersey, failed to prevent Montagu and Jersey from remaining ‘the dearest friends that ever was’, the marriage appears to have run into difficulties long before.<sup>17</sup> Montagu’s wife complained to her mother prior to her husband’s inheritance of the dukedom that:</p><blockquote><p>it is certainly possible that besides being so ill in every thing, my Lord Monthermer, from being the duke of Montagu’s son (that was always so famous for using his wife and everybody ill) may very soon grow to think ill of me, and not care for me, but that I can’t help now.<sup>18</sup></p></blockquote><p>The duchess of Marlborough also appears to have revised her opinion of someone she had initially considered ‘the best match in England’ at about this time, though her antipathy was directed primarily at her daughter with whom she was rarely on good terms.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Still a minor at the time of the trial of Henry Sacheverell in March 1710, a few days later Montagu at last quit England for the campaign in Flanders.<sup>20</sup> He had returned by the spring of the following year, and on 5 Apr. 1711 he took his seat in the House. Having sat for just that day, he absented himself from the remainder of the session and on 18 Apr. registered his proxy with Halifax. From May to August he was again abroad on campaign with his father-in-law and, before Montagu’s departure for England that summer, Marlborough recommended him to his fellow former duumvir, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, writing that, ‘I would not let the duke of Montagu go without recommending him to your friends. He is modest and has I think very good sense.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>Montagu’s return to England in August 1711 may have been prompted by the death of his young heir, John Montagu, styled marquess of Monthermer, earlier that month. This was almost certainly the ‘sad calamity’ referred to by Halifax in a letter to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.<sup>22</sup> Montagu was mentioned as one of those intending to be at the forefront of the 17 Nov. anti-popery procession in London. This was devised as a protest against the peace terms but was banned on the orders of the secretary of state, William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth.<sup>23</sup> Montagu resumed his seat in the House at the opening of the second session of the 1710 Parliament on 7 Dec., after which he was present for just over half of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was included on a list of peers compiled by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, possibly concerning Nottingham’s alliance with the Whigs over the occasional conformity bill. In or about early December he was listed as an opponent of the address containing the no peace without Spain motion. On 8 Dec. Montagu was noted as dining with other prominent Whig grandees, and on 10 Dec. Montagu was listed among those office-holders who had voted against the ministry on the question of no peace without Spain. Forecast on 19 Dec. as opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House by right of his British dukedom of Brandon, the following day Montagu voted accordingly in favour of barring Scots peers at the time of Union from taking their seats by virtue of post-Union British peerages.</p><p>Montagu dined with Prince Eugene of Savoy during his visit to London in January 1712.<sup>24</sup> He received Sunderland’s proxy on 1 Apr., which was vacated by Sunderland’s return to the House the following month on 5 May, and on 25 Apr. he also received that of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset (also vacated on 5 May). On 28 May he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to address the queen for an offensive war against France, and on 7 June he subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace.</p><p>Present in the House on four of the prorogation days between January and March 1713, Montagu resumed his seat in the third session on 9 Apr. 1713. Although he was estimated by Harley (now promoted earl of Oxford) as being opposed to the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commerce treaty on 13 June, he attended on just five days of the 77-day session and was absent from the House after 5 May. That summer Montagu again travelled to Holland, but he was kept informed of events at home by Swift, who provided him with details of the efforts of his kinsman, Edward Richard Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke (‘a strenuous Tory’) to be elected for Huntingdonshire.<sup>25</sup> Montagu arrived back in England from Antwerp in October.<sup>26</sup> The following month he was noted as being a member of both the Kit Cat and the Hanover clubs.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Montagu took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on just over half of all sitting days. On 30 Mar. he received the proxy of his Buckinghamshire neighbour, Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater, which was vacated by the close of the session. Nottingham forecast that he would oppose the schism bill, and on 15 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the measure. He attended the House for just five days of the 17-day session that met in the aftermath of the queen’s death. Following the dissolution Montagu was expected to support a compromise arrangement in the forthcoming contest in Buckinghamshire, by which the seats were shared between the two parties.<sup>28</sup></p><p>A long-standing supporter of the Hanoverian succession, Montagu was amply rewarded by the new regime. In 1715 he was appointed to the lieutenancies of both Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, and over the ensuing years he received a string of ceremonial appointments and military commissions, culminating in his promotion as a general in the army in 1746 during the Jacobite rebellion.<sup>29</sup> Details of the latter part of his career will be considered in the next phase of this work. Montagu continued to attend the House for the remainder of his life, sitting for the final time on 26 May 1749. He died a few weeks later of a ‘violent fever’ on 6 July and was buried at St Edmund’s, Warkton in Northamptonshire, where a monument was later erected, designed by Roubiliac.<sup>30</sup> An epitaph published in the <em>Gentleman’s Magazine</em> the following month praised Montagu as ‘the friend of humankind’ and declared how,</p><blockquote><p>The great lament his ripen’d glories fled;<br />The poor lament him, whom his bounty fed…<br />Ages to come shall emulate his fame,<br />And every virtue kindle at his name.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the absence of a male heir, at his death the dukedom became extinct. His estates were divided between his two daughters, Isabella, duchess of Manchester, and Mary, countess of Cardigan. The dukedom of Montagu was later recreated for the latter’s husband, George Brudenell*, 4th earl of Cardigan.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MONTAGU, Ralph (1638-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong>, <strong>Ralph</strong> (1638–1709)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Jan. 1684 as 3rd Bar. MONTAGU of Boughton; <em>cr. </em>9 Apr. 1689 earl of MONTAGU; <em>cr. </em>14 Apr. 1705 duke of MONTAGU |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 28 Jan. 1709 |
|
MP Northampton 10 Nov. 1678-1679, Hunts. Mar.-July 1679, Northampton 1679 (Oct.)-1681. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 24 Dec. 1638, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Bar. Montagu of Boughton, and Anne Winwood; bro. of Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1648; travelled abroad 1655. <em>m</em>. (1) 24 Aug. 1673, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1690),<sup>1</sup> yst. da. and coh. of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, and 2nd w., Elizabeth Leigh, wid. of Josceline Percy*, 5th earl of Northumberland, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>),<sup>2</sup> 1da.; (2) 8 Sept. 1692, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1734), da. and coh. of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, wid. of Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>suc</em>. unc. Richard Winwood<sup>‡</sup> 1688. <em>d</em>. 9 Mar. 1709;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 21 Aug 1707-17 Feb. 1708, pr. 17 Dec. 1709.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Equerry to the duchess of York by 1662-5; master of the horse to Queen Catherine of Braganza 1665-78;<sup>5</sup> amb. France. 1669-72, 1676-8; master of great wardrobe 1671-85, 1689-<em>d</em>.; PC 1672-8, 1689-<em>d</em>.; commr. appeals prizes 1694-5.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Jt. kpr. of Hartleton Walk, Richmond Park 1661-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Gov. tapestry co. 1692;<sup>8</sup> commr. Greenwich hospital 1695.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by John Closterman, Boughton House, Northants.</p> |
<p>Excoriated as the epitome of the amoral restoration rake, Montagu undoubtedly deserves much of his notoriety. Throughout his career, the pursuit of wealth and place predominated. At one point an unequivocal proponent of exclusion, at the accession of King James he sought rehabilitation at court only to perform a further spectacular <em>volte-face</em> by setting his interest behind the Revolution. But in spite of all this, more positive elements did remain, among them his prominent patronage of the arts and his broadly consistent political loyalties after 1688. This was particularly apparent in his role as an influential mediator between the Junto and other prominent Whigs, for which he employed his seat at Boughton as the venue for a series of gatherings, and which serves in part to redress an otherwise unenviable and tarnished reputation.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Montagu’s political career long antedated his elevation to the peerage. His obsession with place and the development of his estate perhaps stemmed from his need as a younger son to make his own way in the world, but even after the death of his older brother, Edward Montagu, and his improved prospects as heir to the barony, he maintained his apparently insatiable appetite for gain. Having been appointed to a number of secondary household offices in the duchess of York’s family, in October 1662 he was appointed to a diplomatic post in France during the embassy of Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles. At this point a creature of Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, on his return he was promoted to the queen’s household (his appointment said to have been a result of the ‘most violent prosecution’ of James Stuart*, duke of York) and in 1669 he was again posted to France, though this time with full ambassadorial rank.<sup>11</sup> Montagu returned to England in December 1671, when it was noted that he was cloistered in private conference with the king and duke of York for two hours.<sup>12</sup> After relinquishing his embassy in May 1672, he took up a lucrative alternative position as master of the great wardrobe. Courting controversy with his marriage to Elizabeth, countess of Northumberland, in 1673, who had supposedly fled to France the previous year to avoid the unwanted attentions of the king, Montagu benefited from a generous settlement by his father, which comprised a number of manors in Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire, while Lady Northumberland brought substantial estates in Hampshire and Middlesex to the marriage and an annual income reputed to be £6,000.<sup>13</sup> Soon after, Montagu’s financial position was strengthened further when he was made heir to his uncle, Richard Winwood, if the latter were to have no children, but despite so extensive an estate and an income in excess of £12,000, Montagu’s extravagance meant that he was often plagued by substantial debts.<sup>14</sup> The death of Winwood in June 1688 was eventually to bring him some relief in the form of a substantial addition to his inheritance.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Rumoured to be one of those in line to succeed Bennet (since promoted earl of Arlington) as secretary of state in March 1674, Montagu was overlooked for the office, but despite his former inglorious recall from France he was once more appointed ambassador in 1676 through the patronage of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), to whom he had turned on the removal from political significance of his former patron.<sup>16</sup> As a member of Arlington’s circle, however, Montagu’s relations with Danby had never been good and the new association was complicated further by Montagu’s efforts to secure an advantageous match for his stepdaughter, Elizabeth, Lady Percy, with Danby’s protégé, Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth.<sup>17</sup> They broke down completely in the summer of 1678 when Danby opposed Montagu’s efforts to purchase the office of secretary of state from Sir Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> for £10,000, a post for which Montagu had been touting since the autumn of the previous year.<sup>18</sup> Montagu’s intriguing in France, and indiscreet amours, most particularly his injudicious dalliance with both the duchess of Cleveland and her daughter the countess of Sussex, compelled him to quit his post without leave and return to England in July 1678 in an effort to respond to accusations of his misconduct.<sup>19</sup> Montagu’s efforts to justify his actions to the king availed him nothing. He was dismissed as ambassador and put out of his office of master of horse to the queen.<sup>20</sup> Five years later he was still attempting to recoup unpaid wages from his embassy totalling £22,000.<sup>21</sup> Out of pocket and determined to have his revenge, Montagu, aided by his sister, the widow of Sir Daniel Harvey<sup>‡</sup>, set about plotting Danby’s ruin with the French minister, Barillon, in return for a substantial French pension.<sup>22</sup> To further his plan and afford him parliamentary immunity from prosecution, Montagu was returned on petition for Northampton on 10 Nov. 1678, employing both his father’s interest in the corporation and that of a group of opposition members intent on Danby’s destruction.<sup>23</sup> When Danby attempted to pre-empt him with an accusation of undertaking secret negotiations with the papal nuncio during his embassy, Montagu riposted with revelations of Danby’s role in negotiating a subsidy from France for the king.<sup>24</sup> Although the Commons were eager to make use of Montagu’s evidence against Danby and cleared him of any wrongdoing, at the close of the session in December, bereft of his parliamentary privilege, Montagu made an attempt to flee the country. He was foiled by bad weather but though he was arrested at Dover in January 1679, no effort was made to secure him, and he returned home. He was returned at the next election in February for Huntingdonshire, and continued to exert himself to secure Danby’s impeachment.<sup>25</sup> Returned for Northampton once more in the second Exclusion Parliament in October, the following year he seconded his brother-in-law, William, Lord Russell<sup>‡</sup>, in proposing the Exclusion bill for a second time, but by the opening of the Oxford Parliament in 1681 he appears to have distanced himself from the opposition. Although he avoided involvement in the Rye House Plot and thus the fate of Lord Russell, in the late summer of 1683 he fled to France, where he remained for the following two years, seeking, unsuccessfully, to secure the payment of his French pension.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of James II and the Revolution, 1684-9</em></h2><p>Montagu succeeded his father to the barony of Montagu of Boughton on 10 Jan. 1684 while he was living in France. The accession of James II the following year promised Montagu little hope of advancement but, even so, he announced to Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, his intention of returning to England for the coronation and hoped that the king might be sufficiently magnanimous as to overlook his past actions:</p><blockquote><p>I know not how unfortunate I may be as to lie under his Majesty’s displeasure, but I know the generosity of his nature to be such, that as Louis duke of Orleans, when he came to the crown of France, said it was not for a king of France to remember the quarrels and grudges of a duke of Orleans, so I hope his Majesty will be pleased to think the king is not to remember any thing that has passed in relation to the duke of York; for whatever my opinions were when I delivered them, being trusted by the public, they are altered now I am become his subject, knowing myself obliged, by the laws of God and man, to hazard life and fortune to the defence of his sacred person, crown, and dignity.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>In this optimistic manner, Montagu set about ingratiating himself with the new monarch, but initially without success. Refused permission to kiss the king’s hand, he was put out of his post of master of the great wardrobe in favour of Sir Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S].<sup>28</sup> Denied hopes of office at home, Montagu retreated once more to France, where he was noted as being one of the associates of Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury.<sup>29</sup> Montagu’s fortunes took a further downturn the following year when his London residence, Montagu House, was burned to the ground while being tenanted by William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire.<sup>30</sup> Blame for the conflagration was laid at the door of Montagu’s own servants, who were said to have made a fire in one of the rooms set aside for storing their master’s possessions.<sup>31</sup> The disaster was presumably the cause of Montagu’s return from France in July 1686. In spite of the reports that the loss was not Devonshire’s fault, Montagu launched an action in chancery against his former tenant in an attempt to recoup £60,000 in compensation.<sup>32</sup> The dispute was noted as one ‘in which all the great lawyers in the kingdom are concerned’, but the case was thrown out when the court accepted that liability lay with Montagu’s own servants.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In spite of this setback, Montagu’s fortunes at court were perceived to have considerably improved. In July 1686 reports circulated that he was to be made a marquess and the following month he was said to have been ‘extraordinarily well received by the king’, following which there were rumours that he was to be appointed secretary of state in place of Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], and that he was to be again appointed an ambassador.<sup>34</sup> Rather more improbable were the reports of Montagu establishing a new alliance with his former <em>bête-noir</em>, Danby.<sup>35</sup> In March 1687 it was rumoured that he was to be restored as master of the wardrobe (which resulted in him initiating a legal dispute with Preston over the profits of the office), but he did not regain the place.<sup>36</sup> The same month he began rebuilding the devastated Montagu House.<sup>37</sup> In April he was again unsuccessful, however, in another attempt to recover damages from Devonshire. A case brought before common pleas seeking compensation of £30,000 was dismissed, following which it was reported that Devonshire intended to launch a counterclaim for his losses in the blaze.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Montagu was perceived by contemporaries as attempting to ingratiate himself with the new regime, particularly through offering support for James II’s religious policies, though it might be noted that during the following reign he was consistent in supporting the policy of excluding all Protestant nonconformists from the penal laws. Montagu’s name appeared on three lists of 1687 of those expected to support repeal of the Test, and on another of January 1688. It is uncertain at which point Montagu abandoned James II, but he later claimed the credit for encouraging Frederick Herman Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg, to ‘attend’ William of Orange in his invasion.<sup>39</sup> It seems likely that he was the ‘Montagu’ that refused to subscribe to the loyalist petition of 16 Nov. 1688 asking the king to summon a free parliament. Montagu was a vigorous participant in the debates in London prior to the summoning of the Convention, attending meetings of the provisional government on 11, 12 and 13 December.<sup>40</sup> He was one of the peers to sign the declaration to the Prince of Orange of 11 Dec, having joined with Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and others in moving that the paragraph in the declaration calling on the king to be allowed to return with honour and safety be removed. The following day he moved that Titus Oates might be discharged from prison and on 13 Dec. he was again prominent in discussions over the treatment of the king. Montagu was absent from meetings of the provisional government on 14 and 15 Dec. but he took his place once more in the meeting held in response to the prince’s summons in the queen’s presence chamber on 21 Dec. and he was again present in the meeting held in the House the following day.<sup>41</sup> In the heated debates of 24 Dec, in common with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, he looked to the period of exclusion for a solution to the constitutional hiatus. One of the ‘most bitter and fierce’ in the debates held that day, Montagu moved that the exclusion bill might be made use of for determining whether the king’s flight was a demise in law.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Montagu finally took his seat in the House four years after succeeding to the peerage on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he sat for approximately 66 per cent of all sittings in the session. Named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions on 23 Jan., on 29 Jan. he noted that under King James, ‘none can be safe but those who contributed towards our slavery’.<sup>43</sup> On 31 Jan. he spoke during the debates on the state of the crown professing to be ‘so perfectly satisfied that the throne was vacant, that he had a dispensation within him’, without the help of one from James II’s lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, or Sir Edward Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, recently appointed by James in exile to replace Jeffreys: ‘and therefore did declare’, he went on, ‘that from this day he looked upon himself to be absolved from all allegiance to King James.’<sup>44</sup> The same day he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen, entering his dissent when the House resolved not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. he again voted in concert with the Commons, agreeing that James had abdicated, and entered his dissent once more when the House failed to concur. Two days later he voted again in favour of employing the word ‘abdicated’, and the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. Later he would claim that his role in the vote ‘against the regency’ (presumably this crucial vote on 6 Feb.) was critical, bringing around Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, the bishop of Durham, Nathaniel Crew*, 3rd Baron Crew and ‘Lord Ashley’ (presumably his cousin Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later 3rd earl of Shaftesbury) to vote against it, and giving William and Mary the crown, which, he claimed, was passed only with these votes. In fact the margin was rather greater than this, and Clarendon recorded that Huntingdon had consistently voted ‘against the king’, though he certainly saw Crew’s vote as significant.<sup>45</sup> On 23 Mar. he subscribed the protest against the resolution to reject the proviso extending the time for taking the sacramental test and allowing the sacrament to be taken in any Protestant church.</p><h2><em>Earl of Montagu, 1689-92</em></h2><p>Montagu’s support for the new regime was rewarded with membership of the Privy Council on 14 Feb., restoration to the mastership of the great wardrobe and on 9 Apr., in recognition of his services in bringing about the revolution, promotion in the peerage as earl of Montagu and Viscount Monthermer, the last title an acknowledgement of his purported descent from the Montagu earls of Salisbury.<sup>46</sup> Introduced to the House with his new honours on 13 Apr. between his cousin Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, on 24 Apr. Montagu was named to the committee for the bill to reverse the attainder of Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he was named to the committee for the bill making it a treasonable offence to correspond with the former king. Nominated one of the reporters of a conference for the additional poll bill on 27 May, Montagu was named a reporter of a second conference on the same matter four days later. Named to some 12 committees between June and August, on 10 and 12 July he registered protests over the House’s resolution not to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates and on 12 July he was again included as one of the reporters of the conference for the bill concerning the succession. On 16 July, Schomberg registered his proxy with Montagu, which was vacated by the close of the session. Montagu employed it on 30 July when he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the reversal of the judgments of perjury against Oates. He subscribed the protest when the motion was carried.</p><p>Montagu continued to sit through much of August, on 10 Aug. being named to the committee for the bill for prohibiting trade with France. The following month he was compelled to reveal the extent of his financial woes in response to a demand for the peers to provide a self-assessment of their personal estates. He declared that he was ‘sorry to say that I owe above £20,000 for which I pay interest and lost all my plate and [furniture] when my house was burnt.’<sup>47</sup> Although missing from the attendance list on that day, Montagu presumably resumed his seat in the new session on 23 Oct. when he was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions. He was thereafter present for almost 81 per cent of all sittings in the session, during which he was named to 11 committees. On 11-12 Nov. 1689 Montagu proved inadvertently to be the cause of Viscount Preston being arrested when he (Preston) attempted to claim privilege in the course of proceedings on a case brought by Montagu against Preston over the office of the great wardrobe. Preston (the holder of a Scots viscountcy and an unrecognized English earldom granted to him by the exiled king) was ordered to be prosecuted for the high misdemeanour of pretending to be a peer.<sup>48</sup> On 23 Nov. Montagu registered his protest at the rejection of a rider to the succession bill that sought to prevent the crown from pardoning upon impeachment. This was presumably related to his hostility towards Danby. On 13 Dec. he was teller against the motion to resume the House from committee considering the land tax bill. On 23 Jan. he entered his protest against the passing of the corporation bill. Carmarthen (as Danby had now become) classed him as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690.</p><p>Absent at the opening of the new Parliament, Montagu was also noted as absent at a call of the House on 31 Mar. 1690. He resumed his seat on 14 Apr., and attended approximately 52 per cent of sittings in the session. On 13 May he registered his protest at the resolution not to allow the Corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel. Montagu was one of those spoken of as a possible replacement for Shrewsbury as secretary of state in May (he had also been mentioned as one of those who might succeed Nottingham the previous month).<sup>49</sup> During the summer he was successful in securing damages of £1,300 from Preston following his case in common pleas over the profits of the great wardrobe.<sup>50</sup> Although he was appointed a commissioner for proroguing Parliament on 4 July, Montagu was not present at the time of the eventual prorogation on 7 July, perhaps distracted by the last illness of Lady Montagu, who died two months later.<sup>51</sup> Spoken of again as a possible replacement for Nottingham as secretary of state in November 1690, he resumed his seat on 17 Nov., after which he was present on 38 per cent of all sittings.<sup>52</sup> Although he does not appear to have been added to the standing committees, he was named to the committee for Elizabeth Montagu’s bill on 20 Nov. and to a further three committees during the course of the session.</p><p>Montagu played host to the king at his rebuilt London residence on 23 Apr. 1691, an event that provoked ‘great discourse’, and was no doubt one of the causes of a rumour that circulated shortly afterwards suggesting that he was to be appointed lord privy seal as part of a general redistribution of offices.<sup>53</sup> In November it was also speculated that he might be appointed lord lieutenant of Middlesex, but neither office was forthcoming.<sup>54</sup> Having resumed his seat at the opening of the session on 22 Oct. 1691, of which he attended approximately 64 per cent of all sittings, Montagu was given the proxy of Edward Ward*, 2nd Baron Ward, on 5 Nov., which was vacated by the close of the session. On 21 Nov. he was named to the committee for the bill for the better determination of causes on bills of review in chancery and other courts of equity, the irony of which cannot have been lost on him during his ensuing lengthy legal tussle with John Granville*, earl of Bath. In December, Montagu employed his interest in the by-election at Chippenham, which had previously been represented by his son-in-law, Alexander Popham<sup>‡</sup>, working with Thomas Wharton*, the future marquess of Wharton, on behalf of Major General Thomas Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, who was eventually seated on petition the following January.<sup>55</sup> Named to a further nine committees during the course of the session, Montagu may have acted as teller for the not contents during a division in a committee of the whole considering the bill against correspondence with the enemy on 22 Jan. 1692. The vote, on a clause declaring all those returning to England from France without the king’s leave guilty of high treason, was resolved in the negative by 32 votes to 24, but as the clerk merely recorded the phrase ‘E. Mon’ it is possible that it was Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, who was intended.<sup>56</sup> On 2 Feb. 1692 Montagu registered his dissent at the resolution not to agree with the Commons over the Lords’ amendments to the appointment of commissioners of accounts.</p><h2><em>Montagu v. Bath, 1692-8</em></h2><p>Montagu was mentioned as one of those being considered for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland in February 1692, but high office again eluded him.<sup>57</sup> In spite of his previous history of political opportunism, Montagu remained largely consistent in his associations after the revolution. He was present at a dinner held at Pontack’s in August attended by a number of his regular companions, among them his cousin Shrewsbury, John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin.<sup>58</sup> Shortly afterwards, he married Elizabeth, duchess of Albemarle, no doubt intent on securing her reputed fortune as widow of the childless 2nd duke of Albemarle and one of the four daughters and coheirs of Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle, who had died in 1691.<sup>59</sup> The story that Montagu wooed his new wife, who was generally reputed to be insane and had sworn that she would marry none but royalty, in the guise of the emperor of China, is of uncertain origin, but Montagu and the duchess would probably already have known each other, she having been sister-in-law to his stepdaughter, Elizabeth, Lady Percy.<sup>60</sup> The marriage gave rise to concerns for Montagu’s wellbeing, as some reckoned that the cause of the duchess’s madness was the result of <em>furor uterinus</em> (nymphomania), which was considered to be infectious.<sup>61</sup> Soon after the marriage, the duchess disappeared from public view. It was rumoured occasionally that she had died and Montagu was eventually compelled to produce her to put an end to the gossip.<sup>62</sup> Montagu’s motives in marrying someone of such notorious mental instability were open to speculation. One rumour was that he was to secure promotion in the peerage to a marquessate as a result of the match, though no such honour was forthcoming, but the duchess’ greatest attraction was undoubtedly her reputed wealth.<sup>63</sup> The marriage was certainly unpopular with her family and among those expecting inheritances from the Albemarle estate. Although her brother-in-law, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, claimed the ‘marriage was not more surprising than pleasing to me’, the earl of Bath was said to be ‘in great disorder with the match,’ as was John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare, with whom it was said Montagu had resolved early on ‘to have a suit of law … for a share of the duke of Newcastle’s estate.’<sup>64</sup> And indeed, soon after the marriage Montagu was cited as one of the co-defendants in an action brought by Thanet in right of his wife, complaining at Newcastle’s uneven treatment of his daughters in his will.<sup>65</sup> Aside from the suit over the Newcastle estate, the alliance plunged Montagu into the heart of one of the greatest legal tussles of the decade, as a party (on his wife’s behalf) in a cause in chancery against Bath and others, over the division of the Albemarle inheritance. In its simplest terms the origin of the dispute was over the doubtful validity of two wills made by the 2nd duke of Albemarle in 1675 and 1687 and of a deed drawn up by the duke in 1681. The two earlier documents settled the bulk of the Albemarle estates, thought to be worth between £7,000 and £11,000 per annum, on Bath, while the later will preferred some of Albemarle’s obscure Monck relatives, whom he hoped to see ennobled.<sup>66</sup> Albemarle had come under pressure in December 1684 not to favour Bath, whom it was believed he had mistaken for a kinsman of his father, and to acknowledge instead Elizabeth Pride, his ‘nearest relation.’<sup>67</sup></p><p>The immediate consequence of Montagu’s marriage, as far as the case with Bath was concerned, was in bringing the proceedings to a halt as Montagu claimed privilege to protect his (and his new wife’s) interests. He resumed his seat in the House on 4 Nov. 1692 when he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. Presumably because of the court case his rate of attendance increased: he was present for some 82 per cent of all sittings in the session. On 9 Nov. the House read a petition submitted by Bath requesting that Montagu’s privilege should not obstruct the suit. Bath’s complaint was referred to the privileges committee, which convened on 21 Nov. chaired by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford: the following day Stamford reported back rejecting Bath’s petition.<sup>68</sup> Free for the moment to concentrate on parliamentary matters, Montagu subscribed the protest at the resolution not to propose to the Commons a joint committee to consider the state of the nation on 7 December. On 30 Dec. he was nominated a reporter of the conference examining the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill, and the same day he was named to the committee considering a bill to permit his son-in-law, Alexander Popham<sup>‡</sup>, to direct his wife’s portion to the use of their children.</p><p>The forecast made by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, at the beginning of January 1693 listed Montagu as being likely to oppose the bill permitting Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce. The following day he duly voted against reading the bill, perhaps as a demonstration of loyalty to the duchess as a member of the Northamptonshire elite. If this was so, he did so in the teeth of the queen’s opposition and that of many of his usual Whig allies. Montagu voted in favour of the place bill on 3 Jan. and subscribed the protest the same day when the measure was voted down. Nominated one of the managers for the conference considering the Commons’ vote approving of Admiral Russell’s conduct on 4 Jan., on 11 Jan. Montagu was again given Ward’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. Six days later he entered his dissent at the decision not to hear all the judges regarding the claim of his Northamptonshire neighbour, Charles Knollys, to the earldom of Banbury. On 19 Jan. Montagu dissented again at the decision not to refer the land tax bill to the committee for privileges and the same day he entered a further dissent at the decision to recede from the Lords’ amendments to the bill. Montagu found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder on 4 February.<sup>69</sup> The following month, on 6 Mar., he entered his dissent at the resolution not to communicate to the Commons information concerning Ireland heard at the bar of the House, after which he sat for a further eight days before retiring for the remainder of the session.</p><p>During the summer, Montagu’s Northamptonshire seat was one of three venues used by members of the Whig elite discussing ‘considerable alterations in the ministry.’ A party of notables including Marlborough, Godolphin and Admiral Russell as well as Montagu convened at Althorp, home of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on 26 Aug. before progressing to Boughton two days later.<sup>70</sup> Once again, it was reported that Montagu was one of those to be rewarded with his appointment as lord privy seal, but the principal goal of the discussions was thought to be the replacement of Nottingham with Sunderland.<sup>71</sup> According to Richard Hampden<sup>‡ </sup>‘the meeting at Boughton was intended to work upon my Lord Montagu’, who was hostile to his neighbour’s preferment. According to Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup>, Montagu remained unwilling to countenance Sunderland’s rehabilitation, declaring in reference to Sunderland’s service under James II that he ‘deserved rather to be impeached than to be preferred.’<sup>72</sup></p><p>Montagu found himself immersed in October in the continuing dispute over the Newcastle inheritance between Clare, the duchess of Albemarle, and her sister, the countess of Thanet.<sup>73</sup> He resumed his seat in the House on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sittings. The same day he was named to the standing committee for privileges and to the committee considering Thomas Skinner’s attempt to revive his case against the East India Company. The death of Anthony Parker<sup>‡</sup>, one of the members for Clitheroe, necessitated a by-election later that month and it was reported that Montagu was active in promoting the claims of one John Allen, having assumed an interest in the borough by virtue of his marriage.<sup>74</sup> In the event Montagu failed to have his way. Allen appears not to have stood and the seat went to Fitton Gerard<sup>‡</sup>, standing on the interest of Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon, the future 2nd earl of Macclesfield. The same month, Montagu and Bath finally arrived at a mutual agreement to waive their privilege so that the suit over the Albemarle inheritance could proceed once more. On 22 Dec. the court of chancery issued a decree in favour of Bath’s claim.<sup>75</sup> In response, Montagu appealed to the Lords. Meanwhile, in January 1694 he and Bath formed an alliance against a third party involved in the dispute, Thomas Pride, who questioned the 2nd duke of Albemarle’s legitimacy and thus claimed the Albemarle inheritance for himself as the ‘right heir’ of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. On 8 Jan. Montagu petitioned the House for the chancery decree in Bath’s favour to be reversed, provoking Bath in turn to demand that Montagu’s appeal be dismissed.<sup>76</sup> On 26 Jan. 1694 the House ordered that Pride be heard at the bar and on 29 Jan, in response to his petition, Bath and Montagu agreed to waive their privilege so that he too could pursue his cause. On 1 Feb. counsel was heard in the principal action of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. There were further hearings between 1 and 17 Feb., at least one of which attracted the king’s personal attendance.<sup>77</sup> Montagu was named one of the managers for the conference on the intelligence of the sailing of the Brest fleet on 8 Feb. and for another on the same subject four days later. On 17 Feb. after lengthy debate in the House on Montagu’s appeal that the judgment given in chancery against him on 22 Dec. 1693 be overturned, the House found in favour of Bath and dismissed Montagu’s petition by a margin of three votes.<sup>78</sup> Eleven peers entered their dissents and on 20 Feb. 1694 Montagu submitted a further petition requesting a ‘re-hearing’.<sup>79</sup> Four days later the petition was rejected by 30 votes to 28. Thirteen peers entered their dissents.<sup>80</sup> Thwarted in the case for the time being, Montagu continued to attend the House until 25 April. He was named to five committees during March, and on 24 Apr. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the supply bill (the dissent specifically aimed at those sections of the bill referring to the incorporation of the Bank of England).</p><p>In a characteristic demonstration of shameless self-aggrandizement, on 18 May 1694 Montagu wrote to the king requesting promotion to a dukedom. Making comparison with several families including that of his former in-laws, the earls (now dukes) of Bedford, Montagu requested that he be accorded the same dignity, being the head of a family ‘that many ages ago had great honours and dignities, when I am sure these had none.’ Complaining that by being overlooked, he was now ‘below the two younger branches’ of his own family, the earls of Manchester and Sandwich, Montagu insisted that by marrying the eldest daughter of the duke of Newcastle, he was entitled to expect the coveted promotion. If all this was not enough, Montagu continued to emphasize his role in the king’s successful assumption of power at the Revolution:</p><blockquote><p>I may add another pretension, which is the same for which you have given a dukedom to the Bedford family, the having been one of the first and held out to the last in that cause which for the happiness of England brought you to the crown. I hope it will not be thought a less merit to be alive and ready in all occasions to venture all again for your service, than if I had lost my head when my Lord Russell did; I could not then have had the opportunity of doing the nation the service I did when there was such opposition made by the Jacobite party in bringing my Lord Huntingdon, the bishop of Durham and my Lord Ashley to vote against the regency and your having the crown, which was passed but by those three voices and my own.<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his protestations, and his expectation that both Shrewsbury and Schomberg would support his petition, Montagu was disappointed in his pretensions, and resumed his seat in the new session on 12 Nov. 1694 without the additional dignity. On that day he was named to the committee for privileges, and was thereafter present on 63 per cent of all sittings. Four days after resuming his place, the next round of his case with the earl of Bath commenced in king’s bench. It resulted in further judgments in Bath’s favour.<sup>82</sup> Montagu received the proxy of John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr on 12 Dec., which was vacated by De la Warr’s return to the House on 9 Feb. 1695. On the queen’s death on 28 Dec. 1694 it fell to Montagu as master of the wardrobe to prepare much of the material necessary for the royal funeral. On 4 Feb. 1695 he received the proxy of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 9 Feb. he was named to the committee for the bill for settling the estate of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester. Named to two further committees in February, that month it was reported that ‘the vogue of the town’ expected that Montagu and Wharton would be made secretaries of state, but once again, Montagu was passed over for executive office.<sup>83</sup> On 6 Feb. Pride’s case was heard in king’s bench. A verdict was brought in for Bath and Montagu on the 7th.<sup>84</sup> On 9 Mar. Montagu petitioned the House once more over his case, complaining that Bath had failed to produce necessary evidence at their recent trials and requesting that he be ordered to do so in any future actions.<sup>85</sup> The House ordered that Bath and Montagu’s counsel should be heard on 15 Mar, when, following further consideration, the matter was referred to the lord keeper for his opinion. On 18 Mar. the House rejected Montagu’s petition, concluding that it had not been brought in properly. Although Montagu was named to just one committee in April 1695, he continued to sit until the close of the session at the beginning of May. On 24 Apr. another hearing on the case Thomas Pride’s case against Montagu and Bath found in favour of the latter, and at the end of the month Montagu also gained a verdict against Bath over the validity of the 1681 deed.<sup>86</sup> However, he was given little respite as the two earls faced a further action in the court of exchequer in June on behalf of Pride’s daughters.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Montagu attended the House for the prorogations on 18 June and again on 17 Sept. 1695. In October, he played host to the king at Boughton during his tour of Northamptonshire and he then resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 November.<sup>88</sup> The same month he was appointed one of the commissioners of appeal for prizes.<sup>89</sup> Present for approximately 61 per cent of all sittings, during the course of the session Montagu was named to a dozen committees. Further hearings of his case with Bath came before common pleas in May 1696, which resulted in a verdict in his favour the following month. By then it was estimated that the case had cost Montagu £20,000, while Bath’s reputation had been damaged by accusations that he had been guilty of forgery in connection with the drawing up of the will and the deed on which he staked his claim.<sup>90</sup> Bath himself made accusations of perjury against several of Montagu’s witnesses and Bath obstructed progress in the cause by reassuming his parliamentary privilege.<sup>91</sup> Resuming his seat in the House for the second session of the 1695 Parliament on 20 Oct. 1696, on 30 Oct. Montagu submitted a petition to the House complaining of Bath’s behaviour and appealed for his rival to be ordered to give up his privilege again.<sup>92</sup> The matter was heard before the committee for privileges the following day, at which it was ordered that Bath’s reply be reported.<sup>93</sup> Bath argued that Montagu had also caused delays by resuming privilege in the course of the action and claimed that he had done so only to protect himself from cases being brought on the basis of the evidence of the witnesses whom Bath considered to be perjured.<sup>94</sup> On 7 Nov. it was reported that the House had granted Bath privilege for six months to pursue the perjury cases, but following further debate in the House on the matter, Bath, still unsatisfied, petitioned once more on 19 November.<sup>95</sup> Four days later Montagu entered his rejoinder to Bath’s latest complaint, remarking that he could not:</p><blockquote><p>but wonder much at the petitioner’s (Bath’s) troubling your lordships with a petition of this nature … And seeing your petitioner is so unstable in his own thoughts as not to be at certainty with himself in relation to the waiving and reassuming of his privilege … this respondent hopes this House will not order something to be entered in the books of this house that his officers and agents at law may not for the future be deterred from doing this respondent justice in going on at law to recover his right.<sup>96</sup></p></blockquote><p>The House ordered that the matter be considered again on 25 Nov., when it was ordered that, ‘the judgment and verdict against the earl of Bath to be entered up, and that the earl of Montagu take no benefit of it till after the two next terms.’<sup>97</sup> A rumour that the ‘controversy’ between the two peers was likely to be ‘accommodated’ at this time appears to have been without foundation.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Montagu voted in favour of the passage of the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, bt. on 23 Dec. 1696. At the Buckinghamshire by-election, held at the close of December 1696, he found his interest in the county sought by several of the candidates opposed to the Wharton interest. Although it was rumoured early on that he might be expected to back John Hampden<sup>‡,</sup> whom he had supported previously, another pretender for the seat, the Tory Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, bt., the future Viscount Fermanagh [I], also approached Montagu, ‘though unknown to your lordship’, seeking support for his candidacy.<sup>99</sup> Following Hampden’s suicide, Montagu appears to have resolved to back Verney, but the election was carried by Wharton’s candidate, Henry Neale<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>100</sup> Montagu’s decision to back Verney was presumably a result of tensions either at court or within the ranks of the Buckinghamshire Whigs and perhaps by a desire to challenge Wharton’s dominance in the county. Resuming his seat in the House following the Christmas recess on 8 Jan. 1697, on 25 Jan. Montagu was again entrusted with Ward’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. He continued to sit for much of the remainder of the session, despite complaining of ill health in March when he expressed the hope that he would be able to co-operate with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, in bringing the ‘governors of the New River to reason’.<sup>101</sup> Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> mistakenly reported that Montagu had been appointed lord lieutenant of Northamptonshire in April. Over the ensuing two months Montagu suffered further reversals in his ongoing case with Bath when a number of his witnesses were found guilty of perjury in king’s bench.<sup>102</sup> In June Bath capitalized on these successful prosecutions by bringing actions of subornation and perjury against Montagu’s chaplain, Lambert, and one of his lawyers.<sup>103</sup> As the case rumbled on into the autumn, Bath continued to frustrate progress by insisting on his privilege.<sup>104</sup> Not content with prosecuting his case with Bath, Montagu also appears to have been involved in an argument with Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, at this time over the state of the New Forest.<sup>105</sup> A rumour in October 1697 that Montagu and Devonshire were to be appointed joint ambassadors to France failed to be realized, but Montagu’s fortunes improved in November when king’s bench reversed the perjury judgments against his witnesses.<sup>106</sup> In December he was appointed a commissioner of appeal in admiralty cases.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Montagu suffered the loss of his lodgings in the palace of Whitehall during the fire of January 1698.<sup>108</sup> The same month <em>Montagu v. Bath</em> was again before the House, with the Lords considering the perjury cases brought against Montagu’s witnesses. Montagu submitted a petition to the House on 3 Jan. complaining that Bath had once more reassumed his privilege, and that by so delaying the trial he had already damaged Montagu’s case as at least one of his witnesses had died in the interim. In response, Bath submitted his own petition on 10 Jan., claiming that Montagu too had obstructed matters by resuming privilege during the perjury trials. Montagu replied four days later, the tenor of his response betraying his clear frustration with Bath’s tactics:</p><blockquote><p>The respondent [Bath] in his answer to this repliant’s [Montagu’s] petition having suggested and insisted upon many matters to which this repliant could give a very full clear and particular answer and could justly set forth the respondent’s agents’ evil practices and contrivances, yet forasmuch as this repliant humbly conceives that many of the said matters are industriously inserted only to perplex and obscure the case and to draw your lordships into debates of matters of facts not properly before you, and which are no ways material to the point in question, which is solely whether the repliant ought to reassume his privilege after waiver of the same, this repliant therefore humbly conceives that he ought not to trouble this honourable House with any further reply to the said foreign matters.</p></blockquote><p>Montagu’s robust reply was met by a further rejoinder by Bath on 18 Jan. 1698.<sup>109</sup> Only when Montagu agreed to lay aside all the tainted witnesses did Bath agree finally to waive his privilege once more so that the case could continue in earnest.<sup>110</sup> As a corollary, the day before (17 Jan.) the House debated the ‘exorbitant fees’ being charged by lawyers, ‘occasioned by the late very expensive trials between the earls of Bath and Montagu’.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Montagu was named a manager of the conferences considering the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> on 7 and 11 Mar. 1698. On 15 Mar. Montagu voted in favour of committing the bill, entering his dissent the same day when the resolution was not carried. In the midst of its consideration of the Duncombe affair, the House again turned its attention to Montagu’s case with Bath on 12 Mar. and again concluded in the latter’s favour, voting by 35 to 21 to reverse the judgment of king’s bench, which had previously reversed the perjury judgments brought against three of Montagu’s witnesses.<sup>112</sup> On 11 May Montagu was named a manager of the conference for amendments to a bill for erecting hospitals and workhouses in Colchester. His case against Bath suffered a further reversal when it was reported that month that Christopher Monck, one of Albemarle’s kinsmen who, like Montagu, expected to benefit from the later will, had deserted Montagu and settled with Bath in return for £10,000 and an annuity of £1,000.<sup>113</sup> In spite of this, Montagu persevered and on 27 May, following another hearing that lasted into the next morning, he was successful in carrying an action in common pleas against Bath, who was found to have forged at least some of the documents on which he had based his case.<sup>114</sup> Shortly after, Montagu was also successful in king’s bench when Bath failed to appear, having been unable to convince the court to put the matter off to a later date.<sup>115</sup> In October, it was rumoured that Monck had sold his pretensions to the Albemarle estate to Bath for £40,000.<sup>116</sup> Other reports of the same month indicated that Bath and Montagu were also on the verge of concluding a settlement, to end an action that had almost certainly ruined Bath and must also have severely damaged Montagu financially.<sup>117</sup> Nevertheless, the two families continued legal action for the following ten years.<sup>118</sup></p><h2><em>The Pursuit of Honour, 1698-1709</em></h2><p>Freed for the time being from his dispute with Bath, Montagu resumed his seat in the House on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present for approximately 60 per cent of all sittings. On 20 Apr. 1699 he chaired the committee considering Augustine Cloribus’s naturalization bill, reporting the committee’s amendment to the House the same day, and he was also named one of the managers of a conference on bill about Blackwell Hall market.<sup>119</sup> The following day he was named a manager of a conference concerning a bill establishing Billingsgate as a free market. He was named manager of a second conference on the same subject on 27 April.</p><p>Montagu’s interest in closer relations with France was recalled in June when he was named one of the executors to the duchess of Mazarin, whom he had attempted to introduce at court as a counterbalance to the duchess of Portsmouth in the late 1670s.<sup>120</sup> Writing to Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, Montagu appealed for his aid in taking care of the duchess’s family and concerns ‘till we receive his majesty’s orders and directions’.<sup>121</sup> Montagu’s continuing importance in Whig politics was also indicated by the choice of Boughton as the venue for a meeting between Shrewsbury, Wharton and other members of the Junto in August.<sup>122</sup> The same month it was reported that the dispute over the Albemarle estate was to be renewed by members of the Pride family, which may have been the occasion of Montagu’s hasty departure from Northamptonshire at the beginning of September, preventing him from making an intended visit to his neighbour Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton.<sup>123</sup></p><p>Montagu’s attendance in the House declined markedly from this point on, possibly on account of poor health. He sat for just one day in November 1699, and did not resume his seat until 16 Feb. 1700, attending in all just 13 days of the 91-day session. Presumably unaware of Montagu’s ill-attendance, Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley, asked him at the close of December 1699 to inform him of ‘any particulars of court or Parliament that you think I may not easily come to know by other hands’ while he was absent in Ireland.<sup>124</sup> On 23 Feb. 1700 Montagu voted against the House adjourning to discuss the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation in a committee of the whole and on 8 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to read the Norfolk divorce bill a second time. Probably marked as a supporter of the Junto in a list of about July 1700, his continuing significance as a political broker was underlined in a letter of the following month which noted that, ‘my Lord Montagu’s is still the seat of politics and this night a consult is to be held there, which is to model a new settlement to break country parties and to do other wonders.’<sup>125</sup></p><p>Montagu was absent from the opening of the new Parliament in February 1701 and, having taken his seat on 13 May, three months after the opening of the first session, he was present for just 17 per cent of all sittings. Once in attendance, he rallied to the support of his Junto colleagues. On 17 June he voted to acquit John Somers*, Baron Somers, of the charges of impeachment against him and on 23 June he also supported the motion to acquit Orford.</p><p>Montagu took his seat in the new Parliament on 2 Jan. 1702, after which he was present on 10 per cent of all sitting days. In April he sought Harley’s backing for a bill in the Commons sponsored by some of his friends concerning the development of Albemarle Ground.<sup>126</sup> The following month he suffered the loss of his heir, Winwood Montagu, <em>styled</em> Viscount Monthermer, while abroad in Hanover. In September of the same year it was reported that Montagu himself was also seriously ill.<sup>127</sup> Although still complaining of giddiness that autumn, Montagu again hosted a conclave of Junto grandees including Somers and Wharton towards the end of September.<sup>128</sup> Despite his poor health, Montagu rallied to resume his seat in the House on 16 Nov., after which he was present on almost 30 per cent of all sittings. Nottingham estimated Montagu to be opposed to the bill for preventing occasional conformity in January 1703, and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. The same month he undertook to use his interest on behalf of John Bridges, one of the commissioners for accounts, who was examined by the Commons on 25 January.<sup>129</sup> He was present for a handful of days in February, last attending on the 24th. Montagu was thereafter absent for the remaining two sessions of the Parliament. Again estimated to be an opponent of the occasional conformity bill in an assessment of November 1703, in December it was noted that he had voted against the bill by proxy, though no record of the proxy has survived. The deaths of two earls of Bath in quick succession served to reignite the dispute over the Albemarle inheritance. In Montagu’s absence, the House heard his counsel contesting the bill for settling the earl of Bath’s estate brought in by John Granville*, Baron Granville, on 11 Feb. 1704.<sup>130</sup> Once again, the suit took on a momentum of its own and rumbled on for the remainder of Montagu’s life.<sup>131</sup> He was excused at a call of the House on 23 Nov. 1704 and on 5 Dec. he registered his proxy with his cousin, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax. In about April 1705 he was noted as being a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.</p><p>From the summer of 1703 Montagu had been working on the question of the marriage of his youngest son, now his heir. Negotiations with Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, for the hand of her youngest daughter, Lady Mary Churchill, were not without difficulties. John Montagu*, styled Viscount Monthermer, later 2nd duke of Montagu, born in 1690, was notoriously immature and although the duke of Marlborough eventually acquiesced in Monthermer and Lady Mary cohabiting once they were both 16, concluding that it would be ‘impossible to refuse it’, he was far from enthusiastic, complaining that ‘I could wish with all my heart they were older’.<sup>132</sup> Montagu was worried about the delay, and although he had no choice but to agree to the Marlboroughs’ terms, he wrote to the duchess representing, ‘how uneasy it must be to a man of my age and infirmities to see the settling of my son deferred.’<sup>133</sup> Following a series of delays, the negotiations for the match were finally concluded in March 1705. Queen Anne provided Lady Mary with her dowry, while the reversion of Montagu’s office of the great wardrobe was settled on Monthermer for life.<sup>134</sup> In acknowledgement of the alliance, Montagu at last achieved his promotion in the peerage: on 12 Apr. he was created duke of Montagu.</p><p>Montagu was introduced to the House in his new style on 15 Nov. 1705 between James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, but he was then absent from the House until 13 Feb. 1706, after which he was again absent for the remainder of the session. Absence from Parliament did not prevent Montagu from continuing to badger the Marlboroughs for further favours. In August 1706 he recommended one Colonel Wightman to Marlborough and in January 1707 pressed the claims of his cousin, Mrs Dutton, on the duchess.<sup>135</sup> The following month he appears to have begun to lobby for his own nomination as a knight of the garter.<sup>136</sup> By the summer of 1707 the duchess had grown weary of his apparently insatiable acquisitiveness and in response to his latest request that his son might be appointed to the captaincy of the yeomen of the guard, she was forced to inform him that, ‘there is so few employments, and so many to be gratified for the queen’s service, that I can’t think of asking the captain of the yeomen of the guard for my son-in-law, who has (in reversion) one of the best things the queen has to give, and for his life.’<sup>137</sup> Not to be denied, Montagu set out to justify his ambitions for Monthermer, arguing that:</p><blockquote><p>The queen’s mind is much altered in not allowing of two great offices in one family. My Lord Treasurer [Godolphin] his son and daughter-in-law have three, my Lord Devonshire and his son had two, my Lord Sunderland [Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland] and my lady have two, the duke and duchess of Ormond the same, also the duke and duchess of Somerset [Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset]. The duke of Bolton is warden of the New Forest, vice-admiral in those seas and governor of the Isle of Wight: all places of great honour and profit. These examples will I hope in some measure make my excuse with your grace and show you madam that I am not unreasonable in my pretensions for my son as you may perhaps judge me to be.</p></blockquote><p>Montagu’s continuing poor health denied him the opportunity of making his ‘court as I ought to do’ and was presumably the reason for his absence from the House from the winter of 1706 until early 1708.<sup>138</sup> He resumed his place eventually on 4 Feb. 1708, but having attended just one day he was again absent for the remainder of the session. The same month he drew up a codicil to his will, composed the previous year, revoking a former codicil, which had been ‘by some accident lost or mislaid’.<sup>139</sup> In May 1708 he was, unsurprisingly, classified as a Whig in a list of the Parliament of Great Britain. The following month he attempted to employ his patronage on behalf of one Colthurst for the office of chief justice of New York. Writing on Colthurst’s behalf to Thomas Hopkins<sup>‡</sup>, under-secretary of state, Montagu explained how he had been ‘a great solicitor for my Lord Sunderland on his election in Northamptonshire’, and stressed that the lord chancellor, William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, had ‘promised me his friendship in the matter’.<sup>140</sup> The following year, he attempted to employ his interest with Godolphin, on behalf of Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>, one of the pretenders for a place in the commission of trade.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Montagu resumed his seat in the House on 10 Jan. 1709. On 21 Jan. he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election of the Scots representative peers, but on 28 Jan., having sat for just four days of the session, he retired from the House for final time. On 30 Jan. Marlborough complained that Montagu was still plaguing him for preferment for his son. In response to his latest request that Monthermer might be given the command of the troop belonging to Albemarle, Marlborough ‘made him a civil answer’ but informed him that ‘the troop was not to be sold.’<sup>142</sup> Six weeks later, on 9 Mar., Montagu died of pleurisy at the rebuilt Montagu House in Bloomsbury, a few hours after his daughter-in-law had given birth.<sup>143</sup> His death seems to have been unexpected and left several would-be office-holders mourning the loss of an assiduous intercessor.<sup>144</sup> He was buried at Warkton, and succeeded by his son, Monthermer, as 2nd duke of Montagu. In his will, Montagu named his cousin Halifax, Somers, Edmund Dummer and Thomas Dummer, his deputy at the great wardrobe, as his executors and Mark Antony and John Warner as trustees. In stark contrast to his life of ostentatious display, he requested that his funeral should be ‘very private’, that only two coaches should attend and that it should cost ‘as little as conveniently.’ An annuity of £50 was left to one of his servants, George Keene, annuities of £100 apiece to Edmund and Thomas Dummer and a further annuity of £1,000 to his grandson, John Montagu, styled Lord Montagu (<em>d</em>. 1711). The remainder passed to his heir, who inherited what was reckoned to be one of the largest estates in the country, comprising lands in Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Huntingdon, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Kent, Surrey, Warwickshire and Staffordshire. In the event of the direct line failing, Montagu detailed the succession through the various cadet branches of his family, requiring that (should they not already do so) the holder should assume the surname of Montagu.<sup>145</sup> Although the new duke’s inheritance was estimated at an annual income of £30,000 and a personal estate valued at £200,000, it was rumoured that Montagu had died £40,000 in debt and that Montagu House was encumbered with a £20,000 mortgage.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Few appear to have mourned Montagu’s demise, but his death did finally lay to rest the rumour that he had made away with his wife. Anne Hadley described to Abigail Harley how:</p><blockquote><p>Here is no lamentation for the duke of Montagu, but he by departing has given the inquisitive world the long desired satisfaction of knowing his mad duchess to be alive. They say she will be given to the duke of Newcastle when a commission of lunacy is taken out, and what’s more will come in for her thirds of her (or her pretended husband’s) estate. For my part I’m apt to think could he have foreseen, or rather believed, at what a distance this present world and he so soon would have been, he for the wealth and honour’s sake of his family would discreetly have knocked her ladyship in the head in good time, being I suppose not troubled with a scrupulous conscience.<sup>147</sup></p></blockquote><p>The duchess, who had lived for so long in seclusion, survived her husband for more than 20 years. Montagu’s death provoked ‘great contending’ within the family over who was to have her keeping and she proved to be a continuing embarrassment to her relations for the remainder of her life.<sup>148</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MONTAGU, Robert (1634-83) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTAGU</surname></strong> (<strong>MOUNTAGU</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (1634–83)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1634-71 Visct. Mandeville; <em>suc. </em>fa. 5 May 1671 as 3rd earl of MANCHESTER. |
|
First sat 4 Feb. 1673; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Huntingdonshire 1660, 1661–71. |
<p><em>bap</em>. 25 Apr. 1634, 1st s. of Edward Montagu*, later 2nd earl of Manchester, and 2nd w. Lady Anne Rich. <em>educ</em>. Oxf. MA 1665; travelled abroad (France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy) 1649–54.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 27 June 1655, Anne (<em>d</em>. 1698), da. of Sir Christopher Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Easton Maudit, Northants. 5s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 4da. (?1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 14 Mar. 1683; <em>will</em> 16 June 1682, pr. ?6 June 1684, 20 July 1684, 20 Jan. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1666–<em>d</em>.; master of the swans 1672–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Commr. for oyer and terminer, Midland circuit 1660, assessment, Hunts. 1660–71, Huntingdon and Northants. 1663–71; Dep. lt. Hunts. 1660–71; ld. lt. (jt.) Hunts. 1671–2, (sole) 1672–81; <em>custos rot</em>. Hunts. 1672–81;<sup>4</sup> water-bailiff, Whittlesea mere 1672–<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> high steward, Camb. Univ. 1677–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt of militia horse, Hunts. 1660; capt. duke of Monmouth’s regt. of ft. 1666.</p> |
|
<p>An inactive member of the Commons in the Convention and Cavalier Parliament, Mandeville, as he was styled until his succession to the earldom, never really emerged from the shadow of his more illustrious father and he was equally outshone by his more forceful wife. One commentator described him as ‘a bedchamber pimp’ and he seems to have won a reputation as a ‘gallant’.<sup>7</sup> He was also one of several people at one time or another associated with Frances Stuart (later duchess of Richmond); in 1667 when he joined James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and various others in mobilizing against a Dutch assault near Harwich it was concluded dismissively that their gathering would be ‘to little purpose … but to debauch the country women thereabouts’.<sup>8</sup> Such an unprepossessing reputation did not prevent him from enjoying some success as a courtier before drifting into opposition.</p><p>Two years after his succession to the peerage on 5 May 1671 (not, as is usually given, 7 May), Manchester took his seat in the House, on 4 Feb. 1673, when he was named to the sessional committees for petitions and privileges. He was thereafter present on approximately three-quarters of all sitting days in the session. Although he was missing from the attendance lists for almost three weeks after his first appearance, he does appear to have been present in the House on occasion during this time, as he was not noted as being missing at a call on 13 Feb. but was then added to the committee for attorneys two days later. Included on the attendance list again on 21 Feb. he was named to a further five committees in the course of the session, including the committee for preparing a bill of advice to the king, which seems to have comprised all those sitting in the chamber that day.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Manchester was involved in an argument with his kinsman, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Sandwich, over the office of keeper of swans. The quarrel resulted in swords being drawn but seems to have been settled with no more damage done than a scratch to Sandwich’s arm.<sup>9</sup> Manchester returned to the House in October for the brief four-day session, which he attended on three days, before taking his seat once more in the new session of January 1674. Although present on almost 87 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to just two committees. This apparent lack of activity was repeated in the subsequent session of April 1675, when he was present on just over half of all sitting days but was named to no committees bar the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. His only other perceptible imprint on the session was when he joined with John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), in introducing Charles Sackville*, later 6th earl of Dorset, as earl of Middlesex. On 28 May he registered his proxy with Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield), which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>By the mid-1670s Manchester had aligned himself with the opposition and, having resumed his seat on 13 Oct. 1675, he was noted as being one of the ‘chief lords for the address’ requesting a dissolution of Parliament on 20 November.<sup>10</sup> He then signed the protest when the measure failed to carry.<sup>11</sup> Present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days in the short session, he was named to five committees, including that concerning his kinswoman Mary, dowager countess of Warwick, as well as the bill for rebuilding Northampton, a town with which the Montagu family were closely associated.</p><p>Although Manchester was summoned as one of the triers for the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in June 1676, he was one of a handful who failed to appear.<sup>12</sup> For all his apparent lethargy and identification with the opposition, he retained a reputation as a courtier of some significance and in September rumours circulated that he was to be appointed as chamberlain of the queen’s household in return for paying £5,000 to the Portuguese ambassador, but this failed to come to anything.<sup>13</sup> He resumed his seat at the opening of the following session on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 13 committees during the session, Manchester’s attention was also taken up with the passage of a bill to enable him to sell lands to settle his debts. Following a report by John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover, the House ordered the bill to be engrossed with amendments and, after the addition of a proviso by the Commons, it received the royal assent on 16 April.</p><p>Manchester was noted as ‘worthy’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, at the beginning of May. He was again the subject of the House’s scrutiny the following February over the <em>Langley v. Twisden</em> case, when Francis Twisden attempted to forestall an action brought against him by producing a protection from Manchester. The House was unimpressed with Twisden’s plea, the protection was set aside and Langley was granted leave to proceed. Absent at a call on 16 Feb. 1678, Manchester resumed his seat on 4 March. On 4 Apr. he voted Thomas Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder. At the close of the month he left town briefly to attend the funeral of the dowager countess of Warwick.<sup>14</sup> He resumed his seat once more on 2 May and later that month he was again to the fore when the inhabitants of Hallowell petitioned the House to prevent him from enclosing land there. On this occasion, the House took Manchester’s part and the petition was dismissed.</p><p>Manchester took his seat in the House for the following session on 23 May 1678, after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days and named to two committees. He appears to have spent the summer following the prorogation engaged in making improvements at Leez Priory, formerly part of the Warwick estate, but he took his seat once more on 21 Oct., after which his rate of attendance increased considerably to just short of 80 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>15</sup> Even so, his activity within the House barely fluctuated. Again named to just two committees, on 15 Nov. he voted in favour of disabling papists from sitting in Parliament and on 26 Dec. he supported the resolution to insist upon the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill.</p><p>In February, in advance of the new Parliament, Manchester’s countess wrote to her niece Baroness Hatton, hoping to see her in town before the session got under way.<sup>16</sup> Lady Hatton presumably disappointed her aunt as her husband (Christopher Hatton*, 2nd Baron, later Viscount, Hatton) delayed attending the House until April but Manchester was present on two days of the abortive session of March 1679 before taking his seat on 20 Mar., after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days. Although he had voted against committing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), on 27 Dec. 1678, he was noted as a likely opponent of the former lord treasurer in an assessment of 1 Mar. 1679 and Danby continued to include him among his probable opponents in subsequent forecasts over the following two days. In April, as predicted, Manchester voted in favour of the early stages of the Danby attainder. Three days later he voted in favour of passing the bill and on 14 Apr. he was one of several of the ‘court party’ to abandon Danby and vote in favour of supporting the Commons’ resolutions on the measure.</p><p>In parallel with the moves against Danby, Manchester found himself involved once more in a squabble with some of the inhabitants of one of his manors. On the same day that he voted to attaint Danby (4 Apr.), the House heard a complaint against five individuals who were said to have trespassed on Manchester’s property in Harlow and other locations, breaking down fences and causing other damage there. The House ordered the five to be attached but on 17 Apr. they were released having undertaken to put right the damage they had done. Manchester was missing at a call on 9 May, though it was noted that he would be present the following day. He resumed his seat accordingly on 10 May, when he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider how best to proceed against the impeached lords. He then subscribed the protest at the failure to carry this proposal and three days later he put his name to the subsequent protest against the resolution to allow the bishops to remain in the court during capital cases prior to sentencing.</p><p>Following the dissolution that summer, Manchester was at the centre of a family dispute over the settlement of property as laid out in the will of his brother-in-law, Robert Rich*, 5th earl of Warwick. Warwick had made a number of bequests to Manchester’s siblings, with a reversion to Manchester’s heir, Charles Montagu*, then styled Viscount Mandeville (later duke of Manchester). In spite of this, Manchester was accused of having taken control of the estates himself and of insisting on his privilege to prevent the case being brought to court.<sup>17</sup> Manchester’s father had been one of Warwick’s trustees, so Manchester had presumably inherited this role. The matter, which was further complicated by intricate jealousies within the Rich family, was still unresolved the following March when Manchester’s sister, the 5th earl of Warwick’s widow, sought the assistance of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, to help bring the case to a conclusion.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Elections for the new Parliament further complicated affairs for Manchester. As his countess explained to Lady Hatton, Essex, where Manchester commanded some interest through his connection with the Rich family, was in a ‘great bustle about the election’ following the intervention of Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle.<sup>19</sup> Albemarle had succeeded in luring Sir Eliab Harvey<sup>‡</sup> away from his former partner, Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup>, persuading him to stand with Sir Thomas Middleton<sup>‡</sup> instead, only to see Mildmay and John Lamotte Honeywood<sup>‡</sup> returned following a fierce contest.<sup>20</sup> It is not clear whom Manchester favoured on this occasion, though it seems likely that he would have backed the anti-court pairing of Mildmay and Honeywood.</p><p>Manchester’s countess found out about the intention to prorogue Parliament from William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, during a visit the Tower the day before the December 1679 council meeting at which the king made the decision.<sup>21</sup> Manchester attended the two prorogation days on 17 Oct. 1679 and 26 Jan. 1680. That spring there were further developments over the family suits relating to the Rich estates.<sup>22</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament (which met a few days earlier than planned) on 21 Oct., after which he was present on over three-quarters of all sitting days, but he was named to just one committee. On 15 Nov. he voted against putting the question that the exclusion bill should be rejected at first reading and at the subsequent proposal to reject the bill at first reading. He then subscribed the ensuing protest and on 23 Nov. he voted in favour of establishing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. Manchester found Stafford guilty of treason on 7 December. His countess was an assiduous attender of the trial and provided an account of its proceedings to Lady Hatton.<sup>23</sup> Manchester protested again on 7 Jan. 1681, first at the resolution not to put the question whether to address the king to suspend Sir William Scroggs, and second at the resolution not to put the question whether Scroggs should be committed on articles of impeachment brought up from the Commons. Two months later, he was assessed by Danby again as a likely opponent in preparation for Danby’s attempt to secure his release from the Tower.</p><p>Manchester’s opposition to the court led to rumours of his impending dismissal from his offices early the following year.<sup>24</sup> In March 1681 he was ordered to cease attending the king as a gentleman of the bedchamber (though he does not seem to have been formally removed from this post). He was also put out as lord lieutenant of Huntingdon, though Lady Sunderland reported two months later that he was engaged in making his peace with the king.<sup>25</sup> At the end of July Manchester and his countess arrived at Whitehall, though the immediate cause of their journey (according to Lady Manchester) was so that Manchester could take the waters at Epsom ‘that he might not grow too fat’ and so that she could purchase mourning in town.<sup>26</sup> Manchester’s efforts to effect a reconciliation with the king clearly failed as, shortly after he returned to the country, messengers were sent to him to demand the keys of his lodgings at Whitehall.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Out of favour and plagued by poor health, Manchester resolved to quit England for France and in March 1682 he was granted a warrant to travel abroad with his cousin Irby Montagu<sup>‡</sup> and seven servants.<sup>28</sup> Prior to his departure, he contrived to arrange the marriages of three of his daughters concurrently. The eldest, Lady Anne Montagu, was married to James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, but far less advantageous matches were said to have been secured for the younger girls. One was reported to be set to marry the septuagenarian Colonel Bright, whose son, it was also stated, had previously been married to another of Manchester’s daughters. The other was said to be intended for a Captain Brett, who was reputedly little better than a highwayman.<sup>29</sup> If they took place, no evidence for the younger daughters’ marriages or the marriage of any of Manchester’s daughters to Bright’s son appears to have survived. When Manchester made his will in the summer of 1682 (by which time his health was said to have improved) his three younger daughters were all listed as unmarried. They were still so at the time of his death.<sup>30</sup> In 1697 Lady Catherine Montagu married one of the sons of Sir Humphrey Edwin and it was not until 1713 that Manchester’s second daughter, Elizabeth, married her cousin, James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, though it is possible that this was a second marriage.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Manchester died in his self-imposed exile at Montpellier of dropsy in March 1683.<sup>32</sup> According to his wishes outlined in his will, his body was returned to England for burial at Kimbolton.<sup>33</sup> His countess was said to have been forced to dissemble grief, being only too pleased to be rid of ‘an ill husband’.<sup>34</sup> Probate of the will was initially disputed.<sup>35</sup> The cause was presumably the clerical error which gave the date of passing the will as 6 June 1664 rather than 1684. In the will, Manchester divided his estates between his widow and heir and made provision for the payment of portions of £3,000 a piece to his unmarried daughters, as well as annuities for his younger sons, Robert<sup>‡</sup> and Heneage Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, both of whom were later returned to the Commons. Manchester’s widow and heir, along with his cousin Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, were appointed joint executors. His widow continued the family tradition of making decidedly scandalous marriages by later marrying her former husband’s kinsman, Charles Montagu*, afterwards earl of Halifax, who was at least 35 years her junior. Manchester was succeeded in the earldom by his far more capable son, Charles Montagu, who was later advanced duke of Manchester.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
MORDAUNT, Charles (c. 1658-1735) |
<p><strong><surname>MORDAUNT</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1658–1735)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 5 June 1675 (a minor) as 2nd Visct. MORDAUNT; <em>cr. </em>9 Apr. 1689 earl of MONMOUTH; <em>suc. </em>uncle 19 June 1697 as 3rd earl of PETERBOROUGH; <em>suc. </em>cos. 17 Nov. 1705 as 8th Bar. MORDAUNT |
|
First sat 21 Dec. 1680; last sat 16 Jan. 1733 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. Feb. 1658, 1st s. of John Mordaunt*, Visct. Mordaunt and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 5 Apr. 1679), da. and h. of Hon. Thomas Carey<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Westminster; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 11 Apr. 1674; travelled abroad (France) 1676-7.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) c. 1679-80, Carey (<em>d</em>. 13 May 1709), da. of Sir Alexander Fraizer, bt. [S], physician to king, 4s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 1 da.; (2) 1722/1735, Anastasia (<em>d</em>.1755), da. of Thomas Robinson, portrait painter, <em>s.p</em>. KG 3 Aug. 1713. <em>d</em>. 25 Oct. 1735;<em> will</em> 9 Sept. 1735; pr. 26 Nov. 1735.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1689-97; PC 14 Feb. 1689-21 Jan. 1697, Mar. 1705-May 1707; first ld. of treasury Apr. 1689-Mar. 1690.</p><p>Ld. lt. Northants. 1689-1715; <em>custos rot</em>., Northants. Mar.-Sept. 1689; water-bailiff, river Severn 1689;<sup>3</sup> commr., Greenwich Hosp. 1695.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Vol., RN 1677-80;<sup>5</sup> col., regt. of ft. Nov. 1688-94; lt.-col., vol. horse July 1689; c.-in-c., forces accompanying the Fleet to Spain 1705; jt. adm. of Fleet 1705; gen., marines 1710; col., Royal Horse Gds. 1712-15.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Gov., Jamaica 1702, Minorca Apr.-Aug. 1714; amb. extra. and plenip., Spain 1706-7; envoy, Frankfurt, Vienna, Augsburg, Savoy 1710-11, Saxony 1711, 1712, ? France Nov.-Dec. 1713 ; amb. extra. and plenip. Italian states Nov. 1713-Apr. 1714.</p><p>Master, Skinners’ Co. 1690.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1675-1700, English Heritage, Marble Hill House; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1715, NPG 5867.</p> |
<h2><em>Early Life to 1680 </em></h2><p>The exact date of Charles Mordaunt’s birth is unknown, but his mother was pregnant in June 1657, and it is likely that he was born at Berkshire House in mid-February 1658 and named after the exiled Charles II.<sup>8</sup> His father, John Mordaunt, created Viscount Mordaunt in July 1659, was the only surviving younger brother of Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, who had no male heirs. Thus from his first years Charles was in line to inherit not only the Mordaunt viscountcy from his father but the Peterborough earldom from his uncle. In December 1674, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> reported that Mordaunt had been ‘offered’ to one of the daughters of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and described him as ‘a very fine youth, few like him in England, and some say his uncle Peterborough brings on this match, though he hath no kindness for my Lord Mordaunt’.<sup>9</sup> In March 1675 Lady Mordaunt further outlined to Danby her son’s case for the hand of Lady Bridget Osborne. His prospects had been improved by ‘the king adding 31 years to the coal farm after current term expired’, an extension of the lease on the Newcastle coal farm, worth £2,000 a year, which had originally been obtained after the Restoration. Other assets included the manor of Reigate worth £700 a year, Lady Mordaunt’s property at Parsons Green in Fulham and land there worth £1,000 a year, and her estate at Bletchingley, worth £300 a year. Most attractive of all was the enticing ultimate prospect of the Peterborough inheritance. In return Danby was to pay a portion of £6,000, which was to be used for clearing the debt on Parsons Green.<sup>10</sup> The marriage negotiations, however, fell through and Lady Bridget married Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth.</p><p>Mordaunt succeeded his father as 2nd Viscount Mordaunt on 5 June 1675. At the end of February 1676, John Evelyn wrote in his diary that he ‘took leave of my young Lord Mordaunt going into France’ to continue his education at Foubert’s Academy.<sup>11</sup> In August 1676 Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup> wrote of ‘a very warm report’ that Mordaunt had ‘married Moll Kirke at Paris’, although this was quickly denied.<sup>12</sup> With a restless spirit and penchant for adventure, Mordaunt volunteered to go to sea with the navy in May 1677, returning to England at the end of May 1678.<sup>13</sup> On 29 Sept. 1678 he joined the <em>Bristol</em> man-of-war at Portsmouth for service in the Mediterranean, transferring to the <em>Rupert</em> at Cadiz in late November, after a memorable run-in with the ship’s chaplain.<sup>14</sup> At this point he seems to have returned home with Sir John Narborough, arriving in June 1679, for on 2 July John Stewkeley met him while dining with Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, he having been ‘as I heard him say, 27 weeks at sea’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Once back in England Mordaunt embarked on three of his favourite pastimes: duelling, romance and litigation. At the end of February 1680 he acted as a second to Plymouth in a duel with Sir George Hewett, and was wounded in the shoulder by William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish, the future duke of Devonshire.<sup>16</sup> On 18 May 1680 the dowager countess of Sunderland wrote that ‘Mrs Fraser [Carey Fraizer, daughter of the king’s physician, Sir Alexander Fraizer] has taken her leave at court, in order, they say, to being owned [as] my Lady Mordaunt, though yet he denies it, but she and her friends do not’.<sup>17</sup> It was reported to James Butler*, earl of Brecknock and duke of Ormond [I], on 22 May that Mordaunt would soon marry ‘Mrs Frazier’, as she was pregnant, ‘my Lord seeming to own something of a contract’.<sup>18</sup> On 24 May Cary Gardiner reported that Mordaunt denied the marriage.<sup>19</sup> It was not until December 1681 that Mordaunt ‘brought out as well as owned his lady’ as his wife.<sup>20</sup> In June 1680 Mordaunt put an answer into Chancery with reference to an earlier decree which had settled Turvey in Bedfordshire on Penelope, countess of Peterborough, for her dower if she survived her husband, the 2nd earl of Peterborough, in which he agreed not to hinder her from possession.<sup>21</sup> At this date Mordaunt had two residences close to London, at Parsons Green and Reigate in Surrey.<sup>22</sup> He soon departed from England again, this time to serve as a volunteer in the relief force for Tangier, which left in June 1680.<sup>23</sup> He returned home with the body of the earl of Plymouth, who had died there of dysentery, arriving in England in December 1680.<sup>24</sup></p><h2><em>The Last Years of Charles II, 1681-4</em></h2><p>As he had approached his majority, Mordaunt had become of increasing interest to the leading political figures. On the list of lay peers compiled over 1677-8 by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, Mordaunt had been classed as ‘doubly vile’, which given his future conduct proved to be an inaccurate assessment, but may have been owing more to his connection with his uncle Peterborough, whom Shaftesbury considered ‘triply vile’. Danby, too, was unsure of Mordaunt’s politics, marking him as doubtful and absent in March-April 1679 in his calculation of likely voting in the proceedings against him. Mordaunt had been excused attendance on the Lords on 9 May 1679 on the (probably erroneous) assumption that he was under-age. On 30 Oct. 1680, Mordaunt was again excused attendance, this time on the grounds that he was still abroad. He was therefore absent from the division of 15 Nov. on the exclusion bill. He first took his seat in the Lords on 21 Dec. 1680, having received a writ of summons dated the previous day. A contemporary list of those who on 7 Jan. 1681 entered their dissent from the Lords’ decision not to put the question to commit the lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs, following his impeachment by the Commons, includes Mordaunt’s name, although the printed version of the Journal does not include him among the signatories.<sup>25</sup> He had attended on seven days of the session, 12 per cent of the total, though these were almost all of the sittings of the House after he had received his writ. He had been named to two committees.</p><p>Mordaunt was a signatory of the petition presented to the king on 25 Jan. 1681 requesting that the Parliament called for Oxford should sit at Westminster as usual.<sup>26</sup> On 22 Feb. Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, wrote to Henry Sydney*, the future earl of Romney, to recommend Mordaunt to William of Orange as ‘a young man very desirous to serve him’. The Prince in May agreed to employ Mordaunt, ‘if he comes to court’.<sup>27</sup> On 17 Mar. Mordaunt’s name appeared on Danby’s pre-sessional forecast on his petition for bail among those ‘such as I conceive if they vote not for me will be neuters’. On 19 Mar. the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, wrote to William Craven*, earl of Craven, asking him to employ his ‘credit with Lord Mordaunt to dispose him to say he is sorry’ for the ‘breaking of windows at Prince Philip’s house’, which may refer to a dispute between Mordaunt and the son of the Prince d’Arenberg.<sup>28</sup> It may explain why Mordaunt missed the opening day of the Oxford Parliament on 21 Mar., but he was there on 22 Mar. and attended in total five of the seven days. On 26 Mar. he protested against the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris according to the common law and not by impeachment in Parliament. On 31 Mar., following the dissolution of Parliament, Mordaunt wrote to his mother’s half-brother and trustee of her estate, Arthur Herbert*, the future earl of Torrington:</p><blockquote><p>I am called one of the discontented and factious, but am glad to be sure you are of my mind in this; there is no tie but honour and gratitude. I am sure you, as little as anybody, can bear ill-usage and contempt, and since I never could deserve a good word from the king, nor ever had any obligation from Whitehall, whatsoever your thoughts are you will allow me the liberty of mine, and not confound as some do betwixt public and private concerns.<sup>29</sup></p></blockquote><p>After the Parliament, Mordaunt contributed to a present of a gilt bowl from 14 Whig lords to Balliol College.<sup>30</sup> He also attended the court of king’s bench in support of Fitzharris on 4 and 7 May 1681, and his trial on 9 June.<sup>31</sup></p><p>At the beginning of August 1681, ‘Romantic Lord Mordaunt’ fought a ‘pretty duel’ in Greenwich Park with James Hamilton*, styled earl of Arran [S], the future 4th duke of Hamilton. Even the preliminaries reflected Mordaunt’s opposition to the court for, in attempting to arrange the duel, Mordaunt wrote that ‘circumstances force me to hazard as little as I can, hoping no favour from the Court, therefore will engage nobody’, and so the two men fought without seconds and were both wounded.<sup>32</sup> After he had recovered from his wounds, at the end of August, Mordaunt ‘submitted himself and kissed the king’s hands and was with him almost two hours in his closet and, it is said, has made great discoveries’. As a reward, his new-built man-of-war ‘of about 50 guns, of which he designed to go commander’, which had been embargoed at Woolwich, was permitted to sail. This was probably the same ship of 50 guns and 300 men for which Mordaunt had been summoned in June 1681 to give an account, it being alleged to have been set out by Sir William Courteen’s executors, with Mordaunt acting as one of their assignees, to exact reprisals on the Dutch in a long-running dispute over the assets of a trading association founded in the 1620s.<sup>33</sup></p><p>On Mordaunt’s majority there were serious legal issues to be addressed relating to his mother’s will. She had died in April 1679, leaving as her executors Peterborough, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Laurence Hyde*, the future earl of Rochester, Hon. Andrew Newport<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Charles Wheeler<sup>‡</sup>, bt., Charles Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, (Sir) Edward Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, Arthur Herbert and John Evelyn. They had met in November 1679 ‘for the examining, auditing and disposing of this year’s account of the estate’. They also had some difficult matters to resolve, such as the provision for Mordaunt’s younger siblings. Some of them met at the end of April 1680 to consider Lady Mordaunt’s instructions to sell Parsons Green. This was clearly not to Mordaunt’s liking for on 18 Sept. 1681, Evelyn attended a further meeting of trustees to discuss Mordaunt’s ‘offer to procure’ £2,000 ‘for the payment of his brother and sisters’ portions, in consideration that we would possess him of Parsons Green and the coal farm’, worth £3,000 a year. On 21 Mar. 1682 the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, appointed in Lady Mordaunt’s will as an arbiter in any disputes, made an order detailing the payments Mordaunt would undertake to gain possession of his mother’s ‘real and personal estate’.<sup>34</sup> Instead of selling Parsons Green, Mordaunt disposed of at least some of the Reigate property to Sir John Parsons in 1681.<sup>35</sup></p><p>So successfully had Mordaunt mended his fences at court that while at Newmarket on 6 Oct. 1681 he kept the king up until midnight ‘having got him accidently in his closet’. He spent two hours attempting to reconcile the king to his son, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, but to no avail.<sup>36</sup> On 10 Nov. Charles II dined with him aboard his ship, the <em>Loyal Mordaunt</em>, which Mordaunt disposed of to the admiralty in 1683.<sup>37</sup> Following the murder of Thomas Thynne<sup>‡</sup> on 12 Feb. 1682, Mordaunt was involved in the pursuit of the killers and in subsequent failed attempts, along with Lord Cavendish, to challenge Count Königsmarck to a duel.<sup>38</sup> Restless as ever, on 8 Sept. 1683 Mordaunt and Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> were granted a pass to go into Flanders, and on 30 Mar. 1684, it was reported that Mordaunt was intending to be at the opening of the Spanish campaign.<sup>39</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>Mordaunt was not present when James II’s Parliament opened on 19 May 1685, but he was in attendance at the next sitting on the 22nd. He attended on eight days of the 31 days of the first part of the session, before the adjournment on 2 July, and was named to two committees. After Parliament resumed on 9 Nov., Mordaunt was one of those who on the 19th seconded the motion of Devonshire (as Lord Cavendish had since become) to consider the king’s speech, which ended in an order for it to be considered on the 23rd. Before it could be discussed, though, Parliament was prorogued.<sup>40</sup> Mordaunt, ‘who had never spoken in the House until then’, was said to have moved the motion and ‘spoke handsomely’: to keep up a standing army when there is neither civil nor foreign war, he was reported as having said, was to establish an arbitrary government.<sup>41</sup> Mordaunt had attended on eight of the 11 days of November 1685, being named to a single committee. Overall, he had attended on 16 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total. On 26 Nov. Mordaunt attended the trial of Charles Gerard*, styled Lord Brandon, the future 2nd earl of Macclesfield, and was one of those peers who spoke ‘very much both for the loyalty of the family, and also touching his Lordship’.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, later wrote that ‘Mordaunt was the first man of quality that came over to try the Prince with relation to the affairs of England’.<sup>43</sup> On 26 Aug. 1686 Mordaunt was granted a pass to go beyond the sea, and he visited William of Orange at Het Loo, where he met Hans Willem Bentinck*, the future earl of Portland, and also Utrecht where John Locke was staying.<sup>44</sup> On his return to London, he wrote to Bentinck on 12 Oct. of the decision to prorogue Parliament when it was due to meet in November.<sup>45</sup> Mordaunt attended the prorogations of 22 Nov. 1686 and 15 Feb. 1687. In November 1686, Bevil Skelton, the former ambassador at The Hague, revealed that he had two informants from Utrecht who had sworn that Mordaunt ‘had practised with the prince of Orange to make himself head of the Protestant interest, and to do many other things to the prejudice of the king of England’. Mordaunt immediately bullied the names out of Skelton, went straight to Utrecht and discredited them before the magistrates.<sup>46</sup> This episode may have given Mordaunt pause for thought, for on 11 Mar. 1687 he wrote more cautiously to Bentinck, though he nevertheless assured him of his continued commitment to the Prince, and revealed that he was already consulting William’s agent, Dijkvelt, in England in the spring of 1687.<sup>47</sup> In five separate lists compiled from early 1687 to the start of 1688, Mordaunt was consistently listed as one of those thought likely to oppose the repeal of the Test Act, or as an opponent of James II’s policies.</p><p>On 28 July 1687 Mordaunt was granted another pass to go beyond the seas and by the end of August it was reported that he had arrived in Holland with his wife, and that he would command a regiment in the army of the States General and she serve as Princess Mary’s groom of the stole.<sup>48</sup> The trip probably had more to do with a commercial enterprise than a design to encourage William’s involvement in English politics. On 2 Aug. he had taken half of the 32 shares in a partnership ‘for the raising a joint stock of £6,400 for an undertaking to the West Indies’, although he assigned two of his allocation to Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury in late September.<sup>49</sup> On 4 Sept. Mordaunt wrote a letter to the prince playing down the likely success of the venture, but ‘any private disappointment’ he felt was counterbalanced by ‘the prospect of public affairs, and the hopes I have of your highness’s interest increases every day more and more in strength’. He then noted that as his ‘old passport stands good still’ he hoped soon to visit Loo, and he answered the prince’s questions on the likelihood of Parliament meeting.<sup>50</sup> On 9 Sept. William wrote to Bentinck of his willingness to countenance Mordaunt’s project subject to the agreement of the Dutch admiralty.<sup>51</sup></p><p>On 15 Oct. 1687 Mordaunt arrived at The Hague, and on the following day he and Henry Sydney visited William at Loo, the report being that he would be made lieutenant colonel of the regiment of Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>52</sup> By February 1688 Mordaunt was with ‘his Dutch squadron’ seeking for treasure in the wrecks in the West Indies.<sup>53</sup> The mission was not a success and by July 1688 Mordaunt was in London reporting that ‘the booty at the Spanish wreck was all gone before he went thither’.<sup>54</sup> Presumably he then travelled back to Holland with his wife. In the discussions prior to the publication of William’s <em>Declaration of his Reasons for Appearing in Arms in the Kingdom of England</em> at end of September 1688, Mordaunt favoured the view of John Wildman<sup>‡</sup> which sought to blame the government of Charles II, as well as James II, and to rely on the support of the Whigs and Dissenters.<sup>55</sup> In late September it was reported that Mordaunt was one of those likely to command part of the invasion force.<sup>56</sup> James II later wrote that Mordaunt had ‘been always of a turbulent, factious spirit and incapable of doing good, sought where he might do most mischief’.<sup>57</sup> He accompanied the Dutch invasion fleet and on 8 Nov. 1688 he marched into Exeter, being named in early December co-governor of the city with Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>58</sup> Mordaunt was allowed to raise a regiment of foot in November 1688.<sup>59</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution and the Convention, 1689</em></h2><p>According to one report, Mordaunt had reached London by 13 Dec. 1688 with the advanced party of William’s army led by Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton.<sup>60</sup> He did not attend the meeting of loyalist peers at the Guildhall and presumably returned to Windsor with Grafton, because he played a full part in the discussion at Windsor on the 17th over the message to be sent to James II.<sup>61</sup> He was present at the meeting of peers held at St James’s on 21 December. In the discussion of the response to the prince’s Declaration he argued that ‘no notice should be taken in their return to the prince for the meeting of the peers, for they met of right’, supported Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) in moving for the addition of the words ‘lives and fortunes’ in the address to the prince, and suggested signing the association as the peers had at Exeter. He also suggested that Catholics should be removed from London. Mordaunt attended the meetings on 22 and 24 December. On the latter occasion he was one of those who opposed reading the letter that James II had left for Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], noting that the meeting of the peers in the House of Lords ‘shows that the king is absent, either in power, or otherwise, and therefore not to be applied to’. He also opposed the suggestion that James II’s recent parliamentary writs of summons be used to select a new House of Commons, and argued for new writs, stressing the importance of a free, newly elected, Parliament: if Members met using the king’s writs, they would have to take an oath to James which would ‘take off the freedom of a Parliament’. The prince had acted according to his Declaration in favour of a free parliament until the king, by his withdrawal, had made it impossible, ‘so there could not be that free Parliament’ with the current writs. He also attended on 25 December.<sup>62</sup> A key adviser to the prince, Mordaunt was ‘shut up a long time’ with William on 29 Dec. 1688.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Mordaunt attended on the opening day of the Convention, 22 Jan. 1689. On 23 Jan. he was named to a small committee to look into the death of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and on 5 Feb. to a secret committee of four on the same matter. On 25 Jan. he presented a petition from his uncle, Peterborough, praying to be admitted to bail, but it being opposed, the earl was merely granted the liberty of the Tower.<sup>64</sup> On 29 Jan. Mordaunt spoke in the debate in committee of the whole on the state of the nation. He wished ‘to have the dangers considered in which we were six months ago’, and supported the need for a quick end to the crisis of government, stressing the dangers from King James, and the acceptance of the idea that James had abdicated.<sup>65</sup> On 31 Jan., in committee of the whole, he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and entered his protest against the failure to agree with the Commons ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. Morrice recorded that Mordaunt had observed ‘with great satisfaction’ that ‘there was not above four of the ancient nobility on that side (with those that said the throne was not vacant)’.<sup>66</sup> Mordaunt attended a key meeting, probably on 3 Feb., when William made it clear that he would not settle for less than the crown in his own right, although he would accept Mary being named as queen and for precedence to be given to Princess Anne’s children over his own by a second marriage.<sup>67</sup> On 4 Feb. Mordaunt voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’ and then entered his dissent when the motion was defeated, and when the Lords also disagreed with the Commons over the vacancy of the throne. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, at this point recorded Mordaunt as indulging in blatant pressure, making ‘a great noise according to custom, and gave out as if the militia should be placed in the Palace Yard, which intimidated some weak hearts that did not appear when the question was put’.<sup>68</sup> On 6 Feb. Mordaunt voted, this time with the majority, to agree with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’, and of the words ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. The majority included the ‘half-mad’ Edward Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, who was apparently persuaded to attend to do whatever Shrewsbury and Mordaunt told him to do.<sup>69</sup> On 8 Feb. Mordaunt was named to report a conference about the declaration to be offered to the prince and princess of Orange as king and queen, and about the oaths to the new monarchs. Following the conference, on the 9th, the Lords amended the declaration and Mordaunt was appointed to the committee to draw up reasons to fortify these amendments in conferences on the 11 and 12th.</p><p>Mordaunt’s wife arrived on 12 Feb. 1689, returning with Locke in the flotilla which brought Princess Mary to England.<sup>70</sup> The following day the crown was offered to William and Mary and on 14 Feb. a newsletter noted that the king had named Mordaunt among his privy councillors and officers of his household.<sup>71</sup> In late February he was appointed a lord of the bedchamber.<sup>72</sup> Mordaunt was dispatched to tell Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, that he ‘forgave me what I had said in the Convention because he thought that I had no malice to his person’.<sup>73</sup> According to Clarendon, in February Chesterfield had been visited by Mordaunt and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, who wanted him to be a member of the council, ‘pretending that they knew it would be agreeable to King William’.<sup>74</sup> By late March he was acting as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Northamptonshire as he was most probably responsible for the new commission of the peace in that county, which restored some of those omitted in the Tory reaction and left out those admitted in 1687-8.<sup>75</sup> In late May he was also made lord lieutenant of Northamptonshire. The favour William showed to some of the old ministers of Charles II, was not particularly welcome to Mordaunt. George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, was a particular target of his ire. Halifax told Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> as early as March 1689 that ‘Mordaunt and others were violent against him, being disappointed of their expectations at court’, especially by the appointment of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as secretary of state. <sup>76</sup></p><p>Mordaunt acted as William’s messenger to the Lords as well as to individual peers. On 1 Mar. 1689 he acquainted the House on the king’s orders of a series of arrests: Mordaunt reported a draft of the Lords’ response, which called for any means necessary for the safety of the realm resulted in a suspension of <em>habeas corpus</em>. On 23 Mar. he entered his protest against the rejection of a proviso to the bill for abrogating the oaths which, by extending the time for taking the sacramental test and allowing it to be taken in any Protestant church, would have allowed Protestant Dissenters to qualify for office.<sup>77</sup> On 5 Apr. he entered a protest against the rejection of an amendment to the bill for comprehension which would have included lay members in the proposed commission for the revision of the Anglican liturgy and canons.</p><p>Mordaunt’s reward for his early commitment to William was his appointment on 9 Apr. 1689 as first commissioner of the treasury. Confident as ever, he was convinced ‘he would understand the business of it’ as well as Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, ‘in a fortnight’.<sup>78</sup> Others were not quite so sanguine, Reresby noting with incredulity that Mordaunt should be first commissioner ‘that never saw £100 together of his own money’.<sup>79</sup> Another reward was a promotion in the peerage at the coronation. On 28 Mar. a warrant was issued for him to be created earl of Chichester, but as this was already a subsidiary title of Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Southampton, another title had to be substituted.<sup>80</sup> On 9 Apr. he was raised to the earldom of Monmouth, a controversial choice of title, which was variously interpreted as reflecting Mordaunt’s hope of the ‘inheritance’ of the popularity of the late duke of Monmouth, or as a manoeuvre by the king to prevent the title being revived for a more hostile candidate. It was probably used merely because his maternal grandfather had held the title.<sup>81</sup> On 13 Apr. Mordaunt was introduced to the House as earl of Monmouth by Shrewsbury and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield. On 20 Apr. he entered his protest against the Lords’ adherence to their amendments to the bill for abrogating the oaths which enabled the king not to tender the oaths to clerical incumbents. On 23 Apr. he acted as a teller, in opposition to John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, in a procedural division on a debate about allowing the king to exempt up to 12 members of the clergy from taking the oaths.<sup>82</sup></p><p>On 10 May 1689, a warrant was issued appointing Monmouth and eight others as commissioners for reforming abuses in the army, a task which took him away from Westminster into the Midlands and the North.<sup>83</sup> On 22 May he was one of several peers granted leave to be absent by the Lords. On 9 June he was at Newcastle writing a letter to Locke critical of Delamer’s regiment.<sup>84</sup> While absent Monmouth received news of events from the secretary to the treasury, William Jephson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>85</sup> One significant piece of legislation which passed during his absence was the bill to make good a recovery suffered by the earl of Peterborough and Lord Mordaunt which had received its first reading in the Lords on 24 May. Rochester (as Laurence Hyde had since become) reported the bill from committee on 3 June with the addition of a proviso and it passed the following day. In the Commons either Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> or John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> reported the bill on 18 June without amendments and on 22 June it received the royal assent. Monmouth next attended the Lords on 25 June, vacating the proxy he had registered with Shrewsbury on 22 May.</p><p>On 12 July 1689 Monmouth entered his dissent from the proviso added to the bill reversing the judgments in the court of king’s bench against Titus Oates, which enacted that until the matters for which Oates had been convicted had been heard and determined in Parliament, Oates should not be a witness, or give evidence, in court. On 30 July he entered his protest against the Lords’ resolution to adhere to their amendments to the bill. Also on 12 July he was named to manage a conference on the bill concerning the succession to the crown. On 14 Aug., in the company of Edward Fowler*, the future bishop of Gloucester, and Thomas Firmin, he helped to pacify the silk weavers lobbying the House with their petition against the bill enjoining the wearing of woollens.<sup>86</sup> About this time, Roger Morrice reported obscurely the likelihood of a ‘good understanding’ being brought about between Monmouth and Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, with, probably, Sir James Montgomery, the leader of the Scottish ‘club’, and future Jacobite conspirator; in mid-October Monmouth intervened with William in order to support Montgomery’s pretensions and to oppose those of James Dalrymple, Viscount Stair [S], to be nominated as lord president of the sessions. In October Monmouth accompanied the king to Newmarket.<sup>87</sup> He attended on Parliament’s resumption on 19 Oct., following the adjournment on 20 Aug., but was not present at the prorogation on 21 October. In all he had attended on 85 days of the session, 52 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 17 committees.</p><p>Monmouth attended on the first day of the new session which followed almost immediately afterwards, opening on 23 Oct. 1689. He was classed among the supporters of the court in a list prepared by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690. On 2 Nov. he was one of those instrumental in the appointment of a committee (of which he was a member) to investigate ‘the advisers and prosecutors of the murders’ of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Cornish, and others, and to establish ‘who were the advisers of issuing out of writs of <em>quo warrantos</em> against corporations, and who were their regulators, and also who were the public assertors of the dispensing power.’<sup>88</sup> On 13 Dec. he acted as a teller in committee of the whole House on two motions during debate on the land tax bill, one on the opposite side to Macclesfield, and another on the opposite side to Montagu. On 31 Dec. Lovelace registered his proxy with Monmouth. Monmouth had attended on 36 days, 49 per cent of the total, and been named to a further nine committees.</p><p>Monmouth made great play with his links to the City, dining on 18 Dec. 1689 with Sir Stephan Evance<sup>‡</sup>, John Foche and Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> (who was ‘much devoted’ to him), and proposing that they lend the king £300,000. Having secured their agreement he could not resist the observation that the money had been raised by ‘some that were countered disaffected to his government, and friends to a commonwealth, for it was mostly fanatic and Whigs money’.<sup>89</sup> His closeness to City radicals engendered some criticism; although Burnet thought Monmouth ‘was not corrupt in disposing that vast number of places which in a great measure depended upon him’, he chose ‘commonwealth’s men’, and was soon setting up ‘cabals everywhere in order to the breaking of the prerogative, and the putting all Tories out of employment’.<sup>90</sup> William, too, had become alarmed by his associates, once telling Monmouth ‘I have done as much for your friends as I can do without danger to the state; and I will do no more’.<sup>91</sup></p><p>As early as February 1690 Morrice had heard that Monmouth would be put out of the treasury, and saw it as an indication of William’s inclination towards the Tories. ‘No man’, Morrice thought, ‘hath done more for his majesty’.<sup>92</sup> The new treasury commission appointed on 18 Mar. did indeed omit Monmouth. He had attended slightly over half the meetings of the treasury board.<sup>93</sup> Burnet thought that Monmouth was removed because he had opposed Godolphin’s employment as a colleague on the board, and although he had great credit in the City, which could be used to raise loans, ‘when he saw that the king would not go into all his notions, he hindered the advances of money so effectually that the king turned him soon out of the treasury’.<sup>94</sup> One contemporary gave more specific reasons for his removal: Monmouth had claimed he had a promise of a loan of £40,000 from a City merchant who in the end preferred to bypass the treasury commissioners altogether, delivering his loan direct to the king; and the king was reported to be less than happy that the earl had obtained a grant of some fishing rights from the king by vastly under-valuing them.<sup>95</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>Monmouth attended the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, but on 31 Mar. he was absent from a call of the House. Despite his removal from the treasury Monmouth kept his bedchamber place and his regiment. Nor did he cut his ties to the radicals: on 3 Apr. Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> delivered a letter from his father to Monmouth when ‘Major Wildman was with him’.<sup>96</sup> On 4 Apr. Monmouth acted as a teller twice in committee of the whole House on the bill recognizing William and Mary and the Parliament, on both occasions acting opposite Nottingham: firstly on whether the acts of the Convention should be ‘confirmed’ (which was rejected) and then on whether to agree that the acts should be ‘declared’ to have the full force of acts (which was agreed to). At the report stage of the bill on 5 Apr. he entered his protest over the decision of the House to reject the committee’s amendments: the dissentients believed that this was to call into question the validity of the previous Parliament. Two days later in committee of the whole on the bill, Monmouth offered several clauses and acted as teller opposite Evelyn Pierrepont*, earl of Kingston, on whether a clause declaring the acts of the Convention to be good should pass unamended. On 10 Apr. Monmouth both spoke and acted as a teller, opposite Nottingham, in favour of expunging the reasons for a protest of 8 Apr. against the passage of the bill.<sup>97</sup> Meanwhile, on 9 Apr. John Stewkeley reported surprising and inaccurate rumours that Monmouth would be made a duke, although he did correctly predict that Richard Lumley*, Viscount Lumley, and Delamer would be made earls, as Scarbrough and Warrington respectively.<sup>98</sup></p><p>On 2 May 1690 notes made by Carmarthen on the second reading of the abjuration bill record Monmouth making several interventions in support of the bill, including asking of the peers why anyone who had taken the oath would ‘scruple the declaration’, and suggesting ‘that Lords would submit their private scruples to the acts of Parliament’.<sup>99</sup> On 3 May during the proceedings on the bill Monmouth and Kingston were enjoined to ‘demean themselves peaceably to each other’.<sup>100</sup> The following day Shrewsbury and Devonshire registered their proxies with Monmouth, before leaving for Newmarket on the 5th.<sup>101</sup> John Horton reported on 6 May that Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and Monmouth ‘brought a new Test today into the House of Lords: which was well received and the former (which caused such great heats) thrown out’.<sup>102</sup> This was only partially correct: Monmouth offered ‘a declaratory clause’, and the committee on the bill agreed to consider it together with a clause previously offered by the bishop. Monmouth’s clause was considered on 8 May, and the committee seems to have rejected it in favour of one proposed by Carmarthen. Monmouth also appears to have drafted part of a clause detailing those people who should be asked to take the abjuration oath, although he was not named to the committee charged with this task on 12 May.<sup>103</sup></p><p>On 7 May 1690, Monmouth supported an enquiry into the lists of the lieutenancy and militia of London.<sup>104</sup> When Burnet, now bishop of Salisbury, likened such enquiries to the Inquisition, he responded that though he disliked the Inquisition as much as the bishop, ‘the more because it was managed by clergymen, but he did not know but that an inquisition made by laymen into the personal qualification of men fit to serve the king and the government, might be very commendable and necessary in this very cause’.<sup>105</sup> The following day Monmouth asked one of the four questions put to the judges requesting clarification of the legal position in the regency bill.<sup>106</sup> He acted as a teller three times on 10 May, each time in opposition to Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, in divisions on the bill reversing the <em>quo warranto</em> judgment against the City of London, all on the matter of setting a date to hear the City’s petition. On 13 May Monmouth entered his protest against the resolution not to allow the City more time to be heard by their counsel, and the following day he was one of the Whig lords who went out of the House in ‘discontent’, presumably after the report stage had left the bill unamended.<sup>107</sup> Monmouth had attended 44 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, and been named to a further seven committees.</p><p>After the prorogation of January 1690, William had announced that when he went to campaign in Ireland the queen would be assisted by a council of nine, including Monmouth.<sup>108</sup> On 7 June Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, reported that Monmouth had been named as one of the council ‘to administer affairs as councillors until the queen takes it upon her’.<sup>109</sup> Monmouth attended the council regularly during June-September 1690, although the queen did not repose much confidence in him. She commented that he was ‘mad, and his wife who is madder, governs him. I knew him deeply engaged in Scotland and not much to be trusted, yet must know all’.<sup>110</sup> William, too, had his reservations, it being a moot point whether Monmouth would be more trouble to him in London or in Ireland.<sup>111</sup> He was certainly troublesome to the queen; he tried to undermine Nottingham and she rebuked him for meddling. A contemporary ‘poem’ of the nine ‘worthies’ portrayed Monmouth as ‘a monkey turned into a magistrate’, who was ‘fit only for a ring-leader of boys’.<sup>112</sup></p><p>On 19 June 1690 Monmouth was elected master of the Company of Skinners, in another show of his popularity in the City, which not everyone regarded with equanimity.<sup>113</sup> William feared that Monmouth’s regiment ‘perhaps was for a commonwealth’. The regiment had been very visible at the pageant at the installation of the lord mayor in October 1689, when it had headed the cavalcade heralding the entrance of the king and queen.<sup>114</sup> In the summer of 1690 Monmouth’s activities had given rise to the fear that he was supportive of a Jacobite rising in London (and Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], would later implicate him as a participant in discussions held with William Penn about a Jacobite restoration in the coming winter).<sup>115</sup></p><p>The threat of a French invasion brought Monmouth’s meddling to a peak. With Torrington (as his uncle Arthur Herbert had since become) apparently unwilling to risk a naval battle with the French, Monmouth had offered to join the fleet in late June 1690, an offer the queen was willing to consider in order to remove him from London, especially because he was suspected of leaking details of government discussions.<sup>116</sup> The Anglo-Dutch fleet was defeated at Beachy Head, however, before Monmouth could reach it.<sup>117</sup> The queen continued to share suspicions of Monmouth with Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford and other ministers, believing that ‘he tells all to Major Wildman’ and that he was working to cast blame for the poor progress of the war on ‘the faults of those who were in trust’. Carmarthen had written to the king, setting out his suspicions about Monmouth’s attempts to undermine the Council and his relationship with Wildman.<sup>118</sup> Ailesbury had also heard that the king objected to Monmouth having ‘always commonwealth men about him, as Major Wildman and Major [John] Braman<sup>‡</sup> of Chichester’.<sup>119</sup></p><p>On 15 July 1690 the queen informed the king that on the previous day, she had received an offer from Monmouth of £200,000 to dissolve Parliament, to which she replied that it was ‘a thing I could not promise, and unless they would lend money, which is extremely wanted, upon other terms, I must go without it’.<sup>120</sup> When the queen asked the corporation of London to sponsor an alternative loan from the citizenry, Monmouth, along with Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, and others, did his best to hinder it.<sup>121</sup> Monmouth was also to be disappointed of his desire to command the fleet. When the queen asked Russell for his view on who should be appointed, he proposed a commission comprising two seamen and a ‘man of quality’: he stressed, however, that the latter should not be Monmouth. Monmouth was in any case unwilling to be part of a commission: Carmarthen had advised him not to solicit for the sole command of the fleet, but Monmouth ‘in a passion begged not to be named as one who would go in commission’.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Monmouth attended the prorogation on 28 July 1690. On 8 Sept. he met the king at Marlborough upon his return from Ireland, and four days later he spoke three times in council against the king’s plans to go to Holland before the parliamentary session.<sup>123</sup> He was present on 2 Oct. when the new session opened. Four days later he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and the earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. Carmarthen added the comment that he was ‘not willing to lose his patent for lands not yet perfected’.<sup>124</sup> On the same day he acted as a teller opposite Godolphin on the question of desiring the concurrence of the Commons to the Lords’ address of thanks for the king’s decision to campaign in Ireland. On 21 Oct. Monmouth acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, on a question about seeking advice from the judges about whether Torrington should have been committed by the Privy Council; and then again opposite Charles North*, 5th Baron North, in a division on the question that Torrington’s commitment by the privy council for high crimes and misdemeanours was a breach of the privilege of the House. On 16 Dec. Edward Harley wrote that Monmouth and Sir John Lowther*, the future Viscount Lonsdale, had been turned out of ‘the cabinet or council of nine’.<sup>125</sup> This may have been connected to another report that the king had so resented the proceedings of the court martial against Torrington, and its acquittal of him, that he had forbidden the admiral to attend court.<sup>126</sup> On 27 Dec. Monmouth entered his protest against the decision to allow written protections to be given to menial servants. He was present on the last day of the session, 5 Jan. 1691, having attended on 46 days, 63 per cent of the total, and been named to 11 committees.</p><p>In January 1691 Monmouth was one of those who accompanied the king into Holland, arriving back in England in mid-March.<sup>127</sup> On 9 Apr., a fire in Whitehall severely damaged his lodgings. Two weeks later he was one of those dining with the king at Montagu’s residence. <sup>128</sup> Monmouth was not appointed to the new council of nine to advise the queen during the king’s absence in the summer of 1691, and early in August he retired to Bath.<sup>129</sup> Monmouth attended on the opening day of the next session, 22 Oct. 1691. On 19 Nov. he acted as a teller opposite Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on whether the House should go into committee on a bill concerning procedure in chancery and other courts of equity. On 23 Nov. Lincoln registered his proxy with Monmouth and on that same day Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that the ‘great cause’ was heard in the Lords between John Danvers and Monmouth, a case known as <em>Brown v. Waite</em>.<sup>130</sup> This concerned the estate of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, which had belonged to the regicide Sir John Danvers<sup>‡</sup>, was forfeited to the crown after the Restoration and granted to James Stuart*, duke of York, and subsequently made part of his queen’s jointure. In June 1690 it had been granted to Monmouth, but firstly the legal claims of Danvers’ heir had to be considered, hence the appeal of his tenant, Brown, against York’s tenant, Waite.<sup>131</sup> The outcome of the case was seen as important for Monmouth, who was not a rich man.<sup>132</sup> The judges gave their opinions on 25 Nov. and when the question was put five days later, the House divided equally, 39-39, so the petition, and hence Danvers’ case, fell, ‘it being a new thing to be done’.<sup>133</sup> This equality of votes was achieved with Monmouth voting for himself and in the face of the opposition of Carmarthen and Halifax. His supporters included Rochester, Godolphin, Shrewsbury, Nottingham and Portland (as Bentinck had since become).<sup>134</sup> Monmouth allegedly promised to give the £300 annual reserved rent to the crown to Danvers, and he quickly fell into arrears to the crown. Periodically, he had to defend himself against petitioners to the crown for a grant of the reserved rent.<sup>135</sup> On 1 Dec. 1691 Monmouth was named to report a conference on the oaths in Ireland bill and 16 days later he was similarly named to report a conference on the treason trials bill.</p><p>Monmouth was also involved in the case of Foulke Wallwin, an ‘idiot’, having been awarded custody of his estate and person on 7 Dec. 1689 and granted wardship of the boy on 5 Apr. 1690. On 17 Dec. 1691, the boy’s mother, Mary Wallwin, petitioned the Lords complaining of some of Monmouth’s proceedings, which he was ordered to answer on 21 December. Once he gave in his answer the matter was referred to the committee for privileges. On 31 Dec. Locke commented that ‘the idiot occasions much talk, I know nothing of it but that it shortly comes before the House of Lords’, where it lapsed, possibly because of an agreement drawn up between the parties in February 1692, or the death of Foulke shortly afterwards.<sup>136</sup></p><p>On 31 Dec. 1691 Monmouth was named to draw up reasons for a conference concerning the votes of the Commons on the 18th relating to the regulation of the East India Company. He acted as a teller on 12 Jan. 1692, in opposition to Scarbrough, on the question whether to receive the bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, for a divorce from his wife, Mary, duchess of Norfolk, the only daughter and heiress of Peterborough, and consequently Monmouth’s cousin and eventual rival for Peterborough’s estate. Ten days later Monmouth was once again a teller, this time in opposition to Norfolk, in a division in committee of the whole House on the bill against adhering to their majesties enemies on a clause concerning returning to England from France without the king’s leave. On 26 Jan. Monmouth was selected to count the ballots in the election of peers to act as commissioners for examining the public accounts. He was named on 22 Feb. to report a conference on the small tithes bill. On the same day he acted as a teller in opposition to Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, in a division on a bill on judges’ commissions and salaries, on a proposed clause that if a judge gave a corrupt judgment, the aggrieved party might bring an action against the judge. A clause was included in the Commons’ bill vesting the forfeited estates in England in the crown to help pay for the war exempting Monmouth’s grant of the manor of Dauntsey. The bill, however, was lost in the Lords at the prorogation.<sup>137</sup> He had attended on 66 days of the session, 68 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 13 committees.</p><p>On 14 Apr. 1692 Robert Yard<sup>‡</sup> reported that Monmouth was going to Guernsey to command there in the absence of its governor Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton. Monmouth’s regiment was quartered there and at Jersey. He left London on 18 Apr. and after a spell organizing the defences of Guernsey, he went over to Flanders in June, arriving back in England on 20 July.<sup>138</sup> On 10 Oct. Monmouth referred in a letter to Locke to his post being opened or ‘used so familiarly’, a sign perhaps that the government remained suspicious of some of his activities.<sup>139</sup></p><p>Monmouth attended on the opening day of the next session, 4 Nov. 1692. On 19 Nov. he wrote to Locke that ‘our revolving government always affords us something new every three or four months, but what would be most new, and strange, were to see it do anything that were really for its interest’. Although, he wrote, it had been reported that the king was</p><blockquote><p>grown in love with Englishmen and Whigs, it is true he smiles and talks with us, but Mr [Edward] Seymour and [Sir John] Trevor<sup>‡</sup> come up the backstairs’. Having been informed that ‘Nottingham is a little lawyer and no man of business, yet the Court have taken all possible pains to prevent the petition against him and my good Lord Mayor to set it aside broke up the court’.</p></blockquote><p>The reference was to the mayor adjourning the common council on 11 Nov. to prevent it voting to petition against Nottingham.<sup>140</sup> On 7 Dec. Monmouth entered his protest against the rejection of a motion that a committee of both Houses consider the present state of the nation. On 29 Dec. he was one of those appointed to inspect the Journal for precedents concerning the Commons’ resolution praising Admiral Russell, which had been delivered at a conference on the 21st. The same managers were appointed to manage the subsequent conference on 4 Jan. 1693. On 31 Dec. Monmouth voted in favour of committing the place bill; he spoke and voted in favour of its passage on 3 Jan. 1693, and entered his dissent when the bill was rejected.<sup>141</sup></p><p>After being forecast as a likely opponent of the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill, on 2 Jan. 1693 Monmouth acted as a teller against its first reading. On 31 Jan. he protested against the decision not to continue with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, that day. On 3 Feb. he posed two questions to be asked of the judges relating to the circumstances of the killing of their victim, Mountford, and on 4 Feb. he was one of a minority of peers that voted Mohun guilty of murder.<sup>142</sup> On 14 Feb. the Lords gave a first reading to a bill for the exchange of several small parcels of land in Fulham between the bishopric of London and Monmouth and his heirs. The bill was reported on 23 Feb. by Stamford and passed the following day. It was managed through the Commons by Locke’s friend, Edward Clarke<sup>‡</sup>. Monmouth was present on the last day of the session, 14 Mar. 1693, having attended on 54 days, 53 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 16 committees.</p><p>When Middleton left England for St Germain in March 1693, he carried with him offers of assistance from Monmouth among others, which led to James II’s conciliatory declaration of April 1693.<sup>143</sup> On the king’s turn to the Whigs that month, however, Monmouth was determined to enjoy the ‘ill humour of the Tories’, even though, he wrote, ‘I rather wish we had had our Whiggish laws’, including the triennial bill.<sup>144</sup> Nor did it prevent him from fishing in the troubled waters of Irish politics. In June Colonel James Hamilton, who had married Monmouth’s sister Anne, was one of those who entered a caveat against the pardons granted to Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Coningsby, and Sir Charles Porter<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>145</sup> On 7 Aug. Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Bellomont [I], invited Robert Harley to a dinner convened by Monmouth at Parsons Green, to which were also invited Hamilton and James Sloane<sup>‡</sup>: ‘the design of our meeting is to talk of what is to be said or done by Colonel Hamilton and myself on Thursday come sevennight when we appear before the queen in council’, presumably concerning their criticism of the Irish administration.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Having had personal experience of Guernsey, in March 1693 Monmouth had approached Hatton, through Nottingham, with a proposal touching the government of the island. As Nottingham explained it, ‘upon your Lordship’s resignation of it to him, you shall have ample security for the payment of all the profits of it during your two lives and in case that he should die before your Lordship that he believes his majesty would grant your Lordship the government, which must be intended of a present grant of the reversion after my Lord Monmouth’. Negotiations continued until August, when the project appeared to stumble on the king’s unwillingness to decide the matter while on campaign. It then lapsed.<sup>147</sup></p><p>Monmouth attended on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 Nov. 1693. On 1 Dec. he acted as a teller in opposition to Norfolk on the question whether to adjourn the House in the cause of <em>Grafton v. Holt</em>.<sup>148</sup> On that same day he also brought in ‘the same bill for a triennial Parliament as past [sic] the last sessions, and was refused by the king’. On 4 Dec., in committee of the whole on the bill, Monmouth ‘spoke often’ in a debate on the definition of what constituted holding a Parliament, and acted as a teller opposite Kingston on whether the word ‘holden’ should be included the bill. Nevertheless, Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, suggested that ‘Lord M. seems not so zealous as last session’, and when the House resumed its deliberations on the bill in committee of the whole House on 6 Dec. Monmouth ‘withdrew and said nothing in the debate’. When a proviso was offered to the bill at the third reading on 8 Dec., defining a Parliament as sitting even if no act or judgment was passed, Bishop Watson was surprised that not only those against the bill but some others, such as Monmouth, also supported it.<sup>149</sup> In George Stepney’s opinion the Commons then threw out the bill on second reading ‘because the bill was not worded strongly enough, and therefore the violent party would rather let it fall for this session, out of design to renew it with more vigour next’.<sup>150</sup> Despite his apparent moderation, Humphrey Prideaux had heard by 25 Dec. that Monmouth would be ‘discarded’ by the king.<sup>151</sup> On 4 Feb. 1694 Portland intimated to Monmouth ‘that he was dismissed from all his commands and public employments. The common discourse is that his disgrace proceeded from his bringing in the bill for a triennial Parliament’.<sup>152</sup> He may have derived some consolation from the fact that his regiment was later given to his brother, Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>153</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 15 Jan. 1694 Monmouth was named as a manager of a conference relating to the previous summer’s expedition at sea. He voted on 17 Feb. in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission of Montagu’s petition in the case of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em> and entered his protest against the order to dismiss the petition and to affirm the judgment. A week later he entered his dissent from the order dismissing a further petition from Montagu. On 19 Feb. George Horton and John Deverell were ordered into custody for using violence when preventing the delivery to the servants of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, of a horse belonging to Monmouth. In his report of the proceedings of 26 Feb. L’Hermitage noted that Monmouth had been in favour of the bill for regulating treason trials: it was rejected at second reading, however, without a division being called for.<sup>154</sup> In the debate in committee of the whole House on the tonnage bill on 23 Apr. Monmouth opposed the establishment of the Bank of England.<sup>155</sup> He last attended the session on that day, having been present on 64 days of the session, 50 per cent of the total, and had been named to a further five committees.</p><p>On 17 July 1694 Shrewsbury, promoted to a dukedom the previous April, wrote to the king concerning reports that Monmouth had been reconciled to the exiled court at St Germains: ‘it is natural for a man that is very ill of one side, to desire not to be so on the other’. Shrewsbury pleaded his case: ‘although he may have made what advances are possible of that kind, if he could find his account under your government, it is what he would prefer much before any such alteration’. Given that in Shrewsbury’s opinion ‘he appears in so much better a temper to act anything for your service than you can believe’ he did ‘not think it at all advisable to turn him out of his lieutenancy’. He cleared Monmouth of involvement in the recent corn riot at Northampton. Monmouth kept his lieutenancy.<sup>156</sup></p><p>Monmouth attended on the opening day of the 1694-5 session, 12 Nov. 1694, but two weeks later he was excused attendance at a call of the House. When the Lords passed the triennial bill on 18 Dec., ‘without a division or amendment’, Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, recorded that ‘eight or ten Lords were against it; that is, they would have this Parliament determine in 1695 [the act as passed provided for the termination of the current Parliament in November 1696]. The earl of Monmouth began it, but did not insist upon it, as being convinced if the Commons should oppose the amendment, the bill was not to be hazarded, or the House put to retract for so small a difference as one year’.<sup>157</sup> Monmouth did not sign the protest against the passage of the bill with the termination date altered, as the marquess of Halifax did. On 23 Jan. 1695 Monmouth entered his dissent from an amendment to the bill for regulating treason trials postponing its implementation to 1698. Two days later, in committee of the whole House on the state of the nation, Monmouth supported Nottingham’s motion for set days to be ordered for discussing the ‘several heads upon which the nation’s welfare was so immediately concerned’.<sup>158</sup> Monmouth acted as a teller on 1 Feb. opposite Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, on the question whether to adjourn discussion of the trials of the accused in the Lancashire Plot (which Nottingham was arguing had been concocted by the ministry and others to serve their own interests) until the following day, and four days later he again acted as a teller, this time in opposition to Nottingham, on whether the treasury solicitor Aaron Smith should be required to give a written account on oath to the House of the money he had received for carrying on the prosecutions in Lancashire.<sup>159</sup> On 16 and 23 Feb. and 11 and 20 Apr. he was named as a reporter of conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the bill regulating treason trials.</p><p>On 12 Mar. Monmouth was represented by counsel as one of several peers claiming baronies by descent, whose ancestors were called by writ, part of the debate over the peerage claim of Sir Richard Verney*, who would eventually become 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke. A week later Monmouth acted as a teller, in opposition to John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, on the previous question: the main question was over whether the child of a daughter of a person summoned to Parliament by writ had a right to demand a summons to Parliament. As John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, the heir to the disputed barony, reported the debate lasted till six o’clock with Monmouth one of those undertaking ‘the cause of the barons’.<sup>160</sup> On 26 Mar. James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> reported that Monmouth ‘by his behaviour this sessions’ had restored himself to the king’s favour, taking his place at the council on 24 Mar., and waiting on the king as a gentleman of the bedchamber at the beginning of April.<sup>161</sup></p><p>Monmouth was one of the most determined pursuers of John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham) when it was discovered that he had apparently taken and distributed bribes to promote the passage of the convex lights bill, relating to the illumination of the city of London, which had been taken on by the Convex Light Company the previous year. On 5 Apr. 1695 Vernon noted that Monmouth was determined to attack Normanby, and if it failed ‘he will endeavour to enter a protestation that shall contain the substance of the whole affair’.<sup>162</sup> On 18 Apr. Monmouth indeed entered his protest against the loss of a resolution censuring Normanby’s conduct over the matter. When Normanby complained in a speech that Monmouth had not ‘treated him like a gentleman’, Monmouth replied that ‘if he pleased out of the House he would give him the satisfaction of a gentleman’.<sup>163</sup> On 17 Apr. Monmouth was appointed to prepare for and manage a conference on the bill to oblige Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> to account for the money he had received from the East India Company. On 22 Apr. he came fifth (with 37 votes) in the ballot of lords for places on the committee of both Houses examining Cooke.<sup>164</sup> As one of the committee he was named to a conference on the matter on 24 April. On 2 May he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the bill for imprisoning Cooke and others, and to manage the conference. The following day he was named to manage a conference on the impeachment of the duke of Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become). Monmouth had attended on 96 days of the session, 80 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 22 committees.</p><p>On 18 May 1695 Robert Price<sup>‡</sup> told Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, that it had been ‘positively affirmed’ by Monmouth, that ‘the king declared the night before he went hence that this Parliament should be dissolved next September’.<sup>165</sup> Monmouth attended the prorogations on 30 July, 17 Sept. and 8 Oct. 1695, and Parliament was dissolved on 11 October. He accompanied the king on his tour of the Midlands during the election campaign, but he was injured in a coach accident and had to be left behind at Lincoln.<sup>166</sup> He was instrumental, together with Sunderland, in ensuring the election of his brother, Harry, for Brackley.<sup>167</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>Monmouth attended on the opening day of the 1695-6 session, 22 Nov. 1695. On 3 Dec., in committee of the whole House debating the state of the nation, he favoured enquiring into the state of trade first ‘because the ill coin is a disadvantage’. Then when the state of the coin was debated the following day, he was in favour of setting a date by which clipped money could no longer be used, and called for an address to be drawn up on the subject matter. He was appointed to the committee to draw up the address, which was also entrusted with attending a conference on it on the 5th. On that same day, in a debate in committee of the whole on the proceedings of the Scottish East India Company, Monmouth opposed the suggestion that the merchants also attend. In a debate on the state of the nation the following day he noted the losses of merchant shipping and moved to enquire into the management of the fleet.<sup>168</sup> On 12 Dec. he was critical of the prevarications of the king over the establishment of a council of trade, which led to the Commons advocating a parliamentary body for trade instead and nearly pre-empted the king’s commission for the same purpose. Monmouth hoped to see the appointment of his friend, John Locke, to the commission.<sup>169</sup> On 13 Dec. Monmouth was named to manage a conference about an address against the Scottish East India Company.</p><p>On 3 Jan. 1696 Monmouth was named to prepare for a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill regulating the silver coinage, and to manage subsequent conferences. Following the report on 8 Jan. of the conference the House resolved to vindicate its rights to inflict pecuniary penalties in legislation, before it finished going through the Commons’ amendments. Monmouth acted as a teller, in opposition to Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, on the question whether to adjourn or to proceed with consideration of the amendments.<sup>170</sup> On 17 Jan. he entered his protest against the resolution that the counsel of Sir Richard Verney be heard at the bar concerning his petition for a writ of summons and a week later he acted as a teller, in opposition to Feversham, in committee of the whole, on a division on a clause in the bill to prevent false and double returns of Members, and again on the question whether to pass the bill.</p><p>On 20 Feb. 1696 Monmouth and Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, introduced William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford, into the House. Monmouth was named on 24 Feb. to manage a conference on the address following the king’s speech on the Assassination Plot. He was one of those peers that ‘made very learned speeches upon the occasion’ of Devonshire bringing in the Association on 26 February.<sup>171</sup> According to one account, Monmouth and Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, were ‘the chief Court managers’, but other accounts have Monmouth joining with Tankerville, Nottingham and Thanet to oppose the change whereby William was king by law, rather than being right and lawful monarch.<sup>172</sup> He signed the Association on 27 February. On 6 Mar. Monmouth acted as a teller, in opposition to Kingston, in committee of the whole on the question whether to reject a clause in the wine duties bill. Monmouth on 8 Apr. introduced the Quakers to the king for them to present their address, ‘somewhat like the association’.<sup>173</sup> Five days later in a committee of the whole on the bill for the security of the king’s person, Normanby, Nottingham and Rochester ‘made speeches for moderation’, to which Monmouth, among others, responded that ‘moderation will spoil all’.<sup>174</sup> Monmouth was present on the last day of the session, 27 Apr., having attended on 81 days, 65 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 16 committees.</p><p>Monmouth was one of those Whigs touted for office after the end of the session.<sup>175</sup> One newsletter, of 2 May, had him as the replacement for Edward Russell at the Admiralty, but when Russell chose to remain in post, Monmouth declined to serve on the board.<sup>176</sup> He attended the prorogation on 28 July. In September Monmouth was assaulted in the precincts of Chelsea College.<sup>177</sup> An information on the attack taken in April 1697 gave Monmouth’s address as Arlington Street.<sup>178</sup> He was still resident there in December 1698.<sup>179</sup> By 1703 he was residing in Bow Street, Covent Garden.<sup>180</sup></p><p>In the wake of the Assassination Plot, Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> was arrested in June 1696. Rumours abounded as to whom he had implicated during interrogation as in contact with the Jacobite court. Many assumed that Monmouth would be one. Monmouth reacted to these rumours by spreading his own, chiefly against Godolphin, and he may even have been behind some agitation in the City for a full parliamentary examination of the Plot.<sup>181</sup> Monmouth’s spreading of rumours and dabbling with informers, such as Matthew Smith, nephew of Sir William Parkyns, who had been executed for his part in the Plot, threatened to disrupt the defence of Shrewsbury and Edward Russell. On 24 Sept. the lord keeper John Somers*, the future Baron Somers, told Shrewsbury that Monmouth had ‘entered into a foolish business beyond what I could have thought’, although he believed, after talking with him, that he was ‘resolved to stir no more, at least till he shall discourse with your grace’. On 15 Oct. Sunderland wrote that as so few people knew what Fenwick had revealed, Monmouth still felt himself ‘principally concerned’ in it. Four days later Somers noted that reports of Monmouth being named by Fenwick ‘transported him again to great extravagancies in talk; but after some days treating with him, he came to a positive promise to say no more of the matter, till he had first discoursed with your grace’.<sup>182</sup> The hope that a personal meeting between Monmouth and Shrewsbury would dissuade Monmouth from meddling was nullified by the duke’s inability to travel to the capital, and so left Monmouth free to exploit the situation.</p><p>Monmouth attended the opening day of the 1696-7 session, 20 Oct. 1696. Two days later he informed the House that the king had appointed later in the day to receive the Address on his speech. When Vernon sent a copy of the Address to Shrewsbury on 29 Oct., he noted that it had been ‘drawn by’ Monmouth.<sup>183</sup> On 4 Dec. Monmouth was one of seven peers appointed by the House to negotiate an agreement between Devonshire and Normanby over the sale of Berkeley House.<sup>184</sup> Meanwhile, proceedings against Fenwick by the normal course of law had been blocked by the disappearance abroad of one of the two witnesses against him, Cardell Goodman. As an alternative it was decided to proceed by a bill of attainder. Monmouth remained convinced that Fenwick knew more than he was telling, and was ready to use Smith to allege that Shrewsbury had ignored his previous warnings about the plot. On 7 Nov. Somers revealed to Shrewsbury that Monmouth had claimed to have had great difficulty in keeping Smith from the Commons, so that Somers had invited Monmouth ‘to consider what work this might make at such a time’, and ‘given him such a view of Sir John Fenwick’s paper, that he is much startled, and convinced him that he and every Whig is as much concerned in it, and as open to an accusation, as the persons who are named’. On 19 Nov. Somers, at the prompting of Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, ‘spent some time with him [Monmouth] this day, and shall, in another conversation, learn what is to be expected from him, as to his carriage in the House of Lords, in relation to Sir John Fenwick’s business.’<sup>185</sup> A few days later, on 24 Nov., Somers reported back that Monmouth ‘says he will act as I would have him’. Four days after that Shrewsbury was informed that Monmouth spent an hour and a half walking with Nottingham in the court of Requests and Westminster Hall, and later claimed that while Nottingham was trying to persuade him to be against the bill, Monmouth was trying to convert Nottingham to be for it. Vernon wrote that Monmouth ‘argues very much for the bill; and it is very probable he will vote that way’. On 1 Dec. the Lords began their proceedings on Fenwick, which after the attainder bill had been given a first reading. Monmouth contested the proposed way of handling the questioning of Fenwick (through Lord Keeper Somers asking the prisoner a series of questions approved by the House): Monmouth’s objections were attributed by ‘some, who are in the dark as to his good intentions … to his humour of disliking what don’t proceed from himself’.<sup>186</sup></p><p>According to Vernon, Monmouth was one of the peers involved in making the case for the second reading of the Fenwick attainder bill on 18 December. During his speech, ‘making his observations on some iniquities in the late times’, Monmouth happened ‘to jumble’ George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, with James II’s notorious agents, Philip Burton and Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, provoking a complaint from John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys. Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, as lord privy seal, intervened to prevent a quarrel, and Monmouth apologized.<sup>187</sup> His was reputedly the longest speech in the debate, ‘being for the most part full of rhetorical flourishes’, critical of Fenwick for being a Protestant that had endeavoured to re-establish a tyrannical and arbitrary government.<sup>188</sup></p><p>At the same time Monmouth was manoeuvring behind the scenes. On 19 Dec. George Rodney Bridges<sup>‡</sup> told his step-son, Shrewsbury, that Monmouth had ‘employed persons’ to Lady Mary Fenwick, suggesting that if Fenwick would continue to endeavour to prove his ‘hearsay paper’, Monmouth would ‘send him letters to make it good’, presumably from Smith.<sup>189</sup> To Lady Fenwick’s fears that if the case was thrown out of the Lords it might be revived at the Old Bailey, Monmouth had replied that ‘he had as much power there as here, for he often conversed with those persons that were of juries and he would secure me he would be cleared there.’<sup>190</sup> Monmouth’s machinations emerged because in response to his powerful advocacy of the attainder bill, Fenwick’s relatives among the Howard family decided to make them public. When Fenwick appeared before the Lords on 22 Dec., he was asked by Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, whether he had received any directions in writing as to how to behave himself at his trial. In reply, Fenwick revealed that he had been ‘told of some things for his advantage by his wife, who had them in writing from the duchess of Norfolk, and that the duchess received them from the earl of Monmouth’. The House then ordered Lady Mary Fenwick, the duchess of Norfolk and Mrs. Lawson to attend the House, and Lady Fenwick delivered three papers into the House. Ailesbury later remembered that Monmouth had encouraged Fenwick to accuse Godolphin, Marlborough, Shrewsbury and Russell of corresponding with the Jacobite secretary of state, Middleton.<sup>191</sup></p><p>Despite the revelations of the previous day, Monmouth ‘spoke and voted’ for the third reading of the Fenwick attainder bill on 23 Dec. 1696.<sup>192</sup> He would, he said, ‘crack his lungs, but he would have the bill carried’.<sup>193</sup> In one account Monmouth was reported as saying ‘we ought [to] distinguish known laws of courts below, and known laws of Parliaments’; that Fenwick’s ‘guilt is notorious, and if there be no way to punish it that is of the highest consequence’. He then answered ‘the objections to Porter’s evidence’, insisting ‘that matters of note may live in one’s memory, whilst things indifferent may be forgot’.<sup>194</sup> Although Vernon had noted that Monmouth had been ‘a great advocate for the bill’, he felt ‘there lies a mystery that is not yet unriddled, but tis certain a plan was formed how Sir John Fenwick might colourably justify the accusations given in against the principal persons mentioned in his paper’.<sup>195</sup> Following the passage of the bill, the duchess of Norfolk was called in and examined about the three papers delivered in on the previous day, and ordered to attend with Lady Fenwick and others after the Christmas adjournment. According to Wharton, the duchess ‘seemed to turn the matter as much to the advantage of my Lord Monmouth as she well could’, while Normanby ‘carried it on with his usual kindness to the Lord concerned, who behaved himself with more disturbance of mind than I thought he could have been capable of’, being ‘so confused in what he said, and it was so late, and the House so weary, that it was hard to make either head or tail of what he said’, and so the peers adjourned. Somers thought that ‘we have heard of it before, in general, and, amongst other things, that he had encouraged Sir John Fenwick to name Smith, upon a pretence that he would produce original letters, to justify his paper, which we took to be a contrivance to bring Smith before the House’.<sup>196</sup></p><p>Those willing to put a favourable gloss on Monmouth’s dabblings thought that the duchess and Mrs Lawson had applied to Monmouth to ‘ask what was fit for him to do on this occasion and the answers he gave them and occasional discourses he had with them at several times the duchess put in writing in one paper and styled it instructions for Sir John Fenwick how to behave himself at his trial.’<sup>197</sup> The exposure of his activities evidently worried Monmouth: on 29 Dec. Bridges informed Shrewsbury that since Monmouth’s machinations had come to light, he had ‘almost gone mad, and his whole business has been to run into all public places to justify himself’, including visits to the king, lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup> and the secretary of state, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>198</sup> He also tried to make peace with Russell, using Sunderland as an intermediary. Russell was having none of it, replying that he would ‘endeavour to drive it as far as it would go’, as Monmouth ‘had run about the town, to all people that would give him the hearing, to asperse us, and now seeing he could do nothing in order to justify himself, he desires to have this matter made up and his villainy concealed’. Somers was more receptive, accepting that ‘no one could be responsible to what a degree such a temper might be driven’.<sup>199</sup></p><p>On 9 Jan. 1697, following the Christmas adjournment, and after the House had read the three papers, Monmouth was heard in a speech lasting over two hours in which he attempted to discredit them.<sup>200</sup> At the end of the debate, however, the Lords resolved that the ‘three papers, which were delivered into this House by the Lady Mary Fenwick, do contain in them matter of a scandalous nature; and that the contrivance of them is a high crime and misdemeanour’. The following day it was reported that Monmouth had ‘tried all ways to avoid the censure, which must fall upon him, if the contrivance should be applied to him’, but that since the king would not ‘interpose in his behalf’, he had ‘seemed to acquiesce, if he might come off with a censure for indiscretion, but applies himself to avoid having the papers adjudged to be his’.<sup>201</sup> The House heard Matthew Smith on 11 and 12 Jan. about the three papers and on the latter day were read ‘some copies of his letters writ to the duke of Shrewsbury in February last’. At the conclusion of that day Bridges reported that Monmouth ‘is quite given up by the Court, from whence he expected his support’, and that the king had merely listened for an hour and a half to Monmouth without offering more than ‘very well my Lord’ in reply.<sup>202</sup> On 13 and 14 Jan. further witnesses were heard at the bar and on 15 Jan. the House passed a resolution that Monmouth had had ‘such a share and part in the contrivance of the papers delivered into this House by the Lady Mary Fenwick, that for that offence, and for the undutiful words which were sworn before this House to be spoken by him of the king’ he should be committed to the Tower, ‘there to remain during His majesty’s pleasure, and the pleasure of this House’. Lady Mary Fenwick’s most damaging accusation was that Monmouth had told the duchess of Norfolk that ‘the king had used Sir John Fenwick basely, by exposing that paper to the House; for, by the Almighty God, the king knew it before, and that it was true; for he himself had acquainted him with many things of that nature’, and that ‘the king was the worst of men, and had used him ill; that, if Sir John Fenwick did not do this that he desired him, he would do it at some time himself, which was the reason he would have this bill’.</p><p>Monmouth may have escaped lightly, for as Somers reported, ‘the thing at first insisted on, was, to have voted him the contriver; but this way was accepted of at last, as not being altogether so hard. I can hardly remember a question insisted on, when there were so few negatives; six or seven at most were the number’.<sup>203</sup> As it was described to Locke, Monmouth’s friends ‘were forced to struggle hard to obtain so moderate a sentence, other lords pressing to have expelled him the House and laid a judgment of disability on him ever to sit and vote as a peer during his life’, and there were only six votes against the resolution which passed, one of whom was the bishop of London, though on 16 Jan. Godolphin reported that there had been 12 or 13 votes against Monmouth’s imprisonment and an address against him.<sup>204</sup> Vernon, in a letter of 15 Jan., mentioned Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, as favouring an acquittal and John Thompson*, Baron Haversham and the duke of Bolton arguing that although ‘there was a good deal of indiscretion in his conduct … that deserved the censure of the House’, but that was all. In all only eight or ten peers ‘appeared any way favourable’ to Monmouth, some of whom had convened at Bolton’s on the evening before the vote ‘to consider how they might mitigate his censure, if they could not bring him off’.<sup>205</sup> On 18 Jan. the Lords sent to the king an account of their proceedings in the case; William replied to it on the 19th, thanking the Lords ‘for the consideration they have had of him in that matter’.</p><p>On 20 Jan. James Brydges*, the future duke of Chandos, reported that Monmouth had ‘a vast deal of company’ visiting him in the Tower.<sup>206</sup> It was ‘buzzed about’ that he aimed to get himself impeached, though Somers heard on the same day that Monmouth was thinking of asking the king’s leave to petition the Lords. He may, however, already have been dissuaded by Sunderland who visited him on the 18th.<sup>207</sup> On 21 Jan., the king struck Monmouth’s name out of the Privy Council.<sup>208</sup> Monmouth also lost his bedchamber office, but not his lieutenancy. According to Vernon, Monmouth had not expected to be dismissed from the Council, believing that ‘he had satisfied the king that he was wronged in what was sworn of his disrespectful behaviour’. He also denied any difference with Shrewsbury or Russell, ‘and wonders any body should think he designed a mischief to either. He talks all manner of ways, according to the humour of those that come to him. But I hear no more of his project if impeachment; perhaps it was only to delay his being turned out.’<sup>209</sup></p><p>At the beginning of February Monmouth approached Portland in an attempt to obtain his release, suggesting that Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, and Somers might move the matter in Council. On 9 Feb. Vernon reported that Monmouth will ‘forbear moving for his liberty till next week. In the meantime, he is pretty much visited by my Lord Sunderland, and Blanchard goes sometimes to him. So that some people intend to keep fair weather with him’.<sup>210</sup> On 26 Mar. Richard Powys wrote that Monmouth ‘is about petitioning the House for his liberty, but the application will be first made to the king’. On 30 Mar., the House ordered his discharge from the Tower following notice from the king that he had received a petition from the earl and that he consented to his release. He delayed his release until 1 Apr. owing to a fit of the gravel; nor had his temper been improved by the disposal of his bedchamber place to Charles Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later 2nd earl of Burlington), and the news that his uncle Peterborough was likely to recover from an illness.<sup>211</sup> On 6 Apr. he was spotted at Sunderland’s, although the rumours about Sunderland’s association with Rochester, Marlborough and Godolphin suggested that the two were unlikely to be in agreement in all things.<sup>212</sup> He had attended on 41 days of the 1696-7 session, 36 per cent of the total, and been named to a further nine committees.</p><p>Vernon commented that it would be ‘better for himself and his neighbours’ if Monmouth were to be ‘a quiet one’.<sup>213</sup> This sage advice may even have been followed for a while, for on 13 May 1697 he reported that Monmouth ‘talks only of following the plough, and his wife of being a dairywoman, yet nobody takes them at their word’.<sup>214</sup> On 10 June Orford (as Edward Russell had become on 7 May) informed Shrewsbury that Sunderland was seeking to reconcile Shrewsbury and his friends, with ‘a certain Lord, who has justly deserved your anger, or rather disdain’.<sup>215</sup> Monmouth maintained his links with Sunderland, dining with the earl on 19 June, the day his uncle Peterborough died.<sup>216</sup> By his uncle’s death, he inherited a new title, as 3rd earl of Peterborough, and about £4,000 a year, with the residue going to the duchess of Norfolk.<sup>217</sup> The inheritance included Turvey, and several other manors in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, with which Peterborough was ‘very well pleased’.<sup>218</sup> Vernon’s view was that as he ‘succeeds to the honour’ he would not ‘be content to inherit only one part of the estate, but is like to have a contest with his cousin [the duchess of Norfolk], for Drayton’.<sup>219</sup> On 20 July Blanchard reported to Portland malicious gossip against Sunderland (recently appointed lord chamberlain) at Lord and Lady Peterborough’s the previous day and thought it doubtful whether Sunderland’s frequent visits there had won him any friendship.<sup>220</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1697 Peterborough attended the opening day of the 1697-8 session. He visited the king on 15 Dec., and (despite Blanchard’s comments) Vernon noted that he was keen to support Sunderland against his detractors in Parliament, declaring himself ‘a champion of my lord chamberlain, and if he be attacked he will break his truce, which, he says, he only entered into at his solicitation’. However, as Vernon implied, Sunderland may not have found that too helpful.<sup>221</sup> Indeed, following Sunderland’s resignation as lord chamberlain at the end of December, in January 1698 Vernon reported that he had said that ‘there was no rack like to what he suffered, by being ground as he had been, between Lord Monmouth [<em>sic</em>] and Lord Wharton’.<sup>222</sup> Vernon felt that Peterborough would ‘now let himself loose again’, but added that if he ‘intends to be troublesome, either on this account or any other, I really think he will only expose himself; he is too well known to be much feared’.<sup>223</sup> Somers, created a baron in December 1697, likewise thought in early 1698 that Peterborough had contributed to Sunderland’s resignation because while Charles Duncombe, Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup> and Trevor ‘did so perpetually alarm him [Sunderland], with stories of his being delivered up by the Whigs’, in an attempt to get him to change sides, those stories ‘were aggravated in such a fiery manner’ by Peterborough, that ‘the physic was too strong, and operated quite contrary to their design; so that he durst not stay the tie of turning out others, but shifted away himself.’<sup>224</sup></p><p>Vernon reported to Shrewsbury on 1 Jan. 1698 a conversation with the recently resigned Sunderland in which he told the latter that people ‘were puzzled to think what should occasion so great a familiarity’ between himself and Peterborough; Vernon was also ‘amazed’ by Sunderland’s suggested recipe for keeping Peterborough ‘quiet’, ‘by making him easier in his fortune, which was very low’, and therefore he proposed asking the king to give him a pension of £2,000 a year and to restore him to the Council. Vernon still thought it necessary to make plans to counter any moves Peterborough might make to revive the charges made in Fenwick’s papers.<sup>225</sup></p><p>In the new year, Peterborough’s name was mentioned in the context of a series of factional battles, starting with the attempts in the Commons to accuse the chancellor, Charles Montagu*, the future earl of Halifax, of corruption. On 18 Jan. Vernon informed Shrewsbury that ‘there are four taken notice of in the House of Lords, who would be troubling the waters’, including Peterborough, but that they were ‘so well-known as to have all their motions narrowly watched’.<sup>226</sup> Montagu vindicated himself and mounted a counter-attack against Sunderland’s associate Duncombe, resulting in the latter’s expulsion from the House. He told the duke of Shrewsbury on 1 Feb., the day of the explusion that Duncombe’s departure would help to produce a new political landscape as he had been ‘the cement’ which had glued Peterborough, Bolton, Sir Edward Seymour ‘and the rest’ together.<sup>227</sup> On the same day, Vernon noted that proceeding by a bill against Duncombe was preferable to an impeachment, ‘when it was considered that his money and Lord Peterborough’s tricks might puzzle the cause’.<sup>228</sup> On 24 Feb. it was reported that ‘many are of opinion’ that the bill for punishing Duncombe for the false endorsement of exchequer bills would never pass the Lords ‘as it now is’ because Peterborough ‘and some others of the chief speaking peers of the House have in public declared against it’.<sup>229</sup> On 4 Mar. Peterborough was indeed one of those that spoke against the second reading of the bill, on the grounds that it was as a ‘method introduced to intermeddle in their judicature’.<sup>230</sup> By 8 Mar., it was noted that ‘some are of opinion that it will be thrown out’ because ‘a great many other speaking peers’, including Peterborough, were against it.<sup>231</sup> On 5 Mar. Peterborough was one of those peers named to prepare for a conference aimed at elucidating the grounds upon which the bill had proceeded in the Commons, and was appointed to manage conferences on the 7th and 11th. When the bill was lost by one vote, on 15 Mar., Robert Yard noted Peterborough’s opposition and he was duly listed as voting against it.<sup>232</sup> It was perhaps opposition such as this which led French ambassador Tallard on 8 Apr. to inform Louis XIV that the strong cabal in the Lords against the court was headed by Leeds, Rochester, Nottingham and Peterborough.<sup>233</sup> As a coda to the proceedings against Duncombe, on 14 May, when the Lords rejected at second reading the bill for punishing John Knight for procuring counterfeit endorsements of exchequer bills, it was reported that ‘there were but five that appeared to be for it’, one of whom was Peterborough.<sup>234</sup> When Duncombe appeared in the court of king’s bench on 13 July, to enter into a recognizance of £10,000, Peterborough was one of his four sureties, who pledged ‘£5,000 each to appear the first day of the next term’.<sup>235</sup></p><p>Minor controversy followed Peterborough, when, on 22 Mar. 1698, Joseph Wilson and others were ordered into custody for breach of privilege for fishing in a tumultuous manner in the river Nene within one of the manors of George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton. The men petitioned on 31 Mar., claiming they had the right to do so, but on 18 Apr. the Lords found in Northampton’s favour. Luttrell described the dispute as ‘by breaking into his fishery, which the earl of Peterborough’s son claimed a right to do’.<sup>236</sup> On 24 May Peterborough was named to a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness. A week later he acted as a teller, in opposition to Manchester, on the question of whether to insist on an amendment to the bill. Godolphin reported on 2 June to Viscount Lonsdale (as Sir John Lowther had since been created) on the progress of the Aire and Calder navigation bill, noting Peterborough among those ‘that think they have an interest against it’.<sup>237</sup> On 9 June, when the Lords were debating the bill for settling the trade to Africa, Peterborough came out of the House to consult with some members of the Africa Company and some of the free traders to Guinea, extracting a promise from the former that the latter could use their forts and be protected by the Company.<sup>238</sup> On 15 June he was named to draw up heads for a conference in which the Lords insisted on their rights over the impeachment of Jean Goudet. When the House considered a report of the conference a week later, Peterborough entered into the debate.<sup>239</sup> On 1 July he entered his protest against giving a second reading to the bill for raising £2 million (the East India bill). Peterborough had attended on 79 days, 60 per cent of the total, and been named to 31 committees.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1698</em></h2><p>Just prior to the sitting of the 1698 Parliament, Sunderland felt the need to reassure Shrewsbury that ‘I cannot imagine Lord Peterborough can be so mad as to revive a thing, which, when new, had such a reception as that had. If he should, it is certain it will hurt nobody but himself.’ He told the duke that his last communication with Peterborough had been five or six weeks previously, from Drayton, where he said he ‘avoided company, was a philosopher, and very easy in his own concerns’. Over the summer, Sunderland wrote, Peterborough had written to him with ‘a good deal against the present men employed, but nothing particular, and much compliment to me and kindness, which I have deserved if giving good and friendly advice were the way, for that I have done very plainly and very often’.<sup>240</sup></p><p>Peterborough attended on the second sitting of the 1698-9 session, 9 December 1698. On 8 Feb. 1699, in the debate in committee of the whole House on the king’s speech of 1 Feb., Peterborough intervened to ask Burnet if, given his writings on the subject, his support for retaining the Dutch Guards meant that he was a bad historian.<sup>241</sup> Peterborough then acted as a teller in opposition to Tankerville, against resuming the House. He was one of many who entered a dissent to a resolution offering to assist the king in retaining his Dutch guards. The House then had to intervene to prevent a quarrel between Peterborough and Orford from going further. On the following day the House had to intervene again to prevent Peterborough, Orford and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, from continuing the quarrel.<sup>242</sup> On 21 Mar. Peterborough acted as a teller, in opposition to Marlborough, on the question of appointing a date to consider the report on the petition of Captain Desborrow (concerning the capture of a prize off Newfoundland, and aimed against Captain Sir John Norris, a client of Orford’s). Peterborough was absent from the House between 29 Mar. and 29 Apr., and last attended on 2 May. He had attended on 38 days of the session, 47 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 11 committees.</p><p>Vernon continued to keep a close watch of Peterborough’s activities. In August 1699 he wrote a lengthy note for Shrewsbury detailing Peterborough’s state of mind. The earl, he wrote, professed he had always felt ‘a coldness from the duke, even while both of them were carrying on the business of the Revolution’. He did express some esteem for Shrewsbury, but none at all for Orford. Peterborough also believed there were ‘contrivances to ensnare and ruin him; that he was forced to be upon his guard; and for these three years he had not gone anywhere, or spoke to anybody, without noticing it down in his table-book’. He thought he had been ‘turned out disgracefully, and expected amends to be made him; but did not mean it by being restored to any of his employments, for he declared he would accept of none’. He thought the Whigs had been ungrateful to Sunderland: he understood, he said, that the Whigs ‘took a pretence to suspect him’ on account of his friendship with Peterborough himself. In fact, he said, Sunderland had taken ‘great pains to restrain him following his own resentments’; indeed Sunderland had told him ‘that he must and would be his enemy, while he and the party were at variance, which, he said, he could not take ill from him.’<sup>243</sup></p><p>Peterborough attended on the opening day of the 1699-1700 session, 16 Nov. 1699. At this point Matthew Smith’s allegations, chiefly against the shortcomings of Shrewsbury, resurfaced. In late November Vernon’s assessment of Smith’s <em>Remarks upon the D-of S-‘s Letter to the House of Lords, concerning Captain Smith</em> was that ‘Peterborough has a greater hand in it than I thought at first’. On 7 Dec. the Lords took Smith’s allegation into consideration. Peterborough intervened to ‘know whether the printed letter agreed with what [was] entered in the Journal’, presumably attempting to divert attention from his own role in the work. Vernon noted that Peterborough had ‘affected very much of late to be whispering with’ Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, the secretary of state, who ‘says Lord Peterborough told him this morning, he wondered what Smith meant by publishing this book; that if he had had any hand in advising him, he should have gone another way to work’. On 11 Dec. Smith was examined before the Lords, where he admitted writing a book he sent via lord chancellor Somers to the House. As Vernon recounted, ‘Peterborough behaved himself like one that raved’; after insisting that Smith’s book be read, ‘while it was reading, in a careless manner, he fell a talking all the while with my lord chancellor, and then would have it read again, because he had not minded it; but the Lords were not for humouring his frenzies’. They resolved that Smith should be re-committed for a breach of privilege in printing their proceedings. At this Peterborough spoke against the first order for Smith’s commitment, ‘though he had seconded the motion, there being no proof that he had published the book till he came to the bar and owned it; and I hear some Lords were not satisfied that it was very regular’. On 15 Dec., according to Somers, the Lords resolved that the written book ‘sent to the House by Smith’ and the printed book, ‘being a copy of it, was a false and scandalous libel, reflecting on your grace’s honour, and the honour of the House, and have ordered it burnt by the hangman’. Somers added, ‘that which I am most pleased with’, that Peterborough, ‘after much ado, was brought to tell his long-threatened story, and, I think, it is not possible a thing should come off more poorly’.<sup>244</sup> On 22 Dec. Peterborough acted as a teller, opposite the 2nd earl of Macclesfield (as Charles, Lord Brandon, had since become) on the question of reversing the decree in the case of <em>Beisley v. Stratford</em>.</p><p>This session also saw the revival of the dispute between Peterborough and the duchess of Norfolk over her father’s estates in Northamptonshire, which Peterborough was pursuing through chancery. The matter at issue was some work in Drayton Park; Peterborough had failed in an attempt in chancery to prevent it taking place, so he had resorted to claiming a breach of privilege. On 7 Dec. 1699 Thomas Hoite was ordered into custody. On 22 Dec., the duchess petitioned the House, owning Hoite to be her servant, and praying to be heard by counsel on the matter. After the House heard Serjeant Nathan Wright (shortly to be appointed lord keeper) on behalf of Peterborough and Sir Thomas Powys<sup>‡</sup> for the duchess, on 9 Jan. 1700, Hoite was discharged, without paying fees. The House indicated their unhappiness with the whole proceeding by ordering that in future, if the House adjudged a complaint not to be a breach of privilege, the Lord who made the complaint should pay the fees and expenses of the person taken into custody. <sup>245</sup></p><p>Peterborough ‘took notice’ in the Lords on 10 Jan. 1700 of the pamphlet <em>An Enquiry into the Causes of the Miscarriage of the Scots Colony at Darien</em>. He described the book as written ‘in the language of persons that smarted under great losses’, although they aimed at ‘being admitted to an union with England’. He thought a union both convenient, ‘and in this conjuncture’, necessary, ‘in regard to our present and future tranquillity’.<sup>246</sup> Charles Hatton reported that this ‘very libellous book, published in the defence of the Scots settlement at Darien’, had led Peterborough to move for ‘a union betwixt England and Scotland’, arguing that ‘under great hardships’, the Scots might turn to ‘a young prince abroad’ (the pretender) who, ‘in this age when it is so fashionable for princes to change their religion for a crown, might follow that mode, and, if he turned Presbyterian, might not only be acceptable to the Scots, but to the English too, as another prince, tho’ educated by a bishop but a Scot’. The House appointed 16 Jan. to take into consideration the Darien affair. When Charles Montagu in the Commons alluded to his motion as if it were a joke, Peterborough ‘was so incensed that he sent a challenge’ to him, while Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> also noted that it was originally looked upon as a ‘jest’ until the court came into the proposal.<sup>247</sup></p><p>Although Peterborough had struck a chord with the court and James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], thought ‘the king has a good while resolved to propose it to both Houses and was only considering a good opportunity for it’, he also added ‘it would have done much better’ had it come from him. John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], felt that Peterborough had acted to pre-empt the court, possibly with the intention ‘to ruin the success of the project, though on other occasions he professes a regard to the Scots nation’.<sup>248</sup> When discussion was resumed on 16 Jan., Lord Basil Hamilton wrote that ‘Lord Peterborough spoke well and long’.<sup>249</sup> On 23 Feb., after the passage of the bill authorizing commissioners to treat with commissioners of Scotland for a union of the two kingdoms, Peterborough was appointed to prepare for a conference with the Commons.</p><p>In response to the Commons’ refusal to vote thanks to William Stephens for preaching a sermon before them on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, Peterborough was reported to have given him a living valued at £150 a year, though Stephens turned it down.<sup>250</sup> In about February, Peterborough was forecast as likely to support the East India Company bill and on the 23rd he voted in favour of adjourning during pleasure, and for going into committee to discuss two amendments to the bill. On 16 Feb. Vernon discounted Peterborough having a role in the publication of Matthew Smith’s latest book, supposing ‘his head filled with another project, which is to carry on a bill for the duke of Norfolk’s divorce, though he formerly threw it out’. He had procured the bill a first reading on that day. Some interpreted the <em>volte face</em> as being connected to Peterborough’s plan to marry his daughter to the duke, while Vernon thought it might be a ruse to ‘oblige’ the duchess to settle Drayton upon him ‘and then he will change sides again’. On 24 Feb. Vernon found him showing great pleasure in taking his revenge against the duchess.<sup>251</sup> During the reading of the depositions relating to the bill on 6 Mar., Peterborough ask questions of Francis Negus, presumably to clarify what he had said about the duchess promising to leave her estate to the duke (an estate which Peterborough claimed for himself). On 8 Mar. he acted as a teller twice on the bill: once opposite Feversham on the question of adjourning further consideration of the bill until the following day; and a second time opposite Jeffreys on the question for a second reading. The bill was passed in April. On 2 Mar. Peterborough seems to have been appointed as a teller opposite Charles Granville*, Baron Granville, styled Lord Lansdown, on the question of whether a writ of error brought in by the bishop of St Davids should be received. The division, however, was called off as those in favour yielded the question.<sup>252</sup> Also in April, the Commons bill resuming the Irish forfeited estates and levying a land tax reached the Lords. Widely perceived as a ‘tacking’ measure, Peterborough supported it with the bizarre analogy of a man whose affairs had fallen into disorder, and was compelled to take a rich wife, even though she was a ‘baggage’, in order to obtain security.<sup>253</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 11 Apr., having attended on 54 days, 68 per cent of the total, and been named to six committees.</p><p>With the Whig ministers under pressure during the session, Peterborough was not perceived as favourable to the Junto. On 27 Feb. Vernon reported that Somers was aware that Peterborough ‘lay in wait to show him a mark of his kindness’, seeing that Somers ‘stood in his way against his being revenged’ on Shrewsbury and Orford. Peterborough, he wrote, ‘could not bear’ Shrewsbury having the white staff as lord chamberlain, and although ‘Orford were out of employment, yet he must be brought lower, and it must not be deferred’, otherwise Orford, he feared, would return to the admiralty. Nevertheless, Somers thought that although Peterborough ‘was an ill man, yet there were others as bad as he’.<sup>254</sup> Peterborough’s name, in fact, was marked with a cross on a list of Whig peers made after 10 July 1700, as were Somers, Wharton and Orford, rather than bracketed with the other group which may indicate a more favourable attitude to the new ministry. On 9 Aug. Peterborough attended the interment of the duke of Gloucester, as one of the assistants to the chief mourner, Norfolk.<sup>255</sup> The coming of age of his son, John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Viscount Mordaunt, raised the question of his political career. Peterborough’s Dauntsey property formed the basis of an electoral interest in Chippenham, for which Mordaunt was chosen in three successive elections from January 1701. Peterborough also campaigned for Maurice Ashley<sup>‡</sup> in the Wiltshire county contest of December 1701.<sup>256</sup></p><p>Peterborough attended the opening day of the 1701 Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701. Three days later he chaired and reported from the committee on the Address.<sup>257</sup> A newsletter reported that during the resultant debate on the 13th, Peterborough had ‘made a very eloquent speech … tending to shew the necessity there is of declaring war against France: and they say he gave so many strong arguments for it: that he met with a general applause’.<sup>258</sup> On 17 Feb. he was named to manage a conference on the Address. On 15 Mar. Peterborough acted as a teller, in opposition to Stamford, on the report of the committee on the partition treaty, on whether the second point in the committee’s report, ‘that the Emperor was not a party to this treaty, though principally concerned’ should be agreed (it was rejected). On 10 May he was named to the committee to draw up an address on the letter sent by the States General to the king on 2 May, which he then reported to the House; the address backed the formation of alliances against France. When, on 15 May, ‘the new ministry carried two questions about the dissolution of the last Parliament’ and against the Junto, Peterborough observed ‘that some Lords had frequently of late affirmed in that House, in their own defence, that the king did not use to advise with anybody in his proceedings, but now nothing would satisfy them but they must enquire into the advisers of the late dissolution’.<sup>259</sup></p><p>Peterborough entered wholeheartedly into the attack on the Junto of 1701, taking the Commons’ part in the increasingly angry exchanges over the impeachments of the Junto lords. On 9 June he entered his protest against the decision not to appoint a committee to meet with a Commons’ committee regarding the impeachments. Five days later he protested against sending a message to the Commons requesting a conference on the subject, and later in the day he entered another protest against a second resolution not to appoint a committee of both Houses. He entered a third protest on 17 June against the resolution that the Lords go into Westminster Hall, in order to proceed upon the trial of Somers, and then he voted against Somers’s acquittal and entered a protest against the decision to acquit. Two days later he acted as a teller, opposite Rivers, on a question about when to give a third reading to a supply bill. On 23 June he entered a sole protest against the resolution that the delay in passing supply was occasioned by the ‘fatal counsel’ to delay the meeting of Parliament, and by the ‘unnecessary delays’ of the Commons. In the protest he argued that while ‘nothing could be more fatal to the interest of Europe, to the interest of the Protestant religion, and the safety of England, than the so long delay of the meeting of a Parliament, after the death of the King of Spain’, yet he rejected the imputation of ‘unnecessary delays’ to the Commons. On that same day, following the arrest on the 21st of Peterborough’s servant, James Drake, all four men involved in the arrest were ordered into custody for breach of privilege. On 24 June he was one of four peers given the task of counting the ballots for a committee of nine to examine proceedings on a union between England and Scotland, and reported the result to the House, including his own election. The House was prorogued on 24 June, Peterborough having attended on 58 days, 55 per cent of the total. He had been appointed to a further ten committees.</p><p>Peterborough attended on the opening day of the 1701-2 Parliament, 30 Dec. 1701. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address expressing the resentment of the House at the proceedings of the French king in owning the Pretender. The following day he was named to the committee to draw an address promising that the Lords would assist the king ‘in reducing the exorbitant power of France, and settling the balance of Europe’, which he reported to the House. On 12 Jan., in a debate in committee of the whole House on the abjuration bill, there was much discussion of the definition of ‘abjuration’: Peterborough ‘explained in several particulars what he thought was meant by the word abjure vizt - that the rich man should fight against the pretended P. of W. with his purse and the poor man with his person &c’.<sup>260</sup></p><p>Possibly through Harry Mordaunt’s political connection to Wharton, Peterborough had been drawn into the election at Malmesbury in November 1701. Mordaunt delivered an election petition to the Commons on 14 Jan. 1702 from five burgesses complaining of bribery by William Adye in the return of Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Pauncefort<sup>‡</sup>. On 29 Jan. the Commons heard the evidence and in the end resolved to take the petitioners and the defeated candidate Daniel Parke into custody. Although Parke absolved Peterborough from any role in the bribery, Adye challenged this view. Peterborough was present in the chamber, because when Robert Dormer<sup>‡</sup> asked that Peterborough should have leave to make his defence before the Commons, Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> responded that ‘there never was such an invasion of our rights to have a Lord come into the House and prompt the counsel as a solicitor and stand with his hat on as a member’. The Speaker affected not to be aware that Peterborough had been there; but he was eventually invited to speak. He did so for around an hour and a half, but to no avail, it being voted that he was ‘guilty of many indirect practices’ in endeavouring to get Parke elected.<sup>261</sup> According to one newsletter, Peterborough ‘speeched it forward and backward for more than two hours, and several time urged the House to impeach him that thereby as he said he might have an opportunity to vindicate himself’.<sup>262</sup> The irony of this was not lost on Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, who wrote that:</p><blockquote><p>our good friend Lord Peterborough was by the treachery and malice of the Tory Party censured yesterday in the House of Commons, for which he is the less pitied because he last year joined so much with that party, and in the impeachment and prosecution of his Brother-Whigs, for which his new friends the Tories have well repaid him. But I thank them for the example: not only for setting my Lord Peterborough right (for this fixes him ours) but for shewing all those of our party who tamper with them, what they have to expect.<sup>263</sup></p></blockquote><p>After the third reading of the abjuration bill on 24 Feb., Nottingham’s proposal for union with Scotland was seconded by Peterborough, although the matter did not proceed for the moment as the ministry had no instructions from the king.<sup>264</sup></p><h2><em>The Accession of Anne and the 1702 Parliament</em></h2><p>As Peterborough was present in the House on 8 Mar. 1702 he was appointed to manage a conference on the death of the king, and later reported from the committee of the whole House drawing up an address to Queen Anne. He also reported from committee on 12 Mar. the Address on the Queen’s Speech. On 18 and 20 May he was named to manage a conference on the prevention of correspondence between England and the allies with France and Spain. Also on 20 May he was named to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for the encouragement of privateers and on 22 May he was named to draw up an address on the same matter, which he reported on the following day. Peterborough was present on the last day of the session, 25 May, having attended on 71 days, 71 per cent of the total. He had been named to a further 17 committees.</p><p>The death of Sunderland on 28 Sept. 1702 removed a steadying influence on Peterborough. He had arrived at Althorp shortly after the event and felt sufficiently moved to write to the countess of Marlborough on 6 Oct. acknowledging the ‘many obligations’ he had owed to the earl.<sup>265</sup> Shaftesbury, for one, was a little unsure of Peterborough’s political stance at this point, writing on 4 Nov. that he had little interest with Peterborough, ‘since this last year or two that he threw himself so eagerly into the Tory interest, and prosecuted both the impeachments and all those other fatal, obstructive, and unjust measures, with so much violence’. He had ‘now smarted for it, having been barbarously treated by that party he went over to, who sacrificed him last year in the House of Commons’, over the Malmesbury election case. Although Peterborough had ‘now come back to his original friends and principles, and those sores are all healed up’, he was unsure as to relations between them.<sup>266</sup></p><p>Queen Anne’s new ministry faced the stark dilemma of how to employ Peterborough’s talents. Even before William’s death, as early as January 1702 Peterborough had been rumoured to be in line for a commission as captain general of the forces to be sent to the West Indies.<sup>267</sup> At the end of July Marlborough was thinking of Peterborough for the governorship of Jamaica, he having had ‘it long in his head’.<sup>268</sup> Macky noted that Peterborough had been ‘a great projector for the improvement of our plantations’, and that Nottingham had secured him the post.<sup>269</sup> It was a post of potential importance given Jamaica’s position as a base for the clandestine trade with the Spanish West Indies and for military operations should the islands not declare for the allied claimant of the Spanish monarchy.<sup>270</sup> Newsletters in October reported that Peterborough had obtained the governorship and that he was preparing to travel there. However, by 7 Nov. it was reported that ‘Peterborough is not like to be going so soon to the government of Jamaica as has been given out and some make a question whether or no his Lordship will at all his commission having met with some opposition at Court.’<sup>271</sup> Nevertheless, on 2 Dec. the treasury ordered £600 to the treasurer of the navy for transporting Peterborough’s equipage and on 13 Jan. 1703 Peterborough wrote to Marlborough, in order to explain his thoughts on the proposed venture to the West Indies rather ‘than by an interrupted discourse in the House of Lords’.<sup>272</sup> Then on 16 Jan. it was reported that the ‘difficulties’ raised by Peterborough had been ‘adjusted’ and that he would ‘be going without delay, if the proceedings on the resumption bill do not retard him, his lordship having a grant from the late king of about £1500 p.a. value.’ Newsletters continued to report that Peterborough was making ‘fresh difficulties’ about his commission which he thinks ‘not ample enough’, and some people thought ‘his aim was to have had not only the government of Jamaica but the absolute command of all the land forces and fleet too that shall be employed in those parts which will not be complied with’.<sup>273</sup> On 23 Jan. Nottingham informed Colonel Codrington that Peterborough was not going.<sup>274</sup> Peterborough told Locke that the reason for his refusal to go was the lack of forces at his disposal, which had been cut by half. This had been something of a shock: ‘our American expedition is fallen as a mushroom rises in a night’, he wrote, and he had desired to be excused the task of going ‘to the other world loaded with empty titles and deprived of force’.<sup>275</sup></p><p>Peterborough had been present on the opening day of the 1702 Parliament, 20 Oct. 1702. On 10 Dec. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle recorded receiving ‘a very pleasant account of the earl of Peterborough’s turning himself into all shapes (of porter, chairman &c.) to ferret out intrigues’. On 23 Dec. Peterborough petitioned, as the grandson and heir male of John Mordaunt<sup>†</sup>, earl of Peterborough, against an order made in the court of Chancery on 16 Dec., on behalf of Lady Mary Mordaunt (as the dowager duchess of Norfolk was sometimes known) and her husband, Sir John Germaine<sup>‡</sup>. On 20 Jan. 1703, the Lords heard the case for five hours, with Sir Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, and Sir William Cowper*, the future Earl Cowper, acting as Peterborough’s counsel. The case rested on the relative status of two deeds from the reign of Charles I: Peterborough claimed the lands in question by the second deed. Lord Keeper Wright explained why he regarded both deeds as of equal regard and that the earl’s title was maintainable at common law, so that Chancery had no jurisdiction. The House then ordered one counsel on either side to argue the issue. On the advice of the judges the Lords dismissed his petition and affirmed the order.<sup>276</sup></p><p>In about January 1703 Nottingham forecast Peterborough as likely to oppose the bill against occasional conformity. On 17 Dec. 1702 and 9 Jan. 1703 he was named as a manager of conferences on the bill. On 16 Jan. he managed and spoke at the conference on the bill and supported adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penal clause of the bill.<sup>277</sup> On 5 Feb. Peterborough ‘jested a little’ in reply to Nottingham, in the debate on the actions of Halifax (as Charles Montagu had been created in December 1700) as auditor of the exchequer that ended in a vote approving of his conduct.<sup>278</sup> On 9 Feb. he brought in a bill for better carrying on the war in the West Indies.<sup>279</sup> He last attended on 24 Feb., having been present on 48 days, 56 per cent of the total and been named to a further 25 committees.</p><p>The death of the dowager countess of Peterborough on 18 Apr. 1702 saw Peterborough gain her jointure of £1500 a year, although the duchess of Norfolk received her personal estate.<sup>280</sup> This did not seem to improve Peterborough’s somewhat hand-to-mouth existence: on 20 July 1703 he assigned his legacy of £1,000 from Lady Philadelphia Wentworth (<em>d</em>. 1696) to John Nicolson, a merchant, for £250 ‘and all the interest and damages for non-payment thereof’.<sup>281</sup> On 6 Aug. 1703, in advance of the next political season, Peterborough wrote to the duchess of Marlborough to complain about his erstwhile ally Nottingham, ‘in whose defence no Whig hath so often engaged’:</p><blockquote><p>but I must at the same time confess he hath not that gift I wish in a minister, of timing things aright. He should with less difficulty in my poor opinion and with less dispute have abjured the prince of Wales and with greater dispatch and less hesitation have accepted the Portugal Treaty, and I fear he is likely to trouble us again unseasonably, and without occasion, with his occasional bill.<sup>282</sup></p></blockquote><p>In about November, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast Peterborough as likely to oppose a new bill against occasional conformity. Sunderland did not feel the need to alter his assessment in a second forecast made around the end of November.</p><p>Peterborough attended the opening day of the 1703-4 session on 9 Nov. 1703. On 11 Nov. he reported from the committee on the Address. On 14 Dec. he spoke and voted against the occasional conformity bill, having assured Swift ‘in the most solemn manner, that if he had the least suspicion, the rejecting this bill would hurt the Church, or do kindness to the dissenters, he would lose his right hand rather than speak against it’.<sup>283</sup> On 17 Dec. he was present at a meeting of 17 peers at Sunderland’s, presumably about the coordination of the ballot to be held the following day for a committee of seven to examine two of the Scotch plotters.<sup>284</sup> On 6 Feb. 1704 he reported from the committee on the estate bill of Sir John Astley<sup>‡</sup>. On 23 Feb. Peterborough reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for the increase of seamen. On 27 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for taking the public accounts. He last attended on the penultimate day of the session, 3 Apr., having attended on 64 days, 65 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 25 committees.</p><p>On 8 July 1704 Peterborough wrote to the duchess of Marlborough that the queen had now, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>what is so necessary in England[’s] success. The victory at home is of equal importance with that abroad. The elector of Bavaria reduced is not of greater advantage to the common cause, than that the queen has now at her feet all faction here. Everybody will now own the effects of the happy influence of those she confides in, malice and all cabals are defeated even Parliaments (I will not say are subdued) but overcome by her majesty’s virtue and the good fortune of her general.<sup>285</sup></p></blockquote><p>On the death of the Tory leader, Sir Christopher Musgrave, at the end of July, he remarked that although they ‘were not always of opinion’, ‘there was so much of a sturdy Englishman in him, that I always wished him well’.<sup>286</sup> On 1 Aug., Peterborough wrote to Marlborough that his success in the campaign leading up to Blenheim would make the lord treasurer’s task in Parliament easy, although he was ashamed to say that ‘we have some amongst us who are yet jealous and not satisfied, and we have monsters of five hundred pounds a year insensible of this public happiness’. He commented on Scotland (whose Parliament had recently passed the Act of Security), ‘what parts would they have acted under other circumstances.’<sup>287</sup></p><p>Peterborough attended the opening of 1704-5 session, on 24 Oct. 1704. On 23 Nov., following one of Haversham’s set piece speeches on the ills of the nation, Peterborough remarked that ‘when we live without French drink, the French must live without English victual’. He also remarked on the ‘different figures made by our land and sea-commanders; an admiral being forced to foot in, from Whitehall to Wapping, whilst a field officer greater than a lord’, presumably comparing the poor reception given to the returning Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> after his capture of Gibraltar and holding off the French fleet off Cape Malaga to the status of the victors of Blenheim, fought on the same day as Malaga. In the debate in committee of the whole House on the state of the nation with regard to Scotland on 6 Dec., provoked by the Scottish Act of Security, Peterborough ‘was for playing act against act, and all would be safe’. He said he had been frightened by a series of dangers: the joining of the French army with the Bavarians, the French attack on the English fleet in the Mediterranean, and ‘the late noise of a Tack’; but all of these ‘had blown over’. Scotland, he concluded, was ‘our little sister, and she will squawl till something’s given her’. James Johnston<sup>‡ </sup>also recorded the debate noting that when it was said that the queen should have resisted the Scottish acts, Peterborough replied that the queen ‘had the power of France to resist, with the folly of Austria, the selfishness of the Dutch, and the ignorance of the Portuguese, with factions and other disorders at home; all which she had resisted, and would resist; but he should be sorry to have her accustomed to resist Parliament’. On 15 Dec., when the House debated the occasional conformity bill, Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, seemed to argue that the House would be forced by the Commons to pass the bill. Peterborough thought that this was ‘to bully the House’. Winchilsea’s riposte that he was neither for bullying, nor would be bullied, then seemed to lead to a whispered challenge: it was overheard, and the House intervened to prevent a duel.<sup>288</sup></p><p>Peterborough was absent from the Lords from 20 Feb. to 12 Mar. 1705, when he was named as a manager of a conference on the Lords’ amendment to the militia bill, and further business on the bill on that and the following day. Also on 13 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on the amendments made by the Commons to a naturalization bill. Peterborough attended the last day of the session, 14 Mar., having been present on 47 days, 48 per cent of the total, and been named to 26 committees. At some point around this date, in an analysis of the peerage in relation to the Succession question, he was noted as a Hanoverian.</p><h2><em>The 1705 Parliament and Service in Portugal</em></h2><p>On 2 Mar. 1705 Peterborough wrote to the duchess of Marlborough, that ‘I am sorry to find we are so mad a people’, who ‘show in some public assemblies our folly and pride’, adding ‘I have not had the honour of seeing your grace since I received the queen’s commands in relation to what I first heard of from yourself’. The ‘queen’s command’ was a commission, which he received on 31 Mar., to be commander-in-chief of all troops accompanying the fleet to Portugal. After receiving the sacrament on 20 May, and taking the oaths on the day following in Westminster Hall, he went to Plymouth to embark, arriving at Lisbon on 9 June.<sup>289</sup> Before his departure Peterborough had attempted to secure his son, Viscount Mordaunt, a seat in the new House of Commons elected in May. As early as December 1704 he had promoted the interest of his son for Bedford (seven miles from Turvey), upon hearing that the Whig William Spencer<sup>‡</sup> was not going to stand at the ensuing election.<sup>290</sup> By January 1705 he had turned his attention to getting Mordaunt in at Northamptonshire, though Robert Hesilrige thought he had jumped the gun, canvassing before Sunderland had had a chance to confirm the other Whig candidate: Hesilrige wrote to Sunderland that ‘I wonder my Lord P[eterborough] should write to any (but friends) before an answer of your Lordship’s came from Sir St Andrew [St John<sup>‡</sup>]. It hath set our enemies at work and we know not who to ask for (one I count as nothing) in case we want another’.<sup>291</sup> Peterborough’s intervention certainly alarmed the Northamptonshire Tories: in January 1705 Sir Robert Clerk wrote to Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> that he ‘had thoughts to have wrote to Lord Peterborough because I fancy I could have satisfied him the necessity of his affairs would require positively that he must disoblige no party’. Clerk’s prediction that ‘there will be no opposition for this county next election’, proved wide of the mark as Lord Mordaunt suffered only a narrow defeat. Peterborough’s lord lieutenancy gave him some advantage, for as Isham put it several years later, although Peterborough had ‘little or no interest in our county, yet being lord lieutenant he may expect to be asked’.<sup>292</sup> Peterborough was criticized for arbitrary behaviour in the course of the election, making threats against a former sheriff of the county and ensuring dismissal from the bench and threatening an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against a Northamptonshire justice, Thornton, who had spoken ‘reflecting’ words on Peterborough.<sup>293</sup> Mordaunt was eventually returned for Chippenham in a by-election in November.</p><p>In July 1705, John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> in Lisbon gave Godolphin his opinion of Peterborough that ‘beside the life, spirit and resolution which indeed I expected there appears in him a great temper and calmness which seem the effects of a strong judgment’.<sup>294</sup> His calm was no doubt disturbed by the news that in about September, Viscount Mordaunt had married Lady Frances Powlett, a daughter of Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton. The match had been sanctioned by neither set of parents and led to a rift between Peterborough and his son. Many people tried, unsuccessfully, to heal it, including the duke and duchess of Marlborough, Dr Samuel Garth and Shaftesbury.<sup>295</sup> Nor did the birth of an heir to Mordaunt in October 1708 end the feud, although father and son appear to have been reconciled by September 1709 when Peterborough visited Lord Mordaunt’s house in Yorkshire, and heard the ‘agreeable’ news of Malplaquet.<sup>296</sup></p><p>At the beginning of October 1705 Barcelona fell to the Allies, with Peterborough very much in the forefront of the action. He was keen to make clear to Godolphin his personal losses in the process, writing that month:</p><blockquote><p>I have in a manner supported all here with my little stock. I sold, mortgaged and took up a year’s advance upon my estate, got all my pay advanced, took all the money up at Lisbon upon my own account, that I could anywise get, and all gone to support of this siege and other services. I have left my wife and children nothing to live upon, little expecting my stay in these parts. I conjure your Lordship pay the bills I have drawn for the last money lent towards raising a Spanish regiment.<sup>297</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 12 Nov. Peterborough was excused from a call of the House. Following the death on 19 Nov. of the duchess of Norfolk, Peterborough was reported to be challenging her will which left her estate to her husband, Sir John Germaine.<sup>298</sup> When Germaine remarried in September 1706 the daughter of Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley, Robert Price<sup>‡</sup> noted that ‘it is his late lady’s estate in Northamptonshire, which the earl of Peterborough designs to push for, and by this politic settlement hopes to ensure it’.<sup>299</sup> Lady Germaine was to recollect in 1731 that ‘Peterborough plagued Sir John all his life time’ over the estate.<sup>300</sup> In November 1705 Peterborough wrote to James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope: ‘I hope before this comes to your hands you will have fought a parliamentary battle for me in relation to a confirmation of Dauntsey by act of Parliament’, although no bill seems to have been introduced.<sup>301</sup></p><p>Despite the successes of the campaign, Peterborough’s position in Spain was deteriorating by the spring of 1706. There were personality clashes and disagreements over strategy with the king and his advisors, both Spanish and Imperial, especially the ‘whole Vienna crew’.<sup>302</sup> Nor was Peterborough happy with affairs in England, complaining in a letter to Godolphin of May 1706 of ‘that fatal and barbarous humour of our countrymen, who must be fed with continual success’ and ‘a silly parliamentary brawling’ which secured reward. He also referred to ‘an impertinent pamphlet’, whose ‘author I think would pass for my friend but I heartily wish him hanged for his kindness it has put me out of humour ever since’. Finally, he grumbled that he had not received the commission of vice-admiral of England’, which he thought had been promised to him.<sup>303</sup> In June 1706 Henri de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], advanced from Portugal and taken possession of Madrid; when he was not joined by Peterborough and King Charles, he abandoned the capital to the French. The failure to capitalize on the capture of Madrid led to recriminations: Peterborough ‘wrote a volume’ to Secretary Hedges – ‘a sort of remonstrance against the king of Spain and his ministers’ and ‘a complaint against all the orders and directions sent from hence’. Godolphin thought Peterborough was ‘both useless and grieving there, and is preparing to be as troublesome here, whenever he is called home’. Marlborough warned Godolphin that Peterborough had written a letter to Hedges with the intention that it would be called for and read in Parliament. Peterborough, though, had ‘managed the public money so very extravagantly, that it will be wholly impossible for him to pass his accounts’ making him highly vulnerable to criticism in Parliament.<sup>304</sup> The diplomat, Mitford Crowe<sup>‡</sup>, was notably unsympathetic: Peterborough’s ‘pride, vanity and shattered conduct must undo him as it must undo anybody who practises the same’.<sup>305</sup></p><p>By the middle of October 1706 Godolphin knew that Peterborough was ‘preparing materials of all sorts to perplex and embroil all the public affairs this winter’, lodging ‘copies of these papers in the hands of his agents here, to be distributed to such peoples as he thinks will be glad to lay hold of things of that nature’—especially Nottingham.<sup>306</sup> In October 1706, Peterborough had already got his message across to some in England; Ralph Palmer reported that ‘if his advice had been taken, Madrid had been secured’.<sup>307</sup> He was also preparing to defend himself in print. Secretary Hedges had been asked to conduct discreet enquiries into the printers of Peterborough’s ‘memoirs’, but on 31 Oct. Erasmus Lewis<sup>‡</sup> told Harley that he had ‘received orders to let that matter take its course’, as Godolphin and Hedges ‘are both of opinion that the book when published can never do so much mischief now, as it would if endeavours were used to suppress it’.<sup>308</sup> On 10 Nov. Peterborough wrote from Genoa to Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, with a defence of his conduct, giving him permission to show his letter to whoever he thought fit.<sup>309</sup> <em>A Letter from an English Gentleman at Genoa to his Friend in Holland in Justification of the Earl of Peterborow’s Conduct</em>, dated 21 Nov. [10 Nov. O.S.] soon found its way into print. Peterborough was also gaining allies among the Tories; on 12 Nov. Sir William Simpson told Paul Methuen<sup>‡</sup> that ‘the High Church party here have taken a great deal of pains to magnify his military performances and match him with my Lord Marlborough which has given occasion to a more strict enquiry into the more faulty part of his conduct’.<sup>310</sup></p><p>Peterborough spent several months in Italy over the autumn and winter, meeting allies and negotiating a loan in Genoa. He returned to Spain at the end of 1706, where he advocated a defensive strategy in opposition to the ministry and the other generals, Galway, Stanhope and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I]. Shortly afterwards news arrived from England of his recall. The official letter revoking his Spanish command was sent by Sunderland on 23 Dec. 1706. On 14 Jan. 1707 Sunderland followed up with a letter telling him that the queen had heard that Peterborough had ‘taken up great sums of money there [Genoa] at a most extraordinary price’, and that she had ‘ordered the bills for the said money not to be accepted, the same having been drawn without any authority or permission.’ It was the queen’s pleasure that ‘you return forthwith to England to acquaint her majesty with the reasons and grounds of your proceedings.’ On 16 Feb. Peterborough wrote from Valencia to Sunderland defending his conduct. He added in a postscript that ‘my impatience was great to come to England, but your Lordship will perceive I could not return with honour till after the campaign, under my engagements to the duke of Savoy, and my obligations to the king of Spain as his general.’<sup>311</sup> He affected to be unconcerned by his recall; it would save him the expense of a campaign. He then wrote,</p><blockquote><p>I am as sorry for the ill successes in Spain as if the affairs there were under my care. I cannot but be surprised at the measures have been taken in that country, if the proper measures had been pursued for my Lord Rivers arrival, it was plain we might a second time have been possessed of Madrid before any succours from France could have hindered it. I am confident when I have the good fortune to see you that you will be satisfied I have done my outmost for the public service with and without a character.<sup>312</sup></p></blockquote><p>Herein lay the rub for the ministry: having been deprived of his Spanish commands Peterborough was in a prime position to benefit from the allied defeat at Almanza in April 1707. As Godolphin put it, ‘what vexes me most is to think how Lord Peterborough will triumph’. Marlborough was keen that Peterborough should not be allowed to ‘lay his faults’ on Galway, ‘for that would be to let him triumph’. Instead Peterborough should be obliged ‘to give an account of his behaviour and particularly as to money matters’ when he returned to England.<sup>313</sup></p><p>Peterborough had left Spain in mid-March, sailing not for England, but for Italy. From Milan, on 22 May 1707, he wrote of his intention to visit Marlborough’s campaign on his way home, incidentally challenging the impression that ‘I had an unwillingness to come for England. I can hardly conceive how such mistakes could arise, tho’ I have seen some very strange ones upon my subject’. He promised to ‘satisfy’ Marlborough ‘of the falsehood of that notion’, adding that ‘I would rather put in for a teller’s place of the Exchequer than the command of armies, the most fatal employment for an Englishman, particularly in these parts of the world.’<sup>314</sup> Godolphin viewed the prospect of Peterborough’s return from the perspective of a domestic political manager, writing to Marlborough that ‘I always thought, that when his power is taken away from him, and all his commissions recalled, that he would do less hurt abroad than at home … But I don’t at all wonder you should like him better anywhere than with you’. Marlborough told him that Peterborough ‘would do anything to get the payment of an arrear of about £3,000’. Marlborough had gleaned from a letter from Peterborough that he intended to publish his justification, which indeed he did, <em>An Account of the Earl of Peterborough’s Conduct in Spain</em>, written by his physician, Dr John Freind.<sup>315</sup> The <em>Account</em> laid out a tendentious interpretation of Peterborough’s conduct, which Swift would later amplify in <em>The Conduct of the Allies</em> (1711), arguing that</p><blockquote><p>by a most corrupt management, the only general, who by a course of conduct and fortune almost miraculous, had nearly put us into possession of the kingdom, was left wholly unsupported, exposed to the envy of his rivals, disappointed by the caprices of a young inexperienced Prince, under the guidance of a capricious German ministry, and at last called home in discontent.<sup>316</sup></p></blockquote><p>Peterborough took a long route home from Spain. Before he reached Marlborough’s camp in Flanders, he travelled through Italy, Vienna, and into Germany, stopping to visit the king of Sweden at Altranstadt, and also Hanover.<sup>317</sup> A convinced Hanoverian, his name appeared on the list of regents chosen by the Electress Sophia under the Regency Act.<sup>318</sup> He arrived at Marlborough’s camp at Meldert on 29 July 1707. In discussions with Marlborough, Peterborough gave the impression that ‘he has been injured in everything that has been reported to his disadvantage’. He backed up his account with a paper in which he refuted allegations that he had failed to march to Madrid and discouraged Charles III from so doing; that he had declined to serve under Galway; that he had gone to Italy without orders and negotiated with the duke of Savoy without authority from the queen; and that he had drawn bills for £50,000 which had not been accounted for. Marlborough seems to have found Peterborough’s company ‘diverting’, for the long conversations between them took place after he had concluded his business for the day. Marlborough advised Godolphin to work with the Junto to neutralize him.<sup>319</sup> Following his departure from Marlborough’s camp on 9 Aug. 1707, however, Marlborough wrote that Peterborough ‘will not be able to be governed’, and that he ‘will most certainly run into the notion of 51 [Electress Sophia], and all other things that may cross’, that is support an invitation to her to reside in England. Godolphin thought that Peterborough ‘will be governed by his animosities or his interest; I can’t answer which of them will prevail’.<sup>320</sup> On 12 Aug. Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> referred to the possibility that ‘a certain earl should raise any uneasiness’ in the Lords over the winter.<sup>321</sup> On 14 Aug. Godolphin wrote to Sunderland that Peterborough’s sojourn with Marlborough would allow the Cabinet time to consider ‘in what manner he ought to be treated upon his arrival here.’<sup>322</sup></p><p>Peterborough arrived in London on 20 Aug. 1707, and quickly discovered that he had been omitted from the newly constituted Privy Council of Great Britain.<sup>323</sup> He then used this as a pretext ‘to avoid waiting upon the queen’, so she, through Harley, ordered him to ‘prepare an account in writing of his proceedings in pursuance of the several commissions entrusted to him’.<sup>324</sup> At this point Harley was seen as ‘rather worse disposed towards him (if possible)’, than his colleague Sunderland. By 29 Aug. Peterborough had still not seen either the queen or Godolphin, keeping to the line that having been struck out of the council it was improper for him to go to court until sent for.<sup>325</sup> Meanwhile, he gave ‘intimations among his friends of his intending to be very active in the next Parliament’.<sup>326</sup> On 26 Sept. Ralph Bridges wrote that Peterborough was ‘busy in writing an account of his Spanish expedition … to be ready against the opening of the sessions. They say he is so fully bent on publishing that he declares he won’t take 40,000 pound of the Court to hold his tongue’.<sup>327</sup> On 21 Nov. John Bridges wrote that ‘the town are in great expectation of the Lord Peterborough’s Case in print, as ’tis drawn up by himself or his own directions, tho’ I’ve some reasons to believe that it will not come out.’<sup>328</sup> Peterborough’s extensive contacts with Grub Street can be gleaned from the comment of Lewis on 2 Oct. that ‘Peterborough is in great grief for that true Englishman, <em>The Observator</em>’, a reference to the death of the journalist John Tutchin.<sup>329</sup></p><p>Peterborough attended on the opening day of the 1707-8 session, 23 Oct. 1707. On the eve of the session, Simpson thought that Peterborough had ‘for about a month forborne coming into those places [coffee-houses] or to speak upon those subjects [Spain] and it is believed he has assurances of some employment or that other means have been used to give him satisfaction.’<sup>330</sup> His attention may have been elsewhere, for on 21 Nov. ‘a great trial’ in queen’s bench for part of the duchess of Norfolk’s estate in Northamptonshire, saw Germaine gain property worth £1,400 a year, although the tithes were awarded to Peterborough.<sup>331</sup> On 30 Oct. Johnston thought that Peterborough had ‘made his peace’ with the ministry, and ‘he is now silent’, having been visited by Sunderland’s under-secretary Thomas Hopkins<sup>‡</sup>. He added that ‘I hear he went to everybody in the House but nobody went to him’. He had apparently told the elector of Hanover ‘that he had but two things to ask pardon for, the taking of Barcelona and going to his court’ and ‘he has in discourse used Sunderland as he does others, however they talked together in the House.’<sup>332</sup> On 11 Nov. Johnston added that ‘I think my Lord Peterborough’s affair is still not settled’, but that Marlborough ‘will quiet him’ after his arrival.<sup>333</sup></p><p>There was certainly some trepidation in diplomatic circles about Peterborough’s activities. Daniel Pulteney<sup>‡</sup> wrote from Copenhagen at the end of November 1707 that ‘those here who do not wish well to our cause had great hopes that my Lord Peterborough and some others would raise such heats in Parliament as to hinder the despatch of public business and the giving the necessary supplies for pursuing the war’.<sup>334</sup> Sunderland’s cabinet minutes for 14 Dec. contain a discussion about Peterborough, which led on 18 Dec. to a letter to Peterborough detailing the unsatisfactory nature of his previous answers to the queen, who ‘expects of you that entire distinct account in writing of all your proceedings’ which Harley had requested in August. Peterborough replied on 30 Dec.: ‘I have reasons to act with proper caution, and therefore shall avoid more writing to no manner of purpose to my own service, but perhaps to my prejudice’. The matters in question would be ‘most effectually answered by oaths and depositions which will allow of no doubts or constructions’, and ‘whenever her majesty will appoint me a hearing before herself and the committee of Council before whom my answers have been laid, or that her majesty will appoint her secretaries of state and the lord treasurer (because of money matters) to receive the informations’, he would provide proofs at same time.<sup>335</sup></p><p>On 13 Dec. 1707 the Commons were due to consider Spanish affairs, but James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> proposed postponing it to the 18th, when he again moved for ‘putting it off’ until 17 Jan.: ‘there were other papers moved for at the same time, by Mr [William] Bromley<sup>‡</sup> and Mr [Ralph] Freman<sup>‡</sup>, which shews they design treating the matter in conformity to their friends in the House of Lords, which looks hitherto towards favouring Lord Peterborough, and laying the blame of miscarriages elsewhere.’ The Commons did take up the case on the 17th and proceeded to examine papers. On 29 Jan. ‘there were some things started to the commendation of my Lord Peterborough, but that was not the design of the day’, which was to address the queen that of 29,000 men paid for, only 8,660 were at Almanza.<sup>336</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 12 Dec. 1707 the Lords decided to add consideration of the state of the war in Spain and the expedition to Toulon to the matters to be considered in committee of the whole House on the state of the nation. On 15 Dec. Rochester ‘started’ the matter of Peterborough’s expedition, maintaining that if his actions were as they had been represented he deserved the thanks of the House. Halifax then referred to Freind’s <em>Account</em>. He had, he said, never met with the like exploits but in ‘Quintus Curtius’, an ironical reference to the exploits of Alexander the Great.<sup>337</sup> Vernon’s account of the debate mentioned Tory support for Peterborough from Rochester, Nottingham and Haversham, as well as Halifax’s classical quip, before noting that ‘Peterborough said something, but not so copiously as he used to do, that he hoped he was to have a hearing one time or another, though he forbore pressing it, that he might not interrupt public affairs’.<sup>338</sup> With Peterborough welcoming the opportunity to lay his conduct before the Lords, an address was ordered requesting that the relevant papers relating to the Spanish campaign be laid before the House. </p><p>On 19 Dec. 1707, when debate resumed in committee of the whole, Peterborough backed the unsuccessful proposal of Nottingham and Rochester to divert troops from Flanders to Spain, saying he was ‘so fully satisfied of the necessity of sending 20,000 men into Spain that he would be for it even tho’ Lord Galway was to command ’em’.<sup>339</sup> Another account had Peterborough suggest he was willing that 19<em>s</em>. in the pound ought to be given rather than peace made on other terms and added that he would himself serve in Spain if necessary, ‘even under the earl of Galway’.<sup>340</sup> Yet another described Peterborough’s harangue of almost half an hour in which he ‘spoke modestly of his own conduct when there, and justified it, and then concluded the affairs of Spain were not so desperate, and that a good army would restore all, even though Lord Galway should command it’.<sup>341</sup></p><p>William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, recorded that when ‘Peterborough’s business’ resumed on 13 Jan. 1708, ‘the House sat till near 7 o’clock’.<sup>342</sup> Peterborough spoke ‘near three hours vindicating his conduct, and made it appear how he pressed King Charles to go to Madrid, but he took contrary counsel’.<sup>343</sup> Vernon agreed that the House had sat until seven: Peterborough had desired that Sunderland’s letter to him might be read, ‘acquainting him that her majesty did not think fit to admit him to her presence till he had given her satisfaction in some points specified, as not marching with the troops to Madrid, his not supplying the king of Spain as was directed, his retiring to Italy without orders, and his taking up money there at a disadvantageous remittance’. This Peterborough ‘called a charge’ to which he made a ‘long answer’ and ‘had not done when my Lord Sunderland desired notice might be taken that he was not his accuser’. Vernon also noted that Rochester, Buckingham, Nottingham and Haversham ‘seem to favour’ Peterborough.<sup>344</sup></p><p>On 15 Jan. 1708 Nicolson recorded that the grand committee had sat for a second time on Peterborough’s conduct, who had ‘asserted his own innocence with a deal of bravery, in challenging his accusers, here or elsewhere’.<sup>345</sup> On 16 Jan. Adam de Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> wrote that ‘Lord Peterborough has been entertaining the House of Peers for these two or three days past, and is like to do so for several more.’<sup>346</sup> On the same day, Addison referred to the Lords sitting very late on the previous two days on ‘Peterborough’s expedition’: ‘I hear the first article which his lordship spoke to was the taking up money at so great an interest and the going into Italy for that end without any commission from her majesty. His lordship has been extremely long in his speeches on that occasion and shows more than ordinary gaiety in his behaviour both in the House and out of it’. Addison also noted that Buckingham and Rochester had been favourably disposed to him, defending him from Marlborough and Godolphin’s attempts to keep him to the point by observing that as Peterborough had not been accused before the House, they were obliged to him for his account of the war.<sup>347</sup> Vernon thought on 15 Jan. that Peterborough</p><blockquote><p>was long and perplexed. He pretended to make it appear that every article of what he called the charge against him was altogether groundless; and then added that allowing it to be all true, he would make it appear that it did not affect him at all. To avoid running in a circle, it was at last proposed, that the articles he had pretended to answer should be taken one by one: that the proofs to should be read separately, and his lordship confine his justification to each particular as it was proposed, that the House might make a distinct judgment of it, if they thought fit.</p></blockquote><p>He also claimed that ‘at his going over he sold a manor in Northamptonshire for £18,000; that he took up two years’ income of his estate, amounting to £8,000 which he borrowed of Mr Cornish, at six per cent’, and complained of a recent book ‘which represents him little better than a fool and a coward.’<sup>348</sup></p><p>On 16 Jan. 1708, the matter of this book, <em>Remarks upon Dr Freind’s Account of the Earl of Peterborough’s Conduct in Spain</em> was raised because it ‘contained divers scandalous reflections’ on Peterborough, or as Nicolson described it, it was ‘scurrilous and scandalous’.<sup>349</sup> Later in the day, the book’s author, Richard Kingston, its ‘promoter’, Samuel Briscoe, and its printer, Dryden Leech, were ordered into custody. Vernon touched on Peterborough’s ‘peculiar talent in strategems’, whereby he had approached the printer disguised as a French parson, a friend of Galway’s, who had heard the book would vindicate Galway, and offered to translate it into French, thereby obtaining its contents, though Vernon wrote that the discovery ‘was not worth the contrivance’ for the printers had readily admitted that Kingston was the author.<sup>350</sup> Briscoe and Leech were discharged after a hearing on 17 Jan.: Nicolson reported that Kingston was remanded in custody until the 19th, so that Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Winchester, could attend to prove that he was not ordained.<sup>351</sup> On 19 Jan., the Lords duly examined Kingston about his book, ordered him to be prosecuted by the attorney general and discharged him from custody.<sup>352</sup> On 27 Jan. Wake reported that the House was ‘still reading the papers relating to my Lord P.’, and on the 31st Nicolson referred to the ‘fruitless reading of more papers brought in’ by him. On 4 Feb. Peterborough ‘produced’ Brigadier Hans Hamilton and Colonel Bisset to attest to his ‘good conduct’ in Spain.<sup>353</sup> As Vernon had said on 5 Feb., ‘some think this enquiry is industriously spun out, that the Commons may make the first deduction concerning that Lord’s conduct.’<sup>354</sup> The Lords’ enquiries petered out in mid-February after the Commons resumed their debate of 29 Jan. and voted on 3 Feb. that there were only 8,660 effective English soldiers at Almanza.</p><p>On 5 Feb. 1708 Swift wrote to Archbishop King that ‘it is a perfect jest to see my Lord Peterborough, reputed as great a Whig as any in England, abhorred by his own party, and caressed by the Tories’.<sup>355</sup> On 9 Feb., a court martial sat ‘to hear a difference’ between Peterborough and William Caulfield, 2nd Viscount Charlement [I], who had served in Spain, but ‘the cause was not decided’.<sup>356</sup> On 23 Feb. Peterborough acted as a teller opposite Scarbrough on the successful question of whether to hear the remainder of the cause <em>Bunker v. Cooke</em> on the following day. Peterborough was present on the last day of the session on 1 Apr., having attended on 52 days of the session, 49 per cent of the total, and been named to nine committees. On 3 Apr. Peterborough wrote to Hanover advocating the residence of a member of the electoral family in England, to which the elector replied that he would only act in concert with the queen.<sup>357</sup> In about May, on a list of the first Parliament of Great Britain, Peterborough was classed as a Tory and Whig, illustrating the contemporary confusion as to his political stance.</p><p>On 30 July 1708 Peterborough finally waited on the queen. Godolphin remarked that this, together with Haversham doing the same the previous week, was a worrying portent ‘of what was like to happen next winter when people of his behaviour could meet with encouragement to come to court’. Marlborough, too, was curious, believing that as Peterborough and Haversham were friends, the move had been concerted.<sup>358</sup> On 31 July Lewis reported that ‘Peterborough has kissed the queen’s hand introduced by [the] lord t[reasure]r’.<sup>359</sup> This formality may have given rise to rumours of another employment, for on 28 Aug. White Kennet<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, reported that he was to be appointed governor of Jamaica.<sup>360</sup> Not surprisingly, the appointment fell through, a newsletter reporting on 26 Aug. that ‘Peterborough some say cannot get such conditions and powers in the West Indies as he thinks necessary’.<sup>361</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1708</em></h2><p>Peterborough first attended the 1708-9 session on 26 Nov., missing the first four days. Now resident in Bolton Street for the session, Peterborough was active socially in circles not favourable towards the ministry.<sup>362</sup> On 10 Dec. John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, wrote that Shrewsbury had been reconciled to Peterborough by Harley’s means.<sup>363</sup> On 3 Jan. 1709 Johnston described Peterborough’s presence as a dinner guest at the duke of Buckingham’s on 26 Dec., as ‘a true emblem of the present state of affairs’, as those in attendance included Poulett, Mr Nelson, Dr Burch, Queensberry, Shrewsbury, Andrew Fletcher and Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>364</sup> On 12 Jan., when the Lords considered the intended Jacobite invasion of Scotland the previous year, which had resulted in the arrest and bringing down to London of a number of Scottish peers, Peterborough ‘threw up the ball and in a manner called up those concerned who had suffered hardships in being brought up, yet they did not open their mouth’.<sup>365</sup> On 21 Jan. his name appears on a list as voting in favour of the resolution that a Scots peer possessing a British title had the right to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. On 28 Mar. he reported from the committee on the estate bill of the late Baron Jeffreys. Also on 28 Mar. he entered his protest to the rejection of the rider to the bill for improving the Union which stated that no person should be tried for high treason unless a copy of the indictment was delivered to the prisoner five days before the trial. He then protested against the passage of the bill in its entirety. He was last present on 18 Apr., shortly before the end of the session, having attended on 34 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total and been named to five committees.</p><p>In January 1709, the attorney general wrote to the lord treasurer about a draft of a privy seal for discharging Peterborough’s lands from any demands of the crown upon account of his late employment in Spain. Nevertheless, in March Peterborough wrote to the lord treasurer concerning the accounts of his Spanish command. He complained that the reward for all his services was not to be master of his own estate, under the ‘pretence’ that he had had the disposition of public moneys. He asked for directions to be given for the examination of the accounts of the Spanish expedition. Given all this, and his wife’s indisposition (she died in May), he requested him to ask the queen’s leave to go abroad.<sup>366</sup></p><p>Peterborough only attended for two days of the 1709-10 session, 19-20 Dec., 2 per cent of the total. It was probably on 6 Dec. 1709 that Peterborough wrote to Harley asking him when he intended to arrive for the session, ‘if you do not think of coming soon, I intend to go into the country till after Christmas. If I am not much mistaken there are numbers that are governable which is a great point, so that it depends upon the generals whether peace or war’.<sup>367</sup> On 17 Jan. 1710 Peterborough petitioned together with his two sons and two brothers against orders made in chancery on 21 Apr. 1708 and of 18 Nov. 1709 in favour of Germaine and his wife. The cause was heard in the Lords on 21, 23 and 24 Feb. with Sir Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Macclesfield, and Harcourt acting as the earl’s counsel. On 23 Feb. Peterborough wrote to Parker that ‘though I had not the satisfaction of hearing myself, everybody of all sides assures me never cause was better managed’. The objections of Sir Thomas Powys ‘were very pompous and terrible if true, acts of Parliaments overturned, judgments in the House of Lords mortgages settlements but sure this is sufficiently forcing and I doubt not will appear so in the conclusion’.<sup>368</sup> On the 24th, however, the House heard counsel on whether the matter before the House was the same as upon Peterborough’s former appeal dealt with by the House in 1702, and after judging that it was, they found in favour of Germaine and affirmed the judgment.<sup>369</sup> Perhaps it was this defeat which persuaded Peterborough to sell some of his Bedfordshire properties to Sir Thomas Trevor*, the future Baron Trevor, in 1710.<sup>370</sup> As if to compound matters, Henry Mordaunt, his second son and a party to the petition, died of smallpox at Bath on the day the Lords delivered their judgment.<sup>371</sup> His death was followed a few weeks later, on 6 Apr., by that of Peterborough’s heir, Lord Mordaunt, of the same disease at Winchester. It was reported that ‘the earl himself is also dangerously ill, partly from grief for the loss of his two sons, and partly from bodily distempers, so that it’s believed he’ll not long survive them.’<sup>372</sup> A division list on the vote on Sacheverell’s guilt on 20 Mar. records Peterborough as ‘sick’.<sup>373</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1710</em></h2><p>Peterborough’s grievances against Marlborough, and his dislike of Godolphin and Sunderland, allowed Harley to draw him into his ‘Juntilla’ against the ministry in 1710.<sup>374</sup> However, the queen’s dislike prevented him from achieving high office.<sup>375</sup> Throughout August 1710 rumours abounded that he would serve in place of Orford, either as lord high admiral or as part of a new admiralty commission.<sup>376</sup> Peter Wentworth believed that his appointment was being hindered because ‘the grudge that was between him and Harley upon his return from Spain is not quite wiped off’.<sup>377</sup> There was certainly opposition to him in naval circles, Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> noting at the end of August that James Berkeley*, who sat as 11th Baron Berkeley of Berkeley, but was styled Lord Dursley (later 3rd earl of Berkeley), was ‘enraged at Lord Peterborough’s being to preside in the admiralty’. By early September Maynwaring had heard that ‘Peterborough talks more doubtfully of coming into the admiralty, and pretends not to care for that, but only to go to sea’. <sup>378</sup> Godolphin probably hit the nail on the head when he wrote on 10 Sept.: ‘I can never believe 42 [the queen] is capable of being persuaded to think of 30 [Peterborough].’<sup>379</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, Harley was keen to provide for Peterborough, and on 12 Sept. 1710 his name figures on a memorandum of Harley’s noting members of both Houses to be provided for in a new ministry.<sup>380</sup> Following the death of John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, on 18 Sept., Peterborough was slated as his successor as vice-treasurer of Ireland in a newsletter of 26 Sept., although this quickly proved to be false.<sup>381</sup> On Harley’s analysis of peers on 3 Oct., Peterborough was expected to support the ministry. On 6 Oct. Mohun revealed to Cowper that Peterborough had approached him with an offer of office on behalf of the new ministry.<sup>382</sup> Socially, Peterborough was very much part of the new ruling set. Swift, with whom Peterborough had been meeting for dinner since April 1709, recounted that he was one of the early members of a group of friends Harley invited to dine with him on a Saturday ‘upon the great change made at court’.<sup>383</sup> He also recorded Peterborough dining with Harley on several occasions in October.<sup>384</sup> On 20 Oct. Shrewsbury opined on the difficult situation the ministry faced in the Lords, identifying Peterborough as one of those peers likely to be dissatisfied, adding that he would be ‘distracted, and not without reason, if you go and leave his concerns undetermined’.<sup>385</sup> Perhaps it was his penchant for making trouble which was why Ralph Bridges in October said that he was supposed to be the author (with Andrew Fletcher), of <em>Faults on Both Sides</em> (the author was in fact Simon Clement, though Clement was another associate of Peterborough’s).<sup>386</sup></p><p>Peterborough was named as general of marines in early November 1710, at a salary of £5 a day, an appointment with the added attraction that it would be seen as ‘lessening’ Marlborough.<sup>387</sup> On 7 Nov. Wentworth noted that the town news had Peterborough going ‘three several ways at once to Vienna, West Indies, Spain’.<sup>388</sup> On 8 Nov. Ralph Bridges reported that ‘Dr Freind told me today that Peterborough ‘certainly goes abroad very soon, but not without an army as before.’<sup>389</sup> On 21 Nov. St John outlined the ministry’s plan for Peterborough: he would go to Vienna and to Turin if necessary, with a stop at The Hague for a few days to discern the views of the States, in order ‘to excite those princes to send speedy succours to Spain’.<sup>390</sup> On 23 Nov., Peterborough had Prior, Lewis and Dr Friend to dine with him, prompting Swift to describe him as ‘the ramblingest lying rogue on earth’.<sup>391</sup></p><p>Peterborough attended the opening day of the 1710 Parliament, 25 Nov. 1710, and on eight days in all before the Christmas recess. On 29 Dec. he dined with St John, in the company of Swift and Harley, the expectation being that he would be going ‘to Vienna in a day or two’. On 3 Jan. 1711 Swift dined with Peterborough at <em>The Globe</em>, in the Strand, ‘among half a dozen lawyers and attorneys and hangdogs, signing of deeds and stuff before his journey’. However, given that Peterborough was ‘one of those many who are mightily bent upon having such enquiries made’ into the ‘late management’, his mission was to be delayed.<sup>392</sup> On that very day, the Lords had resolved to inquire into the Spanish war, and on 4 Jan. it was resolved to address the queen that Peterborough might stay for a few days in order to assist in that inquiry. The queen agreed on the 5th. In committee of the whole House on that day he ‘spoke about an hour relating to his conduct there’, giving ‘a long account of matters whilst he had the command there, and how tho’ he had often written to great men here for a supply of money and troops, yet could obtain neither so that the war on that side was (as it were) quite neglected’. Peterborough then had to pause, not having the queen’s leave to answer some of the questions, whereupon the Lords addressed her to allow him to do so. Galway and Tyrawley were also ordered to attend the House. The queen’s agreement to this was relayed to the House on the 6th, and in the committee of the whole on that day Peterborough gave an account of the crucial council of war held in Valencia four years before.<sup>393</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1711 many papers on the subject were presented, including some from Peterborough. His secretary, Aaron Hill, testified as to their provenance. When the committee of the whole resumed its deliberations on the 9th, the key question was the Valencia council of war. Peterborough wanted his ‘recapitulation’ to be read in the committee of the whole, and that Galway and Tyrawley might be called in to answer questions. He also said ‘that to avoid all mistakes, he desired his paper might not be called narrative, which might look like an accusation, for he accused no body; but only a recapitulation of his answers’. Galway and Tyrawley were then called in and the clerk read them the questions put to Peterborough on 5 Jan. and his answers. During the debate about whether Galway and Tyrawley were being accused of anything, Peterborough said that ‘no man can be accused for giving his opinion in a council of war’. Peterborough and Marlborough then clashed over the efficacy of Tyrawley’s answers. Peterborough also had more papers read, saying, ‘he had overcome all his enemies, but lies, and these he had papers enough with him to defeat.’ After Freind had been called in to corroborate Peterborough, Ferrers proposed the motion that Peterborough had given a ‘very faithful, just and honourable account of the councils of war in Valencia’. The motion was put and carried after a debate of about an hour, following a division on the question of whether to resume the House, carried 59-45.<sup>394</sup></p><p>When the House resumed its deliberations in committee of the whole on 11 Jan. 1711, Peterborough opened the debate because, with his departure imminent, he wanted an opportunity to clear himself from the heads laid against him by Sunderland when secretary of state. In a long debate about the events of 1707, both Godolphin and Marlborough sparred with Peterborough. Peterborough had the satisfaction of seeing the House agree to the committee’s resolution vindicating his claim that the insistence of Galway, Tyrawley and Stanhope in the conference held at Valencia on an offensive war had led to the defeat at Almanza and to the failed attempt on Toulon.<sup>395</sup> On the following day, after leave had been applied for and granted by the queen allowing ministers and others to speak with freedom, the House debated and passed a resolution censuring the conduct of the previous ministry for approving an offensive war in Spain. During this debate Peterborough returned to the subject of the abortive project to take Toulon, and the House passed a resolution that Peterborough, during his command ‘did perform many great and eminent services; and, if the opinion he gave in the council of war in Valencia had been followed, it might very probably have prevented the misfortunes that have since happened in Spain’. Lord Keeper Harcourt was then ordered to give Peterborough the thanks of the House, to which Peterborough replied with his thanks</p><blockquote><p>with a heart full of the greatest respect and gratitude. No services can deserve such a reward; it is more than a sufficient recompense for any past hardships, and to which nothing can give an addition. I cannot reproach myself with any want of zeal for the public service. But your lordships’ approbation of what I was able to do, towards serving my queen and country, gives me new life; and I shall endeavour, in all my future actions, not to appear unworthy of the unmerited favour I have received today from this great assembly.<sup>396</sup></p></blockquote><p>That was the last day Peterborough was present in the House for this session. He had attended on 11 days of the session, 10 per cent of the total.</p><p>Having taken his leave of the queen on 11 Jan., on the day after the debate and his vindication in the House, Peterborough registered his proxy with Shrewsbury and sailed from Greenwich.<sup>397</sup> On 25 Jan. he wrote from The Hague to Harley that he had ‘lost a great satisfaction when I could not rejoice with you … before my departure about our parliamentary successes’ in the Lords; ‘as they were advantageous to me, I hope they were not prejudicial to the interest of my friends. I am sure their credit is as dear to me as my own reputation.’<sup>398</sup> Peterborough arrived in Vienna in February to mediate between the Emperor and the duke of Savoy.<sup>399</sup> No sooner had he departed for Turin, than the Emperor Joseph died on 6 Apr. 1711. Peterborough decided to return to Spain, but in Genoa he met Argyll, who was on his way to take command in Barcelona, and in the event returned to Vienna, and then London via Hanover.<sup>400</sup> He landed at Great Yarmouth on 23 June, and arrived in London on the 24th ‘without one servant’, having ‘left them scattered in several towns of Germany’, and even outstripping his own express letters.<sup>401</sup> He had taken only ‘six days between Turin and Vienna, a journey for which the courier allows seven.’<sup>402</sup></p><p>When Swift met up with Peterborough on 3 July 1711 he found him ‘violent against a peace, and finds true what I writ to him, that the ministry seems for it’.<sup>403</sup> His arrival created a problem for the ministry, given Peterborough’s propensity to cause trouble. The admiralty seemed one possible solution, for on 7 July Mary Lovett reported ‘great talk’ of Jersey ‘being made lord high admiral, but the Dutch envoy has told my Lord Oxford [as Harley had since become] it would be highly displeasing to them, he being against the Hanover succession, so it’s thought my Lord Peterborough will come in that place.’<sup>404</sup> Peterborough attended the prorogation on 10 July. Not everyone was displeased with his presence: Mrs Delarivier Manley regarded him as a possible patron, and someone willing to recommend her to Oxford’s protection.<sup>405</sup></p><p>The solution seems to have been to despatch Peterborough back to Vienna as ambassador, an appointment which a newsletter writer reported as early as 21 July.<sup>406</sup> His initial mission was to encourage the German princes to elect Charles as Emperor.<sup>407</sup> On 17 Aug. John Drummond<sup>‡</sup> announced that Peterborough had arrived safely in Holland.<sup>408</sup> On 1 Sept. Swift dined with St John at Peterborough’s house at Parsons Green, the earl having ‘left it and his gardens to the secretary during his absence’.<sup>409</sup> On 4 Sept. St John reported to Oxford that ‘I have had a very sober letter from our friend, Lord Peterborough; he begins to find out that nothing but a peace can deliver us from the present perplexed state, and from the worse prospect of affairs’.<sup>410</sup> On 6 Sept. a warrant for £1,500 was signed for his equipage and preparation following his diplomatic mission in Germany.<sup>411</sup> A newsletter of 18 Oct. reported that ‘the death of the earl of Peterborough is contradicted by the Holland mails’.<sup>412</sup> Swift noted the report, too, but added that he was better and the queen was sending him to Italy.<sup>413</sup> On 16 Nov. the queen told Oxford that Dartmouth had suggested sending Peterborough to Venice, adding ‘I think he should be sent somewhere, for I fear if he comes home while the Parliament is sitting he will be very troublesome’.<sup>414</sup></p><p>Peterborough was absent for the whole of the 1711-12 session, but even in his absence, he cast a shadow over ministerial thinking. On 10 Dec. 1711, in the aftermath of the vote on ‘No Peace Without Spain’, Oxford included Peterborough on his list of loyal peers to be gratified. Nor was Peterborough entirely content, writing in December from Augsburg asking to be made more useful or to return home to ‘York Buildings, my bottle of claret and Dr Swift’.<sup>415</sup> On 15 Dec. he wrote to Oxford, again from Augsburg, ‘you must live to complete our security and free us from the fear of relapsing into the same hands which are always grasping at the same power, which they have used so ill.’ After claiming to ‘know my own infirmities’, he continued ‘I value myself upon nothing but diligence and sincerity and shall always be found most willing to quit public employments, but I expect countenance and support whilst I am in them, and above all things to be made useful, or to be restored to my garden and my books.’<sup>416</sup></p><p>At the beginning of 1712, Alexander Cunningham, about to depart from Venice, wrote to Oxford that having frequently been with Peterborough, he wished to remembered to the lord treasurer—‘we had a world of debates, but knowing him to be an injured person, debated nothing he said of Lord Sunderland and some others’. On other matters ‘we spoke freely’ and Cunningham ‘saw him lay out a world of money, but could not get him in with the virtuosi here, who had not put him to so much charges as the others that haunted his house’.<sup>417</sup> Meanwhile, St John reassured Peterborough that his ‘interests’ had been taken care of in case the bill enquiring into William III’s Irish grants had passed, Peterborough ‘having very meritoriously a share in these grants’.<sup>418</sup> His constant travelling caused Shaftesbury to refer to Peterborough in May 1712 as the ‘flying spectre’.<sup>419</sup> At the end of August his whereabouts were unknown: Prior had dispatched a messenger with Oxford’s letters to Turin, only for the French minister to tell him that Peterborough was expected in Vienna. ‘Monsr. Torcy’, he wrote, ‘knows my lord’s way of voyaging as well as we do.’<sup>420</sup> On 22 Sept. Peterborough was in Turin, from where he wrote to Oxford to tell him how ‘it was my esteem and inclination for your Lordship and my dependence on your friendship which engaged me with yourself and others for the rescue of my queen and the good of my country’. He continued, reflecting on the bond between them:</p><blockquote><p>your lordship remembers the time and place where we met yourself and some others, I desired then to prove myself your friend, when you had many enemies which I esteemed such to the public upon many accounts, and for being yours, we were persecuted with the same hatred, we had the same foe to defend ourselves from, and were attacked almost in the same manner, so that many reasons created a correspondence and inclination, the one I shall continue with the greatest sincerity and the other shall endeavour to deserve from your lordship.<sup>421</sup></p></blockquote><h2><em>Return to England, 1713</em></h2><p>Keen to play a more active part in domestic politics, Peterborough sought, and obtained, leave to return to England.<sup>422</sup> On 10 Jan. 1713, he arrived at Oxford’s house in London, where Bolingbroke (as St John had since become) and Swift were dining. As the latter recalled ‘he left England with a bruise by his coach overturning, that made him spit blood, and was so ill we expected any post to hear of his death. But he outrode it, or outdrunk it, or something, and is come home lustier than ever’; at over 60 he had ‘more spirits than any young fellow I know in England’, had ‘acquired a regiment of horse and was talked of for a garter’.<sup>423</sup> Adam Ottley confirmed that Peterborough had expected the blue ribbon, but that it had been deferred.<sup>424</sup> On 21 Jan. Prior wrote somewhat mischievously to Oxford from Paris, ‘how glad are we that earl Peterborough is in England via Holland?’<sup>425</sup> Despite his earlier letter to Oxford, on 16 Feb. the countess of Strafford wrote that she had been told that Peterborough was ‘not at all pleased with lord treasurer’s usage of him’.<sup>426</sup></p><p>On 26 Feb. 1713 Oxford listed Peterborough as one of those peers to be contacted before the forthcoming session. He attended the prorogation on 3 March. On 14 Mar. Swift recorded that Peterborough was ill of his old bruise and ‘spits blood’, blaming its reccurrence on an Italian lady he had brought with him.<sup>427</sup> Before the session began, Peterborough’s name was included on Swift’s list of March-April 1713 (which was amended by Oxford), as one of those expected to support the ministry. He was present on the opening day of the Parliament, 9 April. During the debate on the Address, Peterborough said ‘it was known by everybody that there had been an endeavour to make a captain general for life’. Sunderland challenged him to prove it; Peterborough was said not to have responded.<sup>428</sup> Swift noted that Peterborough ‘flirted against duke Marlborough … but it was in answer to one of Halifax’s impertinences’.<sup>429</sup> On 12 May Peterborough dined with James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, where according to William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, he was ‘extremely entertaining’.<sup>430</sup></p><p>On 1 June 1713, when the Lords considered the state of the nation, Findlater (formerly earl of Seafield [S]) made a motion for leave to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union. Peterborough was one of the first Lords to speak against it, joining Oxford and others in opposing it as impracticable and only achievable through the same authority that made the Union.<sup>431</sup> According to one account, Peterborough said the Scots would even find fault with God Almighty and that Scotland could not be ‘divorced now by this Parliament.’ Another account revealed that Peterborough’s metaphor was intended to allude to the recent marriage of Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], to the daughter of Walter Whitfield<sup>‡</sup>, the paymaster of the marines: Scotland, he said, ‘was a wife to England, and it was in all respects alike, and tho’ after [marriage] matters of the greatest consequence frequently happened, yet these were not sufficient grounds of separation’.<sup>432</sup> Berkeley of Stratton remarked only that ‘Peterborough was very pleasant in comparing the union to a marriage, and owned we had been a little rough to our spouse’.<sup>433</sup> In another account, Peterborough had further extended the metaphor by claiming that by the Union England (the groom) had mended Scotland’s (the bride’s), fortune, and had contended that the Scots, never satisfied, would have ‘all the advantages of being united to England, but would pay nothing by their good will’.<sup>434</sup></p><p>On 8 June 1713 in a debate in committee of the whole House on the bill imposing a malt tax on Scotland, the main speakers were North, Leeds and Peterborough, rather than the more prominent members of the ministry.<sup>435</sup> About 13 June Oxford classed Peterborough on a list as one of those expected to support the bill confirming the French commercial treaty when it reached the Lords. L’Hermitage reported that on 17 June, during the debate on trade with France, Peterborough spoke for a very long time to defend it, and finished by saying ‘I have made a long speech, but I do not know where I began, I do not know what I said and I do not know how to end. I believe that I have tired you, but I will no longer do so’, because ‘this will be the last time that I will speak of it’.<sup>436</sup> On 30 June 1713, Wentworth noted that, the peers were ‘very merry upon one another’ during the debate for an address to the queen for the removal of the Pretender from Lorraine: Peterborough ‘was for sending the pretender to Rome’, joking that ‘it was very fitting one bred in France should be sent to Rome’; Boyer recorded that it was in answer to North and Grey’s question as to where they would have the Pretender live, that Peterborough opined that ‘since he began his studies in Paris, the fittest place for him to improve himself, was Rome’.<sup>437</sup> It seems that it was to this incident that Thomas Carte was referring when he reported that when Peterborough asked ‘why would they send him to Rome? Would they make him more a papist than he was?’, Sunderland cried out ‘Yes, by God will we’.<sup>438</sup> The only day Peterborough attended the Lords in July was on the 16th, the day on which Parliament was prorogued. He had attended on 26 days of the session, 39 per cent of the total, and had been appointed to four committees.</p><p>Peterborough was nominated to the Order of the Garter on 3 Aug. 1713, and was installed on the following day. Apparently, he did not pay his fees (nearly £300) offering ‘his note’ instead.<sup>439</sup> Peterborough was also sent on his travels again. By mid-November he was in Paris, where he had an audience with Louis XIV before leaving for Italy.<sup>440</sup> At the end of November Josiah Burchett<sup>‡</sup> wrote to William Lowndes<sup>‡</sup> that he had communicated to the admiralty commissioners the queen’s intention to allow Peterborough £6,000 ‘for the whole time he served in that commission [as general of marines], and in lieu of all salary and demands whatsoever anyways relating thereunto’, though this left Burchett with the problem was that since Peterborough’s commission had not passed through the admiralty, the commissioners could not regularly take cognizance of the matter.<sup>441</sup> In January 1714, according to his chaplain George Berkeley (the philosopher), Peterborough had left ‘the greatest part of his family’ in Leghorn, and planned to cross southern Italy from February to May.<sup>442</sup> On 1 June Prior wrote from Paris, ‘God knows where Peterborough is or what he is doing or when he will be here. I have letters for him from above six weeks past.’<sup>443</sup> On 17 June he was in Alessandria.<sup>444</sup> On 18 July he was in Paris, where Prior talked with him about his roving diplomacy: ‘I have confronted him with Count Peron and Monsr. de Torcy, and he will in 10 or 12 days be best able to give you an account of leagues to be made in favour of the king of Sicily and for the security of Italy.’<sup>445</sup> On 24 July Peterborough wrote to Oxford from Paris, ‘I am sorry I cannot congratulate with your lordship as I heartily wish I could upon the transactions of this session. I am surprised to find such difficulties in every place, such uneasiness in every person.’ He then referred to ‘those friends which I had hoped to see eternally united, at least in their endeavours against the common foe’, adding that ‘I live under the greatest uneasiness having repeated accounts which give me melancholy ideas. I thank God I have no share either through self-interest or vanity in any of those measures by which I fear we are ruining our friends and exalting our enemies.’<sup>446</sup> On 11 Aug. Ralph Bridges reported that Peterborough had come over to England from France on 6 Aug., on hearing the news of the Queen’s death, and had said that ‘the French King will not stir’.<sup>447</sup> He attended the Lords on 18 Aug., the only day he sat during the short session. Nor did he stay long in England, it being reported in December that Peterborough was in Paris again on his way to Italy.<sup>448</sup> A list of 26 Jan. 1715 included Peterborough among those Tories still in office.<sup>449</sup></p><p>Peterborough continued his own eccentric course until his death on 25 Oct. 1735, on his yacht off Lisbon. He was buried on 21 Nov. at Turvey. All four of his sons predeceased him (two in infancy), and he was succeeded by his grandson, Charles Mordaunt<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Peterborough. His daughter, Henrietta (1682-1760) had married in 1707 Alexander Gordon, marquess of Huntly, the future 2nd duke of Gordon [S]. Although Huntly was a Catholic, all her children were brought up as Protestants, including Cosmo Gordon<sup>†</sup>, 3rd duke of Gordon, a future Scottish representative peer.</p><p>There seems to be general agreement as to Peterborough’s enigmatic character, talented but unpredictable. Burnet summed him up as ‘a man of much heat, many notions, and full of discourse’, but ‘not a man of solid judgment nor of a firm virtue’. He had ‘republican principles in him to a very high degree, but all his thoughts are crude and indigested, and a little heat brings secrets easily from him, especially to those who go into his notions and flatter him; for vanity is his weak side’.<sup>450</sup> Macky’s character sketch from Anne’s reign referred to his ‘natural giddiness’, his ‘fiery inconstant temper’, and that ‘he affects popularity, and loves to preach in coffee houses, and public places; is an open enemy to revealed religion; brave in his person; hath a good estate; does not seem expensive. Yet always in debt and very poor’. To which Swift added, ‘this character is for the most part true’.<sup>451</sup> In the 1690s he was perhaps the only peer who could be described as a ‘country Whig’, and he was still a Whig in Anne’s reign, if ‘a distinctly unorthodox one’.<sup>452</sup> As a result, the essentially Tory ministry of 1710-14 found it expedient to encourage his absence as much as possible from domestic politics.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
MORDAUNT, Henry (1623-97) |
<p><strong><surname>MORDAUNT</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1623–97)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Lord Mordaunt 1628-43; <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 June 1643 (a minor) as 2nd earl of PETERBOROUGH |
|
First sat 1644; first sat after 1660, 17 May 1660; last sat 15 Feb. 1687 |
|
|
<p><em>Bap</em>. 18 Oct. 1623, 1st s. of John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Bar. Mordaunt (later earl of Peterborough), and Elizabeth, da. of William Howard<sup>‡</sup>, Bar. Howard of Effingham. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1635–8; travelled abroad (France) 1641–2. <em>m</em>. winter 1644–5 (?with £2,500),<sup>1</sup> Penelope (<em>d</em>. 1702), da. of Barnabas O’Brien, 5th Earl Thomond [I]; 2 da (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 19 June 1697; <em>will</em> 14 Oct 1688, pr. 2 July 1697.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of the stole to James*, duke of York, 1665–85; dep. earl marshal 1673; amb. extraordinary 1673; PC 1674–9, 1683–9; groom of the stole 1685–8; high steward and chief bailiff to the queen 1686.</p><p>Ld lt. Northants. 1666–73, W. Division, Northants. 1673–78, Northants. 1678–88, Rutland 1688–90; recorder, Northampton 1671–2, 1682–8.</p><p>Gov. Tangier 1661–3; capt. gen. Tangier forces and col. Tangier Regt. 1661–3; capt. in the <em>Unicorn</em> 1665, of troop of horse 1666, in the <em>Prince</em> 1672, duke of York’s Regt. of Horse 1678–9; col. regt of ft. 1673–4, regt. of horse 1685–8.</p><p>FRS 1663.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by unknown artist, The 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards Heritage Trust.</p> |
<p><em>Troubled family relationships</em></p><p>The Mordaunt family were a long-established and important landowning family based in Bedfordshire. They traced their lineage and first English landholdings to a follower of William the Conqueror, and their chief seat at Turvey in Bedfordshire had been acquired early in the thirteenth century. By the mid-seventeenth century the heart of their landed estates was still in Bedfordshire, but they also owned extensive lands in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire. Henry Mordaunt’s grandfather, also named Henry, was a Catholic suspected of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot, but his parents were committed Protestants, deeply influenced by Archbishop Ussher. At the outbreak of the civil wars Henry Mordaunt, then styled Lord Mordaunt, was abroad. In his own account of his life he claimed that, having been inculcated with correct principles at Eton, he was naturally inclined to the king. He was horrified to learn that his father had taken Parliament’s side and instantly resolved to ‘wash out his father’s faults with his own blood’. Nevertheless, on his return to England in 1642 he was (so he claimed) forced to dissemble. He joined his father and commanded a troop of horse for several months before deserting to join the king in the spring of 1643. Even though he was several months under age, in 1644 he was summoned to attend the Oxford Parliament. According to his autobiography, which never errs on the side of modesty, his conduct as a soldier and his contributions to the debates in the House of Lords were outstanding. During this period of his life he survived financially through the assistance of his Catholic grandmother and his wife’s portion. After a spell abroad, he compounded in 1646 but was forced to compound again after being involved in the Surrey rising of 1648.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Peterborough later attributed his long-running legal disputes with his mother, who he described as ‘a lady of a very haughty spirit’, to her hatred of his early royalist conversion, although, since her house at Drayton was sacked by parliamentary forces in 1650, it is clear that, despite her initial parliamentarian sympathies, she too came to be regarded as a royalist.<sup>4</sup> Ideological differences certainly exacerbated the tension between mother and son, but quarrels about money, centring on the 1st earl’s disposition of the family estates, were equally important. The 1st earl effectively disinherited his son, deliberately settling his estates so that his son became a tenant for life without power to sell or lease the lands. He left the estate in the charge of his widow, and ensured that after her death control would descend to the 2nd earl’s eldest son. According to the dowager countess this arrangement stemmed from her son’s refusal to accept an advantageous marriage that his father had negotiated for him. The 1st earl had intended his son to marry one of the daughters of ‘the Lady Wootton’ (probably Mary Wotton, widow of the 2nd Baron Wotton<sup>‡</sup>) and had taken umbrage when his son insisted on marrying Penelope O’Brien instead. As Peterborough’s marriage to Penelope O’Brien took place well over a year after his father’s death, this seems unlikely. The 1st earl died just two months after his son’s desertion to the royalists. He was so mortified by the experience that he even sent his own servants to pursue and capture his son. Despite his son’s protestations to the contrary, it seems unlikely that the 1st earl’s commitment to his parliamentary allies had diminished. Equally, it seems that the 2nd earl’s explanations of his father’s actions varied according to circumstance. In his later legal action he claimed that his father being ‘weak in body and decaying very much in his health and understanding’ had been taken advantage of by designing individuals.<sup>5</sup></p><p>In the short term, this unusual family settlement was advantageous since it meant that the full value of the estate could not be used as the basis for compounding. Peterborough demolished the family seat at Turvey and in 1652 went to live instead in another Mordaunt property, the White House, in Drayton, Northamptonshire. Although he was effectively his mother’s tenant, and a tenant at will at that, he spent some £6,000 on repairing the White House and putting it into good order. In the longer term, disputes about money and his mother’s threats to repossess the Drayton house poisoned relationships within an already quarrelsome family. According to Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, Peterborough had a ‘hot and fiery temper’.<sup>6</sup> So, it would seem, did his mother. She was concerned to pay her husband’s debts and to make provision for herself and for her other children, John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, and Elizabeth (who later married Thomas Howard*, 2nd Baron Howard of Escrick). Peterborough feared that he would not be able to make proper financial arrangements for his wife and children, that his mother was raising money at his expense, and that she unduly favoured his younger brother.</p><p>Problems within the family were exacerbated when, at the Restoration, Peterborough not only failed to get the rewards that he considered his due but experienced instead ‘marks … of the king’s coldness’. In particular, his brother’s influence with the king and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, meant that he rather than Peterborough succeeded in gaining Reigate Priory, ‘one of the noblest houses in the south of England’ and worth £1,000 a year.<sup>7</sup> In 1665, as part of negotiations for a loan of £1,000 from Peterborough to his mother, he at last managed to obtain her promise that she would never evict him from Drayton. Reluctant to give up any of her power, the dowager made it clear that she did not regard her promise as legally binding.<sup>8</sup> Accordingly when, in 1669, Peterborough obstructed his mother’s collection of rents, and started a series of actions questioning her right to sell or lease lands and alleging that the family settlement had been extorted from his father by unfair means, she retaliated with an action of ejectment. He was appalled to discover that even retaining this, the only house on the family estates ‘suitable to his honour and quality’, was dependent on his mother’s goodwill, and that she was prepared to evict him without any compensation for the repairs and rebuilding that he had undertaken.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Even when he wrote his autobiography in 1685, Peterborough’s references to his brother were negative. In some of his earlier legal actions he had accused his brother of conspiring against him with the dowager countess.<sup>10</sup> Yet the brothers do seem to have had occasional bouts of co-operation. In 1665 Viscount Mordaunt offered his services as ‘brother and … friend’ after warning Peterborough that George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, was intriguing against him;<sup>11</sup> and Mordaunt’s widow named Peterborough as one of the executors of the Mordaunt estate.<sup>12</sup></p><p><em>Friend of the duke of York, 1660–85</em></p><p>Peterborough’s political views were extreme. In the early years of the Restoration he described England as a corrupt and ungrateful nation, ripe for rebellion. He believed that the king had to put himself in a condition to be ‘thoroughly feared’, and since this was not to be by use of a militia (which would simply train the king’s enemies in the use of arms), the implication is that he put his faith in a powerful standing army. For Peterborough ‘those old notions of mix’d governments, privileges and conditions’ were no longer feasible, for ‘the consequence of all undertakings, can no more be, but monarchy, or a commonwealth’. Although this suggests that Peterborough had considerable contempt for Parliament, he nevertheless soon became an active member of the House, attending over 65 per cent of the sitting days in 1660 and 1661. As a member of the coterie of military men close to James, duke of York, it is perhaps surprising that in 1661 he was expected to vote against the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy, but as one who could claim a more direct line of descent from the de Vere family he may have had a claim of his own to pursue.</p><p>In September 1661, Peterborough was at last rewarded for his civil war sufferings with an appointment as governor of Tangier, a post that he took up in January the following year, covering his absence from the House with a proxy to his brother.<sup>13</sup> The Crown anticipated considerable benefits from its acquisition of Tangier, part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry, and probably even at this stage regarded its garrison as the nucleus of a possible standing army. Peterborough was instructed that the purpose of his post was ‘to gain to our subjects the trade of Barbary, and to enlarge our dominions in that sea, and advance thereby the honour of our crown and the general commerce and welfare of our subjects’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Unfortunately for Peterborough, Tangier turned out to be a rather more difficult, and very much less lucrative, position than he had anticipated. It had been ransacked and emptied of its civilian population and was also under constant threat of attack from the Moorish leader, Abd Allah Ghailan (‘Guyland’). Peterborough faced a genuinely difficult situation, but even so his performance was decidedly lacklustre. His overtures to Ghailan were interpreted as gestures of weakness rather than of friendship, and the garrison’s death rate, from sickness and wounds, was exceptionally high. In May 1662 his troops were routed after being lured too far from the town. The following month he returned to England to discuss the problems of the colony.<sup>15</sup> He set out for Tangier again in August but his recall was announced in December.</p><p>Peterborough insisted that he relinquished his post voluntarily, that the king was well pleased with his performance and that under his command ‘there was never place kept in better order, better paid, better provided for’, but he also referred to the role played by ‘the envy and malice of some considerable enemies at home’.<sup>16</sup> His protestations did not fool Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> who reported that ‘though it is said [it] is done with kindness, yet all the world may see it is done otherwise’.<sup>17</sup> Pepys was to remain involved in Peterborough’s financial affairs for several years through disputes over the Tangier accounts and the government’s inability to honour its promises over payment of the pension of £1,000 a year for life that the earl was promised on surrendering his Tangier offices. As the pension arrears – and Peterborough’s insistent demands – mounted, Pepys came to view Peterborough with increasing contempt; even Lady Peterborough turned from an object of pity to a troublesome nuisance through her ‘importunity and impertinency’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Peterborough’s appointment to Tangier accounts for his total absence from the House in 1662 and during the opening months of the 1663 session. He returned to Parliament on 9 July 1663 and attended all but one of the sitting days in that month. When Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, drew up his somewhat unreliable prediction for the division on Clarendon’s impeachment, he listed Peterborough as doubtful. Whether this was a comment on Peterborough’s possible absence or his attitude to Clarendon is unclear. On 25 July Peterborough entered a dissent against the inclusion of the revised assent and consent clause in the bill to amend the Act of Uniformity, which suggests that at this stage of his life he was still a committed defender of the Church of England.</p><p>Despite his military and naval commitments Peterborough attended the House on over 60 per cent of sitting days in 1664 and 1665. In April 1664 he chaired two meetings of the committee for privileges on the question of Lady Petre’s claim to privilege, and from 24 Nov. 1664 to 12 Jan. 1665 he held the proxy of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater. In February 1665 he chaired committees considering the bills of George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, and of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet. In April York interposed with the king to protect Peterborough from a complaint by Buckingham, though the cause of the quarrel is unknown.<sup>19</sup> Peterborough was appointed groom of the stole to York following the death of the previous incumbent, Donah McCarty, Viscount Muskerry [I], in the naval battle at Lowestoft in June 1665.<sup>20</sup> It seems that initially the post carried no salary (or, more probably, York’s financial embarrassments precluded an ability to pay) because in 1666 his countess complained that there was ‘no money to be had … [from the duke of York] … for wages or disbursements’. By 1667 Peterborough was chief commissioner to regulate the duke’s expenses; his countess became lady-in-waiting to the duchess of York.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In 1666 Peterborough was appointed lord lieutenant of Northamptonshire. Just what political or electoral influence he was able to exercise there remains obscure. With the Peterborough estates under the control of his mother, now living in Surrey, and with several well-established aristocratic interests in the county, it seems unlikely that his influence could have been very high. He does not figure at all in the <em>History of Parliament</em>’s accounts of elections in this or any other county until after the accession of James II, and although his wife’s nephew, Henry O’Brien<sup>‡</sup>, sat for Northampton between 1670 and 1678, the two men had very differing loyalties. Even after his mother’s death in 1670, Peterborough was unable to control the family estates because, as he had no son, the next heir was his brother. As lord lieutenant one might have expected him to contribute generously to the fund for rebuilding Northampton after the fire of 1675, yet his name is conspicuously absent from the list of benefactors. Nevertheless it is unwise to dismiss Peterborough’s influence altogether. His peerage, his court connections, and especially his friendship with York conferred a certain amount of power in its own right: during his brief term as recorder of Northampton the borough was threatened with a <em>quo warranto</em> because of its disrespectful attitude towards him.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Peterborough continued to be an active member of the House. In 1666 he was present on 75 per cent of sitting days; during that year he was summoned to the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, in the court of the lord high steward, and found him guilty.<sup>23</sup> His attendance rose to over 80 per cent in the troubled sessions of 1667 and 1668. On 23 Jan. 1667 he entered a dissent against the failure to provide a right of appeal to the king and the House of Lords in the bill for resolving disputes concerning houses burnt down by the fire of London and then another dissent against the passage of the bill. As a leading member of York’s faction he used his influence in support of Clarendon. On 15 Oct. 1667 when the House voted to give thanks to the king for his dismissal of Clarendon, Peterborough was one of a small group of peers who followed York out of the chamber rather than vote on a matter that seemed to prejudge Clarendon as a criminal when no charge had been brought against him.<sup>24</sup> He held York’s proxy from 8 Nov. 1667 to 10 Feb. 1668 and that of the parliamentarian turned royalist Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, from 24 Feb. to 13 Apr. 1668. In April 1668 he chaired the committee on the hearth tax.</p><p>Peterborough’s attendance levels dropped slightly in 1669 but rose sharply in 1670 when York’s interests were again under attack. In that year he was present on over 90 per cent of sitting days; he held the proxy of Leicester Devereux*, 6th Viscount Hereford, as well as that of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, from 17 Mar. and 26 Mar. respectively until the end of the session. He undoubtedly used them to vote against the Roos divorce bill, which he correctly interpreted as an attack on York’s right to the succession.<sup>25</sup> He entered dissents against the Roos divorce on 17 and 28 Mar. 1670 and another on 5 Apr. against the clause in the 1670 Conventicle Act that permitted searches of peers’ houses. On 8 Feb. 1671, during a debate on a petition presented to the House by his mother (arising from yet another dispute between mother and son about family property), ‘some words of provocation’ between Peterborough and John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, led to a demand that both apologize to the House and to give assurances that neither would take any further action in the matter.</p><p>Peterborough was absent from the House for almost the whole of 1673 while acting (under an appointment as ambassador extraordinary) as York’s agent during the tortuous and at times semi-farcical negotiations for his second marriage. He later claimed that his task was much obstructed by the reluctance of the lord treasurer, Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, to issue sufficient money for the trip and that this had forced him together with York into a series of intrigues with Clifford’s more supportive ‘competitor’, presumably Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby and duke of Leeds.<sup>26</sup> Peterborough attributed Clifford’s hostility to the marriage negotiations to a fear of parliamentary opposition, yet it was to Clifford that he assigned his proxy in February 1673 before leaving the country. In September Peterborough acted as James’s proxy during the marriage ceremony with Mary of Modena and then accompanied her to England. By the time of his return, hostility to York’s conversion had reached new heights. The general enmity towards York was also directed against Peterborough. There was a rumour that he too had turned Catholic, and his problems were exacerbated by the rivalry between York and his nephew, ‘that young viper’ James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. Peterborough was sure that Monmouth’s influence was to blame for keeping him from the rewards that he believed to be his due.<sup>27</sup></p><p>In 1674 he became involved, together with York, in a dispute with Alice Lisle concerning lands in the Isle of Wight. The details of the dispute are as yet obscure but probably relate to the problems that York faced in securing possession of the lands forfeited by her husband, the regicide John Lisle, and awarded to York at the Restoration.<sup>28</sup> Throughout the crisis years of 1674–9 Peterborough’s attendance was exceptionally high: in 1674 and 1679 he was present on every sitting day; his lowest attendance was in 1677 but even then he attended on just over 87 per cent of sitting days. From his perspective these were years marked by the growth of faction designed to ‘the ruin of the crown, and establishment of a commonwealth’ and in which York stood out as the lone defender of the king’s ‘just power and prerogatives against popular invasion’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>In April 1675 Danby listed Peterborough as one of the lords likely to support the non-resisting Test. In November he voted in favour of the address to the Crown to request a dissolution of Parliament. In June 1676, during the interval between sessions, he was one of the triers who found Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of murder.<sup>30</sup> In 1677 he headed a syndicate that was awarded a grant of the profits from fines of court. The other members of the syndicate included Sir Francis Compton<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Paston*, Viscount (later earl of) Yarmouth. The award was apparently a lucrative one; it certainly helped to win Compton back to the court.<sup>31</sup></p><p>On 15 Mar. 1677 Peterborough entered a dissent against the bill to secure the Protestant religion; during the debate he had denounced the attempt to disable a prince of the blood who married a Catholic from succeeding to the throne as a ‘horrid notion’.<sup>32</sup> Not surprisingly, in May 1677 Shaftesbury listed him as ‘triply vile’. On 14 Feb. 1678 Peterborough dissented to the resolution to dismiss the appeal in <em>Barret v Loftus</em>. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his murder trial. Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, entered a proxy in Peterborough’s favour on 9 Apr. 1678 and, presumably in error, entered another on 7 May 1678; they were vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Personal as well as political considerations had played a role in encouraging Peterborough’s attendance, since in 1677 he also obtained a private act of Parliament enabling him to sell several properties vested in his only surviving daughter to the financier Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup>. Peterborough was one of Clayton’s clients and there was a widespread belief that Clayton and his partner, John Morris, had taken advantage of him.<sup>33</sup> Although this may be true in part, the lands were heavily mortgaged and it is rather more likely either that Peterborough had run into debt as a result of the family settlement and his own desire to maintain a lifestyle appropriate to his position in society, or that he needed to finance his daughter’s marriage in September of that year to Henry Howard*, later 7th duke of Norfolk.<sup>34</sup> Ten years earlier, in 1667, Peterborough’s countess had openly admitted their poverty to Pepys, telling him ‘how her plate and jewels are at pawn for money, and how they are forced to live beyond their estate, and do get nothing by his being a courtier’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Peterborough supported James throughout the period of the Popish Plot, in his own mind courting unpopularity because ‘he stood up for the innocent supported the oppressed, and … declared for public justice against public malice and public partiality’.<sup>36</sup> An undated manuscript tract against Catholicism which probably belongs the period around 1678, when fears of York’s influence were high, describes Peterborough as one of York’s 12 disciples who sit ‘at the helm of the council to steer as they please’.<sup>37</sup> Although Peterborough is not listed in the surviving division list it is clear that he opposed the Test.<sup>38</sup> On 23 Nov. 1678 he, almost certainly acting on behalf of the Crown, was one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on the address concerning the militia. On 28 Dec. he was appointed to the committee to draw up reasons to be used at the conference on the supply (disbanding the army) bill and voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer. On 27 Dec. 1678 he voted against the commitment of Danby.</p><p>In his various calculations drawn up over the early months of 1679 Danby consistently listed Peterborough as a supporter and in April the earl duly voted against the attainder. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. In May he similarly voted against proceedings concerning the ‘Popish Lords’ and on 14 May entered a dissent against the bill for regulating trials of peers. Later that year, through his friendship with Lady Powis, wife of the imprisoned Catholic peer, William Herbert*, earl (later marquess) of Powis, he was introduced to Mrs. Cellier and was persuaded by her to assist the reconciliation of Sir Robert Peyton<sup>‡</sup> with York. Mrs Cellier also introduced him to Thomas Dangerfield. Peterborough was taken in by Dangerfield’s allegations of a ‘Presbyterian Plot’ and was instrumental, along with Lady Powis, in bringing them to the attention of an equally credulous duke of York. <sup>39</sup> Dangerfield subsequently changed his story, alleging that he had been employed by York to kill the king and that Peterborough had ‘encouraged him to go on with it courageously’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Although he was left out of the remodelled Privy Council in 1679, Peterborough remained loyal to York throughout the Exclusion crisis. He visited York in exile and was with him when he returned to England in September 1679.<sup>41</sup> From late October through to early December 1680 he was again constantly present in the House of Lords, determined to defend himself and to defend York against attempts to bar him from the succession. On 15 Nov. 1680 the House heard Dangerfield’s allegations of Peterborough’s complicity in the ‘Meal Tub’ or ‘Sham’ plot and of his involvement in securing the allegedly underhand acquittal of Sir George Wakeman. The House declined to commit him, so he was present later that day to speak and vote against the Exclusion bill. An anecdote passed down to Burnet by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, reported that in his speech Peterborough described the campaign against Exclusion as ‘a cause in which every man in England was obliged to draw his sword’ and provoked fear and disorder when in the heat of the moment he laid his hand on the hilt of his sword as if he intended to use it.<sup>42</sup> On 23 Nov. he opposed the attempt to appoint a committee to consider the state of the kingdom. The following month he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason. Not surprisingly, when York tried to persuade his brother to purge the existing government, Peterborough was one of the suggested replacements.</p><p>In March 1681 Peterborough was expected to support Danby’s application for bail and attended the Oxford Parliament accordingly.<sup>43</sup> Throughout the summer he was active in rallying the Northamptonshire gentry to support the king and in encouraging addresses of loyalty to the Crown.<sup>44</sup> In October he took his family to join York in Scotland, apparently prepared for the possibility that this might turn into permanent exile; during his absence there were rumours that he was to be impeached.<sup>45</sup> He accompanied York on his return in March 1682. He was soon readmitted to the Privy Council and spent the summer of 1683 in Northamptonshire, busying himself with prosecutions against supporters of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and other allegedly disaffected persons. He also purged the magistracy and militia, thus, in his own view, rendering ‘one of the most perverse, and worst inclined countries of all England’ into ‘the most exemplary, and readiest to serve the king’.<sup>46</sup> In February 1684 when the ‘Popish Lords’ were finally bailed, he and his son-in-law, Norfolk, stood as two of the four sureties for Powis.<sup>47</sup></p><p><em>Reward for faithfulness, 1685–8</em></p><p>At the accession of James II in 1685 Peterborough received the garter and was appointed groom of the stole with a salary of £1,000 a year; his wife became groom of the stole to the queen. Peterborough also became high steward and chief bailiff to the queen. Together with Norfolk and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, he was granted the right to license pedlars and petty chapmen. This was a potentially lucrative grant which the three peers planned to lease for £10,000 a year, but which was quickly cancelled, perhaps because it was potentially an extremely controversial measure.<sup>48</sup> Surprisingly, given his assiduous attention to Parliament before the king’s accession, his attendance in 1685 was only 67 per cent. On 9 Nov. Peterborough moved the motion for an address of thanks to the king for his speech.<sup>49</sup> That month he voted for the acquittal of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), though it was reported that he whispered in his neighbour’s ear ‘Guilty by god!’<sup>50</sup></p><p>In 1686, at the direction of James II, Peterborough was reported to have dropped an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against Speaker Williams<sup>‡</sup> in connection with the publication of Dangerfield’s <em>Narrative of the Late Popish Designs</em>, but this is almost certainly an error since Speaker Williams’ own papers indicate that he came to an agreement with Peterborough and that some but not all of the damages were paid.<sup>51</sup> Peterborough had also brought several actions against the printers. A government prosecution against Speaker Williams for libel had probably already suppressed the pamphlet, and at a hearing in 1687 two of the judges (Wythens and Herbert) pointedly remarked that the earlier action had also vindicated Peterborough’s honour and that only ‘lucre’ was left as a motive.<sup>52</sup> Given the size of damages customarily awarded in cases of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>, Peterborough’s action must have been intended as a way of threatening Williams with financial ruin unless he changed political sides, which he duly did. Peterborough’s action was almost certainly undertaken at the behest of the king, who had acquired extensive experience of the political usefulness of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> while still duke of York. Roger Morrice reported that it was Peterborough’s action against the printer, Hill, that had attracted James II’s intervention. Peterborough had been awarded £4,000 and damages from the various printers but had compounded with them all except Hill, who converted to Catholicism in order to secure James II’s good opinion (and a subsequent appointment as royal printer).<sup>53</sup></p><p>In November 1686 Peterborough was appointed as a member of the Privy Council committee to inspect justices of the peace throughout the country.<sup>54</sup> Even before the accession of James II, he had become active in the campaign against the corporations. His interventions at this point were largely confined to his home territory of Northamptonshire; their lack of success underlines his inability to wield any real electoral influence in the county. When a new charter was issued to Higham Ferrers in February 1684, Peterborough was appointed as the town’s first recorder. Presumably at his direction the town had produced a loyal address at the accession of James II; the corporation was nevertheless considered to be insufficiently loyal and was purged drastically in March 1688. In 1686 a new charter placed Brackley under the control of the Egertons, who had long exercised a proprietary interest there, but when they opposed the repeal of the Test Act and penal laws, the charter was replaced. Peterborough, who was probably regarded as something of an intruder, was appointed recorder there in September 1688. Northampton itself had been given a new charter in 1683 but, even though the corporation was prepared to vote an address of thanks for the Declaration of Indulgence, it was still reluctant to accept the candidates proposed by Peterborough in 1688. Between February and September 1688 it was repeatedly purged and even so Peterborough had to pack the town with his troops at election time, although news of the imminent arrival of William of Orange’s invasion force meant that the troops were removed before any confrontation occurred. Despite Peterborough’s earlier boasts about the way in which he had transformed the loyalty of the county and his belief that he had secured the gratitude of the county gentry by securing pardons for some 53 ‘considerable gentlemen’ who had been presented at Northampton, the response to the Three Questions was decidedly unsatisfactory.<sup>55</sup></p><p>In 1688 Peterborough replaced Edward Noel*, earl of Gainsborough, whose answers to the Three Questions had been unacceptable, as lord lieutenant of Rutland. His appointment suggests that he was also expected to intervene there. Although documentary evidence does not survive, it was presumably at his instigation that the sitting Members, Sir Thomas Mackworth<sup>‡</sup> and Baptist Noel<sup>‡</sup>, were omitted from the lieutenancy in 1688.<sup>56</sup> He also intervened in Bedford. The town had been given a new charter in July 1685 but the corporation’s lukewarm response to the endorsement by Ailesbury of Peterborough’s recommended parliamentary candidates ensured that it was twice purged in the spring of 1688. Perhaps it is significant that Ailesbury was a captain in Peterborough’s horse; military rank may well have given Peterborough additional opportunities to influence Parliament. It is noticeable that the 1685 elections returned five Members who held commissions in Peterborough’s horse: apart from Ailesbury himself, they were William Barlow<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Simon Leach<sup>‡</sup>, John Talbot<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir Michael Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>. A sixth Member, Oliver Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, groom of the bedchamber to James II both before and after his accession, was an army officer who had served in Peterborough’s foot in 1673–4.</p><p>Peterborough’s close association with James II may also have given him influence over Church appointments. Thomas Cartwright*, appointed to the bishopric of Chester in 1687, originated from Northamptonshire, was a member of Peterborough’s social circle, and referred to Peterborough as his patron.<sup>57</sup> Samuel Parker*, controversially appointed bishop of Oxford in 1686 and imposed on Magdalen College in 1687, was a Northamptonshire man and was probably also known to Peterborough.</p><p>In January 1686 Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> wrote that ‘Peterborough says he will do whatever the king commands him in relation to the government but by God he’ll love and die of the Church of England. That’s his holy resolution.’<sup>58</sup> Just over a year later, in March 1687, Peterborough announced his conversion to Catholicism.<sup>59</sup> Throughout that year lists of supporters and opponents of James’s policies simply identify him as a Catholic. His religious beliefs had long been the subject of speculation. As noted above, rumours of his conversion to Catholicism had circulated in 1673; they resurfaced in 1676.<sup>60</sup> Yet his 1663 dissent to the amendment to the Act of Uniformity and his fulminations against ejected ministers the following year suggests that in the mid-1660s he was still a committed Anglican.<sup>61</sup> Unlike York he had no difficulty in taking the oaths prescribed by the Test Act, and the well-known story of his reluctance to give up his pew in St. Margaret’s Church after his conversion confirms that he had previously worshipped there according to Anglican rites.<sup>62</sup> Nevertheless it is not difficult to believe that he had long-standing sympathies for Catholics and Catholicism. Quite apart from his close association with York, many members of his family were Catholic. He described the grandmother who supported him after his desertion of the parliamentary army as ‘a zealous Catholic’. One of his aunts was suspected of harbouring Catholics in 1666 and she and another aunt were prosecuted for recusancy in 1680.<sup>63</sup> His daughter, the duchess of Norfolk, had converted to Catholicism before 1687.<sup>64</sup> He ensured that at least one of his nephews, George Mordaunt, would be educated as a Catholic.<sup>65</sup> Nevertheless, the timing of Peterborough’s formal conversion was almost certainly influenced by secular rather than theological considerations. By 1687 it had become clear that the price of membership in the circle of power around James II was not past loyalty but conversion to Catholicism.</p><p>As Peterborough watched Charles II die, he must surely have expected to reap a considerable reward from the new king – probably rather more than an appointment as groom of the stole and a garter. It is tempting to wonder whether the autobiography that he included in 1685 in his privately printed <em>Succinct Genealogies</em> was in part intended as an appeal for further favour. Throughout that autobiography Peterborough emphasized both his loyalty to James and the paucity of the rewards he had received. He also referred to unnamed enemies who had sought to influence the royal brothers against him. In the early months of James’s reign, one of those enemies can be identified as John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, later duke of Buckingham. Their enmity evidently persisted, since in December 1686 an argument between the two men about the remodelling of a room formerly belonging to the groom of the stole led to a challenge. The ensuing duel was prevented when the king imposed a compulsory cooling-off period by imprisoning Peterborough for a few days.<sup>66</sup> Another enemy was Ailesbury, who feared that Peterborough was ready and waiting to take over Ailesbury’s lord lieutenancies, and who even in the midst of the panic caused by the invasion of 1688 was still sufficiently worried about his status in James’s household to quarrel with Peterborough about the protocol of riding in the king’s coach.<sup>67</sup> Peterborough’s championing of Cartwright as bishop of Chester must also have brought him the enmity of George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, who had earmarked that post for his brother, James Jeffreys. The ease with which the king’s opinion of Mr. Hill the printer had been transformed on learning of his conversion must have provided Peterborough with a potent example of the quickest and easiest method of retaining James’s goodwill.</p><p>On 14 Oct. 1688, when the court was in a state of panic over the prospect of imminent invasion, Peterborough made his will, leaving all his property to his wife. A contemporary ditty suggested that he had been forced to do so by his wife, and that the elderly earl was in poor health resulting from venereal diseases contracted in a series of infidelities. The only other reference to such infidelities relates to threats of a duel in 1677, when Peterborough wanted to issue challenges to Robert Leke*, then styled Lord Deincourt (later 3rd earl of Scarsdale), and Sir George Hewitt for insulting a ‘lady of pleasure’ said to be under his protection.<sup>68</sup> A rather more likely explanation for drawing up the will, in which he referred to his wife in terms of affection and respect, was that he believed civil war to be imminent. He had been stockpiling arms and ammunition at his Northamptonshire home for just such an eventuality.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Peterborough probably also feared reprisals. As one who had dedicated almost the whole of his public life to the service of James II, he was well aware that he shared his master’s unpopularity. He had good reason to be afraid; he was indicted by a grand jury under the terms of a long unused statute for high treason in being reconciled to Rome.<sup>70</sup> Like other supporters of the king he received a pardon in October. In December he obtained a pass for his family and servants and fled towards Dover, but he was captured and committed to the Tower. On 22 Jan. 1689 an attempt by his nephew Charles Mordaunt*, 2nd Viscount Mordaunt (later earl of Monmouth and 3rd earl of Peterborough) to secure his release on bail failed.<sup>71</sup> Meanwhile in Northamptonshire his house and chapel at Drayton were attacked. The existence of his armoury was clearly an open secret and his steward, threatened with being burned alive, disclosed that guns and gunpowder alike had been thrown into the fishponds. Dragging a single pond allegedly revealed sufficient arms to equip 150 men.<sup>72</sup></p><p><em>Impeachment and death</em></p><p>Peterborough was impeached in October 1689 but there was no attempt to bring him to trial. Even so he remained in the Tower for another year.<sup>73</sup> After his release in 1690 he played no further part in public life. In March 1691 it was rumoured that he was about to flee to France with Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], but he did not.<sup>74</sup> He did not renounce Catholicism, however, and seems to have made no secret of his continuing connections with the exiled court. In 1692 he showed Evelyn a picture of the prince of Wales, recently received from France; a letter to him from Mary of Modena was intercepted the following year.<sup>75</sup> He was suspected of complicity in the assassination plot of 1696 and was confined to his house as a precautionary measure but no charges were brought against him.<sup>76</sup></p><p>At Peterborough’s death in 1697, the earldom passed to his nephew Charles Mordaunt. Presumably there was little in the way of liquid assets for in September 1689 Peterborough’s self-assessment for taxation purpose stated that he had no personal estate. Lands worth £4,000 a year also went to the new earl who was nevertheless disappointed (and litigiously inclined) by Peterborough’s decision to leave substantial lands to his daughter.<sup>77</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
MORDAUNT, John (1626-75) |
<p><strong><surname>MORDAUNT</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1626–75)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>10 July 1659 Visct. MORDAUNT |
|
First sat 7 July 1660; last sat 20 May 1675 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Jun. 1626, 2nd s. of John Mordaunt<sup>†</sup>, earl of Peterborough, and Elizabeth, da. of William Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Howard of Effingham; bro. of Henry Mordaunt*, later 2nd earl of Peterborough. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France and Italy). <em>m</em>. 7 May 1757, Elizabeth Carey (c.1632–79), da. of Thomas Carey, groom of the bedchamber; 7s. 4da. <em>d</em>. 5 June 1675; <em>will</em> 4 Mar. 1674, pr. 11 June 1675.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>High steward, Windsor, 1660–8; constable, Windsor Castle, 1660–8; ranger, Windsor Forest and kpr. Windsor Great Park, 1660–8; ld. lt. Surr. 1660–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. tp. of horse; col. regt. of ft.</p> |
|
<p>The younger son of puritan and parliamentarian parents whose lives and beliefs had been heavily influenced by Archbishop Ussher, John Mordaunt was an unlikely cavalier hero.<sup>2</sup> Like his elder brother, the 2nd earl of Peterborough, he may initially have supported Parliament but while Henry Mordaunt had joined the king by 1643, the process of John Mordaunt’s conversion to royalism seems to have taken a little longer. Both brothers were involved in the abortive rising of 1648 and both then went into exile. Concerns expressed by the council of state in 1652 about a possible duel establish that John Mordaunt had returned to England at or before that date. He was an active royalist agent from at least 1654, although it is unclear whether he was involved in the rising of the following year. In 1658 he was arrested for his part in a projected rising in Sussex and narrowly escaped conviction on a charge of treason. Persuaded by his wife to acknowledge the authority of the court by which he was tried, he owed his subsequent acquittal, on the casting vote of John Lisle, president of the court, to a combination of luck and bribery. Those accused with him, Dr John Hewit and Sir Henry Slingsby<sup>‡</sup>, were both convicted and executed.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Mordaunt’s narrow escape from the gallows did not deter him from his purpose. Over the next year he worked hard to reinvigorate the royalist cause in England and to broaden the base of its support. He urged the king to marry ‘some princess of your own religion’, warned him against the Catholics, who ‘are not so much your servants as they ought to be’, and assured him of the support of the Presbyterians.<sup>4</sup> He exploited his family’s puritan connections in order to gain access to influential but disillusioned presbyterian politicians in Parliament and the City of London and to entice them into support for the royalist cause. He also began to organize a rebellion to take place in the summer of 1659, based around the concept of synchronized regional risings. Both were formidable tasks. The Presbyterians required the exiled king to make concessions about religious freedom, specifically to grant the terms of the Treaty of Newport. Not unnaturally, they also expected assurances for the confirmation of title to lands they had bought from the Church and royalists. Mordaunt agreed with Charles II and his advisers that such conditions were incompatible with the restoration of monarchical power. Further difficulties were caused by the attitude of the leaders of the existing royalist organization, the Sealed Knot. They resented Mordaunt’s success at court, were suspicious of his parliamentarian connections, and distrusted the Presbyterians.</p><p>Mordaunt himself attributed the root of the problem to the lack of ‘some wise and powerful person’ to act as the acknowledged leader of the royalists.<sup>5</sup> Charles II therefore authorized a second royalist association, the Great Trust, to conduct negotiations. The Great Trust included the leaders of the Sealed Knot, as well as Henry Hastings*, Baron Loughborough, and Mordaunt himself. Within a short time they were joined by a number of others, including the presbyterian peer Francis Willoughby*, 4th (<em>CP</em> 5th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, and Sir John Granville*, later earl of Bath. Mordaunt’s position in the Great Trust should have been strengthened by these new members but his overbearing attitude meant that he upset a number of the more traditional royalists such as Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford. Friction with the Sealed Knot continued, especially over his somewhat sketchy plans for the projected rising, which were dismissed, probably correctly, as hopelessly overambitious.</p><p>For his part, Mordaunt regarded members of the Sealed Knot as overcautious and suspected that the organization had been infiltrated by parliamentary agents. His expectation that he should assume full leadership of the royalist cause in England upset traditional royalists. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, had to explain that ‘He has received no commission or command, except to consult with and bring others together. A great part of the trust is to deliver commissions to proper persons in each county to dispose the county as best they can’, and to demand that ‘Mordaunt should disabuse men of the error that he has all the power and command’.<sup>6</sup> In the event, the only serious threat to the government came from the rising in Cheshire organized by Sir George Booth*, the future Baron Delamer. Mordaunt himself, with a party of 30 men, arrived at the Surrey rendezvous on Banstead Down only to discover that government troops were waiting for them. He escaped capture and fled to London and thence to France.</p><p>Believing that the rising had been betrayed, Mordaunt remained committed to the conviction that a successful insurrection was possible. He returned to London in October hoping to capitalize on Lambert’s ejection of the Rump. He then reported back to Charles II in France but was again in London in January 1660. In the weeks before the meeting of the Convention, he worked eagerly to facilitate the return of the king. Using the aldermen John Robinson<sup>‡</sup> and John Langham<sup>‡</sup> as go-betweens, he managed to inform the Corporation of the City of London of Charles’s intention to renew and enlarge their liberties. He contacted Fairfax and kept in touch with important presbyterian leaders such as Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. He even circulated arguments supplied by William Prynne<sup>‡</sup> and Arthur Annesley*, later earl of Anglesey, in an attempt to stimulate county petitions for a free Parliament.</p><p>When Lady Mordaunt joined her husband in England in March 1660 she was amazed at the transformation in their fortunes that had taken place in a mere six months. Then,</p><blockquote><p>most persons afraid to see me and I more afraid to see them, our estate and all our things seized and we overjoyed to be out of our own country, and now I return welcomed by all … our estate released … our persons freed and our goods restored by act of council.</p></blockquote><p>She went on to boast that most business was referred to Mordaunt’s judgement and that his friends in the Commons regularly sought his advice on topics of debate.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In mid-April, when it was still not clear whether the House of Lords would sit or, if it did, whether all peers would be admitted, Mordaunt was instrumental in undermining what he called the cabal of Presbyterian peers who were set on excluding the post-1642 creations and the ‘young’ lords. He informed Hyde that he had made it his business to persuade Oxford and William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, to sit. He had told them that their entitlement to do so did not depend on receiving a writ of summons but on their status as hereditary counsellors of the crown.<sup>8</sup> Meanwhile, Mordaunt’s knowledge of the presbyterians’ strategy was assisted by a pragmatic alliance with Annesley, who attended their meetings and reported on their discussions.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Mordaunt’s friend Hartgill Baron was reputed to have declared that ‘the king must owe his crown to Lord Mordaunt’.<sup>10</sup> His expectations of reward must therefore have been high, especially as Hyde’s secretary, John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, encouraged him to believe ‘that the king must do something very glorious for you, or make himself infamous to all ages’. In reality, his jealous and suspicious nature had caused almost as much upset at the exiled court as in England and his services had been eclipsed by those of his colleague in the Great Trust, Sir John Granville.<sup>11</sup> Granville, who was closely related to George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, undertook the final negotiations between Monck and the king. Mordaunt learned of the details of Monck’s response only after Granville had reported to Charles II.</p><p>Edward Hyde later described Mordaunt as ‘totally neglected’.<sup>12</sup> This was not strictly true but Mordaunt clearly expected far more than Charles II was willing or able to give. The king had already rewarded Mordaunt with a viscountcy, although in what was perhaps a commentary on the relative value of the two men he went on to confer an earldom on Sir John Granville. Mordaunt’s financial rewards were rather better: he gained the reversion of Reigate Priory, a grant of the crown’s share of certain lands recovered from the sea, the reversion of the park of Curry Mallet and the manor of Shepton Mallet in Somerset, and a lease of the Newcastle coal farm.<sup>13</sup> Although less than he had expected, this was still a major improvement on his pre-Restoration financial position. Before 1660, Mordaunt had been dependent on the goodwill of his mother, who made him an allowance valued at £500 a year by the committee for compounding but which was said to be worth £700 a year shortly after the Restoration.<sup>14</sup> Her parliamentary sympathies meant that she disapproved of his royalist activities but she appears to have disapproved still more of the much earlier conversion of her elder son to the royalist cause and, as a result, to have diverted the descent of various properties from him to her younger son. This resulted in much family dissension and a number of law suits.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In May 1660 Mordaunt was one of those who accompanied the newly restored king into the City of London.<sup>16</sup> He was instrumental in gaining a pardon (at a cost of £1,000) for Colonel Harbert Morley but otherwise his access to patronage seems to have limited.<sup>17</sup> Mordaunt was said to have had ambitions to be appointed as secretary of state but the post went instead to William Morice<sup>‡</sup>, who was closely associated with and related by marriage to George Monck. Mordaunt did receive offices but they were of local rather than national importance. Despite his limited property holdings in Surrey and his main residence being in Fulham, Middlesex, he was appointed lord lieutenant of Surrey. His other major offices were all in Windsor. It is difficult to be precise about the dates of his appointments: the letters patent appointing him as constable of the castle, for example, were issued on 28 Feb. 1661 but he was clearly already in office early in July 1660.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Mordaunt’s Windsor offices gave him considerable local power but may not have been particularly lucrative: the constableship of Windsor Castle was said by its previous incumbent to be an office ‘of very great antiquity, honour, power, and pleasure, but of very little profit’. As constable, Mordaunt had the right to use any lodgings not required by the king, to act as judge of the court of the Honour of Windsor (which included 59 parishes in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Surrey), and to appoint attorneys to practise there. As keeper of the Great Park and Forest, he had the right to dispose of lodges and walks, and to issue licences for felling and taking game.<sup>19</sup></p><p>At Lady Mordaunt’s request, their old friend and ally Sir Thomas Woodcock<sup>‡</sup> was appointed deputy governor of Windsor Castle. Other offices were distributed by the crown without reference to Mordaunt’s wishes or the terms of his patent, leading him to complain that his authority was being undermined: ‘I must look for no interest, no civility here, where I alone of all that ever was constable have not power to oblige a friend or gratify a servant’.<sup>20</sup> Among the offices so granted was that of surveyor, which, together with a number of other posts relating to the maintenance of the castle, was conferred on William Tayleur<sup>‡</sup> against Mordaunt’s wishes. Tayleur was also appointed clerk to the constable of the castle, as well as steward, receiver of rents, and bailiff of the Honour of Windsor.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Although Mordaunt’s electoral influence in Windsor had been enhanced by his appointment as high steward, the franchise was in dispute and he was worried that his lack of patronage might make it difficult to impose his authority there. Thomas Higgons<sup>‡</sup> who stood for election at Windsor in 1661 was almost certainly a client of Mordaunt’s. Higgons did not have a distinguished royalist past but was about to marry the niece of Mordaunt’s friend and political ally, Bath. Higgons’ rival was William Tayleur, whose unwelcome appointment as surveyor of Windsor Castle has already been mentioned. Unlike Higgons, Tayleur was a well-established local figure: his father had served as surveyor of the castle before the civil wars. Tayleur had previously represented Windsor in the Commons but had been imprisoned in the Tower and expelled from Parliament in 1641 for describing the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford as committing ‘murder with the sword of justice’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Mordaunt had become increasingly suspicious of his former Presbyterian allies, writing in 1661 that they ‘preach only rebellion’, so his resentment of Tayleur was probably heightened by Tayleur’s Presbyterian connections.<sup>23</sup> Tayleur was closely associated with Sir Robert Pye<sup>‡</sup>, who had abandoned his early parliamentarian sympathies to become a leading Presbyterian royalist. Furthermore, Tayleur owed his various appointments at Windsor Castle to the patronage of Anne Monck, duchess of Albemarle. Mordaunt’s antipathy to Tayleur’s candidacy influenced the attitude of the corporation but may not have been decisive; there is some evidence of a long-standing feud between the two: Tayleur’s expulsion from Parliament in 1641 had resulted from information supplied by the then mayor of Windsor. In the event, Tayleur was elected on the wider franchise and Higgons on the corporation franchise; Parliament decided in favour of the corporation franchise and Higgons was returned.<sup>24</sup></p><p>During the 1660 session Mordaunt attended the House on 63 per cent of sitting days. He was not named to the committee for privileges as he was absent from the House on 27 Apr. when that committee was named. However, during the session he was named to the committee for the restoration of the earl of Arundel (10 Nov.), the committee for the Journal (17 Nov.), and a committee for a naturalization bill (15 Dec.). His presence in the House has otherwise left no trace in the Journal. In June the committee for privileges deputed him, along with Oxford, to investigate charges of treason against the former parliamentarian Robert Danvers*, previously known at various times by the surnames of Wright, Howard, and Villiers, whose doubtful legitimacy made it equally doubtful that he should be regarded as 2nd Viscount Purbeck.</p><p>With no further claim to put him at the centre of the political stage and apparently without ambition to cut a figure in parliamentary politics, Mordaunt was present on only 41 per cent of sitting days during the 1661–2 session. His last attendance of the session was on 22 Mar. 1662, a full seven weeks before the prorogation of 19 May. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions (11 May 1661) and to three other committees. In the spring and early summer of 1661 he was forecast as being in favour of awarding the great chamberlaincy to Oxford and in November 1661 he held the proxy of his brother, Peterborough.</p><p>During the 1663 session he was again present on 41 per cent of sitting days and was named to the committee for petitions (25 Feb.), to the bill for repealing acts of the Long Parliament (19 Mar.), to the temporalty subsidy bill (17 July), and to the militia bill (18 July). His absence from the House was excused on 23 Feb. 1663, possibly because, although he was actually in nearby Weybridge, he was preoccupied with law and order issues in Windsor. He demanded that an example be made of a group of rioters who had attacked the park there, insisting that ‘without severity people will look on the king’s parks as their own’. His duties as governor of the castle also included keeping political prisoners in safe custody and this too may have distracted him from his parliamentary duties.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1663 an investigation into the various royal grants that Mordaunt had received was said to have resulted from ‘the disputes of the court’ and was perhaps an ominous forerunner of the imminent attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon.<sup>26</sup> Mordaunt voted in Clarendon’s favour. On 25 July his participation in the protest against the Lords’ proviso to the bill to amend the Act of Uniformity identified him as a firm defender of the established Church. In November 1663 his role in a dispute between officers of a regiment of horse stationed in Surrey and the local militia is uncertain but it was to him, as lord lieutenant, that Charles II sent a letter communicating a perpetual command that in the absence of the lord lieutenant or his deputies the militia should take orders from the officers of the standing regiments.<sup>27</sup></p><p>During the short 1664 session Mordaunt was present on 50 per cent of sitting days and was named to the committee for Sir John Pakington’s bill on 27 April. In the autumn he went to sea as a volunteer, earning the contempt of Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, who wrote indignantly about those who were ‘good for nothing while they serve but to impoverish their captains and enslave them … as my Lord Mordaunt in particular did do’.<sup>28</sup> As a result of his naval service he was absent when the new session opened on 24 Nov. 1664. He covered the absence with a proxy to Bath which was vacated when Mordaunt returned to the House on 20 Jan. 1665. He was then present for just over 50 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session and was named to three committees. His attendance during the short autumn 1665 session was also in the order of 50 per cent and he was named to the committee for privileges (12 Oct.) and that for the bill to attaint Dolman, Bampfield, and Scott (31 Oct.). On 30 April 1666, when Parliament was not in session, Mordaunt was one of the peers summoned as triers for the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, in the court of the lord high steward. He found Morley guilty of manslaughter rather than murder.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Mordaunt’s chief claim to parliamentary fame was to have been the subject of the first attempt to revive the judicial process of impeachment after the Restoration. In the political crisis that led up to the fall of Clarendon in 1667, Mordaunt proved to be dangerously isolated. Traditional royalists such as Bristol’s ally John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, may have welcomed his support for the Act of Uniformity but nevertheless continued to be suspicious of him and to resent any success he might have. His old Presbyterian allies were disappointed by his treatment of Tayleur and his fervent Anglicanism. They probably also resented his role as the gaoler of those suspected of disloyalty, many of whom appear to have been imprisoned for disproportionate lengths of time for offences relating to attendance at conventicles. Both groups were further alienated by his firm friendship for Clarendon. His continuing usefulness to the government was however recognized by a grant of the estate forfeited by Sir Robert Honeywood junior in August 1666.<sup>30</sup></p><p>During the 1666–7 session Mordaunt was named to the committee for privileges and to the committee to consider the bill to render Lady Roos’s children illegitimate (both on 14 Nov. 1666), as well as to five other committees. The threat of impeachment explains why his attendance over this session was uncharacteristically high, at 91 per cent. The articles of impeachment were presented against him in December. The seven accusations (printed in full in the <em>Commons Journal</em> and also in <em>State Trials</em>) relate to various allegations of arbitrary and oppressive actions taken by Mordaunt against William Tayleur, starting well before the contested Windsor election of 1661. They included threats, forcible dispossession of rooms, illegal imprisonment, contempt of court, and perversion of the course of justice, as well as the sexual harassment of Tayleur’s daughter. In his defence Mordaunt made a number of cross allegations against Tayleur, accusing him of embezzlement, fraud, and false accounting. As members of the Commons almost certainly knew, these allegations were well founded: the crown had been investigating Tayleur’s accounts and had suspended him from office in the spring of 1665, before commencing an action against him in the court of exchequer.<sup>31</sup> Tayleur had refused to vacate rooms legitimately required for the use of the royal household and had fomented problems in the corporation of Windsor, refusing to pay his share of the tax for providing plague houses and encouraging others to the same. According to the king, Tayleur was a spectacular cheat who was far worse ‘than parliament libellers say of others, or even suspect’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>It was by no means clear that the allegations against Mordaunt provided sufficient grounds for impeachment. He may have acted overenthusiastically but he had acted under royal authority, either by specific warrant or by virtue of his judicial powers within the jurisdiction of the castle. In attacking Mordaunt, the Commons were implicitly attacking the king and the king’s chief minister, Clarendon. The only alleged offences that were clearly criminal were those involving sexual assaults on Tayleur’s daughter and these Mordaunt absolutely denied. At best, Tayleur may have had a claim against Mordaunt for the way in which he had carried out his duties – a private action for damages, rather than a criminal prosecution or an impeachment. Furthermore, the alleged offences all arose from a limited set of circumstances (the feud between Tayleur and Mordaunt). It was difficult to argue that they were genuinely against ‘the rights and liberties of all the commons and freemen of England’, which, even at this formative stage of parliamentary judicature, was arguably already a prerequisite for an accusation made in the name of the House of Commons. Shortly after the attempted impeachment of Mordaunt, the Commons would argue that Thomas Skinner ought not to seek an extraordinary remedy by means of an action in the Lords, rather than use the usual course of the law. Similar arguments applied in the case of Tayleur, since he had a remedy in the ordinary courts of Westminster Hall.</p><p>The allegations against Mordaunt shocked his contemporaries. Pepys disliked the viscount so his condemnation is perhaps understandable but even Evelyn, who regarded Mordaunt as his ‘special friend’, considered the charges to be ‘foul and dishonourable’ and feared that they would stick.<sup>33</sup> Mordaunt might not have acted illegally but he had acted arbitrarily and oppressively with little or no concern for justice or the liberties of the subject and it was clear that the government had either connived at his actions or had actively encouraged them. Whether technically guilty or not, he symbolized the moral malaise and autocratic tendencies of Charles II’s government. Pepys was not the only person to predict that Mordaunt’s impeachment would soon be followed by another, this time against Clarendon himself.<sup>34</sup> The government probably also feared too close a scrutiny of the way in which it had been using Windsor Castle as a political prison and of the very flimsy legal basis on which prisoners had been detained there.<sup>35</sup></p><p>It is sometimes suggested that Clarendon’s allies, especially Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>, who was appointed as one of the managers of the ensuing conferences between the two Houses in the Commons, helped to prolong the proceedings against Mordaunt in the hope that the campaign against Clarendon would falter. This may be partly true but the procedural issues thus raised touched on important points of principle and were considered at length by the committee for privileges. In a society where hierarchical values were constantly displayed via ritualized rules of etiquette, questions about where Mordaunt should be placed during the proceedings, whether in the chamber or at the bar, whether he should sit or stand, and whether or not he should wear a hat, were not trivial ones. They reflected real anxieties about his status during the proceedings (including his legal status – was he or was he not one of the judges?) and the psychological intimidation of witnesses that might result. Disputes about whether or not he should be allowed counsel to advise on the conduct of his case similarly reflected fears about the subversion of justice by status and privilege, since it was well established that in criminal trials the function of defendant’s counsel was restricted to addressing the court on difficult questions of law.</p><p>The impeachment proceedings were ended by the prorogation in February 1667. Pepys thought that the king would take advantage of the recess to appease the Commons by dismissing Mordaunt, thus letting ‘them see he will do of his own accord which is fit, without their forcing him’, and rumours of Mordaunt’s removal continued through the summer, although he actually managed to cling on to his offices for a further year.<sup>36</sup> Early in July 1667 Mordaunt received a royal pardon.<sup>37</sup> This was intended to prevent further controversy in Parliament but it did not assuage the government’s critics, especially as Mordaunt’s acceptance of the pardon could be interpreted as amounting to a virtual confession of guilt. Pepys was shocked that, when Parliament was further prorogued on 27 July, Mordaunt was present and ‘as merry as the best’, even though there had been reports that he had committed ‘such further indignities to Mr Taylor … as would hang if there were nothing else, would the king do what were fit for him’.<sup>38</sup> To Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> the king’s actions simply ensured that ‘Now Mordaunt may within his castle tower / imprison parents and the child deflower’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Tayleur attempted, unsuccessfully, to revive the impeachment proceedings when Parliament reconvened for the 1667–9 session in October 1667.<sup>40</sup> By that time the parliamentary spotlight was on the attempt to impeach Clarendon and the charges against him also included his role in securing Mordaunt’s pardon. Not surprisingly, Mordaunt’s attendance was exemplary: he was present every day until the end of 1667. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions on 11 Oct. 1667, appointments that were repeated, together with nomination to the committee for the Journal, on 25 October. He was also named to three other committees and to a subcommittee of the committee for privileges to investigate questions of precedence relating to foreign nobility.<sup>41</sup> After the end of December 1667, despite continuing wrangling between the Houses, which one might have thought would have commanded his attention, his attendance dropped to 58 per cent of sitting days. By July 1668 his wife was in Montpellier, visiting Clarendon in exile and lamenting her husband’s poverty, attributable, so she said, to the debts that he had contracted in the royalist cause during ‘the late usurpation’.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Mordaunt’s problems with Tayleur were at last settled in September 1668, when he resigned his Windsor offices in favour of Prince Rupert*, in return for a sum variously reported as £3,500 or 3,500 guineas.<sup>43</sup> The potential for future conflict was also ended when Tayleur was persuaded to sell his offices to Prince Rupert’s nominees.<sup>44</sup> In October 1668 Mordaunt left for France, claiming a need to travel overseas for his health but probably to visit Clarendon.<sup>45</sup> He remained close to the former chancellor and corresponded with him about political affairs, including the possibility of Clarendon’s return to England.<sup>46</sup></p><p>From this date Mordaunt’s activities, whether in or out of Parliament, become increasingly difficult to trace. He was back in England for the opening of the brief 1669 session, when he was present for just over two-thirds of sitting days and was named to the committee to consider papers from the commissioners for accompts (9 November). His attendance fell sharply over the 1670–1 session, when he was present for less than a quarter of sitting days and was named to only three committees. On 17 Mar. 1670 he entered a dissent to the passage of the Roos divorce bill. Somewhat puzzlingly, on 12 Dec. 1670 he covered one of his shorter absences from the House with a proxy to Clarendon’s enemy, the high Anglican Lord Lucas, vacated by his return on 13 Feb. 1671.</p><p>Mordaunt attended the first 1673 session for some 58 per cent of sitting days and was appointed to two committees. He was present on three of the four days of the autumn 1673 session and was appointed to one committee. The following (1674) session he was present on 34 of the 38 sitting days and was named to the committee for privileges and to committees for four bills. One of those bills, that for governing servants and apprentices (16 Feb.), was to be amended with a clause relating to the treatment of slaves in England. The bill was lost at the end of the session, barely a week later, but Mordaunt’s possible involvement in an abortive attempt to legislate for slavery is particularly interesting given that his Fulham household later contained at least two waged black servants.<sup>47</sup></p><p>In January 1675 Mordaunt made a well-publicized visit to the Dorset home of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. The exact purpose of his journey is unknown, although it seems likely that he was trying to smooth the way for the ensuing parliamentary session by opening lines of communication between Shaftesbury and the court. Whether he was doing so as the court’s emissary or trying to repeat his success at the Restoration by acting as a self-appointed negotiator remains equally unclear. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> rated Mordaunt’s chances of success very low; he reported that the town talk likened it to sending ‘a sparrow to catch a kite’.<sup>48</sup> If Mordaunt were an emissary then he may have been sent by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), whose proposed non-resisting Test he fully supported. Mordaunt hoped to cement an alliance with Danby by marrying his eldest son, Charles Mordaunt*, (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), to Danby’s daughter Bridget Osborne but the match fell through, possibly because Mordaunt was unable to make the kind of generous financial settlement on the couple that Danby required.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Perhaps Mordaunt’s association with Danby encouraged him to become more active in Parliament. During the 1675 session he held the proxy of Charles Stanhope*, 2nd Baron Stanhope, and was absent on only two days before his final attendance on 20 May. He was named to the usual sessional committees as well as to committees on three bills. He quarrelled with Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, during a debate on 14 Apr. and the House, taking notice of the ‘unusual words’ that had passed between them, intervened to prevent a duel and to prompt Mordaunt to explain ‘that he meant no disrespect to the Lord Mohun therein’.</p><p>Mordaunt’s final illness seems to have come on suddenly. On 27 May, only a week after his last attendance and barely six weeks after the quarrel with Mohun, Sir Ralph Verney reported that Mordaunt ‘was very like to die of a malignant fever and a pleurisy’.<sup>50</sup> He died just over a week later. His will, made in March 1673, suggests that his wife’s influence continued to be significant. He left the bulk of his property to his eldest son but made no arrangements for portions for his many younger children, delegating that power to his widow ‘in regard of her present indisposition to settle the same’. In the event of her remarriage, the power of settling portions was to be transferred to his close friends and political allies Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and Andrew Newport<sup>‡</sup>. Mordaunt’s personal estate, including the reversion of the Newcastle coal farm, was valued at £5,026 6<em>s</em>. 6<em>d</em>. An inventory of the contents of his house shows that, for all his protestations of poverty, it was luxuriously furnished.<sup>51</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
NASSAU VAN ZUYLESTEIN, Frederick (1683-1738) |
<p><strong><surname>NASSAU VAN ZUYLESTEIN</surname></strong>, <strong>Frederick</strong> (1683–1738)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 16 July 1710 as 3rd earl of ROCHFORD |
|
First sat 23 June 1714; last sat 26 Apr. 1737 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1683, 2nd s. of Willem Nassau*, heer van Zuylestein, Leersum, and Ginckel (later earl of Rochford), and Jane, da. of Sir Henry Wroth of Enfield, Mdx.; bro. of William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein*, 2nd earl of Rochford. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (with £10,000) 3 Aug. 1714, Elizabeth (1699–1746), illegit. da. of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers (with Elizabeth Colleton); 2s. 3da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 2 July 1708 as heer van Waayestein; <em>suc</em>. bro. 16 July 1710 as heer van Zuylestein, Leersum, and Ginckel. <em>d</em>. 14 June 1738; <em>will</em> 10 Jan.–2 May, pr. 22 June 1738.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Frederick Nassau van Zuylestein was the second of the four sons of William of Orange’s friend and military companion Willem Nassau van Zuylestein, who had been rewarded with an English peerage as earl of Rochford. In April 1696 the earl’s seven eldest children, including Frederick, were naturalized by act of Parliament.<sup>3</sup> The 1st earl of Rochford maintained interests in both England and the United Provinces. In England William III granted him, on 26 Apr. 1696, the estates in Middlesex, Northamptonshire, and Montgomeryshire of the attainted Catholic exile William Herbert*, marquess of Powis. Suits with Powis’ heir, William Herbert*, styled Viscount Montgomery (later 2nd marquess of Powis), were to embroil Rochford and his heirs for many years. Montgomery was occasionally granted the right to raise money on portions of his family’s estate and to exploit its mineral wealth, but he did not formally regain possession of the centerpiece of the estate, the imposing residence of Powis Castle in Montgomeryshire, until 1722, when his father’s outlawry was reversed and he was restored to his title and lands.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The first earl of Rochford died at Zuylestein in the Netherlands on 2 July 1708, and his English and Dutch titles and properties were passed on to his heir, William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein, with a father’s injunction to divide the remainder of the estate equally among his six younger siblings.<sup>5</sup> Frederick, the second son, inherited his father’s estate and title as lord of Waayestein in Utrecht and remained there until his elder brother was killed leading his troops at the battle of Almenara in Spain on 16 July 1710. He then settled in England and Wales, where he still formally owned Powis Castle, although Montgomery continued to exert influence there.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Rochford inherited his title at a significant moment. The Whig ministry which had prosecuted the war in which his father and his brothers had fought was in disgrace, and a new Tory ministry which would repudiate this policy and actively seek a separate peace was being formed under Robert Harley*, shortly to become earl of Oxford. Throughout 1710–11 Harley was uncertain whether the new earl of Rochford would support his ministry; he had no opportunity to discover Rochford’s intentions as the earl never sat in the 1710 Parliament.</p><p>Rochford first took his seat in the House on 23 June 1714, almost four years after he had inherited his peerage, and sat a further 11 times before the prorogation on 9 July. On 8 July 1714, the penultimate day of the session, he signed the protest against the rejection of the motion to represent to the queen the House’s opinion that the national benefit of the asiento had been mitigated by the private interest of certain individuals involved in the negotiations (notably Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke). He was present in the House again for 8 of the 15 sittings at the time of the queen’s death in August 1714, but there is no record of any activity on his part in the House during this time; he was not even named to select committees established on the days when he was present.</p><p>As momentous as the early days of August 1714 were to the nation at large, to Rochford they had a personal significance, for on 3 Aug. 1714 he married the 15-year-old ‘Bessy’ Savage, the illegitimate daughter and principal heiress of the 4th Earl Rivers, with Elizabeth Colleton. At his death in 1712, Rivers’ estate had been in disarray, charged with debts of approximately £23,000. The will which he had drawn up in June 1711 led to confusion and acrimony. Rivers had tired to ensure that his heir male, his distant cousin the Catholic priest John Savage*, later 5th Earl Rivers, would inherit the Rivers estates only if he renounced Catholicism. If he failed to do so the estate was to be placed in trust for Bessy Savage until she reached her majority or married with her mother’s written consent (which Rochford received). From the time of his marriage Rochford was engaged in long negotiations with the many parties who disputed the terms of the will, particularly the 5th Earl Rivers and James Barry<sup>‡</sup>, 4th earl of Barrymore [I] and widower of the late Lady Elizabeth Savage, Rivers’ only legitimate daughter.<sup>7</sup> Oxford (as Harley had become) was an executor and trustee of the Rivers estate, which may explain why Rochford voted for his acquittal when the former lord treasurer was impeached in May 1717. Up to that point even Oxford himself was not sure how Rochford would vote. The remainder of his somewhat lacklustre parliamentary career will be considered in the next phase of this work.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
NASSAU VAN ZUYLESTEIN, Willem van (1649-1708) |
<p><strong><surname>NASSAU VAN ZUYLESTEIN</surname></strong>, <strong>Willem van</strong> (1649–1708)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>10 May 1695 earl of ROCHFORD. |
|
First sat 20 Feb. 1696; last sat 21 Jan. 1706 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 7 Oct. 1649, 1st s. of Frederik van Nassau van Zuylestein, heer van Zuylestein en Leersum, and Mary, da. of Sir William Killegrew<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m.</em> 28 Jan. 1681, Jane (<em>d</em>. 1703), da. of Sir Henry Wroth (Wrath), of Enfield, Mdx. 4s. 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>suc<em>.</em></em> fa. 12 Oct. 1672 as heer van Zuylestein en Leersum. <em>d</em>. 2 July 1708; <em>will</em> 10 Oct. 1699–6 Feb. 1705, pr. 14 Nov. 1709.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of robes 1690–5.</p><p>Capt. tp. of horse [Army of the States-General] 1672–9, coy. of Life Guards [Army of the States-General], 1674–9; col. regt. of horse [Army of the States-General], 1679–<em>d.</em>; major-gen.? (‘adjudant-generaal’) [Army of the States-General], 1682–1702;<sup>3</sup> maj.-gen. of horse [English Army], 1691–5; lt. gen. 1695–<em>d.</em>;<sup>4</sup> col. regt. of Dutch Guards [Army of the States-General], 1700–2.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Envoy extraordinary, England [from States-General] 1687, 1688.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, Godfrey Kneller, c.1695, National Trust for Scotland, Brodick Castle, Arran.</p> |
<p>Willem van Nassau van Zuylestein was the son of Frederik, lord of Zuylestein and Leersum, an illegitimate child of Frederik Hendrik, prince of Orange, and thus the uncle of William of Orange, later William III of England. Frederik’s wife was Mary Killigrew, a maid of honour to Mary Stuart, and the princess of Orange chose him to act as guardian and tutor to the young and fatherless prince of Orange from 1659. Frederik’s son Willem was only one year older than his cousin the prince and quickly became one of his close hunting and military companions. He apparently had a propensity for idleness, at least according to one hostile observer: ‘Nobody could have shone better than him’, a fellow courtier wrote in his memoirs, ‘if only he had wished to make the effort.’ He was good-looking, witty, gallant and had ‘the air of a man of quality’, but, this commentator continues, ‘an enemy of work and discipline’.<sup>7</sup> Nevertheless, from the time that Willem inherited his father’s lordships of Zuylestein, Leersum and Ginckel in October 1672, he rose steadily within the army of the States-General and in the prince’s favour. His affair with one of Princess Mary’s maids of honour, Jane Wroth, resulted in a precipitous marriage in 1681, much to William’s chagrin, who had destined him for a more illustrious match.</p><p>William entrusted him with an embassy to England in 1687, whose covert purpose was to gauge the extent of the opposition to James II. In June 1688 he led another embassy to congratulate James II on the birth of his son, but on the side he was reforging his links with the English opposition, thrown in turmoil by the birth of this prince, and probably had a hand in encouraging the ‘Immortal Seven’ to address their invitation to William of Orange.<sup>8</sup> He provided the prince with valuable intelligence on English developments in the weeks and days preceding the invasion of the autumn and was a principal military leader during November and December 1688.<sup>9</sup> He was closely involved in James II’s last days in England. It was he who on behalf of William visited James in Whitehall upon his return from Faversham and brusquely rebuffed the king’s offers for a meeting with the prince, advising the king to retire from the capital.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Nassau van Zuylestein, usually referred to merely as Zuylestein, was part of William’s new ‘Dutch’ regime in England and was one of the king’s favourites after the Revolution. But he and some of William’s other close Dutch companions, such as Hendrik van Nassau-Ouwerkerk, made it clear to William’s secretary, Constantijn Huygens the younger, that they did not wish to become involved in English politics, knowing that ‘in England the manner was that the favourites and counsellors were accused and punished when the kings had done some wrong’. Nor did he wish – at that point at least – to be made a peer of the realm by the king, for then he would have to serve in Parliament.<sup>11</sup> Zuylestein’s fears were initially justified by the animosity directed towards the only one of William’s close Dutch followers to be promoted to the peerage in 1689 – Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. He was, however, rewarded in other ways by the new king. A bill for his English naturalization was given the royal assent on 11 May 1689, and he was appointed master of the robes in March 1690. His services to William were principally military, and in March 1691 he was made a major-general in the English army to add to his posts in the Dutch military. He regularly fought in William’s summer campaigns in Flanders and he conducted himself with distinction at the battle of Landen in 1693, where he was taken prisoner twice, but was later exchanged for French prisoners in the Allies’ custody.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Eventually Zuylestein’s resistance to a title seems to have relented and on 10 May 1695 he was created Baron Enfield (after the birthplace of his wife), Viscount Tunbridge and earl of Rochford. He was the second of William’s original Dutch followers, after Portland, to receive an English peerage. At the same time his duties as master of the robes were conveyed to William III’s new favourite, Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, in 1697. Indeed, Rochford’s creation may have been in part a way of ‘kicking him upstairs’ in order to bestow the court position close to the person of the king on Keppel, who was climbing rapidly in the king’s favour and was already a fierce rival of Portland. In June 1695 William also promoted Rochford to be a lieutenant-general in the Allied army. Finally, in December Rochford was provided with an annual pension of £1,000, out of the receipts of the post office, to better support his new English dignity.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Rochford did not take his seat in the House until 20 Feb. 1696, well into the 1695–6 session of the new Parliament, and in total he only attended 29 per cent of its sittings. On his first day he was introduced between Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough). He next sat on 24 Feb., when William III addressed both Houses with information about the assassination plot against him. Perhaps Rochford, in the inner circles of William’s court, knew the details in advance and decided to start attending the House at this period of crisis for the regime. Certainly he was quick to sign the Association when it was ready for subscription on 27 February. He may also have made a special effort to be in the House to see through a bill for the English naturalization of his seven eldest children, who were all under 16 years old at the time.<sup>14</sup> The bill was first read in the House on 5 Mar. and committed on 7 March. It was passed by the House only three days after that and received the royal assent on 10 April. Rochford was also a manager for a conference on the privateers bill on 6 April and was named to three select committees on legislation in this session.</p><p>His attendance was better in the following session of 1696–7, at 54 per cent, the highest rate of attendance of his parliamentary career, and he was named to 12 committees. He was absent in the middle of December during the hearings on the attainder bill against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and at the calls of the House on 15 and 16 Dec. his absence was excused because he was ‘indisposed’. He thus missed the vote on the second reading of the bill but, a loyal supporter of the king and his ministry, arrived back in the House on 22 Dec. to vote in favour of the attainder the following day. He was present at 39 per cent of the meetings of the 1697–8 session, when he was named to 11 committees, voted for the committal of the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> on 15 Mar. 1698 and protested when the bill was rejected. On 30 June Rochford left the House and registered his proxy in favour of Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, for the remaining five days of the session and of that Parliament.</p><p>Rochford was principally occupied in this session with a controversial matter involving his estate and his position in England. At the time of creating him earl in May 1695, the king had taken steps to grant to both Rochford and Portland the forfeited estate of the outlawed Jacobite exile William Herbert*, marquess of Powis. The estate was estimated to be worth £10,000 p.a., with property principally in Middlesex, Northamptonshire and Montgomeryshire.<sup>15</sup> Rochford was to receive the major part of the estate, including the Herbert ancestral home of Powis Castle (the ‘Red Castle’) in Montgomeryshire. His grant of this estate was not made formal and sealed until April 1696, however, and the delay may have been owing to a number of legal challenges from Powis’s heir, William Herbert*, who succeeded (in his own opinion) his father as 2nd marquess of Powis in June 1696, shortly after the formal grant.<sup>16</sup> Owing to his father’s outlawry and his own for Jacobite plotting, William Herbert was officially a commoner and was generally known at this time merely by his courtesy title of Viscount Montgomery. He refused to accept this dispersal of his ancestral land to a usurping foreigner without a fight and largely through proxies and agents he was involved in legal wrangles with Rochford concerning the estate for most of 1696. By the end of that year, however, Rochford’s claim to the majority of the property had been made good.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In April 1697, as he was about to embark for Flanders for another summer’s campaigning, Rochford formally invoked his privilege of peerage to forestall a number of actions of ejectment that were then in the law courts against his tenants on the former Herbert lands. On 17 Mar. 1698 he submitted to the House a petition against the contravention of his privilege which had occurred in the preceding year and which had resulted in the ejection of some of his tenants and loss of much of these properties. Counsel for both sides were heard, and debate on the petition held, during the last week of March. Rochford found himself opposed by the trustees of the late marquess of Powis, the prominent English peers Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, and Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort. Perhaps seeing that the House’s mood was against him, Rochford agreed on 31 Mar. 1698 to waive his privilege and withdraw his petition so that the legal hearings could proceed.<sup>18</sup> Montgomery was always under government suspicion but in 1701 he was allowed to return to England to raise money on his estate, which suggests that his legal actions against Rochford were in part successful.<sup>19</sup> Perhaps in recompense for this legal setback, on 8 July 1698 William III granted to Rochford a total of 39,871 acres of forfeited Irish lands, ‘in consideration of his many good and acceptable services’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Rochford maintained a low attendance of only 19 per cent (17 sittings in all) in the 1698–9 session, and he was named to no committees. He may have been discouraged by his troubles with Montgomery, as well as by the attacks in Parliament on the army, and especially on the Dutch troops, of which he was such a prominent representative. He came to 40 per cent of the meetings of the session of 1699–1700, when again he was not named to a single committee, but did on 23 Feb. 1700 sign the protest against the passage of the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation. He clearly had a personal stake in the bill for the resumption of William’s grants of forfeited Irish lands, but he did not sign the protest of 10 Apr. 1700 against the House’s decision not to insist on their own wrecking amendment to the bill, probably because by that time William III had ordered his followers to desist from opposing the bill so that he could receive badly needed supply. Interestingly, contemporaries writing about the tumult surrounding this measure did not generally make a point of commenting on Rochford’s large holdings of forfeited Irish lands, while they took delight in noting the discomfiture that the measure caused to other favoured grantees such as Portland, Albemarle and Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey.</p><p>In the wake of the humiliation caused by this bill, William dissolved the uncooperative Parliament, dismissed many of his Junto ministers and set about forming a new mixed ministry. Rochford attended just less than a third of the meetings of this Parliament of 1701, where he was nominated to four committees. He was involved in the impeachment proceedings of the former Junto ministers and on 15 May helped the new ministry successfully carry two divisions aimed to shut down discussion of motions critical of the king’s decision of the previous summer to follow the advice of his ministers and to prorogue and ultimately dissolve Parliament. The attack on the Junto ministers then facing impeachment was, according to one commentator, defeated ‘by the help of some unusual friends’, including Rochford, Albemarle and Jersey.<sup>21</sup> Rochford was later present on 17 and 23 June to vote for the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford.</p><p>Badly afflicted by gout, Rochford was increasingly withdrawing from life at Westminster, or indeed even Kensington. At the turn of the century he bought from the Wingfield family an English residence, ‘the White House’, at Easton in Suffolk, and he also frequently travelled back to his Dutch properties at Zuylestein, near Utrecht.<sup>22</sup> At a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, in the early days of the new Parliament, he was marked as absent because of being ‘abroad’, and he only showed up to the House for three meetings of that Parliament, all in the second half of March 1702, probably to be present at the funeral of his old friend William III.</p><p>With the death of William III and the accession of Anne, Rochford abandoned an England whose ruler he did not know and who showed no favour towards him. His absence was largely accepted as a given among the English political class. Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, continued to include him in his calculations of Whig strength in the divisions on the Occasional Conformity bill in 1703, but noted next to his name that it was ‘uncertain whether he will come over but if he does certainly good [for the Whigs]’. An English commentator still marked him as a Whig in his analysis of the partisan composition of the House preceding the first meeting of the first Parliament of Great Britain in 1708. But Rochford only attended one meeting of any of Anne’s Parliaments, during a brief visit that he made to England in January 1706 in the company of Sunderland, John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, in which they presented the captured standards of the French forces defeated during the previous summer’s campaign.<sup>23</sup> While in England he came into the House for one sitting, on 21 Jan. 1706, and then a week later registered his proxy in favour of Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton.</p><p>Rochford spent the years of Anne’s reign on his estates in Zuylestein, where he developed the house’s gardens and assiduously promoted the military careers of his first three sons with his colleagues Marlborough and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>24</sup> He died there on 2 July 1708, and his English and Dutch titles and a large part of his estate, including lands in Suffolk, Montgomeryshire and Utrecht, were passed on to his heir, William Henry van Nassau*, 2nd earl of Rochford, with an injunction to him that the remainder of the estate was to be divided equally among his six younger siblings.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
NASSAU VAN ZUYLESTEIN, William Henry (1682-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>NASSAU VAN ZUYLESTEIN</surname></strong>, <strong>William Henry</strong> (1682–1710)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Visct. TUNBRIDGE 1695-1708; <em>suc. </em>fa. 2 July 1708 as 2nd earl of ROCHFORD |
|
First sat 16 Nov. 1708; last sat 16 Feb. 1710 |
|
MP Kilkenny [I] 1705-10, Steyning 3 May-2 July 1708. |
<p><em>b</em>. 1682, 1st s. of Willem Nassau*, heer van Zuylestein, Leersum, and Ginckel (later earl of Rochford), and Jane, da. of Sir Henry Wroth of Enfield, Mdx.; bro. of Frederick Nassau van Zuylestein*, 3rd earl of Rochford. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>Unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 2 July 1708 as heer van Zuylestein, Leersum, and Ginckel. <em>d</em>. 16 July 1710;<sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> 23 June 1709, pr. 25 Apr. 1711.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Brevet col. regt. of ft. [I] 1704–5; aide-de-camp to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, 1704; lt. col. regt. of ft. gds. 1704–6;<sup>3</sup> col. regt. of ft. 1706–7, regt. of drag. 1707–<em>d</em>.; brig. gen. 1 Jan. 1710–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>In April 1696 the Dutch-born William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein, along with six of his siblings, was naturalized by act of Parliament.<sup>4</sup> In the subsequent years he embodied the alliance of England and the Netherlands and threw himself fully into the Anglo-Dutch war effort against France that had been forged by his father and his father’s friend and patron, William of Orange. While his father effectively abandoned England and retired back to Zuylestein at the accession of Anne, the son, styled Viscount Tunbridge from 1695, remained active in English and Irish affairs. He was spared by his early death in battle in 1710 from witnessing the calumnies heaped on the Dutch alliance by the incoming Tory ministry.</p><p>Tunbridge’s father pushed him and all his younger brothers into the military life. He started his career when barely 21 years old, serving as a volunteer in the Cadiz expedition led by James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, who remained his principal patron throughout his career. Ormond later gave Tunbridge a brevet as colonel on the Irish establishment in 1704 but that spring Tunbridge was fighting in Flanders. He wrote to Ormond to apologize for his absence, explaining that his father had ‘hurried me into the field as soon as I came over’ and insisting that he had abandoned his responsibilities in Ireland ‘with no other design than to render myself capable to be fit for the post your grace has been pleased to give me’. Prophetically, he wrote in May 1704 from Flanders, just before the Danube campaign, that ‘one thing I see plainly, that we shall have a great many marches’.<sup>5</sup> He carried the official dispatches of victory at Blenheim back to England in August 1704 and received a gift of £1,000 for bringing the good news.<sup>6</sup></p><p>For most of the remainder of 1704 and all of 1705 Tunbridge was either in London or Zuylestein and seldom appeared in Ireland. Nevertheless, Ormond was able to gratify his, and his father’s, requests for preferment. In 1705 he was elected for Ormond’s borough of Kilkenny in the Irish Parliament. Although classified as a Tory in 1707, he seldom attended the chamber in Dublin, owing to his military commitments abroad and political responsibilities in London.<sup>7</sup> In May 1708 he was returned for Steyning in Sussex but his father’s death in early July and his accession to the peerage meant that he was unable to take his seat in the Commons. He solicited both Marlborough and Ormond that they would ensure that the pension of £1,000 granted to his father to support his title would be transferred to him. Both promised their support but the pension was never forthcoming.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Rochford attended the House from the first day of the new Parliament and was an assiduous attendee of its first session of 1708–9, coming to 84 per cent of its meetings. He was most active in the first months of 1709. On 21 Jan. he voted with the government in supporting the motion that a Scots peer who possessed a British title could vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. On 25 Jan. he chaired and reported from a committee of the whole house discussing the bill for the recruitment of land forces. On 21 Mar. he reported from the committee on the bill for Morison’s Haven, also known as Hadingtoun, in East Lothian; and on the last day of the session, 21 Apr. 1709, he was a manager in a conference to discuss the continuation of acts to prevent counterfeit coining.</p><p>By contrast Rochford came to only one meeting of Parliament (on 16 Feb. 1710) in all of the following (1709–10) session of Parliament. This was probably because of his increased military responsibilities. At the time of the vote on Dr. Sacheverell’s case in March 1710 he was marked as ‘employed abroad’ to explain his absence from the House. His military colleague James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> [1242], (later Earl Stanhope), considered Rochford a reliable Whig vote when he wrote to Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Orford) in June 1710 that ‘my Lord Rochford, I believe, I need not recommend, when you remember that he has a voice in the House of Lords which I venture to promise will be as you and I think right’.<sup>9</sup> These hopes were dashed shortly thereafter when Rochford was killed leading his dragoons at the battle of Almenara in Spain in July 1710. In his will of June 1709, written just before he embarked for Spain, the unmarried and childless Rochford took great pains to ensure that his own estate of which he had disposition was distributed among his many younger siblings, especially to his second brother, Maurice, and to his youngest brother, Henry. His next brother, Frederick, who had already inherited their father’s lordship of Waayestein in Utrecht (purchased in 1696), came into all the remaining English and Dutch titles and lands and went on to have a long career in the House of Lords.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
NEVILL, George (c. 1623-66) |
<p><strong><surname>NEVILL</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (c. 1623–66)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 23 Oct. 1662 as 11th Bar. ABERGAVENNY (BERGAVENNY) |
|
First sat 20 Feb. 1663; last sat 17 May 1664 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. 1623, 2nd surv. s. of Henry Nevill<sup>†</sup>, 9th (or 2nd) Bar. Abergavenny (<em>d</em>. 1641), and Catharine (<em>d</em>. 1649), da. of George Vaux; bro. of John Nevill*, 10th Bar. Abergavenny. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. bef. Feb. 1664, Mary (c. 1630–99), da. of Dr. Thomas Gifford of Dunton Waylett, Essex, 1s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 2 June 1666; <em>will</em> 29 May, pr. 16 July 1666.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Nevill succeeded to the peerage in the autumn of 1662.<sup>2</sup> The succession to the barony has prompted some confusion: some authorities seem to indicate that the 11th Baron Abergavenny’s peerage should be considered a new creation, presumably on the grounds that the barony could be argued to have gone into abeyance on the death of the previous holder. The <em>Complete Peerage</em> states inaccurately that he was never summoned to the House. Whatever the apparent concerns over the descent of the peerage, Abergavenny, a Catholic like his brother, took his seat on 20 Feb. 1663 unchallenged, and was awarded the precedency of the ancient barony. He attended 78 per cent of all sitting days and on 25 Feb. was named to the committee for petitions.</p><p>Money, which had been the previous holder’s greatest preoccupation, also proved to be Abergavenny’s principal concern during his brief tenure of the barony. He succeeded to a depleted estate following the land sales presided over by his brother, though he retained land in Kent, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire.<sup>3</sup> Shortly after taking his seat, Abergavenny was the subject of a petition from his sister-in-law, the dowager baroness, who complained that he had refused her rights to dower. On 7 May 1663 she entered a further petition claiming that Abergavenny had impeded her ability to seek restitution at law by insisting on his privilege as a peer. With Abergavenny’s agreement, the House determined that the matter should be referred to the arbitration of a committee comprising the lord privy seal, John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and the lord chamberlain, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. Ashley was deputed to act on behalf of the dowager Lady Abergavenny. At the same time, the House also received petitions from Abergavenny’s sister, Frances Nevill, seeking the payment of her portion, and from his cousins the Nevills of Bathwick, who claimed not to have received the £200 promised to them by the previous lord in return for their agreement to the act enabling him to sell lands.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In common with a number of other Catholic peers, Abergavenny appears to have aligned himself with the opposition to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and on 13 July Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed Abergavenny among those who he believed would support Clarendon’s impeachment.<sup>5</sup> Abergavenny quit the chamber for the remainder of the session on 18 July. On 25 July 1663, the referees to his dispute with his sister-in-law reported in her favour. It was possibly in response to this that Abergavenny commenced an action in chancery in December. He protested at the efforts of the dowager and of Henry Pinkney and John Prosser, two creditors of the former baron, to burden him with his brother’s unpaid debts. Pinkney, Prosser, and the dowager insisted that Abergavenny had made himself liable by virtue of an agreement made with his brother in 1659.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Abergavenny took his seat in the new session on 2 Apr. 1664. He attended on 61 per cent of all sitting days and on 21 Apr. he was named to the committee considering the bill against gaming. He sat for the last time on 17 May. On 23 Nov. he entrusted his proxy to Northampton, which was vacated by the close of the session on 2 Mar. 1665.</p><p>On 29 May 1666 Abergavenny composed his will, in which he devised his manors of Birling and Huddesdon in Kent to his daughter, Winifred (there seems only to have been one daughter, though she is referred to also as Bridget or Mary). She later married her stepbrother, Sir John Shelley of Michelgrove.<sup>7</sup> Lady Abergavenny was left the entire personal estate and appointed guardian to their infant son, George Nevill*, who succeeded his father as 12th Baron Abergavenny. In the event of his wife’s death, Abergavenny appointed his brother-in-law Gregory Gifford, Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, and Northampton as guardians to his heir. Abergavenny died four days later and was buried at Birling on 14 June. His widow later married Sir Charles Shelley.<sup>8</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NEVILL, George (c. 1658-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>NEVILL</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (c. 1658–1721)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 26 Mar. 1695 as 13th Bar. ABERGAVENNY (BERGAVENNY) |
|
First sat 1 May 1695; last sat 15 July 1717 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. 1658, 1st s. of George Nevill (<em>d</em>. 1665) of Newton St Loe, Som. and Sheffield Park, Suss. and Mary, da. of Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Eton, c. 1669–73;<sup>1</sup> M. Temple, 1673;<sup>2</sup> St John’s, Oxf. matric. 1676. <em>m</em>. 10 Apr. 1697 (conf. 22 Oct. 1698), Anne (<em>d</em>. 1748), da. of Nehemiah Walker of Mdx., sea captain; 3s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 2da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 11 Mar. 1721; <em>will</em> 16 Dec. 1708–24 Nov. 1720, pr. 17 Aug. 1723.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber to Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland.</p> |
|
<p>Nevill appears to have had pretensions as a scholar. Macky reckoned that he had ‘learning, wit, and one of the best libraries in England’.<sup>7</sup> Perhaps more importantly, he was the first Protestant to hold the barony.<sup>8</sup> Although fairly distantly related to the direct line, Nevill had been for several years the probable heir to the peerage. His rights as such were jealously protected by his grandfather, Bulstrode Whitelocke, who had assumed the young man’s guardianship after the death of his father in a bar-room brawl in Croydon.<sup>9</sup> George Nevill survived the affray long enough to make a will, appointing Whitelocke, his son, Sir William Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>, and John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, trustees and directing that his estate at Newton St Loe in Somerset should be sold to pay off debts and raise portions for his children.<sup>10</sup> A substantial estate at Sheffield Park in Sussex remained and in time the heir to the barony of Abergavenny could expect to inherit lands in Suffolk, Monmouthshire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire, Kent, and Sussex, as well as an annual income of almost £2,700 from his cousin.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Nevill’s education included a spell at the Middle Temple, where his uncle Whitelocke was a bencher, before proceeding to St. John’s College, Oxford. His activities in the period between leaving Oxford and succeeding to the peerage are not clear but it is likely that he supported William of Orange, who stayed with William Whitelocke (then associated with the Whigs) in December 1688.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Abergavenny took his seat in the House on 1 May 1695, a little over a month after his succession to the peerage and just three days before the close of the session. He rapidly involved himself with preparations for the new Parliament and in November he was vigorous in rallying his tenants in support of the sitting members for Sussex against the pretensions of the Tory challenger, Robert Orme<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 6 Dec., after which he was present on approximately 78 per cent of sitting days and during which he was named to four committees. He returned to the House for the following session on 6 Nov. 1696, of which he attended a little over three-quarters of sitting days. During this session he was named to 25 committees, many of which were for private bills concerned with settling estates and paying off debts. On 23 Dec. 1696 he voted in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>The early months of 1697 appear to have seen Abergavenny associating with his Sussex neighbour John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and also with James Brydges*, later duke of Chandos.<sup>14</sup> Shortly before the end of the session, Abergavenny appears to have entered into a secret, and possibly invalid, marriage with Anne Walker, daughter of his landlady and a ship’s captain. The <em>Complete Peerage</em> records that Nevill was married under a false name, even though the officiating minister, was well aware of his true identity. The new baroness had nothing to recommend her but her ‘virtue and goodness’; such qualities failed to prevent the marriage from proving to be a tempestuous liaison marked by scandal.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Besides marrying, Abergavenny was also intent on consolidating his hold on the Nevill estate. Towards the close of the year, he initiated the first of a series of legal challenges in chancery in an effort to gain control of the lands which he had inherited from his cousin.<sup>16</sup> The principal difficulty appears to have stemmed from the fact that several agents managed the disparate holdings: Abergavenny inherited 13 stewards and bailiffs assigned to oversee his affairs.<sup>17</sup> Matters were further complicated by the existence of two dowager baronesses, the mother and wife of the former lord, both of whom were resolute in the defence of lands which they considered to be part of their jointure estate.<sup>18</sup> Over the following four years he was forced to pursue further legal action in an attempt to regain control of his property but he does not appear to have claimed privilege in his efforts to secure his inheritance.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Abergavenny returned to the House on 3 Dec. 1697. He was named to the sessional committee for privileges and was thereafter present on approximately 80 per cent of all sitting days. This high level of attendance was further reflected in his being named to 45 committees during the course of the session. Abergavenny voted to commit the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and then protested against the bill's defeat. The following month, on 14 Apr., Abergavenny was one of the tellers for the vote to reverse the judgment in the case of <em>Morley v Jones</em>, and on 28 June he was named one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning the impeachments depending against John Goudet and others. On the final day of the session he was one of six peers added to the committee for examining the Journal. Abergavenny also undertook to employ his interest at Monmouthshire on behalf of Sir Charles Kemys<sup>‡</sup> in the general election later that summer but in the event Kemys seems to have decided not to re-contest the seat.<sup>20</sup> On 22 Oct. Abergavenny and Anne Walker underwent a second and undoubtedly legal marriage ceremony.</p><p>Abergavenny took his seat in the new session on 27 Oct. but he was then absent from the House until 6 December. Having resumed his place he was regular in his attendance for the remainder of the session, being present for approximately 88 per cent of sitting days. On 9 Dec. he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and the Journal. Nominated to a number of committees during the session, on 29 Apr. 1699 he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the Legg naturalization bill.</p><p>The death of Mary, dowager Baroness Abergavenny, on 14 Nov. 1699 improved Abergavenny’s financial state considerably.<sup>21</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 16 Nov. and proceeded to attend on approximately two-thirds of sitting days. On 23 Jan. 1700 he entered his protest at the resolution that the judgment be reversed over the writ of error of <em>R. Williamson v the Crown</em>. On 1 Feb. he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 23 Feb. he voted against adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to the East India Company bill. On 4 Apr. he entered a protest against the resolution to read the land tax bill and bill of Irish forfeitures a second time and on 10 Apr. he protested again at the resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill. A list of lords and their party affiliations of 11 July marked Abergavenny as a supporter of the Junto.</p><p>That summer, Abergavenny was one of the barons detailed to bear the pall at he funeral of William, duke of Gloucester.<sup>22</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on approximately 86 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 6 June he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning impeachments and on 10 June he was named a manager of a second conference on the same issue. On 17 and 23 June he voted in favour of acquitting his political allies, John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. During the same session he was said to have been persuaded by Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, to use his interest on behalf of Elizabeth Lady Inchiquin, in a cause then before the House.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Abergavenny took his seat in the new session at the close of the year on 30 December. His attendance declined noticeably in comparison with the previous session, with him present on just 54 per cent of sitting days. His reduced attendance was perhaps the result of continuing wrangling over securing his estates in Warwickshire and Monmouthshire.<sup>24</sup> On 8 Mar. 1702 he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the king’s death and the accession of Queen Anne but he was absent from the session after 1 April. On 9 May he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.</p><p>Abergavenny returned to the House at the opening of the new session of October 1702, after which he was present on 79 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Oct. he was named to the committee for inspecting the Journal. The session was dominated by the debates over the occasional conformity bill. A forecast of 1 Jan. 1703 listed Abergavenny among those opposed to the bill and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. On 19 Jan. he entered his protest at the resolution not to agree with the committee in leaving out a clause that would allow Prince George of Denmark to serve as a member of the Privy Council, sit in the House, and hold office in the event of his outliving Queen Anne. The protestors’ objections stemmed from their concerns that the scope of the original measure had been extended and might be deemed to include the prince unless specific provision were to be made for him.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, estimated that Abergavenny would again oppose the occasional conformity bill. He took his seat in the new session on 26 Nov. and the same day was once more estimated by Sunderland as a likely opponent of the bill. Present for approximately 72 per cent of sitting days, Abergavenny voted, as expected, against the occasional conformity bill on 14 December. Two days later, he dined at the Red Lion in Pall Mall in company with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), John Lovelace*, 4th Baron Lovelace, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and other associates of the Whig Junto.<sup>26</sup> The meeting may well have been an opportunity to discuss their response to the queen’s speech.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Over the ensuing months Abergavenny was regularly in company with Ossulston and fellow Whigs, possibly as part of the Junto’s co-ordinated response to the Scotch Plot.<sup>28</sup> On 24 Mar. he subscribed the protest entered against the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect. Abergavenny quit the chamber for the remainder of the session on 3 April. On 20 Nov. he registered his proxy in Mohun’s favour and three days later he was excused at a call of the House.</p><p>He returned to the chamber for the new session of December 1704, during which he was present on approximately 52 per cent of sitting days. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was nominated one of the managers of a conference to consider the heads of a conference with the Commons regarding the Aylesbury men, and on 7 Mar. he was again named one of the managers of a conference considering the bill to prevent traitorous correspondence. Abergavenny failed to sit during the remainder of the session after 14 March. In mid-April he was marked a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. On 12 Nov. he was again excused his absence at a call of the House.</p><p>Abergavenny was estimated to be one of those active in Captain Lucy’s interest for the Warwickshire election of 1705. He took his seat on 13 Feb. 1706 but proceeded to attend only 17 of the 95 sitting days.<sup>29</sup> On 6 Mar. he registered his proxy with his old dining companion Stamford; it was vacated by the close of the session. On 3 Dec. he took his seat for the new session and on 4 Dec. he was again named to the committees for privileges and the Journal. He then proceeded to attend on just 16 of the session’s 86 days. Missing without explanation at a call of the House on 29 Jan. 1707, on 16 Feb. Abergavenny dined again at Lord Ossulston’s in company with Algernon Seymour*, styled earl of Hertford (later 7th duke of Somerset), and Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis.<sup>30</sup> On 4 Mar. he registered his proxy again in Stamford’s favour; again it was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Abergavenny was unsurprisingly listed as a Whig in an estimate of the composition of the first Parliament of Great Britain in May 1708. He took his seat on 26 Nov. but attended only five days before once more quitting for the remainder of the session. With the exception of one day in February and another in July 1708, he was thereafter missing from the attendance lists for the ensuing three years. It seems likely that poor health may have been the reason for this sudden falling off in Abergavenny’s involvement with the House, as in December 1708 he composed his will, revoking a settlement made only three months before in favour of his wife. Naming Somers, Herbert, and Nicholas Lechmere<sup>‡</sup> as his executors, he divided his estate between his children George Nevill*, later 14th Baron Abergavenny, Edward<sup>†</sup> [56], later 15th Baron Abergavenny, and Jane.<sup>31</sup> No mention was made of his eldest son, Henry.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Abergavenny was absent in the country at the time of the Sacheverell trial in the spring of 1710. The summer saw the openings of a protracted action brought by the Royal Society against him, Thomas Howard*, 8th duke of Norfolk, and Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, over the non-payment of a fee farm rent.<sup>33</sup> Abergavenny eventually returned to the chamber on 15 Dec. 1711, but his attendance remained lacklustre with him present on a mere 9 days of the 107-day session. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House by right of his British dukedom of Brandon and on 20 Dec. he voted as expected in favour of preventing all Scots peers from sitting by virtue of British titles created after the Union. The following day he registered his proxy in favour of Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, which was vacated by his return to the House the following February.</p><p>Abergavenny and his wife were said to have separated in January 1712, following a disturbing incident in which Lady Abergavenny was reported to have killed one of their children. The principal source for this tale is Lady Wentworth, whose account makes little sense. According to the report, Lady Abergavenny was said to have thrown her seven-year-old daughter to the floor with such force that it broke her skull but Jane Nevill (aged almost nine at the time) cannot have been the victim as she lived for almost 75 years after the event. Abergavenny’s eldest son, Henry, does appear to have died around the date Lady Wentworth recorded, but as he was born in about 1701 he fails to fit the description either.<sup>34</sup> It seems most likely, then, that the premature death of Henry and the separation of his parents shortly after gave rise to an apocryphal story based perhaps on Lady Abergavenny’s apparently well-attested tempestuous character.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Abergavenny’s attendance in the House appears to have been more sporadic after this event. Although he was missing from the attendance list on 29 Feb. 1712, he was added to the committee for privileges that day, so was presumably in attendance at some point during the sitting. He resumed his seat on 7 Mar. but attended on just five more days before retiring for the remainder of the session. On 19 Mar. he again registered his proxy with Rockingham, which was vacated by the close. Estimated as being opposed to confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty, he took his seat once more on 24 June 1713, after which he attended 23 per cent of the whole. On 29 June the House ordered that Philip Seale and Nicholas Wood should be attached for imprisoning Abergavenny’s steward, William Osman, contrary to privilege, as well as for abusing Abergavenny himself.<sup>36</sup> Seale and Wood were brought before the bar of the House on 8 July. They were reprimanded for their behaviour by the lord chancellor, Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, but were then discharged.</p><p>Abergavenny attended four more days before the end of the session. He then took his seat once more on 23 Feb. 1714, after which he attended a slightly higher proportion of the new session, being present on approximately half of all sitting days. The case with the Royal Society also reached a resolution in February, with the court of exchequer ordering that Abergavenny pay arrears totalling £475 13<em>s</em>., as well as costs amounting to £137.<sup>37</sup> On 23 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of Rockingham once more, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 16 June, after which he sat without major interruption until 8 July. During his absence he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being opposed to the schism bill.</p><p>Abergavenny failed to attend the brief 15-day session that met following the death of Queen Anne in August. He returned to the chamber for one day on 23 Sept. but otherwise neglected the House until July of the following year. While the accession of George I might have been thought conducive to his career, he seems not to have benefited from the change of regime. Personal matters may provide one explanation for this: the birth of a second daughter, Anne, in 1715 presumably meant that Abergavenny and his wife had reconciled at some point the previous year. Although Abergavenny was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, on 30 July his rate of attendance remained low and he was present on just 23 days of the session before registering his own proxy with his Sussex neighbour, Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl of Dorset, on 11 Aug. (thereby vacating Westmorland’s proxy).</p><p>Absent throughout 1716, Abergavenny had apparently intended to be in London in April but his visit was deferred at the behest of one of his agents, Robert Harriss.<sup>38</sup> He eventually returned to the capital and took his seat in the Lords once more on 12 June 1717 but attended for just 19 days before quitting the chamber for the final time on 15 July. On 26 July a warrant was passed giving Abergavenny a pension of £1,000 p.a. from secret service funds.<sup>39</sup> He registered his proxy in favour of Newcastle on 23 November. In August of the following year a further warrant for payment of Abergavenny’s £1,000 annuity was made out and in October Abergavenny bought the Sussex estate of John Allen for £4,100.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Abergavenny registered his proxy with Newcastle twice more: first on 7 Nov. 1718 and latterly on 21 Nov. 1719, by which time he was said to be suffering from poor health. He also appears to have been experiencing financial hardships and in a letter of that date conveying the proxy form to Newcastle, Abergavenny asked that the duke might use his interest with Sunderland to secure a further £200 for his pension.<sup>41</sup></p><p>The deaths of Somers and Herbert compelled Abergavenny to add a codicil to his will on 24 Nov. 1720 appointing Edward Medley and Anthony Springett executors in their stead.<sup>42</sup> Abergavenny’s proxy was registered in favour of Sunderland on 6 Jan. 1721. In a letter dated the following day, he set out the reason for his absence and also recommended an alternative proxy-holder in the event of Sunderland being unable to take charge of it:</p><blockquote><p>I have the honour of yours with a blank proxy enclosed, and am sorry my own indisposition with other misfortunes prevents my being in town this sessions as I intended, but hope to be there before it is over. In obedience to your commands I have signed and sealed the proxy, and in case your lordship is not full beg you to fill it up with your own name; if you are, I think the duke of Dorset a proper person.</p></blockquote><p>Raising again the question of his government pension, Abergavenny complained that his grant was ‘so ill paid that I am now five or six quarters behind’ and entreated that he might ‘at least fare as others do, who I hear are more punctually paid’.<sup>43</sup> He died early in the morning of 11 Mar. 1721 from dropsy before the matter could be resolved.<sup>44</sup> A full account of his career after the accession of George I will be given in the second part of this work. Abergavenny was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest surviving son, George, a minor aged between 18 and 20.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NEVILL, George (1665-95) |
<p><strong><surname>NEVILL</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1665–95)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 2 June 1666 (a minor) as 12th Bar. ABERGAVENNY (ABERGANY, BERGAVENNY) |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 21 Apr. 1665, o.s. of George Neville*, 11th Bar. Abergavenny (<em>d</em>. 1666), and Mary (<em>d</em>. 1699), da. of Thomas Gifford (1609–39) of Dunton Waylett, Essex. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (with £7,500),<sup>1</sup> Honora Belasyse (<em>d</em>. 1707), da. of John Belasyse*, Bar. Belasyse; <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 26 Mar. 1695; <em>will</em> 30 July 1694, pr. 29 Mar. 1695.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chief larderer at coronation of James II 1685.</p> |
|
<p>Nevill succeeded to the peerage aged one. Throughout his long minority, his guardianship was exercised by his mother and, following her second marriage, by her husband, the recusant Sir Charles Shelley of Michelgrove. Other members of the family were also closely associated with the Catholic community. Abergavenny’s aunt Elizabeth, dowager Lady Abergavenny, was implicated in the Popish Plot in 1680. An order to arrest her was issued on 11 Nov. 1680 but on 16 Nov. the House learned that she had absconded; a proclamation for her arrest was issued on 27 November. Abergavenny’s cousin Sir John Gifford was noted as being in France in 1695, while another relative, Lady Anne Neville, was abbess of the English Benedictine nuns of Pontoise.<sup>3</sup> On 8 Mar. 1670, long before he attained his majority, Abergavenny’s precedence as one of the premier barons of England was challenged by Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter. Fitzwalter’s petition was referred to the Lords while Abergavenny and other peers affected by the claim were represented by Charles Goring*, 2nd earl of Norwich. No decision appears to have been made and his successor, George Nevill*, was accorded the precedence of the ancient barony, effectively recognizing him as 13th Baron Abergavenny, when he took his seat on 1 May 1695.</p><p>As the head of an ancient Catholic noble family, Abergavenny could reasonably have expected to have been preferred under James II, and at the king’s coronation in 1685 he served in the hereditary office of chief larderer, a position that had been refused his uncle, John Nevill*, 10th Baron Abergavenny, at the coronation of Charles II. Still underage and presumably unable to satisfy the requirements of the Test Act, Abergavenny did not take his seat in the new Parliament, but the following year he was dispensed from taking the oaths.<sup>4</sup> In November 1686 he was granted a warrant for holding a fair and markets at Tunbridge Wells, close to his manor of Eridge.<sup>5</sup> Abergavenny’s aunt Elizabeth, dowager Lady Abergavenny, took advantage of the improved conditions for Catholics by bringing an action of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> against several printers for imputing her involvement in the Popish plot.<sup>6</sup> The same year Abergavenny, his mother, and his aunt faced a suit in the court of exchequer commenced by Edward and Judith Bathurst concerning rights to timber in woodland at Ryarsh in Kent. Abergavenny denied the allegations but he does not appear to have claimed privilege of peerage, and he lost the case.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Despite frequent rumours of likely appointments, Abergavenny failed to secure a place of any note. Reports that he was to become treasurer of the household, lord lieutenant of Sussex, and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Somerset all proved to be inaccurate.<sup>8</sup> The Revolution of 1688 utterly destroyed any expectations Abergavenny may have had. He was recorded as missing at a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689 and on 31 July he was again disturbed by a petition from the Bathursts, seeking permission to pursue sequestration for payment of the award made two years previously, suggesting that the threat of privilege of peerage had been invoked to frustrate the decree. The cause was referred to the committee for privileges but there is no record that it was discussed or adjudicated.</p><p>At a call of the House on 31 Mar. 1690, Abergavenny was somewhat curiously listed as ‘under-age’, despite being 24 years old: perhaps a reflection of his relative obscurity. He was well known within the Catholic community, and in October of the same year he was one of the peers nominated by Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I], to stand bail for him.<sup>9</sup> Two years later, Abergavenny was granted a licence to travel beyond five miles from his home for six months. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, mentions a Lady Abergavenny as being resident at Abbeville in 1693, so it is possible that Abergavenny was also abroad at this time.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On 14 Mar. 1693 Abergavenny presented a petition to the House claiming his privilege as a peer, after a group invaded his bedroom – ostensibly while searching for a highwayman. Abergavenny’s rented lodgings were in a building including a shop where the highwayman was said to have been observed. Witnesses were heard but Abergavenny’s request that the ringleader should be summoned to answer for his actions was rejected.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Abergavenny composed his will the following year. He died in March 1695 aged just 29. An inventory of his possessions compiled in June 1703 recorded £62 found in his pockets, and possessions at his houses in Bedford Row and Isleworth valued at £416 18<em>s</em>. 1½<em>d</em>. His executors, Benedict Richards and William Guise, also declared profits from his estates in Norfolk and Sussex accrued since his death, and the receipt of the principal and interest on a mortgage from ‘Lord Buckingham’ (probably John Villiers, who styled himself earl of Buckingham from 1687) amounting to £6,851 19<em>s</em>. 11<em>d</em>.<sup>12</sup> In his will, Abergavenny bequeathed all his personal estate and the sum of £7,500, part of his wife’s portion (which he had not yet received), to his executors for the payment of his debts. He was buried at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and succeeded by his Protestant cousin George Nevill as 13th Baron Abergavenny.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NEVILL, John (c. 1614-62) |
<p><strong><surname>NEVILL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1614–62)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. Dec. 1641 as 10th Bar. ABERGAVENNY (BERGAVENNY) |
|
First sat 21 May 1660; last sat 19 May 1662 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. 1614, 1st surv. s. of Henry Nevill<sup>†</sup>, 9th (or 2nd) Bar. Abergavenny (<em>d</em>. 1641), and 2nd w. Catharine (<em>d</em>. 1649), da. of George Vaux; bro. of George Nevill*, later 11th Bar. Abergavenny. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (c. 1638), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. bef. 1694), da. and coh. of John Chamberlaine of Shirburn Castle, Oxon.; <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 23 Oct. 1662; <em>will</em> 16 Aug. 1661, pr. 13 July 1664 (sentence 4 June 1668).<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>‘The most famous … of all ancient peerage cases’, the succession to the barony of Abergavenny is tortuously labyrinthine.<sup>4</sup> Confusion about the numeration of this peerage stems from an inability to reconcile the actual descent to the requirements of what is now understood to be peerage law. The difficulty principally originates from a dispute between Edward Nevill<sup>†</sup>, son of Edward Nevill<sup>†</sup>, 7th Baron Abergavenny, and the 6th baron’s heir general, Mary, Lady Fane.<sup>5</sup> Nevill formally laid claim to the peerage in 1598, prompting an appeal by his kinswoman. The matter was referred to the House of Lords, who found themselves unable to arrive at a firm decision and instead recommended a compromise in 1604 whereby both parties were ennobled. The more ancient barony of Le Despenser was awarded to Lady Fane, while Nevill was summoned to the House as Baron Abergavenny.<sup>6</sup></p><p>This compromise failed to put an end to confusion over the Nevills’ title. It is unclear whether Edward Nevill’s peerage was by inheritance or a new creation, which is why, in restrospect, he has been styled both 1st and 8th baron. Following the death of his heir, the 2nd or 9th Baron, succession to the barony was again disputed. John Nevill, was the only surviving son by the former lord’s second wife, meaning that any male children of Margaret Nevill, daughter of the 2nd and 9th Baron’s first wife, might also have a claim to the barony as male descendants of the heir general. There is thus again a question as to whether his summons effectively created a new peerage. Nevertheless, no question was raised about his right to sit by the House and no challenge was raised by other members of the family. His precedence within the House suggests that he was regarded as the heir to the ancient barony. Accordingly, although there is a good case that by modern peerage law Abergavenny should be regarded as the 1st or 3rd baron in a new creation, it is as the 10th Baron Abergavenny that he will be regarded here.</p><p>With the peerage Abergavenny inherited substantial estates in several counties, among them lands in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, and Monmouthshire.<sup>7</sup> The value of the Kent estates before 1614 was estimated to be £6,000.<sup>8</sup> Marriage to Elizabeth Chamberlaine brought him further lands in Oxfordshire based on Shirburn Castle, one of the largest houses in the county, assessed at 32 hearths in 1665.<sup>9</sup> The family’s Sussex estate included a moiety of the borough of Lewes but Abergavenny does not appear to have exercised much political influence there.<sup>10</sup> His personal connections were also extensive: cousin to George Goring*, Baron Goring (later earl of Norwich), and the Catholic peer Edward Vaux*, 4th Baron Vaux of Harrowden, Abergavenny was also a distant relative of another Catholic nobleman, Thomas Windsor<sup>†</sup>, 6th Baron Windsor. Connection with the Goring family was further strengthened with the marriage of Abergavenny’s sister-in-law, Mary Chamberlaine, to Sir Henry Goring.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Abergavenny appears to have been active in the civil wars on the Royalist side and in December 1646 he was one of several Catholics residing in Oxford at the time of its surrender to petition the committee of complaints for leave to compound.<sup>12</sup> In June 1648 his fine of a tenth was set at £2,186 but he was also offered the opportunity to compound for one third as a ‘papist in arms’. The following year his fine was reduced to £364.<sup>13</sup> Abergavenny petitioned to be permitted to compound for a further third of his estate in 1654.<sup>14</sup> The same year his half-sister, Elizabeth, consolidated the family’s Catholic connections on her marriage to Thomas Stonor.<sup>15</sup></p><p>While the majority of the Nevill family appears to have been Catholic, at least one branch was Protestant and in May 1657 George Nevill of Sheffield Park in Sussex, the most prominent of these, married Mary, daughter of Bulstrode Whitelocke. The alliance created new complications. When Abergavenny presented a bill before Parliament to enable him to sell lands entailed upon the barony, Whitelocke, now father-in-law to ‘the next heir but one to the barony’, opposed the measure. A compromise was later arrived at whereby the sale of land valued at £600 per annum was agreed; in spite this measure, by the time of the Restoration Abergavenny remained heavily in debt.<sup>16</sup></p><p>The king’s return offered Abergavenny some alleviation of his difficulties. On 21 May 1660 he took his seat in the House. The following day he was named to the committee considering an answer to be returned to the Commons on the subject of holding a free conference concerning the votes about the late king’s judges. Eager to secure some restitution of his losses, he submitted a petition on 11 June concerning the attainder of the regicide William Say<sup>‡</sup>. Abergavenny estimated that Say had deprived him of more than £2,000 from his sequestered manors in Kent and requested that the money should be raised from Say’s forfeited estates.<sup>17</sup> No progress seems to have been made with this action. Abergavenny was named to one additional committee during the session and on 24 Aug. he was granted leave of absence from the House. He returned for the second session on 6 Nov., and on 28 Nov. he presented a bill seeking leave to sell lands in order to pay his debts and raise portions for his sisters and brother. Again, no further progress was made in the measure during the session.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Abergavenny took his seat at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on 88 per cent of all sitting days. Still intent on taking advantage of any opportunity to improve his woeful financial position, he petitioned for the right to officiate as chief larderer at the coronation by virtue of his possession of the lordship of the manor of Sculton Burdeleys. His petition was contested by William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, who was ultimately awarded the place. This was said to have been on account ‘of the present sickness of the Lord Bergavenny’.<sup>19</sup> Despite this, Abergavenny’s right to the office was acknowledged. No doubt the solution was a compromise as Abergavenny’s regular attendance of Parliament through May, June, and July does not seem to bear out the explanation that he was too sick to officiate.</p><p>Although noted as being present on the attendance list for 20 May 1661, Abergavenny was marked absent at a call of the House later the same day.<sup>20</sup> He resumed his seat the following day. On 8 June the bill to enable him to sell lands received its first reading, and on the same day the House ordered that several people be attached for arresting one of Abergavenny’s servants contrary to privilege.<sup>21</sup> The House was informed of the arrest of another of Abergavenny’s servants, William Blunt, towards the end of the following month, which resulted in orders being sent out for the attachment of those responsible.<sup>22</sup> On 20 June the committee examining the Abergavenny bill considered the implications of the previous act of 1657. On that occasion the land sold had raised £11,000 but as Abergavenny’s brother, George, later the 11th Baron, had been discovered to have debts of £8,000, far in excess of what had previously been understood, the former bill had failed to cover the shortfall.<sup>23</sup> On 27 June Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, reported back from the committee, following which the bill was agreed to with a few minor amendments.</p><p>Abergavenny was named to six more committees before the adjournment but he does not appear to have played a prominent role in any of them. On 11 July he supported Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, over the great chamberlaincy, perhaps out of solidarity with another peer with lands in Essex. Abergavenny’s bill became law the following day.<sup>24</sup> As a result, he was able to sell Fillongley Park in Warwickshire for £1,600 to Joseph Colston, one of the trustees of the marriage settlement of Elizabeth Nevill and Thomas Stonor.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Abergavenny returned to the House following the adjournment on 20 Nov. but was again missing at a call on 25 November. He resumed his seat the following day and thereafter continued to sit regularly throughout the remainder of the session. He appears to have taken a closer interest in proceedings between January and April 1662, being named to 17 committees during this period, and on 6 Feb. he entered his protest against the bill for restoring lands sold during the interregnum to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby. On 18 Feb. Abergavenny informed the House of a problem relating to the Lords’ privileges, reporting how, at the recent funeral of Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brounker [I], had disputed precedency with the English barons.<sup>26</sup> The matter was referred to the committee for privileges, which was presided over by Abergavenny. The committee concluded that peers of England should enjoy precedency over ‘foreign’ (i.e. Scots and Irish) peers in England. On 3 Mar. Abergavenny reported these findings to the House, provoking a spirited debate, which continued for the next two days. The matter was then recommitted with Abergavenny presiding at a further session of the committee on 6 March. The committee resolved by a vote of 16 to 1 to stand by their former decision.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Abergavenny continued to be plagued by financial problems. On 13 May 1662 a complaint was relayed to the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by Elizabeth Plummer that, although she had bought the manor of Yalding in Kent from Abergavenny, he refused to convey the estate to her. Abergavenny’s agent denied any knowledge of problems with the conveyance but admitted that parts of the estate had been leased to a number of other people.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Abergavenny’s death later the same year released him from such problems. In his will he nominated his wife sole executrix, devising his lands to her to be sold for settlement of remaining debts. An inventory of his personal estate at Eridge House in Essex valued his holdings there at £1,072; a further inventory lost in a fire was declared by Lady Abergavenny to have included possessions valued at more than £500.<sup>29</sup> Abergavenny was buried at Birling and was succeeded in the peerage by his brother, George. His widow is reputed to have later married into the Sheldon family.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NEWPORT, Francis (1620-1708) |
<p><strong><surname>NEWPORT</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1620–1708)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Feb. 1651 as 2nd Bar. NEWPORT; <em>cr. </em>11 Mar. 1675 Visct. NEWPORT; <em>cr. </em>11 May 1694 earl of BRADFORD |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 1 Apr. 1708 |
|
MP Shrewsbury 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.) – Jan. 1644 |
<p><em>b</em>. 23 Feb. 1620, 1st s. of Richard Newport<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Newport, and Rachael, da. of John Leveson of Halling, Kent; bro. of Andrew Newport<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. G. Inn 1633, I. Temple 1634, Christ Church, Oxf., matric. 18 Nov. 1635. <em>m</em>. 28 Apr. 1642 (with £7,000) Diana (<em>d</em>.1695), da. of Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford, 3s. (1 d.v.p.), 3da. <em>d</em>. 19 Sept. 1708; <em>will</em> 26 Dec. 1699-7 May 1708, pr. 7 Oct. 1708.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Comptroller, to James Stuart*, duke of York ?1664-8,<sup>2</sup> of the household, 1668-72; <sup>3</sup> PC c. 14 June 1668-21 Apr. 1679, 14 Feb. 1689-<em>d</em>?; treas. of household, 1672-87, 1689-<em>d.</em>; cofferer, 1689-1702.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Salop. 1660-87, 1689-1704;<sup>5</sup> <em>custos rot</em>., Salop. 1660-1704; kpr., Ludlow Castle 1695-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt., tp. of horse (roy.) 1642-5.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1682-90, Weston Park, Shifnal, Salop.; oil on canvas by M. Dahl, c.1695, Weston Park, Shifnal, Salop.</p> |
<p>Connected to a number of prominent Shropshire families, the Newports were said to have had the best estate in the county. They were also able to exercise an interest in other marcher areas including parts of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Radnorshire and Montgomery. Newport’s kinship network was similarly extensive. A distant cousin of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, through his mother Newport was related to the Yorkshire and Staffordshire Leveson Gower family (later Barons and Earls Gower).<sup>11</sup> By the marriage of his sisters Beatrice and Anne he was uncle to Henry Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, great-uncle to William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> and uncle to Richard Corbet<sup>‡</sup>. By the marriage of his great aunt, Magdalen, he was also cousin to successive Barons Herbert of Chirbury. Newport’s daughter, Katherine, further reinforced this connection by marrying Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury.</p><p>Reflecting their broad base, Newport’s political connections were equally varied. Following the Restoration, his brother, Andrew Newport, sat as a court (later Tory) member in the Commons and had a significant interest in Montgomeryshire, while Newport himself drifted from the Cavalier tendency to the Whigs. His conversion from the court to the Whigs was a slow process. He was never a thoroughgoing member of the group associated with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in the 1670s and he refused to countenance exclusion. James II’s desire to promote catholicism appears to have been the catalyst for Newport’s change of stance and, having refused to countenance the king’s policies, he was dismissed from his offices. Opposition to the king, no doubt reinforced by the disgruntlement of a former courtier, led him to support William of Orange’s invasion and after the Revolution Newport was restored to office and later rewarded with the earldom of Bradford. Such judicious realignment may have contributed to his inclusion in a lampoon against the Whigs (clearly penned before his advancement to the earldom), in which the author queried:</p><blockquote><p>At thee old Newport who can chuse but laugh;</p><p>With thy white wig, white gloves and white staff?</p><p>Thou art so neat a vermin, we’re I’th’ dark</p><p>How to divide the rascal from the spark.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>Succession and career to 1668</em></h2><p>Returned to the Commons in April 1640, the following year Newport voted against the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. In 1642 he married Lady Diana Russell, a daughter of the 4th earl of Bedford, an alliance that perhaps demonstrates his political flexibility for unlike his wife’s brother, William Russell*, 5th earl (and later duke) of Bedford, Newport sided with the king at the outbreak of hostilities and his growing personal influence was demonstrated with his father’s elevation to the barony of Newport in October 1642. The peerage, purchased for £6,000, also owed something to the mediation of Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon. Ejected from the Commons in 1644, that same year Newport was in arms for the king, serving as a captain of horse. In June he was captured near Oswestry and he spent the following three-and-a-half years in prison, during which time he was fined £16,687, though this was later reduced to £9,436 and then to a joint fine of £10,000 shared with his father.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Newport succeeded his father in the barony on 8 Feb. 1651. Three years later he was implicated in a royalist plot for which he was committed to the Tower.<sup>14</sup> As lord of the manor of Oxenbold in Shropshire, Newport was a neighbour of George Penruddock and in 1655 both he and his brother Andrew were implicated in Penruddock’s rising.<sup>15</sup> For the remainder of the interregnum, Newport was periodically imprisoned and when at liberty continued to participate in royalist plots. He participated in a rising with his brother in March 1658 and in 1659 took part in an abortive scheme to take Shrewsbury.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Newport’s activities at the time of the Restoration are unclear but in January 1660 Barwick wrote to Hyde that he would join with Newport if he was appointed commander in chief for Shropshire.<sup>17</sup> Listed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, among the peers who had been ‘with the king’, his father’s barony being one of the contentious ‘Oxford’ creations, Newport delayed taking his seat until 1 June 1660 along with a number of other holders of peerages created during the civil war.<sup>18</sup> On 30 June the House granted him leave to search for missing possessions that had been taken from his house during the recent troubles. The following month Newport was appointed lord lieutenant of Shropshire. According to some sources this constituted a success for Clarendon and according to others for the king.<sup>19</sup> Certainly, as one of the strategically significant marcher counties, Shropshire was an important lieutenancy and Newport’s appointment to this office serves to emphasize his reputation as a stalwart supporter of the restored regime. Further underlining the strength of his family’s connection in the county, in August Newport recommended his uncle, Sir Richard Leveson, as one of his deputy lieutenants.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Having taken his seat on the first day of June, Newport was present for almost 46 per cent of all sitting days in the first part of the Convention before the adjournment. During this period he was named to just two committees. Although present on the attendance list that day, he was marked missing without explanation at a call of the House on 31 July. He resumed his seat the following day and on 7 Aug. reported the House’s business to his uncle, Sir Richard Leveson, noting that:</p><blockquote><p>We have no answer yet from the House of Commons concerning our writings by which we passed away the impropriations; some of them say they have them not, and many of the Presbyterians labour hard to have them confirmed to the churches; but I hope we shall prevent them by a Bill first put in for the restoring of them to us…<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 16 Aug. Newport entered his dissent from the resolution that Warwick Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, should have damages for breach of privilege committed when he was proceeded against in 1651. The following day, Newport was forced to appeal to the House again concerning his missing goods, complaining that the former order had been ‘slighted and contemned’, in response to which the House ordered that two of those responsible, Colonel Thomas Hunt and Andrew Lloyd, should be attached as delinquents.</p><p>Newport resumed his seat in the second part of the Convention on 19 Nov. 1660 during which he was present for 60 per cent of its sitting days. On 10 Dec. he entered a solitary protest at the House’s resolution to agree with the Commons in granting orders for payment of money due to to the former parliamentarian soldiers Henry Simball, Anthony Buller<sup>‡</sup> and Rowland Laugharne<sup>‡</sup>. He was named to just four committees. The same month he submitted a petition to the House complaining of the £10,000 fine that had been imposed upon his father in 1646 and requesting relief.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution, Newport brought his influence to bear in Shropshire for the elections to the new Parliament, lending his support to Sir Francis Lawley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Richard Ottley<sup>‡</sup>, possibly following a gentry meeting in the county, while his brother, Andrew, was returned for Montgomeryshire.<sup>23</sup> Reports of the expected match between the king and Catharine of Braganza elicited a cynical response from Newport, who mused that as, ‘ ’tis arrived at that the Dutch have taken Goa in the East Indies from the Portuguese, which should have been part of the portion; if the Spaniard take their country from them too, we marry their whole nation and must keep them.’<sup>24</sup></p><p>Newport took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, and was thereafter present for approximately 78 per cent of all sitting days in the first session of 1661-2. Named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions on 11 May, he was named to a further seven committees before the summer adjournment. He was again missing at a call of 20 May, despite having previously been marked present on the attendance list, and as before resumed his seat the following day. In July he supported the petition of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to be admitted as lord great chamberlain, but later the same month, on 20 July, he was granted leave to go into the country. Absent at a call of the House on 25 Nov. on this occasion he does not appear to have attended the House that day but again resumed his seat the next day and thereafter was regular in his attendance for the remainder of the session, during which he was named to a further 15 committees. His addition to the committee for the uniformity bill on 21 Mar. 1662 along with his cousin Edward Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, and the king’s cousin Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, may have been part of a concerted effort to diminish the Anglican contingent on the committee. In Newport’s case, though, this seems doubtful given his reputation as a great benefactor of the church and by the fact that in August 1662 John Hacket*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, desired that Newport be included in a commission for putting in order St Mary’s, Coventry and the city’s public school.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Newport’s name was missing from the attendance list of 18 Feb. 1663 at the opening of the second session of the Cavalier Parliament but the same day he was named to the committee for privileges. It is possible that this was a clerical error, perhaps a confusion with Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport, who was present that day but omitted from the committee list. Excused at a call of the House on 23 Feb. Newport was again nominated to a committee despite being absent from the attendance list on 19 Mar., suggesting either a replication of the same error, or that he may have taken his seat late in the day. The reason for his absence from the first two months of the session is unknown but it is plausible that it had some connection with the death of one of his Bromley nephews in a duel at the end of February.<sup>26</sup> He unquestionably resumed his seat in the House on 12 May, after which he attended until the close of the session, approximately 43 per cent of the whole, during which he was named to a further 10 committees.</p><p>Newport appears to have been seeking office in the spring of 1664. A proposal to purchase the post of chamberlain to the queen consort from Philip Stanhope*, earl of Chesterfield, for £4,000 was broken off in early April, so it may have been at this time that he secured the comptrollership in the duke of York’s household.<sup>27</sup> Newport took his seat in the third session of the Cavalier Parliament on 21 Mar. 1664 after which he attended on almost 78 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions on 21 and 23 Mar., on 2 Apr. he was named to the committee for the bill for transporting felons and to two further committees later that month. He returned to the House for the following session on 24 Nov. again proving a regular attender (present for approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days) but on 7 Dec. he was noted as being missing without explanation at a call of the House. He resumed his seat two days later, after which he was named to 11 committees. He failed to attend the brief fifth session of October 1665 held in Oxford but returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 18 Sept. 1666. Again assiduous in his attendance, he sat on approximately 88 per cent of all sitting days and was named to fourteen committees. On 21 and 23 Jan. 1667 he chaired sessions of the committee concerning the bill for ‘redress of inconveniences’ caused by the lack of proof of the death of people overseas, reporting the committee’s findings to the House on 24 January.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>Household official, 1668-85</em></h2><p>Newport’s attendance declined during the following session, which commenced on 10 Oct. 1667. Having taken his seat on 16 Oct. he was thereafter present for approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to 18 committees, in addition to the standing committee for petitions. Excused at a call of the House on 17 Feb. 1668 and then again three days later, he resumed his seat once more on 26 Mar. and then sat until the adjournment of 9 May, after which he did not attend any of the subsequent sittings before the prorogation of 1 Mar. 1669. In June 1668 it was reported that he was shortly to be promoted comptroller of the household and on the 14th of that month the appointment, which brought with it a salary of £1,200 as well as significant interest as a broker between court and Parliament, was confirmed.<sup>29</sup> At about the same time he was sworn to the Privy Council. Shortly before, in March, his brother Andrew Newport had been appointed to the lesser post of comptroller of the great wardrobe.</p><p>Newport returned to the House for the subsequent session on 19 Oct. 1669. The following day he was named to his only select committee for that session, on the bill to prevent frauds in exporting wool. Although present on 32 of the 36 sitting days, he was absent at a call held on 26 Oct. but was back in his seat the following day. On 4 Nov. he was one of the House’s officers appointed to attend the king about the address of thanks for putting into execution the laws against nonconformists. He took his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 14 Feb. 1670 and once more proved to be an assiduous attender, being present on almost 92 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to more than 50 committees. Before the summer adjournment he was entrusted, on 19 Feb. 1670, with the proxy of his nephew, Robert Greville*, 4th Baron Brooke, which was vacated when Brooke resumed his seat on 31 October. On 24 Mar. Newport made a special motion to the House on behalf of one Thomas Price, who was in the custody of the sergeant at arms for breach of privilege having arrested one of Newport’s servants, and on 8 Apr. he entered his protest against the passing of the bill setting an imposition on brandy. Newport resumed his seat after the adjournment on 24 Oct. 1670. He was excused at a call of the House on 14 Nov. but resumed his seat the following day. On 26 Jan. 1671 he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference held that day concerning the bill to prevent malicious maiming and wounding and he repeated that role for the ensuing four conferences held between 4 and 11 February. Newport entered his dissent from the resolution not to commit the bill concerning privilege of Parliament on 9 Mar. and six days later further registered his protest at the resolution to suspend the judgment against Cusack in the cause <em>Cusack v. Usher</em>. On 15 Apr. he chaired a session of the committee considering the tobacco bill, reporting back to the House three days later.<sup>30</sup> On 17 Apr. he was added to the reporters of a conference with the Commons on the bill for impositions on foreign commodities.<sup>31</sup></p><p>In January 1672 it was rumoured that there were to be a number of new appointments made, among them Newport as treasurer of the household.<sup>32</sup> In the event it was not until November that he relinquished the comptrollership to William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, and was appointed treasurer of the household in succession to Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford.<sup>33</sup> According to the secretary to the Venetian embassy, all were ‘generously rewarded by the king for their merits and distinguished qualities, which render them conspicuous at the court.’<sup>34</sup> He took his seat in the 10th session of the Cavalier Parliament on 4 Feb. 1673 and was present for 38 of its 41 days. Named to 14 committees, on 20 Feb. he reported from the committee for Wolrich’s bill and on 24 Mar. he was appointed one of the reporters of a conference to be held with the Commons on the bill against Popish recusants. Present on all of the four days of the brief session of October 1673, on 30 Oct. Newport was named to the committee considering the bill for encouraging English manufactures. He proved unwilling to exert his interest on behalf of his kinsman, Henry Herbert of Ribbesford*, later Baron Herbert of Chirbury, at the by-election for Bewdley in November triggered by the death of Herbert’s father, Sir Henry Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, apparently regarding Herbert’s candidature as a hopeless cause. Newport appeared to be proved right when Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> was elected but, following a short delay, Herbert successfully unseated his rival on petition.<sup>35</sup> Newport took his seat on 7 Jan. 1674, and was again present on every day of the session during which he was named to five committees.</p><p>Newport had allied himself with Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, during the early 1670s but by the beginning of 1675 he was drifting towards Shaftesbury’s opposition grouping. Support for the opposition led to Newport being forbidden the king’s presence but he was listed by York as one of the ‘confederate peers’ whose quiescence he hoped to purchase by offering protection for Protestant non-conformists in return for an undertaking not to question his right to the succession.<sup>36</sup> It was perhaps as part of this effort to secure Newport’s support that on 11 Mar. 1675 he was advanced in the peerage as a viscount.<sup>37</sup> It is not clear to whom Newport owed his promotion. Charles Sackville*, later 6th earl of Dorset, had been created earl of Middlesex the previous month as an acknowledgement of his succession to the estates of his uncle, Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, and in the course of the summer the king honoured a number of his illegitimate children, but there were no other promotions in the peerage at that time. It seems likely that the promotion was intended as an attempt to detach Newport from the opposition. Introduced in his new dignity at the opening of the new session on 13 Apr. 1675, Newport again proved a remarkably assiduous member of the House, attending 38 of the 42 sitting days. Despite this, he was absent on 14 Apr. and thus was not named to the standing committees and he was named to just five other committees. Once more given Brooke’s proxy on 27 Apr., which was vacated by the prorogation, on 6 May he registered his protest over the decision to reassure the Commons that the Lords would consider their privileges in the cause of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>. Newport took his seat for the ensuing session on 13 October. He was once more present on every day, and on 23 Oct. was again given Brooke’s proxy, which was vacated by the prorogation. His viscountcy did not prevent Newport from continuing to associate with the opposition on occasion. On 20 Nov. he voted in favour of presenting an address to the king requesting a dissolution of Parliament and entered his protest when the address was rejected. However he stopped short of consistent support for Shaftesbury and his followers.</p><p>One of the peers appointed to the commission to try Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in June 1676, Newport joined the majority in finding him not guilty of murder.<sup>38</sup> He then took his seat after the 15-month prorogation on 15 Feb. 1677, the first day of the new session, following which his attendance in the House remained remarkably assiduous, attending 112 of 117 sitting days. His high rate of attendance was similarly reflected in committee nominations: he was named to more than 40 during the course of the session. He was also able to lend his interest to his nephew Sir Richard Corbet at the by-election for Shrewsbury.<sup>39</sup> On 12 Mar. 1677 he reported from the committee for the bill to prevent an increase of new buildings in London and four days later he reported from the same committee again. He reported on 12 Apr. from the committee considering the bill for the better observation of the sabbath and the following day was named one of the reporters of the conference with the Commons over the supply bill. Despite Newport’s previous association with the opposition, Shaftesbury marked him ‘vile’ in the spring of 1677, presumably reflecting his continuing willingness to co-operate with the court. Following the long adjournment from 28 May 1677, Newport attended two of the subsequent days of adjournment and on 19 Jan. he received the proxy of his kinsman Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, which he held for the remainder of the session which finally convened for business again on 28 Jan. 1678. On 4 Apr. 1678 Newport voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Newport’s attendance in the ensuing session of May 1678 proved similarly diligent—some 93 per cent of all sitting days—and he was again nominated to a significant number of select committees, 14 in the course of the session. He returned to the House for the following session on 21 Oct. 1678, during which he attended on 92 per cent of all sitting days. As an indication of the frenetic pace of the session, on 26 Oct. Daniel de la Place reported to Newport’s kinsman, Henry Herbert of Ribbesford, that he had waited at the door of the Lords all day the previous day but had been unable to prevail on Newport to speak with him or take a letter away for his perusal.<sup>40</sup> On 15 Nov. Newport voted against the motion for a clause in the test bill which would place the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the required oaths. On 12 Dec. in his role as treasurer of the household, he communicated the king’s response to three addresses against the number of Catholics in the capital presented to him by the House and that same day he was named to the committee for the bill preventing the children of popish recusants from being sent overseas for their education. On 26 Dec. he informed the House of information he had received concerning one Valentine Harcourt (identified by the informer William Bedloe as a Catholic priest, William Harcourt) who had been taken in his lieutenancy at Shrewsbury, upon which the House ordered that Harcourt be brought to London to answer at the bar. The same day he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill and on 27 Dec. he voted against committing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later successively marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds).</p><p>Newport’s son, Richard Newport*, later 2nd earl of Bradford, and his kinsman, Sir Vincent Corbet<sup>‡</sup>, were returned unopposed for Shropshire at the election of February 1679. Unlike Newport himself, both were marked ‘honest’ and ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury.<sup>41</sup> Newport was present for the six sittings of the first session of the new Parliament which began on 6 Mar. and then took his seat at the opening of the longer-lasting session on 15 March. He was once again characteristically assiduous in his attendance, being present on 98 per cent - all bar one - of all sitting days. Danby altered his opinion of him in the days before the Parliament, noting him at first as a likely supporter to be spoken to by the king but subsequently as a probable opponent. Danby’s reassessment proved to be prescient and, despite formerly voting against Danby’s commitment, Newport voted in favour of the Commons’ bill to attaint the former lord treasurer during a series of divisions in the first half of April. The same month he employed his interest to have William Charlton<sup>‡</sup> put out as town clerk of Ludlow but Newport was himself omitted from the reconstituted Privy Council on 21 April.<sup>42</sup> Despite this slight Newport retained his household office and in that capacity he reported to the House on 3 Apr. that the king had acquiesced in the request for a payment of £100 to be made to Titus Oates. The same day he reported the case of one Luke Hemyngs, attached for arresting one of the servants of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, who had made his submission and had therefore been released. On 8 May he registered his dissent when the House voted against the Commons’ request to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider the trials of the impeached lords and two days later he again voted in favour of this proposal and dissented from its renewed rejection. On 27 May he entered his dissent at the resolution to insist upon the vote confirming the right of the bishops to stay in court during capital cases.</p><p>Richard Newport and Corbet were returned again for Shropshire in August 1679 but affairs in the county were far from peaceful with Newport continuing to pursue his vendetta against Charlton at Ludlow. In association with Somerset Fox<sup>‡</sup> he lent his support to Edward Smalman as an alternative town clerk causing Charlton’s father, Sir Job Charlton<sup>‡</sup>, to complain to Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> in August 1680 about Newport’s behaviour.<sup>43</sup> The following year Charlton was successful in having his son reinstated.</p><p>Newport took his seat once more at the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680. Present on approximately 85 per cent of all sitting days, his activities in the session represent well the careful balancing act he maintained as both courtier and occasional supporter of the opposition. On 24 Oct. he carried a message to the king from the Lords requesting a proclamation to be made offering a pardon to anyone willing to give information about the plot or to submit within two months.<sup>44</sup> The following month, on 15 Nov. he voted in favour of rejecting the exclusion bill at first reading but a week later voted in favour of appointing a committee to consider the state of the nation in conjunction with the Commons. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason and on 7 Jan. 1681 he was reported to have been one of those to enter their dissent at the resolution not to put the question whether Sir William Scroggs should be committed upon articles of impeachment, though his name does not appear on the printed lists in the <em>Lords Journal</em>.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Richard Newport was again elected for Shropshire in March 1681 but the death of his former partner meant that he was paired with another kinsman, William Leveson Gower<sup>‡</sup>. In advance of the meeting of the new Parliament, Newport was again listed as a probable opponent of Danby but he attended just one day, 23 Mar. 1681, of the brief session at Oxford. His poor attendance may suggest foreknowledge that the Parliament was likely to be curtailed but could equally have been on account of the imminent marriage of his heir to Mary Wilbraham. Despite opposing exclusion, Newport’s activities gave rise to speculation that he was to be put out of his household office that summer.<sup>46</sup> A letter from John Ellis in July declared that ‘the king is resolved thoroughly to purge his family from disaffected persons’, but Newport maintained sufficient credit over the following years to be able to maintain his position and even to undertake to do what he could on behalf of his son-in-law Herbert of Chirbury in assuring the king of the latter’s ignorance of the Rye House Plot.<sup>47</sup> Newport’s authority in Shropshire appears to have come under increasing pressure and in the fevered atmosphere of the last two years of the king’s life Newport was increasingly embroiled in county rivalries. In March 1683 he was in conflict with Sir Francis Lawley over the management of the militia and in July complaints were voiced of Newport’s ‘slackness’.<sup>48</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II, the Revolution and the Convention, 1685-90</em></h2><p>Although after the death of Charles II Newport was continued in post as treasurer of the household, the accession of the new king signalled a diminution of his influence in Shropshire.<sup>49</sup> In April 1685 following a gentry meeting two newcomers, Edward Kynaston<sup>‡</sup> and John Walcot<sup>‡</sup> were returned in the place of Richard Newport, who was requested not to stand, and William Leveson Gower, who stood in his home county of Staffordshire instead.<sup>50</sup> Newport took his seat in the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, after which he was present on approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days, and during which he was named to 13 committees. On 22 May he made what John Evelyn thought ‘an impertinent exception’ against ‘two or three’ peers who had supposedly taken their seats while still underage. The same day the House issued a standing order barring peers from attending under the age of 21.<sup>51</sup> After the revolt of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, Newport resumed his seat on 9 Nov. and attended eight days of the brief session of that month. He was noted as absent without explanation at a call of the House on 16 Nov. but resumed his seat the very next day.</p><p>Newport was one of those appointed to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) in the court of the lord high steward in January 1686.<sup>52</sup> In September he entertained the queen and Princess Anne to dinner at his retreat at Twickenham.<sup>53</sup> Two months later, a report suggested that Newport, along with Maynard and John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham) had been observed to kneel at the elevation of the host during the All Souls’ day eucharist, which if true might suggest that the three courtiers felt obliged to adapt to the new king’s more ritualistic tastes.<sup>54</sup> There is no indication that Newport felt any inclination towards catholicism. In any case Newport’s malleability availed him nothing and in January 1687 he was noted as an opponent of the repeal of the Test. Speculation that month that he would be removed from office was confirmed in early February when he was replaced as treasurer of the household by William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth.<sup>55</sup> Again listed in May as an opponent of the king’s policies, Newport remained in London when the King embarked on a progress through that county in August. Although he sent instructions that ‘the county should show their duty’ to the king and that ‘the whole militia be drawn forth at his entrance into the county with as many of the gentlemen as can be got together’, he excused himself from attendance in a letter of 6 Aug. explaining that, ‘If I were able I would come down my self, but I am troubled with a pain in my limbs and back that I cannot undertake such a journey a present.’<sup>56</sup> Such excuses were unavailing, and only five days after this letter was written, Newport was put out of his lieutenancy and replaced by George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys.<sup>57</sup> Newport was again noted as an opponent of repeal of the Test both in November 1687 and January 1688. That same month he was also assessed to be one of the king’s opponents in the Lords. In June 1688, during the crisis over the trial of the seven bishops, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, suggested Newport as a possible surety for John Lake*, bishop of Chichester.<sup>58</sup> On 16 Nov. Newport was one of those to subscribe the petition for a free Parliament.</p><p>Dismissal from office appears to have affected Newport profoundly and at the time of the Revolution he was one of the most vocal in calling for the king’s removal. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, described Newport as ‘the most violent and waspish of all.’<sup>59</sup> Active in the meetings of the lords following the king’s flight, on 11 Dec. Newport was noted as being one of those responsible for forcing the omission of a clause affirming King James’s right to the throne in the draft declaration composed by Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely.<sup>60</sup> The same day he proposed that the lieutenant of the Tower, Bevill Skelton, should be sent for. After some delay Skelton appeared and Ailesbury suggested he should not be brought before the House ‘so that he might fall gently’, but Newport insisted, declaring, ‘No, I will see his face, and how he behaves himself in adversity, and for to humble him that was so proud in prosperity.’ Newport took a less abrasive line during the discussions of 22 Dec. in the House of Lords concerning the removal of papists from London, reminding the House of exceptions for certain tradesmen as well as those in the households of foreign ambassadors.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Newport took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on 75 per cent of all sitting days and named to more than 40 committees. On 27 Jan. he reported to the House that Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine [I], was in Shropshire, ‘and so setting forth how dangerous a man he was… he moved he might be brought up in custody’, which was ordered accordingly. On 31 Jan. Newport voted in favour of inserting in the Commons’ vote the words declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen. Newport’s implacable opposition to the former king became even more apparent on 4 Feb. when in response to discussion as to whether the House should read King James’s letter to Sir Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], he responded that ‘he hoped the House would not read any private man’s letter: and he looked on this as the letter of a private man; for he was no more king.’<sup>62</sup> That same day he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the wording of the motion on King James, and he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in their use of the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘the throne is vacant’, although he did not sign the dissent when those were rejected. On 6 Feb. he again supported the Commons’ wording in the division which saw the motion accepted. Newport was appointed a manager for the three conferences between 8 and 12 Feb. which discussed the arrangements of the proclamation of the prince and princess of Orange as king and queen.</p><p>Within a week after William and Mary had accepted the crown on 14 Feb. 1689, Newport was restored both to the treasurership of the household and to the Privy Council and in March a warrant was passed for his restoration to the lieutenancy of Shropshire.<sup>63</sup> His name was also one of those put forward by Sir George Treby<sup>‡</sup> in his report on the future government of Wales, Treby recommending that Wales be divided between two lieutenants and suggesting Newport as one of three candidates to control the northern lieutenancy.<sup>64</sup> Named one of the reporters of the conference concerning the address to assist the king on 5 Mar., the following day Newport reported to the House the king’s decision to receive both Houses at Whitehall on 8 March. He was named to the committee for the bill for naturalizing Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, on 3 Apr. and the following day reported the committee’s findings to the House. The committee recommended that one clause relating to the addition of two bars to the prince’s robes be omitted but the rest of the bill was accepted without amendment and it was ordered to be engrossed, receiving the royal assent a few days later. With Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, Newport introduced Richard Lumley*, Viscount Lumley, on 13 April. A week later he was named a conference manager for a conference on the bill for abrogating the oaths of allegiance, and he continued in this role for two further conferences both held on 22 April. That same day he reported from the committee for the bill for repealing the hearth tax.</p><p>Newport was the recipient of further promotion at the beginning of May 1689 when he was appointed cofferer of the household as part of an arrangement with his son-in-law, Herbert of Chirbury. The decision to combine both offices under one head was later criticized severely.<sup>65</sup> On 24 May in the Convention he reported from the committee of the whole House considering the bill concerning the rights of the subject and succession to the crown the committee’s opinion that the clause concerning <em>non obstantes</em> should be left out. That same day he was nominated one of the peers to draw up reasons why the House could not agree with the Commons in leaving out the Lords’ amendment to the additional poll bill and he acted as one of the managers for the first conference on this matter on 27 May and then again for two subsequent conferences on this continuing disagreement on 31 May. On that same day he voted in favour of reversing the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates and then signed the long protest when that motion was defeated. He was appointed a reporter of the two conferences on 20 and 21 June on the amendments to the bill for commissioners of the Great Seal. Newport returned to the matter of the reversal of the judgments against Oates after the bill to that purpose was brought up from the Commons. He presided over a committee of the whole on 9 July which compiled a number of amendments to the bill. Three days later the amendments were approved by the House: Newport registered his protest against them, and then acted as one of the tellers on the question whether the amended bill should pass: the division was carried in the affirmative by 33 to 22.<sup>66</sup> He was appointed a manager for a conference on the disagreement between the Houses on these amendments on 26 July and on 30 July subscribed the protest at the House’s resolution to adhere to them.<sup>67</sup> That same month of July he proposed a proviso to the committee for the militia bill, which was rejected by eight votes to four.</p><p>Newport took his seat one day into the second session of the Convention, on 24 October. He was present on more than 80 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to 14 committees. He made an initial report from the committee appointed to examine persons concerning the attempt to suborn witnesses against Delamer, William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, on 11 Dec. and on 2 Jan. 1690 he reported again, this time giving a full account of the committee’s proceedings. He presided over the committees of the whole which met on 13 and 14 Dec. 1689 to consider the land tax bill. Carmarthen (as the earl of Danby had become) classed him as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding the phrase ‘to invite him’.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>In the elections for Shropshire of March 1690 Richard Newport and Edward Kynaston were returned once more without contest. Newport took his seat in the House for the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, following which he was again studious in his attendance, sitting on 94 per cent of all sitting days. On 25 Mar. he spoke in the debate concerning the bill of indemnity on behalf of Sir Roger L’Estrange<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Nathaniel Butler. <sup>68</sup> He subscribed to the protest of 5 Apr. against the rejection of the amendments to the bill for recognizing William and Mary king and queen. Four days later he reported from the committee for Sir Hugh Middleton’s bill. A rumour at the close of April that Newport would resign his newly regained office proved to be unfounded.<sup>69</sup> On 13 May he was one of the managers of the conference concerning the exercise of government by the queen in the king’s absence. That same day he subscribed the protest against the decision not to allow counsel more time in presenting their case for the bill for restoring the City of London’s charter. On 7 July he was one of the commissioners appointed to prorogue the Parliament which had been adjourned since 23 May.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Newport’s attendance remained high in the ensuing session, when he was present on approximately 88 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 32 committees. On 6 Oct. 1690 he acted as one of the tellers on the question whether Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, should be discharged from imprisonment, which motion was rejected. He reported on 24 Nov. from the committee of the whole House that the bill for doubling the duty of excise on beer was fit to pass without amendment.<sup>71</sup> On 18 Dec. he further reported from the committee of the whole with the bill for granting duties on East India goods to the king and queen fit to pass without amendment. The same month he proposed an amendment to be added to Ailesbury’s bill to reclaim arrears on the marriage portion due him, which was adopted accordingly. He was appointed one of the managers for a series of four conferences held on 5 Jan. 1691 concerning the bill for suspending the navigation and corn acts during the war.</p><p>Newport played host to the queen on 17 Mar. 1691.<sup>72</sup> Two months later it was reported that he was to pay £1,200 to Maynard to retain both his household places.<sup>73</sup> Towards the close of the summer he appears to have provoked tensions in Shropshire by insisting on members of the militia purchasing uniforms costing £30 a piece.<sup>74</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the third session of the 1690 Parliament on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he attended on approximately 68 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 39 committees. On 15 Dec. he brought in the traitorous correspondence bill and on 21 Dec. he chaired the committee of the whole for the bill against adhering to the king and queen’s enemies.<sup>75</sup> Newport chaired further sessions of this committee of the whole on 30 Dec. and 13 Jan. 1692.<sup>76</sup> Towards the end of the year he was noted by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as one of those likely to support his continuing efforts to recover family lands lost during the 1650s and on 12 Jan. 1692 he subscribed the protest against receiving the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.<sup>77</sup> On 16 Feb. 1692 he donated his proxy to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, which was vacated by Newport’s return to the House on 18 February.</p><p>Newport took his seat at the opening of the next session on 4 Nov. 1692. He maintained his typically high rate of attendance, sitting on approximately 82 per cent of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to 35 committees. This all in spite of the news of the loss of his second son, Francis (Frank) Newport, in late November.<sup>78</sup> Newport was one of several privy councillors to support the embattled John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, and he was able to avoid signing the warrant for his arrest.<sup>79</sup> On 31 Dec. he voted against committing the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted against its passage. He was also listed by Ailesbury as a probable opponent of the Norfolk divorce bill, which was under consideration at that same time. On 31 Jan. Newport was one of four peers fined £100 for leaving the House after hearing the evidence against Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, but before the House had been formerly adjourned.<sup>80</sup> He resumed his seat the following day and on 4 Feb. found Mohun not guilty of murder. After the verdict he and the other offending lords were discharged from their fines.</p><p>Newport caused some local disquiet during the summer of 1693 by putting out the Tory Sir Edward Acton,<sup>‡</sup> bt. as a deputy lieutenant in Shropshire.<sup>81</sup> Acton had drifted from support for the court, which presumably explains Newport’s actions. The Viscount returned to the House for the following session on 7 Nov. 1693 and maintained his high level of attendance. Present on 84 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to 23 committees in the course of the session. On 23 Nov. he subscribed the protest against the resolution that the House would no longer consider petitions for protection from the king’s servants. He later reported from the committee considering Thomas Edwards’ bill on 5 Feb. 1694. On 16 Apr. Newport was appointed one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning amendments to the bill for the easier recovery of small tithes.</p><p>As a reward for his continued support for the new regime, on 11 May 1694 Newport was advanced in the peerage as earl of Bradford (not, as one rumour suggested, earl of Newport). He was one of eight peers promoted at this time.<sup>82</sup> In August he again played host to the queen at Twickenham.<sup>83</sup> He took his seat in his new dignity at the beginning of the following session on 12 Nov., introduced between Stamford and John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, after which he attended on approximately 66 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 12 committees, on 13 Apr. 1695 he was appointed one of the reporters of the conference concerning Sir Thomas Cooke’s<sup>‡</sup> information and on 2 May he was again named a manager for the conference considering amendments to the bill for the imprisonment of Cooke as well as others reputed to have received money from him out of the funds of the East India Company.<sup>84</sup> Later that month he recommended Sir Littleton Powis as a successor to the recently deceased Judge Eyre. Although another candidate took Eyre’s place as a judge in king’s bench, Powis appears to have been successful in securing another judicial appointment.<sup>85</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1695 and 1698</em></h2><p>The dissolution found Bradford again exercising his interest effectively in Shropshire. Richard Newport (now styled Lord Newport) was again returned for the county, while his younger brother, Thomas Newport<sup>‡</sup>, was elected at Ludlow where Bradford held the office of keeper of the castle, though Robert Harley believed the appointment was merely a temporary measure intended ‘to countenance his son’s election for the town.’<sup>86</sup> Bradford took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695. Present for approximately 74 per cent of all sitting days in the session, he was named to 20 committees and on 23 Dec. he was one of those to contribute to the deliberations of the committee of the whole concerning the trial for treason bill, proposing that the bill not take effect until 1699.<sup>87</sup> On 10 Jan. 1696 he reported from the committee appointed to draw reasons to be offered at a conference with the Commons on the bill for regulating the silver coinage and he was appointed a manager for a subsequent conference the following day. He subscribed the protest of 17 Jan. at the resolution to hear the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, for a writ of summons, and he protested again on 13 Feb. when the House granted Verney’s request.<sup>88</sup> On 24 Feb., after the king provided information on the assassination plot against him, Bradford was placed on the committee to draw an address and as such was named a manger for the two conferences that day at which the wording of the address hammered out. The following day he reported to the House the king’s positive response to that part of the address requesting a day of thanksgiving. Bradford, not unexpectedly, signed the Association at the first opportunity, on 27 Feb., and later that same month presented the loyal association of the town of Shrewsbury.<sup>89</sup> On 25 Apr, shortly before the close of the session, he was appointed one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons considering the Greenland trade bill.</p><p>Bradford appears to have been active in lieutenancy business over the summer of 1696. A letter to Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup> conveyed via the medium of John Ellis may well have contained the names of those within his county who had refused to take the Association.<sup>90</sup> Bradford took his seat at the opening of the second session on 20 Oct. 1696. Although Bradford was again regular in his attendance, sitting for approximately 65 per cent of the session, he appears to have been suffering from poor health and was named to only 12 committees. He left the House for a few days on 27 Nov. and registered his proxy with Devonshire three days later, but this was quickly vacated by Bradford’s return to the House the following day, 1 December. He consequently left the House again for a longer period from 3 Dec. and was excused at a call on 8 Dec. on the grounds of sickness, and it may be that his proxy with Devonshire was in force during this period. On 9 Dec., in Bradford’s absence, the House was informed of a breach of his parliamentary privilege.<sup>91</sup> Having resumed his seat on 14 Dec., the following day, in the midst of debate on the use of the testimony of Cardell Goodman in the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, Bradford and four other peers were granted leave to withdraw, being indisposed. There is no suggestion that Bradford’s sickness was in any way ‘political’. Indeed he resumed his seat the very next day, 16 Dec., and on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of the bill for Fenwick’s attainder. A month later, on 22 Jan. 1697 he was named to the committee for preparing an address requesting that Fenwick be reprieved for a week. On 18 Feb. with Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, Bradford introduced Arnold Joost van Keppel*, as earl of Albemarle and on 5 Mar. he was appointed one of the managers of a conference concerning the bill to prohibit the import of East Indian silks. He was again absent for a time from 13 Mar. and on the 18th entrusted his proxy with Marlborough, which was vacated on 22 March. On 15 Apr., the penultimate day of the session, Bradford registered his protest at the resolution not to include an amendment in the bill for restraining stock-jobbers.</p><p>Bradford appears to have continued to suffer from poor health into the summer of 1697. On 19 June Francis Gwyn commented to William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, ‘I am sorry for my Lord Bradford, or anyone in his condition, but I doubt it has quite spoiled his <em>suavitatem</em> <em>meram</em> [sweetness of temper], which is the ground of his earldom.’<sup>92</sup> He rallied sufficiently to take his seat at the commencement of the following session on 3 Dec. 1697 after which he was present for 79 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 36 committees in the course of the session, on 10 Jan. 1698 he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the Lords’ amendments to the bill forbidding all correspondence with the former king. Bradford entered his protest at the resolution to grant relief to James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and his wife in the case <em>Bertie v. Viscount Falkland</em> on 16 Mar. and the following day he entered a further dissent when it was resolved to allow Bertie, as relief, to enjoy the income of the estate in dispute for the duration of Mrs Bertie’s life. On 10 May he was appointed manager of the conference, held the following day, for the Colchester workhouses bill. Two weeks later he was also appointed a manager of the conference, likewise held the following day, considering amendments to the bill for the suppression of blasphemy. Closely involved with the House’s business over the impeachment of John Goudet and other merchants, Bradford was a manager of four conferences on the matter on 15, 21 and 28 June and on 2 July.<sup>93</sup> On 4 July he was named to the committee appointed to examine the journals concerning proceedings over the impeachment of Strafford.</p><p>Bradford’s heir, Newport, declined to stand for election for Shropshire in July 1698 but Bradford presumably supported the candidacy of Sir Edward Leighton<sup>‡</sup>, bt. the defeated Whig candidate from the previous contest who was returned with Kynaston. Elsewhere, Thomas Newport was beaten into third place at Ludlow, though he was later returned on petition.<sup>94</sup> The 1698 election may have shown the ageing Bradford’s faltering interest in the county in the final decade of his life but he remained active in the House’s business, taking his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698 after which he attended almost 83 per cent of all sitting days in the first session. Named to the committee for privileges on 9 Dec., Bradford was appointed to a further 19 committees in the session. On 1 Mar. 1699 he was nominated one of the managers of the conference to be held the following day concerning amendments to the bill preventing the distilling of corn and on 21 Apr. he was a manager of a conference concerning the market at Billingsgate. The same day he reported the king’s answer to the Lords’ address. On 24 Aug. he was appointed one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament.<sup>95</sup> The death of Bradford’s brother, Andrew Newport, the following month benefited Bradford’s younger son, Thomas Newport, to the tune of at least £40,000 and no doubt assisted him in securing an influential match with the daughter of Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> the following year.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Bradford returned to the House for the second session on 16 Nov. 1699. Although in attendance for slightly fewer days than usual, he was still present for approximately 65 per cent of all sitting days and he was named to 17 committees. On 23 Feb. 1700 he was honoured with the king’s presence at his 80th birthday dinner.<sup>97</sup> For all his advanced years, he remained an influential broker in Parliament. A list compiled by Robert Harley assigned Thomas Newport to Bradford’s interest in the Commons in early 1700 and Bradford was himself noted as being a possible supporter of the new mixed ministry in July.<sup>98</sup> Bradford was said to have been ‘very much indisposed’ in September and had still not recovered the following month.<sup>99</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1701 and the Reign of Anne</em></h2><p>It was perhaps on account of his increasing infirmity that the Newport interest in Shropshire seems to have been managed by Lord Newport in the two general elections of 1701 and although Bradford took his seat at the opening of the first Parliament of the year on 6 Feb. 1701 and attended regularly until its close (approximately 81 per cent of all sitting days) his involvement in the House’s daily business does appear to have declined. Absent on 10 Feb. he was consequently omitted from the standing committees, though he was added to the committee for the journal on 28 March. On 15 May he was appointed one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for regulating the Fleet prison and court of king’s bench. He was named on 6 June a manager of the conference that day concerning the impeachments against the Whig peers of the previous ministry and he fulfilled this role again in another conference on 10 June. On 16 June Bradford was granted leave of absence from the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers, scheduled for the following day, but he was still noted as being present on the attendance list on 17 June and on the two days following, although his verdict (if he did not abstain) in Somers’ trial is strangely not recorded.</p><p>Bradford’s heir was set upon by highwaymen while travelling between Leominster and Worcester that autumn of 1701 but he was able to fight them off killing one in the process.<sup>100</sup> Bradford returned to the House for the second Parliament of 1701 on 31 Dec. after which he attended 79 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 and 10 Feb. he was as a manager for conferences on the bill to attaint the prince of Wales (James Edward Stuart, the Pretender) and he had the same role in one of 20 Feb. on the measure to attaint his mother, Mary of Modena. In February 1702 he agreed to make use of his interest along with his fellow courtier Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, on behalf of one of Cholmondeley’s retainers.<sup>101</sup> At the coronation of Queen Anne in April he demonstrated similar generosity when he was seen to throw a number of silver medals to the crowd in the abbey.<sup>102</sup> On 7 May he was named a manager of the conference on the bill for altering the Abjuration Oath and on 20 May he was likewise named one of the managers of the conference considering the bill for the encouragement of privateers.<sup>103</sup> He took his seat at the opening of Queen Anne’s first Parliament on 21 Oct. after which he was present for 86 per cent of all sitting days in the first session. On 25 Nov. he arrived in the House shortly after the poorly-attended prayers that day, at which there were only five lords, and argued successfully against a motion made by Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, that the House should be adjourned in protest at the poor attendance.<sup>104</sup> Estimated an opponent of the occasional conformity bill in January 1703, on 16 Jan. Bradford voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause.<sup>105</sup></p><p>However much Bradford may have liked to distribute largesse to the masses on formal occasions, he seems to have been flinty-hearted when it came to his business dealings. In September 1703 around the time of his marriage into the Finch family, the financially embarrassed Sir Roger Mostyn<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, lauding his new patron and expressing his gladness at being ‘by any means free from my Lord Bradford.’<sup>106</sup> Even so, there is evidence that Bradford may have been losing his touch in other directions and William Gower<sup>‡</sup> reported to Robert Harley that both Bradford and Sir Thomas Powys<sup>‡</sup> had been ‘imposed upon by those that pretend to be their friends’ in Ludlow.<sup>107</sup> Bradford was one of the commission of five peers that prorogued Parliament on 4 November.<sup>108</sup> He then took his seat in the second session on 9 Nov. 1703. Present on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days, during the month he was again noted as an opponent of the occasional conformity bill and on 14 Dec. he voted against passing the measure. On 25 Mar. 1704 he registered his dissent from the decision to put the question on whether the failure to censure Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the crown’s enemies, but he did not sign the dissent against the main question itself. Two days later Bradford was nominated a manager of the conference on the bill for public accounts.</p><p>Bradford gradually relinquished his official responsibilities in the final few years of his life. On the death of King William in early 1702 he had been relieved of the cofferership and in November 1704, following reports earlier in the year that he had again been seriously ill, he was succeeded by his son, Newport, as lord lieutenant of Shropshire.<sup>109</sup> He was far from relinquishing all interest, though. In February 1704 Marlborough noted how he had had one man ‘so powerfully recommended’ to him by Bradford that he ‘could not refuse the request’ and in June of that year Bradford was also instrumental in having William Gower removed as governor of Ludlow.<sup>110</sup> He also continued to attend the House with a regularity that belied his failing health and advanced years. Having taken his seat in the third session on 24 Oct. 1704 he was thereafter present for almost 83 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Nov. he was present in the committee of the whole chaired by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, when considering the construction of strangers’ galleries in the House. Clearly unwilling to admit of any such innovation, Bradford moved ‘for only putting the old excluding orders in execution’ in which he was seconded by John Poulett*, Earl Poulett.<sup>111</sup> On 27 Feb. 1705 he was placed on the committee assigned to draw up heads for a conference on the continuing dispute between the houses on the ‘Aylesbury men’ and on 12 Mar. he was chosen to be a manager of the conference held that day on the militia bill.</p><p>Bradford continued to recommend men to Marlborough for promotion in the army.<sup>112</sup> He also maintained his aversion to the exiled royal house and an analysis of the peerage of April 1705 noted Bradford as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. With advancing age came occasional eccentric behaviour. In September 1705 Lady Wentworth described how Bradford had made a scene in the parish church at Twickenham by tearing down the escutcheons, which had been displayed in the church for the funeral of Sir William Humble, and stamping them underfoot. Bradford had always been described as a haughty peer, and Lady Wentworth could only speculate on the reason for his outburst by suggesting that ‘some say it put him in mind of death and that was what vexed him, others say it was something in the arms that offended him, there being more in them than did belong to Sir William.’ <sup>113</sup> Whatever the reason for his outburst, Bradford showed no imminent signs of following Humble. He took his seat in the House for the first session of the 1705 Parliament on 27 Oct., following which he was present on approximately 79 per cent of all sitting days. On 13 Nov., in a debate on whether a request for papers concerning the Scottish succession should be included in the Address to the queen, John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, moved that the Lords might be summoned ‘for that he had something more to offer’. Bradford objected ‘that something should be specially proposed’, but Rochester disagreed, insisting that Haversham’s motion need only be seconded. It was noted, however, that Haversham humoured his ancient colleague and ‘pitched upon the state of the nation, as a copious subject.’<sup>114</sup> On 6 Dec. he voted with the court in support of the motion in the committee of the whole that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration.<sup>115</sup> He was appointed a manager of the conference held 7 Feb. 1706 to discuss the place clause inserted by the Commons in the regency bill, and he continued in this role in subsequent conferences on 11 and 19 February. On 9 and 11 Mar. he was similarly nominated a manager of the conference convened to condemn the printed letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Stamford.</p><p>Bradford was one of those to subscribe to the loan to the Emperor in March 1706.<sup>116</sup> In June he delivered the address of the corporation of Shrewsbury to the queen, congratulating her on the recent success at Ramillies, a noteworthy event because of Shrewsbury’s normally staunch Tory loyalties. He returned to the House for the second session on 4 Feb. 1707, of which he attended approximately 31 per cent of sitting days. On 3 Mar., in his absence, the House was informed of a breach of his privilege but those responsible were discharged on 8 Mar. after apologizing for their misdemeanour. He then attended five of the sittings of the nine-day session that convened on 14 April. Local issues came to the fore during the summer and in June Bradford let fire an infuriated missive to the lord chancellor, William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, on account of his suspicions that Harley intended to block his nominees for the magistracy in Radnorshire.<sup>117</sup> Later that year he attempted to secure an order excusing Sir William Fowler from being pricked sheriff (probably in Shropshire), offering as an explanation ‘one that he was his godson, the other that he was a fool.’<sup>118</sup></p><p>Bradford’s interest was still being courted in August 1707 when the death of William Bromley opened up the contest in Worcestershire.<sup>119</sup> He took his seat in the following session on 23 Oct. 1707 and attended on approximately 65 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1708 he was expected to offer ‘all the opposition he can’ to the Droitwich bill in an effort to protect the interests of his great-grandson.<sup>120</sup> Bradford sat for the last time on 1 Apr. 1708. Later that month he presented the queen with an address from Shropshire celebrating her delivery from the attempted Jacobite invasion of Scotland earlier that year. <sup>121</sup> In May he was included in a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain as a Whig. In spite of his advanced years, Bradford was said, bizarrely, to have been contemplating remarriage in the period leading up to his death. The object of his attentions was apparently Lucy, daughter of Sir Thomas Skipworth.<sup>122</sup> By the middle of September he was reported to be dangerously ill and ‘at the point of death’, which put paid to any such notions.<sup>123</sup> He died shortly afterwards at his house at Twickenham.<sup>124</sup> Bradford was buried at Wroxeter, where his funeral was reported to have been ‘the greatest’ in the county since that of Sir Richard Lee.<sup>125</sup> His will, which he commenced in December 1699 but to which were added a number of codicils, bore all the marks of his increasingly irascible disposition. He bequeathed his house at Twickenham to his younger son, Thomas, who was appointed sole executor, and made substantial bequests to family and retainers totalling in excess of £20,000, though some of these gifts were revoked in his many rewritings. Bradford’s daughter, Elizabeth, Lady Lyttelton, the widow of Sir Edward Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., was the most prominent loser. Initially granted a bequest of £500, a codicil of 17 Feb. 1702 warned that this would be revoked if she married the Tory, and later Jacobite, Edward Harvey<sup>‡</sup> and the threat was carried out in a subsequent codicil of 27 Oct. 1702.<sup>126</sup> For all his later eccentricities, Bradford was described in the ‘Characters of the Court of Great Britain’ as ‘a just critic, a judge and lover of poetry, painting and nice living’.<sup>127</sup> He was succeeded by his eldest son Richard, who had for several years commanded the Newport interest in Shropshire, as 2nd earl of Bradford.<sup>128</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NEWPORT, Richard (1644-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>NEWPORT</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1644–1723)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1694-1708 Ld. Newport; <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Sept. 1708 as 2nd earl of BRADFORD. |
|
First sat 16 Feb. 1710; last sat 17 Nov. 1721 |
|
MP Salop 1670, 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Nov.) 1681 (Mar.), 1689, 1690, 1695. |
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Sept. 1644, 1st s. of Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford, and Diana, da. of Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. MA 1662. <em>m</em>. 20 Apr. 1681, Mary, 3rd da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Wilbraham, 3rd bt. of Weston-under-Lizard, Staffs.<sup>1</sup> 6s. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 5da. <em>d</em>. 14 June 1723; <em>will</em> 15 Jan. 1722, pr. 15 July 1723.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Equerry and gent. of privy chamber 1665–85; PC 18 Feb. 1710–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. for assessment, Salop 1673–80, 1689–90; freeman, Much Wenlock 1680, Ludlow 1695; dep. lt. Salop 1689–1704;<sup>3</sup> ld. lt. Salop 1704–12, 1714–23, Mont. by 1708–?12, by 1716–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot.</em> Salop 1708–12, 1714–d., Mont. 1701–?, 1714–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>As was true in so many other areas of the country, the county families of Shropshire were closely interconnected. Richard Newport was related to many of the most prominent gentry families in the area. First cousin to Sir William Forester<sup>‡</sup>, he was also a distant cousin of another local Member of the Commons, Forester’s brother-in-law Sir Richard Corbet<sup>‡</sup> (Corbet and Forester were both married to daughters of James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury). Newport’s sisters also married into parliamentary families, Diana marrying first Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup> of Ashtead, and later William Feilding<sup>‡</sup>, a younger son of William Feilding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh, while Elizabeth was married successively to Sir Henry Lyttelton and Edward Harvey<sup>‡</sup>. Newport was able to build on his family’s impressive connections with the marriages of his own children. Having been intended for the law, Thomas Newport<sup>†</sup>, later Baron Torrington, married into the families of Bridgeman and Pierrepont, while Elizabeth Newport married James Cocks<sup>‡</sup>, nephew of John Somers*, Baron Somers. Anne Newport married Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, and Diana became the wife of Algernon Coote<sup>‡</sup>, 6th earl of Mountrath [I]. The family was also closely connected to that of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, which demonstrates clearly that ties of kinship did not necessarily give rise to political alliances.</p><p>In the years following the Restoration Newport was associated with a gang of ‘rogues’ noted for their wit and loose behaviour.<sup>5</sup> In February and again in December 1671 he was a participant in violent altercations, the latter case involving a fracas with John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, at the playhouse.<sup>6</sup> A reference to Newport being ‘two yards and a half about’ made by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, in 1705 presumably called to mind such earlier excesses.<sup>7</sup> He was as lively in Parliament as out of it, one particular exhibition in the Commons leading to his temporary banishment from court.<sup>8</sup> After 1675 he was a follower of the opposition grouping that coalesced around Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury classed him as ‘worthy’ in 1679 and after 1685 he was listed among those believed to be opposed to James II’s policies.<sup>9</sup> Returned for Shropshire to the Convention and again in March 1690 with the support of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, Newport was an inactive Member but a consistent upholder of the Whig interest when he deigned to attend.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Under the new regime, Newport’s father resumed his prominent role both at court and in Shropshire but in 1704 he resigned his lieutenancies in favour of his heir, who had already assumed the office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Montgomery in 1701. Rumours circulating in October 1707 that Newport would stand for Shrewsbury in the forthcoming election proved inaccurate but his son Henry Newport<sup>†</sup>, later 3rd earl of Bradford, stood successfully for Shropshire, presumably supported by the Newport interest.<sup>11</sup> Speculation of a possible return to the Commons was rendered meaningless in September 1708 when he succeeded his father in the earldom. Elevation to the Lords does not appear to have inspired Bradford to demonstrate any greater political activity and he failed to take his seat until 16 Feb. 1710. The following day he was sent a notice requiring his attendance at the Privy Council, to which he was sworn on 18 February.<sup>12</sup> Present on 30 per cent of all sitting days in the session, Bradford voted (as expected) with the Whigs in finding Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours in March. The following month he communicated a representation from ten Whig gentlemen of Shropshire to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, complaining of the behaviour of certain of their Tory neighbours who were promoting an address to the queen on Sacheverell’s behalf.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Bradford was active in the elections in July 1710 on behalf of his son Henry and Richard Corbet, but both were defeated by their Tory rivals.<sup>14</sup> In October he was assessed by Robert Harley as an opponent, but he survived as lord lieutenant for a further eight months before being replaced by Shrewsbury.<sup>15</sup> Bradford was present on just one day of the new Parliament (27 Nov.) and failed to attend the first two months of the subsequent session of December 1711. He took his seat once more on 13 Feb. 1712 but attended on just 15 days of the session (14 per cent of the whole). On 16 Feb. he registered his proxy in favour of Thomas Wharton*, marquess of Wharton, which was vacated by his return to the House on 29 February. The proxy was registered with Wharton again on 12 Apr. and vacated on 20 May. On 28 May he voted in favour of the opposition-inspired motion for an address to be drawn up requesting that the queen overturn the orders preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from pursuing an offensive campaign against the French. When the measure failed to carry, Bradford subscribed the resulting protest.<sup>16</sup> He registered his proxy with Wharton once more on 5 June, which was vacated by his return to the House the following day, and on 7 June he registered his protest at the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace.</p><p>Jonathan Swift assessed Bradford as an opponent of the ministry on 15 Mar. 1713. Three months later, on 13 June, Bradford was estimated as being opposed to confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty. A change in the political climate led to his reappointment as lord lieutenant of Shropshire in 1714 and he was also returned to his office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Montgomery. He registered his proxy in Wharton’s favour again on 6 Apr. (vacated the following day) and on 10 Apr. (vacated three days later), and on 17 Apr. in favour of Sunderland. Sunderland held the proxy again on 3 May, which was vacated by Bradford’s resumption of his seat on 2 June. On 27 May Bradford was assessed by Nottingham as being opposed to the schism bill. He registered his proxy again on 6 July, this time in favour of Francis Godolphin*, 2nd earl of Godolphin, but he had resumed his seat again on 8 July when he entered his protest at the resolution not to make a representation to the queen stating that the benefit of the <em>Asiento</em> contract had been obstructed by the effort of some individuals to obtain personal advantages from it.</p><p>Bradford prospered under the new regime. An influential figure in Shropshire, he reported the effects of the riots in Shrewsbury and Wem in July 1715 and in 1716 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Montgomery.<sup>17</sup> His attendance in the House remained sporadic. Full details of his post-1714 parliamentary career will be considered in the second part of this work.</p><p>Never a very assiduous attendant of the House, Bradford sat for the last time on 17 Nov. 1721. On 17 Mar. 1722, while excusing his inability to wait on Sunderland in person on the grounds of the ‘long illness’ that had kept him at home for a number of months, he attempted to make use of his interest on behalf of his son-in-law Mountrath, whose brother had been promised a peerage. The effort proved in vain and no such award was made.<sup>18</sup> Bradford died the following year, on 14 June 1723, at his house in Soho Square. In his will of 15 Jan. 1722 he made over a number of his estates to his sons-in-law James Cocks and Orlando Bridgeman, in trust for his wife, and following her death required that the estates be sold to raise £500 for his brother-in-law William Feilding. Small bequests were made for Cocks, Bridgeman and Nicholas Lechmere<sup>†</sup>, Baron Lechmere, as well as modest sums for mourning for his children and bequests of £20 each for three of his servants. He was succeeded by his son Henry Newport as 3rd earl of Bradford.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NOEL, Baptist (1611-82) |
<p><strong><surname>NOEL</surname></strong>, <strong>Baptist</strong> (1611–82)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Mar. 1643 as 3rd Visct. CAMPDEN (CAMDEN) |
|
First sat 21 May 1660; last sat 22 May 1679 |
|
MP Rutland 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.)–8 Mar. 1643 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 13 Oct. 1611, 1st s. of Edward Noel<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd Visct. Campden, and Juliana, da. and coh. of Sir Baptist Hicks<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Campden. <em>educ</em>. Cambs. hon. MA 1628. <em>m</em>. (1) 25 Dec. 1632, Anne (<em>d</em>.1636), da. of William Feilding<sup>†</sup>, earl of Denbigh, 3s. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) c. June 1638, Anne, da. of Sir Robert Lovet, of Liscombe, Bucks., wid. of Edward Bourchier<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bath, <em>s.p.</em>; (3) 21 Dec. 1639, Hester (<em>d</em>. 1649), da. and coh. of Thomas Wotton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Wotton, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>),<sup>1</sup> 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>);<sup>2</sup> (4) 6 July 1655, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1683), da. of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 29 Oct. 1682; <em>will</em> 24 Aug. 1681, pr. 5 Nov. 1682.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. array 1642; ld. lt. Rutland 1660–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Rutland 1660–<em>d</em>.; commr. enclosure, Deeping Fen 1665; recorder, Stamford 1676–<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of horse 1643; col. regt. of ft. 1643.</p> |
<p>Likeness: effigy in monument by Grinling Gibbons, 1686, Church of St Peter and St Paul, Exton, Rutland.</p> |
<p>The Noel family owed their prominent position in Leicestershire and Rutland to a fortuitous marriage between Sir Edward Noel, created Baron Noel in 1617, and Juliana, daughter of the wealthy mercer Sir Baptist Hicks, created Viscount Campden in 1628. The Noels originated in Staffordshire but in 1548 Andrew Noel<sup>‡</sup> acquired the manor of Brooke in Rutland and then proceeded to build up a number of estates in Leicestershire.<sup>8</sup> Andrew Noel’s son, Sir Andrew Noel, further consolidated the family position with his marriage to Mabel Harington, sister to John Harington<sup>†</sup>, Baron Harington, in about 1577. Following the death of Lady Noel’s nephew John Harington<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Harington, in 1614, the Harington estates were divided, many of them being purchased by Noel and Sir Baptist Hicks, who had already acquired the manor of Exton the previous year. The marriage of Sir Andrew Noel’s son, Edward, and Juliana Hicks promised the estates’ eventual reunification, while a special remainder also conveyed the viscountcy to Edward Noel at the death of the 1st Viscount Campden in 1629.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Edward Noel’s heir, Baptist, was described as one of the ‘young gallants’ at Charles I’s court and was notorious for his extravagance.<sup>10</sup> Elected one of the Members for Rutland in the Short Parliament, he was re-elected in November and was a relatively active Member of the Commons before being given leave from the House in March 1641, after which he made no further appearance.<sup>11</sup> At the outbreak of Civil War, Noel proved himself to be an active royalist. In 1643 he succeeded his father as 3rd Viscount Campden but the Commons, still considering him as a disabled Member of their own House, did not issue a writ for his replacement until the end of September 1645.<sup>12</sup> Campden rallied to the king and raised a troop of infantry and a cavalry regiment which he commanded as colonel.</p><p>In 1645 Campden petitioned for leave to travel to London and thence to Holland but, despite being granted his request, he was seized on arrival in London and imprisoned. The following year, he petitioned successfully to be permitted to return to Rutland. His fine for delinquency was set at £19,558, but this was later reduced to £9,000.<sup>13</sup> In 1651, suspected of involvement in royalist plotting, he was compelled to enter into a bond of £10,000 with two sureties of £5,000 for his good behaviour.<sup>14</sup> In 1655 he married his fourth wife, Elizabeth Bertie, daughter of the impeccable royalist Montagu Bertie, earl of Lindsey, who had been one of those deputed to act as pall-bearer at the funeral of the executed king. Connection with the Berties was to prove significant in Campden’s future political alliances.</p><p>Campden together with several members of the local gentry was gaoled in 1658, no doubt on suspicion of complicity in the royalist risings.<sup>15</sup> Two years later, he was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in his assessment of the peerage as one of those who had supported the king in the civil wars. He took his seat almost a month after the opening of the Convention on 21 May 1660, after which he was present on just under 60 per cent of all sitting days. On 26 May, he was named to the committee appointed to consider the king’s safety. He was then named to a further five committees during the course of the session (including the sessional committee for petitions). At the king’s return, Campden joined with other Rutland gentry in presenting their ‘Humble Congratulations’ to Charles II, who dined afterwards with Campden at his home in Kensington. On 22 June the House ordered that the profits of the rectory of Pickwell, to which Campden laid claim, should be secured in the hands of the churchwardens pending further judgment. Campden was granted leave of absence on 14 Aug., having previously made provision that his proxy be held by Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. The proxy, registered on 8 Aug., expired at the close of the session.</p><p>Later that year, Campden was appointed lord lieutenant of Rutland. He failed to return to the House for the second session of the Convention but he was actively involved in the elections for the new Parliament. It was expected that he would employ his interest on behalf of his brother-in-law Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> at Stamford but, faced by the active support mounted by John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, for William Stafford<sup>‡</sup>, Bertie appears to have withdrawn. Campden’s son Edward Noel*, later earl of Gainsborough, enjoyed greater success and was returned for Rutland, clearly with the assistance of his father’s interest.<sup>16</sup> Campden took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661 and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. On 15 May he was also named to the committee considering the bill for making the rivers Stour and Salwarpe navigable, and on 10 June to the committee scrutinizing a bill to permit John Neville*, 10th Baron Abergavenny, to sell lands to settle his debts. He was named to a further ten committees during the remainder of the session and on 14 June he was entrusted with Manchester’s proxy. The following month, on 15 July, he also received the proxy of Wingfield Cromwell*, 5th Baron Cromwell. Predictably, on 11 July Campden supported his brother-in-law Lindsey’s claim to the office of lord great chamberlain against that of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford. On 17 July Campden entered his protest at the resolution to vacate Sir Edward Powell’s fines. He failed to attend the session after 25 July and was absent at a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661 but was noted as having assigned a proxy (registered to Richard Byron*, 2nd Baron Byron, on 19 November).</p><p>In Campden’s absence, the House passed an act for settling Campden House in Kensington on Campden and his heirs.<sup>17</sup> He was excused at a call of the House once again on 23 Feb. 1663 but resumed his seat in April. He was thereafter present on almost 69 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to some 26 committees and was again entrusted with Cromwell’s proxy. On 17 June he chaired a sitting of the committee considering the observation of the Sabbath bill but, following its adjournment, chairmanship of the committee was assumed by Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of Salisbury.<sup>18</sup> In July, Wharton included Campden among those whom he reckoned likely to support the ill-fated attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, perhaps reflecting an alliance with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham.<sup>19</sup> Campden was missing once more at a call of the House on 4 Apr. 1664 but he resumed his seat on 18 April. Present on almost 64 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to six committees in the course of the session but thereafter his attendance in the House declined markedly and he failed to resume his seat for the following four years.</p><p>Absence from Parliament does not appear to have meant a diminution in Campden’s desire to bolster his family’s prospects. In July 1664 his daughter Juliana married William Alington*, 3rd Baron Alington, one of a series of influential marriages that Campden succeeded in negotiating for his numerous offspring. Earlier the same year, Mary Noel had married James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, with a portion of £11,000.<sup>20</sup> Elizabeth Noel was later married to Charles Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), and in 1674 Katherine Noel became the third wife of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland).<sup>21</sup> Campden also remained highly influential at a local level. In October 1665 he was present at the by-election for Stamford in support of his brother-in-law Peregrine Bertie, who on this occasion was successful.<sup>22</sup></p><p>During his absence from the House in September 1666 Campden entrusted his proxy to his son-in-law Northampton. Excused on the grounds of ill health on 29 Oct. 1667, he was absent again on 17 Feb. 1668. He resumed his seat on 2 May 1668, attending for the remaining seven days prior to the adjournment but after 9 May 1668 Campden failed to attend the House for the ensuing nine years. To cover his absence, he registered his proxy with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), on 5 Mar. 1670 and with his distant cousin, Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, on 10 Jan. 1674. He then conveyed the proxy to his brother-in-law Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, on 26 Apr. 1675 and again on 13 Oct. 1675. Like Lindsey, Campden was listed as one of those thought likely to support the non-resisting test. On 20 Nov. Lindsey, while in possession of Campden’s proxy, was noted as having voted against addressing the king to request a dissolution of Parliament. In spite of his lengthy absence from the House, in June 1676 Campden responded to the summons to attend the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in the court of the lord high steward, when he joined a minority including Lindsey and the lord treasurer (Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later duke of Leeds) in finding Cornwallis guilty of manslaughter. The majority found in favour of an acquittal.<sup>23</sup></p><p>During the 1670s Campden, Lindsey and Lord Roos formed a formidable triumvirate in Rutland, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. In concert with Lindsey, Campden directed his efforts at the town of Stamford, where a by-election was triggered in the autumn of 1676 by the appointment of William Montagu<sup>‡</sup> to judicial office. The resulting contest saw Campden’s son Henry Noel<sup>‡</sup> strongly opposed by the Presbyterian John Hatcher<sup>‡</sup> and encouraged the intervention of a number of peers who all laid claim to influence within the borough, among them Exeter, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater.<sup>24</sup> Campden himself was reported to have ‘furiously treated the town of Stamford’, while Lindsey was said to have expended £1,000 campaigning on Noel’s behalf. Unable to compete, Hatcher withdrew.<sup>25</sup> The dominance of the Noels and Berties was made apparent in December of the same year, when Campden was elected recorder in place of Exeter. Exeter protested, but was rebuffed, the king stressing that ‘he could not with justice to the services and sufferings of that lord refuse’.<sup>26</sup> In response, Exeter’s son, John Cecil*, styled Lord Burghley (later 5th earl of Exeter), challenged Edward, Lord Noel, to a duel for the affront to his father. Noel refused the challenge, ‘not being well’, but afterwards changed his mind and was disarmed during the encounter.<sup>27</sup> By the opening of 1677 Hatcher had been replaced as the country candidate by William Thursby<sup>‡</sup> but he too proved unable to withstand the pressure against him. At the eventual poll held on 27 Feb. Henry Noel emerged victorious over Hatcher, who had resumed his candidacy following Thursby’s decision to quit.</p><p>A combination of entanglement in overseeing the Stamford election and an onset of ‘a severe fit of the gout’ meant that Campden was absent once again at the opening of the new session, on 13 Feb. 1677.<sup>28</sup> He entrusted his proxy to Lindsey but it was vacated by his eventual return to the House on 21 May, after which he attended on four further occasions before the close of the session. Increasingly associated with Danby (perhaps on account of his close relations with the Bertie family), Campden was reckoned ‘thrice vile’ by Shaftesbury and in the elections of 1678, Campden, Lindsey and Roos again combined their efforts to ensure the return of the court candidate Sir Robert Markham<sup>‡</sup> at Grantham.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Danby consistently estimated Campden to be one of his supporters during his imprisonment. In spite of poor health, Campden travelled to London in April 1679, where he arranged to lodge with his relative Robert Bertie, rather than remain at Kensington, which he considered ‘too far off in regard of his infirmities’.<sup>30</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 24 Apr. and was thereafter present on 34 per cent of all sitting days. In May, Campden opposed the resolution to appoint a committee of both Houses to consider the manner of proceeding in the trial of the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. Campden, Lindsey and Roos were all deemed ‘ready to serve’ Danby that summer.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Campden was again incapacitated by poor health in the autumn of 1680 and was thus once more unable to attend the House for the new session. Crippled by gout, he explained to Danby that he had experienced ‘such severe fits, that I have twice swooned away with the pain’. In spite of this, he assured Danby of his presence in Parliament in the forthcoming sessions.<sup>32</sup> Campden’s own ill health was not his only distraction from attendance in Parliament. In November his mother, Juliana, dowager Viscountess Campden, died aged 100 leaving a personal estate valued at over £24,230.<sup>33</sup> Her death led to a damaging legal tussle between Campden and his son-in-law Dursley over the payment of a £2,000 legacy bequeathed to Dursley’s wife, Elizabeth Noel. The dispute stemmed from the fact that the dowager Viscountess had paid £2,000 to Dursley at the time of his marriage, which Campden maintained was the sum stipulated in the will, while Dursley argued that it was an additional gift and that he was entitled to a further £2,000. The dispute was referred to the arbitration of Danby and Dursley’s father, George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley.<sup>34</sup> Campden professed himself ‘very happy’ in the arrangement, and told Danby that he would ‘stand to what determination your lordship and my lord Berkeley do award … for my opinion is such of your lordship’s justice, that I dare boldly put my life and fortune into your commands’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Danby was eager to bolster support from his Bertie relatives at the time of the Oxford Parliament in March 1681 and it was through his offices that Campden’s son Edward Noel was summoned to the House as Baron Noel of Titchfield.<sup>36</sup> Campden undertook once more to attend if his health permitted but assured Danby that if he was unable to do so, his son would ‘act as heartily for you as if I was there’.<sup>37</sup> In the event, he was not present at the brief session.</p><p>Campden’s steady loyalty to the crown, combined perhaps with Danby’s interest, gave rise to rumours in February 1682 that he was to be elevated to the earldom of Chichester. Campden appears to have parted with £4,000 to secure the honour but by April, with no progress made in his promotion, he was criticized within his family for releasing the money before he was assured of his prize.<sup>38</sup> Campden did not live to see his ambition realized, dying in October of the same year. He was buried at Exton, where a sumptuous memorial was erected, designed by Grinling Gibbons at a cost of £1,000. In his will, Campden left portions of £8,000 to his two unmarried daughters, Bridget and Martha Penelope. An inventory compiled shortly after his death revealed a personal estate totalling over £31,133.<sup>39</sup> He was succeeded as 4th Viscount Campden by his son Lord Noel, who was shortly afterwards promoted earl of Gainsborough.<sup>40</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NOEL, Baptist (1684-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>NOEL</surname></strong>, <strong>Baptist</strong> (1684–1714)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 21 Sept. 1690 (a minor) as 3rd earl of GAINSBOROUGH. |
|
First sat 24 Mar. 1707; last sat 13 Apr. 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1684, o. s. of Baptist Noel<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>. 1690),<sup>1</sup> of Luffenham, Rutland, and Susannah, da. of Sir Thomas Fanshawe<sup>‡</sup>, of Jenkins, Essex. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. bef. 13 Feb. 1707, Dorothy (d. 1739), da. of John Manners*, duke of Rutland, 4s. inc. James Noel<sup>‡</sup>, 3da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 28 July 1690. <em>d</em>. 17 Apr. 1714; <em>admon</em>. 12 May 1714 to wid.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Noel succeeded to the peerage aged just six, on the death of his cousin, in accordance with the terms of the special remainder.<sup>5</sup> Gainsborough’s father had died a mere two months before and it appears to have fallen to his mother and to his uncle, John Noel<sup>‡</sup>, to take charge of his upbringing and the management of his estates during his minority.<sup>6</sup> The young earl succeeded to estates in Rutland, Gloucestershire and Middlesex and he was later able to consolidate his position in Rutland by marrying his cousin Lady Dorothy Manners, the daughter of one of the county’s principal magnates. Gainsborough’s succession to the peerage and Noel estates was not without controversy and it proved the catalyst for a case being brought in chancery by the dowager countess of Gainsborough over the inheritance. On paper, the estates should have produced an annual income in excess of £8,000, but the previous holder of the peerage had died leaving them so encumbered that the new earl’s guardians feared that there would not be enough remaining to support the dignity of the earldom.<sup>7</sup> In 1692 the situation was resolved in part, but two years later Exton was leased to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and in 1697 a private act was passed for settling the remaining debts of the 2nd earl.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Gainsborough was one of ‘a great concourse of the nobility and gentry’ to attend the races at Nottingham in August 1701.<sup>9</sup> In 1705, having by then attained his majority, he exercised his interest in Gloucestershire on behalf of the renegade Whig Sir Ralph Dutton<sup>‡</sup> and the Tory John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> in the general election but both were defeated.<sup>10</sup> The following year he was named in an action in chancery brought by William Patterson concerning rights in the manor of Hampstead, which had been leased to Sir Thomas Lane during Gainsborough’s minority. In January 1707 Lane requested a further three weeks from the court so that he could put in his answer to Patterson’s complaint but no further progress appears to have been made in the case.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Gainsborough received his first writ of summons on 21 Mar. 1707. He took his seat three days later but was then present on just seven sitting days in the session (approximately 8 per cent of the whole). It is not clear why his first sitting was delayed for two years beyond his 21st birthday. On 8 Apr. he was named a reporter of the conference for the vagrants bill but this was to be the only occasion on which he appears to have taken a significant role in the House’s business. He attended two days of the brief session in April but was then absent from the House until 11 Mar. the following year. Having attended on that one day he was thereafter absent for a period of almost three years.</p><p>Gainsborough’s political allegiance at this stage appears to have defied strict party classification. In May 1706 he had been noted as one of the members of ‘the honourable order of little Bedlam’, the Tory drinking club revived by John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter, but an assessment of the peerage of May 1708 reckoned him to be a Whig. Participation in Exeter’s club may indicate nothing more than local sociability, as Exeter was a near neighbour of both Gainsborough and Rutland and it seems most likely that Gainsborough followed his father-in-law in treading a fairly independent path, as evidenced by his support for the Whig Dutton and Tory Howe two years previously. He was absent in the country during the brouhaha caused by the Sacheverell impeachment and so failed to exercise his vote in the business. An analysis of the peerage compiled that October by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, in which he reckoned Gainsborough to be a likely opponent of his new administration offers further evidence that Gainsborough was not considered to be a Tory. The earl resumed his seat on 15 Jan. 1711 but sat for just three days before again retiring to the country. On 24 Jan. he registered his proxy in favour of William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, husband of one of his distant cousins. It was vacated by the close of the session. Gainsborough failed to return during the next session, and on 2 Dec. he again registered his proxy in Devonshire’s favour. It was vacated by the close of the session. In his absence, Gainsborough was believed to be opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon.</p><p>Gainsborough was absent throughout 1712 but he attended the two prorogation days of 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713. He resumed his seat in the new session on 13 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on approximately 38 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session his name had been included on a list compiled by Oxford (as Harley had since become) of peers to be canvassed, but he continued to oppose the ministry’s business during the course of the session. Two days after resuming his seat he visited William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), someone with whom he appears to have been on close terms.<sup>12</sup> In June he was reckoned to be likely to oppose passage of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Gainsborough returned to the House for the new Parliament the following year, taking his seat on 17 Mar. 1714. He had attended just eight days when, on 13 Apr., the day of a particularly close vote in the House on the subject of the succession, he was suddenly taken sick and forced to withdraw. The suddenness and severity of his sickness was reflected in the fact that he was said to have been too ill even to sign a proxy form.<sup>13</sup> The following day he was visited by Dr Colbeach, who diagnosed smallpox.<sup>14</sup> His condition continued to worsen and he died early on the morning of Saturday 17 Apr. (or late the previous night).<sup>15</sup> Gainsborough’s mother-in-law, Katherine, duchess of Rutland, was in no doubt who was to blame for his demise, bemoaning the fact that those around him had ‘let party prevail, before the consideration of his safety’, and she pointed her finger at Devonshire and Wake as being especially culpable for permitting him to fall sick while preoccupied with business.<sup>16</sup> Gainsborough’s end came so suddenly that he had no time to draw up a will. A funeral poem, <em>Thalia Lacrimans</em>, in which he was described as ‘Best husband, parent, master, patron, friend’, was composed in his honour by Elkanah Settle. A sermon delivered in 1751 at the time of the death of Gainsborough’s son and heir, Baptist Noel*, who succeeded his father underage as 4th earl of Gainsborough, is occasionally mistakenly attributed to the 3rd earl.<sup>17</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NOEL, Baptist (1708-51) |
<p><strong><surname>NOEL</surname></strong>, <strong>Baptist</strong> (1708–51)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1708-14 Visct. Campden; <em>suc. </em>fa. 17 Apr. 1714 (a minor) as 4th earl of GAINSBOROUGH. |
|
First sat 23 Jan. 1730; last sat 17 Mar. 1749 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1708, 1st s. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd earl of Gainsborough, and Lady Dorothy Manners; bro. of James Noel<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1718; St John’s, Camb. 1724. <em>m</em>. 1728 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1771), da. of William Chapman, gamekeeper, 2s., 8da., 1 posth. ch.. <em>d</em>. 21 Mar. 1751; <em>will</em> pr. 17 June 1751.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Gainsborough succeeded to the title while still a child. He eventually took his seat in the Lords three years into the reign of George II. His controversial marriage to the daughter of his gamekeeper, while he was still strictly speaking underage, was not owned until several years after the event. His death in March 1751, only six months after benefitting from a financial windfall as a result of the death of the dowager countess of Burlington, was overshadowed by the greater national tragedy occasioned by the loss of Frederick*, Prince of Wales.<sup>2</sup> He left ten children and his wife ‘pretty far advanced’ with the pregnancy of an eleventh.<sup>3</sup> Full details of his career will be considered in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NOEL, Edward (1641-89) |
<p><strong><surname>NOEL</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1641–89)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>3 Feb. 1681 Bar. NOEL of Titchfield; <em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Oct. 1682 as 4th Visct. CAMPDEN (CAMBDEN, CAMDEN); <em>cr. </em>1 Dec. 1682 earl of GAINSBOROUGH. |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1681; last sat 10 May 1686 |
|
MP Rutland 1661; Hants. 1679 (Mar.). |
<p><em>bap</em>. 27 Jan. 1641, 1st surv. s. of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Visct. Campden, and Hester, da. of Thomas Wotton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Wotton.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Magdalen, Oxf. 1656; travelled abroad (France 1658, Italy 1665). m. (1) bef. 25 May 1661, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1680),<sup>2</sup> da. and coh. of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, and 1st w. Rachel de Massue de Ruvigny, 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.),<sup>3</sup> 4da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.);<sup>4</sup> (2) 23 Apr. 1683, Mary (<em>d</em>. 1693), da. of Hon. James Herbert<sup>‡</sup> of Kingsey, Bucks., wid. of Sir Robert Worsley<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.<sup>5</sup> bur. 8 Apr. 1689; <em>will</em> 20 Jan., pr. 8 June 1689.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Rutland 1660–76; commr. for assessment, Rutland 1661–9, 1677–80, Mdx. 1661–3, Hants. 1673–80; freeman, Portsmouth 1668, 1681, 1682, Lymington and Winchester 1677; high steward, Romsey by 1685;<sup>7</sup> warden of New Forest 1676–87;<sup>8</sup> ld. lt. Hants. 1676–84, (jt.) 1684–7, Rutland 1682–5, (jt.) 1685–8; gov. Portsmouth 1681–7;<sup>9</sup> <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Hants. 1681–8, Rutland 1682–<em>d</em>.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Capt. of ft. 1682–7; capt. Queen Dowager’s Regt. of Ft. 1687.</p> |
|
<p>Noel’s father was a committed royalist who had been fined substantially under the Commonwealth. Even so, Noel was able to attend Magdalen College, Oxford, for two years, after which he was granted leave to travel abroad. He came back at some point before 1661, when he was returned to the Cavalier Parliament, though underage, for his father’s old seat of Rutland.<sup>11</sup> The same year he married Elizabeth, daughter of the lord treasurer, the earl of Southampton. At his marriage, a vast estate totalling some 16,490 acres in Gloucestershire, Kent, Middlesex and Rutland was settled on Noel.<sup>12</sup> The alliance also brought an interest in Hampshire based on the Wriothesley estate at Titchfield. After Southampton’s death in 1667 his estates were divided between Noel’s wife, her sister Rachel, wife of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, and another sister, confusingly also named Elizabeth.<sup>13</sup> Despite his prestigious and potentially lucrative match, Noel appears to have been permanently short of cash. Following his marriage an act had been passed settling Campden House in Kensington on Campden and his heirs but Noel declined taking advantage of a proviso within the act allowing him to pay his father £4,000 in return for the voiding of a 1,000-year lease on the house made over to Sir Richard Wingfield and Abel Barker<sup>‡</sup>, whom he had defeated at Rutland the previous year. He preferred instead to receive £2,000 from Campden thereby releasing the house for his father’s use.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Listed as a court dependent in 1664, Noel appears to have taken little interest in parliamentary affairs at this stage of his career and in 1665 he departed on his travels once more, journeying to Padua. On his return he remained a sporadic Member of the Commons. In 1669 he was named to the commission of the peace for Hampshire and was listed by Sir Thomas Osborne*, later duke of Leeds, as one of those to be engaged for the court by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham.<sup>15</sup> As Noel’s brother-in-law, Lord Russell, became increasingly associated with the opposition, it was also hoped that Noel might prove a positive influence in reining him in.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In 1676 Noel replaced Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton), as lord lieutenant of Hampshire. Winchester had allowed the county militia to stagnate during his lieutenancy but Noel was effective in restoring it.<sup>17</sup> Closely involved with the Noel–Bertie alliance in support of Danby (as Osborne had since become), the following year Noel was marked ‘vile’ by his cousin by marriage, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. At the general election of February 1679 Noel transferred from Rutland to Hampshire, where he was returned (unopposed) in partnership with the moderate Richard Norton<sup>‡</sup>, both men benefitting from the support of James*, duke of York.<sup>18</sup> Noel voted against exclusion and he was then defeated unexpectedly in the second general election of that year by his brother-in-law, Lord Russell (though Russell was also elected for Bedfordshire, which he chose to represent instead).<sup>19</sup></p><p>Noel chose not to contest Hampshire in the 1680 by-election; in February 1681 he was advanced to the Lords as Baron Noel of Titchfield. The creation was undoubtedly part of a general effort by Danby to bolster his support in the Lords, which was made more necessary by Campden’s indisposition in the final years of his life. Three more peers were created in the course of the year, but at least one newsletter writer remarked correctly that this was the only new creation of which he was aware at the time.<sup>20</sup> Noel had been listed by Danby as one of those prepared to stand bail for him the previous month and in March he was again listed as one of those expected to support the imprisoned lord treasurer.<sup>21</sup> Danby stipulated to his son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, that Noel was one of those whom Latimer was to approach in person prior to the sessions, along with Noel’s other relatives, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, and Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Noel took his seat in the Oxford Parliament on 21 Mar. 1681, introduced between William Byron*, 3rd Baron Byron, and Charles Henry Kirkhoven*, Baron Wotton (better known as earl of Bellomont [I]). Noel was then named to the committees for privileges and petitions, after which he proceeded to attend on the remaining six days of the session. Following the dissolution he continued to be entrusted with local offices and in July he succeeded James Annesley*, styled Lord Annesley (later 2nd earl of Anglesey), as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> in Hampshire.<sup>23</sup> Actively involved in attempting to procure an earldom for his father at this time, Noel was dismayed to be asked by the king to purchase the governorship of Portsmouth from George Legge* (later Baron Dartmouth) later that year. The impetus for the arrangement appears to have come from York.<sup>24</sup> Noel protested that he was unable to provide the £5,000 demanded by Legge and that he was fearful that his father would be unwilling to lend the money, as he needed a similar amount to procure the coveted new peerage. The money was eventually obtained through Danby’s intercession, enabling Noel to secure the appointment.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Despite continued promises that Noel’s father, Campden, was to be the next earl created by the king, in June 1682 Noel approached Legge for his assistance before his mother, Lady Campden, discovered that no further progress had been made in securing the award.<sup>26</sup> Noel was compelled to approach Legge again three months later, having heard that Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> was now rumoured to be on the point of being advanced to an earldom. Fearful of his mother’s reaction, he confided to Legge, ‘you may easily guess how great her rage will be against me, and what prejudice she may do me by alienating my father’s affection’.<sup>27</sup> Campden died in October with the promotion still unsettled, a state of affairs that prompted criticism of Noel from some quarters as it was believed that he was responsible for the failure to secure his father’s earldom.<sup>28</sup> Six weeks later a patent was finally made out creating Noel earl of Gainsborough.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Gainsborough’s new honour was one of a number of promotions and creations at that time. He swiftly became established as one of the most influential peers in the south and in the midlands, commanding the lieutenancies of Rutland and Hampshire as well as the strategically important governorship of Portsmouth. His further role as warden of the New Forest brought him into close association with the king, especially towards the end of Charles II’s reign when plans for the new palace at Winchester began to take form.<sup>30</sup> In April 1683 Gainsborough remarried, though his choice of bride attracted criticism from some who considered that ‘more money and less jointure would do as well for him that has so many daughters’.<sup>31</sup> In spite of such sniping, the same year Gainsborough secured a match for his daughter Frances with Simon Digby<sup>†</sup>, 4th Baron Digby [I]. Gainsborough was able to provide the new Lady Digby with a portion of £8,000 and she was also granted the precedency of the daughter of an earl despite her marriage to an Irish baron.<sup>32</sup> Marriage to Digby was also the occasion of Gainsborough’s heir, Wriothesley Baptist Noel*, styled Viscount Campden, and daughters bringing an action in chancery against Rachel, Lady Russell, whom they accused of failing to execute a trust which should have made portions of £4,000 payable to Frances, Lady Digby and her two sisters at the time of their marriages.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In October 1684 Lady Russell commented on Gainsborough’s continuing ‘great honours from the court’, though the costs incumbent on his responsibilities concerned him.<sup>34</sup> The accession of James II appeared to confirm Gainsborough’s prominence. He co-ordinated the celebrations in Portsmouth and declared to Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], that he was, ‘resolved to live and die his Majesty’s loyal and obedient servant’.<sup>35</sup> Gainsborough was continued in his commands, though he now shared his lieutenancies in Hampshire and Rutland with his heir, Campden, who was returned to the House of Commons for Hampshire in March 1685. Gainsborough’s half-brother Baptist Noel<sup>‡</sup> was elected for Rutland.<sup>36</sup> During the election for Winchester Gainsborough demonstrated that he was not necessarily prepared to toe the court line. In spite of clear instructions from Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to support the candidacy of Roger L’Estrange<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Hanses<sup>‡</sup>, Gainsborough offered his interest to Francis Morley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Cloberry<sup>‡</sup> instead. His intransigence infuriated the court agent in Winchester, Bernard Howard, who complained to Sunderland that:</p><blockquote><p>I could have wished that the two lord lieutenants would have appeared for whom they knew the King recommended to me, but I think their acting otherwise will do us little hurt, and only show that they have as little interest as I wish all men may have who in a cunning trimming way discountenance what the King promotes.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>Gainsborough appears to have been warned off by Sunderland. He agreed to ‘meddle no more in the matter’, and Cloberry and Morley were persuaded to withdraw before the poll.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Gainsborough took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. During the summer the Hampshire militia were mobilized to form part of the force raised to counter the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, though two of the foot regiments were rejected by Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, as unserviceable. Reports that it was Gainsborough’s men that captured Monmouth are mistaken.<sup>39</sup></p><p>In spite of reports circulating in March 1686 that Gainsborough was to be turned out of his governorship of Portsmouth and replaced by the local Catholic landholder Sir Henry Tichborne, the earl appears to have remained on warm terms with the king.<sup>40</sup> He entertained him at Portsmouth in September 1686 and again in August 1687 but his disquiet at James II’s policies became increasingly pronounced over the government’s plans to overturn the Test Act. <sup>41</sup> In January 1687 it was again reported that he was to be turned out of his place.<sup>42</sup> Then, in May, he was included in a list of peers thought to be opposed to the king’s policies. In November he was again assessed as being likely to oppose repeal of the Test. The same month he was summoned to an audience and, on refusing to offer satisfactory answers to the Three Questions, he was removed from all of his offices.<sup>43</sup> At the beginning of January he was listed once again as an opponent of repeal.</p><p>During the last year of his life, Gainsborough was plagued with poor health. In February 1688 he appears to have suffered a massive stroke, paralysing one side and blinding him in one eye.<sup>44</sup> He recovered from this attack but seems not to have taken an active role during the events of the Revolution, though his house at Titchfield was taken by Queen Mary Beatrice and the infant prince of Wales as a convenient location for a swift escape across the Channel.<sup>45</sup> On 20 Jan. 1689 Gainsborough composed his will, in which he described himself as ‘sick and weak in body but of perfect and sound memory’. He was mistakenly rumoured to have died by 24 January. The following day he was listed as being absent through ill health at a call of the House.<sup>46</sup> A further report of early February recording his demise the week before was also based on mistaken information.<sup>47</sup> On 19 Mar. the House accepted the explanation of two of Gainsborough’s servants that he was ‘so indisposed with sickness’ that he was in no condition to attend. By that time his condition was desperate. He died at Exton the following month aged 48 and was buried on 8 April. In his will Gainsborough nominated his countess as his executrix and made provision for her, his two surviving daughters (Frances, Lady Digby, having died after just over a year of marriage) and a servant to whom he bequeathed money to buy a £20 annuity. He was succeeded in the peerage by his only surviving son, Campden, as 2nd earl of Gainsborough.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NOEL, Wriothesley Baptist (c. 1661-90) |
<p><strong><surname>NOEL</surname></strong>, <strong>Wriothesley Baptist</strong> (c. 1661–90)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1682-89 Visct. Campden; <em>suc. </em>fa. Apr. 1689 as 2nd earl of GAINSBOROUGH. |
|
Never sat. |
|
MP Hampshire 1685 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1661, only surv. s. of Edward Noel*, earl of Gainsborough, and Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton. <em>educ</em>. Winchester Coll. 1675; Magdalen, Oxf. 1680. <em>m</em>. (with £9,500)<sup>1</sup> 30 Dec. 1687, Katherine (<em>d</em>. 1704), da. of Fulke Greville*, 5th Bar. Brooke, and Sarah Dashwood, 2da.<em> d</em>. 21 Sept. 1690; <em>will</em> 20 Sept. 1690, pr. 1 Apr. 1691.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Winchester 1679, Portsmouth 1682, Lymington 1686; dep. gov. Gosport 1682–7; dep. lt. Hants. 1682–5, Rutland 1682–5; ld. lt. (jt.) Hants 1684–7, Rutland 1685–8; commr. for assessment Hants. 1689, Rutland 1689.</p> |
|
<p>Poor health appears to have run in the Noel family. Campden (as he was styled until his succession to the peerage) suffered from diabetes, while his father died aged just 48, having previously been incapacitated with what seems to have been a stroke. Premature rumours of Campden’s demise were current in January 1684, though these proved to be unfounded and were swiftly rebutted.<sup>3</sup> Campden appears to have been physically unalluring. One description referred to him dismissively as being ‘not very agreeable in shape though in all other respects valuable enough’.<sup>4</sup> In spite of an estimated annual income of £10,000 he struggled to attract a wife. Both Lady Elizabeth Stanhope and one of the daughters of Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, rejected his advances and it was not until 1687 that a marriage was eventually arranged with Katherine Greville.<sup>5</sup> The match was almost certainly brokered by his sister, Jane, Lady Digby, whose husband, William Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Digby [I], was a political ally of Katherine Greville’s father in Warwickshire.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Campden’s own political interests were firmly rooted in Hampshire and Rutland. In 1682 his father arranged his appointment as deputy governor of Gosport and in 1684 Campden was one of those listed as a complainant in a chancery action brought against Rachel, Lady Russell, arising out of the settlement of the Wriothesley estates in Hampshire.<sup>7</sup> Returned for Hampshire at the 1685 general election he also served as joint lord lieutenant of Hampshire and Rutland with his father, but James II’s determination to overturn the Test Act brought an end to Campden’s rapid promotion. Both he and his father attracted the disapproval of Bernard Howard, the king’s agent in Winchester, when they refused to support the court candidates during the 1685 election. Following Gainsborough’s refusal to offer satisfactory answers to the Three Questions, both were turned out of their lieutenancies in 1687.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Campden determined to stand for the county again in 1688. It was widely expected that he would be returned once more but when elections were finally held in January 1689 he appears not to have stood. The reason was almost certainly the sudden illness of his father, who died before 8 Apr., and Campden’s consequent elevation to the upper House.</p><p>In spite of a reasonable record of attendance in the Commons, Gainsborough failed to take his seat in the Lords. He was recorded as missing on account of ill health on 22 May 1689 and he was again noted as absent, though without explanation, on 28 October. In September he had responded to a request for a self-assessment of his personal estate, insisting that, as his father had died recently in debt and he was now encumbered with the payment of his sisters’ portions, he had ‘no personal estate other than stock and household goods, both of which I conceive ought not to be taxed’.<sup>9</sup> Absent from the House at the opening of the new Parliament the following year, at a call on 31 Mar. 1690 Gainsborough was excused his continued failure to attend. It is possible that his disinclination to appear was on account of poor health but equally possible that he was unwilling to be reconciled to the new regime: a report of July 1690 noted him as one of the peers being sought out in the wake of a plot against the government.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Gainsborough and his countess were noted as taking the waters at Banbury in August but by the end of the month it was apparent that his latest illness was terminal.<sup>11</sup> He died on 21 Sept. and was buried at Exton. In his will he bequeathed a substantial legacy of £5,000 to his sister, Juliana Noel, as well as smaller bequests to servants. He also left debts of £20,000 and an estate in some confusion.<sup>12</sup> He was succeeded in the peerage by his cousin Baptist Noel*, a minor. His widow later married John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby).<sup>13</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NORTH, Charles (1635-91) |
<p><strong><surname>NORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1635–91)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>24 Oct. 1673 (by writ) Bar. GREY OF ROLLESTON; <em>suc. </em>fa. 24 June 1677 as 5th Bar. NORTH. |
|
First sat 27 Oct. 1673; last sat 5 Jan. 1691 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1 Oct. 1635 1st s. and h. of Sir Dudley North*, later 4th Bar. North, and Anne, da. and coh. of Sir Charles Montagu, of Cranbrook, Essex; bro. of Francis North*, later Bar. Guilford, Dudley<sup>‡</sup> and Roger North<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Amersham, Bucks. (Mr Crooke, tutor); Sidney Sussex, Camb. <em>matric.</em> 21 Apr. 1651. <em>m.</em> 6 Apr. 1667, Katherine (<em>d.</em>1694), da. of William Grey*, Bar. Grey of Warke, wid. of Sir Edward Mosley<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt, of Rolleston, Staffs, 2s., 2 da.<sup>1</sup> ?Kntd. betw. 1662 and 1667. <em>d.</em> c.10 Jan. 1691; <em>bur.</em> Kirtling, Cambs.;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 13 Mar.-12 Oct. 1683, pr. 23 Jan.1691.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for poll money 1690.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Commr. of assessment, Cambs., 1672.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: watercolour (miniature) by Edmund Ashfield, 1670-80, Victoria and Albert Museum.</p> |
<p>Charles North is the least known of the many children of Dudley North, 4th Baron North. His talented younger brothers—Francis, Dudley, and Dr John North—all received glowing accounts in their biographies written by the youngest brother Roger. Their eldest brother and heir to the title, despite his long and busy career in public life, received no such treatment, indeed barely a mention in any of his brother’s works. One of the few references there is suggests the reason for this neglect: ‘We had the unhappiness of an elder brother who had attached himself to that faction! and, for that reason and other family differences we corresponded little with him’.<sup>10</sup> While Roger’s heroes Francis and Dudley were prominent in their attempts to thwart the excesses of the Popish Plot, their brother Charles was a leading member of the circle of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, manipulating the Plot to promote his agenda against James*, duke of York, and was not even above using Titus Oates’s services to try to settle a personal vendetta. Later, while Roger and Dudley withdrew from public life in protest at what they saw as the illegal accession of William III, Charles (by then 5th Baron North) was one of the staunchest and busiest of William’s Whig supporters in his first parliaments.</p><p>North was marked out from an early age to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as a courtier. He was assisted in these early days by his connection to Edward Montagu*, later earl of Sandwich, his mother’s first cousin. It was probably through Montagu’s patronage that North took part in the voyage to fetch the restored king from the Netherlands in May 1660, at which time Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> first met him and praised his musicianship (a family trait of the Norths).<sup>11</sup> A year later North again accompanied Sandwich to take possession of Tangiers and bring back the new queen from Portugal.<sup>12</sup> Sometime during this period he may have been knighted, for, although his name does not appear in the lists of knighthoods conferred in this period, he is referred to as Sir Charles North in all other documents from the mid-1660s; alternatively this might simply have been a courtesy title paid to him as the eldest son of a baron.</p><p>North’s political and financial fortunes were notably changed by his alliance with the Grey family, perhaps the determining factor in shaping his future career. In April 1667 he entered into an advantageous marriage with Katherine, the only daughter of Baron Grey of Warke, and the recipient of a substantial income from lands in Staffordshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire that were part of her marriage settlement with her first husband Sir Edward Mosley, 2nd bt. (who had died within seven months of the marriage).<sup>13</sup> There had long been connections between the Norths and the Greys. North’s grandfather, Dudley North*, 3rd Baron North, had been a political ally of Grey of Warke in the sparsely attended House of Lords in the 1640s, where both had supported a more vigorous prosecution of the war and a Presbyterian church settlement.<sup>14</sup> A settlement for the marriage between North and his new bride was agreed between the two families on 3 Apr. 1667, in which land in Cambridgeshire worth £400 p.a. was settled on the young couple (Katherine Mosley was receiving an income of at least £1,200 p.a. from the lands settled on her at her first marriage). Barely 10 days later North wrote to his parents to inform them that he and his bride had already proceeded with the marriage ceremony, without either set of parents being informed.<sup>15</sup> By his own letters it appears North was very happy with this match, and when Pepys ran into him in December 1667 he ‘of his own accord was so silly as to tell me he is married; and for her quality, being a Lord’s daughter (my Lord Grey), and person and beauty and years and estate and disposition, he is the happiest man in the world. I am sure he is an ugly fellow; but a good scholar and sober gentleman’.<sup>16</sup> He became closely connected with the Grey family, living with his wife’s father and brothers at their London residence in Charterhouse Square. The ageing Grey of Warke was clearly fond of his son-in-law and found him ‘so good company that were it not his nearness to me would deserve his living here… I suppose we shall not be weary of one another’s company’. From this base in the capital, North was able to inform his father of court and political gossip in a series of newsletters, and was even the medium through whom Grey of Warke assigned his proxy to the 4th Baron North in October 1669.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Grey of Warke’s favour towards his son-in-law had important results. On 24 Oct. 1673, Charles North was created Baron Grey of Rolleston by writ of summons, even though he was the heir apparent to his father’s barony of North. He was formally introduced to the House of Lords by Grey of Warke three days later. Grey of Warke’s heir, Thomas Grey<sup>‡</sup>, had died in early 1672 and the old man appears to have been devastated by this loss, even though he had another son, Ralph Grey*, later 2nd Baron Grey of Warke, in line to inherit. According to later accounts Grey of Warke held a deep affection for his daughter, and may have seen her, and by extension her husband, as his preferred heir rather than Ralph.<sup>18</sup> North’s title did not commemorate his own family name or estates, but those of his wife, whose principal estate given to her in her jointure lay in Rolleston in Staffordshire. The title was, in effect, an indirect ennoblement of the old baron’s daughter and perhaps indicates the continuing influence of the former parliamentarian lord at court even as late as the 1670s. In the following years Grey of Rolleston (as North was now styled) most closely followed the political inclinations of his wife and the family through whom he had first risen to the peerage, which put him increasingly at odds with the views of his younger brothers.</p><p>If Grey of Rolleston’s relations with his own family were difficult, he had an altogether more acrimonious relation with the 1st Baron Grey of Warke’s heirs. They were perhaps resentful of the favoured interloper whom they could easily see as a ‘pensioner’ on his wife’s fortunes.<sup>19</sup> From late 1674 Grey of Rolleston initiated a number of actions against Ralph Grey, 2nd Baron Grey of Warke, and later against his widow, Catherine, in which he accused them, in a complicated case that included conflicting testimonies about locked strong-boxes and the manner in which the old baron habitually signed his name, of destroying the original will of the 1st Baron, and forging a new one to deprive his daughter Katherine of the provision and the estates in Essex he had promised her.<sup>20</sup> This long-running dispute took up much of Grey of Rolleston’s energy over the succeeding years.</p><p>From his first appearance Grey of Rolleston was a constant presence in the House of Lords. He attended over four-fifths of all the sittings of the House between 27 Oct. 1673 and Charles II’s last Parliament, sitting in all but one of the meetings of the session of January-February 1674 and in every single sitting of the short session of October-November 1675. He was named to 88 select committees from his first sitting to the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament. He was consistently placed on the standing sub-committee for the House’s Journal, in which he took an active role, examining, approving and signing off on the official record of the House’s proceedings, from April 1677 up until his death in 1691.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Grey of Rolleston came increasingly to prominence in the two sessions of 1675, where he was a vocal member of the opposition against the Test Bill proposed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) and a strong supporter of the judicial rights of the Lords against the claims of the Commons. For both sessions he held the proxy of his father, who had previously always entrusted it to the 1st Baron Grey of Warke. Grey of Rolleston signed the protests of 21 and 29 Apr., which insisted that the oaths in Danby’s test amounted to an encroachment of the privilege of the peerage. He proposed that the wording of the controversial oath be amended by the addition of the words ‘by force or fraud’ to allow for constitutional measures to reform Church or State. This modification, supported by the duke of York, was still defeated by Danby’s supporters.<sup>22</sup> Later in the same session he insisted on the judicial rights of the House of Lords as an appellate court in cases involving members of the Commons when on 27 May he joined in a protest against the resolution not to insist to the Commons on the Lords’ right of judicature in the case of Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup>. In the session of autumn 1675 he further served to stir up this furore, when, on 20 Nov. he reported to the Lords that two members of the lower chamber had prevented him from taking down from the gates of Westminster Hall an offending declaration of the Commons denouncing as a traitor to the privileges of that house any MP who appealed a case to the Lords.<sup>23</sup> Not surprisingly, this incident caused an uproar in the Lords and provided Shaftesbury and the country peers the perfect opportunity to move for an address to the king calling for the dissolution of Parliament. Grey of Rolleston voted for the address and signed the dissent when this motion was rejected. A record of the division noted that Grey was also in possession of the proxy of his father, North, which he had held since 4 October.<sup>24</sup></p><p>When Parliament met again in 1677 after its long prorogation, Grey of Rolleston supported the Country agenda by signing protests against the bill providing for the Protestant education of royal children (on the basis that it did not go far enough) and against the rejection of limiting amendments to a supply bill providing money for the Navy.<sup>25</sup> From the confines of the Tower, Shaftesbury listed ‘Grey of Rolleston’ as ‘doubly worthy’ in his analysis of lay peers.<sup>26</sup> This judgment was certainly made sometime before 24 June 1677, because on that day, while Parliament was prorogued, the 4th Baron North died and Grey of Rolleston inherited his title, becoming the 5th Baron North. Henceforth he was usually known as Lord North and Grey, and it was with this name that he was given permission to visit Shaftesbury in the Tower in November 1677.<sup>27</sup> Three years later, in 1680, as a member of the sub-committee for the Lords’ Journal, North and Grey was among those who signed their approval of the excisions from the House’s formal record of the proceedings in 1677 surrounding the commitment of Shaftesbury and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, to the Tower.<sup>28</sup> On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of murder.</p><p>In the violent clashes of the last session of the Cavalier Parliament and the first Exclusion Parliament, North and Grey remained a key voting member in Shaftesbury’s Country party, yet showed himself slightly less willing to adopt all the positions, and sign all the protests, that many of his colleagues did. In most matters he remained a principal player in the country opposition. For the Cavalier Parliament’s last session, and indeed for all the succeeding Exclusion parliaments, he was named to the standing committee to gather and consider evidence on the Popish Plot, and in October 1678 he was further named to a committee to take evidence on the constables of London and Westminster. In May 1679 he was appointed a reporter for a conference with the Commons on the Habeas Corpus Bill.<sup>29</sup> He voted in favour of the commitment of Danby on 27 Dec. 1678, and in his various calculations of the forces ranged against him, the lord treasurer consistently considered North and Grey to be against him. Certainly during the proceedings in April and May 1679, North and Grey continued to vote in favour of Danby’s attainder. As relations between the two Houses deteriorated over the course of the spring of 1679, North and Grey took the side of the Commons in their attempts to prosecute Danby speedily and effectively. He supported the measure to form a committee of both houses to discuss the procedure for the trial of the impeached lords, and consistently opposed the Lords’ insistence on the bishops’ right to remain in the House during their capital trials. Yet he did not enter his protest, as so many of the Country opposition did, when the motion for Danby’s attainder in December 1678 was defeated, and did not subscribe his name to any protests in the last session of the Cavalier Parliament, despite the mustering of Country forces to oppose Danby’s measures.<sup>30</sup></p><p>During the long series of prorogations before the second Exclusion Parliament, North and Grey continued to dine regularly with Shaftesbury and the other opposition lords at the Swan Tavern in order to discuss strategy. With them he attended the large public trials of figures involved in the Popish Plot, such as Knox and Lane, in order to show support for the Plot allegations. He was also one of those present when Oates was said to have come off ‘with flying colours’.<sup>31</sup> He was one of the 16 peers who signed the petition to Charles II in December 1679 calling on him to summon the new Parliament speedily.<sup>32</sup> It was perhaps for this presumption that his name was deleted from the Cambridgeshire commission of the peace in January 1680.<sup>33</sup> Later he was one of the 10 peers who that summer exhibited an information at King’s Bench against the duke of York for recusancy.<sup>34</sup> Yet his allegiance with the group and commitment to their cause was ambiguous. He had already become something of a ‘renegade’ amongst his colleagues because he had recently kissed York’s hand. More serious was his battle with the Greys over the authenticity and terms of the will of the 1st Baron Grey of Warke, especially as at this point the target of his suits was the heir to the disputed estates, his nephew, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), who was one of the most effective and committed members of the country group. The case came to a head in late 1679 when it was heard by the court of delegates, which ultimately rejected North and Grey’s claims. Despite this setback, in February 1680 North and Grey exhibited yet another bill in Chancery aiming at recovering some of Grey of Warke’s estates. <sup>35</sup> At a meeting at the house of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, Shaftesbury accused North and Grey of instigating a suit against one of his colleagues for an estate and, as Shaftesbury thought, an earldom (the earldom of Tankerville, which had originally been conferred upon a member of the Grey family in the 15th century, and was eventually bestowed on the 3rd Baron Grey of Warke in 1695). When North and Grey denied that he was aiming at the earldom, Shaftesbury, slyly referring to his recent deference to York, suggested that there were other ways for him to get an earldom. To this North and Grey retorted that whereas Shaftesbury had already been able to find such means, he himself could not.<sup>36</sup> North and Grey also suspected that his own brother, Francis (later Baron Guilford), who was at that point lord keeper, had swayed the judges at the court of delegates against him, an accusation which occasioned an exchange of insults between North and Grey and his merchant brother Dudley.<sup>37</sup></p><p>When it came to the sticking point, though, on 15 Nov. 1680, North and Grey did vote against the rejection of the exclusion bill and entered his dissent when that motion succeeded.<sup>38</sup> He also voted to appoint a committee to consider the state of the kingdom in conjunction with the Commons and in December found the Catholic, William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty. But his protest against the rejection of the exclusion bill was the only occasion he publicly took a stand against the proceedings of the House in that Parliament. Unlike many of his colleagues in the Country opposition, he seems not to have put his name to the dissents against the refusal to discuss Sir William Scroggs’s impeachment (though a list in the Carte manuscripts suggests that he was among the signatories).<sup>39</sup> At the short-lived Oxford Parliament of March 1681, where he was named again to the standing committee to receive information about the Popish Plot, he did not join in with the protest against the Lords’ rejection of the Commons’ impeachment of Edward Fitzharris. However, three months after Parliament’s dissolution, North and Grey was among ‘a great concourse of persons of quality’ who attended the ‘so much expected trial of Fitzharris’, as part of Shaftesbury’s show of force and intimidation in this political trial.<sup>40</sup> At the same time as he was making such a public show of his support for Exclusion, he still petitioned the crown in November 1681 to establish a commission of review to consider yet again his case against the Greys of Warke.<sup>41</sup> His failure to gain additional land from his wife’s side of his family may have been compensated in early 1681 by his own accession to the remainder of his paternal estate, and particularly the manor of Tostock in Suffolk, upon the death of his mother. This caused yet another fracas with his brothers as North and Grey proved so eager to take possession of the house that he provided his mother’s executors, Dudley and Roger North, very little time to clear out her personal effects.<sup>42</sup></p><p>At the height of the Popish Plot, North and Grey had been able to use his connections within the opposition and among those fomenting the conspiracy theories to settle a personal vendetta against the Anglican priest Adam Elliot. Elliot had been chaplain for William, Lord Grey of Warke, and had acted as a witness for the Dowager Lady Grey of Warke in the proceedings before the court of delegates in December 1679. North and Grey, according to Elliot, persuaded Oates to accuse the priest falsely before the king both of being a Catholic and a Muslim renegade, as Elliot had spent many months in captivity in Salé in North Africa. In June 1682, with the Popish Plot agitators now on the defensive, Elliot won an action of defamation against Oates, and then proceeded to write an attack on ‘the Salamanca doctor’, with the sarcastic title <em>A Modest Vindication of Titus Oates</em>. In this work he made the central claim that ‘Charles, Lord North and Grey was the sole and only occasion of Oates’s swearing against me’. Elliot was scathing on North and Grey in this pamphlet, especially in the purportedly verbatim transcription of North and Grey’s rambling and nonsensical testimony in Elliot’s defamation action.<sup>43</sup> For this attack North and Grey issued a writ of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> in October 1682 against both Elliot and his publisher, but before the case could be heard, Elliot submitted himself to North and Grey, ‘and begged his pardon in open court, so that his lordship very generously forgave him’. North’s magnanimity on the occasion was said to have won him ‘great commendation’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>On 9 Oct. 1688 the king issued a warrant to prepare a grant for a lease, to be made out to Lady North and Grey specifically, to recover concealed crown lands in Kent and Essex made derelict by the sea (with part of the revenue to be sent to the crown). The grant’s progress seems to have been halted by the crisis of William of Orange’s invasion, but it suggests that North and Grey may have effected some sort of reconciliation with James II in the late days of his reign.<sup>45</sup> However, throughout the reign North and Grey had been considered by observers to be an opponent to the king in his attempts to repeal the Test Act. He had been one of those suggested by Henry Compton*, bishop of London, as a possible surety for one of the seven bishops in the summer of 1688 and featured in information sent to Holland by Van Citters. In addition, from the first moment of William’s invasion, North and Grey showed himself an eager supporter of the prince.<sup>46</sup> He was a constant member of the provisional government established in London on 11 Dec. 1688 after James II’s flight, attending every single session of its meetings, including the emergency gathering of nine peers at 3am on 13 Dec. to decide how to handle the panic caused by rumours that Irish troops were massing outside the city. He subscribed his name to almost all of the orders issuing from the provisional government, including those on the crucial first day ordering Louis Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, and George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, not to engage the Prince of Orange in battle. He, with James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, and John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston, were the three lords appointed on 15 Dec. to interrogate the incarcerated George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, on the whereabouts of the Great Seal and the writs for the new Parliament, and to report his testimony to the council. He was present at all of William’s consultations with peers to discuss the proper calling of Parliament, and at a meeting on 24 Dec. joined Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, in arguing that James’s flight was a ‘demise’ in law and that therefore Princess Mary could issue the writs in her own name as the succeeding monarch.<sup>47</sup></p><p>North and Grey was at his most active in the few short years he sat in William III’s parliaments. He attended 90 per cent of the sittings in the Convention Parliament and 96 per cent of those of the first two sessions of the 1690 Parliament, including every single meeting in its first session. He was appointed to a total of 127 select committees from the opening of the Convention to his death in January 1691—that is, almost every committee established by the House in those two years—and he worked on many of them, for throughout 1689-90 he frequently reported to the House on proceedings in committees he had chaired. For example, he served as a chairman of the committee for petitions on a dozen occasions between December 1689 and December 1690.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Throughout, North and Grey remained one of the government’s leading supporters. In the divisions on the transferral of the crown in late January and early February 1689 he firmly took the view, expressed in his votes and his formal dissents, that ‘the throne was vacant’, that James had ‘abdicated’ by his departure, and that William and Mary should be declared legal king and queen.<sup>49</sup> He once again revealed himself an advocate of the privilege of the peerage through his opposition to the trial of peers bill, against whose passage he entered protests in both March 1689 and January 1690. On 21 Mar. 1689 he further protested against the House’s rejection of the motion to repeal the sacramental test in the new oaths, ‘because this obligation to receive sacrament is a test on Protestants rather than on the Papists’. Throughout the first half of April he acted as a manager in conferences discussing the bill to remove papists from London and Westminster, and he later chaired and reported from a committee to draft an address to the king petitioning him to expel all French papists from the vicinity of Whitehall.<sup>50</sup> So involved was he in the proceedings of the House that on 23 Apr. he entrusted his proxy to George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, for the short period until 10 May that he was absent. From 21 June he in turn held the proxy of Thomas Coventry*, 5th Baron (later earl of) Coventry, whose vote North and Grey exercised until the end of the first session of the Convention Parliament. He joined other Whigs in rallying to Titus Oates, trying in May and July to overturn the judgments of perjury against him and to reduce the vindictive measures taken against him by the House.<sup>51</sup> He was even manager for a conference on the Oates bill, as well as for one putting the Great Seal in commission.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Throughout the Parliament North and Grey chaired a number of committees, most of them for private estate bills, on which he occasionally reported as well.<sup>53</sup> He was a public figure who apparently saw himself as a leading parliamentary spokesman for the Whig government. When a crowd of angry silk-weavers besieged Westminster in August 1689, protesting against the bill for wearing woollens, North and Grey, along with some other lords, ‘set up for Publicolas’ and ‘made several orations’ trying to calm the crowd. At length the silk-workers were placated by these reassurances, and ‘my Lord North boasted how he had preserved the Lords’ House by his prudent management’. But ‘a clownish fellow by way of reply took notice how the Capitol of Rome had been preserved’. Early in October he received a boost to his standing when the king promised to dine at his house. Even so, his reputation with William was uncertain: Halifax had noted earlier in the year that the king had refused to consider appointing North and Grey to the governorship of Jamaica.<sup>54</sup> In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) regarded North and Grey as an opponent of the court.</p><p>North and Grey’s allegiance to the Whigs caused friction with his younger Tory brothers Dudley and Roger, especially in November 1689 when Dudley was being prosecuted by the Whigs for his role, as sheriff of London in 1682, in selecting the juries that found William Russell,<sup>‡</sup> Lord Russell, and Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> guilty. Yet North and Grey, ‘for aught I know meaning well but deceived by men of his party’, still saw fit to warn his estranged brother Roger that unless Dudley ‘applied himself’ that is, ‘by going to some principal men on the other side and so interest or soften them’ he would be ruined. Roger insisted that Dudley merely intended to justify himself by telling the truth, but North and Grey felt that his defence would fall on deaf ears, and that in trying to justify himself he would only make matters worse. ‘So we parted with much dissatisfaction on his part’. It may have been concern for his brother too that caused North and Grey to move that the term ‘murder’ be omitted and ‘a softer word’ substituted when a committee was established to investigate the deaths of Russell and Sydney. His suggestion was not acted upon.<sup>55</sup></p><p>In the first year of the 1690 Parliament North and Grey continued his busy activity in the procedural life of the House. He often chaired and reported from many of the select committees he was named to, mostly on private estate and naturalization bills, and was also occasionally chairman and reporter of Committees of the Whole House.<sup>56</sup> He was also frequently a teller in divisions.<sup>57</sup> In April he dissented from a change made in the wording of the recognition bill to formalize and render legal the proceedings of the Convention, as the new word inserted in the bill, ‘enacted’, was not as positive as the word it replaced, ‘declare’; he subscribed a further protest when the House determined to expunge from the record the reasons given in that dissent.<sup>58</sup> During a debate on the Abjuration Bill in early May North and Grey received the injunction of the House for irate words passed between him and John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace.<sup>59</sup> On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from theiir imprisonment in the Tower, and a little later dissented from the decision to discharge them from their bail. Also in October, he recorded his dissent from the House’s decision in the case of <em>Forster vs. Munt</em> Throughout the remainder of the winter he remained involved in the bill to allow Salisbury to nullify the entail on his lands, acting at different times as a conference manager and a teller in this legislation.<sup>60</sup></p><p>North and Grey died shortly after the prorogation of the second session of the 1690 Parliament, probably quite suddenly as he was still sitting about a week before his death at the age of fifty-five. His will, unrevised since October 1683 and in which he had stipulated that he did not wish to be ‘opened or embalmed when dead’, provided an unusual inheritance for his children: ‘I desire to live in the memory of just men and leaving my four children only five pounds a piece leave them and the sole care of them and as far as I can the disposing of them and nothing more than what she please to bestow upon them unto my dear and truly loving wife’, whom he also made his sole heir and executrix.<sup>61</sup> If he was trusting his wife to provide adequately for his children, he was quickly deceived, as she waited a little over three months after North and Grey’s death before marrying Colonel Francis Russell, younger brother of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, and himself governor of Barbados. She travelled with him to that island where she, with her eldest daughter, died intestate.<sup>62</sup> Colonel Russell died in October 1696. In his will, in which he called himself Francis Russell ‘of Rolleston’, he bequeathed a further 10 pounds to his remaining step-children.<sup>63</sup> It was up to Roger North to manage the affairs of his almost disinherited nephews and nieces, born to a brother with whom he had serious disagreements. He took special care of the eldest child and heir, William North*, who upon North and Grey’s death succeeded to both of his titles, though only 12 years old at the time.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
NORTH, Dudley (1582-1667) |
<p><strong><surname>NORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Dudley</strong> (1582–1667)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 3 Dec. 1600 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. NORTH. |
|
First sat 19 Mar. 1604; first sat after 1660, 6 Apr. 1663; last sat 6 Apr. 1663 |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 18 Sept. 1582, 1st s. of John North<sup>‡</sup> and Dorothy, da. and h. of Valentine Dale<sup>‡</sup> of Fyfield, Hants. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Camb. matric. 1597; travelled abroad, 1602–4?. <em>m</em>. c.25 Nov. 1600, Frances (<em>d.</em> Feb. 1677), da. and coh. of Sir John Brocket<sup>‡</sup> of Brocket Hall, Herts. 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>); 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> c.5 Jan. 1667;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 17 Mar. 1636–7 Apr. 1662, pr. 31 Jan. 1667.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. to treat with king 1644, court martial 1644, Admiralty 1645, excise 1645, relief of Ireland 1645, Westminster College rents 1645, abuses in heraldry 1646, exclusion from sacrament 1646, sale of bishops’ lands 1646, compounding 1647, visitation of Oxf. Univ. 1647, Ordinance for Indemnity 1647, navy and customs 1647, scandalous ministers, 1648,<sup>4</sup> Cttee. of Both Kingdoms June–Dec. 1648.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Cambs. (Charles I) 1640–42, (Parliament) 1642–8;<sup>6</sup> commr. militia, Cambs. March 1660.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1615, V&A Museum; oil on panel by Cornelius Johnson, c.1615, National Trust, The Vyne, Hants.</p> |
<p>Dudley North’s great-grandfather Edward North<sup>†</sup> was a trusted servant of the Tudors who bought the manor of Kirtling (also known as Catlidge) in Cambridgeshire at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and was ennobled as Baron North in 1554. Both Edward’s son, Roger North<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron North, and his grandson, Sir John North<sup>‡</sup>, distinguished themselves as soldiers and courtiers under Elizabeth I. Sir John died prematurely in 1597 so it was his eldest son, Dudley, who inherited the title from his grandfather in 1600. The new Baron North tried to follow in the family tradition, but he damaged his health and his finances with an extravagant life at the court of James I and, realizing upon the accession of Charles I that no further preferment at court was going to come his way, decided to retrench by selling off a number of properties and retiring to his principal seat at Kirtling.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Having been appointed lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire by Charles I in the weeks immediately preceding the convening of the Long Parliament, he was continued in this role under Parliament’s 1642 Militia Ordinance. North’s grandson Roger North<sup>‡</sup>, in some unpublished notes on the baron’s life, gave an account of his career in the Civil War House of Lords. He asserted that North was initially dismayed by the outbreak of war and purposely stayed away from the House for most of 1643, but, after being tricked into taking the Covenant, decided to devote himself to parliamentary life and ‘in everything he could opposed their proceedings, and from a sullen absentee became an active patroniser of the suffering Cavaliers’.<sup>10</sup> North’s role in the House during the war was far more ambiguous than this wishful thinking on the part of his Tory descendant would suggest. As tensions rose in the weeks leading up to war he was active in the House, even serving as Speaker on 13 occasions between 12 May and 12 July 1642. He was, however, absent for almost two years after this time, returning in June 1644; he was again Speaker on three occasions in October 1644, and occasionally again in 1645. Despite his grandson’s claims, in this latter period North generally supported the war effort and the remodelling of the army, and held largely tolerant views on religion and the Church. He did become increasingly alienated from the radicalism of Parliament, but he only left the House a few days after Pride’s Purge, returning once thereafter, to vote against the ordinance for the king’s trial.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Both the former parliamentarian Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in his list of the potential composition of the Convention House of Lords, and the royalist John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, in his correspondence with the exiled royal court, assumed that North would be among the small number of veterans from 1648 to attend the re-established House in its first days in April 1660.<sup>12</sup> North, however, was close to eighty years old at the Restoration, and by that time he preferred his life of retirement. Roger North<sup>‡</sup>, then a young boy, recalled him as a cantankerous and ill-natured old man at this time:</p><blockquote><p>as his humour was to be very tyrannical and vindictive, so he had taken a resolution never to be in the wrong. And he cared not whom he persecuted nor how unjustly or unreasonably, if it tended, as he thought, to justify anything he had done; and the more mistaken he found himself the more violent he was in his proceedings, as if by that means he was to set himself right. These are the dregs of an old courtier.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>North did not attend the Convention and for much of the time he entrusted his proxy to Edward Montagu*, 2nd Earl of Manchester, a fellow East Anglian landowner with whom North would have been acquainted from the Civil War. Moreover, the Presbyterian Manchester was a political, or at least a dining, associate of his son and heir, Sir Dudley North*, later 4th Baron North, a friendship cemented by his kinship with Sir Dudley’s wife, Anne Montagu.<sup>14</sup> Manchester held North’s proxy in the Convention for the period 30 July–29 Dec. 1660, and during the Cavalier Parliament for 10 Dec. 1661–19 May 1662 and 17 Mar.–17 May 1664. North did make one appearance in the House in these years, on 6 April 1663, but he does not seem to have taken part in any of the proceedings of that day and it is not clear what, if any, business had attracted his attendance.</p><p>Manchester held North’s proxy again from 5 Nov. 1666, but it was vacated at North’s death early in January the following year. In his will he bequeathed £200 to his wife and various small sums to servants. In a 1662 codicil, which perhaps reflects the still perilous condition of his estate at that time, he asked that his lands in the parish of Burrough, Cambridgeshire, be sold to help pay his debts. His executor, and sole surviving son and heir, Sir Dudley, inherited the title and the Kirtling estate, where he had long resided with his cantankerous father.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
NORTH, Dudley (1602-77) |
<p><strong><surname>NORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Dudley</strong> (1602–77)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 6 Jan. 1667 as 4th Bar. NORTH. |
|
First sat 31 Jan. 1667; last sat 27 Mar. 1673 |
|
MP Horsham 1628; Cambs. 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.); Cambridge 1660. |
<p><em>b.</em> c.4 Nov. 1602,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Dudley North*, 3rd Bar. North, and Frances, da. and coh. of Sir John Brocket<sup>‡</sup>, of Brocket Hall, Herts. <em>educ.</em> St John’s, Camb. by 1619; G. Inn 1619; I. Temple by 1622; travelled abroad (Italy, France, Spain), 1623–4, Padua 1624. <em>m.</em> 24 Ap. 1632 (with £4,000), Anne (<em>bur.</em> 15 Feb. 1681), da. and coh. of Sir Charles Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, of Cranbrook, Essex, 7s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 7da. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KB 3 Nov. 1616. <em>d.</em> 24 June 1677; <em>will</em> 18 May 1675–22 Sept. 1676, pr. 30 Oct. 1677.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. relief of the king’s army and northern counties 1641, raising and levying money for the defence of England and Ireland 1642, regulating excise 1645, scandalous offences 1646, 1648, removing obstructions to sale of bishops’ lands 1648.</p><p>Dep. lt. Cambs. 1639–40, 1642–9; commr. disarming recusants, Cambs. 1641, subsidy, Cambs. 1642, assessment, Cambs. 1643–8, 1657, sequestration, Cambs. 1643, levying money, Cambs. 1643, defence, Eastern Assoc. 1643, New Model Ordinance, Cambs. 1645, militia, Cambs. Isle of Ely and Suff. 1648, 1660, drainage, Bedford Level 1649, pontage, Cambridge 1663, complaints, Bedford Level 1663; freeman, Cambridge 1660–<em>d.</em></p><p>Lt. Palatinate c.1620–2; capt. coy. of ft. Netherlands 1624–7.</p><p>Mbr. Guiana Co. 1627.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: watercolour on vellum, J. Hoskins, c.1628 (NPG 6303); oil on canvas, C. Johnson, Waldershare Park, Kent.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>For much of his life Sir Dudley North remained in the shadow of his demanding and long-lived father.<sup>4</sup> Sir Dudley’s youngest son, Roger, was later to write of his filial obedience and deference:</p><blockquote><p>He lived to a good old age before the barony descended upon him, and had stood as an eldest son of a peer at the state in the House of Lords at sixty-three. He never would put on his hat or sit down before his father, unless enjoined to do it. So far was he from moving anything to him that he knew would displease him, and so egregious was this dutiful demeanour that all people took notice of and admired it.<sup>5</sup></p></blockquote><p>A Knight of the Bath from 1616, he spent some years travelling and soldiering on the continent in the early 1620s before, as he later wrote in the autobiographical preface to his <em>Observations and Advices Oeconomical</em> (1669), he ‘became a married man, and was speedily called to public affairs, being elected to four successive parliaments, where the service and approaches were excessive chargeable, and of no profit as to my particular’.<sup>6</sup> In 1628 he was elected to the first of his four Parliaments, for the Sussex borough of Horsham, and in April 1632 he married Anne Montagu, niece of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester.<sup>7</sup> He was selected for the county of Cambridge, where his family’s principal estate of Kirtling (or Catlidge) was located, for both Parliaments of 1640. His father was appointed lord lieutenant for the county under the Militia Ordinance but was not active in this role, and it was his heir, and principal deputy-lieutenant, Sir Dudley, who for the next two decades effectively administered the county for Parliament and the Interregnum governments, serving as a justice of the peace and parliamentary commissioner frequently tasked with raising revenue and maintaining order in the county.<sup>8</sup> He was purged from the Commons by the Army in December 1648, whereupon he retired to the family manor in Kirtling and to his own, purchased in 1638, in Tostock, Suffolk, devoting himself to his writings and estate management.<sup>9</sup></p><p>North was allowed to take up his place in the Commons again in February 1660, and may have been conferring during this time with his wife’s relatives Manchester and Edward Montagu*, later earl of Sandwich, about their plans for the return of the king.<sup>10</sup> He reluctantly complied with his father’s wishes to stand for knight of the shire again for the elections to the Convention, but his unwillingness to support an unconditional restoration – ‘to stand for the Parliament and a King and the settlement of the Church’ – cost him and his running mate the voices of the freemen of the county, although they were later returned by the perhaps more sympathetic voters of the borough of Cambridge.<sup>11</sup> He later declined to stand for the Cavalier Parliament.</p><p>In 1670 North anonymously published a complete repudiation of Parliament during the Civil War, <em>A Narrative Relating to Some Passages in the Long Parliament</em>, which says little about his own activities in the Long Parliament but a good deal about his political thinking (or what he felt obliged to say) in the years following the Restoration. What, he wondered, did Englishmen have to rebel against, ‘who live in an extraordinary well-tempered Monarchy, where the perfect constitution is sufficiently proved by an efflux of very much time, without the least appearance of any visible defect’.<sup>12</sup> Similarly, in a posthumously published volume of religious reflections, <em>Light in the Way to Paradise</em> (1682), he showed something of his ecclesiastical thought, condemning both Catholics and Presbyterians, the latter of whose church rule ‘is a government which seemeth adjusted to the latitude of a Democracy, and not to the altitude of a Monarchy’, while the power thus conferred on their ministers is ‘an authority little less than Papal’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In his 1669 <em>Observations and Advices Oeconomical</em>, North also waxed lyrical about the joys of his life of retirement in the country.<sup>14</sup> He did indeed remain largely distant from public affairs in his later years, but he was not completely uninvolved. Upon his father’s death in the first days of January 1667, and his own consequent succession to the peerage at the age of sixty-four, he received a number of letters from friends, including his kinsman and parliamentary correspondent Henry North<sup>‡</sup>, which expressed the hope that he would now be able to direct his energies towards the House of Lords.<sup>15</sup> At first the new baron himself appears to have been keen to sit. In the last week of January he asked his agent John Hallam to get his robes ready in London and even directed his second son, the lawyer Francis North*, later Baron Guilford, to ensure that his writ of summons was properly drawn up and made ready for him. Francis, following the advice of the clerk of the crown, went to the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, around 23 Jan. for the writ, as he ‘thought it might be an easier way than to have it by motion and order in the House of Lords’.<sup>16</sup> It is not clear what was meant by this last comment, as writs of summons were issued by the office of the chancellor and not by the House itself. The writ was duly prepared and left in Francis North’s possession pending the new Baron North’s arrival in Westminster. North presented the writ of summons and first took his seat on 31 January, and then attended each of the seven sittings that still remained in the 1666–7 session, during which he was named to five select committees.<sup>17</sup></p><p>This initial burst of enthusiasm may have been due to Sir Dudley’s long-delayed expectations for the title, and his desire to show that he had finally come into his rightful inheritance. But his interest in the actual proceedings of the House quickly cooled. Like so many other peers he did not come at all to the brief five-day session of July 1667, and attended only a quarter of the sittings of the following session of 1667–9. He sat only in the first part of the session, which first met on 10 Oct. 1667, and was named to 15 committees. On his last day in the session, 27 Nov. 1667, he assigned his proxy for its remainder (it was prorogued on 1 Mar. 1669) to William Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke. Grey of Warke had been a colleague of the 3rd Baron North in the 1640s House of Lords and was by this time father-in-law to North’s eldest son and heir, Sir Charles North*, later Baron Grey of Rolleston and 5th Baron North, who had secretly married Katherine Grey in April 1667.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Grey of Warke appears to have valued his connection with the Norths, for his daughter Katherine was one of his few surviving children, the only one to marry into a noble family, and he had a great liking for his son-in-law Charles.<sup>19</sup> In October 1669 Grey of Warke in his turn delegated to his son-in-law the task of sending an unsigned proxy to North, a procedure which Sir Charles was sure was unprecedented and unorthodox. ‘But’, he reassured his father, ‘his Lordship says it is sufficient (as he has often experienced) to intimate his desire thereof to the clerk of Parliament and paying his fees’.<sup>20</sup> The proxy was duly registered on 16 Oct., three days before the session of winter 1669 began, one of the few sessions of Parliament from which Grey of Warke was absent. North himself did not attend the House until 6 Nov. and sat for two-thirds of the sitting days until the end of the session on 11 Dec., during which he was placed on all three of the select committees established in that period.</p><p>North was present at the beginning of the following session, on 14 Feb. 1670, and was present for just over three-quarters of the sitting days until the summer adjournment of 11 Apr., during which time he was named to 24 select committees. On 21 Oct. 1670 he again assigned his proxy to Grey of Warke for the remainder of the session, which ended on 22 Apr. 1671. He was present at the turbulent session that met in early 1673, attending 87 per cent of the sitting days, his highest attendance in his career in the House, and being nominated to 18 committees. It was in the session that for the first and only time in his parliamentary career he was made a conference manager, for the conferences held on 6 and 7 Mar. 1673 on the address to the king concerning the growth of popery. His last day in this session, 27 Mar. 1673, was also his last ever appearance in the House. He again registered his proxy with Grey of Warke on 5 Jan. 1674, two days before the session of 7 Jan.–24 Feb. 1674 was set to begin. Grey of Warke died in July 1674, and North transferred his proxy to his own son Charles, who in October 1673 had been summoned to the House as Baron Grey of Rolleston, registering it with him on 10 Apr. 1675, three days before the session of that spring, and then again on 4 Oct. 1675, more than a week before the autumn session commenced.</p><p>When he was present in the House, North’s activity was largely limited to nominations to select committees; he was named to all but nine of those established on the days when he attended. When he was not present, his vote was cast through his proxies to Grey of Warke and then to Grey of Rolleston, in ways which would have associated him with the presbyterian and country groupings in the House. Following the defeat of Danby’s test bill in the spring of 1675, North was praised by the author of <em>A Letter of a Gentleman of Quality</em> as one of those absent lords who through their proxies had ‘taken care their votes should maintain their own interest and opinion’.<sup>21</sup> Similarly, the division list of the vote of 20 Nov. 1675 for an address for the dissolution of Parliament notes that North voted for the address through the proxy held by Grey of Rolleston.</p><p>Perhaps because of this association by proxy with his son, who was rapidly becoming a core member of the country opposition, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, at first categorized North as ‘worthy’ in his estimation of lay peers drawn up in spring 1677, before later amending his list to reflect the baron’s death in June 1677, and the accession of Grey of Rolleston to his father’s more ancient barony of North. While Grey of Rolleston inherited the title and the Cambridgeshire estates (and was in line to inherit the Tostock estate at the death of his mother), the 4th baron ensured by his will of 1675 that his five younger sons were provided for with annuities worth £400 in total. These sons all excelled in their chosen fields of law, scholarship or trade, and three of them – Sir Francis*, Baron Guildford, Sir Dudley<sup>‡</sup> and Dr John – all later received fulsome biographies from their youngest brother and admirer, Roger North, in which the virtuous example set by their parents was frequently stressed.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
NORTH, Francis (1637-85) |
<p><strong><surname>NORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1637–85)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>27 Sept. 1683 Bar. GUILFORD (GUILDFORD) |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 2 July 1685 |
|
MP King's Lynn 27 Jan.-6 Feb. 1673, 14 Feb. 1673-13 Dec. 1674 |
<p><em>b</em>. 22 Oct. 1637, 3rd s. of Dudley North*, 4th Bar. North, and Anne Montagu; bro. of Charles North*, later 5th Bar. North and Bar. Grey of Rolleston, Sir Dudley<sup>‡</sup> and Roger North<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Isleworth (Mr. Willis), Bury St Edmunds g.s. (Dr Stevens) c.1650; St John's Camb. fell. commoner 8 June 1653; M. Temple 1655, called 1661. <em>m</em>. 5 Mar. 1672 (with £14,000), Lady Frances Pope (<em>d</em>. 1678), da. of Thomas Pope, 3rd earl of Down [I], coh. of bro. Thomas Pope, 4th earl of Down [I], 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> kntd. 1671. <em>d</em>. 5 Sept. 1685; <em>will</em> 5 Sept. 1685; pr. 30 Sept. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for complaints, Bedford Level 1663; KC 1668; bencher, M. Temple 1668, reader 1671, treas. 1671-2; standing counsel, Cambridge 1670; solicitor-gen. 1671-3; attorney gen. 1673-4; c.j.c.p. 13 Dec. 1674-1682.</p><p>PC 1679-<em>d.</em>; ld. kpr. 20 Dec. 1682-<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> temp. speaker of the Lords Apr.- Dec. 1678.</p><p>Freeman, King's Lynn 1671, Lyme Regis 1675, Portsmouth 1682.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Riley, c.1682, NPG 4708; line engraving by D. Loggan, NPG D29859.</p> |
<p>North was reckoned by John Evelyn to have been ‘a most knowing, learned, ingenious gent… of an ingenuous sweet disposition, very skilful in music, painting, the new philosophy and politer studies’.<sup>6</sup> The description was echoed by North’s brother, Roger, who represented him as a virtuous man, able to stand apart from the political upheavals of his time and to rise through sheer merit. North, according to Roger, was 'modest to a weakness', so much so that many doubted his ability to survive the cut and thrust of court life.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The truth was far removed from this halcyon idyll. North may have been cultured but he was not the political innocent his brother depicted. He was a talented lawyer, well-connected and possessed of a self-assurance that made him an easy target for ridicule. He well understood the workings of faction and the need for government to keep control of information networks.<sup>8</sup> As an expert in corporation law he proved of supreme use to the court in the years following the exclusion crisis as efforts were made to reclaim control of the cities, through the surrender of charters. As North argued it, corporations were the king's by right and so could be repossessed at any time. Their warrants enabled corporations to function as an extraordinary way of running the cities for the king's convenience; by replacing the corporations with direct rule the king was merely re-asserting a former reality.<sup>9</sup></p><p>North's early success at the bar appears to have come in the face of some opposition from his colleagues at the Middle Temple. By May 1671 he had been brought into the administration as solicitor-general and the following year he consolidated his position with a prestigious marriage to Lady Frances Pope, who hailed from a prominent cavalier family in Oxfordshire.<sup>10</sup> In 1673 North was returned to the Commons and soon promoted to the office of attorney-general. He relinquished his seat on his appointment as lord chief justice of common pleas in December 1674. It was presumably his appointment to this last post that elicited warm congratulations from Thomas Stephens, who congratulated North for rising ‘to this high tribunal’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>With North's legal offices came experience of the Lords long before he was summoned to the chamber as a peer. As lord chief justice of common pleas he was called upon on numerous occasions to assist with committees and to report the opinion of his fellow judges relating to specific items. He first attended in this capacity on his appointment to the Lords committee on the bill for the prevention of forgeries on 19 Apr. 1675. He was ordered to assist at the committee on 24 Apr. on the bill against popish recusants and on 2 June communicated a message to the Commons that the Lords sought a conference about the arrest of the lawyer, Sir John Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. During the ensuing two sessions he was again active in assisting on committees and preparing drafts for new legislation.</p><p>North attended the Lords as speaker for the first time on 11 Apr. 1678. He presided again four days later.<sup>12</sup> In May and June he was required to assist on two committees. The continuing ill health of the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), and his rumoured refusal to seal an order concerning martial law (a rumour perhaps confusing him with his predecessor) may have been the source of reports that North had been offered the lord keepership but refused it.<sup>13</sup> Over the summer he departed on the western circuit where he was involved in a disagreement between the corporation of Bristol and church authorities about attendance at the assize sermon. In keeping with his usual interest in seeking a moderate approach, North appears to have advocated accommodation between ‘the church and this forward city’ as Guy Carleton*, bishop of Bristol, put it in a letter to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>14</sup> Later that year he was again required to act as temporary speaker between 16 and 21 Dec. and on 27 Dec. he was one of the judges to deliver an opinion about bailing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>North took a prominent role in drafting various pieces of legislation in 1679 including the habeas corpus bill and the bill for excluding Catholics from attending the inns of court.<sup>15</sup> That summer he was one of the judges to sit on the trials of five Jesuits accused of treason and later of Sir George Wakeman, the royal physician. The former trial was dominated by the spirited defence offered by one of the accused, John Gavan, who succeeded in rattling the chief witness, Titus Oates, to the extent that North was forced to order him not to ‘give the king’s witnesses ill words.’<sup>16</sup> Gavan’s efforts did not avail him or his colleagues who were all condemned. The following year North was noteworthy as the only one of the judges presiding in the court of delegates over the Emerton-Hyde marriage to conclude that it was not a valid one, the outcome favoured by Danby.<sup>17</sup></p><p>North's position at court brought him to the attention of the opposition, particularly in the city of London. Soon after the opening of the new Parliament, North was summoned to the Commons on 28 Oct. 1680 to inform them what he had been told by the dying William Bedloe while on his western circuit that summer concerning the extent to which York was privy to the details of the plot.<sup>18</sup> The following month the Commons set about preparing articles of impeachment against him for his role in drawing up the proclamation against tumultuous petitioning. Lord chief justice Scroggs and two other senior officers of the judiciary were also targeted. The committee for drawing up the impeachment got as far as meeting but the attempt was then lost by the dissolution.<sup>19</sup> While the impeachment was being prepared North was involved with the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. In response to a question whether Stafford was permitted to have access to papers for his defence, North advised that he might only be helped to material then before the court.<sup>20</sup></p><p>North arrived in Oxford shortly after the opening of the new Parliament in March 1681. He lodged at Trinity, taking advantage of his late wife's privileges as a coheir of the college's founder. Once again he attracted the opposition's notice for his role in drafting the king's explanation for dissolving Parliament. He also irritated Danby whose own draft had been rejected in favour of North's more concise document. In April North joined with the lord chancellor and lord president (John Robartes*, earl of Radnor) in advising the king that he was not able to discharge Danby from the Tower.<sup>21</sup> In August 1681 North was a prominent participant in the trial of Stephen College. Normally well known for his even-handed treatment of defendants, on this occasion North attracted opprobrious comments for his confiscation of some of College's papers. On his arrival in Oxford, North had been the subject of threats and abuse, which may account for his severity; though it was clear that he was merely following the court's very clear direction that College should not be allowed to escape.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The following year North played a significant role in the court effort to take back control of the city of London when he suggested to the lord mayor, Sir John Moore<sup>‡</sup> that he nominate his brother, Dudley, as sheriff. Dudley's nomination provoked division and resulted in the June election being abandoned and a second poll held in July 1682.<sup>23</sup> In September North's western circuit was again interrupted by disagreements between the church and corporation in Bristol when the mayor insisted on processing behind his ceremonial sword of office. North concurred with William Gulston*, who had succeeded Carleton as bishop of Bristol, that a new mayor should be elected unanimously to avoid further divisions within the city.<sup>24</sup></p><p>North’s continuing ascendancy at court was reflected in a series of rumours at this time suggesting that he might replace the ailing (and increasingly unpopular) Lord Chancellor Nottingham (as Finch had since become). In December 1682 he finally succeeded to the office of lord keeper (not lord chancellor as was reported early on). North's success led Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> to comment how ‘all the Norths are happy and like to be exceeding rich’, though Roger North thought accepting the office was the only significant error his brother had ever made.<sup>25</sup></p><p>North’s appointment emphasized the administration’s eagerness to consolidate its gains as the Tory reaction took hold. North employed himself with the composition of a tract, clearly intended for wider distribution, which he hoped would be used ‘for undeceiving the people about the late Popish Plot.’ His conviction of the fallaciousness of the Plot represented a striking change of heart from the summer of 1679 when he had been all too willing to be offended by remarks made by one of Wakeman’s co-defendants that the scaffold speeches of the five Jesuits condemned shortly before the Wakeman trial had been clear evidence not only of their innocence but also of the non-existence of the plot.<sup>26</sup> In his opening paragraph he set out his aims but also acknowledged the difficulties before him:</p><blockquote><p>The intended discourse must be written persuasively, it cannot be written authoritatively that is, by laying down facts, which must be believed upon the credit of the author, because so great authority has appeared on the other side, as will outweigh all that can be pretended to.</p></blockquote><p>North then proceeded to consider the way in which the republicans, whom he thought at the bottom of the troubles, had plotted their moves since the Restoration. They had found, he considered:</p><blockquote><p>There would be no good done by way of insurrection, and thought the more effectual and secure course, would be to divide the gentry, to that degree as to make a rebellion, whereby they might get into arms upon pretence of taking part with that side which is opposite to the court, and afterwards set up for themselves.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>The summer of 1683 found North once again prominent in efforts to bring London into line. In mid-June he harangued the representatives of the corporation who had presented a petition complaining about the <em>quo warranto</em>, emphasizing how they had attracted the king’s displeasure for their behaviour in attempting to insist on the election of the Whigs Thomas Papillon<sup>‡</sup> and John Dubois<sup>‡</sup> in the shrieval elections in place of Dudley North and his Tory partner, Peter Rich.<sup>28</sup> Such uncompromising pronouncements no doubt helped earn him a place on at least one death list alongside of the lord mayor and the two sheriffs.<sup>29</sup></p><p>North was out of town briefly in September 1683, forcing the postponement of the ministry’s investigation into the ‘black box libel’ until his return.<sup>30</sup> Nine months after his appointment as lord keeper, North was raised to the peerage as Baron Guilford. Roger North insisted that the new peer could have had an earldom had he wished it but was content to accept a barony. Guilford’s choice of title was intended as a mark of respect to his friend, John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who had sat in the Lords as earl of Guilford); there was also talk that he intended to marry Lauderdale's widow.<sup>31</sup></p><p>The new peer’s opinion of his altered condition was not entirely positive. At some stage he committed his thoughts to paper on the subject of the constitution, giving particular attention to the peers’ privileges. These he considered to be ‘rather a disadvantage than any real benefit to them’ continuing to list a variety of instances where supposed privileges left the peers vulnerable in a way that was not true of non-nobles. Freedom of arrest for debt he reckoned only to result in the limitation of peers’ abilities to negotiate competitive rates from brokers. The public availability of the <em>Lords Journal</em> he thought a particular problem as it was thus open to be consulted by the Commons, while the Commons’ records were accounted private and thus ‘none of right can demand inspection’.<sup>32</sup> Guilford was also suspicious of some of his new confrères and in particular their apparent interest in acquiring what he considered to be empty titles in the new city charters.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Although untrammelled by parliamentary concerns in his first year as lord keeper, Guilford continued to face difficulties arising out of Danby's imprisonment. In February he was reported to have emerged looking 'very melancholy' from a meeting with the king where Charles had overruled the judges' advice about bailing the former lord treasurer.<sup>34</sup> This may suggest that he had by then altered his opinion about the possibility of releasing Danby without the Lords' agreement. Guilford was also engaged with settling disputes over the issuing of new city charters and in July 1684 was thought to be favourable to the city of Oxford's claims in its struggle with the university.<sup>35</sup> Active in his efforts to employ his interest on behalf of friends and family, Guilford was upbraided by Laurence Womock*, bishop of St Davids, for appointing clergy to livings in Wales who were unable to speak the local language. Womock pleaded with Guilford to consult him in future.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In October 1684 Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> recorded that Guilford and George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, had joined ‘their interests at court’.<sup>37</sup> This was as a result of both men speaking out against a proposal promoted by George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, in association with James Stuart*, duke of York, which aimed at securing a pardon for Catholics imprisoned under the recusancy laws in the wake of the Popish Plot.<sup>38</sup> By the beginning of 1685 it was rumoured that Guilford might be one of those affected by the expected changes at court, though it was not known whether he would be promoted lord treasurer or dismissed from the administration. It was thought that he would be replaced as lord keeper by Jeffreys.<sup>39</sup> He was by then closely associated with the moderate court faction identified with Halifax. Despite this and in spite of being on poor terms both with the Hyde brothers (Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester) and with Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, Guilford remained in post on James's succession to the throne and proved active in employing his interest for the court in the elections for the new Parliament.<sup>40</sup> He had a hand in the return of at least five members, among them his brother Dudley at Banbury and his brother-in-law, Robert Foley<sup>‡</sup>, at Grampound.<sup>41</sup> Although he co-operated with Jeffreys in several of these contests, Guilford's relationship with his colleague was far from harmonious. He appears to have taken Sir Ralph Verney's part when Jeffreys upbraided him for failing to turn out for the court candidates for Buckinghamshire.<sup>42</sup> In May there was new talk of Guilford being replaced by his rival.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Guilford was one of several 'great persons' thought likely to be summoned by <em>sub poena</em> by Titus Oates for his anticipated trial in the early summer of 1685.<sup>44</sup> It was with this threat hanging over his head that Guilford took his seat in the House for the first time on 19 May, introduced between Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) and William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard. At the beginning of the session, Guilford attracted the ire of Danby’s friends when he noticed significant differences in the wording of Danby’s petition compared with those of the other peers who had been incarcerated in the Tower.<sup>45</sup> His uncertain standing within the new regime too was reflected in comments made both by Verney and Evelyn that Guilford (unusually for the presiding officer of the House) had yet to make a speech. Evelyn recorded in addition that it was already put about that Guilford would shortly be dismissed from his post.<sup>46</sup></p><p>In spite of this inauspicious beginning, Guilford was present on 32 occasions between the opening of the session and the adjournment at the beginning of July and on 26 May he was entrusted with the proxy of his weak-minded neighbour, William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele. Towards the end of July Guilford left town to drink the waters at Astrop, a spa near to his seat of Wroxton.<sup>47</sup> This may explain his absence at the adjournment on 4 Aug., where he was described as ‘so infirm, that he cannot constantly attend’ the Lords. His rapidly deteriorating condition, by then a topic of discourse within the Verney circle, seems to have puzzled both patient and physicians alike.<sup>48</sup> At the end of August (ironically in view of his opinion of such things) he was named within the new charter for Guildford as the town's high steward. He did not live to take up the post. He died at Wroxton on 5 September.<sup>49</sup></p><p>By the time of his death, Guilford had repented of certain aspects of the policy of granting new charters to cities. He had intended only moderate changes to their constitutions and bemoaned the extreme alterations ushered in by Jeffreys.<sup>50</sup> Although Roger North was at pains to portray his brother as a paragon, others thought far less highly of him. Sunderland, who had taken enormous pleasure in ridiculing Guilford, whom he thought pompous, by circulating stories that he had been seen riding a rhinoceros, certainly did not mince his words when he condemned Guilford as ‘partial, passionate, unreasonable, impotent, corrupt, arbitrary, popish and ignorant’.<sup>51</sup> In 1690 efforts were made to have him impeached posthumously and complaints about his conduct as a judge persisted into the late 1690s. In his will, composed on the day of his death, Guilford directed that he should be buried at Wroxton if he happened to die outside of London (if in London he wished to be interred in the ‘cathedral church of Westminster’). He bequeathed £4,000 to his daughter Anne, provided she married with the consent of his brothers Dudley and Roger; the sum was to be halved if she did so without their permission. Guilford left his younger son, Charles<sup>‡</sup> (who later sat in the Commons for Banbury), £2,000 as well as £100 intended specifically for the purchase of ‘the most useful common law books for him’. Guilford nominated his brothers, Dudley, Montagu and Roger as co-executors.<sup>52</sup> He was succeeded in the peerage by his heir, also Francis* as 2nd Baron Guilford.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NORTH, Francis (1673-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>NORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1673–1729)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Sept. 1685 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. GUILFORD (GUILDFORD) |
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1694; last sat 14 May 1729 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 14 Dec. 1673, 1st s. of Francis North*, Bar. Guilford; bro. of Hon. Charles North<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Winchester 1685;<sup>1</sup> Trinity, Oxf. (matric. Feb. 1689, MA 1690);<sup>2</sup> travelled abroad (Holland, Germany, Italy) 1691-?1694.<sup>3</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 1695 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1699), da. of Fulke Greville*, 5th Bar. Brooke, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.;<sup>4</sup> (2) by 8 July 1703 Alice (Alicia), da. and coh. of Sir John Brownlow<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt.,<sup>5</sup> 3s. ?1da. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.<sup>6</sup> <em>d</em>. 17 Oct. 1729; <em>will</em> 24 Sept. 1703-23 Sept. 1717, pr. 22 Oct. 1730.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1712-14;<sup>8</sup> commr. trade and plantations 1712-14;<sup>9</sup> ld. of trade 1713-14.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Dep. lt. Oxon by 1702-?1706;<sup>11</sup> ld. lt. Essex 1703-5.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Freeman, Hamburgh Co. 1694;<sup>13</sup> mbr. SPG 1701.<sup>14</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by T. Murray (circle of), c.1700, sold at Bonham’s, 19 July 2012.</p> |
<p>According to Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, writing in the spring of 1683 on the occasion of the promotion of Lord Keeper North to the barony of Guilford, ’all the Norths are happy, and like to be exceeding rich, both by wives, trade, law and otherwise.‘ The first baron’s good fortune inevitably extended to his heir and may have been the inspiration for John Cary, master of the buckhounds, to order his niece (and heir), Elizabeth Willoughby, to marry the young Francis North (then aged just 12) within three years ‘or else to lose the estate’. Cary’s scheme failed to take effect resulting ultimately in a rancorous stand-off between Cary’s adopted heir, Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], and his niece’s preferred spouse, James Bertie<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The young man who proved so reluctant to involve himself in the Cary match succeeded his father in the barony of Guilford while underage and still a student at Winchester. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, thought him promising; Jonathan Swift later dismissed him as ‘a mighty silly fellow’.<sup>18</sup> With the barony he inherited an interest at Banbury in Oxfordshire based on his maternal family’s estate of Wroxton. However, for all his inherited wealth and his connection to a number of noble families, he was thought by some to be an awkward member of the society into which he had been born. Lady Wentworth for one dismissed him as an ugly little man.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Following his father’s death, Guilford’s upbringing and management of the North estates at Wroxton and in London was entrusted to his uncles Dudley North<sup>‡</sup>, Montagu and Roger North<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>20</sup> Guilford presumably played no role in the Revolution of 1688 but his connection to the nonjuring Church of England interest was indicated by a letter from George Hickes, the nonjuring dean of Worcester, in February 1689, in which Hickes lamented that he was forced to remain in his parish at nearby Alvechurch and was thus unable to invite Guilford to join him for Easter at Worcester.<sup>21</sup> In 1689 Guilford’s uncles replied to a demand for a self-assessment on his behalf insisting that he had no money that was not tied up in land and securities. His personal effects were said to comprise no more than a small quantity of old furniture inherited from his father.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Guilford remained at Oxford until the end of 1690, the year in which an attempt was made to impeach his father posthumously. Arthur Charlett, Guilford’s tutor at Trinity, likened the action to the effort to excommunicate the 3rd century theologian Origen post-mortem, but the dubious proceedings failed to secure sufficient support and the scheme was abandoned.<sup>23</sup> Nevertheless, reports of the former lord keeper’s apparent malpractice continued to circulate well into the decade.<sup>24</sup> Having taken his MA, Guilford left Oxford in December 1690 in order to join William III in his journey to Holland and from there he seems to have embarked on a tour of the continent. He was in Germany by autumn 1691, where he caught smallpox, but was considered in no danger and planned to continue his tour into Italy.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Guilford returned in time to take his seat in the Lords on 20 Nov. 1694, just over a week after the opening of the new session and shortly before his 21st birthday. He was then present on about 87 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Jan. 1695 he entered the first of many dissents when he registered his objection to the resolution to postpone implementation of the provisions of the treason trials bill to 1698. The following day he dissented once more at the resolution to add a clause to the same bill; and on 18 Feb. he subscribed the protest at the resolution commending the judges involved in the Lancashire plot trials for having done their duty according to the law. Alongside his activities in Parliament, Guilford was engaged with personal affairs. In February 1695, having turned his back on the projected marriage with Elizabeth Willoughby, he married Elizabeth Greville instead. The reason for his choice is unclear. It seems, though, to have been Guilford who refused to comply with the Cary match rather than the other way around and his decision appears to have been disapproved of by at least some of his relatives, who seem to have considered Elizabeth Greville an insufficient fortune by comparison.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Guilford returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. On 25 Nov. he introduced Thomas Wentworth*, 3rd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford) and on 5 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference considering the ill state of the coinage. On 7 Jan. 1696 he lodged his proxy with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, though this was vacated by his return to his place the following day. On 31 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for encouraging the bringing in of plate to the Mint.</p><p>Guilford was missing from the opening of the new session and on 23 Nov. the House ordered him to be attached, along with William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele, and Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton.<sup>27</sup> It is not clear whether the order was carried out and by 27 Nov. he had resolved the situation by taking his place in the House. On 30 Nov. he was named to the committee for Hanham’s bill but on 8 Dec. he was granted leave of absence for a week. He returned to the House promptly on 15 Dec. in time to participate in the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. The same day he registered his dissent at the resolution to read Goodman’s information and on 18 Dec. he did so again at the resolution to give the Fenwick attainder bill a second reading. During the proceedings that day, when Fenwick insisted that he had received no direction since appearing at the bar, Guilford, having perhaps inherited his father’s talent for being pernickety, intervened to ask whether he had received any before. On being pressed further, Fenwick, disinclined at first to answer the question, eventually revealed that he had received advice from Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough).<sup>28</sup> On 23 Dec. Guilford found Fenwick not guilty and subscribed the protest at the guilty verdict.<sup>29</sup></p><p>If Guilford was at odds with the regime in its pursuit of the assassination plotters, he appears slowly to have developed a role for himself within the House as an active committee-man. On 4 Mar. 1697 he reported from the committee for Samuel Trotman’s bill, relating to the sale of lands in Kent and Essex. Four days later, he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, and on 16 Mar. with that of Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers.</p><p>Guilford returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697. Soon after the opening, the House took into consideration the dispute arising from Guilford’s earlier refusal to marry Elizabeth Willoughby. As a result of the failed arrangement, her uncle’s estates were directed to descend to Viscount Falkland, but Willoughby and her new husband contested the decision, which had been upheld by the courts. According to the complainants, Guilford had declined the match leaving Elizabeth with no choice but to seek a husband elsewhere. The Lords baffled legal opinion by arriving at ‘an equitable construction’ and found in favour of the Berties. Their decision may however have been influenced by Falkland’s notorious adherence to the exiled royal family as well as by rumours that Bertie’s father, James Bertie* earl of Abingdon, was determined to appeal if the case went against his son.<sup>30</sup> In March 1698 Guilford unsurprisingly rallied to the support of Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, registering his dissent at the resolution to read the bill for his punishment a second time. Later in the session he reported from three committees in April and a further committee in May.<sup>31</sup> That month he was also named a manager of two conferences. On 29 June he was entrusted with his father-in-law’s proxy and on 1 July he subscribed the protest at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill for establishing the two million fund.</p><p>Guilford took his seat once more on the first sitting of the 1698 Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present on 91 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Feb. 1699 he registered his dissent at the resolution to offer to assist the king in maintaining his Dutch guards. On 24 Feb. he reported from the committee for George Penn’s bill and over the next two months he reported from two more committees. Guilford was said to have been one of those present at Lambeth in July when the deposition was read out against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids.<sup>32</sup> He then attended four prorogation days between July and October before taking his seat in the new session on 19 Dec. (about a month after the opening). The reason for his delayed return may well have been the death of his wife in childbirth in November. John Evelyn recorded that Guilford ordered his chaplain, Philip Horneck, to preach a panegyric emphasizing the late Lady Guilford’s role in persuading him to change ‘ the course of his life, which was before in great danger of being perverted and following the mode of that dissolute age’.<sup>33</sup> Having taken his seat he then proceeded to attend on 63 per cent of all sitting days. At the beginning of February 1700 Guilford was forecast as likely to support continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 8 Feb. he registered his dissent at the resolution to put the question whether the Scots colony at Darien was inconsistent with the good of England’s colonial trade. On 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the East India Company bill. The following month, on 8 Mar. he joined with a number of other Tories in registering their dissents at the resolution to give the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, a second reading and on 12 Mar. he dissented once again at the resolution to pass the bill.</p><p>There were several reports in the spring of 1700 that Guilford had remarried. Guilford himself seems to have been surprised by the rumours that matched him with ‘several small fortunes’ but his kinsman, Montagu North, reported confidently to Robert Foley that Guilford was wiser now than when he contracted his first marriage and would not settle for anything ‘but the best.’<sup>34</sup> He was still unmarried when he took his seat once more at the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701. He was assiduous in his attendance (present on 85 per cent of all sitting days) and over the next few months registered a series of dissents and protests over resolutions concerning the partition treaty and (from mid-April) over the attempted impeachments of the Whig peers associated with the treaty. On 16 Apr. he registered his dissent at the resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address to the king not to pass any censure against the impeached lords until they had been tried. The same day he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether the first reason in the protestation should stand and then dissented once more when the vote went against him. On 10 June he was again one of the tellers on the motion to adjourn during consideration of Hyde’s bill. The resolution was rejected by 22 votes to 30. A week later, on 17 June, he voted against acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers. In the midst of such high political issues, Guilford continued to ply his trade as a chairman of committees. He presided over two committee sessions on 4 June and the following day reported back to the House relating to one of these: the act for appointing assay masters for a number of regional centres.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Guilford was present in the House for the prorogation day of 30 October. The following month he travelled to Warwickshire and was present at the meeting convened on 25 Nov. in Warwick to agree on candidates for the forthcoming election.<sup>36</sup> He returned to London in time to take his seat in the new session on 30 December. On 20 Feb. 1702 he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill of attainder against the former queen (Mary Beatrice) and four days later protested again at the passage of the bill for the further security of the king’s person. The king’s death soon after may have given Guilford renewed confidence and in March he was one of a clutch of peers who were quick to round on Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, when he objected to a section of the queen’s speech which he believed reflected unfairly on the late monarch.<sup>37</sup> In April he reported from two select committees, including that considering a curious experimental act for ascertaining the proportion of water in fruit, and on 29 Apr. he reported from the committee of the whole concerning the act for the relief of Colonel Luttrell. The following month he was named a manager of three conferences and reported from one more select committee and from a further committee of the whole House.<sup>38</sup> On 16 May he was entrusted with the proxy of Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth.</p><p>Guilford took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702 after which he was present on two thirds of all sitting days. Three days later he wrote to his old tutor, Arthur Charlett, excusing his failure to write sooner as he has been ‘mightily taken up with politics’ but undertaking to do what he could to employ his interest on Charlett’s behalf.<sup>39</sup> The following month he was one of the delegates sitting on the case about the dowager countess of Coventry assuming spurious arms and on 25 Nov. he was one of only five lords to bother to turn out for prayers in spite of an order of the previous day commanding all members of the House to be present.<sup>40</sup> On 9 Dec. he acted as one of the tellers for the division over the declaration on tacking, which was carried by 17 votes. At the beginning of 1703 Guilford was reckoned a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the penalty clause. A month later, on 16 Feb. he was one of the tellers for the division over giving a second reading to the MPs’ qualification bill. The teller on the other side on this occasion, as he had been in the December division, was Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. This time the resolution was rejected by two votes, including proxies.</p><p>In March 1703 Guilford benefited from the death of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, by being appointed to the lieutenancy of Essex.<sup>41</sup> He had not been in post in Essex long before he became implicated in a dispute concerning the queen’s consort, Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, and the high stewardship of the notoriously fractious town of Colchester (an office which had formerly been held by Oxford). The prince’s nomination had been challenged by some members of the corporation who promoted one of their MPs, Sir Isaac Rebow<sup>‡</sup>, instead. At the close of April, Rebow was duly elected. This was subsequently challenged by Prince George’s supporters but Rebow maintained the place.<sup>42</sup> Guilford’s sin appears to have been that he was suspected of having acted along with the Tories in the town in promoting the prince’s candidacy even though Prince George had declared his unwillingness to have his name put forward in such circumstances. The queen professed herself unable to believe the gossip emanating about Guilford. She announced that she was convinced that ‘he is certainly a very honest gentleman, though I believe some sort of people don&rsquot think so’ and in another letter about the same matter asserted:</p><blockquote><p>I will not contradict what Mr Churchill says of Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup>, but I will venture to say he is mistaken as to Lord Guilford, because I had his character from [the] lord treasurer [Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin]… I remember when he spoke to me [about the lieutenancy of Essex] I said he was an odd figure and that I had been told he had no extraordinary understanding, he said he had more in him than people thought, that he was an honest man and very useful in the House of Lords.<sup>43</sup></p></blockquote><p>Away from his unsettling introduction to Essex borough politics, Guilford spent the summer of 1703 finalizing arrangements for his second marriage, which seems to have taken place by the end of the first week of July. His second wife, one of the coheirs of Sir John Brownlow, brought with her an interest in Lincolnshire as well as her share of her father’s fortune of £40,000 (shared between five daughters). Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> believed that Alice Brownlow brought with her £30,000 but was presumably confusing the total estate shared between the coheirs with the new Lady Guilford’s own fortune.<sup>44</sup> Lady Wentworth thought her ‘pretty’ but later concluded that she was ‘mad’. <sup>45</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session and again in the middle of November, Guilford was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely supporter of the renewed effort to pass the occasional conformity bill. Guilford voted in favour of passing the measure on 14 December. He continued to develop his role as a committee manager. On 1 Dec. he presided over the committee considering ways to prevent irregularities in hearing claims at the bar of the House, reporting the committee’s conclusions on 6 December. On 14 Dec. he chaired the committee for the estate bill of William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, and on 26 Feb. 1704 reported from the committee for Ambrose Andrews’ bill.<sup>46</sup> The following month, on 21 Mar., he subscribed the protest against the passage of the bill for raising recruits for the army and marines. Four days later he registered his dissent twice over the resolutions relating to the failure to pass a vote of censure on Robert Ferguson. (His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham sometime in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’.)</p><p>Guilford attended the prorogation day of 19 Oct. 1704 before taking his seat at the opening of the new session on 24 October. Two days later, he was entrusted with the proxy of John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter. At the beginning of November he may have been one of the peers listed as a likely supporter of the Tack, though the annotation mark lay in between two names so may have referred to another member of the House. On 14 Dec. he was again entrusted with Brooke’s proxy and the following day he registered two dissents following the failure to secure the passage of the occasional conformity bill. Later that month, Guilford allowed his aesthetic sensibilities free rein when he joined with a number of peers in voicing their discontent with the alterations to the Lords’ chamber overseen by Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>, which had resulted in the construction of galleries to provide additional seating. Guilford thought the new structures unsightly and on 21 Dec. he proposed that the galleries be pulled down. He was seconded by Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, though Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, interjected that the correct motion should have been for an adjournment. Guilford accordingly acted as one of the tellers for the motion, which was carried by nine.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Guilford was one of those approached by Thomas Watson, the former bishop of St Davids, at the beginning of 1705 to present his petition to the House but appeared at first reluctant to undertake the task. By 12 Jan. he had clearly decided in favour of assisting Watson and presented the petition in the chamber.<sup>48</sup> Four days later he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for continuing the excise on malt, mum, perry and cider for a further year and on 17 Jan. he subscribed his protest at the resolution to give a first reading to the earl of Bath’s estate bill. Towards the close of the month he acted as teller on two divisions involving bills seeking reversals of judgment: in both cases the motions to reverse were rejected. He acted as a teller again the following year on 13 Feb. 1705 during a division held in the committee of the whole considering the promissory notes bill.</p><p>Guilford was named to the committee to consider the heads of a conference with the Commons over the Aylesbury men at the close of February and on 3 Mar. he acted as a teller once again in the division in the committee of the whole concerning the incorporation of an amendment within the bill for continuing various acts of Parliament. On 12 Mar. he was again involved with his favoured project of pulling down the new galleries but in the division that day, in which he acted as one of the tellers, the Lords resolved by just one vote to retain Wren’s controversial eyesores.</p><p>Soon after the close of the session, Guilford was an early casualty of the Whigs’ resurgent interest over the administration. He was removed from his post as lieutenant of Essex and replaced by Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers.<sup>49</sup> On 13 Apr. he was marked ‘u’ (presumably uncertain) in relation to the succession.</p><p>Guilford attended the prorogation day of 14 June before taking his seat once more on 25 Oct. 1705. On 30 Nov. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to offer additional instructions to the committee of the whole considering the succession bill. The following month, on 3 Dec., he put his name to three protests all resulting from the refusal to allow readings for several riders to the succession bill. Three days later he voted in favour of the motion that the Church was in danger and then subscribed the protest when the motion failed to carry.<sup>50</sup> Along with his by now familiar tendency to protest, Guilford continued to act as a chairman of committees. On 18 Dec. he both chaired and then reported from the committee for the bill for Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>51</sup> He reported from a further committee in February 1706 and from two more in March. All were concerned with the settlement or sale of estates. March also found him protesting once again. On 6 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the recruiting bill and on 9 Mar. he dissented from the resolution to concur with the Commons’ assessment that the letter from Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, had been libellous. Two days later he was engaged as a manager of the conferences resulting from the same business. In the midst of the session, on 26 Jan., he was also entrusted with the proxy of Christopher Vane*, Baron Barnard.</p><p>Guilford appears to have been a deputy lieutenant in Oxfordshire since at least 1702 but in May 1706 he refused to be continued in the commission under John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. In his letter to Marlborough explaining his decision, he insisted that he meant no disrespect and suggested rather hollowly that he thought it difficult to accept an inferior position having formerly served as lieutenant of another county.<sup>52</sup> Guilford’s true reason was more probably political and the following month it was revealed that he was one of only two local grandees who had refused to serve with the duke: both of them Tories.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Guilford returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on 59 per cent of all sitting days. For Guilford the focus of the session was on his opposition to the Union and throughout February he set his hand to a series of protests resulting from the articles agreed with the Scots. His concerns covered the security of the Church of England, the financial settlement and the level of Scots representation at Westminster. Having already subscribed five protests, therefore, on 4 Mar. he voted in favour of adding a rider to the Union ratification bill and registered his dissent when the rider was rejected. He then protested once again at the resolution to pass the bill.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Aside from his concerted opposition to the passage of the Union, Guilford maintained his commitment to managing committee work. On 16 Dec. 1706 he presided over and then reported from the committee for the act for naturalizing Maria Margaret, Baroness North and Grey, and on 22 Jan. he reported from the committee of the whole for the felons bill.<sup>55</sup> He reported from a further committee of the whole the following month concerning the bill for preventing escapes from the Queen’s bench and Fleet prisons.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Guilford proved active in exercising his interest at Banbury for the forthcoming elections for the new British Parliament. In March 1707 in an attempt to prevent Chamberlayne Dashwood from upsetting the balance in the county by challenging Godolphin’s son, he offered the young man his interest at Banbury instead and instructed his brother, Charles, the sitting member, not to contest the seat. The result of Guilford’s intervention, combined with pressure placed on Dashwood by Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, was Dashwood’s resolution not to stand ‘to the amazement of several honest gentleman.’ Dashwood’s withdrawal left Charles North free to be returned at the 1708 election once more.<sup>57</sup> Having failed to attend the brief April session, Guilford took his seat just over a month into the new Parliament on 18 Nov. 1707 and proceeded to attend on 74 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Dec. he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to receive the appeal in the case <em>Radnor v. Childe</em> and on 6 Mar. 1708 he was one of the tellers for the division over the reversal of judgment in <em>Pole v. Gardiner</em>. On 15 Mar. he chaired and then reported from the committee for Christopher Lister’s bill and on the final day of the month reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for continuing duties on coffee and other commodities.<sup>58</sup> He reported from a further committee of the whole for the same business the next day and also from the select committee for Henry Mayne’s bill.</p><p>Guilford was, unsurprisingly, noted a Tory in a list of party classifications of May 1708. He returned to the House for the new session on 18 Nov. after which he was present on 89 per cent of all sitting days. By the beginning of 1709 he appears to have aligned himself with a loose alliance of peers of all colours who wished to prevent Scottish peers from securing additional benefits. Thus on 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections of Scots representative peers. It is worth noting that a decade later, Guilford reversed his opinion and spoke in favour of allowing Charles Douglas*, 3rd duke of Queensberry [S] to take his seat as 2nd duke of Dover.<sup>59</sup> On 23 Feb. he reported from the committee considering the Pierpont charities bill (over which he had presided the previous day) and two days later both chaired and reported from that for the Cecil estate bill.<sup>60</sup> On 22 Mar. he reported from the committee considering a bill to enable Plymouth to sell lands to pay debts. On 1 Apr. he represented the findings of another committee considering a bill seeking authorization for land to be sold so that debts could be cleared.</p><p>In the midst of these activities, Guilford subscribed the protest of 15 Mar. at the resolution to commit the general naturalization bill. On 26 Mar. he sought to secure an amendment to the Union improvement (treasons) bill by the addition of a clause permitting those accused to have five days notice of those witnesses to be called against them. The amendment was rejected after the votes were found to be equal. Two days later he pressed his amendment again, which was thrown out. He then subscribed the resulting protest.<sup>61</sup> He then protested once more when it was resolved to pass the bill.</p><p>Guilford took his seat in the new session on 15 Nov. 1709. By the beginning of the following year it was clear that the temporary alliance with the Junto was no longer operational. He rallied to the related causes of Greenshields and of Dr Sacheverell, registering his dissent on three occasions on 16 Feb. 1710. Two of these related to Greenshields, the third was in response to the House’s concurrence with the Commons’ address to the queen requesting Marlborough’s immediate departure for Holland. The following month he registered a series of dissents against resolutions concerning the conduct of the Sacheverell trial and on 20 Mar. he surprised no one by finding Sacheverell not guilty of the charges against him. He then registered his dissent against the guilty verdict and against the resulting vote of censure.<sup>62</sup> With the Sacheverell trial completed, Guilford turned his attention once again to the more mundane business of the House. On 5 Apr. he reported from two committees of the whole and on 18 Apr. he was one of five lords to sign off the Journal entry for 25 February. This would appear to have been the only occasion on which Guilford played an active role on the committee for the Journal. The significance of the occasion is not clear.</p><p>Guilford’s high-standing among the Tories was no doubt the reason for him being recommended by Michael Warton<sup>‡</sup> to Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford), as a candidate for the new board of trade.<sup>63</sup> The following month, Harley noted Guilford a likely supporter of the ministry. Having attended two prorogation days during July, Guilford took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 November. He was thereafter present on 69 per cent of all sitting days. On 22 Dec. he reported from the committee of the whole for the land tax bill. Guilford was absent from the session for just over a fortnight between 3 and 19 February 1711 but on 5 Feb. he covered his absence by registering his proxy with Heneage Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea. Having returned to the House, Guilford was entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman, William North*, 6th Baron North, on 9 Mar., and on 15 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole for the bill for repealing the act prohibiting the importation of French wine. The following day he reported from a further committee of the whole considering the same business and on 1 May he reported from the committee of the whole for the wagonners’ bill.</p><p>In June 1711 Guilford was included in a list of the Tory patriots of the previous Parliament. He took his place in the new session on 13 Nov. and the following month was included in one of Oxford’s memoranda as one of those to be canvassed over the ‘No Peace without Spain’ question. On 18 Dec. he was entrusted with Exeter’s proxy and the following day he also received that of Barnard. The same day he was thought likely to support James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in his efforts to be permitted to sit as duke of Brandon and on 20 Dec. he voted as expected against barring Scots peers with post-Union British titles from sitting in the Lords.</p><p>Guilford’s firm support for Oxford’s ministry was made apparent after the brief Christmas recess by his willingness to introduce two of the new dozen peers, Thomas Windsor*, Viscount Windsor [I], as Baron Montjoy, and Allen Bathurst*, as the new Baron Bathurst, both on 2 Jan. 1712. On 29 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the bill for limiting the number of officers permitted to sit in the Commons and on 14 Apr. he reported from a further committee of the whole concerning the continuation of various laws. On 6 May he was one of the tellers (the other being Nottingham) for the division held in a committee of the whole over whether to add an amendment to the county elections bill. On 28 May he remained firm to the ministry by voting against the address requesting the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from launching an offensive against the French.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Guilford’s support for Oxford’s ministry was rewarded with his appointment as one of the lords of trade during the summer and in August he was present at a meeting of the board discussing the Spanish commercial treaty.<sup>65</sup> Guilford took his seat in the new session on 6 Nov. but was then absent for the remainder of the year, only resuming his place on 13 Jan. 1713. In the intervening period he had the embarrassment of having one of his servants sought out on suspicion of involvement in a burglary at the house of Sir James Brookes in Red Lion Square. Having resumed his seat, Guilford was prominent in the House in his capacity as a trade commissioner. Between 21 May and 25 June he presented a series of papers to the House from the board of trade and plantations. Now in the ministry, he was noticeably absent from lists of dissents and protests and on 13 June he was estimated a likely supporter of the French treaty of commerce.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Guilford was active in promoting the election of Sir Jonathan Cope<sup>‡</sup> at Banbury, after Guilford’s brother, Charles, resolved not to contest the seat again probably on the grounds of ill health.<sup>66</sup> Later the same month Guilford presented the Rutland address to the queen.<sup>67</sup> That autumn it was reported mistakenly in at least one newspaper that Guilford was on the point of marrying the countess of Newburgh. The reason for the mistake is unknown. Guilford was engaged with attempting to employ his interest on behalf of his former tutor, Charlett. In November he tried to procure the archdeaconry of Oxford for Charlett (by now master of University College) but while White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Peterborough, professed himself keen to help, he warned that he would be unlikely to be able to secure the place for him.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Guilford returned to the House for the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714. On 5 May he was again entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman, North, and on 28 May with that of Barnard. At the close of the month he was also noted by Nottingham as a likely supporter of the schism bill. For Guilford the focus of the session once more was on his role as a trade commissioner. In June he presented the House with further material from the trade commissioners. On 24 June he reported from the committee of the whole for the canvas bill and on the 30th he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to give a second reading to the bill for examining accounts. The following month he intervened when Arthur Moore<sup>‡</sup> presented evidence to the House about bribes having been offered to ease the passage of the Spanish commercial treaty to stop Moore from incriminating himself.<sup>69</sup> Evidence provided by Robert Monckton<sup>‡ </sup>suggested that Guilford may also have been implicated, even if only by turning a blind eye to the bribes that had been offered to members of the board. When he related that he had heard Guilford speak of a letter in which a douceur had been offered, Guilford interrupted to say that he had never seen any such letter. Rather than back down, Monckton appears to have become more emphatic that Guilford had spoken to him about the document. Unsurprisingly, his performance was not taken well by Guilford, though he kept his place during the latter parts of Monckton’s testimony.<sup>70</sup></p><p>The prorogation on 9 July saved Moore (and perhaps Guilford too) from censure. The queen’s illness and death soon after spelled the end of Guilford’s career in the administration. He attended 12 days of the brief session that met in August. The same month he was put out of office. It was no doubt indicative of his weakened position that in advance of the elections for the new Parliament he complained of certain ‘factious spirits’ at Banbury who were determined to challenge Cope’s continued occupation of the parliamentary seat even though, as Guilford insisted, Cope had ‘acquitted himself as an honest gentleman, with due regard to the true interest of his country.’<sup>71</sup></p><p>Guilford continued to play an active part in the House under the new regime, details of which will be considered in the second part of this work. He benefited from windfalls resulting from the deaths of his brother, Charles, in the winter of 1714 and one of his sisters in 1722, by which he inherited chambers in Essex Court and a reputed £8,000.<sup>72</sup> Guilford died in the autumn of 1729. In his will, composed between 1703 and 1717, he left a number of bequests totalling in excess of £1,000. The accompanying schedule, some of which no doubt represented repayment of debts and which included some very precise sums such as £37 10s., also made reference to Guilford’s travels overseas. There were small legacies for the consul at Venice and other of his acquaintance from Germany, Holland and Italy. There was a bequest too of £30 left to a younger brother of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, who had had, according to Guilford, ‘the misfortune to kill his brother in France.’ Guilford bequeathed annuities of £25 and £5 respectively to two of his own servants. Guilford’s heir, Francis North<sup>†<sup>, succeeded to his barony, additionally became 7th Baron North in 1734 and was created earl of Guilford in 1752.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NORTH, William (1678-1734) |
<p><strong><surname>NORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1678–1734)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Jan. 1691 (a minor) as 6th Bar. NORTH and 2nd Bar. GREY (GRAY) OF ROLLESTON |
|
First sat 16 Jan. 1699; last sat 16 July 1724 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 22 Dec. 1678, 1st s. and h. of Charles North*, 5th Bar. North and Bar. Grey of Rolleston and Katherine (<em>d</em>. c.1695), da. of William Grey*, Bar. Grey of Warke. <em>educ.</em> Magdalene, Camb. matric. 22 Oct. 1691; Foubert's Military Academy, Leicester Fields, 1694-6;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (Patrick Withrington, tutor), 1697-8 (Italy), Padua Univ. 30 Apr. 1697;<sup>2</sup> <em>m.</em> bef. 11 Oct. 1705,<sup>3</sup> Maria Margareta (<em>d.</em> 8 June 1762), da. of Cornelius de Jonge, Vrijheer van Ellemeet, Recr.-Gen. of the States of Holland, <em>d.v.p.</em> 1s. illegit.<sup>4</sup> <em>d.</em> 31 Oct. 1734. will 20 Apr. 1731, pr. 2 Apr. 1735.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>PC 13 Dec. 1711-Sept. 1714.</p><p>Capt. and lt.-col. 1st Ft. Gds. 14 Mar. 1702-15 Jan. 1703; col. 10th Regt. of Ft. 15 Jan. 1703-23 June 1715; brig.-gen., June 1706-Apr. 1709; maj.-gen. Apr. 1709-1 Jan. 1710; lt.-gen. 1 Jan. 1710-23 June 1715; lt.-gen. (Spanish army), 3 Apr. 1728-<em>d.</em><sup>6</sup></p><p>Ld.-lt. Cambs. 6 Dec. 1711-28 Oct. 1715; burgess, Portsmouth, 3 Sept. 1712.<sup>7</sup> gov. Portsmouth, 5 Sept. 1712-27 Sept. 1714.</p><p>FRS 30 June 1720.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. J. Closterman (sold by Christies 2008); mezzotint, aft. Sir G. Kneller, NPG D20013.</p> |
<h2><em>Early Career</em></h2><p>North came to his two titles while still a minor. He was left an orphan when his mother died four years later, while travelling from Barbados, where her second husband, Colonel Francis Russell, was governor. North and his siblings were then taken in hand by their uncle Roger North<sup>‡</sup>. North and his younger brother, Charles, both entered Magdalene College, Cambridge on the same day in 1691, but while Charles graduated in 1695, the young Baron North left in 1694 without a degree in order to follow a military career. In the spring of 1696, when North was involved in marriage negotiations, his uncle and guardian Roger calculated that by the estate settled on him the young peer was worth £1,500 a year, but that he was also in line to inherit the entailed estates of the Greys of Warke, worth £8,000 a year, if Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville (3rd Baron Grey of Warke), and his younger brothers died without male issue. This is precisely what happened at the death of the childless Ralph Grey*, 4th Baron Grey of Warke in June 1706, and from that point North was able to enjoy the much more comfortable estate of Epping in Essex.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Until that windfall Roger North was clearly worried about the young man’s extravagances in the capital. He convinced him to travel abroad for a time, reasoning to his sister that ‘being a young hero and fierce, [he] will run great hazards in England and will accomplish himself in travel’.<sup>15</sup> North set out in February 1697 and thus began his long career of shuttling back and forth between England and the continent, first as a young English peer on tour and then as a long-serving officer in the war of 1702-13. He signed the register at Padua at the close of April 1697 and the following summer (still in Italy) he was accused by fellow tourist and student at Padua, Wriothesley Russell*, the future 2nd duke of Bedford, known then as the marquess of Tavistock, of impugning him and spreading (false) rumours of Tavistock’s imminent conversion to Catholicism.<sup>16</sup></p><h2><em>The Last Years of William III</em></h2><p>North returned from his travels late in 1698 and, although still underage, received a writ of summons to the House dated 13 Jan. 1699. He took his seat for the first time three days later after which he was present for 57 per cent of all sittings.<sup>17</sup> On 8 Feb. he opposed the attempt to exempt William’s Dutch Guards from the provisions of the Disbandment Act, even entering a formal protest – his first of many – when the division went against him. From the beginning of his parliamentary career he took a keen interest in all of the Lords’ proceedings. Among his papers there are records of the points made in debates on the bill to enlarge the Russia Company in February and some hastily scrawled notes for a speech in defence of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun and Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, during their trials for murder at the close of March.<sup>18</sup></p><p>North returned to the House at the opening of the following session of November 1699, of which he attended 58 per cent of all sittings. On 6 Dec. he took notes on the proceedings on the right of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury to deprive Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids.<sup>19</sup> In February 1700 he was forecast as a supporter of the continuation of the old East India Company, and on the 23rd he voted for the House to adjourn, so that it could proceed with the bill in a committee of the whole. He opposed the passage of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk in March 1700, as is made clear by his recorded dissents on 8 and 12 Mar. and notes for a speech in this case.<sup>20</sup> In his papers notes also survive for a speech opposed to the bill to further prevent the growth of popery, against which North argued that ‘I was from the beginning brought up with an abhorrence to persecution for the sake of religion … That not to spend too much time I am entirely against this bill’.<sup>21</sup> He signed the dissent from the passage of this bill on 18 March. On 2 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the bill taking off duties from woolen manufactures and other exports. He entered his protest on 10 Apr. when the Lords backed down and decided not to amend a money bill sent up from the Commons which had a provision for the resumption of William III’s Irish land grants ‘tacked’ on to it, an example of his concern to protect the privileges of the Lords. <sup>22</sup> He appears also to have been opposed to an oath of Abjuration. He argued that such an oath was unheard of in English history and that it provided ‘no further security to the present government than the oath of Allegiance’, in what appears to have been notes for a speech relating to the bill for the better securing the present government and the Protestant line (the Act of Settlement). It is possible, thought, that they refer to later attempts to bring in such an oath.<sup>23</sup></p><p>North was in Spain when Carlos II died on 21 Oct. 1700 [OS], and in December visited Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury in Pont St Esprit, in France.<sup>24</sup> His travels may account for the fact that he did not take his seat in the new Parliament until 21 Feb. 1701, a fortnight into the new session. Present on over three quarters of all sittings, in the course of the session he acted as a teller on three occasions: on a motion to adjourn the debate on Norfolk’s petition (24 Mar.); on the committal of Perkins’ estate bill (26 May); and on whether to read the public accounts’ bill for a second time (21 June). Interestingly, North made notes for a speech on ‘Box’s bill’, a divorce bill which passed the Lords on 11 Apr., but to which North was opposed.<sup>25</sup> Perhaps, it was related to his chairing on 17, 23 and 24 Apr. the committee of the whole on the bill separating James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey and his countess, from which he reported on the 26th. On 2 and 10 Apr. he was named to manage two conferences on the partition treaties. He made copious notes on the bill for confirming the grants of Brookfield Market and Newport Market, in Middlesex, which seems to have raised the ire of the traders at Smithfield, and which saw the bill rejected at third reading on 15 April.<sup>26</sup> On 9 June he presided over and reported from the committee for Nodes’s estate bill.<sup>27</sup> That month he actively, almost belligerently, challenged the Commons’ right to impeach John Somers*, Baron Somers and the other Whig lords. He took copious notes on the debates, arguments and precedents in the case, and a speech he prepared, which begins ‘the motive of my speaking is the honour of the House of Lords’ nicely summarizes his stance on this matter. In other notes he admonished the Commons for their pretended ‘arbitrary’ power. On 6 and 10 June he was named to manage conferences on the impeachments. Four days after voting for the acquittal of Somers on 17 June, he was the only peer to enter a protest against the resolution that the Commons be required to prosecute their charge against John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, for his conduct at a conference, before the end of the current session. In the reasons given for his protest he argued that as the Lords had in the case of Somers successfully asserted their right peremptorily to name a specific date for the hearing of the case, by thus allowing the lower House such a flexible deadline in their new motion, the peers were in effect diminishing those very powers which they had just successfully insisted upon.<sup>28</sup> On 23 June he voted for the acquittal of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford.</p><p>In October 1701 North transcribed (or perhaps even drafted), a loyal address from Cambridgeshire officials pledging their lives to defend William III from the pretensions of Louis XIV and the Pretender.<sup>29</sup> North took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec., after which he was present on 62 per cent of all sittings. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address against France owning the Pretender. On 2 Jan. he chaired and reported from a committee of the whole House considering the King’s Speech that a committee be appointed to draw up an address relating to the dangers presented by France to the liberties of Europe. On 7 Feb. 1702 he acted as one of the tellers in the divisions over whether to recommit the bill for attainting the Pretender. On 20 Feb. he signed a protest against the passage of the bill attainting Mary of Modena of high treason. On 25 Feb. he acted as a teller in a division held in the committee of the whole on the Quakers’ affirmation bill. He also presided over sessions of select committees on 25 Mar. and on 2 April.<sup>30</sup></p><h2><em>The Early Years of Queen Anne</em></h2><p>According to his later accounts, North decided on a military career, ‘thinking at that time of nothing less than being a soldier, imagining that my country would be engaged in war, I came back to offer my service to the late King William... but upon the raising of the new regiments, I found that the Whig party’s interest was too strong for me, and they were all given from me’.<sup>31</sup> In March 1702 the king commissioned North a captain and lieutenant-colonel in the Foot Guards (the commission itself is dated 14 Mar. a week after William died), thus starting him off on his long military career in the war of Spanish Succession which began only a few months later.<sup>32</sup></p><p>North missed the opening of the session in October 1702, first sitting on 30 Nov., following which he was present on just under half of all sittings. When the Commons brought up the bill against occasional conformity to the Lords on 2 Dec. 1702, it was North, who was the first to answer, ‘somewhat pleasantly’, the objections made to it by Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton.<sup>33</sup> On 17 Dec. he was appointed to manage a conference on the bill, as he was again on 9 Jan. 1703. Not surprisingly, then, in January North was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham as likely to support the bill and on the 16th he was listed as an opponent of adhering to the Lords’ (wrecking) amendment to the penalties cause of the bill. Meanwhile, on 11 Jan. in the committee of the whole on the bill enabling the queen to settle a revenue for supporting the dignity of Prince George, North thought that the clause allowing him to sit in the Lords ‘could not be called a tack’ (the Lords having recently declared against tacking) as it was not ‘foreign to the title, which was to support the Prince’s honour’. After the relevant clause from the Act of Settlement was read North ‘a little too forwardly, as was thought by his friends’, declared that by this the Prince would be excluded from the House, if no provision was made for him.<sup>34</sup> He was again employed on occasion as a committee chairman, presiding over four sessions of the committee considering the price of coal in January 1703.<sup>35</sup> On 17, 22 and 25 Feb. he was named to manage conferences with the Commons on the jurisdictional claims arising out of the commission of public accounts. He last attended 27 Feb. 1703 and shortly afterwards his regiment was one of the units listed as being in Holland.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Although still at The Hague on 20 Oct. 1703, North was on hand for the prorogation of 4 Nov. and was present when the session began on the 9th.<sup>37</sup> In two forecasts made by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland in November and again at the end of November or beginning of December 1703, he was expected to support the renewed attempt to pass a bill against occasional conformity. However, he was absent from the House between 6-17 Dec., and so did not vote in the divisions of 14 Dec. which saw the bill denied a second reading and rejected.<sup>38</sup> In the debates surrounding the ‘Scotch Plot’ and the Whig attack on Nottingham, on 25 Mar. 1704 North protested against two resolutions relating that the failure of the House to censure Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the enemies of the crown. He last attended on 3 Apr. 1704. Among his papers are also notes he took, perhaps for a speech he was preparing in this session, against the Commons’ claims to have the sole right of judicature in disputed elections to their chamber, probably for debates surrounding the cases of <em>Ashby v. White</em>.<sup>39</sup></p><p>During the ensuing campaign, North was at the heart of the fray at Blenheim, and lost his right hand in the fighting.<sup>40</sup> In about November 1704 North’s name appeared on a printed list, which probably indicated a willingness to support a tack of the occasional conformity bill. At this point, he was absent from Parliament and still in Holland (possibly recuperating from his wounds). He embarked for England in December, arriving at Whitehall with John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough on 14 Dec., and taking his seat on the following day.<sup>41</sup> This happened to be the day on which the occasional conformity bill received its second reading in the Lords. He spoke in favour of the bill and signed two protests, one against refusing the bill a second reading and the other against the bill’s rejection.<sup>42</sup> Thereafter, he was present on 24 sittings (just under a quarter of the whole). On 22 Jan. 1705 he protested against the rejection of the petition of Bishop Watson, related to his application for a writ of error and part of his campaign to contest his deprivation in 1699. North last attended on 3 Feb. 1705, and on that day he nominated his commanding officer, Marlborough, as his proxy for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Following his arrival in England in December 1704, North had received several letters from The Hague relating to a prospective bride, Maria Margareta, daughter of the Receiver-General of the States of Holland.<sup>43</sup> The match appears to have had the blessing of Marlborough, who in April 1705 reported that he had been entrusted by the lady’s relations to ensure that the marriage settlement was drawn up correctly and ready for September. To that end he enlisted the services of the attorney-general Sir Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup> and his own solicitor, Anthony Guidott to draw up its settlement.<sup>44</sup> By the end of September matters were almost complete, and the marriage was reported in mid-October to have taken place at The Hague.<sup>45</sup> Indeed, on 5 Oct. 1705 Marlborough asked his brother, Admiral George Churchill<sup>‡</sup> to facilitate the provision of a yacht, ‘my Lord North being desirous to pass over to England with his bride, as soon as may be’.<sup>46</sup> Letters of denization followed in November 1705, and a private naturalization bill was passed in the following session, receiving the royal assent on 21 Dec. 1706.<sup>47</sup> In October 1706 part of the recently acquired Epping estate was settled on his wife in augmentation of her jointure, one of the trustees being Marlborough.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Marlborough had promised North that he would be promoted to the rank of brigadier general for his services at Blenheim, but had then persuaded him ‘that it would be for her Majesty’s service to surrender it’. Marlborough promised to have the queen recompense him for the loss of rank, and promised him first the lieutenancy of the Tower and then the reversion of the governorship of Guernsey, both of which posts were then bestowed on others.<sup>49</sup> Further reports that he had attained the rank of brigadier occurred in 1705. The same information was carried in the <em>Daily Courant</em> and Lord Mohun, was even said to have resigned his own command in disgust at not being similarly rewarded.<sup>50</sup> Yet, despite these reports, North does not appear to have risen to the rank of brigadier general until June 1706, due, so he later claimed, to Marlborough’s influence. A report of May 1705 that he was to be made governor of Sheerness seems to have been similarly mistaken.<sup>51</sup> North was also frustrated by Marlborough in his attempts at this time to gain the lieutenancy of the Tower of London, for which post he, supported by his father-in-law, petitioned in the autumn of 1706. In spite of several promises made to both North and the elder van Ellemeet, the post was given to Marlborough’s favourite, William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Cadogan.<sup>52</sup> A letter of October 1706 from Marlborough to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, makes clear the reasons for North’s disappointment: ‘it is very true that I did formerly promise to serve him’, Marlborough writes about North, ‘but he had not then behaved himself so as he did last winter’, presumably a reference to his conduct in the 1705-6 session.<sup>53</sup></p><p>North had first attended the 1705 Parliament on 31 Oct. 1705, when he took the oaths. He attended approximately 63 per cent of all sittings. He joined the Tories in protesting on 30 Nov. 1705 that no further instruction should be given to the committee of the whole on the bill the better security of the queen’s person and government and for the succession to the crown in the Protestant line, better known as the regency bill. On 3 Dec. he protested four times: against the riders added to the bill at third reading stage, which prevented the regents from consenting to legislation repealing laws against papists; repealing the laws dealing with the succession; and repealing laws dealing with such matters as treason and habeas corpus; and against the passage of the bill itself. On 6 Dec. North spoke in against the resolution that the Church was not in danger, and particularly against the second part of the resolution that ‘whoever goes about to suggest and insinuate, that the Church is in danger under her Majesty’s administration, is an enemy to the queen, the Church, and the kingdom’, ‘saying that if any single Lord gave him such a character he knew how to resent it; but was at a loss how to deal with the whole House.’ He duly voted against the resolution and signed the resultant protest. On 7, 11, 19 Feb. he was named to manage three conferences on the regency bill. On 23 Feb. North spoke in the committee of the whole in favour of the archbishop of Dublin’s bill.<sup>54</sup> As he was present on 11 Mar. he may have been named to manage two conferences on Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter</em> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. He attended until the end of the session on 19 Mar. 1706. North does not appear to have joined the campaign in 1706, but sent a letter to Marlborough congratulating him on his victory in May at Ramilles.<sup>55</sup></p><p>North took his place at the opening of the second session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on just under half of all sittings. His opposition to the Union with Scotland again reflected his concern for the safety of the Church of England, as one of his fears was that the Union would erode the privileged place of the episcopate in the national church. He protested on 3 Feb. when the House decided not to instruct a committee discussing a bill for the security of the Church of England to insert a clause making the Test Act of 1673 a fundamental condition for the proposed Union. When the debate on the articles of Union resumed on 19 Feb. in committee of the whole, North noted that ‘the small and unequal proportion Scotland was to pay to the land tax’, as to say Wales, meant that it would be over-represented in the Union Parliament and so he could not agree to the ninth article, and he duly acted as a teller against agreeing to it. On 24 Feb. he joined Nottingham and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester in opposing the 22nd article.<sup>56</sup> On 27 Feb. he signed four protests against articles 9, 15, 22, and 25. So concerned was he by the proposed Union’s possible effect on the Church, that when the bill came up for a third reading on 4 Mar., North proposed a last-minute rider stating that nothing in the act was to imply an ‘approbation or acknowledgment of the truth of the Presbyterian way of worship’ or to agree with the Presbyterian Church’s designation of itself as ‘the true Protestant religion’, and duly voted in its favour. The rider was thrown out 55-19 without even a second reading, North and 16 other peers protesting. Yet when the Act of Union itself was passed by the Lords that same day, North was not one of the 13 peers who dissented from it. Besides his activities relating to the Union bill, North also continued to feature in other aspects of the House’s business during the session. On 12 and 18 Feb. he chaired sessions of the committee considering a naturalization bill and on 14 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers for the division held in a committee of the whole on the game bill.<sup>57</sup> He last attended on 15 Mar., and two days later received confirmation from Adam Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> that a yacht was available to convey both him and his wife to Holland.<sup>58</sup> Consequently, he was absent from the remainder of the session, and the short session of April 1707.</p><p>North returned to the House just over a fortnight into the new Parliament on 10 Nov. 1707, although he only attended on four days of November, and was absent between 19 Nov. and 17 Jan. 1708. In all, he was present on just under 43 per cent of all sittings and last attended on 27 Mar 1708. He was listed as a Tory in a printed list of the members of Parliament published in about May 1708. During the 1708 campaign he fought at Oudenarde, and was promoted to major-general in the spring of 1709 for his services.<sup>59</sup> He returned to sit in the House on 3 Feb. 1709, but immediately launched himself into opposing the Whig ministry’s measures, such as the bill for the general naturalization of foreign Protestants. He delivered a speech (or at least drafted notes for a speech) against the bill, probably at its second reading on 15 Mar., arguing that as individual naturalization bills were almost never rejected, least of all by him, there was no need to bring in a general naturalization. He then added that ‘this gives suspicion that something indirect is designed since the same end may be obtained by the usual means.’<sup>60</sup> He then signed the protest against the commitment of the bill on 15 Mar. 1709. That was the last day he attended, having sat on 19 days of the session, just over 20 per cent of the sittings.</p><p>In November 1709 North wrote to his younger brother Charles informing him that yet again his attempts to procure military preferment for him had been futile:</p><blockquote><p>it is a folly to think that the duke will do anything for our behalf, it is what I have tried several years for you with ill success, and this year as you know I got the favour of a flat denial at last … He would rather perhaps have you out of the army than in, to be freed from the importunities of our interest; he neither values it nor makes use of it.<sup>61</sup></p></blockquote><p>North took his seat just under a week after the opening of the new session on 21 Nov. 1709. Having attended just three days in November and failed to sit at all in December or for the opening days of January 1710, North returned to his place on 17 January. On 9 Feb. he spoke against the place bill, which was rejected after its first reading.<sup>62</sup> On 25 Feb., the Rev. Ralph Bridges reported that North had ‘last week proposed the receiving Greenshields’ petition into the House, which was agreed to, after a manner’. This refers either to 13 or 16 Feb., although on the latter date when the House made the decision and Rochester ‘made a motion to send for all the records and matters relating to his prosecution at Edinburgh from thence hither, in order to judge of the merits of the cause’, North was not listed as present. However, he did sign the protest on that day against the decision not to send for Greenshields and the magistrates of Edinburgh to be present at the hearing.<sup>63</sup> On 17 Mar. ‘the House opened with the desire of Lord North to have the messenger come with the original papers of Greenshields’, and they were duly presented.<sup>64</sup></p><p>North’s concern for the safety of the Church now came to the fore and he was an energetic defender of Sacheverell throughout the proceedings against him, taking notes of debates and making written observations on the speeches delivered by the Commons’ managers. On 14 Mar. 1710 he signed two protests, first against the decision not to adjourn the House and then against the resolution that in impeachments the particular words supposed to be criminal need not be expressly stated in the articles. On 16 Mar. during the debate on the first article of the impeachment, he delivered a speech attacking the right of resistance, which he dismissed as ‘a doctrine introduced with transubstantiation by the papists’.<sup>65</sup> He then acted as a teller on the question of whether to put the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article, duly voting against and signing a protest. He then signed a protest against the passage of the resolution itself. Rather strangely, although present, he did not sign the protest of the 17th against the resolution that the Commons had made good the remainder of their articles. On the 18th, when the House debated the terms of the question to be asked of peers on Sacheverell, North objected to having the question put in Westminster Hall before the Lords delivered their verdict, pointing out, ‘how can any peer that thinks him not guilty and allow at the same time that the Commons have made good their articles of impeachment’.<sup>66</sup> He then acted as a teller against the resolution that the peers be asked to give a verdict of guilty or not guilty, and signed the protest against the decision. Unsurprisingly, he brought in a verdict of not guilty against Sacheverell on 20 Mar., and then again dissented from the majority guilty verdict. On the 21st he signed a protest against the censure imposed upon him. He last attended on 22 Mar. 1710, and thereby missed the further proceedings on Greenshields’ appeal, which was ordered on 25 Mar. to be considered at the start of the following session.</p><h2><em>The Last Four Years of Queen Anne</em></h2><p>On 24 Apr. 1710 Marlborough wrote to Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Orford, that North and Grey should be added to those promoted to be lieutenant generals ‘his rank as well as services deserving that encouragement’.<sup>67</sup> During the campaign, North was heartened by the appointment of William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, to the secretaryship in June 1710. As he wrote to Nottingham: ‘we expect with impatience greater changes yet, and if your Lordship will take the pains of governing, may you have what post you please’. Further, he hoped that Nottingham would ‘stand my friend, and represent it to them in power’, ‘now an occasion offers’ to serve the queen in ‘any employment’. In September he carried the sword of state before the queen in her procession to the chapel royal.<sup>68</sup> On 3 Oct. the head of the new ministry, Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, grouped North among those he thought likely to support his new ministry. By 9 Oct. North was at Epping expressing his surprise at Nottingham’s absence from London,</p><blockquote><p>the changes advancing so very well on the honest side, and your Lordship so much wondered for in town. however you may be surfeited with state employments, or love your ease, you must give them leave to wish you wear near the queen who are sensible that this change is gone farther than they that laid the plan of it ever intended and that your Lordship’s help may be necessary to keep things steady.<sup>69</sup></p></blockquote><p>North took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710 after which he proceeded to attend just under half of all sittings. On 28 Nov. he was able to show his animosity towards Marlborough, the man whom he thought had impeded his progress in the army, by speaking out against delivering to him the customary vote of thanks from the House for that summer’s campaign.<sup>70</sup> Similarly, he joined in the attack on the conduct of the war in Spain by Henri Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], itself a veiled attack on the Whigs’ conduct of the peninsular war. On 9 Jan. 1711 North suggested that Galway and Tyrawley ‘having been possessed with an opinion that they were accused, they ought to be let know they were not’. On 11 Jan. he suggested that Galway and Tyrawley should have responded to the paper presented by Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough ‘instead of presenting petitions for time, which looked like a delay’. And he later supported a motion that their petition be laid on the table and taken no notice of. He even suggested at one point addressing the queen for Peterborough’s instructions about the operations around Toulon.<sup>71</sup> On 16 Jan. Lady Clavering identified North as one of the ‘managers’ of the proceedings against Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope.<sup>72</sup> On 22 Jan. North seconded John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] in a further attack on Galway’s failure to protect the honour of the army ‘by suffering the Portuguese army to take the right of us’.<sup>73</sup></p><p>On 5 Feb. 1711 North spoke and told in favour of the second reading of the bill repealing the act of general naturalization, and entered his protest when this was rejected. On 19 Feb. he re-introduced into the House the appeal of James Greenshields, which was ordered to be heard on 1 Mar., and was thereupon reversed.<sup>74</sup> A second motion proposed by North and seconded by Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon that the sentence of the presbytery against Greenshields was illegal was opposed by John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham and others and so the matter dropped.<sup>75</sup> John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerinoch [S], later wrote to North that the ‘sense of the justice and favour which has been done’ to the Scots Episcopalian clergy was ‘more owing to your Lordship then to any one man in Britain.’<sup>76</sup> When North left the House early on 9 Mar. to join the campaign, he entrusted his proxy for the remainder of the session to his cousin and fellow Tory, Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford. Not surprisingly, North featured on a printed list of ‘Tory patriots’ in the 1710-11 session of Parliament.</p><p>North now sought professional advancement from the more politically sympathetic Harley. Thus, on 18 June 1711 he was at pains to welcome Harley’s promotion to the Lords as earl of Oxford, noting that ‘all good men (who remember what a ’scape the Church and constitution had last Parliament) think themselves happy in your advancement’, and making him ‘long for the winter’ and a new session of Parliament ‘before its time’. He then made a pitch for the newly vacant lieutenancy of Cambridgeshire.<sup>77</sup> A memorandum by Oxford, dated 4 June, suggests that he had already been lined up for the post. At least two newspapers reported his appointment in July, and it was also announced in newsletters early the same month.<sup>78</sup> Certainly, Orford felt that month that if John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, did not take on the role then ‘it must fall to that worthless creature, Lord North, for we have no other peer in the county.’<sup>79</sup> North appears to have left the encampment at Bouchain in mid-September owing to an illness to his father-in-law because he was at The Hague before the end of the month.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Interestingly, his appointment as lord lieutenant was dated 6 Dec., the day before the parliamentary session, and it may have been pushed through to ensure that his friendship with Nottingham did not affect his political judgment, given the latter’s campaign against the peace.<sup>81</sup> At the opening of the new session on the 7th North, however, quickly demonstrated his gratitude to Oxford by answering Nottingham’s speech insisting on the continuance of the war. He argued that as ‘it was the indisputable prerogative of the crown to make peace’, the House ought to be content with returning thanks to the queen ‘and leave it to her great wisdom to make peace, when she should think it proper for the good of her people’, before voting with Oxford’s ministry against the clause inserted into the Address asserting that there could be no peace without the exclusion of Bourbon rule in Spain.<sup>82</sup> On 8 Dec. North opened the debate on the address that emerged from committee, in an attempt to reverse the Lords’ vote of the previous day. In this he proved unsuccessful, although his name was recorded as favouring that course in the abortive division of that day, and he signed the protest against the resolution to present the Address complete with the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause.<sup>83</sup> For this Oxford included him on 10 Dec. on his list of peers who had remained loyal to the ministry and who deserved reward, in his case with appointment to the Privy Council. He was duly sworn in on 13 Dec. and took the oaths for his lieutenancy on the 19th.<sup>84</sup> On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, but the following day he was noted as having voted against the ministry by supporting the motion that ‘no patent of honour granted to any peer of Great Britain, who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, can entitle such peer to sit and vote in Parliament’. Despite this, when he opened the debate in the committee of the whole on the queen’s message to the Lords on 18 Jan. 1712, which mentioned redressing the grievances of Scotland, North asserted that he had voted in Hamilton’s favour, so it appears that the compiler of the division list erred. Further, he added that since Parliament ‘had determined the contrary’, there was nothing the House could do to redress the grievance felt by the Scottish peers.<sup>85</sup></p><p>On 29 Dec. North’s name appeared on Oxford’s list of those peers to be contacted during the Christmas recess. On 31 Jan. 1712, North rose to his feet to condemn the sermon preached the previous day by Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, to mark the anniversary of Charles I’s execution, though he had to admit that he had not been present himself to hear the bishop’s remarks.<sup>86</sup> Later that day he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to repeal the general naturalization act. On 8 Feb. North gave his proxy to Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, retiring to Epping and returning to the House on 26 Feb. to participate in the crucial debates over the Scottish episcopal toleration bill, where he spoke in favour of the Commons’ amendment relating to the abjuration oath.<sup>87</sup> On 6 Apr. North wrote to Oxford in order to take his leave the following day, ‘being commandered for Flanders with’ James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>88</sup> On 7 Apr. he attended the House for the last time and deposited his proxy with Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey.</p><p>North certainly felt able to ask Oxford for other posts while on campaign. In June 1712 North begged him for the governorship of Dunkirk, or failing that, of Portsmouth.<sup>89</sup> He called on the assistance of Weymouth and other Tory friends to further his suit while insisting in his correspondence with Weymouth that Dunkirk ought to be retained as part of the peace settlement as a way of terrifying the Dutch and the other allies.<sup>90</sup> In June or July North’s name appeared on a list of 22 Lords compiled by Oxford, possibly of doubtful Court supporters who needed lobbying. The death of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers in August prompted an immediate request from North for his posts, North noting specifically that ‘as to the regiment of Horse Guards I have this to say for myself, besides my having had reason to hope a troop of guards the last year that I am the only lieutenant general almost that from the beginning of the war have stuck to same corps.’<sup>91</sup> In the event North was rewarded with the garrison of the important naval station of Portsmouth. On 1 Sept. he wrote from London about his commission, and on 4 Sept. he wrote from Epping to thank Oxford for obtaining him the post, assuring him ‘that you have made me ever yours’, and putting down a marker by noting that ‘if either the Royal Horse or Dragoons could be mine in exchange for my regiment, it would complete my happiness.’<sup>92</sup> In October he followed this request up with a further one for Rivers’ cavalry regiment, which was still without a colonel.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Alongside of his quest for office North also submitted a petition in June 1712 to be granted the earldom of Tankerville, which had been held until his death in June 1701 by North’s cousin. North’s petition was countered with a claim from Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later successful in securing his promotion to the earldom of Tankerville), to which North responded in a missive to Oxford of 12 Nov. setting out his own right to the title. <sup>94</sup> In January 1713 North sent a long memorial to Oxford in which he set out his military services to the queen and made clear his disgruntlement that he had not been more amply rewarded by the previous Whig ministry: thus your Lordship sees how I have served, how I have been used, for which no reason can be given, but my still opposing a very inveterate party.’ This time he asked Oxford to give him a troop of Guards, preferably one free from debt.<sup>95</sup> North did not get everything he asked for, but received enough that he could be considered a loyal supporter of the ministry and indeed one of its leading members. He was on hand for seven of the prorogations between 6 Nov. 1712 and 26 Mar. 1713 prior to the new session. In March or April he was listed by Swift (in an assessment amended by Oxford) as likely to support the ministry in the forthcoming session. In the spring of 1713 he also appears to have been in the midst of Tory conclaves preparing for the forthcoming session. Dartmouth summoned him on 7 Mar. to a meeting at his house on the 9th (the eve of the expected session), where he promised North ‘will be met there by several of your friends’.<sup>96</sup></p><p>North was present when the session opened on 9 Apr. 1713. It was no doubt in part a result of such careful cultivation that North usually voted with the ministry during this session. One exception was when he joined with a handful of other Tories in crying out against the passage of the commissioners’ of accounts bill on 8 May.<sup>97</sup> At the end of May he was listed among 28 peers to be contacted, probably over the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. On 1 June, he was one of those to speak against the motion proposed by the Scottish peers and supported by their Whig allies to dissolve the Union. This was despite his opposition to the measure in 1707, but he was unable to restrain himself from making some adverse reflections on the poverty of the Scots.<sup>98</sup> On 8 June he was again prominent among those participating in the committee of the whole considering the extension of the malt tax to Scotland.<sup>99</sup> He was predicted on about 13 June as being likely to vote with the government on the French Commerce bill, before it was lost in the Commons. On learning of the defeat of this bill, North’s agent in London wrote to him: ‘I believe the occasion of this division was to let the Treasurer [Oxford] see that they would not be put off with a trimming management, or longer endure the mingling of parties, for God or for Baal is the word, and your Lordship knows we high Churchmen are on God’s side’.<sup>100</sup> On 18 June he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to enable disbanded officers and soldiers to exercise trades and for officers to account with their soldiers. He was absent from 19-29 June, enjoying a sojourn at Epping.<sup>101</sup> On 27 June he wrote to Oxford from Epping that</p><blockquote><p>I would not take a step out of distance to Cambridgeshire without acquainting your Lordship. The business of Parliament seems pretty well over, but if there or anywhere else I can be serviceable to my queen or you, with pleasure I will postpone my own affairs, otherwise by the middle of next week I shall go down to Catlidg near Newmarket, where I will attend the honour of your commands.<sup>102</sup></p></blockquote><p>This missive occasioned a brief reply from Oxford in which he noted that ‘tomorrow an attack being designed directly against the queen’s message for the payment of her debts, I hope it will not be uneasy to your Lordship to be in town tomorrow’.<sup>103</sup> In response North wrote at 10 p.m.: ‘I esteem myself very happy that I am no farther in country. I will certainly be in town tomorrow to resist all manner of ways such an ill attempt as you are pleased to mention.’<sup>104</sup> In the event, Oxford’s intelligence of the nature of the Whig attack was wrong, for on the 30th, Wharton moved for an address to the queen requesting her to ask the duke of Lorraine and other European princes not to shelter the Pretender. North was the only peer to speak against it, suggesting that such an address would imply a distrust of the queen and that ‘all possible care had been taken in that matter already’.<sup>105</sup> By such interventions, North gained a reputation for sympathy towards the Jacobite court. On 2 July he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to enable disbanded officers and soldiers to exercise trades. On 3 July he addressed another missive to Oxford:</p><blockquote><p>finding the opposition to her Majesty’s pleasure about the £500,000 not to apprehended, and that the precedents as to manner of demanding it are all against the complainants, I doubt not but the right will prevail without my weak succour. I therefore leave my proxy, and your Lordship will be pleased to transfer Lord Crew’s. </p></blockquote><p>The letter ended with a reminder about his regimental ambitions, and whether ‘I have either leave to purchase or leave to dispose’.<sup>106</sup> He last attended on 7 July, have been present for 55 per cent of all sittings.</p><p>As lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire and governor of Portsmouth, North was able to wield considerable influence for the Tories in the 1713 elections. He oversaw the revival of the Tories in Cambridgeshire, leading the county’s gentry and clergy in presenting an address thanking the queen for the recent peace that was highly partisan in tone and content. He was instrumental in having the Tories John Jenyns<sup>‡</sup> and John Bromley<sup>‡</sup> returned as knights of the shire.<sup>107</sup> In the Portsmouth election, one of the previous Tory incumbents, Sir James Wishart<sup>‡</sup>, had his place assured, but North, as governor, took the opportunity of presenting to the corporation for the other seat the Tory, Sir Thomas Mackworth<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt, who had been ‘always true to his country’s interest, in short a perfect man’.<sup>108</sup> This caused factional in-fighting within the corporation, when the sitting mayor, William Smith, was ousted by the former mayor, Charles Bissell, and replaced by Robert Reynolds as the new pro-North mayor. The lord lieutenant of Hampshire, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, objected to this coup and gave Bissell a dressing down at the county sessions at Winchester, but North defied the duke by refusing to reinstate Smith, and warned him, in almost threatening terms, not to interfere in his election. In the event, the North faction in Portsmouth had to strike a bargain with the local Whigs, who agreed to support Mackworth at the election in exchange for two aldermanic places, and after a poll (presided over by Smith), Mackworth won the seat, albeit by only five votes.<sup>109</sup> Generally North enjoyed a good relationship with Beaufort and any animosity over jurisdictional matters seems not to have been of long duration. Indeed, North was admitted to the Tory drinking club, the Board of Brothers, over which Beaufort presided, during the closing years of Anne’s reign. The date of his admission is uncertain but he was not among the original group when the club was established in the summer of 1709.<sup>110</sup></p><p>On 1 Dec. 1713 North wrote from Epping to solicit the governorship of the Isle of Wight, assuring Oxford that the incumbent Lieutenant-General John Richmond Webb<sup>‡</sup>was ‘either dying or dead’, and that it was an ‘easy transition from one wounded soldier and man of service to another, therefore, if Mr Webb was fit for that employment I hope I am.’ Alas Webb survived until 1724.<sup>111</sup> Having attended the prorogation of 12 Jan. 1714, on the 21st he wrote to Oxford concerning ‘the payment of past services, the longer tis delayed, the worse the claim where one has a title to favour, one may expect justice.’ North claimed £1,000 ‘which lies so heavy on the subsistence of my regiment’, plus £1,000 ‘upon account of the money due to me as general officer which amounts to near £3,000.’<sup>112</sup></p><p>North continued to be a leading, and aggressive, spokesman for the Jacobite Tories in Parliament. He took his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714 after which he was present on 80 per cent of all sittings. Following the Easter adjournment on 19 Mar., North took his leave of Oxford by letter on 23 Mar., informing the lord treasurer that ‘I go no further than Epping, and shall there be ready to receive your orders’, and asking to know the queen’s pleasure ‘with relation to my affairs which you have pleased to take under your protection.’<sup>113</sup> In the debates of 5 Apr. on the state of the nation following the Queen’s Speech, North first insisted, over opposition from Wharton, that strangers to the House remove themselves from the galleries, before the House debated whether the succession was in danger, a prohibition still in force on 13 Apr. when Peter Wentworth noted that ‘Lord North still insists that none of us shall come in to hear them’.<sup>114</sup> One consequence of this debate was a resolution for an address setting a price on the Pretender’s head should he land in Britain. When this address was reported on 8 Apr., the Court move to ‘mitigate’ the same with North making a long speech showing the ‘barbarity of setting a reward upon anybody’s head, and citing amongst others Grotius and Puffendorf, and duly succeeded by the narrow margin of two votes.<sup>115</sup> On 9 Apr., after Oxford had successfully defended his policy of making remittances to the Scottish highlanders, North moved for a vote of thanks to the lord treasurer for his good service, although this was allowed to drop.<sup>116</sup> Further, North also said that having removed ‘all fears and jealousies about popery and the Pretender, he hoped the enemies of the ministry would now speedily produce all the objections they had against their conduct’, and moved for taking into consideration the treaties of peace and commerce.<sup>117</sup> On 13 Apr. he seconded Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds, in insisting on changing the wording of an address to the queen so that it would read that ‘fears and jealousies’ concerning the Protestant Succession had ‘been so universally and industriously spread throughout the kingdom’.<sup>118</sup> On 16 Apr., when the House considered the peace treaties and the treaty of commerce, North challenged the Whigs to make any objection to the Spanish treaty and he would answer them, which led to an address of thanks for the treaties, but not before William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, had likened his speech to ‘acting like a soldier would by skirmishing have drawn out a general engagement’, a trap into which the Whigs were unwilling to fall.<sup>119</sup> North held the proxy of Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham (also 3rd Baron Crew) from 17 to 27 Apr. and then again from 14 June to the prorogation. On 17 Apr. North chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the place bill.</p><p>After attending on 4 May, North left his proxy on the 5th with his cousin Guilford. He was present on 13 May, when the House adjourned to the 26th. Intending to leave for the country on the following day, on 17 May he tackled Oxford (his ‘patron’) about ‘my little affairs’, suggesting that ‘if I am not encouraged as I ask, pray get me leave [from the queen] to retire’.<sup>120</sup> Three days later he wrote from Epping soliciting the posts of Marlborough’s younger brother, General Charles Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, whom he assumed (falsely) had died, which he suggested ‘would make me entirely happy’. Confident that on Oxford’s recommendation the queen would be willing to grant them to him he queried only whether he should come to town to collect his expected reward or await her pleasure: ‘I should think it would give a greater éclat to her majesty’s generosity to remember her faithful servant at a distance’.<sup>121</sup> At the end of May or beginning of June 1714 Nottingham forecast North as likely to support the schism bill. North was back in the House to argue in favour of the schism bill on 4 June, when he ‘maintained the general assertion of his Party, viz. that the Church was in danger from the growth of schismatics’.<sup>122</sup> He appears to have ‘spoke with a great deal of heat’ for the bill’s committal on the 7th.<sup>123</sup> On 14 June he reported from the committee on the Prendergast estate bill. On 22 June he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the Royston to Wandsford road bill, which covered in part Huntingdonshire. On 7 July he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the punishment of vagrants.</p><p>An undated snippet in North’s handwriting consisting of arguments against the bill for appointing a commission of accounts may date from this session; he argued that such a bill should not be passed ‘as customary though of a long continuance because the war is now at an end therefore neither the same necessity’, because it encroached on the prerogative, encroached on the privileges of the Lords and Commons, and also ‘on every Englishman by secret inquisition, making people swear against themselves’.<sup>124</sup> Certainly, on 30 June he served as one of the tellers in the division over whether to appoint a date for the second reading of the bill for examining public accounts and on 7 July he acted as a teller for the subsequent division whether to commit the measure. He last attended on the day Parliament was prorogued, 9 July, and quickly left London.<sup>125</sup></p><p>North returned to the House on 2 Aug. for the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death, but after attending on the following day, he registered his proxy with Guilford again on 4 Aug., having been ordered to his post at Portsmouth.<sup>126</sup> He also attended the prorogation of 23 September. With the accession of George I, North’s political position slowly crumbled. He was dismissed from both the Privy Council and from the governorship of Plymouth in the autumn of 1714. In June 1715 North was deprived of all his military offices and in November he lost his lieutenancy of Cambridgeshire, but he remained an influential power among the Tories of that county. Despite his Jacobite sympathies, North took the oaths to the new monarch, and continued to attend Parliament, where he opposed the Whig ministries of George I. Suspected involvement in the ‘Atterbury Plot’ saw him sent to the Tower, but he was released. In 1724 he left England, eventually settling in Spain, and converted to Catholicism in 1727. In April 1728 he was commissioned lieutenant-general in Philip IV’s Spanish army.<sup>127</sup> He died in Madrid on the last day of October 1734. His will provided for a bequest of £1,000 to a young William Greyson, probably an illegitimate son. To his wife he bequeathed his English estate for life. Francis North<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Guilford inherited the barony of North (but not that of Grey of Rolleston, which became extinct) upon his death.</p> |
C.G.D.L./R.D.E.E./S.N.H. |
|
O'BRIEN, Henry (1688-1741) |
<p><strong><surname>O'BRIEN</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1688–1741)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 2 May 1691 (a minor) as 7th earl of Thomond [I]; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 Visct. TADCASTER |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1715; last sat 21 June 1737 |
|
MP Arundel 1710, 1713-19 Oct. 1714 |
<p><em>b.</em> 14 Aug. 1688, o.s. of Henry Horatio O’Brien, Ld. O’Brien (<em>d</em>.1690), and Lady Henrietta, da. of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort. <em>m</em>. 14 June 1707, Lady Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1734), da. of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 20 Apr. 1741; will 14 Oct. 1738, pr. 1741.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [I] 1714.</p><p>Gov. co. Clare and co. Carlow 1714; ld. lt. Essex 1722-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Thomond’s mother had remarried after the death of his father and it was on his stepfather’s interest (Henry Howard*, 6th earl of Suffolk) that he was first returned to Parliament. With his earldom Thomond inherited substantial property in Ireland as well as the Great Billing estates in Northamptonshire. He was generally included on party lists as a Whig and it was undoubtedly his warm support for the Hanoverian succession that secured him the addition of a British viscountcy among George I’s coronation honours. Details of his career will be con<em>s</em>idered in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
OSBORNE, Peregrine (1659-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>OSBORNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Peregrine</strong> (1659–1729)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>5 Dec. 1674 Visct. Oseburne of Dunblane [S]; <em>styled </em>1689-94 earl of Danby; <em>styled </em>1694-1712 mq. of Carmarthen; <em>accel. </em>3 Mar. 1690 Baron OSBORNE; <em>suc. </em>fa. 26 July 1712 as 2nd duke of LEEDS |
|
First sat 2 Mar. 1690; last sat 17 June 1727 |
|
MP Berwick-upon-Tweed 2 Mar. 1677-79; Corfe Castle 26 Feb.–12 Apr. 1679; York 1689-90 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 29 Dec. 1659,<sup>1</sup> 3rd but o. surv. s. of Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds and Bridget, da. of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey; bro. of Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad France Mar.-Nov. 1671;<sup>2</sup> privately, tutor in 1676 Mr Melovera.<sup>3</sup> <em>m</em>. 25 Apr. 1682, Bridget (1662-1734), da. and h. of Sir Thomas Hyde, 2nd bt. of Aldbury, Herts. 3s. (2 d<em>.v.p.</em>), 2da. 1s. illegit. <em>d</em>. 25 June 1729.</p> |
<p>Capt. Louis Dufort de Duras*, earl of Feversham’s ft. 1685;<sup>4</sup> col. dragoons July 1690;<sup>5</sup> 1 marines 1690-98;<sup>6</sup> capt. RN 1690, rear-adm. red July 1693; rear-adm. blue Oct. 1693; rear-adm. red Jan. 1697; v.-adm. blue Mar. 1702; v.-adm. white May 1702; v.-adm. red Feb. 1703; adm. red Dec. 1708.</p><p>Col. of militia ft., E and W. Riding by 1696-?1714.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Freeman, Goldsmiths Co. 1674;<sup>8</sup> Portsmouth 1677;<sup>9</sup> Poole 1679;<sup>10</sup> York 1689;<sup>11</sup> steward, keeper and warden of Sherwood Forest and Folewood Park, Notts. 1689-99;<sup>12</sup> master Fishermen’s Co. by 1699.<sup>13</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. M. Dahl, sold at Christies, 7 July 2010.</p> |
<h2><em>The Emerton marriage and the Revolution 1674-89</em></h2><p>Dunblane’s Scottish peerage of December 1674 followed the surrender of the title by his father and its re-grant to Dunblane.<sup>14</sup> It was seen by some as a bargaining tool in the marriage market, as his father attempted to provide for his younger son (as he was at that time). Sir John Wray’s heir, worth £2-3,000 a year, was one of those mentioned as a possible bride.<sup>15</sup> However, a more enticing prospect was Bridget Hyde, the step-daughter of Sir Robert Vyner, whose fortune was a reputed £100,000.<sup>16</sup> Sir George Lane specifically referred to the viscountcy as being procured ‘in order to that match’. She was wealthy enough to have been touted as a bride for Charles II’s natural son, Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth. However, Vyner’s wife and her sisters had other ideas, and had secretly married her at the age of 12 to Lady Vyner’s nephew, John Emerton, in October 1674.<sup>17</sup> Vyner was left claiming he knew nothing about it and as John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, the future Viscount Fermanagh [I]; aptly noted, ‘the courtiers are frustrated by a City dame.’<sup>18</sup> To provide for Dunblane, Danby had already secured the reversion of the chancery post of clerk of the patents held by Sir Richard Piggott.<sup>19</sup> Further in December 1674 he secured the reversion of the lucrative office held by Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> of auditor of the exchequer, provision even being made to put the office in trust in case Howard should die before Dunblane reached his majority.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Meanwhile Dunblane was developing an enduring interest in nautical matters. His father used his ministerial position in September 1675 to procure ordnance for his yacht, the <em>Sophia</em>.<sup>21</sup> Despite being under-age, Dunblane secured election to the Commons for Berwick in a by-election in March 1677. He was attached to the French embassy of Ralph Montagu*, the future earl and duke of Montagu, but was quickly recalled, Danby requiring his vote in Parliament.<sup>22</sup> He was elected for Corfe Castle in February 1679, only to be unseated in April.<sup>23</sup> Thereafter he played an important role in supporting his father while he was imprisoned in the Tower, particularly in lobbying peers to obtain support for Danby’s various attempts to secure a release from custody.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, neither Dunblane nor his father had given up on Bridget Hyde. Although the court of king’s bench had granted the Emertons temporary possession of the Hyde estates, Vyner himself had custody of Bridget.<sup>25</sup> Dunblane had access to her and Bridget herself petitioned the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, in February 1676 against her marriage, accusing Emerton and his uncle, William, of despoiling her estate while delaying the hearing of the cause in the ecclesiastical courts.<sup>26</sup> In July 1680 the court of delegates found for the Emertons, but Bridget refused to accept the decision and sought the protection of her ‘kinsman’ Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, claiming that she had been forced into the marriage.<sup>27</sup> An appeal was launched and while this case was being considered by the court of delegates, Dunblane married her in April 1682. This marriage was acknowledged on 12 July 1682, just prior to a decision by the court of delegates in the case. Danby, incarcerated in the Tower, wrote to the lord chancellor in December of Dunblane’s ‘undutifulness in marrying her not only without my privity but against my express command’.<sup>28</sup> The long-drawn out saga was ended in April 1683 with Dunblane’s father buying off his rival and the court of delegates acquiescing in the decision.<sup>29</sup></p><p>In 1685 Dunblane served at Sedgemoor, and in March 1686 his yacht was used to carry off the new wife of George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland.<sup>30</sup> Following his wife’s miscarriage in October 1686, Dunblane left her and fled to the continent to escape his creditors.<sup>31</sup> In mid January 1687 he told Danby that he was returning from Brussels.<sup>32</sup> According to his later account, some of his trips were to carry messages from his father to William of Orange.<sup>33</sup> The result of this incident was that Dunblane’s finances came under his father’s control, so much so that in January 1688, at least one of Dunblane’s creditors applied to Danby because ‘all his lordship’s business lay in your lordship’s hands now’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>In March 1688 Dunblane was granted a pass to travel beyond the seas, but only after James II had initially refused him permission to visit Holland.<sup>35</sup> On this occasion he did not get to pass on Danby’s letters directly to the prince, and remained in Flanders.<sup>36</sup> In late September Dunblane was with his father at Ribston, Yorkshire, the seat of Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>, a close ally of Danby’s.<sup>37</sup> He took part in the northern rising against James II.<sup>38</sup> Given his prominence, he was able to secure election to the Convention for York. Following the death of his elder brother in February 1689, Dunblane became his father’s heir and was now styled earl of Danby. </p><p>On 20 June 1689, at the request of his father, the secretary of state, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, issued a warrant for Danby’s arrest on the grounds of high treason. This appears to have been a device to prevent Danby from using the ship he had been fitting out for use as a privateer.<sup>39</sup> After being examined before a committee of the Privy Council, he was bailed by his father.<sup>40</sup> As Danby was a member of the Commons this led to an investigation by the lower House as a possible breach of privilege.<sup>41</sup> Although preparations were in hand for Danby to contest York at the 1690 election, and there were rumours that he intended to contest Hertfordshire, where his wife’s estates were located, he did not stand, possibly owing to the publication of the list that showed that he had voted against the ‘vacancy’ of the throne on 5 Feb. 1689.<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>Osborne was summoned to the Lords in his father’s barony of Osborne of Kiveton on 3 Mar. 1690 before the election took place. Confusingly, for some time he was recorded in the Journal by the territorial appellation of Kiveton rather than as Osborne. He was introduced on 20 Mar. by John West*, 6th Baron De La War, and Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin. On 21 Apr., together with Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, he introduced his cousin, Robert Willoughby*, Baron Willoughby de Eresby into the House. He attended on 44 days of the session, 81.5 per cent of the total and was named to six committees.</p><p>With a French invasion threatened, in July 1690 Danby was given the command of the dragoons ordered to be raised and assembled in Hyde Park.<sup>43</sup> On 12 Sept. 1690, his son, William (<em>d</em>. 1711) was baptized at North Mimms, Hertfordshire, with Nottingham standing as proxy for the king. Danby was present at the opening of the 1690-1 session on 2 October. He attended on 23 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total and was named to six committees. On 21 Oct. the House was informed of a quarrel between Danby and Charles Granville*, then styled Viscount Lansdown (later 2nd earl of Bath), but who sat in the House under a writ in acceleration as Baron Granville. Both were ordered to be taken into custody. The origins of this conflict, said to be ‘an old quarrel’ are obscure.<sup>44</sup> It may have had its origins in the breakdown of Lansdown’s marriage to Danby’s sister, Martha (<em>d</em>. 1689), but there was also bad feeling between their fathers over the lack of rewards received by the Granvilles after the revolution. Danby proved elusive and on 23 Oct. black rod was given authority to search houses to bring him into custody. Still evading the officers of the House, on 27 Oct. he was ordered to surrender within seven days or a proclamation would be issued for him. He was absent from a call of the House on 2 Nov., but attended the following day, whereupon both men ‘shaked hands and promised before the several peers not to quarrel any more’.<sup>45</sup> During an extended absence in December 1690, it was reported that he had gone to Chatham to attend the court martial on 10 Dec. of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington.<sup>46</sup> Torrington was acquitted, but remained out of favour and at the end of 1690 Danby was granted his marine regiment.<sup>47</sup> On 31 Dec. 1690 Danby intercepted a vessel bound for France, one of the passengers being Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], James II’s former secretary of state, an incident that his father was able to exploit to his advantage.<sup>48</sup> In March 1691, Danby was rumoured to be the replacement for John Wildman<sup>‡</sup> as post-master general but although Danby had apparently been granted this office by the king under the sign manual before Wildman’s appointment, the king had changed his mind.<sup>49</sup></p><p>In March 1691 Sir Robert Howard’s ill-health gave Sidney Godolphin*, the future Baron Godolphin, pause for thought about the reversion of the officer of auditor of the exchequer to Danby, which, as he informed the king, ‘I have often been told is not good in law’. Clearly he had an unfavourable opinion of Danby:</p><blockquote><p>I take it for granted that you, unless obliged by law, would never choose out the earl of Danby of all England to fill that officer’s place, through whose hands all your own revenue, all the public money of the kingdom, and all the accounts of both the one and the other are to pass; and for these reasons, if the case does happen, I shall think it my duty to refuse him admittance till the right of the patent is determined, unless you signify that you would give him the position, though there were no patent in the case, which I confess I think you would no more do, than make him a bishop.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>Danby was in combative mood while attending the Aylesbury by-election in April 1691 in support of his brother-in-law, James Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, notably telling Thomas Wharton*, the future 5th Baron Wharton, that a ‘jockey’s whip became him better than a white staff.’<sup>51</sup> In May Danby was listed as captain of the <em>Resolution</em> in the Anglo-Dutch fleet, but Admiral Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, was concerned at his absence from the fleet and wondered whether he would be serving at sea at all during the summer. Danby did join the fleet, capturing a French boat while serving under Russell in July.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Danby was absent from the opening of the 1691-2 session. Throughout the session as a whole, he was present on 26 days, 26 per cent of the total, and was named to four committees. On 16 Nov. 1691 George Rodney Bridges<sup>‡</sup> informed the Commons that Sir Ralph Delaval<sup>‡</sup> ‘had lately taken a French boat going for Ireland, with papers of dangerous consequence to the government,’ naming Danby as the source of his information, he having seen the captured papers.<sup>53</sup> Although it was reported about town that Bridges had ‘accused Carmarthen’s son of sending information to the French fleet’, the person really implicated was Nottingham, to whom the papers had been sent, particularly as Danby had seen a letter from Nottingham to Delaval purporting to reveal his sailing orders.<sup>54</sup> A motion to ask Danby about these matters was defeated in the Commons in favour of a conference with the Lords.<sup>55</sup> At the conference on 17 Nov., the Commons ‘out of respect for the peerage’ laid the matter before the upper House. The Lords ordered Danby to attend, which he did on the following day, his first appearance of the session. Following Danby’s account of the matter, the Lords communicated the relevant papers to the Commons at a conference on 19 November. On 23 Nov. Delaval told the Commons that Danby must have been mistaken ‘for I saw no letter of the Lord Nottingham unto me amongst them.’<sup>56</sup> On that date Delaval was ready to testify before the Lords, but the matter was postponed because Danby was ‘not in town.’ Danby was eventually heard in his place on 5 Dec., saying ‘that he did verily believe he had seen a copy of a letter from the earl of Nottingham in the packet taken on board the French vessel, as he had formerly informed this House.’<sup>57</sup> He was then named to a committee to oversee what would be entered into the Journal about the affair, which merely recorded that Danby had been heard in his place.<sup>58</sup> Finally after a conference on 15 Dec., the Commons also resolved that no copy of any letter from Nottingham to Delaval had been taken on board the French vessel.<sup>59</sup> However, after some debate it was decided to avoid any criticism of Danby, so as ‘not to cast a reflection’ on him ‘to say he was mistaken when it is not very material to the vindication of the Lord Nottingham’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Danby served at sea in the campaign in 1692, both at the battle of Barfleur and in sending fire ships into La Hogue.<sup>61</sup> He first attended the 1692-3 session on 14 Nov. 1692, and was present for 29 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total. On 21 Nov. he was one of the peers ordered to attend on the 26th for issuing protections, in his case for seven men. When he attended on 23 Nov. he claimed ignorance of the rules, promised to extend no more protections and asked for the existing ones to be removed. His only committee appointment was on 10 Dec. to examine the papers brought into the House by Nottingham pursuant to an address to the king. On 31 Dec. Danby fought a duel with Captain Thomas Stringer<sup>‡</sup> (who had been appointed to Danby’s marine regiment in April 1691), wounding him in the thigh.<sup>62</sup> On 4 Feb. 1693 he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder, believing it to be manslaughter.<sup>63</sup> He last sat on 16 Feb. 1693, when he gave his proxy to his father. </p><p>In January 1693, it was reported that Danby was to be one of three flag officers, but in early February this was disregarded. As compensation for being passed over, he received permission to fly a special pennant, and the promise of the next flag office.<sup>64</sup> Danby was duly named as rear-admiral of the red in July, following the death of Ashley, and rear admiral of the blue in October.<sup>65</sup> As such he played no role in the disaster that befell the Smyrna convoy, although he was able to point to his desire for a proper reconnaissance of Brest, and did come under some suspicion of fomenting discontent against the admirals in charge of the fleet.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Danby was present on the opening day of the next session, 7 Nov. 1693 but was excused attendance when the House was called on 14 November. On 4 Dec. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, in the committee of the whole on the place bill on whether the word ‘declared’ should stand of the bill. On 19 Dec. it was reported that he had gone to Chatham to hold a court martial. Another distraction was reported on 2 Feb. 1694 when he went to Woolwich to take Prince Louis of Baden to the launch of the <em>Royal Charles</em>. He last sat in that session on 9 Feb. 1694, giving his proxy to his father on 23 February. He had attended on 18 days, 14 per cent of the total and been appointed to two committees. In June Carmarthen (as he was now styled after his father’s promotion to duke of Leeds in May) was involved in the projected attack on Brest and the abortive landing in Camaret Bay, publishing his account as <em>Journal of the Brest Expedition</em> (1694).<sup>67</sup> After having been ill of a fever, in September, he asked to be put in command of the squadron charged with conveying the king back to England, a task which occupied him in October and November.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Carmarthen was again absent from the opening of the new parliamentary session, first sitting on 29 Nov. 1694. He attended on 18 days of the 1694-5 session, 14 per cent of the total. At the end of February 1695 he fought another duel with Stringer. He was absent between 15 Mar. and 22 Apr. 1695, giving his proxy to his father on 10 April. Part of his absence may have been due to naval duties, and then, perhaps, to ill health.<sup>69</sup> Meanwhile Carmarthen’s waywardness was having serious implications for his marriage and his relationship with his father. In March 1695 various witnesses to Carmarthen’s marriage at St Mary Le Bone on 25 Apr. 1682 made depositions of the fact.<sup>70</sup> This was probably connected to Carmarthen’s relationship with someone else: in August 1695, the duchess of Leeds wrote to her daughter-in-law of Carmarthen’s claims that he had been ‘bewitched’ by a woman, perhaps Mary Hill Morton, who would later allege that she was married to him.<sup>71</sup> While at sea during the summer, he was the subject of complaints from merchants concerning their losses, which had parliamentary ramifications in the following session.<sup>72</sup> As Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury put it, this ‘extravagant man, both in his pleasures and honours… fancied the French fleet was coming up to him, which proved to be only a fleet of merchant ships; so he left his station and retired into Milford Haven’, exposing English shipping to the predations of French privateers and himself to the fury of its owners.<sup>73</sup> In October Carmarthen attended the Aylesbury election, in his father’s coach, in support of his brother-in-law Herbert, where he again clashed with Wharton. He then attended at the Wendover election as well.<sup>74</sup></p><h2><em>The Later Parliaments of William III, 1695-1702</em></h2><p>After again missing the beginning of the 1695-6 session of the new Parliament, Carmarthen first sat on 2 Dec. 1695. On 4 Jan. 1696 he was ordered to have copies of the admiralty papers read before the House that day relating to the complaints of losses of the merchants over the previous summer, which were referred to a committee. The admiralty commissioners had been critical of Carmarthen’s conduct in failing to protect merchant shipping in papers submitted to the Lords committee established on 13 Dec. 1695 to review the merchants’ complaints, and Carmarthen was forced to defend himself before the committee.<sup>75</sup> A report from the committee on 6 Feb. decided, however, that Carmarthen had ‘behaved himself in the last summer’s expedition at sea with courage, conduct and fidelity.’ According to one account, Carmarthen ‘was generously acquitted by the peers of those imputations he was charged with for want of conduct’, and suggested that the attack had really aimed at his father, the duke of Leeds.<sup>76</sup> He was absent from 14 Feb. until 2 Mar., when he signed the Association. He had attended on 34 days of the session, 27 per cent of the total and had been named to a single committee. </p><p>At the beginning of July 1696 Carmarthen went to serve in the army as a volunteer in Flanders.<sup>77</sup> He had arrived back in England by mid September, reportedly having ‘come over in his own vessel. Says the French King is well again, and that they do not talk so much of peace as lately.’<sup>78</sup> His mother reported him ‘busy at the admiralty fitting his vessel’, and wished that he had the time to see his father.<sup>79</sup> Carmarthen missed the opening of the 1696-7 session, giving his proxy to his father on 25 November. He first sat on 8 Dec., the day in which proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> were begun, and attended on each day in December on which the matter was discussed. He did not join his father in entering a protest but did vote against the bill at its third reading on 23 Dec. 1696. In all he attended on 23 days of the session, 20 per cent of the total, and was named to three committees. </p><p>Carmarthen missed the first month of the 1697-8 session, taking his seat on 3 Jan. 1698, attending for only two days, and not returning to the House until 10 March. Some of his absence can be attributed to his attendance upon the Czar Peter I, who had arrived in England on 11 Jan. 1698. Carmarthen was already known to Peter as the designer of the <em>Royal Transport</em> yacht, which William III intended to present to the Czar as a gift. As such he was an ideal companion for the Czar, fascinated as he was by technical matters. As one correspondent put it, Carmarthen was ‘a strange gentleman, who has found the way to put himself in his good favour arranging various entertainments on water as well as in town.’<sup>80</sup> He was certainly with the Czar on a number of occasions from the end of January 1698.<sup>81</sup> Early in February it was reported that he had escorted the Czar to Deptford, where time was spent on one of the yachts that Carmarthen had designed. On 15 Mar. he voted against the committal of the bill to punish Sir Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Some of his absence in late March and April may also be explained by his entertainment of the Czar.<sup>82</sup> As a reward he received a valuable grant of the tobacco trade to Russia for seven years, which he sub-let to a group of London merchants.<sup>83</sup> He last attended on 1 June, registering his proxy on 14 June with his brother-in-law, William Fermor*, Baron Leominster. On 29 June this was transferred to Willoughby de Eresby. In all he attended on 17 days of the, 12 per cent of the total, and was named to four committees. One reason for his absence that month may have been a wound he sustained in a duel on 5 June with a Captain Nash, which was reported to be still troubling him early in July.<sup>84</sup></p><p>The long-awaited demise of Sir Robert Howard at the beginning of September 1698 saw Carmarthen attempt to claim his reversion as auditor of the exchequer. The treasury lords, chief among whom was Charles Montagu*, the future Baron Halifax, refused to honour the claim and instead appointed Montagu’s own brother Christopher Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, albeit in trust for himself.<sup>85</sup> Leeds immediately protested to the king and to Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, in Flanders, and retained counsel, but could not reverse the decision.<sup>86</sup> The main stumbling block appears to have been the probability that Christopher Montagu and the treasury lords would claim parliamentary privilege should Carmarthen institute legal proceedings.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Carmarthen was present for the opening of the next session on 6 Dec. 1698 and attended on 52 days, 60.5 per cent of the total. His only significant period of absence was in January, as he did not appear after the Christmas recess until 24 Jan. 1699. He was present in February when the Lords considered the bill for the relief of the creditors of Sir Robert Vyner, which was amended to include a clause relating to the accounts of his wife and Vyner. On 23 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Richard Savage*, 4th earl Rivers, during the debate in committee of the whole House on Desborow’s petition complaining that he had been unjustly removed from his naval command and subsequently on the 27th was appointed to the committee to address the king on the case. On 14 Apr. John Clements, a fishmonger, was ordered into custody for having spoken opprobrious words of Carmarthen as Master of the Company of Fishermen, particularly the previous day in the lobby and in ‘soliciting so many lies as were printed in the paper he dispersed’.<sup>88</sup> After apologizing, Clements was discharged on the 19th. The incident was no doubt related to a bill in which Carmarthen took an interest: on 25 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons for a conference in which the Lords were to insist on their proviso for the bill making Billingsgate a free market for the sale of fish. He was named to a further 11 committees during the session. In April 1699, Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that John Somers*, Baron Somers, the lord chancellor, was disputing Carmarthen’s patent for the reversion of the office of clerk of the patents.<sup>89</sup> Thus Carmarthen found himself baulked of a second reversion.</p><p>Carmarthen attended the opening day of the 1699-1700 session, 16 Nov. 1699, but was only present on eight days of the session, nine per cent of the total, and was named to a single committee. At the beginning of December it was reported that Leeds had arrested Richard Hill, a recently appointed treasury commissioner, and significantly the only one not covered by parliamentary privilege, in order to try Carmarthen’s patent as auditor of the exchequer.<sup>90</sup> Carmarthen left the House on 22 Jan. 1700, two and a half months before the session ended. Nevertheless, at the beginning of February, he was forecast as likely to oppose the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. </p><p>At the beginning of April 1700, more evidence of Carmarthen’s chaotic personal life tumbled into the public domain when William Crisp petitioned the Crown on behalf of his daughter, Mary Morton, who, it was alleged, Carmarthen had ‘forcibly removed’, and ‘who still forcibly detains her, living lasciviously with her, and not only threatens to murder her, but daily beats and abuses her’. Crisp claimed that he could not get any peer to present his petition to the Lords. The petition was referred to the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, for comment, who presumably advised that the law be allowed to take its course.<sup>91</sup></p><p>At the start of October 1700 Carmarthen’s newly designed ship was almost ready, and he planned to wait on the king on his journey back from Holland.<sup>92</sup> The <em>Peregrine Galley</em> was being used for reconnaissance in February 1701.<sup>93</sup> It had been built ‘at the king’s charge out of the waste timber, &c. in one of the king’s yards’, in the hope that he would be granted the vessel in lieu of his arrears of his pension, then standing at £9,000, or that the king would take the vessel and grant him a pension of £1,000, double that granted in 1674, while he waited for the auditor’s office to become vacant.<sup>94</sup> In the event William III took the ship shortly before his death, leaving Carmarthen to petition Queen Anne for his reward in August 1702. She seemed favourably inclined to give him the ship, only for the admiralty to object, and Carmarthen was rewarded with only £500. Even then he had the ignominy of being refused when he attempted to turn this into a pension in April 1703.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Carmarthen missed the opening of the February 1701 Parliament, attending for the first time on 20 Feb. 1701. In all he was present on 32 days, 29 per cent of the total, and was appointed to three committees. On 3 Mar. he was able to insist on his privilege to protect his secretary, James Hadder, and steward, Richard Gerling, who had been arrested, the perpetrators being ordered into custody, some of them being discharged on 8, and another on 31 May. On 4 Mar., Benjamin Harris, the printer of the <em>Post Man</em>, was ordered to attend for some expressions made concerning the <em>Peregrine Galley</em>. After hearing Harris on 7 Mar., the House ordered a further hearing on 10 Mar. but Carmarthen did not attend again until 26 Mar. and the affair was either forgotten or some compromise was reached. On 2 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the treaty of partition. It is unlikely that he attended the second conference, held on 10 Apr., as he did not attend the House between 9 and 15 Apr., nor between 18 Apr. and 14 May. On 17 June he voted for the acquittal of Somers.</p><p>In March 1701 it was reported that Carmarthen had declined to serve at sea during the summer unless given a flag.<sup>96</sup> However in April he was listed as the captain of the <em>Peregrine Galley</em>.<sup>97</sup> His naval employment must have been an important source of income, especially given his escalating debts. On 23 July, Leeds wrote to Lady Carmarthen to warn her that her husband’s creditors were intent on obtaining payment, but ‘finding that the mortgage I have upon all the lands will hinder their extents’, they would perhaps seek to secure their money on his personal estate.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Carmarthen attended on the second day of the second Parliament of 1701, 31 Dec. 1701, and was named to the committee to draw up the Address on the King’s Speech, duly signing the address on the pretender being owned by France on the following day. At the end of January 1702, it was reported that Carmarthen would receive a commission as admiral.<sup>99</sup> He was present on 11 Mar. 1702 to take the oaths to Queen Anne. His last attendance of the session was on 16 Mar., when he was named to his only other committee. In all, he had been present on just six days of the session, six per cent of the total. </p><h2><em>The Early Parliaments of Queen Anne 1702-10</em></h2><p>The accession of Queen Anne revived the possibility of Carmarthen reclaiming the office of auditor of the exchequer. On 12 May 1702 a caveat was entered at the relevant offices to prevent Halifax from being confirmed in his place and two days later a memorandum was drawn up for an approach to Lord Treasurer Godolphin. At this point the process stalled as in order to obtain his father’s backing, Carmarthen was forced to ‘leave his woman’, a reference to Mary Morton, and to sign over the office in trust for the use of Leeds, no doubt as a means of reducing his debts. After some wrangling, Carmarthen duly did both on 22 June.<sup>100</sup> The following day Leeds wrote to Godolphin to arrange for Carmarthen to be admitted and sworn into the office.<sup>101</sup> In July after an extensive hearing, with counsel deployed on both sides, Godolphin decided not to admit Carmarthen to the office, but he also ruled that Halifax’s current possession of the office should not ‘be construed to the prejudice of the other’s claim when the right comes to be tried in Westminster Hall.’<sup>102</sup> The dispute then moved into the court of exchequer. Halifax was ordered to appear on 23 Oct., but was able to avoid appearing because the parliamentary session was about to begin and Carmarthen’s agent ‘durst’ not force him to attend. Following the prorogation of Parliament, in April 1703, Carmarthen tried again, but Halifax delayed matters before bringing in a demurrer on the last day of the Easter term. On 2 July, the court allowed the demurrer, mainly on the grounds that the lord treasurer had not admitted Carmarthen into the office. This left Carmarthen with no legal recourse, except to print his case in order to explain his actions.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Carmarthen was reported to be going to sea in June 1702. Although he was in London on 20 Sept. he was absent at the beginning of the 1702-3 session and did not take his seat until 11 November.<sup>104</sup> During the debate on occasional conformity on 9 Dec. his father clashed with his old foe, Ralph Montagu, now earl of Montagu. Halifax (and presumably Carmarthen) joined in the repartee. According to Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, Leeds told Halifax that ‘his family was raised by rebellion, but his own suffered by it’. At the rising of the House it was said that a challenge had been given as a result (though it was unclear by whom), and Halifax was said to have been ordered to be confined to his house in the custody of black rod, although no order was entered in the Journal.<sup>105</sup> On the following day while the House was debating whether to confine Halifax further, Carmarthen came into the chamber and ‘protested he knew of no quarrel (but in relation to a suit at law) that was between them. He confessed he had written a letter last night, on this last mentioned subject, to the Lord H[alifax], but never intended it, as it appeared to be understood, for a challenge.’<sup>106</sup> Both men were forced to give their word to the House not to prosecute the quarrel, and Carmarthen then stayed away from the Lords for a week. In January 1703, Nottingham forecast Carmarthen as likely to support his bill against occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause in the bill. He last attended on 18 Feb., having attended on 36 days, almost 40 per cent of the total. He also attended the prorogation on 22 April.</p><p>In April 1703 Carmarthen returned to the fray against Halifax, exhibiting a bill in exchequer ‘for some of the perquisites of the auditor’s place.’ On 1 July the judges ruled that Halifax did not have to give any account of his profits from the place of auditor to Carmarthen until he made good his title to the office.<sup>107</sup> On 7 May Richard Warre noted that ‘Carmarthen is not to command at sea this summer, but will however enjoy his pension.’<sup>108</sup> This seems to have been in part due to the need to attend to his lawsuit with Halifax. Because of the illness of Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> it was decided that George Churchill<sup>‡ </sup>and Sir Stafford Fairborne<sup>‡</sup> would replace him.<sup>109</sup> As John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> confirmed, ‘by this revolution the marquess of Carmarthen is left on shore for this summer, much against his will, as he says.’<sup>110</sup> He petitioned over his lack of employment, and in June it was ordered that he receive full pay as vice-admiral of the red.<sup>111</sup> In May 1703 Leeds seems to have made an in-depth inquiry into his son’s debts and possible ways out of his encumbrances, and then tried to sort out his son’s affair with Mary Hill Morton, who claimed to be his wife, and to ensure that any children from that relationship did not threaten his family’s estate. Carmarthen’s misconduct had forced Leeds to make a third revision of his settlements.<sup>112</sup> In June Leeds sought the advice of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, about how to prevent Mary Hill Morton from continuing to claim that she and Carmarthen were married and the consequent doubt thrown upon Carmarthen’s marriage to Bridget Hyde. Trumbull, who had long since given up practicing in the ecclesiastical courts, replied cautiously, suggesting that the best course was for Carmarthen to be persuaded to bring an action of jactitation in his own name.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Carmarthen attended the prorogation on 4 Nov. 1703 and the opening day of the 1703-4 session on 9 November. He was then absent until 9 December. In or about November, he was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity, although there was a query against his name, which may relate to his absence. Sunderland again forecast him as likely to support the bill in late November or early December, and Carmarthen duly voted for it on 14 December. Between 4 Jan. and 9 Feb. 1704 he attended only once, on 14 Jan. when he acted as a teller in opposition to Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl of Kingston, on whether to reverse the judgment in the case of <em>Ashby v. White</em>. On 16 Mar. he entered his dissent to the passage of both amendments seeking to alter the names of commissioners in the public accounts bill (although he was not listed as present in the Journal). He last attended on 25 Mar. 1704, having been present on 28 days of the session, 28 per cent of the total. Carmarthen’s attempts to regain his naval command for the 1704 campaign were thwarted by the promotion of his junior, Fairborne, ahead of him.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Carmarthen attended on the opening day of the 1704-5 session, 24 Oct. 1704. He was forecast as likely to support the Tack in a list compiled about November. However, he only attended twice more before the turn of the year, on 29 Nov. and 15 Dec. (the day the occasional conformity bill was rejected). A veritable burst of activity saw him present on several occasions in January and February 1705, before his activity tailed off after 10 February. In the middle of this, on 30 Jan., he received the proxy of his father.<sup>115</sup> He last attended on 10 Mar., having been present on 22 days of the session, 22 per cent of the total. On 18 Feb. Leeds recorded that Carmarthen had ‘received orders to go to sea in command of a squadron’, and on 25 Mar. he departed from Wimbledon to take command of the convoy transporting Marlborough into Holland.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Some idea of the scale of Carmarthen’s debts can be gleaned from a diary entry of his father on 19 Mar. 1705, which recorded that Leeds gave a Mr Vernon (probably his agent) a note for £300 as payment of Carmarthen’s interest on a loan of £12,000 (£5,000 from John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham and £7,000 from a Mr Emilie), for the half-year that had ended on 2 Mar. 1705. In December 1709, it appears that Ashburnham’s share of this mortgage was transferred to a Jon Trymme of Wimbledon, as a trustee for Leeds.<sup>117</sup> Carmarthen embarked on the <em>Cleveland</em> yacht early in June 1705, on convoy duty.<sup>118</sup> At the end of July Carmarthen, through the secretary of state, Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, was able to obtain ‘an opportunity to justify himself with relation to his late conduct’, before the admiralty.<sup>119</sup> In August, the admiralty was able to report that they had received no complaints from merchants or others of his conduct.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Carmarthen attended on the opening day of the 1705-6 session, 25 October. On 6 Dec. 1705 Carmarthen spoke in the debate on the queen’s speech, apparently speaking of ‘fighting for the Church’, and entered his protest against the passage of the resolution that the Church was ‘not in danger’. He was subsequently listed as having voted that it was in danger. He quarrelled again with Halifax over the auditorship of the exchequer in December: a duel was averted by the captain of the guards.<sup>121</sup> Godolphin noted that Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, had taken their word of honour that nothing further would happen in the matter, ‘but while such madmen are allowed to walk about and suffered to be among rational creatures, ’tis not possible for anybody to be secure from them’.<sup>122</sup> Carmarthen attended on 19 days of the session, 20 per cent of the total and on 19 Mar. was appointed to the select committee to prepare an address to the queen on the manning of the fleet. </p><p>In October 1706, Leeds criticized his daughter-in-law over a proposed marriage between her eldest son and Lady Elizabeth Hastings. It is clear from his comments that by this date Carmarthen had been cut out from the succession to most of his father’s estate.<sup>123</sup> Carmarthen was absent from the opening of the 1706-7 session, first attending on 20 Dec. 1706, and attending only three times before February 1707. Thereafter his attendance markedly improved and in all he attended on 29 days of the session, 32 per cent of the total, and was named to eight committees. He also became involved in trying to influence a committee appointed in the Commons on 5 Apr. to examine ‘piracies committed in the East and West Indies’. According to Carmarthen’s later testimony, ‘he printed his reasons, gave them to Members of the Commons, procured evidence to be given to a committee and obtained an address to the queen for the suppression of the pirates.’<sup>124</sup> The address to the queen for the suppression of the pirates of Madagascar was made on 8 Apr. and Carmarthen followed it up with a proposal for an expedition to affect the same, although nothing came of it.<sup>125</sup> He also attended on two days of the short session of April 1707, 20 per cent of the total.</p><p>Carmarthen missed the beginning of the 1707-8 session, first sitting on 12 Nov. 1707. He did not attend again until 2 Dec. eventually attending on 23 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total. On 29 Jan. 1708, he was one of only three English peers to support the Scottish Captain Kerr against the complaints of some merchants that while serving in the West Indies he had neglected their convoy.<sup>126</sup> From February 1708 until 1714, Carmarthen faced a struggle every quarter to ensure payment of his salary as admiral, against the claims of the bankers John and Joseph Newell, to whom he owed money, a matter complicated in turn by their own indebtedness to the Crown.<sup>127</sup> His need to make such solicitations may have made him open to the pressures applied to a poor lord, albeit an unreliable one. </p><p>On 29 May 1708, James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], informed Sunderland that Carmarthen’s presence at the election of Scottish representative peers ‘will do a great deal of hurt to our [proxies]’. Carmarthen had already given his proxy to John Gordon*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S], and as he would be present to recall his proxy, this would give credence to the claim by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], that proxies could only be redeemed in person. In June 1708 when Carmarthen attended the elections in Edinburgh in his capacity as Viscount Dunblane [S], Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], ‘protested against the proxies from Lennox and Dunblane in the same terms as against the earl of Greenwich [John Campbell*, duke of Argyll]’, that is, that he was also a peer of England. In retaliation Carmarthen protested against Marchmont casting the proxy of Thomas Livingston, 2nd Viscount Teviot [S], ‘as not on stamped paper nor sealed according to the laws of England’.<sup>128</sup> At his father’s request, under importunity from Nottingham, Carmarthen voted for John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], thus disappointing James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].<sup>129</sup> Despite this, the ‘desperately thin’ Carmarthen was expected to return from Scotland in Queensberry’s coach. Meanwhile he had fallen out with Hamilton, and been noticeably indiscreet in general, so that the ‘limping admiral,’ as Sir Alexander Rigby<sup>‡</sup> described him, ‘may chance to get a Sc[otti]sh stick before he gets back to Berwick.’<sup>130</sup> At the end of July 1708, Carmarthen was suggested as the person most likely person to be able to smooth relations with the Czar following the arrest of the ambassador from Muscovy. Rather typically however, the secretary of state, Henry Boyle*, the future Baron Carleton, had to say ‘I cannot yet learn where he is to be met with’.<sup>131</sup> In late August, it was reported that Carmarthen had been appointed ambassador to ‘the angry Czar,’ although this was not the case.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Carmarthen was absent from the first two months of the first, 1708-9, session of the 1708 Parliament, first sitting on 12 Jan. 1709. He was present to vote on 21 Jan. 1709 in favour of the resolution that a Scottish peer who possessed a British title had the right to vote in the election for Scottish representative peers. He attended only 10 days of the session, 10.5 per cent of the total. His poor attendance may have been a reflection of his interest in nautical matters, for on 14 Oct. Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, as lord admiral, agreed that Carmarthen should receive the same allowance as a navy commissioner for his trouble in attending ‘at Woolwich, for ordering and giving the proper directions for the building’ of a ship, and on 4 Nov. he signed a receipt to the commissioners of the navy that he had ‘actually been attending, inspecting into, and giving directions about the building, rigging and fitting the <em>Royal Anne</em> galley’ for 343 days.<sup>133</sup> In February 1709 it was even reported that he had received a commission to command the fleet.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Carmarthen missed the first few days of the 1709-10 session, sitting first on 25 Nov., and only attending on four occasions before the middle of February 1710. Then he attended regularly, sitting 31 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total. The obvious reason for his improved attendance was the Sacheverell impeachment. On 10 Mar. the House had to intervene to patch up a quarrel between Carmarthen and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, for some words which passed between them. On 14 Mar. he entered his dissent to the decision not to adjourn the House, and then against the vote that it was not necessary to include in the impeachment the particular words which were supposed to be criminal. On 16 Mar. Carmarthen subjected the House to ‘a tediously long speech’ recounting the events of 1688 and his role in them, which, when Charles Lennox*, 3rd duke of Richmond, interrupted to call it ‘a long story’, he replied ‘it was reason to him and he’d go on with it if he kept them to the morning.’<sup>135</sup> He entered protests against the proceedings on 16, 17 and 18 March. Not surprisingly, given the nature of his interventions, on 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours and protested against the guilty verdict. On 21 Mar. he dissented from the censure passed against him. </p><h2><em>Mrs Morton and the death of the old Duke of Leeds, 1710-12</em></h2><p>In May 1710, Sunderland minuted allegations by Mr Crisp, brother-in-law of Mrs Morton, concerning Carmarthen and commissions from the Pretender. Information was also given of some indiscreet words allegedly uttered by Carmarthen during the Sacheverell riots, to the effect that ‘when the mobs were up they were fools, for if they would have been governed by him and other gentlemen with them they should have gone to the Bank for to get the treasure of the nation in their hands was everything.’ It was also reported that Crisp had been told that ‘his sister might be as great as any woman in England if she would consent to Lord Carmarthen’s engaging, that he was willing, but she was against it.’<sup>136</sup> Further allegations from ‘Mrs Crisp’ (in fact Mary Hill Morton) were reported in August, to the effect that Carmarthen had threatened to kill the queen and Sunderland, although she claimed that he had said he could head a mob to seize the guards and Sunderland. After a report from the attorney and solicitor generals in October, Carmarthen was called before the council on 8 Nov., where he clarified that he had heard of articles from the Pretender some years before and that he believed that the Whigs would bring him in at the time of the Sacheverell trial. Further, he had wondered that the mob had not attacked the Bank rather than Burgess’s meeting house.<sup>137</sup></p><p>In early November 1710, ‘Mrs Crisp’ preferred articles in queen’s bench against Carmarthen. He appeared in court on 14 Nov., supported by Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale, Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, and William North*, 6th Baron North, where he gave bail for his good behaviour. He also declared ‘the greatness of his misfortune to have been so long seduced by so base and infamous a woman’. Leeds hoped now to put an end to her claim to have been validly married to Carmarthen.<sup>138</sup> In December, Queensberry was attempting to question ‘Mrs Mary Hill Morton, who calls herself Lady Carmarthen’, over some treasonable matter.<sup>139</sup> In December when the queen was given an account of Carmarthen’s ‘saying, that he was going to bring over the prince of Wales’, the queen responded that ‘there was no such thing under his hand: that it was spoke when he was drunk, and in the night with his mistress.’<sup>140</sup> On 23 Jan. 1711 Carmarthen and Morton were hauled before the lord chief justice, Sir Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Macclesfield, where ‘she was discharged and he continued under bail’.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, seven months earlier on 23 June 1710, Leeds recorded that Carmarthen had gone on board his new ship, the <em>Royal Anne</em> galley, which underwent trials in early July. In September there were rumours that he might command the fleet.<sup>142</sup> He was not appointed, though he did get, Sir Stafford Fairborne complained in June 1711, £1,000 a year from the navy, even though he had ‘never served at sea in a better post than myself and his lordship has not been honoured with better commissions.’<sup>143</sup> On Harley’s list of 3 Oct. 1710, Carmarthen was assessed as being expected to support the new Tory ministry. On 6 Oct., a memorandum of Harley’s included a note about Dunblane’s proxy for the election of the Scottish representative peers.<sup>144</sup> Queensberry had sent the proxy to David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], but there was a consensus that it should be transferred to David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], ‘for being in the other’s hands may be of bad consequence’. It was Glasgow, however, who cast Dunblane’s votes at the election held on 10 Nov. 1710.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Carmarthen attended on 28 days of the 1710-11 session, 25 per cent of the total, half of his appearances coming in May and June at the end of the session. On 23 Mar. 1711 Carmarthen wrote to John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, of ‘the extreme unhappiness of my condition’, hoping for a favour that would ‘rather pity than expose my unhappy circumstances.’<sup>146</sup> At the end of March 1711 Leeds took out an exemplification of the sentence of the spiritual court on 24 Mar. confirming Carmarthen’s marriage to Bridget Hyde in April 1682.<sup>147</sup> At the beginning of August 1711, Trumbull was given the news that Carmarthen’s daughter, Betty, would be married to the duke of Beaufort.<sup>148</sup> Not coincidentally, on 22 Aug. Leeds received from Carmarthen, via Beaufort, ‘an instrument of renunciation of all appeals made by him against that sentence which was pronounced of his marriage in February the last 1710/11 and was then recorded in the spiritual court’, preventing a future challenge to his daughter’s legitimacy.<sup>149</sup> On 24 Aug. Carmarthen’s proctor renounced all future appeals in the spiritual courts against his marriage in 1682.<sup>150</sup> His daughter’s marriage took place on 14 Sept. 1711, with Leeds making the arrangements for the marriage portion to be paid.<sup>151</sup> In late October 1711, when Leeds renewed the lease on Wimbledon, Carmarthen was removed from the reversion in favour of Leeds’ two grandsons and a cousin.<sup>152</sup> This was in preparation for a comprehensive re-working of his settlements in January 1712, together with a new will, both of which confirmed Carmarthen’s exclusion in favour of his son and heir, also named Peregrine Osborne*, the future 3rd duke of Leeds.<sup>153</sup> In March 1712 Carmarthen publicly disowned Mary Hill Morton in the <em>London Gazette</em> as having ‘no manner of pretensions to the name of Carmarthen’.<sup>154</sup></p><p>Crucially, Carmarthen was absent on the opening day of the 1711-12 session, on 7 Dec. 1711, when the House voted in the division on ‘No Peace Without Spain,’ being ‘at a tavern and came too late to vote.’<sup>155</sup> Having been ‘sought’ by the ministry, he was in attendance the following day, when, along with Rivers, he ensured that a division was started on whether to reverse the previous day’s decision, which was subsequently abandoned. As Arthur Charlett was informed ‘Carmarthen was absent yesterday, but today was there and gave occasion for more confusion and disorder than has been usual in that honourable House.’<sup>156</sup> He entered his dissent to the address because of the ‘No Peace without Spain clause’. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support Hamilton’s right to sit in the Lords under his British title. He voted accordingly the following day and entered a protest when the motion disabling Hamilton was passed. He was listed by Oxford as one of those Lords to be contacted during the Christmas recess, to what effect is uncertain, for although he was present on 2 Jan. 1712 to argue on the court side in favour of complying with the queen’s request that the House adjourn until 14 Jan., he was then absent until 7 Mar. 1712, registering his proxy on 12 Jan. with his son-in-law, Beaufort.<sup>157</sup> From 3 Apr. he was absent for another month, attending again on 5 May, when he secured the release of a servant from custody under parliamentary privilege, the offending bailiff being discharged on 22 May. He then attended regularly until the end of the session. He acted as a teller in opposition to Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, on 19 May in a division on the grants bill in committee of the whole House, and voted on 28 May against a Whig motion for an address that Ormond be ordered to act offensively in Flanders, in the wake of the discovery of the restraining orders. Carmarthen had attended on 37 days of the session, 33 per cent of the total and been named to six committees. </p><p>Carmarthen attended the prorogation on 8 July 1712. On 26 July his father died, unexpectedly, while en route to Yorkshire. Having been excluded from the estate by his father’s settlement, the new duke nevertheless travelled to Yorkshire to take possession of the family estates, which he did in the early hours of 28 July.<sup>158</sup> Clearly expecting trouble, on 23 Aug. the now duchess of Leeds wrote to Oxford craving the queen’s protection for herself and her son (now styled marquess of Carmarthen). Oxford was an obvious person to appeal to as arrangements were being made for Harley’s daughter Elizabeth to marry the new heir. Early in October 1712, after an approach by Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, and Philip Bisse*, bishop of St Davids, to attempt to persuade the new duke of Leeds to meet his son Carmarthen, Carmarthen (with the advice of Oxford) adopted a conciliatory line pointing out to his father that the first duke had ‘long determined this manner of settlement and had taken thereon the best advice England could afford… this was no sudden resolution of my grandfather’s, so the trustees find themselves sufficiently supported in law and equity.’ Further, although Leeds had taken possession of Kiveton, ‘the usual methods of dispossessing your grace are yet foreborn by the trustees, which is designed as an instance that an accommodation is heartily desired.’<sup>159</sup> In November Leeds was still holding out for a settlement of part of the family estates.<sup>160</sup> His father had left him only £2,000 p.a. (leaving most of his estate to his grandson), and in return for not contesting the will Oxford promised him the continuation of his father’s post office pension of £3,500 a year. Leeds agreed to the marriage but when the promised pension did not materialize, later claimed that Oxford had tricked him, having never approached the queen on his behalf, although it seems likely that Oxford could not persuade the queen to grant the reversion.<sup>161</sup> On 7 Dec. Oxford received proposals from Leeds for a settlement. Leeds at that stage wanted to be master of the ordnance, describing himself as ‘far better qualified for that employment than any other person whose quality can entitle him to such a pretention,’ as well as his father’s post office pension and the use of Wimbledon for five years. In return Kiveton would be returned within two months, his father’s ‘pretended will’ accepted and his wife’s patrimony secured.<sup>162</sup> With the marriage imminent, on 10 Dec. Leeds wrote to Oxford with some urgency desiring an immediate interview, threatening that ‘now I am my own master’, he would not countenance the marriage without reconciliation with his son. Oxford in response denied any underhand dealings, especially in relations between father and son, claiming ‘the late duke by deed directed everything relating to the settlement at his grandson’s marriage.’<sup>163</sup> Carmarthen’s marriage led to some speculation upon Leeds’ role in the ministry and in late December, Leeds was rumoured to be likely to be made the first commissioner of the admiralty.<sup>164</sup> Oxford could have been under no misapprehension of the scale of Leeds’s indebtedness: in January 1713 he even received a letter complaining of debts contracted in 1691 ‘to pay the draper for liveries and the goldsmith for 14 badges for his watermen when he was steward of the Yorkshire feast, like a man of his quality, where his now duchess, the countess of Plymouth and most of his noble family were present.’<sup>165</sup></p><h2><em>The Hanoverian Succession and Exile, 1713-27</em></h2><p>Leeds attended the prorogations of 17 Feb. 1713, when he took his seat as duke of Leeds, and of 3 and 17 March. On Jonathan Swift’s list, annotated by Oxford, dating from mid March to early April 1713, Leeds was listed as being expected to support the ministry. He first attended the 1713 session on 21 Apr., sitting on 25 days, 32 per cent of the total. He was present on 5 June when the Scots’ attempt to put off the second reading of the malt tax failed by one vote, and was noted as one of those ‘wanting on the court side’. On 8 June 1713, when the bill was considered in committee of the whole House John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], accused Leeds of making ‘long speeches full of nonsense and compliments to us’, and added that ‘when all was over [he] told Seafield and me that we must be pleased and for that purpose that an act of Parliament must be made to rectify that affair of our peerage’.<sup>166</sup> About 13 June Leeds was forecast by Oxford as likely to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. One of his closest political associates was William Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth: when Robert Ferguson had intelligence that there would be an attack on Oxford on 26 June 1713, at which several peers would absent themselves, including Yarmouth, he added ‘that it is not to be doubted, but that in consequence thereof the duke of Leeds will be likewise’.<sup>167</sup></p><p>By June 1713 Leeds, or his agents, had been in possession of the Yorkshire estates for almost a year, and in that time they had been run down and the personal estate of the old duke squandered. For Carmarthen, Oxford was the key to acquiring possession of his estate, presumably by the lord treasurer persuading the queen to transfer his grandfather’s pension to Leeds.<sup>168</sup> By October even Oxford was beginning to evince some exasperation: ‘I long have seen the endeavours used to work upon his grace’s passions to hinder his making his family easy and himself happy’, he wrote, and suspected that ‘I find the more the duke is courted the more some people persuade him to stand off’.<sup>169</sup> On 13 Oct., however, Leeds wrote to tell Oxford that ‘I have this day executed the enclosed writings according to your Lordship’s desire’.<sup>170</sup> By 19 Oct. Oxford was working on the queen to provide for Leeds, while asking Carmarthen to exercise restraint in sending any servants into Yorkshire and thereby provoking his father.<sup>171</sup></p><p>In November 1713, Leeds and Oxford were godfathers at the christening of their grandson, Thomas Osborne<sup>†</sup>, the future 4th duke of Leeds.<sup>172</sup> Allegedly, Leeds asked that the child not be given his name ‘because he thought he had been a very unfortunate man to his family.’<sup>173</sup> In December Leeds finally ceded possession of the family estates to his son.<sup>174</sup> On 20 Feb. 1714, the <em>London Gazette</em> carried a further repudiation of the claims that Leeds had been married to Mary Morton, making reference to two trials, one in the court of common pleas before lord chief justice Thomas Trevor*, Baron Trevor, on 12 July 1712, and the other before Lord Chief Justice Parker in February, which had found against her.<sup>175</sup></p><p>Leeds attended on the opening day of the 1714 session on 2 March. On 2 Apr. Oxford had Leeds listed in a memorandum as one of a number of peers to write to, and coincidentally he attended the Lords on that day for the first time since 19 March. On 13 Apr. Leeds proposed that the word ‘industriously’ should be added to the address to the queen so that it read that the fears for the protestant succession had been ‘universally and industriously spread’, which was carried by two votes.<sup>176</sup> On 28 Apr. Oxford gave Leeds £200 out of his own pocket ‘for the queen’s service.’<sup>177</sup> On 13 May Leeds received the proxy of his son, who had been summoned to the House by a writ in acceleration in January 1713. He was forecast by Nottingham as likely to support the schism bill at the end of May or the beginning of June 1714. In all he attended on 31 days of the session, 39 per cent of the total.</p><p>Leeds did not attend the short session of August 1714, but he was present at the prorogation on 23 Sept. 1714, taking the oaths. In November the treasury ordered that he be paid his salary as admiral up until the time of the queen’s death.<sup>178</sup> However, with his financial predicament still dire, on 27 July 1715 Leeds took ship for France.<sup>179</sup> According to one account his flight was the result of shooting his son’s steward, a Mr Bradshaw of the Temple, in a dispute over his annuity. Other reports had him accumulating arms, ammunition and horses and preparing commissions before his flight.<sup>180</sup> In 1716 he was appointed admiral and commander-in-chief of the Jacobite fleet, and spent some years in exile before returning and eventually resuming his career in the Lords in 1724.<sup>181</sup> He died on 25 June 1729. John Macky, writing when Carmarthen was about 50, had summed up his character: after praising his skill as a sailor he added ‘but [he] is very rakish, and extravagant, in his manner of living, otherwise he had risen quicker; he is strong and active, with abundance of fire and does not want wit; he is bold enough to undertake anything.’<sup>182</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
OSBORNE, Peregrine Hyde (1691-1731) |
<p><strong><surname>OSBORNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Peregrine Hyde</strong> (1691–1731)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1711-12 earl of Danby; <em>styled </em>1712-29 mq. of Carmarthen; <em>accel. </em>29 Jan. 1713 Bar. OSBORNE of Kiveton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 25 June 1729 as 3rd duke of LEEDS |
|
First sat 3 Mar. 1713; last sat 21 Jan. 1731 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Nov. 1691, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds and Bridget, da. of Sir Thomas Hyde, 2nd bt. of Aldbury, Herts. <em>educ</em>. Utrecht (tutor William Berard)<sup>1</sup> 1707-11. <em>m</em>. (1) 16 Dec. 1712 (with £8,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (1686-1713), da. of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, 1s.; (2) 17 Sept. 1719, Anne (<em>d</em>.1722), da. of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, <em>s.p.;</em> (3) 9 Apr. 1725, Juliana (?1705-94), da. and coh. of Roger Hele of Halewood, Devon, <em>s.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 9 May 1731; <em>will</em> 18 Sept. 1728, pr. 22 Dec. 1731.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr. Hamburg Co. 1710.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1713-14.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, attributed to Michael Dahl, sold at Christie’s, London, 7 July 2010.</p> |
<p>Osborne’s early life was dominated by his paternal grandfather, Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds. As head of the family, it was Leeds who dictated the education of his grandchildren, not least because of the unstable conduct of his son and heir. It was at Leeds’ behest that Osborne and his elder brother, William Henry, styled earl of Danby, left for Holland on 1 Dec. 1706 to continue their education abroad. The two brothers were based at Utrecht from January 1707, learning riding, maths, dancing, fencing and music. They travelled extensively in the United Provinces and in September 1710 paid a visit to the court of Hanover.<sup>5</sup> Danby died of smallpox at Utrecht in August, a misfortune that caused Leeds to recall Osborne (now styled Lord Danby in his brother’s place) home. He had spent four years and ten months abroad and arrived back in Wimbledon in late September 1711.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In January 1712 Leeds made a new settlement of his estate, which ensured that his wayward son was passed over in favour of his grandson. His will, made a few days later, confirmed his intentions.<sup>7</sup> Leeds also paid off Danby’s accumulated debts to 25 Mar. 1712, and provided him with an allowance of £300 p.a.<sup>8</sup> Meanwhile Danby continued his introduction into polite society, although there was one hiccup. On 6 Mar. 1712, Danby’s brother-in-law, Henry Somerset*, 3rd duke of Beaufort, proposed him for membership of Swift’s Society, only for Swift to oppose it successfully, on the grounds of his youth.<sup>9</sup> Another setback occurred at the end of April 1712, when he was diagnosed with smallpox, but he had recovered by mid May.<sup>10</sup> When the old duke of Leeds died somewhat suddenly on 26 July 1712, with his grandson (now styled marquess of Carmarthen) still a few months shy of his majority, the response of the new duke was to ignore the settlement and to take possession of what his wife described as ‘what doeth in no wise belong to him’, especially Kiveton and its contents.<sup>11</sup></p><p>The question of Carmarthen’s marriage now came to the fore. To Swift his merits as a spouse were clear: ‘the young fellow has £60,000 ready money; three great houses furnished, £7,000 a year at present, and about five more after his father and mother die.’<sup>12</sup> His trustees were able to attract the attention of lord treasurer Oxford and to suggest Carmarthen to him as a potential match for his daughter, Elizabeth. In mid September 1712, Oxford’s brother, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, discussed it in the following terms: ‘as to estate, circumstances and the portion insisted on nothing equal can ever be expected if the character given by the bishop be just, the virtue and good disposition of the person may in some measure counterpoise the embroils that have been and must be expected from the father.’<sup>13</sup> The marriage was brokered by Philip Bisse*, bishop of St Davids, who had married Carmarthen’s aunt Dorothy Osborne, the widowed countess of Plymouth.<sup>14</sup> On 12 Nov. 1712 Oxford sent a letter of congratulation on Carmarthen’s ‘coming of age.’<sup>15</sup> A few days later news of the match began seeping into public consciousness.<sup>16</sup></p><p>The problem for both Carmarthen and Oxford remained the necessity of persuading Leeds to accept the settlement of the family’s estates. After much effort on Oxford’s part, in which he denied any underhand dealings, Leeds accepted the match, presumably because Oxford promised his assistance in procuring a renewal of the 1st duke’s pension from the post office.<sup>17</sup> The marriage took place on 16 Dec. 1712, in the presence of the queen in Lady Masham’s apartments at Kensington, the ceremony being conducted by Bisse.<sup>18</sup> Carmarthen’s father was also in attendance and behaved well according to all accounts.</p><p>Newly of age, with a legal title to the Osborne patrimony and with a close affinity to the lord treasurer, Carmarthen was an obvious candidate for bolstering the strength of the ministry in the Lords and a writ in acceleration was dated 29 Jan. 1713.<sup>19</sup> As Oxford explained to Carmarthen on 1 Feb.,</p><blockquote><p>tomorrow being Monday your Lordship’s writ to call you up to the House of Lords will be sealed. The Parliament will meet on Tuesday, but be prorogued for a very few days, so that if your Lordship come to town tomorrow you may kiss her majesty’s hands, though I believe Lord Keeper will not be able to come to the House so that your Lordship cannot be then introduced.<sup>20</sup></p></blockquote><p>In response Carmarthen proposed to wait on Oxford the following day, when Beaufort would be able to accompany him to thank Oxford for his ‘great kindness in advancing me to so unmerited an honour.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>Carmarthen was eventually introduced at the prorogation on 3 Mar. 1713 by his brother-in-law, George Hay*, Baron Hay, styled Lord Dupplin [S] (also the future 8th earl of Kinnoull [S]) and Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham. He then attended the prorogations on 10 and 17 March. At about this time his name appeared on a list in the hand of Jonathan Swift, with Oxford’s additions, as one of those expected to support the ministry, and just prior to the session, on 3 Apr., he wrote to congratulate Oxford ‘on the success of this great and glorious work of yours the peace’.<sup>22</sup> He was present when the 1713 session opened on 9 Apr., attending on 41 days of the session, 53 per cent of the total. By the time the parliamentary session formally opened, another significant honour had accrued to Carmarthen and one which emphasized that he, rather than his father, was in charge of the Osborne patrimony in Yorkshire. In March he was appointed as lord lieutenant of the East Riding and Hull.<sup>23</sup> Shortly afterwards, in May, he ordered a public entertainment at Wakefield, as lord of the manor, in honour of the peace.<sup>24</sup> On 1 June he introduced the civic officials of Leeds to present an address to the queen in favour of the peace and did the like for those from Doncaster on 2 June 1713.<sup>25</sup></p><p>On 13 June 1713 Oxford forecast that Carmarthen would vote in support of the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty but on that very day told him that he should not stir until he had recovered from an indisposition.<sup>26</sup> Carmarthen obeyed this injunction to the extent that he only attended on one occasion (15 June) between 9 and 23 June. Just what the indisposition was remains unknown, but from about this time it seems that his health became increasingly precarious. Ensconced at Wimbledon, he sent Oxford a missive on 18 June complaining that he found himself,</p><blockquote><p>now under almost the same difficulties with my father as before I was happily allied to your Lordship, in whose power it has been long and is still (pardon my thinking so) to free me from, and make me as easy in my circumstances and affairs as you have made me happy in a wife.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>Chiefly, his problems with his father revolved around his Yorkshire estate and the depredations of the followers Leeds had installed on the properties. Carmarthen hoped that Oxford would be able to remove these difficulties by judicious use of his power of patronage, in effect compensating Leeds from public funds with either the post office pension or some equivalent.</p><p>From at least as early as May 1713 a settlement was being negotiated between Leeds and his son (and Oxford). In June Oxford wrote to Carmarthen setting out the options: ‘you know the difficulty of treating with him, and there is but two ways, one by law, which will be very tedious and the other by treaty in which I have offered him great advantages.’<sup>28</sup> Matters dragged on, leaving Edward Harley to comment in late September: ‘from what I have heard from the bishop of Hereford [Philip Bisse] here and what I perceived in London, I heartily wish matters could be settled for Lord Carmarthen it is pity he should be soured.’<sup>29</sup> Oxford’s own memorandum from August 1713 showed that he was still pondering two possible solutions: either Leeds could be ejected by law, or matters composed by way of a pension from the crown.<sup>30</sup> On 15 Dec. the lawyer involved, Henry Farrant, informed Oxford that at a meeting the previous day Leeds had given ‘his finishing stroke, for the establishing my lord marquess in his noble possessions, and (as I hope) for a lasting union in the family.’<sup>31</sup> In return for possession of the family patrimony, Carmarthen agreed to pay his father £500 per quarter.<sup>32</sup> This was to be supplemented by the transfer of the 1st duke’s pension of £3,500 to Leeds.</p><p>The birth on 6 Nov. 1713 of a son, Thomas Osborne<sup>†</sup>, the future 4th duke of Leeds, was a cause of great pleasure to Carmarthen and his father. Simultaneously, it was reported that ‘Mr Williams is in quiet possession of Kiveton, found everything much better than was expected ... the furniture is in good order.’ The death of his wife at Wimbledon on 20 Nov. 1713, following complications after the birth, left Carmarthen ‘the most dejected man living, does not care to see to speak to anyone’, and designing to take solace in Yorkshire.<sup>33</sup> By 17 Dec. Carmarthen had recovered sufficiently to solicit Oxford on behalf of his cousin, James Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, for the vacant post of surveyor general. He spent the beginning of 1714 at Kiveton, writing to Oxford on 22 Jan. that he was happy ‘that you should at last think me worthy of your assistance.’<sup>34</sup></p><p>Carmarthen attended on the opening day of the 1714 Parliament on 16 February. He attended on 37 days of the session, 47 per cent of the total. On 8 Apr. Lady Dupplin reported that ‘Lord Carmarthen has had a cold but is better’, but on 10 Apr. he registered his proxy with Beaufort. He next sat on 28 April. He then registered another proxy on 13 May with his father. He did not sit again until 30 June, spending part of his absence in the country and part on a visit to Windsor.<sup>35</sup> Despite his absence, in late May or early June he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to support the schism bill. Carmarthen was still sufficiently close to Oxford to be one of the first to be informed of his loss of office in July.<sup>36</sup></p><p>At the time of Queen Anne’s death, Carmarthen was at Badminton but travelled to London for the Parliament taking his seat on 9 Aug. 1714.<sup>37</sup> He attended on three days of the session, less than 18 per cent of the total. Carmarthen continued to suffer from poor health; in mid September 1714 he was reported to be ‘confined by his bile,’ and ‘in an ill way, his arm is to be opened again tomorrow. The surgeon says then he can make a judgment of it. It should have been done today but my Lord was unwilling to bear the pain.<sup>38</sup> He was still in town at the end of September 1714. Carmarthen’s health remained fragile, although it was reported at the end of October 1714, that he ‘mends daily’.<sup>39</sup> Having been reappointed lord lieutenant of the East Riding by the new regime in October 1714, he was superseded by the end of the year.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Carmarthen continued to have a difficult relationship with his father, who spent some years in exile as a Jacobite, always imploring his son for more funds. He succeeded his father in 1729, but always susceptible to bouts of ill health he was an irregular attender in Parliament in his latter years. He died on 9 May 1731, at his house in Pall Mall, of a ‘consumptive illness’ and was buried at Harthill.<sup>41</sup> His widow married Charles Colyear<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Portmore [S], in 1732, and enjoyed a jointure of £3,000 p.a. for over 60 years.<sup>42</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
OSBORNE, Thomas (1632-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>OSBORNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1632–1712)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>2 Feb. 1673 Visct. Oseburne of Dunblane [S]; <em>cr. </em>15 Aug. 1673 Visct. LATIMER; <em>cr. </em>27 June 1674 earl of DANBY; <em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1689 mq. of CARMARTHEN; <em>cr. </em>4 May 1694 duke of LEEDS |
|
First sat 20 Oct. 1673; last sat 19 June 1712 |
|
MP York, 1665-15 Aug. 1673 |
<p><em>b</em>. 20 Feb. 1632, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and 2nd w. Anne, da. of Thomas Walmesley of Dunkenhalgh, Lancs., wid. of William Middleton. <em>educ</em>. privately (French tutor); ?St Peter’s York;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (France and Italy) 1649-50;<sup>2</sup> Oxf. Univ. (DCL) 9 Nov. 1695. <em>m</em>. 1 May 1653, Lady Bridget Bertie (<em>d</em>.1704), da. of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, 3s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 8da. (5 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 9 Sept. 1647 as 2nd bt. KG 24 Mar. 1677. <em>d</em>. 26 July 1712; <em>will</em> 21 Jan. 1712, pr. 20 Apr. 1713.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for accounts [I] 1668-9, trade 1668-72, trade and plantations 1672-4, Tangier 1673-9;<sup>4</sup> treas. of Navy (jt.) 1668-71, (sole) 1671-3; commr. for union with Scotland 1670; PC 1672-1679, 14 Feb. 1689-<em>d</em>., [S] 1674-9; ld. treas. 1673-9; ld. of admiralty 1673-9; ld. pres. of Council 1689-99; ld. high steward 1693; commr. prizes 1694-5;<sup>5</sup> commr. for Greenwich hosp. 1695; gov. of mine adventurers' co. 1698-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Dep. lt. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1661-?;<sup>6</sup> sheriff Yorks. 1661-2; freeman, York 1662; ld. lt. (W. Riding) 1674-9, 1689-99, (E. Riding) 1691-9, (N. Riding) 1692-9; jt. ld. lt. Som. 1690-1; recorder Lichfield ?by 1685-?<em>d.</em>;<sup>7</sup> gov. of Kingston-upon-Hull 1689,<sup>8</sup> high steward 1691-99;<sup>9</sup> high steward, Lichfield 1678-86, Oct. 1688-<em>d</em>., York 1688; ch. justice in eyre (Trent N.) 17 Oct. 1711-?<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. militia (Yorks. W. Riding), ?-1667.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Gov. of royal fisheries co. by 1698.<sup>11</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, studio of Sir P. Lely, c.1680, NPG 1472; oil on canvas, by Wolfgang William Claret, 1682, Government Art Collection; oil on canvas, by Johann Kerseboom and Jan van der Vaart, 1704, NPG 5718; oil on canvas, Sir G. Kneller and studio, National Trust, Penrhyn Castle.</p> |
<p>Few men in the period enjoyed such a spectacular career as did Thomas Osborne, who emerged from comparative obscurity to be made lord treasurer and latterly lord president.<sup>17</sup> With high office came promotion to the Lords first as a viscount, thence to an earldom and onwards to a marquessate and ultimately a dukedom. He was no less successful in acquiring property (Wallingford House from George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and Wimbledon from the countess of Bristol as well as a suite of rooms at St James’s Palace and extensive estates in Yorkshire, Surrey and Wales) and in securing prestigious matches for his numerous progeny. Quite as important in this latter regard was the role of his wife, Lady Bridget Bertie, and his close relations with members of her extensive family, enabling him to extend his interest far beyond the confines of his native Yorkshire. From a position of subservience he rose to become head of the Anglican grouping under Charles II; he was then a commanding figure in the Revolution and briefly William III’s chief minister. Given all this, it is unsurprising that he was thought of as rapacious, unscrupulous and overweening, or that such successes were followed by significant downturns in his fortunes.<sup>18</sup> These included a period of five years in the Tower and attempted impeachment on two occasions. His success was all the more striking when considered in the context of his abysmal health that kept him confined for weeks at a time.</p><p>While he may have been more than ordinarily acquisitive in terms of the policies he pursued, Osborne was strikingly consistent throughout his career. From the time that he assumed the lord treasurership until his death, the central tenets of his creed were the security of the Church of England, achieving financial stability for the country, and hostility to the power of France. Given that he had started out as a follower of Buckingham, his religious stance was by no means obvious at the outset, but once fixed in this direction, Osborne rarely faltered.</p><p>Osborne seems initially to have made his way forward by exploiting his connections with Sir George Savile*, later marquess of Halifax, and Buckingham. Osborne and Savile would later become implacable rivals, nicknamed variously the white and black marquesses (Osborne being the former as marquess of Carmarthen) but in the early 1660s they were reckoned to be friends.<sup>19</sup> Having been returned for York on Buckingham’s interest in 1665, Osborne proved his worth as a reliable lieutenant by fighting a duel with Buckingham’s rival and Osborne’s own distant kinsman, Thomas Belasyse*, Viscount (later earl of ) Fauconberg, the following year. On Buckingham’s removal from office in 1667, Osborne noted how he was able to save his patron from imprisonment ‘by proving his hand to have been counterfeit in a letter’ given to the king.<sup>20</sup> More significantly, Osborne also made his first foray into financial politics by proposing a farm of the exchequer, though this was rejected. As early as the autumn of 1667 it was predicted that Osborne would be ‘a great man of business’, and he was appointed in October 1668 joint treasurer of the navy together with a client of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington’s, Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>. By 1669 his relationship with Buckingham had become strained, but it was not until the latter part of 1671 that he finally began to emerge from under his patron’s shadow, when he became sole treasurer of the navy, rather than holding the post jointly.<sup>21</sup> In 1673 he became a senior minister in his own right when he succeeded Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford, as lord treasurer. Reports of Osborne’s expected appointment to the treasury circulated from the middle of May. His appointment signalled the temporary eclipse of Arlington, who had opposed Osborne’s nomination, as well as disproving the predictions of those who had expected to see the treasury put back into commission.<sup>22</sup> Soon after being appointed to the treasurership Osborne (already ennobled in the Scottish peerage as Viscount Oseburne of Dunblane) was advanced to an English peerage marking the beginning of his steady rise through the ranks of the peerage that culminated two decades later with his creation as duke of Leeds.</p><h2><em>Viscount Latimer, 1673-4</em></h2><p>Latimer’s prime consideration at the time of his succession to the treasury was the vexed question of the nation’s finances, a problem that convinced him of the need to persuade the king to accept Parliament’s demands for legislation safeguarding the Church. Although at least one commentator had heralded the new lord treasurer’s appointment as ‘an excellent choice’, his tenure of office did not have an auspicious beginning.<sup>23</sup> At his swearing-in he was subjected to a typically caustic address by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and within days of his appointment (and before his promotion to his English viscountcy) it was speculated that he might be replaced. This was thought either to be owing to a renewed effort by Arlington and James Stuart*, duke of York, to displace him or to his almost immediate collapse with severe colic. Osborne survived the malady and in August he was promoted Viscount Latimer while still on his sickbed.<sup>24</sup> There had previously been considerable speculation as to the style he would choose.<sup>25</sup> Some thought he was to be made Viscount Leeds, others that he would be promoted at once to an earldom as earl of Leigh or earl of Danby. The selection of Latimer as his title was an overt allusion to the new viscount’s descent (via his mother) from the Neville lords Latimer.</p><p>Latimer took his seat in the House on 20 Oct. 1673 (the final day of the session) introduced between William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, and his erstwhile duelling opponent, Fauconberg. Shaftesbury used the opportunity to have Latimer introduced as a way of delaying the prorogation so that the Commons were given more time to draft an address complaining about the marriage of the duke of York, to the Catholic princess, Mary of Modena. Parliament was then prorogued by commission, with Latimer serving as one of the commissioners.<sup>26</sup> It was then recalled seven days later only to be prorogued once more having sat for just four days (Latimer being present for all four sitting days).</p><p>Latimer’s aims as lord treasurer were summarized in a document he drafted at some point in October 1673, which asserted his intention to see the Protestant interest protected and the nation’s finances reformed.<sup>27</sup> He was assisted in this task by the removal of certain significant opponents, most notably Shaftesbury who was put out of office in November and replaced by Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, on the recommendation of Latimer and the other Buckingham client with whom Latimer was becoming increasingly closely associated, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>28</sup> Shaftesbury’s removal encouraged speculation that more changes would be made, prompting John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, to approach Latimer for one of the expected vacancies.<sup>29</sup> In spite of Latimer’s apparent ascendancy at this time his interest in Yorkshire came under severe pressure during by-elections for Aldborough, Boroughbridge and York, with his son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup> being forced to withdraw his candidacy at the last of these. The reversal at York may have been in part owing to the corporation’s confusion as to what their local patrons, Buckingham and Latimer, intended them to do.<sup>30</sup> Nevertheless by the close of the year it was reported confidently that Buckingham and Latimer had settled matters between them and had ‘a perfect understanding of the present disposition of the cabals in Parliament.’<sup>31</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session of Parliament beginning in January 1674, Latimer was entrusted with the proxy of William Ley*, 4th earl of Marlborough, an impoverished peer. He took his seat on the opening day of the session (7 Jan. 1674) after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days. The opening few days were dominated by the presentation of addresses from the Commons calling for the removal of two members of the Cabal from the king’s counsels: John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (sitting in the House as earl of Guilford), and Buckingham.<sup>32</sup> The assault helped Latimer consolidate his hold on power, although he was reported to have remained close to Buckingham for the remainder of the year. Buckingham’s removal also enabled Latimer to develop his own local interest and the following month he was appointed to the lieutenancy of the West Riding in succession to his former patron. A major preoccupation of the session, and of Latimer, was the peace proposals emanating from Holland. It was said to be on Latimer’s advice that the letter from the States General setting out their proposals was laid before Parliament on 24 Jan. by the king.<sup>33</sup> On each of the following three sitting days, 26, 27 and 28 Jan., Latimer reported from the committee of the whole House considering the proposals. Although peace was shortly afterwards concluded, the session was prorogued on 24 Feb. without supply having been voted. Danby was forced to initiate a series of financial reforms the following month. On 7 Mar. Latimer laid the problems relating to the navy before the admiralty commissioners pressing for a reduction in naval expenditure of £200,000 a year. The same month saw him seeking an increase in revenue yields through renegotiation of the excise farm and other measures, as well as vigorously slashing expenditure in other areas of government.</p><p>Progress in such initiatives was threatened by ill health. By the close of March 1674 Latimer was described as being ‘sickish’ and as a consequence it was complained of that business was no longer being done. It was not until the close of April that he finally began to recover.<sup>34</sup> His improvement in health coincided with the beginnings of negotiations with Prince William of Orange to arrive at a settlement of the respective financial claims of the prince against the English crown (dating back to the Interregnum) and the English crown against the Dutch government arising from the recent peace treaty, in the course of which the question was raised of a match between the prince and York’s eldest daughter, Princess Mary.<sup>35</sup> In late April Latimer was also involved as one of the commissioners treating with a Scots delegation for the improvement of trade between the two kingdoms.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In May rumours circulated of a match in train for one of Latimer’s sons but in the event nothing came of it.<sup>37</sup> He and his wife removed to Bath at the end the month in search of a cure for his various maladies.<sup>38</sup> Reflecting his success in improving the revenue and cutting expenditure, at the end of June he received a further mark of the king’s confidence by his advancement to the earldom of Danby.<sup>39</sup> The remainder of the summer was divided between attendance on the king and a lengthy sojourn at Bath.<sup>40</sup> Danby was careful to protect his back, setting negotiations in train for bringing him and the duchess of Portsmouth into alliance through the mediation of Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I].<sup>41</sup> Efforts were also said to have been made to rescue a friendship with another of the king’s mistresses, the duchess of Cleveland.<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>Earl of Danby, 1674-85</em></h2><p>Danby returned to town in September 1674 having, it was hoped, ‘found benefit by the Bath’.<sup>43</sup> The second week of the month saw Arlington’s resignation and his replacement as secretary of state by Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, a move that helped confirm Danby in his ascendancy. Towards the end of the month a decision was taken to postpone Parliament until the spring; William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex to tell him that Danby had ‘greater credit with the king than any man ever had’, largely based on his success in increasing the revenue. Danby’s attention in the autumn of 1674 focused closely on the need to prepare for the coming parliamentary session and particularly to drive forward his plans for setting the security of the Church of England at the heart of his policies. In October he visited George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, at Farnham to impress upon him the need for a pre-sessional meeting of the bishops and Privy Council so that they could consult about ‘some things that might unite and best pacify the minds of people against the next session.’<sup>44</sup> Towards the end of the month the bishops were summoned to meet to consider the best ways to ensure the suppression of Catholicism. On 10 Nov. 1674 Danby was introduced in the House in his new dignity between John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover, and William Craven*, earl of Craven, when Parliament met to be prorogued to April. Fees payable on the occasion to the various staff of the House amounted to £19 10s.<sup>45</sup> Any satisfaction he felt at his promotion was no doubt tempered by his reported annoyance at discovering the king’s plan to send Arlington on a mission to the prince of Orange without informing the council, though he was able to rescue the situation by insisting that Arlington was accompanied by his son, Edward Osborne (now styled Viscount Latimer).<sup>46</sup></p><p>The close of the year saw Danby’s position further underpinned amid rumours that his second son, Peregrine Osborne*, later 2nd duke of Leeds, was to be raised to the peerage and various reports of lucrative marriages for his children. Among them was a match between one of his daughters and ‘the great’ Robert Coke<sup>‡</sup> of Norfolk, which prompted Edmund Verney to comment how ‘my lord treasurer is very fortunate in making his family great by rich matches.’<sup>47</sup> Danby chose to renounce his own Scots peerage at this time, which was then regranted as the viscountcy of Osborne of Dunblane [S], for Peregrine Osborne.<sup>48</sup> In all, by the close of the year Danby was said to have been successful in raising ‘his family to a high pitch and yet no damage to his master, wherein he is very much to be commended.’<sup>49</sup> Such successes were tempered by the news that one heiress (Bridget Hyde, stepdaughter of Sir Robert Viner) he had hoped to acquire for his younger son had married her cousin (John Emerton). Eager not to allow Hyde’s action to disturb his plans, Danby set about investigating the details of the marriage in the hopes that it could be overturned: the case would indeed become a legal battle that lasted several years.<sup>50</sup> Some took pleasure in pointing out that while Hyde’s husband lived, Dunblane would remain disappointed ‘notwithstanding all his great and potent friends.’<sup>51</sup></p><p>Danby’s efforts to mobilize the bishops to ensure the suppression of popery resulted in their reporting early in the new year that existing legislation was sufficient to safeguard the Church of England provided it was enforced. The opening of 1675 witnessed increasing tension between Danby and Lauderdale, as the latter attempted to take credit for the development of the pro-Anglican policy.<sup>52</sup> In spite of this the result was the effective creation of a new ‘cabal’ comprising Danby, Lauderdale, Lord Keeper Finch and both secretaries of state. The details of the alliance with the bishops was worked out at a meeting of bishops and members of the council on 21 Jan. 1675, with commitments to enforce the laws against Catholics and prevent Catholics from coming to court, while also suppressing conventicles. By the end of the month Danby reported confidently to Essex, that the king was now ‘taking the most effectual courses to cure the suspicions which many had received here of the encouragement or at least connivance which was given to popery’.<sup>53</sup> The one obvious loser from the new state of affairs was Arlington. Towards the close of January Danby informed the king that he was unable to work with the former secretary.<sup>54</sup> By early February Danby’s victory appeared all but complete after he was able to convince the king to announce the new policy in favour of supporting the Church of England in council.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Danby’s setting out of a clear policy probably encouraged increasing hostility to him personally. His reputation for acquisitiveness was bolstered by his actions in February 1675. It was reported that while the king had provided him with £10,000 to purchase Buckingham’s London residence of Wallingford House, he had proceeded to settle with the duke’s trustees for just £6,000, pocketing the remainder. Towards the end of the month it was also put about that the lord privy seal, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey (who had preceded him and Littleton in the treasurership of the navy), intended to accuse Danby of disposing of £200,000 without a proper warrant.<sup>56</sup> This sort of behaviour no doubt encouraged comments concerning Bridget Hyde’s marriage to Emerton, a man of relatively humble origins, in which it was pointed out that ‘my lord treasurer having raised his family himself has little reason to repine at another man’s doing the same, and probably by an <em>honester</em> way.’ Edmund Verney also observed that,‘I believe my lord treasurer intends to have the monopoly of all the good fortunes in England, and engross them all for his family.’<sup>57</sup></p><p>Preparations for the new session of Parliament began to dominate Danby’s thinking, though he was said to have been one of those in favour of a further prorogation.<sup>58</sup> On 2 Mar. Essex wrote from Ireland that he had resolved to register his proxy with Danby, ‘being full assured that I cannot entrust it with any who doth more faithfully intend both his majesty’s and the kingdom’s good.’<sup>59</sup> The proxy was registered with Danby. The proximity of the new session of Parliament brought out the usual tensions. In the middle of the month Fauconberg was said to have reported that Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury had told him that the planned non-resisting test owed nothing to the bishops and that the whole measure was of Danby’s making. On this being related to Danby the lord treasurer was said to have been left ‘extremely nettled’ with the result that the whole disagreement was brought before the king.<sup>60</sup> Towards the end of the month further divisions came to the surface. The French envoy de Ruvigny considered Arlington, Lauderdale and Danby ‘most divided’. At the same time it was reported that Danby and Lord Keeper Finch were being ‘very industrious to reconcile’ the lord mayor, aldermen and common council of the City of London.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Efforts to ensure the attendance of people thought likely to support the administration continued through the spring. On 1 Apr. 1675 Danby wrote to Henry Cavendish*, styled earl of Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), at the king’s command to advise his presence ‘the first day of the session.’ He also pressed Ogle to ensure that the proxy of his father, William Cavendish*, duke of Newcastle, was placed ‘in some good hand.’<sup>62</sup> Danby was successful in securing the return of his son-in-law, Coke, at a by-election for King’s Lynn, at a cost of £8,000. He was also entrusted with the proxy of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, on 10 Apr. to add to that of Essex and on 13 Apr. he resumed his place in the new session, after which he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days. Two days into the session, the non-resisting test bill was introduced into the Lords by Danby’s brother-in-law, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, inspiring a lengthy contest in both Houses that continued until early June.<sup>63</sup> Danby was noted as being one of ‘the great speakers for it’ with Shaftesbury, Halifax and Buckingham ranged against him.<sup>64</sup> Having come under pressure from the Lords early in the session, Danby was targeted by the Commons towards the end of the month over criticism of his conduct at the treasury highlighted by William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell.<sup>65</sup> Russell’s assault was followed by the introduction of articles of impeachment against him by Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>, supported by Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Littleton and Henry Powle<sup>‡</sup>, but Danby’s prevailing strength at the time was demonstrated by the swiftness with which the impeachment was dismissed.<sup>66</sup> By 28 Apr. both the first and second charges against him had been rejected as matter not sufficient for impeachment and on 30 Apr. further consideration of the charges was rather driven by Danby’s party in the Commons as part of an effort to exonerate him rather than by his opponents who now seemed all too eager to let the matter drop.<sup>67</sup> On 3 May the final articles were debated and dismissed, probably without a division being taken. Essex congratulated Danby on his escape noting ‘how busy faction and the animosities of men always are against those who possess great places.’<sup>68</sup> A series of disputes between the two Houses were also manipulated as a way of disrupting proceedings on the test bill. At the end of May Danby was one of five peers nominated to prepare information to be communicated to the Commons complaining at the lower House’s failure to send representatives to a previous conference in the case of <em>Stoughton v. Onslow</em>. He was then nominated one of the managers of a subsequent conference on the same matter on 2 June. Disagreement over this business was soon overtaken by the far more divisive dispute over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>. At the beginning of June Danby advised Essex that the dispute was likely to mean a longer session than originally anticipated while efforts were made to reconcile the two chambers, ‘it being so necessary they should come to some composure before they part.’<sup>69</sup> In attempting to settle the dispute Danby supported the claims of the Commons in support of their member, Sir John Fagg<sup>‡</sup>, over Shaftesbury, who was eager to stir up dissension between the Houses in an effort to derail Danby’s test bill.<sup>70</sup> Parliament’s prorogation on 9 June was a recognition that little more would be achieved as a result of the dispute. Danby’s strategy of generating support through identification with the supporters of the Church had clearly failed, and he himself was said to have been damaged as a result; Shaftesbury, in particular, was seen as having a chance of ousting him. In an interview with the king on 19 June Danby, though, seems to have persuaded the king not to turn back to the man who had become his principal opponent.<sup>71</sup> In August 1675 Danby felt able to retreat once more to Bath to recover from his exertions.<sup>72</sup> In his absence from court the king struck up a new agreement with the French via their emissary, Ruvigny, ignoring Danby’s preferred policy of mediation between France and the United Provinces.<sup>73</sup> The king’s actions and the resurgence of some courtiers inimical to Danby such as Baptist May<sup>‡</sup> clearly disturbed Danby’s allies and on 25 Aug. his brother-in-law, Lindsey, wrote to insist that he had ‘always thought the court of no good complexion towards your lordship’<sup>74</sup> Danby had returned to London by the beginning of the second week of September 1675 to respond to the growing threat to his position.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Preparations for the new session predominated from the beginning of October, including a further expansion of the number of pensions being paid to Members of the House of Commons and a more systematic summons to court supporters to attend the session, practices which, it has been argued, helped both to create a more formal ‘court’ party and also an opposition party of those who had not been selected.<sup>76</sup> On 10 Oct. Danby was once more entrusted with Montagu of Boughton’s proxy. He added the proxy of Charles Howard*, earl of Nottingham, the following day. On 13 Oct. he took his place at the opening of the new session, after which he was present on 90 per cent of all sitting days. Danby’s influence was clearly to be seen in the king’s speech in which the need for further security for the Church of England was emphasized. The government also set out its requirements for supply, but on 19 Oct. the ministry’s supply bill was defeated in the Commons by 172 votes to 165; Danby’s policy of distributing rewards among Members of the Commons came in for severe attack there, and the vocal opposition to the service of English soldiers in the French army came in for open criticism, as it had in the spring. Once more suffering from poor health and overwork, by the close of October 1675 Danby was said to inaccessible.<sup>77</sup> Struggling to maintain control over the Commons, he also found himself pitched with increasing bitterness against an opposition faction in the Lords. In mid-November he and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, had to be reconciled by the king following a report that Danby had cast aspersions on Monmouth’s parentage.<sup>78</sup> Although in early November, the Commons did vote to provide money for the navy it proved difficult to draw this to a conclusion; in the Lords anger over the previous session’s dispute with the Commons was rekindled, and on 19 Nov. Danby was one of 10 peers nominated to act as managers of a conference with the Commons, ‘for the preservation of good understanding between the two Houses’. The following day, having been one of the principal speakers against it, wielding Nottingham and Montagu’s proxies, Danby voted against the opposition-inspired proposal for an address to request the king to dissolve Parliament.<sup>79</sup> In the event the motion was only rejected by the late arrival of Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury (also in receipt of a proxy), who ensured that the ministry carried the day narrowly by 50 votes to 48 (including proxies).<sup>80</sup> Two days later Parliament was prorogued once more and with the king no longer confident of the efficacy of summoning another one soon, the new session was set for 15 months hence.</p><p>With the failure to secure a parliamentary grant, in the immediate aftermath of the prorogation, Danby set about ordering swingeing retrenchments at court.<sup>81</sup> His experience in the sessions of 1675 also appears to have inspired him to do yet more to construct a more reliable court following in the Commons. On 18 Dec. he was provided by Sir Richard Wiseman<sup>‡</sup> with a list of potential ministry supporters divided into groups according to their reliability. Over the ensuing months Danby honed this group, eventually emerging with a core of approximately 130 Members of the Commons on whom he was reasonably confident he could depend.<sup>82</sup> Danby also made moves to attack the bases of opposition support. Towards the end of December he inspired a proclamation for the eradication of coffee houses. In response to complaints that the ministry would lose revenue (one estimate suggested the loss would be as much as £15,000 per annum) through the fall in sales of coffee he retorted that the shortfall would be made up in increase in revenue from beer.<sup>83</sup></p><p>The new year opened with Danby determined to continue with the retrenchment of finances while struggling to maintain his influence at court, which was threatened by the king’s continuing efforts to secure a French alliance. Danby’s own preference for closer relations with the Dutch, which seems to have been expressed at a secret meeting held at the close of the previous year involving the king, York and Lauderdale, met with a distinctly cool reception.<sup>84</sup> He was also disappointed in his plans for retrenchments and was quickly forced to amend his initial plan to limit expenses to £1,000,000 and allow for £1,175,315 instead. Plans for suppressing coffee houses also had to be scaled back when several proprietors petitioned the council in January protesting at their loss of revenue. The petition resulted in a ministry climb-down and the establishments’ licenses being extended to mid-summer in return for an undertaking on the part of the owners that they would prevent their premises being used for the circulation of scandalous papers. Danby took steps to consolidate his own control of the government. He ensured that Halifax and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles (who had espoused the cause of the coffee houses), were struck off the council.<sup>85</sup> His ally, Henry Compton*, bishop of Oxford (shortly after advanced bishop of London), was one of those called up to replace them at the board. Danby was responsible in large measure for Compton’s appointment to both bishoprics and was also the inspiration for the religious census presided over by the bishop in 1676, which was intended to demonstrate the strength of the Church of England and relative paucity of nonconformists of all shades.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Although by the beginning of February 1676 Danby was accounted by some to have been ‘a greater favourite than ever was the late duke of Buckingham’, his influence over the king was never secure.<sup>87</sup> Later that month the king finally resolved to proceed with the projected French alliance, over Danby’s obstruction and objections.<sup>88</sup> Danby was further humiliated when an attempt to have Shaftesbury sent to the Tower misfired as Secretary Williamson refused to sign the warrant for Shaftesbury’s arrest and the king then proved unwilling to back Danby over the issue. By the close of March 1676 it was speculated that the ‘heaving and shoving’ at court would result in Danby being put out as lord treasurer and that the office would be put back into commission.<sup>89</sup> Although the French envoy continued to believe that Danby retained the chief place in the king’s confidence, according to another report by the beginning of April Danby ‘sits very loose.’<sup>90</sup> For the moment the former assessment appeared to be the more perceptive. That month Danby was able to secure the appointment of his creature, Sir John Ernle<sup>‡</sup>, as chancellor of the exchequer. Ernle’s success inspired a belief that all office holders bar those known to be among the lord treasurer’s supporters were now vulnerable. The duke of York remained an obstacle, however. On 12 Apr. it was reported that Danby had been involved in a furious row with York over religion while the court was at Newmarket. Danby was said to have been compelled to summon the duchess of Portsmouth to his aid, ‘else it is thought he had been removed’.<sup>91</sup> At the end of May 1676 York was said to have entered into an alliance with Arlington in the hopes of displacing the lord treasurer. Although the king attempted to broker a reconciliation between Arlington and Danby, it was thought that ‘the hatred between these two ministers seems so great that it will be difficult to reconcile them sincerely’. In the event, Arlington was left isolated as Danby opted instead for a temporary rapprochement with his other rivals.<sup>92</sup></p><p>By the beginning of the summer of 1676, Danby’s efforts to press forward with his religious policies seemed to be on the verge of succeeding. Early in June Bishop Morley reported to him the results of enquiries within his diocese concerning the declaration for suppressing conventicles, for which he concluded ‘there will appear neither danger in attempting nor great difficulty in effecting this great work.’<sup>93</sup> Danby was also able to report to the king confidently that his efforts to recruit a reliable grouping in the Commons had resulted in the addition of a further 20 members to his core group of 130. In all, he hoped to be able to call upon approximately 250 members to support the ministry’s business.<sup>94</sup> Meanwhile, his efforts to secure his position at court had resulted in him striking up a partnership with the duchesse de Mazarin, one of the king’s mistresses.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Danby was one of a minority of seven peers to find Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, guilty of manslaughter at the close of June.<sup>96</sup> Preparations for the trial had found him attempting to show favour for his kinsman, Lindsey (the lord great chamberlain) in a dispute relating to the preparations for peers’ trials.<sup>97</sup> During the autumn Danby was concerned with a series of looming by-elections and anticipating the death of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, the search for his successor. He also continued to seek lucrative matches for members of his family and in July Robert Robartes<sup>‡</sup> (later styled Viscount Bodmin) heir of John Robartes*, Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), approached Danby to offer his son as a potential husband for Lady Martha Osborne following a breakdown in negotiations between John Granville*, earl of Bath, and Danby.<sup>98</sup></p><p>In September, Danby decamped to Rycote to stay with another of his Bertie relations, James Bertie*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). While there he saw much of Anglesey, (someone with whom he had previously been on decidedly poor terms).<sup>99</sup> Having been troubled once again by a lingering sickness throughout July Danby was now eager to make known his return to health, insisting to his countess that he was as ‘errant a Nimrod as ever you knew me’.<sup>100</sup> Danby had returned to London by the beginning of October. That month a satire was pasted to the gates of Westminster Hall, Whitehall and Wallingford House jibing at Danby’s perceived corruption. It advertised the sale of two or three judges’ places as well as ‘a small country called Ireland’ with enquiries to be directed to the lord treasurer.<sup>101</sup></p><p>The opening of 1677 found Danby’s fortunes once again unsettled. The death of his grandson, Thomas, hours after birth, was set off against news of an impending marriage between Charles Granville*, styled Lord Lansdown (later 2nd earl of Bath), and one of Danby’s daughters.<sup>102</sup> The great focus of his efforts, though, was the forthcoming meeting of Parliament following the 15-month prorogation. He was entrusted with Marlborough’s proxy on 8 Jan. (vacated on 11 Apr. the following year); Montagu of Boughton’s proxy was also registered to him on 6 February.<sup>103</sup> From Paris, Danby received reports from Paris that it was expected that ‘the Parliament will do no good’, that half of its time would be spent in further consideration of the dispute with the Lords over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> and that ‘quarrelling with the ministers will take up all the rest.’<sup>104</sup></p><p>Danby took his seat on 15 Feb. 1677 after which he was in attendance on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. The opening was dominated by the attempts by Buckingham, Shaftesbury and two others to question the legitimacy of the proceedings given the length of the prorogation. Danby’s ally Frescheville recommended that the opposition lords should be punished for their actions, and Danby later that evening backed him up.<sup>105</sup> On the following day, in response to the four peers’ attempts to justify their behaviour, Danby insisted that there had been collusion between them and successfully pressed for their separate confinement in the Tower. One report of the proceedings referred to the ‘high and bitter clashings’ between Danby and Buckingham.<sup>106</sup> On 17 Feb. the question of the long prorogation was debated in the Commons and carried in the government’s favour by 193 to 142: significantly short of the 250 voices he had assured the king he would be able to command.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Danby was forced to accept less than he hoped for elsewhere too. A measure sponsored by him for limiting the powers of a future Catholic monarch regarding ecclesiastical appointments was rejected in the Commons.<sup>108</sup> More pressing was the question of supply and on 21 Feb. the Commons entered into a grand committee to consider the issue. The ministry had submitted a request for a grant of £800,000 but although the chairmanship of the committee went to Danby’s ally, Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, it was a compromise sum of £600,000 that was ultimately settled on after six weeks of haggling. While the Commons debated the supply bill, there was talk of renewed efforts to displace the lord treasurer and on 22 Feb. it was reported that William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire), was in possession of a number of articles with which he intended to accuse the lord treasurer the following day, though nothing came of this.<sup>109</sup> Between 13 and 15 Mar. 1677 Danby was one of the managers of a series of conferences held to discuss an address to the king requesting a declaration against France in the light of recent French advances into Flanders. On 20 Mar. he was behind a motion for a second address promising supply to assist in the campaign against the French, which was said to have been greeted with cheers in the House. At the end of the month Danby’s appointment to the order of the garter and reports that he would shortly be advanced in the peerage to a dukedom demonstrated Danby’s continued favour with the king.<sup>110</sup></p><p>On 10 Apr. the supply bill was finally sent up to the Lords, the king insisting on taking Danby’s white staff out of his hand to use as a ruler against the document that stretched the length of the chamber.<sup>111</sup> But despite a series of addresses initiated in the Commons urging immediate intervention in the European war and promising further supply for it, work on supply was undercut by the lack of any sign of commitment on the king’s part to fighting. Moreover, the supply bill itself was put at risk by a dispute between the two Houses about whether the exchequer should supply accounts of the tax to just the Commons or to both Houses. On 16 Apr. Danby was forced to give up hope of securing an additional supply for the present and accept an adjournment over Easter. On 17 Apr. Charles Hatton noted how ‘the lord treasurer who on Saturday last argued incomparably well very acutely and home was now silent’ during a conference with the Commons over the dispute between the two Houses.<sup>112</sup> Danby was assessed, unsurprisingly, as triply vile by the imprisoned Shaftesbury at the beginning of May and by the end of the month the list of Danby’s enemies was again noted to be increasing. Despite the king’s efforts to reconcile them, it was now headed by James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], who sat by virtue of his earldom of Brecknock, along with Seymour and York, the last having once again decided to throw his weight behind those determined to upset the lord treasurer.<sup>113</sup> When the Commons reassembled after the Easter break and drew up another address demanding that the king enter immediately into an alliance with the Dutch, the king adjourned the session to the middle of July.</p><p>In spite of the disappointing conclusion to the first part of the new session, Danby appears to have emerged with his authority relatively intact. In June Willem Bentinck*, later earl of Portland, arrived in England on a mission from William of Orange and at once sought out Danby for his advice. As a result of Danby’s intervention the king gave way to the prince’s request to travel to England later in the year. Later that summer Ormond returned to Ireland as lord lieutenant, a move that probably met with Danby’s tacit approval. In spite of his previously poor relations with the duke, Danby and Ormond appear to have been reconciled by this time and reports that Danby had ‘opposed his election all he could’ and supported the candidacy of Monmouth instead more likely reflected the desires of Danby’s lieutenant, Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I]. It seems unlikely that Danby was overly concerned that Monmouth was denied the post.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Danby continued to struggle over the summer of 1677 with the king’s continued interest in an alliance with France and the procurement of a French subsidy which would enable him to avoid a meeting of Parliament. Ralph Montagu*, currently ambassador in France, and later duke of Montagu, suggested that he would be able to broker an attractive offer.<sup>115</sup> Having failed to secure Danby’s backing in the spring, Montagu had approached the king directly in the early summer. At the beginning of July the king presented Danby with Montagu’s letter setting out his scheme and about a week later Danby replied to Montagu directly approving his suggestions. Danby’s decision to involve himself explicitly in the business was to prove a crucial error for which he would pay dearly over the next few years.<sup>116</sup> With a new negotiation afoot with France, Parliament was once again adjourned in mid-July, until early December.</p><p>By the beginning of August Danby’s negotiations with Bath over the marriage between Martha Osborne and Lord Lansdown were proving troublesome and his efforts to have his ally, Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>, installed as secretary of state also proved unavailing.<sup>117</sup> By the close of July Danby was said to be planning to ‘solace himself a little in the country’ at Norreys’ estate in Oxfordshire and at his son Latimer’s in Buckinghamshire.<sup>118</sup> He was permitted little respite before he had once more to rally himself to head off Buckingham, who had succeeded in persuading the king to release him from the Tower.<sup>119</sup> Nell Gwynn also appears to have been determined to revenge herself on the lord treasurer for blocking her ambition of being created a countess. Under pressure from a number of quarters, Danby found himself with little choice but to concede to the king’s policy of pursuing the French subsidy. Even here, he was disappointed and rather than £200,000, which he had initially sought, he was forced to allow the king to settle for the lesser figure of 2 million <em>livres</em>.<sup>120</sup></p><p>In spite of such reversals, rumours continued to circulate of honours that it was expected were to be lavished on Danby including talk towards the end of August 1677 that he was to be advanced in the peerage to the dukedom of Pomfret (Pontefract).<sup>121</sup> The summer also saw the beginnings of a lengthy correspondence between Danby and William of Orange. The two had corresponded sporadically since the spring of 1674 but from this point on there was a steady stream of letters.<sup>122</sup> The initial impetus for this was Danby’s forceful support for the marriage between the prince and Princess Mary. Prince William’s arrival in England in October brought matters to a head and in spite of York refusing his consent and rumours that the French intended to tempt the prince away from an English match by proposing one of their own, the combined representations of Danby and Sir William Temple convinced the king to overrule his brother.<sup>123</sup> The alliance formed part of a broader negotiation then in train with the Dutch for which Danby lamented the absence of Lauderdale from discussions taking place at Newmarket in the middle of October.<sup>124</sup> By the end of the month details of the marriage articles were close to being finalized and on 4 Nov. the marriage was solemnized with Bishop Compton conducting the service and Danby one of only three English nobles present at the ceremony.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Danby’s triumph in securing the Orange match proved to be the pinnacle of his achievement in the latter months of 1677. The death of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, in November prompted him to renew his efforts to secure the vacant primateship for Compton but he was unsuccessful.<sup>126</sup> Danby attended the House for the single sitting day of 3 Dec. after which Parliament was adjourned to 15 Jan. 1678. Writing to Ormond, he explained the reason for the further delay as the expectation that the French would make unacceptable demands upon Flanders; the king therefore did not wish to ‘have it out of his power to call the Parliament to assist him in doing what shall be best for us.’<sup>127</sup> On 21 Dec. he was present at a meeting held in the treasury attended by the king, York, Essex and other officials precipitated by rumblings from some of the government’s backers in the City that they intended to withdraw their support.<sup>128</sup> The early months of 1678 were thus once more dominated by Danby’s need to secure a financial settlement, as well as the parallel negotiations with France, managed by Montagu, for a subsidy that would enable parliamentary pressure to be avoided. Present again on the single sitting day of 15 Jan, when Parliament was adjourned once more for a further fortnight, Danby then resumed his place on 28 Jan. for the remaining months of the session, which was prorogued finally on 13 May.</p><p>During the two-week interval between the adjournment in mid-January and Parliament’s resumption, Danby was engaged in close correspondence with Ralph Montagu at Paris concerning the French subsidy offers and the prospects for peace on the continent.<sup>129</sup> The resumption of Parliament found Danby once again swamped with business, to the extent that his own son, Latimer, complained that he now struggled to secure a quarter of an hour with his father.<sup>130</sup> On 4 Feb. the court finally scored a success by having a resolution carried in the Commons for the House to resolve itself into a committee for the supply bill and on 18 Feb. the Commons voted supply of £1,000,000 having rejected an opposition-inspired effort to reduce the figure to £800,000.</p><p>With the possibility of a financial settlement at last in prospect Danby seems to have considered himself at liberty to take a robust attitude to Buckingham. A half-hearted effort on the part of the king to reconcile the two men was shrugged off, while Buckingham also seemed unwilling to agree to any kind of accommodation with a man he considered to be ‘ungrateful and ignorant.’<sup>131</sup> Danby successfully argued against the release of Shaftesbury from the Tower on 4 Feb., but failed to prevent it on Shaftesbury’s second attempt, on 25 Feb., although Danby clearly continued to work to neutralize the threat he posed: new charges against Shaftesbury were, it was said, being ‘supported with all sort of vigour by the lord treasurer.’<sup>132</sup> Efforts continued to ensure that Danby and Ormond put aside their past differences, and Ormond’s son, Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I], insisted that his father was ‘extremely disposed’ to work with Danby.<sup>133</sup> For all this, relations with the Commons remained strained and in the middle of March Danby summoned several members to a meeting at which he berated them for failing to prevent opposition motions being posted, ‘which were only offered to perplex and disturb the public peace.’<sup>134</sup></p><p>Towards the end of March 1678, Danby was nominated one of the commissioners for treating with the emperor, the Spanish and the Dutch.<sup>135</sup> At the same time he instructed Montagu to ‘find the pulse’ of the French king.<sup>136</sup> On 23 Mar. he reported to the House the king’s responses to the forthcoming trial of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, and to the House’s address for a general fast.<sup>137</sup> By the close of the month talk circulated of a new cabal being forged by Buckingham and Nell Gwynn and of their aim to bring in Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, and to exclude Danby’s followers. Intelligence of these manoeuvrings was conveyed to Danby by Montagu via Danby’s Bertie kinsmen, though Montagu was insistent that knowledge of the plan be kept secret so that it did not prevent Montagu from discovering more.<sup>138</sup></p><p>Danby received the proxy of John Poulett*, 3rd Baron Poulett, on 9 Apr. (which was vacated on 3 May). On 10 Apr. it was reported that he had informed the Dutch ambassador that the prohibition on French goods was a measure intended to woo his people and to assure him that war would soon be declared against France.<sup>139</sup> At the same time he was active in attempting to secure additional funds for the ministry and it was said that (in spite of former difficulties) he had been successful in persuading the merchants of the city of London to pledge an additional £100,000 on the poll tax.<sup>140</sup> In other regards, Danby continued to struggle to maintain his control. Although Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> had been assured of the support of both the king and the lord treasurer in his disputed return to the Commons, he was unsuccessful when the case came before the elections committee. His failure to be selected was laid squarely at the door of several court members who had neglected to appear, despite Danby’s efforts: he had made a point of driving Reresby to Parliament in his own coach and had stationed his supporters at the lobby door.<sup>141</sup> Danby was negotiating to marry another daughter to Sir John Banks<sup>‡</sup>, who was believed to be intent on contesting a seat in Kent following an 18-year absence from Parliament, even though he was said to be highly despised in the county.<sup>142</sup></p><p>Buckingham’s re-emergence as a political figure pointed to difficulties ahead. One correspondent commented in a letter to Danby of late April how Buckingham’s return to favour had become a problem, ‘for you only intended his enlargement and not to have him a courtier.’<sup>143</sup> By the beginning of May Danby’s friends were noting with alarm the proliferation of enemies, many of them coalescing around Buckingham.<sup>144</sup> Towards the end of April 1678, Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, made a point of observing to Danby that now the treasury was on an even footing perhaps he might be paid his arrears of pension.<sup>145</sup> The government still needed considerable loans, however, and in the middle of May Danby was rebuffed by the City of London when he attempted to persuade the City fathers to lend a further £50,000 in addition to the £100,000 already promised.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Danby resumed his seat in the House following the brief prorogation on 23 May 1678, after which he was present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 May he was again entrusted with Montagu of Boughton’s proxy. On 20 June he was one of seven peers to subscribe the protest at the resolution to petition the king for a bill disabling Robert Villiers from claiming the viscountcy of Purbeck. On 25 June he was nominated one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning the supply bill and on 11 July a manager of the conference for the bill for burying in woollen. Towards the close of the session, Danby was said to have been successful in securing a match between his last remaining unmarried daughter and the king’s natural son, Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth.<sup>147</sup> On 16 July it was reported that Plymouth was to be promoted to a dukedom to mark the alliance while Dunblane was to be appointed master of the horse to the queen.<sup>148</sup> At the end of the month it was once more put about that Temple was expected to be made secretary of state rather than Laurence Hyde, because he (Temple) ‘is very great with my lord treasurer.’<sup>149</sup> The beginning of the following month witnessed further rumours that Danby either would be or already had been promoted to a dukedom as well.<sup>150</sup></p><p>Danby’s undoubted successes in the first half of 1678 were thrown into question by the revelations about the Popish Plot. On 28 Sept. the king informed the council for the first time about Israel Tonge’s evidence, which had previously been confined to a small circle including Danby.<sup>151</sup> By the time Parliament resumed on 21 Oct. the conspiracy had taken on a life of its own and pressure began to mount on the lord treasurer over allegations that he had suppressed information or had failed to act on evidence made available to him and the king earlier in the summer. According to one correspondent, ‘had this plot been sought into when first it was brought to a great man’s court there would have been clearer evidence than can now be had.’<sup>152</sup> Present on 85 per cent of all sitting days in the session, Danby was clearly aware that his pronounced scepticism about the information presented by Tonge and Oates could prove damaging given the willingness of so many to believe in the veracity of their claims. In response, he made a concerted effort to ensure that his following in the Lords held firm. In advance of the session he was entrusted with the proxy of James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, while that of Norreys was registered with Bath. On 2 Nov. Danby also secured the proxy of the absent Edward Conway*, Viscount (later earl of) Conway. A central figure in the early investigation into the conspiracy, on 29 Oct. Danby was one of five lords appointed by the House to examine Coleman at Newgate while on 4 Nov. the Lords recommended that Danby ensure that Oates was awarded a ‘comfortable allowance’.<sup>153</sup> Meanwhile he was also involved as one of the managers of two conferences held on 1 and 2 Nov. concerning the preservation of the king’s person and on 11 Nov. of a further conference considering the commissions being issued to justices of the peace for administering the oaths to Catholics.</p><p>Such activities failed to shield Danby from the rising chorus of criticism. As early as the beginning of November 1678, it was suggested that as soon as the question of forcing York to withdraw was settled Halifax and Shaftesbury intended to turn their attention on the lord treasurer.<sup>154</sup> On 5 Nov., Shaftesbury moved for York to be removed from the king’s presence but was opposed by both Danby and Lauderdale.<sup>155</sup> Danby’s stance on the issue no doubt added to mutterings about his handling of the crisis. Although it was suggested that he had been successful on one occasion in the House when he had been able to ‘divert the storm’ let loose by Shaftesbury and Buckingham in favour of Bedloe’s testimony, it was also reported how (despite the views of his countess who insisted that ‘none but her husband stands up for the Protestant religion’) ‘many suspect his opinion.’<sup>156</sup> On 15 Nov. Danby voted against disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament in a division held in committee of the whole but his position was rendered increasingly difficult by the absence of significant allies.<sup>157</sup> Among these was William Lloyd*, bishop of Llandaff, who excused his failure to attend on the grounds of ‘a dangerous fit of sickness’.<sup>158</sup> By the middle of the following month, Danby was foursquare in the line of fire amid reports that he was to be charged with misprision of treason for his failure to act more swiftly on the information presented to him during the summer.<sup>159</sup> Ralph Montagu had been conspiring with the French and key opposition figures to bring forward, as material for an impeachment, the evidence of Danby’s authorization of discussions with France the previous year for a subsidy. Opinions varied as to whether charges were being framed deliberately in such a way that Danby could easily answer them or whether his enemies were seriously intent on seeing the lord treasurer destroyed. The plans were brought to a head by the government’s attempt to seize Montagu’s papers on 19 December. That evening, after Montagu explained the papers to the Commons, the Commons began the process of drawing up articles of impeachment.<sup>160</sup> Two days later, the Commons committee assigned to compose the articles reported their findings, which amounted to three main charges. Danby, it was alleged on the basis of Montagu’s information, had ‘encroached to himself regal power’ in the conduct of foreign relations; he had attempted to bring in arbitrary government, and he had negotiated for a French subsidy.<sup>161</sup> On 23 Dec. the articles were presented to the Lords.<sup>162</sup> His speech in response was typically robust. Opening with the disarming recognition that it was ‘not the time for me to enter regularly upon my defence’ and that there would be time enough for him to vindicate himself ‘to the full satisfaction of your lordships, and all the world’, he proceeded with a detailed critique of the charges, none of which he argued could be deemed treasonable. Turning his guns on Montagu he complained that, ‘I do not wonder this gentleman will do me no right, when he does not think fit to do it to his majesty’ and then lambasted him for being the true instigator of the policy of seeking French subsidies.<sup>163</sup> Danby concluded by insisting were ‘the dearest child I have… guilty of [treason], I would willingly be his executioner.’<sup>164</sup> Having thus answered his accusers, Danby then enquired whether he should leave the chamber. His friends persuaded him to keep his seat and, as Anglesey noted, ‘a new thing was done in the lord treasurer’s not being ordered to withdraw but sitting in his own case’.<sup>165</sup> Allies of Shaftesbury noted it with unease.<sup>166</sup> It was widely discoursed that the king might intervene once more and either prorogue or dissolve Parliament to halt the impeachment proceedings.<sup>167</sup> On 27 Dec. a motion to commit Danby was defeated on a division.<sup>168</sup></p><p>The king’s decision to prorogue Parliament on 30 Dec. 1678 put a halt to the proceedings against Danby, though one newsletter reported how ‘my lord treasurer laments more than any man the prorogation, which he everywhere declares, that he did with his utmost oppose.’<sup>169</sup> Though he was also willing to see the calling of an Irish Parliament, it was opposed by Ormond who insisted that this should be delayed until the king was on better terms with his English one.<sup>170</sup> To show that he was not complacent about the threat to the king, Danby was reported to have pressed for the execution of three of the condemned Jesuits in mid January and on 15 Jan. 1679 the French envoy, Barillon, noted that Danby was attempting to forge a new alliance with some of the principal ‘Presbyterians’ in advance of a new session of Parliament.<sup>171</sup> At the same time it was reported that great efforts were being made by Shaftesbury and his followers to detach York from Danby’s interest.<sup>172</sup></p><p>The dissolution presented Danby with a new set of problems as he turned his attention to managing his interest in the forthcoming elections. On 24 Jan. he communicated to Newcastle the king’s desire that he ‘promote as much as you can the choice of good Members’ in those areas where Newcastle held sway as well as recommending to the duke his own son, Dunblane, for one of the seats at Retford.<sup>173</sup> At Buckingham it was thought that he would press for the re-election of Sir William Smith<sup>‡</sup> (though Smith declined to stand again) and on 4 Feb. he wrote to the sheriff of Yorkshire, urging him to be kind to Sir John Reresby (who was returned accordingly for Aldborough).<sup>174</sup> By the middle of the month he was also engaged in negotiations with Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, over the return of Members for Essex.<sup>175</sup> At the same time Norreys was reported to be active in his efforts to secure the return of Members in Danby’s interest in Oxfordshire, though in the city of Oxford itself Norreys met with a hostile reception and was ‘hooted’ out of town to the cry of ‘no treasurer, no papist’.<sup>176</sup></p><p>In the days leading up to the meeting of the new Parliament speculation was rife that Danby would resign his office prior to the opening in the hopes that such a gesture might satisfy those eager to see him humbled.<sup>177</sup> Conway entered into direct negotiations with Shaftesbury and Monmouth on Danby’s account but although he found Shaftesbury willing enough to stop short of demanding Danby’s execution he was unable to convince either man to allow Danby a pardon.<sup>178</sup> With matters thus balanced, Danby took his seat in the House for the abortive session of early March 1679, attending on four days between 6 and 12 March. Prior to this he had been one of those to witness the king’s declaration that he had not been married to anyone other than Queen Catharine in an attempt to head off the growing clamour for Monmouth to be declared legitimate.<sup>179</sup> The following day (13 Mar.), he recorded being summoned by the king and requested to lay down his staff, in return for which the king believed Parliament would forbear his prosecution. He was also offered a pension of £5,000 as compensation for his loss of office.<sup>180</sup> Two days later it was reported that a yacht had been made ready to carry someone (the presumption was Danby) overseas.<sup>181</sup></p><p>Unwilling to take up the offer of voluntary exile, Danby took his place in the new session on 15 Mar. but he was thereafter absent for the remainder of the session. The following day a warrant promoting him to the marquessate of Danby was drawn up and signed by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, an indication that Danby was expected to accept the reward as compensation for his loss of position.<sup>182</sup> In the event the warrant did not pass the great seal and Danby was forced to wait for a decade before he was able to secure the coveted promotion. Danby’s absence from the House gave rise to rumours early on that he had resigned or fled the country, though Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> noted that at nine o’clock at night on 17 Mar. he still had his staff in his hand.<sup>183</sup> Soon after this it was reiterated that he would shortly resign the treasurership and be compensated with a step in the peerage.<sup>184</sup> As evidence of the wisdom of agreeing to such terms it was noted that the Lords had ‘been very brisk upon him already’ and it was also said that Buckingham and Latimer had quarrelled over the matter.<sup>185</sup> The Commons, however, made clear their unwillingness to permit their impeachment to rest and on 21 Mar. Cavendish was sent up to the Lords to remind them to continue their consideration of the articles against Danby.<sup>186</sup> Danby was advised by the king on 23 Mar. to absent himself for a while, following which Danby sought sanctuary at his brother’s house. Although he had previously been given until 27 Mar. to put in his answer, on 24 Mar. the Lords resolved on his committal, following which the king once more advised him to quit the country. This time Danby appeared willing to acquiesce but he was then hindered by the king’s refusal to furnish him with a yacht in which to make his escape.<sup>187</sup></p><p>By the close of March 1679 evidence of the fissure between the Lords and Commons over the impeachment was increasingly apparent. One correspondent remarked that the Lords would probably be content with having Danby removed from the king’s councils and made incapable of holding office but that the Commons would not settle for such terms.<sup>188</sup> According to Bath the king now favoured an act for banishing his former lord treasurer. On 27 Mar. the Lords sent a bill to the Commons for Danby’s banishment but this was rejected and the Commons continued with their own plans for an act of attainder.<sup>189</sup> Danby meanwhile ‘kept private’ from 24 Mar. to 13 Apr. during which time his staff of office was delivered into the king’s hands by his son, Latimer.<sup>190</sup> On 28 Mar. he addressed a letter to his former colleague, the lord chancellor, appealing to a sense of noble camaraderie and asking that he would ‘come up and give me your assistance’ against the bill of attainder.<sup>191</sup> Between 1 and 2 Apr. 1679 the Lords amended the bill omitting the term ‘attainder’, effectively wrecking it.<sup>192</sup> Danby wrote to Lauderdale on 2 Apr. to thank him for his ‘kindness’ during the debates the previous day and acknowledged the duke’s ‘willingness to have brought the bill to a question.’ The delay in doing so was attributed to the king’s intervention, which Danby professed himself unable to understand as ‘I can in no way imagine how it can be hoped to be better for me this day.’ Even so, he retained his faith in the king’s intention not only to do him justice ‘but all kindness imaginable.’<sup>193</sup> The Lords pressed ahead with further amendments on 3 April.<sup>194</sup> The following day, the Lords sought a conference but on 8 Apr. the Commons, their patience wearing thin, voted an address to the king to issue a proclamation for Danby’s arrest.<sup>195</sup> At the same time he was informed by Sunderland that his hiding place at George Montagu’s house was by now an open secret.</p><p>Left with little choice but to respond to the proceedings against him, on 12 Apr. Danby finally petitioned the House to be granted more time to put in his answer. Perhaps mindful of the example of the former lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, the same day he informed his son, Latimer, that he ‘would much rather my friends should adhere to the bill of attainder… than agree to this bill of confiscation and banishment.’<sup>196</sup> Two days later he was granted leave to appear before the House following the Lords’ agreement to pass the bill of attainder against him, in spite of the efforts of a minority of the House to retain their original bill for his banishment.<sup>197</sup> On 15 Apr. he gave himself up to black rod and on 16 Apr. appeared before the House.<sup>198</sup> Professing himself to be ‘more sorry and troubled to be pressed to abscond than for anything that can happen to me afterwards being before so wise prudent and just a court of judges,’ he then asked for copies of the charges against him before being committed to the Tower.<sup>199</sup></p><h2><em>In the Tower, 1679-84</em></h2><p>Over the ensuing days Danby struggled to rally support. A former ally, Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, promised to attend should his health permit but insisted that he would not commit himself without hearing the evidence.<sup>200</sup> Fitzwalter’s excuse of poor health was real enough (he died later that year) but such tepid undertakings reflected the fact that ‘the humour continues very violent against his lordship.’<sup>201</sup> Unsurprisingly omitted from the Privy Council towards the end of April, on 25 Apr. he was again brought to the bar of the House where he delivered his plea and his answer to the articles against him.<sup>202</sup> On 30 Apr. he was before the Lords again when he was informed that the Commons had taken exception to his plea of the king’s pardon and he was given until the following Saturday to reconsider his pleading.<sup>203</sup> While Danby attempted to comfort himself with the opinion of his counsel that his pardon was good in law, Conway remarked in a letter to one of his correspondents, ‘what will become of [Danby] I know not… this I shall only assure you, that [the king] is no more concerned for him than for a puppy dog’.<sup>204</sup> On 3 May Danby wrote to the king appealing to him for his assistance and pointing out that several of those most ardent to see him punished seemed to be demanding his head as some sort of solution to the nation’s ills.<sup>205</sup></p><p>The first half of May 1679 was dominated by disagreements between Lords and Commons over which of the Lords currently in the Tower ought first to be proceeded against.<sup>206</sup> Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> reported the widespread expectation that the king would intervene by pressing forward the bill for banishing Danby as a way out of the impasse.<sup>207</sup> Danby’s own family was divided over his fate: his son-in-law, Plymouth, was believed to be among those in opposition having declared his unwillingness to go against his conscience.<sup>208</sup> Others stood firm. Bath informed Danby of the progress he had made in securing votes on Danby’s side. Conway, he believed, was his friend and the lord chancellor (Nottingham) ‘very zealous’.<sup>209</sup> Towards the end of the month it was still believed that Danby retained significant interest at court and it was noted that both Bath and Sir Charles Wheler<sup>‡</sup> were often with the king pressing Danby’s case.<sup>210</sup> In spite of considerable pressure from the Commons and from Danby’s enemies in the Lords, the House eventually concluded in favour of proceeding with the five Catholic peers first. The decision precipitated complaints from the Commons that Danby would thereby escape, while Charles Bertie informed his kinsman how ‘all the town is full of the expedient which his majesty is said to offer in your lordship’s case <em>viz</em>. a bill of banishment.’ Danby himself remained confident that he would ‘meet with all the justice which any honest man ought to expect, if it be not [prosecuted] by the torrent of the multitude.’<sup>211</sup> Despite such optimism the conditions under which Danby was confined became more severe and by the end of May he was kept a close prisoner, though he was able to forestall an attempt to insist on him being locked in his chamber at night.<sup>212</sup></p><p>The close of the session on 27 May 1679 and subsequent dissolution on 12 July put paid to any prospect of a speedy resolution to Danby’s predicament, though observers were divided on whether the cause of the prorogation had been on account of the bishops, Danby or ‘to save the five lords.’ Meanwhile the marriage of Danby’s daughter, Sophia, to Donatus O’Brien, styled Lord O’Brien [I], proceeded in his absence with the bride given away by Sir Joseph Williamson. Incarceration in no way tempered Danby’s demeanour. Both he and his gaolers petitioned the king in protest at the other’s behaviour, with the lieutenant of the Tower, Cheeke, complaining that Danby insisted on keeping ‘such ill hours that he could not secure him safe.’<sup>213</sup> More importantly, the preparations for new elections galvanized both sides to ensure the return of members in their interest, while Danby continued to cultivate members of the House who he hoped would support his cause. From his confinement Danby recommended to the king the promotion of his kinsman, Norreys, to an earldom, noting that ‘his estate is very great and his family on all sides eminent, both for birth and their services to the crown.’<sup>214</sup> At the end of August he sought Sunderland’s interest on his behalf, insisting that he had ‘neither been unsuccessful in my services to you, nor ever more industrious in my life than to do your lordship those services’.<sup>215</sup></p><p>For the next three-and-a-half years Danby proceeded to maintain a steady correspondence with family members, allies and potential supporters in the hopes of securing sufficient backing to secure his release. It was in this vein that he wrote to Charles Dormer*, earl of Carnarvon, on 29 Aug. 1679, though he was at pains to emphasize that the king’s recent illness had ‘more perplexed me than all the considerations about myself.’<sup>216</sup> The following month, with the king out of danger, he petitioned once more for his release and by the middle of the month hopes were once again raised that he might ‘not be long now a prisoner.’<sup>217</sup> Such aspirations appeared to be borne out at the close of the September when the king issued a warrant to Cheeke for Danby’s release.<sup>218</sup> The king meanwhile advised Danby to accept exile and assured him that nothing would be done to revoke his pardon during his absence.<sup>219</sup></p><p>Once again Danby failed to take the offer of exile. His incarceration had had a dramatic effect on his already poor health and throughout the autumn reports circulated that he was sick and even at the point of death.<sup>220</sup> It was suggested that his harsh treatment had won him friends and that it was thought increasingly that he was ‘unjustly retained’ in the Tower. Less positively for Danby’s cause, the close of November also witnessed the trial of one of his servants (Knox) along with one Lane who were accused of spreading reports of Oates’s homosexual tendencies in an effort to discredit his evidence. Both men were found guilty, which reflected badly on Danby.<sup>221</sup> In December Danby’s petition to be allowed to travel to Wimbledon and stay there under house arrest to recover his health was refused on the advice of the judges.<sup>222</sup></p><p>By the beginning of 1680 Danby and his supporters were becoming increasingly frustrated. The king was said to blame Buckingham for Danby’s ‘hard usage’ and in February Latimer informed his father that the king had also declared Ralph Montagu to be ‘as great a knave as you an honest man’ but still nothing was done to further Danby’s release.<sup>223</sup> From his cell, Danby continued his efforts to rally support but he sympathized with Carnarvon’s decision not to trouble to return to London ‘because unless you will be pleased with the new plots, I hear of little other divertissement to be had in town.’<sup>224</sup> By April, Danby was sick again and reduced to subsisting on a milk diet.<sup>225</sup></p><p>Besides battling poor health, during the course of the year Danby (and his kinsmen) made concerted efforts to woo new allies. Laurence Hyde was now thought to be amenable to allowing Danby justice (but not favour) and by the summer Latimer believed that York too might have come around to a less negative attitude to the former lord treasurer.<sup>226</sup> Talk of Parliament reassembling soon also gave rise to renewed expectations that the king might intervene in Danby’s favour and on 24 Aug. Conway again voiced the increasingly prevalent view that some of Danby’s former opponents would now support moves for his release.<sup>227</sup> Such views gave Danby renewed hope and at the end of the month he wrote to Robert Shirley*, Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, expressing his hope that his:</p><blockquote><p>enemies will not be so fierce as they have been, or at least all peers (for their own sakes) cannot but dread the consequence, if my case shall remain a precedent for others hereafter, where the common justice and benefit of the laws is denied to a lord, which every porter and footman may claim.<sup>228</sup></p></blockquote><p>The days leading up to the assembling of Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680 found Danby active in mustering his forces. Lindsey assured him that ‘there is to me no other motive of appearance once more upon the stage but your lordship’s concern’.<sup>229</sup> Ferrers undertook to do Danby ‘all the justice that is in my power.’<sup>230</sup> By the beginning of October Danby’s cause appeared to have acquired fresh impetus and Conway was able to assure him that he had secured from the previously uncommitted Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, a profession of his ‘steadiness to serve your lordship’.<sup>231</sup> On the first day of the session Danby submitted a petition to the House pointing out that he had by then been in prison for 18 months, that he was in poor health, a Protestant and seeking his release as the charges levelled against him fell short of treason.<sup>232</sup> His petition was overshadowed by the consideration of the exclusion bill and by the middle of November Conway was complaining to Danby that he felt he had been misled by Shaftesbury and Monmouth.<sup>233</sup> It had been thought that Shaftesbury might be ready to support moves for Danby to be offered greater liberty but this proved not to be the case. The support of a number of Danby’s allies for York against the exclusion bill was also thought to have dealt his case a severe blow.<sup>234</sup></p><p>Danby’s ill fortune during the session did not prevent him from continuing to press for preferment for his family. Between January and February 1681 he wrote to the king concerning his purchase of the reversion to the mastership of the rolls.<sup>235</sup> News of the replacement of Sunderland by Conway as secretary of state gave Danby improved hopes for release conceiving that it would be good to have ‘a friend at so near a station to his majesty.’<sup>236</sup> Conway accepted the post even though he insisted that ‘a less station under your lordship’s protection would have pleased me better’.<sup>237</sup> The prospect of a new Parliament offered Danby another opportunity to work for his enlargement: towards the end of February he wrote to the king for his support in securing the return of members sympathetic to his cause. Danby was concerned that the decision to hold Parliament in Oxford might deter some of his allies and was thus particularly eager to ensure that the newly created Richard Lumley*, Baron Lumley (later earl of Scarbrough), would be sent his writ of summons to enable him to take his seat.<sup>238</sup></p><p>In advance of the meeting of Parliament at Oxford, Danby compiled a series of forecasts detailing how he believed the various members would behave in any divisions taken.<sup>239</sup> He also drew up intricate instructions for his son, Latimer, to follow to ensure that his petition to be bailed was received at the most opportune moment as well as pointing out which other members of the House Latimer would be able best to rely on.<sup>240</sup> Danby was at pains to impress upon Latimer the importance of striking at just the right moment, emphasizing that:</p><blockquote><p>The first care must be to be certain what lords are come to Oxford before my business be moved and in order to that you are to count the lords in the House daily by the list aforesaid, and particularly to see the clerk’s book every day at the rising of the House to see what lords have been sworn that day and especially the first and second days and from time to time to give an account thereof to my friends.<sup>241</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the event of the Lords summoning him to appear at the bar, he assembled a series of heads on which he might speak should the opportunity arise.<sup>242</sup> On 18 Mar. 1681 he wrote to John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, conceding that he was unsure how he stood with him but hoping that he would do him justice and support his application to be bailed.<sup>243</sup> The same day he appealed to Norreys to stand as ‘one of my principal pillars’ and to Lindsey to be the one to present his petition to the House.<sup>244</sup> On that day he dispatched his sons Latimer and Dunblane to Oxford bearing his petition.<sup>245</sup> Over the ensuing days Danby received detailed reports on the progress of his sons’ efforts to woo supporters to his cause and arrange for the submission of his petition.<sup>246</sup> On 24 Mar. the petition was presented by Norreys with at least half a dozen peers speaking in its favour. Further consideration of the matter, however, was reserved to the following week.<sup>247</sup> Latimer complained that those claiming to be in Danby’s interest would not do what they were asked or what they had promised to undertake.<sup>248</sup> Newcastle, though, reassured Danby how ‘many friends’ he had and how well Clarendon, for one, had spoken on his behalf.<sup>249</sup> Bath also sought to explain that ‘the delay till Monday next without putting the question could not be avoided without apparent prejudice and division of your friends.’<sup>250</sup> Despite this, Danby expressed his extreme annoyance that consideration of his petition had (once again) been postponed and he blamed Halifax for the decision to delay consideration on the grounds that the business was ‘ill timed’.<sup>251</sup> With the Lords unwilling to rush consideration of Danby’s petition, the Commons took the opportunity to present their own, requesting that the Lords would condemn Danby to death, but consideration of this too was put off till the following the week.<sup>252</sup> On 28 Mar. 1681 Parliament was dissolved.</p><p>In the days immediately following it was reported that the king now intended to have Danby released on his own authority. Danby was justifiably suspicious of such rumours but in the middle of April 1681 he petitioned the king directly again for his release from the Tower.<sup>253</sup> Once more, the king was advised by his council that he was unable in law to authorize his release. At the end of April Danby moved for a writ of <em>habeas</em> <em>corpus</em> in king’s bench but, having been heard in court on 2 May, he was again remanded to the Tower while the judges deliberated on the matter.<sup>254</sup> At the same time, Ailesbury moved the Privy Council to permit Danby to accompany him to Spa for his health but he was also unsuccessful.<sup>255</sup> On 7 May Danby composed one of his frequent memoranda noting the need to write to the attorney general to discover when proceedings were likely to commence against Fitzharris and also ‘to ask his opinion privately as to the time of my appearance.’<sup>256</sup> The following week, on 14 May, Danby was again brought before the court but although he was said to have spoken ‘very well’ for half an hour, he was once more informed that as his case was being considered by a higher jurisdiction than theirs they were unable to grant his application for bail.<sup>257</sup> Two days later Danby noted in his diary a further complication arising out of the testimony of Fitzharris, who claimed that Danby had been privy to the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey.<sup>258</sup></p><p>With matters continuing to go against him, on 18 May 1681 Danby conveyed yet another letter to the king via his son Latimer requesting a speedy trial and a final determination of his predicament.<sup>259</sup> It was reported that the king rejected the petition on the grounds that he wished to prioritize Fitzharris’s trial.<sup>260</sup> Some thought the king was concerned that a trial would be prejudicial to his own interests. Unable to secure permission to leave the Tower on licence to improve his health, Danby resorted instead to changing his accommodation in the bastion.<sup>261</sup> By the autumn he also appears to have entered into negotiations with Conway to have his lodgings in the Cockpit let or sold, in spite of Lady Danby’s resistance to the notion.<sup>262</sup> News of a projected marriage between Latimer and one of the daughters of Sir Thomas Chamberlaine met with a spirited objection from Norreys who pointed out the inadvisability of arranging a match with someone who was a close kinsman of Shaftesbury. By November, when Sir John Reresby visited Danby in the Tower, Reresby commented that he was ‘not in charity with the then ministers’, who he perceived were ‘inclining too favourably’ to Shaftesbury.<sup>263</sup></p><p>1682 began much as the previous year had done with Danby continuing in his efforts to secure his release.<sup>264</sup> Towards the end of February he wrote to the king acknowledging messages he had received via Bath in which he had been assured of the king’s ‘resolutions of giving me my liberty.’<sup>265</sup> In spite of such good wishes, in March when he sought permission to be allowed out on licence to visit his countess who had been injured in a coach crash his request was denied: ‘a strange severity’.<sup>266</sup> Not for the first time the blame was levelled at Halifax for blocking Danby’s petition.<sup>267</sup> In the midst of this, Danby continued to manoeuvre to secure the reversion of the mastership of the rolls for his nominee but at the beginning of April he was disconcerted to find one of his erstwhile allies, Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, ranged against him.<sup>268</sup> The disappointment at the apparent loss of one ally was then compounded by news of the deaths of another, Frescheville, and of Danby’s son-in-law, O’Brien, in the wreck of the <em>Gloucester</em>.<sup>269</sup></p><p>Danby was again brought before king’s bench on another writ of <em>habeas</em> <em>corpus</em> at the end of May 1682 but following a two-hour exposition of his case he was once more remanded to the Tower.<sup>270</sup> The following month he again moved to be released by writ of <em>habeas</em> <em>corpus</em> but although the judges were now said to be divided on the issue, bail was denied him.<sup>271</sup> Newcastle professed himself ‘exceedingly troubled to see how ill used your lordship is by the judges, for sure never man spoke so well’ as Danby had in his defence.<sup>272</sup> In July, from his confinement, his attention was distracted from his own difficulties by the revelations surrounding Dunblane’s marriage to Bridget Emerton (née Hyde).<sup>273</sup> No doubt concerned at the implications for his own continued imprisonment if the affair resulted in further loss of face, Danby wrote to Viscount Hyde (as Laurence Hyde had since become) to protest that Dunblane had acted without his knowledge or consent and to insist that he could ‘with great truth declare… that my other misfortunes have not given us more trouble than this act of my son’s has done.’<sup>274</sup> To make the point of his annoyance with Dunblane clear to all, at the beginning of August he ordered his son out of town and from that month until the beginning of the autumn he was hard at work attempting to salvage the situation by rallying members of the court of delegates and other officials to use their interest on Dunblane’s behalf.<sup>275</sup> By the close of October it was reported that the court was divided on the issue with Halifax unsurprisingly among those favouring declaring Bridget Hyde’s previous marriage to Emerton to have been valid.<sup>276</sup> In November Danby sought to mobilize his supporters, commanding his son, Latimer, to find out the reason for William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, being ‘hindered coming up’ and to seek the king’s intervention to ‘remove any obstruction.’<sup>277</sup> The following month he attempted a direct appeal to the Hyde family, writing to Clarendon to insist that Dunblane had acted unilaterally and indeed that he had done so ‘against my express command.’<sup>278</sup></p><p>Alongside of his efforts to secure a satisfactory resolution to the problems created by his son, Danby also persisted in attempting to find a tenant or buyer for his apartments in the Cockpit as well as with his campaign to secure his release.<sup>279</sup> In spite of an expectation that the new lord chief justice would at last agree to bail Danby ‘it being his opinion the last should have done it’, Danby’s efforts followed a familiar pattern in the early months of 1683 with the judges once again concluding their lack of competence to meddle in a case in consideration by the Lords.<sup>280</sup> Signs in May that the judges might finally be softening in their attitude offered Danby no immediate prospect of release, though Sir Ralph Verney speculated that ‘if Lord Danby may be bailed, it is a good precedent for the discharge of the Popish lords too.’<sup>281</sup> By the end of May Danby’s health had once again taken a turn for the worse and in June it was speculated that he was either seriously sick or dead.<sup>282</sup> A petition made by his countess for Danby to be permitted to take the air under guard was refused.<sup>283</sup> Danby seems to have rallied shortly after and by July he was again active in attempting to employ his interest, this time over the appointment to the archbishopric of York. Supporting the candidacy of Thomas Cartwright*, later bishop of Chester, Danby stressed Cartwright’s acceptability ‘to the loyal party in that county, and that he would be highly serviceable to the king’s interest there.’<sup>284</sup></p><p>Hopes for Danby’s release were raised once again at the opening of 1684 on the grounds that even if the lord chief justice failed to look sympathetically upon him, a new Parliament would settle the matter finally.<sup>285</sup> Danby himself appears to have been willing to trust to nothing so uncertain. On 11 Jan. he wrote to Abingdon (as Norreys had since become) asking for his help in cultivating Judge Holloway, having found by experience ‘that the judges are much more informed by personal friendships and interests than by the law.’<sup>286</sup> More promising were reports that Halifax was by now eager to effect a reconciliation with Danby and that he had recommended to the king the release of all the imprisoned lords in the Tower prompting a belief that they would all ‘be out in very few days.’<sup>287</sup> Danby was brought before king’s bench again on 28 Jan. but he was once more remanded for a further week before judgment could be delivered on his case.<sup>288</sup> At the beginning of February a new petition craving his release after 3½ years in prison was presented, subscribed by 19 peers, and on 4 Feb. he appeared once more before king’s bench only to find the judges still divided in their opinions. The two older judges were reported to have inclined to Danby but the two younger ones (including Holloway) again desired more time to deliberate.<sup>289</sup> Danby was able to score a small success by securing an order for his reappearance at the close of term rather than at the opening of the next as the judges had initially desired and on 12 Feb. his petition to be bailed was at last granted with sureties of £5,000 a piece being provided by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, Albemarle, Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, and Philip Stanhope*, earl of Chesterfield.<sup>290</sup> The reason for the decision undoubtedly lay in the king’s intervention on Danby’s behalf and in the assistance given by the duchess of Portsmouth.<sup>291</sup> On the same evening that he was released Danby waited on the king, where he was granted a 15 minute audience.<sup>292</sup></p><p>Danby’s incarceration had left him weak and suffering from severe ailments, which it was believed were sufficiently serious to threaten his life or leave him a permanent invalid.<sup>293</sup> His experiences and ill health in no way dampened his desire to see his services recognized and towards the end of February it was reported that he was attempting to revive the process for his promotion to the marquessate of Carmarthen.<sup>294</sup> In this he was disappointed but his release and much talked-about reconciliation with Halifax prompted speculation about the impact their alliance would have on politics in Yorkshire. John Dolben*, archbishop of York, cautioned William Sancroft*, archibishop of Canterbury, to use his interest with Danby to keep him from ‘falling into any design to the prejudice of the Church.’<sup>295</sup> The association may well have inspired Danby to consider assembling a third political grouping to stand between the Whigs and Tories, but if there was any such design, it appears rapidly to have unravelled.<sup>296</sup></p><p>Danby’s experience over the past three years had unsurprisingly left him cynical about the king and York’s willingness to support him. Towards the end of the summer Danby retreated north to Kiveton, where he was ‘visited by all the country to a very great distance’, among them Sidney Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, who expressed his sorrow for the carryings-on of his relations towards Danby and ‘hoped I would not have the worse opinion of him for their ill behaviour.’<sup>297</sup> Soon after his arrival in Yorkshire, Danby fell ill of ‘a quartan ague’ as well as being plagued by his perennial malady of a ‘stoppage in his throat.’ By the close of the year Danby had recovered sufficiently to return to Wimbledon where news of the expected demise of the master of the rolls prompted him to remind Latimer that the reversion of the office was due to him.</p><h2><em>Reign of James II, 1685-1689</em></h2><p>The succession of James II found Danby’s prospects uncertain. He was relieved to find the new lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, outwardly civil to him when they dined together, and he detected no indication that he was likely to be carted off to his ‘old quarters’ in the Tower, but Danby’s relations with the new king when duke of York had never been easy and he soon found himself entirely at odds with the drift of James’s policies.<sup>298</sup> By the middle of the reign Danby was active among the opposition. </p><p>Although there were early indications that he and his family could expect little in the way of favour under the new regime (Danby’s heir, Latimer, was not continued in post as a gentleman of the bedchamber) in March 1685 at the time of the elections for the new Parliament it was believed that Danby’s fortunes were once more on the turn and that he was again great at court. The mayor of Buckingham was reported to be in favour of returning Latimer rather than Verney in order to court Danby’s good will, although there was also an attempt by Jeffreys to press his own rival interest to those of Danby and Rochester (as Laurence Hyde had since become). In the end Temple and Verney were returned leaving Latimer trailing in third place.<sup>299</sup></p><p>Danby was absent from the opening day of the new Parliament but a petition was read on his behalf by Chesterfield pleading that he either be granted a trial or have his bail renewed. Calls were also made by his friends for him to have reparation for his sufferings over the past six years.<sup>300</sup> On 22 May the impeachments presented in the previous reign were overturned (a decision that prompted a protest signed by four peers).<sup>301</sup> The following day Danby at last resumed his place in the House, after which he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He continued to sit during the progress of Monmouth’s rebellion, details of the campaign being relayed to him by Dunblane, who was present at Sedgemoor.<sup>302</sup></p><p>Danby resumed his seat after the adjournment on 9 Nov. 1685. Plans for the House to take into consideration the king’s speech on 23 Nov. were averted by the king ordering Parliament to be prorogued to the following February, but it seems plain that Danby intended to join a number of peers speaking critically about the king’s declaration relating to the expansion of the army and the employment of Catholics within it. In a draft dated 23 Nov. he insisted that ‘no man living can speak with more reluctancy than myself to anything which may but seem to be contradictory to his majesty’s pleasure’ before continuing to lambast elements of the king’s speech in which he detected ‘stalking horses to ill designs’. He then planned to conclude his address by seeking the judges’ opinion of the extent of the king’s dispensing powers.<sup>303</sup></p><p>With Parliament prorogued and no official platform from which he could question the direction of royal policy, Danby appears to have retreated for the time being. His broken health seems to have been his principal concern and in February 1686 he was said to be considering travelling to Spa in search of a cure for his throat condition.<sup>304</sup> As the king’s efforts to secure greater freedoms for Catholics intensified, Danby was among those noted consistently to be in opposition to the proposed policies. At some point in either 1687 or 1688 Danby compiled his own list noting those he considered likely to oppose the king, perhaps drawn up in response to the meetings held that summer between William of Orange’s agent, Dijkvelt, and various members of the English opposition, including Danby. When Dijkvelt returned to Holland he bore with him a list of his own, apparently drawn up by Danby’s kinsman, Robert Bertie*, styled Baron Willoughby d’Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), very likely on Danby’s instructions. Danby’s list (slightly less extensive than the one carried overseas by Dijkvelt) was dominated by members of both Houses, 55 being members of the Lords, including Danby himself and six bishops, and 86 comprising members of the Commons with a few additions. Forty of the names were annotated with ticks or crosses, Danby’s own name being marked with a tick which was crossed through. In January 1688 he was again noted among those thought likely to oppose repeal of the Test act. He was one of those in receipt of threatening letters at the close of the month.<sup>305</sup> Danby again attracted attention when a case between him and a Catholic named Cox over the non-payment of secret service money was brought before the council.<sup>306</sup> In spite of his prominent opposition to the king’s policies, in May 1688 it was put about that Danby had been with the king privately and that he might be appointed ambassador to the United Provinces, though Roger Morrice was quick to cast doubt upon such rumours.<sup>307</sup> The following month Danby was proposed as one of the sureties for Archbishop Sancroft at the time of the Seven Bishops’ trial.<sup>308</sup> He was also one of a vast ‘concourse of people of all ranks’ to attend the trial in June.<sup>309</sup></p><p>Ever since his role in the negotiations for the match between William of Orange and Princess Mary, Danby had remained a correspondent of the prince. The extent to which James’s government was suspicious of the correspondence was highlighted in two separate episodes. In September 1687 (at the time of the conferences with Dijkvelt) Danby wrote to the prince to explain that he had been unable to secure permission to travel to Holland ‘with the same indifferency that it is permitted to others’ and had therefore resolved not to risk the journey.<sup>310</sup> Unable to attend the prince in person, towards the end of March 1688 he sought a place for his daughter, the countess of Plymouth, in Princess Mary’s household. Once again, stealth was required. His letter to Prince William seeking the position was conveyed by Dunblane, though Danby was careful to ensure that it was delivered into the prince’s hands by the prince’s chaplain, Dr Stanley, being certain that his son’s movements were also being observed by James’s secret service.<sup>311</sup> The birth of the prince of Wales in the summer of 1688 gave Danby an added incentive to cultivate Prince William as it was rumoured that he was thereby set to lose an annuity of £700 which was to revert to the new prince.<sup>312</sup></p><p>Danby was early on at the centre of the conspiracy to bring the prince over to England to restrain James II. On the night that the bishops were acquitted he joined six other malcontents in signing a letter inviting William of Orange to invade England in defence of their liberties.<sup>313</sup> According to Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, Danby had originally been recruited by Henry Sydney*, later earl of Romney, and he in turn persuaded Bishop Compton to join the plot.<sup>314</sup> When Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, refused to participate, some of the plotters appear to have advocated silencing the reluctant peer but Danby intervened, arguing that ‘he thought there was more danger in meddling with him than letting of him alone.’<sup>315</sup> By the autumn of 1688 Danby had retreated from London to his Yorkshire estates to prepare for the invasion, though rumours circulated that he had in fact left England for Holland.<sup>316</sup> A renewed bout of ill health provided him with a convenient excuse to remain away from the centre as he sought a cure at the spa at Knaresborough. Throughout this time he remained in close contact with the prince and appears to have argued strongly for a landing in the north because the west had been so cowed by the suppression of the Monmouth rebellion that no one there ‘would be forward to join the prince.’<sup>317</sup> On 24 Nov. Morrice recorded that Danby, Lumley ‘and a dozen more noblemen’ had held a series of meetings in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire but were not yet in arms.<sup>318</sup> By the close of the month any such pretence had been cast aside and Danby along with Dunblane and Lumley had succeeded in seizing York and imprisoning the lieutenant governor, Reresby.<sup>319</sup> Reports of 28 Nov. that Danby was marching towards London proved inaccurate but the news of the prince’s landing at Torbay elicited a jubilant letter from Danby on 1 Dec. congratulating him on his ‘happy arrival in England’.<sup>320</sup> The following few days found Danby under increasing pressure to justify his failure to march out from York either to join the prince <em>en</em> <em>route</em> to London or Princess Anne at Nottingham. Danby had hoped that the princess would continue her march north to join him at York, which would undoubtedly have handed to him an improved position from which to bargain with both Prince William and King James, but he made the most of the presence of his ally, Bishop Compton, with the princess and deferred to Compton’s advice that it was not practical for her to continue north to York.<sup>321</sup></p><p>The confused situation created by the invasion complicated communication between Danby and the prince. Danby was forced to write several times insisting that he had attempted to convey despatches to Prince William that had evidently failed to get through. Shortly after this, he needed to refute rumours that he had been killed and to provide reports of his activities in fortifying York. Even though the political situation remained uncertain, Danby set about arranging for the election of his son, Dunblane, at York and he pleaded that the business relating to this and the county elections would necessitate him delaying his march south by a further three or four days.<sup>322</sup> Danby’s evident reluctance to abandon his northern stronghold provoked an irritated response from the prince and shortly afterwards Danby was urged by one of his kinsmen to make his way to London where the prince was awaiting him ‘with all impatience.’<sup>323</sup> Having delayed as long as he could, Danby eventually quit York and by the evening of 26 Dec. he was in London at the head of a substantial retinue comprising six coaches with around 80 gentlemen in attendance.<sup>324</sup> The following day he received visits from the future non-jurors, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, and William Lloyd, formerly of Llandaff, now bishop of Norwich, who later reported that Danby had been ‘very reserved’ with them. Abingdon also complained of his kinsman’s reserve towards him, though he was confident that he would ‘quickly find him out.’<sup>325</sup></p><p>Danby’s absence from London throughout November and most of December meant that he failed to play any part in the activities of the provisional government. His apparent unwillingness to join the prince in the west had diminished his standing in William’s eyes and he remained a figure of considerable suspicion for both loyalists and revolutionaries alike. Back in London, he attempted to make up for this by striving to act as a counterbalance to the two rival groups, pushing to the fore his solution to the constitutional crisis created by the king’s flight. He was disappointed, though, on the first day of the Convention (of which he attended almost 58 per cent of all sitting days) to lose out to his old rival Halifax, who was appointed speaker of the Lords. Despite this, Danby proceeded to play a central role in the Lords’ deliberations as chairman of a number of committees. On 25 Jan. he was missing from the attendance list but not among those marked absent at a call of the House. The Commons’ resolution to declare the throne vacant and to push for the accession of Prince William as king presented Danby with an opportunity to manoeuvre himself into the middle ground between those in favour of James’s removal and those wishing to arrive at some sort of accommodation short of replacing the sovereign, by advocating the accession of Mary as queen. When the Commons’ resolution regarding the vacancy of the throne was reported to the Lords on 29 Jan. Danby was appointed chairman of the committee of the whole House discussing it and even critics such as Roger Morrice conceded that he presided ‘very fairly and equally’ over the proceedings.<sup>326</sup> A proposal to establish a regency initially attracted wide support but was ultimately defeated by 51 votes to 48 following a strenuous intervention by Danby and Halifax. The following day, Danby shifted his support over to the loyalists by voting in favour of substituting the word ‘deserted’ for ‘abdicated’. By 31 Jan. he seems once more to have changed his position, thus while he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess king and queen in a division held in committee of the whole, he then voted against declaring the throne vacant.</p><p>Danby’s reasoning appears to have been driven by a genuine concern for the constitutional propriety of what was being attempted as much as by raw politics. His initial reluctance to award the throne to William damaged his standing at court but he still remained unwilling to declare the throne vacant. On 4 Feb. he was one of the lords appointed to draw up reasons why they disagreed with the Commons on the question of King James’s abdication and the same day he appears to have attempted once more to employ his interest so that the possibility of Mary’s succession alone might again be explored. Speaking in the Commons, Danby’s creature, Sir Joseph Tredenham<sup>‡</sup>, allowed that the throne was vacant in as much as James had abandoned it, but he insisted that in an hereditary monarchy it was impossible for such a state of affairs to exist. He then continued to drive forward the notion of awarding the throne to James’s clear heir, Princess Mary. In spite of these efforts, the Commons persisted in their rejection of the Lords’ amendments to their resolutions by 282 votes to 151: almost all of Danby’s followers in the Commons being among those voting in the minority.</p><p>Having failed to sway the Commons and with his grouping in the Lords perhaps restricted to just three or four regular supporters, by 6 Feb. 1689 Danby seems to have conceded that continuing to push for the succession of Mary alone was impractical. Three days prior to this, William had summoned several senior politicians, including Danby, to a private meeting, at which he had impressed upon them his unwillingness to accept anything less than the crown.<sup>327</sup> It was no doubt as a result of this ultimatum that Danby altered his stance. Certainly by 6 Feb. he had resolved to fall in with those willing to confer the throne on William and Mary jointly. He opened the latest debates that day with ‘an excellent speech’ and when the Lords at last voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ resolutions Danby and Halifax were said to have been ‘very instrumental’ in securing ‘this great settlement.’<sup>328</sup> Danby’s slipperiness on the issue lost him some of his old friends. According to at least one report he had assured Abingdon only an hour before the vote that he would divide with those against declaring that the king had abdicated.<sup>329</sup> His ambiguous position was then further highlighted by his readiness to second Nottingham’s motion that the wording of the oaths should be altered: a decision that once more set him at variance with Halifax who rejected the notion as threatening to make a mockery of the new monarchs’ title.<sup>330</sup></p><p>On 9 Feb. Danby was named to the committee for drawing up reasons for the Lords’ amendments to the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen. With the question of the throne finally settled, Danby retired from attendance of the council and the Lords for about ten days from the 13th, the result of his own ill health and his son’s illness and death. It might also have indicated his disappointment with the way in which things had been resolved. According to Halifax, by this point Danby had begun to ‘lag in his zeal for the prince his interest’, partly because he could not hope to be appointed lord treasurer, ‘the prince having declared he would manage it by commissioners’.<sup>331</sup> Burnet considered that Danby ‘could not bear the equality, or rather the preference that seemed to be given to Lord Halifax.’<sup>332</sup> This was reflected in Danby’s own writings, in which he complained at Halifax’s favoured condition at court, ‘notwithstanding what I had done.’<sup>333</sup> In spite of this, a newsletter predicted in the middle of February that Danby would be restored as lord treasurer.<sup>334</sup> In the event he was appointed to the more marginal post of lord president.<sup>335</sup> Roger Morrice’s assessment of Danby’s appointment was that he was ‘the worst man to be found, a French pensioner, the corrupter of that cursed Parliament.’<sup>336</sup></p><h2><em>Marquess of Carmarthen, 1689-94</em></h2><p>Danby’s appointment as lord president reflected the careful balance the new regime attempted to achieve by employing men of varying interests and loyalties but it also ushered in a period of uncertainty during which the rival ministers vied with each other in their efforts to cultivate the king. In 1690 Danby emerged as the principal beneficiary of such squabbling but his period at the apex of the administration proved to be relatively brief. By 1694 his interest was once more on the wane.</p><p>Danby’s return to office was marred by the death of his heir, Latimer, during the night of 15/16 February.<sup>337</sup> Private grief did not, however, prevent him from attempting to assert his position at court, and on 18 Feb. he wrote to the king to remonstrate with him about the distribution of offices, which he thought had been weighted unfairly against his own followers. In an effort to redress the balance he recommended that Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>, and his brother, Charles Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, be rewarded with places in the new regime.<sup>338</sup> By the close of the month Danby appears to have been thoroughly disenchanted with the new state of affairs and on 28 Feb. he regaled Sir John Reresby with a catalogue of mistakes he believed the government to be committing, especially as regarded the settlement of Ireland and the king’s apparent willingness to allow the Whigs to monopolize office. So discontented did he seem that he apparently expressed the opinion that if James would only give up his Catholic followers he might be able to stage a return.<sup>339</sup></p><p>For all Danby’s complaints, over the ensuing weeks several of his kinsmen secured posts and on 12 Mar. Danby himself was restored to the lieutenancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire. In April he was also successful in securing his appointment to the governorship of Hull. Having resumed his regular attendance of the House towards the end of March, Danby managed a series of conferences in April, May and July concerning the bills for removing Catholics from the cities of London and Westminster, for abrogating oaths, the additional poll bill and the succession bill. He continued to argue in favour of protection of the Church of England and on 21 Mar. he pressed for all office holders to be required to take an oath of fidelity to the king and to receive Anglican communion, as he believed that ‘any less security to be given than this cannot preserve the present constitution.’<sup>340</sup></p><p>Danby’s ambiguous stance on the legitimacy of the new regime may have driven him to join a small deputation waiting on the king at the opening of April 1689 to protest at the decision to award Frederick Herman Schomberg*, duke of Schomberg, the former king’s garter. They were overruled. His concerns did not, however, prevent him from petitioning the king for his own promotion to a dukedom. His request presupposed that he was already <em>de</em> <em>jure</em> marquess of Carmarthen by virtue of the 1679 warrant.<sup>341</sup> Once again Danby was disappointed in his ambitions and according to his own recollection it was only ‘with difficulty’ that he was then able to prevail upon the king to promote him marquess of Carmarthen. It was one of almost a dozen new peerages created in April.<sup>342</sup> On 24 Apr. he was introduced into the House in his new dignity, with Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, and William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as his supporters. Prior to this, on 18 Apr., he had been entrusted with the proxy of John Manners*, 9th earl of Rutland, the same day that the House had fixed for debating the overturning of Titus Oates’s perjury conviction. In the event, consideration of the case was postponed to 26 Apr. when Oates’s lawyers were finally heard. Carmarthen seems to have suffered a further relapse in his health at this time but he continued to attend the House at regular intervals through the spring and early summer and when not in London retired to Wimbledon so that he could maintain contact with affairs at court. Towards the end of May the Lords ordered Oates to be committed to king’s bench for breach of privilege for publishing a paper in which he had made reflections on Carmarthen.<sup>343</sup> Carmarthen took the opportunity to suggest flippantly during the debates on the reversal of Oates’s conviction that rather being whipped from Newgate to Tyburn he should instead be whipped from Tyburn to Newgate. It was presumably this speech that induced the king to ask Halifax whether Carmarthen had been out of his mind when he delivered it.<sup>344</sup> On 31 May, Carmarthen voted, unsurprisingly, against reversing the judgment on Oates. The following day he once again became the focus of complaint when John Howe<sup>‡</sup> moved in the Commons for all impeached persons to be removed from office.<sup>345</sup> It was reported at about this time that many motions had been tabled for removing ‘a great minister of state’, but Howe’s motion was allowed to drop following a patched-up alliance between Carmarthen and the Whigs so that they could stand together against Halifax.<sup>346</sup> Carmarthen’s need to cultivate new allies was rendered the more necessary both by the criticism of him emanating from the Commons and by the king’s disinclination to trouble himself unduly on his minister’s account. Halifax recorded that the king had undertaken to defend Carmathen, though he ‘said it faintly enough.’<sup>347</sup></p><p>Writing to excuse his failure to wait on Archbishop Sancroft in the early summer of 1689, Carmarthen blamed ‘multiplicity of business’ for the omission, which ‘does scarce give me leisure to get my meals, or rest as I ought to do.’<sup>348</sup> On 6 June he was entrusted with the proxy of George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, and the same day he moved that the Lords should petition the king for the remainder of Oates’s sentence to be remitted. Despite this, at the end of July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments relating to the reversal of the perjury judgment.</p><p>Carmarthen was unable to sway his followers to join him in supporting the move to settle the crown on the Electress Sophia and her heirs, which was mooted at the beginning of June 1689.<sup>349</sup> He found himself at odds with the Commons again later in the summer over the actions of his heir, Danby (formerly Dunblane) who had been arrested on his father’s recommendation for attempting to fit out a privateer illegally. Since Danby was still a member of the Commons, between 22 and 24 June the Commons took the matter into consideration and towards the close of the month the Commons found against Carmarthen and Nottingham for acting in a manner injurious to their privileges. In mid-July the Commons moved once more for an address to be made to the king requesting that both Carmarthen and Halifax should be removed from his councils.<sup>350</sup> At the beginning of August the assault was renewed but on this occasion only Halifax was aimed at directly. Carmarthen’s kinsmen were among those backing the motion for Halifax to be removed but although Carmarthen insisted that this was because of Danby’s personal resentment against the lord privy seal, it seems clear that Carmarthen was sympathetic to the action. In the event the adjournment towards the close of the month brought the attempt to a halt thereby saving both Halifax and Carmarthen.</p><p>In spite of the concerted pressure being applied by the Commons that the king should rid himself of Carmarthen and Halifax, it was reported in mid-August 1689 that both men were to form part of a select ‘cabinet council’.<sup>351</sup> Following the close of the session on 20 Aug. Carmarthen secured leave to retire to the country to recover his health. The death of his daughter, Lady Lansdown, soon after added to Carmarthen’s personal grief but perhaps more significantly served also to weaken further the alliance of the Osbornes and Berties with the Granville clan.<sup>352</sup> Carmarthen had returned to Wimbledon by mid-September in order to wait on the king at Hampton Court, but he was immediately struck down again by a relapse preventing him from doing so.<sup>353</sup> He had rallied by the middle of October and was able to attend the final two days of the session on 19 and 21 October. He then resumed his seat in the session that followed hard on its heels on 23 October, and was present on approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days. In early December it was once again rumoured that Carmarthen was to be restored to his former office of lord treasurer, though this failed to transpire. His improved standing with the new king and queen contrasted with his poor relations with Princess Anne, a division that was thrown into stark relief by Abingdon’s ‘great favour’ with the princess, ‘where I and my whole family find as little.’<sup>354</sup> Carmarthen classed himself as among the supporters of the court on a list drawn up between October 1689 and February 1690.</p><p>Carmarthen acted as one of the tellers for a division held in the case <em>Fountaine v. Coke</em> on 11 Jan. 1690. The same month he divided against the resolution that the surrenders of the City charters had been illegal. On 25 Jan. he sided with the Lords seeking to dissuade the king from travelling to Ireland in person, arguing that ‘they had no notice from the king of his resolution.’<sup>355</sup> By the close of January tensions within all parties had reached such a pitch that on Carmarthen’s advice, the king agreed to dissolve the Convention and summon a new Parliament. With the end of the Convention came Halifax’s resignation from the government. Carmarthen appears to have offered his old rival’s post to at least two candidates as early as the previous December but on Halifax’s departure the privy seal was put into commission.<sup>356</sup> The removal of Halifax signalled a brief period of almost unchallenged dominance for Carmarthen and by the beginning April he was accounted ‘the most active man’ both in Parliament and in the council.<sup>357</sup> It may have been around this time that a verse satire, <em>The Nine Worthies</em>, was composed, in which Carmarthen was characterized as:</p><blockquote><p>A thin ill-natured ghost that haunts the king<br />Till him and us he does to ruin bring;<br />Impeached, and pardoned impudently rides<br />The council, and the Parliament bestrides.<sup>358</sup></p></blockquote><p>Eager to fill as many posts as he could with his kinsmen and supporters, as early as mid-February 1690 Carmarthen alerted Abingdon to the likelihood of a substantial overhaul at the treasury.<sup>359</sup> When a redistribution of offices was effected, a number of new posts were allotted to Carmarthen’s followers including Sir John Lowther*, later Viscount Lonsdale, at the head of the treasury commission. Carmarthen himself was appointed one of the councillors for advising the queen during the king’s absence from the country.<sup>360</sup> Carmarthen’s success encouraged rumours that Bishop Compton would shortly succeed Sancroft as archbishop. For all this, the elections for the new Parliament were not without their disappointments and Carmarthen expressed his concern that a number of good men were reluctant to stand ‘when it is so apparent a crisis for the Church’. Even so, his grouping fared well in a number of areas with the return of his brother, Charles, at Hull, the securing of several Yorkshire seats and a strong showing by the Berties in Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. In advance of the new Parliament, Carmarthen was able to reflect on the strength of supporters and sympathisers in the Lords, which he reckoned to consist of 45 peers and five bishops in opposition to Halifax’s phalanx of 34 peers and three bishops. In the Commons too, he believed he was able to call on the services of a bloc of around 50 members.<sup>361</sup></p><p>Carmarthen took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and was thereafter present for approximately 94 per cent of all sitting days. Evidence of his continued dominance of affairs was reflected in a rumour that he was to be advanced to a dukedom and Nottingham to a marquessate, while in the Commons his ally, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, was elected Speaker in spite of his decidedly chequered reputation.<sup>362</sup> Carmarthen’s grouping in the Lords was reinforced by the summoning of Danby by a writ of acceleration as Baron Osborne as well as of Lindsey’s heir, Willoughby d’Eresby. The king’s speech delivered on 21 Mar. highlighted the question of the revenue, with one of the first pieces of business laid before the Commons being the Carmarthen-backed proposal for the king and queen to be voted supply for life. In the event the Commons preferred a compromise arrangement, whereby certain grants were awarded for the life of the monarchs but they resolved to limit the granting of customs revenues to a period of four years.</p><p>The presentation on 26 Mar. by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, of the recognition bill, though, threatened to re-open the fissures in the Tory ranks by forcing them to agree explicitly to the king and queen’s right to the throne. Carmarthen appears to have opposed the measure at first in the hopes of securing significant amendments to the bill rather than out of a desire to see the measure rejected entirely. On 3 Apr. he put forward his amendments, suggesting the substitution of the word ‘confirmed’ but the following day this was rejected by 34 votes to 25. On 5 Apr. he was among the majority voting to reject in turn an amendment proposed by the Whigs but on 8 Apr. a compromise was arrived at, in part through Carmarthen’s negotiating skills, which resulted in the recognition bill being passed by the Lords. The following day, in spite of further opposition from the Tories, the Commons also voted to accept the amended bill.<sup>363</sup></p><p>By mid-April 1690, Carmarthen’s manoeuvrings had served to distance him from some of the other Tory members of the Lords. Rochester complained to his brother Clarendon how ‘the white marquess’ had ‘struck up with the Dissenters’ thereby obviating ‘all the fine promises concerning the Church.’<sup>364</sup> Difficulties also continued to present themselves from the other extreme, though an attempt by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, to table a divisive measure towards the end of April, requiring all members of the Commons to abjure King James was given short shrift. When Carmarthen attempted to present a compromise measure shortly afterwards, it too was rejected. On 12 May Carmarthen was one of a number of peers (and two bishops) named managers of a conference to be held with the Commons the following day on the bill for appointing the queen regent during the king’s absence. In spite of his failure to secure the adoption of his amended abjuration bill, by the middle of May it was reported that Carmarthen and Nottingham were so firmly in control of affairs that remaining Whig members of the administration, such as Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, had resolved to quit their posts. A renewed effort to have Carmarthen removed from the king’s councils at the same time failed once more to achieve its aim.<sup>365</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s resignation at the beginning of June 1690 left Carmarthen in almost unrivalled control of the administration as ‘chief minister’, though as Chesterfield pointed out ‘he has need of all his skill to keep this changeable and mutinous people to their duty.’<sup>366</sup> The queen also noted in one of her reports to the king how Carmarthen ‘pretends to govern all’ but she remained sceptical about precisely how amicable his alliance with Nottingham truly was.<sup>367</sup> The threat of invasion from France or from the north added to the pressures facing the administration. In the middle of the month Carmarthen reported to the king information relayed to him by Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), concerning a feared invasion from Scotland, though he dismissed Monmouth’s warning on the grounds that he thought he had been misled and although ‘I do in my conscience believe [he] means well to your interest’ that he was essentially untrustworthy.<sup>368</sup> Carmarthen nevertheless thought that a landing in England was imminent.<sup>369</sup> Towards the end of July 1690 he joined a number of other ministers waiting on the City fathers to seek a loan of £100,000 to assist with preparations for beating back a potential descent on the country.<sup>370</sup> Such fears were underscored by the setback suffered by the fleet off Beachy Head later in the summer. After it he was eager to join other members of the council travelling to Dover to enquire into the causes of the defeat, but was prevented from doing so by the queen’s insistence on his remaining in London. By the middle of August the crisis had abated with the retreat of the French forces.<sup>371</sup> In the aftermath of the naval reversal, Carmarthen was said to have been hostile to the petition of John Churchill*, earl of Marlborough for his brother, Charles Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, to be made an admiral, arguing that he would be known as ‘the flag of favour’ much as Marlborough was referred to disparagingly as ‘the general of favour.’<sup>372</sup> Carmarthen regarded the new session due to commence that autumn of critical importance, though unlike Devonshire, who recommended a dissolution and the summoning of a new Parliament, Carmarthen favoured persevering with the current one.<sup>373</sup> On 1 Oct. he wrote to William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, underlining its importance and how ‘upon their proceedings will depend the certain fate of England and Ireland, and in a great measure that of the confederates abroad.’<sup>374</sup> Carmarthen took his seat at the opening of the session on 2 Oct. on which day Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, entrusted him with his proxy. On 7 Oct. he also received Willoughby d’Eresby’s proxy and on 27 Oct. that of Hugh Cholmondeley*, Baron (later earl of) Cholmondeley, although the rules restricted him to only two proxies. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. Carmarthen was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days. He was attacked from all sides. Even so, he appeared relatively satisfied with the willingness of the Commons to vote adequate funds, though he fretted at the pace with which such revenue was likely to be raised.<sup>375</sup></p><p>Pressure on Carmarthen was reflected in his loss of interest in the treasury commission that autumn. Although his ally Lowther remained a member of the board, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, replaced him as first commissioner. Towards the end of the year, a series of rumours about plots preoccupied the government. On 28 Nov. Carmarthen received a letter warning of a second gunpowder plot and although this proved to be a fabrication, a fortnight later further information began to emerge about covert activities between England and France. As a result of information provided by Nicholas Prat, at the close of December Carmarthen secured the capture of three Jacobite conspirators while en route to France, among them Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S]. The coup helped to restore Carmarthen’s reputation and at the opening of 1691 it was reported explicitly that a series of attacks intended against Carmarthen had been derailed because of his success in foiling the Jacobite conspiracy. The departure of King William for The Hague in early January was glossed by the reassuring information that Carmarthen was to remain behind as chief minister. With the exception of a brief stint in April, the king remained overseas until the autumn. In his absence, Carmarthen held sway: the extent of his domination of the administration was reflected in a new soubriquet (an echo of that applied previously to Charles I’s minister, Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford): ‘Tom the Tyrant’. This was in spite of a renewal of ill health that plagued him for much of January and into the following month.<sup>376</sup></p><p>Ironically, given his role in Preston’s capture and his consequent popularity, Carmarthen was one of a number of peers listed by Preston as being sympathetic to the former king.<sup>377</sup> Although Preston later retracted this, claiming that he had the names ‘only from hearsay’, the allegation was supported by information provided to Halifax that Carmarthen had ‘treated’ with King James and also by the account of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury’s account of various discussions with Carmarthen in the aftermath of the Revolution.<sup>378</sup> According to Ailesbury, Carmarthen admitted that ‘next to having offended so much the good God, nothing ever lay so much at my heart as what I have done against that good king, James II.’<sup>379</sup> Carmarthen may indeed have regretted certain features of the Revolution, but there is little reason to suppose he had any desire to see the former king back.</p><p>Aside from making the most of his success in securing Preston, Carmarthen continued to battle over control of the treasury where by the middle of February 1691 he was complaining that he now had few friends. The problem of Ireland also loomed large in his thinking. On 6 Feb. he confessed to Nottingham his ‘anxiety for the business of Ireland, upon which (whatever may be thought to the contrary) all other things as to England will depend.’<sup>380</sup> At the end of the month, fretting that the ‘affairs of Ireland do seem to me to be in so ill a posture’ he recommended to the king the appointment of a lord lieutenant to take charge of the province, naming a number of possible candidates including himself on the grounds that he ‘would rather perish in endeavouring to save this government than live to perish with it’.<sup>381</sup> Early in March 1691 it was rumoured that he was to depart for Ireland and as late as the middle of June it was said that he had offered to lead a squadron to Galway ‘upon any penalty if he did not succeed.’<sup>382</sup> By the middle of March it was also speculated that he would be appointed lord lieutenant of the whole of Yorkshire and be granted his coveted dukedom of Pontefract.<sup>383</sup> Assiduous in courting the queen’s good opinion, on 16 Mar. 1691 Carmarthen entertained her to dinner in his rooms in St James’s, treating her to ‘the rarity or first of the season, <em>viz</em>. one dish of green peas and cauliflowers.’<sup>384</sup> The same month he joined with Carnarvon and John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater in supporting the candidature of his son-in-law, James Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, at the by-election at Ailesbury, though in the event Herbert was defeated by Simon Mayne<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>385</sup></p><p>The unsettled nature of affairs at court was highlighted by conflicting rumours of new appointments and dismissals throughout the spring and early summer. At the end of April it was said that Carmarthen was to be lord treasurer again but this was contrasted by other reports suggesting that his position was far more precarious.<sup>386</sup> By the early summer rumours were spread of a campaign to force him out from his office of lord president.<sup>387</sup> Such reports were accompanied by talk of infighting at court in which the Commons speaker, Sir John Trevor, was said to have sided with Sydney and Montagu against Carmarthen; their undignified demeanour was likened to the scuffles between ‘the creatures of old in the amphitheatre.’<sup>388</sup> As a further indication of the charged political atmosphere, in mid-May Carmarthen dismissed a number of deputy lieutenants in Yorkshire.<sup>389</sup> Talk of altering alliances and of jostling for places continued well into the summer.<sup>390</sup> Early in June it was speculated that Carmarthen’s old ally, Bishop Compton, was to consolidate his alliance with Carmarthen’s family by marrying the widowed countess of Plymouth; at about the same time it was even suggested that Rochester had resolved to throw in his lot with Carmarthen.<sup>391</sup></p><p>Poor health and no doubt exasperation at the atmosphere at court may have tempted Carmarthen to step back from his duties. In July he complained that he was suffering from such violent colic that he could not attend council.<sup>392</sup> The following month it was thought that having secured an annual pension of £3,500 the previous month, he would take the opportunity to retire ‘if his project succeeds to Ireland’. In the event the news of the fall of Limerick at the beginning of October seems to have helped him steel himself to hold firm.<sup>393</sup> It was thus with renewed hopes for a successful outcome for his Irish policies following a poisonous summer that Carmarthen resumed his seat at the opening of the new session on 22 Oct. 1691. At the beginning of November there were renewed reports that he was one of three peers to be advanced to dukedoms.<sup>394</sup> Present on almost 54 per cent of all sitting days in the session, Carmarthen’s early optimism proved misplaced as the Commons quickly turned their attention to debating the state of the nation with John Howe prominent again among those speaking out against Carmarthen and his lieutenant, Goodricke. Expecting that criticism of the fleet would form a key part of the Commons’ assault, Carmarthen moved swiftly to forge a temporary alliance with Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, and in mid-November, Carmarthen’s supporters attempted to draw attention away from their leader by moving for Preston’s examination to be considered. The affair once again drew attention to the factionalism at court, with Carmarthen intent on destroying Preston, while Sydney was said to be eager to achieve his release.<sup>395</sup></p><p>Poor health once again interrupted Carmarthen’s activity towards the close of November, although fears that it would prove mortal again proved unfounded.<sup>396</sup> Carmarthen returned to the House determined to try to rescue his fortunes by attempting to make use of the new information provided by William Fuller in the same way that he had been able to exploit that seized from Preston. In this case the plan failed to have the desired effect and Fuller was ultimately dismissed by the Commons the following year as a ‘notorious imposter, a cheat, and a false accuser’. Carmarthen may also have been implicated in an attempt to ‘blacken Lord Nottingham’ in a further attempt to deflect attention from himself.<sup>397</sup> In this too, though, he was unsuccessful and the Commons’ decision to turn their attention to East India Company’s accounts put more pressure on the lord president.<sup>398</sup> On 7 Dec. he dragged himself from his sickbed to declare himself against Monmouth in solidarity with his kinsmen, Lindsey and Abingdon, but despite this it was reckoned that Monmouth would be cleared.<sup>399</sup> The following day, reports circulated that Carmarthen was the real focus of complaint and that ‘the king’s habitual constancy cannot save him… If he does fall, he may go for an honest man; but while he does stand, he passes for a very artificial and ingenious man.’<sup>400</sup> The remainder of the month saw the Commons turn to consideration of Preston’s papers and at the end of December debates about the settlement of Scotland found Carmarthen urging the dissolution of their assembly, which he considered to be unlawful.<sup>401</sup></p><p>The fevered atmosphere in Parliament in the first weeks of the session gave rise to a confused picture in the early months of 1692. Some clearly expected Carmarthen to be in danger of being displaced, though this was soon proved unfounded.<sup>402</sup> According to other reports he was on the verge of being restored to the lord treasurership.<sup>403</sup> On 12 Jan. 1692 he registered his dissent at the resolution to receive the bill allowing Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce. His opposition to the measure resulted in a faintly comic episode on 21 Feb., when he was subjected to a verbal assault from the intemperate Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, who had been called to the bar of the House for making disparaging remarks about Rochester during the debates over the divorce bill. At the bar, Lincoln turned his attention on Carmarthen, whom Lincoln mocked for being opposed to the divorce of adulteresses, suggesting that were it to be allowed, all of Carmarthen’s daughters would be returned to him.<sup>404</sup> Carmarthen served as one of the managers of three conferences concerning the public accounts bill between 5 and 10 February. By the time of the adjournment on 24 Feb. he was once again thoroughly under pressure as a state of <em>impasse</em> was reached between the administration and its critics. The admission of Rochester and Sir Edward Seymour to the Privy Council in March signalled a further erosion of Carmarthen’s control.</p><p>Carmarthen’s efforts to maintain his hold on office seems to have persuaded him to attempt to mediate between the queen and her estranged sister, Princess Anne, during the early summer of 1692. According to one report it was the princess who asked Carmarthen to wait on her at Sion, which he delayed doing before securing permission from the queen. In August he joined several members of the cabinet council at Portsmouth to inspect the fleet.<sup>405</sup> Later that month he responded negatively to Rochester’s proposals concerning the management of the forthcoming session, conceiving that it was in part Rochester’s obstruction that had frustrated the navy’s efforts to make the most of the La Hogue campaign.</p><p>Carmarthen was granted a fortnight’s leave of absence in mid-September.<sup>406</sup> By the following month he had turned his mind once again to the new session of Parliament and on 22 Oct. he wrote to Abingdon noting that, ‘this approaching meeting of the Parliament will be so critical an one that it will concern every man of quality and interest in his country to be present at it.’ He hoped not only that Abingdon would be sure to appear himself but also that he would encourage his friends to do so, emphasizing that ‘the absents will be very particularly remarked by his majesty.’<sup>407</sup> The same day, Carmarthen was noted as one of those who turned out to greet the king on his return to London.<sup>408</sup></p><p>Carmarthen took his seat in the new session on 4 Nov. 1692 after which he was present on just over three quarters of all sitting days. The day before the opening he wrote to Rutland in similar vein to his earlier letter to Abingdon, emphasizing that it would be politic for Rutland to appear as soon as possible.<sup>409</sup> In the course of the session he was again entrusted with three proxies: that of Scarbrough on 15 Feb. 1693, of Danby the following day and of Willoughby d’Eresby four days later on 20 February. The timing suggests that they may have been connected with the debates in the House concerning the triennial bill. Prior to that Carmarthen drew attention to himself at the beginning of December 1692 by refusing to concur with the wording of the Commons’ address commending Admiral Russell for behaving with courage, fidelity and conduct. He conceded the first two terms but, comparing the case with that of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, demurred on the last. Having pointed out that he and Torrington had never been friends, he affirmed nevertheless that while Torrington had ‘saved our fleet in 1690 by anchoring after the battle, so I do affirm that the honourable admiral in question [Russell], by anchoring deprived us of an entire victory.’<sup>410</sup> Naval affairs continued to dominate this part of the session with Carmarthen named one of the managers of two conferences on 20 and 21 Dec. considering the papers relating to naval matters brought to the House by Nottingham.</p><p>If he was prepared to acknowledge the past successes of a former foe in the person of Torrington, Carmarthen was no less willing to stand against his usual allies and at the close of the year he put himself at variance with his Bertie kinsmen by voting along with Nottingham, Rochester and Portland against committing the place bill.<sup>411</sup> He was then absent from the House for the subsequent vote on the measure on 3 Jan. 1693. He resumed his seat four days later and on 17 Jan. he registered two dissents relating to the resolutions rejecting the claims of Charles Knollys (titular 4th earl of Banbury) to be recognized as a peer. Towards the end of the month he was appointed speaker and lord high steward for the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, who was accused of murder.<sup>412</sup> With the office came a fee of £1,000 and a £500-a-day allowance, which Carmarthen put to ostentatious use by ordering a huge coach to convey him to court each day and equipping his servants in new liveries.<sup>413</sup> Mohun’s less than dignified behaviour during the proceedings put Carmarthen’s patience to the test and at one point he was forced to refuse Mohun’s request to enquire of one of the witnesses whether or not she was a virgin in preparation for casting doubt on her testimony. Carmarthen insisted that he might only ask whether or not she was married.<sup>414</sup> Following the conclusion of the trial, the focus of the session returned to the question of the triennial bill. Although it passed the Lords, Carmarthen encouraged his followers in the Commons to help defeat the measure in the lower House.</p><p>Carmarthen was appointed a manager of two further conferences prior to the close of the session in mid-March. Following the prorogation, rumours circulated once more of alterations in the ministry and of promotions in the peerage with Carmarthen one of four peers reported to be promoted to dukedoms.<sup>415</sup> Although the office of lord keeper went to the Junto Whig Sir John Somers*, later Baron Somers, Carmarthen retained his own place and the queen’s particular confidence.<sup>416</sup> In July it was said that she had revoked an order allowing Carmarthen, Devonshire and Rochester to take some leave as she could not bear to be without their advice.<sup>417</sup> News of the king’s defeat at the battle of Landen later that month spurred Carmarthen to return to London from Bath to assist at the council. Early in August he retreated to Bath once more from which he returned ‘much mended’ a few days later.<sup>418</sup></p><p>Carmarthen’s apparent indispensability to the queen did not prevent talk of Sunderland’s growing prominence or of the prospect of Shrewsbury and John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later marquess of Normanby and duke of Buckingham), succeeding Carmarthen and Nottingham.<sup>419</sup> Carmarthen nevertheless continued to exert his influence to the utmost and on the death of John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, he recommended that Abingdon should succeed him as chief justice in eyre Trent south. While begging the king to excuse his presumption, he also proposed his son, Danby, for the place of captain of the gentlemen pensioners, though in the event the post went to Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans, one of Charles II’s illegitimate sons.<sup>420</sup></p><p>Nottingham’s dismissal at the beginning of November offered Carmarthen an opportunity to consolidate his position, which was assisted further by Shrewsbury’s refusal to return to office. Carmarthen returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on almost 65 per cent of all sitting days. Excused at a call on 14 Nov, he resumed his seat three days later and at the beginning of December he joined Nottingham in objecting to the use of the word ‘declare’ within the triennial bill; it was agreed by 59 votes to 34, however, to allow the word to stand.<sup>421</sup> In spite of his previous efforts to mediate between the queen and Princess Anne, by the beginning of December Carmarthen conceded in a letter to his wife that he had failed to win over the princess. The following month found him engaged with a similarly doomed attempt to mediate between the House and the king over the Lords’ request to be permitted sight of more information relating to the naval disasters.<sup>422</sup></p><p>Carmarthen was entrusted with Danby’s proxy again on 23 Feb. 1694 and three days later with that of his son-in-law, William Fermor*, Baron Leominster. Carmarthen joined Halifax and Mulgrave in opposition to the treasons bill that month and on 6 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conference for the mutiny bill.<sup>423</sup> Towards the end of the month, on 29 Mar, he reported the findings of the committee established to draw up the Lords’ reasons for insisting on their amendments to the measure and the same day he was again nominated a manager of a further conference with the Commons. That month, following much prevarication, Shrewsbury at last gave way to the king’s entreaties and returned to the administration as secretary of state, trouncing any expectation of Carmarthen and Sunderland forging a new alliance. By the close of the session Carmarthen was on the back foot and he was forced to give way to the passage of the tonnage bill even though he disliked the proposals within it for raising a loan of £1,200,000 by subscription.<sup>424</sup></p><h2><em>Duke of Leeds 1694-9</em></h2><p>Shortly after the prorogation it was rumoured once again that Carmarthen was to be promoted to a dukedom.<sup>425</sup> The following month the promotion was finally confirmed with Carmarthen taking the title of Leeds rather than Pomfret (or Pontefract).<sup>426</sup> Four other peers were advanced to dukedoms at the same time.<sup>427</sup> In part, Leeds’ promotion at this time was considered a sop to his declining political influence in the face of a reinvigorated Whig party headed by the Junto. Eager to make the most of his new distinction, early in the summer, Leeds set out on a tour of the north in an effort to consolidate his local interest. He returned to London towards the end of July and at the beginning of August he was a prominent participant in debates in the council concerning the return of the fleet. The following month he attempted to exert his remaining interest with the king on behalf of his son-in-law, James Herbert, whom he wished to see appointed a teller of the exchequer, and in November Leeds’ influence was still reckoned to be sufficiently potent to enable him to secure the return to favour of Sir Ralph Delaval<sup>‡</sup>, whose career as a naval commander had been brought to an early close by the loss of the Smyrna fleet.<sup>428</sup> In the event, though, Delaval remained in the cold.</p><p>Leeds took his seat at the opening of the new session on 12 Nov. 1694, when James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg, introduced him in his new dignity. Present on just over 60 per cent of all sitting days, the following month he backed the proposal for an alternative to the treason bill put forward by Normanby (as Mulgrave had since become), which provided for wilful perjury to be made a capital offence. He then subscribed the protest when the measure was rejected.</p><p>The death of Queen Mary at the end of the year threatened to diminish Leeds’ role in the administration. In the short term, though, he enjoyed a resurgence of influence: it was left to him to wait on the king and urge him not to give way to grief. Early in 1695, though, Leeds faced yet another threat to his position as consideration of a petition from the inhabitants of Royston by the Commons quickly developed into a broader examination of corruption. Sir John Trevor was one of the early targets of the investigation and Leeds’ opponents sought to bring the same kind of charges to bear against him as well. Leeds meanwhile continued to take a prominent part in the Lords’ examination of the treason bill and towards the end of January he spoke forcefully in favour of the measure being adopted as early as March in opposition to those who favoured postponing it for three years.<sup>429</sup> He was then named one of the managers of a conference concerning the measure on 11 April.</p><p>By the middle of February 1695 Leeds appears to have been optimistic about the progress of affairs, reporting with confidence the likelihood of sufficient supply being voted. At the close of March he was one of those appointed to try Captain Bridges who stood charged with plundering and sinking a French man-of-war rather than towing it into port as a prize.<sup>430</sup> Leeds was entrusted with Willoughby d’Eresby’s proxy on 3 Apr. and a week later he also received that of Carmarthen (as his heir was now styled). On 19 Apr. he invoked privilege on behalf of one of his servants, who had been arrested. The House ordered the man to be released and the offending bailiff to be attached and brought to the bar of the House. A rather more pressing concern emerged the same month when Carmarthen spoke out in opposition to the Commons bill for imposing penalties on Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> should he refuse to reveal the whereabouts of £90,000 of missing East India Company money. The assault on Cooke, part of a wider investigation by the Commons into corruption, continued in spite of Leeds’ efforts and by the end of April the lower House’s attention was turned on Leeds himself. In spite of his declaration before the Lords that he was ‘not at all concerned in this matter’, Leeds found himself once again on the verge of being impeached. On 26 Apr. John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, the future Viscount Fermanagh [I] reported how ‘great art has been used to baffle their enquiry’ but the same day Leeds sought and was granted permission to speak in his defence before the Commons. No doubt eager to avoid a repetition of his experience of the 1680s he used the opportunity to urge them to hasten his trial. The following day the articles of impeachment were brought up to the Lords by Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, in which Leeds was accused of taking a 5,000 guinea bribe to advance the interests of the East India Company. Commenting on this latest development, Somerset concluded ‘so there will be an end of that statesman.’<sup>431</sup> Leeds pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him but it was rumoured that an act of grace was to be introduced into the House to shield him from the threat of conviction.<sup>432</sup> Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his previous experience of monarchs and their clemency, Leeds seems to have resolved not to trust to the good will of the king on this occasion. Instead, at the beginning of May he was said to have ‘kept open house at Hell with roast beef and pot ale’ to debauch Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, Robert Carey*, 7th Baron Hunsdon, John Colepeper*, 3rd Baron Colepeper ‘and the rest of the Mumpers.’ Leeds was also said to have been working to bring the bishops in on his side in the hopes that he would be able to ‘break his fall upon their backs.’<sup>433</sup> In the event, he was saved by the prorogation of 3 May that brought a halt to proceedings, the Commons having failed to move them on by bringing forward a key witness in time.<sup>434</sup> Leeds still aimed to respond to his critics with a campaign in the press, approaching his daughter, Lady Leominster, for the use of a room in her London residence where he could set up a press and set his authors to work. Should her husband object, Leeds counselled her to keep the business from him.<sup>435</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session Leeds continued to attend the council in spite of heavy hints that he should remain away. He also enquired of the king whether reports that Princess Anne was to be given his lodgings at St James’s were accurate and, if they were, whether he would be compensated with alternative accommodation at Whitehall or the Cockpit.<sup>436</sup> Apparently oblivious to the offence he was causing, he continued with his preparations for a counter-offensive in print.<sup>437</sup> The prorogation failed to silence Leeds’ critics. In June it was suggested that ‘a strong party’ had formed in opposition to the duke, though the cause was ascribed to ’his reconciliation with the earl of Bath’ rather than to the corruption charges against him.<sup>438</sup> Not that the latter had been forgotten and in August a proclamation was made offering a reward of £200 for the arrest of Monsieur Robart, one of the principal witnesses against Leeds.<sup>439</sup> Leeds joined several other peers in predicting that a new Parliament would shortly be summoned and it may have been in preparation for another lengthy sojourn in London (and in expectation that he was to lose his former lodgings) that he took the house in St James’s formerly occupied by Jeffreys towards the end of August 1695.<sup>440</sup></p><p>Leeds was ill again in September but he continued to confer with his allies about the anticipated election (though Parliament was not actually dissolved until October), insisting with no apparent trace of irony that, ‘the schemes which I hear are drawn by some of our grandees makes it highly necessary to get some able as well as some honest men into the next Parliament.’ His efforts to persuade Sir William Twisden<sup>‡</sup> to stand again were frustrated by Twisden’s terror at the expense involved but he hoped that Sir Edward Seymour might help him to a safe seat. He also recommended Sir Francis Child<sup>‡</sup> to Abingdon, who he hoped would help him to a seat at Devizes.<sup>441</sup> The ensuing elections proved largely successful for those standing in Leeds’ interest and shortly before the opening of Parliament he was one of a number of prominent Tories to be honoured with degrees by Oxford University.<sup>442</sup> More significant was the rumoured ‘conjunction’ of ‘great planets’: the coming together of Leeds and Sunderland, which was said to have taken place at this time.<sup>443</sup></p><p>With his position apparently shored up once again, Leeds took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 November. He was thereafter present on almost 69 per cent of all sitting days in the 1695-6 session. No doubt aware of his vulnerability to assault from the Commons, during the session he strove to support the administration and it may have been at his instigation that the question of the coinage was taken into consideration early on. During the debates on the state of the nation held in committee of the whole on 3 Dec. he moved for the state of trade to be taken into consideration as well as urging consideration of the coinage, though he was at pains to point out that this was a subject that ought first to be dealt with by the Commons. In a subsequent committee of the whole held the following day he was again insistent on the Commons’ involvement when he spoke in favour of the lower House’s motion for an address to the king to be drawn up.<sup>444</sup> On 5 Dec. he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the state of the coinage and he was subsequently appointed a manager of two further conferences on 7 and 11 Jan. 1696. As two rival proposals emerged for dealing with the problem, Leeds gave his backing to the scheme championed by Somers, but it was that proposed from the Commons by Charles Montagu*, the future Baron Halifax, that attracted the greater support. On 30 Dec. 1695 Leeds proposed an amendment to the resulting coinage bill, largely mimicking Somers’ scheme. The following day the committee reported back in favour of his amendment which was in turn passed by the Lords. Leeds’ support for the Junto-led measure may have inspired Charles Bertie’s comment to Rutland that the question of Leeds’ impeachment would ‘sleep this sessions’.<sup>445</sup></p><p>Leeds was not immune from attack, however. Having witnessed the amended coinage bill pass the Lords on 3 Jan. 1696, he turned his attention to the defence of his heir (Carmarthen) over complaints relating to reverses at sea. In this he was joined by Torrington, the two men arguing that the matter ought rather to be considered by a select committee rather than by the whole House. Several reports noted that the true target of the investigation into Carmarthen’s conduct had been Leeds himself and that ‘it was through the son that the father was struck at.’<sup>446</sup> For once, sickness seems to have benefited rather than hindered Leeds as it was rumoured that ill health had left the court denuded of ministers, enabling him to make ground there. At the same time, his progress in attracting supporters in the Commons was suggested by the fact that his son-in-law Herbert’s election petition attracted a sizeable turnout of 370 Members, but once that was dealt with the attendance dwindled back to around 150.<sup>447</sup></p><p>Leeds was among those summoned to give advice at council to consider the early revelations about the Assassination Plot. On 24 Feb. 1696 he was named a manager of the conference taking into consideration the king’s speech about the plot. The proposal of an Association was designed to force Tories to either reject it and be branded as disloyal, or by accepting it to expose deep divisions among them. Leeds responded in the debate in the Lords on 26 Feb. by arguing that it was needless given that all were united in upholding the status quo. When this failed to convince the House, he attempted instead to devise a formula that would be acceptable to the Tories and that rather than declaring the king ‘rightful and lawful’ they might instead swear that he had ‘a right to the crown of this realm, and that no other person whatsoever has any right to the same.’ Although this attracted the support of Devonshire and Portland (perhaps indicating the king’s sympathy for this form of words), Leeds’ proposal was then amended by Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, who moved the text should be further altered so that ‘the late King James’ and ‘the pretended prince of Wales’ were mentioned explicitly within the formula.<sup>448</sup> Rivers’ intervention left Leeds’ own following divided and although most of his Osborne kinsmen and the Lincolnshire Berties conceded the point, the Wiltshire and Oxfordshire Berties (led by Abingdon) refused to do so.<sup>449</sup></p><p>Leeds continued to hope that moderation would prevail. At the beginning of March 1696 he advised one absent peer not to trouble himself about a summons to attend the House if his health did not permit ‘unless they shall proceed with more violence than I hope they will do’ and he undertook to have him excused at the next call of the House and to inform him of the mood of the chamber. He then pointed to the Lords’ resolution to proceed against one printer for publishing scandalous material relating to peers unwilling to sign the Association as an indication that all might yet be well.<sup>450</sup> Leeds was entrusted with Leominster’s proxy on 30 March. A fortnight later, however, he was absent from the chamber when the Association bill passed the House. He had also failed to attend the debates of the previous day (13 April).</p><p>Leeds was omitted from the list of the lords justices at the close of April 1696 and at the beginning of the following month it was rumoured that he intended to retire from office, leaving Shrewsbury to succeed him as lord president.<sup>451</sup> On 2 May, a similar report noted that both Leeds and Carmarthen were ‘out of all’.<sup>452</sup> As details of the plots against the king began to circulate, Leeds was one of those spoken of as being in some way implicated. On 22 May he complained to the king of information being put about by a Mr Porter suggesting that he had failed to investigate the activities of Hugh Smithson, who was believed to be a Jacobite agent in Yorkshire. Porter also resurrected tales of Leeds’s involvement in suppressing evidence relating to the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. Leeds professed himself unsure whether such slander emanated from Porter himself or whether Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, had instigated its circulation.<sup>453</sup></p><p>With his position at court seriously compromised, Leeds retreated to Bath in July. He survived being ‘wetted’ on his way there by ‘two scurvy waters’ and from thence travelled to his estates in Yorkshire.<sup>454</sup> A report that the king had sent to him to join him in Flanders was treated with suspicion and seems not to have had any foundation.<sup>455</sup> On his return to London towards the end of October 1696 Leeds was ‘much huzza’d in Duke Street’.<sup>456</sup> He took his place in the House on 26 Oct, on which day he was entrusted with Kent’s proxy. He also seems to have joined with Devonshire in seeking to have Rutland excused for failing to attend.<sup>457</sup> Leeds was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the waiving and resuming of privilege on 30 November. The main focus of his attention in the session, though, was his attempt to forestall the bill of attainder brought against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. In one letter to his wife noting the progress of the hearings, Fenwick described Leeds and Normanby as ‘your managers’ and in another he urged Lady Fenwick to ‘take care of yourself advise well what you do the d[uke] of L[eeds] can tell you best.’<sup>458</sup> Leeds was certainly active in attempting to persuade the House to charge Fenwick with something less than treason. Following the presentation by Admiral Russell of the case against Fenwick in early November, Leeds did his best to stifle the bill while also continuing to do his utmost to distract attention from those absent peers reluctant to resume their places in the House. On 25 Nov. he received Carmarthen’s proxy and on 15 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to read Goodman’s information. Three days later, he spoke out in the House against the Fenwick attainder and proposed instead that another bill be drawn up for keeping Fenwick a close prisoner for life. He was unsuccessful in his efforts and was left with little alternative but to register his dissent at the resolution to give the bill a second reading.<sup>459</sup> During the debate on the attainder held on 23 Dec. Leeds argued forcefully for proceeding against Fenwick for high crimes and misdemeanours rather than for treason, insisting that Fenwick was not ‘considerable in the party’. While he conceded that his ‘obstinacy deserves due punishment’ he stressed that the punishment should not be ‘such as will punish all Englishmen, unless there were more necessity for it’ and that it were ‘better he should go unpunished than all the laws of the land be broke.’ Leeds was among the minority voting against passing the attainder bill on 23 Dec. and he was then one of 53 lords to subscribe the resulting protest.<sup>460</sup></p><p>Leeds intervened again in January 1697 during the proceedings against Monmouth. Insisting that the Lords were only delivering an opinion and judgment on papers rather than apportioning blame he argued that there was no need for Monmouth to absent himself after he had delivered his defence, although he emphasized that he was of the opinion that the papers were ‘of a horrid nature’ and ‘injurious to the king’ and he was among those who considered that Monmouth should be judged appropriately as a contriver of the papers.<sup>461</sup> Leeds was named one of the managers of the bill for prohibiting silks on 5 Mar. 1697 and on 13 Mar. he was once again entrusted with the proxy of Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter. The same month and into the following one rumours again circulated that he was to be displaced as lord president. On 10 Apr. Leeds was appointed one of the managers of the conference for the bill for prevention of buying and selling of offices.</p><p>Leeds retained his position for a further four years though the office increasingly came to be seen as an honorific one with real power held by other members of the ministry. With less business, Leeds had sufficient leisure to indulge himself and in mid-September 1697 he seems to have been planning a post-peace trip to France with Leominster, hoping to ‘get to see Versailles before I die if I can’.<sup>462</sup> The visit appears not to have happened and he returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. after which he was present on just under 62 per cent of all sitting days. Towards the close of 1697 his name was one of those mentioned in connection with succeeding Sunderland as lord chamberlain after the latter’s sudden resignation, though when one correspondent commented on the notion he rejected it, saying, ‘No person yet appears likely to take his [Sunderland’s] share of the ministry, I mean no new person such as the duke of Leeds’.<sup>463</sup> Even so, at the opening of 1698 it was rumoured that now that Sunderland was out of the way Leeds intended to resume his attendance of council.<sup>464</sup></p><p>Confined to his chamber for eight or nine days by severe colic at the end of 1697, he had clearly recovered towards the end of the first week of January when he was credited with saving much of the area surrounding Whitehall from being engulfed in the blaze that destroyed the palace. According to one correspondent ‘had it not been for the duke of Leeds, I really believe all Westminster had been burnt.’<sup>465</sup> In spite of such heroic efforts, by the following month talk of Leeds resuming active participation at council had faded into the background and it was said that he was ‘more out of affairs then ever and very chagrined.’<sup>466</sup> In March 1698 he rallied to join those members of the Lords voicing their opposition to the Commons’ bill of pains and penalties against Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 3 Mar. he spoke against giving the bill a second reading and on 4 Mar. put his name to the resulting dissent. On 7 and again on 11 Mar. he was named a manager of conferences relating to the Duncombe case and on 15 Mar. he was among the slim majority voting to reject the measure.<sup>467</sup> Two days later he spoke in vindication of the lord chancellor (Somers) following the aspersions cast upon him in the printed paper distributed by Robert Bertie<sup>‡</sup> in support of Bertie’s brother (James Bertie<sup>‡</sup>) concerning an appeal from chancery to the Lords.<sup>468</sup> In spite of this, both Bertie brothers were later assessed as being members of Leeds’ interest in the Commons.<sup>469</sup></p><p>Leeds’ attention was distracted during the spring by the visit of Czar Peter, who became a regular visitor to Wimbledon, largely through his connection with Carmarthen and their mutual interest in naval affairs.<sup>470</sup> In May he was subjected to an intemperate assault in the Commons by James Sloane<sup>‡</sup> following a further reading of Sir Thomas Cooke’s papers. Sloane, it was said, ‘would have fallen upon the duke of Leeds that since the witness was conveyed away there was as much reason for a bill of attainder as in any former case’, but the House chose to ignore him.<sup>471</sup> Leeds was entrusted with Abingdon’s proxy again on 11 May and on 16 June he was also given that of Kent. The day before (15 June) he was named a manager of the conference concerning the trial of John Goudet. Towards the end of June 1698, in spite of his previous notoriety in relation to the company, Leeds was approached by Robert Blackburne, who had been asked to lay the East India Company’s case before him for his perusal in anticipation of the attempt to deprive the company of its charter.<sup>472</sup> The following month he spoke out, accordingly, against the new East India Company bill but he was prevailed upon not to persist with his opposition and he seems thereafter not to have made any great impression in the ensuing debates about the measure. Increasing marginalization and lessening interest appears to have preyed upon Leeds’ mind at this time and towards the end of July he wrote to the king protesting at his treatment and how people believed he had forfeited his monarch’s good opinion. Continuing in more than usually histrionic vein he offered to leave the country if the king was truly offended with him.<sup>473</sup></p><p>The general elections of that summer resulted in an improved situation for the Tories and Leeds appears early on to have been eager to exploit the situation in the new Parliament. Having taken his seat on 29 Nov. he was probably behind an investigation opened in the Commons into abuses in the farming of taxes as part of a wider attempt to discredit Charles and Christopher Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, against whom Leeds had a particular axe to grind over their rival claims to the office of auditor of the exchequer.<sup>474</sup> Charles Osborne’s decision to vote against the disbanding bill in mid-January 1699 also appears to have been evidence of Leeds using his interest in the lower House. Leeds’ actions seem to have resulted in the king summoning him and Rochester to an audience in advance of the Lords’ consideration of the bill. The measure passed without incident but on 8 Feb. Leeds joined those voting against the committee recommendation to assist the king in retaining his Dutch guards.<sup>475</sup> He then registered his dissent against the resolution to retain the troops. On 1 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of conference with the Commons for the bill to prevent the distilling of corn.</p><p>Leeds was afflicted by poor health again during the spring but by the beginning of April 1699 he had recovered sufficiently to take an interest in affairs once more. On 8 Apr. he wrote to the king at length warning him of ‘some things so prejudicial to your service that without some reformation in them I fear it will be very difficult to keep men either in Parliament or out of it.’ His particular concerns appear to have centred on the admiralty and management of Parliament. Underscoring the importance of uniting ‘the minds of your people and to take from amongst them the distinction of party’ he proposed (again) the formation of a mixed administration for which he offered his services as mediator between the factions.<sup>476</sup> The offer was not taken up and he was soon after prostrated once again by illness. On 25 Apr. he wrote to one of his daughters noting how he had been confined to his house for 15 days (presumably alluding to the period 4-17 Apr. during which he was absent from the House) and how having resumed his place he had contracted another cold.<sup>477</sup> His statement that he had been present in the House the day before writing the letter (24 Apr.) is not reflected in the attendance record, suggesting that he perhaps arrived late in the day. He certainly appears to have resumed his activities in the House soon after his return as he was nominated a manager of a series of conferences on 20, 21 and 27 Apr. and of a final one before the close of the session on 3 May. Over-exertion seems once more to have compromised his health and within a fortnight of the prorogation on 4 May he was again said to have been seriously unwell having been afflicted with the ‘stop’ for five days.<sup>478</sup></p><h2><em>Out of office, 1699-1712</em></h2><p>Soon after the end of the session in May 1699, Leeds was required to resign his office of lord president. He was succeeded by Pembroke, whose office of lord privy seal went to Lonsdale. Although it was reported by some that the alteration had been arranged with Leeds’ knowledge, others thought otherwise.<sup>479</sup> According to one commentator, Leeds had not been ‘aimed at’ by those eager to see a change in the administration and had, if anything, been ‘becoming a favourite of the House.’<sup>480</sup> Leeds was clearly disturbed by his loss of place and unsure about which offices he was to lose. He wrote to Lonsdale to ascertain whether he was also to be stripped of his governorship of Hull and his Yorkshire lieutenancy and sought satisfaction of his arrears of pay for the first of these, ‘which are due for a great while’. Eager to rescue something from the situation, he also asked that his brother, Charles, might be retained as lieutenant-governor of Hull ‘unless his majesty’s displeasure reach to every branch of my family.’<sup>481</sup> While increasing political marginalization was one factor in explaining his removal, it seems that Leeds’ ill health was also significant. During the summer it was rumoured that he was either dead or dying as a result of which he was removed from the last of his offices.<sup>482</sup> By the beginning of August, though, he was said to have ‘entirely recovered’, a development that threatened to upset the court’s tidy explanation that he had been removed because of his poor health.<sup>483</sup> Subsequent efforts to explain that he had requested to be released from his duties during his indisposition failed to convince and by the early autumn he was complaining that he had still not received formal notice of his displacement.<sup>484</sup></p><p>Leeds failed to recover his posts and a new episode of illness appears to have prevented him resuming his seat in the House until a month into the new session. He finally took his seat on 19 Dec. 1699 and was thereafter present on 58 per cent of all sitting days for the 1699-1700 session. On 1 Feb. 1700 he voted in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 8 Feb. he registered his dissent at the resolution to put the question whether the Scots’ colony at Darien was a threat to England’s plantation trade. On 23 Feb. he supported adjourning into a committee of the whole for closer consideration of the East India Company bill. In April he appears to have adopted an inconsistent attitude to the Irish grants resumption bill (of which he was named a manager in three conferences held between 9 and 10 April). Although he spoke in favour of the measure, he voted against its passage, although he was not among those subscribing the accompanying protest.</p><p>By the close of the session reports circulated that Leeds was to be recalled to office as part of a wider move in favour of the Tories.<sup>485</sup> Such rumours were repeated towards the end of the year with Leeds said (again) to be on the point of being reappointed to the lord presidency.<sup>486</sup> Leeds took his seat three weeks into the new Parliament on 28 Feb. 1701, and was present on 31 per cent of all sitting days for the brief February 1701 Parliament. Midway through March he explained his continued attendance as being only ‘in compliance with the desire of some lords who have pressed me to take some share with them in endeavouring to have discovered the projectors of that pernicious partition treaty’ and he complained that he was thoroughly exhausted by the effort.<sup>487</sup> Reluctant or not he was active in the House both speaking in debates and setting his hand to a series of protests. On 8 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to address the king to ask for the suspension of Captain John Norris<sup>‡</sup> suspension to be lifted and on 14 Mar. he spoke out against the Partition Treaty. He then subscribed two protests against the measure on 15 Mar. and on 20 Mar. protested again at the resolution not to send the address relating to the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. Although out of office, Leeds retained considerable interest. In May he was said to have been responsible for barring the selection of John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> as lord keeper in succession to Somers and to have recommended the appointment of Sir Nathan Wright instead. Leeds’ former impeachment proceedings were cited in the Commons during debates concerning the forthcoming trials of the Whig lords.<sup>488</sup> Their acquittal the following month proved accidentally beneficial to Leeds as it resulted in all impeachments pending (including his own) being discharged.<sup>489</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session Leeds prepared for his usual journey to his Yorkshire estates. He was delayed by weight of personal business and, shortly before setting out, drew to the attention of his daughter-in-law, Lady Carmarthen, a threat to her property posed by the resolution of some of her husband’s creditors to recover their losses. Advising her to use caution about who was admitted to her home and to deposit her valuables with her brother-in-law, Coke, Leeds left Lady Carmarthen to her fate and set out for the north.<sup>490</sup> He had returned by the late summer and in September 1701 he was summoned to a private audience with the king, which was said to have lasted for an hour. Later that year he presented the address from the town of Leeds (to the surprise of Charles Boyle*, 2nd earl of Burlington, who had expected to do so himself).<sup>491</sup> Early the following year, ‘the novelists of the town’ put it about (again) that Leeds was to be restored to office, but nothing came of it and in spite of such signs of growing interest Leeds’ attendance of the ensuing session was cursory.<sup>492</sup> Having taken his seat in the new short-lived 1701-2 Parliament on 30 Dec. he was present on just seven occasions (seven per cent of the whole) prior to the dissolution.</p><p>The accession of Queen Anne made little immediate impact on Leeds’ prospects of returning to office. He was restored to the Privy Council but otherwise not granted a post in the administration.<sup>493</sup> In March he joined two other members of the council in taking their places at the board, but rumours of his imminent appointment as lord chamberlain that circulated towards the end of June proved to be illusory.<sup>494</sup> Before the new Parliament met, Leeds wrote to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, recommending the son of the mayor of St Albans to him as his chaplain, ‘in case you be elected Speaker… (as I hope you will be).’<sup>495</sup> Two days after taking his seat on 21 Oct. 1702 (after which he attended a little over a third of all sitting days) he wrote to one of his daughters noting in approving tones Sir Edward Seymour’s ‘very good and bold speech for the Church of England’ and taking great relish in remarking the dejected condition of the Whigs.<sup>496</sup> No doubt one reason for his renewed optimism was the prospect of a reinvigorated Tory party working to his advantage in his efforts to secure the reversion of the office of auditor of the exchequer for his son, Carmarthen, over the claims of Charles Montagu*, (now become Baron Halifax). Their rivalry resulted in words being exchanged during the course of the occasional conformity bill debates, following which Carmarthen demanded satisfaction from Halifax on his father’s behalf.<sup>497</sup> The dispute persisted into the following year but without a satisfactory resolution for either party.</p><p>Given his support for the Church it is unsurprising that Leeds was estimated by Nottingham as likely to vote in favour of the occasional conformity bill at the beginning of 1703 and on 16 Feb. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. On 7 Jan. he presented the House with Robert Squire’s<sup>‡</sup> petition in answer to one submitted by Wharton for a writ of error over a dispute relating to lead mines in Swaledale.<sup>498</sup> He then subscribed the protest of 22 Jan. against the resolution to dismiss Squire’s petition. Besides such matters, the year also saw Leeds increasingly preoccupied by family difficulties. In May he expressed himself pleased to learn that Rutland seemed confident of his good intentions as he was concerned that there had been a cooling off between them.<sup>499</sup> More important were the growing tensions between Leeds and his heir. He wrote in fierce terms to Carmarthen, who had plunged the family into crisis by his decision to live openly with his mistress, Mary Morton, expostulating ‘I fear the devil has taken such strong possession of you that there is scarce any room left for hopes of that reformation.’ Carmarthen’s indebtedness was an additional worry and Leeds complained that he had been compelled to alter his settlement for a third time as a result of Carmarthen’s behaviour. He continued to chide his wayward heir, ‘all these matters are inconsiderable in comparison with the concern of your soul which must perish eternally for your being guilty of so much perfidiousness and falseness to God as well as to your wife and parents.’<sup>500</sup> Leeds continued his efforts to bring Carmarthen back into line over the summer, though he confided to one correspondent that he despaired ‘of his reformation unless some course can be taken against the woman’, whom Carmarthen had taken to describing as his marchioness even though his wife was still living.<sup>501</sup> Such dramas appear to have taken their toll and in August he fell sick once again. Early in the autumn his duchess was also said to be on the point of death, though she lingered until into the following year.<sup>502</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session, Leeds was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in two assessments drawn up in November as being likely once again to support the occasional conformity bill. Leeds then proved Sunderland right by taking his seat on 14 Dec. and voting in favour of the bill: the only day on which he attended during the entirety of the session. He also registered two dissents, first at the resolution not to give the bill a second reading and second at the resolution to throw the measure out. The death of his duchess at the beginning of January 1704 no doubt deterred Leeds from any further involvement in Parliament for the remainder of the session. In mid February he was said to have begun the composition of his memoirs, inspired by the recent publication of those by Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, the former lord chancellor. At the same time he removed to the house of his son-in-law, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, in Holborn and it was not until the beginning of March that he resumed public appearances.<sup>503</sup> Further family disappointments arose in the course of the year. In the summer his daughter, Lady Plymouth, married her chaplain Philip Bisse*, later bishop of St Davids and Hereford, ‘to the no small grief of her ancient father.’<sup>504</sup> He was on a list of lords (and Members of the Commons) drawn up by Nottingham in 1704, which perhaps indicates support over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Leeds again attended just one day of the new session (24 Oct. 1704) but in his absence he was noted among those thought likely to support the Tack. On 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. On 30 Jan. 1705, in spite of their fraught relations, he registered his proxy with Carmarthen, which was vacated by the close.<sup>505</sup> An assessment of peers’ expected allegiance relating to the succession recorded Leeds as ‘uncertain’, though it seems unlikely that he would have been sympathetic to a Stuart restoration without a clear undertaking from the Pretender that he would uphold the Church of England. At the end of June Leeds retreated to his Yorkshire estates, where he stayed till the beginning of the autumn.<sup>506</sup> The general election that summer saw his interest continuing to hold firm even in those areas far removed from his immediate field of operations at Kiveton. He was said to have been ‘a friend’ to Browne Willis<sup>‡</sup> at Buckingham, who was returned following the decision of Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup> to sit for the county.<sup>507</sup> In neighbouring Bedfordshire, a list of clergy voters in the county compiled for the Whig candidate Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup> included one of Leeds’ chaplains, Mr ‘Hotckis’ [Hodges?], incumbent of Caddington, among those ‘votes which appear desperate’.<sup>508</sup> The assessment proved prescient and at the poll, Lord Edward was driven into third place in the face of a strong Tory advance backed by the local clergy.</p><p>Leeds took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 but attended just nine days in the session (just over nine per cent of the whole), combining his occasional appearances in the House with attendance at the court of the mine adventurers company.<sup>509</sup> He was marked excused at a call of the House on 12 Nov. and failed to resume his place until 4 December. Two days later during the church in danger debates, he insisted that not only did he consider the church in danger and that it would remain so without the act against occasional conformity, but ‘that the queen had in discourse with him, declared herself of that opinion.’<sup>510</sup> He then divided predictably enough with those convinced the church was in danger and was one of the peers to subscribe the protest at the failure to carry the resolution.<sup>511</sup></p><p>At the beginning of 1706 Leeds resolved to abandon work on his memoir and in its place he set about composition of a reply to White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough’s <em>Compleat History of England</em>, which was in turn later put aside in favour of publication of his correspondence as a means of justifying his actions in office. Leeds’ response to Kennett’s work included a series of refutations of some of Kennett’s assertions, including ‘his false and impossible story about my vote’ concerning Duncombe.<sup>512</sup> In March he sought to improve his financial situation by converting his stock of £4,000 in the mine adventurers company into an annuity of £240. Leeds quit London for his estate at Kiveton towards the end of May 1706. He remained there until early October when he returned to London to see about making further alterations to his will. Leeds spent the majority of the remainder of the year at Wimbledon and attended the House on just one day at the close of the year when he was also one of those present at a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s.<sup>513</sup> The early part of 1707 was dominated by Leeds’ continuing effort to settle his will and with other family issues, including an effort to secure permission for his grandson, Lieutenant James Herbert<sup>‡</sup>, to serve on active duty even though he was still underage.<sup>514</sup></p><p>Leeds failed to attend the third session of April 1707 at all and was consequently uninvolved in the parliamentary debates surrounding the passage of the Union treaty. The summer found him once again on his estates in Yorkshire.<sup>515</sup> He finally resumed his place in the House on 23 Oct. 1707 after which he attended on just under 18 per cent of all sitting days. The following summer he was noted as a Tory in a list of peers’ party affiliations. In spite of his failure to play an active role in the debates surrounding Union, Leeds took a close interest in the elections for the Scottish representative members, not least because his son, Carmarthen, possessed a vote by virtue of his Scots viscountcy of Dunblane. Leeds received reports from Daniel Defoe towards the end of June on the condition of Scotland and the same month he put pressure on Carmarthen to cast his vote in favour of John Ker*, duke of Roxburgh [S], against Carmarthen’s own inclination.<sup>516</sup> The summer of 1708 was marked by further family developments as Leeds successfully brought to a conclusion a match between his granddaughter, Elizabeth Herbert, and Sir John Cotton<sup>‡</sup>, that had been in train since the spring.<sup>517</sup> He then made his by now regular retreat to Yorkshire for the duration of the summer months.<sup>518</sup> From there he joined with one Mr Bates in providing a mortgage for Leominster for £5,000 secured on lands in Sheppey, though as Leeds confessed in his journal the arrangement was ‘but a fiction it being in trust for me.’<sup>519</sup></p><p>Leeds returned to London in time to take his seat in the House on 27 Nov. 1708. His attendance was again sporadic, with him present on just five days in the whole session in spite of being in London for the majority of the period from the beginning of January to the middle of April 1709.<sup>520</sup> During this time he appears to have been engaged with business relating to the mine adventurers and on 21 Feb. 1709 he subscribed £6,000 to the Bank of England in the name of William Hammond of Wimbledon (the sum made up of £5,000 of his own money and £1,000 of Cotton’s).<sup>521</sup> Three months later, two thirds of this sum was lent to Sir Nathaniel Herne.<sup>522</sup> Towards the end of May 1709 rumours circulated that Philip Bisse was either to be advanced to the bishopric of Chichester or to be made a peer, his expected promotion in part owing to a recent reconciliation between Leeds and his daughter.<sup>523</sup> In the event neither proved to be correct and it was not until 1712 that Bisse was finally advanced as bishop of Hereford. Leeds spent much of the summer of 1709 in a continual progress between the court and the seats of various kinsmen. By September he appears to have resolved to re-establish himself with a central London base and so took a lease on Lindsey House from his kinsman, James Bertie<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>524</sup> In November he moved his household from its quarters in Wimbledon to the new London residence and that winter various rumours circulated that Leeds was either already or on the point of being married to ‘a gouty lady’, but these were all denied.<sup>525</sup></p><p>The Sacheverell trial finally roused Leeds from a period of almost a year away from the Lords. On 10 Jan. 1710 he resumed his place in the House and attended on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days. Leeds was said to have wept openly during Sacheverell’s speech before Parliament on 7 and 14 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn the proceedings. Despite his clear support for Sacheverell, Leeds joined several peers in quitting the chamber prior to the vote being taken on whether or nor the words judged criminal needed to be included within the articles of impeachment, perhaps conscious of the potential distraction his presence could have caused given his own experiences.<sup>526</sup> If this was so, his concern did not prevent him from subscribing the accompanying protest. On 16 Mar. he delivered a long speech of his own justifying his role in the Revolution while arguing in favour of Sacheverell’s interpretation of resistance theory.<sup>527</sup> Had the rising against James II not succeeded, he averred, it would merely have been a rebellion.<sup>528</sup> He then protested twice more against the resolutions that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment. As expected, Leeds then voted in favour of acquitting Sacheverell, although his conclusion that he would ‘vote the doctor a fool or a madman, but wondered where the high crimes or misdemeanours were’ appeared less than wholeheartedly supportive.<sup>529</sup> He then registered his dissent at the guilty verdict.</p><p>Attendance at the Sacheverell trial appears to have taken its toll on Leeds’ health.<sup>530</sup> He had presumably recovered by the beginning of May when he presented addresses to the queen from the West Riding and from Lichfield; on 20 May he presented Sir George Cooke<sup>‡</sup> to the queen with an address from Doncaster and on 29 May he introduced Robert Sacheverell<sup>‡</sup>, who presented the queen with the address from Nottingham.<sup>531</sup> The same month there was talk of a reconciliation being facilitated between Leeds and Rochester by Ormond, no doubt part of the broader resurgence in the Tory party at the time.<sup>532</sup> Such developments may have encouraged Sunderland to investigate the presence of a large cache of correspondence from the Pretender at Leeds’ London residence in the hopes of tarnishing Leeds’ reputation. Although it seems unlikely that Leeds was directly in touch with the exiled court, the implication was that members of his household may have been and the information about the presence of the letters appears to have come from Carmarthen.<sup>533</sup></p><p>Such slights do not appear to have prevented serious consideration of Leeds returning to office in the summer of 1710 as part of the general reshaping of the administration under Robert Harley and Shrewsbury. At the beginning of June, the queen was said to have responded to a request made by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] for the post of lord privy seal in the new government that it was earmarked for Leeds.<sup>534</sup> Later the same month the duchess of Marlborough was said to have protested at the prospect of her son-in-law Sunderland being displaced by someone recommended by Leeds. The idea prompted her to remind the queen of Leeds’ previously odious deportment towards her and she continued to complain at the removal of the Whigs and their replacement by the likes of Leeds and his allies.<sup>535</sup> In spite of rumours later in the summer that Leeds was actively seeking appointment as lord privy seal and his own journal noting ‘a conference of consequence with her majesty’ held in June, neither the queen nor Robert Harley appear to have been overly eager to see the duke returned to office.<sup>536</sup> Leeds was thus forced to be satisfied with lesser returns. In July he was promised the continuance of his pension from the post office for life. Peter Wentworth noted a discussion with a Mr Scarbrough about reports that Leeds had waited on the queen to advise her to continue the present Parliament. According to Scarbrough ‘that was a damned lie’ and Leeds remained adamant that a new Parliament was absolutely necessary.<sup>537</sup> Whichever was truly the case, in September Leeds was present at council when the writs for the new Parliament were ordered.<sup>538</sup> Later the same month he was offered a further sop by being restored to the lieutenancy of the East Riding.<sup>539</sup></p><p>Leeds returned to London early in October when he was assessed by Harley as a likely supporter of the new ministry. As such Leeds was active in seeking information on how the change of administration had been greeted in Hanover from one of his contacts there and he later made a point of writing directly to the elector and dowager electress, stressing his adherence to their interests and his long-standing support for the Hanoverian succession.<sup>540</sup> During that month he divided his time between London and attendance on the queen at Hampton Court, whom he petitioned for a recorder to be appointed for the town of Leeds.<sup>541</sup> He was also present at a dinner attended by Harley and other dignitaries though he caused some amusement to the person placed next to him, as Leeds was by then notorious for not eating owing to his throat disorder.<sup>542</sup> Having resumed his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, Leeds attended on approximately 36 per cent of all sitting days in the 1710-11 session, his presence in the House once again interrupted by bouts of ill health.<sup>543</sup> On 11 Jan. 1711 during the proceedings over the petition from Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, the earl of Galway [I], and some of the other army commanders concerning the conduct of the war in Spain, Leeds protested that the petition was irregular and that no notice should be taken of it.<sup>544</sup> The following day, he intervened again during the debate over the employment of the term ‘ministers’ or ‘cabinet council’ to insist that as the queen had given members of the cabinet leave to communicate what they knew of the matter, ‘no offence could be taken if any person cleared himself.’<sup>545</sup> Leeds attempted to take advantage of his improved position to recommend Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup> for one of the expected vacancies in the customs commission or on the council of trade in early March 1711.<sup>546</sup> As a further indication of his continuing close relations with the Berties, Leeds was entrusted with the proxy of Henry Bertie’s brother, Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, a few days later on 12 March. The month saw a contraction in Leeds’ old circle of acquaintance with the deaths in quick succession of Charles Bertie and his steward at Lindsey House. Leeds also appears to have continued to attempt to protect the interests of his family from the more reckless behaviour of his heir by taking out ‘an exemplification of the sentence pronounced in the spiritual court’ confirming Carmarthen’s marriage to his marchioness.<sup>547</sup></p><p>By April 1711 Leeds appears to have grown frustrated with Harley’s regime.<sup>548</sup> A desire to keep Leeds in line may have given rise to rumours both that he was to be restored to his old post of lord president and that the queen had resolved to hold meetings of the council at Hampton Court to make things easier for the almost octogenarian duke, though age did not prevent him from being one of the peers to bear the pall at Rochester’s funeral in May.<sup>549</sup> In the event, the appointment failed to be made but Leeds continued to profess his support for Harley’s administration and in June, having failed to be present when Oxford (as Harley had since become) was sworn in as lord treasurer at the exchequer, he assured him that as he intended ‘to pay you my real services I hope you will excuse me if I fail sometimes in ceremonious ones.’<sup>550</sup></p><p>The summer of 1711 found Leeds as eager as ever to secure preferment for his friends and followers, but he was unable to secure a garter for Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, his prospective grandson-in-law.<sup>551</sup> He was no less interested in acquiring places for himself and in mid-July he waited on the queen in the hopes of persuading her to appoint him to the lieutenancy of all Yorkshire as well as to the wardenship of Sherwood Forest.<sup>552</sup> His interest in re-establishing himself in his native county persisted into the late summer when he wrote to Oxford to warn him of Wharton’s efforts to buy up burgages in the county. The threat to the Tories in Yorkshire offered Leeds a further bargaining tool for persuading Oxford and the queen to restore him to his former lieutenancies, which, he explained, ‘King William took unjustly from me’.<sup>553</sup></p><p>The remaining weeks of September saw Leeds continuing to attempt to exact what he desired from the administration. On discovering the queen’s desire that garrisons should be entrusted to those with foreign service experience he resigned his claims to being restored to the governorship of Hull, only to press instead for appointment to the lieutenancies of the West Riding and to Nottinghamshire seeing that his seat was ‘not a mile distant from that county.’<sup>554</sup> In October he was finally offered the chief justiceship in eyre for Trent north, which appears to have satisfied him for the time being.<sup>555</sup> His appointment was achieved in the teeth of bitter opposition from the duchess of Newcastle, who had pleaded with Oxford to take the place himself to protect her from ‘such a man’ as Leeds, ‘who has a particular malice to me.’<sup>556</sup></p><p>Having exhausted himself with his constant calls for preferment, Leeds once more gave way to ill health leaving him unable to take his seat in the new session.<sup>557</sup> At the beginning of December he was noted among those peers who should be canvassed in advance of the No Peace without Spain motion but on 7 Dec. he entrusted his proxy to Beaufort, which was not vacated until Leeds’ return to the House the following June. In his absence, he was reckoned a likely supporter of permitting Hamilton to take his seat as duke of Brandon. His absence from the House did not prevent him from continuing to plague Oxford with a series of requests for places for his kin (particularly Beaufort) and in the middle of January 1712 he also sought the queen’s assistance in his efforts to recover some of the possessions of Charles Mallett, a bastard son of Viscount Latimer, who had recently been murdered out in the Levant.<sup>558</sup> The beginning of the year found Leeds once more concerned with family settlements, with a view to excluding his heir, Carmarthen, from a controlling interest following his death.<sup>559</sup></p><p>Leeds’ 80th birthday merited a glowing tribute in the Tory newspaper, the <em>Post Boy</em>, which noted that, ‘as there are few of quality that have arrived to those years, so there are none who have been more serviceable to the Church and state.’ The paean continued with espousing the wish that Leeds might live to see ‘the utter extirpation of whiggism and its defenders.’<sup>560</sup> Although absent from the attendance list that day, on 28 May 1712, Leeds was noted among those who supported the ministry by voting against the motion to overturn the duke of Ormond’s ‘restraining orders.’ Leeds’ first recorded sitting in the session occurred just over a week later on 6 June, almost a year to the day since his previous appearance, and he thereafter proceeded to attend on a further seven days before quitting the chamber for the last time (just over 6 per cent of the whole). On 12 June he had a conference with the queen at Kensington about ‘some removes of officers in her guards’ and following the close, he continued to play an active role at court, presenting a number of addresses to the queen and petitioning for further rewards for his family.<sup>561</sup> On 2 July he introduced an address from the corporation of Leeds to the queen, which was followed by a lengthy and bibulous session at a local tavern.<sup>562</sup> Shortly after, Leeds set out for his estates in Yorkshire.<sup>563</sup> He was taken ill en route while staying with his son-in-law, Leominster, at Easton Neston in Northamptonshire, where he died on 26 July, ‘to the great grief of all good men’ having been seized with violent wretching and vomiting.<sup>564</sup> He was succeeded in the title by his Carmarthen, as 2nd duke of Leeds.</p><p>Leeds was buried, at his direction, in the family crypt at Harthill in Yorkshire. In his will he made provision for portions for two of his granddaughters amounting to £11,500 as well as a series of bequests amounting to over £500 to kinsmen and retainers. He expressly enjoined his executors (Danby and Bishop Bisse) to ‘avoid all insignificant pomp and ceremony and particularly not to permit my body to be (as it is commonly called) laid in state.’</p><p>Leeds appears to have been more admired than liked. Both Charles II and William III found his services at times of immense value but both were more than ready to be rid of him when the time came. Queen Mary seems to have felt the same recording how he was one ‘to whom I must ever own great obligations, yet of a temper I can never like.’<sup>565</sup> His constant manoeuvring and cajoling clearly irritated some and bemused others but the essential direction of his policies was simple enough: financial stability and the establishment of a happy medium between the factions and parties. Given the former it is ironic that his financial schemes tended to be byzantine in complexity and to have offered ample scope for more or less dubious practices; for all the good intentions of the latter, it was still as the framer of a court party that he most clearly recognized, not as a figure of honest mediation. His efforts to build an Anglican loyalist party under Charles II always appeared compromised by the king’s refusal to commit clearly to such a scheme. At the heart of Leeds’ achievements was the construction of his vast network of kinsmen and retainers made possible by his keen eye for a good marriage. In spite of this and in spite of his longevity what is most striking is the degree to which his real impact was telescoped within two relatively brief phases of his lengthy career: from 1674 to 1679 and from 1688 to 1694, and that in neither period did he manage to achieve his objectives. Imprisonment robbed him of greater significance in the latter years of Charles II and the rise of the Junto prevented him retaining his position at the court of William III. By the succession of Anne he was a creature from a different age, impossible to ignore but no longer a serious contender for real power in spite of rumours of office that continued to circulate up to his death.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
PAGET, Henry (c. 1663-1743) |
<p><strong><surname>PAGET</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1663–1743)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. BURTON; <em>suc. </em>fa. 26 Feb. 1713 as 8th Bar. PAGET; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of UXBRIDGE |
|
First sat 1 Jan. 1712; last sat 4 Dec. 1741 |
|
MP Staffs. 1695-1711 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 13 Jan. 1663, 2nd but o. surv. s. of William Paget*, 7th Bar. Paget and 1st w. Frances, da. of Francis Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (Rev. Samuel Langley); ?Tamworth g.s. 1678; M. Temple 1683. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 2 Jan. 1686, Mary (<em>d</em>.1734), da. and coh. of Thomas Catesby (<em>d</em>.1699) of Whiston and Ecton, Northants., 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p.)</em>; (2) 7 June 1739, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1749), 2nd da. of Sir Walter Bagot<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 30 Aug. 1743; <em>will</em> 13 Feb. 1739-13 Aug. 1743, pr. 12 Sept. 1743.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. pens. 1689-95; mbr. council of the ld. high admiral 1704-8; commr. treasury 1710-15; PC 1711; envoy extraordinary to Hanover 1714 (did not go).</p><p>Freeman, Stafford 1689; dep. lt. Staffs., Mdx. 1689; ld. lt. Staffs. 1714-15;<sup>2</sup> recorder, Lichfield 1715-43.</p><p>Capt. yeomen of the guard 1711-15.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, Anglo-Dutch school, National Trust, Plas-Newydd, Anglesey.</p> |
<p>Described by Abel Boyer as a man of ‘bright parts and spirits’, Paget was the sole surviving son of one of William III’s longest-serving diplomats. He owed his ultimate succession to the Paget barony to the untimely death of his older brother, William, in 1684, while his marriage two years later to the heiress of the Catesbys of Whiston brought him additional interest in Northamptonshire.<sup>4</sup> His father’s almost continuous absence on foreign embassies during the 1690s meant that it was left to Paget to manage the family interest, concentrated in Staffordshire and Middlesex. Over the course of his life he built up further extensive landholdings in Staffordshire, Buckinghamshire and (in the last years of his life) in Wales. Despite being related to a number of significant political brokers in Staffordshire (including Philip Foley<sup>‡</sup>, Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Henry Ashurst<sup>‡</sup>), Paget was not well known in the area (being resident for the majority of the time at the family seat of West Drayton), and initially he proved to be reluctant to stand for Parliament himself. He withdrew from the 1693 by-election but eventually stood successfully for the county in the 1695 election and was thereafter returned for the seat at each subsequent election until his elevation to the Lords.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Paget soon distinguished himself in the Commons, speaking ‘beyond all others’ in one debate in May 1701 in defence of the Dutch and the safeguarding of Protestantism in Europe.<sup>6</sup> Having been appointed to the council of Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, in April 1704, Paget was offered a foreign posting of his own in May 1705 when he was approached about the vacant office of envoy at Vienna.<sup>7</sup> Like his father and three others, he refused the employment, which was eventually only accepted by the sixth choice candidate (Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland).<sup>8</sup> Paget’s father’s reason for refusing to accept the mission was said to have been owing to the ministry’s refusal to offer him an earldom in return.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In other areas Henry Paget and his father do not appear to have agreed so readily. While the 7th Baron was a close associate of the Whig party, Henry Paget meandered from the Whigs to the Tories, and in 1710 he accepted office in the ministry of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as one of the commissioners of the treasury. Some speculated that his appointment was truly intended as ‘recompense’ for his father, ‘who has been so long ambassador at Constantinople [and], who seems to desire none’, but he was also perceived to be a valuable bridge between the moderate Whigs and the Tories.<sup>10</sup> Both Harley and the queen hoped that his inclusion would be ‘agreeable’ to the lord privy seal, John Pelham Holles*, by then duke of Newcastle, with whom Paget enjoyed a cordial friendship, though his acceptance of the place provoked William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, to withdraw his support for Paget at the forthcoming election.<sup>11</sup> The same year Paget was forced to appeal to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, to use his interest to secure the release of his son, Thomas Catesby Paget<sup>‡</sup>, who had been seized by French troops while travelling through Germany and incarcerated at Luxembourg. Paget speculated whether it would be worth commissioning the young man so that he could be exchanged as an officer but his suggestion was rejected.<sup>12</sup> The dissolution of the treasury commission in 1711 left Oxford (as Harley had since become) desperate to find places for the former commissioners and while at one stage it was rumoured that Paget was to be appointed secretary of state, in the event he was forced to be content with the seemingly innocuous post of captain of the yeomen of the guard (captain of the beefeaters as Ralph Bridges reported it dismissively) and a place on the Privy Council.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Newcastle’s death in 1711 involved Paget, one of his co-executors, in a protracted dispute with the duke’s widow and his daughter, Lady Henrietta Holles (later countess of Oxford) over the validity of the duke’s will.<sup>14</sup> The case persisted until 1719, when the remaining litigants finally accepted a compromise proposed by the principal beneficiary, Thomas Pelham Holles<sup>†</sup>, duke of Newcastle. The crisis that faced the ministry in the winter of 1711-12 proved to be the catalyst for Paget’s early elevation to the Lords as one of the dozen new creations engineered by Oxford. His reputation as a man with both Tory and Whig associates perhaps also contributed to his selection.<sup>15</sup> It might also have been significant that his kinsman and Staffordshire neighbour, Thomas Foley*, was also ennobled at this time as Baron Foley.</p><p>On 1 Jan. 1712 Paget was created Baron Burton. He took his seat in the House the following day introduced between his contemporary, John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle (earl of Orrery [I]). Thereafter he attended on a further 73 days in the session until the prorogation in July (approximately 66 per cent of the whole). On 28 May he rallied to the ministry in voting against the address seeking the reversal of orders preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging the French.</p><p>The death of Burton’s father in February 1713 enabled him to assume his place as 8th Baron Paget at the upper end of the barons’ bench on 10 Mar. (a prorogation day). The 7th Baron had made clear his disagreements with his heir in his will by conveying the majority of his unentailed possessions to his nephew, Thomas Paget<sup>‡</sup>, and his house in Bloomsbury Square to his housekeeper. Although the contents of his seats at Drayton and Beaudesert were bequeathed to his son, the 7th Baron stipulated that this bequest was conditional on his successor not making ‘any disturbance’ about the will. The former lord’s treatment of his son and grandson (who was left a niggardly £20) provoked scandal in society, but even so it was noted that the new lord paid scant attention to his father’s wishes and ‘seized on everything’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Noted in a list compiled by Jonathan Swift as being likely to support Oxford’s ministry in March 1713, Paget took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713 after which he was present on approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Apr. the House heard the petition of George Ball, who was seeking the reversal of a chancery decree made in favour of Paget, Sir James Lane, 2nd Viscount Lanesborough [I], Henry Petty<sup>‡</sup>, Baron (later earl of) Shelburne [I] and several others, relating to the control of a brass works at Esher, of which Ball was a former employee. Ball’s petition was dismissed a month later on 13 May. In the interim, on 29 Apr., Paget put in his answer to the allegations made by the dowager duchess of Newcastle in the continuing dispute over the duke’s will in the court of delegates, contradicting her assertions that the document was spurious.<sup>17</sup> Despite early expectation that he would remain loyal to the ministry, and Oxford’s own estimate that Paget would vote in favour of confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French treaty of commerce, Paget appears to have opposed the measure; though (if he did) unlike his colleague on the Privy Council, Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, he was not removed from office for his disobedience.<sup>18</sup> On 29 June Paget was successful in moving for a clause to be added to the opening of the address to the queen proposed by Thomas Wharton*, earl of Wharton, requesting that she employ her interest to have the Pretender removed from the duke of Lorrain’s lands. Paget’s addition thanked her pointedly ‘for the care already taken.’<sup>19</sup></p><p>Paget wasted no time in making plain the price of his continued support for Oxford. As early as mid April he had written requesting promotion in the peerage to an earldom (something for which his family had been angling since at least 1705). Following the dissolution in August 1713, Paget repeated the request. He did so again six days later and at regular intervals over the summer. Although no progress was made in his promotion at this point, Oxford wrote to his brother, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, describing Paget as one ‘whose friendship you know is to be depended on’ and towards the close of the month Paget seems to have been satisfied with Oxford’s efforts on his behalf. In September Paget took the opportunity of again reminding Oxford of his promise and at the same time sought his interest in procuring a living for his son’s tutor, which was shortly to be vacated by the appointment of George Verney*, 12th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to the deanery of Windsor.<sup>20</sup> Oxford proved non-committal on both points, and on the latter he merely remarked, ‘if Lord Willoughby be willing to part with it I hope you will find no difficulty though I seldom see the clergy easy to resign.’<sup>21</sup> The elections for Staffordshire of that month were uncontested, the two former Members standing aside in favour of two newcomers, Henry Vernon<sup>‡</sup> and Ralph Sneyd<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup> Paget, who appears to have been at Drayton for most of the summer, presumably acquiesced in their election, though he would later recommend in advance of the 1715 election that Vernon be put out from the commission of the peace for abusing his office by canvassing in favour of Tory candidates.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Paget took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714. He introduced his former colleague at the treasury, Robert Benson*, as Baron Bingley and was thereafter present for a little under half of all sitting days. Three days after taking his seat, he sent Oxford a petulant missive enquiring once again about his promised earldom:</p><blockquote><p>Your lordship having told me eight or nine months ago, that her Majesty had been pleased to consent to grant me the favour I had (by your kind promise) desired for myself, and your lordship having after that promised me your good offices for the dispatch of it, and very particularly in your letter from Wimple about six months ago, sent me word you would fix that matter at your return to Windsor from that place. I hope you’ll allow me to be surprised that I should at the distance of time have any occasion to solicit for what I thought would some time ago have been finished. But your lordship saying very little upon that subject to me when I saw you last at Windsor, and saying nothing about it since my coming to town, I cannot but think myself treated with great unkindness.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>Oxford’s continuing prevarication elicited yet another bad-tempered missive from Paget on 22 February. By now he was convinced that Oxford was playing him false: ‘since the queen … consented to grant what I desired so long ago, nothing but your forgetfulness of, and unkindness to me can prevent confirming the favour.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>Despite their steadily worsening relations over Oxford’s inability or refusal to procure Paget his earldom, between April and May Oxford and Paget were involved in extended negotiations over Paget’s appointment to an embassy to Hanover aimed at preventing the electoral prince (George Augustus*, later King George II) from taking his seat in the House as duke of Cambridge.<sup>26</sup> Although Oxford wrote to his cousin, Thomas Harley<sup>‡</sup> on 13 Apr. announcing Paget’s nomination and despite his optimistic appraisal that ‘this quality and character must please’, a number of issues gave Paget pause in accepting the undertaking. The modest allowance he was to receive was one, though he insisted that he would ‘scorn to refuse going’ for that reason. Another was his demand that his mission should be of short duration, ‘otherwise my affairs won’t permit me to go’, but by far the most contentious sticking point was his continuing quest for promotion in the peerage, which he insisted should be conferred before his departure.<sup>27</sup> Suspecting that members of the ministry opposed to his undertaking the mission were deliberately placing obstacles in his path, Paget once more gave vent to his exasperation in a letter to Oxford, in which he complained:</p><blockquote><p>If I understand your lordship’s letter of last night, ill offices are doing me with her majesty to prevent my going in her service to Hanover, if that be the case though you call the persons doing it my familiar acquaintance they must since they must be ministers be more your lordship’s acquaintance than mine. I hope who ever they are that act that part, they will not be mean enough to represent me otherwise to the queen than as I am; one always proud to show the utmost duty to her commands; and pleased to be employed in her service.<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>Paget was correct in detecting a fissure within the ministry. While Oxford was eager that he should undertake the mission, Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, was determined to scupper the plan and it was openly reported that in this matter Bolingbroke had got the better of Oxford.<sup>29</sup> The continuing impasse elicited another impatient letter from Paget at the beginning of May 1714 in which he complained, ‘none of your letters mentions anything about the title’, and on 8 May he let fly a further exasperated letter questioning why he had still not received the peerage, which he believed the queen had consented to months before. Another letter of the same day announced that his wife had fallen sick with smallpox, which would further impede his ability to set out on the embassy.<sup>30</sup> Concern for his wife was clearly secondary and the following day he again laid out his grievances at large:</p><blockquote><p>I am a good deal surprised that there is still difficulty made in granting me the title. ’Tis what I had never asked and what I as little thought there would have been need of great solicitation to have procured, for several reasons; but since ‘tis not done, and so much pains have been taken to make it talked of about the town as a thing done, I must be of opinion it is at this time refused purely to convince me ‘tis the desire of those who advise the queen that I neither have the favour of her majesty or the kindness of my friends about her, and in plain English telling me they refuse me these assurances that I may be obliged to desire not to go that service.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite this, on 11 May it was confidently predicted that Paget would still undertake the mission.<sup>32</sup> Following further recriminatory letters over the course of the month, Paget at last decided against taking up the post, infuriated by Oxford’s eventual excuse that the promotion was not in ‘his province’ and that he ought instead to address his enquiries to the secretary of state, William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>33</sup> Oxford claimed to be taken aback by the vehemence of Paget’s criticism, lamenting his ‘misfortune that when I study most to express friendship and service not to succeed’.<sup>34</sup> Paget’s decision prompted the queen to write to Prince George explaining the delay in the arrival of the envoy as being owing to ‘an accident’ in Paget’s family but also offered her an opportunity of making plain her displeasure at his proposed journey, which she described as ‘dangerous to the tranquillity of my dominions’.<sup>35</sup> Paget’s withdrawal then cleared the way for Bolingbroke to secure the appointment of his candidate, Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, to the Hanoverian embassy instead.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Paget’s irritation with Oxford did not unreservedly throw him into the hands of the opposition, and on 27 May 1714 he was noted by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as doubtful on the question of the schism bill (perhaps a reflection of his Presbyterian roots and education at the hands of an ejected clergyman). The following month, on 22 June, Paget presented a petition to the House protesting against a new bill for making more effective a former act to make the river Trent navigable, perceiving it to be contrary to his and his tenants’ interests. Paget was well versed in the act having steered the original measure through the Commons in 1699 and overseen subsequent amendments. Theophilus Hastings*, 9th earl of Huntingdon, whose family’s concerns Paget had been at pains to accommodate in the original bill, presented a similar petition.<sup>37</sup> On 28 June the House resolved itself into a committee to consider the bill but as no chairman could be found, it rose without conducting any business and, following a series of adjournments, the bill was lost at the prorogation.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Paget attended on nine days of the brief fifteen-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death in August. His decision not to take on the Hanoverian embassy earlier in the year proved beneficial for his relations with the new regime, and on 19 Oct. he was at last rewarded with the earldom of Uxbridge: one of 14 coronation peerages. Despite this clear demonstration of royal favour, Paget rapidly distanced himself from the new administration. He resigned the captaincy of the yeomen of the guard in September 1715 and the lieutenancy of Stafford in October (to which he had been appointed only in May). He also resumed friendly relations with Oxford.<sup>39</sup> For the remainder of his life he proved a consistent member of the opposition. Details of the second part of his career will be covered in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Uxbridge married for a second time in 1739, five years after the death of his first wife. The death of his only son and heir, Thomas Catesby Paget, (from 1713 styled Lord Paget) in 1742 meant that on Uxbridge’s own death the following year, it was his grandson, also named Henry Paget<sup>†</sup>, who succeeded as 2nd earl of Uxbridge. In his will, composed in 1739, Uxbridge requested that he be buried at Hillingdon in a vault specially prepared for the purpose. Generous bequests of £12,000 apiece to All Souls and Worcester College, Oxford and of £10,000 to Captain Thomas Coram’s newly established Foundling Hospital and £2,000 to the hospital at Hyde Park Corner were all annulled in codicils that were appended between 1741 and 1743. The Oxford bequests were withdrawn entirely, while those to the Foundling Hospital and Hyde Park hospital were reduced to £2,000 and £1,000 respectively. Substantial sums of money and annuities were bequeathed to members of his family including grants of more than £6,000 to his wife in addition to the terms of her dower. Francis North<sup>†</sup>, Baron North (later earl of Guilford), Sir Edmund Probyn and Sir Walter Bagot<sup>‡</sup> were appointed trustees, and Lady Uxbridge, Probyn and Uxbridge’s cousin, Sir William Irby<sup>‡</sup> (one of the principal beneficiaries of the will) were named executors.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
PAGET, William (1609-78) |
<p><strong><surname>PAGET</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1609–78)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Aug. 1628 (a minor) as 6th Bar. PAGET |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 16 May 1660; last sat 2 July 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 13 Sept. 1609, 1st s. of William Paget<sup>†</sup>, 5th Bar. Paget, and Lettice (<em>d</em>.1655), da. and coh. of Henry Knollys<sup>‡</sup> of Ewelme, Oxon. and Kingsbury, Warws. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1627. <em>m</em>. 28 June 1632, Frances (<em>d</em>.1672), da. of Henry Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holland, 3s. 7da. KB 1 Feb. 1626. <em>d</em>. 19 Oct. 1678; admon. to William Paget*, 7th Bar. Paget, 14 Nov. 1678.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Bucks. (roy.) 1641–2, (parl.) 1642; kpr. New Lodge Walk, Windsor Forest 1642; <em>custos rot.</em> Staffs. 1660–78.</p><p>Col. ft. regt. (roy.) 1642.</p><p>Fell. comm. Wadham, Oxf. 1643.</p> |
|
<p>The Pagets owed their rise under the Tudors to the loyal service of Sir William Paget<sup>†</sup> (later Baron Paget), who was rewarded with extensive former monastic lands in Staffordshire, Buckinghamshire and Middlesex.<sup>5</sup> Sir William displayed impressive political flexibility, acting for four of the five Tudor monarchs, including Queen Mary, who recognized his qualities despite his Protestantism. The rebellion and subsequent attainder of the Catholic Thomas Paget<sup>†</sup>, 4th Baron Paget (sometimes referred to as the 3rd baron because his predecessor, the 2nd baron’s immediate heir, held the title as a baroness in her own right, but died as an infant), caused a brief hiatus in their fortunes. Even when the family estates were returned to William Paget, 5th Baron Paget, between 1597 and 1604, a punitive fee farm rent of £750 tore into his comparatively modest annual receipts of approximately £2,000. Financial uncertainty continued to plague the family well into the seventeenth century and goes some way towards explaining the 6th baron’s determination to secure a lucrative court office and his disgruntlement at his inability to do so.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Through his marriage, Paget became attached to the extended families of Rich and Devereux. Paget’s sisters also made influential matches to prominent puritan grandees but the wayward Holland’s inability to maintain his interest at court reflected on his son-in-law.<sup>7</sup> By the beginning of the Civil War, besides the lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire, Paget had only succeeded in acquiring the relatively minor office of keeper of New Lodge Walk in Windsor Forest (Holland being constable of the castle).<sup>8</sup> His failure to secure more prominent office does not appear to have been a result of being ‘half-witted’ as William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, was said to have taunted him.<sup>9</sup></p><p>As with his father-in-law, Paget’s sympathies fluctuated during the progress of the Civil War, though it would be a mistake to assume that he always followed Holland’s lead.<sup>10</sup> Having been confirmed as lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire by Parliament, he ‘began to boggle, and was unfixed in his resolutions’.<sup>11</sup> Experiencing a dramatic change of heart, Paget rallied to the king at York, where he was understandably treated with considerable suspicion.<sup>12</sup> Although usually associated with the presbyterians it is possible that Paget’s conversion to the royalist cause at this time owed something to the influence of his chaplain, the uncompromising Laurence Womock*, later bishop of St Davids.</p><p>Paget raised a regiment of foot for service in the opening campaign of the war but his behaviour did little to alleviate the doubts of the royalists. In November 1644 he determined to desert Charles I for Parliament once more. Having handed himself over to his cousin Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Essex, he was imprisoned briefly and fined for his misconduct but was shortly after permitted to return to London. In April 1645 he took the covenant.<sup>13</sup> By 1648 his loyalties were once again in doubt. He was implicated in Holland’s rising during the second Civil War and he strenuously opposed the execution of the king.<sup>14</sup> Despite this, and having survived his father-in-law’s fall, by the early 1650s Paget appears to have settled his conscience and determined to be ‘a good commonwealthsman’.<sup>15</sup> In 1652 he was discharged from his sequestration by the provisions of the Act of Pardon and was allowed to reside at his house at West Drayton.<sup>16</sup></p><p>By the Restoration, Paget’s stance had altered once again and he was now understood to be in favour of the king’s return. Despite his fluctuating loyalties, he was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as being one of those peers who had been ‘with the king’.<sup>17</sup> Paget undoubtedly hoped to achieve some restitution from the new regime, his woeful financial situation being such that, despite supposedly enjoying an income of £3,000 p.a. (£1,000 of which was from lands in Staffordshire), after payment of debts and annuities he had a mere £23 to live on each year.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Paget delayed taking his seat in the House until he was directly summoned to do so. He returned to the Lords on 16 May in company with John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace, and Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, when he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. He sat for a little over half of the remainder of the Convention, during which he was named to a number of select committees. On 18 June he reported from the committee for privileges considering the case of Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. In August he assumed the family responsibility for nominating one person to be excepted from the Act of Indemnity as propitiation for Holland’s execution. He took the curious step of naming John Blackwell<sup>‡</sup>, who was already dead, ‘and would name no other’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Paget failed to sit during the second session of the Convention, perhaps being preoccupied with financial problems. Determined to get to grips with his finances, he began a lengthy legal tussle that year with Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, and Sir Job Harby over the leasing of the customs on sea-coal.<sup>20</sup> Paget’s share had been inherited from his father-in-law, Holland.<sup>21</sup> In October, Paget petitioned the king on the state of his finances, raising the particular problem of the fee-farm rent, but he appears to have been unsuccessful in obtaining any redress.<sup>22</sup> In January 1661 he was included in a list of peers who had failed to pay their poll bills.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Paget’s electoral interest had declined in the years since the civil wars. His authority in Great Marlow, which had never been certain, was now barely apparent, but at the general election he employed his interest at Tamworth successfully on behalf of his steward, John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>24</sup> He was also granted a minor ceremonial role at the coronation, officiating as assistant cupbearer.<sup>25</sup> On 8 May 1661 Paget took his seat in the first session of the Cavalier Parliament. He proved to be a relatively active member, attending approximately 65 per cent of sitting days, during which he was named to some 29 committees. On 14 May he was named to the committee considering the bill for the reversal of the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, a measure which he had been eager to see enacted 20 years before. In July he was believed to be opposed to Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his efforts to secure the great chamberlaincy, perhaps indicating a preference for the presbyterian Lindsey.<sup>26</sup> In December Paget submitted a petition to the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, over his ongoing attempt to secure the lease on the customs on coal.<sup>27</sup> On 6 Feb. 1662 he entered his protest at the resolution to restore Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to his estates.<sup>28</sup> Paget was presumably well acquainted with the case, having been nominated to the committee considering Derby’s bill over the course of two sessions.<sup>29</sup> He also appears to have been an active member of the committee for drawing up an act repealing the acts of the Long Parliament.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Paget took his seat at the opening of the second session on 18 Feb. 1663. He was thereafter present for approximately 62 per cent of the session, during which he was named to 20 select committees. In common with many presbyterians, he was predicted as being a likely supporter of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon.<sup>31</sup> On 19 Mar. he was again named to the committee considering the bill for repealing acts of the Long Parliament and on 4 Apr. he was nominated as one of those to attend the king to give thanks for his answer to the Lords’ petition concerning popish priests.</p><p>Paget took his seat in the new session on 16 Mar. 1664. He then proceeded to attend 94 per cent of all sitting days of the two-month session. Nominated to ten committees, in May he was entrusted with the proxy of his brother-in-law, Robert Rich*, 2nd earl of Holland, which was vacated by the close of the session. Paget’s increasing authority within the House may have been indicated by his chairing at least one of the sessions of the committee deliberating on the conventicles bill; as such he used his influence to attempt to ameliorate the bill’s likely effects on Protestant nonconformists.<sup>32</sup> On 21 Apr. he was named to the committee examining the bill against gaming and on 10 May to that concerning the bill to continue the act for regulating the press.</p><p>Paget was absent without explanation at a call of the House on 7 Dec. 1664 but he resumed his seat ten days later and was named to a dozen committees over the course of the session. Absent for much of the following year and a half, in April 1666 he was one of those peers appointed to try Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle, for murder, and concluded with the majority that Morley was guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.<sup>33</sup> He took his seat once more on 26 Sept. 1666 but attended just three days during the whole 91-day session. At the instance of John Granville*, earl of Bath, Paget submitted a testimony in April 1667 to help settle a dispute raging between Bath in his office of groom of the stole and the various grooms of the bedchamber, all vying for the perquisite of supplying the king’s linen. Paget was in no doubt that the honour lay with the groom of the stole, an office formerly held by his father-in-law, Holland.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Paget returned to the House for two days in July 1667, before taking his seat at the opening of the new session on 10 October. The following day he was named to the usual sessional committees. Present for approximately two-thirds of all sitting days in the session, he was excused at a call of the House on 29 Oct. before resuming his seat on 6 November. The following day he was named to the committee considering the trial of peers bill, and on 10 Dec. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons concerning freedom of speech in Parliament. On 15 Apr. 1668 he was added to the committee considering the case between Thomas Skinner and the East India Company.</p><p>Paget was absent from the House from 2 May 1668 until October of the following year. On 26 Oct. 1669 he was again missing at a call. He sent word that he was travelling to London and resumed his seat three days later. He was then present for approximately 63 per cent of sitting days. On 10 Nov. he moved for the bill for taking away the Lords’ right to try original causes, which had been sent up from the Commons the week before, to be read once but then rejected. The measure was thrown out by an overwhelming majority.<sup>35</sup> Paget was also involved during the term as one of the 2nd earl of Holland’s trustees in a case triggered by the latter’s dismissal of his steward, Joseph Garrett.<sup>36</sup> Paget took his seat at the opening of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670, during which he was named to some 16 committees, including that considering the charitable uses bill of John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester, which Paget chaired on 3 March. Despite this he attended less than a fifth of the session as a whole and was afterwards absent from the House for the ensuing two years.</p><p>Financial concerns once more came to the fore during the summer of 1670. In May Paget rejected a suggestion, probably by Swinfen, that he marry off one or more of his unmarried daughters, declaring that:</p><blockquote><p>Sir though you are pleased to say I am no sufferer by any money raised lately for my son Thomas, and my two daughters’ portions, yet give me leave to say I am a great sufferer, and find daily such inconveniences by the late raising of moneys, as I may live perhaps to repent it.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>The following month, word that the king was signing commissions for the sale of fee-farm rents encouraged Paget to appeal to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> to assist him in obtaining papers originally submitted to Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington (whom Paget praised for having assisted him ‘nobly’) in a further effort to solve his financial crisis.<sup>38</sup> Again, no progress appears to have been made. Excused at a call in February 1671, Paget’s avoidance of the House seems to have been on the grounds of expense, as he wrote of enjoying ‘the free air at Drayton’, though Swinfen commended him for keeping ‘out of the heat of bustles and factions’ in Parliament.<sup>39</sup></p><p>In a letter of 11 Apr. Paget, referring to the continuing case between Holland and Joseph Garrett, explained the delay in securing satisfaction in the measure on account of the fact that:</p><blockquote><p>Parliament does not rise so soon as you probably may imagine. New imposts are daily invented such as were never heard of before, which keeps the wheels still going in spite of their teeth, who would fain live quietly at their own houses; and till there be an adjournment, or a prorogation, no possible hopes of good success in my petition, I shall carefully attend it, when I am informed ’tis a fit time for it, but truly, not to abuse and flatter myself, I expect very little good by my address to his Majesty, ’tis true I have much right by my side, but ’tis profit and private interest in these righteous times that we live in which governs all, more is to be done by a lusty bribe than by any friend whatsoever …<sup>40</sup></p></blockquote><p>In October 1671, this and other concerns led Paget to profess himself to be at his ‘wits end what to do, or how to come off with my credit and reputation’. By this time, his debts amounted to between £500 and £600, ‘for payment of which I am much solicited and molested’. Appealing to Swinfen to rescue him from his predicament, Paget exclaimed:</p><blockquote><p>For God’s sake try what may be done in reconciling these different interests, they distract me much, I am in so great disorder of mind, and in such a peck of troubles all these unlucky cross accidents as I know not well what to say or think, if I write nonsense you must excuse me.<sup>41</sup></p></blockquote><p>Paget was also troubled by a separate ongoing dispute between him and Sir Walter Aston, 2nd Baron Aston [S], over rights in the forests of Staffordshire. The cause was one that had been fomenting steadily between the families since the early years of the century and was now in danger of rumbling on without resolution because of Paget’s disorganization. He was chided by Swinfen for failing to respond to Aston’s latest approach in July 1672, and the long-suffering agent could only suggest that ‘it’s so long since that your lordship may choose whether you will answer it or no. Only if you do, then I humbly conceive the excuse for the delay must be your forgetfulness.’<sup>42</sup></p><p>Perhaps frustrated with the court’s unwillingness to assist him, Paget became increasingly identified with the opposition of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. Meanwhile his attendance of the House continued to fluctuate with his own uncertain health. He returned after his lengthy absence on 4 Feb. 1673, after which he was present for approximately 73 per cent of the session. Sick during the summer, he was cautioned by Swinfen against returning to Parliament precipitately in October 1673, and advised to delay until his ‘present distempers’ were alleviated: ‘There is nothing worse for you both in regards of the piles and looseness than motion, and exposing yourself to take cold, which may soon cause a relapse into a more dangerous condition.’<sup>43</sup> Paget heeded this advice and failed to attend the brief session that month. Presumably in better health, he took his seat once more at the opening of the ensuing session on 7 Jan. 1674 and attended all bar one of the 38 sitting days. He was similarly assiduous the following year, attending 40 of the 42 sitting days of the session of April 1675. On 13 Apr. he registered his dissent at the resolution to present an address of thanks for the king’s speech. He then subscribed the protest against the resolution of 21 Apr. that the Test bill did not encroach upon the privileges of the lords. On 4 May he appears to have subscribed a subsequent protest against the clause in the bill imposing an oath on members of both Houses but his signature was later excised (presumably at his own request).<sup>44</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1676 Paget was again one of the triers of a fellow peer, finding Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of murder.<sup>45</sup> In the following session he took his seat on 26 Feb. 1677, and was present on 70 per cent of all sitting days, being named to 24 committees. In May he was assessed ‘thrice worthy’ by Shaftesbury. He returned to the House one day into the new session on 24 May 1678 and, in spite of failing health, proceeded to attend a little over half of the session. On the day that he returned he was named to the committee considering the act to provide relief for Protestant strangers and three days later to that examining the act for reviving a former act avoiding unnecessary suits and delays for the better settling of intestates’ estates.</p><p>Paget sat for the final time on 2 July 1678, a few days before the close of the session. He died later that year on 19 Oct. and was buried in the family vault at West Drayton. He was described by one local commentator in 1663 as having been of ‘no parts that I know of except a good stomach’.<sup>46</sup> The assessment seems to be curmudgeonly. Ironically, in view of his involvement in reviving the act to accelerate the settlement of intestates’ estates, Paget died without making a will; he left a personal estate valued at £5,536 15<em>s</em>. 1<em>d</em>.<sup>47</sup> He was succeeded by his eldest son, William Paget, as 7th Baron Paget.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
PAGET, William (1637-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>PAGET</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1637–1713)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Oct. 1678 as 7th Bar. PAGET |
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1678; last sat 7 Dec. 1711 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Feb. 1637, 1st surv. s. of William Paget*, 6th Bar. Paget, and Frances, da. of Henry Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holland. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1656–7. <em>m</em>. (1) July 1661, Frances (<em>d</em>.1681), da. of Francis Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> of Nottingham and Elizabeth Bray, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 1681, Isabella (<em>d</em>.1685), da. of Sir Anthony Irby<sup>‡</sup> of Whaplode, Lincs. and Katherine, da. of William Paget<sup>†</sup>, 5th Bar. Paget, 1s. (<em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 26 Feb. 1713; <em>will</em> 14 Apr. 1711, pr. 16 Mar. 1715.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Staffs. 1689–1713; <em>custos rot</em>. Staffs. 1689–1713.</p><p>Amb. Vienna, 1689-92, Constantinople, 1692-1702.</p> |
|
<p>Little is known of Paget before 1656, when he was given a pass to travel abroad.<sup>2</sup> He does not appear to have been active at the time of the Restoration, or to have made any effort to involve himself in Parliament prior to his accession to the peerage. His marriage in July 1661 to Frances, granddaughter of Robert Pierrepont<sup>†</sup>, earl of Kingston, presumably reflected his own adherence to his father’s presbyterian convictions.</p><p>Despite previously exercising no obvious political interest, Paget was quick to take his place in the Lords following his father’s death in October 1678, just as allegations of a Popish Plot were gaining credence. He entered the House on 25 Nov., two days after receiving his writ of summons, after which he was present on 29 per cent of all sitting days. The day after his first appearance he was named to the committee considering the bill for raising the militia. On 29 Nov. he supported the motion agreeing with the Commons that the Catholic queen should be removed from Whitehall and he was one of three peers to register their dissents when the motion was rejected. He returned to the House on 8 Mar. and attended four days of the abortive session before taking his seat again at the opening of the new Parliament on 15 March. He was thereafter present on almost 93 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>In advance of the session he was estimated to be an opponent of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and in April Paget voted accordingly in favour of Danby’s attainder. On 8 May he supported the motion to appoint a joint committee with the Commons to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and he entered his dissent again when the House resolved not to do so. On 23 May he registered two dissents: the first at the resolution to instruct the Lords’ committee meeting with the Commons that the Lords would give no other answer concerning the bishops’ voting, and the second in opposition to the resolution to proceed with the trial of the five impeached lords before proceeding with that of Danby. Four days later, Paget dissented once more at the resolution to insist upon the vote confirming the bishops’ right to remain in court during capital cases until sentence of death was pronounced.</p><p>Following the dissolution of the first Exclusion Parliament, Paget exercised his interest at Tamworth on behalf of his father’s old retainer, John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>3</sup> He was also active in the Buckinghamshire election in company with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in support of John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton.<sup>4</sup> Paget took his seat in the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He spoke in the House during the debates on the exclusion bill and on 15 Nov. he voted against rejecting the bill at first reading. He then subscribed the resulting protest when the measure was thrown out. On 23 Nov. he supported moves to appoint a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation and again protested when the motion was not adopted. On 7 Dec. he found William Stafford*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. A month later, on 7 Jan. 1681, Paget entered his dissent at the failure to put resolutions to commit Sir William Scroggs or to suspend him from office.</p><p>Paget was one of 16 peers to subscribe the petition of January 1681 opposing the decision to summon the new Parliament to Oxford.<sup>5</sup> Having failed to secure his point Paget attended four days out of the seven-day session of March 1681, during which he remained opposed to Danby’s continuing attempts to secure bail. On 26 Mar. he subscribed the protest against the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than by impeachment, and in May he was in court for Fitzharris’ trial.<sup>6</sup> Later that year, in November, he offered sanctuary in his London home to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, following the latter’s release from the Tower.<sup>7</sup> The death of his wife the same month seems not to have affected Paget unduly as he appears to have remarried almost immediately. His second marriage, to his first cousin Isabella Irby, probably happened within a month of his first wife’s death.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Paget’s attendance at the horse races at Chester in August 1682 may have pointed to involvement with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, who was at that point touring the midlands.<sup>9</sup> The following summer, along with his kinsmen Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> and Philip Foley<sup>‡</sup>, he was implicated in the Rye House Plot.<sup>10</sup> Between September 1682 and February of the following year Paget acted to suppress Samuel Starkey, one of the government witnesses who had searched his home, imprisoning him for trespass and then stalling efforts to bring Starkey to trial to ensure that he remained incarcerated.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Paget was called as a witness for the defence at the trial of Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> in November 1683 and again at John Hampden’s trial in February 1684.<sup>12</sup> He stood bail for the latter.<sup>13</sup> Although wholly out of sympathy with the new regime, Paget attended more than 90 per cent of all sitting days in the Parliament summoned following James II’s accession. On 20 June 1685 he reported from two committees, for Isaac Savory’s change of name and for Edward Mellor’s estate bill. During that year he suffered a series of personal blows with the death of his heir, William, in August and of his second wife in December 1685, a loss that undoubtedly affected him profoundly. He also appears to have narrowly avoided being proceeded against for complicity in the Monmouth rebellion.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Paget was granted leave to travel abroad in May 1686, ostensibly to drink the water at Spa but he may have been anxious to quit the country for political reasons.<sup>15</sup> It is unclear when he returned home but his name appears on the various parliamentary lists of 1687–8 as an opponent of the king’s policies. His name was included among those expected to be prepared to stand bail for one of the Seven Bishops in June but he was unable to attend the trial, being called away to attend to his pregnant daughter-in-law.<sup>16</sup> In November he was one of those to subscribe the petition calling for a free Parliament. Present at the meetings of the provisional government held between 21 and 25 Dec., Paget undoubtedly supported William of Orange’s invasion, though he may at first have favoured the accession of Princess Mary alone.<sup>17</sup> According to some sources, in the debates of 24 Dec. he proposed that the princess should be proclaimed queen, arguing that once that was done a Parliament could be summoned, but George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, recorded the contribution differently: according to him, Paget recommended that the prince should summon a Parliament.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Paget took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, following which he was present on 83 per cent of all sitting days. By the end of the month he had altered his initial position and he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary jointly king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ and entered his dissent when it was resolved not to do so. On 6 Feb. he voted to concur with the Commons again, supporting the declaration that the throne was ‘vacant’. Two days later Paget was nominated one of the managers of the conference for declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen. Later that month, on 18 Feb., he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for preventing disputes about the sitting of this Parliament. On 5 Mar. he was again nominated to a conference for assisting the king. On the same day he reported from the committee concerning papists and on 6 Mar. reported on the bill for removing papists from London. On 23 Mar. Paget entered his protest at the resolution to reject a proviso to the bill for abrogating the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, extending the time for taking the sacramental test and for permitting the sacrament to be taken in any Protestant church. On 28 Mar. he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the bill for removing papists.</p><p>In March 1689 Paget was rewarded for his loyalty to the new regime with his appointment as lord lieutenant of Staffordshire in place of the Catholic Walter Aston, 3rd Baron Aston [S]. The following month, he was appointed ambassador to Vienna, being granted £500 for his equipage and a pension of £5 a day for his ordinary expenses.<sup>19</sup> Some delay followed before he embarked on his mission and in the meantime he remained active in the House. In a vote suggestive of his continuing belief in the reality of the Popish Plot, in May he voted in favour of reversing the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. The same month he was nominated one of the reporters at each of the three conferences held to consider the additional poll bill, and on 27 May he reported on the bill to suspend the habeas corpus act. On 20 June he was again named a manager of the conference considering the bill for enabling the commissioners of the great seal. He reported on the bill for the college of physicians on 4 July. On 25 July he was named one of the reporters of the conference for the tea and coffee duty bill and two days later he was named to the second conference on the same measure. On 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing Oates’s perjury judgments. He then entered his protest at the resolution to do so. On 2 Aug. he reported from the committee on the bill to repeal the act against multiplying gold and silver.</p><p>Paget finally left England in September 1689, embarking on a diplomatic career that would keep him abroad almost without interruption for the ensuing 14 years.<sup>20</sup> ‘Normally reserved and quiet, but with an irascible temper’, he proved to be a capable diplomat.<sup>21</sup> During his lengthy absence from England the vast proportion of the family interest and estates fell under the control of his son, Henry Paget*, (later earl of Uxbridge).<sup>22</sup></p><p>By November 1689, Paget had reached Augsburg, where he complained of his poor treatment at court.<sup>23</sup> He found the strong influence of the Roman Catholic Church within the Empire stifling and complained that:</p><blockquote><p>I am now in a place where ecclesiastical power is so extremely great, that no person (that is not of their opinions) can be looked upon with any common civility … and therefore you may suppose negotiations go on slowly and heavily, while their priests are continually buzzing in their ears passive obedience to Mother Church which forbids all converse and sincerity of dealings with hereticks …<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>In August 1690 he sought leave to return to England for a while, believing that there was little likelihood of business over the summer but his request was clearly ignored.<sup>25</sup> In December 1691 it was rumoured that he was to be recalled, but the successive deaths of two ambassadors to the Ottoman Porte led to his appointment to Constantinople in August 1692. Following a brief sojourn in London during the summer, Paget once more set out for his embassy in September.<sup>26</sup> In November he was allowed £500 for his equipage and a salary of £10 a day until his arrival at Constantinople, after which his expenses were to be paid by the Levant Company. His allowance was set at £2,500 p.a.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Paget finally reached Belgrade in January 1693 and then proceeded to Adrianople (modern-day Edirne), where his behaviour ‘was greatly admired by the Turks’.<sup>28</sup> During his long years at the Ottoman court, he developed good relations with his hosts and concentrated on the building of an ambassadorial palace with a chapel based on St George’s Chapel, Windsor.<sup>29</sup> By contrast, his relationship with the Dutch emissaries already ensconced at the court proved to be far less harmonious and rapidly broke down.</p><p>Reports that Paget had died at his post reached England in October 1694.<sup>30</sup> These were rapidly shown to be erroneous but by the beginning of 1695 the extent of his financial difficulties was becoming generally known. Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> noted that Paget’s secretary was more complimentary towards Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexington, than he was towards his own master, ‘a sign in whose house bread and beer is most plentiful’.<sup>31</sup> The death of the grand seignior and succession of the new sultan, Mustapha, left the negotiations in a state of some uncertainty.<sup>32</sup> Paget thought that the new sultan would not be inclinable to peace and concluded that the new regime was eager to try its hand on campaign and that he saw ‘little hopes of doing any good this year’.<sup>33</sup> There appear to have been underhand efforts to displace Paget early in 1695, though Leeds (as Danby had since become) assured him of his support and wrote to caution his erstwhile opponent that:</p><blockquote><p>As I was always confident there could not be any just complaint made against your lordship’s conduct in your station, so neither have I heard of any but by whispers, which does the more justify the prudence of your acting since it shows a malice without a foundation to support it …<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>Whatever the source of the rumours attempting to destabilize Paget’s position in Turkey, in May 1695 it was widely expected that he would be replaced at the Porte by Sir Cyril Wych<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>35</sup> In the midst of his efforts to secure a peace between the Turks and the Empire, Paget struggled to secure the expected funds from the Levant Company. In January 1696 he was assured by Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, that the king had ordered his ‘bill of extraordinaries to be allowed’ and that he would not oblige him ‘to continue longer in Turkey than you are willing to stay there’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Paget’s dissatisfaction with his post stemmed largely from the continual battle he was forced to wage with the Levant Company over payment of his expenses. By March 1696 he was experiencing severe financial difficulties. He complained that:</p><blockquote><p>The company continue their unkindness, I hope it proceeds not from any occasion I may have given for it, or because I had the honour to be named for, and placed in, this employment by his majesty’s order, but only from a narrowness of spirit, that possesses some of that numerous assembly, which makes them unwilling to appear civil, lest they should thereby be engaged in a greater expense than they would be at.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>Paget’s continuing poor relations with his employers led to renewed expectations in April 1697 that he would be replaced, this time by Sir James Rushout<sup>‡</sup>, ‘an old, rich, unhealthy gentleman’.<sup>38</sup> Rushout was formally nominated his successor in January 1698 but died the following month before he could take up the post. Still eager to see Paget replaced, the Levant Company again applied to the king for a new ambassador to be nominated.<sup>39</sup> Charles Berkeley*, then styled Lord Dursley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), whose father was a governor of the Levant Company, was named as Rushout’s successor but refused to accept the mission.<sup>40</sup> By September Paget was complaining that he was £5,500 out of pocket and towards the end of the year it was reported that the king had at last ‘taken notice of the difficulties’ he was experiencing.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Besides his financial problems, the failure to appoint a new ambassador meant that it was left to Paget to steer through the peace treaty between the Ottomans and Empire at Karlowitz.<sup>42</sup> His achievement gained him considerable plaudits from both the grand seignior and the grand vizier, who appealed to the king not to recall him.<sup>43</sup> In spite of their request, in December 1700 the king consented to Paget’s pleas to be allowed to return (and the Levant Company’s earnest desire that he be replaced) and nominated Robert Sutton, nephew of Paget’s colleague at Vienna, Lexington, to assume the position.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Having at last secured his recall, it still took Paget a further two and a half years to reach home. Arriving in Holland in September, he was promptly despatched back to Vienna and in December he was sent to the court of Bavaria to undertake a further diplomatic mission. It was thus not until April 1703 that he finally reached England, having narrowly avoided disaster when the fleet in which he was travelling from Rotterdam was attacked by privateers.<sup>45</sup> With him travelled a group of students whom he had recruited for Benjamin Woodroffe’s ‘Greek College’ at Oxford (based at Gloucester Hall). Woodroffe’s aim was closer relations between the Anglican Church and the Orthodox communion. Paget was ostensibly sympathetic to the scheme but was perhaps equally interested in the notion of training interpreters for the diplomatic legations in the Levant.<sup>46</sup> On 22 Apr. he took his seat in the House. His appointment as lord lieutenant of Staffordshire was confirmed and he resumed regular attendance of the Lords once more, being present for 56 per cent of all sitting days for the second session of the Parliament. In November Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, noted him as being someone ‘to be depended upon this year that was absent’ on the question of occasional conformity and on 14 Dec. Paget duly voted against the bill. On 18 Jan. 1704 he reported from the committee considering the Awdley estate bill, which was resolved as being fit to pass.</p><p>Paget took his seat in the next session on 25 Oct. 1704, following which he was present on approximately 66 per cent of all sitting days. He refused a new diplomatic appointment to Vienna in January 1705, his rejection of the post reputedly because of the ministry’s refusal to offer him an earldom. On 27 Feb. he was named one of the managers of the conference considering the heads of a joint conference to be held with the Commons concerning the Aylesbury men. On 12 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the militia bill and the following day to that concerning amendments to the militia bill.</p><p>Making reference to Paget’s local rivalry with his Staffordshire neighbour, John Leveson Gower*, Baron Gower, Paget’s brother-in-law, Henry Ashurst<sup>‡</sup>, suggested to him that Paget ‘put in … to be Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if it were for nothing else but to set that lord down that refused to pay your lordship a common civility at Stafford’.<sup>47</sup> Paget brought his interest to bear on behalf of John Pershall<sup>‡</sup> at Stafford in March 1705 but the influence of the Foleys and Chetwynds kept any other contenders at bay.<sup>48</sup> In April Paget was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He returned to the House for the 1705 Parliament on 25 Oct. but his level of attendance declined and he was only present on approximately 43 per cent of sitting days. His attendance then declined markedly in 1707, with him present on only 19 days during the second session, though he was named one of the reporters of the conference concerning the Fornhill and Stony Stratford highways bill on 27 March. This was an innovative bill that created one of the first turnpike trusts, and Paget’s involvement may have reflected his continuing wish to nurse his interest in Buckinghamshire. His attendance remained lacklustre and he was present for just 30 days of the first Parliament of Great Britain (approximately 27 per cent of the whole session).</p><p>Paget was categorized as a Whig in a list of peers and their party affiliations in May 1708, though the additional designation ‘+’ is of uncertain significance. Between November 1708 and April 1709 he attended the House on a mere six occasions. Despite this, Paget’s local interest in Staffordshire continued to be significant and in July 1709 some blamed him and the Foleys for the exclusion of Henry Vernon<sup>‡</sup> and Bryan Broughton<sup>‡</sup> from the commission of the peace, though Paget in turn blamed their removal on James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S].<sup>49</sup> His attendance in Parliament improved only slightly during the heated debates surrounding the Sacheverell trial. Present for approximately 28 per cent of all sitting days in the session, in March 1710 he found Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. In October that year he was noted as being an opponent of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. In December 1711, Paget was forecast as likely to be in favour of presenting the address containing the no peace without Spain motion. The same month he was thought a probable opponent of permitting Hamilton to take his seat in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon. Paget sat for the final time on 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the new session. The following day he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Paget died on 26 Feb. 1713 at his house in Bloomsbury Square. In his will of April 1711 he attempted to steer as much of his property away from his heir as possible. The reason may have been political. Henry Paget*, 8th Baron Paget and later earl of Uxbridge, was allied to Robert Harley. He already possessed a peerage in his own right, having been created Baron Burton in January 1712 as one of Harley’s ‘dozen’. The 7th baron left his house in Bloomsbury to his housekeeper, Jane Peirce, and made substantial bequests to the children of his brother, Henry, as well as gifts of money to friends and retainers totalling in all nearly £2,000.<sup>50</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
PARKER, Thomas (c. 1636-97) |
<p><strong><surname>PARKER</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1636–97)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 May 1655 as 15th Bar. MORLEY, 7th Bar. MONTEAGLE |
|
First sat 1 May 1660; last sat 14 Apr. 1697 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1636, o. s. of Henry Parker, 14th Baron Morley<sup>†</sup>, and Philippa, 2nd da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Caryll of Bentons in Shipley, Suss. <em>m</em>. (bef. 8 May 1657),<sup>1</sup> Mary (1632–1700), da. of Henry Marten<sup>‡</sup>, lawyer and regicide, of Beckett, Berks. <em>s.p</em>. <em>bur</em>. 15 July 1697.</p> |
<p>Capt. of horse 1666.</p> |
|
<p>Renowned for his violence and debts, Thomas Parker possessed neither the character nor the income to support the dignity of his peerage, even though it was one of the most ancient baronies in England. His political inheritance was a complicated one. His father had suffered the financial consequences of being a recusant and a royalist during the civil wars and seems to have spent much of the final part of his life in the prison of the king’s (upper) bench. According to the <em>Complete Peerage</em> his father-in-law was Sir Henry Marten<sup>‡</sup>, the admiralty judge, but a surviving deed concerning his wife’s jointure identifies her father as Sir Henry’s son and namesake, the regicide Henry Marten<sup>‡</sup>. It was perhaps these ambivalent political connections that prevented Morley from reaping the rewards of loyalty after the Restoration.</p><p>Morley’s political and religious beliefs remain tantalizingly ambiguous. Although he does not seem to have been active in support of the king during the Interregnum he is known to have been in touch with the exiled court in the summer of 1659 in order to assure the king ‘of his affection and readiness to serve him’.<sup>2</sup> After the Restoration he was indeed to establish himself as a reliable government supporter, though the unevenness of his attendance and his continuing financial problems tend to make one wonder just how deep his political convictions were and the extent to which his was merely a vote for hire. As for his religion, his contemporaries believed him to be a Catholic, and the evidence of his land transactions, which involved representatives of prominent Catholic families (the Brudenell earls of Cardigan, Humphrey Weld<sup>‡</sup>, and John Carryll), suggests that those suspicions were correct.<sup>3</sup> Yet he took the oaths on 2 Dec. 1678 in accordance with the 1678 Test Act and the records of the Lancashire quarter sessions include a sacramental certificate of October 1685.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Morley’s family papers do not survive but some information about his finances can be reconstructed from information generated by a series of disputes relating to a complex series of mortgages and remortgages involving loans on the Morley lands in Hornby, Lancashire, and Great Hallingbury, Essex.<sup>5</sup> Although a final concord suggests that Hornby was sold to the Brudenells in 1682, the sale was probably no more than a legal device to secure the mortgages, for Morley was still living there in 1692.<sup>6</sup> The estates in and around Great Hallingbury, which had formed his wife’s jointure, were sold to Sir Edward Turnor<sup>‡</sup> in 1666 in order to raise capital to pay off Morley’s debts.<sup>7</sup> These must have been considerable: of the £15,000 purchase price, £12,000 was repaid to Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, who thought that the remaining £3,000 was barely enough for Morley to ‘pay his engagements’.<sup>8</sup> Additional sales of land – this time in Farlton, Lancashire – were authorized by an act of Parliament in 1677.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Between 1660 and 1664 Morley was regularly present on about a third of possible sitting days; he was occasionally given leave to be absent for very short periods but there is no indication of the reasons for this. He was named to the committee for privileges on 7 May 1660 and to the committee for petitions two days later. He was again named to the committee for petitions on 7 June 1660. In July 1661 he was one of those expected to absent themselves from the House during the vote on the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. Early in 1663 he was petitioning the crown to resolve a possible claim against Hornby in order to clear it for sale to George Monck*, duke of Albemarle.<sup>10</sup> Much of his activity in the House that year related to claims of privilege. On 12 June he informed the House of the arrest of one ‘Beaver, tailor and menial servant’. The outcome of this case is not clear but within a week, on 18 June, he had informed the House of another breach of privilege, this time the arrest of Edward Crofts, whom he claimed as a menial servant, for debt. Crofts appeared at the bar of the House and was released on 27 June. On 25 July Morley claimed privilege to ward off a possible suit by a kinsman in the prerogative court of Canterbury. On the political front, the somewhat unreliable list compiled by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, suggests that he was expected to support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. During the next (1664) session Morley’s only traceable activity is yet another complaint about breach of privilege, brought to the house on 27 Apr. 1664, this time concerning the arrest of William Cage, whom he claimed to be his household chaplain.</p><p>On 17 Dec. 1664, barely a month into the new (1664–5) session, Morley was given leave ‘to go into the country for some time’; again no reason was given. He was then absent until 17 Feb. 1665; he attended just one more day (18 Feb.) before absenting himself for the rest of the session, which did not end until 2 March. Events during the adjournment tested his claim to privilege still further. On 21 Apr. 1665 Morley, after an evening of hard drinking and gaming at a Covent Garden tavern, became involved in a quarrel over the reckoning with Henry Hastings, a young relative of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Their first fight was broken up by onlookers but was resumed in Lincolns Inn Fields. According to the account sent to Huntingdon, Morley had attacked Hastings there without warning; Hastings died of a wound to the head inflicted by Morley’s sword. A coroner’s jury returned a verdict of wilful murder. There had been a long-standing quarrel between the two men, generating suspicion that Morley had deliberately provoked the fight in order to provide an excuse for killing his opponent. Morley fled, thus laying his estates open to confiscation, but was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower a month later ‘for fighting contrary to law’.<sup>11</sup> He had killed others and the king was apparently determined that he would ‘suffer for it’. The outbreak of plague in London meant that arrangements for his trial were delayed and he remained in the Tower until he was bailed, probably in October when he was granted permission to go to his house in the country under guard and with sufficient security (£2,000 plus two sureties of £1,000 each) to ensure his appearance when summoned to answer for his crime.<sup>12</sup> In the meantime he was deeply involved in negotiations for the sale of Great Hallingbury.</p><p>The court of the lord high steward was convened in Westminster Hall on 30 Apr. 1666, shortly after the end of the parliamentary session, with Clarendon presiding. Of the 28 lords triers summoned to hear the case, one – William Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke – did not appear.<sup>13</sup> The 12 judges also attended to offer assistance and legal advice. The most widely available account of Morley’s trial, published in <em>State Trials</em>, is based on notes taken by Lord Chief Sir Justice Kelyng.<sup>‡</sup> Fuller details, including copies of depositions of witnesses, are preserved among the state papers, but are mentioned only briefly in the <em>Calendar of State Papers, Domestic</em>. A third account, concentrating on details of ceremony and procedure but also including copies of the introductory speeches made by Clarendon, is in the British Library. The British Library holds another copy of Clarendon’s speech and there is also an account in the Huntington Library.<sup>14</sup> All indicate that for this, the first trial of a peer for nearly 40 years, great care was taken to ensure that due ceremony and solemnity be observed. They also show that both the judges and the peers were already familiar with aspects of Morley’s defence, particularly the question of whether depositions sworn at the coroner’s inquest by persons since deceased could be used as evidence against him. The judges, summoned by Clarendon to a pre-trial meeting, agreed that such evidence was admissible. Their decision was questioned by several peers who also went to consult with Clarendon and in the event the judges’ advice was ignored by the lords triers. Morley himself feared that his enemies would take advantage of the situation in order to secure his conviction. The precise details are unclear but it seems that Morley either owed money to his Essex neighbour, Sir John Barrington<sup>‡</sup>, or had led Barrington to believe that he rather than Turnor might buy Great Hallingbury. The net result was that Barrington was ‘enraged’ and Morley feared that he intended to lobby the presbyterian peers against him.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The trial became one of the sensations of the day. Extra seating was provided for those peers who wished to attend and four private rooms were allowed for the king and queen to attend incognito, for James Stuart*, the duke of York and his duchess, for the Spanish and Swedish ambassadors, and for ‘divers ladies and persons of honour’.<sup>16</sup> Notwithstanding strong prosecution evidence confirming his malicious intent, Morley was acquitted of murder and, despite his fears, only two of the Presbyterian peers – Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and Wharton, voted to convict him. Morley’s accomplice, Francis Bromwich, fared less well. He was sentenced to 11 months’ imprisonment and to give sureties for good behaviour for life.<sup>17</sup> In October Hastings’ two brothers, who were appalled by the verdict, were imprisoned by the House for assaulting Morley and giving him ‘very base and reviling language’. Corroborating evidence of the attack was given on 1 Oct. by a Thomas Osborne but as he was not described as a baronet it is unlikely that this was the future earl of Danby. The two men were forced to beg Morley’s pardon and to provide securities of £500 apiece before being released on 12 Jan. 1666.</p><p>Morley resumed his attendance in the House shortly after sittings began again in September 1666 and was present for over half the possible sitting days that year, but he hardly attended in 1667 or 1668 and did not attend at all between 1669 and 1672. His responses to calls of the House during this period are uninformative but in November 1670 he was excused on grounds of sickness. Perhaps his health was poor: he had been described as ‘lame’ during his trial in 1666 and was permitted to sit rather than stand at the bar. His involvement in a scuffle in Lancaster in August 1668 arouses suspicion that health may not have been the real issue, although in this case it is entirely possible that for once Morley was the victim rather than the aggressor.<sup>18</sup> He was involved in a dispute over Hornby manor in February 1673.<sup>19</sup> He attended Parliament briefly in March 1673 and in the spring of 1674; he was present for just nine days in November 1675, probably in connection with proposals for the 20 Nov. address to the crown requesting a dissolution of Parliament, which he supported.</p><p>As the political crisis deepened, Morley began to attend Parliament more frequently and was identified as a supporter of his northern neighbour Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). Between February and May 1677, when Shaftesbury marked him both as triply vile and as a papist, he was present on 61 per cent of sitting days, but he attended for only six days in January and February 1678, probably in order to facilitate the passage of the bill to enable him to sell Farleton manor, in which he was assisted by Sir Ralph Assheton<sup>‡</sup>, the Member for Liverpool.<sup>20</sup> The bill was returned from the Commons without alteration on 19 February. Morley was not present that day; nor was he present when it received the royal assent on 20 March. He attended the House on 21 and 25 Feb. but was given leave to be absent on 27 Feb. and then absented himself for the rest of the session. He was thus not present for some of the most contentious debates over supply.</p><p>Morley returned to Parliament for the first session of 1678 and was present on 51 per cent of sitting days. He was absent for the first month of the second 1678 session, not arriving until 26 November. For the short remaining period of the session he attended on nearly 60 per cent of sitting days and, as noted above, despite his reputed Catholicism took the new oaths on 2 Dec. 1678. In 1679 he arrived in time to attend the opening of the abortive first session of the first Exclusion Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679. He was then present for the opening of the second session on 15 Mar. and attended on 69 per cent of sitting days. Consistently listed as a supporter of Danby, it seems certain that it was Danby’s plight that attracted him to the House and somewhat unlikely that he attended without some promise of reward. In May 1679 he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Morley’s attendance for the 1680–1 session dropped to just over 41 per cent. In November 1680 he voted against Exclusion and in December he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason. His enthusiasm for Danby was now firmly on the wane. In a forecast for the division to be held on 17 Mar. 1681 he was listed as a supporter of Danby’s application for bail but on 23 Mar. Danby’s son, Viscount Latimer, noted that Morley had not yet arrived; he never did.<sup>21</sup></p><p>One might have expected that Morley’s general allegiance to the court and his suspected Catholicism would have ensured a favourable reaction to the accession of James II and the introduction of more liberal religious policies. He attended the 1685 Parliament every day until 2 July but was then absent, apart from the prorogation day on 10 May 1686. Not surprisingly, in May 1687 he was noted simply as ‘RC’ on a list of peers’ attitudes to the king’s policies but by November it had become clear that things were not quite as straightforward as expected. When the new Catholic lord lieutenant of Lancashire, Caryll Molyneux, Viscount Molyneux [I], toured the county seeking answers to the three questions, ‘Lord Morley was asked privately, his answer is not known, but he seemed very much troubled and went to bed in the afternoon.’<sup>22</sup> Another list of the same month describes him as undeclared.</p><p>The aftermath of the Revolution of 1688 turned Morley once again into a high attender at Parliament, although he did not arrive at the Convention until 4 Feb. 1689, just in time to participate in the debates over the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and to vote in favour of agreeing with the Commons. For the remainder of the session he was present on some 83 per cent of sitting days; even if his initial absence is taken into account his attendance was still high, at 76 per cent. On 5 Mar. he was named as one of the managers of the conference on assisting the king and the following day he signed the protest against the third reading of the bill for better regulating trials of peers. On 16 Apr. he secured the assistance of the House in preventing some of his Lancashire neighbours from spreading ‘scandalous’ rumours about his alleged papism.<sup>23</sup> Morley’s sudden devotion to his duties as a peer may have been related to the award of a pension of £400.<sup>24</sup> This in turn was probably related to his petition to the crown in June 1689, backed by his distant kinsman Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, stressing the ‘great sufferings’ of himself and his father for their loyalty ‘whereby his estate was so impaired that there was not sufficient to support the dignity and honour of his coming up to the coronation’ and reminding the new king that he had been promised a royal pension.<sup>25</sup> On 30 July 1689 yet another of his enemies was attached by the House for offending him with ‘scandalous words’.</p><p>By the second, 1689–90 session, Morley’s enthusiasm for parliamentary attendance had somewhat waned. Classed among the supporters of the court by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) in a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690, he did not arrive until 9 Dec. 1689, more than a month after the session began in October, and thereafter was present on just under 70 per cent of the remaining sitting days. During the first session of 1690 he attended on nearly 74 per cent of sitting days, perhaps because, as he pointed out in June 1690, payment of his £400 pension was in arrears.<sup>26</sup> The 1690–1 session saw something of a return to his old habits. He did not arrive until 17 Nov., a month after the opening of the session, but thereafter he missed only nine days. In January 1691 he received his reward: a £100 gift from the king as royal bounty.</p><p>Morley again missed the first part of the next (1691–2) session, this time not arriving until 11 December. On 15 Dec. 1691 he once more sought the assistance of the House to prevent an infringement of his privilege in the matter of the arrest of a man whom he claimed to be his servant. By this time the House had tightened its rules on the issue of protections. An investigation revealed that Morley had deliberately issued a letter of protection to a person who only pretended to be his gardener. He was committed to the Tower on 4 Jan. 1692, while his perjured witness was sent to the Gatehouse prison. The House was so incensed at Morley’s behaviour that when he was discharged on 22 Jan. it issued a recommendation that all the fees arising from the case be deducted directly from his pension by the treasury. He returned to the House on 28 Jan. but revelations that he had used his privilege of peerage to turn Hornby into what was effectively a debtor’s sanctuary led to a further order on 1 Feb. indemnifying the sheriff’s officers for discharging persons under Morley’s protection.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Morley was again absent at the beginning of the next session when it opened in November 1692; he did not arrive until 16 Jan. 1693, the day of the second reading of the triennial bill. He was then present for almost every day until 4 Feb. when he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. Thereafter his attendance slackened and he was in the House for a little under 50 per cent of the remaining days of the session. On 1 and 3 March he was named as a manager of the conferences on the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions. Although nothing is known of his voting intentions his attendance was presumably a welcome addition of support for the beleaguered court, which rewarded him with a payment of £100 in April.<sup>28</sup> A further attempt by Morley to extract money from the exchequer in August failed, the monies in question being already appropriated.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Morley again arrived late for the 1693–4 session, on 11 December 1693. As had been the pattern in recent sessions his attendance then remained at some 74 per cent. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted to reverse chancery’s dismission of the Albemarle inheritance case (<em>Montagu v Bath</em>). His habitual abuse of privilege continued: in his absence, on 13 Mar. 1694 he was one of eight peers ordered to appear before the House to explain protections that he had issued. The next day the House vacated several of the protections and ordered that ‘no lord shall enter any written protection in the book of protections, until after he shall have personally attended this House, in the same session of Parliament’.</p><p>During the 1694–5 session Morley failed to attend Parliament at all. On 2 Feb. 1695 he gave his proxy for the remainder of the session to the court Whig Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu. Presumably his support was still thought to be worth canvassing because, towards the end of the session in May 1695, Thomas Osborne, now duke of Leeds and under a second threat of impeachment, was said to have ‘kept open house at Hell [a Westminster tavern] with roast beef and pot ale to debauch Lord Morley, Hunsdon [Robert Carey*, 7th Baron Hunsdon], Culpepper [John Colepeper*,3rd Baron Colepeper] and the rest of the mumpers’.<sup>30</sup> A ‘mumper’ was contemporary slang for a genteel beggar – which, it would seem, was precisely what Morley was.</p><p>The 1695–6 session opened on 22 Nov. 1695. Morley arrived on 14 Jan. 1696 and was then present for just under 50 per cent of sitting days. The 1696–7 session saw him arrive only a month late, on 19 Nov. 1696. As part of the preliminaries to the trial of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, on 14 Nov. the House had ordered that Morley and other absent peers attend on pain of imprisonment. Once he had arrived he attended assiduously until the Fenwick attainder, which he supported, passed its third reading on 23 Dec., although he had been given leave to withdraw because of ill health on 15 December. His attendance remained high when sittings were resumed in January, probably because he was again in trouble with the House for issuing unjustified protections; on 27 Jan. 1697, as a result of its investigations, the House ordered that all written protections be vacated and none be granted thereafter. Morley’s attendance began to falter towards the end of January 1697, revived in February, and became increasingly erratic in March, when he was involved in litigation over the mortgages on Hornby and was accused of oppressive practices towards his tenantry.<sup>31</sup> His peerages fell into abeyance at his death shortly afterwards. He was buried in July at Great Hallingbury.</p> |
R.P. |
|
PASTON, Robert (1631-83) |
<p><strong><surname>PASTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1631–83)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 Aug. 1673 Visct. YARMOUTH; <em>cr. </em>30 July 1679 earl of YARMOUTH |
|
First sat 20 Oct. 1673; last sat 10 Jan. 1681 |
|
MP Thetford 1660, Castle Rising 1661-19 Aug. 1673 |
<p><em>b</em>. 29 May 1631, 1st s. of Sir William Paston<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt. (c.1610-63), of Oxnead, Norf. and Katherine (<em>d</em>. 3 Jan. 1636), da. of Robert Bertie<sup>†</sup>, earl of Lindsey. <em>educ</em>. Westminster; Trinity, Camb. 10 Mar. 1646; travelled abroad (France) 1646. <em>m</em>. 15 June 1650, Rebecca (<em>d.</em> 16 Feb. 1694), da. of Sir Jasper Clayton, of London, 6s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). kntd. 27 May 1660; <em>suc</em>. fa. 22 Feb. 1663. <em>d</em>. 8 Mar. 1683; <em>will</em> 4 Mar., pr. 11 May 1683.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent., privy chamber 1667-<em>d.</em>; recvr. customs farm on unwrought wood, etc. 1667-<em>d</em>.,<sup>2</sup> green-wax fines (jt.) 1678-<em>d</em>.</p><p>High steward, Great Yarmouth 1674-<em>d.</em>; freeman, Great Yarmouth 1675, King’s Lynn 1679; ld. lt. Norf. 1676-<em>d</em>.; v.-adm., Norf. 1676-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1663-82.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by Edward Lutterell, after unknown artist, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.</p> |
<p>Robert Paston was of the Norfolk family whose rise to prominence in the early fifteenth century can be traced through its carefully preserved correspondence, the celebrated ‘Paston Letters’. His father served as sheriff of the county in the 1630s and bought a baronetcy just before the outbreak of Civil War in 1641. During the Civil War Paston senior’s estate was sequestered and valued at £5,594 p.a. for the benefit of the Eastern Association, but he was able to compound for it by contributing £500 to the parliamentary cause and thereafter held local office throughout the Interregnum.<sup>3</sup></p><p>The rise of Robert, the eldest son, to the peerage was inaugurated by his intervention in the Commons on 25 Nov. 1664 when he successfully moved to grant a supply to the crown of £2,500,000, just as Charles II was preparing for war with the Dutch.<sup>4</sup> It could have been no coincidence that earlier that same day saw the first reading of the bill to extend the corporation boundaries of the port of Great Yarmouth to include part of Paston’s estate on the southern bank of the Yare, Little Yarmouth (or Southtown). This would allow him to partake of some of the customs duties flowing into the port. The bill was strenuously opposed by the Yarmouth corporation and its burgesses in the Commons but Paston was sure of its success. He was ‘sufficiently caressed by the chancellor [Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon]’ for his motion for supply and felt that ‘the service I have done the king ... is so great that I am looked on in a capacity of not being denied anything in his majesty’s power.’<sup>5</sup> He informed his wife in early December 1664 that, coming into a royal audience ‘in a very great crowd’, the king instantly came over to him ‘and took me into a corner of the room and told me, Sir Robert Paston, your kindnesses to me and more especially at this time, I'll never forget and if any favour and respect may ever manifest itself to you, you are sure of a friend of me’<strong>.</strong><sup>6</sup> The king’s intervention was necessary for the passage of the Great Yarmouth bill, which had a difficult time getting through the Commons in early 1665.<sup>7</sup> The final meeting of the Lords’ select committee on the bill, on 20 Feb. 1665, was unusually well attended, with 33 peers attending – ‘thirty lords and earls, three dukes’ as Paston reported. The king had already summoned the committee chairman Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, to instruct him to tell those lords opposed to the bill that the king would not prorogue the session until it were passed. Paston included among his supporters in the committee his kinsmen, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, who personally vouched before his peers for Paston’s trustworthiness. The king’s warning and these peers’ support were sufficiently persuasive and the bill passed without amendment on 22 February.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Paston was confident ‘that the king intended to mend my honour and fortune’ and ‘that he will speedily make me a nobleman of England’, but Charles insisted on delaying this honour for the moment, else ‘it would look too near a contract’. Paston assured himself that, ‘the words and ways of a prince are not to be disputed’.<sup>9</sup> Paston needed royal favour, as he was chronically short of money. He confided to his wife that he wanted something that ‘shall set me free in the world and put some money in my purse’. A title was not as important as funds, for ‘I know so much what the want of money is and what the straightness of a fortune is’.<sup>10</sup> The king was not immediately as good as his word regarding the title but did help ease the way for Paston to improve his income. In April 1666 Paston was granted a 21-year lease, for a rent of £2,000 p.a., on the farm of the customs on wood, glassware and earthenware, to take effect formally from Michaelmas 1667.<sup>11</sup> By that time there were already calls for this patent to be rescinded as it was noted that Paston was making hefty profits from the import of building materials needed for the reconstruction of London after the Fire. In March 1668 he agreed that he would increase his rent for the farm to £3,800 p.a. for four years; it actually remained at that level until 1674.<sup>12</sup> In less pecuniary signs of royal favour, Paston was made a gentleman of the privy chamber in January 1667. In late September 1671, perhaps through the auspices of his patron, Henry Howard*, Baron Howard of Castle Rising (later 6th duke of Norfolk), he had the honour of hosting the king and queen at his house at Oxnead during their tour of East Anglia. He was, however, mortified in having to admit that his house was insufficient to lodge both the king and queen at the same time in the manner they would expect.<sup>13</sup> Paston’s long-promised elevation to the peerage came in August 1673, when he was created Viscount Yarmouth. His elevation was probably prompted by the marriage in July 1672 of his eldest son and heir, William Paston*, later 2nd earl of Yarmouth, to Charlotte Howard, an illegitimate daughter of Charles II and the Viscountess Shannon [I].</p><p>Yarmouth first sat in the House under this title as quickly as he could. He was introduced on a day of prorogation, 20 Oct. 1673, alongside his patron and kinsman, Thomas Osborne*, who was introduced that day as Viscount Latimer (later earl of Danby and duke of Leeds). He then sat in all four of the sittings of the very brief session which began a week later and was named to one select committee. He came to 58 per cent of the meetings of the session of Jan.-Feb. 1674 and to 71 per cent in the following session of spring 1675, during which he appears to have supported the non-resisting test, as the earl of Danby (as Latimer had quickly become) himself predicted he would. Yarmouth narrowly escaped death in August 1675 when he was shot at by highwaymen while riding in his coach. He survived, one commentator cattily attributing this to his corpulence (‘he hath flesh enough to spare’), which had always been a point on which his enemies liked to harp.<sup>14</sup></p><p>He was back in the House on 19 Oct. 1675 and proceeded to attend 76 per cent of the meeting of that session, and perhaps surprisingly, considering his connections with Danby and the court, on 20 Nov. 1675 he voted in favour of the motion to address the king for the dissolution of Parliament, even signing the protest at the motion’s rejection. When Parliament reconvened in February 1677 he attended 65 per cent of the meetings of the spring of 1677, and was in the House for the first two weeks of April when, fulfilling his recently conferred role as high steward of Great Yarmouth, he oversaw the rapid passage through Parliament of the bill to repair the pier at that port.<sup>15</sup> Yarmouth, though, did not appear in the House again after a day of prorogation on 16 July 1677 until midway through the first Exclusion Parliament, on 12 Apr. 1679, thus missing all the controversial proceedings of the House in 1678. He registered his proxy with his cousin, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, twice in 1678: on 1 Feb. until the prorogation on 13 May and then again from 23 May until that session’s prorogation on 15 July. It may have been illness rather than lack of interest which kept Yarmouth away, for in October 1677 he was already complaining to a correspondent of being incapacitated by a ‘violent’ fit of the gout.<sup>16</sup> When the peers were ordered to attend the House to hear the proceedings on the Popish Plot in the winter of 1678, Yarmouth sent two of his servants to testify on 23 Dec. 1678 ‘that the Lord Viscount Yarmouth is so ill of the stone, that he is not able to come to attend the House’.</p><p>In mid-1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered Yarmouth ‘doubly vile’ in his political attitudes. Shaftesbury almost certainly formed this judgment not from Yarmouth’s few activities in Westminster but from those in Norfolk, where Yarmouth became an increasingly important leader of the court and Church faction during the course of the 1670s. On 23 Dec. 1674 he was elected high steward of the corporation of Great Yarmouth in the place of the recently deceased earl of Clarendon.<sup>17</sup> Yarmouth’s controversial scheme to incorporate Little Yarmouth into the municipality had never taken effect, so some of the passions of 1665 had cooled by this time. Yet despite his grand and crowded entrance into Yarmouth in September 1675, not all members of the corporation were pleased with his appointment, and he remained preoccupied with the fractured politics of that port for the next several years.<sup>18</sup> The year 1675 also saw the lord lieutenant of the county, Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, disastrously take sides in the partisan politics that sharply divided county society during a set of controversial by-elections. Townshend angered Danby by his strenuous opposition to the election of Danby’s son-in-law, Robert Coke<sup>‡ </sup>of Holkham, for King’s Lynn in April 1675 and by his heavy-handed (not to say underhanded) support, in tandem with the ‘country’ Members, Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>, for Sir Robert Kemp<sup>‡</sup> in an election the following month.<sup>19</sup> Yarmouth, Danby’s kinsman and dependent, was appointed lord lieutenant and vice-admiral of Norfolk in place of the out-of-favour Townshend in the spring of 1676. One of the new lord lieutenant’s correspondents told him that ‘the other party’ were quickly claiming that Townshend had been ousted because he had fought against the government’s plans to introduce popery.<sup>20</sup> Townshend’s followers would definitely have placed Yarmouth in the ‘popish’ camp, especially as he and his wife were patrons of the high Anglican churchmen in the county. Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich, thought in 1670 that Paston, as he then was, had made the ‘little church’ at Oxnead ‘as beautiful as any in this or the next diocese’, and went on to remark approvingly that he was ‘very careful to get the place supplied by able divines’.<sup>21</sup> Reynold’s successor from February 1677, Anthony Sparrow*, bishop of Norwich, was to work well with Yarmouth in the years following in putting forward the interests of the Church and always spoke highly of Yarmouth to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>22</sup> For his part, Yarmouth was pleased with Sparrow and felt that he ‘carries himself like a bishop’.<sup>23</sup> Yarmouth had earlier considered Townshend ‘the best friend I have in the world’ because of his support for the Great Yarmouth bill in 1665, but by the time he took up his lord lieutenancy, relations between the two had broken down and each had become the head of opposing parties in the county.<sup>24</sup></p><p>A series of by-elections under Yarmouth’s lieutenancy in 1678 revealed these factions. An election in February 1678 to replace the deceased burgess of Great Yarmouth, Sir William Doyley<sup>‡</sup>, led to a contest between the former bailiff, Sir Thomas Medowe<sup>‡</sup>, described by a government informer as ‘ever loyal to the king and true to the Church’ and one of the current bailiffs, Richard Huntington<sup>‡</sup>, who ’has been in office under all the late usurped government, the only friend to the factious, by whose means they are grown so numerous and insolent that it is become dangers for us to speak our danger’. With the assistance of Yarmouth Medowe won at the poll.<sup>25</sup></p><p>The county town of Norwich presented more problems and, in general, was always troublesome as it was split between the large Church interest (represented by the cathedral and its many officials) and the strong Dissenting tradition in the city. Party strife there came to a head again in early 1678 after the death of the sitting member, Christopher Jay<sup>‡</sup>, in August 1677.<sup>26</sup> Yarmouth and his close patron in Norwich affairs Henry Howard, who succeeded to the dukedom of Norfolk in December 1677 – ‘one that merits it as much as any of his ancestors’, Yarmouth thought – put forward Yarmouth’s own son, William, as a replacement.<sup>27</sup> Townshend and the knight of the shire, Sir John Hobart, encouraged opposition to Paston from the Norwich corporation and its mayor Richer, deemed by Yarmouth ’the impudentest fanatic in the world’.<sup>28</sup> In the event William Paston won the election handily, but Yarmouth struck back by enforcing a purge of his opponents from the corporation, which, as he told secretary of state, Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, ‘put an opportunity into my hands to make that city the loyalest in England’. The ensuing municipal elections reduced the predominance of the ‘fanatics’ in the corporation, especially by the overthrow of the troublesome mayor.<sup>29</sup> In addition, another by-election had to be held in May 1678 to replace the other recently deceased burgess, and the moderate alderman Augustine Briggs<sup>‡</sup> was returned with no opposition from Yarmouth.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Yarmouth’s purges in the county town had their effect, and Norwich returned Paston and Briggs, both opponents of Exclusion, for all three Exclusion Parliaments. Otherwise, Yarmouth’s actions only exacerbated tensions within the county. Between 1679 and 1681 uncontested elections were a rarity in the county and boroughs, with Yarmouth at the centre of the court’s efforts to defeat the strong Presbyterian and ‘country’ electoral interest represented by Townshend, Hobart and Holland. Throughout the spring of 1679 Yarmouth kept Williamson, himself the member for the Norfolk constituency of Thetford, abreast of developments in the elections.<sup>31</sup> The favourable situation in Great Yarmouth was quickly reversed, as Yarmouth had alienated the corporation and populace by his proposal to build a new customs house on his estate in Southtown. The number of candidates willing to stand against Medowe was large, but in the end Huntington was returned with the other sitting member Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, while Medowe descended to the bottom of the poll.<sup>32</sup> For the county election Yarmouth ‘morally secured’ himself to Williamson that he would send down to Westminster the court candidates Sir Christopher Calthorpe<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Neville Catelyn<sup>‡</sup>, ‘men that will not meddle with ministers of state’, against their likely opponents Hobart and Holland. Yarmouth was particularly incensed by the old Cromwellian Hobart. ‘I had rather lose my life’, he assured the secretary, ‘than have men triumphing in a House of Commons that sang a psalm about the Worcester Cross when the king was driven into that distress by his rebels, and that have never in one vote testified any repentance’.<sup>33</sup> Yarmouth gleefully reported to his wife the results of the poll that saw Calthorpe and Catelyn victorious, with Hobart a distant third by some 500 votes.<sup>34</sup> Nevertheless, Hobart petitioned the elections committee, alleging that the under-sheriff of the county had snatched away the poll-book before all of Hobart’s supporters had been counted. The matter swiftly became a partisan <em>cause célèbre</em> in the Commons. Townshend and his kinsmen marshalled the witnesses for Hobart, while Yarmouth’s letter to the Commons in support of Calthorpe and Catelyn was deemed to be threatening.<sup>35</sup> The election having been declared void, the ‘country’ party narrowly failed to vote Hobart as the victorious candidate and a by-election became necessary. Another poll was held on 5 May 1679, this time between four candidates, William Windham<sup>‡</sup> having joined with Hobart. The physician Sir Thomas Browne claimed, surprisingly considering the febrile atmosphere of the time, to have ‘never observed so great a number of people who came to give their voices, but all was civilly carried at the hill, and I do not hear of any rude or unhandsome carriage’. Less than 500 votes separated the top and bottom of the four candidates. In the end it was determined that Hobart and Catelyn topped the poll, but by this time they had less than three weeks to sit in the Parliament before it was prorogued and ultimately dissolved.<sup>36</sup> Yarmouth could only breathe a sigh of relief: ‘I am glad those elections are so well over; they are the most troublesome things in nature, and the most vexatious, though a man gets the better as I have done in all points’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Danby counted on Yarmouth’s support during the impending impeachment hearings against him in Parliament but was frustrated by the Norfolk peer’s continued absence from the House throughout March and early April 1679. Yarmouth probably stayed away through a combination of illness and his attention to the protracted Norfolk election, and it was doubtless strong pressure from Danby, or possibly Yarmouth’s cousin Lindsey, that persuaded him to come to the House to assist his kinsman. He first sat in the House that session on 14 Apr. 1679, when he voted against the bill of attainder. Yet on 10 May he once again diverged from the court line by voting in favour of the motion to establish a committee of both Houses to consider the method of trying Danby and the impeached peers and by entering his protest against the rejection of that motion. On 27 May, however, he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. He was present on only 39 per cent of all sitting days in the session.</p><p>By July 1679 the viscount felt that he had merited an earldom and drafted a petition, perhaps never sent, reminding the king of his promises of favour ‘when I last waited on you at Whitehall’ and assuring him that any such honour would enable him to better serve the royal will ‘when the country sees me borne up as well as others by your majesty’s favour so long expected’.<sup>38</sup> He soon got his wish and was made earl of Yarmouth on 30 July 1679, just in time, as Yarmouth himself had noted, for him to make use of his influence and electioneering methods on behalf of the court at the elections of August. Yarmouth’s son and the moderate alderman, Briggs, won without too much trouble at the poll in Norwich.<sup>39</sup> He was less successful for the county, where the sitting member Hobart joined with a moderate Sir Peter Gleane<sup>‡</sup> to see off another challenge from Catelyn and Calthorpe, neither of whom by this time had much stomach for the fight. Yarmouth’s tactics were too heavy-handed even for the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), who reprimanded Yarmouth for trying to delay the election for his own advantage by purposely withholding the writ from the sheriff.<sup>40</sup> In Great Yarmouth Huntington won again, and this time it was a new candidate George England<sup>‡</sup> who consigned the churchman Medowe to the bottom of the poll.</p><p>Yarmouth had a long time to wait before he could take his seat in the House with his new title. Even after the Parliament’s many prorogations, Yarmouth was largely absent for the first weeks of the Parliament in October 1680 and out of its 66 meetings, he only attended five. But these included four of the most important days of Charles II’s Parliaments – the days, from his first sitting as earl of Yarmouth on 11 Nov. 1680, which saw the House debate and ultimately reject the Exclusion bill. He himself took part in the debate on 15 Nov. and then voted to reject the bill on its first reading. Indeed, so concerned was he by Exclusion that he made or acquired a division list of the vote of 15 Nov., which is among his surviving papers.<sup>41</sup> The bill having been rejected, he promptly left the House and did not return until 10 Jan. 1681. Consequently, he missed the vote on the guilt of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, a kinsman of his patron, the duke of Norfolk. That single day in January was the last time Yarmouth ever sat in the House. He missed the short Parliament in Oxford in March 1681 completely, even though Danby was once again relying on him to help him with his application for bail.<sup>42</sup> The elections for this Parliament which Yarmouth oversaw did not bring any significant changes in the court’s fortunes, the only sitting member not returned being Huntington who declined to stand for Great Yarmouth and was replaced by another supporter of Exclusion, Sir James Johnson<sup>‡.</sup>.</p><p>Yarmouth, not surprisingly, helped the ‘Tory reaction’ in its early stages in Norfolk, and forced through addresses of loyalty and thanks to the king for dissolving what was to be the last Parliament of his reign.<sup>43</sup> Bishop Sparrow was pleased that Yarmouth was ‘heartily true to the king’s and Church’s interest’ and encouraged by Yarmouth’s ‘great interest in this county’ which even enabled the earl in October 1682 to persuade the factious corporation of Norwich to surrender its charter to the king.<sup>44</sup> Yarmouth had long, at least from October 1677, been incapacitated by gout and other ailments.<sup>45</sup> By the early 1680s he was an immobile invalid, prompting his rival Townshend in 1682 to make a bid to replace him as lord lieutenant.<sup>46</sup> Yarmouth died on 8 Mar. 1683, but Townshend was still frustrated, for the earl was replaced in the Norfolk lieutenancy by Norfolk’s son, Henry Howard*, Baron Mowbray (later 7th duke of Norfolk), who had conveniently converted to Protestantism. Yarmouth’s very brief will, written only a few days before his death, left his estate to his wife to pay for his debts and made her and his heir William, long-time burgess for Norwich and now 2nd earl of Yarmouth, executors of his overextended estate.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PASTON, William (c. 1654-1732) |
<p><strong><surname>PASTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1654–1732)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1679-83 Ld. PASTON; <em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Mar. 1683 as 2nd earl of YARMOUTH |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 17 Feb. 1732 |
|
MP Norwich 18 Feb. 1678-81 (Mar.) |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1654 1st s. of Robert Paston* (later, earl of Yarmouth) and Rebecca (<em>d</em>.1684), da. of Jasper Clayton, alderman of London; bro. of Hon. Robert Paston<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Camb. (tutor, Thomas Bainbrigg) 1669-70; travelled abroad (France: tutor, William Aglionby) 1671. <em>m</em>. (1) 17 July 1672, Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria (<em>d</em>.1684), illegit. da. of Charles II and Elizabeth, Viscountess Shannon [I], wid. of James Howard of Turnham Green, Chiswick, 3s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 2da.; (2) 10 Mar. 1687 (with £20,000),<sup>1</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1730), da. of Dudley North*, 4th Bar. North, wid. of Sir Robert Wiseman, dean of arches, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 25 Dec. 1732; <em>will</em> 23 Mar. 1731, pr. 1 Dec. 1738.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Treasurer of the Household 9 Feb. 1687-Dec. 1688.</p><p>Col., militia regt. of horse, Norf. by 1677-?89;<sup>3</sup> capt., indep. tp. of horse 1685.</p><p>Dep. lt., Norf. by 1677-?89;<sup>4</sup> freeman, Norwich 1678; recorder, Norwich 1683-89; high steward, Great Yarmouth 1684-<em>d.</em>; ld. lt., (jt. with Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke) Wilts. 1688-9; <em>custos rot</em>., Wilts. 1688-90; v.-adm., Norf. Jan.-Apr. 1719.</p><p>FRS 1722.</p> |
|
<p>William Paston was from an early age raised to take over the duties in county administration and political fighting of his father Robert Paston, Viscount (later earl of) Yarmouth. Yarmouth thought William was ‘a very solid young blade and understands matters with a quick intelligence’.<sup>6</sup> In his role as lord lieutenant he made the young man a justice of the peace, a deputy lieutenant and a colonel of a militia regiment of horse, for which reason William was usually referred to as ‘Colonel Paston’ during this time.<sup>7</sup> When Christopher Jay, a burgess for Norwich, died in August 1677 Yarmouth and his patron, Henry Howard*, earl of Norwich (later 6th duke of Norfolk), pushed forward the younger Paston as his replacement. Although Yarmouth’s ‘country’ rivals in the county, the former lord lieutenant Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, and Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, set up various opponents against him, Paston won by a three-to-one majority when the by-election went to a poll in February 1678.<sup>8</sup> Paston was subsequently returned for the following three Exclusion Parliaments of 1679-81, in which he was a reliable, if largely inactive, supporter of the court and opponent of Exclusion.<sup>9</sup> His kinship connections with Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and with the king himself led to lucrative marks of favour. In October 1676 he acquired a lease on land in the former ‘bowling green’ of Whitehall Palace.<sup>10</sup> In May 1678 he received a patent granting him the monopoly on printing public documents and forms for 31 years.<sup>11</sup> Later, in September of that same year, he received a pension of £1,000 to be taken from the income from the farm of the import of wood and earthenware held by his father. In July 1679 Viscount Yarmouth was further promoted in the peerage to be earl of Yarmouth, perhaps with the aid of his royal daughter-in-law, and the former Colonel Paston was then styled Lord Paston.</p><p>Paston helped his father enforce the ‘Tory reaction’ in Norfolk. Throughout 1682 he assisted his father to persuade the corporation of Norwich to surrender its charter voluntarily.<sup>12</sup> At the behest of a group of Tories on the court of aldermen he was named as recorder of the city in the new charter.<sup>13</sup> Paston’s ready acceptance of the honour quickly encountered opposition from those who argued that the right of appointment of the recorder had long been exclusively in the gift of the common council.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Paston succeeded to his father’s earldom on 8 Mar. 1683. His new title did not make his affairs with the Norwich corporation any easier – indeed, it may have only exacerbated the tensions between him and his opponents. In the first place, the king diminished Yarmouth’s local influence when he appointed Henry Howard*, Baron Mowbray (later 7th duke of Norfolk) lord lieutenant of the county in place of the late earl. Yarmouth’s appointment as recorder of Norwich and his wish, from April 1683, to appoint a deputy to exercise his place, encountered strong resistance from a section of the common council. They objected both to the king’s naming of Yarmouth as recorder in the charter as well as to the recorder’s absence from the town and his insistence that a deputy perform his duties. The dispute may reflect divisions within the Tory faction in the city government, between the ‘moderate’ and ‘extreme’ Tories among the aldermen, the latter of whom opposed Yarmouth because they may have found him too ‘moderate’.<sup>15</sup> This is suggested by the conflict between Yarmouth and one of his fiercest foes in the recordership dispute, the alderman and former sheriff, Philip Stebbing. In the autumn of 1683 Yarmouth, who by any standard had acted like a Tory up to that point, charged Stebbing with <em>scandalum magnatum</em> for publicly stating that ‘the earl of Yarmouth doth converse with a trimming Whiggish cabal and is a fit man to head the faction’. Roger Morrice recorded the offending words as ‘his Lordship was a Whig and for the Exclusion of the [James Stuart*] duke of York and fit to head a faction’. Yarmouth won his case in March 1684, and Stebbing was fined £10,000 in damages.<sup>16</sup> Yarmouth was also the court’s main agent in persuading the corporation of Great Yarmouth, where his father had been high steward, to surrender its charter in March 1684. He was duly named high steward of the corporation under the new charter.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Yarmouth’s principal connection with the court and the royal family was cut in July 1684 with the unexpected death of his wife, Charlotte. His mother, the dowager countess of Yarmouth, was another leading contact of his at court but her influence was at best ambiguous. She had long ‘made a great bustle’ at Charles II’s court with her sometimes strident advocacy of her family’s interest.<sup>18</sup> The financial affairs of the Pastons were always precarious, and the first earl reputedly suffered from a ‘broken heart’ in his last days caused by the king’s ‘ingratitude’ and unwillingness to assist the family further.<sup>19</sup> This probably referred to the failure just before the earl’s death of a complicated and long-running scheme in which he and a number of others, led by the projector Perceval Brunskell, tried to obtain a lucrative patent to farm the green wax fines. A patent constituting Yarmouth one of the patentees in a grant for 31 years at an annual rent of £250, of one half of the profits arising to the exchequer from Greenwax fines, was sealed on 25 May 1678 but was quickly revoked in July 1679 upon a negative report of the attorney general, Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup>. The chief opponent to the scheme, Sir Francis North*, later Baron Guilford, considered the earl of Yarmouth to be a dupe to Brunskell’s persuasions and Lady Yarmouth to be the projector’s chief patroness.<sup>20</sup> In January 1682 a draft royal warrant for another patent for the Greenwax fines, with the same patentees and the addition of Lord Paston and some others, was sent to the attorney-general, Robert Sawyer<sup>‡</sup>, for his examination. After a year of delay, the proposal was finally and definitively ‘quite baffled’ at the Privy Council in January 1683, shortly before the first earl’s death.<sup>21</sup> Brunskell, with the backing and patronage of the dowager countess, prepared a printed rebuttal of the charges against the scheme shortly after the first earl’s death, as part of her last-ditch efforts to salvage some financial benefit for the family.<sup>22</sup> The countess’s activities in this, and other petitions and interventions, gained her a reputation at the court for importunity.<sup>23</sup> In October 1684 an anonymous correspondent informed Yarmouth that he had been present when the dowager countess had made her representation at court at Windsor and ‘know nothing could be more contemptuous, she being held an indiscreet and mischievous woman. ... if you suffered to be governed by her, you would be held a weak person and ruin your interest at court’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Both mother and son had a stake in the late earl’s farm of the customs on wood, which was considered void at the death of Charles II.<sup>25</sup> Yarmouth successfully petitioned, although with some trouble, to maintain the farm for the remaining three years of its lease, but the restrictions placed on it (he was only to be paid a fixed annuity out of the customs which were to be managed by customs officers) indicated that its renewal, due in 1688, would be difficult.<sup>26</sup> Perhaps in part to protect this interest, Yarmouth pushed himself forward at James II’s court. He probably had some role in having court candidates returned for the boroughs of Great Yarmouth and Norwich in 1685 (including his own younger brother Robert Paston).<sup>27</sup> Yarmouth himself sat in the House at the first opportunity he could, attending on the first day of James II’s Parliament. He attended in total 58 per cent of its meetings and was named to only three committees. Over the following months Yarmouth convinced the king of his unswerving loyalty and became a favourite at court. He raised an independent troop of horse for the king to help suppress the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. Contemporary political commentators consistently marked him throughout 1687 and 1688 as a supporter of the king’s policies and of the repeal of the Test Acts and penal statutes. This, with perhaps the continuing importunate solicitations of his mother – for whom James II and his queen appear to have had a high regard – led eventually to Yarmouth’s appointment on 9 Feb. 1687 as treasurer of the royal household.<sup>28</sup> At about the same time, in March 1687, he contracted an advantageous marriage with Elizabeth Wiseman. The marriage made him brother-in-law of the commissioner of the customs, Sir Dudley North<sup>‡</sup>, but this connection did him little good when the lease on the wood farm expired, as North and the other commissioners refused to renew it.<sup>29</sup> Yarmouth was appointed, in March 1688, joint lord lieutenant (and from June sole <em>custos rotulorum</em>) of Wiltshire, a county with which he had no connection but whose incumbent lord lieutenant, the local magnate Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, was increasingly mistrusted by James. Yarmouth’s commission for this post included a dispensation from the penal statutes against Catholics.<sup>30</sup> At the time of Yarmouth’s appointment in February 1687 he had been considered a Protestant, but there are suggestions that as early as June 1686 his mother had converted to Catholicism and in July 1688 it was reported in the newsletters that Yarmouth himself had become a Roman Catholic.<sup>31</sup> By September 1688 a member of the Catholic Waldegrave clan at court placed the dowager countess ‘in the first rank’ of ‘those who are their majesties’ true and faithful servants’.<sup>32</sup> With the farm on the greenwax and the wood custom gone, Yarmouth appears to have turned in 1687-8 to investing in the exploitation of lead mines, particularly near Wirksworth in Derbyshire.<sup>33</sup> At the time of the Revolution Yarmouth, not knowing his fate in the coming war, left his mother explicit instructions regarding his estate, instructing her to ensure that the work on the mines might be continued and that his patent for the monopoly of printing public documents be maintained.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Yarmouth survived the Revolution, though his actions in November 1688 are not known. He first attended the meeting of the provisional government established in the Guildhall on the afternoon of 13 Dec. just after reports of the king’s discovery at Faversham were reaching the capital. It was decided that Yarmouth, as treasurer of the king’s household, was to go with other prominent members of the king’s court to Faversham to bring the king back to the capital.<sup>35</sup> In the Convention Yarmouth voted on 29 Jan. 1689 in favour of the unsuccessful motion to establish a regency. Over the following days he consistently voted against proclaiming William and Mary king and queen or accepting the Commons’ phrasing in the declaration that James II had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was thereby ‘vacant’, although he did not join in the protest of 6 Feb. 1689 when this wording was accepted by a majority of the House. Two days after this vote Yarmouth left the House for good, unwilling to acknowledge William and Mary as his new monarchs. Although he formally reconverted to Protestantism sometime in the spring of 1689, he refused to swear the necessary oaths to the new regime until he finally relented in November 1696.<sup>36</sup> He was frequently summoned to the House by official letters, but his excuses for his absence, usually involving his recurrent illness or the distances needed to travel from Norfolk, were always accepted by the House. His refusal to accept the new monarchs marked his own political downfall, as he lost all his court and most of his local, offices over the course of 1688-9, although he formally remained <em>custos</em> of Wiltshire until as late as February 1690 and retained the high stewardship of Great Yarmouth until his death.<sup>37</sup></p><p>In late June 1690 Yarmouth was committed to the Tower on suspicion of high treason and involvement in Jacobite conspiracy but even though the judge thought ‘there was more matter against him than against some that had been tried and condemned’, he was discharged on 15 August.<sup>38</sup> There was good reason to suspect Yarmouth of Jacobite conspiracy, as became clear over the following months. An informant told the government that a Jacobite agent had travelled to Norfolk in September 1691 to meet with ‘Ld. Y’ and other Tories; he had been told that Yarmouth and the others ‘would raise more money, men, horses and arms than could be expected’.<sup>39</sup> Yarmouth was also included in a list of Jacobite peers who had sent an agent to St Germain with professions of their loyalty and an optimistic account of England’s readiness to accept the return of the king.<sup>40</sup> Yarmouth was predictably high on the list when the government effected another clampdown on Jacobites in early May 1692. He was committed to the Tower again on 15 May, only to be released a month later on bail.<sup>41</sup> These brushes with incarceration do not appear to have changed Yarmouth’s views, and by the winter of 1693-4 he was deeply involved in a plan for an immediate Jacobite invasion, taking upon himself in his letters to St Germain the responsibility of securing Norfolk for the deposed king and providing the Jacobite court with a detailed and optimistic list of the principal inhabitants of Norfolk who would declare for James II in the event of an invasion.<sup>42</sup> Yet at the same time as Yarmouth was describing himself to St Germain as the leader of the Norfolk Jacobites, the Norfolk clergyman Humphrey Prideaux described him as living ‘very obscurely’ at Oxnead, in increasing debt, while his once imperious mother ‘boards in a thatched house, and ... with difficulty enough finds money to pay for her board’. <sup>43</sup></p><p>The countess dowager died in February 1694. By that time the Paston interest at court was being managed by Yarmouth’s son and heir, Charles, styled Lord Paston, who in January 1694 had ‘kissed the king’s hand in order to his coming into favour’.<sup>44</sup> He quickly allied himself to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, who may have procured for him a commission as a major in a troop of the Life Guards and appears for several years to have been receptive to the idea of Paston’s marriage to his own daughter.<sup>45</sup> It may have been through Paston’s and Portland’s interest that Yarmouth, so long in self-imposed isolation, returned to favour. On 23 Nov. 1696 he kissed the king’s hands and took the requisite oaths to William III in the House, sitting there for the first time since ‘the coronation’, as Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> commented (inaccurately, as Yarmouth had made two brief and unnoticeable appearances on 7 May and 12 Nov. 1689).<sup>46</sup> He came to over half of the meetings of this session, but on the most controversial issue of that time, the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, he avoided taking a stand, leaving the House before the question was put on 23 Dec. 1696 whether the bill of attainder should pass, and he did not join in signing the protest against the bill.</p><p>Yarmouth’s political stance in the ensuing years was ambiguous. On one hand, he could clearly express his Jacobite sympathies, as when he stood £5,000 surety in June 1697 for the bail of William Herbert*, styled Viscount Montgomery (4th earl of Powis).<sup>47</sup> His steadily declining attendance after his return to the House in 1696-7 may suggest that he still found proceedings in the House distasteful to his political views. He attended only 37 per cent of the meetings in 1697-8 session, but was named to 27 committees and chaired and reported from one on a private bill for vesting a Norfolk estate in trustees to be sold. On 15 Mar. 1698 he was present to vote against the commitment of the Junto bill to punish the exchequer official, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He only came to just over a quarter of the meetings in the first session of the 1698 Parliament and to none at all in the second. Similarly, he attended only ten of the gatherings of the Parliament of 1701, during which he managed to get himself excused through illness from passing judgment in the impeachment of the Junto peers. He did not attend any of the meetings of William III’s last Parliament.</p><p>On the other hand, he relied on his son’s growing connection with Portland and tried to use him as a patron and protector as well. In 1697 his claim that he only remained in contact with Jacobite agents in order to discover information which he could loyally pass on to Portland and the government was generally accepted. His daughters also testified that he blamed his wife for continuing to place him in such a damaging position by ‘bringing him among such people’. He told her (at least according to his daughters, who may have wished to shift blame on to their step-mother) that ‘she would never be quiet till she had brought him to a scaffold, asking with what face could he now look upon the king, when these things appeared against him, after the assurances he had given of carrying himself faithfully towards him’.<sup>48</sup> On 29 June 1698, just before Yarmouth left the 1697-8 session for its last few days, he even registered his proxy with Portland. Lord Paston had accompanied Portland on his embassy to France in early 1698 and in the elections of later that year stood as a Whig for Norfolk with Sir Henry Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, son of the first earl of Yarmouth’s local enemy in the 1670s.<sup>49</sup> As had happened earlier when they had stood together at the county elections of 1690, Hobart and Paston came bottom of the poll, but Paston was shortly after chosen as a burgess for Thetford at a by-election in January 1699.<sup>50</sup> Hobart was killed in a duel shortly after his defeat, at which Yarmouth surprisingly set himself up as the head of the county’s Whig party, ‘which’, Humphrey Prideaux commented to John Sharp*, archbishop of York, in March 1699,</p><blockquote><p>cannot but appear very strange to your Grace who will know how better his father presented those sort of people ... but for want of another to buoy them up they have taken him in and are now endeavouring to get him in to be lord lieutenant in the place of the duke of Norfolk whom they would fain dispossess of it.<sup>51</sup></p></blockquote><p>Yarmouth’s ambitions were founded on the projected marriage of Paston and one of Portland’s daughters, the rumour of which Luttrell had already recorded in August 1696 and repeated as late as August 1700, although it never did go through.<sup>52</sup> To further burnish his Whig credentials, Yarmouth was trying to arrange a marriage between his daughter, Rebecca, and Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>, grandson of the old Civil War parliamentarian, Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>. The old man’s son, Thomas Holland, the prospective groom’s father died in December 1698, and his debts of £9,000 temporarily interrupted the marriage negotiations, much to the relief of the county gentry, who ‘apprehend that if the earl of Yarmouth and Sir John Holland join interest it would be the worse for the [county]’.<sup>53</sup> The marriage took place in May 1699.<sup>54</sup> Sir John Holland went on to be an active knight of the shire from January 1702 until the Tory landslide in 1710.</p><p>Yarmouth for his part had rehabilitated himself so well that in the early days of the reign of Anne there was an unfounded rumour circulating that he had been made a privy councillor.<sup>55</sup> Macky could describe him as ‘a man of sense and knowledge in the affairs of his country’ while noting that he had been ‘a non-juror all King William’s reign’.<sup>56</sup> Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in forecasting the vote on the occasional conformity bill in December 1703, tentatively placed Yarmouth in the ‘good’ category of those that would oppose the bill, but further indicated that Yarmouth was ‘uncertain’ and tellingly noted that he ‘probably won’t come up’, for Yarmouth continued to be a persistent absentee from the House throughout the early years of Anne’s reign. He first attended on 15 Feb. 1707 for a total of 20 sittings in that year. In the following Parliament he first took the oaths and sat on 23 Feb. 1709 but then attended again for just three more days in mid-March. During this long period of absence Yarmouth was considered by one political commentator to be a Jacobite, and in a list of the political leanings of the peerage at the time of the 1708 Parliament he was classed as a Tory. Another factor in his isolation may have been the crippling state of his finances and debts. In September 1708 Humprhey Prideaux commented to John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> that,</p><blockquote><p>the earl of Yarmouth is as low as you can imagine. He hath vast debts, and suffers everything to run to extremity; so his goods have been all seized in execution and his lands extended, so that he hath scarce a servant to attend him or an horse to ride abroad upon, and yet cannot be persuaded to take any method of putting his affairs into a better position, which they are still capable of, if he would set about it.<sup>57</sup></p></blockquote><p>By 1711 Prideaux himself was owed arrears of tithes due to him from the earl which, he noted in his diary, ‘with other parts of the earl’s estate [were], assigned to Sir John Holland [the earl’s son-in-law], and other trustees for the payment of some of the said earl’s debts’.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Despite, or perhaps because of, his debts, Yarmouth returned to active political life from the time of the second session of the Whig-dominated 1708 Parliament, when he perhaps saw that the Tories were on the ascendant. He first sat in the House on 9 Jan. 1710 and attended in total 32 per cent of the sittings. He joined the Tories in the defence of Dr Sacheverell and signed six protests between 14-20 Mar. 1710 against the trial and conviction of the minister, including the protest against the final verdict of guilty. He then attended three sparsely attended days of prorogation in the summer of 1710 as the old Whig ministry was being dismantled. As he was forming his new government, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, included Yarmouth among those who were expected to support his ministry. Yarmouth attended over three-quarters of the meetings of the first session of 1710-11 and on 16 Apr. 1711 reported from a committee of the whole House discussing a bill on the assize of billet.<sup>59</sup> He also played a role in the sub-committee for the Journal.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Yarmouth looked to benefit from the politically sympathetic ministry now in place. Throughout 1711 Harley, now earl of Oxford and lord treasurer, received solicitations from Yarmouth or his advocates promoting his candidacy for offices which would supply him with an income.<sup>61</sup> Robert Ferguson, who by that time was heavily involved with the Jacobites, put him forward as a candidate for first commissioner of the victualling commission because, as he argued, Yarmouth ‘hath a great esteem and a cordial affection for those in the present ministry, so he doth particularly avow himself a friend, as well as both an undaunted advocate for the reputation and professed partisan for the safety of the ... lord high treasurer’.<sup>62</sup> In the meantime, those on the opposite side of the political spectrum saw Yarmouth’s continuing indebtedness as an opportunity for bringing him over to support the Hanoverian succession. In both 1712 and 1713 he was among the ‘poor lords’ whom Hanoverian agents recommended be pensioned with £500 or £600, as he was considered one of those lords ‘as vote with the court, but may be had for money’. Perhaps seeing Yarmouth’s financial vulnerability, Oxford did reward the earl with a bounty of £400 in 1713. In the summer of that same year, when Oxford found himself increasingly embattled over the opposition to the peace terms, Yarmouth put himself forward as his replacement as lord treasurer with (according to Yarmouth) Oxford’s own approval.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Yarmouth attended all but 14 of the sittings (87.5 per cent) of the 1711-12 session, where he supported the ministry by voting in December against the inclusion of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the address to the queen and against the motion to exclude James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House by right of the British peerage conferred on him after the Union. The status of hereditary Scottish peers given British titles after the Union was further discussed in a number of meetings of a committee of the whole in January 1712; and Yarmouth chaired the last of these, on 4 Feb., but did not report as no decision had been taken.<sup>64</sup> On 29 Jan. 1712 he did report from a committee of the whole that discussed the bill to build a causeway between Great Yarmouth and Caister, and on 5 May 1712 he reported from a select committee on a private estate bill involving an estate in Somerset, perhaps a remnant from his days as <em>custos</em> in the west country. Later in that month he voted against the address to the queen protesting against the ‘restraining orders’ sent to the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. He continued to attend the House regularly whilst it was continuously prorogued in 1712-13 when the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht were being hammered out and then came to three-quarters of the meetings of the session of the spring of 1713. Oxford forecast that Yarmouth would support the French commercial treaty, if it came before the House. Between 20 May and 19 June 1713 Yarmouth reported from four select committees on private bills, one of these, the bill to exempt the estate of his son-in-law, Sir John Holland, from various trusts and uses, being of personal concern to him.<sup>65</sup> On 9 July he also reported from a committee of the whole on the bill to raise £1,200,000 by a circulation of exchequer bills and for the queen to raise a further £500,000 on the credit of the civil list. At around this time he acted as the middleman in the negotiations for the marriage between Oxford’s daughter, Elizabeth, and the son and namesake of Yarmouth’s own second cousin, Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds.<sup>66</sup> Leeds appears to have been very close and reliant on his cousin, for when in June 1713 there was a concern that there would not be sufficient Tory peers in the House to block a vote against Oxford, it was noted that if Yarmouth was intending to be absent, then ‘it is not to be doubted, but that in consequence thereof the duke of Leeds will be likewise’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Yarmouth was at his most assiduous during the first session of the Parliament elected in late 1713, when he came to all but four (95 per cent) of the meetings; he only came to eight of the gatherings of the much shorter session of August 1714 following the queen’s death. He was named to 19 committees and between 7 May and 9 July 1714 he reported from two select committees on naturalization bills (on 16 June and 5 July) and from six committees of the whole dealing with a range of bills mostly to do with various revenue raising measures of the crown, particularly through the customs. On 17 Apr. he told for the majority contents in a very tight division in a committee of the whole on whether to include a clause in the bill to reduce the number of office holders in the House of Commons. He told in another committee of the whole on 9 June for the minority not contents in a division on whether to insert a word in the schism bill. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, considered him a supporter of this bill. At the end of June he told again, this time against reading the examination accounts bill a second time. On 16 Mar. 1714 the Tory, Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex, registered his proxy with Yarmouth, who held it until Sussex returned to the House on the penultimate day of the session, and from 22 June Yarmouth also held the proxy of another Tory, Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Yarmouth appears to have adapted successfully to the Hanoverian succession. It is true that in the winter of 1714-15 he acted as a representative commissioned by the dowager queen, Mary of Modena, to negotiate the payment of her jointure, but otherwise he appears to have put his Jacobite, and even his Tory, past behind him and to have supported the government of George I.<sup>68</sup> He did not stay away from the House, as he had done under previous whiggish administrations. Throughout the king’s first Parliament his attendance per session ranged between 64 per cent (during the first long session of 1715-17) to 85 per cent (during 1718-19). In total he was present at three-quarters of the meetings of the long Parliament that met from March 1715 to March 1722. In contrast, by the time of the 1722 Parliament age or poverty was taking its toll, and he came to only just over half of all the sittings between October 1722 and the king’s death in June 1727. His presence in the first few meetings of the Parliament of George II was negligible, coming to only to 37 meetings in total between February 1728 and February 1732.</p><p>His actions during George I’s Parliaments suggest that he had become a court Tory and supported the <em>de facto</em> government, perhaps through a wish to enlist its assistance in his increasingly difficult financial situation. He was briefly rewarded by the government for his loyalty when he was made vice-admiral of the Norfolk coast between the months of January and April 1719: this was his only royal appointment. Yarmouth surprised commentators in April 1716 when he joined a small band of Tories in voting with the court in favour of the repeal of the Triennial Act.<sup>69</sup> Even his old patron, the earl of Oxford, considered Yarmouth one of his potential opponents in the impeachment proceedings of the spring of 1717, although Yarmouth avoided taking a stand by absenting himself from proceedings before the vote that acquitted the former lord treasurer.<sup>70</sup> A more detailed account and analysis of Yarmouth’s political activities in the House after 1715 will be found in the next section of this work.</p><p>Yarmouth died at Epsom, Surrey, on Christmas Day 1732, the last male of his line. Lord Paston, who had been made a colonel of an infantry regiment in March 1704, promoted to brigadier-general in January 1710, and who had then sold his regiment, had died without a male heir in 1718.<sup>71</sup> Yarmouth’s three brothers and their sons had all predeceased him. Not only was the peerage extinct (and was quickly recreated for George II’s mistress in 1740), but the Paston estate was in ruins. All Yarmouth’s lands and goods, including the valuable possessions at the family seat of Oxnead, were sold to pay his and his father’s outstanding debts. Yet even when the estate, which had been eyed for purchase by Sarah Churchill, duchess of Marlborough, for several years, was finally settled in 1764, Yarmouth’s creditors could only receive 11<em>s</em>. 3<em>d</em>. in the pound in recompense<strong>.</strong><sup>72</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PAULET, John (c. 1598-1675) |
<p><strong><surname>PAULET</surname></strong> (<strong>PAWLETT</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (c. 1598–1675)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1621-24 Ld. St John; <em>accel. </em>10 Feb. 1624 Bar. ST JOHN of Basing; <em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Feb. 1629 as 5th mq. of WINCHESTER |
|
First sat 10 Feb. 1624; first sat after 1660, 21 May 1660; last sat 9 May 1668 |
|
MP St Ives 1621 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1598, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of William Paulet<sup>†</sup>, 4th mq. of Winchester, and Lucy, da. of Thomas Cecil<sup>†</sup>, earl of Exeter. <em>educ</em>. privately; ?Exeter Coll. Oxf. (did not matric.); travelled abroad (France, Italy, Germany, Low Countries) 1612–17.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 18 Dec. 1622, Jane Savage (<em>d</em>.1631), da. of Thomas Savage<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Savage, and Elizabeth, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Countess Rivers, 1s.; (2) 27 Aug. 1633, Honora (Honor) Bourke (de Burgh)<sup>2</sup> (<em>d</em>.1662), da. of Richard Bourke (de Burgh)<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Clanricarde [I] and earl of St Albans, and Frances Walsingham, 4s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (3) 1669, Isabella Theresa Lucy (<em>d</em>. 1691), da. of William Howard*, Visct. Stafford, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 5 Mar. 1675; <em>will</em> 26 Dec. 1671, pr. 22 Mar. 1675.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. Netley Castle, Hants 1626; kpr. forest of Pamber 1629; gov. Basing House, Hants 1643–5; col. ft. and horse, Basing House, Hants 1643–5.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: etching, Wenceslaus Hollar, NPG D28167.</p> |
<p>The premier marquess in England, Winchester was descended from a cadet branch of a Somersetshire gentry family that was ennobled under Henry VIII. The family’s estates were centred on the manor of Basing, which had been acquired in the fifteenth century, though by the mid-seventeenth century the Paulets appear to have favoured the smaller former lodge at Hackwood (‘a very indifferent house’) rather than the colossal Tudor edifice of Basing House itself.<sup>6</sup> Having been returned for St Ives, probably on his father’s interest, St John (as he was then styled) was summoned to the Lords in his father’s barony in 1624 and took his seat in the House on 24 February. He succeeded to the marquessate five years later.<sup>7</sup></p><p>As a Catholic and staunch royalist Winchester expended vast sums in the service of the king during the Civil War. The siege of Basing proved to be one of the most protracted focal points in the conflict. When the house at last fell to Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> in the autumn of 1645, more than 100 of the defenders were put to the sword and Winchester himself was conveyed to the Tower, where he faced prosecution for treason.<sup>8</sup> Although he was permitted to take the waters at Epsom in 1647, Winchester was subject to sequestration and was even deprived of his children, who were taken away to be raised as Protestants.<sup>9</sup> With Basing House in ruins and the profits of his estates granted to his local rivals Sir Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Wallop<sup>‡</sup>, Winchester removed to Englefield in Berkshire, which he had acquired prior to the War, after which he appears to have spent the remainder of the Interregnum in comparative obscurity.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as a papist in his analysis of the peerage on the eve of the Restoration, Winchester at last returned to the House on 21 May 1660, along with several other Catholic peers. He was thereafter present on more than three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to five committees.<sup>11</sup> His heir, Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St John (later duke of Bolton), was returned for the borough of Winchester in the Convention but it is most unlikely that Winchester himself played any role in promoting St John’s return. Over the following few months, he signed a number of certificates testifying to the worthiness of several people seeking offices or restitution to places lost in the service of the former king.<sup>12</sup> The majority of his efforts, however, were spent in attempting to seek the restoration of his own estates and in effecting a reconciliation with his estranged heir, with whom he appears to have fallen out as a result of the difficulties over recovering his estates. On 7 June Winchester’s petition seeking restoration of his lands was referred to the committee for petitions and the following day the committee was ordered to attempt a reconciliation between the marquess and St John, though this was put off over the ensuing few days. On 23 June Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, reported from the committee and sought an order for the lord chancellor (Edward Hyde*, Baron Hyde, later earl of Clarendon) to approach the king to intervene personally in the dispute. A parallel order was also made for Winchester to be put into possession of such parts of his estate as had not been sold and further orders were made for his neighbours Jervoise and Wallop to hand over the profits from lands they had acquired from him during the Interregnum. On 27 June Winchester was granted a further order empowering him to search for his goods (similar to an order previously granted to James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton).</p><p>Despite such early signs of progress, Winchester’s efforts to secure his property ran into almost immediate difficulties and on 11 July he submitted a complaint to the House that not only was one Edward Acton refusing to heed the Lords’ orders but he had also made disparaging remarks about Winchester. Although Acton was ordered to be attached, it is not clear whether any further progress was made with Winchester’s complaint in this instance. On 13 July Winchester joined George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in introducing George Monck* as duke of Albemarle. The following day the House read Winchester’s bill for seeking reparations of £19,000 from Jervoise and Wallop and on 18 July he was granted the same order as Buckingham for taking possession of lands sold without his consent. On 23 July Winchester’s bill was committed, but the following day the orders for Winchester and Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to be put into possession of lands lost during the Interregnum were suspended. Despite this, Winchester still evidently commanded some sympathy in the House as Pembroke reported Winchester’s bill as fit to pass on 30 July and on 2 Aug. the bill was passed at third reading. It subsequently failed to pass the Commons.</p><p>Winchester was involved in attempting to compose tensions within the city of Winchester later that summer. As a result, on 23 Aug. 1660 he and John Robartes*, Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), recommended to the House that certain members of the corporation be omitted from the city charter when it was next renewed. Their efforts proved unsuccessful.<sup>13</sup> On 8 Sept. Winchester had some success in his efforts to regain control of his former lands when the sheriff of Dorset was ordered to arrange for the handing over of a farm at Stepleton to Winchester’s agents.</p><p>Winchester took his seat in the House in the second session of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660, after which he attended on just under 90 per cent of all sitting days and was named to nine committees.<sup>14</sup> In January 1661 he was one of a number of peers appointed to consider ways to persuade those peers who had neglected to pay their poll bills to settle their accounts.<sup>15</sup> Winchester’s own ongoing difficulty in securing the return of his property mirrored the experiences of other cavalier landowners such as Derby and also highlighted the tensions evident between Lords and Commons over the Restoration settlement. Following the return of the new Parliament in May 1661 the Commons promoted a bill seeking reparations of £10,000 from Robert Wallop for Winchester. It was brought up from the Commons on 2 July, but was rejected by the Lords on the 12th, following the advice of the lord chief justice that it contravened the act of oblivion and indemnity. Winchester was clearly unwilling to concede defeat and his frequent attendance during the first session (amounting to approximately 84 per cent of all sitting days) no doubt reflected his eagerness to press on with his claims. On 19 July he met with greater support from the Lords when the House agreed to uphold his privilege and prevent the further prosecution of two of his tenants by Essex Paulet (presumably a kinsman), who had been attempting to bring an act of ejectment against them.</p><p>The same month Winchester was one of several individuals to be named in provisos attached to the indemnity bill but these met spirited opposition in the House. By 27 July it was reported that William Craven*, Baron (later earl of) Craven, was willing to relinquish his claim to a proviso but that Winchester was holding firm and insisting that the proviso relating to him remained in spite of a personal intervention by Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton (Wallop’s brother-in-law), recommending that the House petition on Winchester’s behalf instead.<sup>16</sup> To complicate the matter, on 29 July the Commons refused to accept the Lords’ determination to reject the proviso and requested a conference to discuss the issue. The Commons were initially resolute on Winchester’s part, stressing that it was ‘a just thing’ to recognize his grievance and that they considered ‘the marquess of Winchester to have done much service for the king, and suffered much in his estate for him … and this proviso gives him nothing but his own’. Despite this, the ensuing conference resulted in the Commons’ acceptance of the Lords’ explanation, though they still insisted on petitioning for Winchester and St John to be awarded reparations.</p><p>Winchester petitioned the king for payment of £2,000 apiece to his two daughters out of the customs in September 1661, which he hoped would help to ‘reconcile an unhappy difference between himself and his son’.<sup>17</sup> He introduced a further bill on 15 Feb. 1662 for confirming him in the possession of estates whose deeds had been destroyed during the sack of Basing, which was successful, and the following month another bill was introduced into the House for confirming the award made by the king to compose the differences between Winchester and his son. On 24 Apr. the dispute, which by then had grown to embrace several other members of Winchester’s family, was again referred to the arbitration of referees named by the king. In the midst of this Winchester was nominated to a dozen committees, the majority of which related to private legislation with which he was by now all too familiar.</p><p>Winchester returned to the House for the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on approximately 88 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to ten committees. His high record of attendance no doubt reflects the continuing efforts still being made to settle the family disagreement and may also explain his presence at a dinner hosted by Clarendon in May.<sup>18</sup> On 27 May the Commons sent up a further bill for composing the feuding pair’s differences but on 15 June, when Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), reported from the committee named to consider the bill, he informed the House that Winchester did not consent to the measure. The House ordered the bill to be recommitted but on 2 July, when the committee reconvened, chaired by the lord chamberlain (Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester), Winchester once more disclaimed the bill while insisting that he wished to do what might be convenient for his family.<sup>19</sup> Failure to secure what he considered his due as a sufferer in the late king’s cause may have been behind his estimated support for the attempt made by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon that summer, though he may also have been demonstrating solidarity with a fellow Catholic.</p><p>Winchester took his seat in the following session on 2 Apr. 1664, after which he attended on 58 per cent of all sitting days, though he was named to just one committee. He took his seat in the ensuing session on 24 Nov., and he attended on almost three-quarters of all sitting days but he was missing at a call of the House on 7 December. He resumed his seat two days later but was named to just three committees during the remainder of the session. Absent for the entirety of the session of October 1665, on 16 Oct. he registered his proxy with Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington. Although he rallied to attend the prorogation of 23 Apr. 1666, Winchester was again missing at a call on 1 October. He resumed his seat the following month on 13 Nov., after which he was present on just over half of all sitting days and was named to two committees. Absent again from the opening of the following session, Winchester was excused once more at a call on 29 Oct. 1667, before resuming his seat on 9 Nov., after which he was present for a quarter of all sitting days. Absent yet again on 17 Feb. 1668, he was once more excused at a call before returning to the House on 22 February.</p><p>Winchester sat for the last time on 9 May. Later that year rumours circulated that he had died.<sup>20</sup> Although these reports proved to be premature, it may be that poor health contributed to his failure to attend from then on. Even so, by April of the following year he confounded all such reports by marrying for the third time, to a bride some 25 years his junior. His new marriage was presumably the reason for a further downturn in relations with his heir, who introduced a bill in chancery relating to the previous settlement made between them, and in August 1669 Winchester’s agents travelled to France to take a deposition from the exiled Clarendon as part of Winchester’s defence.<sup>21</sup> Whether he was distracted by the renewed dispute with St John or sickness, on 26 Oct. it was noted that Winchester was sending up his proxy and on 6 Nov. the proxy was duly registered with his new father-in-law, Stafford. On 14 Nov. he was again excused and on 10 Feb. 1671 he registered his proxy once more.</p><p>That summer, the case between Winchester and his heir was once again rehearsed before the court of chancery but a resolution appears to have eluded father and son.<sup>22</sup> Winchester was mistakenly reported to have been among four new privy councillors appointed in April 1672, his name being confused with that of Henry Somerset*, marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort).<sup>23</sup> Excused at a call on 13 Feb. 1673, on 3 Mar. Winchester again registered his proxy with Stafford. He was excused again on 12 Jan. 1674. A couple of weeks later (27 Jan.) the House was informed that Winchester was facing charges of recusancy, contrary to his privilege. In response the Lords ordered that he should be granted privilege and similar orders were issued for five other Catholic peers. On 12 Feb. Winchester once again registered his proxy with Stafford.</p><p>Winchester died on 5 Mar. 1675 and was buried in the church at Englefield, which he had made his home following the destruction of Basing House.<sup>24</sup> Following his death, a memorial inscription was composed by Dryden, which hailed him as:</p><blockquote><p>He who in impious times undaunted stood,<br />And ’midst rebellion durst be just and good:<br />Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more<br />Confirmed the cause for which he fought before …</p></blockquote><p>In his will Winchester requested to be buried with as little fuss as possible. To his heir, St John (who succeeded as 6th marquess of Winchester), he bequeathed his parliamentary robes, while the majority of the personal estate at Englefield was left to his younger son, Lord Francis Paulet. To the poor of Englefield Winchester bequeathed £20. The residue of his estate passed to his third wife, Isabella.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
PELHAM, Thomas (c. 1653-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>PELHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1653–1712)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>16 Dec. 1706 Bar. PELHAM of Laughton, Suss. |
|
First sat 30 Dec. 1706; last sat 25 Jan. 1712 |
|
MP East Grinstead 25 Oct. 1678-9 (July), Lewes 1679 (Oct.)-1702, Sussex 1702-5 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1653, o. s. of Sir John Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. and Lucy, da. of Robert Sydney*, 2nd earl of Leicester. <em>educ</em>. Tonbridge g.s. 1663-5;<sup>1</sup> Christ Church, Oxf. bef. 1672. <em>m</em>. (1) 18 Mar. 1680, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1681), da. of Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup> of Ramsbury, Wilts., 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) lic. 21 May 1686, Grace (<em>d</em>.1700), da. of Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, 2s. 6da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. fa. 20 Jan 1703. <em>d</em>. 23 Feb. 1712; <em>will</em> 19 Jan. 1709, pr. 12 Mar. 1712.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Suss. by 1701-?1706;<sup>3</sup> v.-adm., Suss. 1705-<em>d.</em>; steward, honour of Eagle, Suss. 1707-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr., customs 1689-90; treasury 1690-2, 1697-9, 1701-2.</p> |
|
<p>Thomas Pelham was first returned to the Commons to fill a vacated seat for East Grinstead shortly after the convening of the last session of the Cavalier Parliament in October 1678. He was returned for the same borough in the subsequent election, and from that point until he voluntarily stood down before the election of 1705 he sat in every Parliament. During those long years in the Commons, he allied himself with first the Exclusionists and later the Whigs but always maintained an independent ‘country’ stance. He was influenced, in part, by his first father-in-law, the former attorney-general and firm advocate of Exclusion, Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup>. His wife Elizabeth, Jones’s daughter, died within two years of the marriage, and in April 1686 Pelham made a marriage alliance with an even more prestigious and powerful Whig family when he married Grace, daughter of another Exclusionist, the melancholy Presbyterian peer, Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare.</p><p>From this point Pelham’s career was closely linked with his new brother-in-law, John Holles*, who became 4th earl of Clare in 1689. By 1694, through his marriage to a daughter (and as of 1691 sole heiress) of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, and a fortuitous inheritance from a distant cousin, Clare had become one of the greatest landowners in England; he was himself created duke of Newcastle in 1694. It was perhaps through the influence of Newcastle that Pelham rose to prominence during the reign of William III. His resignation from the treasury commission in late February 1692 was a gesture of support for his brother-in-law’s resignation of his court offices over William’s refusal to grant his demand for the dukedom of Newcastle. In the Commons Pelham maintained his Whig stance but did not follow the Junto consistently, often taking an independent line, as in his opposition to the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. His connection with the Whigs, was further strengthened by the marriage in 1698 between his daughter, Elizabeth (with a portion of £30,000) and a prominent Whig politician, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Pelham returned to the treasury commission in May 1697 but was removed from it again in June 1699. Reappointed in March 1701 he lost office again at Anne’s accession.<sup>6</sup> In her first Parliament Pelham was returned for both the county (Sussex) and for Lewes and chose to sit for the county. Since the latter years of William III’s reign Newcastle had turned to the rising star, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as his closest political ally.<sup>7</sup> In early April 1705 Harley was able to have Newcastle appointed lord privy seal, as a first move in the gradual replacement of Tory officers with Whigs, and that same month he tried to gratify Newcastle by promoting his brother-in-law, Pelham, to the vice-admiralty of the Sussex coast, a position formerly held by his father. Harley further encouraged Newcastle to persuade Pelham to stand for Sussex in the elections of spring 1705, but Pelham declined the offer.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Perhaps Pelham withdrew from the Commons to further emphasize his desire for a peerage; the growing influence of his patron, Newcastle, in the government ensured that his wish for further favour would eventually be gratified. Under constant pressure from Harley and the ‘duumvirs’, throughout 1705-6 Anne provided offices and honours to an increasing number of Whigs, often against her own judgment. In December 1706 Harley and Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, included Pelham among their list of ten Whigs who were to be either created peers or elevated from their existing titles.<sup>9</sup> The patent creating him Baron Pelham of Laughton in Sussex was sealed on 16 Dec. 1706, and he first sat in the House two weeks later on 30 Dec. 1706, along with the nine other Whig creations or promotions. His elevation to the upper House did not reduce his interest in the Commons; members of the extended Pelham family continued to sit for Lewes for the next few Parliaments.</p><p>If Pelham was created a baron in order to increase Whig numbers and voting power, his subsequent record in the House would have been a disappointment to his brother-in-law and those who promoted him. His activity and attendance remained low over the next six years. After coming to 22 sittings of the House from the time of his introduction, he left the House for that session on 14 Mar. 1707, just when proceedings on the bill of Union were heating up, and did not come at all in the brief session of April 1707. He was present at 15 of the sittings in 1707-8, first sitting in this session on 10 Nov. 1707. Even when the Whigs dominated Parliament, as they did after the 1708 elections, Pelham seldom showed up in the House, and he came to only 16 meetings of the 1708-9 session. At this point his attitude to the two principal ministers, the ‘duumvirs’ Godolphin and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, was ambivalent. For while he obsequiously solicited Marlborough in March 1709 for a military commission for his kinsman, James Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, in the House he joined with Newcastle and the Junto Whigs against the increasingly beleaguered Godolphin.<sup>10</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against the right of Godolphin’s close colleague James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], to vote in the election of the Scottish representative peers because he had received the British title of duke of Dover. Pelham came to 38 per cent of the sittings in the session of 1709-10, his highest rate of attendance in the House during his entire career there. He was present in particular during the proceedings against Henry Sacheverell, for which he was nominated to a number of committees. On 20 Mar. 1710 he found Sacheverell guilty.</p><p>Even though Newcastle was the only Whig to remain in office throughout the change of ministry in the summer and autumn of 1710, Pelham barely bothered to come to the Tory-dominated Parliament. He came to only nine sittings in the 1710-11 session. He was perhaps summoned or encouraged to appear in the House for these few brief meetings in early 1711, for he put his name to the two protests of 3 Feb. 1711 objecting to the House’s condemnation of the previous ministry for its failure to supply the forces in Spain adequately to counter the Franco-Spanish army at Almanza. Two days after this protest he left the House and registered his proxy with Newcastle, who himself did not return to the House from a period of absence until 19 February.</p><p>For the following (1711-12) session Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham, registered his proxy with Pelham on 1 Dec. 1711. Pelham sat for 12 sittings from the session’s first day on 7 Dec. until 25 Jan. 1712 when he once again left the House, probably due to illness. He registered his proxy with Godolphin on 31 January.<sup>11</sup> During this brief period in the House Pelham voted in favour of presenting the address to the queen insisting that there could be ‘No peace without Spain’ and against the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, as this British title had been conferred on him after the Union.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Pelham died, apparently of apoplexy, on 23 Feb. 1712 at his house of Halland at Laughton and reportedly ‘left his son ... the richest heir in England’.<sup>13</sup> This estimation proved to be correct but the wealth of the young Thomas Pelham*, later duke of Newcastle, did not come principally from his own father. His paternal inheritance was substantial (it was estimated to be worth £4,000 p.a.), but most of his wealth came from his maternal uncle, Newcastle, who had died in July 1711. Newcastle had no male heir and had spent much of 1711 arranging a marriage between his only daughter Henrietta ‘who will be the richest heiress in Europe’ and Harley’s son, Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd earl of Oxford. Yet when his will, written on 29 Aug. 1707, was produced it shocked contemporaries, for Newcastle had left the bulk of his vast estate, including the Holles properties, both those he had inherited from his father, the earl of Clare, and those from his second cousin, Denzil Holles*, 3rd Baron Holles, to his nephew Thomas. His daughter Henrietta was to receive only a marriage portion of £20,000 and the Cavendish estates her mother had brought to the marriage. As Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury described Newcastle at the time of his death as ‘the richest subject that had been in England for some ages’, with an estate estimated at above £40,000 p.a., this was a vast and unexpected fortune for the young man.<sup>14</sup> Pelham was not slow to claim it on behalf of his son. Nor was the dowager duchess of Newcastle, assisted by her daughter’s prospective father-in-law, Harley (now earl of Oxford), hesitant in contesting the will. Throughout much of the time between Newcastle’s death and his own less than a year later, Pelham and his son were engaged in litigation with the dowager duchess and Oxford.<sup>15</sup> After Pelham’s own death on 23 Feb. 1712, his son was able to make a settlement making him one of the wealthiest peers in England for much of the eighteenth century.<sup>16</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PELHAM HOLLES, Thomas (1693-1768) |
<p><strong><surname>PELHAM HOLLES</surname></strong> (<em>formerly</em> <strong>PELHAM</strong>), <strong>Thomas</strong> (1693–1768)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Feb. 1712 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. PELHAM of Laughton; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of CLARE; <em>cr. </em>11 Aug. 1715 duke of NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE; <em>cr. </em>17 Nov. 1756 duke of NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LINE; <em>cr. </em>4 May 1762 Bar. PELHAM of Stanmer |
|
First sat 1 Aug. 1714; last sat 13 Sept. 1768 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 21 July 1693,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Thomas Pelham*, later Bar. Pelham of Laughton, and 2nd w. Grace (<em>d</em>. 13 Sept. 1700), da. of Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare; bro. of Hon. Henry Pelham<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Westminster sch. c.1707; Clare, Camb. matric. 9 Mar. 1710, LLD 25 Apr. 1728. <em>m</em>. 2 Apr. 1717, Henrietta (<em>d</em>. 17 July 1776), da. of Francis Godolphin*, 2nd earl of Godolphin, <em>s.p</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 23 Feb. 1712 as 5th bt. KG 31 Mar. 1718. <em>d</em>. 17 Nov. 1768; <em>will</em> 29 Feb., pr. 21 Nov. 1768, 27 Jan. 1769.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. chamberlain 1717–24; PC 16 Apr. 1717–<em>d</em>.; ld. justice 1719, 1720, 1723, 1725, 1727, 1740, 1743, 1745, 1748, 1750, 1752, 1755; sec. of state (south) 1724–48, (north) 1748–54; first ld. of the treasury 1754–56, 1757–62; ld. privy seal 1765–66.</p><p>Ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>. Notts. 1714–63, 1765–<em>d</em>., Mdx. 1714–63, Suss. 1761–3; steward, Sherwood Forest 1714–63, Folewood Park 1714–63; v.-adm. Suss. 1715–<em>d</em>.; recorder, Nottingham 1726.</p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1721;<sup>3</sup> trustee, Westminster sch. 1733;<sup>4</sup> high steward, Camb. Univ. 1737–48; chan. Camb. Univ. 1748–<em>d<em>.</em></em>; FRS 1749.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Charles Jervas, c.1720 (NPG 5582); pastel, William Hoare, c.1752 (NPG 757).</p> |
<p>Thomas Pelham-Holles, duke of Newcastle-on-Tyne, was one of the major political figures under the first three Georges; his long career in the House, and in successive ministries, will be recounted in much more detail in the relevant succeeding volumes of this work.<sup>5</sup> Apart from his first two brief and uneventful appearances in the House in August 1714, following the death of Queen Anne, Pelham-Holles merits a place in the volumes for this period because of the controversy surrounding his vast inheritance, which provided the foundation for his power under the Hanoverians, particularly because the people involved included many of the most prominent political figures of Anne’s reign and the controversy was in part fought out in the House of Lords.</p><p>Thomas Pelham, as he was until 1711, was the eldest son and namesake of Thomas Pelham, created Baron Pelham of Laughton in 1706, a prominent landowner based in Laughton in Sussex who sat in the Commons for the boroughs of East Grinstead and then Lewes from October 1678 to 1702. He was returned for the county itself in the first Parliament of Anne. Throughout, Pelham acted in Parliament as a moderate Whig, and from an early age the future duke of Newcastle was linked to a number of Whig families and individuals. In 1698 his half-sister Lady Elizabeth Pelham married the rising Whig politician Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, and for many years the younger Thomas Pelham saw himself as a follower of this brother-in-law.<sup>6</sup> More significantly for his future fortunes, his mother (his father’s second wife) was Lady Grace Holles, daughter of Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, and sister of John Holles*, who, through a lucrative marriage and a fortuitous inheritance, became one of the greatest landowners in England and was created duke of Newcastle in 1694. It was almost certainly through the influence of Newcastle, lord privy seal from 1705, that his brother-in-law, Thomas Pelham, was elevated to the peerage on 16 Dec. 1706.</p><p>At Pelham of Laughton’s death on 23 Feb. 1712 his heir, Thomas, still only 18 years of age, became 2nd Baron Pelham of Laughton and reportedly ‘the richest heir in England’.<sup>7</sup> The wealth of the new Baron Pelham did not come principally from his father’s inheritance (which was reputed to be only £4,000 p.a.) but from his maternal uncle Newcastle, who had died without a male heir on 15 July 1711. By his will of 29 Aug. 1707 Newcastle left to his only child, his daughter Henrietta, a marriage portion of £20,000 and only a part (worth about £5,000 p.a.) of the estates in Staffordshire, Northumberland and Yorkshire that her mother, a daughter and eventually the sole heiress of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, had brought with her to the marriage. He left the remainder of the Cavendish estates and all of the Holles properties – both those he had inherited from his father, the earl of Clare, and those that had come from his second cousin Denzil Holles*, 3rd Baron Holles (estimated when combined to be worth about £37,000) – to his nephew Thomas Pelham, on condition that he adopt the surname Holles.</p><p>Henrietta was also encouraged by her father’s will to marry her cousin Thomas to keep the estate and title together, despite the ongoing negotiations, set in motion after the will had been written but before Newcastle’s death, for a match between Henrietta and Edward Harley<sup>†</sup> (later 2nd earl of Oxford), the son of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford.<sup>8</sup> Newcastle had long been closely connected socially and politically with Oxford, and had even served as the only Whig in the lord treasurer’s Tory-based ministry after 1710. So close was the connection that there were rumours that Oxford himself would be made duke of Newcastle after his friend’s death without male heirs, and it appears that one motivation for promoting the marriage of his son to Newcastle’s daughter was so that that prestigious dukedom would be conferred on Lord Harley.<sup>9</sup> Both the estate and the title were at stake in the ensuing battles.</p><p>Thomas Pelham quickly added the name and arms of Holles to those of Pelham to signify his acceptance of this inheritance, but the dowager duchess of Newcastle was equally quick to contest the validity of the will of her late husband, angry at what she saw as his unwarranted parcelling out of the Cavendish lands she had brought to the marriage. She was aided in this by her ally, confidant and prospective kinsman, the earl of Oxford.<sup>10</sup> The matter came before chancery, which ordered the dowager duchess to produce a deed of settlement and other writings of her late husband regarding the Cavendish estate. As she consistently refused to do so, arguing that the validity of the will had still not been determined, on 9 Dec. 1712 chancery ordered her property to be sequestered until she complied. She presented an appeal against this decree to the House on 21 Apr. 1713. The matter aroused much interest, for, as the attorney-general, Sir Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup>, acting for Pelham, stated before the House, ‘All the wills of England are concerned in this case’.<sup>11</sup> The case was heard at the bar of the House on 19 May. The House resolved unanimously to affirm the order against the dowager duchess, ‘which was a great disappointment to her grace, and is reckoned a great step towards Lord Pelham’s possessing what the late duke of Newcastle left him by his will, which is about £30,000 p.a.’. It was also noticed with interest by contemporaries that Oxford was not in the House for the hearing, ‘nor would he interest himself in this occasion, which is supposed might go a great way to the issue that happened’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Oxford’s absence and lack of support led to a breach between him and the dowager duchess, who now also turned against the marriage of her daughter to Lord Harley. Lady Henrietta, still underage, took matters into her own hands, broke with her mother and looked to Oxford to act as her guardian. In early August 1713 he declared ‘that there is a necessity of the lady’s marrying somebody [and] that this must be done with speed as to her own affairs’. The urgency was caused in part by the proposal Pelham made to the late duke of Newcastle’s close friend and executor Henry Paget*, 8th Baron Paget (later earl of Uxbridge), that, as the marriage between Henrietta and Harley was apparently off, he would willingly embark on negotiations for a match with her himself. Oxford hurriedly engineered the marriage of Lord Harley and Lady Henrietta, celebrated in private on 31 Aug. 1713, over the continuing opposition of the dowager duchess.<sup>13</sup> There were predictions that ‘this fortunate great match betwixt Lord Harley and Lady Harriet [Henrietta] Holles is like, they say, to be followed with an accommodation of the lawsuit betwixt Lord Pelham and the duchess’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The dowager duchess rejected attempts at mediation, and, increasingly estranged even from her own daughter, continued to litigate. Almost all of the judicial decisions went against her whilst in the meantime the other parties set about trying to come to their own settlement.<sup>15</sup> Pelham enlisted his uncle’s old friend Paget as a mediator to arrange a settlement between himself and the lord treasurer over the estate.<sup>16</sup> In early 1714 Pelham, Oxford, Lord and Lady Harley and Paget all turned to the former (and future) lord chancellor William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, asking him to act as arbitrator. The award settled by Cowper between the parties was finished by 10 July 1714 and its signing was witnessed by Townshend, among others. By its terms Henrietta, Lady Harley, received almost all of the Cavendish properties, with the exception of Nottingham Castle, which the late duke of Newcastle had received from his father-in-law, and the properties that Newcastle had acquired after making his will in 1707. The Holles estate (as it was in 1707) was to go to Pelham and, as a recompense for the lost Cavendish property, Harley was to forego the £20,000 portion charged on the estate by the late duke’s will and Pelham was to have the ownership of Newcastle House, previously Powis House, in the north-west corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.</p><p>This marked ‘a happy agreement for Lord Harley, and a plentiful provision there is for himself and his lady’, but Pelham did equally well.<sup>17</sup> Even though the estate he surrendered to Lord and Lady Harley, and left as jointure to the dowager duchess, was worth around £12,200 p.a., Pelham was still in possession of the Holles estate, which brought in about £28,000 p.a., and, with his paternal inheritance of the Pelham lands, he enjoyed an income of about £32,000 p.a., making him one of the richest landowners of the realm.<sup>18</sup> The death of the dowager duchess in 1716 removed the principal obstruction to the agreement between Harley and Newcastle (as Pelham had become by that time) and this settlement was able to receive statutory form by an Act of Parliament in February 1719.</p><p>Pelham came of age on 21 July 1714, only a few days after this agreement was formally signed, and marked his new status with a lavish feast in Sussex costing £2,000.<sup>19</sup> He attended the House as soon as he could, on 1 Aug. 1714, the first day of the session convened following the queen’s death. He came again four days later when the regents for the kingdom proclaimed George I king of Great Britain, and was placed on the committee of 24 members of the House assigned to draw up an address of congratulations and of loyalty to the new king.</p><p>Pelham loudly proclaimed his adherence to the Hanoverian Succession and as a rich, young and ardent Whig he was quickly rewarded by the new king. In October 1714 he was created earl of Clare, a previous title of his benevolent uncle which had been extinguished at his death, and over the following months he received several offices.<sup>20</sup> He further showed his adherence to the new regime in the elections of early 1715, as his double inheritance gave him strong influence in the selection of over a dozen members of the Commons from Sussex, Nottinghamshire and the Yorkshire burgage boroughs of Aldborough and Boroughbridge.<sup>21</sup> He first sat in George I’s Parliament on 21 Mar. 1715 and on 11 Aug. was further raised in the peerage as duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He helped to prepare Middlesex and Nottinghamshire against the threat of Jacobite rebellion and promoted the further repression of the Jacobite movement by supporting the government measures to prolong the Parliament (the Septennial Act) and for the forfeiture of the estates of those involved in the Jacobite insurrection (the Traitors’ Estates Act).<sup>22</sup></p><p>On 2 Apr. 1717, after months of protracted negotiations, Newcastle married Lady Henrietta Godolphin, the daughter of Francis Godolphin*, 2nd earl of Godolphin, and Henrietta, eldest daughter of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough (later <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Marlborough). Whereas previously Newcastle had been a loyal follower of his brother-in-law Townshend, in the early months of the ‘Whig Schism’ of 1717 he, with great prescience, threw in his lot with his new uncle (the husband of his wife’s maternal aunt) Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. It was almost certainly Sunderland who promoted his nephew at court, and on 13 Apr. 1717, only one day after Sunderland was himself made a secretary of state, Newcastle was appointed lord chamberlain of the household and three days later was sworn to the Privy Council. Thus began his public career in which he was involved at the heart of ‘old corps’ Whig politics and public life until his death in 1768.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PERCY, Algernon (1602-68) |
<p><strong><surname>PERCY</surname></strong>, <strong>Algernon</strong> (1602–68)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1602-32 Ld. Percy; <em>accel. </em>28 Mar. 1626 Bar. PERCY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Nov. 1632 as 4th earl of NORTHUMBERLAND |
|
First sat 28 Mar. 1626; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 29 Nov. 1667 |
|
MP Sussex 1624; Chichester, 1625, 6 Feb.-28 Mar. 1626 |
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Sept. 1602, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Henry Percy<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Northumberland and Dorothy (<em>d</em>. Aug. 1619), da. of Walter Devereux<sup>†</sup>, earl of Essex and wid. of Sir Thomas Perrott<sup>‡</sup> of Haroldston, Pemb.; bro. of Henry Percy<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (tutor, William Nicholson) 1608-15; St John’s, Camb. (tutor, Edward Dowse) 1615, MA 1616; M. Temple 1615; Christ Church, Oxf. 1617, travelled abroad (Low Countries, Italy, France), 1618-24, Padua 1621. <em>m</em>. (1) 1629 (with £11,000),<sup>1</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>. 6 Dec. 1637), da. of William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, 5da. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 1 Oct. 1642 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 11 Mar. 1705), da. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk, 1s. 1da. <em>d.v.p.</em>; KB 1616; KG 1635. <em>d</em>. 13 Oct. 1668; <em>will</em> 10 Apr. 1667-30 Mar. 1668, pr. 30 Nov. 1668.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Master of horse, queen Henrietta Maria 1626-8; PC 5 Nov. 1636-at least 1641, 31 May 1660-<em>d</em>; mbr., Council of War 1637, pres. by 1640; ld. adm., 1638-42; commr, Admlty 1642-3, 1645-8, assembly of divines 1643, preservation of records 1643, cts. martial 1644, treaty of Uxbridge 1645, provision for New Model Army 1645, excise 1645, Westminster collegiate church and sch. 1645, abuses in heraldry 1645<em>, </em>plantations 1646<em>, </em>exclusion from sacrament 1646<em>,</em> sale of bishops’ lands 1646, appeals at Oxford Univ. 1647, indemnity 1647, managing assessment 1647<em>,</em> navy and customs 1647, scandalous offences 1648, obstructions to sale of bishops' lands 1648<em>,</em> treaty of Newport 1648, earl marshalship 1662; mbr., cttee. of Both Kingdoms, 1644-8; ld high constable, coronation of Charles II, 18-23 Apr. 1661.</p><p>Ld. lt. Cumb., Northumb. and Westmld. (jt.) 1626-39; Northumb. (sole) 1639-at least 1642, (jt.) 1660-<em>d</em>., Suss. (jt.) 1635- Mar. 1642, (sole) Mar. 1642-5, 1660-<em>d</em>., Anglesey, Pemb. and Surr.. 1642-5; mbr., council of the north 1633-6; kpr. Nonsuch Palace, Surr. 1639; <em>custos rot</em>. Suss. by 1644-50, 1660-<em>d</em>., Northumb. by 1650-60; commr. defence, Wilts. 1644, Surr. 1645, Northern Assoc., Cumb., Northumb., Yorks. 1645, militia, Cumb and Northumb. 1648, 1660, Suss. 1660.</p><p>Adm. of the Fleet 1636-7; gen. forces south of Trent 1639-40; capt.-gen. 1640-1; capt. Tynemouth, Northumb. 1660-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov., Charterhouse 1660-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Anthony van Dyck, c.1636-8, NPG 287.</p> |
<h2><em>Parliamentary leader</em></h2><p>The Percy family enjoyed a long and celebrated history as defenders of the marches of England against the Scots. They had acquired estates in Yorkshire following the Conquest, and extended their influence by purchasing Alnwick Castle in Northumberland in 1309. The family at various times held other property in several parts of England, in particular the Petworth estate in Sussex from the twelfth century, and Syon in Middlesex from the late sixteenth, where they had major residences. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several members of the family had made disastrous political decisions to which their adherence to Catholicism contributed. On the sixth earl’s death in 1537 his heir was his nephew Thomas Percy<sup>†</sup>, who was unable to inherit as he was the son of an attainted brother who had been executed for his part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The earldom was restored to Thomas in 1557 as a new creation. After the family’s disastrous involvement in the northern revolt of 1569, the Percys were forced to reside in their southern estates and to stay away from the north, although they continued to maintain territorial influence there.</p><p>Although Algernon was the tenth Percy to hold the title of earl of Northumberland—and thus is most often referred to as the tenth earl—he was only the fourth earl of the 1557 creation and is so referred to here. Algernon’s father Henry Percy, 3rd earl of Northumberland, was suspected of involvement in the Gunpowder Plot because of his connection to his kinsman, Thomas Percy, and was kept in the Tower from 1605 to 1621, from where he corresponded on scientific topics and still managed to keep a tight rein and a disapproving eye on the education of his son and heir, for whom he did not hold high hopes. One important result of this education was that Algernon, unlike many of his predecessors, was a committed Protestant.</p><p>The young Algernon, styled Lord Percy, was quickly favoured by the new king, Charles I, who was barely two years his senior. From 1625 Lord Percy garnered a number of important local positions in the counties where his family had substantial landholdings—Sussex, Middlesex, Cumberland, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire. He was summoned to the House of Lords by a writ of acceleration on 28 Mar. 1626 in his father’s barony as Baron Percy, and in November was made joint lord lieutenant of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland. He succeeded to the earldom itself in 1632 and quickly rose further in Charles I’s favour. He held a series of important military offices, culminating in being appointed in 1638-9 lord high admiral and commander-in-chief of the English forces against the Scots for the second Bishops’ War of 1640.</p><p>Northumberland alienated himself from the king by expressing very strong misgivings about the likely success of the campaign and by vigorously opposing the dissolution of the Short Parliament of April 1640 which had been summoned to provide funding for the war. By the time Parliament met in November 1640 Northumberland was an opponent of royal policy and he became the highest ranking member of Charles I’s government and the most eminent peer to side with Parliament in 1640-42.<sup>4</sup> In early 1643 he was a leader of the group strongly advocating a negotiated settlement between Parliament and the king, but after the rebuff of these peace initiatives, he, according to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, ‘was willing to see the king’s power and authority so much restrained that he might not be able to do him any harm’.<sup>5</sup> In late 1644 Northumberland resumed his attendance in the House and, closely associated with William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, threw himself wholeheartedly into the prosecution of the Civil War and the formation of the New Model Army. On 19 Mar. 1645 he was entrusted by Parliament with the guardianship of the king’s younger children, Princess Elizabeth, Henry Stuart*, duke of Gloucester and, from July 1646, James Stuart*, duke of York. His respectful treatment of these royal wards helped in later years to mitigate royal animosity towards him. Northumberland opposed the hardening of the Army’s position against Charles I after the second civil war, and was one of the 15 parliamentary commissioners who dealt with the king over the Newport treaty in the autumn of 1648, staying with Charles longer than almost any other in an attempt to make a peace. He was one of the few peers to appear in the House to vote against the ordinance for the king’s trial, and retired from public life during the 1650s. <sup>6</sup> During that decade he attended to estate and family matters, overseeing the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to Arthur Capell*, 2nd Baron Capell of Hadham (later earl of Essex), who resided with him for several years at Petworth.</p><p>Northumberland returned to politics with the crisis of early 1660. In early March 1660 he corresponded with his old Parliamentarian colleague Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, suggesting that, despite the recent readmission of the secluded members to the Commons, it was still premature to advocate the restoration of the House of Lords, ‘especially seeing no part of the nation but ourselves have as yet expressed any desire that we should return to the exercise of our duties in Parliament and all in power or authority have either openly or impliedly declared against it’.<sup>7</sup> Yet in the weeks before the Convention he and Manchester formed around them a group of former presbyterians, which John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, reported included 19 peers, including Wharton, as well as a number of commoners, such as Denzil Holles*, later Baron Holles. They sought to limit membership in the restored House of Lords to those who had sat in the House in 1648 and to impose on Charles II the conditions they had negotiated with his father at Newport. It may well have been for this group that Wharton drew up his list assessing the allegiances and actions of members of the peerage in the previous 20 years, and Northumberland heads Wharton’s list of those ‘lords who sat’ in the House after 1642 (and probably meaning those who were there in 1648), thus signifying his prominent place in their projected Convention House of Lords. This group met in Northumberland’s London residence, Suffolk House (thereafter known as Northumberland House), which he had acquired as part of the settlement of his marriage in October 1642 to Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Theophilus Howard, 2nd earl of Suffolk, and for this reason Mordaunt referred to this group as ‘the cabal of Suffolk House’.<sup>8</sup> This second marriage had also provided Northumberland with a male heir, Josceline Percy*, styled Lord Percy, later 5th earl of Northumberland, and further family connections. Elizabeth Howard’s sister Margaret was married to Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Broghill [I] (later earl of Orrery [I]): Northumberland used his local interest to promote his brother-in-law’s election for the Convention—first unsuccessfully for the borough of Cockermouth in Cumberland, and then successfully for Arundel, near Petworth in Sussex.<sup>9</sup></p><h2><em>The Restoration</em></h2><p>Northumberland made his own views on the restoration of the king clear in a letter of 13 Apr. 1660 to his good friend and brother-in-law Robert Sydney*, 2nd earl of Leicester, whose wife Dorothy Percy, Northumberland’s sister, had died just the previous year. In London he found ‘Some there are that would have [the king] restored to all, without any condition, … but the soberer people will I believe expect terms of more security for themselves and advantage for the nation’. Northumberland was one of the small group of nine peers to attend the House on its very first meeting in the morning of 25 Apr., and was made part of the delegation to visit George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, to thank him for his services in restoring the House of Lords. He was also one of the four peers, along with Saye and Sele and Wharton, assigned to address summonses to other peers deemed suitable to sit in the House. Northumberland wrote personally to Leicester begging him to come up to Westminster, for ‘our House stands in great need of some wise men to guide it’.<sup>10</sup> On 27 Apr. he was appointed to committees to draw up an ordinance to constitute a bicameral Committee of Safety and to draw up heads for the conference scheduled for 1 May ‘to consider ways and means to make up the breaches and distractions of the kingdom’. At this point he may have still envisaged a conditional restoration of the king with terms dictated by the Convention, and on 28 Apr. his agent in London could confidently write, ‘I have cause to believe that we shall soon have the court our neighbours and that upon honourable terms’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Northumberland, though, would have been made anxious by the admission to the House of the ‘young lords’ on 27 Apr. and later of those lords created by Charles I at Oxford. Reputedly he encouraged the admission of his prospective kinsman Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, with whom he was negotiating a match for Lord Percy, in order to moderate the zeal of the ardent royalists now in the House.<sup>12</sup> Any plans for a conditional restoration rapidly evaporated after the Declaration of Breda was read to the House on 1 May, and Northumberland was even placed on the large committee of 25 peers assigned to draft the House’s response. That afternoon he fulfilled his role as a manager of the conference on settling the ‘distractions’ of the kingdom, at which the principal manager Manchester proclaimed on behalf of the Lords that ‘the Government is, and ought to be, by king, Lords and Commons’. From that point Northumberland was involved in committees to smooth the way for the restoration of Charles II. The following day, 2 May, he was placed on the committee of eight peers to meet with a similar committee from the Commons to prepare an answer to the Declaration and to expedite the points agreed upon in the conference of the previous afternoon. He was also placed on the committees to consider the ordinance to make Monck captain-general and to consider ways of settling the militia in the kingdom. On 7 May he was appointed one of only four peers who were to meet with a similarly-sized committee from the Commons to arrange the ‘manner, time and form’ of the proclamation declaring Charles II king. From 9 May he was also a member of the committees entrusted with preparing for the reception of the king and for enquiring into the whereabouts of the late king’s goods confiscated during the previous 20 years.<sup>13</sup> In the midst of this busy activity, Northumberland absented himself from the House for about a week in mid-May, and when he returned on 18 May he declared to the House that he ‘conceived’ that he might have some statues and pictures that were formerly Charles I’s in his possession, which he would willingly keep safe for the new king and present to him upon his arrival. On 21 May he was one of 13 peers placed on the committee to consider the ordinance for a monthly assessment to raise revenue for the returning king and two days later he was added to the committee considering a response to the Commons’ complaint that the House had issued a declaration concerning the late king’s judges without its concurrence. He became especially prominent in the days surrounding the king’s actual arrival in England. On 24 May he was one of only three peers—with Southampton and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor)—who quickly considered and amended a declaration of the Commons to quicken the payment of customs and excise for the returning king. On the same day he apparently chaired the small group of six peers assigned to write a letter congratulating the king on his safe arrival in England, for he reported the letter to the House the following day, after which it was quickly dispatched to Charles II travelling up from Kent. On 26 May he also chaired and reported from a drafting committee of ten peers for a proclamation to be issued in the king’s name against the rebels in Ireland. Later that day he was placed on the committee to ensure the safety of the king by placing proper servants around his person at Whitehall. On 28 May, with the king returned to his capital, he was placed on another committee to establish the king in his rule, that to consider the bill to confirm the earlier ordinance for a monthly assessment </p><p>Northumberland was initially granted respect and honours from the crown in recognition of his ancient title and substantial local influence, and perhaps in a bid to placate the ‘presbyterian party’, of which he was still seen as a leader. On 30 May he reported to the House from a delegation of six peers he had led to the king to discuss the procedural problem of the proper seating in the House of the royal dukes, York and Gloucester, who had been Northumberland’s wards for a time during the civil wars. The following day he and Leicester were summoned to the king where, to their apparent surprise, they were both sworn privy councillors.<sup>14</sup> In August he was appointed lord lieutenant of Sussex; in September, jointly with his son and heir Lord Percy, he was appointed lord lieutenant of Northumberland. He was made lord high constable specifically for the few short days of the coronation in April 1661, and in May 1662 was one of the commissioners appointed to execute the office of earl marshal <sup>15</sup> Yet as early as the opening of the Convention, when Northumberland was being entrusted with important duties for the Restoration, Mordaunt could inform Sir Edward Hyde that both Northumberland and Manchester ‘have now no great interest’ and the French ambassador wrote to his masters on 27 May 1660 that Northumberland was ‘much demeaned’<strong>.</strong><sup>16</sup> He would only have sunk lower in the government’s estimation when, in arguing that no persons should be excepted from the bill of indemnity (on a committee for which he was placed on 25 Aug.), he suggested that the example of the late king’s death ‘might be more useful to posterity and profitable to future kings, by deterring them from the like exorbitances’.<sup>17</sup> Consequently from early June, when the House became flooded with the king’s followers returning from exile, Northumberland’s business in the House, as represented by committee appointments, dropped substantially. From 1 June to the summer adjournment he was named to only ten further committees. He appears to have chaired the committee on the bill for draining the Great Level of the fens, for he reported the bill to the House on 31 Aug., one day after the committee had been established. He was also one of the eight peers appointed on 13 Aug. to go to the City of London to discuss a loan of £100,000, but the following day he excused himself from the task. On 10 Aug. the House also considered his claim of a breach of privilege, when it heard that Northumberland had been distrained of his estate of Kildare (Kielder) in Tynedale in Northumberland by the sheriff there, of whose ‘feigned’ legal actions against him Northumberland had been given no notice. The House duly ordered the restoration of the estates to the earl and the attachment of the sheriff. Perhaps because of this pending privilege case, and a concern to maintain his interest at the Restoration, Northumberland’s attention was heavily focussed on the meetings of April-September 1660, and he was present at three-quarters of its sitting days.</p><p>By contrast Northumberland did not appear in the House when the Convention reconvened on 6 November. He had written to Leicester on 2 Nov. from Petworth about his plans shortly to be in the capital, ‘where I believe I shall not be very diligent in attending either the Parliament House, or the council table, finding myself grown too old for the gallantries of a young court’. After having been in London for a few days he described himself in another letter to Leicester as ‘so much a stranger at court’. Some of his frustration and disillusionment is shown in his comment that the only activity of those at Westminster was the pursuit of money and that ‘many sober men’ were wishing ‘that some years may pass before another Parliament is called’.<sup>18</sup> He first sat in the House again on 3 Dec. 1660 and was an infrequent member of the House during that month, coming to only 14 sitting days (31 per cent) and being named to three committees. He remained concerned with the status and privilege of the peerage, and was still sufficiently regarded to be appointed on 22 Dec. 1660 one of the select group of three peers—along with Wharton and Robartes—who were to consider how the privilege and profits of the peerage were affected by the bill abolishing the Court of Wards.</p><h2><em>The Cavalier Parliament, 1660-67</em></h2><p>From this point he devoted most of his energies to governing Sussex, where he resided when not in London, and was an active lord lieutenant there, as revealed by his correspondence with secretary of state Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>19</sup> In that county he was able to arrange for the election in early 1661 of his brother-in-law Roger Boyle, now earl of Orrery [I], and another Irish peer, Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Aungier [I], for the borough of Arundel. As lord of the manor of Cockermouth in Cumberland he equally ensured that his agent in the north, Hugh Potter<sup>‡</sup>, was elected to the Commons for that borough, and was replaced, after Potter’s death in 1662, by Northumberland’s trusted agent, Robert Scawen<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>20</sup> Northumberland himself came to 55 per cent of the sitting days during the first meeting of the Cavalier Parliament in May-July 1661 and was named to only two committees. On his third day in the House, 11 May, he helped to introduce Edward Hyde as earl of Clarendon, Arthur Capell (his son-in-law) as earl of Essex and Arthur Annesley*, now earl of Anglesey. A month later, on 11 June, the House ordered the suspension during time of Parliament of proceedings in the court of delegates in the cause brought by Frances, dowager duchess of Somerset, against Northumberland and Manchester, the two principal executors of the will of Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex. When the dowager duchess renewed her petition on 19 June, and even produced Northumberland’s signed waiver of his privilege dating from 1647, she was still rebuffed.<sup>21</sup></p><p>After the summer adjournment Northumberland was marked as ‘sick’ in a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661, but three days later he wrote to Leicester from Westminster to assure him that he would convey Leicester’s apologies for his absence to the House and thanked him for entrusting him with his proxy, ‘though I think there will not be much use made of proxies in the House, for all things are likely to pass there unanimously’. There is no record of this proxy in the incomplete register of 1661-2, but Northumberland does appear to have watched over Leicester’s interests at court and council throughout early 1662. The letter also informed Leicester of the most recent episcopalian pretensions: ‘The bishops are not contented to be restored unto all they formerly enjoyed, but now they pretend to be peers likewise, and that point is at present under consideration before the committee for privileges’.<sup>22</sup> Northumberland sat in the House again on 3 Dec., after which he sat in 42 per cent of the meetings until the prorogation of 19 May 1662. On 14 Dec. 1661 he was named one of the nine reporters for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill confirming certain private acts. In total he was named to seven select committees during the winter of 1661-2, including on 24 Jan. 1662 the drafting committee for the proposed bill to repeal all the acts and ordinances of the Long Parliament, a matter with implied reflections on his previous political career. </p><p>On 25 Jan. 1662, Northumberland became the centre of an incident in the House which further brought his old political attitudes into the open. At a debate on the second reading of the bill for the re-establishment of the council of the North at York, Northumberland complained that the measure was only being promoted by certain judges in the county out of their own selfish interests. George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, the lord lieutenant of the West Riding who was then the leading candidate for the presidency of the council, responded that he found all groups in Yorkshire in support of the measure, except those who had formerly been against the king. Northumberland sensed that this comment was an attack on himself and launched into a justification of his past conduct. The House ordered them both to let the matter drop, but shortly afterwards Buckingham rose to go over to Northumberland and continue the altercation. Both were ordered to withdraw from the chamber entirely and in their absence it was decided that Buckingham, but not Northumberland, was in need of reprehension for infringing the House’s original order. As the French ambassador commented:</p><blockquote><p>In this debate everyone took sides, some for the duke and others for the earl, and as the latter is one of the leading presbyterians, he attracted all those of this party, and the other all the royalists, and in a moment it moved from being a private difference to a general matter which could have caused great disorder if the King of England had not that evening intervened and made the two of them embrace.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Northumberland’s fight against the bill for the council for the North continued. On 10 Feb. 1662 he acted as a spokesmen for a delegation of 16 members of Parliament with northern interests who visited the lord chancellor, the earl of Clarendon, to express their opposition to the bill.<sup>24</sup> Four days previously Northumberland had been one of the many peers who protested against the passage of the bill restoring to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, the lands he had conveyed, through proper legal instruments, during the Interregnum. In March Northumberland caused a stir in the House with his insistence during the debates on the revisions to the prayer book that the House should instead accept the pre-1642 prayer book and oath of allegiance without any alterations. Clarendon accounted for this move by explaining that Northumberland was ‘known to be of the presbyterian party’ and recounted that the earl was given a stinging rebuke by the House, which resolved ‘that there might not be such an affront put upon the Convocation and upon the king himself’ by this frivolous suggestion.<sup>25</sup> Perhaps feeling rebuffed by these setbacks after 17 Apr. Northumberland stopped attending the House for the remainder of the session, though there appears to have been an expectation that he would return, for two days later Manchester also left the House for the session, but registered his proxy with Northumberland on 20 April. Northumberland kept himself cognizant of events in the House during his absence. In early May 1662 he kept his first wife’s father, William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, informed of the discussions on the impending adjournment or prorogation of Parliament and on the failure of the bill to declare illegitimate a male child born to the wife of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), a measure which both Northumberland and Salisbury supported for kinship reasons.<sup>26</sup> He also pursued another case of breach of his privilege: on 15 May the House ordered the discharge of a Mr Middleton, at the request of the absent Northumberland. Middleton had been attached by order of the House, presumably at Northumberland’s behest.</p><p>For the session of 1663 Northumberland held the proxy of Basil Fielding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, from 16 Mar. 1663, but he himself was hardly in the House to use it. He was present 11 times during that session, and was named to only two committees. He was present on 23 Mar. when he was named to a committee to prepare a petition to the king for the expulsion of Jesuits and Catholic priests from the kingdom, and between 26 and 30 Mar. he represented the House in three conferences in which the wording of this petition was thrashed out between the two Houses. On 9 Apr., however, the House formally ‘dispensed’ with his absence, three days after he had last sat in the House for that session.</p><p>Northumberland was present on 18 sitting days in spring 1664, exactly half of the meetings of that short session, and he was named to only one select committee. He was present on 28 Mar. 1664 when the House made an order restoring to Northumberland’s control rectory and glebe lands in Carmarthenshire which had been illegally seized by their ‘pretended vicar’ in breach of Northumberland’s privilege. Denbigh again registered his proxy with Northumberland on 6 May 1664, but Northumberland only held it for the eight days he was in the House before the session was prorogued on 17 May. In that brief period Northumberland was on 13 May added to the body of managers for a free conference on the disagreements over the House’s alterations to the conventicle bill. He attended only five sittings in late February 1665 during the session of 1664-5, missed the next two sessions of October 1665 and of 1666-7 entirely and did not return to the House until 29 July 1667, the first day of the abortive session of that summer.</p><h2><em>Return to politics and death, 1667-8</em></h2><p>The disasters and expense of the second Dutch War evidently spurred Northumberland to return to politics.<sup>27</sup> Northumberland himself feared that the war was being used as a means for the king to arrogate more power to himself independent of Parliament and to build up a standing army. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, later wrote that when others said that the king’s mistress and the money lavished on her would be the ruin of the nation, Northumberland replied that on the contrary she would be its saviour, for ‘while we had a House of Commons that gave all the money that was asked, it was better to have the money squandered away in luxury and prodigality, than to have it saved for worse purposes’.<sup>28</sup> York placed Northumberland, with his associates Leicester and Holles, firmly in ‘the presbyterian and commonwealth gang, who never neglected any opportunity of being troublesome to the monarchy’, and who saw the impeachment of Clarendon as a means to foment a breach between the king and his brother. Just before the meeting of Parliament in the autumn of 1667, Northumberland told York, and later the king, that ‘the nation’ would not be satisfied merely with the impeachment of the lord chancellor, ‘for they also expected the disbanding of the Guards and the redress of several other grievances’.<sup>29</sup> Northumberland came to the first day of the session on 10 Oct. but by the first week of November left the House and on 14 Nov. registered his proxy with his son-in-law Essex. He returned on 26 Nov. to engage in the proceedings against Clarendon, and it was at about this time that the French ambassador reported that Anglesey and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury) were trying to form a third party in Parliament (as against those supporting either Clarendon or Buckingham), ‘which will be called the party of the moderates, of which they would like to make the earl of Northumberland the leader, who is a great lord in this kingdom’.<sup>30</sup> Earlier the ambassador, anxious of Northumberland’s influence and anti-French attitudes, had described him as ‘the most respected person in England for his property and his conduct’.<sup>31</sup> Despite these political projects reportedly swirling around him at this time, Northumberland’s left the House again on 29 Nov., after having almost certainly voted in favour of the commitment of Clarendon.</p><p>For his part Clarendon made clear his own views on Northumberland’s character, based largely on his actions in the 1640s:</p><blockquote><p>Though his notions were not large or deep, yet his temper, and reservedness in discourse, and his unrashness in speaking, got him the reputation of an able and wise man; which he made evident in the excellent government of his family, where no man was more absolutely obeyed; and no man had ever fewer idle words to answer for; and in debates of importance he always expressed himself very pertinently. If he had thought the King as much above him as he thought himself above other considerable men, he would have been a good subject; but the extreme undervaluing those, and not enough valuing the king, made him liable to the impressions which they who approached him by those addresses of reverence and esteem which usually insinuate themselves into such natures made in him.</p></blockquote><p>He also wrote more starkly that Northumberland was ‘the proudest man alive’, and later saw Northumberland’s insistence on his own son’s precedence over the heir of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], at the coronation (on the grounds that Ormond only was present at the coronation under his English title, earl of Brecknock) as a typical example of Northumberland’s ‘undervaluing and contemning his equals, without paying much regard to his superiors’ which caused an unfortunate ‘jealousy and ill understanding between the two families’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>On 17 Dec. 1667 it was reported that Northumberland was lying dangerously ill at Northumberland House. He never returned to the Lords, although it was almost a year later, on 3 Oct. 1668, that he finally succumbed to his illness at Petworth. The executors and beneficiaries in his will reveal his connections to both past Parliamentarians and the future country opposition. Apart from his son and heir Josceline, his executors—the earl of Manchester and ‘Wise’ William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>¾were colleagues in the Parliamentarian cause in the 1640s. Northumberland made complicated arrangements to entail a part of his estate, first to his heir, but in the case of the failure of his line, to his daughter the countess of Essex, and then to his nephews by his late sister the countess of Leicester—Philip Sydney*, styled Viscount Lisle (later 3rd earl of Leicester), Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Sydney*, later earl of Romney. He appears to have had a particular esteem for Algernon and in his final codicil before his death bequeathed to him an annuity of £100.<sup>33</sup> He died one of the five wealthiest peers in England, with a revenue from rents exceeding £15,000 p.a. In the mid-1640s he had petitioned Parliament for over £35,000 in lost rents due to the ravages of the war, particularly in the north. In 1662 he assessed himself as worth £4,360 p.a. from his lands in Yorkshire, Dorset and Cumberland—and these were hardly his principal estates.<sup>34</sup> In 1670 it was calculated that his heir Josceline Percy was worth £41, 982 at the time of his death, a fortune the young man had only been able to enjoy for a brief period of time since becoming 5th earl of Northumberland.<sup>35</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PERCY, Josceline (1644-70) |
<p><strong><surname>PERCY</surname></strong>, <strong>Josceline</strong> (1644–70)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1644-68 Ld. Percy; <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Oct. 1668 as 5th earl of NORTHUMBERLAND |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 4 July 1644, o. s. of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, and 2nd w. Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk. <em>educ.</em> privately (Dr John Mapletoft), 1658-c.1665.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 23 Dec. 1662, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1690), da. of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 21 May 1670; <em>will</em> 26 Aug. 1669, pr. 2 Nov. 1670, confirmed by sentence 9 Dec. 1670.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Col., militia Westminster 1660;<sup>3</sup> ld. lt. Northumb. and city of Newcastle 1660-68 (jt.), 1668-<em>d</em>. (sole), Suss. 1668-<em>d.</em>; capt., Tynemouth Castle 1660-8 (jt.), 1668-<em>d</em>. (sole); <em>custos rot</em>., Hants 1667-<em>d.</em>, Suss. 1668-<em>d.</em>; kpr of game, Syon and East Bedford [Bedfont], Mdx. 1670-<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: Alexander Browne (after Sir Peter Lely), mezzotint, NPG.</p> |
<p>As the only son of one of the leading, and oldest, noble families in England, a good deal of attention and expectation was directed towards the young Lord Percy.<sup>5</sup> So much hope was invested in him at the time of the Restoration that he was made, at the age of 16, a colonel of the Westminster militia and, jointly with his father, lord lieutenant of Northumberland and captain of Tynemouth Castle. He was also offered a deputy lieutenancy in his father’s other county of Sussex.<sup>6</sup> It was initially intended that he should marry Audrey, one of the daughters of Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, but after she died in late October 1660, negotiations turned to another of Southampton’s many daughters. At the end of 1662 Percy married the youngest one, Elizabeth.</p><p>Parliament was under a long adjournment when Lord Percy inherited the earldom of Northumberland in October 1668, and it did not meet again until October 1669. By that time the new earl of Northumberland was in France, travelling there with his family and ‘a very great train’.<sup>7</sup> Back in England Northumberland, <em>in absentia,</em> soon faced a challenge to his position in the peerage by the claims made by Benjamin Fitzwalter*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, that he had precedency over all other barons in the House by the antiquity of his title. On 7 Mar. 1670 Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, informed the committee for privileges considering the matter that, on behalf of Northumberland, as Baron Percy, and a number of other peers with ancient baronies, he wished to contest Fitzwalter’s claim before the House. The matter was still not settled by the time Parliament recessed in April, after which it would have hardly mattered to Northumberland.<sup>8</sup> For, while his wife remained behind in Paris, the earl had travelled to Italy where at the end of May 1670 he died, aged 26, at Turin ‘of fever caused by travelling in the great heat’. His body, accompanied by his ‘disconsolate lady’, was slowly brought back to England where it was buried at Petworth on 14 July.<sup>9</sup> He had been abroad during both the parliamentary sessions in which he could have sat in the House and had never formally taken his seat there.</p><p>An inventory of his personal goods in his principal residences – Northumberland House, Syon House and Petworth House – made at the time of his death estimated that his possessions were worth £41,987.<sup>10</sup> Nor was he poor in landed income. At the time he wrote his will in August 1669, before setting off for his continental travels, he had a young son Henry, and he entrusted his father’s old friends and agents – Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>, Robert Scawen<sup>‡</sup>, John Clarke<sup>‡</sup> and Orlando Gee<sup>‡ </sup>– to act as trustees of his estates. He provided for annuities for his heir that would total £28,500 over 21 years, and for Henry’s two daughters, and any more daughters born to him in the future, £5,700 each over 17 years. Any younger sons that might still be born to him were to have at their majorities £10,000 each.</p><p>His heir Henry Percy, styled Lord Percy, died only a few months after these arrangements were made and within only a few short months after Northumberland’s own death his only surviving child was his daughter Elizabeth, then about three years old. The earldom of Northumberland became extinct at Northumberland’s death without a male heir, but Elizabeth remained <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Percy.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PETRE, John (1629-85) |
<p><strong><surname>PETRE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1629–85)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 5 Jan. 1684 as 5th Bar. PETRE |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 24 June 1629, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Robert Petre<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Petre, and Mary, da. of Anthony Browne<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Visct. Montagu; bro. of William Petre*, 4th Bar. Petre and Thomas Petre*, 6th Bar. Petre. <em>unm.</em> <em>bur</em>. 22 Jan. 1685;<sup>1</sup> <em>will</em>, 2 Aug. 1677, pr. 22 Jan. 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>John, 5th Baron Petre, seems never to have lived at Thorndon Hall, usually considered the main Petre residence. He lived instead with his mother at Ingatestone. He was in poor health for many years, and the terms of a will made in 1677 make it clear that he believed his mother would outlive him.<sup>3</sup> She died on 13 Jan. 1685, just days before her son.<sup>4</sup> His health and Catholicism would probably have precluded him from taking his seat in the Lords, but in the event no Parliament was held during his short tenure of the barony. He died unmarried, and his bequests suggest that his closest relationships were within his immediate family. During the year that he held the title, he received over £6,000 from the Petre estates. He used this to meet the obligations of the estate, including payments towards ‘the growing interest’ on the debts contracted by his brother, William Petre, 4th Baron Petre. He was also able to pay £3,000 towards redeeming those debts.<sup>5</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
PETRE, Robert (1690-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>PETRE</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1690–1713)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Jan. 1707 (a minor) as 7th Bar. PETRE |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. Mar. 1690, o. s. of Thomas Petre*, 6th Bar. Petre, and Mary, da. of Sir Thomas Clifton, bt. of Lytham, Lancs. <em>m</em>. 1 Mar. 1712, (with £50,000) Catherine (<em>d</em>.1785), da. of Bartholomew Walmsley of Dunkenhalgh, Lancs. and Dorothy Smith, da. of John Smith of Crabbet, Suss. 1s. (posth.). <em>d</em>. 22 Mar. 1713.</p> |
|
|
<p>The fortunes of the Petre family, once impoverished and distressed had substantially recovered by the time Robert Petre succeeded to the title. At his death his income from his Essex estates was variously estimated as between £4,000 and £6,000 a year plus approximately £2,000 from the western estates. Even after payment of his mother’s jointure of £1,000 a year he was a relatively wealthy young man.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Little is known of his life except that his social circle consisted of members of families who were, like his own, prominent in the Catholic community. His charitable donations amounted to £1,000 a year and included donations to priests in England as well as to Catholic causes abroad.<sup>2</sup> He was said to have been the original ‘advent’rous baron’ in Pope’s <em>Rape of the Lock,</em> but though he may once have been a suitor of Arabella Fermor, he actually married Catherine Walmsley, one of the richest heiresses of the day. Catherine Walmsley had inherited her fortune from her brother Francis. In addition to her portion of £50,000, paid in cash, she also brought lands worth £5,000 a year to the marriage.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Petre died in March 1713 of smallpox, which was said to have been contracted at a celebration of his first wedding anniversary. Despite his wealth he had little opportunity to exercise any electoral influence and, as a Catholic, he was barred from the House of Lords. His own political views are unknown, but his mother and his wife were both Jacobite sympathizers. His widow was said to have offered £1,000 to the Jacobite cause in 1715 and at one stage was suggested as an appropriate wife for the titular James III.<sup>4</sup> She eventually married as her second husband, Charles Stourton*, 15th Baron Stourton. Her only child, Robert James Petre*, was born three months after his father’s death and succeeded immediately as 8th Baron Petre.</p> |
R.P. |
|
PETRE, Robert James (1713-42) |
<p><strong><surname>PETRE</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert James</strong> (1713–42)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 3 June 1713 (a minor) as 8th Bar. PETRE |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 3 June 1713, o.s. of Robert Petre*, 7th Baron Petre, and Catherine, da. and h. of Bartholomew Walmesley of Dunkenhalgh, Lancs. <em>m</em>. 2 May 1732 Lady Anna Maria Barbara Radcliffe (<em>d</em>.1760), da. of James Radcliffe*, 3rd earl of Derwentwater, 1s. 3 da. <em>d</em>. 2 July 1742.</p> |
<p>FRS 1731; FSA 1739.</p> |
|
<p>Born posthumously, Petre succeeded to his father’s honours at birth. As a minor he was unable to sit in Queen Anne’s last Parliament but would in any case have been disabled by his catholicism. His short life was dominated by his devotion to the cultivation of plants, especially trees, and to garden design; what political influence he had as an adult will be covered in the next part of this work.</p> |
R.P. |
|
PETRE, Thomas (1633-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>PETRE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1633–1707)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. Jan. 1685 as 6th Bar. PETRE |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 Dec. 1633; 5th but 3rd surv. s. of Robert Petre<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Petre, and his w. Mary, da. of Anthony Browne<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Visct. Montagu; bro. of William Petre*, 4th Bar. Petre and John Petre*, 5th Bar. Petre. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. settlement, 29 Sept. 1685, Mary (<em>d</em>. 4/15 Feb. 1730, Ghent), da. of Thomas Clifton, bt. of Lytham, Lancs.; 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da. <em>d.</em> 5 Jan. 1707; <em>will</em>, 9 Aug. 1704–6 May 1706, pr. 14 Jan. 1707.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Essex Feb.–Oct. 1688; high steward, Colchester Apr.–Aug. 1688; recorder, Colchester Aug. 1688.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: c.1700 attrib. Johann Kerseboom, Ingatestone Hall (with a companion portrait of his wife).</p> |
<p>When he succeeded to the title, Thomas Petre was a 52-year-old bachelor, but the need for an heir soon pushed him into marriage. Before the year was out he had arranged to marry Mary Clifton, daughter of the future Jacobite Sir Thomas Clifton, who brought with her a dowry of £5,000. Along with the title, he also inherited the Petre estates, together with the debt trust created by his brother, William Petre, 4th Baron Petre. The debt trust was still in existence in 1697 when the 5th baron composed a will, but by 1712 the estate was said to be free of encumbrances.<sup>2</sup> Certainly his ability to finance the marriage portion of his niece, Mary Petre (daughter of the 4th baron and his second wife, Bridget), suggests that the debts were coming under control. Three quarters of the portion (£7,500) was paid in cash. The remaining £2,500 was borrowed on mortgage, from his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Clifton, rather than from more distant acquaintances or moneylenders. He was also able to provide well (£5,000) for his own daughter (also named Mary).<sup>3</sup> Petre appears to have treated Ingatestone Hall, which was extensively refurnished in 1685, as his main residence. It seems to have been more comfortably equipped than his other house, Thorndon Hall, and it was from Ingatestone that Petre wrote his few surviving letters.<sup>4</sup></p><p>A committed Catholic who not only maintained his own chaplains but also provided a base for missionary Jesuit priests and held land on behalf of a Catholic monastery in France, Petre was disabled from sitting in the House of Lords by the provisions of the 1678 Test Act.<sup>5</sup> However, the accession to the throne of the Catholic James Stuart*, duke of York, as James II just two weeks after Petre had inherited his own title promised to transform the situation. Not only did James signal his intention to repeal the Test Acts and to restore the Catholic peers to their seats in the Lords but Petre’s cousin, the Jesuit Edward Petre, was one of James’s most trusted advisors. Petre was summoned to the 1685 Parliament and was summoned again in September 1688 to the Parliament promised but never convened by James II.<sup>6</sup> Whether these writs were issued as a matter of course or as part of a threat to ignore the Test Acts is unknown. Petre’s pleasure at James’s succession must have been shared by his household, for even the family provision book carries a faded inscription inside its front cover: ‘Ja[mes] Duke York Ja[mes] the second God preserve.’<sup>7</sup></p><p>At the Essex election of 1685, Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> described how Petre joined the cavalcade of court supporters near Chelmsford with about 300 ‘gentlemen, his kinsmen, his tenants, and other freeholders, his neighbours …’.<sup>8</sup> Petre’s commitment to the court soon brought rewards. In March 1686 his name was among the list of Catholics exempted from the travel restrictions imposed at the height of the hysteria of the Popish Plot and who were specifically authorized ‘to remain in the presence of the king, queen consort, queen dowager or the court or household without taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy … notwithstanding former statutes’.<sup>9</sup> He was added to the commissions of the peace for Middlesex, Kent, and Essex, though it was undoubtedly in Essex where his real value to the court lay.<sup>10</sup> In February 1688, Petre replaced Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, as lord lieutenant there. This was a post from which he should have been barred by the requirements of the Test Act so his commission (dated 8 Feb. 1688) was carefully and specifically worded to ‘dispense, pardon, remit and exonerate’ him from the need to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance.<sup>11</sup></p><p>James II expected Petre to play a key role in the forthcoming parliamentary elections and he did his best to live up to expectation: ‘The Lord Petre, as lord lieutenant, by the king’s command visited the country, as well as the corporations. He carried divers gentlemen, papists, with him in his circuit …’.<sup>12</sup> One of his objectives in conducting this ‘circuit’ was to explore the attitudes of the local gentry to the proposed abolition of the Test. Petre’s local influence was seemingly strengthened when he replaced Oxford as high steward of Colchester and when he was appointed recorder the following August under Colchester’s new charter.<sup>13</sup> He also helped remodel the commission of the peace for Essex.</p><p>In September 1688, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland sent him ‘a list of gentlemen intending to stand with his majesty’s approbation for Members of Parliament within your lieutenancy’ and directed him ‘to give them all the assistance and countenance you can’.<sup>14</sup> The political situation was now deteriorating swiftly and the threat of invasion exposed the inherent weakness of Petre’s position within the county. On 7 Oct. he was ordered to raise the militia, but in Essex (as in other counties where Protestant lord lieutenants had been displaced by Catholics) the gentry had refused to take commissions because of doubts about the legality of Petre’s appointment, ‘for that he was not qualified’ and the militia was ‘very much out of order, the officers dead, or unwilling to act’.<sup>15</sup> Within days, those who had been purged from the commission of the peace for their opposition to James were restored to office.<sup>16</sup> Petre himself must have been becoming worried for on 2 Oct. 1688 he obtained a general pardon.<sup>17</sup> On 18 Oct. Sunderland informed Petre that Oxford had resumed the lord lieutenancy, though he was at pains to explain that ‘[the king] is induced to it because his service at this time seems absolutely to require this change and not upon the least dissatisfaction with your proceedings. On the contrary he directs me to tell you that he continues to depend much upon you.’<sup>18</sup></p><p>The Revolution of 1688 marked the end of Petre’s political career, though his devotion to James did not extend to following him into exile. There are some indications that in the aftermath of the accession of William and Mary he became a target for those who resented his earlier support for James II, although the reference in the <em>Calendar of State Papers, Domestic</em> to his imprisonment in the Tower in 1689 appears to be erroneous. It is probably a mistranscription for Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough.<sup>19</sup> In 1691 Petre was convicted of recusancy and, perhaps more significantly, also found it necessary to obtain an exemplification of the general pardon that had been issued to him in 1688.<sup>20</sup> In the early 1690s he was also the target of a number of criminal offences.<sup>21</sup> Suspicions about his loyalty and the perceived importance of horse transport for the mobilization of forces for an internal uprising underlie an informer’s report in 1690 that Lady Petre’s servants ‘buy up all the oats at Romford, Grays, Barking and all the markets around about and her servant John being asked what the Lady did with all those oats he said they had some hundreds of horses to provide for’.<sup>22</sup> After 1689 Catholics were banned from owning horses worth more than £5 and periodic attempts to enforce the ban did lead to the seizure of Petre’s horses (fewer than 30 in 1696, half of which were working farm horses) on at least two occasions.<sup>23</sup> However, he was on good terms with the county elite and had no difficulty in enlisting the support of successive lords lieutenant in obtaining licences and securing the return of his horses.<sup>24</sup> ‘The Lord Petre’ wrote Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, in 1705, ‘hath always been and is very peaceable and submissive to her majesty and government.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>At his death on 5 Jan. 1707 Petre was succeeded by his son, Robert Petre*, 7th Baron Petre. His second son, Thomas, had died an infant in 1691. He made provision for a portion of £5,000 for his daughter, Mary, but she died unmarried in April 1713, probably (like her brother) of smallpox.<sup>26</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
PETRE, William (1626-84) |
<p><strong><surname>PETRE</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1626–84)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Oct. 1638 (a minor) as 4th Bar. PETRE |
|
First sat 26 Apr. 1660; last sat 24 Oct. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. Dec. 1626, 1st s. of Robert Petre<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Petre, and Mary, da. of Anthony Browne<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Visct. Montagu; bro. of John Petre*, 5th Bar. Petre and Thomas Petre*, 6th Bar. Petre. <em>educ</em>. privately in Oxford; travelled abroad (France) 1642. <em>m</em>. (1) (with £5,000, settlement 15 May 1649),<sup>1</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1665), da. of John Savage<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Earl Rivers, sep. c. Jan. 1652;<sup>2</sup> (2) (settlement 29 Nov. 1672),<sup>3</sup> Bridget (<em>d</em>.1695), coh. of John Pincheon of Writtle, Essex, 1da. <em>d</em>. 5 Jan. 1684; <em>will</em> 20 Dec. 1683, pr. 14 June 1684.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>The Petre family rose through service at the Tudor court but were not ennobled until 1603. Their surviving papers for the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries consist almost entirely of documents relating to the management of their estates and financial affairs; no personal or political archive is known to exist. The family’s major territorial base was in Essex, where they owned some 11,000 acres, mainly centred on Thorndon, Ingatestone and Writtle. They also held substantial tracts of property in Devon, with outlying properties in Dorset, Gloucestershire and East Anglia.</p><p>As Catholic peers, the Petres’ position in Essex society must have been somewhat difficult. The county was solidly protestant, with a substantial and vociferous Puritan minority. Petre had no electoral interest of his own, but his estates and position within the county made him a valuable ally for those who were seeking election, and he was on friendly terms with members of the county elite, including the Bramstons and Wisemans who had sent several family members to the Commons. However, his religion effectively barred him from the kind of office and influence that his extensive landholdings would otherwise have guaranteed. Petre’s principal country residence was at Thorndon Hall (assessed at 72 hearths in 1662); a smaller property at Ingatestone (assessed at 30 hearths in 1662) being occupied by his mother until her death in January 1685.<sup>5</sup> Thorndon Hall had been remodelled in the late sixteenth century in traditional English style. In 1669, a visitor described it as:</p><blockquote><p>an ancient structure, built after the same plan as all the others in England, with a tendency rather to the Gothic and Rustic than to any chaste style of architecture but, as far as convenience is concerned, sufficiently well contrived. It is in a good situation, surrounded by a wall which incloses a large and green meadow; and among other things which contribute to its pleasantness, the deer-park, which extends to a distance of five miles, or more, is a most important addition to it. Its noble owner lives there with a magnificence equal to that of other peers of the kingdom, and in a style commensurate with his fortune, which is estimated at ten thousand pounds per annum.<sup>6</sup></p></blockquote><p>That the 4th Baron Petre lived up to his rank is undeniable, but the extent to which his life style was genuinely ‘commensurate with his fortune’ is rather more questionable since it seems to have been based on extensive borrowing. Some of his misfortunes may have been of his own making, for he is known to have gambled for high stakes but the real threats were more difficult to control.<sup>7</sup></p><p>At his father’s death in 1638, Petre was unquestionably extremely wealthy. He had inherited personal estate estimated at some £30,000, of which £20,000 was held in liquid capital, and real estate producing a gross landed income of approximately £8,000 p.a. Between 1638 and 1660, his financial stability was threatened many times over. He was a minor in 1638, with the result that the estate had to bear the costs implicit in the processes associated with wardship. The wardship was bought for £10,000 by his father’s executors, who included his uncle, William Petre of Stanford Rivers, and another kinsman, Edward Somerset*, then styled Lord Herbert, later 2nd marquess of Worcester.<sup>8</sup> The executors, like his father, were committed Catholics, and although they assigned the wardship to Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, the protestant 2nd earl of Northampton, Petre was actually brought up in Lord Herbert’s household.<sup>9</sup> On 6 Aug. 1641 the Commons were anxious to have him removed to the custody of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick, but the order was not put into effect.</p><p>Petre’s father and grandfather had each successfully raised large families, with the result that the estate was burdened with a number of settlements and annuities to provide portions for their younger children. Then, just as the estate was beginning to emerge from these difficulties, the events of the Civil War and the Interregnum created fresh turmoil. At some point after 1642, it was reported that both Northampton and Herbert had been ‘in actual war against the Parliament’ but that Petre was now living in Oxford with Francis Cottington<sup>†</sup>, Baron Cottington.<sup>10</sup> Petre’s west country lands remained free of parliamentary control and provided him with a much needed stream of income; elsewhere, parliamentary demands posed a real threat. An attempt to sequestrate his lands in 1643 was met by his steward with the claim that he was a neither a papist nor a delinquent.<sup>11</sup> On 6 May 1645 the Commons began an investigation into the failure to transfer his wardship to Warwick and into obstructions to the sequestration of his estates. They also attacked Cottington’s lands, probably because his conversion to Catholicism was already known.</p><p>In 1649 Petre married Elizabeth Savage, who brought with her a portion of £5,000, paid in advance. They soon separated.<sup>12</sup> In 1652, Lady Petre’s suit for alimony led the chancery to order a reconciliation, which took place in January 1653. The attempt failed when Petre’s insistence on being ‘master in his own house’ provoked an armed confrontation between their respective servants during which Lady Petre accused her husband of intending to kill her.<sup>13</sup> Later that year he suffered the indignity of being arrested for his wife’s debts. Unable to call on privilege of Parliament, he instead ‘desperately resisted and endeavoured violently to make an escape and uproar.’ When this failed, he commenced a vexatious suit in chancery during which he fulminated against ‘the encouragement that hath been given unto your orators said wife by such credit to continue in her disloyalty and disobedience contrary to the law of God and man and the very ill example to others in like kind disposed.’<sup>14</sup> In 1654 the couple, who were childless, drew up a formal separation agreement; Lady Petre, who had demanded an allowance of £550 a year plus the payment of all her debts, had to be satisfied with £500 a year to cover both her maintenance and the liquidation of her debts.<sup>15</sup> Her debts were still unpaid when in 1672 her creditors offered to compound for them.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Elizabeth Savage’s dower was not enough to rescue Petre’s finances. In May 1652, desperate to preserve his estates and creditworthiness, he took the oath of abjuration, thus securing the return, without compounding, of his sequestered estates.<sup>17</sup> His problems were far from over. In 1652 he entered into a debt trust, albeit temporarily, listing debts amounting to well over £15,000.<sup>18</sup> In 1662-3 he valued the rental of his lands in Essex at £2,000 a year.<sup>19</sup> The sale of lands, including his London house in Aldersgate (1663), the premature death of two of his younger brothers and the successful renegotiation of the annuities due to his remaining brothers and to his mother helped bring about a gradual improvement in his situation. His determined deferral of payments to his other creditors and his equally determined pursuit of those who owed money to him, including debts contracted at the card table, also helped.<sup>20</sup> Whether his tenantry were forced to contribute to the improvement through the payment of higher rents is not known, but prosecutions for offences against the game and for minor disturbances in Thorndon Park during the 1660s suggest a certain amount of local antipathy.<sup>21</sup> In addition to his financial difficulties, Petre was twice arrested on suspicion of involvement in royalist plots.</p><p>It was perhaps only to be expected that a peer who had suffered so much at the hands of the parliamentarians should be determined to take his place in the newly restored House of Lords. To the consternation of those who had hoped to reserve the House for the peers of 1648, Petre, along with Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers, Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex and Richard Sackville*, earl of Dorset, ‘got into the House’ on the afternoon of 26 Apr. 1660.<sup>22</sup> Petre was doubly suspect: he was both a ‘young’ lord (i.e. had not sat in the House before its abolition in 1648) and had been imprisoned, albeit briefly, for his part in royalist plots in 1655 and 1658. Although listed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in 1660 as a papist, it seems likely that between taking the oath of abjuration in 1652 and the Restoration of 1660, Petre had passed as a protestant. He had declared himself to be a member of the Church of England in 1653 in the course of defending his first wife’s action for alimony.<sup>23</sup> In the late 1640s Petre had been caught out lying to the sequestrators in an attempt to secure favourable terms for the return of his lands; it is unlikely that he would risk his lands again by allowing himself to be openly identified with Catholicism.<sup>24</sup> The discussions in the House in early 1660 on the subject of admitting Catholics suggest that the peers did not realise that they already had one amongst them. It was not until 1673 that Petre was again accused of recusancy, but his Catholicism was probably well known long before that.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Petre attended the first (1660) session of the Convention for just over 56 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committee for privileges and on 9 May was added to the committee for the reception of the king. He was present on 22 May and presumably therefore responsible for presenting a petition from his mother, the dowager Lady Petre, against the damage caused to her estate by sequestration and denying that she had ever been indicted or convicted as a popish recusant. The House held that as the widow of a peer she was entitled to privilege of Parliament and suspended proceedings against her ‘until the merits of her cause be fully heard and determined by the law.’ During a meeting of the committee for privileges held on 14 June and reported to the House on 16 June 1660, he testified that he had been present at the trial of Charles I and had heard Robert Danvers*, described in the records of the House as Viscount Purbeck, describe the regicide John Bradshaw<sup>‡</sup> as ‘a gallant man, the preserver of our liberties; and that he the said Lord Viscount Purbeck hoped that Bradshaw would do justice upon that tyrant (speaking of the late king).’<sup>26</sup> In July privilege of peerage allowed him to stave off a judgment in chancery that would have forced him to pay the £6,000 that he owed for his older sister’s marriage portion, even though the plaintiff was a fellow peer and Catholic, William Stourton*, 11th Baron Stourton.<sup>27</sup> On 1 Sept. he was named to the committee to consider Worcester’s patent to be duke of Somerset and on 3 Dec. to the committee to consider Sir Edward Powell’s fines. Then on 13 Dec. he signed the protest at the decision to vacate Powell’s fines. He was also named to three other committees.</p><p>The first (1661-2) session of the Cavalier Parliament saw his attendance drop to just under 24 per cent, partly explained by patchy attendance during November and December 1661 followed by a long absence after 20 Dec. 1661 before his return to the House on 19 Mar. 1662. Such a prolonged absence may have been caused by illness as he was excused attendance at a call of the House on 25 Nov. by reason of sickness. In January 1661 he received a general pardon, although quite why he should have needed one is unclear.<sup>28</sup> He was listed as present on 11 May when the committee for privileges was named but was not appointed to it; during the course of the session he was named to a further 12 committees. On 17 July 1661 he protested again at the passage of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell.</p><p>The 1663 session saw him present for two-thirds of sitting days. He was absent on the first day of the session and so was not named to the committee for privileges until he was belatedly added on 9 April. He was, however, present and named to the committee for petitions when it was appointed on 25 February. He was named to a further five committees including the bill to settle differences between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his son Charles*, then styled Lord St John (later duke of Bolton) on 1 June and (somewhat ironically given his own leisure pursuits) the bill against gaming on 26 June. Despite his earlier support for Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in the matter of the Powell fines, in July Wharton predicted that would support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. The session ended on 27 July, but during the recess members of the House continued to be involved as mediators in the Winchester dispute, and in September Petre was one of the committee members who tried to mediate the quarrel.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Petre’s attendance over the short 1664 session rose to just over 83 per cent. He was named to the committee for petitions but not to that for privileges as he was absent when that committee was nominated. He was not in the House on 31 Mar. when his estranged wife claimed privilege against arrest for debt. Her petition sparked a debate about rights to privilege. Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, argued that her petition was defective since, as a married woman, she could not sue in her own name. Charles Howard*, later 2nd earl of Berkshire but then styled Lord Andover and who sat in his father’s barony as Howard of Charleton, carried the House when he insisted that ‘their lordships ought not to take notice of anything but the breach of privilege, which he thought was manifest, for if their privileges extended to the protection of their servants <em>a fortiori</em> to that of their wives.’<sup>30</sup> Petre himself was embarrassed by his wife’s action and accused her of disgracing him, probably because of her determination to blacken Petre’s reputation by implicating his own steward in the affair.<sup>31</sup> He was named to four committees including the bill for gaming (21 Apr.) and the Cottington estate bill (11 May).</p><p>Petre’s attendance for the 1664-5 session dropped to 58 per cent. Again absent for the opening of the session he was not named to the committee for privileges. He was named to only three committees. Between sessions he was present on 21 June 1665 when Parliament was again prorogued. He was then absent for the whole of the brief autumn 1665 session. Petre returned to Parliament on 21 Sept. 1666, the second day of the 1666-7 session. His attendance over the session reached nearly 79 per cent. He was named to the committee for privileges and to four other committees, including that for the bill to render illegitimate Lady Roos’ children on 14 Nov. 1666. On 23 Jan. 1667 he protested against the decision not to add a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill creating a court to resolve disputes arising from the Fire of London.</p><p>He was present on both the prorogation days but missed the first two weeks of the 1667-9 session, nevertheless recording an attendance of just over 75 per cent. His name was added to that of the committee for petitions on 20 Nov. 1667, and he was named to a further ten committees. Despite his high level of attendance there is no information about his voting intentions in the major issue of the day, the attempt to impeach Clarendon.</p><p>The next, 1669, session saw his attendance fall to just under 53 per cent. He missed the first two weeks of the session and was excused at a call of the House on 26 Oct. as being ill. Having missed appointment to the committee for privileges he was added to it on 10 Nov. and was named to one further committee. On 22 Nov. he was one of five peers who protested at the passage of the bill to restrict privilege and limit trials of peers, arguing that ‘the judiciary and other privileges of Parliament and peerage [are] … so fundamental, as we ought not to part therewith’.</p><p>Petre’s attendance recovered to nearly 65 per cent in the 1670-1 session. Present from the opening of the session he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was named to a further 18 committees during the session including that preventing the growth of popery which was effectively a committee of the whole House. In February he was one of nine peers who voted against the decision to agree to the king’s request that proceedings relating to <em>Skinner v. the East India Company</em> be razed from the Journal.<sup>32</sup> He was absent for several weeks in October and November 1670, being excused by the House on 14 November. He held the proxy of his cousin and fellow Catholic, Francis Browne*, 3rd Viscount Montagu, from 4 Mar. to 4 Apr. 1670, almost certainly for use in the Roos divorce. Despite his own history of marital problems Petre opposed the divorce and entered a protest against it on 28 March. The following spring he held the proxy of Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, from 13 Mar. to 17 Apr. 1671, perhaps for use in connection with proceedings on the bill to prevent the growth of popery. Middlesex would later become one of Petre’s debt trustees so despite his protestantism was presumably sympathetic to the plight of loyal Catholic peers.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Petre’s estranged wife had died in 1665; late in 1672 he remarried. His second wife, Bridget Pincheon, was some 25 years his junior, but it was not her age that caused a stir, rather that she was ‘of ordinary birth’ and either had no portion at all or an inconsiderable one.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Petre’s attendance reached just over 79 per cent during the brief session of 1673. Present from the opening of the session he was again named to the committees for privileges and petitions. On 5 Mar. he was named with almost everyone listed as present to the committee to provide a bill of advice to the king and in the course of the session to four other committees.</p><p>Early in January 1674 it was reported that, presumably as a result of the recent Test Act, Petre and other ‘popelings’ were planning to leave the country. The rumour proved to be unfounded. Petre took his seat at the opening of the 1674 session on 7 Jan. 1674 and was then present for nearly 53 per cent of sitting days. On 27 Jan. he was one of a number of Catholic peers who benefited from the ruling of the House that prosecutions for recusancy were covered by privilege of Parliament. Anti-Catholic agitation and the need to reassure his many creditors may well have been behind his decision in April 1674 to enter into another debt trust. Petre’s standard of living was maintained by continual borrowing. He owed over £11,000, slightly more than he had owed at the time of the debt trust of 1652.<sup>35</sup> Four years later (and a mere ten days after his arrest in connection with the Popish Plot) a second schedule of debts that had somehow been overlooked added more than £3,000 to the total.</p><p>Presumably in response to the deteriorating political situation Petre missed only four days of the first 1675 session. He was as usual named to the committees for privileges and petitions, as well as to a further three committees. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) believed that Petre would support the non-resisting test, but on 21 Apr. together with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and other opponents of the court he was one of the leading speakers against the proposition and entered a protest at the refusal of the House to throw it out.<sup>36</sup> On 29 Apr. it was noted that he was one of several peers (and bishops) who had not taken the Jacobean oath of allegiance; he took it the following day. Although the Jacobean oath was carefully written to enable Catholics to take it, it was reported that Petre’s decision and his insistence that it was not sinful to do so upset his Jesuit confessor so much that he refused absolution.<sup>37</sup> More personal matters were also a matter of concern. On 3 May he reported the arrest of one of his mother’s servants as a breach of privilege of Parliament, adding that the creditor concerned had ‘uttered very contemptuous words against the said Lady and Lord Petre’. The offender was arrested and spent ten days in custody before Petre showed false magnanimity on 1 June by permitting his release after he was forced to beg the pardon of the House and had paid the requisite fees.</p><p>The short autumn 1675 session saw Petre present on nearly 91 per cent of sitting days and named to the committees for privileges and petitions as well as three other committees. On 20 Nov. he again joined with Shaftesbury in seeking a dissolution in the aftermath of the dispute occasioned by the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, entering a protest when the House resolved to reject the motion.</p><p>Continuing concern about Catholics and Catholicism kept Petre’s attendance high, nearly 89 per cent, throughout the 1677-8 session. Perhaps surprisingly, he remained on good terms with Shaftesbury, being listed by him as a doubly worthy papist. He was named to 25 other committees including, on 16 Feb., that for discovering the author and printer of the pamphlet <em>Some Considerations upon the Question, whether the Parliament is dissolved by Prorogation for Fifteene Monthes</em>. He held the proxy of Charles Howard, now 2nd earl of Berkshire, from 20 Feb. to 11 March. On 15 Mar. 1677 he entered a dissent to the passage of the act for further securing the protestant religion which also mandated the protestant education of the children of the royal family.</p><p>Petre was present at the opening of the first session of 1678 on 23 May. His attendance dropped back to 65 percent. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions as well as that for the Journal and five other committees.</p><p>Petre’s catholicism and his association with known Jesuits made him particularly vulnerable when, during the recess over the summer of 1678, Titus Oates revealed a Jesuit plot to assassinate the king and to overthrow the English government. Oates testified on oath that he had seen Petre ‘receive a commission as lieutenant general of the popish army destined for the invasion of England…’<sup>38</sup> His allegations gained credence when they were apparently validated by the disappearance of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey on 12 Oct. and the discovery of his body five days later. Petre’s ability to rebut the allegations may have been undermined by memories of his willingness to trifle with the oath of abjuration during the Interregnum. Determined to carry on as normal, he attended the opening of the second session of 1678 on 21 Oct. and was again named to the committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal. On 23 Oct. he was even named (as were all those present) to the committee to examine papers about the plot and witnesses about Godfrey’s murder. On 25 Oct. the Privy Council issued a warrant for Petre’s arrest. He attended the House the next day, effectively surrendering himself into custody and taking the opportunity to protest his innocence.<sup>39</sup> Petre and the other popish lords were imprisoned first in the Gatehouse and then in the Tower of London. On 31 Oct. the House ordered that he be kept a close prisoner without access to pen, ink or paper but this order was relaxed on 8 November. A month later, on 5 Dec. he was impeached of high treason; he was also indicted for high treason by a Middlesex grand jury but this was removed to the House of Lords by <em>certiorar</em>i and abandoned in favour of proceeding by impeachment. Articles of impeachment were formally exhibited on 7 Apr. 1679. Petre’s only child, his daughter Mary, was born shortly afterwards.</p><p>Inter House wrangling over the proper procedures for impeachments, whether the popish lords should be tried before or after Danby and the proper role of the bishops meant that Petre was never tried. In December 1683 although seriously ill he was refused permission to leave the Tower for a change of air.<sup>40</sup> He made his will on 20 Dec. and died, still a prisoner in the Tower, the following month. Shortly before his death he drew up a letter to the king lamenting that he was ‘by the disposition of God’s providence called into another world before I could by a public trial make my innocence appear.’<sup>41</sup> The publication of what was in effect a carefully crafted dying statement provided a powerful piece of propaganda that transformed public perceptions of Petre, turning him from a duplicitous Jesuit fellow traveller into a symbol of wronged Catholic innocence. As a state prisoner Petre lived in considerable comfort, but his imprisonment was nevertheless widely believed to have shortened his life. His death evoked a wave of sympathy for his family and for the remaining papist lords, who were released by order of the judges of king’s bench a month later.</p><p>At his death the title passed to his younger brother John, but the estates were seriously depleted by the handsome provision (£10,000 secured against his unencumbered western estates and protected from his creditors) that Petre made for his only daughter, Mary, who later married George Heneage of Hampton, Lincolnshire.<sup>42</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
PIERREPONT, Evelyn (1665-1726) |
<p><strong><surname>PIERREPONT</surname></strong>, <strong>Evelyn</strong> (1665–1726)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 17 Sept. 1690 as 5th earl of KINGSTON-UPON-HULL; <em>cr. </em>23 Dec. 1706 mq. of DORCHESTER; <em>cr. </em>10 Aug. 1715 duke of KINGSTON-UPON-HULL |
|
First sat 6 Nov. 1690; last sat 24 Feb. 1726 |
|
MP East Retford 1689, 7 Mar.–17 Sept. 1690 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 27 Feb. 1665, 3rd s. of Robert Pierrepont (1636–69), of West Dean, Wilts. and Elizabeth (c.1649–99), da. and coh. of Sir John Evelyn<sup>‡</sup> of West Dean, Wilts.; bro. of Robert Pierrepont*, 3rd earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, and William Pierrepont* 4th earl of Kingston-upon-Hull. <em>educ.</em> Winchester 1680; Christ’s, Camb. 1683, LLD 1705. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 27 June 1687 (with £6,000),<sup>1</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. Dec. 1697), da. of William Feilding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 3da.; (2) 2 Aug. 1714, Isabella (<em>d</em>. 23 Feb. 1728), da. of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, 2da. KG 23 June 1719. <em>d</em>. 16 Mar. 1726; <em>will</em> 5 Mar. pr. 24 Mar. 1726.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. union with Scotland 1706;<sup>3</sup> PC 26 June 1708–<em>d</em>.; ld. privy seal 1716–19, 1720–<em>d</em>.; ld. pres. of council 1719–20; ld. justice, 1719, 1720, 1723, 1725–6.</p><p>Dep. lt. Wilts. by 1701–?<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Wilts. 1706–11, 1714–<em>d</em>.; freeman, Nottingham 1706; recorder, Nottingham 1707–<em>d</em>.; c.j. in eyre north of Trent 1714–17.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1709, NPG 3213; oil on canvas, Michael Dahl (attrib.), group portrait, English Heritage, Chiswick House.</p> |
<h2><em>Youth and marriage, 1685–90</em></h2><p>Evelyn Pierrepont was the third and longest-lived of the sons of Robert Pierrepont, eldest son of ‘wise’ William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>. Robert was heir to both his wealthy father and his uncle Henry Pierrepont*, 2nd earl of Kingston-upon-Hull and marquess of Dorchester, but he died early in 1669 and it was his three sons who inherited in turn the estates of their grandfather based at Thoresby in Nottinghamshire and their great-uncle’s title of earl of Kingston-upon-Hull and the estate of Holme Pierrepont. An elaborate survey of the 5th earl of Kingston’s Pierrepont inheritance in Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and parts of Huntingdonshire from 1694 (but apparently representing the condition of the estate in 1690) suggests that the property consisted of about 31,000 acres and brought in £10,000 p.a.<sup>6</sup> On the Pierrepont side Evelyn also inherited multiple connections to leading noble families of England, as his father’s four sisters had married extraordinarily well. He could number among his uncles George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, and his many aristocratic cousins included John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, at least during the time of Sunderland’s brief marriage to Pierrepont’s cousin Lady Arabella Cavendish. Evelyn’s personal name derived from the family name of his mother, Elizabeth Evelyn, daughter and eventually sole heiress of Sir John Evelyn<sup>‡</sup> of West Dean, Wiltshire. He bequeathed to his youngest grandson in his will of 1676 the reversion of his Wiltshire lands after the death of his daughter Elizabeth. This too was an extensive estate, as Elizabeth Evelyn herself died a rich widow in 1699, able to bequeath to her daughter £2,000 and to her granddaughter a portion of £12,000, as well as leaving the remainder of the estate, calculated by some as worth £3,000 p.a., to her son.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In June 1687 Evelyn Pierrepont married Mary, daughter of the late William Feilding, 3rd earl of Denbigh, a member of a prominent Warwickshire family. He was elected to represent the Nottinghamshire borough of East Retford in both the Convention and William III’s first Parliament, probably on the interest of his Williamite elder brother William Pierrepont*, 4th earl of Kingston, who was appointed lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Nottinghamshire in 1689. This young earl of Kingston died unexpectedly and childless on 17 Sept. 1690, when Evelyn inherited the title and perhaps, for a brief period, his local offices in Nottinghamshire. There is an unexplained vacancy in the lieutenancy of the county until 1692, when William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, was appointed, and in the <em>custos</em> until 1694, when Kingston’s cousin Newcastle, the rising man in the county, stepped in. It is possible, although it cannot be positively proved, that the new earl of Kingston informally exercised these offices in place of his deceased brother in the intervening months.</p><h2><em>Earl of Kingston under William III, 1690–1702</em></h2><p>Kingston first sat in the House on 6 Nov. 1690 and maintained a steady attendance rate of between three-fifths and two-thirds of the sitting days in both the 1690–1 and 1691–2 sessions. His attendance dropped to 34 per cent in the 1692–3 session, his lowest attendance of any session before 1715, but he played a controversial role in the murder trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. On 3 Feb. 1693 the House decided that each peer could ask a pertinent question of the judges sitting in Westminster Hall if the queries were agreed upon by the assembled House beforehand. Kingston nevertheless asked an impromptu question in the Hall, which compelled the peers to adjourn to their chamber to consider and approve it before returning to the Hall to continue proceedings. With this precedent, the peers resolved that peers could ask whatever question they wished of the judges without prior approval. Kingston was also one of the 14 peers who found Mohun guilty of murder on 4 Feb., against the 64 who acquitted him.<sup>8</sup> He began to take a more active role in the procedures of the House in the sessions of 1693–4 (56 per cent attendance) and 1694–5 (69 per cent). He was a teller on 4 Dec. 1693 on a question in the committee of the whole House whether the word ‘holden’ should remain in the Triennial bill. He was again a teller on 22 Dec. 1694 on the question whether the House should adjourn into a committee of the whole to consider the treason trial’ bill. On 23 Jan. 1695 he further dissented from the resolution to add an amendment to that bill which would postpone its implementation for three years.</p><p>In William III’s second Parliament Kingston’s attendance steadily dropped over the three sessions: 62 per cent in 1695–6; 52 per cent in 1696–7; and 49 per cent in 1697–8. On 13 Dec. 1695 he was placed on a committee to inspect papers from the East India Company concerning their recent losses at sea and the effects of competition with the Scottish East India Company, and the following day he acted as a manager in a conference on the address against this rival company. On 9 Jan. 1696 he also protested against the abandonment of a clause in the bill to reform the coinage. He was a teller on 6 Mar. in a division in the committee of the whole House on whether to reject a clause in the wine duties bill. He fought strenuously against the bill for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, voting against it and subscribing to the dissents against the bill’s commitment, on 18 Dec. 1696, and its eventual passage, on 23 December. He assigned his proxy on 17 Feb. 1697 to his brother-in-law Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, but this was vacated a week later. He told in the division of 9 Mar. 1697 on the question whether to insist upon an amendment in the wrought silks bill. On 10 Apr. Kingston was a manager for a conference on the bill against the sale of offices. In the final session, he voted on 15 Mar. 1698 against the commitment of the Junto-inspired bill to punish the exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, while the following day he dissented from the decision to grant relief to James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> in the case of <em>Bertie v. Viscount Falkland</em>.</p><p>Before the elections of summer 1698, Kingston’s support was solicited by his cousin William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, on behalf of Gervase Eyre<sup>‡ </sup>as a country candidate for Nottinghamshire. After Halifax’s intervention, Kingston ‘promised all the assistance he could give’ to Eyre and his fellow candidate, Sir Thomas Willoughby*, later Baron Middleton; with his help and that of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, the two country candidates were able to outpoll the incumbent court Whig Members.<sup>9</sup> Kingston’s own attendance continued to decrease over the two session of William’s third Parliament – 45 per cent in 1698–9 and 39 per cent in 1699–1700. He was involved in two conferences on markets and trade on 20–21 Apr. 1699, acting as a manager for a conference on the bill for restoring Blackwell Hall Market, and on the next day being named to manage another conference on a bill concerning the fish market at Billingsgate. In February 1700 he was thought to be in favour of the bill to maintain the old East India Company as a corporation and on 23 Feb. he voted that the House should be adjourned into a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to the bill. On 5 Apr. he was a teller in a division in the committee of the whole House on whether to postpone discussion of the first enacting clause in the Commons bill to resume William III’s grants of forfeited Irish lands.<sup>10</sup></p><p>In the Parliaments of the 1690s Kingston obviously shared many of his votes, dissents and protests – such as on the Fenwick attainder bill, the Charles Duncombe bill and the East India Company bill – with country, if not Tory, members of the House. It may be significant that he spent September 1700, in the period between the prorogation of April and the surprise dissolution of Parliament in December, visiting France in the company of his contemporary Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup>, a country, and increasingly Tory, Member for neighbouring Derbyshire.<sup>11</sup> Kingston’s second cousin William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>, who from 1691 was also the husband of his widowed sister-in-law, the dowager countess of Kingston, was another country Member of Parliament with whom Kingston was closely connected. Pierrepont’s election as a burgess for Nottingham at a by-election in December 1695 was probably achieved through the interest of his cousin. Pierrepont continued to be selected for the borough, with the help of his kinsman, in every successive Parliament until his death in August 1706.</p><p>A list from the summer of 1700 marked Kingston as a Whig who could potentially be persuaded to support the new ‘mixed’ ministry being formed after the fall of the Junto ministry. It appears that up to the turn of the century Kingston’s political allegiances were fluid and indeterminate and he was not at that point seen as an associate of the Junto. It may have been the vindictive backlash against these former ministers during the Parliament which convened on 6 Feb. 1701 which turned Kingston decisively against the Tories, and it is from about this point that he became a major figure among the Whig aristocracy, a position he solidified during the reign of Anne. He came to just over half of the sitting days of this Parliament and took part in the resurgence of Whig unity which it saw, voting for the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, in June 1701.</p><p>For the elections of the winter of 1701, following yet another dissolution (in November 1701) of an uncooperative Parliament, Kingston changed tack from his efforts in previous years and exerted his influence in Nottinghamshire in the Whig interest. He tried to exact from Sir Thomas Willoughby a promise that he would not join with Gervase Eyre, now gone over to the Tories, against the Whig candidates. He also probably assisted Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, in assuring a rare Whig victory in the Wiltshire elections, where Kingston had acquired more of an interest by the inheritance of his mother’s estate at West Dean in 1699.<sup>12</sup> Perhaps reflecting his new dedication to the Whigs, Kingston himself came to 71 per cent of the Parliament of 1702 which saw William III’s death on 8 Mar.; he, along with the rest of the House present, was chosen as a manager for a conference to discuss the arrangements for Anne’s accession to the throne. In the days before the Parliament’s prorogation and eventual dissolution, Kingston acted as a teller, against the Tory Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, in the division of 16 May 1702 on the ultimately unsuccessful motion to burn publicly the sermon of William Binckes which compared Charles I favourably to Christ himself.</p><h2><em>A Whig under Anne, 1702–6</em></h2><p>In the early years of Anne’s reign, John Macky informed his Hanoverian masters that Kingston ‘hath a very good estate, is a very fine gentleman, of good sense, well bred, and a lover of the ladies; entirely in the interest of his country; makes a good figure, is of a black complexion, well made, not forty years old’.<sup>13</sup> The death of his wife, Mary Feilding, in 1697 allowed Kingston in these first years of the queen’s reign to indulge himself as a relatively young, and very rich, widower around town. His celebrated daughter Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had good reason in later years to resent her father’s treatment of her and in an autobiographical ‘fragment’ written in 1715 described the death of her ‘noble mother’ as the ‘first misfortune’ in her life, as she ‘was now left to the care of a young father, who though naturally an honest man, was abandoned to his pleasures and (like most of those of his quality) did not think himself obliged to be very attentive to his children’s education’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>While neglecting the upbringing of his four children, Kingston took part in the social high life of the Whigs in the capital. The diary of his contemporary Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), makes it clear that from 1704 at the earliest Kingston was frequently found at the grand dinners hosted by his Whig associates in their Westminster townhouses, as well as at more informal gatherings in taverns such as the Queen’s Arms in Pall Mall. At these Westminster gatherings, Kingston was in frequent touch with the principal Junto peers, and especially with its most prominent parliamentary managers, Somers, Sunderland, Wharton and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, as well as their close allies, including Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>15</sup> Kingston was also a member of the Kit Kat Club by 1711, although the story that he introduced, and toasted, his daughter Mary there when she was still a child suggests he probably joined much earlier, perhaps at the club’s foundation in the early years of the century. Lady Mary later emphasized her father’s predilection for the fashionable horse races at Newmarket, where so many other Whig grandees congregated. ‘He had a seat very near the town [i.e. in Acton]’, she continues in her autobiography, ‘and as he never consulted the pleasure of his daughters when his own were in question, the matches at Newmarket [gave] him an occasion of leaving the town’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Despite his commitment to a fashionable social life, Kingston maintained a steady rate of attendance in each of the three sessions of Anne’s first Parliament of 1702–5 of between 52 and 69 per cent. In the first session, a division on 11 Nov. 1702 on whether the peers should go in their robes to St Paul’s Cathedral for the celebrations for the victories at Cadiz and Vigo saw Kingston for the first time facing as his opposing teller Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, heir of a family who had been local rivals to the Pierreponts in Nottinghamshire from the time of the Civil War.<sup>17</sup> These two peers were at the centre of the controversial and very close votes of 16 Jan. 1703 which ultimately led to the defeat of the occasional conformity bill. Contemporaries were sure that Kingston would oppose the bill by supporting the Whig-inspired amendments to it. Kingston and Scarsdale acted as tellers for opposite sides in the first two divisions held that day, the first on whether to accept the principal ‘wrecking’ amendment which altered the terms, and levels of fines, in the penalty clause and the second on the amendment which extended the time in which an offence had to be presented to a justice of the peace. The first division, maintaining the amendment which ultimately sank the bill in the Commons, was passed by a majority of only two, after proxies had been called for.</p><p>Three days later, on 19 Jan., Kingston was second teller in the division in the committee of the whole House on whether there should be a clause in the bill to settle a revenue on George*, prince of Denmark (also duke of Cumberland), which would specifically empower the prince to sit in the House and Privy Council and hold other offices after the death of the queen, despite the provisions against foreigners’ employment in the Act of Settlement. Kingston and his opposite teller, Scarsdale once again, both counted the same number of votes (48); by the rules of the House the motion was resolved in the negative and the clause thrown out. However after the committee of the whole had adjourned and the regular House considered the report, it reversed the committee’s decision to exclude the clause and instead voted to accept it. Kingston had almost certainly been the teller for the not contents against the original motion, for he subscribed to the detailed protest against this latter decision by the House to reinstate the clause. Whigs such as Kingston objected to this clause because it seemed to put in doubt the right of other foreign peers – such as William III’s many Dutch friends who had been given English titles – to sit in the House and hold office without a similar formal dispensation.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Kingston’s houses at Thoresby and Holme Pierrepont in Nottingham were on the itinerary of the Junto peers Orford and Halifax as they visited their political associates in the country – Wharton (Chippenham), Sunderland (Althorp) and Devonshire (Chatsworth) – during the summer of 1703.<sup>19</sup> Politics were undoubtedly discussed at these summer gatherings and strategies may have been taken against the inevitable re-introduction of the Occasional Conformity bill. Kingston played a co-ordinating role in the Whig bid to defeat this bill, acting as teller, almost certainly for the not contents, on both occasions when the motion to give the bill a second reading was before the House over the next two sessions. He was a teller in the division of 14 Dec. 1703, Scarsdale again acting as his opposite, and was recorded as voting against the motion himself. He performed the same duty as teller, on the same question, almost exactly a year later, on 15 Dec. 1704, with this time the Tory John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, telling for the other side. On both occasions the not contents had the majority, ensuring the defeat of the bill.<sup>20</sup></p><p>On 13 Feb. 1704 Kingston was present at a gathering in the St James’s townhouse of Sunderland, along with Wharton, Somers, Halifax, Rivers, Newcastle, Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, Charles Bodville Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, and Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbrury, among others. Ossulston noted that this meeting lasted from six in the evening and may still have been going on after ten at night when he left, and ‘there tea drunk and our discourse was only about the Scotch plot which the papers was before the House of Lords’.<sup>21</sup> Kingston had been involved in the investigations and proceedings concerning the alleged ‘Scotch Plot’ from the moment it first came to the House’s attention. On 20 Dec. 1703 he reported from the committee assigned to draw up an address to the queen thanking her for her promise to keep the House informed of developments in the investigation of those suspected of involvement in the plot. He was then assigned, with Talbot Yelverton*, 2nd Viscount Longueville, to attend the queen to ascertain when she would be ready to receive the address, and he reported her answer at the end of the day’s proceedings.</p><p>Two days after the dinner at Sunderland’s house, on 15 Feb. 1704, Kingston again formed part of a delegation to present the queen with an address requesting her to make available to the House further papers bearing on the conspiracy and the involvement of the secretary of state Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. On 3 Mar. Kingston was a teller, Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, telling for the opposite side, in the division on the motion that the select committee considering these papers should agree to the conditions laid down by the informant in possession of the key to the ciphered letters, that the information gleaned from them should only be divulged to the committee and the queen and not to the House at large.<sup>22</sup> It is highly probable that further dinners with Whig peers (which were attended by Kingston on 18 and 31 Mar. and duly recorded by Ossulston) were also held to discuss strategy in prosecuting the allegations against Nottingham.<sup>23</sup> These were ultimately successful and the Tory secretary of state resigned his post on 22 Apr. 1704.</p><p>Kingston’s most frequent role in the sessions of 1703–4 and 1704–5 was as teller. Apart from the tellerships he exercised in divisions on the occasional conformity bill and the Scotch Plot, he was also teller in divisions on: the motion to reverse the original judgment against the petitioner Matthew Ashby in <em>Ashby v. White</em> (14 Jan. 1704); the motion to reverse the original decree against Anthony Rowe<sup>‡</sup> in <em>Rowe v. Cockayne</em> (25 Feb. 1704); the previous question on the motion to appoint a day for the first reading of the subsidy bill (4 Mar. 1704); the motion in the committee of the whole House to agree to an amendment replacing one of the Commons’ choices for commissioner in the public accounts bill (16 Mar. 1704); and the motion to give the estate bill of William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, a first reading (17 Jan. 1705).<sup>24</sup> In all these divisions his opposite tellers were Tories, including some of his frequent counterparts: Scarsdale, Abingdon, Anglesey and Winchilsea, as well as Peregrine Osborne*, Baron Osborne (later 2nd duke of Leeds). On 12 Mar. 1705 Kingston registered his proxy with Townshend for the remaining two days of the session, and of Anne’s first Parliament, which was dissolved on 5 April.</p><p>A political analysis of the members of the peerage drawn up in preparation for the following Parliament categorized Kingston as a supporter of the Hanoverian Succession. Certainly he showed his Whig and Hanoverian proclivities in the elections of the summer of 1705, when he exerted his regional and political influence and showed a determination to unseat ‘tackers’ in a number of constituencies. For Nottingham he was content to see his second cousin William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> returned again, but he and other Whigs such as Newcastle and Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Howe [I], unsuccessfully put forward two candidates (their names are unfortunately not known) to defeat the other sitting member, Robert Sacheverell<sup>‡</sup>, who had been a tacker.<sup>25</sup> He also put his influence behind the attempt to defeat the two sitting members for Lincolnshire, ‘they being tackers’.<sup>26</sup> He was one of a group of Whig peers with interests in Wiltshire who urged Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, to persuade his younger brother Maurice Ashley<sup>‡</sup> to stand as a Whig candidate for the county.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Kingston maintained his frequent attendance in the House in the first session of the new Parliament, of 1705–6, when he came to 68 per cent of the sitting days. He first took his seat on 31 Oct. 1705, about a week into the proceedings, and on 27 Nov. reported to the House from the committee assigned to draw up an address to the queen encouraging her to maintain a good correspondence with the United Provinces and the other allies. The next month he helped to introduce the Scottish military leader John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], to the House under his English title as earl (later duke) of Greenwich, on 3 Dec. 1705.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Kingston was particularly busy in February and March 1706. In early February he became involved in the debates with the Commons over the ‘whimsical’ place clause they wished to add to the regency bill. On 7 Feb. he was appointed a manager for a conference on the House’s own amendments to the clause, about which the country Members of the Commons objected. Upon report of the conference, the House resolved to insist on its amendment and Kingston was placed on the committee assigned to draw up the reasons for insisting which were to be presented at a subsequent conference. These reasons were ready three days later when Kingston attended another conference as one of the House’s managers. He was a manager once again for the final conference of 19 Feb. when both Houses compromised over the clause in order to get the bill passed. Kingston was also a manager for a conference on 22 Feb. on the House’s amendments to a bill to allow two merchants to import French wines. He was only a teller twice in this session, and that only on one day. On 23 Feb. he told first in the division in the committee of the whole House on whether a clause should be made part of the bill to restore to William King, archbishop of Dublin, lands he had purchased from the trustees of the forfeited Irish lands. The committee having adjourned and the House resumed, he was a teller on the final question whether to appoint a day for the third reading of this bill. In both divisions his opposite teller was his former brother-in-law the 4th earl of Denbigh.</p><p>Kingston’s decrease in activity as a teller appears to have been compensated for by an increased role as chairman of select committees on legislation. Between 25 Feb. and 11 Mar. he reported five finished bills from committee, four of them private estate or naturalization bills, as well as the bill for more efficient collection of charity money. On 9 Mar. he was placed on the committee to draw up an address stating the House’s resolutions concerning ‘the oppressions the province of Carolina labours under’ through its assembly’s recent legislation to enforce conformity to the Church of England in the colony. On that same day he was one of the small number of managers who attended the first conference requested by the Commons to hear their vote condemning the open published letter from Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. Two days later all the members present in the chamber, including Kingston, were appointed managers for two conferences in which a final address roundly condemning Gwynne’s <em>Letter</em> was hammered out between the Houses.</p><p>On a more personal matter, on 18 Feb. 1706 Kingston’s brother-in-law William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], usually known as Lord Cheyne, brought up from the Commons (where Cheyne had probably been instrumental in its passage) a bill for vesting the inheritance of property that Kingston had recently purchased in Acton, Middlesex, in his heir, William Pierrepont, for whom Cheyne was later to act as guardian. The bill was committed the following day and reported without amendment only four days later, on 23 Feb., when it passed the House. It received the royal assent at the prorogation of 19 Mar. 1706.</p><h2><em>Marquess of Dorchester and Junto associate, 1706–10</em></h2><p>Kingston’s enhanced status, particularly as his colleagues among the Junto began increasingly to encroach into the ministry and political power, is reflected in a number of appointments made or projected in the summer recess between sessions and by his elevation in the peerage in December 1706. He was appointed a commissioner for the union with Scotland in early April 1706, where he joined many of his colleagues among the Whigs. At the same time it was rumoured that he was one of several Junto competitors, such as Wharton and Bolton, in the running to replace Ormond, as lord lieutenant of Ireland. In June 1706 he was appointed <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Wiltshire in the place of the Tory Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth.<sup>29</sup> His patent making him marquess of Dorchester, his great-uncle’s former title which had been extinguished in 1680, passed the great seal on 23 Dec. 1706 and contained a special remainder, failing heirs male to Kingston, in favour of his uncle Gervase Pierrepont*, Baron Pierrepont of Ardglass [I] (later Baron Pierrepont of Hanslope). It can be no coincidence that Dorchester’s patent was sealed on the same day as that raising his friend Wharton to be an earl.</p><p>Kingston was introduced under his new title on 30 Dec. 1706, between Bolton and Henry Grey*, marquess (later duke) of Kent, on a day when the ten peers recently created or elevated in the brief period 14–30 Dec. (including Kent himself) were all introduced in the House.<sup>30</sup> He had been sitting in the House during the 1706–7 session fairly regularly from its opening day (3 Dec.) and throughout maintained an attendance rate of 57 per cent. As a commissioner for the union and a Whig, Dorchester almost certainly worked to push the Act of Union through the House. It is clear from Ossulston’s diary that the marquess was a regular participant at dinners of Whig peers in late January and early February 1707, and particularly at the height of the debates in early March, when Ossulston records Dorchester, Wharton, Halifax, Carlisle, Bolton, Manchester and Cornwallis as his companions at two late dinners held in a tavern after two particularly gruelling days of debates in the House.<sup>31</sup></p><p>In the period between the final passage of the Act of Union on 6 Mar. 1707 and the convening of the first session of the new Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct., Dorchester consolidated his interest in Nottingham with appointment as a freeman and then recorder of the borough following the death of Devonshire.<sup>32</sup> He attended a little over two-thirds of the sittings of the 1707–8 session, and was involved in composing a number of addresses to the queen. On 18 Dec. 1707 he was placed on the drafting committee for an address of thanks to the queen for her speech regarding the war, while the following day he was assigned by the committee of the whole House to assist in drawing up an address to insist that there could be ‘no peace without Spain’. On 4 Mar. 1708 he was placed on the committee to draft an address to the queen thanking her for submitting to the House the papers regarding the threatened French invasion of Scotland and assuring her of their willingness to assist and protect her. Earlier, on 7 Feb. 1708, he alone dissented – that is, his name appears singly and separately from the further 25 who signed a protest with written reasons for their opposition – from the passage of the bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council. In this he took a stance opposed to the Junto, suggesting that he retained his political independence, in the same way as his fellow opponent of the bill, Townshend, who objected to some of the Junto’s more belligerent anti-ministerial tactics in the 1707–8 session.<sup>33</sup> Dorchester chaired and reported from two committees of the whole House on one day, 19 Feb., when he led proceedings on the bill for the export of white woollen cloth and for that to encourage the native dyeing of white cloth. On the penultimate day of the session, 31 Mar., he was a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to encourage trade to America.</p><p>Despite his brief aberration on the Scottish Privy Council bill, in the months following the dissolution of 15 Apr. 1708 Dorchester became even more integrated in the inner counsels of the Junto and benefitted from that group’s own progress in further infiltrating the queen’s ministry. On 26 June 1708, on the eve of the Whigs’ national victory in the 1708 general elections, Dorchester was sworn to the Privy Council, along with his Junto colleagues Bolton and Wharton.<sup>34</sup> Sometime later that summer Dorchester and Bolton participated in a conference convened by Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, in order to discuss the terms by which the Whigs would support the lord treasurer in the forthcoming Parliament.<sup>35</sup></p><p>In December 1708 it was reported that Dorchester was being set up to be the ‘rival’ of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, who had seriously fallen out with the Junto. <sup>36</sup> By that point Dorchester had been consistently present in the first session, of 1708–9, of the new Parliament since its first day, and overall he attended close to three-quarters of that session’s sittings, his highest attendance level of any session in the period before 1715. On 19 Nov. 1708 he reported from the committee assigned to draw up an address of condolence to the queen for the death of the prince consort and the House decided that Dorchester should present the address to the queen in her mourning by himself and unattended.<sup>37</sup> Later, on 23 Dec., he was assigned to help draft a happier address to the queen, congratulating her on the capture of Ghent. On 1 Mar. 1709 he was placed on another drafting committee for an address encouraging her to maintain a good ‘friendship’ with the Allies and to demand the removal of the Pretender from French territory.</p><p>Dorchester joined in the Junto–Squadrone attack on Godolphin and his Scottish ally James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], by voting on 21 Feb. 1709 that Queensberry could not take part in the election of the Scottish representative peers because he had a post-Union British title as duke of Dover. He was involved in another Scottish matter on 25 Mar. when he was a teller on the motion to adjourn the Committee of the Whole House considering the treasons bill. His opposite teller was William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], who would have been opposed to the bill and its claims to ‘improve’ the Union.<sup>38</sup> On the last day of the session, 21 Apr., Dorchester reported to the House from a conference on the amendment to the bill to make the act against counterfeiting coin perpetual. In late May Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> reported to Sarah Churchill, duchess of Marlborough, his own presence at a ‘great feast’ which Halifax and some of those peers now most closely affiliated with the Junto, such as Dorchester, Bolton, Carlisle and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, also attended.</p><p>Dorchester maintained an attendance rate of 69 per cent in the following session, of 1709–10. In February 1710 he chaired and reported from two committees – a select committee on a private bill which he reported on 15 Feb., and, 12 days later, a committee of the whole House on the recruitment bill. Not surprisingly he voted Dr Henry Sacheverell guilty on 20 Mar. 1710; it seems likely that discussion of the trial featured during a dinner he attended on the last day of that month, with Carlisle, Ossulston and William Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland, also in attendance.<sup>39</sup></p><h2><em>In opposition, 1710–14</em></h2><p>Dorchester worked closely with his cousin Newcastle in the summer of 1710 to effect Whig victories in the Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire elections of that autumn. For Nottinghamshire the two grandees supported the candidacy of Viscount Howe [I]. Dorchester was a more committed Whig than Newcastle, who was at that time currying favour with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and was later to retain his office (as lord privy seal) in Harley’s ministry. Dorchester wanted Howe to stand with the sitting Whig member John Thornhagh<sup>‡</sup>, who had already angered Newcastle over a dispute about the depredations of the deer in Sherwood Forest. Newcastle was opposed to Thornhagh’s candidacy on both political and personal grounds and thought that his standing would only take votes away from Howe. Newcastle’s agents, John Plumptre<sup>‡</sup> and George Gregory<sup>‡</sup>, were at pains to try to convince Dorchester to desist from his support for Thornhagh, but the resulting confusion led to Thornhagh coming at the bottom of the poll, handily beaten by the Tory candidate William Levinz<sup>‡</sup>. Howe stood at the top of the poll.<sup>40</sup></p><p>The two peers seem to have worked more in concert, although no more successfully, in neighbouring Lincolnshire, where from July 1710 Dorchester was encouraging Newcastle to press his client, the sitting member George Whichcot<sup>‡</sup>, to stand again. There was a breach between Whichcot and the other knight for the county, Peregrine Bertie*, styled Lord Willoughby of Eresby and later 2nd duke of Ancaster, who now went over to the Tories, and Whichcot found himself standing alone as a Whig. He was defeated, at great expense to himself, and in October requested that his patrons Newcastle and Dorchester help defray his costs (£160) with a suitable contribution.<sup>41</sup> In Wiltshire Dorchester’s attempts to break the Tory hold on the county, which he had tried to do in his role of <em>custos rotulorum</em> by purging the commission of the peace in 1708 and 1709, was still unsuccessful and the sitting members were once more returned.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Harley, not surprisingly, considered Dorchester a certain opponent of his new ministry, and Dorchester did not disappoint these expectations in the first session (1710–11) of the new Tory-led Parliament. His attendance dipped slightly, to 62 per cent of its sitting days, but he was in the core of the Whig opposition, particularly in the debates in January 1711 on the conduct of the Spanish war. On 11 Jan. he submitted before the House the petition of the general Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], requesting more time to submit his answer to the charges against him for his role in the Spanish campaign. Dorchester also subscribed to the protests that day against the rejection of this petition, as well as that of Tyrawley’s fellow general Henri Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and against the motion that these commanders in Spain were responsible for the military debacle of Almanza. The following day he further joined in the protest against the resolution censuring the ministers in office in 1706–7 for approving an offensive war in Spain.<sup>43</sup></p><p>In the first two days of February 1711 Dorchester received the proxies of his colleagues Newcastle (vacated 19 Feb.) and Ossulston (vacated 5 Feb.), and he may have used these to vote against two resolutions made on 3 Feb. further condemning the previous ministry for its ‘neglect of service’ in not adequately providing supplies for the forces in Spain. Dorchester himself subscribed to the protests against them. On 9 Feb., still holding Newcastle’s proxy, he voted and signed the protests against the three resolutions that ordered the text of the protest of 3 Feb. to be expunged from the Journal. He reported a private bill from committee on 26 Feb. and later in the session, on 9 May, he was made a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill for repairing highways between Dunstable and Hockley. On 21 May he received the proxies of both Wharton and Herbert of Chirbury, but Dorchester himself stopped attending the House on 22 May, and he in turn registered his proxy with Wharton on 7 June for the remaining five days of the session until the prorogation of 12 June.</p><p>From 1710 family matters also bulked large in Dorchester’s personal and parliamentary life. Negotiations for the marriage of his only son, William, Lord Kingston, to Rachel Boynton, ‘a Wiltshire lady of a vast fortune’, had been going on for some time.<sup>44</sup> As early as November 1709 William Jessop<sup>‡</sup> reported to his master Newcastle that, by the terms of the settlement, the merchant John Hall, dubbed ‘godfather’ to Rachel Boynton but in fact her biological father, was to supply a portion of £20,000 to the bride and settle an estate worth £2,000 p.a. on the young couple at his death. Dorchester in turn was to settle £3,000 p.a. upon them for the moment, of which £1,000 was to revert to Dorchester if Hall, then 78 years old, died before him.<sup>45</sup> In 1710 Edward Wortley Montagu, the frustrated suitor to Dorchester’s eldest daughter Lady Mary, estimated that all told this marriage would add £60,000 to the family’s estate, by which he hoped Dorchester would be able to increase Lady Mary’s portion.<sup>46</sup> On 25 Jan. 1711 Dorchester petitioned to bring in a bill to confirm the marriage treaty of the underage couple and to settle his estate and that of John Hall in preparation of the marriage. The bill itself was given its first reading in the House on 20 Feb. 1711 and was committed two days later. ‘Lord Dorchester’s long bill’, as William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, termed it, came back from committee with several amendments on 9 Mar. and was passed the following day. It received the royal assent on 16 May, four days after the wedding between Lord Kingston and Rachel Boynton had been formally celebrated.<sup>47</sup></p><p>In July 1711 Dorchester was in in his turn ousted from his position as <em>custos rotulorum </em>in Wiltshire and replaced by his local rival Weymouth, who proceeded to rid the bench of Whigs just as Dorchester had earlier done to the Tories.<sup>48</sup> In the days preceding the commencement of the session of 1711–12 Dorchester may have taken part in the negotiations with Nottingham to seal his support for the Whig motion that there should be ‘no peace without Spain’. In the first days of the session, 7–8 Dec. 1711, Dorchester duly voted, against the wishes of the ministry, to include the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the Address to the queen. He further opposed the ministry by voting on 20 Dec. that James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, as a Scottish peer, could not sit in the House of Lords under his British title of duke of Brandon. He was appointed on 22 Dec. to the drafting committee for an address requesting Anne not to make a separate peace with France at the ongoing peace conference at Utrecht.</p><p>As the proxy records from April 1707 to April 1710 are now missing it cannot be determined what role Dorchester played in those years in the extensive and well-organized network of proxy-sharing among Whigs, but it is highly probable that he exchanged proxies in these earlier years with two peers who by 1712 had become especially close friends – Wharton and Carlisle. In his will of April 1715 Wharton named his ‘dear friends’ Dorchester and Carlisle executors and trustees of his estate, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was to reminisce many years after her father’s death that ‘Lord Carlisle was the most intimate friend of my father’ and that it was only Carlisle’s preference for a retired life that prevented Dorchester from naming him a trustee for his underage grandson in his will.<sup>49</sup> Certainly in the 1711–12 session, when Dorchester was present at fewer than half of the sittings, these three formed a tight group of proxy-sharing to ensure that at no point were any of their votes unaccounted for in the House. Wharton, for example, held Dorchester’s proxy for the two days of 11–12 Mar. 1712, while Carlisle later had it for a longer period, from 2 Apr. to 8 May 1712. Dorchester in fact had last sat in the House before assigning his proxy on 28 Mar. and Carlisle held the fort in Westminster for this period while Dorchester, Wharton and several of their Whig companions were enjoying the races at Newmarket.</p><p>All of them were hurriedly summoned back to Parliament by an express dispatch from Townshend on 1 May warning that several important votes on the peace were forthcoming, though Dorchester was the last of the group to arrive back on 8 May.<sup>50</sup> Issues of the peace being negotiated at Utrecht continued to occupy his attention in the month after his return. On 28 May 1712 he voted and signed the protest against the ministry’s refusal to countenance an address condemning the ‘restraining orders’ preventing the commander-in-chief, the duke of Ormond, from conducting an offensive war against France. Only a few days later, on 7 June, Dorchester joined in a further protest against the House’s refusal to include in an address to the queen a clause advocating a ‘mutual guaranty’ with the United Provinces to ensure the Hanoverian Succession.<sup>51</sup> Wharton again registered his proxy with Dorchester on 12 June, but Dorchester himself left the House for the session the following day and both peers were unrepresented in the House during the session’s final days until the prorogation on 21 June.</p><p>Dorchester only came to 27 of the 77 meetings of the brief session of the spring of 1713, when the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht were announced to the House. By this time, though, most of his attention would have been taken up with countering a petition submitted on 5 May by his brother-in-law Lord Cheyne, who was acting as Lord and Lady Kingston’s guardian. Cheyne claimed that Lady Kingston’s father, John Hall, had died before the passage of the act of 1711 confirming the marriage settlement, including Rachel’s portion of £20,000, and that Dorchester had recently received a decree ordering the payment of the portion, with interest, out of the estate, which, Cheyne argued, could not support such a large amount and continue to pay for the other provisions of Hall’s will such as the maintenance of Lord and Lady Kingston. On 18 May the House, after hearing counsel for both sides in the matter, rejected Cheyne’s petition and upheld the decree in Dorchester’s favour.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Dorchester then absented himself from the House until 13 June and thereby missed most of the contentious debates and divisions over the malt tax and the motion to dissolve the Union. He left the House again at the end of June, probably because of the sudden death from smallpox of the young Lord Kingston, in the first days of July 1713.<sup>53</sup> In memory of this early death, years later Lord Kingston’s own young son was to be one of the first subjects of the experiments in smallpox inoculation carried out by his aunt Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.<sup>54</sup> Dorchester was made administrator of the late Lord Kingston’s estate and guardian of his two infant children, while Lady Kingston, herself still a minor, renounced her claims to the estate and leased to Dorchester, as trustee, her jointure lands and mansion in West Dean.</p><p>Dorchester was present at 63 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the 1713 Parliament, in the spring of 1714. He attended consistently until the adjournment of 19 Mar., but was not present when the session reconvened on 31 Mar. to consider the queen’s speech. He registered his proxy with James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley, on 1 Apr. to represent him as the House considered the papers regarding the contentious commercial treaty with Spain and the condition of the Catalans after the peace. He returned to the House on 8 Apr., when the political temperature was rising as the Whigs forced through a number of addresses in support of the Hanoverian Succession and against the Pretender. In the days following his return, Dorchester held his full complement of proxies from two fellow Whigs – from Cornwallis (from 9 Apr.) and from Wharton (from 13 Apr.). He himself would only have been able to use these proxies for a short time, as he absented himself from the House from 16 April. Upon Wharton’s return to the House on 24 Apr., the absent Dorchester in turn registered his proxy with him, which was vacated when Dorchester reappeared in the House on 5 May. Dorchester may have returned to oversee the passage through Parliament of Lady Kingston’s Estate Act, which confirmed by statute the arrangement made in 1713 whereby the underage Lady Kingston leased her jointure lands and mansion in West Dean to Dorchester as trustee for her and her two infant children. Lady Kingston petitioned on 11 May for the bill to be brought in, but its first reading was delayed to 1 June by the House’s two-week adjournment in mid-May. It went through both Houses quickly and received the royal assent on 9 July.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Nottingham considered Dorchester an opponent of the Schism bill and Dorchester began attending the House regularly from 27 May as that bill was fought over in the House. He was present on 15 June to sign the protest against its passage. The day following this protest he received the proxy of Manchester, who did not reappear in the House for the remainder of the session. Dorchester himself left the House after the sitting of 25 June and registered his proxy with Cornwallis three days later, but was back in the House the very next day, thus vacating this proxy. He continued to sit regularly until the prorogation of 9 July.</p><p>In these last years of the reign of Anne, Dorchester was, aside from political concerns, heavily preoccupied by the marriages of his three daughters. His eldest, Mary, caused him the most aggravation as Dorchester did not approve of her relationship with the Whig member for Huntingdon, Edward Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup>; he rebuffed proposals for a marriage in 1710. Lady Mary was promised to another suitor but she permanently estranged herself from her father by continuing her secretive epistolary courtship with Wortley Montagu and by eventually eloping with and marrying him in August 1712. Dorchester’s second daughter, Evelyn, married in March 1712 (with his approval) John Leveson Gower*, 2nd Baron (later earl) Gower, who was later to distinguish himself, to Dorchester’s disappointment, as a Tory.<sup>56</sup> In 1714 Dorchester celebrated another marriage which was also ultimately to disappoint him, when his third daughter, Frances, married John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S].<sup>57</sup> Mar’s later conversion to Jacobitism must have shocked and appalled his Whig and Hanoverian father-in-law, and the rigours of a life in exile appear to have seriously damaged the mental stability of the countess of Mar. Dorchester himself married on 2 Aug. 1714, after 17 years as a widower and a ‘lover of the ladies’ (as John Macky had earlier described him), his new wife being Isabella, a sister of his Whig colleague the 2nd earl of Portland. The wedding unfortunately coincided with the queen’s death and the hurried meeting of Parliament to arrange for the succession. Both Dorchester and Portland appeared at the beginning of the session but immediately registered their proxies on 2 Aug. (Dorchester with his recent proxy donor Manchester), so that they could attend the wedding.<sup>58</sup></p><h2><em>Hanoverian Succession, 1715–26</em></h2><p>Dorchester could clearly expect favour from George I owing to his long-term support for the Hanoverian succession and in the months after August 1714 he was laden with offices and honours. In December he replaced Weymouth, once again, as <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Wiltshire and was appointed chief justice in eyre north of the river Trent (which he resigned in March 1717). He was promoted to a dukedom on 10 Aug. 1715 and on 19 Dec. 1716 he was made lord privy seal. He was briefly lord president of the council from February 1719 to June 1720 before returning to the privy seal. Kingston was made a knight of the garter on 23 June 1719 and served several times as a lord justice or regent of the realm during the king’s absences in Hanover. He continued to attend the House regularly and came to 70 per cent of the sitting days of George I’s first Parliament of 1715–22. There he acted as one of the principal Whigs, helping to introduce his old friend Wharton when he first sat in the House as marquess of Wharton on 21 Mar. 1715. A more detailed account of Kingston’s parliamentary activities under George I will be found in the next section of this work.</p><p>At his death on 16 Mar. 1726 Kingston owned mansion houses at Thoresby Hall and Holme Pierrepont in Nottinghamshire, West Dean in Wiltshire, Acton in Middlesex and in Arlington Street in St James, Westminster, as well as at Tonge Castle in Shropshire and Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire; the last two he had inherited in May 1715 at the death without heirs of his uncle Gervase, Baron Pierrepont of Hanslope. He placed his vast landed estate into the hands of trustees who were to manage the fee simple parts of the estate for the benefit of Kingston’s five daughters and one granddaughter. The property in Lincolnshire was to be held in trust for the countess of Mar on the sole condition that she and her heirs conform to the Church of England and reside in England.<sup>59</sup> The entailed part of the estate, largely in Nottinghamshire, was to be managed by the trustees during the minority of Kingston’s grandson and heir, Evelyn Pierrepont<sup>†</sup>, 2nd duke of Kingston. He took after, indeed exceeded, his grandfather in his enjoyment of life as a <em>bon viveur</em> and man of fashion, and was, briefly, the ‘second’ husband of Elizabeth Chudleigh, whose trial for bigamy scandalized society in 1776. The 2nd duke, however, did not follow in his grandfather’s political footsteps and played almost no role in the Parliaments of George II and George III.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PIERREPONT, Gervase (1649-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>PIERREPONT</surname></strong>, <strong>Gervase</strong> (1649–1715)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>21 Mar. 1703 Bar. Pierrepont of Ardglass [I]; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 Bar. PIERREPONT of HANSLIP |
|
First sat 22 Mar. 1715; last sat 19 May 1715 |
|
MP Appleby 1698, 1701 (Jan.), 1701 (Dec.), 1702 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1649, 5th s. of Hon. William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>, of Thoresby, Notts. and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Harris, 1st bt. of Tonge Castle, Salop. <em>educ</em>. Emmanuel, Camb. 1664; G. Inn 1668. <em>m</em>. lic. 10 Mar. 1680 (with £8,000), Lucy (<em>d</em>.1721), da. of Sir John Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., sis. of Thomas Pelham*, Bar. Pelham of Laughton, and Henry Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, 1da. <em>d.v.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 22 May 1715; <em>will</em> pr. 23 June 1715.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Pierrepont finally received a British peerage as part of the coronation honours. He did not sit until after the dissolution of January 1715.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
PIERREPONT, Henry (1607-80) |
<p><strong><surname>PIERREPONT</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1607–80)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1628-43 Visct. Newark; <em>accel. </em>11 Jan. 1641 Bar. PIERREPONT; <em>suc. </em>fa. 30 July 1643 as 2nd earl of KINGSTON-UPON-HULL; <em>cr. </em>25 Mar. 1645 mq. of DORCHESTER |
|
First sat 13 Jan. 1641; first sat after 1660, 1 June 1660; last sat 3 Dec. 1678 |
|
MP Nottingham 1628 |
<p><em>b</em>. Mar. 1607, 1st s. of Robert Pierrepont<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Kingston-upon-Hull) of Holme Pierrepont, Notts., and Gertrude (<em>d</em>.1649), da. and coh. of Hon. Henry Talbot<sup>‡</sup> of Burton Abbey, Yorks.; bro. of Hon. Francis<sup>‡</sup> and Hon. William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Emmanuel, Camb. 1624; MA, Oxf. 1642; G. Inn 1651, called 1652, bencher 1658. <em>m</em>. (1) by 1630 Cecilia (<em>d</em>. 19 Sept. 1639), da. of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Bayning, 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 4da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) Sept. 1652 Katherine (<em>d</em>. c.14 Jan. 1679), da. of James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 8 Dec. 1680; <em>will</em> 22 Mar. 1680, pr. 1 Feb. 1681.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr. council of war (roy.) 1642-6; commr. (roy.) treaty of Uxbridge 1645, defence of Oxford 1645-6; PC 1 Mar. 1645-by 5 May 1646, 27 Aug. 1660-21 Apr. 1679; commr. coronation claims 1661, earl marshal 1662, 1673. <sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. array, Notts. and Nottingham 1642; recorder, Nottingham 1666-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Bencher, G. Inn 1658.</p><p>Fell. R. Coll. Physicians 1658; FRS 1663.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, 1691, R. Coll. Physicians.</p> |
<p>Pierrepont’s father achieved prominence during the reign of Charles I through his canny purchases of land in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.<sup>6</sup> With the wealth he built up he was able to purchase first a barony (Pierrepont) and then a viscountcy (Newark) in 1627. His eldest son and heir Henry was elected for the borough of Nottingham, close to the family’s principal manor of Holme Pierrepont, in the election of 1628. After its first session he became known as Viscount Newark following his father’s promotion to the earldom. Newark was later summoned to the House of Lords by a writ of acceleration as Baron Pierrepont and quickly established himself as a supporter of the rights of both the king and the bishops in the Long Parliament. At the same time his younger brother William sat in the Commons for the borough of Much Wenlock and became one of the leaders of the Parliamentarian party, earning for himself the sobriquet ‘the Wise’. Newark joined the king at Oxford where he was a member of Charles I’s council of war from late January 1643 (with admittedly intermittent attendance) and sat in the upper House in the Parliament convened there.<sup>7</sup> Following Kingston’s death on 30 July 1643, killed by fellow royalist troops while being transported as a prisoner of war, Newark succeeded to the earldom, but to only part of his father’s estates. He inherited the ancestral family properties of Holme Pierrepont in Nottinghamshire and Orton Longueville in Huntingdonshire; most of the land purchased by the first earl, such as Thoresby in Nottinghamshire, was settled on his second son William.</p><p>For his services on the council of war and at the Uxbridge treaty negotiations in February 1645, Kingston was placed on the king’s Privy Council in Oxford and was raised in the peerage as marquess of Dorchester.<sup>8</sup> After the surrender of Oxford, where he remained until the bitter end, Dorchester was charged £7,647 to release his estates from sequestration, but his brother William rescued him and the estate by agreeing to accept Dorchester’s composition fine as recompense for his own financial losses during the war.<sup>9</sup> In September 1652 Dorchester made himself even more suspect in the eyes of the government by marrying as his second wife (his first wife having died in childbirth in 1639) Katherine, a daughter of the royalist martyr the 7th earl of Derby.<sup>10</sup> Dorchester and his wife were shielded from the unwanted attentions of the Protectorate government by the growing influence and prestige of William Pierrepont, a valued adviser to Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡ </sup>as Lord Protector.</p><p>Dorchester had always been scholarly, a trait emphasized by a near-contemporary biographer, Charles Goodall, M.D., president of the Royal College of Physicians in the early eighteenth century:</p><blockquote><p>From his youth he was always much addicted to books; and when he came from Cambridge, where he was some time of Emmanuel College, for many years he seldom studied less than ten or twelve hours every day; so that he had early passed through all manner of learning, both divine and human – as the fathers, councils, schoolmen, casuists, the civil law, canon law, and was remarkably well-versed in common law.<sup>11</sup></p></blockquote><p>Dorchester entered Gray’s Inn in 1651 and was called to the bar the following year, all which led Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> to comment, ‘I see abundance of wealth doth not satisfy all men’s minds’.<sup>12</sup> On 22 July 1658 he was made a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. His copious notebooks of medical receipts and experiments still exist in Hans Sloane’s collection of manuscripts.<sup>13</sup> Dorchester was also infamous for his propensity to anger: he ‘was for his temper the obligingest friend and severest enemy that ever met in one man… where he had an enmity, it stuck close upon him, and… he seldom relinquished it’.<sup>14</sup> The marriage on 13 July 1658 of Dorchester’s elder daughter Anne to her second cousin John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, later duke of Rutland, with a dowry of £10,000, unfortunately supplied him with ample opportunity to indulge this trait. The marriage quickly broke down, and the years 1658-61 were filled with constant arguments between Lady Roos and her imperious mother-in-law the countess of Rutland; mutual recriminations between the young couple of drunkenness, sexual incompetence and adultery; and several separations and desertions.<sup>15</sup> The worst of these, in Dorchester’s eyes, was in January 1660 when Roos deserted his wife ‘very naked and unhandsomely… with only her own chamber furniture, not a salt spoon, her £300 a year not paid’. The following month Dorchester published an invective-filled open letter to Roos challenging him to a duel for his mistreatment of his daughter.<sup>16</sup> Roos’s printed response of 19 Mar., the composition of which has been attributed to Samuel Butler, suggests the anomalous figure the scholarly, and irascible, nobleman-turned-professional made in contemporary society, and how he thus opened himself up to ridicule:</p><blockquote><p>you are terrible only in your medicines: if you had told us how many you killed that way, and how many you have cut in pieces, besides calves and dogs, a right valiant man that hath any wit would tremble to come near you: and if by your threatening to ram your sword down my throat, you do not mean your pills, which are a more dangerous weapon, the worst is past, and I am safe enough… Is it not enough that you are already as many things as any of your own receipts, that you are a doctor of the civil law, and a barrister at the common, a bencher of Gray’s Inn, a professor of physic and a fellow of the college, a mathematician, a Chaldean, a schoolman and a piece of grammarian (as your last work can show were it construed), a philosopher, poet, translator, antisocordist, solicitor, broker and usurer, besides a marquess, earl, viscount and baron, but you must profess quarrelling too, and publishing yourself an Hector? <sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the same time as these insults were being thrown, the actions that resulted in the Restoration were being played out. Dorchester was in residence at Highgate at the beginning of 1660 but it was not until 29 Apr., after the Convention had started, that he wrote to the king in exile, reminding him of his service to Charles I. He insisted that he had since been faithful to the new king, though ‘like Nicodemus’ he had been ‘forced’ to act in secret in the intervening years ‘and durst not give the full scope to my ardent zeal’. The king’s encouraging answer was dated 13 May.<sup>18</sup> Dorchester was one of those peers, created by Charles I at Oxford between 1642-6, who insisted on their rights to sit in the Convention House of Lords, despite the opposition of those who maintained that only those lords who had remained in Westminster in the 1640s should be admitted. Richard Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, the future earl of Burlington, recorded in his diary that on 4 May he, with Dorchester, John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington, and Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, all of them either Oxford peers or their heirs, ‘did attend and by the Lord Dorchester did demand leave of the General [George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle] to take our places in Parliament to the which he gave us a civil answer declaring that he would not interpose in the privileges of Parliament but let us to our own.’ However, by the following day Monck informed the Oxford lords, through Belasyse, to desist from their demands, ‘as our desire had raised much noise’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>It was not only the ‘Presbyterian Knot’ who wished to deny Dorchester and some of the other Oxford peers entry into the House. In a letter of 7 May Alan Brodrick, secretary of the royalist group the Sealed Knot, wrote to Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, with the suggestion of annulling all grants of peerage made since 1642 as many were given to those of little merit, ‘such as the marquess of Dorchester, who is not fit to be groom to an honest man’.<sup>20</sup> A ‘Mr Probe’ later echoed this view when he said that Dorchester ‘is no more to be regarded than that dog that lay by him’, for which he was fined 1,000 marks in an action of <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> Dorchester brought against him in early 1664.<sup>21</sup> More seriously, in January 1662 Benjamin Denham, who appears to have been a former chaplain or servant of Dorchester and was then serving as chaplain to England’s ambassador to the Porte, Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, wrote a long letter to the secretary of state. In this he set out to expose Dorchester’s true religious loyalties and to reveal him as close to a papist:</p><blockquote><p>When I heard my lord marquess of Dorchester was made a member of his majesty’s Privy Council [in August 1660], I not only thought it incredible but impossible considering he is a person so firm to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of Rome, that he is even in the highest degree Jesuited, so that the many and subtlest papists have not only by way of civility a free admittance to his table, but to him they come, as a wise and close favourite for advice in their cause… in civil affairs perchance he may be trusted, but in ecclesiastical transactions not the least secrecy is to be expected from him… his counsel, his abetting shall ever be assistant not only from the love of the opinion and government of the Church of Rome, but from a perfect malice and diametrical hatred to all Protestants, miscalling them by horrid and disgraceful names.</p></blockquote><p>Denham even cast doubt on Dorchester’s seemingly unblemished royalist reputation during the Civil War. He suggested that his speeches in Parliament defending the right of the bishops to sit and vote ‘were only made in opposition to Presbyterians and other sectaries, not out of love to our episcopacy’; and that at the death of Charles I he had ‘triumphantly demanded, where was the head of the Church?’<sup>22</sup> Denham concluded by warning the king that ‘whatsoever is treated in the Privy Council concerning the Roman Catholics’ would be quickly revealed by Dorchester to those arch-Catholics Thomas Brudenell*, earl of Cardigan, and Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore [I].<sup>23</sup></p><p>Although it is impossible to gauge the accuracy of these detailed allegations, Dorchester was always closely connected with the senior branch of the Catholic Howards, and especially with Henry Frederick Howard<sup>†</sup>, from 1646 the 22nd (or 15th) earl of Arundel, a fellow royalist councillor at Oxford. For some years after the fall of Oxford Dorchester lived in Worksop Manor in Nottinghamshire, which had been lent to him by Arundel, ‘his great and most intimate friend and relation’.<sup>24</sup> Both Dorchester’s and Arundel’s mothers were members of the Catholic Talbot family, and Denham put the blame for Dorchester’s Romanist sympathies squarely on his mother’s influence. In any case, Denham’s accusations, whether believed or not, must have fallen on deaf ears when they reached London from Constantinople in April 1662, as no action against Dorchester was ever taken.</p><p>If these suspicions were current in the spring of 1660, Charles II and his leading ministers were either unaware of them, or placed more value on Dorchester’s evident loyalty to the late king and his legal knowledge. On 27 Aug. he was sworn of the Privy Council, where he proved himself a frequent, almost constant, member throughout the early 1660s.<sup>25</sup> He was sufficiently prominent in the council to be placed on its sub-committee of six members charged with handling Irish affairs.<sup>26</sup> During the summer recess of 1661 he was said to have played a controversial role as one of the councillors, along with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury, involved in an abortive project to break off the intended match with Portugal.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Having taken his seat with the other ‘Oxford peers’ on 1 June, he sat in 57 per cent of the sittings of the Convention: slightly more diligent in his attendance in the first part before the recess than later. He was most active in the committee for petitions, and reported from there on four different occasions (the 7th, 13th, 19th and 23rd) in July. He chaired the meeting of the committee for privileges considering the case of Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, and on 7 Aug. reported to the House the committee’s conclusion that Mohun had, during the Interregnum, been sued as a commoner by common process, which was contrary to the privilege of peerage.<sup>28</sup> On 14 Aug. he was appointed to replace the indisposed Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, as part of the delegation from Parliament to the city of London to request a loan of £100,000 to the king. The following day, it was Dorchester who reported the city fathers’ hesitation to lay out such a large amount without better security. During this first part of the Convention he was named to ten committees on legislation. He introduced Clifford of Lanesborough’s bill for reparation of property seized during the late wars, and on 28 Aug. reported from committee with an amended version of this bill.<sup>29</sup> On 23 Aug. alone he reported from three committees, including that considering the claims that Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, had a patent from Charles I to be made duke of Somerset, and that for the bill to restore Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of Roscommon [I], to all his titles and estates. The latter was recommitted upon his report and, four days later, Dorchester returned to communicate a bill more acceptable to the House. On 31 Aug. he was formally given leave of the House to be absent for a time. He returned after the summer recess on 6 Nov. for the second part of the Convention. He was nominated to only four committees, but on 20 Dec. he reported from the one considering the bill for confirmation of marriages entered into during the Interregnum. Another one of these appointments was personally significant, the committee for the bill to restore the dukedom of Norfolk to Thomas Howard*, 23rd (or 16th) earl of Arundel, eldest son of Dorchester’s friend and Talbot kinsman. On 13 Nov. Dorchester reported to the House that witnesses had attested to the committee that Arundel was ‘a perfect lunatic’ and that he was effectively confined to his residence, ‘the best house in Padua’. The bill was recommitted and on 19 Nov. Dorchester was able to report again with a revised bill which was accepted. This paved the way for Arundel to be made 5th duke of Norfolk, even though he was judged too mentally fragile to return to England to enjoy his new title.</p><p>For each of the first three sessions of the Cavalier Parliament, from May 1661 to May 1664, Dorchester maintained a steady attendance level of about 48 per cent. In the 1661-2 session he was named to 17 committees on legislation, but in the following two sessions his rate of nominations to committees dropped steeply. He remained, however, active in the committee for privileges. On 3 Dec. 1661 he reported to the House the conclusions of the committee meeting of the previous day concerning peers’ abuse of ‘protections, while on 1 Mar. 1662 the committee named him to a sub-committee charged with drawing up arguments supporting a declaration against the precedence claims of ‘foreign’ (i.e. Scottish and Irish) nobility. On 2 Apr. 1663 he chaired the committee in a busy meeting when it heard evidence about a forged ‘protection’. It also considered complaints about the disorderliness in the lobby and ‘little committee chamber’ and about people eavesdropping on debates at the door of the House’s chamber.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In his assessment of 13 July Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that Dorchester would support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. This is certainly plausible as Bristol had been the leader of the party against the Portuguese match, which Dorchester too had opposed. Bristol was also one of the leading Catholics in the House and that too may have appealed to Dorchester, if Denham’s letter concerning his religious views is accurate. Certainly in December Dorchester found himself in opposition to the lord chancellor, as he joined with Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, and others in opposing in the Privy Council Irish business supported by Clarendon, Anglesey and James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], earl of Brecknock in the English peerage.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Dorchester attended 54 per cent of the sittings in the session of 1664-5. On 21 Dec. 1664, Robert Sutton*, Baron Lexinton, registered his proxy with Dorchester for the remainder of the session. Lexinton was a fellow Nottinghamshire royalist who had been married to Dorchester’s cousin, and also appears to have been acting as an intermediary between Dorchester and the countess of Rutland over their children’s troubled marriage.<sup>32</sup> Dorchester had the king’s specific leave to be absent from the following session, held at Oxford in October 1665, and registered his proxy with Lexinton on 12 October. In April 1666 Dorchester was initially one of the peers chosen to sit in the court of the lord high steward to act as judge in the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, but after requesting the king’s leave to be absent, he excused himself from proceedings.<sup>33</sup></p><p>The session of 1666-7 saw Dorchester attending the House more frequently than usual, with an attendance level of 59 per cent. This increased attendance may have been owing to the family interest in the bill to make illegitimate all of Lady Roos’s children—his grandchildren, including his only surviving male descendant—which made its way through Parliament that session. Dorchester had been present on 19 Apr. 1662 for the first reading of an earlier bill brought in by the Manners family to declare illegitimate Lady Roos’s son born the previous September and baptized tellingly ‘Ignotus’ (i.e. unknown).<sup>34</sup> He had then been present again a few days later when his daughter’s petition, in which she detailed the sufferings she had undergone at the hands of Roos, was presented to the House.<sup>35</sup> The second reading of this bill was delayed pending her counsel being heard and it was ultimately lost, ‘in regard of the great and public affairs of the kingdom’ then being considered, at the prorogation of that session on 19 May. When Anne gave birth once more in April 1663, during a period when Lord Roos had been on the continent for several months, her adultery was so clear that even her father had to acknowledge it. With this irrefutable evidence Lord Roos was able to obtain a legal separation ‘from bed and board’ in the court of arches, after his return from his travels.<sup>36</sup> Armed with this decree, Roos had a bill to make both children born to Lady Roos since 1660 declared illegitimate introduced in the House on 22 Oct. 1666. For several days, witnesses were heard before the bar with scurrilous evidence of Lady Roos’s adulterous liaisons. Roos himself was impelled to swear before the assembled House that he had not had carnal knowledge of his wife since 4 Mar. 1660. Clifford of Lanesborough, by this time earl of Burlington, described it as a bill ‘to make a bastard of his son Ignoties [<em>sic</em>] and a whore of his wife’.<sup>37</sup> Dorchester was marked as present in the House on 12 Jan. 1667 when the House passed the bill <em>nemine contradicente</em>, suggesting that he did not put up any strenuous opposition to its passage, having already been forced to accept the humiliating facts of his daughter’s promiscuity. The bill received the royal assent on the day of prorogation, 8 Feb., depriving Dorchester of legitimate grandchildren and heirs.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Perhaps it was the frustration of seeing his daughter paraded as a ‘whore’ before all his peers, which led to the most famous outburst of Dorchester’s notorious temper. At a conference on the Canary Company held in the Painted Chamber on 19 Dec. 1666 Dorchester and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, found themselves seated next to each other. Clarendon commented that already ‘there was no good correspondence’ between these two peers and ‘their mutual undervaluing each other always disposed them to affect any opportunity to manifest it’. A jostling for elbow space on their neighbouring chairs soon led to an exchange of insults and then proceeded to an unseemly fistfight:</p><blockquote><p>in which the marquess, who was the lower of the two in stature, and was less active in his limbs, lost his periwig, and received some rudeness, which nobody imputed to his want of courage, which was ever less questioned than that of the other… The marquess had much of the duke’s hair in his hands to recompense for his pulling of his periwig, which he could not reach high enough to do to the other.</p></blockquote><p>The House, outraged at this ‘misdemeanour, greater than had ever happened, in that place and upon such an occasion’, which they considered a ‘great offence to the king himself, and an affront to the House, bringing a reproach upon their lordships in the face of the kingdom’, committed both peers to the Tower. On 22 Dec. the House ordered Dorchester’s nephew-by-marriage Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, to fetch Dorchester from the Tower so he could receive the House’s orders to keep the peace, to which Dorchester readily submitted. He did not resume his seat until a week later, 29 Dec., when he thanked the House for their favour in releasing him from his restraint and allowing him to sit again.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Dorchester’s name was included in a list sent by Anglesey to Ormond on 10 Nov. of councillors who were believed to support the Irish cattle bill, contrary to the wishes of the king and lord chancellor.<sup>40</sup> On that same day, Lexinton registered his proxy with Dorchester for the remainder of the session, perhaps with a view to proceedings on the Irish cattle bill. On 4 Feb. 1667 Dorchester was one of only three peers to signify their protest against the resolution to grant the Commons a conference about the procedures for the impeachment of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, arguing that doing so was a derogation of the House’s privileges in matters of judicature.</p><p>Dorchester was absent from the House from 29 July 1667 (he attended two sittings of the abortive session of that month) to 24 Oct. 1670. His absence was excused by the House as he consistently registered his proxy: with Lexinton on 28 Sept. 1667 for the session of 1667-8 and, after Lexinton’s death on 13 Oct. 1668, with his nephew Clare on 21 Oct. 1669 for the session of autumn 1669. He registered the proxy with Clare again on 15 Feb. 1670 for the first part of the following session of 1670-1. Dorchester did appear on one single day during this long period on 26 Feb. 1668, thereby presumably vacating his proxy. This lone appearance in the House may have been sparked by the submission four days previously of a petition from Lady Roos in which she begged for some sort of maintenance. She detailed the cruel treatment she had suffered from her husband and her present straitened circumstances, having fled to Ireland to escape her creditors. Dorchester entirely missed the proceedings and passage of the divorce bill which gave Lord Roos permission to remarry even though his wife was still living. This bill was introduced in the House on 5 Mar. 1670. In spite of the controversy surrounding the measure, it received the royal assent on 11 April.</p><p>Dorchester was ready to come to the House once the humiliation of the Roos divorce bill was past. He appeared again when the House reconvened on 24 Oct., vacating his proxy with Clare, and proceeded to sit on 84 per cent of the sitting days before the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1671. Winchilsea entrusted him with his proxy on 20 Mar. and Dorchester held it until the end of the session. This may have been about the time that he was negotiating with Winchilsea for the purchase of the latter’s house in Charterhouse Yard near the City of London. Certainly by the time Ogilby and Morgan drew up their map of rebuilt London in 1676 part of the Finch property on the east side of the square was labelled ‘Marquess of Dorchester’.<sup>41</sup> Dorchester maintained a similar level of attendance for the following session of early 1673, at 80 per cent, but was absent from the House (except for one day, 17 Jan. 1674) from 29 Mar. 1673 until 13 Apr. 1675. Again he covered his absence by giving his proxies to fellow peers, leading representatives of the ‘court’ interest: to Arlington on 24 Oct. 1673 for the short four-day session that month, and to James Stuart*, duke of York, on 16 Feb. 1674 for the session in the first two months of that year.</p><p>Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later duke of Leeds, predicted that the marquess would support the ‘non-resisting’ test bill introduced in the session of spring 1675, where Dorchester sat in 78 per cent of the sittings. Earlier, in mid-February, when Danby had presented to the Privy Council the new measures decided upon with the bishops at the Lambeth Palace conference, Dorchester, surprisingly, sided with opposition peers such as Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, in asking for more time to examine the proposed laws so that they ‘might not be disadvantageously enforced’.<sup>42</sup> Danby, though, was probably correct in his assessment of Dorchester’s views on his test bill. It matched Dorchester’s recent pattern of proxy donation and the fact that his name does not appear in any of the protests against the measure, or among the list of opponents to the bill in <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em>.</p><p>Dorchester was also a named party in a petition submitted to the House by Elizabeth, Edward and Bernard Howard, Norfolk’s younger siblings against the duke (still absent in Padua) and Henry Howard*, earl of Norwich, later 6th earl of Norfolk, the effective head of the family. Dorchester’s strong links with this branch of the Howards had continued well into the 1670s. Having been involved in the passage of the bill for securing the restoration of the dukedom in 1660, two years later he was made a commissioner to execute the office of earl marshal, a hereditary office long held by the dukes of Norfolk. In 1672, with Norfolk still incapable of exercising the place, Norwich was appointed earl marshal but his effective tenure of this office was short-lived, being barred under the terms of the 1673 Test Act. Thus, while he formally maintained the title of earl marshal, the duties were again exercised by deputies, principally his Protestant kinsman Carlisle and the family’s long-term ally Dorchester.<sup>43</sup> It was in this context that Dorchester faced the petition of the two peers’s younger siblings. In 1652, at the death of the 22nd (or 15th) earl of Arundel, Dorchester and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, had been appointed trustees of his northern lands, which they were to manage to make sufficient provision for his younger children. These children had previously sought to take the trustees to law for malfeasance in their duties, but when they had brought a bill against them the trustees had claimed privilege of Parliament. The younger Howards now sought the House’s permission to have their case against the trustees and their elder brother Norwich heard in chancery without being impeded by claims of privilege. On hearing Norwich’s arguments, the House dismissed the petition out of hand, without even recording it in the Journal for that day.<sup>44</sup> Over the next two years, Edward, Bernard and Elizabeth Howard continued to submit petitions against Norwich and the trustees.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Dorchester registered his proxy with Anglesey on 18 Oct. 1675 for the entirety of the autumn session. The proxy was employed on 20 Nov. in favour of an address to the king calling for the dissolution of Parliament, which was won by those against the address by a majority of two and only after proxies were counted.<sup>46</sup> In the long period before the next session Dorchester was, on 30 June 1676, one of the peers in the court of the Lord High Steward at the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, whom he, with the majority of the court, found not guilty of murder.<sup>47</sup> Dorchester came to only 29 per cent of the sittings in the session of 1677-8 when Parliament reconvened after a prorogation of 15 months. On the opening day, 15 Feb. 1677, he ‘argued long’ against the motion put forward by his old enemy Buckingham that Parliament was automatically dissolved by the long prorogation, but he may have been among those peers who took a more moderate stance, by arguing that those peers who insisted that it was dissolved had freedom to express their views and should not be committed to the Tower.<sup>48</sup> Dorchester was nevertheless by this time among the court’s supporters, as his recent proxies and his protest on 15 Mar. against the passage of the bill to compel the protestant education of the royal children, clearly suggested. Shaftesbury in the spring of 1677 considered him ‘triply vile’. On 21 July Dorchester registered his proxy with Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham, yet another leading figure of the court interest. During this session the dispute within the Howard family also came to a head. On 20 Mar. the younger Howards once again presented a petition asking to take Norwich, Dorchester and Peterborough to court for neglect of their trust. On 8 Feb. 1678 they tried again in changed circumstances, following the death of their eldest brother (the 5th duke) and succession to the dukedom by Norwich, the principal target of their complaints. Both petitions failed in the face of the new duke’s opposition. Throughout these proceedings Dorchester, who was in attendance at the first petition but not at the second, continued to rely on his privilege to avoid legal proceedings.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Dorchester’s only known intervention in the session of spring 1678 (of whose meetings he attended just under one third) was his signature to the protest on 5 July against the decision to determine the relief of the petitioner in the cause <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em>, without dividing on the question of whether to hear the details of the case. He attended sittings of the House regularly throughout late October and November 1678, as the Test Act was being debated in Parliament. On 2 Dec. he was among the first group of peers to take the new oaths and declaration, but some other members of the House noted that he did not say all the words required of him and he was ordered to swear again the following day. He did so to the House’s satisfaction, but left the chamber for good after that sitting on 3 Dec., never to sit again.<sup>50</sup> This reluctance to take the oaths and, apparently, to sit in the House after they were demanded of its members adds further weight to the allegations that he had Catholic sympathies. A few weeks after leaving the House he registered his proxy on 26 Dec. with his brother-in-law William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, husband of another of the 7th earl of Derby’s daughters. Dorchester’s own wife, Katherine, died of smallpox sometime in early January 1679, which may have been the cause for his departure from the House and no doubt abetted his retirement from public life.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Dorchester was absent throughout the first Exclusion Parliament. On 18 Mar. and 21 Apr. 1679 his servants William Colgrave and Charles Pelham swore at the bar that the marquess was so ill that he could not attend the House without endangering his life. His absence may have helped in the decision to remove him from the Privy Council when it was reorganized in April to take in more members of the country opposition.<sup>52</sup> He was still too ill (and perhaps too Catholic) to attend the second Exclusion Parliament, where another younger brother of the 6th duke of Norfolk, Charles Howard, emerged to annoy him. In his petition of 15 Nov. 1680 Howard wished the House to compel Dorchester to waive his privilege so that he could be taken to law for his collaboration with Norfolk concerning the disposition of the barony of Greystoke in Cumberland, part of the lands entrusted to the marquess by the 22nd (or 15th) earl of Arundel for the benefit of his younger children. Dorchester’s servants appeared once again before the House on 20 Nov. to swear to their master’s debilitating illness and inability to answer the petition in person, but his written answers were submitted.<sup>53</sup> The House was too busy with the exclusion bill and other controversial matters to pay much attention. The petition progressed no further before Dorchester’s death, but it did ultimately result in the landmark ruling on perpetuities.</p><p>Charles Goodall described fittingly in great medical detail the onset and progress of the gangrene of the leg which led to Dorchester’s death on 8 December. Goodall had good reason to lavish praise on Dorchester in his biographical sketch, for the marquess had long been a benefactor of Goodall’s cherished Royal College of Physicians and in his will bequeathed it ‘perhaps the best library for physics, mathematics, civil law, and philology in any private hand in this nation, for a choice collection of books, to the value of above £4,000’.<sup>54</sup> The marquess died with only two surviving daughters, one in disgrace with illegitimate children and the other unmarried. The latter, Grace, was bequeathed his personal estate in his will of 22 Mar. 1680, while Anne, Lady Roos, who survived until 1697, was not even mentioned. Dorchester left numerous individual bequests, totalling around £900, to his many servants and various nephews and nieces, the children of his brother William, who were the main beneficiaries of the marquess’s death. Without a legitimate male heir, Dorchester’s marquessate became extinct while the earldom of Kingston passed to his great-nephew Robert Pierrepont*, grandson of William Pierrepont, who had died on 17 July 1678. Pierrepont became 3rd earl of Kingston and re-united the large Pierrepont estate which had been split between Henry and William at their father’s death.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PIERREPONT, Robert (c. 1660-82) |
<p><strong><surname>PIERREPONT</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (c. 1660–82)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>gt.-uncle 8 Dec. 1680 (a minor) as 3rd earl of KINGSTON-UPON-HULL |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1660, 1st s. of Robert Pierrepont of West Dean, Wilts. and Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir John Evelyn<sup>‡</sup> of West Dean, Wilts.; bro. of William Pierrepont*, later 4th earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, and Evelyn Pierrepont*, later 5th earl (and duke) of Kingston-upon-Hull. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1676-80.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. grandfa. summer 1678. <em>d</em>. June 1682; <em>admon</em>. 9 Dec. 1682 to Christopher Yates, guardian of William Pierrepont, 4th earl of Kingston.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Robert Pierrepont was the eldest heir male of ‘Wise’ William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup>, younger brother to Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester. He was travelling on the continent when he inherited within the space of two years, first his grandfather William’s substantial estate at Thoresby, Nottinghamshire, and then in 1680 the earldom and estate of his great-uncle. His great-uncle’s higher title as marquess of Dorchester was extinguished at his death. The new earl became a suitor to Elizabeth Percy, <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Percy, heiress to the fortune of the earls of Northumberland, but apparently she had heard ‘somewhat’ about Kingston from her first husband (and Kingston’s cousin) Henry Cavendish, styled earl of Ogle, ‘that made her slight the greatest offers he could make’.<sup>3</sup> Kingston went abroad again in May 1682 to recover from an illness, but as Luttrell pithily noted in June, ‘The earl of Kingston went lately into France for his health, but died as soon as he arrived there’, in the port of Dieppe.<sup>4</sup> He died intestate, and his substantial estate was put into administration during the minority of his younger brother William Pierrepont, 4th earl of Kingston.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
PIERREPONT, William (1663-90) |
<p><strong><surname>PIERREPONT</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1663–90)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. June 1682 (a minor) as 4th earl of KINGSTON-UPON-HULL |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 23 May 1690 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 10 Sept. 1663, 2nd s. of Robert Pierrepont of West Dean, Wilts. and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Sir John Evelyn<sup>‡</sup> of West Dean, Wilts.; bro. of Robert Pierrepont*, 3rd earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, and Evelyn Pierrepont*, later 5th earl (and duke) of Kingston-upon-Hull. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Oxf. matric. 16 July 1681 (tutor, Mr Porter).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 23 Oct. 1682 (with £20,000),<sup>2</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1702), da. and coh. of Robert Greville*, 4th Bar. Brooke, <em>s.p.</em>; <em>d</em>. 17 Sept. 1690; <em>will</em> 31 Mar. 1687, pr. 25 Sept. 1690.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt., Yorks (E. Riding) 1689-<em>d</em>., Notts. 1689-<em>d.</em>; <em>custos rot.</em>, Notts. 1689-<em>d.</em>; high steward, Kingston-upon-Hull, 1689-<em>d.</em>; c.j. in eyre, Trent north 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. rgt. of ft. 1689-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Upon the premature death of his eldest brother, Robert Pierrepont, 3rd earl of Kingston, in June 1682, William Pierrepont, the second of three brothers, inherited that title as well as the estates of both his paternal grandfather William Pierrepont<sup>‡</sup> of Thoresby, Nottinghamshire, and of his great-uncle Henry Pierrepont*, 2nd earl of Kingston and marquess of Dorchester (the marquessate having been extinguished at his death). At the time of his marriage in October 1682 Kingston was estimated to be worth £12,000 a year, and his later marriage settlement of January 1685 (when he was of age) reveals that he was in possession of a large number of manors and rectories in Nottinghamshire as well as substantial holdings in Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Huntingdonshire. The marriage itself was lucrative, as the settlement reveals that it garnered a portion of £20,000 (contemporaries reported it as £15,000 at the time of the marriage).<sup>4</sup></p><p>He made his first foray into parliamentary politics during the elections for James II’s Parliament when he played a decisive part in the return of Sir William Clifton<sup>‡</sup> and Reason Mellish<sup>‡</sup>, the two ‘loyal’ candidates for Nottinghamshire supported by his paternal uncles (both married to daughters of Kingston’s grandfather, William Pierrepont), Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, and George Savile*, marquess of Halifax. Newcastle reported to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, that Kingston ‘coming into the country two days before the election [23 Mar. 1685], and hearing his freeholders were for the factious, he sent to them to be for Sir William Clifton and Mr Mellish, which hindered a poll’.<sup>5</sup> Newcastle was even more enthusiastic for his nephew in a letter to Halifax of 13 April:</p><blockquote><p>We that are devoted to his majesty’s service in this county will ever acknowledge ourselves mightily obliged to my Lord Kingston for his great loyalty, and it is certainly true that his lordship declaring for Sir William Clifton and Mr Mellish suppressed the factious to that degree that they durst not offer to oppose the loyal gentlemen, and my Lord Kingston’s great loyalty has settled this country, which I humbly beg of your lordship to represent to his majesty.<sup>6</sup></p></blockquote><p>Kingston himself first sat in the House on the very first day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685, but he came to only one more gathering, on 27 May, before the House was adjourned for the summer. On 1 June 1685 he registered his proxy with his uncle Halifax, who held it until Kingston returned to the House for the November sittings. He only sat in the first six meetings of the reconvened house and on 14 Nov. registered his proxy in favour of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, who held it for the remaining week of the session before its prorogation.</p><p>From at least August 1686 Kingston was planning a long trip abroad.<sup>7</sup> On 29 Mar. 1687 he was granted a pass ‘to go beyond the seas’ for five years, and two days later he composed his will, ‘purposing God willing shortly to travel into foreign parts beyond the seas’.<sup>8</sup> Despite his absence on the continent for at least the following year, political observers consistently listed Kingston as an opponent of James II’s policies, and in 1688 Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), included him among the opponents of James II, both in Parliament and in the country at large. It is possible that Kingston was not in England at the Revolution. He was still in Italy in the summer of 1688, and it is significant that his name does not appear among those who conspired with Danby and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, to capture Nottingham, so close to Kingston’s central estates, for William of Orange in December.<sup>9</sup></p><p>He sat in the Convention on its first day, 22 Jan. 1689, but only attended 41 per cent of the meetings during its first session. He was most active in the first weeks of the Convention and its debates on the disposition of the crown. On 31 Jan. he voted to declare the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen and then joined in the protest when the House rejected the Commons’ opinion that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. he voted to agree that James had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was empty and again protested when that motion was rejected. Two days later he once more voted in favour of these words, which were finally passed. On 12 Feb. he was appointed a manager for the conference concerning the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen, and it was he who reported back to the House that the Commons agreed with its terms. On 5 Mar. he was appointed a reporter of the conference concerning the Commons’ declaration on assisting William III ‘with their lives and fortune’ in the reduction of Ireland. Three days later Kingston was commissioned a colonel of a regiment of foot, one of 14 drawn up for service in Ireland. On 6 Mar. he protested against the passage of the bill for the trial of peers, while a little over a week later on 15 Mar. he was named to a committee charged with drawing up clauses which would rescind the sacramental test in the bill to devise new oaths of allegiance. On 24 Apr. he was made a manager of a free conference on this bill, from which he reported the Commons’ concurrence with the Lords’ amendments.</p><p>He registered his proxy from 23 Mar. until his return on 6 Apr. with John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, and then again with that same peer during Kingston’s continuous absence from the House from 4 May. His departure was most likely prompted by the number of local responsibilities that had been loaded on him in March and April. Newcastle had been a political outcast since the Revolution owing to his support for James II, and he willingly surrendered his patent as lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire and of the East Riding of Yorkshire to Kingston in late March 1689. Newcastle was also happy, indeed grateful, to pass over his patent as chief justice in eyre north of Trent to the young earl in April. On 10 May the king also approved his election as high steward of Kingston-upon-Hull.<sup>10</sup> It is clear that by the spring of 1689, when Kingston had also been appointed carver to the Queen for the royal banquet following the coronation, he was quickly becoming one of the most favoured and loyal adherents of the new regime.<sup>11</sup> Throughout the summer of 1689, while Parliament was still in session, Kingston appears to have been based in Nottinghamshire where he proved himself an involved and active lord lieutenant, constantly harrying his agents in London to ensure that the new commission of peace for the county was sent up in a timely manner and asking legal counsel about his responsibilities as chief justice in eyre.<sup>12</sup></p><p>He may even have joined his regiment in service in Ireland for a time in early autumn 1689, for he was not in the House when the Convention reassembled for its second session on 23 Oct. 1689. It was not until 6 Nov. that he was in Westminster to attend three-quarters of the meetings of winter 1689-90. On that day he was added to the committee charged with inspecting the misdeeds of the previous decade – the writs of <em>quo warranto</em>, the claims to a dispensing power and the judicial proceedings of the 1680s.</p><p>He was even more diligent in his attendance of the first session of William and Mary’s first Parliament in early 1690, attending the House on all but two of the days on which it sat. Danby, now raised to marquess of Camarthen, included him among the ‘opposition lords’ in his working lists for this Parliament. Yet judged by his frequent tellerships during the session, and also by some of his actions in the following summer months, it appears that his most defining characteristic was loyalty to the new regime. During this session Kingston was frequently a teller in divisions on largely procedural matters, often with Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and other such forthright Whigs acting as tellers for the opposite side. In the first week of April he was teller in three divisions concerning the bill to recognize William and Mary as king and queen, twice with Stamford and once with Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), on the other side.<sup>13</sup> On 2 May he took part in the debate on the second reading of the Abjuration bill, in which he followed the government’s cautious line in wishing to avoid dispute on this measure by suggesting that it should be rejected ‘by reason of garbling the House’.<sup>14</sup> The following day he was a teller in a division in a committee of the whole, where the opposite teller was again Stamford. The manuscript minutes note that after the House resumed Kingston and Monmouth received an injunction of the House ‘to demean themselves peaceably to each other’.<sup>15</sup> He was a teller in the debate on the declaratory clause of this bill on 8 May, and once again he told opposite Stamford. A week later, on 15 May, he received the proxy of his wife’s uncle Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, and the following day he was again a teller in a division on the motion to go into a committee of the whole to discuss the bill to enforce forfeitures of £500 on those who infringed the Test Act.</p><p>Kingston continued to be a busy and perhaps overzealous lord lieutenant during the summer of 1690. At one point he had to justify his confiscation of the arms of the mayor of Nottingham, Charles Harvey, whom he was persuaded was a Whig ‘collaborator’ distributing arms prior to the feared French invasion.<sup>16</sup> As a faithful servant of the crown Kingston was unable to serve it for much longer as he died suddenly and unexpectedly ‘of an apoplexy’ on 17 Sept. 1690.<sup>17</sup> His will, which had not been updated before his continental travels, bequeathed about £7,500 in total to various family members and confirmed the entail of his estates, done in January 1685, as part of his marriage settlement. As Kingston died childless the estate, as well as the title, passed to his younger brother, Evelyn Pierrepont, who was also constituted executor. He lived much longer than either of his brothers and would many years later be raised to be duke of Kingston.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
POULETT, John (c. 1615-65) |
<p><strong><surname>POULETT</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1615–65)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 20 Mar. 1649 as 2nd Bar. POULETT |
|
First sat 21 May 1660; last sat 15 May 1664 |
|
MP Som. 1640 (Nov.)–Aug. 1642 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1615, 1st s. of John Poulett<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Poulett, and Elizabeth, da. and coh. of Christopher Ken, of Kenn Court, Som. <em>educ</em>. Exeter, Oxf. (matric. 1632); MD Oxford 1643. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 6 Mar. 1641, Catherine (<em>b</em>.1612/13), da. and coh. of Horace Vere<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Vere of Tilbury, and wid. of Oliver St John of Lydiard Tregoze, Wilts., 2s. 3da.; (2) 30 Jan. 1653, Anne (<em>d</em>.1711), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Browne, 2nd bt. of Walcot, Northants., 2s. 4da. Kntd. 23 Sept. 1635.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 15 Sept. 1665; <em>will</em> 17 Mar. 1663 [?1664] and 20 July 1665; pr. 7 Aug. 1666.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Maj. militia horse, Som. 1660–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Dep. lt. Som. 1662–<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> jt. chief steward bpric. Bath and Wells 1662–<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Poulett inherited his barony in 1649, his earlier attachment to the royalist cause alongside his father having subsequently become uncertain as he pursued his friendships and family connections with leading parliamentarians. It had been through the intercession of his wife’s brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup> (later 3rd Lord Fairfax [S]) that the Pouletts’ extensive west country estate was saved from a crippling compounding fine.<sup>5</sup> In the 1650s the interregnal regimes assumed Poulett’s support for royalist conspiracies to restore the Stuarts, and on two separate occasions had him briefly imprisoned with other local cavaliers. Tradition has it that he joined the Stuart exiles on the continent, but, although both he and his son were issued with passes in 1658, they appear to have remained in England, and until the Restoration Poulett remained aloof from involvement in royalist initiatives.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Poulett’s social and political prominence in post-Restoration Somerset rested on a considerable landholding in the county, the main focus of which was a concentration of manors in the area around Chard, and his country seat at Hinton St George.<sup>7</sup> A significant recovery in the annual rental income of his estates during the 1650s to their pre-Civil War level of £3,000, enabled him to undertake extensive alterations and improvements at Hinton House, including the construction of a new ‘banqueting house’.<sup>8</sup> In addition, his continuing prosperity in the next decade allowed him to bequeath portions of £4,000 to two of his unmarried daughters when he composed his will in March 1663 or 1664. Hospitality was a particular preoccupation at Hinton and it was remarked by one militia officer, Colonel Edward Cooke, that Poulett ‘abounds not only in generosity in plentiful housekeeping, but also in very beautiful hounds and horses’.<sup>9</sup> Such sociability was vital in underpinning Poulett’s leading role in the governance of the county, a role that he was quick to assume once the Restoration was a certain prospect.</p><p>During the elections to the House of Commons early in April 1660, he was pre-eminent in drawing together Cavalier backing to ensure the return of favourable county representatives, one of whom was his son-in-law Hugh Smith<sup>‡</sup>. At a by-election in March 1662 his eldest son and heir, John Poulett*, later 3rd Baron Poulett, was returned unopposed as knight of the shire. This lead in setting the tenor of political support for the restored Stuarts locally also entailed, almost by default, the more long-term practical responsibilities of policing and the maintenance of order. The inadequate structures of command between central and local government became exacerbated after the death of the lord lieutenant, William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset, in October 1660, and the failure to appoint a successor until 1662.<sup>10</sup> The situation gave rise to a minor crisis of control in the county. With no new lieutenancy commission forthcoming, individual militia officers were powerless, and often refused to intervene in disturbances or take action to eradicate republican sedition, without authority from two deputy-lieutenants. In some situations Poulett was commanded from Whitehall to take action, or would seek authority to do so. Late in 1660 the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, entrusted him ‘to render a true and particular account of the members of any rebellious families in Somerset, who had been employed in civil or military offices under the Usurper’, singling out John Harington<sup>‡</sup> as a prime example of those offenders who might be excepted from the king’s general clemency.<sup>11</sup> Such threatened treatment of Harington may well have had the ulterior purpose of reminding Poulett of his new and important obligations at the head of his county, particularly in the light of his association with Harington during the Protectorate; Poulett had helped to procure Harington a royal pardon earlier in the year.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In July 1661 Poulett was forced to petition the king for permission to proceed against one Whetham for unlawfully taking possession of the manor of Chard, which belonged to the bishopric of Bath and Wells, and it was almost certainly on this account that in February 1662 Poulett and his heir were appointed joint stewards of all the bishopric lands.<sup>13</sup> The organization of Somerset’s militia was finally regularized in December 1662 with the issue of a lieutenancy commission under a newly appointed lord lieutenant, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (and also earl of Brecknock in the English peerage), though owing to Ormond’s more pressing commitments in the governance of Ireland, it appears that Poulett retained <em>de facto</em> control, acting in effect as a joint deputy lord lieutenant alongside his cousin Francis Hawley<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Hawley [I]. Poulett’s continuing supervision of the lieutenancy had been signalled a few months earlier in October, when he was charged by Secretary Edward Nicholas<sup>‡ </sup>to co-ordinate a county-wide operation to put the militia in the ‘good posture required by the seditious practices of factious people’.<sup>14</sup> The urgency behind these instructions was underlined by the immediate arrangements that were made for the oaths required under the Militia Act to be administered to him by several justices, one of them being his son-in-law Sir John Sydenham<sup>‡</sup>. The problems confronting Poulett in this capacity remained of a serious order: in October 1663 Colonel Alexander Popham<sup>‡</sup>, whose daughter had lately wed Poulett’s heir, reported on a meeting he had had with Poulett at Hinton and their agreement that ‘foot companies’ and ‘troops of horse’ be mobilized to forestall a threat of republican disturbance in the Malmesbury area of neighbouring Wiltshire.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1660, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, noted Poulett as one of the peers ‘with the king’. He first attended the Convention on 21 May 1660. His mansion at Chiswick, which his family had earlier acquired through marriage, provided him with a base within easy reach of Westminster. He attended on 58 days of the Convention, before the adjournment on 29 Aug. 1660, nearly 60 per cent of the total available days after he took his seat. On 13 June he was added to the committee on petitions, to which he was soon to present a case. On 19 July Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, reported Poulett’s case from the committee of petitions, whereupon it was ordered that the cause be heard at the bar, by counsel on both sides, and that a proviso be considered when the indemnity and judicial proceedings bills were taken into consideration. On 2 Aug., after the case had been considered, a bill was ordered for restoring Poulett and his heirs to the lands conveyed by himself and his father, and their wives, to the trustees for the town of Lyme. The bill was given a first reading on 7 Aug. and committed on 13 Aug. to the committee dealing with similar legislation on behalf of William Cavendish*, marquess of Newcastle. It never emerged from committee. On 23 Aug. the Lords referred a dispute between the freemen and inhabitants of Exeter and the mayor and aldermen of the same to five peers, one of whom was Poulett. Although the Convention resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, Poulett did not attend until the 12th. Thereafter he was present on 21 days of the remainder of the session, nearly 47 per cent of the total.</p><p>Poulett was in attendance when the new Parliament assembled on 8 May 1661, being named on the 11th to the committees for privileges and petitions. On 8 June he was given leave of absence to go into the country. On the 15th he registered his proxy with Robert Sutton*, Baron Lexinton, and he was last recorded as present on 17 June. In all he had attended on 26 days of the session before the adjournment at the end of July 1661, nearly 41 per cent of the total.</p><p>Poulett was present when the session resumed on 20 Nov. 1661 but missed a call of the House on the 25th. He attended on 28 days of the session, a little over 22 per cent of the total, but his attendance was concentrated at its beginning and end. He did not attend after the Christmas recess until 5 May, having been granted leave of absence on 14 Jan. 1662.</p><p>Poulett was not listed as present on the opening day of the 1663 session on 18 Feb., although he was named to the committee for privileges. He was excused a call of the House on the 23rd owing to sickness and was first listed as present on 21 March. On 13 July Wharton classed him as doubtful in his forecast about the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. He attended on 57 days of the session, two-thirds of the total and was named to a further nine committees.</p><p>Poulett was absent from the beginning of the 1664 session on 16 Mar. and was excused a call of the House on 4 April. He first attended on 26 Apr. and was present on 17 days of the session, 47 per cent of the total. He was absent from the 1664–5 session, being excused a call of the House on 7 Dec., it being recorded that he had registered a proxy, as indeed he had, on 24 Nov. with George Monck*, duke of Albemarle.</p><p>Poulett’s absence from the House thereafter was almost certainly occasioned by failing health. In May 1665 Secretary Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington, was informed that he was too unwell to fulfil any of his county duties.<sup>16</sup> He died later that year on 15 Sept. at his manor house at Court de Wyck, near Yatton, the Somerset residence he used during his father’s lifetime, and was buried at Hinton St George. The title and estates passed to his eldest son, John Poulett. In 1669 his widow married Sir John Strode<sup>‡</sup> of Chantmarle, Dorset.</p> |
A.A.H./S.N.H. |
|
POULETT, John (c. 1642-79) |
<p><strong><surname>POULETT</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1642–79)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Sept. 1665 as 3rd Bar. POULETT |
|
First sat 18 Sept. 1666; last sat 30 Apr. 1679 |
|
MP Som. 31 Mar. 1662–15 Sept. 1665 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1642, 1st s. of John Poulett*, 2nd Bar. Poulett by 1st w. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1656. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 17 Aug. 1663 (aged ‘about 22’), Essex, da. of Alexander Popham<sup>‡</sup>, of Littlecote, Wilts., 2da.; (2) lic. 15 July 1667, Lady Susan (<em>d</em>.1691),<sup>1</sup> da. of Philip Herbert*, 5th Earl of Pembroke, 1s. 2da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. June 1679; <em>will</em> 29 May–14 June, pr. 2 Dec. 1679.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Som. 1666;<sup>4</sup> jt. chief steward, bpric. Bath and Wells 1662–?<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> ld. lt. Dorset 1674–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Poulett’s succession to his father’s peerage in 1665 cut short the career he had begun in the Commons three years earlier. Now in his mid-twenties, he found himself master of a large and thriving west country estate, but unlike his father he was never as prominent or assiduous in undertaking official or governmental duty in his native county. There was, admittedly, less pressure from central government during the later 1660s to organize and regulate the militia, and only very occasionally did Poulett act with fellow deputy lieutenants and justices in relation to other matters, as, for example, an abortive recommendation in 1669 for the reincorporation of Taunton.<sup>6</sup> In his hands, Hinton became a favoured place of resort for senior aristocrats and royalty; in 1667 he paid host to Cosimo di Medici, the heir of the grand duke of Tuscany, who left admiring descriptions of the mansion and gardens and of the adjacent park and forest.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Poulett did not attend the brief session which sat during October 1665 but took his seat on the opening day of the next, on 18 Sept. 1666. He last attended on 23 Jan. 1667. In all, he was present on 46 days, nearly 52 per cent of the total and was named to the committee on Lady Arlington’s naturalization bill. He also attended on both days of the short session in July 1667. He was present on the opening day of the 1667–9 session (10 Oct.), being named on the following day to the committee of privileges and the committee on petitions (strangely, he was added to both again on 18 Nov. 1667). He attended on 37 days before the adjournment on 19 Dec., 72.5 per cent of the total, and was named to a further three committees. On 20 Nov. he registered a dissent in response to the Lords’ resolution not to agree with the Commons’ proposal to commit Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, without citing specific charges, along with other opponents of Clarendon.</p><p>When the session resumed in February 1668, Poulett first sat on the 10th. He attended in all on 27 days, just under 41 per cent of the total. He did not attend the opening of the 1669 session; he was absent from a call of the House on 26 Oct. and excused attendance at another call on 9 Nov., being ‘sick’. In all he was present on just four days at the end of November and beginning of December, 11 per cent of the total.</p><p>Poulett was absent throughout the 1670–1 session and was excused at the call of the House on 21 Feb. 1670. On 21 Mar. he chose to lodge his proxy with Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, well known for his associations with the country opposition. Poulett was also absent from calls of the House on 14 Nov. 1670 (excused) and 10 Feb. 1671 (proxy). In July 1671 the king took a progress to the west, and was reported to be going on a visit to Hinton St George.<sup>8</sup> Poulett was present when the House reconvened on 4 Feb. 1673, being named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He attended on 16 days of the session, 42 per cent of the total and was named to a further three committees. He did not attend the short session of October–November 1673. He missed the opening of the 1674 session and was excused from the call of the House on 12 Jan., first attending on the 23rd. He last attended on 16 Feb. when he took the oaths. He was present on 12 days of the session, 32 per cent of the total. He attended the prorogation of 10 Nov. 1674.</p><p>At some stage during this period Poulett’s political sympathies shifted towards the court, a process in which the king’s visit to Hinton in July 1671 may well have played some part. His transformation into a fully fledged courtier received royal acknowledgment in June 1674 when he was appointed to replace the recently disgraced Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury as lord lieutenant of Dorset. His territorial qualifications for this role were by no means great, though the large concentration of Poulett land in the area around Chard, near the southern border of Somerset, extended into the eastern districts of Dorset. The family connection with Lyme Regis, for which Poulett’s grandfather (subsequently Baron Poulett) had sat during the reign of James I, appears to have largely ceased after the Restoration, when the family failed to recover lands confiscated by Parliament and given to the town’s corporation.<sup>9</sup> Poulett’s chief concern as lord lieutenant was in keeping the troops of militia to their required quotas and to a satisfactory level of regulation. Instructed from Whitehall to improve matters, he concluded early in 1676 that the deficiencies in Dorset were due to an inadequate number of deputy lieutenants, and in the course of the year obtained royal approval for three new additions.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Poulett was missing from the opening of the session which began on 13 Apr. 1675, and from the call of the House on 29 April. He first attended on 12 May and sat for 13 days, nearly 32 per cent of the total. He was also absent from the opening of the session which began on 13 Oct. 1675, first attending on the 19th. He missed the call of the House on 10 Nov. and attended on only five days, 24 per cent of the total. His last attendance was on 20 Nov. when, at the height of the acrimony between the two Houses, ostensibly over the <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> case, he voted against the attempt by opposition factions to secure an address requesting the king to dissolve Parliament.</p><p>Poulett was present at the opening of the 1677–8 session on 15 Feb. 1677, thereafter attending on 26 days before the adjournment on 16 Apr. 1677, 53 per cent of the total. At some point during this session, the incarcerated Shaftesbury classed him as ‘vile’ on his analysis of lay peers. When Parliament resumed for a short meeting in May 1677 Poulett sat on three of the five days. He was also present when the session resumed on 15 Jan. 1678, but was then absent until 11 February. After sitting for a few days, on 22 Feb. he registered his proxy with a dependable court peer, Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount Conway. A marginal note in the proxy book then states that the proxy was cancelled when Poulett gave it to William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard. On 9 Apr. it was registered with the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby. It was cancelled when Poulett attended on 3 May 1678. In all he had attended on 11 days of this part of the session, 18 per cent of the total. He was present when the next session began on 23 May 1678, sitting for 18 days, 42 per cent of the total.</p><p>Poulett first attended the session of October–December 1678 on 28 Oct. and was present on 41 days, nearly 70 per cent of the total. The Popish Plot crisis later that year saw him adopt an uncompromisingly anti-Catholic line. On 15 Nov., in the committee of the whole on the bill to exclude Catholics from Parliament (the ‘second Test bill’), he was among the contingent of court lords and bishops who joined peers of country persuasion in voting to include the declaration against transubstantiation in the bill. With the court openly split on this issue, Poulett was not reluctant to demonstrate his own wish to see fellow peers deprived of their parliamentary rights on religious grounds, even if it meant excluding James Stuart*, duke of York, and causing offence to the king. A month later, as anti-Catholic feeling mounted, Poulett took a similar line against the king’s interests in relation to the Commons’ bill for disbanding forces raised since 1677. Under royal pressure the peers had amended this bill in committee on 19 Dec., overturning the Commons’ provisions for barring the crown from access to the sums to be raised from disbandment, which, it was feared, might be employed towards the establishment of popery. When the committee reported the next day, Poulett was among those who signed a protest against the amendments, thereby aligning himself with opposition peers who had little scruple about restraining the royal prerogative; he was absent, however, on 26 Dec. when the House voted on whether the amendments should be retained.</p><p>As the impeachment proceedings against Danby unfolded during March and April 1679, the beleaguered lord treasurer listed Poulett as a likely supporter of his cause on a canvassing list, with Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> being assigned to contact him. Poulett attended only one day of the short session of 6–13 Mar. 1679; he was present when the next session began on 15 Mar., attending on 14 days (23 per cent of the total) before he last sat on 30 April. On 9 May he was excused a call of the House on the grounds of ill health. On two of Danby’s subsequent calculations of support he was noted as ‘absent’, with Sir Bernard Gascoyne being assigned to contact him. He was in fact mortally ill, and on 29 May he signed his will, describing himself as ‘weak of body’. The exact date of Poulett’s death has not been found, though it occurred some time between 14 June, when he added a codicil to his will, and the 26th, when it was noted that he was ‘lately dead’.<sup>11</sup> He was succeeded by his young son, John Poulett*, 4th Baron Poulett.</p> |
A.A.H./S.N.H. |
|
POULETT, John (1675-1743) |
<p><strong><surname>POULETT</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1675–1743)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 26 June 1679 (a minor) as 4th Bar. POULETT; <em>cr. </em>24 Dec. 1706 Earl POULETT |
|
First sat 24 Nov. 1696; last sat 21 Apr. 1743 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 26 Apr. 1675,<sup>1</sup> o. s. of John Poulett*, 3rd Bar. Poulett and 2nd w. Susan, da. of Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. lic. 23 Apr. 1702, with £30,000,<sup>2</sup> Bridget (<em>d</em>.1748) da. and coh. of Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> of Waldershare, Kent, 4s. 4da. KG 1712.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 28 May 1743; <em>will</em> 30 Oct. 1741; pr. 11 Nov. 1743.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>PC 10 Dec. 1702-Sept. 1714; commr., union with Scotland 1706;<sup>5</sup> first ld. of treas. Aug. 1710-May 1711; ld. steward, June 1711-Aug. 1714.</p><p>Ld. lt. Devon, 1702-14; <em>custos rot</em>., Devon, 1711-14, Som. 1713-14.<sup>6</sup></p><p>FRS 1706.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1740, National Trust, Saltram, Devon; portrait bust by J. Rysbrack, c.1745, St George’s, Hinton St George, Som.</p> |
<p>Poulett succeeded his father in 1679, at about four years old, and seems to have inherited a good estate, worth about £4,800 p.a., together with poor health. In December 1678 he was described as a ‘very weak child till very lately’, and in August 1680 as ‘so marvellous infirm of the king’s evil that his life is under great suspicion (unless his present ague helps to lengthen it)’.<sup>9</sup> On 25 Aug. 1680, his uncle, Sir John Sydenham<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. arranged for James Scott*, duke of Monmouth to visit Hinton during his tour of the west, and there were subsequent reports of Elizabeth Parcet touching Monmouth and being cured of the king’s evil, though it is not known whether there was any intention that Poulett himself should receive the same treatment.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Poulett was excused attendance on the Lords on 10 Oct. 1680 and 26 May 1685 because he was under-age. As a minor, Poulett’s estates were managed by trustees, including Sydenham, Francis Poulett, Sir Thomas Putt<sup>‡</sup>, bt., and Colonel Edward Cooke.<sup>11</sup> They were forced to defend Poulett from an appeal by his mother to the Lords on 1 June 1685 from a chancery suit in which she claimed the portion due to her deceased daughter, Vere.<sup>12</sup> On 29 June they petitioned successfully on his behalf for a postponement of the hearing on the grounds that one of his trustees, Francis Poulett, living in the West could not be found because of the Rebellion. When the House eventually heard the case on 19 Nov. 1685 they decided in favour of Poulett, dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Chancery decree. On 16 Nov. 1685 Poulett was again excused attendance on the grounds of age.</p><p>The Prince of Orange stayed at Crewkerne in Somerset and hunted in Poulett’s park on his way to London in late November 1688.<sup>13</sup> On 25 Jan. and 28 Oct. 1689 and 31 Mar. 1690 Poulett was again excused attendance on the grounds of age and on 19 June 1690 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham noted that he was a minor.<sup>14</sup> He was also excused attendance on the House because of age on 2 Nov. 1691. Rumours in September 1692 linked the seventeen-year-old Poulett to a possible marriage alliance with a daughter of William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, but this proved unfounded.<sup>15</sup> Poulett’s mother had died by November 1693 when the administration of her will was granted to a creditor.</p><h2><em>Last years of William III, 1696-1702</em></h2><p>Poulett’s writ of summons was dated 31 Oct. 1696 and he took his seat on 24 November.<sup>16</sup> On 23 Dec. Poulett voted against the passage of the attainder bill against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, though he did not sign the protest of that day. He last sat on 31 Mar. 1697, having attended on 60 days of the session, 53 per cent of the total, and had been named to 12 committees. By the time Poulett took his seat he already had important links with many old Whig families. In June 1696 his aunt had married James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>, the Scottish secretary of state, and the following year Poulett bought a house in Twickenham, possibly on behalf of Johnston, who took up residence there.<sup>17</sup> Poulett’s long-standing friendship with the Harleys appears to have begun around this date. On 30 Mar. 1697 Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> wrote to his father that he had an appointment to meet Poulett at Court de Wyck in Claverham in Somerset on 6 Apr., and Harley’s sister Abigail noted that he was hoping to be at Lord Poulett’s on that date.<sup>18</sup> In September of that year Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> himself visited Poulett.<sup>19</sup> Poulett’s close friendship with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, was probably the most influential in his political career. Poulett also knew influential Tories such as Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> of Forde Abbey in Dorset, who on 22 May 1697 wrote to William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, that ‘my neighbour’ Poulett ‘sets up for living close and says the times are hard, but he begins to affect being a rich man a little too soon. He is very cautious and meddles with nothing and makes very few visits’. On 21 July Gwyn further wrote that Poulett had ‘turned a highway lately upon the act of Parliament’, perhaps a reference to the permissive legislation passed in April 1696 for the better amending and repairing the highways.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Poulett was present on 3 Dec. 1697, the opening day of the 1697-8 session. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of committing the bill punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He last attended the Lords on 3 May having been present on 60 days of the session, 46 per cent of the total, and been named to 12 committees. By this date he was resident at 14 St James Square, although after 1705 he was recorded as residing at his house in Albemarle Street near Piccadilly.<sup>21</sup> For the 1698-9 session, Poulett only attended at the very end, taking his seat on 14 Apr. 1699 and sitting on eight occasions, 10 per cent of the total. Although Robert Harley reported that Poulett had gone out of town on the 29 Apr., he was listed as present on 1 and 2 May.<sup>22</sup> He was also appointed to four committees. On 4 Sept. 1699 Gwyn reported that he had spent 10 days attending the musters at the residences of Poulett and of Henry Portman<sup>‡</sup>, the brother of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt.<sup>23</sup> On 15 Jan. 1700 Poulett wrote from Hinton to Robert Harley apropos of the report of the commissioners into Irish forfeitures that ‘all the country hereabouts shows a concern for applying the forfeited estates in Ireland to the use of the public as if it would save every particular man’s estate from any more oppression or taxes during this reign.’<sup>24</sup> Poulett first sat in the 1699-1700 session on 7 Feb. 1700. On 23 Feb. he voted to adjourn the House, allowing it to go into a committee of the whole on the East India Company bill. Having last attended on 9 Apr., a couple of days before the end of the session, by 17 Apr. he was writing to Harley from Hinton.<sup>25</sup> He had attended on 36 days, 46 per cent of the total and been appointed to six committees.</p><p>On 10 July 1700 Gwyn wrote from Forde Abbey to Harley to offer the condolences from himself and Poulett over an illness of Harley’s brother Edward and on 6 Aug. Gwyn dined ‘with my noble neighbour’, later telling Harley that they both hoped ‘we may see you at this end of the world before your return to London.’<sup>26</sup> On 21 Sept. Edward Harley wrote to his brother Robert from Hinton of Poulett’s plans to go to Court De Wyck on the 30th, until 7 Oct., ‘and so return hither, will be very glad to see you here’. On 25 Sept. Edward Harley and Poulett were at Fulford, where they found Francis Fulford<sup>‡</sup>, who had married, as his first wife, Poulett’s half-sister, Margaret, on his deathbed. This delayed Poulett’s journey to Court De Wyck, but he was expected back at Hinton on 17-18 Oct. to meet Sir Edward Seymour.<sup>27</sup> On 30 Nov. 1700 Poulett wrote to Robert Harley that ‘it is a great comfort to all in the country that we are not likely to be engaged in a new war, which, reflecting on what we now pay, is dreaded as double taxes’.<sup>28</sup> In the elections of December Poulett supported the abortive candidacies of Henry Thynne<sup>‡</sup> and Nathaniel Palmer<sup>‡ </sup>for the Somerset seats, but was successful in the borough of Ilchester where his cousin Sir Philip Sydenham<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, was returned.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Poulett attended on 10 Feb. 1701, the opening day of the 1701 Parliament. On 8 Mar. he protested against the resolution to address the king to remove the suspension imposed on Captain John Norris<sup>‡</sup>, the future admiral, for neglect of duty. A week later he protested against the resolution to reject the second head of the report concerning the Partition Treaty, which stated that the ‘Emperor was not a party to this treaty, though principally concerned’ and on 20 Mar. he protested against the decision not to send the address on the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. He was among those who protested on 16 Apr. against the resolution to address the king to ask that no censure be passed against the four Whig peers while their impeachments were pending in the Commons. When the House took exception to two reasons given by the protesters and ordered them to be expunged from the record, Poulett protested against that decision as well. On 9 May 1701 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, who lived not far from Poulett at Sherborne, wrote to Benjamin Furly, a merchant in Rotterdam, that ‘all our young men are drawn away by the specious actions of these present managers’. He noted in particular that Poulett ,‘well known amongst you, is a man of great influence and is a little entangled in the nets I tell you of: the other party making it their chief game to work on such men as these who have great interest both in country and Parliament’.<sup>30</sup> Poulett last sat on 17 May, and thereby missed the denouement of the impeachments. He had attended on 63 days, 60 per cent of the total, and been named to 18 committees.</p><p>Poulett attended on the opening day of the 1701-2 Parliament, on 30 Dec. 1701. On 1 Jan. 1702 he duly signed the address concerning the Pretender being recognized by France. As he was present on 8 Mar. he was named to the conference with the Commons on the accession of Queen Anne. He last attended on 12 May, having sat on 72 occasions, 72 per cent of the total, and been named to 20 committees.</p><h2><em>Under Queen Anne, 1702-10</em></h2><p>Towards the beginning of Anne’s reign, Poulett was described as:</p><blockquote><p>one of the hopefullest gentlemen in England; is very learned, virtuous, and a man of honour; much esteemed in the country, for his generous way of living with the gentry, and his charity to the poorest sort. He makes but a mean figure in his person; is of a middle stature, fair complexion, not handsome.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite this latter limitation, Poulett married in April 1702, Bridget the daughter of the Hon. Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>. The exact date of the marriage is uncertain. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> recorded on 18 Apr. that he had married the week before, while an unsigned licence was dated 23 April.<sup>32</sup> A settlement of 11 Apr. again signified his connections, including his ‘cousin’ Edward Harley, his ‘uncle’ Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, his ‘kinsman’ Robert Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and his ‘uncle’ James Johnston.<sup>33</sup> In June 1702 Poulett was appointed lord lieutenant of Devon, during the minority of William Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, and, as one newsletter reported, in place of Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, who had gone to Holland.<sup>34</sup> This appointment led to a dispute with Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, over the command of the militia of Plymouth, with the bishop pressing the claims of his brother, Charles Trelawny<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>35</sup> Trelawny was just one of the existing powerful interests in Devon and Poulett does not appear to have exercised much of a role in the elections of that county. He had more electoral influence in Somerset where in the elections of July 1702 his preferences, the moderates Sydenham and Palmer were victorious.</p><p>At the beginning of September 1702, Poulett and ‘the gentlemen of Somerset and Dorset’ went to Bath to pay their respects to the queen and to solicit a delay in the assembly of Parliament, due to convene on 8 Oct., chiefly so they could attend the quarter sessions.<sup>36</sup> As a result, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, wrote from Bath on 11 Sept. to Harley of the postponement of Parliament to 20 Oct., ‘for the reason you mention, of which all the gentlemen of these parts, my Lord Poulett at their head, were so full that it would have been an unaccountable perverseness not to have indulged them 12 or 14 days‘ time’.<sup>37</sup> On 10 Dec. Poulett was sworn to the queen’s new Privy Council, part of the general influx of Tories into the government.</p><p>According to the presence lists Poulett first attended the 1702-3 session of Anne’s first Parliament on 7 Dec. 1702, although he had been named to a committee on 4 December. On 24 Dec. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, recorded his presence at ‘a committee for three private bills; all made ready for reporting’.<sup>38</sup> In about January 1703 he was forecast by Nottingham as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. he duly voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause of the bill. On the bill to enable the queen to settle revenue for the support of her husband Prince George*, duke of Cumberland,in case he should survive her, Poulett protested on 19 Jan. against the decision to leave in a clause which was meant to ensure the prince could serve as a Privy Councillor, sit in the House of Lords, hold various military offices and enjoy various grants, after the queen’s death. On 21 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, on the question whether to hear the cause between the Haberdashers’ Company and the attorney general, while the following day he protested against the Lords’ decision to dismiss the appeal of Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup> and John Thompson against Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton. Bishop Nicolson administered the sacrament to Poulett at St Martins-in-the-Fields on 24 January.<sup>39</sup> Poulett acted as a teller on 19 Feb., again in opposition to De la Warr, on the question whether to reverse the decree in the cause of the attorney general v. the mayor of Coventry. On 20 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, on the question whether the exchequer order in the case of <em>Dent v. Buck</em> should be reversed, and two days later he protested against the rejection of the bill introducing a landed qualification for members of the Commons.<sup>40</sup> He attended on the last day of the session, 27 Feb., having sat on 46 days of the session, 53.5 per cent of the total, and been named to 18 committees.</p><p>In November 1703 Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast Poulett as a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill, although with a query against his name. By December he had confirmed his opinion that Poulett would indeed support the bill. Poulett first attended the 1703-4 session on 22 Nov. 1703. On 14 Dec. he voted in favour of a second reading of the occasional conformity bill, before it was rejected by the House. He dissented on 21 Mar. 1704 from the rejection of a rider to the recruiting bill which would have required recruits to obtain the consent of churchwardens and overseers of the poor in their parishes, and that same day he protested against the passage of the bill. He last sat on 25 Mar., having attended on 70 days of the session, 71 per cent of the total and been named to 30 committees.</p><p>The spring of that year saw his friend Harley appointed secretary of state following the dismissal or resignation of the High Tories from office.<sup>41</sup> Poulett attended on the opening day of the 1704-5 session, 24 Oct. 1704, and in November he was listed as likely to support the Tack of the occasional conformity bill. In a debate in committee of the whole of 8 Nov. on whether to install galleries in the chamber Poulett seconded the motion of Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford, that the old orders excluding the public should be maintained, saying that ‘he was not for turning the House into a sight’. When the masons reported that a gallery accommodating about 100 people would not be difficult to build, he retorted that ‘this would be against the known rules of all public shows; where the spectators are always more in number than those that make the spectacle’. On 17 Nov. he was one of the peers at the Tower to view ‘the method the clerks were in towards putting the records in good order’.<sup>42</sup> Given Poulett’s links to James Johnston, it seems likely that he was one of two peers on 6 Dec. who defended the former Scottish secretary in the committee of the whole on the state of the nation with regard to Scotland. When the House considered the motion to prepare new laws to counteract the ill effects of the act of security, Poulett challenged it on the grounds that ‘half of this preamble was not necessary and that he thought that it had been agreed to, to shun irritations as much as possible’. However, the peers were ‘weary’ and the motion passed unopposed.<sup>43</sup> On 15 Dec. he spoke in favour of giving a second reading to the bill against occasional conformity.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Poulett was named on 18 Jan. 1705 to the committee for a bill to allow him and his wife, with the consent of their trustees, to sell their estates in Kent and purchase other land of like value. Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, reported from the committee on 1 Feb. recommending that the bill pass with minor amendments. On 27 he was placed on the committee to draw up heads for a conference to be held with the Commons about the case of the Aylesbury men and on 28 Feb. and again on 7 Mar. he was named to manage a series conferences on this matter. He was again appointed to manage conferences on 12 and 13 Mar. on the Lords’ amendments to the militia bill. Further on 13 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on the bill for naturalizing Jacob Pechells and others. He attended on the last day of the session, 14 Mar., having sat on 85 days of the session, 86 per cent of the total, and been named to 38 committees.</p><p>In early April he was listed as a Hanoverian on an analysis relating to peers’ attitudes towards the succession. Poulett was closely involved in west country business during the elections of that spring. On 2 May 1705 he wrote to Harley in detail about elections and politics in Exeter, particularly the possibility that Francis Gwyn would succeed the ailing Sir Edward Seymour, whom Poulett referred to as ‘Sir Chuffer’, as recorder of the city. He also commented on the dangerous role of those clergymen in the cathedral chapter who preached that the Church was in danger and that Bishop Trelawny was its enemy.<sup>45</sup> In the Somerset election his candidates, Palmer and John Pigott<sup>‡</sup>, a kinsman of Poulett’s, who had previously campaigned as a Whig, were victorious. As Poulett described to Edward Harley in a letter of 30 June, the selection of these two court Tories drove the county’s High Church party into a frenzy:</p><blockquote><p>since their defeat they flame more fiercely as if only a little water was thrown on them, and they rage with the overcoming hopes this next session to destroy our friends and their moderate interest as they phrase it; but here their loudness proved but a sign of weakness in reason and numbers, and I believe they are made of the same stuff [as] all their party.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>Later, on 25 July, Poulett agreed to be a godfather of the third son of William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, along with Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Poulett was absent from the opening of the 1705-6 session and was excused attendance on 12 Nov. 1705, but attended for the first time on the following day. He was listed as voting on 6 Dec. in favour of the motion that the Church was not in danger in the current administration.<sup>48</sup> On 22 Dec. 1705 and 18 Jan. 1706 Nicolson again noticed his attendance at a committee dealing with the public records.<sup>49</sup> On 7, 11 and 19 Feb. he was appointed to manage conferences on the place clause the Commons had inserted in the regency bill. He was also named on 22 Feb. to manage a conference on a private bill relating to the import of French wine. As he was present on 11 Mar. he (along with the rest of the House present) may have been appointed to manage two conferences on the published letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Stamford. He attended on the last day of the session, 19 Mar., having sat on 68 days of the session, 72 per cent of the total, and been named to 36 committees.</p><p>In April 1706 he had been appointed one of the commissioners for the Union with Scotland but by late May he was back at Hinton where on 22 May news of the victory at Ramilles produced a euphoric letter of congratulation to Harley:</p><blockquote><p>this is a miracle to open the eyes of many honest men who by their unfortunate behaviour became so unworthy that nothing less than a glorious victory could subdue them to understand how much they are obliged to their true friends in saving them and all England from the ill fate which their destructive leaders deserve.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>He was still away from the capital in early July as the Treaty of Union was being finalized, for arrangements were made to send out a copy to him and Godolphin, while never doubting Poulett’s willingness to sign the treaty, feared that he would be unwilling to ‘come up in the dust and the heat’. Nevertheless on 13 July Poulett indicated to Harley that he would soon leave Hinton for London, where he duly signed the treaty on 22 July.<sup>51</sup></p><p>On 18 Sept. 1706 Poulett wrote from Hinton to Harley complaining about one local opponent who was ‘so much the officious drudge of the tacking party that he very insolently and impertinently thwarts your friends here in everything’. Sufficient time had passed since the last election for it to seem not a ‘personal resentment’ if this man was now left out of the commission of the peace ‘for want of a sufficient estate’, being ‘desperately contemptible in his family and fortune’. Poulett was still at Hinton at the end of the month when he penned a letter soliciting Harley’s interest for him to succeed Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, as governor of Guernsey. <sup>52</sup> Poulett was clearly in line for further honour. He was under consideration in November as a replacement for the aged Bradford, should the treasurer of the household die, while a paper in Godolphin’s hand of 29 Nov. had Poulett slated for a promotion in the peerage.<sup>53</sup> This was eventually effected and on 24 Dec. he was created Earl Poulett, a promotion Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby later attributed to Harley, and one of 11 creations or promotions of court supporters passed in December 1706.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Poulett, having attended the House for seven days of the 1706-7 session since its opening on 3 Dec. 1706, was introduced to the Lords in his new honour on 30 Dec. by Sunderland and Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater. He was appointed on 27 Mar. 1707 to manage a conference on the Formhill and Stoney highway bill. He sat on the last day of the session, 8 Apr. 1707, having attended on 71 days, 83 per cent of the total, and been named to 36 committees. He attended on seven of the nine days of the short session of April 1707. On 23 Apr., in discussions on the bill to prevent the fraudulent use of drawbacks, he entered his dissent to the resolution to consider on the following day the judges’ refusal to answer the question of whether existing laws were sufficient to prevent such frauds. He attended for 78 per cent of the session, being named to two committees. Pondering the political situation during the summer he wrote from Hinton to Harley on 16 July that ‘enemies’ actions have made in general all of the character of Churchmen more reasonable than any words of friends could do’, surely in tune with Harley’s beliefs at the time.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Poulett attended on the opening day of the 1707-8 session, 23 Oct. 1707. He was present on 13 Nov. but set out for the west a short time later with the intention of returning in mid-January. He quickly turned back, resuming his seat on 28 November. He appears to have been told to return, presumably by Harley, because ‘a rupture betwixt the court and the Whigs ... is again upon the anvil’.<sup>56</sup> He last attended the session on 28 Feb. 1708, having sat on 54 days of the session, just over half of the total and been named to 15 committees. Having already been apparently summoned back in order to defend the ministry against the attacks of the Junto, Poulett also soon became involved in the internecine battles between the ‘duumvirs’ and his friend Harley. Poulett was perceived as one of the men Harley hoped to employ should he win the political battle against Godolphin, it being widely believed that he would have been appointed secretary of state in Harley’s planned ‘moderate’ ministry.<sup>57</sup> Poulett maintained his close connection with Harley after the latter’s dismissal from office, especially during the elections in April. Early that month he was approached by Harley to see if he could accommodate the former secretary-at-war Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, presumably at Ilchester. Poulett, though, responded that he had ‘entirely engaged this place and very lately returned assurances for it which will oblige me in honour to stand by it’.<sup>58</sup> He continued to promote Nicholas Wood<sup>‡</sup> at Exeter, asking Harley to use his interest with Offspring Blackall*, the new bishop of Exeter, to get him to recommend Wood. He also wanted Harley to speak to his cousin Nathaniel Palmer to discourage ‘young’ Giles Hayne from standing a candidate at the next election.<sup>59</sup> In the county of Somerset his interest appears to have been weakened by Harley’s fall and he was also put under pressure by Tories such as Gwyn to abandon Pigott for a more hardline Tory. For Ilchester, though, his uncle Johnston was returned for the first post-Union Parliament. Not surprisingly, on a printed list of about May 1708 detailing the composition of the new Parliament Poulett was classed as a Tory.</p><p>Despite a plea from Harley in mid-October, Poulett was missing from the opening of the 1708-9 session on 16 Nov. 1708 and first attended on 3 December.<sup>60</sup> His growing importance in political circles is suggested by his presence at a dinner on 26 Dec. hosted by John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, whose other guests included Johnston, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, and Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>61</sup> Poulett’s electoral interest at Ilchester remained solid. On 10 Jan. 1709 Johnston reported the withdrawal of the election petition against his election at Ilchester, noting that ‘Lord Wharton chiefly, and Sir Peter King<sup>‡</sup> [the future Baron King] for him, having acted like themselves in the matter, but my Lord’s [Poulett’s] interest, and the gentry’s in the country proved so strong against them that they were betrayed in everything, so I must now be Church whether I will or no.’<sup>62</sup> In the House on 21 Jan. Poulett voted for the motion permitting Scottish peers with British titles – and particularly Queensberry, created duke of Dover in the British peerage in May 1708 – to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. He protested on 28 Mar. against the failure to read for a second time the rider proposed for the bill to extend English treason law to Scotland that would have required those accused of treason to have a copy of their indictment five days before their trial. He last attended on 2 Apr. (Johnston reported that he would be leaving London on 5 April).<sup>63</sup> He had sat on 58 days of the session, 63 per cent of the total, and been named to 20 committees.</p><p>Poulett wrote on 6 Apr. 1709 to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> while travelling into the country, discoursing extensively on foreign affairs and on the bill for treason trials in Scotland, which had been ‘imposed in so short a time and so little consideration had to adapt it to the manners of Scotland, that it has quite broke all the Scotch from Lord Somers [John Somers*, Baron Somers] and his English friends’. Somewhat hopefully he added that Somers ‘finds himself sinking so fast he will go out of Court and turn in opposition so as to make a Hanover party’.<sup>64</sup> Rather pessimistically, on 1 Oct. 1709 he wrote from Hinton to Harley that</p><blockquote><p>the signing the preliminaries being in the Gazette before they were returned into Holland convinced me here that nobody expected the like from France and that the peace was not at hand for I easily believe there can be no change during this war and that there will be no return to any settled good, but thro’ the extremity of evil[.] We have so over loaded a healthy constitution with physic to prevent distempers that nothing but falling into a chronic disease can give us again a chance for the recovery of a regular state of health, unless the man alone, who now begins you say to think he stands upon his own legs, does reform us. But I am confident this master of the beasts is the very reverse of Mr Horner in the play with his mistress.<sup>65</sup></p></blockquote><p>Poulett was absent from the opening of the 1709-10 session. On 18 Feb. 1710 he wrote from Hinton to Trumbull to arrange ‘to come to your house and drink tea’ on 4 Mar. on his way to London.<sup>66</sup> He first attended the House two days after this appointment, on 6 Mar., and in time to participate in the key votes in the Sacheverell trial. On 14 Mar. he dissented from the decision not to adjourn, whereupon the House resolved that in prosecutions by impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanours, the particular words supposed to be criminal need not be expressly specified. On 16 Mar. he protested against the resolution to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment, and on the following day he protested against the House’s acceptance of the Commons’ second, third and fourth articles against Sacheverell. He protested on 18 Mar. against the resolutions limiting peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty upon all the articles of the impeachment and two days later voted Sacheverell not guilty, and protested against the guilty vote. On 21 Mar. he further protested against the censure passed against the doctor. In other matters, Poulett was lobbied by Ralph Bridges, a chaplain of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, in the cause of the inhabitants of Hammersmith against the bishop. Bridges, in Trumbull’s name, sent Poulett information on the case and desired his attendance, and reported that ‘I find his Lordship was so kind to give and I suppose voted for us’, the cause being won by a single vote on 1 Apr. 1710.<sup>67</sup> Poulett attended on the last day of the session on 5 Apr., having sat on 23 days, 25 per cent of the total, and been named to six committees.</p><p>In a break with his previous practice, probably associated with the political ferment of the time, he attended the prorogations on 18 Apr. and 2 and 16 May 1710. On 6 May he had written to Trumbull ‘here is nothing certain, for should I write news true in the morning, by night it would be absolutely false’, and that although Shrewsbury’s appointment as lord chamberlain had raised expectations of further changes, that was ‘so long since that I have no patience any longer to wait for it in writing to my friend’.<sup>68</sup> An undated letter from Harley to John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, indicates Poulett’s important role in the manoeuvring which preceded the change of ministry in 1710; Shrewsbury and Poulett were ‘sensible of your favour in desiring to speak with them before you have the conversation you are pressed to’; if Newcastle had to see them before they went out of town, they were willing to ‘put off their intended journey and will meet you at Mr Paget’s house’, presumably the abode of Henry Paget*, the future Baron Burton and earl of Uxbridge.<sup>69</sup></p><h2><em>Oxford’s ministry, 1710-14</em></h2><p>In the first days of June 1710 Godolphin wrote to both John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and his duchess with the news that the queen had offered Poulett the secretaryship of state in the place of Sunderland, who was about to be dismissed, but Poulett had turned it down because of Godolphin’s concern about the impact of Sunderland’s dismissal abroad.<sup>70</sup> On 7 June Poulett sent Harley a long missive about the replacement of Sunderland in which he responded to Newcastle’s criticism of his preferred candidate, John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey.<sup>71</sup> As the search went on for a successor to Sunderland, rumours continued to link Poulett to the post: following Dartmouth’s appointment Lady Rachel Russell thought it was ‘a surprise’ that Poulett ‘would not’ take the seals; ‘he holds to his point – a porter’s life is a better thing’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Poulett was at the heart of the ministerial ‘revolution’ of the summer and autumn of 1710. One of his tasks was apparently to gain converts for the new ministry. Already on 8 Aug. 1710 Lady Anne Clavering had reported an unsuccessful attempt by Poulett to entice his distant relative John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron Ashburnham, to ‘be a zealous server of his country and join the queen and her party’.<sup>73</sup> Poulett, among others, offered reassurance to James Brydges*, the future duke of Chandos, that the queen had confidence in him, thereby allowing Brydges to retain his position as paymaster with a clear conscience.<sup>74</sup> It also seems that Poulett was seen as an important link between Marlborough and the ministry. John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S], reported to the duke on 22 Sept. that Poulett ‘professes himself your grace’s servant with great kindness and affection’.<sup>75</sup> At the beginning of December John Drummond<sup>‡</sup> informed Harley that Adam Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> ‘has had half a squabble with his duke for not accepting of your proposal by Earl Poulett’; were he to do it again, he thought, ‘his grace would not refuse so favourable an opportunity.’<sup>76</sup> It is unclear how much influence Poulett had in the 1710 elections in Somerset, though at Ilchester he was able to oversee the return of Samuel Masham*, later Baron Masham, husband to Harley’s ally at court, Abigail Masham.</p><p>Poulett’s own reward for his long-term support for Harley was to be appointed the nominal head of the new treasury commission, with Harley himself as chancellor of the exchequer. Godolphin thought the composition of the new treasury board, packed as it was with Harley’s friends, would ‘utterly distaste’ the Tories.<sup>77</sup> This may have been the case, for Poulett sent a conciliatory letter to Nottingham on 10 Aug., the day of his appointment as first lord, in which he hopefully expressed ‘a confidence of being supported by your favour and great interest’.<sup>78</sup> Poulett attended the first meeting of the new treasury commission, on 12 Aug. 1710, and rarely missed a meeting until 28 May 1711, when the commission met for the last time; even Guiscard’s attack on Harley on 8 Mar. 1711 had no discernible impact on his attendance.<sup>79</sup> On 13 Aug. 1710 Poulett, Harley and Anglesey were summoned to the cabinet as well.<sup>80</sup> Again, he was an assiduous attender of the cabinet and of the lords of the committee, only missing two cabinets and nine committees before he left the treasury.<sup>81</sup> He also involved himself in organizing the new commission for the lieutenancy of London.<sup>82</sup></p><p>On 3 Oct. 1710 Robert Harley listed him, not surprisingly, as expected to support the ministry. Poulett spent some time in the country in October, John Bridges reporting on the 23rd that Poulett had ‘been in the country this fortnight and not expected back in some time.’<sup>83</sup> He nevertheless attended the opening day of the 1710-11 session on 25 November. According to Peter Wentworth’s account, on 9 Jan. 1711, it was Poulett who asked Henry de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], in the committee of the whole House considering the state of the war in Spain, the question of who else at the council of war held at Valencia on 4/15 Jan. 1707 agreed with the opinion of Galway, Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope, in favour of an offensive war. He later asked Tyrawley the same question. He also intervened to insist that the focus of the questioning remain the council of war, rather than including other matters as desired by Peterborough. Before the House adjourned, Poulett proposed a question to be debated in the committee of the whole next time, that Galway, Tyrawley, and Stanhope, by insisting in the council of war in January 1707 on an offensive war, ‘contrary to the king of Spain’s opinion, and that of all the general officers and public ministers’, and by pursuing that objective in the following campaign, were responsible for the ‘unhappy occasion of the battle of Almanza, and one great cause of our misfortunes in Spain, and of the disappointment of the duke of Savoy’s expedition before Toulon’. After a short debate this question was entered ‘in the book’, and the House adjourned. When the committee resumed on 11 Jan., Poulett made a ‘long speech’ introducing the motion he had announced on the 9th,</p><blockquote><p>that the nation having, for many years, been engaged in an expensive war, it was necessary to give the people the satisfaction to let them know how their money had been spent, and who deserved thanks and who was to be blamed; that it appeared the service of Spain had been very much neglected; that many officers upon that establishment looked on their employments as sinecures, being favourites of the party; and that the Council held in Valencia, being the spring of all our misfortunes, the Lords ought to censure those that influenced it.</p></blockquote><p>When petitions from Galway and Tyrawley were presented, Poulett argued that ‘they had already been heard and had declared they had no more to say: so that the design of these petitions was only to delay’, although he later relented, saying that ‘if they were ready to be heard, he readily agreed they should’. He intervened twice before the committee proceeded to debate his motion. He then made two recorded contributions to this debate, firstly, that ‘the French could not have relieved Toulon if the war in Spain had been defensive’, and secondly, that ‘5,000 men out of Spain might have made a strong diversion’ and contributed to the capture of Toulon. The motion was duly carried by a majority of 21. In committee of the whole House on 12 Jan., Poulett ‘moved the debating of the second question’, which was the revised motion of Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale, arguing that Sunderland’s letters showed that an offensive war had been ‘approved and directed by the ministers, notwithstanding the design of attempting Toulon, which the ministers at that time knew was concerted with the duke of Savoy’, and that the ministers were ‘justly to be blamed, for contributing to all our misfortunes in Spain’ and to the disappointment of the Toulon expedition. In the debate on the merits of using the term ‘ministers’, rather than ‘cabinet’, Poulett intervened twice, firstly to argue that there was ‘no distinction between the ministry and the cabinet council, for those who were of the cabinet were ministers’, and secondly to suggest that ‘this nice distinction between cabinet council and ministry’ was merely a delaying tactic. On the substantive question, Poulett was recorded as saying that ‘the battle of Almanza was a necessary consequence of the opinion and directions of the ministry’.<sup>84</sup> The motion was carried by 22.</p><p>Harley (by then earl of Oxford) later recollected that Poulett was present at a dinner in February 1711 aimed at reconciling ministerial factions following St John’s ‘listing a party and setting up for governing’ the Commons.<sup>85</sup> He was also present at a meeting between Tory ministers and Nottingham, an unsuccessful attempt to appease the latter.<sup>86</sup> On 2 Feb. 1711, when the Lords dismissed the place bill passed by the Commons at first reading, Poulett rubbed salt into the wounds, remarking that the bill was like ‘a phantom that had haunted both Houses for several years and arose from the dregs of the discontented of both parties’.<sup>87</sup></p><p>On 8 Mar. 1711 Poulett was present at the cabinet meeting when Guiscard stabbed Harley. According to Harley’s daughter, Abigail, Poulett ‘walked home by my father’s chair and showed a vast deal of tenderness and care of him’.<sup>88</sup> He was named on the following day to manage a conference on the safety of the queen’s person in the wake of the attack. When Poulett wrote to Marlborough on 13 Mar. about it, he added the important financial news that the subscription to the lottery was more than the act admitted, so that the treasury had been forced to seek directions from Parliament. He hoped that ‘the news of it will have a good effect abroad in showing the world the present administration has as good a credit and is as much in earnest to support your grace in all your glorious undertakings as ever.’ He wrote further to Marlborough on financial matters on 30 Mar., particularly on the leather duty, which had been rejected and reintroduced as a tax on hides and skins, a scheme by which, he wrote, William Lowndes<sup>‡</sup> had ‘showed himself as nice a casuist as any doctor that wears a scarf and ’tis I think an instance of as ready a discipline in the House as your grace can have in the army.’<sup>89</sup> On 10 Mar. he received the proxy of Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, which was vacated at Winchilsea’s return on 12 Apr., while on 20 Mar. he also received that of John Campbell*, duke of Argyll [S] and earl of Greenwich, which he maintained for the remainder of the session. On 18 Apr. Poulett had to write to Harley (who had retreated to the country) on treasury business to obtain instructions about financial legislation and also on the parliamentary response to the death of the Emperor.<sup>90</sup> As a minister he occasionally acted as a messenger for the queen to the Lords. Thus on both 9 and 20 Apr., Poulett signified to the House the queen’s agreement to bills which had just received their first readings.</p><p>On the death of Rochester at the beginning of May 1711 the lord steward, Buckingham, was touted as his successor as lord president of the council in order to create a vacancy for Poulett, since Harley’s expected appointment as lord treasurer would displace him.<sup>91</sup> On 4 May, in what Harley endorsed as ‘a prudent letter’, Poulett laid out the case against Nottingham taking the lord presidency and promoted the claims of Buckingham.<sup>92</sup> On 12 and 17 May it was reported that Poulett would succeed Buckingham as lord steward.<sup>93</sup> Poulett, however, wrote to Harley on 14 May thanking him for the offer of Townshend’s post as captain of the yeomen of the guard, albeit with a seat in the cabinet, but declining it as it seemed rather ‘setting me aside in that place’.<sup>94</sup> If this threat to retire was intended to concentrate Harley’s mind, it was successful, for in the ministerial reshuffle Buckingham become lord president and Poulett succeeded as lord steward on 11 June.<sup>95</sup></p><p>While these negotiations were underway, Poulett was named a manager for a conference on 9 May 1711 on the bill for repairing the highway between Dunstable and Hockley, and on 12 May was named to conferences on the bill for the preservation of game, as he was again on 17 and 31 May. On 25 May Poulett and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, introduced Harley into the Lords in his new title as earl of Oxford. On that same day Poulett wrote to Marlborough, sending him £50,000 and noting ‘that is I think the last business I shall do in the treasury, which, I thank God, I shall leave in a much better condition than I found it.’<sup>96</sup> He attended on the last day of the session, 12 June, sitting on that day for the first time as lord steward. He had sat on 94 occasions, 83 per cent of the total, and had been named to 21 committees. Following the session, Poulett was listed as a Tory ‘patriot’.</p><p>The appointment of the Member for Ilchester, Samuel Masham, as cofferer of the household presented a problem for Poulett, as Masham was re-elected to the Commons for Windsor instead. This necessitated the provision of a new candidate at Ilchester, and on 6 June 1711 Poulett informed Oxford that the London financier Sir James Bateman<sup>‡</sup>, a Whig who was supportive of the ministry’s financial schemes, had been chosen for the borough.<sup>97</sup> Poulett attended the prorogation on 10 July. On 4 Aug. it was reported that the queen had stood (by proxy) as god-mother to Poulett’s fourth son, Anne Poulett<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>98</sup> He attended the prorogations on 21 Aug. and 13 November.</p><p>With the Whigs expected to attack the ministry’s peace policy, Poulett appears to have been active in trying to get peers to attend the opening of the next session of 1711-12. On 16 Nov. 1711 Lady Strafford wrote to her husband Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, that ‘I was told today that Lord Poulett said he hoped the queen would desire you to come over, for your vote would be very much wanted, for a great many Whigs will oppose this peace.’<sup>99</sup> On 23 Nov. Shrewsbury wrote to Oxford that he had heard from Poulett that Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, and Edward Leigh*, 3rd Baron Leigh, ‘stayed in the country, ready to attend if sent for but not unless they had notice’.<sup>100</sup> In the last week of November, Poulett revealed his disquiet to Oxford over the effect that fear of the Pretender and the succession might have in the Lords: ‘I am a great deal concerned how your numbers may answer in our House’.<sup>101</sup> On 4 Dec. he received the proxy of Nathaniel Crewe*, 3rd Baron Crewe and bishop of Durham, which he held until Crewe’s return to the house on 14 Jan. 1712.</p><p>Poulett attended on the opening day of the 1711-12 session, 7 Dec. 1711. In the debates on the Address on that day, Poulett joined Oxford in advancing procedural points in an effort to ward off discussion of the Whig ‘No Peace without Spain’ amendment: their argument was that it was not appropriate in the address of thanks to insert unasked for advice to the sovereign.<sup>102</sup> It may have been on one of these occasions when the queen told Dr Hamilton that Poulett opined that ‘there was no credit in gaining a question when it was not debated’, to which William Cowper*, Baron Cowper responded that ‘it was debated, only they who had nothing to say, hit on forms and words’.<sup>103</sup> Lady Strafford reported that Poulett ‘I hear is very zealous for a peace and has spoke several times in the House very well on that subject in answer to Lord Nottingham’.<sup>104</sup> On 19 Dec. Poulett was forecast by Harley as likely to support the pretensions of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House under a British peerage as duke of Brandon in the division expected on the following day. Poulett indeed voted on 20 Dec. against the motion that aimed to deny Hamilton his seat as a British peer, and signed the protest against it. His reaction to recent defeats that winter was shown in a letter of 20 Dec. to Strafford, in which he complained that ‘we are beaten for want of the queen declaring for herself’: ‘none knows who are really the queen’s servants or what her mind is, so that the House of Lords prevails over the queen’s management with us and the strongest House of Commons that ever met’.<sup>105</sup> On 22 Dec., the day the Lords adjourned until the new year, the Whigs passed several resolutions, including an address asking that the plenipotentiaries at Utrecht should treat in concert with the Allies, who should also guarantee the Hanoverian succession. To this Poulett successfully appended the clause ‘in case her majesty has not given such orders to them’.<sup>106</sup> He appeared on the list used by Oxford to plan his counter-moves during the Christmas recess. He may also have been used by Oxford in lobbying peers in an attempt to regain the initiative in the Lords, particularly in applying pressure to Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter.<sup>107</sup></p><p>When the House reconvened on 2 Jan. 1712, Poulett was one of those arguing for a further adjournment of the House, which was seen as a key matter if the ministry was to regain control of the chamber. He specifically answered Sunderland’s point that an adjournment under such circumstances was against the orders of the House and should be looked into, suggesting that they might look into any prejudice that had been done to their privileges when the House met again.<sup>108</sup> Poulett and the Tories carried the point and the House was adjourned until 14 January. The following day Poulett dined with Prince Eugene, who described him later as ‘a man of a very good estate but never much bred to business, especially affairs of state, of a good and easy and modest temper, much bigoted to the Church of England, and a true patriot in the opinion of the Tory party, which renders him popular’.<sup>109</sup> Poulett also received the proxy of George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, on 15 Jan. 1712, which was vacated by the duke’s return to the House two weeks later. Later in the session, he also held the proxies of Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, from 21 to 28 May, and of Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, from 23 to 27 May. The return of both Anglesey and Abingdon by 28 May was probably for the important vote of that day on the ‘restraining orders’ sent to the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, restricting him from taking offensive military action against France. Despite not being listed as present on that day, Poulett apparently both spoke and voted against the motion for an address asking the queen to lay before the House the orders sent to Ormond and to order him to act offensively.<sup>110</sup> According to Ralph Bridges, after Marlborough had reflected upon the present generals, Poulett responded by saying ‘that the duke of Ormond’s courage was clear and unquestionable and that as to his conduct he showed a great deal more of it in saving the lives of 10 or 20,000 men, than other generals did by losing of them in order to gain their pay’. Another observer reported that Poulett had said, more offensively, that Ormond ‘had no such views in fighting as a late general had, who would send his army against stone walls that the officers might be knocked in the head that he might fill his pockets with their commissions’. The charge ‘that the present general did not think fit to throw away men’s lives unnecessarily with a view to the advantage of filling up their vacancies’ was ‘so highly resented’ by the duke that Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, was sent with a challenge to Poulett. Some contemporaries reflected that Marlborough showed ‘very much his good generalship, having attacked the enemy in the weakest side; Earl Poulett not being able to see to the end of his sword’ while Argyll, Anglesey and Strafford had ‘at least an equal title’ to Marlborough’s ire. Poulett was certainly known to have poor eyesight, being referred to as an owl in some verses in 1711, and his countess took steps to ensure that the secretary of state intervened to prevent a duel. Indeed, ‘three minutes after’ the challenge, Poulett ‘was attended by the captain of the guards, whilst another party paid the same compliment to the challenger’.<sup>111</sup> Perhaps Marlborough felt the jibes more sharply because of the cordial exchanges the two men had had while Poulett was at the treasury and Marlborough in command of the army.<sup>112</sup> On 7 June 1712 Poulett joined Oxford in objecting to a Whig amendment to the address thanking the queen for her speech on the peace, which sought to have the allies ‘guarantee’ any peace.<sup>113</sup> On 13 June he again received Annesley’s proxy for the remainder of the session. He last sat in the session on 21 June, when Parliament was adjourned to the prorogation of 8 July. He had been present on 86 days, 80 per cent of the total, and been named to 20 committees.</p><p>It was rumoured that Poulett’s service was to be rewarded with the garter, and on 18 July 1712 Lady Strafford, commenting on the nomination of four new knights of the order, including Poulett, thought ‘none of the court cares’ for him.<sup>114</sup> In August his post as lord steward saw him involved in protecting the duchess of Leeds from her husband, the recently succeeded Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds. In his opinion the ‘duchess should be quiet where she is till she sees what my Lord Duke will do and that she may be as safe in her own house in Scotland Yard as where she proposes to be’.<sup>115</sup> In cabinet, probably on 24 Sept., Poulett joined Oxford in successfully arguing against the insistence of Bolingbroke (as Henry St John had become) that the Parliament should be dissolved.<sup>116</sup></p><p>On 26 Oct. 1712 Poulett was, as expected, nominated a knight of the garter, although he was not invested with the honour until 4 Aug. 1713. He attended the prorogations on 6 Nov. 1712 and on 13 Jan. and 10 Mar. 1713. Poulett’s name appears on Jonathan Swift’s list (amended by Oxford) of peers expected to support the ministry in the forthcoming session. He attended on the opening day of the 1713 session, 9 Apr. 1713, and that day, in the debate on the address, he opposed the amendment proposed by Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, that the House request the queen to lay before them the peace treaties.<sup>117</sup> On 28 May he wrote to Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, that ‘this morning the queen gave me your Lordship’s proxy which she says you left with her and she commanded me to enter it as to myself’. He promised to be ‘very cautious in using it on any occasion but where it’s directly for the queen’s service and I shall be particularly careful to ask her directions first, which liberty her majesty allows me’, adding that ‘if there be any particulars your grace will do me the honour to give me your directions in, I will be sure to punctually obey you, though it should differ from my own opinion in the giving your proxy while it is in my hands’.<sup>118</sup> Significantly, 28 May was the day on which James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater, moved for a day for the state of the nation to be considered. When the committee sat on 1 June, Findlater proposed a bill to dissolve the Union. Poulett spoke in the debate against the motion and when the House voted to put the question on adjourning the debate (so that the Scots and the Whigs could prolong discussion on the bill), the court carried the day to continue with the debate, partly by the vote of Poulett with Richmond’s proxy. The motion for leave to bring in the bill was then defeated.<sup>119</sup> Indeed, the duchess of Richmond, referring to Poulett in a letter of 20 July 1713, commented to her husband that ‘no mortal could take more caution in using your proxy than he did, and I am almost sure he never did use it but once’, even though Poulett held it for the remainder of the session.<sup>120</sup> In early June Oxford expected Poulett to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty when and if it reached the Lords. He was present on the last day of the session, 16 July, having attended on 53 days of the session, 80 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees.</p><p>On 24 Aug. 1713 Poulett was about to depart from Windsor for the west country, where as he told Oxford he hoped to be useful on account of the elections, lamenting also the more than ordinary expense of elections years in the country. As such he hoped Oxford would pay him ‘what the queen is pleased to allow me by your favour’. <sup>121</sup> At this same time he took a keen interest in the marriage on 31 Aug. of Oxford’s heir Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley and the future 2nd earl of Oxford, to Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, the only daughter of the late duke of Newcastle.<sup>122</sup> His closeness to Oxford led Poulett to be chosen a trustee of Lord Harley, a role with which he was much pleased.<sup>123</sup> On 5 Oct. he wrote to Oxford from Hinton on a number of matters: the treaty of commerce, expected to be re-introduced in the new Parliament; the advisability of repealing the triennial act when ‘it might be one of the first advantages with credit obtained now after the elections’; and the elections themselves.<sup>124</sup> Through his efforts Oxford’s supporter Bateman had been returned, despite the opposition of Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, who in November 1712 had tried to persuade Poulett to drop his support for Bateman, as he was ‘a stranger and not at all liked by the gentlemen of the county’.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Poulett attended the prorogations on 10 Dec. 1713 and 12 Jan. 1714 and the opening day of the 1714 session, 16 Feb. 1714. On 5 Apr. he spoke for the ministry in the debate on the motion that the Protestant Succession was not in danger under the current administration.<sup>126</sup> On 26 May he received the proxy of Northumberland, who, on 2 June 1714 wrote to tell Oxford, ‘I doubt not will be for the bill.’<sup>127</sup> Poulett was indeed forecast by Nottingham at the end of May or the beginning of June as likely to support the schism bill, but on 4 June he was one of four Harleyite peers to vote in favour of allowing a petition from Dissenting ministers to be heard by counsel against it, a motion which was narrowly lost.<sup>128</sup> This revealed Oxford’s own ambivalent attitude towards the bill: perhaps because of Poulett’s apparent wavering, Northumberland vacated his proxy by returning to the House on 9 June, in the midst of debate on the bill and six days before it was passed at its third reading. Poulett attended on the last day of the session, 9 July, having sat on 63 occasions, 83 per cent of the total and been named to five committees.</p><p>On 24 July 1714 it was noted that Poulett dined at Buckingham’s along with Oxford, Bolingbroke, John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol, and secretary of state William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>129</sup> Following Oxford’s dismissal as lord treasurer on 27 July, James Macparlane thought that Buckingham, Shrewsbury ‘and, if I right remember, Poulett, had promised to one another to demit all together if one was deposed’.<sup>130</sup> On 29 July a newsletter certainly thought that Poulett would resign.<sup>131</sup> However he remained in post as lord steward and on 30 July, on the day the queen collapsed in her final illness, he was one of the six signatories of a letter from the Privy Council to Buckingham, as lord lieutenant of Middlesex, to put the laws in force against Catholics and non-jurors.<sup>132</sup> He attended Parliament on the day of the queen’s death on 1 Aug., and on 6 Aug. he received the proxy of William Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, which he maintained for the remainder of the brief session. He was present 13 of the 15 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total, and was named to two committees.</p><p>In the manoeuvring which followed the queen’s death, William Stratford told Lord Harley on 13 Aug. 1714 that Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, had ‘worked himself into’ Poulett, whom he visited often, although Stratford thought it unlikely that Poulett would put any confidence in the bishop ‘on account of the friendship he has professed, and I suppose still professes to your father’ and the good ‘correspondence’ Poulett had with George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells. But on the following day Stratford added that he had heard that Poulett and Oxford had quarrelled and that Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, ‘and his party reckon upon him as sure to them’. In response, though, Lord Harley vindicated Poulett’s loyalty to his father.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Poulett did stay loyal to Oxford in the years after 1714 and never regained high office.<sup>134</sup> His continuing parliamentary career in opposition after 1715 will be covered in the succeeding volumes of this work. He died on 28 May 1743 and was buried at Hinton St George. Contemporary opinion about Poulett divided, predictably enough, along party lines. According to Strafford, writing when he was still only Baron Raby, he was ‘thought a man of very good sense as well as estate, he has never been in affairs but has always been much favoured by Mr Harley’, whereas the duchess of Marlborough dismissed him as an ‘insipid man, dishonest and insignificant’.<sup>135</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
POWLETT, Charles (c. 1630-99) |
<p><strong><surname>POWLETT</surname></strong> (<strong>PAWLETT</strong>, <strong>PAULET</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1630–99)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1630-75 Ld. St John; <em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Mar. 1675 as 6th mq. of WINCHESTER; <em>cr. </em>8 Apr. 1689 duke of BOLTON |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 9 Feb. 1699 |
|
MP Winchester 1660, Hants 1661-75 |
<p><em>bap.</em> Feb. 1630,<sup>1</sup> s. of John Paulet*, 5th mq. of Winchester and 1st w. Jane Savage, da. of Thomas Savage<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Savage. <em>educ</em>. ?privately; travelled abroad (Italy); <em>m</em>. (1) 1652 (with £10,000),<sup>2</sup> Christian Frescheville (<em>d</em>.1653), da. of John Frescheville*, Bar. Frescheville, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) 12 Feb. 1655 Mary (<em>d</em>.1681), illeg. da. of Emmanuel Scrope<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland, and Martha Jeanes (alias Sandford), wid. of Henry Carey, <em>styled</em> Ld. Leppington (<em>d</em>.1649), 2s. 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 27 Feb. 1699;<sup>4</sup> <em>will</em> 9 Apr. 1694, pr. 14 June 1699.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1679-85, 1689-?<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> mbr. cttee for trade and plantations 1679,<sup>7</sup> 1689-<em>d</em>.; commr. of appeal in admiralty cases 1697.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Freeman, Winchester 1660, Hartlepool 1670;<sup>9</sup> ld. lt. Hants 1667-76,<sup>10</sup> 1689-<em>d</em>.; warden of New Forest 1668-76,<sup>11</sup> 1689-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>., Hants 1670-76; kpr. of King’s Lodge at Petersham 1671; v.-adm., Hants 1692;<sup>12</sup> high steward, Winchester.</p><p>Col. regt. of ft. 1689-97,<sup>13</sup> militia horse and ft. by 1697-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by R. White, after unknown artist, 1679, NPG D1080.</p> |
<p>It is not altogether clear quite what (if anything) was wrong with St John (as he was styled until his succession to the peerage). Dubbed ‘the mad marquess’, some thought that his manner was mere affectation, though William of Orange seems to have thought him genuinely deranged and stories abounded of his eccentricities.<sup>16</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, reported some of them, noting how:</p><blockquote><p>he had the spleen to a high degree and affected an extravagant behaviour; for many weeks he would not open his mouth till such an hour of the day when he thought the air was pure. He changed the day into night, and often hunted by torch-light, and took all sorts of liberties to himself, many of which were very disagreeable to those about him.’</p></blockquote><p>Despite this, Burnet also recognized St John as ‘a very crafty public man.’<sup>17</sup> Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> too saw in his behaviour more method than madness relating that ‘most thought he counterfeited this that he might be free and unconcerned from affairs of that age.’<sup>18</sup> Certainly, in his politics St John was a maverick. For the most part he aligned himself with the country opposition and later with the court Whigs but he was also closely connected to a number of prominent court and later Tory figures. His loyalties leave him hard to characterize within any precision. Not everything about St John was so slippery. His poor health, of body if not of mind, was genuine enough. He complained frequently of fits of the stone and it may have been as a result of this agonizing condition that tales of his oddities first circulated.<sup>19</sup> For all this, St John was one of the most influential political figures in England. Through a combination of marriage and inheritance he commanded interests in Hampshire, Yorkshire and Cornwall.<sup>20</sup> He was also accounted ‘an expert Parliament man’ being a prominent member of the House both as a committee and conference chairman and a frequent speaker in debates.<sup>21</sup> Thus, according to Burnet, ‘though he was much hated, yet he carried matters before him with such authority and success, that he was in all respects the great riddle of the age.’<sup>22</sup></p><h2><em>Restoration to the accession of James II</em></h2><p>The eldest son of the hero of the siege of Basing Castle, St John was taken away from his Catholic father after Basing by the parliamentarian army and raised as a Protestant. Despite such efforts to remove him from his royalist antecedents, he was imprisoned briefly in 1655 on suspicion of participation in royalist plotting, but he appears to have eschewed any direct involvement with royalist conspiracies.<sup>23</sup> Following the Restoration he was returned for the city of Winchester in the Convention and the following year he progressed to the county seat, which he continued to represent until his succession to the peerage. St John’s principal preoccupation during the early years of the restoration was an ongoing dispute with his father over the recovery of family lands sold or sequestered during the Interregnum. Numerous attempts at mediation had little effect and in April 1662 an effort to pass a bill to resolve their differences once more ran into difficulties and was referred to arbitration.<sup>24</sup> The following year another bill was considered in the Commons, but wrangling in the family continued for the remainder of the decade.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Always a volatile individual, St John was forced to petition for a royal pardon in 1668 for pulling Sir Andrew Henley’s<sup>‡</sup> nose in Westminster Hall while the courts were in session. Henley was subsequently also compelled to sue for pardon for pushing St John during the scuffle.<sup>26</sup> The price of St John’s escape from censure and (according to Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>) from losing his right hand for committing the offence was reputedly his agreement to fund the roofing of Clarendon House. He later supported the impeachment of its owner, Edward Hyde*. earl of Clarendon.<sup>27</sup></p><p>By the early 1670s St John had come to be closely associated with the opposition grouping coalescing around Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, such that in the spring of 1673 he was one of those named in the satirical sale catalogue of goods supposedly to be auctioned at the Royal Coffee house, as one of the inventors of the ‘act for stealing away a chancellor’s head from the block and laying a treasurer’s head instead of it.’<sup>28</sup> On the death of his father in March 1675, he succeeded to the marquessate of Winchester and took his seat in the Lords shortly after on 13 Apr, registering his dissent the same day along with eight other peers (among them Shaftesbury) at the resolution to present a vote of thanks for the king’s speech.<sup>29</sup> The following day he was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the sub-committee for the journal and on 15 Apr. he was named to that for the bill for preventing frauds and perjuries. Named to a further seven committees in the course of the session, on 21 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to throw out the bill for preventing dangers presented to the government by disaffected persons.<sup>30</sup> On 26 Apr. he subscribed a further protest at the committal of the bill to a committee of the whole House. On 29 Apr. he protested again, at the resolution that the previous protest reflected upon the honour of the House and the following day spoke during the bill’s committee stage to propose an additional oath to be tendered to new members of Parliament on their taking their seats, though this was rejected.<sup>31</sup> On 4 May he protested once more at the decision to adopt the committee’s amendment to the bill allowing peers and members of the Commons to be embraced within its scope. Later that month, on 27 May he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons on the Commons’ privilege related to a lengthy legal dispute between Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Nicholas Stoughton, the latter of whom had submitted an appeal to the Lords. In the event, the Commons failed to attend the conference and Winchester was not included among the managers of a subsequent conference held on the same subject the following month.<sup>32</sup> Indicative of his continuing association with the opposition, in June it was reported both that he and Shaftesbury had been forbidden the court but also that the two peers had subsequently been reconciled and permitted to kiss the king’s hand.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Winchester took his seat in the new session on 13 Oct. 1675, when he was again named to the standing committees. Present on each of the brief session’s 21 sitting days, Winchester was named to three committees and on 19 Nov. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons for the preservation of good understanding between the houses.<sup>34</sup> The following day, he voted in favour of presenting the king with an address requesting a dissolution of Parliament and subscribed the protest when the House refused to adopt the measure.<sup>35</sup> Winchester’s prominence within the opposition was no doubt the reason for rumours circulating in March of the following year that he was to be put out as lord lieutenant of Hampshire. Later that month he was indeed replaced by Edward Noel*, later earl of Gainsborough.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Winchester returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677. Although he did not support the contention of his allies, Shaftesbury and Buckingham, that Parliament had been <em>de facto</em> dissolved by the long prorogation, and refused to join with their efforts to force the king to call fresh elections, he did speak in favour of the dissenting peers and recommended to the House that they should be thanked rather than reprimanded.<sup>37</sup> In doing so he appears to have demonstrated greater loyalty than Shaftesbury showed him, as one of Shaftesbury’s lieutenants, Lemuel Kingdon<sup>‡</sup>, had written to an associate of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) only days before, warning him that it was Winchester, George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax, and James Butler*, duke of Ormond, who were Danby’s ‘professed enemies’, rather than Shaftesbury himself.<sup>38</sup> The following month Winchester was named in information given by one Major Ogilvy about the activities of Shaftesbury’s agent, Robert Murray, and the opposition’s efforts to reveal the ministry’s willingness to allow Scots troops to serve abroad in the ranks of the French army. Shaftesbury and his associates hoped by doing so to destabilize the administration of John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] and earl of Guilford, in Scotland.<sup>39</sup> Ogilvy claimed that he had overheard a conversation between Murray and Winchester in the court of requests, in which Murray asked Winchester ‘to stir in this business’. Murray was said to have emphasized the number of friends the marquess had in Scotland and that by acting he would ‘make to yourself many more.’ Winchester was reported to have assured Murray in turn that he should not trouble himself, ‘for if this business go on, we’ll swing him for you.’<sup>40</sup> Named to a dozen committees in the course of the session, Winchester certainly interested himself prominently in matters regarding the conflict on the continent and on 13 and 15 Mar. he was nominated one of the reporters of the conferences with the Commons concerning the address to the king for the preservation of the Spanish Netherlands. In May Winchester was noted as doubly worthy by Shaftesbury.<sup>41</sup> In October 1677 Winchester was one of those allowed access to Shaftesbury in the Tower.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Winchester played host to Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, on at least two occasions in the summer of 1677.<sup>43</sup> In January 1678 Winchester’s lawyer was one of several complainants forced to appeal to the Lords for their adjudication over a protection granted to one John Farrington, a prisoner for bankruptcy in the King’s Bench, with whom Winchester was involved in a legal action. Farrington’s protection had been given to him by Thomas Cromwell*, 3rd earl of Ardglass [I], who attended the House by virtue of his English barony of Cromwell. The case spawned a broader debate concerning the extension of peers’ privileges to their retainers as well as Ardglass’s particular actions in granting protections to people such as Farrington who were not his menial servants. On 31 Jan. the House ordered that Farrington’s protection should be ignored and that the law should be permitted to run its course; Ardglass was reproved for granting protections on 6 February.</p><p>Besides his own legal struggles, Winchester’s attention was dominated by his efforts to support his disgraced colleagues Buckingham and Shaftesbury. On 28 Jan. 1678 Winchester intervened on Buckingham’s behalf to request that he might be allowed to read his apology at his place in the House rather than kneeling at the bar but was overruled.<sup>44</sup> A little over a week later (7 Feb.), Winchester again appealed to the House to uphold his privilege over a case involving the arrest of one William Norgrave by William Cobden (rector of Lurgashall in Sussex). Again, the House resolved in Winchester’s favour that the offending parties should appear at the bar to explain their actions. On 14 Feb. Winchester’s mother, the dowager marchioness, was also successful in demanding that her privilege be upheld over the arrest of one of her servants. Winchester presented the House with a petition from his imprisoned ally Shaftesbury on 20 February. Shaftesbury acknowledged his errors and sought to be pardoned but without success.<sup>45</sup> Nominated one of the reporters of the conference concerning the address demanding war with France on 22 Mar., on 30 Apr. Winchester was named one of the reporters of the conference considering the growth of popery. On 25 Mar. he received the proxy of William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, who had previously been noted ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury; this was vacated by the session’s close. On 4 Apr., he voted, along with Shaftesbury, that Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, was not guilty of murder.</p><p>Winchester returned to the House that summer for the brief session that began on 23 May, during which he was named to eight committees.<sup>46</sup> On 7 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to proceed with consideration of Robert Villiers’ petition to be recognized as Viscount Purbeck. On 19 June he was nominated one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning the latest developments in the negotiations with France over the Spanish Netherlands. Nominated a reporter of the conference with the Commons over the supply bill on 25 June, once the House had resumed following the conference, he was one of five peers to subscribe a protest at the House’s failure to adopt an amendment proposed by the Commons. Three days later he was added to the committee for the bill to prevent the illegal coursing and killing of deer, in which he may have had particular interest as a former warden of the New Forest. On 5 July he joined with Shaftesbury ‘and the rest of that gang’ in entering a dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the petitioner in the cause <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em>. At the head of the list of dissenters was James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>47</sup></p><p>The revelations surrounding the Popish Plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey again brought Winchester to the fore and he proved to be one of the most significant committee chairmen managing the business that grew as a result of Godfrey’s assumed assassination. Having taken his seat in the new session on 21 Oct. 1678, on 26 Oct. Winchester passed on information relating to the coachman who was said to have conveyed the murdered justice out of town, to the committee investigating Godfrey’s murder. Two days later he was named to a sub-committee to undertake a fuller investigation of the murder.<sup>48</sup> On 1 Nov. Winchester was appointed to report a conference with the Commons concerning the preservation of the king’s person and on 12 Nov. he again received Derby’s proxy, which was vacated when Derby returned to the House on 23 December. On 14 Nov. Winchester reported from the committee examining Godfrey’s murder, informing the House of the disappearance of a merchant named Powell, who it was suspected had also been murdered. He requested that two men should be secured, who were believed to be involved in Powell’s killing. The same day Winchester was involved in an argument with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, but they were forcibly reconciled by the interposition of the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham). The next day (15 Nov.) Winchester voted in favour of making the declaration against transubstantiation to be under the same penalty as the oaths.<sup>49</sup> Again named one of the managers of a series of conferences concerning the king’s safety on 23, 26, 27 and 28 Nov., on 27 Nov. Winchester reported from the committee for examinations on the failure to attend one of its hearings by one Beacon, a merchant, who was consequently ordered to be attached. During the lengthy discussions that lasted all day on 28 Nov. Winchester’s evidence to the committee of examinations was reported to the House and he and Clarendon once more traded insults. While Clarendon was speaking in the House during the debates on the removal of the queen from Whitehall, Winchester was heard to mutter ‘he lies he lies’, provoking an angry response from Clarendon as well as from Henry Mordaunt*. 2nd earl of Peterborough, who was reported to have said ‘if he had the lie given him he would stab him as gave it’. Although Winchester protested that he had not directed the remarks to Clarendon, the House was again compelled to intervene to reconcile the two and to prevent them from carrying their argument on outside the chamber.<sup>50</sup> The following day (29 Nov.), Winchester informed the House that he had seen a papal bull that had been discovered among the Jesuit William Ireland’s papers in the hands of a member of the Commons, ‘which is of dangerous consequence’. The House accordingly sent to the lower House to request sight of the document. The following month, on 20 Dec, Winchester registered his dissent at the resolution to adopt amendments to the supply bill and again on 23 Dec. at the decision not to require Danby to withdraw following the reading of the impeachment articles against him. Despite his vigorous pursuit of those involved in the plot and his prominent role in demanding the removal of papists from London, Winchester was clearly prepared to make exceptions. On the same day (23 Dec.) he moved the House on behalf of an elderly recusant Sir Edward Sheldon and his family, requesting that they might be permitted to remain in London, which was ordered accordingly.<sup>51</sup> Winchester again voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill on 26 Dec. and the following day he voted in favour of committing his old foe, Danby.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Winchester appears to have resolved on making his peace with the court by this time and may even have been angling to succeed Danby as lord treasurer, though clearly nothing came of his manoeuvring.<sup>53</sup> Employing his interest in Hampshire during the elections to the first Exclusion Parliament, both he and Shaftesbury were said to have written letters to the electors urging them not to return ‘fanatics’. When some of these were intercepted by the king, he was reported to have been ‘much pleased and said he had not heard so much good of them a great while.’<sup>54</sup> Acting in partnership with his neighbour, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, Winchester was expected to oppose his former colleague, Sir John Norton<sup>‡</sup>, in the election for the county seats, which accordingly went to a moderate candidate, Richard Norton<sup>‡</sup>, and the lord lieutenant, Edward Noel.<sup>55</sup> Winchester appears also to have become embroiled in the finicky negotiations over the nomination to the county seats in Buckinghamshire. He was informed ‘by some mistake’ by his son-in-law, John Egerton*, Viscount Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater) that Brackley’s father, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, was willing for Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, to stand with John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, as Brackley was unwilling to do so himself. In the event, Wharton and Hampden were returned unopposed when no one else proved willing to contest the seats.<sup>56</sup> In March 1679 Winchester was reckoned by Danby to be an opponent in a series of forecasts, though one negative forecast of 2 Mar. noted Winchester as being ‘unreliable’ in parentheses.</p><p>Winchester took his seat in the abortive session of 6 Mar. 1679, of which he attended six days before resuming his seat in the new Parliament that commenced on 15 March. He was thereafter present on almost 89 per cent of all sitting days. Named to five committees in the course of the session in addition to the standing committees and the committee appointed to receive information about the plot, on 22 Mar. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning Danby’s impeachment.<sup>57</sup> On 14 Apr. he proved the majority of Danby’s predictions to be correct by voting in favour of attainting the former lord treasurer and on 10 May he voted to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords in the Tower. He then registered his dissent when the House voted against doing so. Following a conference held with the Commons the following day, the House acceded to the Commons’ request for a joint committee to be named to consider the impending trials and Winchester was one of the dozen peers named to join with the 24 members of the lower House.<sup>58</sup> Two days later (13 May) Winchester registered his dissent at the resolution to permit the bishops to remain in court trying capital cases until the imposition of a death penalty. Winchester registered two further dissents on 23 May, first at the instruction to the joint committee that the House had decided to proceed with the trials of the five impeached lords before that of Danby and second at the decision to maintain their position as regarded the bishops. Four days later (27 May) he dissented once more at the resolution to insist upon the vote confirming the bishops’ rights.</p><p>Rumours connecting Winchester’s heir, Charles Powlett*, styled earl of Wiltshire (later 2nd duke of Bolton), with Lady Elizabeth Percy had circulated towards the end of 1678 but by the beginning of 1679 that match had been broken off.<sup>59</sup> That summer Winchester was married instead to Margaret Coventry (daughter of George Coventry*, 3rd Baron Coventry), who brought with her a £30,000 portion.<sup>60</sup> The occasion was marked by a great feast at Winchester’s residence in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Anglesey was among the company, as he had been a few days previously at a dinner held at Winchester’s retreat at Teddington, which had also been attended by several other members of the Privy Council.<sup>61</sup> Rumours at the same time that Winchester was to be advanced to a dukedom proved illusory.<sup>62</sup> Winchester appears to have suffered from some form of mental breakdown later in the year. He appears to have been better by November and in December one correspondent penned a vigorous rebuttal, insisting that he had ‘his senses as well as ever. I cannot tell what occasioned the report of his lunacy.’<sup>63</sup> Always a volatile individual, it is possible that Winchester’s erratic behaviour had become more pronounced: although he was sufficiently well to attend the House on 26 Jan. 1680 he shortly after departed for France to recover his health and he did not resume his place until after the Revolution.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Winchester was still abroad at the opening of the new Parliament in October 1680, and was excused at a call on 30 October. His own poor health was presumably further compromised by the death of his wife.<sup>65</sup> Although the marchioness’ body was transported home for burial, Winchester stayed abroad and he was consequently absent from the House for the debates over the exclusion bill in November.<sup>66</sup> He appears to have remained in France until the summer of 1682.<sup>67</sup> Shortly after his return in August of that year, it was rumoured that he was prepared to marry one of his daughters to Peregrine Osborne*, styled Viscount Latimer (later 2nd duke of Leeds), heir to his old foe Danby. Danby subsequently confided to Latimer that his source had been mistaken in imagining that the match may have been on the cards, ‘for [the] marquess [of] Winchester expects much greater things than Lord Latimer is able to perform.’<sup>68</sup></p><p>Mad or not, Winchester’s eccentric proclivities continued to earn him attention following his return from the continent. In December 1682 it was reported that he had fallen in love with a street crier. Despite this, Winchester’s own odd enthusiasms did not prevent him from making more than apparent his disapproval of his heir’s choice of a new wife following the death of Margaret, Lady Wiltshire, in 1682. Wiltshire risked his father’s disapproval by proceeding with his marriage to Frances Ramsden (who was reported already to be pregnant) in February 1683. In response, Winchester summoned his younger son, Lord William Powlett<sup>‡</sup>, home from France with the intention of preferring him over his brother: the rift between Winchester and his heir continued for the ensuing three years. Although there is no evidence that he was directly involved in the plots of that year, in July 1683 Winchester had to see the scaffold for his friend Lord Russell’s execution erected (perhaps pointedly) outside his residence in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.<sup>69</sup> It was there that Russell’s remains were taken to be sewn back together prior to his interment.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Winchester appears to have retreated from the capital following Russell’s execution, retiring first to Basing and then to his estates in Yorkshire.<sup>71</sup> Within two years he had sold his house in London.<sup>72</sup> The activities of one of his servants, Robert Murray, who was thought to have been involved with the recent conspiracy, soon brought him back into the spotlight, however. Following discussions in council on 9 Oct. Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Winchester the next day to inform him that Murray had been observed lurking about his house in Yorkshire and commanded him to take the wanted man into custody if he should happen upon him. Murray presumably fled as he was later imprisoned at Edinburgh, though it then became apparent that he may have been the victim of mistaken identity. Although Winchester spoke up for his servant, insisting that he had been with him at Basing and Scarborough throughout the summer, he was cautious enough to assure the council that he would not admit him back into his service before he was cleared fully of any suspicion. Winchester’s assurances were welcomed by Jenkins, who informed him that his behaviour in the affair had met with the approbation of both king and the duke of York. Winchester made no effort to hide his pleasure in the response, enthusing that ‘I am better able to bear the burden of my broken health and the solitudes of these cold northern parts, whilst I have the favourable aspects of such friends at court, whose directions I will steadily follow.’<sup>73</sup></p><p>Winchester’s health continued to plague him following the Murray episode. In December 1684 he wrote to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on behalf of William Mason, ‘a physician in charity but a divine in practice and the only one he can trust with safety to his weak health’, requesting that Mason be preferred to a parsonage at either Windsor or Winchester. Winchester stressed that this favour was ‘very essential to preserve his weak health’ wracked as he was by constant fits of the stone. He commended the suit to the agency of his friend Bernard Granville<sup>‡</sup> but there is no indication that Winchester was successful in his efforts on Mason’s behalf.<sup>74</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of James II and the Revolution 1685-1690</em></h2><p>Despite his previous role at the head of the opposition, his association with supposed plotters such as Murray and his friendship with the martyred Russell, Winchester initially appears to have favoured co-operation with the new regime after the death of Charles II. From his Yorkshire seat at Bolton Castle, he wrote to Sunderland on 24 Feb. 1685 assuring him that he was ‘labouring for good members of Parliament and to keep out the bad’ and requested Sunderland’s advice regarding suitable candidates for Hampshire. Although he undertook to withhold his support from his son, Wiltshire, if he should ‘be ungrateful to the king’ and declared that he ‘would not have him stand, because I cannot pass for him, having been some time past a stranger to him’, Wiltshire was ultimately returned for one of the county seats. While Winchester was more than capable of playing Sunderland false on this issue, the extent of his estrangement from his son at that point suggests that Wiltshire acted without his father’s support. By contrast, Winchester expressed himself more than eager to do what he could for Charles Boyle*, styled Lord Clifford (later Baron Clifford of Lanesborough) and Sir John Kaye<sup>‡</sup>, bt., both of whom were returned unopposed for Yorkshire, and to bring his interest to bear in the other boroughs where he claimed some influence: Aldborough, Northallerton, Richmond, Ripon and Thirsk. In return, he hoped he would be excused attendance at the coronation and in Parliament, as his health remained extremely poor.<sup>75</sup> He nominated Bridgwater to officiate on his behalf at the former as the bearer of the cap of maintenance.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Notwithstanding Winchester’s protestations to do all he could in the king’s interest, both Clifford and Kaye were later reckoned opponents of the king’s policies. It also seems likely that it was not long after the king’s accession that Winchester embarked on a correspondence with the prince of Orange, pledging him his support as well. As his distrust of James’s government grew more pronounced, Winchester, according to Burnet and a number of other sources, affected madness, in the manner of Brutus under the Tarquins as it was said, in order to preserve his own security.<sup>77</sup> Winchester’s illness may have been feigned but it seems possible that his ravings were genuine and the result of his excruciating poor health. Whether the insanity was real or not, Winchester’s troubles were ameliorated by a marked improvement in his relations with his heir, though he appears to have remained wary of allowing Lord Wiltshire too much freedom and he rejected Wiltshire’s request to make use of the family seat at Basing. He was also subjected to further trials resulting from his other children’s waywardness. Compelled to complain of one of his daughter’s (Lady Betty’s) ‘unbecoming behaviour’ in the autumn of 1686, Winchester was utterly mortified a few months later when another unmarried daughter, Lady Mary Powlett, gave birth completely unexpectedly, having been taken to London to be cured of an unrelated condition. The affair featured in at least two satirical poems of the day but the identity of the father remained a mystery.<sup>78</sup> Able to seek some solace from the fact that the improved Wiltshire demonstrated himself able to ‘bear a mind suitable to the affront done your family’, Winchester lamented that he was unable to ‘name that ill man and if some reports be true it will be hardly possible ever to name him for two or three if not more are said to have had a finger in the pie.’<sup>79</sup> Lady Mary was handed over to Winchester’s daughter, Lady Bridgwater, and to his agent Cratford, and as punishment for her behaviour, Winchester slashed her annual allowance from £300 to a mere £30 subsistence.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Although Winchester’s relations with his son continued to improve, the prospect of a new parliamentary session, anticipated in the early months of 1687, caused him a degree of anxiety. Eager to emphasize to Wiltshire how he would both ‘have opportunity of doing good’ as well as meeting with ‘temptations to evil’, he was most particularly concerned by one member of Wiltshire’s circle and sought to dissuade his son from continuing the association:</p><blockquote><p>the northern gent your late companion in these parts, has a very ill character among the knowing and honourable people both at London and elsewhere being commonly reputed one of the blades of the town and a cunning gamester, an insinuating and false spy upon men’s manners and weaknesses, making an ill use of your favour and freedom of speech used by those who keep him company. The son of one of the worst enemies the King and the church had in the late ill times, and such a one as you can neither have credit profit or safety by his conversation, and in short an ill man and most unfit for one in your circumstances.<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>It is not known to whom Winchester referred and whatever his concerns about Wiltshire’s associates, despite his earlier pledges of support for the king and cordial entertainment of men in the king’s interest such as Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, by the early months of 1687 Winchester too had fallen under scrutiny. In January he was listed as being opposed to repeal of the Test and in May his attitude to the king’s policies was thought to be doubtful. Even so, he still seemed eager to develop his relations with the court and in the spring he and his brother-in-law, John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, appear to have been in negotiation with Sunderland to procure a match between Lady Betty and (presumably) Sunderland’s heir, Lord Spencer. Rumours of the previous summer had matched Spencer with Winchester’s now disgraced daughter, Lady Mary.<sup>82</sup> When negotiations between the two families foundered once more, Winchester asked Wiltshire to concert matters with his sister Lady Bridgwater to come up with an alternative. He promised that a suitable portion would be forthcoming, though its size would be dependent on the quality of the match.<sup>83</sup> Although there was to be no alliance between the Spencers and Powletts on this occasion, Winchester was later said to have been persuaded to speak up for Sunderland when the disgraced minister first returned to England from exile after the Revolution.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Winchester was incapacitated once again during the summer, this time as a result of injuries sustained in a riding accident.<sup>85</sup> Although a further assessment of November 1687 suggested that he was still undeclared as regarded repeal of the Test and a report of December suggested that he was again angling for favour at court by entertaining George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, at his seat, another of January 1688 suggested once more that he was opposed to repeal.<sup>86</sup> The same month it was reported that he had been removed from his post of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Somerset but this was a mistake as he was not the holder of the office.<sup>87</sup> It is not clear how this confusion arose, though Winchester did command some interest in the county.</p><p>Winchester’s activities (and whereabouts) at the time of the Revolution are uncertain but it seems clear that he played a double game throughout 1688. In April his heir, Wiltshire, and younger son, Lord William, crossed to Holland to join William of Orange’s forces armed with letters of introduction from their father.<sup>88</sup> Plans for such a trip appear to have been afoot since the summer of the previous year.<sup>89</sup> Winchester himself was engaged in a fairly regular correspondence with the prince through the medium of his nephew, Emmanuel Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, an officer in the Anglo-Dutch brigade.<sup>90</sup> Although orders were given to the lieutenant of Yorkshire to seize Wiltshire’s horses in September 1688, the following month, Winchester, in common with a number of other peers, offered his service to James and in November the king recognized ‘his loyalty and faithful services’ by ordering that none of his horses should be impressed by the army nor should his estates be used for billeting troops.<sup>91</sup> Winchester seems to have repaid the king with inactivity. He does not appear to have made any effort to safeguard the king’s interests in Hampshire or Yorkshire during the Revolution, but, curiously given his close contact with the prince prior to the Revolution, neither does he seem to have roused himself on the prince’s part. He failed to attend the deliberations of the provisional government and was not among those peers specifically summoned by William of Orange in December.<sup>92</sup></p><p>By January 1689, though, he had returned to London and, having taken his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan., he attended almost 80 per cent of all sitting days, taking a prominent lead in supporting the declaration of the prince and princess as king and queen. On the opening day of the Convention he was named to the committee appointed to draw up an address of thanks to the prince and the following day he was named to the sub-committee for the Journal, though he was not nominated to the other standing committees. By now strongly in favour of supporting the new state of affairs, on 31 Jan. in a division held in committee of the whole House Winchester voted in favour of inserting the words declaring the prince and princess king and queen and the same day he entered his dissent at the resolution not to employ the phrase ‘the throne is thereby vacant’. On 4 Feb. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference to draw up reasons why the Lords refused to concur with the Commons on the question of James’s abdication (the request for which had been brought up by Wiltshire) and the same day he voted to support the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’, again entering his dissent at the failure to pass the motion. The following day he was again nominated a manager of a further conference on the same theme and on 6 Feb., having declared to the House that, ‘this 6th day of February would with grief be remembered for the mischief they themselves brought upon this church and state when they proclaimed James II king of England four years since’, he recommended to the House William and Mary’s proclamation and once more voted in favour of employing the terms ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is vacant’.<sup>93</sup> On 8 Feb. 1689 Winchester was named one of the managers of the conference considering the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen, after which he reported that the Commons had accepted most of the Lords’ proposed amendments. Perhaps more significantly, he then presented the House with the latest draft of the declaration of rights, which it was decided should be debated the following day.<sup>94</sup> Also on 9 Feb., he was named one of the committee to draw up reasons to be offered at a subsequent conference ‘to fortify’ the amendments. The following month, Winchester lent his support to the comprehension bill, though he was reported to be ‘unconcerned for the bill of indulgence, for that would but nourish and cherish snakes and vipers in the bosom of the church.’<sup>95</sup> On 6 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for better regulating the trials of peers. On 15 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole for the act for abrogating the former oaths of allegiance and supremacy, communicating the committee’s recommendation that a select committee be established to draft additional clauses for the act. He was duly nominated one of the members of the new committee and on 28 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the bill for removing papists. On 5 Apr. he subscribed a further protest at the rejection of an amendment that would have included lay members within the proposed commission for revising the liturgy and canons of the Church of England.</p><p>Despite his relative obscurity during the Revolution, Winchester’s subsequent unequivocal support for William of Orange earned his family swift preferment. Wiltshire was made lord chamberlain to the queen. Lord William Powlett was married to Louisa Caumont de la Force, daughter of the marquis de Mompouillon and the king’s cousin german, though negotiations for this marriage had in fact been in train since at least April 1688.<sup>96</sup> Winchester himself was reappointed both to the office of <em>custos rotulorum </em>and to the lord lieutenancy of Hampshire in March 1689.<sup>97</sup> According to Halifax, he also hoped to be appointed to the treasury commission.<sup>98</sup> The position in the treasury proved unforthcoming but the following month he was one of a number of individuals to be awarded new honours when he was promoted in the peerage as duke of Bolton. Constantijn Huygens had reported earlier that the title was to have been Chester but this was presumably discounted fairly early on and the title of Bolton suitably reflected the new duke’s commanding northern interests.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Bolton was introduced in his new dignity between Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, on 9 April. Later that month, on 27 Apr. he reported from the committee for the bill making it treason to correspond with the former king. Absent from the House for the following three days, he ensured that his proxy was registered with John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, on 27 Apr. which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 1 May. On 8 May he was nominated a manager of the conference concerning the bill for the more speedy and effectual conviction of papists and on 17 May he in turn received Lovelace’s proxy (which was vacated on 6 June). Absent at a call of the House on 22 May, Bolton resumed his seat the following day and on 31 May he voted in favour of reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. On 7 June, in company with his old enemy Carmarthen (as Danby had since become) Bolton introduced Frederick Schomberg*, as duke of Schomberg. A fortnight later, on 20 June, Bolton attempted to report the result of a conference held concerning the bill for enabling commissioners of the great seal, but was unable to do so because the papers were found to be defective. The following day the sense of the conference was reported back to the House by Lawrence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. Bolton subscribed the protest at the resolution not to overturn the reversal of the judgment in <em>Barnardiston v. Soames</em> on 25 June 1689. On 10 July he registered his dissent at all the resolutions passed relating to the quashing of Oates’ perjury conviction. Two days later he was again nominated a manager of the conference concerning the succession bill, from which he reported back later the same day.</p><p>Bolton registered his proxy with Lovelace again on 15 July, which was vacated when he returned to the House on 24 July. The following day (25 July) he received Bridgwater’s proxy, which was vacated when Bridgwater resumed his seat on 2 August. On 26 July he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for reversing the judgments against Oates. Four days later, he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill and subscribed the protest when the resolution to adhere was carried. During his absence from the House Bolton had again been nominated one of the managers to oversee a second conference on the succession bill, which he presumably failed to attend, but he was nominated one of the managers for a further conference on the same business on 31 July.<sup>100</sup> The following month Bolton assumed the chairmanship of the committee considering the bill for the exportation of wool. The previous chairman, Rochester, had vacated the chair mid-session, scrupling whether it was correct to vote on agreeing to the penultimate clause of the bill before the first sections had been considered. Rochester had also been unhappy to continue the committee at a time that the House was in session, messages having been sent to the members for them to resume their seats. Bolton clearly had no such scruples and, having steered the business through, reported the bill as fit to pass on 15 August.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Bolton departed London for the New Forest later that month to oversee the settling of the militia in Hampshire.<sup>102</sup> He attempted again to assert his influence in the area on behalf of a kinsman, Colonel St John, and Sir Charles Raleigh<sup>‡</sup>, who he hoped would be appointed joint sub-commissioners for prizes in Hampshire, though in the latter case he was informed that the king had already appointed Mr Patten to the position. Bolton also employed his interest on behalf of the captain and lieutenant of the <em>Pearl</em>, recommending them for their gallantry in defending his son, Wiltshire, one of the passengers on board the ship when it came under attack from French privateers during its passage from Holland.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Despite being seriously injured from a fall while riding in the New Forest in September 1689, Bolton assured the undersecretary, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, that he hoped to be in London in advance of the new session that commenced on 15 March. In the meantime he attempted to continue his duties from his sickbed. Prior to his accident he had been faced with the unveiled hostility of the dean and chapter of Winchester cathedral, who had refused him permission to make use of the deanery to entertain the deputy lieutenants on account, so he was informed, of his earlier complaint to the House of their refusal to pray for the king and queen during cathedral services.<sup>104</sup> Their disgruntlement presumably related to information provided to the House on 8 Mar. 1689 about ministers within the dioceses of Norwich and Winchester, who had failed to offer prayers specifically for King William and Queen Mary. Bolton also found himself under investigation about the management of his regiment. He explained to Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, that while he was ready enough to quit his own interest, several of the senior officers of the regiment ‘would lay down their commissions with the rest of the officers, if I should do so.’<sup>105</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat at the opening of the second session of the Convention on 19 Oct. 1689. In a list prepared by Carmarthen between October 1689 and February 1690 he was said to be among the supporters of the court. In November 1689 he was said to have stood bail for an unidentified peer, possibly Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, who had been committed to the Tower at the beginning of November for his role in Jacobite plotting.<sup>106</sup> Bolton’s apparent readiness to assist a political opposite was far from unique: Lovelace had also offered to stand bail for Griffin, though in the event sureties seem to have been provided by Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> and the elderly Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge [I].<sup>107</sup> Pride of caste and resentment at the treatment Griffin was receiving as a fellow peer may explain Lovelace and Bolton’s actions. On 2 Nov. in partnership with Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough) and Ralph Montagu*, earl of Montagu (later duke of Montagu) Bolton pushed for the appointment of a committee to investigate the prosecutors of his late friend, Lord Russell, and on 8 Nov. he was granted leave to bring in a mutiny bill.<sup>108</sup> On 12 Nov. he reported from the committees appointed to consider the bill to reverse Thomas Walcott’s attainder and the bill for naturalizing William Watts, both which were recommended as fit to pass without amendment. The same day the House committed the mutiny bill and on 13 Nov. Bolton reported back from the committee considering the measure, relaying a number of amendments, which were accepted, following which the bill was ordered to be engrossed.</p><p>On 14 Nov. Bolton was one of three peers deputed to wait on the king with the address for William Petyt, keeper of the records of the Tower, to be awarded a salary suitable for the position. During the debates in the House on the addition of a clause to the Bill of Rights, requiring monarchs to take an oath on their succession, Bolton spoke warmly in favour of the Triennial Act, which he emphasized, was:</p><blockquote><p>the best for that purpose that could be made by mortal man, and the names and memory of those gentlemen that made it in their times would be by our wise posterity mentioned with as great honour as the powers of Magna Carta.<sup>109</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bolton almost came to blows with Halifax during a hearing before the committee investigating those responsible for the prosecutions of Russell and the other victims of the 1683 trials, claiming that the marquess had been ‘concerned in all the villainies of those times.’ Denying the charge, Halifax shook Bolton’s shoulder and told him that, ‘he could play the madman as often as he saw fit, and so he did now’ at which Bolton made to draw his sword, forcing members of the committee to intervene and restrain the two men.<sup>110</sup> Despite this early evidence of bad blood between them, the evidence heard by the committee eventually compelled Bolton to concede Halifax’s innocence in the deaths of Russell and the other ‘martyrs’.<sup>111</sup></p><p>On 23 Nov. Bolton received the proxy of Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, which was vacated when Lincoln resumed his seat four days later, presumably to coincide with the vote held that day on the addition of a rider to the Bill of Rights preventing the crown from granting pardons to those under impeachment. Intent on pushing for the adoption of safeguards against overweening monarchs, Bolton had introduced the rider in association with William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire. Having been read three times it was put to the question but, following some confusion, it was rejected by 50 votes to 17, following which Bolton and another 11 peers subscribed a protest complaining against this ‘failure of justice’.<sup>112</sup> Two days later Bolton was shaken (briefly) from such preoccupations by the news of the death of his daughter, Lady Elizabeth (Betty) Powlett, which prompted him to leave town for a week to mourn. He returned to the House on 2 Dec. and on 5 Dec. played host to a meeting to consider how the king might best set out to borrow the money he required for his imminent campaign.<sup>113</sup> The next day he was again entrusted with Lincoln’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. Ten days later (16 Dec.) Bolton reported from the committee for John Rogerson’s naturalization bill and on 23 Jan. 1690 he subscribed the protest at the resolution to remove the first enacting clause from the corporations bill.</p><h2><em>The early years of William and Mary 1690-95</em></h2><p>It is indicative of Bolton’s prominence at this time that Carmarthen seems to have considered offering him the privy seal in succession to Halifax after it was refused by Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. By doing so Carmarthen may well have hoped to disarm someone who he recognized as one of his most vocal critics. According to Halifax, Bolton refused the offer objecting that he would ‘have nobody’s place.’<sup>114</sup> Whether the position was ever formally proffered, the place remained in commission for the following two years. Alongside of his responsibilities in Parliament, Bolton maintained a close watch on events in his lieutenancy and that month passed a letter on to Shrewsbury, ‘which complains of the liberty, taken by some in Hampshire, to vilify the government, and the indifference displayed to discountenance such practices.’ In January 1690 having received information that the former secretary of state for Scotland, Alexander Stewart, 5th earl of Moray [S], was hiding in a house in Hampshire, he arranged for the wanted man to be conveyed to London and for his horses to be ‘secured for his majesty’s use.’<sup>115</sup> Active in promoting his family’s interest in Hampshire in the elections that spring, Bolton was successful in securing the return of his son, Winchester, and Richard Norton for the county, while his kinsman, Francis Powlett<sup>‡</sup>, was re-elected at Andover (which he had represented for the past 20 years). Bolton’s younger son, Lord William Powlett, was also returned on the family interest for the city of Winchester but Bolton was unable to bring his influence to bear effectively at St Ives, where his nominee, John Hawles<sup>‡</sup>, was defeated by two local candidates.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and was early on one of the foremost speakers in the session’s debates.<sup>117</sup> On 26 Mar. he introduced the recognition bill, declaring William and Mary to be rightful and lawful monarchs.<sup>118</sup> The following day he reported from the committee for the bill to naturalize David Le Grand. While it is unlikely that Bolton was acting alone in proposing the recognition bill, the measure provoked a storm of protest. It proved quite as unpopular with the court (which was reluctant to provoke further controversy over William and Mary’s title) as it was with the Tories and, although it was subsequently agreed to commit it two days later, it was only done so on the understanding that it would be revised substantially.<sup>119</sup> On 5 Apr. Bolton subscribed the protest at the resolution to adopt the committee’s amendments to the bill. On 7 Apr. he was nominated to a sub-committee to draw up a clause recognizing the new king and queen as in the Bill of Rights, from which he reported later that day. The bill finally secured the royal assent a week later on 14 April.<sup>120</sup> Bolton received Lovelace’s proxy again on 7 May and Lincoln’s on 12 May, both of which were vacated the following day. He was nominated one of the managers of the conference considering the bill for making the queen regent in the king’s absence on 12 May and, the following day, both he and Lovelace subscribed the protest at the resolution not to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel during the discussions of the corporation of London bill. On 19 May he complained to the House of a breach of his privilege following the impressment of one of his servants into the navy: the offending officer and press-master were summoned to appear to explain their actions.</p><p>Bolton was unsuccessful in his efforts to secure the lord lieutenancy of Somerset for his heir in July 1690.<sup>121</sup> The incumbent, Fitzhardinge, was actively seeking to rid himself of the responsibility that summer but in the event the office went to Ormond following Fitzhardinge’s death the following year.<sup>122</sup> The same month (July) Bolton presented ‘a long scrawl of paper’ to the queen on behalf of some 3,000 mariners complaining at the conduct of a number of captains in naval service: according to Roger Morrice, on presenting the address Bolton ‘told her in drollery he had brought her a child.’<sup>123</sup> The same month, during the proceedings in council considering the Montgomery plot, he refused to sign the warrant committing William Ross, 12th Lord Ross [S], to the Tower for his involvement in the conspiracy. Communicating the matter to the king, Queen Mary described how Bolton had queried in peremptory fashion advice given to the council by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, that Ross should be imprisoned. He then ‘hindered Lord Devon by a whisper and his son by a nod; Lord Montagu would not sign it either.’<sup>124</sup> Carmarthen attributed their reluctance to put their names to the paper to being among Montgomery’s confederates. This was almost certainly mischievous nonsense, though Bolton may have been experiencing a distinct loss of nerve about the course of the Revolution in the aftermath of the Boyne.<sup>125</sup> Even so, it seems more likely that Bolton may have objected to a fellow peer (albeit a Scots one) being treated in this manner. Bolton was to the fore again on 23 July, when the lords of the admiralty came before the council. Again working in combination with Devonshire Bolton pressed for Admiral Henry Killigrew<sup>‡</sup> to be questioned about his conduct in not destroying the Toulon squadron and accused Killigrew of ‘neglect or worse’, though Nottingham considered the charge ‘unreasonable’.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Bolton acted as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 28 July and again on 18 August. He remained in London in September and took his seat at the opening of the new session on 2 Oct. 1690, when he was nominated one of the select committee appointed to draw up an address of thanks to the king for the Irish campaign.<sup>127</sup> Thereafter, he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days. Later in October he was granted a warrant for raising 400 volunteers for his regiment under the command of Colonel Holt to be based at Southwark.<sup>128</sup> Nominated to the committee to draw up an address to the queen on 6 Oct., Bolton reported back from the committee the following day but, having considered the address, the House recommitted it and it was then reported once again with amendments by Halifax later the same day. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment that he ‘may be easily frighted to comply in a matter where the king’s principal prerogative is so much concerned’.<sup>129</sup> On 30 Oct. he subscribed one protest against the decision to discharge Salisbury and Peterborough from their bail, and another at the passage of the bill for clarifying the powers of the admiralty commissioners. The latter represented the culmination of a vigorous effort launched by Monmouth and Bolton to bring down Carmarthen.<sup>130</sup> On 2 Dec. Bolton was one of eight peers to be nominated to draw up an order for vacating and annulling all written protections. Despite having previously insisted on his privilege with regard to his own servants, on 27 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to allow written protections to be given to menial servants. Bolton was named one of the managers of the three conferences held on 5 Jan. 1691 concerning the bill for the suspension of the navigation and corn acts, reporting back on two occasions the Lords’ insistence on keeping one of the proposed provisos within the bill.<sup>131</sup> The same month he and Carmarthen were forced to co-operate in investigating a Jacobite plot, though it seems likely that the two men were deliberately chosen so that each could keep watch on the other.<sup>132</sup> Bolton did not allow such matters to prevent him from continuing to develop his own interests and the same month he petitioned for a lease of the forest of Knaresborough, which was referred to the treasury for further consideration.<sup>133</sup> Following the session’s end, local concerns again predominated as he complained on 16 Mar. to Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> about the state of the militia in Hampshire.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Bolton returned to the House for the following session on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days. Early in the session he was identified as one of the instigators of ‘a foolish plot… to blacken Lord Nottingham’ over the revelation of Nottingham’s supposedly treacherous correspondence with Admiral Sir Ralph Delaval<sup>‡</sup>, ‘but all was madness or knavery’.<sup>135</sup> Undeterred, Bolton continued to shoulder the burden of a sizeable proportion of the House’s business. On 17 Nov. he was named a manager of the conference considering matters relating to the safety of the kingdom, from which he reported the same day, and from the subsequent conference on the same matter held two days later. On 1 and 10 Dec. he reported back from the conferences to consider amendments made by the Lords to the bill for abrogating oaths in Ireland and on 17 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the treason bill.<sup>136</sup> He reported back from a subsequent conference on the same matter on 29 December. In January 1692 he suffered the embarrassment of the loss of his London residence when Berkeley House, which he was renting, was burnt to the ground.<sup>137</sup> The following month he secured an apology from Sergeant Ryley for serving an order of council on him, although the House deemed Ryley’s actions not to be strictly in breach of privilege, merely ill mannered. Named one of the managers of the conference for the public accounts’ bill on 1 Feb., Bolton reported back from the conference the same day and on 2 Feb. he entered his dissent at the House’s resolution not to concur with the Commons’ reasons against the Lords’ amendments to the bill. On 16 Feb. he registered his dissent at the decision not to allow proxies to be used during the division on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and subscribed the subsequent protest on the same matter.<sup>138</sup></p><p>Bolton was, unsurprisingly, one of those excepted out of the former king’s pardon of May 1692 (under the title Winchester).<sup>139</sup> He may not have been in much better grace at home. In common with several others he proved unwilling to make a declaration relating to his obligations in providing for the local militia horse in Lincolnshire.<sup>140</sup> At about the same time problems within Bolton’s regiment appear to have led to Sir Francis Wheeler’s recommendation to Nottingham that one of the officers, Major Nott, be removed as Bolton had ‘used him very unkindly.’ The root of the problem (according to Wheeler) appears to have been Bolton’s position as an absentee colonel not serving with his regiment. Wheeler went on to complain how ‘great inconvenience arises when colonels stay at home while their regiments are abroad, because they have an influence upon the pay, which often as in that regiment, proves hard to the officers and soldiers.’<sup>141</sup> Despite this, Bolton retained command of the unit for a further six years.</p><p>Bolton returned to the House for the following session on 10 Nov. 1692 but attended on just eight days before retreating for the remainder of the session. Noted sick at a call on 21 Nov. and granted leave to go into the country two days later, poor health was presumably the reason for his failure to attend any further sittings. In spite of this, he was rumoured to be on the point of succeeding Sir Robert Holmes<sup>‡</sup> as governor of the Isle of Wight.<sup>142</sup> The appointment failed to transpire and in April 1693 he was still complaining of his infirmities in his correspondence with Bridgwater.<sup>143</sup></p><p>If the loss of his London residence had not been mortifying enough, in August Bolton suffered the shock and embarrassment of being attacked in his own home by Roger Mompesson<sup>‡</sup> (subsequently recorder and Member for Southampton). Bolton was stabbed in the course of the ensuing scuffle. The reason for the assault is uncertain, though given Mompesson’s later interest in Hampshire it seems likely that it may have been the result of a local disagreement. The following month, Mompesson apologized for his action in return for which he was admitted to bail. Although Bolton complained to the Privy Council about the assault and insisted on satisfaction, following a hearing on 12 Oct. it was determined that Bolton should pursue the matter at law, which seems not to have been done.<sup>144</sup></p><p>Neither such incidents nor his declining health diminished Bolton’s interest in local politics. Stanley Garway, one of the local worthies at Stockbridge, recommended addressing Bolton that autumn in advance of the by-election there occasioned by the death of one of the sitting members, ‘not to make much use of him but rather to take him off that he shall not hinder by introducing somebody else’. Bolton, it was thought, had ‘no manner of kindness’ for one of the candidates, Anthony Rowe<sup>‡</sup>, but it was Rowe who carried the election against the only other challenger, Henry Dawley. The election was later voided by the Commons.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Bolton returned to the House for the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 but he made it plain to Bridgwater how onerous he found his continued service in Parliament, informing him, ‘I have only time to tell you that I should take no pleasure nor satisfaction in my being here, did I not think it would be for the nation’s good.’<sup>146</sup> It was perhaps out of sympathy to another peer reluctant to make the journey to London that he spoke the following month on behalf of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, excusing his inability to attend the House.<sup>147</sup> In spite of his griping, Bolton remained active in the House’s business. On 3 Jan. 1694 he was named one of the managers of the conference investigating the admirals in command of the fleet the previous summer, reporting back later the same day, and on 5 Jan. he was nominated a manager of the conference concerning free proceedings in Parliament. Bolton added his name to the protest of 10 Jan. 1694 against the resolution complimenting the admirals and on 15 Jan. he was again nominated a manager of a conference examining their conduct, reporting the effect of the conference the same day. On 8 and 12 Feb. he was named one of the managers of two conferences concerning the sailing of the Brest fleet (reporting back from the first).On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. On 29 Mar., Bolton agreed to waive his privilege so that progress should be made in a case brought against him by the creditors of Sir Christopher<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Wray<sup>‡</sup>. On 5 Apr. he received the proxy of John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, which was vacated by the close of the session, and the same day he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell.</p><p>In the summer of 1694 Bolton was one of several grandees to attempt to intervene on behalf of one John Parr, who had been convicted at the Reading assizes of highway robbery. In spite of such high profile support Parr was unable to sway the judge, who maintained his opinion that Parr was ‘not a fit object for mercy’. Bolton’s efforts on behalf of a soldier in his regiment, condemned by court martial at Carlisle, met with greater success.<sup>148</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat eight days into the following session on 20 Nov. 1694, after which he was present on almost 83 per cent of all sitting days. His attendance of the session was interspersed with concentration on both local and personal matters. In November he wrote to his sons, Winchester and Lord William Powlett, to secure the writ for yet another election for the troubled borough of Stockbridge, which had narrowly avoided being disfranchised earlier in the year.<sup>149</sup> Following the debacle of the previous year’s election, the majority of those possessing interest in the borough appear to have coalesced around the candidature of George Pitt<sup>‡</sup>, who was accordingly returned without contest.<sup>150</sup> In December Bolton was again involved in a legal dispute dating from the previous summer, this time with Bernard Granville over the will of Andrew Riccards.<sup>151</sup> Back in the chamber, on 8 Dec. Bolton introduced his old friend Russell’s father, William Russell*, as duke of Bedford, and on 28 Dec. he reported from the committee for the drawing up of an address on the queen’s death. On 19 Jan. 1695 he joined with Devonshire and six other peers in subscribing the protest at the resolution not to engross the bill making wilful perjury a felony in certain cases, pointing out that ‘it has appeared by too many instances, not only in former times, but also very lately, how great need there is, of such a bill as this, to deter men from those pernicious crimes of perjury and subornation.’</p><p>From February to April Bolton was nominated a manager of four conferences concerning the treason trials bill (reporting the conference’s findings on 15 and 20 Apr.) and on 13 and 17 Apr. he was also nominated one of the managers of the conferences for the bill obliging Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> to account for money received out of the treasure of the East India Company. Bolton had previously brought to the Lords’ attention the suspicions that Russell, one of the servants of John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby, later duke of Buckingham, had accepted substantial bribes for furthering business in the House.<sup>152</sup> The same month Bolton joined with a number of senior citizens of Winchester in petitioning on behalf of another highwayman, Richard Purdue, appealing for his sentence to be commuted to transportation as an acknowledgement of the loyal service of Purdue’s father, an alderman of the city. Purdue was duly pardoned the following month.<sup>153</sup></p><p>Towards the end of the session, Bolton’s health again took a turn for the worse, forcing him to retreat to Hampton Court. In a letter to Bridgwater of 28 Apr. he complained how ‘the very wet day yesterday has increased my cough and I am so weak I cannot ride if the weather were fit to ride in.’ Poor health did not diminish his concern in parliamentary business, though, and he continued to ‘desire your lordship will send me word by the bearer what you do tomorrow. Pray take care to get the bill passed for encouragement of privateers sent up by the House of Commons, it being of great public good for security of the clothing trade, so consequently of my lead, and none but the commissioners of the prizes are against it, who eat up all the king’s profit, which this act give him.’<sup>154</sup> Two days later he wrote to Bridgwater again. He insisted that he remained very sick and how, ‘I have much ado to subsist here and I am sure were I in London (my cough is so great) I could not live’. He again requested that Bridgwater would use his interest to see the privateer bill safely through and once more asked to be advised of other business being considered. Still unwell the following month, Bolton wrote to Bridgwater once more asking him to relay his excuses to the king should he not be well enough to attend the prorogation and (in that event) to carry the cap of maintenance for him.<sup>155</sup></p><h2><em>Last years, 1695-8</em></h2><p>Bolton was in Hampshire during the elections that autumn but he expressed his satisfaction at the return of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Yorke<sup>‡</sup> for Richmond.<sup>156</sup> He had rallied from his indisposition sufficiently to make his way back to London shortly after the opening of the new Parliament and returned to the House on 10 Dec. 1695, after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. Matters relating to trade and the right to membership of Parliament appear to have dominated Bolton’s attention during the early stages of the session. On 14 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the address opposing the establishment of the Darien Company and on 7 and 11 Jan. 1696 he was named one of the managers of the two conferences appointed to consider the bill for regulating the silver coinage. On 17 Jan. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to allow the counsel of Sir Richard Verney*, (later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke) to be heard at the bar concerning Verney’s petition for a writ of summons. The same month he composed a clause to be added to the act to prevent false and double returns of members of Parliament.<sup>157</sup> On 24 Feb. Bolton was nominated one of the managers of the conferences concerning the assassination plot. A month later he had returned to more familiar territory with nomination to the conference relating to the privateers bill on 6 April. On 7 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to hear counsel the following day over the restraining of the wearing of wrought silks and calicoes. The same month he spoke in committee of the whole House concerning the bill for the security of the king’s person in answer to the calls for moderation voiced by Rochester, Normanby and Nottingham.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Absent at the opening of the second session on 20 Oct. 1696, Bolton was still missing a month later and failed to attend at a call of the House on 23 November. The House ordered that he should be attached if he failed to appear by the following Thursday, ignoring his letter asking to be excused.<sup>159</sup> He took his seat accordingly on 25 Nov. after which he was present on just under 73 per cent of all sitting days. On 30 Nov. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the waiving and resuming of privilege and on 20 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the bill for remedying the ill state of the kingdom’s coinage. Bolton’s initial unwillingness to attend may have been connected with his reputed wavering over the question of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, bt. but by 26 Nov. Vernon was able to inform Shrewsbury that ‘Mr Brydges tells me he has fixed the Duke of Bolton.’<sup>160</sup> By the following month Bolton had become firmly reconciled to seeing Fenwick attainted. On 18 Dec. he seconded the motion proposed by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, that the bill of attainder should be read a second time, ‘and withall seemed to insinuate that nobody could be for the government and against the bill’.<sup>161</sup> Vernon noted him as one of the foremost managers of the case for passing the bill and on 23 Dec. he duly voted in favour of the third reading of the attainder bill.<sup>162</sup></p><p>Following the Fenwick attainder, when Monmouth became the Lords’ next focus of attack, Bolton rallied to the defence of his old associate. He made his London residence available as the venue for a meeting held in January 1697 in advance of the proceedings against Monmouth, ‘to consider how they might mitigate his censure, if they could not bring him off’. During the debates, Vernon noted that ‘the duke of Bolton, Lord Montagu and Lord Oxford’s [Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford] memories agreed better with my Lord Monmouth’s sense of it, than either the duke of Leeds’, Lord Rochester’s, or Lord Nottingham’s.’ Bolton allowed that there had been ‘a good deal of indiscretion in his [Monmouth’s] conduct that deserved the censure of the House’ but he insisted that Monmouth should expect no more than that. For all his efforts, in the end Bolton was one of only 10 peers to conclude in Monmouth’s favour and the earl was accordingly committed to the Tower.<sup>163</sup></p><p>Bolton registered his proxy with Bridgwater on 6 Feb. 1697, which was vacated when he returned to the House on 23 February. On 5 Mar. he was named one of the managers of a conference for the bill for prohibiting India silks and on 8 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole for the bill for encouraging the bringing in of wrought plate to be coined. On 13 Mar. 1697 he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and on 17 Mar. Bolton was named to the committee for investigating the actions of the Toulon fleet. The following day he received the proxy of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick (and 3rd earl of Holland), which was vacated two days later when Warwick resumed his seat. Bolton reported from the committee of the whole considering the mutiny bill on 20 March. Toward the end of the month, Bolton’s attention was again taken up with personal matters. He complained that John Salisbury, printer of the <em>Flying Post</em>, had published scandalous remarks about him suggesting that he had obtained a grant from the king worth £20,000 of dotard trees in Needwood Forest, for which aspersions Salisbury was summoned to answer at the bar.<sup>164</sup> New Forest affairs continued to concern Bolton over the summer when he was forced to appeal to Wharton for his assistance over an order from the navy to fell a thousand trees.<sup>165</sup></p><p>Bolton’s relations with his heir took a turn for the worse again that autumn following Winchester’s (third) marriage to Henrietta Crofts, the illegitimate daughter of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. A newsletter recounting Bolton’s opposition to the match reckoned that Lord William Powlett would be the great beneficiary of his brother’s latest indiscretion.<sup>166</sup> It would seem that the king interposed himself on Winchester’s behalf, though, for at the end of October Bolton wrote to Winchester to assure him that, ‘I freely forgive you as the king has commanded me’ and to hope that, ‘your actions will for the future deserve my favour and approbation, which I shall be very willing to have reason to show.’ Bolton may have been the more ready to mend relations with his son as he found himself under increasing scrutiny over affairs in the New Forest, attributing the pressure exerted on him in the area to the malice of Lord Montagu (presumably Ralph, earl of Montagu). The following month, he emphasized the effort he was making to secure Winchester’s return for the county at the forthcoming election. Although the rival candidate, Thomas Jervoise, was said to have ‘gotten all the parsons on his side’ Bolton was confident that he had ‘so much interest’ with Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, ‘that I doubt not but to prevail with his lordship to get the clergy to your interest.’<sup>167</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat 10 days into the third session on 13 Dec. 1697, after which he was present on 63 per cent of all days. On 10 Jan. 1698 he was appointed one of the managers of the conference concerning the act preventing correspondence with the former king and his adherents, from which he reported back the same day. Three days later he was also nominated a manager of the conference for the act for continuing the imprisonment of those involved in the recent Assassination Plot. Bolton introduced the divorce bill of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, in January.<sup>168</sup> The same month he was noted as one of four peers, who, it was expected, ‘would be troubling the waters’ during the session.<sup>169</sup> One of the matters about which Bolton was particularly concerned was the action brought against Charles Duncombe.<sup>‡<sup>170</sup></sup> On 3 Mar. he brought a printed exposition of Duncombe’s case into the House and proceeded to distribute copies among the peers in an effort to minimize the severity of treatment meted out to him.<sup>171</sup> The following day he registered his dissent at the resolution to proceed with the second reading of the bill for punishing Duncombe. According to Duncombe’s chief tormentor, Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, Duncombe had been ‘the cement that kept Peterborough, Bolton, Seymour [Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt.] and the rest united. He was the Iago of the whole villainy, and nothing can keep them together, but such a busy temper.’<sup>172</sup> Bolton may have come into contact with Duncombe at first through his association with Peterborough. In spite of Montagu’s assurance that Duncombe’s fall would leave the remaining rump disunited, Duncombe’s case was hard fought in the Lords. Having been nominated a manager of the conferences concerning the bill to punish Duncombe on 7 and 11 Mar., Bolton defied his usual party loyalties by joining with Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become), Rochester and Nottingham in speaking against the measure and on 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill, which was duly thrown out by one vote.<sup>173</sup> Bolton received Leigh’s proxy again on 11 Apr. (which was vacated by the close of the session) and a month later he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning amendments to the Colchester workhouses act. Bolton’s own interests as warden of the New Forest caused him to oppose aspects of the bill for preserving timber in the forest in May, during which his counsel was heard in the committee considering the measure.<sup>174</sup> The same month the House appointed a committee to enquire into abuses in the forest, presumably a tacit criticism of Bolton’s stewardship.<sup>175</sup></p><p>Bolton’s erratic behaviour increasingly became the subject of comment during the year. At the beginning of May, during the brinkmanship over Sunderland’s expected return to government, Ben Overton<sup>‡</sup> expressed his alarm to Winchester writing how:</p><blockquote><p>I pity the poor duke of B: for your lordship’s sake for he has really contrived that matter so as to be the last man in the nation (on all sides) though he is one of the first. Even those who profit themselves of his mistakes expose him and they do not value him who have him, because they are not sure to have him half an hour.<sup>176</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bolton was unsuccessful in supporting the bill against the suspected fraudster, John Knight<sup>‡</sup>, being one of only five peers and bishops to support the measure when it came before the House in May 1698.<sup>177</sup> The same month, he joined with James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, and Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, in promoting an address to the king asking that he press for better treatment of French protestants, but the motion met with spirited opposition and was rejected.<sup>178</sup> Absent from the session after 1 June, Bolton registered his proxy with Bridgwater again ten days later.</p><p>Despite Bolton’s former insistence that he had placed his interest at the disposal of his heir at the election for Hampshire that summer, and although he had written confidently in April both that he believed he had secured the seat for Winchester and that Lady Russell and Mrs Wallop had each promised ‘their first voices for you’, both county seats went to rival Whig candidates. Moreover, in May Thomas Cobbe, one of Bolton’s agents, cast doubt on the strength of Bolton’s commitment to his son, reporting in a letter to Winchester that he would have been in touch sooner, ‘had I been able to have given you any satisfactory account relating to your affairs here, which as Sir Robert Worsley<sup>‡</sup> tells is very much impeded by my lord duke.’ In spite of his earlier protestations, Bolton appears to have concentrated on having Richard Norton returned to the detriment of his son and his subsequent determination ‘to retrieve’ the situation by having the election of Thomas Jervoise overturned on account of bribery was unsuccessful.<sup>179</sup> Bolton’s younger son, Lord William Powlett, fared better, being returned again unopposed for Winchester.</p><p>Divisions over the administration of the New Forest continued to dominate Bolton’s affairs in the autumn of 1698. In spite of an opportunity to ‘accommodate all differences’ one observer thought matters would go otherwise and warned Winchester that the duke’s ‘privy counsellors will not rather make him make the breach wider.’<sup>180</sup> Despite this, Bolton appears to have resolved to put aside his differences with his heir to warn him of the commission named by the House to examine the abuses in the Forest and particularly of complaints that had been made by one of the local agents about the poor state of the stables and lodge at Lyndhurst.<sup>181</sup> Revelations of further Jacobite plotting also appear to have exercised Bolton following information provided by one Paul Robinson against his former master, George Higgons, who had been secured along with a number of other suspects earlier in the month.<sup>182</sup> Reporting the affair to Shrewsbury, Vernon expressed his confidence that the council would be eager to get to the bottom of the affair, ‘for it is pretty well known how glad the duke of Bolton is when he hears anything against the Higgons[es].’<sup>183</sup> It soon emerged, however, that Robinson’s testimony was false and by the end of November he had pleaded guilty to charges of perjury.<sup>184</sup></p><p>By this time, Bolton was once more prey to poor health and in November 1698 Charles Hatton mistakenly reported the news of his death.<sup>185</sup> Complaining of pains in his side, Bolton was too unwell to attend the opening weeks of the new Parliament. He was expected in London by the close of the year and he rallied sufficiently to take his seat in the House following the Christmas holiday on 17 Jan. 1699, though in all he was only able to attend 14 days of the 81-day session.<sup>186</sup> On 8 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the committee resolution offering to assist the king to retain his Dutch guards, entering his dissent when the motion was carried. He sat for the last time the next day and on 14 Feb. his son-in-law, Bridgwater, reported that Bolton had retreated to his house at Amport for three weeks.<sup>187</sup> Litigious to the end, on 15 Feb. Bolton wrote to his son requesting his assistance over a dispute with Richard Lewis<sup>‡</sup>, the former tenant of one of his estates at Edington, whom he had arrested for breach of covenant in advance of Lewis’ re-election for Westbury for leaving the property in such a state of disrepair.<sup>188</sup> Further premature reports of Bolton’s demise circulated on 18 Feb. but it still came as something of a surprise when he died suddenly on 27 Feb. at his seat in Hampshire following a short illness.<sup>189</sup> Le Neve related inaccurately that he died on the road en route to London.<sup>190</sup> James Barbon provided the new duke with an account of his father’s last moments within hours of his demise: how he had retired at one o’clock complaining of cramps, but otherwise ‘pretty cheerful’, only to be discovered three hours later ‘dead in his bed’. Bolton’s corpse was conveyed from Amport to Hackwood prior to his burial at Basing.<sup>191</sup> An account of his funeral appeared shortly after in the <em>Post Man.</em><sup>192</sup></p><p>Prior to his death Bolton had done his utmost to steer his estates away from his heir, who it was reported was left with just £2,000 per annum, while Lord and Lady Bridgwater were bequeathed £5,000 apiece as well as an interest in the personal estate and lead mines in Craven and Westmorland, worth an estimated £30,000 in total.<sup>193</sup> The terms of the will broadly bore out such rumours, in which Bolton emphasized his ‘great love and affection’ towards his younger son, Lord William Powlett, who was bequeathed his Yorkshire lead mines and £8,000. To his grandchildren, Mary Jenkins and Charles Powlett*, Lord St John (later 3rd duke of Bolton) he bequeathed a further £2,000 apiece. To the poor of Basing and several other Hampshire parishes he bequeathed the sum of £102 per annum in perpetuity and the like amount to the poor of a number of parishes in Yorkshire. Several of his servants were allotted annuities totalling £185 per annum.<sup>194</sup> His slighted eldest son thus inherited a severely depleted estate with which to accompany his succession as 2nd duke of Bolton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
POWLETT, Charles (c. 1661-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>POWLETT</surname></strong> (<strong>PAULET</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1661–1722)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1675-89 earl of Wiltshire; <em>styled </em>1689-99 mq. of Winchester; <em>suc. </em>fa. 27 Feb. 1699 as 2nd duke of BOLTON |
|
First sat 16 Nov. 1699; last sat 11 Oct. 1722 |
|
MP Hants 1681, 1685, 1689-1698 |
<p><em>b.</em> c.1661, 1st surv. s. of Charles Powlett*, <em>styled</em> Ld. St John (later 5th mq. of Winchester and duke of Bolton), and 2nd w. Mary, illegit. da. of Emmanuel Scrope<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland; bro. of Ld. William Powlett<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. G. Inn 1674; Winchester ?1675; travelled abroad (France) 1675-8.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 10 July 1679 Margaret (<em>d</em>.1682), da. of George Coventry*, 3rd Bar. Coventry, s.p.;<sup>2</sup> (2) 8 Feb. 1683 Frances (<em>d</em>.1696), da. of William Ramsden of Byrom, Yorks., 2s. 2da.; (3) bef. 15 Oct. 1697 Henrietta Crofts (<em>d</em>.1730), illegit. da. of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and Eleanor, da. of Sir Robert Needham, 1s. KG 1714.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 21 Jan. 1722; <em>will</em> 21 Mar. 1719, pr. Feb. 1724.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. chamb. to Mary II 1689-94;<sup>5</sup> ld. justice [I] 1697-1700;<sup>6</sup> commr. for Union 1706; ld. justice 1714,<sup>7</sup> 1720; ld. chamb. 1715-17; ld. lt. Ireland 1717-19.</p><p>Freeman, Lymington 1685, Winchester 1689,<sup>8</sup> Southampton 1697, Dublin 1697, Cork 1698, Kinsale 1698, W. Looe 1700; dep. lt. Hants 1689-99; ld. lt. Hants, Dorset 1699-1710, 1714-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Hants 1699-1710, 1715-<em>d</em>.; warden, New Forest 1699-1710, 1714-<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Hants and I.o.W. 1692-1710, 1714-<em>d</em>.;<sup>9</sup> high steward, Romsey 1697,<sup>10</sup> Winchester 1699-<em>d</em>.;<sup>11</sup> recorder, St Ives 1700;<sup>12</sup> gov. I.o.W. 1707-10. <sup>13</sup></p><p>Col. of vol. horse 1690.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after Sir G. Kneller, c.1710, Carisbrooke Castle Museum, I.o.W.</p> |
<p>Dubbed ‘the little marquess’ on account of his slight stature, Wiltshire (as he was styled from his father’s accession to the peerage until 1689) was thought by Macky to be ‘of a free and familiar disposition’, though other commentators thought him prickly and easily offended. Jonathan Swift deemed him ‘a great booby’ and Thomas Hearne thought him ‘a most lewd, vicious man, a great dissembler and a very hard drinker.’ A contemporary satire lampooned Wiltshire, his father and his brother, Lord William Powlett<sup>‡</sup>, suggesting that:</p><blockquote><p>The two Winchester geese would be just like their dad<br />Could they tell how to get wit enough to be mad;<br />In pied coats these bawlers by rights should be clad.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>Pied coats were traditional garb for fools and jesters. While Wiltshire may not have inherited his father’s reputed madness, he undoubtedly acquired the family’s pride and sense of their importance as one of the country’s leading dynasties. He shared his father’s political sympathies, being closely associated with the Whig party from the 1680s and latterly a staunch lieutenant of both the Junto and the duumvirs in the reign of Anne. Despite this relations between the two men were frequently strained.<sup>17</sup> The reason for their distance at this point stemmed in part from Winchester’s disapproval of his heir’s exuberant manner of living. A more immediate cause seems to have been his anger at Wiltshire’s over-hasty marriage to Frances Ramsden in 1683 following the death of his first wife only a few months previously. Although the new Lady Wiltshire hailed from an otherwise eminently respectable Yorkshire family, she was deemed an unsuitable match. Her portion was only £5,000, her maternal family, the Palmes, were prominent recusants and (worst of all) she was said already to be expecting Wiltshire’s child.<sup>18</sup> By 1686, though, relations between father and son had improved markedly, prompting Winchester to write ‘long may this mutual exchange of love on my side and duty on yours continue, that not only we ourselves, but our posterity also, may find the good effects of it.’<sup>19</sup></p><h2><em>Marquess of Winchester, 1688 to 1699</em></h2><p>The improved understanding between father and son endured over the course of the following few years and Wiltshire agreed willingly to Winchester’s request that he travel to Holland with his brother in the spring of 1688 to join William of Orange’s service. Present in the prince’s invasion force in November, Wiltshire was at the forefront of those driving the acceptance of William and Mary as king and queen.<sup>20</sup> At a meeting of Members of Charles II’s Parliaments on 26 Dec. Wiltshire moved the introduction of the association for the defence of the protestant religion and on 7 Feb. 1689 he spoke in the Commons, urging Parliament to settle the succession in favour of the prince and princess.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Wiltshire’s warm support for the new regime ensured his re-election to Hampshire and early appointment as lord chamberlain to the queen, while his father was given a step up in the peerage as duke of Bolton (after which Wiltshire was <em>styled</em> marquess of Winchester). Although he failed to be appointed to the vacant lieutenancy of Somerset the following year, Winchester was appointed to the Privy Council in June 1690 and in the summer of 1691 he travelled to Flanders to serve as a volunteer during the campaigning season. While abroad, he fought a duel with Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, following a heated argument prompted by Winchester’s questioning Sir John Trenchard’s<sup>‡</sup> ‘good service to the government’ (Scarbrough was eager to defend Trenchard’s record). Winchester was disarmed but only slightly injured.<sup>22</sup> He appears to have returned to England soon after as he was noted in a newsletter of 23 June 1691 as having visited the incarcerated former minister of James II, Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], along with one Palmes (probably one of his wife’s kinsmen).<sup>23</sup> Both men were reported as having offered Preston their assistance in securing his pardon (though a warrant for this had been drawn up the previous month).<sup>24</sup> Despite reports circulating in November 1692 that Winchester was to be appointed governor of the Isle of Wight in succession to Sir Robert Holmes<sup>‡</sup>, he was disappointed in his ambitions when the post was awarded to John Cutts<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Cutts [I], instead.<sup>25</sup> Winchester lost his household office by the death of the queen in December 1694 but he was continued in his annual pension of £1,200 and the following year (1695) he was returned for Hampshire again without contest.</p><p>In spite of the king’s apparent misgivings, Winchester was appointed one of the three lords justices of Ireland in April 1697 along with Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers, possibly on the recommendation of John Somers*, later Baron Somers, or of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury.<sup>26</sup> The king was not alone in doubting Winchester’s suitability for the task. Even Ben Overton<sup>‡</sup>, who had previously been a beneficiary of Winchester’s patronage, feared that he would ‘busy himself the wrong way’ and James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> suggested that Somers also thought him ‘pretty incapable of instruction and expects he will make a very indifferent figure in his government’.<sup>27</sup> Although John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> concluded in July that Winchester ‘exceeds my expectation, and applies himself to business more than I could have expected’, the marquess soon after proved his gainsayers right by falling in with the opposition in Ireland, much to Galway’s consternation.<sup>28</sup> Even before he had arrived, he precipitated further difficulties with his father, Bolton, by beginning a liaison with Henrietta Crofts, bastard daughter of the executed duke of Monmouth, dubbed ‘the blazing star of that kingdom’. Reports that he had married his new mistress circulated from August, apparently without having ‘enquired after her fortune’ and in October Winchester confirmed that the pair had indeed married.<sup>29</sup> Although Bolton was openly hostile to the match, he was prevailed upon to forgive his son following the king’s personal intervention.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Winchester’s behaviour in Ireland led to reports within a year of his appointment that he was to be recalled. In 1698 he failed to be returned for Hampshire, in spite of his father’s earlier assurances that he had secured the seat for him. Although Bolton made efforts subsequently to ‘retrieve the election’ and petitions were lodged against both the Hampshire and Andover polls, the family interest proved insufficient to overturn the result.<sup>31</sup> In the event the matter was resolved the following February by his father’s unexpected death, and Winchester’s succession to the dukedom and to a seat in the Lords. Almost at once the extent of their difficult relationship was made public when details of the late duke’s will were published. The new duke succeeded to extensive estates in Hampshire, Cornwall and Yorkshire worth an estimated £13,000 per annum, but much of his father’s unentailed property and personal estate (the value of which was estimated at £30,000 per annum) was left to his daughter, Jane, and her husband, John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, with the remainder going to his favourite younger son, Lord William Powlett.<sup>32</sup> Neither Bolton nor Lord William was named as an executor of his father’s will, Bridgwater being one of three accorded that honour.<sup>33</sup> Galway suggested to Shrewsbury that Bolton’s changed circumstances might be used as an excuse to remove him as a lord justice, it being a position beneath his dignity as a duke.<sup>34</sup></p><h2><em>Duke of Bolton, 1699-1702</em></h2><p>The first half of 1699 was dominated by the new duke’s efforts to set his affairs in order. In March he requested leave to return to England. Although he was granted permission in April, his journey was delayed by a month when he fell dangerously sick of a fever. In his absence he attempted through the House of Lords to prevent Bridgwater from proving the late duke’s will but on 29 Apr. 1699 the House ordered that probate should not be stopped and further resolved that no peer might employ his privilege to prevent the proving of a will. Bolton was finally able to quit his post in May.<sup>35</sup> The following month he waited on the king. His warm reception encouraged rumours that he was to be appointed to the lord chamberlaincy.<sup>36</sup> The same month he was confirmed in post as lord lieutenant of both Hampshire and Dorset and as warden of the New Forest, in succession to his father.<sup>37</sup> Bolton declined acting in the commission overseeing the act for raising timber from the New Forest in August 1699, believing it to be unpopular in the country.<sup>38</sup> The following month he was compelled to turn his attention to his own troublesome heir, Charles Powlett*, styled marquess of Winchester, and later 3rd duke of Bolton, though he balked at sending him abroad, believing him to be too young to benefit from the experience.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the House on 16 Nov. 1699 after which he was present for more than 70 per cent of all sittings. Although now only very remotely involved in Irish affairs he continued to draw his third of the salary of £6,953 shared between the three justices, to the great resentment of his newly appointed fellow lord justice, Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley, who complained in December about his titular colleague’s behaviour.<sup>40</sup> Bolton voted against adjourning to discuss an amendment to the East India Company bill in committee of the whole House on 23 Feb. 1700, and the same day registered his dissent at the resolution to pass the measure. On 8 Mar. he found himself ranked with political rivals such as Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, in subscribing the protest at the decision to proceed with a second reading of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 4 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to read the land tax bill a second time, combined as it was with a bill for the forfeited estates in Ireland. On 9 and 10 Apr. he was nominated a manager of the three conferences on the bill. Following the second conference, he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill without adhering to their amendments.</p><p>Annoyed at being passed over for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland that spring, Bolton wrote to Shrewsbury in May 1700 to announce his intention of retiring to the country. He felt slighted by ‘the usage I have received’ and complained that ‘though my Lord Nottingham [Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham] is removed … I am so unfortunate that the only thing that remains of him is the impressions that he made in the king of me, to my disadvantage’. He also made clear his irritation with Shrewsbury, pointedly accusing him of not using him ‘with that friendship I did hope’.<sup>41</sup> To Somers he griped that he considered Shrewsbury’s ‘great business was to load me with strong assurances of his friendship (which I am persuaded of, if it does not interfere with his designs)’. In spite of their earlier contretemps over the terms of the first duke’s will, in July 1700 Bolton recommended that his brother-in-law, Bridgwater, should put in for the office of lord privy seal, insisting that ‘it would be much quieter than the place you have, and for my own part I protest I cannot think of anybody fit for it but yourself.’<sup>42</sup> Bolton was marked ‘x’ in a list of Whig peers that month, along with many of the Junto’s supporters, possibly an indication of his attitude to the new ministry.<sup>43</sup> He was able to strengthen the family interest at St Ives when he was elected recorder in succession to John Granville*, earl of Bath.<sup>44</sup> In November he was one of a number of peers and a crowd of 400, who ‘invited themselves’ to dine with Sir Henry Furnese<sup>‡</sup> at Drapers’ Hall.<sup>45</sup></p><p>In advance of the elections for the new Parliament, Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> approached Bolton for his interest for Hampshire, undertaking to stand with Lord William Powlett, should Bolton’s brother be inclined to contest the seat. Bolton replied to Jervoise’s letter of 28 Dec. the same day to assure Jervoise of his support, but asked that he would join with Richard Chaundler<sup>‡</sup> for the county and work for Lord William’s return at Winchester. Bolton’s suggestion that Jervoise join with Chaundler met with unveiled hostility from one local grandee, Sir John St Barbe, who complained that it would ‘not be very much to the reputation of the country to choose a man, who has no estate in it and very little anywhere else, and I think the first of his family that was ever looked upon as a gentleman’. Despite this, Richard Norton<sup>‡</sup>, another prominent county figure, promised his interest for Bolton’s candidate, who was accordingly elected with Jervoise.<sup>46</sup> Meanwhile, Bolton worked with Somers to promote William Cowper*, later Baron Cowper, for the seat at Totnes. Although Bolton insisted on Cowper’s personal appearance ahead of the poll, Cowper pleaded ill health and withdrew his candidature leaving the seat to be carried without a contest by the nominees of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, bt.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on 83 per cent of all sittings. In March he subscribed £3,000 towards the £550,000 loan.<sup>48</sup> Named one of the managers of the conference considering amendments to the act for regulating the king’s bench and Fleet prisons on 15 May, on 6 and 10 June he was nominated a manager of the conferences concerning the impeachments of Somers, Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, and Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. Subsequently, he demonstrated his solidarity with his Junto brethren by voting to acquit both Somers (17 June) and Orford (23 June).</p><p>Reported to be earnest in promoting the address at the Hampshire assizes in August, Bolton was expected to set up Norton and Chaundler for Hampshire that winter in opposition to Jervoise.<sup>49</sup> One commentator thought that Jervoise would carry the election in any case and feared that Bolton’s actions would force Jervoise into the arms of the Tories; but when Norton resolved against standing, Jervoise and Chaundler were again left free to carry the seats unopposed, presumably with Bolton’s support. At St Ives, John Hawles<sup>‡</sup> was returned on Bolton’s interest in place of Overton.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701, after which he was present on 81 per cent of all sittings. On 8 Mar. 1702 he was named (along with the majority of peers sitting at the time) one of the managers of a conference to consider the king’s death and the accession of Queen Anne. Bolton reported from the committee considering Etterick’s bill on 25 Mar. and on 4 May he was one of six peers nominated to present an address to the queen demanding the prosecution of the publishers of a report that papers detrimental to the queen had been discovered among the late king’s papers. The following day he reported the queen’s response to the address and on 11 May he reported from the committee considering the publication of <em>The History of the Last Parliament</em>. On 18 May Bolton was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the prevention of correspondence between England and its allies with France and Spain; two days later he was named a manager of the second conference on the same subject and of that concerning the amendments to the bill encouraging privateers. The same month he introduced Richard Chaundler to the queen with the loyal address from the town of Gosport.<sup>51</sup> Following the prorogation, local interests were again to the fore when he was involved in a trial at queen’s bench with Seymour over the mayoralty at Totnes. The contest was decided in Seymour’s favour.<sup>52</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1702</em></h2><p>Bolton returned to the House on 20 Oct. 1702 for the first sitting day of the new Parliament—a Tory landslide—elected in July. He attended three quarters of sittings of its first, 1702-3, session. On 17 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the bill for preventing occasional conformity. In January 1703 he was assessed by Nottingham, as being opposed to the bill. Bolton was nominated a manager of two further conferences concerning the matter on 9 Jan. and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the penalty clause. Also on 9 Jan. he reported from the committee considering the journal of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond relating to Cadiz, as he did again on 18 Jan., on which day he also reported from the committee on Sir Thomas Brograve’s bill. On 19 Jan., he courted the queen’s displeasure by subscribing the protest at the failure to agree with the committee’s amendments to the bill settling a revenue on Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, in the event that he should survive her. That day he was also involved in an argument with John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby, necessitating the intervention of the lord keeper to prevent the squabble escalating into a duel. Bolton reported from the committee for Ormond’s journal again on 2 February. He communicated a request that seven witnesses should attend the committee and then reported from the committee once more on 16 February. On 12 Feb. he voted in favour of allowing a copy of evidence to be produced during the deliberations over the case involving an appeal lodged by his Junto colleague, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton against Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>53</sup> Over the ensuing days he took a prominent role both as a manager of a series of conferences held on 17, 22 and 25 Feb. to consider the report of the commissioners for public accounts, and as the chairman of the committee examining the conduct of Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, a matter related (like the enquiry into Ormond) to the unsuccessful attempt to capture Cadiz in August/September 1702.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the House for the 1703-4 session on 9 Nov. 1703 (after which he was present on 63 per cent of all of its sittings). The same month he was again involved in legal action with his brother-in-law before queen’s bench over the terms of his father’s will. Bolton considered the will injurious to his inheritance and was still eager to have it set aside.<sup>55</sup> In November Bolton was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as being opposed to the occasional conformity bill in two assessments compiled that month. On 14 Dec. he voted as expected against the bill. Three days later he hosted a dinner attended by seven Whig peers, including Halifax, possibly convened to discuss the queen’s speech on of that day on the Scotch Plot and preparations for an address in reply. As the ramifications of this affair dragged into the new year, Bolton reported on 15 Feb. from the committee appointed to draw up an address concerning the Plot. Having been deputed one of the peers to wait on the queen with the address, he reported her answer the following day. It was presumably to discuss this matter that Bolton dined at Parliament with a group of Whig peers, including Somers, Wharton and Sunderland on the 17th. On 2 Mar. he reported the queen’s answer to the address concerning Boucher, one of those believed to be a French agent. On 21 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to give a second reading to a rider to the bill for raising recruits for the army, following which he attended a large gathering of Whigs at Sunderland’s house in St James’s Square.<sup>56</sup> Bolton was one of three peers commanded to attend the queen with the address relating to linen manufacture on 23 March. The following day he subscribed the protest when the question on whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect was not put. On 29 Mar. he again reported from the committee concerning the Scotch Plot. Bolton was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the public accounts bill on 27 March. On 3 Apr. he reported from a further conference considering the same business.</p><p>Continuing disagreements with the Bridgwaters produced a flurry of letters in the summer of 1704. Although both sides expressed their desire to remain on good terms in spite of the ongoing legal tussle and agreed to arbitration, attempts at mediation were unsuccessful.<sup>57</sup> Absent at the opening of the new session, Bolton registered his proxy with Sunderland on 26 Oct. 1704. It was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 16 Nov., after which he was present on 69 per cent of all sittings. Bolton was once more active in the House’s business during the session. On 1 Dec. he reported from the committee established to consider the state of the nation in relation to naval affairs. He reported from the same committee on 5 Dec., following which it was ordered to draw up an address to be presented to the queen for her instructions to the Tory Admiral Rooke to be laid before the House. Bolton reported the address the following day (6 Dec.) and was ordered to present it to the queen. Bolton maintained his committee activities into the new year. On 15 Feb. 1705 he reported from the committees for the bills for Hugh Nanney<sup>‡</sup> bill and Crowe and on 28 Feb. from the committee considering Wick’s bill. On 27 and 28 Feb. he was also one of those named to manage the two conferences held concerning the Aylesbury men. The following day (1 Mar.) he reported from the committee considering the state of the nation and on 7 Mar. he was again named a manager of a conference concerning the Aylesbury men. On 12 and 13 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conferences concerning amendments to the militia bill. Although he does not seem to have been named one of the managers of the conference on a group of naturalization bills, he also reported the effects of this on 12 March. The following day he reported from the committee appointed to draw up the state of proceedings in relation to the Aylesbury men, following which he was ordered to wait on the queen to determine when the House should wait on her with an address, reporting back on the 14th.<sup>58</sup> Bolton was noted a supporter of the Hanoverian succession in an analysis produced around early April 1705.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1705</em></h2><p>Preparations for the elections expected in 1705 had begun in earnest early in 1704 with Sir John St Barbe advising Jervoise to be cautious before announcing his resolution to stand again for Hampshire. St Barbe understood that Bolton was contemplating setting up a kinsman, Norton Powlett<sup>‡</sup> of Amport, and that Chaundler would not stand again. Bolton meanwhile collaborated with Jervoise to keep out Thomas Lewis<sup>‡</sup> and any others ‘of that principle’.<sup>59</sup> He joined with Somers, Wharton, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Evelyn Pierrepont*, earl of Kingston in lobbying Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury to allow Shaftesbury’s brother, Maurice Ashley<sup>‡</sup>, to contest Wiltshire in the forthcoming election.<sup>60</sup> In July he was one of several Whig grandees to be given rough treatment by a mob during the elections at Salisbury, following the failure of James Harris to carry the seat, despite the support of Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury.<sup>61</sup> Bolton enjoyed greater success in Hampshire, where his brother Lord William Powlett was returned for Winchester. In September, after the elections, Bolton played host to the queen and Prince George at Hackwood. The same month his daughter, Lady Frances Powlett, was married to John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Mordaunt, heir of his father’s old associate, Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, a match sanctioned by neither set of parents.<sup>62</sup> Bolton’s relationship with his new son-in-law appears to have been (unsurprisingly) difficult, for at the beginning of 1708 Mordaunt complained to a correspondent that, ‘if the duke of Bolton had had half my father’s good nature I had been set right some months ago.’<sup>63</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 (after which he was present on just over 70 per cent of all sittings). In November, he assisted the ministry in helping to ward off the attempt by John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, to embarrass the ministry by inviting the Electress Sophia to England.<sup>64</sup> Forewarned of Haversham’s intentions, the ministry was able to offer an alternative proposition, which was acceptable to the majority of Haversham’s Tory allies. Bolton registered his proxy with Orford on 1 Dec., perhaps because he wanted to go to Hampshire to ensure that adequate preparations had been made to secure the return of his heir, Winchester, at the Lymington by-election (7 December). He returned to the House before the election, on 6 Dec., when, unsurprisingly, he was among the majority who voted for the motion that the Church was not in danger under the current administration. He was then named as one the managers of the series of conferences held on 7, 11, 14 and 17 Dec. as a result of the resolution. On 7, 11 and 19 Feb. 1706 Bolton was named a manager of the conferences on the regency bill. On 28 Feb. he was nominated to the committee appointed to draw up reasons for a conference on a bill relating to the will of Edward Conway*, earl of Conway; on 2 Mar. he was nominated a manager of the subsequent conference. On 11 Mar. he was named a manager of the two conferences held concerning Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter to Stamford</em> (Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford) justifying the ‘Hanover motion’ of the previous November. Bolton was present on the last day of the session, 19 Mar. 1706.</p><p>Bolton wrote to the elector of Hanover (later George I) in April 1706, assuring him of his zeal for his service and recommending to him the bearer of the letter, Halifax. In June the elector returned the compliment, thanking him for his letter and assuring him that: ‘your good intentions for the interests of my family were already known to me, by your past conduct … I am not ignorant neither of the influence which you possess in England, nor how much you deserve it.’<sup>65</sup> Bolton returned to the House on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on 70 per cent of all sittings. On 16 Dec. he reported from a committee to draw up an address to the queen for settling the titles of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, on his family in perpetuity; the day afterwards he reported the queen’s answer to the address and two days later he reported from the committee of the whole appointed to consider Marlborough’s bill. On 30 Dec. Bolton introduced three of his colleagues, who had been granted promotions in the peerage to marquessates: Robert Bertie*, 4th earl of Lindsey, now marquess of Lindsey, Henry Grey*, earl of Kent, now marquess of Kent, and Kingston, now marquess of Dorchester.</p><p>On 3 Feb. 1707 Bolton dined with a number of Whigs at the Arlington Street home of Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondley; he did so again on the 6th at Somerset’s with a number of Whig notables. On 15 Feb. he was one of a sizeable party of the Whig elite gathered at the <em>Queen’s Arms</em> and on 24 Feb. he was listed among a number of prominent peers dining at Wharton’s. All of these meeting probably concerned the Union with Scotland or related matters such as the bill for the security of the Church of England.<sup>66</sup> That month he was at last rewarded with the governorship of the Isle of Wight, which offered him powerful influence in the island’s three constituencies, though he appears to have found entrenched interests there which proved difficult to challenge.<sup>67</sup> He attended on just three days of the brief nine-day session of April 1707.</p><p>Bolton took his seat in the House when the next (1707-8) session began on 23 Oct. 1707, after which he was present on 69 per cent of all sittings. On 19 Dec. he reported from the committee appointed to draw up an address of thanks to the queen for her speech (which had said that she intended to pursue the war vigorously). He continued to be a prominent manager in the House. In December he took charge of the enquiry into the convoy system precipitated by the complaint of a number of merchants concerned by the losses they had incurred at sea and reported from the committee established to hear the merchants’ grievances on 29 Jan. and 7, 16, 17 and 25 Feb. 1708. The result of the inquiry was a stinging indictment of the admiralty and in particular Commodore Kerr. The same month (February) Bolton was one of seven peers chosen by ballot to examine William Gregg, the clerk of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, suspected of treason, and he reported the select committee’s resolutions on 18 March.<sup>68</sup> That same month, Bolton, Halifax and Somers offered their assurances to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, that an amendment to the Church bill, introduced by John Sharp<sup>‡</sup>, son of John Sharp*, archbishop of York, making provision for appeals from local visitors, which intimately concerned Nicolson in his feud with his dean, Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, would either be over-ruled or withdrawn.<sup>69</sup> In about May 1708, Bolton was classed as a Whig on a marked copy of a printed list.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1708</em></h2><p>Parliament was dissolved in April 1708, and new elections held during May. In early preparations for the election the Hampshire gentry had been in some uncertainty as to how Bolton would employ his interest. Charles Norton in December 1706 had suspected that the duke intended to support Chaundler again, though he had been assured by another source that this was not the case.<sup>70</sup> In the event, Chaundler swapped seats with the marquess of Winchester: Chaundler was elected at Lymington and Winchester for the county seat. Bolton’s activities in Dorset during the election, especially at Poole, caused some resentment to Shaftesbury, who complained to Somers of the duke’s disregard for him. Bolton’s interference seems to have been part of a broader effort by the Whig leadership to influence nominations in the county.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Bolton returned to the House on 16 Nov. 1708, and was present on 68 per cent of all sittings of the 1708-9 session. The following month he was present at a Junto conclave attended by Somers, Wharton, Orford and Sunderland as well as by a number of Scottish peers, relating to the recent election for Scottish representative peers.<sup>72</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted to bar Scots peers holding British peerages from voting in the election for Scots representative peers. On 24 Jan. Bolton hosted a dinner attended by Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston, John Sydney*, 6th earl of Leicester, and Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, again possibly related to the Scottish peerage election.<sup>73</sup> Two days later he acted as one of the tellers on the motion to adjourn during further discussion of the question of the Scots peers: the motion was defeated by 51 votes to 40, with Bolton apparently acting as teller for the majority. On 3 Mar. he dined with Ossulston and Lincoln again and on 23 Mar. he served as one of the tellers on the question whether to resume the House from committee of the whole considering the bill to improve the Union.<sup>74</sup> On this occasion the motion was rejected by 42 votes to 23, with Bolton apparently telling for the minority.</p><p>Bolton was present at a feast hosted by Halifax at the end of May 1709, which was attended by a number of Whig grandees.<sup>75</sup> That summer he sought Marlborough’s assistance in procuring the release of his younger son, Lord Henry Powlett*, later 4th duke of Bolton, who had quit his commission in the Navy to join the army in Portugal only to be taken prisoner of war.<sup>76</sup> Marlborough undertook to do what he could on the boy’s behalf.<sup>77</sup> Bolton was able to congratulate Marlborough on another of victory at the end of the summer (at Malplaquet) and followed it up shortly afterwards by recommending his eldest son, Winchester, to the duke, who was ‘very desirous of being under your command in the army. And as there is now several regiments vacant, he is in hopes that you will give one of them to him.’<sup>78</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the House for the 1709-10 session on 21 Nov. 1709, after which he was present on two-thirds of all sittings. His attention was concentrated initially in Hampshire, where there was a by-election caused by the accession to the peerage of Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl of Portland. Although Bolton had promoted both his son Winchester and Portland (then Viscount Woodstock) in the election of the previous year in opposition to Jervoise, he now undertook to ensure Jervoise’s return and assured him in a letter of 29 Nov. that any trouble made by a Mr Powlett (possibly his kinsman Norton Powlett) would not cause Jervoise too much harm.<sup>79</sup> Jervoise was returned unchallenged. The new year found Bolton actively engaged in the prosecution of Dr Henry Sacheverell. On 14 Mar. 1710 Bolton reported from the committee appointed to search for precedents of impeachments in relation to the trial, but he was forced to concede when tackled on the matter by Nottingham that the committee had not been able to discover all of the original papers.<sup>80</sup> On 16 Mar. he was one of several peers to speak against Nottingham’s motion for each article to be voted on separately.<sup>81</sup> The next day he turned his attention to less divisive matters when he reported from the committee for the bill to explain part of the act prohibiting the exportation of corn. He then dined at the House with Ossulston, Lincoln and a number of other peers.<sup>82</sup> Three days later he voted Sacheverell guilty of the charges against him and, following Sacheverell’s plea in response to the guilty verdict that the impeachment was invalid on a minor technicality, he moved to adjourn to discuss Sacheverell’s objections, which were then dismissed out of hand.<sup>83</sup></p><p>In spite of his central position as a Junto lieutenant and his activity within the House, Bolton considered himself poorly served by his friends. On 5 Apr. 1710 he complained to Marlborough at being overlooked (once more) for a garter and more particularly at the manner in which Marlborough had employed his interest on behalf of John Campbell*, duke of Argyll [S], and earl of Greenwich, for the honour instead. Fulminating that ‘I own I could never have thought that my Lord Marlborough would have interposed to give me so great a mortification as this’, Bolton concluded bitterly that he hoped Marlborough would not find himself similarly ‘deceived in your new friends’.<sup>84</sup> A fortnight later he had recovered his equilibrium sufficiently to congratulate Adam de Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> on the successes of the new campaign and to offer Marlborough his service.<sup>85</sup></p><p>Bolton wrote again to congratulate Marlborough on 6 July 1710 on the taking of Douai, renewing his pleas for Marlborough to use his influence to secure Lord Henry Powlet’s release.<sup>86</sup> The same day he rejoiced at Cowper’s recovery and the ‘great benefit those that wish well to England have in your being the administration, which I wish may long continue and thereby disappoint the enemies to this queen and government.’<sup>87</sup> Bolton’s optimism proved misplaced. In September, following the reconstruction of the ministry by Robert Harley, he was put out of his offices along with the greater part of his allies, though it seemed for a while that he might remain in post as <em>custos rotulorum</em> for Hampshire as a result of an administrative oversight.<sup>88</sup> Bolton’s successor as lord lieutenant and warden of the New Forest, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, reported to Harley that ‘everything has a good face here, and every face full of joy, to see themselves delivered from the management of the duke of Bolton’.<sup>89</sup> Beaufort later complained of the ruinous condition in which Bolton had left parts of the New Forest estate.<sup>90</sup> The duke of Somerset, however, specifically denied that he had agreed to Bolton’s dismissal or to Beaufort’s appointment.<sup>91</sup> Bolton was not the only member of his family to come under fire with the Whigs’ loss of power. In October Hugh Speke recommended to Harley that John South (a member of the Irish Commons) should be removed as a revenue commissioner in Ireland, a post he held through the interest of his wife, Bolton’s mother-in-law, Eleanor Needham.<sup>92</sup> Unsurprisingly, when Harley analysed the Lords on 3 Oct. 1710, he classed Bolton as an opponent of the new ministry.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1710 and after</em></h2><p>In advance of the elections in the autumn of 1710, Bolton had been approached by his steward, Thomas Coward, who was eager to secure one of the seats at Totnes.<sup>93</sup> Bolton appears to have offered his backing to Spencer Cowper<sup>‡</sup> instead, only for him to be defeated by the sitting members, Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Coulson<sup>‡</sup>, standing on the Seymour interest. Bolton suffered similar setbacks in Hampshire, where his heir, Winchester, failed to be returned for the county, and at Winchester where Lord William Powlett faced such a spirited challenge that he declined to contest the seat.<sup>94</sup> He was also unsuccessful at Westminster where he (and a number of other Whig notables) offered his backing to General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope, who despite such high-profile support was driven into third place.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Bolton took his seat in the new Parliament on 27 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on 58 per cent of all sittings that (1710-11) session. On 23 Dec. he registered his proxy with Somers, which was vacated by his return to the House on 12 Jan. 1711, and the same day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to censure the conduct of the ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. Speaking on behalf of his former colleague, Galway, who had been prominent as one of the commanders during the campaign, Bolton informed the House that Galway was too sick to appear in person to answer the charges against him.<sup>96</sup> On 3 Feb. he subscribed two further protests at the resolutions to agree with the investigating committee that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment had been poorly supplied and that the failure of the ministers to supply the troops amounted to a neglect of the service. He entered two more dissents on 8 Feb. first at the resolution to retain the phrase ‘and the profusion of vast sums of money given by Parliament’ in an address to the queen concerning the war in Spain and second at the resolution to present the resulting representation to the queen. Bolton acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to allow counsel to be heard in the cause <em>Greenshields v. the Edinburgh magistrates</em> on 1 March. The motion to allow counsel to proceed was passed by a majority of more than 30. Bolton registered his proxy with Somers again on 25 Apr., which was vacated on 7 May, after which he continued to attend until 12 June.</p><p>In advance of the session of 1711-12, Bolton was present for the prorogations of 13 and 27 Nov. 1711. Bolton took his seat in the new session on 7 Dec. 1711, and was present on 46 per cent of all its sittings. On the 7th he presumably backed the ‘No Peace without Spain’ amendment to the address. The same day he attended a dinner at the <em>Queen’s Arms</em> in company with Wharton, William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire and a number of other Whig peers, as he did the following day.<sup>97</sup> On the 8th he was noted as having been in favour of presenting the address complete with the ‘No Peace without Spain’ amendment. On 12 Dec. Bolton raised the question of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], sitting in the House by his British peerage of Brandon. The matter was scheduled for consideration on the 20th.<sup>98</sup> On the day before it came on, Bolton was forecast by Oxford as wishing to prevent Hamilton from taking his seat, and the following day he voted as expected in favour of barring Scots peers with post-Union British titles from sitting in the House. On 31 Jan. 1712, Bolton spoke in the debates over the complaint made to the House about the sermon preached the previous day by Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, suggesting that the sermon could not be judged unless it was ordered to be printed, which those opposed to the views expressed in the sermon refused to sanction.<sup>99</sup> Bolton received Ossulston’s proxy on 28 Feb. 1712, and on 7 Mar. registered his own with Charles Mohun* 4th Baron Mohun. His proxy was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 24 March. Bolton seems to have indulged in welcome distraction at Newmarket in late April and early May where his horse ‘Jacob’ was scheduled to race against Godolphin’s ‘Vendosme’ on 2 May.<sup>100</sup> He returned to the House shortly after and on 28 May he voted in favour of addressing the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from pursuing an offensive campaign against the French.</p><p>Bolton attended the prorogations of 8 July 1712, 13 Jan. and 3 Mar. 1713, and was in place for the beginning of the much-postponed last session of this Parliament on 9 Apr. 1713. He was present on 58 per cent of all its sittings. On about 13 June Bolton was estimated by Oxford as likely to be opposed to confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. On 29 June he moved that the House would consider whether their privileges had been invaded by the queen’s message to the Commons that she be enabled to raise £500,000 on the civil list, which led to the appointment on the 30th of a committee to consider the method and manner of demanding supplies by the crown.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution on 16 July, Bolton undertook to do what he could to assist Stanhope, who was eager to contest Andover at the forthcoming election, but he confessed that he thought it unlikely that he would be able to carry it for him.<sup>102</sup> His doubts proved prescient and both seats there were carried by Tories backed by Beaufort. Bolton was similarly unsuccessful in securing his heir a seat, with Winchester again defeated in the county. Lord William Powlett secured a rare success for the family with his re-election at Lymington. No doubt still smarting from these reverses, Bolton took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714 (of which he attended 86 per cent of all sittings) and on 5 Apr. he seconded Wharton’s motion for a reward to be offered for anyone apprehending the Pretender. He then reiterated his commitment to the Hanoverian succession by moving for an address to be drawn up for the Pretender to be taken dead or alive if he landed in Britain or Ireland. This later had to be amended following legal advice that anyone convicted of killing the Pretender would be guilty of murder.<sup>103</sup> At the end of May or beginning of June Nottingham predicted that Bolton would oppose the schism bill. On 3 July Bolton again received Ossulston’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Bolton attended just five days of the brief 15-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. Although he was soon after restored to the lord lieutenancy of Hampshire, he was less successful in obtaining places for his kinsmen: his recommendation that his brother-in-law, Henry Crofts, be appointed a groom of the bedchamber was unsuccessful and he complained to the king of his discontent with what had been done for his sons, particularly for ‘unhappy’ Harry.<sup>104</sup> Despite this, Bolton himself flourished under the new regime and shortly after the king’s accession he at last acquired his cherished garter.<sup>105</sup> Details of the final part of his career will be considered in detail in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Bolton died of pleurisy at his home in London on 21 Jan. 1722. In his will he made provision for his duchess and three sons, Winchester, Lord Henry and Lord Nassau Powlett<sup>‡</sup>, and named Richard Chaundler, Thomas Gibson<sup>‡</sup> (probably the future member for Marlborough and Yarmouth) and his brother, Lord William Powlett as executors. He was succeeded as 3rd duke of Bolton by his oldest surviving son, Winchester, who had previously been summoned to the Lords as Baron Pawlet of Basing.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
RADCLYFFE, Edward (1655-1705) |
<p><strong><surname>RADCLYFFE</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1655–1705)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1688-96 Visct. Radclyffe; <em>suc. </em>fa. Apr. 1696 as 2nd earl of DERWENTWATER |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Dec. 1655, 1st s. of Francis Radclyffe*, later earl of Derwentwater, of Dilston, Northumb. <em>m</em>. 18 Aug. 1687 (with £15,000),<sup>1</sup> Mary Tudor (<em>d</em>.1726), illegit. da. of Charles II with Mary Davies, 3s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 29 Apr. 1705; <em>will</em> 14-23 Apr., pr. 24 May 1705.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Northumb. June 1688-Jan. 1689.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Edward Radclyffe, 2nd earl of Derwentwater, by Johann Closterman (oil on canvas, private collection).</p> |
<p>Edward Radclyffe, eldest son of the wealthy landowner, Sir Francis Radclyffe was instrumental to his father’s plans for social advancement at the court of James II. His marriage to the 14 year old Mary Tudor was encouraged by James II, who, only a few months after the wedding in March 1688, created the groom’s father Viscount Radclyffe and earl of Derwentwater, whereupon Edward adopted the courtesy title of Viscount Radclyffe.</p><p>In June 1688 Radclyffe and his younger brothers were all appointed deputy-lieutenants of Northumberland. His brothers also served as officers in northern regiments of the royal army during the autumn of 1688 and Edward too, though still in London in October, was commissioned to raise troops in Yorkshire and Durham, where the Dutch invasion was expected to take place. In late November he was given a pass to attend the king at his camp in Salisbury.<sup>4</sup></p><p>During the reign of William III, when his Catholicism and refusal to swear the oaths excluded him from the House, he remained in London at his house in Arlington Street and seldom visited the ancestral home in Dilston. He had ambitions to be a poet and the Catholic, John Dryden, saw him as a possible patron. Dryden dedicated his <em>Examen Poeticum</em> (1693) to him, although he was later to admit to a friend, that as a poet Derwentwater was ‘none of the best’.<sup>5</sup> In December 1698 Derwentwater had a private bill introduced in the House that would allow him to pay his debts through the sale of wood from the Dilston property. The bill was reported with some slight amendments by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on 12 Jan. 1699 and was passed four days later; it received the royal assent on 1 February. This private act was probably in aid of the settlement Derwentwater was arranging for his eventual separation from his wife. The incompatibility of their ages and of their religion, Mary always insisting on her Protestantism, led to the breakdown of the marriage. On 6 Feb. 1700 a formal deed of separation was drawn up in which Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, and Sir Sidney Fox were appointed as trustees to provide Lady Derwentwater with a maintenance of £1,000 a year out of the northern estates. Meanwhile the care and the education of the four children she had borne before the separation was to be left to Derwentwater.<sup>6</sup></p><p>He remained firm in his faith and allegiance, and in an analysis of the attitudes of the peers to the succession, drawn up sometime in early 1705, Derwentwater was marked as a Roman Catholic and Jacobite. He died shortly after this list was made, in April 1705. At his death his titles passed to his eldest son James, then in France where he was being raised as the companion of the ‘Old Pretender’.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
RADCLYFFE, Francis (1625-96) |
<p><strong><surname>RADCLYFFE</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1625–96)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>7 Mar. 1688 earl of DERWENTWATER |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1625, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Sir Edward Radclyffe, 2nd bt., of Dilston, Northumb. and Elizabeth, da. and h. of Thomas Barton of Wenby, Yorks. <em>m</em>. 7 May 1656, Catherine (<em>d</em>. bef. 1696), da. and coh. of Sir William Fenwick, bt., of Meldon, Northumb., wid. of Henry Lawson (<em>d</em>.1644) of Brough, Yorks., 5s. 5da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>suc</em>. fa. 18 Dec. 1663. <em>d</em>. Apr. 1696; <em>will</em> 20 Apr. 1696, pr. 4 Oct. 1698.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Sir Francis Radclyffe came from a long-established Catholic gentry family in Northumberland with extensive property there and in surrounding counties. His estate included Dilston, Amble, Meldon, Temple Thornton in Northumberland, other lands in Westmorland and Yorkshire and, most lucratively, lead mining interests in Alston Moor in Cumberland. By 1673 it brought in an annual income of £6,263.<sup>3</sup> He was accounted one of the greatest landowners in the north of England and one of its leading Catholics. With his first two sons he was accused of complicity in the Popish Plot – it was said that he had a commission as major general of a Catholic army which was to secure the north. He was in the custody of the serjeant-at-arms in June 1679 but was discharged to return to Dilston upon providing a security of £5,000 for good behaviour.<sup>4</sup></p><p>From at least 1672 he was keen on matching one of his children with a member of the royal family and claiming for himself a title, preferably the earldom of Sussex, which had previously been in the possession of another branch of the Radclyffes.<sup>5</sup> These ambitions were thwarted during the reign of Charles II, but when the Catholic James Stuart*, duke of York, ascended to the throne in 1685, Sir Francis looked to the new and religiously sympathetic regime to secure him place and prestige. In late March 1687 it was reported that one of his daughters was to be married to James Fitzjames*, the recently created duke of Berwick, for which connection Sir Francis was to receive an earldom.<sup>6</sup></p><p>That plan fell through, but in August Sir Francis’s eldest son Edward Radclyffe*, later 2nd earl of Derwentwater married Mary Tudor, the illegitimate daughter of Charles II by the singer and actress Mary Davies. Her portion was reported to be of £15,000, and Sir Francis settled £3,000 on the couple and £2,500 a year for their maintenance.<sup>7</sup> Along with this lucrative match, James II in March 1688 rewarded this faithful and rich Catholic follower with the earldom of Derwentwater. Only a few months later the earl was able to prove his loyalty to his royal benefactor. The ailing Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, judging that Derwentwater was, like himself, steadfastly loyal to the king, requested that he replace him as lord lieutenant of Northumberland. Although the earl did not take up this role, all his younger sons served as officers in Newcastle’s regiment in the north at the time of William of Orange’s invasion, and his eldest son was commissioned to raise his own troop in Yorkshire and Durham.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Derwentwater refused to take the oaths to the new monarchs, and as a Catholic he was excluded from taking his seat in the House in William III’s Parliaments. After the Revolution he was seen as the leading Jacobite in the north. His residence at Dilston Hall was constantly watched, and at one point he was under threat of imprisonment.<sup>9</sup> He died in April 1696 when his lands and title passed to his eldest son, Edward, who had forsaken his family’s natural position in the north for a life in the capital.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
RADCLYFFE, James (1689-1716) |
<p><strong><surname>RADCLYFFE</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1689–1716)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1696-1705 Visct. Radclyffe; <em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Apr. 1705 (a minor) as 3rd earl of DERWENTWATER |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 28 June 1689, 1st s. of Edward Radclyffe*, (later 2nd earl of Derwentwater), and Maria Tudor, illegit. da. of Charles II. <em>educ</em>. St Germain en Laye, France 1702-5; travelled abroad 1705-8.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 10 July 1712, Anna Maria (<em>d</em>.1723), da. of Sir John Webb, 3rd bt., of Odstock, Wilts., 1s. 1da. <em>exec.</em> 24 Feb. 1716; estate forfeit to crown.</p> |
|
<p>Likeness: James Radclyffe, 3rd earl of Derwentwater, engraving by George Vertue after Sir Godfrey Kneller, bt., 1716.</p> |
<p>James Radclyffe was the scion of a wealthy Catholic family in Northumberland which had received the earldom of Derwentwater in 1687 and which distinguished itself by its Jacobite opposition to the Revolution settlement. He and his brother, Francis, were sent to the Jacobite court at St Germain in 1702 at the request of the widowed Mary of Modena, in order to be companions for James Francis Edward Stuart, the ‘Old Pretender’. Derwentwater, as he had become upon the death of his father in 1705, was captured during the abortive Jacobite descent on England in 1708. He was released because of his young age and was given licence to return to England in late 1709.<sup>2</sup> In October 1715 Derwentwater and his brother Charles were two of the leaders of the northern English forces in the Jacobite uprising, who surrendered to royal troops at Preston on 14 November. Derwentwater and five other English and Scottish peers involved in the rebellion were impeached for high treason in the House on 9 Jan. 1716 and arraigned at the bar the following day. On 19 Jan. he submitted his answers to the charges. He pleaded guilty but argued in mitigation of his offence that he had had no foreknowledge of the intent of the mustering forces and thus had come without accoutrement of war. Furthermore, he claimed that he had acted with restraint throughout the campaign and had surrendered to the king’s forces at the first opportunity. His trial took place in Westminster Hall on 9 Feb. 1716, where his arguments for mercy were rejected and he was condemned to death. On 22 Feb. the House resolved, after some debate, to present the king with an address asking for a reprieve for Derwentwater and the five other attainted peers but this, as well as various petitions from individual peers, was rejected by the king the following day. This angered some old hands in the House such as Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, who warned Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, that ‘the little regard had to the intercession of so many peers was very ill taken, [and] that there would be a time, which he believed was not far off, when they would show their resentment’.<sup>3</sup> Derwentwater himself was apparently expecting a reprieve and showed himself ‘very unwilling to die’ at the time of his hurried execution on Tower Hill on 24 Feb. 1716.<sup>4</sup> His speech from the scaffold, in which he renounced his plea of guilty and affirmed his Catholic faith and the rightful succession of ‘James III’, became celebrated, and he quickly became a leading figure in Jacobite martyrology.<sup>5</sup></p><p>As a result of his conviction Derwentwater’s estate, estimated to be worth £6,372 p.a., was put in the hands of the commissioners for forfeited estates and the peerage was forfeited. Later in 1716 the family sued, successfully arguing that as the lands had been entailed they legally belonged to his six-year-old son, John Radclyffe, who continued to style himself the 4th earl of Derwentwater. After John’s death, unmarried and underage, in 1731, Parliament passed a series of acts to ensure the crown’s control of these lucrative estates, now estimated to be worth £9,000 p.a. These statutes also prevented the reversion of the Derwentwater estates to the 3rd earl’s younger brother, Charles Radclyffe. Radclyffe, who styled himself 5th earl of Derwentwater, had also been condemned for his part in the 1715 rising but had escaped before his own execution. An act of 1732 voided the conveyances the 3rd earl had arranged to entail his estate and further prohibited foreign-born issue of convicted traitors, such as Charles Radclyffe’s own sons, from inheriting English titles and land.<sup>6</sup> A further act of 1735 allocated the income of the Derwentwater estates to the Seamen’s Hospital in Greenwich.<sup>7</sup> Charles, putative 5th earl of Derwentwater, was captured during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and beheaded on 8 Dec. 1746. In 1749 his son compounded with Parliament for £30,000 to desist from making any more claims on the estate, and by the time his son, the eighth and last ‘earl of Derwentwater’, died in 1814 the family had lost upwards of £300,000 through its fruitless attachment to the Stuarts.<sup>8</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
RICH, Charles (1616-73) |
<p><strong><surname>RICH</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1616–73)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 30 May 1659 as 4th earl of WARWICK |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 17 Feb. 1668 |
|
MP Sandwich 1645-53; Essex 1658-9 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1616, 2nd s. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick and Frances, da. of Sir William (Newport) Hatton<sup>‡</sup> of Holdenby, Northants. <em>educ</em>. G. Inn 1662. <em>m</em>. 21 July 1641 (with £7,000), Mary (<em>d</em>.1678), da. of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork [I] and Catherine Fenton, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 1da. <em>d.v.p.</em><sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 24 Aug. 1673; <em>will</em> 14 Apr.-20 Aug. 1673, pr. 30 Aug. 1673.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p><em>Custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Essex 1660-<em>d</em>.; gov. Landguard Fort, 1660-2.</p> |
|
<p>As a younger son, Charles Rich was not expected to succeed to his father’s peerage. His income prior to his succession to the earldom was estimated at only £1,300–£1,400 a year. This being the case, his prospective father-in-law, Cork, considered him to be a totally unsuitable match for his daughter, who stood to inherit a considerable share of his fortune. She nevertheless refused to marry anyone else, and eventually the couple married secretly. Mary Rich enjoyed joining the Warwick household, where ‘great care … was had that God should be most solemnly worshipped’ and where the chaplain was John Gauden*, the future bishop of Exeter and then Worcester. She later underwent a conversion experience that influenced her conduct for the rest of her life.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Rich also held strong religious views. Like his father, the parliamentarian high admiral, he initially supported the parliamentary cause and, during the Commonwealth, had himself sat in Parliament. His wife’s worries about their house being ‘made terrible by … oaths’ rather than ‘perfumed with prayers’ indicates that Rich’s piety did not prevent him from cursing and swearing liberally, but after the Restoration it did secure a measure of protection for those ejected presbyterian ministers who resided in Essex.<sup>4</sup> His associates (and close friends) included his cousin the radical Nathaniel Rich<sup>‡</sup>, his auditor-general, William Jessop<sup>‡</sup>, the steward of his courts, John Rotherham, and George Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, brother of Edward Montagu* 2nd earl of Manchester. All were former parliamentarian sympathizers. Rotherham, a fervent anti-episcopalian who later stood unsuccessfully for election at Bury St Edmunds and took a leading role in the electoral management of Maldon, was described by Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> as a fanatic.<sup>5</sup> All benefited from generous legacies at Warwick’s death. Jessop and Montagu had been trustees for his son’s marriage settlement, and both were also appointed trustees for the estates that he bequeathed to his widow.</p><p>Rich’s wider family connections, as well as being close-knit, were also parliamentarian and Presbyterian. One sister married John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor); after her death Robartes married Warwick’s ‘dear cousin’ Isabella Smythe. Another sister married Nicholas Leke*, 2nd earl of Scarsdale. Rich’s nephew had married Frances Cromwell, daughter of the Protector (Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>).<sup>6</sup> Through his wife he was related to Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], and Richard Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington). Shortly after Rich succeeded his brother in the peerage his stepmother married Manchester. Two of Manchester’s previous wives had also been members of the Rich family (one was another of Warwick’s sisters) and it seems likely that Manchester had considerable influence over the new earl. Certainly at about the same time John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, assured his new-found royalist allies that Manchester would use his influence to make the earl of Warwick ‘useful’ in the forthcoming royalist uprising, though Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> remarked sarcastically that Warwick was ‘as virtuous and loyal a man as his grandfather [<em>recte</em> father] the old rebel Warwick’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Warwick’s professions of loyalty were sufficiently convincing for him to be appointed to the party to receive the king at his return, although he was prevented from joining it by an attack of gout (something that was to be a constant backdrop to his career).<sup>8</sup> Nevertheless, the political legacy of his past still showed. Warwick’s name appeared on the list of Lords drawn up by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton in the spring of 1660 with the comment that his father had sat in Parliament. He almost certainly regarded himself as the natural leader of the county, but even before the Restoration he was vying for that leadership with Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford. The outcome of the 1660 election demonstrated that even in a county as famous for its dissenting sympathies as Essex neither wealth nor impeccable Presbyterian credentials were a match for the royalist backlash. Warwick, who was by far the wealthiest peer in Essex, with lands said to be worth over £5,000, supported Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup> and his running mate, Oliver Raymond, against the court candidates John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Turnor<sup>‡</sup>. Fully aware that the rest of the county’s peers and the Essex gentry were ranged against him, he nevertheless believed that the ordinary freeholders would follow his lead. He was so confident of his candidates’ success that he refused to compromise with his opponents, and was consequently mortified when the court candidates won by an overwhelming margin. According to Bramston, Warwick even risked his life by his exertions in the balmy conditions that spring, which brought on a dangerous fever. In the subsequent election of 1661 the king ordered him (through the medium of Manchester) not to oppose Bramston again, a prohibition that according to Bramston was obeyed in appearance but not in substance: ‘he appeared not, but he sent all he could against me’.<sup>9</sup> Once again his efforts proved to be in vain. One of the defeated candidates was Sir John Barrington<sup>‡</sup>; three years later Warwick’s niece Anne Rich married Barrington’s son.<sup>10</sup></p><p>If Warwick struggled to capitalize on his interest in parliamentary elections, his local importance was recognized in other ways. Under the direction of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, he was appointed governor of Landguard Fort, just over the river Orwell in Suffolk. He also became <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Essex after the death of James Hay*, 2nd earl of Carlisle, in November 1660, thus gaining control of the local magistracy. However, despite being the leading landowner in the county, he was denied the lord lieutenancy of Essex (and with it command of the militia), which went instead to Oxford.</p><p>Warwick did not take his seat at the opening of the Convention Parliament. His decision to delay his appearance may have been due to Albemarle’s advice to refrain from doing so but he nevertheless appeared in the chamber for the first time two days into the new session.<sup>11</sup> Crippled by frequent attacks of gout, he was regularly excused attendance on grounds of illness at calls of the House. Under the circumstances his attendance rate, which fluctuated between approximately one quarter and just under a half of possible attendances between 1660 and the end of 1663, was creditable, but the surviving evidence of Warwick’s activities in the House is scanty. During the course of the Convention, besides being nominated one of those to wait on the king, he was named only to the committee for petitions on 2 May, to the committee for the poll money bill on 19 July and to the committee for one private bill after the adjournment on 6 November.</p><p>Warwick was missing from the attendance list at the opening of the new Parliament. Although his name was still absent from the list on 11 May, he was included in a roll of the membership of the new committee for privileges so had presumably taken his place later in the day. He was finally noted on the attendance list on 13 May. Once again, he seems not to have made much impression on the House’s business. He was missing at a call of the House on 20 May and on the 31st was excused attendance on the grounds of ill health. He was named to two committees in July and the same month he was listed as one of those ‘supposed to go out of the House’ during the vote on Oxford’s case for the great chamberlaincy. The pattern remained similar after the adjournment. On 24 Jan. 1662 he was nominated to the committee for drawing up an act for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. The clerk annotated his name with a cross, but it is not clear what the significance of this may have been.<sup>12</sup> The following month, on 6 Feb., he entered a protest against passing the bill to restore the estates of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, and on 19 May he supported the Lords’ right to alter money bills by entering a protest about the bill for mending the common highways. Besides this, he was named to just two further committees.</p><p>Warwick returned to the House a month into the 1663 session, on 23 March. Present on 35 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to three committees. On 2 May he brought the arrest of his servant Thomas Lodington to the House’s attention. Lodington had been arrested for debt immediately after the adjournment of Parliament (and therefore in breach of Warwick’s privilege) at the suit of Samuel Atkins, who had also spoken ‘slighting words’ of Warwick. In making his defence, Atkins raised the issue of sham protections, alleging that, although Lodington ‘pretends to be bailiff to Lord Warwick, he was never really concerned in managing his lordship’s estate, and has offered to procure another protection from the said lord for one Bassett for £20’. He also described Lodington as ‘a dangerous person, and disaffected to the kingly government’.<sup>13</sup> By the time that the privileges committee investigated the matter two days later Warwick was able to inform them that Atkins had apologized and that ‘he is a person whom the duke of Albemarle has employed upon great and eminent service since his majesty’s coming’.<sup>14</sup> One might have expected this to have bolstered the credibility of Atkins’ allegations against Lodington and to have raised questions about the latter’s employment by Warwick. Yet the committee seems to have been concerned only with the need to record the reason that Atkins was not required to make a formal submission to Warwick at the bar of the House ‘as a salvo to any breach of privilege to be made of the like nature hereafter’. It was not to be the last time that someone was investigated for speaking disparagingly of Warwick. The following year a list of prisoners held at the gaol in Colchester included John Clapham, who had been arrested for ‘speaking scandalous and contemptuous words’ against both Warwick and Parliament.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Towards the close of June 1663 Warwick was said to have promised his interest on behalf of his kinsman, Clifford of Lanesborough, whose title was being challenged by the countess of Pembroke (Lady Anne Clifford).<sup>16</sup> Warwick’s attendance of the House during the latter part of the session may also have reflected his interest in the attempt by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol to impeach Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon: he was present throughout the debates on the impeachment and was listed as one of Clarendon’s supporters.</p><p>Warwick took his seat five days into the new session of March 1664. He was named to the committee for privileges but proceeded to attend on just ten days (approximately 28 per cent of the whole) before quitting the session three weeks before the close. His only noticeable activity in the session related to his nomination on 22 Apr. to the committee for the bill confirming land in Froome Forest to his kinsman, Orrery. An incorrectly recorded proxy, probably dating from 1664, suggests that he then either attempted to give or was under pressure to give his proxy to his brother-in-law Robartes. Thereafter his attendance dipped sharply, probably because of his acute depression after the illness and death (on 16 May 1664) of his only surviving child, his son and heir, also named Charles Rich. Warwick did not share his wife’s conviction ‘that this affliction came from a merciful father and therefore would do me good’.<sup>17</sup> Lady Warwick’s autobiography strongly implies that the couple had previously restricted the size of their family for fear of impoverishment. Now they tried unsuccessfully for more children, hoping that the earldom, so long associated with ‘the owning and countenancing of good people’ would not descend to Warwick’s younger brother, Hatton Rich, of whom they strongly disapproved.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Warwick failed to attend the House at all in 1665 or 1666. On 9 Oct. 1665 the lord chamberlain (Manchester) requested that the House excuse Warwick’s absence from the Oxford Parliament on the grounds of ill health. On 16 Nov. 1666 he gave his proxy to his brother-in-law Burlington (as Clifford had since become), who held it for the remainder of the session. Burlington may have solicited the proxy for use against the Irish Cattle bill. Warwick played host to his brother-in-law Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, in April 1667 as part of an effort to concert measures relating to their father-in-law’s business. In August, he was said to be ‘very ill of the gout’ but he nevertheless reappeared in the House early in the session that began in October 1667, presumably to support Clarendon.<sup>19</sup> He attended approximately 37 per cent of the remaining sitting days in that year but was named to just two committees. After the Christmas recess he managed only a single attendance, his last.</p><p>By the autumn of 1668 Warwick appears to have been contemplating retreating to France, presumably for recovery of his health.<sup>20</sup> It is not clear whether he fulfilled his intention but by December 1670 he appears to have been in England, when a warrant was made out granting him game rights in the vicinity of his Essex seat.<sup>21</sup> His proxy for the 1670–1 session was given on 17 Nov. 1670 to Manchester.</p><p>Despite the remedy prepared by his wife for the gout, which she claimed to be the only thing capable of offering him any relief, the sermon preached by Dr Walker at his funeral hints that Warwick’s illness sometimes got the better of his temper. Towards the end of his life he completely lost the use of his legs and required constant nursing.<sup>22</sup> In April 1673 Warwick drew up his will. In ordering his estate he provided generously for his wife, members of his extended family, his friends, servants and sympathetic local clergymen. According to Cary Gardiner, he left his wife £11,000 per annum (who thereby became ‘the richest widow for revenue that this age has had’).<sup>23</sup> He also made provision for portions of £5,000 to each of his two unmarried nieces and for the payment of a portion of £4,000 to his older niece, Anne Barrington. The one person who was not mentioned was his cousin Robert Rich*, 2nd earl of Holland. There is little or no mention of Holland in either Lady Warwick’s diary or her autobiography so it is likely that, even though Warwick was one of the trustees for Holland’s estate, the cousins moved in different social circles. Holland had become heir to the earldom of Warwick after the death of Hatton Rich in 1671.<sup>24</sup> However, he seems to have inherited none of the earl’s estates, apart from Warwick House in Holborn (and even that was stripped of its contents). Warwick may have expected his will to prove controversial for he directed that it should be proved in chancery. His widow proudly claimed that she had been able to settle all the resulting disputes without resort to law, conveniently forgetting that she needed to obtain a private act of Parliament in order to do so.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Little documentary evidence has survived for Warwick’s life. His countess’s diary and autobiography can be used to reconstruct the couple’s social circle but their primary purpose is as a record of religious meditation, rather than as a complete account of either her or her husband’s activities. On 20 Aug. 1673, for example, her entry for the day records that her husband was lucid and able to express penitence for his sins; it does not record that he also drew up a long codicil to his will. Warwick died four days later and was succeeded in the peerage by Holland. His wife survived him by another five years.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
RICH, Edward (1673-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>RICH</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1673–1701)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1673-75 Ld. Rich; <em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Apr. 1675 (a minor) as 6th earl of WARWICK and 3rd earl of HOLLAND |
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1694; last sat 26 Feb. 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Sept. 1673,<sup>1</sup> 5th but 1st surv. s. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Holland, being o. s. with 2nd w. Anne, da. of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. <em>educ</em>. Exeter Coll. Oxf. 1688; travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1682, 1691, 1693.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. bet. 15 and 18 Feb. 1697 (with ?£20,000), Charlotte (<em>d</em>.1731), da. and h. of Sir Thomas Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. of Chirk Castle, co. Denbigh, 1s. <em>d</em>. 31 July 1701; <em>will</em> 14 July, pr. 12 Sept. 1701.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. Queen’s Regt. of horse (brig.-gen. Henry Lumley<sup>‡</sup>) 1694–5.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: mezzotint by J. Smith, after W. Wissing, 1684, NPG.</p> |
<p>Edward Rich’s succession to his father’s honours and estates was not easy. According to his uncle (Cope Rich), the real Edward Rich, who inherited the peerage when barely two years old, had died while an infant and his mother had substituted another child to ensure her continued control of the Warwick and Holland estates. Cope Rich estimated the estate to be worth £8,000 a year clear of all charges, but what little evidence there is suggests that even in the lifetime of the 2nd earl of Holland the annual income was rather less than £4,000 a year.<sup>7</sup> Rather than try his claim to the lands at common law or bring his claim to the peerage before the committee for privileges, Cope Rich chose to harass individual tenants, attempting to collect rents from them and commencing (but never finishing) actions of ejectment against them. Rich’s actions may have been an early sign of what was later described euphemistically as ‘discomposure of mind’ but they nevertheless posed a serious threat to the quiet enjoyment of the estate.</p><p>A further drain on the Warwick and Holland finances was the revival of litigation involving Joseph Garrett, the erstwhile steward of the Holland estates. It may have been a sign of financial strain that the young earl’s guardians claimed creation money (for both titles). In February 1678 a bill was submitted to Parliament to enable Warwick’s guardian to make leases during his minority and in May his mother was forced to appeal to Parliament for her privilege to be upheld after one of her servants was arrested. It is possible that it was to avoid such disagreeable problems that in May 1682 Warwick was taken by his mother to France.<sup>8</sup> A further indication of the state of Warwick’s finances is indicated by an inventory of debts due to Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, at his death, which includes the sum of £5,500 due from Warwick for lands in Devon.<sup>9</sup> In or about 1695 Warwick sold some of his Essex properties, which might also indicate a degree of indebtedness.<sup>10</sup> Nevertheless it seems unlikely that he was in serious financial difficulties for he retained his lands in Middlesex as well as the most valuable of his properties at Smithfield in the City of London, which carried with them rights over both the livestock market and Bartholomew Fair.<sup>11</sup> He was also able to secure a wife reputed to be worth £20,000.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Even as a young child Warwick’s name appeared on lists of supporters and opponents compiled by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury (who listed him initially as ‘vile’ but then erased the comment) and Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). In 1683 his mother’s house was searched for suspected persons in the wake of the Rye House Plot, but it seems likely that the search stemmed more from the reputation of her family than because of any overtly political activity.<sup>13</sup> The most significant pressures in Warwick’s early years, however, concerned his education. In September 1686 Lady Pen Osborne circulated a request for a tutor and chaplain for the young earl. If he proved satisfactory, it was expected that he would accompany Warwick on a forthcoming European tour.<sup>14</sup></p><p>There is no particular evidence of Warwick, still only a teenager, being involved in the events of the 1688 Revolution. By the following summer he was orphaned while still a student at Oxford and in September, when he responded to a request to all peers to provide a self-assessment of their personal estates, he stated simply that he was underage and had nothing to declare.<sup>15</sup></p><p>By the autumn of 1691 Warwick was overseas, undertaking his long-planned tour of Italy.<sup>16</sup> There is little indication that at that point he had any interest in pursuing a political career. His ambitions seem always to have been military rather than political and, despite his family connections to some of the leading Presbyterian families, he acquired an unenviable reputation for violence and immorality. After his death he was one of the subjects of a poem by Defoe which emphasized the way in which he had turned from the virtues of his ancestors, so that their ‘gallant blood is dwindled to a rake’. In December 1693 he returned from Italy, where he had been present at the battle of Marsaglia, and where (according to Defoe) he had been captured.<sup>17</sup> At that time he was said to be seeking appointment to one of the new regiments. He was gratified with a commission in General Lumley’s regiment in February 1694 and the following month it was announced that he was to go with his friend Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, to Flanders as a volunteer with Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, and the king. In April he gave an early indication of his violent tendencies when he was arrested for his part in attacking and stabbing a hackney coachman. According to L’Hermitage he was released on payment of a £5,000 recognizance. No trial ensued.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In September 1694 Warwick attained his majority. A newsletter of 9 Oct. reported his recent return from campaign along with several others, who had all narrowly avoided being lost at sea.<sup>19</sup> Having escaped this mishap he took his seat in the House for the first time on the second working day of the next session. The question of his legitimacy appears to have been raised once again in March 1690, possibly by his cousin, the younger Cope Rich (Warwick’s uncle of the same name having died in 1676), but no objections seem to have been put forward when he finally took his place in the chamber.<sup>20</sup> Despite his apparent eagerness to take his seat Warwick’s subsequent attendance was far from assiduous, though he was present on over 27 per cent of sitting days in his first session. There is little evidence of his activities in the House at this time. At the beginning of April 1695 he was reported to be very sick but he rallied in time to attend for the final few days of the session.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Shortly after the close of the session, rumours circulated that Charlotte Middleton had absconded from her home and was believed by some to have taken up with Warwick. Over the next few days the newsletters sought information about the missing woman, whose marriage without her grandmother’s consent would, it was said, be likely to ‘cost her dear’. By the beginning of July the story came to a disappointing end with the news that she had been intercepted before she had been able to leave town. The incident was presumably an early manoeuvre in the negotiations that ultimately resulted in Warwick marrying her in February 1697.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Warwick returned to the House at the opening of the subsequent session on 22 Nov. 1695 and was again present for approximately 27 per cent of all sitting days. He then attended the prorogation of 28 July 1696 before taking his place once more at the opening of the new session on 20 October. The session proved the zenith of his involvement in the House’s business, with him turning out on just under half of all sitting days. In December 1696 he voted to convict Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. The following month he was noted among ‘12 or 13 dissenting peers’ who had objected to the address to the king for Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), to be censured.<sup>23</sup> On 18 Mar. 1697 he entrusted his proxy to one of his fellow objectors, Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, but it was vacated by Warwick’s presence in the House two days later. In the midst of the session, Warwick finally settled on a bride. His decision to marry Charlotte Middleton, with whom he had been associated two years earlier followed rumours several years before that he had been a suitor to Lady Mallet Wilmot, one of the children of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester.<sup>24</sup></p><p>In October 1697 Mohun, who was on the run after killing a Captain Hill, was arrested at Warwick’s house in Essex Street. Warwick and Macclesfield were two of the four men who bailed him.<sup>25</sup> Although Warwick took his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec., later that month it was reported that he was soon to depart with Vere Fane*, 5th earl of Westmorland, and Algernon Capell*, earl of Essex, in the entourage of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, who had been appointed ambassador to France. If Warwick did indeed attend Portland on his journey, his visit must have been fleeting as he attended the House on several days in January and February 1698 and was present in all on just under a quarter of sitting days in the session.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Warwick again provided bail for Mohun in April. In October the two were involved in a quarrel after a late-night drinking session. The resultant scuffle on a dark night in Leicester Fields barely qualified as a duel, as Warwick and his companions claimed it to be. During the fight a Captain Coote (possibly a relative of Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Bellomont [I]) was killed. It was by no means clear who had struck the fatal blow or even whether Warwick and Coote had been fighting on the same or opposite sides. Luttrell reported that Warwick and Mohun had both been acting as seconds for Coote.<sup>27</sup> Warwick hid and later he and Mohun fled to France.<sup>28</sup> Warwick excused his flight as having been caused by his belief that the absence of the king and Parliament not being in session would create a delay in the arrangements for his trial and force him to undergo ‘a long confinement’.<sup>29</sup> He eventually surrendered himself to the House the following February and was committed into the custody of black rod, his hand having been forced after both he and Mohun had been ejected from Calais on suspicion of attempted rape.<sup>30</sup> Their commoner companions had by then already been tried for murder at the Old Bailey and found guilty on a lesser charge of manslaughter. Warwick took full advantage of his status as a peer and petitioned to be tried before the Lords.<sup>31</sup></p><p>The resulting trial, which was held before the House of Lords on 28 Mar. 1699, required extensive preparations, with scaffolding ordered to be erected to accommodate extra seating at a cost of £2,000.<sup>32</sup> Luttrell speculated that the proceedings would be lengthy but in the event there was little evidence for the prosecution and it was all over in the space of a day.<sup>33</sup> Witnesses testified that Warwick had been on good terms with Coote, that Warwick had attempted to prevent the fight and that he and Coote had fought on the same side. The prosecutor’s argument that the quarrel had been set up by Warwick and Mohun with the intention of luring Coote to his death was dismissed and, like his companions, Warwick was acquitted of murder and convicted instead of manslaughter. Mohun was subsequently found not guilty on both counts. Warwick pleaded benefit of peerage and therefore went free without punishment. John Somers*, Baron Somers, who presided over the trial as lord high steward, was at pains to inform Warwick that the assembled peers had directed him to point out that benefit of peerage could not be claimed twice, and ‘to say, that they hope you will take a more than ordinary care of your behaviour for the future … that nothing of this kind will ever happen to you again’.</p><p>The earl’s acquittal of murder aroused considerable cynicism. There were minor discrepancies in the evidence of one witness as given in the House of Lords and at the Old Bailey. More significantly the trial established that, of all the swords inspected after the fight, only Warwick’s was bloody to the hilt. Warwick’s explanation, that this was on account of his own injuries, persuaded William North*, 6th Baron North and Grey, but not surprisingly there was a general suspicion that it had been used to inflict the fatal wounds.<sup>34</sup></p><p>After his acquittal, Warwick’s attendance at the House – never high – declined still further. No doubt distracted by the trial, he attended just once during the session of August 1698–May 1699, and he attended a mere 13 times during the 1699–1700 session (16 per cent of the whole). It is possible that his reluctance to sit at this time was related to the mistaken reports of the sickness and death of his wife in September. At least one correspondent recorded that ‘most people say she has a happy deliverance from her wicked husband’ but the reports proved not to be true and the countess survived to outlive her husband by three decades. Warwick was himself believed to be ‘dangerously ill’ early in 1700 but he rallied to take his place once more on 16 January.<sup>35</sup> The following month he was expected to support the continuance of the East India Company as a corporation, but in the event he entered a dissent. He made two appearances in March 1700 but was thereafter absent from the remainder of the session.</p><p>That summer Warwick was said to have busied himself with negotiations with the corporation of London over the erection of booths in Smithfield, where he was lord of the manor, during Bartholomew Fair.<sup>36</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701 but attended just four times. The following month (though apparently not appearing in person) he was forced to rally himself once more in defence of his interests in Smithfield when both he and the City of London raised objections to a bill presented to the House for the granting of new markets at Brookfield and Newport. Warwick insisted that the new markets would deprive him of at least £500 per annum. On 31 Mar. he requested permission for his counsel to be heard at the committee for the bill and on 7 Apr. he petitioned the House again for his counsel to be heard prior to the third reading of the measure. The combined pressure of Warwick and the City proved too great for the bill’s promoters and on 15 Apr. it was thrown out.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Warwick’s achievement in halting the Brookfield and Newport bill proved to be his last action in Parliament. In July he composed a brief will providing for the disposal of his estate, and he died ‘very penitent’ the following month, aged just 28. He was succeeded in the peerage by his three-year-old son, Edward Henry Rich*, as 7th earl of Warwick and 4th earl of Holland. Warwick’s widow won considerable encomiums for the generous way in which she fulfilled her late husband’s final wishes. She later married the author and prominent Whig politician Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>38</sup></p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
RICH, Edward, Henry (1698-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>RICH</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward, Henry</strong> (1698–1721)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 31 July 1701 (a minor) as 7th earl of WARWICK and 4th earl of HOLLAND |
|
First sat 21 Jan. 1719; last sat 7 Aug. 1721 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 20 Jan. 1698, o.s. of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick and 3rd earl of Holland, and Charlotte, da. of Sir Thomas Middleton<sup>‡</sup> 2nd bt. of Chirk Castle, co. Denbigh. <em>educ.</em> Westminster sch.; Christ Church, Oxf. 1714. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 16 Aug. 1721; <em>admon</em>. 20 Aug. 1721 to mother, 12 June 1736 to John Dawnay<sup>‡</sup>, Sir John Bridgeman and Alexander Denton<sup>‡</sup>, mother’s executors, 15 June 1748 to step-sis. Charlotte Addison.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1719-21.</p> |
|
<p>Warwick succeeded to the title when just three years old. He died of fever not long after attaining his majority, a few weeks after having visited Newgate prison in the company of some other men of fashion, where they had been ‘not a little diverted’.<sup>3</sup> Full details of his career will be considered in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
RICH, Robert (c. 1620-75) |
<p><strong><surname>RICH</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (c. 1620–75)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1624-49 Ld. Kensington; <em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Mar. 1649 as 2nd earl HOLLAND; <em>suc. </em>cos. 24 Aug. 1673 as 5th earl of WARWICK |
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 24 Feb. 1674 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1620, s. of Henry Rich<sup>†</sup> (later Bar. Kensington and earl of Holland) and Isabel, da. of Sir Walter Cope<sup>‡</sup>. <em>m</em>. (1) 8 Apr. 1641, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1661), da. of Sir Arthur Ingram of Temple Newsam, Yorks. and Eleanor, da. of Sir Henry Slingsby of Redhouse, Yorks.; (2) 16 Nov. 1661 (with £3,000),<sup>1</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1689), da. Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Anne, da. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick, 1s. 3da. <em>d</em>. 10 Apr. 1675;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 8 Apr., pr. 21 Apr. 1675.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Robert Rich succeeded to an estate consisting of lands in Havering and Romford in Essex, Cholsey in Berkshire, Kensington in Middlesex and Smithfield in the City of London. His younger brother Cope Rich later valued the estate at £8,000 a year, but surviving rentals suggest that half this amount would be nearer the mark.<sup>4</sup> The Holland estate may have suffered from the earl and countess’s long absences abroad and their consequent reliance on Joseph Garrett, receiver and steward of the Holland lands between 1660 and 1668. By the early 1670s the Hollands had become involved in a lengthy and complex series of law suits against Garrett. Yet there are also indications that Garrett’s primary duty was to restrain the Hollands’ extravagance. The trustees for the estate were Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick, William Paget*, 6th Baron Paget, and George Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. They too relied on Garrett, refusing to ‘meddle with every little account and expense of the earl and countess of Holland because it would make them appear mean and cheap in the eyes of the world, to be kept as children’.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Despite his family’s strong legacy of involvement in politics and their staunch Presbyterian/parliamentarian traditions, Holland took little interest in Parliament. He seems to have had virtually no contact with Members of the Commons, although his brother-in-law, Sir James Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, sat for Wiltshire. He did not attend the Convention at all, even though much of its time was devoted to investigating those responsible for his father’s execution. Instead on 30 Mar. 1660 he gave his proxy to another brother-in-law, James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk. On 10 May 1661 he again left his proxy with Suffolk and it was probably this proxy which was noted at the call of the House on 20 May.<sup>6</sup> In June 1663 he gave his proxy to Manchester, who was believed to be an opponent of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. In May 1664, at a time when he was rumoured to be going abroad, his proxy went to Paget; it was vacated by the end of the session. He was in France for his health in 1666 and may still have been there during the troubled session of 1667-8 when his proxy was again held by Manchester. He was living in France between 1670 and 1672 and registered his proxy in March 1670 in favour of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu.<sup>7</sup> This proxy was vacated two weeks later when Montagu gave his own proxy to Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey. In the entire 15 years between the Restoration and his own death, Holland was recorded as attending Parliament just 15 times; six of those attendances occurred after he had inherited the earldom of Warwick. His response to various calls of the House during this period indicates that he was in very poor health. He died on 10 Apr. 1675 and was buried at Kensington at a cost of just over £56.<sup>8</sup> He was succeeded by his infant son, Edward Rich*, as 6th earl of Warwick. Three years after his death, on 8 May 1678, his widow claimed privilege of peerage when her servant, Robert Thornhill, was arrested.</p><p>Sources for studying Holland’s life are extremely poor, but a miscellaneous collection of personal, financial and legal papers survives amongst the records of the court of exchequer. These include household accounts which provide the only evidence available for the existence of three daughters. The documents confirm that by October 1684 his widow had married Richard Bourke, Viscount Dunkellin [I], later 8th earl of Clanricarde [I], but that she continued to be known by the more prestigious title of countess of Warwick.<sup>9</sup> They also show that Warwick’s uncle, Cope Rich, attempted to claim the earldom for himself, alleging that Warwick and his countess had concealed the death of their son, Edward, and substituted another child ‘on purpose to defeat him of the inheritance’.<sup>10</sup> The claim went unheeded and unproven.</p> |
R.P. |
|
ROBARTES, Charles Bodvile (1660-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>ROBARTES</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles Bodvile</strong> (1660–1723)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1682-85 Visct. Bodmin; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 17 July 1685 as 2nd earl of RADNOR |
|
First sat 9 Nov. 1685; last sat 27 May 1723 |
|
MP Bossiney 1679 (Oct.), 1681; Cornwall 1685 |
<p><em>b</em>. 26 July 1660, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Robert Robartes<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled </em>Visct. Bodmin, and Sarah, da. of Col. John Bodvile<sup>‡</sup> of Bodvile Castle, Caern.; bro. of Russell Robartes<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. bef. 4 June 1689, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1696/7), da. and coh. of Sir John Cutler<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt. <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 3 Aug. 1723; <em>will</em> 21 June 1722, pr. 6 Sept. 1723.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1702; treas. of the chamber 1714–20.</p><p>Constable, Caernarvon Castle, 1682–5, 1692–1713, 1714–<em>d</em>.; freeman, Liskeard, Bodmin and Tintagel 1685–8; ranger, Snowdon forest 1692–1713; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Cornw. 1695–1702; ld. lt. Cornw. 1696–1702; ld. lt. and <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Cornw. 1714–<em>d</em>.; jt. ld. warden of the stannaries and steward of duchy of Cornw. 1701–2.</p><p>FRS 1693.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attributed to M. Dahl, c.1700/1705, National Trust, Llanhydrock House, Cornw.</p> |
<h2><em>Inheritance and marriage</em></h2><p>As second son of the 1st earl of Radnor’s heir, Charles Bodvile Robartes was originally expected to inherit the Welsh estates of his maternal grandfather, Colonel Bodvile, but the death of his elder brother, John Robartes, in 1674 brought him the additional expectation of an annual income of £7,000 and ultimately the earldom of Radnor. Little is known of his education. His father and uncles attended Felsted School and Christ’s College, Cambridge, but his own early tutoring appears to have been handled under his maternal grandfather’s auspices.<sup>3</sup> While still an infant, Robartes was the subject of a lawsuit between his parents (on his behalf) and members of the Wynn family over Colonel Bodvile’s will, a version of which his parents claimed had been counterfeited by their opponents.<sup>4</sup> Although the case was settled satisfactorily for the Robartes clan, it may have been part of a later effort to reconcile the parties that led to his mother’s proposal that Robartes should marry the daughter (and sole heir) of Sir Richard Wynn<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup> In the event nothing came of this, nor of the negotiations between Robartes’ father and Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), for the hand of his younger daughter, Martha, who eventually married the Robartes’ Cornish rival, Charles Granville*, styled Lord Lansdowne (later 2nd earl of Bath).<sup>6</sup></p><p>Returned for Bossiney in 1679 on the family interest while still underage, Robartes (<em>styled</em> Viscount Bodmin after his father’s death) secured the county seat in the elections of February 1685 but later that year he succeeded to his grandfather’s peerage. With the earldom came nominal interest in at least two Cornish boroughs but, throughout his tenure of the peerage, Radnor faced fierce competition from a number of other families in the county, especially the Granvilles but also the Hydes and Godolphins. Problems were in evidence within his own family too, resulting from a dispute with his uncle Francis Robartes<sup>‡</sup> over the administration of the first earl’s will.<sup>7</sup> The new earl was also the subject of a satire, which paired him with Hugh Cholmondeley*, Lord Cholmondeley [I] (later earl of Cholmondeley), in which the author declared ‘Dogging with Radn[o]r is the blockhead’s sport’ (presumably a reference to their shared love of hounds and hunting).<sup>8</sup></p><p>Radnor sat for the first time following the summer adjournment on 9 Nov. 1685 (responding to a writ of summons dated two days before). He attended on all of the 11 days of the short session. In January 1686 his mother was granted the rare distinction of precedence as dowager countess of Radnor (as if her husband had succeeded to the title) and Radnor’s brothers and sisters were allowed precedence as sons and daughters of an earl.<sup>9</sup> Present on prorogation days on 10 May and 22 Nov. 1686 and on 15 Feb. 1687, Radnor was said, during the lull in parliamentary proceedings, to be pursuing a match with Miss Boscawen (only daughter of his Cornish neighbour Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup>) though nothing came of it.<sup>10</sup> He also established himself in a town residence at Number 6, St James’s Square.</p><p>Although he was assessed as an opponent of repeal of the Test in forecasts of January and November 1687, Radnor’s reputation among opponents of James II’s policies suffered early in the year when it was widely reported that he had failed to object to insulting language employed against the prince of Orange by Dr Charles Conquest in Wills’ coffee house.<sup>11</sup> Despite this, in May 1687 and again in January 1688 he was listed among the opposition, as well as being noted as being opposed to repeal in a further list compiled around the same time. That summer, Radnor was included among the list of sureties for the Seven Bishops.<sup>12</sup> He also stood bail for Walter Vincent<sup>‡</sup>, who had been indicted for the murder of the son of Sr Peter Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup> It was about this time that he at last secured a match with Elizabeth Cutler, daughter of the notoriously wealthy and miserly London merchant Sir John Cutler, though it was said that Cutler was dissatisfied with his daughter’s new husband.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Having aligned himself consistently with the opponents of James II’s policies, at the close of November 1688 Radnor joined James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, in rallying to the prince of Orange’s forces at Exeter.<sup>15</sup> On 21 Dec. he was present at the meeting of the Lords held in the Queen’s Presence Chamber and the following day he took his seat in the House, which he continued to attend on 24 and 25 December.<sup>16</sup></p><h2><em>After the Revolution: 1689-1702</em></h2><p>Radnor returned to the House for the Convention three days after its opening, after which he was present on 41 per cent of all sitting days. On 31 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen in a division in a committee of the whole, and registered his dissent at the resolution not to do so. Four days later he again voted to follow the Commons’ lead in employing the term ‘abdicated’. He was then appointed one of the managers of two conferences held on 4 and 5 Feb. to draw up reasons why the Lords would not concur with the lower House. On 6 Feb. he again voted in favour of declaring the throne vacant. Radnor’s activities in the House appear to have declined after this early flurry, but on 27 July he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to hold a conference to consider the bill for reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates. On 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill and then subscribed the protest at the resolution to insist on the alterations.</p><p>In advance of the new session, Radnor responded to a request to provide a self-assessment of his personal estate, which was liable to a tax of 12d. in the pound according to the terms of the act for a general aid to their majesties, by declaring that he had ‘no personal estate liable to an assessment by virtue of this act’. He nevertheless protested even so that he ‘should be very glad for the king’s sake as well as my own to pay as much of this tax as any man in England’.<sup>17</sup> He returned to the House for the second session on 19 Oct. 1689 but was then excused at a call on 28 October. He resumed his seat two days later and on 7 Jan. 1690 the House read for the first time a bill enabling Radnor to make a jointure for his countess. The bill passed its third reading on 17 Jan. and was enacted at the close of the session ten days afterwards. In a list compiled by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690, Radnor was classed as an opponent of the court.</p><p>In the March general election, Radnor was able to employ his interest at Bossiney to ensure the return of his kinsman Samuel Travers<sup>‡</sup>. Sir Bevill Granville<sup>‡</sup> secured a seat at Lostwithiel, possibly as the result of an electoral pact between Radnor and John Granville*, earl of Bath.<sup>18</sup> Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 (after which he was present on 61 per cent of all sitting days) but he appears not to have been especially active during the session. He took his place in the second session on 6 Oct. 1690 (thereafter attending for 55 per cent of all sitting days) and three days later was added to all the standing committees. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonmnet in the Tower. The following month he braved ‘tempestuous’ conditions to be present at the committee hearing the petition of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to overturn the election of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> for New Radnor Boroughs.<sup>19</sup> Radnor presumably had a general interest in who was returned for a Welsh constituency but he may have been particularly interested on Harley’s behalf: Harley had previously sat for a Cornish borough on the Boscawen interest and was a distant relation.</p><p>Present on the two prorogation days of 28 Apr. and 26 May 1691, Radnor took his seat in the third session on 27 Oct. 1691 (after which he attended on just under half of all sitting days). On 25 Jan. 1692 he was entrusted with the proxy of Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers (later earl of Jersey), which was vacated on Villiers’ return to the House on 8 February. Nominated one of the managers of the conferences held to consider the public accounts bill on 5, 8 and 10 Feb., on 16 Feb. Radnor acted as teller in two divisions concerning the use of proxies during proceedings on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He then subscribed the protest when the resolution to employ proxies was defeated. On 23 Feb. he acted as teller once more, on this occasion on behalf of those opposed to the resolution to make an entry in the Journal on passing a clause in the poll bill.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Radnor was one of a number of Cornish notables mentioned as having invested a considerable sum of money (reports suggested that they had raised at least £70,000) towards the building of two ships for trade in the East Indies.<sup>20</sup> Again diligent in attending the prorogations of 25 May, 11 July, 22 Aug. and 26 Sept. 1692, he took his seat in the new session on 4 November. Later that month inaccurate reports circulated of the death of Sir John Cutler, whose decease promised to make Lady Radnor ‘a vast fortune to my Lord’.<sup>21</sup> Radnor voted in favour of committing the place bill on 31 Dec. and then backed the measure’s passage on 3 Jan. 1693. Assessed by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, as being likely to support the Norfolk divorce bill at the beginning of the year, he voted accordingly in favour of reading the bill on 2 January. At the close of the month (31 Jan.) he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb. he found Mohun not guilty of murder.<sup>22</sup> Radnor entered a further dissent on 6 Mar. at the resolution not to communicate to the Commons the information taken at the bar of the Lords and on 10 Mar. he was appointed one of the reporters of the conference considering the duchy of Cornwall bill. That month he was also suggested as a possible replacement for Bath as lord lieutenant of Cornwall.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In April 1693 reports circulated again that Radnor’s father-in-law, Sir John Cutler, was seriously sick and that he had received his son-in-law and daughter, had ‘freely’ forgiven them ‘and had settled his estate to their satisfaction’.<sup>24</sup> It is unclear what the earl and countess had been forgiven for, though there had been general reports that Cutler had not approved of the match.<sup>25</sup> Cutler died soon after, leaving an extensive personal fortune, which common fame awarded to a greater or lesser degree to Radnor, though by the terms of the will Lady Radnor was left a bequest of just £1,000 out of an estate estimated at anything between £300,000 and £600,000.<sup>26</sup> By the terms of a former settlement, she received £6,000 a year out of Cutler’s estates in Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire and half of his personal estate, although in the event of Lady Radnor dying without children, this was to be conveyed to Cutler’s nephew, Edmund Boulter<sup>‡</sup>, who was named sole executor.<sup>27</sup> Radnor appears to have responded to his improved financial circumstances with a conspicuous display of prodigality. He laid out £10,000 to buy pictures, as well as investing in a new coach and horses costing £1,000 and linings (presumably wall coverings) for his house at a cost of a further £1,000.<sup>28</sup> While Radnor revelled in his good fortune, Cutler’s death earned Lady Radnor a visit by the queen in May to condole with her on her loss. The following month Radnor was involved in a chancery suit with John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, over a mortgage held by Cutler. The case was settled in Radnor’s favour.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Radnor took his seat in the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 (after which he was present on a third of all sitting days). Although marked present on the attendance list that day, he was excused at a call on 14 November; he returned to his place four days later. The same month, Radnor’s brother, Russell Robartes, replaced Cutler at Bodmin, while Radnor attempted to make the most of his new-found wealth by offering to raise a regiment of horse for the king’s service out of his own pocket.<sup>30</sup> His relocation to No. 7 St James’s Square the following year (1694) may have been indicative of his greater affluence at this time, though he almost immediately mortgaged the property to Francis Brudenell, Lord Brudenell (<em>d.</em>1698), heir of Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, for £2,500 to enable him to pay off a debt owing to Brudenell’s sister, Lady Newburgh.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Having taken his seat in the new session on 22 Nov. 1694 (after which he was present on 52 per cent of all sitting days), Radnor acted as teller on 25 Jan. 1695 for the division over whether to appoint a day for the consideration of the establishment of the Bank of England: the motion was rejected. On 11 Mar. the House ordered that Dennis Russell should be attached for filing declarations of ejectment on some of Radnor’s tenants, contrary to privilege. Appointed <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Cornwall that year, in the October elections Radnor made the most of his new office to impose his will on those areas in the county where he had greatest interest. Nicholas Glynn<sup>‡</sup> determined not to contest the seat at Bodmin on the grounds that ‘Lord Radnor treats at an extravagant rate and the good liquor has more force than any other consideration.’<sup>32</sup> Such lavish entertainment ensured the return of Russell Robartes, while Radnor’s brother-in-law, George Booth<sup>‡</sup>, benefited from his patronage at Bossiney. Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, after which he was present on a third of all sitting days. In April 1696 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Cornwall, an acknowledgment of his developing interest in the area but also probably a determined effort on the part of the court to wrest control from the Granvilles.<sup>33</sup> The same month he undertook a minor diplomatic task when he was deputed to receive the Venetian ambassadors at Greenwich.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Radnor took his seat in the second session on 26 Oct. 1696 and on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of passing the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Shortly after, personal tragedy intervened, when in January 1697 he suffered the loss of his countess.<sup>35</sup> This presumably explains his absence from the House throughout January and for the greater part of February 1697, though he covered this by registering his proxy with Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield. The proxy was vacated by Radnor’s return to the House on 22 February. Aside from any personal feelings of loss, Radnor suffered a very definite financial reversal with his wife’s death, as her annuity from the Cutler lands descended to her cousin Edmund Boulter rather than to her husband; this presumably explains Radnor’s later dependence on court handouts. It was also no doubt indicative of his increasing financial difficulties that by May 1705 he was said to have been two years behind in his interest payments to John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham.<sup>36</sup> Rumours that Radnor was to marry again (later reports mentioned him in connection with one of the daughters of Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent) proved unfounded and he remained a widower for the rest of his life.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Radnor returned to the House at the opening of the 3rd session on 3 Dec. (after which he was present on 43 per cent of all sitting days). Whatever his diminished financial condition may have been, he remained influential at court as a report of 30 Dec. made plain. The message, sent by John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> to Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], warned against leaving out Radnor’s uncle, Francis Robartes<sup>‡</sup>, from his post of commissioner of revenue in Ireland ‘because the king seems to stand in need of my Lord Radnor, his relation’.<sup>38</sup> Radnor’s interest certainly remained significant in the 1698 general election. Russell Robartes retained his seat at Bodmin, while George Booth joined Travers at Losthwithiel, forcing John Hicks<sup>‡</sup> into third place. Emanuel Pyper<sup>‡</sup>, one of two contesting mayors of Liskeard, appears to have offered the town’s recordership to Radnor in an effort to acquire some political capital but Radnor rebuffed his advances and referred the matter to Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, who held the recordership under the 1685 charter.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698 (after which he was present on half of all sitting days). That month Hicks, who had unsuccessfully contested Lostwithiel, petitioned against Booth’s return, asserting that:</p><blockquote><p>a peer of this realm, of great place and trust in the said county did not only persuade and influence the said electors not to choose the petitioner, before the election, but appeared there, and recommended for burgesses George Booth and Samuel Travers esquires, for whom his lordship declared he would be answerable.</p></blockquote><p>The Commons’ committee was unmoved and Hicks later withdrew his petition.<sup>40</sup> Radnor seems subsequently to have made little impact on the session save for being appointed one of the managers of the conference for the bill for duty on paper on 3 May.</p><p>Radnor returned to the House for the second session on 29 Nov. 1699 and on 1 Feb. 1700 he was forecast as being opposed to continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 23 Feb. he voted against adjourning to discuss two amendments to the East India Company bill in a committee of the whole, later registering his dissent at the resolution to allow the bill to pass. In July he was marked ‘x’ on a list of Whig lords, possibly an indication of his adherence to the Junto at that time.</p><p>Although Radnor’s brother-in-law, Booth, was unsuccessful in the first election of 1701, he was able to regain his seat at Lostwithiel shortly after, following the death of John Buller<sup>‡</sup>. Russell Robartes was again returned for Bodmin and Francis Robartes for Bossiney. Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701 and the following month the House ordered that Radnor’s counsel should be heard during the consideration of the bill for regulating the king’s bench and Fleet prisons, against which Radnor had entered an objection, having a financial interest in the institutions.<sup>41</sup> Radnor acted as one of the tellers in a vote on adjourning the House on 15 May. The following month he demonstrated his Junto loyalties by voting in favour of acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers, on 17 June. Six days later he also voted in favour of throwing out the charges laid against Somers’ colleague, Edward Russell*, earl of Orford.</p><p>Present on the prorogation day of 6 Nov. 1701, Radnor continued his gradual accretion of Cornish offices when he succeeded Bath as lord warden of the stannaries that month – a position worth £1,500 a year.<sup>42</sup> At the close of the month he travelled to Cornwall ‘to support his majesty’s interest’ and was no doubt relieved to witness the return once more of his brother Russell and brother-in-law Booth.<sup>43</sup> He returned to London in time to take his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. (after which he was present on 78 per cent of all sitting days). The following month he was admitted to the Privy Council. Despite his recent promotions within Cornwall, Radnor’s continuing difficulties in establishing his authority in the county were revealed when the members of Parliament for Cornwall presented the king with an address from the county’s miners in January 1702 but pointedly omitted Radnor, ‘thereby representing the small interest his lordship has amongst them’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Radnor may have been slighted in his locality but he was active in Parliament during the session. On 22 Jan. the House appointed him, together with Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, to wait on the king to recommend Colonel Leighton for some mark of favour; four days later (26 Jan.) Radnor reported the king’s positive response to the Lords’ address. On 6 and 10 Feb. 1702 he was appointed one of the reporters of a conference concerning the bill for attainting the Pretender and on 21 Feb. he acted as one of the tellers on a division whether to communicate an instruction to the committee of the whole appointed to consider the Succession bill. Two days later he told again in a division over the inclusion of additional text within the Succession bill and on 8 Mar. he was one of the managers of the conference held to mark the death of William III and accession of Queen Anne. On 4 May he was one of six peers appointed to wait on the new queen and to lay before her a report on whether papers found in her predecessor’s closet had contained information prejudicial to her succession.</p><h2><em>The Reign of Anne</em></h2><p>The accession of Anne proved unfavourable for Radnor. Although Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, bemoaned the fact that Radnor had not been put out of his lieutenancy in June, he soon had his wish when Radnor was displaced in favour of John Granville*, later Baron Granville of Potheridge.<sup>45</sup> Radnor’s declining influence was perhaps reflected in his failure to succeed Jonathan Rashleigh<sup>‡</sup> as recorder of Fowey in September.<sup>46</sup> His interest at Bodmin was also squeezed in the general election, although his uncle, Francis Robartes, secured one of the seats after John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> decided to sit for Gloucestershire instead. Only at Lostwithiel did the Robartes interest appear unaffected where Russell Robartes was returned once more.</p><p>Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1702. On 1 Jan. 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be opposed to the bill for preventing occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Three days later he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to agree with the committee in leaving out a clause allowing Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, to serve as a member of the Privy Council in the bill for settling a revenue on the prince in the event of his surviving the queen. Two days later, having failed to put his name to the protest of 20 Jan. objecting to the passing of the prince’s bill, Radnor moved that any lords who wished to do so might still be permitted to subscribe the protest. The motion was adopted. He also took the opportunity of withdrawing his objection to the passing of the bill for regulating king’s bench prison.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Radnor’s declining interest may have contributed to a delay that summer in confirming his brother, Russell Robartes, as one of the grooms of the bedchamber to Prince George. Robartes appealed to Harley to find out the cause of the delay, insisting that his brother ‘was mightily surprised that there should now be any hesitation since he, as well as the whole town, took it for granted the thing was done and determined’.<sup>48</sup> In November, Radnor was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in two assessments as being likely to oppose the bill for preventing occasional conformity. Having taken his seat in the new session on 16 Nov. he voted accordingly to reject the bill in the divisions held on 14 December. Prior to this, on 29 Nov., he attended to his own concerns by submitting a petition for a lease on Tintagel. Radnor was present at a large gathering hosted by Sunderland in St James’s Square on 13 Feb. 1704, where discourse centred on the Scotch Plot then being debated by the Lords. He returned to the House for the third session on 20 Nov. 1704 (after which he was present on 42 per cent of all sitting days) and on 27 Feb. 1705 he was appointed to the committee established to prepare heads of a conference with the Commons concerning the Ailesbury men.</p><p>Radnor was noted as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession in April 1705. In the general election that summer, his interest held firm at Bodmin and Lostwithiel and on 23 Aug. he attended the service of thanksgiving held at St Paul’s to mark the latest victory over the French.<sup>49</sup> He appears to have played little part in Parliament from the winter of 1705 until November 1707. Noted missing at a call of the House on 12 Nov. 1705, having taken his seat on 23 Nov. he attended just 11 days of the 96-day session. He managed to stir himself to appear on 17 days in the following session (December 1706–April 1707), during which he introduced Henry Howard*, styled Lord Walden, as earl of Bindon and his old comrade Cholmondeley as earl of Cholmondeley. He was also one of the peers present at a hearing in the court of delegates in February.<sup>50</sup> He was then present on just one day of the brief session of April 1707. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Nov. 1707, after which his attendance improved and he was present on just over 30 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Nov. he was appointed to the committee considering the petition of his mother, the dowager countess, over her suit with Sir Richard Child<sup>‡</sup>. On 7 Feb. 1708 he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill improving the Union and two days later petitioned to bring in a bill for vesting some of his estates in trustees to be sold to ease his burden of debt. Leave was granted on 25 February. On 12 Mar. he chaired the committee drawing up an address to be presented to the queen.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Following the session’s close, Radnor was marked a Whig in an assessment of peers’ allegiances. In the Cornish elections he was active once again in promoting his family’s interest, but, although the poll at Lostwithiel was contested by two of Radnor’s kinsmen, neither was successful there. The death of one of the victorious candidates, James Kendall<sup>‡</sup>, shortly after once more brought to the fore the rivalry between the Robartes and Granville clans.<sup>52</sup> Following petitions lodged by Francis and Russell Robartes in 1709, both Lostwithiel seats were awarded to Radnor’s relatives, though Russell Robartes chose to sit for Bodmin, where he had also been returned.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 3 Dec. 1708. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers. He returned to the House for the following session on 15 Nov. 1709 (after which he was present on 36 per cent of all sitting days) and on 20 Mar. 1710 he found Henry Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.</p><p>Radnor’s party loyalties appear to have been drifting by the autumn of that year. Financial woes seem to have been at the root of his apostasy. In September Jonathan Swift recorded spending an hour and a half with him at a coffee house talking ‘treason heartily against the Whigs, their baseness and ingratitude’.<sup>54</sup> Despite this, Robert Harley still thought Radnor doubtful in an assessment of October 1710. Radnor persisted in seeking Harley’s interest with the queen. The following month, a further letter from Radnor to Harley was annotated ‘£400’ in Harley’s hand, presumably a note of the pension that Harley felt sufficient to secure Radnor’s support.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Realignment with the Harley regime failed to solve all of Radnor’s problems. In the general election of October 1710, both seats at Bodmin went to his kinsmen but he appears by then to have lost the greater part of his interest at Bossiney. His attendance of the House also remained uneven. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 27 Nov. 1710 but was then present on just 29 per cent of all sitting days. In May 1711, the death of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, offered further cause for infighting in Cornwall as Radnor, Granville and John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret (later Earl Granville), all vied with each other for the lieutenancy. George Granville*, later Baron Lansdown, was uncompromising in his efforts to prevent Radnor’s nomination, insisting in a letter to Harley that ‘you may depend upon it that nothing can be more prejudicial to you than the appointment of Lord Radnor as Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall’.<sup>56</sup> In the event all were disappointed and, despite Radnor’s reported ‘very earnest applications’ for the office, the vacant place went to Rochester’s heir.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Radnor was compelled to appeal to Oxford (as Harley had become) for payment of his pension on several occasions during the summer of 1711.<sup>58</sup> In November, still unsatisfied, he resorted to a further begging letter seeking what appears to have been a very trifling sum and underlining that:</p><blockquote><p>If I had not a very extraordinary and pressing occasion, depend on it my dear lord, I would not ask it. It is but seven, and if your lordship would send it me tomorrow, ’twill double the obligation, because I am engaged to make a payment on Saturday next, which I know not how to do without your lordship’s assistance.<sup>59</sup></p></blockquote><p>Oxford listed Radnor among those peers to be canvassed before the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion at the beginning of December. Having taken his seat in the new session on 7 Dec., Radnor joined a number of pensioners and office-holders abandoning the ministry to vote in favour of the motion. On 19 Dec. he was listed (with a query) as a possible supporter of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the Lords as duke of Brandon, but he was absent from the vote on the following day. Indeed, the query probably relates to his absence from the House until after the Christmas recess.On 29 Dec. Oxford again noted Radnor as someone to be contacted during the recess, and on the following day, Swift spent three hours with Radnor in an effort ‘to bring him over to us’. As a result of his endeavours Swift thought Radnor might now ‘be tractable; but he is a scoundrel, and though I said I only talked for my love to him, I told a lie; for I did not care if he were hanged’.</p><p>For all Swift’s blandishments, Radnor failed to attend the House on 2 Jan. 1712 when the ministry’s motion to adjourn was carried by the force of Oxford’s dozen new peers, leaving Swift to muse wistfully that he hoped he had ‘cured him’.<sup>60</sup> A list of 15 Jan. compiled by Bothmer for the Hanoverian court noted Radnor (among other poor lords) as likely to require a pension of £1,000 to secure his loyalty. On 28 May he voted with the other members of the ministry in opposing calls for an address to the queen to overturn the orders preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging the French. Evidently, Swift remained unconvinced of Radnor’s resilience, however, and Radnor may have been the intended recipient of his pamphlet of that year, <em>Some Reasons to Prove, That no person is obliged by his Principles, as a Whig, to oppose Her Majesty or her Present Ministry</em>.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Present on eight prorogation days between July 1712 and March 1713, in February 1713 Radnor once more resorted to writing to Oxford in an effort to secure his pension, which he claimed had fallen short by £600 or £700.<sup>62</sup> In a forecast of the following month, and no doubt as a result of Radnor’s dissatisfaction, Swift and Oxford both thought Radnor would oppose the ministry in the forthcoming session. Radnor took his seat in the House on 21 Apr. (after which he was present on 69 per cent of all sitting days) and on 13 June Oxford assessed that he would oppose the passage of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Despite Radnor’s apparent refusal to toe the ministry line, he continued to feature in lists of peers requiring handouts. Following the end of the 1713 session he was again included among a list of poor lords to be sent to the Elector (later George I) with a further recommendation for a £1,000 pension (which was later granted him by the new regime).<sup>63</sup> It seems clear that Radnor was by now extremely dependent on such court largesse, having sold at least two of the estates he had inherited from his wife. Russell Robartes was scathing about his brother’s mismanagement of his inheritance and objected to the sale of the estate at Wimpole to John Holles*, duke of Newcastle.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Radnor’s uncle, Francis, was again returned for Bodmin in the election of September 1713. Perhaps indicative of the tensions between the brothers at that time, Russell Robartes determined not to stand. Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, but attended on just two days before absenting himself for the rest of the month. On 1 Mar. he registered his proxy with William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, which was vacated by his resumption of his place on 17 Mar. (following which he attended on a further 43 days in the session). Forecast as being opposed to the Schism bill by Nottingham at the end of May or beginning of June, on 15 June Radnor subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the measure. Despite disagreeing on this, the following month Radnor registered his proxy with Nottingham (which was vacated by the close of the session).</p><p>Radnor attended six days of the brief 15-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. The Hanoverian accession offered him some hopes of greater fortune and in November he was reappointed to the lord lieutenancy of Cornwall. The following month he was granted the office of treasurer of the chamber, which he held until 1720. Details of the final stage of his career will be dealt with in the next part of this work. Radnor sat for the last time on 27 May 1723 and died just over two months later at Shaw in Berkshire. In the absence of any offspring, the peerage descended to his nephew, Henry Robartes*, son of Russell Robartes, who succeeded as 3rd earl of Radnor. Radnor’s sole executor and principal beneficiary was his sister, Lady Essex Robartes.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ROBARTES, John (1606-85) |
<p><strong><surname>ROBARTES</surname></strong> (<strong>ROBERTS</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1606–85)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Apr. 1634 as 2nd Bar. ROBARTES; <em>cr. </em>1679 earl of RADNOR |
|
First sat before 1660, 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 14 May 1660; last sat 2 July 1685 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1606, 1st s. of Richard Robartes<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Robartes and Frances, da. of John Hender of Boscastle, Cornw. <em>educ</em>. Exeter Coll. Oxf. 1625. <em>m</em>. (1) Apr. 1630 Lucy (<em>d</em>. c.1647), da. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) c.1647 Letitia Isabella (<em>d</em>. ?1714), da. of Sir John Smith (Smythe) of Bidborough, Kent, 4s. (at least 1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. <em>d</em>. 17 July 1685; <em>will</em> 10 Sept. 1684, pr. 30 July 1685.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1 June 1660-<em>d</em>.,<sup>2</sup> ld. pres. 1679-84;<sup>3</sup> commr., treasury June-Sept. 1660, plantations 1660-70, trade 1660-72, office of earl marshal 1662-72;<sup>4</sup> ld. dep. [I] June 1660-May 1661;<sup>5</sup> ld. privy seal 1661-73;<sup>6</sup> ld lt. [I] May 1669-Feb. 1670.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Ld lt., Cornw. 1642, Devon 1644; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Cornw. 1642, 1660-<em>d</em>.; gov., Plymouth 1644-5; recorder, Lostwithiel 1646-61;<sup>8</sup> freeman, Saltash 1683,<sup>9</sup> Liskeard 1685.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Speaker, House of Lords 1663, 1665-7, 1668-9, 1680. <sup>11</sup></p><p>Col., regt. of ft. (Parl.) 1642; field marshal (Parl.) 1644; capt., duke of Ormond’s regt. of ft. 1661.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Gov., Charterhouse 1645, 1660;<sup>13</sup> FRS 1666.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Edward Bower?, c.1634, National Trust, Lanhydrock House; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1683, National Trust, Lanhydrock House.</p> |
<p>Robartes’s forebears made their fortune in Cornwall as merchants and money-lenders. His cousin, Edward Robartes<sup>‡</sup>, appears to have been the first member of the family to be returned to the Commons as member for Penryn. It was through marriage into the Hender family that Robartes’s father Richard was able to make inroads into gentry society. He was later prevailed upon to use some of his substantial wealth to purchase the barony of Robartes in 1625 through the (controversial) mediation of Charles I's favourite, George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, for an estimated £10,000.<sup>16</sup> John Robartes’s own marriages allied him to the Rich family, earls of Warwick, but his interests remained predominantly Cornish. Lauded by Josiah Ricraft as ‘a true Nathanael’, Robartes appears by most other accounts to have been a rather dour and sullen man, though his compendious knowledge of ceremonial and legal precedents and his comparative moderation in religion served to make him a valuable man of affairs.<sup>17</sup> Having succeeded his father in the peerage in April 1634 he took his seat in the Lords on 13 Apr. 1640, where he soon became associated with the parliamentary opponents of Charles I. In 1642 he contributed £1,000 to the parliamentary cause and served with distinction as a colonel at Edgehill and as commander of a brigade at the first battle of Newbury.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Robartes’s activities in the parliamentary army led to the confiscation of his estates by the king, which were granted to his local rival, Sir Richard Grenvile<sup>‡</sup>, and the imprisonment of his children, though they were later released as part of an exchange in return for those of Thomas Arundell<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Arundell of Wardour. Although Robartes was appointed to a number of senior posts in the parliamentary army (by 1644 he was a full field marshal), he enjoyed mixed fortunes as a commander and in April 1645 he resigned the governorship of Plymouth under the terms of the self-denying ordinance. He opposed the formation of the New Model and objected to subordinating the church courts to parliamentary commissioners. Out of sympathy with events and intent, very literally, on cultivating his garden, in April 1648 he secured leave to retire to Cornwall.<sup>19</sup> He retreated from public affairs for the following dozen years concentrating instead on hunting and the development of his estate.</p><p>Although Robartes was disinclined to associate directly with royalist adventurers, his well-known disgruntlement and potential influence in the west country led to him being ordered away from Cornwall and required to live in Essex for eight months by the council of state.<sup>20</sup> He was also required to provide two sureties of £20,000 for his good behaviour. The new administration's efforts to clip his wings failed to prevent him from drifting into the ranks of what John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, termed ‘the Presbyterian Knot’.<sup>21</sup> Robartes remained shy of overt contact with royalist agents and does not appear to have co-operated with any of the royalist conspiracies but by 1654 he was being described in royalist reports as being 'firm for us'.<sup>22</sup> In June 1659 Mordaunt advised Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, that the recruitment of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, would also engage Robartes, his kinsman Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick, and William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele. All of them were by then eager to work towards restoration of the monarchy on the principles set out in the treaty of Newport.<sup>23</sup></p><h2><em>Restoration, 1660-61</em></h2><p>In advance of the Convention, Robartes attempted to bring his interest to bear in the county elections for Cornwall as well as in four Cornish boroughs (Bodmin, Bossiney, Losthwithiel and Truro) but with mixed results. Hender Robartes<sup>‡</sup> and a kinsman, John Silly<sup>‡</sup> were returned for Bodmin and Francis Gerard<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Pym<sup>‡</sup> were elected on the family interest for Bossiney, but both Robartes’s candidates at Lostwithiel were squeezed out and he failed to make any impression at Truro either.<sup>24</sup> Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed Robartes as one of the lords who had sat in the House during the Civil War and thus likely to be admitted to the restored House of Lords. Robartes took his seat in the Convention on 14 May, on which day he was named to the committee considering the petition of Charles Stanhope*, 2nd Baron Stanhope of Harrington. He was also added to the committees for petitions and privileges.</p><p>Present on 84 per cent of all sitting days prior to the September adjournment, he quickly became a leading figure in the House. Having for a long time taken a close interest in parliamentary matters, as attested by a number of volumes in his possession containing extracts from the Journals and discussions of precedence, Robartes quickly established himself as one of the principal managers of business within the House.<sup>25</sup> He was also one of those peers responsible on occasion for drafting legislation. His close study of procedural issues appears to have more than made up for his rather unattractive persona. Hyde later paid tribute to Robartes’s ‘good knowledge in the law, and antiquity’, experience that made him ‘such a man as the king thought worthy to compound with’. He qualified this assessment with the criticism that Robartes’s compendious knowledge was ‘rendered the less useful by the other pedantry contracted out of some books, and out of the ill conversation he had with some clergymen and people in quality much below him’. <sup>26</sup> He possessed, though, considerable influence, Clarendon suggested:</p><blockquote><p>He had some parts which in Council and Parliament (which were the two scenes where all the King’s business lay) were most troublesome; for of all men alive who had so few friends, he had the most followers. Those who conversed most with him, knew him to have many humours which were very intolerable; they who were but little acquainted with him, took him to be a man of much knowledge, and called his morosity gravity, and thought the severity of his manners made him less grateful to the courtiers. He had no such advantageous faculties in his delivery, as could impose upon his auditors; but he was never tedious, and his words made impression.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>Robartes was named to more than 30 select committees during the first part of the Convention before the adjournment. One assessment calculates that he had the highest number of committee appointments in the Convention.<sup>28</sup> Already on his fifth sitting day, 18 May, he chaired the committee, consisting only of him, Saye and Sele and Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, considering the order to seize the persons and effects of the late king's judges. The following day these same three were named to prepare the material to be offered at a conference with the Commons concerning the regicides. On 19 May, he was also named to a select committee considering the order concerning the fellows of New College, Oxford. On 24 May Robartes was one of three peers nominated to the select committee to consider the Commons' declaration about the Excise. He reported back from this committee the same day and on 25 May he reported from the committee for the ordinance for a monthly assessment.</p><p>Besides his role within the House, Robartes appears to have been eager to secure ministerial office. During May, before the king had even returned from exile, reports circulated of his appointment as lord deputy in Ireland. One letter of 20 May noted how ‘my Lord Robartes, formerly accounted a great Presbyterian though a man of much moderation, wisdom, learnings and good natural parts, contrary to all expectation is declared by the king himself deputy of Ireland.’<sup>29</sup> His appointment as deputy to George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, as lord lieutenant, was made formally in June. On 1 June he was sworn to the Privy Council, perhaps also through the interest of Albemarle.<sup>30</sup> His appointment had been anticipated by the French envoy, Antoine de Bordeaux, though de Bordeaux had also commented that, having been ‘one of the most impassioned against the king’ in the past, Robartes’s inclusion had annoyed some of the old royalists.<sup>31</sup> On 9 June Robartes reported from the committee considering the House’s choice of a Speaker, communicating the committee’s conclusion that the place should normally be occupied either by the lord chancellor or lord keeper, but that in the absence of one of these or a substitute authorized under the great seal, the Lords should then elect a Speaker themselves. On 14 June Robartes was one of two peers (the other being Francis Willoughby*, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham) noted as having registered his dissent at the resolution to lay aside consideration of what was to be done about those peers who had taken the oath of abjuration against the king, though Robartes’s signature was not then reproduced in the printed Journal under the protest.</p><p>Between 20 July and 10 August Robartes reported on 15 occasions from committees of the whole held to consider the bill of indemnity, and particularly those persons to be exempted from it. On 23 July he reported the recommendation that Colonel John Hutchinson<sup>‡</sup> be omitted from the list of regicides while on 1 and 2 Aug. he reported the votes exempting five persons from indemnity and disabling a further 16 from holding office. He reported from the committee of the whole House on 6 Aug. which had been considering the petitions of the regicides Thomas Lister<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Gilbert Pickering<sup>‡</sup>, bt. as well as other private provisos within the bill, communicating the House’s resolution that such private provisos should be left out of the bill. On 10 Aug. he reported the completed bill with its amendments and alterations. On 13 Aug. he was appointed to assist the lord chancellor [Hyde] in managing a conference with the Commons concerning public bills. The following day he was one of four peers nominated to assist Hyde again at a conference concerning poll money.</p><p>On 16 Aug. 1660 Robartes was appointed to replace Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, with whom he was believed to be on close terms, as one of the referees to compose differences within the corporation of Winchester.<sup>32</sup> The same day he registered his dissent at the resolution to allow Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, to recover damages for a breach of privilege committed against him nine years previously. On 20 Aug. Robartes was again appointed a manager of a conference concerning the differences between the Houses on the indemnity bill and he had the same role in subsequent conferences on the 22nd and 24th. On 25 Aug. he presented to the House a draft of the expedient to be offered to the Commons concerning those that had signed the former king’s death warrant, which was presented at the subsequent conference of 28 August. Earlier indications that Robartes was to depart for Ireland shortly were contradicted towards the close of the month. The delay may have been indicative of his disappointment at being made deputy to Albemarle, rather than lord lieutenant; it may also have been on account of his heavy involvement in parliamentary business at this juncture.<sup>33</sup> There was certainly no let-up in the weight of business with which he was involved. On 1 Sept. he acted as one of the managers of the conference to consider whether the king’s call for a recess should be interpreted as an adjournment or a prorogation and four days later he reported from committee the bill to prevent ‘inconveniences’ caused by patents and grants made during the previous 20 years. On 7 Sept. he reported from the committee assigned to draw heads for a conference on the poll bill and he was also one of six peers appointed to serve as commissioners for disbanding the army. The following day he was appointed a reporter of the conference considering the disbandment and on 11 Sept. he was again one of six peers named to the select committee to amend the bill for restoring ministers. The following day he was also named to the committee for amending the poll money bill.</p><p>Robartes resumed his seat after the adjournment on 6 Nov. 1660, after which he attended on over 90 per cent of all sitting days in the remainder of the Convention. On his first day he introduced the lord chancellor as Baron Hyde. On 8 Nov. he was named to the committee for considering precedents for congratulating the queen dowager on her return to England and the following day he brought to the House’s attention the king’s declaration concerning ecclesiastical affairs (the Worcester House Declaration), which he moved ought to be read. The House subsequently resolved on passing a vote of thanks to the king for the declaration. Robartes was added to the committee for the bill restoring Thomas Howard*, earl of Arundel, to the dukedom of Norfolk on 10 Nov. and a week later he reported from the committee for Astley’s naturalization bill. On 6 Dec. he reported from the committee considering the dispute <em>Rodney v. Cole</em> and he subscribed the protest at the resolution to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell. On 15 Dec. he reported from the committee for the Royston vicarage bill and four days later he reported from the committee for the excise bill. On 20 Dec., he was nominated a commissioner for assessing the peers for poll money in the morning and during the afternoon meeting reported from the committee for the bill for abolishing the court of wards. Over the next few days he was involved in a series of conferences at the end of the Convention: on the 21st he reported from the committee for the Francis Hyde naturalization bill and was one of three peers nominated to manage a conference on three different bills. He reported back from it that afternoon on the college leases bill. On 22 Dec. he was one of three peers assigned to consider a proviso in the court of wards abolition bill concerning the mean profit of peers, and he quickly reported back their conclusions; later that afternoon he and Hyde were appointed to manage two more conferences. Robartes and Hyde were named the two managers of a subsequent conference on the college leases bill on 27 Dec., and the following day the same two were appointed to manage the conference for the poll bill. At some point during December Robartes received the proxy of Francis Seymour*, Baron Seymour of Trowbridge. This proxy appears undated in the register but Seymour stopped sitting in the Convention after 30 November, and the entry in the register appears between entries dated 12 Sept. and 30 December.</p><h2><em>Lord privy seal, 1661-9</em></h2><p>Throughout the period of the Convention, while he was extremely busy in the House of Lords, Robartes held the post of lord deputy of Ireland. Early in 1661 he was removed from the deputyship following a series of clashes with Albemarle, the lord lieutenant. From the outset Robartes was said to have resented being made deputy ‘to any man but the king himself.’<sup>34</sup> In May 1661 the king offered him the vacant office of lord privy seal instead through the mediation of Clarendon (as Baron Hyde had become in April 1661) and Southampton.<sup>35</sup> The appointment provoked the vast annoyance of Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton, who had been angling for the place for months with the support of James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>36</sup> Hatton was compensated for his disappointment with the minor sop of governor of Guernsey, leaving Robartes free to hold the privy seal for the remainder of the decade.</p><p>The elections to the new Parliament in spring 1661 saw Robartes’s interest in Cornwall squeezed. Although Hender Robartes was again returned for Bodmin and Robert Robartes<sup>‡</sup> (later styled Viscount Bodmin) was returned at Bossiney, Robartes failed to nominate anyone to stand for the county. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661. Three days later he introduced Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, and was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the sub-committee for the Journal. Present on 85 per cent of all sitting days in the first session, on 15 May he reported from the privileges committee which he had chaired the previous day considering an unauthorised printing of the address to the king. As a result of his report, the offending publisher, Hodgkinson, was sent for to be heard at the bar. The following day Robartes was entered in the Journal’s attendance register for the first time as lord privy seal. Excused on account of poor health on 20 May, Robartes resumed his seat the following day and over the course of the session he was named to more than 60 select committees, in several of which he took a prominent role in as chairman, and he was again noticeable as one of the regular managers of conferences during the session. On 30 May 1661 he took the chair in the committee considering the bill for reversing the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, a measure he had been instrumental in driving through 20 years earlier. Previous hearings of this bill had been chaired by Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, and after Robartes adjourned the committee on 30 May without discussion it was Portland who resumed the chairmanship the following day.<sup>37</sup> On 8 June Robartes again chaired a session of the committee for the Strafford attainder bill as well as the committee for the Salwerpe and Stour navigation bill, which was adjourned without discussion.<sup>38</sup> On 25 June 1661 he was able to draw upon his knowledge of precedent to resolve a query caused by a tied vote concerning the petition of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to be admitted to the hereditary post of lord great chamberlain. Citing an instance in the 43rd year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, Robartes advised that in such cases the vote was adjudged to be resolved in the negative, which was accepted by the House. Robartes was reckoned to be opposed to Oxford's cause in an assessment of the following month, presumably preferring the claims of the then holder of the office, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey. On 17 July he subscribed the second protest against the resolution to vacate Sir Edward Powell’s fines and on 26 July he reported from the conference for the corporations bill. The following day, 27 July, he reported from one conference considering the House’s bill for the imposition of pains and penalties and at the end of the day’s sitting he helped to manage another one. That day he was also named to the committee for the bill for restraining disorderly printing, which was ordered to meet that afternoon. Although no minutes were recorded in the committee book, it seems reasonable to assume that Robartes chaired the meeting as on 29 July he reported from that committee and then went on to report from at least three conferences that day on the disagreement between the Houses on the Lords’ proviso which prevented their own houses from being searched for clandestine printing. Relations became so bad that the Commons refused even to receive the bill for preventing disorderly printing; Robartes left the bill on the table in the conference chamber. On that same day Robartes also reported from a committee with a proviso to be attached to the highways bill and he also reported from conference the Commons’ rejection of the proviso. On 30 July the House ordered that Robartes should deliver the proviso for the highways bill at a further conference. Once again the Houses failed to arrive at an accommodation, with the Commons proposing an amendment, which the Lords rejected as they believed it would have the effect of nullifying their proviso.</p><p>Over the three month adjournment from that day at the end of July 1661 Robartes’s duties of lord privy seal kept him in London. He soon attracted a reputation as a difficult taskmaster. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> complained on 8 Aug. of how he had attempted unsuccessfully to wait on Robartes, ‘which made me mad and gives all the world reason to talk of his delaying of business—as well as of his severity and ill using the clerks of the privy seal.’ Pepys was finally able to secure an audience the next day, after which he conceded that ‘the lion is not so fierce as he is painted’. The predominant response to Robartes was still that he was dour, cantankerous and slow to attend to business.<sup>39</sup> Clarendon, not the most impartial of commentators regarding Robartes, also concurred. Having helped to persuade him to take up the post, he then found that Robartes, ‘to show his extraordinary talent, found a way more to obstruct and puzzle business, at least the despatch of it, than any man in that office had ever done before’.<sup>40</sup> Despite this, his knowledge and experience made him an important man of business and during August he was one of four peers to participate in a conference in response to proposals received from Sir George Downing<sup>‡</sup>, the English resident at the Hague.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Robartes resumed his seat in the House after the summer adjournment, on 20 Nov. 1661. On 3 Dec. he chaired sessions of three committees and on 5 Dec. he reported back from one of these, that for the bill for the prevention of vexatious suits.<sup>42</sup> Two days later he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning witnesses called to the bar of the House. On 19 Dec. he was placed on the committee that was to meet with one from the Commons over the Christmas recess to discuss the news of Venner’s rising. Despite this appointment, Robartes seems to have been out of town over the Christmas period. He resumed his place on 8 Jan. 1662 and on 22 Jan. he reported from committee the bill for reversing Strafford’s attainder, which was subsequently recommitted.<sup>43</sup> He chaired sessions of the committees considering that bill and the herald’s bill the same day.<sup>44</sup> On 6 Feb. he signed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for restoring Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to family lands sold during the interregnum. On 1 Mar. he was appointed a manager of the conference for the Quakers’ petition and Robartes appears to have been entrusted with the proxy of Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden, during this month, for there is a note in the manuscript minutes for 10 Mar. 1662 listing the two men’s names together, though there is no accompanying record in the proxy books.<sup>45</sup> On 30 Apr. he was nominated one of the five reporters of the conference for the uniformity bill. Robartes reported from the conference on the bill for preventing frauds in customs on 3 May. He was chosen a manager on 7 May for a conference on the king’s message to expedite business and on that same day delivered a report of the Commons’ extensive objections to the amendments to the uniformity bill. On 10 May he reported from the committee of three peers nominated to draw up articles concerning the irregularities in the delivery of the bill for providing relief for former royalist officers and he was nominated a reporter of conferences on the bill on 12, 15 and 17 May. On 12 May he also reported the conference on the militia bill which had been held two days previously. Robartes was on 13 May appointed to the sub-committee established to draw up reasons explaining the Lords’ resolutions concerning various of the Commons’ alterations to the militia bill and to design an ‘expdient’ for one of the more controverted points. He was appointed a manager of for a conference on 14 May on this bill and, although he was not appointed a reporter for the subsequent one two days later, on that day he was placed on the committee of six peers assigned to draft a proviso regarding the peers’ provision of arms and horses, which he subsequently reported to the House. The following day he was appointed a reporter for two conferences on this matter, after the second of which he was able to report to the House that the remaining two differences between the Houses, including the privilege of the peers to assess and tax themselves, had been (reluctantly on the Commons’ part) resolved so that the important bill could go through before prorogation.<sup>46</sup> He was requested on 19 May to manage that part of the conference on the highways bill relating to the Lords’ proviso regarding the altering of bridges. The same day, the day of the prorogation, he subscribed the protest at the resolution to agree with the Commons in omitting from the highways bill these two provisos levying a charge for repairing bridges, which the Commons saw as the Lords interfering in a money bill.</p><p>Robartes took his place in the following session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on 86 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to 23 committees. Nominated one of the peers to wait on the king on the first day of the new session, on 19 Feb., he reported that he and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, had fulfilled their commission and offered the king the House’s thanks for his speech. The next day Robartes was one of four peers to be appointed to devise an order relating to protections and on 23 Feb. he was nominated Speaker as a result of the indisposition of the lord chief baron, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, bt, who was himself deputizing for the lord chancellor who was at that time laid up with gout. A commission dated that day authorized Robartes to continue to act as Speaker for so long as the lord chancellor remained unable attend.<sup>47</sup> That same day Robartes introduced (‘as by the king’s direction and approbation’) the bill designed to bring into effect the policy announced in the Declaration of Indulgence in December, and enabling the king to dispense with the Act of Uniformity and other religious legislation. When the measure came under heavy attack the following month, he was quick to distance himself from it.<sup>48</sup> Sickness seems to have hit the administration of Parliament hard during the session: on 5 Mar. Robartes informed the House of the indisposition of the clerk of parliaments, requiring his office to be undertaken by a deputy as well. Robartes continued to act as Speaker until 12 Mar. when the lord chancellor resumed his place. Following a series of debates in committee of the whole, the bill was referred to a sub-committee for ecclesiastical affairs; Robartes took the chair of the sub-committee on 16 March. A proposal to adjourn was carried by seven votes to four and on 18 Mar. Robartes chaired the sub-committee again, at the opening of which he presented his proposed wording both of the first enacting clause and the proviso for excluding Catholic recusants, though the bill failed to proceed much further.<sup>49</sup> On 23 Mar. he was also placed on the committee to draft a petition to the king regarding the increase of Jesuits and Catholic priests in the realm and in this role he was appointed a manager for conferences held on 26, 28 and 30 Mar. in which the wording of the address was successfully hammered out between the two houses. On 30 Mar. he chaired the committee considering the bill for licensing the water-commanding engine that had been invented by Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester; he was one of three peers to oversee this committee.<sup>50</sup> On 2 Apr. Robartes was nominated, with Albemarle, to attend the king with the House's thanks for the king’s message concerning priests and Jesuits and two days later Robartes was again named as one of the peers to attend the king with a deputation from the House of Commons.</p><p>Robartes was appointed temporary Speaker again on 2 May 1663. He continued to fulfil the role on the following two sitting days before the lord chancellor resumed his place once more on 7 May. On 11 and 18 May Robartes chaired sessions of the privileges committee examining the procedure for the introduction of peers, taking into their consideration precedents from the reign of Henry VIII onwards to determine how their first sittings should be managed.<sup>51</sup> The following month, on 18 June, Robartes reported from the committee for petitions the case of <em>Clapham v. Bowyer</em>, those involved in the action being ordered to appear at the bar on 23 June. On 26 June Robartes was one of four peers nominated to draw up the forms of submission for Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, who had been engaged in a furious dispute. Robartes reported the form of the submission the following day.</p><p>In April and May the French envoy, Gaston de Cominges, had reported that Robartes was allied with the cabal who had been responsible for the Declaration of Indulgence — George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury) and Sir Henry Bennet*, later Baron (and earl of) Arlington — were united in opposition to the lord chancellor, and that Bristol was insisting on the admission of Ashley and Robartes to the king’s inner counsels.<sup>52</sup> In mid-July Wharton listed Robartes as likely to support the abortive attempt by Bristol, to impeach Clarendon.</p><p>Shortly after the failure of Bristol’s impeachment attempt, Robartes served as Speaker on 16 July, and two days later was appointed one of the commissioners for assessing the peers. He served as Speaker again for the last few days of the session from 23 until 27 July. On 23 July he reported from the committee for the bill for better collecting the excise and he was appointed a manager for a conference on the matter later that day. That same day he also reported from the conference concerning the bill to allow the duke of York to grant wine licences and the following one he reported from the committee established, in response to the report, to draw up heads for further conferences regarding the Commons’ proviso to that bill. Robartes and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, sought leave on 24 July to enter their protest against the passage of the bill for the encouragement of trade, and particularly its provisions for banning the import of Irish cattle, but in the manuscript and printed journal for that day, only Anglesey’s name appears next to the long protest. Robartes’s apparent omission echoes the earlier occasion when he sought leave to protest along with Willoughby of Parham but then failed to append his signature. His failure on this occasion may have been a simple slip caused by his other responsibilities on the day, though this is contradicted by a report made by Anglesey to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (who had the right to attend the Lords as earl of Brecknock). Anglesey asserted that he, Robartes and several other peers had all signed the protest, which suggests that it is a mistake in the Journal and not of Robartes’s making.<sup>53</sup> A memorandum by the clerk, John Throckmorton, in the manuscript minutes that between 16 and 26 July he was unable to attend the House owing to his ‘extreme weakness and sickness’ may help to explain the omission: possibly the signatures to the protest were lost as a result.<sup>54</sup> Robartes reported on 25 July from the conference on the excise bill, held the previous day, and he took part in a subsequent conference on the same matter that day, as well as in another conference on the duke of York’s wine licenses bill, from which he also reported. He reported on 27 July, the day of prorogation, from the committee of privileges considering the method of introducing peers by descent, recommending that such introductions should be managed with the minimum of fuss; the House agreed with the committee’s suggestions. The same day Robartes also reported back from the conference held with the Commons concerning amendments to the bill for relief of those disabled from subscribing the declaration of uniformity because of sickness. It has been suggested that Robartes attempted to distract the House's attention from the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ amendment to the bill, which had been recommended by a select committee dominated by peers with Presbyterian sympathies, by drawing attention to one of the Members of the Commons who was said to have criticized the Lords’ suggestion as having ‘neither justice nor prudence in it.’ Although the House resolved to respond to this slight by taking into consideration their privileges at their next sitting, this ploy failed to prevent the Lords from acceding to the Commons’ point and thereby undoing their former amendment.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Robartes returned to the House for the ensuing session on 16 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on two thirds of all sitting days and was named to six committees. It may also have been at some point during this session that he received the undated proxy of his wife’s kinsman, Warwick, who was absent on a number of occasions towards the close of March and throughout April; the immediately preceding entry in the proxy register is dated 17 March. Robartes reported from the committee of the whole House concerning the repeal of the Triennial Act on 30 Mar. and on 5 Apr. he was one of three peers named to wait on the king to thank him for his speech. Named to the committee for the seamen and navy stores bill on 18 Apr. 1664, Robartes took the chair in the committee the following morning.<sup>56</sup> Robartes reported the committee’s resolutions to the House later on that day. Ten days later he was appointed sole manager of the conference considering the king’s message to the House concerning the advancement of trade. On 21 Mar. a dispute between Robartes’s son, Robert Robartes, and Thomas Wynn over the disposition of the estate of Robartes’s father-in-law John Bodvile, came before the House, which presumably also engaged some of Robartes’s attention. The matter was put off in the course of the session, perhaps because of the failure of either party to bring up their witnesses from Wales in time.<sup>57</sup> It was still unresolved two years later.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Following the prorogation, Robartes was noted once again by the French ambassador as one of those working to bring down Lord Chancellor Clarendon.<sup>59</sup> Having attended the prorogation of 20 Aug. 1664, Robartes took his place in the new session on 24 Nov., after which he was present on just under 80 per cent of all sitting days. Named to five committees, on 31 Jan. 1665, with the chancellor again indisposed, he took over the role of Speaker once more. He continued to act as such for the remainder of the session.<sup>60</sup> On 9 Feb. he reported from the conference for the bill for granting aid to the king and on 23 and 24 Feb. he chaired lengthy sessions of the committee for Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>’s bill, the effects of which he reported to the House on 25 February.<sup>61</sup> On 28 Feb. he was appointed one of the managers of the conference for the bill of Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, from which he reported the following day, when he also reported from the conference for the bill concerning statutes and judgments.</p><p>Robartes attended the prorogation of 21 June 1665, before taking his place in the new session on 10 Oct. 1665. In advance of the meeting of Parliament he received the proxy of Charles Howard*, Baron Howard of Charlton, with whom he had previously shared chairmanship of the committee for the bill for resolving differences between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his son, Charles Powlett*, Lord St John (later duke of Bolton) in June and July of the 1663 session.<sup>62</sup> Howard of Charlton remained absent for the remainder of the session and the proxy was vacated by the prorogation. Present on 14 of the 19 sitting days of the session, on 11 of which he served as Speaker, Robartes on 13 Oct. was named to the committee for the distresses of rent bill, from which he reported on 16 October. He remained involved in this bill and on 31 Oct. was nominated a reporter of the conference on it. That same day he also reported from the conference considering additions to the plague bill.</p><p>Returning to the House at the outset of the new session on 18 Sept. 1666, Robartes continued to be a very closely involved in much of the business of the House. He was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal on 24 Sept. and to a further 17 committees during the remainder of the session, of which he attended over 95 per cent of all sitting days. In the course of the session he received the proxies of two former royalist commanders, that of Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, on 18 Dec. (vacated by the session’s close) and the following day that of Richard Byron*, 2nd Baron Byron (which was vacated on 17 Jan. 1667). In November Robartes was also elected to the Royal Society, proposed by Seth Ward*, bishop of Exeter.<sup>63</sup> By now a prominent advocate of the Irish cattle bill, Robartes chaired sessions of the committee of the whole debating the measure on 22 and 23 Oct. and again on 10 November.<sup>64</sup> Two days later Robartes reported the amended bill as being fit to pass, which it did, following further delays, on 23 November. Robartes’s apparent <em>volte</em> <em>face</em> on this issue from his opposition to the bill for encouragement of trade may have been indicative of his growing alliance with Ashley against Clarendon, and possibly of his resentment of Ormond’s tenure of the lord lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>65</sup> Nominated one of the lords to attend the king with the vote objecting to the importation of French commodities on 30 Oct., Robartes was later nominated on 22 Nov. one of the managers of the conference for the public accounts, from which he reported back the following day. On 3 Dec. 1666 he reported from the committee of the whole considering the Commons’ votes against the Canary Company patent and on 7 Dec. he reported from the privileges committee considering the same business. On 17 Dec. Robartes reported from a further conference on the Irish cattle bill which had been held with the Commons three days previously and was then named to a committee of seven peers to draw up answers to the Commons’ objections to the amended bill. The following day he reported from the committee of the whole for the poll bill and was again named a reporter on 19 Dec. of the conference for the Canary Company patent. He reported from a further committee of the whole for the poll bill on 22 Dec. and a week later he was named a manager of conferences concerning this and the Irish cattle bill. For the month from 8 Jan. until 8 Feb. 1667 he again stepped into the breach as Speaker and on 12 Jan. he was one of a number of peers to be approached by Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> seeking their help in stopping the bill for the sale of part of the estate of George Nevill*, 12th Baron Abergavenny, which he considered damaging to the interests of his grandson, George Nevill*, later 13th Baron Abergavenny.<sup>66</sup> On 23 Jan. Robartes subscribed the protest against the resolution not to add a clause granting the right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes over houses destroyed in the Great Fire. Robartes protested again on 5 Feb. at the resolution to refuse the Commons’ request for a conference to discuss the impeachment of Viscount Mordaunt.</p><p>Robartes attended two days of the brief five-day session of July 1667, before returning to the chamber on 10 Oct. 1667, following Clarendon’s fall. Present on half of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to six committees, on 11 Oct. he was again commissioned to deputize as speaker in the Lord Keeper Bridgeman’s absence. On 12 Nov. he reported from the committee of the whole concerning the order for records of impeachments and on 19 Dec. he was one of four peers to serve as commissioners for the passing of five bills, including that for the banishment of Clarendon.<sup>67</sup> Between 12 and 17 Feb. 1668 he again acted as Speaker, during Bridgeman’s indisposition.</p><p>The following month, Robartes proved a vocal supporter of Thomas Skinner in his action with the East India Company.<sup>68</sup> On 30 Mar. he communicated a request from a Commons committee that he might ‘certify them somewhat’ concerning one Turner, who had business before them. Robartes had insisted on securing the peers’ concurrence. Robartes served as Speaker on 3 Apr. 1668 and between 4 and 7 May. On 5 May he was one of several peers appointed to report a conference with the Commons concerning the ongoing dispute between Skinner and the East India Company (though the record of this in the Lords Journal was later crossed through), but when a further conference was convened on 8 May, Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, commented, ‘that which was first observable was that my Lord Robartes from whom we expected the greatest opposition, was absent that day and took physic, which some say was ill taken.’<sup>69</sup> Robartes failed to sit the following day, either, when the session was adjourned and he also missed the following adjournments on 11 Aug. and on 10 November. He served as Speaker once more on 1 Mar. 1669 when Parliament was prorogued. After this occasion he was absent from the House for the ensuing ten years.</p><h2><em>Lord lieutenant of Ireland and retirement, 1669-79</em></h2><p>In spite of his previous brief and ineffective record as deputy of Ireland, in February 1669 Robartes was proposed as a replacement for the serving lieutenant, Ormond, a post that the duke of Buckingham had long angled and intrigued for.<sup>70</sup> Although Robartes declared himself willing to take up the position, he insisted on several conditions being fulfilled before he would agree to the appointment. The majority of these related to the management of the Irish revenue, but he insisted in addition that ‘no complaints be received against him but that copies of them be immediately sent to him and his answer received before any debate be on them’. He also demanded an allowance of £3,000 per annum ‘for his table’.<sup>71</sup> Ormond's displacement and the appointment of Robartes was viewed as a victory for the Buckingham faction, though the king was at pains to assure his sister, Henrietta, duchesse d’Orléans, that by replacing Ormond with Robartes he was not pandering to Buckingham’s ambition.<sup>72</sup> Robartes’s commission as lord lieutenant was sealed in March 1669, as was the grant for £3,000 towards his equipage, but it was expected to be mid-summer before he set out for his new posting.<sup>73</sup> Rivalry between Robartes and his predecessor, Ormond, created difficulties even before he set foot on the island. Robartes’s characteristic request to Sir Paul Davys, secretary of state for Ireland, to furnish him with various documents relating to procedure on the island caused Davys some anxiety and he wrote in turn to Ormond, asking for clarification of the relationship between the two men so that he could shape his response accordingly: ‘If the terms be those of friendship, he would answer… with freedom, as otherwise with reserve’.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Although it was reported at the close of July 1669 that Robartes was shortly to depart, he was still dragging his feet at the close of the first week of August and it was related that ‘all rubs are not yet removed in that business.’<sup>75</sup> In his absence it was thought that his duties as privy seal would be taken over by Sir Edward Dering<sup>‡</sup>, though Robartes was not in the end being displaced, the office being exercised by commission.<sup>76</sup> Robartes finally set out in early September 1669, taking in Lichfield on his way where John Hacket*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, noted that although Robartes was ‘very complimentary about the cathedral… he gave nothing to the fabric’.<sup>77</sup> He arrived in Dublin at last later that month, where he set the tone for his brief tenure of office by doing away with all the planned ceremonials. The <em>London Gazette</em> reported that his reception ‘was intended to have been made with much state and solemnity’, but Robartes waived these entertainments and confined himself to a private meeting with the lord deputy, Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (who sat in the Lords as Baron Butler of Moore Park) and council.<sup>78</sup> As well as being intolerant of pomp, Robartes also proved himself a stickler for regulations. Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, noted in a letter to John Moore how he was compelled to wait on a licence from England to return to his estates there from Ireland, ‘there being no possibility to prevail with my lord lieutenant to break the strictness of his rules’. Despite this Conway appears to have found much to admire in Robartes’s new broom, adding in the same letter how:</p><blockquote><p>His first business was to inspect the treasury and the army, in which he finds a labyrinth of troubles, but goes through it with admiration and will certainly bring things into such a channel as will make this kingdom flourish, for I cannot find he designs anything but public good…<sup>79</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nevertheless, within months of his arrival, Robartes’s government was in difficulty. In December 1669 Robartes wrote to the lord keeper requesting that he be recalled.<sup>80</sup> The following month it was reported that the king, equally eager to bring his new lieutenant’s unpopular government to a close, had ordered his removal.<sup>81</sup> Rumours that Robartes had been stabbed to death and that this was the reason for his replacement were rapidly quashed.<sup>82</sup> Several commentators set out the nature of the grievances against Robartes. One noted the accusations that he had failed to correspond with the secretaries of state, that he had encouraged the common soldiers to defy their officers and had ignored orders from the king.<sup>83</sup> Another reported how his ‘morose behaviour’ had alienated the Irish gentry but also hinted that his discomfiture might be related to factional struggles at court, pointing out that the decision to bring his lieutenancy to a close had been ‘done without the knowledge and since much against the grain of the duke of Buckingham’.<sup>84</sup> The Venetian resident noted how Robartes’s ‘severity’ had ‘done much to aggravate’ the troubles in Ireland and that this was the reason for the king's decision to recall him.<sup>85</sup></p><p>In spite of the extent of the criticisms and the king’s clear eagerness to bring his recalcitrant lieutenant’s tenure of the office to a close, it was a further five months before Robartes was able to return to England. On 21 Feb. 1670 he was excused his absence at a call of the House, being forced to await his relief while confined in Dublin ‘in great pain’: Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> commented that since he was a ‘man of humour’, it was a matter of speculation whether he would return to Whitehall or just go straight home to Cornwall.<sup>86</sup> John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, one of Buckingham's associates, had early on been spoken of as Robartes’s likely replacement. He received his formal appointment in March but until he was able to take over the lieutenancy activity in Ireland ground to a halt, ‘the council board being as insignificant as our lord lieutenant, since all petitioners expect the blessed hour of his departure’.<sup>87</sup> Berkeley was reported to have left for his new posting in mid-April but it was the beginning of May before Robartes was able to hand the baton on to his successor. He was reported as making a characteristically curt speech, merely telling Berkeley that ‘Action is the life of all government. I have no more to say', before adding that ‘he had found and kept the kingdom in peace and hoped it would so continue.’ Robartes returned to England less than a fortnight later.<sup>88</sup> In spite of earlier efforts made by Buckingham ‘to secure him a fair reception’ it was made quite apparent that he was out of favour.<sup>89</sup> He was commanded to remain at his home at Chelsea and not to appear at court without the king’s prior permission. Clearly annoyed by this treatment, he quit London shortly after, without first seeking permission to do so, and retreated to Cornwall, where he remained in retirement for the following decade. <sup>90</sup></p><p>Robartes continued to be plagued with misfortune that year. A letter of October 1670 noted that his wife had suffered a miscarriage, which may partly explain his resolution not to return to London that autumn. <sup>91</sup> Notwithstanding his refusal to take his seat when the session reconvened on 24 Oct. 1670, he was careful to ensure that his absence was covered. On 3 Oct. he registered his proxy with his friend, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, and on 14 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. Although a former royalist, Northampton, like Robartes, had become increasingly disgruntled with the regime, which may have been the source of their friendship. They had also shared the chairmanship of the committee considering the bill for the marquess of Worcester’s water-commanding engine. Robartes was excused again on 10 Feb. 1671 and he registered the proxy with Northampton once more on 23 Jan. 1673 for the ensuing session. Later that year, he was put out of office and succeeded as lord privy seal by Anglesey. Robartes registered his proxy with Northampton again on 19 Dec. for the next session and was excused at the subsequent call of 12 Jan. 1674. Northampton held his proxy again from 1 Apr. 1675 for that session and Robartes was indulged his continuing absence by the House once more on 29 April. The following year, negotiations for the marriage of his grandson, Charles Bodvile Robartes*, later 2nd earl of Radnor, with Lady Martha Osborne, daughter of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) failed to come to fruition. To add insult to injury, Lady Martha eventually married one of the family’s Granville rivals instead.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Noted as absent without explanation at calls of the House of 10 Nov. 1675 and 9 Mar. 1677, Robartes was listed ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury in a list compiled in the early summer of 1677. Later that year it was rumoured that he was to be restored to the privy seal.<sup>93</sup> In spite of this he made no further effort to resume his place in Parliament, registering his proxy with Northampton on 20 Dec. 1677 and again on 14 Oct. 1678 for the two sessions meeting in 1678. Both proxies were vacated by prorogation.<sup>94</sup></p><h2><em>Return to Parliament, 1679-85</em></h2><p>In the proceedings against Danby in 1679 Robartes was initially thought to be counted alongside the opponents of the former lord treasurer (despite his long-term absence from Parliament). One of Danby’s own assessments in early March 1679 noted Robartes as doubtful, while a further list of 12 Mar. included Robartes’s name among the opposition peers that were absent from the session. The following month Robartes finally put an end to his long retirement in the country and returned to London. His appearance after so long a spell in the wilderness fuelled speculation that he was shortly to be put into ‘some good employment’, and was perhaps related to the negotiations that took place in advance of the meeting of the new Parliament. It was thought that he would be included in the new Privy Council, as he was when it was reconstituted on 21 April.<sup>95</sup> Robartes was listed as first attending on 15 Apr., when he was added to two existing committees: one for the bill for hindering Danby and other office-holders from taking advantage of their places; and the other for the estate bill of his fellow Cornishman Cornishman, Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. However, a letter of that date, commenting on the passing of the bill of attainder the previous day, stated that Robartes had been one of those to move the king for the speedy passing of the bill.<sup>96</sup> This report is supported by a list of those voting for and against the attainder in the division held on 14 Apr., in which Robartes is included among the bill’s supporters.</p><p>Having at last returned to the House, Robartes was thereafter present on 31 per cent of all sitting days in the session—though if those days are included when he was probably present but his name was omitted from the Journal’s register, his attendance appears to have been slightly higher, closer to a third of all sitting days. After a decade’s absence, he quickly resumed his former activity as a manager. On 16 Apr. he reported from the committee investigating Weld House, noting that Humphrey Weld<sup>‡</sup>, the man under scrutiny, had attempted to circumvent an earlier order to build a wall to prevent back access to a private Catholic chapel, by building the wall but inserting a doorway in it so that access remained unrestricted. As a result Weld was ordered to be arrested.<sup>97</sup> The following day, Robartes reported from the committee of the whole on the habeas corpus bill and, although he was again omitted from the attendance list that day, on 24 Apr. 1679 he was named to the committee established to consider the Commons’ objections to the answers of the five impeached lords. Excused at a call of the House of 9 May on account of poor health, Robartes resumed his seat three days later and on 14 May he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for regulating the trials of peers. Named to a further four committees, on 16 May he chaired the committee for Charles Dale’s bill, which was adjourned to the following day. Robartes reported it on 17 May.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Robartes’s return to London was no doubt the cause of speculation that he would soon be restored to office and on 13 May his name was mentioned again in connection with the government of Ireland. Previously noted as being one of Ormond’s ‘envyers’, by the middle of May Robartes was thought to be one of three competitors for the lieutenancy, which was eventually granted to Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex.<sup>99</sup> In spite of his earlier hostility to Danby, on 22 May it was reported that Robartes had joined with Lord Chancellor Finch in arguing in favour of permitting the bishops to exercise their votes in Danby’s trial, a move calculated to assist the former lord treasurer as the bishops were expected to support his acquittal.<sup>100</sup> Why Robartes should have altered his stance with regard to Danby is unclear, though he may well have been uncomfortable with the increasingly radical tone of some of the government’s opponents. On 26 May he was appointed one of the managers of the conference for preserving good correspondence between Lords and Commons. When the House resolved to adjourn into a committee of the whole to consider the results of that conference and called for a chairman to be nominated, Robartes once more drew upon his exhaustive knowledge of precedent by pointing out that until 1642 such committees had had no chairman.<sup>101</sup> On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Robartes’s efforts on Danby's behalf did not go unnoticed. In June 1679 Danby wondered that ‘the king gives no better encouragement to my Lord Roberts, who he may keep as a bridle upon my Lord Shaftesbury, if he pleases’ and it was no doubt to do precisely this that Robartes was on 23 July promoted in the peerage as earl of Radnor.<sup>102</sup> Robartes's original choice of title was reported to have been earl of Falmouth. It was also speculated that he might take the title Truro, but shortly after he settled on Radnor instead, apparently because of the prior existence of the viscountcy of Falmouth that had been awarded to the king's bastard son, George Fitzroy*, earl (later duke) of Northumberland.<sup>103</sup> Another story, related by the Cornish antiquary Thomas Tonkin<sup>‡</sup>, told how Lady Mohun precipitated the change after she teased the new countess of Falmouth (as she was briefly known) about her title. She was said to have dubbed her the countess of Penny-come-quick, a reference to the notorious corruption which was endemic in the corporation of Falmouth.<sup>104</sup> Any alteration appears to have been made relatively quickly as there is no evidence of changes being entered in the docket book, whereas the creation of Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, who had initially intended to be styled earl of Newbury, is recorded in the book with the old title scratched out and the new style added above.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Throughout August 1679 Radnor was offering advice to Danby’s brother-in-law, Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, about the efforts to secure Danby’s release, though he appears to have been reluctant to act directly on Danby’s behalf. When asked if he would speak to the king in support of Danby’s enlargement, he was reported to have asked to be excused, explaining that:</p><blockquote><p>the king is too artificial for me, I can guess at none of his intentions, nor will I expose myself to be used as my Lord Danby has been, for how the king can intend to make good his pardon, and at the same time be principally advised by my Lord Halifax [George Savile*, marquess of Halifax] and Lord Essex whom he has heard say such things about his pardon to his face, I do not understand.<sup>106</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although unwilling to intercede with the king, Radnor waited on Halifax the following month and informed him that he intended to be in town throughout the winter, presumably to be on hand for further developments in the Danby case. In response Halifax appears to have suggested that if Radnor and John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who sat in the House as earl of Guilford), ‘would but come to them… in their opinions about the pardon they should join with them heartily in all other things and they might have what they pleased.’<sup>107</sup></p><p>By the autumn of 1679 there seems little doubt that Radnor’s position had altered fundamentally and that he was by then committed to upholding the court. His decision paid him dividends and in October he replaced his former associate Shaftesbury as lord president of the council.<sup>108</sup> Radnor’s change of stance appears to have caught out those responsible for planting information relating to the sham ‘meal tub plot’, revealed at the end of October 1679, including him among the list of ‘Presbyterians’ conspirators who they claimed were conspiring to set up James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as heir, and also placed him among those contemplating exile when the conspiracy failed to work.<sup>109</sup> The following month, Radnor joined with Sir Henry Capel*, later Baron Capel of Tewkesbury, in insisting on the commitment of Lady Powis for her role in the plot, ‘having the same evidence against her they had against Mrs Celier’ and fearful that if they did not ‘they would be accounted unjust to the one or partial to the other.’<sup>110</sup></p><p>Having already been identified falsely as an opponent of the court engaged in plotting against the crown, in January 1680 Radnor found himself arraigned by the Commons as one of several ‘evil counsellors’ to be recommended for removal from the king’s presence during a particularly ‘hot day’ in the Commons.<sup>111</sup> During the summer he was insulted while out driving in his coach by an inebriated trooper of the Life Guards, who threatened Radnor’s coach driver with his carbine. The trooper was arrested shortly after but Radnor allowed the matter to drop.<sup>112</sup> Radnor’s improved relations with Danby were perhaps reflected in his being nominated one of the delegates to determine the disputed marriage between John Emerton and Bridget Hyde in August 1680. The same month he examined Israel Tonge’s son in council about the veracity of his father’s testimony.<sup>113</sup> In the period immediately before Parliament sat in October 1680, Radnor was said to have been one of those attempting to impress upon York the danger of his predicament ‘and withal that they must secure the Protestant religion without respect of persons’.<sup>114</sup> Henry Sydney*, later earl of Romney, met with Radnor and Finch early in October, speaking to them ‘both very freely’ about the issue and Radnor was again one of the party when Sydney met with York and several other prominent figures the following week.<sup>115</sup> Radnor was then one of a minority of privy councillors to argue in favour of York leaving the kingdom.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Radnor took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, introduced in his new dignity between his friend Northampton and William Craven*, earl of Craven. Present on 68 per cent of all sitting days in the Parliament, Radnor was absent at a call on 30 Oct. but returned to the House on 3 Nov., after which he was named to five committees during the remainder of the session. On 12 Nov. he reported the substance of evidence presented at the bar by Lady Dacre and Challoner Chute’s counsel over Chute’s appeal. The following day, in the absence of the lord chancellor, he again acted as speaker.<sup>117</sup> He did so again on 15 Nov., on which day he also voted to reject the exclusion bill on its first reading. On 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. Three days later Radnor informed the House of the king’s agreement to appoint a fast day in response to a joint address of both Houses. Having argued earlier in the session, presumably in support of Danby, that no impeachment should hold after a dissolution without a specific order of the House, Radnor found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty on 7 December. The following day, he acted as Speaker once more.</p><p>In advance of the new Parliament elected in March 1681, Radnor was forecast as being in favour of bailing Danby. In spite of this and an earlier resolution that he would be in attendance at the Oxford Parliament, he failed to turn out, perhaps distracted by the last sickness and death of his youngest son, Warwick Robartes, at about this time.<sup>118</sup> His own ill health may well also have deterred him from making the effort.<sup>119</sup> Losses in his family by then may well have taken their toll. The previous year, his skill as a physician had proved unequal to the task of reviving his daughter-in-law, Penelope Robartes, who had collapsed while travelling in her coach. She died soon afterwards.</p><p>In the spring of 1681, by now elderly and infirm, Radnor was thought to be contemplating retirement.<sup>120</sup> That April, he opposed plans to farm out the administration of the penal laws and a new proclamation against nonconformists.<sup>121</sup> In spite of the earlier forecasts that he would support moves to bail Danby, Radnor was reported to have joined with lord chief justice Francis North*, later Baron Guilford, and lord chancellor Nottingham (as Baron Finch had become) in arguing against Danby’s release when it came to be debated in Council.<sup>122</sup> The reason for this apparent change of heart is uncertain. It may be significant that in July he was one of three privy counsellors to refuse to sign the warrant for committing Shaftesbury, but perhaps more significant were rumours circulating in August that there was to be a new lord treasurer: one of Northampton’s correspondents commented, ‘I am sure if honest Radnor were the man, it would be happy for the king and kingdom.’<sup>123</sup> Radnor was appointed one of the six commissioners for receiving petitions that same month. In September his name was mentioned in connection with rumours of feverish activity in anticipation of York’s expected return as well as of Shaftesbury’s appointment as ‘prime minister of state’.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Despite his continuing significance at court, Radnor’s local influence appears to have been less secure. Early in 1682 he was unsuccessful in trying to block efforts by Anthony Ettrick<sup>‡</sup> to be included in a visitation commission at Poole.<sup>125</sup> Radnor's motivation was presumably his desire to protect local nonconformists. His family suffered a further loss in February 1682 with the death of his son and heir, Robert Robartes, Viscount Bodmin, leaving the young Charles Bodvile Robartes as heir to the earldom.<sup>126</sup> Radnor’s own health seems to have been failing too. Absent from council in April on account of sickness, in September he was said to have sought permission to be excused further attendance at council.<sup>127</sup> Over the next two months reports circulated about his intention to stand down from his office and how he had been offered £7,000 to resign his place to Halifax.<sup>128</sup> Even so, it was not until August 1684 that Radnor was finally relieved of office, being put out ‘by a most civil letter from the king’ which allowed him to continue to draw his pension, though Radnor refused to take advantage of this last example of royal generosity.<sup>129</sup></p><p>In spite of his increasing frailty, Radnor outlived Charles II and was sufficiently well to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, after which he attended almost 65 per cent of all sitting days. He was also named to 14 committees. On 22 May he registered his dissent at the resolution to reverse the order of 19 Mar. 1679 allowing impeachments to continue beyond a dissolution and on 26 May he reported from the committee for privileges, outlining the complaint of Thomas Windsor*, earl of Plymouth, who had been refused his answer by one of the masters of chancery because he had declined to swear on the Bible. As a result it was ordered that no peer should be required to do more than swear upon his honour and the master in question was summoned to the bar of the House to make his submission. Radnor subscribed a further dissent on 4 June at the resolution to reverse Stafford’s attainder and on 25 June he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole considering the northern borders bill. He sat for the last time on 2 July and died just over a fortnight later at his residence in Chelsea.<sup>130</sup> Radnor was buried at Lanhydrock and succeeded in the peerage by his grandson, Charles, styled Viscount Bodmin, as 2nd earl of Radnor.<sup>131</sup> Administration of his estate was later disputed between the new earl and Radnor's surviving younger son and sole executor, Francis Robartes<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>132</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ROPER, Christopher (1621-73) |
<p><strong><surname>ROPER</surname></strong>, <strong>Christopher</strong> (1621–73)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 27 Feb. 1628 (a minor) as 4th Bar. TEYNHAM (TENHAM) |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 8 Apr. 1670 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Apr. 1621,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of John Roper<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Teynham, and Mary (<em>d</em>.1640), 2nd da. of William Petre<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Petre. <em>m</em>. (1) with £5,200, pre-nuptial settlement 20 Apr. 1642,<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 21 Dec. 1647), 1st da. of Sir Francis Englefield, bt. of Wootton Bassett, Wilts. and Winifred, da. and coh. of William Brokesby of Shoulby, Leics. 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 1da.; (2) Philadelphia (<em>d</em>.1655), wid. of Sir John Mill of Newton Bury, Hants and 3rd da. of Sir Henry Knollys, clerk-comptroller of the green cloth, of Grove Place, Nursling, Hants and Katherine, da. of Sir Thomas Cornwallis of Portchester, groom porter to James I, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 1da.; (3) 29 Mar. 1660, Margaret (<em>d</em>. by June 1722), yst. da. of Patrick Fitzmaurice, 18th Bar. Kerry and Lixnaw [I], and Honor, da. of Sir Edmond FitzGerald of Ballymaloe and Cloyne, co. Cork, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 23 Oct. 1673; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
<p>Commr. sewers, Kent and Suss. 1660, 1670.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>The Barons Teynham were descended from a younger son of John Roper, prothonotary of the court of king’s bench during the reign of Henry VIII. The first baron, John Roper<sup>†</sup>, was said to have earned his peerage during the reign of James I for ‘his forward attachment to the king’s interest, having been the first man of note who proclaimed the king’ in Kent. The reality was more prosaic. Roper’s peerage was not conferred until some 13 years after James’s accession and only after payment of a £10,000 fee.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The 4th Baron inherited a substantial estate from his father. The principal seat, the Lodge at Lynsted, dated from the closing years of Elizabeth I’s reign and in 1664 was rated for hearth tax at 43 hearths.<sup>5</sup> Wardship of the underage lord was granted to George Kirke<sup>‡</sup> after an application by Lord Petre and Henry Somerset<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Worcester, was refused because of their recusancy.<sup>6</sup> Despite this, custody of the young peer seems to have been retained by his mother, who ensured that he was brought up a Catholic. As a recusant, Teynham was subject to regular fines and his estates suffered further through sequestration during the civil wars, though he was fortunate in that Parliament let his lands to his uncle Sir Robert Thorold.<sup>7</sup> It may have been a sign of aristocratic poverty that at least one of his sisters joined a Benedictine order at Ghent. Surviving rent rolls suggest that Teynham had an annual income of just over £2,000 during the 1670s, but this may be an under-estimate as it is difficult to be sure that they are complete.<sup>8</sup> His affairs were certainly sufficiently embarrassed to require him to enter into a debt trust sometime between 1666 and June 1672, but in the long term the prospects for economic recovery were good, and the evidence of the marriage settlement of Henry Roper*, 8th Baron Teynham, suggests that by 1705 most if not all of the family’s pre-civil war landholdings had been recovered.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Teynham himself does not appear to have been an active royalist during the Civil War. His mother protested against his summons to York, insisting that he was too frail and was unequipped as all the family’s arms had been seized. Nevertheless, Teynham seems at least to have attempted to act as an unofficial commissioner of array for the king in Kent. As such he was arrested by Edwin Sandys’ men and sent up to London under guard. His younger brother, Francis, was more officially employed in the royalist cause and served the king as envoy in Germany.<sup>10</sup> He was rewarded with a warrant appointing him as a gentleman of the privy chamber in consideration of his ‘true and faithful service’ and was later employed as an envoy to the duchy of Savoy to commiserate with the duke on the death of the dowager duchess (Charles II’s aunt).<sup>11</sup></p><p>Teynham’s personal social network included leading Catholics such as William Petre of Stamford Rivers, Essex, Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall, and John Carryll of Harting, Sussex, who all served alongside his brother Francis on his debt trust. His daughter married the Catholic Bernard Howard, nephew of Thomas*, 5th duke of Norfolk, and Henry Howard*, 6th duke of Norfolk; his younger son, Thomas, is believed to have been educated at St Omer and to have joined the Jesuits.<sup>12</sup> Through his second wife he was related to the court supporter Thomas Knollys<sup>‡</sup> and to the Presbyterian sympathizer Charles Kerr<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Ancram [I], and through his third wife to Sir Thomas Leigh<sup>‡</sup>, son of Thomas Leigh*, Baron Leigh.</p><p>Teynham may have spent some of the civil wars and Interregnum abroad (he was granted permission to travel to France in 1657) but by the time of the Restoration he was back in England. In March 1660 he was one of a number of local gentlemen to sign a certificate on behalf of Rob Barham recommending his appointment to the office of postmaster of Sittingbourne.<sup>13</sup> Later the same month he contracted his third (and final) marriage. Soon after this he was one of the ‘young lords’ who entered the House on 27 April. Over the course of the Convention he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days and was named to nine committees in addition to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions (to which he was added on 7 and 9 May). On 10 May and again on 24 Aug. he was granted leave of absence, on the latter occasion not troubling to return to the chamber prior to the September adjournment. Teynham was missing again from the early stages of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament. He took his seat finally after the adjournment on 20 Nov. 1661 and was thereafter present on 42 per cent of the remaining sitting days (though this amounted to just 28 per cent of the whole). Between his reappearance in November and the close of the session in May 1662 he was also nominated to seven committees in addition to the privileges committee.</p><p>Teynham returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 18 Feb. 1663. He was present for just under half the sitting days in the session and in July was listed as likely to support the attempt by his fellow Catholic, George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. On 14 July he attended the House, which dealt with Bristol’s impeachment of Clarendon, but that same day he registered a proxy in favour of his fellow anti-Clarendonian Charles Goring*, 2nd earl of Norwich. However, as he last attended for the session on 17 July, it may have been intended to come into effect from that date.</p><p>Teynham failed to attend the ensuing three sessions. In March 1664 he registered his proxy with Norwich again and was excused at a call of the House on 4 April. On 7 Dec. 1664 he excused his absence by pleading sickness. Teynham returned to the House on 25 Sept. 1666. On that day he was named to the committee for the hemp and flax bill and he was named to a further six committees during the remainder of the session. He attended the two prorogation days of July 1667 and was present once more on 10 October. He was missing at a call of the House without explanation on 29 Oct. but on 7 Nov. secured leave of absence. He returned on 20 Nov. and the same day entered a protest reflecting his continuing enmity to Clarendon and his support for Clarendon’s immediate commitment. On 7 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill for banishing Clarendon (one of five committees to which he was named in the course of the session).</p><p>Teynham returned to the House for the subsequent session of 1669–70, of which he attended 39 per cent of all sitting days, but his only obvious activity was his nomination on 9 Nov. to the committee considering the records supplied by the commissioners for accounts. He took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670, of which he attended 45 per cent of all days prior to the adjournment. He was named to four committees, including that for bill for the sale of fee-farm rents, which had been appointed following an unsuccessful attempt to deal with the matter in a committee of the whole. He was listed as present on 17 Mar. but was not one of those to enter a protest against the resolution to grant a second reading to the divorce bill of John Manners*, Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland). He was then absent from the House on 28 Mar. when the bill passed.</p><p>Teynham attended for the final time just over a week later on 8 April. The reason for his absence from then on may have been ill health, as in June of that year it was reported (inaccurately) that he had died at his seat in Kent (‘not much wanted’, said one account, and as a result of ‘excess in drinking white wine’).<sup>14</sup> In November he entered a proxy, again in favour of Norwich. It was vacated by Norwich’s death on 3 Mar. 1671, but a week later Teynham entered another, this time in favour of the Catholic apostate Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers. The proxy ended with the session a month later but, although Teynham remained away from the House, no further proxy was entered on his behalf. No explanation was attached to his absence from a call of the House of 13 Feb. 1673.</p><p>Throughout his career in the House Teynham was named regularly to a handful of committees, though he seems not to have taken a prominent role in any of them. Those committees on which he served were overwhelmingly concerned with private bills; only a few of them, like the estate bill promoted by his neighbour and fellow Catholic, Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I], seem to have been of personal interest.</p><p>Teynham died on 23 Oct. 1673, and was buried at Lynsted on 29 October. No will has been traced but an inventory of his effects, dated 12 June 1675, survives among the papers of the archdeaconry of Canterbury. Somewhat surprisingly, given Teynham’s apparent poverty, it describes a comfortable and well-furnished house, complete with luxury items such as an organ and harpsichord as well as foot-carpets.<sup>15</sup> His estate passed to his eldest surviving son, also named Christopher Roper*, who succeeded as 5th Baron Teynham.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
ROPER, Christopher (1653-89) |
<p><strong><surname>ROPER</surname></strong>, <strong>Christopher</strong> (1653–89)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Oct. 1673 (a minor) as 5th Bar. TEYNHAM (TENHAM) |
|
First sat 11 Feb. 1674; last sat 30 Nov. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.10 Feb. 1653, 1st surv. s. of Christopher Roper*, 4th Bar. Teynham, and 2nd w. Philadelphia (<em>d</em>.1655), 3rd da. of Sir Henry Knollys. <em>m</em>. ?1674, Elizabeth, da. of Francis Browne*, 3rd Visct. Montagu, and Elizabeth Somerset, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. ?May 1689.</p> |
<p>Page of honour to Queen Catharine of Braganza, 1667.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Kent Dec. 1687–8.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Little is known of the 5th Baron Teynham’s life. Even his date of birth is obscure. He was underage at a call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674, so it is possible that his writ of summons, dated 10 Feb. following, was issued on or close to his 21st birthday. A recusant, like his father, he married a Catholic, Elizabeth Browne. Their children also remained within the Catholic community: his sons, John* [1342], and Christopher*, 6th and 7th Barons Teynham, were being educated by a priest in 1692,<sup>3</sup> two daughters became nuns and the others married into the Catholic Belasyse, Stonor and Sheldon families.<sup>4</sup> Although Teynham seems to have had little parliamentary influence of his own, his wife’s family exercised considerable electoral interest in their local borough constituency of Midhurst.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Having taken his seat on 11 Feb. 1674, Teynham attended only twice more before entering a proxy on 16 Feb. in favour of his fellow Catholic John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse. Belasyse, like Teynham’s father, had supported the 1663 attempt to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and was by now probably associated with the country opposition group led by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. The proxy was vacated by the abrupt ending of the session on 24 February. When parliamentary sittings resumed in April 1675, Teynham was present on approximately 74 per cent of sitting days, no doubt eager to express opposition to the policies of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). On 29 Apr. he was noted missing at a call of the House without explanation, even though he had been marked present on the attendance list for the day. He resumed his place on 4 May and during the remainder of the session was named to four committees. He took his seat once more just under a fortnight into the autumn session on 26 October. Present at just over three-quarters of sittings in the brief session, he was named to ten committees and on 20 Nov. he voted with Shaftesbury’s country supporters in favour of an address to the Crown for the dissolution of Parliament, though he was not one of those to register his protest when the motion was rejected.</p><p>When Parliament met again in 1677, Teynham took his place on the opening day, 15 February. He was thereafter present on 93 per cent of all sitting days, and was regularly named to committees for both public and private bills. Prior to the adjournment in April he was named to 23 committees and he was named to a further 13 after the session resumed the following February. Unable to support the contention that Parliament had been dissolved by the prolonged prorogation, his attitude to Shaftesbury, like that of other Catholic peers, was now one of opposition rather than support. Shaftesbury consequently listed him as ‘doubly vile’. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Teynham returned to the House for the new session on 23 May 1678 but his level of attendance fell to just under a half of all sittings and, barring the standing committees, he was named to just two further committees in the course of the session. He took his seat once more just over a week into the subsequent session on 1 November. On 26 Nov. he was named to the committee for the bill for raising the militia. The day before, his steward had been compelled to petition the House for permission to undertake his duties at Lynsted (being a suspected Catholic). The Lords allowed him to fulfil his obligations there provided that he did not come within ten miles of London or Westminster. Treatment of Teynham’s steward underlined the difficulties affecting all Catholic peers at this point. Even so, allegations that Teynham was involved in the Popish Plot do not seem to have been taken seriously.<sup>6</sup> Until he was disabled from sitting by the passage of the Test Act on 30 Nov., he was present on just over 70 per cent of sitting days in 1678 (though this amounted to just 39 per cent of the whole). Not surprisingly, Teynham voted against the Test Act and entered a dissent at its passing.</p><p>Teynham may have been the Lord ‘Tenant’ listed by Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> as present at Fitzharris’ trial in 1681.<sup>7</sup> The only other glimpses of him between 1678 and his return to public life shortly before the Revolution of 1688 relate to his role as one of those answering a complaint made by Francis Browne*, 4th Viscount Montagu, over the administration of his father’s will and a reference to a prosecution for recusancy being stayed in November 1685. In March 1687 he was one of a number of Catholics granted permission to return to court without the need for taking the oaths of allegiance.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Teynham failed to attend James II’s Parliament, being noted missing at calls on 26 May and again on 16 November. The new regime, though, offered him the prospect of a return to influence. In January 1687 it was reported that he was to be awarded command of one of the regiments recently deprived of their Protestant colonels. Although this seems not to have transpired, towards the end of that year he was appointed lord lieutenant of Kent in place of Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, who had held the office since 1660.<sup>9</sup> Although the Kentish jps provided James II with an encouraging response to the three questions, Teynham lacked local support and faced a difficult task in translating such answers into electoral success. His electioneering must have been further hampered by the refusal of a number of local magnates, including the two sitting knights of the shire, Sir William Twysden<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup>, to serve as his deputy lieutenants (the former excusing himself on grounds of infirmity); the men who replaced them, such as the Catholics Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I], and Sir Edward Hales<sup>‡</sup>, could not command the same level of support.<sup>10</sup> In October 1688 the threat of invasion forced the king to remove the inexperienced and unpopular Catholic from the lieutenancy of so strategic a county. Teynham was put out of office and replaced by James’s close ally, the experienced military commander Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham.<sup>11</sup></p><p>At the fall of James II, Teynham was one of several Catholic gentlemen to seek sanctuary at Upnor Castle, where the sympathetic governor attempted to arrange their passage to France. The plan evidently misfired and Teynham was arrested.<sup>12</sup> He was subsequently released (or escaped) and fled abroad. In March 1689 passes were granted for three of his daughters, Philadelphia, Winifred and Ann, to travel to France, presumably so that they could join him in exile.<sup>13</sup> He was reported to have died in Brussels in May 1689. Luttrell recorded on 25 July of that year that Teynham had died ‘lately’, while a letter of November detailing the activities of Sir Abraham Jacob, whom Teynham had put forward as a potential burgess for Dover, styled Teynham as the ‘late lord’.<sup>14</sup> The barony was held in succession by his sons John, Christopher and Henry, as 6th, 7th and 8th Barons Teynham.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
ROPER, Christopher (d. 1699) |
<p><strong><surname>ROPER</surname></strong>, <strong>Christopher</strong> (d. 1699)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 1697 as 7th Bar. TEYNHAM (TENHAM) |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. betw. 1674 and 1677. 2nd s. of Christopher Roper*, 5th Bar. Teynham, and Elizabeth Browne, da. of Francis Browne*, 3rd Visct. Montagu; bro. of John*, 6th Bar. Teynham, and Henry*, 8th Bar. Teynham. <em>educ</em>. privately (James Dodd <em>alias</em> Walton).<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. bef. 23 Sept. 1699.</p> |
|
|
<p>Details for Teynham’s life are sketchy but he may have survived long enough to undertake a tour of the continent before succumbing towards the close of the summer of 1699.<sup>2</sup> A Catholic like the rest of his family, he was probably interred with his father and brother in the Benedictine church in Brussels. He was succeeded in the peerage by his younger brother, Henry.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ROPER, Henry (c. 1677-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>ROPER</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1677–1723)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. Sept. 1699 as 8th Bar. TEYNHAM (TENHAM) |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1716; last sat 13 May 1723 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1677, 3rd s. of Christopher Roper*, 5th Bar. Teynham, and Elizabeth Browne, da. of Francis Browne*, 3rd Visct. Montagu; bro. of John*, 6th Bar. Teynham, and Christopher*, 7th Bar. Teynham. m. (1) lic. 15 Feb. 1705 (with £12,000), Catharine Clare (<em>d</em>.1711), da. of Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Visct. Strangford [I], and 2nd w. Mary, da. of George Porter,<sup>1</sup> 2s. 1da.; (2) lic. vic. gen. 22 Jan. 1716, Mary (<em>d</em>. 4 Jan. 1717), da. of Sir John Gage, bt. of Firle, Suss. and Mary, da. of Sir William Stanley, bt. <em>s.p</em>.; (3) Mar. 1718, Anne (<em>d</em>.1755), da. and coh. of Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex, wid. of Richard Barrett, 2s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 16 May 1723; <em>admon</em>. 10 June 1723 to wid., 20 Nov. 1755 to da. Anne Tyler.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber, 2 Feb. 1723.</p> |
|
<p>Roper’s father, one of James II’s Catholic adherents, had fled the country after the 1688 Revolution and died abroad, as did Roper’s two older brothers, John and Christopher, the 6th and 7th Barons. Like the rest of his family, the new Baron Teynham was a Catholic and it is presumed that he spent much of his youth abroad, although evidence of this is scanty. By 1704 he seems to have been back in England because Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> recorded a rumour of his impending marriage to Lady Barbara Lennard, daughter of Thomas Lennard, earl of Sussex.<sup>4</sup> A year later Teynham married the daughter of his wealthy Catholic neighbour Viscount Strangford instead, receiving £4,000 of her £12,000 portion as a cash payment in advance of the marriage. Through his connection with the Strangfords he came into possession of the manor of Sturry in Kent.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Although a parliamentary list of 1708 described him, somewhat surprisingly given his Catholic background, as a Whig, Teynham was unable to take the Test and appears to have been politically inactive at that time. One possible explanation for attaching a Whig label to him may have been his involvement in the disputes over oyster fishing in the Medway area, which pitched him against the interest of the Herbert family, headed by Katherine Herbert, the widowed daughter of Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In 1716 Teynham conformed to the Church of England. His conversion may well have been because of the anti-Catholic legislation spawned by the Jacobite invasion of 1715 and it is noticeable that a number of other prominent Catholics in Kent and Sussex, including his kinsman Strangford, also took the decision to conform at the same time.<sup>7</sup> Just how genuine his conversion was remains a matter for speculation. Teynham’s children remained resolutely Catholic and the two marriages that he contracted after his conversion were both to members of prominent Catholic families. Shortly after his death his widow was sued for custody of her son by her previous marriage. The entire case centred on fears that even though he was being brought up as a Protestant according to his father’s wishes, if left with his mother he would imbibe ‘romish principles’.<sup>8</sup> As further evidence that Teynham was far from distancing himself from his origins, he was closely involved in the affairs of his Catholic cousin Henry Browne*, 5th Viscount Montagu.<sup>9</sup> He also continued to be linked to his Catholic neighbours in Kent, holding stock valued at £20,000 on their behalf in the South Sea Company (whether the £20,000 represents a market value or the face value of stock is not clear).<sup>10</sup> Teynham himself had held stock in the South Sea Company since at least 1712.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Teynham eventually took his seat in the House towards the end of the 1715–16 session and was present on just over half of the subsequent sitting days. Details of his post-1715 career will be found in the next phase of this work. On 16 May 1723 Teynham shot and killed himself in his house in the Haymarket. The reason for his suicide is not clear, though the<em> Daily Post</em> noted that he had been ‘unfortunately disordered in his senses some days before’ and the coroner’s inquest brought in a verdict of ‘lunacy’.<sup>12</sup> Beyond these it is difficult to establish an obvious reason for his actions. He and his third wife, who was believed to be pregnant at the time of his death, had spent lavishly on alterations to their home at Lynsted where they are said to have entertained extensively, but they had apparently survived the crisis caused by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble.<sup>13</sup> Nor is there any indication that Teynham had anything to fear from revelations about the Atterbury Plot, named after Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester. On the contrary the pattern of his proxies and the rewards bestowed by the court indicate that he was a trusted supporter of the administration. He died intestate; in the course of subsequent litigation his estate was valued at £30,000 (rather than the £130,000 reported by the <em>Daily Journal</em> in the days immediately following his death).<sup>14</sup> He was succeeded by his son Philip Roper<sup>†</sup> as 9th Baron Teynham. His widow married, as her third husband, Robert Moore.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
ROPER, John (d.c. 1697) |
<p><strong><surname>ROPER</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (d.c. 1697)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. July 1689 (a minor) as 6th Bar. TEYNHAM (TENHAM) |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. bet. 1674 and 1676, 1st s. of Christopher Roper*, 5th Bar. Teynham, and Elizabeth Browne, da. of Francis Browne*, 3rd Visct. Montagu; bro. of Christopher*, 7th Bar. Teynham, and Henry*, 8th Bar. Teynham. <em>educ</em>. privately (James Dodd <em>alias</em> Walton).<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. c.1697.</p> |
|
|
<p>Little can be established with certainty about Teynham’s life. His date of birth is unknown but he was probably still underage when he joined his father in exile following the overthrow of James II. He seems to have succeeded to the peerage shortly after. According to Kirk he died the same year as his father, but this is contradicted by other sources.<sup>2</sup> On 31 Mar. 1690 and again on 2 Nov. 1691 a Lord Teynham, presumably this one, was noted underage at a call of the House. It may also have been this Lord Teynham who was referred to by the Jacobite defector William Fuller as one of those said to have signed the address to the French king seeking his assistance for the restoration of James II, though Fuller’s information has, of course, to be treated with caution.<sup>3</sup> Teynham may have been at Namur at the time of his death. He was succeeded in the peerage by his equally obscure brother, Christopher.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
RUPERT, Prince Palatine of the Rhine (1619-82) |
<p><strong><surname>RUPERT</surname></strong>, <strong>Prince Palatine of the Rhine</strong> (1619–82)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>24 Jan. 1644 duke of CUMBERLAND |
|
First sat 6 Nov. 1660; last sat 10 Jan. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 27 Dec. 1619, 3rd s. of Friedrich V, king of Bohemia and elector of the Rhine Palatinate, and Elizabeth, da. of James I of England. <em>educ</em>. Leiden. <em>unm</em>. 1s. (illegit.) with Frances, da. of Henry Bard, Visct. Bellomont [I]; 1da. (illegit.) with Margaret Hughes, actress. KG 1642. <em>d</em>. 29 Nov. 1682; <em>will</em> 27 Nov., pr. 1 Dec. 1682.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gen. of horse 1642; c.-in-c. R. army, 1644-5; adm. of the white 1665; col. regt. of horse 1667; constable of Windsor Castle 1668-<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. of England 1672-<em>d.</em>; adm. of the fleet and 1st lord of the adm. 1673-1679.</p><p>Master of the horse to Charles I, 1644-5, to Charles II in exile, 1653-5; envoy to Vienna 1654; PC 1662-<em>d</em>.; commr. Tangier 1673.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Pres. of the council in Wales, 1644-5; ld. lt. Berks. 1670-<em>d</em>., Surr. 1675-<em>d</em>.; high steward Windsor, by 1681-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Gov. Hudson’s Bay co. 1670-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1665.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas aft. W. Dobson, group portrait, c.1642–64, Ashdown House, Oxf.; oil on canvas by P. Lely, c.1665–6, Royal Collection RCIN 405883; oil on canvas by P. Lely, c.1667, National Maritime Museum; oil on canvas by J.M. Wright, c.1672, Magdalen Coll. Oxf.</p> |
<p>A controversial commander in the Civil War, Prince Rupert was not quite the romantic cavalier hero of post-Restoration mythology. On the one hand he was detested by the parliamentarians as a barbarous and callous enemy who had degenerated into little more than a pirate; on the other, his arrogance and lack of respect for the royalist nobility meant that he was disliked and distrusted by senior members of Charles I’s court. Relations with his own family were quite as tempestuous with the notable exception of his brother, Prince Maurice, whose loss at sea affected Rupert profoundly. After the Restoration, aside from his naval career, Rupert’s principal contribution was as a pioneer in overseas commercial ventures and as a scientific innovator. This was true both in the field of ordnance and by virtue of his role as a promoter of the mezzotint method of engraving artworks.</p><h2><em>Civil War and Interregnum</em></h2><p>There is no evidence to suggest that Rupert, who was naturalized early in 1642 and created duke of Cumberland in 1644, ever received a writ to sit in the Oxford Parliament, although it is entirely possible that he did so.<sup>5</sup> His principal engagement during the Civil War was, of course, as a military commander. Here his intemperate character was often as much of a liability as a benefit to his uncle’s cause. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> later recounted a conversation in which Rupert was described as ‘the boldest attacker in the world for personal courage; and yet in the defending of Bristol, no man did ever anything worse’: he being too hot-headed to be able to cope with the slow pace of a siege.<sup>6</sup> He was on such bad terms with George Digby*, the future 2nd earl of Bristol, that only the intervention of the queen prevented a duel between them in 1647. He also quarrelled openly with John Colepeper*, Baron Colepeper, at the council table.<sup>7</sup> John Maitland*, then 2nd earl (later duke) of Lauderdale [S], and earl of Guildford, objected to Rupert taking part in the proposed expedition to Scotland in 1648. When he was sent to Ireland during the winter of 1648-9 to assist James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I], there were very real fears that Rupert would be unable to sustain a working relationship with Ormond and that the king’s service would suffer as a result. He was involved in the intrigues that characterized the exiled royal court, and was perceived as an ally of the lord keeper, Edward Herbert<sup>‡</sup> (by whom he was said to be ‘totally governed’) and of Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield). He was thus an enemy to Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, though when Hyde was under attack in 1654 Herbert and Henry Jermyn*, Baron Jermyn (later earl of St. Albans) were ‘much disappointed to find Prince Rupert not of their party’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Ejected from his homeland as a child and from England as a result of the Civil Wars, by 1654 Rupert appears to have given up any hope of a restoration. Having quarrelled with the king, he abandoned Charles II’s court in order to take service in Germany. This was perhaps a decisive period in shaping his views on foreign affairs; unlike his Stuart cousins he was determinedly anti-Catholic and was never dazzled into supporting a pro-French policy. His earlier experience as a prisoner during the Thirty Years War also informed his viewpoint, during which time he had withstood repeated efforts to convert him.<sup>9</sup></p><h2><em>Return to England </em></h2><p>Following the Restoration, Rupert delayed returning to England, though he was back in London by the end of September 1660. Virtually penniless but haughty and, according to Grammont, ‘crossgrained and incorrigibly obstinate’, Rupert’s arrival at court, Samuel Pepys remarked, ‘was welcome to nobody.’ Unsurprisingly, a correspondent of Rupert’s mother insisted the opposite was true and that ‘everybody here seems to look very graciously on him’.<sup>10</sup> Welcome or not, many of the most important and lucrative posts had already been disposed of, and rumours of a marriage to the wealthy dowager countess of Richmond proved to be inaccurate. Despite his high status, Rupert was also made to wait until 1662 for admission to the Privy Council. He was given an annuity of £4,000 a year but even though this was one of the more generous sums granted by the king, it was an extremely modest sum with which to maintain his status as a member of the royal family. It was later increased to £6,000 and his income was supplemented by various other grants as well as his entrepreneurial ventures.<sup>11</sup> He took his seat in the House of Lords on the first day after the Convention’s summer adjournment (6 Nov.) and attended 30 sitting days (approximately two thirds of the whole).</p><p>Rupert was in Vienna when the new Parliament convened on 8 May 1661. His visit had been authorized by the king as an informal diplomatic mission but was really cover to allow him to pursue his own business in the empire.<sup>12</sup> At a call of the House on 20 May he was listed as having left a proxy probably with Ormond (then sitting under his English peerage as earl of Brecknock).<sup>13</sup> Whilst in Vienna he corresponded with his close associate, William Legge<sup>‡</sup>, on the subject of foreign affairs. Amongst other matters he described the Spanish ambassador’s belief that Clarendon (as Hyde had since become) and Ormond had engineered Charles II’s Portuguese match in order to build support for a war against Spain and fears that the English government was encouraging Turkey to invade Germany. Rupert answered the latter by pointing out that the ambassador to the Porte was really the Turkey Company’s representative and that what the Spanish ambassador referred to was not crown policy. He returned to England towards the end of the year and took his place in the House once more on 14 December. He was present on approximately 36 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session. On 24 Jan. 1662 his name was listed among those included on the committee for drawing up an act for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. His name was one of those annotated by a ‘+’, though the meaning of this is unclear.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Whilst overseas Rupert appears to have been involved (in association with William Craven*, earl of Craven, the Palatine family’s long-standing supporter) with facilitating his mother’s return to England. She died a few months later in February 1662 bequeathing him her jewels (estimated to be worth £4,500). Control of her papers clearly set the king and Rupert against each other as Clarendon instructed Sir George Downing<sup>‡</sup> to seek out one van der Heck and send over the documents still in his possession. Clarendon warned that van der Heck would no doubt receive the same demands from Rupert and Craven. Settlement of the late queen’s affairs also precipitated a falling out between Rupert and his brother, the Elector Charles Louis. The feud was still unresolved some years later, when the elector accused Rupert of seeking to dispossess him ‘of his ancient rights and revenues by the aid of his enemies and to snatch something for himself’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In April 1662 Rupert joined the Privy Council and its four standing committees – perhaps a sign that his stock at court was rising. His advancement did nothing to help him control his temper. In August his resentment over the conduct of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, at the races led him to throw Buckingham off a horse. Both men drew their swords and had to be parted by the king himself.<sup>16</sup> In November he was appointed to the committee for the affairs of Tangier alongside his cousin James Stuart*, duke of York, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough. In the same year he also became a shareholder and active participant in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal African Company) alongside a motley collection of friends and former enemies including Albemarle, St Albans (as Jermyn had since become) and Sandwich. His experiences in the 1650s were in part the inspiration for the establishment of the company.<sup>17</sup> He attended nearly half the sitting days in the 1663 session (failing to attend for much of May and June). He was present in early July during Bristol’s attempt to rally Parliament against Clarendon but although one might suspect that he would support the attack there is no information on which to base such a suspicion other than his earlier enmity to Clarendon. He was, after all, no friend of Bristol either. The (somewhat unreliable) list compiled by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, simply indicates that Rupert’s support for the motion was doubtful.</p><p>Rupert attended Parliament almost every day during the brief spring session of 1664 but the outbreak of war with the Dutch and his consequent naval duties meant that his attendance during the 1664-5 and 1665 sessions was minimal. Rupert’s involvement in the command of naval affairs was predictable given his previous military experience but his reputation for recklessness nevertheless made it unwelcome to some. In January 1665 when a serious injury to his skull dislodged a plate inserted following an earlier trepanning operation and threatened his life, a somewhat precipitate obituary of this ‘illustrious prince’ remarked that his recent conduct had dissipated ‘those prejudicate opinions that overclouded his fame at his embarking’. In April Rupert was in receipt of instructions from Clarendon concerning diplomatic negotiations with the elector of Mainz. No doubt in such matters Rupert’s personal knowledge of the empire was of particular benefit to the administration.<sup>18</sup> Later that year, when York narrowly escaped death at the battle of Lowestoft, Rupert and Albemarle were given joint command in his stead.</p><p>Rupert’s next significant appearance in the House was during the 1666-7 session. His attendances were all concentrated in the period between 11 Oct. and 15 Dec. 1666 when a variety of issues combined with lack of effective leadership from the court threatened to paralyse the government’s attempts to obtain an effective supply for the continuance of the war. Over the spring and summer of 1666 Rupert and Albemarle had sent a string of letters to the commissioners of ordnance complaining that the navy’s ability to fight effectively was hampered by the lack of money, ships and men.<sup>19</sup> It is possible that Rupert’s attendance of the Lords was caused by the government’s increasingly desperate attempts to secure adequate finance. Equally his attendance may have been related to his own role in arguments with Albemarle and York over naval policy. He had been involved in a distasteful squabble with Albemarle over the dispute between two naval captains, Sir Robert Holmes<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Jeremy Smith (Rupert backing the former with whom he was closely associated and Albemarle the latter) about tactics after the battle of St James’s day in July. The result was chaos at the head of the admiralty. As Pepys remarked in October, ‘the duke of York and the duke of Albemarle do not agree... The duke of Albemarle and Prince Rupert do less agree. So that we are all in pieces, and nobody knows what will be done the next year.’ Pepys may not have been an impartial witness but he was almost certainly correct in suggesting that the government distrusted Rupert’s abilities. He also claimed that Rupert and Albemarle were allowing exorbitant fees to be charged for the sale of commissions and that they were responsible for the lack of discipline that threatened the fighting capacity of the fleet. Rupert had written in September about the ‘very strange remissness in the fleet as to the strict obeying of orders’ but clearly did not think himself to be responsible.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Rupert registered his proxy in favour of John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor, on 18 December. It was vacated by the end of the session in February. Rupert’s retreat from the session was probably on account of poor health associated with his old head injury. On 12 Feb. 1667 it was reported that he had been sick since ‘the opening of his head’ but that ‘blessed be God he is somewhat better now’. Another newsletter of 21 Feb. recorded that following this latest trepanning operation Rupert’s surgeons used instruments of his own devising to treat him.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Rupert took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 10 Oct. 1667. He attended fitfully through the troubled session that lasted from 1667 to 1669, being present on just under 39 per cent of the sitting days. Rupert profited from the turbulence of 1667, with the naval disaster in the Medway and the political instability caused by the attack on Clarendon and subsequent dispute between the two Houses over the case of <em>Skinner v. East India Company</em>. In June 1667, he was rumoured to be a beneficiary of the pressure being exerted on John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, and likely to acquire his office as constable of Windsor Castle, though it was not until the following year that he was eventually able to secure the place.<sup>22</sup> During the Commons’ investigation into the performance of the navy during the war, Rupert and Albemarle were complimented by the Commons for their service at sea and asked for an explanation of the problems besetting the navy. On 31 Oct. Rupert and Albemarle submitted their narratives to the Commons outlining the reasons for the navy’s travails. According to Rupert, the blame rested on poor intelligence, want of provisions and a failure to maintain defences. He also pointed out that had York’s orders in the first campaign of the summer been ‘strictly observed’ a total victory would have been obtained. Rupert accepted no blame himself. According to a newsletter of 5 Nov. Rupert and Albemarle’s narratives ‘please the House [of Commons] very well’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Alongside such national concerns, Rupert also took care of his own privileges. On 22 Nov. the House was informed of a complaint against two men who had beaten Rupert’s footmen while he had been en route to Parliament. The men were attached, but on 27 Nov. having made their submission, they were released at Rupert’s personal intercession. Despite contemporary hints of his involvement, the part Rupert played in the downfall and subsequent attempt to impeach Clarendon remains obscure. He may well, though, have resented the lord chancellor’s efforts to mediate between him and his brother the Elector Palatine over their ongoing disputes.<sup>24</sup> He was certainly in the House on 27 and 29 Nov. when the impeachment was under discussion but he was not named as a manager to any of the conferences with the Commons on the matter of the impeachment or to the committee to draw up the bill for Clarendon’s exile.</p><p>In the wake of Clarendon’s fall Rupert was involved in a number of initiatives but only had limited success in securing backing for any of them. During the winter of 1667-8 he was actively and unsuccessfully attempting to influence foreign policy, warning against over-dependence on France.<sup>25</sup> In March 1668 he joined with Albemarle in seeking a revival of the committee of miscarriages as a way of preventing the king from appointing Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup> as commander of the fleet.<sup>26</sup> The same month he was also engaged in a project with Henry Howard for attempting to secure a licence for manufacturing farthings on a model of his own invention.<sup>27</sup> Early that summer, there were reports that Rupert and Albemarle would again command the fleet. The two men were also said to be collaborating on an expedition to discover the north-west passage. Rupert finally arrived at an agreement with Mordaunt over the latter’s offices at Windsor by the end of the summer, though Mordaunt was at first unwilling to surrender his title of constable. He paid, according to one newsletter £3,500, according to another 3,500 guineas.<sup>28</sup></p><p>During 1669 Rupert obtained further distinctions, though not major ones. He was named one of the commissioners to treat with the Danish ambassador but there is little indication that this was anything other than an honorary role, and rumours that he was to be appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland were ill-founded.<sup>29</sup> In the summer, in spite of his usual suspicion of the French, Rupert was reported to have recommended an alliance with France at a meeting of the ‘council of state’ so that the two kingdoms could drive the Spanish out of America and divide the territory between them. This was reckoned by the Venetian envoy to be little more than an ‘extravagance’ on the part of the prince.<sup>30</sup> In October the decision to prorogue Parliament was taken at a meeting at which he was present together with York, Ormond and Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington. In December when a decision was taken to prorogue Parliament again to the following February Rupert was said to have been one of those arguing, successfully, in favour of the prorogation in opposition to Arlington, who on this occasion failed to carry his point.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Rupert was ill once again in the early months of 1670.<sup>32</sup> He seems to have recovered by the spring when he joined Craven, Arlington and others in becoming one of the governors of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He had been instrumental in securing its charter.<sup>33</sup> That year he was again peripherally involved in diplomacy when he was drawn into helping Charles II in his unsuccessful attempt to sound out the elector of Brandenburg over France: a further indication of his perceived value as a conduit between England and the empire.<sup>34</sup> His difficult personality, coupled with his anti-French views meant, however, that he was kept in the dark about the secret Treaty of Dover. However, a later report that he was removed from the committee for foreign affairs seems to have been false as he continued to attend the sessions, although he is rarely recorded as intervening.<sup>35</sup></p><h2><em>Rupert and the ‘Country party’</em></h2><p>During the 1670-1 session Rupert attended the House on some 44 per cent of sitting days but he left no record of any activity in the House otherwise. He took his seat three days into the session and on 7 Apr. registered his proxy with Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea. This was clearly intended to cover a later absence as he was in attendance again on 11 Apr.—the final day before the six-month adjournment—but the proxy was not marked as vacated until 24 Oct. even though Rupert was not listed as being in attendance that day. He eventually returned to the House on 27 October.</p><p>Rupert’s relationship with the royal brothers remained distant but his status as a member of the royal family continued to be crucial to his self-image. In October 1670 the Privy Council decided that the visiting William of Orange should have precedence over Rupert, since William was more closely related to the king (his uncle) than Rupert (his cousin). Rupert was so deeply wounded that he refused even to meet the young prince. He had recovered his poise by the summer of the next year when he joined York in introducing the king of Sweden (represented by a proxy) as a knight of the garter.<sup>36</sup></p><p>As well as his involvement in the Royal African and Hudson’s Bay companies, Rupert’s scientific interests also held out the possibility of commercial exploitation. In 1671 together with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury, and Sir Thomas Chicheley<sup>‡</sup>, master of the ordnance, he was granted a patent for ‘nealed’ iron guns—thinner and lighter than conventional cast-iron cannon—which were subsequently sold to the ordnance at three times the normal cost of iron guns.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Rupert was appointed vice-admiral in York’s place early in 1673. At the beginning of February it was reported that he had gone to sea and that ‘no noblemen’ had gone with him, ‘which perhaps he is not much troubled at’.<sup>38</sup> The report was premature as Rupert was present in the House on 4 Feb., attended the crisis meetings of the foreign affairs committee of the council during February and continued to attend the Lords until the end of March: in all he was present on 80 per cent of the total sittings.<sup>39</sup> Rupert’s commitment to protestantism suggests that he might have been suspicious to the first Declaration of Indulgence. Once the strength of opposition had become known, he certainly urged the king to abandon it during the debates in the foreign affairs committee on 16 February, stressing the need to secure the money bill.<sup>40</sup> He had little difficulty in accepting the Test Act of 1673 and his willingness to take the sacraments provided a stark and very public contrast to the refusal of his cousin, York, to do so. At Easter York retreated to his own lodgings while Rupert accompanied the king to take communion. Rupert then took the sacrament again along with a number of other peers prior to taking the oaths at king’s bench. It was also said that he insisted on his officers doing likewise or losing their places. So strained were relations between Rupert and York that in June it was reported that they had come close to a duel in the king’s presence when York called Rupert a coward and Rupert retaliated by calling York a traitor.<sup>41</sup> The defeat at the battle of the Texel in August turned Rupert into something of a popular hero. His version of events, in which the blame for defeat was laid firmly on the French, tarnished York’s image still further. It also reinforced popular anti-French prejudices and fuelled a belief that the French were deliberately seeking the destruction of England’s naval capacity. By September Rupert, unlike York who had rendered himself still more unpopular by his Catholic marriage, was ‘received by the whole court and town with the greatest expressions of affection imaginable.’ To the despair of observers, the mutual recriminations of Rupert and James (and their followers) continued to weaken naval morale.<sup>42</sup> Perhaps not surprisingly, Rupert drew increasingly close to Shaftesbury. The two men were said to be ‘very great’ with each other and ‘are looked upon to be great Parliament men, and for the interest of Old England’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>One of his contemporary biographers insisted that Rupert’s subsequent life was spent ‘in a sweet and sedate repose’ and that he had adopted an ‘exact neutrality’ in order to keep out of ‘our present unhappy heats’.<sup>44</sup> Certainly Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>, writing to Arthur Capel*, earl of Essex on 25 Oct., bracketed him with Ormond as ‘in great credit with all parties and firmly principled for religion and against the war’; ‘but, for the rest, engaged with no parties’.<sup>45</sup> Nevertheless, that commitment to avoiding party appeared to be stretched over the following months. Rupert attended three days of the brief four-day session of October 1673. On 24 Oct., three days before the session opened, he received the proxy of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, which was vacated by the close. Rutland registered the proxy with Rupert once more in advance of the ensuing session early the following year. At the dismissal of Shaftesbury in November Rupert was said to have been visibly dejected; a visit to the fallen chancellor’s house served as an ostentatious expression of solidarity. He took his seat once more at the opening of the new session on 7 Jan. 1674 and proceeded to attend on each one of its sitting days. When the king suddenly prorogued Parliament in February, Rupert’s reaction was said to have identified him as the most hostile of the Privy Councillors; he also disapproved of the decision to extend the prorogation to April 1675.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Rupert was again present on nearly every sitting day of the contentious sessions of 1675. Once again, in anticipation of the session, he was entrusted with Rutland’s proxy. One reason for his attendance that year was to obtain an act of Parliament granting an exclusive 31-year licence for his method of ‘nealing’ guns. In the Lords the committee considering the bill was chaired by Shaftesbury; in the Commons those named to the equivalent committee included Chicheley and Shaftesbury’s son, also Anthony Ashley Cooper*, styled Lord Ashley, later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury. Rupert’s was one of only five bills passed at the end of the session. That June, Rupert, together with York, Arlington, Ormond and Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, argued unsuccessfully at council for a dissolution of Parliament.<sup>47</sup> He was present in the House when the subject was debated there on 20 November. One of those voting in favour of the address for a dissolution was listed merely as ‘His Royal Highness’, which may have been York rather than Rupert, and Rupert did not sign the dissent when the motion was lost.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Rupert’s continued closeness to Shaftesbury is indicated by his employment of the latter’s relative, Thomas Bennet<sup>‡</sup>, as his secretary. Rupert and Shaftesbury continued to be involved in the manufacture of ‘nealed’ guns and were perhaps increasingly irritated by the ordnance’s reluctance to pay the inflated price they were demanding. For all Rupert’s association with Shaftesbury’s opposition, he remained a familiar companion of the king through 1676. Early the following year a drunken evening at Windsor resulted in some courtiers breaking into his laboratory and smashing his equipment.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Rupert returned to the House, again in possession of Rutland’s proxy, at the opening of the session of 1677-8 and was thereafter present on 96 per cent of all sitting days. In spite of his earlier backing for a dissolution, he made no attempt to join the opposition peers in demanding that Parliament had been dissolved by the long prorogation. Although he was listed on Shaftesbury’s assessment of the peerage, no comment was placed next to his name. He took his place once more at the opening of the following session (23 May 1678). He was named one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 1 Aug. but did not attend that day.<sup>50</sup> He was in the chair at the meeting of the council on 27 Sept. at which Titus Oates presented his evidence of a Popish Plot, and was later appointed to the secret committee entrusted with investigating the allegations.<sup>51</sup> Rupert took his place in the final session of the Parliament on 21 Oct. and attended on 94 per cent of sitting days. A week before the opening he was entrusted with Rutland’s proxy for the final time, which he again held throughout the session. On 7 Nov. his name was raised during a debate in the Commons over the faulty translation of the <em>Gazette</em> into French, as Rupert had protected Moranville, the Frenchman responsible for the text. No reflection was made on Rupert for his role in this, which was merely seen as having been due to compassion on a man fallen on hard times.<sup>52</sup> On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament. Although he was said to have been associated with Arlington in talking to the ‘country’ opposition to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), he voted against committing the embattled lord treasurer. When the king wanted to prorogue the session on 27 Dec. it was reported that it was Rupert who dissuaded him. If so, his arguments had only temporary currency: Parliament was prorogued on 30 Dec. instead.<sup>53</sup></p><p>There is little evidence of Rupert’s involvement at either of the general elections of 1679, although his position as constable of Windsor and as lord lieutenant of Berkshire and Surrey should have given him considerable influence in those areas. In advance of the new session he was initially noted by Danby as a likely supporter, but this was subsequently amended to doubtful. His attendance at the first Parliament of 1679 was initially very high but his last attendance of the session was on 22 Apr. - the day that the king announced the re-organization of the Privy Council (Rupert continued to be a member of the council). He was thus not present during the debate on the expulsion of Catholics from London when Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, and William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, incorrectly described in the source as the barred Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, made members of the House uneasy by complaining of the king’s description of Rupert as a ‘prince of the blood’ in his declaration about the reorganization of the council. Such a term was to be resisted because it was ‘a French term of art’ which ‘was not well understood in England’.<sup>54</sup> Rupert was probably a convinced believer in the reality of the Popish Plot: he not only presided over several of the council’s investigations but was instrumental in securing Bedloe’s testimony against Reading. In May 1679 he was appointed as one of the councillors to oversee the review of the justices of Berkshire.<sup>55</sup> Despite his own absence from Parliament in late April and May, he was still closely associated with the country peers who were in opposition to the court. In September it was reported that the banished James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, was to have the use of Rupert’s house in Rhenen in the Netherlands.</p><p>Following the second election of 1679, Rupert attended the prorogation of 17 October. Rupert did not sign the peers’ petition calling for Parliament to sit, but on 7 Dec. he introduced its signatories to the king’s presence.<sup>56</sup> He attended the prorogation again on 26 Jan. 1680. His health seems to have collapsed once more that summer and in September it was reported that a leg condition (a chronic complaint) might ‘end him’.<sup>57</sup> Despite his own ill heath, the same month he was one of the nobility to visit Shaftesbury, who was also sick in London. In October he expressed support for the proposition that York be sent back into exile in Scotland.<sup>58</sup> After the second Parliament of 1679 was finally allowed to sit on 21 Oct. 1680 Rupert was again present on nearly every sitting day. In spite of his hostility to York, he seems to have stepped back from supporting exclusion, voting in favour of putting the question that the exclusion bill be rejected at first reading. On 23 Nov. he also voted in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation.</p><p>Acutely conscious of his own status, and aware that in the absence of his cousin York he would be the senior peer present, when the arrangements for the trial of Viscount Stafford were being made Rupert vociferously opposed an attempt to allow the high steward’s commission to be read in the House. He objected that this would entitle the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), to take precedence over him in the procession to Westminster Hall. A compromise was arrived at whereby the commission was read in the House but Finch agreed to continue acting in the capacity of lord chancellor until he arrived in Westminster Hall and only then to assume his place as lord high steward.<sup>59</sup> At the trial itself Rupert had no hesitation in voting Stafford guilty. </p><p>Rupert’s final appearance in the House was at the dissolution of 10 Jan. 1681. He did not attend the Oxford Parliament and in April he was so sick with fever that there were further reports of his likely imminent demise, sufficiently convincing to make Thomas Windsor*, earl of Plymouth, to head for London in the hopes of securing the (as he hoped) vacant constableship of Windsor. <sup>60</sup> Rupert survived, however, and continued to be active: he refused to sign the warrant that committed Shaftesbury to the Tower on 2 July. When Stephen College’s dying declaration was delivered to the king in council by Thomas Bennet, Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> made it clear that he believed Bennet—‘a known Parliament man’—was still employed as Rupert’s secretary.<sup>61</sup> He was, though, settling his affairs. In May 1681, he was said to have ‘owned his marriage’—presumably to his former mistress Frances Bard.<sup>62</sup> A certificate purporting to refer to this had been drawn up in July 1664. However a reference in Rupert’s will to Dudley Bard as his natural son suggests otherwise and that the relationship was never regularized. In January 1682 Secretary Jenkins relayed to Ormond a request from the king for a Captain Hughes to be granted a company. Jenkins explained that the king ‘did it upon Prince Rupert’s importunity and sets no stress upon it, therefore I hope you will be engaged otherways.’ The request was repeated by Rupert several months later, underscoring Hughes’s ‘honesty, courage and obedience’. Ormond declared himself willing to oblige both because of Rupert’s recommendation and the captain’s own merits.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In October 1681 Rupert was involved in a discussion in council about his plans to sell ‘nealed’ guns to the French. Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, expressed concerns at handing new technology to a potential enemy but Rupert insisted that since his invention was undervalued at home he was not to be blame for looking for alternative markets. Fauconberg was presumably unaware that the ordnance now believed the invention to be worthless and that the gun-founding business that Rupert used to manufacture his guns was virtually bankrupt, although in January 1682 it was reported that the ordnance had determined to keep the guns and not allow them to be sold to the French.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Rupert died at his house in Spring Gardens of a fever on 29 Nov. 1682. The following day an order was made out for materials to be provided to the king’s apothecary for Rupert’s embalming. Roger Morrice wrote that he was ‘universally lamented as a lover of the nation and a firm adherer to the protestant religion’.<sup>65</sup> Rupert’s funeral in Westminster Abbey was led by his friend and executor Craven. Notwithstanding his many commercial ventures, Rupert appears to have had little in the way of real or personal estate to leave. His accounts from the final years of his life suggest he had lived relatively frugally, perhaps by necessity.<sup>66</sup> His legacy to his son consisted of his house in Rhenen and the debts owed to him by the Holy Roman Emperor and his nephew, Charles II, the Elector Palatine. Debts owed to his estate by the king of England were to satisfy his legacies to his servants. The remaining real and personal estate was to go to his mistress, Margaret (Peg) Hughes and their daughter, Ruperta (who was later married to Emanuel Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>). In the absence of a legitimate heir the peerage was extinguished by his death. It was next revived for George of Denmark*, consort to the future Queen Anne.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
RUSSELL, Edward (1652-1727) |
<p><strong><surname>RUSSELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1652–1727)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>7 July 1697 earl of ORFORD |
|
First sat 6 Dec. 1697; last sat 2 May 1725 |
|
MP Launceston 1689-90, Portsmouth 1690-5, Cambs. 1695-7 |
<p><em>b</em>.1652, 2nd s. of Hon. Edward Russell (<em>d</em>.1665) and Penelope, da. of Sir Moyses Hill of Hillsborough, wid. of Hon. Arthur Wilmot of Dublin and Sir William Brooke of Cooling Castle, Kent. <em>educ</em>. Tottenham, Mdx. (Mark Lewis’ sch.); St John’s Camb. 1666, LLD 1705. <em>m</em>. 12 Nov. 1691, cos. Margaret (1656-1702), yst. da. of William Russell*, duke of Bedford, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 26 Nov. 1727; <em>will</em> 2 Mar. 1727, pr. 3 Jan. 1728.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of the bedchamber to James Stuart*, duke of York, 1682-aft. 1683; PC 1689-1702, 1709-<em>d</em>.; treas. of the navy 1689-99; commr. of the Admiralty 1690-1; first ld. of the Admiralty 1694-9, 1709-10, 1714-17; commr. appeals for prizes 1694-aft. 1695;<sup>2</sup> ld. justice 1697-8, 1714; commr. Union with Scotland 1706.</p><p><em>Custos rot.</em> Cambs. 1689-<em>d</em>.; dep. lt. Cambs. 1701-2;<sup>3</sup> ld. lt. Cambs.1714-<em>d</em>.; asst. Mines Co. 1693;<sup>4</sup> commr. Greenwich Hosp. 1694; freeman, Portsmouth 1695;<sup>5</sup> conservator Bedford Level 1697, 1712-24;<sup>6</sup> high steward, Camb. 1699-<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> master of king’s game, Newmarket 1715-aft. 1718;<sup>8</sup> recorder and high steward, Harwich c.1715-<em>d.</em><sup>9</sup></p><p>Ent. RN 1666, lt. 1671, capt. 1672-82; adm. (blue) 1689; adm. of the fleet 1690-3, 1693-7.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: Sir G. Kneller, oils, National Maritime Museum.</p> |
<p>Born into a cadet branch of the family of the earls (later dukes) of Bedford, Edward (known familiarly as ‘Cherry’ or ‘cherry-cheeked’) Russell was the second of five sons. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1666, following a brief sojourn in Cambridge, and proceeded to build a reputation as a talented if somewhat irascible seaman.<sup>10</sup> Russell himself admitted, ‘I am afraid I am thought an uneasy man’. Macky noted his other notorious shortcomings, ‘No gentleman was ever better beloved by the English sailors than he, when he had the first command of the fleet; but he soon lost all by his pride, and covetousness.’ Orford’s proud demeanour was again alluded to in a sardonic poem composed in the middle years of Queen Anne that exhorted its subject to be, among other things, as ‘humble as Orford.’<sup>11</sup> Throughout his career Russell’s temper stood in the way of his preferment; more damagingly, he was also dogged by accusations of peculation and, while it seems fair to conclude that he probably indulged no more in siphoning off funds than others in his position, he told far from the truth when he reported that he had expended much greater sums than he had gained by his various offices.</p><p>Despite all this, Russell was far more than a bluff, foul-tempered, slightly crooked old salt, trading on an illustrious name. Although he was probably the Junto member who made the least impact as a parliamentary manager, he has been identified as its most significant member in the early years of the group’s existence.<sup>12</sup> He was certainly a shrewd politician of the first rank and more malleable than often acknowledged. He survived three separate attempts by the Commons to shame him, served three monarchs over a period of more than 30 years and, in spite of his habitual grumbling, he remained a central figure in Whig politics throughout the period.</p><p><em>Naval career 1670s-1697</em></p><p>Gazetted lieutenant in 1671, Russell received his first command the following year when he was promoted captain of the <em>Phoenix</em>. Further commands followed in quick succession, and in 1677 he was appointed to the duke of York’s bedchamber. The execution of his cousin, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, in 1683 put a stop to Russell’s steady advancement. He resigned his places and retired from court.<sup>13</sup> By 1687 he was a central figure in the opposition grouping, one of those called upon by William of Orange’s envoy, Dijkvelt, and a significant conduit between the principal conspirators and his friend Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. When Nottingham withdrew from the conspiracy the following year, it was to Russell that he confided his resolution.<sup>14</sup> Russell was in close communication with William of Orange, a correspondence that was no doubt facilitated by the presence of one of his sisters at Prince William’s court.<sup>15</sup> One of the ‘immortal seven’ to sign the letter of invitation to the prince in June 1688, later that summer Russell quit England to join the Dutch invasion force. During the advance on London he served as William’s secretary.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Russell was returned for Launceston to the Convention, where his ability to marshal a significant grouping within the Commons turned him into an influential broker, though the extent of his direct interest among the contingent of naval officers has perhaps been overstated. Only five of the 29 members sitting in the period 1690 to 1715 who possessed naval commissions appear to have owed much to his patronage. Three family members (Edward<sup>‡</sup>, James<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Russell<sup>‡</sup>) also followed his lead on occasions.<sup>17</sup> So did Sir Thomas Tipping<sup>‡</sup>, who had been part of William of Orange’s invasion force in 1688 and later married Russell’s niece, and Sir William Ellys<sup>‡</sup>, whose daughter was married to Russell’s nephew. In 1689 Russell increased his interest in Cambridgeshire by purchasing the Chippenham Hall estate near Newmarket from a kinsman, having previously inherited an estate at Shingay from his uncle, Colonel John Russell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>18</sup> The purchase of Chippenham served to consolidate significantly the family interest in the county, already represented by the duke of Bedford, and in 1696 Russell augmented this with the addition of the nearby manor of Burrough Green.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Although Russell was appointed to the Privy Council in 1689 and the following year replaced his arch rival Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, as admiral of the fleet, by 1692, in common with a number of his Whig colleagues, he appears to have become discontented with the Williamite regime. His disgruntlement may have led him to take part in desultory discussions with the Jacobite agent, David Lloyd (or Floyd), to whom it was believed he had been introduced by John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough. It is possible that such discussions were conducted with King William’s prior knowledge.<sup>20</sup> Any intention he may have had to turn coat once more was quashed by the exiled king’s declaration that year. According to Macaulay, this prompted Russell to inform Lloyd that although, ‘I wish to serve King James. The thing might be done, if it were not his own fault. But he takes the wrong way with us. Let him forget all the past: let him grant a general pardon; and then I will see what I can do for him.’ Swatting away Lloyd’s subsequent offers of reward in the event of a restoration, Russell was then said to have warned him that,</p><blockquote><p>I do not wish to hear anything on that subject. My solicitude is for the public. And do not think that I will let the French triumph over us in our own sea. Understand this, that if I meet them I fight them, ay, though his majesty himself should be on board.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>The accuracy of such an exchange is open to question, though Lloyd’s correspondence with the exiled court reflects realistically Russell’s impatience and quick temper.<sup>22</sup> If such discussions did take place Russell was as good as his word and his victory over the French fleet at the battle of La Hogue confirmed his renewed loyalty to William and Mary. His success may also have earned him an offer of a peerage, which he is said to have declined lacking the funds to support the dignity.<sup>23</sup> Despite the plaudits he received for his success at La Hogue, he was subsequently criticized for failing to follow this up amidst worsening relations with his former friend Nottingham, at whose administrative failures he was determined to level the blame for the navy’s inability to exploit their advantage.<sup>24</sup> Although his Whig allies rallied to defend their admiral, Russell came off worst in the struggle, and he was replaced at the head of the admiralty commission early the following year by Nottingham’s nominees.<sup>25</sup></p><p>During the summer of 1693 Russell received perhaps unlikely support from Robert Spencer*,2nd earl of Sunderland, who laboured to convince the king to put Nottingham to one side and take up Russell again. Sunderland’s efforts on Russell’s behalf formed part of the former’s campaign to convince the king to work with the Whigs rather than the Tories and perhaps stemmed from support that he had received from other members of the Russell family. A series of meetings held between London, Winchendon and Althorp in August further emphasized the earl’s commitment to securing the Whigs’ return to power.<sup>26</sup> That winter Sunderland’s efforts bore fruit when Russell was reappointed admiral of the fleet. The following spring Russell was also restored to his former place as first lord in succession to Anthony Carey<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Falkland [S], who was compensated by being appointed envoy to the United Provinces.<sup>27</sup> Two years later, though, Russell’s star looked set to plummet once more when he was one of several prominent Whigs to be named by Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> as having corresponded with the exiled court. Following a series of meetings between the Junto, Sunderland and prominent members of the Commons in October 1696, Russell was deputed to raise the matter of Fenwick’s confession before the Commons on 6 Nov., submitting a denial of Fenwick’s allegations. He was subsequently exonerated along with the other ministers named in Fenwick’s information, and Fenwick himself was attainted and executed. In the midst of this Russell was distracted by the sudden death of his brother, Colonel Francis Russell, governor of Barbados, the administration of whose estate preoccupied him and other members of the family over the ensuing months.<sup>28</sup></p><p><em>Earl of Orford 1697-1702</em></p><p>With Fenwick’s accusations safely dismissed, Russell’s services were at last rewarded in the spring of 1697 with his creation as earl of Orford. His acceptance of the peerage at this point presumably indicated an improved financial situation, but the creation was also timed to make clear the king’s particular support for him. His was the only new peerage of that month and it was not until December that John Somers*, was also prevailed upon to accept promotion as Baron Somers. There appears to have been some uncertainty as to which title Russell would choose and at least one report of his elevation noted that he was not to be earl of Chichester as previously thought. It may not have been realized that this title was unavailable being one of the subsidiary honours held by Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Southampton (later 2nd duke of Cleveland).<sup>29</sup> The eventual choice of Orford presumably reflected his East Anglian interests. In the absence of male heirs a special remainder was added allowing the earldom to descend to his nephew, Edward Cheeke. Orford was characteristically grumpy about his peerage. He complained that he would have preferred to have been honoured with a garter but he was perhaps less disappointed than he pretended. Lady Russell offered only qualified confirmation of his apparent disinclination to accept the peerage by commenting that, ‘I believe so far what the town says, that Admiral Russell did not seek the title, or to be one of our Justices; but I do not like to say, “it was crammed down his throat”.’<sup>30</sup> He does appear, though, to have refused a later offer of further promotion in the peerage as ‘it did not suit with his temper.’<sup>31</sup></p><p>Orford’s bad humour was no doubt exacerbated by finding himself in a London devoid of company from at least the beginning of June 1697. During the month he wrote to Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, to inform him of Sunderland’s latest manoeuvrings to bring about a rapprochement between the Junto and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough). Monmouth had earned Orford’s undying contempt for encouraging Fenwick to substantiate his allegations. Orford seemed willing to bide his time and observe what the outcome might be noting to Shrewsbury how, ‘That peace maker, who values himself on that talent, thinks he fools me, and I am contented he should believe it for the present.’<sup>32</sup> Orford was always suspicious of Sunderland and this latest evidence of his double-dealing left Orford in no doubt that he and Monmouth were ‘all knaves alike … God deliver honest men out of their hands.’<sup>33</sup> His own presence in London ahead of the session appears for the most part to have been over the settlement of admiralty business, but he was also eager to resolve an ongoing dispute with John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham) over land in Covent Garden.<sup>34</sup> In his letter to Shrewsbury outlining the negotiations Orford referred the betrayal of his colleagues by William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire in passing Fenwick’s confession onto the king without their knowledge (for which Orford never forgave him) and insisted:</p><blockquote><p>I will venture to say not a Russell in England has ever spoke to Lord Chancellor [Somers] in relation to the house, nor does in the least trouble their heads who becomes master of it. For my own part, was I to determine the difference by affection, I swear Lord Normanby should have it. It is impossible he can use me worse than the duke of Devonshire has done.<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>Orford was in Tonbridge later that summer, probably in company with Somers. He was expected back in Town at the end of August 1697. From there he wrote again to Shrewsbury in September to update him on the affair of the informers, Aubrey Price and William Chaloner, whose fanciful tales of Jacobite plots had been promoted by the self-appointed Jacobite-finder Sir Henry Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> and who (like Fenwick) had attempted to implicate Shrewsbury in their tales.<sup>36</sup> Relieved that the matter appeared already to have run its course, he confessed to being:</p><blockquote><p>very happy it appeared so early; for, though the matter is as foolish as false, had it lain working till the meeting of the Parliament, under the management of those that I believe are at the bottom of it, God knows what work they would have made for a month at least. But now, I think, it can do nobody but themselves any hurt; though I really think they have drawn in two or three of these foolish and zealous Jacobites, to trust them with enough to endanger themselves.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> corroborated Orford’s reassuring appraisal of the situation, informing the duke how he had ‘come from my Lord Chancellor and Lord Orford, who are friendly affected with the impertinency your Grace is exposed to; but do not think this ought to be the occasion of any uneasiness to you.’ Orford’s mood of optimism quickly evaporated. That autumn he was preoccupied with a struggle with Sunderland over the disposal of the secretaryship. Orford (and the other Junto lords) wanted this to go to Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, in the event of Shrewsbury’s resignation while Sunderland insisted on Vernon. This and other developments helped convince Orford that the Whigs would soon be thrust aside by their opponents, but he professed by then not to be much interested in the matter, ‘not caring how soon they are rid of me.’<sup>38</sup> By the close of the month an uneasy compromise had been arrived at whereby an increasingly sickly and despondent Shrewsbury remained in place, though he was not expected to fulfil any of his usual duties. Even this unsatisfactory solution was thrown into confusion with the announcement soon after that the other secretary, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, also intended to resign. Before the Junto lords were able to organize themselves to propose Wharton’s candidature, the king and Sunderland forestalled them with the announcement of Vernon’s promotion, leaving them with no option but to press for Shrewsbury to remain in place with him a while longer, rather than see their last remaining conduit with the court lost for ever.</p><p>It was, consequently, with a sense of foreboding that Orford took his seat in the House three days into the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1697, introduced between the lord chamberlain (Sunderland) and Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford (his brother-in-law and husband of his cousin, Lady Diana Russell). Present on 70 per cent of all sitting days, Orford was nominated to 30 committees during his first session in the House as well as being named a manager of several conferences. Away from the chamber briefly between 16 and 22 Dec., his absence was presumably connected with the by-election for Cambridgeshire triggered by his elevation, where he campaigned actively alongside his former rival John Cutts<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Cutts [I], on behalf of Sir Rushout Cullen<sup>‡</sup>, who was successful in spite of a spirited challenge by the Tory Granado Pigot<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Orford’s return to the House coincided with the growing clamour in the Commons against Sunderland, who finally cracked under the strain and fled from London leaving his key of office with Vernon at the end of the month. The remainder of the session was dominated by a bitter turf war fought by Sunderland’s supporters and those of the Junto, resulting in the assault on Sunderland’s supporter Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> by Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax. Although Orford voted on 15 Mar. 1698 in favour of committing the bill for punishing Duncombe and entered his dissent when the motion to commit was defeated, he and Montagu subsequently advocated coming to terms with Sunderland. By then the fissure between the two camps was too great to be spanned.<sup>40</sup> Other partisan squabbles featured in the remainder of the session. On 17 Mar. Orford entered his dissent at the resolution to allow James Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, son of the Tory James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, to have John Cary’s estate during the lifetime of his wife, following consideration of the case <em>Bertie v Falkland</em>, and on 24 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference with the Commons considering the libel circulated by Bertie’s brother, Robert<sup>‡</sup>, promoting his cause in the affair.</p><p>Orford was reported to have departed for Newmarket on 29 Mar. but he remained in the House for one more day before quitting London for the entertainments of Cambridgeshire.<sup>41</sup> That spring, according to Vernon, he was rumoured to be appointed to the lieutenancy of Suffolk left vacant by the death of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in April. Sir Thomas Felton<sup>‡</sup> and John Hervey*, (later earl of Bristol) were both active in promoting Orford for the post, though he was said to have ‘no great mind to it’.<sup>42</sup> The same month Orford entertained the king at his seat at Chippenham.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Orford returned to the House at the beginning of May 1698, by which time he had resolved ‘absolutely’ not ‘to meddle with the lieutenancy of Suffolk’.<sup>44</sup> On 10 May he was nominated a manager of the conference concerning the amendments to the Colchester almshouses act, the result of which was reported back to the House by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and on 24 May he was nominated a manager of the conference for the bill for suppressing blasphemy, which was held the following day. On 2 July he was named a manager of that concerning the impeachment of a number of French merchants, communicating the Lords’ inability to proceed to the trial of one of their number, Longueville, the following Monday.</p><p>Vernon alluded to rumours of a renewed attempt to attack Orford as well as Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, in a letter to Shrewsbury of May that year. Vernon conceived that Orford was the person most particularly aimed at, though nothing appears to have come of it. Orford was expected to spend most of the summer in the country, but he was the only one of the ‘leading men’ noted to meet with Sunderland following the session’s close. The meeting was a response to the king’s desire for an accommodation to be arrived at between Sunderland and the Junto, but Orford nevertheless struggled to conceal his pleasure at seeing his old foe out of office and marginalized from court.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Once again his optimism soon gave way to despondency. Concerned by the progress of the war, in August Orford confided his fears to Shrewsbury informing him that,</p><blockquote><p>Here is no news, but that we daily expect to hear the king of Spain is dead. What will become of us then, God knows! I do not see that the king has made any provision for such an accident, though often pressed to it, the neglect of which, in my poor opinion, will prove very fatal to England; and those people in business blamed, who could not help it.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>Unbeknown to him, steps had been taken to address such an eventuality and, shortly after drafting his letter to Shrewsbury, Orford was one of a select group of ministers to be informed of the secret negotiations in train between William and the French that resulted in the First Partition Treaty.</p><p>Orford seems to have struggled to develop his interest in the town of Orford. According to Nathaniel Gooding, one of the borough’s portmen, the earl was subjected to a poor reception there when he visited ‘with a slender attendance’ and ‘was entertained only by Uncle [Hastings], and the rabble’.<sup>47</sup> Nevertheless, he was successful in securing the return of his protégé, Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> there at the 1698 general election.<sup>48</sup> He was also successful with the re-election of Cullen for Cambridgeshire, though he was unable to secure the return of his friend and old navy comrade, Henry Priestman<sup>‡</sup>, who had been defeated at New Shoreham, either to a seat on the Isle of Wight or at Saltash.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Orford took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Dec.1698 after which he was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. On 27 Jan. 1699 he was nominated a manager of the conference considering amendments to the bill for prohibiting the exportation of corn for a year, which was held the following day.<sup>50</sup> The session was dominated, though, by the Commons’ enquiry into the naval accounts. A little over a week into the session, on 15 Dec. 1698 Vernon reported ‘talk as if some had a mind to have a fling at my Lord Orford’ either over the Kidd affair or (more probably) over the navy accounts. Such rumours encouraged Orford and Somers to convene a meeting at Somers’ London residence to concert their response to the expected attack.<sup>51</sup> By 20 Dec. the mood in the Commons for ‘having a fling’ at Orford had gained momentum, with Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford) and Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> the driving forces behind establishing a grand committee to investigate Orford’s management of the admiralty. Although criticisms lodged against the manner in which Orford had distributed prize money seized in the Mediterranean were answered by his friends, who submitted that he had not benefited from any prizes captured and that he had seen to it that everything was handed over to the consul at Cadiz, such blandishments failed to satisfy the Commons. Pressure resulting from the enquiry no doubt further inflamed Orford’s normally short temper. By 29 Dec. Vernon perceived Orford, ‘grows weary of being the mark, of being so often shot at, and talks of quitting as soon as he has justified himself.’ The enquiry rumbled on into January 1699 and the following month Orford was involved in a heated quarrel with Peterborough, the cause of which appears to have been aspersions made by Peterborough, accusing Orford of being a coward and of ‘something very gross’.<sup>52</sup> On 9 Feb. 1699 the House was forced to intervene to prevent the two men from settling the matter in a duel.<sup>53</sup> In March Orford had another ‘very narrow escape’ when he was finally acquitted by just one voice following the Commons’ examination of the navy victualling accounts for the period 1694-5, out of which Orford had been estimated to have made a profit of £15-20,000.<sup>54</sup> Although Harley attributed the failure to censure Orford to the ‘unfortunate behaviour’ of the Tories, according to Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> Orford actually owed his reprieve on this occasion to Harley’s support in alliance with that of the Foley and Winnington groupings who, despite having set the action in motion, were keen to assist Thomas Foley*, the younger (later Baron Foley) who was then actively courting Orford’s niece, the sole unmarried daughter of Sir William Harbord<sup>‡</sup>, and whose portion was rumoured to be £30-40,000.<sup>55</sup> The marriage failed to transpire but the damage to the Tory cause had already been done and Vernon’s account of the proceedings supported Cocks’ interpretation, noting that Harley withdrew before the vote.<sup>56</sup></p><p>In spite of his exoneration, the affair encouraged speculation that Orford intended either to resign his place as first commissioner of the admiralty following an order from the Commons that it was contrary to good practice for him to hold both that place and the treasurership of the navy concurrently, or to resign all his places (out of pique).<sup>57</sup> Orford certainly appears to have resolved to resign one of the places fairly early on as in April he wrote to the Speaker (Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>) to excuse himself from being proposed as treasurer, having already recommended another candidate to the king (probably William Cavendish*, marquess of Hartington (later 2nd duke of Devonshire), but the following month he opted for the more drastic course of action of resigning all of his offices.<sup>58</sup> Vernon speculated that it was a decision that he had long had in mind, ‘ever since the Parliament begun to make him uneasy with their enquiries’ and surmised further that Orford’s failure to prevent the appointment of Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> to the Admiralty Board had finally decided him in favour of resignation.<sup>59</sup> Orford’s personal difficulties made him a more than usually tetchy colleague as was reflected in a letter from Marlborough to Shrewsbury informing him of barbed comments made by Orford about Marlborough’s subservient relationship to Sunderland. Exasperated at Orford’s behaviour, Marlborough complained, ‘I have too much reason to take some things ill of Lord Orford, but I have not, nor shall not, say anything to him of it, which I should have done if he had stayed in, for I do flatter myself that I have deserved better from him.’<sup>60</sup> Sunderland was less forgiving and by now refused to have anything to do with Orford. He warned Shrewsbury in advance of a meeting between the two men that Orford had taken to railing ‘excessively, and personally at the king, which I hope is not true.’<sup>61</sup> The extent to which the Junto had lost ground by this time and that Orford’s interest had been diminished was perhaps reflected in the appointment of Littleton, rather than Devonshire, to the vacant treasurership and of John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, as first lord of the admiralty, though Orford professed himself pleased with the selection of Bridgwater.<sup>62</sup></p><p>In spite of reports suggesting that he was likely to be present, Orford refused to take part in a gathering of Whig grandees at Boughton in August 1699.<sup>63</sup> He did play host to his Junto colleagues, Somers, and Charles Montagu, at Chippenham, before heading for Suffolk towards the end of the month, where he was noted as having entertained several of the county’s corporations.<sup>64</sup> Family affairs appear to have been uppermost in his mind that summer. In July it was reported that Orford’s heir, Edward Cheeke, was to marry Catherine Jones (though this match did not transpire), and in September his attention was taken up by reports that his young cousin (and wife’s nephew) Wriothesley Russell*, marquess of Tavistock (later 2nd duke of Bedford) had converted to Catholicism while travelling in Italy.<sup>65</sup> Orford wrote to Tavistock’s mother, Lady Russell, reassuring her that ‘the more I thought of it the less I credited the report’ but he advised even so that:</p><blockquote><p>should there be the least tendency [that] way in him, he ought not to stay abroad, but return home where it may be more effectually shown him how much danger he runs… and how impossible it is to live in England with the load of that religion upon his back as duke of Bedford ought to do.<sup>66</sup></p></blockquote><p>Orford took his seat in the new session on 16 Nov. 1699, after which he was present on 45 per cent of all sitting days. The following month, he was again to the fore during debates over the controversial support given to William Kidd: Orford having been involved as one of the backers of Kidd’s expedition against the pirates, which had been commissioned in the autumn of 1695.<sup>67</sup> Somers had warned Shrewsbury the previous year that members of the old East India Company were intent on exploiting the Kidd affair but he had been reasonably confident that provided the various backers of the scheme (Orford, Shrewsbury, Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney, and himself) were honest they would be cleared of any serious wrongdoing, ‘though perhaps we may appear somewhat ridiculous.’<sup>68</sup> In spite of the ministers’ confidence that they would be able to ride out the Kidd enquiry, reports again circulated in December that the Commons intended to ‘renew their attack upon particular persons’ and, in particular, on Orford, who was now under the spotlight over the disbursement of treasure retrieved from wrecks in the West Indies by the <em>Dolphin</em>.</p><p>The renewal of pressure on Orford may have made him more willing to entertain overtures for a further reconciliation with Sunderland, which appears to have been brokered by Lady Sunderland and Lady Orford, in the first instance, and then taken up by Sir James Forbes. As Vernon related, ‘if my Lord Orford were not already disposed towards it, I think Sir James would not be so forward in offering his mediatorial offices.’ Dissatisfied with their failure to humble him in the previous session, some members of the Commons appear to have resolved by February 1700 on reviving their enquiry into the navy accounts. Once again Orford slipped through the net.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Hostility to Orford among those associated with the East India Company in the Commons no doubt encouraged his opposition to the continuation of the company’s charter. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the East India Company bill. He then entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for continuing the company as a corporation. Other matters predominated later in the session. Orford and Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, were both noted as having been consistent in their support of the forfeited estates in Ireland bill that came before the House in April, though Vernon reported that the Whigs were ‘suspected to have encouraged the opposition underhand’. When the king assured Orford the following month that his party should not be apprehensive of being dismissed, Orford rejoined bitterly that ‘he did not know he had any Whigs remaining in his service.’<sup>70</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session, Orford was marked ‘X’ on a list of Whig lords, probably denoting him (unsurprisingly enough) as one of the Junto peers. The same month (July) his heir, Edward Cheeke, married the eldest daughter of the former exclusionist and Junto supporter, Sir William Ellys.<sup>71</sup> Aware of the damage he had caused to his relations with Shrewsbury over the past few months, Orford made some effort that summer to heal their rift. He lamented that he believed he was the object of Shrewsbury’s displeasure and that he would be unable to join the by now traditional gathering at Boughton in August. Shrewsbury responded, insisting on his continued friendship, but it was clear that relations between the two men had been strained enormously.<sup>72</sup> Shrewsbury’s subsequent decision to quit England in search of a cure abroad undoubtedly confirmed Orford’s worst suspicions about his commitment to the party. Although Somers wrote to Shrewsbury in August 1701 to assure him that both Orford and Halifax ‘know how very obligingly you interested yourself for them’ in reality, Shrewsbury’s abandonment of his former colleagues at this time provoked in Orford a deep and lasting resentment.<sup>73</sup> It was only after Shrewsbury’s marriage to Countess Paleotti in the autumn of 1705 that Orford’s anger with his old friend finally abated. He wrote to Somers in response to the news asserting that, ‘I have now forgiven him all I have taken amiss from him’, considering Shrewsbury’s marriage to be ‘revenge sufficient for more injuries than I have received. ’ Orford’s teasing of Shrewsbury’s choice of bride is evidence, however slight, of a warmer, more humorous side than is generally observed.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Soon after taking his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701 (of which he was present on almost 84 per cent of all sitting days) it became clear that Orford and his Junto colleagues were to be subjected to a prolonged assault. The session came to be dominated by the Tory-majority Commons’ investigation into the Partition Treaties, with which Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, Orford, Somers and Halifax, were closely identified, and also with the examination of Captain Kidd (who had been incarcerated in Newgate since the spring of the previous year).<sup>75</sup> Orford was thought to be especially vulnerable to Kidd’s revelations. It was believed that he had participated in a conversation with the buccaneer before his departure, in which Kidd had predicted that the want of regular wages for the sailors would force the expedition to turn to piracy.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Portland proved to be the first to be subjected to the Commons’ scrutiny and on 1 Apr. articles of impeachment were brought up against him. The Lords responded to the Commons’ attack on their members in characteristically bullish fashion and on 2 and 10 Apr. Orford, Somers and Halifax were among those nominated to act as managers of the conferences investigating the treaties. Shortly after, on 14 Apr., Orford was impeached by the Commons for his role in negotiating the first Partition Treaty, along with Somers and Halifax. While Somers’ friends in the Commons rallied to his defence, limiting those in favour of drawing up articles of impeachment to a narrow majority of ten, Orford was able to call on fewer allies allowing the motion to impeach him to pass by a majority of 45.<sup>77</sup> Two days later (16 Apr.) the Commons received an address for the four impeached lords to be removed from the king’s council, and on 8 May Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup> presented the articles of impeachment at the Commons’ bar. The following day, the articles were brought up to the Lords, where Orford’s erstwhile friend Nottingham and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, led the assault.<sup>78</sup> Orford responded with his answers to each of the ten points laid against him on 14 May. He refuted claims that he had benefited unreasonably from royal grants and denied that he had embezzled public funds or received gifts from the king of Spain. To the accusation that he had used his influence to bar the East India Company from fitting out ships to counter pirate vessels threatening their own, while at the same time profiting from Kidd’s expedition, he again strenuously denied any wrongdoing or knowledge that Kidd was ‘of ill fame and reputation’. To the allegation made that he had advised the king to enter into the partition treaty, he entered a spirited denial, insisting in conclusion that he had discharged his ‘offices and employments with loyalty, faithfulness, and zeal to his majesty and his people’. Following a brief adjournment while the House debated the correct way to respond to the Commons’ articles, Orford requested that he be permitted to employ counsel, which was granted accordingly.</p><p>Orford’s answers were considered by the Commons on 16 Apr. 1701. At least one Member ‘thought he cleared all objections’ while another (Maurice Thompson*, later 2nd Baron Haversham, acting in concert with his father, John Thompson*, Baron Haversham) moved for the impeachment of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey as well, arguing that ‘it would reflect upon the justice of the house to have some punished and others as great criminals escape without notice.’ Despite this, a commanding majority refused to be sidetracked and remained intent on seeing Orford humbled. On 20 May Orford pressed for a date to be set for his trial and the following day the Lords sent to the Commons urging that the process be hastened. Irritated by the Lords’ continuing efforts to hurry them, the Commons dragged their feet over the following week and when Hartington moved for their reply to be sent up on 27 May he was opposed by Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, who insisted that no progress could be made until relevant witnesses, some of them then at sea, could be examined. Moreover, it was argued that Somers needed to be tried first. In an effort to break the deadlock, on 30 May Orford moved once more that a date be set for his trial, but when the Lords communicated this to the Commons the following day they received a peremptory denial and vigorous complaint at their continued efforts to rush the Commons’ business.<sup>79</sup> With relations between the Houses thoroughly fractured, the Lords at last proceeded to try the impeached peers with or without the Commons’ approval and on 17 June Somers was tried and acquitted by 56 votes to 32. As a minor sop to the lower House, Orford and the other impeached peers were granted permission to withdraw during their colleague’s trial: the move was intended to conciliate the Members of the Commons who had objected to the impeached peers voting. Three days later the Lords informed the Commons of their intention to try Orford on 23 June, when he was also acquitted following a unanimous vote in his favour from the 43 peers then present (Vernon reported the number to have been 44).<sup>80</sup> None of those who had voted to convict Somers bothered to attend the second trial, while some 27 peers and one bishop present in the House that day failed to make their way to Westminster Hall for the proceedings.<sup>81</sup> Following Orford’s acquittal the House resolved that those absent members who failed to make their excuses for not attending should be considered ‘guilty of a great and wilful neglect of their duty.’<sup>82</sup></p><p>Orford presumably retreated to his estates over the summer and in November he presented the king with a loyal address from Cambridge.<sup>83</sup> The same month he worked with Somers and Halifax to secure Sir Henry Colt’s return for Westminster.<sup>84</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament (the second of 1701) on 30 Dec., after which he was present on just ten per cent of all sitting days in the session. Missing from the House from the middle of January until the close of March 1702, the loss of his countess early in the year (‘of a fever of the spirits’) was presumably the reason for his long absence. Lady Orford’s death left him both a widower and heirless.<sup>85</sup> Reports of an earlier marriage contracted prior to the Revolution are almost certainly mistaken.<sup>86</sup> Orford’s personal tragedy clearly made no impact on his enemies and in March he and the other three impeached peers were struck out of the council book, shortly after Queen Anne’s ascession.<sup>87</sup></p><p><em>Reign of Anne, 1702-1714</em></p><p>Orford returned to the House for the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days. Early in the session the Commons pressed once more for him to be tried along with Somers, though this time without success.<sup>88</sup> Free from the persecution of the Commons, Orford’s attention was instead taken up with countering a legal action. The case, which had first been brought against him two years previously, involved him as one of the executors of Charles North*, Baron North and Grey, whose widow had subsequently married Orford’s brother, Francis, the former governor of Barbados.<sup>89</sup> On 21 Oct. Orford lodged a petition to overturn a decree in chancery in the case and, a month later, on 21 Nov., following a series of delays, the case was heard by the Lords. The former judgment, which had been made in favour of one of the plaintiffs, Richard Daston, was reversed to Orford’s benefit.<sup>90</sup> Legal actions continued to be lodged in the suit over the next few years, during which Orford employed George Tooke on a number of occasions at the rate of 6s. 8d. per day to attend the House to keep an eye of the progress of the case.<sup>91</sup> On 17 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference for the occasional conformity bill and the following month, he was estimated by Nottingham to be an opponent of the measure. Nominated a manager of a further conference on 9 Jan. 1703, on 16 Jan. Orford voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. The same month, during a hearing of the committee investigating naval affairs chaired by Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, Torrington and Orford were prominent in demanding answers from Sir George Rooke.<sup>92</sup> Orford attracted the ire of the queen on 19 Jan. when he was one of the peers to oppose the bill of settlement for Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, subscribing the protest at the resolution not to agree with the committee in leaving out a clause allowing the prince to serve on the Privy Council.<sup>93</sup> On 26 Jan. he reported from the committee for Giles Lone’s bill, reporting it fit to pass though with a number of amendments.</p><p>During the recess, Orford’s niece, the reputedly fabulously wealthy Letitia Harbord, was reported to have secured an influential match with Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, though Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> (the retailer of the information) appears to have mistaken the former exclusionist for the Yorkshire magnate, Sir Rowland Wynn, to whom she was married at that time.<sup>94</sup> Having returned to the House on 10 Nov. 1703, Orford was forecast as an opponent of the occasional conformity bill in two estimates drawn up by his Junto colleague, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, that month and on 14 Dec. he again (in all probability) voted against the measure.</p><p>Present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days in the session, in January of the following year Orford was again the subject of investigation following the report of the commissioners for navy accounts. On this occasion, although even Halifax acknowledged that Orford’s accounting had been sloppy, he was cleared of any suspicion of peculation following two months of careful examination by the Lords, who then voted not to continue the commission. Orford was present at a gathering at Sunderland’s on 21 Mar. 1704, and the same day he entered his dissent at the resolution not to give a second reading to a rider to the bill for raising recruits for the army and marines. Two days later he was present at a dinner in company with a number of his Whig colleagues, among them Somers and Wharton, and the following day he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect.<sup>95</sup></p><p>On 24 Oct. 1704 Orford took his seat in the following session (of which he again attended in excess of 80 per cent of all sitting days). Three times during the session (18 Jan., 2 Feb. and 5 Mar. 1705) he reported from the committee considering the papers delivered to the House by the admiralty commissioners, revealing the navy’s £364,977 overspend, although it was also acknowledged that the service had failed to receive the whole of the £6,194,149 subsidy voted for its use by Parliament. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was nominated to the committee to draw up heads for a conference over the Aylesbury men and on 7 Mar. he was nominated a manager of the conference for the bill for the prevention of traitorous correspondence. Five days later (on 12 Mar.) he was named one of the managers of the conference for the militia bill, and the following day he was again named a manager of a subsequent conference considering amendments to the militia bill. The same day (13 Mar.) he registered his proxy with Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Listed a supporter of the Hanoverian succession in April, that month the queen visited Orford at Chippenham during her progress to Cambridge in support of Francis Godolphin*, <em>styled</em> Viscount Rialton (later 2nd earl of Godolphin).<sup>96</sup> Orford probably lent his support to John Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned for one of the county seats at the general election, following which he wrote to Somers in support of William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, (knight of the shire for Worcestershire) who he was assured would prove ‘honest in every particular’ over the question of the speakership. According to Orford, Bromley was not only warm in his support of John Smith<sup>‡</sup> (the Junto’s candidate), ‘but flaming against his namesake’ (the Member for Oxford University).<sup>97</sup> Although Orford reported that the Cambridgeshire Members would be in town early to attend the opening of Parliament, Orford himself was less inclined to rouse himself from the country. He grumbled to Somers:</p><blockquote><p>sure there is no occasion for my being there [in Town], for I signify nothing anywhere much less at the opening of a Parliament, but if you would have me come I will not affect to be so fond of the country as to stay longer than Lord Somers would have me.<sup>98</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somers was presumably able to prevail on him to change his mind, as Orford took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, though he attended just two days before registering his proxy with Mohun again to cover a fortnight’s absence. He resumed his seat on 12 Nov. after which he was present on over 55 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Dec. he received Bolton’s proxy (which was vacated by Bolton’s resumption of his seat on 6 Dec.) and on 7, 11, 14 and 17 Dec. he was one of the managers of a series of conferences held to discuss the resolution that the church was in danger. He later voted, unsurprisingly, with those concluding that it was not. Nominated a manager of further conferences on 7, 11 and 19 Feb. 1706 concerning the bill for the security of the queen’s person and the Protestant succession, in the midst of these (on 16 Feb.) he again lodged his proxy with Mohun, which was vacated three days later. Nominated a manager of the conference concerning Sir Rowland Gwynne’s <em>Letter to Stamford</em> on 11 Mar. (along with all other peers present in the House at the time) the following day he was listed among a number of other peers and members of the Commons who had subscribed towards the loan of £250,000 for the Holy Roman Emperor. Orford was noted as having undertaken to pay £2,500.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Orford wrote to Somers from Newmarket that October, apparently in response to a request for him to employ his interest concerning either the governorship of Brussels or Guernsey, but he was unable to do more than offer a brief negative as the places had long been intended for Marlborough’s brother, Charles Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. Unable to curb his growing annoyance with the Churchills’ dominance, Orford gave vent to his frustration and declared, ‘I wish both the brothers [Charles and george<sup>‡</sup>] had governments in some remote part of the world that we might never more hear of them.’<sup>100</sup> Orford may have been unable to fulfil his desire of bringing the Churchill family low, but later that month he was able to vent his spleen over the prosecution of a Mr Hyde, the disgraced rector of Eversholt, of whose advowson he was the patron.<sup>101</sup> Hyde had previously sought to escape being indicted at Bedford for fathering an illegitimate child by seeking service aboard the <em>Weymouth</em>. On his return to England, both Orford and Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, were eager to see the church rid of ‘so ill a man’. <sup>102</sup></p><p>Orford returned to the House for the second session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on 59 per cent of all sitting days. Family concerns continued to make demands on his attention at this time, in particular the ongoing question of an annuity due to his sister, Lady Russell, payable out of the Irish estates of the countess of Dorchester (Katherine Sedley). On 14 Dec. the Russell family’s agent at Dublin, Samuel Ogle<sup>‡</sup>, reported the ‘infinite deal of trouble’ he had experienced in attempting to settle the account but he was by then hopeful that matters would be resolved in Lady Russell’s favour. In the event wrangling over payment of the pension continued for at least ten more years.<sup>103</sup></p><p>In addition to family matters, Orford remained active in the Junto’s deliberations, and towards the end of January he was present at a meeting held at Sunderland’s attended by a number of other Junto and ministry peers, to consider text of the act for securing the Church of England prior to its introduction into the House a few days later.<sup>104</sup> Absent from the House for a fortnight in the middle of March, Orford covered his absence by registering his proxy with Mohun on 11 Mar. 1707, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 24 March. On 8 Apr. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference for the vagrants bill. He took his seat in the ensuing session on 14 Apr. 1707, of which he attended six out of nine days, before resuming his place fon 30 Apr. to hear the proclamation that the present Parliament would constitute the first Parliament of Great Britain. The following month it was rumoured that he was to be appointed vice admiral.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Orford roused himself to join those present at the Whig meeting at Althorp in August 1707.<sup>106</sup> He then took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Nov., after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days. In November he was one of several peers to second a proposal moved by Wharton for a committee to be established to consider the damage to trade being caused by the limitations of the convoy system.<sup>107</sup> On 5 Feb. 1708 he joined with the majority voting in favour of the dissolution of the Scots Privy Council in May rather than delaying to the following October, and on 17 Feb. he supported Wharton’s motion for an address to be drawn up in response to a critical report from the committee examining the admiralty.<sup>108</sup> Orford was present in the House two days later when his sister, Letitia, her daughter, Essex Cheeke, and her daughter-in-law, Anne Cheeke, submitted a petition to the House for leave to bring in a bill to vest lands in Somerset in trustees following the death of Anne Cheeke’s husband (and Orford’s heir) Edward Cheeke earlier that year.<sup>109</sup> Their petition was referred to the judges, who reported back favourably nine days later. The bill received its first reading on 1 Mar. and the following day was committed (Orford being one of those named to the committee on this occasion). On 3 Mar. Orford reported from the committee for the estate bill of the recently deceased William Bromley, which was ordered to be engrossed with one amendment, and on 17 Mar. Stamford reported from that considering the Cheeke estate bill as fit to pass with some minor amendments.</p><p>Unsurprisingly listed as a Whig in May 1708, Orford divided his time that summer between Chippenham and Woburn.<sup>110</sup> He was pleased with his nephew Bedford’s management of his household and estate at the latter, though he expressed his concern to Lady Russell that the duke was more concerned to settle his debts and live with economy than was strictly speaking necessary.<sup>111</sup> Orford was successful in employing his interest with Sunderland through the mediation of Sunderland’s under-secretary, Thomas Hopkins<sup>‡</sup>, to persuade ‘the Bug’ (Henry Grey*, marquess (later duke) of Kent) to swear in one of his servants as a messenger at that time.<sup>112</sup> Their friendly collaboration continued when Orford was visited by Sunderland at Chippenham in October.<sup>113</sup> That month the death of Prince George of Denmark resulted in rumours that either Orford or Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, would succeed him as head of the admiralty.<sup>114</sup> To the Junto’s disappointment, and despite last minute reports that Pembroke had refused the post leaving Orford to head the new commission and be awarded a garter, once again, Orford was unsuccessful.<sup>115</sup></p><p>Orford took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on 47 per cent of all sitting days, and on 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the elections for representative peers. Although still lacking any reward out of the redistribution of offices in favour of the Whigs, Orford’s interest remained of crucial significance. This was reflected in a letter written by Marlborough to his duchess in February 1709 discussing various Whig peers and their affiliations, in which he remarked of Devonshire that he was ‘certainly a very honest man but Orford has too much power with him.’<sup>116</sup></p><p>In spite of Marlborough’s concerns about Orford’s influence and his character, the duchess employed her interest diligently that summer and autumn to attempt to secure the admiralty for him.<sup>117</sup> Her efforts formed part of a lengthy negotiation between the queen, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godophin and members of the Junto over the running of the navy. The queen heartily resented Orford’s former criticisms of her late husband and was supremely reluctant to admit him to the place, raising paltry objections to his suitability such as his age.<sup>118</sup> The discussions continued throughout October, the process lengthened indubitably by the queen’s reluctance to admit a man she found trying and by Orford’s notorious prickliness. Sunderland at one point complained that he had been so troubled by the ongoing negotiations, ‘that I did hardly sleep a wink last night for thinking of it’. Even the normally even-tempered Godolphin was said to be ‘extremely in the spleen’ over the constant obstacles met with in attempting to finalize arrangements.<sup>119</sup></p><p>By the close of the month, the queen had given way sufficiently to allow Godolphin to write to Orford to summon him to Windsor, where he was escorted on 29 Oct. by William Cowper*, Baron Cowper.<sup>120</sup> On 2 Nov. he was admitted to kiss hands, introduced by Sunderland. Even so, and in spite of reports confidently predicting Orford’s imminent appointment as first lord, continuing wrangling over the composition of the admiralty commission threatened to undo all the careful diplomacy of the previous month.<sup>121</sup> Orford insisted that admirals Sir George Byng<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Torrington and Sir John Jennings<sup>‡</sup> should join him on the board, while the queen resolved not to sign a commission with their names in it. According to the duchess of Marlborough, the true author of this latest obstacle was Godolphin. The only explanation she could arrive at for this latest hiccough was that it had been ‘determined not to let [Orford] have a good commission.’<sup>122</sup> On 5 Nov. Sunderland appealed to the duchess to intervene with Godolphin to resolve the situation. He explained how:</p><blockquote><p>These delays do really put Lord President [Somers] out of all patience and is a treatment that certainly never was used towards people that were designed to be in their service, especially after Lord Orford has been easy in every point they could desire in the commission, except that of these men, whom before this matter came to bear Lord Treasurer [Godolphin] always said he thought the properest of any other.<sup>123</sup></p></blockquote><p>Orford took his seat in the new session on 15 Nov. 1709 with matters still unresolved. The compromise that was eventually arrived at whereby only Byng was appointed pleased no one but as far as his own fortunes were concerned, Orford’s brinkmanship paid off. Later that month he was admitted to the Privy Council, and in December it was rumoured that he would be granted a garter (though this last failed once more to transpire).<sup>124</sup> For the Junto, Orford’s readmission to government was a significant victory, leaving only one of their number, Halifax, still without a place. Orford’s success no doubt encouraged him to make the most of his reinvigorated interest, and in December he expressed his satisfaction at Thomas Jervoise’s<sup>‡</sup> intention to stand at the next election, assuring him of his intention to ‘promote his interests in any way possible.’<sup>125</sup></p><p>Present on some 61 per cent of all sitting days during the session, Orford attended a meeting at Sunderland’s in January 1710.<sup>126</sup> On 20 Mar. (unsurprisingly) he found the Tory cleric, Henry Sachveverell, guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Ten days later (30 Mar.) he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning amendments to the Edistone lighthouse bill. In April there was further talk of a garter, but Orford was irritated to see the honour go to John Campbell*, duke of Argyll [S] instead (who attended the House as earl of Greenwich).<sup>127</sup> By the middle of the month he was openly demonstrating his discontent with the admiralty commission.<sup>128</sup> In a letter to Marlborough, congratulating him on his latest victory, Orford revealed his disquiet at the direction affairs were taking at home. While he assured him that:</p><blockquote><p>nobody can be more rejoiced at your present good success than I am… I can but think, the present posture of affairs at home did require something of this kind, not only for your grace’s own service, but for all of us, that are upon the same bottom. But I won’t pretend to enlarge on that subject, only in my poor opinion, things have a very odd appearance.<sup>129</sup></p></blockquote><p>By then disagreements within the Junto were also starkly in evidence. In May 1710 Orford’s Junto colleague, Wharton, gave vent to his ire over Orford’s treatment of William Bodens, who had been put out of his place in the admiralty when Orford assumed control. Writing to Sunderland from his lieutenancy in Ireland, Wharton expostulated that, ‘the earl of Orford ought to hide his head in the cellar, when he considers the barbarity that he has been guilty of upon this occasion.’<sup>130</sup></p><p>By August 1710, with the Junto fragmenting under pressure, rumours began to circulate that Orford was to be replaced at the admiralty by Peterborough.<sup>131</sup> The following month he joined the remainder of his colleagues in resigning from office.<sup>132</sup> Despite their differences, a series of Junto conferences ensued hosted by Orford and Sunderland intent upon raising funds for the forthcoming elections.<sup>133</sup> The head of the new ministry, Robert Harley, listed Orford as an opponent in October.</p><p>Orford took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 November. Thereafter, he was present on 42 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Jan. 1711 during the debates concerning the war with Spain, he moved that the House should adjourn to consider the petitions of the commanders then being examined, but he was opposed by his Cambridgeshire rival, William North*, 6th Baron North and Grey, and by Buckingham (as Normanby had since become), both of whom suggested that such a move looked like a delay.<sup>134</sup> On 11 Jan. 1711 Orford subscribed the protests at the resolution to reject the petitions of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] and at the resolution to blame the defeat at Almanza upon the decisions of Galway, Tyrawley and General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope. The following day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to censure the conduct of the ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. The same day he received the proxy of Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, which was vacated by Cornwallis’ return to the House seven days later. Orford subscribed further protests on 3 Feb. first at the resolution to agree with the committee that the two regiments in Spain were not properly supplied and second at the resolution to agree with the committee that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men amounted to a neglect of the service. On 8 Feb. he entered his dissent first at the resolution to present the queen with the representation concerning the war with Spain and second at the resolution to retain the words ‘and the profusion of vast sums of money’ in the representation. On 9 May he was nominated one of the managers of a conference for the amendments to the act for repairing highways. The following day he was nominated a manager of the conference concerning the amendments to the act for the preservation of pine trees (possibly of naval interest). Absent from the session from 14 May, the following day he registered his proxy with Sunderland.</p><p>Eager to secure the lieutenancy of Cambridge from Tory incursions, Orford wrote to John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, in June 1711 requesting that he would take the place on, assuring him that it would ‘not give you any trouble, and if you don’t, it must fall to that worthless creature, Lord North [North and Grey], for we have no other peer in the county’.<sup>135</sup> Although North was a Tory and Orford’s principal rival in the county, it was a peculiarly ungrateful description of someone who had voted to acquit both Orford and Somers in 1701. To Orford’s disappointment, Newcastle proved unwilling to shoulder the burden offered him and forwarded the letter to Oxford (as Harley had since become), not (as he was at pains to inform him) ‘that I have any inclination to the lieutenancy of Cambridge for I will assure I would not meddle with it upon any account’ but rather to recommend that the place should go to Orford, who was already <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of the county.<sup>136</sup> Oxford ignored Newcastle’s advice and Orford’s opinion and the lieutenancy went to North.</p><p>Writing in November to warn Oxford of the ‘mischief’ intended by the Whigs, Sir Robert Davers<sup>‡</sup> informed the lord treasurer of a meeting hosted by Orford that month at his seat in Suffolk attended by 17 of his party, ‘almost all lords … and I find by some words that dropped from some lords of this country that they will be up the first day’.<sup>137</sup> He returned to the House on 7 Dec. 1711 (after which he was present on 59 per cent of all sitting days) and the following day was noted as a likely supporter of presenting the Address complete with the clause advocating ‘No Peace without Spain’. On 15 Dec. he received the proxy of Henry Howard*, 6th earl of Suffolk, which was vacated by Suffolk’s return to the House in March of the following year, and on 19 Dec. he was forecast as being opposed to allowing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon. Suffolk presumably intended his vote to be employed to prevent Hamilton from taking his seat and the following day; Orford obliged by voting to bar Scots peers with post-Union British titles from sitting in the House. There was clear evidence of Junto co-ordination during the session as Orford received Somers’ proxy on 14 Feb. 1712, which was vacated on 12 Apr. only for him to return the favour and register his own with Somers three days later. This was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 6 May. Shortly after (on 18 May) Orford received Sunderland’s proxy, which was vacated by the session’s close. Orford played host to a Whig conclave on the morning of 28 May in preparation for the heated debates that took place in the House later that day over the restraining orders issued to James Butler*), 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>138</sup> He then voted for an address to the queen to request her to order an offensive war and protested at the failure to do so. Orford registered his proxy with Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, on 9 June, which was vacated by his return to the House for one day at the close of the session on 13 June.</p><p>Orford attended four of the prorogation days between January and March 1713 before taking his seat in the new session on 9 Apr. 1713. In advance of the session he attempted to employ his interest with the Bristol member, Thomas Edwards<sup>‡</sup>, offering him a place as a commissioner of the excise in return for his support. Present on 47 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 13 June Oxford forecast that he would vote against ratifying the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty, should the bill reach the House.</p><p>Orford returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 16 Feb. 1714 (after which he was present on approximately 63 per cent of all sitting days). On 11 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to amend the address requesting a proclamation for the discovery of the author of <em>The public spirit of the Whigs</em>. On 25 Mar. he received the proxy of John Manners*, duke of Rutland, which was vacated by the close and on 16 Apr. that of Devonshire, which was vacated on 30 April. Absent from the session for almost a month after 7 May, that day he registered his own proxy with Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley. At the end of May or beginning of June Orford was reckoned by Nottingham to be an opponent of the schism bill. On 1 June he was entrusted with the proxy of John Sydney*, 6th earl of Leicester, though this would not have been valid as Orford still had his own proxy lodged with Cholmondeley. According to the Lords <em>Journal</em>, Orford did not resume his seat (and thus vacate his proxy) until 4 June, so Leicester’s proxy should be considered void. On 11 June Orford received the proxy of Francis Godolphin, 2nd earl of Godolphin, which was vacated by his return to the House on 23 June, and on 15 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the schism bill. He subscribed a further protest on 8 July at the resolution not to make a representation to the queen complaining about the <em>Assiento</em>.</p><p>Orford attended just three days of the 15-day session that met in August 1714 following the queen’s death. Even so, on 9 Aug. he received Sunderland’s proxy (which was vacated by the session’s close). The death of Queen Anne offered Orford and his colleagues a reprieve from opposition. In September 1714 Orford was accordingly reappointed to the admiralty commission. He remained in place until 1717 when he followed Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup> into opposition. He also replaced his rival North and Grey as lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire. On 24 Jan. 1716 in the aftermath of the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Orford was granted permission to visit one of the captured rebel lords, William Nairne, Lord Nairne [S] (at Nairne’s particular request) during his imprisonment in the Tower. Nairne’s connection with Orford is uncertain but may have sprung from their mutual service in the navy during the 1680s.</p><p>Orford continued to attend the House until May 1725, though poor health appears to have curbed his activity and premature reports circulated of his demise in 1723. Full details of the latter part of his career will be considered in the second part of this work. On those occasions when he was unable to attend in person he lodged his proxy with Bradford in June 1716, James Saunderson*, Viscount Castleton [I], (sitting as Baron Saunderson) in February and December 1718 and April 1720, Devonshire in March 1720 and Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, in May 1723. He remained a frequent holder of proxies as well, being entrusted with those of Scarbrough, Rutland, Cornwallis, Castleton, Sunderland and Devonshire at various points. In June 1717 he voted in favour of the motion that the Commons should proceed with the articles of treason against Oxford and in November of the following year spoke in the House on the familiar topic of the security of the fleet.<sup>139</sup> His final appearance on 20 May 1725, one of only two days during the third session of the 1722 Parliament that he was fit enough to attend, coincided with the debate on the bill to reverse the attainder of Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke. Carried to the House, in spite of his declining health, he sat with his old friend, Devonshire, and with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, all three ‘giving distinguished noes’ though the motion to pass the bill was ultimately carried by 79 votes to 27.<sup>140</sup></p><p>Orford died just over two years later in November 1727. He devised his estate to his niece, Lady Anne Tipping, and made bequests totalling in excess of £4,000 including an annuity of £20 to a schoolmaster to be appointed at Chippenham, ‘provided always… that the Latin tongue or any other language besides English, be not taught’. A bequest of £1,000 was made to Sir Paul Methuen to buy pictures to be known as ‘Old Orford’s Legacy’. Lady Anne Tipping only survived her brother by a matter of months and administration of the estate was later granted to her daughter, Laetitia, Baroness Sandys.<sup>141</sup> In the absence of a male heir the peerage became extinct. The earldom of Orford was later revived for Robert Walpole.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
RUSSELL, William (1616-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>RUSSELL</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1616–1700)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1627-41 Ld. Russell; <em>suc. </em>fa. 9 May 1641 as 5th earl of BEDFORD; <em>cr. </em>11 May 1694 duke of BEDFORD; <em>cr. </em>13 May 1695 Bar. HOWLAND |
|
First sat before 1660, 17 May 1641; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 18 Apr. 1696 |
|
MP Tavistock 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.)-9 May 1641 |
<p><em>b.</em> Aug. 1616, 1st s. of Francis Russell<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Bedford, and Catharine, da. of Giles Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Chandos. <em>educ</em>. ?Magdalen, Oxf.;<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (Spain) 1635-7. <em>m</em>. 11 July 1637 (with £12,000) Anne (1615-84), da. of Robert Carr<sup>†</sup> (Ker), earl of Somerset, 6s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> KB 1626, KG 1672. <em>d</em>. 7 Sept. 1700; <em>will</em> 22 June 1700, pr. 5 May 1701.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. earl marshal 1673;<sup>4</sup> PC 14 Feb. 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt. Devon, Som. 1642-3, Beds., Cambs., 1689-<em>d</em>., Mdx. 1692-<em>d</em>.; gov. Plymouth 1671; <em>custos rot</em>., Mdx. 1692-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gen. of horse (Parliament) 1642-3.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by G. Glover, mid-17th century, NPG D28203; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1672, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1692, NPG 298; chalk on copper by E. Luttrell, 1698, NPG 1824.</p> |
<h2><em>Career before 1661</em></h2><p>The Russells owed their fortunes to their service under the Tudors.<sup>8</sup> Bedford House on the Strand, built for the 3rd earl in the late sixteenth century, remained the principal London residence until its demolition in the early eighteenth century, but during the seventeenth century the family migrated from their seat at Chenies in Buckinghamshire to the more substantial Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.<sup>9</sup> Despite their prominence in Bedfordshire society, the family’s interest in the county at the time of the Restoration is said to have been ‘minimal’. Their principal interest lay in the borough of Tavistock in Devon, which they had acquired at the dissolution of the monasteries, and in Middlesex, where they owned considerable estates in Bloomsbury and at Covent Garden.<sup>10</sup> Extensive estates in reclaimed land in the Fens completed their principal interests.</p><p>William, Lord Russell, was returned for the family seat at Tavistock in both the Short and Long Parliament, where he was partnered with John Pym<sup>‡</sup>. He was a prominent member of the Commons, closely involved in organizing the trial of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. The death of his father in May 1641 elevated him to the Lords as 5th earl of Bedford and made him master of an estate worth at least £8,500 per annum. It also projected him forward as one of the grandees of the parliamentarian cause.<sup>11</sup> Having been named by Parliament as lord lieutenant of Devon and Somerset, Bedford served as a cavalry commander at Edgehill in July 1642. By the following year, however, in common with several other peers, he resolved on attempting reconciliation with the king. He returned to the court and served on the royalist side at the first battle of Newbury in September 1643, but his reception at Oxford was frosty and he spent the remainder of the conflict and the Interregnum in effective retirement at Woburn.<sup>12</sup> Assessed by the committee for advance of money at £3,000 in November 1645, Bedford was eventually discharged from his fine in October 1651 on payment of a £200 fee.<sup>13</sup></p><p>From the abolition of the House of Lords until the Restoration, Bedford appears to have distanced himself from politics. He concentrated his attentions instead on the education of his children—his two eldest sons spent time in the late 1650s travelling abroad—and on the completion of his father’s building works in London and on the Fenland drainage scheme (the Bedford Level). These interests would then dominate his parliamentary activities for the first decade following the king’s return. In 1659 Bedford survived an attack of smallpox, the disease that had carried off his father.<sup>14</sup> By the following year he had resumed his political engagement and was once more accounted one of the leaders of the presbyterian cabal, eager to impose limitations upon the Restoration settlement.<sup>15</sup> During the Interregnum Bedford had appointed the Dissenting minister, Thomas Manton, to the living of St Paul’s Covent Garden, and although after the Restoration he conformed to the Church of England and was a regular attender of church services, he always maintained a private presbyterian chaplain at Woburn and remained a prominent patron of dissenting clergymen.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In his assessment of March 1660, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, noted Bedford as one of the lords who ‘withdrew a little’ from politics during the Civil War, but while some peers were reticent about the prospects for returning to the Lords, Bedford early on made it clear that he intended to sit. According to one source he was warmly encouraged to do so by several other peers. He took his seat in the reconstituted House of Lords on 27 Apr, the same day that the Speaker, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, ordered that Bedford and three other peers should be written to requiring their attendance.<sup>17</sup> On his first day he was named to the committee for privileges and appointed to the committee for drawing up heads for a joint conference with the Commons for settling the nation. He was present for 82 per cent of all sitting days in the first part of the Convention before the summer adjournment, during which he was named to a further 14 committees. On 27 July he introduced James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I], as earl of Brecknock. Three days later he was named to the committee for the bill for draining the Great Level of the Fens, a business that continued to engage his attention over the ensuing years.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Bedford took his seat in the second part of the session on 7 Nov. 1660 after which he was present on 64 per cent of all its sitting days. Although he was named to just two committees, both concerned business with which he was particularly interested. On 15 Dec. he was named to the committee for the Hatfield Level bill and on 22 Dec. that for making Covent Garden a parish, an area in which he commanded great influence as the principal landlord and as patron of the church, which had been built by his father. Although the House voted to pass the Covent Garden bill, with amendments, on 27 Dec., disagreements between the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields and that of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, which St Martin’s continued to regard as a precinct rather than a parish proper, persisted until the principal differences were resolved in about 1666. It was not until 1670 that Bedford finally acquired a warrant to hold a market every day, bar holidays, at Covent Garden, thus securing the lucrative profits there for this estate.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Although Bedford was notable as one of only two of the ‘presbyterian cabal’ not to receive high office following the Restoration (the other being Wharton), he appears to have been content enough with his lot, having secured a pardon from the king. He paid £43 12s. 6d. for passing the patent. He then played a prominent role at the coronation of April 1661, carrying St Edward’s sceptre and expending almost £1,000 on his equipage for the procession from the Tower.<sup>20</sup> As an indication of the family’s diminished influence, though, at the elections for the Cavalier Parliament Bedford’s second son, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, was involved in a double return and only secured his seat on petition in December.<sup>21</sup></p><h2><em>The Cavalier Parliament, 1661-78</em></h2><p>Bedford took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on two thirds of all sitting days. He was absent on 11 May when the standing committees were nominated and seems not to have been added to them following his return to the House two days later. On 16 May he was named to the committee for the bill for draining the Lindsey Level and two days later he presented a petition on behalf of the adventurers for draining the Great Level of the Fens. The petition requested that the House take action to prevent rioting in the area and damage to the developments during the ongoing drainage works, which was ordered accordingly. Although he was noted as being present on the attendance list on 20 May, Bedford was recorded as missing without explanation at a call of the House that day. He resumed his seat the following day and on 7 June he was named to the committee for the bill to restore to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby lands sold during the Commonwealth. On 25 June Bedford was appointed one of the tellers for a division concerning the appointment of a day for hearing the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the lord great chamberlaincy, a claim Bedford was later thought to support. On the following day he was appointed to the committee for enclosing ground at Parson’s Green. Added to the committees for a further 14 bills in the course of the session, on 25 Nov. Bedford was again missing at a call of the House, only resuming his seat a week later on 2 December.</p><p>Following the passing of Derby’s estate bill, Bedford was one of a number of peers to sign the protest of 6 Feb. 1662. The protestors comprised a mixed alliance of former parliamentarians and royalist legalists, such as Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, who were reluctant to overturn legally concluded property transactions, or unwilling to open the flood gates to questioning all transactions carried out under the Commonwealth.<sup>22</sup> Once again involved in overseeing a measure concerned with Fenland drainage, on 16 May Bedford was named to the committee for confirming the acts for draining the Fens, and three days later he was one of four peers ordered to attend the king to request his direct intervention in ensuring the preservation of the works on the Fens, as the House would not be able to pass legislation in the time left before the prorogation. Consequently the commission appointed to oversee the Great Level was empowered by proclamation, which also forbade ‘any disturbance to be offered to the earl of Bedford in his works there.’<sup>23</sup> Bedford entertained the king at dinner in July and the following month a declaration further emphasized Bedford’s authority by providing for the freedom of worship of the French Walloon community on Thorney Island, subject to the ‘approval’ of Bedford and Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Bedford took his seat in the following session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on approximately 60 per cent of all sitting days. Named to six committees in the course of the session, on 6 Mar. he moved the House to uphold his privilege over a case in which he was involved as a trustee for payment of the debts of his recently deceased brother-in-law James Hay*, earl of Carlisle; a stop to all proceedings was duly ordered. Bedford’s standing at court was demonstrated the following month when he escorted the new French ambassador to his audience with the king.<sup>25</sup> Wharton reckoned Bedford a likely supporter of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol in early July to impeach Clarendon. As Bristol was married to his sister Anne, Bedford may well have felt some family obligation.</p><p>Bedford took his seat in the following session on 21 Mar. 1664, of which he attended three quarters of all sitting days. On 4 Apr. he was excused at a call of the House, his absence presumably owing to business rather than ill health as the same day he hosted Richard Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington), at dinner and the following day he resumed his place in the chamber.<sup>26</sup> Absent at the opening of the next session, he was again missing at a call on 7 Dec. and finally resumed his place on 16 Dec. 1664, after which he was present on just under 55 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to three committees. In April 1665 he was named as one of the parties in the chancery suit brought by Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, against John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater.<sup>27</sup> Bedford played host to James Stuart*, duke of York, at Woburn during his summer progress but he failed to attend the brief session of October 1665 convened in Oxford.<sup>28</sup> In December of that year he was troubled by the death of his younger brother, Edward Russell, ‘which goes very near me’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Bedford was one of those summoned to attend as one of the judges for the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle, at the close of April 1666. Along with the majority of the peers he returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter.<sup>30</sup> He returned to the House for the following session on 18 Sept. of which he attended a little more than half of all sitting days. On 21 Sept. he introduced his newly promoted Bedfordshire neighbour and political rival, Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury. Ailesbury’s son, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, would later describe Bedford as ‘a graceful old nobleman’, though he was dismissive of his lack of interest in the county and criticized his failure to be suitably hospitable to his neighbours.<sup>31</sup> Excused at a call on the grounds of poor health on 1 Oct, Bedford resumed his seat on 25 Oct. and during the remainder of the session was named to nine committees, five of them connected either with his interests in London or his ongoing works in the Fens. On 12 Nov. he received the proxy of Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, which was vacated on 17 December. Interests in London no doubt led to Bedford joining in the protest of 23 Jan. 1667 against the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill for houses burnt down in the Great Fire. The same day saw the first reading of a bill for the sale of some of Bedford’s late brother’s estate at Chiswick to satisfy creditors, which was considered in committee two days later. Both Bedford and his brother, John Russell, guardians to Edward Russell’s son, William, professed themselves satisfied with the bill, which was accordingly reported and passed without amendment the following day.<sup>32</sup> On 4 Feb. Bedford was again named to a committee overseeing a further bill concerning the development of the Bedford Level and the following day he was named to the committee for rebuilding the city of London.</p><p>Bedford took his seat at the opening of the following session on 10 Oct. 1667, after which he was present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 15 committees, among them that for the bill for taxing adventurers in the Fens. On 12 Dec. the Fen bill was considered in committee but the chairman, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, questioned whether Bedford and certain other peers being interested parties ought to be of the committee. Dorset referred the matter back to the House, but the committee resolved by 11 votes to seven not to adjourn to the following day and no mention appears to have been made of Bedford’s continuing membership of the committee when five more peers were added to it on 13 December.<sup>33</sup> During the month-long recess between the close of December 1667 and beginning of February 1668, he played host to the king at Bedford House on Twelfth Night (6 Jan.), before taking his seat on 6 February.<sup>34</sup> Absent at the opening of the following session, he was noted as being missing, but en route to London, at a call of the House on 26 Oct. 1669. He took his seat the following day on 27 Oct, after which he attended almost 53 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just one committee, that established on 9 Nov. to consider the papers submitted by the commissioners of accounts. He returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 14 Feb. 1670, of which he attended just under 60 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 17 committees. On 22 Feb. he was one of a minority of peers to vote against concurring with the king’s desire that both Houses erase the records relating to their disputes over the case of <em>Skinner v. East India Company</em>.<sup>35</sup> He was, however, largely absent from this first part of the session before the summer adjournment, as he stopped attending after 14 Mar. after only 19 sittings. This absence may have been owing to illness, for Bedford appears to have suffered from poor health in the spring of 1670 for which he was prescribed a series of purges.<sup>36</sup> He was well enough to resume his seat following the adjournment on 14 Nov. and he proceeded to attend a little under two-thirds of the sitting days of this part of the session. On 17 Apr. he was placed on the committee for the London streets bill, which would have been of interest to him as a major owner of property in the capital. Five days later Bedford was one of eight members of the House ordered to present the thanks of the House to the king for his answer to the address concerning the wearing of clothes of English manufacture. That day, 22 Apr., this long session was prorogued in some disarray as the Houses could not agree on the bill for additional impositions on foreign commodities, to whose committee Bedford had originally been nominated on 29 March. His stance in this dispute cannot be determined.</p><p>In May 1671 Bedford was one of those to inspect the papers of his recently deceased brother-in-law Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. Later that summer he was appointed one of the trustees for an annual pension for another brother-in-law, the earl of Bristol. The same year he was appointed to the governorship of Plymouth.<sup>37</sup> The appointment coincided with the beginning of a concerted effort by the king to woo Bedford. In early May 1672 it was rumoured that Bedford was to be awarded a Garter, which was conferred on 29 May.<sup>38</sup> The same month he was involved in a case with Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, over disputed repairs at Wainsford bridge.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Bedford took his seat at the opening of the following session on 4 Feb. 1673, all of whose sitting days he attended, during which he was named to 18 committees. On 8 Mar. he was nominated as one of the peers to convey the House’s thanks for the king’s speech concerning the suspension of the penal laws. That same day, 8 Mar., he was also named to the committee concerning the bill for prohibiting new buildings in London, which would have been of direct personal relevance to him. Bedford did not appear in the ensuing four-day session of late October, but his high rate of attendance was repeated in the session of January 1674. He was present on almost 90 per cent of all sitting days and named to six committees, including the joint committee with the Commons for inspecting the treaty with France, appointed in the first days of the session.</p><p>Following the prorogation of 24 Feb. 1674 Bedford was noted among several peers said to have been ‘laid aside and out of the Privy Council’.<sup>40</sup> At the beginning of 1675 he was said to have been one of those agitating for Ormond to return to England in time for the new session.<sup>41</sup> By the spring of that year, he had aligned himself quite clearly with the ‘country’ opposition, and probably with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. His decision was perhaps influenced by the arrest of his countess and a number of other notables at Thomas Manton’s meeting house earlier in the year.<sup>42</sup> Bedford’s identification with the opposition was made apparent in the session of April 1675. Having taken his seat on 13 Apr, he was present on over 95 per cent of all sitting days. He was again named to six committees, and, according to the author of <em>A Letter of a Gentleman of Quality</em>, took a prominent part in the debates surrounding the passing of the bill to prevent dangers to the government by disaffected persons (the ‘non-resisting test’ bill), giving his ‘countenance and support’ to the ‘English interest’ by opposing the measure. He was ‘so brave in it’ that he signed three of the protests against the measure: on 21, 29 Apr. and 4 May. <sup>43</sup> Two days after this last, he protested once more, but on a different matter, - against the resolution to reassure the Commons that the Lords would consider their privileges during the debates over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>.</p><p>Following the session’s close, Bedford found time to visit his interests in the Fens. Family disagreements also required his attention when his youngest son, George Russell, sought to be reconciled with his father following his injudicious marriage to the daughter of a London merchant.<sup>44</sup> In advance of the new parliamentary session, Bedford on 23 Oct. 1675 received the proxy of John Crew*, Baron Crew, also a country peer, which was vacated by the prorogation. He took his seat in the House once more on 25 Oct. 1675 after which he was present for half of all sitting days. Over the course of 11-12 Nov. he was named to three committees. He failed to attend after 17 Nov. and was thus absent for the debates of 20 Nov. over addressing the king to request a dissolution. He was noted in a number of lists among those absent lords in favour of the address and, according to one source, was said to have lodged his proxy in support of the measure.<sup>45</sup></p><p>During the prorogation Bedford presented a ‘noble bounty’ to Trinity College, Cambridge, a donation of £100 towards the building of the new library designed by Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>46</sup> In June 1676 he again served as one of the tryers of a fellow peer, Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, and again found with the majority, declaring Cornwallis to be not guilty of murder.<sup>47</sup> Bedford took his seat at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677, having received Crew’s proxy once more the previous day, which was again vacated by the prorogation, and attended almost 73 per cent of all sitting days. Despite his association with Shaftesbury, he did not join with the lords insisting that Parliament had been dissolved by the prorogation, though he was granted leave to visit the lords in the Tower on 10 March. He was named to 29 committees throughout the course of the lengthy and much interrupted session, including that for the Deeping Fen bill, to which he was added on 23 Feb. 1678. On 16 Apr. 1677 Bedford entered his dissent at the resolution to discard the amendments made by the Lords to the supply bill. In the spring of 1677 he was acknowledged as ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury.</p><p>Bedford suffered the loss of his heir, Francis, Lord Russell, in January 1678. Russell’s death proved to be something of a relief for the family as the young man had for long been a sufferer from some form of chronic depression and by 1674 had been accounted a ‘complete invalid’.<sup>48</sup> Some even speculated that his premature demise saved Bedford the trouble of disinheriting him in favour of his more capable, younger brother, William, who was by this time one of the closest associates of Shaftesbury in the Commons.<sup>49</sup> On 4 Apr. Bedford voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. He returned to the House on 23 May 1678, the opening of the session that followed closely on the heels of the former one and on 25 May he again received Crew’s proxy, which was once more vacated by the prorogation. Named to 18 committees, his patronage of Dissenting communities was perhaps reflected by his nomination to the committees for two bills to provide relief for Reformed Protestant strangers in England. On 7 June he was one of 11 peers to subscribe the protest against the resolution to proceed with investigating Robert Villiers’ claim to the viscountcy of Purbeck as one single matter, without considering the several separate issues the case raised. He dissented again on 5 July from the resolution to ascertain the relief of the petitioner in the cause <em>Marmaduke Darrell v. Sir Paul Whichcot</em>.</p><p>Bedford took his seat in the following session on 30 Oct. 1678, the last of the Cavalier Parliament, after which he was present on just over 70 per cent of all sitting days, though he was named to just three committees; one of these was the committee to examine the allegations of the popish plot, to which he was added on 7 December. On 15 Nov. in a committee of the whole house on the test bill he voted in favour of making the declaration against transubstantiation stand under the same penalties as the required oaths. He entered his dissent on 20 Dec. from the resolution to agree with a series of the amendments proposed in committee to the supply bill which would take out the provisions included by the Commons for paying the money into the chamber of London, and restore the normal arrangements for their receipt by the exchequer. Six days later he voted against insisting on this Lords’ amendment to the supply bill, and entered his dissent when it was carried in the affirmative. The following day he voted in favour of committing the lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds).</p><h2><em>The Crisis of 1678-85</em></h2><p>The Russell interest at Tavistock held firm in the elections for the first Exclusion Parliament in February 1679 when Bedford’s younger son, Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup>, was returned with Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, while his eldest surviving son William, now styled Lord Russell, topped the poll for Bedfordshire.<sup>50</sup> Bedford took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Mar. and attended the six days of the first, abandoned, session before resuming his seat on 15 Mar. for the second session, of which he attended 87 per cent of all sitting days. During the session he was named to five committees including that for the bill, committed on 2 May, to enable his neighbour at Tavistock, Sir Francis Drake, to raise portions for his daughters. In advance of the session Danby had reckoned Bedford an opponent in a series of forecasts compiled at the beginning of March. On 8 Apr. Bedford was nominated one of those to wait on the king to request the appointment of a lord high steward to preside over the trial of Danby and the impeached peers and he communicated the king’s answer in the affirmative later that day. On 14 Apr. Bedford voted to pass the Commons’ bill, which levelled attainder against the former lord treasurer. On the last day of that month he was again nominated to wait on the king to communicate the House’s thanks for his speech that day. By that time Bedford was once again believed to be in favour at court and was thought to be one of the peers the king intended to entrust with the management of affairs by placing him on the remodelled Privy Council.<sup>51</sup> This promotion, though, was not effected. Following the long debate in the House on the afternoon of 8 May, Bedford entered his dissent at the rejection of the Commons’ request for a committee of both Houses to consider the trials of the impeached lords. Wharton for some reason categorized him as both a supporter and an opponent of such a joint committee, but it is clear that he supported establishing it as on 10 May he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference to discuss the issue and he subsequently entered his dissent when the House again rejected the proposal. On 20 May Bedford was again requested to wait on the king to convey the House’s request that the gates of the Tower of London might be secured at night. He reported the result of the audience the following day. On 13 May he signed the protest against the resolution that the bishops had a right to remain in court during capital trials, and ten days later (23 May) he registered his dissent from the decision to instruct the Lords delegates meeting with the Commons to discuss the trials that they could give no other answer regarding the bishops’ voting. That same day he also subscribed the dissent from the decision to proceed with the trials of the four Catholic lords before that of Danby. At the end that day he was also added to the committee for the bill concerning the estate of Henry Howard*, styled Lord Mowbray (later 7th duke of Norfolk). On 27 May he entered one last dissent from the resolution to insist upon the vote confirming the bishops’ right to remain in court until a sentence of death was pronounced.</p><p>Edward Russell was returned once more for Tavistock in the election of August 1679 and the following month Lord Russell was also successful in retaining his seat at Bedfordshire. That same month of September Bedford was approached by his neighbour, Oliver St John*, 2nd earl of Bolingbroke, for his support in developing a navigation scheme extending to the town of Bedford. Although he assured Bolingbroke of his desire to serve him, Bedford advised against proceeding too quickly, reminding him of his own interest in the Fens, ‘upon account whereof it would be thought that I stirred in it, not so much out of public respect as out of a private one.’ Only too aware from his experiences with the Bedford Level of the passions such developments caused, he also cautioned Bolingbroke against proceeding with the scheme until he could be sure of the support of the local gentry, who, Bedford warned, ‘as yet I find are exceedingly averse’.<sup>52</sup></p><p>In early December 1679, Bedford was one of the peers to sign the address to the king for summoning Parliament, though Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> noted that although Bedford came to town intending to accompany Shaftesbury and the other peers when they presented the address on 7 Dec. he fell ill (perhaps diplomatically) and was unable to attend with them in person.<sup>53</sup> Bedford was expected to entertain the king at dinner in May 1680 but in the event it was Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, who had the honour of the royal presence.<sup>54</sup> Bedford then took his seat in the new Parliament that met finally on 21 Oct., during which he attended all but seven sittings (88 per cent) and was named to three committees. On 15 Nov. he voted against putting the question that the exclusion bill be rejected on its first reading and against the bill’s ultimate rejection; he also subscribed the dissent against the rejection of the bill. On 23 Nov. he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom, and subscribed the protest when the motion failed to be carried. Bedford found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason on 7 Dec. and on 18 Dec. he was one of three peers nominated to address the king for leave to bring Stafford to the House to communicate further information about the plot, which was granted.<sup>55</sup> The same day he registered his dissent at the rejection of a proviso added by the Commons to the bill for regulating the trials of peers which would have exempted from its provisions all trials upon impeachment. On 7 Jan. Bedford subscribed the protest against the decision not to put the question whether Sir William Scroggs should be committed upon the articles of impeachment brought up from the Commons. Bedford’s important role in the circle around Shaftesbury during this session is indicated by the part he played in getting one of Shaftesbury’s speeches printed. The speech had been delivered on 23 Dec. 1680 during the debate on the king’s speech of 15 December.<sup>56</sup> According to one report, while Shaftesbury was speaking, Wharton took down notes, which were then passed to Bedford who in turn passed them on to his son, Lord Russell, who conveyed them to the printer, Francis Smith: the whole chain purposely designed to protect each person from accusations of breaching the House’s privilege.<sup>57</sup> Bedford’s role in the printing of such speeches may explain a later approach made to him via his chaplain, John Thornton, in 1683 from one Anne Terry to facilitate the printing of an account of the circumstances surrounding the death of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Bedford was one of 16 peers to petition the king in January 1681 to summon the new Parliament to Westminster and not relocate it to Oxford.<sup>59</sup> Although unsuccessful in this, Bedford was perhaps compensated by seeing both Russell and Edward Russell successful in retaining their seats at the elections of February 1681. Bedford’s continuing hostility to Danby was reflected in a forecast drawn up in advance of the following Parliament that suggested he remained opposed to bailing the imprisoned peer. Bedford took his seat on 21 Mar. and attended on each of the seven days of the brief Oxford Parliament. On 25 Mar. he was named to the committee for receiving information concerning the plot and the following day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than by impeachment. Following the dissolution, in May Bedford was one of those to petition the king to pardon Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who had been indicted for the murder of William Sneeth.<sup>60</sup></p><p>The period between the close of the Oxford Parliament and the summoning of that of James II in 1685 was dominated for Bedford and his family by the events surrounding the Rye House Plot and the trial of his heir, Lord Russell, for his suspected role in the conspiracy. Initially, the Russell proprietorial interest at Tavistock came under attack when the king imposed a borough charter in August 1682 effectively removing Bedford’s control of the town. Far more damaging, though, was Lord Russell’s arrest the following summer and his subsequent conviction for treason.<sup>61</sup> Despite the involvement of friends such as Lady Ranelagh, who advised both Bedford and Lady Russell on the best way to submit their petitions for a reprieve to the king and duke of York, the sympathetic interposition of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, on Russell’s behalf and Bedford’s reputed offer of £100,000 to the king in return for Russell’s life, their efforts proved to be in vain.<sup>62</sup> York, in particular, proved intractable and on only one point, his desire for Russell to be executed outside Bedford House, did the king refuse to humour him.<sup>63</sup> Bedford himself was perhaps fortunate not to be implicated as his name occurred on at least one list of suspected contributors to the plot brought before the Privy Council.<sup>64</sup> In 1684 Bedford’s wife died of apoplexy, leaving him grief-stricken: his sister, Anne, countess of Bristol, wrote to exhort him not to allow himself to be so cast down that he neglect his duty to his family.<sup>65</sup></p><h2><em>James II and the Revolution</em></h2><p>Although the accession of James II offered Bedford little prospect of any improvement in his diminished condition, both he and his son, Edward Russell, signed the Bedfordshire address congratulating the king on his succession.<sup>66</sup> In spite of his hostility to the new regime, Bedford also continued to take part in hawking parties at Hampton Court. The Russell interest remained muted, though, and in the 1685 election for Tavistock no member of the Russell family was returned for only the second time since the Restoration. Bedford was also concerned about the security of the succession to the earldom of Bedford and he sought legal advice to assure him that his grandson, Wriothesley Russell*, later 2nd duke of Bedford, had not been tainted by his father’s conviction. Bedford paid £3 to secure a letter granting him permission not to attend the coronation.<sup>67</sup> Once he had roused himself from his rural hibernation to attend the opening of Parliament on 19 May 1685, he was not expected to remain in London for long. Yet he was present on 93 per cent of all sitting days in the session.<sup>68</sup> Named to six committees, including a further bill concerning Deeping Fen, on 22 May he was one of six peers to vote against razing from the Journal the votes concerning the imprisonment of the Catholic lords in the Tower.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Noted as opposed to repeal of the Test in January 1687, in May Bedford was included in a list of those opposed to the king’s policies in general. The same month he engaged in correspondence with William of Orange, thanking him for his ‘compassion for my late calamity and gracious disposition to comfort an unfortunate family which I should be less concerned for than I am if I could doubt any branches of it would ever fail in any point of duty to your Highness’s person.’<sup>70</sup> Bedford returned to London in August 1687 for the expected marriage between his daughter, Lady Margaret, and Sir William Fermor*, later Baron Leominster, though in the event the match failed to materialize and Lady Margaret later married her cousin, Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, instead.<sup>71</sup> The reason for the failure of the Russell-Fermor alliance may have been Bedford’s reluctance to advance a sufficiently large portion.<sup>72</sup> Bedford was again listed among those opposed to repeal of the Test in November and as one of those opposed to the king’s policies in January 1688. In May a report that Bedford’s daughter was to marry William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, proved inaccurate, though negotiations between the two families appear to have persisted for the following two years.</p><p>Bedford was one of a number of peers suggested as possible sureties for the seven bishops in June 1688.<sup>73</sup> The following month it was rumoured that he was to be admitted to the Privy Council. With reports of William of Orange’s expected invasion, Bedford prepared to move from Woburn to the ancestral home at Chenies. It is unclear whether this was so that he could remain out of the way of the invasion, which was expected to come from the north, or to be better able to link up with Orange’s forces.<sup>74</sup> Two of Bedford’s sons were among the first to join the prince when he landed in the west country and on 6 Nov. it was reported that Bedford was one of seven peers to be interrogated about their suspected role in the operation.<sup>75</sup> Despite this, when James called a ‘Great Council’ on 27 Nov. in response to the invasion, he made a point of appealing to Bedford. In a famous exchange, the king praised Bedford as ‘an honest man’ with ‘great credit and can do me signal service’, only for the earl to rebuff his advances: ‘Ah sir, I am old and feeble; I can do you but little service; but I had once had a son that could have assisted you; but he is no more.’ Bedford’s pointed reminder of James’ role in securing Lord Russell’s execution reportedly left the king speechless for some moments.<sup>76</sup> Having delivered his piece, Bedford presumably retreated to Chenies, as a letter of 15 Dec. urged him to return to London once more, ‘not so much to make his compliment as to assist and give his countenance and counsel in this strange and intricate conjuncture.’<sup>77</sup> Bedford duly returned to the capital in time to take his place at the session of the provisional government in the queen’s presence chamber on 21 December. The same day he signed the association, and the following day he took his place in the meeting at the House of Lords, which he continued to attend on 24 and 25 December.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Despite the Russell family’s quasi-saintly status following the ‘martyrdom’ of Lord Russell, all did not go their way in the aftermath of the Revolution. William Russell (probably Bedford’s nephew) was unsuccessful in his efforts to be appointed physician in ordinary to William. Bedford was disappointed in the elections for the Convention, with both Middlesex seats going to Tories, though the family interest in Tavistock was successfully re-established with the return of Robert Russell<sup>‡</sup> in partnership with Sir Francis Drake.<sup>79</sup> Taking his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, Bedford was thereafter present on almost 82 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 35 committees. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of declaring William and Mary king and queen and registered his dissent when the House voted against the Commons’ statement that James II had ‘abdicated’ and that ‘the throne was vacant’. On 4 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’, and again dissented when the House rejected it. He was then placed on a committee to prepare for a conference on the issue. The following day Bedford was named with three other peers to form a secret committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding Essex’s death. A collection of affidavits on this matter in the earl’s possession presumably relates to these investigations. On 6 Feb. Bedford again voted in favour of employing the term ‘abdicated’ and the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’, which was now carried and led to the offer of the crown to William and Mary. On 14 Feb. Bedford was sworn to the new Privy Council.<sup>80</sup> On 6 Mar. he was one of 17 peers to subscribe a protest against the passage of the bill for better regulating the trials of peers and on 8 Mar. he was ordered to present the House’s thanks to the king for his response to the Address of both Houses. The same day, the bill for reversing his son’s attainder, which had been recommended to the House by the king, was read a second time; it was passed <em>nem. con</em>. three days later on 11 March.</p><p>Prior to the Revolution Bedford’s family had been assured of William of Orange’s support by the prince’s agent, Dijkvelt.<sup>81</sup> The king’s role in ensuring the passage of the act reversing Russell’s attainder underscored this. In March 1689 Bedford was appointed to the lieutenancies of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire, and the following month the new king offered Bedford a further mark of his esteem with the offer of elevation to a dukedom. Bedford initially rejected the proffered advancement, ‘because he had many sons that would then all be lords, and he had not a sufficient estate to support their honour’.<sup>82</sup> He remained active in the House and on 18 Apr. he was appointed with three other peers to attempt to reconcile the estranged James Annesley*, 2nd earl of Anglesey, and his countess. Two days later, Bedford again rejected Strafford’s advances towards one of his daughters on account of the ‘bad state of Ireland’ and because he was ‘satisfied he should give his daughter… a just cause to complain he did not consider her whole interest, if he should provide her no better provision of fortune, than your lordship’s [Strafford’s] present circumstances can make for her.’<sup>83</sup> On 22 May Bedford received the proxy of William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire (Devonshire’s son, William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish, later 2nd duke of Devonshire, had married Lord William Russell’s daughter Rachel). The proxy was vacated by Devonshire’s resumption of his seat on 9 July. On 31 May Bedford voted in favour of reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates. On 12 July Bedford subscribed the subsequent protest at the adoption of amendments to the bill. The following day he was named to the committee appointed to prepare for a conference on the bill concerning the succession, for which Bedford was also named a manager.</p><p>In September 1689 Bedford was approached by John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, on behalf of John Moore*, later bishop of Ely, for the living of St Paul’s Covent Garden, made vacant by the elevation of Simon Patrick*, the incumbent, to the bishopric of Chichester. Although Bedford rejected Moore and sought the views of Patrick concerning Richard Kidder*, later bishop of Bath and Wells, of whom he had a high opinion, the living was eventually awarded to Samuel Freeman.<sup>84</sup> In the same month Bedford responded to a request for a self-assessment with an estimate that his personal estate amounted to £9,000 clear of all debts. He undertook to commission his agent to pay whatever was due.<sup>85</sup> Absent at a call of the House on 28 Oct. Bedford took his seat in the second session of the Convention on 14 Nov. 1689, and was present on approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 11 committees during the session, on 23 Jan. he subscribed the protest against the resolution to remove from the corporations bill the declaration that the surrender of charters under Charles II and James II was ‘illegal and void’. In a list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed Bedford as an opponent of the court.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>Bedford’s interest at Westminster was put to the test in the elections of March 1690, when his preferred candidate, Philip Howard<sup>‡</sup>, was beaten into third place by the Tories Sir William Pulteney<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Walter Clarges<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>86</sup> The family interest was more successful in Bedfordshire, where Edward Russell was returned, in Tavistock, which was secured by Robert Russell, and in Whitchurch in Hampshire, where James Russell was elected in spite of Bedford’s apparent concerns that his son did not know his ‘own business’.<sup>87</sup> Bedford took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and was thereafter present for almost 80 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to eight committees. Excused at a call of the House on 31 Mar., on 5 Apr. he registered his protest against the resolution to agree to the amendments to the bill for recognizing William and Mary as rightful and lawful sovereigns, and on 13 May he registered a further protest against the decision not to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard during the proceedings for the bill for restoring its charter. Bedford returned to the House for the following session on 14 Nov. 1690, but his attendance declined significantly: he was present on just 44 per cent of all sitting days, though he was still named to 12 committees. The following year he undertook first to support Philip Howard and then his grandson-in-law Lord Cavendish in the by-election for Westminster caused by Pulteney’s death. He excused himself for not backing Thomas Owen<sup>‡</sup>, whom he claimed he would have otherwise have wished to have seen ‘a Parliament-man with all his heart’. In the event both Howard and Cavendish declined to stand and Owen, having refused to stand down in Cavendish’s favour, was beaten into second place by Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>88</sup></p><p>In the late summer of 1691 Bedford was said to be suffering from a pain in his leg, which was feared to be ‘more than the gout’ and he was consequently absent at the opening of the new session in October.<sup>89</sup> On 10 Oct. it was rumoured that he had died; although he was still alive, he remained unwell and was marked sick at a call of the House on 2 Nov. 1691.<sup>90</sup> He finally took his seat on 3 Dec. and the same day was named to the bill for enfranchising copyhold land in the manor of Albury and North Mims. Present on approximately 30 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to four committees and towards the end of 1691 he was noted by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as someone likely to support Derby’s efforts to secure restoration of lands alienated during the Interregnum.<sup>91</sup> Although Bedford received a further mark of the king’s approbation in January 1692 when he was appointed lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Middlesex during his grandson’s minority, it was clear that his age was beginning to catch up with him.<sup>92</sup> On 12 Feb. 1692 he registered his proxy with John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, which was vacated by his return to the House on 19 Feb, but he attended just four more days before absenting himself for the remainder of the session.</p><p>In April 1692, hard on the heels of his appointment as <em>custos</em> of Middlesex, Bedford sparked a dispute in the county when his effort to replace Simon Harcourt<sup>‡</sup> (1653-1724) as clerk of the peace with his own steward, John Fox, was rejected by the justices of the peace by fifteen votes, despite Fox’s nomination enjoying the support of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton. Bedford was then successful in issuing a <em>quo warranto</em> against Harcourt, following which Fox was sworn into office, by only six, by the justices of the peace at the May quarter sessions. Harcourt nevertheless refused to accept his removal and succeeded in securing his reinstatement the following year.<sup>93</sup> At the same time as he was struggling with the bench over the appointment of Fox, Bedford triggered a row with Henry Compton*, bishop of London, over his decision to remove 16 justices from the bench. Compton appealed to the queen to overturn Bedford’s decision and was successful in having a number of them reinstated.</p><p>Bedford was appointed one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 12 Apr. 1692 and again on 24 May. He took his seat in the following session on 21 Nov, after which he was present on 59 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 17 committees. On 31 Dec. he appears to have voted against committing the place bill, though the position of his name on Ailesbury’s list recording the division is ambiguous. He was absent in any case on 3 Jan. 1693, and thus missed the division at the third reading which saw the bill defeated. At the same time, Bedford was assessed as likely to be in favour of passing the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill and he was in the House on 2 Jan. 1693 to vote in favour of reading the bill. That month, Bedford entertained the king at Bedford House. He was then absent from the House from 18 to 27 Jan. though he ensured that his absence was covered by registering his proxy with Devonshire. Having resumed his place, on 31 Jan he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb. he found Mohun not guilty of murder. Nominated one of the reporters of the conference on the duchy of Cornwall bill on 10 Mar, the same day he was named to the committee to draw up reasons to insist on the Lords’ amendment to the bill. On 14 Mar. he was named one of the reporters of the conference concerning the bill for encouraging privateers and for prohibiting trade with France. Bedford’s eldest surviving son, Edward Russell, was appointed to the place left vacant by Gwynne’s removal in March and the same month it was again rumoured that Bedford would be offered a dukedom.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Absent from the opening of the following session of November 1693, at the beginning of December Bedford was reported once more to be seriously unwell.<sup>95</sup> His poor health was presumably the reason for his failure to attend the majority of the session but his indisposition came at an inconvenient moment as the continuing dispute with Harcourt, who had been reinstated as clerk of the peace that summer, came before the House on 12 December.<sup>96</sup> Reported to be still too ill to attend on 21 Dec, Bedford was forced to rely on Ford Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), to argue his case.<sup>97</sup> Despite Edward Russell laying ‘great stress upon my Lord Grey’s doing it, because no man in England can speak better to such a point than he can’, Harcourt succeeded in having his restitution confirmed.<sup>98</sup> Still ‘dangerously ill’ in January 1694, Bedford was well enough to play host to the king again in March and he finally rallied to attend two days at the close of the session in April. His recovery coincided with his final acceptance of elevation to the dukedom of Bedford, though a report two months earlier that he was also to be appointed to the lieutenancy of Devon proved to be inaccurate.<sup>99</sup> The wording of the patent for Bedford’s dukedom, passed on 11 May 1694, made it clear that the award was as much an acknowledgment of the deserts of Lord Russell, ‘the ornament of his age, whose great merit it was not enough to transmit by history to posterity’, as of Bedford’s own. In a further distinction, underlining the sense in which the peerage was Russell’s reward, Bedford’s grandson (Lord Russell’s son), Wriothesley Russell, was permitted to bear the courtesy title of marquess of Tavistock. Equally significant was the manner in which the patent granted the dukedom to Bedford for life and then conveyed the peerage to Tavistock and his heirs, which was possibly an effort to overcome any potential challenges to Tavistock’s rights as a result of his father’s attainder. The new duke’s concerns about the costs of supporting his dignity were reflected in the fees of £1,204 11s. 9d. he was required to pay to various officials for passing the patent as well as £33 10s. to the officers of the House for his entry as duke, which were hardly alleviated by the traditional grant of £40 per annum towards the support of his new status.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Bedford suffered a fit towards the end of October, which was presumably the reason for his absence from the opening of the new session of November 1694.<sup>101</sup> He was excused at a call of the House on 26 Nov. but had recovered sufficiently to take his place as duke of Bedford, introduced between Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, and Devonshire, on 8 December. He was thereafter present on approximately 32 per cent of all sitting days. Although he was named to just three committees, Bedford took a prominent role as one of the managers of a series of conferences. On 16 Feb. 1695 and again on 23 Feb. he was nominated one of the reporters of the conference for the trials for treason bill and on 18 Feb. he was present in the House to witness the first reading of the bill enabling his heir, Tavistock, to improve his estates in Surrey. Tavistock’s bill was passed less than a week later on 27 Feb. at a cost to Bedford of some £75.<sup>102</sup> In his already doubtful state of health Bedford evidently over-exerted himself and in the midst of seeing Tavistock’s bill through suffered another onset of his recurrent sickness. From 25 Feb. until 7 Mar. he was absent from the House, explaining on 23 Feb. to his granddaughter, Lady Roos (the daughter of Lord Russell, who had married John Manners*, Lord Roos, later 2nd duke of Rutland), how ‘my indisposition heightened by my sitting at such an unseasonable rate in the House rendered me unfit’.<sup>103</sup> Bedford was again present in the House to oversee an amendment to Tavistock’s bill, which had been proposed by the Commons and agreed to on 29 Mar. and on 18 Apr. he was nominated a reporter of the conference examining the act for continuing and making perpetual a variety of former laws. Two days later he was nominated once again one of the managers of a conference for the trials for treason bill.</p><p>Bedford was granted a further distinction in May 1695 when he was created Baron Howland.<sup>104</sup> This was said to have been ‘done to gratify Mrs Howland’ whose daughter married Tavistock later that month.<sup>105</sup> On 18 June Bedford was again nominated one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament and, following the dissolution, his sons Robert and James were returned for Tavistock on the family interest.<sup>106</sup> Bedford was reported to be troubled by the expense incurred in the election for Middlesex but despite his misgivings ‘his agents… endeavoured to make an interest’ there too.<sup>107</sup> The election was complicated by divisions in the Whig ranks. Initially, it was expected that the 15-year-old Tavistock would stand with Sir John Wolstenholme<sup>‡</sup> but another contender, Craven Peyton<sup>‡</sup>, also proposed standing, claiming Bedford’s support. In the event neither Peyton nor Tavistock, whom Bedford seems to have considered too young, contested the seat and the Bedford interest rallied around Admiral Edward Russell.<sup>108</sup> Matters went more smoothly at Westminster where Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, was returned with Bedford’s approbation.<sup>109</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695 and last years</em></h2><p>Bedford was absent from the opening of Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695. A few days before, on the 16th, it had been reported that he intended being in London at the beginning of the following month.<sup>110</sup> In the meantime, he again covered his absence by registering his proxy with Devonshire on 22 November. In spite of his intention of being in London at the beginning of December, it was not until 2 Jan. 1696 that Bedford eventually took his seat in the House, after which he was present on 34 days in the session, approximately 27 per cent of the whole. On 27 Feb. he signed the Association and on 9 Mar. he was named to the committee overseeing Tavistock’s bill, one of three committees to which he was named during the session. On 20 Mar. he wrote to John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland (the father of Lord Roos, who had married Lord Russell’s daughter Catherine) urging him to promote the Association, ‘by influencing those whom you can in the county of Leicester’ and on 13 Apr. Bedford was present in the House for between eight and nine hours participating in the debate over the oaths and the association bill. The strain proved too much for him and on 18 Apr. 1696 he sat for the last time, though not before he was able to fulfil Rutland’s request that he present the Leicestershire association to the king. It was, he assured Rutland, received ‘very graciously… and gave both his majesty and all your relations and friends abundant satisfaction to find your lordship so zealous for the king and government.’<sup>111</sup></p><p>For the remainder of his life Bedford struggled with poor health. In the summer of 1696 he ‘suffered violent fits of the colic’ the result perhaps of an ‘obstinate thick phlegm in his stomach’.<sup>112</sup> His poor health did not prevent him from continuing to take an active interest in politics and in December he communicated his wish that his tenants would support Henry Neale<sup>‡</sup> (who was standing with Wharton’s backing) at the Buckinghamshire by-election.<sup>113</sup> On 11 Dec. 1697 Bedford registered his proxy with Devonshire again, which was vacated by the close of the session. Eager to see his family comfortably provided for ‘before I leave the world’ and to exert his local influence, in the summer of 1698 he wrote to Lord James’s prospective mother-in-law, ‘since my bodily infirmities deny me liberty to go abroad’ recommending the match with her daughter.<sup>114</sup> The same year he appealed to both secretaries of state on behalf ‘a poor condemned woman of Bedford’ whom he hoped they would find ‘a fit object of the queen’s mercy’.<sup>115</sup> He continued to distribute the traditional Christmas boxes and new year gifts to the various attendants at court and in Parliament, expending over £13 on such presents in 1698.<sup>116</sup> Bedford’s health fluctuated through the summer of the following year.<sup>117</sup> In the late summer of 1700 he suffered a relapse from which he did not recover. Reports of the severity of his condition circulated throughout the first week of September.<sup>118</sup> He died on 7 Sept. aged 84 and was buried 10 days later in the family vault at Chenies.<sup>119</sup></p><p>Within days of Bedford’s death rumours emanated from the house of his son, Lord Robert Russell, that the will would be contested, though there is no indication that any such challenge was made. A report of the following month described how the duke had suffered a last indignity when his hearse ‘was overthrown and broke all to pieces’, a far cry from the dignified exit he had planned. In his will Bedford had requested that his funeral might be ‘plain and decent’. He desired the rector of St Paul’s Covent Garden, Samuel Freeman, to preach a sermon but, commenting on the funeral shortly afterwards, Cary Gardiner wished that Freeman ‘had slept all the time he read that flattering sermon, which is still talked of’.<sup>120</sup> Besides the private funeral, Bedford made provision for the construction of a tomb commemorating himself as well as his wife and children at Chenies. In addition he made a series of bequests totalling over £2,700 to family and servants as well as annuities of at least £300 and provision for the satisfaction of the payment of outstanding sums on his children’s portions, which may well have been the grounds for any disputes. He named Lady Russell, John Hoskins of Gray’s Inn and Nicholas Martyn of Lincol’’s Inn as his executors and was succeeded by his grandson, Tavistock, still a minor at the time of his succession, ‘the richest peer in England’, as 2nd duke of Bedford.<sup>121</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
RUSSELL, Wriothesley (1708-32) |
<p><strong><surname>RUSSELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Wriothesley</strong> (1708–32)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1708-11 mq. of Tavistock; <em>suc. </em>fa. 26 May 1711 (a minor) as 3rd duke of BEDFORD |
|
First sat 13 Jan. 1730; last sat 29 May 1732 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 25 May 1708, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, and Elizabeth Howland (<em>d</em>.1724); bro. of John Russell*, later 4th duke of Bedford. <em>m</em>. 22 Apr. 1725, Anne, da. of Scroop Egerton*, duke of Bridgwater, <em>s.p.</em><sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 23 Oct. 1732; <em>will</em> 30 Apr. 1730, pr. 10 Dec. 1732.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. Fen Co. 1729.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: pencil drawing by H. Bone aft. Isaac Whood, 1823, NPG.</p> |
<p>Tavistock (as he was styled from birth) succeeded to the title while still an infant. During his long minority, his interest and management of the extensive Bedford estates was the subject of dispute.<sup>4</sup> Details of this and of his brief parliamentary career will be considered in the second part of this work.</p><p>Bedford died in Spain while still a young man. He had been put ashore after falling sick on board the <em>Torrington</em> man-of-war, which was supposed to be carrying him overseas for his health.<sup>5</sup> His corpse was brought home in the same vessel and interred with other members of his family at Chenies. Bedford left his estate in some disarray after an unsuccessful career at the gaming tables.<sup>6</sup> His widow later married William Villiers<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Jersey. It was left to his successor, John, to rebuild the family finances.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
RUSSELL, Wriothesley (1680-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>RUSSELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Wriothesley</strong> (1680–1711)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1694-1700 mq. of Tavistock; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 7 Sept. 1700 (a minor) as 2nd duke of BEDFORD |
|
First sat 30 Dec. 1701; last sat 17 May 1711 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1 Nov. 1680, o. s. of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Ld. Russell, and Lady Rachel Wriothesley. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen, Oxf. matric. 13 May 1696; travelled abroad (France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands) 1697–9.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 23 May 1695 (with £100,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1724), o. da. and h. of John Howland, merchant of Streatham,<sup>3</sup> 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. KG 1702. <em>d</em>. 26 May 1711; <em>will</em> 24 Feb. 1701–13 May 1706, pr. 15 Aug. 1711.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Extra gent. of the bedchamber 1701–2; high constable of England at coronation of Queen Anne 1702.</p><p>Ld. lt. Mdx., Beds. and Cambs. 1700–<em>d</em>.; recorder, Bedford ?1700–<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Freeman, Merchant Adventurers (Hamburg) Co. 1698.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Mezzotint by Isaac Beckett, aft. Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1681-8, NPG D30859.</p> |
<p>Only son of the ‘Whig martyr’ Lord Russell, for his father’s sake Wriothesley Russell was accounted ‘the most beloved subject of England’ and was the focus for Whig political hopes long before he attained his majority.<sup>8</sup> In May 1695 Tavistock (as he was by then styled) married the fabulously wealthy heiress Elizabeth Howland (a granddaughter of Sir Josiah Child<sup>‡</sup>) and that winter he came under strong pressure to contest Middlesex in partnership with the veteran Sir John Wolstenholme<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup> Support for Tavistock’s candidacy came from a number of prominent Junto politicians, including Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, who worked hard to overcome Lady Russell’s objections. She feared that membership of Parliament would distract her son from his studies and professed concern about the rival candidacy of Craven Peyton<sup>‡</sup>, who claimed to have been promised the Russell interest by Tavistock’s grandfather William Russell*, duke of Bedford. Thomas Owen<sup>‡</sup> attempted to convince Lady Russell that Tavistock’s youth was no impediment to his sitting in the Commons, citing the example of Christopher Monk*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and that, far from damaging his studies, membership would be beneficial, the Commons being ‘the best school a young nobleman can be in’. Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, meanwhile laboured to convince Tavistock’s equally reluctant grandfather Bedford, pointing out that Francis Godolphin*, Viscount Rialton (later 2nd earl of Godolphin), was standing in Cornwall, ‘who is not much older, and not so tall as my Lord Tavistock’.<sup>10</sup> In the event Montagu and Owen failed to sway Tavistock’s guardians and, although he was selected at the county sessions, Tavistock withdrew before the poll, presumably because of family pressure. His mother’s prudence in sparing him the experience was commended by Anne Nicholas.<sup>11</sup> At the subsequent election, Wolstenholme was partnered instead by Tavistock’s kinsman Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Having completed his studies at Oxford, where he acquired a reputation as a gambler, Tavistock was dispatched on a foreign tour in October 1697.<sup>13</sup> Although his grandfather voiced his concerns about Tavistock remaining abroad for too long, the young man was able to overcome the duke’s objections to him extending his journey into Italy and he proceeded to spend the ensuing two years overseas.<sup>14</sup> While abroad he found himself the subject of potentially damaging gossip that he had converted to Catholicism during his sojourn in Rome.<sup>15</sup> Tavistock denied the accusations vigorously but it was noted that he was received by the Pope ‘with far greater respect than heretics have usually been’.<sup>16</sup> Tales of his conversion were almost certainly false but he continued to give his guardians reason for concern during the remainder of his tour as he made his way homewards through France, continually promising (and failing) to give up his gambling habit.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Tavistock had returned to England by the beginning of December 1699.<sup>18</sup> The following year he succeeded his grandfather as 2nd duke of Bedford.<sup>19</sup> With the peerage he inherited an estate estimated to be worth more than £30,000 per annum, though it was speculated soon after the 1st duke’s death that there could be some dispute about the will.<sup>20</sup> The young duke’s succession prompted a communication from Jonathan Trelawny*, then bishop of Exeter, whose relations with the late duke had gradually deteriorated amid accusations that he was attempting to undermine the Russell interest at Tavistock. Trelawny sought to assure Bedford of his friendship and of his eagerness to ‘find out any thing wherein I or my family may be serviceable’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Although the Russells were in the vanguard of the great Whig families and had long been associated with the patronage of dissenting ministers, the new duke distanced himself from this tradition, having fallen under the influence of his Tory kinsman, Sir John Leveson Gower*, later Baron Gower, and John Granville*, afterwards Baron Granville of Potheridge (who later married Bedford’s aunt Rebecca, marchioness of Worcester).<sup>22</sup> As a result Bedford aligned himself with the ‘Church’ interest.</p><p>In March 1701 Bedford was reported to have subscribed £3,000 to the £550,000 loan. In April it was speculated that he was to be created a garter knight, and according to Cary Gardiner had been promised that honour as soon as he came of age. In May (perhaps as an acknowledgement of his earlier largesse) he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber but he was made to wait until the following year for his garter.<sup>23</sup> Bedford visited Bath that summer, presumably for his health (which seems always to have been poor).<sup>24</sup> In November he finally took command of the lieutenancies to which he had been appointed during his minority.<sup>25</sup> The same month he presented two loyal addresses at court, one on behalf of the town of Grantham and the other of John Manners*, 9th earl and future duke of Rutland (father-in-law of Bedford’s sister, Lady Roos).<sup>26</sup> On 30 Dec. he took his place in the Lords at the opening of the new Parliament, after which he was present on 43 per cent of all sitting days. Bedford introduced Thomas Baptist Manners<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Ellis<sup>‡</sup> when they presented the loyal address of Grantham to the queen in April 1702.<sup>27</sup> In July he missed out on being elected recorder of Cambridge, in spite of the town’s reputed support for him.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In advance of the election that summer, Bedford wrote to Bishop Trelawny expressing his gratitude that he had suspended a process against the incumbent at Tavistock ‘in consideration of me’ but re-asserting his right to a substantial role in the choice of Members for the borough, arguing that, ‘if I am not misinformed, I have such a property in Tavistock as entitles me to bear a sway in the elections there’.<sup>29</sup> At the subsequent poll the Russell interest held firm and both seats were secured by Bedford’s nominees.<sup>30</sup> Bedford took his seat in the new Parliament on 31 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on just under 56 per cent of all sitting days. At the beginning of January 1703 he was estimated a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. He failed to attend his installation as a garter knight in March (Sir Benjamin Bathurst<sup>‡</sup> stood proxy for him in his absence), perhaps because of sickness.<sup>31</sup> Certainly that summer he was wracked by poor health, experiencing ‘so violent a pain in my head for these several days that I have not been able to see anybody’.<sup>32</sup> In August he suffered a further affliction with the loss of his first son. His appeal, later in the summer to Rutland for a brace of bucks to be sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, as the stocks at Woburn were too low was scarcely a trouble of the same order, but it was perhaps an embarrassing admission given Bedford’s appointment only the year before as overseer of the preservation of game in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire against the encroachments of poachers.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Bedford returned to the House at the opening of the second session on 9 Nov. 1703. He was again estimated a supporter of the occasional conformity bill in two forecasts of that month and voted for it on 14 December. Present on just under 34 per cent of all sitting days in the session, he was on a list of Members of the Lords and Commons drawn up by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in 1704, which perhaps indicates support over the ‘Scotch Plot’. On 1 Mar. 1704 he was one of eight peers to register his dissent at the resolution to retain a proviso within the address to the crown for pardoning Boucher, demanding that the pardon be dependent on Boucher making a full confession. Bedford registered two further dissents on 25 Mar., the first over the resolution to put the question on whether the failure to pass a censure of Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the crown’s enemies and a second once the resolution had been carried. In both these cases Gower and Granville were also among those registering their dissents.</p><p>Bedford continued to associate with the Tories in the ensuing session, being listed on 1 Nov. 1704 as a likely supporter of the Tack.<sup>34</sup> Although his attendance of the House continued to decline, with him being present on just over a fifth of all sitting days in the session, on 19 Feb. 1705 he reported from the committee for Sir George Warburton’s<sup>‡</sup> bill, recommending that it pass with one amendment. His association with Tories such as Gower and Granville did not imply Jacobite sympathies and in April 1705 he was marked a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. Bedford’s balancing act between his family’s traditional party loyalty and sympathy towards his current Tory allies left him in a difficult position at the time of the new elections. In May he ordered his servants not to stir on either side in the Middlesex contest. Although he professed to tend towards Gower’s candidates and promised Gower his future support, he feared the repercussions in Bedfordshire, where he considered he had not ‘been very well used’, if he employed his interest against Sir John Wolstenholme.<sup>35</sup> Bedford’s fears of a backlash were realized when the family candidate, Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup>, was defeated in his home county. This prompted Bedford to attempt to build bridges with his rivals the Bruces in an effort to restore his interest in the county.<sup>36</sup> The Russell interest was similarly wrong-footed at Tavistock, probably on account of disagreements with the Drake family.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Bedford failed to attend the first session of the new Parliament and on 12 Nov. 1705 he was excused at a call of the House. He finally took his seat in the following session on 30 Dec. 1706, but attended just 24 per cent of all sitting days. Indicative of his gradual move back towards his Whig roots, on 15 and 24 Feb. 1707 he was noted as being present at dinners attended by other Whig magnates such as Thomas Wharton*, earl of Wharton, and Charles Bennet*, Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville). On 6 Mar. he was one of 14 peers nominated to the select committee for drawing up an address to the queen returning thanks for her speech and assuring her of the House’s commitment to doing all it could to ensure that the Union would have its intended effect.<sup>38</sup> The death of Granville towards the close of the year may also have served to weaken Bedford’s ties with the Tories.</p><p>Bedford failed to attend the final session of Parliament in April 1707 but in May he introduced Sir William Gostwick<sup>‡</sup> to the queen with the Bedfordshire county address.<sup>39</sup> Towards the close of the year he was heavily involved with the nomination of a new curate at Woburn, as well as with the setting up of a charity school in the parish and with making overtures to William Wake*, then bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury).<sup>40</sup> He took his seat in the first Parliament of Great Britain on 24 Nov. and although he attended on just 14 days of the session, on 9 Feb. 1708 he was one of ten peers nominated to oversee the balloting of members of the House to elect a committee of seven to examine the traitor William Gregg. Two days later, he was waited on by Bishop Wake accompanied by William Lloyd*, bishop of Lichfield (later bishop of Worcester). Wake complained that Bedford ‘entertained’ the two clergymen in ‘a large cold room without fire’, which helped to bring on an attack of gout.<sup>41</sup> In a list of party affiliations in May, Bedford was marked a Whig. The same month saw the birth of his third son and heir (a second son having also died in infancy). It also witnessed a restoration of Russell fortunes in Bedfordshire with the successful return of Lord Edward Russell and Sir William Gostwick for the county seats at the general election: these in spite of Tory efforts to tar Lord Edward with the brush of nonconformity.<sup>42</sup> There was an improvement in the strength of Russell influence at Tavistock too, where Sir John Cope<sup>‡</sup> was returned on the duke’s interest.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Bedford returned to the House for the new Parliament on 7 Dec. 1708 but was again infrequently in attendance, being present on less than a fifth of all sitting days. During his absence, the House had ordered the attachment of several people involved in the arrest of one of his servants contrary to privilege, one of whom, Richard Bumsted, was brought before the bar of the House and discharged on the day Bedford took his seat. He was absent again the following day (8 Dec.) when the remaining delinquents were discharged, returning to the House on 13 Jan. 1709. On 21 Jan. he voted against permitting Scots peers holding British peerages to vote in the election of Scots representative peers. Towards the end of May he attended a feast dominated by Whig notables and that summer it was noted that he had finally ‘recovered from the infatuation of Lord Granville and is returned to the principles of his family’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Bedford’s attendance during the following session improved slightly, with him present for almost 27 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 Mar. he demonstrated his renewed loyalty to the Whigs by finding Dr Henry Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Earlier that month he had been active in attempting to restore peace in London by mobilizing some of the Middlesex militia at the height of the rioting.<sup>45</sup> In September he approached Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, for his assistance in promoting the River Nene navigation bill, having finally overcome the opposition of the dean and chapter of Peterborough. With Sunderland’s assistance, he wrote, ‘I question not but it will succeed’.<sup>46</sup> Despite this, no further progress appears to have been made in the scheme. The same month he undertook to employ his interest on behalf of the Whig candidate at Westminster, General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope.<sup>47</sup></p><p>In advance of the elections Bedford was estimated by Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, as an opponent. The forecast was proved accurate when Bedford joined with his cousin Orford and with John Moore*, bishop of Ely, in promoting Whig candidates in Cambridgeshire, though in the event their combined interests were baffled by the Harleyites.<sup>48</sup> Bedford had better success in his home county of Bedfordshire but he was concerned by how narrowly his candidates had prevailed against the Tory challenger John Harvey<sup>‡</sup> and determined to ‘labour zealously’ to recover his interest in the county before the next election.<sup>49</sup> Although it had also been predicted earlier that year that his interest at Tavistock was once more in trouble, the sitting candidates were returned, at least one of them undoubtedly with the duke’s blessing.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Bedford took his seat in the new Parliament on 28 Nov. 1710. He was thereafter present on 38 per cent of all sitting days. Between 11 Jan. and 3 Feb. 1711 he subscribed five protests against resolutions condemning the conduct of the war in Spain by the former Whig ministry, but he was then absent from the House for the following eight days. On 5 Feb. he registered his proxy with his brother-in-law William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 12 February. There is no evidence of the proxy having been employed by Devonshire during Bedford’s absence. On 5 Mar. Bedford and Devonshire introduced their brother-in-law John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland, on his first appearance in the House.<sup>51</sup> Bedford’s tenure of three lieutenancies made him a target for the acquisitiveness of John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, who petitioned the government in May to be awarded that of Middlesex, but without success.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Bedford sat for the final time on 17 May 1711. Four days later, he was reported to be ‘dangerously ill’ of smallpox.<sup>53</sup> He died within a week.<sup>54</sup> Summing up the duke’s reputation, George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> noted him to have been ‘very much regarded for he had taken himself up within this three or four years … and though he had run out a deal at gaming he had recovered it again by sober and virtuous living’; and he accorded his death to be ‘a public loss for you know it is an honest family’. The assessment was echoed by Thomas Frank in an earlier letter to Bishop Wake in which he praised Bedford as ‘well disposed to all the methods of sobriety and seriousness’.<sup>55</sup> Orford also noted Bedford’s improved management of his estates, though he had feared that his cousin was ‘too eager to live with economy’ and aimed to settle his debts sooner than was strictly necessary.<sup>56</sup></p><p>In his will, first drawn up shortly after his succession to the dukedom, Bedford constituted his mother as sole executrix and apportioned his personal estate following payment of debts between her and his sisters, the duchesses of Devonshire and Rutland. He was succeeded in the peerage by his infant son, also Wriothesley Russell*, as 3rd duke of Bedford.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SACKVILLE, Charles (1643-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>SACKVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1643–1706)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1652-75 Ld. Buckhurst; <em>cr. </em>4 Feb. 1675 earl of MIDDLESEX; <em>suc. </em>fa. 27 Aug. 1677 as 6th earl of DORSET |
|
First sat 17 Apr. 1675; last sat 13 Nov. 1702 |
|
MP East Grinstead 1661-75 |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Jan. 1643, 1st s. of Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, and Frances, da. of Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, earl of Middlesex; bro. of Edward Sackville<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1657-8;<sup>2</sup> travelled abroad (France) 1658.<sup>3</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) June 1674, Mary (<em>d</em>.1679),<sup>4</sup> da. of Hervey Bagot of Pipe Hall, Warws., wid. of Charles Berkeley*, earl of Falmouth, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) 7 Mar. 1685 (with £14,000), Mary (<em>d</em>.1691), da. of James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, 1s. 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (3) 27 Oct. 1704, Anne (<em>d</em>.1706), da. of (?) Roche of Westminster, <em>s.p</em>.; at least 1s. 3da. illegit. (most with Philippa Waldegrave). KG 24 Feb. 1692. <em>d</em>. 20 Jan. 1706; <em>will</em> 12 July 1705, pr. 14 May 1707.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1669-85;<sup>6</sup> PC 14 Feb. 1689-<em>d</em>.; ld. chamberlain 1689-97; kpr., Greenwich Palace 1689-97<sup>7</sup>; queen’s regency council 1690-4;<sup>8</sup> commr., visitation of hospitals 1691,<sup>9</sup> appeals for prizes 1694, 1695, 1697;<sup>10</sup> ld. justice 1695-8.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Col., militia ft., Mdx. 1660-2, Kent by 1666-?8; dep. lt. Kent 1661-?68;<sup>12</sup> ld. lt. Suss. (jt.) 1670-77,<sup>13</sup> (sole) 1677-Feb. 1688, Apr. 1689-<em>d</em>.,<sup>14</sup> Som. (jt.) June 1690- Feb. 1691;<sup>15</sup> <em>custos rot</em>., Suss. 1677-Jan. 1688, Mar. 1689-<em>d</em>.; steward, honour of Eagle 1677-<em>d</em>.; high steward, Stratford-upon-Avon 1684-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt., duke of Buckingham’s ft. June-Nov. 1672.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Master, Grocers’ Co. 1691;<sup>17</sup> FRS 1699.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller (studio of), 1694, National Trust, Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent and NPG 250 (copy); oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1694, National Trust, Sissinghurst Castle, Kent; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1697, NPG 3204.</p> |
<p>‘If one turns to the authors of the last age for the character of this lord, one meets with nothing but encomiums on his wit and good nature. He was the finest gentleman in the voluptuous court of Charles the second, and in the gloomy one of King William.’<sup>19</sup> Best known for his poetry and for his prominent role as one of the Restoration’s most notorious rakes, as the dissolute companion of Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt. and lover of Nell Gwyn, Buckhurst (as he was styled prior to his elevation to the peerage) was also a significant political figure. He succeeded in gaining the affections of Charles II and William III and enjoyed considerable interest both in his own right and by virtue of his close connection to the Compton family. Buckhurst remained in high favour for most of his career in spite of his predilection for riotous excess and his reputation for laziness. It may have been precisely this that recommended him to King Charles, though his ability to retain office under King William is perhaps less easy to explain.</p><h2><em>The reign of Charles II, 1660-1685 </em></h2><p>There has been some dispute over the correct year of Buckhurst’s birth, with different sources offering 1637, 1642 and 1643 as possible dates.<sup>20</sup> The last seems now to be most probably correct, which meant that Buckhurst’s election to the Cavalier Parliament for the family seat of East Grinstead occurred when he was still under age. Shortly after his return to Parliament, Buckhurst, his brother, Edward Sackville, and several others achieved fame for the very worst of reasons, being tried for murder following a drunken assault on a tanner they claimed to have been a highwayman.<sup>21</sup> Buckhurst and his companions were pardoned by the king after being convicted of manslaughter; but the experience did nothing to temper his excesses.<sup>22</sup> The following year he was involved with Sedley and others in a notorious display of ‘super-sodomitick wickedness and blasphemy’ at Oxford Kate’s Cock Tavern in London, for which he again found himself arrested and reprimanded.<sup>23</sup> Buckhurst served as a volunteer in the navy in 1664 but there is some doubt as to whether or not he saw action. His involvement was probably confined to composing a <em>ballade</em> addressed to ‘the Ladies’, supposedly written on the eve of the engagement with the Dutch.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Although an inactive member of the Commons, Buckhurst early on became disquieted by the nature of the Restoration regime.<sup>25</sup> While his father, Dorset, who was also concerned by the direction of events, concentrated on voicing his concerns about matters of privilege, Buckhurst soon became attached to the grouping of his kinsman George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. In March 1667 Buckhurst was one of those named by Buckingham as a suitable custodian of information the duke hoped might vindicate him following his public disgrace.<sup>26</sup> It also appears to have been association with Buckingham that led to Buckhurst narrowly avoiding coming to blows with Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in the aftermath of the fatal duel between the duke and Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, in 1668. Unlike that of Buckingham and the unfortunate Shrewsbury, Buckhurst and Oxford’s quarrel was resolved peacefully by the interposition of the king and George Monck*, duke of Albemarle.<sup>27</sup> That October, Buckhurst was once more notorious following another night of excess with Sedley during which they were seen ‘running up and down all the night with their arses bare through the streets.’<sup>28</sup></p><p>Despite such riotous behaviour, Buckhurst was able to remain on good terms with the king. In July 1669 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to visit the dauphin.<sup>29</sup> In September it was reported that he had been sworn a gentleman of the bedchamber with a salary of £1,000 p.a., though he was not admitted formally until the close of December.<sup>30</sup> In February 1670 he was further rewarded with the grant of a pension for life.<sup>31</sup> In May Buckhurst was sent as an envoy to Louis XIV to request permission for the king’s sister, the duchesse d’Orléans, to extend her stay in England by a further few days.<sup>32</sup> On his return, he was appointed to a joint lieutenancy in Sussex with his father. Buckhurst offered to stand down in Dorset’s favour. It is difficult to know whether this was an act of generosity or laziness: given Buckhurst’s disposition, it is probably fair to suggest that there were elements of both.<sup>33</sup> In June it was rumoured that both he and Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, were to be appointed commissioners of the treasury and the same month he stood godfather to Charles Beauclerk*, earl of Burford (later duke of St Albans), the king’s son by Nell Gwyn.<sup>34</sup> In mid-July he was again employed as an emissary between the courts of Whitehall and Paris, accompanying Buckingham, Sedley and ‘divers’ others to convey the king’s condolences on the death of the duchesse d’Orléans.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Lack of application appears to have been a consistent trait with Buckhurst. In August 1672, Buckingham complained to Dorset that Buckhurst’s company was ‘at present the worst in my whole regiment’.<sup>36</sup> Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup> also found reason to bemoan Buckhurst’s lethargy. In October 1672 he complained to his brother, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, of his failure to secure a pension of £500 from the king stating that, ‘if my lord Buckhurst were but half as vigorous as he is good-natured I had had it.’<sup>37</sup> Buckhurst himself in January 1673 was granted a free gift of £4,400.<sup>38</sup> He was also said to have been responsible for securing for his uncle, Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, appointment as a lord of the bedchamber, in return for which Middlesex undertook to settle his estate on his nephew.<sup>39</sup> There were rumours that Buckhurst was to marry Diana Verney that year, but the marriage failed to transpire. Instead, in 1674 he entered into a secret marriage with the widowed countess of Falmouth.<sup>40</sup> Buckhurst’s father disapproved of the match on the grounds of Lady Falmouth’s unsavoury reputation, but Dorset also struggled to believe that his son had lied consistently about the situation: ‘I cannot think that you are so little a gentleman and an honest man as to have done any such thing and that at least you should find nobody else to break your word with all but your own father.’<sup>41</sup></p><p>Buckhurst’s marriage, which was owned publicly in the autumn of 1674, proved to be just one of a number of disappointments that contributed to a breakdown in relations with his parents during the year.<sup>42</sup> The death of his uncle, Middlesex, in October provoked a series of legal actions between Buckhurst and the earl and countess of Dorset over the terms of Middlesex’s will. Middlesex had left the greater part of his estate to Buckhurst (as agreed the previous year) and only a token £10 to his sister, Lady Dorset.<sup>43</sup> The affair prompted Buckhurst to write to his father over his intention to prove Middlesex’s will though he insisted that:</p><blockquote><p>when either of you shall signify your displeasure I will immediately desist, for I am so heartily weary of these unnatural disputes and so sensible how unfit it is for a son in any thing to oppose his parents that I will rather venture my ruin than continue the controversy.<sup>44</sup></p></blockquote><p>Buckhurst’s right was finally settled after a number of challenges and it was in acknowledgement of his status as heir to the Cranfield estates that he was raised to the peerage as earl of Middlesex on 4 Feb. 1675.<sup>45</sup> By that time he also appears to have attempted to secure for himself appointment to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, though if this was so he was unsuccessful.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Middlesex was introduced into the House on 17 Apr. 1675 between his cousin John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham) and Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester. The same month the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), estimated him as being likely to support the non-resisting test bill. Although he was marked as present on the attendance list for the day, Middlesex was excused at a call of the House on 29 Apr. but he resumed his seat the following day and proceeded to attend on 24 days in total, 55 per cent of all sitting days in the session, though he was not named to any committees.</p><p>Elevation to the Lords did nothing to curb Middlesex’s inebriated shenanigans. In June, he was involved in another notorious display of drunken excess when, in company with Henry Savile and John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, he defaced the sundial in the king’s garden at Whitehall.<sup>47</sup> His continuing misdemeanours failed to stem the steady flow of preferment and the same month Middlesex was granted the lease on 35 houses on the Strand, the whole worth an estimated £1,220. 7s. 1d. in annual rent.<sup>48</sup> He took his seat in the House for the new session on 13 Oct. 1675 but sat for just six days before again being excused at a call on 10 November. He returned to the House the following day, and sat for a further two days before he was absent for the last week of the session, prorogued on 22 November. Overall he was present on approximately 43 per cent of the total number of sitting days.</p><p>Despite the substantial grants and pension awarded him, Middlesex appears to have been in financial difficulties by 1676 when he mortgaged a number of his Warwickshire estates for £15,000. This may have been connected to a demand from his father for £2,000 owing to one Mr Woolf for the mortgage of Dorset Court. Middlesex insisted that he had not been dilatory in paying the money and that ‘Mr Woolf has been all along very peevish.’<sup>49</sup> Middlesex’s doubtless expensive life at court may also have added to his difficulties. Fleetwood Sheppard, Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup>, Baptist May<sup>‡</sup> and Middlesex were all noted as being regular dining companions of the king during 1676 and 1677, either at the lodgings of the duchess of Portsmouth or those of Middlesex’s former mistress Nell Gwyn.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Middlesex took his seat in the House once more on 15 Feb. 1677 and the following day he was named to the committee established to discover the author of the pamphlet questioning whether Parliament had been dissolved by its long prorogation. During the course of the session, of which he attended a little over half of all sitting days, he was named to just four further committees for private bills. Although he had not been one of those to support Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and the other peers in protesting at the continuation of the Parliament at the opening of the session, he was briefly forbidden attending court for visiting Buckingham in the Tower without permission. The intervention of Danby secured his return to favour on this occasion.<sup>51</sup> On 15 Mar. he was granted leave by the House to visit the lords in the Tower again. In May he delivered Buckingham’s petition to the king seeking his release, though his lack of vigour on his cousin’s behalf threatened to delay his enlargement.<sup>52</sup> Middlesex was noted as ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury in May and, later that summer, in alliance with Nell Gwyn, Rochester and the rest of ‘the merry gang’ he was at last successful in procuring Buckingham’s release from the Tower.<sup>53</sup> On 27 Aug. Middlesex succeeded as 6th earl of Dorset. With his father’s death, he was continued in office as now sole lord lieutenant of Sussex. He also inherited an appeal from one Mr Wetton to be granted the continuation of a protection that had been made out for him by the previous earl.<sup>54</sup> In November Dorset’s reputation for generosity, and a previous intervention on his behalf, also encouraged the Quaker William Penn to appeal to him in his capacity as lord lieutenant of Sussex to curb the persecution Penn and his wife were suffering at the hands of Sir Henry Goring<sup>‡</sup> and Colonel John Alford<sup>‡</sup>, the county’s commissioners for recusants.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Dorset resumed his seat following the summer recess on 3 Dec. 1677, though no mention was made of his succession to his father’s earldom in the Journal. For the next few months in correspondence he was generally referred to as earl of Middlesex.<sup>56</sup> He continued to sit for the remainder of the session but although he does not appear to have been an active member of the House, on 3 Feb. 1678 Shaftesbury wrote to him to implore his assistance in gaining his release from the Tower, avowing his resolution to lie at the king’s feet and make his submission to the House.<sup>57</sup> By this time Dorset seems to have stood a little aloof from his former associates. In April Danby was advised that Dorset and Rochester were by then ‘but distant assistants to Buckingham’.<sup>58</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Dorset returned to the House at the opening of the new session of May 1678, of which he attended 22 days, approximately half of its sitting days. The death of Dorset’s brother, Edward Sackville, on 10 Oct. offered him the opportunity of again exercising his interest for the parliamentary seat at East Grinstead. Having considered setting up another brother, Richard Sackville, he settled instead for backing a moderate opposition figure, Thomas Pelham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>59</sup> Dorset took his seat for the next session on 21 Oct., the last of the Cavalier Parliament, and attended almost 63 per cent of its sitting days. On 15 Nov., during the debates in committee of the whole House on the bill disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament, he voted against making the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths. Shortly afterwards, Dorset fell foul of the irascible earl of Pembroke, who challenged him to a duel—though the eccentric Pembroke claimed he could not remember the reason. The most likely cause was a difference between the two that had been in train in chancery since 1675 over rights of warren at Aldbourne Chase in Wiltshire claimed by Pembroke but for which Dorset had petitioned in 1674.<sup>60</sup> The House intervened and both were imprisoned briefly before Pembroke’s apology secured their respective releases on 28 November. Dorset resumed his seat the following day and continued to sit for a further 14 days before the prorogation of 30 December. On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill relating to payment of money into the exchequer. The following day he voted against committing Danby.</p><p>The dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament offered Dorset another opportunity of exercising his influence in East Grinstead, but a dispute with his mother led to the Sackville interest being split in the borough. Despite this, Dorset’s nominee, his cousin Edward Sackville<sup>‡</sup>, was successful in securing one of the seats. In the new Parliament, Dorset attended two meetings of the abortive session of 6-13 Mar. 1679 and took his seat again on 18 Mar. when the new session convened for business. He was again present for just under half of all sitting day of this Parliament. Before the Parliament’s commencement, Danby assessed him initially as a potential supporter who should be spoken to by the king, but Danby’s subsequent estimates revised his view of him to unreliable and, ultimately, doubtful. On 10 May Dorset voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and he entered his dissent from the resolution not to do so.<sup>61</sup></p><p>The ongoing dispute between Dorset and his mother over Middlesex’s will was finally settled during the summer of 1679 and in August relations were sufficiently restored to permit them to co-operate during the elections for the new Parliament. Even so, the reinvigorated Sackville interest was only sufficient to ensure the return of one member, William Jephson<sup>‡</sup>, at East Grinstead. Their other nominee, Henry Powle<sup>‡</sup>, by then Dorset’s stepfather (he had married the 5th earl’s widow in June), managed only to secure 28 votes. The remaining seat went to Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, younger son of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Dorset suffered the loss of his wife in childbirth in September 1679.<sup>63</sup> The marriage had not been a successful one and Lady Dorset’s demise attracted an opprobrious ode from Dorset’s cousin, Mulgrave.<sup>64</sup> Dorset took his seat in the House for the following Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680 and the same day he introduced Charles Gerard* as earl of Macclesfield. By this time Dorset appears to have been accounted an associate of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>65</sup> In spite of this he seems not to have countenanced exclusion. He was present in the House on 15 Nov. (despite being noted as absent in one account), and voted to put the question and then to reject the exclusion bill at its first reading. He sat for a further 10 days before quitting the session on 4 Dec. for the remainder of the year, his physician submitting a certificate on 6 Dec. that he was too sick to attend. He was consequently absent for the vote on the impeachment of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, the following day and also missed participating in the initial consideration of a dispute between Sir Oliver Butler and the corporation of Rochester, for which his support had been canvassed by the mayor and one of the prebends of Rochester in opposition to Butler shortly before.<sup>66</sup> Delays in hearing the case meant that on Dorset’s return to the House on 4 Jan. 1681, he was able to hear a renewed petition by Sir Oliver Butler to have the matter determined. He then attended two subsequent days before the dissolution of 10 Jan. prevented further progress in the case.</p><p>Dorset joined with Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, in standing bail of £5,000 for Sir William Scroggs at the beginning of January 1681.<sup>67</sup> The following month, Sir Cyril Wyche<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Powle were both returned successfully on the Sackville interest at East Grinstead. In advance of the new Parliament Danby predicted that Dorset would either vote for him or be neutral. Dorset duly took his seat in the brief week-long Oxford Parliament on 22 Mar. but sat for just five of its seven days before suffering a fit of apoplexy while in the king’s bedchamber on 26 March. Predictions that he would not survive the episode proved wrong but during the summer he was granted leave to travel abroad to recover his health.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Prior to his departure, Dorset was one of a number of peers to petition the king to pardon the murderous Pembroke, who had found himself once more in hot water over the killing of William Sneeth.<sup>69</sup> Dorset was also petitioned by some of the inhabitants of East Grinstead to use his interest on their behalf to ensure that the assizes were held in their town rather than being located elsewhere in the county.<sup>70</sup> Dorset returned from a six months’ tour of France in February 1682.<sup>71</sup> The following year he was granted a warrant for Burford House in Windsor in trust for Nell Gwyn and, following her death, for his godson, Burford.<sup>72</sup> Rumours that Dorset might remarry circulated in April 1683. John Stewkeley informed Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> of plans for Dorset to marry Lady Mary Powlett, though Dorset appeared less than eager to press his suit, preferring to spend the majority of his time with his mistress, Philippa Waldegrave.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Dorset stood surety of £5,000 for Henry Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Wardour, in February 1684. In April he was responsible for Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup> being put out of his place as one of the gentlemen pensioners on account of his insulting behaviour towards Dorset. Kirke was accused of goading Dorset at the playhouse and repeatedly calling him a ‘rascal’.<sup>74</sup> Continued favour with the king was presumably behind Dorset’s election as high steward of Stratford-upon-Avon in July. In October Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> recorded that he was in high favour at court.<sup>75</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II and the Revolution, 1685-1690</em></h2><p>Dorset’s good fortune outlived Charles II. His refusal to vote for exclusion and support for the Catholic Arundell of Wardour no doubt recommended him to his successor, and in March 1685 he was confirmed in office as lord lieutenant of Sussex.<sup>76</sup> During the elections of that month Simon Smith<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Jones<sup>‡</sup> were returned on the Sackville interest at East Grinstead. Shortly after, Dorset married again, to Lady Mary Compton, a daughter of James Compton, 3rd earl of Northampton.<sup>77</sup> At the coronation in April Dorset was bearer of the queen’s sceptre with dove and, the following month, orders were made for his arrears of pay as gentleman of the bedchamber (amounting to £2,333 6s. 8d.) to be settled.</p><p>Dorset took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May after which he was present on an additional 17 days, just under 40 per cent of all sitting days. Although the county of Sussex remained reasonably unaffected by the Monmouth rebellion in June, Dorset demonstrated his habitual want of application by requesting to return to London in the first days of July, a request that was granted only on the condition that he order his deputies ‘to take great care to preserve all things quiet, particularly at Chichester, it being a very factious place.’<sup>78</sup></p><p>In spite of the new king’s earlier favour, Dorset increasingly came to oppose James II’s policies. This may explain his decision to forbid his countess from accepting an invitation to attend the king’s birthday ball at Whitehall in October 1685.<sup>79</sup> He was one of the Compton clan to attend the lords commissioners for ecclesiastical causes at the third appearance of his wife’s uncle Henry Compton*, bishop of London, in August 1686. In January 1687 he attempted, unsuccessfully, to prevent certain local justices from being put out of the commission of the peace.<sup>80</sup> The same month he was estimated to be opposed to repeal of the Test. The death of his mother in April provided him with the prospect of a substantial addition to his inheritance, but wrangling over the succession to her personal estate with his stepfather, Henry Powle, resulted in a series of actions in chancery.<sup>81</sup> Dorset claimed that Powle, who had married his mother despite ‘not having an estate sufficient to settle on her in jointure or being a person suitable to her quality’, had refused to acknowledge Lady Dorset’s last will by which the majority of her possessions were to come to Dorset. In response, Powle accused Dorset and his family of taking advantage of Lady Dorset’s frailty to devise a fraudulent will and that rather than leaving her personal estate to her son, Lady Dorset had promised to ‘principally consider’ him ‘in the disposal of the remainder.’<sup>82</sup> The dispute was temporarily settled in Powle’s favour, though Dorset continued to prevaricate in obeying the court’s decree.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Although Dorset was listed as being opposed to the king’s policies in May 1687, the same month he was appointed one of the commissioners to meet with Barillon to adjust the differences in existence between England and France over the American colonies. The appointment clearly made no difference to his attitude to the government. In November he was again noted as being opposed to repeal of the Test and the same month he was rumoured to be one of those likely to be put out of office.<sup>84</sup> Dorset’s opposition to James’s policies was noted once more in January 1688: the same month he was dismissed as lord lieutenant of Sussex for failing to persuade the people to agree to repeal of the penal laws, ‘being himself of their opinion.’<sup>85</sup> It was speculated that he would be replaced by Sir John Gage but in the event it was Francis Browne*, 4th Viscount Montagu, who succeeded him in the office.<sup>86</sup> Dorset was also the recipient of one of several threatening letters circulated at the time, warning of his imminent assassination for refusing to embrace catholicism. Dorset ignored the ‘friendly admonition’.<sup>87</sup></p><p>In May 1688 Dorset was involved in a comical episode when he surprised a barber hiding under his bed at his house in Lincoln’s Inn. The man was one of a small party of burglars who had infiltrated the house.<sup>88</sup> The following month, rather more seriously, Dorset was one of those proposed by Bishop Compton to stand surety for one of the seven bishops.<sup>89</sup> Although Dorset retreated to Copt Hall for much of the latter part of James II’s reign, he continued to make his opposition to the government apparent and in July he commented scornfully on the appointment to the Privy Council of Christopher Vane*, later Baron Barnard, the posthumous son of Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup>, that he believed ‘his father got him after his head was off.’<sup>90</sup> The following month, perhaps significantly, it was reported that the queen dowager was ‘considering moving to Knole’, the Sackville house in Kent.<sup>91</sup> On 16 Nov. 1688 Dorset subscribed the petition to James II for a free Parliament. As events moved against the king, he worked closely with his kinsman, Bishop Compton, to ensure the safety of Princess Anne.<sup>92</sup> Before the king’s return from Salisbury, Dorset and Compton arranged for the princess’s flight from her apartments. On leaving London, it was to Dorset’s Essex home of Copt Hall that they first resorted before Princess Anne and Compton continued on to Castle Ashby and thence to Nottingham.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Dorset was a prominent figure in the activities surrounding the meeting of the lords during the period between James’s flight and Prince William’s assumption of power. On 11 Dec. 1688 he was present at the meeting at the Guildhall, on which day he was one of those to sign the declaration to William of Orange. He was heavily involved in the provisional government of the lords over the next few days and attended almost every day until the council was disbanded on 15 December, even participating in the meeting of nine lords who assembled at three in the morning on 13 Dec. to discuss measures to counteract the ‘Irish panic’ then gripping the capital. On the one day on which he does not appear in the attendance register, 14 Dec., his motion that a letter be written to Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, ordering him to move to the rescue of the family of Arundell of Wardour (for whom Dorset had previously stood surety), was read and accepted by his peers.<sup>94</sup> The importance of Dorset’s role in the early meetings of the lords of the provisional government is further indicated by the fact that one of those lawyers nominated to attend was Mr Bradbury, the Sackville family lawyer.<sup>95</sup> Dorset signed the Association on 21 December.</p><p>Dorset’s prominent role in the Revolution helped to ensure that Sir Thomas Dyke<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Sackville<sup>‡</sup> were returned successfully for East Grinstead to the Convention on the Sackville interest. Dorset took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he sat on approximately 48 per cent of sitting days. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen in the Commons’ vote on the status of the crown. Four days later he agreed with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’ and the same day he entered his dissent from the resolution not to agree to the Commons on the inclusion of the words ‘and the throne is thereby vacant’. On 6 Feb. he and John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), interrupted a free conference to present Princess Anne’s declaration waiving her rights to the succession in favour of her brother-in-law.<sup>96</sup> The same day Dorset again voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ use of the term ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’ in the division which saw that wording finally accepted.</p><p>Dorset’s role in assisting Princess Anne and his warm support for the new regime was rewarded with a series of new appointments. In February 1689 he was sworn to the Privy Council and made lord chamberlain of the household and the following month he was also restored to his former lieutenancy of Sussex, though some saw his preferment as indicative of the Comptons’ interest.<sup>97</sup> Further marks of favour followed. In March he was appointed to the keepership of Greenwich Palace and in July he stood as one of the godfathers (as proxy for the king of Denmark) to William, duke of Gloucester.<sup>98</sup> It is a measure of Dorset’s influence at this time, as well as of his reputation for generosity, that it was to him that Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, addressed two letters justifying his actions in sitting on the ecclesiastical commission, though Sprat may also have been eager to seek Dorset’s protection as a close associate of the Compton family. Sprat was also quick to congratulate Dorset on his appointment as lord chamberlain and in recommending one Fairfax to serve as his secretary.<sup>99</sup> Through his influence, Thomas Shadwell (who had dedicated his successful play, <em>The Squire of Alsatia</em>, to Dorset) was appointed poet laureate in place of John Dryden, though Dorset ensured that Dryden was compensated for his loss. Within a few months of Dorset being named lord chamberlain the king seemed convinced that Dorset was accepting money presumably in return for favours. If this was so, the misdemeanour was not sufficiently important to warrant his removal.<sup>100</sup> On 30 July, Dorset voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill reversing the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. During the month-long adjournment from 20 Aug. Charles Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley and sitting in the House as Baron Berkeley (and later 2nd earl of Berkeley), on 13 Sept. registered his proxy with Dorset. He would have had little opportunity to use it, as the House met on only three further occasions before the session was prorogued on 21 October.</p><p>Dorset took his seat in the new session on 23 Oct. 1689 and was as usual present for approximately half of all sitting days. Excused at a call on 28 Oct, he was back in the House three days later and sat thereafter for much of the remainder of the year. In January 1690 he was noted as being present at a ‘debauch’ attended by the king, Mulgrave, Marlborough, Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney), Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, and Thomas Wharton* (later marquess of Wharton), held at the town house of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury. In the list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, however, Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classified him as an opponent of the court. In the elections in February, the Sackville interest prevailed once more in East Grinstead with Dyke and Sackville returned again. The same month Dorset was noted as being eager to attend the planned congress of the allies at The Hague. He was warmly recommended for the role by his friend Dursley, who hoped that Dorset would not object to being put forward without his prior knowledge. Dorset was not appointed to the post.<sup>101</sup></p><h2><em>1690-1697</em></h2><p>Dorset took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 after which he was present on approximately 74 per cent of all sitting days. He was excused at a call on 31 Mar. but resumed his seat the following day. In April it was rumoured that Dorset, William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, Thomas Wharton and others all intended to resign their offices. The report was soon contradicted but one letter writer circulating the rumour insisted that ‘all these lords are for a republic.’<sup>102</sup> There is no reason to believe that Dorset was ever in favour of anything other than a monarchy. The same month he was appointed one of the commissioners to inspect the new lieutenancy of the city of London. On 13 May he entered his protest against the resolution not to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel during the discussions over the bill to restore the corporation’s charter. In June Dorset was appointed joint lord lieutenant of Somerset with Carmarthen and Devonshire and the same month he was appointed to the council to advise the queen during the king’s absence.<sup>103</sup> Queen Mary evidently did not share her husband’s belief in her council’s abilities, recording acerbic comments of many of them and reserving for Dorset the judgment that he was ‘too lazy to give himself the trouble of business, so of little use.’ In a letter to the king she repeated her assessment noting that he came to the council ‘as little as he can with decency and seldom speaks.’<sup>104</sup></p><p>On both 7 and 28 July 1690 he acted as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament.<sup>105</sup> He took his seat for the new session on 2 Oct. following which he was present on 55 per cent of all sitting days. In mid-October he received a request from Lord Dursley at the Hague that he would send him a proxy form so that he could grant Dorset his proctoral vote for the remainder of the session. However, there is no record of such a proxy in the registers.<sup>106</sup> On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. On 27 Nov. he submitted a petition to the House to reverse the order of chancery in the case between him and his stepfather, Henry Powle, over his mother’s estate. On 9 Dec. the House voted accordingly in Dorset’s favour.<sup>107</sup> Dorset was mentioned as one of the leading peers participating in talks with William Penn about a possible Jacobite restoration during the winter of 1690-1 but it seems most unlikely that Dorset may have been prepared to rebel against the Williamite government.<sup>108</sup> Dorset joined the king in Holland in March 1691 but the bad crossing permanently weakened his already impaired constitution. He returned to England the same month.<sup>109</sup> In early August he suffered the loss of his countess from smallpox. Contemporaries commented on the sudden passing of ‘a fine lady in all respects’ who ‘is much lamented’ and Dursley condoled with his friend Dorset, begging him not to give into excessive grief.<sup>110</sup></p><p>The elevation to the Lords of Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, on the death of his brother, Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland, led to a vacant seat in the parliamentary representation for the county of Kent, for which Sir Thomas Roberts<sup>‡</sup>, bt. was quick to seek Dorset’s interest in October 1691.<sup>111</sup> Roberts was successful, though it seems likely that Dorset supported his defeated adversary, Robert Smith.<sup>112</sup> Dorset’s interest also appeared lacking when he proved unable to secure the office of housekeeper at Whitehall, which was in his gift as lord chamberlain, for his old companion, Sedley, the same month. The post went instead to the son of the previous holder, his old enemy Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup>, who had presumably secured the reversion.</p><p>Dorset took his seat at the opening of the new session on 22 Oct. 1691 and proceeded to attend on approximately a third of all sitting days. He was named towards the close of the year along with a host of other peers in William Fuller’s information of those supposedly in contact with the French court.<sup>113</sup> Once again, there seems little reason to place much faith in the suggestion that he was engaged in plotting in earnest for a return of the exiled king.</p><p>Dorset was installed as a knight of the garter on 24 Feb. 1692.<sup>114</sup> In March he was rumoured to be on the point of marrying Juliana Alington, daughter of William Alington*, 3rd Baron Alington.<sup>115</sup> Speculation persisted over the summer but no further progress was made in the negotiations.<sup>116</sup> In early August he was one of the cabinet council who travelled to Portsmouth to inspect the fleet.<sup>117</sup> Dorset was again present at the opening of the new session, on 4 Nov., after which he was present on 43 per cent of all sitting days. On 31 Dec. Dorset followed the court line and voted against committing the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted against the passage of the bill. In an assessment compiled by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, of likely supporters of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, which was before the House in early January, Dorset’s anticipated attitude was listed as uncertain. On 31 Jan. he entered his protest against the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb. he found Mohun not guilty of murder.</p><p>In February 1693 the controversial marriage of Mary Sackville, Dorset’s natural daughter by his mistress Philippa Waldegrave, and his nephew, Lionel Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Orrery [I], was acknowledged publicly. The alliance provoked Orrery’s mother, Dorset’s sister Mary, dowager Lady Orrery into ‘the greatest fury at it imaginable’ and it was said to have ‘made some noise abroad’.<sup>118</sup> True to form, in July Dorset was able to sit through a meeting of cabinet council without venturing an opinion in the debate on whether an Irish Parliament should be summoned.<sup>119</sup> Rumours continued to circulate in the autumn about a match between Dorset and Juliana Alington.<sup>120</sup> He took his seat in the House for the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 but was then absent for much of the remainder of the month. On 14 Nov. he was excused at a call and he failed to resume his place until 30 November. Overall he was present on 43 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 24 Feb. 1694 Dorset entered his dissent from the order to dismiss Montagu’s petition requesting the production of exhibits in his cause with John Granville*, earl of Bath. Late in March, a dispute between Dorset as lord chamberlain and Norfolk as earl marshal over precedency in matters of ceremonial was heard in council. ‘After an hour’s arguing’ the problem was referred to a committee of the great officers of state.<sup>121</sup> Dorset was appointed a commissioner for prizes in June.<sup>122</sup> In August Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, was surprised that the usually silent Dorset, ‘who never was so against anybody’, had joined the ranks of those intent on excluding Normanby (as Mulgrave had since become) from the cabinet council.<sup>123</sup> Throughout the late summer and autumn of 1694 rumours of Dorset’s impending marriage with Juliana Alington continued.<sup>124</sup></p><p>He sat in the following session on its first day, 12 Nov. 1694, and attended 54 per cent of the total number of its sitting days. During this first month, Dorset seems to have been unsuccessful in recommending Bishop Compton for further preferment (possibly to the wardenship of All Souls, Oxford).<sup>125</sup> The session was, however, overshadowed by the illness and death of Mary II. Dorset’s long-expected marriage to Juliana Alington was ‘put off by reason of the queen’s illness’ and her death on 28 Dec. seems to have put paid to any further notion of the marriage occurring, though reports continued to circulate about it well into the following year.<sup>126</sup> Following the queen’s funeral, Dorset was involved in a dispute with Charles Powlett*, styled marquess of Winchester (later 2nd duke of Bolton), and the countess of Derby over the rights to the funeral furniture at Whitehall. The death of Simon Smith<sup>‡</sup> at East Grinstead in February 1695 gave him a further opportunity to employ his interest when he introduced his nephew and son-in-law, Orrery, for the vacant seat.<sup>127</sup> Smith’s death also offered Dorset a chance to exercise his patronage as lord chamberlain as Smith had also held the office of king’s harbinger, worth £500 p.a. and in Dorset’s gift.<sup>128</sup> After the prorogation of 3 May, Dorset was appointed one of the ‘kinglings’, the seven lords justices nominated to govern in the king’s absence.<sup>129</sup></p><p>At the general election of November 1695, Dorset was unsuccessful for the first time in over a decade in securing the return of his nominees at East Grinstead, with both Orrery and Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Wilmington, being defeated by the Tories Dyke and John Conyers<sup>‡</sup>. Dorset took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov., after which he was present for just under a third of the sitting days of the session. He was absent in the country from 13 Feb. 1696 and was not present to sign the Association when it was first available for subscription. Nevertheless in early March Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> wrote to assure him that the king was ‘well satisfied with your prudence and conduct in his Majesty’s service in the country, where he thinks your stay some short time longer will be of advantage to his affairs’.<sup>130</sup> Dorset was back in Westminster by 9 Mar. when he did put his name to the Association and resumed his seat in the House two days later.<sup>131</sup> He then attended just six more days before the prorogation of 27 April.</p><p>Returning to the Lords on 20 Oct. 1696 for the following session, Dorset displayed renewed activity in the House, attending for approximately 53 per cent of all sitting days. Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, apparently saw him as potentially sympathetic as the baronet appealed to both Dorset and Devonshire to visit him in the Tower to hear his information. While Devonshire complied with Fenwick’s request, Dorset appears not to have done.<sup>132</sup> Dorset voted with the court for the second reading of the bill for Fenwick’s attainder on 18 Dec., but five days later at its third reading voted against passing the bill. He was one of a number of the lords justices of the previous summer – including Godolphin, Devonshire and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke – who withdrew their support at the last minute, which James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> thought came close to scuppering the measure.<sup>133</sup> Dorset, however, did not go so far as to subscribe to the subsequent protest against the bill’s passage. It was probably shortly after this, in January 1697, that Dorset employed his interest to intervene on behalf of Francis Turner*, the deprived bishop of Ely, who had been arrested following a period in hiding but was soon after granted leave to go abroad. Turner was in no doubt of Dorset’s role in his release declaring that, ‘next to offering my thanks to God I beg leave to pay them to your lordship though after paying all I can I must ever owe them.’<sup>134</sup> Soon after, Dorset stepped down from his principal household offices, probably on account of failing health. In March 1697 the keepership of Greenwich palace passed to Romney (as Sydney had become) and in April, Dorset resigned the lord chamberlaincy to Sunderland, in return for £10,000.<sup>135</sup> Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> congratulated Dorset on his retirement, while expressing the desire that, ‘you will never leave the court so absolutely as not to be near it in every case wherein the welfare of the nation may ask your assistance.’<sup>136</sup></p><h2><em>1697-1706</em></h2><p>Despite his retirement, Dorset remained one of the lords justices and he continued to exercise his interest: in October 1697 he moved a petition on behalf of Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], before the lords justices. The following month he provided evidence before them concerning information brought against an Irishman named Cotter by one Marlow. In December he was appointed a commissioner of appeal in admiralty cases.<sup>137</sup> Dorset took his seat in the new session on 3 Dec. 1697, following which he was present on 41 per cent of all sitting days, and on 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. At the general election held following the dissolution on 7 July, a compromise was arrived at between the divided interests in East Grinstead, whereby they undertook to share the representation. Consequently, in the ensuing election Orrery was returned with Conyers.<sup>138</sup> Also in July Dorset was reappointed one of the lords justices.<sup>139</sup></p><p>Dorset took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present on approximately 42 per cent of all sitting days. He was one of three former lords justices of the previous summer to be replaced when the king departed for Holland in June 1699.<sup>140</sup> On 22 July he was the victim of an attack by highwaymen and robbed of over 60 guineas.<sup>141</sup> He took his seat in the following session on 16 Nov. 1699, after which he was present for just over 40 per cent of all sitting days. In early February 1700 he was forecast as being opposed to continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 23 Feb. he voted against adjourning into a committee of the whole House to discuss two amendments to the East India bill. On 9 Apr. he was appointed a manager for a conference on the Lords’ wrecking amendments to the Commons’ combined land tax and Irish forfeitures bill and thus he may also have been involved in the two bad-tempered conferences held the following day. It is likely that in the end Dorset obeyed William III’s commands to see the supply bill go through by voting to recede from the House’s amendments, as his name does not appear in the protest of 10 Apr. against that decision.</p><p>Towards the close of his life, Dorset seems to have suffered increasingly from some form of mental incapacity. He was reported sick in September 1700 and, according to one rumour, he became so addled in his mind that he remained in retirement at Knole conversing with his dead former associates. Another story, which was denied, told how he had tried to commit suicide: a letter to Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, explained ‘how barbarously the town has cut my lord Dorset’s throat with a case-knife: and put him to the [trouble?] of coming up to town and making his appearance in all the coffee houses to convince the world of the contrary.’<sup>142</sup> Dorset may not have tried to take his own life but he was undoubtedly experiencing difficulties both physical and material at the time. During 1700 he was forced to sell Copt Hall and his health remained a matter for concern.<sup>143</sup> Nevertheless he continued to attend the House. He took his seat for the new session on 10 Feb. 1701, following which he was present on approximately 46 per cent of all sitting days, and on 17 June he voted in favour of acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers.</p><p>Dorset’s attendance declined markedly after the winter of 1701. Although he was one of those who entertained the Imperial and Venetian ambassadors at the close of December, he was absent from the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701.<sup>144</sup> He took his seat on 12 Jan. 1702 but was present on just 11 days of the 100-day session. Despite his failing health, he was continued on the Privy Council at the accession of Queen Anne and was also confirmed in office as lord lieutenant of Sussex.<sup>145</sup> In July 1702 the Sackville interest again came under fierce assault at East Grinstead, where the two Tories, Conyers and John Toke<sup>‡</sup>, were returned in place of Dorset’s candidates. The same month, Dorset’s only daughter was married to Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, both being underage.<sup>146</sup> Dorset took his seat shortly after the opening of Queen Anne’s first Parliament on 31 Oct. 1702 but he was then absent until 13 Nov. when he is listed as attending the Lords for the final time.</p><p>In about January 1703 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, estimated that Dorset would be opposed to the occasional conformity bill. He was listed as having voted on 16 Jan. in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause, despite being absent from the attendance list that day. Presumably his vote was cast by proxy, but its holder must remain unknown as the proxy register for that session is now missing. In February he was noted as being ‘dangerously sick’ and his health remained in the balance on and off through the year. <sup>147</sup> Even so, on 22 Feb. his petition against certain aspects of the Savoy hospital bill was heard before the House. At the beginning of the 1703-4 session, he was again estimated as opposed to the occasional conformity bill and he was recorded as having voted against the bill by proxy on 14 Dec., but unfortunately no record of proxies survives for that session either.</p><p>In the last years of his life Dorset caused his family considerable concern by forming a liaison with three sisters named Roche. Little was known of them beyond speculation that they had come from Ireland. It is possible that they had some connection to the Mr Roche employed by the Boyle family, which could explain how the acquaintance came to be made.<sup>148</sup> Whatever the origin of the association, it was gossiped widely that they ‘had the management of him and the spending of his estate.’<sup>149</sup> In October 1704 Dorset took matters a step further by marrying Anne Roche, who thereafter was accused of keeping him in virtual confinement.<sup>150</sup> The liaison was presumably the reason for a cooling of relations with other members of his family. His Compton relatives in particular took vigorous action to protect his children from their new stepmother. Dorset responded in kind and in a letter of about this time to his heir, Lionel Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst (later duke of Dorset), he warned how he had heard that Buckhurst’s grandmother, the dowager countess of Northampton, ‘has ordered you not to obey me, if you take any notice of what she says to you I have enough in my power to make you suffer for it beyond what she will make you amends for.’<sup>151</sup></p><p>On 3 Nov. 1704 Dorset registered his proxy with Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, for the 1704-5 session (which had opened on 24 Oct.), and on 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. Noted as being in favour of the Hanoverian succession in an analysis compiled in April 1705, Dorset seems by then to have retreated entirely from political involvement. Toke and Conyers again held East Grinstead at the general election of May and, although Dorset was listed as one of the peers thought to be in Captain Lucy’s interest for Warwickshire, Lucy was unsuccessful and there is little evidence of Dorset exerting himself on his part.<sup>152</sup> In the first session of the new Parliament Dorset was again excused at a call of the House on 12 November.</p><p>By the end of 1705 Dorset was thought by some to have completely lost his reason. His protégé Matthew Prior was despatched to Bath by members of Dorset’s family to find out the truth of his condition, apparently in the hopes of having him declared insane. Prior refused to humour them. He insisted that his mentor was not out of his wits and that, ‘Lord Dorset is certainly greatly declined in his understanding, but he drivels so much better sense even now than any other man can talk, that you must not call me into court as a witness to prove him an idiot.’<sup>153</sup></p><p>Dorset did not survive for long after Prior’s visit. He died at Bath in virtual seclusion on 29 Jan. 1706, closely guarded to the end by his third wife, who it was widely reported would soon follow him.<sup>154</sup> In his will Dorset named James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, Halifax and Lady Dorset as trustees.<sup>155</sup> He confirmed a settlement of 26 Dec. 1704 in which he had settled a number of his Sussex estates on Lady Dorset for her jointure and made further substantial bequests including annuities amounting to more than £350, many of which were intended for the benefit of his wife and her family. In the event of his son, Buckhurst, dying without male heirs, Lady Dorset was to have an additional £20,000. Dorset also stipulated that should Buckhurst, or any other of his relatives attempt to ‘interrupt or disturb’ the countess ‘in the peaceable or quiet enjoyment’ of the lands settled on her, she was to receive a further £5,000 for her trouble, in addition to any other grants made to her. The death of the dowager countess a matter of months after her husband saved the estate from upheaval. In her absence administration was granted to the dowager countess of Northampton, who later faced claims by Joan Roche, another of the sisters and Lady Dorset’s executrix, that she had been deprived of her rights to a bequest of £1,000.<sup>156</sup> Dorset was succeeded in the peerage by his only surviving legitimate son, Buckhurst, as 7th earl of Dorset. He had left the estate in so considerable a state of dilapidation that his kinsman, Spencer Compton, the future earl of Wilmington, estimated that what only seven years before had generated an annual income in excess of £7,000 could only be expected to provide an annual allowance of £800 for the new earl. In the light of such difficulties, Compton advised the young lord to remain abroad until he came of age.<sup>157</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SACKVILLE, Lionel Cranfield (1688-1765) |
<p><strong><surname>SACKVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Lionel Cranfield</strong> (1688–1765)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Lord Buckhurst 1687-1706; <em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Jan. 1706 (a minor) as 7th earl of DORSET and 2nd earl of MIDDLESEX; <em>cr. </em>17 June 1720 duke of DORSET |
|
First sat 19 Jan. 1708; last sat 1 June 1759 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Jan. 1687, o. s. of Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset and earl of Middlesex, and 2nd w. Lady Mary Compton (<em>d</em>.1691), da. of James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton. <em>educ</em>. Westminster; travelled abroad (Holland, Germany, Italy) 1705–7;<sup>1</sup> DCL Oxf. 1730. <em>m</em>. Jan. 1709, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1768), da. of lt. gen. Walter Colyear, 3s. 3da. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> KG 1714. <em>d</em>. 10 Oct. 1765; <em>will</em> 10 June 1755–6 Dec. 1764, pr. 7 Nov. 1765.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1714–17; ld. steward 1725–30, 1737–45; ld. lt. [I], 1730–7, 1750–5; ld. pres. of the Council 1745–51; master of the horse 1755–7.</p><p>Warden of the cinque ports 1708–13,<sup>4</sup> 1714–17, 1728–65; freeman, Hythe 1711<sup>5</sup>; high steward Stratford-upon-Avon 1708,<sup>6</sup> Tamworth 1729;<sup>7</sup> <em>custos rot.</em> Kent 1724–65; ld. lt. Kent 1746–65; v.-adm. of the coast 1725–65.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by G. Kneller, 1710–12, NPG 3205; oil on canvas by G. Kneller, 1717, National Trust, Knole, Kent; oil on canvas by G. Kneller, 1719, Government Art Collection.</p> |
<p>Buckhurst’s forenames bore testimony to his descent from James I’s minister, Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, earl of Middlesex. His father had pressed for the first, his grandmother for the second, and one witness at his baptism on 24 Jan. suggested that, ‘if Charles had been added then there would have been names enough to please everyone, for I think my lady the mother gave preference to that name’.<sup>8</sup> After his mother’s death, Buckhurst’s education was largely entrusted to his grandmother, the dowager countess of Northampton.<sup>9</sup> In 1705 he departed for a foreign tour and it was while he was still abroad in Holland that he succeeded to the earldom. At the time of his succession the family was riven by divisions, largely resulting from his father’s marriage to his former housekeeper. During his minority, management of the young lord’s estates was supervised by his grandmother and his uncle Sir Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Wilmington.<sup>10</sup></p><p>In April 1706 Dorset accompanied Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, to Hanover to present the Electress Sophia with a copy of the Act of Settlement and the electoral prince, George Augustus*, created duke of Cambridge later that year (the future King George II), with the order of the garter. He then seems to have proceeded to Italy, remaining there until the early summer of 1707. By mid-July he was back in Holland, where he paused to consider whether to return to England or wait for John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, so that he could accompany him on campaign.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Although underage at the time of his succession to the peerage, Dorset was disappointed not to be appointed to the lord lieutenancy of Sussex vacated by the 6th earl’s demise.<sup>12</sup> Both Spencer Compton and Halifax were at pains to assure him that the decision not to appoint him to the lieutenancy was in no way intended as a slight and, following their return to England, Halifax informed him that he had</p><blockquote><p>acquainted my Lord Treasurer [Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin] that I found your lordship concerned that the lieutenancy of Sussex was so disposed, and he expressed himself to be very sorry that you had any mortification upon that or any other account. He explained the matter just as I had done to you before and desired me to assure your lordship that whenever there is an occasion for the queen to show her favour to your lordship you will be sensible this was not done out of any disrespect or unkindness …<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>In October 1707 it was reported that Dorset was to take his seat in the House but in the event it was not until 19 Jan. 1708, the day after his 21st birthday, that he first entered the chamber. He was thereafter present on 46 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>14</sup> On 5 Feb. he voted with the majority in favour of dissolving the Scots Privy Council on 1 May rather than delaying its suppression until October.<sup>15</sup> Marked a Whig in a list of lords’ party affiliations in May, following the dissolution Dorset employed the family interest successfully to secure the return of Richard Lumley<sup>‡</sup> at East Grinstead.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Following the death of the queen’s husband, Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, in October, Dorset was appointed to the wardenship of the cinque ports. His appointment provoked the annoyance of his neighbour in Kent Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, who had served under Prince George as deputy warden. Westmorland chose to resign his office rather than submit to serving under the young peer.<sup>17</sup> Even so, Dorset maintained the strong tradition of adherence to the Whigs in the cinque ports and in Dec. 1709 one of the sitting Members for Dover, Matthew Aylmer<sup>‡</sup>, was returned without challenge at a by-election triggered by his acceptance of a ministerial post.<sup>18</sup> Dorset took his seat in the House for the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on 78 per cent of all sitting days. In December, it was speculated that he might marry one of the younger daughters of Sir John Brownlow<sup>‡</sup>, but in January 1709 he was married privately to Elizabeth Colyear (niece of David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S]), one of the queen’s maids of honour and with whom he had long been associated.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Dorset did not allow his changed circumstances to interfere with his attendance at Parliament. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scottish representative peers and on 26 Jan. he acted as one of the tellers on the question of bringing in counsel to advise in the matter of the Scots peers. On 14 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the act for reversing the outlawry of Elianor Bagot, which was agreed with amendments, and on 15 Mar. he acted as a teller for the motion whether to commit the foreign Protestants naturalization bill. Dorset was one of several peers to gather for dinner at the home of his Sussex neighbour Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, on 3 Apr., and on 14 Apr. he acted as one of the tellers in the division over the insertion of an amendment to the Union improvement bill.<sup>20</sup></p><p>In August 1709, eight months after his appointment as lord warden, Dorset finally assumed his office.<sup>21</sup> He was sworn in formally and marked the occasion by holding a feast in celebration at a cost of more than £214.<sup>22</sup> The secrecy of Dorset’s marriage to Elizabeth Colyear continued to be maintained throughout much of the year and in October it was rumoured that she was to marry either Dorset or the Dutch diplomatist Monsieur Hop.<sup>23</sup> It was only with Lady Dorset’s pregnancy the following month that news of their marriage became commonly known.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Dorset took his seat in the second session on 15 Nov. but his attendance declined slightly, with him being present on approximately 41 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Feb. 1710 he acted as one of the tellers in the division whether to adjourn the House during consideration of the cause of <em>Peterborough v. Germaine</em>. The principal action of the session, the trial of Dr Sacheverell, failed to grip Dorset: he found the occasion distinctly tedious and distasteful. On 7 Mar. he complained that ‘nobody can give a judgment when this nasty trial will be over’, and two days later lamented, ‘God only knows when this fine trial will be at an end.’<sup>25</sup> However dull he found the process, Dorset was convinced of the doctor’s culpability and on 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Three days later he acted as teller for those in favour of resuming the House from a committee of the whole considering the gaming bill.</p><p>Dorset was prominent in his support for one of the two loyal addresses presented to the queen by the gentlemen of Kent during the summer of 1710. The Whig address, which he sponsored, was presented by the county’s members, Sir Thomas Palmer<sup>‡</sup> and David Polhill<sup>‡</sup>, while a rival address by the Tory sheriff was championed by Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort.<sup>26</sup> Dorset’s partisan support for the Whigs in the county inspired his Tory neighbour Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, to advise William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, of the necessity of removing Dorset from office because his actions were encouraging ‘the choice of those who are entirely against the queen’s measures’.<sup>27</sup> No doubt as a result of Jersey’s manoeuvrings, in September it was reported (inaccurately) that he had replaced Dorset as lord warden.<sup>28</sup></p><p>One correspondent suggested that it was during the elections in Kent that autumn that Dorset, ‘having espoused the interest of the whiggish party’, had his family motto altered from ‘<em>tous jours loyal’</em> (always loyal) to ‘<em>aut nunquam tentes, aut perfice’</em> (do it perfectly or do not try at all).<sup>29</sup> It is possible that Dorset made a point of employing the latter during the contest but in reality it was a motto that had been associated with the Sackvilles for a number of years. In spite of such posturing and the combination of his interest with that of the lord lieutenant, Dorset was unable to prevent the Tories capturing the county seats in the general election. He had better success at Dover, where the sitting members, Aylmer and Philip Papillon<sup>‡</sup>, were returned without opposition, and at Rye, where he was able to ensure the re-election of Sir John Norris<sup>‡</sup> and Phillips Gybbon<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>30</sup> Dorset also succeeded in maintaining his position as warden of the cinque ports but following the election he was assessed by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as an opponent of the new ministry. Harley’s assessment was soon to be borne out by Dorset’s behaviour in the new session.</p><p>Dorset took his seat a few days after the opening of Parliament on 4 Dec. 1710, after which he was present on half of all sitting days. On 11 Jan. 1711 he acted as one of the tellers for the division concerning the petitions of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I]. The same day he subscribed the protests at the resolution to reject the petitions and to agree with the committee that the defeat at Alamanza was occasioned by their opinions and that of General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope. The following day, Dorset subscribed a further protest at the resolution to censure the ministers responsible for prosecuting the campaign. Closely involved with the passage of the game bill, on 12 May he was nominated one of the managers of what proved to be a series of conferences with the Commons considering the measure. The same day he reported from the first conference on the subject, explaining the Commons’ refusal to accept a clause added to the bill by the Lords. In response, the House appointed a committee to consider what could be offered to the Commons at a further conference, from which Dorset also reported back the same day. On 17 May he reported from a subsequent conference held with the Commons on the game bill and from the committee of the whole considering heads for a further joint conference. He then reported the progress made on the bill at the third conference held with the Commons. Dorset registered his proxy with Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, on 19 May, which was vacated by his return to the House on 30 May.</p><p>The birth of a son in early 1711 had provided Dorset with an opportunity of cementing family ties while also making overtures to one of the senior members of the administration. Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, were thus invited to stand as godfathers to the young Charles Sackville<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Buckhurst (later 2nd duke of Dorset).<sup>31</sup> Dorset’s own loyalties remained firmly Whig and during the summer he was accused of employing his interest at Hythe alongside that of the mayor to ensure the creation of a number of new freemen to the detriment of the Tories. Dorset himself was one of those awarded freedom of the town, while one of the Tory members for the borough, William Berners<sup>‡</sup>, was barred. Despite Dorset’s efforts, at the subsequent election in 1713 Tory candidates again secured both seats.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Having taken his seat at the opening of the second session of the 1710 Parliament on 7 Dec. 1711, Dorset was present for just under 60 per cent of all sitting days. The following day he joined a number of peers and members of the Commons dining at the <em>Queen’s Arms</em> in company with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>33</sup> The same day (8 Dec.) he was included on a list of those in opposition to the ministry on the question of presenting the address complete with the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause and two days later he was noted as one of the officeholders to have voted against the ministry on the issue. On 19 Dec. Dorset was forecast as opposing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], taking his seat in the House as duke of Brandon but the next day he voted against preventing Scots peers from sitting in the House by virtue of post-Union British peerages. Dorset registered his proxy with William Villiers*, 2nd earl of Jersey, the more amenable son of his old rival, on 9 Feb. 1712 (possibly to be used in the division of 11 Feb. on the Scottish Episcopal communion bill), which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 14 February. On 19 May he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to adjourn during consideration of the grants bill and the following day he received the proxy of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis (possibly to be employed in the division on the grants bill on 20 May), which was vacated by Cornwallis’ resumption of his seat on 24 May. On 28 May Dorset voted with the ministry against moving for an address to the queen seeking to overturn the orders preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from pursuing an offensive strategy.</p><p>Dorset attended five of the prorogation days between January and March 1713. He then took his seat at the beginning of the new session on 9 Apr., after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. In anticipation of the session, Jonathan Swift assessed him as a likely opponent of the ministry. At the beginning of June Dorset introduced the members for Dover to the queen, and they presented her with the town’s address.<sup>34</sup> On about 13 June he was listed as likely to oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French treaty of commerce. The same month he was replaced as warden of the cinque ports by Ormond.<sup>35</sup> In a letter of 19 June, William Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, ‘wondered less at his going out than his staying in so long when he opposed the court in every thing’. He put Dorset’s eventual removal down to his failure to support the passing of the malt bill, despite his assurances to the contrary.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Dorset’s uncle Spencer Compton was returned for East Grinstead at the general election, doubtless on the Sackville interest.<sup>37</sup> Dorset took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714 and attended on 82 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 Mar. he received the proxy of Henry Grey*, duke of Kent, which was vacated on 5 Apr. (Kent may have been eager to ensure that his voice was not lost in any divisions concerning the Protestant succession, the first of which was held on the day of his return to the House). On 17 Apr. he acted as one of the tellers in a division held in a committee of the whole considering the place bill and on 11 May he again received Cornwallis’ proxy, which was vacated on 26 May. Dorset received Kent’s proxy again on 13 May (vacated on 26 May) and at the end of May or beginning of June he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being opposed to the schism bill. On 9 June he was again one of the tellers for a division in a committee of the whole considering the Schism bill and on 15 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the measure. Absent from the House for about a week at the close of the month, on 29 June he registered his proxy with Kent (perhaps to be used in the division on the examination of accounts bill on 30 June), which was vacated by his return to the House on 2 July. On 8 July he acted as teller for the contents on the question of the Spanish commercial treaty.</p><p>Dorset was in attendance at Kensington during the last day of the queen’s life. Immediately following her death he wrote optimistically to his wife, ‘I believe the great men of yesterday will submit very quietly.’<sup>38</sup> Having attended just one day of the brief August session he was despatched to Hanover to convey the news of the queen’s death to George I.<sup>39</sup> During his absence his proxy was entrusted to John Campbell*, duke of Argyll [S] (sitting in the House as earl of Greenwich). Rewarded for his support for the Hanoverian succession by the new regime, Dorset was reappointed to the wardenship of the cinque ports and in September he became a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, along with his kinsman James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley.<sup>40</sup> In October both Lady Dorset and Lady Berkeley were appointed ladies of the bedchamber to Caroline, princess of Wales.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Dorset continued to enjoy the favour of George I and George II. In the summer of 1715 he was thought to be one of the competitors for the lord chamberlaincy and, although he failed to secure this place and was one of those put out of office in 1717, in 1720 he was promoted in the peerage as duke of Dorset. He then continued to hold a variety of prominent offices for the remainder of his life.<sup>42</sup> The details of the latter half of his career will be dealt with in the next phase of this work. Dorset attended the House for the final time on 1 June 1759. He died six years later on 10 Oct. 1765. In his will he constituted his widow as sole executrix and he was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, Charles Sackville, Lord Middlesex, as 2nd duke of Dorset.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SACKVILLE, Richard (1622-77) |
<p><strong><surname>SACKVILLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1622–77)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1624-52 Ld. Buckhurst; <em>suc. </em>fa. 18 July 1652 as 5th earl of DORSET |
|
First sat 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 16 July 1677 |
|
MP East Grinstead 1640-4 |
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Sept. 1622, 1st s. of Edward Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Dorset, and Mary Curzon (<em>d</em>.1645). <em>educ</em>. privately (by Joseph Rutter); adm. I. Temple, 3 Nov. 1661.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (settlement 25 Jan. 1641)<sup>2</sup> (with £10,000 and £1,500 p.a.) Frances (<em>d</em>. 20 Apr. 1687),<sup>3</sup> da. of Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, earl of Middlesex, and Anne Brett,<sup>4</sup> 7s. (4 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 6da. (3 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>5</sup> <em>d</em>. 27 Aug. 1677; <em>will</em> 5 Jan. 1674, pr. 1 Sept. 1677.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Jt. ld. lt. Mdx. 1660-2,<sup>7</sup> Suss. 1670-7;<sup>8</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. Suss. 1670-7;<sup>9</sup> master of Ashdown Forest, Suss. 1660;<sup>10</sup> ranger of Broyle Park, Suss. by 1667.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Steward duchy of Lancaster, Suss. 1660-<em>d</em>.; sewer at coronation of Charles II.</p><p>FRS, 3 May 1665.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by R. Walker, c.1650, National Trust, Knole; oil on canvas by Sir A. Van Dyck, c.1645, Knole.<sup>15</sup></p> |
<p>From faltering beginnings as the heir to an encumbered estate, which was further incommoded by fines and confiscations under the commonwealth, Buckhurst (as he was styled prior to his succession to the peerage) progressed to become one of the most active committeemen in the restored House. He was one of a small cadre of peers who appear to have relished the minutiae of the House’s business and who put their expertise as committee managers to good use in upholding the privileges of the chamber.</p><p>As such he was perhaps just following a long family tradition. The Sackvilles, originally from Sussex, had flourished as administrators under the Tudors. During the early years of the 17th century they added the palatial house at Knole to their holdings. Although translated to Kent, they retained an active interest in their Sussex estates based on their original seat, Buckhurst House, as well as in several other counties.<sup>16</sup> Through marriage the Sackvilles were connected to a number of prominent noble families, among them the Tuftons, Comptons and Cliffords, though such close ties rarely made for harmonious relations. Much of this substantial inheritance was frittered away by Buckhurst’s uncle, the profligate Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset, who left it to his brother to restore the family’s fortunes.</p><h2><em>Civil wars and Interregnum</em></h2><p>In 1640 Buckhurst was returned for both Steyning and East Grinstead through his father’s influence aged just 18.<sup>17</sup> He chose to sit for the latter. He was a supporter of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, and was one of those to vote against Strafford’s impeachment in 1641. The following year, Buckhurst withdrew from the Commons and rallied to the king at York. Unlike both his father and younger brother, though, he appears to have backed away from armed participation in the Civil War. Even so, in November he was arrested along with Sir Kenelm Digby and his brother-in-law, James Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Middlesex, on suspicion of raising troops for the royalist cause.<sup>18</sup> Buckhurst was released the following year but in 1644 he was disabled from sitting in the Commons. In July he was assessed at £1,500 and in 1645 the sequestrators seized part of his property. Buckhurst petitioned successfully for a delay. He was able to secure a fifth of his estate and leased Dorset House in London to Theophilus Clinton<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Lincoln.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Buckhurst’s marriage, which had been brokered by Digby, brought additional influence in London and Essex as well as a substantial fortune, though it took a number of years for Buckhurst to secure payment of all that was due to him.<sup>20</sup> In 1650 he brought an action in chancery against his brother-in-law for payment of the marriage portion. Buckhurst claimed to be owed £1,700 from his father-in-law, the first earl, and that the total arrears amounted to £7,100.<sup>21</sup> Middlesex denied that Buckhurst was due the sums he mentioned and in 1651 entered a counter suit arguing that Buckhurst had already received £6,000 of the marriage portion and that he did not have sufficient assets to pay the remainder.<sup>22</sup> Middlesex’s death in September further delayed matters and it was not until 1655 that Dorset (as Buckhurst had since become) finally secured a settlement from the new earl, Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In February 1656 Dorset was granted leave to travel to France through the influence of another brother-in-law, Edmund Sheffield<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Mulgrave.<sup>24</sup> He set out in 1657 and remained abroad until July 1658, lodging in Paris with his old associate, Digby.<sup>25</sup> The reason for the delay in his departure was presumably his being again troubled by land seizures, this time involving part of the Cranfield estates in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. He was also ordered to appear before the commissioners of London and the Guildhall on account of a ‘misinformation of delinquency’. In the latter case, a recommendation was made for him to be discharged.<sup>26</sup> The same year (1657), Dorset was one of the beneficiaries of the death of Bridget, countess of Lindsey, widow of his uncle, Edward Sackville. By her death Dorset succeeded to estates in Hereford and Worcester.<sup>27</sup> The same period witnessed the beginnings of a lengthy dispute between Dorset, his numerous cousins, and Lady Anne Clifford, widow of another uncle, Richard Sackville, 3rd earl of Dorset. The disagreements, which rumbled on into the following decade, threatened to sunder Dorset’s usual alliance with the Comptons as Lady Anne joined with her sons-in-law, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, and John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet, against Dorset and Charles Howard*, later earl of Carlisle, in a series of chancery actions over rent charges at Sackville College in Sussex.<sup>28</sup> A brief respite was achieved through the interposition of Lady Anne’s daughter, Isabella, countess of Northampton. Dorset wrote thanking his cousin for her assistance. He lauded the:</p><blockquote><p>restorer of this poor family, which madam, truly without such kind and noble care, must needs, in a few years, come to its last period, having been shaken now almost these thirty years with continual wasting and losses of the estate; my father having not left behind him, £610 a year… and but for some accessions of fortune, and those but small ones elsewhere, your ladyship had had one of the poorest earls in England to your cousin…<sup>29</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite such difficulties, and his claim to be ‘one of the poorest earls’, by March 1657 Dorset was estimated to have an annual income of £2,556.<sup>30</sup></p><h2><em>The Restoration and after 1660-66</em></h2><p>Although Dorset had remained aloof from direct political activity during the Interregnum, he exerted himself during the elections for the Convention, when he appears to have employed his interest on behalf of Marmaduke Gresham<sup>‡</sup> at East Grinstead. He was also active in the elections for Kent.<sup>31</sup> At the forefront of the ‘young royalists’ whose admission to the Lords was initially opposed by George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, Dorset, in company with his brother-in-law, Middlesex, was one of the first peers to take his seat in the re-constituted House of Lords. Their appearance was said to have caused ‘some distaste in the old lords but no disturbance’.<sup>32</sup> Demonstrating his clear commitment to the Restoration, he attended approximately 87 per cent of sitting days in the first session and rapidly established himself as one of the most effective (and hard-working) of the committeemen. Over the ensuing years he presided over a large number of committees and conferences and was prominent as a regular chairman of the sessional committees for privileges and petitions.<sup>33</sup> Dorset’s previous experience of the Commons may be one reason for his regular employment as a committee chairman. On 26 Apr. he was named to the committee established to prepare an ordinance for Monck to be captain general. The following day he was nominated to the committee detailed to draw up an ordinance for a committee of safety as well as to the committee for privileges. On 1 May Dorset was nominated to the sub-committee for the Journal and on 2 May to the committee for petitions. Two days later, he reported from the committee for privileges concerning the petition of William Sandys*, 6th Baron Sandys, to sit in the House, and concerning the judgment given in July 1642 against Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Northampton. The House ordered that in the latter case, Dorset and three other peers should meet to draw up an order repealing the judgment. The same day (4 May), Dorset reported on a third case, concerning a draft order touching the business of the impeached lords.</p><p>Besides his workload in the House, Dorset also seems to have been eager to influence the shape of the Restoration settlement. Before the king’s return, on 7 May he had written to the king at Breda pledging his support; arguing in favour of a widespread amnesty he advised Charles to settle the question of sequestrated land through purchase rather than confiscation.<sup>34</sup> In terms of a religious settlement, he appears to have favoured a broad toleration, thinking it unreasonable to persecute on the grounds of difference of opinion.<sup>35</sup></p><p>For the time being Dorset’s focus remained on the management of a number of the House’s committees. On 9 May he reported from the committee for drawing up an ordinance for settling the militia, which was then recommitted. The next day Dorset chaired the privileges committee established to receive information concerning restitution of the king’s goods and on 14 May he was named to the committee considering the petition of Charles Stanhope*, Baron Stanhope, concerning the post office.<sup>36</sup> Continuing his involvement with efforts to overturn the measures taken against the Lords during the Civil War and Interregnum, on 15 May Dorset was named to the committee for repealing ordinances made since the suppression of the House in 1649. The following day, he reported from the committee for the king’s reception (to which he had been named on 8 May), which estimated the cost of the event to be £14,501 19s.<sup>37</sup> Dorset reported from two further committees on 17 and 22 May. On 26 May he was named to that concerning the king’s safety and on 30 May to the committee established to attend the king about James Stuart*, duke of York, and Henry Stuart*, duke of Gloucester.</p><p>After this feverish opening it is perhaps surprising that Dorset was not named to any committees in June 1660. It is possible that this was due to concentration on local affairs and that he was focused on settling his own business. On 22 June he was one of the signatories to the address of the Kentish gentry welcoming the king’s return and at the end of that month he was granted permission to search for goods lost or seized during the Interregnum.<sup>38</sup> Following this brief respite Dorset resumed his committee activities in July. On 2 July he was named to the committee considering the petition of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, and his son, Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Wentworth. On 4 July he was named to the committee established to consider the act confirming the privileges of Parliament and on 16 July to that concerning the sewers bill. On 19 July he was again nominated to a committee concerning the Lords’ judicature and on 23 July to that considering the bill for John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester. On 4 Aug. he was named to a further committee considering a private bill, that for George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.</p><p>On 10 Aug. Dorset was given leave of absence for his health but he was away for little more than a week. On 18 Aug. he was back in the House and nominated to the committee considering the validity of the patent purporting to be authority for the creation as duke of Beaufort of Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester. On 3 Sept. Dorset was added to the committee considering the bill for draining the Fens in Lincolnshire and on 5 Sept. to the committee established to draw up a bill restoring the dukedom of Norfolk to Thomas Howard*, earl of Arundel (later 5th duke of Norfolk). The following day, Dorset reported from the committees considering the bill for bringing in grants and patents and that deliberating over the bill for William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset. Dorset’s interests in Essex may have influenced his nomination to the committee considering the bill concerning baize making at Colchester on 6 September. The following day he was named to the committees concerning the bill for disbanding the army and for the college leases bill. Prior to the adjournment he was named to three more committees.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Dorset turned his attention to his own affairs again in October 1660 when he submitted a petition requesting a grant out of the estate of the regicide John Lisle<sup>‡</sup>, or some alternative, by way of recompense for his mother’s guardianship of the king and his brothers during the Civil War.<sup>40</sup> Over the ensuing few years, Dorset launched a series of similar petitions seeking some form of restitution for his family’s losses.</p><p>Dorset took his seat in the second session of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660. The same day he was nominated to the committee considering a bill for Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour. Dorset reported from the committee three days later when he was also named to the committee considering the bill to confirm marriages.<sup>41</sup> On 10 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the bill for repairing highways. Dorset was named to a further five committees during the remainder of the session: he reported from four of these.<sup>42</sup> As before he combined his activities with concentration on his own concerns and on 13 Nov. the House took into consideration a bill for settling a rent charge issuing out of Knole as well as other lands in Sussex.</p><p>The elections for the new Parliament found Dorset employing his interest on behalf of his son, Charles Sackville*, Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset) at East Grinstead. The other seat was retained by George Courthope<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>43</sup> Having taken his seat at the opening of the new Parliament, Dorset resumed his activities in the House, attending 86 per cent of sitting days. On 11 May 1661 he was named to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions and the sub-committee for the Journal and three days later he was named to the committee considering the bill reversing Strafford’s attainder. Dorset had opposed the bill 20 years earlier and was now a driving force behind the reversal, chairing a number of the committee’s sessions along with his kinsman, Northampton.<sup>44</sup> He reported from the committee on 21 May and recommended the bill as fit to pass with some amendments.<sup>45</sup> The House finally passed the bill on 8 Feb. the following year. Efforts to render the original impeachment null and void, possibly favoured by Dorset, failed to be realized.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Besides his efforts with the Strafford bill, Dorset was once again busy in overseeing a number of committees in the session. On 16 May he chaired a session of the committee considering the bill to prevent tumults and reported the committee’s findings to the House the next day.<sup>47</sup> Following a lengthy debate the bill was recommitted. Two days later Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, reported from the committee considering Dorset’s bill for settling a rent charge of £130 p.a. out of the manor of Knole, which was ordered to be engrossed.<sup>48</sup> On 22 May he was granted leave of absence along with his brother-in-law, Middlesex. Dorset resumed his seat on 31 May. In July he seems to have been the intended recipient of Middlesex’s proxy, though this was not entered in the proxy book.<sup>49</sup> Although it was not until 10 June that he was nominated to any further committees, Dorset’s familiar pattern of committee activity was rapidly resumed. During the remainder of the session he was named to more than 50 committees.<sup>50</sup> On 5 June he chaired the committee considering the bill for making the rivers Salwarpe and Stour navigable, and the following day he chaired the first of several sessions of the committee for the Lindsey Level bill. On 28 June Dorset was named to the committee deliberating on the sanguinary laws. The same day he chaired the first of a number of sessions considering Sir Anthony Browne’s bill. On 5 July he was named to the committee considering the act for the relief of the poor of London. He also chaired a session of the committee considering John Harbin’s bill, which he reported to the House the following day. On 9 July, Dorset, the committee chairman, Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth) and John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, were ordered to hear the parties involved in Sir Edward Moseley’s<sup>‡</sup> bill, and the same day a similar order was made for Dorset, Lucas and Richard Vaughan*, 2nd earl of Carbery [I] (sitting as Baron Vaughan), to hear the parties concerned in Sir Anthony Browne’s bill.<sup>51</sup> On 10 July the Commons agreed to pass Dorset’s own bill with some amendments and the same day Dorset was named to the committee for the bill for regulating the Navy. Two days later he reported from the committee considering the corporation of Worcester bill and on 15 July he reported from the committee for the Droitwich bill. The following day, Dorset was named to the committee established to prepare a bill concerning the penal laws against Roman Catholics and on 18 July to that considering the bill for regulating corporations. On 20 July Dorset chaired a further session of the committee considering Sir Anthony Browne’s bill.<sup>52</sup> He also reported from the committee for the Hatfield Level bill. Three days later he was named to the committee for the bill for pains and penalties on persons excepted from the act of indemnity.</p><p>Dorset was reckoned an opponent of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his efforts to secure the office of lord great chamberlain. Presumably, he preferred the claims of his kinsman, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey. Dorset’s focus, though, seems to have been the prospective return of the bishops to their places in the Lords. In notes or a draft of a speech on the subject, perhaps for the debates on the bill for their restoration in late June, he argued powerfully in favour of their restoration, stressing that even had they consented to their exclusion in 1642, the lords spiritual could have had no authority to do so, being a fundamental constituent element of the constitution. He went on to argue that, ‘the bishops are as anciently temporal peers, and members of the lords’ house, as any sitting there.’ He emphasized the vital role of the bishops as, ‘one of the three estates, which together are called lords spiritual and temporal, and commons assembled in Parliament’ and warned that ‘they cannot be excluded by the king and the other two estates; the consequence of that being the inevitable destruction of the Parliament.’<sup>53</sup> The bishops were to return to their seats after the adjournment on 20 November.</p><p>Following the summer recess, Dorset was once more active as a committee chairman. On 22 Nov. he reported from the committee for the bill for settling the Fens and on 23 and 26 Nov. he chaired sessions of the committee considering the bill for confirming private acts. Dorset’s committee activity tailed off the following month with him being named to just two committees. He resumed his usual levels of activity in the New Year. Named to 10 committees in January 1662, on 16 Jan. he chaired sessions of the committees considering the bill for Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and the heralds’ bill. Dorset chaired three separate committees on 18 Jan. and on 20 Jan. he reported again from the committee for Sir Anthony Browne’s bill. Between 21 Jan. and 8 Feb. he chaired sessions of the committee for the earl of Huntingdon’s bill, and on 28 Jan. he reported from the committee for the bill for registering sales and pawns.<sup>54</sup> Following a debate in the House on the bill for confirming three acts and a subsequent tied vote on the matter, Dorset intervened to remind his colleagues that in such cases ‘<em>semper</em> <em>praesumitur</em> <em>pro</em> <em>negante</em>’ (it is always presumed in favour of the negative): the House accordingly recorded a negative vote.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Although Dorset was not among the Lords registering a formal protest on 6 Feb. at the passage of the bill restoring Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to properties sold during the commonwealth, he clearly objected to the measure as he was among those listed as ‘protesting’ against its passage. His dislike of the bill was consistent with his earlier advice to the king about the best way to approach the question of lands that had been alienated during the Interregnum.<sup>56</sup> Dorset reported from the committee for the bankrupts’ bill on 13 Feb. and on 14 Feb. from that considering Huntingdon’s bill. On 18 Feb. he was added to the committee considering the bill for the marquess of Winchester and the following day he reported from the committee for privileges on the dispute between John Holles*, 2nd earl of Clare, and William Egerton ‘the Scavenger’ for a breach of privilege. The committee recommended that Egerton be kept in custody at the House’s pleasure, though Clare himself showed greater mercy. It was agreed subsequently that Egerton should be brought before the bar to make his submission to the House the following day.</p><p>Named to 12 committees in March 1662, on 19 Mar. Dorset reported from that considering his cousin Thanet’s title in Milward’s bill. Dorset was also closely involved in the debates surrounding the uniformity bill. He laid out his concerns in a draft speech, acknowledging that he was one of those who had voted in favour of the bill’s commitment:</p><blockquote><p>Your lordships do all very well remember that the act of uniformity does among other things, especially and peremptorily enjoin the renouncing of the Covenant, to all those that shall be capable of any ecclesiastical advancement or office; now my lords, if by the power given in this enacting part his majesty shall at any time admit by his dispensation any person to an ecclesiastical promotion, the said person so admitted must either be a knave, if he does not by his preaching and doctrine endeavour the extirpation and abolishing of episcopacy to which the Covenant does so absolutely and positively oblige him; and for the adhering to which he was ejected; or else the king be unhappily the occasion of bringing a man into the Church that must necessarily endeavour in his calling and to the best of his power the ruin of that government under which himself is placed a member by the king as aforesaid. This dilemma or scruple my lords my weak logic could not solve to myself; and therefore, I do humbly leave it to your lordships’ better judgments; to resolve only with this profession, that I do think this act in the end and scope of it, is a very necessary and at present a very desirable one.<sup>57</sup></p></blockquote><p>Dorset was named to just six committees in April 1662 and one in May but his involvement in the House’s business remained as keen as ever.<sup>58</sup> He took a leading role in the passage of the glass bottles bill. Hearings of the committee on this measure extended for almost exactly a year between April 1662 and April 1663.<sup>59</sup> Personal interest may have played a part in Dorset’s involvement as one of the interested parties was his old companion, Kenelm Digby. Two days before the close of the session, Dorset was one of the lords named as a reporter of a conference with the Commons concerning a number of bills before them prior to the prorogation of 19 May.</p><p>In 1662, Dorset was removed as joint lord lieutenant of Middlesex. The reason for his removal is unclear, as discussions in the Privy Council between the king and Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, indicate that it was hoped Dorset would remain in office joined by Sir William Compton<sup>‡</sup> in the new commission. The primary objective of the reorganization appears to have been the removal of Dorset’s colleague, Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, who had gained an unenviable reputation for ineffectiveness and incompetence, but Dorset may have refused to continue in post without Berkshire.<sup>60</sup> The following year, Dorset experienced a different kind of setback when the Sackville family tombs were destroyed in a fire at the church at Withyham. The cost of rebuilding the church was estimated at £1,679 6s. 8d., and work was not completed there until after Dorset’s death.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Dorset returned to the House for the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, after which he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days. As usual he was named to the sessional committee for privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal. The following week he was also named to the committee for petitions and on 6 Mar. he was named to the committee for the bill to prevent stoppages in Westminster streets. The same day Dorset submitted a petition to be restored to the advowson of St Dunstan’s in the West, which he had been forced to surrender during the Interregnum. The House ordered that one Roger Lambert, who was believed to be in possession of the necessary legal documents, should make them over to Dorset. Named to a further seven committees during the month, Dorset resumed his chairmanship of the committee considering the glass bottles bill on 21 March.<sup>62</sup> On 2 Apr. the committee resolved by a vote of eight to two to report their progress in the business.<sup>63</sup> Dorset duly reported from the committee on 4 April. The same day he was named to the committee considering a bill for Charles Weston*, 3rd earl of Portland, and Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>. On 6 Apr. he was named to the committee considering a bill for Lucas and Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, and on 9 Apr. he requested that the committee considering the bill to prevent stoppages in Westminster’s streets be permitted the assistance of a judge in composing some new clauses. On 11 Apr. Dorset reported back from the committee for Portland and Whitelocke’s bill. Personal interest may have been involved with his nomination to the committee considering the Ashdown forest bill the same day, from which he also reported back the following month on 9 May 1663. Later that month, when Dorset reported to the House difficulties with the bill for making certain rivers in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire navigable the House determined that counsel should be heard at the bar of the House to resolve the problems.<sup>64</sup> On 1 June Dorset reported from the committee for petitions the application of Fuller Meade to be heard by the House, but his request was later dismissed. Dorset was named to just two more committees in June.<sup>65</sup> On 3 July he reported from the committee for the heralds’ bill and in the course of the month he was named to another eight committees.<sup>66</sup> Marked uncertain by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in relation to Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon, Dorset’s attention seems to have remained on his committee work.<sup>67</sup> On 18 July he was nominated one of the commissioners for assessing the peers and on 25 July he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill amending the act of uniformity.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Dorset returned to the House for the following session on 16 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days. In the course of the session he was named to the usual sessional committees as well as to an additional 11 committees.<sup>69</sup> On 23 Mar. he chaired a session of the committee considering the writs of error bill and reported its findings to the House later the same day. Five days later, along with William Craven*, earl of Craven, he was ordered to investigate how money collected for the benefit of indigent widows had been distributed by the clerk of the crown. On 21 Apr. Dorset chaired a session of the committee considering the Ingoldsby Manor bill and the following day Dorset was named to the committee for the Falmouth parish church bill. He chaired the first session of the committee on 26 Apr. and a further session three days later at which it was resolved to report the bill with amendments as fit to be engrossed. He reported the bill to the House following a further session of the committee held on 4 May, at which it was agreed to omit one of the provisos by five votes to two. On 9 May he was named to the committee for Sir William Keyte’s bill and proceeded to chair the committee’s first session that day.<sup>70</sup> The same day Robert Bruce*, earl of Elgin [S] (later earl of Ailesbury) wrote to Dorset asking that he ensure consideration of the Malvern chase bill be adjourned until the following morning, when Elgin would be able to attend.<sup>71</sup> Dorset reported the findings of the committee for Sir William Keyte’s bill on 12 May and the same day he also reported from the committee considering Sir Sackville Glemham’s bill (presumably a distant kinsman).</p><p>Dorset returned to the House following the summer prorogation in November 1664 and resumed his activities as a committee workhorse. On 25 Nov. he was nominated to the sessional committees and he was named to a further five committees in December.<sup>72</sup> On 14 Dec. he chaired the first of a series of committee sessions considering the Deeping Fen bill, and on 17 Dec. that considering Samuel Sandys’ bill. He reported back from the latter on 19 December. Following a brief recess, Dorset resumed his seat on 14 Jan. and the same day chaired sessions of the committees considering the highways bill and the bill to make certain rivers in Hampshire navigable. He chaired a further session of this committee on 16 January. The following day he chaired a brief meeting of the committee for the duchy of Cornwall bill and on 18 Jan. he chaired a session of the committee for Sir Edward Hungerford’s<sup>‡</sup> bill. Two days later, following a further session on the same matter, he reported its findings to the House.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Over the course of the next two months Dorset was named to a further 15 committees.<sup>74</sup> On 31 Jan. 1665 he was named to that considering a bill for his cousin, Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, and on 11 Feb. he chaired a session of the committee considering the bill for Joseph Micklethwaite. He reported from the committee two days later.<sup>75</sup> The same day (13 Feb.) he was named to the committee considering the Yarmouth fishing bill, which was promoted by Sir Robert Paston*, later earl of Yarmouth. Dorset chaired sessions of the committee on 14 and 16 Feb. and again on 20 Feb. when the bill was ordered to be reported as fit to pass without any alteration.<sup>76</sup> Dorset had been under considerable pressure to steer the bill through successfully. Having been instructed by the king to inform those peers opposed to the measure that he would not prorogue Parliament until it was passed he seems to have exerted himself on Paston’s behalf to ensure the measure’s successful passage.<sup>77</sup> The same month, Dorset chaired further sessions of the committee considering the Deeping Fen bill, as well as committees for two other private bills.<sup>78</sup> He also chaired sessions of the privileges committee nominated to hear the complaint of his former colleague in the Middlesex lieutenancy, Berkshire, who had been accused of receiving stolen goods from one Thomas Tapson.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Dorset’s reputation as a frequent attender in the House no doubt contributed to him receiving a number of letters from his acquaintances asking him to explain their absence. On 25 Sept. 1665, Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers, enquired whether Dorset planned to be at the forthcoming session, hoping that he would inform the House that ‘extraordinary business hinders me from attending,’<sup>80</sup> For once Dorset was unable to oblige as he was also absent from the House for the entirety of the short session, perhaps preferring to remain at Knole rather than make the journey to Oxford. No doubt eager to avoid London while plague remained severe, Dorset also chose to remain away from town into the early months of 1666. He was chided by Craven for being, as Craven assumed, ‘taken with the entertainment in the country’, though Craven admitted Dorset’s usefulness ‘to the king and state’ there.<sup>81</sup> Dorset had returned to London by late spring and at the end of April he acted as one of the triers of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley.<sup>82</sup> Having escaped the ravages of plague, Dorset proved a victim of the ensuing disaster shortly before the opening of the following the session, when the Great Fire of London consumed his London residence, Dorset House.<sup>83</sup> No attempt was made to rebuild it.</p><h2><em>Opposition to the court 1666-77</em></h2><p>Despite the loss of his main London residence, Dorset did not retire to the country after the blaze but continued an active manager in the House.<sup>84</sup> He also continued to involve himself with constitutional questions, which may have been the origin of his increasing identification with those opposed to the court. As early as 1666 he appears to have been concerned at the king’s disinclination to dissolve the Cavalier Parliament. He queried whether ‘the end meaning of an act of Parliament’ made under Edward III</p><blockquote><p>be not particularly intended for the renewing and holding successive parliaments as often as conveniently they could be had, that so the people might be masters of their own representatives, the House of Commons, and not to have them perpetuated in their places by continuing them upon adjournments or prorogations.</p></blockquote><p>Dorset concluded that this was undoubtedly the intention and argued that it was not only desirable but required for a Parliament to be held every year, ‘and more often if need be.’<sup>85</sup></p><p>Dorset took his seat on 18 Sept. 1666 for the session of 1666-7, little more than two weeks after the conflagration that had destroyed his London residence. He proceeded to attend 79 per cent of all sitting days and on 26 Sept. he was added to the committee for privileges and sub-committee for the Journal. The following day he was named to the committee for Isabella, Lady Arlington’s naturalization bill. Dorset chaired the first session of the committee the same day and reported the proposed amendments to the House on 1 October. On 11 Oct. he chaired the committee considering the bill for Lady Elizabeth Noel and the following day was named to the committee to prepare the heads for a conference about the vote banning the importation of French commodities. On 15 Oct. he chaired a further session of the committee considering Lady Elizabeth Noel’s bill. The bill was ordered to be reported with amendments, which Dorset undertook the following day. On 17 Oct. he chaired the committee considering the bill for Lady Holles’ naturalization and reported the proposed amendments to the House two days later. On 24 Oct. Dorset was named to the committee considering Cleveland’s bill. He chaired two sessions of the committee on 26 and 27 Oct. after which the chairmanship was taken over by Northampton.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Dorset was absent from the House from the end of October until 13 Nov. 1666. On his return he resumed his committee work and the following day was named to the committee considering the bill to illegitimate Lady Roos’s children. Dorset appears to have been a supporter of the bill for banning the importation of Irish cattle and on 17 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the measure.<sup>87</sup> His support for the bill came in spite of the hardship it caused his son-in-law, Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Broghill (later 2nd earl of Orrery [I]). Three years later, Broghill complained at length about the difficulties faced by the Irish as a result of both this bill and another measure preventing the importation of Irish grain.<sup>88</sup> For the time being, Dorset was more concerned by his own problems and on 6 Dec. he was forced to complain of a breach of his privilege when one of his servants was arrested despite the fact that she was in possession of a protection signed by him. The House ordered that Thomas Herrington, the man guilty of carrying Dorset’s servant to gaol, should in turn be attached for his actions. On 17 Dec. Dorset was named to the committee considering the lead mines bill of Thomas Wharton*, (later marquess of Wharton). The bill proved to be highly contentious. Dorset chaired two of the early sessions of the committee on 20 and 29 December.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Dorset was named to a further 13 committees in January 1667.<sup>90</sup> He chaired another session of the lead mines bill on 3 Jan. as well as sessions of committees considering the bills for the dowager Baroness Abergavenny and Sir Francis Scawen (from which he reported on 4 January). On 5 Jan. Dorset chaired a further session of the committee for Scawen’s bill. He reported back to the House on the same business three days later. Dorset chaired four more committees during the ensuing week. On 15 Jan. he reported from the committee considering the bill for houses burnt during the fire, something in which he had a profound personal interest, and on 23 Jan. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to add a clause to the bill granting the right of appeal to the king and House of Lords. The following day he chaired the committee considering Lady Abergavenny’s bill and reported its progress to the House. On 26 Jan. he reported from the committee considering the plight of French merchants who had had their goods seized. Dorset reported again on the subject of the aggrieved merchants two days later and on 31 Jan. he reported that their petition had been granted. On 5 and 6 Feb. he chaired sessions of the committee nominated to consider a bill for Sir Charles Stanley but progress in this measure was interrupted by the prorogation.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Dorset took his seat in the following session on 10 Oct. 1667. Present on 94 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to the sessional committees on 11 Oct. and over the course of the session was nominated to a further 38 committees.<sup>92</sup> On 14 Oct. he was named to the committee considering the condition of trade between England and Scotland and the same day he chaired the privileges committee nominated to consider the matter of the writ of summons for the underage John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester. On 17 Oct. Dorset chaired the committee considering the bill for punishing atheism and on 22 Oct. he reported from the committee for privileges concerning a report of 1628 declaring that peers should not be attached by the court of chancery.<sup>93</sup> The following day he resumed his chairmanship of the committees considering Sir Charles Stanley’s bill and the condition of trade between England and Scotland.<sup>94</sup> On 24 Oct. he chaired a session of the privileges committee examining precedents to demonstrate that when both Houses waited on the king, the king’s answer was entered in the Journal.<sup>95</sup> Dorset chaired further sessions of the committee considering the state of trade with Scotland on 26 and 31 October.<sup>96</sup> On 6 Nov. he chaired the committees considering the bills for preventing the sale of offices and the pricing of wine and the following day he was named to the committee considering the bill for the trials of peers. Dorset chaired further sessions of the committee considering Sir Charles Stanley’s bill on 11, 13, 18, 19 and 22 November. On 26 Nov. he resumed the chairmanship of the contentious lead mines bill, at the outset of which it was resolved to continue with the business by a vote of 15 to three. The following day, the committee voted in favour of passing the preamble to the bill by a margin of 19 to two and the same day it was resolved that Dorset, Oliver St John*, earl of Bolingbroke, Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, and Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, should meet separately to draw up a new clause within the bill.<sup>97</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. Dorset reported the latest findings of the committee considering Anglo-Scots trade, which was then recommitted. Four days later he was named to the committee drawing up the bill to banish Clarendon. On 9 Dec. he reported from the committees considering the bill for Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, and the bill for pricing wines; he was also named to the committees for Sir Richard Wiseman’s<sup>‡</sup> bill and the bill for taxing adventurers in the Fens. On 10 Dec. Dorset was named one of the managers of the conference concerning freedom of speech in Parliament and on 12 Dec. he chaired the first session of the committee considering the bill to tax adventurers in the Fens, at which it was queried whether William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, and other members ought to be permitted to sit on the committee being interested parties in the measure. The query was referred to the House for its adjudication, though the committee resolved not to adjourn by a margin of 11 to seven.<sup>98</sup> The following day five peers were added to the committee but the question of Bedford’s inclusion does not appear to have been raised.<sup>99</sup> The matter of the admission of the underage Rochester to the Lords also seems to have preoccupied Dorset. A manuscript note on the reverse of a printed copy of ‘Reasons for the Bill for more effectual bringing in of money concealed from his majesty’ among his papers suggests that he reported to the House on 14 Dec. that the subcommittee for the Journal was unable to complete its examination until a resolution was arrived at concerning the admission of minors. According to the printed edition of the Journal, though, the report was eventually made to the House by Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Dorset plunged back into business soon after resuming his seat following the Christmas adjournment. On 10 Feb. 1668 he moved that Holles should ‘be mindful of bringing in the writ of error for reversing the judgment given formerly in King’s bench against Sir John Elliot and others’, which Holles promised to expedite.<sup>101</sup> Three days later Dorset chaired a session of the select committee considering the bill for writs of <em>certiorari</em>. He presided over a further session of the same committee on 18 Feb., following which it was resolved to report to the House that the committee had not had sufficient time to consider the measure. They proposed to leave it to the House to decide whether the bill should be recommitted once the judges had returned from their circuits. Dorset chaired sessions of two more committees on 19 February. On 21 Feb. he reported from the committee for the leather bill.<sup>102</sup> The following day he was named along with the lord chamberlain, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury) to speak with John Manners*, Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) concerning the provision of a suitable allowance for Lady Roos.</p><p>Dorset’s application to committee work continued without interruption over the following two months. On 2 Mar. 1668 he chaired the committee considering Sir Thomas Leventhorpe’s bill, which was ordered to be reported without amendment. The same day he reported from the committee considering the bill for taxing adventurers in the Fens and on 4 Mar. he was named to the committee for a further measure relating to Ashdown Forest. On 13 Mar. he reported from the committee for petitions the case of <em>John Nordern</em> <em>v. Thomas Hawles</em> and the same day reported from the committee considering the bill concerning writs of <em>certiorari</em>, which was recommitted. On 26 Mar. Dorset was named to a further committee arising out of the destruction visited by the Fire: that considering the act to indemnify the sheriffs of the city of London and the warden of the Fleet prison concerning the escape of inmates during the inferno. On 3 Apr. he was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons over the bill for taxing adventurers in the Fens. He then reported the conference’s findings to the House. The following day he chaired the first session of the committee considering what relief might be offered certain of the creditors of the Hamburgh Merchants. On 8 Apr. he reported from the committee considering Sir Thomas Hebblethwaite’s bill and was ordered to report the business concerning William Byron*, later 3rd Baron Byron, the following day. After some delay, Dorset made the report three days later. Dorset chaired several sessions of the committee considering the aulnage bill on 10 Apr. and reported its findings on 13 April. Two days later he chaired a further session of the committee considering relief for the Hamburgh Company’s creditors but chairmanship of this committee was shortly after taken over by Bridgwater. Dorset reported from the committee concerning the tenants of the manor of Horton on 22 April. The same day he chaired a further session of the committee for the writs of <em>certiorari</em> bill, at which it was resolved to request that the judges might be heard before the House to express their reservations and for the committee to be given further guidance.<sup>103</sup> Two days later Dorset complained to the House over the arrest of another of his servants contrary to privilege, and once again the offending bailiffs were ordered to appear at the bar of the House.<sup>104</sup> Named to the committee for the forest of Dean bill on 28 Apr., Dorset chaired its first session on 4 May.<sup>105</sup> He continued to sit until the adjournment on 9 May, resuming his seat on 10 Nov. and 1 Mar. 1669, after which the session was prorogued until October.</p><p>Following a gruelling few months overseeing the House’s business, reports of September 1668 that Lady Anne Clifford had at last died may have been welcome news to Dorset. In the event the rumours proved not to be true and he was forced to wait a further eight years to be rid of his old <em>bête-noire</em>.<sup>106</sup> Having enjoyed a break from committee work of just over seven months, Dorset returned to the House following the prorogation on 19 Oct. 1669. He proceeded to attend every day of the 36-day session. On 29 Oct. he reported from the privileges committee considering the case of Gilbert Holles, earl of Clare, against Franklyn and Vosper but he was otherwise named to no other committees until 24 Nov. when he was nominated to that considering the charitable uses bill of John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester. He was named to two more committees the following month.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Dorset took his seat at the opening of the following session on 14 Feb. 1670. He was once again assiduous in his attendance, being present on 160 of the session’s 165 sitting days. He was similarly active in committee work. In the course of the session he was named to over 70 committees, presiding over a substantial proportion of them.<sup>108</sup> On 4 Mar. he took over the chairmanship of the committee considering the bishop of Rochester’s charitable uses bill from William Paget*, 6th Baron Paget. On 7 Mar., following a further meeting of the committee, the bill was ordered to be reported with the agreed amendments. The same day he was named to the committee for Lady Routh’s bill. Dorset chaired the first session the following day but on 9 Mar. the committee declined to read through the text, finding ‘the scope of the whole bill faulty’. The committee continued to meet over the following two days and on 11 Mar. at last ordered that the bill be reported with amendments. Dorset chaired sessions of five separate committees the following day, and two days later he reported from another three committees considering private bills for Lady Belasyse, Richard Beckham and Sir Francis Fane.<sup>109</sup> The same day (14 Mar.) he chaired a session of the privileges committee considering the erasure of the pages of the journals referring to Strafford’s attainder.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Dorset’s experiences during the Great Fire may have been behind his nomination on 24 Mar. to the committee considering the bill to prevent the malicious burning of houses and on 29 Mar. to that considering the additional act for rebuilding London. On 2 Apr. he was added to the committee for Bellamy’s bill. He chaired a session of the committee the same day.<sup>111</sup> On 5 Apr. he reported from the committees considering Leigh’s bill and the bill to prevent the stealing of children. During the afternoon session of 8 Apr. Dorset reported from the committee considering Davison’s bill and the following afternoon from that considering the bill for trials for inheritances.</p><p>Dorset’s technical expertise did not only serve him well as a committee chairman. It also proved beneficial on those occasions when he was compelled to complain to the House of slights and infringements of his privilege. On 11 Apr. the Lords committed two men, Thomas Cheeke and John Wallis, a hackney coachman, to the Tower and to Newgate respectively for their indecorous behaviour towards Dorset. Dorset had complained that on his way to the House on the final day before the adjournment, his coach had been rammed by Wallis’s and the impact had broken one of Dorset’s coach-wheels. When the knight marshal’s officers attempted to arrest Wallis, Cheeke leapt from the hackney coach in which he had been travelling and to the rescue of his driver. Cheeke and Wallis remained incarcerated until after the adjournment. Dorset displayed a degree of magnanimity in waiting on the king to secure Cheeke’s release.<sup>112</sup> He also interceded with the House on behalf of Wallis.</p><p>After several years untroubled by major local office, Dorset was appointed to the lieutenancy of Sussex in June 1670. The office was to be held jointly with his son, Buckhurst, and in place of Josceline Percy*, 5th earl of Northumberland.<sup>113</sup> Buckhurst showed characteristic generosity, or perhaps disinclination to be saddled with the responsibility, by offering to step aside should Dorset prefer to exercise the office alone. His offer was not taken up and the lieutenancy was managed jointly until Dorset’s death. Two months later it was reported inaccurately that Dorset was to officiate as lieutenant in Sussex and his son in Northumberland.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Dorset took his seat following the adjournment on 24 Oct. 1670. The following month, he was appealed to by his Sussex neighbour, Francis Browne*, 3rd Viscount Montagu, to make his excuses to the House for his inability to attend at a call as Montagu claimed to be indisposed with gout.<sup>115</sup> Once again, Dorset resumed his hectic schedule overseeing a number of select committees. On 3 Nov. he chaired a session of the committee considering the bill against breaches of trust and perjury but four days later he informed the House that as so few lords and no judges had attended the hearing, no progress had been made. At Dorset’s request, the House ordered that the lords appointed should be diligent in their attendance of the committee. On 9 Nov. Dorset reported two cases before the committee for petitions and the same day he was named to the committee considering the bill to permit Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, to re-convey several estates mortgaged by his father. The following day he reported from the committee considering Bellamy’s bill. Dorset chaired the committee for Albemarle’s bill on 12 November. He reported back to the House on 15 Nov., after which the bill was agreed to with the proposed amendments. On 17 Nov. he chaired a further session of the committee considering the bill against breaches of trust and on 23 Nov. he chaired sessions of five separate committees. On 28 Nov. Dorset chaired a session of the committee considering the Boston and river Trent navigation bill.<sup>116</sup> The same day he presided at a session of the privileges committee considering Lady De La Warr’s outlawry. The case was closely involved with Dorset’s habitual concern for maintaining the rights and privileges of the nobility within the constitution.<sup>117</sup> The following day he reported from the committee considering a bill to amend John Bill’s bill and on 6 Dec. he reported from the committee for petitions. Two days later he reported from the committee for privileges, recommending that Lady De La Warr have the exigent and outlawry against her vacated. The same day he reported that the committee considering Sir Clifford Clifton’s<sup>‡</sup> bill reckoned it fit to pass.</p><p>Dorset was named to a further seven committees during December 1670. His activities continued at the same rate into the new year. On 4 Jan. 1671 he reported from the committee considering Benedict Hall’s bill and on 10 Jan. from that considering Fitzjames’s bill. In addition to private measures he was also involved with a number of significant committees concerning bills about trade. On 17 Jan. he reported from that considering the bill to prevent frauds in the exportation of wool and on 23 Jan. he chaired a session of the committee considering the bill for prohibiting the importation of foreign brandy: a vote on whether to pass the first enacting clause was carried by five to two. On 3 Feb. he chaired the committee considering the petition of several poor prisoners, as a result of which he was named to a sub-committee to draw up a bill for their relief. The same day he chaired a further committee of the bill preventing the importation of brandy as well as the first session of the poor prisoners’ bill sub-committee. Following a further session of the committee for the brandy bill on 15 Feb. it was agreed to report the draft with certain amendments but it was not until 3 Mar. that Dorset finally reported the committee’s conclusions to the House. Following debate, the bill was recommitted and, after further deliberation in committee on 11 Mar., Dorset reported their findings to the House on 17 March.<sup>118</sup> Two days prior to that, Dorset had reported from the committee for petitions a query concerning the petition of John Cusack as the committee was unable to determine whether an appeal against Cusack’s petition might exist in the Irish courts. The House determined that judgment should be suspended until such time as a report could be obtained from an Irish judge.<sup>119</sup> Dorset reported from the committee for petitions again over the case of <em>Frederick Ixem v. John Hill</em> on 13 April. Two days later he reported another case before the committee for petitions, that of William Oldsworth and Dame Hester Honeywood. On 17 Apr. he was named to another four committees for private bills and on 18 Apr. he chaired the committee for the river Wey bill, which was ordered to be reported with amendments.<sup>120</sup></p><p>In addition to his efforts as a committee chairman, Dorset’s reappointment as lieutenant in Sussex meant that a significant proportion of his time was now also taken up by local interests. He clearly found his charges in Sussex at times difficult to command. On 17 Mar. 1671, he complained of several gentlemen who were refusing to undertake their militia obligations and sought the king’s permission to ‘intimate to them that he would take it as a want of duty and respect to himself and the safety of his country in whomsoever did so.’<sup>121</sup> Troubles over his London properties also continued to plague him. On 7 Apr. 1671 he complained that his parliamentary privilege had been breached by the governors of the Bridewell hospital, who laid claim to land belonging to the devastated Dorset House. The dispute was heard before the House on 12 Apr. and the Lords ordered a stop to the proceedings during the period of privilege.</p><p>Dorset attended the prorogation day of 16 Apr. 1672 before taking his seat in the new session the following year on 4 February. He was present on 93 per cent of the whole session and was named as usual to all the sessional committees.<sup>122</sup> On 14 Feb. he was named to the committee for Sir Ralph Bankes’<sup>‡</sup> bill; the following day the Journal noted Dorset as having been added to the same committee: presumably a clerical error.<sup>123</sup> Named to a further 19 committees during the brief session, on 21 Feb. he reported from the committee considering the bill to prevent frauds in exporting wool and on 6 Mar. from that considering the bill for the dean and chapter of Bristol. Added to the committee for Sir William Riche’s bill on 13 Mar., on 24 Mar. Dorset reported from the committee for petitions concerning the case of prisoners being held for debt.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Later that summer Dorset was indisposed with gout but he was well enough to act as one of the assistants to the chief mourner at Richmond’s delayed funeral in September (Richmond having died abroad nine months previously).<sup>125</sup> Dorset attended each of the four days of the short session in October, acting as one of the sponsors of Robert Paston at his introduction as Viscount Yarmouth on 20 October.<sup>126</sup> He then took his seat at the beginning of the new session of January 1674, during which he again attended on every possible sitting day. Named to the usual sessional committees Dorset was also named to a further nine committees during the session.<sup>127</sup> He took the oath of allegiance on 13 Jan. and on 21 Feb. he reported from the committee for petitions the case of <em>Hallet v. Kendall</em>.</p><p>The death of Dorset’s brother-in-law, Middlesex, in October 1674 offered the prospect of an end to Dorset’s financial difficulties but the ensuing period was marked by a succession of family disputes. In September of the previous year it had been put about that Dorset and his countess were to separate and that he had even offered to pay her maintenance of £773 10<em>s</em>. 10<em>d</em>.<sup>128</sup> This was averted but family tensions now rose to the surface over Middlesex’s bequest of his estates to Dorset’s heir, Buckhurst. Buckhurst’s marriage with the dowager countess of Falmouth also provoked disagreements between father and son.<sup>129</sup> Legal action ensued as Dorset claimed that a confederacy of Buckhurst, Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount Conway (later earl of Conway), Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, and Richard Walmesley had colluded to deprive him of his rightful inheritance.<sup>130</sup> The dispute continued into the following year when Middlesex (as Buckhurst had since become) launched a counter suit, in which he complained that his father and mother delayed giving their answers so long that he feared his witnesses might die before he received their response.<sup>131</sup> As far as his marriage was concerned, Buckhurst had evidently attempted to keep the truth of his liaison from his parents. By October 1674, Dorset was in no doubt of it and he emphasized his displeasure at Buckhurst’s actions in the affair.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Dorset seems to have sought solace from his troubles abroad and in November 1674 he was granted a pass to travel to France.<sup>133</sup> While overseas his interest was sought on behalf of his younger son, Edward Sackville<sup>‡</sup>, who replaced Middlesex at East Grinstead.<sup>134</sup> Middlesex meanwhile expressed his weariness ‘of these unnatural disputes’ and insisted that he was ‘sensible how unfit it is for a son in any thing to oppose his parents.’<sup>135</sup> Despite this, Dorset continued to be harassed by complaints from home. In February 1675 Dorset’s countess bewailed the behaviour of Middlesex and his wife towards her. In particular she complained of how Lady Middlesex needled her about her relations with her husband and that she had suggested that Dorset’s reason for quitting England had been because his wife gave him ‘a very unquiet life at home.’ Lady Dorset questioned how this could be so, as they had ‘parted too kindly for you to give them so much occasion of being pleased and triumphing over me.’<sup>136</sup></p><p>Dorset had returned to England by the spring of 1675. He took his seat in the House on 13 Apr. and was present for 41 of the session’s 42 sitting days. The following day he was named, as usual, to the sessional committees.<sup>137</sup> He then proceeded to be nominated to a further dozen committees during the course of the session.<sup>138</sup> On 20 Apr. he complained once more of a breach of his privilege. Dorset claimed possession of the manor and liberties of Salisbury Court, near Fleet Street, but he complained that Sir Robert Vyner, the Lord Mayor, had invaded his rights there. On 26 Apr. Vyner was ordered to answer to Dorset’s complaint, which he did four days later denying all knowledge of Dorset’s jurisdiction in the area.<sup>139</sup> A petition was later referred to the attorney general from Vyner and the aldermen and sheriffs of London requesting that a <em>quo</em> <em>warranto</em> be ordered against Dorset to investigate the validity of his claims in Salisbury Court.<sup>140</sup></p><p>By the late 1670s Dorset had become increasingly associated with the opponents of the court linked especially to Shaftesbury. Like a number of former cavaliers, Dorset appears to have been hostile to the new administration of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (late duke of Leeds) and frustrated with the direction of affairs since the Restoration. His case with Vyner, a prominent court financier, can only have added to his discontent. With Shaftesbury and others he protested at a series of decisions related to the non-resisting test bill. On 21 Apr. he entered his protest at the resolution that the non-resisting test did not encroach upon the Lords’ privileges. Eight days later he protested again at the resolution that the protest of 26 Apr. reflected upon the honour of the House. On 4 May he protested once more at the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendment to include members of the Commons and peers within the scope of the bill. He was also noted as one of those who spoke during the debates that lasted over a fortnight.<sup>141</sup> Given his identification with Shaftesbury, it may be significant that it was Dorset who reported from the committee for privileges on 20 May concerning the heads for a conference to be held on the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>.</p><p>Dorset returned to the House for the opening of the new session of October 1675, after which he was again present on each possible sitting day. In the course of the session he was named to eight committees in addition to the sessional committees, though he does not appear to have taken so prominent a role in managing them.<sup>142</sup> On 20 Nov. he registered his protest at the rejection of the motion for an address to the king requesting the dissolution of Parliament.<sup>143</sup> A few months after the close of the session, Dorset was greeted with the news of Lady Anne Clifford’s death. He made no effort to disguise his glee at her demise by which he (and several others) stood to benefit substantially.<sup>144</sup></p><p>In June 1676 Dorset was in London for the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, whom he found not guilty of murder.<sup>145</sup> He then returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677 and was named to the usual sessional committees as well as an additional 40 committees.<sup>146</sup> On 16 Feb. he was named to the committee enquiring into the authorship of <em>Considerations whether the Parliament be Dissolved</em>. On 1 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the bill for the augmentation of small vicarages and on 5 Mar. from that for the bill concerning popish recusants. The following day, Dorset reported from the committee considering the bill to prevent frauds and perjuries and on 10 Mar. from the committee concerning Squib’s bill. Dorset reported from two private bills for naturalization on 12 and 13 Mar. and on 20 Mar. he reported from the committee for petitions the case of John Messenger. Four days later, he reported from the committees considering Sir Edward Hungerford’s and Sir Francis Compton’s<sup>‡</sup> bills and on 7 Apr. from the committee considering the protestant strangers bill. Three days later Dorset again complained to the House of a breach of his privilege when he related how one Samuel Gardiner and others had uttered contemptuous words about him. The offenders were ordered to appear at the bar to explain themselves. The same day during the afternoon session Dorset reported from the committee considering the stannaries bill.<sup>147</sup> On 11 Apr. Dorset chaired the privileges committee for the final time.<sup>148</sup></p><p>After such a furiously busy career in the House Dorset’s end came suddenly. Towards the end of his life, he found himself increasingly at variance with the court with his overriding concern being the maintenance of the privileges of the House. It was a related issue that inspired his final protest on 16 Apr. against the abandonment of the House’s amendments to the supply bill. Three months later, on 16 July, he provided a final protection to a servant, William Wetton, who claimed kinship with Dorset through the Curzon family. The issuing of the protection also coincided with Dorset’s last appearance in the House.<sup>149</sup> He died the following month aged 55. In his will he named his countess sole executrix.<sup>150</sup> He was buried at Withyham in September in the partially reconstructed family chapel and was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, Middlesex.<sup>151</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ST. JOHN, Henry (1678-1751) |
<p><strong><surname>ST. JOHN</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1678–1751)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>7 July 1712 Visct. BOLINGBROKE |
|
First sat 8 July 1712; last sat 23 Mar. 1715 |
|
MP Wootton Bassett, 1701–8; Berkshire 1710–12 |
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Sept. 1678, 1st s. of Henry St. John<sup>†</sup>, <em>cr</em>. Visct. St John 1716, and 1st w. Lady Mary Rich, da. and coh. of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Warwick. <em>educ</em>. ?Eton c.1692; DCL, Oxf. 1702; travelled abroad (France, Switzerland, Italy) 1698–9; Padua Univ. 1699. <em>m</em>. (1) 22 May 1701, Frances (<em>d</em>.1718), da. and coh. of Sir Henry Winchcombe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. <em>s.p.</em>; (2) May 1720, Marie Claire (<em>d</em>.1750), da. of Armand des Champs, seigneur de Marcilly, wid. of Philip le Valois de Villette, <em>s.p.</em> <em>d.</em> 12 Dec. 1751; <em>will</em> 22 Nov. 1751, pr. 5 Mar. 1752.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Sec. at war 1704–8; PC 21 Sept. 1710–14; sec. of state (north) 1710–13, (south) 1713–14; envoy to France 1712; sec. of state to Pretender 1715–16.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Essex 1712–15; recorder, Harwich 1712–15; high steward, Newbury ?1712.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Dir. S. Sea Co. 1711–15.</p><p>FRS 1713.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Alexis Simon Belle, c.1712, NPG 593; oil on canvas, attrib. to J. Richardson, c.1730, NPG 1493.</p> |
<p>St John’s importance in politics long antedated his admission to the peerage. Variously dubbed ‘the captain’ and ‘man of mercury’, such sobriquets point to his at times contradictory persona as both a commanding and yet elusive presence in the latter years of Queen Anne.<sup>4</sup> Talented and outspoken, St John was possessed of self-confidence bordering on arrogance. He admitted as much himself: ‘There are those in the world who, I believe, think me troublesome; but I have the satisfaction, in my turn, of knowing them to be ignorant.’<sup>5</sup> Besides his pride in his abilities, St John was also famed for his salacious private life. One observer thought him ‘one of the lewdest men in England’.<sup>6</sup> His notoriety and significance as both a minister and political theorist of Augustan politics has attracted the attentions of numerous biographers and essayists: most have found his apparent lack of principle both a draw and a frustration.</p><h2><em>Early life, 1678–1708</em></h2><p>Although St John was born into a substantial gentry family, a cadet branch of that of the earls of Bolingbroke, the details of his early life are surprisingly difficult to establish. The death of his mother shortly after his birth meant that his grandparents oversaw his early years, during which he appears to have received some instruction from a Dissenting minister through the influence of his paternal grandmother. It is by no means certain, as is often suggested, that he was a student at Eton, though he may have attended the school in the early 1690s. It is perhaps more probable that he was educated at a Dissenting academy which followed Eton’s curriculum.<sup>7</sup> It is also unlikely that St John attended Christ Church, Oxford (though he was later to receive an honorary doctorate in civil law from the university). The first definite information relating to his early education refers to his tour to the continent in the closing years of the seventeenth century, which culminated in a period spent at the university of Padua.<sup>8</sup></p><p>St John returned to England in 1700 and the following year he was elected for the family seat at Wootton Bassett, and married Frances Winchcombe, who brought with her the estate at Bucklebury, which was to become his adopted home.<sup>9</sup> Although his marriage promised St John the prospect of a considerable fortune, his means remained limited while his father and father-in-law were alive. His predicament caused him to consider seeking a foreign posting, but absence from England would have left him at the mercy of others with claims on the Winchcombe inheritance.<sup>10</sup></p><p>In the event, St John did not take up a posting overseas and concentrated instead on securing office in England. Following early prominence in the Commons, introducing the Act of Settlement in 1701 and the Occasional Conformity Act in 1702, in April 1704 he was appointed secretary at war. His promotion was largely through the patronage of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, whose nomination as Speaker St John had seconded in December 1701. The secretaryship was presumably the occasion of St John becoming close to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and in 1705 he managed Marlborough’s interest at Woodstock for the general election.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Despite his close association with Marlborough, St John was unable to detach the duke from Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, during the governmental crisis of February 1708. Although under no particular pressure to do so, St John chose to join Harley in opposition but his failure to secure a seat at the general election that year led to bitter recriminations against his patron and other senior members of the former administration, whom he considered as having failed to offer him sufficient support in securing an alternative place.<sup>12</sup> It may also have further strained his already uncomfortable relations with his father. Henry St John senior had opposed St John’s decision to resign and subsequently forced him to stand aside at Wootton Bassett, only to be defeated by Harley’s nephew, Francis Popham<sup>‡</sup>, and a Whig, Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Outwardly, St John professed relief at his new retired existence:</p><blockquote><p>Whether it is owing to constitution or to philosophy I can’t tell, but certain it is, that I can make my self easy in any sort of life … Happiness, I imagine, depends much more on desiring little, than enjoying much; & perhaps the surest road to it is indifference. If I continue in the country, the sports of the field and the pleasures of my study will take up all my thoughts, & serve to amuse me as long as I live.<sup>14</sup></p></blockquote><p>St John’s period in the wilderness also provided him with an opportunity to begin to develop his own ideology based around a wholly Tory administration in preference to Harley’s continued efforts to maintain a cross-party alliance. In this he seems to have shared the view of his long-term correspondent Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, that such an unnatural combination was monstrous.<sup>15</sup> For the time being, however, he continued to lend his support to Harley’s policy of moderation.</p><h2><em>Secretary of state, 1710–12</em></h2><p>St John was returned for both Wootton Bassett and Berkshire in the general election of 1710. He chose to sit for the latter. Despite his two-year absence from the Commons, his importance within the ministry was demonstrated at once by his appointment as secretary of state, though Harley’s lack of complete trust was made plain both by his efforts to persuade St John to accept a lesser appointment and by excluding him from the preliminary peace negotiations with France.<sup>16</sup> St John sponsored the pro-government newspaper, <em>The Examiner</em>, from August, but towards the end of the year worsening relations with Harley became increasingly apparent and from the beginning of the following year, St John and Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, emerged as prominent leaders of the Tory October Club.</p><p>A series of reconciliations between St John and Harley were engineered over the following years. Their tottering alliance was shored up on several occasions by the intervention of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, with whom St John was typically on good terms.<sup>17</sup> Present at the interrogation of Antoine de Guiscard, which culminated in Guiscard’s attempt on Harley’s life, St John was one of those to rush to Harley’s aid, running the would-be assassin through in the ensuing scuffle.<sup>18</sup> Although he made much of his outrage at Guiscard’s ‘villainous action which I think is not to be paralleled in history’ and hoped that Guiscard would recover from his wounds as it would be a ‘pity he should die any other death than the most ignominious’, St John did not fail to make use of the opportunity presented by Harley’s subsequent indisposition to build up his own support in the Tory party.<sup>19</sup> At the heart of this was his plan for an invasion of Canada, for which Harley had shown little enthusiasm prior to his injury, but which St John was now able to foist upon the Council in Harley’s absence in spite of opposition mounted by Rochester.<sup>20</sup> The adventure proved to be a costly failure.<sup>21</sup> Nevertheless, it enabled St John to forge closer ties with Abigail Masham, who supported the expedition and was exasperated by Harley’s refusal to do so.<sup>22</sup></p><p>St John became a director of the South Sea Company in May 1711 and the following month he established another political club, dubbed variously ‘the Club’ or ‘the Society’, comprising politicians and literary figures such as Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle (better known as earl of Orrery [I]), Abigail Masham’s brother, General John Hill<sup>‡</sup>, Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup>, Jonathan Swift and John Arbuthnot. Writing to Orrery, St John explained that:</p><blockquote><p>The first regulation purposed, and that which must be inviolably kept, is decency. None of the extravagance of the Kit Cat, none of the drunkenness of the Beef Steaks is to be endured. The improvement of friendship, and the encouragement of letters are to be the two great ends of our society.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Harley’s promotion to the earldom of Oxford the same month (June 1711) elicited a typically equivocal response from St John. He commented to Orrery that:</p><blockquote><p>Our friend Mr Harley is now earl of Oxford, and high treasurer. This great advancement is what the labour he has gone through, the danger he has run, and the services he has performed, seem to deserve. But he stands on a slippery ground, and envy is always near the great to fling up their heels on the least trip which they make. The companions of his evil fortune are most likely to be the supporters of his good; and I dare say he makes this a maxim to himself; for though he often wants that grace and openness which engages the affection, yet I must own I never knew that he wanted either the constancy, or the friendship, which engages the esteem.<sup>24</sup></p></blockquote><p>St John finally became apprised of the extent of the peace preliminaries in the autumn of 1711, after which he assumed a prominent role in the negotiations. Although it was suggested that he might be one of those to be promoted to the Lords (as earl of Bolingbroke) as part of Oxford’s mass creation of peers in December, his importance to the ministry as a manager in the Commons meant that for the time being he remained in the lower House.<sup>25</sup> He also made plain his own disdain for the move, describing it as ‘an unprecedented and invidious measure, to be excused by nothing but the necessity, and hardly by that’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The peace conference at Utrecht convened in January 1712 and the following month St John led the assault in the Commons against the Barrier Treaty. His ability to polarize opinion was underscored when, as a result of his being elected to the presidency of the October Club in the spring, a splinter group sheared off and established the rival ‘March Club’ rather than submit to his leadership.<sup>27</sup> Disgusted with the conduct of Elector George Ludwig (later King George I) in courting the Whigs, St John’s frustration with Britain’s allies was apparent by April, though he still believed that, with or without them, a suitable settlement was achievable.<sup>28</sup> His stance increasingly drew him into conflict with Oxford:</p><blockquote><p>If the Dutch come to their senses, and close with the queen, we shall treat on a better foundation, and may hope to carry the enemy far enough in their concessions; since we have brought them almost to that point, singly, and under the disadvantage of contesting with our allies, at the same time as we have treated with them.<sup>29</sup></p></blockquote><p>Fully aware of the potentially precarious position into which he had manoeuvred himself, in a diatribe that was to prove prescient, St John professed emphatically his confidence that he had chosen the correct path:</p><blockquote><p>as to my conduct in the negotiation of a peace, I shall want no justification. I have, it is true, acted as boldly in the promoting that good work, as your lordship used to do, when you thought the interest of your country at stake; and I tell you, without any Gasconade, that I had rather be banished for my whole life, because I have helped to make the peace, than be raised to the highest honours, for having contributed to obstruct it.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>Criticism of the handling of the peace negotiations soon overtook the session and on 28 May St John reported to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, on the ‘battle’ that had raged in Parliament that day over the ‘restraining orders’ which forbade Ormond from engaging the French while the peace negotiations were in train. These instructions had been penned by St John, according to him on the queen’s orders. His involvement in this allegedly treasonable action was later to become one of the major aspects of the case for his impeachment. St John led the government’s defence in the Commons, while in the Lords the court narrowly fought off the Whig assault by just 28 votes, though, as St John pointed out, ‘the spirit which was shown both above and below stairs, is more considerable, and a better omen, even than the majority by which we prevailed’.<sup>31</sup></p><h2><em>Viscount Bolingbroke, 1712–14</em></h2><p>In recognition of his services in managing the Commons during the debates on the peace, St John was finally promoted to the Lords in July 1712, though the manner of his promotion only served to compound his increasingly difficult relationship with Oxford. The death of his cousin, Paulet St John*, 3rd earl of Bolingbroke, without direct heirs in October 1711 had led St John to expect that he would be awarded the now extinct earldom, an expectation that was presumably bolstered by reports in June that he would shortly be created an earl.<sup>32</sup> In the event he was granted the lesser peerage of Viscount Bolingbroke, at least in part on account of the queen’s disapproval of his notoriously lax private life.<sup>33</sup> His disappointment at failing to secure the earldom was such that he considered requesting a different title, thus reserving the title of Bolingbroke for the future, or rejecting his ennoblement altogether. Swift advised that he ask to be created Viscount Pomfret but Bolingbroke demurred, believing (correctly) that that title was already in existence as a barony. He objected moreover that he had no association with the place.<sup>34</sup> In the end Bolingbroke acquiesced in his promotion but he made no secret of his annoyance:</p><blockquote><p>In the House of Commons … I was at the head of business, and I must have continued so, whether I had been in court or out of court. There was therefore nothing to flatter my ambition in removing me from thence, but giving me the title which had been many years in my family, and which reverted to the crown about a year ago, by the death of the last of the elder house. To make me a peer was no great compliment, when so many others were forced to be made to gain a strength in parliament; and since the queen wanted me below stairs in the last session, she could do no less than make me a viscount, or I must have come in the rear of several whom I was not born to follow …<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bolingbroke took his seat in the House on 8 July, introduced between Oxford and Thomas Trevor*, Baron Trevor.<sup>36</sup> Two days later, eager to emphasize his new dignity, he wrote to the deputy Earl Marshal, Henry Howard*, 6th earl of Suffolk, requesting a warrant to garter king of arms for the addition of supporters to his arms.<sup>37</sup> On 23 July, his brother-in-law, Robert Packer<sup>‡</sup>, succeeded to the vacant seat in Berkshire, no doubt through Bolingbroke’s interest. The same month Bolingbroke introduced deputations bearing loyal addresses from Cheshire and Essex.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke travelled to France on 2 Aug. to undertake negotiations concerning the peace treaty, a mission that Oxford intended primarily as a means of compensating him for failing to acquire the desired earldom.<sup>39</sup> In Paris he was fêted by French society ‘from the first minister to the lowest peasant’ but he exasperated the administration at home by staying abroad longer than was originally anticipated and by exceeding his instructions in attempting to bring forward a separate peace with France.<sup>40</sup> He also excited the queen’s extreme displeasure by attending the opera on the same occasion as the Pretender; the two men occupied adjoining boxes.<sup>41</sup> The near-encounter strengthened concerns that Bolingbroke’s sympathies lay with a Jacobite restoration and the same month rumours were put about that Bolingbroke and Oxford were both involved with a Jacobite plot to overthrow the queen.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Whether or not he indeed exceeded his instructions, Bolingbroke certainly made the most of his opportunity to shine in French society. Having dallied there for a month, he returned to London at the close of August. The following month he was at pains to intervene with the mayor of Poole on behalf of the crew of a captured French fishing boat, reminding him of the ‘suspension of all acts of hostility’ and that civil behaviour to the French was ‘a compliment that costs little’.<sup>43</sup> During the autumn of 1712, disagreements with Oxford again came to the surface over the direction of the peace, with Bolingbroke advising a separate peace between Britain, France, Spain and Savoy in opposition to Oxford’s desire to secure the agreement of the Dutch as well. A heated cabinet meeting on 28 Sept., at which Oxford accused Bolingbroke openly of exceeding his instructions, ended with Bolingbroke being forced to capitulate and write both to the British ambassador, Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, and to the French minister, the marquis de Torcy, explaining that Britain intended to stand by the Dutch. The following month it was reported, inaccurately, that he was to travel to France again.<sup>44</sup></p><p>After his discomfiture at cabinet, Bolingbroke retired to Bucklebury to lick his wounds for a few days. He spent the time hunting along with Sir William Wyndham, though he ensured that he was present at Windsor for a cabinet meeting held there in Oxford’s absence. Such assiduity failed to stem reports that he was to be moved from the secretaryship to the office of master of the horse.<sup>45</sup> Although he avoided being ousted from his post, he was angry to be excluded from those being granted the garter that autumn, annoyance that was in no way palliated by his appointment to the lord lieutenancy of Essex. His interest in the county, which he had been building on since the previous lieutenant (Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers) had fallen sick, was consolidated in December with his election to the recordership of Harwich.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke’s fortunes steadily improved from the end of 1712. In December he stood godfather to Lady Masham’s son, alongside General Hill and Baroness Trevor, and in February 1713 his brother, George St John, succeeded William Harrison as secretary to the British ambassador at Utrecht.<sup>47</sup> Bolingbroke anticipated that the new session, which was due to meet on 3 Feb. 1713, would be a stormy one, though in the event its opening was delayed on account of the queen’s ill health.<sup>48</sup> For all his improved standing, Bolingbroke’s position was still uncertain and tensions remained high among the members of the ministry. In mid-February he engaged in a furious argument with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (also earl of Greenwich), over the Barrier Treaty. Argyll accused Bolingbroke of acting more like the Pretender’s minister than that of Queen Anne and threatened to have him impeached.<sup>49</sup></p><p>The hiatus in the meeting of Parliament invalidated Orrery’s proxy, which Bolingbroke had in his possession, requiring him to send an additional blank form for Orrery to sign and return in time for the opening of the new session.<sup>50</sup> The queen’s continued indisposition extended the delay to April, prior to which Bolingbroke communicated to Shrewsbury his desire that ‘we shall have a short and easy session, and that such measures will be taken as may secure the elections in every part of the kingdom, and make the best use of that peace which we have been so long struggling to obtain’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke was, unsurprisingly, noted by Jonathan Swift in advance of the new session as a likely supporter of the ministry. He took his seat at its opening on 9 Apr., after which he was present for just over 53 per cent of all sitting days. The following day it was rumoured that he was one of several members of the ministry to be promoted in the peerage, though none of the expected honours proved forthcoming.<sup>52</sup> On 2 May he made his maiden speech in the House, during the debates on the French commerce bill, when it was reported that he ‘came off very well’ despite ‘some repartees between him and my lord Sunderland’ (Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland).<sup>53</sup> On 9 May he presented the treaty to the House. Towards the end of the month he reported to Shrewsbury that:</p><blockquote><p>The laying of the treaties before the Houses of Parliament, has undeceived so many people, who had been imposed upon, and induced to believe the grossest absurdities, that the opposite party seem to hope for no success, either within or without the parliament walls, by attacking the terms of peace, or measures of the negotiation.<sup>54</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bolingbroke encountered far greater difficulties over the commercial aspects of the Treaty of Utrecht (the eighth and ninth articles), against which the Whigs raised a substantial ‘clamour’:</p><blockquote><p>Multitudes of papers are called for by the House of Lords, several days have been spent in very unnecessary reading, others will be as idly consumed, and I am much out in my judgment, if the aim of the Whig managers be not so to perplex the cause, and to retard the progress of the bill expected from the House of Commons, so as to hinder the ninth article in the treaty of commerce from being made effectual this year.<sup>55</sup></p></blockquote><p>Frustrating though Whig intransigence towards the commercial treaty proved, more damaging still was the defection from the government ranks of the Hanover Tories, led by Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, in the Lords.<sup>56</sup> Bolingbroke also suspected that Oxford’s support had been little more than lukewarm. In contrast to the lord treasurer, Bolingbroke’s support for the French commerce treaties went beyond the merely practical and reflected his deep affection for France and French society. This he made plain in a letter to Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>:</p><blockquote><p>this … is calculated to hinder those prejudices, which our people have been possessed with against France, and which begin now to wear off … Nothing unites like interest; and when once our people have felt the sweet of carrying on a trade to France, under reasonable regulations, the artifices of Whiggism will have the less effect amongst them.<sup>57</sup></p></blockquote><p>The unexpected defeat of the commercial treaty in the Commons was thus far more than a mere political setback for Bolingbroke.<sup>58</sup> While the outcome of the measure still hung in the balance, he faced an equally uphill struggle with the passage of the malt bill, which had effectively been foisted on the ministry by backbench pressure. This time his efforts were rewarded and, he having spoken in the House in favour of the bill on 8 June, it was carried the same day by 64 votes to 56.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Later the same month Bolingbroke introduced a bill making it high treason to recruit men for service abroad. Oxford unsurprisingly included him in a list of about 13 June as one of those in favour of the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. At the forefront of the ministry’s consideration, though, was the defection during the session of Hanmer and Anglesey over the commercial treaty. This inspired Bolingbroke to advise Oxford to break with the Whigs and Hanover Tories, exhorting him to:</p><blockquote><p>separate, in the name of God, the chaff from the wheat, and consider who you have left to employ; assign them their parts; trust them as far as it is necessary for the execution each of his part; let the forms of business be regularly carried on in cabinet, and the secret of it in your own closet. Your lordship would soon find those excellent principles, laid down in the queen’s speech, pursued with vigour and success.<sup>60</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite Bolingbroke’s apparent desire to rescue Oxford’s ministry, he took the opportunity of the lord treasurer’s weakened position to resume his efforts to supplant him. He was forestalled by a summer reshuffle, which although it saw the promotion of his close friend Sir William Wyndham as chancellor of the exchequer, despite having reputedly ‘neither experience nor a character sufficient for such a post’, also saw other places taken by confirmed allies of the lord treasurer.<sup>61</sup> Other places were taken by confirmed allies of the lord treasurer. Reports that Bolingbroke himself was to be put out altogether, sidelined as lord privy seal or demoted to the office of master of the horse, proved not to be the case and he was instead relocated to the southern department, thus displacing his adversary within the administration, William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, who became lord privy seal.<sup>62</sup> His move was certainly not welcomed by the British envoy to Russia, Charles Whitworth<sup>‡</sup> (later Baron Whitworth [I]), one of Oxford’s ‘creatures’, who wrote to his patron how Bolingbroke’s new post, ‘would be a great disencouragement to me if I did not consider that your lordship was at the head of affairs’.<sup>63</sup> Bolingbroke also appears to have done his utmost to irritate Strafford by suggesting that John Robinson*, bishop of London, should have precedence among the envoys negotiating the peace, he being a privy councillor.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke was among those rumoured to be advanced as knights of the garter later that summer but this too proved not to be the case.<sup>65</sup> In August he was fortunate to escape with his life when he and a servant were set upon by a man formerly in Wyndham’s service. Shots were fired and Bolingbroke was hit in the head, but his injuries proved to be slight.<sup>66</sup> Undeterred by the botched assault, Bolingbroke was active in employing his interest in Essex, Berkshire and Wootton Bassett in the general election that autumn.<sup>67</sup> At Harwich, his nominee, Carew Hervey Mildmay<sup>‡</sup>, was elected on petition following a double return, but Bolingbroke’s ‘underhand and partisan methods’ in attempting to manipulate the corporation caused considerable disquiet.<sup>68</sup> The election resulted in a number of Tory gains but the party remained disunited with between 80 and 100 classed as Jacobite, and approximately 75 who looked to Hanmer, Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, and Anglesey as ‘Hanoverian Tories’. Bolingbroke and Oxford meanwhile continued to pull in different directions. Bolingbroke persisted in his efforts to undermine Oxford and began once more to forge closer ties with Shrewsbury and also with Lady Masham.<sup>69</sup> The death of Oxford’s daughter, Lady Carmarthen, in November 1713 removed the lord treasurer from court at a critical time. Although Bolingbroke was also suffering from poor health he managed sensibly to alternate his time between Bucklebury and Windsor, enabling him to remain in close contact with the queen.<sup>70</sup> On 3 Dec., under the guise of professing his loyalty, Bolingbroke goaded Oxford for his continuing absence:</p><blockquote><p>I am sorry there is little show of government when the difficulties we have to struggle with require that all the powers of it should be exerted. I can truly say I am ready to contribute all the little in my sphere whenever your commands direct me. The only reason why I did not attend you this week was the belief that you intended to be here today, and therefore, pray my lord, do not once entertain a thought that I give myself airs, or have the least lukewarmness.<sup>71</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 17 Dec. he wrote again with plans that he believed would give ‘new strength, new spirit to your administration’. When the queen fell sick on 24 Dec. Bolingbroke was quick to capitalize on Oxford’s absence and to develop an improved understanding with the stricken monarch, who for long had looked on him askance. Bolingbroke continued to profess his support for Oxford and on Christmas Day he wrote urging him to rally to the queen at Windsor.<sup>72</sup></p><p>The opening months of 1714 abounded with rumours that Lady Masham had at last forsaken Oxford for Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke also made a concerted effort to consolidate his interest, overseeing a substantial purge of the Essex commission of the peace and inserting 23 Tories, among them three sitting Members.<sup>73</sup> Ramifications of the peace dominated affairs and, shortly before the opening of Parliament, Bolingbroke and Oxford were both in attendance at a dinner held at Merchant Taylors’ Hall following a meeting to discuss the settlement of the <em>Asiento</em> with Spain.<sup>74</sup> Anticipating a stormy session, Bolingbroke wrote to Strafford in advance of Parliament assembling, describing the ‘clamour’ raised by the Whigs and ‘the rage which they express’ which were ‘almost without example’.<sup>75</sup> Bolingbroke took his seat on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he attended on 72 per cent of all sitting days. On 2 Mar. he received the proxy of Lady Masham’s husband, Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham, which was vacated on 15 Mar., and on 17 Mar. he also received that of Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth (vacated by Plymouth’s return to the House on 30 April).</p><p>When Oxford introduced the bill for securing the Protestant succession (also on 17 Mar.), in which it was made high treason to bring foreign troops into the country, Bolingbroke showed outward support for his colleague. The measure was questioned by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as potentially damaging to the Hanoverian interest but Bolingbroke responded that ‘he doubted not, but the noble peer who made the motion, meant only such foreign troops, as might be brought into the kingdom by the Pretender or his adherents’.<sup>76</sup> Oxford and Bolingbroke had recently come under fire in a scurrilous pamphlet, in which it was stated that both men were ‘given to drinking and whoring and are Jacobites and in the interest of France’.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Despite Bolingbroke’s demonstration of support over the Protestant succession bill, by the end of the month the breach between him and Oxford, long in the making, was widely acknowledged. By the beginning of June it was openly referred to during debates in the Commons.<sup>78</sup> While he worked to supplant his colleague, Bolingbroke continued to protest his loyalty to Oxford’s leadership:</p><blockquote><p>I most sincerely desire to see your lordship, as long as I live, at the head of the queen’s affairs, and of the Church of England party; to see the administration flourish under your direction, the quiet of the queen’s reign secured, and effectual measures taken to put those of our friends who may outlive the queen beyond the reach of Whig resentment.<sup>79</sup></p></blockquote><p>Increasingly preoccupied with the likely consequences of a Whig administration coming in after the queen’s death and the refusal of the Pretender to contemplate even tacit conversion to Anglicanism, both Oxford and Bolingbroke were forced to concede that a Jacobite restoration was all but impossible and that preparations should be made to safeguard their interests under a Hanoverian monarch.</p><p>Bolingbroke was forced to defend the ministry’s policies towards the Catalans on 2 April.<sup>80</sup> Three days later the ministry again came under fire from the Whigs in protest at the peace, but when no specific motion was made Bolingbroke, according to George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> speaking ‘like an angel’, pointed out the difficulty of responding in the circumstances.<sup>81</sup> On 12 Apr. the ministry narrowly averted defeat on the question of the safety of Protestant succession, with a tied vote (61 to 61) being settled in its favour by the addition of two proxies. Over the next two days Bolingbroke presented papers for the House’s consideration concerning the demolition of the fortifications at Dunkirk and other matters concerning the peace. On 14 Apr. he received the proxy of Henry Bowes Howard*, 4th earl of Berkshire, which was vacated two days later.</p><p>The ministry’s narrow victory did nothing to prevent rumours circulating that the government was ‘raising the mask’, ‘that its aim is to introduce the Pretender’ and that Bolingbroke had been engaged in secret talks with the French to prepare the way for a Jacobite succession.<sup>82</sup> On 17 Apr. it was reported that he had fought a duel with Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, ‘the one to prove the peace honourable, advantageous and lasting, the other <em>au</em> <em>contre</em>’.<sup>83</sup> Despite their rift, Bolingbroke rallied to Oxford’s defence on 20 Apr. 1714, proposing and carrying a motion of confidence in the embattled lord treasurer over the policy of bribing highland troops.<sup>84</sup> His success enabled him to report to Matthew Prior the same day how:</p><blockquote><p>The Whigs have affronted the queen and teased her servants almost a month without control, at last a spirit has been exerted which should in my poor opinion have been sooner shown, and they have been defeated in all their attacks though fortified by a considerable detachment from our party.<sup>85</sup></p></blockquote><p>Besides the unsettled relations with Oxford, Bolingbroke was also preoccupied with the fragmentation within the Tory party. Although he lamented the administration’s misfortune at seeing Anglesey, leader of one of the most substantial factions in the House, ‘differ from us in a very public and remarkable manner’, he still hoped to ‘maintain a good correspondence’ with him and was heartened by the prospect of Shrewsbury’s imminent return from Ireland, whose ‘wisdom and experience’ he trusted would save the day.<sup>86</sup></p><p>In spite of such aspirations, problems and disappointments continued to mount. The same month (April 1714) Bolingbroke was again refused his coveted earldom and the following month he clashed with Oxford once more over the payment of arrears to Hanoverian troops. Talk of division within the ministry and Oxford’s successful manipulation of the queen into persuading her to declare her support for the Hanoverian succession led some to conclude that Bolingbroke was on the back foot and would soon be turned out. Others reckoned that ‘he stands as firm as any one whatsoever. His parts make him generally esteemed, and his other good qualities as generally beloved.’<sup>87</sup> At that stage the latter were probably the closer to the truth. In spite of her declaration in favour of the elector, the queen indicated her increasing reliance on Bolingbroke over Oxford by approving the former’s choices for a series of diplomatic postings, most notably that of her cousin, Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, as envoy to Hanover in preference to Henry Paget*, Baron Burton (later earl of Uxbridge), Oxford’s preferred candidate.<sup>88</sup> Baron Bothmer was in no doubt that this was the significance of Clarendon’s appointment: ‘the changing Lord Paget for this fool Clarendon, having been brought about with Lord Oxford’s knowledge, shows that Bolingbroke has acquired a superiority’.<sup>89</sup> The Hanoverian resident Kreienberg echoed this opinion, informing the Hanoverian minister Robethon that: ‘Lord Oxford told me, the day before yesterday, as he spoke of Lord Clarendon’s departure, that he knew very well his lordship would not speak well of him at Hanover: a certain sign that it is Bolingbroke who sent him.’<sup>90</sup> It was also reported that Bolingbroke and Lady Masham were once more co-operating after her brief flirtation with the lord treasurer.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Although he had succeeded thus far in sidelining Oxford in the queen’s affections, Bolingbroke still faced an uphill struggle in his efforts to dominate the Tories. In an attempt to regain the initiative with them, he promoted the schism bill in May 1714, working in close association with Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester.<sup>92</sup> The bill was managed through the Commons by his henchman Wyndham.<sup>93</sup> Unsurprisingly forecast by Nottingham as being in favour of the measure, Bolingbroke championed the bill in the House, introducing it on 4 June. He insisted that it was:</p><blockquote><p>a bill of the last importance, since it concerns the security of the Church of England, which is the best and firmest support of the monarchy, both which, all good men, and, in particular that august assembly, who derive their lustre from, and are nearest the throne, ought to have most at heart.<sup>94</sup></p></blockquote><p>Opposition to the bill was voiced by Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, who made much of Bolingbroke’s own Dissenting past, and by Halifax, William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, Nottingham and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>95</sup> On 9 June an amendment proposed by Halifax, which would have permitted the survival of Dissenting schools, was rejected by 62 to 48.<sup>96</sup> A subsequent petition from a delegation of Dissenters promoted by Wharton was also rejected, largely through Bolingbroke’s influence.<sup>97</sup> Although the Hanoverian Tories led by Anglesey and Abingdon backed Bolingbroke, Oxford (who may also have been the subject of Wharton’s jibe) significantly left the chamber without voting.<sup>98</sup> The bill was passed by five votes on 15 June.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Towards the end of the month, Bolingbroke was heavily involved with the bill for preventing the raising of forces for the Pretender.<sup>100</sup> On 25 June he moved for a bill to be drafted to prevent soldiers from being sent overseas without licence and he then chaired the committee of the whole considering the measure the same day.<sup>101</sup> His widely rumoured Jacobite sympathies were no doubt the reason for him being treated roughly in the debates.<sup>102</sup> On 28 June he chaired the committee of the whole considering amendments to the bill again, and after further amendment the bill was engrossed. The frenetic atmosphere at court and in Parliament left people uncertain as to who might emerge ahead but opinion increasingly moved in favour of the likelihood of Oxford being ‘cashiered’ and of Bolingbroke succeeding him as lord treasurer.<sup>103</sup> Around the middle of June, Shrewsbury, who had been ‘in suspense’ attempting to decide ‘whether he should be of Bolingbroke’s or Oxford’s party’, resolved (though only temporarily) in favour of the former, making it all the more certain that Bolingbroke would be the victor.<sup>104</sup> Shrewsbury’s resolution was made in spite of his opposition to the schism bill.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke’s apparent victory over his former mentor left him in rude good spirits. He made no secret of his delight and ‘in his cups and out of his cups brags what a mighty man he is’.<sup>106</sup> Despite this, matters in Parliament remained tense and the debates in the House on 30 June and 1 July centred on the opposition’s criticism of the commercial treaties with Spain. According to Thomas Bateman, Bolingbroke was the only minister to speak in defence of the treaties.<sup>107</sup> While one newsletter disagreed with this and reported that both Bolingbroke and Oxford spoke in favour of the measures, the consensus seems to have been that Oxford had abandoned Bolingbroke to the opposition’s recriminations, ‘which nice observers looked upon as a certain indication of a falling out between these two ministers’.<sup>108</sup> On 5 July, in spite of his apparent espousal of the first, Shrewsbury attempted once more to reconcile Bolingbroke and Oxford. The same day Ralph Bridges equated the passage of the Schism bill with the developing schism between the two great men and described how Bolingbroke, Atterbury and Harcourt were now united in their aim to displace Oxford and for Bolingbroke to succeed him as treasurer.<sup>109</sup> It was also thought that Marlborough’s expected return to England had been achieved through Bolingbroke’s interest and that this too signalled further problems for Oxford.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke’s own position was by no means assured. Questions brought to the attention of the House by the South Sea Company concerning the commercial treaties with Spain soon dominated proceedings again and threatened to discredit him, Lady Masham and the queen, all of whom were accused of benefiting disproportionately from the deal. During the debates of 6 July Bolingbroke became embroiled in a dispute with Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, who had been envoy at Madrid at the time of the negotiations.<sup>111</sup> A concerted effort to have Bolingbroke and his agent, Arthur Moore<sup>‡</sup>, consigned to the Tower for their role in negotiating the commercial treaties with Spain was ultimately averted only by the prorogation on 9 July.<sup>112</sup></p><p>The fractious nature of the session took its toll on Bolingbroke. He complained to Matthew Prior that:</p><blockquote><p>These four or five months last past have afforded such a scene as I hope never again to be an actor in. All the confusion which could be created by the disunion of friends, and the malice of enemies, has subsisted at court and in Parliament. Little or no public business has been transacted in domestic affairs; and as to you and your continent we have not once cast an eye towards you. We never could so justly be styled <em>divisos</em> <em>orbe</em> <em>Britannos</em> [Britons divided from the world].<sup>113</sup></p></blockquote><p>Bolingbroke was in no doubt that much of the furore had been part of a plot aimed particularly at unseating him and that the principals in the conspiracy were his supposed allies in the ministry, ‘in the service of whom I have drudged these 14 years’.<sup>114</sup> He conveniently overlooked his own disloyalty to Oxford. The days following the session found him busier than ever in his efforts to supplant his former friend. Speculation was rife that he was now in talks with Anglesey and that the two had agreed to sideline Harcourt and to share the spoils, though parallel rumours had it that he and Oxford had reached an accord whereby Oxford would remain treasurer as a figurehead but that he would embrace Bolingbroke’s policies.<sup>115</sup> On 24 July it was reported that Bolingbroke was at last to receive an earldom.<sup>116</sup> Three days later Oxford was dismissed.<sup>117</sup> The following day Bolingbroke (attended by Wyndham) presided over a meeting with a number of key Whigs in an effort to secure their support for a new administration.<sup>118</sup> He succeeded only in eliciting a stark warning from James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope:</p><blockquote><p>Harry! You have only two ways of escaping the gallows. The first is to join the honest party of the Whigs, the other to give yourself up entirely to the French king and seek his help for the Pretender. If you do not choose the first course, we can only imagine that you have decided for the second.<sup>119</sup></p></blockquote><p>Failure to secure Whig support can hardly have come as a surprise to Bolingbroke and in a letter of 29 July it was reported that he and the lord chancellor (Harcourt) ‘rule the world, and it is said they will be swingeing Tories, and not a Whig left in place a month hence’.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Despite such appraisals, undisputed supremacy continued to elude Bolingbroke. At a meeting of the Privy Council held on 30 July, it was Shrewsbury (who had changed his mind once more and was now determined not to support Bolingbroke) who was awarded the staff of office as lord treasurer. Bolingbroke was forced to be content with the effective leadership of an administration headed officially by the duke. The compromise may have owed something to Harcourt’s intervention, though one account suggested that Bolingbroke had recommended the move to the queen himself. Even if he did so, Bolingbroke was not pleased to have missed out once again; the efforts of his supporters to make light of this latest disappointment rang very hollow indeed.<sup>121</sup> In any case, the sudden deterioration in the queen’s health overshadowed Bolingbroke’s triumph. Following the Council meeting his attention was concentrated on the composition of letters to a series of officials, including to the lord mayor of London ordering him ‘to take all possible care for preserving the peace of the city and preventing any evil consequence on this occasion’ and to the postmaster general commanding a stop to all packet boats leaving the country with the exception of those serving the lords justices of Ireland and the secretaries of state, in an effort to contain the rumours of the queen’s impending demise.<sup>122</sup> Anne’s death on 1 Aug. left Bolingbroke with little to do but wonder at his poor luck: ‘the earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday; the queen died on Sunday. What a world is this and how does fortune banter us.’<sup>123</sup></p><h2><em>Later career, 1714–51</em></h2><p>Bolingbroke’s fall was rapid. Within days he found himself ‘threatened and abused every day by the party, who publicly rejoice, and swear they will turn out every Tory in England’.<sup>124</sup> Members of the new administration headed by the regents took great pleasure in treating him little better than a lackey. More ominously for him, by the middle of August, it was already being reported that compromising papers had been found that it was thought might confront Bolingbroke with serious difficulties.<sup>125</sup> The rapid reversal of his fortunes no doubt accounts for his presence on just three days of the 15-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death.</p><p>In such circumstances, Bolingbroke had no option but to throw himself on the mercy of the new king, who was proclaimed the same day. He protested with hollow sincerity that ‘the same principles of honour and conscience, which induced me to serve the late queen until her death, with constancy and fidelity, will inviolably bind me to your Majesty, and that, whether at Court, in Parliament, or in my County, I will endeavour at all times’.<sup>126</sup> Although almost two weeks after the king’s accession, Bolingbroke was able to comment on the remarkably peaceful transition, he was under no illusions of his own poor standing with the new regime:</p><blockquote><p>For my own part I doubt not but I have been printed in fine colours to the king. I must trust to my conduct to clear me. I served the queen to the last gasp as faithfully as disinterestedly as zealously as if her life had been good for twenty years … on the same principle will I serve the king if he employs me and if he does not I will discharge my duty honestly and contentedly in the country and in the house of peers.<sup>127</sup></p></blockquote><p>To his own father, who was rewarded for his loyalty with a viscountcy the year after the accession of George I, Bolingbroke protested that he had always been ‘as true a friend’ to the Hanoverian succession ‘as any of those who clamoured the loudest and a better than some of them’.<sup>128</sup> Unfortunately for Bolingbroke, the king remained unconvinced. At the close of the month he was commanded to deliver up the seals and was put out of government.<sup>129</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke was unsurprised by the king’s decision. In a letter to Atterbury he remarked, sardonically, how ‘the manner of my removal shocked me for at least two minutes’. Nevertheless, he found himself in a quandary how best to behave: ‘It is not fit that I should be in town without waiting on the king when he arrives, and it is less proper that I should wait on him after what has passed, till by my friends some <em>éclaircissement</em> has been had with him.’ While professing to have no fear for his own safety, Bolingbroke saw in the manner of his removal from office and understood from the atmosphere in London the completeness of his party’s defeat: ‘the grief of my soul is this, I see plainly that the Tory party is gone’.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke retired to the country shortly after being put out of office, not, as some rumours suggested, to France or to the Tower. Retirement, he protested unconvincingly, was precisely what he now aimed for, perhaps in response to reports that his likely impeachment was a major topic of conversation in the coffee houses.<sup>131</sup> He returned to London for the coronation in October 1714 and took his place in the House in March 1715 for the first Parliament of the new reign. Despite earlier protestations that he was not ‘in the least intimidated by any consideration of the Whig malice and power’, fear of impeachment drove him to flee to France soon after, disguised (by the adoption of a black bob wig and with his eyebrows blackened) as a French courier.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke had undoubtedly been in communication with the Jacobite court prior to the death of Queen Anne and he was quickly able to make the most of his contacts there. He joined the Pretender’s administration in exile and became a point of focus for the discontented, among them the impressionable Philip Wharton*, 2nd marquess (later duke) of Wharton.<sup>133</sup> Bolingbroke’s impeachment and loss of his title and right to sit in the House, his brief career in the service of the Stuarts as secretary of state to the Pretender, his protracted efforts to secure his return to England and his role as the author of an invigorated ideology of patriotism will be considered in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Having negotiated his return to England, Bolingbroke was largely resident in the country from 1744 until his death.<sup>134</sup> It is all too easy, given the extent to which he dominated the politics of the closing years of Queen Anne, to forget that on his fall from grace he was still a young man, in his mid-thirties, with almost 40 more years remaining to him. Although he was still influential, his experience broke him financially. His Essex estates, said to have been worth £800 a year, had been sold prior to his getaway in 1715.<sup>135</sup> In his will, he railed against the circumstances that had led to the loss of his titles, blaming ‘the injustice and treachery of persons nearest to me … the negligence of friends and … the infidelity of servants’. Excusing his inability to make the kind of bequests he had intended on account of his reduced circumstances, Bolingbroke’s principal beneficiaries were his French servants and his close friend the marquis de Matignon. Despite the loss of his titles, he was succeeded, without question, as 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke by his nephew, Frederick St John*, 3rd Viscount St John, by virtue of the special remainder conveying his peerage to his father’s heirs.</p> |
|
|
ST JOHN, Oliver (1634-88) |
<p><strong><surname>ST JOHN</surname></strong>, <strong>Oliver</strong> (1634–88)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. June 1646 (a minor) as 2nd earl of BOLINGBROKE (BULLINGBROOKE) |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 9 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1634, 1st. s. and h. of Sir Paulet St John (<em>d</em>.1638) and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. aft. 1681), da. of Sir Rowland Vaughan of St. Mary Spital, Shoreditch, Mdx.; bro. of Paulet St John*, 3rd earl of Bolingbroke. <em>m</em>. 24 Nov. 1654, Frances (<em>d</em>.1678), da. of William Cavendish*, duke of Newcastle, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 18 Mar. 1688; <em>will</em> 12 Jan. 1669-20 May 1679, pr. 11 Aug. 1688.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for accounts 1666.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Recorder, Bedford 1662-84;<sup>3</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. Beds. 1667-81.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Lydiard House, Lydiard Tregoze, Wilts.</p> |
<p>In origin a Norman marcher family, the St Johns migrated to Bedfordshire as a result of the marriage of Sir Oliver St John<sup>‡</sup> to Margaret Beauchamp (grandmother of King Henry VII) in the fifteenth century. The barony of St John followed in 1559, and on 28 Dec. 1624 the earldom of Bolingbroke was created for Oliver St John, 4th Baron St John of Bletsoe<sup>†</sup> (1584-1646). Bolingbroke sided with Parliament and was lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire during the Civil War. He seems not to have fought in the conflict but his eldest son, also Oliver St John<sup>†</sup>, Baron St John (formerly Member for Bedfordshire) was mortally wounded at Edgehill, leaving four daughters but no sons by his wife, a daughter of John Egerton<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bridgwater. On Bolingbroke’s death in 1646 it was, therefore, his grandson by his second son, Sir Paulet St John, who succeeded to the earldom aged just 12 years.</p><p>Nothing is known of the 2nd earl of Bolingbroke’s early education, but it seems likely that there may have been a family arrangement involved in his marriage in 1654 to Frances Cavendish, whose sister Elizabeth Cavendish had previously married John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, brother to Bolingbroke’s aunt, Arbella Egerton. The family’s tendency to name their eldest sons Oliver has created ample opportunity for confusion, as has the existence of the courtesy title of the marquesses of Winchester, St John of Basing. Head of one of the three principal families in Bedfordshire, Bolingbroke commanded considerable interest in the north of the county and, while at 38 hearths his seat at Bletsoe Castle was small in comparison with Woburn Abbey (taxed in 1671 for 82 hearths), he could also boast a second residence at Melchbourne manor, which at 33 hearths was also a substantial residence, and to which the family appears to have moved by 1671.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Despite the family’s close association with the parliamentary cause, by 1660 Bolingbroke, in common with many others, had become reconciled to the Restoration. It is reasonable to assume that he acted to a degree in concert with his kinsman, Bridgwater. Bolingbroke was certainly one of a small group of peers comprising Bridgwater, William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, and Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, who appear to have liaised with George Monk*, later duke of Albemarle, concerning the readmission of the ‘young lords’ to the House.<sup>6</sup> Inaccurately detailed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of those lords ‘whose fathers sat’, Bolingbroke took his seat on 27 Apr. 1660, one of three peers to be sent for that day.<sup>7</sup> He proved to be a conscientious member, attending almost 91 per cent of sitting days during the first session of the Convention. During the course of his parliamentary career he was one of the most prominent committee chairmen, displaying a particular interest in matters concerning navigation. Indeed, boats appear to have been one of Bolingbroke’s obsessions.<sup>8</sup> Named to ten committees during the first session, on 3 May he chaired a session of the committee for privileges. Seven days later he chaired the committee again, and on 14 May he was added to the committee for petitions. Bolingbroke demonstrated a consistent interest in the religious settlement, almost invariably lending his support to those in favour of a broad toleration. Shortly before the adjournment on 11 Sept. he entered his dissent at the resolution to accept the proviso added by the committee considering the bill for confirming ministers. Following the adjournment Bolingbroke was named to a further ten committees, and he was also one of those nominated to consider the manner of congratulating the Queen Mother on her return to England on 8 November.</p><p>Bolingbroke was overlooked as lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire, despite his rather peremptory appeal to Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> requesting the position, ‘Sir, my desire is in which I beg your favour to be lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire where all my land lies. My name is Bolingbroke.’<sup>9</sup> The former royalist, Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland, was appointed instead. Despite this setback, it seems likely that Bolingbroke attempted to exercise his interest in the county during the elections for the Cavalier Parliament. Fierce rivalry existed between the St Johns and the Bruces in Bedfordshire, while in Bedford itself Bolingbroke and Cleveland both enjoyed influence.<sup>10</sup> It is not known whether he supported his candidature actively, but Bolingbroke would almost certainly have been sympathetic to the return of Sir Samuel Browne<sup>‡</sup> for the county (Browne being possibly a distant kinsman).<sup>11</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament and was again assiduous in his attendance, sitting on 86 per cent of all days during the session. He was also once more active in committee-work being named to some 66 committees during the session, including that for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament. On 17 Dec. he entered a solitary protest against the proposed amendments to the corporations bill, arguing that the provision to allow commissioners to remove corporation officers was contrary to the terms of Magna Carta. Bolingbroke’s local interest as well as his recent stand on the issue of corporations may have encouraged the corporation of Bedford to nominate him to the recordership following the resignation of Sir Samuel Browne towards the end of the year.<sup>12</sup> On 7 Jan. 1662 he was named one of the reporters of the conference for dissolving the joint committee concerning the plot and the same day chaired the committees considering the bills for naturalizing Lady Wentworth and concerning Hackney coaches. On 9 Jan. he chaired the committee considering Anthony Ettrick’s bill, and the following day he reported the committee’s findings to the House. On 11 Jan. the House read for the third time and passed a bill for discharging the manors of Stadscomb and Holwell from a trust of 150 years granted to Bolingbroke, Bridgwater and John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter. Bolingbroke chaired a session of the committee considering the uniformity bill on 28 Jan. and the following day reported from the committee for petitions the case of <em>Lee v. Sir Henry Pigott</em>. He chaired a session of the committee for privileges and a further session of the committee considering the uniformity bill on 3 Feb., and on 5 Feb. he chaired the committee for the bill of John Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Scudamore [I]. On 8 Feb. he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill to disunite the hundreds of Dudston and Kingsbarton from the city of Gloucester, and the same day he chaired the committee considering the bill for allowances for curates. Bolingbroke chaired the committee for the uniformity bill again on 15 Feb. and chaired three more committees before the end of the month.<sup>13</sup> During March Bolingbroke presided over 16 committee sessions, reporting the findings of four to the House, and on 1 Apr. chaired the committee considering the bill for customs. On 5 Apr. he reported from the committee considering John Deerham’s bill, and on 12 Apr. chaired the committee considering the bill for the manor of Rannes, whose findings he reported to the House on 25 April. The same day he was named to the committee for the bill for money for officers who served the king during the civil wars. He presided over it on 28 Apr., during which the preamble was agreed to. The following day the committee convened again, and at a session again chaired by Bolingbroke on 30 Apr. it was resolved to omit a proviso offered by Bridgwater.<sup>14</sup> Bolingbroke reported the committee’s findings on 5 May and entered his dissent when it was resolved not to add a proviso to the bill reserving the king’s right to the disposal of the money. He believed that, ‘the sole and supreme power of disposing of monies is in the king, and that no aid ought to be disposed but by his sole warrant and commission’.<sup>15</sup> Named a manager of the conference with the Commons concerning the bill, on 17 May he was nominated to manage two more conferences with the Commons, and on 19 May he subscribed the protest against rejecting the Lords’ provisos to the act for enlarging and repairing the common highways.</p><p>Bolingbroke was admitted formally as recorder of Bedford during the summer, having been nominated to the office the previous December. During the course of 1663 he was able to use his increased interest in the corporation to secure the return of his brother, Paulet St John, as Member for Bedford at the by-election held that year.<sup>16</sup> Bolingbroke resumed his seat for the 1663 session on 18 Feb. after which he was again regularly present in the House, though there was a slight decline with his attendance falling to approximately 63 per cent of all sitting days. Named to some 26 committees during the session, on 17 Mar. he chaired a session of the committee considering the tithes bill. He chaired a further session of the same bill on 23 Mar. and the following day he reported the committee’s findings to the House. The bill was recommitted, and Bolingbroke again presided over the committee on 31 Mar. and on 4 and 13 April. On 2 May he chaired the committee for Edward Challoner’s bill, which he reported back to the House two days later.<sup>17</sup> The same day (4 May) he chaired a session of the committee for privileges concerning the arrest of a servant of Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick. Bolingbroke reported the findings of the committee for privileges concerning fees payable to officers of the House for translating bishops and on lords’ descents on 8 May, and on 13 May he reported from the committee considering Sir John Packington’s<sup>‡</sup> bill.</p><p>Besides his activities in the House as a committee chairman, through the spring and summer of 1663, Bolingbroke was also concerned in a family drama resulting from Lady Elizabeth Cranfield’s decision to leave her uncle and guardian, Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex. Although Lady Elizabeth had chosen Bolingbroke as her preferred guardian, he proved reluctant to involve himself in the quarrel. Acting on a ‘whim’, he refused to ‘venture without my Lord Middlesex’s consent’ and turned her away from his house, forcing her to seek refuge with Bridgwater.<sup>18</sup> On 12 June the resulting dispute between Bridgwater and Middlesex was brought to the House’s attention and both men were taken into custody. Bolingbroke was granted leave of absence on 27 June, after which he remained away from the House for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Despite his reluctance to become embroiled in the affairs of Lady Elizabeth Cranfield, early in 1664 Bridgwater appealed to Bolingbroke to search out a copy of a settlement that had been lodged with Bolingbroke’s grandfather to enable Cranfield to answer a chancery case brought against her by Middlesex.<sup>19</sup> Bolingbroke took his seat on 21 Mar. 1664, when he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and the Journal (he was named to the committee for petitions two days later). Present for all but one of the 36 days of the session, he was again prominent as a committee manager. Bolingbroke’s attitude to the attempt made by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in 1663 is uncertain. On 1 Apr. Lady Bristol attempted to persuade him to deliver a petition to the House on her husband’s behalf. Bolingbroke was said to have taken the paper while rushing into the House. Then, realizing what it contained, he thought better of it and ran out again to return it into Lady Bristol’s hands, ‘protesting he thought of somewhat else when he took it and that never a peer in the House, who considered what he did, would hope it longer in his hands, than he had done’.<sup>20</sup> That Lady Bristol approached him suggests that she believed that he would be sympathetic to Bristol’s cause. There is reason to believe that Bolingbroke was no friend of Clarendon’s, but he was clearly reluctant to associate openly with Bristol.</p><p>Bolingbroke chaired two committees on 26 Apr. 1664 and the following day he was named to the committee concerning the bill for Sir John Pakington and the inhabitants of Aylesbury.<sup>21</sup> He was named to the committees considering four further bills before the prorogation, and on 10 May, during the debates on the Conventicles Act chaired by Bridgwater, he offered a proviso allowing lords indicted for a third offence to be tried by their peers.<sup>22</sup> Bolingbroke resumed his seat on 24 Nov. after which he was present for over 90 per cent of the session. On 1 and 5 Dec. he chaired sessions of the committee for privileges, and on 6 Dec. he reported from the ‘grand committee for privileges’ that lords were not to be granted leave of absence without the king’s permission and without leaving their proxies. Bolingbroke was named to a further 22 committees during the remainder of the session, mostly concerning trade and private estate bills. He appears to have co-operated closely with Bridgwater in the management of committee business. On 13 Jan 1665 he chaired the committee for Sir Jacob Astley’s<sup>‡</sup> bill, and on 16 and 24 Jan. he presided over committees considering navigation schemes in Hampshire and on the river Medway. On 28 Feb. he chaired three committees, including that considering the additional bill for collecting the excise. On 1 Mar. he chaired the committee for the bricks and tiles bill and reported back from the committee for the excise bill.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke was granted leave not to attend as one of the triers of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle, at the close of April 1666.<sup>24</sup> He returned to the House later that year, eight days into the new (1666-7) session. On 27 Sept. he was added to the committees for privileges and the Journal. On 5 Oct. he chaired a session of the committee deliberating on the plague bill, and on 10 Nov. he chaired the committee considering the bill for preventing the importation of foreign cattle. Nominated a manager of the conference concerning the public accounts on 22 Nov, on 12 Dec. Bolingbroke chaired the committee for the bill for regulating the price of victuals.<sup>25</sup> On 29 Dec. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the impeachment of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt. The same day he was named a manager of a conference for the Irish cattle bill, and of a further conference on the public accounts. By the close of 1666, Bolingbroke appears to have aligned himself clearly with the opposition to Clarendon, and his continuing prominence as one of the foremost committee chairmen may be indicative of the extent to which those in opposition to the chancellor had assumed control of the House.</p><p>The year 1667 witnessed the greatest concentration of Bolingbroke’s involvement in the House’s business. Between January 1667 and May 1668, he was named to at least 39 committees for private bills, besides being involved heavily as one of the regular chairmen of the privileges committee. On 2 Jan. he was named a reporter of the three conferences held that day on the poll bill, the public accounts bill and the Irish cattle bill. On 4 Jan. he chaired a session of the committee for privileges, and the following day two sessions of the committee concerning the bill for regulating of the price of victuals. He chaired the same committee on 7 and 10 January.<sup>26</sup> A reporter of the conference concerning Mordaunt’s impeachment on 4 Feb., the following day Bolingbroke entered his dissent at the resolution to refuse the Commons’ request for a further conference on Mordaunt’s impeachment.</p><p>Bolingbroke took his seat in the seventh (1667-9) session on 15 Oct. 1667 and the same day he was added to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal, as well as being named to two further committees. He appears to have been intended as chairman of the committee concerning the Anglo-Scottish trade bill on 16 Oct., but his name was scratched out and replaced with that of George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley (later earl of Berkeley).<sup>27</sup> Bolingbroke resumed his chairing role on 22 Oct. when he presided over the committee concerning proceedings in the courts of justice, and on 30 Oct. he chaired the committees considering the bill for regulating the price of wine, and concerning the colliers, woodmongers and butchers bill. Heavy commitment to committee business continued in November, with Bolingbroke chairing two committees on 4 Nov. and four on 21 November. On 3 Dec. he chaired a further session of the committee for the Irish cattle bill, and the following day he reported the resolution of the privileges committee that the Painted Chamber should be fitted up for accommodating the Lords at conferences.<sup>28</sup> Bolingbroke reported further findings of the committee for privileges the following day over the precedence to be granted to foreign nobility, and on 6 Dec. he again supervised a session of the committee considering the bill for foreign cattle, during which the employment within the bill of the term ‘nuisance’ was discussed.<sup>29</sup> Nominated a reporter of the conference considering freedom of speech in Parliament on 10 Dec., on 14 Dec. Bolingbroke was named a reporter of a further conference concerning the Lords’ dissent to the vote. On 20 Dec. he was named to the sub-committee named to draw up answers to the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ amendments to the cattle bill.</p><p>Absent from the House from 16 Dec. 1667 until 6 Feb. 1668, on 15 Feb. Bolingbroke chaired the committee concerning <em>certiorari,</em> and he chaired a further eight committee sessions the following month, again dominated by the business over the Irish cattle bill.<sup>30</sup> On 16 Mar. he entered a protest over the cause of <em>Morley v. Elwes,</em> and on 31 Mar. he entered a further dissent at the resolution that the case should be remitted to chancery. Bolingbroke reported the findings of the committee considering the Irish cattle bill on 17 March.<sup>31</sup> On 30 Mar. he was compelled to inform a committee of the whole house that a sub-committee over which he was presiding had proved incapable of producing a quorum, upon which 17 more peers were named to the sub-committee.<sup>32</sup> On 3 Apr. he was named a manager of the conference concerning the bill for taxing adventurers in the Fens, and on 21 Apr. he chaired a session of the committee concerning the bill for creditors of the Hamburgh Company.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke returned to the House following the adjournment, and was again remarkably consistent in his attendance, being present on 86 per cent of sitting days. Named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal on 19 Oct. 1669, he was named to a further five committees during the session. On 9 Nov. he reported from the committee for petitions the cause of <em>Sir Theodore Devaux v. Sir John Collingdon</em> and on 22 Nov. subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill limiting certain trials in Parliament and parliamentary privilege, along with his uncle by marriage, John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover. Granted leave of absence on account of ill health on 29 Nov., he resumed his seat on 6 Dec. and then sat for a further five days before the close of the session.</p><p>Although Bolingbroke attended 60 per cent of all sitting days in the ensuing (1670-1) session, during which he was named to 30 committees, his involvement as a committee chairman declined after 1670. Principally involved with just two committees, between 12 and 24 Mar. 1670 he chaired sessions of the committee considering the wool bill and on 16 and 19 Mar. that concerning the Admiralty bill.<sup>34</sup> In the midst of this he was one of the principal speakers to voice his opposition to the bill allowing John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to remarry, and on 5 Apr. 1670 he entered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the Commons’ insistence on the clause within the conventicles bill allowing peers’ houses to be searched.<sup>35</sup> Following the adjournment, on 9 and 11 Nov. he again presided over the committee considering the bill for preventing frauds in the exportation of wool and he reported the bill to the House on 11 November.<sup>36</sup> Bolingbroke chaired the committee considering Sir Philip Howard’s<sup>‡</sup> bill on 9 Jan. 1671 and was named to a further five committees during the ensuing month.<sup>37</sup> On 28 Feb. he seconded the notorious speech made by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, in response to the subsidies bill, but he was then absent from the House from 4 Mar. until the close of the session.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke attended the prorogation day on 16 Apr. 1672. He was present for 73 per cent of the first session of 1673 during which he was named to 18 committees. On 24 Mar. he was named a reporter of the conference for the popish recusants bill. Following the death of John Gardiner, Bolingbroke’s deputy in Bedford, the corporation petitioned him to accept Thomas Christie<sup>‡</sup> (an agent in the Bruce interest) as the new deputy recorder, but was unsuccessful.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke resumed his seat for the brief four-day session of October-November 1673 and was named to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal. Returning to the House for the 1674 session, he was again named to the sessional committees and on 7 Feb. to the committee considering the bill for the preservation of wood and timber. Named a reporter of the conference considering the address to the king on 11 Feb., he was named to a further four committees before the prorogation. Bolingbroke was present for 88 per cent of first session of 1675. Added to the sessional committees on 15 Apr., he was nominated to a further ten committees during the session as well as being named a reporter of the conference considering the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> on 17 May and of that considering the privileges of the House of Commons on 27 May. The following day he submitted a petition on behalf of himself and the inhabitants of Bedford concerning a proposal to make the river Ouse navigable.</p><p>Bolingbroke proved to be an assiduous attender of the session of October 1675. Present on 19 of the 21 sitting days, during which he was named to seven committees in addition to the sessional committees, on 20 Nov. he voted in favour of drawing up an address requesting the dissolution of Parliament. Thereafter, Bolingbroke all but retired from the House, attending just four days of the one hundred and seventeen-day session of 1677 and two of the 68 days of the first Exclusion Parliament. Despite this decline he was assessed thrice worthy by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in May 1677. The sudden decline in his attendance was probably due to ill health. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), estimated Bolingbroke as one of his opponents in or about March 1679; at about the same time a letter (probably from one of Bolingbroke’s kinsmen, Dr John St John) to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, declared his cousin to be ‘a true servant’ of the archbishop.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke was absent from the divisions for the exclusion bill in November 1680. Early in 1681 a pre-sessional forecast for a possible division on Danby’s bail again listed him as an opponent. Although absent from the Oxford Parliament, Bolingbroke received news of its proceedings from his mother and, presumably, from his brother who visited him shortly after the dissolution.<sup>41</sup> Local rivalries also came to the fore during the year when he was put out as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Bedfordshire in favour of Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury. Three years later, following accusations that the town of Bedford had failed to respond with sufficient zeal over the Rye House Plot in which one of the town’s freemen, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, had been prominently involved, he was also displaced from his recordership by Ailesbury.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke was mistakenly reported to have died ‘in a boat, as he lived’ in March 1686.<sup>43</sup> The following year, he was noted as an opponent of the repeal of the Test, and he was included in a list of those opposed to James II’s policies in January 1688. By that time he had all but retired from political life. Premature reports of his death were already current by 15 March.<sup>44</sup> He died on 18 Mar. and was buried ten days later at Bletsoe. In his will Bolingbroke named his brother, Paulet St John, who succeeded him in the peerage, as joint executor with his cousin Sir St Andrew St John<sup>‡</sup>. However there is some reason to suspect that by the end of his life Bolingbroke had lost command of his faculties; shortly after his death Sir St Andrew lodged a complaint in chancery against the new earl over allegations that the will was invalid.<sup>45</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ST JOHN, Paulet (Powlett) (1634-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>ST JOHN</surname></strong>, <strong>Paulet (Powlett)</strong> (1634–1711)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 18 Mar. 1688 as 3rd earl of BOLINGBROKE (Bullingbrooke) |
|
First sat 25 Jan. 1689; last sat 23 Nov. 1704 |
|
MP Bedford 1663-81 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 23 Nov. 1634, 2nd s. of Sir Paulet St John and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Rowland Vaughan of St Mary Spital, Shoreditch, Mdx; bro. of Oliver St John*, 2nd earl of Bolingbroke. <em>educ</em>. L. Inn 1651. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. aft. 15 Oct. and bef. 23 Oct. 1711; <em>will</em> 15 Oct., pr. 23 Oct. 1711.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Bedford 1663; recorder, 1689-<em>d</em>.; j.p. and <em>custos rot.</em> Beds. 1689-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Bolingbroke succeeded to the peerage on the death of his brother following a lengthy, if unimpressive, career as Member for Bedford. Marked variously doubly worthy, and worthy by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in 1676, and in 1679 as a supporter of the opposition, St John was kept out of the commission of the peace for Bedfordshire during the ascendancy of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, the St Johns’ principal rival in the county.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Ostensibly succeeding to a substantial estate based in Bedfordshire, Bolingbroke soon found himself in financial straits; the overriding theme of his tenure of the earldom is one of pecuniary embarrassment. Almost immediately on inheriting the earldom he was embroiled in a suit in chancery with his cousin Sir St Andrew St John<sup>‡</sup>, co-executor with Bolingbroke of the former lord’s will. St John accused him of seeking to overturn the will by suggesting that his brother, Oliver St John, earl of Bolingbroke, had not been in his right mind when he made it.<sup>4</sup> Differences between the two men continued, and in 1706 Bolingbroke made a series of settlements with his cousin, who was at that point heir presumptive to the barony of St John.</p><p>Opposed to James II’s policies, Bolingbroke welcomed the Williamite invasion, and there is no reason to believe that he paid any heed to Ailesbury’s order to provide four horses for the county militia in November.<sup>5</sup> Responding to William’s summons, he attended in the queen’s presence chamber on 21 Dec. 1688 when he signed the Association. He was then present for the subsequent sessions of the provisional government held on 22, 24 and 25 December.<sup>6</sup> The 1689 election for Bedford found the town still evenly balanced between Bolingbroke and Ailesbury. Thomas Hillersden<sup>‡</sup> was probably assisted by Bolingbroke, while Thomas Christie<sup>‡</sup> was returned on the Bruce interest. Ailesbury’s allegiance to the former king meant that he was put out of the recordership and replaced by Bolingbroke.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke took his seat in the Convention on 25 Jan. 1689 after which he sat for approximately 61 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Unlike his brother Bolingbroke proved to be no more active in the Lords than he had been in the Commons, and although he was named to 16 committees during the first session, he does not appear to have played any particular role within them. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of declaring William and Mary king and queen and the same day entered his dissent at the resolution not to concur with the Commons that the throne was ‘vacant’. Bolingbroke again sided with the Commons on 4 Feb., voting in favour of the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and entered his dissent when the Commons’ resolution was overturned. Two days later he supported the Commons again on the same matter. Bolingbroke was excused attendance on account of poor health on 4 March. He resumed his seat on 18 Mar. and took the oaths. Named one of the reporters of the conference for the dissenters’ toleration bill on 22 May, on 31 May he voted in favour of reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates and subscribed the protest when the House resolved not to do so. Bolingbroke was entrusted with additional local responsibility when he was appointed <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Bedfordshire in July 1689. On 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the reversal of the judgments against Oates and subscribed the protest when the resolution to do so was carried. Bolingbroke resumed his seat for the second session of the Convention on 11 Nov. 1689, but he was then present for a mere 22 per cent of the session. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen, regarded him as an opponent of the court.</p><p>The general election saw the two county seats in Bedfordshire shared between the Russell and St John interest, while Christie and Hillersden were again returned for the borough.<sup>8</sup> Bolingbroke took his seat in the new Parliament on 27 Mar. 1690 and sat with greater consistency, attending approximately 62 per cent of all sitting days. Absent briefly in May, he registered his proxy on 3 May with Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, vacated on his return two days later. Bolingbroke was again absent from 8-20 May, but he did not register a proxy to cover his absence. Returning to the House on 20 May he sat for two more days before quitting the session.</p><p>Mentioned in a letter of 4 Sept. as having been unwell, St John sat for just one day of the second (1690-1) session. He arrived for the 1691-2 session on 23 Nov. 1691, when he again sat for just one day before vacating his seat for almost two months.<sup>9</sup> Resuming his place on 13 Jan. 1692 he was thereafter regular in his attendance, although overall he was present for just 24 per cent of the session. Bolingbroke took his seat for the following session on 19 Nov. 1692 but sat for just three days before absenting himself for the remainder of the year. On 7 Dec. he was reported to be ‘very ill’, but he rallied sufficiently to return to the House on 3 Jan. 1693, after which he sat for the remainder of the month and for the majority of February.<sup>10</sup> Associated with those peers supporting ‘country’ issues, on 3 Jan. he voted in favour of passing the place bill, and on 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>Absent at the opening of the 1693-4 session, Bolingbroke took his seat on 21 Nov.; he was again present for just 24 per cent of the entire session. On 22 Feb. 1694 Bolingbroke may have been one of those to contribute to the debate on the trials for treason bill, but otherwise he appears to have made little impression on the House for the following two years and he failed to sit at all for the entirety of 1695.<sup>11</sup> Poor health appears to have been the reason for his absence and towards the end of 1694 premature reports circulated of his demise, though these were quickly contradicted.<sup>12</sup> Bolingbroke did employ his interest in the 1695 elections. Hillersden was again successful in Bedford, but divisions between the St John and Russell connections led to Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Browne<sup>‡</sup> standing separately for the county and allowed William Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> in at Browne’s expense.</p><p>Bolingbroke resumed his seat in the House on 11 Feb. 1696 but once more sat for little more than two months before retiring for the remainder of the session. He returned to the House on 30 Nov. 1696, and on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Thereafter, a further lengthy absence ensued with Bolingbroke failing to attend for almost seven years. He registered his proxy in favour of Stamford on 12 Mar. 1697 and again on 30 June 1698 but thereafter was unable to do so as he did not attend to take the oaths in the new Parliament. Poor health and financial problems were probably the reasons for his seclusion. In 1698 Bolingbroke was involved in a case in chancery brought by the heirs of Sir Rowland Alston, who had named Bolingbroke as one of his executors. Although Bolingbroke refused to act, he continued to be troubled by business concerning the case for a number of years.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Excused at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, the following year Bolingbroke was listed consistently among those thought to be opposed to the occasional conformity bill. He returned to the House on 8 Dec. 1703, and on 14 Dec. he behaved as expected by voting to throw out the bill. Bolingbroke sat for the final time on 14 Feb. 1704. On 8 Dec. he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, but thereafter he played no further part in the House’s business.</p><p>Bolingbroke’s remaining years were marked by ill health and a worsening financial situation.<sup>14</sup> Having already attempted to sell Melchbourne in 1698, in 1706 he sold the manor of Yielden (already mortgaged to William Fermor*, Baron Leominster for £24,000) to Samuel and Jeremy Vanacker for £16,340, and three years later he sold another estate at Keysoe to his kinsman, John Holles*, duke of Newcastle.<sup>15</sup> Classified as a Whig in a list of 1708, Bolingbroke was described as ‘lying dangerously ill’ in mid-March 1710, and he was still sick at the time of the Sacheverell vote on 20 March.<sup>16</sup> He died the following year on or shortly after 15 Oct. 1711, the date of his final will.<sup>17</sup> The majority of sources give his death date as 5 Oct., which must be a mistake. He was buried at Bletsoe on 25 October.<sup>18</sup> In his will he conveyed what remained of his estate to his cousin, William St John*, later 9th Baron St John. On his death the earldom became extinct, but the barony of St John was inherited by his young cousin, Paulet St Andrew St John*, 8th Baron St John, who died in 1714 before attaining his majority.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ST. JOHN, Paulet St. Andrew (1711-14) |
<p><strong><surname>ST. JOHN</surname></strong>, <strong>Paulet St. Andrew</strong> (1711–14)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 15 Oct. 1711 as 8th Bar. St JOHN of BLETSO |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1711, posthumous s. and h. of Sir St Andrew St. John, 4th bt., and Anne (<em>b</em>.1689), da. of Sir William James of Korlings, Suff. <em>unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1711 as 5th bt.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 10 May 1714; <em>admon</em>. to mother 18 June 1714.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>St John succeeded to his father’s baronetcy at his birth, and to the barony of St John shortly after.<sup>3</sup> The estates of his predecessor, Paulet St John*, 3rd earl of Bolingbroke, from whom he had inherited the peerage, passed to his uncle, William St John*, later 9th Baron St John.<sup>4</sup> Despite his youth in May 1712 plans were already afoot for his marriage. The projected alliance required that he survive to the age of 12, but in the event he died in May 1714 probably before his third birthday.<sup>5</sup> During his brief tenure of the peerage, any interest in his estates was, presumably, controlled by his mother and uncles, and it was to the senior of these, William St John, that the title passed on the young lord’s death.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ST. JOHN, William (c. 1689-1720) |
<p><strong><surname>ST. JOHN</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1689–1720)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew 10 May 1714 as 9th Bar. ST JOHN of BLETSO |
|
First sat 27 May 1714; last sat 1 July 1717 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. ?c.1689, 4th but 3rd surv. s. of Sir St Andrew St John<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., and Jane (<em>d</em>.1711), da. of Sir William Blois of Cockfield Hall, Suff. <em>educ</em>. Jesus, Camb. matric. 1709, BA 1713. <em>unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 10 Feb. 1709. <em>d</em>. 11 Oct. 1720; <em>will</em> 28 Jan.-2 Feb. 1719, pr. 17 Jan. 1721.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>William St John inherited both the barony and baronetcy on the death of his young nephew, Sir Paulet St Andrew St John*, 8th Baron St John, in May 1714. Scion of an ancient family, through his father St John was related to the Tudors, while through his mother’s family he traced his line to a brother of King Stephen. St John’s branch of the family had been based at Woodford in Northamptonshire since the early seventeenth century, the manor house being assessed in 1662 at a comparatively modest 16 hearths (Bletsoe castle and Melchbourne were twice as large).<sup>3</sup> His inheritance of the barony was made possible by the successive deaths not only of his nephew but also of three older brothers, one of whom, Paulet St John, drowned with Sir Cloudesley Shovel<sup>‡</sup> when the <em>Association</em> was wrecked in 1707.<sup>4</sup> Although he had been made the principal heir of Paulet St John*), the 3rd (and last) earl of Bolingbroke, St John did not share his cousin’s political sympathies. His succession to the barony and estates in Bedfordshire served to reinforce the Tory interest in the county, which had hitherto been represented primarily by Charles Bruce*, Baron Bruce (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury), who had succeeded Bolingbroke as recorder of Bedford in 1711.<sup>5</sup></p><p>St John was introduced into the House in the midst of the first session of the 1713 Parliament on 27 May 1714. A letter of 12 May stated that he had made his first appearance on that day, but this is presumably a mistake.<sup>6</sup> At or shortly after his introduction, St John was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be in favour of the schism bill. He continued to sit for a further 30 days (approximately 39 per cent of the whole session), and on 5 Aug, 1714 after the death of Queen Anne, he took his seat in the second session. Present for just five days of the brief 15 day session, he was then active in the elections for the new Parliament on behalf of the Tory candidates in Bedfordshire.<sup>7</sup> Despite his efforts, both seats went to Whig challengers.</p><p>St John took his seat in the new Parliament on 17 Mar. 1715; his subsequent career will be examined in the next volume of this work. He died on 11 Oct. 1720 and was buried ten days later at Bletso, being succeeded by his next brother, Rowland St John<sup>†</sup>, as 10th Baron St John.<sup>8</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SANDYS, Edwin (1638-84) |
<p><strong><surname>SANDYS</surname></strong>, <strong>Edwin</strong> (1638–84)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. Apr. 1682 as 8th Bar. SANDYS |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Apr. 1638, 4th but 3rd surv. s. of Henry Sandys (<em>d</em>.1644) and Jane, da. of Sir William Sandys of Musarden (Miserden), Glos.<sup>1</sup>; bro. of William Sandys*, later 6th Bar. Sandys, and Henry Sandys*, later 7th Bar. Sandys. <em> educ</em>. ?Balliol, Oxf. MA 2 Dec. 1642. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. by 27 May 1684;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 14 May 1684.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Little is known of Edwin Sandys prior to his accession to the peerage, and he is easily confused with Edwin Sandys of Ombersley in Worcestershire, who also died in 1684. Sandys was apparently awarded a degree by Oxford when only four years old (perhaps in acknowledgement of his father’s services in the royalist cause). However, it seems most unlikely that he was the Edwin Sandys, ‘placed at school in Essex’ and ‘seduced, by the insinuation of his schoolfellows, to forsake his book and run away into the king’s quarters’, who was fined £40 by the committee for compounding in May 1646 when aged just eight.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Before inheriting the barony, Sandys’ relations with his brother, the 7th baron, had deteriorated to such an extent that between 1676 and his brother’s death in 1682, he was systematically disinherited.<sup>5</sup> The reason for this feud is unknown. An Edwin Sandys married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Blundell, in 1676, but it is unlikely that this man was the subject of this piece.<sup>6</sup> Whatever the cause, the brothers’ dispute seems to have descended into an acrimonious lawsuit.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Sandys succeeded to his diminished inheritance in April 1682. There is no indication that he commanded any parliamentary interest and, although only 44 at the time of his succession, within two years he was sufficiently unwell to make his will leaving what remained of his estates in Hampshire and Wiltshire to his nephew, Sir John Mill, besides a modest annuity to his sister, Elizabeth Gofton. Sandys died towards the end of May 1684 (Morrice records his death in an entry of 27 May), and he was buried in the Holy Ghost Chapel at Basingstoke on 3 June.<sup>8</sup> On his death the peerage fell into abeyance between his six sisters, while his estates passed to his great-nephew, Sir Richard Mill.<sup>9</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SANDYS, Henry (by 1637-82) |
<p><strong><surname>SANDYS</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (by 1637–82)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 1668 as 7th Bar. SANDYS |
|
First sat 19 Oct. 1669; last sat 27 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. by 1637, 2nd s. of Henry Sandys (<em>d</em>.1644) and Jane, da. of Sir William Sandys of Musarden (Miserden), Glos; bro. of Edwin Sandys*, 8th Bar. Sandys and William Sandys*, 6th Bar. Sandys.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Balliol, Oxf. matric. 9 Dec. 1653. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. aft. 17 Apr. 1682; <em>bur</em>. 28 Apr. 1682; <em>will</em> 17 Apr. 1682.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Kpr. of game, Hants 1668-?<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>It has not been possible to determine precise birth and death details for Sandys, but it seems likely that he was in his early thirties when he succeeded his brother, sometime between 9 May and 14 Sept. 1668, to a significantly depleted estate. All the evidence suggests that the family’s decline continued unabated under his stewardship. By 1674 references were being made to his impecuniousness. His decision to sell the majority of the remaining lands proved controversial and invited comment as to whether he could continue to denude the inheritance without an act of Parliament.<sup>4</sup> By the time of his death in 1682 it was noted that his successor had nothing left to inherit save the title itself.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Shortly after the death of his brother, Sandys was confirmed as his successor as keeper of game in Hampshire.<sup>6</sup> This appears to have been his only local office, and there is some evidence to suggest that he abused his position, being arraigned at the forest eyre in September 1670 for hunting a buck with four greyhounds two years previously.<sup>7</sup> Initially, rather more regular in his attendance at Parliament than his predecessor, Sandys took his seat in the House at the opening of the 1669 when he was named to the sessional committees. Although he was present for approximately 94 per cent of all sitting days in this brief session, he was named to just two select committees, both on 10 December. Besides this he appears to have made little impact on the House’s business. He resumed his seat on 14 Feb. 1670 and was again named to the sessional committees. Although his rate of attendance was significantly lower than in the previous session (amounting to some 39 per cent of all sitting days), he was added to 27 committees during the course of the session. On 26 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the conventicles bill. Absent for seven months from the end of March, on 1 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 4 November. Sandys was marked absent at a call of the House on 2 Feb. 1671, and it was not until 10 Mar. that he again resumed his seat. In the course of 1671 an account of his manor of Cholderton in Hampshire was compiled, presumably with a view to its being sold, with a note of the sum total of the purchase being £2,673 19s. 3d.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Present once more at the opening of the new session on 4 Feb. 1673, Sandys was again named to the sessional committees and to a further five committees in the brief session, during which he was present on 85 per cent of all sitting days. On 10 July a warrant was passed granting the precedence of the children of a baron to his younger brother, Edwin Sandys*, later 8th Baron Sandys, and sisters in acknowledgement of their father’s service in the civil wars.<sup>9</sup> Absent for the brief parliamentary session that followed in October 1673, Sandys attended the 1674 session for some 47 per cent of the whole and was named to three committees. In July an attempt by the government to install Sandys, Charles West*, 5th Baron De la Warr, and four other local gentlemen as justices in Andover failed.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Sandys failed to return to the House for the first session of 1675, but on 29 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and the same day was marked excused at a call. During the second session of 1675 Sandys attended some 76 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Nov. he was named to the committee appointed to discover the identity of the publisher of the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, and he was named to six further committees during the session. On 20 Nov. he voted in favour of addressing the crown to request a dissolution of Parliament and entered his protest when the motion was rejected.</p><p>Sandys may have travelled abroad in 1676. A will composed on 5 June that year, in which he appointed his brother, Edwin Sandys, as his executor, noted that he was shortly to take ‘a great journey’.<sup>11</sup> He returned to the House for the 1677-8 session. Although he was only present on 38 per cent of all sitting days, he was nevertheless named to 27 select committees. Since 1675 Sandys had come increasingly to be identified with the opposition, and in 1677 Shaftesbury assessed him ‘worthy’. Local and family ties may have played a part in determining his allegiances. James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, brother-in-law of Sandys’ predecessor, the 6th Baron, was also associated with opposition, as were many of Sandys’ neighbours in Hampshire.<sup>12</sup></p><p>He was then absent for the entirety of the first 1678 session, and he attended just two days of the second session of that year. Listed among the absent opposition peers on 12 Mar. 1679, he returned to the House on 26 Mar., 11 days after the opening of the first Exclusion Parliament's second session, after which he was present for 38 per cent of all sitting days. Reckoned a likely opponent by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), Sandys was again excused at a call on 9 May. He resumed his seat 11 days later, sitting for just eight more days before attending for the final time on 27 May, when he voted against adhering to an earlier vote that the lords spiritual had a right to stay in court in capital cases until judgment of death came to be pronounced.</p><p>Excused once more on account of ill health at a call of the House on 30 Oct. 1680, Sandys was listed among those absent from the divisions on the Exclusion bill on 15 November. His failure to attend was presumably on account of his continuing poor health, but may perhaps also have been because of a family dispute. Towards the end of his life Sandys’s relations with his brother and heir, Edwin Sandys, had deteriorated to the extent that he attempted systematically to strip his successor of what remained of his inheritance. The reason for the rupture is not known, but given the selection of two opposition members of Parliament to be his executors in place of Edwin Sandys, it is possible that the dispute was political. In his last will of 17 Apr. 1682, in which he described himself as being ‘of Rookely’ rather than of Mottisfont, suggesting that he was no longer living at the abbey, Sandys made a final effort to steer his remaining estates away from his brother. Of the £1,100 Sandys appointed for particular uses in the will, more than half (£600) was directed towards his funeral expenses and only one relative, his nephew Thomas Savage, son of the former master of Balliol, received a substantial bequest. Oliver St John<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Doyley and Giles Eyre<sup>‡</sup> were appointed executors and each granted £100 ‘for their pains’. Sandys died shortly after and was buried, according to his wishes, in the Holy Ghost Chapel at Basingstoke on 28 April. His slighted sibling succeeded him in the peerage but in little else.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SANDYS, William (1626-68) |
<p><strong><surname>SANDYS</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1626–68)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>?grandmo. 1649 as 6th Bar. SANDYS; claim recognized 4 May 1660 |
|
First sat 5 May 1660; last sat 9 May 1668 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 27 Aug. 1626 1st s. and h. of Col. Henry Sandys (<em>d</em>.1644) and Jane, da. of Sir William Sandys<sup>‡</sup> of Musarden (Miserden), Glos.; bro. of Henry Sandys*, later 7th Bar. Sandys and Edwin Sandys*, later 8th Bar. Sandys. <em>educ</em>. Balliol, Oxf. matric. 8 Feb. 1639; travelled abroad (France) 1642. <em>m</em>. 1652 (with £3,000),<sup>1</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>.1668), 4th da. of William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. aft. 9 May 1668, bef. 14 Sept. 1668;<sup>2</sup> <em>bur</em>. 18 Sept. 1668; <em>will</em>, none found.</p> |
<p>Gov., Portland, Weymouth, Sandfoot Castle 1660;<sup>3</sup> kpr. of game, Hants 1665; dep. lt., Hants 1667-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Lt. col. Ld. Gerard’s regt. of horse 1666.</p> |
|
<p>The origins of the barony of Sandys are unclear, hence the rules governing its descent are equally uncertain. Burke claimed that it was from his father that Sandys inherited the title, but it has been demonstrated convincingly elsewhere that Elizabeth, Baroness Sandys, outlived her son, a royalist colonel who died of his wounds after a skirmish at Cheriton in 1644. It was on her death, assuming she enjoyed the barony as <em>suo jure</em> 5th Baroness Sandys, that the peerage passed to her grandson.<sup>5</sup></p><p>A remote descendant of the Plantagenet kings, Sandys could claim kinship with a number of prominent families, including the Manners earls (later dukes) of Rutland, and the Wriothesley earls of Southampton. Balliol College, Oxford also proved an important point of contact. Both Sandys and his younger brothers Henry Sandys, later 7th Baron Sandys, and Edwin Sandys, later 8th Baron Sandys, attended the college, as did their cousin, Richard Atkyns. Sandys was accompanied to France in 1642 by another Balliol associate, his future brother-in-law Henry Savage, later master of the college and rector of the family advowson of Sherborne St John.<sup>6</sup> Despite such influential relations, the family’s habit of intermarrying with people of the same surname, though often of no relation, has resulted in a somewhat confused genealogy.<sup>7</sup> The marriage of Sir Edwin Sandys of Latimers in Buckinghamshire (a descendant of Edwin Sandys<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of York) to Elizabeth (possibly later <em>suo jure</em> Baroness) Sandys of the Vyne united two previously distinct branches of the family, an alliance which was further emphasized with the marriage of their son Henry Sandys to his cousin, Sir Edwin's niece, Jane Sandys.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Sandys’ estates were largely centred on Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire, the Sandys’ former seat of The Vyne (Sherborne St John), which had been in the family since the fourteenth century, and which had been their principal residence since the sixteenth century, having been sold to Chaloner Chute<sup>‡</sup> in 1653, shortly after Sandys’ marriage to Lady Mary Cecil.<sup>9</sup> The sale of the Vyne was presumably on account of the family’s reputedly massive financial losses in the Civil War, though they do not appear to have been fined for their royalism.<sup>10</sup> Mottisfont was far from being a modest seat. Assessed at 35 hearths in 1665 it was second only to the Vyne (assessed at 43 hearths) in the county, but Sandys’ interest in the county appears to have been limited and no match for that of the dominant Powlett marquesses of Winchester (later dukes of Bolton) and Nortons.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Despite his father’s death in the Civil War, and some suggestion that he too participated on the royalist side, Sandys escaped confiscation of his estates. He appears to have enjoyed sufficiently amicable relations with Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> to take part in a hunting party with him and other Hampshire royalists, Charles West*, 5th Baron De la Warr, and Sir William Kingsmill, in February 1655.<sup>12</sup> In spite of Cromwell’s overtures, Sandys was noted as being on the fringes of involvement in Penruddock’s rising.<sup>13</sup> His activities at the time of the Restoration are uncertain, but the decision to place him in command of three important garrisons on the south coast is suggestive of the trust in which he was held by the royalists.<sup>14</sup> Nevertheless, he was perhaps not well known outside of Hampshire. Certainly Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, seems to have had difficulty placing him, listing him initially (correctly) as one of the peers whose fathers had been in arms but later amending this (inaccurately) to ‘one of the lords whose fathers sat’.</p><p>With the restoration of the House of Lords uncertainty over the descent of his peerage gave rise to doubts about Sandys’ right to sit. His case was referred to the newly appointed committee for privileges, which quickly decided in his favour, thus accepting the claim that his grandmother was indeed <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Sandys. Such a claim would be unlikely to succeed under modern peerage doctrine, and it is arguable that his writ of summons effectively created an entirely new barony.<sup>15</sup> On 4 May Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, reported the committee’s recommendation and Sandys took his seat the following day. Following his admission Sandys was named to six committees (including the sessional committees for privileges and petitions), and he attended approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days of the first session. Absent without explanation at a call of the House on 31 July, he resumed his seat in the second session on 24 Nov, after which he attended approximately 47 per cent of its sittings. On 13 Dec. he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill for vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines and two days later, he was named to the committee for the Hatfield level bill, a measure in which he was perhaps interested as Salisbury’s son-in-law.</p><p>Sandys does not appear to have been active in the elections for Hampshire of March 1661. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May and on 11 May was named to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal. Absent at a call of the House on 20 May, Sandys returned two days later and was thereafter present for just under half of all sitting days, during which he was named to a further seven committees. Sandys was missing from the attendance list at the opening of the second session on 18 Feb. 1663 but was, nevertheless, nominated to the sessional committees for privileges and the Journal, suggesting that he took his seat at some point during the day. On 25 Feb. he was named to the committee for petitions and over the course of the session he was nominated to a further five committees, including that for the bill for making rivers in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire navigable, in which he may have had some local interest. Although Sandys was present in the House on 10 July, Wharton assessed him as doubtful over the question of the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. His attendance improved in the ensuing session of 1664, when he was present on approximately 61 per cent of all sitting days, but he was absent for the entirety of the 1664-5 session and he attended a mere three days of the fifth session of October 1665, during which he was named to just one committee.</p><p>Sandys attended approximately a third of all sitting days during the 1666-7 session but he was again named to just one committee. Between July and October 1667 he appears to have been involved in some sort of dispute with Lady Gardiner involving leases in London perhaps connected with the aftermath of the Great Fire.<sup>16</sup> His attendance improved in the session that began in October 1667, during which he was present on approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days. Added to the committee for the lead mines bill on 19 Nov., the following day Sandys entered his protest at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request to commit Clarendon without a specific charge. On 7 Dec. he was nominated to the committee considering the bill for Clarendon’s banishment and to a further four committees during the remainder of the session.</p><p>Sandys sat for the last time on 9 May 1668; by 14 Sept. he was dead.<sup>17</sup> He left no will and no record of administration of his estate has been found. He was buried in the Holy Ghost Chapel at Basingstoke, one of his family’s foundations, where £5 was expended on escutcheons.<sup>18</sup> He was succeeded by his brother, Henry Sandys, as 7th Baron Sandys.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SAUNDERSON, James (c. 1667-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>SAUNDERSON</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (c. 1667–1723)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 27 May 1714 as 6th Visct. Castleton [I]; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 Bar. SAUNDERSON; <em>cr. </em>2 July 1716 Visct. CASTLETON of Sandbeck; <em>cr. </em>18 June 1720 earl of CASTLETON |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1715; last sat 26 July 1721 |
|
MP Newark 1698, 1701 (Nov.)-1710 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1667, 8th and o. surv. s. of George Saunderson<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Visct. Castleton [I] and 1st w., Grace, da. of Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup> of Newburgh Priory, Yorks.; bro. of Hon. Nicholas Saunderson<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Magdalene, Camb. matric. 19 Nov. 1681, aged 14; G. Inn 1686; travelled abroad (Germany, Austria, Italy, Spanish Netherlands, France) 1695-8; Padua 1696. <em>unm.</em> <em>d</em>. 23 May 1723; <em>will</em> pr. 2 Aug. 1723.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. alienations 1689-1714, taking subscriptions to S. Sea Co. 1711.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Steward and kpr. of manor and soke of Kirton in Lindsey, Lincs 1693-?<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Lincs. by 1707-<em>d</em>.; steward, honour of Tickhill 1708-<em>d</em>., of Bolingbroke ?1714-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Castleton was given a British peerage as part of the coronation honours, but did not take his seat before the dissolution of January 1715.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
SAVAGE, John (1665-1737) |
<p><strong><surname>SAVAGE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1665–1737)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 18 Aug. 1712 as 5th Earl RIVERS |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Apr 1665, o.s. of Richard Savage and Alice, da. of Thomas Trafford, wid. of John Barnston. <em>unm</em>. <em>educ</em>. Douai. RC priest bef. 1700. <em>d</em>. 27 Feb. 1737.</p> |
|
|
<p>John Savage’s father was the youngest half-brother of Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers. Educated at Douai he was ordained as a priest, possibly as early as 1689, and served the English mission from early 1700.<sup>1</sup> According to Swift, he went to live at the house of his cousin, Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, who treated him with contempt and used him ‘like a footman.’<sup>2</sup> Since Swift was at least partially incorrect in his account of the 4th earl’s will, the rest of the story may also be apocryphal, especially as John Savage is known to have been living in York in 1710-11.<sup>3</sup></p><p>John Savage became heir to the earldom of Rivers at the death of the intervening heir, Francis Savage, at some point in or earlier than 1710. As he was the only direct male heir and was a celibate Catholic priest it was evident that the earldom would be extinguished at his death unless he could be persuaded to renounce his priesthood in order to marry and transmit the family honours to another generation. Accordingly the 4th earl designed the settlement of his estates in a manner calculated to encourage John Savage to do just this. They were left in a trust that could not be broken unless the new earl conformed to the Church of England or left a legitimate male heir. Added complications were that the Rivers’ estates were heavily encumbered with debt and that the settlement was disputed by the 4th earl’s disinherited legitimate daughter, Elizabeth, who had been estranged from her father since her marriage to James Barry<sup>‡</sup>, 7th earl of Barrymore [I], in 1706.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Even before he succeeded to the earldom, John Savage had sought and failed to obtain a dispensation from the pope to enable him to marry.<sup>5</sup> He was encouraged to convert by Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, who was one of the trustees of the Rivers’ estate as well as keenly interested in securing additional support in the House of Lords. Oxford was presumably disappointed to be informed by the diplomat, Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>, that ‘it never has been obtained that a priest should wholly quit his orders ... Savage therefore must cut the knot which his holiness will not untie, turn protestant, renounce the Pope, and all his works; and set himself seriously to the labour of propagation.’<sup>6</sup> In an attempt to break the trust, Rivers took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the declaration against transubstantiation specified under the Test Acts at the Middlesex sessions, possibly hoping that this would not attract the same publicity as taking the same oaths in a higher court.<sup>7</sup> His actions did not pass entirely unnoticed for, referring to Oxford’s recently created ‘dozen’, Lady Nottingham remarked that ‘if the rest of the papist lords follow the example of the e[arl] of Rivers there will be almost as large an addition to the House of Lords this sessions as last, for I suppose if he takes the oaths he’s qualified to sit there’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Oxford had probably promised to assist Rivers in obtaining control of the family estates but, as Rivers soon discovered, Oxford’s promises frequently went unfulfilled. In a letter that can be dated either to November 1712 or November 1713, Rivers wrote to him complaining that ‘my affairs seeming not worth your lordship’s consideration I apply myself once more for your lordship’s answer or leave to take my own measures.’<sup>9</sup> Rivers was convinced that he had done enough to fulfil the conditions of his inheritance, but his refusal to take the Anglican communion left his compliance with the terms of the trust doubtful, and he found himself in a sort of legal and financial limbo. Increasingly bewildered and unsure of his ability to command the interest and good offices of the trustees he began to negotiate with the Barrymores and told Oxford that ‘I am really at a loss of thought what to do betwixt duty to my queen, obligation to your lordship and my own private interest. To sit in the House without an estate is what I believe your Lordship would not require of me.’<sup>10</sup> The promise of £1,000 was sufficient to persuade him to consider taking the sacrament and waiting on the queen before taking his seat in the House, but when only £300 was forthcoming he came to terms with the Barrymores instead.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Two private acts of Parliament settled the various disputes over the estates in 1721 and 1725; the second of these acts provided Rivers with a capital sum of £7,000.<sup>12</sup> Rivers’ actions caused considerable disquiet within the Catholic community, and he found himself having to reassure the church hierarchy that he had no intention of abjuring his religion.<sup>13</sup> He returned to France and in or about 1726, having obtained a dispensation from his missionary oath, he went to live first in Liege and then in Bruges. At his death in 1737 the earldom of Rivers and associated titles became extinct.</p> |
R.P. |
|
SAVAGE, Richard (c. 1654-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>SAVAGE</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (c. 1654–1712)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1679-94 Visct. Colchester; <em>suc. </em>fa. 14 Sept. 1694 as 4th Earl RIVERS |
|
First sat 12 Nov. 1694; last sat 29 Mar. 1712 |
|
MP Wigan, 1681; Liverpool, 1689-14 Sept. 1694 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1654, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers. <em>m</em>. (1) 21 Aug. 1679, Penelope (<em>d</em>.1686),<sup>1</sup> da. and h. of Roger Downes of Wardley, 1da.; (2) lic. 28 Jan. 1688, Margaret (<em>d</em>. c.1692), da. and coh. of Sir Richard Stydolph, bt., of Norbury, Mickleham, Surr., wid. of Thomas Tryon of Bulwick, Northants., <em>s.p</em>.; 1da. illegit. with Elizabeth Johnson, da. of Sir Peter Colleton<sup>‡</sup>; 1s. 1da. (both <em>d.v.p</em>.) illegit. with Ann, countess of Macclesfield. <em>d</em>. 18 Aug. 1712; <em>will</em> 13 June 1711-3 July 1712, pr. 10 Nov. 1712.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. roy. English regt. [I] 1672, Duke of Buckingham’s Ft. 1673; George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham’s ft., Charles Gerard*, Bar. Gerard’s horse 1678-9; lt. col. 4th Horse Gds. 1686-Nov. 1688; col. 3rd Dgn. Gds. Dec. 1688-92, 3rd Horse Gds. 1692-1703, Roy. Horse Gds. 1712-<em>d</em>.; maj. gen. 1693; lt. gen. 1697; constable of the Tower 1710-<em>d</em>.; gen. 1712.</p><p>Col. of militia ft. Cheshire 1680-?1701; <em>custos rot</em>. Cheshire 1695-1703; ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>. Cheshire May 1695-June 1703, Lancs. Jan.-June 1702, Essex Apr. 1705-<em>d.</em>, Tower Hamlets Feb. 1710-May 1712; constable, Liverpool Castle 1701-<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Lancs. 1702-<em>d</em>., Essex 1705-<em>d</em>.</p><p>PC 25 Nov. 1708; envoy to Hanover 1710-11; master gen. of the ordnance 1712.</p> |
|
<h2><em>Early life 1654-94</em></h2><p>As a young man, Savage had an unsavoury reputation. Both he and his older brother were members of a drunken gang who were responsible for killing a passerby in London in 1674 and required a royal pardon to escape a trial for murder at the Old Bailey. Richard Savage’s pardon was renewed and extended ‘to all other felonies whatsoever’ probably in order to cover him against a lesser charge of stabbing.<sup>3</sup> His father had already had to use his influence to extricate him from the consequences of an earlier ‘rencounter’ in Ireland.<sup>4</sup> It seems scarcely surprising that Savage was reputed to have been called ‘Tyburn Dick’ as a young man.</p><p>Rivers was also a noted rake and is known to have fathered at least three illegitimate children. His mistresses included Elizabeth, daughter of the exclusionist, Sir Peter Colleton<sup>‡</sup>, mother of his daughter Bessy, and Ann, estranged wife of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, with whom he had two children, both of whom are believed to have died young. Richard Savage the poet claimed to be one of these children but there is no evidence to support the assertion.</p><p>Richard Savage unexpectedly became heir to his father’s earldom on the death of his older brother, Thomas, in October 1679.<sup>5</sup> Shortly before that he had married Penelope Downes, said to own lands and reversionary leases with a capital value of £30,000-£40,000; their only child, Elizabeth, was born in or about 1685.<sup>6</sup> Nothing has been discovered about the circumstances of his second marriage.</p><p>In 1681 Savage, now styled Viscount Colchester, was returned as Member for Wigan, possibly as a late substitute for his older brother. On good terms with Stanleys, his election owed a great deal to the support of William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby. He was closely associated with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and was a prominent member of his entourage during Monmouth’s progress through the north-west in 1682.<sup>7</sup> Nevertheless, when James II came to the throne he was anxious to curry favour with the crown, in the vain hope of being returned as knight of the shire for Lancashire.<sup>8</sup> He was also rejected as a candidate for Preston. When Monmouth’s opposition broke out into open rebellion in 1685, he volunteered his services on behalf of the crown.</p><p>His reconciliation with the crown was short-lived. Despite his family’s recent religious history, Colchester was extremely sympathetic to Dissent and may have had strong anti-Catholic prejudices. Alienated by James II’s pro-Catholic policies, he was the first English nobleman to defect to William III in 1688. It was presumably this that attracted Macky’s accolade of being ‘always a lover of the constitution of his country’.<sup>9</sup> James II never forgave him and pointedly excluded him from the general pardon that he offered in 1692. Returned to the Commons as Member for Liverpool in 1689, he was clearly and prominently identified with the Whigs. His political circle was also a social one: the Rye House plotter, Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, stood godfather to his illegitimate daughter Bessy in 1699, and, as will be seen, he named senior political allies as executors and trustees of his estates.<sup>10</sup> He exercised direct electoral influence in Cheshire and may also have exercised indirect influence over several Members of the Commons. He was thought to be in a position to assist the career of Thomas Legh<sup>‡</sup>, who was related to the Cholmondeleys, and he was on friendly terms with William Seymour<sup>‡</sup>. It seems likely too that he had something of a following amongst the military men in the Commons: he certainly exercised considerable influence over Thomas Erle<sup>‡</sup> who accompanied him to Spain as his second in command and who clearly shared Rivers’ low opinion of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I].</p><h2><em>Parliamentary career: 1694-1707</em></h2><p>After inheriting the earldom in 1694, Rivers’ financial position was considerably better than that of his father, so much so that he was in a position to lend rather than to borrow. His debtors included his Cheshire neighbour, the suspected Jacobite, Sir Thomas Stanley of Alderley, Cheshire.<sup>11</sup> He was also able to buy additional lands for £19,000 and was rewarded by William III with a grant of the manor of Higham Ferrers.<sup>12</sup> Like his father he became involved in a number of legal actions relating to his estates, including the continuing series of suits concerning his older brother’s marriage settlement. The settlement directed that these lands be used to secure a £10,000 portion for his niece, Lady Charlotte Catherine Savage, who died in 1686. Unfortunately for Rivers the courts (including the House of Lords) interpreted the settlement to mean that the portion had to be paid even though she died underage and unmarried.<sup>13</sup> Rivers’ sister-in-law, the dowager Lady Colchester and her brother, the 9th earl of Derby, and his son James Stanley*, (later 10th earl of Derby), took possession of the lands. The 10th earl of Derby was still in possession in 1705, claiming that rents and profits since 1679 had not been sufficient to fulfil the terms of the trust. The two families had once been firm allies but Rivers became convinced that the Stanleys were attempting to defraud him.<sup>14</sup></p><p>After his accession to the peerage, Rivers became a prominent and active member of the House of Lords, acting as teller in a number of divisions and managing several conferences with the Commons. His party allegiances were firmly with the Junto Whigs until he joined forces with Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, in or about 1709-10. His friendship with William III facilitated a successful military career, but he was nevertheless able to maintain his attendance at a relatively high level, partly because many of the European campaigns in which he was involved were fought during the summer months when Parliament was less likely to be sitting. Rivers’ major political influence ought to have been in Cheshire where he had substantial landholdings. However, the demands of his military career and of attendance at the House of Lords meant that his duties as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Cheshire had largely to be devolved to his deputy lieutenants. This coupled with political and personal divisions in the leadership of the county imposed considerable limitations on his electoral influence. In 1695, for example, he was unable to secure sufficient support for his proposed candidate, the courtier, George Cholmondeley<sup>‡</sup>. He continued to maintain an interest in the electoral politics of Lancashire, especially of Wigan and Liverpool. In Liverpool, Rivers was associated with the supporters of the ‘old charter’, and in Wigan he relied on his alliance with Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>. Sir Roger’s younger brother, Henry Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup> was his aide-de-camp in Spain in 1706 and was said to be ‘under Lord Rivers’ power’ in August 1710.<sup>15</sup> In both these constituencies as in the wider county contests, he was increasingly allied with the interests of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and against those of the 10th earl of Derby.</p><p>Rivers took his seat in the House of Lords at the first available opportunity and as he was then present for nearly 54 per cent of the 1694-5 session and was regularly named to committees. On 14 Dec. 1694 he was appointed to the committee to draw an address to the crown against the establishment of the Scots East India Company, a subject in which as an adventurer in the English East India Company, he had a considerable personal interest.<sup>16</sup> On 21 Jan. 1695 he acted as teller in the division in a committee of the whole on the treason trial’s bill, acting for those against including the amended clauses.</p><p>The general election of 1695 saw a successful attempt to dissuade Rivers from using his influence in Essex to support the prospective candidature of Philip Savage for Colchester. Philip Savage, chancellor of the exchequer in Ireland, had consistently opposed the policies there of the lord deputy Henry Capell*, Baron Capell. Rivers was present on nearly 41 per cent of sitting days of the first (1695-6) session of the new Parliament. On 26 Feb. 1696 in the aftermath of the Assassination Plot it was Rivers who proposed that the wording of the Association should not only acknowledge William III as rightful king but that it should explicitly declare that neither James II nor the his son had any right to the crown.<sup>17</sup> Despite his absence from the county, he was also active in directing measures to be taken against suspected Jacobites in Cheshire.<sup>18</sup> He was again a teller in a division of a committee of the whole on 31 Mar. 1696 concerning a clause to be added to the bill for the recoinage.</p><p>Rivers was present on 45 per cent of sitting days during the 1696-7 session and was regularly named to committees. Not surprisingly, given his close relationship with, and admiration of, the king, on 23 Dec. he voted in favour of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. In the spring of 1698 his relationship with Lady Macclesfield led her husband to apply to Parliament for a divorce, an action which not only produced evidence that was sensational in itself, but which also raised controversial procedural issues concerning the relationship between the House of Lords and both the secular and ecclesiastical courts. Rivers appears to have played no part in the proceedings, other than as a figure of scandal.<sup>19</sup> On 10 Mar. the proxy of Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, was registered in his favour, presumably for use in the forthcoming vote concerning the financier, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 15 Mar. Rivers voted in favour of committing the bill against Duncombe and entered a dissent when the bill was lost. On 1 July he was a teller for the second reading of the East Indies trade bill.</p><p>During the 1698-9 session Rivers’ attendance rose to 61 per cent and he was again regularly named to committees. In February 1699 his privileged position as a close friend of the king was underlined when his troop of horse guards was one of the few that escaped the general disbandment of the army.<sup>20</sup> On 9 Feb. 1699 the House was informed that he, Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, had been involved in a heated quarrel, the cause of which appears to have been remarks by which Peterborough had accused Orford of being a coward and of ‘something very gross’.<sup>21</sup> The House was forced to intervene to prevent a duel. Although Peterborough and Rivers are both listed in the attendance list for that day, the entry in the Journal makes it clear that they were not in the chamber when the issue was raised and had to be sent for. On 23 Mar. he was a teller in the division on whether to resume the House when the committee of the whole considered Desbrow’s bill.</p><p>The next (1699-1700) session saw his attendance rise to 68 per cent with concomitant nominations to a variety of committees. On 23 Jan. 1700 he entered a protest against the resolution to reverse the judgment in <em>Williamson v. the Crown</em>, a decision that depended on a complex legal technicality concerning the jurisdiction of the court of exchequer and its role as the successor to the dissolved Court of Augmentations. On 8 Feb. he was a teller in the division for those opposed to the putting of the question that the Scots<em> c</em>olony at Darien was inconsistent with the welfare of the English plantation trade. On 23 Feb. he opposed the establishment of the committee of the whole to debate amendments to the bill for the continuation of the East India Company. On 4 Apr. he told in the division on the second reading of the land tax bill. On 10 Apr. he was again teller for the division on a free conference on the land tax bill. Somewhat surprisingly, on 12 Mar. he entered a dissent to the passage of the divorce bill promoted by the Whig Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. Most of the protesters were high Anglican Tories; there is no evidence from which Rivers’ motivation can be deduced, other than the distinct but unproven possibility that he was influenced by his friendship with her cousin Peterborough. A list of peers drawn up after the end of the session marked him as a supporter of the Junto.</p><p>During the 1701 session Rivers was present on 69 per cent of sitting days. On 16 Apr. 1701 he acted as a teller in the division on the question in favour of the creation of a committee to draw up an address requesting that the crown should not pass any censure on the impeached Whig lords until their trials. On 3 June he was again a teller for a procedural issue relating to the impeachments in favour of the Lords’ amendment to their proposed message to the Commons insisting on their ability to determine limits to the time allowed to the Commons to make particular rather than general charges. On 10 June he told on the resolution to adjourn the House rather than discuss the supply bill. On 17 June he acted as teller in several divisions concerning the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers, before voting to acquit him. On 19 June he told in the division on appointing a date for the third reading of the supply bill, and on 21 June he was teller in the division, subsequently abandoned, for an address to the crown for a commission of review concerning the marriage of Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick and Lady Inchiquin. On 23 June he voted for the acquittal of Orford.</p><p>During the election of December 1701, Rivers predictably put his influence in Cheshire at the disposal of the Whig candidates, but country suspicions of their court connections fuelled a fierce contest and resulted in an extremely narrow Whig victory. Rivers’ attendance fell to 41 per cent during the 1701-2 session. He was again a teller in several divisions. On 8 Mar. 1702 he was named as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on the death of William III and the accession of Anne; on 18 and 20 May he was similarly named to manage the conferences to discuss ways of preventing all correspondence with France and Spain.</p><p>In 1702 the Cheshire commission of the peace was remodelled to secure a Tory majority and this, together with continuing country concerns and Rivers’ inability to exert sufficient influence over the voting intentions of his tenants, was a major factor in the Tory victory at the 1702 election. The 1702-3 session saw him present on 54 per cent of sitting days. During the course of the session Daniel Finch*, earl of Nottingham, correctly forecast that he would vote against the occasional conformity bill and during January 1703 he told in several of the divisions concerning the bill. On 19 Jan. 1703 his opposition to attempts to ban occasional conformity twinned with his suspicion of the creation of precedents for tacking led him to dissent to the clause in the bill to settle a revenue on Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland.<sup>22</sup> On 22 Feb. he acted as a teller on the division to commit the bill for imposing a qualification on Members of the Commons</p><p>Initially the king’s death made little difference to Rivers’ military career. His commission as lieutenant general was renewed and he continued to serve under John Churchill*, Marlborough, but in 1702 he was replaced as lord lieutenant by Hugh Cholmondeley*, Baron (later earl) Cholmondeley in the English peerage and also Viscount Cholmondeley [I]. In March 1703, in a move that he later claimed had been forced by Marlborough, he sold his colonelcy to Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston (better known as earl of Arran [I]) and his regiment of horse to Colonel William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Cadogan.<sup>23</sup> He probably did so in expectation of further preferment but his request for the command of troops in Portugal was denied by the duumvirs. Perhaps as a result his attendance during the 1703-4 session was exceptionally high at just over 81 per cent. In November and December 1703 he was again forecast as an opponent of the occasional conformity bill. On 1 Mar. 1704 he told against including the words, ‘But that he may have no hopes given him of pardon, without such confession’ in the address to the crown concerning a pardon for James Boucher in return for his evidence about Jacobite plotting. He was again a teller on 24 Mar. for those wishing to put the question of whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect and entered a protest against the failure to do so.</p><p>Changes in the ministry led to further remodellings of the Cheshire commission of the peace in 1704 and to the restoration of a large number of Whig justices. During the following (1704-5) session Rivers’ attendance fell back to 56 per cent. He held the proxies of Hugh Willoughby*, 11th Baron Willoughby of Parham, for the whole of the session and also of George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, from 28 Nov. to 2 Jan. 1705. He was named as one of the managers of the conferences held with the Commons on the case of <em>Ashby v. White</em> on 27 and 28 Feb. and again on 7 Mar. 1705. He was also a manager for a second conference on 7 Mar., that for the bill to prevent traitorous correspondence. Somewhat unsurprisingly in April 1705 he was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.</p><p>Rivers played his part in Cheshire at the election of 1705, but his influence, although useful, was by no means crucial to the Whig success. It was a different story in Essex where, as a reliable Whig, he was appointed in 1705 to replace Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, as lord lieutenant. He was then responsible for adding 14 new justices to the commission of the peace and for a systematic purge of the county’s deputy lieutenants. The result, not surprisingly, was a crushing victory for the Whig candidates at the 1705 election.</p><p>Rivers’ attendance rose to 74 per cent during the 1705-6 session. On 20 Nov. 1705 he was teller for the divisions in the committee of the whole concerning naming the lord treasurer and lord mayor of London as lords justices in the regency bill. On 22 Nov., also in a committee of the whole, he told on the address to the queen on the state of the nation. On 30 Nov. he told on giving further instructions to the committee of the whole considering the regency bill. On 3 Dec. at the third reading of the bill, he then told in the division for reading the rider disabling the lords justices from repealing or altering the test acts for a second time. On 6 Dec. he told in a division of the committee of the whole in favour of the resolution that the Church of England was in no danger and was then named on 7, 11, 14 and 17 Dec. as one of the managers of the conferences on the resolution. He was also named as one of the managers for the conferences on the regency bill on 7, 11 and 19 Feb. 1706. Less controversial issues also occupied his attention, and on 26 Feb. he told in the division about adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to consider the Parton Harbour bill. The respite was short-lived; on 11 Mar. he was named as a manager for the two conferences on the subject of Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter</em> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. Then on 12 Mar. 1706 he also told on the division to agree the address to the crown concerning Carolina. Given his Whig allegiances and dissenting sympathies it seems likely that he supported the address which complained of legislation akin to the English Tory attempts to outlaw occasional conformity. Rivers may well have had a personal interest in the outcome. His mistress, Elizabeth Johnson, was by birth a member of the Colleton family and her kinsman John Colleton, was one of the proprietors of Carolina. The Colletons had significant property not only in Carolina but also in other American and West Indian colonies.</p><p>Rivers was absent from the 1706-7 session, not returning to Parliament until the opening of the next session in November 1707. His absence was caused by his appointment as commander-in-chief of the land forces for an expedition that was originally intended to land in France but which was subsequently diverted to Spain. The expedition offered Rivers the chance he had long wanted to justify his military ambitions and the appointment gratified the Junto, but any expectation of military grandeur proved to be false. The expedition was first delayed by the weather and by Rivers’ illness; then it was marred by confusion in the lines of communication and Rivers’ inability to serve with his fellow officer, Galway.<sup>24</sup></p><p>His relationship with Galway cannot have been improved by the presence of his new son-in-law, James Barry<sup>‡</sup>, 4th earl of Barrymore [I], as a brigadier general under Galway’s command. Rivers had been incensed by the secret marriage, without his permission, of his only legitimate daughter Elizabeth to Barrymore in the summer of 1706. A year earlier Rivers had apparently been negotiating a marriage for her with his fellow Whig and Cheshire neighbour, John Crew Offley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>25</sup> Rivers believed Barrymore to be a fortune hunter and probably also suspected him of being a Jacobite sympathizer. Although he had drawn up a will in 1702, in 1706 he composed a new one. The will of 1706 was accompanied by a settlement of his estates which was designed to ensure that the new countess of Barrymore ‘would not be such a fortune as was expected.’<sup>26</sup> On both occasions he nominated his powerful Whig friends Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, and Baron Somers, as trustees and executors.</p><p>Rivers arrived back in England on 20 Apr. 1707. Although he thus escaped public blame for the ensuing defeat at Almanza (and probably thought that events had vindicated his opinion of Galway), Marlborough and Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godophin interpreted matters rather differently. They resented his conduct towards Galway, had little faith in his abilities and decried his ‘base temper.’<sup>27</sup> For his part Rivers was angry and hurt at what he perceived as the favouritism shown to Galway and other officers.<sup>28</sup> Relations between Rivers and Marlborough were further strained when Rivers accused Marlborough of having forced him to sell his regiment at an unfavourable rate in 1703. By the summer of 1707 when the duumvirs reluctantly recognized the need to replace Galway, they still worried about sending Rivers in his place, fearing that ‘he may insist upon some things which would be too unreasonable.’ The duumvirs were relieved to discover that they did not after all have to make use of Rivers’ services, although they recognized that this might cause them political problems. As Marlborough told his duchess, ‘when he is dissatisfied you will find that [the Whigs] will be of his side, for partiality will show itself when party is concerned’. In order to neutralize Rivers, Marlborough eventually suggested that the reduction in the number of troops there meant that the command could go temporarily to a more junior officer and that Rivers should be told that he would get the command if Parliament voted adequate supplies the following winter. The duumvirs were subsequently relieved to learn that the Junto Whigs were ‘pretty indifferent’ to Rivers, although others were still wary of his potential defection to the ‘malcontents’.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>Turning his coat, 1707-12</em></h2><p>Rivers returned to Parliament for the 1707-8 session when he was present on just under 60 per cent of sitting days. On 5 Feb. 1708 he acted as teller in favour of putting the House into committee on the bill to complete the union. Then on 7 Feb. he entered a protest at the passage of the bill. A rumour that he was to be appointed commander of the forces in Catalonia and ambassador to King Charles of Spain proved to be inaccurate.<sup>30</sup> Increasingly disillusioned by his failure to obtain military advancement, by July he had opened communication with Harley, offering to meet him at his house ‘after ’tis dark if it be convenient’.<sup>31</sup> In an attempt to mollify him he was appointed as a Privy Councillor in November 1708 at Marlborough’s instigation.</p><p>His attendance over the 1708-9 session rose to 63 per cent. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against the right of Scots peers holding British titles to vote in elections for the Scots representative peers, and on 28 Jan. he told on the ability of Scots peers to vote even if they had taken the oaths while incarcerated in Edinburgh Castle. On 6 Apr. he was a teller in a vote in a committee of the whole on the stamp duties fraud bill. On 14 Apr. he told on the Lords amendment to the Commons amendment to the improvement of the union bill. By July 1709, although Rivers was professing more ‘deference and concern’ for the duumvirs than ‘for all the rest of the world together’, they believed that he and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, were both deeply involved in the intrigues of Harley and the Tories. Godolphin feared his influence on Somers, declared Rivers to be ‘extremely dangerous, at all times’ and pondered the possibility of giving him a post that would remove him from the country. As late as August 1709 Marlborough remained convinced that finding Rivers a regiment would win him over without ‘money or pension’, though it is clear that Rivers’ demands did include a pension.<sup>32</sup> In the course of 1709 Rivers drew up a new will in which, as with his earlier wills, he named Somers and Carlisle as his executors.<sup>33</sup> Although this suggests that his alliance with the Whigs was not yet broken, by September 1709 Harley was confident that Rivers and Shrewsbury were ready to join him ‘for the public good’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Rivers attended 69 per cent of sitting days during the 1709-10 session. On 2 Jan. 1710 when the House considered Greenshields’ petition, he told in favour of insisting that Greenshields and the magistrates of Edinburgh attend the House, thus identifying himself with Greenshields’ predominantly Tory supporters. Public confirmation of his new allegiance (and humiliation for the duumvirs) came later that month when he was appointed constable of the Tower in direct contravention of Marlborough’s wishes. On 21 Jan. he told in favour of a failed motion to adjourn the hearing in the case of his fellow friend and fellow renegade Whig, Peterborough, in his long-running attempt to gain possession of the Mordaunt estates that had been lost to Sir John Germaine<sup>‡</sup>. During the run up to Sacheverell’s trial in March 1710, Godolphin and Marlborough were convinced that Rivers and his allies Shrewsbury, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], earl of Greenwich, and Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S] (later 3rd duke of Argyll [S]) were lobbying for an acquittal.<sup>35</sup> On 28 Feb. Rivers told on the unsuccessful motion that Sacheverell’s counsel be able to defend the first article before the Commons proceed on the second. Although Rivers did vote for a conviction, he was now working very closely with Harley. His increasing reliance on mortgages funded by Tories was also symptomatic of changing political loyalties, though even after the prorogation of 5 Apr. Godolphin still had hopes of buying Rivers off by appointing him commander in Galway’s place. The post was offered to him in June and promptly refused.<sup>36</sup> Rivers was now openly associated with Harley and he expected to be rewarded, and rewarded well, by Harley for his support. In August 1710, accompanied by Henry Worsley<sup>‡</sup>, he went as envoy to Hanover with instructions to reassure the elector about the changes in the ministry. The Marlboroughs reported gleefully that Rivers was so unsuccessful that the elector had denied him the customary present at his departure; others pointed out that by securing support of so prominent a supporter of the Revolution, the new ministry had won something of a propaganda victory ‘and cut off all occasion of their being suspected to be in the interest of the Pretender.’<sup>37</sup></p><p>In October Shrewsbury warned Harley that ‘the state of the House of Lords is bad’ and that Rivers and the other peers that Harley had recently recruited might cause problems ‘unless her majesty use some means to please them’. Harley was, nevertheless, confident of Rivers’ support. Some consideration was given to appointing Rivers to the commission for the Admiralty, but it was concluded that ‘he would not care for a place of so great attendance.’<sup>38</sup> Back in England by October 1710 Rivers used his influence in Cheshire against the Whigs at the general election. His alliance with Cholmondeley and Shrewsbury was an important factor in the victory there of Charles Cholmondeley<sup>‡</sup>. He was then responsible for a remodelling of the deputy lieutenancy, in favour of Harley’s administration.</p><p>The new Parliament met in November 1710. Rivers was present for 83 per cent of sitting days. On 9 Jan. 1711 he told against resuming the House after a debate in a committee of the whole on the state of war in Spain, and when the subject was again debated on 12 Jan., he joined in the attack on Galway and the previous ministry.<sup>39</sup> In February Rivers demanded that Shrewsbury and Harley should both intervene on his behalf with the queen, arguing that ‘if I have no countenance shown me I shall make a sorry figure in the world, considering the part I have acted.’ He stressed the financial hardships he had endured under the previous ministry and threatened to retire into the country unless some reward was forthcoming. Despite earlier signs of financial health, he insisted that he was in genuine financial need.<sup>40</sup> In January 1712 his appointment as master of the ordnance and as colonel of the Blues was announced.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, the death of Francis Savage, heir apparent to the earldom, in or about 1710, provided Rivers with a dynastic problem. The new heir to his earldom, his cousin John Savage, was not only a Catholic but an ordained priest. A new settlement had to be made which would tempt John Savage into marriage and a renunciation of his faith but which would also recognize the very real possibility that the earldom would become extinct at John Savage’s death. The settlement was drawn up in June 1711, at which time Rivers also drew up yet another will. His previous wills had favoured his mistress, Elizabeth Colleton, and their daughter Bessy Savage (who later married Frederick Nassau de Zuylestein*, 3rd earl of Rochford) to the detriment of his estranged legitimate daughter. Provision for both was now substantially increased and the remainder of the estate was put into trust for the benefit of John Savage but with a stipulation that in the event of a failure to conform to the Church of England or to leave a legitimate male heir, the whole of the residue, after payment of debts, was to be put in trust for Bessy Savage, subject to a proviso that she could not marry without the consent of her mother.<sup>42</sup> Rivers also left generous legacies to friends, relatives and servants, though not, as Swift later alleged, to ‘about twenty paltry old whores’.<sup>43</sup> It was symptomatic of his changing political allegiances that he appointed Shrewsbury and Harley, now earl of Oxford, as trustees and executors.</p><p>During the early part of the next (1711-12) session, Rivers played an important role in rallying support for Oxford’s new administration in the House of Lords. Before the beginning of the session his name appeared on one of Oxford’s canvassing lists and he was in place for the opening of the session on 7 December. On that day he acted as teller on whether to add to the Address, the words that ‘no Peace can be safe or honourable to Great Britain or <em>Europe</em>, if Spain and The West-Indies are to be allotted to any Branch of the House of Bourbon’. Following the ministry’s defeat on that question, on the following day, Rivers, with Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, and Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen (later 2nd duke of Leeds), was instrumental in provoking an attempt to retrieve the situation, which resulted in an abandoned division.<sup>44</sup> On 19 Oct. he was forecast as likely to support Hamilton’s claims to sit in the Lords as duke of Brandon, and the following day he acted as a teller on that side against the resolution ‘that no Patent of Honour, granted to any Peer of <em>Great Britain</em>, who was a Peer of <em>Scotland</em> at the Time of the Union, can entitle such Peer to sit and vote in Parliament, or to sit upon the Trial of Peers?’. On 2 Jan. 1712 when Somers insisted that the queen’s message to the Lords about the adjournment should go to both Houses at once, it was Rivers, supported by Carmarthen and Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale, who ‘while Lord Somers was speaking went about from one to t’ other of the court sides saying they should not suffer it to be debated.’<sup>45</sup> Between the opening of the session on 7 Dec. 1711 and his last appearance in the House on 29 Mar. 1712 he was present almost every day. A stray reference in May 1712 to his illness confirms the reason for his subsequent absence.<sup>46</sup> He died at Bath on 18 Aug. 1712 and was succeeded by his cousin, John Savage, 5th and last Earl Rivers.</p><p>By the last years of his life Rivers had run into substantial debt, though he found it difficult to convince others of his very real financial difficulties. During his final illness he was so desperate for ready money to pay for his journey to Bath that he was prepared ‘to borrow it upon any terms before Saturday.’<sup>47</sup> The full extent of his problems became apparent soon after his death. The greatest part of his personal estate consisted of a debt owed to him by the deceased Reginald Bretland, which was considered to be irredeemable.<sup>48</sup> Bretland had long been involved in the financial transactions of both the 3rd and 4th Earls and was probably their land agent. At his death, Rivers owed approximately £23,000, which could not be paid in the absence of payment from the Bretland estate. Those to whom he owed money on mortgages included William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, the Tory Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Francis Child<sup>‡</sup> and the executors of Sir Roger Cave<sup>‡</sup>. Rivers bequeathed a further £27,000 in monetary legacies including the sum of £1,000 to ensure himself a magnificent funeral.</p><p>The income from his estate was insufficient to cope with such demands and it became necessary to liquidate a substantial part of the assets. Matters were complicated still further by the 5th Earl’s attempts to gain control of the estate, by allegations that Elizabeth Colleton had exercised undue influence over Rivers, and by accusations that relevant deeds had been destroyed or altered by or at Rivers’ orders in order to deprive his legitimate daughter Elizabeth Savage of lands to which she was entitled under her mother’s marriage settlement. The competing claims of the various heirs led to litigation and the subsequent settlement had to be authorized by a private act of Parliament because some of the parties were underage.<sup>49</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
SAVAGE, Thomas (c. 1628-94) |
<p><strong><surname>SAVAGE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1628–94)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1640-54 Visct. Savage (also Rocksavage); <em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Oct. 1654 as 3rd Earl RIVERS |
|
First sat 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 9 Mar. 1693 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1628, 1st s. of Sir John Savage<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd Earl Rivers, and Catherine Parker. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 21 Dec 1647, Elizabeth, illegit.(?) da. of Emmanuel Scrope<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 2da.; (2) lic. 6 Aug. 1684 (with £10,000), Arabella (<em>d.</em>1717), da. of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey. <em>d</em>. 14 Sept. 1694; <em>will</em> 25 July 1688, pr. 18 Oct. 1694.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Col. of ft. 20 July 1666; grand master, Freemasons [E], 1666-74; high steward, Macclesfield.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: monument in St Michael’s, Macclesfield, Cheshire.</p> |
<p>Thomas Savage, 3rd Earl Rivers succeeded to a much encumbered estate. The family was based in Cheshire, but he also had substantial properties in Lancashire, Essex and Suffolk and, through his marriage to Elizabeth Scrope, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.<sup>2</sup> His father who had fought for the king during the civil wars had been sequestered as a papist and delinquent, before compounding in 1645 and taking the oath of abjuration in 1649.<sup>3</sup> Even after that date he had been forced to borrow heavily and to sell lands at an unfavourable rate; he died in a debtors’ prison.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The 3rd earl’s grandmother, Elizabeth, Countess Rivers, also left extensive debts at her death in 1651, although one claimant against her estate, Sir Nicholas Crisp<sup>‡</sup>, claimed that she possessed lands worth £5,000, and had a personal estate of £20,000.<sup>5</sup> It took some ten years before Rivers could wind up her debt trust, and he clearly believed that her trustees had defrauded him.<sup>6</sup> In addition to the unpaid debts of his father and grandmother, the estate was burdened with the jointure for his stepmother, and portions of £5,000 apiece to his six younger half-siblings. Rivers resented his stepmother and regarded this drain on his finances as symptomatic of her desire to destroy his estate, although he must have been aware that his full sister Elizabeth had received a portion of £5,000 on her marriage to William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Rivers first attempted to deny his father’s right to resettle the estates, then mortgaged some of his Essex properties to the financier and nonconformist royalist, Sir John Langham<sup>‡</sup>. Estimates of the 3rd earl’s income suggest that it was probably in the region of £5,000 to £6,000 a year; his Essex income alone amounted to £1,200 a year in about 1663, although in the same year his Cheshire rents brought in only £519 a year.<sup>8</sup> This was insufficient for his needs. When, in 1678, he needed to create a debt trust to secure his own debts of nearly £11,000, uncertainty over his title to the mortgaged Essex lands led him into further litigation with his brothers-in-law, Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup> and George Pitt<sup>‡</sup>. Sir William Goulston<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup> were also involved in restructuring the mortgage debt on the Essex lands.<sup>9</sup> All or part of these Essex estates were used in 1679 to secure the jointure of Charlotte Henrietta, daughter of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, when she married Rivers’ elder son, Thomas, styled Viscount Colchester, in 1665.<sup>10</sup> In the short term, Charlotte Henrietta’s portion of £8,000, all of which was paid direct to Rivers’ creditors, provided a welcome boost to the family finances. However, the young Lord Colchester’s early death meant that in the longer term it caused further disputes and difficulties leading to litigation between Rivers, his successor, Richard Savage*, later 4th Earl Rivers, and the widowed Lady Colchester and her Stanley relatives. Rivers’ concern to bolster his wealth and standing in Cheshire led him to make a number of demands on the crown for the continuation of leases, offices and other rights in Delamere Forest, which he alleged had been in his family’s possession for ‘many generations.’<sup>11</sup> Even small sums of money seem to have been a matter of concern: he regularly claimed, and received, his creation money (£20 a year).<sup>12</sup> His London residence, Rivers House, was let to a succession of tenants between 1670 and 1680.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Despite the 2nd earl’s abjuration of Catholicism, his second wife and her children remained Catholic. In the mid-1650s they had to pretend to be absent from Rivers House in order to avoid presentment as papists, and a Catholic priest was at Lady Rivers’ deathbed in 1657.<sup>14</sup> The 3rd earl’s commitment to Protestantism was therefore a matter of suspicion, and he was listed as a papist by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton in 1660.</p><p>In the closing years of the Interregnum Rivers was implicated in plotting for a royalist restoration.<sup>15</sup> On 25 Apr. 1660 he was one of the ‘young lords’ who got into the House against the wishes of the Presbyterian peers.<sup>16</sup> On 1 May he was named to the committee to consider an answer to the king’s letter from Breda, and on 22 May he was one of eight peers given leave to meet the king for a few days. On 9 July he was again given leave of absence, this time for an unspecified reason. During the course of the session he had attended on 32 per cent of sitting days.</p><p>Rivers was present for the opening of the first (1661-2) session of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661 and was then present for 33 per cent of sitting days. On 31 May 1661 he took advantage of privilege of Parliament to protect himself from his creditors. His coach and six horses had been attached and there were ‘divers suits … and thirty-four declarations’ against him. On 27 June he was named to the committee for Sir Anthony Browne’s bill and on 19 July to that for the bill for preserving deer. On 22 Jan. 1662 he was named to the committee considering the bill for the registration of pawns and on 10 Mar. to that for the bill for Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden. He was not listed in the presence list on 15 May 1662 when his privilege of Parliament was again invoked, this time in favour of his chaplain, Edward Cherry.</p><p>During the short 1663 session he was present on just under half of sitting days and was named to the committees on the heralds and tithes bill. On 18 July he was nominated as one of the commissioners to assess the peers. Wharton expected him to vote in favour of the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, but Wharton’s list is notoriously unreliable, and there is no independent evidence to confirm his prediction.</p><p>The 1664-5 session saw him present for 12 days, just under a quarter of possible attendances. His presence on the second day of the session ensured his nomination to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was also named to the committees for the bills for the relief of indigent loyal officers, prize goods, the restoration of Sir Charles Stanley in blood, arrests of judgment and to the committee to compose differences between Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> and the town of Aylesbury. During the session Lady Rivers was involved in lobbying members of the Commons against the renewal of a bill that had been presented during the previous session. Although the details are unclear it seems likely that the bill concerned was the Mersey and Weaver Navigation bill.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Rivers attended the short session of October 1665 on only three occasions. He was present on 29 per cent of sitting days during the next, 1666-7, session during which he was named (along with everyone else in the chamber) to the committee for the bill on rebuilding London. The long and contentious session that began in October 1667 saw Rivers present on some 42 per cent of sitting days. His position on the attempt to impeach Clarendon remains unknown, but the campaign in the Commons was led by, amongst others, his wife’s brother in law, Charles Powlett*, then styled Lord St John, later 6th marquess of Winchester and duke of Bolton. It was through Powlett that he petitioned the king for the renewal of his office as steward of the manor of Halton in 1669.<sup>18</sup> That year also saw him taking advantage of his relationship to Derby in order to get a dispute settled in his favour in the chancery court of Chester, where Derby presided as chancellor.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Rivers attended on only nine of 36 sitting days in 1669. At a call of the House on 26 Oct. he was listed as on his way to London, but his failure to appear as ordered to do on 9 Nov. led to the House imposing a fine of £40 for his absence from the service of the king without ‘lawful excuse’. His arrival on 19 Nov. led to the fine being respited. On 12 Dec. he was named to the committee to consider the bill to prevent frauds in the exportation of wool.</p><p>During the 1670-1 session Rivers’ attendance rose to nearly 58 per cent, and his presence at the beginning of the session ensured his nomination to the committees for privileges, the Journal and petitions. During the course of the session he was named to 24 select committees including that on the divorce bill of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, the future duke of Rutland, and, somewhat ironically given his own financial situation, that for considering the relief of poor prisoners. On 23 Feb. he invoked privilege of Parliament in favour of his servant William Hyde. At a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1670 he was described as unwell.</p><p>His financial difficulties remained acute; in October 1671 in the course of a chancery suit it was alleged that a property he had mortgaged and which had fallen to the mortgagee through non payment could not be sold because, although Rivers was unable to redeem it, his countess successfully discouraged all purchasers.<sup>20</sup> The following year, in what may have been a collusive sale to defeat creditors, he sold Savage House, near Tower Hill.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Rivers was present for only one day of the first session of 1673; he was again listed as unwell when the House was called on 13 Feb. 1673. He did not attend the 1673 or 1674 sessions at all. By the time Parliament reconvened for the first session of 1675 Rivers’ health seems to have recovered somewhat, and he was present on nearly 27 per cent of sitting days. In addition to the committee for privileges he was named to one committee. On 29 Apr. he was included in a list of peers who had failed to take the (non-compulsory) oath of allegiance. The improvement in his attendance was not sustained; during the second session of 1675 he failed to attend, even though at a call of the House on 10 Nov. it was reported that he was on his way.</p><p>Rivers’ political and religious sympathies were so obscure that when Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, compiled his famous list in 1677 he was unable to categorize Rivers as either worthy or vile. It soon became apparent, however, that Rivers’ political allegiances lay with Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds. Whether this was out of conviction or economic necessity is a matter for conjecture. Coincidentally or not Rivers’ financial position was improving. In May 1678 he had been obliged to enter a debt trust, but by August 1678 he was able to redeem a mortgage that had gone unpaid for so long that the property had been seized by the mortgagors.<sup>22</sup></p><p>During the 1677-8 session his attendance rose to nearly 66 per cent, and his presence at the opening of the session ensured that he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. In the course of the session he was named to 27 committees including at least one in which he probably had a personal interest, that to establish the respective rights of his kinsman, Derby, and his manorial tenants in West Derby and Wavertree. On 3 Apr. 1677 he was also named as one of the referees to mediate in the quarrel between Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and his wife. On 16 Apr. he entered a dissent to the decision to abandon an amendment to the supply bill, presumably convinced that the House did indeed have the right to amend money bills. On 4 Apr. 1678, in the trial of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, for murder, he voted him not guilty.</p><p>Rivers’ attendance dropped back slightly during the first 1678 session to just under half of sitting days. He was named to the committees for the Journal and petitions and to nine other committees. During the second session of 1678 he was present on nearly 68 per cent of sitting days. On 29 Nov. 1678 he was named as one of the managers to prepare reasons for the conference to discuss the Lords’ refusal to concur with the Commons address to the crown for the removal of the queen from Whitehall. During the debates on the Test he voted against putting the declaration against substantiation under the same penalty as the oaths. On 2 Dec. he took the new oaths; his previously suspect status as a possible Catholic was presumably responsible for John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, the future Viscount Fermanagh [I] drawing attention to this.<sup>23</sup> He voted against committing Danby and over the next few months Danby consistently listed Rivers as one of his supporters. During the session he was named to two committees.</p><p>Rivers was presumably eager to attend the first Exclusion Parliament as he was present on five of the six days of the abandoned first session of 6-13 Mar. 1679. He then attended 85 per cent of sitting days in the second, substantive 61-day session. He was named to the three sessional committees and his signature as one of the examiners of the Journal on 14 Apr. 1679 demonstrates that he became an active member of the Journals committee. On 22 Mar. he was named to the committee to prepare a bill to disqualify Danby from all offices. During the session he was named to a further three committees and voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider method of proceeding against impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Rivers’ attendance during the second Exclusion Parliament was even higher, 81 per cent. He voted against rejecting the Exclusion bill at its first reading and then entered a dissent against its rejection. At the end of December he found William Stafford, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. On 7 Jan. 1681 he entered dissents against the House’s failure to address the king to suspend chief justice, Scroggs, and to put the question of his impeachment. Danby expected Rivers to support him in his attempts to secure bail, but Rivers confounded those expectations when, like so many other supposed friends of Danby, he failed to attend the Oxford Parliament.</p><p>In June 1681 Rivers was one of many peers who attended the trial of Fitzharris.<sup>24</sup> He was expected to host James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, at his Cheshire house in August 1682; a year later when Monmouth was forced into hiding after revelations of the Rye House Plot, he was again reported to be at Rivers’ house in Rocksavage.<sup>25</sup> Despite such clear indications of his support for the protestant cause his religious loyalties must still have been suspect for at his second marriage to Arabella Bertie in 1684, Lady Pen Osborne remarked that ‘The earl of Rivers was a papist till that he married his lady’.<sup>26</sup> The marriage may indicate that he had been won over to the court, but it appears not to have brought about a major improvement in Rivers’ finances for when he tried to obtain Arabella Bertie’s portion in 1688 her brother, Robert Bertie*, then styled Lord Willoughby, later duke of Ancaster, avoided payment sparking a prolonged and unpleasant dispute.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Rivers’ son and heir Richard Savage*, then styled Lord Colchester, later 4th Earl Rivers, who had also been associated with Monmouth certainly changed his tune at, or about, the same time and after the death of Charles II in 1685 was eager to be seen as an ally of the new regime.<sup>28</sup> Rivers himself was present on every day of the 1685 Parliament. He was named to the three sessional committees and his activity as a member of the Journals committee is attested by his signature as one of the examiners on 30 June 1685. He was also named to a further 12 committees.</p><p>All but one of the various surviving lists detailing attitudes to James II’s catholicizing policies describe Rivers as opposed; the exception, drawn up about November 1687 merely has him undeclared. Perhaps he was keeping his options open, for in November 1688 he refused to subscribe the petition for a free Parliament. At the revolution his son, Colchester, was one of the first to join William of Orange. Rivers himself joined the meetings of the provisional government on 21 Dec. 1688 in response to the summons issued by William of Orange and was one of the signatories to the address for a convention.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Rivers attended nearly 56 per cent of sitting days of the first session of the Convention Parliament. His early presence ensured his nomination to the sessional committees, privileges, the Journal and petitions. On 31 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of declaring William and Mary king and queen and entered a dissent to the passage of the resolution not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. he was content to agree with the Commons that James II had abdicated rather than deserted and entered a dissent to resolution not to agree to this. He continued to favour agreement with the Commons when the question went to another division on 6 February. On 8 Feb. he was named as one of the managers of the conference on declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen and the oaths; then on 12 Feb. for the conference concerning the proclamation. On 7 Mar. he brought an appeal against the dismission of his case in chancery against his brother-in-law, William Stanley*, 9th earl Derby, and William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford. The case concerned lands in Essex that had been put into trust to ensure a portion of £10,000 for Lady Charlotte Savage, the daughter of Rivers’ eldest son, Thomas Savage, styled Lord Colchester. Colchester died in 1679; his daughter died under age in 1686. Rivers considered that the properties in question had therefore reverted to him; the court of chancery had agreed with the dowager Lady Colchester and her Stanley relatives who had taken possession arguing that Lady Charlotte had been free to dispose of the lands and had done so. On 8 Apr. he was again named as the manager of a conference, this time on uniting his majesty’s protestant subjects; he was also named to a committee to draw up reasons to be presented at a conference on the bill for removing papists from London and Westminster for which he subsequently acted as one of the managers. On 29 Apr. his appeal in the case against Derby and Strafford was dismissed. He was then absent from the House (bar a single attendance on 10 May) for just over three weeks, being listed at a call of the House on 22 May as unwell. His commitment to the reality of the popish plot was demonstrated repeatedly during July: on 10 July he entered a dissent to all the resolutions concerning the reversal of judgments against Titus Oates; on 22 July he was a teller for the vote on whether to proceed on the report of the conference on the same subject and on 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments and entered a dissent to their passage. During the course of the session he was named to ten committees.</p><p>On 4 Oct. 1689, shortly before the opening of the second (1689-90) session of the Convention, Rivers responded to a circular asking the peers to assess their personal estates for taxation purposes. He declared that ‘my personal estate is very small and much less then what I really owe.’ He also referred to his ‘want of health’ but insisted that this would not prevent him from attending Parliament.<sup>30</sup> He duly took his seat at the opening of the session on 23 Oct. and was named to the three sessional committees. He was then present on nearly 55 per cent of sitting days and was named to six further committees. On 6 Nov. he was added to the committee to inspect the council books of the previous two reigns. On 4 Jan. he acted as a teller for the division over whether to send for the keeper of Newgate in custody. A list compiled by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690 classed him as among the supporters of the court.</p><p>The short first session of the 1690 Parliament saw Rivers in attendance nearly every day (92.5 per cent). He was named to the three sessional committees and to 12 others. On 15 Apr. he acted as a teller in the division on whether counsel be heard in the case of <em>Macclesfield v. Starkey</em>. Rivers’ attendance remained comparatively high during the next (1690-1) session at 65 per cent, and he was again named to the three sessional committees and 17 other committees. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. On 30 Oct. he entered a protest against the passage of the bill to clarify the powers of admiralty commissioners. In May 1691 he underlined his Anglican credentials by his presence at the consecration of John Tillotson*, as archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>31</sup></p><p>During the 1691-2 session Rivers’ attendance dropped back to 47 per cent. His attendance at the opening of the session ensured his nomination to the usual three sessional committees and his signature as one of the examiners, given on 25 May 1692 shows that he was again an active member of the Journals committee. He was also named to a further 12 committees. On 16 Dec. 1691 Derby introduced a bill to restore his estates. Despite the continuing disputes over Katherine Stanley’s marriage settlement, Derby included Rivers in a list of those he thought would support the bill, which probably means that Rivers had been sympathetic to Derby’s cause at a previous attempt, most likely that which was lost as a consequence of the disruption caused by Monmouth’s rebellion in 1685. The prediction was almost certainly wrong; Derby’s bill was so unpopular that it failed at its second reading on 25 Jan. 1692. The following month, on 16 Feb. in company with a mixed group of Whigs and Tories, he entered a protest in defence of the privileges of members of the House and against the decision not to allow proxies during proceedings on the divorce bill brought by Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.</p><p>During the 1692-3 session Rivers’ attendance dropped to 42 per cent. He voted in favour of the place bill and entered a dissent when it failed at the second reading on 3 Jan. 1693. On 4 Feb. he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. During the course of the session he was named to five committees.</p><p>It would seem that by July 1693 this once relatively impoverished peer had at last managed to put his finances on a secure footing as Lady Rivers was said to be lending £4,000 to Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland.<sup>32</sup> By November 1693 Rivers was said to be ‘very ill, and given over by his physicians.’<sup>33</sup> Although he managed to attend Parliament for a few days in February and March 1694, he appears never to have recovered fully and died at his house in Great Queen Street the following September. He left £100 for the repair of his family tombs and in addition to legacies to his children and servants also made provision for bequests to his three executors, Reginald Bretland, Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Francis Child<sup>‡</sup>. His elder son had predeceased him, and he was succeeded by his younger son, Richard, 4th Earl Rivers, who almost immediately challenged what he considered to be the overgenerous provision made for his stepmother.</p> |
R.P. |
|
SAVILE, George (1633-95) |
<p><strong><surname>SAVILE</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1633–95)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>13 Jan. 1668 Visct. HALIFAX; <em>cr. </em>16 July 1679 earl of HALIFAX; <em>cr. </em>22 Aug. 1682 mq. of HALIFAX |
|
First sat 6 Feb. 1668; last sat 30 Mar. 1695 |
|
MP Pontefract 16 May 1660 |
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Nov. 1633, 1st s. of Sir William Savile<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. (1612-44), of Rufford, Notts. and Thornill, Yorks. and Anne (<em>d</em>.1662), da. of Thomas Coventry<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Coventry, ld. kpr.; bro. of Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup>; <em>educ</em>. Shrewsbury sch. 1643; privately (tutor, Mr Davidson);<sup>1</sup> travelled abroad (France, Italy, Netherlands) by 1647-52 (tutor, Eleazar Duncon, DD); <em>m</em>. (1) 29 Dec. 1656 (with £10,000) Dorothy (<em>d</em>. 16 Dec. 1670), da. of Henry Spencer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland, 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) c. 19 Nov. 1672, Gertrude (<em>d</em>. 1 Oct. 1727), da. of Hon. William Pierrepoint<sup>‡ </sup>of Thoresby, Notts. 1da.; <em>suc</em>. fa. 25 Jan. 1644 as 4th bt. <em>d</em>. 5 Apr. 1695; <em>will</em> 17 Mar. 1692-4 Apr. 1695, pr. 17 Apr. 1695.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. public accounts, 1667-70, trade 1669-72, loyal and indigent officers accounts 1671, trade and plantations 1672-4, to treat with ambassador of United Provinces 1681,<sup>3</sup> to inspect officers in City of London 1684;<sup>4</sup> PC 17 Apr. 1672-7 Jan. 1676, 21 Apr. 1679-21 Oct. 1685, 14 Feb. 1689-23 June 1692, ld. of trade and plantations 12 Mar. 1675-7 Jan. 1676, 22 Apr. 1679-21 Oct. 1685, 16 Feb. 1689-23 June 1692, ld. pres. 18 Feb.-21 Oct. 1685; amb. extraordinary, France and United Provinces June-July 1672; ld. privy seal 1682-5, Mar. 1689-Feb. 1690; council, Catherine of Braganza 1683; chan. and ld. kpr. of seal, Catherine of Braganza 1684-5, 1689-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Speaker, House of Lords 22 Jan.-19 Oct. 1689, 11, 15, 24 Feb., 11 July, 22 Aug. 1692.</p><p>Commr. militia, Yorks. Mar. 1660, corporations, Yorks. 1662-3; dep. lt. Yorks. (W. Riding) c. Aug. 1660-Feb. 1667, Oct. 1667-?77; <em>custos rot</em>. liberty of Cawood, Wistow and Otley 1662-?<em>d</em>., Yorks. (W. Riding) 1689-<em>d</em>.; capt. militia ft. Yorks. (W. Riding) 1662-3; col. militia ft. Yorks (W. Riding) 1663-Mar. 1667, Sept. 1667-?77.</p><p>Capt. indep. tp. of horse June-Sept. 1666, Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland’s regt. of horse June-Sept. 1667.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Gov., Soc. of Mineral and Battery Works 1682-<em>d</em>., Mines Royal 1683-<em>d</em>.; Charterhouse 1683-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p><p>FRS 30 Nov. 1675.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Claude Lefebvre, c.1669, Chatsworth, Derbys.; oil on canvas, attrib. to Mary Beale, c.1675, NPG 2962.</p> |
<h2><em>Yorkshire baronet, 1633-60</em></h2><p>George Savile came from the Lupset branch of the long-established Savile family of the West Riding, which in the early 17th century acquired the Thornhill estates near Wakefield. His great-grandfather George Savile was created a baronet in 1611 and his son Sir George predeceased him in 1614, but not before making an advantageous marriage with Lady Anne Wentworth, sister of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Strafford, who took a pragmatic and solicitous care of his two fatherless nephews, Sir George Savile, the second baronet from 1622, and his younger brother William, who became the 3rd baronet upon Sir George’s death in 1626. The death of the 3rd baronet on 25 Jan. 1644 made his eldest son George the 4th baronet at age 11.</p><p>Parliament quickly took action by an ordinance of 17 July 1645, vesting the wardship of Savile in the hands of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, who immediately received £2,000 out of the estate, which Savile fruitlessly tried to recover at the time of the Restoration. Despite this ordinance, Savile was effectively raised by his redoubtable royalist mother, Lady Anne Coventry. Through his connection to the extended Coventry family, he had as an uncle (by marriage) Anthony Ashley Cooper*, the future earl of Shaftesbury, who was married to Lady Margaret Coventry (<em>d</em>.1649). Savile could also count among his maternal uncles Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, later secretary of state, and William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, who later became one of the leading politicians of the Restoration.</p><p>From 1647 to 1652, Savile was abroad on a tour of Europe, during which he spent time studying at Huguenot academies in Paris, Angers and Orléans, which appears to have instilled in him a life-long sympathy for the Huguenot cause. Settled at Rufford Abbey in Nottinghamshire (the principal Savile residence of Thornhill having been destroyed in 1648) upon his return, Savile in late 1656 married Lady Dorothy Spencer. This marriage also connected him to a number of prominent families, both royalist and ‘presbyterian’. His new wife was the daughter of the royalist martyr Henry Spencer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland and Dorothy, dowager countess of Sunderland, who, as Lady Dorothy Sydney, a daughter of Robert Sydney*, 2nd earl of Leicester, was ‘Sacharissa’ in the poems of Edmund Waller<sup>‡</sup>. Her brothers, now Savile’s uncles, were the presbyterian peer Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester, the republican Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Sydney*, the future earl of Romney. This marriage even connected Savile to Ashley Cooper a second time over as Ashley Cooper married as his third wife in 1655 Lady Margaret Spencer, Savile’s wife’s paternal aunt. Another, perhaps more significant, new kinsman was his brother-in-law, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, whose paths were to cross many time during their long political careers.<sup>9</sup></p><h2><em>Restoration, 1660-68</em></h2><p>At the Restoration Savile was seated in the Convention for the borough of Pontefract, but only after petition in a dispute concerning a double return. He did not stand for the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>10</sup> For much of the 1660s he was involved instead in the local administration and government of the West Riding. He found a valuable patron in George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, who became lord lieutenant of the West Riding from September 1661. Perhaps impressed by Savile’s ready wit, so similar to his own, Buckingham quickly made him a captain and then a colonel of a regiment of militia foot. Savile was thus closely connected to prominent members of the growing faction opposed to the continuing influence of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. James Stuart*, duke of York, (who had stayed with Savile during his progress in the North in 1665) was so impressed by Savile’s ‘great interest’ in the ‘northern parts’ and by the ‘greatness of his estate’, that under William Coventry’s prompting in 1665 he promised him a viscountcy. When York’s request was blocked by the king, the duke, ‘in his passion’ against the decision, sought to compensate Savile by appointing his younger brother, Henry, as a groom of his bedchamber.<sup>11</sup></p><p>After Buckingham’s dismissal from the lord lieutenancy in February 1667 Savile, along with his fellow Yorkshireman, Sir Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, resigned his commissions and refused to serve under the duke’s replacement Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington.<sup>12</sup> When Buckingham was restored to office after Clarendon’s fall, in October 1667, Savile resumed his place in the West Riding lieutenancy. It was almost certainly through Buckingham’s patronage that, after the exile of Clarendon, Savile was in December 1667 appointed one of the commissioners on the ‘Brooke House’ committee assigned to examine the use of the public funds voted for the late war. On 13 Jan. 1668 letters patent were sealed creating him Viscount Halifax, a town close to his principal estates in the West Riding. <sup>13</sup></p><h2> </h2> <h2><em>Viscount Halifax, 1668-73</em></h2><p>Halifax took his seat in the House of Lords on 6 Feb. 1668, introduced by his brother-in-law Sunderland and his fellow Yorkshire peer Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg. In total Halifax came to just over three-fifths of the meetings of this part of the session before it was further adjourned for several months on 9 May. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> was summoned to the ‘Brooke House’ commission on 3 July and recorded that ‘Halifax, I perceive, was industrious on my side, on behalf of his uncle Coventry’. The influence of Coventry as a patron, however, did not last for long, for on 1 Mar. 1669 Henry Savile conveyed to Buckingham a challenge from either Coventry or Halifax—contemporaries were not sure who was intended to do the actual fighting—in response to Buckingham’s plan to mock Coventry in his play <em>The Country Gentleman</em>. For the challenge both Coventry and Henry Savile were incarcerated, and Coventry dismissed from the Privy Council and the treasury.<sup>14</sup> </p><p>While Halifax’s relations with Buckingham, and with Buckingham’s associate Osborne, deteriorated from this point, he appears to have also come increasingly into the orbit of his uncle Lord Ashley, who may have arranged for Halifax’s appointment to the enlarged council of trade on 16 Apr. 1669. When Parliament reassembled for business on 19 Oct. 1669 Halifax attended four-fifths of the sittings of that session. On 4 Nov. the report of the Brooke House commissioners, without Halifax’s signature, was brought up from the Commons, and Halifax was appointed to the select committees established on 6 Nov. to consider the commission’s reports and ancillary papers. Halifax was opposed to Buckingham’s bill to reform the procedure for trying peers arguing, according to the French envoy Colbert, ‘in favour of the maintenance of royal authority, making it known that it was already too constrained for the glory of the state, and above all, the interest of the peers, who, being as the rays of majesty, cannot shine until it is at its height’. This speech won the admiration of York who commended Halifax to the king.<sup>15</sup> Halifax, though, did not subscribe to the protest when the bill for trials in Parliament passed on 22 Nov. 1669. Three days later he was one of only eight peers who signed the dissent from the resolution that the cause of <em>Morley v. Elwes</em> was properly and legally before the House. He appears to have played an important role in the committee on the decay of trade and fall of rents, for on 26 Nov. he and Ashley were entrusted to select expert witnesses to present to the committee of the whole House reasons both for and against raising the interest rate to four per cent. Halifax’s wife’s grandfather the 2nd earl of Leicester registered his proxy with him on 27 Nov. 1669, which Halifax continued to hold until the prorogation on 11 December.</p><p>Halifax maintained the same rate of attendance, 80 per cent, in the following long session of 1670-1, and even came to all but four of the meeting days in the spring of 1670. He held the proxy of his distant kinsman James Savile*, 2nd earl of Sussex, throughout the session. On 22 Feb. he was one of the minority of nine peers who voted against the motion to follow the king’s direction and delete all record of the proceedings of <em>Skinner v East India Company</em> from the House’s Journal.<sup>16</sup> On 8 and 11 Mar. 1670 he chaired four committee meetings on three different private bills, and on the latter day he conveyed the consent of Leicester to the bill to sell some of the estates of Leicester’s son-in-law Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I].<sup>17</sup> On 14 Mar., he was placed on the sub-committee of the committee for privileges assigned to draft and ‘methodise’ the wording of the vote made by the committee asserting the right of the House to consider judicial causes concerning members of the Commons.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Halifax was one of the principal speakers against the bill to enable the divorced John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, the future duke of Rutland, to remarry, and signed the protest of 17 Mar. 1670 against the bill’s second reading. At its third reading on 28 Mar. he again spoke against it, in a witty and irreverent speech, redolent of the cynical style for which he became celebrated. It was summarized thus by Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich: Lord Halifax, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>thinks the Church was a better judge in this matter when the priests were unmarried. For surely the generality of them are not to be supposed unclean. And therefore the argument of preventing sin [by remarriage after divorce] cannot weigh much, because a great many live holily without marriage, and prayer and fasting and a good climate are good means to keep safe in that point. He said precedents of Parliament were not infallible, for it may be the best things we have done may have been the repeal of some acts of Parliament... This bill hath already done much hurt, it hath put by many private bills, wherein men have wanted relief as much as my Lord Roos can want a wife. And it is likely these cases will be more frequent hereafter and take up much of our time… He said he feared [?not] the introduction of the customs of poisoning and stabbing wives in this climate, but he feared the great encouragement of perjury, when it shall have this strong motive, viz. of being quit of a wife one is weary off and the hopes of obtaining one one loves. The inconvenience on the one hand is that if my Lady Roos do not die in convenient time, my Lord Roos cannot marry. But on the other hand, there is a likelihood of inconveniences, public and eternal… Whereas it is said bishops [and] martyrs have been for it, that is no good argument for they might have done ill before that, as it was notorious [Thomas] Cranmer<sup>†</sup> [archbishop of Canterbury] who once recanted, before he was burnt.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax was one of the few lay Protestants who joined with York, the bishops and the Catholic lords in opposing it.</p><p>Halifax also opposed the second conventicle bill, subscribing to the protest against the bill’s passage on 26 Mar. 1670, and between 30 Mar. and 5 Apr. he was named as a manager for four conferences on the House’s amendments to the bill. He did not sign the protest against the House’s eventual decision to recede from its controversial amendment exempting the houses of peers from searches. He was also involved in other conferences in the last weeks before the adjournment—on additions to a naturalization bill (30 Mar.) and on the bill for the repair of the harbour of Great Yarmouth, the constituency represented by his uncle Sir William Coventry (5 Apr.).</p><p>Halifax’s irreverent speech in the Roos divorce bill debate and his opposition to the Conventicle Act raise the issue of Halifax’s attitude towards religion and the established church, which was always an aspect of his character remarked upon by contemporaries. In his character sketch of Halifax in his <em>History</em>, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, concentrated on this:</p><blockquote><p>He was a man of great and ready wit; full of life, and very pleasant; much turned to satire. He let his wit run much to matters of religion so that he passed for a bold and determined atheist; though he often protested to me he was not one; and said, he believed there was not one in the world. He confessed, he could not swallow down everything that divines imposed on the world. He was a Christian in submission. He believed as much as he could and he hoped that God would not lay it to his charge, if he could not digest iron, as an ostrich did, not take into his belief things that must burst him. If he has any scruples, they were not sought for, nor cherished by him, for he never read an atheistical book. In a fit of sickness, I knew him very much touched with a sense of religion. I was then often with him. He seemed full of good purposes: but they went off with his sickness. He was always talking of morality and friendship. He was punctual in all payments, and just in all his private dealings.<sup>20</sup></p></blockquote><p>By contrast, in the unpublished draft introduction to the projected edition of Halifax’s works, composed shortly after Halifax’s death, his chaplain Alexander Sion was at great pains, to emphasize that ‘his Lordship had also a very great veneration for our blessed Saviour’, although even Sion had to conceded that ‘this real respect for religion did not hinder his Lordship from being faulty in some of the methods, by which it is recommended to the world. He loved the clergy, but he would sometimes give broad hints of dislike of the lives and carriage of some of them’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Halifax was present when the House resumed its sittings on 24 Oct. 1670, and attended just over three-quarters of this part of the session’s sittings, during which he was named to 30 committees. On 1 Dec., when the House was debating the petition of Anne Fry for a dismissal of the chancery decree that deprived her of the house her grandfather Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport, had provisionally bequeathed to her because she had infringed one of the conditions of his will by marrying without the consent of her guardians, Halifax spoke against her, mordantly commenting (again according to Sandwich) that:</p><blockquote><p>the clause of the will [stipulating the consent of her guardians], if it be <em>in terrorem</em> ought to take effect, for nothing could terrify that could not hurt. That the seeming hardness of the case is nothing, for she had a portion of £9,000 from her father, but had no right to anything from her grandfather [Newport]. That Porter has a real damage by the decree of the [court of] rolls [which had decided in Fry’s favour], for he was then vested in the legal right of the land.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>He was absent for a period from mid-December 1670 to mid-January 1671, during which time was introduced in the House the bill to make him a trustee and guardian of his kinsman the young Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury following the death of his father Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury from injuries inflicted in a duel with Halifax’s erstwhile patron Buckingham. Halifax seconded John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, in his controversial criticisms of the subsidy bill in late February 1671 and on 2 Mar. he was named a reporter for a conference on the amendments to the bill.<sup>23</sup> A week later, on 9 Mar., he subscribed to two protests against the resolutions neither to commit or engross the bill on parliamentary privilege, objecting to the House’s continuing insistence that privilege exempted members of the peerage from legal suits at all times. It appears to have been Halifax who on 15 Apr. presented to the House an affidavit of a menial servant of his brother-in-law Thomas Hickman Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor, in a privilege case then before the House, Windsor informing Halifax that he did not want to bother his proxy holder York with the matter.<sup>24</sup></p><p>At the end of the session Halifax became heavily involved in the conflict between the chambers over the House’s attempt to amend parts of the bill for additional imposts upon foreign commodities. On 10 Apr. 1671 he was named one of ten managers for a conference to discuss the House’s amendments and to draft an address to the king. This conference was postponed by the ‘unparliamentary’ answer given to their request by the Commons, in which they agreed to the conference on the amendments but deferred the decision on the address to the king. The following day was taken up by discussions on the House’s proper response to the Commons’ answer. Halifax was appointed to the committee to draw up what was to be presented to the Commons on the subject and helped to manage the conferences held on 11 and 12 April. That matter resolved, from 15 Apr. to the session’s prorogation a week later, Halifax continued to act as a principal in the dispute with the Commons, which dealt with both the specific amendments and the general principle whether the Lords could make amendments to money bills, as both a conference manager and a member of the committee assigned to draw up the House’s arguments. Sandwich, who developed the economic arguments for the amendments and strongly defended the House’s right to make such amendments, considered Halifax, with Ashley and Buckingham, among his principal allies on the business.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1672 Charles II sought to co-opt many of the potential opponents of the renewed Dutch war and his French-oriented policy. These included Halifax, who was sworn of the Privy Council on 17 Apr. 1672, and Henry Coventry, who was made secretary of state at the start of July. On 14 June, Halifax was appointed an extraordinary envoy to the French king, then in the midst of his successful invasion of the Netherlands, ostensibly to congratulate him upon the birth of a son. He came quickly, though, became involved in the separate embassy of the plenipotentiaries Buckingham and Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, which agreed with Louis XIV (against Halifax’s judgment) harsh conditions for a peace with William of Orange and the States-General.<sup>26</sup> His differences with Buckingham regarding policy towards France and the States General may have marked his final breach with his former patron and set him on a course of opposition to the pro-French policy pursued by Charles and his ministers. A few months after his return from the continent, on 27 Sept. 1672, Halifax was appointed a commissioner on the council for trade and foreign plantations, an amalgamation engineered by Shaftesbury of two hitherto separate councils.</p><p>There were other developments in his domestic life at this stage. On 16 Dec. 1670 his wife died, leaving him with three surviving sons and one daughter. In 1672, in keeping with his growing family and political importance, he stopped leasing his house at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and established his London residence in a large house on fashionable St James’s Square, which quickly became well known as Halifax House.<sup>27</sup> In late November 1672, he married as his second wife Gertrude Pierrepoint, daughter of the former Presbyterian leader ‘Wise’ William Pierrepoint, who had been one of Halifax’s colleagues on the Brooke House commission.<sup>28</sup> This marriage connected him to another wide-ranging circle of prominent families. His new wife had many sisters and Halifax could now count among his brothers-in-law Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle (who had long been a friend and correspondent in Yorkshire affairs) and Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare.</p><h2> </h2> <h2><em>Country peer, 1673-7</em></h2><p>Halifax came to all but one of the sittings of the House when it resumed on 4 Feb. 1673 after its long and controversial recess and was named to 11 select committees on legislation. He quickly came to the fore of the opposition to the king’s recent policies, particularly concerned with the role of the royal prerogative in relation to parliamentary statute, which had been the legal justification for the Declaration of Indulgence. When the king referred the legality of this embattled measure and its use of the prerogative to the House, Halifax, according to the later account of Burnet, said, ‘if we could make good the eastern compliment “O king, live for ever!” he could trust the king with everything; but since that was so much a compliment, that it could never become real, he could not be implicit in his confidence’. York apparently never forgave Halifax for showing his distrust of the Catholic heir presumptive so clearly and took a great dislike and aversion to him from this point. <sup>29</sup> On 19 Mar. a bill for ‘the ease of Protestant Dissenters’, intended to confer by parliamentary statute the same benefits to Protestant Dissenters as the cancelled Declaration, was brought up from the Commons and appears to have been initially entrusted to a committee of 12 members of the House, including Halifax, although this commitment was not formally recorded in the Journal.<sup>30</sup> The bill was then discussed for many days in committee of the whole House from 22 Mar. 1673 and was still being urgently discussed in conference, where Halifax was one of eight managers dealing with it, a week later, when it was lost at the prorogation. More successful were the corresponding measures against Catholics. On 5 Mar. Halifax was placed on the large committee assigned to draw up heads for a bill of advice to the king to prevent the growth of popery and he was a reporter and manager for two conferences on 24 and 25 Mar. where the differences between the Houses on the Test bill were composed.</p><p>After the tumultuous four-day session of autumn 1673, all of which Halifax attended, Shaftesbury was dismissed as lord chancellor and soon joined the band of ‘malcontent’ peers of which Halifax was a part. In the weeks before the next session of Parliament in January 1674 ‘the Cabal’, as a correspondent of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, termed them, of Halifax, Shaftesbury and Buckingham, met regularly at the house of Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, in Covent Garden as they discussed their tactics for the forthcoming session.<sup>31</sup> Halifax came to every single sitting of the session of January and February 1674, and from 4 Feb. until the end of the session he also held the proxy of his friend Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. Halifax was named to seven committees and on 3 Feb. 1674 was named as a manager in two conferences as the Houses agreed on a suitable wording for an address to the king urging him to make peace with the States-General. He distinguished himself, though, in his opposition to the succession of a Catholic monarch, as York had made manifest his adherence to Catholicism in the period since the passage of the Test Act in 1673. Richard Baxter listed Halifax among those who ‘spake very freely’ against the duke of York during these proceedings.<sup>32</sup> Similarly, Sir Gilbert Talbot<sup>‡</sup>, in a letter to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, included Halifax among ‘some hotspurs in the upper [House]’ who were ‘most forward’ in their opposition to York and the prospect of a Catholic succession.<sup>33</sup> Halifax was heavily involved in the proceedings of the committee of the whole on measures to ensure the preservation of Protestantism and to discourage popery. On 24 Jan. 1674, after the king had announced the news of the Dutch offers of peace, Halifax was among those who made motions to forestall the dangers posed by a Catholic succession, urging that all Catholic recusants in England be disarmed.<sup>34</sup> In another meeting of the committee of the whole on 10 Feb., Halifax and Charles Howard* earl of Carlisle further proposed that any of the royal family who married a Catholic without the consent of Parliament should be barred outright from the royal succession. There was a clamour against what Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, termed ‘a horrid notion’.<sup>35</sup> The other ‘heads’ for the bill for ‘better securing the Protestant religion’ which had been agreed were discussed in a series of meetings of the committee of the whole House and on 14 Feb. Halifax, Shaftesbury and Salisbury formed the core of a sub-committee appointed by the committee to form the heads into two bills, one confined to the royal family in particular and the other dealing with Catholics in the general population.<sup>36</sup> The bill on preventing a Catholic succession was reported from this subcommittee to the committee of the whole by Shaftesbury on 21 Feb., but before it could proceed further the king prorogued the session on 24 February.<sup>37</sup> There were rumours that in retaliation for their behaviour during the session the king would remove Halifax and others from the Privy Council, but in the event only Shaftesbury lost his place in the weeks following.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Instead of being removed, Halifax was even appointed in March 1675 one of the Privy Councillors on the newly formed committee for trade and plantations and was also one of the nine members of the committee assigned ‘to have immediate care and intendency’ of its business.<sup>39</sup> At the same time, cracks were beginning to show in his relations with Shaftesbury, who had taken on himself the mantle of leader of the growing ‘country’ group and thus a potential rival to Halifax. In his circular letter of early 1675 to members of his following, Shaftesbury made glancing allusions to what he considered the continuing efforts of Halifax and particularly Sir William Coventry to gain office and favour at court, which he contrasted with his own stated high-minded refusal to come into the king’s measures.<sup>40</sup></p><p>In 1674-5, though, Halifax and Shaftesbury still worked reasonably well together against the strenuous and effective efforts of the lord treasurer the earl of Danby (as Sir Thomas Osborne had become), to build a ‘court’ party, based on loyalty to the Church of England and a prosecution of nonconformity. There was a ‘very warm’ debate at the Privy Council on 2 Feb. 1675 when Danby presented measures for the more rigorous enforcement of the laws against Protestant Dissenters. Halifax and others moved that the measures be enforced against all nonconformists, including Catholic recusants, and were able to ensure that the resulting proclamation from the Council contained ‘very large directions for prosecution of papists’ and with the similar instructions regarding Protestant nonconformists made much more lenient.<sup>41</sup> In the same period Halifax was active in encouraging the plans for an ‘act of comprehension and union’ formulated between Dissenters such as Richard Baxter and moderates of the Church such as John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury and Edward Stillingfleet*, the future bishop of Worcester, before these plans were scuppered by members of the Church hierarchy.<sup>42</sup> The High Churchman George Hickes later complained that Halifax ‘had been always too much influenced’ by Tillotson.<sup>43</sup> Another indication of Halifax’s religious views is the unusual education he chose for his eldest son and heir, Henry, who studied for a year at Geneva before matriculating at Church Church, Oxford in April 1674 at the age of 13. In November 1675 the young man was sent to Paris under the care of the Huguenot tutor Pierre du Moulin, where he also enrolled in the military academy of Mr Foubert, another renowned Huguenot.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Halifax maintained his high attendance rate in the session of April-June 1675: he came to all but one of its 42 sittings, and was named to seven select committees. From the first day he clearly showed his opposition to Danby and the court. He was one of the small band of ten country peers who signed the protest of 13 Apr., against the rejection of their motion to thank the king merely for some ‘gracious expressions’ in his opening speech to Parliament, but not for the speech <em>in toto</em>. Danby’s ‘non-resisting’ Test bill was introduced on the third day of the session, and Baxter commented that throughout its proceedings in April and May 1675 Danby and the bishops were ‘the great speakers’ for the bill, while Halifax was one of ‘the chief speakers’ against it and one of those that made the best speeches, ‘which set the tongues of men at so much liberty, that the common talk was against the bishops’.<sup>45</sup> In 1680, his brother Henry Savile, then ambassador in France, told him that the godly Huguenots at Charenton thought ‘you a most admirable Protestant, your name being famous ever since the test’.<sup>46</sup> Halifax signed two of the four protests during the early stages of the bill – that of 21 Apr. against the bill’s provision to exclude from the House those peers who refused to take the test and that of 29 Apr. affirming the right of the peers to dissent from decisions of the House through signed protests. Once the bill had been committed, Halifax took a prominent part in the proceedings in the committee of the whole considering it through May. In particular he argued ‘with that quickness, learning, and elegance which are inseparable from all his discourses’ against the notion of a test oath at all, the whole crux and purpose of the bill. Shaftesbury, or perhaps John Locke, in the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, provided a summary, admittedly biased, of Halifax’s argument:</p><blockquote><p>that as there really was no security to any state by oaths, so also no private person, much less statesman, would ever order his affairs as relying on it; no man would ever sleep with open doors, or unlocked-up treasure or plate, should all the town be sworn not to rob. So that the use of multiplying oaths had been most commonly to exclude or disturb some honest, conscientious men, who would never have prejudiced the government.</p></blockquote><p>He showed his sarcastic flair, and his dislike of the Church hierarchy, in a further debate on 12 May on the oath not to promote alterations in either Church and State. By this measure the country peers accused the bishops of claiming for themselves a <em>jure divino</em> power above the royal supremacy of the Church. When Wharton, ‘upon the bishops’ claim to a divine right, asked… whether they then did not claim, withal, a power of excommunicating their Prince?’ they responded, evasively, ‘they never had done it’, Halifax told them, ‘that that might well be, for since the Reformation, they had hitherto had too great a dependence on the Crown to venture on or any other offence to it’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Halifax was indirectly involved in the dispute between the Houses over their privileges in appeal cases involving members of the Commons heard before the House, a case which helped to bring the session to an end. On 13 Apr. 1675 his uncle Algernon Sydney wrote to him asking him if he would present a petition before the House concerning the appeal of the nonconformist Sir Nicholas Stoughton against the Member of the Commons Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>48</sup> Halifax appears to have agreed and on 23 Apr. Stoughton’s appeal was first heard by the House and Onslow ordered to submit his answer. On 17 May, the day when the hearing of the cause was scheduled to be heard, the Commons, already incensed that one of its members, Sir John Fagg<sup>‡</sup>, was being summoned to appear before the House in a similar appeal brought by Sir Thomas Sherley, ordered its own officials to arrest Stoughton if he proceeded with his cause against Onslow. Halifax was not named a manager for any of the many conferences in which each house argued for its privileges and judicature in such causes involving members of the lower House. The ensuing gridlock between the Houses led to the prorogation of Parliament on 9 June 1675.</p><p>Halifax only missed one of the 21 sittings of Parliament when it resumed on 13 Oct. 1675, and was named to six select committees. On 9 Nov. 1675 Halifax was placed on a committee assigned to fashion into a formal address the Commons’ vote calling for the recall of the king’s subjects serving in the French armies. On the following day he was named as a manager for the conference at which the address was presented to the lower House. He chaired the committee of the whole on 17 Nov. when the bill for better securing the Protestant religion was considered, and on the 20th was one of ‘the chief lords’ promoting the narrowly rejected address calling on the king to dissolve Parliament, which led to the prorogation two days later.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Halifax, with his sardonic and sarcastic tone, was irritating the king at the council board as well. In January 1676 charges of corruption were levelled against Danby. A witness described to the council how he had offered Danby a bribe and the lord treasurer had rejected it. Halifax though suggested that Danby had rejected the offer very mildly, as if he wished it to be offered to him again, which was, ‘as if a man should ask for his neighbour’s wife and meet with a civil refusal’.<sup>50</sup> His opposition to the king’s plan to shut all the coffee houses in early 1676 was the last straw and on 7 Jan. 1676 Halifax and Holles were struck off the Privy Council.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Halifax had recovered sufficiently from a serious illness which afflicted him in the first months of 1676 to attend the court of the lord high steward, convened outside of time of Parliament, which on 30 June 1676 found Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of the murder of a guard at Whitehall.<sup>52</sup> Following his dismissal from the council he appears to have lived largely in retirement during the long prorogation of Parliament throughout 1676, but that he was still anxious to take part in politics in the House is suggested by the urgency with which he unsuccessfully solicited his friend Chesterfield in October 1676 to come to Westminster to take part in the session scheduled for February 1677.<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>The end of the Cavalier Parliament, 1677-8</em></h2><p>A letter from Lemuel Kingdon<sup>‡</sup>, deputy paymaster of the forces, to an associate of Danby dated 13 Feb. 1677 gives an insight as to how contemporaries perceived Halifax’s enmities and alliances just a few days before the convening of Parliament. Kingdon recounted a conversation he claimed to have had with Shaftesbury, who said that Danby’s ‘professed enemies’ were Halifax and Sir William Coventry, and others, all of whom were plotting to replace Danby with Coventry as lord treasurer.<sup>54</sup> A correspondent of Christopher Hatton*, 2nd Baron Hatton wrote at about the same time with the rumour that the Treasury was to be put into commission and that Halifax and Salisbury were to be the chief commissioners.<sup>55</sup> Kingdon’s letter emphasizes the reputation of Halifax as the foremost of Danby’s enemies, even more so than Shaftesbury—or so Shaftesbury claimed—and reveals Shaftesbury’s continuing rivalry with that section of the country group centred around Halifax and Sir William Coventry. Nevertheless, Halifax and Shaftesbury continued to work together throughout 1677-8 against Danby. Halifax was present when the new session began on 15 Feb. 1677 and Buckingham rose to argue that Parliament was by statutes of Edward III’s time automatically dissolved by the long prorogation of 15 months. According to Burnet, Halifax was in the inner councils of the country party and was aware that this campaign was impending, but was one of those that feared that ‘an attempt to force a dissolution would make the Commons do everything that the court desired’. Consequently he opposed the move, ‘and did it not without expressing great sharpness against Lord Shaftesbury, who could not be managed in this matter’.<sup>56</sup> However, in the ensuing debate in the House on whether Buckingham (and his three supporters) should be punished for his presumptuous claim, or whether he had the liberty to make such an argument in the House, Halifax defended his old patron and while he did not agree that Parliament had been automatically dissolved, neither did he think Buckingham deserved punishment. He ‘thought it so far from being a crime to move it, that it rather deserved a commendation, for this was the place to make mention of such matters and it would be an advantage which way soever the house should be convinced’.<sup>57</sup> Burnet gave a longer account of Halifax’s intervention in these proceedings. According to Burnet, he argued that:</p><blockquote><p>if an idle motion was made, and checked at first, he that made it might be censured for it, though it was seldom, if ever, to be practiced in a free council, where every man was not bound to be wise, nor to make no impertinent motion. But when the motion was entertained, and a debate followed, and a question was put upon it, it was destructive to the freedom of public councils, to call any one to an account for it. They might with the same justice call them to an account for their debates and votes. So that no man was safe, unless he could know where the majority would be. Here would be a precedent to tip down so many lords at a time, and to garboil the house, as often as any party should have a great majority.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>Such arguments did not prevent the consignment of Buckingham, Shaftesbury and their main supporters to the Tower, and when on 20 Mar. 1677 Halifax seconded the motion by George Booth*, Baron Delamer that Buckingham and his fellow prisoners should be released from their incarceration, he received little support.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Halifax was a constant attender of the House: he missed only one of the 49 sitting days before the adjournment on 16 Apr. 1677, during which he was named to 35 committees on legislation. His most noticeable activity was being named as a representative of the House in conference: on 4 Apr. on the amendments to the bill for the naturalization of the king’s subjects born abroad; and over 13-16 Apr. in three conferences on the House’s amendments to the supply bill for building warships. At the free conference on 16 Apr. it was reported that the lord chancellor Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, was the primary spokesman for the Lords, who warned of the danger of the bill’s failing because of the Commons’ refusal to accept the Lords’ right to amend money bills, but that after the lord chancellor had finished ‘several of the other lords the managers’, such as Halifax, ‘argued with great sharpness to show the impossibility that the Lords could at this time comply’.<sup>60</sup> The House did reluctantly recede from its amendment, in order to allow the supply bill to pass, and Halifax joined seven other members in signing a protest against its abandonment. He was named to the committee of four to draft an address to the king on the matter, who accepted the unamended supply bill that afternoon and adjourned the Parliament until May.</p><p>From the Tower Shaftesbury, drawing up his list of the political attitudes of the peerage, marked Halifax as ‘triply worthy’, an acknowledgement that, whatever their personal rivalry at that time, Shaftesbury still considered Halifax an ally in the campaign against Danby and the court. Halifax missed the brief week-long meeting of Parliament of 21-28 May 1677, having retreated to his country estate of Rufford for the spring and summer. Halifax was however kept amply aware of proceedings in both houses of Parliament during this week by his many correspondents present at Westminster, including his brother Henry, recently returned to the Commons for the first time after a by-election in Newark, his first cousin Thomas Thynne*, the future Viscount Weymouth, and especially by his uncle Sir William Coventry.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Halifax returned to the capital in early September 1677, and was present for the first sitting day when Parliament did eventually meet again after its long adjournment on 15 Jan. 1678. He was absent for only five of the 61 sittings before the prorogation on 13 May and was named to 20 select committees. On 9 and 15 Mar. he chaired select committees on two bills, and reported one of them to the House on 11 March.<sup>62</sup> On 14 Feb. he first presented to the House Shaftesbury’s petition for his release from the Tower, which met with great opposition from Danby and York. <sup>63</sup> Shaftesbury continued with his campaign for release and further petitions were submitted on 20 and 21 Feb. and on 23 Feb. Shaftesbury took care of the arrangements for Salisbury, himself only recently released from the Tower, to register his proxy with Halifax.<sup>64</sup>Also on the 23rd, Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwater (whom Shaftesbury considered ‘triply worthy’), registered his proxy with Halifax. Fitzwater’s proxy was vacated on his return to the House on 9 Mar. and on that same day Halifax was named a manager for a conference on the Commons’ amendments to a bill for fishing in rivers. Halifax was in turn named a reporter on 19 Mar. when the Commons requested a conference to object to the House’s querying of their amendments. Halifax was also prominent in the debates on the address to the king for war against France, brought up from the Commons on 15 Mar., in which Halifax joined Shaftesbury and others in urging an ‘immediate’ declaration of war, in an attempt to flush out Charles II’s true intentions for the mobilization of the army. His wording was fiercely opposed by Lord Chancellor Finch ‘as a style of direction, by limiting his Majesty to time’, and the word ‘immediately’ was replaced by the phrase ‘with all possible speed his Majesty’s occasions would permit’.<sup>65</sup> Halifax was appointed a reporter for the conference on 22 Mar. where the two Houses continued to argue over this wording. He found Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty of murder at his trial in Westminster Hall on 4 Apr. 1678.<sup>66</sup> On 30 Apr. he was named a reporter for the conference in which the Commons presented its concerns over the growth of popery, his last recorded activity in the House before the prorogation on 13 May.</p><p>Halifax’s attendance dipped for the session of June and July 1678, when he attended only just 33 of its 43 sittings and was nominated to 18 committees, one of which he chaired and reported from on 10 July.<sup>67</sup> On 5 July he was one of 17 members, along with Shaftesbury ‘and the rest of that gang’, who signed the protest against the decision to ascertain the relief due to the petitioner in the cause <em>Darrell v Whichcot</em>.<sup>68</sup> Another of Halifax’s dissents arose from the proceedings on the appeal of one of York’s military companions, Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, against chancery’s original dismissal of his petition to receive the £3,000 portion promised him in his marriage settlement. Lord Chancellor Finch, in his account of the long debate of 8 July on this appeal, places Halifax as the very first speaker, who agreed with Finch against the appeal and pointed out the holes in a central part of Feversham’s argument, that he had received a verbal statement from his father-in-law George Sondes*, earl of Feversham, through the intermediary George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth, dispensing him from the conditions in the written and sealed marriage settlement. Halifax was then one of the small number of peers to sign the dissent from the majority resolution to accede to Feversham’s appeal and overturn chancery’s dismission.<sup>69</sup></p><p>When the next session began on 21 Oct. 1678, Halifax appears to have been more than ready to exploit the allegations of the Popish Plot, which he seemed to have doubted personally, as a way to further weaken York and to promote limitations on his rule. As he remarked to Burnet when the latter told him of Titus Oates’s allegations, ‘considering the suspicions all people had of the duke’s religion, he believed every discovery of that sort would raise a flame, which the court would not be able to manage’.<sup>70</sup> Halifax and Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> later, in May 1679, had a serious row over whether to prosecute for treason a group of Catholic priests according to the terms of the Elizabethan statute of 1585 against seminary priests. Temple was opposed to the prosecution and later claimed in his memoirs that Halifax threatened him that ‘if he would not concur in points that were so necessary for the people’s satisfaction’ he would expose Temple as a papist himself. Halifax was of opinion that ‘the plot must be handled as if it were true, whether it were so or no, in those points which were so generally believed by city and country, as well as both houses’.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Halifax missed only five of the 62 sitting days of this last session of the Cavalier Parliament. On 23 Oct. 1678, he was placed on the committee to draft an address urging the removal of all papists from London and was also named to the committee assigned to examine the papers regarding Oates’s allegations. On 28 Oct. Buckingham persuaded this committee to establish a sub-committee consisting of himself, Halifax and Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester, to examine the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, with extended powers to secure as well as examine witnesses. In the first two weeks of November Halifax was placed on a further two committees to investigate allegations of an imminent popish attack.<sup>72</sup> On 1 Nov. he was also a reporter for the conference where the Commons presented their resolution condemning the alleged ‘damnable and hellish’ plot against the king. He was not initially named to the committee of 26 Oct. to examine York’s secretary Edward Coleman and other prisoners in Newgate, but when the committee reported their findings on 29 Oct. Shaftesbury insisted that the clerk of the Parliament read to the House papers by York found among those of Coleman. Against the strenuous objections of York himself, the motion was seconded by Halifax and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and passed the house by a majority of five, although the similar motion to convey these letters of the duke to the lower House was defeated.<sup>73</sup> Halifax seconded Shaftesbury in his motion of 2 Nov. to address the king to remove York from his presence and counsels and it was reported to James Butler*, duke of Ormond in Ireland that ‘Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Halifax are very sharp set, and nothing will be too hard for them after the point of the duke’.<sup>74</sup> Burnet listed Halifax, Shaftesbury, Buckingham and Essex as the leaders of the House in this turbulent session.<sup>75</sup> Halifax’s attacks were not limited to the Catholic heir presumptive. Between 23 and 27 Nov. Halifax was named to five conferences on the negotiations between the Houses on limiting the number of Catholic servants of the queen and duchess of York permitted in the Test bill. On 29 Nov. Halifax was one of 11 peers who, after the shaky testimony of Oates and Bedloe had been examined, voted in the minority to agree with the Commons in their address calling for the removal of the queen and her household from Whitehall.</p><p>Despite this Halifax at the same time was suspected by some in the Commons of being set against the Test bill to exclude Catholics from Parliament, at least if Anchitell Grey<sup>‡</sup> is accurate in his identification of Halifax as the intended target of some comments made by Shaftesbury’s ally Thomas Bennet<sup>‡</sup> in the lower House against ‘men of that House [who] talk high without doors, and within are for Popery’. (That Halifax’s friend and colleague Sir William Hickman<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. rose after these comments to reprimand the speaker does suggest that Halifax was intended.)<sup>76</sup> If so, Halifax most likely objected to the provisions of the act which would remove the birthright of peers to sit in the House, an attitude he had earlier shown in the debates on Danby’s test bill in 1675. On 30 Nov., the king reluctantly gave his assent to the new Test Act and Halifax took the requisite oaths on his next day in the House, 2 December.</p><p>Halifax’s involvement with opposition measures continued thereafter. He was placed on the committee for the bill to disable recusants from exercising trades (7 Dec.) and that for the bill to remove recusants’ children from a Catholic education (12 December). On 9 Dec. he was placed on the committee assigned to draw up and then present to the Commons in conference the House’s view that the army troops stationed in England should be disbanded first, before those in Flanders should be allowed to return. A bill to raise supply to disband the army was soon being debated between the Houses and Halifax sided with the country opposition in the Commons who insisted that the money raised be placed in the chamber of the City of London rather than under the king’s control in the exchequer, as he made clear in two protests he signed, on 20 and 26 Dec., against the House’s continuing adherence to its amendment to the bill.<sup>77</sup> The last days of the session were occupied by the impeachment proceedings against Danby. Halifax not surprisingly objected to the majority’s lenient treatment of him, voting and protesting against the decisions of 23 Dec. that the lord treasurer did not have to withdraw from the House after the articles of impeachment against him were read and of 27 Dec. that he did not have to be committed, although accused of treason.</p><h2><em>First Exclusion Parliament, 1679</em></h2><p>Halifax took a keen interest in the elections of February 1679 and exerted his own electoral influence in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.<sup>78</sup> Another development in the weeks preceding the new Parliament which was to have long-term effects for Halifax was the appointment of his politically able brother-in-law, Sunderland, as a secretary of state and Sunderland’s replacement as ambassador to France by Halifax’s own brother Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup>. During the short, hastily prorogued, session of 6-13 Mar. 1679 Halifax was named to the large committee to receive and investigate information regarding the Plot. When the second session began on 15 Mar., he appears to have been reappointed to this committee on the 17th (although his name was not recorded in the Journal) because on the 19th he reported to the House that the committee was in need of two additional clerks to handle the workload and that William Bedloe had complained that he had not received his reward of £500 promised by the king for his ‘information’ on the murder of Godfrey. The following day Halifax, according to Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler of Moore Park (known generally by his Irish title of earl of Ossory), encouraged his kinsman William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, to speak to this committee of the dangerous situation in Ireland, which testimony Shaftesbury used to attack Ossory’s father Ormond for his governance of the island. <sup>79</sup></p><p>Halifax attended 88 per cent of the sittings of this Parliament during which he acted consistently against his old rival Danby. In the debate of 19 Mar. he supported the argument that proceedings on Danby’s impeachment by the Commons could be taken up where they had been left off before the dissolution of the previous Parliament.<sup>80</sup> In the debate of two days later on whether the House should follow the wishes of the lower House in ordering Danby to be attached immediately for his impeachment hearings, Halifax rejected the argument that the House could not go back on its former order offering Danby a longer period in which to answer the articles of impeachment, reasoning ‘that you are masters of your orders. When you alter with great reason, you do it without diminution to your honour, nay ‘twere diminution to your honour not to do it’.<sup>81</sup> The following day, 22 Mar. the king announced to both the assembled Houses that he was granting the former lord treasurer a royal pardon against the impeachment. The House responded by ordering Halifax and 12 other members to draft a bill to disqualify the former lord treasurer from ever again attending the king, sitting in the House or holding office. Halifax was also named a manager for the conference that day in which the House informed the Commons of the steps they were taking against Danby. Danby went into hiding on 24 Mar., which inspired the Commons to reject the House’s bill out of hand and to propose a far more severe bill for the lord treasurer’s attainder if he did not surrender himself immediately. Danby himself recorded that Halifax consistently acted in favour of this attainder bill and in the House’s debate on its second reading on 2 Apr. Halifax tried to counter the argument of its opponents that the House should show as scant consideration to the Commons’ bill as the lower House had shown to the earlier Lords’ bill for Danby’s disqualification:</p><blockquote><p>I see Lords that except against the rejection of the bill sent down to the Commons who were against the bill while ‘twas here… For hardship here’s none at all because he [Danby] may come in if he pleases. Though the House of Commons rejected your bill I think they proceeded very regularly and certainly ‘tis a very good House of Commons: conferences with them may accommodate the matter… Bring this bill as near as you can to the other if you have that intention… I shall move therefore to have it committed. <sup>82</sup></p></blockquote><p>In a sense the House did follow part of Halifax’s advice and tried to bring the Commons bill more in line with the intention of its own first bill, amending it to make Danby’s ultimate punishment banishment rather than attainder. It was decided to present the amended bill at a conference and Halifax and Shaftesbury were originally appointed to the committee assigned on 4 Apr. to draft the explanation that was to be presented to the Commons, but were later replaced by Fauconberg and John Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper.<sup>83</sup> The two leading opposition peers were, however, made managers for the ensuing conference at which the reasons for the amendments were presented to the Commons. Halifax was named a reporter for the conference four days later at which the Commons made clear their objection to this softening of the bill. There followed close to two weeks of deadlock between the Houses as they thrashed out the bill. The Commons won out in the end and the bill for Danby’s attainder was passed by a narrow majority of three in the House on 14 Apr., Halifax voting for it. Halifax was appointed one of the delegation of five to attend the king with the news of the bill’s passage and to urge him, considering the shortness of time until the deadline of 21 Apr. set for Danby’s surrender, to come to the Parliament quickly to give the bill his royal assent.</p><p>Following Danby’s reappearance on 15 Apr. 1679 Halifax was prominent in the debates surrounding the proceedings for the former lord treasurer’s trial. On 8 May he was named a reporter for a conference at which the Commons requested that a joint committee of both Houses be established to settle trial procedures. Over the following days, Halifax was a keen supporter of this proposition: he subscribed to two protests, on 8 and 10 May, against the House’s rejection of the proposal and was named to manage three more conferences on it over 10-11 May. After the second conference of 11 May the Lords backed down. Halifax was among the 12 members who formed the House’s delegation to join with the Commons to discuss the trial procedures. Halifax stated his opposition to the bishops’ presence in such capital cases as early as a debate of 7 May and four days later he joined 20 other peers to dissent from the House’s resolution that the bishops could attend such a trial until judgment of death was pronounced. He again ‘did his part’ on 19 May, joining Shaftesbury and Buckingham in arguing against the bishops in a debate in committee of the whole House.<sup>84</sup> On 27 May Halifax voted against adhering to the House’s previous resolution affirming the right of the bishops to remain in court.</p><p>Halifax on 7 Apr. joined eight other members of the country opposition in dissenting from the House’s decision to commit John Sidway for his slanderous, and false, ‘informations’ against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, and other bishops. He was named to two select committees on 8 Apr., one for the bill for clearing London of papists and the other for the estate bill of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. He chaired meetings of the committee on Mohun’s bill on 10, 12, 15, 16 and 17 Apr. and reported it as fit to pass with some amendments on 21 April. He submitted a paper of proposed amendments to the bill against papists in London on 9 Apr. and chaired the committee on the 12th and 17th. When he reported the amendments on 22 Apr. the House determined to discuss the whole matter in committee of the whole.<sup>85</sup> On 17 Apr. he was placed on a committee to reshape the Habeas Corpus bill to make it more ‘coherent’ and on 3 May he was made a reporter for the conference at which the Commons set out their objections to the House’s amendments. More than a year later, as the Commons were hotly debating Halifax’s worth following the defeat of the Exclusion Bill, one of his defenders Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup> asserted that ‘the last Parliament we had quartering soldiers taken away by a clause in the tax-bill; and we had the Habeas Corpus bill passed, and both by this Lord’s mediation… and it was happy they passed; and I know that this Lord had a great hand in it’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Against the initial strenuous opposition of Charles II, Halifax was on 21 Apr. 1679 placed on the revamped and expanded Privy Council formulated by Sir William Temple to co-opt members of the opposition into government counsels.<sup>87</sup> The king, to general surprise, soon began to appreciate the witty Halifax and relied on him. Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> thought that ‘the Lord Halifax stands in very great credit with his Majesty, speaking his mind in all things to the utmost, and while he keeps off in a state of independence and not closing with any particular advantage he is like to preserve the same credit’.<sup>88</sup> Halifax’s strong influence with the king during this and successive years was hard for contemporaries to understand, as their characters and political philosophies seemed in so many respects diametrically opposed. John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes put the case succinctly. When Danby’s brother-in-law Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup> asked Robartes to argue the case for Danby’s release before the king, Robartes demurred, explaining:</p><blockquote><p>you must excuse me, the king is too artificial for me. I can guess at none of his intentions, nor will I expose myself to be used as my Lord Danby has been, for how the king can intend to make good his pardon [to Danby], and at the same time be principally advised by my Lord Halifax and Lord Essex, whom he has heard say such things about his pardon to his face, I do not understand. <sup>89</sup></p></blockquote><p>York, cooling his heels in Brussels, was convinced that the king was damaging himself by listening to the advice of such men who ‘will absolutely make him a duke of Venice’. Writing to his friend George Legge three months later, on 22 July 1679, York was concerned by the growing influence of Halifax and Essex, for ‘I have long looked on [them] as men that did not love a monarchy as it was in England’ and he considered Halifax in particular ‘as one of the dangerousest men I knew’.<sup>90</sup> Burnet explained this appearance of royal favour towards the previously mistrusted Halifax: ‘Lord Halifax studied to manage the king’s spirit and gain an ascendant there by a lively and libertine conversation’.<sup>91</sup> Halifax himself was well aware of the usefulness of this aspect of his personality in relations with the king. In his later ‘Character of King Charles II’ Halifax wrote of the king:</p><blockquote><p>His ministers were to administer business to him as doctors do physic, wrap it up in something to make it less unpleasant; some skilful digressions were so far from being impertinent that they could not many times fix him to a fair audience without them. His aversion to formality made him dislike a serious discourse, if very long, except it was mixed with something to entertain him. Some even of the graver sort too, used to carry this very far, and rather than fail, use the coarsest kind of youthful talk.<sup>92</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax was eminently suited to convey advice to the king in this entertaining manner, as Burnet, admittedly a hostile witness in regard to Halifax, affirmed:</p><blockquote><p>The liveliness of his imagination was always too hard for his judgment. A severe jest was preferred by him to all arguments whatsoever. And he was endless in consultations: for when after much discourse a point was settled, if he could find a new jest, to make even that which was suggested by himself seem ridiculous, he could not hold, but would study to raise the credit of his wit, though it made others call his judgment in question.</p></blockquote><p>William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, in his notes to Burnet’s <em>History</em> corroborates this aspect of Halifax’s character and style, though he would have had experience of his style only after 1691:</p><blockquote><p>In the House of Lords he affected to conclude all his discourses with a jest, though the subject were never so serious, and if it did not meet with the applause he expected, would be extremely out of countenance and silent, till an opportunity offered to retrieve the approbation he thought he had lost; but was never better pleased than when he was turning Bishop Burnet to ridicule.<sup>93</sup></p></blockquote><p>Within only a few days of the new Privy Council’s formation a ‘triumvirate’ (as contemporaries termed it) of Halifax, Sunderland and Essex had emerged as the leading advisers and ministers to the king. Sunderland was initially reluctant to take Halifax into his confidence, warning Temple, Halifax’s main advocate, that he ‘should not find Lord Halifax the person I [i.e. Temple] took him for, but one that could draw with no body, and still climbing up to the top himself’.<sup>94</sup> There were rumours that either Halifax or Essex was in line to replace Ormond as lord lieutenant of Ireland. <sup>95</sup> Soon the ‘triumvirate’ formed the core of an inner ‘cabinet’, called the ‘committee of Intelligence’, which held separate, smaller meetings with the king to form policy and to prepare material for the larger council.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Halifax was opposed to the idea of York’s outright exclusion from the English throne from the time of the Commons’ first vote on an exclusion bill on 28 Apr. 1679. Burnet found this attitude puzzling and infused with covert motives:</p><blockquote><p>Lord Halifax’s arguing now so much against the danger of turning the monarchy to be elective was the more extraordinary in him, because he had made an hereditary monarchy the subject of his mirth; and had often said, who takes a coachman to drive him, because his father was a good coachman? Yet he was now jealous of a small slip in the succession. But at the same time he studied to infuse into some a zeal for a commonwealth. And to these he pretended that he preferred limitations to an exclusion, because the one kept up the monarchy still, only passing over one person, whereas the other brought us really into a commonwealth, as soon as we had a popish king over us. And it was said by some of his friends, that the limitations proposed were so advantageous to public liberty, that a man might be tempted to wish for a popish king, to come at them.<sup>97</sup></p></blockquote><p>There were a number of strands to Halifax’s opposition to exclusion: fear of an inevitable civil war, as James would be able to count on the support of much of the Irish and Scottish population to reclaim his throne; his long-held preference for and advocacy of ‘expedients’ to limit a Catholic king’s ability to wield political and ecclesiastical authority; and a reluctance to disrupt birthright, as seen in his previous opposition to Test bills which sought to exclude members of the peerage from their seats in the House. Whatever his motives, his opposition to the exclusion Bill deepened: Burnet thought he had become ‘as it were the champion against the exclusion’.<sup>98</sup> This opened wider the rift between him and Shaftesbury. In the debate in council on 27 May, after the bill had received its second reading in the Commons, Halifax, Sunderland and Essex strongly supported the motion of Sir William Temple to prorogue Parliament rather than allow the bill to proceed further, against the vociferous objections of Shaftesbury, who blamed the advice of the triumvirate for this step which defeated his projects.<sup>99</sup> Temple wrote that ‘since the prorogation, Lord Shaftesbury had been busy in preparing fuel for next session, not without perpetual appearance of ill humour at Council, which often broke into spiteful repartees between Shaftesbury and Lord Halifax’.<sup>100</sup></p><p>In particular Halifax was hostile to Shaftesbury’s campaign to establish James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as a Protestant pretender and rival to York. When news of the Presbyterian rising in Scotland reached the council, Halifax initially joined the other members of the ‘triumvirate’ in calling for the dismissal of John Maitland*, earl of Guilford (better known as duke of Lauderdale [S]), from his governing role in Scotland and for negotiations to be established with the rebels. The king refusing, against the majority advice of the council, to dispense with the trusted Lauderdale, Halifax and the other councilors reluctantly acceded to the request to send an armed expeditionary force against the Presbyterians. Halifax and his colleagues though were concerned when the king appointed his son Monmouth commander-in-chief of the force: it ‘discontented Lord Halifax and Sir William Temple so much that they thought of quitting’.<sup>101</sup> They were even more worried when news of Monmouth’s victory over the rebels, and his subsequent magnanimous treatment of them, made him a popular hero, and therefore more dangerous should Shaftesbury use his popularity to attack those who advised the prorogation, principally Essex and Halifax.<sup>102</sup></p><p>Fearing the renewed influence of Shaftesbury, the ‘triumvirate’ and Temple decided that the best course was to dissolve Parliament, and they soon found the king in agreement. It was decided by this group to raise the question of a dissolution at the next meeting of the Privy Council, on 3 July 1679. At the meeting that day, however, they were the only ones who expressed support for the measure, having inexplicably failed to canvas their fellow councilors before the meeting. Their suggestion was strongly rejected by the majority of the Council.<sup>103</sup> Three days later a meeting of the smaller committee of intelligence at Windsor decided that regardless of the Privy Council the Parliament would be dissolved, a development which greatly concerned Sir William Coventry, who hoped that Halifax had not taken part in ‘this very secret council… where neither secretary of state nor president of the council were present’.<sup>104</sup> On 10 July the immediate dissolution was announced to the meeting of the Privy Council by the king, supported by Essex and Halifax, without further discussion, and once again against the general opinion of the vast majority of the Council.<sup>105</sup></p><p>On 16 July 1679, only four days after the dissolution, Halifax was further raised in the peerage to an earldom. Halifax was now at the heart of government and had all the marks of royal favour. This change in his position caused Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt, Member for Aldborough and formerly a client of Danby, to solicit Halifax’s patronage, especially with an eye to the inevitable forthcoming elections, ‘no man having more interest with the Commons than he had’. Halifax acceded to this request and from this point Reresby became one of his foremost clients, confidants and admirers and, fortunately for later generations, copiously recorded many of his conversations with Halifax, in which the peer ‘opened himself very freely to me in several concerns of his own and the public’.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Not all were as impressed with Halifax’s elevation and closeness to the king as Reresby. Burnet was puzzled by the apparent disparity between Halifax’s previously expressed views and his actual behaviour:</p><blockquote><p>When he talked to me, as a philosopher, of his contempt of the world, I asked him what he meant by getting so many new titles, which I called the hanging himself about with bells and tinsel. He had no other excuse for it, but this, that, since the world were such fools as to value these matters, a man must be a fool for company: he considered them but as rattles: yet rattles please children: so these might be of use to his family. His heart was much set on raising his family.<sup>107</sup></p></blockquote><p>The new title earned Halifax opprobrium from many of his former colleagues in the country opposition who saw the Parliament elected in February 1679 as the best hope for punishing Danby and effecting exclusion. Even Halifax’s closest kin and associates, such as Sir William Coventry and Thomas Thynne could not help expressing to him grave reservations about the course he had taken, Thynne disingenuously remarking on the day of the dissolution to its actual architect, ‘out of what quiver this arrow comes, I am not prophet enough to divine’.<sup>108</sup> ‘And now’, as a result of the dissolution, Burnet later wrote, ‘the hatred between the earl of Shaftesbury [and Halifax] broke out into many violent and indecent instances. On Lord Shaftesbury’s side more anger appeared, and more contempt on Lord Halifax’s’.<sup>109</sup> Halifax now found himself in the invidious position of being attacked by both supporters of Danby and followers of Shaftesbury.</p><p>The elections to the new Parliament were one arena for these rivalries to be fought out. Halifax was keenly interested in their progress, and was kept closely informed of the details of elections in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.<sup>110</sup> His cousin, Thynne, told him of his efforts in Staffordshire and Warwickshire, for ‘since the world will make you the author of the dissolution of the Parliament, I thought it necessary your friends should concern themselves to have good men chosen that the success might justify the councils to that end’.<sup>111</sup> In responding with thanks to Thynne for his efforts, Halifax reassured him that ‘my method shall be to let the storm have its course, and when we grow calm again, I do not doubt but I shall be able to wipe off the dirt that hath been thrown upon me’.<sup>112</sup></p><p>In his previous parliamentary career, Halifax had given ample evidence of his mistrust of York and dislike of the prospect of his unfettered succession to the throne, but his attitude to Shaftesbury, and his opposition to Exclusion, led him for a time to support York in his battle against the pretensions of the king’s natural son Monmouth. When Charles II became seriously ill on 21 Aug. 1679, Halifax, Essex and Sunderland secretly encouraged York to return to court to forestall any advantage Monmouth might gain by the crisis. Halifax and Sunderland were present at the king’s meeting with his brother on 2 Sept., but found themselves in a difficult position following the king’s speedy recovery and were at pains to convince the duke to return to Brussels immediately. <sup>113</sup> After Monmouth’s banishment from court and dismissal from all his offices, York too was persuaded to quit the country again, but gained from the king an agreement that he could go to Scotland rather than return to Brussels, an arrangement, announced formally on 7 Oct., which Halifax only reluctantly accepted.</p><p>At this point Halifax became seriously ill, and had to withdraw from active business to his house in London.<sup>114</sup> As Burnet described it:</p><blockquote><p>Lord Halifax fell ill, much from vexation of mind: his spirits were oppressed, a deep melancholy seizing him. For a fortnight together I was once a day with him, and found then that he had deeper impressions of religion on him than those who knew the rest of his life would have thought him capable of. Some foolish people gave it out that he was mad. But I never knew him so near a state of true wisdom as he was at that time. He was much troubled at the king’s forgetting his promise to hold a Parliament that winter; and expostulated severely upon it with some that were sent to him from the king... He was offered to be made secretary of state, but he refused it. Some gave it out that he was pretended to be lord lieutenant of Ireland and was uneasy when that was denied him. But he said to me that it was offered him, and he had refused it.<sup>115</sup></p></blockquote><p>While Halifax was sidelined from business, Charles II had announced in the Privy Council on 15 Oct. 1679 that Parliament would be postponed by short prorogations for an entire year. Upon his recovery Halifax argued strenuously for the Parliament to be allowed to meet, though his hostility to Shaftesbury—on 2 Dec. 1679 Southwell reported to Ormond that Halifax ‘does frankly and professedly revile Shaftesbury in every point of the compass’—prevented him from joining in the petition of the country peers of 6 Dec. 1679 insisting on the immediate convening of Parliament. <sup>116</sup></p><h2><em>Second Exclusion Parliament, 1680</em></h2><p>In January 1680 Halifax retreated to Rufford, where Reresby visited him in March and found him ‘angry with the measures then taken’ at court.<sup>117</sup> In his absence the influence of the ‘triumvirate’ was weakened, and Sunderland formed an informal alliance with the younger Sidney Godolphin*, the future earl of Godolphin, and Laurence Hyde*, the future earl of Rochester, a trio dubbed ‘the Chits’. Halifax refused to leave Rufford for most of 1680, but did attend a conference of ministers organized by Sunderland at Althorp in the week of 15-22 June. Here he received assurances that Parliament would indeed meet in November, when the king would announce new alliances with Spain and the States-General against France, currently being negotiated. Halifax still made clear his opposition to the exclusion of York but agreed with Sunderland and his new allies to support limitations on a Catholic monarch’s exercise of power. He was still annoyed with ministers, and wrote to his friends and correspondents such as Thynne assuring them that he would keep his distance from the ministry and such ‘dangerous company’, comments that came to Sunderland’s ears and highly angered him. <sup>118</sup></p><p>Upon his return to the capital in mid-September 1680 Halifax found that Sunderland, Essex, Godolphin and Henry Sydney had all moved towards exclusion, leaving himself as one of the few former country opposition members still willing to take a stand against it. As he wrote to Thynne shortly after returning to Halifax House:</p><blockquote><p>I confess I was a little surprised to see such a change in some of the court in relation to the duke. I am told there is now as much anger against him at Whitehall as there can be at the other end of the town, so industrious his Highness hath been to spoil his own business. The waves beat so high against him that a great part of the world will not hear of any thing less than exclusion. … But yet if there is any possibility of making ourselves safe by lower expedients, I had rather use them, than venture upon so strong a remedy as the disinheriting the next heir of the crown.<sup>119</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nevertheless, in October 1680, Halifax cooperated with Essex, Sunderland and Godolphin in persuading the king in council to order York to leave the country for Scotland during the long-delayed parliamentary session, scheduled to meet on 21 Oct. 1680 <sup>120</sup> On the first day of the session, he was introduced as an earl into the House by Salisbury and Essex. He was absent for only two of the Parliament’s sittings and was named to seven committees. On 23 Oct. he re-introduced the bill for clearing London and Westminster of Catholics, which had been lost at the previous dissolution, and over the following days he chaired the committee of the whole House twice in discussions on the bill. Algernon Sydney described to Henry Savile the bill and Halifax’s role in it:</p><blockquote><p>The Lord Halifax brought in a bill for the speedy discovery and conviction of Papists, and ease of Nonconformists, but so contrived, that both parties are almost equally incensed against him for it. The House of Lords was on Thursday turned into a committee, and, as I hear, will be so every day, to consider of it, and try whether it can be so mended, as to be useful unto the ends intended. I know not whether that can be done or no; but I could have wished, that intending to oblige above a million of men, that go under the name of nonconformists, he had been pleased to consult with one of that number, concerning the ways of doing it. <sup>121</sup></p></blockquote><p>Both contemporaries and some later commentators have seen the debate on the exclusion bill, conducted in committee of the whole House on 15 Nov. 1680, as primarily an oratorical duel between Halifax and Shaftesbury (and secondarily his more recent associate Essex), conducted ‘in spleen’.<sup>122</sup> Reresby recorded that ‘there was a great party in that House for the passing of that bill, and great speakers, of which the chief was the earl of Shaftesbury. The chief manager against it was the earl of Halifax, which was a great surprise to many, he having gone along with my lord Shaftesbury and that interest for some years’.<sup>123</sup> John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later viscount Fermanagh [I]), thought that ‘Halifax was much too hard for Shaftesbury who was never so outdone before’; Barillon reported to his master that ‘Lord Halifax stood up to Lord Shaftesbury, and answered him every time he spoke’; and Colonel Edward Cooke<sup>‡</sup> informed Ormond that Halifax was Shaftesbury’s ‘duellist’ in the debate.<sup>124</sup> Burnet also commented on this rivalry: ‘Lord Halifax’s hatred of the earl of Shaftesbury, and his vanity in desiring to have his own notion [i.e. limitations] preferred, sharpened him at that time to much indecency in his whole deportment. ... He gained great honour in the debate; and had a visible superiority to Lord Shaftesbury in the opinion of the whole house: and that was to him triumph enough’.<sup>125</sup> Many years later James II recalled that ‘Halifax spoke incomparably, and bore the burden of the day in the committee. He answered Shaftesbury and Essex, as oft as they spoke. He spoke at least 16 times, letting slip no good occasion. His reasons were so strong, that they convinced every body that was not resolved not to hear’.<sup>126</sup></p><p>The sketchy notes of the debate taken by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and James II’s own memoirs suggest that Halifax’s principal argument was that Exclusion would inevitably lead to civil war, as he was assured that James ‘will immediately fall on us’. Such a move could prompt York to raise forces in Ireland and Scotland, and York was already in control of the government and army in the northern kingdom, which previously had ‘made a figure in the world when separated from England’. He also wondered pointedly who would be trusted in government after such an exclusion, as so many, in both Houses, had been implicated in the government of the royal brothers up to this point. He made clear that he had long distrusted the Catholic heir and continued to do so. ‘I believe the duke a papist’, he pronounced, ‘he must suffer’ and suggested instead an alternative bill of ‘expedients’ which would limit the ability of a Catholic monarch to govern and rule the English Church and state. When Essex, sensing that the bill was in danger under Halifax’s onslaught, moved ‘before the bill is thrown out to offer expedients’ to it, Halifax rejected this as well, replying that the ‘motion is unparliamentary and unpracticable’ and that it was ‘not agreeable to the debates amongst mankind that before a law is offered to find expedients’. He stated that ‘he is against exclusion as so bad that it is impossible to mend the bill and therefore it signifies nothing to retain the bill’ .<sup>127</sup></p><p>Contemporaries were quick to see Halifax’s oratory as the main cause of the bill’s defeat by a majority of 33, after a debate which lasted about ten hours and did not end until 11 at night. Reresby thought that Halifax ‘having a great deal of wit, and both judgment and eloquence with it, he made so fine and so powerful a defence that he only (for so all confessed) persuaded the whole House against it’. Cooke told Ormond that Halifax ‘did so outdo his usual argument he cleared many eyes (purblinded by prepossession) to vote against the bill’.<sup>128</sup> John Dryden, in <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em>, portrayed him as</p><blockquote><p>Jotham of piercing wit and pregnant thought,<br />Endued by nature and by learning taught<br />To move assemblies, who but only tried<br />The worse a while, then chose the better side,<br />Nor chose alone, but turned the balance too,<br />So much the weight of one brave man can do.<sup>129</sup></p></blockquote><p>From the other end of the political divide Anne, countess of Sunderland, lamented to Henry Sidney that, following the defeat of the bill, Halifax was ‘the king’s favourite and hated more than ever the Lord Treasurer [Danby] was and has really deserved it. For he has undone all’.<sup>130</sup></p><p>The House took up the matter of ‘expedients’ to replace the rejected Exclusion bill over the following days, 16-17 Nov., when Shaftesbury put forth a plan for the king’s legal divorce and remarriage to a Protestant princess. The proposal was rejected by Halifax, who, according to Barrillon, ended his speech by making some aspersions on the vagaries of Shaftesbury’s previous political career, and especially his role in promulgating and defending the 1672 Declaration of Indulgence, which Halifax termed ‘a declaration for establishing liberty of conscience in favour of papists’. Yet any gratitude York may have felt towards Halifax for his role in the defeat of the Exclusion Bill was quickly dispelled when he learned of the expedients proposed by Halifax himself, which included the duke’s banishment from England for five years, ‘if the king lived so long’, which York thought ‘was as bad as a stab with a dagger’ and ‘of as bad consequence if not worse to me, and much worse for the monarchy, than the bill that was thrown out’.<sup>131</sup> A debate on the state of the nation in the Commons on 17 Nov. became an opportunity for attacking Halifax for his role in the dissolution of the previous Parliament and the defeat of the Exclusion bill. The Commons voted for an address to the king to remove Halifax ‘from his Majesty’s presence and councils for ever’.<sup>132</sup> The address was presented to the king on 25 Nov. 1680, Reresby commenting that the Commons ‘made his having advised the dissolution of the last Parliament the cause of this address, but the true reason was known’: that is, his prominent role in the defeat of the Exclusion bill. <sup>133</sup></p><p>When the address was debated in council, Halifax offered to retire from business voluntarily, but the king rejected it. Sunderland ostensibly supported his brother-in-law in council, but later remonstrated with him, telling him that if such an address were ever to be made against himself, he would ask leave of the king to retire, for the good of the king’s own service. Halifax stormed out of the room, and from that point relations between the brothers-in-law were irreparably broken.<sup>134</sup> The king’s answer of 26 Nov. made clear that he would refuse to act against Halifax unless they could find anything criminal against him.<sup>135</sup></p><p>Many of the measures of the bill ‘for securing the Protestant religion’, first read in the Lords on 29 Nov. 1680, which set out a series of limitations on the rule of a Catholic successor, were closely akin to some of the expedients Halifax had earlier suggested, and met with predictably strong opposition from York. The bill fell at the prorogation, having been caught in the press of business surrounding the trial of the Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. On 7 Dec. Halifax took the side of Stafford, and voted him not guilty at his trial in Westminster Hall, another vote that caused consternation among his erstwhile friends.<sup>136</sup> On 20 Dec. the Commons submitted an address offering the king a large supply if he agreed to the exclusion bill and a Protestant Association, which Halifax described to Reresby as ‘like offering a man money to cut off his nose, which a man would [not] suffer for a greater sum’.<sup>137</sup> On 4 Jan. 1681 the king answered the Commons’ address in the negative, refusing to agree to the exclusion bill, and the debate on the answer in the Commons on 7 Jan. became another occasion for renewed attacks on Halifax, as the perceived leading councillor of the king. Silius Titus<sup>‡</sup> lamented Halifax’s transformation ‘from being the best freeholder in England to be the worst earl in court. From him I expect persecution most, who was once one amongst us’. At the end of the debate the Commons resolved that Halifax was one of those who had advised the king ‘in his last message to this House, to insist upon an opinion against the bill for excluding the duke of York. And that he therein has given pernicious counsel to his Majesty, and is a promoter of popery, and an enemy to the king and kingdom’.<sup>138</sup></p><h2> </h2> <h2><em>First minister, 1681-2</em></h2><p>On 10 Jan. 1681, Charles responded by proroguing Parliament and eight days later dissolved it, calling another for 21 Mar. 1681 in Oxford. Reresby thought that Halifax ‘seemed averse to this dissolution in his discourse, but it was but a grimace, for he had no reason to wish that Parliament long lived that used him with such freedom’.<sup>139</sup> Halifax himself insisted to his brother Henry that the dissolution ‘is not to be imputed to me’.<sup>140</sup> On 24 Jan. the exclusionists Sunderland, Essex and Temple were all dismissed from the council and a day later Halifax set off for Rufford, telling Reresby before he went that he ‘thought to retire, but was not at all dissatisfied with the king, but feared the duke’s prevalency with the king would carry counsels too far’.<sup>141</sup> Sunderland’s wife claimed that Halifax had gone ‘but with two faces, for he tells the king he will certainly be at Oxford, and to the town he professes he will be torn to pieces before he will have anything to do with it’.<sup>142</sup> Halifax does appear to have had conflicting views towards the forthcoming Parliament, and indeed further service to the king. Reresby visited him at Rufford on 12 Feb., partly to garner his support for the forthcoming election at Aldborough, and Halifax expressed his opinion that:</p><blockquote><p>the king would not call a Parliament so speedily as was believed; that the king was slow to resolve where any difficulty arose; that he [Halifax] intended to go to Parliament whenever it assembled, but that afterward he would leave the court and business, except his Majesty would be advised to do such things as were for the public good, change some officers about him, and take such in their rooms as would act according to the present counsel. For it would ruin all if his majesty continued to advise with those of one interest this day, and harken to those of another tomorrow, nor could his ministers be safe under such uncertainty’.<sup>143</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the weeks preceding the Oxford Parliament, Halifax was involved in negotiations on proposals for further expedients to mitigate the rule of the Catholic prince, including a project, attributed to Halifax as well as to a number of other contemporary statesmen, to establish a regency in James’s name under his daughter Mary, princess of Orange.<sup>144</sup> The brevity of the week-long Parliament in Oxford, all of whose sittings Halifax attended, meant that none of these was seriously considered. On the second day of proceedings, 22 Mar., the House considered the circumstances in which the bill passed the previous Parliament to repeal an Elizabethan penal statute against Nonconformists had been mysteriously ‘lost’ before it could receive the royal assent, a disappearance which many in both Houses attributed to the advice of Halifax.<sup>145</sup> Halifax was appointed a reporter for the conference on this matter which was eventually held 26 March. Another matter before the House was the petition of Danby for release from his imprisonment. Surprisingly Danby, before the session, forecast that his old enemy Halifax would stand neutral on this issue, perhaps encouraged by his defection from the extreme opposition members in the last Parliament. Danby miscalculated, as Halifax was foremost among many of his former country colleagues, such as Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Essex, in moving, upon the petition’s presentation on 24 Mar., to postpone its hearing for four days because he deemed it ‘improper’ and ‘unseasonable’ that the petition was introduced at the beginning of the session, and further that Danby had petitioned for bail rather than for an immediate trial.<sup>146</sup> Danby wrote bitterly about Halifax’s role in blocking his petition:</p><blockquote><p>I hear my old friend my Lord Halifax said my petition was ill-timed for spoiling the king’s business and that it ought to have been to be tried and not to be bailed. I hope both his advice and his arguments will be better for the king’s business when the matter concerns his Majesty for in the first place I moved for bail and not for trial only in consideration of not hindering the king’s business… and yet my Lord Halifax is for going with it to the Commons, which is the only means by which any danger can arise of interrupting other business. I am sorry to find my Lord Halifax joined with Lord Essex, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, etc as men who he thinks now ready to promote the king’s business than my friends who he judges to be obstructors of it desiring a little fresh air for me after two years’ imprisonment.<sup>147</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 Mar. the House rejected the motion that Edward Fitzharris should be impeached before Parliament, rather than prosecuted by course of the inferior courts, and Tillotson later wrote to Halifax lamenting that ‘our friends came very warm and not a little dissatisfied with your lordship’ because Halifax had voted against the motion.<sup>148</sup> On that same day the Commons took up the expedient of a regency formulated by Halifax, but rejected it, still preferring a bill for the outright exclusion of the duke of York from the succession, which led to the king’s peremptory and sudden dissolution of Parliament on 28 March.</p><p>After the dissolution of Parliament Halifax went to Rufford and affected a retirement from business, but it was obvious that he would not be allowed to remain away from government for long. In mid-April there already were unfounded rumours that he would soon replace Ormond as lord lieutenant of Ireland, while others saw an imminent appointment as secretary of state or claimed that he was to be made marquess of Dorchester and that he was angry with Lord Chancellor Finch for claiming the title of Nottingham in May 1681, ‘wherein he had long set his heart’.<sup>149</sup> On 19 May 1681 the secretary of state Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> conveyed to Halifax at Rufford the king’s peremptory instructions for his immediate return to London.<sup>150</sup></p><p>From the time of Halifax’s return in late May to consult with the king until York’s eventual return to the English court the following March, Halifax in effect acted as the king’s principal adviser and minister. Reresby wrote that in the summer of 1681 Halifax ‘was become the entire favourite’, ‘the chief favourite and minister’ of the king.<sup>151</sup> One of his first duties was to act as an apologist for the government and a pamphleteer against the Whigs. In June 1681 there appeared a short pamphlet <em>Observations upon a Late Libel</em>, most likely Halifax’s first published work, which was a response to the Whigs’ attacks on the king’s printed ‘Declaration’ explaining the reasons for his dissolution of the last two Parliaments.<sup>152</sup> In August Halifax was placed on an ecclesiastical commission of six members to vet all Church or university appointments. The ‘fanatic party’ which he had already attacked in print feared that Halifax would soon be constituted ‘vicar general’ over all England.<sup>153</sup></p><p>It was from this period, when Halifax acted as the king’s chief minister in 1681-2, that Burnet based his judgment that Halifax ‘went backwards and forwards, and changed sides so often, that in conclusion no side trusted him. He seemed full of commonwealth notions: yet he went into the worst part of King Charles’s reign’. Burnet suspected that ‘his resentments’ against the Whigs who had passed the vote against him ‘wrought so violently on him, that he seemed to be gone off from all his former notions’. In the autumn of 1681 Halifax encouraged Burnet to make his peace with the court, and even brought him to an interview before the king, but ultimately warned him that he faced continued disfavour because of the company he kept—principally Essex, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, and Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup>, who had all been Halifax’s own political allies just two years previously. Burnet for his part suspected that Halifax was ‘deep’ in attempts to prejudice the forthcoming trial of Shaftesbury, ‘though he always expressed an abhorrence of such practices’. On Shaftesbury’s unexpected release in November, Halifax promised Reresby that he would convince those who doubted his loyalty that he was a true servant of the king by his future ‘demeanour’ towards Shaftesbury.<sup>154</sup></p><p>The question of how to counteract French influence at the English court, especially in the context of increased French aggression on the continent, also much preoccupied Halifax during the ‘personal rule’ of Charles II in 1681-2. But Halifax’s influence on the king was limited by the terms of the verbal agreement Charles II had entered into with France at the time of the Oxford Parliament, by which he undertook not to summon Parliament again and not to take military action against France in return for 3,000,000 crowns to be paid over three years. Halifax was appointed on 1 Aug. 1681 a commissioner to treat with the Spanish and Dutch ambassadors concerning an alliance to ‘guarantee’ the terms of the treaty of Nijmegen. Reresby summed up the situation and Halifax’s views in the autumn of 1681:</p><blockquote><p>He… told me that if it were not for the king of France his interest here he did not question but to put England into a very happy state and condition in a short time, but there was now no hopes of a Parliament, except that king should make some new attempt upon Flanders, and an emergency of that kind would venture as it might be handled to reconcile all things. … This occasion happened soon after, that news came that the French king had taken Strasbourg [30 Sept. 1681] where the command of the Rhine would fall into his hands… our king could afford them [the United Provinces] no help without a Parliament to supply him with money, which it was feared the present jealousies would either prevent, or, if they gave him money, would not trust him with the disposal of it. The king of France knew this and made an advantage of it, so that [what] the good my Lord Halifax expected from this occasion did not appear very probable as yet.<sup>155</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax acted as the principal proponent at court of an aggressive anti-French policy and an alliance with the United Provinces and Spain.<sup>156</sup> He pressed for a new Parliament strenuously in the autumn of 1681 and it appears that he and his correspondents such as Coventry, Strafford and particularly Windsor, did all expect one to be imminent and made suitable preparations.<sup>157</sup> Charles continued to stonewall and delay summoning a new Parliament. A compromise was finally reached whereby a joint English-Dutch-Spanish remonstrance to the French king, drafted by Halifax himself and submitted by his brother Henry Savile in late December 1681, threatened that a Parliament to raise supply for war would be summoned if the siege of Luxembourg was not lifted by a set date. Louis ignored it and Halifax argued vehemently in council in early February for fulfilling the remonstrance’s conditions and summon a Parliament:</p><blockquote><p>My Lord Halifax argued for [summoning a Parliament] for these reasons, that all Christendom desired it, France only excepted, and that nothing ought to discourage it at home but the fear that they might fly upon high points, which if they did, the king might dismiss or dissolve it when he pleased, and show the world that it was their fault, not his, that he endeavoured to give satisfaction to his people by frequent Parliaments; but if the king and they agreed, his Majesty would then gain the great point to be united at home and formidable abroad.<sup>158</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 17 Mar. 1682 Louis surprisingly announced that he would withdraw from Luxembourg and Halifax provided his own explanation of this sudden change in his <em>Character of a Trimmer</em>, written only a few years afterwards:</p><blockquote><p>The true ground of [the French king’s] retiring is worth our observation; for at the instance of the Confederates, offices were done, and memorials given, but all ineffectual till the word Parliament was put into them. That powerful word had such an effect that even at that distance it raised the siege: which may convince us of what efficacy the king of England’s words are, when he will give them their full weight, and threaten with his Parliament.<sup>159</sup></p></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <h2><em>Court rivalries, 1682-5</em></h2><p>For from the spring of 1682 Halifax’s influence at court began to be supplanted by that of York himself, who was finally given leave by the king to return to England for a brief visit to Newmarket in early March 1682. The heir presumptive had maintained an antagonism and distrust towards Halifax throughout 1681, seeing him as his leading opponent on the council who had been able almost single-handedly to undermine York’s plea to be allowed to return to court in August 1681.<sup>160</sup> Nevertheless, on his flying visit to Newmarket, York gave an outwardly gracious and kind reception to the marquess and supported his urging that Reresby should be appointed governor of York following the expected death of John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville; Reresby was duly appointed in April 1682.<sup>161</sup> This initial visit was followed by the king’s permission to his brother to return permanently and from the time York returned to the English capital with his family on 27 May 1682, Halifax gradually lost his position as informal ‘first minister’ to the king.</p><p>Soon after York’s return, Sunderland, whom Burnet claimed Halifax ‘hated beyond expression’, was, through the offices of the duchess of Portsmouth and York, brought back to court.<sup>162</sup> The king sought to conciliate Halifax for the entry of his bitter rival and there were various rumours of his imminent promotion.<sup>163</sup> The king promised him the office of either lord president or lord privy seal, whichever became available first. Yet when on 9 Aug. 1682 Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey resigned his place as lord privy seal by royal command, it was widely thought that the post would be given to one of the clients of Laurence (now Viscount) Hyde, Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>. The king on 17 Aug. did confer a marquessate on the earl, which Halifax claimed to both Reresby and Newcastle that he had never desired or asked for – ‘if the world knew how little he sought the new title they would not perhaps think him so vain’.<sup>164</sup> Despite his new title, Halifax was insistent that Charles keep his promise of giving him the office of lord privy seal. Under this pressure, his rival Seymour retired into the country, and Halifax was formally appointed to that office on 25 Oct. 1682.<sup>165</sup> Halifax’s place at the centre of power allowed him to help his large circle of clients, many of them also within his family circle. Thus, in November 1682 he procured the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster for his step-father, Sir Thomas Chicheley<sup>‡</sup>, and in that same month the governorship of Kingston-upon-Hull was bestowed on his brother-in-law, Lord Windsor, who was soon afterwards created earl of Plymouth.</p><p>At the end of January 1683 Halifax’s position at court and in councils was overtaken by the promotion of Sunderland as secretary of state, under the patronage of Portsmouth and York.<sup>166</sup> Halifax did not venture to attack Sunderland directly. His most visible, and most vulnerable, enemy at court was the earl of Rochester, as Hyde had become in November 1682. In early 1683 the two engaged in a serious row about the terms by which the farmers, or commissioners, of the hearth tax had been collecting and disbursing revenue to the treasury over the past few years. Halifax, relying on the allegations of a prospective undertaker for the hearth tax farm, John Shales, claimed in council in late January 1683 that the current commissioners had procured for themselves £40,000 which rightfully belonged to the treasury and requested that the matter be further investigated. Rochester flew into a rage at what he saw as Halifax’s interference in his office and as an indirect accusation of Rochester’s own corruption. At a meeting before the king in mid-February Rochester defended the current farmers and ostensibly won the argument, owing, according to Reresby, to the protection of York, Sunderland and the duchess of Portsmouth, but Halifax’s actions were exonerated by the king’s declaring that he had done nothing in the matter but by his own order and approval.<sup>167</sup></p><p>The breach between Halifax and Rochester grew even wider with this affair for, again according to Reresby in his copious conversations with Halifax at this time, the public in general praised Halifax for protecting the king’s interest, while the court faction centred around York, Rochester and the duchess of Portsmouth increasingly acted against him for stirring up the controversy. Halifax admitted to Reresby that ‘he knew not how long he should keep his station (being driven at so fiercely by some) but he did think he had the king his friend, and could not believe that he would part with him for having committed no fault’.<sup>168</sup> Burnet thought that ‘the dearness that was between [Halifax and York] was now turned upon this to a coldness, and afterwards to a most violent enmity’.<sup>169</sup> Danby, still confined to the Tower, felt the need in March 1683 to solicit Halifax’s favour for his freedom, and in responding to Danby’s request, through Reresby, Halifax gave his own view of his current position at court:</p><blockquote><p>he had enemies enough besides, and that his displeasure against him [Danby] was now ceased; but he would not make more enemies by being his friend, as he had formerly done by being his enemy. So that I [Reresby] found my lord privy seal making up his interest on one side, as my Lord Rochester was endeavouring on the other; for he had also sent for Mr [Edward] Seymour to return to Court, and had promised to be his friend ... he said it would be hard for him to continue there with these men, for it was their interest to remove him. They would be apt to play tricks for their own advantage… Upon the whole I perceived my lord privy seal had the better (and the most approved) cause, and my Lord Rochester the better interest. The first weighed more in parts, in his family, estate, and his reputation in the nation; the other weighed more (though undeservedly) with the duke of York, the duchess of Portsmouth, my Lord Ormond, and most of those at court, who depend upon the king’s purse, of which his lordship was the chief dispenser.<sup>170</sup></p></blockquote><p>During this period of court intrigue Halifax also saw the marriages of two of his children. His only daughter by his first wife, Anne, married John Vaughan*, later 2nd Baron Vaughan and 3rd earl of Carbery [I], a man 24 years her senior, in late September 1682. In March 1681 Reresby had acted as a mediator for a marriage between Halifax’s heir, Henry Savile, Lord Eland, and the duke of Newcastle’s daughter Catherine, but these negotiations were finally broken off in September 1681 over Newcastle’s refusal to give his daughter a suitable portion, leading Halifax to make particularly acerbic comments about his brother-in-law the duke. <sup>171</sup> However for several years Halifax’s brother Henry Savile had been proposing a marriage between Eland and Esther, mademoiselle d’Hervart de Gouvernet, a daughter of a prominent Huguenot family of France, and this marriage was solemnized on 1 June 1684.<sup>172</sup> By this point Halifax’s hopes were concentrated on his middle son, Lord William Savile*, the future 2nd marquess of Halifax. who seemed to show the intellectual promise and seriousness that were not evident in the rebellious and dissolute Eland, nor in Halifax’s timid and ‘cowed’ youngest son, George.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Halifax played a shadowy, and perhaps reluctant, part in the ‘Tory revenge’ which reached its peak with the executions following the revelations of the Rye House Plot and the wholescale remodeling of corporations. Weymouth certainly suggested in a letter of 25 June 1683 that Halifax would have been pleased by both the recent Tory capture of the shrievalty of London and the revelations of the Rye House Plot: ‘The City is now at your feet, and a new plot comes opportunely to justify all that you have [done] or shall do’.<sup>174</sup> The Whigs later tried to implicate Halifax in the ‘murder’ of Lord Russell, but one of their key examinants before the committee of inspections in the winter of 1689, John Tillotson, instead testified that Halifax ‘showed a very compassionate concern’ for Russell and ‘all the readiness to serve him that could be wished’, that Lord Russell himself had asked Tillotson to convey his thanks to the marquess for ‘his humanity and kindness to him’, and that he, Tillotson, had never heard the Whig martyr’s widow say anything against Halifax in this connection.<sup>175</sup> The duchess of Portsmouth herself claimed ‘that if others had been as earnest as my Lord Halifax with the king Lord Russell might have been saved’.<sup>176</sup> At the time of the trial of Algernon Sydney, Roger Morrice felt that Halifax carried himself ‘very civilly’ to the accused man, in contrast to Sydney’s other nephew Sunderland.<sup>177</sup></p><p>Halifax’s enemies also later accused him of encouraging the surrender of borough charters and instigating <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings against corporations. After the surrender of the charter of the City of London, which Halifax appears to have opposed, in January 1684 he was placed on a special commission to ‘supervise all things concerning the City’, which turned out corporation officials ‘who are whiggishly inclined’.<sup>178</sup> On 20 Dec. 1689 it was claimed, by a committee established to investigate the worst abuses of the 1680s, that 66 new borough charters passed through his office as lord privy seal with apparently no opposition. Certainly the correspondence from his kinsmen and colleagues in 1684-5 concerning the remodelling of boroughs with which they were connected suggests that Halifax approved of this policy, and prosecuted and advised on it in his official capacity, even if he was not its principal instigator or promoter.<sup>179</sup></p><p>Halifax did use the Rye House Plot revelations to urge more strenuously that a new Parliament be summoned, arguing that the outpouring of loyalism in the wake of the Plot would guarantee a co-operative session, and also reminding Charles II of the terms of the Triennial Act of 1664, which required a new Parliament to be summoned by spring 1684. In this he constantly encountered the opposition of Rochester. Strong words were reported to have passed between them in early July and Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], wrote to Halifax from Paris on 6 Oct. 1683 that he had been told by one of the French ministers ‘that they have accounts from England that upon a consultation whether the king should at this time call a Parliament or not, your lordship and Secretary [Leoline] Jenkins were for it, and that my Lords of Sunderland and Rochester opposed it’.<sup>180</sup> When Reresby, returning to the capital after a summer rounding up suspects in the north following the Rye House allegations, saw Halifax again in November 1683, he ‘found him still in the king’s good esteem, that the duke [of York] was not so grateful to him as the services done by him deserved, that the differences between him and my Lord Rochester lasted still, and with more animosity than before’.<sup>181</sup></p><p>Halifax also displeased York and his followers Rochester and Sunderland in his attempts to reconcile the duke’s rival Monmouth, who had fled the country following the Rye House Plot allegations, with his father the king. Earlier Halifax had, on 21 May 1682, almost engaged in a duel with Monmouth after the young duke had accosted the earl after Sunday prayers about advice Halifax had allegedly given against Monmouth in council. Halifax may have tried to have his revenge on this affront by proposing in council that no members of the king’s court have any further communication with the duke, but this proposal was apparently scuppered by Ormond.<sup>182</sup> By the autumn of 1683, Halifax, no longer pre-eminent at court, became the young duke’s protector. Monmouth returned from his self-imposed exile in October 1683 and, after having been urged by Halifax to write a letter to his father denying any involvement in the Plot, he was allowed, under the sponsorship of the lord privy seal, into the king’s presence. In early November Halifax arranged for Monmouth’s full restitution at court, by both the king and, more reluctantly, York, by drafting in his own polished and urbane style a submission which Monmouth was to sign as his own. On the night of 24 Nov., following the king’s announcement of his intention in council, Monmouth surrendered himself, made a full submission before his father and uncle, and was received back at court. Halifax thought he had triumphed over his enemies. He informed Reresby on 25 Nov. that ‘the duke of York and that interest of his had opposed it to the last’; and he admitted that he himself ‘had chiefly laboured in it, and brought it to effect’. York quickly struck back against the readmittance of his rival by insisting to his brother that Monmouth should be compelled to provide crown’s evidence against those accused of complicity in the plot still awaiting trial, including Algernon Sydney. Monmouth refused and almost immediately after the patent for his pardon had passed the seals on 28 Nov., he began to deny the terms of his own confession and refused to testify publicly. Halifax, now on the back foot, urged the young man to submit a confession that would satisfy the king and duke and also could not be used to prosecute his previous associates. The confession Monmouth eventually submitted to the king and Council on 4 Dec. was probably drafted by Halifax, but was considered insufficiently explicit and detailed, and a draft confession was eventually produced by the council itself which the king required his son to sign. Halifax eventually convinced Monmouth to sign the document, and submit a copy to the king. The Whig John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, about to undergo his own trial, was shown a copy of the confession, and told Monmouth that he considered it as his own ‘death-warrant’ if presented in court as evidence. Monmouth immediately recanted, refused to acknowledge the content of the confession and demanded back the copy he had submitted to his father. The king eventually conceded this, but in turn once again forbade Monmouth to be present at court. Reresby detailed the effect of this affair for Halifax at court:</p><blockquote><p>I found the duke of York was much displeased with my lord privy seal (though he showed it not openly), that he was not consulted in the affair of bringing in the duke of Monmouth; and it was my lord privy seal his expression that the duke would never forgive him. But the king being the chief instrument of it, it did not appear that his lordship lost any interest with him, though the duke of Monmouth performed not what was expected from him.</p></blockquote><p>York used Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, to convey to Halifax, through Reresby, York’s extreme displeasure at Halifax’s actions.<sup>183</sup> The Whigs, believing that Halifax intended to use Monmouth’s confession against Hampden and the other accused, also severely condemned Halifax for his role in this episode, and it came back to haunt him years later.</p><p>Despite this setback Halifax also worked to bring another ‘exiled’ figure back into the court. In January 1684 Danby used Chesterfield and Reresby to enlist the marquess in having him released from the Tower. Halifax told Reresby at this time that ‘it would be done, that he was that lord’s friend in the thing’, and Danby’s kinsmen on their part told him of Halifax’s efforts and urged him to reconcile with Halifax. Rochester and Sunderland both strongly opposed the release, though underhand, fearing lest Danby and Halifax would join to weaken their interest.<sup>184</sup> On 12 Feb., the last day of term, Danby was finally released and Halifax and Danby ‘saluted each other but slightly’ when they accidentally bumped into each other at court that day. Both Halifax and Danby, in separate audiences, explained to Reresby that they had acted coolly around each other because of ‘the jealousy being great of a friendship between them’. By 20 Feb., however, Reresby could record that Halifax and Danby ‘understood one another well’, and were forming a new working alliance.</p><p>Halifax had undoubtedly lost influence at court, however. His repeated and earnest urging of the king to call a Parliament, arguing that the longer the king waited the worse the Parliament elected would be, was increasingly pointless. By April, despite Halifax’s assurances that he was still in the king’s good favour, it was ‘visible’ to Reresby that his friend ‘was less in business than before’.<sup>185</sup> Nevertheless, in April 1684 he was appointed chamberlain to Queen Catherine of Braganza, after the death of William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker [I] opened a vacancy in that office.<sup>186</sup> In fact it was Rochester, and not Halifax, whose power and influence were more obviously in decline in the latter part of 1684, despite his apparently strong backing at court. That April, though it had been anticipated that Rochester would become lord treasurer, instead vacancies on the treasury commission were filled by Henry Frederick Thynne, Weymouth’s brother, and Sir Dudley North<sup>‡</sup>, brother to Halifax’s ally the lord keeper, Sir Francis North*, Baron Guilford, a development which most contemporaries attributed ‘wholly’ to Halifax. <sup>187</sup> Then when the presidency of the council fell vacant at the end of August, contemporaries were again shocked when it was Rochester who was moved from his position as first commissioner of the Treasury to this prestigious but powerless office. ‘The wonder was how the finger of my lord privy seal was able to effect this against the shoulder of the duke of York, who continued constant Rochester’s friend’, commented Reresby.<sup>188</sup></p><p>In contrast to Burnet, the Tory Roger North<sup>‡</sup> had little but praise for Halifax’s role in the government in this period. The marquess (whom North misnames ‘Sir Henry Savile’) ‘was a person of incomparable wit, formerly a malcontent also but came in to rescue the crown and continued firm all King Charles the Second’s reign’. North was also insistent that the good governance overseen by Guilford and Halifax began to break down from spring 1684.<sup>189</sup> Halifax joined the lord keeper, Guilford, in strongly opposing in council the suggestion of York’s client George Jeffreys*, the future Baron Jeffreys, to abrogate the laws against recusancy, and attacked the creation of a Catholic army in Ireland. He also opposed the revocation of the charters of the New England colonies in November 1684 and the plans to replace them with new constitutions which would abolish provincial assemblies and institute rule by a governor and his council, ‘omitt[ing] no argument by which it could be proved, that an absolute government is neither so happy nor so safe, as that which is tempered by laws, and which sets bounds to the authority of the prince’. <sup>190</sup></p><p>Halifax expanded on the theme in his tract <em>The Character of a Trimmer</em>, which was originally circulated in manuscript in late 1684 and early 1685. The whole matter of ‘trimming’ as a recognizable political creed in the 1680s, and Halifax’s role in it has been much discussed.<sup>191</sup> As applied to Halifax, one of the first instances is found in an analysis of the administration provided by Ormond in the first days of 1683:</p><blockquote><p>We are now come under the three denominations of Tories, Whigs and trimmers… The language of the last is moderation, unity and peace, enjoining with the Whigs in the care of religion and property and with the Tories for monarchy and army and legal prerogative, but it is so easy to slip into either of the extremes from such a mediocrity that as their principles are inscrutable so they may be thought to be their interest and safety. Those of this temper I am sure think the earl [sic] of Halifax to be their patron… yet in consultations he yet is in most things unanimous with the thoroughest Tories. But where there is any difference of opinion it seemed to me to lead to the trimming way.<sup>192</sup></p></blockquote><p>The accession of James II came only weeks after its composition. The new king made it clear very quickly that he had no intention of following a ‘trimming’ course.</p><h2><em>James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>Almost immediately after his accession James II reshuffled his ministerial offices, not surprisingly to Halifax’s detriment: he was moved to the office of lord president of the council, to replace Rochester, now the lord treasurer. Rochester’s brother, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, became lord privy seal. ‘Whether this preferment (though a degree higher as to place) was desired or not by his lordship was a doubt, the trust and profit of privy seal being thought to be greater’, Reresby noted.<sup>193</sup> Halifax was involved in the elections to the Parliament summoned for the new king, most notably in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.<sup>194</sup></p><p>Halifax attended all but two of the meetings of James II’s Parliament that first met on 19 May 1685, on which day he was introduced in the House in his new title of marquess, between Clarendon and Shrewsbury. On 1 June he received the proxy of his nephew William Pierrepont*, 4th earl of Kingston and his complement of proxies was complete 15 days later when Shrewsbury likewise registered his with the marquess. He was named to 12 committees and reported on 26 June from the committee of the whole considering a naturalization bill. By early September 1685, following the defeat of Monmouth’s Rebellion, it was expected in many quarters that Halifax would soon be made first commissioner of the great seal, or even made lord chancellor.<sup>195</sup> But in the discussions on policies to be promoted when Parliament would sit again in November his disagreement with the king’s policies came to a head, in particular his opposition to the king’s plans to retain the Catholic officers commissioned and used to put down the rebellion, and his desire to repeal the Test Acts. Halifax had apparently shown his attachment to the Test Acts by suggesting that an order in council be issued for an examination of whether all commissioned military officers had taken the Test. No other councillor, according to Burnet, seconded him in this motion. Halifax in a consequent private interview with James II refused to change his stance. On 21 Oct. he was deprived of all office and removed from the Privy Council, though James assured him that he would not forget Halifax’s past services to him in getting the exclusion bill defeated. ‘Thus is the marquess fallen that has done so great service’, commented Roger Morrice.<sup>196</sup></p><p>Halifax worked hard to persuade his friend Chesterfield to come to Westminster for the next sitting of Parliament in early November 1685 to help defeat the king’s proposal to repeal the Test Acts. He assured the earl that there were the numbers sufficient to defeat it, even among some previously obedient ‘court lords’, such as Danby, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, who were now willing to defend ‘the strongest bulwarks of all that is left us’. These arguments fell on deaf ears, and Chesterfield hoped that Halifax would accept his proxy instead. On 10 Nov., the day following the commencement of the reconvened Parliament, Halifax continued to urge Chesterfield strongly to attend: ‘I could wish with all my heart, that you would overrule your aversion to the journey, since I make very much difference between my Lord of Chesterfield and his proxy. I know of what weight your assistance is in speaking, as well as your countenance in being present’. Failing Chesterfield’s agreement Halifax insisted that he be true to his promise and ‘that you will immediately give order that I may have your proxy’. Chesterfield replied on 13 Nov. that he had ordered his servant in London to cause his proxy for Halifax to be entered in the register by the clerk of the House, although there is now no record of this proxy in the registers.<sup>197</sup></p><p>The proxies Halifax already held from Kingston and Shrewsbury were vacated by their presence in the House on the first day of the reconvened Parliament, 9 Nov. 1685. On that day Halifax helped to introduce into the House Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton. Sources give conflicting accounts of whether it was Halifax or William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, who first responded, with heavy irony, to the King’s Speech of the 9th, in which he announced his plans to continue the Catholic officers in the army and to exempt them from the Test Act, that ‘they had now more reason than ever to give thanks to his Majesty, since he had dealt so plainly with them, and discovered what he would be at’.<sup>198</sup> Even the accounts which attribute the comment to Devonshire agree that the motion was ‘vehemently seconded’ by Halifax.<sup>199</sup> Also on that first day Devonshire laid before the House the petition of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, for his release from the Tower. In the ‘considerable’ debate that followed Devonshire, aided by Anglesey, argued that the Lords themselves should answer the petition without consulting the king, and was ‘very hot’ against Halifax, who thought that the king should be informed.<sup>200</sup> In other matters Halifax on 12 Nov. chaired and reported from the committee for privileges with the decision that privilege of Parliament should not be extended to peers in legal cases where they appeared only as trustees.<sup>201</sup></p><p>In the weeks following the surprise prorogation of 20 Nov. 1685, there were further signals of Halifax’s fall from royal favour. On 3 Dec. 1685 Sunderland was named to the office of lord president of the Council vacated by Halifax and early in 1686 Halifax was left out of the commission of peers assigned to sit in judgment on Delamer.<sup>202</sup> Out of office and with the Parliament prorogued, Halifax retired to Rufford in March 1686.<sup>203</sup> He returned to the capital in July, from which point Halifax House on St James’s Square and his newly-purchased house of Berrymead Priory in Acton, became his residences for the remainder of his life.<sup>204</sup> Chesterfield congratulated him, thinking that he had returned to take up high office, even the lord treasurership, a report which Halifax quickly denied, but did however urge Chesterfield to come to the capital before the next sitting of Parliament, planned for 23 November. Halifax continued to request Chesterfield’s presence in London for the subsequent promised (but ultimately prorogued) meetings of Parliament.<sup>205</sup></p><p>A number of family events and losses marked the years 1686-7. On 23 June 1686 his uncle and long-term political associate Sir William Coventry died, depriving Halifax of his first political mentor and guide. His other Coventry uncle, the former secretary of state Henry, to whom Halifax appears to have been less close, died on 7 Dec. 1686.<sup>206</sup> Halifax himself was dangerously wounded in an attack on his coach near Haymarket in March 1687.<sup>207</sup> These blows were followed in October 1687 by the death of his brother, Henry, in Paris, where he had taken refuge after losing office for opposing the king’s measures to repeal the Test Acts. In November 1687 his brother-in-law Plymouth died, followed within a year by his wife Anne, Halifax’s sister. Halifax, with Weymouth and Sir Willoughby Hickman<sup>‡</sup>, was entrusted with managing the estate, worth £3,000 p.a., and education of the underage heir, Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth.<sup>208</sup> He also became involved, perhaps unwillingly, in the rancorous domestic disputes of his brother-in-law Newcastle, in 1686-7 at loggerheads with his Pierrepoint wife about whether to marry their daughter, Margaret, to the queen dowager’s lord chamberlain, Feversham.<sup>209</sup> Halifax’s involvement led to a serious and final falling-out with Newcastle who ‘apprehends your lordship’ (as John Millington<sup>‡</sup> informed Halifax in September 1688) ‘hath been the occasion of the difficulties between the duchess and him and do concern yourself too much about his daughter’s marriage, insomuch that he sayeth, at his coming to London, he will not visit your lordship and will oppose your lordship in the House of Lords all he can’.<sup>210</sup></p><p>Halifax’s dynastic situation was radically transformed by the unexpected death of Lord Eland in October 1687 who, according to Roger Morrice, ‘had lived as extravagant a life as any man of this age’.<sup>211</sup> Halifax almost immediately set about trying to marry his second son William Savile, now himself styled Lord Eland, to Lady Elizabeth Grimston, the only surviving daughter and heir of Sir Samuel Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. The promised marriage portion of £15,000, however, was not to be paid until the death of her father, who managed to survive both his own daughter and his son-in-law.<sup>212</sup> The marriage was celebrated on 24 Nov. 1687.</p><p>When his son William had set out on a tour of the United Provinces in late 1686, Halifax had taken the opportunity, through the requisite letter of introduction, to commence a correspondence with William, prince of Orange. His first letter to the prince dates from December 1686 and discusses the prospects of Parliament reconvening for business in February, which Halifax doubted (and was soon proved right, as the Parliament was merely prorogued on 15 Feb. 1687).<sup>213</sup> Throughout 1687 he continued to write to William, detailing his suspicions that James II had no intention of reconvening Parliament but expressing a confident view that no matter how bad the political and religious situation may seem from abroad, the English people would not allow the Test Acts to be repealed. <sup>214</sup> As such he did not see the need for action on William’s part. In a long letter of April 1688 he set out to William his views on the current situation in England and the steps William should take:</p><blockquote><p>the men at the helm are certainly divided amongst themselves, which will produce great effects, if men will let it work, and not prevent the advantages that may be expected, by being too unquiet, or doing things out of season; the great thing to be done now, is to do nothing, but wait for the good consequences of their divisions and mistakes. Unseasonable stirrings, or anything that looketh like the Protestants being the aggressors, will tend to unite them, and by that means will be a disappointment to those hopes, which otherwise can hardly fail. Nothing, therefore, in the present conjuncture can be more dangerous than unskillful agitators, warm men who would be active at a wrong time, and want patience to keep their zeal from running away with them… There can be nothing better recommended to you, than the continuance of the method which you practice; neither to comply in anything that is unfit, not to provoke further anger by any act that is unnecessary.<sup>215</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax himself, though, was not inactive in 1687-8 against the king’s measures. As a governor of the Charterhouse, in January 1687 Halifax strenuously opposed a Catholic candidate put forward for election by the king’s ministers Jeffreys and Sunderland, arguing that the king’s dispensation of the candidate from the Test Acts was illegal and ‘unwarrantable by the laws of England’.<sup>216</sup> In response to James II’s Declaration of Indulgence of 4 Apr. 1687, and the messages and addresses of support he received from some Protestant Nonconformist communities, as well as to the dissolution of the Parliament 2 July, Halifax wrote and published clandestinely his <em>Letter to a Dissenter</em>, published in August or September, to try to persuade Nonconformist leaders not to abandon the preservation of the Test Acts for the sake of what Halifax saw as a deceptive, short-term and insincere toleration offered by the catholicizing king: ‘you are therefore to be hugged now, only that you may be the better squeezed at another time’.<sup>217</sup> In the summer of 1688 he also published <em>The Anatomy of an Equivalent</em>, a waspish response to the suggestion, first made by William Penn in November or December 1687 and publicly offered by the king in a proclamation of 21 Sept. 1688, that the Church of England would agree to the repeal of the Test Acts in exchange for a statutory guarantee of its rights and privileges, the ‘equivalent’. Halifax’s pamphlet aimed, at some length, to show that this proposed deal was hardly an ‘equivalent’ as the two parties were unequal in power, authority and means of coercion from the very start.<sup>218</sup> Halifax was also heavily involved in the defence of the Seven Bishops indicted for seditious libel for not publishing James’s second Declaration of Indulgence in their parishes. He personally attended on many of them in early June 1688 after their commitment and devised for them a lengthy petition to the king setting out their case. Bishop Compton enlisted Halifax to act as surety for the imprisoned bishop William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph.<sup>219</sup></p><h2><em>Revolution, 1688</em></h2><p>Halifax did not participate in the plotting of the Revolution, even though, according to Burnet, he had been approached by Henry Sydney on the subject.<sup>220</sup> James nevertheless assured the French ambassador Barillon in early September 1688 that if William of Orange did invade, Halifax would be among the first among the English peers to be arrested.<sup>221</sup> James had made clear that he was aware ‘of the nobles that are in town keeping from the court’, which prompted Halifax, Rochester and Clarendon to make their appearances in late September ‘much to his majesty’s satisfaction’.<sup>222</sup> Halifax came to court again on 21 Oct. 1688, when all members of the House then in town were summoned by the king to hear the testimony to prove the validity of the birth of the prince of Wales, at which point he kissed the king’s hand.<sup>223</sup> Together with Nottingham, Weymouth, Clarendon and Burlington, Halifax was later questioned by the king on the evening of 4 Nov., during which he denied vehemently any involvement in the invitation to William, but did not agree to put his name to a public and printed repudiation and condemnation of the invasion, a refusal which led James to dismiss him ‘very dissatisfied’.<sup>224</sup></p><p>Halifax was initially supportive of the design of Rochester and Clarendon to address the king on the necessity of calling a Parliament, though he raised some scruples lest the address attracted too few signatories and was anxious to know before he himself signed who else would join him. On 12 Nov., though, Clarendon was nonplussed when he was presented with an address of Halifax’s own composition, which effectively forestalled his own effort. When Clarendon went to discuss this with Halifax, the marquess expressed his ‘indifference’ whether a petition was submitted at all as well as a refusal to put his own name to any petition which also contained the signatures of discredited servants of the regime such as Jeffreys or those who had sat in the ecclesiastical commission, who included Rochester. An address was eventually prepared by Clarendon, Rochester and some of the bishops, without the signature of Halifax, Nottingham or Weymouth, and presented to the king on 17 November.<sup>225</sup></p><p>After his return from Salisbury, James summoned another meeting of the peers on 27 Nov 1688, where Halifax and Nottingham, by James’s own account, spoke ‘with great respect and seeming concern... they thought there was no remedy except it could be had by a treaty with the prince of Orange’.<sup>226</sup> Clarendon fumed, in the privacy of his diary, that</p><blockquote><p>Lord Halifax spoke very flatteringly; that he would not join in the petition, because he believed it would displease the king and he should always be very tender of doing that. Besides, he thought the meeting of a Parliament at this time very impracticable, though, he must own, he would never at any time advise against the calling of a Parliament... This lord is a strange man’.</p></blockquote><p>But Clarendon did have to admit that Halifax and Nottingham ‘laid all miscarriages open; though in smoother words than I had done’. In spite of Halifax’s misgivings it was decided at this meeting to re-issue the writs to a Parliament, and to proclaim its imminent meeting. The advice of Halifax and Nottingham was followed, however, in that it was also agreed to send commissioners to treat with William of Orange.<sup>227</sup> At first the commission that was to be sent to William was to include Halifax, Godolphin and Rochester, but Halifax positively refused to work with the latter, who was replaced by Nottingham.<sup>228</sup> According to Clarendon at an audience on 28 Nov., Halifax in preparation for his embassy spoke ‘more home to [the king] than I had done the other night’ and he and Nottingham had another private audience with the king the following day.<sup>229</sup></p><p>The commission was conferred on 30 Nov. on the three peers, and Clarendon recorded that Halifax ‘pretended not to be pleased with the employment’.<sup>230</sup> Clarendon, himself at William’s camp at Hindon on 3 Dec., also heard the prince say that he ‘did a little wonder, the Lords Halifax and Godolphin came to him in this errand’. On 5 Dec. Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, also expressed to Clarendon his surprise: ‘he did not think Lord Halifax was like to have been one of the commissioners; but a man that was guided by his ambition, would do anything’. <sup>231</sup> The commissioners arrived at William’s camp at Hungerford on 8 Dec., when they were requested by William’s leading Dutch confidant Hans Willem Bentinck*, the future earl of Portland, to set out the king’s terms in writing and not to converse with any of the other English in the camp .<sup>232</sup> Burnet wrote to admiral Arthur Herbert*, later earl of Torrington, from Hungerford that despite this order Halifax and Nottingham ‘behaved themselves so and talked so freely to myself and several others in a public room, that we saw they were condemned to act a part that was very unnatural to them’.<sup>233</sup></p><p>From these snatched conversations with members of William’s English entourage, the commissioners, perhaps led by Halifax, were able to report to the secretary of state, Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], in a letter of 8 Dec. that there was no likelihood that the prince would halt his march on the capital. There has long been speculation whether it was the despairing tone of the dispatch from the commissioners on 8 Dec. which prompted James II’s flight, and whether Halifax had pitched the letter with that specific goal in view, as was charged by his Jacobite opponents, basing themselves on a short and inconclusive passage in Burnet.<sup>234</sup> In one of his surreptitious conversations with Burnet, Halifax asked him ‘if we had a mind to have the king in our hands?’. Burnet responded: ‘by no means; for we would not hurt his person’. Halifax then asked, ‘what if he had a mind to go away’? Burnet told him that ‘nothing was so much to be wished for’.<sup>235</sup> Burnet, though, did not state whether Halifax concurred with this view and indeed Halifax had previously argued against the king’s removing himself as it would thwart all his ongoing negotiations with the prince. From the time of James’s first flight Halifax abandoned the king, out of both policy and personal pique at the damage to his reputation as a negotiator the king’s departure had done him. He threw in his lot with William of Orange and worked to support his claim to the English throne.</p><p>After his return to the capital, Halifax was on 12 Dec. 1688 requested to act as chair of the ‘provisional government’ of peers and bishops meeting at Guildhall which took upon itself the administration of the country in the king’s absence. He remained moderator of this assembly until the king’s return to the capital on 16 December. After this provisional government was formally disbanded, Halifax repaired to the prince of Orange, now based at Windsor. Here he chaired, and took notes on, a meeting on 17 Dec. of William’s followers at which they discussed steps to take in the face of James’s return.<sup>236</sup> Following this meeting Halifax was chosen by William as one of the three delegates, with Shrewsbury and Delamer, assigned to persuade the king to remove from the capital to Ham. Halifax acted as the spokesman when these peers were finally admitted to the king’s bedchamber in the early hours of 18 December. James instead insisted on going to Rochester and William, as Bentinck informed Halifax in a letter addressed at 5 o’clock in the morning of 18 Dec., gave his assent.<sup>237</sup></p><p>After James’s second flight, Halifax, at least according to an anecdote later retailed by Dartmouth, was bold enough to assure the prince that ‘he might be what he pleased himself, for as nobody knew what to do with him, so nobody knew what to do without him’.<sup>238</sup> The marquess was quickly emerging as one of the prince’s leading supporters and he was appointed chair of the meeting held in the queen’s presence chamber on 21 Dec. in which a large number of members of the House discussed how best to summon a free Parliament.<sup>239</sup> With little agreement, these peers and bishops met again the following day in the House of Lords, and ‘by desire of the Lords’, Halifax again took the chair for a meeting which principally considered ‘the most ready and most effectual way to remove the papists out of town’, Halifax himself frequently contributing to the debate. The result was an order commanding all Catholics in town to depart from the capital within five days.<sup>240</sup> When the peers and bishops met again on 24 Dec. to discuss the summoning of a free Parliament, with Halifax again in the chair, it quickly fell into a debate regarding the circumstances surrounding the king’s suspected flight to France just hours previously. After it had become certain that the king had removed himself from the realm, the debate continued on the merits of summoning a new Parliament. The result of the debate was that Halifax moved that the assembled lords and bishops address William to summon a Convention by issuing writs of summons and in the meantime to take upon himself the civil administration of the country. The address’s wording was contentious, and Halifax himself was involved in the debate surrounding it.<sup>241</sup> The following day, 25 Dec., the two addresses were prepared and Halifax, as chairman, presented them to William. Three days later Prince William summoned the peers and bishops to St James’s Palace to inform them that he accepted the terms of the address and would consequently issue writs for a Convention.</p><p>By this time Halifax had become one of William’s principal confidants and had begun recording notes on his conversations with the king. On 30 Dec. 1688 Halifax noted that William ‘catched at proposals, not having time to examine them’ and commented on his ‘aversion to talk with many together’ and how he ‘loveth single conversations’. Halifax appears to have been from this early date the principal recipient of these ‘single conversations’ to whom William told his suspicions of Clarendon and Rochester as well as of John Churchill*, Baron Churchill. William also already showed a distrust of the Whigs, whom he considered a ‘Commonwealth party’ which hoped to make him merely ‘a duke of Venice’, and of the Tories, with their plans for a regency.<sup>242</sup></p><h2><em>Convention, 1689</em></h2><p>Halifax continued his pivotal role during the Convention itself, particularly during its important and influential early proceedings. Without a lord chancellor or a lord keeper in being at the time of the Convention’s first meeting on 22 Jan. 1689, the House was forced to choose a Speaker <em>pro tempore</em> and, having already worked under Halifax’s guidance in late December, chose him.<sup>243</sup> He remained in this important role and function throughout the first eight months of the Convention, from its opening on 22 Jan. 1689, to 20 Sept., when Halifax adjourned the Convention for a month. For the first half of 1689, though, one of the most constitutionally important periods of British history, it was Halifax who guided and influenced the proceedings of the House.</p><p>Halifax took to his role with vigour and energy, and acted on behalf of the Williamite cause. Burnet thought that in an attempt ‘by his zeal for the prince’s interest, to atone for his backwardness in not coming early into it’ Halifax advocated giving William himself the crown outright, to the exclusion of Mary. John Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, was, according to Burnet, the only other peer to hold this view at this time.<sup>244</sup> On the first day Halifax reported to the House the letter William had addressed to the Convention, in which the prince detailed the perilous situation in Ireland and on the continent. An address of thanks to the prince, recommitting to him he administration of the country in the interim was immediately ordered and the completed draft reported to the House by Halifax two days later. <sup>245</sup> Halifax was apparently enraged by the moves made in the Commons to postpone (until 28 Jan.) their debates in the hope that in the meantime the upper house would devise a loyalist resolution on the state of the crown, Clarges informing Clarendon that Halifax had ‘told him with some warmth, that it was very strange he made such a motion; that it was just so much time lost; for the Lords should not proceed upon any public business, till they saw what the Commons did’.<sup>246</sup> Sure enough, the following day, 25 Jan., Halifax from the chair seconded the successful motion of Devonshire that the House delay proceedings on the ‘state of the nation’ and the disposition of the crown for four days in expectation of, as Devonshire put it, ‘light from below that might be of use to us’, that is, an expected resolution of the Commons in favour of William’s claim to the throne.<sup>247</sup></p><p>Halifax had made clear his own sentiments at the meeting of 28 Jan. 1689 when he moved that the prayers to the king which usually opened proceedings ‘might be suspended till further order’.<sup>248</sup> The following day, 29 Jan., the Commons’ vote that king James had ‘abdicated’ and that ‘the throne is thereby vacant’ was brought up to the upper House for debate, and from the outset of the debates Halifax supported the wording chosen by the lower House, and William’s claim to the throne. On that day he argued and voted against the proposal for a regency, which was defeated by a slim majority of two. One report of the proceedings in the Convention claimed that Halifax’s usual colleague Nottingham argued so persuasively for a regency from historical precedents, ‘that it would have been followed by the majority, had it not been strenuously opposed by the marquess of Halifax and the earl of Danby, who by their great skill laid open the inextricable difficulties attending that proposal’.<sup>249</sup> Contemporaries and later commentators have also noted Halifax’s own inconsistency in this matter, as he had promoted schemes for a regency at the time of the Exclusion crisis in 1680-1 and suddenly abandoned that expedient in 1689. Halifax’s apparently hypocritical stance may have come from a pragmatic conviction that in the exigencies of the moment some form of <em>de facto</em> government was necessary and that William would not take on that responsibility under limited terms that deprived him of outright kingship. Halifax’s stance pleased nobody, as the Whigs supporting William’s claims still could not forgive him for the defeat of exclusion in 1680 and now Tories who defending the rights of James and of Mary were disappointed in a figure whom they had thought they could look to after his opposition to exclusion.</p><p>In the debates over the following days, Halifax continued to support the Commons’ vote of 28 Jan. that James had abdicated and that the throne was vacant and needed to be filled. On 31 Jan. he even voted to insert words proclaiming the prince and princess of Orange king and queen in place of ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’, and he signed the protest against the rejection of the original wording of the Commons’ vote. He made his reasons clear to Reresby in a meeting on 1 Feb.:</p><blockquote><p>My Lord Halifax told me that night that he was not privy to this design of the prince’s coming at the first, but now that he was here, and upon so good an occasion, we were obliged to defend him. I acquainted him with what I heard, that Lord Danby expected preference before him in the prince’s favour. He gave me some reasons which satisfied me to the contrary, and that his lordship began to lag in his zeal for the prince’s interest in the House of Lords… My Lord Halifax spoke further that himself should be employed and used some arguments to me to prove the legality of accepting to be so. One was, that the king having relinquished the government, it was not for that to be let fall, and it could not be supported if men did not act under those on whom it was conferred, and that as things stood now <em>salus populi</em> was <em>suprema lex</em>.<sup>250</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 3 Feb. Halifax was confirmed in his determination by a meeting with the prince of Orange and other of his advisers at which William made clear his intention to settle for nothing less than the crown in his own right, with Mary as joint sovereign at most.<sup>251</sup> Thus on the following day Halifax again voted to agree with the Commons in the wording of their vote and joined the protest against the House’s continuing rejection of it. On 5 Feb. Halifax, as Speaker, irritated Clarendon by keeping the House sitting late, apparently in expectation of a further message in support of the original vote from the lower house:</p><blockquote><p>so unfair was he in the chair, that he would do nothing but what he pleased... So much haste was his Lordship in, and so much zeal did he and others show to unsettle the old and set up a new government, that they thought every hour’s delay a ruin to the undertaking which some of them had made.<sup>252</sup></p></blockquote><p>Clarendon continued to be frustrated by Halifax on 6 Feb., when</p><blockquote><p>all that was said [by Clarendon and James’s other supporters] was violently opposed by the other party, most eminently by my Lord Halifax, who thought he answered all the weighty reasons of the other Lords with the pretence of necessity; saying that the Crown was only made elective <em>pro hac vice</em>, and then reverted to its hereditary channel again.<sup>253</sup></p></blockquote><p>On the other side of the political spectrum Roger Morrice felt that ‘none spoke more excellently at this time than Halifax and Danby according to their respective talents which are very great, and few speeches made in this House have exceeded either of them’.<sup>254</sup> Halifax joined with the majority in approving the Commons’ vote that James had abdicated and that the throne was vacant. There are conflicting accounts whether it was Halifax or Danby who then moved that the prince and princess of Orange be declared king and queen. Danby certainly later highly resented what he saw as Halifax’s interference in these debates.<sup>255</sup></p><p>On 13 Feb. 1689, Halifax had the duty of presenting, on behalf of the Convention, both the recently-drafted Declaration of Rights and the offer of the crown to the prince and princess of Orange at the Banqueting House, and within 24 hours of William’s and Mary’s acceptance of the crown, Halifax was appointed to the monarchs’ new Privy Council. Much more was expected, but the rivalry between the two old foes Halifax and Danby was bound to complicate the distribution of posts. Initially Halifax won this particular battle. While Danby, according to Halifax’s account to Reresby, had initially expected to be made lord chancellor or lord treasurer, he had had to settle for the lord presidency, while Halifax had chosen the office of lord privy seal himself and had been given it. It was the second time he held the post.<sup>256</sup></p><p>Halifax was at the heart of William’s new government and was probably the new king’s closest English adviser. His many notes of his conversations with William during the first months of his reign as king show both the confidence in which William held him and the fascination with which Halifax observed this other example of kingship and rule, so very different from that of Charles II. Nevertheless, they show a certain lack of confidence in both William’s abilities and the permanence of the regime, views which he repeated openly to Reresby. Halifax said that William ‘was desirous to be king yet really shrunk at the burden, at the very first putting on of his crown… [He] said he fancied, he was like a king in a play’. Furthermore Halifax credited himself with seeing through the appointment of his friends and colleagues Nottingham and Shrewsbury as secretaries of state. The king initially opposed the appointment of the latter, complaining that ‘he was a young king with a young secretary’. William decided that in the bewildering world of English, even British, politics, ‘he must not yet declare himself, but must be a Trimmer’. These notes also provide evidence of the continuing rivalry and distrust between Halifax and Carmarthen (as Danby had been created in April), although Halifax was anxious to record in his notes, ‘for his own justification’, that William thought the maintenance of the feud largely came from Carmarthen’s side.<sup>257</sup></p><p>At the heart of Halifax’s concerns was the conduct of the war in which England was engaged from William’s first coming to the throne.<sup>258</sup> From his return to the Privy Council on 14 Feb. 1689 Halifax was a leading figure on the sub-committee dealing with ‘the affairs of Ireland’, and Irish affairs and personnel bulk large in Halifax’s conversations with William.<sup>259</sup> Burnet laid against Halifax the charge that he dissuaded William from accepting the peace overtures in early 1689 of Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I], Halifax allegedly arguing ‘that the leaving Ireland in that dangerous state, might be a means to bring the Convention to a more speedy settlement of England, and that therefore the prince ought not to make too much haste to relieve Ireland’.<sup>260</sup> In August it was further reported that the king was forming an inner ‘cabinet council’ which was to consist of Halifax and Carmarthen, as well as Portland and the two secretaries of state, Shrewsbury and Nottingham, to help further manage the war.<sup>261</sup> Halifax also remained at the heart of proceedings in the House as its Speaker, although because of this role he was nominated to no committees. He did, however, hold the proxy of the Williamite Charles North*, 5th Baron North, from 23 Apr. 1689 until his return to the House on 10 May. There appears to have been an attempt by the Whigs to remove Halifax as Speaker, for on 10 July it was proposed to address the king to appoint one of the commissioners of the great seal, or one of the judges, to be Speaker of the House, a motion which was rejected.</p><p>Halifax supported both the Toleration bill and the legislative initiatives in favour of comprehension, but was apt to blame both the ‘Church of England’ and the ‘Presbyterians’ for the failure of the latter. The Churchmen ‘had rather turn papists than take in the Presbyterians amongst them... the Presbyterians hated the Church of England men as much, and spoiled their own business by the ill preparing of their bill of comprehension, and the untimely offering of other bills and matters in both Houses to disoblige those from whom they expected this indulgence’. He thought the plans to relegate the comprehension bill to consideration by Convocation would kill it. According to Reresby Halifax strongly urged in the debates of 19-23 Mar. 1689 that the sacramental test should be omitted from the revised oaths to the new monarchs, against the opposition of Churchmen such as Nottingham and Danby and even Whigs such as Devonshire.<sup>262</sup> In early June William commented to Halifax that ‘the Dissenters were so far from having an ill will to me [i.e. Halifax], that they were for pitching upon me to be their head’, Halifax noting that ‘he said this in such a manner that putting circumstances together, it seemed to me at that time he desired should be so’.<sup>263</sup></p><p>Old resentments continued to plague Halifax. His support for both Comprehension and Toleration, as well as his earlier avowal of William of Orange’s claim to the throne, condemned Halifax in the eyes of the High Church Tories.<sup>264</sup> Whigs, though, were incensed that their old antagonists Halifax, Carmarthen and Nottingham were appointed to high office instead of them. Among his bitterest enemies were Delamer, Ralph Montagu* earl of Montagu, Charles Mordaunt* earl of Monmouth, and Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, all of whom probably expected higher office. The feeling was more than returned by Halifax, who perhaps poisoned William’s mind against these Whigs. Certainly the notes of his conversations with William are full of disparaging remarks against these particular peers.<sup>265</sup> Halifax’s animus against Titus Oates and the bill to reverse the two punitive judgments levied against him in 1685 did not help his standing among the more virulent Whigs and may have spurred on their attacks on him. On 17 May two of the judges who had laid down the sentence against Oates in 1685 were heard at the bar and Halifax was said to have been ‘very warm’ against reversal.<sup>266</sup> Halifax, as Speaker, oversaw the interrogation of Oates on 25 May which led to the resolution that his printed statement, <em>The Case of Titus Oates</em>, was a breach of the House’s privilege, and to Oates’s commitment to king’s bench. On 31 May the judges presented their unanimous opinion that the judgments against Oates were erroneous, illegal and cruel. The House was largely in agreement with this view until, at the instigation of Rochester, the judges confirmed that if the judgments were reversed Oates would be able once again to testify as a witness in court. Halifax then joined Rochester, Nottingham and Carmarthen in expressing the view that in this case ‘they must very well consider the consequences of reversing the judgment’ and voted with the majority against the motion to reverse it.<sup>267</sup> On 11 June the Commons, seemingly rejecting the House’s earlier resolution, voted through its own bill to reverse the judgments against Oates. This was later amended by the Lords so that Oates could never testify in a court of law again, a point contested by the Commons. After several conferences on Oates’s bill, Halifax further voted on 30 July to adhere to the House’s amendments against Oates, to the fury of the Whigs in the Commons.</p><p>The most sustained attacks on Halifax came in the Commons and especially on and after 1 June 1689 when it took up consideration of what they perceived as the grievous miscarriages in the stalled Irish campaign, for which many Whigs blamed Halifax, a prominent figure in the Irish committee of the Privy Council. On that day John Grobham (‘Jack’) Howe<sup>‡</sup> argued that the Commons ‘must come to the root’ of the problem, culminating in a motion to address the king for the removal of all such Privy Councillors ‘as have been impeached in Parliament’, which Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> and his contemporaries saw as distinctly aimed against Carmarthen and Halifax. At the same time the Commons committee investigating the Irish campaign was especially assigned to investigate ‘who has been the occasion of the delays in sending relief over to Ireland’, another veiled attack on Halifax. Debate on the motion was adjourned until early the following week, and during the interim the Whigs rustled up a virulent petition from the City calling for an inquiry ‘into several mismanagements ancient and modern’, while the court put pressure on Howe. The City petition was never presented and when debate on the Commons address was resumed on 4 June Howe proved unwilling to name the councillors he had in mind and the motion was laid aside.<sup>268</sup> These proceedings greatly worried William, as his conversations with Halifax revealed, and relations between the disgruntled Whigs and the king deteriorated throughout June and July.<sup>269</sup> On 10 July William told Halifax that ‘he was so weary of them [Parliament] he could not bear them, there must be a recess’. William was ‘cruelly galled with their proceedings’ as he was afraid that the Commons would ‘fall upon’ Carmarthen. Halifax instead persuaded him to let the Parliament continue sitting so that they might ‘empty all their shot upon him [i.e. Halifax]’.<sup>270</sup> The Commons produced on 13 July a resolution condemning those ministers who had advised William to refuse to deliver the Irish committee minute books and Privy Council registers to the committee investigating the Irish situation as ‘enemies to the king and kingdom’. That same day a motion for a specific address to remove both Halifax and Carmarthen was adjourned by the efforts of the friends of the two marquesses. On 2 Aug., shortly after the House had voted to adhere to its amendment to Oates’s bill, Sir John Guise<sup>‡</sup> moved again for an address condemning them. The debate in the Commons on the ‘state of the nation’ the following day led to another motion for an address stating that ‘it is inconvenient to his Majesty’s affairs that the marquess of Halifax is in his Majesty’s council’. Halifax’s son Lord Eland defended him, but the motion was defeated by only 79 to 90, leading some (including Halifax himself) to think that the lord privy seal was seriously politically crippled.<sup>271</sup></p><p>These moves by the Commons against Halifax were met by increasing anger from the king.<sup>272</sup> Less than three weeks after this latest attempt the king adjourned Parliament on 20 Aug. for a month.<sup>273</sup> When Parliament resumed on 20 Sept. 1689 Halifax’s principal responsibility as Speaker was to adjourn it to 19 October. The day before Parliament was scheduled to meet again, Halifax had insisted in the Privy Council that he would no longer serve as Speaker, and on 19 Oct. Shrewsbury announced to the House the appointment of the chief baron of the exchequer, Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>, as Speaker. Halifax was, significantly, absent that day—his only absence throughout the first session of the Convention. The Convention was prorogued two days following, on 21 Oct. 1689.</p><p>No longer Speaker, Halifax did not have to sit in every meeting of the second session of the Convention when it reconvened two days after the prorogation, on 23 Oct. 1689. He was still attentive, and came to all but six of the meetings. Furthermore, he was eligible for committee nominations and was named to five committees considering legislation. He was also, as lord privy seal, dispatched to the king with an address, whose reception he reported to the House on 18 Nov., and was placed on the drafting committee established on 9 Dec. for an address urging the king to put into execution the laws against papists residing in the capital.</p><p>On 2 Nov. 1689 the duke of Bolton, a professed Whig enemy of Halifax, moved in the House, that a committee be established to consider who were the advisers of the ‘murders’ of Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney, Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup>, and others, as well as who were the advisers of the <em>quo warrantos</em> against corporations. Burnet was clear that this ‘committee of inspections’ (sometimes dubbed the ‘Murder Committee’) ‘was levelled at Halifax’.<sup>274</sup> The Act of Indemnity had not yet been passed and the Commons had resolved that those who had advised the prosecutions in question and the writs of <em>quo warranto</em> should be excepted from indemnity. The committee was established, some contemporaries thought, to produce the evidence against Halifax that would enable them to except and even impeach him. Whigs constituted a large portion of this committee of 33 members, but Halifax himself was one of the 17 members added to it on 6 Nov. which gave him a privileged position from which to watch the testimony which was aimed at his own ruin.</p><p>The committee’s request to have access to the council registers for the 1680s was ‘readily granted’ on 9 Dec. and the committee’s protracted proceedings soon began. Halifax took hurried notes of the testimony on several of the days, and the marginal notes to these suggest that he was also formulating and asking questions of the witnesses. Another set of notes on the testimony, those of the earl of Huntingdon, suggest that Halifax asked his most determined enemies a number of searching questions. Halifax recorded the testimony heard before the committee on 15 Nov. from Tillotson about his letter to Lord Russell, urging him to renounce the principle of resistance. If the committee had expected Tillotson to provide damaging evidence of Halifax’s involvement in Russell’s death it badly backfired as Tillotson took pains to praise the solicitude with which Halifax had tried to rescue Russell from death and emphasized that Russell to the very end was grateful for his assistance. More troublesome was the testimony of the next few days—on 18, 20 and 22 Dec.— concerning the duke of Monmouth’s ‘confession’ of knowledge of the Rye House Plot which Halifax ‘persuaded’ the young man to sign in December 1683. John Hampden blamed Halifax directly for the duke’s ruin by ‘overbearing’ Monmouth into signing it. Hampden claimed that the cowed Monmouth’s recognition of the Plot had ‘murdered’ him, Hampden, as much as Russell had been murdered (Hampden, though tried for high treason on account of the Rye House Plot, had secured a pardon from James II, but was a broken man as a result). According to Huntingdon’s notes on proceedings in the committee that day, Halifax asked Hampden whether he and his wife had not acknowledged at the time that Halifax had tried to mitigate Hampden’s hardship.<sup>275</sup></p><p>The committee’s report was heard and debated in the House on 20 Dec. 1689. A further series of manuscript notes in Halifax’s hand suggest that on that day he also rebutted incisively and with a great deal of irony and acerbity each of the points of the testimony on Halifax’s role in Monmouth’s confession. To Hampden’s claim that he had been murdered as much as Lord Russell, Halifax commented, ‘his next business was to give evidence he was dead: and really he had almost persuaded me into it for from a living man I never heard such evidence’ and to his further claims that his long imprisonment had damaged his memory, Halifax commented drily, ‘an inconvenient preface for a witness’. Referring to Hampden’s humiliating confession in 1685, made to escape harsh punishment, Halifax could not resist the pun, ‘let him be contented with the honour of a confessor without pretending to that of a martyr’. There are also notes for his rebuttal of the allegations of Dr Hugh Chamberlain on some distantly remembered words Chamberlain claimed the marquess had said to him in the public gallery at Whitehall, that ‘the King must have the Charter’, a reference to Charles II’s desire to revoke the London city charter. ‘White Hall galleries [are] a fine private place for such a secret’, Halifax sneered in response.<sup>276</sup> Contemporaries agreed that Halifax had defended himself so well upon the committee’s report that his persecutors had thought it wise to let the matter drop.<sup>277</sup> Burnet concluded that ‘nothing appeared that could be proved upon which notes or address could have been grounded’.<sup>278</sup> The testimony appears to have lain in the Commons without further action until the prorogation on 27 Jan. 1690.</p><p>Nevertheless, the attacks continued. The Dutch envoy wrote to his masters on 3 Dec. 1689 that</p><blockquote><p>In the Upper House certain members remain very resolved upon the removal [of] the lord Danby [sic], Halifax and Godolphin, and some others… all men now behold and endure in the king’s presence and council such ministers as in former reigns have sought to reduce all to an arbitrary government, and to bring the nation to a complete slavery; and therefore so long as these have access to the king, the Commons, in their opinion, should grant no supply.<sup>279</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 14 Dec. 1689, Hampden made an angry speech against James’s three commissioners—Halifax, Nottingham and Godolphin—in a Commons committee of the whole considering the state of the nation:</p><blockquote><p>Look into your books and you will find those now employed [were] voted enemies to the king and kingdom, and favourers of Popery. If those Parliaments were mistaken, tis strange! And hindering this king, who was come to deliver us, and bantering this king—that these three men who came to Hungerford from King James, should be the three greatest men in England, I leave the world to judge… if we must be ruined again, let it be by new men.<sup>280</sup></p></blockquote><p>Hampden reported an address against Halifax on 21 Dec. but it was opposed by Whigs such as Jack Howe for not being ‘home enough’ and by Churchmen such as Serjeant Sir William Wogan<sup>‡</sup> for being a ‘libel’ against the ministers. The address was recommitted and eventually lost at the prorogation.</p><p>On 5 Jan. 1690 Chesterfield sent a request that Halifax hold his proxy, and it was registered in Halifax’s name on 10 Jan. for the remainder of the session.<sup>281</sup> On 11 Jan., Halifax acted as a teller against his rival Carmarthen in an important division in the cause of <em>Fountaine v Coke</em>. On 14 Jan. Halifax signed the protest, with only six others, from the resolution in the debate on the treason trials’ bill that a peer could only be tried in a full Parliament for capital offences.</p><p>By the time of the dissolution of the Convention Halifax had had enough of the constant attacks from the Whigs in the Commons and also feared that his continuing presence in the ministry offered too much ammunition to his and the king’s enemies: he was determined to leave office, and formally resigned from his position as lord privy seal, and thus from his central place in the ministry, on 8 Feb. 1690. He recorded in his own notes his interview on that day with William III, in which he claimed that his resignation was for the king’s own service:</p><blockquote><p>He said he doubted it was not for his service and that he did not know where to place them [the seals] in so good hands &c. I told him I had weighed it &c and in this he must give me leave to overrule him. He argued earnestly against me, and as I was going out, shut the door, and said, he would not take the seals [sic], except I promised him I would come into employment again when it was for his service; I said, I would, if my health would give me leave; Tush replieth he, you have health enough; I said again, I must make that exception.<sup>282</sup></p></blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote> <h2><em>The black marquess, 1690-2</em></h2><p>It was reported on 14 Mar. 1690, one week before the new Parliament convened, that ‘my lord Halifax is glad to lay down all and be quiet for else he would have been in danger by the very commonalty, they were so enraged against him’.<sup>283</sup> Halifax, however, did not retire from political life following his resignation from office. His main arena became the Lords, where he remained active up until his death. Despite his former central role as William’s principal advisor, over the succeeding years Halifax became an almost constant opponent of William III’s government.</p><p>Halifax was present for the first day of the new Parliament, 20 Mar. 1690, and he missed only six of the session’s 54 sitting days in the spring of 1690 and was named to nine committees on legislation. He was closely involved in the debates surrounding Bolton’s bill for declaring the acts of the Convention ‘to be of full force and effect by the laws of the realm’ and for recognizing William and Mary ‘rightful and lawful’ monarchs. When the bill was first read on 26 Mar. 1690, Halifax initially joined with the government ministers in opposing this wording which was destined to scupper the bill, as so many of the Tories in both houses would be unwilling to agree to the ‘rightful and lawful’ wording—as Bolton undoubtedly intended when he introduced the bill in an attempt to show up the disloyalty of the Tories now dominant in Parliament.<sup>284</sup> A hastily patched-together compromise wording, largely suggested by Carmarthen, was accepted on 8 Apr., which dropped the term ‘rightful and lawful’ and ‘enacted’ that the acts of the Convention ‘were and are’ statutes. When the bill in this form passed the House, Halifax and North and Grey appear to have dissented to the bill’s passage without giving reason, while the other 17 dissidents protested that the new wording was ‘neither good English nor good sense’.<sup>285</sup> On 2 May, at the debate on the second reading of the bill for the Whig-inspired abjuration oaths, Halifax joined Carmarthen and Nottingham in arguing against both the terms of the proposed oath and its imposition on all subjects, including clerics who had scruples against renouncing their previous oaths.<sup>286</sup></p><p>William prorogued Parliament on 23 May and on that day, in what was his last recorded audience with Halifax, made clear his frustration with his former minister’s opposition to government measures in the recent session, and his suspicion of his involvement in an unsuccessful attempt in the Commons to demand the removal of Carmarthen, and the decision of the duke of Shrewsbury to leave office:</p><blockquote><p>After the first introduction I fell upon the things I heard were objected to me, as first, the protest [against the] recognising bill. To which I gave my answer, it had been represented to him with the aggravation &c. he seemed to be satisfied. Secondly, the bill of oaths. He said, Lord Nottingham was always of that opinion viz. of a king <em>de facto</em>, said a great many of the clergy had scruples of that kind. For that reason I told him it was unseasonable at this time, he seemed in conclusion to wish it had not come in. He was satisfied I had nothing to do, in the attempt against Lord Carmarthen. He said, Lord Carmarthen was sorry I was out, especially at the last; and that the other party were mad at themselves for having ever meddled with me; Lord Monmouth in particular. He was satisfied I had no part in persuading Lord Shrewsbury to quit, was ill satisfied with him, and particularly with the reason he gave for it, viz. that the king was engaged in measures in which he could not concur. Said Lord Shrewsbury did not consider how kind he had been to him.<sup>287</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax returned to the House for the second session of the 1690 Parliament, and was present on its first day of 2 Oct. 1690. On the first two days of the session he was placed on the drafting committees for addresses, one to the king congratulating him on his victories in Ireland and the other to the queen thanking her for her care of the nation in the king’s absence. Halifax took over the chair of the latter committee on 7 Oct. when the initial address was recommitted and drafted a new address which was accepted by the House when he reported it that afternoon.<sup>288</sup> Halifax came to 88 per cent of the meetings of this session and was named to 22 committees on legislation. The first matter which almost immediately occupied the attention of him and the House was the petition read before the House on 6 Oct. of Torrington, the disgraced admiral of the allied fleet which had been defeated at Beachy Head, to be released from his commitment in the Tower, on the basis that his privilege of peerage protected him from commitment by the Privy Council for the lesser charge of misdemeanour. On 20 Oct. Torrington’s petition was considered, and Halifax chaired the committee of eight members assigned to draw up a draft resolution ‘which they think fit to enter on their books, that the same may not be drawn into example in the future’. He quickly reported to the House a text condemning the council’s commitment of Torrington as a breach of privilege of the House. The Prussian resident Bonet recounted that ‘there was a long debate in the chamber’, which spilled over on to the following day as well, when the judges were consulted on the question of privilege. ‘Many’, Bonet wrote, ‘not content that this commitment was only declared a breach of their privileges, insisted that the nine councillors should also be called for and censured by the House, and the principals of this party were the marquess of Halifax and the earl of Rochester, both scarcely friends of the president of the council [Carmarthen]’.<sup>289</sup> Many amendments to the original draft resolution were recommended but all were defeated and the House finally resolved, by 32 to 17, in the terms of Halifax’s draft text, that Torrington’s commitment to the Tower by the Privy Council for high crimes and misdemeanours only was a breach of the House’s privilege.</p><p>From December 1690 Halifax was heavily involved in chairing committees. In particular, he was closely involved in the bill to establish a judicature to settle the claims on the City of London’s orphans’ debt. In the period 1-13 Dec. 1690 he chaired ten meetings of the bill’s select committee which on 13 Dec. decided that it would be more useful to turn the judicature proposed into a commission of inquiry into the finances of the City and the state of the debt. Halifax reported this conclusion to the House on 15 December. With the terms of the bill revised, Halifax chaired a further two meetings of the committee on that and the following day: on 16 Dec. he was able to report a bill ‘for erecting a court of enquiry in order to the relief of the distressed orphans of London’.<sup>290</sup> At the same time Halifax was chairing the committee on the bill to annul the marriage of Mrs Wharton, which he led on both 12 and 15 Dec. and reported to the House on 16 December.<sup>291</sup></p><p>As soon as those bills were successfully reported to the House, Halifax took on the chair of the committee on the bill to allow Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, to manage his wife’s Wiltshire estate. He chaired three separate meetings of the committee on 17 and 19 Dec. 1690 and reported the bill fit to pass with amendments on 20 December. The Westminster agent of the duchess of Beaufort raised some ‘scruples’ against the bill and on 22 Dec. it was recommitted. The committee met again the following day, Halifax again in the chair, where the duchess insisted that adequate provision and protection for Ailesbury’s younger children be enforced in the bill, and Halifax reported the revised bill, with an offending clause left out, later that afternoon.<sup>292</sup> Halifax was, with seven other members, assigned to compose the order of the House for vacating and annulling all printed and written protections in the future on 2 December. On 11 Dec. he was placed on committee established to draft clauses against melting the coin of the realm for the bill against the export of bullion. On 17 Dec. he was appointed manage the conference on the Commons’ objections to the House’s amendments to the mutiny bill and that afternoon reported from another conference in which the House had set out its reasons for adhering to the amendment. The following day, he was similarly appointed a manager for the conference on the Commons’ amendments to the bill for limiting the ability of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury to cut off the entail of his estate. On 5 Jan. 1691 Halifax was named to manage four conferences held that day in a last-gasp effort to resolve before the scheduled prorogation the differences over the House’s amendments to the bill for the suspension of those parts of the Navigation Acts which prohibited the employment of foreign seamen. Halifax was placed on a committee of five charged with drafting the reasons for the House’s adherence to its amendments.</p><p>Among the revelations made by Jacobite Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], in the summer of 1691 was an account of a visit by Preston to Halifax’s house ‘to desire to speak with him in private because he owed him money, otherwise [Preston] believes he had not seen him’. Preston broached the topic of James’s restoration with him but found Halifax very guarded and noncommittal and his responses, as given in Preston’s testimony, were hardly sufficient to prosecute him.<sup>293</sup> Thus while the king was convinced that the principal conspirators indicated by Preston were to be incarcerated, regarding Halifax he thought ‘it is best to let him alone, and making him sensible of the favour that is done him ‘tis possible may be more useful than putting him in the Tower, there being no great matter against him’. The most that he could be charged with would be misprision of treason, and even in that there were insufficient witnesses for a successful prosecution.<sup>294</sup></p><p>Halifax was back in the House when Parliament met again on 22 Oct. 1691 and he proceeded to attend 86 per cent of the sittings of the 1691-2 session and was named to 34 committees on legislation. The session was marked in part by Halifax’s worsening feud with Carmarthen. Contemporaries commented on the competition between the sickly and pasty-faced ‘white marquess’ (Carmarthen) and the swarthier ‘black marquess’ (Halifax). In one matter, though, Halifax and Carmarthen agreed—an attack on their mutual enemy Monmouth. This came in the context of the judicial cause <em>Brown v. Wayte</em>, in which Monmouth was involved. Bonet commented that Halifax and Carmarthen ‘were the principal and the most dangerous of those against the earl’, but on the other side Monmouth had the support of Rochester. The House was evenly divided on this complicated legal matter and Halifax was a teller, Rochester telling for the other side, in the division on 25 Nov. on the question whether to adjourn debate. This and the subsequent division five days later on the motion to affirm chancery’s original judgment in the cause were both resolved in the negative, but only because there was an equality of voices on each side in both divisions.<sup>295</sup></p><p>Where Carmarthen did attack Halifax was on the issue of his alleged contacts with James II and Jacobite agents. He kept the issue of Preston’s allegations alive and from 17 Nov. 1691 a series of conferences were held to discuss the evidence from the letters confiscated from James’s former secretary of state. Halifax, implicated tangentially in some of this evidence, was a manager or reporter for several of these conferences in November and December. Carmarthen also tried to attack Halifax through the fabricated testimony of William Fuller. On 9 Dec. Fuller declared before the Commons that James II had issued a commission to about 18 peers and bishops to manage affairs in England. Halifax, Fuller attested, was the head of this commission. But ‘the discovery did not produce the fervour in the House which might have been expected’, wrote Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford to his father: ‘the marquess of Carmarthen is a manager of this plot, which cools many in the prosecution of it… The discovery made by Fuller is under the management of the white marquess [and] is supposed to be directed by him against the black marquess’.<sup>296</sup></p><p>In November and December 1691 Halifax was involved in a number of disputes with the Commons over amendments to their bills. On 16 Nov. he was placed on a committee to examine two amendments drawn up by the judges to the bill for devising new oaths for Ireland after the Treaty of Limerick, adapt them to the bill and report back to the House. On 1 Dec. Halifax was appointed a reporter for the conference at which the lower house stated their disagreement to the House’s amendments. He was subsequently on 3 Dec. placed on the committee to draw up reasons for the House’s insistence on their amendments which he helped to present to the Commons in conference on 5 and 10 December. On 3 Dec. he was named to committee to prepare a clause to be added to the treason trials’ bill relating to impeachments in Parliament. This clause, stipulating that all the members of the House should be summoned to constitute the jury of the court of the lord high steward, held outside time of Parliament, was objected to by the Commons in a conference on 17 December. Halifax was placed on a committee to draft reasons for the House’s insistence on its amendment, which he chaired on 28 Dec., when it developed a long justification of the House’s adherence to the amendment. He reported from the committee the following day, and helped to manage the conferences on this dispute on 5, 9 and 14 Jan. 1692.<sup>297</sup> The disagreements between the Houses on this bill were not resolved and this version of the bill was lost at the prorogation.</p><p>Halifax took the side of the Commons in a number of disputes between the Houses. On 2 Jan. 1692 the House debated the lower House’s printing, without their consultation or concurrence, of its votes of 18 Dec. 1691 regarding the East India Company. Halifax signed the dissent, with four others, against the resolution not to send for the original record of a precedent from the time of Edward III cited during the debate. He subsequently joined two others in dissenting from the resolution condemning the lower house for printing their vote. On 26 Jan. 1692, he was named to the committee of ten members assigned to count the ballots cast for those members chosen by the House to be commissioners of public accounts, as provided for in the bill sent up from the Commons. Halifax was on 2 Feb. one of 11 members who signed the dissent from the House’s resolution to adhere to its amendment to the Commons’ bill insisting that the House had a share in the appointment of commissioners.</p><p>Throughout the session Halifax continued to be heavily involved in chairing committees. He chaired two meetings of the committee for the bill for regulating the collection of alnage on 6 and 9 Nov. 1691, which had been lost at the prorogation in the previous session. He reported on 29 Dec. the bill for James Waldegrave*, 2nd Baron Waldegrave. On 17 Feb. 1692, as chair of the committee on the bill for recovering small debts in Westminster, he summoned parties to attend to be heard and the following day Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers (later earl of Jersey) set out his complaints against the bill, which Halifax reported to the House.<sup>298</sup></p><p>In other matters Halifax was on 10 Nov. 1691 placed on the committee of 13 members assigned to consider a clause to the bill against clandestine marriages, which dealt with the special conditions for Quakers. On 15 Dec., in a debate on the report of the commissioners of public accounts, the Whig earl of Warrington (as Delamer had become) complained that, contrary to the report’s allegations, he never received secret service money, ‘on which the Lord Halifax moved that each Lord might, as his name occurred, stand up and justify himself in the same’.<sup>299</sup> On 12 Jan. 1692 he joined the numerous dissenters from the resolution that the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, duke of Norfolk, should be received by the House. Towards the end of the session Halifax reprised his old role as Speaker of the House because of the appeal of Thomas Tooke against Sir Robert Atkyns, the lord chief baron and currently Speaker of the House. On 11, 15 and 24 Feb. 1692 the House unanimously chose Halifax to act as Speaker <em>pro tempore</em> during the hearing of Tooke’s appeal.</p><p>On the day of the House’s adjournment, 24 Feb. 1692, Halifax’s daughter Lady Elizabeth Savile married Philip Stanhope*, styled Lord Stanhope, the future 3rd earl of Chesterfield, and the son and heir of Halifax’s old friend and correspondent. Halifax and Chesterfield together had brought in a bill in Parliament in the preceding session to allow the underage Lord Stanhope to make jointures for his prospective bride.</p><h2><em>Opposition, 1692-3</em></h2><p>Halifax was clearly in the ‘opposition’ to William III in Parliament, and Burnet came close to accusing him of being a Jacobite and a Tory, claiming in his <em>History</em> that shortly after his resignation from office Halifax ‘reconciled himself to the Tories, and became wholly theirs: he opposed every thing that looked favourably towards the government, and did upon all occasions serve the Jacobites, and protect the whole party’.<sup>300</sup> More instructive, perhaps, is Burnet’s contemporary analysis of Halifax, written sometime before 13 Aug. 1690, in which the bishop stated:</p><blockquote><p>Halifax saw such a tide raised against him in both Houses that he thought fit soon after to withdraw from business and ever since he has seemed to lean to K. James’s party[.] he has always favoured them and he is finding fault with everything the government does so that he is thought a Jacobite[.] yet I believe his commerce that way goes no further than that he is laying in for a pardon and perhaps for favour if a Revolution should happen for he is neither a firm nor a stout man.<sup>301</sup></p></blockquote><p>The ‘Memoirs’ of James II claim that the Jacobite agent Henry Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup> was received by Halifax ‘with open arms’ who ‘promised to do everything that lay in his power to serve the king’. ‘The free assurance of Halifax encouraged others’, including Godolphin.<sup>302</sup> Halifax’s own notes corroborate that he was in touch with both Bulkeley and Godolphin, albeit cautiously, recording under March 1691 that ‘B[ulkeley?] told me, that L Godol[phin] had very lately given assurances &c’.<sup>303</sup> But the evidence for Halifax’s Jacobitism is sketchy and ambiguous at best, and Burnet’s earlier estimate, that like so many of his contemporaries he maintained contacts with Jacobite agents to ensure his safety in case of a future Jacobite restoration.</p><p>The reasons for Halifax’s growing opposition to the Williamite regime lie elsewhere than ideological Jacobitism. Like many of his contemporaries he became increasingly disillusioned with the reality of William’s rule after the expectation and hope of the Revolution. He was disturbed in particular by William’s rough and disparaging treatment, as he saw it, of Parliament. Already expressing concern over William’s single-minded obsession with the war with France—’he hath such a mind to France, that it would incline one to think, he took England only in his way’—Halifax was more disturbed by William’s increasingly peremptory demands on Parliament for extraordinary supply. ‘Whilst there was war’, William had told Halifax as early as July 1689, ‘he should want a Parliament and so long, they would never be in good humour’ (to which Halifax responded that ‘a prosperous war might put them in better humour’).<sup>304</sup> A series of notes for a speech survive in Halifax’s manuscripts which, while they cannot be dated precisely, suggest that they are a response to one of William’s many brusque requests for supply in the period 1691-4:</p><blockquote><p>Of what use are Parliaments if when there is a war everything that is asked is to be given. When there is no war there needeth no great matter. So that a Prince hath by consequence the power of money when he will, because he hath war when he will. The king having the power to make war was restrained only by not having that of taking money, but now that is made such a necessary reason for giving all the money that is asked, that the argument turneth the other way’.<sup>305</sup></p></blockquote><p>Much of the remainder of Halifax’s career in the House is marked by his concern for the rights of Parliament and in particular by certain ‘country’ stances he took in opposition to the growing power of the court and the war-time ministry.</p><p>The fear of internal Jacobite conspiracy, insurrection and foreign invasion in the summer of 1692 led to the arrest on 5 May of Marlborough and Huntingdon. On 15 June Marlborough was bailed from the Tower under a writ of <em>habeas corpus</em>, Halifax acting as one of his sureties. As a result, on 23 June the queen ordered the names of Halifax, Shrewsbury, Marlborough and Torrington to be struck out of the Council, the official reason in respect of Halifax being that he ‘had forebore to come to Council for some time past’.<sup>306</sup> Thus, when Halifax sat in the first meeting of the 1692-3 session of Parliament on 4 Nov. 1692 he had been deprived of all offices and government responsibilities. He attended all but nine, 92 per cent, of the session’s 107 meetings, during which he was named to 40 committees on legislation. He was more attached to the loose opposition to the Williamite court than ever before. On the first day he may have made a speech arguing that the formal address of thanks for the king’s speech should be postponed; his notes for the speech are unfortunately undated and there is no internal evidence which can definitively date them to a particular session. They are more than unusually acerbic. Glancing back to earlier precedents, the debates (in both of which he had been involved) of April 1675 and November 1685 over whether to thank the king merely for some ‘gracious expressions’ in the speech from the throne, Halifax warned that</p><blockquote><p>the expedient of gracious expressions hath its danger in it… Here then is the inconvenience. It will be asked and cannot be denied, where are the gracious expressions upon which the thanks are to be founded. These will be insisted upon and no doubt allowed but yet really the ransacking a King’s speech to find matter for thanks, when there is matter, is an unpleasant undertaking and is yet more so, when it happeneth that there is not a clause which giveth a proper handle for it.<sup>307</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax was immediately thrown into the controversy surrounding the commitment of Marlborough and Huntingdon, which came before the House on 7 November. When the judges, and especially Huntingdon’s chief prosecutor, Aaron Smith, were heard on 10 Nov., a ‘long debate’ was held, during which Halifax apparently made a strong speech opposing the government’s procedures concerning the two peers, especially against the decision, supported by the judges, that one positive sworn witness to Huntingdon’s treason was sufficient, there being an unsworn witness ‘to a circumstance tending to treason’. Throughout the speech he upheld the superior judicature of the House and its ability, its duty, to correct errors made by the inferior courts, especially those errors which may have been caused by undue pressure from the government.<sup>308</sup> He chaired and reported from the committee which met the following day to draft an order of the House on this matter, but the resolution drawn up by his committee was recommitted to the committee of the whole House which met on 14 November. On a closely related matter Halifax on 30 Nov. chaired the committee appointed to draw up a clause for the bill of indemnity that would prevent future imprisonments by the Council in times of imminent danger. He reported it to the House that same day, when some additions were made to it before it was agreed to be part of the indemnity bill.<sup>309</sup></p><p>At around this time Halifax became involved in the most controversial debates in the House of the session, concerning the ‘advice’ that was to be tendered to the king regarding the various reversals of the summer. On 12 Dec. 1692 Halifax chaired the committee assigned to draw up a clause regarding the use of English forces in Flanders for inclusion in the ‘advice’. The clause which Halifax reported from the committee that day proposed that, according to the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1678, English officers should be able to command foreign officers of the same rank, without regard of the date of their commission.<sup>310</sup> On 10 Dec. he was also appointed to the committee assigned to examine the narrative and papers submitted by Nottingham considering the naval manoeuvres of that summer, in order to prepare points for a conference. Ten days later he was named one of 16 managers assigned to deliver these papers and the House’s thoughts on them to the Commons, with a request that the lower House consider them as well. On 21 Dec., he attended another conference at which the Commons surprised the Lords’ managers by presenting an unrelated vote praising Admiral Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, for his conduct the previous summer. This action was considered unusual enough for a committee to be appointed the next day, 22 Dec., to inspect the Journals to see if there was precedent for such a vote, unrelated to the ostensible matter to be discussed, being delivered in conference. Halifax served on it. After the Christmas recess, Halifax was appointed to a committee of 19 peers assigned on 29 Dec. to consider if the vote delivered by the Commons was ‘according to usual proceedings’ and he helped to manage conferences on the subject the following day and again on 4 Jan. 1693.</p><p>Both Burnet and the Prussian resident Bonet considered Halifax a prominent leader of the fractious ‘opposition’ that obstructed proceedings in Parliament from early 1693.<sup>311</sup> In particular, Halifax, with his well-known concern for the independence and inviolability of Parliaments, was in favour of the place bill, which was strongly opposed by William and the court. Bonet reported that the principal supporters of the bill were the Whigs, to whom were joined ‘two skilful (<em>habile</em>) malcontents, who do even more harm than they [the Whigs] do’. These were Halifax and Mulgrave.<sup>312</sup> On 3 Jan. 1693 Halifax was one of nine peers who signed a dissent from the bill’s passage that day without giving reasons; another group of 20 members signed the protest with reasons.</p><p>Another ‘country’ measure, opposed by the court, in which Halifax was involved was the ‘bill for more frequent parliaments’, or triennial bill. On 16 Jan. 1693 he was placed on a committee appointed to draw up clauses providing for annual meetings of Parliament, for a new Parliament to meet every three years and for the existing Parliament to be dissolved by 1 Jan. 1694. Halifax strongly supported the need for a new Parliament, as he made clear in the notes for a speech he may well have delivered on 16 Jan. when the determination of the present Parliament was debated. To the court argument that it was too great a ‘hazard’ to risk the crown ‘to the chance of a die’ in an election, Halifax commented that it was ‘strange to fear that for which the Revolution was principally undertaken... If pursuing the intention of the law is not the surest game a king can play, where are we?’ If the court were to argue further that it was not ‘seasonable’ to make ‘new experiments’ during a war, Halifax said that he would answer, ‘is the true constitution of England to be called a new experiment? Here is a war and a Parliament seem to be agreed to continue one another. A precedent for any king. Let him but make war and it giveth him a right to suspend the calling a new parliament’. To the argument that this Parliament was ‘true’ to the interest of the government and therefore it was not justifiable to change it, Halifax responded that ‘frequent Parliaments is a part of the government and therefore the continuance of this Parliament is a contradiction to an English government’.<sup>313</sup> The bill was vetoed by the king on 14 Feb. 1693.</p><p>Halifax was one of the managers appointed on 18 Jan. 1693 to hear the Commons’ objections to the House’s amendment to the land tax bill providing for a separate body of commissioners, drawn from the peerage itself, to assess the value of the peers’ lands. Both Bonet and Burnet were of opinion that the chief among those who wished to adhere to this amendment were Halifax, Mulgrave and Shrewsbury. The two commentators also agreed that this was a concerted move by the ‘opposition’ to wreck a money bill, delaying its passage by insisting that the controversial amendment be considered by the committee for privileges. This attempt at obstructionism was ultimately unsuccessful and Halifax was one of those members who signed the dissents that day, first, against the rejection of the motion that the amendment be considered by the committee for privileges and then against the decision to abandon the amendment entirely.<sup>314</sup></p><p>On 24 Jan. 1693 Halifax was placed on the committee assigned to write a resolution condemning (Burnet’s) <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em>, which had been ordered to be burned by the common hangman, and he was a manager for the two conferences held the following day in which the final wording of the resolution and order was agreed with the Commons. He was also involved in a number of issues involving the rights and privileges of individual peers. At the turn of the year, he was forecast as an opponent of Norfolk’s divorce bill and on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted against reading the bill in the House. On the other hand, through two dissents he signed on 17 Jan., Halifax made evident his support for the claimant to the earldom of Banbury. On 13 Jan. 1693 Halifax chaired the committee for privileges on the matter on the procedures for the trial of Mohun, which found that there was no precedent of a peer being tried for murder anywhere else but in Westminster Hall, that a ‘convenient’ time should be set for Mohun’s trial and that in the meantime he should be committed to the Tower.<sup>315</sup> On 20 Jan. Halifax was placed on another select committee to inspect precedents of procedures for the trial. He signed the protest against the decision not to proceed with the trial on 31 Jan. after some initial hearings in Westminster Hall that day. According to Portland’s sketchy notes on the final day of the trial on 4 Feb. 1693, Halifax urged strongly that Mohun was not guilty of murder, arguing that there was ‘no murder without malice prepence’ and the fact that Mohun initially embraced the victim, Montfort, when he first saw him showed that there had not been in this case. Halifax concluded that the impetuous Mohun ‘is like a lunatic and should be so considered’ and that the law should not be rigorously applied in this case. Halifax voted with the majority in finding Mohun not guilty of murder at the end of debate.<sup>316</sup></p><p>Throughout this long and busy session, and away from the business of the chamber itself, Halifax served as chair of numerous committees. On 12 Nov. 1692 he chaired the meeting of the committee for petitions considering the cause between Obadiah Sedgwick and George Hitchcock and reported to the House six days later the committee’s opinion that the dispute be referred back to the judges.<sup>317</sup> He also reported to the House cases from the committee for privileges on 19 and 21 December. On 30 Dec. he chaired two committee meetings on Sir John Wentworth’s bill, which he reported with the committee’s amendments on the last day of 1692. On 9 Jan. 1693 he reported the bill to allow inhabitants of the province of York to dispose of their personal estate by will, while on 24 Feb. he chaired and reported from the committee on the bill to prohibit the import of hair buttons.<sup>318</sup> He was also chair of the committee of the whole which considered on 22 Feb. the bill to repeal a statute of Edward III regarding sureties, which he reported as fit to pass with some amendments.</p><p>He remained occupied in the House through the first two weeks of March 1693 until the prorogation of 14 March. On 2 Mar. he was present at the debate on the rights of the Irish house of commons to originate the heads of money bills, which were then to be approved, under Poyning’s Law, by the English Privy Council. There survive in Halifax’s manuscripts sketchy notes on Poyning’s Law, which may be points towards a speech he delivered at this time.<sup>319</sup> On 4 Mar. he was placed on a committee of seven members assigned to draft an address concerning the state and condition of Ireland. He was part of the delegation of up to 50 members of the House who attended the king with the completed address on 9 March.<sup>320</sup> Halifax was named a manager for a conference held on 3 Mar. on the House’s amendments to the bill to prevent malicious informations in king’s bench and the following day he chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill to prevent clandestine mortgages. On 8 Mar. he signed the protest against the rejection of a proviso to the expiring Licensing Act, which would result in the subjection of ‘all learning and true information to the arbitrary will and pleasure of a mercenary, and perhaps ignorant, licenser’. Halifax on 10 Mar. was present at a conference discussing the House’s amendments to the bill to allow their majesties to make grants and leases of land in the duchy of Cornwall, reported the Commons’ objections to the House and was placed on the committee to formulate reasons for the House’s adherence. On the day of prorogation, 14 Mar., Halifax was again named a manager for a last-minute conference on the House’s amendments to the bill to prohibit trade with France and to encourage privateers.</p><h2><em>Further writings, 1693-5</em></h2><p>Perhaps the most significant development for Halifax during 1692-3 was the gradual but steady re-emergence of his previously disgraced brother-in-law Sunderland on the political scene and the seriousness with which his political advice was being taken by both William III and Portland. In particular, Sunderland had been recommending since May 1692 that William abandon his plans for a mixed ministry reliant on the ‘Churchmen’ and Tories and turn to a party government reliant on the Whigs, Halifax’s enemies. It was probably during 1692 that Halifax circulated in manuscript his epigrammatic ‘Maxims of State’ (as they were later titled in the <em>Miscellanies</em> of 1700), which has many cynical reflections on the conduct of ministers, kings and parties and was almost certainly compiled in the context of his disappointment with William’s reign and the disgraced Sunderland’s increasing influence. These reflections were published as a broadsheet in 1693 as <em>Maxims found amongst the Papers of the Great Almansor</em>. Halifax’s authorship of them was an open secret. Many of the maxims repeat some of the sentiments to be found in his earlier <em>Character of a Trimmer</em> regarding the necessity for a king to uphold and be bound by the laws, in which he obviously felt William was failing: ‘that a prince who falleth out with his laws breaketh with his best friends’ (no. 1). Others can be related more directly to the rise of Sunderland: ‘That a Prince who can ever trust the man that hath once deceived him looseth the right of being faithfully dealt with by anybody else’ (no. 15). There are also veiled comments against the increasing influence of Carmarthen, who at this time was able to introduce four of his brothers-in-law into important court offices, despite their lack of ability or experience: ‘that a prince who will give more to importunity than to merit had as good set out a proclamation to all his loving subjects forbidding them to serve well upon the penalty of their being undone for it’ (no. 11).<sup>321</sup></p><p>When the House met for business on 7 Nov. 1693 Halifax was present and went on to sit in 83 per cent of the sittings, a lower than usual attendance rate, which may merely reflect his advancing age, or perhaps the changing political climate following the dismissal of Nottingham. On that very first day he was placed on the committee of 17 members assigned to consider the petition of <em>Zouch v. English</em>. On 22 Dec. 1693 he signed a dissent from the resolution of the House to allow the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> to withdraw their petition submitted to the House. Halifax was the only peer to dissent from the decision without giving an explanation; a further eleven signed the formal protest complete with reasons for their objection.</p><p>Halifax was involved in the three principal ‘country’ measures which were revived in this session. He, with Rochester, Monmouth and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, was credited with bringing in the triennial bill in its second attempt through Parliament and he and Rochester spoke most for the bill, against the arguments of Carmarthen and Nottingham, in the debates during the first week of December 1693, when it was decided to make the terminal date of the present Parliament 12 Sept. 1694.<sup>322</sup> On 5 Jan. 1694 he was appointed a manager for a conference at which the Commons stated their objection to the Lords’ removal of the provision in the place bill excepting the Speaker of the Commons from the bill’s restrictions. When the treason trials’ bill was before the House in late February 1694 Halifax was noted as one of those opposed to it, along with Mulgrave and Carmarthen. The king and his ministry were opposed to it because had it passed, ‘it would have been impossible to convict those who would have been accused of this crime, as there would have been so many formalities to observe’. It is unlikely that Halifax was opposed to it for the same ‘courtly’ consideration, but perhaps he did so because the bill did not include a sufficient reform of the court of lord high steward, something of which Halifax had long been an advocate.<sup>323</sup></p><p>As in the previous session, it was the naval disasters of the preceding summer which principally occupied the House over the winter of 1693-4. The Commons on 4 Jan. 1694 requested a conference to determine where responsibility lay for the loss of the Smyrna fleet. The Lords had delayed a response while they exacted an agreement from the king that privy councillors could testify before the House and on 15 Jan. they agreed to the conference requested and added Halifax to the number of managers already appointed for the conference to be held that day. At the same time Halifax took a leading role as chairman of a committee of eight who were assigned to draw up a list of the main points that were to be discussed with the Commons in another conference on a separate but related point, the details of the timing when intelligence of the sailing of the French fleet from Brest was transmitted to the admirals. Halifax’s ‘heads’ for the conference, reported to and approved of by the House that same day, pointed out that though there was clear evidence of a letter from Nottingham, as secretary of state, to the admirals concerning the Brest fleet, having been written, there was no conclusive evidence that it had actually been sent. At a conference the following day, 16 Jan., managed by Halifax, his paper regarding the timing of the intelligence of the Brest fleet was delivered to the Commons, with a request for further consultation on the matter.<sup>324</sup> Nothing, however, was heard from the Commons on this point for several weeks until on 7 Feb. the clerks of the House reported their findings of precedents of messages sent between the Houses reminding them of papers previously delivered. Halifax was then placed on a new committee of ten members to prepare further heads for a conference on the intelligence of the sailing of the Brest fleet, including a reprimand to the lower House for ignoring the House’s previous message. Halifax was named a manager for the conference itself on the following day, 8 February. He was involved in a further conference on the subject four days later.</p><p>At the same time the House was dealing with the long-running dispute between the earl of Montagu and John Granville*, earl of Bath. Halifax, temporarily indisposed, was absent for the negative vote on 17 Feb. 1694 on the motion to agree to the petition of Montagu (which sought to reverse chancery’s dismissal of his original petition against Bath). On 24 Feb., on which day he received the proxy of Weymouth, Halifax was present to sign his dissent from the order to dismiss Montagu’s petition calling for evidence exhibited to the courts on the case to be laid before the House. In this case Halifax’s legal scruples may have won out over personal dislike of Montagu, long one of Halifax’s keenest enemies among the Whigs.<sup>325</sup></p><p>In March and particularly April 1694, Halifax’s principal activity was as a conference manager. On 3 Apr. he was named to the committee to draw reasons to be presented in a conference on the bill for the late John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell and on 5 Apr. he acted as a manager for the resulting conference with the Commons. Later, on 16 Apr. he was appointed a manager for a conference on the bill for the recovery of small tithes. By far Halifax’s most significant contribution came at the session’s very end, in the debate on 23 Apr. 1694, when he was one of the leaders, along with Rochester, Nottingham and Monmouth, of the group arguing against the clause in the tonnage bill which established the Bank of England. According to Bonet ‘it needed the presence of all the Lords attached to the court to pass the bill’, and even its chief proponent Carmarthen urged its passage solely because of the urgency with which the king needed supply to conduct the summer’s campaign. Halifax did not expend much energy refuting the opposition’s arguments against the Bank. At one point in the debate John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, argued that if the bill did not pass, the fleet would not be ready for the forthcoming summer’s campaign. To this argument Halifax insouciantly replied, somewhat surprising in a man so long associated with opposition to France, that from what he could gather the French no longer wished to set out a fleet against the allies.<sup>326</sup></p><p>The summer months of 1694 may have seen Halifax preparing for publication a pamphlet whose origins may go back as early as 1666-7. ‘A Rough Draft of a New Model at Sea’ was mainly concerned with the old ‘gentlemen versus tarpaulin’ debate in naval personnel of the Dutch War of 1665-7, which had taken on a new life and cogency in light of the many recent naval disasters and miscarriages of the past few years.<sup>327</sup> The summer of 1694 was also marked by a domestic loss when in August his daughter-in-law Sarah, Lady Eland, died of smallpox at her father’s residence of Gorhambury in Hertfordshire, leaving behind her only one surviving child, a daughter Anne, who later married Charles Bruce*, the future 3rd earl of Ailesbury.</p><p>On the first day of the new session, 12 Nov. 1694, Halifax helped to introduce Mulgrave into the House, as the newly promoted Lord Normanby. He continued to be active in the House, placed on a number of drafting committees: for proposals for preventing coin clipping, based on the debate in committee of the whole House (6 Feb. 1695); for a representation to the king on the peerage claim of Richard Verney*, the future 11th Baron Willoughby of Broke (13 Feb.); and for an address on the state of the fleet (1 March). When the triennial bill was before the House on 18 Dec. 1694 many peers, including Halifax, attempted to restore the original date for ending the current Parliament, November 1695, rather than November 1696, the date that had been substituted in the Commons. It was this amendment by the Commons which accounted for Halifax’s ‘opposition’ to the bill in this session which many contemporaries found inexplicable. Bonet wrote to his masters that the bill was passed ‘such as it had been sent by the Commons’, and that Nottingham had come up especially ‘in order to come to increase the number of those trying to have it rejected. They had the marquess of Halifax at their head, who did all he could for that end’.<sup>328</sup> Other commentators were more precise in noting that it was the matter of the current Parliament’s date of dissolution which determined Halifax’s attitude towards the bill. L’Hermitage appears to have suggested that Halifax was not in favour of losing the bill, recording that Halifax ‘said that as the Commons have set the date back to November 1696, the two Houses should not divide over this’ to the point of having the bill fail, but James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> told Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, that it was the bill’s sponsor, Monmouth, who held this conciliatory line, saying that it was not worth losing the bill for the sake of a year, while Halifax ‘was for maintaining that opinion [that Parliament should be dissolved in 1695], be the consequences as they would’.<sup>329</sup> Vernon was probably more accurate as Halifax was one of only four members who signed the protest against the passage of the bill in the House on 18 Dec., the reason given being that the bill ‘tendeth to the continuance of this present Parliament longer than, as we apprehend, is agreeable with the constitution of England’.</p><p>Although Halifax did not succeed in bringing forward the deadline for the current Parliament’s dissolution, he would have been greatly pleased by the general import of the bill. In the weeks following the its passage, he compiled his ‘Cautions Offered to those who are to choose Members to serve in the ensuing Parliament’, a witty analysis of the composition of the present House of Commons, with a ‘country’ agenda for the selection of new Members for the next Parliament. Particularly listed as types to be avoided in chosing Members are ‘men tied to a Party’ (no. 15), ‘pretenders to exorbitant merit in the late Revolution’ (no. 16), military officers who ‘are out of their true elements when they are misplaced in a House of Commons’ (no. 17), ‘men under the scandal of being thought private pensioners’ (no. 18), ‘men who have places of any value’ (no. 19), and ‘those gentlemen who for reasons best known to themselves thought fit to be against the triennial bill’ (no. 20).<sup>330</sup></p><p>Simultaneously, Halifax was continuing to be active in the House. On 23 Jan. 1695 he joined 23 others in signing the dissent from the acceptance of an amendment to the treason trials’ bill which, as with the Triennial Act, postponed the implementation of the bill, this time from 1695 to 1698. On 24 Jan. Weymouth once again registered his proxy with Halifax. On 25 Jan. Nottingham made an ill-tempered attack on the Whig administration in the committee of the whole House when considering the state of the nation, particularly against the Bank of England. Bonet reported that Nottingham’s chief supporters in this bitter diatribe were Rochester and Halifax, while L’Hermitage’s account stated that ‘Lords Nottingham, Halifax and Rochester spoke very strongly in Parliament and in a fashion which will anger the prince of Orange’. In the course of this debate Halifax took Godolphin to task, ‘in a cruel manner’, for his robust defence of the Bank.<sup>331</sup> Shortly after this the treason trials bill came before the House again, as the Commons did not approve of the court-inspired amendment postponing its implementation either and on 16 Feb. requested a conference, for which Halifax was named a manager, at which they made clear their disagreement. On the rock of this continuing disagreement the bill fell for yet another session.</p><p>Halifax was also a frequent chairman of committees in this session. On 22 Jan. 1695 he first chaired the committee on the estate bill of Sir Gervase Clifton, bt, led further discussion in committee on the bill on 1 Feb. and reported it the following day.<sup>332</sup> On 14 Feb. he chaired the committee considering the bill for settling the estate of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, but his principal activity in committee in February was overseeing the consideration of the bill for the easier recovery of small tithes, whose committee he chaired on six occasions between 13 and 25 Feb. and reported it as fit to pass on that latter day.<sup>333</sup></p><p>Halifax was heavily involved in the arrangements for the funeral of Queen Mary. On 10 Jan. 1695 he was placed on the large committee to consider this matter, but on 2 Feb. the countess of Nottingham reported that ‘the House of Lords finding the committees of the council very slow in adjusting things for the queen’s funeral, have taken it out of their hand, and ordered my Lord Halifax and my lord Normanby should finish it’.<sup>334</sup> Shortly after the funeral on 5 Mar. Halifax wrote to Chesterfield’s kinsman Alexander Stanhope complaining of the serious delay in parliamentary business it caused and thus revealing some of his own feelings on Parliament’s proceedings. He hoped ‘the session may end before the season of the year maketh it an afflicting thing to attend business in Parliament, which as it groweth nearer an end becometh much more unpleasant than at the first meeting’.<sup>335</sup> In the debate on 19 Mar. on the Verney claim to the Willoughby de Broke barony, Halifax, Carmarthen, Normanby, Nottingham and Monmouth ‘undertook the cause of the barons’, that is, agreed that a title could pass to a sole male survivor of female co-heirs in whom the title was abeyant, in opposition to Rochester, Stamford and a number of others who signed a protest against this decision.<sup>336</sup></p><p>Shortly after this vote Nottingham left the House to return to his country house at Exton, in order to prepare for a long-delayed wedding ceremony. For as early as December 1694 Halifax and his old friend Nottingham were in discussions for a match between Lord Eland and Nottingham’s eldest daughter Mary, with a dowry of £20,000. Eland’s first wife had been Nottingham’s niece, and this second marriage thus only further strengthened the connections between the Saviles and the extended Finch clan. Halifax was back in the House of Lords on Saturday, 30 Mar. 1695. At dinner the following night he ate a ‘roasted pullet’ which was probably insufficiently cooked. ‘In the night he was taken very ill, and vomited much’.<sup>337</sup> Nottingham sent him a letter dated 3 Apr. exulting in the solemnization of the marriage of their children the previous day, but in London Halifax’s condition only worsened, complicated by a long-standing rupture, and he prepared himself for his end.<sup>338</sup> On 5 Apr. 1695 the marquess of Halifax died painfully by a ‘twisting of the guts. He has had great fits of vomiting and those have caused a rupture that was not to be got up so nothing passed downwards and besides it is supposed a gangrene seized his bowels’.<sup>339</sup> Heneage Finch*, earl of Aylesford, wrote to his brother Nottingham in even more excruciating detail about his death, but added that Halifax died:</p><blockquote><p>with great penitence, great resolution and patience and perfect resignation to the will of God. He received the sacrament yesterday with a firm belief in Christ Jesus, begging pardon of God and man for the scandal he had given by his loose way of talking of matters of religion and for the neglect of his duty to God, whose creature he was.<sup>340</sup></p></blockquote><p>Burnet was similarly impressed by Halifax’s repentance in these last hours, but still harshly censorious of his conduct in the previous years:</p><blockquote><p>he had gone into all the measures of the Tories, only he took care to preserve himself from criminal engagements. He studied to oppose everything, and to embroil matters all he could. His spirit was restless, and he could not bear to be out of business. His vivacity and judgment sunk much in his last years, as well as his reputation. He died of a gangrene, occasioned by a rupture that he had long neglected. When he saw death so near him, and was warned that there was no hope, he showed a great firmness of mind, and a calm that had much of true philosophy at least. He professed himself a sincere Christian, and lamented the former parts of his life, with solemn resolutions of becoming in all respects another man, if God should raise him up. And so, I hope, he died a better man than he lived.<sup>341</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax was survived by his wife Gertrude and by only two of his children, Elizabeth, Lady Stanhope and his son and heir William, Lord Eland. William’s new father-in-law Nottingham quickly took the bereft and fatherless young 2nd marquess of Halifax under his wing and became his protector, and political patron and mentor, for the remainder of Halifax’s life.<sup>342</sup></p><p>Halifax’s will of 17 Mar. 1692 increased the amount of his wife’s jointure and secured to Eland and his heirs the disposable part of the estate not included in the settlements made upon his marriage to his first wife. Failing any heirs on his part, Lady Stanhope was to receive the reversion of the disposable estate. Halifax had had sufficient foresight to provide in a codicil of 19 Nov. 1693 that his ‘godson’ George Savile<sup>‡</sup> of Lupset, a descendant of the first baronet by his first wife, would receive £1,000 for his education, so that he might be sufficiently qualified to manage the estates and the inheritance which would come to him if Halifax’s heir Eland himself died without male heirs. This is precisely what happened at the 2nd marquess’s death in 1700, when the Saviles of Lupset inherited the estates and the baronetcy, though not the marquessate.<sup>343</sup> The title was subsequently revived less than four months after the 2nd marquess’s death in favour of the Whig Charles Montagu*, Baron, later earl of Halifax, who had been something of a protégé of the marquess.</p><p>To the public and political culture in general the marquess bequeathed his works, although it is a matter of debate how many he actually wished to see published posthumously. Shortly after his death his chaplain, the Huguenot Alexander Sion, began preparing an edition of his works entitled ‘Saviliana’, for which he wrote a long biographical introduction. He was forestalled in this by the publication by Matthew Gillyglower in 1700, shortly after the death of the 2nd marquess, of <em>Miscellanies by the Right Noble Lord the Late Lord Marquess of Halifax</em>, which included: ‘Advice to a Daughter’; ‘The Character of a Trimmer’; ‘The Anatomy of an Equivalent’; ‘A Letter to a Dissenter’; ‘Some Cautions for Choice of Parliament Men’; ‘A Rough Draft of a New Model at Sea’; and ‘Maxims of State’ (i.e. the ‘Maxims found amongst the papers of the Great Almansor’). Later in 1750 Halifax’s granddaughter Dorothy, countess of Burlington, added some additional manuscripts in her possession, in particular the ‘Character of King Charles II’ and ‘Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections.’ For over two centuries these works were the accepted canon of Halifax’s work, until the recent research uncovered many more still in manuscript.<sup>344</sup></p><p>With the publication of these works, and particularly the ‘Character of a Trimmer’, was cemented Halifax’s posthumous reputation as an intellectually able and reflective ‘moderate’ or ‘trimmer’, able to stand above and aloof from the transient passions of the time to see the larger issues at stake. Many of Halifax’s contemporaries, who were with Halifax in the fray of the council board and the House, and did not have the luxury of reading his considered political works at the time, would probably have had a different and far more ambivalent view of the constancy and consistency of the ‘black marquess’.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
SAVILE, James (1647-71) |
<p><strong><surname>SAVILE</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1647–71)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1659 (a minor) as 2nd earl of SUSSEX |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. ?1647, only s. and h. of Thomas Savile<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sussex, and Anne, only da. of Christopher Villiers<sup>†</sup>, earl of Anglesey. <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad (France) 1662. <em>m.</em> Anne, da. and coh. of Robert Wake of Antwerp and London, merchant. 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> <em>bur</em>. 11 Oct. 1671; <em>admon</em>. 17 Oct. 1671.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>James Savile was the only son of the ‘ambitious and restless’ first earl (a close associate of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham). The date of his succession is uncertain, but was between the date of his father’s will, 3 Nov. 1657, and it being proved, on 8 Oct. 1659. He inherited large tracts of land in West Yorkshire, where the family were major political players.<sup>2</sup> The family had traditionally engaged in fierce rivalry with the Wentworths, but there is little evidence of political activity by the 2nd earl. His early years in the earldom were dominated by the settlement of family affairs after the Restoration, not least the recovery from his mother of over 20 paintings belonging to the king.<sup>3</sup> Savile appears to have spent some time in France in 1662, but by 1670 he was probably living in his residence of Howley Hall, near Wakefield in Yorkshire. At that time he was involved in a chancery suit against Sir Thomas Gower<sup>‡</sup> concerning properties granted to the first earl by Charles I.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In 1668, still a minor, Sussex was indirectly involved in securing private legislation for the payment of a £5,000 portion to his younger sister Lady Frances (who was to be married to Francis Brudenell, styled Lord Brudenell, eldest son of Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan). The bill was read in the Lords for the first time on 5 March. Five days later, it passed its second reading; those named to the committee included Frances’ prospective father-in-law, Cardigan. On 18 Mar. the committee, chaired by Charles Howard*, then styled Viscount Andover but sitting as Baron Howard of Charlton (later 2nd earl of Berkshire), discussed the bill. Savile, Lady Frances and the countess of Sussex were all present and consented to its provisions.<sup>5</sup> It received the royal assent on 9 May 1668.</p><p>At a call of the House on 26 Oct. 1669 Sussex was excused attendance but no reason was given. Although there is no record that he ever took his seat, on 14 Feb. 1670 he registered his proxy in favour of his kinsman George Savile*, Viscount (later earl and marquess of) Halifax. Sussex died in the autumn of 1671 and was buried in Batley, Yorkshire, on 11 October. Having been predeceased by his infant son, the peerage died with him. His estate passed to his brother-in-law, Brudenell. It was estimated to be worth £4,000 a year, with at least £20,000-worth of woodland and a ‘well-furnished’ country house, but was encumbered with debts of some £15,000–£20,000.<sup>6</sup> Sussex’s widow subsequently married Fairfax Overton.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
SAVILE, William (1665-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>SAVILE</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1665–1700)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1687-95 Ld. Eland; <em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Apr. 1695 as 2nd mq. of HALIFAX |
|
First sat 16 Apr. 1695; last sat 1 Aug. 1700 |
|
MP Newark 1689, 1690-5 Apr. 1695 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1665, 3rd but o. surv. s. of Sir George Savile*, 4th bt. (later mq. of Halifax) and 1st w. Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1670), da. of Henry Spencer, sis. of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. <em>educ</em>. Geneva 1678-81, Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 5 Dec. 1681 (aged 16), BA 1685, MA 1688; travelled abroad (Italy, Spain, France, Low Countries) 1684-7. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 24 Nov. 1687 (with £15,000 to be paid on father’s death), Elizabeth (1671-94), da. and h. of Sir Samuel Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. of Gorhambury, Herts. 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), (2) 2 Apr. 1695 (with £20,000), Mary (1677-1718), da. of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, 2s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 3da. <em>d</em>. 31 Aug. 1700; <em>will</em> 16 Aug. 1695-21 Aug. 1700, pr. 11 Mar. 1701.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Notts. ?1689-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1697-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by unknown artist, 1700, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Lakeland Arts Trust.</p> |
<p>The hopes of George Savile, marquess of Halifax, and his close kin and colleagues were all concentrated on Halifax’s middle son, Lord William Savile, who seemed to show the intellectual promise and seriousness that were not evident in his rebellious and dissolute elder brother, the heir Henry Savile, styled Lord Eland, nor in his timid and ‘cowed’ younger brother George.<sup>4</sup> Lord William’s uncle Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup> and particularly his great-uncle Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> took a keen interest in preparing the boy for the life of a courtier and statesman and carefully watched over his education at Geneva and Christ Church, Oxford (where John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, also appreciated the young man’s promise), his early forays at court, and his development during the grand tour.<sup>5</sup> Coventry thought that Lord William, unlike his elder brother Eland, was ‘of a temper capable of advice and direction from you [Halifax], so as forms him to what you think best’. <sup>6</sup> When Lord William went to The Hague during his travels in 1686-7, Halifax had sufficient confidence in him to entrust him with a confidential letter of introduction to William of Orange which initiated an important correspondence between the marquess and the prince.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Upon Lord William’s return from the continent in the autumn of 1687, negotiations began in earnest for a match between him and Lady Elizabeth Grimston. Lady Elizabeth was the granddaughter of two famous jurists, Sir Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, and Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, a connection which probably appealed to Halifax, while his son would have appreciated the prospect of his bride’s portion of £15,000. This, however, was not to be paid until the death of her father, who managed to survive both his own daughter and his son-in-law. The marriage negotiations were hastened by the unexpected death of Lord Eland, thus overnight making Lord William the heir presumptive to the titles and estates of the marquessate of Halifax. The marriage between Lord Eland, as William was now styled, and Elizabeth Grimston was celebrated shortly after this change of fortune, in late November 1687.</p><p>At the Revolution Gilbert Burnet*, shortly to become bishop of Salisbury, recommended that Eland be honoured with a position in the household of the princess of Orange, soon to be queen.<sup>8</sup> This did not transpire, but Eland was returned for the Nottinghamshire borough of Newark for the Convention. Eland showed an independence of judgment and opinion which his father may have appreciated in theory, even though in practice it entailed Eland voting against the motion that the throne was vacant, contrary to his father’s own stance in the Lords. Eland was returned for Newark again in 1690. Categorizing his political views initially baffled observers and political managers such as his father’s enemy Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds). Eland did exhibit a mistrust of William III and his pretensions to wield unrestrained executive power, which led him increasingly to identify with country positions.</p><p>In 1694-5 Eland’s life changed dramatically. In late August 1694 his wife died of smallpox at her father’s residence of Gorhambury in Hertfordshire, leaving behind one surviving child, a daughter Anne. Negotiations were almost immediately commenced for another marriage for the young widower. Halifax and his old friend Nottingham, were quickly in discussions for a match between Eland and Nottingham’s eldest daughter Mary, with a dowry of £20,000. Eland’s first wife had been Nottingham’s niece, and this second marriage thus further strengthened the connections between Lord Eland and the extended Finch clan. On the day of the wedding at Nottingham’s Rutland estate, 2 Apr. 1695, Halifax, having stayed behind in London, became seriously ill and three days later unexpectedly died painfully by a ‘twisting of the guts’ caused by ‘great fits of vomiting’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Nottingham quickly took the bereft and fatherless young second marquess of Halifax under his wing and became his protector, political patron and mentor, for the remainder of Halifax’s life – as it appears the ailing marquess had enjoined on his son in his last moments.<sup>10</sup> With the protection of Nottingham came collaboration, friendship and correspondence with the extended Finch kinship and client networks. Halifax received frequent letters on political and social matters from his father-in-law, but also enjoyed a similar correspondence with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, who was the first marquess of Halifax’s first cousin (through their Coventry mothers) and who was married to a second cousin of Nottingham.<sup>11</sup> Halifax also received frequent letters from Nottingham’s first cousin Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup>, clerk of the Privy Council, on news and political developments.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Halifax lost little time in taking up his seat in the House, first sitting there on 16 Apr. 1695 on which day he was named to the committee for the bill to indemnify Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> for his testimony concerning the East India Company. After that first day Halifax only came to one additional sitting of that session, already in its final days, and he appears to have returned to Nottingham’s estate at Exton to complete his nuptials with Lady Mary Finch and to settle with Nottingham outstanding business about his father’s estate.</p><p>Even before the dissolution of Parliament was formally announced on 11 Oct. 1695, Weymouth was encouraging Halifax ‘to be active in the choice of Parliament men’, for ‘since a Lord Halifax cannot be a spectator in this busy world, he ought to have his attendants’.<sup>13</sup> Halifax had earlier taken little positive action to promote a replacement for his seat for Newark, merely agreeing with the corporation’s ‘unanimous’ choice of Sir George Markham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>14</sup> Weymouth went on to detail to Halifax news of the unexpected electoral setbacks among the Tories in his own area of the West Country, and assumed that Halifax was keeping an equal eye on matters in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.<sup>15</sup></p><p>It is not clear what involvement Halifax had in the elections of those northern areas, but his influence can be found in an unexpected place. For most of his life Halifax appears to have acted as a patron and friend of the admiral Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, who was also his kinsman in that they had both married granddaughters of the first earl of Nottingham. There are almost 100 letters surviving from Rooke to Halifax, dating from February 1694, when he was still Lord Eland, to just before his death in 1700. Halifax also had Colonel Robert Crawford<sup>‡</sup>, governor of Sheerness, as another naval contact and intermediary between him and Rooke.<sup>16</sup> In October 1695 Crawford informed Halifax of the date of the election for the Kentish borough of Queenborough, located adjacent to the fort at Sheerness, and assured him that he and his running mate Caleb Banks<sup>‡</sup> would be there in time for the poll and would duly drink Halifax’s health – ‘as’, Crawford hastened to add, ‘I do every day’.<sup>17</sup> When Caleb Banks unexpectedly died in 1696, Halifax found himself involved in the ensuing by-election, in which Rooke, with the support of Crawford and Halifax, tried (unsuccessfully) to enter Parliament through the Queenborough seat.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Halifax was a diligent attender of the Parliament elected in 1695. He was present from the first day of its first session of 1695-6, on 22 Nov. 1695, and sat in almost three-quarters of its sittings. In December he took an active part in the committees of the whole considering the ‘state of the nation’, in which perceived foreign threats to the military and to trade were discussed. On 6 Dec. he was placed on a subcommittee to draft an address requesting the king to lay before the House a list of the officers in the army and their nationalities. He was similarly placed on a drafting subcommittee on 12 Dec. for an address against the danger to English trade presented by the formation of the Scottish East India Company and the following day was placed on a committee to inspect papers regarding the damage to its trade.<sup>19</sup> He continued to be involved in mercantile and naval matters throughout the session. In the first week of January 1696 he was placed on large committees entrusted to examine papers laid before the House by the commissioners of the Admiralty and of the customs. In the period 7-11 Feb. 1696 he was placed on committees to draw up clauses for the bill for the encouragement of privateers and to consider conditions for establishing a new East India Company. At the end of the session he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons for the House’s insistence on its amendments to the bill for encouraging privateers (14 Apr.) and was appointed a reporter for a conference on the House’s amendments to the Greenland trade bill (25 April). He was also appointed to four other select committees on legislation in this session.</p><p>The problems with the debased coinage in particular appear to have preoccupied him. On 4 Dec. 1695 he was placed on the committee of 17 members assigned to draw up the address to request the king to prohibit the use of clipped coin as currency and the following day was a manager for the conference in which this address was presented to the Commons for their concurrence. On 30-31 Dec. 1695 he was named to committees appointed to draft additional clauses to the coinage bill. These were approved of on 2 Jan. 1696 and the following day Halifax was placed on the drafting committee and made a manager for the conference at which this revised bill was discussed. At the second conference, on 7 Jan., the Commons claimed that the Lords did not have the right to amend the clauses concerning penalties in a supply bill. The House, under pressure to pass this important bill, agreed to recede from three of its amendments but did, however, establish a select committee, on which Halifax was not placed, to draw up an address vindicating its right to make amendments to money bills. Although not directly involved in drafting this response to the Commons’ assertion, it would appear Halifax agreed with it, for Weymouth, absent from the House that session, congratulated him on 14 Jan. for ‘the heroic vote you have left upon your books, as well as the noble lament upon it, in receding from your amendments, and that for the necessity of saving a bill, which neither the Commons, nor those they represent, will give a clipped sixpence for’.<sup>20</sup> The controversy over the recoinage rumbled on, and on the last day of March Halifax subscribed to the protest against the passage of the Act setting the reimbursement rate for plate brought into the mint for recoining.</p><p>Proceedings on the coinage bill were interrupted by the news of the assassination attempt on William III, and on 24 Feb. 1696 Halifax was named to the drafting committee for the address to the king in response to his speech detailing the plot and was delegated to represent the House in a conference on the matter. It is not known if in this role he had a hand in discussions on composing the Association, but in the months and years following Halifax consistently refused to subscribe to this oath of loyalty to the Williamite regime.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Halifax did not sit in the 1696-7 session until 2 Nov. 1696 but still proceeded to attend 78 per cent of its sittings, and again showed his opposition to the government, then led by the Whigs, and his adherence to the Tories in the House through his actions surrounding the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Halifax signed three protests against this measure: against the resolution to hear Cardell Goodman’s evidence against Fenwick (15 Dec.); against the bill’s second reading (18 Dec.) and against it passage (23 December). He continued to agitate against the crown’s handling of the Fenwick affair even after the attainder bill had gone through. On 15 Jan. 1697 he was placed on the drafting committee for the address against the meddling of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough) in the proceedings against Fenwick and a week later he was placed on the committee of 17 members assigned to draft an address, ultimately fruitless, begging for a reprieve.</p><p>His actions against the Association and the Fenwick attainder cemented Halifax’s place in a tight circle of Tory peers in the House. Halifax’s youth led many of the older members to look on him as their spokesman and representative. Earlier, Weymouth had relied on Halifax to convey to the House his inability through gout to heed the summons of the House to sign the Association. Weymouth eventually addressed the House himself to explain why he felt unable to swear allegiance to William III as <em>de jure</em> king.<sup>22</sup> In his opposition to the attainder of Fenwick, Halifax was joined by, among others, Nottingham, Weymouth, Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron Ferrers (later Earl Ferrers and another Finch kinsman), Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet and Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon – all of whom had likewise refused to sign the Association. On 21 Jan. 1697 Huntingdon chose Halifax, Weymouth and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester (another Fenwick protester but one who had agreed to the Association) to represent him in the negotiations for a settlement between him and his Williamite son, George Hastings*, styled Lord Hastings (later 8th earl of Huntingdon), and it was Halifax who reported to the House eight days later that a reconciliation could not be effected. Another peer who did not subscribe to the Association, Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, who had been a close friend of Halifax’s father and whose son Philip Stanhope*, styled Lord Stanhope (later 3rd earl of Chesterfield) was married to Halifax’s stepsister, relied entirely on the young marquess as his representative in the House to explain the reasons which prevented him from coming to the proceedings on the Fenwick attainder.<sup>23</sup> Perhaps in expectation of further divisions on the Fenwick attainder after the Christmas recess, Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, registered his proxy with Halifax on 26 Dec. 1696 for the remainder of the session, and Halifax had his full complement of two proxies after 11 Feb. 1697 when Nottingham registered his proxy with him as well. On 23 Jan. 1697 Halifax joined Nottingham, Thanet, Weymouth and ten other Tory peers against the resolution to reject the bill which enforced a property qualification on Members of the Commons.</p><p>In other matters of the 1696-7 session, Halifax was on the last day of November 1696 appointed a manager for a conference at which the Commons delivered their vote limiting their right to claim privilege in legal suits, and on 10 Dec. placed on the committee assigned to prepare a bill ‘for the better ease of the subject’ in relation to the abuse of parliamentary privilege. Weeks later, on 1 Feb. 1697, he chaired and reported from a committee of the whole on this bill where a clause was removed.<sup>24</sup> On 8 Mar. he reported from another committee of the whole that the bill to restore Blackwell Hall market to the clothiers was ready to pass. He was appointed to an additional 12 select committees considering legislation. Some idea of his reputation, at least among Tories, is given by a letter of 26 Mar. where Weymouth, referring to the controversy over the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ amendments to the bill to restrain the import of East Indian silks, saluted Halifax as ‘a noble lord, who is whetting his sword to combat the House of Commons, who by their votes seem very forward’.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Halifax came to just under three-quarters of the sittings in the 1697-8 session, where he continued to act as an organizer and representative of his Tory colleagues. In the weeks before the session both Weymouth and Nottingham set out for him their own views on the peace sealed by the Treaty of Rijswick and the proposed maintenance of the standing army (Nottingham thought that ‘After 50 million, an Association in England and Scotland, and an Abjuration in Ireland, such subjects might be trusted’) in the knowledge that Halifax would be their representative in the first weeks of the session. Once the session began – and Halifax was there from the start, 3 Dec. 1697 – Weymouth relied on Halifax to convey his excuses for his absence, while Nottingham kept him regularly updated with his own plans for his late arrival.<sup>26</sup> A week into the session, on 11 Dec., Weymouth sent Halifax his proxy to be registered in the name of their kinsman Ferrers. Weymouth made it clear that he would have preferred Halifax to have been his proxy, ‘but my Lord Ferrers, having made me his constant proxy, for three sessions when he was absent, I cannot without a disobligation commit it to another’.<sup>27</sup> On 21 Apr. 1698, Weymouth sent Halifax another proxy, this time blank, with instructions to fill in the name of a suitable peer to hold his vote. After some time, Weymouth’s proxy to Rochester was recorded in the register on 3 May, almost certainly the choice of Halifax.<sup>28</sup> Halifax did not take over Weymouth’s proxy himself because by that time he had his full complement of two. On 31 Mar. his father-in-law had sent Halifax his proxy to be registered in the House, and on 12 Apr. Thanet also had his proxy registered with the marquess.<sup>29</sup> Halifax kept Nottingham informed of bills that came before the House during his absence, and Nottingham was pleased to hear of the abandonment of the ‘intended bill of taxing all grants’ and fee farm rents, which he considered potentially ‘the most unjust and shameful bill that ever was offered to a Parliament since the Restoration’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On 10 Jan. 1698 Halifax was appointed a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill against corresponding with James II and a week later he was placed on the committee to consider methods to restrain the expense and duration of legal suits. On 29 Jan. he was placed on the large drafting committee for an address to the king recounting the House’s proceedings on the claim to the earldom of Banbury, and on 14 Feb. he was on the committee to draw another address, this one to request the king to discourage the wearing of clothes of foreign manufacture. Yet again he was placed on a drafting committee on 20 May – for the address stating that the appeal to the English House of Lords of William King, bishop of Derry [I], against the London Society of Ulster was not valid. He was again reasonably prominent in nominations to select committees on legislation, being placed on 26 of them throughout the session.</p><p>It was from early March 1698 that Halifax became involved in a number of controversial issues. He and Rochester were the only two peers who on 3 Mar. protested against the divorce bill of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, on the grounds that no ecclesiastical court had decreed a separation of the couple prior to Parliament’s legislation. While the Junto-inspired bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> was still in the Commons, Halifax was sure that ‘Mr Duncomb will come off in the House of Lords if the bill should pass against him’.<sup>31</sup> He tried to effect this himself when the bill did come before the House. He formally protested against the decision of 4 Mar. to give a second reading to the bill and the following day was put on a committee to draft a statement of the House’s argument for a conference on this matter. He managed the two ensuing conferences on 7 and 11 Mar. and voted against the commitment of the bill four days later. On 11 May he was a manager for the conference on the bill for erecting hospitals and workhouses in Colchester and two weeks later again represented the House in the conference on the bill for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness. He was also involved in the protracted discussions surrounding the impeachment of John Goudet and other merchants in June and early July. On 15 June he was appointed a manager for a conference with the Commons on Goudet and his fellows and managed an ensuing free conference on the matter five days later, although his name is not listed as such in the Journal.<sup>32</sup> On 22 June he was appointed to a committee established to examine precedents for the proper relations between the two Houses after a free conference. He was again deputized to represent the House when it informed the Commons in conference on 2 July that they would not have time to try the merchant Peter Longueville because so much time had been spent trying to determine the proper penalties to be levied on those merchants who had pleaded guilty. In the last days of the session he acted as a teller in a division in a committee of the whole on the Lustring Company bill, and on 1 July he joined other Tories in a protest against the bill to raise two million pounds by establishing a new East India Company, largely supported by Whig subscribers, in place of the existing company. This competition between the new and old East India Companies continued to be a matter of concern for Halifax, and in May 1698 he was alerting Nottingham in the country that by the votes of the Commons ‘the old East India Company are like to be broke, and another set up with some hardships to the former’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Halifax and his colleagues were involved in the elections of summer 1698 following the dissolution of 7 July 1698. The Tory candidate for Nottinghamshire, Gervaise Eyre<sup>‡</sup> enlisted Halifax’s support for his candidacy with Sir Thomas Willoughby<sup>‡</sup> from as early as March, and asked Halifax’s advice on whether they should approach the Whiggish John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, for his interest.<sup>34</sup> Both Eyre and Willoughby eventually unseated the sitting Whig members by quite a margin. When not actively involved in the election, Halifax received news of candidacies and election results from his wide range of correspondents throughout the spring and summer of 1698.<sup>35</sup> Nottingham confided in Halifax his view that ‘the new Parliament must be better than the old’.<sup>36</sup> Halifax also appears to have acted as a patron, if not companion, of Sir Thomas Dyke<sup>‡</sup>, a protégé of Nottingham and an outspoken critic of the government in the 1695 Parliament who had declined to stand in 1698.<sup>37</sup> In the weeks before the convening of Parliament Halifax and Nottingham together promoted the candidacy of John Granville*, later Baron Granville of Potheridge, as Speaker of the new Commons and were frustrated when the Tory grandee Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> declared his intention for the post as well. This potentially split the Tory vote and Nottingham forecast correctly when he wrote to Halifax that ‘if one of our friends does not, the third will carry it, which in itself would be very ill’. The court Whig Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> took advantage of the failure of either Seymour or Granville to stand down or make an accommodation, and was chosen as Speaker.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Halifax attended the first day of the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698 and proceeded to come to 70 per cent of its sittings. He may well have been entrusted once more to hold the proxies of fellow Tories, though the absence of the proxy register for this session precludes certainty, and he was again seen as Nottingham’s representative in the House. In early February 1699 (when Nottingham was in attendance) John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, incapacitated by illness in Westmorland, grew concerned at the danger posed to his estate by the appeal submitted by Thomas Wybergh. He turned to Halifax to enlist Nottingham’s support: ‘if I might presume so far I would beg of your Lordship to acquaint his Lordship with my distress, and how much I both need and do beg his protection as I do your Lordship’s’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Halifax’s first significant involvement in the session came on 23 Jan. 1699 when he was named to a small subcommittee of seven peers assigned by a committee of the whole to redraft a clause concerning trade to Africa in the bill to prohibit the export of corn and other staples. On 4 Feb. he was placed on the drafting committee assigned to compose an address of thanks for the king’s speech concerning his need of troops. He clearly disagreed with the thrust of the address composed by the committee, which promised the king assistance in preserving his Dutch Guards from the general disbandment, for on 8 Feb. Halifax voted against this motion and protested against its acceptance. He was named on 13 Mar. to another committee concerning the aftermath of the peace, this one to draft an address on the work needed to be done to repair and maintain the forts on the Medway. On 20 and 21 Apr. he was a manager for the conferences on the bills for restoring Blackwell Hall market and to make Billingsgate a free market. This latter matter became more controversial after the House decided to insist on its amendments rejected by the Commons, and on 25 Apr. Halifax was placed on the committee to draw up reasons for the House’s adherence to its clauses and was a manager at the conference held two days later where they were presented. He was nominated to 21 select committees and reported from one of them, on 24 Apr., that the petition of Francis Leigh for a rehearing of his case before the House should be dismissed.</p><p>Halifax spent the summer recess of 1699 at his Nottinghamshire estate of Rufford Abbey, where he received a steady stream of communication from informants on the daily gossip and intrigues surrounding the wholesale ministerial changes that had followed the prorogation in May. In particular, his naval contacts Robert Crawford and Sir George Rooke provided Halifax with a detailed account of the surprise resignation of the Junto member Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, from the Admiralty commission on 15 May and the ensuing radical reconstitution of the commission, in which Halifax’s man Rooke, partly the cause of Orford’s departure, now played a prominent part.<sup>40</sup></p><p>As in the previous session the lack of a surviving proxy register for 1699-1700 hinders knowing whether Halifax held the proxies of any of his colleagues. Halifax himself was present from the first day of this session on 16 Nov. 1699 and attended 78 per cent of its meetings. Throughout the session he was nominated to 27 select committees, and his first significant intervention in the proceedings came on 5 Feb. 1700 when he reported from one of these with the amendments to the bill for reducing the excessive number of attorneys. Trade matters loomed large in the other matters he dealt with at this time. Over the course of the following week he joined in two protests, on 8 and 10 Feb., against the address to the king condemning the Darien colony as prejudicial to the interests of the kingdom, on the grounds that the House had been given insufficient time and material to make a judgment on such an important matter. On 17 Feb. he chaired the committee of the whole dealing with the bill to employ the poor by encouraging native manufactures, which was opposed by the East India merchants importing silk. A week later he voted to adjourn into a committee of the whole to discuss the bill to maintain the old East India Company as a corporation and subsequently chaired the committee; upon his report the House passed the bill, in the face of a protest against the bill by 18 Whig supporters of the new East India Company.</p><p>On this same day, 23 Jan. 1700, Halifax was assigned to a committee to draw up reasons to justify in conference the House’s amendments to the bill for authorizing commissioners to negotiate a union between England and Scotland. He was opposed to any such union and had already publicly stated that Parliament ‘should run any risk rather than be bullied by the Scots’ menaces’, such as the Scottish East India Company and the colony at Darien.<sup>41</sup> He signed protests against both the second reading (8 Mar.) and the eventual passage (12 Mar.) of the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He was appointed a reporter on 2 Apr. to attend a conference at which the Commons made known their objections to the House’s amendments to a bill lifting duties on certain goods. Shortly afterwards he was immersed in the furore surrounding the Commons’ supply bill which provided for the parliamentary resumption of William III’s Irish land grants. William III and his ministers were, initially, set against this bill, while country Tories – Halifax and John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham) being particularly singled out by James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> in his account of the proceedings – were its principal supporters.<sup>42</sup> Halifax was one of the large group of peers delegated to report the conference on 9 Apr. at which the Commons set out their objections to the House’s amendments. He was placed on the committee to draw up the reasons for the House’s adherence to their amendments and was manager of two more conferences on 10 Apr. as the Houses continued to argue their differences. Under pressure from the court, anxious to have its supply bill passed even with the offensive measures, the Lords reluctantly receded from their amendments. Halifax, who supported the measures for the resumption of the Irish grants, did not subscribe to the protest against the House’s decision to abandon its amendments.</p><p>The king prorogued Parliament once the bill was passed and continued to prorogue it throughout the summer of 1700. Halifax was one of the few peers present at the prorogation on 1 Aug. but on the last day of that month he died of a malignant fever at his country estate at Acton. His death was a surprise and seen as a great loss and blow to the Tories. His close friend Weymouth described it to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as an ‘unspeakable loss … scarce to be repaired’, while Harley himself commented, ‘We need not lose such men’.<sup>43</sup> The Whig Gilbert Burnet of Salisbury, was less generous, and years later caustically remarked that the great marquess of Halifax’s son was ‘an honest man, but far inferior’ to his father, ‘which appeared the more sensible, because he affected to imitate him; but the distance was too wide’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>By his two wives Halifax had had three sons, all of whom had died young, and five daughters, four of whom survived him, the youngest born posthumously. The marquessate of Halifax thus became extinct at his death and the title was quickly conferred on the second marquess’s political opponent the Whig Junto leader, Charles Montagu*, who on 13 Dec. 1700 was created Baron Halifax. Montagu may have chosen the title because of its associations with the intellectual, witty and politically forceful first marquess but his choice of title, so soon after the extinction of the Savile line, caused some outrage among the late marquess’s Tory allies. The baronetcy, the sixth in the Savile family, descended to a distant kinsman, John Savile, a descendant of a son of the first baronet’s second wife, and his descendants maintained the parliamentary involvement of the Savile family in the Commons throughout the eighteenth century.</p><p>Halifax’s executors Weymouth, Nottingham, Heneage Finch*, later earl of Aylesford, and William Finch<sup>‡</sup> were assigned to raise money for the portions of his four daughters – £15,000 each. The executors quickly found that the estates could not support those charges and in 1706, when the first portion had to be paid for the marriage of Halifax’s eldest daughter Anne to Robert Bruce*, Lord Bruce (later Baron Bruce of Whorlton and 3rd earl of Ailesbury), the trustees petitioned the House for a bill to enable them to sell part of the estate. This was blocked by the late marquess’s stepmother Gertrude, dowager marchioness of Halifax (the long-lived widow of the first marquess) and her daughter Elizabeth, Lady Stanhope, who had a reversionary interest in the estate.<sup>45</sup> This obstacle was removed in 1708 by Lady Stanhope’s death and in 1713, 1719 and 1721 the executors were able to have private estate acts passed allowing them to sell parts of the estate to raise money for the portions.<sup>46</sup> Nottingham and his co-executors managed their task well, as the three daughters who grew to marriageable age maintained the Savile reputation and prestige by marrying into prominent aristocratic, and Tory, dynasties: Anne to Lord Bruce; Dorothy to Richard Boyle*, 3rd earl of Burlington; and Mary to Sackville Tufton*, 7th earl of Thanet.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
SCHOMBERG, Charles (1645-93) |
<p><strong><surname>SCHOMBERG</surname></strong> (<strong>SCHÖNBERG</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1645–93)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1689-90 mq. of Harwich; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1 July 1690 as 2nd duke of SCHOMBERG |
|
First sat 15 Nov. 1690; last sat 14 Mar. 1693 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 5 Aug. 1645, 5th and yst. surv. s. of Frederick Herman Schomberg*, later duke of Schomberg, and Johanna Elizabeth, da. of Heinrich Dietrich, count of Schönberg auf Wesel; bro. of Meinhard Schomberg* 3rd duke of Schomberg. <em>educ.</em> ?Academy of Saumur; private tutor, Paris, c.1660-5.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 16 Oct. 1693; <em>will</em> 14 Oct, pr. 13 Nov. 1693.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Col., 1st regt. of ft. gds. 1690-<em>d.</em>; lt.-gen., allied army serving in Savoy and Piedmont, 1690-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Charles Schomberg, the youngest surviving son of the first duke of Schomberg, followed in his father’s footsteps both in his career as a professional military officer and in his adherence to the Protestant faith. Throughout his career he followed his father closely, accompanying and serving under him in his military campaigns in Portugal, Roussillon, Catalonia and Flanders.<sup>4</sup> He also joined him in his flight from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, first to Brandenburg in 1685 and eventually to England, where he was naturalized an English subject with his father on 8 Apr. 1689.<sup>5</sup> Shortly thereafter he returned to the continent and led the regiment of the Royal Scots in action on the Rhine against Louis XIV.<sup>6</sup></p><p>At his father’s death on 1 July 1690 Charles inherited his English titles. A special remainder in his father’s patent of creation gave these titles to Charles, his youngest son, first, and in default of him or his heirs, to the next youngest son, Meinhard. The eldest surviving son and heir to his father’s other titles, Frederick, had by this time become estranged from his father and brothers, having retired to private life after 1670 without having taken up the family’s military vocation. Schomberg <em>père</em> was apparently anxious to ensure that his new honours be passed on to his favoured younger sons, and especially to Charles, who had followed him so faithfully.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The new duke of Schomberg did not obtain landed property and was dependent on the crown and the pension of £4,000 per year granted to his father for his income.<sup>8</sup> He first sat in the House on 15 Nov. 1690, but only attended the House three more times in that session which ended in January 1691. In late 1690, after Savoy had joined the grand alliance, Schomberg was appointed lieutenant-general to all of the allies’ forces which were to aid the duke of Savoy against France. Schomberg arrived in Savoy in June 1691 and continued to campaign there, often reluctantly, until he made a brief return to England in the winter of 1692-3.<sup>9</sup> He reappeared in the House on 20 Dec. 1692 and attended infrequently until Parliament was prorogued on 14 Mar. 1693. On 3 Jan. he voted with the court to help to defeat, narrowly, the place bill. Thomas Bruce* 2nd earl of Ailesbury, a supporter of the bill, commented in the margin of the division list he drew up for this extremely close vote that the bill had been ‘thrown out by two Dutch votes’ – referring to Schomberg (who was not Dutch) and Hans Willem Bentinck* earl of Portland, both foreigners in the Lords closely associated with William III. It is likely that Schomberg’s renewed and concentrated attendance on the House at the turn of 1692-3 was a result of urging from Portland, acting as one of the court’s parliamentary managers, for the specific purpose of defeating this bill so offensive to the court.</p><p>Schomberg returned to Savoy for the campaign of 1693 and was fatally wounded at the Battle of Marsaglia on 4 October. He died in the Savoy capital of Turin on 16 Oct. 1693.<sup>10</sup> In his will, drawn up with multiple witnesses as he was dying of his wounds, he gave money to the poor ‘of the reformed religion’ both in Turin and in London, while to his eldest brother Frederick he bequeathed 1,000 crowns on the stipulation that Frederick would no longer make any claims on his estate. His next elder brother, Meinhard, by this time also duke of Leinster in the Irish peerage, was his general heir, and succeeded to the English titles.<sup>11</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
SCHOMBERG, Frederick Herman (1615-90) |
<p><strong><surname>SCHOMBERG</surname></strong> (<strong>SCHÖNBERG</strong>), <strong>Frederick Herman</strong> (1615–90)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>9 May 1689 duke of SCHOMBERG |
|
First sat 7 June 1689; last sat 16 July 1689 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c. 26 Dec. 1615, o. s. of Hans Meinhard von Schönberg, Ct. Marshal to Frederick V, Elector Palatinate, and Anne, da. of Edward Sutton<sup>†</sup>, 5th Bar. Dudley. <em>educ</em>. Academy of Hanau 1625-6; Academy of Sedan 1626-30; Paris 1630; Univ. of Leiden, 1631-3.<sup>1</sup> <em>m.</em> (1) 30 Apr. 1638, Johanna Elizabeth (<em>d.</em>1664), da. of Heinrich Dietrich, count of Schönberg auf Wesel, 6s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 14 Apr. 1669, Susanne (<em>d.</em>1688), da. of Daniel d’Aumale, Seigneur d’Harcourt, <em>s.p</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 3 Aug. 1616 (a minor) as Count Schönberg [Holy Roman Empire]; <em>cr</em>. count of Mertola [Portugal], 1663, comte de Coubet [France], 1668; KG 3 Apr. 1689. <em>d.</em> 1 July 1690; admon. 19 Nov. 1690.</p> |
<p>PC 25 Apr. 1689-1 July 1690.</p><p>Recorder, Harwich, 1689-90.</p><p>Maréchal-de-Camp [French Army], 1652; lt.-gen. [French Army], 1655; c.-in-c. [Portuguese Army], 1663-8; col., regt. of Horse [Portuguese Army]1664-8;<sup>2</sup> capt.-gen., Anglo-French forces against United Provinces 1673; marshal of France 1675-85; generalissimo, forces of elector of Brandenburg 1687; lt.-gen., Prince of Orange’s forces for invasion of England 1688-9; col., 1st Ft. Royal Scots 1688-<em>d</em>.; master-gen. of ordnance 1689-<em>d.</em>; gen. allied forces 1689-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup> col., regt. of Horse [Huguenot], 1689-<em>d</em>.; capt.-gen., English and allied forces in Ireland 1689-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: after Sir G. Kneller, bt., mezzotint, c.1689, NPG D1338.</p> |
<p>Born and raised in the Rhine Palatinate at the heart of international Calvinist circles, Frederick Herman von Schönberg, despite his German birth, had strong links to England through his parents. His father, Hans Meinhard von Schönberg, Frederick V’s ambassador to the English court, had helped to arrange the marriage between James I’s daughter, Elizabeth, and the Elector Palatine. After an education at some of the leading Calvinist academies he began his long and illustrious military career. He quickly distinguished himself in battle and went on to become one of the foremost military leaders of Europe.</p><p>After 1648 he joined the French Army and adapted his German name to Schomberg, by which he became, and still is, usually known. On behalf of France and Louis XIV’s expansionist policies he commanded Portuguese and former Cromwellian troops against Spain in 1663-8, and English troops in preparation for an invasion of Zealand in 1673.<sup>5</sup> After the failure of this venture he drew up a memorial for Charles II on the state of the English army, which aroused the ire of the nascent country party in England, concerned by the militarization of the state and what they saw as the growth of French-style ‘arbitrary government’.<sup>6</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, commented on this episode that ‘at any other time of his [Schomberg’s] life he would have been very acceptable to the English. But now he was looked on as one sent over from France to bring our army under a French discipline; and so he was hated by the nation, and not much loved by the court’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Schomberg returned to the French army but at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 he left his adopted country and went on to serve Protestant princes: first the Elector of Brandenburg as general-in-chief of his army from 1687 and then William of Orange as adviser and second in command (after William himself) in the expedition to England. He was with the invasion fleet that landed at Torbay on 5 Nov. 1688 and led the Dutch infantry in its march to London.<sup>8</sup></p><p>After William of Orange had been proclaimed king by Parliament in February 1689 he set about further rewarding Schomberg and enlisting his future services. On 4 Apr. Schomberg and his youngest son, Charles Schomberg*, later 2nd duke of Schomberg, were naturalized as English subjects.<sup>9</sup> A month later he was given an English dukedom.<sup>10</sup> Apparently, he was originally going to take the historic title of Albemarle for his dukedom, until he was informed that John Granville*, earl of Bath, had a claim to it, whereupon Schomberg, in order ‘to avoid doing prejudice to any other gentleman in the like kind as he might perhaps unknowingly do, being a foreigner’, desisted and merely made use of his own name for his dukedom.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, later suggested that it was actually John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), who truly wielded influence over the army and not the aged French marshal. ‘That ever renowned and brave gentleman the marechal of Schomberg’, Ailesbury wrote, ‘was nominally general, and that was all’. Ailesbury continued that Schomberg himself confided to him that, ‘My Lord Churchill proposes all, [and], I am sent for as to say the general consents’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Schomberg was inactive in the House of Lords, largely because of his military commitments elsewhere. He first sat in the House on 7 June 1689 and attended for a little over a month, until the military situation in Ireland compelled him to prepare for a long campaign there.<sup>13</sup> Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that in late June Schomberg was made chief commander (‘generalissimo’) of the king’s forces in Ireland and that he began to make preparations for the expedition from about that time.<sup>14</sup> On 16 July 1689 Schomberg sat in the Lords for the last time and assigned his proxy to Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, that same day. Montagu apparently used this proxy, for in a division list for 30 July, drawn up by Ailesbury, Schomberg is recorded as voting by proxy against the motion to adhere to the House’s controversial amendments to the bill to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates. On 16 July Schomberg also had a final audience with the Commons at which he thanked its Members for the ‘gift’ (£100,000) voted to him on 25 April. Trustees (two from the Lords and two from the Commons) were to be appointed to find a way of using this grant to purchase landed property for the duke.<sup>15</sup> The financial exigencies of the war meant that the £100,000 never materialized; Schomberg’s successors had to be satisfied with an annual pension of £4,000 intended as part payment of the promised sum.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Schomberg and his troops disembarked in Ireland on 13 Aug. 1689. The campaign quickly ground to a standstill. Schomberg, with inadequate supplies and diseased troops (or so his apologists argued) declined to give battle. Commentators, including perhaps William III himself, criticized him for his caution.<sup>17</sup> On 1 July 1690 Schomberg and the army, joined by the recently arrived William III, forced a bloody advance across the River Boyne in which Schomberg was killed. He was buried at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin on 19 July, after the city had surrendered to William III.</p><p>Considering his short time on English soil and as an English subject, Schomberg made a strong impact on English elite society. His international military reputation preceded him and for the short months he remained in England he was feted by such opposing figures as Burnet and Ailesbury. Ailesbury characterized him in 1689 as ‘now eighty years of age, tall and proper, of a most affable behaviour, and as fine a courtier as he was a soldier.’<sup>18</sup> Burnet, praising with faint damns (and with national aspersions), described Schomberg as,</p><blockquote><p>a calm man, of great application and conduct (beyond what was expected by those who knew him on other occasions: for he was too much a German in the liberties he allowed himself in entertainments; but when he commanded armies, he kept himself to better rules). He thought much better than he spoke. He was a man of true judgment, of great probity, and of an humble and obliging temper.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>By the provisions of the special remainder in his patent of creation, the duke’s youngest son, Charles, succeeded to the English dukedom.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
SCHOMBERG, Meinhard (1641-1719) |
<p><strong><surname>SCHOMBERG</surname></strong>, <strong>Meinhard</strong> (1641–1719)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 16 Oct. 1693 as 3rd duke of SCHOMBERG; <em>cr. </em>3 Mar. 1691 duke of Leinster [I] |
|
First sat 7 Nov. 1693; last sat 9 July 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 30 June 1641, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Frederick Herman Schomberg*, later duke of Schomberg, and Johanna Elizabeth, da. of Heinrich Dietrich, count of Schönberg auf Wesel; bro. of Charles Schomberg*, 2nd duke of Schomberg. <em>educ</em>. ?Academy of Saumur. <em>m.</em> (1) 3 Aug. 1667, Barbara Luisa, da. of Giovanni Girolamo Rizzi, <em>s.p.</em>; (2) 4 Jan. 1683, Raugräfin Caroline Elizabeth (<em>d.</em>1696), da. of Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, 5s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 4da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>suc</em>. bro. (Frederick) 1700 as count of Schönberg [Holy Roman Empire]; count of Mertola [Portugal]; marquis of Coubert [France]; KG, 12 Aug. 1703. <em>d.</em> 5 July 1719; <em>admon</em>. 29 July 1719 to das. Frederica, countess of Holdernesse, and Mary, Countess Degenfeld.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 5 May 1695-Sept. 1714; commr. appeals in Admiralty 1697.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Col., 8th Regt. of Horse (7th Dragoon Gds.) 1690-1711; gen. of Horse 1690-<em>d.</em>; c.-in-c., forces in London and Westminster during the king’s absence 1691, forces in Scotland 1691-2, forces in England during the king’s absence 1695; forces in Portugal 1703-4.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint, aft. Sir G. Kneller, c.1690, NPG D5918.</p> |
<p>Meinhard Schomberg followed in the family tradition of taking up a career as a professional military officer. He fought in Portugal in 1663-8 and then, having been naturalized as a French subject, served in the French army throughout the war of 1672-8, where he fought largely in the Netherlands under marshal Crequi and earned the praises of the Prince of Condé and the duc d’Enghien, among others, for his bravery.<sup>5</sup> At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he left France and fought first as a volunteer against the Turks at Vienna and then as a general of the cavalry in the army of the Elector of Brandenburg. He came to England in 1689 and in August joined the allied forces in Ireland, although officially he was still in the service of the Elector.<sup>6</sup> He led a cavalry charge at the Battle of the Boyne, in which engagement his father, the commander of the allied forces in Ireland, was killed.</p><p>In 1689 when his father had been made a duke, Meinhard was still an officer in the Brandenburg army and had not yet been naturalized as an English subject. A special remainder in the patent of creation specified that Meinhard’s younger (and naturalized) brother, Charles Schomberg*, was to become 2nd duke of Schomberg upon their father’s death. Nevertheless, Meinhard was rewarded on 3 Mar. 1691 for his services in the Irish wars by being created duke of Leinster in the Irish peerage. Less than a year later, in February 1692, he too became a naturalized English subject.<sup>7</sup> He was an influential military leader and adviser during the first years of the Nine Years’ War. The summer of 1692 saw him involved in planning, as leader of the ground forces, the eventually abortive ‘descent’ on the French coast, while in subsequent years he was entrusted with maintaining the forces in England and Scotland while William was away on campaign.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In October 1693, after the death of his brother Charles in battle at Marsaglia, Leinster inherited the English dukedom as well, according to the terms of the patent of creation. Thus he is sometimes referred to, both by contemporaries and by himself, as the duke of Schomberg and Leinster. He also inherited his brother’s pension of £4,000 a year, representing four per cent interest on the £100,000 granted, but not paid, to his father in April 1689. He was sworn to the privy council on 5 May 1695, where he was often consulted on military matters. His military reputation continued to earn him favour in the early years of Anne’s reign. In 1703 he was granted an additional annuity of £1,000, was made a knight of the garter and was appointed commander-in-chief of the allied forces fighting in Portugal. He soon alienated all his military colleagues and political masters and in 1704 was recalled from his post and replaced by Henri Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I]. As Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, commented, ‘The duke of Schomberg was a better officer in the field than in the cabinet; he did not enough know how to prepare for a campaign; he was both too unactive and too haughty’.<sup>9</sup> Thereafter his active involvement in military matters declined, and he resigned his colonelcy of a regiment of dragoons to his son Charles, styled marquess of Harwich, in 1711.</p><p>Schomberg did not attend the House often, usually only attending between a third and one half of the sittings in a parliamentary session. Nor was he active in committees; although consistently named to the committee for privileges at the beginning of each session, he was appointed to almost no other sessional committees established by the House. He was a court Whig – a Whig in political outlook, but dependent on the court and its ministries for the maintenance of his pension. On 23 Dec. 1696 he voted for the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and in 1700 it was forecast that he would vote against the bill, opposed by the Whig Junto, to continue the East India Company as a corporation (Schomberg was not present at the division of this bill on 23 Feb. 1700). Five years later in early June 1701 he was a manager in conferences concerning the impeachments of the Junto ministers, John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. He later voted with the majority of the House for their acquittal. Along with the rest of the House then sitting, he was also one of the managers of a conference on 8 Mar. 1702 to discuss the arrangements to be made after the death of William III and the accession of Anne.</p><p>Schomberg’s mission in Portugal kept him away from most of the meetings of Anne’s first Parliament. After his return in 1704 he sat in most of the remaining sessions of Anne’s reign, although he attended even less assiduously than he had under William. He continued to act as a court Whig, with the emphasis increasingly on his dependence on the court. He followed the directions of the government and supported the first two occasional conformity bills in 1702-3. On 16 Jan. 1703, when the Whigs were trying to ensure the House’s adherence to wrecking amendments to the bill, Schomberg registered a proxy to George*, prince of Denmark (also duke of Cumberland). As the proxy was recorded after prayers, John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, objected that it could not be used for any divisions that were to take place that day. Schomberg, whose house lay nearby on Pall Mall, was sent for and voted against the Whig amendments (as did his intended proxy Prince George). Haversham’s objection to the late registration of proxies for divisions on the same day stood and was incorporated into the standing orders of the House.<sup>10</sup> Schomberg was away on campaign in Portugal during the division on the occasional conformity bill when it came before the House again in December 1703, but his vote in favour of the bill was cast by the holder of his proxy and Schomberg consequently appeared in the list published by Abel Boyer as a supporter of the bill. Unfortunately, we do not know to whom Schomberg had entrusted his vote, as the proxy books for the session of 1703-4 are missing.</p><p>Schomberg was marked as a Hanoverian in a 1705 list detailing the peerage’s attitudes to the succession, and in a list of party allegiances from 1708 he was considered a Whig. Nevertheless, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, in a working list of October 1710, estimated that Schomberg could be expected to support his new ministry because of the duke’s reliance on his pension. In December 1711 Schomberg was again listed as a supporter of the ministry in another list drawn up by Oxford (as Harley had by this time become). Oxford’s calculations proved inaccurate. From the time of the new Tory-led ministry of 1710, if not before (as in his vote of March 1710 finding Dr Henry Sacheverell guilty), Schomberg voted with the Whigs, regardless of his dependence on the court.<sup>11</sup> That is, when he bothered to come to Parliament. He sat in only four meetings of the House in the first session of the 1710 Parliament. In the second session he voted against the ministry and in favour of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion on 10 Dec. 1711, and he appears on a list of pensioners and office-holders who did not follow the ministry’s wishes on this vote. He abstained from the vote on 20 Dec. on the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as a British peer, and a week after this vote he sat for the last time in the 1710 Parliament, eventually entrusting his proxy on 16 May 1712 to his old military colleague, John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. By March 1713 Oxford considered him among those lords he expected to oppose the ministry in the forthcoming session and in June 1713 further expected him to oppose the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Schomberg did attend meetings in the new Parliament which first met in February 1714. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, calculated that Schomberg would vote against the ministry in the division on the schism bill in June 1714. The old general not only voted against the bill on 22 June 1714 but even registered in the Journal his formal dissent against its passage. He stopped attending Parliament the day after this division and registered his proxy with William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, a keen opponent of the ministry.</p><p>George I confirmed and continued Schomberg’s pension, reduced again to £4,000, through an Act of Parliament which received the royal assent on 7 May 1716. Schomberg retired from parliamentary and public life under the Hanoverian king. He attended 24 meetings of George I’s first Parliament, but stopped coming entirely after 9 July 1715. He registered his proxy in March 1716 and again in February 1718 to his son-in-law, the Whig Robert Darcy*, 3rd earl of Holdernesse, who had married his daughter, Frederica, in May 1715. For the session of Parliament which began on 11 Nov. 1718 he transferred his proxy to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, thus revealing where his own sympathies lay in the Whig schism.</p><p>Schomberg had only one son, Charles, styled marquess of Harwich, who survived until adulthood but died of fever in a military camp in Ireland in 1713. Thus when Schomberg died in July 1719 the English titles became extinct. His surviving children, and the administrators of his estate, were two daughters: Frederica, countess of Holdernesse, and Mary, whose husband, the Prussian Christoph Martin, Count Degenfeld, adopted his father-in-law’s arms and name and styled himself Count von Degenfeld-Schomberg.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
SCOTT, James (1649-85) |
<p><strong><surname>SCOTT</surname></strong> (<em>formerly</em> <strong>CROFTS</strong>), <strong>James</strong> (1649–85)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>14 Feb. 1663 duke of MONMOUTH; <em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1663 (regrant 16 Jan. 1666) duke of Buccleuch [S] |
|
First sat 24 Oct. 1670; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Apr. 1649, 1st s. (illegit.) of Charles II with Lucy Walters (<em>d</em>.1658). <em>educ</em>. Thomas Ross, tutor and governor. <em>m</em>. 20 Apr. 1663 Anne (Anna) (1651-1731) <em>suo jure</em> countess of Buccleuch [S], 2nd da. of Francis Scott, 2nd earl of Buccleuch [S] and Margaret, da. of John Leslie, earl of Rothes [S], step-da. of David Wemyss, 2nd earl of Wemyss [S], 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.); 1s. (illegit.) with Elizabeth Waller, da. of Sir William Waller; 4 ch. (illegit.) with Eleanor, da. of Sir Robert Needham; ?1s. with Henrietta Wentworth, <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Wentworth, da. of Thomas Wentworth*, 5th Bar. Wentworth. KG, 28 Mar. 1663. executed 15 July 1685.</p> |
<p>Capt. tp. of horse, 1666, 1st Life Gds. 1668; lt. gen. and cdr. English brig. in French service (Royal English regt.),<sup>1</sup> 1672-3; capt.-gen. land forces England Wales and Berwick 1678, Scotland 1679.</p><p>PC 29 Apr. 1670; PC [S] 1674; ld. high chamb. [S] 1673-<em>d</em>.; commr. admiralty 9 July 1673-14 May 1679, surrender of New York 1675<sup>2</sup>; master of the horse 1674; chan. Camb. Univ. 1674-82.</p><p>C.j. Trent S., 1672-9.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Ld. lt., Yorks. (E. Riding) and Kingston-upon-Hull, Apr. 1673-1679, Staffs. 1677-9; high steward Kingston-upon-Hull 1673-9,<sup>4</sup> Stafford 1677; gov. Sutton Charterhouse 1675.</p><p>Mbr. Co. Royal fishery of England 1677.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: miniature by S. Cooper, c.1664-5, Royal Collection; oil on canvas, after Sir P. Lely, National Trust, Chirk Castle; oil on canvas, attrib. M. Beale, Warwick Shire Hall; oil on canvas, after Sir G. Kneller, c.1678, NPG 5225.</p> |
<p>As the eldest and most favoured of Charles II’s illegitimate sons, Monmouth occupied an ambivalent position in English political and courtly life. His life before 1660 had been complicated and highly disrupted as a result of his mother’s string of relationships in the exiled court. Known as James Crofts as a result of being placed to live with William Crofts*, Baron Crofts, following his abduction from, and the death of, his mother in 1658, he had very little formal education; Queen Henrietta Maria took an interest in his upbringing (which was presumably when he received instruction in the Catholic faith from Stephen Goffe), and ‘frequently had him brought to her, and used him with much grace’.<sup>7</sup> He was brought to England, by the queen mother, only in mid-1662. He was seen at court on 7 Sept. by Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, who described him as ‘a most pretty spark’, who ‘doth hang much upon my Lady Castlemaine, and is alway with her’. He became something of a favourite at court—liked and admired not only by Castlemaine, Charles II’s principal mistress, and the king himself, but also by both queens.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Soon after his arrival in England arrangements were made for his marriage to Anne Scott, the young heiress to the vast Buccleuch fortune, a proposal which emanated, according to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, from George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, and John Maitland*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Lauderdale [S] and later earl of Guilford, and the execution of which was largely entrusted to Lauderdale.<sup>9</sup> Proposals drawn up in October 1662 included a demand from the Buccleuch tutors (or guardians) that he receive letters of legitimation.<sup>10</sup> This was a procedure under Scottish law that conferred the public rights of lawfully born children, including the right of devising and bequeathing property, but which fell short of full legitimation as understood under English law in that it did not allow the person so legitimated to prejudice the right of any third party by claiming the same rights of inheritance as a legitimate child.<sup>11</sup> It was a misunderstanding of this procedure with those familiar with English rather than Scots law that led to the first rumours of an intention to legitimate the young man and to declare him to be the heir to the crown. Pepys referred to the rumour on 27 Oct. 1662 that the king and his mother had in fact been married and he was legitimate, long before it had become apparent that Charles II would have no legitimate children and just over a week after a request for letters of legitimation had been made by countess of Buccleuch’s tutors. <sup>12</sup> The king was still seeking advice from Scots lawyers about the mechanics of this procedure in December 1662.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Clarendon, as lord chancellor, was also consulted by the king about the marriage contract and the king’s plans to provide his son with a title. Clarendon was opposed to the provision of the title, arguing that he would become duke of Buccleuch on his marriage in any case, and objected too (as he explained in his own later account) to the description of James (presumably in the contract) as the king’s ‘natural son’,</p><blockquote><p>which was never, at least in many ages, used in England, and would have an ill sound in England with all his people, who thought that those unlawful acts ought to be concealed, and not published and justified. That France indeed had, with inconvenience enough to the crown, raised some families of those births; but it was always from women of great quality, and who had never been tainted with any other familiarity. And that there was another circumstance required in Spain… which was that the king took care for the good education of that child whom he believed to be his, but never publicly owned or declared him to be such, till he had given some notable evidence of his inheriting or having acquired such virtues and qualities as made him in the eyes of all men worthy of such a descent.<sup>14</sup></p></blockquote><p>The king, he wrote, had commented that the queen mother had adopted the same view. Nevertheless, on 10 Nov. a warrant was issued for his creation as duke of Monmouth (in which his future wife’s surname of Scott was adopted as his own, one of the conditions of the marriage contract), and although the letters patent were not issued until February 1663, the title was in use from at least November 1662.<sup>15</sup> Clarendon’s comments were not directly related to the claim of legitimation, though they certainly suggested that he would have been hostile to it, and if not out of considerations of propriety, it might be imagined that he would certainly have been concerned about its impact on the rights of his son-in-law, the king’s brother James*, duke of York. York would later deny that it had been Clarendon who had encouraged his concerns about Monmouth and his patents.<sup>16</sup> But that York was concerned about the case was apparent from the advice tendered to the bride’s mother by her adviser Sir Gideon Scott, who wrote that,</p><blockquote><p>if the ordinary term and practice of legitimation be thought offensive in the duke of Monmouth’s case, that some other course be taken (with the advice and approbation of the earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England) whereby the heirs of the marriage betwixt the duke and lady may not be prejudged by bastardy, but that they may succeed to the estate and dignity of Buccleuch. And that the consideration thereof be not superficially passed over, by acquiescing in the solution of a mistated query of little difficulty or importance, such as whether the duke of Monmouth’s legitimation be necessary as to his peerage and movable, or personal, estate, without moving the question, as to his heritable estate. And that both in this particular of the legitimation, and his assuming arms, such a solid and safe course may be taken, as may neither provoke his highness the duke of York, nor prejudge the heirs of the marriage in their succession to their parents heritable estate.<sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>Pepys picked up a rumour at the end of December 1662 that the status of the new duke had already become an issue at court between the king and York ‘in case the Queen should not be with child’.<sup>18</sup> When George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, charged Clarendon of high treason in the summer of 1663, one of his more plausible claims was that by raising issues about Monmouth’s legitimacy he had ‘endeavoured to alienate the affections’ of the duke of York from the king.<sup>19</sup> Another issue about the proposed marriage contract was that it violated the terms of the Buccleuch family entail and so had to be ratified by the Scottish parliament, which arguably exceeded its powers in doing so.<sup>20</sup> Disputes over the Buccleuch estate and its encumbrances continued well into the 1670s.</p><p>In the event no letters of legitimation were issued for Monmouth, but rumours of his imminent legitimation would surface regularly for the rest of his life, particularly (but not exclusively) at times of crisis such as the fall of Clarendon in 1667 and the debates over exclusion in 1678-81. James II himself believed that it was his original governor, Thomas Ross, who had encouraged Monmouth to believe in his legitimacy in the first place, and recounted a story that he had attempted to persuade John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, who had been Lucy Walter’s confessor while she was in Flanders, to sign a certificate stating that she had indeed married the king. He refused, and reported the approach to the king, who soon sacked Ross.<sup>21</sup> Misunderstandings about the king’s intentions towards his son were aggravated during the discussions of his peerage in late 1662 by the decision to give Monmouth precedence over all the dukes except York and Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, which was somewhat unrealistically ascribed to the heralds rather than to the king.<sup>22</sup> Around the time of his marriage, in the king’s chamber at Whitehall on 20 Apr., there were further indications of the king’s ambivalence about Monmouth’s illegitimacy that raised eyebrows: a grant of arms that initially excluded the bar sinister, the standard visual reference to Monmouth’s bastardy, and an incident later in the month in which the king permitted Monmouth to wear a hat whilst dancing with the queen.<sup>23</sup> Similar marks of favour were evident in the decision to allow Monmouth to wear deep mourning for the duchess of Savoy in 1664 ‘so that he mourns as a prince of the blood, while the duke of York doth no more and all the nobles of the land not so much’; and in the frequency with which, in various official documents Monmouth was described as the king’s son rather than his natural son.<sup>24</sup> The king’s favour to Monmouth and the idea that he might be made legitimate was a persistent theme of court gossip throughout the 1660s.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Monmouth and his prospective wife were set up financially in December 1662 with a grant of the monopoly of the export of new drapery, giving him an annual income of £8,000; there were further grants in 1663. Added to this in 1665 was a pension of £6,000 a year, in addition to the income from the Buccleuch estates, which James II thought amounted to £10,000 a year, albeit involving litigation that went on for years.<sup>26</sup> It was evidently not enough: the annual running costs of the young couple’s establishment were about £12,000 a year.<sup>27</sup> Monmouth moreover mixed with like-minded, wealthy and similarly spoiled young men, pursuing a life of extravagance. The management of his affairs during his minority were entrusted in 1665 to a commission consisting of Lauderdale, Crofts, Charles Berkeley*, Viscount Fitzharding [I] (created earl of Falmouth in March of that year), John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, John Ashburnham<sup>‡ </sup>and William Ashburnham<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford, and Edward Thurland<sup>‡</sup> (a commission with implications for Lauderdale’s control over Monmouth’s Scottish affairs and which he was highly concerned to review).<sup>28</sup> Nevertheless, though the chance survival of a set of accounts suggests that his ‘extraordinary’ expenses alone for the year 1675-6 were over £800, this seems a considerable under-estimate of his expenditure in the 1660s: the king encouraged it by providing in December 1667 an annual grant of £4,000 ‘for the king’s suppers at his lodgings’, and in that year Monmouth was granted an advance on the pension in 1667 of £18,000 in order to pay his debts. The pension itself was increased in January 1673 to £8,000, with a further grant later that year of £1,000 a year.<sup>29</sup> Monmouth had some experience of active service in the fleet during the war with the Dutch in 1665.<sup>30</sup> His main activities as he approached his majority, however, were less character-building. Pepys regarded him as a dissipated, if energetic, youth, and welcomed rumours that he was to go as observer in the campaign in Spain in 1667, remarking that it would ‘be becoming him much more then to live whoreing and rogueing of it here, as he now does’.<sup>31</sup> The king seems to have treated him as one of his most regular companions, especially by 1667.<sup>32</sup> His friendship with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, suggested the beginnings of a significant political alliance: by dining with Buckingham—at the time in disgrace with the king—when he gave himself up at the end of June 1667 was a firm indication of his sympathies.<sup>33</sup> The fall of Clarendon at the end of August gave rise to new rumours about Monmouth’s legitimation, as well as a claim that the king had in fact married Lucy Walter: the rumours would continue for the rest of Monmouth’s life (and beyond).<sup>34</sup> Monmouth by early 1669 was mentioned as a possible appointee as lord deputy of Ireland, despite his being underage; the French ambassadors certainly identified him as worth cultivating, given the king’s fondness for him.<sup>35</sup></p><p>On attaining his majority, Monmouth was brought onto the Privy Council; the king bought Moor Park for him from James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (also earl of Brecknock); and he was summoned to the House of Lords on 21 Oct. 1670. He took his seat on the first day of the 1670-1 session. There was little in his previous carer either as a courtier or as a soldier to suggest that he took any interest in politics and this was amply confirmed by his attendance—less than 20 per cent—during the session. He was named to only three committees: he was in the House on 24 Mar. 1671 when along with everyone present in the chamber he was nominated to the committee for the bill to prevent the growth of popery; he was also named to the committee for Herlackenden’s bill on 17 Apr. and to that for the better observation of the Sabbath on 20 April. Early in the morning of 21 Dec. 1670, it was men from Monmouth’s troop who attacked Sir John Coventry<sup>‡</sup> and slit his nose after he had made remarks in the Commons that were construed to be offensive to the king and his relationship with the actress Nell Gwyn, causing fury in the lower House: Coventry’s assailants were said to have been protected by the court, with one of them, perhaps William O’Brien, Lord O’Brien [I], later 2nd earl of Inchiquin [I], said to have taken refuge in Monmouth’s lodgings.<sup>36</sup> Two months later, Monmouth was himself involved in street violence: on 25 Feb. 1671 he was in London carousing with the eighteen-year old Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, with other dissolute young noblemen when he was involved in an altercation at a brothel that led to the death of a local beadle. All concerned were promptly pardoned by the king, ‘an act of great scandal’, Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> wrote. <sup>37</sup> Soon afterwards, in mid-April, Monmouth went over to Dunkirk ‘to compliment’ Louis XIV, and was again said (inaccurately) to be due to succeed Berkeley in charge of Ireland.<sup>38</sup> During early 1671 Monmouth, and his duchess, seem to have attempted to assert their control over their estate, in particular against Lauderdale, who admitted their ‘distrust as to me (which is most evident)’, but also against the entail of the estate created by the duchess’s father.<sup>39</sup> With the onset of war against the Dutch, Monmouth was ambitious to be involved: arrangements were made for him to raise and command a regiment in the French army, in which he was made lieutenant-general, and he was certainly present in the campaigns of 1672 and 1673. According to James II, he distinguished himself at the siege of Maastricht.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Monmouth was therefore abroad when the next session (the first of 1673) opened on 4 Feb. and so was unable to take his seat until 21 Feb. 1673. He was then present for all but seven of the remaining 30 days of the session. He was named to a single committee, that for the cattle bill on 28 March. He was in the House for the debates over the Test Act in March 1673 and conspicuously took the sacraments the following month, along with the rest of the court.<sup>41</sup> It was also reported that he had attempted to persuade York to consider a Protestant rather than Catholic bride.<sup>42</sup> He secured the lord lieutenancy of Yorkshire (E. Riding) and high stewardship of Hull in succession to the Catholic John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse. He became one of the members of the commission to run the admiralty following York’s disqualification; it was discussed that he might also take command at sea.<sup>43</sup> He was present for two of the four days of the second 1673 session and was named to the committee for privileges. </p><p>Around the time of the beginning of the 1674 session of Parliament, Monmouth obtained an ill-defined but potentially powerful role in ‘all things relating to the forces now on foot’.<sup>44</sup> This may have been the occasion recounted by James II, when Monmouth had approached him for support in securing a commission from his father as commander-in-chief: York’s response had been that he saw no need for commissioning a general ‘especially in a time of peace, over so few forces which could not be call’d an army’; his accompanying story about the issuing of a commission as general to Monmouth must belong to 1678, when he was appointed captain-general.<sup>45</sup> The 1674 session saw Monmouth present on just over 81 per cent of sitting days. Since he attended the opening of the session on 7 Jan. he was again nominated to the committee for privileges as well as that for petitions. On 12 Jan. he was named as one of the peers to carry the petition of the House for a fast to the king and on 13 Jan. took the voluntary oath of allegiance that had been prescribed during the reign of James I. A three day absence between 9 and 11 Apr. 1674 was almost certainly related to the death of his young son early in the morning of 9 April.<sup>46</sup> English involvement in war against the Dutch was ended with the Treaty of Westminster in early February, but after the end of the session on 24 Feb. there was discussion of Monmouth going to join the French army again on campaign. In the event he did not go, telling the French envoy ‘that he found himself prevented from doing this, because it would cost him a huge amount of money, and that he didn’t have a penny’, though the unpopularity of English troops participating in the war on the French side was no doubt just as important a reason; Monmouth did make efforts to prevent others from going to serve against the French in Holland.<sup>47</sup> Shortly after the end of the session as well, Monmouth benefited from Buckingham’s fall from favour, replacing him as master of the horse; a few months later, in July, the king recommended his election to the University of Cambridge as its chancellor.<sup>48</sup> An incident at the playhouse in March when Monmouth attempted to silence a gentleman who was disturbing the performance and called in troops to assist him suggests both that he was no longer the dissipated youth he had been, and perhaps that his association with France was making him unpopular. He was forced to back down when ‘50 swords were drawn against the soldiers, and it was shouted loudly that they had been declared a grievance by the Parliament’, though it is not clear whether the latter comment was misreported by the French ambassador, or whether the incident recalled that just over three years before in which soldiers commanded by Monmouth had attacked a civilian.<sup>49</sup></p><p>York’s suspicion of Monmouth seems to have been growing, perhaps because of his accumulation of offices following his own resignations the previous year, and what seems to have been a genuine effort to apply himself to business in his military role. In April 1674 the French ambassador told Louis XIV that ‘We are also trying to win over the Duke of York by the fears that we implant in him about the elevation of the Duke of Monmouth about which the prince has spoken to me a few times’.<sup>50</sup> He was also convinced that Monmouth was in alliance with Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, who was in turn a proponent of the interests of Holland and William of Orange rather than those of France.<sup>51</sup> (It was certainly Arlington whom John Hay, 2nd earl, later marquess, of Tweeddale chose to attempt to mediate in his long-running legal action with Monmouth in April 1675.)<sup>52</sup> Monmouth took a wrong step in September 1674, when he was reported to have been confined to his lodgings by the order of the king for misusing his military command by ordering his guards to confine John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), whose offence was to have courted Monmouth’s latest mistress.<sup>53</sup> At this point Monmouth would seem to have been still on relatively good terms with York, acting as godfather in January 1675 to his newborn daughter.<sup>54</sup> A picture of Monmouth’s activities was provided in early 1675:</p><blockquote><p>This day in the morning I went thither … but found he was gone betimes abroad to the exercise of his troop, and I, having returned thither after dinner, met with the like disappointment, for he dined with Major-general Egerton. Your lordship knows the play succeeds to dinner, and after that the court...<sup>55</sup></p></blockquote><p>Moreover, however much he applied himself to business, Monmouth continued to have multiple affairs: a Mr Coke of Norfolk was reported to have left his wife in September 1675 ‘for being abed with D Monmouth, a pecadillo now very common in this town’; indeed, only the previous month a Mrs Needham (‘with whom the duke of Monmouth was catcht abed’) was said to have given birth.<sup>56</sup> In March 1675 Justice Ross (perhaps a relation of Monmouth’s former tutor and governor, Thomas Ross) who was involved in the suppression of conventicles in London shortly before the opening of Parliament was said to ‘belong’ to Monmouth.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Monmouth’s attendance fell back to just under 61 per cent during the first session of 1675 with most of his absences concentrated towards the end of the session in May and early June. His attendance in the early days of the session meant that he was again named to the committees for privileges and petitions. In his calculations over the proposed non-resisting test, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) listed Monmouth as a supporter. He was not present, however, for many of the debates over the case of <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>. Monmouth was absent when the second session of 1675 opened on 13 Oct.; presumably anticipating that the troubles of the previous session were far from over, he covered himself with a proxy to York that was vacated on Monmouth’s arrival in the House on 25 October. Over the course of this short session he was absent for a further five days, making his overall attendance just over 51 per cent. He was named on 8 Nov. to the committee to enquire into the publication of the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>. He held the proxies of Arlington and of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester from 12 and 15 Nov. respectively, presumably to bolster court support during the dispute over <em>Sherley v. Fagg,</em> yet signs of strain were also present. On 15 Nov. it was reported that Danby had ‘spoke severely of the duke of Monmouth, and should have said he was not the king’s son, which the duke was going to take a violent resentment of’, though the king effected a reconciliation between the two of them.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Monmouth was still discussing recruiting replacement soldiers for the English regiment in France in June 1676, though he and the French ambassador agreed that once Parliament assembled (as it was expected to do in February 1677), it would no longer be possible to send over additional soldiers.<sup>59</sup> When Parliament finally resumed, in mid-February, 1677, Monmouth’s engagement with it seems to have risen a little. The 1677-8 session saw a rise in his attendance to nearly 70 per cent, though at least eight of his absences (from 29 Feb. to 10 Mar. 1678 inclusive) were caused by military duties abroad. During the course of the session he continued to be identified with the court: he held the proxies of the gout-ridden Arlington from 15 Feb. to 16 Mar. 1677; of Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, from 9 to 19 March 1677; of Lauderdale, from 4 to 9 Apr. 1677; of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, from 14 Apr. 1677 to 15 Jan. 1678; and of John Granville*, earl of Bath from 28 Feb. 1678 to 11 Mar. 1678. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, certainly identified him with the court, listing him in the course of 1677 as triply vile. Though Monmouth appears not to have been directly involved in legislative business in the session, he did have to resist a claim of privilege presented by the countess of Northumberland in relation to suits in the courts of common pleas and exchequer on behalf of herself and her granddaughter Elizabeth Percy; counsel were heard in the Lords on 28 May, the last day of business before a series of adjournments which kept Parliament effectively in abeyance until January 1678.</p><p>Shortly after the adjournment, in June 1677, it was said again that Monmouth had been proposed for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland: the proposal had been vigorously supported by Danby, but resisted by York, ‘not willing that Monmouth should have any interest in Ireland’. In the event Ormond was returned to Ireland as its viceroy.<sup>60</sup> If this implied a continuing, if implicit, tension between Monmouth and York, Shaftesbury’s suspicion of Monmouth joined with Monmouth’s explicit hostility to Buckingham to indicate that he was still very firmly outside the camp of York’s political opponents. Monmouth’s succession to Buckingham in his positions of master of the horse and chancellor of Cambridge may have encouraged a mutual antipathy, which perhaps originated with Monmouth’s role in the French service in 1672, which Buckingham had coveted.<sup>61</sup> In August, Monmouth joined with York and Danby in remonstrating with the king over Buckingham’s release, on the grounds that ‘this was to leap over all rules of decency and to suffer his authority to be trampled on’ (the release seems to have taken place while Monmouth was paying a visit to the Netherlands to study its techniques in siege warfare).<sup>62</sup> Monmouth was said in February 1678 to have strongly resented Buckingham’s return to favour.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Monmouth was present for most of the sittings of the second part of the 1677-8 session, apart from a period in early March. He was directly concerned in arguments about the Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex’s privilege in relation to litigation in the court of common pleas: his counsel, Serjeant Baldwin and John Cooke, were heard on 19 Feb. concerning lands in Northumberland. His major interest, though, was the prospect of a new military intervention on the continent. In mid-February it was being said that he would be a commander of a regiment under the duke of York, and at the end of February and in early March he made a brief visit to Flanders to review prospects for military action, returning about two weeks later with a downbeat assessment of the chances of success.<sup>64</sup> He made a rare appearance in a conference between the Houses on 22 Mar. 1678, acting as one of the managers concerning an address for a war with France. On 4 Apr. he voted with the majority to find Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. On 13 Apr., a warrant was issued for Monmouth’s appointment as captain-general of all the forces raised or to be raised in England and Wales for the expedition to support the Dutch and Spanish forces in Flanders.<sup>65</sup> It was presumably this commission which aroused York’s anger when he noticed that Monmouth had been described in it as the king’s son, rather than natural son, and discovered that the change had been made by Monmouth’s secretary, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, on the orders of Monmouth himself.<sup>66</sup> (York would keep a hawkish eye on other examples of such sharp practice, complaining in February 1679 about another patent passing under the great seal of Ireland in which Monmouth was also described as the king’s son, without the qualifier ‘natural’, and in 1679 would thank the then lord privy seal, John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), for his help in preventing further instances.)<sup>67</sup> In April 1678 Monmouth took steps (albeit unsuccessfully) to support the election petition of Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons, ordering all the army officers who were members of the lower House to support it.<sup>68</sup> Now evidently participating in meetings of the cabinet council, in May he was present, together with York, Danby and his father, when it heard the representations of various Scots nobles against Lauderdale.<sup>69</sup> In June the new army was assembled on Hounslow Heath, and Monmouth was with the English contingent at the battle of St Denis at the beginning of August.<sup>70</sup> James II later claimed that Monmouth used the voyage to court Prince William of Orange, and to build up his interest within the army.<sup>71</sup></p><p>He returned later that month, shortly after the first revelations of the supposed Popish Plot. He was present at the extraordinary meeting of the Privy Council on 27 Sept. which examined Oates and other witnesses about the Plot.<sup>72</sup> In September he issued orders for any army officer who was a member of the Commons and still in Flanders to return by 1 Oct. so that they could take their seats.<sup>73</sup> He also may have been the ‘great hand’ that attempted to secure the election of one of his servants as successor to Andrew Marvell in Hull. At this point in his career he was still on good terms with York and the court and collaborated with York to secure the return of the court candidate, Sir Anthony Deane<sup>‡</sup>, at the New Shoreham by-election.<sup>74</sup> In the contentious final session of the Cavalier Parliament which opened on 21 Oct. Monmouth was present on all but two days; his early arrival meant that he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. Said to be one of the targets for Catholic assassins, Monmouth now took a close interest in the Plot, and a much closer interest in parliamentary proceedings. On 23 Oct. along with everyone else in the chamber, he was named to the committee to examine papers about the plot and the death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. On 26 Oct. he was named to the committee to draw an address to the king for the preservation of his person and reported from it on 28 October. Discussions about evidence in the House on 30 Oct. revealed that Monmouth was actively involved in the investigation and had shown some of the papers to the king; the following day he was charged by the House with responsibility for the safety of Titus Oates. On 1 Nov. he was named to a small but distinctively Protestant committee to investigate reports of ‘knocking and digging’ in the cellars close to the chamber. The king’s speech to the House on 9 Nov. promising to accept new laws ‘to make you safe in the reign of any successor’ was widely interpreted as an endorsement of a claim to the throne by Monmouth even though he had also insisted that such new laws could not ‘impeach the right of succession, nor the descent of the crown in the true line’. Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> reported that this ‘notorious mistake’ had ‘all the City in bells and bonfires’ and feared that it was ‘a dangerous thing for a body of people to plunge themselves into a mistake, and ’tis thought this very accident may do the duke as much hurt as anything else.’ He also reported that the people had drunk the healths of the king, Monmouth and Shaftesbury ‘as the only three pillars of all safety’.<sup>75</sup> On 13 Nov. a rumour was reported that Monmouth was dying of some slow-acting but deadly poison and that Parliament had prepared an address to the king for a declaration about Monmouth’s legitimacy.<sup>76</sup> On 15 Nov. in committee of the whole House he voted (in company with York, Danby, and other leading courtiers) against putting the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths but, in the early stages at least, he was reported to be otherwise in favour of the Test.<sup>77</sup> By the 16th it was reported that his name was linked with those of the king and the earl of Shaftesbury as ‘the only three pillars of all safety’.<sup>78</sup> In his capacity as captain-general on 18 Nov. he was ordered by the House to provide adequate guards for black rod’s search of papist houses for the body of a missing man and to escort Edward Coleman to and from Newgate to the House. On 20 Nov. when the final vote on the test bill took place Monmouth (unlike Danby) was in the House but he left the House before the division took place, apparently to avoid voting on the proviso that protected York. York was incensed at Monmouth’s behaviour, complaining (according to his later memoir) to the king that ‘for a long time he had suspected the duke of Monmouth’s friendship’, that the duke ‘affected popularity’, and was very friendly with prominent ‘country’ politicians, Essex and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, ‘had reason to believe there was no ill understanding betwixt him and my Lord Shaftesbury himself’; and that ‘he frequently permitted his health to be drunk under the title of prince of Wales’.<sup>79</sup> Monmouth voted on 26 Dec. in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments concerning the payment of funds for disbandment of the army into the exchequer, rather than the chamber of London. In the meantime his belief in the reality of the plot and of the threat to his life had begun to transform his political outlook. Although on 27 Dec. he voted against committing Danby, the depth of his commitment to the treasurer was far from clear; he was also said to ‘to be more of a man of business than was expected he would prove.’<sup>80</sup></p><p>In January 1679 the claims about Monmouth’s legitimacy had become sufficiently general for the king to make a formal declaration to the contrary.<sup>81</sup> According to information passed to Danby by his informant, Thomas Knox, on 23 Jan., Monmouth’s ‘creatures’ were regularly passing messages between their master, Shaftesbury and Buckingham.<sup>82</sup> The general election of 1679 saw Monmouth able to secure the return of at least three of his close supporters: his secretary, James Vernon, at Cambridge University, an officer closely associated with him, Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup>, at Stafford, and Lemuel Kingdon<sup>‡</sup>, deputy paymaster of the forces, at Hull.<sup>83</sup> Monmouth was present when the new Parliament met on 6 March. His attendance during the only session of the first exclusion parliament was just over 85 per cent and his presence early in the session ensured his nomination on the 11th to the committees for privileges and petitions. Initially it was unclear whether Monmouth had deserted Danby and the court. Shaftesbury still regarded Vernon and Armstrong as courtiers, and in his initial calculation of supporters and opponents Danby thought Monmouth could be won over if spoken to by the king.<sup>84</sup> Danby’s intermediary, Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, however, reported around 1 Mar. a conversation he had had with Monmouth after Monmouth had dined with Shaftesbury. He told them that they were both ‘willing to do anything that might save your life and estate, but they could not be for supporting the pardon’: Conway referred to Monmouth’s ‘consideration to his party’.<sup>85</sup> The remainder of Danby’s lists unequivocally show Monmouth as one of his opponents and on 22 Mar. Monmouth was named to the committee to disqualify Danby. He was also named as one of the managers of the conference to discuss Danby’s fate with the Commons. Danby’s son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, railed against the king’s lack of support for his father, adding that ‘the duke of Monmouth who they have made the cat’s foot to bring you to this is so eternally with him that nothing he does is to be wondered at.’<sup>86</sup> Thomas Butler*, generally known by his Irish courtesy title as earl of Ossory, but who sat in the English House of Lords as Baron Butler of Moor Park, also wrote of ‘the great credit the duke of Monmouth is now in, and how vigorously he opposes against the papists.’<sup>87</sup> Monmouth’s position was strengthened by York’s enforced absence. During the debate on the second reading of the bill against Danby on 2 Apr. 1679 it was noted that Monmouth and other members of ‘the court party did not befriend him’.<sup>88</sup> Monmouth agreed that the bill as presented was undesirable but argued that it could be made acceptable by omitting the provision for attainder and moved for it to be committed.<sup>89</sup> On 14 Apr. he was appointed as one of the peers to carry it to the king and to request a speedy assent. The subsequent dissolution and reconstitution of the Privy Council to include Monmouth, Shaftesbury and other ‘country’ politicians was also attributed to Monmouth (though Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> wrote that the proposal had been agreed on between himself, the king, the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham), the earl of Essex and the earl of Sunderland, and that the night before it was due to take effect, the king had revealed it to Monmouth, who ‘told it so many, that it was common talk next morning; which we interpreted either lightness or vanity, to have it thought, that he had part in an affair likely to pass so well’. With hindsight Reresby concluded that it was ‘here that he began to set up for himself’. Reresby nevertheless sought his assistance again with his election petition.<sup>90</sup> Monmouth was also included in a newly formed intelligence committee.<sup>91</sup> At the beginning of May Danby drafted a petition to the king complaining about Monmouth’s animosity towards him: Monmouth had said publicly that Danby should not be allowed to plead his pardon, a sentiment repeated by Sir Thomas Armstrong to the duke of Albemarle.<sup>92</sup> Danby bitterly noted in a note on the back of a letter dated 11 May that Monmouth had been as much involved in the ‘French interest’ as anyone else in the last few years.<sup>93</sup></p><p>On 9 and 14 May 1679 he was present for the first and second readings of a bill concerning a conveyance of land to trustees made by himself and Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford). The diversion from national politics was shortlived. The following day he entered a dissent to the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with a similar committee from the Commons to consider the manner of the trials of the impeached popish peers and was also named as one of the managers of a conference concerning Danby’s petition. Monmouth may have become more open about his ambitions. Reresby wrote, retrospectively, that Shaftesbury had persuaded Monmouth that the king would either declare his marriage to Monmouth’s mother or would facilitate an act of parliament to legitimate him, and Sir William Temple wrote in a similar vein.<sup>94</sup> It was reported in mid-May that Armstrong had approached Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in an attempt to gain his support for Monmouth’s succession to the crown, although the sheer brazenness of such an attempt led to a certain disbelief and the suggestion that is was ‘a made story’.<sup>95</sup> York, from his exile in Brussels, feared for the future of the monarchy under the onslaught of its country opponents and advocated strong and punitive action before they had gained more strength; in a letter of 20 May, the day before the second reading of the exclusion bill in the Commons, he warned that his brother ‘must have a care the D[uke] of Monmouth does not head them, for he is the only dangerous man than can do it, if he does not no man of quality will dare’.<sup>96</sup> Monmouth was said to have entreated his father to seek the advice of the council before proroguing Parliament on 27 May, which added to his current popularity.<sup>97</sup> In early June, in another of his letters to George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth, outlining his concerns about Monmouth, and probably responding to the news about Armstrong, York wrote that:</p><blockquote><p>as you very well said I did not live with the duke of Monmouth … for many years as if I had had any unkindnesse for him, and till he spake to me himself at Windsor some five or six years ago, of his having a mind to be general, I never took anything ill of him, nor grew jealous of him, but after what I had said to him upon that subject, of my reasons against it, and that I told him then freely he was not to expect my friendship if ever he pretended to it or had it. One cannot wonder if I was against any thing that did increase his power in military affairs… especially when I saw he used all the little arts and artifices, by degrees to compass his point of being general, and I am sure if he had had but the least consideration or friendship for me, which I might have very well expected from him, he would never have thought more of being general, but after all that he has done against me, if he will serve his majesty as he ought, and that his Majesty lay his command upon me, I am ready to live civilly with him, tho’ I can never trust him.<sup>98</sup></p></blockquote><p>The prorogation produced bitter contests in the Privy Council, in particular between Shaftesbury and George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, and between Monmouth and the earl of Essex.<sup>99</sup> Later in June Monmouth was despatched to suppress the rebellion in Scotland. His mission might have been designed to cause a rift between him and Shaftesbury, who was keen to exploit the Scottish crisis as a means of forcing meetings of Parliament in both countries. In a heated meeting of the council he argued that under the terms of the 1641 Act of Pacification, English troops could not enter Scotland unless invited to do so by the Scots parliament. Shaftesbury was said both to have made his alliance with Monmouth explicit, as well as envisaging an alternative, with the statement that</p><blockquote><p>if the king so governed as that his estate might with safety be transmitted to his son, as it was by his father to him, and he might enjoy the known rights and liberties of the subjects, he would rather be under kingly government, but if he would not be satisfied of that he declared he was for a commonwealth’.<sup>100</sup></p></blockquote><p>Monmouth’s victory over the rebels at Bothwell Brig on 22 June and his role in promoting a subsequent indemnity for rebels and a declaration of indulgence provided a considerable increase in his reputation.</p><p>Before Monmouth’s return, the French ambassador Barillon told Louis XIV that the English court was split into two factions, that led by Shaftesbury and Monmouth and that of Sunderland. He suggested that in the world outside the court the veteran Presbyterian leader Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, held the balance between them. He also suggested that whilst Shaftesbury was determinedly anti-French, and Monmouth did not contradict him, and allowed him to take the lead, the duke was in fact desperate to secure French support for his claim to the throne. He predicted that Shaftesbury and Monmouth would win out, because the king was not really committed to opposing Monmouth’s pretensions and was prepared to take advantage of his popularity and consequent ability to quell disorders without worrying about what would happen after his death.<sup>101</sup> Monmouth’s prestige, which was thought likely to increase his strength in a new session of Parliament, contributed to the king’s decision to dissolve it.<sup>102</sup> Monmouth had returned to Whitehall by 9 July, and was said to have tried to prevent the dissolution, which was announced in a proclamation on the 12th.<sup>103</sup> York writing on 22 July complained that the king had made no attempt to reconcile him and Monmouth from which the consequences ‘are obvious enough to any one that considers’.<sup>104</sup> Conway reported that although Shaftesbury stayed away from court, he and Monmouth ‘meet very often’, and even suggested that Lord Chancellor Finch shared the sentiment that the king would ultimately abandon York.<sup>105</sup></p><p>The king’s sudden illness at the end of August 1679, when Monmouth was ‘in his greatest height’ produced a crisis that tested the theory.<sup>106</sup> Monmouth’s acolyte Armstrong was said to have busied himself with meetings with radicals in the City, and in what may simply have been the earlier story repeated, was said to have tried to persuade the earl of Oxford to intercede with the king over altering the succession.<sup>107</sup> Sunderland later told Henry Sydney*, the future earl of Romney, ‘that if the king had died, he [the duke] would have made great troubles, either setting up for himself, or for a commonwealth.’<sup>108</sup> York’s hasty return and reunion with the king seems to have produced in the king a belated determination to deal with the situation once he had recovered from his illness. As the price for agreeing to leave again for exile, York extracted an agreement from the king that Monmouth should also leave the country; the king also (additionally annoyed by another of Monmouth’s affairs, this time apparently a seduction of the ‘little’ duchess of Southampton, wife of Charles’s son by Castlemaine, Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Southampton) revoked on or about 12 Sept. Monmouth’s commission as captain-general.<sup>109</sup> The decision to exile Monmouth was so unpopular that an erroneous report that the king had changed his mind ‘made all about Whitehall make bonfires for joy.’<sup>110</sup> It raised new concerns about the extent of York’s influence, a thing ‘of dangerous consequence’, especially in the absence of a sitting parliament.<sup>111</sup> On one view, the fact that York’s departure was well attended by nobility and courtiers suggested that the imbroglio had enhanced his prestige. On the other, even though Monmouth was seen off only by ‘Lord Gerard of Brandon’ (possibly Charles Gerard*, Viscount Brandon, and son of the recently promoted Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield), the fact that he was accompanied only by menial servants and his wife and children remained in England suggested that his absence was unlikely to be a long one.<sup>112</sup> Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup>, writing to Ormond, suggested that the king expected that Monmouth’s exile would weaken Shaftesbury and resolve the divisions in the privy council; but, as he pointed out, his continuing demonstrations of ‘personal kindness’ such as continuing Monmouth’s salary even after revoking his offices suggested that he was still high in favour; Monmouth himself was said to believe that his exile would be a very temporary one that would last only as long as the upcoming parliamentary session.<sup>113</sup> In the weeks following his departure it was regularly rumoured that he was on the point of being recalled.<sup>114</sup> His refusal to take formal leave of his uncle was ‘reckoned little less than defiance.’<sup>115</sup> It was rumoured that a document disabling Monmouth from acting as captain-general was being drawn up, although a proposal to issue him with a pardon was thought to be potentially controversial: Southwell predicted that the new session of parliament would see an attempt to pass a new statute to prohibit pardons to privy councillors and public officers unless the consent of parliament were also obtained.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Monmouth passed his time in Holland, and visited Utrecht.<sup>117</sup> The king’s recall of York in October, in order to send him to Scotland instead, his further prorogation of Parliament, and his dismissal of Shaftesbury from the council provoked Monmouth to return uninvited on 27 Nov. 1679, claiming that he needed to do so in order to clear himself of accusations of treason levied by ‘his adversaries, the papists’; indeed whilst in exile he had been dubbed ‘general of the rebels’.<sup>118</sup> His reception on his return confirmed his popularity both with the people and with the army to the extent that it ‘much alarmed the court.’ His return was met with the king’s displeasure: a message was sent via Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg (presumed to be an ally, because he had been appointed Monmouth’s deputy as chief justice in eyre in his absence) to forbid him to come to court and to order him back into exile. Monmouth refused, arguing that ‘no man ought to be banished without his consent’ and standing ‘upon the liberty of an Englishman’, and demanding that he be formally accused and stand trial.<sup>119</sup> A publication alleging that the king had been married to his mother appeared in London at the same time as his arrival, as did a series of laudatory verses, published, it was said at eight o’clock in the morning. It had the hallmarks of a campaign carefully planned by Shaftesbury, and Southwell indeed reported that Monmouth was being advised by ‘the Lords who meet’ (Shaftesbury and his allies) and that he would join in the address for a new Parliament.<sup>120</sup> York, from Scotland, decided that Monmouth was planning to make himself leader of a republic after the pattern of the Prince of Orange, and hoped for a clear public indication of the king’s disapproval of Monmouth’s conduct ‘because people began to think he was coming into favour again’.<sup>121</sup> He added a political and strategic critique to personal animosity by accusing Monmouth of an ill judged leniency in the aftermath of the Scottish rebellion declaring that ‘the generality of the best men here’ believed it would merely encourage further rebellion.<sup>122</sup> On 2 Dec. Sir Robert Southwell reported to Ormond that Halifax thought</p><blockquote><p>the business of [the duke of Monmouth] such a morrice-dance as that none but [Shaftesbury] could have been adviser in it. He and [Monmouth] do in their discourses intimate as if [prince of Orange] would speedily be here and unite with their desire of a [Parliament], and set forth the ruinous state of his interest by reason of the practices of France unless immediately supported here.<sup>123</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ossory confirmed that Monmouth was claiming the support of Prince William for his actions: William quickly denied it.<sup>124</sup></p><p>The king stripped Monmouth of his remaining offices—the captaincy of the Life Guards, the chief justiceship in eyre, the governorship of Hull, lord lieutenancies of Staffordshire and the East Riding—and seems to have held to his resolution of banning Monmouth from his presence, despite repeated appeals delivered by Fauconberg and Lord Gerard of Brandon.<sup>125</sup> The difficulty of ascertaining the king’s real intentions were further complicated by his decision to overturn the ban on Monmouth’s presence in Whitehall in order to allow him to spend time at the Cockpit with his duchess after the death of one of their sons. Southwell noted that the king was ‘pleased to hear anybody speak well’ of Monmouth and that he would welcome a reconciliation.<sup>126</sup> Monmouth’s public life began to look like a series of celebrity appearances. His arrival at a service in St Martin’s church on 14 Dec., where he made a conspicuous show of receiving the sacrament, was greeted with cries of ‘God bless the duke of Monmouth’. He was similarly feted at appearances elsewhere.<sup>127</sup> Such appearances went alongside the petitioning campaign initiated by Shaftesbury and his associates and underway in December 1679 and January 1680, aimed at ensuring that Parliament would be allowed to sit; indeed, it was still active in February in Chichester where Monmouth, dressed in a scarlet suit and cloak ‘which the great men for petitioning for Parliament called the red flag’, and accompanied by another of Shaftesbury’s associates, Ford Grey*, Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), made a visit, much to the chagrin of Bishop Guy Carleton*, who regarded those who turned out to welcome them as a ‘rabble of brutes’.<sup>128</sup></p><p>By then, the king had already prorogued Parliament again at the end of January 1680 to the following April, and the return to London of the duke of York late in February deflated opposition expectations. It was more difficult to maintain elite support in the face of the king’s apparent resolution—in mid-March the mayor of London’s reaction when asked to host a dinner at which Shaftesbury and Monmouth would be guests of honour (designed as a riposte to a dinner held in honour of the duke of York) was an indication of the way the wind was believed to be blowing: ‘if the duke of Monmouth came in at one door’, he said, ‘he would get out at another.’<sup>129</sup> In April the king confronted a claim that had now become current that Bishop Cosin had signed a paper, kept in the infamous ‘black box’, verifying the marriage of the king and Monmouth’s mother: Cosin’s son-in-law, Sir Gilbert Gerrard<sup>‡</sup>, was summoned before an extraordinary meeting of the council and the judges on the evening of 26 Apr. to deny on oath the existence of the box or the paper.<sup>130</sup> The council’s inquiries revealed that Monmouth had paid Sir Thomas Armstrong’s expenses for a journey to find evidence of his parents’ marriage. York wanted Armstrong prosecuted ‘and hinted yet something further but the King was weary of this affair’ and referred the whole matter to the attorney general whereupon it lapsed.<sup>131</sup> The well-publicised meeting of council failed to kill the story; Lord Gerard was also said to have appeared before the council in May to tell what he knew about the business (to which inquiry he responded evasively); on 26 May the king repeated, and had entered into the council register the statement he had made in January 1679 on the subject, William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, made a formal deposition in chancery and in June 1680 the king issued a declaration denying the marriage.<sup>132</sup></p><p>Meanwhile Monmouth’s popularity continued. A virulent response to the king’s declaration appeared, authored by Robert Ferguson, shortly after its publication; a reward was said to have been offered for the discovery of its author.<sup>133</sup> He was applauded after dining in the City on 30 June as part of the campaign to ensure the election of Whig sheriffs and was rapturously received when he went on a tour of the west country from 24 Aug. to 3 Sept. in company with Shaftesbury ‘and others of that knot’.<sup>134</sup> In a short tour, he visited Thomas Thynne<sup>‡ </sup>at Longleat, George Speke<sup>‡</sup> at Whitelackington in Somerset, Sir John Sydenham<sup>‡</sup>, at Brympton, close to Yeovil, Michael Harvey<sup>‡</sup> at Clifton Maybank in Dorset. At Crewkerne in Somerset, he touched (allegedly successfully) for the king’s evil: a published broadside describing the ‘miracle’ implicitly claimed supernatural affirmation of his legitimacy.<sup>135</sup> He was similarly welcomed by the townspeople on a brief visit to Oxford in September even though the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, had written on the king’s behalf to the bishop and others to discourage the university and gentry from showing any support for him.<sup>136</sup> It seemed to the French ambassador that Monmouth’s support was growing stronger day by day.<sup>137</sup> When he returned to London early in October for the much anticipated first sitting of the second Exclusion Parliament it was noted that although he did not go to court, he was visited by several noblemen.<sup>138</sup></p><p>With the imminence of Parliament, Monmouth seemed again likely to prevail. Shortly before Parliament met, it was said that the king had ‘often’ met Monmouth at the lodgings of the king’s mistress Louise de Kerouaille, duchess of Portsmouth (who had now decided to abandon her previous support for the duke of York, and was cultivating Monmouth). The king’s resolve to stick by York was regarded as weak; plans to introduce charges against York placed more pressure on him.<sup>139</sup> York returned to Scotland the day before the meeting of the second Exclusion Parliament on 20 Oct. 1680. On the same day, Monmouth (who had taken a house in Bishopsgate, in the heart of the City, from country politician Sir Eliab Harvey<sup>‡</sup>) dined at the Sun Tavern with Shaftesbury, Oates and ‘above 100 Parliament men’.<sup>140</sup> Monmouth was present on all but five sitting days of the session (giving him an attendance rate of around 92 per cent). The king’s speech emphasized once again his determination to see the preservation of the correct and lawful descent of the crown.<sup>141</sup> Charles seems to have taken care not to acknowledge Monmouth ‘though they meet every day in the House’; even by 16 Nov. he had not taken notice of him.<sup>142</sup> On 1 Nov. Monmouth attended the lord mayor’s feast, along with Lord Grey of Warke and Thomas Thynne, among others.<sup>143</sup> Shortly afterwards, at St Martin’s, he stood</p><blockquote><p>near half an hour in the throng of the people in the yard, and all uncovered admiring him. He hath on his coach painted an heart wounded with two arrows, cross, the plume of feathers, two angells bearing up a scarf either side, which some say is [the] p[rince of ] W[ales’s] arms. He is mightily followed in the City.<sup>144</sup></p></blockquote><p>There were, though, symptoms of opposition to the general enthusiasm for Monmouth, which his allies were keen to stamp on. On 6 Nov. Shaftesbury reported from the committee investigating the Popish Plot that they had received two informations of ‘reproachful language’ uttered by one John Mason against Monmouth. Mason had called Monmouth ‘a puppy and a fool’ and accused him of being ‘a valiant rebel’, who ‘went, like a snow-ball, up and down, to gather interest’, implying that he planned to raise a rebellion. The House ordered Mason to be arrested for a breach of privilege; he was not released until he made a fulsome apology on 20 December.</p><p>In mid-November Danby approached Monmouth via Conway in order to secure Shaftesbury’s support in ending his imprisonment, hoping that a cordial exchange of letters when Monmouth had been sent into exile was a token of his goodwill. Monmouth, however, clearly acting closely under Shaftesbury’s instructions, and seeing him very regularly, conveyed his negative response to the approach.<sup>145</sup> On 15 Nov. Monmouth voted against rejecting the bill to exclude the duke of York at its first reading in the Lords, and entered a dissent at the decision. On 18 Nov., in a conversation with Conway, he expressed some willingness to help Danby, but claimed that ‘Danby’s friends’ had done him ‘the greatest injury in the world’ in opposing exclusion, and took it to mean that Danby himself supported York.<sup>146</sup> Monmouth was present on 16 and 17 Nov. when alternative measures against York were discussed, including an Association, the repeal of the proviso in the Test Act that exempted York from taking the oaths, and provision to prevent him or any Catholic monarch from using the crown’s ecclesiastical patronage. On the 19th he was again present when the House agreed to debate the king’s marriage, a proposal of Shaftesbury’s, aiming to achieve a divorce—a proposal which, on the face of it, might have been less than welcome to Monmouth, and was vigorously opposed by Halifax.<sup>147</sup> Monmouth was named that day to a committee to investigate abuses in the management of the post office, perhaps an oblique attack on York. The following day he was named to a committee to investigate the operation of the statutes against recusancy which appears to have been intended to ensure that they were enforced against Catholics but not against Dissenters. On 23 Nov. when the House refused to create a committee to consider the state of the kingdom in conjunction with the Commons, Monmouth and his allies expressed their disappointment in a protest that emphasized the utility of such a committee in securing the safety of the king and the Protestant religion ‘against the bloody designs of the papists’. The debate on the king’s marriage was deferred to some future unspecified date (Shaftesbury being absent that day). However the House did decide in favour of proceeding with a series of ‘expedients’. On 24 Nov. Monmouth was added to the committee to draft a bill for the Association. In December he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. He was present on 15 Dec. when the king addressed both Houses in a vain attempt to secure a speedy supply. The Commons reacted to the king’s speech with renewed demand for exclusion and for a bill to create an Association. Daniel Finch*, the future 2nd earl of Nottingham, commented that no one really understood what was meant by an Association ‘unless they mean to set up the duke of Monmouth for generalissimo independent of the king, for which the House [of Commons] seemed not yet enough disposed’.<sup>148</sup> On 18 Dec. Monmouth was one of several peers who were invited by the military officers of the Tower Hamlets to an entertainment that included a ballad criticizing the bishops who had voted against exclusion and which gave ‘great offence’ to the court.<sup>149</sup> When an attack was launched in the House of Lords on 21 Dec. on York’s friends and allies about the king, Monmouth supported Essex and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, demanding ‘that such persons might be removed, as either owed their advancement, or had any relation to the duke; which saucy expression the duke of Monmouth took pleasure in repeating frequently, imagining to cast a blemish upon his highness by it’.<sup>150</sup> On 7 Jan. 1681 Monmouth entered a dissent to the refusal of the House to put the question of whether Sir William Scroggs should be committed on articles of impeachment brought from the Commons. </p><p>On 18 Jan. 1681 the king put an end to the Parliament and summoned a new one to meet on 21 Mar. in Oxford. Monmouth was one of the 16 peers who petitioned on 25 Jan. that Parliament might meet at Westminster, as usual.<sup>151</sup> Over February, Monmouth was again active in seeking support and electioneering. He dined with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, bringing with him a group of other opposition figures, including Grey of Warke, Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, William Howard*, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, Sir Thomas Armstrong and Thomas Thynne; and appeared with Buckingham in support of opposition candidates in Southwark.<sup>152</sup> He made an appearance at Chichester, where he was entertained by Grey of Warke.<sup>153</sup> As before, and despite his anti-exclusion stand in the previous Parliament, many found it difficult to gauge the king’s intentions. In March, shortly before the new Parliament met, Halifax told Reresby that the king’s loyalty to his brother was uncertain and that Monmouth was looking for a reconciliation, and a report on 15 Mar. that he would not go to Oxford, and a warrant issued on 12 Mar. to pay Monmouth some of the arrears due on his offices might have been an indication of moves towards one.<sup>154</sup> It may also have explained why Monmouth missed the first day of the new Parliament, though he did turn up ‘with a great train’, and Shaftesbury, at least, was still firmly advocating settling the crown on Monmouth.<sup>155</sup> On 25 Mar. Monmouth was named, together with almost all those present, to the committee for receiving information on the popish plot. On 26 Mar. he was named as one of the reporters for the conference on methods of passing bills and entered a dissent against the resolution to proceed against Fitzharris by common law indictment rather than by impeachment. Monmouth’s last appearance in Parliament was on 28 Mar. 1681 when the king summarily dissolved it.</p><p>Despite the apparently decisive dismissal of Parliament, a week later York, from Scotland, was still fretting about Monmouth and the endeavours of the duchess of Portsmouth on his behalf and the possibility of another Parliament.<sup>156</sup> In London there were still doubts about Monmouth’s continuing adherence to Shaftesbury and ‘his party’, and there appear to have been some negotiations between him and the court, but the doubts were probably dispelled by his very public attendance with other country peers on 8 June when a London grand jury returned a bill of ignoramus against Stephen College and his decision to visit Shaftesbury after his arrest on 2 July and imprisonment on a charge of treason: Monmouth’s own arrest was widely anticipated, though it did not happen.<sup>157</sup> In October 1681 Monmouth refused to obey an order from the Scottish Privy Council, no doubt inspired by York, to take the Scots Test, arguing that he was required to take it only in Scotland.<sup>158</sup> As intended the result was that Monmouth was stripped of his remaining Scots offices; it also served to emphasize that he was unable to claim exemption under the relevant Scots statute which extended only to the king’s lawful sons and brothers.<sup>159</sup> Having spent the summer and early autumn in Tunbridge Wells, at the Quainton races with Thomas Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, later marquess of Wharton, dining frequently with Anglesey, and meeting Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester and other Shaftesbury supporters to discuss his options, in November he angered the king further by his presence in the court of king’s bench for the release of Shaftesbury and by his willingness to stand bail for him; a few days later he was forbidden the court and stripped of his last remaining office, the mastership of the horse which, as Halifax pointed out, amounted to ‘a great bar to his return near the king’.<sup>160</sup> His commitment to the opposition had also been evident in his joining with Grey of Warke and Lord Herbert in attacking Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, both verbally and in print, for kissing the king’s hand at the end of October.<sup>161</sup></p><p>Monmouth was reported as being ‘very merry’ drinking with Sunderland and the duchess of Portsmouth at the beginning of December, a report that provoked the king to reiterate the ban on Monmouth’s presence at court.<sup>162</sup> A row between Monmouth and his successor as commander of the life guards, the duke of Albemarle, at the beginning of the year, narrowly avoided turning into a duel.<sup>163</sup> The murder of Thomas Thynne in February, was initially linked to his closeness to Monmouth, who had been recently in the coach with him, though it turned out to be related to his recent marriage. Monmouth and ‘his party’ were closely involved in the investigation and the prosecution of Thynne’s assailants.<sup>164</sup> He continued to associate with opposition figures, dining with sheriff Pilkington and Shaftesbury, Essex, Howard of Escrick and Grey in mid-March, and dining with Anglesey and Herbert later in the month.<sup>165</sup> York’s return to England in the spring of 1682 marked the beginning of the final phase of Monmouth’s disgrace. He lost his last English office, the chancellorship of Cambridge in April 1682.<sup>166</sup> A great livery company feast late that month planned to counter one in honour of York, with Monmouth, Essex and Shaftesbury among the principal guests, was banned by the council as a seditious and unlawful assembly.<sup>167</sup> In May Monmouth was reported to have used Sir Robert Holmes<sup>‡</sup> to contact the king, begging his pardon but insisting that ‘he would rather die than be reconciled or submit to the duke of York’. Although Monmouth subsequently denied that he had authorized any such approach, the king instructed all his servants and any who expected his favour to refuse to meet or communicate with Monmouth, for (as was reported to Richard Butler*, Baron Butler of Westn, better known as earl of Arran [I])</p><blockquote><p>since the duke of Monmouth has declared a separation from his Brother, His majesty thinks it now high time to make a distinction between the sheep and the goats. I happened to be in the Bedchamber yesterday morning when his majesty declared himself with some warmth upon this subject, adding that he had the Black Box still in his head.<sup>168</sup></p></blockquote><p>When Monmouth subsequently, and threateningly, approached Halifax after the Sunday service at St Martin’s to ask him whether he had advised the king to issue his instructions against consorting with him, the king was further incensed, declaring it to be ‘an unmannerly insolence’ and reiterating his ban on associating with his son.<sup>169</sup> Monmouth dined with Anglesey the night before he gave up the privy seal in August.<sup>170</sup> A probably accidental encounter between Monmouth and York in Hyde Park on 11 Aug. was, according to one observer,</p><blockquote><p>civiller than I expected, when the Dukes coach came near, Monmouth made his stop, his coachman and servants being uncover’d, and as he came by he stood up and made him a low bow, which the duke return’d with a civil one, and in the same manner they met several times.<sup>171</sup></p></blockquote><p>This might have suggested a willingness to compromise on Monmouth’s part as the price of returning to the king’s favour, as was suggested in some correspondence of late August; he was even reported to have broken with Shaftesbury, by proposing not to go horse-racing in Cheshire, evidently intended as a rally for the Whigs, and his duchess was said to have approached the duchess of York to intercede for him: Tory success in the London shrievalty elections, the prospect of the loss of the City’s charter and of the country party’s most dependable allies was optimistically thought at the beginning of September to have concentrated Whig minds and to have persuaded them to agree to the grant of generous supply in a new Parliament and to cease ‘meddling’ with York.<sup>172</sup> Planning with the earl of Macclesfield, George Booth*, Baron Delamer, and others for the Cheshire visit, however, had been well under way at the end of August.<sup>173</sup> Monmouth left early in September 1682 for the north-west. With a train of some 200 horsemen and two coaches he made a magnificent progress, accompanied by Macclesfield and his son, feted by the populace and extravagantly entertained by nobility and gentry, though some of the government’s informants, sending reports back to Whitehall, described only a small retinue (‘no more than 8 or 9 persons, all except Sir Thomas Armstrong and Mr [Francis] Charlton<sup>‡</sup> of Shropshire being servants’). Having gone via Daventry, Westchester and Coventry and Lichfield, he met and stayed with William Leveson Gower<sup>‡</sup> at Trentham in Staffordshire, before moving on, supported by local politicians including Richard Savage*, styled Viscount Colchester, later 4th Earl Rivers, John Mainwaring<sup>‡</sup>, Roger Whitley<sup>‡</sup>, to Nantwich, and then to Chester, where the crowds were particularly riotous, continuing on to Wallasey (where at the races William Richard George Stanley* 9th earl of Derby coolly kept his distance), Liverpool and to Delamer’s house at Dunham Massey.<sup>174</sup></p><p>According to one observer, Monmouth’s supporters met weekly, and ‘have great banks of money, powder, and all sorts of ammunition’.<sup>175</sup> Later, it was alleged that the progress had been intended as preliminary to a Whig insurrection led by Shaftesbury, and Grey of Warke’s 1685 written confession stated that the project had been initiated in late June at Thanet House between him, Monmouth, Lord William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, and Shaftesbury. The government may have believed something was afoot, for it issued a warrant for Monmouth’s arrest, which was executed at Stafford on 22 Sept.: the way it was executed, however—in a conspicuous and well publicised indication of the king’s displeasure, Monmouth was arrested ‘in the midst of his partakers and dependants’ at Stafford and brought back to London—and the events that followed—a brief imprisonment after refusing to enter into bail to keep the peace—do not suggest that the king was unduly concerned at the time about a possible revolution.<sup>176</sup> According to Grey of Warke, the arrest occasioned excited discussions between Shaftesbury and his other supporters when Sir Thomas Armstrong returned to London in advance of Monmouth in order to consult with them. Shaftesbury’s advice, that Monmouth should return to Cheshire to start an uprising, was thought by the others to be absurdly unrealistic.<sup>177</sup> When Monmouth himself arrived in London on 23 Sept., Shaftesbury, with Herbert, Russell, Charlton, possibly Essex and others visited him.<sup>178</sup> Grey wrote that after Monmouth’s release on 25 Sept., Monmouth, Grey, and Russell visited Shaftesbury, who bitterly complained about the duke’s failure to return to Cheshire. Other accounts, deriving from Russell and Essex, suggest the essential truth of Grey’s version of this meeting.<sup>179</sup></p><p>Freed on a writ of <em>habeas corpus</em>, Monmouth was once again forbidden to go to Whitehall or St James’s, though the king was furious when he himself spotted Monmouth leaving Mulgrave’s lodgings at the end of October:</p><blockquote><p>The king happening to be going through the Long Gallery, that leads to the duchess of Portsmouth’s lodgings, he met the said duke coming from the earl of Mulgrave’s lodgings. The way being so narrow that they behoved to touch one another’s clothes as they passed by. The duke, with all reverence, standing close up by the wall till his majesty passed by, but spoke none to him, only sent the earl of Oxford, and told him that his Majesty had discharged him the Court, and did discharge him, and upon his peril be seen there again. </p></blockquote><p>Mulgrave was disgraced.<sup>180</sup></p><p>Monmouth may have been chastened by what had happened, and perhaps also by the increasingly shrill tone of Shaftesbury. The events that followed are difficult to unravel out of the complex evidence provided in the aftermath of the unmasking of the Rye House Plot. It seems that Shaftesbury continued, after Monmouth’s release, to talk about planning an insurrection in London. Monmouth apparently (according to the later, and unreliable, evidence of Howard of Escrick) recoiled with horror at the idea. Monmouth may or may not have met Shaftesbury again in early October, but it seems probable that Shaftesbury had decided to abandon his unreliable co-conspirator and work without him, perhaps towards a republic, before fleeing the country in November to avoid arrest. The extent of Monmouth’s involvement in Shaftesbury’s thinking about an assassination of the king and the duke of York remains deeply obscure.<sup>181</sup> Despite apparently breaking with Monmouth, Shaftesbury wrote to him once he had arrived in the Netherlands, a letter that was intercepted and read at the council, though found to contain only news of his good health.<sup>182</sup></p><p>In the immediate aftermath of his release Monmouth had briefly taken himself to Moor Park. He was soon back in London, however, meeting other Whig leaders often at Anglesey’s: he dined there with Essex on 10 Oct. and with Macclesfield on 22 Nov. and 14 December. He dined with Anglesey on a number of other occasions as well, including when he made an appearance at king’s bench on 23 Oct., presumably in relation to recognisances imposed following his journey in Cheshire; on the same day Grey of Warke appeared to answer in an unrelated case about his affair with Lady Henrietta Berkeley. On 9 Dec. Anglesey entertained Monmouth, his mistress Henrietta Wentworth, and ‘Lady Hen.’, presumably Berkeley’s mistress.<sup>183</sup> On 30 Nov. Monmouth left for Chichester with ‘a great train’, perhaps to see Grey of Warke, whose trial over the Henrietta Berkeley case had taken place on 23 November. He returned to London on 6 December.<sup>184</sup> Lord Wharton was his host over Christmas.<sup>185</sup> In mid-January 1683 he was back in London, dining again with Anglesey, with Buckingham and many other of the ‘dissenting lords’ (those who had signed protests over the rejection of exclusion).<sup>186</sup> In February he made no secret of his intention to be present at Shaftesbury’s funeral.<sup>187</sup> In March 1683 there were new rumours of his readmission to the king’s favour through an alliance with Halifax.<sup>188</sup> No reconciliation took place, and Monmouth’s name remained a potent one, inspiring riots and local disputes in the late spring and early summer.<sup>189</sup></p><p>The revelations in June about the Rye House Plot implicated Monmouth and many of his fellow Whig politicians in a complex series of conspiracies, though how serious they were and how serious his role was within them was always highly arguable. Lord Russell, Essex, John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> and others were arrested; Monmouth, Lord Grey, and Sir Thomas Armstrong escaped into hiding. A proclamation was issued for the arrest of all three, as well as Robert Ferguson. Monmouth was said to have sheltered at the house of Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers, and then his son Lord Colchester’s, or to have left, in disguise, for the continent from Chichester with Grey. In fact he was probably with his mistress, Henrietta Wentworth, in Buckinghamshire, while in London, Essex, incarcerated in the Tower, apparently killed himself on 13 July, and Russell was executed on the 21st.<sup>190</sup> On 13 Oct. Halifax approached Monmouth with a view to encouraging a reconciliation between father and son. He assured Monmouth that the king refused to believe that Monmouth had been involved in the assassination plot ‘but as things went he must behave himself as if he did’.<sup>191</sup> After further negotiations, by 24 Nov., Monmouth was ready to make a confession of sorts and to surrender himself to the council. York’s reluctance to accept the deal, to which he consented only ‘from necessity’, and the king’s decision to publicize the details of Monmouth’s submission in the <em>London Gazette</em> both helped to undermine the arrangement. Monmouth, who had hoped to recover his interest with the king without losing the support of his party, was furious and denied any confession in terms that could be interpreted as exonerating the executed conspirators.<sup>192</sup> Monmouth found himself once more forbidden the court.<sup>193</sup> ‘I know not’ wrote Ormond, ‘how to describe the figure the duke of Monmouth makes, nor fancy what course of life he can propose to himself. It must be left to time, chance or his worse advisers to discover’.<sup>194</sup> In January 1684, subpoenaed to give evidence against Hampden, Monmouth fled with his mistress to the continent where he was able to live in considerable splendour.<sup>195</sup> He returned briefly to England to deal with some private business in November 1684, sparking fresh rumours of rehabilitation, and was led to expect that he would be allowed to return in February the following year, when York was expected to be in Scotland. The opportunity was lost by the king’s death.<sup>196</sup></p><p>Following James’s accession in February 1685, Monmouth, naturally, did not attend the Parliament that met on 19 May; his name was not even listed, either as present or absent, when the House was called on 26 May. His invasion force landed at Lyme Regis on 11 June 1685. An act of attainder was rushed through Parliament and received the royal assent on 16 June. Captured on 7 July, he was taken to London where he begged unsuccessfully for his uncle’s mercy. He horrified the bishops who attended him by insisting that in the eyes of god he was married to Lady Henrietta Wentworth, rather than to his duchess, and credited her with rescuing him from a life of debauchery. After his botched execution on 15 July, when the head was held up there was said to be ‘no shouting, but many cried.’ <sup>197</sup> The act of attainder meant that Monmouth’s English peerages were extinguished, but the Scots dukedom continued as his widow enjoyed it in her own right. Though Monmouth’s estates were forfeited by virtue of the attainder, his widow was able to secure a regrant and remained welcome at court, both before and after the revolution. In 1688 she married Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, but despite remarriage and the loss of the English dukedom was often referred to as the duchess of Monmouth.<sup>198</sup> Monmouth’s only surviving legitimate daughter survived him by no more than a month. Lady Henrietta Wentworth died in April 1686, said to have been poisoned by the mercury in her beauty products.<sup>199</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
SEYMOUR, Charles (1621-65) |
<p><strong><surname>SEYMOUR</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1621–65)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 12 July 1664 as 2nd Bar. SEYMOUR OF TROWBRIDGE |
|
First sat 26 Nov. 1664; last sat 1 Dec. 1664 |
|
MP Great Bedwyn 28 Apr. 1640; Wiltshire 1661–12 July 1664 |
<p><em>b</em>. 5 Feb. 1621, o. s. of Francis Seymour*, Bar. Seymour of Trowbridge, and 1st w. Frances, da. and coh. of Sir Gilbert Prynne of Alington. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen, Oxf. 1636. <em>m</em>. (1) 4 Aug. 1632, Mary, da. and coh. of Thomas Smith of Soley, Chilton Foliat, Wilts. 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 2da.; (2) by 1654, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1691), da. of William Alington, Bar. Alington of Killard [I], 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 25 Aug. 1665; <em>will</em> 17 Aug. 1665, pr. 26 Nov. 1683.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for sequestrations (royalist), Wilts. 1642, for assessment, Aug. 1660–4, for corporations 1662–3; col. militia ft. by Nov. 1660–?<em>d</em>.; dep. lt. Wilts. 1661–<em>d.</em>; <em>custos rot</em>. Wilts. 1664–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Seymour was born into the Trowbridge branch of the family, which had extensive political and social connections in Wiltshire. His father and his uncle William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset, were prominent royalists throughout the civil wars. After initially joining his father at Oxford, Seymour was neither in arms for the king nor did he contribute financially to the royalist cause and appears to have lived quietly at his first wife’s family home at Allington, Wiltshire. At the end of the civil wars his yearly income was estimated at £630.<sup>3</sup></p><p>In 1660 Seymour’s father returned to his places at court as Privy Councillor and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, while Charles was elected to the Cavalier Parliament for Wiltshire in partnership with Henry Hyde*, the future 2nd earl of Clarendon, the two men sharing election expenses of £195.<sup>4</sup> Seymour succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father on 12 July 1664.</p><p>On 8 Nov. 1664 Seymour was informed that ‘for the ceremony of your admittance into the House of Lords’ as soon as he came to town ‘you must send for Sir Edmund Walker, and he will see your robes made fit, and he and the Black rod are to convey you to your seat’.<sup>5</sup> He took his seat on 26 Nov. 1664, but attended only one other sitting on 1 Dec. of that year. He was absent from a call of the House on 7 Dec. and three days later he registered a proxy with Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, who was married to his cousin Lady Frances Seymour.</p><p>Seymour died on 25 Aug. 1665 and was buried on 7 Sept. at Trowbridge. In his will he left £200 per year to his wife, to be raised from his estates, provided she remain unmarried. However, she subsequently became the second wife of Sir John Ernle<sup>‡</sup>, the future chancellor of the exchequer. Seymour bequeathed to his sons William (who died young) and Charles Seymour*, the future 6th duke of Somerset, a yearly income of £100 until they reached the age of 21, when they would receive £4,000 each. His daughter Honora was bequeathed an annual income of £100 and a lump sum of £4,000 at 21 or her marriage; she married Sir Charles Gerard<sup>‡</sup> in 1676. His other daughter, Frances, who had married Sir George Hungerford<sup>‡</sup> in April 1665, was to receive £100. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Francis Seymour*, 3rd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, who became 5th duke of Somerset in 1675 on the death of his father’s cousin John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
SEYMOUR, Charles (1662-1748) |
<p><strong><surname>SEYMOUR</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1662–1748)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1675-78 Ld. Charles Seymour; <em>suc. </em>bro. 20 Apr. 1678 (a minor) as 6th duke of SOMERSET |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 4 Mar. 1735 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 13 Aug. 1662,<sup>1</sup> 6th but 2nd surv. s. of Charles Seymour*, 2nd Bar. Seymour of Trowbridge, being 3rd s. of 2nd w. Elizabeth (1635-91), da. of William Alington, Bar. Alington [I]; bro. of Francis Seymour*, 5th duke of Somerset. <em>educ</em>. Harrow c.1675-8;<sup>2</sup> Trinity, Camb.; tutor, Edward Chamberlayne 1679; travelled abroad 1679-81, gov. Alexander de Rasigade;<sup>3</sup> DCL Oxf. 27 Aug. 1702. <em>m</em>. (1) 30 May 1682, Elizabeth Percy (1667-1722), <em>styled</em> countess of Ogle, da. and h. of Josceline Percy*, 5th earl of Northumberland, wid. of Henry Cavendish, <em>styled</em> earl of Ogle, and Thomas Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 4 da. (<em>d.v.p</em>).<sup>4</sup> (2) 4 Feb. 1726, Charlotte (<em>d</em>.1773), da. of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, 2da.<sup>5</sup> KG 1684. <em>d</em>. 2 Dec. 1748; <em>will</em> 5 July, pr. 19 Dec. 1748.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber May 1685-July 1687; temp. Speaker of the Lords, 11 May 1689, 1 Mar. 1693; PC 28 June 1701; ld. justice 1701;<sup>7</sup> ld. pres. Jan.-July 1702; master of the horse July 1702-June 1712, Sept. 1714-Dec. 1715.</p><p>Ld. lt. Yorks. (E. Riding) Nov. 1682-Oct. 1687; Som. July 1683-Aug. 1687; common councillor, Chichester 1685,<sup>8</sup> high steward, by 1691;<sup>9</sup> common councilman, Berwick-upon-Tweed Aug. 1686;<sup>10</sup> kpr. of the new park, Hampton Court, Sept. 1710.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Col. Queen’s drag. regt. 1685-July 1687.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Chan. Camb. Univ. 1689-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by N. Dance-Holland, Trinity, Cambridge; oil on canvas by J. Closterman, c.1690-92, Petworth; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1703, NPG 3224.</p> |
<h2><em>Early career to the Revolution</em></h2><p>Seymour was born at Preshute, Wiltshire, the younger son of a baron who died when he was only three. He succeeded his elder brother, Francis, who had inherited the dukedom from a cousin. When news of his brother’s death broke, Seymour was at school at Harrow.<sup>13</sup> By January 1679, he appears to have been under the guidance of a private tutor, Edward Chamberlayne, who informed William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, that he was employed with `the hopeful duke of Somerset and wherein I have done already much more service to our Church and State than I could possibly have done any other way.’ The plan was for Somerset to extend his education and on 24 Oct. 1679 he and his tutor, Alexander de Rasigade, were given a pass to travel abroad. By late October he was in Paris.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In March 1679 Somerset had survived smallpox, causing contemporaries to note that ‘should he miscarry, Mr Seymour would be exalted’, a reference to the Speaker of the Commons in the previous Parliament, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, his distant cousin, both of them being descended from the first duke. As a minor, Somerset was excused attendance in the Lords in both May 1679 and October 1680. On 24 May 1681 he was reported to have arrived back in London, ‘not expected by his friends. He now embarked on the usual pursuits of a young peer; in October 1681, both Somerset and his step-father, Sir John Ernle<sup>‡</sup>, were reported to have fallen off their horses at Newmarket.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The next step was to contract a suitable marriage, especially as the family’s estates were insufficient to maintain the prestige of the premier Protestant dukedom. Possibly the greatest heiress of the time was Lady Elizabeth Percy and at around the time of her second marriage, to Thomas Thynne, it was reported that Somerset had been a rival suitor, but that her ‘present fortune’ of £4,000 p.a., ‘was enough to overcome the duke’s pretensions’, because it was deemed ‘too inconsiderable to maintain them both as they would be obliged to live’ until she came of age.<sup>16</sup> The murder of Thynne on 12 Feb. 1682 changed matters and later that month it was reported that Somerset had ‘gone to make love to Lady Ogle’, who was still abroad.<sup>17</sup> By early May Somerset was seen as ‘the only visible servant to my Lady Ogle’, and the marriage took place on 30 May at Montagu House (her mother having married Ralph Montagu*, the future duke of Montagu).<sup>18</sup> It brought Somerset control of vast estates; an estimate of his income in 1689 revealed the extent of the Percy contribution. His own property in Wiltshire consisted of £1,500 p.a., to which were added estates in Middlesex (£1,000 p.a.), Sussex (£2,000 p.a.), Wales (£700 p.a.), the North (£10,000 p.a.) and jointure income (£2,000 p.a.).<sup>19</sup> Out of this he paid his wife £1,200 p.a.<sup>20</sup> By 1710, his income was estimated to have been between £20-30,000 p.a., and he had diversified into such liquid assets as Bank of England stock, owning at least £4,000 worth at that date. Early in the marriage, Somerset’s dynastic plans were threatened when the duchess caught smallpox in August 1682, but she recovered.<sup>21</sup> A settlement of 1687 allowed the male heir of the marriage, £3,000 p.a. from the Percy estate, should the duchess pre-decease her husband once he turned 21 until the death of the duke. When the settlements were altered in 1707, the heir was still to receive an income of £3,000 p.a., generally the maximum allowed during the period. With an income of this size, Somerset had sufficient funds to remodel Petworth as his main residence during the period 1688-97.<sup>22</sup></p><p>With such vast territorial estates, Somerset was able to exert influence over a number of parliamentary constituencies. His residence at Petworth, saw him engaged in the county contest for Sussex, and the boroughs of Chichester, Midhurst, and even Steyning, although even he admitted that his interest in the latter was slight. His ancestral estate in Wiltshire gave him influence at Marlborough. Further afield, he played a dominant role at Cockermouth, and possessed influence in Carlisle and in the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland and Yorkshire. As chancellor of Cambridge, he played a role in the university’s seats, particularly in the election of Henry Boyle*, future Baron Carleton, in a by-election in 1692, a seat he retained until 1705.</p><p>Somerset’s early forays into politics were largely symbolic and decidedly Tory. On 29 June 1682 he attended the court of king’s bench in support of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds.<sup>23</sup> Following the disgrace of John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), in October 1682, he was appointed lord lieutenant of the East Riding, the warrant being dated 9 November.<sup>24</sup> The baptism of his first son, Charles, on 18 Mar. 1683, demonstrated a nice balancing of various family interests: the godparents were the countess of Northumberland (presumably his wife’s grandmother, not his mother-in-law); Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, who was married to his wife’s aunt, and thus held the reversionary interest to the Percy estates; and his uncle, William Alington*, Baron Alington (also 3rd Baron Alington in the Irish peerage).<sup>25</sup> The birth coincided with reports that Somerset had changed his name to Percy, but this merely acknowledged the provision in his marriage settlement that his children take the Percy surname, an obligation from which his wife released him when she came of age in January 1688.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Further marks of royal favour continued to be bestowed on the young duke. In July 1683, he reclaimed the lord lieutenancy of Somerset, which had been granted to Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, during the minority of his brother. Early in September 1683 he was one of the nobility attending the king on a visit to Portsmouth.<sup>27</sup> At around the same date, Somerset was mentioned for the vacant lieutenancy of Wiltshire, although he lost out to Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. In January 1684 it was reported that he would be given the garter vacated by the death of Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, and he was duly installed in April.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Somerset was clearly perceived as a man of some influence at court. When the dowager countess of Manchester was discussing the moves of Ralph Montagu (his wife’s step-father), who had recently succeeded to the peerage and was attempting to rehabilitate himself at court, she wrote that his sister Lady Harvey was ‘very great with our great men and duchess of Portsmouth, duke of Somerset and duke of Northumberland [George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland’.<sup>29</sup> Upon Danby’s release on bail in February 1684, Somerset was one of his sureties, to the tune of £5,000. On 21 Apr. Roger Whitley<sup>‡</sup> noted in his diary that Somerset’s servant, ‘Mr Harcourt, ‘came to me from his grace to desire my votes for choosing the governor, deputy and committee of the East India Company; I promised to comply so far as I could; especially as to what concerned his grace and my Lord of Worcester’, [Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, styled marquess of Worcester].<sup>30</sup></p><p>The accession of James II saw Somerset continue to enjoy royal favour. On 16 May 1685 a warrant was issued for his admittance as a gentleman of the bedchamber.<sup>31</sup> He attended on the opening day of the 1685 Parliament, 19 May. Together with Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, he introduced into the House James Butler*, duke of Ormond, and Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort. On 1 June Somerset and his wife petitioned the Lords against James Percy, who had falsely assumed the title of earl of Northumberland, which the House referred to the committee for privileges, where it was revealed that the countess of Northumberland had previously had a verdict and three nonsuits against him. Somerset last attended on 12 June before the adjournment on 2 July. He then headed into Somerset to command the militia during the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Somerset was missing when the House resumed on 9 Nov. first sitting on 14 November. In all, over the whole session, he attended on 20 days, 47 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. On 14 Jan. 1686 he was a member of the court which found Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), not guilty of high treason. In August, the king designed to begin his progress with a night’s stay at Somerset’s residence of Marlborough House.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In January 1687, Roger Morrice believed that Somerset was one of a number of peers that would not ‘declare’ on the Test. In April Somerset stood bail at £5,000 for William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, and in May he was one of those peers still acting in that capacity.<sup>34</sup> Somerset’s attitude towards the king’s policies became clear with the visit of the papal nuncio to court. As a lord of the bedchamber, he refused to attend his public entry on 3 July, ‘for which he was forbid coming the court, and lost all his places.’<sup>35</sup> Somerset took his stance ‘because the law stands so full in force’ , and he evidently felt vulnerable to future prosecution for praemunire.<sup>36</sup> As Sir John Lowther*, future Viscount Lonsdale, recorded, the king’s promise of a pardon was rebuffed by Somerset, who replied that although ‘no very good lawyer … a pardon granted to a person offending under assurance of obtaining it was void’.<sup>37</sup> Following his dismissal Somerset was given leave to live in the country, but he did not leave London immediately, attending Albemarle’s farewell dinner preparatory to his departure for Jamaica. However, he had done so by 21 July when John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> reported his retirement into the country. The rather harsh nature of Somerset’s dismissal was made apparent in October when he wrote to George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, of ‘the scene of affairs being so extraordinarily changed, and his being turned out in such a manner, and having had so very severe expressions’ at parting from the king.<sup>38</sup></p><p>At the end of October 1687, ‘Mr Percy, the trunkmaker’, re-entered the fray, making a claim to the Northumberland earldom before the court of honour, whereupon ‘the heralds declared they could find in their records nothing of his plea’. He responded to this by accusing them of having ‘torn his pedigree out of their books.’<sup>39</sup> On 9 Nov. he petitioned the court against Somerset, his wife and Northumberland, desiring ‘leave of the court that he might make it out there and that the duke of Somerset might appear made oath that he had left a letter containing matter of citation with his grace’s porter’. A hearing was duly ordered for 24 Nov. at which Percy failed to appear having been arrested at the suit of Somerset that morning. <sup>40</sup> The cause was finally heard on 19 Jan. 1688, when the proceedings of the Lords in 1673 were read in court and the case dismissed.<sup>41</sup> Percy’s next move was to begin a cause in the same court in February against all those persons denying his right to bear the Northumberland arms. Between May and July he produced many witnesses, but thereafter the case was continually adjourned until it was overtaken by events in the Lords and finally dismissed in January 1690. With a new regime and a new Parliament, Percy tried his luck again with a petition to the Lords on 15 May 1689, which was referred to the committee for privileges.<sup>42</sup> On 28 May the committee for privileges reported, referring back to the decision of 1673 and again rejecting his claims. The House also ordered that Somerset’s counsel be heard concerning the scandalous reflections made upon the duke and his wife. On 11 June, after hearing counsel, the House voted Percy’s claims ‘groundless, false, and scandalous’, dismissed his petition and ordered that Percy ‘be brought before the four courts in Westminster Hall, wearing a paper upon his breast, in which these words shall be written, the false and impudent pretender to the earldom of Northumberland’.</p><p>Meanwhile, as opposition to James II increased, a number of lists were compiled in an attempt to gauge political opinion. Somerset’s reaction to the dilemma of serving the king, while respecting the laws governing Catholics was consistent with a list of 1687 the compiler of which thought Somerset opposed to the repeal of the Test Act; another listed him about May 1687 among lords opposed to James II’s policies; a third grouped him among lords listed about November 1687 as opposed to repeal of the Test Act; Danby classed him in 1687-8 as an opponent of James II in the Lords; and his name appeared on a list of those opposed to repeal published in the <em>Harlem Courant</em> in January 1688.</p><p>Despite his loss of royal favour, Somerset continued to play the role of local magnate in the North, in London and in Sussex. On 27 June 1688, he arrived at Cockermouth on a visit, presumably to bolster his political interest as lord of the manor.<sup>43</sup> In August he lent James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, Northumberland House in order to assemble his guests for a feast upon becoming chancellor of Oxford.<sup>44</sup> In mid September, John Lake*, bishop of Chichester, informed Sancroft of Somerset’s generous welcome during his visitation in which he had ‘entertained all the gentry and clergy, who met me at Petworth ... being at least 50 in number … at his own house, and very nobly’.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Later that year, Somerset was listed as being in arms for the Prince of Orange.<sup>46</sup> He took a role in the assembly of peers which acted as a provisional government, first attending on the afternoon of 15 Dec. 1688, at Whitehall, and also being present on 21, 22, 24 and 25 December.<sup>47</sup> On 18 Dec. he attended the Prince at supper when he came to St James’s, as he did when the Prince dined in public on the 20th. On 22 Dec. Somerset was one of the peers present at St James’s that refused to sign the Association, being accused by an unnamed peer of declining purely because ‘when you came to subscribe you saw some persons names writ there before you inferior to you in quality and therefore you refused,’ an early indication, perhaps, of his haughty demeanour.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Whatever the reasons for Somerset’s refusal of the Association, it did not presage his withdrawal from political activity, although his actions sometimes created confusion, as they did at the election to the Convention for Cockermouth. On 6 Jan. 1689, according to Thomas Tickell, Somerset had written to Cockermouth ‘that he presents Sir Orlando Gee to them and desires their votes for him in the room of’ Sir Henry Capell*, future Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, who was expected to be returned for Tewkesbury. In a postscript Tickell added the election at Cockermouth was ‘uncertain till further order from the duke’.<sup>49</sup> Since Capell was not secure at Tewkesbury, in the event he was returned after Gee stood down.</p><h2><em>The reign of William and Mary</em></h2><p>Somerset was absent from the opening day of the Convention, 22 Jan. 1689, being present the next day. He attended 110 days of the first session of the Convention, 68 per cent of the total, and was appointed to 33 committees. On 25 Jan. together with Ormond, he introduced Northumberland into the Lords. Somerset was a consistent opponent of the decision in the Convention to offer the crown to William and Mary. On 29 Jan. he voted for a regency as the best way to preserve the Protestant religion and the nation’s laws. On 31 Jan. he voted against declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen. On 4 Feb. he was named to a conference about the vote of 28 Jan. concerning the king’s abdication. He then voted against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’. He was then named to the resultant committee to draw up reasons for a conference on the issue, and was named to manage conferences on the 5th and 6th. Later, on 6 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons in using the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is now vacant’, and entered his dissent against it.</p><p>At the beginning of February 1689, John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> grouped Somerset among those who had ‘been active to bring in the Prince’, but who now spoke ‘in another strain. Some said the thing was gone further than they expected, others that they never believed the Prince would contend for the crown; and all were of opinion the crown ought to be set upon the Princess’s head, and so descend in its right course.’<sup>50</sup> It seems likely that Somerset had been discomfited by events, for after attending on 18 Feb. he was absent until 4 Mar. Roger Morrice reporting that on 20 Feb. he had gone into the country. On 4 Mar. he duly took the oaths to the new monarchs and the next day he was named to a conference on assisting the king. Swift later postulated that ‘for some years after the Revolution, he never appeared at court; but was looked upon as a favourer of the abdicated family’, ascribing Somerset’s change of attitude to Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, who was responsible for presenting him to the king. However William III was not too fastidious about the intellectual qualms of his new subjects, particularly those with political influence, and in February 1689 Somerset was made a gentleman of the bedchamber. In March he was elected chancellor of the university of Cambridge.<sup>51</sup></p><p>On 12 Mar. 1689 Somerset and his estate servants received passes to go to Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland, and on 23 Mar. he received leave of absence from the Lords to go ‘out of town for a little time’.<sup>52</sup> He was duly absent until 8 April. On 16 Apr. he was deputed by the Lords to ascertain when the king would be attended by the House with their address on convocation, reporting back on the following day. On 19 Apr. he was given leave to go into the country for his health; after attending on the 20th, he was then absent until 9 May. On 11 May, after the king had passed some bills and retired to hold a Council (which included the speaker of the Lords), Somerset was elected speaker in his room. On 24 May he was appointed to draw up reasons for a conference on why the Lords could not agree to the Commons leaving out their clause in the additional poll bill, being appointed to manage the conference on 27 May, and twice more on 31 May.</p><p>On 31 May Somerset voted in favour of the bill reversing the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates; on 24 July he was named to draw up reasons for a conference insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the bill, duly being appointed to manage the conference on the 26th; and on 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill. On 2 July he entered his dissent to the resolution to proceed upon the impeachments of Sir Adam Blair and others. On 13 July he was appointed to draw up reasons in support of the Lords’ amendment to the succession bill in favour of the house of Hanover, and then the conference with the Commons on the 16th. On 25 and 27 July he was named to attend conferences on the bill collecting tea and other duties at the customs’ house. On 2 and 5 Aug. he was named to manage conferences on the attainder bill. He last attended on 17 August.</p><p>Somerset was not present when the second session of the Convention began on 23 Oct. and he was absent from the call of the House on 28 October. On 5 Nov. he informed the Speaker that because of ‘business of great consequence that will keep him in the country three weeks longer’ he could not attend the House and asked for leave of absence.<sup>53</sup> He was first present on 12 Dec. and attended 31 days of the session, 43 per cent of the total, being appointed to eight committees. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 the marquess of Carmarthen (formerly the earl of Danby) estimated him to be an opponent of the court. </p><p>Somerset was present at the opening of the 1690 Parliament, on 20 Mar. 1690. He attended on 50 days of the session, 93 per cent of the total, even though he was absent from the call of the House on 31 Mar., and was named to six committees. On 28 Mar. the sheriffs of London and Middlesex were ordered to bring to the Lords Richard Liverseidge, ‘pretended to be protected’ by Somerset, it being noted later that the duke ‘never did nor never will grant protections’.<sup>54</sup> On 8 Apr. he entered his protest against the passage of the bill recognizing King William and Queen Mary and confirming the acts of the Convention on the grounds that the laws ‘were passed in a Parliament not called by writ in due form of law’.<sup>55</sup> Following the decision of the Lords on 10 Apr. to expunge this protest, on the 11th he desired that his name be removed from the protest on the grounds that it now looked as if he had opposed the whole bill rather than merely some specific points relating to confirming the acts made by the Convention. He attended the adjournment on 7 July when Parliament was prorogued and the prorogations on 28 July and 18 Aug. 1690.</p><p>Somerset was missing on the opening day of the 1690-1 session, 2 Oct., and when he first attended the Lords on 6 Oct. he promptly left his proxy with Rochester. He attended on 37 days of the session, just over half of the total, being named to ten committees. A preference for the turf may explain his absence for on 2 Nov. it was reported that there would be a horse-race at Newmarket between Somerset and Thomas Wharton*, future marquess of Wharton, for a prize of £100.<sup>56</sup> He next attended the Lords on 20 November. Meanwhile, on 14 Nov. a bill had been introduced into the Lords to unite the parsonage of Petworth with the bishopric of Chichester. After being managed by Rochester, this bill was sent to the Commons on 18 Nov. but rejected at second reading on 24 November. On 17 Dec. he was named to a conference on the amendments made by the Lords to the mutiny bill, which he duly reported later in the day. At the end of December he was reported to be against the bill allowing Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and his wife to make provision for payment of debts, and to make leases of their estates, ‘but did not say much’.<sup>57</sup> Ailesbury alluded in August 1703 to the possible reason for his opposition, noting that by his late wife, Lady Elizabeth Seymour (<em>d</em>.1697) he had ‘carried away the estate of the family and for that reason [Somerset] is implacable’.<sup>58</sup> Somerset was present when the House adjourned on 5 Jan. 1691, and attended the adjournments on 31 Mar. and 26 May. Parliament was prorogued on the latter occasion. Perhaps in a coda to the earlier failed bill, on 10 June Somerset wrote to Nottingham that the presentation to Petworth had been agreed upon all parties for Dr Edward Pelling, the cleric retaining the living until his death in 1718.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Somerset was missing from the opening of the 1691-2 session, and was absent from the call of the House on 2 November. He left his proxy, signed on 6 Nov. with Rochester, and he did not attend until 6 Feb. 1692. At the end of November 1691 the town of Marlborough lobbied Somerset to support the bill against hawkers and pedlars in the expectation it would pass the Commons (which it did not).<sup>60</sup> Having taken his place, he attended regularly until the end of the session on 24 Feb., sitting on 13 days of the session, 13 per cent of the total. Based on a retrospective analysis of the 1685 Parliament, William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, believed that Somerset was likely to favour the bill restoring him to some of his estates in the north-west, which was rejected on 25 Jan. 1692, before Somerset was in regular attendance.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Somerset found himself drawn into the conflict between William and Mary and Princess Anne over the latter’s retention of the countess of Marlborough as her servant, despite her husband’s disgrace. When the Princess learnt on 13 Feb. 1692 that the king ‘would have my Lady Marlborough quit the Cockpit … she answered that she would remove thence her self, and accordingly sent to the duke of Somerset, to lend her Sion House, which he readily granted, after he had first waited on the king and asked his leave’.<sup>62</sup> Sarah later recalled that the duke resisted pressure from the king to renege on his promise. He duly visited the Princess there later in the month. On 25 May, Somerset and his wife, together with Carmarthen (the former Danby), again visited Princess Anne at Sion. Swift thought that the ‘civilities and respects’ accorded to the Princess were the bedrock of the future favour the duke and duchess received when she was queen.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In June, Somerset and Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, stood bail for Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, who had recently surrendered to the government being suspected of treason.<sup>64</sup> Somerset was present on the opening day of the 1692-3 session, on 4 Nov. 1692. He attended on 84 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, being named to 18 committees. He was excused attendance following a call of the House on 21 November. On 10 Dec. he was named to examine the papers delivered into the House by Nottingham relating to the naval operations of the previous summer and to prepare for a conference on the matter; on 20 Dec. he was appointed to manage the conference which delivered the papers to the Commons, and the resultant conference on the 21st. Following the report of this by Carmarthen, it was noted that Somerset, who hardly spoke in the House, intervened to say that the marquess had forgotten to point out that the unanimous justification of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, was because most of the Members wished not to condemn Nottingham’s conduct, but to justify Russell.<sup>65</sup></p><p>At the end of 1692 or the beginning of 1693 Somerset was forecast by Ailesbury as likely to oppose the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 2 Jan. 1693, he duly voted against reading the bill. On 3 Jan. he voted against the passage of the place bill. Later on the 3rd Somerset was one of those dining privately with the king at the home of William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford.<sup>66</sup> On 16 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Devonshire in the committee of the whole on the triennial bill on whether to resume the House. The Lords then instructed a committee (of which Somerset but not Devonshire was a member) to draw a clause for triennial Parliaments with annual sittings every year. On 18 Jan. he was named to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill. On 19 Jan. he was named to a committee to consider what to offer to a conference upon the Lords receding from their amendment to the land tax bill, and was named to the resultant conference on the 20th. On 31 Jan. he protested against the decision to adjourn the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb., he voted Mohun not guilty of murder.<sup>67</sup> Somerset was absent from the Lords from 16 to 23 Feb., presumably because he was in attendance on the king, who it was reported planned to dine with Somerset on 16 Feb. at Petworth en route for Portsmouth. All this socialising with the king led to rumours that Somerset was to succeed D’Auverquerque as master of the horse.<sup>68</sup> On 25 Feb. it was reported that one of his bailiffs, Thomas Heron of Corbridge, Northumberland had been arrested by a sheriff’s bailiff of Middlesex at the suit of an inn-holder; as a result several men were ordered into custody for breach of privilege. On 1 Mar. Somerset was chosen speaker of the Lords (although Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup> resumed his place later in the day) and was then named to report a conference on the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions, as he was also on the 3rd. On the last day of the session, 14 Mar., he was appointed to manage a conference on the bill for encouraging privateers. Presumably Somerset was behind the passage during the session of the bill for dividing the chapelries of North Chapel and Dungton from Petworth, especially as the consents of some of the parishioners were endorsed by him. Indeed, Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> even called it ‘the duke of Somerset’s bill’, and it was Henry Boyle who had carried ‘the bill for exchange of livings between the king, duke of Somerset and Eton college’ to the Lords on 24 Jan. 1693.<sup>69</sup></p><p>On 16 Sept. James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> noted that there was talk of a ‘congress’ at Petworth, where Rochester and Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Ranelagh [I], and some others were going to meet Sir Edward Seymour.<sup>70</sup> A newsletter confirmed that Rochester had returned from the gathering on 19 Sept., and named Colonel John Granville as another participant.<sup>71</sup> Although Somerset attended the Lords on the opening day of the next session, 7 Nov. he then left his proxy with Rochester. He was absent from the call of the House on 14 Nov. but noted as having left a proxy. He next attended on 4 December. In all he attended on 88 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total. On 8 Dec. it was noted that Somerset, Nottingham and James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, spoke for rejecting the triennial bill at its third reading.<sup>72</sup> On 21 Dec. he acted as a teller in opposition to Norfolk on the question of whether to adjourn the debate in the case of <em>Grafton v the judges of the King’s Bench</em>, and on the 22nd he entered his protest to the resolution to allow the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> to withdraw their petition in the cause. On 5 Jan. 1694 he acted as a teller in opposition to Norfolk on the place bill on whether another day should be appointed to consider whether to agree with the Commons on the amendment the lower house had rejected. On 8 and 12 Feb. he was named to conferences on the intelligence received on the sailing of the Brest fleet. On 19 Feb., two men were ordered to be taken into custody for preventing the delivery of a horse from Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), to Somerset. On 6 Mar he was named to a conference on the mutiny bill. After 19 Mar. he next attended on 31 March. On 3 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons why the Lords disagreed to an amendment by the Commons to the bill to pay the debts of John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, being named on the 4th to the resultant conference on the bill, which he reported on the 5th. In all, he was named to a further 11 committees during the session. Towards the end, on 17 Apr. Somerset informed Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, that ‘the Parliament cannot rise till the middle of the next week so that the king will not go till three or four days after and a Monday next [23 Apr.] I go with my whole family for the summer to Petworth to recover my losses at Newmarket’.<sup>73</sup> In fact the session continued for longer and Somerset last attended on 25 April. As a postscript to the session, on 8 May it was reported that Somerset had recently ‘entertained all the new dukes at dinner the other day, where besides the splendour and magnificence of the feast itself, it was particularly observed, all the plates, forks and spoons at the desert, were not double guilt [sic], but beaten gold.’<sup>74</sup></p><p>On 10 Oct. 1694 Somerset wrote from Petworth to Carlisle of his intention to visit London for a few days before going to Newmarket for a race on the 24th.<sup>75</sup> He was absent from the opening of the 1694-5 session on 12 Nov. first attending on 19 December. He attended on 62 days of the session, 52 per cent of the total. On 19 Jan. 1695 he entered his protest against the failure to engross the bill making wilful perjury in certain cases a felony. Between 27 Mar. and 18 Apr. he attended on just one day (8 April). On 2 May he was named to a conference on the bill imprisoning Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup>. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the related matter of the impeachment of the duke of Leeds (as Carmarthen had become). He was appointed to a further 11 committees during the session. </p><p>Somerset was a party to the settlement of Wriothesley Russell*, styled marquess of Tavistock, the future 2nd duke of Bedford, on his marriage with Elizabeth Howland, which took place on the 23 May 1695.<sup>76</sup> He attended the prorogations on 18 June and 30 July. At the end of June, Somerset in anticipation of a dissolution, ‘provided we do but come off with any tolerable success this campaign’, asked Carlisle to join with him so that ‘that interest which I have may never be but joined with the earl of Carlisle’s’. At the end of August he again stressed to Carlisle the importance of the war, and specifically the capture of Namur, predicting that it would herald a new Parliament.<sup>77</sup> Following the dissolution Somerset was heavily engaged in the ensuing elections in Cumberland and Sussex. Most particularly, his recommendation for Chichester, Ranelagh, demonstrated how Somerset’s power might be used for electoral ends in protecting local political agents. Ranelagh informed Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> of the case of the mayor of Chichester, Francis Goater, ‘whose business is appointed for today and which therefore I am very sorry I cannot attend. The duke of Somerset, who certainly ought to be believed in that country, gives him the best character in the world, and positively alleges the whole prosecution against him is malicious.’<sup>78</sup></p><p>Somerset missed the opening of the 1695-6 session, on 22 Nov., first attending on 25 Nov. 1695. On 12 Dec. he was named to a committee to draw up an address on the inconvenience of the act establishing the Scottish East India Company, and as such was named to attend a conference on the matter on the 14th. On 3 and 7 Jan. 1696 he was named to manage conferences on the silver coinage bill. On the 9th he was named to draw up reasons protecting the Lords’ right to inflict pecuniary penalties in the bill, and on the 11th to the resultant conference. On 17 Jan. he entered his protest against the decision of the House to allow Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, leave to be heard by counsel upon his petition for a writ of summons. He then protested again on 13 Feb. against the resolution conceding that Verney had a right to a writ of summons. On 24 Feb. he was appointed to draw up an address on the king’s speech on the Assassination Plot and to the resultant conference. He signed the Association on 27 February. Somerset’s attendance of the session was punctuated by two absences. He was missing after 18 Jan. until 6 Feb. and after 17 Mar. he did not attend until 30 March. In all, he attended on 86 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 21 committees. He also attended the prorogation on 28 July.</p><p>Somerset was missing from the opening of the 1696-7 session on 20 Oct., first attending on 23 November. On 30 Nov. he was appointed to manage a conference on the waiving and resumption of privilege. On 2 Dec. he was named to manage a conference on the bill remedying the ill state of the coinage, which he then reported. In the division over whether to read Goodman’s evidence at the trial of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> on 15 Dec., Somerset was one of the minority of 53 against reading his evidence. On the 18th Vernon noted that both Somerset and Ormond were for the second reading of the bill, despite being against reading Goodman’s evidence. However, on 23 Dec. at the third reading he was among those who ‘renounced their former vote’ and opposed the bill.<sup>79</sup> He was duly listed as voting against the passage of the Fenwick attainder. Somerset’s actions certainly caused confusion. Robert Price<sup>‡</sup> informed Beaufort on 31 Dec. that Somerset was ‘against Sir John Fenwick’s bill and not for it as I writ before’.<sup>80</sup> On 1 Feb. 1697 Somerset acted as a teller in opposition to John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, in the committee of the whole on the bill for the recovery of debts from members of Parliament and peers that the first clause relating to taking away all but personal privilege, as amended, stand part of the bill.<sup>81</sup> On 8 Mar. he left his proxy with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, next attending on 29 March. He entered his protest on 15 Apr. against the failure to pass an amendment to the bill to restrain stock-jobbing. In all, he attended on 48 days of the session, 42 per cent of the total, and was named to a further five committees.</p><p>In June 1697, it was reported that the duchess of Somerset was to stand as godmother to Derby’s daughter, Lady Elizabeth Stanley, and at the end of September, it was reported that Somerset was to be godfather of a son of Sir John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>82</sup> He was also important enough to be cultivated by wily and ambitious politicians, such as Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, whom at the end of July John Ellis found was about to spend a few days at Petworth.<sup>83</sup> As chancellor, Somerset introduced several members of the university of Cambridge on 19 Nov. to present an address congratulating the king on the peace.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Somerset attended on the opening day of the 1697-8 session, 3 Dec. 1697. He was present on 77 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total and was named to 17 committees. After 7 Feb. 1698 he next attended on 15 Mar. when he voted in favour of the committal of the bill to punish Sir Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and when he claimed a breach of privilege against two men for ‘molesting’ his workmen by pulling down a mill he had erected on one of his manors in Cumberland. Again several men were taken into custody. On 24 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill for the more effectual suppression of blasphemy and profaneness. At the beginning of June Godolphin reported to Lonsdale that Somerset was one of those against the Aire and Calder navigation bill in the Lords.<sup>85</sup> After 1 June he was absent until 21 June. On 28 June and 2 July he was named to manage conferences on the impeachments against Goudet. On 29 June he acted as a teller in the committee of the whole on whether to agree to ‘the clause of transportation’ in the Lustring Company bill.<sup>86</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1698, preparatory to the general election, Somerset was heavily involved in the elections at Cockermouth, securing the return of Colonel William Seymour<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>87</sup> At Chichester he cooperated with Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville, although one of their favoured candidates, Ranelagh, was able to secure election at Marlborough, ‘by the duke of Somerset’s interest’, for which Rochester expressed his thanks. He was also active in Sussex, where Tankerville referred to that ‘good understanding which has so happily begun between us’, over the county seats.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Somerset was missing on the opening day of the 1698-9 session, 6 Dec. 1698, first attending on the 9th. On 27 Jan. 1699 he was named to manage a conference on the bill to prohibit the export of corn. After 6 Feb. he next attended on 13 March. After 4 Apr. he was next present on 20 Apr. when he was named to a conference on the bill rendering more effectual the act restoring Blackwell Market. On the following day he was named to manage a conference on the bill making Billingsgate Market a free market for fish. On 25 Apr. he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for insisting on a proviso on the bill, and he was named to attend another conference on the bill on the 27th. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the paper duty bill to which the Commons had attached provisions relating to Irish forfeitures. In all he was present on 40 days of the session, 49 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 13 committees.</p><p>On the day Parliament was prorogued, 4 May 1699, the king dined with Somerset at Northumberland House, presumably recognition that Somerset’s support would be valuable as he weighed up his political options. On 9 May Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, reported a ‘great congress’ of ministers at Windsor, and erroneously that Somerset was likely to be made lord chamberlain. Somerset attended the prorogation on 1 June. In early September, John Vaughan*, 3rd earl of Carbery [I] (who sat in the Lords as 2nd Baron Vaughan), Charles Montagu*, the future earl of Halifax, John Smith<sup>‡</sup>, and Henry Boyle joined Somerset in hunting at Petworth.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Somerset was missing from the opening of the 1699-1700 session on 16 Nov. first attending on 19 December. He attended on 31 days of the session, 39 per cent of the total, and was named to a further two committees. He was present for only two days in February 1700: the 10th and 13th. That month he was forecast as one of those Lords in town and likely to support the bill continuing the East India Company as a corporation, but was absent for the actual division on 23 February. He next attended on 20 March. On 2 Apr. he was named to a conference on the bill for taking off duties on woollen manufactures. On 9 Apr. he was named to a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the land tax and forfeited estates in Ireland bill. Also on the 9th he acted as a teller in opposition to Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments, being ‘a great stickler against the bill’, which would have done him no harm with the king.<sup>90</sup> He was named to two further conferences on the matter on the 10th, before the Lords gave way.</p><p>During the summer of 1700 Somerset was being courted by Whig politicians. On 3 July, the recently dismissed John Somers*, Baron Somers, dined with the duke at Sion House, before visiting the king at Hampton Court.<sup>91</sup> After the middle of July Somerset’s name appears on a list of Whig Lords, with markings which possibly indicate that he was seen as a potential supporter of the new ministry. An anonymous correspondent of Harley thought that Somerset had been promised ‘an eminent post’ in any new administration.<sup>92</sup> On 17 Aug. Charles Montagu wrote to Somerset, in the hope that both he and Somers could wait on him at Petworth on the 23rd; on the 23rd it was reported that they would be at Petworth the following day.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, with an election expected in mid-September 1700 Carlisle informed Somerset of the result of a county meeting, held two days before, which had decided to recommend Gilfrid Lawson<sup>‡</sup> for Cumberland.<sup>94</sup> While at Petworth at the beginning of October Somerset penned a letter to Carlisle, before ‘next week I go a rambling with my hounds’, concerning their joint backing for Lawson: ‘I do not question but the gentleman you do now appear for is a right zealous man for the government, for that is what will recommend him to me, next to that of your appearing for him’. Further, he hoped they would join interests for Sir John Delaval<sup>‡</sup> in Northumberland, although in the end Delaval did not enter the contest.<sup>95</sup> At Cambridge, Somerset again backed Boyle for the university seat, and at Cockermouth, he again put up Seymour and tacitly backed George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup> ahead of Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup>. In late October he was reported to be in Dorset, and in mid-November, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, wrote from Longleat that ‘Somerset is now in my neighbourhood.<sup>96</sup> On 9 Nov. James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Sir John Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, of Whitehaven, that Dr Lancaster had told him that Somerset ‘has sent to all his friends in Cumberland to join with my Lord Carlisle to oppose Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> as much as they can.’<sup>97</sup> On 8 Jan. 1701, Somerset wrote from Petworth that he had been ‘very busy with many gentlemen to incline them to choose major-general [Henry] Lumley<sup>‡</sup> for one of their knights of the county’, and of his being engaged for Charles Goring<sup>‡</sup> at Steyning, where his kinsman, Hon. Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup> and, belatedly, John Ellis, also applied for his assistance.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Somerset was present on the opening day of the session, 10 Feb 1701. He attended on 85 days of the session, 81 per cent of the total and was named to 19 committees. Somerset’s short absence at the end of February may have been occasioned by the death of his step-grandmother, the widow of the 1st Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, which apparently saw her leave him £1,500 p.a., although this was not a bequest made in her will.<sup>99</sup> On 9 June he entered his protest against the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with a Commons’ committee regarding the impeachment of the Whig Lords because it would be a great obstacle to their trial. On 17 June he entered his protest against the decision of the House to go into court to proceed upon the trial of Somers, voted against acquitting Somers of the articles of impeachment against him, and entered his protest about this decision.</p><p>Despite his votes against Somers, the 1701 session and its aftermath may well have been crucial in the emergence of Somerset as a Whig grandee, bringing into sharp relief, as it did, the problems of the Protestant Succession and the succession in Spain. Macky noted shortly afterwards that it was the ‘French king’s sending the duke of Anjou to Spain’ which facilitated this change. Swift believed that Somerset’s attitude changed when he was admitted into office ‘towards the close’ of William’s reign; henceforth he was ‘a constant zealous member of the other party’. As a supporter of the new ministry, on 28 June he was named as a lord justice in William’s absence and as such he signed the commission for the prorogation on 17 August.<sup>100</sup> According to Harley, it was Somerset who was sent ‘from King William to tell him he intended he should be Speaker’ again in the new Parliament, despite Harley’s unhappiness at the new ministry, and his refusal to come in on the terms of the Court.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Somerset’s shifting position was evident in his electioneering. In the contest for Yorkshire, in November 1701, Somerset ordered his servants and tenants to support the candidature of Arthur Ingram<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Irwin [S], as did many Whig grandees, and he was returned without a poll.<sup>102</sup> On 13 Nov. James Lowther wrote that Somerset, Carlisle and Wharton would oppose Gilfrid Lawson and Richard Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> as knights of the shire for Cumberland ‘with all their might,’ and indeed neither contested the election. However, he had not heard about Somerset’s plans for Cockermouth: ‘I hope well for he is strangely altered in his opinion, come entirely about and no man in England forwarder for this dissolution.’ In effect, Somerset’s turn towards the Whigs facilitated the return of Seymour and Goodwin Wharton. When Wharton precipitated a by-election by choosing to sit for Buckinghamshire, Somerset decided to put up another candidate. As Lowther wrote on 1 Jan. 1702, ‘twill be such a hardship for the duke of Somerset to bring in two strangers that I suppose nobody will give way to it’, and indeed his nominee, James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, future Earl Stanhope, was well beaten by the Thomas Lamplugh<sup>‡</sup>, the defeated candidate from the general election. At the election for Westminster in December 1701, Somerset recommended only ‘Sir Harry’ Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup>, who topped the poll, and he also brought in Robert Yard<sup>‡</sup> at Marlborough.<sup>103</sup></p><p>About 18 Nov. 1701, Somerset ‘brought’ Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> to kiss the king’s hand for a place on the customs commission. Maynwaring later referred to this as the ‘little time that the king did anything for him he desired’. On 25 Nov. the Prussian diplomat Bonet referred to Somerset as a ‘nouveau Whig’, who had delivered the entire strategy of the Tories to his new allies.<sup>104</sup> Somerset was present on the opening day of the 1701-2 session, 30 December. He attended on 85 days of the session, 85 per cent of the total, and was named to 32 committees.</p><p>Promotion beckoned for Somerset, when, on 27 Jan. 1702, James Lowther reported that ‘the king has told my Lord Rochester the duke of Somerset is to be made lord president’, and he was duly named on the 29th, following Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke’s move to the admiralty.<sup>105</sup> Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, for one, reacted favourably to the appointment: ‘Somerset is of a Tory and Tory-family become a zealous and hearty man with us: and indeed all the ministry hitherto taken in, are of the very best’.<sup>106</sup> On 6 and 10 Feb. he was named to a conference on the bill for the attainder of the pretended Prince of Wales. When, at the end of February, in the debate on the abjuration oath, Nottingham urged the necessity of a Union with Scotland, Somerset:</p><blockquote><p>declared it also his opinion and said that he had no instructions from his majesty to recommend it to the House yet assured their Lordships that his majesty designed to propose it from the throne at his first coming to the House but this will prove a work of great difficulty and will require time to effect.<sup>107</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 28 Feb. Somerset duly brought a message from the king recommending a union between England and Scotland.</p><h2><em>The reign of Anne </em></h2><p>On 8 Mar. 1702 Somerset was appointed to a conference on the death of King William and the accession of Queen Anne. Apparently he was one of those opposed to Rochester’s insistence that the new queen make reference to her English birth in her speech on 11 March.<sup>108</sup> On 16 Mar. he acquainted the House that following an agreement between Sir Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. and his children, they wished leave to withdraw their petition, which was granted. On 31 Mar. he was sent to discover when the queen would be attended with the address on her speech, reporting back on the following day. According to Vernon on 14 Apr. Somerset was one of the ‘commissioners’ named by the queen to consult with the Emperor’s envoy, Hoffman, over the forthcoming campaign.<sup>109</sup> On 4 May Somerset informed the Lords that the queen ‘according to the Grand Convention with the Emperor and the States General’, had given order ‘for proclaiming a war this day’, a decision for which he had apparently argued in council.<sup>110</sup> According to a newsletter on 7 May, Somerset was one of those ‘great men’ that ‘laboured’ in vain to have Vernon retained as secretary of state.<sup>111</sup> On 20 May he was named to a conference on the bill for the encouragement of privateers, later reporting back to the House.</p><p>Meanwhile, there had been much discussion about elections. On 19 Mar. James Lowther reported that a meeting in London had broken up to allow time to ‘consider with’ Somerset, ‘who is very hearty but at the same time, almost angry with everybody that did not help him in the last election at Cockermouth’. One of the questions being asked was whether Somerset ‘will be content with one at Cockermouth’.<sup>112</sup> He was, and at the beginning of July he noted the dissolution of Parliament as being ‘to the great satisfaction of all good men, who longed very much for it’, and that as a consequence he had recommended James Stanhope to Cockermouth.<sup>113</sup> Stanhope subsequently topped the poll, while Lamplugh narrowly defeated Wharton, perhaps because Somerset and Wharton failed to combine their interests effectively, owing to legal disputes over Cockermouth parklands. At the beginning of June, Somerset was reported to have ‘directed his steward to labour for’ William Ashe<sup>‡</sup> and Maurice Ashley<sup>‡</sup> in Wiltshire, although only the latter stood eventually. In Yorkshire, Irwin’s death left the Whig grandees searching for a candidate to join with Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Fairfax [S]. Initially, Somerset backed Hon. Thomas Watson Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>, although in the end the grandees united behind William Cavendish*, styled marquess of Hartington, future 2nd duke of Devonshire, as the partner for the Tory, Sir John Kaye<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>114</sup></p><p>As early as April 1702 Somerset had been talked of as a candidate for mastership of the horse. On 9 July he was named to the post, with a warrant being issued on the 20th.<sup>115</sup> By virtue of his office, Somerset was also a member of the Cabinet. Presence lists recorded by Sunderland during his tenure of the secretaryship (December 1706 to June 1710) suggest he attended over 55 per cent of cabinet meetings during that period.<sup>116</sup> Also in July there were reports of a possible marriage between his son, Algernon Seymour<sup>†</sup>, styled earl of Hertford, future 7th duke of Somerset, and one of Marlborough’s daughters. Clearly in royal favour, in early October, the queen stayed at Somerset’s house at Marlborough en route from Bath to Windsor.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Somerset was present on the opening day of the 1702-3 session, 20 Oct. 1702. He attended on 66 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total. As Master of the Horse he was used by the Lords on occasion to convey messages to the queen. On 19 Nov. he was one of three peers ordered to attend her with their address asking that William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, not be removed as lord almoner ‘till he be found guilty of some crime by due course of law,’ which he reported on the following day. On 30 Nov. Somerset moved that the House give thanks to Marlborough for the success of the campaign that summer, which was then delivered by Lord Keeper Wright. On 5 Dec. Somerset attended a meeting of Whigs at Wharton’s house in Dover Street, possibly about the occasional conformity bill.<sup>118</sup> On 9 Dec. he signed the declaration against tacking as ‘unparliamentary’, and tending to the ‘destruction of the constitution of this government’. On 17 Dec. he was named to a conference on the bill to prevent occasional conformity. The next day, together with Ormond, he introduced Marlborough into the House following his promotion in the peerage.</p><p>On 9 Jan. 1703, in the debate on an address to assure the queen that the House was ready to comply with the proposals of the Dutch, Somerset asserted that he had ‘dissented’ in the Cabinet when its members had discussed whether the matter could be moved in Parliament without a prorogation, only for Rochester to reply that, if so, it ‘was so modest, that I believe nobody took notice of it’.<sup>119</sup> In January Nottingham considered him an opponent of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the bill’s penalty clause, a wrecking amendment. A newsletter also noted that Somerset voted ‘against the bill’.<sup>120</sup> On 19 Jan. he entered his protest against the grants’ clauses in the bill to settle a revenue on Prince George*, duke of Cumberland. On 2 Feb. he was named to a committee to examine into the work of the commission of accounts, taking the chair on the 3rd, and reporting that no commissioners had attended the committee and asking that a message be sent to the Commons desiring leave that they might attend.<sup>121</sup> On 5 Feb. he reported that the commissioners had still not attended, but that the committee had continued their investigation and exonerated Halifax of neglect and breach of trust; he was then named to a committee to oversee the printing of their proceedings. When the Commons finally replied on 16 Feb. to the Lords’ message, the Lords present, presumably including Somerset, were appointed to draft a response. On 17 Feb. this committee found no reason not to grant a conference and Somerset was appointed to manage it. On the 18 Feb. the Lords voted to vindicate their right to take cognizance of the public accounts and their exoneration of Halifax and also voted the reasons delivered by the Commons at the last conference ‘unparliamentary’, and ‘tending to destroy all good correspondence between the two Houses, and to the subversion of the constitution’. Somerset was then named to the committee to consider their response. On 22 Feb. he was named to manage the conference charged with delivering their resolutions to the Commons. On 23 Feb. Somerset reported from the original committee on the completion of their investigations, and on the following day he was named to the committee to draw up an address on the matter and to oversee the publication of their findings, which he reported on 25 February. On the same day he was named to manage another conference on the conflict between the two Houses on the matter. Somerset was appointed to 27 committees during the session, reporting on one of them, the Cham navigation bill, on 20 January.</p><p>Somerset’s outlook was now that of a minister. On 12 Mar. 1703 he wrote to Stanhope that ‘such is our present misfortune that by the violence of a party, men are put into office for no other reason’, a prevailing theme of his correspondence during Anne’s reign.<sup>122</sup> On 11 May he wrote to Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, about the latter’s failure to take out his commission as custos of Worcestershire in order to avoid Lord Keeper Wright complaining to the queen about his neglect.<sup>123</sup> In May there were rumours of negotiations for a marriage between Hertford and Lady Elizabeth Noel, daughter of Wriothesley Noel*, 2nd earl of Gainsborough, and in June Somerset told Godolphin that his ‘affair’ with her grandfather, Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke ‘was very far from over’.<sup>124</sup> On 11 June the queen wrote that ‘the Whigs were once extremely for the union when I first came to the crown, and the duke of Somerset was one of those that proposed my recommending it to the Parliament in my first speech’, however, as soon as the commissioners began deliberating the Whigs ‘were as much against it as they were for it before, and the D. of S. was very rarely at their meetings, and the meaning of this I cannot comprehend.’<sup>125</sup> The difference now was that the Union was a project of some Tory ministers.</p><p>In 1703 Somerset attempted to get Stanhope appointed as envoy to Turin.<sup>126</sup> Then, in early July, he approached Godolphin in favour of Stanhope’s appointment as envoy to the Archduke Charles. At the end of the month Somerset had to inform Stanhope’s father of his lack of success, because the appointment lay in Nottingham’s province and the secretary ‘I am sure will do nothing that I shall desire, but on the contrary I fear he will oppose it though for no other reason’. Somerset was also keen to have Alexander Stanhope succeed Lord Robert Russell<sup>‡</sup> as clerk of the pipe, but as Godolphin told Somerset on 1 Aug. the queen had already promised it to William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Cheyne [S].<sup>127</sup> Later in August James Stanhope described Somerset as ‘my best and indeed only patron’. Somerset remained alert to increasing the strength of the Whigs in the Commons. Thus, the death of Lionel Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Orrery [I], on 24 Aug. saw him promote the idea of Peterborough’s brother, Hon. Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, succeeding him at East Grinstead, only for Somers to point out that Orrery ‘was not of this Parliament’.<sup>128</sup></p><p>On 4 Nov. Somerset joined in the Kit Kat’s commemoration of William III’s birthday.<sup>129</sup> He was present on the second day of the 1703-4 session, 10 Nov., and in all he attended on 60 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total. About November, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast Somerset as likely to oppose the bill to prevent occasional conformity. He did not change his mind as to Somerset’s likely opposition to the bill when he amended his forecast between 26 Nov. and 8 Dec. and Somerset was duly listed as voting against the bill on 14 December. On 17 Dec. he attended a meeting of Whig Lords at Sunderland’s house to discuss the queen’s speech and the address. On 18 Dec. he was elected in second place (with 51 votes) to the committee of seven charged with examining Boucher and others involved in the Scotch Plot, meetings of which took place at Northumberland House on 19 and 20 December. His attempt to secure exemption from this task on the grounds that he had been deputed to compliment the king of Spain was evidently disallowed. Ever since early November Somerset had been reported to be ‘upon the wing, when Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> gives notice where the king [of Spain] is like to land’ and as early as October Somerset had made preparations to ‘fit up his seat at Petworth’ in readiness for accommodating Archduke Charles during his sojourn in England.<sup>130</sup> On 21 Dec. he was named to present an address to the queen for Boucher’s prosecution for treason, reporting back to the House on the 22nd. The House then adjourned until 4 Jan. 1704, but Somerset did not sit again until 12 January.</p><p>Somerset had left London to meet the archduke on 25 December. He landed at Portsmouth on 26 Dec. and was conveyed to Petworth en route to Windsor. He returned there with the archduke on 31 December. When storms forced the archduke to disembark at Portsmouth, Somerset went down to the coast to accompany him to Petworth, although they also appear to have stayed at Newport in the Isle of Wight. This explains his absence from Parliament from 23 Jan. to 7 Feb. 1704 inclusive, the archduke embarking again from Portsmouth on 4 February.<sup>131</sup> On 13 Jan. Somerset had been appointed to the committee to draw up a representation to the queen on the rights of the Lords to examine people and to order them into custody. He reported the representation on 17 Jan. and was named to ask the queen when she would receive it, reporting back to the House on the 18th. On 17 Feb. Somerset and Carlisle joined a meeting of Whig Lords ‘after dinner’ to discuss the Scotch Plot, as Somerset did again on 21 March.<sup>132</sup> On 22 Feb. he was named to a committee of seven to examine further into the Scotch conspiracy. Somerset reported on the following day that the committee desired the House to address the queen for a proclamation for a reward for any person helping to decipher some gibberish letters; Somerset and Wharton were then ordered to attend the queen with the address. On 26 Feb. it was reported that the committee sat ‘constantly every day at the duke of Somerset’s house’, ‘to take further examinations about the said plot’.<sup>133</sup> On 18 Mar. Somerset informed the House that the committee’s report was ready, which he duly delivered on the 20th. He was named on 22 Mar. to draw up an address based on the resolutions of the House on the matter. The next day, Somerset hosted a meeting over dinner at Northumberland House, possibly related to this matter. <sup>134</sup> When the House took the report into further consideration on 24 Mar. Somerset entered his protest against the failure to put the question that ‘that part of the narrative relating to Sir John Maclean, and the papers relating to his examination, taken by the earl of Nottingham, and laid before the queen, the cabinet council, and this House, are imperfect,’ a motion aimed at Nottingham’s handling of the plot. The next day, though, when the Lords carried the resolution that ‘not passing a censure on the author of the said papers’ was ‘a great encouragement to her majesty’s enemies and of dangerous consequence’ Somerset was one of several prominent ministers missing from the proceedings.<sup>135</sup> On 28 Mar. Somerset reported an address concerning the Commons’ representation to the queen ‘about the Lords taking the examinations of persons concerned in the Scotch Conspiracy’, which defended the rights of the Lords at great length. On that day Somerset informed Stanhope of the ‘brave things’ done by the Lords, who were ‘so much in the right’ in their dealings with the Commons’, whose ‘most unaccountable step’, in adjourning for a week had delayed the end of the session.<sup>136</sup></p><p>Possibly as part of an attack on Lord Keeper Wright, Somerset was at the forefront of the request on 15 Mar. 1704 for complete lists of j.p.s, to which was added on the following day a request for a list of those dismissed from the bench.<sup>137</sup> On 30 Mar. he was ordered to attend the queen to ask when the House could attend her with their address for a review of the commissions of the peace. He reported her answer the following day, and reported the address they were to present to her. Somerset was then deputed to ask the queen for special remuneration for the officers of the Lords following their trouble and charge over the proceeding on the Scotch Plot. In all he was named to a further 18 committees, reporting on 21 Feb. from the committee investigating William Keith, a forerunner of the committee investigating the Scotch Plot, and on 27 Mar. to a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the public accounts’ bill. Somerset summed up the session to George Stepney: ‘we have finished this session mighty well, notwithstanding all have been fought inch by inch’.<sup>138</sup></p><p>On 17 Apr. Somerset attended ‘a great feast at my Lord Halifax’s at Westminster’ in company at which ‘about 50 persons of honour and quality were present all men of a kidney’.<sup>139</sup> On 18 Apr. Nottingham demanded the dismissal of the remaining Whigs from the government. He mentioned Somerset specifically for his role in chairing the inquiry into the Scotch Plot, arguing that retaining him in the Cabinet Council ‘after what had passed would render the government contemptible’.<sup>140</sup> Instead Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, and Sir Edward Seymour were dismissed and Nottingham resigned. On 30 May, following their removal and Harley’s appointment as secretary, Somerset wrote to Stanhope:</p><blockquote><p>we were at first in great hopes, of a general rout amongst them of the same kidney but we were disappointed, for it is not like to go any further at present for we are still on the old foot of just making an offer in doing well, and then to stop short.<sup>141</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 June Somerset was one of a number of Whig grandees, including Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, Sunderland and between ten and a dozen ‘other great Lords’, who attended the court of exchequer in support of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, who was being sued for a debt of £91,000 owed to the crown. On 14 Aug. Somerset was at Petworth, having recently returned from ‘a long journey which my own private affairs had obliged me to make into the west’. At the end of the month Somerset was annoyed by the failure of the queen to knight Joseph Wolf, one of the sheriffs of London, though this was done on 6 September.<sup>142</sup> According to Sir William Simpson, Somerset had been on the point of breaking with the court over the matter because it ‘was not complied with readily’.<sup>143</sup> Shortly afterwards he wrote to William Humfreys urging him to accept the shrievalty of London, as Sir John Buckworth had already done, as a matter of ‘the last consequence,’ ‘when we do see there is now endeavouring to set up such persecuting principles as Chancellor [George] Jefferys*, Baron Jeffreys was of, to prosecute and condemn all true English hearts, witness the violent and illegal temper they have so lately showed in Westminster Hall.’<sup>144</sup></p><p>Somerset continued during the summer on a round of social and political engagements. On 7 Sept. he attended the service of thanksgiving at St Pauls. He also enjoyed success with his horses at races at Quainton and Newmarket. At the end of October he was one of those peers that accompanied the new lord mayor, Sir Owen Buckingham<sup>‡</sup>, to dinner at Drapers’ Hall. The death of Lewis Oglethorpe<sup>‡</sup> at the beginning of November, saw Somerset succeed in his attempt to have Thomas Meredyth<sup>‡</sup> appointed as his successor as an equerry to the queen, a project which had been on his mind since the opening months of the reign.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Somerset was present on the opening day of the 1704-5 session, 24 October. He attended on 74 days of the session, three quarters of the total, and was named to a further 36 committees. On 15 Nov. the proxy of Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk, was registered to him and on 22 Nov. that of Coventry. On 29 Nov. it was Somerset who helped the queen to the throne, before the debate on the Scotch act of security, a gesture of support for the Godolphin ministry. On 14 Dec. following Mohun’s successful motion that the thanks of the House be given to Marlborough upon his first sitting in the House, Somerset added that Lord Keeper Wright ‘might be desired to be more full, than usual, in expressing the sentiments of their Lordships’.<sup>146</sup></p><p>On 6 Jan. 1705 Somerset accompanied Marlborough to a feast in his honour held in Goldsmiths Hall.<sup>147</sup> As in the previous session, Lord Keeper Wright came under attack over the composition of the magistracy.<sup>148</sup> On 16 Feb. Somerset was appointed to a committee to consider the lists of j.p.s delivered to the House in the previous session. He chaired the select committee the following day, and was requested to analyse various lists to evaluate what had been done since their address of the previous session. On 22nd he reported back to the committee, and then reported to the full House that ‘several persons of quality and estates, and of known affections to her majesty’s government, that were left out of the commission of peace in the year 1700, have not been restored; and that there remain several persons in the commission who are not so qualified’.<sup>149</sup> The House then ordered the committee to produce an address on the matter, which Somerset reported later in the day, and was then given the task of presenting to the queen. He reported back on the following day. On 26 Feb. Somerset hosted a supper ‘where there was a great many other Lords, none but Lords’, which may have been related to events in the House the following day when he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for a conference on the rights of the Aylesbury freemen in the <em>Ashby v. White</em> case. He was named to the resulting conferences on 28 Feb. and 7 March.<sup>150</sup> Also on the 7th he was named to draw up a state of the proceedings on the case for presentation to the queen (the last day upon which he attended).</p><p>On 27 Feb. 1705 it was reported that Stanhope had been made a brigadier ‘by mediation of the duke of Somerset after his zeal in the House against places had given offence to the court and made it doubtful whether he should be turned out of the post he was in or preferred to a better.’<sup>151</sup> Evelyn reported in March that the ‘old’ countess of Northumberland (his wife’s grandmother) had left much to Somerset.<sup>152</sup> Her bequests included jewels to members of his family, and her grand-daughter, the duchess, was the residual legatee. The duke was made executor. On 25 Mar. Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. reported rumours that Somerset would be president of the council, with Ormond taking over as master of the horse. At about this date Somerset was classed as a Hanoverian in an analysis of the peerage with relation to the Succession. In mid-April Somerset’s horse won the queen’s plate at Newmarket.<sup>153</sup></p><p>With an election due in 1705, preparations were made early in some counties. At some point, probably in the second half of December 1704, Somerset, Wharton, Bolton and Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl of Kingston, met several Wiltshire gentlemen in London and agreed that Shaftesbury’s brother should join with Ashe to contest the county, although in the event Maurice Ashley did not stand.<sup>154</sup> As early as 20 Feb. 1705 James Lowther reported that Somerset and Wharton had ‘set up each one and join against Mr Lamplugh’ at Cockermouth.<sup>155</sup> This proved to be the case, but in a close contest Lamplugh was returned ahead of Wharton’s candidate, Harry Mordaunt, and although the election was set to be disputed, Mordaunt’s return elsewhere, ended the contest. In March, one of the candidates for Sussex paid tribute to Somerset’s influence in the county when he noted that ‘I hear that the duke of Somerset has been so kind to offer me his assistance without which there can be no prospect of success if the election should be at Chichester’. Meanwhile, at Marlborough, Somerset’s candidate, Edward Ashe<sup>‡</sup> (son of William), topped the poll, resigning the seat later in the year to facilitate the return of Hertford at a by-election.<sup>156</sup> Nor did he neglect to support Marlborough’s attempts to establish his political interest at Woodstock, promising to dispatch an out-voter to plump for William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, future Earl Cadogan, in April 1705.<sup>157</sup></p><p>On 27 Apr. Somerset’s assessment of Cambridge University– believing that Francis Godolphin*, future 2nd earl of Godolphin, would be elected with either Arthur Annesley*, future 5th earl of Anglesey, or Sir Isaac Newton<sup>‡</sup> - was wide of the mark as Annesley triumphed with Dixie Windsor<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>158</sup> Nor was it plain sailing elsewhere. In May he was insulted ‘in the streets of Salisbury by the mob’, and although Somerset and Richmond made a fine spectacle on 24 May as they rode into Lewes at the head of the Whigs before the county poll for Sussex, the sheriff ordered them off the bench, citing the order of the Commons against peers appearing at elections. Somerset allegedly told the sheriff ‘you acted more like a gentleman had you told us of this before you came here’, only to receive the riposte that ‘till I came here I had nothing to do to tell you, neither could I believe you would come where you knew you had nothing to do.’<sup>159</sup> In Yorkshire in 1705, Somerset backed the Whig ticket of Hartington and Wentworth, but the latter was easily beaten by Kaye.</p><p>Somerset returned out of Sussex, where he had been for ‘some days’ on 20 July 1705. On 25 Aug. he attended the thanksgiving service at St Pauls.<sup>160</sup> At the end of August it was reported that Somerset ‘goes speedily to Holland to demand satisfaction for the late affront put upon the duke of Marlborough’, in reality the refusal of the Dutch to fight the French, although no-one was actually sent. Somerset was one of those offering congratulatory visits to William Cowper*, future Earl Cowper, on 10 Oct. upon his appointment as lord keeper, also attending him on the first day of term on 23 October.<sup>161</sup></p><p>Somerset was present on the opening day of the 1705-6 session, 25 Oct. 1705, attending on 56 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total. He was missing from the attendance list after 1 Nov. until 6 Dec. although he was not marked absent at a call of the House on 12 November. On that day Coventry’s proxy was registered to him. On 17 Nov. he left his own proxy with Godolphin. Somerset then went down to Wiltshire to ensure the victory of his son at the Marlborough by-election. He was certainly in Marlborough by 22 Nov. and reported success to Cowper on 27 Nov. when he intimated that he would be back in London in a week.<sup>162</sup> On 6 Dec. he was named to prepare reasons for a conference to deliver the Lords’ resolution that the Church was not in danger, and was named as one of the managers of the conference on the following day and on the 11th. On the 12th he was named to draw up an address on the issue, which he reported on the 13th. He was then named to manage conferences on the address on 14 and 17 December.</p><p>On 11 Jan. 1706 Somerset dined with Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford, Marlborough, Cowper, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and several other Lords, though ‘nothing material’ transpired. The following day the same company, with the addition of Wharton, dined at Marlborough’s.<sup>163</sup> The death of Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, in January 1706 saw attempts made to secure the lieutenancy of Sussex for Dorset’s son, but Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, future earl of Wilmington, thought ‘it has been sometime promised to the duke of Somerset’. This report proved to be true as Algernon Seymour, styled earl of Hertford, later 7th duke of Somerset, was given the post.<sup>164</sup> On 7 Feb. Somerset was named to manage a conference on the regency bill, and later in the day to a committee to draw up reasons why the Lords insisted upon their amendments, from which committee he reported on the 11th. He was a manager of the resultant conference, reporting that the Lords had given the Commons their reasons for insisting on the amendments. He managed and reported a further conference on the bill on 19 February. On 8 Feb. Somerset attended a dinner hosted by Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulton, future earl of Tankerville, with Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, and Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex. Virtually the same company attended at Essex’s on the 12th.<sup>165</sup> On 22 Feb. according to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, after counsel was heard on the bill for enlarging the pier and harbour of Parton harbour, there was a motion to reject the bill, but Rochester called for hearing the customs commissioners on it, and Wharton proved ‘willing to let the bill fall easily as we could, since the duke of Somerset seemed to espouse it’. Espouse it he did, for after the second reading on 26 Feb. he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill. As Nicolson reported, the committee rejected all amendments and carried it by one vote, although the only vote officially recorded was 13-10 on a motion to adjourn the House.<sup>166</sup> As Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> noted, it passed the Lords ‘without so much as one amendment for fear it should have miscarried for want of time’, and that Somerset ‘espoused it heartily’.<sup>167</sup> On 28 Feb. he was named to a committee to draw up reasons why the Lords had amended the Commons’ amendment on the bill of Francis Seymour*, Baron Conway, being named to the resultant conferences on the 28 Feb. and 2 March. On 8 Mar. the proxy of James Berkeley*, 11th Baron (later 3rd earl of) Berkeley, was registered to him. On 9 Mar. he was named to manage a conference over the pamphlet <em>A Letter from Sir Rowland Gwynne</em><sup>‡</sup>, purporting to be written to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, which he reported later in the day. Following the passage of a series of resolutions condemning the work, Somerset was named to the committee to draw up the resultant address and on the 11th to the conference in which the address was given to the Commons. Also on 11 Mar. Somerset reported from the committee (appointed on 6 Mar.) charged with drawing up the reasons for the Lords’ disagreement to some of the amendments made by the Commons to the bill for the amendment of the law, and the better advancement of justice. All together, he was named to a further 31 committees during the session.</p><p>By 3 Apr. 1706 Somerset was at Petworth, where he was kept up-to-date with events by Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>168</sup> On 19 June Somerset, Richmond, Bolton, Sunderland, Somers and others were entertained by the sheriffs of London at Drapers’ Hall.<sup>169</sup> On 22 July he was one of the commissioners that signed the articles of Union between England and Scotland.<sup>170</sup> On 10 Sept. it was reported that Somerset was again in the country, and it was noted on 22 Oct. that he had won nearly £1,000 from the recent horse-racing at Newmarket.<sup>171</sup> On 29 Oct. Somerset informed Stanhope that ‘I have not been at any cabinet council, being obliged to go into the country for fourteen days, from whence I am but just returned’.<sup>172</sup> Following the death of Kaye in August, the Whigs had cast around for a candidate for the ensuing by-election for Yorkshire. Although Somerset was pre-engaged to Conyers Darcy<sup>‡</sup>, and ‘obstinate’ in his espousal of his candidature, efforts were made to unite the Whigs behind Lord Fairfax, and in the event he defeated Henry Dawnay<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Downe [I], on 1 Jan. 1707.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Somerset was present at the prorogation on 21 Nov. 1706, and the opening day of the 1706-7 session on 3 December. He was rarely present before 20 Jan. 1707, attending in all on 48 days of the session, 56 per cent of the total, and was named to 22 committees. He also maintained his whirl of social engagements, many of them with political overtones. On 15 Dec. Ossulton dined at Somerset’s.<sup>174</sup> On 18 Jan. 1707 Somerset was one of a number of Whig Lords dining at Ossulton’s, as he did on the 24th, possibly to discuss the Union. On 6 Feb. Somerset hosted another dinner, probably for the same purpose.<sup>175</sup> In February Somerset described the current Parliament as ‘the best of Parliaments England ever had’, predicting that the queen would allow it to sit for a further year.<sup>176</sup> On 14 Mar. the proxy of Henry Howard*, earl of Bindon, later 6th earl of Suffolk, was registered to him. Somerset attended on eight days of the short session of April 1707, missing only the last day, 24 April.</p><p>The disposal of his children was much on Somerset’s mind in 1707. On 28 Mar. he had made an enquiry of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, about his daughter Lady Harriet Holles for his eldest son, an approach he renewed in February 1711, but to no avail.<sup>177</sup> On 14 June, his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married Henry O’Brien*, 7th earl of Thomond [I], later Viscount Tadcaster.</p><p>On 19 Aug. Somerset wrote to Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, that ‘all our affairs here at home do go just in the same dull train as when you left us, neither faster nor backwarder’, and that he was ‘going for a month to Petworth and then I return to wait on the queen to Newmarket where she intends to be the last day in September or the first in October’.<sup>178</sup> Around this date, it was rumoured incorrectly that Somerset would succeed the recently deceased Devonshire as lord steward. In September Somerset was lobbying Marlborough from Petworth on behalf of Stanhope succeeding George Stepney at The Hague, but he lost out to Cadogan. Shortly before the session began, Somerset and the new duke of Devonshire met with Whig Members to inform them that although the queen would not renege on her appointment of Offspring Blackall*, as bishop of Exeter or William Dawes*, as bishop of Chester, ‘yet for the future she was resolved to give them full content’.<sup>179</sup></p><p>Somerset was present on the opening day of the 1707-8 session, 23 October. He next attended on 19 Nov. being present in all on 66 days of the session, 62 per cent of the total. On 6 Dec. he tried to entice Coventry to Parliament ‘tho’ your lordship stayed no longer then to take the oaths &c thereby to qualify yourself to make a proxy’.<sup>180</sup> During this session, Somerset showed himself to be at odds with the Junto, and its increasingly forceful campaign to acquire high office. Significantly, this accretion of power was opposed by the queen and as such alienated a number of Whig peers, particularly as one of the targets for their attacks was the admiralty, nominally headed by Prince George.<sup>181</sup> On 24 Dec. James Brydges*, the future duke of Chandos, informed Cadogan that the pressure exerted by the Whigs on the ministry had been alleviated by Devonshire, Newcastle, Somerset, Lord William Powlett<sup>‡</sup>, John Smith<sup>‡</sup>, Henry Boyle, Spencer Compton and Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Orford, ‘declaring that they would never come in to press the queen and the ministry to measures so unreasonable in themselves’.<sup>182</sup> For resisting the Junto’s harassment of the ministry these men were dubbed ‘lord treasurer’s Whigs’ by Robert Molesworth<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>183</sup></p><p>Somerset was present in the Lords on 8 Jan. 1708, the second day after the Christmas adjournment. On 7 Feb. he entered his protest against the passage of the bill for rendering the Union more complete, in line with Godolphin, Marlborough and the court against the Junto and their Squadrone allies.<sup>184</sup> On 8 Feb. it was Somerset who initiated the revolt in the Cabinet which led to Harley’s removal from office, when he said that if the queen ‘suffered that fellow (pointing to Harley) to treat affairs of the war without the advice of the general [Marlborough], he could not serve her, and so left the Council’.<sup>185</sup> In a further move against Harley, on 9 Feb. he was chosen in the ballot of peers to examine William Greg, an under-secretary in Harley’s office, who had been found guilty of treason and sentenced to execution. He reported the committee’s examinations on 2 Mar., which took over three hours, being named to the resultant committee to take them into consideration. Although the <em>Journal</em> was silent on the reporter, it appears that it was Somerset that read ‘the long report’ from this committee on Greg’s examination, which followed the report of the address to the queen on Greg on 18 Mar., apparently noting ‘that he thought it was not worth anybody’s hearing, and for his own part if he was not obliged to read it he should not stay to hear it.’<sup>186</sup> On 31 Mar. he was named to a conference on the bill for the encouragement of the trade to America. On 1 Apr. he was named to a conference on the bill to repeal a clause in an act for amending and repairing the highways. He was named to 25 committees, including the bill to allow his future son-in-law, Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup> to make a marriage settlement. Wyndham had already set the marriage negotiations in train, by asking John Leveson Gower*, Baron Gower, to approach Somerset with a marriage proposal, and the marriage took place on 21 July 1708.<sup>187</sup></p><p>Somerset was able to exercise some patronage in his post as master of the horse, and following the death in March of William Walsh<sup>‡</sup> he named major general Thomas Meredyth as his replacement as ‘gentleman of the horse’. Somerset was equally at home in forwarding the parliamentary careers of others. In the 1708 election he supported the candidature of James Lowther in Cumberland, and at Cockermouth, Somerset and Wharton shared the spoils in an unopposed election.<sup>188</sup> With the election results generally favouring the Whigs, the summer saw much manoeuvring by the Junto to force their members into office. It was probably to Somerset that Maynwaring was referring when he described a discussion on 26 Apr. 1708 about the prospect of employing Somers in the Cabinet ‘without an employment’; ‘his grace’ seemed favourable, as it represented a moderation of Junto demands, but Maynwaring detected a sense ‘that this would in some measure eclipse his present lustre in the court, for tis certain never man had such a thirst for power, not without some ingredients of vanity. But yet he is without doubt as honest as it is possible for so great a statesman to be.’<sup>189</sup></p><p>However, the duchess of Marlborough also thought that Somerset had the power to ‘hurt’ the Whigs by sowing divisions in their ranks. In June he appears to have had this intention when he informed Wharton that the queen had a personal objection to granting office to Somers, ‘upon account of his having disobliged the Prince’, rather than any aversion to the Whigs as a whole and suggested that Wharton be put forward instead – all done with the air of a ‘great minister’. Wharton refused to take the bait and remained steadfast to his party. Marlborough was concerned he and Godolphin would be implicated in the plan, telling his wife ‘I can’t be so indiscreet as to employ Somerset in anything that is of consequence’.<sup>190</sup></p><p>Maynwaring was also called upon to convince Halifax that he should not fall in with Somerset’s divisive plans, pointing out that ‘there could be nothing so ridiculous, after carrying such a majority for the next Parliament, as to let it be broke to pieces by those that have no hopes of ever rising again, but by their divisions’. Halifax said he would talk to Somerset and ‘endeavour to convince him that they two (as great a man as his grace was) should make but a sad figure if they thought to leave their friends, and a worse if they pretended to carry on the party alone’. Again, Maynwaring felt that there was a danger that Wharton would perceive Godolphin’s hand behind Somerset’s manoeuvring.<sup>191</sup></p><p>Not that Godolphin or the Whigs could ignore Somerset’s potential influence with the queen. On 5 Oct. 1708 Godolphin and Somerset went in a coach to Newmarket, the latter having already been used by the former to bolster his arguments to the queen for coming to an agreement with the Junto.<sup>192</sup> From the campaign, Marlborough wrote to his wife on 13/24 Oct. 1708, to underline his potential value as an ally: ‘what you say of the vanity of Somerset I know to be true, for he does not only think he has power with Wharton, but with many more’, and that although this ‘does do hurt with the queen’, yet ‘that must be suffered, for if he be a little managed he will sometimes do good’.<sup>193</sup> Maynwaring offered a template for such management during 1708 when he rather perceptively noted of Somerset that:</p><blockquote><p>our sovereign … is not so difficult to deal with as he appears to be, especially as to the getting him to do what one wishes, provided there be time for it, and he be not pre-engaged. For tis only laying a thing carelessly before him in discourse, and if it be any matter in which the exercise of his power may appear, or his interest may be increased, he is sure to catch it, and afterwards to make it his own.<sup>194</sup></p></blockquote><p>Not surprisingly, therefore, on 16 Oct. Maynwaring wrote of Somerset’s displeasure at being left out of a meeting hosted at Newmarket by John Moore*, bishop of Ely: ‘tis certain he will be very troublesome if he be kept out of their secrets and more so if he be let into ’em; so that they will have a fine time either way’. On the same day that Maynwaring wrote this missive, Sunderland had accused Somerset of being a dupe of the ministers, and then been forced to assuage the ‘Seymour blood’ by explaining himself and his plans to ‘force’ ministers to comply with Whig demands. On 18 Oct. Maynwaring reported that Somerset had sent to see Wharton that morning and that the duke ‘is extremely discomposed’.<sup>195</sup></p><p>On an analysis of the 1708 Parliament, Somerset was classed as a Whig, although the markings for the Lords probably referred to the Sacheverell affair in 1710. Somerset was present at the opening of the 1708-9 session, 16 Nov. 1708, where he served as one of the queen’s commissioners owing to her ill health. On 19 Nov. together with Ormond, he introduced James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], into the House as duke of Dover. He did not attend after 16 Apr. 1709, having been present on 60 days of the session, 65 per cent of the total, and been named to 23 committees.</p><p>Meanwhile, the duchess of Marlborough had written to Somerset’s wife on 20 Dec. 1708 of her belief that Somerset’s attitude to her had changed since she had seen him at Windsor, which Sarah later attributed to their having ‘great designs against me, but I did not discover them till some time after this letter’. Somerset’s wife denied a rift and noted that her husband ‘was under some uneasiness with the thoughts that of late you looked on him with a reservedness so different from what you used to do.’<sup>196</sup> In reality Somerset was unequivocal in his support for Marlborough, even attempting on 23 Dec. to amend the address on the capture of Ghent, to remove mention of Prince Eugene because it diminished the role of Marlborough.<sup>197</sup> However, Somerset remained at odds with the Junto. On 24 Dec. James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> thought that Somerset and Mohun ‘are outrageous against the Juncto and others are falling off from them’. On 28 Dec. it was reported to Trumbull that Somerset had ‘gone with his family to Sussex which we in town call discontent. The reason is the party can no longer endure him, and marquess of Dorchester [the former earl of Kingston] is set up to be his rival, even to treat of his grace’s feasting days all his table retainers’.<sup>198</sup></p><p>On 14 Jan. 1709 Somerset wrote to Marlborough ‘of the usual high hand some people have already carried themselves towards the queen’, meaning the Junto, which caused Sarah to comment later that ‘when his grace writ this letter he was pleased to be angry at the Whigs and with what they did in the Parliament’.<sup>199</sup> On 21 Jan. he voted in favour of Scottish peers with British titles being permitted to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers, that is against the Junto’s attempt to put pressure on the Court, and may explain why Peter Wentworth noted on 25 Jan. that ‘tis talked as if the duke of Somerset was not so well with the junto as usual’, and that James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], would replace him as master of the horse.<sup>200</sup> At the beginning of February, Marlborough in Brussels, wrote to his wife of the continued violence of the Whigs, noting that Somerset was a friend of them both, despite the inconvenience of his ‘ill judgment and great desire of having credit with the queen’, which ‘will make him both troublesome and do hurt’. Nevertheless, ‘whilst in the world we must bear with such uneasiness’.<sup>201</sup></p><p>On 4 Mar. 1709 Nicolson referred to ‘Somerset’s kindness in the Whitehaven bill’, although on the 5th he noted that the bill was ‘hardly allowed (by duke of Somerset) to pass the grand committee’. Even so, it was reported by Halifax without amendment. On 13 Mar. around 30 gentlemen were entertained at Somerset’s by the opera singer, Mrs. Tofts. On 17 Mar. Somerset dined with a number of Whigs at Ossulton’s.<sup>202</sup> At the end of March Trumbull asked, ‘what company at Somerset’s drink the [con]fusion to the Junto.’ In reply Johnston wrote, ‘I think what you hear of the two tables at the duke of Somerset’s is true. The Scotch are often there and many of the English young Lords.’ Some of these may be identified from a dinner hosted by Somerset on 3 Apr. for a number of peers: the guests included John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron, Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset, Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, Ossulton, Mohun, and Charles Powlett<sup>†</sup>, styled marquess of Winchester, the future 3rd duke of Bolton.<sup>203</sup></p><p>On 7 Apr. Godolphin reported the presence of both Somerset and Devonshire at Newmarket. On 19 Apr. Godolphin believed that Somerset favoured the appointment of Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, for a role in the peace negotiations, rather than himself. On 23 May Somerset wrote from Marlborough to the duchess of Marlborough to thank her ‘for sending so early the good news of an ensuing peace that all people must wish for, tho some may be sorry it is so good that they cannot find fault with it and others that they had not a hand in the making of it.’ He attended the prorogation of 23 June. In June and again in August Somerset was one of those peers engaged in lobbying the queen to employ General George Maccartney, although with little success given the queen’s resistance to the idea, following his conviction for rape.<sup>204</sup></p><p>On 1 Aug. 1709 Maynwaring offered the following on Somerset’s ‘opinion’ of himself as ‘being mighty useful and important about the queen’s person: there is one thing very unlucky to men of his grace’s character, which is, that those who are so forward to undertake everything are generally fit for nothing.’ On 9 Aug. Maynwaring reported that Walpole was ‘in disgrace’ with Somerset, who had thus approached Henry Boyle to lobby him on behalf of Colonel Breton.<sup>205</sup> On 22 Aug. Wentworth wrote of ‘town talk’ that the duchess of Marlborough would resign her post, if it could be passed on to her daughter, the countess of Sunderland, but that Somerset contested the matter in favour of his wife, and that as a consequence he ‘does keep close to Windsor, I don’t think he has been three days absent this season.’<sup>206</sup> Somerset was certainly at Windsor in September and early October 1709, when he wrote to Marlborough, and Maynwaring was later to refer to the interest Somerset had acquired ‘by this summer’s rather watching than waiting’.<sup>207</sup></p><p>Somerset’s main complaint against Godolphin was ‘for hindering his project of being a great man at Court’. On 23 Sept. Maynwaring wrote to Sarah about Somerset’s dissatisfaction with Marlborough and particularly Godolphin:</p><blockquote><p>nothing can be so ridiculous as the situation he is in at Court; for a man that has no talents to do any one thing in the world to think that he is to do every, and to have all preferments pass through his hands, is something so much out of the way that it is hard to find a name for it. But people that are good for nothing in any party, when they are encouraged to make a break and division, think from that time that they are the only useful people.<sup>208</sup></p></blockquote><p>Maynwaring’s opinion seems to have mellowed a little by about 13 Oct. when he wrote that Somerset’s ‘resentments and uneasiness proceed from a right principle in him, though he mistakes in his judgment’, and that ‘being vain and loving to have court and applications made to him, he does not distinguish enough to know that the disappointments he meets with arise from the wrong solicitations he engages in, and not from any disrespect or ill-will towards him’. When Maynwaring had advised Somerset to avoid making divisions among the Whigs, the duke had replied that ‘he did live very civilly with Somers and Sunderland’, and did not say a word against Orford when the matter of the admiralty was discussed. Without Somerset ‘those worthless people that now shelter themselves under him, must return to the old body of their party’. Around this time, October 1709, Maynwaring distilled the essence of Somerset’s influence down to his ability to ‘keep an interest with many people, by making them drunk every Sunday and receiving any applications they make in such a manner as to convince them he would do whatever they ask, tho ever so unreasonable, if it were in his power’. At this time Somerset was endeavouring to persuade Godolphin to grant Rivers a pension, which Marlborough thought would make Somerset ‘troublesome’.<sup>209</sup> Marlborough’s opinion on 10 Oct. was that Somers and Sunderland should use their influence over Somerset to ‘make his mob as you call them, to act with their friends, it would very much help the carrying everything in the House of Lords’. By 1 Nov. Somerset and Sunderland had ‘newly struck up’ a friendship, which had led to ‘nothing new but whispering when they meet’.<sup>210</sup></p><p>Somerset attended the prorogation of 6 Oct. and in October he also secured a regiment for his son, Hertford.<sup>211</sup> He was present at the opening of the 1709-10 session, on 15 November. He next attended on four days between 5-9 Dec. and then on 22 December. After the Christmas recess his attendance was more regular. In all he attended on 50 days of the session, 54 per cent of the total, and was named to 16 committees.</p><p>Somerset was equivocal when the crisis over the disposal of Essex’s regiment to Abigail Masham’s brother, John Hill<sup>‡</sup> broke in January 1710. Maynwaring noted that ‘since the discontents of 39 [Marlborough] were discussed at 13’s [Somerset], I am sure 42 [queen] will be prepared for whatever is said.’ Nevertheless probably on 18 Jan. Maynwaring spent two hours with Somerset, but found him not keen to ‘come in at the end of a business that had been concerted with others’, although he said he had spoken to the queen on Marlborough’s absence from Council that ‘if he was dissatisfied, whether right or wrong, I thought we were undone both at home and abroad.’<sup>212</sup> Despite this claim, on 21 Jan. Godolphin observed that Somerset ‘is very busy in speaking to people not to desert 42 [queen] on this occasion’.<sup>213</sup> On 22 Jan. Ossulton dined at Somerset’s with ‘a great deal of company, to[o] many to enumerate’.<sup>214</sup> In February 1710 Wentworth reported a story about Somerset and Hertford accusing Marlborough of plotting to move an address against Abigail, while denying so doing to the queen, and that as a result Somerset had ‘told the q[ueen] he would stand by her with his life and fortune, even against her insolent general’.<sup>215</sup></p><h2><em>Fall of the duumvirs and the Oxford ministry</em></h2><p>The acute political antennae of Robert Harley identified in Somerset’s rifts with the Junto and devotion to the queen, a potential ally in his attempts to undermine the ministry, not least because, as Godolphin himself acknowledged, he was ‘one of the greatest favourites’ of the queen.<sup>216</sup> Swift later interpreted Somerset’s actions in 1710 as a reaction to the Junto growing ‘weary of his indigested schemes, and his imperious manner of obtruding them’. When they ‘began to drop him at their meetings, or contradict him with little ceremony, when he happened to be there’, his unhappiness was picked up by Harley, who led him into the resulting intrigues.<sup>217</sup> Thus, on 5 Mar. Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, told Harley that both Rivers and Argyll had informed him that Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> had visited Somerset to offer the assistance of his friends, should it be required. Later that night he was told that it was Morton [presumably Matthew Ducie Moreton<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Ducie] who had pledged support in the name of Hampden.<sup>218</sup></p><p>Harley’s opportunity to destabilize the ministry came with the impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell. St John had sounded out Shrewsbury and found him keen to move on the impeachment provided it was in concert with Somerset and Argyll. Likewise, on 9 Mar. St John told Harley, ‘I shall see Lord R[ivers] after he has been with the duke of Somerset.’<sup>219</sup> Here we see the formation of Harley’s ‘juntilla’, which comprised of Somerset, Shrewsbury, Rivers, Peterborough and St John, with whom he worked to undermine the ministry in the early months of 1710.<sup>220</sup> Somerset was blamed by the Marlboroughs for ensuring that his wife chose to stand during her attendance on the queen at the trial of Sacheverell, whereas the duchess of Marlborough had sought permission for the ladies attending the queen to sit in her presence. In response to the duchess’s letter of 7 Mar. reporting on the trial, Marlborough replied on the 13th that the behaviour of Somerset, Argyll and Rivers reflected ‘the queen being of their mind’. A further missive from his wife of the 10th engendered a postscript which correctly predicted that ‘I can’t think it possible that he will give his vote or opinion for the clearing of Sacheverell. If he does there is nothing he would not sacrifice to have power with the queen. His behaviour in this matter will be a true weathercock of the queen’.<sup>221</sup></p><p>Some commentators believed that Somerset and Devonshire were behind the appointment on 11 Mar. of Sir Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, future earl of Macclesfield, as lord chief justice, a key appointment in the middle of the trial, and one of the most prominent managers of the impeachment.<sup>222</sup> On 14 Mar. Charles Boyle*, 4th earl of Orrery [I], and the future Baron Boyle of Marston told Harley that Argyll thought he might oppose any excessive punishment of Sacheverell and might bring Somerset to be of that opinion.<sup>223</sup> On 17 Mar. Godolphin wrote that Somerset:</p><blockquote><p>labours hard against us, and makes use of the queen’s name to South and North Britains [sic] with a good deal of freedom. I doubt he is pretty sure of not being disavowed and I believe him entirely linked with the opposite party, upon the foot of knowing the queen’s inclinations and flattering them, but is so vain and so simple as not to be sensible, he is uncapable of being anything more than what he is, or that that scheme is not supportable above six months.<sup>224</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somerset was listed as absent on 20 Mar. from the voting on whether Sacheverell was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Later that day Godolphin confirmed that ‘Somerset did not vote. Some of his friends said he was sick, but I fancy it was only his profound wisdom that kept him from the House’, and made him take the waters at Epsom. When the House came to consider the question of Sacheverell’s punishment on 21 Mar. Somerset was crucial in ensuring that the proposal that he be barred from preferment during his suspension of one year was defeated by one vote, calling Queensberry back to the chamber to vote against it. On this occasion Godolphin added that ‘the conjunction of Somerset and Rivers with Argyll and his brother [Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay, [S], later 3rd duke of Argyll [S]] has been the great occasion of this disappointment’. As Anne Clavering put it Somerset was ‘one whom the queen of the Friday [17 Mar.] had, in civil terms, asked a vote, and yet drunk the waters the Monday [20] and cast us of Tuesday [21]’. On 30 Mar. Godolphin reflected on the queen showing ‘a great deal of weakness in countenancing and supporting the folly and impertinence of Somerset’. On 8 Apr. Marlborough denounced the ‘knavery and folly’ of Somerset, who ‘if he were not countenanced by the queen, he would not dare to act as he does, so that the Whigs should endeavour to have him mortified’.<sup>225</sup></p><p>Somerset’s dalliance with Harley led to demands that he be purged from the Kit Kat Club. Brydges reported on 7 Apr. that ‘Thursday was sevennight’, [30 Mar.] Somerset had been expelled from the Club ‘by a vote brought in ready cut and dried by Lord Wharton: the crime objected, the words of the vote say, was for being suspected to have held conferences with Robin the Trickster’.<sup>226</sup> On 1 Apr. Anne Clavering had noted that an inquiry would be made of a member of the Club who had ‘made an elopement with Robin the Trickster’.<sup>227</sup> However, Somerset may have been reprieved, or suffered only a temporary expulsion, for on 22 June Maynwaring reported that Somerset ‘was to have been turned out of the Kit-Cat today, but the town is so empty, that it was thought best to adjourn a thing of that consequence to be done in a full House’. He was listed by Oldmixon as a member in 1711.<sup>228</sup></p><p>By this point Somerset was deeply involved in plotting a reconstruction of the ministry. On 9 Apr. Shrewsbury wrote to him concerning his reservations about taking office on his own, although this did not deter him from accepting the post of lord chamberlain on 14 April. On 15 Apr. Godolphin wrote to the queen concerning the ill consequences of employing Shrewsbury, which would ‘make every man that is now in your cabinet Council, except the duke of Somerset and Queensberry run from it, as they would from the plague’. Godolphin thought Harley was behind Shrewsbury’s appointment, although Somerset ‘gives himself the air of it very much, but he will be one of the first and the most mortified by it’.<sup>229</sup> The duchess of Marlborough also sought to belittle Somerset’s pivotal role, opining that he ‘can only do people mischief and tell lies, and that he is not relied on for advice any more than the Bug [Henry Grey*, duke of Kent] was that is turned out’.<sup>230</sup> Maynwaring about 18 Apr. repeated Godolphin’s view that:</p><blockquote><p>nobody would be so much hurt by 28 [Shrewsbury] as 13 [Somerset], who fancied he had brought him in; for all that officious part of attendance, setting 42’s [queen’s] chair at Council, leading about &c, which he had taken upon him, and was no part of his office, 28 would do so much better than him, that in a very short time 42 would show that she had little occasion for his service.</p></blockquote><p>He continued that:</p><blockquote><p>so much trouble is occasioned by Abigail and Harley, under the cover of 13 [Somerset], who knows not all the while what consequence any one thing will have that he fancies he is doing, but is ruining people that have been friendly to him, to set up others that will despise him.<sup>231</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 19 Apr. Maynwaring informed Sarah that Somers had been called to a meeting with Somerset that day, at the latter’s request, although he could not discern the reason for the meeting, adding somewhat tartly that ‘tis more likely that 13 [Somerset] has no meaning at all, at least none of his own.’ Also, on 19 Apr. Maynwaring reported on Sunderland’s meeting with Somerset, whereby the latter made great professions of friendship to the Whigs ‘and an utter abjuration of Mr Harley, whom he swears he only met by chance at the duke of Argyll’s, but neither there, nor anywhere else ever spoke with him of any business’. Only Godolphin continued in ‘disgrace’ with Somerset. On 23 Apr. Somerset hosted a dinner where ‘there was a great deal of company’.<sup>232</sup></p><p>On 8 May Marlborough wrote of his disapproval of the rapprochement between Somerset and the Whigs, which he felt was merely to accept the ‘false profession of Somerset after his base behaviour to them all, and his continuing to own his enmity to Godolphin and Marlborough’. On 12 May, Maynwaring referred to Shrewsbury being shut up everyday with Harley and Somerset.<sup>233</sup> On 16 May Godolphin again blamed Somerset’s ‘malice and inveteracy’ for increasing the queen’s displeasure with the duchess of Marlborough and ‘those who will not forsake her’. On 19 May Godolphin reported that Somerset spent more time with the queen than Abigail and ’thinks of nothing but doing mischief’, and together with Rivers ‘are driving everything they think will be disagreeable to Marlborough, and to make their court to Abigail’. Godolphin continued of this opinion on 26 May noting that the ‘mortifications’ aimed at Marlborough were ‘fomented and pressed chiefly by Somerset and Rivers and the rest of his underspur leathers’. When the next target in the ministerial re-shuffle, Sunderland, was removed on 14 June, Godolphin reported Shrewsbury’s opinion that Somerset ‘stayed away on purpose in the hopes that the affair of Sunderland might be ended before his return, and that he might have room to impute it to other people.’ Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, future Baron Coningsby, concurred, believing that Somerset ‘was not withdrawn as was justified out of disgust but out of policy’.<sup>234</sup></p><p>In June 1710 the duchess of Marlborough lamented the possible removal of the Whigs in office to make way for Tories and ‘which is still more strange, to make the duke of Somerset a great man and a first minister’.<sup>235</sup> On 21 June Godolphin thought that ‘though there yet continues a seeming fairness betwixt them two [Somerset and Shrewsbury], yet his wings are very much clipped by Shrewsbury, and he continues still in perfect coldness and distance to the Whigs and Godolphin’.<sup>236</sup> Meanwhile, Somerset was again coming under more fire from some of the Whigs. Halifax had a plan ‘for running and singing down the Sovereign’, especially ‘a ballad upon him like the verses in [Abraham] Cowley which begins thus, <em>Margaretta first possessed</em> and so name all his governors from Lord Rochester to Lord Rivers’.<sup>237</sup></p><p>On 3 July Godolphin noted that Vrijberghen’s interview with the queen had been used by Somerset and Shrewsbury to suggest that the States-General and Heinsius had taken too much upon themselves in seeking to persuade her not to dissolve Parliament. Other observers were keenly aware of Somerset’s influence at this point: on 10 July, Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley, sought to ensure a smooth succession for his son as lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire by approaching Somerset as an appropriate agent. That month, Somerset was lobbied by James Lowther over the Irish coal bill, which was later rejected by a committee of the privy council and then by the full council.<sup>238</sup></p><p>In July Somerset (together with Shrewsbury) continued to hold many secret meetings with Harley, phrases such as ‘you shall find a servant at the gate under the clock to conduct you the private way to your most humble servant’ littering his correspondence.<sup>239</sup> At the end of July, William Legge*, 2nd Baron, later earl of, Dartmouth, recorded Somerset and Shrewsbury as opposing Somers’ view that the war should be continued vigorously and that the French were being encouraged by ‘intrigues’ at home. Somerset attended the prorogation on 1 August. On 4 Aug. Wentworth recorded that ‘Somerset is a great favourite, and is said to govern in concert with th’other duke [Shrewsbury] and Harley’. On 6 Aug. Somerset summoned Harley to meet the queen ‘at the usual hour’, which on this occasion presaged the final settling of the new treasury commission on the 7th, and Godolphin’s dismissal on the 8th.<sup>240</sup> On 8 Aug. Somerset sent to Godolphin with news of his dismissal.<sup>241</sup> This gave rise to Sarah’s charge that it ‘was sent by no worthier messenger than a man in livery, to be left with his Lordship’s porter’. Harley and Shrewsbury were seen by some as ‘putting it on the duke of Somerset as if he were the doer of it.’<sup>242</sup> For others, Somerset’s role in the fall of Godolphin was a step worth lauding. Argyll wrote of the queen and her subjects regaining their liberty and that ‘everybody my Lord must confess the part you have acted in this great transition and the honour you must have by it’.<sup>243</sup></p><p>Godolphin’s removal marked the high-point of Somerset’s satisfaction with the ministerial changes. At some point shortly after the change in the treasury, Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> opined that Somerset ‘represents himself as actuated by personal picques in what he has done, and has resolved to adhere to the Whiggish principles. It is generally said he is fallen off from the new ministers, and that he has recommended Whigs to all his boroughs’.<sup>244</sup> This certainly seems to have been the case with Stanhope for on 14 Aug. Godolphin noted that Somerset ‘talks publicly of continuing’ to secure his election at Cockermouth and on 15 Aug. James Lowther wrote that Somerset ‘certainly recommends General Stanhope at Cockermouth. His grace is out of town. As soon as he returns I shall have his recommendation and interest [for Cumberland].<sup>245</sup> However, the view of Robert Price at the end of August that Somerset was secure of one seat at Cockermouth, proved wide of the mark, as Wharton’s candidate topped the poll, with Stanhope returned after a scrutiny only to be unseated by the Commons in April 1711. On 20 Aug. John Aislabie<sup>‡</sup> approached Harley for Somerset’s interest in Yorkshire for Lord Downe and Sir Arthur Kaye<sup>‡</sup>, having not had a response from him following an initial approach.<sup>246</sup></p><p>On 22 Aug. Godolphin wrote of ‘some great uneasiness happened between Somerset and Shrewsbury’, and that Somerset had been ‘absent (all of a sudden) these eight or ten days, and declares everywhere publicly for Parliament as it now stands’. Also on the 22nd Henry St John gave the Tory view of Somerset, ‘I expect him to be very much out of humour. It’s prodigious to see a man so zealous for a proposition and so averse to everything necessary to support and make that good’. By 25 Aug. news of Somerset’s wavering had reached Durham, from whence Thomas Conyers<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Harley: ‘I hear the duke of Somerset is now against us. I thought he was for us, therefore went twice to Newcastle to prevent their setting up another to throw out Lord Hertford, so if you would have him out be pleased to let me know.’ On 29 Aug. Godolphin wrote ’I hear from all hands that Somerset declares publicly for the Whigs in general, and particularly against the enemies of Parliament’. On 1 Sept. Somerset dined with Dartmouth and Henry Boyle and ‘a great deal of such choice company’.<sup>247</sup></p><p>On 1 Sept. William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> found the delays in the formation of the ministry ‘imputed’ to Somerset, who had ‘been very serviceable, but of late intolerable, or to use your friend Sir Tom’s word, impracticable. They have been unwilling to break with him, because a certain person has a kindness for him, and therefore all means have been tried to make him easy’. If such means had no effect they would ‘break with him’.<sup>248</sup> Possibly with this in mind, on 4 Sept. a memorandum by Harley, which may have been a list of possible admiralty commissioners should Orford quit, included Somerset’s name.<sup>249</sup> However, Somerset did receive one plum inducement: on 13 Sept. a great seal was ordered for his appointment as keeper of the park at Hampton Court, which Luttrell recorded passing the seals in late September.<sup>250</sup></p><p>On 5 Sept. 1710, Wentworth wrote that ‘the town’ gave Somerset ‘the character of being very whimsical and changeable as to his resolves’. On 10 Sept. Somerset told Sir Peter King<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron King, that ‘he was, is, and ever would be a Whig, that he would serve them in all elections, and would oppose a dissolution to the utmost’, and that he had never consented to the replacement of the duke of Bolton as lord lieutenant of Hampshire by Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort.<sup>251</sup> On 12 Sept. Somers informed Newcastle that Somerset was one of those backing Stanhope’s candidature at Westminster in the forthcoming election, and on 14 Sept. James Lowther noted that Somerset was ‘entirely against a dissolution and thinks still there will be none, which is the reason he does not write into the countries where his interest lies.’<sup>252</sup></p><p>Godolphin had confirmed this on 12 Sept. when he wrote that Somerset ‘grows more and more uneasy and his audiences of late are very much reduced’.<sup>253</sup> Clearly Somerset held a minority opinion among the queen’s new advisers and Maynwaring told the duchess of Marlborough on 14 Sept. 1710 that:</p><blockquote><p>tis certain that 13 [Somerset] does not now see 42 [Queen] so many minutes in a day as he used to do hours. So that he has played a wise game, but the judgment upon him is just. And if it were not for the hopes of making his Lady great, by all accounts I hear, he would almost be ready to retire.<sup>254</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 15 Sept. Wentworth informed his brother of ‘a report about the town that the Whigs had got his grace again, for they say he often flys out, and is angry if things are not just as if he would have them. I don’t send you this as a truth but to show some people are very angry with him, and would have him pass for an unsteady man.’<sup>255</sup> On 19 Sept. a correspondent of George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> wrote that Somerset was ‘entirely reunited’ with the Whig Lords and opposed the dissolution of Parliament, and on the same day Anne Clavering reported that Somerset was ‘disobliged at the Tories.’<sup>256</sup> On 21 Sept. James Lowther noted that ‘they go on, too, furiously for the duke of Somerset, who is also like to be out in a few days’.<sup>257</sup> On 23 Sept. Addison informed Joshua Dawson that Somerset was ‘discontented to the last degree: he seems to have pulled down the pillars like Sampson to perish among those he has destroyed.’<sup>258</sup> Three days later, Wentworth reported that ‘Somerset has left the Court in a pet and gone to Petworth’. The cause of his ‘huff’ was the decision to dissolve Parliament, whereupon he ‘came out of Council in such a passion that he cursed and swore at all his servants, and ordered them to pack up all his things at Kensington, and though his supper was ready he would not stay to eat it. The next day he came to offer the queen to lay down his place, with leave to go into the country; but the queen bid him consider on it, and gave him leave to go into the country’. Somerset had then apparently admitted he had ‘been deceived by Mr Harley, for all he intended to do was to free the queen from the power of the two great men, and was promised that things should be carried no further’. As a consequence he had met with the Junto and been cordially received, and promised his interest to Whig candidates in the election. Wentworth also put down his anger to the failure of Harley and others to believe he could manage the existing Parliament as he pleased.<sup>259</sup></p><p>Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, later recorded that Somerset ‘complained openly of the artifices had been used, to make him instrumental to other people’s designs, which he did, among others, to myself’. Apparently on 26 Sept. Somerset wrote to Meredyth acknowledging that he had acted unwisely during the summer and pledging to be firm to the Whigs. The next day, Somerset wrote from Petworth to Newcastle having arrived the previous day ‘to take care to keep out as many Tories and Jacobites in this new Parliament as I can. I am glad to find so true a spirit among the poor discarded Whigs as to unite and keep out the common enemy’. As such he requested Newcastle’s interest in the Sussex county election.<sup>260</sup> Somerset certainly backed Stanhope, both at Westminster as well as Cockermouth.<sup>261</sup> Many people thought, like Lady Cowper, that Somerset would</p><blockquote><p>have the mortification to have his son thrown out in Northumberland, by a man who is not worth above two or three hundred pound a year, which sure must be a great humiliation to that high blood when they see neither their birth nor money can prevail, but one can’t be sorry for any that has given up the honour and interest of their country upon a picque tho’ they had repented, much less when they are such hipocrites.<sup>262</sup></p></blockquote><p>However Hertford was returned top of the poll.</p><p>On 2 Oct. 1710 Lady Cowper wrote to Sarah that ‘I don’t at all wonder the new ministry are weary of the duke of S[omerset]. I thought he had been gone into the country.’<sup>263</sup> By the time Harley came to analyse the English peers on 3 Oct. he was doubtful whether Somerset would support his ministry. On 15 Oct. Somerset was one of the company that dined at Orford’s and then called on Godolphin, who ‘took very little notice of him, more than just a bow, and went to bed’.<sup>264</sup> On 19 Oct. it was reported that:</p><blockquote><p>Somerset came to Hampton Court and looked as he used to do, but without doubt but he’s inwardly nettled to have return to court, with the loss of the elections he has endeavoured to carry, and to see he was so much out in his judgment, as to think the Whigs would have a great majority in the new House. … The part the duke of Somerset has acted and is like to act is looked upon with very contemptible eyes by both parties.<sup>265</sup></p></blockquote><p>Halifax later reported to Newcastle that Somerset had come to court on 20 Oct. ‘had a long audience, and a very rough one on his part’; he had then left on the 23rd ‘to avoid the council, to which he pretends to go no more, but is gone with the queen to Windsor.’<sup>266</sup></p><p>Somerset may have lost political influence, but he retained his office and maintained his position at court. At the beginning of November James Craggs<sup>‡</sup> thought him ‘highly discontented, yet ‘tis not sure he’s quit’.<sup>267</sup> On 5 Nov. the countess of Scarbrough described him as ‘so great a favourite as to be two or three hours at a time in the drawing room’ with the queen. This puzzled some Tories, Wentworth on 7 Nov. not knowing what to make of Somerset, who had yet to attend council, and having come up to ‘town’ had gone that morning to Sion.<sup>268</sup></p><p>Somerset was present at the opening of the 1710-11 session on 25 Nov. 1710. His attendance was very poor compared to previous sessions: he was present on a mere 16 days of the session, 14 per cent of the total. Royal favour continued to see rewards sent in his direction, Hertford being made governor of Tynmouth in place of Meredyth in December 1710. However, Somerset had laid claim to the post as early as August 1707, citing the tenure of the place by his wife’s family and her estates in the area, and he had received a promise of the post for his son in 1707, before it was given to his protégé, Meredyth.<sup>269</sup> Further, his wife remained high in the queen’s favour and was shortly to succeed the duchess of Marlborough as groom of the stole, an appointment confirmed officially on 24 Jan. 1711.<sup>270</sup> Somerset was unhappy: on 16 Dec. 1710 Cowper recorded a visit from the duke, who:</p><blockquote><p>entertained me with a long discourse of the peace, things he had said to the queen of the ministry, of his being irreconcilable to ’em; and at last how the queen over-persuaded him to keep his place, but that he would not come to the council. On the whole he appeared to me a false mean spirited knave, at the same time he was a pretender to the greatest courage and steadiness.<sup>271</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somerset attended the Lords on 20-23 Dec. 1710, and 2-3 Jan. 1711. At the beginning of January 1711 his youngest son, Charles, died of smallpox, which may partly explain his absence until 22 February. Somerset also avoided the most contentious issue of Spain, which resulted in a series of votes in January.<sup>272</sup> Thereafter, he attended 26, 28 Feb. and 1, 3, and 6 Mar., Nicolson recording on 5 Mar. that Somerset had ‘gone to Court’.<sup>273</sup> He was then absent until 16 May, his solitary attendance until the last day of the session on 12 June. On 4 May it was the duchess who informed the select committee on the estate bill of his son-in-law, the earl of Thomond, that Somerset was out of town, but that he consented to the bill.<sup>274</sup></p><p>On 22 Apr. 1711 Somerset wrote from Marlborough to thank Harley for his news, having been there since 16 Apr. and hoping to be at Petworth by the 26th, for a stay not exceeding ten days. He pressed upon him a petition from the corporation in favour of a local man to be receiver of the leather duties. In May 1711 he was one of those rumoured to be a potential successor to Rochester as lord president. Following the death of Newcastle in mid July, Somerset and his wife were believed to be urging the queen to support the appointment of a Whig successor.<sup>275</sup></p><p>The Whigs remained at best ambivalent to Somerset; summed up, perhaps, by the verses in the hand of the duchess of Marlborough in mid 1711:</p><blockquote><p>Seymour to whom no mortal can decide<br />If fool, or knave, more justly be applied.<sup>276</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somerset remained a presence at court, assiduously attending the queen at Windsor during the summer of 1711, but according to Swift, usually leaving ‘Windsor on Saturday, when the ministers go down thither, and returns not until they are gone’.<sup>277</sup> However, he broke this pattern by attempting to attend a meeting of the cabinet on 12 August. The timing was significant because it followed shortly after Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> had been spotted in Deal conveying two Frenchmen (Gaultier and Mesnager) towards Windsor and almost certainly represented an attempt by the Junto to discover what moves were afoot about a peace. Probably because the cabinet was about to discuss sending instructions to Prior, the other members, headed by St John, refused to sit with him, as he ‘had so often betrayed them’. Faced with this opposition, Somerset attended a horse-race when the cabinet reconvened on the 13th, and both Swift and Brydges confirmed that Somerset did not endeavour to join the cabinet on 19 Aug. when it next met.<sup>278</sup> This rebuff, evidently saw Somerset review his options. Cowper recorded in late August that Somerset had requested an appointment with him, ‘to advise if [he] should go out but found his business was really to get it to say that my opinion (among others I suppose) was for his staying in: but I gave him a contrary opinion yet left him minded to stay in, if he could.’<sup>279</sup> Swift thought this incident led Somerset ‘to declare open war against the ministry, and from that time to the session, employed himself in spiriting up several depending Lords to adhere to their friends, when an occasion should offer’.<sup>280</sup> In this he was able to rely on his position at court and the queen’s known favour towards him and his wife. This he exploited to win over courtiers and pensioners to the impending Whig attack on the peace, shamelessly making use of the queen’s name so to do. He could also put pressure on the queen more directly, and it was Somerset or his wife who probably drew the queen’s attention to the memorial that had been presented to St John on 28 Nov. (and printed in the <em>Daily Courant</em> a week later) by Bothmer, the Hanoverian envoy, denouncing a ruinous peace.<sup>281</sup></p><p>On 25 Sept. 1711 Somerset wrote to Oxford (as Harley had since become) thanking him for ‘the particular honour your Lordship did me this morning to communicate affairs of so much consequence’. He had ‘so much reason to be uneasy in my thoughts’, but as Oxford was ‘the only man that can save us from a most dreadful storm that is very near over turning us, my hopes are there fixed, and I do depend entirely on you.’<sup>282</sup> Further, on 28 Nov. Oxford made a long visit to Somerset in an endeavour to influence his thinking on the need for peace, the consequences of the failure of his peace policy and the ‘art and cunning’ used by his opponents.<sup>283</sup></p><p>On 6 Dec. Somerset received the proxy of the 6th earl of Suffolk (the former Bindon). He was present on the opening day of the 1711-12 session, 7 Dec. 1711, attending on 59 days of the session, including the adjournment on 8 July 1712, 55 per cent of the total. He was named to nine committees. More importantly, Somerset had backed the amendment to the address which called for no peace to be made without Spain. On 8 Dec. he was either forecast as a certain opponent of the court in the projected division of this date, or voted in favour of presenting the address containing the No Peace without Spain clause. His name duly appears on Oxford’s list of 10 Dec. as an office-holder who had voted against the ministry in support of the ‘No Peace Without Spain’ motion. As one contemporary noted ‘Somerset has been warm and active against the Court in this struggle’.<sup>284</sup> Swift also noted that the queen turned to him, after the debate on 7 Dec. to lead her from the House, even though Somerset had been ‘louder than any in the House for the clause against peace’. On reflection Swift felt that ‘those scoundrel starving Lords would never have dared to vote against the court, if Somerset had not assured them, that it would please the queen’, a point in which Oxford apparently agreed.<sup>285</sup> Another witness to the vote on 7 Dec. recorded that ‘Somerset, just by the queen, call out louder for the question than anybody, and was not only content with that and a proxy he gave that way, but pulled out the duke of Cleveland [Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke] with him’. All were agreed that Somerset had been remarkably successful, albeit with help from Marlborough, as Oxford calculated that ‘fourteen of the queen’s servants’ had deserted the ministry.<sup>286</sup></p><p>On 11 Dec. James Lowther reported that Somerset would ‘forward’ the Whitehaven harbour bill when it reached the Lords, and he was present on the day that the bill was dealt with in the committee of the whole on 23 Feb. 1712.<sup>287</sup> Somerset last attended before Christmas on 12 Dec. 1711, and on 15 Dec. he registered his proxy with John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland, and went to Petworth that same day.<sup>288</sup> One of the reasons he was absent was to avoid voting on Hamilton’s peerage case. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to oppose the duke’s claims in the division expected on the 20th. According to Wentworth, the queen had been forced to defend Somerset’s vote on 7 Dec. by noting that ‘when anything came before them that immediately concerned her interest, they might depend upon it he would vote agreeable to it’. Hamilton’s patent was clearly a question of the royal prerogative, so Somerset’s enemies challenged the queen over it. Somerset:</p><blockquote><p>declared in his opinion he must be against having more Scotch peers brought into the House, but as an expedient and to show how ready he was to comply with her desires, he desired leave to go into the country, and that he would leave his proxy with one that would vote for; and this expedient has been turned upon him as an imposition and a trick, which was not fit to be used towards her, for he knew [the] duke of Hamilton was to have counsel, and when ever counsel is heard proxies are not admitted.</p></blockquote><p>Hence the queen determined to dismiss him, only to be faced with duke’s threat: ‘he would never leave her majesty till she dismissed him, and when ever that was her pleasure, he must have the duchess’. Swift then weighed into the fray with his poem, <em>The Windsor Prophecy</em>, written on 23 December. This virulent attack on the duchess of Somerset backfired, angering the queen, and damaging fatally Swift’s prospects of advancement in the Church.<sup>289</sup></p><p>Another reason for Somerset’s absence was the impending by-election at Midhurst, which was held on 28 Dec. and saw the Whig candidate John Pratt<sup>‡</sup>, the future lord chief justice, narrowly defeat his Tory opponent, aided no doubt by the block of 18 burgages acquired by Somerset from Henry Browne*, 5th Viscount Montagu, in October 1711.<sup>290</sup> The elevation of Charles Bruce*, 3rd Baron Bruce of Whorlton, the future 3rd duke of Ailesbury, to the peerage, at the turn of the year, also created a vacancy at Marlborough, which provided another reason to stay in the country.<sup>291</sup> In order to retrieve the political situation, one of the remedial measures insisted upon by Oxford was Somerset’s dismissal. Swift had reported that a decision had been made to dismiss Somerset on 29 Dec., but that there was a delay in formally dismissing him, owing to the queen’s desire to ensure that the duchess continued in her service.<sup>292</sup> When Somerset returned to London on 18 Jan. 1712, he saw the queen on the 19th, and when he came home from St James’s he pulled off the queen’s livery from his men, to demonstrate his loss of office. Over the next few days, the queen’s physician, Dr Hamilton, recounted the strenuous efforts made, in particular by Cowper, at the queen’s behest, to persuade Somerset to allow his wife to keep her post as groom of the stole.<sup>293</sup> These clearly succeeded for on 26 Jan. Somerset wrote to Cowper:</p><blockquote><p>I will submit myself entirely to your judgment and venture the censure of the world upon it, hoping all my friends will support me, by doing it I do hope by acting thus against my own judgment your Lordship will be convinced of the very great respect I pay to yours.<sup>294</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somerset having returned to the Lords on 19 Jan. 1712, on 21 Jan. the proxy of Robert Darcy*, 3rd earl of Holdernesse, was registered to him. After 29 Feb. he was absent until 17 Mar. registering his proxy with Cowper on 3 March. After attending on 29 Mar., he registered his proxy on 31 Mar. with Holdernesse. Shortly afterwards Somerset went to Newmarket.<sup>295</sup> On 24 Apr. Holdernesse’s proxy was again registered with him, but on 25 Apr. he registered his proxy with John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu. He next attended on 5 May, possibly being one of the Lords summoned back from Newmarket by Townshend on the 1 May in expectation of new developments on the peace.<sup>296</sup> On 14 May Suffolk’s proxy was registered with him. On 23 May he registered his proxy with Thomas Windsor*, Viscount Windsor [I] (Baron Mountjoy). Meanwhile, on 6 May, William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, told Strafford that Somerset had been talked of by some as taking up the mastership of the horse again, as he had not been replaced following his dismissal.<sup>297</sup> On 28 May Somerset voted against the court over the ‘restraining’ orders issued to Ormond. On 7 June he entered his protest against the rejection of an amendment to the address thanking the queen for communicating the peace terms, which asked the queen to act with her allies in a mutual guarantee of the treaty.</p><p>Rumours of a meeting between Oxford and some prominent Whigs in March 1713, led to speculation that Somerset would return to office as master of the horse.<sup>298</sup> In mid-March to early April 1713, a list in the hand of Swift, with Oxford’s additions, suggested that Somerset was expected to oppose the ministry in the forthcoming session. He attended the prorogations on 3, 10 and 17 Mar. 1713, and the opening day of the 1713 session, 9 April. However, after attending on 10 Apr., he was then absent until 8 May. He attended on 34 days, 52 per cent of the total.</p><p>Meanwhile, on 18 Apr. Dr Hamilton mentioned ‘a story of the duchess of Somerset’s going between the queen and the duchess of Newcastle, in order to get a match between the duke of Newcastle’s daughter and the duke of Somerset’s son’.<sup>299</sup> This was the third attempt to secure the Holles heiress, and it failed, the favoured suitor being Oxford’s eldest son. On 24 Apr. it was reported that Somerset had refused to introduce the representatives of Cambridge University to present their address on the peace.<sup>300</sup> At the end of May, Somerset hosted a ‘great meeting … when the Whigs concerted about breaking the Union’ over the malt tax.<sup>301</sup> On 8 June he entered his protest against the passage of the malt bill, one of only five (including Argyll) English peers to do so. About 13 June, Oxford expected Somerset to oppose the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty.<sup>302</sup> On 26 June, Somerset sent a letter to recall Sir Richard Onslow<sup>†</sup>, future Baron Onslow, and his son, Thomas<sup>†</sup>, future 2nd Baron Onslow, from Clandon in Surrey for the Whigs’ intended surprise motion on 29 June ‘in both Houses’, relating to the Pretender’s residence in Lorraine. Following the passage of an address in the Lords on 30 June, requesting the queen to take care to secure the removal of the Pretender from Lorraine, Somerset tried Onslow again, noting that the Lords had not yet sent the address down to the Commons ‘least some untoward amendments might be added, but if our friends will make the like motion in the House of Commons tomorrow or Thursday, we shall leave it to them’, and hoping Onslow would be there to support it on 1 July.<sup>303</sup> On 4 July James Lowther reported that ‘the border act is going on very well in the House of Lords’ and that he had ‘engaged’ Somerset, among others, ‘to forward it.’<sup>304</sup> Somerset last attended on 6 July 1713.</p><p>In the 1713 election, Somerset and Wharton appear to have failed to co-ordinate adequately for the election at Cockermouth, and with Stanhope both absent and sure of election elsewhere, he lost to a Tory. On 13 Sept. Somerset informed Stanhope of his failure to secure his return owing to ‘false friends’ who had opted to ensure the return of Nicholas Lechmere<sup>†</sup>, future Baron Lechmere, by failing to give their second votes to Stanhope. As Weymouth wrote on the 25th, Somerset had dined with him at Longleat the previous week and ‘is much displeased with his steward at Cockermouth, who has betrayed him. Neither is he more satisfied with the usage of Lord Wharton’.<sup>305</sup></p><p>On 31 Dec. ‘all the best front of Petworth … burnt down’, although not Somerset’s own apartments.<sup>306</sup> This may explain the duke’s absence from the opening of the 1714 session, on 16 Feb. 1714. He first attended on 15 March. After attending three consecutive meetings between 15-19 Mar. the House adjourned for Easter, and Somerset did not sit again until 12 April. He attended on 48 days of the session, 63 per cent of the total. On 20 Mar. Somerset registered his proxy with Argyll, as he did again on 14 May. On 7 May Somerset was one of eight peers, seven of them Whigs, whom Oxford invited to meet him that evening.<sup>307</sup> On 13 May the House adjourned until 26 May and Somerset did not attend until 1 June. Between 27 May and about 4 June Nottingham, forecast Somerset as against the bill to prevent the growth of schism.<sup>308</sup> On 2 June Holdernesse’s proxy was registered with him; as was that of Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley, on 4 June; Ossulston’s on the 16th; and on the 19th that of Suffolk.</p><p>On 8 June 1714, Oxford wrote a memorandum for a meeting with the queen, which included the advice ‘send for the duchess of Somerset. Nobody else can save us’, an approach renewed through Somerset at the beginning of July.<sup>309</sup> On 15 June Somerset entered his protest against the passage of the schism bill. On 8 July he entered his protest against the rejection of a ‘humble representation’ to the queen that ‘the benefit of the Asiento contract and of the licenses have been greatly obstructed, by unwarrantable endeavours to gain private advantages to particular persons’.</p><p>By this date Somerset was again engaged in intrigue. Oxford later recalled that at the time of his dismissal, Marlborough was on the point of leaving Flanders to be at the head of the scheme, which had been framed by Bolingbroke, and included Cadogan, Somerset and others. Indeed, on 29 July Swift recorded that Somerset was due to dine ‘with the fraternity at Greenwich’ with Lieutenant-general Henry Withers<sup>‡</sup>, who resided there, and was linked to both Marlborough and Bolingbroke. Following a meeting with Bothmer, Somerset and Argyll attended a council called after the queen fell ill on 30 July.<sup>310</sup> This was possible because although not summoned to the Privy Council, they were still members having never been ‘formally struck out’. Somerset had been named a regent by Princess Sophia under the provisions of the Regency Act much earlier in the reign, as his name was listed by Rivers during one of his missions to Hanover. He was still a nominated regent when the queen died.<sup>311</sup></p><p>Somerset was present on the opening day of the session convened following the queen’s death, 1 Aug. 1714, when he took the oaths. On 5 Aug. he was one of 14 lords justices attending to hear a speech from the lord chancellor. On 13 Aug. he was one of 13 lords justices in attendance for another speech on their behalf from the lord chancellor. He was present when Parliament was prorogued on 25 Aug., having attended on five days of the session, a third of the total, and been named to two committees.</p><p>With a new reign, Somerset’s interest began to revive. On 19 Aug. James Lowther was informed that ‘endeavours are used for retrieving’ the duke of Somerset’s interest at Cockermouth.<sup>312</sup> On 31 Aug. he was one of the regents appointed to see that Bolingbroke’s office was sealed up following his dismissal as secretary.<sup>313</sup> He also attended the prorogation on 23 September. Somerset was eventually appointed master of the horse on 27 Sept. ‘which was not done sooner because he asked to be groom of the stole, and there being a great many pretenders to it the king could not resolve so soon about it’.<sup>314</sup> He continued in office briefly after the Hanoverian Succession, before joining the opposition Whigs. He remained involved in politics until the mid-1730s.</p><p>Somerset died on 2 Dec. 1748, at Petworth. He was buried on 26 Dec. in Salisbury Cathedral, although one almost contemporaneous source reported him being carried from Petworth on the 26th and buried in Salisbury Cathedral on the 28th.<sup>315</sup></p><p>Somerset may have been ridiculed as ‘The Sovereign’ by many of his contemporaries for his aloof manner, but he could not be ignored. His territorial power and associated hold on a number of seats in the Commons made him an important patron for young politicians, like James Stanhope. Hence the duchess of Marlborough looking back to 1704 described him as ‘very unreasonable and troublesome. But I thought him then honest and in the queen’s true interest because of his great stake’. Ailesbury, also in retrospect, was able to allude to a junto of Devonshire, Somerset, Wharton, Sunderland, Townshend, Halifax and Somers. Allied to this was an appetite for power, which was not matched by any administrative ability or political talent. Further, his parliamentary impact was somewhat blunted by what Macky referred to as ‘a great hesitation in his speech’, whereby he ‘wants expression’. However, his political assets, especially in Anne’s reign included his wife, according to Dartmouth, ‘the best bred as well as the best born lady in England’, and whom in May 1708, Queen Anne described, along with Lady Fitzhardinge, as ‘two of the most observing, prying ladies in England’. Undoubtedly, her presence at court during the period 1710-14 gave succour to the Whigs and easy access to the court for her husband. Unfortunately, a more precise assessment of her influence, and how Somerset exploited it, is made more difficult by the destruction of the queen’s letters to her that were ordered to be burnt by the duke after his wife’s death, as were his own papers.<sup>316</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
SEYMOUR, Francis (c. 1590-1664) |
<p><strong><surname>SEYMOUR</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (c. 1590–1664)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 Feb. 1641 Bar. SEYMOUR OF TROWBRIDGE |
|
First sat 23 Feb. 1641; first sat after 1660, 22 May 1660; last sat 14 May 1664 |
|
MP Wiltshire 1621; Marlborough 1624; Wiltshire 1625, 1628–9, Apr.–May 1640; Marlborough 1640 (Nov.)–19 Feb. 1641 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1590, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Edward Seymour<sup>†</sup>, styled Ld. Beauchamp, later 2nd earl of Hertford, and Honora, da. of Sir Richard Rogers<sup>‡</sup>, of Bryanston, Dorset; bro. of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset. <em>educ</em>. Trowbridge g.s.; ?Oxf.; M. Temple 1626. <em>m</em>. (1) 23 Feb. 1613, Frances (<em>d</em>. 6 Sept. 1626), da. and coh. of Sir Gilbert Prynne (Prinne) of Alington, Wilts., 1s. 1da.; (2) bef. 1636, Catherine (<em>bur</em>. 5 Mar. 1701), 4th da. of Sir Henry Lee, of Billesley, Warws., <em>s.p</em>. Kntd. 23 Oct. 1613. <em>d</em>. 12 July 1664; <em>will</em> 5 Sept. 1662, pr. 3 Nov. 1664.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 8 Aug. 1641, 31 May 1660–<em>d</em>.; chan. duchy of Lancs. May 1645 (roy.), July 1660–<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. to examine recusants and collect recusant debts, Wilts. 1624, for the king to treat for peace at Uxbridge, Jan. 1645; sheriff Wilts. 1625–6; <em>custos rot</em>. Wilts. 1660–4.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by William Larkin, National Trust, Petworth House.</p> |
<p>After a career in the Commons which included opposition to George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, and support for Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, Seymour was elevated to the peerage in February 1641. A royalist during the civil wars, he was a substantial landowner, with his income being assessed at £3,000 in November 1645 and £5,000 in August 1646.<sup>3</sup> Although he was not publicly involved in national politics during the Interregnum he was held for questioning regarding a plot against Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> in June 1655.<sup>4</sup></p><p>At the Restoration Seymour sought to re-establish his political interest in Wiltshire and at Westminster. He was reinstated as a privy councillor and as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and set about recovering crown property, writing on 21 Sept. to Walter Aston, 2nd Baron Aston of Forfar [S], about embezzlement at Tutbury Castle.<sup>5</sup> To maximize crown revenues he insisted on security for yearly rents and leases of no more than 31 years.<sup>6</sup> He was also petitioned by Wigan corporation in July 1660 to keep his chancery court in the town.<sup>7</sup> The Seymours had strong connections to Wigan: the town was represented in the Commons by Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, chief justice of the common pleas, who had been a contemporary of Seymour’s at the inns of court in the 1620s. Bridgeman was also chief legal counsel to Seymour’s brother, William Seymour*, 2nd marquess of Hertford, who was soon to be restored to the dukedom of Somerset.</p><p>On the eve of the Convention, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed Seymour as one of the ‘Lords with the king’. Seymour took his seat on 22 May 1660, being named to a committee charged with formulating a reply to the Commons on the issue of the Lords’ right to vote on the question of legal proceedings against the regicides. Two days later he was appointed to draw up a letter of congratulation upon the king’s safe landing in England. On 31 July 1660 he was absent from a call of the House, even though the Journal records his presence. On 21 Aug. he was one of three peers added to the committee which had managed the conference with the Commons on the bill of indemnity, in order to prepare heads for a further conference.</p><p>Seymour was known to be strongly in favour of punishing all the regicides, but on 25 Aug. he was named to a small select committee to consider the Commons request for a proviso to the indemnity bill saving some of them.<sup>8</sup> Subsequently he registered his dissent when the House agreed to the proviso offered by John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), that those who had surrendered according to the proclamation of 6 June 1660, even if legally attainted for the murder of Charles I, should have their execution suspended until fresh legislation had been passed. On 6 Sept. the House ordered that the Duchy House in the Strand, and all belonging thereunto, be forthwith delivered up into the present possession of Seymour as chancellor of the duchy. He was named to a further nine committees during this part of the session, including that on 18 Aug. to examine into the patent claiming the dukedom of Somerset for Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, a title also claimed by Seymour’s brother. In all, he attended on 73 days of the session before the prorogation on 13 Sept. (76 per cent of the total), his main absence being between 2 and 13 August.</p><p>Seymour was present when the Convention resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, but attended only until the end of the month, 16 days in all, around 36 per cent of the total. He was named to a further three committees. It was probably at this point that he registered a proxy in favour of Robartes, a peer with whom he shared many committee appointments. Seymour re-established his political interest in Wiltshire when his son, Charles Seymour*, later 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, was returned for the county seat in 1661 in partnership with Henry Hyde*, later 2nd earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Seymour was present at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661. He was listed as absent from a call of the House on 20 May, despite his attendance being recorded in the Journal. On 11 July he was thought to be an opponent of the case of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to be lord great chamberlain. He attended on 55 days of the session before its adjournment at the end of July 1661, nearly 86 per cent of the total, and was named to nine committees.</p><p>Seymour was present when the session resumed on 20 Nov. 1661. He attended regularly until the Christmas adjournment on 20 Dec. but then did not reappear in the House until 7 Mar. 1662. There was a further gap in his attendance between 20 Mar. and 11 Apr. 1662. He attended on the last day of the session, 19 May, having been present on 47 days of that part of the session, nearly 36 per cent of the total.</p><p>Seymour first sat on the second day of the 1663 session, 19 February. On 23 Feb. he was absent from a call of the House, and although he attended on the 25th he was then absent until 9 April. He was reckoned by Wharton on 13 July to be a likely opponent of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.<sup>9</sup> Seymour last attended on 20 July, a week before the end of the session. In all he attended on 34 days of the session, approximately 42 per cent of the total, but was named to only two committees, old age and illness apparently curtailing his activity.</p><p>Seymour attended on the second day of the 1664 session, 21 March. He was present on 12 days of the session (just over 32 per cent of the total), being named only to the committees for privileges and petitions. He last sat in the Lords on 14 May, shortly before the session’s adjournment. He died on 12 July 1664, ‘resigning himself up very quietly’,<sup>10</sup> and was buried in Great Bedwyn, alongside his ancestors.<sup>11</sup> In his will he bequeathed to his wife Catherine £600 per year and the use of the house in St Martin’s Lane, London. His son, Charles, duly succeeded as 2nd baron.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
SEYMOUR, Francis (1658-78) |
<p><strong><surname>SEYMOUR</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1658–78)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 25 Aug. 1665 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. SEYMOUR OF TROWBRIDGE; <em>suc. </em>cos. 29 Apr. 1675 (a minor) as 5th duke of SOMERSET |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 17 Jan. 1658, 4th but 1st surv. s. of Charles Seymour*, 2nd Bar. Seymour of Trowbridge, and 2nd w. Elizabeth Alington, da. of William Alington, Bar. Alington of Killard [I]. <em>educ</em>. Eton c.1670; Harrow c.1675; travelled abroad (France) 1676, (Italy) 1678. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 20 Apr. 1678; <em>admon</em>. 26 Nov. 1683.</p> |
|
|
<p>Seymour was born at Preshute, Wiltshire, into a cadet branch of the Seymour family. He grew up at Marlborough Castle and inherited considerable estates in Wiltshire.<sup>1</sup> In April 1675 he succeeded to the dukedom on the death of his father’s cousin John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset, but the estates parted company from the peerage and passed to Lady Elizabeth Seymour, sister of the 4th duke, prompting suggestions of a marriage between them.<sup>2</sup></p><p>In April 1676 Somerset was in Paris, where he was received with great pomp and ceremony by the English ambassador, John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton.<sup>3</sup> Somerset was reportedly socializing with Richard Butler*, Baron Butler and earl of Arran [I], and other members of the English and Irish nobility in Paris throughout the summer. In the spring of 1678 he embarked for Italy, accompanied by his uncle Hildebrand Alington, later 4th Baron Alington [I], who later said that the duke travelled ‘only out of curiosity’. In April they arrived at Lerici, where they fell into company with a group of French gentlemen. On entering a local Augustinian church the French gentlemen allegedly behaved indecently towards a group of local ladies. Alington later insisted that Somerset played no part in the offence but Horatio Botti, the outraged husband of one of the ladies, tracked the gentlemen to an inn, where he shot and killed Somerset.<sup>4</sup> His body was sent home to England and buried at Great Bedwyn on 15 Oct. 1678.<sup>5</sup> He was succeeded by his younger brother Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.</p><p>The secretary of state, Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, informed the consul in Genoa, George Legatt, on 20 May 1678 that Charles II was ‘obliged not only in justice, but by many of the important considerations to show his resentment’. The king appeared genuinely angry and Legatt was instructed to convey the ‘great indignation’ he felt at ‘so horrible a deed done on a person of such high rank and quality’. The Genoese authorities pronounced the death sentence against Botti, but he evaded capture and was only hanged in effigy. James II later agreed to pardon Botti and dissatisfaction at this outcome was said to have been the reason why the 6th duke of Somerset snubbed the papal nuncio at the English court in 1687.<sup>6</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
SEYMOUR, John (c. 1633-75) |
<p><strong><surname>SEYMOUR</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1633–75)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1640-71 Ld. John Seymour; <em>suc. </em>nephew 12 Dec. 1671 as 4th duke of SOMERSET |
|
First sat 10 Feb. 1673; last sat 10 Feb. 1673 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1633, 5th but o. surv. s. of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset, and 2nd w. Frances Devereux (<em>d</em>. 1674), da. of Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Essex. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1653–5; G. Inn 1666, bencher 1667. <em>m</em>. 5 Dec. 1661 (with £10,000), Sarah (<em>d</em>.1692), da. and coh. of Sir Edward Alston, FRCP, of Great St Helens, London, wid. of George Grimston of Gormanbury, Herts., <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 29 Apr. 1675; <em>will</em> 17 June 1674, pr. 14 Dec. 1676.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. and <em>custos rot.</em> Som. 1672–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Wilts. 1672–<em>d</em>.; recorder, Lichfield 1672–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, Salisbury Guildhall; oil on canvas, St John’s, Cambridge.</p> |
<p>Seymour’s prospects after the Restoration were conditioned by the death of his father, now newly restored to the Somerset dukedom, in October 1660. The dukedom then went to Seymour’s nephew, William Seymour*, 3rd duke of Somerset, who came under the guardianship of his mother, Lady Mary (<em>d</em>.1715). In 1657 she had taken a second husband, Henry Somerset*, styled Lord Herbert, the future duke of Beaufort. Seymour’s father had provided for him in his will, intending to devise on him the manor of Midgehall in Lydiard Tregoze. However, that estate was held by the widow of his uncle Henry Seymour, styled Lord Beauchamp (<em>d.</em> 1618), as part of her jointure and it was also ‘estated’ out for the life of one of the Pleydells. In the interim Lord John was to receive £600 per year in maintenance, together with the £200 allowed for in an indenture of 13 Nov. 1652. All this was intended to supply his portion of £10,000.<sup>2</sup> Seymour was thus dependent on the trustees of his father’s will, especially his mother as the executrix and there were many other calls upon the estate, particularly the payment of family debts.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Seymour was returned for Marlborough in 1661, following a last-ditch effort by one of his father’s trustees, Amos Walrond<sup>‡</sup>, having been recommended by his mother and his uncle Francis Seymour*, Baron Seymour of Trowbridge.<sup>4</sup> While in the Commons Seymour was a court supporter. In December of that year he married Sarah Alston, a wealthy widow. A marriage portion of £10,000 was agreed but the money was received by Seymour’s mother ‘for her own use’. In a pre-nuptial agreement of 20 Nov. 1661 the dowager duchess agreed to pay a total of £800 annually to the couple, with £300 of that to be paid directly to Seymour’s new wife. In January 1662 a further agreement settled a jointure on Sarah consisting of lands in Herefordshire and in County Monaghan in Ireland, worth £1,500 per year.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Marriage did not solve Seymour’s financial difficulties and in December 1663 he petitioned the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, concerning a chancery case against his nephew Somerset and Somerset’s guardians, Lord and Lady Herbert, wherein he had attempted to have the reversion of the manor of Midgehall settled upon him, and for his £600 a year maintenance. The delay in settling the case had led to him being ‘deprived of his only subsistence and debarred his liberty for want of money to pay his creditors’.<sup>6</sup> Nothing seems to have come of this attempt to enforce payment of his annuity as one of his father’s trustees, the lord keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, writing to Lady Herbert on 6 Jan. 1666, described Seymour’s ‘condition’ as</p><blockquote><p>very sad, having not one farthing but what the portion which his lady brought to him, and nothing out of his father’s estate. There is now behind to him about £4,000 for his annuity and legacy of £1,000. His debts do so pinch him that he is a continual prisoner and a close one to his chamber whilst the privilege of Parliament protects him.</p></blockquote><p>It seemed that Midgehall might have to be sold as soon as it came into his possession.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Seymour’s situation worsened when the dowager duchess ‘refused on a quarrel’ to pay him the £600 a year left him by his father, and ‘turned him out of her house’, whereupon, as his wife later alleged, she took lodgings on the fourth floor of Gray’s Inn, and ‘after ten years’ care, paid off the debts, except £1,000 lost by him at play’.<sup>8</sup> It was common knowledge that during this time the couple were avoiding their creditors and, while protected by the privilege of Parliament during sessions, Seymour was confined to his lodgings during recesses. His situation was transformed by his wife’s careful management, aided no doubt by her improved financial situation following the death of her father in 1669. Further, Seymour succeeded unexpectedly to the Somerset peerage in December 1671 on the death of his nephew, whereby he came into a substantial inheritance; one document in 1672 listed his rent from land, tenements and tithes in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset at over £1,325 per annum.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Contemporaries seemed to have been underwhelmed by the new duke: Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> merely noted him as ‘a man whose person is as mean as his parts’.<sup>10</sup> The same point was made by Thomas Henshaw, who added that he was ‘never like to have children’.<sup>11</sup> Local office followed his elevation to the peerage. In the case of the lieutenancy of Wiltshire in August 1672 this was the result of the appointment of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex to the lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In October 1672 Lady Mary Hastings reported that Somerset and his wife ‘are parted and (as ’tis feared) irreconcilably. He discovers very much his own weakness by making public to the world all the quarrels that have passed between them and many weak complaints, too long to relate.’<sup>13</sup> This led to a petition to the king from the duchess in November asking him to interpose with her husband to allow her maintenance, since he would not cohabit with her, and ‘having lived in a condition below her rank to assist in paying off his debts, but of late he has, by evil instigation, refused to live with her, or to allow her to enter his houses, leaving her destitute of apparel, meat, drink, and maintenance’. Somerset had apparently offered her the £600 a year she was entitled to by her marriage settlement, plus an additional £400, which she thought not ‘suitable to his condition and her fortune’.<sup>14</sup> Perhaps not surprisingly, by December 1672 he was being referred to as the ‘mad duke of Somerset’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>A writ of summons was issued to the new duke on 5 Feb. 1673.<sup>16</sup> Somerset attended the Lords for the only time on 10 Feb., the lord treasurer, Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, promptly securing his proxy on that day. On the previous day, Somerset had sent instructions to his three brothers-in-law, Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, Charles Boyle*, the future 2nd Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, and Conyers Darcy*, the future 2nd earl of Holdernesse, who were deputed to appear for him on the 12th to negotiate a separation agreement with the lord chancellor, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, and Lord Treasurer Clifford. Somerset seemed prepared to grant his wife an allowance of £1,000 per year on certain conditions. On 16 Mar. 1673 he wrote to thank Winchilsea for his ‘care on this my concern with my wife’. A further letter sent on 25 Apr. hoped that agreement had been reached.<sup>17</sup> It was probably as part of this agreement that in 1673 Somerset confirmed that the £1,500 settled by his mother on his wife in Herefordshire and Ulster, until Midgehall became his, was now to be altered and a jointure of £2,500 settled on her instead.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Somerset gained little by the death of his mother in April 1674, as the estate at her disposal went primarily to Thomas Thynne*, the future Viscount Weymouth and husband of her granddaughter Lady Frances Finch. In a codicil written a few days before her death, Drayton manor was conveyed to Somerset for £10,000, not the £12,000 originally intended. Estates in Ireland and Herefordshire were settled on him, but these may have been contested as they had originally been part of the current duchess’s jointure, even though the duke had claimed he had exchanged these following his accession to the dukedom and only upon her death in 1692 did Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡ </sup>note that Weymouth had thereby become ‘a great lord in Herefordshire’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Somerset was clearly not well. George Johnson<sup>‡</sup> reported that he had left the duke’s on 12 Mar. 1675, at which time he did not think him ‘in a dangerous condition’. The recipient of his letter, Worcester (the former Lady Herbert), was clearly concerned that Somerset would alter his will to favour the heir to the dukedom, Francis Seymour*, 3rd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge.<sup>20</sup> Somerset was noted as ‘sick’ on 1 Apr. 1675.<sup>21</sup> On 28 Apr. he registered a proxy in favour of Winchilsea, but he died the following day. He was buried on 10 June in Salisbury Cathedral.</p><p>On 30 Apr. 1675 Johnson reported Somerset’s death to Worcester (as Herbert had since become), ‘having his will in my study in the country’, adding that ‘I conceive it is for my Lady Elizabeth [Seymour], to take care about the funeral she being the duke’s heir at law’, being his niece.<sup>22</sup> A slight panic ensued on 4 May that Somerset might have ‘made another will about two or three days before he died giving all his estate to Lord Clifford [of Lanesborough]’, the husband of his sister Jane. Worcester was informed that ‘Lord Clifford denies it and I am informed he was not compos mentis since the first fit of apoplexy’.<sup>23</sup> There were rumours of a will in which Henry Hare<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Baron Coleraine [I], was named as executor. Coleraine subsequently denied it.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Somerset bequeathed annuities of £1,000 each to his nephew Heneage Finch*, the future 5th earl of Winchilsea, and his sisters Frances Wriothesley, dowager countess of Southampton, and Jane, Lady Clifford. He also left £3,000 to the poor children of Sarum, to be administered by his friends Sir Thomas Mompesson<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Richard Howe<sup>‡</sup>. Howe had been backed by Somerset in the contest for knight of the shire for Wiltshire caused by the accession of Henry Hyde* as 2nd earl of Clarendon in 1674.<sup>25</sup> In 1694 the chamberlain of Salisbury was ordered to procure the duke’s picture, he ‘having been a worthy benefactor to the poor of this city’.<sup>26</sup> Somerset’s lands at Wolfhall, Sudden Park, Savernake Forest, Easton Wootton and Little and Great Bedwyn were bequeathed to Baron Seymour. His wife was not mentioned in the will, all his jewels, plate and household goods being left to his mistress, Eleanor Oldfield. His executors were James Montagu of Lackham (father of James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>), Alexander Thistlewayte<sup>‡</sup> of Winterslow, Albertus Oldfield of Westminster and Johnson.</p><p>According to one contemporary, Somerset left Eleanor Oldfield property worth £20,000 pounds.<sup>27</sup> She certainly benefited by being given property in Amesbury, which had been part of the jointure of Somerset’s mother.<sup>28</sup> Several people were interested in obtaining this from her. On 8 May 1675 Winchilsea wrote to the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), to ask him to approach Johnson to use his interest with ‘the woman’ to whom Somerset gave Amesbury, so that he had the first refusal in case she decided to sell.<sup>29</sup> James Montagu suggested that Eleanor Oldfield be advised not to part with Amesbury, ‘if it should prove hers’, except to Lady Elizabeth Seymour, and on 3 June Thomas Brunsden reported that Worcester had purchased Amesbury for his step-daughter for just over £3,500.<sup>30</sup> It was later claimed by the marchioness of Worcester that she had used her husband’s influence with George Johnson to exploit a mistake in the will and ensure that most of Somerset’s property fell to her daughter, as the heir-at-law.<sup>31</sup> Lady Elizabeth was now ‘a great fortune’ and on 31 Aug. 1676 married Thomas Bruce*, the future 2nd earl of Ailesbury.<sup>32</sup> She subsequently came into conflict with her mother over the estate.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In March 1676 it was suggested that Somerset’s widow would marry Sir Edward Hungerford<sup>‡</sup>, when it was noted that she had £8,000–9,000 per annum, ‘which troubles them that thought to have that estate between Lady Clifford and Lady Southampton’.<sup>34</sup> In fact, in July 1682 she married Coleraine.<sup>35</sup> Apart from various philanthropic bequests, she gave two manors in Somerset to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, ‘out of regard for supporting the dukedom of Somerset’.<sup>36</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
SEYMOUR, William (1587-1660) |
<p><strong><surname>SEYMOUR</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1587–1660)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1618-21 Ld. Beauchamp; <em>accel. </em>29 Jan. 1621 Bar. BEAUCHAMP; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 6 Apr. 1621 as 2nd earl of HERTFORD; <em>cr. </em>5 June 1641 mq. of HERTFORD; <em>rest. </em>13 Sept. 1660 2nd duke of SOMERSET |
|
First sat 17 Apr. 1621; first sat after 1660, 18 May 1660; last sat 24 Aug. 1660 |
|
MP Marlborough 1621 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Sept. 1587, 2nd s. of Edward Seymour (<em>d.v.p</em>. 1618), later <em>styled</em> Ld. Beauchamp, and Honora, da. of Sir Richard Rogers<sup>‡</sup> of Bryanston, Dorset; bro. of Francis Seymour*, later Bar. Seymour of Trowbridge. <em>educ</em>. Trowbridge g.s. c.1598-1604; Magdalen Oxf. 1605, BA 1607, MA 1636, MD 1645; M. Temple 1618. <em>m</em>. (1) 22 June 1610, Arbella (<em>d</em>. 25 Sept. 1615), da. of Charles Stuart, earl of Lennox [S] <em>s.p.</em>; (2) 3 Mar. 1617 (with £3,614), Frances (<em>d</em>.1674), da. of Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Essex, 5s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); KB 4 Nov. 1616; KG 27 May 1660. <em>d</em>. 24 Oct. 1660; <em>will</em> 15 Aug. 1657- 4 Oct. 1660, pr. 20 Nov. 1660.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC Feb. 1641-?48, May 1660-<em>d</em>.; commr. treaty of Ripon 1640, treaty of Uxbridge 1645, treaty of Newport 1648; gov. to Prince Charles 1641-4; prince’s council 1645; gent. of the bedchamber 1644-?8; groom of the stole 1644-?8, June 1660-<em>d.</em></p><p>Commr. oyer and terminer, W. Circ. 1626-42, 1660, Som., 1624, Mdx. 1641, 1660, London 1641, Wilts., Hants 1643-4; commr. array, Bristol, Som., Wilts. 1642; mbr. council of war 1643-6.</p><p>Warden, Savernake Forest, Wilts. 1621-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Wilts. 1626-?36, July 1660-<em>d</em>., Som. 1641, July 1660-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. (jt.) Som. 1639-42, ld. lt. Wilts., Som. July 1660-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Lt. gen. (roy.) W. Counties 1642-4.</p><p>Recorder Lichfield Jan.-1648-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup>; chan. Oxf. Univ. 1643-7, May 1660-<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Hertford was a leading supporter of Charles I in the west of England and suffered financially for his support for the royal cause in the Civil Wars and afterwards, accumulating debts of around £22,750.<sup>3</sup> His commitment to the Church was such that he maintained an Anglican chaplain in his household and regularly took the sacrament in private during the Interregnum.<sup>4</sup> The death of his son, Henry Seymour, styled Lord Beauchamp, in 1654 was followed in August 1657 by the remarriage of Beauchamp’s widow, Mary, to Henry Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, then styled Lord Herbert, later duke of Beaufort. The significance of this marriage was not lost on Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, who noted, ‘sure my Lord Hertford cannot like it’.<sup>5</sup> That same month Hertford made a new will in which he attempted to ensure that both his grandson, and the administration of the Seymour estates were kept out of the clutches of Lady Herbert and her new husband.<sup>6</sup> Poignancy was added to Hertford’s fears by the rival claimant to the Somerset dukedom, who was none other than Herbert’s father, Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester.</p><p>Hertford’s name cropped up regularly in royalist correspondence in the months before the Restoration. On Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton’s list of the spring of 1660, Hertford was noted as one of the lords with the king. On 27 Apr. 1660 John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt wrote to Ormond that he had communicated the king’s commands to Hertford and his son-in-law, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, and that that day ‘above 40 lords sat’, which had led some of the Presbyterian lords to consider calling Hertford and Southampton to sit as a way of tempering the enthusiasm of the younger royalist peers.<sup>7</sup> On 4 May Edward Hyde reported that Hertford and Southampton had arrived in London, where he thought General George Monck*, the future duke of Albemarle would ‘be exceedingly kind to them’. On 13 May Charles II wrote to Hertford that ‘I have a very just sense of your many services and kindness to me; and there are very few persons in the world I more desire to see. Commend me to my Lord Southampton’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>On 14 May 1660 the Lords wrote to Hertford asking him to attend the House and he duly took his seat on 18 May. On 26 May the Lords voted to restore the chancellorship of Oxford to him. Hertford attended the Lords on 17 days during the Convention, a total of 15 per cent of possible sittings, his attendance being confined to the months of May and August 1660. On 31 July he was excused attendance on the grounds of ill-health. On 13 Aug. he was named to a conference on the bill of indemnity and borrowing £100,000 from the City, but on the following day was excused from going into the City ‘in regard of his ill health’. On 18 Aug. he was named to the committee on the bill for disposing of several lands of his son-in-law, Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, for the payment of debts.</p><p>What brought Hertford back to Westminster was probably a bill paving the way for his restoration to the dukedom of Somerset. On 10 Aug. 1660 the Commons read twice and committed a bill repealing a clause in a private act, made under Edward VI touching the limitation of the duke of Somerset’s lands. On the 15th, at the committee on the bill, Lord Herbert produced a patent from Charles I creating his father, Worcester, duke of Somerset, which the committee agreed to report to the House so that it might be referred to the king.<sup>9</sup> However, no report seems to have been made and on 18 Aug., ‘upon information’ given by Hertford that a patent had been granted to the marquess of Worcester, ‘which is a prejudice to other peers’, the House ordered a committee to investigate the matter. On 23 Aug. Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, reported from the committee that Worcester had told them that a patent had been left in his hands by the king, creating him duke of Somerset, upon certain conditions, which had never been performed and that he had made no use of it. It was now in the hands of his son, Lord Herbert, although Worcester was willing it should be surrendered to the king. The Lords then sent a message to the Commons asking that Lord Herbert give the patent back to his father, who referred the request to the committee on the bill. On 27 Aug. the Commons ordered that Lord Herbert be heard by his counsel before the bill was reported and that he produce the patent before the committee. Winchilsea lobbied Sir Edward Dering<sup>‡</sup> to attend the committee scheduled for 28 Aug. ‘where you will find occasions enough to assist my lord’.<sup>10</sup> On 3 Sept. the Lords were informed that the patent had been delivered up, and then ordered that a bill be brought in ‘that all patents and grants obtained since the beginning of the late wars shall be brought within a short time to be limited, or else the same to be vacated’, which was lost in the Commons.<sup>11</sup> On 4 Sept. William Prynne<sup>‡</sup> reported the bill with amendments, and it was duly passed on the 5 September. On the same day it was read twice and committed to the committee which had been named to consider Worcester’s patent to the dukedom. It was amended and passed on 6 Sept., becoming an act for the restoring of the marquess of Hertford to the dukedom of Somerset. On 13 Sept., when the king adjourned the session to November, he specifically referred to Somerset’s bill, remarking that ‘you all know it is for an extraordinary person, who hath merited as much of the king my father and myself as a subject can do’, adding ‘there can be no danger from such a precedent; and I hope no man will envy him because I have done what a good master should do to such a servant’. The act was subsequently confirmed in the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in December 1661.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Hertford, now restored as second duke of Somerset, never sat in the House of Lords under that title. He died in Essex House on 24 Oct. 1660, ‘of a general decay of nature’, and was buried in the parish church of Great Bedwyn on 1 November.<sup>13</sup> Winchilsea, described his sadness at the death of a man who had been ‘a real father to me’; Fuller described him as a ‘wise and religious knight’, and Clarendon recalled him a ‘man of great honour, great interest in fortune and estate, and of universal esteem’, a ‘good scholar’ with ‘good judgment’ to whom the king would have ‘trusted his crown upon his fidelity’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The duchess of Somerset survived until 1674, leaving debts of over £20,000.<sup>15</sup> Her will also caused controversy, as it contained a codicil added just before her death and of which her main legal adviser, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> was unaware. In it she bequeathed around £13,000 to Thomas Thynne*, the future Viscount Weymouth, who had married her granddaughter, Lady Frances Finch, and who thereby acquired the manor of Drayton Bassett, Staffordshire, lands in Herefordshire, and around 22,000 acres in County Monaghan, Ireland.<sup>16</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
SEYMOUR, William (1652-71) |
<p><strong><surname>SEYMOUR</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1652–71)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1654-60 Ld. Beauchamp; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 24 Oct. 1660 (a minor) as 3rd duke of SOMERSET |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 17 Apr. 1652, o. s. of Henry Seymour (<em>d.</em> 1654), <em>styled</em> Ld. Beauchamp, and Mary Capell (<em>d</em>.1715), da. of Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Capell of Hadlam, Herts. <em>educ</em>. L. Inn 1671. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 12 Dec. 1671; <em>will</em> 10 Dec., pr. 14 Dec. 1671.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Recorder, Lichfield 1667–<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: engraving, G. Vertue, after Sir P. Lely, NPG 29463.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>On the death of his father on 30 Mar. 1654 Seymour became heir to his grandfather William Seymour*, marquess of Hertford, and ultimately to the dukedom of Somerset. Lord Beauchamp, his sister, Lady Elizabeth Seymour, and their mother all lived with Hertford until his mother remarried in August 1657. Her new husband was Henry Somerset*, styled Lord Herbert, the future 3rd marquess of Worcester and duke of Beaufort, whose father, Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, was the rival claimant to the Somerset dukedom. Almost immediately Hertford made a new will in an attempt to ensure that his grandson and the Seymour patrimony would remain as far as possible in the hands of his wife, the marchioness of Hertford, supported by trustees who included her sons-in-law Thomas Wriothesely*, 4th earl of Southampton, and Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In September 1660 Hertford secured a private act of Parliament establishing his claim as duke of Somerset. He therefore died at the end of October as 2nd duke of Somerset, and William Seymour succeeded as 3rd duke. At the death of the old duke, the new duke’s mother appealed to the king in an attempt to know why his grandmother retained custody of her son, or ‘permit her to recover his guardianship by law’. In response, it was explained that the duke had been ‘willing for his grandson and heir to remain under the tuition of his mother, only so long as she remained a widow’ and that, upon her marriage with Lord Herbert, he had obtained a promise from the king to grant him, as far as he could, the wardship of his heir. He had bequeathed a large property to the marchioness, on condition of her retaining the wardship of the heir. The whole estate was burdened with debt, but the marchioness was willing to allow the proceeds to go to discharging the debts, and to educate her grandson at her own expense.<sup>5</sup></p><p>The scene now shifted to Parliament and the bill to abolish the court of wards. In December the dowager duchess petitioned for a clause to allow the king to grant the wardship in this particular case; Lady Herbert counter-petitioned.<sup>6</sup> When the dowager duchess’s attempt failed she seems to have abandoned the duke and his sister to their mother in ‘a rage’ that ‘the act concerning the court of wards’ was passed.<sup>7</sup> However, the key issue of the old duke’s debts, estimated at over £20,000, remained to be contested.<sup>8</sup> The dowager duchess, armed with the will, wished to pay off her husband’s debts with the proceeds of the estate devised to her in trust, as well as to protect the interests of her two unmarried children, Lord John Seymour*, the future 4th duke of Somerset, and Lady Jane Seymour. Lady Herbert, on the other hand, sought to keep the estate for her son, and possibly to use the surplus for her own ends.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In an attempt to sort out the tangled finances of the family, one of the old duke’s trustees, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, drafted a bill which was introduced into the Lords on 24 Mar. 1662 as a bill for making provision for the speedy payment of the debts of the late duke of Somerset. It received a second reading on the following day, but opposition from the dowager duchess helped to ensure that it was never reported from committee. Its main purpose seems to have been to ‘join the whole estate of the old duke together and enable trustees to pay the debts out of the entailed estate as well as the trust’, as the only way ‘to preserve the family’.<sup>10</sup> Its failure meant that Somerset’s mother was left to administer the estate: in ten years she collected £44,792 while disbursing £32,921, which included her jointure of £1,600 per annum.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Somerset spent his teenage years with his mother at Badminton and Worcester House in London. However, the young duke appears to have been impatient to secure his independence, declaring that he would ‘remove to Tottenham the day after he should come of age’.<sup>12</sup> By the spring of 1667 his presence in London society was evident. In late May 1667 he was in London with his step-father, now the marquess of Worcester, where he ‘promises much in his looks and courage’.<sup>13</sup> Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> referred to him as ‘a very pretty young man’ and another observer later commented that he was ‘a youth of great beauty and hopes’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In July 1668 a marriage was under discussion between Somerset and the sister of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, but these plans never came to fruition.<sup>15</sup> In April 1669, his uncle Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, told Worcester that William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, had ‘with much respect received the proposal of a treaty for the marriage’ of Somerset with his daughter Lady Diana Russell, who had £11,000 in ready money, £2,000 in jewels and a revenue of £1,400 a year; again, nothing came of it.<sup>16</sup> Somerset was next linked with Elizabeth Wriothesley, the young widow of Josceline Percy*, 5th earl of Northumberland. Her step-mother, the countess of Southampton, was also Somerset’s aunt, and she was keen on the match as early as July 1670 because of the ‘affection he has formerly had for her’, and promised to promote it, although by the end of October she feared that ‘if I should speak of marriage it would be one way to lose my interest’.<sup>17</sup> Evidently, having ‘made his address’ to her, he was rebuffed, possibly on the grounds of age.<sup>18</sup> Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> later noted that Somerset had declared ‘he should die because my Lady Northumberland refused him’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Somerset had been ‘let go out of his mother’s constant care and inspection to come up to court the Countess of Northumberland’, which allegedly brought him into the company of a group of ‘young men’ who apparently introduced him to ‘liberties before unknown to him’.<sup>20</sup> In February 1671 he was reportedly dancing at court and frequenting a ‘scandalous’ house near Whetstone Park, where he was said to have been involved with Monmouth, Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and Robert Constable, 3rd Viscount Dunbar [S], in the killing of the beadle Peter Vernell, although some reports do not mention him, at least one exonerated him and no pardon was issued to him.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Somerset died at Worcester House, London, on 12 Dec. 1671, ‘a person every way so healthy, vigorous and young’ but nonetheless ‘hurried away in five days’ time’.<sup>22</sup> Some attributed his distemper, which was ‘bleeding at all the passages of his body, which could not be stopped’, to ‘a great debauch of drinking he had been at a few nights before.<sup>23</sup> His ‘violent malignant fever’ was originally diagnosed as measles or smallpox, ‘but there never appeared any evident signs of either, so that most now think that if any of that numerous company of doctors that attended had prevailed to have let him blood it had saved his life’.<sup>24</sup> Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> concurred: the smallpox ‘never came out, he bled so much at the nose, and by urine, that ’tis thought he had not an ounce of blood left in his body’ when he died.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Somerset’s body was conveyed from London via Reading to Great Bedwyn, where he was buried on 20 December.<sup>26</sup> In his brief will he bequeathed his ‘goods, chattels and personal estate’ to his mother, the marchioness of Worcester, his executor. The peerage passed to his father’s youngest brother, Lord John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
SHEFFIELD, John (1648-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>SHEFFIELD</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1648–1721)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Aug. 1658 (a minor) as 3rd earl of MULGRAVE; <em>cr. </em>10 May 1694 mq. of NORMANBY; <em>cr. </em>23 Mar. 1703 duke of BUCKINGHAM & NORMANBY |
|
First sat 24 Nov. 1669; last sat 20 Feb. 1721 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 7 Apr. 1648, o. s. of Edmund Sheffield<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Mulgrave, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1672),<sup>1</sup> da. of Lionel Cranfield<sup>†</sup>, earl of Middlesex. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1661-5 (France). <em>m</em>. (1) 1686 Ursula (<em>d</em>.1697), da. of George Stawell, wid. of Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) 12 Mar. 1699 (with £2,000) Katherine (<em>d</em>.1704), da. of Fulke Greville*, 5th Bar. Brooke, wid. of Wriothesley Baptist Noel*, 2nd earl of Gainsborough, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (3) 16 Mar. 1706 Katherine (<em>d</em>.1743), illegit. da. of James*, duke of York (King James II), and Catherine Sedley, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> countess of Dorchester, wid. of James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey,<sup>2</sup> 3s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 2da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p.</em>); 1s. (illegit.) with Frances Stewart, w. of Hon. Oliver Lambart; at least 3da. (illegit.). KG 1674. <em>d</em>. 24 Feb. 1721; <em>will</em> 9 Aug. 1716, 23 Nov. 1717, 30 Dec. 1717 pr. 28 Mar. 1721.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Extr. gent. of the bedchamber 1672-73, gent. of the bedchamber 1673-82, 1685; PC July 1685- Dec. 1688, May 1694- Mar. 1696, Apr. 1702-1707, Sept. 1710-Aug. 1714;<sup>4</sup> ld. chamberlain 1685-89; eccl. commr. 1686-7;<sup>5</sup> commr. for prizes 1695;<sup>6</sup> ld. privy seal 1702<sup>7</sup>-5;<sup>8</sup> ld. steward 1710-11; ld. pres. 1711-14.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Temp. Speaker 26, 27, 29 Nov., 3 Dec. 1694.</p><p>Ld. lt. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1679-82, 1687-88, (N. Riding) 1702-5, 1711-14, Mdx. 1711-14. gov. ?Yarmouth 1673,<sup>10</sup> Kingston-upon-Hull 1679-82;<sup>11</sup> v.-adm. of the coast (Yorks.) 1669-92, (co. Dur.) 1687-9, (Northumb.) 1687-9; ranger St James’s Park 1702.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Vol. RN 1666, 1672, capt. 1673; capt. tp. of horse 1667; col. 3rd ft. regt. 1673-82, 1684-?5.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, aft. G. Kneller, NPG 1779; oil on canvas, by S. Dubois, 1698, National Trust, Hughenden Manor, Bucks.; oil on canvas by J. Richardson, Examination Schools, Oxf. Univ.</p> |
<p>Towards the end of his life, Mulgrave (by then duke of Buckingham and Normanby) set out to write an account of his career:</p><blockquote><p>Having observed that memoirs and accounts of persons though not very considerable, when written by themselves, have been greedily read, and often found useful; not only for the knowledge of things past, but as cautions for the future…</p></blockquote><p>The result, he hoped, would be ‘a kind of picture left behind me to my friends and family, very like, though neither well painted, nor handsome.’<sup>14</sup> Mulgrave was indulging here in disingenuousness of a high order. Haughty and difficult, although his family were relative newcomers to the ranks of the peerage, as a kinsman of the families of Howard, de Vere and Stanley, he undoubtedly viewed himself as one of the ‘old aristocracy’: both a patron of the arts and an aspiring poet and someone for whom offices and interest were natural appurtenances. It was an attitude that no doubt encouraged contemporary satirists to dub him ‘Lord Allpride’.<sup>15</sup> Another contemporary reckoned him to have been possessed of ‘all the ill qualities imaginable without the allay of one single virtue’ and thought him ‘uncapable of resisting a bribe of ten pounds’.<sup>16</sup> This last flaw was most spectacularly brought to light during the Lords’ examination of his apparent acceptance of bribes to promote legislation. Although, as Macaulay later noted, Mulgrave’s demeanour failed to inspire affection in his acquaintances, the majority of even his most determined critics acknowledged him, for all his flaws, to be a man of talent. Capable of oratory of a high order and an active manager of conferences and chairman of committees, Mulgrave may at times have seemed ridiculous but he was not a man to be ignored.</p><p>Mulgrave’s father, the 2nd earl, had been one of a handful of hereditary peers to be offered seats in the Other House established by Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, though in common with most of his colleagues, he forbore taking up the place. His death in 1658 left the title in the hands of his young son, then aged just 10 years. Most sources give Mulgrave’s date of birth as 8 Sept. 1647 and his baptismal date as 12 Apr. the following year, yet a letter from Dr William Denton of 7 Apr. 1669 notes that day as being ‘the birthday and the day of my Lord Mulgrave’s being of age’, which would suggest (rather more plausibly) that he was both born and baptized in April 1648.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of Charles II</em></h2><p>Mulgrave succeeded to a considerable estate in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and he counted among his immediate kin grandees on both sides of the political divide, among them Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S], and the numerous members of the Boyle family. Still a minor at the time of the Restoration, in March 1660, when Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, compiled his assessment of the peerage, Mulgrave was noted as an infant, and on 31 July he was noted as absent (under age) at a call of the House.<sup>18</sup> Shortly after the Restoration, the dowager countess remarried; the same year the young earl of Mulgrave departed on his foreign travels in company with a tutor, Mr Hoel. He seems to have remained abroad for the ensuing three years. In the spring of 1663, finding that the ‘air did not agree with him and that the beer was not fit to be drunk’, an attitude not shared by his charge, Hoel pressed for permission to return. Shortly after this, Mulgrave appears to have been compelled to quit Paris which was in the grip of a plague.<sup>19</sup> In 1666, Mulgrave joined the Navy as a volunteer, serving aboard the flagship of Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, and George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. Mulgrave’s desire to see action, according to his own account, was in direct emulation of Thomas Butler*, styled earl of Ossory [I] (who attended the House as Baron Butler of Moore Park), whom he had heard commended ‘everywhere’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>In July 1667, while still underage, both Mulgrave and his rival, John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, were sent writs of summons to attend the House of Lords.<sup>21</sup> The move was believed to be a deliberate ploy by the king, who hoped to bolster the court group in the Lords with the addition of these young peers. Although Rochester responded to the summons, thus compelling the House to refer the matter to the committee for privileges, Mulgrave chose to stay away. The House’s opposition to the admission of Rochester and Mulgrave was voiced most strenuously by Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, opposition with which Mulgrave (in later years) warmly concurred, ‘because that heat of youth… made me a great deal more inclined to something else, than to sitting there.’<sup>22</sup> Over the next few years, Mulgrave applied himself to that ‘something else’ with great bravado, indulging in a series of amours and quarrels. Over the coming years he fathered at least four bastards and was one of three peers (the others being York and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth) who were believed to have contributed to the ruin of one of the duchess of York’s maids of honour, Mary Kirke.</p><p>Mulgrave finally came of age in April 1669 but he remained disinclined to claim his seat in the House and on 26 Oct. he was again excused at a call. The following month, he challenged Rochester to a duel, ostensibly over his inclusion in one of Rochester’s satires. The affair descended into farce when Rochester first demanded to fight the duel on horseback as he was unwell and then was found to have brought along an unknown officer of the lifeguards as his second, whom Mulgrave’s second, Colonel Aston, refused to acknowledge as a social equal. In the event the affair passed off without violence and all four men returned to London, where Mulgrave was arrested at the king’s suit and confined at a house in Suffolk Street. It was from there that the House ordered him to be brought to the bar, following which he finally took his seat in the House on 24 November. Two days later, Rochester, who had also been confined, undertook not to persist with the quarrel.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Having at last taken his seat, Mulgrave attended just three days of the session before retiring once more. He returned to his place the following year on 21 Feb. 1670, a week into the new session, after which he was present on just over 15 per cent of all sitting days. Named to four committees, on 28 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill to allow John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to divorce his wife.<sup>24</sup> Mulgrave failed to attend the House at all in 1671 and the following February he was afflicted with the loss of his mother, who had died ‘foolishly without taking order for any thing either for her self or her servants’. He argued with his stepfather, Sir John Bennet*, later Baron Ossulston, over the arrangements for his mother’s interment.<sup>25</sup> Later that year Mulgrave rejoined the fleet to serve as a volunteer at the battle of Sole Bay.</p><p>Having attended the prorogation day on 30 Oct. 1672, when he introduced his stepfather’s brother, Henry Bennet*, as earl of Arlington, Mulgrave took his place at the opening of the new session on 4 Feb. 1673, after which he was present on almost 83 per cent of all sitting days. Missing at a call on 13 Feb. he returned to his place the following day and over the course of the remainder of the session he was named to three committees.<sup>26</sup> He then took his seat in the brief four-day session in October, of which he attended on two days. That year, he was appointed one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber and in 1674 he was admitted to the order of the Garter. His steady rise was largely owing to the king’s personal interest. In the same month that he was awarded the blue ribbon, it was rumoured that he was to marry the duchess of Richmond and be promoted to a dukedom, though in the event neither the marriage nor peerage were forthcoming.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Mulgrave returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to two committees.<sup>28</sup> He appears to have spent much of the rest of the year in quarrelsome vein, fighting or narrowly avoiding it. In the early autumn, Monmouth was confined to his lodgings for threatening Mulgrave, who, it was reported, was courting the duke’s current mistress.<sup>29</sup> In October Mulgrave was engaged in a duel with one Mr Felton and in December he found himself involved in another bout with Rochester, though on this occasion Rochester was acting as second to Henry (Harry) Savile<sup>‡</sup>, who had precipitated the duel by jeering at Mulgrave.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In January 1675, it was rumoured (improbably) that in an attempt to curb this riotous lifestyle, ‘<em>le</em> <em>sage</em> <em>seigneur</em>’ Mulgrave (then said to be in possession of four challenges) was to be admitted to the Privy Council.<sup>31</sup> The following month, he was one of a number of peers to be appointed commissioners to examine Colonel Francis Lovelace, the former commander of New York, over his surrender to the Dutch.<sup>32</sup> Mulgrave took his seat at the opening of the new session on 13 Apr. 1675, after which he was present on 88 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had been estimated as a likely supporter of the non-resisting test.<sup>33</sup> Named to no committees besides the standing committees for privileges and petitions, on 17 Apr. he introduced his kinsman, Charles Sackville*, later 6th earl of Dorset, as earl of Middlesex. Efforts to prevent Mulgrave from indulging in further quarrels failed to avert a further duel that August with Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup>, perhaps resulting from Mary Kirke’s pregnancy and loss of place in the duchess of York’s household.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Having survived yet another experience on the field of honour, Mulgrave resumed his seat at the opening of the session on 13 October. Present on two thirds of all sitting days in the session, although he was named to the three standing committees, he was named to no other committees that session. On 20 Nov. he was said to have been one of those foremost in backing the calls for Parliament to be dissolved.<sup>35</sup> The following January, it was reported that he had been appointed to the Privy Council, though later that month the reporter, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, corrected his error.<sup>36</sup> In April, a rumour circulated that both Mulgrave and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, had converted to Rome, though this also proved to be without foundation.<sup>37</sup> Mulgrave took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session of February 1677, after which he was present on almost 68 per cent of all sitting days. Named to five committees, in May he was noted triply vile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury.<sup>38</sup> The same month rumours circulated of a secret marriage between Mulgrave and the duchess of Richmond, which it was thought she was soon to ‘own’.<sup>39</sup> Mulgrave had previously penned an elegy in her honour, in which he dubbed her, ‘Thou lovely slave to a rude husband’s will, / by nature used so well, by him so ill.’<sup>40</sup> Mulgrave’s growing interest at court was reflected in William Denton’s intention to make him, York and James Butler*, duke of Ormond, his ‘friends’ in his efforts to secure his place from the king.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Mulgrave travelled abroad again that summer to serve as a volunteer in the French army alongside Monmouth and a number of other peers, though his former hero, Ossory, opted to fight in the opposing forces of William of Orange (later King William III). On 16 Aug. it was reported that Mulgrave had once more become engaged in a duel and that he had been killed by his French opponent, though again the rumour proved to be without substance.<sup>42</sup> Mulgrave returned from the fray in time to take his place in the House on 3 Dec. when he was embroiled in an incident in the House involving Carlo Dudley, the self-styled duke of Northumberland, who had attempted to take his seat and requested the king’s assistance in ordering the duchess of Richmond to marry him. When the king declined to interfere, saying that it ‘must be his own addresses’ that secured her consent, ‘the mad duke’ gazed round the chamber and, alighting on Mulgrave, declared, ‘no, that fellow there will hinder me.’<sup>43</sup> Mulgrave departed on campaign again the following February but he returned less than a fortnight later and resumed his seat in the House for the remainder of the session.<sup>44</sup> On 4 Apr. 1678 he found Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty of murder.<sup>45</sup> Following the short prorogation, he took his place again at the opening of the new session on 23 May, after which he was present on 95 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to 11 committees.<sup>46</sup> In September, it was reported that he had resigned his colonelcy, perhaps convinced that his soldiering days were over.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Mulgrave was said to have joined a number of suitors at Petworth that winter intent on courting Lady Elizabeth Percy. Conscious of the relatively small size of his own estate when compared with that of some of his rivals, Mulgrave undertook to settle his whole estate as a jointure, irrespective of whether any children resulted from the marriage.<sup>48</sup> Besides his comparatively modest wealth, Mulgrave was also thought to be labouring under the disadvantage of age. Sir Ralph Verney proposed the match ‘very strange, for he may almost be her grandfather.’<sup>49</sup> Unsurprisingly, Mulgrave’s suit was unsuccessful.</p><p>Mulgrave returned to the House on 21 Oct 1678, after which he was present on almost 89 per cent of all sitting days. Named to three committees, on 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the bill for disbanding the army and the following day he voted against committing Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds).<sup>50</sup> In spite of this, by March of the following year Mulgrave appears to have determined not to assist the former lord treasurer. In a list compiled at the beginning of the month, Danby reckoned Mulgrave a likely supporter, though he noted that the king should talk to him to be certain of his assistance. The following day Danby had revised his estimate and now considered Mulgrave an opponent (though unreliable) and on 3 Mar. he added him to the list of those ranked against him.<sup>51</sup> Having attended two days of the abortive session at the beginning of March, Mulgrave took his seat in the First Exclusion Parliament on 15 Mar. 1679, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days, though he appears not to have been named to any committees during the session. Nominated one of the managers of the conference considering Danby’s attainder on 22 Mar, on 1 Apr. he voted in favour of the early stages of the bill, one of a number of members of the ‘court party’ to turn their backs on him at this time.<sup>52</sup> On 4 Apr. he again voted to pass the measure and on 14 Apr. he voted to agree with the Commons on the passage of the attainder.<sup>53</sup> Over the ensuing two years Mulgrave gave his support fairly regularly to the opposition grouping, an association that may in part have been born out of his friendship with Monmouth. On 13 May he subscribed the protest at the resolution to allow the bishops to remain in court until sentence of death was passed. Ten days later, he subscribed two more protests, first at the instruction to the Lords committee meeting with the Commons that the Lords would give no other answer with regard to the bishops’ right to vote and second at the resolution to proceed with the trials of the five lords before that of Danby. On 27 May he voted against adhering to an earlier vote that the lords spiritual had a right to stay in court in capital cases until judgment of death came to be pronounced.</p><p>Mulgrave was appointed governor of Hull at the close of 1679, though he was said to be reluctant to take up the appointment, unhappy to be profiting from Monmouth’s disgrace.<sup>54</sup> The following summer he set out as commander of a relief expedition to Tangier, returning from the abortive campaign towards the end of July bearing ‘a melancholy account’ of the state of the colony.<sup>55</sup> It was speculated that although the king had initially been irritated by Mulgrave’s conduct, he was impressed with the detailed intelligence Mulgrave brought back with him.</p><p>Mulgrave took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, after which he was present on 71 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He again appears not to have been named to any committees during this session. Despite his previous association with the opposition, as an adherent of York he was vehemently opposed to the exclusion bill and on 15 Nov. he voted in favour both of putting the question that the bill should be rejected at first reading and then in favour of throwing the bill out without further deliberation.<sup>56</sup> Even so, on 23 Nov. he then backed the motion proposed by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, to establish a joint committee with the Commons to debate the state of the nation, entering his protest at the failure to carry the proposal. On 7 Dec. he voted in favour of attainting William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, and on 18 Dec. he entered his dissent at the resolution to reject a proviso exempting all trials of peers upon impeachment from the bill for regulating the trials of peers.<sup>57</sup></p><p>In advance of the new Parliament in March 1681, Mulgrave was forecast as being opposed to allowing Danby’s release on bail but he attended just one day of the session that convened in Oxford.<sup>58</sup> In June he was present at the trial of Fitzharris.<sup>59</sup> The following year, Mulgrave was barred from court and put out of his offices following a scandal involving York’s daughter, Princess Anne.<sup>60</sup> In September of the previous year (1681) it had been reported that Anne had begged her father to replace her governess, Lady Henrietta Hyde, telling him:</p><blockquote><p>If I must have a governess, pray sir let it not be Lady Henrietta Hyde, but a more elderly and grave lady; for if your highness knew the intrigues that lady drives with Mulgrave to seduce me to his amours, you would not permit her longer to be near me.<sup>61</sup></p></blockquote><p>In June 1682 the first rumours of his having been forbidden Court began to circulate, on account of his ‘so brisk attempts upon the Lady Anne’.<sup>62</sup> By November, his disgrace was public knowledge and reports circulated that he was to be stripped of his regiment and the governorship of Hull awarded to Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (soon to be promoted earl of Plymouth). Some inevitably enough adopted him as a kind of folk hero and dubbed him King John. Edmund Verney commented that Mulgrave, ‘by aspiring too high has had a great fall, but he can never fall to hurt himself much, so long as he has so good and plentiful an estate as he has, if he can but be contented therewith.’<sup>63</sup> Some thought that the relationship had been consummated and that Mulgrave had spoiled the princess’s chances of making a suitable marriage elsewhere, while others speculated that the whole affair was a front and that the true cause of his discomfiture was the result of having spoken out too warmly in favour of Monmouth.<sup>64</sup> Elsewhere it was suggested that Laurence Hyde*, recently promoted earl of Rochester, was the author of Mulgrave’s fall, believing that Mulgrave and his wife, the princess’s governess, had been having an affair. Mulgrave himself was said to have claimed that he did not know the cause of his disgrace and to have written to the king to find out the reason. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> thought that Mulgrave had shown ‘more pride than prudence’ in making his addresses to the princess. Others thought ‘his crime only ogling’.<sup>65</sup></p><p>The marriage of Princess Anne to Prince George of Denmark*, later duke of Cumberland, the following summer brought the affair to a close. Mulgrave, it was said, ‘must wear the willow and stick to his old mistress in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.’<sup>66</sup> By August Mulgrave was back at court and restored to his offices (though it appears that he was only ever suspended from his place as a gentleman of the bedchamber and not actually removed from that post, as he maintained his seniority in the list of gentlemen above peers of higher rank).<sup>67</sup> During his exile, Mulgrave was said to have been called upon by a number of opposition peers: he now made it known that he was glad to have failed to return their visits.<sup>68</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of James II and the Revolution</em></h2><p>Restored to the command of his regiment in January 1684, the accession of James II the following year promised Mulgrave the prospect of further favour. Spoken of as one of those likely to remain a member of the new king’s bedchamber in February, the same month it was also speculated that he intended to convert to Catholicism.<sup>69</sup> Mulgrave took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, after which he was present on more than 90 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to six committees.<sup>70</sup> In October it was reported that he had given up his commission.<sup>71</sup> The reason was unknown, but was presumably related to his subsequent appointment to the office of lord chamberlain, which had been left vacant by the death of Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Mulgrave was one of the peers appointed to the commission to try Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamere (later earl of Warrington), in January 1686.<sup>73</sup> The same month it was rumoured that he was to be replaced as lord chamberlain by Henry Waldegrave*, Baron Waldegrave, and to be made lord steward instead, but nothing came of this.<sup>74</sup> The rumours coincided with the beginnings of a dispute at court between Mulgrave as lord chamberlain, the lord great chamberlain (Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey) and the earl marshal (Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk), arising out of a disagreement about precedence. It was finally resolved in April.<sup>75</sup> That spring Mulgrave was at last able to secure a match for himself. His marriage to the dowager countess of Conway followed the breakdown in negotiations between her and George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton.<sup>76</sup> Northampton was said to have blamed Lady Conway’s kinsman, Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, for the failure of his suit and to have challenged him to a duel as a result.<sup>77</sup> Seymour certainly appears to have preferred Mulgrave’s claim and to have done all he could to undermine Northampton. It may have been Mulgrave’s success in securing the match that gave rise to renewed (but inaccurate) rumours, persisting into the autumn, that he was to be promoted in the peerage as a duke.<sup>78</sup> In March a grand ball was held at court in honour of the marriage and later that month Mulgrave’s success was recorded by one newsletter writer, who noted that he had ‘done that which none could do before laid salt upon her tail and seisin in her belly.’<sup>79</sup> The union did not, however, prove to be a great success: within a few weeks rumours abounded that Mulgrave and his countess had been involved in ‘some domestic discourse’’<sup>80</sup></p><p>A disagreement between Mulgrave and John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), that spring over hunting rights was perhaps indicative of broader tensions at court among the king’s favourites. Mulgrave was said to have threatened to hang Churchill’s dogs if he caught them hunting the king’s game: his stand was dismissed by one commentator as ‘foolish’, ‘he having nothing to do with the game at all.’<sup>81</sup> It was certainly not an area in which he was involved directly as lord chamberlain. Far more controversially, that October he was appointed to the ecclesiastical commission, which would be the principal embarrassment Mulgrave was forced to explain away after the Revolution. He later insisted that he always used his interest to protect the Protestant clergy, but his role renewed speculation that he had forsaken the Church of England.<sup>82</sup> In April 1686 Roger Morrice noted that neither Mulgrave nor Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, had taken the Test since taking up their respective offices and in November it was noted that he had been one of a number of peers to kneel at the elevation of the host at an All Souls Day service. Reports of his likely conversion to Catholicism continued to circulate into the next year.<sup>83</sup> The following month he was involved in an angry exchange with Peterborough, the groom of the stole, over the latter’s employment of one of the lord chamberlain’s rooms to access his own apartments. Reverting to type, Mulgrave issued Peterborough with a challenge. The quarrel was prevented with Peterborough detained under house arrest and the king ordering the affair to be settled at council.<sup>84</sup></p><p>In January 1687 Mulgrave was listed among those thought likely to support the king’s desired repeal of the Test Act and in May he was, unsurprisingly, noted a supporter of the king’s policies.<sup>85</sup> Later that year, he was again included in a list of peers thought likely to lend their support to the repeal of the Test. The estimate was repeated early in 1688. Mulgrave was appointed lord lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire in August 1687 but the same month reports circulated that he was ‘out’ following a disagreement with the queen over arrangements made for her during her progress to Bath.<sup>86</sup> William Denton noted that Mulgrave had been ‘suspended his place for an indiscretion’ but thought it unlikely that he would be out of favour for long. He also cast doubt on reports that Mulgrave had been replaced by Henry Jermyn*, Baron Dover, noting that Mulgrave was observed playing bowls at Marylebone every day wearing his key, ‘which I believed he would not be if outed’. Mulgrave appears to have succeeded in inveigling his way back into favour by the early autumn when he was among those members of the council noted to have drawn up lists of candidates to be sheriffs, ‘the proposed being most all Roman Catholics or dissenters.’ Despite this his position remained uncertain and in December it was put about that James Hamilton*, styled earl of Arran and later 4th duke of Hamilton [S], would get his place if he were to be turned out. The reason for this latest threat to Mulgrave’s career may have been his opposition to the ecclesiastical commission’s decision to prevent the deprived fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford exercising other offices until they had submitted to the king.<sup>87</sup> In the event, Mulgrave retained his place and he was among those members of the council present the following June when the order was given to prosecute the Seven Bishops.<sup>88</sup> He was also one of those present at the birth of the Prince of Wales.<sup>89</sup> Although it was speculated at that time that he may be about to join Sunderland in converting to Catholicism, it was denied the following month and rumours again circulated that he was to be displaced as lord chamberlain either by Dover or by James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury. Once more, Mulgrave survived the expected reshuffle and later that month he was spoken of as one of those who might succeed to the high stewardship of Westminster, vacant by the death of Ormond.<sup>90</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution and the Convention Parliament, 1688-90</em></h2><p>Along with Sunderland and a number of other prominent members of the king’s inner circle, in November 1688 Mulgrave secured a general pardon.<sup>91</sup> At the beginning of December he was required in his capacity as lord chamberlain to make preparations for the new Parliament. Following news of the Prince of Orange’s invasion, Mulgrave distanced himself rapidly from the old regime.<sup>92</sup> According to Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, he even went so far as to break his wand of office at the news of the king’s flight. On 11 Dec. he took his place among the peers that had gathered at the Guildhall to take command of events in London, one of only two members of the ecclesiastical commission to brave the assembly.<sup>93</sup> The remainder, it was noted, ‘are gone aside or skulk.’<sup>94</sup> Mulgrave later penned a letter to John Tillotson*, archbishop of Canterbury, eager to defend his honour over his participation within the commission. He hoped, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>to confirm you in your favourable opinion of me; which must be acknowledged by every body an approbation of such weight, that as I hope it may be an example of great authority to many, so it is sufficient of it self to balance the censoriousness of others.<sup>95</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 12 Dec. Mulgrave moved that his neighbour, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, should take the chair of the temporary assembly. According to one source, his support for Halifax as president was because he thought Halifax would be willing to ‘serve any turn.’<sup>96</sup> Mulgrave had previously penned <em>The Character of a Tory</em> as a reply to Halifax’s <em>Character of a Trimmer</em>, probably before the death of Charles II.<sup>97</sup> In it he had lampooned the Trimmer’s attempt to steer a middle course:</p><blockquote><p>what the Trimmer only in words pretends to do, and fails of in effect, the Tory uses the right means for, and so accomplishes. For first, the Trimmer complains of Whigs weighing down the boat on one side, while he is wishing to go more steady; but yet without using the least means towards it, he sits still at the bottom of the vessel, and only quarrels with everybody in it: Now what possible way is there in nature to set all right again, but by counterpoising that weight of Whigs with as great an one of Tories on the other side? This is all we aim at; that the government at last may be well established, and everything go so even, that nothing hereafter may endanger it.<sup>98</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 13 Dec. Mulgrave was one of three peers deputed to seal up the king’s closet. Later that morning, having communicated the rumours of the king’s capture and requested that any restraint should be taken off the beleaguered monarch, Mulgrave refused to heed Halifax’s attempts to adjourn the meeting and continued to insist that measures should be taken to rescue James from his undignified predicament. Halifax eventually succeeded in imposing his authority and, when the assembly re-convened later that afternoon, Mulgrave was conspicuous by his absence. Eventual confirmation that James was at Faversham prompted an order for Mulgrave to resume his duties as lord chamberlain and to prepare lodgings for the king on his return to the capital.<sup>99</sup> According to Ailesbury, Mulgrave seized the opportunity of his renewed access to James to make plain the price of his continued support for the king. He demanded promotion to a marquessate in return for his loyalty and even went so far as to produce a warrant, which he had had drawn up, ready for the king’s signature. When James proved unwilling to comply, expostulating, ‘Good God… what a time you take to ask a thing of that nature’, Mulgrave withdrew his support and resumed his place among those seeking a settlement excluding James from the throne.<sup>100</sup> On 18 Dec., the day that the king fled London for the second time, Mulgrave was noted by Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, to be waiting at the Prince of Orange’s bedchamber door, ‘in hopes to get the first admittance’.<sup>101</sup> Four days later he was again observed making ‘special application to the prince’ and speaking ‘much in the prince’s ear’.<sup>102</sup> Mulgrave resumed his place in the ad hoc assembly on 21 Dec. when he supported the calls for the peers to reconvene in the House the following day. He then signed the Association and proceeded to attend the final three meetings of the Lords on 22, 24 and 25 Dec, on 24 Dec. voicing his concerns over the moves to read the king’s letter to Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], arguing that as a private letter it was ‘not fit to be enquired into.’<sup>103</sup></p><p>Mulgrave offered his own explanation of the causes and progress of the Revolution in a study of the crisis, which was published after his death. As in his letter to Tillotson, Mulgrave sought, unsurprisingly, to justify his own actions and to emphasize the manner in which he had opposed King James’s efforts to proselytize Catholicism, but he was also eager to underscore the other causes of the king’s overthrow. ‘The Nation had long been uneasy’, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>even in some former reigns, with fears of popery and arbitrary power; and of late many of the very court and council appeared unsatisfied on that account. Some were vexed also for two other reasons; the great diminution of their salaries, by the ill-timed retrenchments of the treasury, and their finding all the power and favour engrossed by a few, and those also the foolishest of the Roman Party.<sup>104</sup></p></blockquote><p>When the Revolution came, Mulgrave considered the desertions from James’s inner circle and, more particularly, from within his own family, to have been the signal reasons for the king’s loss of his throne. Mulgrave was convinced that had he only relied on his army, James would have defeated Prince William:</p><blockquote><p>the nature of Englishmen being like that of our game-cocks, which an Irish footman once thought he might trust safely together, because they were matched on one side; but quickly found them picking out one another’s eyes. The truth is, our countrymen love no cause, nor man, so well as fighting, even sometimes without any cause at all.<sup>105</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his close association with the former regime, Mulgrave was quick to trim his cloth according to the prevailing fashion. The skill with which he did so is all the more remarkable when one considers that he had been one of those identified by Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, during the course of the Revolution, as someone who ought to be humbled by having his order of the garter taken from him.<sup>106</sup> He took his seat in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on 90 per cent of all sitting days. Freed from his obligations at court he appears to have redirected his energy towards the business of the House. Although he was absent from the vote on whether a regency would be the best means of preserving the Protestant religion on 29 Jan, he resumed his place two days later in time to vote in favour of the clause declaring William and Mary king and queen.<sup>107</sup> He then dissented from the rejection of the Commons’ clause declaring the throne to be vacant. On 4 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons’ employment of the term ‘abdicated’ in preference to the moderate peers’ suggested term ‘deserted’, again putting his name to the dissent when the proposal was defeated. Two days later he again voted to support the Commons in their use of the phrase ‘that the throne is vacant’.<sup>108</sup> Clarendon observed in his diary how Mulgrave and Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, had both ‘all along voted against the king’. Morrice noted that Mulgrave ‘never made one false step, so that it’s fit to be considered whether there should not be some discrimination made amongst great offenders as he had been.’<sup>109</sup></p><p>Having adequately demonstrated his credentials as a supporter of the new order, on 12 Feb. Mulgrave was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the Lords’ proclamation and on 2 Mar. he was added to the committee for the bill for better regulating the trials of peers. Mulgrave was named one of the reporters of the conference considering ways of assisting the king on 5 Mar. from which he reported the same day, and on 20 and 22 Apr. he was named a manager of a series of conferences concerning the oaths. On 8 May he was named one of the managers of the conference considering the disarming of papists and on 22 May of that for the dissenters toleration bill. In spite of his shameless repositioning in the course of the Revolution, Mulgrave refused to be drawn on one attempt to overturn past actions and on 31 May he voted against reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates.<sup>110</sup> On 10 July, although missing from the attendance list that day, Mulgrave was said to have joined with Ralph Montagu*, 3rd Baron Montagu of Boughton (later duke of Montagu), in attempting to oust Halifax from the speakership, to which he had been appointed temporarily since the opening of the Convention. In doing so, Mulgrave was said to have assured Halifax that he intended him ‘no disrespect’. However, their motion for an address to the king to appoint either one of the commissioners of the great seal or a judge in Halifax’s place was rejected.<sup>111</sup> On 12 July Mulgrave was appointed a manager of the conference considering the succession. Ten days later (22 July) he was named a reporter of the conference for Oates’s bill. Mulgrave had been entrusted with the proxy of Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, on 17 Apr., which was vacated by Chesterfield’s return to the House the following day. Chesterfield felt obliged to explain his actions to one correspondent, pointing out that he had found himself, ‘not a little blamed for leaving my proxy with the lord of Mulgrave’. He justified his decision on the grounds that</p><blockquote><p>his lordship is known to be a man of parts; secondly he is accounted a good courtier, and by consequence, one who having much to be forgiven him, will be sure to be for those who are in power; and lastly, his lordship not loving to part with any thing that he can keep, made me think that the privilege of the Lords would be very safe in his custody.<sup>112</sup></p></blockquote><p>Mulgrave took his seat in the second session on 23 Oct. 1689, after which he was present on approximately 86 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Nov. he was added to the committee for inspections and on 16 Nov. he reported from committee of the whole House concerning the succession bill, seeking further time for the business to be considered. He then chaired and reported from a series of subsequent committees of the whole on this business.<sup>113</sup> On 5 and 7 Dec. he reported from committee of the whole House on the triennial bill. On 4 Jan. 1690 he reported from the committee examining the Journal to discover the manner in which examinations had previously been delivered to the Commons. He then reported from two further committees of the whole on 18 and 23 Jan. concerning the corporations bill. On 23 Jan. he acted as one of the tellers (opposite Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth) in the division over fining lords for late attendance of the House, which was rejected by ten votes. In a list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Carmarthen (as Danby had since become) reckoned Mulgrave to be a supporter of the court, but added that he was to be spoken to.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>In advance of the new Parliament, Mulgrave was said to have been aggrieved not to have been trusted with Chesterfield’s proxy once more.<sup>114</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, after which he was present on every one of its 53 sitting days. On the second day of the session, the House heard a complaint that one of Mulgrave’s watermen had been pressed even though he had been wearing Mulgrave’s livery, ‘which is conceived to be a breach of the privileges of this House.’ The matter was referred to the committee for privileges. On 31 Mar. Mulgrave reported from the committee considering the bill for making the poor laws more effectual and on 4 Apr. he reported from committee of the whole House concerning the bill for recognizing King William and Queen Mary. Having attended the two prorogation days of 18 Aug. and 8 Sept. Mulgrave took his place in the subsequent session on 2 Oct. after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Oct. he received the proxy of John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, one of his wife’s kinsmen, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of the earls of Salisbury and Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. Having informed the House on 23 Oct. that the committee appointed to examine the precedents for impeachments to continue from one Parliament to the next was ready to make their report, he reported from the committee on 30 October. Mulgrave was noted by Godfrey Harcourt, man of business to the duchess of Beaufort, as one of her great friends in her bitter cause against Ailesbury at the close of the year. Harcourt noted how Ailesbury had managed to gain many friends to his side by his assiduous courting, among them Burnet, but that Mulgrave had taken the bishop ‘up very short and silenced him at one committee’.<sup>115</sup></p><p>Mulgrave was one of several notables recommended by Carmarthen to succeed as lord lieutenant of Ireland in February 1691, though in the event he was overlooked for the office.<sup>116</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on 82 per cent of all sitting days. On 3 Dec. he reported from the committee considering the bill for Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, and Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely. The same month he was one of a number of peers to be named by William Fuller as being engaged in Jacobite plotting but there seems little reason to believe that this was the case.<sup>117</sup> Mulgrave was one of four peers to be added to those appointed as managers of the conference considering the bill against adhering to the king and queen’s enemies on 4 Jan. and on 9 and 14 Jan. 1692 he reported from conferences concerning the treason trials bill. On 15 Jan. he reported from the committee appointed to inspect previous commissions for the appointment of lords high steward.<sup>118</sup> Mulgrave reported from a further committee for the treason trials bill on 18 January. He then reported from two more conferences on the matter on 21 and 27 January. Entrusted once more with Stawell’s proxy on 1 Feb. 1692, which was vacated by the close, on 16 Feb. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to permit proxies to be employed during the proceedings on the Norfolk divorce bill. He was one of the managers of the conference for the small tithes bill on 22 Feb., and the following day he reported from the committee considering expedients for the preservation of the privileges of the House in relation to the poll bill.</p><p>The close of the session coincided with rumours of alterations in the ministry. Mulgrave was said to be likely to succeed as lord privy seal. Towards the end of February it was reported that he was to be admitted to the Privy Council and in March that he was to purchase the lord chamberlaincy from Dorset (as Middlesex had since become) for £8,000. None of the expected appointments transpired.<sup>119</sup> Mulgrave attended three prorogation days in April, May and June. In August he was reported to be ‘very sick of a vomiting’ and believed himself poisoned by a jealous husband.<sup>120</sup> He recovered in time to attend a further prorogation day on 26 Sept. before taking his place at the opening of the new session on 4 November. He was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days. On 7 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to propose to the Commons a joint committee to consider the state of the nation. On 29 Dec. he reported from the committee appointed to inspect the journals for precedents concerning free conferences. Two days later, he voted in favour of committing the place bill. He then voted to pass the measure on 3 Jan. 1693, subscribing his protest when it was resolved to throw the bill out.<sup>121</sup> Mulgrave spoke during the debates of 31 Dec. in support of the bill. He justified the peers’ taking a close interest in the issue of the representation of the people, indicating that they, too, had a close interest in being concerned with the preservation of the country’s freedom:</p><blockquote><p>My Lords, we may think, because this concerns not the House of Lords, that we need not be so over-careful of the matter; but there are noblemen in France, at least such as were so before they were enslaved, who, that they might domineer over others, and serve a present turn perhaps, let all things alone so long, till the people were quite mastered and the nobility themselves too, to bear them company. So that I never met a Frenchman, even of the greatest rank… that did not envy us for our freedom from that slavery which they groan under…</p></blockquote><p>Mulgrave suggested in conclusion that, ‘whatever success this bill may have, there must needs come some good effect of it; for if it passes, it will give us security; if it be obstructed, it will give us warning.’<sup>122</sup></p><p>On 4 Jan. 1693, Mulgrave was named one of the managers of the conference considering the Commons’ vote concerning the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford. Three days later Mulgrave was entrusted with the proxy of Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich. The proxy was vacated when Sandwich returned to the House on 18 January. On 17 Jan. Mulgrave subscribed two protests resulting from the decision not to hear all the judges concerning the claim to the earldom of Banbury and from the conclusion that the claimant had no right to the peerage. According to Burnet, Mulgrave, along with Halifax, had resolved to show their power by wrecking the land tax bill, planning to do so by amending it with a clause insisting that the peers should assess themselves. On 19 Jan. he acted as one of the tellers in a division in committee of the whole House whether to refer the Lords’ amendment to the land tax bill to the committee for privileges. The motion was defeated by 50 votes to 36 following which Mulgrave entered his dissent both at the failure to refer the amendments to the privileges committee and then at failure to insist on the amendments. Mulgrave’s speech opposing the bill, in which he argued that by passing it the Lords would thereby ‘abdicate that authority which had belonged to the baronage of England ever since the foundation of the monarchy’ and that they would be left with nothing ‘of their old greatness except their coronets and ermines’ was noted by Bishop Burnet as being delivered ‘with a force of argument and eloquence, beyond any thing that I had ever heard in that House’.<sup>123</sup></p><p>On 25 Jan. 1693 Mulgrave reported from two conferences considering a libellous publication concerning the king and queen and on 31 Jan. he subscribed the protest at the decision not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. When the trial was held on 4 Feb. he found Mohun not guilty of murder, perhaps recognizing in the riotous Mohun something of himself in earlier life.<sup>124</sup> As if to make the point, later that month he was again the subject of an injunction by the House not to quarrel, this time with James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos.<sup>125</sup> On 17 Feb. Mulgrave reported from the committee established to draw up an address of advice to the king. He reported from the same committee the following day and on 20 Feb. he was entrusted with Huntingdon’s proxy, which was vacated on 6 March. On 4 Mar. he reported from the committee for the address concerning the state of Ireland. Two days later he entered his dissent at the decision not to pass on to the Commons information relating to Ireland that had been taken at the bar of the Lords. On 8 Mar. he subscribed a further protest at the resolution to reject provisos proposed to a bill reviving expiring laws that related to the searching of peers’ houses.</p><p>Mulgrave’s application to business in the years following the Revolution did not go unnoticed. Shortly after the close of the session, it was rumoured by Lady Frescheville that he was to be recalled to office as lord privy seal. Princess Anne was sceptical, remarking, ‘if there were anything of it I fancy one should hear it from other people as well as from her’.<sup>126</sup> Indeed, nothing came of it but in June Sunderland reported to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, that he had been in discussions with Mulgrave about bringing him in to the ministry and that ‘what has been proposed for him is all agreed to, but only that he must not expect the title, till there is a promotion.’ Mulgrave’s response to this latest failure to secure his desired marquessate was to reject the notion of accepting the award at all. He insisted that he ‘valued it chiefly, because he thought he should have it alone’ and concluded that ‘to be made a marquess when others are made dukes, he had rather be as he is.’<sup>127</sup></p><p>Mulgrave was again present for four of the prorogation days following the close of the session and in September 1693, in spite of the developments in June he was spoken of once more as one of the peers likely to be offered a place in the ministry.<sup>128</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov., after which he was present on almost 83 per cent of all sitting days. On 2 Dec. he reported from the committee considering the answer of the judges of King’s Bench to the petition of William Bridgeman (one of the trustees of the duchess of Grafton). The same month he joined with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in opposing the passage of the triennial bill, though it was carried in spite of their opposition by 24 votes.<sup>129</sup> Mulgrave reported from the committee considering the Italian silk bill on 18 Jan. 1694. The following month, according to one source, he argued in favour of the passage of the trials for treason bill, though L’Hermitage, the envoy of the states general of the United Provinces, recorded him as being opposed to it, in alliance with Halifax and Carmarthen. L’Hermitage also repeated the earlier rumours that Mulgrave was to be restored to his old office of lord chamberlain in place of his kinsman, Dorset.<sup>130</sup> Towards the end of February he was noted to have been one of a group of 15 lords who quit the chamber rather than vote in the latest stage of the tussle <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Mulgrave was one of a number of peers noted as having dined with the king at a gathering hosted by William Russell*, 5th earl (soon to be duke) of Bedford, in March.<sup>132</sup> The following month, news circulated that Mulgrave was at last to be awarded his desired step in the peerage and in May, in spite of his former objection to being just one of many to receive additional titles, he was created marquess of Normanby as one of seven peers to be promoted over a few days.<sup>133</sup> It is perhaps significant that each of his dining companions in March received a step in the peerage at this time.<sup>134</sup> Even with this mark of distinction, he remained a worry to the ministry. Within days of his promotion, Normanby wrote to Portland to complain that he had still not received all that he had been promised.<sup>135</sup> Shrewsbury warned the king (then in Holland) that Normanby was affronted at not having been summoned to meetings of the council. In response, King William replied that it was true that he had promised Normanby ‘that when there was a cabinet council, he should assist at it; but surely this does not engage either the queen or myself, to summon him to all the meetings, which we may order.’ Annoyed at Normanby’s demands, the king concluded, ‘if he forces us to have a regular cabinet council, merely that he may attend, and when we do not deem it advantageous for the welfare of our service, it is assuming too much.’<sup>136</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury was not the only courtier to find Normanby troublesome. In May 1694 Sunderland confessed to having been concerned that his ‘‘ill humour’ might have infected William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, but, he wrote, he was relieved to note that Devonshire appeared to be content with his new dukedom. The following month, Sunderland commented that Normanby ‘talks very foolishly but meets with nobody of his mind.’ He continued to complain at Normanby’s awkward refusal to be satisfied with what he had as the summer progressed, remarking that ‘if he had all he could ask today it would be the same tomorrow.’<sup>137</sup> Normanby remained deeply sensitive to perceived slights. One story current the following year told how he had an advertisement inserted in a newspaper announcing his refusal to attend council, having been overlooked as a lord justice, and on at least one occasion in the ensuing reign he needed to be reassured that it had only been by ‘accident’ that he had not been ‘acquainted with the rough draft of her majesty’s speech.’<sup>138</sup> Although Normanby remained dogged in his efforts to secure recognition both for himself and his adherents, in July 1694 he appears to have made some efforts to scale back his continual demands, assuring Portland that the king’s good opinion meant more to him than any honours or advancements.<sup>139</sup> In August this new moderation was put to the test when he was disappointed in his efforts to secure an Irish bishopric for his chaplain.<sup>140</sup></p><p>Normanby took his seat at the opening of the new session on 12 Nov. 1694, when he was introduced in his new style by Halifax and Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans. He was present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. On 26 Nov. he was appointed Speaker on account of the indisposition of the lord keeper, John Somers*, Baron Somers, an office that he continued to execute until Somers’ return on 4 December.<sup>141</sup> On 11 Dec. Normanby presented the House with the petition of Sir Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, who sought to be summoned to the House as Baron Broke or Brooke, which, unsurprisingly, provoked spirited opposition from Verney’s distant kinsman, Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke. Normanby also introduced the perjury bill during the session, but the judges were said to have found a number of problems with it and on 19 Jan. 1695 the measure was rejected by the House. Normanby was one of eight peers to protest at the failure to adopt the bill.<sup>142</sup> In January 1695 he spoke in the debates concerning the bank and on 17 Jan. he reported from the committee on a bill concerning Sir Paul Pindar, bt.<sup>143</sup> On the last day of the month, Normanby informed the House that the king had given his consent for the papers relating to the fleet to be laid before the House. In February, in response to criticisms that the council was proving slow in organizing the queen’s funeral, responsibility for the ceremony was handed over to Normanby and Halifax, presumably in recognition of both peers’ long experience as court officials.<sup>144</sup></p><p>In March 1695 Normanby joined with Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), and Halifax in again pressing Verney’s cause to be admitted as a baron.<sup>145</sup> Later that month and into the following one Normanby the House took into consideration accusations that he had accepted bribes from the city of London in return for promoting measures within the House.<sup>146</sup> On 29 Mar. Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, informed the House that one Russell had received £2,000 to distribute among some lords to ease the passage of the convex lights bill, relating to the illumination of the city of London, which had been taken on by the Convex Light Company the previous year. Normanby rose to his feet to admit that the man was one of his servants but insisted that ‘if he had acted any such thing he was a rogue and deserved to be made an example.’ He later complained to Bolton of his failure to warn him of the accusation against Russell; Bolton claimed not to know that Russell was Normanby's servant.<sup>147</sup> Opinions were sharply divided. Monmouth was said to be ‘resolved to stick upon my Lord Normanby’s skirts on that matter’ and determined to protest should Normanby escape unpunished. The marquess himself was adamant that he had done nothing wrong and that he was interested only in ‘the defence of my honour, which though in no danger, your lordships will allow me to be very tender of it’<sup>148</sup> Speaking at length in the House on 18 Apr., Normanby set out to explain his role in the affair, which had its origin in his plans to build a new house in London in the area around Berkeley House and which had necessitated him entering into a series of agreements with both the city authorities and private proprietors. Mentioning one of the supposed instances of his having promoted the city’s measures in return for <em>douceurs</em> he insisted that ‘my memory did not lay that value upon it, as it seems their gratitude did, who owned the obligation’. He also denied any involvement in the matter of the ‘convex-lights’. Having set out his case, Normanby withdrew from the remainder of the debate, ‘not doubting but in that case my innocence will be safer under your lordships’ protection, and a great deal better defended, than if I were present myself to look after it.’ Although he escaped censure, he did so by only a handful of votes following which seven peers, among them his old foe Ailesbury and (unsurprisingly) Monmouth subscribed their protest. According to Charles Hatton, Normanby owed his escape to the favour shown him by the bishops.<sup>149</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>Normanby returned to the House for the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days. During the debates concerning the Scots East India Company on 3 Dec., he spoke in favour of summoning the English East and West India Companies to offer evidence on what prejudice the establishment of a Scottish company would be to their trading. Thereafter he was prominent in proposing queries to be put to the witnesses during the subsequent discussions of the business.<sup>150</sup> On 23 Dec. he reported from a committee appointed to draw up a clause to be added to the treasons trial bill.</p><p>Normanby refused to sign the Association in February 1696.<sup>151</sup> The following month he was removed from the Privy Council along with Nottingham.<sup>152</sup> On 10 Mar. he reported from committee of the whole House on the bill to establish what should happen in the event of the king dying without heirs. The bill was then recommitted and Normanby reported a number of amendments later the same day. On 16 Mar. he received Willoughby de Broke’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. The following month, along with Nottingham and Rochester, he spoke in the House during the debates on the bill for the security of the king’s person, urging moderation.<sup>153</sup></p><p>Normanby took his place in the House at the opening of the new session on 20 Oct. 1696 after which he was present on approximately 91 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Nov. the House was presented with a petition from Normanby relating to a dispute in which he was engaged with Devonshire and George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, in the court of chancery over the sale of Berkeley’s London residence. Further consideration of the petition was put off until the following month when it was ordered that none of the peers involved in the case should be permitted to claim privilege in the business.<sup>154</sup> The case rumbled on until January 1698 when the court finally determined the case in Devonshire’s favour.<sup>155</sup> On 2 Dec. Normanby entered his dissent at the resolution not to insist on the amendments rejected by the Commons to the bill for remedying the state of the coinage. The same month, Normanby emerged as one of the foremost opponents of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Following the first reading on 15 Dec., he entered his dissent at the resolution to read Goodman’s information and joined with Nottingham and Leeds (as Carmarthen had now become) in calling for a message to be sent to the king to enquire whether there was any further information available for the Lords’ consideration in the matter.<sup>156</sup> On 18 Dec. he again voiced his opposition. Arguing that the bill was unnecessary as Parliament had just passed the treason act, he recommended that Fenwick should instead face life imprisonment.<sup>157</sup> He then entered his dissent at the resolution to give the bill a second reading. To the fore as one of the managers of the debates concerning the passage of the bill, he spoke against the attainder again on 23 Dec., insisting that he did not ‘see enough to believe him guilty’.<sup>158</sup> Normanby was nonetheless eager not to be thought an opponent of the regime, hoping that it would not ‘be thought that those against the bill had any particular vein’. He cited the divisions on the bishops’ bench as one of his reasons for opposing the measure and conceded that, ‘were they of one opinion he would be for it.’<sup>159</sup> With the bishops still unable to agree, he voted against passing the bill later the same day and entered his protest at the resolution to pass the act.<sup>160</sup> The following month he delivered a petition from Lady Fenwick requesting a stay of execution.<sup>161</sup></p><p>Normanby subscribed a further protest on 23 Jan. 1697 at the resolution not to give a second reading to the bill for regulating parliamentary elections. On 10 Feb. he was again entrusted with Willoughby de Broke’s proxy (which was vacated by the close). Five days later (15 Feb.) he received the proxy of Charles Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley, who sat in the House as Baron Berkeley and later succeeded as 2nd earl of Berkeley. On 20 Feb. he was also entrusted with the proxy of William Craven*, earl of Craven. Dursley’s proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 25 Feb. while Craven’s was cancelled by the octogenarian earl’s death on 9 April. On 20 Mar. Normanby informed the House of the findings of a select committee appointed to inspect the Journals for information relating to the manner of advising the Commons about adhering to amendments and three days later he reported from the ensuing free conference held with the Commons. On 15 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the rejection of the committee’s amendments to the bill for restraining the number and ill-practices of stock-jobbers.</p><p>Normanby learnt of the conclusion of the peace negotiations from Shrewsbury that August, and passed the information on to the Verneys’ regular correspondent, William Stewkeley.<sup>162</sup> The same month he was engaged in a privilege dispute with John Sharp*, archbishop of York, over the renewal of a lease in York’s archiepiscopal estates.<sup>163</sup> The death of Normanby’s marchioness that summer deprived him of an estimated £7,000 a year that he had enjoyed by virtue of the alliance. Cary Gardiner rejoiced at it, ‘wishing he had not £700 left he doing no acts of either charity or honour’.<sup>164</sup></p><p>Normanby returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697, and was present on 89 per cent of all sitting days. Early in the new year, he was noted in at least one letter as one of four peers who were expected to ‘be troubling the waters’, and in March 1698 he voted with Marlborough and Godolphin in favour of passing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>165</sup> On 24 Mar. he reported from the conference considering the paper penned by Robert Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, which had been condemned as a ‘false, scandalous and malicious libel’. The following day he reported from the committee considering the petition of the society for the new plantation of Ulster, recommending that the bishop of Derry should be sent over in custody. Towards the end of the session, in June, Normanby was mentioned as likely to oppose the Aire and Calder navigation bill, being one of a handful of peers who believed that they had ‘an interest against it’.<sup>166</sup></p><p>Rumours circulated that summer that Normanby was to be promoted in the peerage again but the looked-for award failed to transpire.<sup>167</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698 and was present on approximately 80 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1699 he was noted as being one of four peers to subscribe £10,000 each towards advancing a loan for paying off the army. The following month he voted against the resolution to assist the king in retaining his Dutch guards.<sup>168</sup> He then entered his dissent when the motion was carried.<sup>169</sup> The same month rumours circulated that he was shortly to be married to the dowager countess of Gainsborough. The marriage was indeed solemnized the following month, though the duchess of Rutland doubted the union would be a success: ‘we here can’t imagine she can have much prospect of happiness with a man of his humour and covetous proud temper.’<sup>170</sup></p><p>Normanby returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 16 Nov., after which he was present on 87 per cent of all sitting days. On 19 Dec. he reported from the committee appointed to inspect the Journals for precedents relating to people whose books had been censured. On 29 Jan. 1700 he reported from the committee for the bill for reducing the excessive number of attorneys. Besides this, Normanby focused his attention on the question of overseas trade. On the same day, 29 Jan., he objected to the ministry’s proposal to draw up an address thanking the king for his handling of the Darien affair, insisting that it was ‘strange to use their neighbour nation at that rate’ and hinting at the existence of a letter from the king sent to the Scots, of which the ministry clearly had no knowledge. Further discussion of the business was consequently put off for a few days.<sup>171</sup> At the beginning of February he was forecast as likely to vote in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 8 Feb. he subscribed the protest over putting the question whether the establishment of the Darien colony was inconsistent with the good of England’s trade. Two days later he subscribed a further protest over the Darien colony and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour adjourning the House to consider two amendments to the East India Company Bill. Normanby demonstrated his opposition to the Norfolk divorce bill again the following month, entering his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill on 12 March. On 2 Apr. he reported from the conference concerning the partition treaty. The same month he joined with William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, in promoting the second reading of the Irish resumption bill.<sup>172</sup> Following the close of the session, Normanby acted as one of the assistants to the chief mourner at the funeral of Princess Anne’s son, William, duke of Gloucester.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Normanby took his seat in the subsequent session on 6 Feb. 1701, and was present on 94 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to address the king to ask for Captain Norris’s suspension to be lifted. A few days later he made a speech which was said to have been much applauded during the debates on the Partition Treaty.<sup>174</sup> On 15 Mar. he entered protests at the rejection of the second and third heads of the report relating to the Treaty, concerning the involvement of the Emperor and the participation of diplomats of the Dutch states general in the Treaty negotiations. On 18 Mar., during the debate on the drafting of an address to the king on the Treaty, he dissented twice more, first over the rejection of a statement that the Emperor had been excluded from the final stages of the negotiations and then over the inclusion of a statement that the acceptance of the king of Spain’s will by the king of France would constitute a breach of the treaty. Normanby then protested again on 20 Mar. when it was decided not to send the address to the Commons for their concurrence. On 9 Apr. he reported from the committee preparing material for a conference with the Commons concerning the Treaty. He reported from the conference the following day, and from a further conference on the same matter on 26 April.</p><p>On 16 Apr. Normanby put his name to two more protests: first against the appointment of a committee to draft an address to the king requesting that he not punish the four impeached lords until they had been tried; and second at the expunging of the reasons given in the previous protest from the Journal. Towards the close of the session, Normanby subscribed yet more protests relating to the impeachment of the Whig lords: twice on 3 June and once on 9 June, on the latter occasion against a refusal to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons to discuss the impeachments. On 17 June, he protested when the House decided to adjourn to Westminster Hall to hear Somers’ trial and when it decided that the question should be put to acquit Somers. He then, unsurprisingly, voted against acquitting Somers of the articles of impeachment against him.</p><p>Following the prorogation, Normanby engaged in a regular correspondence with Nottingham, communicating news from Europe and encouraging him to turn his mind to</p><blockquote><p>our approaching business, which had need of a little concerting, to balance as much cunning and contrivance as perhaps has been ever practised in this unthinking nation. For my own part, I had rather a thousand times be an idle looker-on in all this, and a laugher only according to my inclination; but I should be glad of others being more serious and intent upon it, especially such as your lordship.<sup>175</sup></p></blockquote><p>Normanby took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. He was present on just over three quarters of all sitting days. At the beginning of January 1702 he moved for an address to be presented to the king in response to Louis XIV’s recognition of the pretender as the king of England. He was seconded by Nottingham. On 12 Jan. he spoke in the debate on the abjuration bill in support of Nottingham’s concern that the term abjure ‘was of great latitude’ and that it should be better explained.<sup>176</sup> Normanby was again entrusted with Willoughby de Broke’s proxy on 14 Feb., which was vacated on 15 April. Following the king’s death in March, Normanby wrote to Nottingham (who had left town mid-session) to inform him of it and of the queen’s reception, though again his major preoccupation was in securing Nottingham’s continued support in the remainder of the session:</p><blockquote><p>The only reason… of your receiving this trouble is the assurance I have been desired to acquaint you with of the same union as when we met last; and it appears in this particularly, that we entreat and conjure you to come again among us as soon as possible.<sup>177</sup></p></blockquote><h2><em>The First Parliament of Queen Anne 1702-5</em></h2><p>The queen’s accession led some to speculate that Normanby was likely to be favoured with a further step in the peerage, though his relations with the new monarch were far from easy: on one occasion she declared that ‘nobody can have a worse opinion of him than I have.’<sup>178</sup> This does not appear to have stood in the way of his preferment and, although he had to wait another year for the expected additional honour, in April he was returned to office as lord privy seal. Later that year, in September, it was also rumoured that he was one of the contenders for the vacant rangership of St James’s Park, which was reckoned to be worth some £500 per annum.<sup>179</sup> Normanby had recently begun construction of a new house in the park, on the site of the future Buckingham Palace, so was no doubt eager to stamp his authority there.</p><p>Normanby took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, and was present on just over 76 per cent of all sitting days of its first session. Always eager to be at the centre of things, towards the end of November he wrote to Nottingham, apparently over the drafting of the queen’s reply to the House’s address on the complaints against William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester. Lamenting that ‘I am always sorry when I differ with your lordship’, he argued ‘I must own I think it better as we left it last night and seems more her own words: that preamble is a little too formal and rather arguing the matter, which in my poor judgment is below her majesty, at least till further pressed.’<sup>180</sup> At the beginning of the following year, he was estimated by Nottingham as a likely supporter of the bill for preventing occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ proposed amendment to the bill’s penalty clause. Three days later, the House took notice of some words that had passed between Normanby and Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, and ordered that they should proceed no further in their quarrel. On 17 Feb. Normanby reported from the conference with the Commons over their refusal to allow the commissioners of accounts to attend and on 22 Feb. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to commit the bill for the landed qualification of members of the Commons.</p><p>Following the close of the session Normanby was one of a number of peers again to be rumoured to be in line for promotions. On 9 Mar. it was reported that he was to be made duke of Normanby. The choice of title, however, appears to have caused him some difficulty. At one point he may have considered being created duke of Bristol but by the close of the month he appears to have settled on Buckingham (or Buckinghamshire) and Normanby.<sup>181</sup> The double title was intended as protection against future claims on the title of Buckingham by surviving members of the Villiers family and the new duke apologized to Nottingham for the last minute alteration:</p><blockquote><p>I am ashamed to give your lordship this trouble about a trifle; but having changed my mind, rather than do the least shadow of a prejudice to another; it was necessary for me to desire your inserting only the title I have already of Normanby into the warrant…<sup>182</sup></p></blockquote><p>Buckingham took his seat in the House in his new dignity on 22 Apr. 1703, introduced between Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>183</sup> In spite of this apparent signal of favour, by June he was already the subject of discussion between Marlborough and his countess concerning people who might safely be put out of office, though Marlborough queried who might be fit to replace him.<sup>184</sup> In July it was reported that Buckingham was to be sent to Holland on a minor diplomatic mission to compliment Archduke Charles of Austria (then regarded by the allies as King Carlos III of Spain), who was on the point of embarking for Portugal. In the event this seems not to have occurred. Instead, in September and again in November it was reported that Buckingham and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, had been deputed to greet the Spanish king at Spithead.<sup>185</sup> Much of the remainder of the summer was dominated for Buckingham by disputes over the construction of Buckingham House.<sup>186</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his place in the new session on 9 Nov. 1703, after which he was present on just over 48 per cent of all sitting days. That month he was noted again as a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill in a pair of assessments compiled by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. In December, Buckingham voted, as expected, in favour of the bill. He then entered his dissent at the resolution not to give the measure a second reading. Buckingham attended just three days in February 1704 and he was then absent until the beginning of March. His absence was no doubt owing to his wife’s long-expected demise on 7 February.<sup>187</sup> He resumed his place on 4 Mar. and on 16 Mar. he entered his dissent at the removal of the name of Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> from the list of commissioners for accounts and at the proposed alternatives. On 25 Mar. he dissented twice more, when the question was put on whether the ministry’s failure to censure the plotter Ferguson was an encouragement to the crown’s enemies, and then when the main question was carried. Following the end of the session, Buckingham’s name was again mentioned in discussions about alterations in the ministry.<sup>188</sup> When he pressed the queen for payment of his arrears of pension, she responded by laughing in his face and telling him that he had less need of the money than she did. Buckingham turned to Marlborough for his assistance, assuring him that:</p><blockquote><p>I had not troubled you with such a trifle in itself, if it were not for two reasons. One is, that the unkindness and the contempt is to me intolerable, as to the full extent of that word, and the other is that one word from you either to your lady, lord treasurer [Godolphin], or the queen herself will remedy this immediately.<sup>189</sup></p></blockquote><p>Later that summer, Buckingham continued his cultivation of Marlborough, not merely by writing to congratulate him on his victory at Blenheim, but also by pointing out that he had been the only member of the council to advise the queen to allow the duke to accept the principality that had been conferred on him by the Emperor in gratitude, ‘while those of the same rank with [us] looked sullenly and sat silent.’<sup>190</sup> Such efforts notwithstanding, shortly before the opening of the new session in October 1704, Marlborough wrote to Godolphin to warn him that he had heard that Buckingham was ‘in measures with [Nottingham] and [Rochester] to give all the obstruction that is in their power to the carrying on of the public business with vigour this sessions.’<sup>191</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat in the House on 24 Oct. 1704, after which he was present on approximately 71 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Nov. he was listed among those thought likely to support the Tack.<sup>192</sup> Five days later, following the judges’ report on the feasibility of the Lords’ bringing in a bill for the more effectual relief of the poor and amid concerns as to whether the House was able to initiate a measure that required revenue-raising powers, Buckingham moved that the matter should be laid to one side for the while. On 23 Nov. he seconded Halifax’s motion for the House to be adjourned into a committee of the whole to consider the matter of the coinage. This came in opposition to Rochester who desired the business to be handled by a select committee.<sup>193</sup> On 2 Dec. Buckingham was again entrusted with Willoughby de Broke’s proxy (which was vacated by the close).</p><p>Keen to stress his knowledge of procedure and his interest in upholding the House’s privileges, on 22 Dec. Buckingham took exception to the manner in which the House had been informed of a time for the presentation of its address to the queen, complaining that ‘this is so irregular that the reporter [Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford] would (as a man jealous of the orders of the House) have severely remarked on any other that should have brought in such a message.’ He proposed a more satisfactory form of words to be entered in the Journal. Early the following year during hearings over the bigamous marriages of Chomley D’Oyly, Buckingham found his patience sorely tried by the ‘long harangue’ of one of the counsel, William Dobbins: the duke declared him to be ‘a perfect top, that ran the longer for being lashed’.<sup>194</sup> On 17 Jan. 1705 Buckingham subscribed the protest at the first reading of the estate bill for William Henry Granville* 3rd earl of Bath.</p><p>In spite of his attempts to ally himself with the duumvirs, following the close of the session Buckingham was turned out as lord privy seal.<sup>195</sup> Telling him of his removal appears to have been delegated to Marlborough, who offered him the lesser place of keeper of the great seal in commission with two judges instead. Buckingham spurned the offer, joking that he should rather be appointed archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>196</sup> His ouster may have encouraged the compiler of an analysis of the peerage in relation to their attitudes to the succession to list Buckingham as a Jacobite, though this fails to reflect adequately the ambiguity of the duke’s position.<sup>197</sup> That summer, Buckingham was mentioned in James Drake’s <em>Memorial of the Church of England</em> as one of the ‘great patrons and assertors of the interest of the Church at court’.<sup>198</sup> Marlborough considered Drake’s work to be full of ‘scandalous lies’ for which he hoped the author would be punished, though he confessed to Godolphin that he could not:</p><blockquote><p>forbear laughing when I think they would have you and I pass for fanatics and the duke of Buckingham and Lord Jersey for pillars of the church, the one being a Roman Catholic in King James’ reign and the other would have been a Quaker or any other religion that might have pleased the late king.<sup>199</sup></p></blockquote><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1705 and 1708</em></h2><p>Buckingham returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on just under 74 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Nov. he was one of a number of Tory peers to back the proposal made by John Haversham*, Baron Haversham, that the heir presumptive should be invited to England. He then subscribed the ensuing protest when it was decided not to put the question whether an address to that effect should be drafted. On 19 Nov. he seconded the motion proposed by Thomas Wharton*, marquess of Wharton, for what was to become the regency bill to be drawn up, adding that provision should be made for ‘the immediate declaring of the successor by proclamation’.<sup>200</sup> On 22 Nov. he again received Willoughby de Broke’s proxy (which was once more vacated by the close of the session) and on 30 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers in the division held in a committee of the whole considering the succession bill (the other teller being Richmond). The same day he entered his dissent when the House decided not to provide the committee with further instructions relating to the bill. On 3 Dec. he was one of the foremost subscribers to a series of protests over the failure to add a number of riders proposed by Nottingham to the bill for the security of the queen’s person and the Protestant succession.<sup>201</sup> On 6 Dec., having voted in favour of the motion, he subscribed a protest at the defeat of the motion that the church was in danger.<sup>202</sup> Tempers continued to ride high into the new year. On 31 Jan. 1706 Buckingham was one of a number of peers noted to have been involved in ‘sharp reflections’ made during the continuing debates on the succession bill on which day he put his name to three separate dissents.<sup>203</sup> A few weeks later, on 9 Mar., he dissented again when the House agreed with the Commons that Sir Rowalnd Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> letter was a ‘scandalous, false and malicious libel’.</p><p>That spring, Buckingham set about courting a new wife. His search got off to a poor start when he was rebuffed by his ‘great acquaintance’, Chesterfield, when he demanded a dowry of £20,000 with Lady Catherine Stanhope, which was £12,000 more than Chesterfield had given with his other daughters. He redirected his attentions to the widowed countess of Anglesey, whom he married in mid-March.<sup>204</sup> This prompted an incredulous response from Lady Anne Pye, distressed that ‘the men see how grandeur and riches prevail with our sex’.<sup>205</sup> When not courting, Buckingham was said to be at work on a history of the reign of Charles II during the summer of 1706.<sup>206</sup> This was presumably the piece that was later published as <em>A Character of Charles II King of England</em>.<sup>207</sup> He took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, and was present on 79 per cent of all sitting days. On 13 Jan. 1707 he was entrusted with Willoughby de Broke’s proxy again (which was vacated by the close) and on 3 Feb. he subscribed the protest when the House voted not to instruct the committee of the whole considering the bill for securing the Church of England to insert a clause into the bill declaring the Test Act of 1673 to be ‘perpetual and unalterable’. On 27 Feb. he protested again over the proposals for Scottish representation at Westminster. The following month, he joined with Nottingham and Weymouth in supporting the addition of a rider to the Union bill denying that the measure implied acceptance of Presbyterianism as a true expression of the Protestant religion. Buckingham subscribe two more protests, first when the rider was rejected and then at the passage of the bill without it.<sup>208</sup></p><p>Buckingham attended seven days of the brief nine-day session of April 1707 and on 23 Apr. he entered his dissent at the deferral until the following day of consideration of the judges’ refusal to answer a question over the fraudulent use of the drawbacks that allowed merchants trading through Scotland to avoid English customs duties. The following month, he was omitted from the new Privy Council. In July he married his bastard daughter, Mary Sheffield, to Arthur Annesley, 4th Baron Altham [I], a kinsman of the new duchess’s late husband.<sup>209</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new British Parliament on 23 Oct. 1707. He attended 78 per cent of all sitting days. The following month, he was one of a number of peers to object to the motion for an address of thanks for the queen’s speech before the state of the nation had been taken into consideration.<sup>210</sup> In December he wrote to Shrewsbury, reflecting on the latest developments in the House and hoping that events were pointing to the hoped-for ‘reconcilement between those of both high church and low church who desired only the public good as we did.’<sup>211</sup> In January 1708 he was noted by Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> as one of the peers favourable to Peterborough (as Monmouth had since become) during the House’s investigations into the latter’s activities in Spain in the previous year. Later that month Buckingham ranged himself alongside some of the Scots peers in the Lords, standing out as one of only three English peers to support the exoneration of the Scots naval officer, Commodore Kerr, who had been accused of failing to protect convoys in the West Indies. Early in February he also voted against passing the bill for abolishing the Scottish Privy Council. Buckingham’s activities may have been part of a concerted effort to secure a place for himself in a remodelled administration. However, the resignation of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, as secretary of state put paid to any chance of Buckingham being recalled to the ministry at that time. He was said to have been in line to be restored as lord privy seal in an administration headed by Harley.<sup>212</sup> Buckingham entered his dissent yet again at the end of March 1708 in protest at the House’s decision not to amend the conclusion of the privileges committee that committing Marmaduke Langdale*, 3rd Baron Langdale, as a suspected Papist was no breach of privilege. He also demonstrated his loyalty to his old friend, Middleton, in April when he offered his service to Middleton’s two sons who had been captured aboard the <em>Salisbury</em> following the abortive Jacobite invasion that spring.<sup>213</sup> He was noted, predictably enough, as a Tory in a list of the members of the first Parliament of Great Britain printed in May 1708.</p><p>Buckingham took his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov., after which he was present on 81 per cent of all sitting days. Towards the end of December he hosted a dinner attended by Shrewsbury, Peterborough and a number of other prominent political characters, which appears by then to have been a regular Sunday phenomenon and which, it was said, ‘furnishes the talk of the town’.<sup>214</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the election for Scottish representative peers. In February he supported the complaint voiced in the House by Haversham that enough was not being done to protect the country from Jacobite incursions. Their view was sidelined with the agreement of an address commending the care that had been taken to ‘disappoint her majesty’s enemies’.<sup>215</sup> Buckingham subscribed the protest at the committal of the general naturalization bill on 15 Mar. and on 28 Mar. he entered two further protests, first at the rejection of a proposed rider to the bill for improving the Union and then at the passage of the bill without it. The following month, on 19 Apr., he was said to have offered some ‘faint opposition’ to the passage of the amended treason bill, but the bill was carried without a division.<sup>216</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his place in the subsequent session on 15 Nov. 1709. Present on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days, on 16 Feb. 1710 he dissented from the decision not to require James Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates to attend the House before Greenshields’ appeal was received. The following month, he rallied to the cause of Dr Sacheverell. On 14 Mar. he entered two dissents, first at the failure to include in the impeachment the particular words deemed criminal and then when the House decided against adjourning. Two days later, he dissented twice again, first from the decision to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article against Sacheverell and then when the House resolved that the Commons had indeed made good the article. The following day (17 Mar.) he dissented from the vote that the Commons had made good the three subsequent articles and on 18 Mar. he dissented from the decision to limit peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty. In Buckingham’s view, Sacheverell was guilty of nothing more heinous than naivety. He argued that ‘it was plain the doctor had seen but little of the world and he was sure none of those reverend prelates (pointing to the bench of bishops) would have talked at so open and unguarded a manner.’ He also stressed that it was not Sacheverell’s fault that the lord mayor (Sir Samuel Garrard<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt.) had sought to have the sermon printed: something Garrard himself had denied in the Commons.<sup>217</sup> Buckingham, unsurprisingly, found Sacheverell not guilty of the charges against him and on 20 Mar. he dissented again from the resolution to pass the bill. The following day, he entered a further dissent in protest at the censure passed against Sacheverell.<sup>218</sup> Shortly after, presumably as a result of the trial, the House was again forced to intervene when Buckingham and Wharton were heard to have exchanged angry words. The two were ordered not to proceed any further in their quarrel.<sup>219</sup></p><h2><em>Return to Office, 1710-14 </em></h2><p>The aftermath of the Sacheverell affair left the ministry in disarray and may have induced some to consider offering Buckingham a return to office. Buckingham was certainly happy to propagate such rumours and, following the appointment of Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain and amidst reports of the Tories flocking to the queen, he claimed that ‘he could have had any terms from [Godolphin] whom he was lately alone with three hours, but he would not meddle with him.’<sup>220</sup> Instead, he entered into terms with Harley with whom he appears to have been engaged in negotiations about the shape of the new ministry throughout June and July.<sup>221</sup> In alliance with Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become) and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, he lobbied hard against the appointment of Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, as secretary of state.<sup>222</sup> His own future remained uncertain but despite rumours to the contrary that circulated in August, Buckingham’s careful manoeuvring paid off in September when he was confirmed in office as lord steward in Devonshire’s place.<sup>223</sup> The appointment clearly took some by surprise: Peter Wentworth remarked that ‘he was never talked of for that.’ Buckingham’s pleasure at being once again at the centre of affairs was tempered soon after by the death of his young son, apparently shortly after birth. Buckingham was said to have been, inadvertently, the cause of the child’s death, allowing the boy to starve while fretting about the best means of feeding him.<sup>224</sup></p><p>Having attended five of the prorogation days between the close of the previous session and the opening of the new Parliament, Buckingham took his seat at the outset of the new session. He was present on 83 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had been, unsurprisingly, noted by Harley as a likely supporter of the new ministry. On 6 Dec. he was once more entrusted with Willoughby de Broke’s proxy, which was vacated by the close. Buckingham left his opponents under no illusions about the manner in which the new ministry would manage its affairs. According to Bishop Burnet, he declared that ‘they had the majority, and would make use of it, as he had observed done by others, when they had it on their side.’<sup>225</sup> During the debates on affairs in Spain on 9 Jan. 1711, Godolphin moved that all strangers should be cleared from the chamber but Buckingham opposed the suggestion, seeing in it an assault upon the members’ privilege. Justifying his concerns he argued that:</p><blockquote><p>he supposed those strangers were brought in by members themselves, and therefore were under the protection of the House; that it might afterwards be moved, that the Lords’ eldest sons should also go out, though they had as much right to stand behind the throne as the Lords to sit where they sat; and that he had himself enjoyed that privilege, and wished himself to be young enough to be amongst them.</p></blockquote><p>The House agreed that strangers should be permitted to remain. Later that same day, Buckingham moved that the paper submitted by the former commander in Spain, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], should be read and two days later (11 Jan.) he spoke in favour of the House allowing Galway and the other generals under investigation time to be heard, for:</p><blockquote><p>he was apt to believe that some persons, who did not like this enquiry, had put those two lords upon petitioning, to give time; but though he would not have the petitions granted yet he would move that they might be called in and heard.<sup>226</sup></p></blockquote><p>Buckingham joined Shrewsbury in waiting on the queen on 12 Jan. to discover whether she would consent that the papers concerning the campaign be laid before the House. On 22 Jan. he was again prominent in the debates on the state of the war. Buckingham received the proxy of Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick, on 24 Jan. (which was vacated on 9 February). The same day he divided against the rest of his party by opposing the vote of censure against Galway for ‘giving the post of honour to the Portugal forces… contrary to the honour of the imperial crown of Great Britain.’ He said that he objected to the terms of the motion and expressed the hope that ‘England had not lost their honour nor never would.’<sup>227</sup> Buckingham was again active during the debates concerning Greenshields in March. The same month he was present at the council meeting at which the marquis de Guiscard attempted to assassinate Harley. According to some reports, Buckingham sought to incapacitate Guiscard by throwing a chair at him. He was then instrumental in preventing his enraged colleagues from slaughtering the would-be killer.<sup>228</sup></p><p>Towards the close of the session, on 19 Apr. 1711, Buckingham complained to the House of the activities of his son-in-law, Altham, who, he claimed, was attempting to wrest control of his Irish estates from him. The House gave orders for a number of witnesses to attend and explain. Buckingham did not allow Harley’s absence, recovering from his wounds, to prevent him from continuing to solicit for favour that summer. Early in May 1711, he wrote to the recuperating lord treasurer, emphasizing that:</p><blockquote><p>as there is no man whatsoever engaged more in inclination as well as interest to see your merits justly rewarded to the highest degree, so it is a little natural by consequence to depend on as much return and favour from you, as may consist with reason and the queen’s service…<sup>229</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although the duchess of Marlborough regarded him as ‘a nuisance’, Buckingham appears to have been viewed by Harley’s inner circle as more useful than troublesome. John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, summed him up as one who could ‘never be dangerous and will many ways be useful’ and it was as such that he was mentioned that month as a possible candidate for the lord presidency, which had been left vacant by the death of Rochester.<sup>230</sup> Poulett underscored Buckingham’s value to the ministry, pointing out that were he to be granted the place, ‘you may always turn him out without offence to any party, and with great applause of all men either of sense, principle or interest.’<sup>231</sup> Buckingham was, accordingly, appointed lord president in June, though Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> had commented the previous month that this was only after the position had already been offered to everyone else in the cabinet and turned down.<sup>232</sup> In June he was included in a list of Tory patriots during the first session of the 1710 Parliament. Eager to build up his interest in London, Buckingham successfully petitioned to be made lord lieutenant of Middlesex that summer, vacant by the recent death of Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, but his appointment as both lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of the East Riding of Yorkshire occasioned some confusion as Leeds considered the latter to be a place which he still held.<sup>233</sup> That month he was one of only a handful of peers, among them Shrewsbury and Godolphin, to oppose an amendment to the linen bill favouring Irish over Scottish trade.</p><p>Buckingham was said to have resented not having been informed earlier of the progress of the peace negotiations and, in advance of the new session, he was heard to comment that, ‘if these were all that we were to expect from France, it was time to let the late ministry loose upon the present.’<sup>234</sup> For all this bluster, he continued to cultivate Oxford (as Harley had since become), replying to one missive that ‘few things are pleasanter than marks of friendship and esteem from the person in the world who, I think, deserves it the most himself.’<sup>235</sup> Buckingham took his place in the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711, and was present on just over two thirds of all sitting days. During the debates over the duke of Hamilton’s right to sit in the House, Buckingham commented that there were members of the House who had attended for 20 years but on examination of their patents had been turned out.<sup>236</sup> Perhaps indicative of Buckingham’s willingness to vote contrary to expectation, a forecast for the division on Hamilton’s right to attend included him on both lists: in the event, on 20 Dec. he voted against barring Scottish peers holding post-Union British titles from sitting in the House and then he entered his dissent when the opposition carried the vote.</p><p>Buckingham appears to have regarded the creation of ‘Oxford’s Dozen’ new peers at the opening of 1712 with much the same distaste and cynical humour as his opposite, Wharton. While Wharton jokingly enquired whether the new peers might speak like a jury through a chairman, Buckingham suggested (with equal derision) that they should be sworn in all together to save time.<sup>237</sup> Buckingham’s attention was again taken up with family disputes that month and the House was forced to interpose between him and Anglesey over some ‘hard words’ that had passed between them during the debates over the guardianship of Buckingham’s stepdaughter, Lady Catherine Annesley.<sup>238</sup> In the event, custody of the girl was awarded to Anglesey but two months later Buckingham seems still to have been concerned in the matter and on 3 Mar. he wrote to William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, regretting having missed him in the House that day and asking him to be sure to attend the committee for Anglesey’s bill the next morning.<sup>239</sup></p><p>Buckingham hosted Prince Eugene at dinner at the end of January 1712. The Prince later described his host as ‘a sanguine man but of great parts, esteemed a true patriot, and one of the eldest sons of the Church.’ He also considered Buckingham to have ‘the favour of the queen’s ear very much’, an impression that Buckingham may have been keen to encourage but seems not to have been particularly the case.<sup>240</sup> Buckingham was absent from the House from 19 Feb. until 1 March. To cover his absence he registered his proxy with Thomas Trevor*, Baron Trevor, on 29 Feb., which was vacated when he resumed his place the following day. Both Buckingham and Shrewsbury were reported to have been feigning sickness at the time in protest at the refusal to appoint their wives as ladies of the queen’s bedchamber.<sup>241</sup> In April, Buckingham was reported to have objected to allowing the Scots Kirk to petition against the second reading of the patronage bill, which resulted in the petition being dropped.<sup>242</sup> The following month he divided with the ministry against the motion for presenting the queen with an address to overturn Ormond’s ‘restraining’ orders.</p><p>By the summer of 1712 Buckingham’s support for the ministry was thought no longer reliable: in June or July his name was included in a list of court supporters whose allegiance was thought to be doubtful, although by the following spring he was again listed among the ministry’s supporters (his name being added by Oxford himself to the list compiled by Swift). Having attended six of the prorogation days during the interval between the close of the previous session and the opening of the new one in April 1713, Buckingham took his seat on 9 Apr., after which he was present on approximately 74 per cent of all sitting days. Towards the end of May he was listed among those who needed to be contacted in advance of the debates over the French commerce bill and the following month he was again included by Oxford in a list of those thought likely to support the ministry in the vote on the eighth and ninth articles of the treaty of commerce. The same month, he was involved with a dispute with Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway. As had been the case on so many previous occasions, following an exchange of bitter words a challenge was issued, though for once it would appear to have been Conway, rather than Buckingham, who was responsible for precipitating the argument. Once again the matter was settled peacefully.<sup>243</sup> On 3 July Buckingham was again prominent in the debates in the House. Responding to the queen’s answer to the Lords’ address requesting that she put pressure on the duke of Lorraine to force the pretender (James Francis Edward Stuart) from his dominions, Buckingham asserted that he had never heard of any such approach being made to the duke and lamented the fact that neither secretary of state was on hand to further explain the queen’s response.<sup>244</sup> In September, Buckingham introduced William Murray, styled marquess of Tullibardine [S], with the Perthshire address on the peace.<sup>245</sup> Towards the end of the year, he again had to solicit Oxford to see to the payment of his pension, a humiliation that he was forced to repeat the following May.<sup>246</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 23 Feb. 1714. He was again present on 74 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Mar. he was entrusted with the proxy of George Verney*, 12th Baron Willoughby de Broke (vacated on 2 Apr.), whom Buckingham had engaged the previous year to christen the latest addition to his family, and on 16 Apr. he again received that of Howard of Escrick, which was vacated by Howard’s return to the House on 28 April.<sup>247</sup> On 7 May he received Willoughby de Broke’s proxy again (which was vacated four days later) and on 27 May he was forecast by Nottingham as a likely supporter of the schism bill. Buckingham was commended by the dowager Lady Mohun in mid-July for having been one of a handful of members of the council to be ‘very warm’ in her defence in opposing the awarding of a writ of error in a case in which she was involved.<sup>248</sup> Towards the close of that month, Buckingham took on the role of host and mediator between the various factions in the ministry, throwing a dinner for Oxford, Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, Poulett and other members of the administration.<sup>249</sup> On the news of Oxford’s fall, it was put about that Buckingham, Shrewsbury and Poulett had agreed that they would all join him and resign their posts. It was also rumoured that he would be replaced as lord president by Trevor.<sup>250</sup></p><p>The queen’s death spelled the end of Buckingham’s ministerial career, though he appears to have done all in his power to demonstrate his willingness to work with the new regime. There seems no reason to believe that he worked actively for a Jacobite succession and an anecdote recorded long after the event by Thomas Carte that on the night of the queen’s death he slapped Ormond on the shoulder and told him that he had 24 hours to ‘do our business’ should be treated with caution.<sup>251</sup> To confirm his willingness to accept the Hanoverian monarchy, by the late summer of 1716 he seems to have believed, inaccurately, that he was on the point of being readmitted to office.<sup>252</sup></p><p>Buckingham continued to attend the House until within a few days of his death in February 1721, which was said to have been the result of an accidental laudanum overdose.<sup>253</sup> Six year prior to that he and his duchess had been so ‘infinitely afflicted’ by the loss of their heir, Robert Sheffield, styled marquess of Normanby, that they needed to be dosed with opiates to enable them to sleep.<sup>254</sup> The final phase of his career will be covered in the second part of this work. Buckingham was buried in Westminster Abbey. He composed his own epitaph, appended to his will, a translation of which appeared in the <em>Daily Journal</em> (though it omitted the fourth line):</p><blockquote><p>Pro Rege sepe, pro Republica semper [For the king often, For my country always] / Dubius sed non improbus vixi [Doubtful, not wicked I have liv’d] / Incertus morior, sed inturbatus; [Uncertain, but undisturb’d I die.] / Humanum est nescire et errare [It is human not to know and to make mistakes] / Christum adveneror, Deo confido [To Christ I come with veneration, In God I trust] / Omnipotenti Benevolentissimo [Eternal and omnipotent] / Ens Entium Miserere mei. [Being of beings, have mercy on me].</p></blockquote><p>A satirical version appeared in the same paper soon after:</p><blockquote><p>For every Prince that hit my Fancy,<br />For instance, Charles, and James, and Nancy,<br />I had, by turns, my Share of Zeal,<br />But was old Dog at Common Weal;<br />I had my Doubt, as all men shou’d,<br />Yet liv’d as honest as I cou’d;<br />What comes when we resign our Breath<br />I know not, yet a Fig for Death;<br />J – s I like, but cannot take him,<br />For what some fond Enthusiasts make him.<br />In God alone I put my Trust,<br />Because he’s merciful tho’ just;<br />Of all things Great, thou Great Beginner,<br />Take pity on a Garter’d Sinner. <sup>255</sup></p></blockquote><p>In his will, Buckingham submitted himself ‘not only willingly but cheerfully’ to divine providence. He forbade his wife from expending more than £500 on any funerary monument and also directed that his funeral should not be ‘anything extraordinary’. Buckingham named as his executors his kinsman, Orrery, Willoughby de Broke, Trevor, Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later Earl) Bathurst and Patrick Garden. He left to his duchess his ‘new built in house in St James’s Park’ for so long as she remained unmarried, and the remainder of his estate to his legitimate children. To his bastard son, Charles Herbert (later Sir Charles Sheffield, bt.) he bequeathed £7,000 to be paid at his death and entrusted the boy’s education to his friend, William Bromley. Two more natural daughters, Catherina Sophia (or Sophia) and Charlotte, who were at the time of the will being educated in Chelsea, were bequeathed £1,000 a piece and entrusted to his wife’s care, ‘to whom she has been always most generously indulgent’. Buckingham directed that all three bastard children should adopt the name of Sheffield, bear his arms, ‘with the accustomed distinction of natural children’ and that, in the event of his dying without legitimate children, Charles Herbert should inherit the estate and pay to his mother, Mrs Lambert, £1,000 and add £5,000 a piece to his half-sisters’ bequests. In a codicil of November 1717 Buckingham added an annuity of £100 to his natural daughter, Lady Altham, to be paid for ‘so long time only as her said husband will not permit her to live with him.’ Buckingham was succeeded by his only surviving son by his final marriage, Edmund Sheffield<sup>†</sup>,styled marquess of Normanby, as 2nd duke of Buckingham. On his death without heirs, the estates passed (according to Buckingham’s directions) to his half-brother, Charles Herbert.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SHERARD, Bennet (1677-32) |
<p><strong><surname>SHERARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Bennet</strong> (1677–32)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Jan. 1700 as 3rd Bar. Sherard [I]; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 Bar. HARBOROUGH; <em>cr. </em>31 Oct. 1718 Visct. SHERARD; <em>cr. </em>8 May 1719 earl of HARBOROUGH |
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1715; last sat 7 May 1731 |
|
MP Leics. 1701 (Dec.); Rutland 1713 |
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Oct. 1677, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Bennet Sherard<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Bar. Sherard of Leitrim [I]. <em>m</em>. lic. 30 Apr. 1696, Mary (<em>d</em>.1702), da. and coh. of Sir Henry Calverley<sup>‡</sup> of Eryholme, co. Dur., 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. d. 16 Oct. 1732; <em>will</em> 27 May-27 July 1732, pr. 2 Nov. 1732.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Rutland 1700–12, 1715–<em>d</em>.; warden and c.j. in eyre, N. of Trent 1719–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Sherard was a prominent landowner in Leicestershire and an unswerving Whig. Following the accession of George I he received a British barony on the eve of the coronation, adding to and eclipsing his inherited Irish title. He first sat as Baron Harborough in the 1715 Parliament. His career will be discussed in detail in the second part of this work.</p> |
M.C.K. |
|
SHIRLEY, Robert (1650-1717) |
<p><strong><surname>SHIRLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1650–1717)</p> |
<em>rest. </em>14 Dec. 1677 (claim to barony allowed) as 8th Bar. FERRERS; <em>cr. </em>3 Sept. 1711 Earl FERRERS |
|
First sat 28 Jan. 1678; last sat 1 July 1717 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 20 Oct. 1650, 3rd s. of Sir Robert Shirley, 4th bt. and Katherine, da. of Humphrey Okeover. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf., MA 15 July 1669. <em>m</em>. (1) 28 Dec. 1671 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1693), da. of Lawrence Washington<sup>‡</sup> of Garsdon, Wilts., 10s. (7 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 7da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.); <sup>1</sup> (2) 1699 Selina (<em>d</em>.1762), da. of George Finch, merchant of London, 5s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 5da.;<sup>2</sup> c.30 illegit. children. <em>d</em>. 25 Dec. 1717; <em>will</em> 25 Nov. 1717, pr. 17 Jan. 1718.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Master of horse, Queen Catharine of Braganza 1684-6;<sup>4</sup> steward of household, queen dowager 1685-1705; <sup>5</sup> mbr. queen dowager's council 1685-1705;<sup>6</sup> PC 25 May 1699-20 May 1707, 25 Nov. 1708-Oct. 1714.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Dep. lt. Derbys. 1671-?;<sup>8</sup> high steward, Stafford 1683-8; <sup>9</sup> ld. lt. Staffs. 2 Sept.-19 Nov. 1687.</p><p>Col., Princess Anne’s regt. 1685-6.<sup>10</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. M. Wright, c.1670, Sudbury Hall, Ashbourne, Derbys.; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, Staunton Harold; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, Eatington.</p> |
<p>The Shirley family traced their descent to the Saxons. By the 17th century they held estates in several counties, principally in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire and the head of the family had been made a baronet. During the 1690s, the profitability of their Staffordshire holdings was increased markedly by the development of salt works at Weston-on-Trent, which by 1720 were estimated to be providing the family with a profit of some £320 annually.<sup>14</sup> While the Shirleys were committed royalists, they enjoyed the advantage of being closely related to Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex, which offered them some protection during the Civil War and enabled them to escape the worst of the committee for compounding. In spite of such connections, and despite his family’s recent Catholic background, Shirley’s father was a devout member of the Church of England, whose church construction project at Staunton Harold during the 1650s was designed as an explicit statement of religious defiance at a time ‘when all things sacred throughout the nation were either demolished or profaned’, and who hosted several senior clergymen, including Gilbert Sheldon*, later archbishop of Canterbury and Henry Hammond. Shirley was also a key royalist plotter, closely in touch with the exiled court. He was imprisoned for his activities by Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> and died in the Tower: his death was treated by Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, as an irreparable loss.<sup>15</sup> His eldest son, Sir Seymour, died young as did Sir Seymour’s heir, and Robert Shirley therefore succeeded as 7th baronet in 1669.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Shirley continued the family’s political tradition, asserting his credentials as an upholder of the Church of England and in the course of his long career in the Lords which began eight years later, in 1677, he acquired a reputation as an outspoken and at times splenetic orator, a patron of trade and a stern opponent of dissent. His hostility to nonconformists was established long before he entered the Lords. In 1673 several Leicestershire Dissenters attempted to undermine his position in the county where he was already accounted ‘a very great man indeed’, claiming that he had ‘spoken very unseemingly and disrespectfully of the king’s authority’; the king, however, dismissed the case declaring that ‘he believed no such words were spoken, and that he knew very well the loyalty and good affection of Sir Robert.’<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>Baron Ferrers 1677-85</em></h2><p>On 14 Dec. 1677, the barony of Ferrers was called out of abeyance in Shirley’s favour. The award, which emphasized that Shirley was being restored to the honour rather than created a new peer, was in part an acknowledgment of ‘the great and eminent services’ of his father but was also clearly part of an effort by the court to shore up its group in the Lords. Some anticipated that Shirley’s promotion would be questioned in the Lords as ‘it was not done in the first descent.’ It was also thought noteworthy that ‘this is done merely by his majesty, without any interposition or money given either to mistress or minister.’ Ferrers’ claim to the peerage came from his grandmother, Dorothy Devereux, the younger of Essex’s two sisters. The elder daughter, Frances, had left no family, thereby enabling the title to be revived. In the event, when Ferrers took his seat on 28 Jan. 1678 no protest was entered and he was allowed the precedence of the 6th Baron rather than being considered a new creation.<sup>18</sup> He continued to attend for a further 42 days (almost 37 per cent of the session’s sitting days). Absent from the session after 23 Mar., two days later he registered his proxy with George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley. Unsurprisingly, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, added Ferrers to his list of lay lords under those he considered ‘triply vile’. Ferrers’ summons to the House occurred at a time when he had been considered a potential candidate for Lichfield in the forthcoming by-election occasioned by the death of one of the sitting members, Richard Dyott<sup>‡</sup>. His elevation left the way clear for Sir Henry Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup>, bt. to stand for the borough on the court interest.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Ferrers was absent during the following session but returned to the House for the next one on 7 Nov. 1678, after which he was present on 69 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of the motion for the test bill that the declaration against transubstantiation should lie under the same penalties as the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. He was one of only four peers to subscribe the protest of 6 Dec. against the decision to agree with the Commons’ address requesting the king issue a proclamation for disarming all Catholics convicted of recusancy. On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill, while the following day he voted against the commitment of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). He was named a manager for the two conferences on 28 Dec. concerning the amendments to the supply bill, but the session was prorogued two days later with this matter still pending.</p><p>In advance of the new Parliament, Danby noted Ferrers among those lords upon whom he could rely for support. Ferrers first took his seat on 31 Mar. 1679, and attended about two-thirds of all sitting days in the session. He supported Danby by opposing the Commons’ bill which threatened his attainder if he did not surrender himself, and on 14 Apr. he signed the dissent against the House’s acceptance of this bill. On 9 May he was a manager for a conference concerning the Commons’ proposal that a joint committee be appointed to consider procedures against the impeached lords, and the following day Ferrers voted against agreeing to it. Also on 10 May he was appointed a manager for a conference concerning a petition from Danby. Ferrers returned to the House for the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, of which he attended almost 85 per cent of all sitting days. On 3 Nov. he introduced Conyers Darcy*, the son of the 8th Baron Darcy, as Baron Conyers (later 2nd earl of Holdernesse), and on 15 Nov. he voted to reject the exclusion bill. On 23 Nov. he opposed, once more, moves to establish a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec., he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason. Ferrers also remained a consistent supporter of the incarcerated former treasurer. In August 1680 Danby had written to him from the Tower, hoping that ‘I shall be so happy as to hear of your lordship amongst my judges at the beginning of the Parliament in October.’<sup>20</sup> Ferrers had replied modestly that, ‘you over pay those small services I have done you’ but assured him that, ‘it was honour, justice and loyalty prompted me to appear your servant and will still make me not consider either your lordship’s prosperity or adversity so as to change me from doing your lordship all the justice that is in my power.’<sup>21</sup> Ferrers’ support for Danby continued the following year. In a pre-sessional forecast of March 1681 Danby noted Ferrers again among those on whom he could rely. Ferrers attended all seven days of the brief Oxford Parliament that month.</p><p>Following the dissolution of 28 Mar. 1681, Ferrers joined a number of other local peers in putting his hand to the Derbyshire address.<sup>22</sup> The following year, he was instrumental in persuading the corporation of Derby to surrender its charter. He wrote to Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> reporting his actions and asking for further directions, desiring that the king might:</p><blockquote><p>take notice of the loyalty and love of the magistrates towards him and the government and, if he accept the surrender, he’ll give me leave to be a petitioner to him for a new one, being under an obligation of serving them for their so readily complying with my advice. If his Majesty shall think I have been serviceable herein, I shall with his further pleasure endeavour to influence the corporations in Staffordshire to do the like.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ferrers’ fond hope that the ‘happy issue’ might prove an ‘excellent example to other corporations’ was soon dispelled.<sup>24</sup> The corporation of Derby complained to him that the surrender of their charter at his instigation had cost them almost £300 and that they faced a case in the exchequer brought by one Turner who claimed that the new charter was invalid.<sup>25</sup> Despite the corporation’s complaints, in January 1685 a new charter was also granted to Stafford where Ferrers had been appointed high steward in 1683 in place of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>James II and the Revolution, 1685-95</em></h2><p>The succession of James II initially promised further preferment for Ferrers. In the elections for the new Parliament in April 1685, he acted in alliance with Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, and George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, to promote the claims of Richard Leveson<sup>‡</sup> for the seat at Lichfield.<sup>27</sup> Besides consolidating his interest in the midlands, Ferrers also established himself at court. In Feb. 1684 he had replaced Richard Lumley*, Baron Lumley (later earl of Scarbrough), as master of the horse to Charles II’s queen, Catharine of Braganza.<sup>28</sup> He relinquished the post in 1686 but continued to be closely associated with Queen Catharine, becoming steward of her household and a member of her council from 1685 until her death.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Ferrers took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685. He introduced Dartmouth and then continued to attend on every day bar one of the session. On 22 June he acted as a teller in a division in a committee of the whole on the Deeping Fen bill. At the time of Monmouth’s Rebellion he was commissioned colonel of a regiment to be raised specifically for that emergency; he appears to have resigned his commission late in the following year.<sup>30</sup> He was summoned to the court of the lord high steward for the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington) on 14 Jan. 1686.<sup>31</sup> In the late summer of 1687 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Staffordshire in the place of Shrewsbury, apparently on the recommendation of Louis de Duras*, earl of Feversham.<sup>32</sup> Nevertheless Ferrers remained a firm Anglican and refused to accede to James’s desires for toleration for Catholics. Political observers in 1687-8 consistently listed him as an opponent of the king’s policies. Given his stance it is unsurprising that the appointment proved to be short lived. Within two months of being granted the post Ferrers was summoned to London and turned out in favour of his Catholic neighbour, Walter Aston, 3rd Lord Aston [S].<sup>33</sup> Aston also replaced him as high steward of Stafford in February 1688.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Ferrers continued to oppose the king’s policies into the following year. In June 1688 he ‘swore’ that the declaration ‘should not be read in his church’ and it was thought that few other churches in Derbyshire would accede to the king’s wishes.<sup>35</sup> On the news of William of Orange’s landing, Ferrers joined Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, in rallying to Princess Anne at Nottingham. Even so, he proved a reluctant rebel and proceeded to annoy the princess by following Chesterfield’s lead in refusing to sign the association to protect the Prince of Orange. When the princess marched south to link up with Prince William’s forces Ferrers and Chesterfield accompanied her only as far as Warwick before returning to their midlands estates.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Ferrers was in London for the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, though he proceeded to attend on just 21 days of the whole session. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour of a regency. His actions attracted the attention of Roger Morrice, who recorded that although the proceedings had been chaired fairly by Danby, Ferrers, whom he dubbed Danby’s ‘creature’, ‘voted as you have heard’. Morrice also noted that Ferrers spoke ‘with great fierceness and very frequently’.<sup>37</sup> On the last day of January Ferrers voted against declaring the prince and princess king and queen. On 2 Feb. he seconded Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, in calling for John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, to open a petition he had brought in and reveal who had signed it. Lovelace withdrew the paper, which he admitted lacked any signatures, but assured the House that in the future ‘there should be hands enough to it’.<sup>38</sup> Two days later Ferrers was appointed a reporter for the conference at which the houses discussed their disagreement over the word ‘abdicated’. He then voted against concurring with the Commons in this, and over the following two days he was named a manager for a further two conferences. On 6 Feb. he was one of a number of peers who had hitherto sided with the loyalists who absented themselves from the decisive vote on this issue, which ultimately saw the acceptance of the notion that James II had abdicated.<sup>39</sup> He then left the House for a period of two months after 8 February.</p><p>By the beginning of March Ferrers was in Leicestershire, from where on 8 Mar. he wrote to George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, as speaker of the Lords, to excuse his absence which he attributed to ‘his present unhappiness of health (which is very extraordinary).’ Ten days later two of his servants appeared before the House to certify to his continued indisposition as a result of which he was granted leave to remain in the country. Ferrers resumed his place on 8 Apr., on which day he was appointed a reporter for the conference on the bill for removing papists from London. As steward of the household of the queen dowager Ferrers was concerned with the bill’s provisions for the number of Catholic servants allowed to her and he was named a manager for the ensuing three conferences on this matter on 16-18 April. On 16 Apr. he was also one of three peers nominated to wait on the king about his reception of an address. Ferrers then quit the chamber again two days later and on 19 Apr. was once more granted leave to retreat to the country on the condition that he leave his proxy, which he lodged with Dartmouth.<sup>40</sup> Dartmouth employed it on 30 July to vote in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for the reversal of the judgments against Titus Oates.</p><p>Dislike of the new regime did not prevent Ferrers from continuing to attend the House entirely. He was back in his place for two days at the close of the first session, on 19 and 21 Oct. 1689, and then took his seat in the chamber for the second session on 23 October. He then proceeded to attend for a further eight days before retiring from the remainder of the Convention. On 12 Nov. he submitted a request for leave to go into the country for his health and the following day he registered his proxy with Dartmouth once more, which was vacated by the prorogation. Ferrers took his seat in the new Parliament on 1 May 1690, after which he was present on 37 per cent of all sitting days of its first session. On 2 May he spoke in the debate on the abjuration bill, stressing that the measure should be rejected as it dishonoured those who had opposed the claim that the former king had abdicated.<sup>41</sup> Five days later, he was entrusted with Berkeley’s proxy, which he was able to exercise between 9 and 20 May. On 10 May Ferrers acted as teller in three divisions concerning the petition of the City of London about the bill to restore its former charter. On 21 May he was one of the tellers on the question whether to proceed with consideration on the bill for forfeitures.</p><p>Ferrers was missing from the opening of the following session on 2 Oct. 1690. The reason for his absence appears to have been poor health, which made him reluctant to ‘venture the passing over the river at this time of the year’ but he had presumably recovered by 6 Nov. when he took his seat once more.<sup>42</sup> He was thereafter present on 27 sitting days. His attention was taken up by the progress of an appeal, first heard before the House on 21 Nov., arising from a chancery case between his son and the family of his daughter-in-law.<sup>43</sup> Ferrers attended for the final time in the session on 8 Dec. when he registered his proxy with Dartmouth. Nearly a year later, he took his seat a month into the 1691-2 session on 28 Nov. 1691, of which he attended just under 24 per cent of all sitting days. On 7 Dec. he acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to adjourn the debate whether proxies might be employed in preliminary votes on judgments. Ferrers ceased to attend the session after 5 Jan. 1692. On 23 Jan. one of his servants was subpoenaed to give evidence about the alleged adultery of the duchess of Norfolk. Two days later Ferrers registered his proxy with his kinsman Weymouth. At about that time he was listed by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, among those Derby thought sympathetic to his efforts to recover estates lost during the commonwealth.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Ferrers failed to attend the House for the next two sessions. In a letter of 26 Nov. 1692 he excused his absence by ‘some extraordinary family business’<sup>45</sup> He registered his proxy on 6 Dec. 1692 with Weymouth, who wielded it to vote in favour of the passage of the place bill on 3 Jan. 1693. Ferrers registered his proxy with Weymouth again on 8 Nov. 1693 and in June 1694 he was in communication with Weymouth about problems relating to the partition of their Irish estates.<sup>46</sup> He returned to the House finally after an absence of almost three years on 6 Nov. 1694 but then proceeded to attend on just 17 per cent of all sitting days of that session, leaving on 20 December, from when his proxy was once more in Weymouth’s hands.</p><h2><em>Return to politics, 1695-1702</em></h2><p>Ferrers’ attendance improved markedly in the Parliament elected in 1695. Having taken his seat on 2 Dec. 1695, he was in the House on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days of the first session. The reason for his apparently sudden change of heart may have been his concern over the progress of the war and the state of trade. On 3 Dec. he was a prominent participant in the debates in the committee of the whole House, advocating that the House turn its attention first to the state of trade and the state of the fleet. He then supported a motion put forward by Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, that representatives of the East and West Indies companies should attend. He was named a manager for the conference held 5 Dec. at which an address concerning the state of the currency was presented to the Commons. The following day he spoke out against England’s involvement in the land war against France arguing that ‘the war by land is for the sake of a foreign prince, of which we have no cautionary towns’. He then moved that an address be made to the king requesting that papers on the composition of the English Army and Navy be submitted to the House. On 9 Dec. he was again a participant in the continuing exchanges over the state of trade and asked that a list be submitted of all those English merchants who had stock in the Scottish East India Company.<sup>47</sup> He was named a manager for the conferences on 14 and 16 Dec. at which the wording of the address against the Scottish company was agreed upon.</p><p>Early in the new year he was appointed a manager for conferences on 3, 7 and 11 Jan. 1696 at which the two Houses argued over the Lords’ amendments to the bill for regulating the coinage. On 6 and 23 Jan. and 6 and 7 Feb., he reported from the committee assigned to consider papers submitted by the admiralty.<sup>48</sup> On 14 Jan. he also reported from the committee considering the state of trade. On 24 Jan. he also subscribed the dissent from the passage of the bill to prevent false and double returns of Members. <sup>49</sup> On 24 Feb. 1696 he was appointed a manager for the two conferences that day at which the houses agreed on the address to the king congratulating him on his escape from assassination. Two days later Ferrers was as a teller on the question whether a newly devised clause abrogating the right of James II to the throne should be included in the Association.<sup>50</sup> Ferrers consistently refused to subscribe the Association.<sup>51</sup> In explaining this decision, l’Hermitage described Ferrers as ‘not among those who are the most listened to, but from whom occasionally escapes some sally or jest which diverts the others’.<sup>52</sup> His refusal to join the Association was consistent with his previous behaviour at Nottingham during the Revolution.</p><p>During the last months of the session he also reported regularly from committees of the whole House: on the bill to prohibit trade with France (7 Feb.); on the mutiny bill (23 Mar.); and on the bill regarding the honour of Tutbury and Needwood Forest (13 Apr.).<sup>53</sup> On 3 and 12 Mar. he reported from select committees considering private and local bills. He was involved in the claim to the barony of Willoughby de Broke of Richard Verney*, which was eventually accepted this session. On 17 Jan. 1696 Ferrers was a teller on the question whether Verney and his counsel should be heard at the bar, and on 13 Feb. he again acted as a teller for the division whether to continue consideration of Verney’s case. On 31 Mar. he signed the dissent from the passage of the bill to encourage the bringing in of plate to the Mint. In early April, prior to the close of the session on 16 Apr., he acted as teller in three further divisions and was named a manager on 6 Apr. for a conference on the bill to encourage privateers.<sup>54</sup></p><p>He returned to the House for the 1696-7 session on 2 Nov. 1696. On 26 Nov. acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to retain a standing order relating to lords’ answering queries in the Commons. On 27 Nov. and then again on 5 Dec. he reported from the committee of the whole considering the condition of the Navy.<sup>55</sup> Ferrers was a prominent opponent of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. He signed the protest of 15 Dec. against the admission of Cardell Goodman’s evidence and three days later spoke, with characteristic vehemence, against giving the bill a second reading, equating it with the proceedings against Edward Fitzharris in 1681 and considering it a violation of justice and Magna Carta. He consequently signed the protest against the second reading.<sup>56</sup> On 23 Dec. he was again prominent in opposition to the bill, and argued that there was ‘as great a necessity against all the Roman Catholics of England as against Sir John Fenwick.’<sup>57</sup> He then voted against the bill and entered his protest when it was carried. On 18 Jan. 1697, he acted as teller in a division on the question whether to include wording in the representation to be made to the king concerning the interference of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), in Fenwick’s trial. Earlier that month he had also told in another division on a legal cause.<sup>58</sup> He joined with Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, Chesterfield and Weymouth in February in standing bail for his kinsman, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury.<sup>59</sup> On 16 Mar. he entrusted his proxy with Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>Ferrers spent part of the summer of 1697 in conference with other Tory members of Parliament, including Weymouth, Chesterfield, and William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax. In August Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, wanted Weymouth to bring Ferrers with him to Exton; Ferrers was keen for them to go together; Weymouth wanted to know Halifax’s opinion before he committed himself. Ferrers later played host to both Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. and his hounds.<sup>60</sup> Ferrers returned to London in November, keen to dispose of his daughters, ‘for which London is the best market’, wrote Weymouth.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Ferrers took his seat in the new session on 3 Dec. 1697, after which he proceeded to attend 47 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Dec. he reported from the committee concerning the Address. He received Weymouth’s proxy on 10 Dec. and five days later that of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Weymouth was eager to assure Halifax that he would have preferred to have lodged it with him but that he felt obliged to entrust it to Ferrers, having been the recipient of his proxy on so many previous occasions.<sup>62</sup> Ferrers reported from four committees between 28 Jan. and 13 Apr. 1698. In February he was present at a dinner attended by Halifax and Nottingham at which discussion of the Commons’ bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> was discussed. They confidently expressed the view that Duncombe ‘will come off in the House of Lords if the bill should pass against him in that of the Commons’.<sup>63</sup> On 7 and 11 Mar. Ferrers was appointed a manager for conferences on this bill. On 12 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to reverse the judgment in the case <em>Rex v. Mellen. </em>On 15 Apr. he entrusted his proxy with Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Ferrers was active in the elections of summer 1698 for the new Parliament. Eager to cultivate his interest in Staffordshire, he encouraged his son, Hon. Robert Shirley, to stand for the county. In spite of meetings held at Chartley and the support of Shrewsbury and John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, who ‘always differ with my Lord Ferrers in their opinions in the House of Peers’, Shirley failed to secure the county’s support.<sup>64</sup> Ferrers took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present on 81 per cent of all sitting days in its first session. On 8 Feb. 1699 he was typically forthright in his contribution to the debate about the retention of the king’s Dutch Guards. He took the king’s part against those that wished to deprive William III of this bodyguard, suggesting that by their refusal to aid the king they had given him ‘a crown of thorns and put a reed in his hand and afterwards they had given him vinegar and gall to drink.’<sup>65</sup> Such contributions may have given rise to rumours in the spring that Ferrers was to be advanced to the earldom of Tamworth.<sup>66</sup> Ferrers was excused on the grounds of ill health from participating in the trial on 29 Mar. of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. Ferrers did return to take his place two days later. Reports of his expected promotion in the peerage failed to come to pass, though he was admitted to the Privy Council on 25 May.<sup>67</sup> He continued to play a role as a committee chairman, reporting that April from three select committees on private bills and one committee of the whole.</p><p>In August 1699 Ferrers married for the second time. Both his decision to marry (given the number of legitimate, not to mention illegitimate, children he already had) and his choice of bride provoked delighted salacious gossip. The new Lady Ferrers, Selina Finch, was thought to be around 16 or 17 years old, ‘her beauty her portion’. She had originally been introduced into the family by Ferrers’ daughters as a companion and his apparently very sudden resolution to marry her caused consternation among his remaining offspring. Several of them left home in disgust causing him to fling their belongings into the moat, while his second son, Washington Shirley<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd Earl Ferrers, tried to dissuade his father from the marriage, telling him that he had already slept with his prospective step-mother. Some speculated that Ferrers’ histrionics were contrived while others seem to have believed that he was genuinely unhinged and had been behaving increasingly oddly over the previous year. Weymouth (a relative of Selina, Lady Ferrers and never very complimentary about his Staffordshire neighbour) seems to have been ambivalent about the way in which Ferrers’ marriage now made him his ‘double cousin.’<sup>68</sup></p><p>Mad or not, Ferrers attended the prorogation days of 28 Sept. and 24 Oct. 1699 prior to taking his seat in the new session on 16 Nov. 1699. He then proceeded to attend on 84 per cent of all sitting days. Between 24 Jan. and 10 Feb. 1700 he chaired two committees and on 23 Feb. 1700 voted against adjourning into committee of the whole to consider amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 2 Apr. he reported from committee of the whole House on the bill for continuing the act preventing the exportation of wool and two days later further chaired the committee of the whole on the bill to appoint assayers of plate.<sup>69</sup> He was closely involved in the controversy surrounding the land tax bill, with its ‘tack’ of provisions for the parliamentary resumption of William III’s grants of forfeited Irish lands. On 6 Apr. he was as a teller in two divisions on the bill, one of them on the Commons’ clause to bar excise officials from future Parliaments. On 8 Apr. he again told, on a proposed rider to the bill, and over 9-10 Apr. he acted as a manager in three bad-tempered conferences over the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ amendments to the bill.<sup>70</sup> When on 10 Apr., following the king’s request that this supply bill be seen through, the House receded from their amendments, Ferrers joined 20 others to register his dissent. The session was prorogued the following day and on 23 May Ferrers acted as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament again, before the dissolution of 19 Dec. 1700.</p><p>In December 1700 Ferrers appears to have been engaged in an arrangement concerted with Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, over the election at Malmesbury, though it is not clear what Ferrers’ interest in the borough amounted to.<sup>71</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, of which he attended approximately 48 per cent of all sitting days. Later that month he was one of four peers appointed by James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, to attempt to reconcile him with his countess.<sup>72</sup> On 8 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole House considering the bill for renewing exchequer bills. During the remainder of the session he acted as a teller in three divisions: on the previous question in the case of Captain Desborough (8 Mar.); on whether to adjourn discussion of the partition treaty (18 Mar.); and on whether reasons given in the address to the king concerning the impeached Whig lords should stand (16 April).<sup>73</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Anne to 1710</em></h2><p>Ferrers attended the prorogation day of 30 Oct. 1701 before returning to the House for the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. He reported from the committee for the Address on 1 Jan. 1702 and he reported from another committee on 21 February. On 6 and 10 Feb. he was appointed a reporter for conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the bill to attaint the Pretender. Given his previously frosty relations with Princess Anne, the death of William III in March 1702 promised Ferrers little hope of greater preferment. However, he remained active in the House for most of the queen’s reign, and on 7 May was named a manager for a conference on the bill for the oath of abjuration. In the early years of the reign Ferrers was described as ‘a very honest man, a lover of his country, a great improver of gardening and parking.’<sup>74</sup></p><p>Ferrers took his seat in the new Parliament on 9 Dec. 1702 after which he was present on a third of all sitting days of its first session. He was named a manager for a conference on 17 Dec. 1702 on the occasional conformity bill and early in 1703 Nottingham estimated him a likely supporter of the bill. He was again a conference manager for this measure on 9 Jan. 1703 and a week later he voted to adhere to the Lords’ ‘wrecking’ amendment to the bill’s penalty clause. On 18 Feb. he acted as a teller for a division on motion about condemning the Commons for the language used in their censure of the Lords’ acquittal of Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax and on 22 and 25 Feb. he was named as a manager for two hotly contested conferences on this dispute.</p><p>Ferrers took his seat for the following session on 4 Nov. 1703 after which he was present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. During the session he seems to have drifted from his usual Tory associates and to have made common cause with the Whigs. In advance of the session he was noted by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as now being a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill, and he co-operated as forecast to defeat the measure by voting against it on 14 December. Though his opposition to a measure intended to strengthen the Church of England was unusual, like John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, Ferrers may have believed that such a divisive bill was inappropriate in wartime.<sup>75</sup> In February 1704 he was again to be found consorting with Whigs. On 13 Feb. he was present at a meeting hosted by Sunderland, where most of the other leading figures in the Junto were in attendance and the main topic of discussion was the Scotch Plot.<sup>76</sup> He acted as a teller for the divisions on whether to reverse part of the decree in the case <em>Scott v. Hilton</em> (29 Feb.) and (in committee of the whole) on a question whether to add words to the recruits bill (21 March). He also maintained his active role as a committee chairman, reporting from the committee for Holden’s bill on 23 Feb. and then from four committees of the whole between 13 and 30 March.<sup>77</sup></p><p>In spite of his apparent fluctuation in political loyalties during the session, at the opening of 1704 Ferrers undertook to make common cause with Weymouth in the selection of candidates for Tamworth.<sup>78</sup> Ferrers took his seat in the new session on 9 Nov. 1704, in advance of which he seems to have been noted among those thought likely to support the Tack, although the mark on the list falls indecisively mid-way between Ferrers’ name and that of John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr. On 21 Dec. he acted as one of the tellers for the question whether to adjourn discussion of the proposal to construct a new gallery in the chamber. Shortly after the Christmas recess, Ferrers, while warming himself at the fire in the Lords, discussed with Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, the value of wit in sermons (which Ferrers approved of). Their conversation followed an attempt by Halifax to censure one of the sermons preached by George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells.<sup>79</sup> On 10 Feb. 1705 he served as a teller for the last time in his career, acting opposite Wharton on the motion whether to pass the bill concerning people taking new offices. On 28 Feb., and then again on 7 Mar. he was appointed a manager for the bitter conferences in which the Lords expounded their complaints against the Commons’ actions in the case of the ‘Aylesbury men’. He reported from the committee of the whole of 6 and 14 Mar. on, respectively, the bill for imposing duties on low wines and the subsidy bill. In April Ferrers was listed among those thought likely to support the Hanoverian succession.</p><p>Ferrers’ activity in the House declined markedly over the next few years. He took his seat once more on 15 Nov. 1705 but attended just eight days of the session. He was involved in no significant committee activities and quit the session after 6 Dec., after having voted that day that the Church of England was not in danger under the queen’s administration.<sup>80</sup> The reason for this sudden falling-off in attendance is not known but it remained the pattern until 1710. He took his seat in the following session on 3 Dec. 1706 but attended just 11 days of the whole (approximately 13 per cent). Fears for the security of the Church of England caused Ferrers to oppose union with Scotland. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, reported him to have been ‘full of resentment’ towards the Scots since the time of the Act of Security. He felt that ‘the beggarly nation could not subsist without us; and yet they are for insulting us. He was for humbling them immediately.’ He was present for debates on the union on 3, 15 and 19 Feb. 1707, when he was said by Nicolson to have been ‘violent against the admission of Cameronians and Covenanters into our Parliaments.’ <sup>81</sup></p><p>Resentment at the passage of the Union bill appears to have led to Ferrers absenting himself from the House for a lengthy period from March 1707 until 10 Dec. 1708 when he once more took his seat in the chamber. In the interim he was omitted from the new Privy Council of Great Britain when it was remodelled on 20 May 1707, but was subsequently sworn to it on 25 Nov. 1708.<sup>82</sup> Having returned to the House, his attendance proved sporadic and he was present on just seven days of the whole session of 1708-9. In the meantime he was noted in a list of party affiliations as a Whig, which was perhaps indicative of the extent to which he was considered a maverick.</p><h2><em>Sacheverell and the Hanoverian Succession, 1710-17</em></h2><p>If Ferrers’ concern for the Church of England had caused him to shun the House for the previous few years, it seems to have been the same anxieties that brought him back on 31 Jan. 1710 in time to rally to the cause of Henry Sacheverell. He was a prominent participant in Lords debates on the matter and at Sacheverell’s trial he ‘pleaded warmly, the warmliest of any for the doctor.’<sup>83</sup> On 14 Mar. he signed the protest against the decision that it was not necessary to include the specific words alleged to be criminal in the impeachment articles and two days later he protested against the resolution that the Commons had made good their charges in the first article of the impeachment. On 18 Mar., he joined with a handful of Tory peers in arguing against this resolution and also voiced his opposition to the proposal that the lords must express themselves merely ‘content’ or ‘not content’ to the whole set of charges, rather than being able to vote article by article; Ferrers argued that ‘some of the peers there present, might hereafter be impeached and repent, too late, the having made such a precedent of giving judgment generally.’ He subscribed the protest when this matter was resolved against him as well. <sup>84</sup> Ferrers found Sacheverell not guilty on 20 Mar. and although he then failed to sign the dissent from the guilty verdict, he did the following day register his dissent from the sentence commanding Sacheverell’s papers to be burned and barring him from preaching for three years.<sup>85</sup> After Sacheverell’s committal, Ferrers continued to display his loyalty to the disgraced cleric.<sup>86</sup> The fall of the duumvirs’ administration and the increasing influence of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, presented Ferrers with a new opportunity to advance his interests. In October 1710 Harley noted Ferrers as a likely supporter of his new ministry and although Ferrers was accused of acting ‘a very odd part’ during the election for Staffordshire in the autumn of 1710, he was successful in prevailing on Samuel Bracebridge<sup>‡</sup> to throw his hat into the ring at Tamworth.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Ferrers took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710 after which he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days of its first session. On 28 Nov. he reported from the committee concerning the Address to the queen.<sup>88</sup> At about the same time, Ferrers weighed in on the debate provoked by the motion made by Scarbrough (as Lumley had become) for a vote of thanks to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. Ferrers was noted to have said ‘a great many handsome things in the praise of the duke’ but concluded by advising delaying the vote until Marlborough had returned to England: a suggestion that was gratefully seized upon by Marlborough’s supporters.<sup>89</sup> From 3 Jan. 1711 Ferrers participated actively in the debates surrounding the military miscarriages in Spain.<sup>90</sup> On 9 Jan. the House accepted his motion that the memorial of the commander of the Allied forces in the peninsula, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, Viscount Galway [I], should be heard in committee of the whole. Two days later he opposed the motion to read further petitions from the military commanders involved and insisted that they did not have to defend themselves as they had not yet been formally censured by the House. In the debate on 12 Jan. he strongly censured both those generals and the previous Whig ministry:</p><blockquote><p>it was plain, the Council of Valencia was the cause of all our misfortunes in Spain. That the resolutions taken in it, were carried against the opinion of King Charles, and his ministers. That it was certainly a fault in the ministry here to approve that council; for a Secretary of State gives no direction but from the cabinet council.</p></blockquote><p>Ferrers persevered in insisting that the most pressing point to be answered was how many English forces had been despatched to Spain by the ministry, and he undoubtedly voted for the resolutions of 11-12 Jan. which condemned the Whig war effort in Spain. <sup>91</sup></p><p>Between 22 Feb. and 16 Mar. 1711 Ferrers reported from four committees of the whole, including those for the bills to establish landed qualifications for Members (22 Feb.) and to continue the Recruiting Act (28 February). On 16 Mar. he reported from two select committees. He was prominent in debates in the House on 5 Feb. on the reversal of the General Naturalization Act and he subscribed the protest against the rejection of the bill for its repeal.<sup>92</sup> On 1 Mar. he argued in favour of the House hearing the cause between the magistrates of Edinburgh and James Greenshields, and voted to overturn the judgment against him.<sup>93</sup> Following the close of the session he was noted among the Tory ‘Patriots’ of the previous Parliament.</p><p>In early February 1711, in the midst of the session, Ferrers was involved in the by-election for Leicestershire, triggered by the succession of the sitting Member John Manners*, styled marquess of Granby, as 2nd duke of Rutland. Ferrers was thought initially to be firm for Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup> but it later became apparent that he intended to employ his interest for Henry Tate instead, though in the end Cave was returned apparently unopposed.<sup>94</sup> By late June 1711 both Ferrers and his contemporaries were certain that he would be advanced in the peerage as Viscount Tamworth and Earl Ferrers, under the aegis of Ferrers’s new patron Lord Treasurer Oxford (as Harley had become), though the letters patent formally recording his promotion to earl were not sealed until 3 September.<sup>95</sup> The preamble to this patent praised Ferrers for his ‘unblemished reputation’ and for being ‘always either… the first proposer or assenter to the wholesome counsels of the Commonwealth.’<sup>96</sup> His connection with Oxford was further underscored in August when Ferrers approached the lord treasurer to stand godfather to his daughter, Stuarta Shirley. Her unusual name was a deliberate attempt to flatter the queen (one of the child’s godparents) and was submitted to her for approval.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Ferrers was introduced in his new dignity on the prorogation day of 27 Nov. 1711, supported between Oxford and Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale. He then took his seat in the new session on 7 Dec., after which he was present on 64 per cent of all sitting days. He was listed among those to be canvassed to oppose the Whig attempt to insert a clause calling for ‘No Peace without Spain’ in the Address. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support the ministry the following day in the matter of the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat as duke of Brandon in the British peerage (as with Ferrers’ promotion, the title had been promised to Hamilton in the summer but did not pass the seals until September). On 20 Dec., however, Ferrers voted against the government and to bar Scots peers holding post-Union British titles from sitting in the Lords. He left the House for the remainder of the year after that vote, although a few days later Oxford noted him as someone to be contacted during the Christmas recess.</p><p>Ferrers resumed his place on 2 Jan. 1712, the day on which Oxford’s ‘dozen’ new peers were introduced. In the debates over whether or not the House should adjourn until 14 Jan., Ferrers delighted in teasing Nottingham, now allied with the Whigs, for insisting that the motion was unprecedented and ‘that what never had been done ought never to be done’, pointing out that everything had a beginning otherwise the search for precedents would be in vain. Having made his point, he then declared himself in favour of adjourning.<sup>98</sup> Over the two months following the adjournment, Ferrers chaired and reported from a number of committees. On 19 Jan. he reported from the committee for privileges on the petition of Francis Annesley.<sup>99</sup> He was particularly engaged in debates in committee of the whole House relating to Scotland, reporting from committees on the queen’s request that the House devise a solution to the crisis caused by its rejection of Hamilton’s right to sit (18, 21 and 25 Jan.); the bill to legalize Episcopal worship in Scotland (13 Feb. but reported 15 Feb.); and the bill to restore the presentation rights of lay patrons in Scotland (12 April).<sup>100</sup> He also reported on 29 Feb. from committee of the whole House on the bill to continue the commission on public accounts. He divided with the ministry on 28 May in opposing the motion to address the queen to overturn the orders forbidding James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from prosecuting an offensive campaign on the continent, and on 7 June he reported from committee the draft of an address thanking queen for imparting news on progress of the peace negotiations.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Ferrers wrote to Oxford in August 1712 praising his ‘indefatigable labours’ in procuring the peace and insisting particularly on his own pleasure ‘that have been so great a sufferer both in England and Ireland by this aggressive and ill managed war’, in the end of hostilities.<sup>101</sup> That autumn Ferrers was himself the subject of complaint from one Maurice Wheeler, concerning an episode that did nothing to enhance Ferrers’ reputation as an upholder of the Church of England. Wheeler was attempting to undertake the reconstruction of the church at Coleorton in Leicestershire, lying within Ferrers’ estates. Although Ferrers’ lands there were worth £1,300 a year and there had once been a chapel of ease in the village, Wheeler alleged, the church had received ‘not one farthing of tithes’ from Ferrers’s tenants. A previous effort to sort out the problem had been unsuccessful and Ferrers had apparently castigated his own father as a ‘religious fool’ for promising too much to the church. Wheeler hoped that now that the estate had been settled on Ferrers’ grandson and heir, Robert Shirley<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Viscount Tamworth, the latter, ‘if a person of conscience as well as honour’ might prove more amenable.<sup>102</sup></p><p>Ferrers attended six prorogation days between 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713 before taking his seat on 9 Apr. when the session eventually convened for business. He was thereafter present on just under a quarter of all sitting days, but seems to have played little role in the House beyond agitating with Weymouth for the tacking of the place bill to the malt tax.<sup>103</sup> In advance of the convening of the new Parliament, which had been elected the previous summer, Ferrers, in early January 1714, approached Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke to ask him to present a petition to the queen, but was disappointed to be rebuffed on the grounds of the queen’s illness.<sup>104</sup> He returned to the House for the new Parliament on 18 Feb. 1714. His attendance declined further to just under a fifth of the total sitting days of this session. Despite this, on 5 Apr. he was prominent in the House’s debates that ranged around Whig criticism of the peace, intervening after a series of contributions and moving that ‘it was time to propose a question that they might come to some conclusion.’ He then proposed the motion that ‘the succession to the House of Hanover was in no danger’. After the lord chancellor, Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, added the words ‘under her majesty’s government’ to the resolution, it passed in the ministry’s favour at a division. <sup>105</sup> Absent from the session from 17 Apr., three days later he registered his proxy with Harcourt.</p><p>Ferrers attended just one day, 9 Aug. 1714, of the brief 15-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. He was perhaps preoccupied by family concerns following the sudden death of his grandson Viscount Tamworth from smallpox early in July.<sup>106</sup> After the accession of George I, Ferrers attended the House on only a further 17 sitting days before his death on Christmas day 1717. In his will, composed a month before his demise, Ferrers requested that an elaborate monument be constructed at Staunton Harold. Permission for the monument was refused and it was erected eventually in 1776 by his son George Shirley at Lower Eatington in Warwickshire instead. Between his two wives, Ferrers had sired 27 legitimate children, 17 of whom were still living at the time of his death, and he was also said to have been the father of some 30 illegitimate ones. Despite this his fortune was sufficient to enable him to assign to his five surviving daughters by his first wife £5,000 each, and to those five born to his second wife £4,000 each, while he gave his third surviving son Lawrence Shirley £8,000.<sup>107</sup> At his death, his titles were divided, the Ferrers barony descending to his daughter and heir general Elizabeth, while his younger son and heir male, Washington Shirley<sup>†</sup>, succeeded as 2nd Earl Ferrers. His grandson, Lawrence Shirley<sup>†</sup>, 4th Earl Ferrers, later attracted notoriety as the last peer to be hanged for murder.<sup>108</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SMITH, Charles (c. 1598-1665) |
<p><strong><surname>SMITH</surname></strong> (<strong>SMYTH</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1598–1665)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>31 Oct. 1643 Bar. CARRINGTON (CARINGTON); <em>cr. </em>4 Nov. 1643 Visct. Carrington [I] |
|
First sat 23 July 1660; last sat 7 May 1662 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1598; s. of Sir Francis Smyth of Wootton Wawen, Warws. and Ashby Folville, Leics. and Anne Markham, da. of Thomas Markham<sup>‡</sup> of Ollerton, Notts. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. c.1622, Anne Elizabeth Carryll (<em>d</em>.1658), da. of Sir John Carryll of South Harting, Suss. and Mary Dormer, 4s. 5da.<sup>1</sup> kntd. 1619. <em>d</em>. 22 Feb. 1665; <em>admon</em>. 21 Apr. 1668.</p> |
|
|
<p>Carrington’s family appears to have been descended from Sir John Smith, a baron of the exchequer in 1539, who was himself descended from a family based in Essex.<sup>3</sup> The title of Carrington was derived from a myth that the family’s founder was Sir Michael de Carington, Richard I’s standard bearer on Crusade. By the seventeenth century, the Smyths had relocated to the Midlands and were one of the wealthier Catholic gentry families of Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.<sup>4</sup> They were also connected with other prominent recusant families including the Carylls of Sussex, the Throckmortons of Warwickshire and the Brudenells of Northamptonshire.<sup>5</sup> By 1649 Carrington’s estates were estimated to be worth over £2,743.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In 1642 Smith acquired a certificate of conformity prior to his elevation to the English barony and Irish viscountcy of Carrington, granted as a reward for his loyalty to Charles I. By 1646 he appears to have reverted to his Catholic faith.<sup>7</sup> Carrington remained loyal to the royalist cause throughout the Civil War; his brother, Sir John Smith, was killed during the conflict.<sup>8</sup> In 1647 Carrington’s Warwickshire estates were sequestered; his Leicestershire estates in 1648.<sup>9</sup> In 1651 Carrington claimed that he and his family were ‘in great necessity’, and Carrington’s son estimated that his father’s property was worth only £797 ‘at the best of times.’<sup>10</sup> Carrington was forced to quit England for Liege in Belgium, ‘in order the more freely to serve God and his conscience,’ while Lady Carrington and their children remained in England.</p><p>At the Restoration Carrington was present in Charles II’s retinue on his entry into London.<sup>11</sup> He took his seat in the House on 23 July but sat on just two days before absenting himself for over a fortnight. He returned on 10 Aug., after which he was present for a further 17 days of the session (16 per cent of the whole). He resumed his seat after the adjournment on 6 Nov. and was thereafter present on just under 69 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just one committee. He took his place in the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on 60 per cent of all sitting days but was again named to just one committee. Carrington was missing from the attendance list on 20 May, but he was not included among those noted as absent at the call of the House that day, so had presumably taken his seat during the day. On 11 July he was included among those thought likely to oppose the attempt of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to secure the great chamberlaincy.</p><p>In April 1662 Carrington obtained permission to travel overseas with his family, ‘to pass the rest of his days peacefully in the true faith.’<sup>12</sup> He sat for the final time on 7 May, when he registered his proxy with his co-religionist, Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury. Carrington registered his proxy with Shrewsbury again the following year on 7 March. Shrewsbury used it to support the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. The proxy was registered with Shrewsbury once more on 30 Mar. 1664.</p><p>Carrington settled at Pontoise in France where one of his daughters was a nun.<sup>13</sup> Three years later he was murdered there by his valet acting, ‘out of revenge, because he had been beaten by his master.’ Carrington’s killer suffered the full horrors of being broken on the wheel and immolated while still alive.<sup>14</sup> Carrington was buried in the church at St Maclou, where a monument was later erected to his memory.<sup>15</sup> He was succeeded in the peerage by his son, Francis Smith*, as 2nd Baron Carrington.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SMITH, Charles (1635-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>SMITH</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>CARINGTON</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1635–1706)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 7 Apr. 1701 as 3rd Bar. CARRINGTON, and 3rd Visct. Carrington [I] |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 5 July 1635, 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Charles Smith*, Bar. Carrington, and Elizabeth, da. of Sir John Caryll of Harting, Suss., bro. of Francis Smith*, later 2nd Bar. Carrington. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 11 Feb. 1657, Frances (<em>d</em>.1693), da. and coh. of Sir John Pate, bt., of Syonsby, Leics, ?1da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 11 May 1706; <em>will</em> 8 May, pr. 17 May 1706.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Smith succeeded to the peerage on the death of his brother, Francis Smith. A Catholic who was already advanced in years, he was unable to take his seat in the House, and he appears to have exercised little political influence during his brief tenure of the title. On his succession to the peerage he came into the majority of the Warwickshire estates, with the exception of Shottery and Baginton, but these appear to have been seriously depleted before he inherited the barony. Of the remaining family lands, the 2nd baron had left the manor of Ashby Folville in Leicestershire to his widow, Anne, dowager Lady Carrington.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Carrington appears to have suffered from poor health and within a year of inheriting complained of pains in his head and stomach.<sup>5</sup> In 1704 he leased a number of his manors in Shropshire and Warwickshire, and the same year he was present as a witness at the select committee deliberating on Lister’s estate bill.<sup>6</sup> He died two years later, in May 1706. In his will, drawn up a few days previously, he left a number of small bequests to relatives including his nephew, William Hungate, and niece, Elizabeth Smalley, totalling a mere £40 in addition to confirming the payment of his servants’ wages for a year. Hungate, Elizabeth Barnes and a cousin, Henry Eyre, were nominated joint executors. Nichols makes mention of a daughter, who is said to have lived until 1754, but no mention is made of her in the will. The remainder of Carrington’s estates passed to his sister-in-law, Anne, dowager Lady Carrington, and his cousin, Francis Smith of Aston.<sup>7</sup> The existence of a daughter as heir general might explain why no attempt was made by Francis Smith to claim the barony. In the absence of a direct male heir, the peerage became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SMITH, Francis (c. 1621-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>SMITH</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (c. 1621–1701)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Feb. 1665 as 2nd Bar. CARRINGTON (CARINGTON), and 2nd Visct. Carrington [I] |
|
First sat 10 Oct. 1665; last sat 19 Nov. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1621, 1st s. of Charles Smith*, Bar. Carrington, and Anne Elizabeth, da. of Sir John Caryll, bro. of Charles Smith*, later 3rd Bar. Carrington. <em>educ</em>. G. Inn 10 Mar. 1674.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 1652, Juliana (<em>fl</em>.1670), da. of Sir Thomas Walmsley and Juliana Molyneux, <em>s</em>.<em>p.</em>; (2) 23 May 1687, Anne (<em>d</em>.1748), da. of William Herbert*, mq. of Powis, and Elizabeth Somerset, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 7 Apr. 1701;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 18 Jan., pr. 30 Apr. 1701.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt. Worcs. Nov. 1687-Mar. 1689; recorder, Warwick 1687-9.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Carrington succeeded to the peerage following the murder of his father in France in 1665. One of the most prominent Catholic peers in the Midlands, Carrington inherited substantial estates in Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Oxfordshire. His Leicestershire estate of Ashby Folville played host to the largest Catholic community in the county; the Warwickshire estate of Wootton Wawen was valued at £944 a year in 1714.<sup>6</sup> One of Carrington’s sisters, Mary, joined the English canonesses of Liege in 1659, and his younger brother, John, joined the Jesuits four years later.<sup>7</sup> Carrington himself donated substantial sums to English Catholic communities, and he was a signatory to a petition requesting that Catholics be exempted from the penal laws that was presented to the House on 10 June 1661.</p><p>Carrington took his seat on 10 Oct. 1665, after which he was present on just under 58 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to four committees. During the 1666-7 session he was named to the committee considering the bill submitted by his Rutland neighbour, Lady Elizabeth Noel. Although he was present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days in the session, he was named to just one further committee before the prorogation in February 1667.</p><p>Carrington returned to the House for the 1667-9 session on 21 Oct. 1667, after which he was present on approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days. Added to the committee for petitions on 31 Oct., he was named to four further committees during the session, including that named on 7 Dec. to consider the bill to banish Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Carrington attended the 1669 session for 72 per cent of all sitting days and was named to two committees. During the 1670-1 session he was present on 81 days (just under half of all sitting days). He was named to 15 committees in a pattern of activity that may reflect local interests. On 21 Mar. he was named to the committee considering the Deeping Fens bill, and on 28 Mar. he entered his dissent over the resolution to pass the divorce bill of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland). Carrington’s motivation in opposing the divorce may have been religious, but it is also possible that he did so out of loyalty to Lady Roos’ father, Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, with whom Carrington was associated. Two days later Carrington was named to the committee considering a bill to settle the estates of his Warwickshire neighbour, Thomas Leigh*, later 2nd Baron Leigh. On 3 Dec. Carrington was named to the committee considering the bill of James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), and two days later he was added to the committees concerning Leigh’s bill, and that for Edward Ingram, 2nd Viscount Irwin [S]. On 6 Dec. he was also nominated to the committee considering a bill for settling an agreement between his kinsmen, Sir William Smith, Sir Thomas Hooke and others.</p><p>Carrington was absent at the opening of the new session in February 1673, and at a call of the House on 13 Feb. he was noted as being <em>en</em> <em>route</em> to London. He resumed his place two days later, after which he was present on 70 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just two committees. That year Carrington endowed a number of almshouses at Ashby Folville, and on 31 Jan. of the following year (1674), he conveyed lands in Lincolnshire to Dorchester, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, as trustees for the charity.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Carrington attended three of the four days of the brief session of October 1673. He was present on just five days of the 38-day session in 1674 during which he was named to a solitary committee. In advance of the new session, Carrington was listed among those thought likely to support the non-resisting test. He was present on over 80 per cent of all sitting days during the first 1675 session but was again named to just one committee. On 29 Apr. he was listed among those lords who had failed to take the oath of allegiance. He then returned to the House shortly after the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1675 after which he was present on over 85 per cent of all sitting days. Named to six committees, on 20 Nov. he voted in favour of addressing the king to request a dissolution of Parliament and then subscribed the protest following the House’s rejection of the motion.</p><p>Over the next two years, perhaps in response to the policies of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), Carrington appears to have been one of several Catholic peers to become associated with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury.<sup>9</sup> Having taken his seat at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677, he proceeded to attend on approximately three-quarters of all sitting days during which he was named to 24 committees. Absent at a call of the House on 9 Mar., in May he was assessed by the now imprisoned Shaftesbury as a ‘Worthy Papist’ (Shaftesbury appears initially to have noted Carrington as doubly vile, but this was scratched out). Despite this, Carrington also appears to have been closely associated with James*, duke of York, and to have been a member of a prominent Catholic circle that included his kinsman, Charles Fairfax, 5th Viscount Fairfax of Emley [I], and his uncle by marriage, Richard Walmsley.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Carrington took his seat in the new session on 19 June 1678 and was then present on just under 40 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to three committees. He was present on a further ten days during the second session of 1678. On 15 Nov. 1678 Carrington voted against disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament but events soon overtook him. Implicated by William Bedloe as being involved in the Popish Plot, he attended the House for the last time on 19 Nov. to inform the Lords that he had been accused of complicity in the ‘horrid design’ and that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. According to Bedloe, Carrington was to have been responsible for raising £5,000 and a body of men to join with another of the supposed conspirators, John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse. Committed to Black Rod, Carrington was imprisoned briefly in the Tower, but the evidence was soon demonstrated to be unreliable and he was permitted to return to his estates in Oxfordshire.<sup>11</sup> Following the passing of the Test Act, he was disabled from sitting in the House. He may have left the country in December 1678, but on 12 May of the following year he petitioned the House for leave to visit London with his cousin John Smith ‘to perfect a business of great importance to the Lady Smith and her children.’ Permission was granted for him to be in London for one week, and on 22 May Carrington and John Smith sold part of the family estate to Lord Roos for £4,200.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Opportunism arising out of the Popish Plot appears to have been behind Carrington’s involvement in a damaging exchequer case between 1679 and 1683.<sup>13</sup> In May 1674 Carrington had become one of the trustees of Sir Thomas Preston’s extensive estates, following Preston’s departure for the continent to join the Jesuits. Preston’s agreement with Carrington and Carrington’s kinsman, Richard Walmsley, provided for some of the estate’s revenue being made over to the Jesuits. In May 1679 Preston’s protestant cousin, Thomas Preston<sup>‡</sup> of Holker, initiated proceedings claiming that the estates were thereby forfeit.<sup>14</sup> In response, Sir Thomas entered into a new settlement with Carrington, Walmsley and Caryll Molyneux, 3rd Viscount Molyneux [I], establishing them as trustees for the estate until his daughter, Anne Preston, came of age. In spite of Sir Thomas’s attempts to safeguard his property, and Carrington’s argument that he was unaware of his trusteeship, hearings in exchequer between 30 May 1682 and 24 Feb. 1683 established that the initial trust had been ‘for superstitious purposes’ and resulted in the estates being conveyed to the Crown.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Carrington appears to have been experiencing financial difficulties towards the end of Charles II’s reign, Ledwell Park being sold in 1685 or 1686, but the accession of James II offered him the opportunity of recovering his position.<sup>16</sup> Carrington was not able to take his seat in the House in 1685, but in 1686 he was dispensed from the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.<sup>17</sup> The following year he married Lady Anne Herbert. It was perhaps to coincide with his marriage that Carrington undertook substantial improvements on Wootton Hall where tradition held that Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> may have been involved with the building work; the rebuilding seems to have overstretched Carrington’s resources, causing him to lease several of his manors in February 1688.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Although a series of assessments compiled in 1687 concerning peers’ attitudes to repeal of the Test Act and to James II’s policies in general noted Carrington merely as a Catholic, without indicating whether or not he supported the king’s policies, it seems safe to suggest that he was wholeheartedly in favour of repeal. In September he appeared along with ‘all the eminent gentry of our county who were red letter men’ to greet the king during his progress through Warwickshire, and in November of that year he succeeded Thomas Windsor*, earl of Plymouth, as lord lieutenant of Worcestershire. <sup>19</sup> Carrington’s appointment may have owed something to his recent alliance with the Herbert family but was more likely an indication of the king’s desperation in having to select a peer with no obvious connection within the county. Once more noted a Catholic in an assessment of attitudes to repeal of the test at the beginning of 1688, Carrington took an active part in the electioneering of that year.<sup>20</sup> In February he was said to be travelling to Worcestershire to put the three questions, and in May he wrote to his relative, Robert Brent, enclosing a list of suitable candidates to be deputies in the county.<sup>21</sup> Carrington’s connection with Brent, a central figure in James II’s attempts to control the elections, added to his influence, and in September 1688 Carrington’s position was further bolstered with his election as recorder of Warwick.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Such prominence was rapidly eroded by the Revolution. Carrington himself does not appear to have played an active role in opposing William of Orange’s invasion, though one of his relatives took up a commission in the militia.<sup>23</sup> Following William and Mary’s accession, Carrington was put out of all of his offices after which he retreated back into relative obscurity. This did not prevent him from being liable to the general aid voted to the new king and queen in 1689. In September of that year Carrington provided a self-assessment in which he declared that, although he was in expectation of several sums, ‘which are very disparate and uncertain, however I am contented to charge myself with the sum of one thousand pounds personal estate, which according to the intent and words of the act obliges me to pay to you (as collector) three pounds.’<sup>24</sup></p><p>Carrington appears to have become associated with some Jacobite intriguers in the 1690s, notably his mother-in-law, Lady Powis.<sup>25</sup> He attempted direct communication with the exiled court in August 1690, but at least one of his letters was successfully intercepted <em>en</em> <em>route</em> and in 1694 Carrington was one of a number of ‘persons of great quality’ named by the informant James Lunt as supplying the exiled king with money.<sup>26</sup> Carrington did not follow his wife’s family into exile, and in June 1697 he stood surety for £5,000 for his brother-in-law, William Herbert*, still styled Viscount Montgomery despite his father’s death the previous year, since the marquessate was under attainder.<sup>27</sup> Two years later Carrington, acting as agent for his Powis relations, was involved in a lengthy dispute with William Lloyd*, bishop of Lichfield, and Edward Jones*, of St Asaph, over Powis’ lease of a portion of the tithes of several parishes in the bishopric of St Asaph.<sup>28</sup> The timing of the case coincided with a number of clergy in the diocese complaining at Bishop Jones’s corruption, and Carrington was confident that they would benefit from a claim to privilege by one of the bishops (presumably Jones), ‘neither judge nor juries being pleased with those that stand upon privilege.’<sup>29</sup></p><p>Carrington died on 7 Apr. 1701. The title passed to his brother Charles Smith*, 3rd Viscount Carrington [I]. Anne, Lady Carrington, was later rumoured to have secretly married her attorney Kenneth Mackenzie, son of Kenneth Mackenzie, 4th earl of Seaforth [S], one of the executors of Carrington’s will.<sup>30</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SOMERS, John (1651-1716) |
<p><strong><surname>SOMERS</surname></strong> (<strong>SUMMERS</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1651–1716)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>2 Dec. 1697 Bar. SOMERS |
|
First sat 2 May 1693; last sat 27 Jan. 1716 |
|
MP Worcester 1689–23 Mar. 1693 |
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Mar. 1651, o. s. of John Somers, att. of College Churchyard, Worcester, and Catherine, da. of John Severne of Powick, Worcs. <em>educ</em>. King’s sch. Worcester; Sheriff Hales, Salop (Mr John Woodhouse); Walsall g.s. Staffs.; Trinity, Oxf. 1667; M. Temple 1669, called 1676. <em>unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1681. Kntd. 31 Oct. 1689. <em>d</em>. 26 Apr. 1716; <em>admon</em>. 15 May 1716 to his sisters (Elizabeth, w. of Sir Joseph Jekyll<sup>‡</sup>, and Mary, w. of Charles Cocks<sup>‡</sup>).<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Standing counsel to dean and chapter, Worcester 1681; bencher M. Temple 1689, reader 1690, treas.1690–1.</p><p>Solicitor-gen. 1689-May 1692; attorney-gen. May 1692-Mar. 1693; PC 23 Mar. 1693-Mar. 1702, 25 Nov. 1708-<em>d</em>.; ld. kpr. Mar. 1693-7; ld. chan. Apr. 1697-1700; ld. justice 12 May-10 Oct. 1695, 1 May-6 Oct. 1696, 25 Apr.-16 Nov. 1697, 20 July-3 Dec. 1698, 2 June-18 Oct. 1699; ld. pres. 1708-Sept. 1710</p><p>Freeman, Worcester Sept. 1688, Nov. 1688, Gloucester 1688; recorder, Worcester 1688–<em>d</em>., Gloucester 1690–<em>d</em>., Orford by 1692–?; trustee, Droitwich workhouse (later hosp.) 1688, Reigate par. lib. 1708, for poor Palatines 1709; commr. finishing St Paul’s Cathedral 1692, Greenwich Hosp. 1695; gov. Charterhouse by 1696; <em>custos rot.</em> Worcs. Aug. 1715.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. preventing export of wool 1689–92, union with Scotland 1706; chairman, cttee. supply and ways and means 9 Oct. 1690–3.</p><p>Mbr. New England Co. by 1698.</p><p>FRS 1698, pres. 1698–1703.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1700–1710, NPG 490; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1711, NPG 3223.</p> |
<h2><em>Early career</em></h2><p>A man of comparatively humble origins (Jonathan Swift spoke disparagingly of him coming from a ‘very mean’ family) Somers became one of the foremost political leaders of his age. There is some doubt about his date of birth, which is normally given as 1651 but may have been two or three years earlier.<sup>5</sup> The accepted modern spelling of his surname is Somers but in writing his signature he used a macron over the m, indicating that he himself regarded the correct spelling as Sommers. His aloof and studied air of statesmanship enhanced his reputation both with his contemporaries and with whiggishly inclined historians but also serves to obscure his real character and motivations. The destruction of his papers by fire in 1752 hampers matters still further.<sup>6</sup> Although he never married, he is known to have had a number of relationships with women, to the extent that he was regarded as a libertine. By the late 1690s he was commonly believed to be under treatment for syphilis. Delarivier Manley, who was scarcely entitled to take the moral high ground herself, condemned him for his long relationship with Elizabeth Blount, who was married but separated from her husband.<sup>7</sup> The insistence by one of his earliest biographers that Blount was merely a nurse-cum-housekeeper probably belongs more to the realms of hagiography than accurate biography.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Somers was brought up in an atmosphere steeped in opposition politics. His father was a parliamentarian sympathizer who found it sensible to sue for a pardon at the Restoration, while his patron, Sir Francis Winnington<sup>‡</sup>, was an exclusionist who had voted against Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), in 1679.<sup>9</sup> Despite the conventional association between opposition to the policies of the Stuart brothers and Dissent, Somers seems to have been a committed Anglican. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted on 3 Dec. 1702 during the debate on the Occasional Conformity bill that Somers had never been at a conventicle; he also recorded Somers’ presence at Anglican services and as a member of the vestry of St Martin-in-the-Fields.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Somers’ own first involvement in national politics was as a polemicist writing in favour of the Whigs during and immediately after the exclusion crisis.<sup>11</sup> He then lapsed into political obscurity until the trial of the Seven Bishops in 1688, when he acted as junior counsel for the defence. The publicity afforded by the trial may well have been responsible for a report that he had been offered (and refused) the recordership of London.<sup>12</sup> After the Revolution he was elected to the Convention, whence he could foster the election (and careers) of his brothers-in-law, Sir Joseph Jekyll and Charles Cocks. His outstanding talents were rapidly recognized, the more so because, as Swift was later to point out, he was ‘in the highest degree courteous and complaisant’ (unlike many of his Whig colleagues). This was only spoiled, according to Swift, by his rather over-formal manner.<sup>13</sup> Somers played a leading role in devising the bill of rights and was rewarded with rapid advancement.</p><p>His career in the Commons identified Somers as a skilful and reliable politician who could reconcile service to his party with the demands of the king. A key ministerial supporter, he drafted and managed legislation, often acted as a committee chairman (including committees of the whole, supply, and ways and means), directed government prosecutions such as that against Sir Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], who was tried for treason in January 1691, and still managed to find time to maintain an extensive private practice. He was also concerned with aspects of electoral management not just in his home town of Worcester but elsewhere, as in his involvement in the attempt to restore the pre-Revolution charter in Ludlow.<sup>14</sup> A more detailed study of his activities in the Commons appears in the <em>House of Commons, 1690–1715</em>.</p><h2><em>Lord keeper, 1693–7</em></h2><p>Somers’ careful and thoughtful conduct during the difficult 1692–3 session stood him in good stead when the king decided to strengthen his administration. In March 1693 Somers was appointed lord keeper, with a salary of £4,000 a year plus the promise of a pension of £2,000 a year for life after leaving office. At the same time Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup> was appointed secretary of state for the northern department.<sup>15</sup> Somers seems to have been reluctant to accept the keepership, probably because it meant abandoning his lucrative private practice but perhaps also because, having built a considerable reputation in the Commons, he would have no opportunity to build a similar one in the House of Lords.<sup>16</sup> His appointment annoyed the Tories and at least one Whig. The seals had been in commission since the Revolution and Sir Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>, chief baron of the exchequer, who had been appointed acting Speaker of the House of Lords on 19 Oct. 1689, believed that the post ought to have been his. He was so angry that he threatened to resign, although in the event he stayed in office for a further year.<sup>17</sup> The appointment of Somers and Trenchard has been seen by historians as presaging the more marked turn to the Whigs of the following year. His contemporaries also saw the appointment in this light, with one correspondent writing fulsomely about ‘the new life and vigour’ that these appointments would infuse into the king’s affairs and the extent to which they would draw the Whigs into supporting the ministry for ‘the Whigs have no reason to fear a court which Dr Tillotson [John Tillotson*, archbishop of Canterbury], Sir John Somers and Sir John Trenchard are willing to serve’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>It was perhaps just as well that Somers had a reputation for civility, since almost his first act as lord keeper was to argue with the king over the issue of judicial appointments. On his departure for Flanders William III had left instructions for three appointments: Sir William Rawlinson to succeed as chief baron, Sir William Wogan<sup>‡</sup> as chief justice of Chester and Edward Ward as attorney general. Somers and his fellow Whigs wanted the solicitor general, Sir Thomas Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, to succeed as attorney general and it was an open secret that the king had promised this. Somers stressed that his objections to the king’s appointments had nothing to do with the individuals themselves for ‘it has been to the honour of your reign that your judges have been men of known ability’. Rather it was, as Somers pointed out, part and parcel of the political functions of the lord keeper to dispense legal patronage. This enabled him to command the loyalty of lawyers who ‘were spread over every part of the kingdom’ and exercised great influence. Such patronage:</p><blockquote><p>has always given weight to that office in public affairs; and, if I understand you aright, making the Great Seal thus considerable was one of the effects you expected from placing it in a single hand; but I submit it to you how far it is likely to succeed, or any other of your Majesty’s ends to be answered, when such eminent offices are disposed of in such a manner at my entrance upon this charge. … This being the case let me offer it to your consideration whether if the passing of these patents must be the first use I am to make of the seal it can be supposed I have that credit which ought to go with it, and without which it is impossible it should reach what you aimed at in this change.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somers’ threatened resignation was not accepted, and the king refused to back down on the appointment of Ward, although Rawlinson’s appointment was not proceeded with, Atkyns having agreed to stay on as chief baron. Trevor’s promised appointment as attorney general was postponed for nearly two years.</p><p>If Somers felt any lingering resentment it did not stop him from joining in the attempts of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to secure the support of the Commons for the proposed new excise. He was nevertheless embarrassed by Sunderland’s attempt to discipline the maverick John Granville*, later Baron Granville of Potheridge, by preventing the renewal of the commissions for the lord lieutenancies of Devon and Cornwall to Granville’s father, also named John Granville*, earl of Bath. Sunderland pressurized Somers to block the renewals, while Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, questioned the delay. Bath added to Somers’ difficulties by pointing out that without the commissions he would be unable to assemble the militia in case of necessity – a serious issue given the international situation.<sup>20</sup> There were also personal factors to take into account: Somers had been counsel for Bath in his fight over the Albemarle inheritance and, despite their very different political outlooks, the two men remained on good terms. Somers sealed the commissions.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Throughout 1693 Somers was active in helping to secure loans from the City, and even before Nottingham’s fall from office in November 1693 he had become a central figure in the ministry. As lord keeper he attended the House assiduously and was rarely absent. John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), deputized for him at three sittings in late November/early December 1694 when Somers had hurt his head in a fall from his chair.<sup>22</sup> Sir George Treby<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Edward Ward deputized for him at the prorogation days in the summer of 1695 when he was incapacitated from acting by virtue of his appointment to the regency; he was also ill.<sup>23</sup> His longest absence was early in 1696. On 31 Jan. 1696 the House was informed that Somers was indisposed and that Treby would deputize for him. Somers, who was apparently too sick to leave his house, did not return to the woolsack until 10 Mar. 1696.<sup>24</sup> His inability to attend to his duties coincided with a similar absence from public life, also through illness, of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and, according to at least one observer, this left the field clear for the duke of Leeds (as Danby had become) to gain ground in both Houses of Parliament.<sup>25</sup> Somers’ appointment to the regency again made it necessary to appoint deputies in the summer of 1696 and 1697.</p><p>Since Somers’ appointment as lord keeper meant that he was banished from the Commons but was not yet a member of the House of Lords, his parliamentary influence, despite his exemplary attendance, was necessarily indirect and, given the poor survival of his papers, difficult to trace. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> thought Somers ‘carries himself very discreetly in his place’.<sup>26</sup> Yet a letter from the <em>soi-disant</em> Lady Purbeck suggests that Somers had something of a reputation for petty-mindedness. She had apparently been told that an attempt to appeal one of Somers’ decrees in chancery to the House of Lords meant that ‘we must expect severe usage from your lordship’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>As one of the leading politicians of the group that came to be known as the Junto, Somers certainly exercised considerable political influence. In acknowledgment of his prominent role, it was sometimes referred to as the Summerian Whigs.<sup>28</sup> He was also one of the inner circle of ministers who helped draft the king’s speech to Parliament.<sup>29</sup> Despite the initial setback over nominations to senior legal positions he was later regularly involved in discussions about appointments to legal and other offices, including ecclesiastical ones, and made his recommendations with an eye to parliamentary management. So extensive were his powers of patronage that after a short bout of illness in the summer of 1697 his doctor advised him that the need for rest precluded a visit to the then fashionable spa town of Tunbridge Wells because he would be plagued by ‘multitudes of visitors and crowds of earnest solicitors’.<sup>30</sup> He was instrumental in encouraging Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, to intercede with the king to secure a place as teller of the exchequer for Guy Palmes, the son of William Palmes<sup>‡</sup>, whose assistance was considered crucial to the management of the Commons.<sup>31</sup> He was also able to exploit his office in order to control the composition of local commissions of the peace, which he was ready and willing to alter according to the king’s commands and which he went on remodelling to favour Whig allies throughout his term of office.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Deputy lieutenants also came within Somers’ purview, and purges went hand in hand with exhortation. Government policies and requests to examine carefully the activities of justices and other local officials were communicated via Somers’ addresses to the judges before they travelled their circuits.<sup>33</sup> He assisted Portland in the management of intelligence.<sup>34</sup> He also used his local correspondents to acquire information of his own, as when Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, reported that Thomas Ken*, the former bishop of Bath and Wells, ‘or some other of that clan’ had been visiting ‘most of the non-swearers’ houses in Herefordshire and adjacent places’.<sup>35</sup> Furthermore, among the remnants of Somers’ papers are some that suggest that he held a watching brief over affairs in Ireland. It was not simply a question of dealing with disaffection in Ireland but, particularly in the troublesome period that followed the appointment of Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney, as lord lieutenant, of taking steps to ensure that Irish political quarrels should not be allowed to spill over into the English Parliament.<sup>36</sup> Finally, his position as Speaker of the House conferred power over the day-to-day conduct of business and with it the ability to assist, discourage or thwart those who brought petitions, bills and appeals before the House.</p><p>Somers was closely involved in the various extra parliamentary social activities centring on the Kit Kat Club, race meetings and country-house gatherings that helped cement Whig relationships. His direct electoral influence was limited, being largely restricted to Worcestershire and, after 1697, in Reigate, where, as lord of the manor, he ensured that burgage votes were distributed among loyal supporters of the Junto. Nevertheless his key position within the ministry and the patronage opportunities provided by his office, coupled with his political and social contacts, ensured that he was able to offer considerable support to his political allies and build up something of a parliamentary following of his own. He was involved in the selection of suitable candidates and was kept informed about electoral prospects throughout the country.<sup>37</sup> He corresponded with Sir George Treby about the possibility of abolishing the palatinate of Lancaster.<sup>38</sup> He also played a role in framing new charters, such as those for Tewkesbury and Plymouth issued in the summer of 1696.<sup>39</sup> In a conscious reference to the practices of parliamentary management of the Tory reaction, Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup>, who became recorder of Plymouth for life under the new charter there, became known as ‘the regulator’.<sup>40</sup> Drake worked closely with Somers in favour of ‘the friends of the government’ and to undermine Bath’s influence, and also managed Bere Alston and Tavistock in the Whig interest.<sup>41</sup> By 1698 Somers’ allies in the Commons included his two brothers-in-law, Charles Cocks and Joseph Jekyll, and clients or friends such as William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, William Cowper*, later Earl Cowper, Richard Dowdeswell<sup>‡</sup>, Stephen Harvey<sup>‡</sup>, John Rudge<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Thurland<sup>‡</sup> and William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Rumours that Somers was to be raised to the peerage circulated at the same time as Nottingham’s dismissal in November 1693.<sup>42</sup> It was said that a barony had been offered but that Somers had refused it because he did not think his estate would support such a dignity.<sup>43</sup> He was again offered and (despite considerable pressure) refused a barony in 1695.<sup>44</sup> Public perceptions of his centrality to the ministry meant that in July 1696 his abrupt departure from a church service in response to a summons from the newly returned Portland spurred a host of rumours, including one that the king had been killed in action.<sup>45</sup></p><p>During 1696 Somers was at the heart of the decision to bring Sir John Fenwick’s<sup>‡</sup> confession to the attention of the Commons and the associated resolution to proceed against him by an act of attainder. Somers was well aware that the evidence against Fenwick was insufficient to procure a conviction in an ordinary court; he was clearly involved in the backstage management of the proceedings, even hosting meetings at his own residence and on at least one occasion spending time with Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), at the request of Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, who wanted Monmouth ‘in good humour’.<sup>46</sup> In the Commons his protégé Cowper exerted his considerable talents in favour of the bill. In the Lords, Somers was responsible for enforcing the decision of the House that all peers be summoned on pain of imprisonment for failure to attend. As the arbiter of procedure he must have suggested or at the very least approved the decision that the passage of the bill was to be facilitated by the virtually unprecedented relaxation of the House’s rules that permitted peers to enter their protests when next in the House. Some 50 peers signed the protest on their return to the chamber, one as late as 26 Feb. 1697.<sup>47</sup> The dispensation enabled the bill to be passed on the last day before the House rose for the Christmas recess. Even so, it scraped through its third reading by only seven votes.</p><p>If, as seems likely, one of the objectives of the Fenwick affair was to secure evidence against Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and William Herbert*, 2nd marquess of Powis, whose father (also William Herbert*, marquess of Powis) had been chamberlain at James II’s exiled court, the prosecution was a lamentable failure. It also provided the opportunity for a smear campaign against Shrewsbury.<sup>48</sup> Ailesbury, who regarded Somers as his ‘greatest enemy’, was not surprised to be told that the latter could barely conceal his rage when he realized that Ailesbury would have to be released from prison.<sup>49</sup> Somers may well have been behind another piece of legal chicanery. Powis’s father, the 1st marquess, had been outlawed in 1690, putting the entire Powis estate at the mercy of the crown. Dangling a possible restoration of the family lands in return for good behaviour proved to be an extremely effective way of neutralizing the son, who had inherited on his father’s death in July 1696.</p><h2><em>Lord chancellor, 1697–1700</em></h2><p>In April 1697 Somers was appointed lord chancellor. At the same time, arrangements were made for him to be granted an additional source of income in the form of two Surrey manors and some £2,000 worth of fee-farm rents, a transparent inducement to him to accept a peerage and which would later become the subject of allegations of corruption. When Somers realized that his own grant of fee-farm rents clashed with that of the king’s favourite, Portland, he delayed acceptance.<sup>50</sup> Perhaps this also delayed his peerage, for his letters patent were not issued until the following December. In the meantime his earlier support for the appointment of Guy Palmes as a teller caused a minor political crisis among the lords justices when Somers tried to block Sunderland’s attempt to remove Palmes after it was revealed that there was a shortage in his accounts.<sup>51</sup> Rivalry between Sunderland and Somers, who ‘do not set their horses together’, was symptomatic of increasing ministerial disarray: although Somers’ elevation to a peerage suggests that he still had the king’s confidence, there were already rumours to the contrary; Sunderland, despite protestations of support, was said to distrust Somers and his Junto allies and to be attempting to have Somers replaced as chancellor by Sir Thomas Powys<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Somers took his seat as a peer on 14 Dec. 1697, introduced between Charles Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley, sitting as Baron Berkeley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), and Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. His attendance continued to be assiduous but his contribution to the business of the House is no easier to trace as chancellor than as lord keeper. He almost immediately received proxies from Shrewsbury (30 Dec.) and Portland (8 Jan. 1698). On 7 Jan. 1698 the House appointed a committee to consider the proper methods of appealing from the Irish court of chancery in response to the attempt of the Ulster Society (Irish Society of London) to overturn a decision in favour of their opponent William King, bishop of Londonderry, on an appeal from the Irish court of chancery to the Irish House of Lords. Somers was not a member of the committee but had strong views on the subject. When the committee reported on 15 Jan. he told the House that the Irish House of Lords’ decision to hear the appeal was an ‘encroachment’ and an ‘invasion of the rights of England and a breach of Poynings’ Law’. King’s allies, led from the Commons by John Methuen<sup>‡</sup>, lord chancellor of Ireland, only managed to prevent the matter going to a vote by carrying a question for an adjournment. Methuen then embarked on a campaign of behind-the-scenes lobbying. By early March he was able to report that he had had ‘good success with many of the most considerable Lords’ and that Somers ‘continues to favour us in everything’. It is not clear what the basis was for Methuen’s opinion, as Somers was indisposed and unable to attend either the House or the king for almost the whole of February. His activities when he returned to the House did not endear him to the king. He supported the woollen bill, whose objective was to suppress the Irish trade, although according to Methuen the king himself opposed it and had wanted it rejected out of hand. Methuen’s opinion of Somers’ attitude to Ireland and Irish affairs seems to have changed on an almost daily basis; sometimes he thought that Somers was sympathetic, sometimes he seems to have become convinced of Somers’ duplicity. Methuen’s various interviews with William III suggested that the king and Somers were at odds and that the king ‘did not entirely approve my lord chancellor’s notions about our [Irish] affairs’.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Internecine fighting between ministers continued; in March 1698 Somers was forecast to be in favour of the second reading of the bill to punish Sunderland’s ally, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He was also named to the committee on the bill and on 5 Mar. as one of the managers of the two conferences held on 7 March. On 20 Apr. Somers’ contribution to the debate on the first reading of the act sent up by the Commons for giving time to those who had failed to qualify themselves for office was decisive in ensuring that it be rejected. The purpose of the bill was to rescue those excise commissioners, such as Foot Onslow<sup>‡</sup>, who had omitted to qualify themselves under the Test Acts. Somers:</p><blockquote><p>spoke against it as if it were undermining the greatest security we had against popery and as that law had never yet been touched or weakened in Parliament he hoped they would continue it in its native strength, which the whole House consented to and the bill was rejected without opposition.<sup>54</sup></p></blockquote><p>It was feared that the rejection of the bill might, if followed by a bill of the Lords’ own devising, create opposition in the Commons. The standing of the Junto was now sufficiently shaky for the king to find it necessary to speak ‘in particular’ to Somers, and to his Junto allies Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, and Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, ‘for the removing any suspicions as if he were altered towards them, and for putting the public business into a quicker motion’.<sup>55</sup> In May Methuen somewhat waspishly referred to members of the Junto as ‘the only persons that are at present in the management of affairs, if it may be said that anything is managed’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Somers tried to convince the king that he could mend his affairs by appointing Wharton, stressing ‘the necessity of taking men of business into his service, which could not be carried on, as things now stood’.<sup>57</sup> According to Methuen it was Somers and the Junto Whigs who persuaded him to lay William Molyneux’s <em>The Case of Ireland’s Being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England</em> before the Commons in order to defuse demands for an investigation into affairs in Ireland but in reality ‘to give an occasion to fall upon Ireland and put a difficulty upon the king’s affairs’.<sup>58</sup> Not surprisingly, ‘The effect of this book was seen with the Lords’, who resumed consideration of <em>Ulster Society v. Derry</em> on 20 May 1698 and decisively rejected the claim of its Irish counterpart to an appellate jurisdiction. Although the House appointed a committee (headed by Somers) to draw up a formal order recording its decision, it seems that Somers was still playing some sort of double game. The order was drawn up and approved on 24 May, although Methuen had reported three days earlier that:</p><blockquote><p>I have with much ado, with the assistance of my lord chancellor, prevailed to let the matter rest there and hindered the Lords from sending their order to the government to see it executed, having by this means left it in the power of the parties, and indeed of the bishop [of Derry] himself, to compose the matter that no notice need be taken in Ireland of this matter.<sup>59</sup></p></blockquote><p>Matters then deteriorated still further when ‘the friends of my lord chancellor set on foot a matter much worse’ and the Commons sent for all the bills passed in Ireland since the Revolution, ‘pretending to find great faults and breaches of Poynings’ Law … my lord chancellor is deeply engaged in it & these gentlemen speak his very words’. Somers was also expected to stir the pot still further by bringing Molyneux’s book to the attention of the upper House.<sup>60</sup> On 28 June he was named as a manager of the conference on the impeachment of John Goudet and others. Further controversy erupted in June over the East India bill, leading Somers to press his Junto ally Wharton to be sure to attend the House, for ‘the agitation against it is very great’ and the bill was in danger of failing.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Over the spring and the summer recess of 1698 Somers was active in planning tactics for the forthcoming election.<sup>62</sup> It was noted that he and Montagu, together with ‘other persons of note’, had been visiting Orford at his country house incognito.<sup>63</sup> Somers also took the opportunity to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the Irish, assuring Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], of his sympathy towards Irish issues and implicitly excusing his previous apparent opposition by suggesting that Irish bills transmitted to England needed to be more carefully scrutinized so ‘as not to leave room for so many objections, as were made last year, which were of that nature, that I may without vanity pretend they would never have been got over without my help’.<sup>64</sup> Politics aside, Somers was also involved as an intermediary for Bath in his attempts to petition the king for the dukedom of Albemarle and other benefits which he claimed to be owing to him. His correspondence with Bath continued into the autumn and, despite their apparent political differences, Bath expressed considerable gratitude for Somers’ good offices both as counsel, as chancellor and as Speaker of the House in the long-running dispute over the Albemarle inheritance.<sup>65</sup> Since one of Somers’ first acts as chancellor in the autumn of 1693 had been to deliver a somewhat bizarre verdict in favour of Bath, Bath had good reason to be grateful.</p><p>Almost contemporaneously with his correspondence with Bath, Somers received the first notification from the king of the negotiations for what became known as the First Partition Treaty. He arranged for James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> to communicate the terms of the treaty to Orford, Montagu and Shrewsbury.<sup>66</sup> He was thus able to respond on behalf of them all when he replied to the king at the end of August 1698. The collective response welcomed peace, since the country was experiencing war fatigue, but queried the sincerity of the French and criticized some specific details. The king’s pre-eminent role in foreign affairs, coupled with his superior knowledge, meant that they were, however, prepared to leave it to him to agree ‘that which is most safe and prudent’.<sup>67</sup> Given the urgency of the situation – as the king of Spain was thought to be in imminent danger of death – Somers also sealed a blank commission in response to the king’s request. He subsequently sought and obtained a formal warrant from the king – an admission perhaps that this way of proceeding was indeed irregular and possibly illegal, as would later be alleged in the impeachment proceedings against him.<sup>68</sup> Quite why a warrant could not have been used in the first place or why the king required a blank commission remains something of a mystery, since it must have been obvious that the most likely commissioners were Portland and Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, who did indeed sign the treaty in September 1698 on behalf of the crown.</p><p>As the new Parliament assembled, Somers played a conciliatory role in the negotiations over the choice of a possible Speaker for the Commons, acting to protect Secretary James Vernon from allegations of caballing with the Tories.<sup>69</sup> Such were the tensions among the Whigs that he believed that if the Tories ‘were capable of uniting, I take it for granted, the Whigs would, long since, have been laid aside’.<sup>70</sup> Irish matters continued to cause problems. In December Somers warned the lord justice of Ireland, Galway, against any attempt to revive discussion of <em>Ulster Society v. Derry</em> for ‘if that business comes to be stirred in the House of Lords here I will not answer what may ensue’. He himself took steps to prevent discussion of the issue while the Irish parliament was sitting. He also warned of the revival of the woollen bill and, acknowledging the hostile reception that this would receive in Ireland, instructed Galway to hasten the passage of money bills in Ireland, offering to facilitate this by delaying the work of the committee in the Commons and any possible complaint in the Lords.<sup>71</sup></p><p>The advent of peace had led to increasingly vociferous demands for demobilization. Accordingly, the Commons voted in December 1698 for the disbandment of the army, including William’s Dutch guards. The king, more aware than his subjects of the fragility of the peace and deeply upset by what he perceived as ingratitude, began to talk of retiring from England. Somers, initially sceptical of the king’s intentions, was soon convinced that his master was in earnest and became involved in attempts to persuade Members of the Commons to reject or amend their bill. He was also said to be prepared to advance £10,000 towards the necessary loan.<sup>72</sup> As the author of a propaganda pamphlet against disbanding the army, his opposition to the measure was well known, but the addition of a clause concerning finance turned it into a money bill so that rejection by the Lords was likely to precipitate a rupture with the Commons.<sup>73</sup> Somers was left with no option but to advocate that the bill pass. His speech to that effect was received with ‘universal applause’ and the bill passed without a division on 31 Jan. 1699.<sup>74</sup> A long conference between the king and Somers then resulted in a speech delivered to the House on 1 Feb. in which the king accepted the bill but asked for a compromise that would enable him to keep his Dutch guards.</p><p>The question of the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords continued to trouble king, chancellor and Parliament. By his own account Somers appears to have gone to considerable lengths to defuse the issues raised by <em>Ulster Society v. Derry</em>, using his influence both in the House and with the Ulster Society itself, but his efforts were undone when on 11 Feb. 1699 the case of <em>Ward v. Meath</em> ‘unhappily renewed the whole controversy’. Ordered on 14 Feb. to write to the lords justices about the matter, Somers notified Galway of the need for a speedy expedient to avoid controversy.<sup>75</sup> When the case was heard on 29 Apr. the House again ruled that the Irish House of Lords was not competent to hear appeals from the Irish chancery. On 27 Feb. Somers reprimanded the printer responsible for the publication of <em>Cases in Parliament resolved and adjudged, upon Petitions and Writs of Error</em> and the House ordered that:</p><blockquote><p>it is a breach of the privilege of this House, for any person whatsoever to print, or publish in print, any thing relating to the proceedings of this House, without the leave of this House; and that the said Order be added to the Standing Orders, and set on the doors of this House.</p></blockquote><p>The entry in the Journal implies that this was merely a protection of the privileges of the House but other sources indicate that at least part of the reason was the claim that the printed cases were ‘imperfectly taken’.<sup>76</sup> Given that the assembled peers voted without giving reasons for their decisions, the value of such a publication for jurists must have been limited.</p><p>As the Junto weakened, so the political attacks on its members intensified. Somers was now accused of unjustly enriching himself by means of the fee-farm rents granted to him. He was clearly not above using his position to reward his supporters. In March 1699 he wrote to John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, thanking him for his ‘repeated favours in respect to the clamours very unjustly endeavoured to be raised upon the account of the fee farm rents’ and telling him that the House had agreed to extend the time for Lonsdale to put in an answer to an appeal, although ‘it seemed not to be very well taken that the first time was not complied with’.<sup>77</sup> That same month he presided over the trials of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, both of whom were charged with murder.</p><p>The political situation was now such that Somers could scarcely afford to be absent from his duties or from assiduous attendance on the king but illness kept him from the woolsack on 1 Apr. 1699; apart from a brief reappearance on 18 and 19 Apr. – almost certainly motivated by the need to deal with further developments in the case of <em>Ulster Society v. Derry</em> – he was away from the House until the penultimate day of the session (3 May). Over the next month gossip and rumours about the future of the Junto and of the structure of the ministry abounded but Somers seems to have been most worried about the continuing political fallout over Irish appeals caused by the refusal of Bishop King to obey the orders of the English House of Lords. King’s actions had led to an order of the House for his arrest. Somers claimed that, but for his absence through illness, he might have been able to mitigate the effect of the order and told Galway that ‘the House of Lords here take that business so high that I fear, unless what they have ordered be complied with, it will scarce be practicable to have a session’.</p><p>Matters were so serious that Somers involved Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, and Narcissus Marsh, archbishop of Dublin, in an attempt to persuade King to give up his case and was personally involved in mediating the matter with the Ulster Society. Insisting that he was not issuing instructions to either Galway or Methuen, and recognizing that King was ‘a very difficult man to be persuaded’, he nevertheless made it clear that the matter had to be resolved outside Parliament for fear of the Lords’ ‘zeal for their judicature … and it is in the power of everybody to stir it’. <sup>78</sup> In the event, Methuen must have worked hard to find a solution behind the scenes for on 29 Nov. 1699 he reported that neither the bishop of Derry nor the earl of Meath had taken any action to pursue their claims and that the Ulster Society and Edward Ward were in possession of the disputed lands. The dispute was eventually settled not in court but by a piece of legislation that received the royal assent in December 1704 in the English rather than the Irish parliament. Somers’ role in encouraging such a solution is unknown but the act in question began in the upper House and it seems likely that he did have some role in promoting it.</p><p>Somers was again ill over the 1699 summer recess and missed the three prorogation days in July, August and September. In August, after a summer that had seen the resignation of Orford, Somers planned to visit Bath, where James Vernon tried to arrange a meeting between him and Shrewsbury, telling Portland that ‘[these] two meeting would be of more significancy than if half a dozen more were added to them’. In the event Somers and Montagu visited Orford at Chippenham instead, provoking much curiosity about their motives. Some thought that ‘the d[uke] of Shrewsbury may have been the subject of their conferences, as if they were in doubt whether he were sufficiently attached to them, and some fancy they might have it under consideration whether it were most advisable to have a new parliament’. Negotiations between senior politicians continued throughout the month. Although Somers left for Tunbridge Wells just as Shrewsbury and Montagu (who had spent some time together at Winchendon) came up to London, Vernon had no doubt that Shrewsbury and Somers would meet and that ‘so many meetings will produce resolutions and measures that may be of public benefit’.<sup>79</sup> An unknown observer of the political scene told William Johnston*, earl (later marquess) of Annandale [S], that Somers was not only ‘a great stay to the government … by his moderate and sober advices’ but was responsible for persuading the king not to dissolve parliament, telling him that a new one would be worse.<sup>80</sup></p><p>The 1699–1700 session started badly for the ministry and especially for Somers. On 28 Nov. 1699, in a transparent attack on the chancellor, the Commons voted to examine all proceedings relating to charters issued during the reign and set up a committee to inspect commissions of the peace and commissions to deputy lieutenants for the previous seven years. The demand made the same day for a proclamation for the suppression of vice and immorality and for a bill against gaming and duelling also reflected Tory demands. The decision to discuss the country’s present trade in a committee of the whole was to prove even more threatening. Attempts to rally the Whigs behind the chancellor did little to prevent the Tory onslaught. On 2 Dec. 1699 the discussion of trade in a committee of the whole in the Commons centred on the depredations of Captain Kidd and resulted in a request for a copy of his commission and other papers, including the complaints of the merchants about his piracies.<sup>81</sup> Somers, who had not only sealed the commission after the admiralty had proved reluctant to fund Kidd’s expedition but was also one of Kidd’s backers and thus stood to profit from his activities, was clearly one of the targets, alongside other high-profile members of the Junto.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Somers’ health may still have been fragile, as he was absent from the House for three days in mid-January 1700. He was, however, able to return to Parliament for the hearings of 19–23 Jan. in the <em>Bankers’</em> case (<em>Williamson v. Regem in error</em>), in which questions of parliamentary supremacy, fiscal policy and sovereign immunity collided with each other and which raised more than a suspicion of Somers’ willingness to manipulate the law for political purposes. The case arose from the crown’s default on payments to a group of bankers (repaying loans made in 1667) as a result of the stop of the exchequer in 1672. The bankers had made various attempts to recover their loans and arrears of interest since that time but in 1690 turned to the court of exchequer for redress. A judgment in their favour was issued in 1692. Matters of law and principle apart, this was a serious blow to the crown’s finances as by the 1690s the debt amounted to some £2 million. Sir George Treby, then attorney general, and Somers, then solicitor general, had opposed the claim on behalf of the crown but had been overruled. By the time the crown appealed the decision, Somers was lord chancellor and thus sat in judgment on the validity of a decree that he had personally opposed. He was assisted by the common law judges, who now also included Treby. Treby and Somers agreed that the decision should be overturned; almost all the remaining judges, including Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, disagreed but Somers was not bound to take their advice. In 1696, using an elaborate and sophisticated argument to mask what might otherwise have been seen as a politically motivated decision, he overturned the verdict, releasing the crown from any obligation to repay the bankers. The decision of the House on 23 Jan. 1700 to follow the advice of the judges and reverse Somers’ decree was a severe blow to his prestige as chancellor and to his reputation as a lawyer, as well as to his usefulness to the king. ‘These things with other concomitants are observed to have provoked the king to more than a usual degree of expressing himself in angry manner.’<sup>83</sup> Even in the short term, however, the financial disaster for the crown was averted by legislation passed in 1701.<sup>84</sup></p><p>On 1 Feb. 1700 Somers voted against adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the East India Company bill. In February he was again the target of an attack during a debate on the state of the nation in the Commons, but the attempt failed when the Whigs and even a few Tories rallied to his support, extolling ‘his boundless merit’.<sup>85</sup> In mid-February he called on the assistance and advice of Treby before deciding whether to permit a writ of error to be heard in the Lords in the case of the deprivation of Thomas Watson* as bishop of St Davids, even though he recognized that Treby’s previous involvement in the case as one of the delegates meant that it would be improper for him to be involved in an official capacity.<sup>86</sup> Attacks in the Commons continued. Somers was absent from the House from 2 to 9 Mar. and so was not present when the House refused to consider Watson’s case; he was again absent from 21 to 25 Mar. and then sat on the woolsack for just three days before a further lengthy absence from 1 Apr. until the close of the session on 11 April. He was described during this period as ‘very sick’.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Somers had offered to resign at or near Christmas 1699 but when William III sent Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, to take the seals from him he refused to comply without an express warrant from the king; he was formally dismissed on 27 Apr. 1700. The legal establishment was horrified, partly because, despite setbacks, Somers’ reputation as a lawyer and judge remained high but perhaps more significantly because his dismissal in the middle of the term created chaos in the courts. Finding a replacement proved to be extremely difficult. Sir Thomas Trevor and Chief Justice Holt both refused to take the seals, Holt doing so twice. Other candidates mentioned (and possibly even approached) included Methuen, Sir Thomas Powys, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> and Nottingham.<sup>88</sup> There may even have been a plan to put the office into commission with a view to Somers resuming the place later in the year, though Vernon feared that Somers would not be amenable to returning to office. Nothing came of this, and it was nearly a month before Nathan Wright was finally appointed lord keeper.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Somers’ sister Mary Cocks welcomed his loss of office, pointing out that his poor health was the result of ‘the constant fatigue’ of his post.<sup>90</sup> For his part, Somers insisted that ‘I neither do nor ever will meddle with public affairs, nor have the least resentment imaginable against any persons who may be imagined to have been most active in getting me displaced’, although he admitted that ‘it is very hard to convince men that it is so’.<sup>91</sup> Despite his protestations about leaving public life, he and his Junto colleagues had a private meeting in mid-June in order to plan their tactics for an attack on Sunderland in the next parliamentary session, and also held several follow-up meetings.<sup>92</sup> Harley and his allies were similarly meeting in order to negotiate a ministerial reconstruction and were successful in persuading the king to dissolve Parliament.</p><h2><em>Impeachment, 1701</em></h2><p>The new Parliament met early in 1701; during its only session Somers was present on 86 per cent of sitting days. His weakened position was immediately apparent when Sir Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup>, regarded by some as his candidate for the speakership, was overwhelmingly defeated in favour of Harley.<sup>93</sup> On 27 Feb. Somers was one of four peers named by James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, to attempt a reconciliation between him and his wife, and in March he was named as one of three referees to mediate in the dispute between Nathaniel Fiennes*, 4th Viscount Saye and Sele, and his stepmother.<sup>94</sup> That same month a debate in the Commons that resulted in a vote in favour of the legality of Kidd’s patent was said to have ‘set my Lords Somers and Oxford [Orford] pretty high again’.<sup>95</sup> The respite was short-lived. In the course of its investigations into the conduct of Portland the Commons voted by a narrow majority (189 to 182) that Somers was guilty for fixing the seal to the partition treaty.<sup>96</sup> In April he was named as one of the managers of all three conferences on the subject of the partition treaties.<sup>97</sup> On 15 Apr. he appeared before the Commons in order to defend himself. He was reported to have made ‘a noble defence of himself’ and to have ‘spoke very finely’, even producing a copy of his own letter to the king advising him against the treaty; but he did not, it seems, speak finely enough.<sup>98</sup> A motion to impeach him was passed by a majority of either 10 or 11 votes and was followed by similar motions against Orford and Halifax (as Montagu had since become). The decisions were communicated to the Lords on 15 April.<sup>99</sup></p><p>If a letter to Somers from his brother-in-law Sir Joseph Jekyll can be taken at face value, the impeachment was greeted with popular indignation.<sup>100</sup> It also created considerable scope for argument over procedural niceties. The Commons’ bias against Somers and the Whig peers was self-evident in the actions of Speaker Harley, who prevented an attempt to consider the possibility of impeaching the Tory Jersey, proving, as Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> put it, that ‘malice knows no rules nor seasons’.<sup>101</sup> The articles of impeachment were delivered to the House on 19 May 1701. The first six concentrated on procedural and other errors involved in the sealing of the partition treaties, accusing Somers of having failed in his duty to obstruct the partition treaty and to advise the king against it, of having sealed a blank commission without a lawful warrant and of having failed to consult with the Privy Council or to enrol the treaty in chancery. He was accused of passing exorbitant grants of lands in Ireland and of using his position to amass grants of lands and fee-farm rents to himself. He was also charged with misconduct in the issuing of Captain Kidd’s patent and of corruption in office.</p><p>Somers denied all charges and after much wrangling was acquitted on 17 June, when the Commons, rushed by the Lords, failed to present any evidence against him. Bonfires in the City suggested popular support for Somers.<sup>102</sup> The political nation, or rather that part of it that shared country and/or Tory allegiances, considered it to be a major constitutional issue: ‘the cause of my Lord Somers against all the gentlemen of England’, said Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke. He went on to complain:</p><blockquote><p>that never man behaved himself with that insolence this little fellow has done upon this occasion He was the chief manager of the debate concerning himself and not content to have penned with the assistance of Jekyll and Clarke all the messages and answers which have been sent down to our House ’twas he that framed the question of his own acquittal, and be pleased to observe what an odd sort of question it was. <em>That John Ld Somers be acquitted of the charge exhibited against him, and all the crimes therein contained, and that this impeachment be dismissed</em>, and then content or not content, so that if the first carried he was acquitted, if the last he was but <em>in statu quo</em>, he might be discharged, he could not be condemned. And all this done without hearing any evidence to those facts he denies in his answer or judging whether those he has confessed be crimes or not. I believe no age can parallel such proceedings as these are.<sup>103</sup></p></blockquote><p>Harley was equally appalled, considering that Somers’ replication amounted to a confession, that the acquittal was unparliamentary and that it laid the basis for future oppression ‘by rendering all impeachments impracticable’.<sup>104</sup> Somers’ enemies in the Commons were convinced that the peers had ‘refused justice … by proceeding to a pretended trial’.<sup>105</sup> The verdict even worried John Evelyn, who recorded in his diary that ‘it was very unseasonable in this perilous conjuncture’ and noted that all the holders of great offices had joined the protest against the result.<sup>106</sup></p><p>The strain of the trial evidently affected Somers’ health but this did not prevent his involvement in electioneering over the summer. His experiences at the hands of the Commons proved to be an electoral asset. George Martin told Somers that ‘the whole country are your friends’, while Jekyll reported that William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, had specifically mentioned ‘the hardship of your lordship’s case at a meeting of his clergy’.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Somers’ attendance during the second 1701 Parliament fell to 71 per cent of all sitting days. Nearly half of his absences were concentrated in January 1702; his response to a call of the House on 5 Jan. indicates that he was again ill. On 6 and 11 Feb. he acted as one of the managers of the conferences on the bill for the attainder of the pretended Prince of Wales. On 26 Feb. he also reported from the committee considering the bill for Job Marston’s charity. Despite his fall from power, his influence with the king still seems to have been high, for that same month he acted as intermediary for John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland, in his quest for a dukedom.<sup>108</sup> The dukedom was eventually granted by Anne in 1703 but within a week of the king’s death in March 1702 it was noted that Somers and the other impeached lords were no longer summoned to the Council.<sup>109</sup> During February and March he chaired several meetings of the committee considering the bill for the creation of Worcester College, Oxford, which he reported on 2 April.<sup>110</sup> After the second reading he was instrumental in advising one of the opponents of the bill how to go about securing its failure at the third reading.<sup>111</sup> Objections from another opponent imply that Somers’ conduct in relation to the bill had been either careless or partial, and in the event it was not until 1714 that the college was re-founded on the site of the dissolved Gloucester Hall.<sup>112</sup></p><h2><em>The early years of Anne, 1702–7</em></h2><p>Despite the Tory renaissance that followed Anne’s accession, Somers was still a leading member of the House. On 7 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill for the oath of abjuration, as well as that arising from the Lords’ amendments to the bill for privateers. He held the proxy of Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, from 16 May. Later that month he was approached to assist the passage of a bill through the Irish Parliament to restore John Bourke, Baron Bourke of Bophin [I] (later 9th earl of Clanricarde [I]), in blood and estate. Contrary to normal practice, ‘a complicated necessity’ had required the bill to be introduced in the Commons rather than the Lords and it was feared that this might prejudice its chances of passing the Upper House.<sup>113</sup> Together with Halifax, Somers was also involved in an attempt to accuse the Tory propagandist and long-time Junto enemy, Charles Davenant<sup>‡</sup>, of corruption for his part in the management of the bill for the relief of Jane Lavallin; the attempt failed by only seven votes.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Somers was again active in the elections of the summer of 1702 and was once more noted as meeting with fellow members of the Junto.<sup>115</sup> He was present for 81 per cent of sitting days during the 1702–3 session, with the vast majority of his absences concentrated in January and February 1703. The opening of Parliament saw renewed demands from the Commons for the impeachment of Somers and Orford but these seem to have been more a matter of form than a real threat. On 3 Dec. 1702, during debates over the bill to prevent occasional conformity, Somers proposed an instruction to the committee to the effect that the bill extend only to those individuals holding offices subject to the Test Act. The proposition provoked ‘many long and warm debates’ and was defeated only by the use of proxies.<sup>116</sup> Consistently listed as an opponent of the bill, Somers was named on 17 Dec. 1702 and 9 Jan. 1703 as one of the managers of the conferences with the Commons. He was also named to the committee to search for precedents for bills with penalty clauses that had been begun in the Lords, and is known to have done so. He was an active member of the Lords’ committee on the public records.<sup>117</sup> On 19 Jan. 1703 he entered a dissent at the inclusion of a clause authorizing Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, to be a member of the Privy Council and of the House of Lords and to continue to enjoy offices and grants should he survive the queen. Together with several other peers, Somers contended that the clause was unparliamentary since the main bill was a money one, that it was unnecessary and that it might prejudice other foreign-born peers. This was his last attendance before his prolonged absence from the House, an absence once again caused by illness. He was reported to be so ill that he was in danger of death. Towards the end of February he was described as ‘on the mending hand’ but he did not recover until early March.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Over the summer Somers was in correspondence with Shrewsbury about affairs in Scotland, where ‘Presbytery and Revolution principles have the ascendant … and there is reason to apprehend things may be carried too far, though it be pretended to be done only in order to force England to think of coming to a Union with them in good earnest.’ He wondered whether events in Scotland were responsible for the postponement of the Irish parliament.<sup>119</sup></p><p>During the 1703–4 session Somers was present on 66 per cent of sitting days. His absences were concentrated in blocks (November 1703 and late February/March 1704), in a way that again suggests periods of illness. Poor health notwithstanding, he was required to mediate between his colleagues Halifax and Orford over the parliamentary investigation of the latter’s accounts at the Admiralty. Orford was acquitted but Halifax risked his ire by pointing out that Orford’s accounting left much to be desired.<sup>120</sup> On 18 Dec. 1703 Somers was elected by balloting glass as one of the committee to examine prisoners about a possible plot. In January and February 1704 he reported from four committees. Two were for bills in which he almost certainly had a personal interest, one for Ralph Grey*, 4th Baron Grey of Warke, younger brother of the former 3rd Baron, Ford Grey*, and one for the Worcester workhouse. The others were the Gresham College bill and the bill to ensure the title of Giles Frampton to lands in Dorset that he had purchased from his cousin, the royal horse trainer and ‘father of the turf’, Tregonwell Frampton. On 19 and 22 Feb., as part of the Whig attack on the ministry, Somers was named to committees to investigate allegations relating to the Scotch Plot. He was not present on 23 Feb. when he was named as one of those to whom the key to the gibberish letters should be delivered.</p><p>Over the next week his attendance was irregular and was followed by a prolonged absence. He was back in the House on 17 Mar. to report from the committee to which he had been named as early as 20 Jan. and over which he had presided since the beginning of the second of week of February to consider the address from the Irish House of Commons regarding linen manufacture. There was also a gap in his appearances at the head of this committee between 22 Feb. and 23 Mar. but on the latter day he both chaired and reported from the committee with the address that the committee had drawn up.<sup>121</sup> On 21 Mar. he entered a dissent at the failure to include a rider requiring the consent of churchwardens and overseers in the bill for raising recruits. Three days later he protested at the resolution not to put the question of whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John MacLean was imperfect. Towards the close of the month he was used as an example during debates over the address to the queen concerning the composition of the commissions of the peace. Somers, it was pointed out, had been omitted from the commission of the peace for Worcestershire, a decision that was considered particularly scandalous in view of his former position as lord chancellor.<sup>122</sup> In September 1704, when the queen made a solemn procession to St Paul’s Cathedral, Somers and Halifax upset the aldermen of London by sitting in the lord mayor’s stall.<sup>123</sup></p><p>The 1704–5 session saw Somers present in the House on only 62 per cent of sitting days. Once again his absences were heavily concentrated in a block: his last attendance of the session was on 3 Feb. 1705 (Parliament was not prorogued until 14 March). He held the proxy of Cornwallis from the beginning of the session to 27 Jan. 1705 and that of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, for the whole of the session. Early in the session John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, moved for a day ‘that he might be heard as to many things he has to complain of and are amiss and seems very full and hot to bring out some thing’. To Haversham’s fury, Somers was instrumental in delaying the day assigned for over a week.<sup>124</sup> Haversham, who had once been firmly in the Whig camp, had recently formed a somewhat unlikely alliance that brought his former political enemies Nottingham and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, together with the disgruntled Whigs Peterborough and Grey of Warke. He made his speech, the first of what was to become an annual series castigating the ministry, on 23 Nov. 1704. When the debate resumed on 29 Nov. Somers and Wharton weakened the Tory case by preventing the reading of the Scottish Act of Security. They again took a leading role in the debate the following week (6 Dec.) when Nottingham initially scored a hit with a reference to sacrificing the Protestant interest in order to secure acknowledgement of William III’s title ‘as done at the Treaty of Ryswick’ forcing Somers onto the defensive, only to have the matter rebound on him and to be forced to declare ‘that he did not intend any reflection upon those noble lords’ when Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, and Jersey both rose to vindicate themselves and their king.<sup>125</sup></p><p>In mid-December 1704 Somers opposed the Occasional Conformity bill, using Shaftesbury’s proxy in the vote against it. In January 1705 he was in correspondence with Sir Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], on the subject of a union of England and Scotland, something he claimed always to have wanted. The immediate impetus to his actions was the need to soothe and to hope for ‘temper and moderation’.<sup>126</sup> Somers’ absence from the House after 3 Feb., apparently because he had hurt his leg getting out of a coach, meant that he was not present for the contentious debates over the place bill or the fate of the Aylesbury men. The queen was reported to have been pleased with him and to have been grateful to the Whig leaders in general for their services over the session, and Somers was rewarded by being paid the arrears of his pension ‘since King W[illiam]’s time’. <sup>127</sup> Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, who was wrestling with the difficulties of a ministerial reconstruction and needed Whig support, was less impressed by Somers and his allies. In April 1705 he complained to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, that ‘they are not all so reasonable as is certainly very necessary, for their own sakes as well as for everybody else. I will do all I can to content them in what is reasonable, but even that is not an easy matter.’<sup>128</sup> In August Somers was organizing meetings of his Whig colleagues so that they could prepare for the ensuing session.<sup>129</sup></p><p>The question of union with Scotland continued to occupy the political agenda but whether Somers and the rest of the ‘managing Whigs’ were or were not in favour remained unclear to some observers who believed that it was in the Whigs’ interest to prolong Anglo-Scots quarrels ‘because it is by the present confusions and difference that they make themselves necessary to a court that in their heart hates them’.<sup>130</sup> Although it had earlier been said that Somers would object to the appointment of the Junto Whig acolyte William Cowper as lord keeper, when the appointment was finally made it seems that it was Somers who dispensed the patronage associated with the office.<sup>131</sup></p><p>The ministerial reconstruction was complete by the time that Parliament resumed on 25 Oct. 1705, although Godolphin was still uneasy about the rapaciousness of Whig demands for favour. During this, the 1705–6 session, Somers was present on just over 89 per cent of sitting days. He held Shaftesbury’s proxy from 10 Nov. for the rest of the session and that of Cornwallis from 1 to 13 November. On 15 Nov. he opposed the Tory motion that the Electress Sophia be invited to England.<sup>132</sup> On 23 Nov. he responded to the Tory demand that Parliament comply with the Scots’ demand that the clause in the Alien Act (1705) which provided for the Scots being treated as aliens should be repealed by suggesting that it was:</p><blockquote><p>more becoming the dignity of the parliament of England to repeal all the clauses which tended to distress Scotland, rather than that one only … [to do which] would look like an act of compliance and submission to them: whereas to do more than they required would appear to proceed purely from a friendly and generous disposition towards the Scotch nation; and would take away all colour of opposition from those who found pretences to hinder the treaty, because they did not like the Union itself.<sup>133</sup></p></blockquote><p>The only part of the measure that Somers proposed should be retained was that giving authority to the queen to nominate commissioners for negotiating the Union.<sup>134</sup></p><p>At the end of the Church of England in danger debate on 6 Dec. 1705, Somers summed up the arguments and insisted that ‘the nation was happy under a most wise and just administration, wherein the public money was justly applied … and the success of her majesty’s arms gave the nation greater honour and reputation that had been known’.<sup>135</sup> On 7, 11 and 14 Dec. he was one of the managers of the conferences on the same subject. In January 1706 he was one of the members of the committee on public records who summoned the trustees of the Cotton Library and the officers of the rolls before them and gave orders for the better keeping of the records and public libraries throughout the kingdom.<sup>136</sup> On 17 Jan. he reported from the committee to consider defects in the law. The committee had been meeting since early December and Somers, as chairman, had already ensured that Lord Keeper Cowper lend his assistance to their deliberations. Somers reported the committee’s detailed proposals for reform on 17 January. They were agreed and the judges were authorized to draw up a bill to implement them. The resultant bill was introduced by Somers into the House on 25 Jan. and, after a last minute conference over amendments proposed by the Commons, received the royal assent on 19 Mar., the last day of the session. The Commons’ amendments had reduced the bill’s scope but the statute, known as Lord Somers’ Act, nevertheless introduced major procedural reforms in the administration of the courts of equity and common law at Westminster.</p><p>Somers also worked with Cowper to amend procedures for private bills. On 16 Jan. 1706 Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, remarked on the ‘suspicious contents’ of a private bill that had been introduced into the House. Cowper commented similarly on another. Then on 12 Feb., when a bill for the sale of the estates of John Barnes deceased was introduced to the House, Cowper ‘laid such an emphasis on the peccant parts of the breviat, that the Lords took notice of the roguery; and threw it out with indignation’. Somers then took advantage of the opportunity thus presented to make a speech against the ‘perfunctory and careless passing of such bills’ and it was agreed that a committee of the whole should ‘consider of the best means to prevent the increase of private bills in parliament, and the surprising the House in their proceeding thereupon’.<sup>137</sup> As a result, the House agreed to a new and comprehensive series of standing orders to govern the passage of private bills.</p><p>On 2, 11 and 19 Feb. Somers was one of the managers for the conferences on the bill for the security of the queen’s person and the Protestant succession. On 28 Feb. he was named to the committee to draw up reasons for the Lords’ amendment to the Commons amendment to Lord Conway’s bill (Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway) and on 2 Mar. he was one of the managers of the conference on the subject. He was also named to manage the conferences on 6 and 11 Mar. over the pamphlet <em>A Letter from Sir Rowland Gwyn to the Right Honourable the Earl of Stamford</em>, which was deemed to be a scandalous and seditious libel. He was again a manager for the conference on the militia bill on 13 March. Over the course of the session he had reported from two committees on issues relating to clothing contracts for the armed forces: the bill for making clothes with cloth buttons for export to the allied armies and that for the relief of Sir Stephen Evance<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Cornish<sup>‡</sup>; and from four other committees on bills with no obvious political connection: one for settling the impropriate tithes of St Bride’s, London, and three estate bills (for John Williams, Thomas Deane and Henry Hare, 2nd Baron Coleraine [I]).</p><p>During the recess, in April 1706, Somers was appointed as one of the commissioners for union with Scotland.<sup>138</sup> He also took advantage of Halifax’s embassy to Hanover to open a correspondence with the Electress Sophia, partly to ingratiate himself and partly to explain why he had opposed the invitation to her the previous autumn and why the Whigs had considered it necessary to pass an act to naturalize her family. He sought to assure her that the:</p><blockquote><p>Act is attended with all possible marks of honour and respect from the queen and nation. It extends to all the posterity of her royal highness the Princess Sophia, born, or hereafter to be born, and wheresoever they are born, which is a privilege that was never yet granted in any case till in this instance.<sup>139</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somers was now regularly briefed on foreign policy issues by Godolphin, even to the extent of being considered as a potential plenipotentiary in the forthcoming peace negotiations, although, as Marlborough pointed out, Somers’ French was so poor that it was unlikely he would be up to the task.<sup>140</sup> He was also deeply involved in facilitating negotiations over the Union, assuring Godolphin in August that the presence in Scotland of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (who sat in the House as earl of Greenwich and who was then with the troops in what is modern-day Belgium), was so vital that the crown should pay the expense of his journey there.<sup>141</sup> Winning the support of English Dissenters and Scots Presbyterians almost certainly resulted in promises to support the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.<sup>142</sup> His determination to make himself and the Junto indispensable to the duumvirs was matched by his determination to secure office for Sunderland. In September Sunderland informed Lady Marlborough that the failure to satisfy his demands would force Somers and Halifax to abandon the ministry.<sup>143</sup></p><p>During the 1706–7 session Somers was present on 80 per cent of sitting days and once again held Shaftesbury’s proxy. Nearly half his absences were concentrated in the second half of January 1707. A central figure in the ministry, he corresponded with the somewhat prickly Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, on aspects of military strategy and foreign affairs, including Rivers’ quarrel with his rival, Galway.<sup>144</sup> He was believed to have orchestrated opposition in the Commons to the election of Edward Southwell<sup>‡</sup>, possibly as an oblique attack on James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>145</sup> The Union was now the major political issue. On 14 Jan. 1707 Somers spoke in support of Godolphin against the Tory motion that the articles for the union with Scotland be laid before the House.<sup>146</sup> He also acted as go-between for John Hall*, bishop of Bristol, who was anxious to excuse himself from attendance but equally wanted to make sure that Somers was aware of his having arranged a proxy; Hall asked Somers to transmit his proxy to Archbishop Tenison. The Union, or perhaps more specifically the safeguards that some thought were needed to protect the Church of England, may have been the issue for which Hall thought his proxy was needed. Tenison was certainly looking to Somers for assistance and on 23 and 27 Jan. sent him drafts of the bill for the security of the Church of England that he had drawn up in consultation with several of his fellow bishops and which they wished to have inserted in the Act of Union.<sup>147</sup> Although he had been at the centre of negotiations, Somers was absent from the House on 28 Jan. when the queen commended the Union to Parliament and Sunderland laid the articles of union before the House. He returned to the House on 1 Feb. and thereafter was active in securing the passage of the Union, speaking in its favour in the crucial debate on 24 February.<sup>148</sup> It was, he told Marchmont, ‘not without a considerable struggle in both Houses here’ that it had been possible to avoid amendments that ‘might have been very disagreeable in Scotland’.<sup>149</sup></p><p>Somers’ importance meant that he was approached by those seeking to influence all aspects of policy, including fiscal initiatives.<sup>150</sup> His reputation was such that he was also approached for advice about pending legislation. In February 1707 plans for a bill for the Droitwich salt works involved lobbying Somers and Wharton in its favour, as well as showing Somers the draft bill so that he could ‘correct’ it.<sup>151</sup> On 7 Mar. a letter from John Hough*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, indicates that Somers had told him that a proposal for a new church in Birmingham was unlikely to pass. Hough’s response suggests that Somers had made detailed comments. He remarked that:</p><blockquote><p>I wish I could remove your lordship’s scruples, but indeed I am not able, for I never so much as heard of that gentlewoman whose consent your lordship thinks is not sufficiently obtained nor do I know where to look after her: and whereas you would have me send a catalogue of such as may be commissioners by virtue of the Act, I protest solemnly I have not yet thought of half their number.<sup>152</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his protest, Hough sent a list of commissioners the very next day and the bill received its first reading on 19 Mar. 1707.<sup>153</sup> Presumably there was still a problem with it for, although the bill received a second reading, it was then dropped. A statute authorizing the creation of the new church and parish was not passed for another two years; on that occasion it originated in the Commons.<sup>154</sup></p><p>Hough was not the only person to try to influence Somers. So too did Colonel John Rice, who faced a punitive act obliging him to account for debentures granted him in the previous session. On 7 Apr. the bill, which had already passed the Commons, was referred to a committee of the whole; that same day Rice wrote to Somers, attacking the character of the witnesses against him as ‘a crowd of Irish evidence’ and beseeching Somers ‘to save me and my family from ruin by delaying the bill’ so that he could get his own rebuttal witnesses together.<sup>155</sup> In this case Somers was either unable or unwilling to help. The act received its third reading and the royal assent on 8 April. Somers’ involvement in other legislation led him to chair two committees on bills, one for the repair of highways in Wiltshire and another for Thomas Clarke’s bill. He also acted as one of the managers of conferences on the bills for Fornhill and Stony Stratford highways and for vagrants.</p><p>Somers was present on all but two days of the short April 1707 session. Rumours that he was to be appointed president of the Council abounded and some thought that the delay in announcing it was caused by the need to assuage Wharton’s resentments, not realizing the depth of the queen’s opposition.<sup>156</sup> His centrality to the ministry was such that, as in previous years, approaches for his assistance in patronage requests continued to be commonplace.<sup>157</sup> So, too, were requests for his support in elections.<sup>158</sup></p><h2><em>The duumvirs under siege, 1707–10</em></h2><p>Over the summer, Tenison was in touch with Somers about the latest developments in the bishoprics crisis that had been unfolding since the death of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, in November 1706. <sup>159</sup> The Whigs had demanded the see for one of their supporters but Godolphin was under an obligation to promote his west country ally, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, and the queen wanted neither. The death of Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, in March 1707 created a second vacancy but the queen, influenced by Harley and John Sharp*, archbishop of York, insisted on her own candidates, the Tories Offspring Blackall*, later bishop of Exeter, and William Dawes*, later bishop of Chester and archbishop of York. The death of a third bishop, Simon Patrick* of Ely, in May 1707 brought no respite. The Whigs now demanded all three bishoprics as the price of their continued support for the ministry. In June 1707 Somers pushed Tenison to act quickly and decisively in the Whig interest, for:</p><blockquote><p>if time be lost, or if modesty prevails, it will (as in all other cases) be wrong disposed of & the Church and state will be undone. The Archbishop of Canterbury cannot be used ill always, unless he will be party to it in some measure himself … I have been not a little vexed, when I have remonstrated pretty strongly upon occasion of the talk of supplying late vacancies, to have been told that the archbishop is principally in fault who does not speak plainly and fully to the Queen, when the archbishop of York never suffers her to rest.<sup>160</sup></p></blockquote><p>Whig insistence on the appointment of Whig bishops caused something of a nightmare for the ministry, caught between Junto demands and Harley’s antipathy to them, and desperately afraid that the Whigs were prepared ‘to tear everything in pieces if they can’t have their own terms’.<sup>161</sup> Meanwhile, Somers was also still involved in foreign affairs. Together with Halifax, he opposed the recall of Galway; together with Halifax and Godolphin he was the recipient of Marlborough’s private thoughts on the international situation.<sup>162</sup> As far as Marlborough at least was concerned, the Junto may have been rapacious but they were more to be trusted than Harley, who was prone to playing ‘tricks’.<sup>163</sup></p><p>In August 1707 the Junto lords met at Sunderland’s seat, Althorp, to plan for the approaching session. Later that month Somers was caught up in discussions over the calling of a convocation, when he was lobbied by the Whig bishops to state that there was no legal necessity to do so.<sup>164</sup> When Parliament reconvened in October 1707 as the Parliament of Great Britain, Somers attended the first, 1707–8, session for 75 per cent of sitting days. His absences (apart from a week in March) were, for once, scattered ones. On 12 Nov. the extent of the trouble that the Junto could cause the ministry was amply demonstrated when Wharton, backed by Somers and Halifax, ‘made an elaborate harangue’ in the course of moving for a day to consider the state of the nation in relation to the fleet and trade. In so doing they managed to prevent the House from considering an address of thanks for the queen’s speech.<sup>165</sup> The debate itself took place, in the presence of the queen, on 19 Nov., when the Junto lords, including Somers, all took a leading part.<sup>166</sup></p><p>Somers was again prominent in the debates of 19 Dec. concerning the prosecution of the war in Spain, when he put a question, ‘that he thought all would agree in, viz., that no peace could be safe or honourable, till Spain and the West Indies were recovered from the House of Bourbon’. His proposition elicited no opposition and was then followed up by a request from Wharton for an address to the queen.<sup>167</sup> On 7 Feb. when the House debated the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, Somers was ‘vigorously’ in favour – as were the Whigs’ Scots allies, the Squadrone Volante.<sup>168</sup> Two days later he was elected by ballot to the committee to examine William Greg. In the course of the session he underlined his importance to the management of the House by chairing several committees for significant public bills. A committee to draw up a bill for establishing a court of exchequer in Scotland was set up on 20 Dec. 1707; Somers chaired it and was thus instrumental in instructing Sir Edward Ward, chief baron of the English exchequer, and James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], to prepare ‘a scheme of constitution’ of each country’s exchequer. Somers reported to the House on 10 Mar. and the resulting bill received the royal assent on 1 April.<sup>169</sup> He also reported on 17 Mar. and 1 Apr. respectively the bill for building two flyboats for trading to Russia and that for the Bank of England. In addition he reported on three private bills, in at least two of which he had a clear personal and political interest (bills for settling the Worcestershire estates of the Whig John Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, son-in-law of his old friend William Bromley, and for the Tone navigation – the pet project of the Whig Edward Clarke<sup>‡</sup>, both reported on 28 Feb.); for the third (Sir John Wentworth’s estate bill reported on 1 Apr.) it is more difficult to discern an obvious personal interest. Behind the scenes Somers was involved in drafting the Carlisle Cathedrals bill, which arose from the quarrel between Bishop Nicolson and Francis Atterbury*, then dean of Carlisle and later bishop of Rochester, and which confirmed episcopal control over cathedral personnel. The bill was introduced by Somers on 3 Feb. and received the royal assent on 20 March.<sup>170</sup> On 31 Mar. he was also named as one of the managers of two conferences – on the bill for the encouragement of trade with America and on the waggoners bill.</p><p>Despite Harley’s resignation and continuing difficulties in Parliament, the queen was still set against bringing Somers into the cabinet council, even without a specific portfolio. To those concerned to shore up the tottering position of Marlborough it seemed likely that only by bringing in Somers would there be any chance of inoculating the queen against what they perceived as the pernicious influence of Abigail Masham.<sup>171</sup> The queen remained obdurate in the face of the duumvirs’ pleading, possibly for personal as well as political reasons, as she regarded the Junto peers as ‘tyrannizing lords’. She informed Marlborough that she considered the idea of bringing in Somers as tending to her ‘utter destruction’.<sup>172</sup> She also believed that Somers had ‘disobliged’ her husband by his attack on the conduct of the admiralty the previous year.<sup>173</sup> Matters were further muddied by suspicions that the duumvirs were trying to split the Whig leadership.</p><p>With the dissolution of Parliament on 15 Apr. Somers was again involved in electioneering, not only for membership of the Commons but also for Scots representative peers.<sup>174</sup> The Whig victories in the summer’s elections, coupled with the allied victory at Oudenarde on 11 July 1708, prompted hopes of further placatory offers from the duumvirs in order to gain Junto support when Parliament resumed for an address on the war.<sup>175</sup> Failure to offer <em>douceurs</em> led to continuing dissension, misunderstandings and distrust. Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> commented that Somers in particular, ‘who … sets a just value upon his own merit, will never forgive the refusal of his own service when he offered it in so handsome a manner’.<sup>176</sup> It was not until October 1708 that the queen, overcome with grief at the death of Prince George, finally gave in and agreed to admit Somers and Wharton to the cabinet. Somers stood on his dignity and initially refused the offer, but with flattering assurances from the duumvirs and the persuasive efforts of Halifax he finally agreed – on condition that there would be changes in the commissions for customs and excise.<sup>177</sup> He was appointed president of the council on 25 Nov. 1708 but not before he had attempted to remove John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> from the Privy Council.<sup>178</sup> According to Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, Somers seemed inclined initially to credit her with securing him his new position but when she injudiciously explained to him how poor her standing was with the queen, he was quick to abandon her and pay court to her rival Abigail Masham instead.<sup>179</sup></p><p>In the meantime, the new Parliament had met on 16 Nov. 1708. During the 1708–9 session Somers was present on 70 per cent of sitting days. Early in the session he complained of the lord register’s delay in sending the papers concerning the election of Scots peers. He was also involved with assisting Godolphin and Marlborough over peace negotiations.<sup>180</sup> Yet, despite this apparent closeness, the relationship between the Junto and Godolphin remained shaky. In December Somers was left out of the commission to pass the land tax – an omission that he strongly resented – and, although the cabinet council met, the full Privy Council did not, probably because Howe was still a member.<sup>181</sup> Relationships within the Junto were also soured by Somers’ and Wharton’s acceptance of office ahead of Orford and Halifax.</p><p>Meanwhile, relationships between the Junto and their Scots allies the Squadrone were unsettled too, particularly after the controversy over the role of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S] and duke of Dover, in the election of the Scots representative peers. At a meeting in mid-December the Whig leaders and prominent Scots members of the Squadrone tried to thrash out their difficulties. Over the course of four hours, Somers and the Junto tried to reassure their Scots allies that they had ‘a great inclination to do all they can for Scotland and to make union easy’.<sup>182</sup> In another account of the meeting, George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> lamented that the Whigs were ‘not so warm’ for the Squadrone or new party as they had once been. Baillie suspected that for the Whigs numerical strength was more important than a shared ideology, so that they were ‘to be favoured or not, only as it could advance Whig Lords and purposes and that the new party were … to follow without asking question’. Fearful that the Whigs planned to desert the Squadrone for their rivals, the old party, Baillie tried to convince Somers that the Squadrone ‘were men of principle’ who ‘were upon the same bottom’ with the Whigs. In the aftermath of what Baillie thought of as a polite but frank discussion but which one suspects that Somers regarded as a harangue, Baillie found himself isolated from fellow members of the Squadrone as well as from Somers, whom he could never find at home when he called.<sup>183</sup> Somers’ political path was clear. As James Johnston wrote, ‘Somers uses the Queen with all the softness and insinuation imaginable and she’s sensible, they say, that she was never used with so much good breeding. He courts too by himself or others … the Mashams male and female.’ He was so successful at ingratiating himself at court that Godolphin became increasingly uneasy.<sup>184</sup> Junto loyalty to the Squadrone was demonstrated by their decision to vote, on 21 Jan. 1709, against the right of a Scots peer who also held a British title to participate in the election of Scottish representative peers; in so doing they made their opposition to Godolphin public. High politics apart, Somers’ expertise in drafting legislation meant that in January he was present with ‘some gentlemen of the House of Commons’ to hear a draft recruiting bill read over before its presentation to the lower House.<sup>185</sup> On 27 Jan. he seconded the successful motion to support the House of Commons’ address to the queen requesting her to remarry.<sup>186</sup></p><p>The duumvirs still hoped that Somers would follow ‘good sense’ and allow himself to be separated from his Junto allies.<sup>187</sup> The Junto and the Squadrone had hoped to secure the appointment of James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], rather than Queensberry as secretary of state for Scotland.<sup>188</sup> Early in February it was reported that Godolphin was ‘cock a hoop’ about the results of the appeals against the election of Scots representatives, believing that his behind-the-scenes negotiations had won the support of the Squadrone as well as the Argathelians. Queensberry was to be appointed as the third secretary of state but John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], and Argyll were to join the council and Montrose was to be mollified by becoming privy seal in Scotland with a salary of £2,000 a year but ‘no power at all’.<sup>189</sup> Godolphin’s troubles were far from over, however. On 1 Mar. Somers successfully moved for an address requesting the queen to take care on concluding a peace that France recognize her title and expel the Pretender.<sup>190</sup> The House then went into a committee of the whole to discuss the issue and in the course of its deliberations Somers voted against an attempt to resume the House. The manoeuvre had been concerted by the Junto without Godolphin’s knowledge and reflected the continuing ‘heart hatred’ between them.<sup>191</sup> In April 1709 the passage of the treason bill imposed further strains on political relationships, so much so:</p><blockquote><p>that it has quite broke all the Scotch from Lord Somers and his English friends. They say he finds himself sinking so fast he will go out of court and turn in opposition so as to make a Hanover party… All parties are separated in division among themselves and everything is in such perfect confusion that scarcely three men have confidence in one another.<sup>192</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Junto was divided too, with Somers and Sunderland suspicious of Wharton’s activities in Ireland.<sup>193</sup> In the meantime peace negotiations rumbled on and it was reported that Somers had indicated that he would refuse the position of plenipotentiary.<sup>194</sup> Just who was to be appointed was a political problem in itself, one on which Somers had to be ‘made easy’, especially as the queen was still resisting the appointment of Orford.<sup>195</sup> Somers was also finding it difficult to obtain the patronage rewards that his Scots allies such as Marchmont expected.<sup>196</sup> In a letter to Marlborough at the end of May he revealed his concerns about the terms of the peace. While expressing his pleasure at the prospect of Marlborough’s triumphant return, he hoped that ‘the circumstances of France are such at present, that it will be her interest to make an end of the whole and to avoid all those chicanes and prevarications which are so natural to the French genius’. It may have been such concerns about French insincerity that caused Somers to favour a barrier treaty and he returned to the theme later in the year when he fretted that it was ‘plain the French will not agree to a reasonable peace till downright necessity compels them’.<sup>197</sup>As well as the peace, Somers took a close interest in the question of the poor Palatines, an issue that divided political opinion. He advised on the most suitable places to direct charitable gifts and was also engaged in efforts to found a permanent home for the settlers. It may be significant that when, in early October 1709, John Chamberlayne was accused of neglecting his duty in relation to the Palatines it was to Somers that he appealed for protection.<sup>198</sup></p><p>At the beginning of September 1709 Somers was again ill but he was well enough to be paying calls towards the end of the first week and at the end of the month he visited the queen in another attempt to persuade her to appoint Orford to the admiralty. Arthur Maynwaring had speculated earlier that if the question of the admiralty could not be settled to his satisfaction Somers was likely to resign. Negotiations about the make-up of the admiralty commission that Orford was to head persisted into the autumn, with Somers continuing to take a leading role in the discussions. By the beginning of November the awkward pace of the discussions and difficulties raised were said to have put him ‘out of all patience’. In the interests of ensuring a working majority in the House of Lords, Somers and Sunderland attempted to build an alliance with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset; Marlborough and Godolphin continued to hope that the Junto could be broken up and that relationships between its members, especially between Halifax and Somers, were deteriorating. Certainly by the middle of November Halifax was displaying open irritation with Somers. The same month Somers and Wharton made a point of apologizing to Charles Hay*, Lord Yester [S] (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), for the ‘ill usage honest men had met with’.<sup>199</sup></p><h2><em>Harley in the ascendant, 1710–14</em></h2><p>During the 1709–10 session Somers attended for 70 per cent of sitting days. Half of his absences were concentrated in January and February 1710 and another quarter in the closing weeks of March and are again suggestive of periods of illness. On 5 Dec. 1709 he reported from the committee investigating the petition of Robert Hitch concerning his action against Sir Nicholas Shireburne. By this time Henry Sacheverell’s inflammatory sermons, particularly that delivered at St Paul’s Cathedral on 5 Nov., had created yet another political dilemma for the beleaguered ministry, who regarded his opinions as subversive and seditious. Prosecuting Sacheverell in the ordinary courts was considered to be problematic but the ministry was determined to punish him. Jonathan Swift related how Somers told him a few months after it was all over that he had attempted ‘earnestly and in vain’ to dissuade the ministry from pressing on with the trial.<sup>200</sup> According to Alexander Cunningham, Somers supported the idea of a prosecution but, perhaps remembering the problems created by the diminishing attendances in the House of Lords at the time of the Fenwick attainder, told his cabinet colleagues that:</p><blockquote><p>I said many years ago that the government is to be taken care of, and that good laws ought to be provided, lest such men as this should sometime or other kindle a flame to the destruction of our country, our religion, our property, our allies: and this evil, I said, was of such a nature that unless ye provided against it, it would be in vain to have recourse to prosecutions. At that time it behoved us to look to ourselves: but now the dangerous situation of affairs admonishes us rather to take care that such offenders do not hurt us, than to consult how to proceed against them. Ye trusted before in the royal favour and your own fortune; but where are these now? And as to the great number of noble lords, if they should absent themselves, or the members of parliament should revolt to the other party, ye will certainly find it too late, and to no purpose now to have recourse to judiciary proceedings: for when your adversaries perceive you to grow feeble, they will become the more daring … for my own part, indeed, I look upon those which Dr Sacheverell has done to the ministry, to be very great; but in the punishment thereof let no hatred, revenge, anger, or passion interpose; for where these take place, the mind does not easily discern the truth … and that which would pass among others as anger only, our people would call cruelty in the government, which is odious to all men. If however, a condign punishment can be found out for this man’s offence, and suitable to the greatness of the danger, I approve of the extraordinary method of proceeding; but if the greatness of the offence exceeds the constitutions of our ancestors, and the conceptions of men, I think it best to make use of that method of process which our laws have provided.<sup>201</sup></p></blockquote><p>His views were not shared by Sunderland or Marlborough and on 13 Dec. 1709 Godolphin’s ally John Dolben<sup>‡</sup> secured a motion of censure in the Commons. Sacheverell was impeached the next day. Harley’s allies were delighted, believing that ‘So solemn a prosecution for such a scribble’ would make the affair even more notorious than it was already and that Dolben was acting as an agent for Somers and Halifax.<sup>202</sup></p><p>In January 1710 Godolphin persuaded Somers to intercede with the queen in an attempt to repair the damage resulting from Marlborough’s quarrel with her over the appointment of Rivers as constable of the Tower. Somers saw the queen on 16 Jan., when he claimed to find her ‘very reserved’ and unreceptive to his arguments. He waited on her again three days later and, as he informed Marlborough, ‘represented the fatal consequence of any unkindness appearing on her part towards’ the duke. This time she appeared more conciliatory and willing to assure Marlborough of her continuing friendship.<sup>203</sup> Somers, together with Cowper and Godolphin, was also said to have dissuaded his allies from promoting an address to the queen to remove Abigail Masham from her presence.<sup>204</sup> Lady Marlborough did not believe him, suspecting that he had done her husband ‘ill offices in order to serve himself’ and become chief minister in his own right.<sup>205</sup> Less intemperate enemies denigrated Somers’ political abilities. He and his ally Cowper ‘know nothing of Courts, their education has been narrow & they are both cautious, which makes them thought wise. But there is more wisdom in doing a bold, resolute action, when rightly timed, than there is in trimming & finding out expedients.’<sup>206</sup> It was symptomatic of the general distrust within the ministry that even Godolphin suspected that Somers and the Whigs might be in league with Harley.<sup>207</sup> Harley’s own list of supporters and opponents composed in January 1710, however, placed Somers with his enemies.</p><p>During Sacheverell’s trial Somers took a prominent part in arguing for Sacheverell’s conviction. He was also one of those to speak in favour of sending one of those taken during the riots at the beginning of March to the Tower. He joined several of his colleagues in defending the Revolution and on 18 Mar. batted down a motion proposed by Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), that the peers should be permitted to offer their judgment article by article.<sup>208</sup> He also reiterated the position he had adopted during the Fenwick attainder, that the House of Lords was not bound by the processes and procedures of the lower courts, telling the House that:</p><blockquote><p>we have always followed the example of the wisest judges; considering chiefly what is equity, and what the public good, the common safety, and the constitution of the kingdom necessarily require. We know that the judgments as well as the pleadings, must be according to law: but it does not thence follow that we are tied up to the forms of the inferior courts, or bound to proceed according to those laws which we prescribe to others; for every court has it particular custom, and we have ours.<sup>209</sup></p></blockquote><p>Not surprisingly, on 20 Mar. 1710 Somers voted Sacheverell guilty; he was then absent from the House, probably through ill health, for the whole of the following week and so was not present to vote on the question of Sacheverell’s punishment, though he had participated in a meeting held in the Prince’s Chamber on the day of the conviction, when the terms of Sacheverell’s censure had been agreed. During the ensuing storm of support for Sacheverell, Somers judged it safest to ‘wait with patience till the humour of abetting and applauding Sacheverell should cool of itself’.<sup>210</sup> Even so, he was one of several people suspected of being responsible for writing a response to the decision to publish the proceedings of the Sacheverell trial.<sup>211</sup> On 30 Mar. he was one of the managers of the conference concerning amendments to the bill under which Colonel John Lovett (son-in-law of the Tory John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fermanagh [I]) proposed to rebuild Eddystone lighthouse and on 4 Apr. he reported from the committee considering the printed books bill.</p><p>Soon after the conclusion of the proceedings against Sacheverell the Junto were faced with a new threat to their position with the appointment of Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain. The news was of sufficient moment to cause Somers to re-open a letter that he had just finished to Marlborough to insert the information. Over the coming weeks the ministry was once more plagued by in-fighting. Somers and Sunderland quarrelled towards the end of May and during the summer recess Somers was again ill: on 6 June 1710 he told Marlborough that he had been confined to his chamber for nearly a month.<sup>212</sup> By then it was common knowledge within the ministry that, despite all their attempts to dissuade her, the queen was about to dismiss Sunderland. The queen told Somers of her intention in a private audience, telling him ‘at the same time that she was entirely for moderation; that she did not intend to make any other alterations’. She was also careful to ask Somers whether replacing Sunderland with William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, would be acceptable to the Whigs.<sup>213</sup></p><p>Sunderland was dismissed on 14 June. Somers and the Junto then assured Marlborough of their determination to keep him in office.<sup>214</sup> Marlborough, who knew that Harley was trying to negotiate with them, remained suspicious of their intentions, warning his wife that she was ‘in a country amongst tigers and wolves’.<sup>215</sup> He had every reason to be doubtful of Somers’ intentions as, sometime between the middle of June and the first week of July, Harley (perhaps over-optimistically) included Somers’ name in a list of his projected new ministry.<sup>216</sup> Yet even as it became apparent that the ministry’s fate would be sealed with a dissolution, Marlborough continued to hope that Somers, Godolphin and Cowper would help him to fend it off.<sup>217</sup> By the end of July Somers seems to have resolved not to co-operate with Harley. Instead he lambasted Shrewsbury and Somerset in council for betraying their Whig roots and preached the importance of continuing the war until the question of Spain and the Indies had been settled.<sup>218</sup></p><p>In August, the dismissal of Godolphin followed by the long-anticipated dissolution left Somers and the Whigs with ‘no greater usefulness than that of taking care of elections’. Harley’s hopes of winning Somers over had by then all but evaporated. Harley described Somers as ‘grown extremely angry’ with the Tories but also as pretending to be angry with Godolphin, Cowper and Halifax. In a letter of 12 Sept. Harley laid the blame for Somers’ anger on Cowper’s influence but he also thought that ‘the rage of not being chief minister seems to be the cause of it’.<sup>219</sup> Nearly 30 years later Thomas Carte’s notes of an interview with the under-secretary of state Erasmus Lewis<sup>‡</sup> indicated that Somers had indeed expected to be made first minister. Quite what credence is to be given to this account is difficult to decide. According to Lewis, Somers told the queen that Marlborough ‘was the worst man that God almighty had ever made’, which seems unlikely for a man whose political reputation was built on a propensity for careful and statesmanlike utterances.<sup>220</sup> It was symptomatic of the volatility of the situation that just two days later Harley wrote that Wharton and Somers had ‘made mad work’ in preventing Cowper from joining the new ministry.<sup>221</sup> Somers was replaced as lord president by Rochester on 21 Sept 1710.</p><p>During the 1710–11 session Somers’ attendance fell to 56 per cent of sitting days. The pattern was yet again suggestive of bouts of illness, with over two-thirds of his absences taking place between 6 Mar. and 29 May 1711. He held the proxy of Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, from 23 Dec. 1710, vacated by Bolton’s attendance on 12 Jan. 1711 and a second proxy from Bolton dated 25 Apr. 1711 and vacated on 7 May. He also held that of James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, from 22 Dec. to 2 Feb. 1712. Late in December 1710 or early in January 1711 Somers was included in a list drawn up by Nottingham, probably concerning the imminent debates on the ministry’s peace policy. Not surprisingly, given the Whig commitment to the war, he was also listed as one of those who intended to vote in favour of presenting the address containing the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion in the abandoned division of 8 Dec. 1710. During January 1711 he took a leading role in the various debates on the war in Spain.<sup>222</sup> On 11 Jan. he protested against the resolution to reject the petitions of Galway and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and the following day he protested against the passage of the resolution censuring the conduct of the ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. He again protested on 3 Feb. against the resolutions to agree with the committee that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of Alamanza were not properly supplied and to agree with the committee that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament for the war in Spain amounted to a neglect of that service. On 8 Feb. he entered two dissents, one to the content of the address to the queen concerning the state of the war in Spain and the other to the presentation of the address itself. The following day he dissented to the decision of the House to expunge two of the reasons for the second protest of 3 February.</p><p>Somers was clearly still regarded as possessing useful influence for on 13 Feb. he was approached by William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), and Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, about the affairs of convocation.<sup>223</sup> On 3 Mar. he reported from the committee for the bill for the sale of the Devon farm belonging to the late Sebastian Isaack, and on 20 Apr. he was named to the committee to draw the address of thanks to the queen for her message concerning the death of the emperor. Somers was entrusted with the proxy of Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, on 2 May but his opportunity to make use of it was limited as Townshend resumed his place the following day. On 1 June he joined with an alliance of Tories and Whigs in an attack on clauses concerning the export of raw linen yarn in the Scotch linen bill. He argued successfully that the House had an obligation to support the Irish linen industry as a result of disadvantages imposed on Ireland by statutes governing woollen manufactures.<sup>224</sup></p><p>During the recess rumours of the forthcoming peace abounded, as did gossip about Harley’s success in splitting the Whigs, Somers’ possible return to government (reports of which had been current since at least the latter part of April) and fresh parliamentary elections.<sup>225</sup> Some sort of rapprochement between Somers and Oxford, as Harley had become, was certainly being encouraged by Halifax, and in April 1712 Prince Eugene told the court of Vienna that Somers, Halifax and Cowper were ‘for winning over the Treasurer [Oxford] to their interest and reducing all things again into the right channel’.<sup>226</sup></p><p>Over the 1711–12 session Somers was present on only 35 per cent of sitting days. On 25 Nov., shortly before the session began, Halifax referred to Somers having been so ill that he had been housebound for a week and in December he described Somers as ‘really very much out of order and in pain’.<sup>227</sup> In spite of this, Somers held the proxy of Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, from 30 November. He covered his own absence from the House between 13 Feb. and 12 Apr. 1712 with a proxy to Orford (thereby presumably vacating Stamford’s proxy). Orford in turn registered a proxy dated 15 Apr. with Somers, although the opportunities for its use were limited since Somers was present for only one day between 12 Apr. and 5 May. Somers did attend the House on 8 Dec. for the ‘No Peace without Spain’ debate but, perhaps as a result of the shadowy negotiations that had been carried on during the recess between the Whigs and Oxford, he neither spoke nor voted.<sup>228</sup> In December 1711 it was predicted that Somers would vote against the right of a Scottish peer at the time of the Union to sit in the House of Lords as a British peer. He is listed as having so voted on 20 Dec. 1711, although according to the presence list he was actually absent from the House that day and there is no record of his having registered a proxy. The ensuing discussions over an expedient to satisfy the Scots involved suggestions akin to those that would form the basis of the 1719 peerage bill but it was noted that Somers was one of those leading peers whose views were as yet unknown, they having ‘held their peace’.<sup>229</sup> Somers was in the House on 2 Jan. 1712 when the queen’s message instructing the House to adjourn for a week was read by the lord keeper, Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt. Somers rose to demand a committee to examine precedents for such a message, declaring, with studied false modesty, that:</p><blockquote><p>there were many Lords had more experience in the law of parliament than he, but that for a great part of his life he had made it his study to be versed in the records of both houses, and in all his reading he could never find that any such command ever came single to either house from the crown. He confessed that such a command had been often sent to both houses at the same time and complied with. He said it was a matter of such consequence that he hoped lords would come to some resolution that their books might be searched … and if there was no such precedent found he did believe her majesty would thank them for doing their duty to her and themselves in endeavouring to be rightly informed and did not doubt but they would find her majesty would readily recall her command.</p></blockquote><p>The ensuing debate turned into a transparent attack on the ministry in which leading Whigs were joined by Nottingham and a disgruntled Godolphin, but the motion to adjourn was carried by a comfortable majority.<sup>230</sup></p><p>In April 1712 Somers was one of several prominent Whigs to speak out against William Carstares’s patronage bill, though it was carried thanks to the court’s support for the measure.<sup>231</sup> He was, however, still a figure of major political importance, and his influence also stretched into the realms of theology. In May 1712 he was said to have written the declaration on lay baptism which the bishops intended to subscribe and send down to the lower house of convocation and to be ‘the supreme governor at Lambeth’.<sup>232</sup> The advice of Somers and other leading Whig peers was clearly sought after and valued by whiggish bishops.<sup>233</sup> Over the summer it seems that Somers’ health underwent a further decline. Whereas previous illnesses do not seem to have affected his mental capacity he was now said to have undergone ‘a great decay in his understanding’.<sup>234</sup> The diagnosis was perhaps overstated, for in January 1713 he was as usual meeting with ‘a great number of Whig lords’ in London, presumably to plan tactics for the forthcoming session.<sup>235</sup></p><p>The third and final session of the 1710 Parliament convened on 9 Apr. 1713. Somers was present on 52 per cent of sitting days, his absences being concentrated in April, May and July. Although he did not take his seat until 4 May he was clearly deeply involved in discussions of opposition strategy because, on 15 Apr., ‘a great crew’ of peers, including Nottingham as well as leading Whigs, was seen to arrive at Somers’ house in Leicester Fields, where they stayed for nearly two hours.<sup>236</sup> During Somers’ absence from the House the report of the commissioners of accounts appears to have confirmed some of the allegations about fee-farm rents that had been made in the attempted impeachment but nevertheless seem to have gone almost unnoticed.<sup>237</sup> In June Oxford assumed that Somers would vote against the confirmation of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Somers reported on 2 June from the committee for the bill of James Cecil*, 5th earl of Salisbury, and also that of William Booth.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Somers joined Cowper in standing godfathers to the son of Bishop Trimnell.<sup>238</sup> The first session of 1714 saw him managing to attend for only 30 per cent of sitting days. His proxy was held by Halifax from 5 Mar. until his return to the House on 5 Apr. and again from 14 Apr. to his return on 30 Apr., when it was noted that ‘Lord Somers does come to the H. but his figure now is reduced to a monosyllable. Lord Wharton is the prime manager on that side.’<sup>239</sup> Halifax held his proxy again from 13 to 28 May. Somers was present in the House on 2 June when the schism bill was brought up from the Commons and for the subsequent debates on 4, 7 and 9 June. He was then absent until 15 June, with his absence covered by a proxy to Townshend. Oxford had predicted that he would oppose the bill and on 15 June he signed the protest against its passage. On 17 June he reported Ambrose Brown’s bill. He was then absent again between 25 June and 2 July, during which his proxy was again held by Townshend. Somers’ reputation still enabled him to command a considerable following; it was said that if he were to open the debate on commerce with Spain on 30 June rather than Nottingham it would be ‘looked upon as matter of more weight’.<sup>240</sup></p><h2><em>Final years, 1714–16</em></h2><p>The death of Anne on 1 Aug. 1714 ushered in a brief session of which Somers attended only 3 of 15 possible days. He was reputedly offered a place in the new ministry but declined it.<sup>241</sup> In gratitude for their ‘signal services’ both he and Nottingham were granted annuities for life of £3,500.<sup>242</sup> When the first Parliament of the new reign met in March 1715 Somers attended some 38 per cent of sittings. He was apparently taken ill during the debates in July on the impeachment of Oxford, after which he was said to be ‘in that condition as to be little minded’.<sup>243</sup> In September, however, he was sufficiently well to present the king with the loyal address from the county of Worcester.<sup>244</sup> Somers’ final appearance in the House was on 27 Jan. 1716. In mid-February his illness was named for the first time as gout.<sup>245</sup> He registered a proxy in favour of Richard Temple*, Baron Cobham, dated 22 Feb., which was vacated by his death ‘of an apoplexy’ at his London residence in Leicester Fields on 26 Apr. (one letter recorded his death as having occurred on the morning of 27 April).<sup>246</sup> According to one correspondent, he had ‘been civilly dead almost this year past’. He died intestate, allegedly possessed of real estate worth only about £2,000 a year.<sup>247</sup> As he had no children his peerage died with him.</p><p>Whig propagandists portrayed Somers as something of a hero. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, declared that as lord chancellor he was ‘in all respects the greatest man I had ever known in that post’, while Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> praised him as ‘one of the most distinguished figures in the history of the present age’.<sup>248</sup> Tories vilified him instead as debauched and, if not an atheist, certainly a deist. James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> noted that ‘Lord Somers is more particularly glanced at in all their pamphlets, for adultery, Socianism, and I know not what besides’. Swift also alluded to Socinianism when considering Somers’ beliefs.<sup>249</sup> Both views reflected his long domination of political and parliamentary life; perhaps they also reflected the extent to which even his contemporaries found it difficult to penetrate beneath the surface of urbane aloofness that he cultivated so well.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
SOMERSET, Edward (c. 1603-67) |
<p><strong><surname>SOMERSET</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (c. 1603–67)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1628-45 Ld. Herbert; <em>styled </em>1645-46 earl of Glamorgan; <em>suc. </em>fa. 18 Dec. 1646 as 2nd mq. of WORCESTER |
|
First sat 13 June 1660; last sat 31 Oct. 1665 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. ?bef. 9 Mar. 1603,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Henry Somerset<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl, later mq. of Worcester, and Anne, da. of John Russell<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Russell. <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad (Germany, France, Italy) 1619–22;<sup>2</sup> ?MA, Camb. 1627. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1628, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1635), da. of Sir William Dormer, sis. of Robert Dormer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Carnarvon, 9s. (4 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 4da.;<sup>3</sup> (2) 1639 (with £20,000), Margaret (<em>d</em>.1681), da. and coh. of Henry O’Brien, 4th earl of Thomond [I], 1da. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 3 Apr. 1667; <em>admon</em>. 23 Nov. 1667, 13 Jan. 1671, 15 Oct. 1681 to s. Henry Somerset*, later duke of Beaufort.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr. council of Welsh marches 1633; dep. lt. Mon. 1635.</p><p>Lt. gen. South Wales 1643.<sup>6</sup></p> |
|
<p>Herbert, as he was styled after his father’s succession to the earldom of Worcester in 1628, is best known as an inventor. However, although he may have had a genius for early steam power and was accredited by Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, as ‘a man of more than ordinary affection and reverence to the person of the king’, in most other regards he has come to be perceived as at best a scatterbrained fantasist and at worst a dishonest and fraudulent gold-digger.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Herbert’s family claimed their descent from a bastard line of the Beaufort dukes of Somerset, themselves the illegitimate descendants of John of Gaunt. Marriage into the Herbert family had brought Charles Somerset<sup>†</sup> interest in Wales, as a result of which he was elevated to the peerage in 1513 as earl of Worcester. The 5th earl, Herbert’s father, converted to Catholicism as a result of his travels on the continent in the 1590s and thereafter the family seat at Raglan Castle acquired the reputation of a seedbed of popery. It was rumoured to be the headquarters of a Jesuit mission in Wales.<sup>8</sup></p><p>The outbreak of The Civil War found both Worcester and Herbert active on the king’s behalf, with Herbert proving to be an unsuccessful if not actually incompetent general in the west. In November 1642 Worcester was promoted to a marquessate for his services and two years later Herbert claimed to have been rewarded with the earldom of Glamorgan.<sup>9</sup> This and subsequent honours have been the cause of debate.<sup>10</sup> There is considerable doubt as to whether the patent for this promotion ever passed the great seal and there was noticeable inconsistency in the manner in which Herbert was styled after the supposed creation.<sup>11</sup> A record in the signet office docquet book for April 1645 does record the intention to create Herbert as earl of Glamorgan, but it seems certain that the great seal was never applied to the bill and Charles I later distanced himself from the supposed grant.<sup>12</sup></p><p>More controversially still, Herbert also claimed to have been promised promotion to the dukedoms of Somerset and Beaufort as a reward for leading a mission to Ireland to recruit an army from the Catholic confederates there.<sup>13</sup> The king’s commission of April 1644, which was also the subject of lengthy debates after the Restoration, further purported to promise the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Herbert’s son ‘Plantagenet’ (presumably Henry Somerset, later duke of Beaufort), complete with a dowry of £300,000.<sup>14</sup> Again, the validity of the documents associated with the grant have been treated with great suspicion. Herbert’s subsequent activities in Ireland rapidly brought him into conflict with the lord lieutentant, James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond, who imprisoned him at Dublin in 1645.<sup>15</sup> Herbert was released the following month. The king strenuously denied ever having ordered his mission, though a letter of February 1646, again purporting to be from Charles I and addressed to ‘Glamorgan’, noted that ‘both you and I have been abused in this business’ and promised to ‘bring you so off that you may be still useful to me and I shall be able to recompense you for your affection’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Herbert failed to return to England following his release from custody, remaining in Ireland in alliance with the confederate army. With the death of his father in December 1646 he became the second marquess of Worcester, though he still did not return to England, moving in 1648 to France. The following year he approached the new king about his hoped-for grant, but was rebuffed.<sup>17</sup> Disappointed, Worcester finally came back to England in 1652, in spite of being excepted from indemnity by Parliament, having been reduced to abject penury in France. His whereabouts were sought out by the council of state and he was soon after thrown into the Tower to await trial.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Worcester’s return to England was probably connected with his efforts to secure his inheritance. As early as 1637, the 1st marquess had attempted to steer control of the family estates away from his son and, according to the evidence of the 1st marquess’s chaplain, he bemoaned the fact that his heir was so prodigal that, though he ‘had a chamber full of gold he would throw it all away’. The 1st marquess’s intention appears to have been to settle his estates as far as possible on his grandson Henry (styled Lord Herbert), but he died leaving only a nuncupative will and the details of this appear to have been suppressed by his sister, Lady Montagu, and perhaps also by the 2nd marquess.<sup>19</sup> There followed a family feud as Lord Herbert attempted to recover his inheritance in the teeth of his aunt’s and father’s opposition.<sup>20</sup> Herbert was also compelled to negotiate with Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> for restoration of many of the family estates, which had been granted to the lord protector by Parliament.<sup>21</sup></p><p>With no trial forthcoming, Worcester petitioned successfully to be released from his imprisonment in October 1654, pleading old age and the presence of smallpox in the area.<sup>22</sup> As Raglan Castle had been slighted and only a small proportion of the family’s lands had been returned into Herbert’s control, Worcester was left to eke out the remainder of the interregnum on a pension of £3 a week granted to him by Cromwell to allow him to concentrate on his inventions.<sup>23</sup> Prior to the civil wars he had established a laboratory at Vauxhall with Caspar Kaltoff. He now revived this to pursue his dream of constructing a ‘water commanding engine’ and in 1655 he composed a treatise, <em>The Century of Inventions</em>, detailing inventions and prototypes which he claimed to have developed. The collection was published following the Restoration, dedicated to the king and the House of Lords.<sup>24</sup> There was later some discussion as to how much of the work was original and, of that, how much Worcester’s and how much Kaltoff’s. Finding that Cromwell’s pension barely provided them with enough to survive, Lady Worcester submitted a bill before Parliament in May 1657 for settling Worcester House on her during her husband’s lifetime.<sup>25</sup> The measure attracted warm support from several members, one being earnest in his pleas on Lady Worcester’s behalf ‘in point of charity’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>At the Restoration, Worcester was noted as a papist in an assessment of the Lords compiled by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in March 1660.<sup>27</sup> On 9 May, before Worcester had taken his seat, the marchioness submitted a further petition, complaining that Worcester House had been undermined by Colonel Copley. The House ordered a stop to all activities there and on 30 May responded to a further complaint by ordering a stop to the felling of timber on lands belonging to Worcester, formerly in Cromwell’s possession. Worcester took his seat at last on 13 June, after which he was present on 34 per cent of all sitting days. That month he placed Worcester House at the disposal of Sir Edward Hyde rent free (though by a later agreement of 1663 Hyde, by then earl of Clarendon, agreed to pay £400 per annum).<sup>28</sup> Correctly identifying the rising star in the new regime, Worcester declared that he had chosen Hyde ‘as a bosom friend’ and in an earlier letter along the same lines he invited his new ally to ‘spit in my face’ should he ask of him anything that was not ‘honourable just and fitting’.<sup>29</sup> For all that, he was quick to make the most of the connection by attempting to employ his interest on behalf of Percy Herbert*, 2nd Baron Powis, father of Worcester’s son-in-law, for advancement to an earldom, which he claimed had been promised by the late king. Worcester qualified his support for Powis’ earldom, the proofs of which had been lost during The Civil War, by admitting that, although the king did not doubt his word on the matter, Powis’ advancement might bring into question his own pretensions to be advanced in the peerage.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Worcester submitted a petition for the return of his own estates on 20 June 1660, emphasizing that his father had ‘spent more than any other subject for the service of the late king’.<sup>31</sup> His request was granted accordingly and on 30 June he was allowed the same power as had been granted to James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, to take possession of lost goods. On 9 July the House ordered that both Elizabeth Cromwell, Oliver Cromwell’s widow, and Lord Herbert should deliver up papers relating to the family’s estates, and on 27 July it was ordered that the gatehouse of Worcester House was to be comprehended as a part of the mansion following a dispute with Anne Tisser, who claimed to have purchased the gatehouse as a discrete building during the interregnum and who continued to contest attempts to remove her throughout the following month.</p><p>On 7 Aug. Worcester was granted leave to bring in a bill for restoration of his estates and it received its first reading six days later. His legitimate aspiration to recover his lands was cast into the shade on 18 Aug. when William Seymour*, marquess of Hertford, informed the House of Worcester’s intention of presenting a patent claiming the dukedom of Somerset and Beaufort jointly (the former of which was also claimed by Hertford). Worcester’s claim rested on his 1644 commission from the former king but, although the Venetian resident reported that it was difficult to predict which side would prove the stronger in the dispute, it was widely believed that Worcester’s patent was a forgery.<sup>32</sup> On 23 Aug., following investigation by committee, Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, reported that Worcester was willing to admit that he had not fulfilled the terms under which the patent had been offered, thereby offering him a convenient opportunity to withdraw his questionable claim with a modicum of dignity. On 3 Sept. Henry Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Wardour, informed the House that Worcester had surrendered the patent to the king, shortly after which Worcester allowed the matter to drop. As a result, the Lords ordered that all other patents granted during the Civil War and Interregnum should be submitted to the House’s consideration. More fortunate than his rival, Hertford’s pretensions were acknowledged shortly after with his creation as duke of Somerset. Later investigations into Worcester’s patent by John Anstis on behalf of Henry Somerset*, 3rd duke of Beaufort, uncovered no documentary evidence supporting Worcester’s claims to a dukedom, though Anstis did conclude that Worcester’s parallel pretensions to the earldom of Glamorgan were credible.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Worcester’s motivation in petitioning for the dukedom is difficult to divine. It seems quite possible that he was warmly encouraged by his marchioness, who was notoriously unstable, but his own flamboyant nature no doubt contributed to his desire to be recognized for what he perceived to have been exceptional service to the former king. Thwarted in his efforts to secure the peerage, he turned his attention to overseeing other business. He returned to the House for the second session of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660, after which he was present on 60 per cent of all sitting days. Named to two committees on 27 Nov., two days later he reported from that considering the tobacco bill and on 4 Dec. he was named to the committee for Sir Thomas Grimes’s bill. On 12 Dec. two provisos (one of Worcester’s and the other of his son Herbert’s) to the bill for attainting the murderers of Charles I were referred to a subcommittee and two days later Worcester’s proviso was agreed to following some slight amendments. Worcester reported from the committee for Grimes’s bill on 15 Dec. and from that for Sir Anthony Browne’s bill five days later. Although the latter bill was recommended to the House as fit to pass, it was later rejected.</p><p>Worcester took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on 35 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just one committee. He was marked absent at a call on 20 May but resumed his place a little under three weeks later on 8 June. Still plagued by financial difficulties, on 2 July he was forced to claim privilege to protect himself from creditors, who were pursuing debts estimated at £20,000. His predicament prompted the House to issue an order on 8 July to prevent further waste of his estates. Worcester was again absent at a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661 but he returned to his place the following day, when he was named to the committee for the heralds’ bill. On 7 Dec. he was added to the committee for privileges and on 12 Dec. his own bill received its first reading. Following its second reading on 17 Feb. 1662, counsel were ordered to be heard in the matter the following day and on 28 Feb. Worcester was granted leave to withdraw the bill. A (presumably amended) version was presented to the House shortly after and read for the first time on 10 Mar. but no further progress was made in the business before the close of the session. In the meantime, Worcester’s steward, John Tippetts, threatened to nullify an agreement with the navy commissioners for the purchase of timber from Worcester’s forests, insisting that the arrangement was contrary to the marquess’s best interests.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Worcester’s efforts to secure his estates were complicated by his continuing troubled relationship with his heir but by September 1662 a settlement was arrived at, whereby Herbert agreed to take on Worcester’s debts and pay him an annuity. In return Herbert took control of the estates. The following year, Worcester appointed Robert Raworth and Richard Cocks trustees to oversee his remaining lands in England and Wales.<sup>35</sup> A subsequent deed of 1664 transferred Worcester’s interests to his brother Lord John Somerset.<sup>36</sup> Even so, Worcester continued to face demands from creditors, among them John Hinde, who attempted to recover £1,200 plus costs, which had been awarded to him in 1659.<sup>37</sup> Herbert was later to discover that the extent of his father’s indebtedness was far greater than Worcester had declared and in the mid-1670s he was still saddled with more than £40,000 of his father’s debts.<sup>38</sup></p><p>For all his monetary worries, Worcester was willing on occasion to use what little interest he had on behalf of others, and in December 1662 he petitioned Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, for a Captain Foster to be admitted to bail. Worcester had known Foster while imprisoned in the Tower and insisted that his wife ‘was ever a most hardy cavalier’.<sup>39</sup> Missing at the opening of the new session, Worcester was also absent at a call of the House on 23 Feb. 1663 but took his seat two days later, after which he was present on 49 per cent of all sitting days and was named to two committees. On 16 Mar. he was present for the first reading of the bill to allow him to garner the profits from his water-commanding engine. Committed three days later, on 21 Mar. the bill was considered in committee under Northampton’s chairmanship, during which first session a number of amendments were proposed, including (significantly) the omission from the first clause of the phrase ‘and earl of Glamorgan’ from Worcester’s title. When it was also queried why Worcester had submitted a request for a lease of 99 years, he answered that he still expected to spend a further two or three years perfecting the machine and estimated that he would be out of pocket to the tune of £40,000 or £50,000.</p><p>Following several adjournments, the committee reconvened on 26 Mar. when it was resolved by 11 votes to 1 to report the bill with the committee’s proposed amendments. Reported by Northampton on 28 Mar., following debate the bill was ordered to be recommitted. It was considered in committee once more on 30 Mar. with the lord privy seal (Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey) in the chair, before being reported to the House again by Northampton, after which it was ordered to be engrossed.<sup>40</sup> The bill was enacted on 3 June and later that year Worcester published his <em>Century of Inventions</em>. He appended the text of the act, as well as a description of the water-commanding engine on which he now pinned his hopes for the restoration of his fortunes. In his dedication to the Lords and Commons, he begged that they would ‘spare me not in what your wisdoms shall find me useful, who do esteem my self not only by the act of the water-commanding engine (which so cheerfully you have passed) sufficiently rewarded, but likewise with courage enabled to do ten times more for the future’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Two years previously Worcester had offered a share in the venture to John Maitland*, 2nd earl, later duke, of Lauderdale [S], describing it as ‘the greatest gift of invention for profit that I ever yet heard of’, but Lauderdale appears to have declined taking advantage of the opportunity.<sup>42</sup> Despite the successful passage of the act, Worcester continued to be plagued by financial concerns and on 8 July he was compelled to claim privilege to protect him from further entanglements in the case <em>Langham v. Warner</em>. He was added to the committee for the Bedford Level bill on 17 July and the following day he was named to that for the Peters naturalization bill.</p><p>Worcester took his seat in the new session on 4 Apr. 1664, after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. On 14 Apr. the House ordered a stay of proceedings during the time of privilege in <em>Langham v. Warner</em>, but Worcester undertook not to insist on his privilege in the future for this case. Absent at a call on 7 Dec., he returned to the House two days later but this proved to be the only occasion on which he attended during the session. He was absent from the opening of the subsequent session held in Oxford on 9 Oct. 1665, delaying taking his seat until the 16th. Present on just over half of all sitting days, he was named to two committees on 26 October. He sat for the last time five days later.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Worcester submitted a new petition to the king, rehearsing the by now well-worn theme of his father’s vast expenditure in the royal cause, as a result of which he pleaded that he was ‘reduced to a small pittance’. To add to his miseries he was also being sued by John Hall, one of the receivers of revenue, for a loan of £6,000, which Hall had since assigned to the crown. Worcester begged for the king’s intercession in the affair to save him from falling further into desperation.<sup>43</sup> It was probably in connection with this that George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, wrote to Arlington (as Bennet had since become), desiring his assistance in gaining Worcester some relief. Noting Worcester’s ‘sad condition’ he asked that if Arlington would ‘find an occasion to incline the king thereunto I shall not fail to second your lordship therein or any other who may be instrumental to get from his majesty a due consideration of my lord marquess’s just pretension to as much favour and recompense as any subject I know’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Once again, Worcester was disappointed in his expectations. On 1 Oct. 1666 he was excused at a call. Although he registered his proxy with Northampton on 17 Dec., he appears to have attended a committee of the House during the session, as it was reported on 22 Dec. that both he and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, had been sent to the Tower following a scuffle during which Buckingham was said to have taken Worcester by the nose ‘and pulled him about’.<sup>45</sup> It was probably shortly after this episode that Worcester presented the king with a draft speech which he proposed should be read rather than spoken (protesting his rhetorical inadequacies). In it he offered to raise an auxiliary troop of life guards, to oversee the building of causeways in London, to found a charity for indigent officers and to assist with the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral. In return, he requested his expenses in the king’s service be considered, which he now claimed amounted to £918,000. None of his projects was acted upon.<sup>46</sup></p><p>At about the same time that Worcester was attempting this final throw, his wife also petitioned the House for relief. She cited her husband’s great debts contracted in the king’s cause and that, although he had paid off £50,000 of the arrears, his estate was now seized upon by creditors and the couple were in danger of being ejected from their London residence.<sup>47</sup> It was in this predicament that Worcester died on 3 Apr. 1667 at Worcester House, intestate. Administration of his estate was granted to his heir, Herbert. Worcester’s corpse was conveyed to the ancestral ruin of Raglan Castle, where it was interred in the surviving family vault. He was succeeded by Herbert as 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), to whom also fell the responsibility of coping with his unstable step-mother. She was eventually certified as a lunatic but not before she offended the king by pursuing her claim to the title of Plantagenet.<sup>48</sup> Her second husband, Donogh Kearney, also gained notoriety for his supposed involvement in the Popish Plot.<sup>49</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SOMERSET, Henry (c. 1629-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>SOMERSET</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1629–1700)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1646-67 Ld. Herbert of Raglan; <em>suc. </em>fa. 3 Apr. 1667 as 3rd mq. of WORCESTER; <em>cr. </em>2 Dec. 1682 duke of BEAUFORT |
|
First sat 10 Oct. 1667; last sat 20 Aug. 1689 |
|
MP Breconshire 1654, Monmouthshire 1660, 1661-67 |
<p><em>b.</em> c. 1629 o. s. of Edward Somerset*, 2nd mq. of Worcester, and 1st w. Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1635), da. of Sir William Dormer. <em>educ</em>. privately (Mr Adams); travelled abroad (Italy, France) 1644-50; MA Oxf. 1663; G. Inn 1669, L. Inn 1671. <em>m</em>. 17 Aug. 1657 Mary, da. of Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Capell of Hadham, wid. of Henry Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Ld. Beauchamp, 5s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 4da. KG 1672.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 21 Jan. 1700; <em>will</em> 20 Jan. 1700, pr. 27 Jan. 1700.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 17 Apr. 1672-24 Dec. 1688;<sup>3</sup> gent. of the bedchamber 1685-88.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Ld. lt., Glos., Herefs., Mon. 1660-89, N. and S. Wales 1672-89, Isle of Purbeck 1687-9; warden, Forest of Dean 1660-97; constable of St Briavels 1660-97;<sup>5</sup> <em>custos rot</em>., Mon. 1660-89, Som. ?1668-72, Herefs. 1671-89, Brec. 1679-89; steward, Grosmont, Mon. 1660-?<em>d</em>.; dep. lt., Mont. 1660-?67;<sup>6</sup> Wilts. 1661-?67; ld. pres., council in the marches of Wales 1672-89; freeman, Bristol 1681, Ludlow, 1681, Worcester 1683, Tewkesbury 1684;<sup>7</sup> recorder, Hereford 1682-88, Brecon and Carmarthen 1686-88;<sup>8</sup> high steward, Andover 1682-88, Leominster 1684-88, Malmesbury 1685-88, Tewkesbury 1686-88.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Col., regt. of ft. 1667, 1673-4, 11th regt. of ft. June-Oct. 1685; gov.,Chepstow 1660-85.</p><p>Freeman, E.I. Co. 1682;<sup>10</sup> gov. of Charterhouse 1685.<sup>11</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Riley (attrib. to), c.1672?, Powis Castle, Welshpool; line engraving by R. White, 1679, NPG D28194; oils on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1682, Gloucester City Museum and Art Galleries.</p> |
<p>The only son of the eccentric 2nd marquess of Worcester, Lord Herbert, as he was styled from his father’s succession to the marquessate, was fortunate to be absent on an extended foreign tour for the duration of most of the Civil War and was therefore not tarnished by royalism in the way that both his father and grandfather had been. A charge that he had borne arms while resident in Oxford was countered with the explanation that he had done so only once as a 13-year old during a ceremonial inspection. On his return to England in 1650 Herbert set about attempting to recover the family’s confiscated estates, many of which had been granted to Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> by Parliament. In April 1651 Cromwell warned his wife about Herbert’s activities, cautioning her to ‘beware of my Lord Herbert his resort to your house. If he do so, [it] may occasion scandal, as if I were bargaining with him’.<sup>13</sup> Herbert soon after petitioned Parliament for settlement of his father’s lands. His case was referred to the committee for compounding, which reported in favour of restoring Herbert to those parts of his patrimony that had not been granted to Cromwell. At the same time, Herbert and Cromwell were actively engaged in settling with each other. The resulting act of Parliament of 16 July and indenture between the two men, which was confirmed two months later, enabled Herbert to take possession of some of his Monmouthshire estates.<sup>14</sup> Four years later he benefited further from the death of his cousin, Elizabeth Somerset, who left to him the manor of Badminton, which he developed as his principal residence over the coming years.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Although Herbert was able to develop an amicable relationship with the Cromwellian regime and embraced the Commonwealth sufficiently to be returned for Breconshire in 1654, he reinforced his royalist connections with his 1657 marriage to Mary, Lady Beauchamp, daughter of one of the foremost royalist martyrs, Arthur Capell<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Capell, and widow of another royalist adherent, Henry Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Lord Beauchamp, heir, until his death in 1654, of William Seymour*, marquess of Hertford (later 2nd duke of Somerset). Not only did the alliance tie him closely to two prominent royalist families, it also gave him a directing influence over Lady Beauchamp’s children by her first marriage and consequently over the Seymour estates, an interest that brought the two families frequently into conflict.<sup>16</sup></p><p>At some point between his return to England and the Restoration, Herbert renounced his Catholicism and embraced the Church of England. He was reluctant to throw his weight behind the planned western rising of August 1659, though this did not prevent him being incarcerated in the Tower from August until November of that year on suspicion of complicity in royalist plotting.<sup>17</sup> As a result, at the Restoration, Herbert was able to capitalize on both royalist credentials as well as his relative lack of activity on either side to secure his return for Monmouthshire in the elections to the Convention, though he was unsuccessful at Gloucestershire in spite of laying out ‘near a thousand pounds to procure voices’. He irritated his kinswoman, Lady Englefield, by declining to sit for Wootton Bassett, where he had been returned on her interest, and by nominating his own successor without consulting her.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Herbert was nominated one of the party to wait on the king at Breda.<sup>19</sup> His attention during the early days of the Convention was taken up with his father’s effort to secure the dukedom of Beaufort and Somerset, which he claimed to have been promised by the former king, in the teeth of spirited opposition from the Seymour family. Herbert found himself in the unattractive position of supporting his father’s claims against those of his own stepson but in August the problem was effectively resolved when Worcester withdrew his claim amidst accusations that he had forged documents.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Recommended by the gentry of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire as a person of ‘integrity and honour, and a resident’ to be made their lord lieutenant in the summer of 1660, Herbert was soon after appointed to the lieutenancy of Monmouthshire and also to those of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire.<sup>21</sup> He quickly acquired a reputation for being unfashionably inclined to oversee his duties as a lord lieutenant in person: in January 1661 he was advised by his kinsman, William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, to leave the bulk of his work to his deputies (which Bedford considered the usual manner of proceeding).<sup>22</sup> Herbert’s early promotion at court was no doubt assisted by a relationship with the family of the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Clarendon’s heir, Henry Hyde*, styled Lord Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon), was married to Herbert’s wife’s sister, and Herbert’s close association with Cornbury and his younger brother Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, endured for the remainder of his life.<sup>23</sup> In the autumn of 1663 Badminton was taken in as part of the king’s western progress, though Herbert was embarrassed to discover his modest manor house too small to accommodate the royal party and he spent the next few years enlarging the seat so that he should not be caught out a second time.<sup>24</sup> For all his ambition, awareness of his comparative poverty made Herbert reluctant to take a prominent part in court extravaganzas and in November 1666 he complained to his wife that he had not been at court for the past four or five days not considering himself fine enough to be seen in company.<sup>25</sup></p><h2><em>Marquess of Worcester 1667-1682</em></h2><p>Herbert succeeded to the marquessate on 3 Apr. 1667, though he had in effect been in control of the family estates since entering into a settlement with his father to allow him to take command of his escalating debts. The death of the old marquess failed to settle the problem as it proved increasingly apparent that his debts were far greater than he had admitted. Worcester’s succession to the peerage triggered a by-election in Monmouthshire, offering him an early opportunity to try his interest in the county. The event proved a stark disappointment and his candidate, James Herbert, was defeated by Sir Trevor Williams<sup>‡</sup> standing on the rival Morgan of Tredegar interest. On the other hand, Worcester’s increasing prominence at court was reflected in his invitation to stand godfather to Prince Edgar, son of James Stuart*, duke of York, in September.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Worcester sat for the first time on 10 Oct. 1667 and the following day he was appointed one of the lords to wait on the king with the House’s thanks for his speech, reporting the king’s answer on 14 October. He was present on 69 per cent of all sitting days in the session, and was named to 17 committees. On 18 Dec. he reported from the committee of privileges concerning the case <em>Lord Gerard v. Carr</em>, recommending that Carr, who had been accused of printing a scandalous paper, should be brought before the House. Worcester’s influence was underscored by rumours that he was to be promoted to a dukedom early in 1668, though these proved unfounded.<sup>27</sup> Excused at a call of the House on 17 Feb. 1668, he resumed his a week later. On 24 Apr. he reported Sir Kingsmill Lucy’s bill as fit to pass without amendment.</p><p>Worcester was commanded by the council to display particular vigilance over the municipal elections in Herefordshire that autumn, demanding that he report how the various corporations ‘behave themselves in this particular’.<sup>28</sup> He took his seat for the new session on 19 Oct. 1669, thereafter attending all but three of its sitting days during which he was named to only two committees. He then took his seat in the ensuing session on 17 Feb. 1670, of which he attended just under three-quarters of all sitting days and was named to 16 committees. He was omitted from the standing committees, having failed to attend on the opening day of the session when they were established. On 9 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the bill for Frances, dowager countess of Southampton, aunt to his stepson, William Seymour*, 3rd duke of Somerset.<sup>29</sup> On 1 Mar. 1671 he was placed on the committee to draw up heads for a conference on the petition to the king against the growth of popery and he was nominated one of the managers for the ensuing conferences on 3 and 10 March.</p><p>Rumours that Worcester was to be awarded a Garter circulated in May 1671; in December it was also reported that he was to be appointed to the lieutenancy of Ireland; both suggestions proved to be unfounded.<sup>30</sup> In December the duke of Somerset died, a minor without heirs. The dukedom descended to his uncle, John Seymour*, 4th duke of Somerset, but in his will the young man had conveyed his personal estate to his mother, the marchioness of Worcester, thus ensuring the continuation of the rivalry between the families.<sup>31</sup> In February 1672, the Somersets’ alliance with York was further emphasized when Lady Worcester stood godmother to the duke’s daughter, Princess Katharine. The following month it was reported that Worcester was to be added to the Privy Council, and he was sworn in April, while in May rumours circulated once more that he was to have the Garter.<sup>32</sup> Since early in 1672 it had been reported that Worcester would be made lord lieutenant of Wales and lord president of the council of the Welsh marches, replacing Richard Vaughan*, 2nd earl of Carbery [I], who attended the House as Baron Vaughan. Among Worcester’s qualifications for the post were the fact that ‘much of his estate and many of his dependants’ were in Wales and the four counties next to it.<sup>33</sup> These appointments were made formal in July. He proved far from popular among the Welsh, acquiring an unsavoury reputation as a harsh master. He caused particular resentment by attempting to administer the principality from Badminton or his house in Monmouth rather than from the traditional centre of government at Ludlow.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Worcester attended the two prorogation days of 16 Apr. and 30 Oct. 1672 before taking his seat in the new session on 4 Feb. 1673, after which he was present on 78 per cent of all sitting days and was named to seven committees. Later that year, he attended three of the four days of the brief October session before taking his seat once more on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on just under 90 per cent of all sitting days. A petition from his step-mother, his father’s second wife, Margaret O’Brien, daughter of Henry O’Brien, 5th earl of Thomond [I], for her privilege to be upheld in a case against William Hall was referred to the committee for privileges but apart from this, Worcester appears to have made little impact on the session.</p><p>Worcester was present on 10 Nov. 1674, when he acted as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) in early April 1675 believed that Worcester was likely to support the non-resisting test. Despite this, he was absent for the entirety of the debates on this bill and was excused at a call of the House on 29 April. He first sat in the chamber on 2 June, and was in all present on just seven of the sitting days in the session. On his first day in the House he was nominated a manager for conferences examining the case of <em>Stoughton v. Onslow </em>(Sir Nicholas Oughton’s prosecution of a Member of the Commons, Onslow, before the Lords). In a letter of 5 June he made clear his disgruntlement at the actions of the Commons in this affair, noting how he had arrived in London ‘in time to see the House receive greater affronts than ever were offered to it except in the time of the late rebellion’. Two days later, in a show of sympathy, he visited those imprisoned in the Tower for breach of privilege by the orders of the House of Commons.<sup>35</sup></p><p>The death of the 4th duke of Somerset at the end of April 1675 restored the majority of the Seymour estates to Worcester’s effective control as his step-daughter, Lady Elizabeth Seymour, the 3rd duke’s sister, was the principal beneficiary as heir at law to the Seymour estate. According to the marchioness, Worcester had exploited his interest with the judge, George Johnson<sup>‡</sup>, a member of the council of the Welsh marches, who had been appointed to draw up the 4th duke’s last testament, to ensure that Lady Elizabeth would receive the lion’s share in spite of Somerset’s having had no intention of leaving his niece a bequest of any kind.<sup>36</sup> Johnson was briefly distracted from his attendance on Worcester by the Commons’ efforts to impeach Danby and also by a report that Somerset had made a new will shortly before his death conveying his estates to his brother-in-law Charles Boyle*, styled Lord Clifford of Lanesborough (later accelerated to the House as Baron Clifford of Lanesborough). Johnson reassured Worcester that he did not believe the rumour and Clifford also seemed unaware of his supposed good fortune.<sup>37</sup> The Seymour estates did indeed devolve on Lady Elizabeth, who was then prevailed upon to nominate her half-brother, Worcester’s son Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Herbert of Raglan, as her heir should she die without issue.<sup>38</sup> Sharp practice or not, the settlement ensured the Worcesters a continuing interest in the Seymour inheritance.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Worcester was absent for the entirety of the following session, which sat for two months in the autumn of 1675, and was again excused at a call of the House on 10 Nov. 1675. Concentration on affairs in Wales and the marches was presumably the reason for his failure to attend at this time. The following year, news of his controversial deal with Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, over the marriage of Ailesbury’s son, Thomas Bruce*, styled Lord Bruce, later 2nd earl of Ailesbury, to Lady Elizabeth Seymour, provoked a concerned response from her paternal aunts, Frances, dowager countess of Southampton and Jane, Lady Clifford of Lanesborough. They were keen to know the truth about rumours that Lady Elizabeth had been prevailed upon to sign an agreement settling her estates on Worcester’s heirs in return for an augmented portion.<sup>40</sup> The details of this settlement were the foundation of conflict between the many branches of the Seymour family.</p><p>Duties in Wales may have been the cause of Beaufort’s failure to attend the autumn session of 1675 but poor health might also have played a part as he was absent at the opening of the ensuing session on 15 Feb. 1677 as well, apparently suffering the effects of ‘a lame leg and a loose belly’.<sup>41</sup> On 9 Feb. Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Worcester and two other absent peers, requesting that they send up blank proxies ‘to be filled up in London with the name of such of his friends as the king shall please’.<sup>42</sup> Three days later, Worcester’s proxy was registered with Ailesbury and on 9 Mar. he was again excused at a call. That day he set out from Badminton, arriving in London in time to take his seat on 12 Mar., thereby vacating the proxy.<sup>43</sup> Added to the standing committees that day, as well as to that considering Sir Edward Hungerford’s bill, he was thereafter present on just over half of all sitting days in the session, and was named to a further dozen committees.</p><p>In spite of his close relationship with his brother-in-law, the country peer Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, Worcester was assessed as doubly vile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in the late spring of 1677.<sup>44</sup> He was similarly cold-shouldered at court. His proposal for his heir Herbert to obtain some diplomatic experience by attending the peace negotiations at Nijmegen as an observer that summer was given short shrift by Danby, not least because there was barely space enough in the town for those actively engaged to be lodged. Worcester remained in town reluctantly that autumn. In November he informed his wife of his intention to quit London as soon as he could: his dislike of being removed from Badminton was not assisted by being confined to his London lodgings as he was then in mourning, ‘and this is not a time to appear in town without very glorious apparel’.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Worcester attended when Parliament reconvened on 28 Jan. 1678, but he was absent for over a month from 11 Feb. to 15 March. His absence was almost certainly the result of concentration on local matters. Sir Joseph Williamson had written to Worcester at the beginning of March to enquire into reports that he had turned out a number of justices of the peace in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire.<sup>46</sup> Worcester was also engaged in a simmering feud with William Lloyd*, bishop of Llandaff, who had allied with Worcester’s heir, Herbert. The following month Worcester found himself under fire from another quarter when he was challenged by John Arnold<sup>‡</sup> over his right to enclose land around Chepstow, of which Worcester was governor.</p><p>Worcester took his seat in the following session on 24 May 1678, and attended almost 84 per cent of all sitting days, being named to thirteen committees. On 10 June 1678 he claimed privilege against several of his tenants, who had responded to Arnold’s provocations by mounting a raid in Wentworth Chase. Worcester reported from the committee for the bill against the illegal killing of deer on 1 July. Two days later Howell Meredith and the other men singled out by Worcester for their actions in Wentworth Chase were condemned by the Lords, though they were freed from restraint on 10 July, following Worcester’s intercession on their behalf. In the meantime, on 5 July, Worcester subscribed to the dissent from the resolution to ascertain the relief due to the petitioner Marmaduke Darrell in his case against Sir Paul Whichcot<em>. </em>Worcester’s involvement in these cases may have necessitated long hours in the chamber, for on 6 July 1678 he wrote home complaining of the weight of business. He also remained supremely tetchy about the promotion of local rivals and on 18 July he reported bitterly how one such, George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, had been sworn a member of the Privy Council, ‘to his no little satisfaction, as you may imagine’.<sup>47</sup> The session having been prorogued on 15 July, at the end of the month Worcester retreated to Badminton.</p><p>Worcester took his place in the House for the following session on 8 Nov. 1678, and was at once plunged into the hysterical debates surrounding the revelations of the Popish Plot. Present on 56 per cent of all sitting days, just four days after taking his seat he faced the considerable embarrassment of hearing William Bedloe’s testimony in which his own estate steward, Charles Price, as well as a number of his allies in the marches, were named as prime movers in the Plot; Price was even credited with being the Plot’s effective leader. Although Bedloe was at pains to vindicate Worcester himself, the evidence of an apparently flourishing and militant Catholic community in the heart of Worcester’s sphere of influence could not but be damaging to his reputation. Although he was convinced of his steward’s innocence, Worcester resolved to part with Price irrespective of the outcome of the enquiry into his activities, clearly unwilling to allow further criticism to be directed his way.<sup>48</sup> Worcester complained in his letters home that ‘it is a very wearisome life here with little satisfaction. We either sit morning and afternoon, or the whole day without adjourning for a dining time’. Resistant to attempts to disable the Catholic peers from sitting, on 14 Nov. he noted how in a debate in committee of the whole House on the test bill, ‘we have this day as good as voted the Popish lords out of the House’. <sup>49</sup> The following day he was among the minority voting in a committee of the whole against the proposal that the declaration against transubstantiation be under the same penalties as the oaths in the test bill. Unhappily tied to the House and at council over the following few days, he noted 26 Nov. as ‘a day of great duty’ involving attendance at two meetings of the council as well as two sessions of the House, and two days later he noted a further lengthy day’s business lasting until nine in the evening. The long hours and likely duration of the session persuaded Worcester that he needed to find more convenient lodgings and in between attendance in the House and at council he was involved in negotiation for a suitable house to rent. His quest was complicated by the marchioness, who vetoed Sir Nicholas Crisp’s residence, which she declared to be the worst house she ever saw, and by some of the demands of the property owners. Although Worcester believed he had made William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, a reasonable offer at £100 a year plus the cost of employing a housekeeper and gardener for his London residence, it was only half of what Paget demanded.<sup>50</sup></p><p>While Worcester was spared from being directly implicated in the plot by Bedloe, he faced probing from Shaftesbury over the composition of the garrison at Chepstow. Worcester complained on 7 Dec. 1678 that he had ‘had little peace this morning from Lord Shaftesbury’. Throughout December, Shaftesbury continued to needle Worcester over accusations that the garrison was predominantly composed of Catholics, that its captain was a recusant and that Worcester had failed to ensure the proper reading of Anglican prayers in the castle. On 10 Dec. Worcester agreed to waive his privilege in his case with one Rogers, one of those accused of invading his rights at Wentworth Chase. At the end of the month the marchioness warned him that more damaging revelations were emanating from within his own household. Writing on 30 Dec. she related that his servants in town were sending newsletters back to their counterparts at Badminton, ‘all about the Lords’ House, but not in agreement with his letters’. Worrying that the provenance of such reports gave ‘authority to them’ she begged him to prevent any further leaks of information.<sup>51</sup></p><h2><em>Exclusion and Tory Reaction, 1679-85</em></h2><p>The dissolution of 24 Jan. 1679 offered Worcester a temporary reprieve but in February his step-mother, the dowager marchioness, became an additional problem when two priests were arrested at her London residence in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.<sup>52</sup> At the beginning of March, Danby reckoned Worcester as a likely supporter for the upcoming Parliament, but later he altered his assessment to unreliable and even later to doubtful. Worcester took his seat in the abortive first session of the new Parliament on 6 Mar., attending its six days before resuming his seat at the opening of the longer-lasting second session on 15 Mar. 1679, after which he was present on 67 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the committee for receiving information about the plot on 17 Mar., Worcester was named to only two further committees during the session. He was absent from the House between 9 and 22 Apr. and thus missed the proceedings on the bill threatening Danby with attainder. Although marked as present on the attendance list on 9 May, Worcester was again noted absent at a call held that day. The following day he was present and voted in favour of appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, and signed the dissent when that motion was rejected.</p><p>Worcester’s position on the Privy Council was confirmed when it was remodelled in April 1679. On 24 July he was present at a dinner with a number of other leading councillors.<sup>53</sup> By the late summer Worcester was engaged in correspondence with Bedloe, who wrote to inform the marquess of the efforts he was making to counter any hostile reports implicating Worcester in the plot.<sup>54</sup> Information that Arnold and Edward Morgan had been ‘guilty of several disrespects’ to the marquess were also investigated, but the two men denied that their behaviour had been in any way opprobrious and asserted their willingness to ‘demean themselves with all due respects and obedience’ for the future.<sup>55</sup> Despite this, Worcester’s interest continued to come under pressure. Although his heir, Lord Herbert, was successfully returned for Monmouth in the election of autumn 1679, he was subsequently unseated on petition by Arnold, who later claimed to be in fear of his life from Worcester’s henchmen. The close of the year witnessed worsening relations between Worcester and his Capell brothers-in-law as he became increasingly identified with the court and with York: he was referred to as one of the latter’s 12 disciples.<sup>56</sup></p><p>After having acted as a commissioner for proroguing Parliament on 15 Apr. and 22 July 1680, Worcester took his seat in the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, of which he attended over three quarters of all sitting days. He was added to the committee for the Journal on 4 Nov. and was named to the committee for the Irish cattle bill on 12 Nov., from which he reported the following day. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of throwing out the exclusion bill on its first reading and on 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation. The same day he was added to the committee for the bill for drawing up an association and reported from the privileges committee following a hearing concerning one Knollys, a servant of William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, who had sought exemption from parish office. The committee resolved that there were no grounds for the servants of peers to be relieved of parish duties.</p><p>Worcester faced a further threat to his authority from the Commons at the beginning of November 1680 when Sir Trevor Williams introduced a bill for the abolition of the court of the marches of Wales. Colonel Edward Cooke reported on 30 Nov. how the Commons were employing ‘their idle hours’ between their debates over exclusion to consider the measure but Cooke doubted the bill would pass the Commons and was convinced that if it did, it would be rejected by both king and Lords.<sup>57</sup> These moves against Worcester were overshadowed by the attainder of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, whom Worcester found not guilty of treason on 7 December. On 14 Dec. he was one of the five peers, members of the sub-committee for the Journal, who corrected the Journal’s account of the verdict against Stafford, changing the numbers recorded for the vote. The attack on Stafford clearly unnerved Worcester. Evidently concerned by the continuing threats from the Commons, the same month he commissioned an anonymous ally (possibly his son, Lord Herbert) to keep a record of events in the Commons for his information. The resulting diary was maintained from 18 Dec. 1680 until 8 Jan. 1681.<sup>58</sup> It detailed the attacks made upon Worcester from his Welsh enemies and the debates on including him among the ‘evil counsellors’ that the Commons demanded should be removed from the king’s presence.<sup>59</sup> Worcester was described by Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> as a papist who ‘fawns on the duke’, and a number of other Members added to the accusations against him, but Worcester was spared further embarrassment by the dissolution on 18 Jan. 1681.<sup>60</sup> Damaged by the allegations that had emerged, he was once more unable to employ his interest successfully during the elections. Both county seats in Monmouthshire went to candidates standing on rival interests and the borough seat again went to Arnold. In Breconshire Worcester failed to secure the return of a court candidate standing against the sitting member, Richard Williams<sup>‡</sup>, and it seems only to have been at Gloucester that he achieved any degree of success with the return of his son, Lord Herbert.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Although Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, assured his father, Danby, on 20 Mar. 1681 that he had waited upon Worcester among his other friends in advance of the Oxford Parliament in order to solicit their support for his father’s petition for bail, Danby remained less than confident of the marquess’s friendship. In a pre-sessional forecast he listed Worcester as one of those ‘as I conceive if they vote not for me will be neuters’.<sup>62</sup> Worcester first sat in the Oxford Parliament on 21 Mar. and was present on each of the seven days of the brief Parliament. Worcester, however, reflected the continuing uncertainty in a letter to the marchioness, writing that ‘no one knows how long we shall remain here’. He was unimpressed with Oxford’s amenities, lacking as it did a cross-post to Bristol, although he noted with pleasure that his lodgings at Jesus College (no doubt selected because of its Welsh associations) were superior to those offered the king at Christ Church. He appears to have been the victim of a practical joke when Shaftesbury fooled him into presenting the king with a paper recommending the nomination of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as his successor. Worcester opposed the proposal of trying Edward Fitzharris before the House, on the grounds that it was contrary to Magna Carta as the Lords were not Fitzharris’s peers.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Worcester had his revenge on Shaftesbury in July 1681 when he was one of the privy councillors to sign the order for his commitment, an action that no doubt added him to the list of those that the country party were said to be eager to see impeached.<sup>64</sup> His interest was sought that year by the mayor of the city of Bristol who wanted him to present a petition to the king for certain amendments to the city’s charter.<sup>65</sup> That autumn, Worcester acquired Lady Bristol’s house at Chelsea for £5,000; he was dissuaded, on the other hand, from renovating Chepstow as a seat for his heir by the marchioness.<sup>66</sup> He was also engaged in the business of finding husbands for his daughters, finding himself in the politically fortunate (if financially onerous) position of having three all arriving at marriageable age. In September 1681, Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> suggested to James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], that the eldest, Lady Mary Somerset, might be a suitable match for Ormond’s grandson, James Butler*, styled earl of Ossory [I] (and later 2nd duke of Ormond), though Ormond understood that negotiations were already in train with ‘another person of quality’.<sup>67</sup></p><h2><em>Duke of Beaufort 1682-1700</em></h2><p>Worcester’s faithful support for the court and for York during the Exclusion Parliaments earned him advancement in the peerage in December 1682, one of more than a dozen courtiers to be either created peers or promoted within the peerage within the space of two months. Rumours of the impending award had circulated since October, and by November speculation centred on the style he was to adopt, amidst a broader discussion of the propriety of using foreign designations such as Ormond or Albemarle for English titles. At one stage it was thought that he would take the title duke of Worcester. On his creation, however, he settled for the style duke of Beaufort.<sup>68</sup> He was upbraided by the new duchess, who appears to have been unhappy with his selection of a title which already had a French equivalent—the French naval commander, François de Vendosme, duc de Beaufort.<sup>69</sup> Beaufort explained that he had merely followed the advice of the heralds, ‘who advised much a new one rather than the continuance of an old one, which, though practised in several cases of late, is not according to rule. Therefore I have chosen Beaufort, and that my son be called Worcester, the heralds saying that the title is most eligible which brings in remembrance the family one comes of.’<sup>70</sup></p><p>Despite his rising star, Beaufort was in March 1683 overlooked in favour of George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, as governor of the Charterhouse. The following month he initiated an abortive action against Arnold for <em>scandalum magnatum</em>, ‘but… brought it not in’.<sup>71</sup> Efforts to arrest Arnold at Gloucester in December 1682 had also run into difficulties.<sup>72</sup> In May 1683 following the revelations of the Rye House plot, which embraced his brother-in-law Essex, Beaufort made a precautionary progress through North Wales to secure the militia.<sup>73</sup> Following the translation that summer of William Thomas*, bishop of St Davids, to Worcester, the new duke found himself unable to secure the nomination of a Dr Ellis to the vacant see. His recommendation of Ellis’s ‘zeal for his majesty’s service’ and of ‘his ability to promote that within that diocese, wherein he understands all interests very well’ proved insufficient to secure Ellis the promotion.<sup>74</sup> Beaufort enjoyed greater success later that year when he was at last able to bring his action for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against Arnold and Sir Trevor Williams. In October 1683, Beaufort’s heir, now styled marquess of Worcester, communicated to his father the willingness of one witness, formerly ‘a great creature of Arnold’s’, to produce letters in Arnold’s hand. He enclosed one example and promised that the remainder ‘are all of the same strain as the enclosed which is as bad as malice can invent.’<sup>75</sup> Information which had been given to Robert Gunter, one of the local justices, in July 1682 by another informant, James Hughes, related how Arnold had professed in advance of the Oxford Parliament that:</p><blockquote><p>he was going for Oxford to represent his country and if any harm did happen to any of the members of the House of Commons, it must needs be a papist that does it and he that says that the duke of York, lord marquess of Worcester, Lord Halifax, Sir Leoline Jenkins and two or three more noblemen were good men he was a papist and no good subject…<sup>76</sup></p></blockquote><p>Armed with proof of such slanders, Beaufort was successful in securing substantial damages against both Williams, in the court of common pleas on 21 Nov. 1683, and Arnold, the following day in king’s bench.<sup>77</sup> Both men were fined £10,000 for their abuse of the duke, though Beaufort was said to have sought twice as much from Arnold.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Although successful in his prosecution of two local rivals, Beaufort faced a separate challenge to his authority in the winter of 1683 when he was presented with a petition from the deputy lieutenants of Denbighshire, complaining of the multiplicity of deputies within the county and most particularly of one recent addition, who carried himself ‘with such factious violence and arrogance as if he would gratify those gentlemen that advanced him to your grace’s favour by perplexing and crossing us in the discharge of our duty.’ Offended that one of such mean extraction, ‘the grandson of a common and despicable tradesman’, had been added to their ranks, the remaining deputies tendered their collective resignations in the event that Beaufort refused to dismiss him, though they assured him that they did so ‘without the least murmur at your grace’s administration’.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Beaufort undertook to stand surety for his sister’s husband, William Herbert*, earl (later marquess) of Powis on his bail from the Tower in February 1684.<sup>80</sup> In the summer of that year, Beaufort made an impressive progress throughout Wales, setting out from London on 14 July.<sup>81</sup> He arrived at Worcester on 16 July, and the following day was granted the freedom of the city. From there he progressed through the marcher counties and through north and south Wales.<sup>82</sup> Although the progress was generally well attended, there were exceptions, most notably in Herefordshire, where the behaviour of some of the local gentry so infuriated Beaufort’s followers that they threatened to torch the area.<sup>83</sup> Beaufort’s influence in the principality and marcher counties brought him into conflict with John Lake*, bishop of Bristol, over the nomination to a living in Lake’s diocese, though by November Lake was confident that they had resolved their differences and Beaufort agreed to assist the bishop in presenting an address to the king.<sup>84</sup></p><p>The death of Charles II should, on the face of it, have offered Beaufort expectations for further rewards from the new monarch. Beaufort had long been associated with the new king while duke of York and was closely identified with the Hyde brothers, the king’s confidants. In spite of all this, the accession of James II proved more troublesome than expected. Although he received an early mark of favour by being appointed to the new king’s bedchamber, Beaufort did not share his sovereign’s religious convictions and was uneasy at the king’s pro-Catholic policies. Even so, he was assiduous at the opening of the reign in ensuring the loyalty of the areas where he had influence and in April 1685 he presented the king with a loyal address from Flintshire.<sup>85</sup> Taking his seat on the first day of the new Parliament, Beaufort was introduced in his new dignity by Charles Somerset*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, after which he was present on half of all sitting days in the session. The outbreak of Monmouth’s rebellion in the west cut short Beaufort’s attendance, and on 13 June he wrote from his London residence to one of his deputies, certain of his ‘zeal and sense of duty in having his militia ready.’<sup>86</sup> Within days he had left the capital and was encamped with an estimated 12,000 men blocking Monmouth’s path.<sup>87</sup> His immediate assessment of the situation appears to have been pessimistic as he wrote to Clarendon from Bristol on 18 June, apologizing for the tenor of an earlier communication: ‘no fresh alarm coming this day out of Somersetshire, I begin to repent the post script I writ to you by last post’.<sup>88</sup> The following day he wrote again to thank his friend ‘for the account you are pleased to give me of things above’, but was clearly not confident of the capacity of the neighbouring Somerset militia to hold firm in the face of Monmouth’s advance and hinted at a dramatic solution to a general failure of the county militia:</p><blockquote><p>[I] am mightily glad (though I expected no less), that the Parliament continues so dutifully zealous for whatever concerns the King; though I, in this new tax, as this city in general in that of tobacco, shall be great losers. Methinks they being in this temper, if, upon the occasion of the Somersetshire militia running away, and the consequence of such a thing, the power of martial law, over both army and militia, were moved for, it might be obtained.<sup>89</sup></p></blockquote><p>The rapid suppression of the rebellion removed the necessity for such drastic measures and in August 1685, Beaufort pleaded for leave to remain at Badminton a while longer for his health, which had suffered by his sudden removal from town in mid-June.<sup>90</sup> He was also, no doubt, eager to oversee the marriage between his daughter, Mary, on whom he had settled a portion of £12,500, and the newly widowed earl of Ossory.<sup>91</sup> Beaufort was said to have been one of several peers vying for the lord lieutenancy of Ireland in the summer of 1685.<sup>92</sup> Instead of being promoted, though, he was dismayed to be removed from his command at Chepstow in September, a decision that, he thought, would do much to encourage his enemies. ‘I confess that [which] most troubles me, as to my own particular (and it troubles me much the more because it does something affect the public) is the great rejoicing it will cause among the factions that have so often bragged they have got me out from my command there.’<sup>93</sup> Further mortifications were to follow and the next month he was obliged to quit his rural retreat, having received a ‘warm letter’ from Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, complaining that the king considered himself very poorly attended at court and required his immediate presence.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Beaufort resumed his seat in the House on 9 Nov. 1685, when he introduced the king’s nephew, Henry Fitzroy*, as duke of Grafton, and he was present at all but two of the remaining sitting days before the prorogation. He was chosen to act as a juror at the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), on 14 Jan. 1686.<sup>95</sup> Sir Robert Southwell reported later in the year how Ireland had secured ‘a double share of the Badminton ladies’ following the marriage of Beaufort’s second daughter, Lady Henrietta, to another Irish peer, Henry Horatio O’Brien, styled Lord O’Brien.<sup>96</sup> Tensions between Beaufort and other members of his family began to emerge when he was noted as a likely opponent of the reinstatement of John Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Scudamore [I], as justice of the peace in Herefordshire, while Scudamore was warmly promoted by Beaufort’s brother-in-law Powis. In October 1686 Roger Morrice reported that Beaufort was placing his weight behind the corporation of Gloucester against its new mayor, reportedly a papist forcibly installed on the town. Morrice thought that Beaufort’s siding with the corporation against the mayor ‘may be interpreted a crime in him’.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Although he was assessed in January 1687 as being in favour of repeal of the Test Act, by March rumours were circulating of his intention of retiring from court and that he was to be replaced by Powis as president of the Welsh marches.<sup>98</sup> The same month Beaufort remitted the damages awarded him against John Dutton Colt<sup>‡</sup> from an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>: Dutton Colt had been convicted for describing Beaufort as one of the ‘Popish dogs’. In April, on Powis’s intercession, Beaufort also remitted the money still owing to him from Arnold and Williams in return for payment of £1,000 each.<sup>99</sup> An earlier mediation by Arnold’s uncle, Colonel Cooke, on his nephew’s behalf, although treated sympathetically by Beaufort, appears to have run into difficulties when Arnold proved recalcitrant.<sup>100</sup> Beaufort’s motivation at this point may have been a pragmatic acknowledgement that he was unlikely ever to receive the full sum from the financially crippled Arnold, but he may also have been keen to appear magnanimous with defeated adversaries. It did not stop him, though, from pursuing another malefactor at the summer assizes held at Wells, who was ordered to pay the duke 100 marks.<sup>101</sup></p><p>There was still an assumption in May 1687 that Beaufort was in agreement with the king’s policies. The following month he was again noted in attendance at Windsor, and he entertained the king at Badminton during the autumnal royal tour of the west country.<sup>102</sup> That winter he was recorded as being undeclared on the question of repeal, though the assessment had altered again by the beginning of 1688 when he was reckoned once again to be in favour. He toured Wales and the marches in an effort to secure support for the king’s programme, but it was widely understood that he intended to exert little pressure on his neighbours should they prove resistant.<sup>103</sup> Following the birth of the prince of Wales, Beaufort was thought likely to resign the presidency of the council of Wales to the new heir to the throne, though no doubt he would have expected to retain command of the office while the prince remained a minor.<sup>104</sup> In late July he was mentioned as one of those thought likely to succeed the recently deceased Ormond as lord steward, but the honour eluded him.<sup>105</sup> Shortly afterwards, while preparing for the anticipated elections, Beaufort resolved not to set up his son Worcester in Monmouthshire, as he regretted that Worcester’s inclinations were not in tune with the king’s.<sup>106</sup></p><p>As rumours of invasion grew in late 1688, Beaufort, along with a number of other lords lieutenant, was despatched to his lieutenancy to prepare for the Dutch assault. On 22 Oct. he marched into Bristol at the head of a large train of followers, where he was greeted by the citizens with the customary ringing of bells.<sup>107</sup> Despite this reception, as in 1685, Beaufort was gloomy about the prospects of holding the west in the event of an invasion. He alerted the king to rumours of a possible attempt on the castle at Ludlow, and warned both the king and his ministers of the poor state of the local militias and that Bristol was indefensible against assault by the prince of Orange’s forces. ‘This place’ he advised, ‘is extremely considerable, and yet, as the king knows, very incapable of defence, without more in it than come to attack it, if all were friends within, which I do really believe in my conscience not one of twenty is.’<sup>108</sup> When news reached him on 7 Nov. of Prince William’s landing, Beaufort hurried a letter to Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], by express, relaying his fears for the city and warning him of the ‘universal disaffection of the next county and the lukewarmness of the best people here.’ The militia he considered ‘small, slighted, disaffected, and (at best) inexperienced’ and he advised that the king should dispatch regular troops to the area if he wished to hold the city. Clearly desperate to impress on Whitehall how grave the situation was, Beaufort assured Middleton that ‘I shall always be ready to do my duty and what becomes a loyal subject, but I cannot create men, neither am I master of their minds, nor have I a force to compel them.’ Three days later, Beaufort wrote again, apologizing for his previous missive, which he now realized could undermine what confidence remained among the king’s supporters. Even so, he remained desperate to supplement his forces and on 13 and 14 Nov. he wrote to request the use of a troop of horse commanded by Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, that was operating in the area. His requests for relief were ignored. Towards the end of the month Beaufort communicated to the king the impossibility of fulfilling his commission to hold the west, and on 28 Nov. he declared his intention of quitting the city and falling back on Badminton.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Although unable to hold Bristol, Beaufort was successful in keeping Gloucestershire and the marches secure for the king and it was the Gloucestershire militia that succeeded in stopping a force under John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, from breaking through to the prince’s camp. On hearing of Lovelace’s capture, it was rumoured that William dispatched a message to Beaufort threatening to burn Badminton if his supporter was not released.<sup>110</sup> Abandoned by the king, Beaufort had little option left but to sit on his hands while the people of Gloucester liberated Lovelace from gaol, as he had warned would happen if Lovelace were incarcerated there.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Clearly infuriated by his abandonment by the government, Beaufort in late November 1688 subscribed a petition from Bristol for a Parliament to be summoned.<sup>112</sup> On 16 Dec. he waited on William at Windsor, where he was received very coldly. According to Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> he was forced to wait four hours for an audience.<sup>113</sup> Despite this poor opening, Beaufort persisted and two days later he was again among those in attendance on the prince at St James’s. On being presented with the Association to sign, he appears at first to have attempted to avoid putting his signature to it but was at last prevailed on to do so.<sup>114</sup> On 21 Dec. he took his place among the peers assembled in the queen’s presence chamber, although he had not been included in the prince’s summons. The following day he resumed his place in the House of Lords. <sup>115</sup></p><p>Beaufort took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on just under 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 28 Jan. he introduced Charles Fitzroy*, duke of Southampton, and the following day he voted in favour of establishing a regency. He absented himself from that day until 6 Feb., when he voted against concurring with the Commons’ use of the term ‘abdicated’ and entered his dissent when that wording was accepted. Having attended both morning and afternoon sessions of the following day, he was then absent from the House for the remainder of February. Beaufort’s absence appears to have been on account of poor health, though he may well also have been keen to avoid the session in the aftermath of the abdication vote. He was better towards the end of February, when he was visited at Chelsea by Clarendon, and he resumed his place in the House on 9 March.<sup>116</sup> On 9 Apr. he introduced Charles Powlett*, as duke of Bolton, and on 24 Apr. he introduced Danby in his new dignity as marquess of Carmarthen. Absent at a call on 22 May, on 31 May he voted, predictably enough, against reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates and on 30 July voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing the Oates judgments. On 2 July he also subscribed to the dissent from the resolution to proceed with the impeachments of Sir Adam Blair and other suspected Jacobites.</p><p>Beaufort sat for the final time on the adjournment of 20 Aug. 1689. On 28 Oct. he was noted as absent at a call of the House but on 5 Nov. he registered his proxy with his fellow Tory, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth. Put out of all his offices that year, Beaufort nevertheless retained for the remaining decade of his life a powerful interest in the politics of Wales and the marches and of a number of counties and corporations. In February 1690 he conveyed a petition from the town of Malmesbury to Carmarthen in an effort to forestall the burgeoning interest there of Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton. Appealing to Carmarthen for his interest on the town’s behalf, Beaufort insisted that ‘upon this depends the choice of good or ill members for that town, for if the legal magistrates continue, I do promise you men there, both for the church and monarchy, which if otherwise, will be creature[s], of Mr Wharton (who, I will not swear is a friend to either).’<sup>117</sup> The same month Beaufort also undertook to use his interest, at the urging of his son, on behalf of James Thynne<sup>‡</sup> in the forthcoming elections.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Beaufort was among those peers who refused to take the oaths in March 1690. John Romsey, however, commented in a letter to Sir Charles Kemys<sup>‡</sup> amidst the mass arrests of that summer that although he had heard that Beaufort and another non-juror, Sir Dudley North<sup>‡</sup>, were among those under investigation, ‘these men’s known care of themselves and their estates was almost a security that they would not adventure them for anybody’s sake.’<sup>119</sup> Beaufort’s continuing importance in Gloucestershire and the marches, in spite of his retirement from Parliament, was no doubt the catalyst for the new king making a point of taking in Badminton on his journey home from Ireland in September 1690, but although his entertainment there was reported to have been ‘noble’ it was not deemed ‘satisfactory’.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Beaufort’s absence from the House was noticed in a series of calls in 1691, 1692 and 1693, but his effective retirement from the chamber did not mean that he was no longer involved in the House’s business. In the autumn of 1690 he, and more particularly his duchess, were drawn into a very public and ill-tempered dispute with their son-in-law Ailesbury over the terms of Lady Ailesbury’s marriage settlement as a result of a bill introduced by Ailesbury to settle his arrears. Writing to her step-father, Lady Ailesbury railed against his ill treatment of her, whilst lauding the restraint her husband and his late father had demonstrated in the face of his presumptuous behaviour. Referring to the articles conveying her estates to her step-brother and his heirs she exclaimed, ‘I am sure any body but they would have burnt those writings that settled above half my estate upon your heirs; I do assure you if it were to do again I would burn them all before I would sign one of them.’ Beaufort left it to his duchess to reply to her daughter’s ‘false and unjust slanders’. ‘Hell itself’ she concluded, ‘is hardly capable of more malice or unnaturalness than you in this have showed to me.’ The Beauforts mobilized their friends in the House to prevent the bill from being presented, but although Rochester attempted to prevail on Ailesbury to desist, Ailesbury’s bill received its first reading on 8 Dec. 1690. Five days later, Beaufort’s steward, Godfrey Harcourt, reported that Sir Francis Pemberton had studied the bill and ‘fears it will pass, only care must be taken (if it be committed) to see to restrain his power as much as may be.’ After counsel for both sides was heard at the bar on 16 Dec. (a favour for the Beauforts ‘got by Lord Weymouth’s motion’), the House read the bill a second time and committed it. On 20 Dec. Halifax reported the committee’s findings. It was ordered that the bill should be engrossed, but two days later the bill was ordered to be re-committed. On 23 Dec. Halifax reported from the committee once more and the bill was again ordered to be engrossed, minus the clause against which exceptions had been raised, following which the House ordered that the bill should pass. On New Year’s Day 1691, Godfrey Harcourt reported to the duchess how he had ‘done all I could to prevent the passing of Lord Ailesbury’s bill, but his coming to court at this time gained him a great many friends in both houses.’ Although Rochester and John Sheffield*, earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), were ‘heartily’ for the duke and duchess, Ailesbury’s party prevailed and Harcourt himself was subjected to ‘a great many hard words’ from the earl for his pains as well as being threatened with the pillory.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Beaufort’s reduced standing and his absence from the House no doubt gave encouragement to the attempts to bring in a bill reversing the judgment for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against Arnold. Bills to this purpose were introduced in the Commons on 29 Nov. 1689 and again on 7 Apr. 1690, but both were lost by prorogation or withdrawal. Another version of the bill was eventually sent up to the Lords on 1 Dec. 1690, where it was rejected at its first reading on 6 December. Despite this reprieve, in March 1691 Beaufort’s case against Arnold was further undermined when one of his witnesses admitted to having fabricated his testimony.<sup>122</sup></p><p>In April 1691, Beaufort kissed the king’s hand; he then retreated once again, however, to Badminton to celebrate the marriage of his daughter Anne to Thomas Coventry*, later 2nd earl of Coventry.<sup>123</sup> He was not permitted a long respite from family problems: on 2 Nov. 1691 a second bill was presented to the House by Ailesbury for the further settlement of his debts, which the duchess was again active in opposing. On 19 Nov. her counsel attended the House to contest the new measure, but as Ailesbury’s own legal team failed to appear the duchess was awarded £5 costs and Ailesbury’s counsel were ordered to appear the following day, when the bill was committed. On 21 Nov. it was ordered to be engrossed and received the royal assent the following month on 24 December.</p><p>Beaufort stirred from his country retreat in October 1694, exchanging his rural fastness for the suburban pleasures of Chelsea, but he resisted appearing at court.<sup>124</sup> In November 1695 his London residence was damaged in a fire.<sup>125</sup> Four years later he was successful in suing one Knight for damages of £500, on the grounds that the fire that damaged Beaufort House had started in Knight’s property.<sup>126</sup> On 27 Feb. 1696 he was one of a number of absent lords summoned to appear in the House by 17 Mar. in order to sign the Association. The day after that deadline the House resolved to ignore the appeal made on Beaufort’s behalf by his son-in-law Ormond that he was too unwell to attend, having suffered a serious injury in a fall from his horse, and ordered that Beaufort should appear at the end of the month. On receipt of a letter from Beaufort that he had broken his shoulder in his fall and was unable to comply with their order, the House resolved to send the Association down to him and the similarly truant Weymouth.<sup>127</sup> In March Beaufort’s steward, Godfrey Harcourt, was arrested and the duke’s houses searched.<sup>128</sup> In spite of this heavy-handed treatment, Beaufort declined to sign the Association. He explained to the lord keeper, John Somers*, later Baron Somers, that:</p><blockquote><p>I cannot as yet so far overcome some scruples that have occurred to me, in reading and considering [the Association] as to be satisfied to sign it. Not but that I do much abhor the horrid and detestable conspiracy therein mentioned, and all designs of that nature.<sup>129</sup></p></blockquote><p>Beaufort failed to answer two further summonses of 30 Nov. and 10 Dec. 1696 to appear in the House to take part in the Fenwick proceedings. As a result, the House ordered his arrest, but on 22 Dec. the serjeant-at-arms detailed to seize the recalcitrant duke presented the Lords with a letter from Dr Baskerville certifying Beaufort’s inability to attend. On 17 Jan. 1697 the House made a final attempt to compel Beaufort to appear. Seven days later the Lords conceded defeat and excused him.</p><p>There were renewed rumours in November 1697 that Beaufort was to present himself at court, but it did not happen.<sup>130</sup> They may have been connected to his efforts as one of the trustees of his nephew, the Jacobite William Herbert*, styled Viscount Montgomery (and claiming to be 2nd marquess of Powis), to recover lands from William Henry van Nassau van Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford.<sup>131</sup> Proceedings in this case were before the Lords in March 1698. By the autumn of that year, Beaufort was said to be at the point of death, but he survived for more than a year before finally succumbing on 21 Jan. 1700 at his seat at Badminton.<sup>132</sup> Shortly after his demise the dowager duchess compiled an account of the couple’s expenditure since their marriage, comprising the purchase, construction and alteration of a number of houses including Badminton, Troy House and Chelsea House. In all she estimated that he had expended £146,641 on improving his estate.<sup>133</sup> In his will, drawn up the day before he died, Beaufort named his widow as sole executrix and bequeathed nominal sums of £100 apiece to his four surviving children.<sup>134</sup> He was buried in the family vault at Windsor and, as his eldest son Charles, marquess of Worcester, had predeceased him almost two years earlier, he was succeeded by his underage grandson, Henry Somerset*, as 2nd duke of Beaufort.<sup>135</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SOMERSET, Henry (1684-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>SOMERSET</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1684–1714)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1698-1700 mq. of Worcester; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 21 Jan. 1700 (a minor) as 2nd duke of BEAUFORT |
|
First sat 25 Oct. 1705; last sat 11 May 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 Apr. 1684, s. of Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, styled mq. of Worcester, and Rebecca Child (<em>d</em>.1712). <em>educ</em>. DCL, Oxf. 1706. <em>m</em>. (1) July 1702, Mary (<em>d</em>.1705), da. of Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) 26 Feb. 1706 (with £60,000),<sup>1</sup> Rachel (<em>d</em>.1709), 2nd da. and coh. of Wriothesley Baptist Noel*, 2nd earl of Gainsborough, 2s.;<sup>2</sup> (3) 14 Sept. 1711, Mary (<em>d</em>.1722), da. of Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. KG 1712. <em>d</em>. 24 May 1714; <em>will</em> 19 Aug. 1712, pr. 17 Sept. 1714.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1710; capt. gent. pens. 1712–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt. Hants. 1710–<em>d</em>., Glos. 1712–<em>d</em>.; freeman, Winchester 1710.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Michael Dahl, c.1702/1712, National Trust, Powis Castle; engraving by George Vertue, aft. M. Dahl, 1714, NPG D31580.</p> |
<h2><em>Early life, 1684–1705</em></h2><p>Beaufort’s father had died in a freak carriage accident in July 1698 leaving his 14 year-old son heir to the dukedom then held by his grandfather. When the latter died in 1700, the new duke was, at 15, still under age. During his minority the family interest was largely managed by his grandmother, the dowager duchess, who acted as his guardian, though administration of his father’s estate was in the hands of his mother, the dowager marchioness of Worcester (who subsequently married John Granville*, later Baron Granville of Potheridge). Rivalry between the two women became apparent in February 1702 over the proposed marriage settlement between Beaufort and Lady Mary Sackville (both being underage): the settlement had the warm endorsement of the dowager duchess but was opposed by the dowager marchioness. On 25 Feb. Nathaniel Stephens wrote to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as Speaker of the Commons, drawing his attention to a bill to confirm the settlement, and asking him to facilitate its swift passage when it came the lower House.<sup>6</sup> On 4 Mar. Beaufort and his grandmother petitioned the House for leave to present the bill, but it was ordered that Beaufort’s mother should first have time to lodge her objections. Lady Worcester put in her answer accordingly on 9 Mar. but further proceedings in the matter were interrupted by the prorogation. Despite this, shortly after turning 18, Beaufort was married to Lady Mary at a ceremony at Knole in July, conducted by Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and in September it was reported that Beaufort’s London residence, Beaufort House in Chelsea, was being prepared for the new duke’s arrival in town for the winter.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The opening of the new session provided a further opportunity for Beaufort and his grandmother to present the bill, and accordingly on 13 Nov. they petitioned the House once more for leave to bring it in. Permission having been granted, the bill received its first reading three days later. On 20 Nov. Lady Worcester petitioned to be given copies of several articles in the bill referring to previous settlements; ten days later it was ordered that she should be heard at the committee appointed to consider the measure. Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, reported from the committee on 23 Dec., recommending the bill fit to pass, subject to a number of amendments. It received the royal assent at the close of the session on 27 February.</p><p>Although Beaufort had inherited one of the foremost peerages in the country, with estates spread through Wales, Gloucestershire, the marches and Hampshire, and personal estate estimated to be worth £50,000, the deployment of the family interest was complicated by the 1st duke’s position as a non-juror and by Beaufort’s own reputed Jacobite sympathies, though the statement in <em>The Complete Peerage</em> that Beaufort’s sympathies led him to absent himself from court until the formation of a Tory administration in 1710 is untrue. The family interest was challenged frequently by rival magnates. In March 1703 Beaufort was compelled to go to law as a result of a dispute with Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley, over the constableship of St Briavel’s and the wardenship of the forest of Dean (both offices previously held by his grandfather). Tension with his Welsh neighbour and local rival John Morgan of Tredegar also surfaced at the beginning of 1705, when Beaufort accused Morgan of attempting to develop a separate interest, reneging on an agreement made between the two men at an earlier meeting.<sup>8</sup> In an effort to offset Morgan’s interest in the area, Beaufort sought the assistance of his step-father, Granville, to support the family’s presence in the county.<sup>9</sup> The duchess’s poor health prevented Beaufort from attending a gentry meeting at Usk in April but he communicated his preferences to William Lewis by letter, stressing that he now considered himself freed from any undertaking entered into with Morgan and proposing Sir Hopton Williams<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Powell<sup>‡</sup> for the county seats.<sup>10</sup> Two months later, the duchess died in childbirth.</p><h2><em>Staunch Tory, 1705–10</em></h2><p>Having at last come of age, Beaufort took his seat in the House on 25 Oct. 1705 after which he was present on 57 per cent of all sitting days. On 13 Nov. he attended the committee for the address (being one of only eight peers present, all of them Tory).<sup>11</sup> On 30 Nov. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to provide additional instructions to the committee of the whole to which the bill for securing the queen’s person and the Protestant succession had been referred. On 3 Dec. he subscribed a series of protests, objecting to resolutions not to give second readings to riders to the same bill, which was intended to prevent the lords justices from giving the royal assent to any bill altering or repealing the Test Acts, the Habeas Corpus Act and the Act of Succession. He entered a final protest at the resolution to pass the bill itself the same day and on 6 Dec. protested again at the resolution that the Church was not in danger. On 28 Jan. 1706 he acted as one of the tellers for the division about adjourning the House during consideration of Cary and Natley’s bill (the motion to adjourn was carried by 11 votes) and three days later he entered a further series of dissents against resolutions over the wording of the bill for securing the Protestant succession.</p><p>Beaufort seems to have wasted no time in seeking out a new bride. In September 1705 Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> had reported mistakenly that he was in negotiations for a match with one of the daughters of William Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Digby [I].<sup>12</sup> The match in question was rather with Digby’s niece, Lady Rachel Noel, whom Luttrell believed to be in possession of a fortune of more than £60,000 (Lady Wentworth thought the sum was half that amount).<sup>13</sup> Writing in September, Digby considered the alliance ‘far above anything we could expect’ and the following month professed himself more than satisfied with the accounts he was provided with ‘of the duke’s good temper’, which gave him ‘hopes that my niece will be happy as well as great’.<sup>14</sup> The couple were married four months later, on 26 Feb. 1706. The same day Beaufort registered his proxy with Granville, which was vacated on 18 March.</p><p>Beaufort was at Bath in September 1706.<sup>15</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 3 Dec. (after which he was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days). On 3 Feb. 1707 he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to instruct the committee of the whole considering the bill for securing the Church of England to insert a clause declaring the 1673 Test Act to be ‘perpetual and unalterable’. On 10 Feb. the House considered a petition from Beaufort to present a new bill for settling his estate, which received its first reading on 21 Feb. and, having been reported as fit to pass with some amendments by Rochester on 10 Mar., was enacted following a relatively swift passage on the 27th. In the midst of this, Beaufort was actively engaged in attempting to forestall the passage of the Union bill. On 24 Feb. he acted as teller for those opposed to agreeing to the 22nd article of the treaty of Union (the motion to adopt the article was carried by 71 votes to 22) and three days later he dissented against all resolutions concerning the Union. On 4 Mar., having joined a minority voting in favour of adding a rider to the Union bill stating that the bill should not be construed as an acknowledgement of the truth of the Presbyterian manner of worship, he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill. Present on four of the ten days of the brief session that met in April 1707, on the 23rd Beaufort entered his dissent at the resolution to consider the following day the judges’ refusal to answer the question of whether existing laws were sufficient to prevent the fraudulent use of drawbacks for the avoidance of paying duties on East India goods.</p><p>Beaufort took his seat in the first Parliament of Great Britain on 19 Nov. 1707, after which he was present on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days. On 20 Feb. 1708 he reported from the committee for Stephens’ bill (concerning estates lying in Cheshire, Staffordshire and Gloucestershire), which the committee had found fit to pass without amendment. On the final day of the session (1 Apr.) he was named one of the managers for a conference concerning the waggoners’ bill.</p><p>Electoral concerns were at the forefront of Beaufort’s consideration at this point. In preparation for the election in Breconshire, he had been advised by his steward, Godfrey Harcourt, to prevail upon his uncle Lord Arthur Somerset<sup>‡</sup> not to stand for the county, where Sir Edward Williams’ interest was so strong as to ensure the support of at least three-quarters of the electorate.<sup>16</sup> Somerset accordingly did not attempt a challenge. Meanwhile Beaufort attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the various rival factions in Glamorgan; at Devizes, where the Child interest predominated, he co-operated with Sir James Long to ensure the return of sympathetic members.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Listed a Tory in an analysis of peers’ party allegiances in May 1708, Beaufort set up house in Chelsea the following month.<sup>18</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 18 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on almost 55 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted to allow Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers and five days later he acted as one of the tellers on the motion to adjourn pending further discussion of the question of the Scots peers (the motion was rejected by 51 votes to 40).</p><p>That summer Beaufort established a Tory drinking club, the Honourable Board of Loyal Brotherhood (which also seems to have been known as the ‘Blue Cap club’) and presided over its inaugural meeting on 7 July. Other peers present included Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh (the vice-president), and Nicholas Leke*, 2nd earl of Scarsdale. Initially it met at the George in Pall Mall, but this was also used as a venue by Whig fraternities. Following a disagreement with the landlord during the meeting held on 21 July, the club changed its regular meeting place to the Queen’s Arms near St Paul’s.<sup>19</sup> It was undoubtedly intended to rival the Whig Kit Cat, although its character was considerably more alcoholic and less focused on party organization than its counterpart.<sup>20</sup> It may be no coincidence that it was established at a time when Beaufort’s interest in Malmesbury was under assault by Thomas Wharton*, marquess of Wharton. The strength of Wharton’s interest in the town was such that Beaufort had been compelled to write to the corporation stressing that he had no intention of relinquishing his own interest there.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Beaufort suffered the loss of his second wife in childbirth in September 1709.<sup>22</sup> The duchess’s death appears to have occasioned some concerns that it might result in the duke altering his party allegiance. In response to this George Granville*, later Baron Lansdowne, assured Harley:</p><blockquote><p>I will not fail to observe your directions in regard to the duke of Beaufort, and am much mistaken if this alteration in his condition should make any alteration in him. But you must give me leave to say I must have some assistance to confirm him in such notions as I may have opportunities to advance, by introducing him as occasion may happen to proper acquaintance.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Beaufort took his seat in the new session on 15 Nov. 1709. On 16 Feb. 1710 he registered three dissents: at the resolutions not to require Greenshields to attend the House, not to adjourn, and to concur with the Commons’ address requesting that the queen despatch John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, to Holland at once. The following month, he proved to be a prominent defender of the embattled clergyman Henry Sacheverell, to whom he sent a hamper of claret and 50 guineas to ease the discomfort of his first evening under arrest.<sup>24</sup> On 14 Mar. he served as one of the tellers in the division whether to adjourn the House (which was rejected by five votes), after which he entered two dissents, first at the resolution not to adjourn (although listed as the second teller, he had presumably told for those in favour of adjourning) and second at the resolution that it was not necessary to include the particular words believed to be criminal in the articles of impeachment. Two days later he subscribed two further protests: at the resolution to put the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment and at the resolution to concur with the Commons on the issue. On 17 Mar. he protested again at the resolution that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth articles against Sacheverell and the next day he protested at the resolution to limit the peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty. On 20 Mar. 1710, having previously spoken in the doctor’s favour, he found Sacheverell not guilty of the charges laid against him.<sup>25</sup> He then entered his dissent against the guilty verdict. The following day, he acted as one of the tellers for the division about reducing the number of years for which Sacheverell was to be banned from preaching from seven to three. He then entered his dissent once again at the censure passed against the doctor.</p><p>Hard on the heels of the Sacheverell trial, on 21 Mar. 1710 the House received a petition from Beaufort’s grandmother Mary, dowager duchess of Beaufort, in response to a chancery decree awarded against her the previous month. During the summer of 1709 the family had been divided by the opening of a court action brought by Lady Granville and Lady Henrietta Somerset (Beaufort’s sister) against the dowager duchess over the distribution of parts of the 1st duke’s personal estate. On 24 Mar. the House moved that Beaufort and Lord Arthur Somerset should be heard by counsel to be included as respondents to the petition, but little more progress was made in the case for the time being.</p><p>Soon after the close of the session, Beaufort introduced Allen Bathurst*, later Earl Bathurst, to the queen, with an address from the grand jury of Gloucester. The address communicated their intention of selecting members for the new Parliament ‘as the affairs of church and state seem at present to require’, but it was noted that ‘her majesty took little notice of’ it.<sup>26</sup> On 8 Apr. Beaufort waited on Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, to communicate his uneasiness about the address and his concern that it was a reflection on him that, although the queen had promised it should be mentioned in the <em>Gazette</em>, it had been so clearly ignored. He asked Shrewsbury to seek the interposition of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset. Shrewsbury accordingly recommended him to Somerset as ‘very well disposed, and a man of so great quality and interest that he is well worth your gaining as you may easily do by giving him your help in this matter’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Beaufort survived a bout of smallpox contracted in May 1710.<sup>28</sup> On 12 May it had been proposed (and adopted) at a meeting of the Board of Loyal Brotherhood that the members should drink an additional bumper to Beaufort’s health, after the usual toasts had been drunk, until he recovered.<sup>29</sup> He had rallied by June when he waited on Harley and Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, as part of a concerted effort to secure some reward for his support. Harcourt reported to Harley that he believed Beaufort to be ‘as well disposed as you can wish him to be’, though ‘not without some apprehensions, which make him as well as many others very uneasy’. Beaufort appears to have been angling for a free gift of the command of a regiment, as well as for his appointment to the lieutenancy of Gloucestershire, which it was believed would soon be made available by the death of Berkeley, the current holder.<sup>30</sup> Accordingly, reports soon circulated that Beaufort would indeed be granted his coveted lieutenancy, though Berkeley seems to have done all in his power to forestall him.<sup>31</sup></p><h2><em>The 1710 elections</em></h2><p>Early in July 1710 Beaufort predicted that Parliament was soon to be dissolved, though his assessment was questioned by William Jessop, who reckoned that the current Parliament would ‘abide some struggle’ before its dissolution.<sup>32</sup> The creation of the new Tory ministry under Robert Harley encouraged Beaufort to return to court, supposedly declaring to the queen – in a manner that cannot have endeared him to her – that only now was she ‘queen in reality’.<sup>33</sup> He had already demonstrated the extent of his willingness to support the new administration, having offered to lend the ministry £5,000 to release it from dependence on the Bank of England, principal members of which had attempted to prevent the dismissal of Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, from the treasurership.<sup>34</sup></p><p>The establishment of the new ministry encouraged speculation that Beaufort would soon be rewarded with a prominent place in government. He had certainly made an effort to improve his acquaintance with Harley.<sup>35</sup> Through August and September it was rumoured first that he was to replace William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, as lord steward and then that he was to be made master of the horse (though reports relating to the second place had been current since the middle of April).<sup>36</sup> Making good use of his new-found importance to the ministry, on 25 Aug. he requested a delay in the appointment of a new <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Worcestershire until he had had an opportunity to speak with Harley about it.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Beaufort was feverishly active in marshalling candidates for the forthcoming elections in the numerous counties and corporations in which he had an interest. He conveyed dozens of missives to electoral allies and foes alike in an effort to secure the return of sympathetic members. This scattergun approach produced mixed results. He encouraged his local rival John Morgan to stand with Thomas Windsor*, Viscount Windsor [I] (later Baron Mountjoy), for Monmouthshire, but when Morgan insisted on standing alone Beaufort still undertook to use his interest on both men’s behalf.<sup>38</sup> Morgan clearly doubted Beaufort’s commitment to his cause, provoking the duke to insist, ‘you must think me a base man should I set up anybody to oppose you, unless you should do anything … to deserve it’. Two days later (14 Sept.) tensions appear to have subsided and he expressed his ‘great pleasure’ at seeing ‘so good a correspondence between me and the house of Tredegar’. Beaufort also engaged his interest on behalf of Clayton Milborne<sup>‡</sup> for the town of Monmouth.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Beaufort’s efforts in the west country proved similarly mixed. Writing directly to the electors of Gloucestershire, he requested their voices for the Tory candidates, John Symes Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> of Stoke and John Howe, who had been selected at a meeting during the quarter sessions, for the county seats.<sup>40</sup> Although Berkeley was successful, Howe was forced into third place at the poll by the Whig Matthew Ducie Moreton<sup>‡</sup>. At Midhurst Beaufort offered his backing to William Ward<sup>‡</sup> and attempted to establish an electoral pact between him and Robert Orme<sup>‡</sup>; in the event, Ward chose not to contest the seat.<sup>41</sup> Likewise, Beaufort pressed Leonard Bilson<sup>‡</sup> to ensure as many second votes as possible for one Foxcroft, in an effort to oust Norton Powlett<sup>‡</sup> at Petersfield. He assured Bilson of Foxcroft’s commitment to desist should Bilson himself prove to be in trouble, though Beaufort was confident that ‘you are so hearty at this time that you will not endanger the having an ill Parliament when a little assistance from you might secure a good member to be joined with you’.<sup>42</sup> Foxcroft seems not to have stood, though, and both seats went to the sitting members.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Writing to his steward for venison to be made available for the ‘mayor of Monmouth’s treat’, Beaufort also requested of him details of his holdings in Weymouth, where he hoped to employ his interest on behalf of one of his friends.<sup>44</sup> The same day he appealed to one Albert to hold to his resolution of refraining from standing at Ludgershall, so that Thomas Pearce<sup>‡</sup> could be saved the expense of a contest. In return, Beaufort assured Albert that he would be ‘glad of an opportunity to show you with what satisfaction I should undertake to serve you in anything else’.<sup>45</sup> Albert clearly ignored Beaufort’s offer but polled only 15 votes; the seats went to Pearce and one of the previous sitting members.<sup>46</sup> Beaufort advised Frederick Tylney<sup>‡</sup> not to contest Great Bedwyn but to confine himself to standing at Whitchurch and to make over his interest in the former to another of the duke’s circle. He seems to have had in mind Richard Lytton but it was another retainer, Thomas Millington<sup>‡</sup>, who eventually secured the seat the following year when Charles Bruce*, styled Lord Bruce (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury), chose to sit for Marlborough instead.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Apologizing for begging a new favour from Henry Whitehead, just returned from Stockbridge, Beaufort asked him to return to the town to meet Robert Pitt<sup>‡</sup>, who was to be there on behalf of George Dashwood<sup>‡</sup> and James Barry<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Barrymore [I], ‘in order to keep their friends steady against a new attempt, that will be made on Monday by our adversaries’.<sup>48</sup> The duke’s involvement was less appreciated by Robert Bruce<sup>‡</sup>, who reported to Lord Bruce how he had waited on Beaufort but ‘found that he talked at his old silly rate and either could or would do nothing to serve you at Ludgershall’. James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, was similarly disdainful, laughing as he described how ‘Beaufort meddled much in these matters’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Despite such unsympathetic responses to his efforts, the extent of Beaufort’s reach as a political broker in so many areas remained impressive and his authority in the Hampshire elections was boosted with his appointment to both the county lieutenancy and the wardenship of the New Forest.<sup>50</sup> It was also rumoured that he would be made lord warden of the Cinque Ports.<sup>51</sup> On 20 Sept. 1710 he set out for Hampshire ‘with a noble equipage’ to settle the militia there, having, according to one report, ‘already put the lieutenancy into the hands of loyal churchmen and gentlemen of the greatest quality in the county’.<sup>52</sup> This was in spite of a delay in issuing commissions to deputy lieutenants, as Beaufort was forced to admit to William Legge*, 2nd Baron, later earl, of Dartmouth, having been unable to secure a list from his predecessor, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton.<sup>53</sup> Apologizing to Shrewsbury for having left town without waiting on him, Beaufort assured the duke of the ‘great deal of satisfaction’ expressed by the people of Hampshire for being delivered from Bolton’s administration and of his conviction that they would ‘demonstrate their sense of it by their elections’.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Beaufort was received in the county ‘after the most extraordinary manner that ever lord lieutenant was’ and awarded the freedom of the city by the corporation of Winchester.<sup>55</sup> He reported to Harley how</p><blockquote><p>everything has a good face here, and every face full of joy to see themselves delivered from the management of the duke of Bolton, whose interest has been carried on more by that and the fear of suppression, by the help of his authority, than by any love or personal affection either sex have for him.</p></blockquote><p>Warming to his theme, he continued to describe the threats and pressures exerted by Bolton’s allies in attempting to keep the people of Hampshire in a state of subjugation:</p><blockquote><p>there is no lie that is possible to be invented that they don’t use, they are descended so low as to bully and threaten to stick people to the wall, if they will not vote for them, and tell them that they are confident, Robin the Trickster, which is the epithet they give you, will be turned out and his gang in a few months, and then they will hang and ruin all those that are not of their side.<sup>56</sup></p></blockquote><p>According to Beaufort, Bolton’s removal had changed all that. He reported confidently to Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, ‘I’ll answer this county [Hampshire] will return as many men of the same opinion as ever they did of the contrary at one time … everything goes here to our satisfaction and loyalty abounds in both gentry and commonalty.’<sup>57</sup></p><p>Despite his claims, the duke’s appointment was not welcomed by all of the Hampshire folk. On 30 Sept. <em>The Post Boy</em> reported the confession of William Colbrook from Petersfield, who admitted slandering Beaufort by accusing him of involvement in plotting ‘that he was for pulling down the Bank, and that there were 30,000 men at Dunkirk, to assist in bringing in the Prince of Wales’. Colbrook admitted that his tale was false and that he had been ‘unadvisedly drawn in to speak those words to vilify his grace’s character’, begging Beaufort’s pardon for his offence, which appears to have been the end of the matter.<sup>58</sup></p><p>With Hampshire thus settled to his satisfaction, Beaufort appealed to Harley to appoint him lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire as well, protesting that ‘if I have it not that county is undone’.<sup>59</sup> The following month he made for Monmouth by way of Bath and Gloucester. His warm welcome there inspired one newspaper to eulogize: ‘Never was any peer of this realm received here with such an universal satisfaction, or so great attendance.’<sup>60</sup> Another commentator reported how ‘the poor Whigs looked so dejected that it is feared they make work for the coroner’.<sup>61</sup> Beaufort’s own account of his reception at Gloucester matched these positive reports and he communicated to Harley how he had been ‘met with so handsome an appearance of gentlemen &c as never yet was seen together in the memory of the old men’.<sup>62</sup> His apparent popularity in the region emboldened him to repeat his request that he be appointed to the county lieutenancy, though in a letter to Shrewsbury he insisted that the design came from the people of Gloucestershire and not from himself:</p><blockquote><p>all the gentlemen of Gloucestershire that are well wishers to her Majesty and the new ministry as they call it are so pressing to me to be zealous in getting the lieutenancy of that county, that should I neglect it I should disoblige them, really their case is very hard that when they made the first attempt of laying their hearts at her majesty’s feet with a resolution of standing by her hereditary title and all branches or her prerogative, they should be the only county in England that would at this time be again put into the hands of those people who have openly declared against it …<sup>63</sup></p></blockquote><p>For all his agitating, Beaufort remained unable to secure the post. Annoyed at the way in which he was being cold-shouldered he warned of the ill treatment likely to be meted out to the people of Gloucestershire by the incumbent lieutenant. He even threatened to retire to Badminton if he were to continue to be ignored.<sup>64</sup></p><h2><em>Beaufort, Harley and the search for office, 1710-13</em></h2><p>In spite of such difficulties, Beaufort was assessed a supporter of the new ministry in October. The following month it was rumoured that he was to be made a knight of the garter (though this proved to be premature).<sup>65</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 7 Dec. the dowager duchess submitted a further appeal for her petition to be heard and on 18 Dec. the House resolved to reverse a chancery decree previously granted in favour of Lady Granville. Beaufort moved for an address of thanks to be drawn up in response to the queen’s message concerning the latest reversals in Spain on 2 Jan. 1711 and two days later he moved to address the queen to delay the departure of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, so that he could assist with the Lords’ enquiry into the war.<sup>66</sup> On 11 Jan. Beaufort acted as one of the tellers in a division held in a committee of the whole over the defeat at Almanza (the motion to concur with the explanation for the defeat being carried by 64 to 43). The following day he again participated in the debates on the conduct of the war. He voiced his wonderment that ‘any lord in the ministry should approve and direct an offensive war in Spain, at that juncture’, and made special mention of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland.<sup>67</sup></p><p>On 5 Feb. Beaufort entered a further dissent at the resolution to reject the General Naturalization Act. He reported from the committee on 26 Feb. 1711 on a bill for his fellow ‘Brother’, Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, and on 1 Mar. he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to hear counsel in the cause <em>Greenshields v. the Edinburgh magistrates</em> (which was carried by 36 votes). On 9 Mar. he was nominated as one of the managers of the conference considering the safety of the queen’s person, from which he reported back the same day, as well as from the subsequent conference on the same business. Beaufort received the proxy of another ‘Brother’, Scarsdale, on 14 Mar. (which was vacated on 20 March). On 1 May he reported from the committee of the whole for the bill for preserving game and on 7 May from the committee considering the bill for Henry O’Brien*, 7th earl of Thomond [I], later Viscount Tadcaster, a distant kinsman. That month Beaufort was also one of eight peers to bear the pall at Rochester’s funeral.<sup>68</sup> In June he was included in a list of Tory patriots of the first session of the Parliament.</p><p>Beaufort’s activities that spring were not confined to parliamentary management. Towards the end of March he was also said to be deeply engaged with Henry Sacheverell in attempting to secure Tories places on the boards of both the Bank of England and the East India Company.<sup>69</sup> His efforts at bolstering the Tories were also evident in more public displays. On 8 June 1711 he marked the admission of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (duke of Brandon), to the ‘Blue Cap club’ by throwing a lavish entertainment on the river attended by Hamilton’s duchess and his mother, Lady Granville, ‘to make all grave’.<sup>70</sup> The following day he wrote to Bishop Compton recommending ‘Dr’ Stanhope for a prebend’s stall at St Paul’s, vacant by the death of Thomas Felstead. Stanhope was accordingly installed later that year.<sup>71</sup> Beaufort’s Jacobite sympathies may have induced him to join with Hamilton in standing bail for John Middleton, styled (improperly, as his father’s earldom had been rendered void by attainder) Lord Clermont [S] (later titular 3rd earl of Middleton [S]), and his brother, Captain Charles Middleton. Both had been taken aboard the <em>Salisbury</em> following the abortive invasion of 1708 and incarcerated in the Tower. The other sureties were undoubted Whigs, Wharton and Bolton.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Within a year of the commencement of the Oxford ministry, Beaufort appears to have been dissatisfied with his lot. George Granville reported to Oxford in July how he had visited the duke ‘and endeavoured to satisfy him that he will find himself not neglected’.<sup>73</sup> The same month, Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, approached the queen for a garter for Beaufort but without success, although it was reported in at least one newsletter that Beaufort was to join Oxford in receiving the honour.<sup>74</sup> Talk of Beaufort’s succeeding Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain also proved to be without foundation.<sup>75</sup> Beaufort was not the only member of the ministry to be discontented and towards the end of the month he offered his services to Shrewsbury (whom he thought best placed to heal any rift) to act as a mediator between the different factions.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Leeds’s solicitation of the queen was no doubt connected to the negotiations in train during the summer of 1711 for a match between Beaufort and Leeds’s granddaughter Mary Osborne.<sup>77</sup> In August news of Beaufort’s likely marriage to Lady Betty Osborne (presumably a slip) circulated and, although the marriage was delayed at the close of that month by the death of Leeds’s grandson William Henry Osborne, styled earl of Danby, preparations continued and the couple were married on 14 September.<sup>78</sup> The marriage proved to be a strikingly happy one, so much so that Lady Strafford later noted:</p><blockquote><p>The duke and duchess of Beaufort are the fondest of one another in the world, I fear it is too hot to hold. He is never out after seven o’clock at night, and if he has any company he takes an opportunity to tell them they must be gone by that time; and if he comes home and the duchess is abroad he sends all the town over to fetch her home to keep him company.<sup>79</sup></p></blockquote><p>Happy with his new wife he may have been, but Beaufort was said to be ‘the most angry man of all the laity’ at the promotion of John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol, as lord privy seal at the end of September.<sup>80</sup> Failure to secure what he considered his due recognition appears to have convinced him to retreat to Badminton. On 29 Sept. he wrote to one correspondent lauding the benefits of country air and asserting that:</p><blockquote><p>I am quite of an opinion that retirement is much the happiest life. In the country you have no occasion of friends, for which reason you will never be betrayed nor deceived by dependence upon anybody, you have no politics to disturb your brain, you have no court to pay to faithless courtiers; you eat your own bread, drink your own drink, and lie with your own wife, everything pleases …<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his apparent cheerful resignation to live the life of a country squire, by November Beaufort was again voicing his disgruntlement at being frozen out by members of the ministry. Reluctant to agree to John Manley’s<sup>‡</sup> request to see him in town, he related how ‘it is now a common proverb, that to fail in getting any preferment one desires, is to make use of the duke of Beaufort’s interest’.<sup>82</sup> To Leeds he complained how:</p><blockquote><p>when about town I was always perplexed with some disgust given me by one or other of the ministry… I must confess to your grace, that my late usage from some of the ministry has given me a very cool respect for them, and has quite extinguished my ambition of being a courtier; in so much that a call to London, would be the most unwelcome news I could hear.</p></blockquote><p>Undertaking to come to town should Leeds advise it, Beaufort otherwise resolved to remain a country gentleman in retirement for so long as ‘high-handed Tories sway the state’.<sup>83</sup> Writing to Manley again, Beaufort also insisted that he had ‘laid aside’ all thoughts of high office ‘or any hopes of advantage from this ministry’ and that he was now resolved to be satisfied with his lot.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Beaufort’s disgruntlement was presumably the spur for Oxford (reputedly) to send him £1,000 in bank bills by messenger towards the end of November 1711. The duke refused to take the money, insisting that the messenger had made some mistake and that the money was surely meant for a Scots peer (another account of the incident had it that he refused the proffered money as ‘he was not a Scots lord’). It was rumoured at the same time that Beaufort had expended almost ten times that sum during the previous election, so Oxford may simply have been attempting to reimburse some of his expenses.<sup>85</sup> In December he was again listed as a supporter of Oxford’s ministry and later that month was again spoken of as a likely recipient either of the office of master of the horse or of the lord chamberlaincy.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Although unwilling to accept Oxford’s money, Beaufort abandoned his threat of spending the whole winter in retirement. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711. The same day he received Leeds’s proxy (which was vacated by the latter’s return to the House shortly before the close of the session the following year on 7 June 1712) and on 8 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to present the address to the queen. Two days later he was noted as being in favour of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion and on 19 Dec. he was forecast as being in favour of permitting Hamilton to take his seat as duke of Brandon. The following day he voted as expected against barring Scots peers in possession of post-Union British titles from sitting in the House.</p><p>Following the adjournment, news that Viscount Windsor was to be summoned to the Lords as one of Oxford’s dozen new peers encouraged Beaufort to propose James Gunter<sup>‡</sup> as his successor at Monmouthshire.<sup>87</sup> At the same time, Beaufort continued to benefit from Leeds’s efforts on his behalf. Recommending his young grandson-in-law to Oxford, Leeds stressed that ‘I think it the duty of every good subject … to preserve those few jewels which are left to the crown from being pulled out of it, especially at a time when it is so apparently struck at by some men.’<sup>88</sup> Ties between the Osbornes and Somersets remained tight during the session and on 12 Jan. 1712 Beaufort received the proxy of Peregrine Hyde Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen, later 3rd duke of Leeds (which was vacated on 7 March). The same day (presumably in response to Leeds’s recommendations) it was reported that he was to be rewarded with the office of captain of the gentlemen pensioners in place of Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans.<sup>89</sup> Other reports suggested that he was also to be appointed lord lieutenant of Gloucestershire (which happened accordingly the following month), to be granted command of a regiment and to succeed Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain.<sup>90</sup> Beaufort himself appears to have set his cap at the office of master of the horse and was disappointed with the eventual offer of the captaincy of the gentlemen pensioners. Nevertheless, he resolved to submit to the queen’s pleasure and accept the place.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Beaufort was successful in mobilizing his interest on behalf of Gunter for the Monmouthshire by-election in February 1712, securing the eventual support of Morgan and Thomas Lewis.<sup>92</sup> On 7 Mar. he received the proxy of Thomas Willoughby*, Baron Midleton (vacated the following day), and on 25 Mar. he reported from the committee for Algernon Greville’s<sup>‡</sup> bill concerning the settlement made on Greville’s marriage to Beaufort’s cousin Mary Somerset. He hosted a meeting at his London residence at about the same time, at which Pitt announced his disinclination to stand for Hampshire at the next election.<sup>93</sup> Beaufort rallied to the court at the end of May by voting against the opposition-led motion to address the queen to overturn the orders restraining Ormond from mounting an offensive against the French.<sup>94</sup> On 6 June he received Midleton’s proxy again (it was vacated ten days later). The following month he was one of several peers to be approached by William North*, 6th Baron North and Grey, who was eager to secure the governorship of Dunkirk.<sup>95</sup> Over the course of the summer he oversaw the introduction of a number of local dignitaries from Gloucestershire, Hampshire and Warwick presenting addresses to the queen.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Beaufort’s financial prospects were improved markedly by the death of his mother in July 1712. By it he recovered ‘a very good jointure of £2,500 per annum’, but the same month his own health was cause for alarm and it was reported that Dr John Radcliffe<sup>‡</sup> had declared him so sickly that ‘he can’t live a month’. The cause of the duke’s indisposition was attributed by Radcliffe to his former heavy drinking, which he believed had touched his lungs.<sup>97</sup> In defiance of the doctor’s prediction, Beaufort rallied and in November he was well enough to attempt to use his interest with John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, to persuade him to abandon Sir James Bateman<sup>‡</sup> and allow a Mr Rymond to contest Ilchester in his stead.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Beaufort wrote to Oxford on 19 Dec. 1712 to congratulate him on the marriage of his daughter to Beaufort’s ‘Brother’ Carmarthen. He regretted that he was unable to do so in person, but hoped to be in London within a week. On 1 Jan. 1713 he wrote to Oxford again to request that he would make no decision concerning an approach for the granting of a patent for forging halfpennies and farthings until Beaufort had had time to wait on him. The duke was also eager to inform Oxford of his disquiet at the discovery that his brother-in-law, Carmarthen, had been written to as captain of the gentlemen pensioners, ‘which I hope is no ill omen to me’.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Beaufort may have sought leave to travel overseas for his health around the turn of the year, but if so it seems unlikely that he made the trip, as he returned to London in time to be present in the House for the four prorogation days held in February and March 1713.<sup>100</sup> The death of James Gunter necessitated a further by-election in Monmouthshire, the seat eventually going to Thomas Lewis, who had stepped aside the year before in favour of Gunter. Beaufort’s tacit endorsement ensured Lewis’ unchallenged return.<sup>101</sup></p><p>The spring of 1713 found Beaufort caught up in a chancery suit concerning his marriage settlement of 1711. With the case still in train he took his seat in the new session on 9 Apr., after which he was present on almost 69 per cent of all sitting days. The same day he moved for an address to the queen in response to her speech, which resulted in a brief debate, and the following day he reported from the committee for drawing up the address.<sup>102</sup> A letter of 18 Apr. from Beaufort to Oxford hinted that their relationship had become strained once again. Beaufort was discontented at being asked to forego the usual fees on the admission of two recruits to the band of gentlemen pensioners and hoped that he had ‘done nothing yet to deserve less to be trusted either in the choice of gentlemen or to be sentenced to half pay, as a disbanded officer’.<sup>103</sup> His grumbling may have given rise to a rumour that he was once more to be bought off with his appointment as lord chamberlain that June (a rumour that was revived later in the year amid reports that Shrewsbury was to be sent to Ireland). Once again this failed to transpire.<sup>104</sup> His loyalty to the regime remained sufficiently secure for Oxford to assess him on 13 June as a likely supporter of the French commerce bill but the following month Beaufort again gave vent to his frustration over an account that Bolingbroke was to be made master of the horse. He informed Ormond how he could not</p><blockquote><p>express the disappointment it will be to me if it should be true … You are sensible of the many slights I have received from lord treasurer and I believe at this time he would repair them rather than have that interest drop in the country which he knows is of too great consequence for him to lose.<sup>105</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>The 1713 elections</em></h2><p>In spite of his damaged pride, Beaufort was active once more in asserting his influence in Hampshire that summer. At Portsmouth he found himself involved in a struggle with North and Grey over their rival interests in the town.<sup>106</sup> Squabbling within the corporation had led to the removal of the mayor (Smith) and his replacement by Alderman Reynolds. Beaufort demanded Smith’s reinstatement, while Reynolds appealed to North and Grey for his intercession.<sup>107</sup> When Beaufort approached North and Grey directly on Smith’s behalf, he received a very frigid response from his fellow ‘Brother’. North and Grey hoped that he would desist in espousing ‘so ill a man’. He was similarly dismissive of Beaufort’s efforts to control the elections in the borough: ‘How far your grace may think yourself obliged to meddle in the corporation elections of your county, I know not, but where I have the honour to serve her majesty as her lieutenant it would be thought a great encroachment on a corporation to act so.’<sup>108</sup> Beaufort professed himself ‘surprised’ by North’s response and hoped to meet with him to resolve their differences.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Despite these tensions, Beaufort informed Oxford of his confidence that both county and borough seats would return sympathetic members to the new Parliament. He insisted that ‘the church interest increases in Hampshire very much’ but also took the opportunity to draw to the lord treasurer’s attention problems in the New Forest. Appalled by the state of affairs at Lyndhurst, where he found the garden attached to the warden’s lodge ‘like a pig sty and is scarce large enough to be called a garden’, he complained to Oxford that his predecessor, Bolton, had left the stables ‘in so ruinous a condition’ that, although he had already expended £100 from his own pocket to pay for repairs, it would require more than twice as much to save them from collapse.<sup>110</sup> Beaufort also appealed for Ormond’s intercession on his behalf to secure £500, which he considered very necessary to manage the repairs in the forest. Should he be refused this sum, he commented in a draft letter, ‘all the world would join with me in thinking I had hard usage’. The following week he penned a further letter to Ormond, again seeking his assistance.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Beaufort’s canvassing on the Isle of Wight contributed to Thomas Lewis<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Anthony Stewart<sup>‡</sup> defeating John Wallop and Charles Powlett<sup>†</sup>, then styled marquess of Winchester, and later 3rd duke of Bolton, for the county seats.<sup>112</sup> At Salisbury he was forced to beg Oxford’s assistance in his efforts to prevent Robert Pitt<sup>‡</sup> from being returned. Beaufort and Pitt had formerly been friendly but were now involved in a bitter feud over Pitt’s opposition to the French commercial treaty.<sup>113</sup> Pitt was moreover attempting to turn out the landlord of <em>The George</em> from his office in the corporation for refusing him his vote.<sup>114</sup> Beaufort also appealed to the Catholic peer Henry Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Wardour, asking him to employ his interest on behalf of Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup> in opposition to Pitt. Apparently stung by North and Grey’s reaction to his involvement in Hampshire, Beaufort continued in his missive to Arundel, ‘how far your lordship thinks proper to meddle in elections is not for me to ask but the long experience I have had of Mr Jones’s integrity and honour makes me beg the favour’.<sup>115</sup></p><p>Affairs in the other counties in which Beaufort was interested proved quite as taxing. At Bath he had been dismayed to discover that the sitting members (Samuel Trotman<sup>‡</sup> and John Codrington<sup>‡</sup>), who both enjoyed his full support, were being challenged by John Radcliffe. Radcliffe had been set up by Beaufort’s friends, ‘without advising with me who to your knowledge has spent a great deal of money about their bill as I did since last election’.<sup>116</sup> Radcliffe appears to have backed down quietly, leaving the sitting members to be returned without contest. At Gloucester, Beaufort had been content to recommend Charles Coxe<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Webb, only for Webb to withdraw under pressure.<sup>117</sup> His departure from the contest resulted in some uncertainty as to whether Coxe should remain to contest Gloucester or Bathurst be prevailed on not to insist on his brother standing for Cirencester (Coxe’s former seat). In the event, Beaufort was able to secure Oxford’s support for Coxe standing at Gloucester along with a ministry nominee, John Snell<sup>‡</sup>, while Webb was compensated with a place elsewhere.<sup>118</sup> Tensions in the city were revealed by the distribution of a ‘scandalous letter’ about which Beaufort was forced to complain to the mayor of Gloucester. The duke made plain his determination to find out the perpetrators and (in spite of his reputed Jacobite sympathies) his own commitment to the Hanoverian succession:</p><blockquote><p>I heartily wish the endeavours of discovering them may prove effectual that it might be openly known who they are that are averse to the Protestant succession and that they may be discouraged by authority who by fomenting of parties are endeavouring to weaken the security of the Protestant religion for which I take the succession in the House of Hanover next to her present majesty’s long life to be the chief guarantee.<sup>119</sup></p></blockquote><p>In Monmouthshire, Beaufort withdrew his support from Thomas Lewis<sup>‡</sup>, who (he was disappointed to find) did not ‘answer’ his expectations, and transferred his interest to Sir Charles Kemys<sup>‡</sup>, but he was unsuccessful in prevailing upon Morgan (the <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em>) to do likewise. Morgan insisted on remaining true to his promise to Lewis and told Beaufort that he doubted many others would rally to Kemys either.<sup>120</sup> Although Beaufort insisted that he had ‘good hopes out of Monmouthshire’, he was forced to appeal to Harcourt for his assistance there, insisting that ‘if I do not succeed for Sir Charles Kemys this time I may despair for the future of ever having a Tory member for the county’.<sup>121</sup> His proposed solution was to add the lord lieutenancy and place of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Monmouthshire to his growing list of responsibilities, ‘as it would put us out of any doubt of success’. He also suggested the appointment of a new commission for sewers in the county.<sup>122</sup> Milborne added his voice to this request. He hoped that Oxford would see to it that Beaufort was granted the office before the election, which would ‘infallibly secure Sir Charles’ but by the beginning of September, with no word from Oxford, Beaufort was forced to write for a third time, underlining ‘the great loss it will be to the Church interest in Monmouthshire if I am not made lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em>’.<sup>123</sup></p><p>In mid-September, Beaufort desired Oxford to ask the queen’s pardon for his failure to wait on her at Windsor for some time. He pleaded the excuse of his business in the elections and emphasized his success in securing the return of sympathetic candidates. Even now, though, his task was not complete and he was heading back to Gloucestershire to oversee elections there.<sup>124</sup> By the following month, exhaustion appears to have set in and he wrote at length (probably to Ormond), setting out in detail how he wished to be rewarded for his work on behalf of the ministry. Eager to spend more time with his family, Beaufort indicated that he would be willing to lay down his place of captain of the gentlemen pensioners. While he insisted that he did not expect to be reimbursed for the sums he had laid out during the elections, he did desire security for himself and his family in the event of the queen’s death. Consequently, he requested a patent granting him the wardenship of the New Forest for life. He also enquired whether in addition he might not be made governor of the Isle of Wight and warden of Burley (‘as Sir John Coventry was’).<sup>125</sup> In November he renewed his application to be made <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Monmouthshire in place of Morgan and the same month took part in a heated gentry meeting in the county. He harangued those present ‘with an account of his steady adhering to the Hanover succession’ and accused Jones of attempting ‘to seduce him to the Pretender’s interest’ and of making ‘mischief between himself and my lady duchess his grandmother’.<sup>126</sup></p><h2><em>Last days, 1713–14</em></h2><p>Beaufort and his duchess spent two days at Bath towards the end of November 1713.<sup>127</sup> Preoccupied with a mountain of business at Badminton, in advance of the first session of the new Parliament Beaufort wrote to Oxford to confirm that it was indeed to commence on 16 Feb. 1714, in which case he undertook to be there, though he was eager to spend as long in the country as he could.<sup>128</sup> In the event, he was missing at the opening of the session, taking his seat a week later on 23 February. Even in London his constant stream of requests continued unabated, but he found Oxford hard to come at. Despairing of being able to see him in person, Beaufort wrote to Oxford on 6 May on behalf of his ‘poor cousin’ Somerset and undertook to wait on him before retiring into the country. He wrote again on 9 May, on behalf of Robert Gore, who sought a place in the customs house at Bristol, and on behalf of Webb, who was still awaiting recompense for standing down at Gloucester.<sup>129</sup> Two days later he registered his proxy with Denbigh. Shortly after, he returned to the country, where he fell so sick that he was thought unlikely to recover. Various reports that Beaufort had been rendered speechless and that he was dead or dying circulated on 19 and 22 May.<sup>130</sup> Two days later he finally succumbed to his latest malady, which, according to one report, was a result of ‘inflammation caused by drinking small beer in a long journey which he rid in one day’. Lord Bathurst communicated a similar account, describing how Beaufort, ‘who was just got into the country, and after having heated himself a shooting in the morning he drunk a great quantity of small liquor, which made him vomit blood and he died in three days after’.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Within days of Beaufort’s death, pretenders began soliciting Oxford for his offices.<sup>132</sup> In his will, the duke named his wife sole executrix but he entrusted the guardianship of his elder son to a triumvirate consisting of James Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, Dodington Greville<sup>‡</sup> and Francis Clerk, with an instruction that they should seek Ormond’s advice about his upbringing from time to time (‘if anything of difficulty arises’).<sup>133</sup> His younger son’s upbringing was entrusted to his sister, Lady Henrietta Somerset. Before his death, he had undertaken to entail a series of portraits of the members of his fraternity that had been presented to him by the other members, ‘as a memorial of the Loyal Brotherhood over whom I have the happiness to preside’.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Beaufort was interred, at his request, at Badminton, having made provision for up to £200 to be expended on his funeral and £400 on a monument to his memory.<sup>135</sup> The year after his death, his widow married John Cochrane*, 4th earl of Dundonald [S]. The dukedom was inherited by both sons in succession: first by Henry Somerset*, 3rd duke of Beaufort, who succeeded as a minor, and then, following his death without male heirs, by his brother, Charles Noel Somerset<sup>†</sup>, 4th duke of Beaufort.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SONDES, George (1599-1677) |
<p><strong><surname>SONDES</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1599–1677)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>8 Apr. 1676 earl of FEVERSHAM. |
|
First sat 21 Feb. 1677; last sat 11 Apr. 1677 |
|
MP Higham Ferrers, 1626 (Feb.), 1628; Ashburton, 1661–8 Apr. 1676. |
<p><em>b.</em> c. Nov. 1599, 1st s. of Sir Richard Sondes<sup>‡</sup>, of Lees Court, Kent and Susan, da. of Sir Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup> of Boughton, Northants. <em>educ.</em> Queens’, Camb., matric. Sept. 1615; M. Temple 1619. <em>m.</em> (1) 10 Sept. 1620, Jane (<em>d.</em> 1637), da. and h. of Ralph Freeman, of Aspenden, Herts., 3s. <em>d.v.p.</em> (2) 25 Feb. 1656, Mary (<em>d.</em> 15 Sept. 1688), da. of Sir William Villiers, bt, of Brooksby, Leics., 2 da (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KB 2 Feb. 1626. <em>d.</em> 16 Apr. 1677; <em>admon</em>. 12 May 1677 to wid.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Sheriff, Kent, 1636-7; dep. lt., Kent, by 1639-?43,<sup>2</sup> July 1660-<em>d</em>.; commr. array (roy.), Kent 1642, corporations, Kent 1662-3.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: George Perfect Harding, pencil, early 19th century, NPG D836.</p> |
<p>Sir George Sondes’s family had been prominent local landowners in Kent since the fourteenth century, and Sondes himself held a number of important local and county offices in the 1630s. He was made a royalist commissioner of array in 1642 which led eventually to his imprisonment and the sequestration of his estate, calculated to be worth £1,600 p.a.<sup>3</sup> While still recovering from those setbacks, tragedy struck again in 1655 when his younger son Freeman murdered his elder brother George and was swiftly executed. The fratricide, and Sir George’s perceived responsibility for it, became the subject of many pamphlets.<sup>4</sup> His son’s conviction meant that Sondes feared his estate might be liable to confiscation by the government and at the Restoration. Sondes’s second wife Mary petitioned Charles II not to deprive them ‘of the estate to which that horrid murder may give you some title’.<sup>5</sup> Perhaps to acquire added influence and privilege which would help safeguard his property, Sondes at the Restoration resumed his previous position in local government, entered Parliament in 1661 as a Member for the Devon borough of Ashburton and loaned large amounts to the Crown throughout the late 1660s.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Sondes had sufficiently improved his finances by 1670 to make his two daughters by his second marriage, Mary and Catherine, much sought-after heiresses for aspiring aristocrats.<sup>7</sup> It was the Frenchman Louis de Duras*, Baron Duras (later 2nd earl of Feversham), an increasingly influential favourite of James Stuart*, duke of York, who was eventually settled upon as the match for the elder daughter Mary. Their marriage was solemnized in March 1676. Duras moved quickly to ensure that he could further benefit from what was already an advantageous marriage. In early March 1676 Duras conferred with Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> about ‘the favour the king has been pleased to do me, which is, to give me the title of earl’, and set out a plan whereby an earldom would be offered to Sondes, with a special remainder to Duras. If Sondes did not wish to take the title, Duras was still to have an earldom himself ‘at once’, and two separate warrants for patents of creation were duly drawn up to cover each of these contingencies.<sup>8</sup> Sondes himself chose the proffered earldom and on 8 Apr. 1676 his patent creating him earl of Feversham, with a special remainder to his son-in-law, was sealed.</p><p>Mary, Lady Duras, died less than a year after the marriage, on 1 Jan. 1677, and Sondes himself held the title for just over a year before his own death. In that year, during most of which Parliament was prorogued, Feversham sat in the House on only 13 occasions. In his brief career in the House, he was named to eight committees, half of them on private bills. He last sat in the House on 11 Apr. 1677 and died ‘suddenly’ five days later.<sup>9</sup> He was succeeded in his title by his son-in-law Duras, but the deaths of Lady Duras and the earl of Feversham in quick succession had reverberations for several years, as Duras had entered into a marriage settlement with Sondes in which receipt of his promised portion of £3,000 was contingent on his settling estates and jointures on his new wife. After her early death the conditions laid on him were redundant and so left unfulfilled but Duras still demanded the agreed portion and, continued to do so after Feversham’s death, from his sole heiress Lady Catherine Sondes and Lewis Watson*, later earl of Rockingham, whom she married in July 1677.<sup>10</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
SPENCER, Charles (1675-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>SPENCER</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1675–1722)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1688-1702 Ld. Spencer; <em>suc. </em>fa. 28 Sept. 1702 as 3rd earl of SUNDERLAND |
|
First sat 23 Oct. 1702; last sat 7 Mar. 1722 |
|
MP Tiverton 1695-1702 |
<p><em>b</em>. 23 Apr. 1675, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Lady Anne Digby (<em>d</em>.1715).<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1689-90 (Holland, Univ. of Utrecht);<sup>2</sup> LLD Camb. 1705. <em>m</em>. (1) 12 Jan. 1695 (with £25,000),<sup>3</sup> Lady Arabella Cavendish (<em>d</em>.1698), da. of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, 1da.; (2) 2 Jan. 1700 (with ?£20,000), Lady Anne Churchill (<em>d</em>.1716), 2nd da. of John Churchill*, earl, later duke, of Marlborough, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 2da.; (3) 5 Dec. 1717 Judith (<em>d</em>.1749), da. and coh. of Benjamin Tichborne of Tichborne, Hants, 2s. (?1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 1da. <em>d.v.p.</em> KG 21 Nov. 1719. <em>d</em>. 19 Apr. 1722; <em>will</em> 15 Aug. 1720, pr. 8 Jan. 1723.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Sec. of state (S) 1706-10, (N) 1717-18; commr. for union with Scotland 1706; PC 3 Dec. 1706; ld. lt. Ireland 1714-15; ld. privy seal Aug. 1715-Dec. 1716; jt. v.-treas. [I] Mar.-July 1716, sole treas. July 1716-May 1717; first ld. of the treasury 1718-21; ld. justice 1719, 1720; groom of the stole 1719-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Envoy extraordinary Vienna 1705.</p><p>Recorder Coventry 1710-11;<sup>5</sup> gov. Charterhouse 1716-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p><p>FRS 1698.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, Blenheim;<sup>10</sup> line engraving by J.S. Muller, after Kneller, NPG D8043.</p> |
<h2><em>Early Life</em></h2><p>Spencer’s expectations were transformed by the death of his older brother, Robert, who died in Paris in 1688 as a result of injuries sustained in a duel. As heir to the earldom, Spencer followed his father into exile in 1689 but he was fortunate in being too young to be much associated with the 2nd earl’s policies as James II’s premier minister. A student of the Calvinist Pierre Flournois and heavily influenced by the low churchman, Charles Trimnell*, later bishop of Norwich, Spencer did not share his father’s erastian attitude to religion, though he proved to be both a genuinely committed Anglican and a friend to dissent.</p><p>After his return to England, Spencer was initially associated with the country Whigs but by the end of the 1690s he had come to be identified with the Junto. Although he was undoubtedly a spirited party man, described by one commentator as ‘a violent Whig, very violent in the House of Commons during his father’s life time, and continued so in the House of Lords after his death’, claims of Spencer’s republicanism have been overstated, probably the result of a combination of deliberate malicious misinformation on the part of Tory propagandists (especially Jonathan Swift) and of a failure on the part of foreign observers to distinguish between Whiggery and the Dutch Commonwealth party.<sup>11</sup> Moreover, while Spencer was undoubtedly possessed of a decidedly hot temper and demonstrated a level of zeal for the causes in which he believed that was sufficient to alarm more staid observers, his natural abilities ensured that he was rarely neglected. During the course of his career he held almost all of the highest offices in the land as well as dominating the House as an active committee-man and talented debater. He was also an obsessive record keeper and enthusiastic bibliophile, his collection rivalled only by that of his <em>bête noir</em>, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.<sup>12</sup></p><p>His father Sunderland’s return to favour in the early 1690s was no doubt behind the rumour put about in the spring of 1694 that Spencer was to marry a daughter of William III’s favourite, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, but, shortly after, the Bentinck match was laid aside in favour of a more lucrative alliance with Lady Arabella Cavendish. Unlike his older brother, who had been rash and given to excess, Spencer commended himself to Lady Arabella’s mother, the duchess of Newcastle, as ‘having the character of sobriety and good humour, which is rare to find’.<sup>13</sup> Although it proved a struggle for Spencer’s father to raise suitable funds to satisfy the other party, the financial obstacles were eventually overcome and the resulting marriage, though brought to a premature conclusion by Lady Arabella’s death in the summer of 1698, proved to be strikingly happy.<sup>14</sup> But with her daughter-in-law barely cold in the grave, Lady Sunderland demonstrated a distasteful lack of propriety by almost immediately setting about brokering a new match for her son. Within weeks she was in talks with the countess of Marlborough for the hand of her daughter, Lady Anne Churchill. Insisting that Spencer was ‘very good natured and strictly honest’, she confessed her ambition that, ‘as soon as Lady Arabella died it was the first wish I made that my son might be thought worthy of Lady Anne’.<sup>15</sup> Marlborough proved at first unwilling to cast his daughter away on a newly widowed young man. He also appears to have harboured concerns about Spencer’s increasingly close relations with the Junto.<sup>16</sup> Assurances from Sunderland that the match was ‘the thing of the world we do wish the most earnestly and my Lord Spencer not only so, but as passionately as he ought’, coupled with Lady Sunderland’s perseverance eventually paid off.<sup>17</sup> Premature reports that Spencer and Lady Anne were ‘suddenly to be married’ circulated in September 1699, but after further negotiations, Spencer married for the second time early in 1700, benefiting from a reputed £20,000 portion in part provided by the queen.<sup>18</sup></p><p>The Churchill match reinforced Spencer’s claims to a high-profile political career. Set up for election in Northamptonshire by his father in 1695, he had been forced to withdraw when the opposition proved too vigorous, but having carried both Hedon and Tiverton, he opted to sit for the latter, which he continued to represent until his accession to the peerage. By the beginning of the new century the relationship between Spencer and his father had cooled.<sup>19</sup> This was in part the result of Spencer’s growing connection with the Junto, but he appears to have patched up his differences with his father shortly before the earl’s death and the family seat of Althorp was employed as the venue for a meeting between Sunderland and members of the Junto in August 1702 in anticipation of a new alliance in the forthcoming session. Sunderland’s death later that year negated such overtures but left his heir (now 3rd earl of Sunderland) free to take his place among the acknowledged leadership of the Junto, who were no doubt eager to exploit his connection with the Churchill family and his interest in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.<sup>20</sup> For the remainder of this period, Sunderland’s loyalties remained divided between the Junto and his Churchill in-laws, so much so that when he was forced from power in June 1710 it was possible for Robert Harley to argue plausibly that Sunderland’s dismissal was part of a move against the Churchill connection rather than against the Junto.<sup>21</sup></p><h2><em>House of Lords</em></h2><p>Sunderland took his seat in the House three days into the new Parliament on 23 Oct. 1702 after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sittings. On 11 Nov. he was added to the sub-committee for the Journal and he was added to the same committee again two days later, probably a clerical error. On 19 Nov. he was named to the committee for drawing up an address and on 9 Dec. he was prominent in the debate that erupted after the House had sent the amended occasional conformity bill back down to the Commons, his warning that the lower House intended to tack the measure onto a money bill spurring the House into drawing up an order against tacking. His interest in the measure was reflected in his subsequent nomination as one of the managers of the conference for the occasional conformity bill and the same day (17 Dec.) he acted as one of the tellers for the division over whether to proceed with the conference report, which was carried by 52 votes to 47. The following day Sunderland was named to the committee to draw up reasons for the Lords’ insistence on their amendments to the bill and on 23 Dec. he was one of six lords present at a committee convened at the Parliament office to discover precedents for bills with penalties that had originated in the upper chamber. When William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, made his report to the House on 8 Jan. 1703 of the reasons for the Lords insisting on their amendments, Sunderland moved that they should be entered into the Journal.<sup>22</sup></p><p>At the beginning of the year Sunderland had been estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being opposed to the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. Sunderland indeed voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. A few days prior to this, on 11 Jan., he acted as one of the tellers in the division on whether to adjourn the debate on the rights of peers under the act of settlement, which was lost on a tied vote. On a related matter, on 19 Jan. he was one of a number of peers to subscribe a protest at the decision to include a clause in the bill settling a revenue on Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, which specifically confirmed his capacity to serve as a member of the Privy Council and to sit in the Lords if the queen should pre-decease him. Sunderland’s position on the bill incurred the queen’s displeasure. It also contrasted starkly with his father-in-law Marlborough’s support for the measure and precipitated increasingly fractious relations with his mother-in-law.<sup>23</sup> His countess attempted to justify her husband’s behaviour to her mother, insisting that he ‘has too many good qualities to do anything as this is represented, besides I am sure, next to his country, he is heartily for everything that is for the queen’s interest’, but it required a personal intervention on Sunderland’s part to repair the damage caused to his relations with the duchess.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Present during a session of the committee for the bill for appointing commissioners for examining the public accounts on 2 Feb. 1703, Sunderland moved for a clause to be added to the bill stating that the commissioners should be barred from holding office under the crown for the duration of the commission. His motion was adopted accordingly.<sup>25</sup> On 9 Feb. he was named to the committee for drawing up an address of thanks to the queen for her ‘great care’ in not issuing further licences for people coming from France. Three days later he was teller in the division over whether to reverse the judgment in <em>Wharton v. Squire</em>, which was again carried in the negative following a tied vote. On 19 Feb. he also told on the question whether to report the case of the <em>Attorney General v. the mayor of Coventry</em>, something in which he perhaps had a personal interest on account of his influence in the borough. The motion to report was defeated by a margin of two votes.</p><p>The summer of 1703 found Sunderland active in attempting to employ his interest on behalf of several supplicants. His efforts to procure a prebend’s stall in Westminster for his former chaplain, Trimnell, were thwarted when he was unable to secure the support of John Sharp*, archbishop of York, whose interest was already pre-assigned to Dr George Stanhope, although in the event neither cleric landed that desirable place.<sup>26</sup> He also failed to secure the governorship of Guernsey for the Junto lieutenant, Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, but he had greater success in securing places in the army for two other petitioners through his father-in-law’s interposition.<sup>27</sup></p><p>One of several prominent Whig peers to mark the late king’s birthday with bonfires and public celebrations on 4 Nov., Sunderland took his seat in the new session on 9 Nov. 1703 and the following day he was named to the committee to draw an address on the queen’s speech.<sup>28</sup> Present on 77 per cent of all sittings, Sunderland was at pains to develop his management of the chamber during the session: on 4 Dec. Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), noted that he had been sent a proxy ‘to be signed at the desire of’ Sunderland, Charles Montagu, Baron (later earl of) Halifax and Thomas Wharton, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton.<sup>29</sup> At some point before 26 Nov. he drew up a list of the Lords’ expected voting intentions for the occasional conformity bill (noting himself as an opponent of the measure), which had been re-introduced into the Commons by William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> on 25 November. The bill passed the Commons on 7 Dec. and Sunderland then undertook a second survey, again noting himself among the bill’s opponents, in advance of it arriving in the Lords on 14 December. The measure was read for the first time that day and in a division the motion to read the bill a second time was defeated by 71 votes to 59. Sunderland’s forecasts proved remarkably accurate: his prediction correctly reflected the numbers voting with the Whigs (71) though he slightly overestimated the level of support for the measure, crediting the other side with 66 likely supporters. Three days later he hosted a gathering of at least 17 Whig peers, probably in preparation for the imminent debates on the ‘Scotch Plot’.<sup>30</sup> On 18 Dec. Sunderland was one of seven peers elected by ballot to undertake the examination of Sir John Maclean, James Boucher, and several others who had been taken up in the wake of the plot.<sup>31</sup> He was also one of the peers nominated to the committee to examine the voting glass, amidst claims of sharp practice and that more ballots had been lodged than there were peers present. An expunged entry in the manuscript minutes suggests that Sunderland and several other peers all asked to be excused from acting on the committee examining Maclean and the other prisoners.<sup>32</sup> Sunderland’s reason is not given but may have related to unease at being involved in a case that aroused concerns that the Lords were infringing on the crown’s rights to examine the suspects. In any case, none of the peers were excused their service and over the ensuing few days they convened several times to examine the prisoners.<sup>33</sup> Any doubts over the legitimacy of the Lords’ actions notwithstanding, Sunderland took his role in the investigation of the plot with supreme seriousness, not least because he and his colleagues hoped to uncover evidence that might discredit Nottingham, whom they hoped to displace as secretary.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Sunderland returned to the House following the Christmas recess on 4 Jan. 1704 and ten days later he served as one of the tellers on the question whether to adjourn the debates over the dispute <em>Ashby v. White</em>. On 26 Jan. he was named to the committee to consider the allegations in the preamble to the bill for enabling the mayor of London and other trustees to pay charities stipulated in Sir Thomas Gresham’s will and on 5 and 6 Feb. he was active in the sub-committee for the Journal. On the evening of 13 Feb. he hosted another extensive gathering of Whig peers, where ‘tea [was] drunk’ and the Scotch Plot discussed. On the 17th he attended a somewhat smaller dinner in Parliament, again to discuss the Plot.<sup>35</sup> As a consequence of these discussions, on 19 Feb. he was one of eight peers (the seven elected in December, plus Secretary Nottingham) ordered to examine William Keith and three days later the same committee (minus Nottingham) was appointed to examine further into the Scotch Plot. On 21 Mar. he subscribed the dissent at the resolution not to read for a second time the rider requiring recruits for the army and marines to have the consent of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor in the parishes where they were raised. That evening he again hosted a meeting of Whig lords at his London home, and two days later he was present at a further gathering hosted by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, both possibly related to the Scotch Plot. Certainly, on 24 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean, another of those associated with the Scottish conspiracy, was imperfect.<sup>36</sup> Three days later, Sunderland was one of the peers nominated a manager of the conference for the public accounts bill and on 3 Apr. he reported from the committee for the same business. Two months later he was one of the members of the sub-committee for the Journal to sign off the account of that day’s proceedings.</p><p>The close of the session coincided with rumours that the duumvirs, Marlborough and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron, later earl of, Godolphin, had fallen out with their Tory allies and towards the end of April 1704 it was speculated that, as part of their anticipated rapprochement with the Junto, Sunderland was to replace Nottingham as secretary of state.<sup>37</sup> Although nothing came of this, the rumour persisted into May.<sup>38</sup> It was to prove the beginning of a concerted campaign by the Junto to manoeuvre Sunderland into the ministry, for although he was still young and relatively inexperienced, he was also recognized as being uniquely qualified to unite Junto and duumvir interests. Later that autumn, with the Junto still unsatisfied, one correspondent remarked to Sunderland’s mother-in-law that, ‘I can’t forbear to wish Lord Sunderland was remembered, and wonder why it is thought a wise conduct to gain men who have been enemies to the government all along, and neglect to gain others of ten times their sense and honesty.’<sup>39</sup></p><p>Sunderland suffered from poor health during the early weeks of the summer (another recurrent theme in his career), but he was said to be ‘much mended’ by the close of May 1704.<sup>40</sup> The same month he stood godfather to the second son of Godolphin’s heir, Francis Godolphin*, the future 2nd earl of Godolphin.<sup>41</sup> Towards the end of June he was present in court along with a number of other peers to witness a trial between Portland and the queen for the recovery of a debt, from which Portland emerged triumphant.<sup>42</sup> Sunderland was one of a party present at Chippenham in Cambridgeshire, seat of his Junto colleague, Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, in mid-August 1704, from whence he wrote to Marlborough congratulating him on his recent victory at Blenheim and assuring his father-in-law that ‘the company I have met here, I can assure you, take a very great part in this good news’. From Chippenham Sunderland returned to his own estate at Althorp for the remainder of the month before returning to town for the beginning of the new session.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Present for the prorogation of 19 Oct. 1704, Sunderland took his place in the House on 24 October. Two days later, he received the proxy of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, which was vacated on 6 Dec., as well as that of the prominent Junto lieutenant, Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton. Bolton’s proxy was vacated when the duke returned to his place on 16 November. On the same day that Newcastle resumed his seat Sunderland was entrusted with the proxy of his kinsman, Philip Sydney*, 5th earl of Leicester. Two days later (8 Dec.) he also received that of Paulet St John*, 3rd earl of Bolingbroke, with whose heir presumptive, Sir St Andrew St John<sup>‡</sup>, Sunderland was said to be ‘very great friends’.<sup>44</sup> Leicester’s proxy was vacated on 11 Dec. while Bolingbroke’s was vacated by the close of the session. Besides his clear importance as a holder of key proxies in the session, perhaps in part the result of his high attendance level this session (94 per cent of all sittings), Sunderland also dominated a number of crucial committees, not least the committee of the whole House considering the state of the nation, from which he reported on 29 October. On 7 Nov. he was one of several peers to second Godolphin’s motion for more care to be taken in preventing confusion in the House on those occasions when the queen was present. Three days later, when John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, moved that the Lords be summoned to hear his attack on the ministry, he proposed that the House should instead be called over the following Thursday, and then submitted a motion for a humble address to be presented to the queen representing the travails of Protestant refugees incarcerated in foreign galleys.<sup>45</sup> Soon after this the House defeated the third occasional conformity bill, with Sunderland almost certainly among the majority who united to vote the measure down.<sup>46</sup> On 29 November, as a result of Haversham’s intervention, the House resumed discussion of the state of the nation in a committee of the whole with Sunderland once more in the chair. He proceeded to chair further such committees on 6, 11 and 16 December. Three days later (19 Dec.) he presided over a subsequent committee of the whole for the Union bill and on 21 Dec. he reported from the committee nominated to draft an address about the state of Scotland, which was read and ordered to be presented the following day.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s prominence in the House’s debates at the close of 1704 no doubt gave renewed impetus to rumours that he was soon to be appointed secretary of state, though William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, was unconvinced, noting in this diary merely, ‘time will show.’<sup>48</sup> The new year also found Sunderland active in early preparations for the forthcoming elections. In January 1705 he coordinated meetings of the Northamptonshire gentry in London and the following month he was approached by Captain George Lucy seeking his backing in Warwickshire.<sup>49</sup> On 2 Feb. 1705 he was one of 15 peers named to a committee to consider the method of passing bills between the Lords and Commons and three days later he reported from the committee of the whole House the bill conveying the manor of Woodstock to his father-in-law, which was approved without any further amendment. Sunderland took a prominent role over the following few weeks in debates resulting from the divisions between Lords and Commons over the Aylesbury men. On 28 Feb. he reported from the committee appointed to draw up the heads of a conference with the Commons to discuss the dispute. He then reported the effect of the conference the same day as well as reporting from a subsequent conference on the same business on 7 Mar., when he was also nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for preventing traitorous correspondence. On 9 Mar. he was again named one of the managers of a third conference about the Aylesbury men and on 12 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the Carolina address. Sunderland received the proxy of John Hervey*, Baron Hervey (later earl of Bristol), on 13 Mar. 1705 (which was vacated by the close) and the same day he was nominated a manager of another conference with the Commons over the bill for naturalizing Jacob Pechels and others.</p><p>Towards the end of March 1705 fresh rumours emerged of expected alterations in the ministry. Wharton, it was thought, was to be lord lieutenant of Ireland and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, master of the horse, while Sunderland was again expected to succeed as secretary of state.<sup>50</sup> The rumours continued to circulate in April amid growing Whig demands for Sunderland to replace Harley. For the while Harley retained sufficient support to resist, but the issue was still to the fore when Sunderland joined a party of Whig notables in attendance on the queen during her progress to Cambridge later that month.<sup>51</sup> An assessment of the same period noted Sunderland, unsurprisingly, as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. In the elections of May, however, his interest faltered. Lucy, who had struggled to attract much support and for whose cause Sunderland was probably at best lukewarm, was frustrated in his ambitions in Warwickshire. More importantly, neither of Sunderland’s candidates for the county seats in Northamptonshire was successful either, in spite of Sunderland leading a ‘grand party’ of supporters through the streets of Daventry in the hopes of attracting additional votes.<sup>52</sup> Notwithstanding these disappointments, overall Junto success added weight to the continuing calls for Sunderland to be preferred. In mid-May it was suggested that his appointment as envoy to Vienna might prove a useful preparation for him taking on the secretaryship in due course.<sup>53</sup> Although Sunderland himself seems to have been less than eager to take on the role, his mother-in-law insisted that ‘my Lord Sunderland will have as much deference to the opinion of his friends as my lord treasurer will have to them.’<sup>54</sup> Junto pressure on the young man paid off. He took his leave late the following month, arriving at Vienna towards the end of August. Within a few days, Sunderland was complaining of his dislike of the charge, protesting that he would ‘rather be buried alive than be left in this place’, but he was compelled to remain at his post for the ensuing three months.<sup>55</sup> Absence from England did not make Sunderland any the less interested in Whig electoral success. He expressed himself ‘mighty glad’ that his mother-in-law had prevailed upon Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl of Bridgwater, to ‘set up Harry Mordaunt’ in Buckinghamshire, confident that it would bring about a union between Bridgwater and Wharton, ‘which will make things hereafter easy in that county.’<sup>56</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1705</em></h2><p>Sunderland was excused at a call of the House on 12 Nov. 1705. The following month he secured permission to leave Vienna.<sup>57</sup> On 30 Dec. he arrived back in England in company with his father-in-law, Marlborough, and the former Junto patron, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, who was returning from his five-year sojourn in Italy.<sup>58</sup> Sunderland’s return to England coincided with feverish anticipation of alterations in the ministry. One indication of the changed nature of affairs at court was Godolphin’s determination put an end to the domination of church preferments by Archbishop Sharp and the Tories. Consequently, on the death of William Beaw*, bishop of Llandaff, in January 1706, Sunderland advised Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury confidently that ‘his grace might name whom he pleased for a successor’ and it was the firmly Whiggish John Tyler*, then dean of Hereford, who was ultimately appointed to the vacant see later that summer.<sup>59</sup> A dinner on 6 Jan. 1706, attended by Sunderland as well as a number of prominent members of the ministry, was thought to be an attempt to reconcile Somers and Halifax with Harley.<sup>60</sup> Shrewsbury’s return had precipitated speculation that he might be prevailed on to forge a new alliance with his former Junto partners and that the Whigs might prefer to see him appointed one of the secretaries with Sunderland taking the other place.<sup>61</sup> Sunderland’s own attitude towards Harley, however (irrespective of their rivalry for the same place), appears to have been bitter and uncompromising. This was hinted at in a letter from Harley to his rival later that summer, in which Harley referred to the bad blood between them and dismissed unnamed accusations made by Sunderland the previous day as being without foundation.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Sunderland took his place in the House two days after the dinner on 8 Jan. 1706 and he was thereafter present on 51 days in the session (53 per cent of the whole). On 26 Jan. a number of private bills were considered by the Lords and, according to Bishop Nicolson, Sunderland ‘took notice of the suspicious contents of one of these.’<sup>63</sup> It is not clear which bill Nicolson referred to, but it may have been that for naturalizing Vincent de Laymerie and others, given Sunderland’s previous support for limiting the number of licences awarded to Frenchmen settling in England. Sunderland attended a dinner at the Kit Cat Club in the middle of February (for which his accounts noted he paid £10. 17s. 6d.).<sup>64</sup> Later the same month, on 20 Feb., he joined with Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, in ‘severe’ questioning of Dean Bincks of Lichfield during a session of the committee for the bill for better regulation of Lichfield cathedral. Bincks had been a notably ‘high-flying’ prolocutor of the lower house of Convocation.<sup>65</sup> On 22 Feb. he was nominated a manager of the conference for Cary and Hatley’s bill and on 4 Mar. he received Ossulston’s proxy. On 7 Mar. Sunderland subscribed £2,500 to the quarter of a million pound loan to the Emperor and a few days later was approached by William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, who sought his interest on behalf of one Skinner, a grandson of Robert Skinner*, formerly bishop of Oxford and Worcester.<sup>66</sup> Sunderland was nominated one of the managers of the conference on 9 Mar. concerning Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter to Stamford</em> and three days later he reported from the committee for the address concerning oppressions in Carolina. The following day he acted as one of the managers of the conference for the militia bill and on 19 Mar. he was one of a committee of 14 named to draw an address about manning the fleet. Two days later he was one of the sub-committee for the Journal to sign off the record of proceedings for 4 Dec. the previous year, a day when Sunderland had been out of the country.</p><p>Sunderland’s increasing stature in the leadership of the Junto was reflected in his appointment as one of the commissioners nominated to undertake the Union negotiations in April 1706, but Junto efforts to secure him the secretaryship were forestalled again towards the close of that month when Newcastle chose to continue his support for Harley.<sup>67</sup> Further efforts that summer on Sunderland’s behalf by Marlborough and Godolphin received an equally firm denial by the queen, though Sunderland professed himself pleasantly surprised at the manner of her refusal. As he commented to his mother-in-law, he found the queen’s response was ‘a great deal more favourable than I expected, having been represented to her, I suppose, as having cloven feet.’ The relatively cordial denial appears to have encouraged Sunderland to propose that the duchess should take the opportunity of recommending Wharton to the queen for preferment as chief justice in eyre. This he considered would be ‘a mighty right compliment to make him… for little things done with a good air, do often please more than greater.’<sup>68</sup> In August he was also able to bring his interest to bear in favour of Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Lord Fairfax [S], who Sunderland hoped would contest the seat recently made vacant by the death of Sir John Kaye<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>69</sup> Fairfax was returned accordingly at the by-election early in the following year.</p><p>Despite such successes and a steady campaign by the Junto and the Marlboroughs to wear down the queen’s objections, Sunderland’s own pretensions continued to be denied. The queen remained insistent on her reluctance to install ‘a party man’ like Sunderland as secretary ‘when there are so many of their friends in employment of all kinds already.’ In addition, she feared his personality and explained that her reluctance to give way ‘proceeds from what I have heard of his temper. I am afraid he and I would not agree long together’.<sup>70</sup> Increasingly suspicious that he was being treated shabbily, Sunderland complained to Newcastle at the close of August 1706 how he had been unable to wait on Lord Treasurer Godolphin who was suffering with ‘a swelled face’ though ‘whether real or pretended I am not very sure.’<sup>71</sup> Godolphin’s sickness, diplomatic or otherwise, may well have been occasioned in part by his inability to bring about a resolution to the question of the secretaryship, which he claimed was making him ‘almost distracted’.<sup>72</sup> The affair also threatened to drive a wedge between the members of the Junto and their Churchill allies. In September Sunderland and Halifax postponed a visit to the duchess of Marlborough at Woodstock, fearing that it would look as if they were caballing.<sup>73</sup> At the close of the month the queen reluctantly offered the Junto an olive branch in the form of a place in cabinet for Sunderland, without portfolio, but the gesture was rejected.<sup>74</sup> Sunderland’s attention was taken up with Union negotiations over the following two months, in which he, Somers and Halifax were said to be taking ‘a great deal of pains’.<sup>75</sup> At the beginning of December 1706, however, the queen finally conceded defeat and appointed Sunderland to the post of secretary of state for the southern department in the place of Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>76</sup> Harley remained in post at the northern department for the time being, but to emphasize the Junto’s achievement Sunderland’s appointment coincided with a number of promotions in the peerage for Whig colleagues.<sup>77</sup></p><h2><em>Secretary of State</em></h2><p>Sunderland resumed his seat in the House for the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on 71 per cent of all sittings. He attended cabinet for the first time in his new capacity later the same day.<sup>78</sup> On 4 Dec. he reported from the committee for drawing the address in response to the queen’s speech and on 30 Dec. he introduced Wharton in his new dignity as earl of Wharton and John Poulett*, as Earl Poulett. At the turn of the year Sunderland found his attention divided between the ongoing negotiations around the Union, continuing disputes over management of ecclesiastical affairs and difficulties in the prosecution of the war in Spain and Portugal. The last centred about the vexed relations between the allied commanders Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope, and their contrasting views of how the war might best be prosecuted. Sunderland backed Galway and Stanhope, but his enthusiastic support of offensive operations, which he pressed upon the commanders in the field over the ensuing months, led ultimately to him being singled out for particular censure following the allied defeat at Almanza in the spring of 1707.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Efforts to settle management of church affairs, potentially no less hazardous, led to a meeting hosted by Sunderland on 29 Jan. 1707 attended by the duumvirs, Wharton, Halifax, Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln and John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, at which a draft of the ‘act for the security of the Church of England’ was approved, to accompany the legislation on the Union.<sup>80</sup> Sunderland was then prominent among those who supported passing the act without amendment after it was considered in committee of the whole House on 3 February.<sup>81</sup> On 28 Jan. Sunderland placed before the House the minutes of the commissioners for Union and the Scottish ratification of the Act of Union. On 6 Mar. he was nominated to the committee to draft an address concerning the Union. Concentration on this business was interrupted briefly on 11 Mar. when he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to read the game bill a second time. On 15 Mar. his attention returned to the Union when he proposed that Bishop Burnet take the chair in the committee of the whole when the House once again took the matter into consideration.</p><p>The week-long prorogation in the second week of April irritated Sunderland, who saw the hand of Harley behind the manoeuvre, as he complained to Marlborough:</p><blockquote><p>I believe you will be surprised at this short prorogation. It is entirely occasioned by him who is the author of all the tricks played here. I need not name him, having done it in my last letter to you. I will only say no man in the service of a government did act such a part. I wish those to whom he has acted it were ever capable of thinking him in the wrong, for I fear it may be some time or other too late.<sup>82</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sunderland returned to his place on 14 Apr. after which he attended eight days of the brief session that sat for the remainder of the month. Annoyance at Harley’s ‘tricks’ was exacerbated by infighting once more within the Junto and in particular concern at the behaviour of Halifax, who was still to secure a suitable post in the administration. News of the allied defeat at Almanza no doubt added to Sunderland’s sense of ‘uneasiness’.<sup>83</sup> By the second week of May 1707, he was able to inform Marlborough of some resolution of the disputes between Halifax and his colleagues, while admitting the strain it had placed upon him as well:</p><blockquote><p>I can assure you nothing has given me so much uneasiness a great while as that whole matter, but, I am sure, the only reason that hindered him (Halifax) from writing was that he thought the best way to have all that was past forgotten was to say no more of it, and he is now as easy with lord treasurer, and all this, and your friends, as he ever was.<sup>84</sup></p></blockquote><p>Both Sunderland and his countess appear to have suffered from poor health over the following few months. Lady Sunderland was said to be suffering from a ‘kind of quinzy’ at the close of April, while Sunderland himself was sick for much of May, towards the close of which he retreated to the country to recover. By 3 June he was at Hampton Court, convalescing having been ‘very ill, with a fever upon my spirits, which has hung upon me, more or less, above three weeks, but thank God I am much better now.’ Five days later Sunderland was again present at cabinet, though on 10 June he was still complaining of discomfort caused by an eye infection.<sup>85</sup> Towards the end of the month he was approached by Henry Howard*, earl of Bindon (later 6th earl of Suffolk), for his assistance in procuring a suitable reward for one Dr Dent in return for his services in the elections in Essex.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, vacancies in the episcopate were raising the tension between the Junto and the duumvirs, as the queen stubbornly refused to break her promise to two Tory divines, Offspring Blackall*, the future bishop of Exeter, and William Dawes*, bishop of Chester, to appoint them to those sees, rather than the Whig clerics favoured by the Junto. While this struggle continued, the promotion of Bishop Moore from Norwich to Ely raised the prospect of Sunderland’s client, Charles Trimnell, being appointed as his replacement at Norwich. The final compromise that was reached did indeed see all three, Trimnell, Blackall and Dawes, raised to the episcopal bench. But as the impasse continued Sunderland’s friends voiced their deep disquiet, wondering ‘a little at so sudden a nomination of two on the other side, and that his [Trimnell’s] cause runs so heavy, against whom we see no objection but his principle.’<sup>87</sup> Godolphin even became worried that Sunderland would refuse to introduce Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter to the queen when he was presented to her as the new bishop of Winchester.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Sunderland was more successful in obtaining a vacant prebend’s stall at Gloucester for one Robert Cooke, the uncle of the local Member, William Cooke<sup>‡</sup>. He had originally slated Cooke to be dean the previous year, only to come up against Marlborough’s previous commitments. Early in August 1707 Sunderland approached William Cowper, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, claiming the support of both the borough’s Members and the ‘honest gentlemen’ in the area. With Marlborough also on board, the appointment went through in November.<sup>89</sup></p><p>It was with a general sense of foreboding that Sunderland retreated to Althorp at the beginning of August 1707. At the close of the month he hosted a Junto conclave there attended by Somers, Halifax and Orford, ‘to fix measures for the approaching Parliament.’<sup>90</sup> The new session, Sunderland warned Marlborough, was likely to be troublesome: ‘there are so many uneasy things preparing by the common enemy against next sessions and by the management of the court so little confidence between them and the only people that either will or can support them, that I own I have terrible apprehensions of the consequence.’<sup>91</sup> The summer, which had seen the beginning of the allied operation against Toulon following hard on the Almanza debacle, promised no reduction in the pressures on the ministry but Junto discontent was caused primarily by the queen’s continuing reluctance to give way over the vacant bishoprics. Sunderland appears at last to have shaken off his various maladies by the end of August when it was predicted that he would be back in his office the following week.<sup>92</sup> In early September he joined with Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, Baron Coningsby [I] (later earl of Coningsby), in supporting the clause in the Irish bill against popery voiding all settlements made by Catholics in the previous year, an addition which caused ‘great contests in council’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Sunderland waited on the queen at Newmarket at the beginning of October 1707.<sup>94</sup> With much of his attention taken up with attempting to defuse a diplomatic crisis with the Muscovite ambassador over the publication of a piece in the <em>Review</em> critical of the Czar, Sunderland took his seat in the new Parliament three weeks later on 23 Oct., after which he was present on almost 88 per cent of all sittings.<sup>95</sup> The session witnessed determined efforts on the part of the Junto to force Harley from office (a course of action settled on at their August deliberations), coupled with their growing criticism of the management of the admiralty under Prince George and George Churchill<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>96</sup> On 9 Dec. Sunderland provided the House with extracts of intelligence letters concerning French naval preparations and, the following day, copies of Harley’s letters to the prince’s council with advice concerning French shipping. On 31 Dec. Sunderland was one of the privy councillors to interview the suspected Jacobite informant and Harley’s under-secretary, William Greg, at Harley’s office.<sup>97</sup> Disappointingly for the Junto, Greg declined to implicate Harley in his activities.</p><p>The Junto’s campaign against Harley was no doubt the cause of their renewed efforts to woo other members of the House and is presumably the explanation for Sunderland, Somers and Halifax offering Bishop Nicolson ‘special encouragements’ in his cause with Hugh Todd, a canon at Carlisle whom Nicolson had excommunicated.<sup>98</sup> Present at cabinet meetings at Kensington and the Cockpit on 5 Jan. 1708, Sunderland resumed his seat in the House following the Christmas recess two days later.<sup>99</sup> On 13 Jan. he presented the House with further information concerning the conduct of the war in Spain, which was referred to the committee of the whole House, and later the same month he gave evidence against Greg at the Middlesex sessions.<sup>100</sup> In February, in the face of court efforts to delay it, the Junto, in temporary alliance with a handful of Tory peers, was successful in securing the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council as a way of marginalizing the court’s principal Scots minister, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and later duke of Dover.<sup>101</sup> Sunderland’s contribution to the debate was noteworthy, he being the only member of the ministry to come out openly in favour of doing away with the council.<sup>102</sup> The same month the Junto finally had their way in achieving the resignation of Harley and a number of his allies from the ministry. Harley’s removal was followed by a purge of the commission of the peace in several counties as the Junto attempted to drive home their advantage.<sup>103</sup></p><p>On 25 Feb. 1708 Sunderland introduced a bill into the House for reversing the attainder of Sir Henry Bond, bt. and the same day he presented the petition of William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon, to be summoned under that title. Three days later he received the directors of the Royal African Company at his office.<sup>104</sup> The following month his attention was taken up with countering the Jacobite invasion threat and on 4 Mar. he presented the House with intelligence received by the queen concerning the French invasion plans. One correspondent commented (perhaps somewhat cynically) to Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> on the feverish activity of the secretaries, describing how Secretary Henry Boyle*, the future Baron Carleton, ‘is so intent upon the affairs of the nation that he hardly takes time to eat, and my Lord Sunderland sits up whole nights, and what may we not expect from such great men and of such assiduity.’<sup>105</sup></p><p>Sunderland remained in London following the dissolution at the beginning of April, among other things apparently acquiring a new town residence: advertisements in the <em>Post Man</em> for the sale or letting of his house in St James’s Square followed the news that he had purchased Sir Walter Clarges’s<sup>‡</sup> house in Piccadilly.<sup>106</sup> One of only four privy councillors in town at the beginning of the month, on 19 and 21 Apr. he interviewed the prisoners who had been taken aboard the <em>Salisbury</em>, among them the disgraced former peer, Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin.<sup>107</sup> Aside from dealing with the aftermath of the botched Jacobite invasion, Sunderland was also preparing for the elections for the new Parliament. Confident of success, he surmised that ‘by the nicest calculation that can be made they will be very considerably better than in this Parliament’, though later that month his early optimism appeared misplaced and Wharton wrote to him asking that the writ for Wiltshire be delayed, as he feared that they would otherwise lose a borough in that county.<sup>108</sup> Unsurprisingly, Sunderland was included among the Whigs in a printed list of party affiliations of May 1708. Shortly before this he had written confidently to Marlborough to inform him that ‘our home campaign begun this day by the election of Southwark which has gone as one could wish, and without being sanguine one may venture to prophecy a better Parliament by much yet than the last.’ Hopeful too of being able to secure the return of a number of sympathetic Scots peers, Sunderland aimed to bring pressure to bear on the numerous Scottish lords who had been brought to London for investigation into their Jacobite activities during the invasion scare. Among them was his former brother-in-law, James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. Hamilton was subsequently released on bail and having been wooed vigorously by all sides to employ his interest on their behalf, he entered into a temporary pact with the Junto to co-operate with their <em>Squadrone</em> allies. By 7 May Sunderland was able to report to Marlborough that ‘our elections go hitherto very prosperously, and there is no reason to doubt but we shall have a very good Parliament’, though he also complained that ‘if the court go on in the way they are, it will be much alike whatever Parliament is chosen’.<sup>109</sup> The following day he received a report from Hamilton from Wakefield, noting his progress in bringing over as many as he could ‘into our interest’, while underlining the difficulties he was encountering. George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], was similarly pessimistic. He appealed to Sunderland that unless ‘there be something done to show some countenance towards us, I do assure you I am afraid we shall make but a very bad figure.’<sup>110</sup></p><p>Newcastle wrote to Sunderland at the end of May inviting him and a number of northern peers to join him at Welbeck over the summer of 1708 for a meeting preparatory to the new session. ‘Though at all times that company is extremely pleasing to me’, he wrote, he thought that it might be especially valuable before the meeting of the new Parliament.<sup>111</sup> The English and Welsh elections bore out Sunderland’s optimistic appraisal and he abandoned his careful tally of gains and losses with a number of seats still to be declared: as one modern historian has suggested, he may have been satisfied with the 31 net gains that he had already recorded, giving the Whigs the most comfortable working majority he would have been able to remember.<sup>112</sup> The results of the elections for Scottish representative peers seemed much less certain but although both James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], and Hamilton complained to him about the difficulties they faced, the latter grumbling that ‘we would do better if we had more help from above’, Hamilton was encouraged by Sunderland’s estimate that the Whigs stood to gain 70 seats in the new House of Commons, and assured that he was ‘far from despondency. On the contrary… we have given a good deal of uneasiness to our opposers already’.<sup>113</sup></p><p>For all his endeavours, Sunderland’s efforts to secure the return of Scots members sympathetic to the Junto met with mixed success, though he assured one of those for whose return he had canvassed, William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], that ‘though your lordship is not returned one of the 16, I don’t doubt but upon the protestations we shall do you right by bringing you into the House.’ He encouraged Annandale and others of his ilk to hasten to town so that they could set about investigating ‘the irregularities committed by the subaltern ministry there and their dependents.’<sup>114</sup> Sunderland’s employment of his interest for candidates not on the government list placed a further strain on relations between the court and Junto. Although the queen forbore to demand Sunderland’s resignation directly, she took the opportunity to remind Marlborough ‘of the promise you made to me when I first took this person into my service, which was that if ever he did anything I did not like, or something to that purpose, you would bring him to… take his leave.’<sup>115</sup> As temperatures rose once again between the Junto and the rest of the ministry, Sunderland for once appears to have been counselling moderation. Arthur Maynwaring’s<sup>‡</sup> report to the duchess of Marlborough certainly suggested as much: ‘I must do Lord S justice, that in the conversation I had with him going from your grace’s lodgings, he spoke very reasonably and said if the ministers would make the least step, he would answer that his friends should make two.’<sup>116</sup> Marlborough’s relations with the Junto remained awkward, though, as he asked the duchess to assure them on his behalf that he would ‘always be in the interest of the Whigs’.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s interest remained strong. During the summer of 1708 he received petitions from various Scots notables seeking preferment, and Marlborough’s latest victory that summer appeared to promise a continuance of Sunderland’s authority.<sup>118</sup> The success was hailed by Hamilton as an event ‘of the greatest advantage to the Whigs’, that would compel Godolphin to ‘mind what [Sunderland] says more than ever’.<sup>119</sup> Nevertheless, Sunderland continued to preach accommodation with the duumvirs, insisting to the duchess of Marlborough later that summer that he was ‘of the same mind as Mr Freeman [Marlborough] and Mr Montgomery [Godolphin]. I would go through any difficulties to bring about a good agreement between them and my other friends, but I fear it is not very easy, because they don’t mean the same thing.’<sup>120</sup> Sunderland retreated to Althorp at the close of July 1708, having obtained the queen’s permission to be out of town for a month.<sup>121</sup> He was forced to excuse himself from joining Newcastle’s party at Welbeck in August, having sprained his foot, for which misfortune he professed himself, ‘extremely concerned at this disappointment for … it would have been of use to have talked together of the present posture of our affairs, which though they are very fortunately and unexpectedly mended abroad … yet seem to grow worse and worse every day at home.’ The question of the new Commons Speaker threatened to create further dissension. Although Sunderland told the duchess of Marlborough that he considered Peter King<sup>†</sup>, (later Baron King), ‘much the fittest man in the House’ he warned that if King should be set up by the court ‘and not in concert with the whole Whig party, we should think ourselves obliged to oppose it.’<sup>122</sup> It was with matters thus precariously balanced that the Junto leadership gathered at Althorp later that month. Although Godolphin joined their deliberations no progress was made in the Junto’s demand that their members be admitted to more offices in the administration.<sup>123</sup></p><p>Sunderland returned to town briefly in mid-August 1708 in time to attend the celebrations for Marlborough’s victory at the battle of Oudenarde and on 5 Sept. he was at Windsor for a meeting of the cabinet.<sup>124</sup> In mid-September he appears to have taken the opportunity of a few days of racing at Newmarket, where Henry Boyle wished him ‘good sport’, but by the end of the month he was again at cabinet at Kensington.<sup>125</sup> A series of party meetings were held to make preparations for the forthcoming Parliament which had been appointed to meet on 16 November. Early in the second week of October Sunderland joined Coningsby and ‘their city friends’ at Pontacks, while the middle of the month saw another Junto conclave, which was also attended by Godolphin, held at Orford’s retreat at Chippenham.<sup>126</sup> Again the Junto demanded places in return for their continued support: Wharton to be lord lieutenant of Ireland and Somers to be lord president. Frustrated at their inability to make any progress, the Junto turned again to their champion, the duchess of Marlborough, appealing that she would come up to town to plead their case for them.<sup>127</sup> On 18 Oct. Maynwaring voiced the same appeal, emphasizing Sunderland’s tribulations, ‘who you know is made to catch all the heat that is stirring, which nobody but you can in the least moderate.’ The following day Maynwaring reported how Sunderland, in ‘a very ill temper’, ‘believed there was a management even in the struggle with Mr Harley’ and that he was convinced that the ministers ‘were all alike and that his grace [Somerset] was no better than a dupe of theirs’. Sunderland’s reflections upon Somerset infuriated the ‘Proud Duke’, but he was able to explain his meaning satisfactorily ‘to prevent any danger of murder ensuing’.<sup>128</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1708</em></h2><p>Conciliatory moves by the queen went some way towards healing these latest divisions.<sup>129</sup> The death of her consort, Prince George, towards the end of October 1708 further altered the complexion of affairs. With the queen prostrate with grief, the cabinet ordered the clerks of the council to search into precedents for opening the new Parliament by commission.<sup>130</sup> The queen’s loss proved the Junto’s gain when, the following month, Wharton and Somers were finally successful in securing places in the ministry. Sunderland took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. after which he was present on almost three quarters of all days in the session. Two days later he was named to the committee for drafting the Address and the following day (19 Nov.) he sent to the lord advocate an order from the House for the clerks of the session to attend the Lords ‘with what papers they have relating to the election of the lords that were chosen to represent the peerage of North Britain’.<sup>131</sup> Surprised that the duchess of Marlborough chose this moment to go out of town, Sunderland wrote towards the close of the month to assure her that he had ‘set all engines on work’ and that ‘so much never was owing to anybody as is to you.’<sup>132</sup></p><p>A meeting of Junto peers and several of their Scots allies convened on 14 Dec. to discuss the mismanagement of the affairs of Scotland, but some of the Scots attending believed that Junto interest was beginning to wane.<sup>133</sup> By March 1709 another commentator reported ‘I fear their power is gone and they dare not own it.’<sup>134</sup> Sunderland once more complained of poor health, being ‘extremely out of order’ towards the end of 1708.<sup>135</sup> The year 1709 began with more disharmony both between individual members of the Junto and between the Junto and their duumvir allies. Unwell and discontented, Sunderland seems to have been at the heart of the unrest. Marlborough commented to his duchess that their son-in-law ‘must be distracted if he can have a thought of hurting or disobliging Lady M[arlborough] and M[arlborough] for the satisfaction of Halifax’, while Godolphin complained that so much of Sunderland’s time was devoted ‘to caballing and Parliament meetings’ that he was unable to get to see him. On another occasion, Marlborough again complained of his son-in-law’s behaviour and how between them Sunderland and Halifax were responsible for swaying Somers’ opinion, ‘for parties are governed much more by passion and violence than by reason.’<sup>136</sup></p><p>Sunderland resumed his seat after the Christmas recess on 10 Jan. 1709. In advance of the session he was approached by Charles Knollys, self-styled 4th earl of Banbury, who sought Sunderland’s interest with the duke and duchess of Marlborough both to further his claim to a writ of summons to Parliament as earl and to secure him a position in the army.<sup>137</sup> It seems unlikely that Sunderland made any great effort on Banbury’s behalf, as Banbury failed to submit his petition to the House for a further three years. Much more of Sunderland’s attention was taken up with consideration of the intelligence concerning the abortive Jacobite invasion of the previous year, which was due to be reported to the House early in the session.<sup>138</sup> On 21 Jan. he voted with the majority in opposing the motion to permit Scottish peers in possession of British titles to vote in the election of representative peers, a move directed against Queensberry, who had previously been granted the British dukedom of Dover. He was less successful in his efforts to challenge the return of a number of the recently elected Scots peers on petition, with only William Ker*, marquess of Lothian [S], being unseated and replaced with Annandale, whose candidacy Sunderland had previously endorsed. Sunderland laid the papers relating to the Scots invasion before the House at the opening of February.<sup>139</sup> On 10 Feb. he presented the bill to reverse the 1691 attainder of Christopher Fleming (formerly 17th Lord Slane [I]), the passage of which had created uproar in the Irish Parliament, and on 7 Mar. he presented a bill for the reversal of Eleanor Bagot’s outlawry.<sup>140</sup> He delivered further papers relating to Scotland on 11 Mar. and on 25 Mar. he was among the minority to vote against resuming the House from a committee of the whole considering the Scottish treason bill. According to Bishop Nicolson, Sunderland’s old mentor, Trimnell, since promoted to the episcopate as bishop of Norwich, expressed his exasperation at the outcome of the division, and ‘his lord’s’ (i.e. Sunderland’s) ‘disappointment’.<sup>141</sup> On 30 Mar. Sunderland reported from the committee of the whole House concerning the Middlesex register bill, for which he sought a further day’s consideration, and on 2 Apr. he reported the ambassadors’ bill from the committee of the whole.</p><p>The death of Ralph Montagu*, duke of Montagu, in 1709 resulted in Sunderland becoming involved in settling the affairs both of the lunatic dowager duchess (sister to Sunderland’s first wife), in right of his daughter, Lady Frances Spencer, and of Montagu’s heir, John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu, the husband of Lady Mary Churchill, another of Marlborough’s daughters.<sup>142</sup> By the beginning of April difficulties had emerged about arrangements for the care of the dowager duchess between Sunderland and his co-guardians, Newcastle and Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet. The matter was settled for the time being when a draft commission of lunacy of 21 Apr. 1709 conveyed the duchess, then said to be in Montagu’s ‘power’, to the joint keeping of the three trustees.<sup>143</sup></p><p>The Junto’s determination to secure more places in the administration for its members continued unabated over the prorogation. Maurice Wheeler, writing to Bishop Wake at the end of April of the pretensions of Dean Chetwood of Gloucester for a bishopric, noted that his promotion might be obtained by Sunderland’s means, ‘if the present interest (which is too violently pursued long to hold) should continue’.<sup>144</sup> Sunderland and his colleagues turned their attention to procuring a place at the head of the admiralty for Orford, one of only two members of the Junto now lacking a substantial office. His appointment was resisted fiercely by the queen. But relations within the Junto, particularly Sunderland, Somers and Wharton, were becoming increasingly strained. Godolphin reported to Marlborough that Wharton ‘seems to apply himself more to making his court in that country [Ireland] than to please his old friends in this’ and that Sunderland and Somers were consequently ‘not at all shy of showing their dissatisfaction at his conduct.’<sup>145</sup> Wharton explained to Sunderland that Godolphin was behind the mischief, the lord treasurer having some informants in Ireland ‘who make it their business to represent my poor endeavours in the worst light they can.’<sup>146</sup></p><p>Present at cabinet meetings at Windsor and in Whitehall throughout June and July 1709, at the close of the month Sunderland retreated once more to Althorp, where he remained for the whole of August and early September.<sup>147</sup> Over the summer the machinations of Harley, Shrewsbury and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, the last two said to be joined ‘entirely in open dislike of Somers and Sunderland and Wharton’, were presenting an increasing threat to the Junto, prompting renewed efforts to put aside their differences.<sup>148</sup> Sunderland’s efforts to mend his fences with Wharton appear to have borne fruit that month, reflected in one of Wharton’s letters in which he said he was ‘sensible of the truth of the proposition your lordship lays down, that we can’t expect to have any reasonable good treatment from others if we don’t stick a little better together than we have done.’<sup>149</sup> It was rumoured early in the autumn that both Sunderland and Wharton were to be created Garter knights.<sup>150</sup></p><p>Sunderland had returned to town from Althorp by 9 September.<sup>151</sup> Two days later he was present again at cabinet at Windsor.<sup>152</sup> Over the following two months business was dominated by efforts to settle the question of the admiralty and by preparations for the new session.<sup>153</sup> Marlborough was encouraged by the prospect of Somers and Sunderland being able to call on Somerset’s followers in Parliament, noting to the duchess that if the two Junto peers ‘can have the power with him to make his mob as you call them to act with their friends, it would very much help the carrying everything in [the House].’ Rumours of Sunderland and Somerset’s developing alliance circulated from the beginning of November and Godolphin remarked how ‘there is nothing new but whispering whenever they meet.’<sup>154</sup> The Junto’s efforts to secure Orford the admiralty proved less easy to resolve and generated several weeks of earnest, ill-tempered negotiation. Sunderland confessed to the duchess of Marlborough that the issue ‘does really give me so much uneasiness, that I did hardly sleep a wink last night for thinking of it.’ A few days later he complained to her again of Godolphin’s apparent refusal to rouse himself on Orford’s behalf.<sup>155</sup></p><p>News that Marlborough was soon to return to England towards the end of October encouraged Sunderland, confident that with the duke on the scene ‘it will not be in the power of the most malicious to give any uneasiness.’<sup>156</sup> His renewed optimism appeared to be well founded and at the close of the month the Junto was at last successful in reconciling the queen to the appointment of Orford as head of the admiralty, and Orford to his role as it was prescribed by the ministry.<sup>157</sup> But within days the settlement appeared once again to be in jeopardy as Orford refused to give way over the appointment of two members to the admiralty commission. Godolphin reported to the duchess how the efforts of Somers and Sunderland to make Orford ‘yield a little’ had been ‘without the least effect’.<sup>158</sup> Sunderland was convinced that Godolphin was the true cause of this latest obstacle and that the objections to the appointment of admirals Sir George Byng<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Torrington, and Sir John Jennings<sup>‡</sup> proceeded more from the lord treasurer’s ‘pique’ than any sentiment of the queen, a view that was shared by Maynwaring.<sup>159</sup> Sunderland introduced his colleague to the queen on 2 Nov. 1709 but wrangling continued for several days more over the appointments to the commission.<sup>160</sup> Turning once more to his mother-in-law for her mediation, Sunderland appealed to the duchess to come to London to put pressure on Godolphin to resolve the impasse.<sup>161</sup> The result was a compromise. One of Orford’s nominees was admitted grudgingly to the commission, while the other remained in the cold.</p><p>It was with this far from satisfactory state of affairs that Sunderland took his seat in the new session on 15 November. Present on over 70 per cent of all sittings, Sunderland again juggled his attendance in the House with responsibilities as secretary. By the end of the year it was plain that he was tired out with the continual struggles between his Junto allies and the court. When Maynwaring on 15 Dec. reported Sunderland’s reaction to a conference between Marlborough, Godolphin and Halifax, he noted that ‘nothing he said was near so bad as it used to be. But to be jealous and distrustful is the first principle of all great politicians.’<sup>162</sup> Sunderland resumed his seat following the Christmas recess on 9 Jan. 1710 and six days later he attended the cabinet meeting at St James’s. When the crisis erupted in mid-January 1710 over the queen’s decision to appoint to several military commands against Marlborough’s advice, Sunderland attempted to use Marlborough’s annoyance (he retired to Windsor) to force the queen’s favourite, Abigail Masham, from court. Several conferences involving Sunderland took place at the home of William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire. On 23 Jan. Maynwaring suggested that Marlborough should sound opinion in both Houses to ‘judge whether 6 [Sunderland] is the only man that is for pushing this matter.’<sup>163</sup> Despite Marlborough’s unwillingness to force the issue, Sunderland seems to have remained confident, as he wrote in February, that ‘notwithstanding all difficulties, and disagreeable things, have happened of late, we shall get the better of them all, if we can but entirely cement together Lord Marlborough and the Whigs, which is so necessary and so plain, that it can’t fail.’<sup>164</sup></p><p>Suffering from a cold at the close of the first week of February 1710, Sunderland’s attention was taken up again with attendance at cabinet over the ensuing few days.<sup>165</sup> On 20 Feb. he communicated to William Carstares the recent debates in the House over the arrest of the Scottish Episcopalian, James Greenshields, hoping that the magistrates in Edinburgh would keep him in custody, ‘even though he should continue obstinate in refusing them that satisfaction which they think they may in justice demand.’<sup>166</sup> The following day, Sunderland once more gave way to doubt and frustration at the state of the Junto-duumvir alliance. He bemoaned the duke and duchess of Marlborough’s absence from town, complained of Godolphin’s ‘slowness and coldness’ and worried that ‘none of our heads are safe if we can’t get the better of what I am convinced Mrs Morley [the queen] designs’, though he comforted himself that if Godolphin could ‘but be persuaded to act like a man, I am sure our union and strength is too great to be hurt.’<sup>167</sup></p><p>Sunderland had expressed concern about the inflammatory sermon preached by Dr Henry Sacheverell soon after the address was delivered in November 1709. He and Wharton united to drive through Sacheverell’s impeachment, overruling the doubts of some of their colleagues and casting the Greenshields case firmly into the shade. Sacheverell’s trial before the Lords, which opened on 27 Feb. 1710, created pandemonium in London, coming to a head on the night of 1 Mar. with widespread rioting in the streets, when, for once, Sunderland dithered before being cajoled into action by the queen, who issued the order for her personal bodyguard to be mobilized in spite of Sunderland’s reluctance for them to be deployed. When the senior duty officer, an infantry captain, objected to acting without written orders, Sunderland was forced to satisfy him with his word of honour that written orders would be forthcoming.<sup>168</sup> With peace restored to London, the Commons resumed the presentation of the case against Sacheverell and from 10 Mar. the Lords deliberated on the evidence before them. Sunderland spoke in favour of the impeachment during the long debates of 16 Mar., though he does not appear to have distinguished himself by his contribution. Four days later, naturally, he found Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.<sup>169</sup> The following month he continued to wage his campaign against troublesome clerics by writing to William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph and Humphrey Humphries*, bishop of Hereford, requiring them to prosecute one Mr Cornwall, a Herefordshire clergyman, accused of preaching a ‘very virulent and seditious’ sermon at the assizes at Welshpool.<sup>170</sup></p><p>Having kept their rivals at court at bay for the previous two years, in April 1710 the Junto leaders found themselves outmanoeuvred with the imposition of Shrewsbury on the ministry as lord chamberlain in place of the ineffectual ‘Bug’, Henry Grey*, marquess of Kent, who was compensated with promotion to a dukedom. Although Sunderland expressed himself to be satisfied that Godolphin had had no hand in the alteration he admitted to the duchess of Marlborough that he ‘should have been much better pleased if he had known of it, for as it is, it seems striking at everything’. Nevertheless, he agreed with the lord treasurer’s appraisal of the situation that ‘we must endeavour to weather it as well as we can.’<sup>171</sup> Sunderland was then closely involved with the ministry’s efforts to woo Somerset to keep him from drifting into the Shrewsbury-Harley grouping.<sup>172</sup> At the end of the month Sunderland wrote to his mother-in-law once again, seeking her assistance in the face of Shrewsbury’s growing influence and hoping that she would rally to the side of her allies to assist in stopping ‘the mouths and the insolent pushing of your enemies against you and all your friends.’ Although he appears to have enjoyed relatively amicable relations with Shrewsbury and was confident that the duke professed no ill intentions towards his colleagues, Sunderland believed that such apparent lack of ambition proceeded ‘from his fearful temper more than his heart.’<sup>173</sup></p><p>Sunderland was quite correct to be fearful for his own position: had Harley had his way Sunderland would have been put out as early as May 1710. As it was, over the course of the next few weeks Harley worked hard to ingratiate himself with Halifax and Newcastle in order to drive a wedge between them and the other members of the Junto. Although Shrewsbury appears to have suggested that he could ‘live much better’ with Sunderland than with some of his other colleagues and Godolphin attributed Sunderland’s continuance in office to Shrewsbury’s intervention, by the second half of the month talk was rife of Sunderland’s imminent dismissal.<sup>174</sup> The pressure seems reflected in Sunderland’s proposal that Orkney, a man he considered weak but essentially well-meaning, might be made a general of foot, ‘which he believed might make the duke of Argyll [John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]] shoot himself through the head.’<sup>175</sup> Desperation also appears to have induced some of the Junto (Sunderland among them) to attempt, belatedly, to accommodate Harley.<sup>176</sup> But if Harley was happy to receive the Whigs’ approaches, it made no difference to his determination to see Sunderland out. At the beginning of June the duchess of Marlborough wrote that ‘the persecution against Sunderland is renewed again, with more violence than ever’, while Sunderland lamented that ‘if either your friends or ours had done their part with spirit, things had not come to this pass.’<sup>177</sup> In a draft letter of 5 June 1710 Harley reported inaccurately that Boyle had been sent to Sunderland to take the seals of office from him the previous day. As it was, Harley was not much ahead of himself.<sup>178</sup> A desperate last ditch campaign waged by the Marlboroughs on their son-in-law’s behalf failed to deter the queen from proceeding with her plan to put Sunderland out. On 14 June he was dismissed from his place and replaced with William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth. <em>The Post Boy</em> reported disingenuously that he had resigned.<sup>179</sup></p><h2><em>Opposition and the Parliament of 1710</em></h2><p>Sunderland’s dismissal prompted a series of protests. Predictions of the ‘dismal consequences’ that would ensue had been communicated to Devonshire and Newcastle prior to Sunderland’s dismissal by a city deputation headed by Sir Gilbert Heathcote<sup>‡</sup> who, after it had happened, waited on the queen to request her not to change her ministry further.<sup>180</sup> A missive signed by Godolphin, Somers and six other Whigs on the day of Sunderland’s dismissal asked Marlborough to remain at his post, despite the ‘great mortification this must give you,’ and the ‘ill consequences that must attend such a step both at home and abroad.’<sup>181</sup> The duchess of Marlborough, meanwhile, complained to the queen of her mendacity in claiming that this was the only change she intended to make: ‘it is in vain to say that you mean only to remove Lord Sunderland. The rest cannot stay in long after him.’<sup>182</sup> While his supporters infuriated the queen with their demands, Sunderland proved more magnanimous in defeat. He was said to have rejected the offer of a pension of £3,000, insisting to the queen that ‘if he was not capable of serving her, he did not deserve such a pension, therefore would not rob the government of so much.’<sup>183</sup></p><p>Although it was rumoured in mid-July 1710 that Harley had arrived at an accommodation with the remaining Whig ministers, the following month the ministry received a further blow with Godolphin’s removal, an event which, as Sunderland reported to his father-in-law, ‘has perfectly stunned everybody’. He anticipated that in spite of Whig efforts to prevent it, a dissolution would soon follow. By the end of August, though, Sunderland had recovered his nerve and assured Marlborough that ‘if Godolphin and the Whigs do act cordially and vigorously together, without suspicion of one another, which I am sure there is no reason for, it is impossible but everything must come right again.’<sup>184</sup> His hopes now rested on a good showing at the polls. Sir Michael Warton<sup>‡</sup> informed Harley of twice-weekly meetings being held at Putney bowling green and of evening meetings convened at Sunderland’s and Orford’s residences as the Junto strove to rally their supporters.<sup>185</sup> Sunderland was in no doubt of the importance of the contest in hand. Early in September, while recommending Ambrose Pudsey<sup>‡</sup> to Newcastle for one of the seats at Clitheroe, Sunderland insisted to the duke that, ‘everybody that wishes well to England ought to exert themselves at this time, for upon the next elections depend the revolution and Protestant succession.’<sup>186</sup> Later that month he wrote in similar vein to Cowper: ‘as things now stand I think one had nothing to do but be intent upon elections and upon getting our friends to town early’. He remained confident that ‘as far as one can judge yet by what we hear from all parts, there is no reason to doubt but we shall have a good Parliament and if so, that and our success abroad will save us.’<sup>187</sup> A few days before he had hosted a ‘great cabal’ at Althorp at which it was decided to set up Nicholas Breton and Sir Erasmus Norwich, 3rd bt., for the county seats in Northamptonshire. At the beginning of the month, Sunderland had been approached by Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, to promote among the gentry of the county a navigation scheme for the River Nene.<sup>188</sup></p><p>In spite of all Sunderland’s preparations, the elections proved a lamentable disappointment for the Whigs. Early optimism for Breton and Norwich rapidly dissipated and in the event the county was carried once more by the sitting members without a contest. In Northampton one newsletter reported how a rich shoemaker had been bound over to appear at the next assizes at the end of September for speaking treasonable language against the queen, among his utterances being an insistence that she should be called to account for turning Sunderland out of office.<sup>189</sup> His offence hinted at a spirited election campaign in the town but the result was the usual return of one Whig and one Tory. Warwickshire, where the local Tory gentry had feted Sacheverell on his triumphal progress that summer, proved just as disappointing to the Junto’s hopes with both county seats being carried by Tories.<sup>190</sup> The boroughs appeared to offer better prospects. Sunderland was elected recorder of Coventry by the Whig corporation during the summer but when he visited the city in person to offer his backing to Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Hopkins<sup>‡</sup> he was met with such a ‘rough and unmannerly’ reception from the Tories there that he was forced to make a rather undignified exit, unprepared to put up with ‘the rude treatment and vile language (not fit to be repeated) of near 800 that pursued his lordship in the streets.’<sup>191</sup> The city then followed up the snub by returning two Tories in preference to Sunderland’s candidates in spite of the efforts made by the Whig sheriffs to influence the result.<sup>192</sup> More damaging still was the contest at Devizes, where Sunderland and Wharton combined to promote the returns of Paul Methuen<sup>‡</sup> and Josiah Diston<sup>‡</sup>. The result was a double return, carried on petition for the Tory candidates. A significant factor in their success was the accusation that Sunderland had employed £700 of treasury funds to finance the Whig campaign.<sup>193</sup></p><p>All these reverses notwithstanding, in advance of the meeting of the new Parliament the duchess of Marlborough passed on a message from Sunderland to Godolphin insisting that everyone turn out for what he still hoped would be a ‘tolerable’ session. Both the duchess and Lady Sunderland thought that he was being overly optimistic, but in the weeks leading up to the opening of Parliament Sunderland was active in attempting to shore up the Whigs’ support base.<sup>194</sup> Predictably included by Harley in a list of 3 Oct. 1710 of those expected to oppose the new ministry, Sunderland joined Somers in waiting on Cowper in Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 26 Oct., presumably to concert measures for the session.<sup>195</sup> On 6 Nov. he sent to Somers to inform him that Archbishop Tenison desired to see both of them, ‘having something to tell us which he can’t so well write and his lameness not suffering him to come over the water yet.’<sup>196</sup></p><p>Sunderland took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on 88 per cent of all sittings. The session did not prove ‘tolerable’ as he had hoped but was dominated by the new ministry’s investigations into the conduct of the war in the Iberian Peninsula, or, as one commentator put it, ‘the Spanish Inquisition’.<sup>197</sup> On 6 Jan. 1711 Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, reported from the committee investigating the war, requesting that correspondence between Sunderland and Stanhope might be laid before the House. Over the ensuing month, Sunderland’s conduct was the subject of close scrutiny as various items of his official correspondence were pored over and the actions of the allied commanders, Galway, Stanhope and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] probed.<sup>198</sup> On 11 Jan. Sunderland subscribed the protests at the resolutions to reject Galway and Tyrawley’s petitions and that the defeat at Almanza had been the result of their advice. The following day, one of Sunderland’s letters to Galway was read in the House, in response to which Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale, suggested that the idea of an offensive war appeared to have emanated from the cabinet council in spite of advice to the contrary and that this intervention was at the heart of the reversals of the Spanish campaign.<sup>199</sup> The House then adjourned into a committee of the whole, during which Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, queried how anyone would approve an offensive war at that juncture, pointedly indicating Sunderland. Sunderland returned that ‘he gave his opinion for an offensive war, because to the best of his understanding, it was the best council that could be followed’, a view that was supported by Marlborough. Sunderland naturally joined in subscribing the protest at the subsequent resolution to censure the ministers for approving the strategy.</p><p>Sunderland’s discomfiture continued over the ensuing weeks as Nottingham encouraged Dartmouth to search through the records of the secretary’s office in the hopes of finding evidence with which to prosecute the former incumbent. On 3 Feb. Sunderland subscribed two further protests, first at the resolution to agree with the committee that the ministers’ failure to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament for the war amounted to a neglect of the service and second at the resolution that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of Almanza were not properly supplied.<sup>200</sup> Over the ensuing days, Sunderland continued to struggle against the criticisms heaped upon his management. He signed two more dissents of 8 Feb., one against the decision to retain the phrase ‘and the profusion of vast sums of money given by Parliament’ in the representation to the queen concerning the war in Spain and the other at the representation itself. The following day he acted as one of the tellers on the question of whether to expunge part of the reason for the protest on the state of the war, which was carried by 52 votes to 33. Although Sunderland was the first teller listed he must have been teller for those voting against expunging the text of the protest to which he had subscribed on 3 February.</p><p>The virulence of the criticism he faced may help to explain Sunderland’s decision to speak in favour of the House giving a second reading to the place bill at the beginning of February. The bill proposed to bar all but about 50 crown officials from sitting in the Commons and it must have afforded Sunderland some amusement to tease Harley with the prospect of losing a significant cadre of his followers:</p><blockquote><p>The Commons have of late years sent up this bill for form-sake, and only to throw the odium of its being lost on the House of Peers; and therefore your lordships ought at least to give it a second reading, to let the Commons know that if they should send it up once more, the Lords will take them at their word, and pass it.<sup>201</sup></p></blockquote><p>In spite of his intervention, the bill was once again thrown out of the Lords without further consideration. At the beginning of March it was rumoured that the Commons were on the point of drawing up impeachment proceedings against Sunderland, Godolphin and Wharton.<sup>202</sup> The following month, the Commons, marshalled by members of the October Club, passed a resolution particularly directed at Sunderland, declaring that the men responsible for bringing over the poor Palatines were enemies to Church and State. The session had already experienced ‘great heats’ over the subject and in response the Whig members demanded that a crime of such an order should be the subject of impeachment proceedings. Their brinkmanship paid off and the matter was allowed to drop.<sup>203</sup></p><p>The political pressure they were under may explain why, towards the end of March 1711, Sunderland, Wharton and Somers were overheard discussing an imminent journey to Scotland, but if this was indeed mooted nothing more was done about it.<sup>204</sup> For the ensuing three months, until the second week of June, Sunderland attended the House without interruption. Without the burdens of office to distract him, he supplied the deficiency with activity within the House. On 27 Mar. he received the proxy of Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis, and on 2 Apr. that of Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle. Carlisle’s proxy was vacated a fortnight later on 16 Apr. and Cornwallis’s on 7 May. Sunderland received Hervey’s proxy again on 19 Apr. (vacated on 3 May). On 9 May he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the Bedford highway bill. Three days later he was appointed to manage the conference on the game bill. On 15 May he received Orford’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. He was named to manage two further conferences on the game bill on 17 and 31 May, and also took a prominent role in supporting the passage of the Scots linen bill. The measure, which had been amended in favour of the Irish linen industry by permitting the export of flax and yarn from Scotland to Ireland and the exportation of Irish linen to the plantations for 11 years, was greeted with anger by the Scots. George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> suggested to his wife that the support of Sunderland and other Whig peers for the bill indicated that they were ‘weary of the Union’ and both he and John Elphinstone*, Lord Balmerinoch [S], made much of Sunderland’s remark in the debate ‘that he would as soon prefer the interest of Ireland to that of any one county in England.’<sup>205</sup></p><p>Alongside his activities in the House, towards the end of May 1711 Sunderland was also drawn into a dispute provoked by the efforts of John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol (later of London), to transfer the presentation of the living of Cleasby in Yorkshire (Robinson’s birthplace) away from its patron and into the hands of the dean and chapter of Ripon. John Gellibrand, who brought the matter to Sunderland’s attention, asked him to get the patron a hearing with Devonshire, lord of the manor and principal landowner in the town, to head off the bishop’s manoeuvrings.<sup>206</sup> His efforts appear to have been in vain.<sup>207</sup></p><p>The prospect of rejecting the ministry’s peace proposals and inflicting a defeat on Oxford (as Harley had since become) led to fevered preparation for the opening of the new session in December 1711. With every vote at stake, Sunderland ensured that he was in possession of the proxies of Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, and Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, though in the event Rockingham’s was vacated when he took his seat at the opening on 7 Dec. and Westmorland’s was voided when he resumed his seat three days later. Sunderland also took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session (after which he was present on half of all sittings) and the same day he acted as one of the tellers in a division on whether to put the question on amending the address to include advice that no peace was safe or honourable while Spain remained in Bourbon hands. The division was carried by a single vote. The following day, Sunderland was, predictably enough, assessed as likely to oppose the court in the abortive division initiated by supporters of the ministry in an attempt to overturn the ‘No Peace without Spain’ resolution of the day before. When Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, refused to act as one of the tellers in the proposed division, Sunderland told him that if Anglesey ‘did not do his duty he would do his, and tell without him.’ Proceedings degenerated into farce when, after Abingdon had agreed to tell with Sunderland, ‘they that would not be told hopped and skipped about’ in an effort to confuse the vote. The division was eventually abandoned amid general chaos.<sup>208</sup></p><p>The remainder of the session proved less comical, but equally passionate and Sunderland continued to take a prominent role as one of the Junto managers. On 13 Dec. he received the proxy of John Colepeper*, 3rd Baron Colepeper (which was vacated by the close), and on 19 Dec. he was forecast as being likely to oppose Hamilton’s admission to the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon. Speaking in the House the following day in the debate concerning Hamilton’s patent, he objected to Abingdon’s contention that Queensberry had effectively set a precedent by sitting as duke of Dover, replying that that ‘was a case never decided only connived at for a time.’ He then joined with Wharton in opposing the ministry’s calls for the judges’ opinions to be sought and insisted that the case was a matter of privilege.<sup>209</sup> He was then listed as voting in favour of preventing Scots peers with post-Union British titles from sitting in the House.</p><p>After a brief recess, the House met again on 2 Jan. 1712 for the introduction of 12 new ministerial peers; the ministry then sought to adjourn the House for another week, until the date to which the House of Commons was adjourned. Peter Wentworth recorded the furious reaction of the Whig peers, including Somers, and Sunderland, who:</p><blockquote><p>rise up in a passion and said he was amazed lords should so call out for the question and not give themselves time to look into their books; nobody likewise had more respect for the queen than he, but anything that was done irregular could never be imputed to the crown but the ministry, and it was of dangerous consequence to let such advice pass without any examination; for who kn[e]w what designs a ministry had to carry on; If this was suffered to pass into a precedent, whenever they found a majority in one house but not in t’other, ’twas but for them to advise to have a command to have that house adjourn’d for a week, a month or for the time that would serve their turn.<sup>210</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sunderland’s efforts failed to sway the House. At the close of January 1712 his wife resigned her place as one of the ladies of the queen’s bedchamber.<sup>211</sup> Sunderland was said to have opposed the move, ‘having occasion for her salary’, though this objection was overcome by Marlborough undertaking to make up the shortfall.<sup>212</sup> The steady erosion of his standing at court made no immediate impact on Sunderland’s continuing prominence in the House. On 25 Jan. 1712 he contributed to the debate in committee of the whole concerning the queen’s message about the Scots peers, recommending that the Scots ‘would do well to propose some remedy for themselves and if it were reasonable he hoped the Parliament would go into it.’ He also suggested that in place of the election of representative peers, the queen should create 16 Scots peers as full members of the House. Two years previously he had floated the idea that the Scots peers should be returned in rotation. His new proposal, an early foreshadowing of the 1719 peerage bill, met with as little support as that was to do and ‘was rejected with scorn’.<sup>213</sup> He then acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to resume the House from the committee of the whole, which was rejected by eight votes. Three days later, Sunderland received the proxy of Henry Herbert*, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, which was vacated on 5 April. Acting again as one of the tellers on the question whether to agree to the resolution concerning the duke of Hamilton’s privilege on 8 Feb. (which was carried by 40 votes to 36), on 29 Feb. he was again teller on the motion whether to agree to the amendment to the place bill (which was carried by five votes).</p><p>Sunderland registered his own proxy with Montagu on 1 Apr. 1712 after which he was absent from the House for the whole month, according to Townshend, on account of his growing frustration at the futility of the Whigs’ opposition to Oxford. He resumed his seat (thereby vacating the proxy) on 5 May, but attended for just four days before registering his proxy again on 13 May, this time with Bridgwater. Two days later he hosted a meeting attended by several bishops as well as Somers, Townshend and Halifax.<sup>214</sup> He resumed his seat on 17 May, but then registered his proxy with Orford the following day and he was thereafter absent once more for the remainder of the session. On 9 June the proxy was transferred to Devonshire (presumably on account of Orford also being absent from the session).</p><p>Following the death of Godolphin in August 1712, Sunderland defended Marlborough’s decision to quit the country, but seems to have decided that the best policy for the Whigs for the present was one of studied resignation. Writing to Nottingham in September, he opined that:</p><blockquote><p>as to the present posture of our affairs, they seem to be such that the quieter we are at present the better, for these people have by corruption and one way or other got such a majority in both Houses that till the nation open their eyes, which will never be till the peace is actually made, and proclaimed, and then they will see the villainy and ruin of it though they are at present intoxicated with the expectation of it, till that is, it seems to be running our heads against a wall.</p></blockquote><p>By November, though, he was more hopeful and believed that there were again signs of ‘a great alteration in the minds of the people.’<sup>215</sup> With such optimism came renewed activity: at the end of January 1713, he was present at a meeting at Pontacks club along with Somers, Halifax and Orford.<sup>216</sup></p><p>After a period of enforced inactivity, Sunderland appears to have decided once more to confront Oxford. At the forefront of those intent on ensuring the security of the Hanoverian succession, he aimed to test the ministry with his proposition that Prince George*, duke of Cambridge (the future George II) should come over to England even without a parliamentary writ or royal invitation. In the event, the suggestion was rejected by the elector himself, who was unwilling to risk offending the queen.<sup>217</sup> In March 1713 Sunderland pointedly refused to attend a dinner hosted by Halifax for members of the previous administration because Oxford had also been invited.<sup>218</sup> Having attended the half-dozen prorogations between 13 Jan. and 17 Mar. Sunderland took his seat at the beginning of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713, after which he attended on two-thirds of all sittings. Sunderland was prominent among those unwilling to vote an address of thanks to the queen for the signing of the peace treaty before the House had had an opportunity to peruse the document. Following a long debate, he had to respond to Peterborough’s attack on Marlborough that ‘it was known by everybody that there had been an endeavour to make a captain general for life’. Sunderland attended a further Whig conclave at Lord Somers’ residence on 15 Apr. and the following month he indulged in some ‘repartees’ with Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, over the progress of the peace negotiations. When Bolingbroke suggested that ‘a malicious faction had stirred up every thing to hinder the peace, and when it was made, to run it down’, Sunderland teased him about the clear divisions within the Oxford administration. He pointed out that ‘there might be a faction in a ministry with as much more danger as they had more power in their hands.’<sup>219</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s apparent willingness to co-operate with the disgruntled Scots peers seeking the dissolution of the Union may simply have been in order to harass the Oxford ministry. The catalyst for the attempt was the Scots’ opposition to the extension of the malt tax, which they considered an unfair imposition on their country and a technical breach of the terms of the treaty. Although Sunderland disappointed some of his Scots allies by joining with Nottingham and Halifax in calling for an adjournment in the debates of 1 June so that the matter of dissolving the Union could be more fully considered, rather than calling immediately for a motion on dissolution, he was hailed by Balmerinoch, with whom he co-operated closely on the issue, as ‘the only honest Whig which I know’, the only one of the Whigs to show clear support for overturning the treaty.<sup>220</sup> The resulting division (in which Sunderland acted as one of the tellers) was carried for the government by the narrowest of margins, but the passage of the malt tax still remained in the balance. On 4 June Sunderland waited on Balmerinoch to discuss tactics. He assured Balmerinoch that his friends, ‘would all to a man join us if I would move to delay committing of the bill till Monday 8 [June]’. Although Balmerinoch doubted the wisdom of Sunderland’s plan of campaign, he concurred with it, and on 5 June the motion to commit the bill was delayed for a further three days. When the House resumed consideration of the matter on the 8th, Sunderland engaged in a heated argument with Oxford when the treasurer hinted that the malt tax, once passed, might be remitted. This, Sunderland claimed, suggested that Oxford intended to revive an arbitrary dispensing power. Oxford responded by casting aspersions on Sunderland’s father. Sunderland then riposted that in the days when his father had held sway, Oxford’s family was barely known.<sup>221</sup> </p><p>A general unhappiness in the House at the terms of the peace treaty negotiated by Oxford’s administration offered Sunderland and the Junto their best opportunity for inflicting a series of reverses on the government. Consequently, in June 1713, an alliance of Whigs and Tories in the Commons voted down the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty and on 30 June Sunderland seconded a motion put forward by Wharton for an address to be presented to the queen requesting that she petition the duke of Lorraine to bar the Pretender from his territories. On 3 July Sunderland moved a subsequent address, expressing surprise that the queen had not been able to do more to limit his freedom of movement.<sup>222</sup> Despite the Whigs’ success in the 1713 session, the subsequent elections failed to overturn Oxford’s majority, though Sunderland was able to congratulate Nottingham on the outcome of the contest in Rutland. He told him that ‘upon the whole there are a good many alterations for the better, which one may hope, with the misled ones, who come to their senses at last, will yet save this nation, for nothing but the extravagant majority the court had most part of last Parliament, can possibly support such an administration.’<sup>223</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1713 and the Hanoverian succession</em></h2><p>Sunderland seems to have taken charge of the 2nd earl of Godolphin’s proxy after both men had taken the oaths on the opening day of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714 (the proxy was vacated 4 March). Sunderland was thereafter present on 78 per cent of all sittings. A few days later, he also received the proxy of Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, which was vacated a little under a month later on 17 March. The proxy of John Sydney*, 6th earl of Leicester, which was registered with Sunderland on 8 Mar., was vacated by the close. Sunderland subscribed the dissent at the resolution not to amend the address requesting a proclamation for the discovery of the author of <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em> on 11 March. Six days later he joined with Wharton, Nottingham, Cowper and Halifax in moving that the Protestant succession remained in danger should the Pretender be permitted to remain in Lorraine and on 2 Apr. he again united with Wharton, Cowper and Halifax in demanding that British assurances to the Catalans ought to be honoured.<sup>224</sup> Sunderland received Townshend’s proxy on 12 Apr., and appears to have left his own proxy with Nottingham the following day. However, he was listed as present on that day, when he was also recorded as suggesting that an address to the queen implying that fears of the dangers of Jacobitism had been ‘industriously’ spread about the kingdom should be amended to make clear that it had been done ‘not without reason’.<sup>225</sup> On 17 Apr. he also received the proxy of Richard Newport*, 2nd earl of Bradford (which was vacated on 1 May). Sunderland received Bradford’s proxy again on 3 May (vacated on 2 June). On 27 May he acted as teller on the question whether to commit the malt bill, which was carried by 22 votes to 17. At the end of May or beginning of June he was forecast by Nottingham as being opposed to the schism bill.</p><p>Sunderland’s activity in the House was interrupted at the close of May 1714 when his wife, who had previously complained that the Lords kept Sunderland too busy, fell dangerously sick with smallpox.<sup>226</sup> He registered his proxy with Orford on 1 June but, presumably satisfied that his wife was out of danger, seems to have returned to the House by 9 June when he supported Halifax’s motion for Dissenters to be allowed their own schools, although he was omitted from the presence list that day.<sup>227</sup> The motion was rejected. He registered his proxy again on 10 June with Wharton, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat the following day when he acted as one of the tellers in the division held in committee of the whole on the motion that the committee should be empowered to receive a clause relating to the schism bill. The motion was carried by a margin of one. The same day Sunderland was sent a bill by Samuel Gellibrand: it was expected to be sent up to the Lords on 12 June or shortly afterwards and for which he understood the Scots were to offer amendments, but it is not clear to which bill Gellibrand’s letter referred.<sup>228</sup> Three days later (15 June) Sunderland subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the schism act.</p><p>Sunderland was absent again on 24 June but he ensured once more that his proxy was registered, this time with Talbot Yelverton*, 2nd Viscount Longueville (later earl of Sussex). He resumed his seat the following day, thereby vacating the proxy. Questioning of the administration over the Spanish commercial treaty led to the queen communicating a message to the House shielding Bolingbroke, a move that provoked Sunderland to remark, ‘if the House was to receive such answers from the crown they were of no use and might walk out and never come in again.’<sup>229</sup> Absent once more on 4 July, Sunderland again ensured that his proxy was registered to cover his absence, this time with Godolphin. Having sat for the last time that session on 6 July, he registered the proxy with Godolphin again the following day. It was vacated by the session being brought to a close two days later.</p><p>Eager to shore up his relations with the regime-in-waiting, Sunderland was at Baron Bothmer’s house on 30 July 1714 while the queen lay dying. From there he wrote to Nottingham urging him to come up and to persuade all their friends to do likewise.<sup>230</sup> The queen’s death on 1 Aug. marked the end of the Junto’s period in the wilderness. Nevertheless its members were initially hampered by the manner in which the succession had been organized. William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, commented how when the names of the lords justices were read out, Sunderland (one of those omitted) blanched to hear who was and who was not included.<sup>231</sup> Having attended the House on 1 Aug., Sunderland sat for just three more days of the brief 15-day session. On 2 Aug. he was entrusted with the proxy of William Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland, and on 5 Aug. he reported from the committee appointed to draw up an address to be sent to the king. Absent for the remainder of the session, on 9 Aug. he registered his own proxy with Orford, thereby vacating that of Portland, who resumed his place in the House on 13 August.</p><p>Despite his careful cultivation of the new king and his advisers, Sunderland’s unquestioned zeal for the Hanoverian succession proved initially something of a hindrance to his preferment. George was uneasy at Sunderland’s uncompromising attitude but he recognized the need to reward those who had laboured to secure his succession. In September he appointed Sunderland to the lieutenancy of Ireland, though both Oxford and Berkeley of Stratton surmised that Sunderland would have preferred to have been restored to his former office as secretary.<sup>232</sup> Although the new king initially appears to have intended to devise a balanced administration, the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 convinced him of the necessity of placing his trust in the Whigs. By that time Sunderland had overcome his new master’s early doubts and over the ensuing five years he came to dominate affairs, holding practically all the great offices of state in that period. Details of this final section of his career, his period in office and apparent consorting with Jacobites at the close of his life, will be examined in full in the second part of this work.<sup>233</sup></p><p>Sunderland died of pleurisy at his house in Piccadilly on 19 Apr. 1722. His final months had been marked with sorrow. Once more out of office, he had lost first a daughter and then, a few days before his own death, his youngest son, Hon. William Spencer. All three were conveyed to Althorp together for burial. Sunderland was succeeded as 4th earl of Sunderland by his second son by his second marriage, Robert Spencer<sup>†</sup>, Lord Spencer, who at the time of his succession was on tour in Italy.<sup>234</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SPENCER, Robert (1641-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>SPENCER</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1641–1702)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1643 Ld. Spencer; <em>suc. </em>fa. 20 Sept. 1643 (a minor) as 2nd earl of SUNDERLAND |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 19 May 1702 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1641, 1st s. of Henry Spencer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland, and Dorothy, da. of Robert Sydney*, 2nd earl of Leicester.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. privately (Dr. Thomas Pierce); travelled abroad 1658, 1661-3 (France), 1663-5 (Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy).<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. 10 June 1665 (with £10,000)<sup>3</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1715), 2nd da. of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>). KG May 1687. <em>d</em>. 28 Sept. 1702; <em>will</em> 14 May 1695, pr. 6 Nov. 1702.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Extra gent. of bedchamber 1673-4; gent. of bedchamber 1674-9; sec. of state (N) 1679-80, (S) 1680-1, (N) 1683-4, (S) 1684-8; PC 1682-8, 1697-?<em>d</em>.; ld. pres. 1685-8; ld. chamberlain 1697; ld. justice 1697.</p><p>Ld. lt. Staffs. 1679-81, Warws. 1683-6, 1687-89; <em>custos rot</em>. Staffs. 1680-1, Warws. 1683-9.</p><p>Amb. extraordinary to Madrid 1671-2; to Paris 1672-3, 1678; jt. amb. extraordinary to Cologne 1673.</p><p>Capt. tp. of horse, Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland’s regt. 1667.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, 1660s, Althorp House, Northants.;<sup>7</sup> oil on canvas by C. Maratti, 1664, Althorp House, Northants.;<sup>8</sup> oil on canvas by school of Kneller, Blenheim Palace, Oxon.;<sup>9</sup> miniature by N. Dixon, at Boughton House, Northants.<sup>10</sup></p> |
<p>The arch ‘trimmer’, Sunderland was at heart a man of simple motivation.<sup>11</sup> A consummate courtier, he blew with the prevailing wind and aimed always to be at the centre of affairs.<sup>12</sup> If the motivation was simple, the result was a career marked by complex changes of tack and a reputation for being almost impossible to pin down. His duplicitous conduct was in part the result of serving three very different monarchs with markedly different agendas; but also of his cynical ambition and occasionally mistaken notions of what was truly desired by his masters. For Jacobite historians he was a byword for treachery. At least one later commentator has seen in his manoeuvring under James II a high-risk if not implausible bid for power at the head of a Catholic administration during the anticipated minority of James’s heir.<sup>13</sup> After the Revolution this gave way to a complete about turn and insistence on the necessity of relying wholly on the Whigs.</p><p>For Sunderland the influence that resulted from his position of trust was the driving factor in his machinations rather than the desire for financial gain and, although he was at times well rewarded for his services, he did not amass a great fortune and was always (as he complained from exile in 1689) in need of money.<sup>14</sup> Sunderland’s waspish tongue, cynical attitude towards religion, affected manners and at times bewildering changes of allegiance earned him the distrust and fear of many. Although he recovered from his disastrous behaviour under James II to become irreplaceable to William of Orange, a major reason for his central role in government in the latter part of his career was that following the Revolution he had forfeited the trust of so many that he could no longer afford to be anything but loyal to the king who had allowed him back from exile.</p><p>Born in Paris in 1641, his family on both sides owed their rise to achievements under the Tudors, though the contrast could not have been greater. On his mother’s side, the Sydneys had been notable as government administrators, soldiers and courtly renaissance figures (epitomized by Sir Philip Sydney<sup>‡</sup>). His father’s forebears, on the other hand, had managed their ascent by less dramatic means, through local aggrandizement in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, where they had amassed great wealth as successful graziers. He would learn to exploit his Northamptonshire interests making use of his seat at Althorp as a centre for political discussion, while his connection to the influential families of Devereux, Sydney, Percy and Wriothesley proved of crucial importance in his early forays into the world of courtly politics.</p><h2><em>Early career 1643-1667</em></h2><p>The then Lord Spencer’s father was known to be sympathetic to the puritans and as such was offered the lieutenancy of Northamptonshire by Parliament in 1642. He refused it on the advice of his uncle, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, and instead joined the king’s army. Opting to serve in Charles I’s personal bodyguard, he was rewarded with the earldom of Sunderland in June 1643, only to be cut down by a cannon ball at the battle of Newbury three months later.<sup>15</sup> The new earl, aged just two, was probably brought up at his grandfather’s home of Penshurst for the first few years of his life, before his mother was able to secure a return to Althorp through the intervention of her brothers, Philip Sydney*, Viscount Lisle (later 3rd earl of Leicester) and Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>. During his long minority, Sunderland’s familial network was extended significantly with the marriage in 1655 of his aunt, Margaret Spencer, to the cavalier-turned-parliamentarian, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, later earl of Shaftesbury, while the following year, Sunderland’s elder sister, Dorothy, married Sir George Savile*, later marquess of Halifax.<sup>16</sup> Under the tutelage of Thomas Pierce, a deprived fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, Sunderland travelled abroad in 1658 in company with his uncle, Henry Sydney*, later earl of Romney. It is unclear when they returned but almost certainly by the time of the Restoration.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In advance of the Convention, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, noted Sunderland as one of those peers whose fathers had sat, and also as an infant.<sup>18</sup> Sunderland may have returned with Pierce to Magdalen for a while before he apparently left following his riotous protests, in company with William Penn, against the reintroduction of liturgical ceremonial at Christ Church.<sup>19</sup> His formal education brought to an abrupt end, Sunderland took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, while still under 21. He attended on 14 of the session’s 192 sitting days. Despite his foreign birth, no effort appears to have been made to have him naturalized, although his sister, Lady Dorothy, had been in February 1641.<sup>20</sup> Noted as missing at a call of the House of 20 May, on 29 June he was granted leave to travel to France once more. He set out with Penn and John Lindsay, earl of Crawford [S], and remained abroad until the following year.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s estates in Northamptonshire were valued at £2,940 in 1662.<sup>22</sup> The same year, his mother, the dowager countess, was able to alleviate the family’s financial difficulties when she was successful in obtaining a warrant for the repayment of £5,000 lent by her late husband to Charles I.<sup>23</sup> Excused at a call of the House on 23 Feb. 1663, Sunderland finally returned to the House on 23 Mar., but attended on just nine days of the 86-day session. In June he scandalized society by withdrawing from his marriage to the earl of Bristol’s daughter, Lady Anne Digby, on the eve of the planned wedding.<sup>24</sup> Sunderland’s uncle, Ashley, had been instrumental in negotiating the match with Bristol, with whom he was in alliance in an attempt to overthrow the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.<sup>25</sup> Two days after breaking it off, Sunderland attempted to renew his suit but by then his prospective father-in-law ‘would not hear of it’.<sup>26</sup> Wharton marked Sunderland as being ‘doubtful’ over Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon the following month. It is possible that Sunderland’s withdrawal reflected tensions within a family divided between loyalty to Clarendon represented by the Wriothesleys and the opposition to the lord chancellor headed by Ashley.<sup>27</sup> Sunderland himself was characteristically enigmatic on the matter. According to Samuel Pepys<sup>†</sup> he advised</p><blockquote><p>his friends not to enquire into the reason of this doing, for he has enough of it—but that he gives them liberty to say and think what they will of him; so they do not demand the reason of his leaving her, being resolved never to have her—but the reason desires and resolves not to give.<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>Whatever the reason for his change of mind, Sunderland’s behaviour provoked a quarrel with Anne’s cousin, William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, later Lord Russell. The affair was brought to the attention of the Commons, who ordered the pair to refrain from fighting a duel and it was presumably in an effort to avoid any further unpleasantness that Sunderland secured a pass to travel abroad shortly after. He left in company with his uncle (though contemporary), Henry Sydney, and brother-in-law, Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup>. He remained overseas for the following two years.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Sunderland returned to England in the spring of 1665. By then he had thought better of his behaviour towards Anne Digby and was reported once more to be engaged in his ‘amours’.<sup>30</sup> In June, in spite of his former declaration never to have her, he married his erstwhile fiancée.<sup>31</sup> He took his seat in the session of October 1665 on 9 Oct. but attended on just two days before absenting himself once more. The following year he sat on just one occasion in the subsequent session and on 4 Oct. 1666 he registered his proxy with his uncle, Southampton, which was vacated on 26 November.</p><p>Sunderland was wounded by a cutpurse in July 1667 while serving as an officer in Prince Rupert’s regiment of horse. According to one account, the assailant would have killed him but for the interposition of his servant, though Henry Savile contradicted this ‘silly report’.<sup>32</sup> Having survived the adventure, Sunderland resumed his seat in the House on 14 Oct. 1667. On that day, his first sitting when a minor in 1661 was one of two examples investigated by the privileges committee considering the case of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, who had come to the committee’s attention for taking his seat while still underage.<sup>33</sup> The result of the committee’s deliberations was a recommendation that a bill declaratory should be drawn up to prevent the like ‘inconveniences’ occurring again.<sup>34</sup> Sunderland demonstrated greater interest in the business of the House during the session than previously, attending on almost 23 per cent of all sittings. He was named to six committees. In December it was reported that he was to succeed Henry Hyde*, Viscount Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon) as chamberlain to the queen, rumours that persisted into the following year.<sup>35</sup> On 6 Feb. 1668 Sunderland introduced his brother-in-law, George Savile, as Viscount Halifax.<sup>36</sup> Shortly afterwards he quit the country again. On 17 Feb. he was noted as being abroad at a call of the House. The visit must have been a swift one as he returned in time to resume his place three days later.</p><p>Rumours of impending honours continued to circulate in 1668. It was speculated that Sunderland was to succeed as ambassador at Paris and in November that he was to be appointed governor of Tangier.<sup>37</sup> Such speculation was still current the following year, when it was rumoured again that he would receive a place in the royal household through the interest of his patron, Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, and Northamptonshire neighbour, Hon. Ralph Montagu*, the future duke of Montagu.<sup>38</sup> Sunderland’s future prospects remained unsettled when he took his seat in the House on 19 Oct. 1669. He was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions but he was again absent at a call on 26 Oct. possibly on account of poor health. He resumed his seat on 2 Dec. after which he attended on five of the remaining eight days in the session. Sunderland’s attendance of the House continued to be sporadic through the following session of 1670-1. Present on just under 15 per cent of all sitting days, on 28 Mar. 1670 he registered his proxy with his Northamptonshire neighbour, Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, which was vacated on 7 November. His extended absence is in part explained by his mission to France in May, in company with Charles Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset), and Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup>, to convey the king’s compliments to Louis XIV.<sup>39</sup> Having returned to the House, Sunderland attended for three days in November, before again absenting himself until February of the following year. Excused at a call on 10 Feb. he resumed his seat on 21 Feb. and on 17 Apr. he was named to the committee for Thomas Herlackenden’s bill, the only committee to which he was named in the course of the session.</p><p>While Sunderland appeared to be making steady progress in his efforts to build up an interest at court, his relations with some of his immediate family were tense. During the summer of 1671 he fell out with his kinsman, Henry Savile, as a result of Savile’s failed attempt to seduce the countess of Northumberland at Althorp. Sunderland pursued Savile to London but a duel was averted.<sup>40</sup> The affair created a brief sensation but Sunderland’s attention was soon after taken up by the prospect of a diplomatic posting and, following reports of his appointment in September, he was formally nominated ambassador to Spain in November 1671.<sup>41</sup> The appointment proved the beginning of a brief if notably successful career as a diplomat. Sunderland’s departure was delayed through November while additional instructions were drawn up relating to the negotiations for a match between James Stuart*, duke of York, and the archduchess of Innsbruck, which were due to be undertaken at Madrid. He quit England finally early in December, travelling via Paris, and arrived in Spain the following month.<sup>42</sup> He remained in post there until May and then (following a brief respite in England) travelled back to Paris, where he assumed formal responsibility as ambassador extraordinary in November 1672. Sunderland arrived in France bolstered with a burgeoning reputation as a diplomat and enjoying the confidence of both king and senior ministers.<sup>43</sup> Such good opinion was challenged by his behaviour at his second posting. His lavish lifestyle caused considerable comment and he reputedly ran up debts in excess of £4,000. His financial embarrassment no doubt increased his determination to secure a generous pension from the government, in which he was successful largely owing to Arlington’s interest, but his spendthrift lifestyle damaged his reputation with the king and hastened the termination of his posting.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Sunderland was absent at a call of the House on 13 Feb. 1673. The following month, it was reported that he was to be replaced at Paris by Colonel William Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>. In spite of the problems associated with his embassy in France, Sunderland was entrusted with his third diplomatic mission in succession with appointment as joint envoy to the congress at Cologne.<sup>45</sup> In the event, he was recalled from Paris at the close of the summer having never made it to the congress on account of poor health.<sup>46</sup> He returned to London in September 1673 and on 27 Oct. he took his seat in the brief four-day session, of which he attended three days.<sup>47</sup> The following month he was again said to have been the beneficiary of Cornbury’s latest fall from favour.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Sunderland returned to the House for the opening of the ensuing session of January 1674. He attended almost three-quarters of all of its sittings. Named to the standing committees on 7 Jan., the following day he was named to the committee for the bill for encouraging English manufactures. In October he was said to have been one of those hopeful of securing appointment to the lieutenancy of Ireland, though in this he was unsuccessful.<sup>49</sup> At the beginning of April 1675 Sunderland was listed as being likely to support the non-resisting test.<sup>50</sup> Although his higher level of attendance continued in the ensuing session of April-June, in which he attended 95 per cent of all sittings, he was named only to the standing committees at the opening of the session. Sunderland’s focus appears rather to have been on securing a lucrative household appointment: the same month he was one of three peers rumoured to be in competition to succeed Clarendon (formerly Cornbury), who was said to have been dismissed (once again) by the king for striking one of the yeomen of the guard.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Sunderland was absent from the opening of the autumn session of Parliament. On 12 Oct. 1675 he registered his proxy with Louis de Duras*, Baron Duras, later earl of Feversham, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 25 October. Present on just over three-quarters of all sitting days, on 8 Nov. he was named to the committee investigating the author of the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em> and on 20 Nov. he was named to the committee for the bill for rebuilding Northampton. The same day he voted in favour of addressing the king to request a dissolution of Parliament.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Sunderland voted with the majority in favour of acquitting Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, at the close of June 1676.<sup>53</sup> That September it was reported that he had finally given up his pretensions to Clarendon’s former place as chamberlain to the queen.<sup>54</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new session of February 1677. Again in attendance for approximately three-quarters of the whole, he was named to five committees in the course of the session, including one on 2 Apr. that may have had local interest: the bill for settling a maintenance on the vicar of Allhallows, Northampton. Bereft of a patron with Arlington’s declining influence, his manoeuvrings at court during this period, and perhaps also his recent experience in France, increasingly directed him towards the circle of Louise de Kéroualle, duchess of Portsmouth. In return for her support, he was instrumental in gaining recognition for her bastard son, Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond. Sunderland’s successful management of Portsmouth gained him the notice of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), through whose interest he was awarded a pension of £1,000 per annum.<sup>55</sup> On 16 Apr. 1677 he registered his proxy with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, which according to the proxy book was vacated on 15 Jan. 1678, though Sunderland was listed as in attendance at the adjournment of 16 July and 3 Dec. 1677. The reason for his absence was another brief diplomatic mission to Calais to convey the king’s compliments to the king of France.<sup>56</sup> Sunderland’s choice of Monmouth as his proxy-holder seems not to have reflected any particular association with the duke and his grouping. He certainly remained on poor terms with his uncle Shaftesbury, who at around this time reckoned his nephew to be triply vile.</p><p>Family concerns dominated Sunderland’s attention following the death of his grandfather, Leicester, in November 1677.<sup>57</sup> It is possible that a dispute arising from the will, of which Sunderland was an executor, was the cause of a quarrel the following month between him and John Temple, the son of the diplomat Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> (who had been brought up at Penshurst). A duel was only averted when both men were secured.<sup>58</sup> On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder. Sunderland attended on the penultimate day of the session, 11 May 1678, and then, following the prorogation of 13 May, he returned to the House on 28 May, shortly after the opening of the next session. Present for 70 per cent of all sitting days in the new session, he was named to three committees. In July, Sunderland’s vigorous lobbying paid off when he was despatched to France to replace Ralph Montagu as ambassador.<sup>59</sup> For all his eagerness to secure the embassy, the expense of the posting highlighted Sunderland’s perennial financial concerns. On 2 Aug. he wrote to Danby from Paris raising the issue, while requesting that the lord treasurer would ‘excuse any trouble you receive from my wife in relation to money.’<sup>60</sup> Danby undertook to do what he could but on 8 Aug. he was forced to concede that he had been unable to obtain the privy seals necessary for Sunderland’s money, ‘without which I cannot pay a shilling to anybody’. The normally divergent views of Sunderland, a reputed francophile, and Danby, whose suspicion of France was well-known, were brought into closer correspondence by Sunderland’s experience in Paris where he admitted to his patron, ‘you will not wonder to find that they [the French] change just as they think we may be useful to them, that being the measure they go by.’ Sunderland and Danby’s association appears to have strengthened as a result of Sunderland’s mission. During his embassy, Sunderland sought to consolidate their alliance by enquiring after Danby’s daughter, Lady Sophia Osborne, as a potential wife for his son, Robert, Lord Spencer.<sup>61</sup> But while Sunderland and Danby remained on very good terms, within a month of taking up his post it was rumoured that Sunderland had squandered his favour with the king by enquiring too closely into the activities of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, who was also in Paris at the time, incognito.<sup>62</sup> Although it was reported in mid-September that Sunderland was to be recalled to England ‘out of favour’, in reality he had requested leave of absence through Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, and on his return in October he was quickly rehabilitated through Portsmouth’s interest.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Sunderland returned to the House for the final session of the Cavalier Parliament on 26 Oct. 1678. Although he was present for almost 84 per cent of all sitting days, he was not nominated to any committees. On 15 Nov. he voted against disabling papists from sitting in Parliament and on 26 Dec. he voted in favour of the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill. Amid the gathering crisis generated by the Popish Plot and moves to exclude York from the succession, Sunderland was initially loyal to his patron, Danby, and on 27 Dec. he voted against committing the embattled lord treasurer.<sup>64</sup> He did, however, give in to at least one aspect of the hysteria of the times by deporting his French butler.<sup>65</sup></p><h2><em>New Alliances 1679-85</em></h2><p>Hitherto, Sunderland had demonstrated his ability as a diplomat and a subtle court operator, who had seamlessly shifted his allegiance from Arlington to Portsmouth and Danby. In February 1679 his talents were rewarded with his unexpected appointment as secretary of state in succession to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>66</sup> Sunderland, it was reported, was ‘much surprised’ at the promotion, ‘not in the least expecting it’. Surprised or not, he was reported to have parted with £6,000 for the place, though it was also said that he was to be reimbursed the money along with a further £2,000 in return for resigning one of his other positions.<sup>67</sup> His selection may have been due to Danby’s interest but it is also possible that by appointing Shaftesbury’s nephew and an intimate of Portsmouth’s circle, the king hoped to employ him as a bridge between the various factions.<sup>68</sup> Contradicting reports circulating soon after his appointment that Sunderland, in alliance with Portsmouth, Shaftesbury, Monmouth and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, aimed to destroy Danby, in March and April he was estimated to be a supporter of the lord treasurer in a series of four forecasts. In March, he conveyed a warrant to the attorney-general for Danby’s elevation in the peerage to a marquessate, a promotion which was overtaken by events.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Following the general election, Sunderland attended on the opening day of the session, 6 Mar. 1679, and on each sitting of the brief six-day session. On the first morning of the abortive session he was active in trying to establish relations with prominent members of the Commons.<sup>70</sup> He then took his seat in the new session on 15 Mar., in which he was present on 92 per cent of all sittings. On 17 Mar. he was named to the standing committees and the committee for receiving information about the Plot. He was then named to just one further committee in the course of the session. In April, three division lists indicate that he voted against attainting Danby and the following month (10 May) he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, registering his dissent when the measure failed to be adopted. On 8 May Sunderland introduced Danby’s son-in-law, Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth, the king’s bastard by Catherine Pegge, perhaps an indication of his continuing support for the imprisoned treasurer. By the end of the summer, however, his support for Danby appeared to be wavering, though Danby sent him an impassioned appeal for his assistance in securing his release, assuring Sunderland of his loyalty and acknowledging his former protégé’s now greatly exalted position.<sup>71</sup> Sunderland probably voted on 27 May for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during consideration of capital cases.</p><p>Although Sunderland promised, in turn, that he was interested in assisting Danby and continued to do so over the ensuing months, by then he was firmly engaged in jostling for position on his own account.<sup>72</sup> The coming together of ‘the chits’—Sunderland, Sidney Godolphin*, later earl of Godolphin, and Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester—at this time was mocked by some, and Sunderland, easily satirized for his distinctive nasal drawl, was picked out for special attention. His supposed reaction to the new Privy Council of April was imitated in a merciless pen portrait by Roger North<sup>‡</sup>: ‘whaat if his majesty taarn out faarty of us, may not he have faarty athors to saarve him as well? And whaat maaters who saarves his majesty, so lang as his majesty is saarved?’<sup>73</sup></p><p>Sunderland was involved in the decision to kill the exclusion bill at the end of May 1679 by proroguing Parliament, and over the following months was seen as the junior member of a new triumvirate of advisers to the king alongside his brother-in-law, Halifax, and Essex. In June he was engaged in discussions with Henry Sydney about the possibility of persuading the prince of Orange to come over in time for the ensuing session and to attend both the council and the House of Lords, no doubt hoping to enlist his support against exclusion.<sup>74</sup> At the beginning of July, Sunderland, the other members of the triumvirate, and Sir William Temple persuaded the king to dissolve Parliament and call another for October, to the fury of Shaftesbury and others. Around the time of the elections in August, he was said to be actively engaged in courting the Presbyterians. He certainly sought out Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, who was invited to dine with him, possibly as part of this process. The same month he reported to Sydney on the progress of the elections, which he expected to be ‘at least as good as they were. The king meddles in none, which I think the better, but is the most resolved that can be desired of him.’ He warned Sydney of the pretensions of his brother Algernon, who ‘had thoughts of standing in Sussex and is very angry with you for pretending to anything he had a mind to.’<sup>75</sup> In the event Henry Sydney was returned for Bramber while Algernon Sydney remained without a seat.<sup>76</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session Sunderland worked feverishly to attempt to secure an alliance against France but, in spite of the efforts of Henry Sydney in the Netherlands, by the time of the new meeting only Spain had undertaken to join. The sudden sickness of the king in August 1679 required Sunderland to take action to prevent the news from becoming widely known.<sup>77</sup> It also offered him and his co-triumvirs an opportunity to bring back York from his exile in Brussels, though the king’s rapid recovery then left them in a quandary how to cope with York’s suddenly unwelcome presence, and Sunderland also made a cack-handed attempt to invite Prince William of Orange at the same time, which was hastily withdrawn.<sup>78</sup> Halifax and Sunderland were said to have been present at the king’s meeting with York at his return in September. That month Essex, Halifax and Sunderland were described as ‘the only chief ministers now’, though the duchess of Portsmouth was at pains to emphasize her own credit with the king, ‘as you may see by what I have done for my Lord Sunderland whom the king never had a good opinion of till I recommended him’. The temporary presence of York himself, who blamed Sunderland for not securing his earlier return, also served to temper any minister’s ability to manage the king or anything else.<sup>79</sup> On 14 Sept. Sunderland hosted a dinner bringing together several of his colleagues as well as a number of young peers, among them Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, Plymouth, Laurence Hyde, Sidney Godolphin and the diarist, John Evelyn.<sup>80</sup> He also attended the prorogation of 17 Oct., when Parliament was postponed to late January 1680. Shortly afterwards, York was once more despatched discontentedly into exile, this time to Edinburgh, taking with him an irritation with Sunderland whom he now held at least partially responsible for his forced departure.</p><p>The continuing prorogation led to rumours that Shaftesbury, who Sunderland had been instrumental in having removed from the Privy Council, would ‘come into play again’ and that he and Sunderland now intended to co-operate in securing a dissolution. Certainly Sunderland was involved in fruitless discussions with him in early November.<sup>81</sup> In the months after York’s departure, with Essex, Halifax and Temple increasingly sidelined, and Shaftesbury moving beyond the pale as he helped to initiate the petitioning campaign to force Parliament to sit, Sunderland, Hyde and Godolphin became more firmly established as leading advisers to the king. In December, it was reported that Sunderland was to be granted further responsibility with his appointment to the lieutenancy of Staffordshire during Shrewsbury’s minority.<sup>82</sup> Despite his negotiations with Prince William over an alliance to counter France in the course of 1679, Sunderland, equally closely involved in the king’s negotiations with Louis XIV at the same time, was still widely seen as a Francophile, a perception that endured well into the next reign.<sup>83</sup> In early 1680, however, Sunderland was the architect of a planned new coalition against Louis XIV, which, it was hoped, might lay the ground for a more successful meeting of Parliament. This followed on from Sydney’s undermining of negotiations between the Dutch and the French, and the collapse of talks between England and France. It was presumably in order to bolster this alignment that his countess wrote to Sydney in January 1680, insisting that Sunderland was resolved to hold fast against French approaches but appealing nonetheless that ‘the more you write my lord word that he will be ruined if he engages in the business of France, the better; not that he is inclined to it, but I know anything of warning from you does him good.’<sup>84</sup> Sunderland was surprised and gratified to find York (who returned again to England in late February) open to the change in foreign policy, and felt in early March that ‘the king’s affairs are in a better condition than they have been these seven years’. But Sunderland was still on edge about the prospects for his plans, and at the same time was urging Henry Sydney to persuade William of Orange to come over, clearly hoping to use him to encourage the establishment of a grand alliance, and to try to find a way through the problem of the exclusion bill.<sup>85</sup> In a position in which, he had complained in January, ‘as things are now, I cannot be liked above a day’, by February the constant criticism and suspicion of his motives appears to have begun to take its toll: ‘you cannot imagine the pains I take in this business, and yet I am called a traitor and a Frenchman every day, but I care very little for that if I can do any good.’<sup>86</sup> Constantly at risk of being undermined by a rival, shortly after his return to Althorp on 12 Mar. 1680 rumours circulated that he had fallen from favour and had been put out of office, perhaps because of a falling-out with John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S].<sup>87</sup> The rumours had no foundation (and were vehemently denied by his mother), and as early as February 1680 it had been speculated that either Sunderland or Hyde might become lord treasurer—though in May rumour had it (equally inaccurately) that Sunderland would replace Arlington as lord chamberlain.<sup>88</sup> Sunderland became increasingly worried as the negotiations ground to a halt, and his requests for a visit from Prince William were, by the end of April, much more pressing, asking for him to come in time for the sitting of Parliament, or sooner ‘if it should be thought reasonable’.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Sunderland finally secured a treaty with the Spanish, one plank in his coalition, at the beginning of June. He immediately used it in order to try to build a domestic political alliance. Between 15 and 22 June 1680 he hosted a major conference at Althorp attended by Hyde, Godolphin, and Henry Sydney, and, most importantly, Halifax, whose approval of the programme outlined by Sunderland was regarded as the keystone to a more comprehensive political settlement. Before Sydney’s departure for the Netherlands at the close of the month, Sunderland once more reiterated the importance of Sydney employing his ‘uttermost endeavours with the Prince to come over, that without it nothing can be done’.<sup>90</sup> In July he and Hyde continued to try to coax Halifax back to court.<sup>91</sup> But already, at the end of June, Shaftesbury’s attempt to present York as a popish recusant, inflaming the political situation again, threatened to wreck all of Sunderland’s efforts to create the circumstances in which a successful Parliament could take place.<sup>92</sup></p><p>In June Sunderland sold his office of gentleman of the bedchamber to Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], for £6,000.<sup>93</sup> His increasingly reckless gambling during the summer of 1680 perhaps reflected his private agitations. His activities caused his countess grave concern as she explained to Sydney towards the end of August:</p><blockquote><p>It makes the horridest noise in the world; it is talked of in all the coffee houses, and it is for such vast sums: he has been told of it from several who wish him well, but it has done no good … Now, I do really think, that if you would write him word that you are mighty sorry to hear from England that he plays for £5,000 in a night at La Basset; that it is railed at by his enemies, and of great disadvantage to him, but that you hope it is not true, I fancy this would do good.<sup>94</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although Sunderland’s private behaviour showed signs of strain, his standing at court still appeared to be secure in the late summer of 1680. In July, Sunderland and the duchess of Portsmouth undertook to stand as guarantors of an agreement whereby Henry Savile would succeed as vice-chamberlain as soon as it was deemed prudent to announce the appointment, while in September, Sunderland was himself the recipient of a pension of £3,000 per annum for seven years from the king.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s shift to an explicit support for the exclusion of the duke of York took place over the summer and early autumn, as he made preparations for a parliamentary session that on 23 Aug. was postponed to 21 October. The encouragement provided by the king’s agreement to send an invitation to Prince William, and the prince’s acceptance in early August, was negated by the failure of the states-general to ratify the Anglo-Spanish treaty, a sign that Sunderland’s grand anti-French coalition was unlikely to happen. As Parliament approached in August he attempted to negotiate with Essex, and in September was working with Halifax and Sydney on discussions with opposition figures, exploring, unsuccessfully, solutions based on limitations of the crown. In October Sunderland, Halifax and Hyde advised York to ‘go travel’ and when he refused warned him of their obligation to ‘stand up for the truth of the protestant religion’ and that they must do so ‘without respect of persons.’<sup>96</sup> Sunderland (together with Godolphin and others), then threw their weight behind an attempt to persuade the king to order James’s departure. In a meeting of 13 Oct. 1680, the council voted to delay a decision, but Sunderland was immensely relieved when on 15 Oct., less than a week before Parliament was due to sit, the king accepted his arguments that the alternative threatened confrontation and civil war, despite the fierce opposition of Hyde and other firmer supporters of the duke.<sup>97</sup> Even then, adverse weather further delayed York’s departure for Scotland until 20 October.<sup>98</sup> While the row over James’s departure was going on, Sunderland continued to negotiate with opposition figures, hosting a series of private meetings between the king and Monmouth: they suggested that the king was preparing to give way on the question of exclusion. Sunderland, however, remained resolutely opposed to the idea of excluding York in favour of Monmouth, and as the session began was still desperately attempting to persuade William to come over in order to ensure that Princess Mary and her husband William himself would be the beneficiaries.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Sunderland took his seat at the opening of Parliament on 21 October, the day following York’s departure. He was present on 83 per cent of all sittings. On 23 Oct. he was named to the standing committees and to the committee receiving information about the Plot and on 30 Oct. he informed the House that Oliver Plunket had handed himself over into his custody. Named to two further committees during the session, on 20 Nov. Sunderland informed the House of his activities in regulating the lord lieutenancies in the country. On 10 Dec. he produced further papers for consideration the following day. The business dominating the session, though, was the bill for the exclusion of York. When the bill was discussed in the Commons, the inclusion of a provision guaranteeing the descent to James’s daughters indicated support for the interests of Prince William over Monmouth, and this may have clinched Sunderland’s support.<sup>100</sup> On 15 Nov. 1680 he set himself apart from the rest of the triumvirate by voting against rejecting the exclusion bill at first reading. He then subscribed the dissent when it was resolved to throw the bill out. The king, who had on 8 November made clear his resolute opposition to exclusion, was not grateful for Sunderland’s actions. Sunderland justified his vote on the grounds that his honour was engaged, as well as his genuine belief that the alternative was serious disorder. He may also have feared impeachment himself.<sup>101</sup> Lady Sunderland reported to Sydney the chaotic result of the failed attempt to get the bill passed:</p><blockquote><p>everything is in the most sad case. The king acts as if he were mad. The bill was yesterday cast out of the Lords’ House, and our friend is in great disgrace for giving his vote for the bill … I have no more to say but that Lord Sunderland has gained immortal fame, which is better than anything he can lose.<sup>102</sup></p></blockquote><p>In spite of the king’s anger, Sunderland continued on his course and on 23 Nov. he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom, again subscribing the protest when the House resolved against doing so.<sup>103</sup> Sunderland’s calculation, evidently, had been that exclusion was what the king secretly desired even if he was unable to offer his open support. He soon became aware that he had miscalculated seriously and on 26 Nov. he acknowledged that he was ‘in danger of losing the king’s good opinion by that which I thought myself obliged to do for his service’.<sup>104</sup> His actions had already lost him the support of Halifax and Hyde, both of whom supported James’s temporary removal from the country but opposed his exclusion and had spoken in his favour in the debates in the House. Sunderland’s subsequent advice to Halifax to resign from the council after the Commons presented an address against him on 22 Nov. proved the catalyst to a vicious rupture with his brother-in-law, which was never fully healed.<sup>105</sup> Sunderland’s alliance with Shaftesbury also alienated his mother, the dowager countess, who stated bluntly that ‘it cannot be as I would have it so long as my son is well with Lord Shaftesbury.’<sup>106</sup> Unsurprisingly, his actions also gained him York’s enmity, who could not understand why the king delayed in putting him out of office.<sup>107</sup> Far more importantly, as he had anticipated, Sunderland’s behaviour cost him the king’s support. Despite this, he remained in the opposition camp. On 7 Dec. Sunderland found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.<sup>108</sup> As his slide from grace continued, Lady Sunderland recorded early the following year that her husband was ‘as ill with the king as it is possible’.<sup>109</sup> Within a few days of the dissolution of the 1679 Parliament on 18 Jan. 1681 ‘the talk about the town’ was that Sunderland was shortly to be removed from office. On the 24th he was deprived of the secretaryship and removed from the Privy Council.<sup>110</sup> The extent of Sunderland’s disgrace was underlined by the speed with which he was removed from his official lodgings and by the king’s refusal to allow him to recover the £6,000 he had paid Williamson for the secretaryship, which Lady Sunderland insisted was ‘a sort of hardship nobody has suffered from his majesty but us.’<sup>111</sup></p><p>If Sunderland had altered his stance in terms of his relations with York, he remained for the while true to his former patron, Danby. In advance of the Oxford Parliament he was forecast as being in favour of supporting Danby’s continuing efforts to be bailed and he continued to be reckoned among Danby’s friends in the course of the session.<sup>112</sup> His own expectations were pessimistic. He hoped that the new session ‘might prove to good purpose, but I think nothing will be changed but the place.’<sup>113</sup> Sunderland took his seat in the House on 24 Mar., and proceeded to attend on four of the seven days of the session. On 26 Mar. he was named one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons concerning the method of passing bills and the same day he subscribed the protest at the vote to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than by impeachment.</p><p>Sunderland returned to Northamptonshire after the dissolution of 28 March. The following month he was noted as being present at the races at Northampton in company with Monmouth and in May he played host to the duchess of Portsmouth.<sup>114</sup> Sunderland’s removal from office perhaps encouraged his countess to approach Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> about a possible match between Sunderland’s heir, Lord Spencer, and Fox’s daughter Jane, seeking through an advantageous marriage to improve the family’s perennially precarious financial situation. John Evelyn, an intimate of the countess, was approached to act as intermediary but he made no secret of his disinclination to bring about an alliance between Fox’s daughter and one who ‘he was afraid would prove an extravagant man’ and whose ‘early inclinations to vice made me apprehensive I should not serve Sir Stephen Fox in it, like a friend.’<sup>115</sup> Evelyn’s half-hearted efforts on Spencer’s behalf no doubt ensured that the alliance was not forthcoming.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Sunderland returned to London in the summer of 1681 having been subpoenaed by Fitzharris to appear as a witness at his trial along with the duchess of Portsmouth and more than a dozen others (though he does not appear to have been called during the proceedings).<sup>117</sup> The following month, William of Orange, finally making his long-controverted visit to England, received Sunderland at Arlington House, thereby doubtless giving weight to rumours that he and the prince were closely entangled. It was, though, rumours of Sunderland’s contacts with Monmouth at the duchess of Portsmouth’s—who remained a close friend and ally—that led around the close of 1681 to both Sunderland and his countess being banished from Whitehall.<sup>118</sup> Other members of their circle such as Baptist May<sup>‡</sup> were also warned by the king to ‘forbear their company or not come into his presence.’<sup>119</sup></p><p>Sunderland remained out of favour for the ensuing few months, though Hyde, now anxious to counterbalance the influence of Halifax on the king, sought to promote his return in the first half of 1682. In July Portsmouth lobbied the king for Sunderland’s restoration. York, now back from exile, who although he had determined never to trust Sunderland again acknowledged his usefulness, also acquiesced in his restoration to court. One impediment to his return to court was the antipathy of Halifax, whose acceptance was bought with promotion in the peerage to a marquessate, and the post of lord privy seal. On 27 July Sunderland was received at court once more.<sup>120</sup> His return sparked rumours of his return to office, and in August it was rumoured that Sunderland’s son, Lord Spencer, was to marry one of the royal bastards, Lady Mary Tudor, although nothing came of the scheme and the following year Spencer was being linked with another heiress.<sup>121</sup> The same month Sunderland was said to have reconciled with Halifax. Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> found the news particularly difficult to believe, ‘no two men having been more bitter the one against the other’, and he could only assume that their family ties had succeeded in ‘softening … those hard opinions they had one of another.’<sup>122</sup></p><p>Quickly involved once more in advising both the king and the duke of York, Sunderland was readmitted to the Privy Council in September 1682, and was appointed to the committee for foreign affairs the following month. In January 1683 his restoration was completed when he took back the post of secretary of state from Edward Conway*, earl of Conway.<sup>123</sup> He took the opportunity of his return to office to inform Edmund Poley, one of the foreign envoys, of the progress made at court over the ‘factious party’ and of the vastly improved state of the treasury. Consequently, so Sunderland insisted, the king was ‘in a much better condition than his enemies either wished or thought he would ever have been.’<sup>124</sup> In office he oversaw a turn away from the Dutch, reversing the system of alliances he had tried to achieve in 1680. The new policy was signalled by the marriage in July of James’s second daughter Anne to Prince George of Denmark*, later duke of Cumberland: Denmark being a close ally of France.</p><p>Over the course of 1683 and 1684 Sunderland’s influence outlasted that of his most senior colleagues, Rochester (as Hyde had now become) and Halifax. Sunderland was involved in the investigation into the Rye House plot in 1683, though the main work fell to Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> and other colleagues: Sunderland was particularly concerned to contradict rumours circulating overseas that the whole affair had been contrived.<sup>125</sup> Although the quo warranto campaign against corporation charters was largely in the hands of others, especially the law officers, Sunderland was involved in it in his own lieutenancy, requesting Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, to enquire into the state of the corporations of Warwick and Coventry, the latter in particular being, as he believed, the haunt of people ‘esteemed very obnoxious’. Sunderland and Rochester were said to be thoroughly opposed to the notion of summoning a new Parliament, which was backed by Halifax, and in May 1684 Sunderland was again at pains to scotch rumours of imminent elections, which had given rise to a frantic burst of electioneering throughout the country.<sup>126</sup> Sunderland, though successful in riding these storms, had miscalculated his opposition to the release of Danby: in February 1684 Danby’s son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Latimer, reported that Sunderland, hitherto a warm supporter, was now ‘very stiff’ with him over the question of his father’s bail. James’s decision to support Danby’s release in order to secure the release of the five Catholic peers who had also been incarcerated at the outset of the Popish Plot investigations wrongfooted him.<sup>127</sup></p><p>The resignation of Leoline Jenkins in the spring of 1684 had enabled Sunderland to resume his former place as senior secretary of state and secure the appointment of Godolphin as the other secretary. An attempt by George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, in the summer to set himself up as a broker between Sunderland and Halifax got nowhere. Halifax managed a coup in June when he persuaded the king to appoint his creatures to two vacancies in the treasury board. The sidelining of Rochester into the post of lord president in August, however, although initially seen as another success for Halifax, appears to have been deftly plotted by Sunderland. He also managed to secure the advancement of Godolphin to be first lord of the treasury in August, and the appointment of Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], to replace him as secretary.<sup>128</sup> By the close of that year Sunderland was described as being ‘very great’: he and Godolphin were jointly reported to be the most influential men at court, with Halifax by now largely irrelevant.<sup>129</sup> The scheme to split the role of the lord lieutenant of Ireland, in which Rochester was due to replace Ormond in early 1685, so that the command of the Irish army would be separate and subordinate not to the viceroy but to the senior secretary of state—Sunderland—promised a further consolidation of power in his hands.<sup>130</sup> During the winter he was involved in what some perceived to be a sordid attempt by the king to acquire greater control over affairs in Ireland, possibly inspired by the duke of York and his Irish advisers. The young Donagh MacCarthy, 4th earl of Clancarty [I], a major landowner in Cork and Kerry from an Irish Catholic family, had been sent by his Protestant mother to study at Christ Church under the guidance of John Fell*, bishop of Oxford. Ordered by the king to come to Whitehall at Christmas 1684, he was married furtively to Sunderland’s daughter, Lady Elizabeth Spencer, who was no more than 13 years old. Clancarty was hurriedly recalled to Ireland by his family before the marriage could be consummated but he would later prove to be a thorn in Sunderland’s side as a result of his close identification with Jacobite interests in Ireland.<sup>131</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of James II, 1685-88</em></h2><p>Sunderland’s success in clawing his way back into influence threatened to be overturned by the death of Charles II in February 1685. It was well known that the new king had little time for Sunderland’s key ally Portsmouth, whom he had previously declared was ‘never to be trusted’; neither was Sunderland’s betrayal over exclusion likely to be forgotten.<sup>132</sup> Within two weeks of Charles’s death, the new king had abandoned his brother’s plans for Rochester, diverting him from the lieutenancy of Ireland to the lord treasurership. It was, thus, an indication both of Sunderland’s skill as a courtier as well as his reputation as an able administrator that he was not once more put out of office. In part Sunderland owed his survival to his judicious alliance with Godolphin and one of James’s most trusted companions, John Churchill*, Baron Churchill, the future duke of Marlborough, but also to the ease with which he was able to redirect his energies to the new state of affairs. Full of optimism that ‘no reign ever began with more marks of prosperity’, soon after James’s accession Sunderland was given authority to oversee the elections to the new Parliament.<sup>133</sup> Between 13 and 17 Feb. he despatched missives to 26 prominent local brokers, including one to the deputy lieutenants of Warwickshire and seven to the lords lieutenant of other counties, and over the ensuing three months he worked tirelessly to ensure favourable results for the forthcoming Parliament. Sunderland followed up his initial general instructions with letters that were more detailed in their scope and in a number of counties, including Hertfordshire, Nottinghamshire and Buckinghamshire, he spelt out precisely which candidates he wished to see supported.<sup>134</sup> Thus, Christopher Monk*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, was informed that the king required his tenants at Theobalds to back Ralph Freman<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Halsey<sup>‡</sup> at Hertfordshire, and that he expected Albemarle to employ his interest on behalf of Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> at Harwich.<sup>135</sup> On 3 Apr. Sunderland wrote to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, requesting him to employ his interest in Buckinghamshire on behalf of John Egerton*, Lord Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater) and Thomas Hackett.<sup>136</sup> Further letters were written on behalf of William Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> at Bramber, Sir Richard Haddock<sup>‡</sup> at New Shoreham and other candidates contesting Newport Isle of Wight, London, Winchester and Great Grimsby.<sup>137</sup> Both court candidates were returned following a stiff contest at Lancaster through the combined interest of Sunderland, George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, and the lord keeper, Francis North*, Baron Guilford. In Sunderland’s home counties of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire he was able to bring the considerable Spencer interest to bear and although in the latter his commands met with limited opposition from Sir Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup>, bt. his preferred candidates Sir Charles Holte<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and Richard Verney*, later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, were returned for the county, probably unchallenged. Despite these efforts, not all of Sunderland’s recommendations met with success. He was unable to prevail upon Edward Montagu<sup>‡</sup> to stand down in Northamptonshire and Hackett was beaten into third place in Buckinghamshire by Thomas Wharton*, the future marquess of Wharton.<sup>138</sup> Although Sunderland also failed to secure the election of Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup> at Grantham, it is probable that this was the man of the same name who was returned with royal support at New Windsor.<sup>139</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s indefatigable electioneering helped gain for the king so favourable a result that James was said to have declared that ‘there were not above 40 Members, but such as he himself wished for’.<sup>140</sup> It was thus a notably compliant Parliament in which Sunderland took his seat on 19 May 1685. He attended almost 88 per cent of all sittings, and was named to six committees. Active in co-ordinating the government’s response to Monmouth’s rebellion, the aftermath of the uprising again found Sunderland liaising between the king and Albemarle, this time over the summary execution of rebels. While Sunderland insisted that discretion should be employed, he emphasized that the king ‘would have some of them made an example for a terror to the rest.’<sup>141</sup> At the same time he took advantage of his growing friendship with Jeffreys, whose promotion he had previously recommended, to intercede with him on behalf of one William Jenkins, desiring that Jeffreys might ‘show … what favour you can, without prejudice to his majesty’s service.’<sup>142</sup> While Sunderland’s intercession on behalf of Jenkins may have been innocent enough, rumours were soon in circulation that he had himself been deeply involved in encouraging Monmouth to rebel, and the king was said only to have agreed to a final interview with his wayward nephew in the hopes of discovering more of Sunderland’s role in the affair. Other reports suggested that Sunderland had deliberately suppressed Monmouth’s last letter to the king begging clemency. Although little credence should be attached to such tales they served to add to his reputation as a Machiavellian willing to indulge in all forms of skulduggery to further his own interests.<sup>143</sup></p><p>The failure over the summer to extract further subsidies from Louis XIV and Rochester’s more prosperous approaches to Prince William for an alliance had some impact on his standing at court, and Sunderland’s removal was regularly anticipated.<sup>144</sup> In September 1685 it was believed that he would be sent as lord lieutenant to Ireland. In the event he managed to sidestep the unwelcome appointment by recommending Rochester’s brother Clarendon instead.<sup>145</sup> Sunderland’s outmanoeuvring of the Hyde brothers at this point was the beginning of his rise to ascendancy and their almost inevitable decline.<sup>146</sup> It was notably assisted by his religious flexibility compared with the Hydes’ firm Anglicanism, and by his willingness to make alliances with the king’s Catholic advisers and associates.<sup>147</sup> In October 1685, Sunderland’s ascendancy was further underlined with the appointment of his uncle, Robert Spencer<sup>‡</sup>, as one of the commissioners of the great seal and advancement as Viscount Teviot [S] (probably at Sunderland’s request), as well as the final sacking of Halifax.<sup>148</sup> Sunderland returned to the House on 9 Nov. for the short and unsuccessful series of autumn sittings. The same day he received the proxy of William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele, which was vacated by the close of the session, on 20 November.</p><p>John Evelyn was again present at a dinner hosted by Sunderland on 3 Dec. at which were several of Sunderland’s principal allies, including Jeffreys (now promoted to lord chancellor) and Middleton, as well as the Catholic peer, George Nevill*, 12th Baron Abergavenny.<sup>149</sup> The following day, Sunderland was appointed to Halifax’s old position of president of the council, an appointment he was said, with a heavy dose of irony, to be ‘glad of … upon two accounts, because it bears a mark of an increase of favour and because he fills the room of his kinsman Halifax whom he loves with the passion of a true courtier.’<sup>150</sup> Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> was less certain that this represented a triumph, commenting that ‘the discerning men of the court do not at all look upon this as any preferment but rather a forerunner of his withdrawing from business as it proved in the case of my Lord Halifax.’<sup>151</sup> Bertie’s appraisal could not have been more at odds with that of one other commentator, who saw Sunderland ‘in the bowels of all secret business and gets nearer the king’s heart than any of his fellow councillors.’<sup>152</sup> Sunderland in January was by now well aware and supportive of James’s ambitions for re-establishing the Catholic Church. At court, Sunderland established a new Catholic council, mirroring the ordinary council cabinet committee, and helping him to forge a loose alliance with key Catholic advisers, including Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell [I] and Father Petre.<sup>153</sup></p><p>Despite this apparently unsurpassed position of influence, in the early weeks of 1686 when Sunderland joined with a number of other courtiers to support the queen in opposing the return to court of the king’s mistress, Catherine Sedley, who had recently been created countess of Dorchester, they provoked the king’s annoyance at interference in what he considered to be a private matter. The resulting row set Sunderland at loggerheads with Rochester once more, their quarrel said to be so bitter that they would not even speak to each other at council. With characteristic deftness, Sunderland was able once again to recover from his association with an unpopular movement. Further honours were anticipated and in March it was rumoured that Sunderland was one of several peers to be promoted to dukedoms.<sup>154</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s continuing preferment also provoked the first of a series of rumours that he had converted to catholicism. Undoubtedly, Sunderland shamelessly exploited the possibility of his conversion to maintain his relations with the king. At Easter he was one of several ministers to retire to the country rather than face the question of whether or not to attend mass with the king and in June Ronquillo, the Spanish envoy, reported that Sunderland aimed to displace his colleague, Rochester, and be ‘rid of the Catholics’.<sup>155</sup> Ronquillo continued, ‘it is he who instigated the Scotch to their evil resolutions, and he has joined the chancellor [Jeffreys] who is not so keen for the Catholics’.<sup>156</sup> As further evidence of his alliance with Jeffreys at this time, later that year Sunderland was said to be willing to support the lord chancellor’s efforts to secure a bishopric for his brother, James Jeffreys.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Over the first half of 1686, James began to develop his plans to re-establish catholicism, while Parliament was repeatedly prorogued. Sunderland, planning to secure a compliant session of Parliament, emphasized the importance of the removal of the Hydes, and continued to undermine Rochester in England and Clarendon in Ireland.<sup>158</sup> He himself, however, was under considerable pressure: on the one hand, from James’s Catholic advisers, keen to accelerate the shift towards Rome and to reorient foreign policy accordingly, and on the other from Anglican ones with growing concerns about the direction of affairs. Among the latter was Rochester, who exhibited a remarkable ability to remain in office despite his open disapproval of the king’s actions.<sup>159</sup> Towards the end of July 1686 Sunderland secured leave to retreat to Althorp, possibly to recover his health, which had collapsed under the strain of office.<sup>160</sup> That month he was appointed to the ecclesiastical commission, of which he proved to be an assiduous member of the coming months.<sup>161</sup> The same month he stood godfather to the daughter of Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, who was married to one of Charles II’s natural children. It was rumoured that Sunderland’s heir, Lord Spencer, was to marry Lady Betty Powlett with £20,000, though again this marriage failed to transpire.<sup>162</sup></p><p>Sunderland had returned to London by 3 Aug. 1686 when he took his place in the opening meeting of the ecclesiastical commission. One of the first pieces of business before them was the disciplining of Henry Compton*, bishop of London. According to one rumour, Sunderland’s influence in the cabinet council was said to have been crucial in saving the bishop from a ‘severer punishment’ than suspension, though Roger Morrice doubted that this was true. Certainly the following year Sunderland was among the more severe members of the commission when it came to the question of disciplining the vice chancellor of Cambridge, and he was equally unyielding over the fate of the deprived fellows of Magdalen.<sup>163</sup> Having apparently gambled all on furthering the king’s more extreme policies, by the end of the year Sunderland’s position at court appeared all but unassailable. His normally woeful finances had been substantially underpinned by a generous French pension of approximately £7,000 per annum.<sup>164</sup> From his posting in Ireland, Clarendon could only complain to his brother ‘we must never hope to be heard’.<sup>165</sup> His pessimism proved only too accurate when both he and Rochester were put out of office within days of each other at the beginning of January 1687. Though this was a success for Sunderland, the award of the post of lord deputy of Ireland to Tyrconnell, which Sunderland had obstructed as much as he could, signalled the growing threat to political stability and to his own position from James’s more uncompromising Catholic advisers.<sup>166</sup> With the beginning of the king’s closeting campaign in December 1686, there was every reason to expect that any remaining figures of real weight would also be displaced in the king’s quest to supplant those unwilling to countenance his policies. When some local justices were put out of the Sussex commission at the close of the year, it was noted that Sunderland refused to say anything on their behalf.<sup>167</sup></p><p>In an assessment compiled in January 1687 Sunderland was, unsurprisingly, estimated as being in favour of repealing the Test Act. The closeting campaign, however, elicited very few other favourable responses, and two months later, Sunderland’s apparently unassailable position appeared less secure. As it became clear that it would be impossible to hold a Parliament in April with any prospect of securing the repeal of the Test Acts, according to some reports he was ‘in the vogue not what he was’. Sunderland’s attempts to persuade Prince William’s envoy, Dijkvelt, that the prince should endorse the planned repeal failed; one result was that he was subjected to accusations of corresponding secretly with the Prince of Orange, although it was his wife’s correspondence with the Dutch court that was more damaging to James’s plans. Despite such rumours, his receipt in April of the late duke of Buckingham’s garter (originally intended to be awarded to the king’s bastard, James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick) symbolized his continuing ascendancy.<sup>168</sup> He took the opportunity presented by his installation the following month to hold out some hope to those opposed to the king’s religious agenda by insisting that the service was conducted according to the rites of the Church of England when many had assumed the ceremony would be Catholic.<sup>169</sup> Meanwhile he continued to tantalize the king with the prospect of his own conversion, which was no doubt assisted by the news that his son, Lord Spencer, had already taken that step. The French envoy, Usson de Bonrepos, was in no doubt of the true reason of Sunderland’s success, suggesting that:</p><blockquote><p>The king is well aware of Lord Sunderland’s character, that he is ambitious and capable of any sacrifice for ambition’s sake; but though he has no great confidence in him he makes use of him, because he is more devoted to him than others and because he unhesitatingly falls in with all his plans for the establishment of the Catholic religion – though for himself he professes no faith at all and speaks very loosely about it.<sup>170</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sunderland was again noted as a supporter of the king’s policies in about May 1687 and in August it was reported (inaccurately) that Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans, was to marry one of his daughters (probably Lady Anne Spencer).<sup>171</sup></p><p>Sunderland despatched the mandamus requiring the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford to elect a Catholic as their president in April 1687; the fellows’ resistance led to their summons before the ecclesiastical commission in May.<sup>172</sup> James’s decision to dissolve Parliament, announced at the beginning of July, was against Sunderland’s advice, and implied an abandonment of the attempts to work with Tories. Its consequences were highly uncertain.<sup>173</sup> Sunderland accompanied the king on his western progress in September, the return leg of which was dominated by James’s continuing efforts to compel the fellows of Magdalen to accept his nomination as their president. Sunderland may well have been responsible for the nomination of the unacceptable Anthony Farmer but, once he had been laid aside, the fellows proved equally dismissive of the alternative nominee, Samuel Parker*, bishop of Oxford. Their insistence on their privileges provoked James’s extreme displeasure and resulted in the removal of the fellows.<sup>174</sup> In October, the campaign began to secure a House of Commons which would agree to the repeal of the Test Act and the penal laws against Catholics, with the ‘three questions’ to be asked of leading gentry and office holders. Shortly afterwards came the news of the queen’s pregnancy.<sup>175</sup></p><p>In October 1687 Sunderland replaced Northampton as lord lieutenant of Warwickshire. The same month he employed his interest on behalf of William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, to secure his bail.<sup>176</sup> In December, his daughter Lady Anne Spencer was married to the heir to the premier Scottish dukedom, James Hamilton*, earl of Arran [S], later 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. The alliance had been in some doubt the previous month as Sunderland was unwilling to part with as much as the Hamiltons would have liked; Arran’s father concluded eventually, however, that the connection with someone so influential at court was worth the price.<sup>177</sup> Arran, it was rumoured, was to be appointed lord chamberlain on the back of his new alliance.<sup>178</sup> Sunderland’s ability to secure the match was not just noticed because of the prestige involved. It was also perceived to be ‘of great consideration, and very much eyed by the Papists, that he should marry his daughter to the chief Presbyterian family in all the kingdom’; the alliance was seen as potentially undermining the influence of one of the most prominent Catholics at court, the Scottish secretary of state, John Drummond, earl of Melfort [S]. Sunderland’s increasingly uneasy relationship with the Catholics at court was highlighted at a dinner shortly before the marriage when Bernard Howard, having been drawn up by Sunderland for his unruly behaviour towards Arran, upbraided Sunderland in turn for voting his uncle, Stafford, guilty of treason and stormed out from the gathering.<sup>179</sup> The same month, Sunderland attempted to intervene in the progress of a case in the court of chivalry, by recommending to the earl marshal, Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, that he grant Sir James Tillie ‘an easy dismission in this affair’, Tillie being ‘a very loyal man and one that may be serviceable to his majesty.’<sup>180</sup></p><p>The increasingly unrealistic campaign to secure a compliant Parliament continued. Sunderland had been noted, prematurely, as a Catholic in a list estimating peers’ attitudes to repeal of the Test in November 1687. He was again noted as being in favour of repeal in January 1688. In January 1688 Sunderland had undertaken discussions with Protestant Dissenters represented by William Penn, aimed at securing a meeting of Parliament in May, and in February and March further efforts were made to influence elections throughout the country.<sup>181</sup> In February the poisonous political atmosphere and the extent to which his activities had earned him the enmity of differing interest groups was revealed in a report that both Catholic and Protestant dissenters were joining to destroy him.<sup>182</sup> In February it was reported that he was supporting Jeffreys’ drive to ‘have the judges appointed throughout the circuit to dispose the country for the choice of a right Parliament’.<sup>183</sup> The increasingly desperate attempts to persuade gentry to go along with James’s plans indicated clearly their failure, and rendered Sunderland himself more open to criticism. In March, for example, Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, was forced to beg Sunderland’s forgiveness on his knees for casting ‘drunken aspersions’ on him and Jeffreys in which he had suggested that they ‘would deceive the king’.<sup>184</sup> In foreign business, Sunderland’s efforts to secure the return of English troops in Dutch service provoked severe tension with the Dutch, while Louis XIV remained cool about providing financial aid to the English government without a firm commitment to a naval alliance against the Dutch Republic.<sup>185</sup></p><p>In early March, now convinced that the king would be unsuccessful in implementing his policies, he managed to persuade the king to delay the calling of Parliament to the autumn. In April, in preparation for it, he despatched agents throughout the country, whose reports suggested the possibility of securing a majority for repeal. In May he sent out a series of instructions to the lords lieutenant and other local magnates for them to send up a list of people they proposed to stand for election.<sup>186</sup> In early May the Declaration of Indulgence, originally issued in April 1687 was reissued, and the bishops ordered to have it read in churches on 20 and 27 May in London and 3 and 10 June elsewhere. The birth of the prince of Wales on 10 June 1688 transformed the situation for Sunderland. After months of wavering his formal conversion to catholicism was announced on 26 June. He hoped thereby not just to secure his position under the present regime but under an anticipated minority as well. His decision consolidated his image as a man of no principle willing to adopt any course to remain in power.<sup>187</sup> A general belief that Jeffreys would follow suit and that Sunderland’s was to be the first of many such conversions proved to be unfounded, as did a rumour that he was at last to be appointed lord treasurer.<sup>188</sup></p><p>In spite of his conversion and his stalwart support for the king’s religious policies, Sunderland was never able to shake off the suspicion that his support for James was no more than skin-deep and that he was in secret communication with the Dutch. According to some commentators, Sunderland was responsible for publishing the bishops’ petition against the order for reading the Declaration of Indulgence in church, acting as a fifth columnist on behalf of William of Orange, whose cause he hoped to further by encouraging the king’s unpopular pro-Catholic policies.<sup>189</sup> While this seems unlikely at best, and many reports of Sunderland’s secret negotiations with the Dutch stemmed from later hostile assessments of his character, Sunderland almost certainly maintained links with Holland. His attempts to avert the prosecution of the seven bishops were unsuccessful. Having lost the argument in council, in company with his former adversary, Bishop Cartwright, he was subjected to an extremely hostile reception when he attended the trial on 29 June.<sup>190</sup> On the way in, Sunderland was kicked up the backside and on the way out he was subjected to death threats. Despite his participation, Sunderland seems to have cautioned the king to be lenient with the bishops, though this was then overtaken by the decision to acquit them.<sup>191</sup></p><p>The bishops’ acquittal on 30 June, and the popular rejoicing that followed it, removed any momentum that existed towards the holding of a successful Parliament. Sunderland urged James to moderate his aims and to make concessions to Dissenters; the king refused.<sup>192</sup> Sunderland retired to Northamptonshire briefly for the last ten days of July. That month it was reported in some quarters, though ‘without any grounds or reasons’ that he was to be promoted once again, presumably to the post of lord treasurer.<sup>193</sup>. Sunderland had returned to Windsor by the beginning of August and on the 4th it was reported that a ‘great council’ was to be held there where the matter of holding Parliament would be considered. News of the massing Dutch invasion fleet no doubt helped confirm Sunderland in his view that Parliament should be summoned in November, and helped him persuade the king to give way on the point.<sup>194</sup> Despite these reports, Sunderland, and the king, were still confident that the danger was overstated. On 27 Aug. Sunderland wrote to the English envoy in Paris that:</p><blockquote><p>Men are not to judge of Englishmen by their talk in coffee houses, nor by what idle beggarly knaves that go into Holland say (as they think) to make their court. All the dissenters are satisfied, and the Church of England’s principles will keep them loyal, though they may be indiscreet. In short, I believe, there never was in England less thought of rebellion; and when the Parliament meets this will, I doubt not, be evident to all the world.<sup>195</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his apparent confidence and the continuing rumours of preferment, Sunderland’s authority continued to ebb away. His relations with formerly close colleagues, such as Jeffreys, deteriorated, leaving him more exposed to attempts by other members of the council to unseat him.<sup>196</sup> Despite the increasing evidence of William’s invasion plans, Sunderland was actively preparing for the elections in the first half of September, sending more detailed instructions to the lords lieutenant nominating loyal men to be returned, but this time he showed a notable lack of confidence in naming potential members for the shires.<sup>197</sup> Nominations were submitted for Kent, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Derbyshire and Flintshire, but otherwise Sunderland appears to have concentrated on the borough members, perhaps reflecting his greater confidence in places where he had so recently been involved in drawing up new charters. On 13 Sept. he wrote to Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, recommending candidates for Derby and Leicester.<sup>198</sup> By the 15th, however, it had become impossible not to believe that William’s military preparations were aimed at an invasion of England.<sup>199</sup> The death of Lord Spencer in Paris early in September no doubt added to the crisis enveloping him, though Evelyn’s portrayal of a young man, ‘rambling about the world’ who ‘dishonours both his name and family, adding sorrow to sorrow’ perhaps suggests that Spencer’s early death may at least have reduced the number of problems faced by Sunderland and his countess.<sup>200</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s authority was rapidly crumbling and he was clearly becoming increasingly panic-stricken. Attempts to throw the changes of the past year into reverse and revive an alliance with the old Tories were ineffective. On 22 Sept. the writs began to be despatched for the new Parliament, along with letters restoring deputy lieutenants and justices removed over the previous year.<sup>201</sup> In Sunderland’s own lieutenancy in Warwickshire, the deputies refused to act on his instructions, arguing that ‘the authority we had by our deputations from the earl of Northampton upon his lordship’s removal [had] ceased’, and that Sunderland, as a Catholic, was not qualified to command them.<sup>202</sup> Accused from the one side by the Catholics of treason, and fearful, on the other, that he might be subject to attack in the forthcoming Parliament, he secured a general pardon from the king on 19 October.<sup>203</sup> With his ability to influence the king to make sufficient compromises ebbing, over the next few days reports circulated of his dismissal, though it was not until 27 Oct. that he was at last put out of office.<sup>204</sup></p><p>The reason for Sunderland’s dismissal was hotly debated. Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> considered it ‘somewhat mystical’ while Evelyn reported that ‘it is conceived he grew remiss of late in pursuing the interest of the Jesuitical counsels.’<sup>205</sup> Some believed that Sunderland had continued covertly to maintain close relations with William of Orange throughout the time he had been in James’s service and was in receipt of a Dutch pension as well as the annuity he received from France. Despite such highly publicized acts as his conversion, one premature report of Sunderland’s dismissal dated 3 Oct., while admitting ignorance of the reason for his fall from favour, alluded to the rumour of his relationship with the Dutch court: ‘the mighty Sunderland is fallen, but for what, is not known; though negatively, it is not for holding correspondence with the Dutch, as the king declared in Council, but for other private reasons best known to himself.’<sup>206</sup> Clarendon also noted Sunderland’s dismissal in his diary: ‘the reasons thereof were variously discoursed of: some would needs have that he had held a private correspondence with the prince of Orange. God knows!’<sup>207</sup> Although Sunderland was able to secure the king’s public disavowal of such rumours, according to another report the two parted on bad terms.<sup>208</sup> Shortly after his dismissal, having initially ‘retired to Windsor all alone’ Sunderland retreated to Althorp from whence he submitted an appeal for asylum in France, which was turned down.<sup>209</sup></p><p>Shortly before his dismissal, Sunderland had been one of those to swear a deposition confirming the legitimacy of the prince of Wales. This earned him a place in <em>A Poem on the Deponents</em>, in which he was, ironically, cast as a man who had been put out for speaking truth for once but was now prepared to say anything to claw back his place at court:</p><blockquote><p>Lord president comes next that’s now cashier’d<br />For only speaking of the truth, ’tis fear’d.<br />Yet he, for to be great again at court,<br />Would be forsworn, though he is damned for’t.<sup>210</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sunderland returned to London in mid-November. By the beginning of the following month reports were circulating of charges of high treason being prepared against him and the other peers who had converted to Rome.<sup>211</sup> With William of Orange’s arrival in the west country that month and news of the king’s retreat from Salisbury, in mid-December, uncertain of his safety whichever side prevailed, he fled, with his wife, initially to Rotterdam.<sup>212</sup></p><h2><em>Exile, return and retirement 1688-1693</em></h2><p>In spite of his ignominious flight and the threat of serious charges being levelled against him, Sunderland remained in close contact with a number of influential friends in England, notably Lord Churchill, to whom he wrote on 19 Dec. requesting his assistance for Lady Sunderland, who had returned to England to attempt to obtain some money and assess the political situation.<sup>213</sup> Lady Sunderland was also able to call upon Halifax, Henry Sydney and another family friend, Thomas Tenison*, later archbishop of Canterbury, for help. She was assured that Sunderland would not be hunted down by the new regime.<sup>214</sup> However, on 1 Feb. 1689 Sunderland was arrested at Rotterdam (reputedly disguised ‘in women’s apparel’) and thrown into gaol at the request of Admiral Arthur Herbert*, later earl of Torrington, though he was soon released through the influence of William of Orange.<sup>215</sup> The same month, the investigation into the death of Sunderland’s former colleague, Essex, heard how one of Sunderland’s servants, Lawrence Braddon, was believed to have been one of the ‘ruffians’ suspected of assassinating the earl. Sunderland’s entanglement in the incident was compounded by the belief that he had used his influence to secure a pardon for Braddon, ‘though he be a great villain.’<sup>216</sup></p><p>Set against this, the long-standing rumours that Sunderland had been all along a secret agent for William of Orange appeared to be confirmed by his apologia, <em>Letter to a Friend</em>, whose publication the countess had arranged while in London. In it he professed to have been instrumental in achieving the new king and queen’s accession and claimed that he had done all in his power to advise King James to reverse his unpopular policies.<sup>217</sup> Whether or not Sunderland was taken in by his own propaganda, it is perhaps significant that when he wrote to the new king personally he again reiterated his role in ‘the advancing of your glorious undertaking’ and lamented that his absence had prevented him from voting in favour of the king and queen’s succession.<sup>218</sup> The <em>Letter</em>, distributed widely in London, especially by the Sunderlands’ friend John Evelyn, may not have convinced many, but it formed the basis of the accusations levelled against Sunderland by adherents of the deposed king that he had been guilty of treachery to his former master. It also highlighted the contradictions at the heart of Sunderland’s behaviour.<sup>219</sup> Nevertheless, it served its purpose and Lady Sunderland, who had since rejoined her husband, was successful in securing their temporary settlement in the Low Countries, having interceded with the king for leave to ‘live quietly in a country where you have so much power’. Sunderland denied that he had ever actually become a Catholic, and his family were joined by Charles Trimnell*, later bishop of Norwich who took up the position of Sunderland’s chaplain on Tenison’s warm recommendation. In November they relocated to Utrecht.<sup>220</sup></p><p>Despite the efforts of Lady Sunderland and her allies, Sunderland was excepted from the bill of indemnity when it was debated in July, though the bill was lost at the prorogation. A separate bill (of pains and penalties) was lost when the Convention was prorogued again, then dissolved, in early 1690.<sup>221</sup> Sunderland’s uncertain status in exile posed problems for members of the House of Lords visiting Holland: in June 1689 Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, going to the United Provinces as ambassador, sought Nottingham’s guidance over how to behave, having received notice that Sunderland intended to call on him. Nottingham advised that ‘though it is not criminal to see him, yet it is not very proper for your Lordship to have much communication with him’. He concluded that while Pembroke might ‘treat him with a respect due to his quality’ he should not be so polite as to encourage Sunderland to repeat the visit.<sup>222</sup> Marked as abroad at calls of the House on 28 Oct. 1689 and 31 Mar. 1690, Sunderland was sufficiently reassured of his safety from prosecution to return to England in April 1690 assisted by the intervention on his behalf of a number of his old associates, among them Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>223</sup> Shortly afterwards he was admitted to an audience with the king but, having been excepted from the Act of General and Free Pardon sent to the Lords by the king and passed in May 1690, Sunderland had little option but to retire to his estates immediately afterwards.<sup>224</sup> The death of his daughter, Lady Arran, in June further added to his woes.<sup>225</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s fortunes received a slight boost in April 1691 when he was again granted an audience with the king through the interest of Henry Sydney (since promoted Viscount Sydney). The interview fuelled rumours of his restoration to favour and possibly even to a post in government.<sup>226</sup> Later that month, on 28 Apr., Sunderland attended the prorogation. He took the oaths and spent the rest of his brief time in London paying and receiving visits before once more retreating to Althorp. He was then absent from the opening of the new session that commenced on 22 Oct. 1691, determining to remain at Althorp, ‘all winter concluding that my proxy will do as well as I should.’<sup>227</sup> On 24 Oct. he registered his proxy with his uncle, Viscount Sydney, which was vacated by Sunderland’s resumption of his seat on 11 Jan. 1692, the day before a report was due from the audit commissioners on an annuity of which he had been a beneficiary, and on the retention of plate issued to him, as to other diplomats, and subsequently retained. He then proceeded to attend regularly for the remaining two months of the session (approximately 35 per cent of all sittings), during which he was named to five committees. Meanwhile the king signalled his rehabilitation by commanding a halt to any further proceedings over the plate.<sup>228</sup> Early in February there were further reports of his imminent return to office. On 14 Feb. he attended the king at chapel, an action much commented on, as it mirrored his former habit of attending mass in the royal chapel during the previous reign.<sup>229</sup></p><p>From about this time, William seems to have listened to advice from Sunderland, albeit informally: Sunderland consistently suggested that the king should be prepared to draw the Junto Whigs into his government; the king consistently resisted the advice.<sup>230</sup> During the king’s absence on campaign in the spring of 1692 he voiced his concerns to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. In a letter of May he wrote hoping that Portland would arrive in England as:</p><blockquote><p>the forerunner of your master whose presence I take to be absolutely necessary not only to secure us against our enemies, which can hardly be done without his person and authority, but also to let the nation see that he does not neglect them. For I can assure your lordship that the considerable part of it do not care who are ministers of state, whether this man or that, so we may be safe and secure.<sup>231</sup></p></blockquote><p>A report of August 1692 suggested that Sunderland stood ‘fair’ to succeed Sydney as secretary of state. A similar rumour circulated in January of the following year.<sup>232</sup> Once again, the prospective office failed to materialize and his advice that the court’s managers in the Commons should be replaced by his clients, Guy and Sir John Trenchard<sup>‡</sup>, was also not heeded.<sup>233</sup> He returned to the House for the following session on 11 Nov., after which he was present on just under 65 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Nov. he was named to the committee for drawing up an address to the king and queen. In advance of the session, Sunderland took the opportunity to warn Portland once more of his fears for the new regime: ‘that which will ruin the king, if not remedied, is, that every one thinks this government cannot last, which makes, that many of those who wish well to it, have a mind to secure themselves.’<sup>234</sup> Sunderland may have been precisely one such and his reputation for duplicity no doubt contributed to rumours during the winter that he was deep in negotiation with the former secretary, Middleton.<sup>235</sup> Frustration at the king’s refusal to follow his advice, and concern that William’s throne was still far from secure, may have led Sunderland once more to consider shifting allegiance but it seems unlikely that the exiled court would have been prepared to co-operate with him. If he did, by the beginning of the new year Sunderland had resolved in favour of loyalty to William. He voted against the place bill on 3 Jan. 1693, and the same month he joined a conclave at the house of William Russell*, duke of Bedford, attended by the king, Godolphin and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>236</sup> On 4 Feb. he joined with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.<sup>237</sup></p><h2><em>Behind the curtain 1693-99</em></h2><p>Following the complete failure of the efforts to manage Parliament effectively by the government headed by Carmarthen, Nottingham, and Rochester, and as a result of the discussions of the past few months, in the spring of 1693 Sunderland was encouraged by the king to set about establishing a new court party embracing members of all factions, and particularly bringing in some of the Whigs. By the end of April he was able to report to Portland how ‘our great project goes on beyond expectation’, as he worked with a group of Members of the Commons (Sir John Trenchard, Henry Guy and Sir John Trevor) to build up the government’s capacity for managing the lower House. <sup>238</sup> He was out of town for much of May, but maintained a close correspondence with Portland to discuss progress and offer recommendations for forwarding to William. His plans were impeded, however, by the hostility of the queen and Nottingham. <sup>239</sup> Sunderland returned to London in June, where it was reported that he was ‘setting up to be premier at winter’.<sup>240</sup> Sunderland’s family connections further complicated matters and he was forced to ask Portland to intercede with the king to ensure that no immediate decisions were taken about his Jacobite son-in-law, Clancarty, who had surrendered to Marlborough in September 1690 at the siege of Cork and since been interned in the Tower. Sunderland excused himself from regaling Portland with an affair ‘too long to trouble you with at this distance but of mighty importance to me and my family’.<sup>241</sup> Concerned by the efforts made by Sir Henry Capell*, Baron Capell, to have the Irish Parliament summoned before that at Westminster, on 13 June Sunderland again wrote to Portland to express his advice:</p><blockquote><p>Our Parliament being to sit so soon will give all factious people encouragement both here and there to embroil all they can, which we know by letters from thence and by information here is laboured in both kingdoms… I am persuaded there can be no so ill chosen time for the calling a Parliament there as immediately before the sitting of one here … I am confident both for the advantage of that government and in order to a good sessions here, nothing is more important than the putting off the Parliament there till the spring.<sup>242</sup></p></blockquote><p>Writing to Portland on 20 June, Sunderland predicted success in the forthcoming session of November 1693 but he was at pains to underline the price of a quiescent Parliament. He pointed out the importance of satisfying those who required ‘something besides money’ as well as reminding Portland not to imagine that ‘because some are right set, others may be neglected, for two or three bad angry men will spoil what many others cannot mend.’<sup>243</sup> Chief among Sunderland’s concerns was Mulgrave, who was eager to secure a step in the peerage but was unwilling to accept a new title as part of a general promotion. Struggling to keep Mulgrave loyal, Sunderland confided to Portland the significance of his support:</p><blockquote><p>I hope the king will agree to the whole, and not put him [Mulgrave] off to a promotion, for if he does, he is lost, and you know it is then to no purpose to manage the House of Lords, for though a great deal more is necessary all the rest will be insignificant without him.<sup>244</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sunderland spent much of the summer in retirement at Althorp, with the exception of a brief stay in London at the close of July, which was marred by the unwelcome news of the king’s defeat on campaign on the continent. Having initially insisted that he wished to avoid ‘anything that interferes between Whig and Tory’, by the close of the month he had become convinced of the imperative of replacing the current mixed administration with one firmly dominated by the Whigs. With this in mind, Sunderland advised the king to put out Nottingham and reinstate Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, at the admiralty.<sup>245</sup> His vision was summarized in a letter to Portland on 14 Aug. in which he suggested that:</p><blockquote><p>The misfortunes of this year have not taken away our courage here … and I believe men will be ready to give as much as ever if they can have a prospect of good management. … I am persuaded the king may yet cure all, if he pleases. But it must not be done by patching but by a thorough good administration, and employing men firm to this government and thought to be so.<sup>246</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sunderland saw his efforts as being hindered by a world in which ‘men grow more politic every day’ and he followed up his efforts to cudgel together a new grouping by hosting a meeting at Althorp at the end of August 1693 attended by Shrewsbury, Wharton, Russell, Marlborough, Godolphin, Devonshire and Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax.<sup>247</sup> The meeting coincided with renewed talk of changes in the ministry and that he would ‘be speedily preferred’. On 3 Sept. Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Nottingham informing him of the ‘itinerant cabal’ gathering in Northamptonshire and warning him that ‘their most immediate endeavour was to remove your lordship [Nottingham] and place Lord Sunderland in your station’. Desire to see Sunderland as secretary once more was warmly supported by ‘the house of Bedford’, though Dolben reported that others, ‘particularly Lord Godolphin, were cold in the matter, and if I would know his own opinion, it was in plain terms, that Lord Sunderland deserved rather to be impeached than to be preferred.’<sup>248</sup> Despite the hostility of Godolphin, Sunderland’s prospects for restoration to government seemed to be underlined when he took a new house in St James’s Square shortly after.<sup>249</sup> In spite of such high expectations, continuing rumours that he was to play a central role in a new administration, and the departure of Nottingham from the ministry in early November, he remained ‘behind the curtain’, exercising considerable influence but without the official trappings of a place: an arrangement that probably suited him well enough.<sup>250</sup></p><p>Having attended the prorogation of 9 Sept. 1693, Sunderland returned to the House for the new session on 10 Nov., after which he was present on almost 60 per cent of all sittings and was named to six committees. On 22 Feb. 1694 he appears to have participated in the debate in the Lords concerning the treason trials bill.<sup>251</sup> In March he was one of a small party of intimates to accompany the king to Winchester and the same month it was rumoured that his heir, Charles Spencer*, Lord Spencer (later 3rd earl of Sunderland), was to marry one of Portland’s daughters.<sup>252</sup> The success of his scheme for management of the Commons was crowned in March by Shrewsbury’s agreement to return to office in return for William’s agreement to the triennial bill. There was a more comprehensive reshuffle of posts in early May, with a series of offices going to Whigs, and shortly afterwards a series of peerage promotions for Whigs.<sup>253</sup> Sunderland’s final rejection of any thoughts of a Jacobite restoration was perhaps signalled by Middleton’s employment of the word ‘rat’ for his former patron in his secret cipher to the exiled court at St Germain, though Sunderland featured in at least one more Jacobite communiqué perhaps dating from early 1695 as someone willing to support an invasion attempt.<sup>254</sup></p><p>Sunderland suffered a further family loss in May 1694 with the suicide of his uncle, Teviot, who had recently been declared bankrupt for the third time. His attention, though, continued to be taken up with the demands of his colleagues.<sup>255</sup> Chief among them was Mulgrave, by then promoted marquess of Normanby, who suspected that he was being sidelined. Normanby was said to be ‘very angry for not being called to the cabinet council’, in spite of Sunderland’s assurances that there was no such thing and his professions of confidence that Normanby was ‘as much trusted as any body’ (Normanby was annoyed at his exclusion from the very small ‘war committee’). Sunderland feared that Normanby’s ‘ill humour would have infected Devonshire’. While Sunderland was able, with the queen’s help, to maintain Devonshire’s support, Normanby continued to be a thorn in his side over the ensuing months. On 19 Aug. Sunderland again laid out his opinions freely to Portland in response to Normanby’s latest demands:</p><blockquote><p>he is very pressing and will be so for ever. If he had all he could ask today, it would be the same tomorrow. I can say only what I have said already. There must be either no cabinet council or one composed of the great officers only … for to admit of Normanby and not all the rest is not to be supported.<sup>256</sup></p></blockquote><p>Between July and August 1694 Sunderland hosted a further series of gatherings at Althorp in advance of the new session of Parliament.<sup>257</sup> He predicted there were designs to ‘break the bank and the allies’, though he still considered that ‘the credit of the nation is so much concerned as well as the king’s that I think it need not be much apprehended … it is and will be still in the king’s power to make any session a good one.’<sup>258</sup> He responded to Portland’s suspicions that he had become too favourable to the Whigs by insisting that ‘whenever the government has leaned to the Whigs it has been strong; whenever the other has prevailed it has been despised’; even though, he complained, the Whig party ‘makes me weary of my life’.<sup>259</sup></p><p>In the midst of preparing for Parliament, Sunderland’s attention was divided between the forthcoming session and his efforts to secure a lucrative match for his heir by opening negotiations with the family of Lady Arabella Cavendish (who was believed to bring with her a fortune of £25,000). In pursuing the match, Sunderland was compelled to turn to Halifax for assistance. Sunderland’s suit on his son’s behalf was hampered by his own woeful financial state and he was forced to confess to Lady Arabella’s guardian, John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, that he would only be ‘able though with difficulty to give £2,000 per annum maintenance and a jointure of £2,000.’<sup>260</sup></p><p>Sunderland returned to London in September, exhausted by his efforts over the summer to serve the king, ‘without any assistance but my own industry.’<sup>261</sup> On 20 Nov. 1694 he took his seat in the new session, after which he was present for 65 per cent of all sittings and was named to three committees. Sunderland was credited with securing the appointment of Bishop Tenison to the archbishopric of Canterbury in December.<sup>262</sup> The death of Queen Mary the same month both rid him of one of his most uncompromising critics at court and also offered him the opportunity to help engineer a reconciliation between William III and Princess Anne by encouraging his old friend, Sarah, countess of Marlborough, to wait on the king.<sup>263</sup> The duchess was unequivocal in crediting Sunderland with the improved relations between the two courts, insisting that: ‘I never heard of any one that opposed the reconcilement but the earl of Portland upon which my Lord Sunderland spoke very short to him as … he had a very good talent when he thought people were impertinent.’<sup>264</sup> Through Sunderland’s interest, the princess was granted new lodgings at St James’s. The marriage in January 1695 of his son, Spencer, to Lady Arabella Cavendish was a triumph for Sunderland.<sup>265</sup> The ministry’s performance over the 1694-5 session, however, was much less impressive, with the Whigs, particularly Montagu and Wharton, restive because they were not more dominant, and others, especially Godolphin, resentful at their encroachment. Country Whigs, with the backing of Montagu and Wharton, turned on Sunderland’s close allies, Trevor and Guy, in late January and early February. Guy was imprisoned in the Tower on bribery charges in February, and Trevor expelled from the Speakership and the Commons in March. The attack petered out, however, and it failed to dent Sunderland’s continuing ascendancy. In April 1695 it was discoursed that he would be readmitted to the Privy Council.<sup>266</sup> Later that month he was the principal beneficiary of an act of grace and general pardon, though it attracted the vocal opposition of Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, who held Sunderland responsible for his father’s death. In spite of Essex’s stand against the measure, its passage was the occasion of yet more rumours of Sunderland’s imminent appointment either as secretary of state or lord president of the council.<sup>267</sup> His favoured status no doubt encouraged Francis Turner*, the former bishop of Ely, now a non-juror, to approach him for his assurance of his own safety following the general pardon. Sunderland admitted to Portland that he would ‘be glad to ease him for reasons you may guess.’</p><p>Over the summer, Sunderland tried to resolve the continuing problems within the ministry. His efforts failed to win over either Wharton or Montagu, who now opposed his plans for a dissolution and for the king to issue writs for a new Parliament, and who were said to be demanding that Sunderland be prevented from involvement in politics. There were also reports of a rift with Shrewsbury, though this was soon patched up following a meeting between the two men and John Somers*, Baron Somers.<sup>268</sup> Fundamental problems of disunity among those responsible for speaking for the government in both Houses, however, were not overcome.</p><p>Sunderland played host to the king at Althorp for a week in October 1695, for which he provided a lavish entertainment, having convinced him of the importance of participating actively in the elections that autumn.<sup>269</sup> Sunderland co-operated successfully with the lord lieutenant, Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), to ensure the election of Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> at Brackley but the elections for Northamptonshire saw the Spencer interest under fierce assault and Sunderland was early on forced to give up his ambition of seeing Lord Spencer returned there.<sup>270</sup> Sunderland took his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov., after which he was present on 66 per cent of all sittings and was named to five committees. In January 1696, in the face of the king’s objections, he supported the establishment of the parliamentary council of trade, aligning himself with the ‘country’ Whigs in the Commons.<sup>271</sup> The king’s announcement of the discovery of the Assassination Plot on 24 Feb. cast all other business into the shade. The same day Sunderland was named to the committee drawing up an address to the king in response to the plot, and to the subsequent conference concerning the address. The ‘Association’ created as a response to the Plot helped the Junto Whigs to establish themselves more firmly in power; Sunderland’s own influence with the king was steadily eroded, although he continued to encourage the king’s hostility to allowing the Whigs, a single faction, to dominate the government.<sup>272</sup></p><p>Despite the Junto’s growing prominence, during the summer reports of Sunderland’s imminent preferment continued to circulate. In July 1696 amidst the mounting financial crisis it was claimed that he was to travel to Holland with Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> to undertake negotiations about the peace and advise on the state of affairs in England.<sup>273</sup> Nevertheless, Sunderland was quick to refute such claims and in correspondence with Shrewsbury he maintained that he was ‘entirely insignificant’ and that he resolved to remain at Althorp. In a letter to Trumbull over a question of patronage he was eager to ensure that no one should know that ‘I meddle in this matter.’<sup>274</sup> The king insisted, however, on Sunderland’s involvement in discussions on overcoming the financial crisis of the summer of 1696, and the Junto Whigs seem to have accepted it without demur.<sup>275</sup> Towards the end of the summer he even visited Admiral Russell at his seat at Chippenham, where he found him ‘in very good humour extremely desirous to please the king’ and he expressed himself satisfied with the tractability and unusual affability of the other leading Junto figures. Sunderland employed his interest with the king to secure passes for Bishop Turner and the active Jacobite Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe<sup>‡</sup> to leave the country and in October his courtship of his Whig associates continued when he co-ordinated a series of meetings at the Somers’ London residence.<sup>276</sup> The same month he took part in the ministerial deliberations at Windsor and was busily engaged in attempting to dissuade Shrewsbury, who was fearful of being named by Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, bt., from resigning his place..<sup>277</sup> Sunderland was, indeed, at the centre of the discussions about the ministry’s response to Fenwick’s allegations, and engineered the removal of Godolphin, who was seen as most likely to come under attack from the Whigs, from the ministry.<sup>278</sup> Sunderland returned to the Lords on 26 Oct. 1696, after which he was present on almost 62 per cent of all sittings but he was named to just two committees, one of which on 23 Feb. 1697, perhaps ironically, was for the bill for the relief of creditors. He was the subject of complaint during the session for answering for his son-in-law, Arran, who had been twice imprisoned during the year for his supposed Jacobite activities, and had since absconded but now undertook to reside abroad in a neutral country.<sup>279</sup> The decision to proceed against Fenwick by attainder when it became impossible to prove his guilt in the ordinary courts was taken by the Junto Whigs, and was contrary to Sunderland’s opinion, who may have feared that Fenwick would make more allegations as a result. Sunderland’s apparent friendship with Monmouth, whose obscure intrigues were aimed to elicit more evidence against Shrewsbury, added to the Junto’s suspicion of him. But despite his support for his kinsman (Arran) and his dissatisfaction that Fenwick was proceeded against by attainder rather than left to the law, on 23 Dec. 1696 Sunderland joined with the majority in voting in favour of Fenwick’s attainder.<sup>280</sup></p><p>Although Sunderland earned Shrewsbury’s gratitude for his efforts in shielding him from implication in Fenwick’s plotting, he was never able to gain the trust of the other members of the administration, who were particularly wary of his attempts to fix a series of appointments. In January 1697, Russell wrote to Shrewsbury to ascertain why it was that Sunderland was so intent on procuring Shrewsbury the post of lord president, ‘since his [Sunderland’s] practice in the world gives me just reason to believe he has a design in what he says and does, so it ought to make every body upon their guard, to prevent mischief.’ Russell was the more suspicious as Sunderland refused to divulge who he thought should succeed as secretary, a scruple that convinced Russell that ‘he has somebody in his thoughts, that to some people will not be very agreeable.’<sup>281</sup></p><p>Despite the continuing suspicions of the Junto, Sunderland remained a dominant figure in government, thanks in particular to Shrewsbury’s loyalty to him. In April 1697 he was appointed a lord justice during the king’s absence, reappointed to the Privy Council and was also presented with the office of lord chamberlain, which the king purchased for £8,000 from Dorset (James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> reported the figure to have been £10,000).<sup>282</sup> Sunderland’s appointments aroused much hostility, but increased his ability to control government patronage considerably. Over the summer he took a large share in the routine work of administration.<sup>283</sup> Continuing in his quest to forge a party unriven by faction (and dominated by himself), in the course of the year Sunderland made overtures to Rochester, Godolphin, Marlborough and Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, while still cajoling Shrewsbury to retain his office. After Shrewsbury insisted on resigning in September, Sunderland was said to be ‘caballing’ over the post of secretary of state, ostensibly espousing Wharton’s candidacy while secretly pushing for Vernon’s appointment. The king refused to accept Shrewsbury’s resignation, but when the other secretary, Sir William Trumbull, did resign just before Parliament was due to sit at the beginning of December, Vernon was appointed in his stead, much to the chagrin of the Junto.<sup>284</sup></p><p>It had been rumoured in November that either Sunderland or Godolphin would be appointed lord treasurer.<sup>285</sup> But Sunderland’s apparent ascendancy lasted no longer than the beginning of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697, the first since his appointment to office in the spring. Sunderland would attend only four days of the session, the last of them 15 December. The king and Sunderland clearly expected a showdown with his Whig antagonists, and over the course of December he was the apparent target of unrelenting hostility in a series of debates in the Commons, even though he was not specifically named. Fearing that they intended to impeach him, Sunderland repeatedly attempted to resign, resisting the pleas of the king and others. Having retreated to Windsor, on 24 Dec. he wrote in response to a letter from Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, that:</p><blockquote><p>Your lordship and those who wish I would leave this place do me much more honour than I deserve. Every word that is said to me and every letter I receive persuade me that I am necessary useful or important fixes me here for there is nothing I apprehend more than the doing anything that may look as if I gave into such vain imaginations.<sup>286</sup></p></blockquote><p>Eventually, on 26 Dec. 1697, he succeeded in resigning by subterfuge. Having fooled Vernon into believing that the king had indeed given him permission to quit his place, he gave him the keys, his badge of office, and fled to Guy’s house at Earl’s Court before leaving London from which he refused to admit any of the king’s emissaries sent to persuade him to change his mind. In spite of their mutual antagonism, Sunderland had been a vital link between the Junto and the king, and his removal effectively severed this. Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> noted how his resignation had left ‘the managers very naked’ and over the next few months he was courted assiduously in the hopes that he would resume his post.<sup>287</sup> Protesting in another letter to Vernon the day after his resignation that ‘there was no rack like to what he suffered, by being ground as he had been, between Lord Monmouth and Lord Wharton’, Sunderland appears this time to have taken his resolution to ‘end his days’ at Althorp in retirement seriously.<sup>288</sup> He remained absent from the House for the ensuing two years.</p><h2><em>Out of office, 1698-1702</em></h2><p>Sunderland’s departure from court was said to have encouraged Leeds (as Danby had become) to consider returning to the council, as it was believed he had kept away so long only ‘out of aversion’ to Sunderland.<sup>289</sup> Sunderland’s absence from London was soon felt. In January 1698 John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> complained how affairs went ‘very heavily and confusedly in the House of Commons and the want of my Lord Sunderland is found every day’. By the beginning of February hopes were being expressed for both Sunderland and Shrewsbury’s return and that their reconciliation might offer the best opportunities for a solid foundation for the ministry.<sup>290</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s aspiration to remain out of public view was blasted further by a family scandal. His troublesome son-in-law, Clancarty, who had escaped from the Tower in 1694 and subsequently been employed in the former king’s household at Saint Germain, returned to London in December 1697 to effect a reconciliation with his wife. Lord and Lady Clancarty had separated almost immediately after their marriage and he had subsequently, allegedly, contracted a bigamous marriage in Ireland.<sup>291</sup> Clancarty succeeded in persuading his countess to return to him to consummate their marriage, and the couple were discovered <em>in</em> <em>flagrante</em> on 1 Jan. 1698 by Lady Clancarty’s brother, Lord Spencer, and Clancarty was once more incarcerated at Newgate.<sup>292</sup> Although Sunderland disowned his daughter and was described as being ‘violent against’ his son-in-law, following a series of petitions from Lady Clancarty and an array of powerful friends including the Marlboroughs and Burnet, in March Clancarty was pardoned on the condition that he and his wife quit Britain for a neutral country.<sup>293</sup></p><p>In the midst of this undignified family scandal, Sunderland was also embroiled in the political machinations of a number of members of the Commons associated with him, including Duncombe, Methuen, Trumbull and Robert Molesworth<sup>‡</sup>, who chose this moment to stage an attempt against the prominent Junto member and leading treasury minister, Charles Montagu. Although Sunderland disowned all knowledge of their efforts, any attempt at reconciling him and the Junto was rendered hopeless when Montagu’s counter-attack sent Duncombe to the Tower.<sup>294</sup> Ironically, given Sunderland’s firm advocacy of their greater trustworthiness, the whole affair convinced the king of the fundamentally untrustworthy nature of the Whigs, as a result of which he resolved not to employ Wharton unless Sunderland and Shrewsbury specifically advised it.<sup>295</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s resolution to remain away from politics had weakened by the early spring of 1698 sufficiently for him to confess in a letter to Shrewsbury that he had been surprised by the king’s irritation at his resignation and to offer that he would be prepared to bow to the king’s commands if his services were again required, ‘provided that he gives me leave to serve him as a privy councillor only, without a place, which would now be insupportably ridiculous, after having quitted one so lately.’<sup>296</sup> Shrewsbury confided to Somers that he believed Sunderland would soon return to office, unable ‘to resist the king’s commands and the importunity of his friends.’<sup>297</sup> Nevertheless, Sunderland continued to stay away from London. In spite of the turbulent happenings of the previous few months, Sunderland assured Burnet on 13 June that he was ‘glad the sessions is like to end so well’ and registered his proxy with his uncle, Sydney (now earl of Romney) on 30 June, which was vacated by the close of the session. The death of his daughter-in-law, Arabella, Lady Spencer, the same month may have stiffened his resolve of keeping away from public affairs but Orford (as Russell had become) noted how his brief appearance in London in July on the day of the dissolution of Parliament ‘made a good deal of discourse for four days; that is, till it was known he was not to come into business, then the application, which was before in abundance, fell, and like good courtiers, he is dropped.’<sup>298</sup> By now, however, he was, though, cold-shouldered by the Junto, and the king made little effort to seek his advice.<sup>299</sup> Convinced that he was ‘out of all’, Sunderland retreated once more to Althorp. Methuen doubted that he would ever ‘again come into the management of affairs’.<sup>300</sup> At the beginning of August, Sunderland responded to an approach from Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], excusing his ability to assist and insisting that he was now ‘absolutely a stranger to all has been done or is doing.’<sup>301</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s resolution to live a private existence did not prevent him from continuing to comment or offer advice on current political affairs. In January 1699, while insisting in habitual self-deprecatory fashion that, ‘it is of little importance what we country folks think’ he offered his support to Marlborough’s interpretation of affairs while also asking for the latter’s assistance in securing the House’s leave to be absent. On 4 Feb. he wrote to Portland, warmly endorsing the king’s speech, which he considered ‘an extraordinary good one. Plain dealing and concerting matters will do wonders.’<sup>302</sup> His pronouncements were not always correctly interpreted and later that month he felt the need to write to Portland again to clarify that his suggestion of a new diplomatic mission to Spain had not been intended to mean that he wished to be offered the post:</p><blockquote><p>what I said of my going into Spain was only to enforce the necessity of somebody’s going for if I might have the mines of Peru I would not go. But I believe more than ever that if English and Dutch ambassadors were there the king would be master of that court…<sup>303</sup></p></blockquote><p>A visit to Althorp by Shrewsbury that summer was connected with William’s request to him to attempt to bring Sunderland back together with the Whigs, Marlborough and Godolphin. This, it was hoped, might address the ministry’s weakness in the Commons, which had become apparent following the 1698 elections. The project foundered, though, when Shrewsbury fell ill again in early September.<sup>304</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s period of self-imposed purdah from the House of Lords finally came to an end at the close of 1699 when he returned to London in preparation for Spencer’s imminent marriage to Lady Anne Churchill, a match that had been contemplated within weeks of the death of the former Lady Spencer.<sup>305</sup> On 10 Jan. 1700 he took his seat in the House, after which he attended on 29 per cent of all sittings. The same month saw the Spencer-Churchill marriage. Sunderland’s role as an independent political broker was underlined by the king’s request at this time that he should attempt to bring about a new coalition embracing Robert Harley’s associates, Somers’ Junto and Marlborough and Godolphin. The task proved impossible. At the close of January he wrote to Shrewsbury complaining that ‘everything here is so confused, that I envy your retirement, and wish you out of it.’<sup>306</sup> Forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation in February, in April it was reported that he was working to prevent a rupture over the passage of the bill for the resumption of Irish land grants.<sup>307</sup> The same month it was again predicted that Sunderland would return to office in a ministry composed of Leeds, Rochester and Goldolphin. He denied the widespread reports that he had advised the king to dismiss Somers from the office of lord chancellor: he was, however, heavily involved in attempting to persuade a successor to take on the role once Somers had been put out.<sup>308</sup> In June, rumours circulated in Jacobite circles that Sunderland had once more retired to Althorp, disgruntled at being unable to procure a garter for Marlborough.<sup>309</sup> The following month, however, he was included in a list of Whig peers thought amenable to the new ministry.</p><p>Heavily involved in attempting to procure Duncombe’s election as lord mayor of London in September 1700, Sunderland was said to have been responsible for a speech delivered by William Simpson, baron of the exchequer, extolling Duncombe’s virtues.<sup>310</sup> Despite his support and reputedly that of Marlborough, the aldermen provoked uproar in the corporation when they ignored the poll in favour of Duncombe and returned Thomas Abney<sup>‡</sup> instead.<sup>311</sup> Sunderland failed to attend the first Parliament of 1701. He was expected in London in June in time for the close of the session, perhaps hoping to resolve some of the ‘great animosities’ then raging between the two parties, but he was prevented by poor health.<sup>312</sup> By the middle of August he was thought to be ‘rather worse than better’, though he rallied later that month having ‘submitted to the necessity of being more regular in his diet and has forborne eating such great quantities of fruit’.<sup>313</sup> His weakened constitution may have been one of the reasons for declining Somers’ offer of a return to government in November. Even so, the king’s decision to turn to the Whigs once again that month is indicative of Sunderland’s continuing, if disembodied, influence at court.</p><p>Sunderland was missing at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, having ignored a series of appeals to return to London. On 12 Jan. he played host to Rochester at Althorp, who was returning from his Irish lieutenancy. The event, once again, set tongues wagging about possible new alliances.<sup>314</sup> The death of the king in March appears to have affected him sincerely, though no doubt he had his own security foremost in his mind when he remarked to Marlborough on the king’s passing and on his eagerness to turn his hand to assisting the new monarch that: ‘I never was very covetous and I have no spleen against any creature living but those I think would hurt the government and I have now the same zealous and warm concern for the queen you have seen in me for the king that is gone.’<sup>315</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s careful cultivation of the Marlboroughs paid off almost at once. Through the influence of Sarah he secured a pension of £2,000 from the queen, though it was revealed soon after that he had enjoyed one of £9,000 under her predecessor.</p><p>He returned to London in April after an absence of over a year.<sup>316</sup> Unsurprisingly, speculation soon mounted that he would be recalled to office. On resuming his seat in the House on 13 Apr., he was ‘caressed and welcomed by a great many lords and it is said will come in to be a prime minister at court being allied to my Lord Marlborough’.<sup>317</sup> By then Sunderland wished for no such distinction and he attended just ten days of the session before quitting the chamber for the final time. Still a controversial figure, on 18 Apr. he was the subject of a heated exchange in the Commons initiated by Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, following debates over an Irish bill for entailing estates on protestants brought in by Sir John Bolles<sup>‡</sup>. Having made an oblique reference to Sunderland’s flexible attitude towards religion, St John was seconded by Bolles, who described Sunderland as ‘a state bawd and a pimp’.’The Speaker prevented Bolles from adding further abuse, leaving it to Sunderland’s heir, Lord Spencer, to answer his father’s assailants. He admitted that Sunderland</p><blockquote><p>When he was minister of state had committed some faults and so had all before and since him that he knew of that had been in those great stations, but this he could say for him that he always loved England, valued his native country and never betrayed its interest to France: and that he believed the worst fault his father had was that he could not go into and comply with the councils of those men that had for 40 years last past been selling us to France.<sup>318</sup></p></blockquote><p>St John remained unconvinced and towards the end of June reported to Trumbull how, ‘trimming goes on at court, or to speak more truly, Sunderland, weighty with sin, is got into the balance and sinks it down on the Whig side.’<sup>319</sup></p><p>Sunderland’s health deteriorated over the summer. Having been reported as being ‘indisposed’ at Althorp on 12 Sept., by the 24th he was said to be at the point of death. Two days later, according to one report he was ‘much better’ while others concluded that he was ‘a dead man’ and that he had been ‘given over by his physicians’.<sup>320</sup> He died on 28 Sept., according to some reports, having reconciled himself once more with the church of Rome, though such rumours were swiftly contradicted by accounts of his having received Anglican communion before his death.<sup>321</sup> An autopsy found evidence of ‘bone splinters or bony substance in the heart cavity and entrance of the aorta and a great quantity of soft chalky matter in one lobe of the lungs which were full of extravagated blood’.<sup>322</sup></p><p>Sunderland was buried in the family vault at Brington. In his will he directed a number of estates, not already entailed on his heir, to his countess who survived him by 13 years. The remainder of the Spencer estates passed to his only surviving son, Charles, Lord Spencer, who succeeded as 3rd earl of Sunderland.<sup>323</sup> Sunderland’s influence continued to haunt the politics of Queen Anne’s court. In 1704 William Shippen included an unflattering portrait in his verse satire, <em>Faction Display’d</em>. For Shippen, Sunderland was:</p><blockquote><p>A <em>Proteus</em>, ever acting in Disguise,<br />A finish’d Statesman, Intricately Wise,<br />A second <em>Machiavel</em>, who soar’d above<br />The little Tyes of Gratitude and Love;<br />Whose harden’d Conscience never felt Remorse,<br />Reflection is the Puny Sinner’s Curse.<sup>324</sup></p></blockquote> |
R.D.E.E./P.C.S. |
|
STAFFORD-HOWARD, Henry (c. 1648-1719) |
<p><strong><surname>STAFFORD-HOWARD</surname></strong> (<em>formerly</em> <strong>HOWARD</strong>), <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1648–1719)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>5 Oct. 1688 earl of STAFFORD |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1648, 1st s. of William Howard*, Visct. Stafford, and Mary, da. of Edward Stafford. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 3 or 6 Apr. 1694, Claude Charlotte (<em>d.</em> 1739), da. of Philibert, count de Gramont and Elizabeth, da. of Sir George Hamilton, bt. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 27 Apr. 1719; <em>will</em> 2 Feb 1700–22 Mar. 1716, pr. 2 July 1719.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Col. regt. of ft. 1688.</p> |
|
<p>Henry Howard appears to have left England in the spring of 1679, probably because of heightened anti-Catholic tensions caused by the Popish Plot.<sup>2</sup> He could not succeed to his father’s peerage in 1680 because it had been extinguished by his conviction and execution for treason. The same process also led to the confiscation of his father’s estates. Nevertheless the family received favourable treatment from the crown. The confiscated estates were restored to Henry Stafford’s mother in November 1681 by Charles II.<sup>3</sup> Despite her husband’s attainder she continued to use the title of Viscountess Stafford. In 1688 Howard was created earl of Stafford, thus fulfilling his parents’ long-cherished aim of reviving the ancient earldom. He also changed his surname to Stafford-Howard. At the same time his mother was given the place and precedence of a countess and his siblings were granted the precedence accorded to the children of an earl.<sup>4</sup></p><p>As the Catholic son of a Catholic martyr, it was only to be expected that Stafford would himself sympathize with the efforts of James II to introduce the Catholic religion into England. At the revolution of 1688 he followed his king into exile, and in the spring of 1689 he was appointed ambassador to the king of Spain by the exiled James II, but according to Roger Morrice he was refused an audience.<sup>5</sup> A list of ‘Englishmen in France with King James’ compiled in 1689 includes not only Stafford himself but also his two brothers, Francis and John. According to this source Stafford was worth ‘about £3,000’. That same year, when his mother answered a circular about peers’ taxable assets on his behalf, she declared that he had no personal estate.<sup>6</sup></p><p>By 1690 Stafford and his mother had used Stafford Castle and other lands in England to fund the celebration of masses for the martyred viscount and to begin the process of canonizing him.<sup>7</sup> He was alleged to have been involved in plans for a Jacobite uprising in 1691; further allegations against him were made in 1694, and in 1695, while in France, he was indicted for high treason.<sup>8</sup> His failure to appear and answer the charges meant that he was eventually outlawed, a process which technically amounted to attainder and consequent loss of his estates and peerage.<sup>9</sup></p><p>By 1694 Stafford was living at the Hague and had obtained a passport from the elector of Bavaria.<sup>10</sup> He married that year but was soon separated from his wife. Within a short time, according to Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, he had been reduced to ‘great want’.<sup>11</sup> He was unable to support his estranged wife and the combination of his outlawry and her claims for relief led James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> to remark that ‘he may as well jointure his lady in Utopia as in England’. Accordingly, early in 1698 Stafford began to ‘plague’ Mathew Prior<sup>‡</sup> about the possibility of returning to England.<sup>12</sup> Warned about the consequences of returning while still under a sentence of outlawry, he petitioned the crown for a pardon and a <em>nolle prosequi</em>. His petition was granted and in May 1699 Stafford obtained a licence to return to England.<sup>13</sup> His motives appear to have been purely financial, in that his return was calculated to obtain a pardon and to ensure the restoration of his estates. He did not renounce his Catholicism.</p><p>Stafford’s whereabouts after 1699 are uncertain. Although he appears to have spent some time in England, by 1704 he was said to be living in Brussels.<sup>14</sup> The remainder of his life remains obscure. He died in 1719 leaving debts of nearly £35,000 to be paid from assets worth less than £10,000.<sup>15</sup> He was succeeded by his nephew William Stafford-Howard<sup>† </sup> under the terms of a special remainder.</p> |
R.P. |
|
STANHOPE, Charles (1595-1675) |
<p><strong><surname>STANHOPE</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1595–1675)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Mar. 1621 as 2nd Bar. STANHOPE OF HARRINGTON. |
|
First sat 17 Apr. 1621; last sat 17 May 1642 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 27 Apr. 1595, 1st s. of John Stanhope<sup>†</sup> (later Bar. Stanhope of Harrington) and Margaret (<em>d</em>. 1640), da. of Henry Mackwilliam<sup>‡</sup> of Stamborne, Essex. <em>educ</em>. Queens’, Camb. 1608, MA 1612 (incorp. Oxf. 1622); G. Inn 1611; travelled abroad (France) c.1612–13.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 23 Nov. 1641 (with £4,000),<sup>2</sup> Dorothy (c.1621–86), da. of Sir John Livingston, bt. [S], of Kinnaird, Perth, <em>s.p.</em> KB 2 June 1610. <em>bur</em>. 3 Dec. 1675; <em>will</em> 17 July 1666, pr. 12 Feb. 1676.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Postmaster general (jt.) 1607–21, (sole) 1621–37.</p><p>Kpr. Colchester Castle (jt.) 1603–21, (sole) 1621–62; warden and preserver of game, Nocton, Lincs. 1661–<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, circle of Robert Peake, c.1610 (sold at Christie’s, London, 22 Nov. 2006).</p> |
<p>Charles Stanhope was the first, and only surviving, son of John Stanhope, a prominent official under Elizabeth I and James I who in June 1603 was made keeper of Colchester Castle, with the reversion to his young son.<sup>7</sup> In 1605 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Stanhope of Harrington, after the property in Northamptonshire which he had purchased in 1599. In 1607 Baron Stanhope was confirmed in his office of postmaster general, which he had held from 1590, with the reversion again vested in his son.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In July 1613 it was reported that the young Charles Stanhope had ‘lately fallen lunatic’ with ‘little hope that is conceived of his recovery’.<sup>9</sup> He inherited his father’s title, and the reversion of his principal offices, on 9 Mar. 1621, but by the 1630s the mentally unstable baron was in the habit of writing in his books extensive marginalia which had little or no relevance to the accompanying printed text and which showed an obsession with money and taverns, among other matters.<sup>10</sup> After his marriage in 1641 his wife, Dorothy Livingston, apparently managed Stanhope’s affairs for him.<sup>11</sup> A contemporary described him in 1645 as ‘the mad Lord Stanhope’ and a correspondent of Lady Anne Seymour wrote to her in 1661 of ‘Lord Stanhope, who (as the story goes), is an idiot … the Lord never used any spectacles, and could neither write nor read’, but was nevertheless shrewd enough, ‘out of a forward disposition, rather than understanding’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In 1635 Stanhope was persuaded, perhaps because of his perceived disability, to make the king’s favourite Endymion Porter<sup>‡</sup> his deputy postmaster general, with a reversion of this office to Porter’s eldest son, George. According to the later complaints of George Porter, Stanhope was forced to surrender his patent in 1637, ‘full sore against his will’, upon the ‘contrivance’ of his principal rival Thomas Witherings, who at that point controlled the carriage of the mails into foreign countries.<sup>13</sup> The office of master of the posts was bandied about between many servants of Charles I, the Long Parliament, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate in the following years, but Stanhope always maintained his claim to the office and virtually his only contributions to public life during 1640–60 were the frequent petitions he submitted to the governing regime demanding restitution of the office of which he claimed he had been fraudulently deprived in 1637.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Stanhope did not sit in the Convention when it assembled in April 1660, although on 14 May he submitted to the House another petition setting out his case and asking to be restored to his former office, or at least to be paid his lost earnings. On 26 May the committee of 11 peers assigned to consider the petition reported that in their opinion Stanhope should be able to recover the profits of his office accrued since 25 April 1637. According to manuscript notes, this report was read and debated in the House, which then ‘respited’ consideration of it for a future date; there is no formal note of this debate in the Journal.<sup>15</sup> In August 1660 Stanhope petitioned the king directly. Edward Hyde*, Baron Hyde (shortly to become earl of Clarendon), was of the opinion that he should be given the £4,000 which Charles I had promised him when he surrendered his patent, and supported his view with the report of the committee to the House of 26 May 1660 in which Stanhope had received a favourable judgment.<sup>16</sup> In early November 1660 the king issued his letters patent for a payment of £4,000 to Stanhope, thereby paying him off while the Convention set about establishing a new Post Office and a new postmaster general by statute.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In response to Stanhope’s petition, on 25 June 1660 the former deputy postmaster general and royalist officer George Porter, aggrieved at his loss of income from Stanhope’s enforced surrender of the patent, petitioned the House asking that Stanhope waive his privilege so that Porter could pursue legal redress on this matter.<sup>18</sup> In a further petition of January 1662 Porter complained that, despite Stanhope’s assurances, made to the House through John Carey*, 5th Baron Hunsdon, styled Viscount Rochford (and later 2nd earl of Dover), that he would waive privilege to settle the matter, he still refused to appear in court. Furthermore, Stanhope, being now ‘very aged and infirm’ was likely to die soon, with his estate so unsettled that it could in no way satisfy Porter’s claims.<sup>19</sup> Porter shortly after abandoned his attempts to take Stanhope to law, perhaps because his appointment as a gentleman of the privy chamber to the queen consort in 1665 provided him with a steady income.</p><p>It may have been his age and infirmity, both physical and mental, which led Stanhope never to sit in the House after the Restoration. Nevertheless, he still played a part in the life of the House through his many proxy assignments over the following years, almost all of which went to peers supporting the court interest. On 14 May 1661 he registered his proxy with Clarendon for the first session of the Cavalier Parliament. Three years later, on 1 Mar. 1664, he appears to have attempted to assign it to Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, but as this was not allowed under the rules of proxy-giving the record was scratched out and the proxy transferred to Clarendon. Stanhope gave his proxy to Clarendon once more on 20 Sept. 1666 but switched his recipient to Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend on 6 Nov. 1667. His proxy to John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, registered on 7 Mar. 1670, was vacated when Rutland assigned his own proxy on 2 April. Stanhope ensured that his vote was taken care of for the three sessions of 1674–5, first by Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, for the session of early 1674 (registered on 19 Dec. 1673, well in advance of the first meeting), then by John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, for the session of spring 1675 (registered 12 Apr. 1675) and finally by Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, for the autumn meeting of that year (registered 11 Oct. 1675).</p><p>Stanhope died in late November 1675 without children; his peerage died with him. He left his estate to his widow and executrix. An annotation noting the extinction of the title next to Stanhope’s name in a forecast drawn up by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), on his impeachment proceedings suggests that Stanhope had been so far removed from the life of the House that as late as March 1679 the lord treasurer himself was unsure whether he was alive or dead.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
STANHOPE, Philip (1633-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>STANHOPE</surname></strong>, <strong>Philip</strong> (1633–1714)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1634-56 Ld. Stanhope; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 12 Sept. 1656 as 2nd earl of CHESTERFIELD. |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 10 Apr. 1700 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 20 Nov. 1633,<sup>1</sup> 2nd but o. surv. s. of Henry Stanhope<sup>‡</sup>, styled Ld. Stanhope and Katherine, da. of Thomas Wotton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Bar. Wotton of Marley, from 29 May 1660 <em>suo jure</em> countess of Chesterfield; half-bro. of Charles Henry Kirkhoven (van der Kerckhove)*, Bar. Wotton of Wotton; <em>educ</em>. private tutor (Jehan Poliander van der Kerckhove), Netherlands 1641-2, prince of Orange's college, Breda 1645-6, matric. Univ. of Leiden 2 June 1649,<sup>2</sup> Monsieur de Veau’s Academy, Paris 1649, travelled abroad (France, Italy, Germany) 1649-51,<sup>3</sup> DCL, Oxf. 15 July 1669. <em>m</em>. (1) 21 June 1652 Anne (1633-54), da. of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>.;<sup>4</sup> (2) 25 Sept. 1660 Elizabeth (1640-65), da. of James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I], 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 1da.;<sup>5</sup> (3) 1670 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1677), da. of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>6</sup> <em>d</em>. 28 Jan. 1714; <em>will</em> 17 Dec. 1713, pr. 21 Jan. 1715.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. chamberlain, queen consort 1662-5; cllr., queen consort 1662-86?;<sup>8</sup> PC 26 Jan. 1681-Feb. 1689.</p><p>Steward, chase of Thorny Wood, Notts. 1656?-<em>d</em>.,<sup>9</sup> honour of Tutbury 1670-73; c.j. in eyre, South of Trent, 1679-85.</p><p>Col., regt. of ft., June-Aug. 1667, 3rd Regt. of Ft. [Holland], 1682-4.</p><p>FRS 1708.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: etching by ?Thomas Worlidge, after Sir P. Lely, after original then at Melbourne Hall, Derbys., c.1715-66, British Museum P,8.80.</p> |
<h2><em>Anglo-Dutch upbringing, 1633-60</em></h2><p>Philip Stanhope’s grandfather, also named Philip Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, was a forceful Nottinghamshire landowner who bought the barony of Stanhope of Shelford in 1616 and was further raised to the earldom of Chesterfield in 1628. His grandson, Philip, became heir to the earldom of Chesterfield when his father died only a few months after Philip’s own birth in 1633. In the latter 1630s his widowed mother Katherine, Lady Stanhope, was a figure in the high society of the capital but in 1641 she married a foreigner 15 years her senior, the Dutch diplomat and nobleman Jan van der Kerckhove, lord of Heenvliet, who had come to England to negotiate the marriage between Charles I’s daughter, Mary, and William, prince of Orange. The young Lord Stanhope was raised and educated in the Orangist court where Lady Stanhope served as the governess to the new princess of Orange. He studied at the college at Breda and Leiden University before travelling through France and Italy in 1649.<sup>13</sup> Lord Stanhope’s first marriage ended in November 1654 when his young wife died of smallpox eight days after giving birth to a son, who himself quickly died. Stanhope embarked on another round of travelling in France and Italy, but returned to England when he learned of the illness of his grandfather and the attempts of family members in England, such as his uncle Arthur Stanhope, ‘who at that time was well with the Protector Cromwell’, to make claims on the estate.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Over the next several years the 2nd earl enjoyed the life of a young gallant and he was offered daughters of, in turn, Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S], in marriage. He was more involved with his liaisons with Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire, and, most significantly, with the teenage Barbara Villiers, later to achieve notoriety as Charles II’s mistress and as the countess of Castlemaine and duchess of Cleveland in her own right.<sup>15</sup> Despite the sexual competition that this relationship might have engendered, Chesterfield successfully sued for the exiled king’s formal pardon after killing Francis Wolley in a duel arising from a dispute over the price of a horse and fleeing to France in January 1660. Charles II assured him that ‘you may be confident of all that you desire from me, and that I have a just sense of the great affection and zeal you have upon all occasions expressed for the advancement of my service and interest’. <sup>16</sup></p><h2><em>At the court of Charles II, 1660-70</em></h2><p>Charles II’s assurance was a reference to the conspicuous royalism that Chesterfield’s branch of the Stanhopes had exhibited during the Civil Wars. Chesterfield’s grandfather, the first earl, had seen three of his sons killed fighting for the king and his estates sequestered, while his daughter-in-law Lady Stanhope expended much energy in recovering those estates for her son. From her position at the court at The Hague she had helped to gather and transmit intelligence and muster foreign support for the royalist cause. For these services after she was widowed for the second time in March 1660, she was created on 29 May 1660 <em>suo jure</em> countess of Chesterfield. Chesterfield himself had been involved in various projects to bring back Charles II, and was imprisoned briefly for his suspected part in the planned insurrection of summer 1659. Thus, after having received his pardon, he could honourably take his place with the royalist retinue which landed in England on 25 May 1660.<sup>17</sup> He first sat in the House on 1 June, but after that one day only sat a further seven times before the recess, after which he came to 68 per cent of the House’s meetings in the winter months. Throughout the Convention he was named to only three select committees on legislation. He was not present in the House on 18 June when William Paget*, 6th Baron Paget, reported from the committee for privileges that the bailiffs of Westminster had committed a breach of Chesterfield’s privilege in seizing and retaining his goods in January 1660 following his flight upon the death of Wolley.<sup>18</sup> He was present on 13 Sept. to see the king give the royal assent to the bill which naturalized Emma Wilhemine Kerckhove and Charles Henry Kerckhove*, Baron Wotton (later earl of Bellomont [I]), an act which would allow these half-siblings of Chesterfield to inherit their mother’s English estates.</p><p>He was slightly more assiduous in his attendance during the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in 1661-2 as he came to close to three-fifths of the meetings, mostly in the first part before the summer adjournment, and was named to 11 committees. In the Parliament’s first days, on 11 May 1661, he helped to introduce to the House Thomas Brudenell*, as earl of Cardigan and John Granville*, as earl of Bath. On 6 Feb. 1662 he voted and protested against the bill of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to reclaim land he lost during the Interregnum through legal conveyances.<sup>19</sup> He also leapt to the assistance of his former father-in-law when the earl of Northumberland clashed in the House in January 1662 with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, over the bill to revive the court of York, offering to be ‘employed’ by Northumberland in any way to defend his honour.<sup>20</sup></p><p>But this language is suggestive more of a courtier ready to duel for a point of honour than of a serious statesman. During the 1660s Chesterfield took his place at the court of Charles II and continued for a time to live the life of a dissolute rake that he had commenced in the late 1650s. Undoubtedly his marriage in September 1660 to Lady Elizabeth Butler further helped his position at court, as Ormond was able to procure for his son-in-law the position of chamberlain to the new queen, Catherine of Braganza, when she arrived in England in 1662.<sup>21</sup></p><p>As for Chesterfield’s new wife, Anthony Hamilton, chronicler of the affairs of the court of Charles II, was clearly bewitched by her and thought her ‘one of the most agreeable women you could ever see’, with an ‘exquisite shape’ and a fair complexion, though ‘her heart, ever open to tender sentiments, was neither scrupulous in point of constancy, nor nice in point of sincerity’. On the other hand, Hamilton clearly did not like Chesterfield: ‘he had a very agreeable face, a fine head of hair, an indifferent shape, and a worse air; he was not, however, deficient in wit; a long residence in Italy had made him ceremonious in his commerce with men, and jealous in his connection with women; he had been much hated by the king, because he had been much beloved by Lady Castlemaine’. Hamilton’s animus is understandable as Chesterfield, still pining for Castlemaine, had been initially aloof and cruel to his new wife, and in revenge she encouraged the advances of, first, Hamilton himself, and then of James Stuart*, duke of York who, according to Samuel Pepys<sup>&Dagger</sup>, was ‘smitten in love’ with Lady Chesterfield. Chesterfield told York ‘how much he did apprehend himself wronged in his picking out his lady of the whole court to be the subject of his dishonour’ and in December 1662 he removed her to his country house at Bretby in Derbyshire to preserve her, and his, honour.</p><p>Hamilton painted Chesterfield as a tyrannical buffoon and cuckold, whose extreme jealousy of his wife, so out of keeping with the norms of Charles II’s court, he attributed to his ‘bad upbringing’ and his extended stay in Italy where he had imbibed ‘this disgraceful habit of keeping their wives under lock and key’.<sup>22</sup> In around April 1663 the countess gave birth to a daughter, also named Elizabeth, which appears to have gone some way to appeasing Ormond’s anger with Chesterfield for his daughter’s sudden removal from court. The earl’s attempts at reconciliation with both his wife and parents-in-law were cut short in July 1665 when, shortly after Chesterfield had resigned from his post as chamberlain to the queen ‘with intentions to retire and live in the country’, Lady Chesterfield died of the plague; Chesterfield also caught the disease but recovered.<sup>23</sup></p><p>With these other concerns, it is not surprising that Chesterfield did not devote much attention to Parliament. He attended 20 per cent of the meetings of the session of spring 1663, during which Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, classed him as opposing the impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. A number of friendly letters to the lord chancellor, himself a close colleague of Ormond, do survive in Chesterfield’s correspondence, though mostly from 1665-6 <sup>24</sup></p><p>Chesterfield came to 30 per cent of the sittings in spring 1664, 13 per cent in 1664-5, and none in autumn 1665. He was recovered from his bout of plague sufficiently to attend 56 per cent of the sittings of the 1666-7 session, where he was named to only one committee, that for the bill to establish a judicature for disputes arising from the Great Fire. He dissented on 23 Jan. 1667 from the House’s rejection of the clause in the bill which would allow a right of appeal to the king. He was commissioned a colonel of infantry for the Dutch War in June 1667 and Pepys considered him one of the ‘young Hectors’ who aimed to debauch the country-women around their camp at Harwich.<sup>25</sup> Instead Chesterfield fell dangerously ill and ‘was given over by three of the best physicians in London, who plainly told me, that I could not live above two hours’. His ‘good friend’ Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, even ‘came and took me in his arms and gave me his blessing and the last farewell’. His illness appears to have broken on 27 Aug. 1667, when he began to recover shortly after having prepared his will. His estate had recently been greatly augmented by his inheritance of part of the estate of his mother, who had died in April 1667, and he bequeathed the bulk of it to his only surviving child, Elizabeth, and made the duke and duchess of Ormond executors.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>Retirement to the country, 1670-79</em></h2><p>These arrangements and the fate of the young Elizabeth ensured that the Butler family continued to be concerned with Chesterfield’s health, career and estate in the years following Lady Chesterfield’s death. Bretby in Derbyshire was a frequent destination for Ormond on his many journeys between Westminster and Dublin.<sup>27</sup> Relations between Chesterfield and Ormond were often fractious, though, especially over the matter of the young Elizabeth’s marriage. Her maintenance and portion were diminished, much to Ormond’s disliking, after Chesterfield’s third marriage in 1670, to Lady Elizabeth Dormer. This new marriage and the string of children which arrived in rapid succession from February 1673 preoccupied him and he largely retired to Bretby from this point and neglected Parliament.<sup>28</sup> He may have taken some part in local Nottinghamshire administration and commissions, but the evidence is scarce and even in this area he was notably inactive.</p><p>He also found himself out of sympathy with the policies pursued following Clarendon’s fall in 1667. He missed the parliamentary attack on Clarendon entirely, not sitting in the House for that session until 10 Feb. 1668. He left on 28 Feb. when he was excused to go to the country and registered his proxy with his friend Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg. This was vacated on 7 May when he returned briefly for a further three sittings before the session was adjourned and ultimately prorogued. He did come to all but three sittings of the short session of October-December 1669 and to just over three-fifths of the long session of 1670-1, where he entered his protest against the second reading of the divorce bill of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) on 17 Mar. 1670. In his own account of the year 1669 Chesterfield claims that he said ‘something in Parliament against the declaration for liberty of conscience that the court disliked’, whereupon ‘I left the paying of my attendance there for some years’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>In early 1673 Ormond encouraged him to come to the next session of Parliament, as ‘there will be work for all men of honour and interest in this session’.<sup>30</sup> Chesterfield dutifully came to all but eight of the sittings of the session, but he was becoming increasingly concerned by recent events and, probably in spring 1673, he wrote to his friend, Lord William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, lamenting the recent military ventures against the Dutch, ‘which I hear was very much to the advantage of his Majesty’s navy, I cannot say of England, since many judicious persons, who love both their king and country, do apprehend that the ruining of those enemies will prove fatal to ourselves. … in my opinion, things are so laid both at home and abroad, that nothing less than a miracle can long preserve us’.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Between October 1673 and June 1675 he came to only 15 meetings, all in January 1674, and he entrusted his proxy to his friend George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, on 4 Feb. 1674 for the remainder of the session. On 20 Nov. 1675 he was in the House and supported with his vote and protest the address for the dissolution of Parliament. He did not come to a single meeting of any of the turbulent sessions in 1677 or 1678, as his initial concern over his wife’s health and pregnancy in October 1676 was exacerbated by the terrible ‘melancholy’ she fell into after the birth in December and then by her death in October 1677 after miscarrying her fifth child.<sup>32</sup> Ormond wrote to console Chesterfield of ‘the very uneasy and uncomfortable condition your lady long lived in’ and Chesterfield himself records that ‘after the death of my wife I lived that whole year alone in the country, and in six months never came out of my chamber’.<sup>33</sup> On 1 May 1678, still absent from the House, he registered his proxy with his father-in-law Carnarvon.</p><h2><em>Court supporter, 1679-85</em></h2><p>Because of these family connections, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered the absent Chesterfield ‘vile’ in spring 1677. Sometime in 1678 Chesterfield wrote to Shaftesbury’s enemy Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), with the hope ‘that the correspondence begun before I left the town is by this time improved to a friendship’.<sup>34</sup> He sent his condolences to Danby upon his commitment to the Tower in early April 1679 and perhaps in response to these well-wishes, Danby, who clearly saw Chesterfield as an ally in the House, wrote to him urging his attendance in Parliament to help defeat the bill for his attainder.<sup>35</sup> This time Chesterfield responded and took his seat in the House on 16 Apr. 1679, the first time he had sat since 22 Nov. 1675, but two days too late to vote against the attainder. He remained until the end of the session and on 10 May 1679 voted against the proposed joint committee to consider ways of prosecuting the impeached peers. On the last day of the Parliament, 27 May, he probably supported the right of the bishops to sit in the House during the hearing of capital cases. The duke of York, his former rival for the affections of Lady Elizabeth Butler, also assured Chesterfield at this time that he had heard of the earl’s recent kind words and expressions of loyalty towards him and ‘I could not hinder myself from letting you know how sensible I am of them, and assuring you that, upon all occasions, you shall find me as truly your friend as you deserve’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>With these increasing moves back to an active support of the court and of the royal brothers, Chesterfield was correspondingly rewarded. When James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, was deprived of all his offices in early December 1679, Thomas Butler*, Baron Butler of Moore Park (better known as earl of Ossory [I]), championed his brother-in-law Chesterfield as his replacement for many of them and the earl was appointed chief justice in eyre south of Trent at the end of the year.<sup>37</sup> He was also placed on the commissions of the peace for Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire, as part of the purge of exclusionists from the county magistracy in 1680. He came to all but 20 of the meetings of the second Exclusion Parliament, and strenuously opposed the exclusion bill on 15 Nov. 1680, arguing in the debate on the bill that it ‘seems to strike at the foundation of the government, for, if the next heir may be debarred the Crown, for being a Roman Catholic, who knows how soon the same arguments may be turned against any king that shall be thought to favour that persuasion?’ Most seriously for Chesterfield,</p><blockquote><p>the blood of the last king has left an eternal stain upon this kingdom, and I hope in God that it will never be revived or made greater, by debarring the same blood, in his son from inheriting the crown, especially without summoning him, hearing him, and appointing him a day to answer for himself.<sup>38</sup></p></blockquote><p>He also voted against the establishment of a joint committee to debate the state of the nation and voted that William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, was not guilty of treason. The king was evidently pleased with Chesterfield’s support and on 26 Jan. 1681 he was sworn a privy councillor, in a purge from the council of supporters of exclusion.<sup>39</sup></p><p>From as early as January 1681 Danby had enlisted Chesterfield to act as a surety in his petition for bail from the Tower that was to be presented at the Parliament in March.<sup>40</sup> Chesterfield arrived in Oxford by 20 Mar., in the company of his brother-in-law Richard Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston (better known as earl of Arran [I]), with whom he lodged during the week-long session.<sup>41</sup> He and his colleagues enlisted by Danby tried to push his petition for bail through the House, but to little avail, partly blocked by Chesterfield’s good friend Halifax.<sup>42</sup> In the following years, as Chesterfield retreated to the country and rebuilt his house at Bretby (burned in 1680 under suspicious circumstances), he continued his correspondence with Danby in the Tower, in which a principal topic was the likelihood and timing of another Parliament and Chesterfield’s continuing efforts to secure his release.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Despite his constant claims that he preferred the life of retirement in the country, Chesterfield appears to have taken seriously his duties as a privy councillor and as a councillor to the queen. He returned to the capital most winters and during the summer was kept informed of events in London by correspondents such as his friend (and Ossory connection) Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington.<sup>44</sup> Another of Chesterfield’s informants, Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup>, took a cynically detached view of goings-on at court. Remarking on some of the strange alliances and cabals being formed at court in the summer of 1682, especially the return to favour of the disgraced Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, who had been removed from the Privy Council when Chesterfield had been sworn of it, Sedley could only remark that ‘I believe never was an age so comical as this; and a laugher, where ever he turns himself, will have occasion to hold his sides.’ Chesterfield could only agree that ‘I have long thought this kingdom to be the island of uncertainty’.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Chesterfield reached his pinnacle of prominence at court in 1683 when, in the wake of the disgrace of John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), for his flirtation with Princess Anne, Charles II granted Chesterfield the command of Mulgrave’s old regiment, the 3rd Foot, or ‘Holland’, regiment of guards in November 1682.<sup>46</sup> Chesterfield was temporarily discomfited when a brother-in-law from his first marriage, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and his close friend Lord Russell, were accused of treason in 1683 for their involvement in the conspiracies against the royal brothers. He refused to testify as to Russell’s good character at his trial, claiming that, as a privy councillor, he could not be used against the crown’s case.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Late in 1683, the duke of York, incensed by Chesterfield’s offer to return the office of chief justice in eyre to Monmouth who was back in favour at court, persuaded Charles II to change the terms of Chesterfield’s commission so that his regiment was no longer a regiment of guards.<sup>48</sup> York promised that his ‘Holland’ regiment would not lose its privileged place as the third regiment on the English establishment, but even this promise was abrogated when William Blathwayt<sup>‡</sup> informed Chesterfield that the regiments of Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup> and George Douglas, earl of Dumbarton [S], recently returned from Tangiers, would take precedence over his. At this further insult, Chesterfield resigned his commission on 26 Jan. 1684.<sup>49</sup> Ormond thought he had done so ‘inadvisedly and unseasonably’. Relations between Chesterfield and Ormond were uneasy at this point, as the duke was concerned about the small size of the portion the earl was willing to bestow on Lady Elizabeth Stanhope. It had been reduced by a third to £8,000 after the birth of sons by Chesterfield’s third wife, and Ormond was also concerned at the paucity of suitable noblemen the earl was considering for her match.<sup>50</sup> Lady Elizabeth was not married until September 1691, after Ormond’s death, to John Lyon, styled Lord Glamis [S], later 4th earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne [S].</p><p>At about this same time Chesterfield appears to have been acting as an important mediator between Danby and Halifax. Danby entrusted him in January 1684 with enlisting Halifax’s help in getting him bailed from the Tower, reassuring Halifax through Chesterfield that ‘I shall not desire him to do himself any injury by appearing more publicly for me’. At this point, Halifax was beginning to consider Danby a potential ally at court against the growing influence of Sunderland. He told Chesterfield that he was willing to help, but thought that Danby should be patient until March, when problems in the personnel in king’s bench could be sorted out.<sup>51</sup> When Danby was released on 12 Feb. 1684, Chesterfield was one of his sureties, pledging £5,000 for his bail.<sup>52</sup> Chesterfield appears to have spent the summer of 1684 at court, from where he kept Arlington informed of recent diplomatic developments and expressed a general suspicion of French motives.<sup>53</sup> He wrote bemusedly to Fauconberg about more changes at court following on the removal of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, as lord treasurer and his being ‘kicked upstairs’ to be lord president of the council:</p><blockquote><p>I cannot but congratulate the felicity of this age that affords so many persons equally fit for the treasury, secretaries of state, presidents of the council, or what you please. Formerly ’twas thought these required different talents, studies and educations. Methinks it should be comfortable for all, that have any pretences at court, to observe these great employments under so swift a rotation, that every man of merit may hope to taste of them in turn.<sup>54</sup></p></blockquote><p>In December there was even a rumour that Chesterfield would be named lord lieutenant of Derbyshire in the place of the deceased William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire, but in the even the position went to Nicholas Leke*, 2nd earl of Scarsdale.<sup>55</sup></p><h2><em>James II and principled loyalism, 1685-8</em></h2><p>Chesterfield was one of the courtiers sent out of the king’s bedchamber as he lay dying, while the duke of York, the earl of Bath and Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham alone remained behind, ‘which being done’, Chesterfield comments in his own account of his life, ‘it is more than probable that a Romish priest was introduced by a back door that opened by his bed side, and that his Majesty died a Roman Catholic’—a suspicion widely held then and since.<sup>56</sup> Chesterfield was, nevertheless, seen as a leading figure at the new court of James II. William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, looked to Chesterfield to introduce him at court, but Chesterfield responded that it was more important to the king that Derby remain in Lancashire where he could use his interest to promote the election of ‘those who are loyal and worthy to be Members of Parliament’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Chesterfield himself came to every sitting of the House in James II’s Parliament until it was adjourned in early July. This was by far his busiest and most engaged session to date, as he was nominated to half the select committees established during his days of attendance, and he even held the proxy of William Fielding*, 3rd earl of Denbigh, from 13 June 1685 to the end of the session, the only time Chesterfield himself was entrusted with a proxy. It was Chesterfield who on the first day of the Parliament, 19 May 1685, presented to the House Danby’s petition requesting that either his bail be discharged or he brought to trial. In the ensuing debate he argued strongly that Danby should be immediately released from bail, perhaps even with reparations for his long imprisonment, as the five Catholic peers were demanding.<sup>58</sup> After the defeat of Monmouth’s Rebellion, though, Chesterfield wished to retire to the country again, and in October made moves to be excused from Parliament, because of his distaste at the idea of having to sit in judgment on the peers Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. He also was keen to surrender his office of chief justice in eyre, because of the constant pain of gout and the stone.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Halifax, to whom he entrusted the duty of conveying these excuses to the king, had other concerns at this time, as he was dismissed from his office as lord president on 21 Oct. 1685. Now an opponent of the court, he wrote back to Chesterfield urging him to come down to Westminster for the next sitting of Parliament so that he could help defeat the king’s proposal to repeal the Test Acts. To persuade Chesterfield he insisted that by so voting, and thus displeasing the court, he would be sure to obtain his goal of being dismissed from his burdensome office. He further assured the earl that there were the numbers sufficient to defeat the motion to repeal the Test Acts, even among some previously obedient ‘court lords’, who were now willing to defend ‘the strongest bulwarks of all that is left us’. These arguments fell on deaf ears, as Chesterfield insisted that it would appear ‘more gentle and respectful’ to resign his office while in the country. He hoped instead that Halifax would accept his proxy, a better solution in any case, ‘since I have not the gift of speaking often in the House, [and], I think the sending of my proxy is the same thing as if I were there’. Halifax continued to urge him to attend:</p><blockquote><p>I make very much difference between my Lord of Chesterfield and his proxy. I know of what weight your assistance is in speaking, as well as your countenance in being present; and as for the trials, your friends would so order it that we would get you excused though you were in town, provided we might reserve you for some of those critical debates upon which, to our thinking, everything dependeth.<sup>60</sup></p></blockquote><p>Chesterfield still refused to attend and reported to the marquess on 13 Nov. 1685 that he had ordered his servant in London to cause his proxy in favour of Halifax to be entered in the register by the clerk of the House – although there is now no record of this proxy in the registers.<sup>61</sup> After the session collapsed in acrimony, the king relieved Chesterfield of the chief justiceship in eyre and by 15 Dec. 1685 it was being reported that the earl’s local rival, Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, then a favourite at court, had replaced him.<sup>62</sup></p><p>The constant prorogations of Parliament in 1686 and 1687 allowed Chesterfield to remain in the country, where he continued a frequent correspondence with Halifax. Halifax continued to urge him to come to London whenever there was the hope (or threat) of another sitting of Parliament, but Chesterfield consistently declined, using the excuse in a letter of 24 July 1686 (with the meeting of 23 Nov. in the distance) that if such illustrious neighbouring protestant peers as Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland, Thomas Thynne*, earl of Weymouth and William Pierrepont*, 4th earl of Kingston, were not going to attend, as they had told him they were not, what good would his own presence do? Chesterfield was also sure that Parliament would be summoned at a time when people were so ‘incensed’ only so that the king could come up with a pretext to dissolve it and summon a more compliant one.<sup>63</sup> This sceptical stance towards James II’s policies led commentators throughout 1687 to regard Chesterfield as an opponent to the court, particularly regarding the repeal of the Test Acts.</p><p>It was this attitude that led Chesterfield’s old friend Danby to approach him in late September 1688 to recruit him to the group of midland and northern peers who were preparing for William of Orange’s planned descent. Chesterfield demurred, explaining that ‘I have ever had a natural aversion to the taking arms against my king, which the law justly terms designing the king’s death’. He agreed with Danby that the success of the venture was ‘certain’, but he was afraid that ‘a continual remorse and disquiet would attend my thoughts after such an action’ and he urged Danby to reconsider for the sake of his own conscience.<sup>64</sup> Despite his misgivings, Chesterfield did not reveal the details of the plot to the king or his ministers, so his loyalty to a king of whose policies he disapproved was limited.</p><p>He did not take part in the Revolution until Princess Anne arrived in the company of Henry Compton*, bishop of London in Nottingham, close to Chesterfield’s country seat of Bretby, on 2 December. Chesterfield, with his friend and neighbour Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, ‘and several worthy gentlemen’ went to Nottingham to offer their service to the princess and Chesterfield later assembled a body of above 100 horse to accompany her to Warwick. His rigid conscience and sense of duty as a privy councillor to the still-reigning monarch nevertheless limited his participation in the Revolution. He refused to take part in a council of war at Nottingham that would discuss raising troops that would be ostensibly opposed to the king’s own forces, a decision which the princess and the other peers attending her ‘called a tacit upbraiding them with rebellion’. Nor did he join in signing the ‘association’ calling for the punishment of all papists in England if one of them should kill William of Orange, arguing that ‘all associations were illegal except they were commanded or authorized by Parliament’. When Chesterfield and the princess arrived at Warwick on 12 Dec. they learned of James’s first attempted flight and Anne, deeming herself safe and probably tired of Chesterfield’s unhelpful professions of loyalty to her father and his uncomfortable reminders to her entourage of the disloyalty in which they were engaged, dismissed him from her service, which he gratefully accepted.<sup>65</sup></p><h2><em>Country peer under William III, 1689-1700</em></h2><p>Chesterfield set out for Westminster from Derbyshire in early January and was present at the Convention on its opening day, 22 Jan. 1689.<sup>66</sup> His audience with William boded well initially as the prince remembered Chesterfield fondly from his youth, and stated that the earl ‘was the man in the world who he remembered the longest, and therefore he would always look upon me as one of his family’.<sup>67</sup> Chesterfield’s unbending loyalty to the hereditary principle quickly got in the way of any favour he could expect from the prince as in the first month of the Convention—and he only attended its first 56 meetings until 18 Apr.—he supported a regency in the name of James II and consistently opposed William of Orange’s own claim to the throne. He was a manager for the three turbulent conferences on 4-6 Feb. 1689 regarding the wording of the vote that would determine the disposition of the crown. In these meetings, in the committee to draw up arguments to be presented in conference and in his own votes in the House he made clear his opposition to the Commons’ words that the king had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’. In his autobiographical account he claims that when,</p><blockquote><p>the question was put whether the prince of Orange should be elected king of England … I not only gave my negative, but often spoke against it, telling them and proving that there was no abdication, nor no vacancy in the throne, for the crown being hereditary the prince of Orange could not legally be elected king.<sup>68</sup></p></blockquote><p>In his memoirs Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, suggests that through a ‘conference of several hours’ he was responsible in part for confirming and strengthening ‘that most worthy lord and my good friend and kinsman the earl of Chesterfield’ in his ‘reasons why he could not enter into that resolution that the king had either abdicated or deserted’. When Chesterfield was called upon by the House to name the lord with whom he had consulted on this matter, he was ‘in great perplexity’, and Ailesbury, to remove Chesterfield from his embarrassment, volunteered himself as the responsible party.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Chesterfield’s involvement in these debates, however, was more ambiguous than he or even Ailesbury cared to remember for, although present in the House on 6 Feb. to be selected to take part in the conference on the word ‘abdicated’, he abstained on the crucial vote of that day in which the House finally accepted that term.<sup>70</sup> Even after this vote he was involved in conferences regarding the establishment of the new regime – on 8 Feb. on the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen and on 5 Mar. for the address pledging Parliament’s assistance to the king &ndash and in these he probably continued to stress fruitlessly his opposition to the legal basis of the deposition of James II. On 14 Mar. he was a teller in a division on whether to commit the comprehension bill to a committee of the whole, and a week later he entered his protest against the rejection of the clause repealing the sacramental test in the bill to abrogate the oaths. Between 8 and 17 Apr. he represented the House in three conferences concerning the bill to remove papists from the capital. His final stroke was assigning his proxy on 17 Apr. 1689 to one of the former king’s principal courtiers, the Tory earl of Mulgrave. This caused great consternation among many of his old friends who had themselves attained honours and positions in the new regime – Halifax (now lord privy seal), Danby (now marquess of Carmarthen) and Fauconberg (now earl of Fauconberg). To justify his choice to them Chesterfield argued that Mulgrave, apart from being a man of sense, was ‘a good courtier, and, by consequence, one who having much to be forgiven, would not return to oppose the present powers’ and finally, he was ‘a person who never loves to part with anything, and therefore would be sure to keep the privileges of the House of Lords, in a time when I thought they were likely to be invaded by the Commons’.<sup>71</sup></p><p>All this activity entailed that ‘the major part of the Convention were much offended with me’, but William himself still held out hope of bringing Chesterfield around and sent various delegates—first Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), then Fauconberg, then Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield—‘to tell me, that he forgave me what I had said in the Convention because he thought that I had no malice to his person’ and ‘to let [me], know how good an opinion he had of me, and how kind he intended to be to me’.<sup>72</sup> William’s regard for Chesterfield and his abilities must have been strong, for throughout 1689 he continued to offer the earl prominent posts in his government, all of which Chesterfield rejected. Halifax recorded in his notebook that Chesterfield had told him that ‘he was pressed to have some place at court, at King William’s first coming’ and that he had been offered the treasurership of the navy, which post Halifax told him was beneath his dignity.<sup>73</sup> William delegated Carmarthen, now lord president of the council, to offer Chesterfield a place on the new Privy Council or as gentleman of the bedchamber. Chesterfield turned both down, thus ending his tenure on the council, where he had sat since 1681.<sup>74</sup> In November 1689 the secretary of state Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, used Chesterfield’s uncle, Alexander Stanhope, recently appointed ambassador to Spain through Chesterfield’s interest, to convey the king’s wishes that Chesterfield would serve as plenipotentiary at the peace conference about to be convened at The Hague. Chesterfield excused himself owing to his age and illness, which made him incapable of a long winter’s journey. Almost immediately afterwards in December 1689, as rumours were swirling that Halifax would be removed as lord privy seal, Danby, on the advice of the king, approached Chesterfield to be the marquess’s replacement. The earl once again refused it on account of illness, age, and incapacity.<sup>75</sup> In February 1691 Carmarthen put forward Chesterfield’s name as a candidate for the difficult post of lord lieutenant of war-torn Ireland.<sup>76</sup> As late as 1695, Chesterfield recorded that the king, about to embark for the continent, ‘asked me publicly (when I took my leave of him) what he could do for me or my family’.<sup>77</sup> Chesterfield also stood high in James II’s estimation for his work in his defence in the Convention, and Chesterfield claimed that sometime in 1689 he, Weymouth, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and William Sancroft*, the non-juring archbishop of Canterbury, received commissions from the court of St Germain constituting them regents in England until the exiled king could reclaim his throne. Chesterfield, out of consideration of his own safety as well as political principle, was able to convince the other ‘regents’ that the commissions should be burned.<sup>78</sup></p><p>On 10 Jan. 1690 Chesterfield assigned his proxy to Halifax for the remainder of the second session of the Convention, which snub apparently angered his former proxy recipient Mulgrave. Chesterfield did not attend the House again until 16 Nov. 1691 and during this period of absence he took some offence from the repeated summonses to the House he received from the Speaker and from his own friends. His regular correspondence with Halifax throughout 1689-91 suggests that he did regularly visit the capital, without necessarily attending Parliament.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Chesterfield had returned to the House of Lords after his long absence in November 1691. His attendance of 68 per cent in the session of 1691-2 showed a renewed level of engagement with the House. He showed support for the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and signed the protest of 16 Feb. 1692 against the decision that proxies could not be used in the proceedings on the bill. Chesterfield’s attendance may have had something to do with the marriage in February 1692 of Chesterfield’s eldest son Philip Stanhope*, styled Lord Stanhope (later 3rd earl of Chesterfield), and Halifax’s daughter Lady Elizabeth Savile, which should have cemented Chesterfield’s long friendship with Halifax. For this marriage Chesterfield introduced a bill in the House on 19 Jan. 1692 which would allow him and the underage Stanhope to make settlements and a jointure. It was passed by the House only three days after its first reading and received the royal assent on 24 Feb. 1692. Chesterfield and Halifax were still conversing together about politics in the summer of 1692, according to Halifax’s notes of his conversations with his peers.<sup>80</sup> But this long friendship ended abruptly, and somewhat mysteriously, sometime in 1694 when Chesterfield, then in London, fell into an argument with Halifax at dinner, which concluded with Chesterfield angrily telling Halifax ‘that I had rather be a plain honest country gentleman than a cunning, false court knave’, after which ‘I never spoke more to his lordship nor he to me till his death which happened the next year’.<sup>81</sup> He was still on good enough terms with Halifax’s heir, William Savile*, who before his succession as 2nd marquess was styled Lord Eland, to ask him in November 1696 to convey his reasons for his absence to the House, after Chesterfield had received another peremptory order to attend the House for the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, with the threat of otherwise being brought to Westminster in custody.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Chesterfield had continued to be involved in Lords business in the session of 1692-3 following the marriage of his son, attending for 45 per cent of the sittings. He voted for reading the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill on 2 Jan. 1693 and about the same time was active in trying to get the place bill through the House, voting both for its commitment and its passage. Later he voted for the acquittal of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. He came to only one meeting during the sessions of 1693-4 and 1694-5, but this lack of interest changed in the winter of 1695-6. Chesterfield first sat in the House that session on 25 Nov. 1695. In the first week of January 1696 he represented the House in two conferences on the amendment to the bill for regulating silver coinage and on 24 Feb. 1696 was a manager for the conference on the address in response to the king’s speech in which he had given details of the failed assassination attempt.</p><p>This address led ultimately to the framing of the Association, but when it came time to affirm that he would sign it, Chesterfield ‘did absolutely refuse it, and gave reasons against it, after which several other lords refused it likewise’. Chesterfield successfully argued in the House against that part of the bill which stated that all those who refused to sign it should forfeit their hereditary offices, such as his own as warden of the chase of Thorny Woods, and he (by his own account) managed to have that clause thrown out. His objections were, however, more fundamental and ‘finding that his Majesty king William looked coldly upon me’, he presented to the king in person a memorandum of his several arguments against the Association. His central thrust was that another oath was not going to make William’s subjects more loyal, as long experience had shown that people would willingly take oaths to ‘the power that was predominant’, and just as quickly repudiate them with the advent of a new government. The constant imposing of new oaths, he argued, was a sign of weakness of a regime, ‘like new batteries to old walls, they were fain to be added to strengthen and support it only for a little time’. Loyal subjects were already bound by the oath of allegiance and a new Association was not going to make those who had already refused the previous oath bind themselves to William. It was instead more likely to make many of the ‘thousand sober and conscientious persons, who are desirous to live quietly under your government, provided that new oaths and Associations may not be imposed upon them contrary to their conscience … so uneasy that they will embrace any change of government’. Certainly Chesterfield himself felt that ‘I have already taken the oath of allegiance, and if that cannot bind me I am sure that no other oath will, but besides I have a greater aversion against the taking of solemn oaths, than many other men have’. He requested that if William insisted on his subscribing to the Association he would be able to leave to retire to a foreign country instead.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Chesterfield confirmed his opposition to the regime’s attempts to persecute followers of James II in the 1696-7 session when he opposed the attainder proceedings against Sir John Fenwick. On 15 Dec. 1696 he signed the protest against the resolution to hear the information of Charles Goodman and three days later he subscribed to the protest against the second reading of the attainder bill. He left the House on 22 Dec., thus avoiding the onus of voting on the passage of the attainder the following day and his name does not appear in the protest of that day. In February 1697 he further stood bail for £5,000 for the 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who had been imprisoned in the same sweep of Jacobites as Fenwick.<sup>84</sup> He came to only 18 sittings of the 1697-8 session, managed an attendance level of 53 per cent in 1698-9 and was in the House for one-fifth of the meetings in 1699-1700, his final session. His final days in the House were occupied with consideration of the controversial bill on the resumption of William’s Irish land forfeitures. Chesterfield was a manager for three conferences on this bill on the last day of the session, and his last day in the House, 10 Apr. 1700.</p><h2><em>Last years, 1700-14</em></h2><p>Chesterfield’s final years were preoccupied with his own illness and family matters. In early 1698 the 2nd earl’s daughter Mary married John Coke<sup>‡</sup> of Melbourne, Derbyshire, with a portion of £8,000.<sup>85</sup> In the many parliamentary elections thereafter Chesterfield put his territorial interest and reputation behind the election of his son-in-law for the county of Derbyshire. He also maintained his steady diet of news and opinion through his correspondence with Coke, from which it is clear that even after he had given up attending Parliament Chesterfield spent time each year in London and was even a frequent attender at court. He was able to give Coke advance warning of the election of December 1700, and news of the Swedes’ victory over the Russians, after having waited on William III at Kensington, while in November 1701 he complained that ‘I never saw the town at this time of the year so dull and so empty, but the return of his Majesty … will soon fill it with Parliament men’.<sup>86</sup> He recounted to his daughter Mary his audience with Anne on her accession, from which he came away with the opinion that ‘if her Majesty would have no favourites, but choose a wise council, and rely upon a Parliament, she might have so happy a reign as to eclipse that of Queen Elizabeth’.<sup>87</sup> Perhaps because of, or despite, his treatment of the queen when she was a fugitive princess in Nottingham in 1688, there were rumours in March 1702 that she would raise him to a duke.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Once again Chesterfield defeated any opportunity for favour from the Crown when he refused to take the abjuration oath, for the same reasons which had led him to object to the Association, and he asked the queen’s leave to retire into the country before her coronation.<sup>89</sup> This refusal put a definite end to Chesterfield’s political life. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, judging that the earl was ‘very subtle and cunning’, felt that his refusal to cooperate with ‘the measures of King William’ meant that he never would ‘make any great appearance in any other reign’.<sup>90</sup> A commentator in 1705 went so far as to term him a Jacobite. Chesterfield’s support throughout Anne’s reign for his cousin, the military leader General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> (later Earl Stanhope) and his joy at the news about Allied victories (at least in the early part of the war) belies this latter assessment.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Having complained for almost his whole adult life of constant illness, come near to death on several occasions, and seen three wives and several children die before him, Chesterfield managed to hang on to life until he was 80 years old, dying on 28 Jan. 1714. The last decade of his life had begun with the death of two of his adult children, Mary, wife of John Coke, and Charles, who in 1683 had changed his surname from Stanhope to Wotton in order to inherit the estate of his uncle, Chesterfield’s half-brother, Baron Wotton and earl of Bellamont [I].<sup>92</sup> At Charles Wotton’s death in 1704 that portion of the countess of Chesterfield’s estate that had been conveyed by testament in 1667 to Baron Wotton, the larger share of her estate including the grand house of Belsize Manor in Hampstead, passed to Chesterfield. With this enlarged estate Chesterfield revised his will on 17 Dec. 1713, giving extensively detailed bequests to his two surviving daughters and numerous grandchildren. The title and bulk of the estate went to his sickly and ‘extremely deaf’ son Philip, Lord Stanhope (whose own wife, Lady Elizabeth Savile, had recently died), the father of the more celebrated Philip Dormer Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Chesterfield.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
STANHOPE, Philip (1673-1726) |
<p><strong><surname>STANHOPE</surname></strong>, <strong>Philip</strong> (1673–1726)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Stanhope 1673-1714; <em>suc. </em>fa. 28 Jan. 1714 as 3rd earl of CHESTERFIELD |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Feb. 1673, 1st s. of Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield and 3rd w. Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1677), da. of Charles Dormer*, earl of Carnarvon. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 16 May 1691. <em>m</em>. lic. 24 Feb. 1692 (with £20,000),<sup>1</sup> Elizabeth (1674-1708), da. of George Savile*, mq. of Halifax, 5s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), another child <em>d.v.p</em>. <sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 2 Feb. 1726; <em>will</em> 30 Jan. 1725, pr. 5 Feb. 1726.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ranger, Thorny Wood Chase, Notts. 1714-<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Philip Stanhope, styled Lord Stanhope, inherited his father’s title and estate on the latter’s death on 28 Jan. 1714. Although eligible to sit in the House of Lords during the last two parliamentary sessions of the reign of Anne, he did not attend any of the sittings of 1714, nor any of those during the reign of her successor George I. As early as March 1703 he withdrew himself from public life, explaining to his brother-in-law Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup> that ‘my ill state of health and the unfortunate deafness that attends it ... must destroy all thoughts I can have of meddling with public business’.<sup>6</sup> In 1707 Lord Stanhope accompanied his father to the waters at Buxton Wells for his health, but shortly after he had to look further afield and in 1708-9 petitioned the queen to be allowed to travel on the Continent to take the Bourbon waters, ‘being under the greatest indisposition of health, with continual pains in his head, which tis believed by the physicians will turn to apoplexy if not prevented’<strong>.</strong><sup>7</sup></p><p>In his youth a political career in the upper echelons of the aristocracy stretched out before Lord Stanhope. He made an advantageous political match in 1692 when he married Lady Elizabeth Savile, the daughter of his father’s old friend, Halifax. A private act of Parliament which allowed the underage Stanhope to make a jointure and settlement for his prospective bride received the royal assent on 24 Feb. 1692 and the marriage licence was hurried through the same day. Lady Elizabeth brought a dowry of £20,000 with her, but the marriage was not a success and by November 1693 Lord Stanhope was complaining of his wife’s behaviour to his father-in-law.<sup>8</sup></p><p>By 1698 Stanhope was renting the unoccupied Bishop’s Palace in the precincts of Lichfield Cathedral and actively supported the Tory candidates in the elections of December 1700-May 1702 for that borough. He also exercised his father’s interest in Derbyshire to help his brother-in-law Thomas Coke in the election of January 1701, which Coke unexpectedly lost. He then tried to assist Coke to find an alternative seat, although he attempted to dissuade his father from pushing first Coke and then their cousin Colonel James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope, to stand for a Lichfield seat, arguing from his own experience that the interest of the borough’s sitting member was too strong.<sup>9</sup></p><p>His letters on the elections of 1701-2 largely confirm a comment recorded by Michael Maty, biographer of Lord Stanhope’s celebrated son Philip Dormer Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Chesterfield, that in his youth Stanhope was of ‘strong parts’ and that he was ‘a high Tory, if not a Jacobite’.<sup>10</sup> From 1703, though, Stanhope’s lingering illness and deafness incapacitated him from public life, and he appears to have spent the remainder of his life as a withdrawn invalid. In April 1713 Stanhope lamented to Colonel Stanhope that he could not help him at the upcoming election at Derby, for ‘a man who wants his hearing as much as I do can have but very few acquaintances either in town or country’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>By the time Stanhope became the 3rd earl of Chesterfield his wife had predeceased him by five years, leaving him four sons and two daughters. All four sons sat in Parliament, and his heir, Philip Dormer Stanhope, remains one of the most famous statesmen and writers of the eighteenth century. Lord Stanhope, as Philip Dormer Stanhope was styled from 1714 until his accession to the earldom, was largely raised by his grandmother, the dowager marchioness of Halifax. In later letters he denied that affection between parents and children was natural and insisted that it must be developed through kindness and consideration – suggesting that he had received little of either from his ailing father. The 3rd earl’s will of 30 Jan. 1725 bequeathing all his personal estate to his heir was terse and lacking in emotion. For his part Lord Stanhope showed little sign of grief at his father’s lingering illness and eventual death on 2 Feb. 1726.<sup>12</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
STANLEY, Charles (1628-72) |
<p><strong><surname>STANLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1628–72)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1642-51 Ld. Strange; <em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Oct. 1651 as 8th earl of DERBY |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 22 Apr. 1671 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 19 Jan. 1628, 1st s. of James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby, and Charlotte (<em>d</em>. 1664), da. of Claude de la Trémoille, duc de Thouars [France]; bro. of Edward<sup>‡</sup> and William Stanley<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. private tutor (Samuel Rutter) ?-1651.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 1650 Dorothea Helena (<em>d</em>. 6 Apr. 1703), da. of Jan van den Kerckhove, Ld. of Heenvliet [Dutch], 9s. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (3 d<em>.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 15 Oct. 1651 as Ld. of Man. <em>d</em>. 21 Dec. 1672; <em>admon</em>. 3 Oct. 1674 to wid.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. lt., Lancs. 1660-<em>d</em>., Cheshire (sole) 1660-62, (jt.) 1662-4, (sole) 1664-<em>d</em>.; chamb. co. palatine of Chester (jt) 1660-<em>d</em>.; forester, Macclesfield Forest, Cheshire 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> steward, Furness Liberty, Lancs. 1660-<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> v.-adm. Cheshire and Lancs. 1661-<em>d</em>; mayor, Chester 1668-9.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by E. Davis aft. A. Hanneman, 1650s, NPG D16538; mezzotint by A. Blooteling, 1660s-70s, NPG D1741.</p> |
<h2><em>Son of a royalist hero, 1651-60</em></h2><p>For those royalists disappointed by Charles II’s failure to reward them adequately after the Restoration, Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, became a talismanic figure. He had a distinguished royalist pedigree. His mother was a grand-daughter of William the Silent and niece to many of the leaders of the European Calvinist movement. She showed some of her grandfather’s martial spirit in her defence in her husband’s absence of Lathom House when besieged by Parliament in 1644 and in her initial haughty refusal to surrender the Isle of Man, over which the earls of Derby had a hereditary lordship, in 1651. Her husband, the 7th earl, was less militarily successful and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, who appears to have had a long-standing distaste for the Stanley family, felt that the royalist loss of Lancashire, where the earls of Derby were the leading noble family, was entirely his fault and ‘proceeded from want of conduct and of a vigorous and expert commander’.<sup>7</sup> The earl more than redeemed himself in royalists’ eyes by leaving the Isle of Man to join Charles II in his desperate invasion attempt in 1651, where after the defeat at Worcester he was captured, tried and condemned for treason in a show trial before a hastily-established court martial. He was executed at Bolton on 15 October. The 7th earl soon became, after Charles I himself, the best known and most lamented ‘martyr’ and his wife one of the foremost heroines of steadfast loyalty in the royalist pantheon. Their son the 8th earl further burnished his own and the family’s royalist credentials when he joined Sir George Booth*, later Baron Delamer, in his rising in Lancashire and Cheshire in August 1659. He was one of the last insurgents to be captured.<sup>8</sup> Upon his release from the Tower in February 1660 he wrote to the king expressing his devotion to him and desire to serve. John Barwick reported to Hyde that ‘all the gentry in those parts [Lancashire] … except those formerly in arms for the Parliament would willingly follow him [Derby]. … His reputation is now higher than ever because he was last in the field.’<sup>9</sup></p><p>The treatment of the earls of Derby in the memoirs of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, indicates the significance royalists placed on the fate of the 7th earl’s unfortunate heir. To Ailesbury the 7th earl and his countess were exemplars of ‘steady and generous and loyal conduct’. In the troubled time of rebellion the earl was ‘most barbarously murdered by a pretended court martial, his estate confiscated or rather sequestered and from that time to the king’s joyful and happy restoration that noble lady and children lived, as one may term it, on the charity of friends’. After the return of Charles II, Ailesbury described how the dowager countess ‘presented a bill to the Parliament for to be restored to those lands her lord was obliged to divest himself of by force’ which</p><blockquote><p>passed the two houses unanimously, and the Commons agreeing with the Lords, the whole house, save the Speaker and a few to attend him, went up with the bill to do it honour, and the king after having given his consent by the mouth of the Clerk to all save this, the Clerk pronounced Le Roy s’avisera, on which I have been told that the two houses fetched a deep sigh.</p></blockquote><p>In fact, it was Derby himself and not his mother who presented the bill, or rather bills, for the restoration of the estate. Also the subscription of a large number of peers to the protest against the House’s passage of this bill on 6 Feb. 1662 suggests that support for it was far from ‘unanimous’. Nevertheless, Ailesbury crystallizes those events which make the 8th earl of Derby important to the parliamentary history of the early Restoration as well as the royalist, and later Tory, gloss on them.<sup>10</sup> The numerous bills Derby introduced in Parliament in an attempt to retrieve the Stanley estates lost in the 1650s became a <em>cause célèbre</em> between 1660 and 1662 and brought to the fore many of the contentious issues surrounding the Restoration settlement and the peace hoped for after the civil wars.</p><p>The extensive Stanley estates were centred in southern Lancashire, formed around a nucleus of the manors of Knowsley and Lathom in the hundred of West Derby. They also had subsidiary estates in other regions, particularly Flintshire in Wales, which were to be of great importance. Derby spent most of the 1650s engaged in risky schemes to claw back these confiscated lands which the Commonwealth government had begun selling off in June 1651. He made arrangements with his agents, most often the existing tenants on his property who had the right of pre-emption of the confiscated lands, that they would purchase the land in trust for him until he was able to reimburse them. However, he was frequently unable to make the required repayments, and often in return for a further ‘consideration’ (sometimes equivalent to three years’ value of the land), he entered into legal agreements formally conveying the land to his trustees and recognizing their title to it. The earl evidently saw this as a short-term measure before he could use the money accumulated by these transactions to buy the property back. More often than not he was unable to do so, though, and thus found that he had been complicit in signing Stanley land over to others.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In his analysis of the peerage made to determine admission to the 1660 Convention, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, considered Derby one of those peers ‘with the king’. The committee of which Wharton was part, largely made up of Civil War Presbyterian peers, did not initially summon Derby to attend the House, but he was among those royalist peers who, with the forbearance of George Monck*, (later duke of Albemarle), were able to enter the House on 27 April.<sup>12</sup> Derby’s standing in the new political scene was also indicated by his presence among the king’s attendants at his entry into London on 29 May upon his return from exile.<sup>13</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention and Royalist Revenge, 1660</em></h2><p>Derby was absent for only 20 sittings throughout the entire Convention. His first significant involvement in the House’s proceedings was a confrontation with his redoubtable mother, who had never been reconciled to him since he had (as she considered) married beneath him and without her permission in 1650. Her petition against the Convention’s confirmation on 23 May of her son’s title as hereditary lord of the Isle of Man (‘Lord of Mann’) was referred on 6 June to the committee of petitions, which set about arranging an agreement to divide the revenue equally between mother and son for a period of 21 years. The earl however still had effective government of the island and sole right to appoint its officials.<sup>14</sup> On 9 June her petition to have Parliament exempt from the bill of indemnity those men who had sentenced her husband to death was referred to the committee for privileges, and on 6 Aug. Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, reported that the committee recommended that those who sat and gave judgment on the late earl should receive the punishment of the House.<sup>15</sup> The following day one of the earl’s judges, Colonel Thomas Croxton, was formally excepted from the indemnity bill, but on 25 Aug. Derby and Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, were the only two peers to sign a protest against the House’s resolution to concur with the Commons in their desire to lessen the penalties against Croxton.</p><p>Derby was most concerned to recover the estates lost in the 1650s and his legal advisers first tried to do this through provisos exempting him from the bill for confirmation of sales as on 10 May 1660, and later through a series of private bills.<sup>16</sup> On 13 June a bill for the recovery of his Flintshire estates of Hope, Mold and Hawarden was introduced in the House and referred to the committee of petitions.<sup>17</sup> Of all the sales of Derby’s lands these Flintshire estates were the most controversial and Derby perhaps saw this initial bill as a test case to gauge if he could proceed with claiming the remainder of his estate. Derby presented his case to repossess the estates in a long printed account.<sup>18</sup> That, and the extensive testimony given before the committee for petitions from 27 June to 12 July, set forth that in April 1652 the serjeant-at-law John Glynne<sup>‡</sup>, acting as broker, had overseen an agreement between Derby and a consortium of Commonwealth officials, led by Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup> of Trevalyn, whereby they would buy the Flintshire estates in trust for Derby who engaged himself to reimburse them within a year. Derby had been unable to make this payment and in late 1653, at Derby’s request, Serjeant Glynne agreed to act ostensibly as trustee and purchase Hawarden, for which he paid the former purchasers £9,000. The earl though was paid only £1,700 to enter into a legal confirmation of the conveyance of Hawarden to Glynne and the other estates to the consortium. Derby and his counsel claimed that Glynne and the other purchasers had used coercive and fraudulent means with both Derby’s tenants and the earl himself to force this disadvantageous transfer of property to go through. In their defence the purchasers insisted that Derby had willingly entered into the agreement and even asked them to buy the estates in trust for him. They warned the committee ‘if your lordships shake the security of all purchases the whole nation will be in an earthquake’.<sup>19</sup> This was to be the crux of the matter. On the same day, 14 July, when Pembroke reported from the committee that there had been ‘force and fraud’ in gaining the conveyances from Derby, the bill for the confirmation of judicial proceedings was given its first reading in the House. Realization of this bill’s potential conflicts with Derby’s led to the continuous postponement of further consideration of his case throughout late July and early August. Derby’s cause received a boost by an order of the House on 14 Aug. that restored to him and to his fellow royalist sufferer John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, all those estates which either of them had not conveyed away by law. It was perhaps because of this order that three days later the House finally gave Derby’s bill a second reading and committed it. This committee met from 21 to 27 Aug. and here Derby began to encounter more serious opposition among his peers, some of whom, such as William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele, had personal and familial connections with members of the purchasing consortium.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The bill seems to have stalled in committee, probably because it was quickly superseded when Derby, perhaps encouraged by the tenor of the order of 14 Aug. 1660, introduced a more general bill on 22 August. This aimed to preserve his right of action and entry into all of his father’s former estates and offered to repay, at 6 per cent interest, those whose title to the property the earl had confirmed, after deducting the value of the profits the purchasers had received in the intervening years. The following day, 23 Aug., this bill was given its second reading and committed to the same one as was considering his Flintshire estate bill.<sup>21</sup> On the 29th Derby’s bill to restore him to all the estates of his father passed the House. It was sent down to the Commons the following day but, probably owing to the press of business, was not further prosecuted before the summer recess. A bill to naturalize Derby’s Dutch wife Dorothea Helena also passed the House on the last day of August, only four days after having been first introduced. On 11 Sept. Derby dissented from a proviso devised by the House to concur with the Commons’ objections to recent amendments in the bill for confirming ministers. At the adjournment of Parliament for the summer two days later his wife’s naturalization bill received the royal assent while Derby’s own bill for the restoration of his estates was still stuck in the Commons. The Lords committee continued discussing Derby’s bill throughout the summer and in early September Derby’s claim to the manor of Gadsden in Hertfordshire, which had been part of a tangled inheritance dispute between William Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Derby, and his sister-in-law, the wife of Thomas Egerton<sup>†</sup>, Baron Ellesmere, was firmly quashed by the committee which upheld its possession by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, Ellesmere’s grandson.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Neither of Derby’s estate bills may have been passed by the summer recess but the House had handed to him a number of decisions which greatly helped his condition and belie his later complaints of poverty and neglect. On 21 and 23 May 1660 the House ordered that Derby was to retake possession of all of his father’s property which was then in the hands of regicides such as Henry Marten<sup>‡</sup>. On the same day as his bill for the Flintshire estates was first introduced, 13 June, he was formally put in possession of his lands which were still in sequestration and on 4 July another order of the House provided that Derby be supplied with all the relevant papers from the committee of sequestrations. On 29 June the House further gave him the right to search the premises of those suspected of having taken goods and papers from his family’s properties. Most importantly, orders of 16 July and 14 Aug. effectively put him into possession of those former lands ‘which he hath not passed away by any legal course of law’. <sup>23</sup> Derby was thus restored to a large portion of his real and personal estate, but a significant part, and one he felt keenly, was still barred to him by this proviso upholding those conveyances he had legally entered into and confirmed.</p><p>On their return from the summer recess the Commons had little time or inclination to deal with his bill and it does not appear to have received a second reading before the dissolution of the Convention at the end of the year. On 21 Dec. 1660 Derby submitted a petition for the hereditary office of lord great chamberlain, claiming to be through his grandmother the proper heir general of the de Vere earls of Oxford, against the competing claims of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford.<sup>24</sup> The House postponed the consideration of this matter to the next Parliament. Derby’s petition consequently came before the House again on 15 June 1661, but his claim to the great chamberlaincy dropped quickly from the Journal while that of the earl of Oxford came to a head in July.<sup>25</sup> At that time it was forecast that Derby would, understandably, support Oxford’s case against that of their mutual rival, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, the current holder of the office.</p><h2><em>Estate bill and veto, 1661-2</em></h2><p>Derby’s principal concern remained regaining his estate, so he had good cause to attend the first session of the Cavalier Parliament assiduously. His attendance level during the session stood at 93 per cent. When not overseeing his own bills he was nominated to 53 select committees, exactly half of those established on his days of attendance. He was also active in the sub-committee for the Journal, frequently signing his approval to the record of the House’s proceedings. Particularly in the winter of 1661-2 he chaired select committees on private legislation and during 13-25 Mar. 1662 he reported three bills from committee.<sup>26</sup> On 17 May he reported from a conference on the bill to prevent thefts on the northern borders and two days later entered his protest against the House’s resolution to agree with the Commons in dropping two of the amendments from the highways bill, which the lower chamber had objected to because they considered the measure a money bill.</p><p>His own bill for restoring him to all his father’s estates, lost at the dissolution, was reintroduced in the House on 24 May 1661 and when it came up for a second reading on 5 June it already faced a petition against it from Sir John Trevor. The committee of 26 members appointed on 7 June to consider the bill was first assigned to determine whether the bill infringed the provisions of the recently-passed Act for Confirmation of Judicial Proceedings and Act of Indemnity. Pembroke reported to the House on 15 June that both the judges assisting and the committee itself considered that the bill did not contravene those acts.<sup>27</sup> On 18 June the House was inundated with petitions from the purchasers of Derby’s land against the bill and these were referred to the committee, which considered them in detail two days later. By this time the tide of sympathy was beginning to turn against Derby. The petitioners argued that they had bought their property with Derby’s consent, acting as his trustees and agents, and in many cases had paid him up to three years’ value of the land to have their titles confirmed. Furthermore they pointed out that in the intervening time many of them had already sold their property to other people and that nowhere in his bill did Derby propose how he would raise the money, and interest, to redeem the properties. Derby’s counsel trotted out their usual arguments, that the earl’s conveyance of his property was ‘not a free act, but [done] when reduced for his allegiance to greater straits’. The committee began to waver, inserted various provisos put forward by purchasers and decided to leave it to the House to determine whether Derby should be relieved, as the committee could now find ‘no fraud or force’ in the majority of these transactions. However they did draw an exception with the consortium’s purchase of the Flintshire estates, ‘by reason of the undue practices which seem to be in the case’ and they felt the matter should be heard at the bar. On 26 June this report was made to the House and, after some delays, counsel for both Derby and the purchasers were heard on 6 July. Opposition, both from the purchasers and from members of the House, to this attempt to overturn mutually agreed legal contracts was too strong, and on 16 July it was ordered that further consideration of Derby’s case would not be heard until after the summer recess. In the meantime those purchasers of Derby’s lands who had been expelled by any previous act of Parliament or who had had their rent suspended were allowed to take possession of their properties pending the determination of the case.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Derby must have realized that his general bill for the restoration of his estates was unlikely to succeed in the current climate. He took advantage, therefore, of the only glimmer of hope the committee had provided him – the Flintshire estates and ‘the undue practices’ detected in their purchase. He proceeded no further with the general bill and on 10 Dec. introduced a revised bill for the recovery of Mold and Hope (no longer claiming Hawarden from Glynne, which even his supporters had told him was a lost cause), in which he offered to repay the consortium for the purchase of the estate with interest. The case was heard before the House early in the new year before the bill was committed on 13 Jan. 1662. Fifteen days later James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, reported with amendments to the bill.<sup>29</sup> It was read for its third time on 6 Feb. and remained controversial, for the House was forced to divide. The bill barely passed by a majority of five votes. The votes of those present in the House were 40 for the bill and 32 against. The eventual total (with proxies) was 42 contents and 37 not contents. The manuscript minutes for proceedings this day suggest that all those peers present and voting against the bill then signed a protest against it.<sup>30</sup> They professed themselves disturbed because ‘we cannot look upon this but as a breach of the Act of Judicial Proceedings’, as the conveyances of the estate had been made good by law during the Interregnum and it was ‘no less than a trenching of the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion’ as it appeared that Derby was relying solely on the status of the purchasers as former Parliamentarians to win the argument in his favour.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Despite this energetic protest from a wide spectrum of religious and political views in the House, perhaps momentarily united in a wish not to see the indemnity promised by the Restoration settlement overturned, the bill was passed and sent to the Commons where on 17 Feb. a committee was appointed to examine it. After the case had been argued, both in committee and then before the bar, on 17 Mar. the Commons passed the bill with two amendments. It was then returned to the Lords once more. Derby himself petitioned the king for his assent to the bill. He pointed out that ‘many acts more contrary to actual law have passed unopposed and no bishop and only six members of the House of Commons voted against it’. The king and his ministers, though, were also faced with counter-petitions from the likes of James Fiennes*, later 2nd Viscount Saye and Sele, whose daughter was married to one of the purchasers and even had the manor of Mold as her jointure.<sup>32</sup> On 19 May the last day of the session, Derby’s bill was put before the king for the royal assent, but it was one of only two bills to be vetoed that day. Lord Chancellor Clarendon insisted in his final speech, ‘you cannot imagine [the veto] proceeds from his Majesty’s want of care and kindness to that noble family which hath served him so faithfully and suffered so much for so doing’. Ailesbury blamed Clarendon directly for the failure of the bill. He suspected the lord chancellor of having an animus towards the whole Stanley family and of favouring the claims of men such as Glynne and Trevor, as his ‘maxim in general was, and such he gave as advice, that his Majesty must reward his enemies to sweeten them, for that his friends were so by a settled principle, and that their loyalty could not be shaken’. Certainly, Glynne owed his promotion since the Restoration to Clarendon’s patronage. <sup>33</sup></p><p>The veto was a bitter blow, made worse by the failure of the king’s attempts to, as Clarendon had promised in his speech, ‘make a better end for that noble earl than he would attain if the bill had passed’. Admittedly Derby’s ensuing petition was referred in June 1662 to Clarendon, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor, and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury—all listed as opponents of the original bill—to act as arbitrators between Derby and the purchasers. In July 1663 they arranged a settlement. By this the earl was to recover Hope and Mold by paying £11,000 in one lump sum by the end of March 1664. After Derby, according to the mediators, ‘having done nothing to the performance thereof’ failed to meet this deadline, the king acceded to the purchasers’ request and agreed to discharge the reference ‘that they may hereafter quietly enjoy the lands they have purchased’. At about the same time Derby tried another tack, arguing before the courts that as the Derby estates were entailed they should have reverted to him upon his father’s death. Derby and his solicitors had already received legal advice on this point in 1657. They sought the opinion of Sir Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup> again in 1663, when the attorney-general opined that as more than five years had elapsed since the 7th earl’s death it was too late for Derby to make this claim, but that his own heir would be able to sue for the entailed estates on this basis (as appears later to have happened).<sup>34</sup> Nevertheless, despite these defeats in Parliament, Privy Council and the courts, the parliamentary orders granted to Derby of 23 May, 13 June, 16 July and 14 Aug. 1660 did allow him to reclaim a significant part of the former estate which had been in the hands of regicides or whose sale he had not legally confirmed. In addition he used these orders to repossess property at Burscough and Ormskirk. Despite the frequent petitions and claims of the new owners that these lands had been legally conveyed to them, neither Parliament nor the crown took any action against Derby. He remained litigious and used the courts to try to recover other properties, particularly the lands granted to the Stanleys in the Forest of Macclesfield. He was also able to buy back some of his former property from the purchasers, including Argood Hall in the contested manor of Mold. By the end of his life he was able to lease the old Derby manors of Bury, Pilkington, Weeton, Sowerby Magna, Sowerby Parva, Skelmersdale, Thirsk and Kirkby Malzard (the latter two in Yorkshire), in order to raise a marriage portion for his daughter Charlotte: all of them were manors reported to have been sold by the commissioners at Drury House in the 1650s.<sup>35</sup> In the early 1660s he was still in a position to bid for a lease of 12,000 acres of reclaimed fenlands in the Isle of Ely from the land drainage scheme of William Russell*, 5th earl, later duke, of Bedford, (another signatory of the protest).<sup>36</sup></p><h2><em>Friction with the king, 1662-3</em></h2><p>By July 1663 relations between Derby and the king were at breaking point: over the veto, the ineffectual attempts at outside arbitration, and over Charles II’s opposition to much of what Derby was doing in his role as local governor of the north-western counties and Isle of Man. In addition to the lieutenancies of Lancashire and Cheshire to which he had been appointed in 1660, Derby held a number of local offices traditionally held by the Stanleys, including that of chamberlain of the exchequer of the county palatine of Chester, which he held jointly with his heir, William Stanley*, styled Lord Strange, later 9th earl of Derby.<sup>37</sup> He concentrated on using these local responsibilities to maintain, as he saw it, order and loyalty. He did this by rigidly imposing Anglican uniformity and eradicating the last vestiges of ‘Presbyterian’ and ‘republican’ disloyalty in the areas under his influence. Both as lord lieutenant and the pre-eminent noble of Lancashire he exercised a formidable electoral influence, both for the county and for numerous boroughs such as Liverpool, Preston and Wigan. The Stanley interest was evident in the election of Derby’s younger brothers Edward as knight of the shire in 1661 and William as burgess for Liverpool in both 1660 and 1661. William had also been returned to the Convention for Thirsk, in North Yorkshire, where Derby was lord of the manor, but when William chose to take his Liverpool seat Derby was able to replace him with his cousin Charles Kerr<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Ancram [S]. Derby then oversaw the election of Ancram for the Lancashire borough of Wigan in 1661.</p><p>Throughout late 1662 and 1663 the king and secretaries of state constantly upbraided Derby for his management of the lieutenancies of Lancashire and Cheshire. As a commissioner of the Corporation Act in Lancashire Derby proposed in October 1662 sweeping purges of local corporations that went well beyond the conditions of the Act. He suggested that all those who had stood against the king, regardless of whether they were now willing to take the requisite oaths, should be turned out of office. In Cheshire, Derby refused to co-operate with William Brereton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Baron Brereton [I], his co-lieutenant there from 1662. The earl was eventually summoned to London to account for his actions. Neither did the king approve of Derby’s choice of three deputies in Lancashire. He suggested others, which Derby judged to be ‘the only examples of any recommendation of persons against the inclination of the lord lieutenant’. At the same time Derby tried to effect the omission of two deputy lieutenants there who represented two of the leading county families. Derby considered Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup> and Colonel Richard Kirkby<sup>‡</sup> to be too lenient towards Catholics and Protestant nonconformists respectively; certainly Kirkby opposed Derby’s uncompromising stance on the corporations. In October 1662 Derby complained to Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, that these two men were trying to undermine his position among the Lancashire gentry and that they had conspired in 1660 to secure the appointment of Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, later earl of Macclesfield, based at Halsall, as lord lieutenant of the county. Gerard, a renowned royalist general in the Civil War, was an obvious rival and Kirkby and others continued to look upon him as a competitor for Derby’s local influence. Bradshaigh’s disaffection especially galled him, as he had been a childhood friend, raised with him by the 7th earl on the Isle of Man. Derby insisted, besides, that Bradshaigh owed his selection as knight of the shire in 1660 and 1661 entirely to his interest. <sup>38</sup></p><p>Most serious in further souring relations between Derby and the king was the treatment meted out to William Christian by the earl in his role as Lord of Man. Christian, who had led the revolt against the countess of Derby on the island and had helped deliver it to Commonwealth forces in 1651, dared to return there in 1662, confident that he was protected by the Act of Indemnity. Derby excepted him from his own general pardon for the island, charged him with treason and had him tried and found guilty by a packed local court. The Privy Council in Westminster, in considering a petition from Christian, determined on 12 Jan. 1663 that he should be reprieved and released from prison to attend the council. They were too late. The earl had already taken decisive action and had Christian shot by firing squad on 2 Jan. before the order from the council had been received. Derby and his officers were summoned to court to explain their actions. Derby in his defence claimed that the writ of the Act of Indemnity did not extend to Man, as the island had never been ‘taken anciently as a part of England (though in homage and subjection to it)’. The king and council, intent on seeing the act implemented and wary of the regional power of over-mighty nobles with putative independent jurisdictions such as Derby, were determined to put him in his place. The council insisted that the Act of Indemnity extended to England’s dependent territories as well. To humiliate Derby further, they made public their order of July 1663. They dismissed each of Derby’s specious arguments, punished Christian’s judges and compensated his widow and children (Derby himself was left untouched).<sup>39</sup> In 1670 the Privy Council heard further complaints of inhabitants of the Isle of Man against Derby’s administration, but on this occasion Derby too turned to the council for his defence.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Hearings before the council over the Christian affair took place in the summer of 1663 and Derby appears to have taken the opportunity to attend 44 per cent of the sittings of the 1663 session of Parliament, where he was named to only five select committees, a fifth of those established during his days of attendance. Here his disgruntlement with his treatment by Charles II, and more particularly by the king’s principal advisor Clarendon, came to a head. Wharton predicted (surprisingly) that Derby would oppose the attempt of George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon in July, just at the time when the council was handing down its judgment in the Christian affair. Wharton’s predictions were in many cases inaccurate. Thomas Salusbury, a newsletter writer for the young Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, who later drew up a list of opponents of Derby’s bill, more plausibly suggested that Derby, ‘now persecuted for life and estate’ was one of Clarendon’s fiercest enemies and sided with Bristol to achieve the lord chancellor’s downfall.<sup>41</sup> Derby emphasized his commitment to a rigidly conformist Church of England through his protest against the resolution of 25 July to add a clause to the Act of Uniformity that limited its declarations and subscriptions ‘solely’ to outward practice and obedience to the act. He thought this a diminution of their force which was ‘destructive to the Church of England as now established’.</p><p>After the prorogation of this session, Derby effectively dropped out of national politics, embittered by the crown’s poor treatment of himself and his beloved Church. He did not appear in the House at all after 27 July 1663 until 23 Feb. 1671. Neither did he ever delegate his vote through a proxy during these long years of absence.</p><h2><em>Absent from the House, 1663-71</em></h2><p>Throughout his career outside of Parliament Derby showed the same zeal for the Church of England and Anglican conformity as he did in his protest of 25 July. He was patron of the high churchman Isaac Barrow*, later bishop of St Asaph, and ensured he was consecrated bishop of Sodor and Man in July 1663. In April 1664 he appointed Barrow governor of the island in his absence, and the bishop energetically built up the Anglican infrastructure of well-funded rectories and schools.<sup>42</sup> Derby wrote works of theological polemic, one of which, first published in 1669, consisted of two separate dialogues: &lsquoA Dialogue between Orthodox, a Royalist, and Cacodaemon, one Popishly affected’; and ‘Truth Triumphant: in a Dialogue between a Papist and a Quaker: Wherein (I suppose) it is made manifest that Quaking is the offspring of Popery’.<sup>43</sup> Through these dialogues he sniped at both extremes in the English religious divide. He may have felt particularly impelled to argue against both Catholics and radical Protestants because he was lieutenant of a county fiercely divided in its religious adherence and with strong and vociferous pockets of both extremes of nonconformity.</p><p>In his absence, on 26 Feb. 1670 Derby’s agents presented to the House a case of breach of his privilege. The Lords ordered the arrest of the plaintiff and her lawyer who had ordered the arrest of one of Derby’s menial servants. Exactly a month later they were discharged upon their petition. They claimed ignorance of the earl’s privilege and submitted themselves to his and the House’s mercy. Derby himself returned to the House, for the first time in over seven years, on 23 Feb. 1671. He proceeded to attend 45 meetings during the final weeks of the long session of 1670-1. After his long absence he was appointed to 20 committees, two-thirds of those established when he was present, a higher percentage than ever before, and he subscribed his name to the draft minutes of the Journal for 31 Mar. and 11 and 15 April. It was a long-standing legal dispute which finally prompted Derby’s return to the capital and to the House. In 1665 his brother-in-law John Murray, 2nd earl (later marquess) of Atholl [S] had submitted a bill in chancery to compel Derby to pay the marriage portion of his sister Lady Amelia-Sophie Stanley, countess of Atholl, as he had agreed to do by special articles drawn up between him, his mother and Atholl in 1660. Since that time Derby had successfully escaped proceedings by claiming privilege, but during the interval of Parliament in 1671-2 the cause was heard in chancery. Atholl was awarded a decree for £6,411, for which payment a portion of Derby’s surviving estate was to be sequestered.<sup>44</sup> The year 1665 also saw the arrangement of another Stanley marriage alliance that would turn sour, with ramifications for the next several decades. In that year Derby negotiated with the Cheshire peer Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers, for a marriage between Rivers’ heir Thomas Savage, styled Viscount Colchester, and Derby’s eldest child, Charlotte Henrietta. After it had been agreed that Derby would pay a portion of £8,000 while Rivers would settle lands on the couple, the marriage was solemnized in February 1666. Rivers however was not able to settle the expected lands, which led Derby to withhold payment of the portion for several years.<sup>45</sup></p><p>In late November 1672 there were reports of Derby’s brief recovery from an illness, but with ‘no great confidence of the continuance’. His death, intestate, on 21 Dec., left his many legal disputes unresolved. His widow was not granted administration of his estate until 3 Oct. 1674.<sup>46</sup> It was estimated that at his death his estate had a revenue of £4,212 p.a., out of which were to be paid annuities of £600 to his widow, £140 to his second son Robert (later killed in a duel in 1686), and £100 to each of his two youngest sons; £5,150 of his daughter Charlotte’s portion was yet to be paid. <sup>47</sup> The title and remaining Stanley lands – as well as Derby’s many outstanding legal wrangles with Atholl, Rivers and others – were passed on to his eldest surviving son, who succeeded as 9th earl of Derby, and who was still a minor at the time of his succession. Derby’s greatest legacy to his heirs may have been the legal quagmires he had entered in his attempts to recover the family’s estate after the sales of the 1650s – as well as a deep and abiding resentment and anger over Charles II’s unwillingness to restore them to what they saw as their proper standing in English society.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
STANLEY, James (1664-1736) |
<p><strong><surname>STANLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1664–1736)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 5 Nov. 1702 as 10th earl of DERBY. |
|
First sat 26 Nov. 1702; last sat 28 Jan. 1720 |
|
MP Clitheroe 1685, Preston 1689, Lancs. 1690, 1695, 1698, 1701 (Jan.), 1701 (Dec.), 1702-5 Nov. 1702. |
<p><em>b</em>. 3 July 1664, 8th but 3rd surv. s. of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, and Dorothea Helena (<em>d</em>. 6 Apr. 1703), da. of Jan van den Kerckhove, Ld. of Heenvliet [Dutch]; bro. of Charles Zedenno<sup>‡</sup> and William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby. <em>educ.</em> St Paul's Sch.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. Feb. 1705 (with £50,000-60,000)<sup>2</sup> Mary (1667-1752), da. and h. of Sir William Morley<sup>‡</sup>, of Halnaker, Suss., 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. <sup>3</sup> <em>suc</em>. bro. 5 Nov. 1702 as Ld. of Man; gt.-niece 8 Aug. 1732 as Bar. Strange. <em>d</em>. 1 Feb. 1736; <em>will</em> 20 Dec. 1735, pr. 19 Feb. 1736.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of bedchamber 1689-1702; chan., duchy of Lancaster 1706-10; PC 10 June 1706-<em>d</em>.; capt., yeomen of gd. 1715-23.</p><p>Ranger, Quernmore, Mierscough, Amounderness, Bleasdale, Wyersdale (the ‘five forests’), Lancs. 1694-1710, Furness, Lancs. 1702-<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> ld. lt., Lancs. 1702-10, 1714-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>., Lancs. 1702-10, 1714-<em>d</em>.;<sup>6</sup> v.-adm., Lancs. and Cheshire 1702-12; chamb., cty palatine of Chester 1702-<em>d</em>.; mayor, Liverpool 1707-8, 1734-5.</p><p>Capt., earl of Pembroke's regt. of ft. (Dutch establishment) 1686-9, 1st Ft. Gds. 1689-92; col., 16th regt. of ft. 1692-1705; brig.-gen. 1702-4; maj.-gen. 1704-5.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: etching by P. Pelham, aft. Hamlet Winstanley, 1725-6, NPG D20121.</p> |
<h2><em>Member for Lancashire, 1689-1702</em></h2><p>James Stanley was the penultimate son of the large brood of 14 children born to the 8th earl of Derby and his Dutch wife. He was elected to the Commons underage in 1685 but soon turned to a military career and from 1686 relied on his mother’s Dutch connections to find service in one of the British regiments fighting on behalf of the Dutch Republic. He thus began his connection with the Prince of Orange, whom he accompanied on his invasion of England, and rose quickly in William’s favour once they had settled in England. Stanley was appointed a groom of the bedchamber in William’s new court and continued his progress in army circles with a commission as captain in the 1st Foot Guards. In 1692 he was promoted to a colonelcy. He was wounded and wrongly reported killed, commanding his regiment at the battle of Landen the following year. In 1695 he took part in the siege of Namur.<sup>7</sup> Although a family retainer felt that Stanley’s ‘shy and reserved humour sticks so close to him that I believe he will befriend but few’, he was to retain high favour at court throughout the 1690s. His reputation even survived the fire that started in his chambers in January 1698, which eventually burnt down Whitehall palace. Presumably he was the Colonel Stanley who was dispatched by William III to England in August 1700 to express his condolences to Princess Anne for the loss of the duke of Gloucester.<sup>8</sup> Stanley thus stood in stark contrast to his elder brother, the 9th earl of Derby, whose hesitation in joining William in November 1688 was to cost him much influence at court.</p><p>Stanley was consistently placed on the Lancashire commission of the peace from 1689, and elected as knight of the shire for the county in every Parliament of William III’s reign.<sup>9</sup> In the Commons he consistently sided with the Whigs, which increasingly put him at odds with his brother Derby, who in the 1690s became the leader of the beleaguered Tories in the county as a result of his own exclusion from local office and government. By the late 1690s Derby was embittered by his continual political ostracism. He blamed his Whiggish brother in part for his continual lack of success, especially as he felt that Stanley had not exerted himself sufficiently in pressing the earl's case at court to be restored to the lord lieutenancy of Lancashire and Cheshire.<sup>10</sup> Matters turned worse for Derby in October 1699 when his heir apparent James Stanley, styled Lord Strange, died of smallpox while travelling on a tour of Europe. Derby’s next younger brother having also predeceased him in 1686, he was faced with the unpalatable prospect of his Whig brother James as his successor. He bitterly opposed Stanley’s standing again in the two elections of 1701 and unsuccessfully campaigned both times to have him unseated.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Stanley was made brigadier-general in March 1702 in preparation for the inevitable renewed war with France and was once again returned as knight of the shire in August for Anne’s first Parliament. After the death of the lord lieutenant of Lancashire, Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, in November 1701 and of his younger, and more ineffectual, brother Fitton Gerard*, 3rd earl of Macclesfield, in December 1702 Stanley became the leader of the Whig interest in Lancashire. He was thought far more moderate and acceptable than the controversial earls of Macclesfield. His brother Derby’s fortunes also initially changed for the better under Anne’s new Tory government as he was reinstated in his posts as lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Lancashire in June 1702 and quickly also sued to replace his brother as ranger of the five forests.<sup>12</sup> The fluid situation of 1702 changed again with Derby’s own death on 5 Nov. whereupon Stanley succeeded as 10th earl of Derby.</p><h2><em>Anne’s first Parliament, 1702-5</em></h2><p>The new earl first took his seat in the House on 26 Nov. 1702, one month into the session, and continued to sit in another 31 meetings. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, expected Derby to side with the Whigs against the occasional conformity bill, but he appears to have absented himself from the divisions on the ‘wrecking’ amendments on 16 Jan. 1703, although he is marked as present in the House on that day. When the bill came before the House again in the following session Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, included Derby among those peers 'good to be depended upon … that were absent' and this time Derby did vote against it on 14 December. He was present for 56 per cent of meetings in the session of 1703-4. Late in the session, on 24 Mar. 1704, he joined the Whigs in the campaign against Nottingham by protesting against the House’s resolution not to examine more thoroughly the inconsistencies in the testimony of Sir John Maclean, as recorded by the secretary of state. He came to a little over two-fifths of the meetings of 1704-5 but his activities, as recorded in the Journal, appear to have been limited to being nominated to select committees.</p><p>Macky noted that, ‘On his brother’s death [Derby] came to the House of Peers where he never will make any figure, the sword being more his profession’. His alignment with the Whigs caused Jonathan Swift later to annotate Macky’s character sketch with the comment, ‘As arrant a scoundrel as his brother’.<sup>13</sup> Macky was right for the first years of Anne's reign, during which he was principally seen as a military man. John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, appears to have thought highly of him and was eager to promote him to be a major-general of infantry, which commission was signed in June 1704, though backdated to the first of that year. In February 1705 Derby contracted an extremely lucrative marriage to Mary, the sole daughter and heiress of Sir William Morley. She brought with her to the marriage a substantial portion as well as the Halnaker estate in Sussex.<sup>14</sup> This marriage, and the fortune it brought with it, gave Derby more financial security in the midst of a long-running and acrimonious dispute with his sister-in-law Elizabeth, countess dowager of Derby, sister of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, and his nieces, Elizabeth and Henrietta Stanley, over the division of the 9th earl’s estate. The late earl’s daughters claimed various parts of the estate as heirs general to their father. The Stanley barony of Strange had also fallen into abeyance between them. Derby meanwhile claimed much of the property as heir in tail male. Both sides employed an army of lawyers to weigh the validity of the various claims and the dispute went on for several years. It was frequently complicated whenever Henrietta’s two husbands in succession, John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, (from 1706 to 1710) and John Ashburnham*, 3rd Baron Ashburnham, (from 1714 to Henrietta’s death in 1718) became involved and tried to resuscitate her claims.<sup>15</sup> At the same time Derby had to fight frequent legal battles with Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, over lands in Essex settled in trust on the 9th earl and his successors to raise a portion of £10,000 for Charlotte Savage, the late daughter of Derby’s elder sister Charlotte and River’s elder brother Thomas Savage, styled Viscount Colchester) who had died in 1680.<sup>16</sup> Secure in his new wife’s wealth, preoccupied with his legal battles, and perhaps bolstered by rumours circulating that he was about to be made either chancellor of the exchequer or chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, in March 1705 Derby resigned his military commissions. He retired to a comfortable civilian life divided between his wife’s Sussex estates and his house at Knowsley in Lancashire, which he had been able to wrest away from his nieces.<sup>17</sup></p><p>He continued active in Lancashire affairs, however, for in late December 1702 he had been appointed lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Lancashire and vice-admiral of the coasts of Lancashire and Cheshire. Unlike his two predecessors in the earldom he was not given the joint lieutenancy of Lancashire and Cheshire, but did take over the Stanleys' traditional office of chamberlain of the county palatine of Chester. He was closely concerned with the politics of Liverpool, located near the heart of the Stanley estates, throughout his career. In the first years of Anne’s reign, Thomas Johnson<sup>‡</sup> (member for Liverpool) tried to recruit Derby's help in his campaign to persuade the crown to lease Liverpool Castle and its surrounding grounds to the corporation, but found the earl insufficiently energetic, 'for he often talks of things, but is a long time before he does it'. By January 1703, however, Johnson was writing 'truly we are much obliged to him [the earl]' concerning the castle and its lease.<sup>18</sup> As lord lieutenant, Derby tried to exercise his interest in the elections for the county of Lancashire, but he received an early rude shock revealing the limits of his power in the elections of 1705. The Tory Richard Shuttleworth<sup>‡</sup> set himself up as an independent opposed to Derby's candidates, Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. and the earl's younger brother Charles Zedenno Stanley, the sitting member for Preston. While Bradshaigh wrote confidently that 'I find most gentlemen will be determined as my Lord Derby recommends', the Tory gentry resented Derby's attempt to choose both members for the county. Before the election it was asserted that there would be 'a strong poll betwixt Sir Roger Bradshaigh and Mr Shuttleworth' and that 'all the gentlemen' were for Shuttleworth. Derby and his followers in desperation resorted to underhand means to get the result they wished. Stanley and Bradshaigh tried to deceive Shuttleworth and his followers about the date on which the election was to be held and almost succeeded in having the sheriff at Lancaster declare him and Bradshaigh elected before a supporter of Shuttleworth heard of this ruse and demanded a poll. A Tory, Sir John Bland<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt., condemned Stanley's 'ungentlemanlike' behaviour and felt that the election, in which Shuttleworth came well at the head, followed by Stanley and then Bradshaigh a distant third, proved that 'Lord Derby has not that interest as is represented above and his haughty treatment of all the gentlemen will never be forgot'.<sup>19</sup></p><h2><em>A moderate with the resurgent Whigs, 1705-10</em></h2><p>Derby attended 56 per cent of the meetings of the first session of 1705-6. An analysis of the peerage drawn up before the elections marked him as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession and he was involved in discussions on the Whigs' regency bill, which sought to secure that succession at the queen's death. He was named a manager and committee member between 7 and 19 Feb. 1706 for handling the dispute with the Commons over the 'place clause' to exclude office-holders from Parliament which they had inserted in the bill. Throughout 1706 the Junto Whigs became increasingly clamorous for entry into government. Marlborough appears to have put forward Derby as a candidate who it was thought would both placate the Junto and be acceptable to himself and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin. In April, though, Godolphin informed Marlborough that the Junto leaders had only reluctantly agreed 'for the earl of Derby to have what you desired for him', the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster in place of the Tory John Leveson Gower*, Baron Gower.<sup>20</sup> On 1 June Derby was formally appointed chancellor of the duchy, and a few days later, as an adjunct to his new position, was sworn a privy councillor. Perhaps as confirmation of the Junto's suspicion of his lack of partisan zeal, his first commission of the peace for Lancashire, sealed on 30 July 1706, contained a few prominent local Whigs, but by no means consisted of a purge of the sitting Tory bench.<sup>21</sup> This was complained of in a paper written up in 1708-9 concerning 'the present neglect and mismanagement in the duchy of Lancaster' under Derby's administration, which appears to have been written from a Whig point of view. It stated that:</p><blockquote><p>The present chancellor before he was so appointed, complained that though he was lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Lancashire, he had not the power of recommending any one person to be put in the commission of the peace. Since he hath had the power he desired, he hath made little alteration, and some added by him are of the meanest characters and fortunes.</p></blockquote><p>The paper went on to criticize Derby for failing to make a clean sweep of Gower's officials when he took office. The Tory Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, was retained as steward of Monmouthshire, despite the appeals of the country Whig John Morgan<sup>‡</sup> for that position usually reserved to his family.<sup>22</sup> Derby also risked the ire of Whig firebrands by appointing as his vice-chancellor the able Tory George Kenyon<sup>‡</sup>, son of the late clerk of the peace for Lancashire Roger Kenyon<sup>‡</sup>, who had been such a close ally and help to the previous earl in the 1690s.<sup>23</sup> Both Derby and Kenyon compromised their standing with more zealous members of their own parties by this working relationship.</p><p>Derby also had to face hostility from the duchy officials themselves, who resented the appointment of one of Lancashire's largest landowners as their chancellor. The chancellor had traditionally been a courtier with no personal connection with the county and the appointment of the lord lieutenant of Lancashire, and a prominent political force therein, was unprecedented.<sup>24</sup> This concentration of regional power in one person, who also had pending legal suits involving land in Lancashire, was one of the principal points raised in the memorandum of 1708-9.<sup>25</sup> Furthermore, Derby had sat for Preston, the administrative centre of the duchy, in the Convention. His brother Charles had also been returned there in 1702. He had thus already built up an independent electoral interest there which he intended to exercise for partisan ends. But as in the county in 1705, his interest had its limits, perhaps weakened by the controversy surrounding his appointment. This was made clear in the by-election of winter 1706 held to find a replacement for the borough’s late member Edward Rigby<sup>‡</sup>. An observer confidently assured Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, ‘my Lord [Derby] may recommend whom he pleases to serve for that place’, and hoped that the queen’s managers would speak to him to nominate a suitable person. ‘My Lord will obey, and perhaps will be glad to show his interest to the Court’. All these plans were complicated by Rigby’s untimely death in the period between Gower’s deprivation of office and Derby’s appointment. In the intervening time most of the burgesses who had the franchise – including the duchy’s attorney general and the clerks of the chancery court – had already expressed their support for the outgoing Gower’s candidate Henry Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>. Derby in turn nominated a fellow Whig Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, a close associate of the Junto and confidant of the duchess of Marlborough, but as early as September he was writing to Kenyon about ‘the opposition we are like to meet with at Preston, which I believe you think, as well as myself, very unaccountable’. ‘No stone must be unturned in order to bring it to a good effect’, he later ordered Kenyon, ‘otherwise, I am sure, we shall be scoffed at, which must be prevented, if possible’, and he expressed his complete reliance on Kenyon’s electoral management. He further threatened harsh punishment on his insubordinate underlings, warning Kenyon, ‘I should be glad to hear that the chancery clerks have repented, for their sakes as well as my own’. The poll was close run and saw scenes of violence and intimidation. At the final count, after the qualifications of the voters had been put under careful scrutiny, Maynwaring scraped past Fleetwood with a majority of only seven votes. After this bruising election, Derby forbore to effect his promised purge of duchy officials, and they in turn promised the new chancellor that ‘their votes will be at his lordship’s service at the next election’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Derby managed the Preston by-election through his agent Kenyon and brother, Charles, whom he instructed from the capital, where he was attending Parliament throughout December 1706. He came to 40 per cent of the meetings of 1706-7 and in this session he was also confronted with a number of petitions asking him to waive his privilege of Parliament in suits concerning the division of the Derby estate. On 7 Feb. 1707 his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, countess dowager of Derby, complained that Derby was claiming as his land by right of entail various estates which had been settled on her as her jointure. Three days later Derby agreed that he would voluntarily waive his privilege in all suits concerning the countess of Derby. On 8 Mar., three days after a petition was read in the House from his nieces Elizabeth and Henrietta and Henrietta's husband Anglesey, Derby further agreed to waive his privilege in all future suits concerning the contested Stanley estate.<sup>27</sup> Derby did not attend any meetings of the short session in April, perhaps preoccupied by these continuing suits with his kin, which had shifted from Westminster to Lancashire after the end of the session.<sup>28</sup> He did come to 62 per cent of the session of 1707-8, his highest level of attendance of any parliamentary session, but his recorded activity was confined to nominations to select committees.</p><p>His main preoccupation, however, remained with local Lancashire affairs. In October 1707 he was elected mayor of Liverpool, even though he was still in London and had to be sworn into his office there by specially appointed commissioners. Indeed the memorandum on his lax administration of the duchy later complained of Derby's 'absence from town [Preston, or Lancashire in general] for generally three parts of the year', which caused serious delays to proceedings in the duchy court.<sup>29</sup> Thomas Johnson also lamented the earl’s lassitude in not quickly presenting a candidate for the vacant office of collector of customs for the port, for ‘It were no difficult move for the Lord Derby to get his friend in, if his Lordship pleases; but alas! he is not active as some men are'. Even when Derby managed to have Johnson knighted by the queen on 20 Mar. 1708, after he and the earl had presented Liverpool’s address of thanksgiving for the delivery from the abortive French invasion of Scotland, Johnson did not feel he could thank him, for he knew the honour would open him up to criticism and ‘the surprise has put me more out of order than I have been since I came to London’.<sup>30</sup> Some members of the Liverpool corporation feared that in the elections of spring 1708 their new mayor ‘will force members upon the corporation and that he recommends Mr [Arthur] Maynwaring’, but this apprehension was unfounded and Johnson was once again returned. Derby was instead able to see Maynwaring returned unopposed for Preston, but only at the cost of having him share the representation with his old rival Fleetwood. Similarly Derby’s defeat at the 1705 county election, compounded by that at Preston in 1706, cooled his partisan ardour in the 1708 Lancashire elections, where the sitting members, his Whig brother Charles and the Tory Richard Shuttleworth, were now returned unopposed and without a poll.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Derby was present at a little over half of the sittings of the session of 1708-9 and, perhaps because of his party affiliation, was given increased responsibilities in the House. In the period 15-25 Mar. 1709 he reported from six select committees, most of them concerning private estate bills; one of them, the Manchester Church bill, of local interest to him. He also told in the division of 1 Apr. whether to reverse the decree in the cause of <em>Hedges v. Hedges</em>, where his opposite teller was Nottingham. He voted with the Whigs against the motion on 21 Jan. for allowing Scots peers with British titles to vote for the Scottish representative peers. He came to barely over two-fifths of the session of 1709-10, where on 27 Mar. 1710 he reported on the bill to bring clean water to Liverpool and on 5 Apr. told in the question whether to insist on an amendment to the copyright bill. He found Dr Sacheverell guilty on 20 Mar. and a week later was appointed a manager to argue in conference against the Commons' amendments to the bill concerning the marriage settlement of Edward Southwell.</p><h2><em>Out of favour, 1710-15</em></h2><p>The Lancashire elections of the autumn of 1710 were played out against the backdrop of uncertainty over Derby’s fate in the sweeping ministerial changes envisaged. From late summer there were rumours that he would be replaced as both chancellor of the duchy and as lord lieutenant. Both changes came slowly and he was only formally removed as chancellor of the duchy on 21 Sept., replaced by the Tory moderate William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton. This was still too late for the new chancellor to build an interest for his candidate and in the weeks running up to the election Fleetwood and another candidate, Sir Henry Hoghton<sup>‡</sup>, bt., put themselves forward independently of either the out-going Derby or the new man Berkeley of Stratton. Throughout August James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], who had inherited by marriage (although not without much legal dispute) much of the Gerard property and interest in Lancashire, assumed that he would be made chancellor and tried to build an interest in Preston before Berkeley of Stratton's appointment.<sup>32</sup> Hamilton, and even more urgently his mother, Anne, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> 3rd duchess of Hamilton [S], also pressed Harley to appoint him lord lieutenant in Derby’s place so that he could manage the elections in the new ministry’s interest.<sup>33</sup> For good reason, as members of the Junto were relying on Derby’s electoral exertions in Lancashire. Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, counted on Derby in August 1710 ‘for his advice and assistance in setting up somebody at Clitheroe to oppose Ned [Edward] Harvey<sup>‡</sup>’, the sitting Tory member for the borough.<sup>34</sup> Arthur Maynwaring wrote to Derby in early September ‘to desire the continuance of his favour in the next election’, but his ambitions of being returned for a Lancashire seat were dashed when he heard rumours that Derby would be removed from the lord lieutenancy. The member for Lancaster Robert Heysham<sup>‡</sup>, anxious lest Derby’s interest for Dodding Bradyll prove decisive in that borough’s forthcoming elections, wrote to Harley in the first days of September that ‘by the prints I find Duke Hamilton our lord lieutenant … if so he is our friend’.<sup>35</sup> Harley, though, hesitated in making the change official and Derby remained lord lieutenant throughout the autumn elections, though doubts surrounding his future seriously weakened his effectiveness. It was rumoured that his brother Charles was prepared to try to find refuge in a Preston seat if defeated for the county, as seemed possible, and at the August assizes, ‘there were many against Mr Stanley, which alarmed the earl his brother who was here with very small attendance of gentlemen’. Derby exerted himself and was able to persuade the freemen to return his brother, once again with the Tory Shuttleworth, for the county. This dedication to his brother came at a cost -- 'my Lord not concerning himself over other elections'.<sup>36</sup> On 13 Dec. Hamilton was finally sworn in as Derby’s replacement as lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Lancashire, and as ranger of the five forests.</p><p>Derby took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 November. Overall, he came to 42 per cent of the meetings of the Parliament of 1710-13. Under the new Tory ministry, he participated in more protests and dissents than usual, showing his support for the war against France. On 12 Jan. 1711 he protested against the resolution censuring the Whig ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain, while on 8 Feb. he further dissented from the decision to present the queen with an address condemning the last ministry's conduct of the Spanish war. He was opposed to the peace envisaged by the Tory ministry and supported the motion of 'No Peace without Spain'. He may have been among those in favour of presenting the queen with an address including that controversial clause in an abortive division on 8 December. Certainly Oxford (as Harley now was) counted him as an opponent of the ministry in this division. He may also have been one of those Nottingham conferred with to strike a deal for his support of the Whigs in this motion. Not surprisingly Derby took advantage of the controversy surrounding Hamilton at this point to strike a blow against his local rival and on 20 Dec. voted against the Scottish peer's right to sit in the House under his recent British title of duke of Brandon. Derby assigned his proxy to John Somers*, Baron Somers, on 22 Dec. in order to maintain the Junto pressure on the ministry over the issue of the peace during January. He did not return to the House until 2 Feb. 1712. On 28 May he voted in favour of the address to the queen condemning the 'restraining orders' issued to her military commanders forbidding them from engaging in an offensive war against France and subscribed to the protest when the address was rejected. In September, during the long prorogation as the ministry negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht, Oxford stripped Derby of his last local office, the vice-admiralty of the Lancashire and Cheshire coasts and replaced him with Hamilton. Barely two months after this appointment the duke was killed in a duel with Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. Derby, now out of office, was barely involved in the last session of the Parliament in 1713, when he came to only 23 sittings. John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerino [S], lamented his absence on 6 June 1713 when the Scots peers and their Whig allies lost by one vote an important division to delay the second reading of the malt tax bill.<sup>37</sup> Oxford at this time also forecast him as an opponent of the French commerce bill, which never even made it past the Commons.</p><p>Derby found himself on the back foot at the 1713 elections in Lancashire, and even the death of his principal Tory rival Hamilton was unable to resuscitate the Whig interest in the county. Derby's brother Charles stepped down in a county meeting in September and neither he nor his brother challenged the unopposed return of the Tories Shuttleworth and John Bland<sup>‡ </sup>for the county. Stanley was returned for Clitheroe instead, by a surprisingly wide margin, but his defeated opponent, the Tory sitting member Edward Harvey, petitioned in March 1714. When the Commons considered the election more closely in April it determined to seat neither of them on the grounds (it was reported) of 'manifest corruption' in the election. A particularly violent election occurred in Wigan where James Barry<sup>‡</sup>, 4th earl of Barrymore [I], who had married the only daughter of the late 4th Earl Rivers, unsuccessfully opposed Sir Roger Bradshaigh and Derby's old vice-chancellor George Kenyon.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Derby was absent from the opening of the new Parliament, not taking his seat until 11 Mar. 1714. He came to most of the meetings of March and April but was absent for all of the following month before registering his proxy with James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley, on 2 June. However he was back in the House only five days later, perhaps summoned by the urgency of the House's proceedings on the schism bill. Nottingham forecast that Derby would oppose the bill and on 15 June he duly joined his name to the protest against its passage<em>.</em> He only attended three meetings in the last week of the short session of August 1714, hurriedly called upon the death of Anne.</p><h2><em>Later years, 1715-36</em></h2><p>A little over two weeks after Anne's death, Derby was reinstated as lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Lancashire, vacant since Hamilton's death in 1712. He was not reinstated as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which on 6 Nov. 1714 was instead bestowed on the Hanoverian Tory Heneage Finch*, recently promoted earl of Aylesford. The ousted chancellor Berkeley of Stratton was surprised at this and at Derby's lack of other promotion in the new regime: 'I thought my Lord Derby would have come into the bedchamber, since he had not his old place again, but now it is filled. I do not know what method hath been taken to satisfy him or whether any'.<sup>39</sup></p><p>By this time Derby was increasingly withdrawing from politics, both at the county and national level. He appears to have had little input in the 1715 elections for Lancashire and even turned against his former client George Kenyon at Wigan. He stopped attending the House entirely after 28 Jan. 1720 and even stopped assigning proxies after May 1721. A full account of his brief tenure in George I's first Parliament will be provided in the next part of this series.</p><p>To mark his final retirement from Westminster life, in May 1723 Derby resigned his captaincy of the yeomen of the guard. He retired to the country and spent increasing periods of time in his wife's estates at Halnaker in Sussex, far removed from his lieutenancy in Lancashire. By an agreement finally hammered out in 1716 between the contending parties his niece Henrietta, Lady Ashburnham (his other niece Elizabeth having died without heirs in 1714) gained control of the estates of Lathom, West Derby, Upholland, Wavertree and Everton while Derby kept possession of the lordship of the Isle of Man and of Knowsley in Lancashire, among other places.<sup>40</sup> From the early 1720s he practically rebuilt Knowsley Hall, long the Stanleys' secondary residence after Lathom Hall. It was fashioned into a grand residence according to the latest architectural styles and became renowned as the Lancashire seat of later earls of Derby. It was there that Derby died on 1 Feb. 1736. He was succeeded by Sir Edward Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 5th bt., of Bickerstaffe as 11th earl of Derby. The new earl was a descendant of a younger brother of Thomas Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Derby (<em>d</em>. 1521). He was the 10th earl's sixth cousin, but was still the principal legatee of his real and personal estate.<sup>41</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
STANLEY, William Richard George (1655-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>STANLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>William Richard George</strong> (1655–1702)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1655-72 Ld. Strange; <em>suc. </em>fa. 21 Dec. 1672 (a minor) as 9th earl of DERBY |
|
First sat 15 Feb. 1677; last sat 25 May 1702 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Mar. 1655, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, and Dorothea Helena (<em>d</em>. 6 Apr. 1703), da. of Jan van den Kerckhove, Ld. of Heenvliet [Dutch]; bro. of James Stanley*, later 10th earl of Derby and Charles Zedenno Stanley<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France and Italy) (tutors, James Forbes, Thomas Fairfax) 1673-5;<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 10 July 1673 (with £10,000), Elizabeth (1660-1717), da. of Thomas Butler*, Bar. Butler of Moore Park, <em>styled</em> earl of Ossory [I], 4s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 2da.<sup>2</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 21 Dec. 1672 as Ld. of Man; <em>d</em>. 5 Nov. 1702; <em>will</em> 19 May 1692; pr. 7 July 1705.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Steward, Furness, Lancs. 1672-<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. Lancs. 1676-Sept. 1687, Oct. 1688-May 1689, June 1702-<em>d</em>., Cheshire 1676-Jan. 1688, Oct. 1688-Apr. 1689, N. Wales June 1702-<em>d</em>.; <em>cust. rot</em>. Lancs. 1681-87, June 1702-<em>d</em>., Cheshire 1682-88;<sup>5</sup> chamb., co. palatine of Chester 1677-<em>d</em>.; freeman, Preston by 1682;<sup>6</sup> vice-adm., Lancs. and Cheshire 1684-91.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by R. Tompson, after Sir P. Lely, 1679, NPG D1744.</p> |
<h2><em>Succession and marriage 1672-7</em></h2><p>Stanley was still a minor at his father’s death in December 1672, but his uncle William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, quickly found him an influential guardian by helping to arrange his marriage in July 1673 to Lady Elizabeth Butler, the daughter of the earl of Ossory [I], the eldest son of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I].<sup>8</sup> Strafford always remained interested in the education of his nephew, but it was primarily Ormond who took the young earl under his protection. In November 1673 Ormond wrote to him that</p><blockquote><p>it is certain there are few things in the world I have set my heart upon or that I am more desirous to employ my uttermost industry and interest in than to be an instrument of restoring your family in your person to that greatness and honour which hath so long been hereditary to it.<sup>9</sup></p></blockquote><p>This reassurance came at a time when the duke’s initial hopes for Derby had been dashed by the young man’s irresponsibly spendthrift and scandalous behaviour during his travels in France, where he appears to have been complicit in an attempt to assassinate his tutor and keeper James Forbes, while a later tutor, Thomas Fairfax, later wrote in despair to Ormond from Venice that ‘I hope we may persuade him [Derby] to do something of reason till he comes to be of age; but what may happen after, God knows’.<sup>10</sup> Later Ossory was to describe Derby as ‘ill-natured and obstinate’ towards his daughter Elizabeth and Derby’s ill-treatment of his wife was lamented by many associates of the Butlers.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Derby reached his majority in March 1676, and quickly had responsibility thrust upon him. In May he took over the Stanleys’ quasi-hereditary offices of lord lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire, which had been exercised in trust by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, since the 8th earl’s death. The young earl was chosen to sit in the court of the lord high steward, convened on 30 June 1676 for the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, whom he found, with the majority, not guilty of murder.<sup>12</sup> Derby first sat in the House itself on 15 Feb. 1677 when it reconvened after its long prorogation, and he proceeded to sit in four-fifths of the meetings of the long and frequently adjourned session of 1677-8. On 2 Apr. 1677 a private bill for ascertaining ‘the interest’ regarding fines of the lord (Derby himself), and tenants of West Derby and Wavertree in Lancashire was introduced in the House and went through both chambers before eventually receiving the royal assent on 20 Mar. 1678. Derby entered his first dissent on 16 Apr. 1677, against the decision to acquiesce with the Commons in their insistence that the Lords could not make amendments to the bill for building 50 new warships, which the Commons considered a supply bill. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, at this time considered Derby a ‘worthy’ member of the House, and Derby gave a strong hint of his political leanings by assigning his proxy on 25 Mar. 1678 to Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton), who held it for the remainder of the session.</p><h2><em>Pleasing neither side, 1678-85</em></h2><p>Derby missed the following session completely, although on 14 June 1678 he made the House aware of a breach of privilege committed against him, and from 12 Nov. 1678 his proxy was again held by Winchester. He appeared in the House on 23 Dec. 1678 to ‘great rejoicing’ among the enemies of the beleaguered lord treasurer Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). One contemporary thought that he and the two other new arrivals in the House, Henry Herbert*, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, and George Coventry*, 3rd Baron Coventry, ‘must be worked on by the king’, and that, of the three, Derby was considered the most likely to be amenable to the court’s persuasions.<sup>13</sup> For the remaining five days of the session, however, Derby acted consistently with the country opposition against Danby. On his first day back in the House he dissented from the decision that Danby did not have to withdraw after the articles of impeachment against him were read, while on 27 Dec. he voted to commit the lord treasurer and signed his dissent against the House’s rejection of this motion. On 26 Dec. Derby had registered his opposition to the House’s insistence that the money for disbandment of the troops raised for intervention in the war on the continent be placed in the exchequer (rather than in the chamber of London, as the Commons wished), and on the last day of the session he was appointed a manager for a conference on the disbandment bill.</p><p>Derby was a diligent attender of the first Exclusion Parliament, coming to 95 per cent of the 61 sitting days of its second (full) session. In March and April 1679, Danby consistently forecast that Derby would be in the opposite camp. In early April Derby voted for the bill of attainder against him. On 7 Apr. he dissented from the resolution that John Sidway stand committed to the Gatehouse for his allegations against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, and other bishops. Derby was named a reporter for a conference on 24 Apr. concerning the answers of the impeached lords. On 2 May he protested against the passage of the bill to remove Catholics from London, on the grounds that the required oaths would entrap ‘honest Dissenters’ as well as Catholics. Between 8 and 27 May he signed a series of six protests by which he showed his support for the proposal for a joint committee to discuss arrangements for the trials, his objections to the right of the bishops to sit and vote in hearings of capital cases and his opposition to the House’s decision that the Catholic peers should be tried before Danby.</p><p>It is not immediately apparent why Derby should have been so driven against the lord treasurer and such a firm adherent of country positions in 1679. Perhaps he hoped to avenge his father against Charles II, who in 1662 had vetoed the 8th earl’s bill for the resumption of lands in Flintshire confiscated and sold in the Civil War. But his royalist family background and Anglican religious leanings point to him favouring the court and pressure from his uncle Strafford and from members of the Butler clan, especially Ormond, may have helped to cool his country fervour.<sup>14</sup> In any case, his enthusiasm for opposition appears to have diminished quickly as, once the matter of Danby and his trial had died down, he did not attend any of the sittings of either the second or third Exclusion Parliaments, probably to avoid getting involved in the far riskier issue of the exclusion of James*, duke of York from the throne.</p><p>The elections following the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament had provided Derby with his first opportunity to exercise his family’s local electoral influence, but there is little evidence that he took an active role in the Lancashire and Cheshire elections of 1679, and his most prominent involvement was in negotiating with Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, over their selection of the Members for the borough of Thirsk, where the returning officer was elected in the manorial court still controlled by the Stanleys.<sup>15</sup> Later, during the elections of 1681, Ormond strongly encouraged Derby to support ‘men of moderation and temper, true lovers of their religion, king and country’ in Cheshire, but later heard to his distress that at the poll Derby did not side with ‘the better party’.<sup>16</sup> Derby may have wished to act as a unifying figure in the bitterly divided counties under his stewardship, which had large pockets of both Catholics and radical nonconformists. The clerk of the peace Roger Kenyon<sup>‡</sup>, one of his principal supporters, considered that</p><blockquote><p>he is not swayed with the violent humour of this impetuous age and discourses of the high flyers of either side find no hearty entertainment with him. He is faithfully loyal and a true son of the Church of England; free from fanaticising and far from popery as any subject whatsoever.<sup>17</sup></p></blockquote><p>By trying to sit on the fence, however, he did not please anybody, least of all the court. Ormond heard rumours that the king was intending to divest him of his lieutenancies and in May 1682 he brusquely informed him that the king was not at all pleased with a half-hearted loyal address recently sent from Lancashire, even though Derby himself had expressed his satisfaction that ‘there are more hands to it than I expected there would have been, considering the diversity of opinions the gentlemen are of in this country’.<sup>18</sup> Derby’s loyalty was questioned in the summer of 1682 over the visit of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, to the notoriously whiggish Chester.<sup>19</sup> The earl managed the embarrassing situation the best he could in the face of the popular rejoicing at Monmouth’s entry into the city, and purposely stayed away from the duke at the Wallasey races, only giving him a short, civil greeting when Monmouth approached him. This polite avoidance of the duke ‘disgusted some persons’ among the county’s Whigs, while Ormond and the rest of the court did not think the earl had sufficiently shown his disregard for Monmouth and were concerned by his lax military provisions against the possibility of a rising in Chester.<sup>20</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>After having received only criticism for his attempts at neutrality during Monmouth’s visit, Derby sided more decisively with the court as the Tory reaction took hold. Despite earlier complaints about his ‘slackness’, Derby proved himself energetic in rounding up suspects, searching for arms and engineering fulsome loyal addresses after the Rye House Plot, when disaffected Cheshire again came under suspicion, and the king responded by approving both of his conduct and of his proposed deputy lieutenants.<sup>21</sup> For the elections of 1685 Derby promised Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, that ‘I will be very diligent in employing my interest for the election of good members for the Parliament. I will attend as many of the elections as possible and take care that none be chosen but persons of approved loyalty’.<sup>22</sup> For the election at Wigan he was able to assist in the return of two cousins: Lord Charles Murray<sup>‡</sup> (later earl of Dunmore [S]) and Charles Kerr<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Ancram [S], the latter having been the borough’s Member since 1661. At the county election he successfully opposed two sons of peers who had been among Monmouth’s leading supporters in 1682 and against whom he was going to struggle for the rest of his career—Richard Savage*, styled Lord Colchester (later 4th Earl Rivers), who was also his sister’s brother-in-law, and Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield). One of the successful candidates for the county seat, Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., was concerned by Brandon’s last-ditch attempt to win a seat at Lancaster and felt that ‘if we can but keep Lord Brandon out of Lancaster, I hope the king will have no cause to fault our elections in this county’. To prevent this Derby stationed part of the county militia in Lancaster, ‘for the rabble will certainly commit some grand riot if they do not actually rise in rebellion’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Derby assiduously attended James II’s Parliament in its first few weeks, primarily in order to oversee the passage of his bill, read for the first time on 26 May 1685, to restore to him the manors of Hawarden and Mold in Wales, Bidstone in Cheshire and Broughton in Lancashire.<sup>24</sup> This was an attempt in part to revive the bill to recover the former Stanley estates in Flintshire, sold in the Interregnum, which his father had introduced in 1661 and which had been vetoed at the last minute by the king because it tried to void sales legally entered into during the Interregnum and thus went against the Act for confirmation of judicial proceedings. Derby clearly harboured the Stanleys’ resentment against the loss of these lands and their subsequent treatment by the ‘ungrateful’ Charles II, for as he told his family steward, ‘he possessed no estate in Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Warwickshire and Wales, but whenever he viewed any of them he could see another near or adjoining to that he was in possession of equal, or greater of value, lost by his grandfather [James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby] for his loyalty and service to the crown and his country’.<sup>25</sup> Upon inheriting the title in 1672 Derby and his guardians had sought out legal advice to determine the best course to repossess the lands by law and from almost the moment he reached his majority he brought suits in the courts to enter into possession of those lands, particularly the forest of Macclesfield, which had originally been entailed on the Stanley male heirs.<sup>26</sup> In this way in 1682 he had been able to regain Hope in Flintshire, which had been in his father’s original bill, as heir in tail.<sup>27</sup> Resuming this campaign through Parliament in 1685, Derby prepared himself for the opposition his bill in 1685 would inevitably face. He drew up answers to the various points made against his father’s bill in the Lords’ protest of 6 Feb. 1662, including an answer to the objection that the 8th earl had voluntarily entered into legal conveyances in the 1650s, which the 9th earl thought was ‘no more than when a man beset with robbers delivers them nine parts of his goods to save the tenth and perhaps his life’.<sup>28</sup> Derby further offered to reimburse the present occupants the original purchase price with interest (less the profits accrued from the land) but all his preparations and concessions were for nought as the bill was held up by the panic surrounding Monmouth’s landing in the west, and was never considered when the House resumed briefly in November 1685.</p><h2><em>Lukewarm Williamite and Lancashire rivalries, 1688-92</em></h2><p>Derby remained a firm Anglican in a county well-known for its large number of Catholics, and as early as July 1686 there were rumours that James II intended to replace him in the lieutenancy of Lancashire by the leading Catholic peer of the county, Caryll Molyneux, 3rd Viscount Molyneux [I].<sup>29</sup> In about May 1687 his name appeared on a list of lords opposed to James II’s policies. In September 1687 Derby was replaced by Molyneux as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Lancashire. In three lists covering late 1687 and early 1688 Derby was listed as an opponent of repealing the Test Act. In January 1688 the king removed Derby from his offices in Cheshire and replaced him with the Catholic William Herbert*, marquess of Powis. At around this time Danby listed Derby among the opposition to the king in the Lords. By October, however, James was prepared to reinstate Derby in his former lieutenancies in an attempt to shore up his flagging support. While Derby was in Westminster consulting with the king about his counties, he was also learning of William of Orange’s invasion plans at conclaves of the ‘Cockpit’ circle, to which he had probably been introduced by his brother-in-law James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. Henry Compton*, bishop of London, convinced Derby to accept the king’s commission so that he could use the Lancashire and Cheshire militias in support of William’s invasion and also advised him to consult with the Cheshire Whig Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), who was planning his own rising for the prince of Orange. In early November, while Derby was still waiting for the king’s official commission to arrive in Lancashire, he and Delamer met and agreed that Delamer would rise and join William as soon as he landed, while Derby would stay behind in the northwest to raise the militia of the two counties and use it to hold the counties for the prince. On 15 Nov. 1688 Delamer duly declared for William and marched towards Nottingham, but impetuously claimed that Derby would soon join the revolt himself. This was not what Derby had agreed and he forwarded Delamer’s declaration to James with a note distancing himself from his actions. He then hesitated in raising the militia, allowing independent forces, which contained a large number of Catholics, to hold Chester until the royal army was formally disbanded. It was only when William had arrived in London on 17 Dec. that Derby felt he should take sides and he entered Chester that day with a declaration in support of William, which the mayor and corporation of the city refused to sign, ‘resolved to address (as they had acted) apart’.<sup>30</sup> He also, belatedly, ordered the confinement of the disbanded Catholic officers of the garrison, and on 19 Dec. anxiously wrote to Ormond for his advice and ‘assistance that the prince of Orange may have a true account of what I have done’.<sup>31</sup> It was too late. Derby’s dithering and hesitation in raising the militia, and the presence of Catholic forces in Chester, convinced Delamer that Derby had gone back on his side of the agreement (an accusation which Derby’s man of business and stalwart defender Roger Kenyon was later at pains to refute) and he took advantage of his proximity to William to turn him against the earl. Delamer himself wrote to Derby ‘your lordship must think you cannot be esteemed by the Prince or those with him as a man that has given any assistance to the cause, and I believe the nation will have the same opinion of you’.<sup>32</sup> Delamer later assured George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, that the king had known very well that Derby had decided ‘not to do anything till the business was decided in the west’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Perhaps wishing to recover from the damage thus done to his reputation, Derby supported the Orangist claims to the throne in 1689, both in the Lancashire elections to the Convention and in the House itself.<sup>34</sup> Derby himself attended just over two-thirds of the first session of the Convention, where on 31 Jan. 1689 he voted to declare William and Mary king and queen and protested against the rejection of this motion. Through his votes and protests over the first week of February he supported the motion that the throne was ‘vacant’ and that James had abdicated. On a personal matter on 7 Mar. Thomas Savage*, 3rd Earl Rivers, submitted an appeal against chancery’s dismissal in July 1688 of his suit against Derby and his uncle Strafford. In 1688 Rivers had presented a bill in chancery to reclaim family lands in Essex which had been put in trust to Derby and Strafford to raise a £10,000 portion for Charlotte Katherine Savage, the only daughter of Derby’s sister Charlotte Stanley and Thomas Savage<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Colchester, who had been Rivers’ heir presumptive before his death in 1680 (and thus the elder brother of Derby’s Cheshire rival, Lord Colchester). Charlotte Katherine had died unmarried and underage in 1686 upon which Rivers, always eager to extract himself from his financial worries, thought that the trust settlement, ostensibly for his grand-daughter’s portion, was made void and tried to re-enter his estates. He was blocked by Derby who claimed that Charlotte Katherine had made a will making him an executor charged to pay debts and fulfil several legacies with the £10,000. The House heard counsel for both sides in this case on 29 Apr. after which they dismissed Rivers’ appeal, but the issue over this portion and the Essex estates was to keep the Stanleys and Savages at loggerheads for several decades. On 31 May Derby voted against reversing the two punitive judgments against Titus Oates and on 2 July dissented from the resolution to proceed upon the impeachments of Sir Adam Blair and others, who were accused by the Commons of publishing libels against the new monarchs. On 14 July he was given leave to go into the country for a fortnight and the following day he registered his proxy with his uncle (married to Ossory’s sister) the Williamite, William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire. He returned to the House on 2 Aug. 1689 and on 16 Aug. told in the division on a clause in the bill against the export of wool which would exempt the Eastland, African and Russian companies from its provisions.<sup>35</sup> In the winter he came to 54 per cent of the meetings of the second session of the Convention, where he was named to three committees.</p><p>By this time Derby had been sorely disappointed in his search for preferment from the new regime. There was a stark contrast between the advancement of his wife (the daughter of an old favourite of William), who was appointed groom of the stole to her friend Queen Mary, and who was also well-known in the ‘Cockpit’ circle of Princess Anne, and Derby himself who lost all his local positions.<sup>36</sup> In April 1689 William III installed Delamer in Derby’s place as lord lieutenant and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Cheshire and then, after Derby proudly asserted that he would not serve in only one lieutenancy, added to his humiliation the following month by appointing Brandon to Derby’s positions in Lancashire. Derby quickly took a prominent position as the leader of the Tory gentry in Lancashire against the controversial Whig lord lieutenant. Carmarthen (as Danby had since become) classed him as among the supporters of the court on a list of October 1689 to Feburary 1690. Even so, in the run-up to the 1690 elections Derby identified with the local Tories, telling his principal associate Roger Kenyon ‘we must bestir ourselves’ and ‘I hope all our party will unite and lay aside all animosities among one another’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Derby and Kenyon, clerk of the peace for Lancashire and Member for Clitheroe in William and Mary’s first Parliament, worked very closely together until Kenyon’s death in 1698. In 1691 Derby, as hereditary lord, appointed Kenyon governor of the Isle of Man. Derby himself made a rare visit to the island in July 1691, where he indulged in some elaborate ceremonial but also further prosecuted his long-standing dispute with the commissioners of the customs over their competing jurisdictions over the island and its trade, which came to a head that summer in the affair of the ship the <em>St. Stephen</em> and its suspect cargo. Derby’s claims to independent sovereignty over an island that played such an important role in the sea lanes around Ireland could not have endeared him to the government—despite the continuing pension he received from the Crown for the maintenance of poor ministers on the Island—and may account for Derby’s removal from the vice-admiralty of the Lancashire and Cheshire coasts in 1691, which was also given to Brandon.<sup>38</sup></p><p>After attending a little less than half of the sittings of the first two sessions of William and Mary’s first Parliament in 1690-1, Derby came to about two-thirds of the meetings in 1691-2. On 3 Dec. 1691 William Widdrington*, 3rd Baron Widdrington, as executor of the will of William Stanley, a second cousin of Derby, petitioned that the earl be made to waive his privilege so that evidence and depositions concerning the will could be taken in chancery. Stanley had been entitled after his father’s death in 1676 to an annuity of £600 charged on the estates of the earls of Derby but, Widdrington claimed, Derby had long refused to pay this even though chancery had already decreed against him in 1688. Now Derby was claiming privilege and making objections in order to further obstruct probate. Despite Derby’s assertion that the will, disinheriting him as Stanley’s heir general, had been fraudulently obtained by Widdrington and his Catholic coterie at Stanley’s deathbed, the committee for privileges on 15 Dec. found in favour of Widdrington’s petition.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Barely was that case settled when Derby raised controversy again by reintroducing on 16 Dec. his bill for the resumption of his father’s estates in Mold, Hawarden, Broughton and Bidstone. Using a printed list of the peerage of England as his template, he forecast that at least 59 peers would vote for his resurrected bill, based on what he estimated had been his support in 1685, while he considered only 13 definitely against it and nine ‘doubtful’. Unfortunately for him, the 13 included some of the most influential officials, ministers and courtiers of William III’s government: Devonshire; Halifax; Carmarthen; the earl of Warrington (as Delamer had become); Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham; Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset; and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton. It is doubtful that Derby was even close to accurate in his optimistic prediction of the forces ranged in his support, for in the event the bill and the legal arguments underpinning it were thrown out of the House at the second reading on 25 Jan. 1692.<sup>40</sup> Derby continued to attend the House until the end of the session, and on 16 Feb. he protested against the resolution that proxies would not be allowed during proceedings on the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 23 Feb. he signed protests against the passage of the poll tax to which the Commons had tacked on a clause establishing a commission of accounts, and against the insufficient response of the House to this, in making only a half-hearted entry in the Journal against the measure.</p><h2><em>Withdrawal from Westminster, 1693-1702</em></h2><p>Perhaps because of his disappointment at the harsh rejection of his estate bill, Derby withdrew even further from public life. He was largely absent from the following three sessions from 1692 to 1695 and in all three entrusted his uncle, Lord Steward Devonshire, with his proxy, first on 10 Nov. 1692 for the entire 1692-3 session and then on 14 Nov. 1693, although he did eventually appear on 13 Mar. 1694 for a total of six meetings of that session. Devonshire again received his proxy on the second day of the 1694-5 session, 12 Dec. 1694, but Derby arrived on 26 Feb. 1695, after which he sat for another 26 meetings until 30 Apr., just before the prorogation. On 15 Feb. 1695 a private bill to ratify a lease made by Derby for Marton Meare in Lancashire had been introduced in the Lords; it passed smoothly through both Houses, receiving the royal assent on 22 Apr., though Derby was largely absent during the proceedings on the bill.<sup>41</sup></p><p>A series of deaths among the northwest’s Whigs in 1694 changed the political landscape. Warrington and Macclesfield died within a week of each other in early January, thus in a short space of time removing Derby’s principal rival in Cheshire (Warrington’s heir was a minor) and raising his Lancashire rival, Brandon, to the peerage as 2nd earl of Macclesfield. The Tory gentry were anxious that Derby, melancholy and withdrawn through his recent reverses, should more strenuously petition the king for the vacant lieutenancy of Cheshire. Once again Derby hoped to get the lieutenancies of both counties, but William III denied him, keeping Macclesfield in the role in Lancashire, and not filling the Cheshire lieutenancy until April 1695, when he gave it to the 4th Earl Rivers, as Lord Colchester had become on the death of his father in September 1694. Derby seems to have blamed his brother James, knight of the shire for Lancashire as well as a groom of the bedchamber and a military confidant of William III, for his disappointment, believing that he had not promoted his cause sufficiently at court. From this point relations between the brothers steadily declined.</p><p>Macclesfield’s divisive approach in Lancashire caused the county’s Tories to look all the more to Derby for leadership. Macclesfield was the main impetus behind the prosecution of the so-called ‘Lancashire Plot’ in the summer of 1694, in which eight of the county’s leading Tories, six Anglicans and two Catholics, were arrested and charged, but ultimately acquitted, of plotting a Jacobite rising in the northwest. The deep divisions within Lancashire led to bitterly contested elections in 1694 and 1695, during which Derby unsuccessfully opposed Macclesfield’s candidates and supported Tories on the weakened Stanley interest. Roger Kenyon’s son reported to his father on 16 Nov. 1695, after the Lancashire elections were over, ‘My lord is uneasy under his disappointment, and quarrelsome with everybody that is concerned with him’.<sup>42</sup></p><p>A discontented Derby continued his low attendance of the House in the first two sessions of the new Parliament and he only seems to have appeared in 1695-6 at the continued urging of the House in order to sign the Association. He arrived on 13 Apr. 1696, well after the deadline of 31 Mar. set by the House, duly signed the Association and then only stayed for a further five meetings. The House cracked down on absent peers again in the following session, ordering Derby (and others) on 14 Nov. 1696 to attend by the end of that month. He appeared late on 1 Dec. and was thus able to cast his vote in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., on 23 December. During the 1696-7 session he was confronted in the House with a series of petitions against him. The first came on 26 Oct. 1696 when Roger Sawrey and his son Jeremiah petitioned successfully to be allowed to move for a new trial, after Derby had won an action of ejectment from the manor of Broughton, which the Sawreys had occupied for more than 40 years and which Derby had tried to reclaim in his bills of 1685 and 1691. The House ordered that if the Sawreys applied to the exchequer for a new trial and an arrest of the current judgment, it would not be considered a breach of privilege. On 2 Mar. 1697, Derby in turn complained to the House of a breach of privilege because the exchequer had arrested his attorney, Edmund Gibson, for refusing to hand over to the court the attornments the Broughton tenants had signed for Derby. Two weeks later the Sawreys answered that Gibson had procured these attornments through threats after the Sawreys had successfully moved for a new trial. They hoped that the attornments would be vacated and their ownership of the manor, as it existed before the judgment in Derby’s favour, would stand for the purposes of the new trial. The report from the committee for privileges on these petitions was considered on 23-24 March. The House determined (and entered the resolution among its standing orders), that a common attorney or solicitor employed by a peer did not enjoy privilege of Parliament. It also persuaded Derby to vacate the attornments collected since the initial verdict and to recognize the Sawreys’ ownership of Broughton for the purposes of the new trial.<sup>43</sup></p><p>The Sawreys’ case was only one of the legal difficulties Derby had to deal with in 1697. On 18 Mar. he signalled to the House his consent to the petition of Charles Fairfax, 5th Baron Fairfax of Elmley [I] and Colonel Ralph Widdrington<sup>‡</sup>, executors of the 1694 will of the 3rd Baron Widdrington, to examine additional witnesses to prove the wills of both Widdrington and William Stanley.<sup>44</sup> On 20 Mar., in response to a petition submitted a week earlier, Derby assured the House he would waive his privilege in the suit Thomas Cooper and his wife, a cousin of Charlotte Katherine Savage, wished to bring against him as executor and trustee of Charlotte’s will.<sup>45</sup> He was also confronted on 23 Mar. with a petition from his own mother, who wished to settle in the courts her dispute with her son over the matter of arrears of £600 in her annuity. There was a bad-tempered dispute with the widow of Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, who on 25 Mar. submitted to the House her claim to arrears of a fee-farm rent payable out of Derby’s Isle of Man estate, which involved accusations against him that Derby deemed ‘scandalous’. It was reported on 7 Apr. that the two had come to a private settlement of the matter.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Derby came to only four of the meetings of the 1697-8 session. On the first of them, 15 Mar. 1698, he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, before registering his proxy on 29 Mar. with Charles Boyle*, 2nd earl of Burlington, and leaving the House for the session. In his absence Fairfax and Widdrington had complained again on 18 Feb. 1698 that Derby was invoking his privilege in order to stop the executors of Lord Widdrington and William Stanley from publishing depositions taken in proving the wills. Derby tried to refute this in late March. On 5 May the House was informed that he had come to a private agreement with Fairfax and Widdrington, the terms of which were to be entered in the House’s Journal.<sup>47</sup> This case rumbled on for many years outside of Parliament, however, until finally in July 1702 chancery decreed that Derby was to pay the executors’ arrears on the annuity amounting to £15,380.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Meanwhile Derby’s relationship with his brothers had become so fractious that he opposed (though unsuccessfully) the candidacy of James for knight of the shire in August 1698. On 9 Jan. 1699 James and Charles submitted a petition against him in the Lords, requesting Derby waive his privilege so they could sue him in chancery for the recovery of arrears of the annuities due to them. Derby was clearly annoyed by this further attack from his own family and in his brief answer to the petition he claimed that he had always been ready to pay them if they would merely state their accounts and argued that ‘the petition is unnecessary and frivolous’.<sup>49</sup> Derby was not then in the House having missed the beginning of the session. Only after letters from the House had been dispatched to him on 17 Jan. and 13 Mar. 1699, did Derby take his seat on 24 Mar. for the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, but he only came a further four times, leaving as soon as the trial was over.</p><p>Under Macclesfield’s lieutenancy, Derby’s local influence declined to such a low point that he was left out of the quorum in the commission of the peace for Lancashire in April 1699, for the first time in his long career on the county magistrates’ bench, which had begun in 1681 (apart from his brief removal from the bench entirely from April 1688 to March 1689).<sup>50</sup> He faced another personal and public blow in October 1699 when his only surviving son and heir James, styled Lord Strange, died of smallpox in Italy during his travels abroad, aged 19. The tragedy also affected Derby politically, for it made his brother James heir to the earldom and a leading power for the Whigs in the county. In the aftermath of the death of his son, Derby did not attend any of the sittings of the 1699-1700 session. Derby campaigned, again unsuccessfully, against his brother, James in the two elections of 1701. In January 1701 he was particularly bitter and wrote letters to his associates ‘in hopes to remove (if there be occasion) a scruple in some to oppose Colonel Stanley, being my brother, which title I may freely quit him of, after what he has done to me… He makes use and slights the alliance as a man changes his habit according to the weather’.<sup>51</sup> Derby came to one-fifth of the meetings of the 1701 Parliament, most likely spurred on by the Tory impeachments of the Junto ministers, and he tried to block the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, signing protests against him on 9 and 17 June and voting against the acquittal on that latter date.</p><p>A glimmer of hope for the renewal of his influence came with the death of Macclesfield in November 1701. In the run-up to the elections of winter 1701 it was reported that Derby was ‘making all the court to the gentry he can’ to regain the lieutenancy, partly so that he could use its electoral influence against his brother. William, however, gave the lieutenancy and <em>custos</em> of Lancashire to Rivers instead. <sup>52</sup> Derby first sat in the next Parliament on 17 Mar. 1702, after William III had died, and went on to sit for a further 13 meetings. After years in the political wilderness, he was quickly rewarded by Queen Anne as part of the Tory purge of local government. In June he was re-granted his long-coveted offices of lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> of Lancashire. He does not appear to have objected to not receiving the same offices for Cheshire, at this point at least. He was also given command of North Wales, which had previously been held by Macclesfield. Derby now campaigned to replace his brother James as ranger of the ‘five forests’ in Lancashire and once again tried, though unsuccessfully, to unseat him from the county representation for Anne’s first Parliament.<sup>53</sup> Derby did not have long to enjoy his new position in county society. It was probably illness which kept him from attending the new Parliament, and he died on 5 Nov. 1702. In his final days, without male heirs, he revised his will to ‘prevent suits after my death’ concerning the estate. Its terms made disputes almost inevitable. Scarred by the recent history of the estate, he was intent on keeping its entail intact and bequeathed all the lands to brother James, now termed ‘beloved’ despite their recent acrimonious history, and his male heirs and, failing any in his line, to his youngest brother Charles and his heirs. At least, a copy of this will survives in the Derby family papers, but either it was not known of at the time of death or it was disputed, for it was said that Derby ‘died without will who was giving with one favourite daughter £20,000’, and the will proved in the registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury dates from 1692 and is concerned wholly, to the exclusion of all other matters, with the tuition and maintenance of the (now deceased) Lord Strange.<sup>54</sup> Certainly there was extended litigation over the estate between the new earl, and his nieces, between whom the family’s subsidiary barony of Strange was in abeyance. By an agreement hammered out in 1715 after much dispute the 10th earl maintained control of Knowsley (which he rebuilt and made the grand home of successive earls of Derby) and the Isle of Man, while his nieces kept, and eventually sold, the estates of Lathom, West Derby, Upholland, Wavertree and Everton. Thus the 9th earl of Derby, much embittered by disappointment and failure during his life, did not leave a happy legacy, with a divided and estranged family engaged in disputes over politics and the disposition of the dismembered family estate.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
STAWELL, John (c. 1668-92) |
<p><strong><surname>STAWELL</surname></strong> (<strong>STOWELL</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (c. 1668–92)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Apr. 1689 as 2nd Bar. STAWELL. |
|
First sat 14 Nov. 1689; last sat 19 Nov. 1692 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1668, 1st s. of Ralph Stawell*, Bar. Stawell, and 1st w. Anne, da. of John Ryves, of Ranston, Dorset; half-bro. of William Stawell*, later 3rd Bar. Stawell. <em>educ</em>. privately (Francis Lee);<sup>1</sup> matric. St. John’s, Oxf. 7 May 1683. <em>m</em>. Feb.–May 1691, Margaret, 4th da. of James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury. 1 da. <em>d.</em> 30 Nov. 1692; <em>admon</em>. 1 Dec. 1694.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Stawell was born at Somerton, probably in 1668. Little is known of his early life, but he appears to have been at school and he had a long-term tutor, Francis Lee, before he went to St. John’s College, Oxford.<sup>3</sup> While there he spoke some verses written by his tutor Ambrose Bonwick during the visit in May 1683 of James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>4</sup> He may have been the ‘Mr. Stawell’ in arms with the prince of Orange, but this was probably William Stawell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Stawell succeeded his father in August 1689. On 16 Sept. he replied from Ham to a circular requesting information about his personal estate by noting that ‘I am at present possessed of no personal estate for my father being very lately dead all the personal estate he died possessed of he gave amongst his younger children.’<sup>6</sup> He was excused a call of the House on 28 Oct. and on 1 Nov. made a settlement of his estates.<sup>7</sup> He first took his seat on 14 Nov. 1689, Roger Morrice noting that he had newly come of age.<sup>8</sup> He last sat during the session on 13 Dec., when he was granted leave to go into the country, and the following day he registered his proxy with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth. In all he attended on 12 occasions, 16 per cent of the total. He did not attend the session of March–May 1690, being excused a call of the House on 31 Mar., and in June 1690 it was reported that he was going abroad.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Stawell attended the Lords on the second day of the 1690–1 session, 6 Oct., when he may have voted against the discharge of Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury from the Tower, although Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), added the comment ‘I hope to gain’ beside his name.<sup>10</sup> This was a vain hope for Stawell sat for only five days until 14 Oct., not quite 7 per cent of the total, although on the following day he did register his proxy with John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), who had married his cousin Ursula Stawell. The date of Stawell’s own marriage is imprecise. On 17 Feb. 1691 it was reported to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, that Stawell ‘saw some time since my Lady Margaret Cecil at a play and fell in love with her and is married, and they say has settle[d] £4,000 jointure’ on her, but on 7 Mar. a newsletter reported that he would be married to her. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> merely referred to him early in May as being ‘lately’ married.<sup>11</sup></p><p>On 10 Oct. 1691 Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, had heard a report of Stawell’s death.<sup>12</sup> This was a mistake, but Stawell was probably ill for he was excused a call of the House on 2 Nov. and first attended on 23 November. He last sat on 17 Dec., having attended on 13 days, just over 13 per cent of the total. On 1 Feb. 1692 he again registered his proxy with Mulgrave. He next attended on the third day of the 1692–3 session, 9 Nov., and sat on six days, his last appearance being on 19 Nov. 1692.</p><p>On 18 Nov. it was ordered that the Lords would hear counsel on both sides on 25 Nov. concerning an appeal from John Cole against an order made by the commissioners of the great seal, on a bill exhibited by Stawell and others. On the 23rd Cole petitioned for more time and was granted a continuation until the 30th. On that date counsel informed the House that Stawell had died and therefore they could not proceed, whereupon the Lords made Stawell’s executors the respondents to Cole’s appeal. On 22 Dec. Cole petitioned that by Stawell’s death his appeal abated and was granted leave to amend his appeal. The decree was affirmed on 11 Jan. 1693.</p><p>Stawell was heavily indebted at his death, the result of over-ambitious building plans at Ham. His executors moved quickly to shore up the family’s finances, with a bill being introduced on 28 Jan. 1693 for the payment of his debts. At the same time the Lords ordered that all persons concerned in the bill should heard by their counsel before the second reading. The bill was committed on 6 Feb. but then seems to have got bogged down in committee. It was reintroduced into the Lords on 15 Feb. 1694 and committed on 22 February. On 1 Mar. the lord chief justice, Sir George Treby<sup>‡</sup>, was ordered to attend the committee. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, reported amendments on 2 Mar. and it passed the House the following day. In the Commons the bill was committed on 9 Mar. but four days later the tradesmen, servants and labourers to the late Lord Stawell petitioned the House. They claimed that divers considerable allowances had been made to Lady Stawell and her daughter out of Stawell’s estate and no particular care taken for payment of his debts, despite his personal estate amounting to £30,000. On 15 Mar. a further petition was presented by William Lee, on behalf of his brother Francis, who was abroad, setting forth that Francis Lee had been Stawell’s tutor for nine years, for which Stawell had by deed granted him an annuity of £100 for three years and £80 for his life, and there was no provision in the bill for the payment of this annuity. Both petitions were referred to the committee.</p><p>The report of the bill on 27 Mar. estimated Stawell’s estate at £4,557 p.a., consisting of £3,870 15<em>s.</em> 4<em>d.</em> to his heir-at-law (presumably his daughter) and £686 4<em>s.</em> 8<em>d.</em> to the new Baron Stawell. Debts due on bonds, recognizances and mortgages were estimated at £75,000, with £10,000 due in interest, plus £7,467 for workmen and servant’s wages, making a total of £92,000. On the credit side, Stawell’s personal estate consisted of £26,017 6<em>s.</em> 3<em>d.</em> in debts, plus £10,501 of other ‘debts doubtful’, of which £6,000 might be recoverable, making a total of £32,017 6<em>s.</em> 3<em>d</em>. The committee deemed the tradesmen and servants sufficiently provided for in the bill and offered a clause on Lee’s behalf, as well as providing that all suits either in law or equity now depending, wherein Lady Stawell was plaintiff as administratrix of Stawell, should be prosecuted in her name, but at the charge of the trustees named in the act, Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup>, Sir John Austen<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, John Hunt, Richard Cooling and Gerrard Newcourt. The Commons returned the bill with amendments on 31 March. The Lords agreed to all but one of these on 2 Apr., ordering Francis Lee to show the title upon which his clause was grounded. After hearing counsel the following day on this clause, the Lords disagreed to it and named a committee to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on the subject. On 4 Apr. Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, reported the reasons for not agreeing, amounting to the fact that they would create a title in Francis Lee to the annuity mentioned in the said clause. On 9 Apr. the Commons decided not to insist upon their amendments and the bill received the royal assent on the 16th.</p><p>The trustees sold much of Stawell’s estate.<sup>13</sup> His household goods were sold in July–August 1693, and in November Weymouth was given an account of what remained at Ham, namely some ‘very rich marble chimney pieces, a large very fine carved frame for a looking glass and two carved chimney pieces in wood, and a great many grange trees and a noble library of good books’.<sup>14</sup> Most of Stawell’s estate went to his daughter, Anne. His half-brother, William Stawell*, succeeded as 3rd Baron Stawell. In 1696 his widow married Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], at which point his daughter was probably still alive.<sup>15</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
STAWELL, Ralph (1640-89) |
<p><strong><surname>STAWELL</surname></strong> (<strong>STOWELL</strong>), <strong>Ralph</strong> (1640–89)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>15 Jan. 1683 Bar. STAWELL. |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 13 June 1685 |
|
MP Bridgwater, 1679 (Oct.)–1681 (Jan.). |
<p><em>bap</em>. 10 Sept. 1640,<sup>1</sup> 5th but 3rd surv. s. of Sir John Stawell<sup>‡</sup>, KB, and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Edward Hext<sup>‡</sup>, of Low Ham, Som., wid. of Sir Joseph Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>, of Lothbury, London. <em>m</em>. (1) settlement 8 Apr. 1667 (with £3,000), Anne (d. 1670), da. of John Ryves of Ranston, Dorset, 1s. 1da.; (2) 2 July 1672,<sup>2</sup> Abigail (<em>d.</em> 27 Sept. 1692), da. and h. of William Pitt of Hartley Wespall, Hants, 2s. 4da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>3</sup> <em>suc</em>. bro. George Stawell 25 Oct. 1669.<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 8 Aug. 1689; <em>will</em> 19 July 1688; pr. 3 Dec. 1689.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Som. Oct. 1669–Feb. 1688, Wilts. Dec. 1672–1675; col. militia Som. by Dec. 1669;<sup>6</sup> high sheriff Som. 1676–7; ld. lt. Som. Nov. 1688.</p> |
|
<p>The Stawells came to England at the time of the Norman Conquest. The family maintained a long tradition of loyal military and parliamentary service for the crown and by the seventeenth century they were among the leading gentry families in the west country. Stawell’s father inherited property in Somerset and Devon valued at £6,000 per year.<sup>7</sup> His father and older brothers fought for the king in the civil wars and suffered considerably during the Interregnum, being imprisoned in the Tower from 1646 to 1653. After the Restoration, the Stawells regained their estates and resumed a prominent role in the political, social and economic life of the south-west. Stawell’s brother, George Stawell, succeeded his father in 1662 and was a deputy lieutenant for Somerset in 1666 and 1667.<sup>8</sup> George had two daughters: Elizabeth, who married her cousin Sir Robert Austen<sup>‡</sup>, and Ursula, who married Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway. Stawell succeeded his brother in October 1669. Appointments to local office in Somerset and Wiltshire were followed in October 1679 by election to Parliament for Bridgwater. Significant legal battles ensued over the personal estate of George Stawell after the death of his widow in 1676/7 between her brother Sir John Austen<sup>‡</sup> on one side and her second husband, Henry Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, her two daughters and Stawell on the other.<sup>9</sup> George Stawell’s wealth must have been considerable; his daughters had both made good marriages, Ursula being variously reported to have brought Conway either £15,000 or £30,000.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Stawell played a crucial role as a political and military leader in Somerset, providing staunch service for the crown. After he had been raised to the peerage, he personally supervised the prosecution of Dissenters and rioters in Taunton and house searches in Bridgwater and Taunton following the Rye House Plot. He used the Somerset militia, which he commanded, to confine ‘fanatics’ to their houses. In Bridgwater he demolished a meeting house and had the pulpit and furniture burned.<sup>11</sup> Thomas Venn’s book on the art of drilling (part of his work on <em>Military and Naval Discipline</em>) was dedicated to Stawell in his capacity as deputy lieutenant and colonel of the Bridgwater regiment of foot.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Stawell’s promotion to the peerage in January 1683 was clearly a reward for unstinting loyalty and recognition of his considerable influence in Somerset and the west country generally. The patent made mention of the fact that his father had fought and suffered for the royalist cause, raising three regiments in the south-west for the king’s service in the 1640s.<sup>13</sup> In 1683 Stawell, with the help of Peter Mews*, bishop of Bath and Wells, succeeded in having the 1628 charter of the corporation of Bridgwater surrendered. The new charter enabled the removal of Sir John Malet<sup>‡</sup>, the recorder, and ten burgesses, which ensured a Tory majority in the elections of 1685.<sup>14</sup> In February 1685 Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, sent a circular letter to Stawell from the king recommending that the latter use his ‘utmost endeavour’ to ensure that the elections to Parliament returned ‘persons of approved loyalty and affection to the government’.<sup>15</sup> Stawell replied from Ham on 21 Feb. that he was confident in Somerset and Dorset and had written into Wiltshire and Hampshire ‘where I have some little concerns’.<sup>16</sup> Although he had been ill, he attended the coronation in April, with his daughters.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Stawell took his seat on the opening day of the 1685 session, 19 May, being introduced by Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice, and Richard Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, better known as earl of Arran [I]. He attended regularly until 13 June, sitting on 14 occasions (88 per cent of the total) and was named to several committees. On the 13th he registered his proxy with George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, and then left London to command the Somerset militia against James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, whereupon most of his troops deserted to the rebels.</p><p>Family tradition has it that Stawell was opposed to the harsh treatment of the rebels after Sedgemoor and allegedly refused to meet Jeffreys, who hung the corpse of one of the rebels, Colonel Bovett (an enemy of Stawell’s father), on the gates at Cothelstone.<sup>18</sup> However, this was at odds with his tone when he wrote from Bristol on 8 July 1685 to Secretary Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, describing the capture of Monmouth and Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), and expressing the hope that ‘this good news will deserve a fat buck out of George Speke’s<sup>‡</sup> park’.<sup>19</sup> At least initially, Stawell seems to have been regarded as a loyal supporter of James II. On one list of 1687 charting supposed attitudes to the Test Act, he was thought to favour repeal. Other lists are more equivocal: in about May 1687 he was classed as doubtful in his attitude to James II’s policies, while in about November he was again thought to be a supporter of repealing the Test Act, as he was in a list published in Holland in January 1688. However, he may have lost his deputy-lieutenancy in February 1688 when a new batch was approved, and in 1687–8 Danby listed Stawell as an opponent of the king. <sup>20</sup></p><p>Significantly, when James II turned back to the Anglicans in October 1688, he turned initially to Stawell. On 31 Oct. a warrant was issued for Stawell to be lord lieutenant of Somerset, Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], sending him word of the appointment on 6 November.<sup>21</sup> On the 8th, Stawell responded, expressing his willingness to serve the king but pleading disability, having been three years ‘under the surgeon’s hands’.<sup>22</sup> This may have been an excuse because in the same month he signed an association of Somerset notables in defence of the prince of Orange.<sup>23</sup> However, in his will drafted in July 1688 he did refer to himself as ‘very infirm in body’.</p><p>Stawell did not attend the Convention. He was excused calls of the House on 25 Jan. and 22 May 1689 because of ill health.<sup>24</sup> In the interim, in answer to a summons from the Lords on 2 Mar., he sent a letter accompanied by signed certificates from a doctor and a surgeon, indicating that he was too ill to travel to London.<sup>25</sup> He died on 8 Aug. 1689. He left his personal estate to his wife and asked that his younger son, Edward Stawell<sup>†</sup>, the future 4th Baron, be raised a ‘scholar’.<sup>26</sup> He was succeeded by his elder son, John Stawell*, as 2nd Baron Stawell.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
STAWELL, William (c. 1680-1742) |
<p><strong><surname>STAWELL</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1680–1742)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>half-bro. 30 Nov. 1692 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. STAWELL |
|
First sat 30 Dec. 1701; last sat 14 Mar. 1729 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 28 Dec. 1680,<sup>1</sup> 2nd s. of Ralph Stawell*, Bar. Stawell, being 1st s. with 2nd w. Abigail (<em>d</em>.1692), da. of Sir William Pitt, of Hartley Wespall, Hants; bro. of Edward Stawell<sup>†</sup>, later 4th Bar. Stawell, and half-bro of John Stawell*, 2nd Bar. Stawell. <em>educ</em>. ?Merchant Taylors 1692;<sup>2</sup> Eton 1695–8; Christ Church, Oxf. 1698, MA 1701. <em>m</em>. 16 Mar. 1708, <sup>3</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 18 Aug. 1748), da. and h. of William Pert, of Arnold’s Hall, Mountnessing, Essex, 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 1da. <em>d</em>. 23 Jan. 1742; <em>will</em> 1 Nov. 1740, pr. 18 Feb. 1742.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland, Apr. 1704–June 1706.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by M. Dahl c.1705-10, National Trust, Hinton Ampner, Hants.</p> |
<p>Stawell inherited very little from his father, as his heavily encumbered estate was the subject of an act of Parliament to pay his debts in 1694. However, he was probably the beneficiary of his mother’s settlement of Hartley in 1690.<sup>6</sup> He was at school and university during most of William III’s reign. In 1698 one of his sisters, Elizabeth (<em>b</em>. 1673), married William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>. Another, Catherine (<em>b</em>. 1674), married a clergyman in August 1699, with a portion of £4,000.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Stawell took his seat in the Lords at the beginning of the 1701–2 session on 30 Dec. 1701, which was shortly after he attained his majority. On 20 Feb. 1702 he protested against the resolution to pass the bill to attaint Queen Mary, the widow of James II, and on 24 Feb. he protested against the passage of the abjuration bill. He last sat in that session on 4 May 1702, having attended on 52 days altogether, 52 per cent of the total.</p><p>Stawell first attended the 1702–3 session on 20 Oct. 1702, and was present for 61 days of the session (some 70 per cent of the total). On 12 Nov. he took part in the procession to St Paul’s for the thanksgiving service.<sup>8</sup> In about January 1703 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, thought him likely to support the bill against occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalties clause of the bill. On 22 Feb. he protested against the failure to commit the land qualification bill for membership of the Commons.</p><p>Stawell first attended the 1703–4 session on 9 Nov. 1703, and was present in total for 50 days (51 per cent of the total). In about November 1703 Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, thought him likely to support a renewed bill against occasional conformity, an assessment that he did not alter when he drew up another forecast in November. In this Sunderland proved correct for on 14 Dec. Stawell voted in favour of the bill, and entered his dissent when it failed. Stawell wrote a letter to Weymouth at this time to inform him that Nottingham was under attack and that there was an ‘endeavour to pass a scandalous vote on him as to his proceedings in examining the Plot and to tell your Lordship if you can come it may be of service to him’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>On 4 Jan. 1704 Stawell was one of the peers to whom a letter requesting his attendance on the 12th was sent in order to consider a matter relating to the privileges of the Lords; he duly attended on that day. On 3 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution that the key to the ‘gibberish’ letters relating to the Scottish Plot be made known only to the investigating committee. On 21 Mar. he entered his dissent to three votes over the recruitment bill and on the 25th to two resolutions appertaining to the failure to prosecute Robert Ferguson.</p><p>The death of Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, on 24 Mar. 1704 saw Stawell in line to replace him in the bedchamber of Prince George. However, the duchess of Marlborough had severe reservations on account of Stawell’s relationship to Bromley. Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, protested that he did not know that Stawell was Bromley’s brother-in-law, but professed confidence that he could ‘govern him in every vote’.<sup>10</sup> On 8 Apr. 1704 Weymouth told James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> that Stawell had been ‘put off’ until Lord Treasurer Godolphin returned from Newmarket on the 13th.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Stawell first attended the 1704–5 session on 6 November. In about November 1704 his name appears on what was possibly a list of supporters of the Tack, but he failed to attend the House between 29 Nov. and 26 Jan. 1705, registering his proxy on 1 Dec. 1704 with Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale. He last attended on 14 Feb. 1705, having sat on 24 days of the session, 24 per cent of the total. In the 1705 Parliament he sat on the opening day, 26 Oct., but on 12 Nov. he was excused attendance on the House, and on the 15th he registered his proxy with Scarsdale. He returned to the House on the first day after the Christmas recess, 8 Jan. 1706. On 31 Jan. he entered his dissent on three occasions relating to the place clauses of the regency bill. On 9 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution to agree with the Commons that Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter to the Earl of Stamford</em> was a ‘scandalous, false and malicious libel’. He last sat on 19 Mar. 1706, having been present on 36 days of the session, 38 per cent of the total.</p><p>Stawell first sat in the 1706–7 session on 12 Dec. and was present for 53 days in all (nearly 62 per cent of the total). On 15 Jan. 1707 he registered his proxy with Nottingham. On 3 Feb. he protested against the rejection of an instruction to the committee of the whole on the bill for securing the Church of England to insert provision for making perpetual the Test Act of 1673. On 7 Feb. he dined at <em>The George</em> in Pall Mall with Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville), Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, Scarsdale and Charles Goring<sup>‡</sup>, possibly in relation to the Union. On 15 Feb. 1707 it was Stawell who ‘demanded a division’ in the committee of the whole on whether to postpone the first article of the Union, a motion which was heavily defeated.<sup>12</sup> On 27 Feb. he entered his dissent to all 25 of the articles of Union. On 4 Mar. he supported adding a rider to the Union bill, that nothing in it should be construed as an approbation of Presbyterianism, entering his protest against the rejection of the clause and then against the passage of the bill.<sup>13</sup> On 13 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, on whether to agree with the amendment made by the committee to the Fornhill and Stony-Stratford highways bill. He last sat in that session on 2 Apr. 1707 and did not attend the short session of April 1707.</p><p>Stawell took his seat for the 1707–8 session on 6 Nov. 1707, and quit the House on 8 Mar. 1708, having sat on 31 days of the session, 29 per cent of the total. On 16 Mar., at Aldermaston, he married Elizabeth Forster, by whom he eventually acquired the estate at Aldermaston which had belonged to her maternal uncle, Sir Humphrey Forster<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>In or about May 1708 Stawell was unsurprisingly listed as a Tory. He first attended the 1708–9 session on 1 Feb. 1709. On 1 Mar. it was reported to the House that one of Stawell’s menial servants, Richard Butler, had been arrested contrary to privilege. Butler was released and the offenders were ordered into custody. They were reprimanded and released on 7 March. Stawell quit the House that session on 11 Apr. 1709, having attended on 24 days, just over 26 per cent of the total. He arrived for the 1709–10 session on 8 Feb. 1710 and was thus on hand to support Dr. Henry Sacheverell. On 14, 16, 17 and 18 Mar. he entered a series of protests against the proceedings, then on 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. He last sat in that session on 21 Mar. but did not sign the protest against the sentence passed against Sacheverell. He had attended on 19 days of the session, just over 20 per cent of the total.</p><p>Following the change of ministry in 1710, on 3 Oct. Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, expected Stawell to support the new ministry. Stawell was present for just eight days (just over 7 per cent) of the 1710–11 session, concentrating his attendances between 11 and 25 Jan. 1711. That he appeared at all seems to have been in response to a summons from Weymouth, as he wrote from Hartley on 2 Jan. 1711 that he was recovering from ‘a most violent fever which has reduced me to extreme weakness that I can scarce get cross a room’, and that he needed his physician’s ‘leave to venture the journey’, which he hoped to obtain in a week or ten days.<sup>14</sup> On 27 Jan. he registered his proxy with Weymouth. During his sojourn in London, Stawell had obviously been agitating for an office, for, as he wrote to Weymouth on about 13 Mar. 1711, his gout had left him ‘in greater need of a white staff than ever to support me’, although in future he would never ‘wage a war at my own expense’, nor would he depart from his resolution of ‘not taking the post I formerly had’, so that, if he could not get a better place, ‘I will ask for none’. In the 1710–11 session he was listed as a Tory patriot.</p><p>During Harley’s confinement after Guiscard’s assassination attempt, Stawell waited for his recovery expecting ‘alterations’ to be made, although ‘everybody expects something’.<sup>15</sup> In May 1711 he wrote from Hartley to Weymouth that with the death of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, ‘all my pretensions to the queen’s favour died with him’. In consequence, since his fortune ‘will not indulge me in unnecessary expense’, he would ‘set myself to farming affairs’.<sup>16</sup> In reality, Stawell’s efforts seemed to have switched to providing for his brother, Edward Stawell, later 4th Baron Stawell, through the influence of his brother-in-law, Speaker Bromley. On 18 July Bromley suggested to Oxford (as Harley had since become) that Edward Stawell should be named as a commissioner to investigate the army’s accounts in Spain and Portugal.<sup>17</sup> Stawell attended at Windsor on several Sundays in August, reporting on the 25th that his brother had been duly appointed. Another trip to Windsor, early in September, yielded political gossip and the comment that <em>A Letter to a Friend in the Country</em>, in relation to the naval debt, was likely to see ‘our people … suffer very much in the opinion of their friends’ and ‘we shall gain but little credit by our remonstrance’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>By 24 Oct. 1711 Stawell was writing to Weymouth from Overton that he would not be in town that winter, for, although he wished well to the peace, he was ‘resolved to spend no money about it’. He would visit Weymouth when he heard he was ‘in this side of the country’.<sup>19</sup> With the Oxford ministry facing a challenge in the Lords to its peace policy, Stawell’s name appears on a list compiled by Oxford around the beginning of December 1711. On 3 Dec. William Bromley told Oxford that Stawell would be in town before the opening day of the session on 7 Dec. and he duly attended on that day.<sup>20</sup> He entered his protest on 8 Dec. against presenting the address to the queen because it contained the ‘No Peace without Spain’ amendment. Following this setback, on Oxford’s list of 10 Dec. 1711 Stawell was noted as a loyal peer. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support the case of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], for a British peerage, but on the following day voted against the motion.</p><p>Stawell’s straitened circumstances made him a target for the Whigs. On 15 Jan. 1712 he was listed as a ‘poor Lord’, for whom a pension of £600 would be sufficient to secure his support for the Hanoverian cause. On 4 Mar. he registered his proxy with Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, and did not attend again until 12–13 June. However, he was listed as voting on 28 May 1712 against an opposition motion for an address negating the ‘restraining orders’ sent to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>21</sup> In all he attended on 31 days, 29 per cent of the total. In June or July his name appeared on another list of Oxford’s, perhaps of doubtful supporters of the ministry.</p><p>On 19 July 1712 Stawell was a party to the post-marriage settlement of the Catholic Robert Petre*, 7th Baron Petre, and his wife, Catherine.<sup>22</sup> He attended the prorogation of 25 September. In late October he accompanied Sir Richard Hoare<sup>‡</sup> to the feast celebrating his installation as mayor of London.<sup>23</sup> On 19 Nov. 1712 a warrant was issued to pay Stawell a royal bounty of £1,000.<sup>24</sup></p><p>He attended the prorogations on 3 and 17 Feb. and 3, 10 and 17 Mar. 1713. On 18 Feb. he dined with Harley’s propagandist, Jonathan Swift, as the guest of Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon.<sup>25</sup> Before the session began Stawell was thought likely to support the government on a list compiled by Swift and amended by Oxford. He was present on the opening day of the 1713 session, 9 April. He was then absent from 21 May to 5 June, which may account for his presence on a list towards the end of May, probably of Lords to be contacted over the bill confirming the French commercial treaty. On 13 June Oxford expected him to support the bill. He last attended on 26 June, having sat for 31 days in all (47 per cent of the total).</p><p>Stawell did not attend the 1714 session, nor the short session following the demise of Queen Anne. Details of his later career will be covered in the next part of this work. He died at Hartley Wespall on 23 Jan. 1742. His only son, William, predeceased him, dying in Marseille in 1740, and he was therefore succeeded by his brother, Edward.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
STOURTON, Edward (c. 1644-1720) |
<p><strong><surname>STOURTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (c. 1644–1720)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 7 Aug. 1685 as 13th Bar. STOURTON |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. <em>c</em>.1644, 1st s. of William Stourton*, 12th Bar. Stourton and Elizabeth, da. Sir John Preston, bt., of Lancs., bro. of Thomas Stourton<sup>†</sup>, later 14th Bar. Stourton, <em>m</em>. (date unknown) in Paris, Teresa, da. of Robert Buckenham,<sup>1</sup> <em>s.p. d</em>. 6 Oct.1720.</p> |
|
|
<p>Edward, 13th Baron Stourton, succeeded to an unenviable inheritance. The income to be derived from his family estates was small, possibly lower even than that of William and George Knype or Knipe, the Catholic lawyers who had served his father and grandfather as stewards.<sup>2</sup> In June 1686 he borrowed £4,000 from John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, secured against the Stourton property. Within six months he had borrowed another £2,000 from Belasyse. Despite the sale of some of the outlying properties in 1688, his need for cash drove him to borrow still more: £4,000 in 1690 and £3,500 in 1695.</p><p>An interesting sidelight on his financial difficulties in this period is shown in a chancery case brought against him by John Bromley in 1695.<sup>3</sup> Bromley openly kept an illegal boarding school for young Catholic gentlemen, which he gave up in 1693 to become steward to Stourton. Bromley had hoped for social and economic advancement but soon discovered that Stourton was determined to avoid settling his accounts. Nor was he the first to be treated in such a fashion: one of his witnesses, Stourton’s former steward, George Knype, declared that ‘the defendant since he came to his estate … hath had eight or nine several new stewards and as many if not more bailiffs which his lordship severally turned out or parted with very abruptly and without settling any accounts.’ Thomas Morgan, another former steward, thought Stourton had had ‘about four several stewards at least.’ The problem was simple: expenditure exceeded income and by refusing to pass the accounts Stourton was effectively transferring the deficit from himself to his steward. Those who were determined to pursue him for payment found that he could be a determined opponent, able and willing to use the law to harass his creditors by commencing malicious suits against them. Stourton also refused to pay wages due to his ordinary servants. John Bromley’s brief association with the Stourtons led to financial ruin: no other Catholic family would employ him until the disputed accounts were settled.</p><p>Given his inability to draw sufficient income from his estates to maintain an appropriate aristocratic lifestyle, the courses of action open to Stourton were necessarily limited. His chances of preferment or of being able to take on any public role were intrinsically bound up with the future of Catholicism, and hence with the success of the regime of James II. Predictably, therefore, Stourton, unlike the majority of his Protestant neighbours in Wiltshire, responded positively to the three questions. He and other members of leading Catholic families were also mentioned as possible deputy lieutenants and justices of the peace for the county.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The revolution of 1688 and subsequent exile of James II stripped Stourton of any hope of preferment. Just how far he was prepared to translate his sympathy for the exiled monarch into either political or military action is difficult to assess, but he was clearly believed to pose a risk to the new regime. He was arrested, together with other suspected Jacobite leaders, during the invasion scare of May 1692 and committed to the Tower of London on suspicion of high treason. According to the account of the arrest by Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup>, he was seized in Vine Street, Westminster with his brother Captain Henry Stourton, but this must be an error, since he does not appear to have had a brother called Henry and there is no record of a warrant or commitment of another Stourton. The warrant for Stourton’s arrest was issued on 8 May and executed the same day, which suggests that he was indeed in London.<sup>5</sup> Luttrell’s later and entirely accurate list of those imprisoned for the plot, shows that Stourton was still in the Tower on 21 May 1692.<sup>6</sup> Early in June, Luttrell expected Stourton, along with John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and Robert Ferguson to be indicted for high treason in the king’s bench, but no such action was actually taken and Stourton was probably bailed in the late summer or early autumn.<sup>7</sup></p><p>A tantalising reference in the Treasury records of 1698 to a payment of £30 a year ‘for breeding Lord Stourton's young kinsman, a protestant.’ opens up the possibility that his allegiance may have been open to offer, but his marriage to the daughter of Robert Buckenham, equerry to James II and the titular James III, and his eventual departure from England suggests that his ties to the exiled court were indeed strong.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Despite Stourton’s desperate attempts to maintain a façade of solvency, he was increasingly unable to service the interest on his debts, let alone pay off the capital. In 1707, the mortgage on the Stourton estate was purchased by Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup>, who also advanced over £2,500 as an additional loan. An Act of Parliament ensuring that title could pass in fee simple was obtained in 1713. In October 1714, Meres bought the estate for £19,400. Almost all of the purchase money was applied to the discharge of the mortgage; Stourton received only £775 19<em>s</em>. 9<em>d</em>. from the sale.<sup>9</sup> His whereabouts after 1714 are uncertain, but it seems likely that he left the country for France, where he died without issue.<sup>10</sup> He was succeeded by his brother, Thomas Stourton*, 14th Baron Stourton.</p> |
R.P. |
|
STOURTON, William (c. 1594-1672) |
<p><strong><surname>STOURTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1594–1672)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 7 May 1633 as as 11th Bar. STOURTON. |
|
First sat 12 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 21 May 1660; last sat 20 Aug. 1664 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. in or bef. 1594, 1st s. of Edward Stourton<sup>†</sup>, 10th Bar. Stourton, and Frances, da. of Sir Thomas Tresham. <em>m</em>. 2 July 1615, Frances (<em>d</em>.1663), da. of Sir Edward Moore. of Odiham; 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>), 2da; KB, 4 Nov. 1616. <em>d</em>. 25 Apr. 1672; <em>will</em> 31 Oct. 1670, pr. 28 June 1672.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>William Stourton, 11th Baron Stourton, succeeded to a title of ancient origin but with little political or economic influence. The Stourtons’ principal landholdings were in and around their house at Stourton in Wiltshire, with a number of lesser properties in Dorset. The inquisition post mortem held at the death of his father in 1633 indicates landholdings worth less than £300 a year.<sup>2</sup> Six years later, in response to Charles I’s request for funds towards his northern expedition, the 11th Baron Stourton offered a mere £500, excusing himself by reference to his ‘weak estate,’ nearly half of which had been made over to his three brothers (Thomas, Francis and Edward) for their lives, leaving him with less than £1,500 a year to support his own five children, ‘two of them daughters near ready for marriage’.<sup>3</sup> Only £300 was actually paid.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The marriage of his eldest son, Edward, to Mary Petre, daughter of the wealthy Robert Petre<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Petre, in 1641 brought renewed hope of financial stability with a down payment of £3,000 on a promised dowry of £6,000, but in the early 1640s circumstances were changing all too rapidly and the alliance with the Petres soon proved disastrous.<sup>5</sup> The Petre finances were plunged into disarray by the early death of the 3rd baron and the effects of civil war. William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre, refused to pay the remainder of his sister’s dowry. The death of Stourton’s heir, Edward, killed on royalist service at Bristol in 1644, and the remarriage of his widow to Sir Thomas Longueville, created additional complications – complications that were redoubled when Mary Petre died shortly after her second marriage leaving her husband to claim £300 a year from the Stourton estates as her jointure. The ensuing litigation between Stourton and Longueville and between Stourton and Petre was not finally settled until the mid 1660s.<sup>6</sup></p><p>The Civil War also brought more direct financial consequences for Stourton. Although his immediate forebears had plotted against James I (his maternal uncle, Francis Tresham, was one of the Gunpowder Plotters and his father was also implicated in the plot), Stourton and his family were closely associated with the royalist cause. He was with the king at Oxford early in 1644 and in March 1644 was listed as one of the ‘peers employed in his majesty’s service, or absent with leave’.<sup>7</sup> As noted above, his eldest son died that year in the king’s service; a younger son, William, was one of a party of gentlemen who assembled with horses and arms ‘ostensibly for fox-hunting’ just before Penruddock’s rising of 1655.<sup>8</sup></p><p>By 1646 he had been sequestered, and complained that ‘all my estate is sequestered, and my wife, children and grandchildren have not beds to lie on.’<sup>9</sup> An attempt to improve the finances of his estate (probably by means of an enclosure scheme) also went wrong when Stourton’s tenant retained the lands – and profits – as his own.<sup>10</sup> Other disputes related to lands in Dorset, rights of presentation to a benefice and an unpaid debt of £200 owed to his deceased younger brother, Francis.<sup>11</sup> Like his disputes with Petre and Longueville, these too ended up in the court of chancery. Stourton’s resort to litigation may have been symptomatic of his financial and political weakness and consequent inability to exploit more informal methods of pressure on opponents.</p><p>Stourton was a committed Catholic. A list of 48 persons ‘conceived to be popishly affected’ drawn up by the rector and churchwardens of Stourton in September 1662 started with his name. He maintained a Catholic mission at Stourton, served by a Benedictine, from at least 1652. In 1658 his younger brother, Thomas Stourton, was accused of being a Catholic priest; two of his children, Thomas and Frances, also embraced the religious life.<sup>12</sup> The protection and encouragement of local Catholics seems to have been the one area in which he was able to exert influence. In 1670, the constable who reported <em>omnia bene</em> (all well) in the notoriously recusant neighbourhood of Stourton, was himself a Catholic, and many of the Catholics in the area seem to have been Stourton tenants or members of the Stourton household.<sup>13</sup> A close relationship with the neighbourhood is suggested by the 11th baron’s bequest of £10 to the poor of the parish to be paid the day after his funeral; he also left generous bequests to his servants.</p><p>Stourton’s contribution to parliamentary life is difficult to assess. His first and apparently only appearance in the House before the Civil Wars was in April 1640. His attendance after the the Restoration was initially high. He was present on 74 per cent of sitting days during the Convention but his attendance dropped to 59 per cent during the first (1661-2) session of the Cavalier Parliament. He did not attend the 1663 session at all, although his attendance during the 1664 session rose slightly to 64 per cent. In the absence of a family archive and with no recorded dissents, protests, speeches or knowledge of his activity in committees and conferences, it is impossible to draw any conclusion about what he considered to be his role in the House. In 1660, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed him, not surprisingly, as a papist; in 1661, he was expected to vote against the bid by Aubrey De Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the great chamberlaincy. In February 1663, in response to a call of the House, he entered his proxy in favour of the Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, who was expected to use it in favour of the impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Stourton’s last attendance was on 20 Aug. 1664, when Parliament met simply to be prorogued. Thereafter he regularly sent in his proxy, always to a fellow Catholic and usually, but not always, in favour of his Wiltshire neighbour, Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour. In the 1665 session it was given to James Tuchet, 13th Baron Audley*, better known by his Irish title as 3rd earl of Castlehaven, and in 1669 it was once again given to Stafford. Stourton was said to be sick at a call of the House on 26 Oct. 1669. It is possible that his non-attendance was as much due to advancing age and ill-health as to lack of interest or poverty, though when he made his will in 1670 he declared himself to be in good health.</p><p>Two of his sons, Edward and John, predeceased him. Of the remaining sons, William married Margaret, daughter of George Morgan of Penrith, and Thomas became a Benedictine monk. His elder daughter Mary married Sir John Weld (brother of Humphrey Weld<sup>‡</sup>), the other, Frances, became a nun.<sup>14</sup> He was succeeded by his grandson, William Stourton*, to whom he bequeathed his ‘Parliament robes with my footcloth, and all furniture belonging to them’. Parliament robes were expensive. The implicit assumption that the new baron would be unable to afford a new set of robes is probably further confirmation of the extent of Stourton poverty.</p> |
R.P. |
|
STOURTON, William (c. 1644-85) |
<p><strong><surname>STOURTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1644–85)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 25 Apr. 1672 as 12th Bar. STOURTON. |
|
First sat 5 Feb. 1673; last sat 6 Mar. 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c<em>.</em>1644, 1st s. of Edward Stourton and Mary, da. of Robert Petre<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Petre. <em>m</em>. settlement 20 Aug. 1664 (with £5,000), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. Apr. 1688), da. of Sir John Preston, bt.<sup>1</sup> 9s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 7 Aug. 1685; admon. 3 Mar. 1686.</p> |
|
|
<p>William, 12th Baron Stourton was one of two children born during the brief marriage of Edward, eldest son of William Stourton*, 11th Baron Stourton. His father died in the king’s service at Bristol in 1644. His mother appears to have died within six months of her second marriage to Sir Thomas Longueville, which probably took place in or about 1650. It is unclear where he spent his childhood. He may have been one of the grandchildren mentioned as being with his grandfather, the 11th Baron Stourton, in 1646 but his uncle,William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre, claimed that he had had to maintain both his sister and her children after Edward Stourton’s death.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Stourton’s marriage to Elizabeth Preston, and her marriage portion of £5,000 brought hopes of financial stability to a family whose finances had been seriously damaged by the Civil Wars, but their success in raising six sons to adulthood and the consequent need to make suitable provision for them added still further to the strain on the family finances. The full extent of the alienation of lands to provide for the younger sons is unknown apart from the settlement of the Stourton lands at Bonham on Thomas Stourton<sup>†</sup>, the second surviving son, who later succeeded as 14th Baron Stourton, and lands at Buckhorn Weston on Charles Stourton (1669-1739). Charles Stourton served as an army officer under James II and may have retained close links with the Jacobite court after the Revolution.<sup>3</sup> Another son, John (1673-1748), became a monk of St Gregory’s Douai and titular cathedral prior of Bath.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Stourton was present nearly every day of the first session of 1673. He failed to attend the very brief second session of that year but was again present nearly every day of the 1674 session and first session of 1675. Thereafter his attendance began to drop; to 75 per cent of the second 1675 session, just over 70 per cent for the 1677-8 session, 60 per cent in the first session of 1678 and 54 per cent in the second session of 1678. Somewhat puzzlingly, although barred from the House by his inability to take the oaths prescribed under the Test Act, he was listed as present on the first day for which the 1679 Parliament was summoned.</p><p>Despite his relatively high level of attendance little is known of Stourton’s parliamentary activities. He entered no proxy. He was regularly named to committees but no pattern of personal interest has been detected, and he is not known to have been active in them. He was not named to manage any conferences and there is no record of any speech that he may have made. He voted in favour of the address to the Crown for a dissolution of Parliament in November 1675 and was marked as a worthy papist by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in 1677, suggesting that he held ‘country’ sympathies. On 26 May 1677 he invoked privilege of Parliament to protect his servant Charles Barnes from a civil suit; the offender had also uttered ‘words very derogatory to the privileges of the House of Peers and the said Lord Stourton’. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. Not surprisingly, he is known to have opposed the provisions of the 1678 Test Act, but he escaped suspicion during the hysteria of the Popish Plot, perhaps because, unlike his maternal uncle, Lord Petre, his and his family’s connections tended to be with Benedictines rather than Jesuits.</p><p>His exclusion from Parliament was deeply felt and his monumental inscription in Stourton church commemorates his steadfast refusal to renounce his faith in order to remain an active member of the House. Stourton died, presumably unexpectedly since he was intestate, at the age of 40 and was succeeded by his son, Edward Stourton*, 13th Baron Stourton.</p> |
R.P. |
|
STUART, Charles (1639-72) |
<p><strong><surname>STUART</surname></strong> (<strong>STEWART</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1639–72)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>10 Dec. 1645 (a minor) earl of LICHFIELD; <em>suc. </em>cos. 10 Aug. 1660 as 3rd duke of RICHMOND, 5th duke of Lennox [S] |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 19 Apr. 1671 |
|
|
<p>b. 7 Mar. 1639, o. s. of Ld. George Stuart, 9th Seigneur d’Aubigny [France], and Katherine, da. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk. <em>m</em>. (1) aft. Apr. 1660, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 21 Apr. 1661), da. and coh. of Richard Rogers of Bryanston, Dorset, and Anne, da. of Sir Thomas Cheeke, wid. of Charles Cavendish<sup>‡ </sup>(<em>d</em>. June 1659), styled Visct. Mansfield, 1 da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) 31 Mar. 1662, Margaret (<em>d</em>. bef. 6 Jan. 1667), da. of Lawrence Banastre of Boarstall, Bucks. and Mary Dinham, wid. of William Lewis<sup>‡</sup>, of Bletchington, Oxon. and The Van, Glam. <em>s.p.</em>; (3) 30 Mar. 1667, Frances Teresa (<em>d</em>. 15 Oct. 1702), da. and coh. of Walter Stewart (Stuart), <em>s.p</em>. KG 1661. <em>suc</em>. uncle, 3 Nov. 1665, as 11th Seigneur d’Aubigny [France]. <em>d</em>. 12 Dec 1672; <em>will</em> 12 Jan. 1672, pr. 14 Feb. 1673.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Heritable gt. chamberlain [S] 1660–<em>d</em>.; ld. high adm. [S] 1660–<em>d</em>.; gent. of the bedchamber 1661–<em>d</em>.; alnager 1663–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Kpr. Dumbarton Castle, 1660–<em>d.</em>; ld. lt. Dorset 1660–<em>d.</em>; jt. ld. lt. Kent 1668–<em>d</em>.; high steward, Dorchester 1660-?<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> v.-adm. Kent 1668–<em>d</em>.; ld. warden, cinque ports, 1668-d.</p><p>Capt. regt. of horse 1666; amb. extraordinary, Denmark 1671–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Sir P. Lely, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, USA; watercolour and gouache on parchment, S. Cooper, Yale Center of British Art, New Haven, CT, USA.</p> |
<p>A minor member of an Anglo-French family related to the Scottish royal house, Stuart’s fortunes were transformed first by the hazards of war, and then by the everyday misfortunes of the age. His father was one of the ten children of Esme Stuart, 3rd duke of Lennox [S]; his eldest uncle, James Stuart<sup>†</sup>, was made duke of Richmond in 1641.When Charles was barely three years old his father was killed fighting for the king at Edgehill, and two of his uncles also died serving the king, who had intended to create the elder of them, Bernard Stuart, earl of Lichfield. When Bernard was killed at Rowton Heath in 1645, this honour was awarded instead to Charles himself, together with a second English peerage as Baron Stuart. In 1658 he was living with his aunt, the dowager duchess of Richmond at Blois, who was said to have been in dispute with another of his father’s brothers, the Seigneur d’Aubigny, concerning him. In July 1659 Lichfield was ready to return to England, and in August he was involved in an abortive royalist rising in Surrey.<sup>3</sup> As a result, on 3 Sept. Lichfield was one of those summoned before the Council of State and Parliament to clear themselves of involvement in the series of risings associated with that of Sir George Booth*, the future Baron Delamer. He left the country and arrived back in France at the end of September. By December he was in attendance on the king.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1660 Lichfield’s young cousin Esme Stuart*, 2nd duke of Richmond and 4th duke of Lennox [S], died of smallpox. Lichfield succeeded unexpectedly to both dukedoms. As the Venetian resident explained, Richmond ‘now takes precedence after the princes of the blood of all the grandees of the realm, to the mortification of the other dukes’, especially George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, ‘who is more ambitious and proud than the rest’.<sup>5</sup> In 1665 Richmond also inherited the seignurie of Aubigny from an uncle. In May 1666 a grant was prepared but apparently not issued for a second English peerage as Baron Cobham and a year later, on the death of his cousin Lady Mary Stuart (the 2nd duke’s sister), Richmond became entitled <em>de jure</em> to the Barony of Clifton of Leighton Bromswold.<sup>6</sup></p><h2><em>Finances</em></h2><p>Richmond’s social status was assured – after the death of his uncle in 1665, his nearest male relation was Charles II – but his wealth is difficult to estimate. He seems to have inherited very little from his father and it was clearly important that he made an advantageous marriage. In March and April 1660 he was actively wooing the twice widowed Lady Mansfield, ‘a very fine woman’ with ‘a great fortune’, even using the king to put his case.<sup>7</sup> Through this marriage he acquired extensive lands in Dorset, and hence his appointment to the county lieutenancy and the high stewardship of Dorchester. There is no mention of lands in Dorset either in his will or in his surviving accounts, so it seems likely that he sold most if not all of the Dorset properties during his lifetime; the most significant property, the extensive estate at Bryanston, was occupied by one of Richmond’s creditors (and cousin to his wife’s father), Sir John Rogers, in the early 1660s and was later acquired by Sir William Portman<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Within three months of his first wife’s death, Richmond had successfully negotiated a second, equally advantageous marriage. His pre-nuptial contract with Margaret Lewis was dated 21 July 1661, although the marriage itself did not take place until March 1662. She was a wealthy woman, who sold some of her lands to help Richmond pay off his debts, made over her property at Bletchington, Oxfordshire, to him, gave him a life interest in her jointure lands worth £1,150 a year and promised him a further £1,000 a year for life out of lands in which she had a reversionary interest. In all, she valued his interest in her lands at £38,000. In return she expected a jointure of £3,000 a year, although in the event Richmond’s estate was so encumbered that her jointure had to be linked to Richmond’s income as collector of alnage rather than to his lands. She was careful to settle matters so that much of her property would pass at her death to her children. As she had no children with Richmond it passed to her two sons, Edward<sup>‡ </sup>and Thomas Lewis and also provided portions for her two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Richmond’s claim to property at Sutton Marsh and elsewhere in the Lincolnshire fens was disputed by his stepfather and was still unresolved in 1671.<sup>10</sup> The Lennox inheritance had been much reduced by the effects of the civil wars: his uncle James Stuart, duke of Richmond, was said to have contributed nearly £100,000 to the cause of the king. The Lennox estates were also encumbered by the need to provide his cousin Lady Mary Stuart with a dowry of £20,000 (and an annuity to her of £1,000 a year); she married Richard Butler*, the future Baron Butler of Weston, better known as earl of Arran [I], in 1664. At her death in July 1668 not all the dowry had been paid. Lands in Kent worth nearly £2,000 a year passed to the 1st duke’s widow for her life. A further £4,500 was owed to the O’Briens for the remainder of the portion of Richmond’s sister, Lady Katherine Stuart, following her marriage to Henry O’Brien<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Ibrackan [I], in 1661.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Later legal documents suggest that at his death Richmond had an income of £4,000 a year from lands in Westminster, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Ireland alone.<sup>12</sup> Nevertheless, surviving documentation indicates heavy indebtedness, with loans in the early 1660s being obtained from Sir John Rogers (£7,500) and a mortgage of £5,000 on his principal residence at Cobham Hall, Kent, which by the time of his death had risen to £9,000.<sup>13</sup> In September 1662 his household expenditure alone amounted to over £5,000 a year and one of his servants, describing his situation as desperate, predicted inevitable ruin unless his extravagances could be curbed, especially if he continued his plans to keep a house in London.<sup>14</sup> He possessed what by seventeenth-century standards must have been an exceptionally extensive collection of fine clothing.<sup>15</sup> In 1662 Richmond’s debts were variously estimated at about £46,000 and over £57,000.<sup>16</sup> Some 20 years after his death his debts still totalled over £24,000. They included small sums owed to servants, as well as £200 to his chaplain, James Fleetwood*, the future bishop of Worcester, £900 to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> and over £1,000 to his neighbour, John Strode<sup>‡</sup>. This list probably understates the extent of Richmond’s debts since it does not reveal the full extent of his mortgages, although it does indicate that the £900 debt to Williamson was in respect of unpaid interest on a loan of £5,000.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Money problems and a resultant quest for office and favour provide a recurrent backdrop to Richmond’s public life. During the summer of 1660 he wrote to the secretary of state Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> in an attempt to obtain the governorship of Guernsey. In September he obtained a proclamation requiring arrears of the alnage to be paid to the trustees of his predecessor in the title; as the heir, Richmond expected that such payments would ultimately fall to himself.<sup>18</sup> His appointment as a gentleman of the bedchamber in 1661 brought him a salary of £1,000 a year. A document from February 1666 or 1667 listed him as having £1,000 per annum from the decease of the Lady Katherine d’Aubigny in consideration of the services of her husband, George Stuart, Seigneur d’Aubigny, killed in battle serving Charles I.<sup>19</sup></p><h2><em>The early Restoration period, 1660–67</em></h2><p>Lichfield was one of the peers who accompanied the king at his entrance into the City of London in May 1660, but he was unable to attend Parliament because his earldom was one of the Oxford creations.<sup>20</sup> The ban was lifted on 31 May and he sat for the first time the following day. On 18 June the Lords ordered that his estate at Sutton Marsh should be discharged from sequestration. He sat as Lichfield until August, when he succeeded to the dukedom of Richmond. He was present on 57 days (65.5 per cent) of the remaining days before the adjournment on 13 Sept. 1660, and was named to five committees. Over the summer he was involved in an alliance with the Catholic William Stourton*, 11th Baron Stourton, over the fate of the regicides George Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> and Edmund Ludlow<sup>‡</sup>. He agreed to support Stourton’s protégé, Ludlow, in return for Stourton’s help over Fleetwood.<sup>21</sup> His connection to the Fleetwoods was perhaps James Fleetwood, the regicide’s uncle, who had been tutor to the 1st duke of Richmond’s children, and became one of the 3rd duke’s chaplains and unpaid creditors. It is not known whether his procurement of a warrant to preserve the game in Woodstock Park in favour of Sir William Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> late in 1661 was a further indication of this connection.<sup>22</sup> George Fleetwood was also related by marriage to Richmond’s influential Dorset neighbour Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, the future Bbaron Ashley and earl of Shaftesbury, and it was Cooper who acted on Fleetwood’s behalf in the Commons. Despite his support for Fleetwood, Lichfield was not tolerant of other regicides. During the clash between the two Houses over the scope of the action to be taken against them, he was adamant that Matthew Thomlinson<sup>‡</sup> be punished. After a heated argument with George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, he and the former parliamentarian peer William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, entered their dissent on 23 July 1660 to the decision of the House to accept the decision of the Commons and to remove Thomlinson from the list of regicides.<sup>23</sup></p><p>On 26 July 1660 Lichfield, together with James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, introduced Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, into the House. On 14 Aug. a proxy was entered in his favour by Sandwich. Also in August Lichfield petitioned, together with John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S], and his future brother-in-law, Arran, for the farm of the duty of coals.<sup>24</sup> This petition was renewed when he was duke of Richmond.<sup>25</sup> On 6 Sept. a proviso was added in the Commons on the bill restoring William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, to his honours, manors, lands and tenements in England, to protect the jointure of Elizabeth, widow of Lord Mansfield, now the duchess of Richmond. Richmond was absent when the session resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, first attending on the 17th. He was present on 17 days, 38 per cent of this part of the session, and was named to a further two committees. On 13 Dec. 1660 he was one of the peers who signed the dissent against vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines.</p><p>Richmond was present on the second day of the new Parliament, 10 May 1661. In the first part of the session, before the adjournment of 30 July, he attended on 32 days (50 per cent of the total) and was named to two sessional committees. In July 1661 he was expected to vote against the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of great chamberlain. On 23 July 1661 he registered the proxy of Edward Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Richmond missed the opening few days of the resumed session, first attending on 25 Nov. 1661, although he was absent when the House was called at the start of proceedings on that day. He was present on 52 days (41 per cent), and was named to 15 committees. On 28 Nov. he chaired a meeting of the committee to consider the bill ‘concerning Quakers’, so he was in the chair when the Quakers ‘were called for to come in, but would not put off their hats and therefore came not in’.<sup>27</sup> He reported the bill the following day, when it was recommitted. On 19 Nov. he had petitioned the crown for a grant of all the moneys and goods excepted from the Act of Pardon and vested in the king.<sup>28</sup> On 2 Dec. he complained to the committee for privileges that a servant of his had been arrested in Derby, whereupon the committee instructed him to move the House for an order to ‘fetch up’ those responsible for the arrest. On 21 Feb. 1662 he took over the chair of the bill regulating cloth manufacture in the West Riding, and after several meeting and adjournments he reported from the committee on 28 Feb.; following the bill’s recommittal, he chaired another meeting of the committee on 5 Mar., before relinquishing the chair to the original chairman.<sup>29</sup></p><p>On 27 Feb. John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, reported from the committee on the bill settling the estate of his uncle the duke of Richmond and Lennox, according to an agreement between Richmond, the duchess dowager, Lady Mary Stuart (her daughter) and trustees of the duchess. At this committee and again in front of the House on 3 Mar. Richmond declared that there were no other encumbrances upon the land than those contained in the paper annexed to the bill; and that he had not made any other settlement of the lands contained in the security to be given to the Lady Mary. The Lords then passed the bill. It was managed through the Commons by Sir Solomon Swale<sup>‡</sup> and returned to the Lords on 19 Mar. with amendments, which were agreed to. On that day Richmond was the only peer added to the committee when the uniformity bill was re-committed, perhaps in the expectation that he would support the king’s proviso in favour of ‘tender consciences’. His absence between 24 Mar. and 17 Apr. 1662 seems to have been connected to his nuptials, conducted by Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London (later archbishop of Canterbury), at the Savoy on 31 Mar., a tour of his wife’s estates and a spot of horse-racing.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Richmond’s quest for financial reward now brought some promising successes: in August 1661 he obtained the demise of certain ‘waste and oozy ground’ belonging to the king in Dorset on condition that, after enclosure and embankment, a quarter be returned to the crown. In April 1662 he secured confirmation of the grant originally made to his uncle Richmond of feu mail and feu farms in Islay and Argyle worth 9,000 Scots marks a year, and in May he secured a grant of the farm of the subsidy and alnage on old and new draperies. He petitioned in June for the grant of a recently discovered lead mine in Lancashire.<sup>31</sup> Already lord lieutenant of Dorset, he made it clear that he had ambitions for the lord lieutenancy of Kent. The departure of Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, for the Levant in 1662 gave him an opportunity to angle for an opportunity to share the lieutenancy with him. Winchilsea suspected his motives, seeing it as ‘the first step to crowd me out and to assume the whole power unto himself’, and the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, was appointed instead.<sup>32</sup> In August 1662 Richmond was in Edinburgh, whence he solicited Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, for the command of one of the regiments being raised in England, hoping that his ‘intercession will prevail so far in my behalf that my serving his majesty in this kingdom may not in the least be a hindrance to me’.<sup>33</sup> While attending the Scottish parliament, he was heavily involved in the manoeuvres of John Middleton, earl of Middleton [S], to destroy Lauderdale’s political influence by fixing a secret ballot of the 12 men to be excluded in the Scottish act of indemnity of September 1662; the ploy backfired and Lauderdale triumphed over his rival.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Richmond was present when the 1663 session opened on 18 February. He attended on 30 days of the session (35 per cent) and was named to nine committees. Part of his absence may be explained by his attendance on the king at a race meeting in March 1663, where he suffered a serious fall.<sup>35</sup> During his absence he entered a proxy on 6 Mar. in favour of Northampton, which was vacated by his presence on 23 March. On 30 Apr. 1663 he was absent because he joined the king in a visit to view John Evelyn’s gardens.<sup>36</sup> On 13 Apr. he chaired a meeting of the Ashdown Forest bill, with the concerned parties being ordered to appear on 5 May, when Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset took over proceedings.<sup>37</sup> On 1 June he complained about the arrest of one of his servants and the perpetrators were ordered into custody. He attended on the last day of the session, 27 July 1663.</p><p>Predictions of a possible rising in May 1663 in Dorset and Somerset do not seem to have precipitated an early departure from London for Richmond, though continuing rumours of unrest meant that in October he was ‘busy with his militia’.<sup>38</sup> He was still involved in the suppression of unrest by Dissenters the following February.<sup>39</sup> However, he was present when the March–May 1664 session convened on 16 March, and thereafter attended on 27 days (75 per cent), being named to four committees. On 22 Mar. he was one of the first to oppose the reading of the letter from the earl of Bristol.<sup>40</sup> Later that month he was one of the peers selected to carry a message from the House asking the king to give the royal assent to the bill for repealing triennial parliaments. He was absent between 2 and 18 Apr., excused attendance at a call on the 4th, and on the 11th given a pass to go to France with some horses.<sup>41</sup> Somewhat ironically, given his own leisure interests, on 20 Apr. he introduced a bill against disorderly and unlawful gaming and on 3 May chaired the committee on the bill, reporting it later that day.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Richmond’s higher attendance may have been related to his own need to be close to the court to secure a favourable decision in a dispute about his wife’s marriage settlement. Richmond wanted her to surrender her interest in the alnage so that he could secure a fresh grant, but his wife clearly feared that this would damage her financially. In a petition in March 1664 she asked the king to refer their dispute to the adjudication of ‘persons of honour’ and on 24 Mar. he accordingly referred it to Clarendon, Ashley, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, Sheldon, now archbishop of Canterbury, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and Sir Henry Bennet*, the future earl of Arlington. The duchess had already contacted Manchester and Ashley but specifically asked that Albemarle be excluded from the list of referees.<sup>43</sup> Some agreement must have been reached, for the grants of alnage were renewed in October 1664.<sup>44</sup> On 12 May 1664 Richmond petitioned for and was allowed his privilege in a case whereby Lady Dacre claimed a title to Sutton Marsh, Lincolnshire. She had obtained a hearing in the court of exchequer on 18 May but because a treaty accepted on both sides for determining all suits concerning the same had been lately broken off, Richmond claimed that he could not be ready in time for the trial.</p><p>In the autumn of 1664, Richmond was reported to be actively involved in organizing and reviewing the Dorset militia, who were now said to be so well trained that they ‘beget terror in the disaffected’.<sup>45</sup> Unfortunately, he exceeded the limits of his jurisdiction and provoked a dispute with Humphrey Weld<sup>‡</sup>, the governor of Portland and keeper of Sandsfoot Castle. When Richmond removed Weld from the commission of lieutenancy, he appealed to the king, who picked a panel of referees to adjudicate, who vindicated Weld.<sup>46</sup> In mid-November Richmond was reported to be one of the ‘gallants’ volunteering to accompany James*, duke of York, in the sea campaign against the Dutch.<sup>47</sup> However, he was present when the 1664–5 session opened on 24 Nov., attending on 14 days (29 per cent), and being named to a single committee (on a bill concerning prize goods). On 28 Feb. 1665, he attended the committee considering a bill on Sutton Marsh, in which he had a personal interest, wherein he declared that he did not aim at the ‘in marsh’ at all, and offered a proviso ‘for saving the rights of all persons who have been in possession and are not ejected by law’. The committee then ordered counsel to ‘advise’ on the proviso to see if it was agreeable to both sides.<sup>48</sup> There were no further proceedings before the end of the session on 2 March.</p><p>After the end of the session, Richmond had become involved either in a duel or in the threat of one over the ‘honour of a lady’ and was committed to the Tower for some three weeks, along with his brother-in-law, Lord Ibracken, and Colonel John Russell<sup>‡</sup> and William Russell<sup>‡</sup> (later Lord Russell), brother and son respectively of William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford.<sup>49</sup> The cause of the quarrel remains obscure, apart from a reference at the end of May to Richmond’s ‘licentious’ crime. As Richmond and the two Russells were enamoured of the same court beauty, Miss Hamilton, it is possible that she was the woman at the centre of the dispute.<sup>50</sup> On 19 Apr. 1665 Richmond wrote to James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], about ‘this last unhappy action’ for which he had lost the king’s favour, and asking Ormond to mediate with the king.<sup>51</sup></p><p>On 26 July 1665, en route for Dover, Richmond thanked Williamson for procuring a pass for him. He attended just three days of the session of October 1665, 20 per cent of the total. He was absent when the next session convened on 18 Sept. 1666, first attending on 17 Oct., and was present on 12 days (13.5 per cent). On 3 Dec. 1666 he attended the young James, duke of Cambridge, at his installation as a knight of the garter.<sup>52</sup> He last attended the Lords on 13 December.</p><p>In March 1667 rumours surfaced of a proposed marriage between Richmond and Frances Stuart, ‘La Belle Stuart’, a maid of honour to the queen, with whom the king was infatuated. The suggestion of Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, that the king pretended to support Richmond’s suit in the hope that Mrs Stuart would break off the relationship when she realized just how poor he was provides a convincing explanation of subsequent events, although Richmond may also have misread the situation. Given his reputation for licentiousness, coupled with his financial situation and his track record of seeking wealthy wives, it seems unlikely that he would wish to saddle himself with a poor one, no matter how beautiful. He had already refused to marry Miss Hamilton, with whom he also claimed to be in love, because of her lack of a portion.<sup>53</sup> If Burnet is correct in stating that the king had offered to make her a duchess in her own right and to settle an estate on her, Richmond may well have thought that the king would make good his promise even if she were married to another.<sup>54</sup> Grammont certainly thought it possible that Richmond commenced his relationship with Frances Stuart in order to gain the king’s favour and at least one of their contemporaries believed that the king intended to finance the marriage.<sup>55</sup> According to Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, Richmond had delivered an account of his estate and debts to the king on 18 Mar. and, according to one of Sir Ralph Verney’s<sup>‡</sup> correspondents, he had asked the king’s leave to marry her.<sup>56</sup></p><p>By 28 Mar. ‘a stop’ had been reported to the marriage on account of Richmond’s poor finances, but nevertheless the couple married two days later.<sup>57</sup> When the king found out about the marriage, he was furious and apparently told the duchess ‘I shall never see you more’. She fled to her mother’s lodgings in Somerset House.<sup>58</sup> Richmond had joined her there by 9 Apr., ‘in great afflictions under the sense of his majesty’s displeasure’.<sup>59</sup> Thereafter, Richmond seems to have divided his time between Somerset House and Cobham.<sup>60</sup> The incident played a minor role in the fall of Clarendon as it was widely rumoured that the lord chancellor had encouraged the marriage in order to secure the succession to the throne of his own grandchildren by suggesting either ‘that a family so near related to the king could never be left in distress’ or that it was Richmond’s ‘most certain way’ to advancement, and that this had damaged his standing with the king.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Richmond did not attend Parliament during the two-day session of July 1667. Throughout the summer of 1667 he was dealing with allegations about Dissent and sedition in Dorset, although he himself was warmly received on his visits there.<sup>62</sup> He also had disputes over Scottish affairs to settle.<sup>63</sup> Richmond was not present at the opening of the 1667–9 session on 10 Oct., first attending on the 17th. Interestingly, given his predicament at court, his attendance in the Lords increased. During the first part of the session, until the adjournment on 19 Dec., he was present on 43 days (84 per cent of the total) and was named to 17 committees. He was also more active in committees, on such diverse matters as inquiring into expiring laws (which he chaired on 22 Oct. and 11–12 Dec., and reported to the House on 12 Dec. that a short bill should be prepared); the condition of trade between England and Scotland (chaired 7 Nov. and was appointed to a sub-committee of five to draw up a state of the matter regarding this trade, and the adjournments of 4–5 Dec.); the prizing of wines bill (chaired 8, 11 and 15 Nov. and 3–5 Dec.); the sale of offices (chaired 12 Nov.); the bishop of Durham’s lead mines’ bill (chaired 19 and 23 Nov.); the bill for the suppression of atheism (chaired 13 and, 14 Dec.); the bill for taking the public accounts (chaired and reported 19 Dec.); and estate bills for Sir Charles Stanley (chaired the last meeting on 23 Nov. and reported on 26 Nov.) and Sir William Juxon (chaired 9 and 10 Dec. and reported 11 Dec.).<sup>64</sup></p><p>Richmond also chaired four meetings of the committee for privileges. On 11 Nov. 1667 he chaired the discussion on the report of a sub-committee into ‘foreign’ (i.e. Scottish and Irish) nobility; also that on how peers had deposed as witnesses in inferior courts and before the Commons, reporting on 12 Nov. that Anglesey be left at his own liberty to give information to the Commons about the payment of seamen.<sup>65</sup> He then chaired the adjournment of the next meeting of the committee on 18 November. On 14 Dec. 1667 he reported that the committee for the Journal could not complete their task until the House had decided the case of minors sitting in the House; on the 16th he offered to the committee a resolution that they could not sit or vote while minors, which was agreed to, and which he reported to the House on the 18th. On 14 Dec. he chaired the committee which decided that the guardians of Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, should be privileged, duly reporting the matter on 16 December.<sup>66</sup></p><h2><em>Return to favour, 1668–72</em></h2><p>On 20 Feb. 1668 Richmond kissed the king’s hand, signalling his return to court.<sup>67</sup> He had been absent when the session resumed on 6 Feb., first attending on the 11th. He was present on 47 days (71 per cent) and was named to 12 committees. He remained an active committee man. On 16 Feb. he chaired a committee for privileges discussing how to prevent people entering the House with the king ‘under a colour of dependence’ upon him, which had inconvenienced the peers sitting near the cloth of State.<sup>68</sup> He chaired one meeting of the committee on the bill for exporting leather (12 Feb.), one meeting of the bill concerning the Fens (15 Feb.), the bill to improve Ashdown Forest (chaired 14 Mar.), the bill for indemnifying the late sheriffs of London (chaired 1 Apr. and reported on 6 Apr.), the bill to consider trade (adjournment 1 Apr.), the bill for ordering the accounts of administrators (chaired 2 Apr.), the bill for the better regulation of woollen manufactures (chaired 23 Apr. and reported 24 Apr.) and the bill for the preservation of the Forest of Dean (chaired 29, 30 Apr., after which his friend Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex took over), from which he reported on 1 May on the petition of Sir John Wintour.<sup>69</sup> On 20 Feb. 1668 Richmond had insisted on his privilege in a dispute over the tithes of Leighton Bromswold, Huntingdonshire, which resulted in Charles Asfordby being summoned before the House. On 23 Apr. he was one of 12 peers selected to join with the Commons in waiting on the king with a joint vote promoting the wearing of English manufactures, reporting back to the Lords on the 28th.</p><p>By the end of May 1668, following the duchess’s recovery from smallpox, the Richmonds were ‘coming into great favour’ with the king. He told his sister that her ‘affliction made me pardon all that is past’; he was said to visit the duchess every night and to have given her £10,000 to buy the post of groom of the stole to the queen and another £30,000 to the duke to pay his debts. Richmond was appointed lord lieutenant of Kent (jointly with Winchilsea) and vice admiral of Kent, the latter a position that appears to have conferred neither power nor patronage, for the steward of the vice admiralty court reported in 1671 that no process or suits had been commenced there for 20 years.<sup>70</sup> When Richmond presented a list of deputy lieutenants for the county, the king rejected it, arguing that some were too lowly and that there were too many names, for ‘their number rather lessens their activity’.<sup>71</sup> In July he was politely reminded that he had not yet paid his poll tax, and one of his servants warned him that his failure to employ someone who could take an overview of his finances meant that ‘your honour, your interest and your estate will dwindle to nothing’.<sup>72</sup> He attended York when the duke was sworn in as lord warden of the Cinque Ports in September, and with other senior nobles accompanied the royal brothers at the inspection of Harwich in October 1668.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Probably in November 1668, Richmond’s steward, Roger Payne, was Richmond’s nominee to receive the rent of £997 1<em>s</em>. 11<em>d</em>. reserved to the crown from a lease of the alnage of old and new draperies (which had been lately granted to Richmond, who surrendered a pension of £1,000 a year with arrears granted by Charles I and £1,180 1<em>s</em>. 9¾<em>d</em>., part of £4,000 due to him on his pension of £1,000 a year as a gentleman of the bedchamber).<sup>74</sup> In March 1669 he was involved in a quarrel which was prevented from turning into a duel only by the intervention of Albemarle.<sup>75</sup> On 6 Apr. a pass was granted for Richmond to take 20 horses to France, and he left England at the end of the month.<sup>76</sup> He seems to have spent much of the rest of the year in France dealing with the affairs of Aubigny, ignoring the advice of his friend the earl of Essex in May to sell Aubigny and use the profits to clear his English debts.<sup>77</sup> While at the court of Henrietta Maria in Paris in May, he received news that the building work he had commissioned at Cobham Hall had ground to a halt for lack of money. In June his agents were facing difficulty in collecting rents from his properties in Lincolnshire, he was embroiled in litigation over Sutton Marsh and faced further actions from his stepfather. He was furthermore experiencing problems collecting the alnage that were so intractable that he was advised to obtain an act of Parliament to sort them out, and that it was essential that he return to London at least a month or six weeks before the sitting ‘to prepare a way for that act, which cannot miscarry if well managed’.<sup>78</sup></p><p>During the summer, Richmond himself seems to have pinned his hopes on obtaining a royal pension and, having been advised by John Granville*, earl of Bath, that his personal attendance at court was not necessary, relied on Arlington to secure it. He soon grew impatient, explaining to Arlington that he was obliged to live up to the position that ‘it hath pleased God to give me’ and that ‘his majesty is obliged both in justice and honour to support me (my family having sufficiently suffered for him)’. Both Bath and Bristol attempted to reassure him, but where Bath chose his words with care, Bristol openly warned that ‘you take very wrong measures in your affairs’. Richmond’s duchess had, it seems, made solicitations ‘even to importunity’ but had done herself little good with the king, ‘who having lent towards her with all the civility and respect imaginable she hath not answered with so much as that complaisance which she owes him in all considerations’. Nor did Bristol approve of Richmond’s joint lieutenancy of Kent, for Winchilsea was backed by ‘the powerful person’ and ‘I think it very unworthy of the duke of Richmond to embroil himself in contests for a moiety of the earl of Winchilsea’s command.’ A few weeks later, Ashley added his own advice. Referring to some past discussion about Richmond’s desire to go as ambassador to Italy, he now suggested that Richmond should instead ask Arlington for a posting as ambassador extraordinary to greet the newly elected king of Poland. He even added advice on just how the letter should be phrased ‘because the letter must be showed to the king and I fear the resentments your grace may have of your ill treatment of late might make you mingle something not so advantageous’. Ashley also warned that the autumn session of Parliament would be brief and that Richmond’s parliamentary business should be deferred until the following spring, ‘but this is a secret’.<sup>79</sup></p><p>As a result of Ashley’s advice, Richmond delayed returning to England, though, despite his wife’s reassurances, he was very anxious about the negative effects of a scurrilous rumour that he believed was circulating at court.<sup>80</sup> He also promised his support to Arlington in his quarrel with Buckingham, pledging to stand by him ‘if his majesty stands by his wife’.<sup>81</sup> When in September 1669 he learned of the king’s refusal to appoint him to Poland, he regretted that ‘I should be so unfortunate as always to propose things not to be granted’ and concluded that ‘I am now fully satisfied of his majesty’s intentions towards me and shall not give him any more trouble in things of this nature’, but promptly went on to remind the king of his family’s sufferings and to request a grant of some of the revenues of the recently deceased dowager queen.<sup>82</sup></p><p>On 7 Oct. 1669 it was reported that Richmond was ‘expected over out of France every day’.<sup>83</sup> A month later Essex wrote to him referring to a recent illness of Richmond’s and informing him that Parliament had done little as yet.<sup>84</sup> Later in November Richmond drafted two letters from Paris to two unnamed peers in England asking for their help in securing him the post of lord chamberlain, if the incumbent, Manchester, succumbed to his illness. He advanced two reasons why the king should favour him: first that ‘his majesty hath often promised me many things upon the account of my wife’ and secondly that it ‘will take nothing from his majesty since (if not to me) it must be given to somebody’.<sup>85</sup> On 21 Nov. 1669 Ralph Montagu*, the future duke of Montagu, wrote from Paris concerning Richmond’s pretentions to succeed the ailing Manchester.<sup>86</sup> Richmond attended only two days at the very end of the 1669 session in December, being added to the committee for privileges on the 9th.</p><p>He was present, however, when the next session began on 14 Feb. 1670 and attended on 31 days (74 per cent) before the adjournment on 11 Apr., being named to 19 committees. He held the proxy of Charles Henry Kirkhoven*, Baron Wotton (later earl of Bellomont [I]). He invoked his privilege twice, once in January over the detention of his yacht, and again on 3 Mar. 1670 over the arrest of Roger Payne; the attorney concerned, Phillip Bartholomew, was ordered into custody on the 4th, and released on 9 Mar., and a Mr Hayes apologized and was discharged on 18 March.<sup>87</sup> In the heated debates over the Conventicle bill of March Richmond was careful to draw a distinction between moderate Presbyterians and ‘ranting Quakers’.<sup>88</sup> During March he chaired meetings of two committees considering private bills: one was for Sir Ralph Bankes<sup>‡</sup> of Kingston Lacy, Dorset (chaired 4 Mar. and reported the following day); the other was for settling claims to the estates of his Oxfordshire neighbour, Sir Thomas Pope, 3rd earl of Downe [I] (chaired 4 Mar.). Richmond also chaired three adjournments of the committee discussing the bill on wool (4, 17 and 22 March). On 9 Mar. he reported from the committee for privileges on a case involving Richard Vaughan*, Baron Vaughan and 2nd earl of Carbery [I]. He was a determined opponent of the Roos divorce bill, entering dissents after both the second (17 Mar.) and third readings (28 March). In committee on the bill on 22 Mar. he offered a proviso on behalf of George Saunderson<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Castleton [I].<sup>89</sup> Following its committal on 30 Mar., the next day he reported the bill for repairing highways, and on 2 Apr. was named to manage a conference on it, duly reporting back from it later in the day.</p><p>On 6 July 1670 it was reported that Richmond was ‘not well, a scurvy cough hangs on him and a weakness’.<sup>90</sup> Later that summer, in the course of one his regular trips to Scotland, Richmond broke his journey at King’s Lynn, where he was ‘nobly entertained’. He was said to have repaid his hosts by raping the 13-year-old daughter of the merchant in whose house he was lodged, and was then forced to leave in order to escape the vengeance of the townsfolk. The king promised to leave him to be dealt with according to law, but while in Scotland he was ‘out of reach’, and likely to remain so unless ‘quickly sent for’.<sup>91</sup> No further proceedings are known to have taken place, although the incident confirmed Richmond’s unsavoury reputation, with Wood describing him as ‘a most rude and debauched person’, who ‘kept sordid company’.<sup>92</sup> Grammont noted his attachment to wine, while Burnet reported his perpetual drunkenness when in Scotland in 1662, and in February 1665 Robert Paston*, the future earl of Yarmouth, noted two separate occasions involving late-night revelling with Richmond and ‘his fiddlers’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>In mid-August 1670 Richmond was still in Edinburgh, where he commented on the passage of a bill against conventicles ‘much severer than ours in England’.<sup>94</sup> However, he was present when the session resumed on 24 Oct. 1670, his first task being to join Buckingham in sponsoring the introduction of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. He attended on 50 days (40 per cent) and was named to eight committees, including that on 1 Mar. 1671 to draw up heads of a conference on a joint address to the king on the growth of popery. On 27 Oct. he complained to the House that he had been disturbed in his possession of Sutton Marsh in breach of privilege by James Livingston, earl of Newburgh [S], among others. Upon hearing counsel on 10 and 14 Nov., the House accepted proof that Richmond was in actual possession of the land and on 14 Nov. ordered the sheriff to ensure his quiet possession thereof. On 4 Mar. 1671 the House referred to the committee of privileges the question of whether servants of peers should be allowed to claim privilege when charged with recusancy, a result of an order allowing such privilege to Richmond’s gentleman of horse, William Gawen.</p><p>Richmond last sat on 14 Apr. 1671, shortly before the session ended. In July he was in arrears to the hearth tax (14 hearths) on his house in the stables in Duke’s Yard.<sup>95</sup> In December he was appointed ambassador extraordinary to Denmark. It was not a prestigious posting: the Danes had never had an English ambassador before, apart from those in transit to Sweden, and were delighted to receive one of such high rank.<sup>96</sup> Clearly Denmark was a post that might assuage Richmond’s constant demands for favour yet in which he could do little harm. He relinquished his lord lieutenancy of Dorset to Ashley in January 1672 and took leave of the king on 28 February. Although he was expected to depart at the beginning of April, contrary winds meant that he did not set sail for Denmark until the end of the month.<sup>97</sup></p><p>The captain of the ship that carried him to Denmark described him as ‘as good a natured gentleman as ever I have been acquainted with’, but Richmond and members of his retinue quarrelled with at least two other members of the ship’s crew.<sup>98</sup> On the way he created something of a diplomatic incident by using his power as lord high admiral of Scotland to grant letters of marque when some foreign ships were sighted.<sup>99</sup> In England some of the foreign envoys complained vociferously that these were neutral rather than Dutch ships and Henry Coventry<sup>‡ </sup>feared that there would be angry complaints in Parliament, especially if English ships were seized in retaliation for those ‘detained in Scotland’. Coventry was even more annoyed when he discovered that Richmond was planning to load his coach and other goods on a ship together with Coventry’s; he feared that the Dutch were so annoyed at Richmond’s actions over the prizes that they were bound to target any ship that was known to have Richmond’s goods on it.<sup>100</sup> Others were more favourable towards him, Sir John Coplestone writing that Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, thought that Richmond ‘did exceedingly well’; ‘truly my Lord’, he added, ‘I doubt not but at your return to see you as great as any’.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Richmond died in unfortunate circumstances on 12 Dec. 1672. He was variously said to have drowned when he accidentally fell into the sea while clambering out of a ship, or to have died afterwards of ‘excessive cold’ in his carriage.<sup>102</sup> News of his death did not reach England until after 10 Jan. 1673, when Coventry wrote his last letter to Richmond. Coventry took steps to ensure that the duke’s goods were taken care of and ensured that every encouragement was given to the Danes to grant the traditional present to the widowed duchess, as ‘the condition my Lord hath left her in cannot dispose her to despise such incidents as may honourably be received’. The duke’s body was returned to England in the summer. On 20 Sept. 1673 a magnificent procession escorted it from the Painted Chamber to Westminster Abbey, where he was buried.<sup>103</sup></p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
STUART, Esme (1649-60) |
<p><strong><surname>STUART</surname></strong>, <strong>Esme</strong> (1649–60)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 30 Mar. 1655 (a minor) as 2nd duke of RICHMOND and 4th duke of Lennox [S]. |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 Nov. 1649, o.s. of James Stuart<sup>†</sup>, duke of Richmond and Mary, da. of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, wid. of Charles Herbert, <em>styled</em> Ld. Herbert of Shurland. <em>unm</em>. d. 10 Aug. 1660.</p> |
|
|
<p>Richmond died under age in Paris of smallpox. He had no influence, formal or informal, over Parliament. Under the terms of the patent of creation he was succeeded in both his dukedoms by his cousin, Charles Stuart*, earl of Lichfield.</p> |
R.P. |
|
SUTTON, Robert (1594-1668) |
<p><strong><surname>SUTTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1594–1668)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>21 Nov. 1645 Bar. LEXINTON (LEXINGTON). |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 26 Mar. 1668 |
|
MP Nottinghamshire 1624, 1640 (Apr.), 1640 (Nov.)-25 Dec. 1643, 1644 (Oxf. Parl.) |
<p><em>b</em>. 21 Dec. 1594, 1st s. of Sir William Sutton (<em>d</em>.1611) of Averham (Aram) and Susan, da. of Thomas Cony of Bassingthorpe, Lincs. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Camb. 1611; travelled abroad (Low Countries) 1621. <em>m</em>. (1) 14 Apr. 1616, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. bef. 1635), da. of Sir George Manners<sup>‡</sup> of Haddon Hall, Derbys., sis. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, <em>s.p.</em>; (2) aft. 16 Apr. 1635, Anne (<em>d</em>. bef. 1661), da. of Sir Guy Palmes<sup>‡</sup> of Ashwell, Rutland, wid. of Sir Thomas Browne, 2nd bt., of Walcot, Northants. 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>; (3) 21 Feb. 1661, Mary (<em>d</em>.1669), da. of Sir Anthony St. Leger, warden of the Mint, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 3da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 11 or 12 Oct. 1668;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 28 Jan. 1667-7 Oct. 1668, pr. 7 and 14 July 1669, 25 Apr. 1673.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt., Notts. by 1637-at least 1640, 1660-<em>d.</em>; commr. oyer and terminer, Midland circ. 1639-42, 1665-<em>d.,</em> array, Notts. 1642; sheriff, Notts. 1630-1; <em>custos rot</em>. liberties of Southwell and Scrooby 1641-?46, 1661-<em>d.</em>; dep. justice in eyre, Sherwood Forest 1662; commr. hearth tax, Notts. 1664.</p> |
|
<p>Described by his parliamentarian detractors as ‘the devil of Newark’, Sutton was the head of an established Nottinghamshire family that had been settled in the county since the thirteenth century.<sup>4</sup> By his first marriage he was connected to the influential Manners family, earls of Rutland, while his sister Susan was married to William Oglethorpe, ancestor to the Jacobite lords Oglethorpe. Following the death of his first wife, Sutton’s subsequent marriages, while less illustrious, further consolidated his position in Midlands society as did his election as one of the knights of the shire in 1624. By 1640 Sutton’s estates were providing him with an annual income in the region of £1,700, and in 1664 his house at Kelham was assessed at 21 hearths.<sup>5</sup></p><p>An inactive member of James I’s last Parliament, having spent the intervening period concentrating on the development of his local interest, Sutton was returned again for Nottinghamshire in 1640. On the outbreak of Civil War, along with many of the greater gentry of Nottinghamshire, he rallied to the king. He then passed the majority of the conflict in the garrison at Newark acting as a financier to the forces there rather than as an active fighting man.<sup>6</sup> Sutton’s services on the king’s behalf were rewarded in November 1645 with his elevation to the peerage; shortly afterwards he attempted to submit to Parliament. His offer was refused. After the king’s execution he was eventually able to compound for his estates for £4,861.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Lexinton’s royalist connections were reinforced in 1653 with the marriage of his stepdaughter, Anne Browne (mistakenly described as Lexinton’s daughter in some sources) to John Poulett*, 2nd Baron Poulett, but the alliance did nothing to alleviate Lexinton’s woeful economic predicament.<sup>8</sup> Lexinton’s finances suffered so much during the Civil Wars and Interregnum that he was imprisoned for debt in 1655. There is no evidence that he took part in royalist plots; by the beginning of 1660 his focus seems to have been on his own and his wife's poor health and other family concerns.<sup>9</sup> He delayed taking his seat in the Convention until 1 June 1660 along with the majority of the Oxford creations. Once there he proved an assiduous member of the House, attending approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days of the first session of the Convention, during which he was named to 13 committees, several of which appear to have concerned matters of local interest. On 13 Aug. he was named to the committee considering the bill for the Nottinghamshire magnate, William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, and the same day he was also appointed to that considering a bill for his stepson-in-law, Poulett. On 7 June Lexinton was appointed one of the peers to put into execution the order to stop the waste of timber in Havering Park, and on 19 June he was added to the sub-committee for the Journal. Shortly after taking his seat, Lexinton launched an action to recover £2,680 out of the estate of Colonel John Hutchinson<sup>‡</sup>. Hutchinson’s wife, Lucy Hutchinson, complained that Lexinton ‘forged many false pretences to obtain this.’<sup>10</sup> Lexinton’s petition was read on 20 June and was ordered to be considered when the bill of indemnity was brought up from the Commons. In August Lexinton was granted leave to exhibit his bill for a proviso to be inserted into the bill of indemnity allowing him to recover money from Hutchinson. On 10 Sept. in spite of the intervention of Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, making use of his influence as chairman of the committee on behalf of Colonel Hutchinson, the bill was engrossed. Lexinton’s proviso, however, was rejected in the Commons.<sup>11</sup> Lexinton resumed his seat for the second session on 12 Nov. 1660. Present on 38 of the 45 sitting days, he was named to a further four committees during the session, and on 13 Dec. he entered his protest against the resolution to pass the bill to vacate Sir Edward Powell’s fines.</p><p>It is not known whether Lexinton attempted to influence the elections to the new Parliament, but it seems likely that he was satisfied with the return of Sir Gervase Clifton<sup>‡</sup>, one of Lexinton’s former colleagues in the Newark garrison, as one of the Nottinghamshire members. Lexinton took his seat in the first session on 8 May 1661 and, three days later, he introduced his Nottinghamshire neighbour, Denzil Holles*, as Baron Holles. The manor of Averham was held of the Holles manor of Haughton by knight service, which may explain their connection.<sup>12</sup> Lexinton again proved an active member of the House, being present for 82 per cent of sitting days in the session, during which he was named to 61 committees. On 10 June he presented the petition of five Roman Catholics, among them Francis Smith*, later 2nd Baron Carrington, complaining of ‘having their unalterable loyalty to his majesty … brought daily in question, by the pressing upon them certain oaths’, i.e. the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and imploring the House to procure them ‘some ease and relief’.<sup>13</sup> Lexinton’s interest in the petition may have been a result of a distant connection between his family and the Smiths through their Molyneux relations. On 15 June Lexinton was entrusted with Poulett’s proxy which was vacated two days later, and on 10 July he chaired the committee considering Sir Ralph Baesh’s bill.<sup>14</sup> He reported the committee’s findings to the House three days later and the same month also reported from the committee concerning the draining of the Great Level of the Fens, but he was thought to be likely to be absent from the House for the vote to determine the dispute between Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, and Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, for the great chamberlaincy.</p><p>Lexinton resumed his seat following the adjournment on 20 Nov. 1661 after which he continued to be regularly appointed to select committees. He was absent from the opening of the ensuing (1663) session, taking his seat on 23 Mar. 1663. Present on just over three-quarters of sitting days, during which he was named to 27 committees, on 11 May he chaired the committee considering Robinson’s bill, which he reported to the House on 18 May. On 20 May he was named to the committee considering the bill for his neighbour Richard Byron*, 2nd Baron Byron. On 30 June Lexinton chaired one of the sessions of the committee considering the bill for the encouragement of trade, and the following day he chaired the committee for John Newport’s bill. After further deliberations of the latter, on 6 July, the bill was returned to the House where it was rejected, following the judges’ opinion that it was contrary to the act for confirmation of judicial proceedings. Ten days later Lexinton chaired the committee concerning the Bedford level. Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely, was initially clearly meant to have chaired the committee but Lexinton’s name was written in over Ely’s in the committee minutes, so he presumably replaced the bishop for the session.<sup>15</sup> The same month Lexinton was estimated by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, to be opposed to the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, launched by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.</p><p>Lexinton resumed his seat in the new session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on all but one of the 36 sitting days and during which he was named to a dozen select committees. That year it was noted that a debt of £10,000 owing to Lexinton, Byron and Sir Thomas Williamson for their services at Newark during the Civil War had finally been paid in full, though this was later challenged by Williamson.<sup>16</sup> Lexinton’s attendance declined markedly in the second session that year which commenced in November 1664; however, although he was present on only 22 per cent of all sitting days, he was still named to seven committees. On 21 Dec. Lexinton registered his proxy in favour of his neighbour, Dorchester (who had been Hutchinson’s protector against his proviso in 1660) which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 14 Jan. 1665 he was excused at a call of the House. He attended on nine of the 19 sitting days of the October 1665 session, during which he held Dorchester’s proxy. Lexinton was named to four committees during the session, including that considering the bill preventing the importation of foreign cattle on 26 Oct., but he appears not to have taken a leading role in managing any of them.</p><p>Said to have been ‘very kind’ in assisting the attempts made by Henry Cavendish*, styled Lord Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), to raise money in Nottinghamshire in 1666, Lexinton attended the 1666-7 session on approximately 23 per cent of all sitting days. Again named to four committees, he was granted leave of absence on 8 Nov., and on 10 Nov. he again entered his proxy in Dorchester’s favour.</p><p>Lexinton attended just one day of the brief seventh session of July 1667, but he then resumed his former pattern of attendance for the following (1667-9) session, attending on 56 days before his eventual retirement from the House in March 1668. Named to 18 committees during the session, Lexinton was again entrusted with Dorchester’s proxy on 28 Sept. 1667, vacated by Dorchester’s return to the House on 26 Feb. the following year. Absent at a call of the House on 29 Oct. 1667, Lexinton resumed his seat on 7 Nov., and on 12 Dec. he was one of only five peers to dissent from the resolution to banish and disable Clarendon.</p><p>Granted leave to go into the country for his health on 17 Mar. 1668, Lexinton took his seat in the House for the final time on 26 March. He died in October 1668, shortly before the birth of a posthumous daughter, Anne.<sup>17</sup> There is some confusion as to the precise date of his death. In the funeral sermon delivered by his chaplain, Samuel Holden, the preaching of which was delayed to coincide with Lexinton’s birthday on 21 Dec., it was given as 11 Oct., but on the memorial inscription the date is recorded as 12 October. In his will of 28 Jan. 1667, Lexinton declared that ‘I die of the Catholic Church of England, which I look of as the most exact copy of the primitive church of all the churches in the world’. He requested that he should have ‘no funeral, but some of my neighbours and friends and as private a burial as maybe not undecent,’ reiterating later in the document that there should be ‘no funeral no feasting no drinking’ but setting aside £100 for the construction of a tomb and £40 or £50 towards rings for his friends. Lexinton named his father-in-law, Sir Anthony St. Leger, his maternal relative, Sir William Cony, and two other Nottinghamshire figures, Sir Clifford Clifton<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Robert Butler, as trustees. He made a number of other bequests including the provision of a portion of at least £20,000 for his daughter, Bridget Sutton, several small annuities to his immediate relatives, and the sum of £50 to bind ten or 12 of the poor of Kelham as apprentices. Thoroton stated that during his life Lexinton ‘much increased his patrimony’ and an inventory of Lexinton’s estate compiled in February 1669 appears to bear this out, declaring goods to the value of £5,284. 16s.<sup>18</sup> Lexinton was succeeded in the peerage by his young son, Robert Sutton*, then aged about six, as 2nd Baron Lexinton.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SUTTON, Robert (1662-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>SUTTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1662–1723)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Oct. 1668 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. LEXINTON (LEXINGTON) |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 5 Aug. 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 6 Jan. 1662, o. surv. s. of Robert Sutton*, Bar. Lexinton, and Mary St Leger (<em>d</em>.1669). <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Italy) ?1677-8.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. Sept. 1691 (with £30,000), Margaret (<em>d</em>.1703), da. and heir of Sir Giles Hungerford<sup>‡</sup> of Coulston, Wilts., 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 2da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 19 Sept. 1723; <em>will</em> 31 Jan., pr. 20 Nov. 1723.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr., appeal for prizes 1695, trade and plantations 1699-1702; gent. of horse to Prince George*, of Denmark 1690-3;<sup>3</sup> gent. of the bedchamber 1693-1702; PC 1692-Sept. 1714.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Capt. tp. of horse, 1685-6, col. regt. of horse 1694; envoy extraordinary, Prussia 1689, Spain 1690 (did not go), Denmark 1693, Vienna 1694-7; plenip. treaty of Ryswick 1697; amb. extraordinary, Germany 1698, Madrid 1712-13.</p><p>Recorder, Newark 1686-93; dep. lt., Notts. 1692-?;<sup>5</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. liberties of Southwell and Scrooby 1689.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Tomb effigy by W. Palmer, 1726, in St Wilfrid’s, Kelham, Notts.</p> |
<p>Lexinton succeeded to the title as a minor in October 1668. The following year his mother, the dowager baroness, decided to take her children to France, but within a few weeks of their arrival she too fell sick and died. Orphaned at the age of seven, Lexinton was compelled to make the journey home with his mother’s corpse.<sup>8</sup> For the remainder of his childhood Lexinton’s upbringing was overseen by his grandfather, the former royalist warden of the royal mint, Sir Anthony St Leger.<sup>9</sup> Throughout his career Lexinton was associated with the Tories and (on occasion) with the Jacobites. Even so, during the reign of Anne he was sometimes listed as a possible Whig supporter. This may have been on account of long periods abroad which made his likely sympathies more difficult to glean, or simply because as a courtier and diplomat he was sometimes willing to align himself with the ministerial Whigs in spite of his usual voting habits.</p><p>In 1674 the family was disrupted by the abduction by John Darcy<sup>‡ </sup>and marriage of Lexinton’s ten-year-old sister, Bridget Sutton, who was entitled to a portion of £20,000 under her father’s will.<sup>10</sup> St Leger petitioned the House on 23 Feb. but the case was interrupted by the prorogation and Bridget Sutton’s marriage was permitted to stand. The Darcys’ actions may have precipitated moves by Lexinton’s guardians to secure a suitable bride for him and, the following year, negotiations were opened with Henry Cavendish*, styled earl of Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), for the marriage of the fourteen-year-old Lexinton to Ogle’s second daughter. Despite the apparent agreement of Ogle and Lady St Leger, the match did not take place, possibly on account of opposition from Ogle’s father, William Cavendish*, duke of Newcastle, though it is equally possible that the £3,000 portion offered by Ogle proved unacceptable to Lexinton’s guardians.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Lexinton appears to have departed on a foreign tour three years later. In April 1682 he made his first attempt to acquire office, petitioning Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, for the office of Langton Arbour, one of the walks of Sherwood Forest.<sup>12</sup> He appears to have been close to James*, duke of York, and in early May was one of those to accompany him to his yacht prior to his departure for Scotland.<sup>13</sup> For the remainder of the summer, Lexinton seems to have made the rounds of country seats, including Belvoir Castle and Kiveton.<sup>14</sup> The accession of James II offered Lexinton greater opportunities for advancement. During the elections for the new Parliament in the spring of 1685, Lexinton was to the fore in championing anti-exclusionist candidates in Nottinghamshire. During the campaign he marched at the head of a body of men bearing a pole with a black box bearing the legend, ‘No black box, no bill of exclusion, no association.’<sup>15</sup> He received his writ of summons in February 1685 and took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May. Present on approximately 38 per cent of all sitting days, on 26 May he was noted as missing at a call of the House even though he had been marked present on the attendance list. Lexinton responded to the outbreak of the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, during the summer by accepting a commission as a captain in one of the troops of horse being raised to counter the insurgency. He laid down his commission the following year when the troop was disbanded.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In spite of his association with the king before his accession, in November 1685 Lexinton was one of a number of peers to give evidence on behalf of Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield), at his trial for treason.<sup>17</sup> The following year his London residence was consumed in a fire that was said to have destroyed eight or ten houses. He was later granted a pass to travel abroad for his health.<sup>18</sup> In his absence Lexinton was estimated to be opposed to James II’s policy of repealing the Test Act in 1687, and he was listed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), as a member of the opposition grouping in the Lords.</p><p>It seems that Lexinton was still abroad during William of Orange’s invasion, but he had returned to England by the beginning of February 1689. He took his seat in the House on 4 Feb., following which he attended on approximately one third of all sitting days. Lexinton’s decision to vote in favour both of agreeing with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’ and with the resolution that the throne had been left vacant by the king’s flight attracted the opprobrium of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, but Lexinton soon came to be associated firmly with the court Tories.<sup>19</sup> On 15 Apr. he introduced Hugh Cholmondeley*, Viscount Cholmondeley [I], as Baron Cholmondeley, and Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney), into the House. On 20 Apr. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference with the Commons considering the Lords’ amendments to the bill for abrogating the oaths of allegiance. He was then named to the committee for drawing up heads for a further conference on the same business and was again named a manager for the conference two days later. Lexinton appears to have caught King William’s eye early on, and the same month he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the Elector of Brandenburg.<sup>20</sup> Before his departure Lexinton voted in favour of reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. During his absence he registered his proxy in favour of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, which was vacated by the close of the session. The proxy was exercised in July in support of the resolution to adhere to the Lords’ amendments in reversing the judgments against Oates, which unlike his earlier vote, effectively amounted to a statement of belief in Oates’ perjury. Lexinton embarked for Holland in company with a number of other peers on 8 June.<sup>21</sup> He was excused at a call of the House on 28 Oct., but he returned from his mission the following month.<sup>22</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 9 Nov. after which he was present on a further 23 sittings (just under a third of all sitting days). On 19 Dec. he was given leave of absence from the House, and the following day he again registered his proxy in Rochester’s favour; it was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Despite his apparently clear support for the new regime, in March 1690 Lexinton found himself the subject of accusations of Jacobitism. Depositions taken at Grimsby the previous month mentioned Lexinton, Matthew Lister and a Mr Hilliard all indulging in ‘swearing at King William, and drinking to King James.’ No doubt eager to avoid escalating the affair, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, to whom the depositions had been sent, passed the information onto Carmarthen (as Danby had since become). Lindsey was certain that Carmarthen would wish to ‘oblige my Lord Lexinton’ and was at pains to insist that Lister had been an early supporter of the Revolution.<sup>23</sup> The affair appears to have been quietly laid to one side.<sup>24</sup> Lexinton resumed his seat on 25 Mar. 1690 and was present on just 35 per cent of the whole. In May he was appointed master of the horse to Prince George of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, in place of Edward Hyde*, styled Lord Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon), after Cornbury refused to accompany King William to Ireland.<sup>25</sup> Lexinton had no such qualms and that summer he was present at the siege of Limerick.<sup>26</sup> During his absence from the House he again registered his proxy with Rochester, which was vacated once more by the close of the session.</p><p>Lexinton returned to the House on 2 Oct. 1690 after which he was present on 47 per cent of all sitting days. Over the ensuing months rumours circulated of a possible marriage. Negotiations for the hand of Margaret Hungerford appear to have stalled during the summer of 1691 when she was also proposed as a potential bride for Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea.<sup>27</sup> In April Lexinton petitioned successfully to be granted a 99 year lease in reversion on two plots of land in St James’s, one of which was held by his cousin Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe.<sup>28</sup> The following month he was appointed ambassador to Spain and warrants were made out for him to be paid £100 a week and to have £1,500 for his equipage.<sup>29</sup> Lexinton never took up the post; instead in September he married Margaret Hungerford in a match that brought him significant influence in Wiltshire, though his primary interest remained with his family estates in Nottinghamshire.</p><p>Following his marriage Lexinton resumed his seat in the House on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on just under 58 per cent of all sitting days. Towards the end of the year his name was included in a list drawn up by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, of peers thought likely to support Derby’s efforts to obtain restitution of lands lost in the Civil Wars and Interregnum. The division did not take place, and so Lexington’s attitude to the Derby claim remains uncertain.<sup>30</sup> Early the following year, on 16 Feb. 1692, he entered his protest at the resolution not to allow proxies during the proceedings for the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.</p><p>Lexinton appears to have spent the summer of 1692 in constant attendance upon Princess Anne, but by the beginning of August he seems to have fallen out with Lady Frescheville, another member of the Princess’s entourage. According to the princess, Lady Frescheville ‘railed at him mightily one day as she and I were going to church’. The cause of their quarrel is not clear, but later developments suggest that part of Lexinton’s resentment may have been owing to the increasing dominance of Lady Churchill (later duchess of Marlborough) in the princess’s household.<sup>31</sup> Two months later Lexinton found himself embroiled in a potentially scandalous episode when a Mr Chester committed suicide in the Fountain Tavern in the Strand. Chester’s motive was said to have been ‘for love’, and he left letters addressed both to Lexinton and his Nottinghamshire neighbour Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston. Whether the two peers were the subjects of his unrequited affection or merely close friends to whom he directed his last wishes is unclear.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Lexinton returned to the House for the new session on 4 Nov. 1692, after which he was present on approximately 47 per cent of all sitting days. In December he voted in favour of committing the place bill, and he also joined William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, in offering to stand bail for Charles Knollys, titular 4th earl of Banbury, who had been indicted for murder. Banbury’s wife was daughter to Lexinton’s former associate, Michael Lister. Their offer was refused.<sup>33</sup> His support for Knollys was again evidenced when on 17 Jan. he entered his dissent at the decision not to hear all the judges regarding Knollys’ claim to the earldom. He also dissented at the resolution to dismiss Banbury’s claim to the earldom. Despite apparent earlier support for the measure, in January 1693 Lexinton voted against passing the place bill. In February Lexinton voted with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder, following which he registered his proxy in favour of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. The same month Lexinton resigned or was removed from his position as master of the horse to Prince George of Denmark, having failed to persuade Princess Anne to dismiss Lady Churchill.<sup>34</sup> In recompense he was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber, and it was also said that he would be made treasurer of the chamber to the king in place of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, an office worth £2,000 p.a.<sup>35</sup> In the event, when Gwynne resigned his place in May, the office was left vacant. At the same time rumours circulated that Lexinton was to be made secretary of state, and in March it was reported that he was to succeed Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Bellomont [I], as treasurer to the queen.<sup>36</sup> Lexinton resumed his seat in the House (thereby vacating the proxy) on 7 Mar. but sat on just two more days before the close of the session on 14 March.</p><p>In May 1693 Lexinton travelled to Flanders as a volunteer, and in August he was despatched to Hamburg to participate in negotiations over the disputed inheritance of Saxe-Lauenberg.<sup>37</sup> Lexinton returned from his mission to Germany in time to take his seat on 14 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on 24 days in the session (18 per cent of the whole). Rumours of office continued to circulate, and whilst appointment as secretary of state eluded him, in January 1694 he was commissioned a colonel of horse, and in April he was given a prominent diplomatic mission as envoy extraordinary to Vienna.<sup>38</sup> Lexinton set out for his embassy in May and remained abroad for almost four years. During his absence his financial affairs were left in the hands of his cousin, James Varey, to whom was entrusted the unenviable task of attempting to procure Lexinton’s promised expenses.<sup>39</sup> By November 1694 Lexinton was reporting pecuniary embarrassment. He complained that his ‘merchant begins to grumble for want of my bills of extraordinaries’, but at the same time he worried that it might be thought ‘I had demanded what I should not, or more than it cost me.’<sup>40</sup></p><p>Removed from events in England, Lexinton relied on a series of correspondents to provide him with news of developments at home, including the preparation for the queen’s funeral in early 1695.<sup>41</sup> In November that year he speculated ‘that we shall have the vigourest disputes about elections that ever was known, for I reckon both Whigs and Tories will look upon this as a trial of skill’.<sup>42</sup> Lexinton was initially disappointed in his hopes of being constituted one of the plenipotentiaries at Ryswick in 1696; his omission was explained as a result of the king believing that though ‘he may make use of your lordship at the congress, yet the service you do his majesty at Vienna is so considerable that he cannot at present spare you from thence without greater prejudice to his affairs.’<sup>43</sup> Pressure from Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> eventually secured Lexinton the recognition he craved, and in January 1697 his name was added to the list of plenipotentiaries, though there was no expectation that he would actually participate at the congress.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Lexinton’s lengthy absence engendered growing financial difficulties. In April Varey was compelled to inform his master that ‘here is no money to be had at the treasury nor no where else’, and later the same month he complained of Lexinton’s treatment, pointing out ‘how ill you are dealt with here’ being the only one of the plenipotentiaries not to receive his tallies’. Lexinton’s sister, Bridget Darcy, also weighed in on her brother’s behalf, angry that he ‘should be slighted so’.<sup>45</sup> By June Lexinton was lamenting the extremity of his situation, fearing that with the loss of his credit he knew not ‘how to get bread, having stretched his credit and fortune as far as they will go, and sold his plate to stop his merchant’s mouth.’<sup>46</sup> The birth of his son, William George, in Vienna that autumn was more auspicious and in spite of his comparative poverty, Lexinton’s good standing within the diplomatic community was indicated by the Electress Sophia agreeing to stand godmother.<sup>47</sup> The good news coincided with reports that Lexinton was shortly to be recalled to England.<sup>48</sup> In November 1697 the by now familiar rumours of his impending appointment as secretary of state in place of the ailing Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, again proved to be inaccurate. In December he reported suffering from a ‘fit of the stone’ so severe that he had feared he was ‘like to take a journey into the other world’, but having recovered from this latest indisposition, he left his post at Vienna later the same month.<sup>49</sup> Towards the end of December he was making ‘all the haste possible’ to return to England where he arrived early in 1698.<sup>50</sup></p><p>On 9 Feb. 1698 Lexinton took his seat in the House. He then sat for just six days before absenting himself after registering his proxy in favour of Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers. The proxy was vacated by Lexinton’s return on 30 Mar., after which he sat for a further three days before withdrawing for the remainder of the session. That spring rumours of office again circulated. It was variously predicted that he would replace Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, as ambassador to France or that he was to be nominated ambassador to Constantinople.<sup>51</sup> On 20 June Lexinton registered his proxy in favour of another of the king’s favourites, Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle (vacated by the close of the session). In July he was appointed ambassador to the German princes.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Lexinton departed for Holland in September 1698, but he was back in England by the beginning of the following year. He returned to the House on 18 Jan. 1699, after which he was present on 22 per cent of all sitting days. In June 1699 he was appointed to the council of trade and plantations.<sup>53</sup> James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> was dismissive of his abilities:</p><blockquote><p>One of the last declarations the king made was for filling up the commission of trade, with my lords Stamford and Lexinton… The king had promised Lord Lexinton to make him of the council of trade, since he could not send him to Ireland; and he not being thought a very good chief, my Lord Stamford was taken.<sup>54</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lexinton attended the House as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 13 July. He took his seat at the opening of the 1699-1700 session on 16 Nov. 1699, after which he was present on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against discussing the amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation in committee, and on 10 Apr. he acted as a teller for two votes relating to the land tax bill: first on the question of whether to adhere to the amendments, which was rejected, and second whether to agree to the bill without amendment, which was carried by five votes. Further rumours that Lexinton was to be made secretary of state circulated in the summer, and at the same time his name was included on an annotated list of the peerage as a Whig supporter likely to be favourable to the new ministry.<sup>55</sup> Yet, although Lexinton appeared to be at the pinnacle of his influence, from 1700 onwards he seems to have made efforts to retire gradually from public life. The decline may have been caused by continuing ill health or perhaps by financial strains: during that year he sold his estate at Cranbourne Chase, near Windsor to Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I].<sup>56</sup></p><p>Lexinton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on over 60 per cent of all sitting days. On 17 Feb. he was appointed one of the managers of the conference concerning the Lords’ address to the king, and on 16 Apr. he subscribed two protests, the first at the resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address asking that the king not punish the impeached peers until after they had been tried, and the second at the resolution to expunge from the Journal the reasons given in the former protest. On 8 May he delivered a number of papers to the House from the commissioners of trade in response to an order relating to the American colonies. On 3 June he subscribed two protests relating to the Lords’ answers to be given at a conference with the Commons concerning the impeached lords, and on 9 June he protested again at the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons concerning the impeachments. On 17 June he subscribed further protests, first at the resolution to proceed to the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers, in Westminster Hall and second at the resolution to put the question to acquit the impeached peer. He then voted against acquitting Somers. Later that month, it was speculated that he was to come into office as lord privy seal.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Lexinton was not present when the new Parliament opened on 30 Dec. 1701; he took his seat in February 1702 and attended on just 24 per cent of all sitting days. In spite of Lexinton’s apparently declining health, he rallied to employ his interest to obtain a recordership for William Cartwright (possibly William Cartwright of Ossington), but the king’s death further diminished Lexinton’s influence.<sup>58</sup> Queen Anne made no effort to disguise her dislike for the man who had dared stand up to her favourite almost ten years previously.<sup>59</sup> In April 1702 Lexinton acted as one of the tellers for the division on the land tax bill. The following month he resigned from the council of trade and plantations.<sup>60</sup> Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, demonstrated that she too had not forgotten Lexinton, commenting to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin (later earl of Godolphin), on Lexinton’s resignation, ‘My lord Lexinton having a mind to quit his employment shows he thinks it is better for him to depend upon the Whig party, considering his behaviour to the queen and prince formerly, for I am sure self-interest is his first consideration, and I don’t think him very wrong in that choice’.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Lexinton was active in the elections that summer.<sup>62</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on a third of all sitting days. In January 1703 he was noted as being in favour of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the penalty clause. This brief flurry of activity appears to have been brought to a temporary halt by the death of Lady Lexinton from breast cancer in mid-April, and over the next three years Lexinton’s attendance declined markedly.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In or about November 1703 Lexinton was noted by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely supporter (though queried) of the occasional conformity bill, and this assessment was repeated by Sunderland in his second forecast. Although Lexinton attended the prorogation day on 4 Nov., he did not take his seat for the 1703-4 session until 12 Jan. 1704, and he was then present for only eight days (8 per cent of the whole). He attended the prorogation day on 19 Oct. before taking his seat for the 1704-5 session on 24 Oct., after which he absented himself again for the ensuing three months. Overall he attended just 12 per cent of sitting days in the 1704-5 session. In his absence he may have been among those noted as a likely supporter of the Tack the following month. He resumed his place on 9 Feb. 1705, and on 27 Feb. he was nominated to the committee to consider the heads of the conference with the Commons concerning the Aylesbury men. An otherwise undated letter from Rochester pressing him for his proxy may belong to this session.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Lexinton failed to attend the first session of the new Parliament of October 1705, but he was excused at a call of 12 November. The following year he was said to have become a member of the Tory drinking society revived by John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter, known as the Honourable Order of Little Bedlam.<sup>65</sup> He resumed his seat in the House in the second session on 27 Jan. 1707, after which he was present on 35 per cent of sitting days but then retired for the remainder of the year. His next attendance was two months into the Parliament of Great Britain on 12 Jan. 1708, after which he was present on 41 per cent of all sitting days. His infrequent appearances in Parliament coupled with the queen’s distaste for him meant that his party affiliation must have seemed somewhat ambiguous. Despite his long-standing Tory associations, in May 1708 Lexinton was listed as a Whig in an analysis of the peerage.</p><p>Lexinton was again missing at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, arriving for the 1708-9 session on 14 Dec. 1708, after which he was present on just under a third of all sitting days. In January 1709 he voted in favour of permitting Scots peers in possession of British titles to vote in the election of Scots representative peers. Missing once more at the opening of the following (1709-10) session, Lexinton resumed his seat on 16 Jan. 1710 and was present for the proceedings against Henry Sacheverell. On 14 Mar. he registered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn the House, and over the next few days he registered a series of dissents and protests against the Lords’ resolutions accepting that the Commons had made good the articles against Sacheverell.<sup>66</sup> On 20 Mar. he was one of the peers closely associated with the court to vote in favour of acquitting Sacheverell, and he then registered a further dissent at the guilty verdict. Some commentators were surprised at Lexinton’s decision, which is perhaps indicative of just how gradually he drifted from being perceived as a ministerial Whig towards association with moderate Tories and Whigs under the leadership of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.<sup>67</sup></p><p>The establishment of Harley’s new ministry saw Lexinton again being considered for a return to office.<sup>68</sup> In September Harley listed Lexinton as a peer ‘to be provided for.’ The following month Harley listed Lexinton as being likely to support his new ministry, and in December Lexinton was once more mentioned as being in line for office.<sup>69</sup> Lexinton took his seat the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov., after which he was present on 39 per cent of all sitting days. In June 1711, following the close of the session, he was listed as one of the ‘Tory patriots’ of the 1710 Parliament. In July he was mentioned as a possible envoy to Vienna to attend the election of the new emperor, though Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, had been informed that Lexinton could not ‘be persuaded to reside’ there.<sup>70</sup> During the course of the year Lexinton inherited substantial estates in Wiltshire at the death of his mother-in-law, Lady Hungerford.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Lexinton was urged to ensure his attendance at the opening of the new session by both Oxford (as Harley had since become) and Lady Rochester. In his letter to Lady Rochester he undertook to alter his plans and to hasten up, having noted the request with surprise,</p><blockquote><p>for I thought myself so insignificant both to my friends and country, that I was resolved to cultivate my health, and enjoy my pleasure this winter in the forest. But you shall see how ready I am to obey your commands upon any occasion, by my expedition up, though it will be absolutely impossible for me to come by the day you mention, not receiving your letter till six a clock this evening and having a broken set of horses of my own at this time, so must be forced to send and hire.<sup>72</sup></p></blockquote><p>The same day he wrote in similar terms to Oxford, expressing his thanks ‘for the great honour you are pleased to do me in the offer of your friendship.’<sup>73</sup> In spite of such assurances, Lexinton was included among the potential opponents of the court over the presentation of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ address. Such doubts proved misplaced. Having resumed his seat in the House five days into the new session on 12 Dec. 1711, after which he was present on approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days, a new list included Lexinton among Harley’s probable supporters, and the same month he was noted as being likely to remain loyal to the ministry on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. On 10 Dec. he was included among those office-holders who were presumed to have voted with the ministry on the issue. Lexinton was also listed as being in favour of allowing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House on 19 Dec. as duke of Brandon, and the following day he voted accordingly against barring Scots peers holding post-Union British titles from sitting. Lexinton was absent from the House after 20 Dec., but he ensured that his proxy was registered in favour of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester. The proxy was vacated by Lexinton’s resumption of his seat on 14 Jan. 1712.</p><p>Lexinton probably offered his support for his nephew, Richard Sutton<sup>‡</sup>, in the by-election at Newark in January 1712, occasioned by the elevation of Sir Thomas Willoughby*, as Baron Middleton.<sup>74</sup> Following the close of the session, Lexinton returned to his seat at Kelham, but he again wrote to Oxford assuring him of his willingness to come up should he be required.<sup>75</sup> Towards the end of August Lexinton was again entrusted with a diplomatic posting, this time being sent as ambassador to Spain, where his responsibilities included, among other things, attempting to secure rights for the Catalans.<sup>76</sup> He planned to set out early the following month, but his departure was delayed while he recovered from ‘a feverish indisposition and a defluxion upon his eyes.’<sup>77</sup> Once in Spain Lexinton remained abroad for the best part of a year, and he was consequently absent for the duration of the following session. He soon found his new position unpalatable, and he complained frequently of the conditions there.<sup>78</sup> By January 1713 he was fretting about not having heard from Oxford, making him fear ‘I may have been guilty of something that may have forfeited your lordship’s good opinion.’<sup>79</sup> In February he was listed by Oxford as one of the peers to be contacted before the new session, and it was perhaps as a result of this that in March he endeavoured to send Oxford his proxy, though some hiatus appears to have prevented it being formally registered.<sup>80</sup> Towards the end of April Lexinton wrote to Oxford hoping that the proxies had arrived but was concerned that they would not be usable because of a problem with the dates. He excused himself by explaining that he had, ‘signed them just as they were sent me without examining them, being in a hurry, but followed the direction, which was not to fill up the blanks’ and hoped that he would ‘have no need of them.’<sup>81</sup> Lexinton was listed by Swift as a likely supporter of the ministry in March or April 1713, and in June he was estimated to be in favour of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Meanwhile, he continued to plead for his recall: ‘I must repeat to you my request of being delivered from this cursed place as soon as I have done what is proper … for I do protest that I have had neither pleasure, profit nor health since I have set foot in Spain.’<sup>82</sup> Ill health and dislike for his posting appears to have clouded Lexinton’s diplomatic judgment. In pressing the claims of the Catalans, he overstepped the mark to the extent that the king of Spain ‘flew into some degree of passion’.<sup>83</sup> Lexinton himself reported that the issue had led to his receiving ‘a great many reproaches both from the king, the queen, and the ministers, that I was too much inclined to the House of Austria by the long stay I had made formerly at Vienna and sometimes when I pleaded hard for the <em>Fueros</em>, that I spoke like a republican’.<sup>84</sup> Lexinton was finally granted leave to return in July 1713, but before he could organize his departure, his aversion to Spain was confirmed by the death there of his only son, William Sutton. It was not until the middle of December that Lexinton was at last able to leave Madrid. He made the journey back to England with his son’s body concealed in a bale of cloth, concerned that his Protestant grave would be desecrated in Catholic Spain.<sup>85</sup></p><p>Lexinton resumed his seat in the House on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on just over a third of all sitting days in the session. He registered his proxy with Rochester on 28 Apr., vacated at the end of the session. That spring there were rumours that he was either about to marry, or had already married, Lady Katherine Hyde. By the end of June it was reported that the marriage had been ‘put off a little’ and that Lexinton had redirected his attentions, unsuccessfully, to Lady Preston.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Lexinton was predicted to be a supporter of the bill for preventing the growth of schism that May. Despite the disappointment he had encountered in Spain, he continued to petition for some reward for his service, appealing to Oxford to ‘put the queen in mind of me, if there was any room for her majesty to show me any mark of her favour, and that I was the only one of her plenipotentiaries who had not received some very considerable one’.<sup>87</sup> Although Lexinton was increasingly identified with those ‘hot Tories’ who gathered around Viscount Bolingbroke in company with Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, in mid-May it was speculated that he was to be the beneficiary of a resurgent Oxford by replacing Bolingbroke as secretary of state.<sup>88</sup> The promotion failed to materialize, but on Oxford’s fall as lord treasurer Lexinton was once again spoken of with confidence as one marked for high office in a future administration.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Lexinton attended just two of the days of the August session following the queen’s death. He sat for the final time noted in the Journal on 5 Aug. 1714 and on 7 Aug. registered his proxy with Rochester. The death of Queen Anne removed any possibility of a government post, and the following month Lexinton was omitted from George I’s new Privy Council. The following year he was condemned by Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Orford, in his report to the committee of secrecy, though he avoided any serious consequences. He also suffered the loss of his younger daughter Eleanora Margaretta.</p><p>Despite his retirement from the House, Lexinton continued to exercise his interest at Newark where he was one of the foremost Tory peers in opposition to the Whigs headed by Thomas Pelham Holles*, duke of Newcastle.<sup>90</sup> In 1717 Lexinton’s remaining daughter, Bridget, married their distant kinsman, John Manners<sup>†</sup>, styled marquess of Granby (later 3rd duke of Rutland), a prestigious match that served to emphasize Lexinton’s continued influence in the midlands.<sup>91</sup> By 1721, following the Whig schism, both Lexinton and Rutland appear to have adjusted their political stance, and in August Lexinton wrote to Newcastle to congratulate him on the termination of ‘so tedious and troublesome a sessions’ and, in unison with Rutland, to offer him his service.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Although he seems never to have involved himself in any overt Jacobite intrigues, through his Oglethorpe cousins Lexinton was perceived to be sympathetic to the Jacobite cause.<sup>93</sup> Lexinton wielded his interest successfully in the Nottinghamshire election of April 1722, and the same month he wrote to Newcastle to condole with him on Sunderland’s death.<sup>94</sup> It was perhaps as a result of these signs of renewed interest that, in spite of his long retirement from public life and his questionable loyalty to the new regime, in May 1722 he received a clear offer of a step in the peerage from the king. Lexinton declined the offer begging Newcastle ‘to believe that no other reason moved me to decline so great an honour, so kindly and obligingly offered me, but what I alleged; for indeed my lord I did not think it would look well in the eye of the world to be seeking new honours, when I am [incapacitated], to enjoy even those that I have’.<sup>95</sup></p><p>The following year, according to Edward Chandler<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, Lexinton was one of the minority to vote in favour of examining George Kelly on oath concerning Atterbury’s role in Jacobite plotting.<sup>96</sup> Lexinton’s name does not appear on the attendance list that day, so it seems likely that the bishop erred in his identification. If he was correct, it was almost certainly Lexinton’s last appearance in the House. He died in September 1723 and was buried in the vault constructed for him at Kelham.<sup>97</sup> In his will, composed earlier that year, he left legacies of £100 to his sister, Bridget Darcy, and his nephews, Robert and Richard Sutton<sup>‡</sup>, and jewels valued at £5,000 to his former fiancée, Lady Katherine Hyde, in memory of ‘an unfortunate man that truly loved and honoured her’. The remainder of his estate passed to his daughter, Bridget, duchess of Rutland, whose husband was named sole executor.<sup>98</sup> On his death the barony became extinct, though the duchess’s second son assumed the name and arms of Sutton, and his descendants were later ennobled as Viscounts Canterbury.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SYDNEY, Henry (1641-1704) |
<p><strong><surname>SYDNEY</surname></strong> (<strong>SIDNEY</strong>), <strong>Henry</strong> (1641–1704)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>9 Apr. 1689 Visct. SYDNEY; <em>cr. </em>14 May 1694 earl of ROMNEY (RUMNEY) |
|
First sat 15 Apr. 1689; last sat 28 Mar. 1704 |
|
MP Bramber 1679, Tamworth 1689 |
<p><em>b</em>. c. Mar. 1641, 4th s. of Robert Sydney*, 2nd earl of Leicester, and Dorothy, da. of Henry Percy<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Northumberland; bro. of Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> and of Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1658-64 (Spain, Italy). <em>unm</em>. 1s. with Grace Worthley. <em>d</em>. 8 Apr. 1704; <em>will</em> 12 Apr. 1699-21 July 1702, pr. 18 May 1704.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of the bedchamber to James*, duke of York, 1665; master of the horse to duchess of York 1665; envoy to France 1672, Hague 1679-81;<sup>2</sup> master of the robes 1679-85;<sup>3</sup> PC 1689;<sup>4</sup> gent. of the bedchamber 1689-?1702; sec. of state (north) 1690-92; ld. justice [I] 1690; ld. lt. Ireland 1692-95; ld. justice 1697, 1698; groom of the stole 1700-1702.</p><p>Ld. lt. Kent 1689-92,<sup>5</sup> 1694-<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Kent 1689-1702;<sup>6</sup> ld. warden of the Cinque Ports 1691-1702;<sup>7</sup> kpr. of Greenwich Palace and Park 1697-<em>d</em>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Capt. Holland regt. (the Buffs); gen. of British regts. in Dutch service 1681-5; col. 1st regt. of foot 1689-90, 1693-<em>d</em>.;<sup>9</sup> maj.-gen. 1691; lt.-gen. 1694; master-gen. of the Ordnance 1693-1702.<sup>10</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by ?Sir G. Kneller, 1700, NPG 1722; oil on canvas by Sir J.B. de Medina, Government Art Collection.</p> |
<p>According to Macky Sydney was ‘the great wheel on which the Revolution turned’.<sup>12</sup> He certainly owed his influential position at court in the aftermath of William of Orange’s invasion almost wholly to the close friendship he had fostered with the prince over a number of years.<sup>13</sup> Their association commenced with Sydney’s employment as envoy to The Hague in 1679 and continued for the remainder of William’s life.</p><p>The key to Sydney’s success appears to have been his ability to charm, though some proved less susceptible to his qualities. Critics have deemed him lazy, incompetent or simply not very bright.<sup>14</sup> Swift countered Macky’s eulogy by declaring that Sydney ‘had not a wheel to turn a mouse’ and dismissed him as no more than a ‘vicious illiterate rake’.<sup>15</sup> Macaulay was so scornful of him that he doubted that the letter of invitation to William of Orange, though written in Sydney’s hand and conveyed to the prince by him, could possibly have been Sydney’s work.<sup>16</sup> Others have criticized him for apparent abuses of power, particularly in Ireland, where he was accused of benefitting unduly from the sale of offices. He was also one of the Whig ministers to become entangled in the scandal arising from the Captain Kidd affair. More unpleasant was his unsavoury attitude towards women. He treated his mistress with disdain and it was even rumoured that he had been guilty of incest with his sister, Diana, who left him the bulk of her property on her death in childbirth. Some thought that he was the true father of her children.<sup>17</sup></p><p>While few gave much credence to the more spectacular reports about his licentiousness even Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, admitted that Sydney was far from perfect. He conceded that ‘he may be too easy to those he loves and trusts, and too much carried away from business to pleasure,’ though Burnet continued to stress that &squo;it is a great happiness when all that is to be apprehended in a man of favour is an excess of gentleness and good nature.’<sup>18</sup> Even here Sydney let himself down on occasion. He seems to have exhibited a degree of callousness in his personal relationships, notably in his refusal to acknowledge his son by his long-term mistress. Yet, an uncompromisingly unflattering portrayal of Sydney is unfair. Although he did not excel in the offices of lord lieutenant of Ireland nor as secretary of state, he was a talented diplomat and finally found his niche at court as both master of the ordnance (which appealed to his military interests) and as groom of the stole. In the latter role he was often the first point of contact for foreign dignitaries visiting England and as the mediator between the king’s ministers and king when the latter was absent in Holland he was able to make the most of his true <em>métier</em> as a courtier.</p><h2><em>Court and opposition 1660-1688</em></h2><p>As a younger son, Sydney had early on to make his own way in the world. His admission to the court was no doubt assisted by the close friendship he developed with his nephew (though contemporary), Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, with whom he had been brought up at Penshurst and travelled on the continent on two occasions in the late 1650s and early 1660s. Sydney was in Rome with Sunderland in 1664 but the following year had returned to England and was rewarded with a place in York’s household.<sup>19</sup> Sydney’s tenure of this first position proved short-lived. In 1666 he was put out and banished from court amid allegations that he had indulged in a liaison with the duchess (though Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> thought another reason was behind Sydney’s removal at this time).<sup>20</sup> Not long after this affair, Sydney seems to have taken up with Grace Worthley, a cousin of Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, later earl of Macclesfield, who remained his mistress for more than 20 years.<sup>21</sup> The death of Sydney’s father in 1677 proved the catalyst for a long-running and acrimonious lawsuit conducted between several members of the family over inheritance of the Leicester estate.<sup>22</sup> Sydney is said to have revealed his insensitive side by giving orders for the felling of woods at Penshurst before the earl was even dead and by employing a decidedly ‘liberal interpretation’ of the meaning of ‘personal estate’ in securing what he wanted from the property. The prime mover of the legal proceedings was not Sydney, though, but his older brother Algernon and when Sydney eventually decided to come to terms with his other brother, Philip (now 3rd earl of Leicester), Algernon turned on both of them in his quest to secure what he considered to be his dues from the estate.<sup>23</sup></p><p>By the close of the decade, Sydney’s position as an envoy had been bolstered by his connection to Sunderland as well as by his increasing attachment to the circle of Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>. The summer of 1679 saw him involved in a kind of shuttle diplomacy between the triumvirs, Sunderland, Sydney’s kinsman George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax, and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and members of the opposition grouping. This was followed by a stint at The Hague as part of Temple’s efforts to forge an Orangist alliance. A subsequent mission to The Hague in 1680 helped to cement his burgeoning friendship with William of Orange and his increasingly close involvement with Dutch society, as did the subsequent period spent from 1681 to 1685 as commander of the Anglo-Dutch brigade.<sup>24</sup> He was also said to have been ‘courting a Dutch lady worth 50 or £60,000.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>With his attention increasingly focused on Holland, Sydney was reported to have been granted leave to sell his place as master of the robes to George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth, in 1681 but he seems to have retained the office until the accession of James II.<sup>26</sup> The following year, Sydney’s mistress, Grace Worthley, threatened to pistol him for deserting her and disowning their son. She also made the first of a long-running series of allegations that he was involved in an affair with the countess of Oxford (Diana Kirke).<sup>27</sup> Rather more dangerous to Sydney was the arrest, trial and execution of his brother Algernon following the Rye House Plot. Although the affair drove Sydney still further from the court, in other regards it proved oddly beneficial as his behaviour towards his brother, who had done so much to sunder the family with his incessant legal disputes, was regarded as admirably generous and forgiving.<sup>28</sup> On James’s accession to the throne, Sydney was put out as master of the robes.<sup>29</sup> He was also removed from his command of the Anglo-Dutch brigade. The following year, he and ‘his wife’ (presumably a mistake for his mistress) were granted permission to travel overseas.<sup>30</sup></p><p>By the early months of 1688 Sydney was deeply involved with the invasion plot and was one of at least five prominent figures to be sent anonymous threatening letters from Catholic activists.<sup>31</sup> A central figure in the army conspiracy against James II as well as being a signatory (and ostensibly the author) of the letter of invitation to the prince, Sydney was again granted leave to travel overseas to take the waters at Aix in August. Although the pass specifically forbade him from travelling to Holland, he ignored the restriction in order to deliver the letter of invitation personally. He was then commissioned a major-general in the army of invasion and was present with the prince at the landing at Torbay.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Sydney’s central role in the planning and execution of the invasion and, more particularly, his reputation as a confidant of the prince made him a singularly important character in the post-Revolution regime. This importance appears to have been reflected both in his presence at a dinner presided over by Halifax in January 1689 and also in a list drawn up by Burnet at some point between December 1688 and the beginning of February 1689, suggesting the shape of the new administration. In this, Burnet recommended Sydney to a series of significant posts at court: that he should serve as either master of the horse or lord chamberlain, as a gentleman of the bedchamber and one of the commissioners of the Treasury.<sup>33</sup> Although Sydney was made to wait a while for his reward, he was able to use his interest to secure Sunderland’s release from imprisonment at Rotterdam in March and he was thereafter instrumental in negotiating the return of Sunderland and his family to England from exile.<sup>34</sup> The same month, it was rumoured that he was to be appointed paymaster general of the king’s forces, though this failed to come about.<sup>35</sup></p><h2><em>1689-99</em></h2><p>Returned to the Convention for Tamworth, Sydney was soon after rewarded for his prominent role in bringing about the Revolution with his creation as Viscount Sydney. He took his seat in the House on 15 Apr. introduced between William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, and Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, and was thereafter present on 62 of the remaining days in the session (approximately 38 per cent of the whole). On 24 Apr. he was entrusted with his brother, Leicester’s proxy (which was vacated by the close) and the same day he was named to the committee for the bill to reverse his brother Algernon’s attainder. Sydney was present again the following day when the committee’s findings were reported back to the House by John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater. Sydney was entrusted with the proxy of Richard Lumley*, Viscount Lumley (another of the signatories of the letter of invitation and later promoted earl of Scarbrough) on 22 May (which was vacated by Lumley’s resumption of his seat on 2 July). Three days later he joined five other peers in subscribing the protest against the resolution that the printed paper circulated by Titus Oates constituted a breach of the Lords’ privilege.<sup>36</sup> On 20 and again on 21 June he was nominated one of the managers of the conferences held with the Commons concerning amendments to the bill for enabling the commissioners of the great seal to execute the offices of lord chancellor or lord keeper.</p><p>On 11 July 1689, Sydney’s nephew, Robert Sydney*, later 5th earl of Leicester, was admitted to the House by a writ of acceleration. From this date until Sydney’s promotion to an earldom in 1694, two Lords Sydney sat in the House allowing for occasional confusion about the activities of each man, but it was undoubtedly Viscount Sydney who was named one of the managers of the conferences held with the Commons concerning the succession on 12, 20 and 31 July and who was also nominated a manager of the conferences concerning the bill for a duty on tea and coffee on 25 and 27 July.</p><p>Sydney took part in the military preparations that summer, entertaining the king in his tent on Hounslow heath on one occasion, before taking his seat in the second session of the Convention on 23 Oct. 1689.<sup>37</sup> He was then present on approximately 68 per cent of all sitting days and on 31 Dec. he received the proxy of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 14 Jan. 1690 he joined Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in subscribing the protest against the resolution to insist on the right of peers to be tried only in full in Parliament but it seems likely that it was his nephew, Sydney, who subscribed the protest of 23 Jan. at the resolution to agree with the committee of the whole in omitting certain words from the bill for restoring the corporations.</p><p>Reckoned as a supporter of the court (although one to be spoken to) in a list prepared by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen, later duke of Leeds, between October 1689 and February 1690, Sydney was one of a number of peers who accompanied the king at a ‘debauch’ held at the house of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, in January 1690. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar, after which he was present on almost 65 per cent of all sitting days. In May, Sydney’s former mistress, Grace Worthley, approached Halifax for news of her son, Henry, who had been sent to Holland for his education and who she was concerned ‘is either dead or murdered’. Repeating accusations that she had made the previous year, Worthley rehearsed her fears that Sydney had settled his estate on the countess of Oxford’s bastards (who she took to be his), one of whom was said to be on the point of marrying Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex.<sup>38</sup> Worthley’s complaints against the cruelty of her former lover and her efforts to secure a maintenance from him continued for much of the rest of his life.</p><p>Sydney accompanied the king to Ireland that summer, where he distinguished himself at the battle of the Boyne and at the siege of Limerick. He then remained in Ireland to preside as one of three lords justices.<sup>39</sup> From there he wrote to Portland in protest at reports that some of the former king’s adherents were to be restored to office, declaring ‘if they come off with their lives and estates, I think they have reason to be very well contented, for they are certainly guilty of high treason.’ He also appealed for English judges to be sent out to the province as the Irish ones were deemed to be too partial to their own countrymen.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Sydney was away from the House for the opening of the new session in October while he continued to grapple with the problems of Ireland. Towards the end of the month he approached Portland once more, this time on his own behalf to request an additional grant of lands from the king.<sup>41</sup> Sydney’s preoccupations with Irish matters were curtailed in December when he was recalled to London to take up office as one of the secretaries of state.<sup>42</sup> His promotion earned him a congratulatory message from Charles Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley, later 2nd earl of Berkeley, for ‘coming out of so unhealthful a country as Ireland and into [so] great an employment as secretary of state,’ but his fellow justice, Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Coningsby, worried that Ireland would ‘suffer extremely’ as a result.<sup>43</sup> Sydney returned to the House on 23 Dec. 1690, after which he continued to attend on 10 of the session’s 76 sitting days.</p><p>Sydney’s appointment as secretary of state was viewed askance by some and even the king appears to have conceded that the selection of his ill-suited favourite was only a temporary expedient.<sup>44</sup> Temporary or not, Sydney’s attention in the early months of 1691 was taken up with dealing with reports of disaffected individuals and with the aftermath of the trial of Richard Grahme<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Preston [S]. Writing to Nottingham in January Sydney initially recommended that Preston should be granted clemency, observing that he appeared ‘very unwilling to lose his life and will endeavour to deserve it. I think he will do you more service than his head is worth.’ Specifically, it was hoped that he might have ‘useful things’ to discover about the involvement of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, and William Penn in Jacobite intrigues. By the beginning of February, amid rumours of a new plot, Sydney briefly hardened his attitude convinced that Preston ‘ought to do something more for his life’ but a few days later he again recommended that Preston’s life should be spared.<sup>45</sup> By March, Sydney appears to have lost his patience with at least some of his colleagues, in particular with Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, who it was believed was on the brink of resigning. Complaining to the king directly, Sydney decried his fellow minister’s performance declaring, ‘What Lord Godolphin does in the treasury I cannot tell; but I see his proceedings in other places are not with that zeal for your service, as might be expected from him. He scarcely ever comes to Council, and never to committees.’<sup>46</sup> In spite of such frustrations, in April Sydney’s portfolio was added to when he was entrusted with the lord wardenship of the Cinque Ports. That month, he introduced the rehabilitated Sunderland to the king and in May, he accompanied the king to the Netherlands where he remained for the next few months.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Sydney’s absence from England failed to stifle rumours of divisions at court with Sydney noted as a prominent member of the faction standing in opposition to Carmarthen.<sup>48</sup> Proximity to the king during the summer did much to enhance Sydney’s reputation. By the autumn, he was said to be ‘a very great favourite’ and the decision to free Preston in November was credited to Sydney’s successful wielding of his interest on Preston’s behalf. Sydney had returned to England by 20 Oct. 1691.<sup>49</sup> He took his seat in the new session two days later, after which he was present on approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Oct. he was again entrusted with Leicester’s proxy, which was vacated by the close, and the following day with that of Sunderland, which was vacated on 11 Jan. 1692 by Sunderland’s resumption of his seat. Towards the end of October he was noted as one of three likely contenders for the post of lord lieutenant of Ireland but, in spite of Sydney’s apparently burgeoning interest at court, he was unable to extend his influence to secure the return of his kinsman, Robert Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, in the by-election for one of the county seats in Kent held in November.</p><p>Reports that Sydney either was to be or already had been appointed to the Irish lieutenancy persisted well into the new year.<sup>50</sup> It was also suggested that he was to be promoted to an earldom.<sup>51</sup> Although the promotion in the peerage failed to materialize for the time being, in March 1692 Sydney was accordingly commissioned lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>52</sup> The same month he was also appointed joint lord lieutenant of Kent, in partnership with Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland. The king took the opportunity of relieving Sydney of the seals of office as secretary of state, leaving the position unfilled for the time being.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Sydney attended four of the prorogation days that followed on from the close of the session while he awaited preparations for his journey to Ireland. In the meantime complaints were levelled against him by Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, who accused Sydney of selling places on the Irish establishment. In response, Sydney lodged a complaint against Gwynne for making such disparaging remarks. The council subsequently found in Sydney’s favour while Gwynne was upbraided for his ‘groundless and scandalous’ allegations, details of which were ordered to be inserted in the next issue of the <em>Gazette</em>.<sup>54</sup> Gwynne was also dismissed from his lucrative household office as treasurer of the chamber.<sup>55</sup> Sydney’s departure for Ireland continued to be delayed over the next few months. In July he was forced to respond to criticism made by the king about his failure to set out, explaining that he had been ready to leave ‘at an hour’s warning’ but had been prevented by lack of funds and by awaiting production of the bills for the Irish parliament.<sup>56</sup></p><p>While he waited on these developments, Sydney and other members of the council took command of the projected descent on France. At the end of May he joined Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and others aboard the <em>Admiral</em> for a council of war in advance of the operation and at the beginning of August he was again a member of a party from the council to travel to Portsmouth for a further meeting with Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford.<sup>57</sup> The result, from Sydney’s point of view, was wholly unsatisfactory and he concluded that when the public discovered that Russell had opposed following up his recent naval victory with a descent he would ‘pass his time very scurrily.’<sup>58</sup></p><p>Shortly after this disappointing meeting, Sydney finally set out for Ireland. He was accompanied on the first stage of his journey by ‘most of the prime nobility’ as well as a guard of honour provided by the earl of Oxford’s regiment of horse.<sup>59</sup> He took with him three bills to be laid before the Irish parliament, which he hoped would prove to be ‘enough for the first transmission’. Adverse weather further impeded his progress but, having finally arrived at his post in the middle of August, he remained there for almost a year and was consequently absent for the entirety of the new session that met at the beginning of November.<sup>60</sup> On 21 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House.</p><p>Sydney’s tenure of the lieutenancy proved not to be a success. He rapidly found himself thoroughly out of his depth in trying to handle an already difficult situation with the Irish parliament. By mid-November it was reported that he was to return home, but in the event he remained at his post well into the next year.<sup>61</sup> Although Sydney reported in December that proceedings in the Irish parliament were progressing more smoothly than its English counterpart and the king subsequently sent him a letter commending his ‘excellent conduct and behaviour’, there was no covering up the rupture between the Irish and English establishments at the time. Many of the problems encountered by Sydney came to be associated with the Irish determination to overturn Poyning’s Law and to insist on ‘their undoubted right to draw up bills and lay it where they thought fit.’<sup>62</sup></p><p>News of Sydney’s likely recall persisted through the early months of 1693 while he struggled to defend his actions, arguing that he had done nothing but assert the king’s prerogative.<sup>63</sup> Still confident of the king’s support he rejected reports that he was to be brought home protesting that he would surely have been informed by his friends if there was any substance to such rumours.<sup>64</sup> He continued to seek advice about how best to cope with his predicament, blaming the insolence of certain members of the Irish parliament for his travails.<sup>65</sup> His efforts availed him nothing and in April it was said that he was to be recompensed for the loss of his place with a step in the peerage.<sup>66</sup> The following month he finally received his well-trailed letters of recall by which time his authority in the province was thoroughly compromised by complaints that he had been too lenient towards the Catholic population, prone to corruption as well as having overseen a particularly unsuccessful parliamentary session. Sydney seems to have been more than content with being relieved of his awkward responsibility and claimed to be fully in support of the plan to establish a commission to manage Ireland in his stead. Even so it was still not until July that he finally quit the island.<sup>67</sup> He arrived at Hampton Court not long after accompanied by ‘a considerable train’.<sup>68</sup> He also laid on a lavish entertainment at Barnet for ‘all such as went out to fetch him into town’, which was said to have cost him more than £300.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Although he had failed to impress as secretary of state or lord lieutenant of Ireland, Sydney retained the king’s confidence. At the close of July (bearing out rumours to that effect that had been current since early spring) he was appointed master of the ordnance.<sup>70</sup> His responsibilities varied from the extremely mundane, such as providing spades and axes for the colony at New York, to more entertaining projects: developing new weaponry and indulging in firework displays.<sup>71</sup> Later that year, following the death of Charles Schomberg*, 2nd duke of Schomberg, he also added the colonelcy of the 1st regiment of foot guards (the Grenadiers) to his new responsibilities, a unit he had previously had command of in 1689.<sup>72</sup> Meanwhile his continuing importance as a mediator between the king and other members of the administration was demonstrated once more when it was suggested that he had been entrusted with carrying over to the king a scheme for bringing Shrewsbury, Sunderland and John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, back into office.<sup>73</sup></p><p>After an absence of more than a year and a half, Sydney took his seat in the House for the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 28 Nov. he was again entrusted with Leicester’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. Following the close, it was reported that Sydney was to spend the summer in residence at Dover Castle and in May 1694 it was rumoured that he was to be advanced in the peerage as earl of Canterbury.<sup>74</sup> That month he was created earl of Romney rather than Canterbury: one of seven peers receiving promotions at that time. The award was a further clear signal of the king’s continuing loyalty to his friend. Romney spent the early part of summer surveying the Cinque Ports, before attending the first of two house parties held at Althorp in August, along with Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, and Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup>. The following month, he fell seriously sick with colic or a fever, but in spite of early fears the illness proved short-lived.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Romney took his seat in the House in his new style on 12 Nov. introduced between Bridgwater and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. He was thereafter present on almost 68 per cent of all sitting days in the session. That month it was discoursed that he was to be given the additional distinction of being appointed constable of the Tower and in December it was reported that he was to go over to Flanders as a general with the cavalry under the command of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>76</sup> Neither appointment proved forthcoming. He continued to attend the session until its close in May 1695 and on 16 Jan. he was again the recipient of his brother, Leicester’s proxy, which was again vacated by the close.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Romney played host to a meeting attended by several of the principal naval commanders in anticipation of an attempted assault on Dunkirk and in June he was one of six new lieutenant generals to be appointed.<sup>77</sup> He hosted further entertainments at Windsor and in St James’s Square later in the summer.<sup>78</sup> Romney attended a conclave at Althorp in the middle of September, where he noted Portland’s friends were ‘in mightly [sic] good humour’.<sup>79</sup> The meeting was presumably in preparation for the new elections that autumn. Romney was one of a number of senior officials to predict that a new Parliament was likely to be summoned and in October he was active on behalf of his nephew in Kent, where he was able to make use of his local interest to good effect.<sup>80</sup> He was similarly successful in securing a seat for John Pulteney<sup>‡</sup> at Hastings. Towards the end of October, Romney survived a botched attempt by the Irish Parliament to impeach him for alleged corruption during his tenure of the lieutenancy.<sup>81</sup> His survival was in part owing to the inability of the Irish to decide who they wished to concentrate their fire on, but was also no doubt because, as Thomas Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> explained to Shrewsbury, that he was:</p><blockquote><p>of opinion that my Lord Romney’s intentions were perfectly just and true to the Protestant interest of this kingdom. However he was persuaded by some… to do what I believe was contrary to his inclination.<sup>82</sup></p></blockquote><p>Romney entertained the king at his house in St James’s Square on 13 Nov. 1695, an event that was rounded off with the by now usual display of fireworks.<sup>83</sup> Just over a week later (22 Nov.) he took his seat in the new Parliament, after which he was present on approximately 48 per cent of all sitting days, and on 14 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the address opposing the establishment of the Darien Company. On 24 Jan. 1696 he presented to the House a list of the army in English pay and on 14 Mar. he was one of three peers to sign the Association that day. Romney played host to the Venetian ambassadors in May and the same month travelled to Margate with Shrewsbury to greet the king on his arrival.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Romney attended the three prorogation days in June, July and September during the summer. He then enjoyed mixed fortunes in his efforts to make use of his interest in the Cinque Ports to manage two by-elections that autumn. Having successfully deflected Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> from contesting Queenborough in order to secure the return of Thomas King<sup>‡</sup>, his plan to have Rooke returned for Winchelsea was thwarted when the corporation refused to renege on their commitment to return the outgoing member’s nephew.<sup>85</sup></p><p>Romney took his seat in the new session on 20 Oct. 1696, after which he was present on 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 23 Dec. he voted in favour of passing the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>86</sup> In spite of his less than successful experience in Ireland, as a major landholder in the province and former lord lieutenant Romney remained interested in its affairs. In January 1697 it was reported that both he and his fellow former lord justice, Coningsby, were in favour of the appointment of James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> as lord chancellor of Ireland following the death of Sir Charles Porter<sup>‡</sup>, in preference to John Methuen<sup>‡</sup>. The situation was complicated by Vernon espousing Methuen, who was in turn supported by Sunderland and Portland, and in the event it was Methuen who was appointed to the vacant place.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Shortly before the close of the session, Romney added to his burgeoning number of offices by purchasing the rangership of Greenwich from Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset. Lacking a substantial seat of his own, Romney made use of the Queen’s House as both a country retreat and a place where he could entertain dignitaries. Named one of the lords justices during the king’s absence that summer, in July he hosted yet another entertainment for his fellow justices at Blackheath.<sup>88</sup> At the close of the month, along with Sunderland, Coningsby and Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup>, he joined Marlborough at dinner before returning the favour for both Marlborough and Godolphin at Penshurst the following day.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Romney’s motivation for this latest round of socializing was no doubt in part an effort to shore up the court interest. In September he had warned Portland of the mood in the country, cautioning that, ‘if you don’t bring home a peace with you, I don’t know what will become of us.’ He speculated that public disappointment at such failure might spill over into the next session of Parliament.<sup>90</sup> He may also have been keen to secure support for a bill relating to his Irish lands which had been the subject of opposition by Ormond in the Irish Parliament. On 19 Nov. 1697 John Somers*, Baron Somers, noted that the bill had been ‘amended as was desired’ but the following day Bishop King commented from Dublin that he assumed ‘now the bill of attainder is passed that it (Romney’s bill) will not be necessary.’<sup>91</sup> The day before the opening of the new session, Romney played host to the king at St James’s Square, which was followed by (yet another) display of fireworks.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Romney took his seat in the House at the opening of the session the next day (3 Dec.) after which he was present on approximately 60 per cent of all sitting days. The following day witnessed further discussion relating to his bill, after which it was determined that he and Ormond should arrive at an understanding about the matter. Romney’s design (in partnership with Coningsby) to secure rights to the Irish copper pence and half pence also threatened to cause dissension, with Methuen warning that ‘if it go on it will put the kingdom in a flame.’ Methuen later reported that he had ‘absolutely gained the point with the king to confound the design of the brass money’, thereby presumably stymieing Romney and Coningsby’s plans. Later reports indicated that the king remained opposed to their scheme and he was also said to be annoyed with Romney and Coningsby for giving ‘countenance’ to complaints made by Colonel Eyre. Methuen alerted Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, to Romney and Coningsby’s machinations as well, who was said to have declared himself ‘proof against all they could do.’<sup>93</sup></p><p>The early months of 1698 were characterized for Romney with a familiar round of court entertainment combined with occasional forays into political manoeuvring. Romney’s ongoing rivalry with Ormond was apparent in rumours that circulated in January 1698 that the duke was to succeed Romney as master of the ordnance while Romney took up the lord chamberlaincy. In the event nothing came of it.<sup>94</sup> That month, Romney joined the king, Albemarle and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, in visiting Czar Peter during his stay in England.<sup>95</sup> In March both Romney and Albemarle chose to quit the House in advance of the vote over Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>96</sup> Two months later, Romney played host to the French ambassador and a number of his fellow peers at Greenwich.<sup>97</sup> On 10 June, he was entrusted with the proxy of his nephew, Sydney, who had recently succeeded as 4th earl of Leicester. The proxy was vacated on 27 June by Leicester’s resumption of his seat. Three days later, Romney was again entrusted with that of Sunderland, which was vacated by the close. Romney was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the impeachment of Goudet and others on 2 July and two days later, he was named to the committee appointed to inspect the Journals for 1640 and 1641 for material relating to the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford.</p><p>Romney took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present on almost 62 per cent of all sitting days. Towards the end of February 1699 he was one of seven peers to be excused from attending the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, on the grounds of poor health.<sup>98</sup> He had rallied by the following month when he laid on lavish entertainment for the junior officers of the Dutch foot guards prior to their embarkation for Holland.<sup>99</sup> The same month he discussed with Shrewsbury a project for importing wine from France. Although Romney thought the scheme ‘a very good one’ he cautioned that, ‘if there be no better there than the French ambassador have here, where I am going to dine, it will be scarce worth our while.’<sup>100</sup> Later that month, both Romney and Dorset’s efforts to secure pardons for two newly convicted felons were rejected by the king: Vernon was certain that both peers would ‘desist when they find these persons are unworthy.’<sup>101</sup></p><h2>Final years 1699-1704</h2><p>In April 1699 Romney was involved in attempting to coax his kinsman Sunderland back into the ministry, proffering him the office of lord chamberlain.<sup>102</sup> Shortly after, it was rumoured that Romney was to succeed the increasingly disgruntled Portland as groom of the stole.<sup>103</sup> Although by the middle of May Portland was said to have been reconciled with the king, later reports suggested that in spite of Romney’s efforts Portland and Albemarle remained at daggers drawn.<sup>104</sup> Romney joined Ormond and other members of the nobility at a dinner given to the king by Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], in May and the following month he accompanied the king once more to Holland.<sup>105</sup> He was, consequently, omitted from the list of lords justices appointed to oversee affairs during William’s absence. The king’s unshakeable faith in Romney did not protect him from being one of the victims of a satire published in July that listed (among other things) the drawing up of a bill for making Romney and Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, ‘two able ministers of state’.<sup>106</sup> His continuing preferment was no doubt the inspiration for reports that circulated that autumn that both he and Richard Boyle*, 2nd earl of Burlington, were either to be promoted to dukedoms or to be both dukes and admitted to the order of the Garter.<sup>107</sup> In the event, neither award proved forthcoming for either man.</p><p>Romney was still in Holland in August, which enabled him to introduce William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron, and Thomas Mansell*, later Baron Mansell to the king at Dieren.<sup>108</sup> He returned to England by the end of October and, having attended the prorogation day of 24 Oct., took his seat in the new session on 16 November. Thereafter he was again present on approximately 62 per cent of all sitting days. In December he was one of the ministers named as having been involved in commissioning the notorious buccaneer, Captain Kidd, but he escaped serious censure for his role in the scandal.<sup>109</sup> Romney was forecast as being likely to support the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation in February 1700. In April he and Jersey changed sides over the Irish resumptions bill: defections that helped see the Commons’ unaltered bill pass the House.<sup>110</sup> The same month it was rumoured that he and the majority of the administration were to be turned out.<sup>111</sup></p><p>Romney officiated as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 23 May 1700. That month it was speculated that in the expected redistribution of offices he would be ‘disappointed’ but the following month rumours had Romney succeeding as groom of the stole, a role that he had effectively managed since Portland’s falling out with Albemarle.<sup>112</sup> In July the reports were repeated with the additional gloss that he intended to sell his house at Greenwich to Ormond.<sup>113</sup> In September it was rumoured that he was to be awarded the Garter left vacant by the death of the duke of Gloucester.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Romney took his seat in the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 9 Mar. he wrote to the duchess of Portsmouth (Louise de Keroualle) in response to a petition from her, undertaking to speak to the king on her behalf but lamenting:</p><blockquote><p>I am afraid what was done in parliament concerning the <em>banquiers</em> will not prove of much advantage to you, which I am sorry for, both for your own sake and my own, for I am also concerned in some measure in that matter.<sup>115</sup></p></blockquote><p>According to one rumour, Romney played host to Captain Kidd on the latter’s return to Newgate from his hearing before the Commons on 27 March. If the meeting took place Kidd gained nothing from it as neither Romney nor any of his other backers roused themselves to prevent his conviction and execution later that year.<sup>116</sup> On 16 Apr. 1701 Romney was ordered to attend the king in company with William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, lord steward, to present the House’s address requesting that he would refrain from passing any censure against the impeached Whig peers until they had been tried. The following day, he reported the king’s reception of the address and on 6 and 10 June he was nominated one of the managers of the conferences concerning the impeachments. He then found in favour of acquitting Somers, on 17 June but was excused his attendance at the trial of the earl of Orford (as Admiral Russell now was) on the grounds of ill health.</p><p>Romney was again mentioned as a possible recipient of one of the Garters that were expected to be awarded that year.<sup>117</sup> Following the close of the session, he travelled to Holland once more but had returned to England by the end of August.<sup>118</sup> The following month, he was constrained to turn down a request from Portsmouth that he might lend her his yacht, explaining that it had been withdrawn from service by the Admiralty as an austerity measure. He warned her further against travelling to England, explaining to her ‘as a friend you take a very ill time, for I believe the nation will be at present in a very extraordinary temper.’<sup>119</sup></p><p>Romney entertained the king at his seat at Greenwich in November.<sup>120</sup> He then took his place in the House for the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. Present on just over half of all sitting days, on 21 Jan. 1702 he was nominated to the committee for drawing an address to the king on behalf of Colonel Leighton regarding debts that were owing to him. Aside from his attendance in the Lords, Romney also appears to have been eager to remain informed about developments in the Commons. James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> noted how he was occasionally sent for by Romney ‘into his bedchamber to be informed of the business of the House and the office.’ <sup>121</sup> The death of King William in March effectively overturned the last vestiges of interest that Romney commanded. Romney was present at the king’s bedside and with the king passed his own authority at court. Lowther commented that, ‘if my Lord Romney continues in our office, all will do well’, but there seemed little prospect of his remaining employed in the administration.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Soon after Queen Anne’s accession, it was reported that Ormond would succeed Romney at the ordnance and it was also remarked upon that neither he nor the four impeached lords had been summoned to council since the king’s death.<sup>123</sup> Further predictions that Romney would be ‘out’ persisted into April though in May it was reported that Marlborough, rather than Ormond, might have the mastership of the ordnance.<sup>124</sup> That month, the queen wrote to the duchess of Marlborough explaining that she had decided to allow Romney to retain much of the plate that he had enjoyed in his various offices seeing that, ‘it is better not to take anything of that kind from him, since he will be out of all employments (except being lord lieutenant of Kent) when the prince is admiral.’<sup>125</sup> In June Romney was accordingly replaced as warden of the Cinque Ports by the queen’s consort, Prince George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland.<sup>126</sup> A rumour that Romney was not even to hold onto his lieutenancy of Kent and a separate report that he would be compensated for his losses with the office of master of the horse both proved inaccurate.<sup>127</sup> Responding to this last piece of speculation, Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, noted how:</p><blockquote><p>Lord Romney, who has had almost all the places a king of England can bestow in their turns, without capacity enough to make a good parish clerk, is now to be master of the horse, a post of great profit I believe still, as well as honour.<sup>128</sup></p></blockquote><p>Such reports of Romney’s likely ouster and compensation were finally concluded in the middle of July with the announcement that he was to have a pension of £3,000 per annum in lieu of his former offices.<sup>129</sup></p><p>Romney took his seat in the House for the new Parliament on 20 Oct., but he was then present for just 36 per cent of all sitting days. In January 1703 he was estimated by Nottingham as being likely to oppose the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. he voted as expected in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Absent from the House after 5 Feb., Romney was reported to be sick towards the end of the month. He was still indisposed in mid-March, which presumably explains his failure to attend any further days in the session.<sup>130</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session, Romney was noted by his great-nephew, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as remaining opposed to the occasional conformity bill. Sunderland repeated the prediction in a second assessment later that month. Romney took his seat in the House on 9 Nov., after which he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days, and on 14 Dec. he voted once more to throw out the occasional bill. Two days later, he was ordered by the House to appoint a file of musketeers to guard Sir John Maclean while he was being ushered to and from his examinations.</p><p>Romney attended for the final time on 28 Mar. 1704 (five days before the close). On 6 Apr. it was reported that he was dangerously sick with smallpox and the following day his case was believed to be hopeless.<sup>131</sup> He died on 8 April.<sup>132</sup> In his will he named as executors his nephews Henry Pelham<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Pelham*, later Baron Pelham of Laughton, and John Sydney*, later 6th earl of Leicester, the last of whom was added in a codicil but appears to have taken upon himself the bulk of the business of settling Romney’s affairs as he later described himself as being ‘in a manner sole executor’. He was also Romney’s principal beneficiary inheriting substantial estates in Kent.<sup>133</sup> Romney left gifts of £150 apiece to the poor of three parishes in Kent and Middlesex as well as making provision for £1,000 to be given to Captain Henry Worthley, his (disputed) son by Grace Worthley. He also left his former mistress an annuity of £80. After lying in state for a few days, Romney was buried in St James’s church close to the scene of so many of his lavish displays of pyrotechnics.<sup>134</sup> At his death the peerage became extinct but the title of Romney was later revived as a barony for Sir Robert Marsham<sup>†</sup>.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
SYDNEY, John (1680-1737) |
<p><strong><surname>SYDNEY</surname></strong> (<strong>SIDNEY</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1680–1737)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 24 July 1705 as 6th earl of LEICESTER. |
|
First sat 31 Oct. 1705; last sat 9 May 1735 |
|
MP Brackley 1705. |
<p><em>b</em>. 14 Feb. 1680, 2nd surv. s. of Robert Sydney*, 4th earl of Leicester, and Elizabeth, da. of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater; bro. of Philip Sydney*, 5th earl of Leicester. <em>educ</em>. unknown. unm. KB 27 May 1725. <em>d</em>. 27 Sept. 1737; <em>will </em>10 May, pr. 1 Oct.–3 Nov. 1737.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1731; ld. of the bedchamber 1717–27; ld. warden of Cinque Ports 1717–28; capt. yeoman of the gd. 1725–31; constable, Tower of London 1731–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt. Kent 1724–<em>d</em>.; high steward, Otford 1731–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ensign 1st Ft. Gds. 1696, brevet lt. col. 1702–5.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Joseph Highmore, 1728, Manchester City Art Galleries.</p> |
<p>Like his brother the 5th earl, John Sydney was a relatively inactive parliamentarian. A younger son who went straight into the army at the age of 16, he had served under John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and became a close associate of James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope, with whom he served in Europe.<sup>2</sup> At the death of his great-uncle Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney, Sydney was the principal beneficiary of Romney’s £40,000 estate.<sup>3</sup> His obligations as executor kept him in England during the summer of 1704 (for which he had to ask Marlborough for extended leave of absence) and he was subsequently sought out by his cousin Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater, to stand on the Bridgwater interest in the Northamptonshire borough of Brackley, where on 12 May 1705 he was returned with his uncle Charles Egerton<sup>‡</sup>. Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, to whom Sydney was also related, marked their joint election as a gain for the Whigs In the event, Sydney was never able to take his seat in the Commons: his older brother’s sudden death meant that he was summoned instead to the House of Lords.<sup>4</sup></p><p>On 31 Oct. 1705, six days after the opening of Parliament, the new earl of Leicester took his seat in the Lords. During his first session, he attended nearly 44 per cent of sittings. His parliamentary career up to 1715 was lacklustre: he attended all 11 sessions up to the accession of the Hanoverians, but none for even half of all sittings. For seven sessions, he attended less than a third of the time, often for only a handful of sitting days. On 12 Nov. 1705 it was noted at a call of the House that he was excused attendance, but he was in the House for the ‘Church in danger’ debate on 6 December. He attended sporadically during the spring months until 18 Mar. 1706, the day before the prorogation. He was next in the House on 3 Dec. 1706 for the start of a new session and attended thereafter for 45 per cent of sittings, missing the final week of the session before the prorogation of 8 Apr. 1707. He attended only three sittings in the brief April 1707 session. In August 1706 he petitioned, unsuccessfully, for the stewardship of Otford.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Leicester attended the House for the start of the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct. 1707; thereafter he was present for 47 per cent of sittings. In a rare glimpse into his involvement in parliamentary business, the Journal records that on 8 Jan. 1708 he reported from the select committee on the naturalization of Katherine Clerke, daughter of Sir William Clerke deceased and sister of Sir John Clerke<sup>‡</sup> of Shabbington. There was a clear personal interest in this piece of legislation, since Katherine Clerke was cousin to his brother Philip’s widow.<sup>6</sup> Following the dissolution of Parliament in April, Leicester was marked in a printed list as a ‘Whig’ of otherwise uncertain conviction. He was at Westminster for the opening of Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 and attended the session for 29 per cent of sittings. He was present on 21 Jan. 1709 for the contentious vote on whether a peer of Scotland who sat in the House by virtue of a British title created since the Union could vote in the election of representative peers. He voted in favour (against the Junto), unlike the Whigs with whom he dined three days later hosted by Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton.<sup>7</sup></p><p>On 30 Mar. 1709 Leicester signed the declaration against the Tack and continued to attend the House sporadically until the penultimate day of the session. He was back at the House on 15 Nov. 1709 for the start of the subsequent session and attended for nearly two-fifths of all sittings. On 27 Feb. 1710 he was present for the start of the Sacheverell trial and attended throughout the trial until 22 Mar., finding Sacheverell guilty in the division on the 20th.</p><p>There is little evidence of his activity after the dissolution, apart from correspondence with Marlborough on military affairs.<sup>8</sup> He arrived in London the week before the opening of the new Parliament.<sup>9</sup> Following the Tory landslide in the elections, he was unsurprisingly forecast as an opponent of the new ministry led by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. Leicester attended the House on 25 Nov. 1710 for the start of the new Parliament and was present for 26 per cent of sittings. He proved to be a firm supporter both of the duumvirs themselves and of the previous ministry. In divisions on the war in Spain on 11 Jan. 1711 he registered protests against the Lords’ rejection of the petitions of Henri de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and against the resolution that defeat at Almanza was due to their military advice and that of his friend Stanhope. The following day he again protested against the censure of the ministers for having approved a military offensive in Spain. On 14 May 1711 he attended the session for the last time.</p><p>Leicester was present on 7 Dec. 1711 for the start of business and the division on the ‘no peace without Spain’ address. He attended for 22 per cent of sittings, all concentrated in the first three months of the session. On 10 Dec. 1711 his name appeared on one of Oxford’s lists of office-holders and pensioners who had voted against the ministry in the ‘no peace without Spain’ division, although it was subsequently erased by Oxford (without any accompanying comment). He was forecast as being opposed to allowing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit as duke of Brandon, and (in contrast to his ambivalent behaviour in January 1709) on 20 Dec. voted that no Scottish peer at the time of the Union could sit in the Lords by right of a British title created after the Union. Given the volatile partisan context, he conscientiously registered his proxy on two occasions in favour of Bridgwater: on 30 Dec. 1711 (vacated with his attendance on 14 Jan. 1712) and again on 23 Feb. 1712 (vacated on 4 March). He attended the session for the last time on 28 Mar. 1712. The following day he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.</p><p>Back at Westminster on 9 Apr. 1713 for the first day of the next session, Leicester attended thereafter for one-quarter of all sittings. By 13 June 1713 he was estimated by Oxford as a certain opponent of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He attended the session sparingly until the prorogation on 16 July 1713. Missing the first two weeks of the new Parliament, he arrived at the House on 2 Mar. 1714, but attended the session for only four sittings (5 per cent of the total). On 8 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of Sunderland. It is likely that Sunderland used the proxy on 5 Apr. for the crucial party vote on the wording of the address to the queen.</p><p>During May 1714, Leicester was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as an opponent of the Schism bill. On 1 June, almost certainly for an imminent division on the bill, he registered his proxy in favour of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford (vacated at the end of the session). It is likely that Orford employed Leicester’s proxy on 11 and 15 June 1714 in divisions on extending the bill to Ireland and for the measure to pass the House.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Leicester attended only two sittings of the brief session that met in the wake of Queen Anne’s death, and on 5 Aug. 1714 registered his proxy in favour of Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln. It was vacated at the end of the session. Leicester’s largely ceremonial role during the next two reigns began on 20 Oct. 1714, when he was cupbearer at the coronation of George I. His political and parliamentary career beyond 1715 will be examined in the next phase of this work.</p><p>On 27 Sept. 1737, Leicester died at the family seat of Penshurst. His will, which confirmed existing property arrangements, made specific (and generous) provision for Susanna Arnold (alias Drake) with whom he had shared his home for ‘many years’. Leaving her £5,000 and an annuity of £200, he also discharged her from any debt for her ‘board’. He provided generously for his nephew Thomas Sydney, his servants and his ‘Indian boy’. His executors were Sir Thomas Reade<sup>‡ </sup>(once a suitor for the hand of his sister) and Reade’s younger brother, Colonel George Reade<sup>‡</sup>. Leicester’s residuary legatee was his brother Jocelyn Sidney<sup>†</sup>, who succeeded him in the peerage.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
SYDNEY, Philip (1619-98) |
<p><strong><surname>SYDNEY</surname></strong> (<strong>SIDNEY</strong>), <strong>Philip</strong> (1619–98)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1626-77 Visct. Lisle (L’Isle); <em>suc. </em>fa. 2 Nov. 1677 as 3rd earl of LEICESTER. |
|
First sat 2 May 1678; last sat 4 Mar. 1689 |
|
MP Yarmouth I.o.W. 1640 (Apr., Nov.); co. Louth [I], 1642-4; Kent 1653; nominated to Cromwell’s Other House 1657. |
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Jan. 1619, 1st s. of Robert Sydney*, 2nd earl of Leicester and Dorothy, da. of Henry Percy<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Northumberland; bro. of Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Sydney*, later earl of Romney; bro.-in-law of Henry Spencer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sunderland. <em>educ.</em> G. Inn 1633; Christ Church, Oxf. 1634; travelled abroad (Denmark, Holstein) 1632, (France) 1636-41. <em>m</em>. 19 May 1645 (with £6,000), Catherine (<em>d</em>.1652), 3rd da. of William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, and Catherine, da. of Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, earl of Suffolk, 3s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 1da (d.v.<em>p</em>.);<sup>1</sup> 1da. <em>illegit</em>. with Grace Saunders formerly Pensac (Pensacke); 1s., 2da. <em>illegit</em>. with Jane Highems formerly Pensac (Pensacke). <em>d</em>. 6 Mar. 1698; <em>will</em> 6 Mar 1685-2 Mar. 1698, pr. 26 Mar. 1698.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. tp. of horse, 1640-2, col. (parl.) regt. of horse in Ireland, 1641-3; lt. gen. Irish army, c. Sept. 1642-Aug. 1643; col. of horse and ?ft. (parl. army in Ireland) 1646-7.</p><p>Commr. prevention of abuses in heraldry 1646; ld. lt. (parl.) [I], 1646-7; cllr. of state 14 Feb. 1649, 1650, 1653; cttee. preservation of goods from sale of late king’s goods 1650; pres. of the council, 23 Feb.-23 Mar. 1652; cllr. to Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, 1653.</p><p><em>Custos</em>. <em>rot</em>. Kent 1656.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. to G. Honthorst, Viscount de Lisle; group portrait, oil on canvas, by Sir A. Van Dyck, Penshurst Place, Kent.</p> |
<p>Eschewing his father’s equivocation, Lisle was a committed supporter first of Parliament and then of the Cromwellian republic. His political principles were not sufficiently extreme to allow him to preside over the trial of Charles I, however, and although nominated as one of the judges, he declined to act. Although he had been well thought of by Oliver Cromwell, Lisle did not become a target of royalist resentment and was able to obtain a pardon at the Restoration. Following the king’s return he concentrated on developing his already well-established reputation as a patron of the arts. Further evidence of his relative security under the new regime is indicated by his success in obtaining a sixty-year lease on the former monastic lands at Sheen in Surrey, which he had acquired in the 1650s (and where he had commenced construction of a new seat) along with the rights to operate the ferry on the Thames there.<sup>4</sup></p><p>If he met with little hostility from the new regime, Lisle’s family relations were more fractious. He was on poor terms with his father, who preferred his more able younger brother, Algernon, and who insisted on providing generously for Lisle’s younger siblings. His relations with Algernon were also, unsurprisingly, poor. The 2nd earl’s dislike of his heir appears to have been set early on in his life, while the hostility between Lisle and Algernon Sydney appears to have stemmed more from political disagreements in the aftermath of the Civil War.<sup>5</sup> One result was a long-running dispute with Leicester over his marriage settlement. His wife’s portion went unpaid and this in turn affected settlement of her jointure. According to his father, suitable alternative arrangements were made, but Lisle disagreed. In 1652 Lisle and Leicester came to blows following the latter’s decision to cut Lisle’s allowance after he had lost his wife in childbirth. Matters had not improved a dozen years later. In 1664 he gave vent to his resentments, telling his father that ‘for the greatest part of my life, and my children for their whole lives, [he had] been excluded from any benefit or help from your Lordship or your estate’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>When Lisle succeeded to the earldom in November 1677 he discovered that shortly before his death his father had altered his will (already heavily weighted against Lisle) and settled additional sums on his favoured younger children. The intricacies of the settlement meant that Leicester was left with unpalatable choices bound up with the development of Leicester Fields in metropolitan Middlesex and with the payment of rents and annuities but which in either case obliged him to surrender almost £30,000 to his brothers, Algernon and Henry, who were also named as executors. He attempted to buy them off with a promise of a mere £4,000 and when this was rejected opted to challenge his father’s will. A series of expensive and bitter law suits ensued. Leicester lost, leaving him, according to his father’s former steward Gilbert Spencer, practically apoplectic with rage. In a letter to Henry Sydney, Spencer reported ‘you need not now be afraid of that cruel tyrant, who may show his teeth but can never bite, I hear he storms and swears like mad calls me 100 rogues’.<sup>7</sup> Despite his anger at losing the case, Leicester’s possession of the estate provided him with a valuable bargaining tool. He was eventually able to settle with the more tractable Henry but had less success with Algernon, who insisted on continuing the dispute. Algernon’s arrest and subsequent execution for his part in the Rye House Plot relieved Leicester of the necessity of coming to terms with him. As something of a compromise Leicester sent him £1,000 during his imprisonment ‘because he could no longer hold up the cudgels.’<sup>8</sup></p><p>Although little is known of his politics between the Restoration and his succession to the earldom, it is just possible, although perhaps unlikely, that it was the 3rd earl when still Viscount Lisle rather than his by then elderly father who was described by James*, II as having caballed with Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, and other supporters of the ‘Isle of Wight conditions’ to obtain concessions from Charles II following the dismissal of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in the autumn of 1667.<sup>9</sup> Otherwise he seems to have maintained a low profile. His relative inactivity was of a piece with his earlier disinclination to involve himself with the councils and committees of the Interregnum. The most significant business with which he was involved in relation to Parliament prior to his succession to the peerage was over a large collection of ‘the late king’s goods’, which he had acquired during the Interregnum (making the most of his position as a member of the committee overseeing the sale) and which he informed the House on 19 May 1660 that he believed might have belonged to the late king. His admission came the day after two other peers (his kinsman, Northumberland, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough) had made similar discoveries, though their collections were nowhere near as large. When he eventually surrendered the pieces in September, comprising both pictures and marble statues, it was estimated that their value was in the region of £3,000.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Leicester took his seat in the House on 2 May 1678, some six months after his succession to the earldom and around five months after receiving his writ of summons (which was issued on 29 Nov. 1677).<sup>11</sup> He had been excused at a call of the House on 16 Feb. 1678. He was present on just two of the remaining nine days of the session, although he is known to have been in London because he was seen at an auction of pictures with his nephew Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, whom he was later to describe as ‘my special friend and relation.’<sup>12</sup> Leicester returned to the House for the subsequent session on 5 June 1678, but his attendance remained low and he was present for just six of its 43 days during which he was named to one committee, that considering Sir John Weld’s bill. During the October-December session of 1678 when allegations about a popish plot were at the forefront of business, his attendance rose to half of all sitting days, although he was again named to only one committee (considering the bill for raising the militia). On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of making the declaration against transubstantiation part of the test bill. He took the oaths on 2 Dec. but was accused (along with Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans) of having missed some words out. Both peers had to satisfy the House by taking them a second time. On 20 Dec. he entered a protest against accepting the amendments made by the committee to the bill for disbanding forces from abroad and on 26 Dec. voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for disbanding the army relating to the payment of money into the exchequer. On 23 Dec. he entered a protest against the failure of the House to require Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), to withdraw and on 27 Dec. he voted in favour of Danby’s committal.</p><p>Leicester attended one day of the abortive session of 6-13 Mar. 1679. He then took his seat once more five days into the new Parliament on 20 Mar. after which he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. During March Danby assessed Leicester as an opponent but also categorized him as both absent and unreliable. Leicester’s attendances in April and May were closely correlated to debates over Danby’s impeachment. He voted consistently in its favour and also supported the creation of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against Danby and the other impeached lords. He was not present on 13 May when the House resolved that the bishops had a right to be present in court in capital cases until the time of sentence but entered a dissent on 27 May when the House insisted on maintaining the bishops’ rights in the face of opposition from the Commons.</p><p>Leicester took his seat at the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680 and attended just under 44 per cent of sitting days. Perhaps not surprisingly, all the surviving parliamentary lists indicate that he favoured excluding James*, duke of York from the succession and that he voted against the rejection of the exclusion bill on 15 November. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.<sup>13</sup> His friendship with William Jephson<sup>‡</sup>, whom he named as one of his executors, suggests there may have been a political link to Thomas Wharton*, (later marquess of Wharton).</p><p>Danby’s pre-sessional forecast compiled in the spring of 1681 again listed Leicester as one of his opponents, but in the event Leicester did not attend the Oxford Parliament at all.<sup>14</sup> He attended the opening of James II’s Parliament on 19 May 1685 but was present on only five of the 42 possible sitting days. Various canvassing lists agree that he opposed James II’s policies and supported the retention of the Test, yet in November 1688 he was listed as having refused to sign the petition for a free Parliament.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In spite of his opposition to James, Leicester seems not to have exerted himself on behalf of the new order. He failed to attend the opening of the Convention in January 1689 and was excused later that month on grounds of sickness. His final attendance came on 4 Mar. 1689 when he took the oaths to the new regime. On 29 Apr. he registered a proxy in favour of his younger brother, Henry, newly ennobled as Viscount Sydney. He did not register a proxy for either the 1689-90 session or the first session of the 1690 Parliament but from 1690 to 1693 his proxy was registered annually and alternately at the beginning of each session in favour either of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury or of Sydney. His last proxy was registered in January 1695 in favour of Sydney, now promoted earl of Romney. It is perhaps significant that he never registered a proxy in favour of his son and heir, Robert* [1317], styled Viscount Lisle, the future 4th earl of Leicester, who was summoned to Parliament by a writ of acceleration as Baron Sydney in July 1689. Lord Sydney was reported to have suffered ‘unkind usage’ at his father’s hands, which probably refers to Leicester’s failure to pay adequate maintenance to his son and daughter-in-law – a failure that in turn reflected the non-payment of Lady Sydney’s marriage portion.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Leicester’s failure to attend Parliament for most of the final decade of his life was probably largely to do with ill health. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, described him as ‘a most infirm man’ and noted how Leicester was frequently to be seen taking the air in his carriage in the hopes of improving his condition. There is no reason to suspect that he was inimical to the new regime, even though he seems to have enjoyed entertaining men at his London residence who were politically suspect, such as Ailesbury, John Dryden and William Wycherley. Association with men like Dryden and Wycherley probably reflected Leicester’s interest in literary patronage more than his political preferences. Non-attendance of Parliament did not prevent him from continuing to develop Leicester Fields, and in the 1690s he overturned his father’s policy (based on the original licence to develop) of concentrating on residential buildings and encouraged the erection of commercial booths in the area.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Leicester died of a combination of ‘a strangury’ and old age on 6 Mar. 1698. He was said to have provided liberally for the poor in his lifetime.<sup>18</sup> In his will, which he embellished with a number of codicils, he provided exceptionally generously for his four illegitimate children and their mothers. He also left substantial bequests to his servants. He named his nephew Thomas Pelham*, later Baron Pelham of Laughton, his illegitimate daughter Philadelphia Saunders, and Martin Folkes (in place of William Jephson, deceased) as his executors. His personal fortune included various sums lent on mortgage as well as £2,000 invested in the East India Company.<sup>19</sup> For all this, he died some £5,000 in debt and his debts and legacies exceeded his ‘vast’ personal estate by over £7,000. The resulting action in chancery appears to have been a collusive action brought by his executors against the new earl, Robert, and a number of other members of the family in order to secure settlement of the estate.<sup>20</sup></p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
SYDNEY, Philip (1676-1705) |
<p><strong><surname>SYDNEY</surname></strong> (<strong>SIDNEY</strong>), <strong>Philip</strong> (1676–1705)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1698-1702 Visct. Lisle (L’Isle); <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Nov. 1702 as 5th earl of LEICESTER. |
|
First sat 10 Dec. 1702; last sat 15 Jan. 1705 |
|
MP Kent 1695–8. |
<p><em>b.</em> 8 July 1676, 1st s. of Robert Sydney*, styled Visct. Lisle (later 4th earl of Leicester), and Elizabeth, da. of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater; bro. of John Sydney*, later 6th earl of Leicester. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1698. <em>m</em>. 17 Dec. 1700, Anne (<em>d</em>. 1726), da. and coh. of Sir Robert Reeve<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. of Thwaite, Suff. <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 24 July 1705; <em>will</em> 20 June 1704, pr. 11 Aug. 1705.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>As one of the knights of the shire for Kent, Sydney had shown himself to be both a reliable court supporter and a man with little interest in parliamentary activity. His career in the House of Lords was to prove little different. He took his seat on 10 Dec. 1702, and was then present on just under 40 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session (23 per cent of the whole). He was named to five committees and was listed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a likely opponent of the bill to prevent occasional conformity.</p><p>During the 1703–4 session, Leicester’s attendance remained at a similar level, just under 23 per cent of sitting days. His attendances coincided with discussions of controversial issues such as the bill to prevent occasional conformity, <em>Ashby v. White</em>, the work of the commissioners of accounts and investigations into the Scotch Plot. He was present on 14 Dec. 1703 when the occasional conformity bill was rejected and voted in favour of its rejection, just as Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, had predicted. Otherwise he appears to have made little impact. He was named to the committee for privileges and to just three other committees.</p><p>Leicester attended Parliament only five times during the 1704–5 session. The subjects under discussion on those days included the occasional conformity bill and the state of the nation with regard to Scotland. On 6 Dec. 1704 he entered a proxy in favour of his kinsman Sunderland, which was vacated by his appearance in the House on 11 December. During the spring of 1705 Leicester was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He was also rumoured to be the likely recipient of the lieutenancy of Kent.<sup>2</sup> If it was ever seriously intended that he should have the post, the plan failed to take effect. Leicester already appears to have been suffering from ill health and he died not long after, on 24 July 1705. In his will, Leicester made a number of small bequests, mostly of keepsake items. The vast bulk of his estate was left to his wife, who was also named sole executrix. He was succeeded by his brother John as 6th earl of Leicester. His widow married John Sheppard of Campsea Ashe, Suffolk in 1709.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
SYDNEY, Robert (1595-1677) |
<p><strong><surname>SYDNEY</surname></strong> (<strong>SIDNEY</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (1595–1677)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1618-26 Visct. Lisle (L’Isle); <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 July 1626 as 2nd earl of LEICESTER (LEYCESTER). |
|
First sat before 1660, 17 Mar. 1628; first sat after 1660, 18 May 1660; last sat 15 July 1661 |
|
MP Wilton 1614; Kent 1621; Monmouthshire 1624, 1625 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Dec. 1595, 4th but o. surv. s. of Robert Sydney<sup>†</sup>, earl of Leicester, and 1st w. Barbara, da. and h. of John Gamage of Coity (Coety), Glam. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1607-10; travelled abroad (Brussels) 1613; G. Inn 1618; embassy (Germany) 1619. m. (with £6,000) c. Jan. 1615, Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1659), 1st da. of Henry Percy<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Northumberland, 6s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.),<sup>1</sup> 9da. (5 <em>d.v.p.</em>)<em>.</em> KB 1610. <em>d</em>. 2 Nov. 1677; <em>will</em> 28 Sept. 1665-6 Apr. 1675, pr. 27 Nov. 1677.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. coy. of ft. Flushing 1611-16, col. English regt. in Dutch service 1616-23.</p><p>Amb. extraordinary, Denmark 1632, Holstein 1632, France 1636-41.</p><p>PC 1639, 31 May 1660-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. [I] 1641-3; Speaker, House of Lords 7-12 Mar. 1642.</p><p>Ld. lt. Kent (Parl.) 1642.</p><p>Freeman, Merchant Adventurers’ Co. 1632; gov. Mineral and Battery Works Co. 1660-2.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by C. Johnson, 1632, Penshurst Place, Kent; oil on canvas by Sir A. Van Dyck, Penshurst Place, Kent; group portrait with brother, oil on canvas by Sir A. Van Dyck; oil on canvas, style of Sir A. Van Dyck, National Trust, Powis Castle; oil on canvas, unknown artist, Althorp House, Northants.</p> |
<p>Sydney’s ancestors first entered Parliament in 1429. They prospered under the Tudors, building landholdings in Sussex, Kent, Middlesex and Wales. Their principal seat was at Penshurst which, though described as a palace, was assessed at a modest 21 hearths in 1664. They also possessed other houses in the county including one of 40 hearths.<sup>3</sup> Sydney’s father was raised to the peerage by James I. Sydney himself, though regarded as ‘bookish’ rather than as a man of action, had had a long public career before the Restoration. A committed Protestant (probably with Presbyterian leanings) and a veteran of the factional disputes at the court of Charles I (where he attracted the enmity of William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury), he managed to survive the squabbles between Parliament and the king over the handling of the Irish rebellion, acting as temporary Speaker of the Lords in the summer of 1642. However, his indecision and consequent reluctance to take sides left him increasingly isolated as the political situation deteriorated. It was a feature later castigated by Edward Hyde*, (by then earl of Clarendon) as ‘the staggering and irresolution in his nature’.<sup>4</sup> Towards the end of 1643 he was forced to resign his office of lord lieutenant of Ireland. He had been appointed to the post in succession to Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, but never set foot on the island.<sup>5</sup> In June 1644, after an unwilling stay of some 18 months at Oxford where he rebuffed all attempts to embroil him in the king’s affairs, he quit the royalist capital. Parliamentarian troops arrested him and his entourage at Wormleighton, but his brother in law, Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, successfully intervened on his behalf and in July 1644 the House granted him permission to retire to Penshurst. He refused to seek readmission to the House thereafter.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Although Leicester spent most of the rest of the Civil War and Interregnum in retirement on his estates, his Presbyterian connections were strengthened by the marriage of his daughter Lucy to Sir John Pelham<sup>‡</sup>. He (somewhat unwillingly) took the Engagement in April 1650 and (even more unwillingly) undertook the wardship of his nephew, Philip Smythe<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Strangford [I]. His wife, with whom he had a volatile relationship, was granted custody of two of the royal children, Princess Elizabeth and Henry*, duke of Gloucester, from the summer of 1649 until August 1650, probably through Northumberland’s interest. With the responsibility came an income to match. Leicester, always quarrelsome particularly where money was concerned, promptly reduced her annual allowance. Money also seems to have been one of the factors in his difficult relationship with his son and heir, Philip Sydney*, styled Viscount Lisle (later 3rd earl of Leicester). After one quarrel in 1652 father and son actually came to blows.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Over the spring of 1660 Leicester was appraised about the progress of the Restoration by Northumberland, who was in London to negotiate the marriage of his son. He assured Leicester that despite the popularity of a Restoration, ‘soberer people’ would insist upon conditions. Referring to the expulsion of peers from the House, he remarked that ‘until the way be clear for your Lordship to come amongst us, and that we may be assisted by your counsels, I shall have no good opinion of our business; nor, indeed, do I yet well understand by what warrant or upon what account we should meet.’<sup>8</sup> Despite his doubts, Northumberland took his seat at the opening of the Convention, and shortly after, as one of those thought sympathetic to the agenda of the Presbyterian ‘junto’, Leicester was invited to attend the House by Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. On 29 Apr. he responded by writing to Manchester undertaking to attend the House as soon as ‘it shall please God to free me of an indisposition’ which made it difficult for him to travel. He promised his support, health permitting, for the group of Presbyterian lords headed by Manchester.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Illness prevented him from fulfilling his promise until 18 May. Having taken his seat at last he was thereafter present on 50 days prior to the September adjournment (approximately 42 per cent of the whole session). Committed neither to the king nor to Parliament (Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, described him as one of the lords ‘who withdrew a little’), Leicester was greatly surprised when two weeks after taking his seat, he was summoned to court and sworn privy councillor.<sup>10</sup> He also received some £3,000 as arrears due to him for his services as ambassador to France.<sup>11</sup> On 26 May Leicester was named to the committee for preparing a proclamation against the rebels in Ireland, and in June he was added to the committee for privileges. He was named to the committee to consider the question of peers taking the oath of allegiance and to eight other committees in the course of the session. He was also named as one of the commissioners to disband the army. Leicester was present at Whitehall when the king made his formal entry on 29 May and managed to kiss Charles’s hand, but he betrayed his annoyance at the disorderly nature of the gathering in his account of the event in his journal. Leicester’s diary records his activities in London, attending Parliament until the adjournment on 13 Sept. and his presence at meetings of the Privy Council into the following month. He sought and received permission from the king to retire into the country for his health on 12 October.<sup>12</sup> He failed to return when the session resumed the following month. Perhaps he was ill; perhaps he was as disillusioned as his brother-in-law, Northumberland, who thought that everyone at court was after money and preferment and hoped that ‘some years may pass before another Parliament be called’.<sup>13</sup> It may have been on account of such disgruntlement that Leicester refused a request to rent his London residence to the new French ambassador in November. Just over a year later he showed similar reluctance to let the place to Elizabeth of Bohemia, though in this case he eventually relented. She died there having been in residence for just a week. ‘It seems’, Leicester mused, ‘the fates did not think it fit that I should have the honour, which indeed I never much desired, to be the landlord of a queen’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Leicester claimed to be too ill to attend the coronation in April 1661, and he was absent when the Cavalier Parliament opened on 8 May, not taking his seat until 6 June 1661. Even so he recorded the event in his journal and how the king rode to the opening ‘in great state’. Over the next two months he was present on only 13 days. He was added to the committee for the bill for reversing the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup> on 6 June, but little else is known of his activities except that it was thought that he would oppose the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to the office of lord great chamberlain.<sup>15</sup> On or about 28 Nov. 1661 Leicester appears to have registered his proxy in Northumberland’s favour, though it is not recorded in the surviving proxy records for this period.<sup>16</sup> The proxy was probably given as a result of the call of the House three days earlier. There certainly seems to have been no expectation of its use in settling a particular vote, for Northumberland remarked that although he considered it ‘an honour, that you are pleased to trust your proxy in my hands … there will not be much use made of proxies in the House, for all things are likely to pass there very unanimously.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>Leicester did not attend either the court or the House thereafter. Even in February 1662 when he hoped that negotiations in the Privy Council over a proposed bill to settle Irish arrears would result in the settlement of his own claim for unpaid ‘entertainments’ during the period of his lieutenancy, for which he had been seeking satisfaction since at least January 1661, he preferred to rely on Northumberland’s assistance rather than to attend in person.<sup>18</sup> In 1664-5 and again in 1670 he was involved in attempts to obtain a private act to sell some of the estates of his son-in-law and former ward, Strangford. The minutes of the 1664-5 select committee refer to Leicester (and Northumberland) being responsible for the prosecution of the bill, but since on one occasion a servant testified to the committee on his behalf and on another amendments were offered by his counsel, it seems unlikely that he was personally present.<sup>19</sup> Similarly, in 1670 his consent to the bill was not given in person but by George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, who had held Leicester’s proxy since 27 Nov. 1669.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Although he complained in 1662 that his Sussex estate was worth only £1,000, Leicester was clearly a wealthy man.<sup>21</sup> His daughter, Lucy, received a dowry of £4,000, and at his death he left legacies worth between £20,000 and £30,000 to his two surviving younger sons, Algernon<sup>†</sup> and Henry*, (later earl of Romney).<sup>22</sup> He was also actively engaged in developing the area around his London residence that would ultimately become Leicester Square.<sup>23</sup> Leicester’s detachment from public life and his history of indecisive and equivocal political allegiances makes comments by James*, duke of York (later James II) all the more puzzling. According to James, Leicester together with others ‘who were for the Isle of Wight conditions’ intrigued together in the autumn of 1667, taking advantage of the opposition to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, to demand the disbandment of the king’s guards and redress for other unspecified grievances. Since Leicester’s Civil War record was decidedly ambiguous and at the time of the supposed intrigue he was past 70 and in ailing health, it is possible that James, writing retrospectively, was referring not to the 2nd earl but to his son, Lisle. Yet given that the leading figure in the supposed negotiation held at Guildford was Leicester’s brother-in-law, Northumberland, and that Lisle was quite as divorced from public affairs by then as his father, it remains possible that York was indeed referring to the older Leicester.<sup>24</sup> A less surprising but scarcely useful assessment of Leicester was made by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, who marked him as doubly worthy on a list drawn up just six months before Leicester’s death.</p><p>Leicester died at Penshurst on 2 Nov. 1677. A newsletter that noted the event recorded drily that he died ‘about 80 years of age, having been a long time from the court’.<sup>25</sup> During his lifetime he had been involved in a variety of unpleasant financial disputes. He appears at one point to have attempted to strong-arm the French agent, Colbert, into renewing his lease on Leicester House leading Colbert to complain of ‘the chicanes played on me with this house’.<sup>26</sup> Much of Leicester’s post Restoration retirement at Penshurst had been spent arranging and rearranging his financial affairs according to his current favourite amongst his children. As a result his will contained no less than eight codicils composed between December 1665 and April 1675, and he appears to have made a further instruction in his younger sons’ favour shortly before his death, which was later part of the subject of lengthy legal proceedings between them.<sup>27</sup> Throughout all this he made no secret of his preference for his second son, the radical philosopher Algernon, and made every attempt to exclude his heir, Lisle, from the estate. He could not, however, prevent Lisle from inheriting the earldom. In the event Algernon was unable to enjoy his inheritance. Henry Sydney*, though, made his peace with his brother and survived to be ennobled as earl of Romney.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
SYDNEY, Robert (1649-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>SYDNEY</surname></strong> (<strong>SIDNEY</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (1649–1702)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1677-98 Visct. Lisle (L’Isle); <em>accel. </em>11 July 1689 Bar. SYDNEY; <em>suc. </em>fa. 6 Mar. 1698 as 4th earl of LEICESTER. |
|
First sat 11 July 1689; last sat 17 Apr. 1702 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1649, 1st s. of Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester, and Catherine, da. of William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 1672 (with £10,000),<sup>1</sup> Elizabeth (1653–1709), da. of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, 4s. 2da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 11 Nov. 1702; <em>will</em> 14 Dec. 1700–1 Nov. 1702, pr. 2 Dec. 1702.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Any study of Sydney’s political and parliamentary career is complicated by the fact that two Lords Sydney sat in the House between 1689 and 1694: the subject of this biography and his uncle Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney). The latter had a far higher profile in public life as a privy councillor, secretary of state and lord lieutenant of Kent, where he was one of the main aristocratic influences over regional politics.<sup>4</sup> In contrast, Baron Sydney’s contribution appears to have been less marked. He left very few personal papers and there is no clear evidence that he intervened in parliamentary elections except in 1695, when his still underage son and heir, Philip Sydney*, later 5th earl of Leicester, was elected for Kent.<sup>5</sup> Sydney nevertheless had a distinctive political background. His father, the 3rd earl of Leicester, had been a member of Cromwell’s upper House but had been pardoned in 1660. His even more celebrated uncle Algernon<sup>‡</sup> was executed in 1683 as a radical Protestant plotter. Sydney enjoyed considerable wealth despite inheriting some £5,000 of his father’s debts; his patrimony included Penshurst Place in Kent, Leicester House in London and various estates in Sussex, Middlesex, Kent and Glamorganshire.<sup>6</sup></p><p>On 11 July 1689, as a supporter of the Revolution Sydney was summoned in his father’s barony of Sydney of Penshurst and took his seat in the House of Lords. He was introduced between John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston. In a parliamentary career that lasted 13 years he attended all but one session, although rarely for more than half of all sittings. He sat most regularly between October 1689 and January 1691. During the time that he was entitled to attend, he was named to slightly fewer than 100 select committees and on occasion to the sessional committees.</p><p>Taking his seat towards the end of his first parliamentary session, Sydney was present for 17 per cent of all sittings. On 22 July 1689 he was named as one of the managers of the conference on reversing two judgments against Titus Oates and on 2 and 5 Aug. to both conferences on the attainder bill. He attended for the last time that session on 20 Sept., Parliament being adjourned until late October. The next session of the Convention assembled on 23 Oct. 1689. Five days later Sydney was excused at a call of the House. He returned to his place on 28 Nov. and attended for slightly more than half of all sittings. In a list drawn up sometime between October 1689 and February 1690, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen and later duke of Leeds, classed him as among the supporters of the court, but added that he was to be spoken to. On 23 Jan. 1690, in the bill to restore corporations to their ancient rights and privileges, Sydney may have been one of those to protest against the resolution to agree with the committee to remove from the first enacting clause the declaration that the surrender of charters to Charles II and James II had been illegal and thereby void. It is possible, however, that the ‘Sydney’ who registered his protest on this occasion was his uncle Henry.</p><p>On 20 Mar. 1690 Sydney took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament and attended for 91 per cent of sittings. During the passage of the bill to restore the corporation of London, he entered his protest on 13 May against the resolution not to allow the corporation more time to be heard by its counsel (signing himself R. Sydney to make the distinction clear). Attending until the adjournment of 23 May and then for five prorogation sittings between 7 July and 12 Sept., he was again in the House on 2 Oct. 1690 for the start of the next session. In all he was present for 74 per cent of sittings. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. On 31 Oct. he was added to the committee for regulating chancery.</p><p>Sydney attended the winter 1691 session for 48 per cent of sittings, being excused attendance at a call of the House on 2 November. On 16 Feb. 1692 he dissented from the resolution that proxies should not be allowed during the proceedings of the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. He attended the subsequent session for just one-fifth of sittings, as he was suffering from illness, but was in the House for the passage of the place bill, voting in its favour on 3 Jan. 1693. Later that month, he was present for the opening of proceedings against Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, but he was excused his attendance for the final day on 4 Feb., ‘being very sick’, and thus avoided entering a verdict. He returned to his place on 13 Mar., one day before the prorogation. Sydney took his seat for the first day of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 and attended for 60 per cent of sittings. In the following session, over the winter of 1694, he attended for only 22 per cent of sittings and on 26 Nov. was excused attendance, presumably on the grounds of ill health. He returned in December and attended sporadically until the penultimate day of the session in May 1695.</p><p>Sydney returned to the House two weeks after the opening of the 1695 Parliament and attended the session for 37 per cent of sittings in the first session. He was present in the following (1696–7) session for nearly two-fifths of sittings but, apart from his support for the attainder bill against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> on 23 Dec. 1696, evidence for his activity at Westminster is scanty.</p><p>During the session of 1697–8 Sydney again attended for slightly less than two-fifths of all sittings. On 1 Apr. 1698 he took his seat as earl of Leicester, following his father’s death. On 10 June he registered his proxy in favour of his uncle, now earl of Romney (vacated on the 27th). In the intervening days, the House examined a number of bills relating to commercial undertakings and one relating to the relief of creditors, an issue in which Leicester, now dealing with his father’s debts, may have had some interest. In an attempt to settle the debts, he became involved in a chancery case to accommodate his father’s creditors and to recover the remaining balance of £6,000 from his marriage settlement from his brother-in-law, John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater.<sup>7</sup> A decree was made on 17 July 1699 to settle the numerous claims against the Leicester estate.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Leicester took his seat in the new Parliament on 9 Dec. 1698, attending the session thereafter for 52 per cent of sittings. He missed the first two months of the 1699–1700 session, arriving at Westminster on 15 Jan. 1700 and attending thereafter for some 30 per cent of sittings, possibly because the House was dealing with the contentious issues of the Norfolk divorce bill, and the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. Leicester, who had an interest in the old East India Company, had been forecast at the start of February as being in favour of continuing the Company as a corporation and on the 23rd he voted against an adjournment during the debate on the bill. He attended until three days before the prorogation on 11 Apr. 1700.</p><p>Leicester’s political position as a supporter of the court was marked in a printed list dating from the summer of 1700, which noted him as a Whig (though not necessarily a Junto associate). That summer he acted as one of the assistants to the chief mourner (Norfolk) at the funeral of William, duke of Gloucester.<sup>9</sup> He attended the opening of the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701 and was present for 31 per cent of sittings up to the end of May. One rare piece of evidence of his activity was a letter sent over the summer to University College, Oxford, reminding its governing body that he had the right of nomination to two exhibitions in their college.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Leicester took his seat at the opening of the second Parliament of 1701, attending 30 per cent of sittings in the first session. On 17 Apr. 1702 he attended the House for the final time. During that year he received payments of £200 and £500 from the old East India Company’s court of directors, evidence that he had lucrative commercial interests.<sup>11</sup> He was certainly in a position to spend lavishly on his houses: between 1698 and 1700 he repaired and refurbished Leicester House at a cost of over £3,500.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Leicester failed to attend the first Parliament to assemble after the accession of Queen Anne in 1702. On 7 Nov. he was reported as being ‘dangerously ill’.<sup>13</sup> Four days later he died at Penshurst, where a monument was built in his memory. His lengthy will and codicils, culminating in a personal bequest to his wife written ten days before his death, confirmed existing legal arrangements for the transfer of the Leicester estates. He left his Welsh estate in trust for his five younger children.<sup>14</sup> Leicester, once ‘pitied for his father’s unkind usage of him’, was now ‘condemned for giving away all the furniture of Leicester House from his son’.<sup>15</sup> In 1718 the trustees of his estate transferred the lease of his Leicester Square house to George Walter, a lawyer.<sup>16</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
TALBOT, Charles (1660-1718) |
<p><strong><surname>TALBOT</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1660–1718)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1660-68 Ld. Talbot; <em>suc. </em>fa. 16 Mar. 1668 (a minor) as 12th earl of SHREWSBURY and 12th earl of Waterford [I]; <em>cr. </em>30 Apr. 1694 duke of SHREWSBURY |
|
First sat 21 Oct. 1680; last sat 19 Dec. 1717 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 24 July 1660 1st s. of Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, and 2nd w. Lady Anna Maria (1642-1702), da. of Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1674-8 (France).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 9 Sept. 1705 (at Augsburg) Adelaide (Adela, Adelide, Adelhida) Countess Roffeni (<em>d</em>.1726), da. of Andrea, Marchese Paleotti and Maria Christina Dudley, wid. of Count Roffeni, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d.</em> 1 Feb. 1718; <em>will</em> 19 July 1712–8 Jan. 1718, pr. 21 Feb. 1718.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Extra gent. of the bedchamber 1683-5; sec. of state (south) 1689-90,<sup>3</sup> (north) 1694-5, (south) 1695-8; ld. justice 1695; ld. chamberlain 1699-1700, 1710-15; amb. extr. to France 1712-13; ld. lt. of Ireland 1713-14; ld. treas. 1714; PC 1689-92, 1694-1702, 1710-<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Heref. 1694-1704, Herts. 1689-92, Salop 1712-14, Staffs. 1681-7, N. Wales 1694-6, Worcs. 1689-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Staffs. 1681-8, Herts. 1689 and liberty of St Albans 1690;<sup>5</sup> freeman, Worcester;<sup>6</sup> recorder, Droitwich 1696.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of horse 1685, 1689.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1689.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, aft. Sir G. Kneller, c.1685, NPG 1424; mezzotint by J. Smith, 1695, NPG D40716.</p> |
<p>Talbot was born into one of the oldest Catholic noble families in England. Something of an enigma, in the course of his varied political career he converted to Protestantism, progressed from association with the trimmer, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, to collaboration with the nascent Junto and, during the 1690s, became the darling of the Whig party.<sup>11</sup> He dabbled in Jacobite intrigue and by turns courted and sought to be relieved of office. His apparent renunciation of his former comrades at the turn of the century caused him to be dismissed as a traitor to their cause and on his return from a lengthy retirement in Italy he was shunned by most of his old associates. He then staged a remarkable comeback as the partner of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, at the head of a largely Tory ministry. Subsequently, he was the last person to hold office as lord treasurer.</p><p>Throughout his life Shrewsbury was assailed by atrocious health. It cost him one of his eyes and he was frequently left prostrated by fits of spitting blood. He was no less impeded by moments of panic bordering on paranoia. Despite this, he was conscious of his rank and eager to remain at the centre of affairs, a crucial figure at court and in Parliament and one of the few men able to inspire the trust and affection of all sides.<sup>12</sup></p><h2><em>Early career to 1688</em></h2><p>Talbot succeeded to the earldom when only eight years old following his father’s death from wounds sustained in a duel with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. The bout had been provoked by Buckingham’s affair with Lady Shrewsbury and although the surgeons declared the earl’s death to have been from consumption few were in any doubt of the true reason.<sup>13</sup> With his mother in disgrace, the new earl was left under the guardianship of his grandfather, the earl of Cardigan, his uncle, Mervin Tuchet*, later 14th Baron Audley and 4th earl of Castlehaven [I], William Talbot and Gilbert Crouch. On 14 Jan. 1671 Shrewsbury’s guardians introduced a bill to enable them to dispose of certain parts of the estate, which was committed on 17 January. Following a series of delays, Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, reported the bill fit to be engrossed with amendments on 3 February. It passed at third reading the following day. Although relations between Shrewsbury’s various guardians were often far from harmonious, at the opening of the session of January 1674, they united once more to petition the House in his name against the continuing liaison between Buckingham and the dowager countess. As a result the pair were ordered to enter into bonds of £10,000 apiece to guarantee that they would no longer ‘converse or cohabit’ with each other.<sup>14</sup></p><p>At the age of 14 Shrewsbury was granted leave to reside abroad in France for up to seven years for his education. He arrived in Paris in June 1674, but two years later he was ordered back by his uncle, Sir John Talbot, to take part in marriage negotiations with James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, for a match with Northampton’s daughter, Lady Alathea. Efforts to secure a match for the young peer had been made three years previously but come to nothing.<sup>15</sup> Still under age, Shrewsbury exhibited little enthusiasm for this arrangement. He concurred that it was necessary he should ‘have a view of the young lady’ but refused to understand ‘the necessity of this particular time.’<sup>16</sup> Once again, the negotiations came to nothing. Lady Alathea later eloped with Edward Hungerford. Shrewsbury returned to his studies in France.<sup>17</sup> Towards the close of the year it was rumoured that he was to marry Miss Downs, sister to one of the former companions of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester. Given Shrewsbury’s religion, it was supposed she must be a Catholic, ‘or else my lord of Shrewsbury would not choose her for a wife’. Again no marriage resulted.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In May 1677 Shrewsbury was noted by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in his analysis of the peerage as an underage papist. The following spring Shrewsbury joined the army in Flanders as a volunteer, at the particular urging of James*, duke of York, but soldiering seems not to have appealed to the young peer.<sup>19</sup> He had returned to England by the end of April 1678 when there was further speculation of potential matches, among them the eldest daughter of John Belasyse*, Baron Belayse, who was thought to have a fortune of £30,000.<sup>20</sup> Shrewsbury continued to eschew matrimony but the following year (1679) his cousin, Francis Brudenell, styled Lord Brudenell, converted to the Church of England prompting speculation that Shrewsbury was on the point of converting too.<sup>21</sup> The move followed lengthy discussions between him, his grandfather, Cardigan, and John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, who ultimately succeeded in convincing Shrewsbury to follow his cousin’s example and join the Church of England. In May he made his first public attendance at an Anglican service at Lincoln’s Inn presided over by Tillotson, who remained Shrewsbury’s spiritual guide for the remainder of his life. The same month a match between Shrewsbury and Lady Henrietta Wentworth was rumoured to be in the air, but nothing came of it.<sup>22</sup> Shrewsbury’s failure to marry and reputation for keeping mistresses caused Tillotson to warn him later that year against falling into vice, noting how:</p><blockquote><p>it was a great satisfaction to me to be anyways instrumental in the gaining of your lordship to our religion… but yet I am… more concerned that your lordship should continue a virtuous and good man than become a Protestant… I believe your lordship to have great command and conduct of yourself but am very sensible of human frailty and of the dangerous temptations to which youth is exposed in this dissolute age.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>Shrewsbury received his first significant office in December 1679 with his appointment to the lord lieutenancy of Staffordshire. Shortly after, he suffered the first of a string of debilitating illnesses, which resulted in the loss of one of his eyes. Despite this handicap, in June he joined a number of other young nobles in volunteering to join the expedition to Tangier mounted by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham).<sup>24</sup> His request was refused by the king because of his recent sickness: ‘one eye is lost and it is feared the other will follow’.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In spite of his very public conversion the previous year, in October 1680 Shrewsbury was indicted by the London sessions as a papist, though he was able to satisfy the court of his change of religion.<sup>26</sup> Although still under age, on 19 Oct. he received his writ of summons and on 21 Oct. he sat for the first time. He attended for just one day before quitting the House for the remainder of the session and was noted absent without explanation at a call of the House on 30 October. He failed to attend the brief Parliament held at Oxford the following March but in May 1681 he subscribed the petition seeking leniency for Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, indicted for murder.<sup>27</sup> He also attended the trial of Fitzharris.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In 1684 he was granted leave from his responsibilities at court so that he could resume his abortive military career by joining with his brother, Jack Talbot, and a number of other peers and gentlemen as volunteers in the French army campaigning against the forces of Spain and the prince of Orange in Flanders.<sup>29</sup> Shrewsbury returned to the House on 19 May 1685 at the opening of the new Parliament following the accession of James II. He attended on almost 70 per cent of all sitting days and along with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, introduced George Savile as marquess of Halifax, after which he was named to four committees in the course of the session. On 16 June he registered his proxy with Halifax, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat the following day. In July he was appointed colonel of a regiment of horse in response to the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. It was reported that he had been relieved of his command by the close of the year, though it was not until early 1687 that he seems to have laid down his place having refused to concur with James’ policy of overturning the Test Act.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In January 1686 Shrewsbury was summoned as one of the triers of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington).<sup>31</sup> The following month Shrewsbury’s brother, Colonel John (‘Jack’) Talbot, was killed in a duel with Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton. The quarrel was the result of provocation by Talbot who had taunted the duke, accusing him of ‘buggering Kildare’ (John Fitzgerald<sup>‡</sup>, 18th earl of Kildare [I]) and calling him a ‘son of a whore’. Devastated by his brother’s killing, Shrewsbury appealed to the king not to pardon Grafton too readily but he was ignored.<sup>32</sup> It is possible to see in this affair part of the reason for Shrewsbury’s later rebellion against James.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Noted an opponent of repeal of the Test in January 1687, Shrewsbury resigned his commission as colonel of a cavalry regiment the same month, having refused to be browbeaten into supporting the king’s policies by closeting.<sup>34</sup> Later in the year he was also removed from the lieutenancy of Staffordshire. By May, Shrewsbury was an acknowledged opponent of the king’s policies and hosting meetings of other opposition members at his London home.<sup>35</sup> That summer he travelled to Holland in company with Richard Lumley*, Baron Lumley (later earl of Scarbrough).<sup>36</sup> He took with him a letter of recommendation from Halifax, which introduced him to Prince William as ‘the most considerable man of quality that is growing up amongst us’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury was listed again as a likely opponent of repeal of the Test in forecasts of November 1687 and January 1688. He was also included in a list of opposition peers compiled by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later successively marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). Shrewsbury was one of a number of peers to receive threatening letters in February in connection with their refusal to acquiesce in the king’s policies.<sup>38</sup> Heavily involved with the defence of the Seven Bishops in June, Shrewsbury was one of those to offer bail for the imprisoned prelates. It was also said that Shrewsbury and Lumley were busy throughout the crisis ‘running about’ meeting with other peers in their efforts to manage the bishops’ case.<sup>39</sup> That summer Shrewsbury’s home was again the venue for gatherings of opposition figures and on 30 June, the day of the bishops’ acquittal, Shrewsbury was one of the ‘immortal seven’ to put his signature to the letter of invitation to William of Orange.</p><p>Shrewsbury and the prince had developed a close friendship since Shrewsbury’s visit the previous year. He seems to have been equally a favourite of Princess Mary.<sup>40</sup> Shrewsbury maintained a close correspondence with William throughout the summer, which culminated in his decision to quit England and cross to join his court in September.<sup>41</sup> He took with him £12,000 to help fund the invasion (Roger Morrice suggested that the sum could have been as much as £20,000 and other sources twice that much) borrowed by mortgaging some of his estate to James’s confessor, Father Petre.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury proved to be a central figure among the expatriates gathered around William of Orange in the autumn of 1688. When the invasion fleet was at last launched at the beginning of November, Shrewsbury was one of those to accompany the force.<sup>43</sup> In December he took Bristol for the invaders. He then rejoined the army at Hungerford. On 8 Dec. he joined with Clarendon and James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, in opposing the laying aside of the writs issued by King James for a Parliament to meet on 15 Jan., but they were outvoted by the more radical members of the prince’s entourage. Despite this, two days later he was one of Prince William’s three representatives delegated to meet with the king’s commissioners at Littlecote to discuss the preliminaries to a treaty.<sup>44</sup> On 17 Dec., following the consultation between William and a dozen peers at Windsor, Shrewsbury was one of those detailed to order James out of London and to take up residence at Ham House. When one peer raised the question of what was to be done should the king escape, Shrewsbury proposed a further consultation to decide on how best to proceed in that eventuality.<sup>45</sup> He earned praise from the king for the kindly manner in which he undertook his office, in contrast to Halifax and Delamer, who were notably ungracious.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s central position encouraged his kinsman, Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], to contact him to seek his mediation with the prince. Middleton was at pains to point out how little he had approved of James’s policies and sought to know whether he would be allowed to ‘live safely and quietly’ under the new regime.<sup>47</sup> Shrewsbury participated in meetings between the peers and Prince William between 21 and 28 Dec. 1688 as well as in sessions of the provisional government held in the Queen’s Presence Chamber in Whitehall and the House of Lords on 21, 22, 24 and 25 December. The following month (January 1689) he was restored to the command of his regiment.<sup>48</sup></p><h2><em>Secretary of State 1689-90</em></h2><p>Shrewsbury took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689. In all he was present on 72 per cent of sitting days in the session. The following day he was named to the standing committees. He was also one of those appointed to enquire into the circumstances of the death of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, and to consider the best methods of preventing papists from remaining in London. Over the course of the session Shrewsbury was named to a further 13 committees. His importance as a conduit between William and Parliament became apparent during the negotiations over the Revolution settlement, in which William made it quite apparent that he would not accept a solution in which Mary reigned as queen with him as mere consort. On 31 Jan. Shrewsbury voted in favour of inserting the clause declaring William and Mary king and queen in a division held in a committee of the whole. On 3 Feb. he was one of a number of peers to be informed in no uncertain terms by William that he would accept nothing less than the throne.<sup>49</sup> The following day, Shrewsbury voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in employing the term ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’, acting as teller on the motion to concur with the lower House and entering his dissent when the motion failed to carry. On 6 Feb. Shrewsbury again voted to support the Commons’ use of the phrase ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He was also credited (along with Charles Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, later 3rd earl of Peterborough), with having secured the vote of Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, who declared that he had come to do ‘whatever my Lord Shrewsbury and Lord Mordaunt would have him’.<sup>50</sup> Two days later (8 Feb.) Shrewsbury acted as one of the reporters of a conference held with the Commons concerning the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen. The following day he was named to the committee appointed to draw up reasons to be offered at a subsequent conference fortifying the Lords’ amendments to the declaration.</p><p>Shrewsbury’s role as conduit between king and Parliament was made apparent again on 15 Feb. when he communicated the king’s order for the House to adjourn to the following Monday and once more on 25 Mar. when he delivered a further message from the king relating to the general pardon.<sup>51</sup> The same day he asked leave of the House to bring in the bill for naturalizing Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland. He presented the bill on 27 Mar., which was passed a little over a week later. On 13 Apr., alongside Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, Shrewsbury introduced a clutch of peers who had been advanced in the peerage: Thomas Belasyse*, Viscount Fauconberg, as earl of Fauconberg, Mordaunt as earl of Monmouth, Ralph Montagu*, Baron Montagu, as earl of Montagu and John Churchill*, Baron Churchill, as earl of Marlborough. Two days later, he introduced Hans Willem Bentinck*, as earl of Portland.</p><p>Given Shrewsbury’s friendship with William and the newly created Portland it is perhaps surprising that he was not more particularly noticed by Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, in a list Burnet compiled at some point early in 1689 of people he thought likely to take office in the new regime. Burnet seems to have thought Shrewsbury a viable candidate for a place in the bedchamber and possibly for the lord presidency of Wales, but more significant posts were to be allocated elsewhere.<sup>52</sup> Burnet’s predictions proved wide of the mark: at the beginning of March Shrewsbury was appointed one of the secretaries of state. His selection had been touted as early as the beginning of February, and seems to have been made in spite of William’s initial misgivings that he might be too inexperienced. Halifax on the other hand was forward in pressing for the appointment.<sup>53</sup> Roger Morrice concluded that Shrewsbury was ‘a brave gentleman’ though ‘such is the dullness of his understanding that he thinks there is no good Englishman but those Tories turned out about six or nine months since.’<sup>54</sup> Morrice’s assessment reveals an important aspect of Shrewsbury’s character: his desire to promote a coalition irrespective of party roots, reflected in his reported aim at the time to use his interest to ‘get in worthy men that are sincere to the king’s common designs’. Following his appointment as secretary, Shrewsbury was rewarded with additional marks of trust, being appointed to the lord lieutenancies of Hertfordshire (during the minority of Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex), and of Worcestershire.<sup>55</sup> The extent of his influence at the time is reflected in the fact that the same month Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, asked Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, to use his interest with Shrewsbury to procure for him (Godolphin) the deputy governorship of Guernsey.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Besides his duties as secretary, Shrewsbury proved to be an active member of the House in the sessions following on from the Revolution. On 12 May 1689 he received Marlborough’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 22 May that of Monmouth, which was vacated on 25 June. The same day he was named to the committee for the Droitwich saltworks bill, in which he had a personal interest as a local landholder. On 21 June he was ordered to move the king for letters intercepted from Ireland to be sent to the House and the following month, on 26 July, Shrewsbury and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham were ordered in similar fashion to seek the king’s permission for the admiralty books to be made available to the committee considering the miscarriage of affairs in Ireland. Three days later they were also asked to address the king for the council minutes relating to Ireland to be sent to the same committee. Shrewsbury subscribed the protest of 30 July at the resolution that the Lords should adhere to their amendments concerning the reversal of Oates’s conviction for perjury. On 20 Sept. he acted once more as liaison between the House and the king, communicating the king’s order for the House to adjourn to the following month.</p><p>Shrewsbury’s increased responsibilities weighed heavily on him, not assisted, no doubt, by the king’s criticism of some of the personnel in his department.<sup>57</sup> By August 1689 he was beginning to complain of the poor health that would afflict him for the next few years. His illness led him to make the first of a series of efforts to resign his office, explaining to the king how:</p><blockquote><p>my indispositions of late have been so frequent, and I have the comfortless prospect of so very ill health, for the future, that I am very sensible how incapable I am, to supply a place, where diligence and industry are absolutely requisite.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>William was unable to hide his irritation at Shrewsbury’s apparent malingering:</p><blockquote><p>I cannot conceal my surprise at the contents of your letter, which I received yesterday: as I did not imagine that you would propose to quit your post, at this particular time, which would prove very prejudicial to my service.<sup>59</sup></p></blockquote><p>For the time being, Shrewsbury was persuaded to continue in post. He survived the embarrassment of having one of the under-secretaries, Dr Owen Wynne, one of those previously pointed out by the king as unsuitable, removed for engaging in treasonable correspondence with the exiled court. In October he joined the king at Newmarket and the same month he gave one of the odder orders of his career, when he granted permission for a petitioner to have his elk’s head restored to him.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury took his seat in the second session on 23 Oct. 1689, after which he was present on almost 84 per cent of all sitting days and was named to six committees. After his complaints of the summer he provoked comment by dancing at the king’s birthday celebration on 5 November. Cary Gardiner wondered at the propriety of a secretary of state indulging in such things.<sup>61</sup> Over the next three days Shrewsbury’s attention was taken up with liaising between the court and Parliament over the commitment of Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, to the Tower. The same month Shrewsbury seconded an amendment to the bill of rights proposed by Bishop Burnet of Salisbury, absolving all subjects from their allegiance to monarchs who refused to take the Test. The amendment was passed without opposition, to Burnet’s considerable surprise.<sup>62</sup> In December Shrewsbury undertook his by now familiar role as a mediator when he was dispatched by the king with his friend Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, to attempt to dissuade Princess Anne from seeking an annuity from Parliament, though without success.<sup>63</sup> The marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classed Shrewsbury as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding the comment ‘to absent’, probably meaning to be asked to absent himself.</p><p>By the close of the year, Shrewsbury had lost his faith in the benefits of a mixed administration and he joined Wharton in recommending that the king place his trust in the Whigs. He conceived that William would be better served working with them ‘than with the Tories, who many of them, questionless, would bring in King James, and the very best of them, I doubt, have a regency still in their heads’. Although the king capitulated to Shrewsbury’s plea for a short Christmas adjournment, Shrewsbury and his Whig associates remained unconvinced that they had won William over to their side and continued to warn in stark terms of the dangers of trusting the churchmen. Further disagreements soon followed and when Sir Richard Haddock<sup>‡</sup> was appointed to the admiralty in January 1690, Shrewsbury refused to sign the warrant.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Reports of the king’s imminent departure from England led to rumours in February of those likely to be named commissioners in his absence. Unsurprisingly, Shrewsbury was among them.<sup>65</sup> Following the dissolution, which he had tried to prevent and which represented a signal success for Carmarthen and Nottingham, Shrewsbury was active in campaigning in several counties. He employed his interest on behalf of Richard Newport*, later 2nd earl of Bradford, in Shropshire (turning down Mr Fraunter); he also encouraged Sir John Bowyer to contest Staffordshire, though without success, and lent his support to Richard Coote<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Bellomont [I], at Droitwich.<sup>66</sup> Having taken his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, Shrewsbury continued to attend 57 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to eight committees. Aware of the king’s disinclination to provoke his Tory supporters, on 26 Mar. Shrewsbury joined with several peers in speaking critically of the recognition bill proposed by Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton. Even so, on 10 Apr. he spoke against the protests lodged by Nottingham and others, which had denounced aspects of the bill as ‘neither good English nor good sense’.<sup>67</sup></p><h2><em>Out of office, 1690-4</em></h2><p>The heated atmosphere in the Lords during the first session caused Shrewsbury considerable unease and may have precipitated the beginnings of another lengthy bout of poor health. At the close of the month, sick and disgruntled at the failure of the abjuration bill, he tried to resign. The names of likely successors were bandied about in the newsletters but in the event the king refused to accept the seals.<sup>68</sup> Shrewsbury had no choice but to continue and when a new abjuration bill was introduced in the Lords on 1 May 1690, he was involved at the committee stage. Two days later he quit the chamber for the remainder of the session and the following day he registered his proxy with Monmouth. He wasted no time in fleeing the capital and on 5 May was noted as being at Newmarket in company with Wharton, ‘both somewhat disgusted’. His evident disgruntlement precipitated further rumours that he would shortly step down.<sup>69</sup> Once again, the rumours were quickly countered. It was put about that he was ‘not out just peevish’ and had been persuaded to continue once more by the king. By the end of May, however, suffering from a fever, which some thought might carry him off, he despatched the seals to the king via Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. He then fled from court without staying for the king’s response.<sup>70</sup> On 3 June, thoroughly exasperated, the king at last accepted his resignation. Although there was briefly talk of others joining Shrewsbury in sympathy, none did and several days after his resignation, Shrewsbury’s post remained unfilled.<sup>71</sup> Rumours circulated by the exiled court that the resignation was a sign of Shrewsbury’s secret sympathy for a restoration had no basis in reality but it is perhaps significant that as late as the beginning of October some still seemed uncertain precisely what the grounds had been for Shrewsbury’s decision to leave office.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s resignation was the culmination of almost a year of poor health and nagging worries about his aptitude for office, though perhaps more important was his frustration at the king’s increasing reliance on Carmarthen and Nottingham.<sup>73</sup> Nevertheless, almost as soon as he had laid down his position he began angling for a way back into favour. The queen noted that he was a regular attendant at her supper parties. He was no doubt encouraged to seek a swift return to office by missives such as that by Charles Berkeley*, styled Viscount Dursley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), lamenting his decision to quit.<sup>74</sup> Within days of his resignation Shrewsbury had offered his services as head of the navy following the report of the disaster off Beachy Head. His offer was declined.<sup>75</sup> Freed from his responsibilities, Shrewsbury’s health gradually improved. He spent the latter part of the summer at Tunbridge, where he was joined by Wharton and Godolphin, who came increasingly to be identified as a powerful new triumvirate. In September rumours began to circulate once more of his return to office.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury took his seat in the new session on 2 Oct. 1690. He was thereafter present on 74 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to 18 committees. A day into the session he received the proxy of Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester, which was vacated by the close. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. On 27 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to allow written protections to be granted to menial servants. By the end of the year reports abounded of the formation of a new ministry comprising Monmouth and Shrewsbury, with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, as lord treasurer. Others thought Nottingham would be put out to make way for Shrewsbury and Montagu.<sup>77</sup></p><p>It seems likely that it was at about this time that Shrewsbury made contact with the exiled court, probably through the medium of Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], William Penn and his kinsman, Middleton. This was certainly the purport of the information provided by Preston later in the year.<sup>78</sup> Shrewsbury’s correspondence with the Jacobites can only have heightened his sense of acute embarrassment when his uncle, Beuno (or Bruno) Talbot, was outlawed for treason in February 1691. Talbot’s conviction was later overturned: Shrewsbury was one of those who stood bail for him.<sup>79</sup> Ironically, at the same time that he appears to have been negotiating with the exiled court, Shrewsbury’s name was recommended to the king by Carmarthen as one of those suitable to be nominated justices during William’s absence.<sup>80</sup> In any case, Shrewsbury’s flirtation with Saint Germain was brief and it appears to have ended by June. In mid-summer he was again observed with Godolphin at Tunbridge, this time in company with Princess Anne.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury attended the prorogation days of 31 Mar. and 28 Apr. 1691 but he was absent from the opening of the ensuing session and on 2 Nov. he was noted as missing at a call of the House. He took his seat just over a fortnight into the session on 6 Nov., after which he was present on three quarters of all sitting days. On 17 Nov. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning the kingdom’s safety and on 1 Dec. he was appointed a reporter of the conference for the oaths in Ireland bill. That month the House took into consideration the information obtained from Preston and William Fuller, which named Shrewsbury among about 40 senior figures who were said to have signed a paper seeking the French king’s intervention in England.<sup>82</sup> In the event Fuller’s testimony was discredited and Fuller himself censured. Shrewsbury had not been the prime target of the conspiracy, so was left relatively unaffected by the aftermath.<sup>83</sup> On 3 Jan. 1692 he received the proxy of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, which was vacated on 27 January. On 12 Jan. he entered his dissent at the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. The following month, on 13 Feb., he chaired the opening session of the committee appointed to draw up an address, but it was immediately adjourned. Mulgrave chaired the subsequent session held on 17 February. On 22 Feb. Shrewsbury was again named a reporter of a conference, this time that concerning the small tithes bill.</p><p>Although Shrewsbury had emerged relatively unscathed from the investigations of the previous year, in June he was struck off the Privy Council in a sign of his continuing difficult relationship with the court.<sup>84</sup> Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney) complained that Shrewsbury and his ‘gang’ had put it about that Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, had won a great victory at sea but that Sydney and other courtiers had been despatched to Portsmouth to spoil his triumph. Shrewsbury acted as a surety for the disgraced Marlborough and by October he was noted as one of the regular habitués of the princess of Denmark’s court at Berkeley House.<sup>85</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury took his seat in the new session on 7 Nov. 1692. Thereafter he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days and named to 24 committees. The following day he received Leicester’s proxy again, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 7 Dec. he subscribed the protest at the failure to hold a joint conference with the Commons on the state of the nation and on 20 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the papers brought in by Nottingham as secretary of state. The following day he was once more named a reporter of the conference concerning naval affairs. Torrington registered his proxy with Shrewsbury on 16 Jan. 1693, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>At the heart of Shrewsbury’s political agenda by the opening of 1693 was the establishment of a bill to ensure the regular meeting of Parliament. On 12 Jan. he introduced the triennial bill, which was debated in a committee of the whole chaired by Bishop Burnet on 18 January.<sup>86</sup> Despite broad support for the measure in the House, the king later vetoed the bill, to the disgust of both Shrewsbury and a number of other peers. Shrewsbury had spent an hour and a half in private conference with the king about the bill but had been unable to sway him.<sup>87</sup> Disappointment at the veto did not divert Shrewsbury from playing an active role in other business during the remainder of the session. On 19 Jan. he entered two dissents over the land tax bill: the first at the decision not to refer the Commons’ rejection of the Lords’ provisos to the bill to the committee for privileges, and the second at the decision to recede from their clause. On 24 Jan. he reported from the committee appointed earlier in the day to draw up a resolution concerning the libellous publication, <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em>, which had been ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. The same day he was also named one of the managers of a conference investigating the libel. Shrewsbury entered a further protest on 31 Jan. 1693 at the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, for murder. Following the delayed trial he found Mohun not guilty.<sup>88</sup> Nominated to the committee appointed on 11 Feb. to draw up an address upon the heads agreed to in a committee of the whole concerning the order that no foreigner should hold office at the ordnance or in the Tower of London, Shrewsbury chaired one session of the committee on 15 Feb., though the subsequent session was (as with that considering an address) taken over by Mulgrave.<sup>89</sup> Shrewsbury was again active in the House on 8 Mar. when he acted as one of the tellers for an amendment to the printers bill concerning the searching of peers’ houses, which was rejected by 21 votes to 25. Shrewsbury then entered his protest at the failure of the rider. The same month the bill for improving navigation of the river Salwarpe was brought into the House in the names of Shrewsbury and his neighbour, Thomas Coventry*, 5th Baron (later earl of) Coventry.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Rumours that Shrewsbury had at last married again circulated in the early months of 1693 but the putative match with ‘the great fortune Mrs Thomas’, granddaughter of Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, failed to transpire.<sup>91</sup> By the summer he was once more deep in negotiation with the Whigs. In August he attended a meeting at Althorp hosted by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland. As a result ‘newsmongers’ put it about that he was one of a number of peers, all Whigs, now expected to be ‘the chief managers of public affairs.’ Opinion was divided, though, on what job he was to have.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury attended four prorogation days between 2 May and 26 Oct. 1693. He returned to the House for the new session on 7 Nov. after which he was present on 57 per cent of all sitting days and named to nine committees. On 14 Nov. his name was missing from the attendance list but he was not marked absent at a call of the House, so presumably took his seat later in the day. Having attended just four days, Shrewsbury appears to have retreated to the country for almost three weeks before resuming his place on 18 December.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Discontent with his current ministry caused William to turn once more to Shrewsbury and attempt to persuade him to resume office. Shrewsbury now declined, however, to succeed Nottingham as secretary of state without assurances that the king would reverse his opposition to the triennial bill. Not thinking it ‘fit to purchase any one’s friendship and service so dear as at the expense of passing that bill’, the king refused.<sup>94</sup> The following month (December) Shrewsbury’s mistress, Mrs Lundy, and the king’s mistress, Mrs Villiers (later countess of Orkney) were both employed to put pressure on Shrewsbury to resume office.<sup>95</sup> Shrewsbury remained reluctant and informed Wharton that he was more interested in travelling to the warmer climate of Spain in the quest for a cure:</p><blockquote><p>I am sensible it is a great misfortune to receive commands from a prince one would willingly serve, and at the same time find something in one’s self that makes it impossible to obey him… I doubt whether I am skilful enough to agree, even with those of whose party I am reckoned in several notions they now seem to have of things.<sup>96</sup></p></blockquote><p>Shrewsbury was added to the list of managers of a conference examining the proceedings in council concerning the admirals on 15 Jan. 1694 and the same day he was appointed one of the managers of a conference investigating the previous summer’s campaign at sea. He was also named to the committee established to prepare heads for a conference concerning the sailing of the Brest fleet and was nominated a manager of the subsequent conferences on 8 and 12 February. On 29 Mar. he was named a manager of the conference for the mutiny bill. Rumours that he did so only after having secured the exiled king’s permission and that he intended to use the place to further the Jacobite cause seem highly implausible.<sup>97</sup> On 3 and 5 Apr. he was involved in the resolution of disagreements between the two Houses over amendments to the bill for satisfying payment of the debts of the recently deceased John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell.</p><p>By then, the mistresses’ steady campaign to bring about Shrewsbury’s return to government combined with the king’s eventual capitulation on the question of the triennial bill had already resulted in Shrewsbury once more taking up the seals, the warrant for it dated 8 March.<sup>98</sup> Further rewards came in quick succession. The same month Shrewsbury added the lieutenancies of Herefordshire and North Wales to his responsibilities, though he soon after rid himself of the latter which went, on his recommendation, to John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan (3rd earl of Carbery [I]).<sup>99</sup> At the end of April he was awarded the garter and raised in the peerage as duke of Shrewsbury, possibly as a result of Sunderland’s recommendation.<sup>100</sup></p><h2><em>Secretary of State again, 1694-6</em></h2><p>Shrewsbury quickly made use of his renewed place of trust to advise the king against admitting Normanby (as Mulgrave had become) to council meetings. In justifying his opinion he argued that ‘I must own, that if there be any body you suspect would betray you or your counsels, it is much better disobliging that person, than entrusting him with things of a less nice nature, than such as may come before a cabinet council’.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Aside from worrying about unreliable colleagues, Shrewsbury’s attention was taken up by more pressing problems that summer. He had anticipated the failure of the Brest expedition. He was in contact with Portland in July about conditions in Ireland. The same month he was ordered to investigate an outbreak of rioting in Northamptonshire and the suspected involvement in fomenting the disorders of Monmouth, who was said to have ‘made his peace at St Germains’.<sup>102</sup> While Shrewsbury accepted that Monmouth may have been in contact with the court in exile, he assured William ‘although he may have made what advances are possible of that kind, if he could find his account under your government, it is what he would prefer much before any such alteration’. He also cast doubts on Monmouth’s involvement in the riots at Northampton.<sup>103</sup></p><p>In spite of his earlier misgivings about the king’s employment of the Tories, in the autumn of 1694 Shrewsbury was engaged in negotiations with Robert Harley and a Mr Foley (probably Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup>) as part of his effort to widen the base of the administration. The talks proved unsuccessful. The same period found Shrewsbury needing to rebuild his bridges with Henry Capell*, Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, one of the lord justices in Ireland, who believed that Shrewsbury had criticized his handling of his office. Shrewsbury insisted ‘since the time of my coming into the king’s service, in every word I have spoke or writ upon the subject of Ireland, I have not failed to commend your lordship’s carriage in that country’.<sup>104</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury took his seat in the House on 12 Nov. 1694, introduced in his new dignity between Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, and Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg. He was subsequently present on almost 41 per cent of all sitting days in the session and was nominated to eight committees. On 24 Nov. he received Carbery’s proxy, which was vacated by the close, but Shrewsbury was already suffering from a renewed bout of ill health. Two days before receiving the proxy it was noted that he wished to retire into the country and by the middle of December the cause of his sickness was a general topic of speculation. In January 1695 he retreated to Windsor, where he was advised by his physicians to ‘forbear all studious business’. Shrewsbury’s under-secretary, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, reported that his illness had ‘occasioned a weakness in his sight, which must needs be very mortifying considering how he lost his other eye.’<sup>105</sup> Fear of permanent blindness undoubtedly shook him. Although he attended the House on 8 Jan. 1695, Shrewsbury was then absent until 28 Jan., when he ‘forced himself to come abroad… thinking it fit for him to hear what passed in the examination of the Lancashire business.’<sup>106</sup> It proved to be a short-lived exertion and from 30 Jan. to 11 Mar. he was once more absent from the House. In February he was away from town and it was believed on the point of losing his sight completely.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury rallied to resume his place on 11 March. On 13 Apr. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning papers requested by the Lords referring to Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> and on 22 Apr. he was one of the dozen peers and 24 Members of the Commons selected by ballot to examine Cooke. On 3 May, following a joint conference with the Commons over the impeachment of the duke of Leeds (formerly Carmarthen), in which Shrewsbury had acted as one of the managers, Shrewsbury proposed that the trial should be suspended. The House accordingly resolved to suspend proceedings and that Leeds should stand impeached until the next sessions.</p><p>Shrewsbury was constituted one of the lords justices during the king’s absence over the summer, though he spent at least some of the time predictably enough sick and out of town.<sup>108</sup> At the same time rumours circulated of tensions existing between him and the king’s ‘minister behind the curtain’, Sunderland. By the end of the summer relations between the two men seem to have been restored and in September of the following year Sunderland found Shrewsbury willing to make greater ‘assurances of friendship… than I thought him capable of.’<sup>109</sup> Such an improvement no doubt owed something to both men concurring in the importance of a dissolution that autumn. Shrewsbury, writing to the king in late July on behalf of both men and of the lord keeper, John Somers*, later Baron Somers, was adamant that the king should return to England from his summer campaign in time for the election. He was also concerned to secure the king’s support for the succession of Sir John Houblon (first governor of the Bank of England) as lord mayor of London:</p><blockquote><p>the interest in the city being much broke by the imprudence of this present mayor, and some of the aldermen, and by the heat of many of the common council, in a dispute they have had depending 2 or 3 years, about permitting sheriffs nominated to fine off; it is extremely for your majesty’s interest, that a person should succeed the present mayor, upon whose loyalty you may depend, & whose prudence and credit would be able to reconcile those animosities.<sup>110</sup></p></blockquote><p>As a member of the admiralty board, it was necessary to secure Houblon leave from its deliberations during his tenure as mayor, leave that the king was willing to grant to secure the peace of London.</p><p>Shrewsbury remained concerned by the king’s apparent unwillingness to quit the continent and the impression it gave that he was uncommitted to the new Parliament, writing again to him in mid-August that</p><blockquote><p>It has been very industriously spread about, that a new Parliament is not intended; by which your majesty’s friends are discouraged from making their interest in the several places they have pretensions to be chose in; whilst others, worse affected, as warm as ever solicit their elections. This is an evil difficult for your majesty’s servants to prevent, unless you would be pleased so far to explain your thoughts, that we might be enabled to give assurances to those that doubt.<sup>111</sup></p></blockquote><p>The pressure on the king succeeded and Parliament was dissolved on 11 October. Shrewsbury was active in employing both his own and the crown interest in the ensuing elections. He was appealed to by Somers, to use his influence at Middlesex.<sup>112</sup> Somers, whose father had managed some of the Talbot estates and was well known to the family, had found William Russell*, duke of Bedford, ‘disturbed at the apprehension of charge’ in setting up Wriothesley Russell*, styled marquess of Tavistock (later 2nd duke of Bedford), and he feared that Shrewsbury’s absence from the contest ‘does a great deal of hurt.’<sup>113</sup> (Tavistock would eventually withdraw from the election.) Shrewsbury conveyed to John Granville*, earl of Bath, the king’s desire for Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], to be found a seat in Cornwall. At Droitwich, Shrewsbury probably employed his own interest on behalf of Charles Cocks<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Prior to the opening of Parliament Shrewsbury was said to have circulated premature reports of James II’s death in exile, though these were hastily contradicted.<sup>115</sup> Shrewsbury took his seat on 22 Nov. and was thereafter present on just over half of all sitting days during which he was named to 13 committees. On 4 Dec. he was one of those to speak in the debate held in a committee of the whole House concerning the state of the coinage, arguing for a prohibition on the importation of English money. The following day he was nominated one of the managers of a conference on the same business and on 14 Dec. to that concerning the address opposing the establishment of the Scots East India Company. Three days later, he informed the House that the king would issue a proclamation in response to the Lords’ address on clipped money, ‘with what speed the nature of the thing will permit’. Shrewsbury was again prominent in the debates held in a committee of the whole concerning the treason bill on 23 December.<sup>116</sup> Nominated a manager of the conference for the bill for regulating silver money on 11 Jan. 1696, Shrewsbury was ill again at the beginning of February.<sup>117</sup> He had rallied by the end of the month and on 24 Feb. was ordered to make arrangements with the king for the presentation of the Lords’ address about the exposure of the Assassination Plot. He reported back the same day with the king’s agreement to receive the address that evening. The following month, Shrewsbury decided against presenting a petition of the mayor and corporation of Hereford to the House on the advice of Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, Lord Coningsby [I], later earl of Coningsby. Coningsby conceived that it would hinder the passage of a navigation bill, presumably that concerning the rivers Wye and Lugg then before the House. Shrewsbury was named to the committee for the Wye and Lugg bill on 5 Mar.; it was passed without amendment two days later. At the close of the month, Shrewsbury presented a delegation from the corporation of Warwick to the king with their copy of the association, subsequently reporting the king’s particular satisfaction at their response to the plot to the county’s lieutenant, Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke.<sup>118</sup></p><p>By the close of April 1696, Shrewsbury was worn out by his exertions and on 27 Apr. he made his last appearance in the House for almost 10 years. Concerns over his health appear to have led to inaccurate reports of his appointment to the less onerous position of lord president in May. It was thought he would be replaced as secretary by Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville.<sup>119</sup> The same month, amidst fears for Capell’s health, Shrewsbury was one of several peers mentioned to the king as a possible replacement in Ireland. The rumours prompted Shrewsbury to inform William that it was:</p><blockquote><p>a great honour, but what I shall neither ambition nor decline, but am willing to serve your majesty where you think I may be most useful. If I were to follow my own inclination, it would never lead me to business; but whilst I continue in it, I will submit myself to be disposed of as your majesty shall think most for your service.<sup>120</sup></p></blockquote><h2><em>The Fenwick trial 1696</em></h2><p>Shrewsbury seems at first not to have been especially concerned by the arrest and examination of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> in June 1696. He dismissed Fenwick as ‘a fearful man’ and turned his mind to other concerns.<sup>121</sup> In July he was one of those involved with the installation of William, duke of Gloucester, as a garter knight but his attention was otherwise taken up with problems surrounding the establishment of the land bank. By August it was apparent that the scheme was unworkable and the sum of £40,000 pledged likely to be offered on terms not worth taking up.<sup>122</sup> Hard on the heels of this disappointment came more damaging revelations from Fenwick. By the end of the summer Shrewsbury had been named along with Godolphin, Marlborough and Edward Russell as being involved in plotting with the exiled court.<sup>123</sup> Fenwick’s testimony caused Shrewsbury to abandon all semblance of equanimity. Although he protested to Portland that ‘Sir John Fenwick’s story is as wonderful to me as if he had accused me of coining’, he hurried to confess to the king that he had indeed been involved in correspondence with his Jacobite kinsman, Middleton, James II’s former secretary of state.<sup>124</sup> His panic was also no doubt the reason for his renewed expressions of friendship towards Sunderland. The king was already well aware of his minister’s erstwhile nefarious activities but he was also clearly convinced that Shrewsbury’s flirtation with the court in exile had been a brief one. William sought to reassure his by now thoroughly agitated secretary:</p><blockquote><p>In sending you Sir John Fenwick’s paper, I assured you that I was persuaded his accusation was false, of which I am now fully convinced, by your answer, and perfectly satisfied with the ingenuous confession of what passed between you and Lord Middleton, which can by no means be imputed to you as a crime. And indeed you may be assured, that this business, so far from making on me any unfavourable impression, will, on the contrary, if possible, in future, strengthen my confidence in you, and my friendship can admit of no increase.<sup>125</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite being implicated so obviously by Fenwick, armed with the king’s assurances of support, Shrewsbury attended the meeting of the lords justices when Fenwick’s wife petitioned for her husband’s arraignment to be delayed, which was granted accordingly.<sup>126</sup> His confidence proved short-lived. The same month, unable to bear the pressure any more, Shrewsbury left town and sought comparative seclusion at his seat at Eyford. When the king returned to Kensington in October 1696 he was disappointed to find Shrewsbury still living in retirement in the country. Shortly after, Shrewsbury injured himself severely in a fall while hunting, with a blow from his horse’s head while jumping a ditch, according to Harley. The accident provided Shrewsbury with a painful if convenient excuse to remain away from London for the following few months. Portland lamented that ‘his illness is so serious, at a time when not only the public (interest) but his own suffers from his absence’. Shrewsbury affected to share these sentiments and wrote to Richard Hill professing to be ‘very uneasy to be here at a time that it is so much my duty to wait upon the king and attend the Parliament, but how long the same mortification will continue I am not yet able to judge.’<sup>127</sup> He wrote in similar vein to the king. Incapacitated and aware of the damage Fenwick’s allegations might cause, on 18 Oct. Shrewsbury once again offered to resign the seals, only for William again to refuse to accept them.<sup>128</sup> Vernon attempted to rally his master from his doldrums, convinced that Fenwick’s actions served only ‘to show the malice of the party in engaging him to suppress what he must needs know and to make a merit of what he don’t know’. Shrewsbury, though, was still on his sickbed when Parliament reassembled on 20 October.<sup>129</sup> Two days later he wrote to the king, reluctantly agreeing to retain his office and to be guided by his advice.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s friends rallied round, foremost among them Somers and Wharton, who masterminded the campaign to have Fenwick attainted and executed. Wharton in particular maintained a regular correspondence with Shrewsbury throughout the proceedings. On 27 Oct. he wrote outlining the plan of action that had been agreed, with Russell presenting the case before the Commons, ‘opening it as a contrivance (by blasting and taking away the most faithful and useful of the king’s servants) to do King James the most considerable piece of service’.<sup>131</sup> Shrewsbury responded with customary unease. On 30 Oct. he professed himself unconcerned how the motion was brought in provided there was no further delay. The following day, his mood had worsened:</p><blockquote><p>I always thought if it came before a Parliament it would not go off so smoothly as was imagined, it is of a nature that is impossible to be disproved, and therefore all the innocence in the world, can never clear one to every body; I have from the beginning prepared myself for a good deal of mortification and it is a great addition to it that I am forced to be here.<sup>132</sup></p></blockquote><p>By 1 Nov., though, Shrewsbury appears to have talked himself around to trusting to Wharton’s handling of the business:</p><blockquote><p>I am much more satisfied with this method that is now proposed than with any has been yet… I was very shy of pressing any thing in this matter, knowing that in the end I am very sure nothing can be proved or probably urged against me, but that however something will remain; which will make it pretty uneasy serving.</p></blockquote><p>Shrewsbury remained unable to travel. After ‘10,000 impertinent questions’ Shrewsbury’s doctor decided he was ‘in no condition to stir’. As such he was absent from London when the bill of attainder was introduced into the Commons on 9 November.<sup>133</sup> Prior to the bill being presented, Vernon informed Shrewsbury of the intention to ensure that the Rose Club turned out in his support.<sup>134</sup> He was further reassured both by Vernon and Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup> of the tenor of the subsequent debates in the Commons. The latter told him that ‘it was impossible for any person to have had a greater vindication than was given to you’. Urging him to put aside his thoughts of resignation, Guy emphasized that such an action would merely ‘be half a victory to those who do not wish you well.’<sup>135</sup> For Vernon too, Shrewsbury’s justification had been half of the point of the proceedings against Fenwick, giving the House of Commons ‘a proper occasion to show their resentments against this man.’<sup>136</sup></p><p>Despite their assurances, the passage of the Fenwick bill was the occasion of impassioned disagreement. Shrewsbury admitted that he was ‘not surprised that some people are scrupulous upon a bill of attainder I confess it is a very nice point, though I am one of the men in England that at this time ought least to say so.’<sup>137</sup> He came under renewed pressure to return to town. Shrewsbury’s stepfather, George Rodney Bridges<sup>‡</sup>, was delegated by Tankerville, Monmouth and others to persuade him to ‘hasten’ there. Shrewsbury, though, was once more steeped in depression.<sup>138</sup> He professed himself ‘confident, not to say certain, that it [the attainder], will never pass through our House’ and he refused to be swayed by the efforts of his friends to reassure him.<sup>139</sup> In fact, even Wharton admitted to uncertainty about how the measure would be received in the Lords and that much would depend on the lead given by the king and Sunderland.<sup>140</sup> Its eventual reception proved more positive than either man feared. Marlborough wrote on 2 Dec. to inform Shrewsbury that the first day’s consideration of the business before the Lords had proceeded ‘as you could wish’. The duke also pointed out that unexpected allies had rallied to his cause, among them Rochester, who, according to Marlborough ‘has behaved himself on all this occasion like a friend; and in a conversation he had with me he expressed himself as a real servant of yours.’ Rochester later professed himself surprised to have been so singled out but pleased that his small efforts had been so well received.<sup>141</sup> Shrewsbury remained characteristically pessimistic. It was thus without his assistance that Wharton and the others laboured to drive the business through the House. It passed its third reading by seven votes on 23 December.<sup>142</sup></p><h2><em>The Aftermath of Fenwick, 1697-1700</em></h2><p>A spate of dry weather occasioned a slight improvement in Shrewsbury’s health towards the close of the year, but he remained immured in the countryside. As he remarked to Hill, ‘how such a weather-glass of a body will hold out the remainder of this winter, God knows’.<sup>143</sup> At the opening of 1697 he found himself under pressure from a new direction when Monmouth attempted to persuade him to join with him in petitioning the king not to pass the Fenwick attainder. Monmouth’s behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to incriminate Shrewsbury among others had been apparent since early December, and by the middle of January he was discredited and his plans foiled.<sup>144</sup> Shrewsbury emerged relatively untarnished from renewed criticism arising out of Matthew Smith’s intrigues, which were reported to the House towards the end of January. He was forced, though, to respond unhelpfully to a command from the Lords to deliver up what papers he possessed concerning Smith, saying that he was ‘very sorry not to be able so fully to comply with their lordships’ directions as I wish I could’, having very few if any of Smith’s letters still in his possession.<sup>145</sup> Henry Guy congratulated him once again on having his innocence ‘rescued from the malice of ill men’.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury may have survived his latest crisis but he was still out of circulation. His doctors advised him that he was now out of danger but advised him not to stir from his retirement for the while. By the close of February he hoped to be able to return to London in two or three days, his health improved by warmer weather. The following month he established himself at the home of Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers (later earl of Jersey), in Hyde Park, though without having sought Villiers’ prior permission (he assured himself that Villiers would forgive him his unannounced intrusion).<sup>147</sup> Within a month his health took another turn for the worse. In April he was still indisposed, prompting renewed rumours that he would be offered a less onerous post. In May he returned to his estates in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire in the hopes of recovering in the country.<sup>148</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s illness did not prevent him from continuing his policy of improving his estates. Late in April he offered William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, first refusal on some of his Derbyshire lands, which he hoped Halifax would be keen to buy as they adjoined estates already in his possession. He was initially coy about the reason for the sale but insisted, ‘I know not whether you are in a buying condition. If you are not, I wish you were.’ Halifax proved unwilling, apparently believing the lands to be too expensive.<sup>149</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury was expected in town again by the end of June 1697. His eagerness to sell the lands at Wingfield may have been connected to his efforts to purchase a house in Gerard Street in place of his former lodgings in St James’s Square (and in preference to his impromptu use of Villiers’ house).<sup>150</sup> From Grafton, he wrote to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> to thank him for his support in the previous session and to discuss the prospects for peace with France. Shrewsbury told him that he had ‘no dependence on the French sincerity, any otherwise than I believe they think it to their interest to have a peace; and if that cannot be obtained no other way but by including his majesty, I am confident they are sincere in their intention of swallowing that difficulty.’<sup>151</sup> Shrewsbury returned to London early in July to new lodgings in Arlington Street. It proved a brief visit and despite reports that month that he was now ‘perfectly recovered’ a few weeks later he found his distemper ‘returned upon me with such violence that I am forced to retire’.<sup>152</sup> Vernon could find no reason for his master’s relapse other than exhaustion after having stayed up too late dealing with dispatches.<sup>153</sup> Alongside the return of his cripplingly bad health came new accusations levelled at him by Price and Chaloner (the one a coiner and the other a forger of exchequer bills) that he had attempted to secure Fenwick from justice.<sup>154</sup> In mid-August, spitting blood and forced to rely on an amanuensis to take care of his correspondence, he retreated once more to Eyford.<sup>155</sup></p><p>Prostrated with his ailments and fear of further accusations, Shrewsbury persisted with his efforts to convince the king to let him resign: ‘it cannot be for your interest to continue a man in your service, whom people are resolved shall never be quiet.’<sup>156</sup> He also sought permission to retire to France to seek a cure but without success.<sup>157</sup> In November 1697 he had improved sufficiently to be able to return to Kensington, ‘brought up by the importunity of his friends, who were desirous to concert some matters with him’. Although he was now believed to be ‘pretty well’ it was thought likely he would be replaced as secretary by Wharton, though neither of these things proved to be true. Wharton was passed over and it was not long before Shrewsbury suffered another relapse and at once renewed his pleas to be permitted to quit.<sup>158</sup> He made no secret of his malaise even in his official communications. To Henri Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] he gave vent to a maudlin exposition of his condition, describing himself as ‘nothing but a corpse, half buried already, and expecting the consummation of that entire ceremony.’ His correspondence with Charles Powlett*, styled marquess of Winchester (later 2nd duke of Bolton), one of the lords justices in Ireland, was similarly pathetic:</p><blockquote><p>I am sorry that the circumstances of my health are so very bad that I cannot propose to myself being in the least useful in promoting what your lordships shall represent. I am going into the country in two or three days with so melancholy a prospect of my own condition, that the best I can hope is to linger on, a useless, uneasy life, which would not be worth preserving if one knew how to part with it without pain or reproach.<sup>159</sup></p></blockquote><p>Shrewsbury returned to Eyford once again on 30 November. Vernon was critical of his decision to remain in London as long as he had.<sup>160</sup> Shrewsbury took with him a singularly unsatisfactory agreement with the king whereby he was continued in office, but expected to do no work.<sup>161</sup> The situation was rendered even less practicable by the resignation of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> the following month, leaving the burden of the office of secretary on Vernon’s shoulders.<sup>162</sup> On 30 Dec. 1697 Shrewsbury registered his proxy with Somers, recently elevated to the House as a baron, which was vacated by the end of the session.</p><p>Shrewsbury was well enough to indulge in some hunting parties that winter but he refused an offer the governorship to William, duke of Gloucester, on the grounds of ill health. He also (after much predictable hesitancy) turned down the offer of the lord chamberlaincy following the resignation of Sunderland. Rumours that he would take up the post persisted into March 1698.<sup>163</sup> Shrewsbury seems to have been concerned that to accept it might invite comment that he had been responsible for Sunderland’s resignation.<sup>164</sup> To Portland he explained his reasons as being on account of:</p><blockquote><p>a noise that is now more than ever [spread] that endeavours will very speedily be used by [my] enemies to hurt me and my reputation in Parliament and though I make little question that whenever any such thing is attempted my innocence will clear me, yet I must very freely confess, that if I have more uneasiness of that kind I shall so despair of ever seeing quiet for the future in a public station; that nothing will prevail with me to be exposed to such an eternal strife, and would choose rather a bench in a galley than any public employment under that circumstance.<sup>165</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his misgivings, and rumours that he and Sunderland were no longer on friendly terms, Shrewsbury did make an effort to mediate between Sunderland, the Whigs and the king in the early months of 1698. He also attempted in vain to dissuade Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, from launching his attack on Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Following yet another attack of bad health at Windsor in March he was forced to retire to Wharton’s house at Wooburn to convalesce.<sup>166</sup> In April he was at Newmarket, determined on retiring at the end of the 1697-8 session, but the king’s refusal to countenance Wharton as secretary and the Whigs’ refusal to work with Sunderland made it extremely difficult to find an acceptable alternative.<sup>167</sup> By then Shrewsbury was again noted as being ‘very weak’ and with ‘a mind to go to Portugal to try the warm climate in hopes that it may do him good.’ He resolved then to quit the court once more and ‘not to meddle in anything’.<sup>168</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury was nevertheless actively preparing for the Droitwich election in May 1698. Confident that Cocks would top the poll that summer, Shrewsbury recommended to Somers that they should set up a second candidate to oppose Thomas Foley*, the future Baron Foley.<sup>169</sup> The two also worked together on behalf of William Walsh<sup>‡</sup> at Worcestershire. Both Cocks and Walsh were successful, though no rival interest was found to challenge Foley.<sup>170</sup> It was presumably because of the time spent exploiting his interest in Worcestershire that Shrewsbury failed to pay as much attention to the election at Brackley, where he had been expected to assist Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>. Mordaunt failed to be returned though Shrewsbury hoped that Wharton was satisfied that he had done ‘the utmost was [decent] for one in the circumstances I was in’ on Mordaunt’s behalf.<sup>171</sup> Mordaunt was consequently one of the ‘great many honest men’ who, Vernon lamented, would be missing from the new Parliament. More bothersome to Shrewsbury was the behaviour of William Plowden, husband of his niece, Mary Talbot, who it was said had turned out at the Bishop’s Castle election in support of the ‘Jacobite faction’. Claiming to be under Shrewsbury’s protection, Plowden’s activities enraged Macclesfield and the ‘honest gentlemen’ of the county who threatened to complain to Parliament. A promise was extracted from Plowden to show more care in the future.<sup>172</sup></p><p>Over the summer efforts continued to find Shrewsbury a satisfactory position. At one point it was mooted that he would be sent on a mission to Spain.<sup>173</sup> Although the king hoped that such a posting would answer Shrewsbury’s desire to find respite from his illnesses in a warmer clime, he was reluctant to agree to the appointment of Shrewsbury’s associate, William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>, as one of the party, as he had never heard of him.<sup>174</sup> The duke also proved reluctant to accept. Eager to find a country estate closer to London than Eyton or Grafton in August he entered into negotiations with Rochester for Cornbury Park, which Rochester was attempting to persuade his brother, Clarendon, to sell to help clear his debts. Clarendon was unconvinced of the need to sell his patrimony, and the negotiations, which continued until February of the following year, came to nothing.<sup>175</sup> Shrewsbury resolved instead to build a new house. He eventually settled for land at Heythrop which was recommended to him for its ‘wholesome air’ and pleasant hunting.<sup>176</sup></p><p>In the midst of these efforts, Shrewsbury continued to lobby the king to allow him to retire. As ever, poor health was at the root of his desire to step down. He had complained since July of a pain in his knee to add to his other ailments and by November this had developed into ‘a running pain, which began in my knee, and has gone from my stomach to my head, and is now returned to my knee.’<sup>177</sup> In December 1698, more than a year after it was first tendered, Shrewsbury’s resignation was at last accepted by an exasperated William.<sup>178</sup> Although barely able to contain his unbridled delight and relief, Shrewsbury took pains to justify quitting his post pointing out ‘if a man cannot bear the air of London four days in a year, he must certainly make a very scurvy figure in a court, as well as in a ministry’.<sup>179</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury delivered up the seals in January, though the choice of his successor remained a subject of speculation.<sup>180</sup> While released from the burden of office, Shrewsbury remained a crucial figure in attempting to hold together the various warring ministers still in post. His continuing close friendship with Wharton was reflected in his standing godfather to Wharton’s son in January 1699, and in April he again took part in a gathering held at Newmarket.<sup>181</sup> Shrewsbury met Sunderland at Althorp in June and was successful in convincing him to return to court that winter.<sup>182</sup> In August he was one of the Whig grandees to attend a meeting at Boughton, though he did not join the subsequent gatherings at Althorp and Winchenden.<sup>183</sup> He may have been distracted by negotiations with his old friend, Carbery, for the hand of his daughter, Lady Anne Vaughan, ‘the greatest fortune of England’, who it was thought he was ‘suddenly to marry’.<sup>184</sup></p><p>Having struggled so long and so hard to be released from responsibility, Shrewsbury’s period of retirement turned out to be notably short. In May it was reported that he had again been offered the lord chamberlaincy or the lieutenancy of Ireland. In September, despite again suffering from lamentable health, he was once more invited to choose either the lord treasurership or the lord chamberlaincy.<sup>185</sup> Jersey (as Villiers had since become), who had succeeded Shrewsbury as secretary, insisted that he ‘must be troubled with the staff’. At the end of October, having overcome yet another debilitating condition similar to that of November 1698, Shrewsbury returned to town ‘upon earnest importunities’. Once there he agreed to take up the lord chamberlaincy, the least onerous of the positions on offer. He then promptly fell sick once again.<sup>186</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s poor health prevented him from being present in the House for the session of 1699-1700. In December he was again the subject of ‘a mighty storm raised against’ him, based on the publication of <em>Remarks upon the D— of S—’s Letter to the House of Lords</em> by the spy Matthew Smith. On 15 Dec. 1699, however, the Lords voted that Smith’s scandalous publication should be burnt by the common hangman.<sup>187</sup> Other matters touching the duke also emerged during the session including his involvement along with several Junto members in awarding a patent to Captain Kidd in 1697 as a privateer. By the deal, Shrewsbury and his partners stood to gain a handsome share of the booty.<sup>188</sup> For once, Shrewsbury seems not to have been the principal target of the investigation, though Bellomont (also named as one of Kidd’s backers) wondered from his post in Boston that Shrewsbury and Somers, ‘the two greatest and most valuable men we have in our nation’ should have been singled out by the Commons for censure. According to Vernon, ‘the keeping the business of Kidd on foot is to awe my lord chancellor’ (Somers), but Tory efforts to condemn the award of such prize money as dishonourable failed to pass the Commons.<sup>189</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury meanwhile remained thoroughly preoccupied by his health. He became increasingly convinced that the air of the south of France might assist his cure and from the end of 1699 he began to lobby for permission to travel abroad.<sup>190</sup> His intention to travel coincided with rumours about a likely alteration in the ministry. Opinion was divided, though, whether ‘my Lords Shrewsbury, Orford, Tankerville, Romney, Wharton and all those must out’, or whether Shrewsbury would be offered the lieutenancy of Ireland or place of groom of the stole. In May it was reported confidently that he would hold both offices.<sup>191</sup> Shortly after, he not only declined the proffered places on the grounds of ill health, but also tendered his resignation as lord chamberlain.<sup>192</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s retreat from central office did not stop him from overseeing local affairs in Worcestershire, nor from remaining a central figure among the Whig leadership.<sup>193</sup> In August 1700 he attended another meeting at Boughton of the Whigs, and was expected at a conclave at Althorp the following month, but by then Shrewsbury was intent on quitting the country. Having ‘held out a week in town without bleeding’ in September, he was said to be very ill again in October. His relapse can hardly have been helped by his behaviour while in London where it was noted ‘he dines in much company to fortify a weak stomach and drinks for the sake of his lungs.’ He waited on the king for the last time on 28 Oct. and the following day was granted a pass to go to Montpellier ‘for the recovery of his health’. He set out at last on 31 Oct., and remained abroad for the following five years.<sup>194</sup></p><h2><em>Abroad, 1700-1706</em></h2><p>The timing of Shrewsbury’s departure from England had serious consequences for his later relations with his former Junto associates. Few men had been able to try the patience of any political coterie quite as frequently as Shrewsbury had and yet remain well liked and central to their designs. By leaving England when the Junto was under acute political pressure, not least with the imminent attempts to impeach Orford and Somers, Shrewsbury squandered what remained of his political capital. His activities over the following years did nothing to repair the damage.<sup>195</sup> His departure also put an end to the extended negotiations that had been in train with Carbery for a match with Lady Anne Vaughan and which appear to have reached an advanced stage.<sup>196</sup></p><p>Having intended to remain in the south of France, the vagaries of international relations forced Shrewsbury to rethink his plans. From Geneva he planned trips to Naples and failing that to Pisa and Lucca. By August 1701 he was firmly ensconced in Italy, where he remained for the following three-and-a-half years. Entertained at the court of the grand duke of Florence in January 1702 ‘with all honours imaginable, such as were scarce ever shown to any before him’, Shrewsbury spent the majority of his foreign sojourn in Rome.<sup>197</sup> There, in spite of rumours that circulated occasionally of his vulnerability to re-conversion to catholicism, he was influential in converting his Catholic kinsman, George Brudenell*, 3rd earl of Cardigan, to protestantism under the nose of the Pope (Clement XI).</p><p>After the king’s death in March 1702 it was conjectured that Shrewsbury would return to England.<sup>198</sup> It was also reported that he had been offered the post of master of the horse to the new monarch at a salary of £1,000 a year. The additional revenue can have been of little consequence as Shrewsbury had recently benefited by his mother’s death, which restored approximately £2,000 a year to his pocket.<sup>199</sup> In June, in response to continuing pressure for him to return to England and to take up office, Shrewsbury wrote to Marlborough assuring him of his good wishes on his preferment but begging him to quiet the calls for his recall:</p><blockquote><p>You have long deserved the best employment in England and now I heartily congratulate with you that you have it… I renew my petition to you, that you represent to her majesty my declining the honour she designed me, as not proceeding from any want of zeal to her service, but from a certain incapacity both of body and mind ever to engage more in a court life.<sup>200</sup></p></blockquote><p>It was an assessment later echoed by Halifax (as Charles Montagu had since become), who teased Shrewsbury, ‘I always thought there was too much fine silver in your grace’s temperament. Had you been made of a coarse alloy, you had been better for public use.’<sup>201</sup></p><p>While he continued to reject calls for his return, Shrewsbury was gradually forced to confront the possibility that his health might be improving. In May 1703 he noted that his bleeding was now stopping without the need of an astringent and in September he wrote to Godolphin shrugging off his latest indisposition, which he dismissed as ‘so small as gives me little inconvenience.’ Still interested in matters at home, he hoped that ‘the unanimity and zeal of the Parliament in England will set all right.’<sup>202</sup> Reports of his plans to preturn to England circulated again in the spring of 1704. By the winter of that year he fancied himself to be so much better that he anticipated travelling to Venice for the end of carnival and thence returning to England.<sup>203</sup> He had responded enthusiastically to the news of Harley’s appointment as secretary of state in June, thanking Harley for his ‘kindness and protection to Mr Vernon’ and writing that ‘I am sensible the public has more reason to rejoice than you who will enter into an employment of great trouble, but the superiority of your genius will make that easy to you which others have found vexatious.’<sup>204</sup></p><p>Despite his previous plans to be in Venice by Easter, it was not until April 1705 that Shrewsbury at last set out from Rome. In his absence he was assessed as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession, though it was later noted that he missed a useful opportunity of making contact with the elector by failing to visit Hanover during his journey home.<sup>205</sup> While staying at Augsburg in September he caused consternation by marrying the woman who it was believed had been his mistress. The new duchess was a widowed Italian countess who claimed descent from Robert Dudley<sup>†</sup>, duke of Northumberland. Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, dubbed the affair ‘the wonder and amazement of mankind’.<sup>206</sup> One correspondent found the new duchess ‘not comely but has a great deal of wit.’ In time she came to be ridiculed by much of English society for her eccentric manners. Her religion was also an issue. Shrewsbury acknowledged that many would object to his choice but insisted that though without money she was well born and he was ‘thoroughly persuaded’ she would ‘be not only a good wife, but a good Protestant.’<sup>207</sup> Shrewsbury met Marlborough at Frankfurt in October but again rejected the offer of a place in the administration. They returned to England together at the end of December. Shortly after his return, Shrewsbury waited on the queen.<sup>208</sup></p><h2><em>Retirement in England, 1706-1710</em></h2><p>In spite of his continuing rejection of places, it was rumoured that he would not have come back without the promise of office. This it was believed would give ‘great umbrage to everybody especially the Whigs’, who still bridled at his desertion of Orford and Somers. Soon afterwards, it was said that he was to join Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as one of the secretaries of state.<sup>209</sup> On 8 Jan. 1706 he took his seat in the House of Lords following a ten-year absence, after which he was present on 36 days (38 per cent of the total). On 11 and 12 Jan. he dined with Marlborough and other Whig peers.<sup>210</sup> He was presumably eager to ensure the safe passage of his new wife’s naturalization bill, which was introduced on 14 January. It was reported as fit to pass without amendment 11 days later. On 13 Mar. Shrewsbury was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the militia bill. His return to the Lords proved short-lived, however and having quit the session that day, he was again absent from the House for the ensuing two years. By May he was back at Heythrop, where he planned to build a new house, inspired by his Italian sojourn and also by the example of Blenheim.<sup>211</sup></p><p>Anxious to avoid London’s unhealthy air, Shrewsbury remained in the country, though he was kept abreast of developments by Vernon. He was critical of the proposed religious settlement for Scotland, objecting to the establishment of a Presbyterian kirk without sufficient safeguards for the Episcopalian church. He was, nevertheless, a supporter of the Union and was disappointed by the lack of support for it in Scotland, whose people he considered were the greatest gainers by the treaty.<sup>212</sup> Such concerns did not prove strong enough to induce him to return to London, though. He remained away from the opening of the new session and on 3 Dec. 1706 registered his proxy with Marlborough. Marlborough assured him that he would ‘make such use of it, as may be entirely to your satisfaction’ and promised to seek his direction should any vote arise in which the two differed.<sup>213</sup> Shrewsbury declared that he considered the proxy to be:</p><blockquote><p>in so good hands I think it much more sure to vote for the public good than were I present to give it. And if anything could give me a tolerable opinion of my own judgment in those matters, it would be the reflection that [in the] many parliaments [in which] I have had the honour to sit with you, I can’t recollect we ever differed.<sup>214</sup></p></blockquote><p>For the following two years Shrewsbury’s attention was taken up with the construction of his new house. Disputes between the proprietors of the Droitwich salt works and local landholders over the former’s efforts to pass an act of Parliament enabling them to convey their brine by pipe to the Severn initially failed to rouse Shrewsbury out of his rural solitude. In January 1707, however, he eventually stirred himself on the subject at the request of his kinsman, Sir John Talbot, who asked that he would look into the opposition which Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, was ‘stirring up’ against them.<sup>215</sup> Shrewsbury in turn looked to Vernon for his assistance in steering the business through.<sup>216</sup> As far as Plymouth’s interest was concerned, Shrewsbury was convinced that it was so small that his objections would carry no great weight.<sup>217</sup></p><p>While anxious to point out the limitations of his interest, Shrewsbury undertook to give what support he could for Francis Godolphin*, styled Viscount Rialton (later 2nd earl of Godolphin) in the election at Woodstock in March 1707.<sup>218</sup> He remained aloof from court, though, letting it be known that summer that he was avoiding appearing at Windsor, ‘because I know the appearance of people at court who have formerly been in posts, does always create discourse as if one were aiming at something of the same nature. As I have no such designs I judged it best to give no jealousies to any in places or in expectation of them’. He did, however, meet Halifax and Wharton in June and over the summer he was back in London, though he failed to attend Parliament. By August he had returned to his country estate at Grafton having suffered ‘a very bad fit of the gout’ which affected ‘almost every part about me, and not spared my stomach nor my head’. The following month, having removed to Heythrop, he was ‘seized with such a weakness in my knees, that it is now 14 days that I can move no otherways than as I am carried’.<sup>219</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury appears to have undergone a change of heart about the Droitwich bill in the autumn of 1707, prompting a surprised missive from Sir John Talbot in November, questioning why the duke had become so ‘altered in your opinion’ when the rest of the proprietors had given their consent. Talbot still urged his presence in the House in January 1708 to assist with the passage of the bill, emphasizing that his interest in its success went beyond personal gain and that he hoped the duke would be ‘the defender and procurer of right to those who have so long suffered wrong’.<sup>220</sup> In February Shrewsbury determined on coming up to London ‘for two or three weeks’.<sup>221</sup> He duly returned to town the following month and on 12 Mar. he took his place in the House, after which he attended for 14 days of the remainder of the session (13 per cent of the whole) which had commenced the previous October. At the end of the month there was the by now predictable speculation about his likely return to office, though the early reports were quickly declared to have been mistaken.<sup>222</sup> On 31 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for the encouragement of trade with America and the following day one of the managers of the conference considering the wagoners bill.</p><p>Shrewsbury’s return to Parliament coincided with renewed courtship by Marlborough and Godolphin as well as by Robert Harley, who had made a point of retaining contact with Shrewsbury during his self-imposed exile. All now hoped for his support.<sup>223</sup> Following the dissolution, Shrewsbury returned to Worcestershire, where he convened a county meeting in May 1708, which resulted in the selection of a Whig and a Tory for the county seats.<sup>224</sup> Although Shrewsbury was still noted as a Whig in a list of party classifications that month, it was indicative of how far Shrewsbury had drifted from his former Junto associates that despite the Whig triumph at the polls it was to Harley that he turned after the election. He invited Harley to join him for discussions at his new seat at Heythrop on the formation of an alternative ministry.<sup>225</sup></p><p>Their scheme was still in its infancy when Shrewsbury took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 (of which he attended just under a third of all sitting days). Some features of it were already apparent, though. In January he was noted among the diners at an entertainment hosted by Buckingham (as Normanby had now become): the mix thought to be ‘a true emblem of the present state of affairs.’<sup>226</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 Shrewsbury voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the election for Scots representative peers. Two months later he divided with the Scots peers again, voting along with all the Scots peers and a handful of others on 18 Mar. in favour of an amendment to the Union improvement bill.<sup>227</sup> The amendment was rejected by 47 votes to 23. By then Shrewsbury had detached himself irrevocably from the Junto, though he was still compelled to seek the interest of his former colleagues, Sunderland and Marlborough, in protecting his scapegrace brother-in-law, Count Paleotti, who proved a continual burden to the duke and duchess.<sup>228</sup> By July his realignment with Harley and away from the Whigs was discussed openly in the correspondence of Marlborough and Godolphin.<sup>229</sup></p><p>The principal reason for Shrewsbury’s political repositioning was his conviction of the need for a rapid end to the war. In April 1709 it was speculated he might be one of three plenipotentiaries to be sent to The Hague to negotiate the terms of the peace, though in the event he declined to act.<sup>230</sup> Shrewsbury’s conversion to the peace party was a result of his experience of the effects of the conflict on the country’s landed classes, and which he had witnessed at first hand during his two-year purdah. This was made apparent during his correspondence with Harley in the autumn of 1709:</p><blockquote><p>I do not doubt but the generality of the nation long for a peace, and the majority of those who represent it, when discoursed singly in the country, agree in that opinion… it is evident so many circumstances from at home as well as from abroad make peace desirable, that if the nation could see how they might have a good one it is my opinion they would be very uneasy till they had it.</p></blockquote><p>He continued to seek Harley’s advice about the next meeting of Parliament and whether ‘there will be anything of moment, so that one need be there early in the sessions’. By November 1709 he appears once more to have been overtaken by uncertainty at his capacity to undertake any considerable role in the planned new administration. He insisted to his new partner, though, that he would ‘always be ready to concur with you in everything may be for the interest of the public, being convinced nobody can wish better to it nor judge better of it than yourself.’<sup>231</sup></p><p>In this state of uncertainty about his own role in a possible new ministry, Shrewsbury took his seat in the second session on 7 Dec. 1709, three weeks after its commencement. He was thereafter present on 38 days (approximately 41 per cent of the whole). In March he spoke on Sacheverell’s behalf, arguing as one who had ‘as great a share as any man in the late Revolution’ and one who would ‘ever go as far as any to vindicate the memory of our late glorious deliverer’. Having made plain his credentials as a ‘Revolution Man’ he stressed his unwillingness to find the doctor’s actions worthy of condemnation and joined with Nottingham and Leeds in arguing in favour of the Lords voting on Sacheverell’s guilt article by article.<sup>232</sup> He was then one of just two Whig peers (the other being Scarbrough) to find the cleric not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Prior to the vote he entered a series of dissents and protests, first on 16 Mar. at the resolution to put the question that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment and second, later the same day, following the resolution to concur with the Commons, arguing that Sacheverell had made no reflections on the memory of King William, or the revolution. On 18 Mar. he dissented from the decision to restrict peers to a single guilty or not guilty verdict and on 20 Mar. he both found Sacheverell not guilty and then entered his dissent against the guilty verdict.</p><h2><em>Return to office, 1710-14</em></h2><p>A month after Sacheverell’s conviction, Shrewsbury was recalled to the administration, replacing Henry Grey*, marquess (shortly afterwards promoted duke) of Kent, as lord chamberlain. He seems to have been deeply reluctant to accept the place without the support of other members of his new alliance and to have determined at first not to accept. Having changed his mind once more, Shrewsbury proved uncharacteristically cruel in justifying his acceptance of the post. When he was reminded of a former undertaking he had made never to turn anyone out of their place, Shrewsbury retorted that, ‘he did not think he had broken that resolution, since the Bug [Kent], was nobody.’<sup>233</sup> Marlborough and Godolphin viewed the appointment with alarm as the first indication of the queen’s intention of a fundamental restructuring of the ministry. Godolphin, in particular, resented Shrewsbury’s return to office, not least because he had not been consulted about it. The Junto too were said to have been kept in the dark about the move.<sup>234</sup> Godolphin protested to the queen, objecting to the employment of someone who was engaged with ‘caballing with Mr Harley’:</p><blockquote><p>what consequence can this possibly have, but to make every man that is now in your cabinet council, except the duke of Somerset and Queensberry run from it, as they would from the plague.<sup>235</sup></p></blockquote><p>The duchess of Marlborough’s agent and confidant, Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, was even less restrained. For him, Shrewsbury was nothing more than ‘a papist in masquerade that went to Italy to marry a common strumpet’ who was now working in alliance with ‘the most errant tricky knave in all Britain’.<sup>236</sup> Marlborough was more measured, though no less critical. He professed to admire Shrewsbury’s courage at entering ‘into a certain storm with, I think, the greatest knaves of the nation.’<sup>237</sup> Shrewsbury struggled to allay his former associates’ suspicions, trying to assure Marlborough, especially, of his continued friendship. Sunderland thought this stemmed less from his good will than from ‘his fearful temper.’ The queen also attempted to assure her ministers that Shrewsbury had been brought in as a Whig and that no further changes were intended.<sup>238</sup> But by June 1710 it was plain that the duumvirs had been quite right and that Shrewsbury’s was just the first of a string of new appointments that would result in the formation of a new administration headed by Harley and Shrewsbury. That month it took a further step forward when Sunderland was put out as secretary of state.</p><p>Shrewsbury appears genuinely to have attempted to forestall Sunderland’s removal, arguing that he was happier working with him than with a number of the other office-holders.<sup>239</sup> If this was so, he was over-ruled, which hinted at the limits of his influence over his partner, Harley. Despite the duchess of Marlborough’s belief that Shrewsbury was the driving force behind the alterations, other developments suggested that in the new ministry Shrewsbury’s role would be subservient to Harley’s.<sup>240</sup> The earliest model for the administration appears to have involved Shrewsbury acting as figurehead while Harley remained behind the curtain. Shrewsbury was disinclined to take on a more onerous role than the chamberlaincy and later that summer refused to replace Godolphin as lord treasurer: ‘I have ten reasons, every one strong enough to hinder my doing it, but that of engaging in an employment I do not in the least understand and have not a head turned for ought to convince everybody else as well as myself.’<sup>241</sup> Another reason was the wish of both Shrewsbury and Harley to keep in post as many moderate Whigs as possible. In spite of his poor standing with the Junto, Shrewsbury’s presence at the very heart of the new ministry was intended to be an indicator that this was not to be a uniformly Tory administration, as Daniel Defoe was at pains to point out.<sup>242</sup> The dismissal of Godolphin in August and the beginnings that month of secret negotiations with the French to bring about the end of the war managed by Harley and Shrewsbury through Jersey and François Gaultier, though, made it increasingly clear that all but the most moderate of Whigs were likely to lose their places in the ensuing governmental restructuring.<sup>243</sup> William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, was convinced that it was only on account of Harley’s and Shrewsbury’s fears of ‘the old Tories overrunning them’ that he retained his post for the time being. Shrewsbury made a point of opening a correspondence with the court of Hanover, assuring the elector of his ‘zeal, and of my attachment to your service’, but the new ministry’s efforts to retain a broad base were dealt a further blow in September when, in spite of Shrewsbury’s vigorous efforts to avert it, Marlborough resigned his place.<sup>244</sup></p><p>As lord chamberlain Shrewsbury’s attention in advance of the meeting at Parliament was taken up with practicalities. On 30 Sept. he communicated to John Montagu*, 2nd duke of Montagu, master of the great wardrobe, the requirements for refitting the House of Lords in time for the new session.<sup>245</sup> In October Shrewsbury was noted by Harley, unsurprisingly enough, as a likely supporter. Already the situation inherited by the new Harley-Shrewsbury administration was far from encouraging and that month Shrewsbury voiced his fears to his colleague on the condition of Parliament, warning him of the dissatisfaction of several peers and of the need to provide for others in order to maintain their loyalty.<sup>246</sup> Shrewsbury was also drawn into the politics of the election of Scottish representative peers when at the beginning of November, Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S] (later 3rd duke of Argyll) wrote to Harley requesting that he would ask Shrewsbury to use his interest with John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], ‘to dissuade him from insisting upon the Earl Dumblaine [presumably Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Dunblane [S], later 2nd duke of Leeds], which would put us all in confusion.’<sup>247</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on 45 per cent of all sitting days. During the debate held in the committee of the whole House on 11 Jan. 1711 Shrewsbury responded to the request that Galway and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], might be heard to answer the criticisms of their actions in managing the war in Spain, ‘that if they were ready to be heard, he consented they should, provided they delivered nothing in writing, which might occasion delays.’ Following the rejection of the two lords’ petitions the same day, Shrewsbury suggested that they should be called in to be told the outcome, but the House then proceeded to consider a motion put forward by John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, that their behaviour had merely been intended to delay consideration of the state of the campaign.<sup>248</sup> He later set his weight against an attempt to have the former ministry criticized for their ‘inexcusable neglect’ of the campaign.<sup>249</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury received a proxy from Peterborough (as Monmouth had become) on 13 Jan. 1711, which was vacated by the close and on 26 Jan. that of Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, which was vacated by Winchilsea’s resumption of his seat the following day. The next month Shrewsbury was involved in a meeting between members of the administration and Nottingham in an effort to forestall Tory obstructionism. Nottingham made plain his dissatisfaction with the new ministry and pressed for the prosecution of prominent Whigs, such as Sunderland. When Nottingham found his audience unreceptive to his views, he flounced out.<sup>250</sup></p><p>In spite of the tense state of affairs that spring, Shrewsbury seems once again to have struggled to maintain his interest. On 6 Mar. he was in London at his offices at the Cockpit, telling Harley that though the queen intended to attend the House of Lords, Shrewsbury’s own attendance was not required. He did indeed fail to take his seat and remained away from the chamber for the following ten days. He was also absent from cabinet, entertaining the foreign ambassadors, at the time of Guiscard’s attack on Harley.<sup>251</sup> With Harley temporarily laid low, Shrewsbury became more prominent in the administration. It was at his insistence that the cabinet was finally informed of the state of the peace negotiations in April 1711. On 24 Apr. he apologized for being unable to receive Harley as he felt obliged to be at the House for the reading of the resumption bill, conceiving that it would be ‘thought strange if I should be absent.’<sup>252</sup> The same day he received the proxy of Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], which was vacated by the close. The following month there was some speculation that Shrewsbury would be appointed master of the horse and lord president (the latter post vacant by Rochester’s recent death) though for the time being he maintained his place as lord chamberlain.<sup>253</sup> Although Shrewsbury promised to use his interest to secure a British peerage for his kinsman, Gervase Pierrepont*, in May, it was not until October 1714 that Pierrepoint was granted a barony by the new king.<sup>254</sup> Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford), enjoyed better success after his brother, Peter Wentworth, called on Shrewsbury, whom he explained was ‘more come-at-able than Mr Harley’, to seek his assistance in procuring Raby the earldom of Strafford. Shrewsbury told him there was no need of his help to put the queen in mind of it, and they might ‘depend upon it as a thing done’.<sup>255</sup> In June 1711, Shrewsbury’s name was included in a list of ‘Tory patriots’ of the previous session. While the assessment essentially recorded those who had shown support for Sacheverell, his credentials as a Whig were evidently no longer secure.</p><p>In June 1711, Shrewsbury fell ‘ill of a violent fever’, and over the summer began to voice his discontent over certain aspects of the peace preliminaries.<sup>256</sup> Matters were complicated by the death of Jersey in August. Although he gave muted support to the appointment of John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol, as lord privy seal that summer (a post some thought Shrewsbury might have had himself), Shrewsbury complained that as the bishop had lived abroad for much of his life, ‘bringing him into such a post adds no interest in either House towards carrying on her majesty’s business in Parliament.’<sup>257</sup> Later that month (September 1711) Shrewsbury refused to put his signature to the preliminaries. Thereafter he was gradually excluded from any significant role in the negotiations.<sup>258</sup></p><p>In November, recognizing the likely difficulties the ministry would experience in persuading Parliament (and the Lords in particular) of the benefits of the peace, Shrewsbury urged Oxford (as Harley had become) to make careful preparations for the coming session. He warned his colleague starkly of the need to ensure that their supporters turned out, apprehending ‘our House to be the place our enemies have most hopes to prevail in, so I recommend to you to take the requisite care that our friends come to town in time’. It was probably also at this time that he expressed the hope that ‘the North Britain lords will come in time and good humour’ though he was aware that ‘some of their own countrymen seem to doubt of both.’ Shrewsbury took personal responsibility for several government supporters in the Lords. He hoped to prevail with his kinsman, Cardigan, to come up sooner than he originally intended, while Oxford also delegated to Shrewsbury the responsibility for rallying the midlands peers.<sup>259</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury took his seat in the new session on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present on 49 per cent of all sitting days. Consistent with his advice to Oxford that they should make overtures to the Scots peers, on 19 Dec. Shrewsbury was forecast as being in favour of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon. The following day he voted against barring Scots lords holding post-Union British peerages from sitting in the House. Despite this, his disquiet at the nature of the peace and other tensions within the ministry meant that relations between him and Oxford had soured considerably by this point. As a result Oxford began to look for ways of sidelining him. Over the winter of 1711-12 it was rumoured that Shrewsbury might be sent to Ireland as lord lieutenant: a post in which he had always expressed an interest.<sup>260</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury was absent from the House for approximately three weeks in January 1712. On 14 Jan. he registered his proxy with Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 25 January. On 7 Feb. 1712 Shrewsbury received the proxy of his kinsman, Cardigan, which was vacated on 12 May. Absent for a further fortnight in February, on 18 Feb. Shrewsbury again registered his proxy with Harcourt, which was vacated by his return to the House on 29 February. Rumours of his impending appointment to the Irish lieutenancy continued. Oxford seems to have renewed the offer of the post in March, though John Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, thought it nothing more than ‘coffee house news’.<sup>261</sup> By then Shrewsbury was not the only prominent member of the Lords to be showing increasingly dissatisfaction with the progress of affairs. In March it was suggested that both he and Buckingham were feigning sickness out of pique that their wives had not been appointed ladies of the queen’s bedchamber. The same month reports were circulating of Shrewsbury’s ‘great dissatisfaction at the present management of affairs’.<sup>262</sup></p><p>By April 1712 Shrewsbury had decided against accepting a posting to Ireland.<sup>263</sup> He concentrated instead on the management of Parliament. On 27 May he received the proxy of one of Oxford’s ‘dozen’ new peers, Thomas Windsor*, Viscount Windsor [I], sitting as Baron Mountjoy. The proxy was vacated the following day in time for both men to vote with the ministry against the opposition motion to overturn the orders preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from waging an offensive campaign in France.<sup>264</sup> The next month he offered advice to Oxford on the best way to manage the Scottish peers:</p><blockquote><p>If your lordship thinks there will be any difficulty in electing a peer in Scotland in her Majesty’s interest to fill Lord Marshal’s [William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal] place you will think to get as many proxies as can be from the Scots peers in England, and remember earls of Orkney, Dunmore, Dundonald, and perhaps others, are abroad and should be writ to [referring to George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney, John Murray*, 2nd earl of Dunmore, and John Cochrane, 4th earl of Dundonald].<sup>265</sup></p></blockquote><p>Absent from the session after 7 June 1712, on 13 June Shrewsbury registered his proxy with Cardigan but he continued to take a close interest in the management of affairs in the House. His careful attention to management was revealed in a brief letter he wrote to Gilbert Coventry*, 4th earl of Coventry, in July 1712, complimenting him for ‘the zeal your lordship has shown in the country for her majesty’s interest’.<sup>266</sup> In spite of this, difficulties with Oxford remained, and their growing rift was reflected in Shrewsbury’s increasing association with Bolingbroke (the former Henry St John) and Harcourt after autumn 1712.<sup>267</sup> Oxford adroitly interrupted this new alliance with Shrewsbury’s appointment to the Paris embassy. A despatch to the court at Hanover appeared to confirm that the mission was little more than a ploy ‘to keep him at a distance from business, since everything is transacted by the means of Mr Prior.’<sup>268</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury delayed his departure until January 1713. He soon found himself frustrated at his removal from affairs. By February he was complaining of the lack of contact, venting his spleen to Bolingbroke: ‘I can no longer dissemble my impatience, but confess to you, I make a figure not very creditable to the ministry or myself, to remain in such a conjuncture thus long without knowing any thing from home, but what comes printed in the <em>Post-Boy</em>.’ He was also troubled with the attentions of Jacobites in Paris. One French notable secretly in contact with the Pretender seems to have done what he could to flatter the duke and duchess, while James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick, made a more direct approach and enquired whether he might call on Shrewsbury in his apartments in person. Shrewsbury avoided communicating with Berwick directly and instead employed the marquis de Torcy as an intermediary to explain that while he would have ‘no difficulty to pay the duke of Berwick all respect due to him in a third place’, he hoped that ‘he would not give himself the trouble of visiting me, because I could not return it, and should be very sorry to be forced to do an uncivil thing to a person of his quality.’<sup>269</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s embassy meant that he was missing from the House for the final session of the Parliament. In February 1713, he fretted at the uncertainties caused by the delay in arriving at a final peace:</p><blockquote><p>I confess myself at a loss to guess what her majesty will say at the opening of this session, when we have neither peace nor war; when though it were most desirable to sign together with all the allies, yet it is certain that it is impossible to be done of some months, if we stay for the emperor and the empire; and if I do not mistake, the French see well enough our circumstances to be convinced, the longer we remain in these uncertainties, the less able we shall be to stand upon terms either for ourselves or our allies.<sup>270</sup></p></blockquote><p>He also concerned himself closely with the interest of the Catalans. His call, though, for them to be restored to their ‘privileges’ was rejected by the French who insisted this was a question for the Spanish to settle.<sup>271</sup> By March most of the difficulties had been overcome, though Shrewsbury was embarrassed by his own administration’s stance with regard to the articles concerning America. He admitted to Bolingbroke that he had ‘never been able to argue this point well, though I have gained it, because either I do not understand it, or if I do, I incline to think we are in the wrong.’<sup>272</sup> A month into the parliamentary session, which he hoped would be ‘good and short’, Shrewsbury considered his role in Paris fulfilled and began making his preparations to return home, ‘where I most heartily long to be.’ His eagerness to return was no doubt fuelled by Bolingbroke’s reports of the chaotic state of the administration by that point, a state of affairs Bolingbroke hoped Shrewsbury would be able to correct. At the beginning of August, however, he was still in Paris and it was not until later that month that he was finally able to quit his post.<sup>273</sup> In his absence he was forecast as being in favour of confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>In the summer of 1713, almost as soon as he had returned to England, Shrewsbury set about making preparations for his departure to Ireland, having been appointed lieutenant earlier in the summer. There seems little doubt that this was a strategic move on the part of Oxford to interrupt the developing alliance between Shrewsbury and Bolingbroke. Shrewsbury arrived in Dublin at the end of October. After long agitating for the post, Shrewsbury proved temperamentally unsuited to dealing with Ireland. Before leaving he had supposedly declared naively that there was ‘no difference in Ireland but protestant and papist’. Within a few days of his arrival he admitted to Oxford that he found ‘in this place a disposition more obstinate than I expected’. He was also challenged early on by Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, another contender for the lieutenancy who was more established in Irish society.<sup>274</sup> By December, thoroughly disgruntled, Shrewsbury had fallen back on his habitual complaint of poor health. Aside from ‘perpetual colds, shortness of breath and defluxions on my breast’, he was exasperated at the Irish politicians with whom he was compelled to deal:</p><blockquote><p>the truth is my mind is not easy, and things have been driven to such an extremity of heat and disorder that the methods of getting out of them surpass my comprehension. A session of Parliament is begun, both parties promising they will show their zeal in despatching the public business, their duty to her majesty, and their good will to me; but their ill will to one another is so reigning a passion, that I cannot but apprehend some cross thing will be thrown in the way before we come to an end.<sup>275</sup></p></blockquote><p>By 22 Dec., things had not improved:</p><blockquote><p>The state of our affairs here is so dismal that, having given some account of it in my letters to my Lord Bolingbroke, I have neither inclination nor health to repeat the same to your lordship. I shall only say that the heats on both sides are such that little is to be expected from this session, nor at present from this Parliament; and what is worse, if a new one were chosen I am confident the humour of the House of Commons would not mend.<sup>276</sup></p></blockquote><p>The account provided by Shrewsbury’s secretary, Charles Delafaye, confirmed his master’s interpretation of the tempestuous state of affairs in Ireland. Despite Shrewsbury’s efforts to ‘prevent warmth’, Delafaye thought him hobbled by his naturally conciliatory temperament and his lack of ‘power to offer rewards to take them off.’ Unsurprisingly, the duchess of Marlborough interpreted Shrewsbury’s actions in Ireland differently. She reckoned that he was glad to remain out of the way, intent on holding back until it was clear which faction would prevail in England.<sup>277</sup> By April the changing balance of power within the ministry coupled with Shrewsbury’s evident dissatisfaction at his Irish posting encouraged reports that he would soon return home. The news was warmly greeted by Bolingbroke, who was by then eager to supplant Oxford, and who told the duke how ‘the court and Parliament have been hitherto the scenes of greater confusion than I was ever witness of.’<sup>278</sup></p><p>Delayed by poor weather, Shrewsbury finally returned to England in June 1714.<sup>279</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 14 June, after which he was present on 12 days (16 per cent of the whole). That day, alongside five of the bishops, he spoke against extending the schism bill to Ireland but his side was defeated by six votes. He failed to attend the following day (15 June) when the bill passed by five votes.<sup>280</sup> Towards the end of June he was credited with managing a request from the Lords seeking the disarmament of Catholics, non-jurors and other dissenters.<sup>281</sup></p><p>By the time of his return from Ireland Shrewsbury was thought to have aligned himself with Bolingbroke against Oxford.<sup>282</sup> On 16 July he held a dinner for the cabinet at which Oxford was notable by his absence. Displaying characteristic irresolution, Shrewsbury soon seems to have changed his mind again and even to have considered a fundamental alteration of the administration. This appears to be reflected in his embarking on negotiations with his erstwhile companion, Wharton, that month and by the close of July he appears not only to have decided against co-operating with Bolingbroke but to do all in his power to thwart Bolingbroke’s ambitions.<sup>283</sup> On 29 July it was reported that Shrewsbury, Buckingham and Poulett had agreed to resign should Oxford be put out and that Shrewsbury had made attempts to ‘heave’ Bolingbroke out of the queen’s favour, but that Bolingbroke ‘had been too hard for him’.<sup>284</sup> Although none of the three peers fulfilled their apparent promise to follow Oxford, on 30 July all those ranked against Bolingbroke experienced some mild pleasure when it was Shrewsbury, at the council’s prompting (guided, it would seem, by Harcourt), who was handed the staff as lord treasurer by the dying Queen Anne, ‘whereby the schemes of the new intended ministry in all appearance are entirely confounded’. Bolingbroke’s followers struggled to recover the initiative by insisting that it had been his idea that Shrewsbury should be chosen, though it was clear that he resented having been passed by.<sup>285</sup> On being handed the staff, Shrewsbury displayed his usual courtly tact by assuring the barely conscious queen that he ‘would keep it to resign to her again when she was better.’<sup>286</sup> Edward Harley*, styled Lord Harley (later 2nd earl of Oxford) considered Shrewsbury’s appointment ‘one of the happiest turns in the world.’<sup>287</sup></p><h2><em>Final years, 1714-18</em></h2><p>The death of Anne almost immediately after his acceptance of the white staff ensured that Shrewsbury’s tenure of office would be brief. This was in no way distasteful to him. Within weeks of the appointment he was struggling to keep on top of the workload amid the familiar complaints of ill health. Nevertheless, the decision to hand the staff to him rather than to Bolingbroke helped to settle a jittery City, which had seen the value of shares fall on reports of Bolingbroke’s expected succession to the place.<sup>288</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury failed to attend the House until 4 August. He was then present for just four further days of the brief 15-day session. On 6 Aug. he received the proxies of Cardigan and Plymouth, both of which were vacated by the close of the session. The queen’s death altered the balance of power in the administration as a number of Whig peers reacquired influence by virtue of their inclusion in the list of lords justices. Thus, although Shrewsbury was said to be in favour of recalling Strafford in August, he was overruled by the rest. The following month it was reported that ‘they [the Whigs] are for driving on so fast that they are angry with the duke of Shrewsbury for being of opinion that the changes should not have been so fast.’ It was telling that he did not possess sufficient interest with the king to persuade him to meet Oxford in private.<sup>289</sup></p><p>By September Shrewsbury, Harcourt and Ormond were all said to be about to be put out of office. Although Shrewsbury hung onto his English offices for the while he resigned the Irish lieutenancy and was replaced by Sunderland. Bothmer thought he was feigning sickness.<sup>290</sup> Rumours that he would be compensated with the offices of groom of the stole and keeper of the privy purse were not fulfilled.<sup>291</sup> On 11 Oct. 1714 he at last relinquished the treasurership. A fortnight later speculation that he was to retire to the country signalled an expectation of his removal from all his remaining offices.<sup>292</sup> When he at last retreated to Heythrop the following month, he was said to be ‘dissatisfied’ and it was believed that he would ‘scarce keep his staff long’. For all this, in January 1715 he was noted among those ‘Tories’ still in office.</p><p>In the general election of March 1715 Shrewsbury backed both Whig and Tory candidates. According to some reports he only retained his office thanks to the influence of Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle.<sup>293</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the first Parliament of the new reign on 17 Mar. 1715, after which he was present on 98 sitting days. He immediately voiced his dissatisfaction with the address of thanks on the king’s speech, objecting to the clause aspiring to ‘recover the reputation of this kingdom in foreign parts’, which he and several other members of the previous administration regarded as a slight on the late queen’s memory:</p><blockquote><p>the House of Peers ought, on all occasions, to be most tender of the honour and dignity of the crown, from which they derive their own honour and lustre; that therefore, when the like clause was inserted in an address of the House of Commons to the late queen, upon the death of King William, he had expressed, to several members of that House, his dislike of it, because it reflected on the memory of that prince; and for the same reason he was against the said clause.<sup>294</sup></p></blockquote><p>In spite of his efforts and those of his allies, the address was carried by 66 to 33.<sup>295</sup> On 4 May he received Windsor’s proxy, which was vacated on 24 May. The same month he offered his interest to Richard Levinge<sup>‡</sup> for the Irish chief barony, though Cowper and Sunderland opposed the nomination. Sunderland declared that Levinge’s appointment would be ‘as great a blow to the king’s interest in Ireland as could happen.’<sup>296</sup> Meanwhile pressure on Shrewsbury and other members of the former administration continued to grow. In mid-June it was thought that he would be impeached, and later that month, when the impeachment proceedings against Strafford were initiated, it was put about that Shrewsbury had only escaped similar treatment because of his duchess. She, it was said, had secured an undertaking from the king that he would not ‘hurt her duke’. Another reason may have been his well-attested opposition to aspects of the treaty of Utrecht, notably his disquiet at the prospect of Britain’s allies being abandoned. If nothing else, Shrewsbury’s escape showed that he retained useful allies at court.<sup>297</sup> In July, Shrewsbury spoke up on Oxford’s behalf in advance of the vote on whether he should be committed to custody, pointing out that the earl was at the time afflicted with the gravel and should, therefore, be committed to black rod’s custody under house arrest rather than imprisoned in the Tower.<sup>298</sup> When the House voted to intern Oxford Shrewsbury registered his dissent. Earlier the same day (9 July) he had registered two additional dissents at the rejection of the motion to refer to the judges the question whether the charges against Oxford amounted to treason and the subsequent decision not to delay consideration of the articles of impeachment to the following week.</p><p>In July 1715 Shrewsbury was at last relieved of the lord chamberlaincy.<sup>299</sup> He had been only too willing to lay down his other offices but he was said to have been less content to part with his remaining place. In return he was promised immunity from prosecution. A return of poor health meant that he was largely inactive in the remaining months of his life, though on 4 Aug. he received Poulett’s proxy, which was vacated on 29 Aug. and on 15 Aug. he was again entrusted with that of his kinsman, Cardigan. Cardigan registered the proxy again on 8 Dec., which was vacated on 16 Apr. 1716. Shrewsbury held Cardigan’s proxy again from 20-26 Apr. 1716.</p><p>Given his prominent role in achieving the passage of the Triennial Act it is unsurprising that Shrewsbury spoke ‘vehemently’ against the introduction of the Septennial Act, though by doing so he ranged himself alongside the Tories and against his natural Whig allies.<sup>300</sup> In response to the suggestion that it would reduce corruption he commented ‘as to the saving of money, he could not see that, for he believed everybody knew that an annuity of seven years costs dearer than an annuity of three.’ His argument echoed the point put forward in the Commons by Edward Jefferies<sup>‡</sup>, one of the Droitwich members, that ‘an annuity for seven years deserves a better consideration than for three; and those that will give money to get into Parliament, will give more for seven than for three years.’ On 14 Apr. he signed the protest against committing the bill and four days later (18 Apr.) entered his dissent against passing the measure.<sup>301</sup> On 20 Apr. he again received Poulett’s proxy, which was vacated by the close.</p><p>Shrewsbury may already have indulged in at least informal discussions with Jacobite agents, though a report of August 1715 from the Pretender to Bolingbroke that Shrewsbury was ‘frankly engaged’ on their side was wishful thinking, and during the rebellion that year Shrewsbury was firmly supportive of the government.<sup>302</sup> Now pique seems to have led Shrewsbury to renew his contacts with the exiled court and in July 1716 he appears to have pondered the feasibility of another attempt on the throne. He soon backtracked and in August the Pretender replied to ‘several messages’ from Shrewsbury, which in contrast to his query of the previous month appear to have counselled caution and patience. To these the Pretender agreed to submit, ‘being sensible of the doctor’s [Shrewsbury’s] ability and experience.’<sup>303</sup> As with his earlier contact, Shrewsbury’s involvement with Jacobite plotting seems to have been vague and largely motivated by bruised pride rather than any true commitment to the cause. By September 1716 he was exhibiting every symptom of wishing to disentangle himself from the exiled court. He delegated his aunt, Lady Westmorland, to excuse his dilatory response to letters from the Pretender on his behalf, although he does appear to have sent gifts of money, again via Lady Westmorland, at the time of the Swedish plot of 1717, and remained in contact with other Jacobite agents.<sup>304</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury attended the prorogation day of 20 Nov. 1716. He then took his seat in the House for the second session of the 1715 Parliament on 20 Feb. 1717, after which he was present on 35 sitting days. In May he attempted to employ his interest on behalf of Levinge again.<sup>305</sup> On 24 June he voted in favour of insisting that the Commons should begin with the treason articles against Oxford and three days later (27 June) he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning proceedings at Oxford’s trial. On 1 July he was named a manager of the two conferences held that day to consider the Lords’ decision to deny to the Commons a free conference about methods of proceeding with the trial.</p><p>Shrewsbury took his seat in the session of 1717-18 on 25 Nov. 1717. Although he was again entrusted with Cardigan’s proxy on 6 Dec. he attended on just six days before sitting for the final time on 19 December. Later that month he took advantage of the fissure between king and Prince of Wales to make his court to the latter but by January 1718 his health had collapsed once more and he was described as being ‘in the utmost danger’.<sup>306</sup> On 11 Jan. he registered his proxy with Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle (earl of Orrery [I]) and on 30 Jan. he was thought to be past all hope of recovery.<sup>307</sup> He died on 1 Feb. at Warwick House near Charing Cross and was buried three weeks later at Albrighton. After a life marked by ill health, the eventual cause of Shrewsbury’s death was reckoned to have been ‘a polypus or excrescence of flesh’ found close to his heart. His other organs were thought perfectly sound.<sup>308</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s life was the subject of two publications in 1718, one by Defoe and another that sought to rescue him from the ‘Memoir-Mongers’ while promising neither to ‘flatter his best actions, nor conceal his worst.’<sup>309</sup> At the height of Shrewsbury’s complaints about his state of ill health in the late 1690s he lamented to Wharton that ‘it may not be unreasonable to ask one’s self the question, what one does in a world where there is so much pain and so little pleasure.’<sup>310</sup> His career perhaps answered his query. Shrewsbury’s quotidian account of suffering and lack of faith in his abilities was offset by a fixed conviction that he ought to be at the heart of things. His central role in William III’s administrations pointed to his skills as a courtier. For all the difficulties of his lieutenancy in Ireland, Shrewsbury’s political abilities were hinted at by the response to his death by Timothy Godwin, bishop of Kilmore [I], who was certain he would be ‘universally lamented by the Protestants in this kingdom.’<sup>311</sup> Set against this was his almost pathological inability to maintain a position without becoming over-wrought. His disloyalty to his Junto comrades tarnished his efforts to re-launch his career under Anne and his half-hearted Jacobite engagement was typical of his nervous dissatisfaction with his situation. Nevertheless, it is significant that Harley thought him a suitable member of his new duumvirate, that many thought him the true instigator of the new scheme in the early months of 1710 and that Anne preferred to trust him as treasurer in her last moments. In spite of all his changes of heart, Shrewsbury remained a political heavyweight whom it was foolish to ignore.</p><p>In his will, Shrewsbury left £5,000 to his duchess as well as his London residence of Warwick House for her life. To his cousins, Talbot and Mary Tuchet, he bequeathed £2,000 each, and £1,000 apiece to his niece Anne Bodenham and his cousin, Edward Talbot, younger son of William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford. In all he bequeathed sums amounting to more than £13,000 as well as several annuities amounting to £180 a year out of his estate and the sum of £1,000 to be put to charitable use, though this he insisted was not for ‘the building or repairing of any church or in the endowing of any college or school, it being my opinion there are too many scholars in the nation already’. Shrewsbury named his cousin, Cardigan; Bishop Talbot; Sir John Stanley; and his servant John Arden as executors. In the absence of a direct heir, the dukedom reverted to the crown while the earldom passed to his Catholic cousin, Gilbert Talbot<sup>†</sup>, a Jesuit priest.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
TALBOT, Francis (c. 1623-68) |
<p><strong><surname>TALBOT</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (c. 1623–68)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1644-54 Ld. Talbot; <em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Feb. 1654 as 11th earl of SHREWSBURY, and 11th earl of Waterford [I] confirmed June 1661 |
|
First sat 19 May 1660; last sat 29 July 1667 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1623, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John Talbot<sup>†</sup>, 10th earl of Shrewsbury, and 1st w. Mary, da. of Sir Francis Fortescue. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1650, Anne (<em>d</em>. c.1658), da. of Sir John Conyers of Sockburn, co. Dur., 2s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>., 1da.; (2) 10 Jan. 1659, Anna Maria (<em>d</em>. 1702), da. of Robert Brudenell*, 2nd earl of Cardigan, 2s. <em>d</em>. 16 Mar. 1668; <em>will</em> 10 Mar., pr. 1 June 1668.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. high steward [I], 1654–<em>d</em>.; housekeeper, Hampton Court bef. 30 Apr. 1661–?<em>d.</em>; treas. and recvr. gen. [I], bef. 31 July 1661–?<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Col. of horse (roy.) 1651.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Best known for dying from injuries sustained in a duel fought over his wife’s numerous infidelities, Shrewsbury was the holder of one of the most ancient English peerages and head of one of the premier English Catholic families. With the earldom he also succeeded to the hereditary lord high stewardship of Ireland. By the time of his succession, he had already distinguished himself as a loyal supporter of the royalist cause. He probably served as a volunteer in the First Civil War and rallied to the new king in 1651, when he commanded a regiment of cavalry.<sup>5</sup> Following the defeat at Worcester, he fled abroad, but around the time of his succession to the earldom he returned to England, he petitioned Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> for pardon for all offences and sued to compound for his estate. For a while the government appears to have considered proceeding against Shrewsbury for treason but he was eventually permitted to compound for £2,000.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury’s peerage may have been prestigious but he inherited an estate in some disarray. His father had succeeded to the title following the extinction of the direct line and many of the ancient Talbot estates had since passed to other branches of the family. Even so, the inheritance comprised lands in several counties. The principal residence lay in Worcestershire but the estates extended into Shropshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire.<sup>7</sup> The Staffordshire lands alone were worth in excess of £1,000 p.a.<sup>8</sup> In 1664 Shrewsbury and his sister Lady Mary Talbot were granted fairs at Albrighton in Shropshire and in June 1665 he was granted 800 acres of reclaimed fenland in Lincolnshire.<sup>9</sup> However, he appears to have inherited debts that he was never able to clear and it was left to his son to see to the final settlement of some of the outstanding arrears.<sup>10</sup></p><p>In spite of his apparent reconciliation with Cromwell’s regime, Shrewsbury remained attached to the Stuart cause. His marriage to Anne Conyers had connected him to the Catholic family of Vaux of Harrowden and he was also closely related to the equally royalist Catholic earls of Powis. His second marriage connected him to another prominent Catholic peer, Thomas Brudenell*, Baron Brudenell (later earl of Cardigan). Shrewsbury was in communication with the exiled king in 1657.<sup>11</sup> Two years later he was involved in Booth’s rising, for which his estate was sequestered.<sup>12</sup> At the Restoration he was rewarded for his loyalty with a clutch of Irish offices and titles. He was granted confirmation of his Irish earldom of Waterford (a judgment of 1612 had concluded, apparently mistakenly, that both the peerage and its possessions had been forfeited by the 4th earl under Henry VIII) and the offices of treasurer and receiver general of Ireland to add to his hereditary dignity of lord high steward. Shrewsbury’s heir, Charles Talbot*, born in 1660, was distinguished by becoming the new king’s first godchild; the following year Shrewsbury carried the second sword at the coronation.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury does not appear to have wielded much direct political patronage but it is noticeable that his Protestant cousin John Talbot<sup>‡</sup> of Lacock was elected to the Convention as knight of the shire for Worcestershire, where the Talbots’ principal estates lay.<sup>14</sup> Whether or not Shrewsbury exerted any influence himself on his cousin’s behalf is uncertain but evidently the Talbot family as a whole was influential in the county. Shrewsbury’s participation in the House was similarly unspectacular. He took his seat on 19 May 1660, the fourth Catholic peer to claim his place in defiance of the 4 May proviso excepting known recusants from receiving summons. Present thereafter on 56 per cent of all sitting days prior to the adjournment, on 4 June he was added to the committee for petitions and on 19 June to that considering former acts and ordinances. He was named to an additional four committees during the session, among them that considering the bill of his fellow Catholic John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and that considering the bill concerning the free school at Newport in Shropshire, which may have had some local interest for him. He resumed his place on 12 Nov., after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just two committees.</p><p>Once again, there is little indication that Shrewsbury exerted himself in the elections for the new Parliament. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 8 May 1661 but his subsequent attendance was dramatically lower than hitherto, with him present on just 22 per cent of all sitting days and named to three committees. On 20 May he was absent at a call of the House but was excused, having sent up his proxy to Cardigan (as Brudenell had since become). He resumed his seat on 25 Nov. and on 7 May was entrusted with the proxy of his co-religionist Charles Smith*, Baron Carrington.</p><p>Shrewsbury was missing from the opening of the second session and was again excused at a call of the House on 23 Feb. 1663. He took his seat once more on 13 Mar., after which he was present on 43 days in the session (50 per cent of the whole) and named to four committees. It may have been significant that his kinsman Sir John Talbot (by then sitting for Knaresborough) was named to the Commons committee for the bill to prevent the growth of popery during the session, as Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> seems to have thought Talbot sympathetic to his cousin’s faith even though he did not share it himself.<sup>15</sup> Prior to taking his seat, Shrewsbury was again entrusted with Carrington’s proxy, which he appears to have used to bolster support for another Catholic, George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and his attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. In mid-July Shrewsbury was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, among those likely to support Bristol’s endeavours. Shrewsbury took his seat in the ensuing session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on 94 per cent of all sitting days and was named to two committees in addition to the sessional committees. On 30 Mar. he was entrusted with Carrington’s proxy once more.</p><p>Shrewsbury’s attendance of the subsequent winter session of 1664 declined markedly with him present on just five days (9 per cent of the whole), during which he was nominated to one committee. He then failed to attend the Parliament at Oxford in 1665. The following summer, he, his wife, his father-in-law (who had since succeeded to the earldom of Cardigan) and his brother-in-law, Francis Brudenell, Lord Brudenell, journeyed to York. There they were entertained by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, with whom Shrewsbury appears to have been liaising closely. It was probably during this visit that Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury began liaising even more closely, embarking on the affair that was to result in Shrewsbury’s early demise.<sup>16</sup> The driving force of Shrewsbury and Buckingham’s alliance was probably the development of the anti-Clarendonian bill for preventing the importation of Irish cattle. The bill, vigorously promoted by Buckingham in the coming session, may have driven a wedge between Shrewsbury and his father-in-law as it was a trade on which Cardigan was particularly reliant.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury was absent from the opening of the new session of September 1666. At a call of the House on 1 Oct. he was excused on grounds of ill health. He took his seat at last on 15 Oct. and the following day was nominated to the committee for Lady Holles’ naturalization bill. His attendance remained lacklustre though, and having sat on just 12 occasions he absented himself for the remainder of the year. On 20 Nov. he entrusted his proxy to Buckingham, with whom he was still presumably on reasonable terms. The proxy was noted as having been vacated on 26 Jan. 1667 though Shrewsbury’s presence in the House was not noted in the Journal until 28 January. He then attended just once more before quitting the House for the remainder of the session. He attended for the final time later that summer for the prorogation day of 29 July 1667.</p><p>The reason for Shrewsbury’s prolonged absences is uncertain but may have been owing to growing personal troubles, in particular his continuing efforts to control the excesses of his wife. There certainly appears to have been ample grounds for provocation. Lady Shrewsbury was said to have been the cause of one duel in August 1662 and Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> later referred to her as a ‘whore’.<sup>18</sup> By the autumn of 1667 relations between Shrewsbury and his countess had broken down completely. Rumours circulated that she had fled abroad to enter a convent ‘to vindicate her reputation to the world’. It was also put about both that her husband intended to intercept her flight and that she intended to kill one of her former lovers, Harry Killegrew, herself.<sup>19</sup> On 12 Oct. Shrewsbury covered his ongoing absence from Parliament by registering his proxy with John Granville*, earl of Bath.</p><p>Apparently urged on by Sir John Talbot, in January 1668 Shrewsbury finally challenged his erstwhile ally Buckingham to a duel, in which Talbot and another relative, Bernard Howard, served as his seconds. Shrewsbury was said to have threatened the duke that he would ‘pistol him wherever he met him’ should he decline to fight.<sup>20</sup> During the affray, Shrewsbury was run through and one of Buckingham’s seconds killed outright.<sup>21</sup> The duel almost provoked a second involving Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, Charles Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset and Middlesex), and ‘Lord Savile’ (presumably the newly ennobled George Savile*, Viscount Halifax, later marquess of Halifax), though this was averted by the king’s interposition.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Initial reports of Shrewsbury’s injuries were optimistic. Soon after the bout, directions were given for all the principals to be pardoned for their roles in the engagement, in spite of the protests of the lord keeper (Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>) and of the lord privy seal (John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor).<sup>23</sup> By March, though, Shrewsbury’s condition had deteriorated dramatically. A report of 16 Mar. described him as lying ‘dangerously sick of the ill effects of his late wounds’. He died the same day from complications arising from his injuries, though one set of surgeons diagnosed his complaint as being ‘a consumption’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>A few days before his death, Shrewsbury had a will drawn up but he proved too weak to sign it, necessitating both Sir John Talbot and a lawyer, Richard Langhorne (later executed for treason at the height of the Popish Plot), to provide affidavits testifying that the will was Shrewsbury’s. In it he attempted to make provision for his three remaining children, committing them to the guardianship of his father-in-law, Cardigan, his brother-in-law Mervin Tuchet*, later 14th Baron Audley and 4th earl of Castlehaven [I], William Talbot and Gilbert Crouch. He also implored Elizabeth, Viscountess Mountgarret (mother of his first wife) to oversee the education of his daughter (her grand-daughter), Mary, and appointed his cousin Henry Howard, Halifax and two more kinsmen as auditors to ensure that Cardigan and Tuchet’s accounts were accurate.<sup>25</sup> No mention was made of the countess. Lady Shrewsbury continued to be an embarrassment to her family and ten years later she was thrown out of Cardigan House for her clandestine marriage to George Rodney Brydges<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>26</sup> Shrewsbury was buried at Albrighton, his estate in quite as much disarray as when he inherited it. He left it to his heir, Charles, and executors to grapple with the problems he bequeathed them.<sup>27</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
TEMPLE, Richard (1675-1749) |
<p><strong><surname>TEMPLE</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1675–1749)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 Bar. COBHAM; <em>cr. </em>23 May 1718 Visct. COBHAM |
|
First sat 1 June 1715; last sat 3 May 1749 |
|
MP Buckingham, 17 Dec. 1697, 1698, 1701 (Jan.), 1701 (Nov.); Bucks. 8 Nov. 1704, 1705; Buckingham 1708, 1710. |
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Oct. 1675, 1st s. of Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. <em>educ</em>. Christ’s, Camb. 1694. <em>m</em><em>.</em> ?1715, Anne (<em>d</em><em>.</em>1760), da. of Edmund Halsey<sup>‡</sup>, <em>s.p</em>. suc. fa. as 4th bt. 10 May 1697. <em>d</em>. 13 or 14 Sept. 1749; will 8 June 1748, pr. 13 Oct. 1749.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Envoy extraordinary to Vienna Oct. 1714–May 1715; constable, Windsor Castle 1716–23; gov. of Jersey 1723–<em>d</em>.; PC 6 July 1716.</p><p>High steward, Buckingham 1697–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Bucks. 1728–38.</p><p>Col. of ft. 1702–10, 4 Hussars 1710–13, 1 R. Drags. 1715–21, 1 Drag. Gds. 1721–33, 1 tp. horse Grenadier Gds. 1742–?5, 5 Drag. Gds. 1744–5, 10 R. Hussars 1745–<em>d</em>.; brig.-gen. 1706, maj.-gen. 1709, lt.-gen. 1710, gen. 1735, field marshal 1742; comptroller clothing the army 1708, army accts. 1722.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1710-13, NPG 3198.</p> |
<p>The son and successor to a Tory baronet but himself a Whig and career soldier, Temple had lost his Buckingham seat in the Commons in 1713 and failed to regain it on petition on 3 Mar. 1714. Following the accession of George I he was created a peer as Baron Cobham, commemorating his descent through his maternal grandmother from William Brooke<sup>†</sup>, 10th Lord Cobham (<em>d</em><em>.</em>1597), though he was not that family’s heir. He did not have an opportunity to sit before the 1715 Parliament, so his career as a peer will be discussed fully in the next phase of this work.</p> |
M.C.K. |
|
THOMPSON, John (1648-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>THOMPSON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1648–1710)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>4 May 1696 Bar. HAVERSHAM |
|
First sat 20 Oct. 1696; last sat 16 May 1710 |
|
MP Gatton 1685-7, 1689-4 May 1696 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 31 Aug. 1648, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Maurice Thompson, merchant, of Worcester House, Mile End Green, and Bishopsgate Street, London and 2nd w. Dorothy, da. of John Vaux of Pemb. <em>educ</em>. Lee, Kent (Mr. Watkin); L. Inn 1664; Sidney Sussex, Camb. 1664, B.A. 1667; travelled abroad 1670. <em>m</em>. (1) 14 July 1668, Lady Frances (<em>d</em>. 3 Mar. 1705), da. of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, wid. of John Windham of Felbrigg, Norf., 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 8da. (1 <em>d.v.p.)</em>; (2) 10 May 1709, Martha Graham, wid. (<em>d</em>.1724), <em>s.p.</em> <em>suc</em>. fa. 1676; <em>cr</em>. Bt. 12 Dec. 1673. <em>d</em>. 1 Nov. 1710; <em>will</em> 21 Sept., pr. 11 Dec. 1710.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for public accounts 1695-6.</p><p>Sheriff, Bucks. 1669-70; dep. lt. Surr. Feb.-Oct. 1688.</p><p>Ld. of Admiralty 1699-1701.</p> |
|
<h2><em>Early Career</em></h2><p>Thompson’s family background, despite his pretensions to ancient gentility, was based on commerce. His father and his three paternal uncles Sir William<sup>‡</sup>, George<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Thompson<sup>‡</sup>, were all prominent and successful merchants during the Commonwealth. His father had widespread business interests that extended to Ireland, the West Indies and the American colonies. He was also a major stockholder in the East India and African Companies. At his death his personal estate was valued at over £17,000.<sup>4</sup> Haversham’s estranged nephew, Nicholas Corsellis<sup>‡</sup>, later suggested that the estate left by Haversham’s father, Maurice, consisted of £3,000 a year from lands in England, £1,000 a year from lands in Ireland, lands and plantations in the West Indies and Virginia worth £30,000, goods and merchandise overseas worth £10,000, mortgages, stock in East India and African Companies and a personal estate worth £100,000.<sup>5</sup></p><p>The two brief memoirs published shortly after Haversham’s death seem to have included biographical details merely as an introduction to the publication of his speeches. Both have to be treated with extreme caution owing to the inaccuracies they contain, particularly the more substantial, <em>Memoirs</em>, which contain memoranda written in the first person, and include a reference to ‘the loss of a second wife’, who clearly survived him.<sup>6</sup> Nevertheless, these biographical sketches correctly indicate that Haversham’s relationship with the Annesley family was central to his rise in society. The <em>Memoirs</em> plausibly suggest that Thompson ‘grew into the esteem’ of Anglesey through their common friendship with Haversham’s Buckinghamshire neighbour, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton. This would date the beginning of Thompson’s connection with Annesley to about 1664 when Maurice Thompson bought the Haversham estate in Buckinghamshire, although it may have begun much earlier.<sup>7</sup> The two families had a great deal in common: both were strongly nonconformist, both were Parliamentarian supporters, both were investing in Irish lands and both had similar trading interests. After John Thompson married Anglesey’s daughter in 1668, there are frequent mentions of him in Anglesey’s diary.<sup>8</sup> At the time of Maurice Thompson’s death in 1676, Anglesey owed him some £1,500, and it seems unlikely that this financial connection was a new one.</p><p>Thompson appears to have had a genuine admiration for his father-in-law: two of his children, Arthur and Althamia, were named in honour of the Annesleys and he went into print to defend the earl’s memory after the Revolution.<sup>9</sup> Nevertheless, it was a relationship that came to hold more than a modicum of self interest. In 1702, by then a peer, he was involved in litigation concerning the controverted will of the 1st earl of Anglesey’s grandson, James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey. As one of the executors of the 3rd earl’s will, he sought to uphold substantial but dubious bequests to the 3rd earl’s teenage brother, Arthur Annesley*, the future 5th earl of Anglesey, and his twelve-year-old cousin, also named Arthur Annesley, 4th Baron Altham [I]. The two Arthur Annesleys were rapidly married to Haversham’s daughters.</p><p>Thompson owed his baronetcy to the advocacy of his father-in-law, and Anglesey continued to press Charles II for further honours. In June 1681 Anglesey recorded that ‘the king granted now at last on much importunity to let Sir John Thomson have the Scotch viscountship’, but nothing came of this after Anglesey’s disgrace.<sup>10</sup> Although Thompson claimed to have been amongst the first to invite William of Orange to come to England, he remained deeply suspicious of the court. As a member of the Commons he spoke out trenchantly against government corruption and a standing army, until his hopes for a peerage brought about a sudden and dramatic conversion. In November 1694 George Stepney remarked that Thompson had ‘a mind to be a lord’.<sup>11</sup> His support in the 1695-6 session for supply and for the Association saw the king grant his wish.<sup>12</sup></p><h2><em>In the Lords under William III, 1696-1702</em></h2><p>Haversham took his seat on the first day of the 1696-7 session, 20 Oct., being introduced by Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford) and Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas. He was present on 86 days (75 per cent) of the session and was named to 28 committees. On 18 Dec. Haversham was one of those who managed the debate in favour of a second reading for the attainder bill against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup> According to one account, Haversham thought it as dangerous to let a guilty person escape as it was to convict an innocent. He answered the objection of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, to a line in the bill which seemed to imply that the judicature lay in the Commons, saying that this was a case for amending the bill not rejection. Further, rejecting the bill would be an encouragement to assassins who would know they could escape as long as they could avert a trial in the normal courts by preventing the appearance of the requisite number of witnesses.<sup>14</sup> On 22 Dec. the manuscript minutes record Haversham being given leave to be absent in the middle of the proceedings against Fenwick.<sup>15</sup> He was recorded as present on the following day when the bill was given its third reading, and voted in its favour.</p><p>Haversham’s friend, Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), was subsequently accused of tampering with informants in the Fenwick case. Haversham supported him in the debates on 12 and 15 Jan. 1697. He ‘allowed there was a good deal of indiscretion in his [Monmouth’s] conduct in this matter that deserved the censure of the House, but would have it proceed no further’. The House, nevertheless, voted to send Monmouth to the Tower. The vote was taken late at night and when Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin (later 1st Earl of Godolphin), listed those who had voted against Monmouth’s imprisonment, he stated that ‘Lord Haversham would have been of the same mind but was absent.’<sup>16</sup> On 26 Mar., in the committee on the state of the navy, Haversham delivered in abstracts of some of the papers presented to the House by Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> and which were referred to the committee.<sup>17</sup> On 10 Apr. Haversham was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices.</p><p>Haversham attended the prorogation on 21 Oct. 1697 and was present when the next session met on 3 December. During the session he was present on 112 days (85.5 per cent) and was named to 52 committees. On 10 Jan. 1698 he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill against corresponding with King James. On 18 Jan. James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> revealed that ‘there are but four taken notice of in the House of Lords, who would be troubling the waters’, namely Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford and Peterborough (the former Monmouth), adding ‘it is thought Lord Haversham hath left them’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>On 3 Feb. 1698 John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> informed Henri de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], that Haversham ‘had matters of great complaint against your Lordship, of which he had some thoughts to acquaint the House of Lords, but I think he is of no credit there.’ On 8 Feb. he added that the king had taken care ‘to prevent my Lord Haversham moving anything in it’. On 12 Feb. Methuen reassured Galway that in the opinion of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford ‘nothing of the heat about foreigners will be extendable to Ireland and that even my Lord Haversham will never mention your name to your prejudice.’<sup>19</sup> On 5 Mar. Haversham was named to a committee to prepare heads for a conference on the bill of pains and penalties against Sir Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, and was subsequently named a manager of the resultant conferences on 7 and 10 March. He voted in favour of the bill’s committal on 15 March. On 15 June, following a conference on the impeachment of John Goudet and others on a charge of smuggling French silks into England, he entered a dissent against the resolution that the House required the Commons’ managers to be placed at the bar. On 16 June Vernon commented that Haversham and Stamford had joined William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire in ‘having some consideration for the House of Commons’.<sup>20</sup> On 28 June he was one of the managers of the conference on the impeachments.</p><p>Haversham was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 6 Dec. 1698. He attended on 70 days (86 per cent) of the session and was named to 33 committees. When the disbanding bill was brought up to the Lords on 19 Jan. 1699 and the first reading deferred until the 24th, Vernon noted that Haversham had showed his ‘dislike of the bill’, saying that ‘he did not fear troops, so much as arbitrary judges’.<sup>21</sup> When the bill was given a second reading on 27 Jan., John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> noted that it had been committed for the following day with very little debate, and that only Haversham, ‘who began first’ and Stamford spoke against it.<sup>22</sup> On 29 Mar. Haversham was excused attendance on health grounds from the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. On 20 Apr. he was named as a manager of the conferences on bill restoring the cloth market at London’s Blackwell Hall and on 21 Apr. to manage a conference on the bill making Billingsgate a free market. He protested on 27 Apr. against the inclusion in a supply bill of a clause appointing commissioners for forfeited estates in Ireland. On 3 May he was one of the managers of the conference to discuss the Lords’ alterations to the bill for duty on paper. He attended the prorogation on 1 June.</p><p>In the ministerial revamp following Orford’s resignation from the admiralty at the end of May 1699, Haversham joined the board ‘with little entreaty’, although there then followed an unseemly row about his precedency in the commission.<sup>23</sup> Vernon was clear that the new commission was of the king’s ‘own framing’.<sup>24</sup> Haversham’s inclusion may have been contentious. Robert Crawford<sup>‡</sup> thought there had been ‘a good deal of interest made to get in’ George Churchill<sup>‡</sup> instead of Haversham, and Rooke thought that Haversham would be appointed only if the new commission had seven members.<sup>25</sup> Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, noted in July ‘they tell me Lord Haversham makes such work in the admiralty that few are pleased with the change’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Haversham was present when the next session convened on 16 Nov. 1699. He attended on 60 days (nearly 76 per cent of the total) and was named to 14 committees. On 18 Jan. 1700, when the Lords considered the Darien affair, it was reported that the only English peer who ‘roared against our company’ in the Lords was Haversham, ‘who said it was a Jacobitish villainous design from the very beginning’. He is ‘a new made lord, a great crony of Mr Carstares, and these expressions can be made appear to be what Mr Carstares has suggested to him’. Carstares was a nonconformist preacher who was said to have persuaded Haversham ‘that in the event it will ruin the Presbyterians by displeasing the king if they went into it, and that it was necessary for them here to preserve their brethren in Scotland.’<sup>27</sup> Haversham was the recipient of papers registering the formal consent of several people to Siderfin’s estate bill read in committee on 22 January.<sup>28</sup> On 23 Jan. Haversham entered a dissent to the reversal of the judgment in <em>Williamson v. the Crown</em>. On 23 Feb. he opposed a resolution to adjourn into a committee of the whole in order to discuss amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. The next day he had to explain to the House that one of his servants, whom he had agreed should give evidence on behalf of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, for his divorce bill, had absconded.</p><p>On 3 Apr. 1700, when the bill to resume the Irish forfeitures and to impose a two shilling land tax was brought up from the Commons, Haversham ‘fired against it, as a bill fit to be rejected’. When the Lords resumed their debate on the bill on the 4th he continued to advocate its rejection and entered a protest against the second reading.<sup>29</sup> He was also named as a manager for all three conferences on the subject on 9-10 Apr. and entered a protest against the subsequent resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendments (10 April). On 4 Apr. he reported to the House from the admiralty on the number of ships appointed to police the act preventing the export of wool from England and Ireland.</p><p>During his time as a commissioner Haversham continually ruffled feathers. He became embroiled in attempts to investigate allegations of corruption and inefficiency at the navy board, particularly against Dennis Lyddell<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Sergison<sup>‡</sup>. After the charges were dismissed in March as ‘maliciously inspired’ relations between the admiralty and the navy board deteriorated to the point that Haversham refused to attend any joint sessions, until ordered to do so by the king.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Haversham played a role in the controversy surrounding the fate of Captain Kidd.<sup>31</sup> In May 1700 he and other members of the admiralty appeared in King’s Bench unsuccessfully as witnesses for Mr Fitch a master-builder, accused by Edmund Dummer, late surveyor of the navy, of defamation.<sup>32</sup> Haversham could be assiduous in his administrative duties; on 15 and 20 Jan. 1701 he was one of the admiralty commissioners who met with the navy commissioners at the treasury to solve certain administrative problems.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly a printed list of Whig lords believed to have been drawn up in the summer of 1700 marked Haversham as a probable Junto supporter. He was present at the prorogation of 23 May 1700. On 25 May Vernon reported that the king had spoken to Haversham, Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, and John Smith<sup>‡</sup> ‘to let them know that he has no other thoughts but of employing the Whigs, which seemed well satisfied’. Haversham had responded that ‘they ought likewise to have their chief reliance’ on the king.<sup>34</sup> He was present at the prorogation of 1 August.</p><p>Haversham attended the opening day of the 1701 Parliament on 10 Feb., was present on 82 days (78 per cent) of the session and was named to 17 committees. When the king’s speech was debated by the Lords on 12 Feb., he joined Peterborough in demanding a vigorous denunciation of the French, rather than the simple vote of thanks propounded by Rochester and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham.<sup>35</sup> The address adopted on the 13th encouraged the king to enter into alliances for the preservation of Europe. He also reported on several matters from the admiralty to the House.</p><p>Haversham was still heavily involved with the Annesleys. On 27 Feb. 1701 Haversham was one of four peers nominated by the 3rd earl of Anglesey (his wife’s nephew) and ordered by the Lords to wait on the countess of Anglesey ‘to persuade her to return to her husband’. Rochester reported on their efforts on 3 Mar., whereupon leave was given for a bill of separation on the grounds of cruelty, which in turn prompted a lone protest from Haversham, who was unimpressed by the failure of the attempted reconciliation. He declared that the supposed impossibility of a reconciliation was ‘very precarious’ and that the ‘evangelic law’ did not permit perpetual separation without absolute divorce. Underlying his anxiety were more mundane economic concerns. The countess, one of James II’s illegitimate daughters, had brought a dowry variously valued at between £18,000 and £20,000 into the Annesley family and now demanded substantial alimony as well as a generous settlement on the couple’s infant daughter, Lady Catherine Annesley. According to Haversham the financial cost to Anglesey of a separation would be higher than the cost of an outright divorce. Anglesey was determined to prevent his estranged wife from having custody of their child and appointed Haversham as her guardian after his death in January 1702.<sup>36</sup></p><p>On 2 and 10 Apr. 1701 Haversham was named to manage a conference on the partition treaties. The subsequent impeachment of former Whig ministers saw his son, Maurice Thompson*, the future 2nd Baron Haversham, then a member of the Commons, denounce the partiality of the proceedings and attempt to impeach Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey.<sup>37</sup> On 6 and 10 June Haversham was named to manage a conference on the impending impeachments, particularly the appointment of a joint committee to consider methods of proceeding. When a third conference was held on 13 June, Haversham’s conduct provoked a confrontation with the Commons. In response to the Tory Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup> ‘inveighing against the manner of the Lords’ judicature’ as ‘abhorrent to justice’, Haversham claimed that some of the remarks of the managers on the Commons’ side amounted to a reflection on ‘the honour and justice’ of the House of Lords and retaliated by accusing the Commons of partiality. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, reported that Haversham ‘speaking to the point of lords being partial in their own cases, and therefore not proper judges’, responded that the Commons ‘had plainly showed their partiality, in impeaching some Lords for facts, in which others were equally concerned with them, who yet were not impeached by them, though they were still in credit and about the king; which showed that they thought neither the one nor the other were guilty’. This, in turn, gave the Commons the quarrel they were looking for. They withdrew and asked that the Lords ‘inflict such punishment upon the said lord, as so high an offence against the House of Commons doth deserve’.<sup>38</sup> Haversham’s answer presented to the Lords on 19 June denied any design to reflect upon the Commons and denied using the words specified in the charge. Apart from Jersey, he cited Vernon, Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Stephen Fox<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Pelham*, the future Baron Pelham, as being involved in the actions mentioned in the articles of impeachment, four of whom had voted in the proceedings in the Commons. The answer was then delivered to the Commons. On 21 June the Lords resolved that unless the charge against Haversham was prosecuted by the Commons before the end of the session, they would declare him innocent, and accordingly did so.<sup>39</sup> Meanwhile, Haversham voted, as expected, for the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, on 17 June and of Orford on 23 June. On the last day of the session, 24 June, Haversham was one of four peers selected by the Lords to count the ballot for the election of nine of their members to consider a union of England and Scotland.</p><p>With the eclipse of the Junto and a new more Tory-inclined set of ministers, the king came under pressure to remove some of the remaining Whigs from office, particularly Haversham. According to James Brydges*, the future duke of Chandos, Vernon was ordered to prepare a warrant for Haversham’s replacement by Henry Paget*, later Baron Burton (the future earl of Uxbridge). Out of friendship to Haversham, he delayed it until the king had left the country, knowing that he did not sign such warrants while abroad; ‘by that means Lord Haversham came to be continued all the summer in the commission, to the great disgusting of Sir George Rooke and the other admirals’.<sup>40</sup> Haversham clearly felt under pressure, referring to ‘the allowances that are due to a man that has the wind in his face’.<sup>41</sup> He resigned, writing to the king on 12 Dec. 1701, that he would have resigned before</p><blockquote><p>had I not thought in time of danger a watchful eye would be of as much service to your majesty as a working head but things looking now with a better appearance I humbly hope your majesty will not deny my request. I am the single person your majesty’s favour in putting into a place of trust has lessened, but the reflection on what I have seen was much more afflicting than anything that has personally happened to me. I shall watch for a proper minute to lay them before your majesty and doubt not from your royal goodness to grant of this humble request.<sup>42</sup></p></blockquote><p>His resignation probably pre-empted his dismissal. Anthony Hammond<sup>‡</sup> suggested on 19 Dec. 1701, that as Rooke ‘would not sit at the admiralty with my Lord Haversham, so his Lordship has quitted’. He was replaced by Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, as lord high admiral. Haversham was now said to have ‘gone into my Lord Somers part and measures’.<sup>43</sup> One newsletter noted that ‘there has been no good harmony between his Lordship and the other commissioners and the commissioners of the navy for some time past’, but also reported that ‘others think that his Lordship has an eye upon the first commissioner’s place of the treasury, which is vacant by the resignation of the Lord Godolphin, or else to be Lord Privy Seal.’<sup>44</sup> Haversham’s biographers credited Pembroke’s appointment as having soured Haversham’s temper to such an extent that henceforth he opposed the measures of the court.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Haversham was present on the second day of the 1701-2 Parliament, 31 Dec., attending on 45 days (45 per cent) of the session, and being named to 15 committees. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address concerning the Pretender being owned by France. On 2 Jan., he and Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, were ordered to bring in a bill for abjuring the Pretender.<sup>46</sup> On 8 Mar. Haversham was one of the managers of the conference on the death of William and the accession of Anne, but although he attended the following day he then absented himself from the House until 27 Apr., when he took the abjuration. On 7 May he was named as a manager of the conference on the bill altering the oath of abjuration. On 20 Feb. 1702 Haversham had presented a petition to the Commons relating to the Irish forfeited estates. Although many such petitions were rejected, a motion that the petition be brought up was carried by 102-97 and after it had been read, the standard motion that it should be left to lie on the table until the other petitions were considered was carried 156-123. According to Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> ‘they remembered my Lord Haversham’s behaviour last sessions more than their own integrity so they made us divide for it’.<sup>47</sup> On 30 Apr. the trustees for Irish forfeited estates were heard and a bill ordered. Managed by Samuel Ogle<sup>‡</sup> and then Henry Blaake<sup>‡</sup> it had an uneventful passage through both Houses passing its third reading in the Lords on 20 May.</p><p>Meanwhile, as mentioned above, the death of the 3rd earl of Anglesey in January 1702 saw Haversham involved in litigation concerning his controverted will. Contemporaries pictured a design by Haversham and others to siphon off Anglesey’s wealth; thus ‘Lady Haversham stands by Mr [Arthur] Annesley holding up her apron to receive the money he picks out of my Lord’s pocket’, while Haversham dictated the will to ‘Sloane, the counsellor’.<sup>48</sup> Haversham, Arthur Annesley and Mr Justice Coote were put in control of much of Anglesey’s estate, with Haversham being made guardian of the 3rd earl’s daughter, Lady Catherine Annesley, and securing portions for his six as yet unmarried daughters of £1,000 each.<sup>49</sup> In the years that followed, a series of marriages took place, after Arthur Annesley ordered payments for all eight of Haversham’s daughters in January 1704.<sup>50</sup></p><h2><em>Anne’s reign, 1702-10</em></h2><p>Despite later assumptions, it is probably more accurate to see Haversham at this stage as a determined ministerial opponent – a maker of mischief – rather than as a convert to the Tories. He still had strong links with the Whigs and in April 1702 the propagandist and publisher, George Ridpath, recommended him to James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], as a suitable intermediary with the English court: Haversham, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>being a Dissenter, a man of sense and resolution, and perfectly opposite to the Tory party, will be very proper to deal with the ministers here to inform ours in Scotland how things are carried on in this nation. It is true that lord had formerly an ill idea given him of the affair of Caledonia, but I am informed that his notions about it have been corrected since.<sup>51</sup></p></blockquote><p>By June Haversham was sufficiently close to Hamilton to send him a commentary on both ministry and ministers.</p><p>Haversham missed the first few days of the 1702-3 session, first attending on 31 October. He was present on 56 days (65 per cent of the total) and was named to 24 committees. When the bill against occasional conformity was brought up to the Lords on 2 Dec. 1702 and given a first reading, Haversham was the third peer to speak. He ‘owned himself a Dissenter; but caressed the bishops most highly. He concluded with a motion that it might be read a second time tomorrow’, which was agreed to.<sup>52</sup> On 9 Dec. he signed the Lords’ resolution against tacking. On 17 Dec. he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prevent occasional conformity, as he was again on 9 January. About January 1703 Nottingham thought he would oppose the bill against occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. his opposition to the bill prompted him to check the register of proxies, whereupon he discovered a fresh entry in which Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg had given his proxy to Prince George*, duke of Cumberland. This led not only to the duke’s hurried arrival in person but to a new standing order regulating the use of proxies.<sup>53</sup> Haversham voted on that day to retain the penalty clause in the bill, a wrecking amendment.</p><p>On 11 Jan. 1703 Haversham spoke ‘with great warmth, as usual’ in the debate on the clause in the bill enabling the queen to settle a revenue for supporting the dignity of Prince George in case he survived her, and which included a clause specifically allowing him to sit in the Lords, despite the prohibition on foreign born peers in the Act of Succession. Like other leading Whigs, he regarded the clause as a tack, and opposed it ‘because now was the time to affirm our rights ... when the subscription of the late order (against tacks) was fresh in every man’s memory’. Further, he would rather ‘part with an article of his creed’ than with a clause in the Act of Succession. He did, however, favour allowing those foreign-born peers to sit to whom the nation was indebted. On 19 Jan. Haversham again joined those opposing the clause. He also complained on 13 Jan. when Nottingham laid before the House copies rather than the original letters on naval affairs that had been called for. Nottingham satisfied the House by insisting that he had himself compared them to the originals, and Haversham’s attempt to smear Nottingham as ‘too great to observe the commands of this House’ failed miserably.<sup>54</sup></p><p>In April 1703 Haversham attempted to obtain promotion for a lieutenant Andrew Graham (perhaps a relation of Martha Graham who would become his second wife). He told John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, that his favour ‘calls the more for my acknowledgment as it occasions your grace a repeated trouble’, and ‘’tis the only thing I ever will I think myself obliged in honour to do him the utmost service I can and have the vanity to believe when others have been made colonels that I may pretend to merit enough for to ask of the queen a captain’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Haversham first attended the 1703-4 session on 22 November. He was present on 51 days of the session (only nine of them before the turn of the year), 52 per cent of the total, and was named to 16 committees. He was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in November 1703 as likely to oppose the bill against occasional conformity, a view Sunderland confirmed at the end of the month in a second forecast. On 14 Dec. Haversham argued that it was not a proper time to introduce such a bill as it affected ‘such as have always been serviceable to the government, and are some of the best friends to it.’ Having discussed the reasons why the bill was ‘unseasonable’, he then changed tack to outline one further danger to the crown, ‘when all the favour is bestowed upon one or two persons, when all the power by sea and land is either virtually or openly in one hand; when all the offices, like a set of locks, are commanded by one master key; I pray God it may never again prove fatal both to crown and country.’<sup>56</sup> He duly voted against the bill. On 15 Jan. 1704 Vernon sent Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury the speech delivered by Haversham on that occasion: ‘how it comes to be printed I know not, but they say he denies having a hand in it, but it agrees exactly with what he spoke. Those who heard him, wished a great deal of it had been unsaid, and like it worse now it is in print’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>On 9 Dec. 1703 a petition had been read in the Lords relating to abuses in the victualling office, which was referred to a committee. On 22 Dec. the committee met with Haversham in the chair, evidence was considered and John Tutchin ordered to bring witnesses to prove the poor state of the provisions. Haversham was again in the chair for further meetings on the 5th, 9th, 11th, 19th, 23rd, 26th and 29th. On 2 Mar. the committee accepted a report drafted by Haversham, which was presented that day to the House, and agreed to after a division, in which the prince’s council was criticized, not a matter likely to improve his standing with the queen.<sup>58</sup></p><p>On 3 Feb. 1704 Haversham attended the committee on the estate bill of Joseph Grainge, to inform them that Grainge’s wife, Elizabeth (Haversham’s daughter) consented to the bill, which concerned her jointure rights. The bill failed in the Commons, but it was re-introduced in the following session, and on 29 Jan. 1705 Haversham testified to the committee his own consent to the bill, which then passed both Houses.<sup>59</sup> On 13 Feb. 1704 Haversham attended a large gathering at Sunderland’s house in St James’s Square, at which according to Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossuslton (later earl of Tankerville), ‘there tea drunk and our discourse was only about the Scotch Plot which the papers was before the House of Lords’.<sup>60</sup> Haversham spoke in the House against the recruitment bill ‘you have just now read’ (so probably at its second reading on 15 Mar.) which he regarded as subjecting commoners to an illegal and arbitrary power. Further, ‘the difficulties of proportioning the numbers each county or district is to find, as well as where to lodge the coercive power, are so many and so great, that they seem to be almost insuperable’.<sup>61</sup> On 21 Mar. Haversham signed two of the three protests against the recruiting bill, but, perhaps significantly, he did not sign the protest against the rejection of the rider that no person shall be obliged to serve as a soldier without the consent of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, possibly an indication of his roots as a Dissenter.</p><p>Haversham missed the opening of the 1704-5 session, first attending on 10 November. He was present on 36 days of the session, 36 per cent of the total and was named to 13 committees. On 10 Nov. Haversham had ‘moved that he might be heard as to many things he has to complain of and are amiss and seems very full and hot to bring out something’, but the Whigs ‘got the day assigned him put off, to Thursday seven night [23 Nov.], at which he was very angry’.<sup>62</sup> On 19 Nov. Godolphin wrote to Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, ‘we have nothing now to fear but Lord Haversham’s bomb.’<sup>63</sup> His second attendance on 23 Nov. saw the first of what was to become an annual series of speeches intended to castigate the ministry and to force a debate on the state of the nation. In it Haversham magnified the danger from France, which would exploit the dangerous situation in Scotland, where the Scottish had made a bill of exclusion, although ‘it bears the title of an Act of Security’. To Haversham this had been promoted by the enemies of ‘the English succession’. Led by a brave nobility with a numerous and stout common people, ‘who is that man who can answer what such a multitude, so armed, so disciplined, with such leaders, may do’, especially as ‘there will never be wanting all the promises, and all the assistance, France can give.’ He ended with a quote from Bacon warning against ‘the spark that may set all on fire.’<sup>64</sup></p><p>Haversham’s speech certainly generated plenty of contemporary comment. According to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, Haversham’s ‘truly eloquent’ speech, praised military success on land and at sea, but then proceeded to reveal that the admiralty’s secrets had been betrayed to the French, the French fleet had been victualled in England or Ireland, trade was suffering and referred to the secret will of the prince which saw the act of security passed in Scotland.<sup>65</sup> Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> observed that Haversham ‘made a speech relating to the Scottish act of security and the French fleet being victualled by some of her majesty’s subjects’,<sup>66</sup> while George Cholmondeley<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd earl of Cholmondley, wrote that ‘Haversham hath let off his speech among the Lords and awakened them into a consideration of the state of the fleet and the state of Scotland’.<sup>67</sup> Orford told Lady Granby that ‘Haversham had made a long speech to the House, but accused no particular person, as ‘twas thought he would’. He lauded the ‘land victory’ [Blenheim], as a ‘very great one, but the sea he rather thought an escape than a gain’. For this he ‘laid the blame on the admiralty then complained of the transportation of money, saying that paper credit would not last long, and spoke much on the Scotch succession, that instead on settling of it, they had made it an exclusion’. In reply ‘little was said by any to it, but Wednesday [29 Nov.], appointed to consider of it.’<sup>68</sup> Harley told Marlborough on the 24th ‘Haversham opened his budget yesterday, his worthy allies I doubt not but your grace will hear of. Your humble servant had the honour to be amongst the misdoers, tho he robbed the <em>Observator</em> for his accusation’.<sup>69</sup> The <em>Observator</em> was edited by John Tutchin, Whig journalist and propagandist, who had petitioned the Commons in an attempt to expose abuses in the administration of the navy in 1697. He had also written to Harley in May 1704 on the subject of an alleged clandestine trade by means of which the French fleet had been victualled from England.<sup>70</sup> Godolphin told Harley that Rochester and Nottingham ‘were the only men found to second Lord Haversham upon the mismanagement of naval affairs. One or two more came into the other part of the motion about Scotland’.<sup>71</sup> A committee was duly appointed to consider the state of the navy, to which was referred a memorial of Captain Edwards brought in by Haversham.<sup>72</sup> Haversham was actively involved in this committee; on 5 Dec. he acquainted the committee that he had received an affidavit from Edwards relating to the clandestine trade between Ireland and France and on 22 Dec. a letter was sent to Haversham containing further information on ships involved in illicit trade.<sup>73</sup></p><p>In accordance with their order of the 24th, on 29 Nov. 1704 the Lords went into committee of the whole and debated the state of the nation for three hours, with the queen and the duchess of Marlborough in attendance.<sup>74</sup> Haversham moved that the question should be put ‘whether the present posture of Scotland, in consequence of this act [of security], was not dangerous to England?’, but the debate was adjourned until 6 December.<sup>75</sup> When the House again took into consideration the state of the nation on 6 Dec., Haversham, Rochester and Nottingham ‘pressed the House to pass a judgment on the Scotch Act of Security, that it was of pernicious consequence, tending to defeat the Protestant succession, and to alienate the two kingdoms from one another’.<sup>76</sup> Haversham thought the act of security ‘a wound’, which ought to be ‘probed’ before it healed, and ‘inveighed against the new mode of our princes having, in the weightiest matters, a very few councillors; or perhaps but one’.<sup>77</sup> The aim of this attack was then to ask who had advised the bill’s passage, but this attack on Godolphin was diverted by the Whigs, who argued for legislation to combat the perceived threat.</p><p>On 15 Dec. 1704 the bill against occasional conformity was brought up by the Commons, and rejected on the motion for a second reading. Haversham had moved the second reading, ‘declaring his resolutions to be (as they had ever been) to vote for throwing it out at last’. On 20 Dec. Haversham opposed the third reading of the bill appointing commissioners to negotiate a Union with Scotland, saying that ‘the settling of the succession this last summer was hindered by putting that matter upon the foot of a treaty; and now it was to be hindered on by the same method’.<sup>78</sup> On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to a committee to consider heads for a conference on the case of the Aylesbury men, Godolphin writing on that day that Haversham ‘was for conferences’, which would be asked for the following day.<sup>79</sup></p><p>In about April 1705 on a list relating to the succession, Haversham was listed as a supporter of the Hanoverians, but there were signs that he was no longer regarded as a Whig. In April 1705 Haversham met with John Ward<sup>‡</sup> at the home of Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet.<sup>80</sup> In 1704 Haversham had sold his property in Gatton to Paul Docminique<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned in May 1705, the election, as Halifax informed the duchess of Marlborough, ‘depending in a manor which honest Lord Haversham has sold to a Tory’.<sup>81</sup> Perhaps it is significant, too, that his <em>Memoirs</em> also date his adherence to the ‘Church’ party to 1705, as they do Haversham’s rejection of an approach from Devonshire to make his peace with the court in return for office, on the grounds that there was a need for ‘a thorough change, not a removal of three or four, before I could venture into the service.’<sup>82</sup> However, despite his alliance with high church Tories, such as Nottingham and Rochester, he remained closely associated with Tutchin. In October 1706 Marlborough and Henry St. John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, exasperated by Tutchin’s attacks and the inadequacies of their legal remedies against him, both complained to Harley of Tutchin’s ‘barbarous usage’ of them and both identified Haversham as Tutchin’s patron.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Haversham was absent when the 1705 Parliament met on 25 October. He first attended on 6 Nov., being present on 21 days, some 22 per cent of the total, and being named to five committees. Haversham was one of those peers identified in October 1705 as in favour of inviting Electress Sophia of Hanover to reside in England.<sup>84</sup> On 13 Nov. he proposed that the House consider the state of the nation, with a committee of the whole being ordered for the 15th. When the committee met, in the presence of the queen, Haversham ‘made a long speech touching the war, trade, the succession, and sending for the Princess Sophia’, which ended with a motion for an address to the queen asking her to issue such an invitation, arguing that ‘nothing can be more for the security of any throne, than to have a number of successors round about it, whose interest is always to defend the possessor from any danger’.<sup>85</sup> Haversham’s motion, an attempt to discomfort the ministry, backfired as Godolphin had made preparations to spike Haversham’s ‘great guns’ and proposed a counter resolution.<sup>86</sup> Haversham’s Tory allies gave in as gracefully as possible but Haversham felt unable to join them, entering a protest at the failure of the resolution on the previous question. He also arranged for the publication of his speech, which appeared on 28 December. Godolphin’s expedient led to the regency bill. On 19 Nov. when the House considered the heads of the bill, Haversham suggested that the ‘great officers’ might be members of the regency commission. On 23 Nov. in the debate on the papers presented to the House on Scotland, Haversham ‘opened the debate’, concluding with a motion for ‘repealing the clause declaring the Scots aliens’.<sup>87</sup> On 30 Nov. he protested against the resolution that no further instructions be given to the committee of the whole House on the regency bill. On 3 Dec. he entered four protests on the regency bill, three against the rejection of riders limiting the powers of the regents and one against the passage of the bill itself. On 6 Dec. he entered a protest against the resolution that the Church was in no danger. On 31 Jan. 1706 he entered three protests on the amendments to the regency bill, his penultimate day in the House that session.</p><p>Haversham was absent when the 1706-7 session opened on 3 Dec., first attending on 14 December. He was present on 28 days of the session, a little under 33 per cent of the total, and was named to 16 committees. On 14 Jan. 1707 Haversham backed Nottingham’s motions to have all the papers relating to the proposed union with Scotland laid on the table and for Parliament to provide statutory safeguards for the Church of England before passing the Act of Union, but the matter was dropped when the ministry argued that the articles were nearly complete and would then be laid before Parliament.<sup>88</sup> On 3 Feb. he protested against the rejection of the instruction to the committee of the whole House on the bill for securing the Church of England that would have made the Test Act of 1673 perpetual and unalterable. On 15 Feb., when the House debated the articles of Union, Haversham was ‘for amendments’.<sup>89</sup> He also opposed the Union itself, as ‘two nations independent in their sovereignties, that have their distinct laws and interests, and what I cannot forget, their different forms of worship, church government and order’ was ‘so many mismatched pieces, of such jarring, incongruous ingredients’ which would need ‘a standing power and force, to keep us from falling asunder’. Admitting to occasional conformity, he suggested that the bishops were being asked to approve of Presbyterianism in Scotland as a true religion and in so doing ‘they give up that which has been contended for between them and the Presbyterians these 30 years.’ Thus, articles 20 and 21 reserving heritable offices and Presbyterian church government ‘seem to me like those little clouds in a warm, calm summer’s day, that are generally the seeds and attractives of approaching tempests and thunder.’ In conclusion, the succession could be guaranteed without Union, but ‘an incorporating Union [was] one of the most dangerous experiments to both nations’ and once accomplished ‘the error is irretrievable’. The speech also contained reference to the unreasonableness of ‘ten times the application and address’ being made to a ‘she-favourite’ rather than to the sovereign, ‘which is a kind of state idolatry’, presumably a dig at the duchess of Marlborough.<sup>90</sup></p><p>On 21 Feb., in the committee of the whole on the Union, Haversham acted as a teller against agreeing to the 18th article, his concerns relating to how it affected the <em>habeas corpus</em> act.<sup>91</sup> On 24 Feb., when the threat to the Church of England from the Scottish peers was mentioned, Wharton reminded them that being a Scottish Presbyterian did not preclude defence of the Church of England, ‘since there were even some sitting amongst their lordships who would venture their lives for the Church of England, and yet openly declared themselves to be at the same time occasional conformists’. Haversham rose to the bait, offering his own explanation of occasional conformity, which somewhat perplexed his audience as he ‘made a long encomium on the episcopal order’, and then ‘no less commendation to all the Protestant Churches abroad, and to the Kirk of Scotland itself, in particular’.<sup>92</sup> Bishop Nicolson, writing about the debate, commented on Haversham, ‘always a churchman’.<sup>93</sup> On 27 Feb. Haversham entered his dissent to all 25 articles of the Union.</p><p>He attended on the last two days of the short nine-day session of April 1707. Haversham’s <em>Memoirs</em> refer to him in 1707 making a ‘resolution with myself to be a constant communicant of the Church established by law’, but this part of the book is too unreliable for much weight to be placed upon it, and an earlier passage asserts that he also attended at dissenting meetings.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Haversham was absent when the 1707-8 session convened on 23 Oct., but was present at the second sitting on the 30th. He was present on 52 days (49 per cent of the total), and was named to 18 committees. When the Lords considered the queen’s speech on 12 Nov. 1707, Wharton moved to consider of the state of the nation, in relation to the fleet and trade. Haversham was not then in the House, but when the committee of the whole on the state of the nation sat on the 19th, he was primed and ready on the ‘very low and desperate’ condition of Britain. The ‘root of all our misfortunes’ was the ministry, so the only effectual remedy was a change.<sup>95</sup> James Calthorp reported that Wharton and Haversham ‘were the chief speakers and pretty warm, as to miscarriages in the ministry’.<sup>96</sup> As a result a committee was appointed to consider the petition of merchants on cruisers and convoys. Haversham’s speech was printed and widely distributed, but Daniel Defoe reassured Harley that it was ‘laughed at by everybody’. Nevertheless, he prepared a counterblast.<sup>97</sup></p><p>On 15 Dec. 1707 Haversham, Rochester and Nottingham spoke in favour of Peterborough in the committee of the whole on the state of the nation, in relation to the fleet, trade and the state of the war in Spain, and the expedition to Toulon.<sup>98</sup> When the House debated the resolutions from this committee on 19 Dec., Haversham defended Peterborough’s conduct in Spain, while criticizing Galway, against the condemnation of the Junto Whigs.<sup>99</sup> Apparently, Haversham ‘had the queen’s speech in his hand’ during the debate, ‘and said he hoped he stood very fair for her majesty’s favour and encouragement hinting at a part in the speech which your lordship will see in this days Gazette. This they say made the queen and most of the House laugh.’<sup>100</sup></p><p>On 9 Jan. 1708, when the Lords returned to inquiring into the state of the war in Spain, Haversham, Nottingham, Rochester and Buckingham ‘managed’ a debate on the revelation that the battle of Almanza was ‘fought by positive orders’.<sup>101</sup> Haversham successfully proposed that Abel Boyer be sent for to divulge his source for writing in the <em>Post Boy</em> that Galway had positive orders to fight at Almanza.<sup>102</sup> On 31 Mar. Haversham entered a protest against the decision of the House to accept the resolution of the committee for privileges that the committal of Marmaduke Langdale*, 3rd Baron Langdale, as a suspected papist was no breach of privilege. He last attended on the penultimate day, 31 Mar. 1708. Perhaps not surprisingly in view of the company he was now keeping, annotations to a printed list of the members of the first Parliament of Great Britain identified him as a Tory.</p><p>On 21 July 1708 Haversham waited on both the queen and Abigail Masham. On the following day the queen wrote to Marlborough with an account of his visit,</p><blockquote><p>which you may easily imagine could not be agreeable to me. ... After having made me a great many compliments, he told me his business was to let me know there was certainly a design laying between the Whigs and some great men to have an address made in the next sessions of Parliament for inviting the electoral prince over to settle here, and that he would certainly come to make a visit as soon as the campaign was over, and that there was nothing for me to do to prevent my being forced to do this (as I certainly would) but my showing myself to be queen, and making it my own act. I told him I was sensible this was a thing talked of to asperse your reputation, that I was very sure neither you nor any other of my servants were in engaged in anything of this kind, and what others did I could not help, but if this matter should be brought into Parliament, whoever proposed it, whether Whig or Tory, I "should look upon neither of them as my friends, nor would never make any invitation neither to the young man, nor his father, nor grandmother". To this he answered he did not think you had anything to do in this design, but that it was certain the Whigs were laying it.</p></blockquote><p>The queen asked Marlborough to find out if there is any design for a visit and to find a way to put it off, so that she did not have to refuse him leave.<sup>103</sup></p><p>On 30 July 1708 Godolphin wrote to Marlborough of Haversham’s ‘extraordinary’ visit to the queen, on 21 July, of which he told the queen ‘that it was not hard to make a judgment of what was like to happen next winter, when people of his behaviour could meet with encouragement to come to court.’ Marlborough made essentially the same point to the queen on 28 Aug., by entertaining Haversham, she was signalling support for the Tories, after she herself had heard him make ‘the most disrespectful and injurious proposals that could be to your majesty, and heard him utter all the scandals imaginable upon those who had the honour to serve you and at that time to be in your trust’.<sup>104</sup> To the duchess of Marlborough, this meant that Haversham was an ‘undertaker’ for Harley, who had been received by the queen, despite having so often criticized the ministry in the Lords, even with the queen present. Indeed, in her ‘heads of a conversation’ with the queen on 9 Sept., the duchess referred to a distinction between the Whigs ‘who did her such real and acceptable service in the Union with Scotland, and in the matter of the invitation’ and Lord Haversham,</p><blockquote><p>who upon both those actions and many others talked so insolently and scandalously of her administration, in her own hearing, and yet that man was admitted to her presence with an air of a friend, tho he is plainly in another interest and can never serve her, and the others are kept at the greatest distance contrary to the advice and opinion of all her servants, whom she has most reason to trust.<sup>105</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 11 Nov. 1708 Haversham and Rochester were reported by William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> to be of those peers disappointed that Nottingham was unwilling to come to London to concert matters before the session began.<sup>106</sup> Haversham attended on the third day of the 1708-9 session, 19 November. He was present on 25 days (27 per cent of the total), and was named to six committees. On 24 Dec. 1708 James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> that ‘all is referred to the Holy-days and to hasten conclusions then it’s moved to have the Scotch expedition &c laid before the House. The Whigs did this amongst us designedly, but why Lord Haversham [on 23 Dec.], did it in the other House I know not, he seemed to do it accidentally’.<sup>107</sup> Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), told Nottingham that Haversham had ‘moved for a day to consider of the late invasion in Scotland, which is appointed [12 Jan. 1709]’.<sup>108</sup> Also on 24 Dec. Bromley wrote to Harley, ‘Lord Haversham desires you will give him and me leave to wait upon you together, and some time on Monday [27th]; but if that day is not agreeable, that you will be pleased to appoint some other.’ Bromley and some unnamed peer, perhaps Haversham, arranged to meet Harley on 8 Jan. 1709.<sup>109</sup></p><p>On 21 Jan. 1709, in a division that arose out of the dispute over the right of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry, to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers, Haversham voted in favour of the duke, despite his acquisition of a British peerage as duke of Dover, after the Act of Union. Meanwhile, on 12 Jan. 1709, when the House resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the state of the nation to discuss the attempted invasion of Scotland the previous March, Haversham delivered another of his set-piece speeches, attacking the ministry and especially its leaders.<sup>110</sup> The result was an address for the relevant papers to be laid before the House. When the House discussed the papers on 25 Feb., Haversham followed up his attack by speaking at considerable length on the inadequacies of the ministry’s preparations.<sup>111</sup> As Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, put it, ‘the design was, to enter into the state it was in at the time of the descent, which ’tis thought would have born hard upon the ministry, the country being much unprovided for a defence’. However, Godolphin’s allies pointed out that ‘the descent being over, that enquiry could have no other end but to perplex and lose time; and therefore the debate was then fixed to the <em>present</em> state of North Britain; of which, I suppose, the ministry will be able to give a better account’.<sup>112</sup> After that setback Haversham ceased to attend the debates on the matter. Indeed, after 25 Feb. he only attended twice, on 31 Mar. and 1 April. Such was Haversham’s reputation that when the Commons returned a proposed address on 2 Mar. 1709 with the addition of an amendment about securing the destruction of Dunkirk, Johnston explained it as emanating ‘from a design not to be outrun by Rochester and Haversham’.<sup>113</sup></p><p>In May 1709 Haversham married for a second time. His relationship with his new wife, the widowed Martha Graham, appears to have created a considerable stir. Sarah Cowper recorded that he had installed his ‘tantarabus’ in May 1703, throwing his wife of 35 years out of the house despite her desperate attempts to ‘appear young and amiable in her Lord’s eyes’.<sup>114</sup> Martha Graham was Haversham’s housekeeper, being the widow of an officer who had died in France. Boyer claimed that the Presbyterian ministers were so scandalized that they refused Haversham the sacraments, thus driving him into the Church of England.<sup>115</sup> Haversham’s choice of Rochester and James Grahme<sup>‡ </sup>as trustees for his marriage settlement confirm his attachment to the Tories.<sup>116</sup> Grahme’s involvement in the settlement is also suggestive of kinship to Martha Graham, which might help explain Haverham’s drift towards the Tories.</p><p>In September 1709 Haversham’s correspondence with Harley contained allusions to those ‘who are too great for subjects and can never be sovereigns ... without the subversion of a constitution’, although Haversham professed himself ‘contented after so long being in Parliament to come there very little’. However, he looked forward to waiting on Harley to see ‘how far men are changed from a private nonchalance to a positive concern for the public spirit’.<sup>117</sup> Haversham’s criticisms of men in power may have been shaped by some sort of financial difficulty, for in September Rev. Ralph Bridges noted that Haversham’s gardener was available for other work having ‘left his service very lately by reason of my Lord’s insolvency, or at least not paying him in due time’.<sup>118</sup> Similarly, Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> reported, possibly in November 1709, an idea emanating from Somers that ‘£1000 a year would be well laid out secretly upon Lord Haversham, who he was sure might be had for that’. Maynwaring thought that ‘everybody that could do the least good or harm should now be tried to be fetched in, that called himself a Whig, let him be ever so ill a man. And this admiralty affair would give them a pretence for returning to the party, and they might now talk very finely of matters being upon a right bottom, without many people’s knowing that they were paid for what they spoke’.<sup>119</sup></p><h2><em>Sacheverell and Tory revival </em></h2><p>Haversham was absent when the 1709-10 session began on 15 November. He first attended on 5 Dec. and was present on 30 days, just over 32 per cent of the total. On 12 Dec. 1709 Johnston wrote that Haversham ‘is much courted both by the ministry and Junto, but tho he has given up with the Church party because they will not act, he has refused hitherto to meet with the ministry but is willing to unite with the Junto provided they convince him he says that they are against the Pretender, whom he suspects some of his Church friends are for.’<sup>120</sup></p><p>After John Dolben<sup>‡</sup> had impeached Sacheverell on 15 Dec. 1709 at the bar of the Lords, Thomas Bateman reported that Haversham had told him that although he was concerned that Dolben ‘should impeach a clergyman, yet he believed it might be for the Dr’s honour, as it had happened to others, who then sat in that House, and had been impeached, and that he hoped one time or other to see the Dr sit upon the bishops’ bench there.’<sup>121</sup> After the impeachment had been brought up to the Lords, Haversham ‘made a speech desiring the House would take into consideration the state of the nation, for that he had several things to offer’, and it was ordered to consider the matter after Christmas.<sup>122</sup> Rochester duly seconded the motion.<sup>123</sup></p><p>Unfortunately, Haversham was too ill to attend on 9 Jan. 1710, John Bridges reporting on the 10th that ‘the town have been much disappointed of the speech which the Lord Haversham promised’ for the day after the recess. It fell to Rochester to acquaint the House that Haversham ‘had been taken during the recess with a fit of spitting blood and had been in a very dangerous condition and therefore desired there might be an adjournment of the committee till another day’. This motion was seconded by Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, ‘and the lord chancellor took notice of it to the House, but no day was appointed, so that motion, and the state of the nation is at present dropped.’<sup>124</sup> Haversham first attended after the Christmas recess on 23 Jan. 1710. On 16 Feb. he protested against the decision not to send for James Greenshields and the magistrates of Edinburgh. He then protested against the decision of the House not to adjourn, which was the precursor of an address for Marlborough’s immediate departure to Holland.</p><p>On 1 Mar. 1710, when the managers for the Commons’ impeachment were expounding on the third article of impeachment against Sacheverell, Haversham reacted to Dolben’s reference to ‘false brethren’ at the bar by moving for an adjournment; and then in the House he demanded that as Dolben had ‘dropped an expression reflecting upon the counsel, who were assigned by them’, he should be asked to explain himself. A two-hour debate ensued, during which Wharton attempted to excuse Dolben’s slip of the tongue, pointing out that Haversham had done the same in referring to the managers ‘against’ the impeachment, to which Haversham replied that it was no slip as to him most of the managers appeared to be trying to make the impeachment fail. Dolben was called in and explained that he meant only Sacheverell.<sup>125</sup> On 9 Mar., after the Commons’ managers had begun their summing up, Godolphin moved an adjournment. Haversham objected to any delay as the judges were waiting to go on their circuits and their opinions might be needed. Having won the point, it was resolved that the judges attend until the conclusion of the trial.<sup>126</sup> On 11 Mar., when the House debated the articles against Sacheverell, Haversham spoke in support of Nottingham’s manoeuvre to have the charges thrown out; one source detailed his contribution as ‘if law no rule, [the]n n[o] one secure of innocence and Sacheverell has had no trial’.<sup>127</sup> On 14 Mar. he protested twice: against adjourning, and then against the resolution that by the law and usage of Parliament the particular words supposed to be criminal were not necessary to be expressly specified in impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanours. On 16 Mar. Haversham spoke at length against the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment, again entering two protests. On the next day Haversham spoke against the resolution that the Commons had made good the fourth article, suggesting that ‘no man on earth has authority to interpret the scripture’, and repeated his request to the bishops to tell the House how Sacheverell ‘could be charged with wresting the scripture’, duly protesting against the resolution that the Commons had made good the second, third and fourth articles. On 18 Mar. he spoke in favour of voting on each article separately, even suggesting that he be heard by counsel as to whether the failure to do so took away his right of voting.<sup>128</sup> He then protested against the form of the question to be put to peers on Sacheverell’s guilt. He voted Sacheverell not guilty on 20 Mar. 1710.</p><p>Haversham last attended on 5 May 1710 and he also attended the prorogation on 16 May. On 4 Aug. he expressed a desire to wait on Harley, having received a message from Anglesey, before waiting on the queen.<sup>129</sup> With a ministerial change in the offing, Haversham was seen as a candidate for office in a reconstructed administration. Bromley, was probably referring to Haversham when he wrote on 13 Aug. that ‘I hear of nothing yet for our Richmond friend, who I think has deserved extremely well and should not be slighted’.<sup>130</sup> On 17 Aug. Ralph Bridges noted news of a new admiralty board, consisting of Peterborough, Haversham, Sir John Leake<sup>‡</sup>, Richard Hill and George Clarke<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>131</sup> Similar rumours reached the ears of Anne Clavering and Bromley, but by 11 Sept. Bromley was writing that ‘some overtures have been made to our Richmond friend, but not such as he liked’.<sup>132</sup> As part of his calculations on the reconstruction of the ministry, on 12 Sept. Harley had included Haversham on his list of peers to be provided for.<sup>133</sup> At about the same time Haversham’s son-in-law, Arthur Annesley, who had recently succeeded as 5th earl of Anglesey, became joint vice treasurer and paymaster of Ireland.<sup>134</sup> On 3 Oct. Harley listed Haversham as a supporter, but Shrewsbury named Haversham on 20 Oct. as one of those leading peers who ‘will be dissatisfied’ unless shown some sign of favour.<sup>135</sup> With the Tories triumphant at the polls Haversham was reported to have said that any attempt at opposition would be ‘as vain as to attempt to stop the stream at London Bridge with one’s thumb.’<sup>136</sup> On 26 Oct. he wrote to Harley, ‘I have always had an ambitious desire of being in your favour and friendship, but my weak endeavours could never make me yet so happy’.<sup>137</sup> Just what part he would have played in the new ministry, if any, will never be known. He died on 1 Nov. 1710 before the session began, some said ‘of a broken heart for he found they did not intend to do for him as he expected.’<sup>138</sup> The pall-bearers for his funeral on 13 Nov. were Rochester, his son, Henry Hyde*, styled Lord Hyde, the future 2nd earl of Rochester, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Cheyne [S], Mohun and ‘Lord Howard’ (who might be several different people).<sup>139</sup></p><p>At his death Haversham had houses at Richmond, Surrey and in Frith Street, Soho. He was owed over £3,300 at his death, including over £2,000 in maintenance payments for Lady Catherine Annesley.<sup>140</sup> Haversham’s personal estate was valued at over £30,000 at his death. He also left substantial real estate to his only surviving son, Maurice Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham, on the condition that he did not challenge the jointure arrangements for his stepmother. Three of his daughters were cut off without the proverbial shilling: Catherine, who had married an attorney, Edmund White, without his permission; Helena, married to Rev. Thomas Gregory, who had also incurred his displeasure by some misbehaviour; and Elizabeth, married to Joseph Grainge.<sup>141</sup> Extensive litigation, both about the dowager Lady Haversham’s jointure and about the portions of the remaining four daughters, tied up settlement of the estate for several years.</p><p>Hearne summed up Haversham on his death: ‘he has been famous for several remarkable speeches, but he was a man of an unsteady life’.<sup>142</sup> As a political leader Haversham was a minor figure, but he was responsible, through his annual speeches on the state of the nation, for a remarkably successful new parliamentary tactic. The speeches themselves were extremely effective in their day, reaching an audience far beyond Parliament and proving the existence of a considerable market eager for news of parliamentary affairs. Copies were even cried about the streets and hawkers who could not get hold of the latest speech sometimes satisfied the public demand by selling off stocks of old ones.<sup>143</sup> Although much of Haversham’s activities were clearly driven by spite, he does seem to have had genuine concerns about abuses in naval administration (not unrelated to a desire to vindicate his own record in the matter). One particularly successful political parable, probably penned in response to his speech in 1705, likened him to a rebellious little dog who needed but a stroke from the cook to transform him into a useful working animal.<sup>144</sup></p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
THOMPSON, Maurice (1675-1745) |
<p><strong><surname>THOMPSON</surname></strong>, <strong>Maurice</strong> (1675–1745)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1 Nov. 1710 as 2nd Bar. HAVERSHAM |
|
First sat 27 Nov. 1710; last sat 14 Feb. 1745 |
|
MP Bletchingley 1695–8; Gatton 1698–1705 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1675, o. surv. s. of John Thompson*, Bar. Haversham, and Frances (<em>d.</em>1705), da. of Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and wid. of John Windham of Felbrigg, Norf. <em>educ</em>. L. Inn 1692; travelled abroad (Holland) 1693. <em>m</em>. (1) 18 Oct. 1703 (with £10,000), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1712), da. and h. of John Smith of Herts. 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em><sup>1</sup> 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) 16 Aug. 1737, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1772), da. of Richard Annesley, 3rd Bar. Altham [I], sis. of Richard Annesley*, 6th earl of Anglesey, and wid. of William Green, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 11 Apr. 1745; <em>will</em> 19 Mar., pr. 11 Apr. 1745.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Page to Sophia, Electress of Hanover; recvr. gen. excise 1717–18.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Capt. 1st Ft. Gds. 1695, Coldstream Gds. 1697–1702; brevet lt. col. 1697.</p> |
|
<p>Having survived an attack of smallpox as a young child, Thompson began his public career as a page to Sophia, Electress of Hanover.<sup>5</sup> In active military service, he was wounded at the siege of Namur in 1694, given a commission and entered the Commons the following year as a staunch court Whig, following his father’s original political allegiances.<sup>6</sup> His father’s political life had been influenced by a close relationship with the Annesley family; the 2nd Baron maintained this tradition when, after the death of his first wife, he married the sister of the 6th earl of Anglesey. The union augmented his already healthy patrimony and the dowry he had received on the occasion of his first marriage.<sup>7</sup></p><p>As the only surviving son (seen by some as ‘a fool of £4,000 a year’ before the death of his father in 1710), Haversham inherited some £35,000 of personal estate and large tracts of real estate, including the family seat at Haversham.<sup>8</sup> Settlement of the estate was held up for years in litigation over the jointure of Haversham’s step-mother and the portions to his sisters; this involved him in a dispute with his Tory brother-in-law Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Usually an inactive member of the lower House, Thompson had nevertheless acted in concert with his then Whig father, perhaps most obviously during attempts to impeach the Whig lords. On 16 May 1701 he had criticized the partiality of the proceedings and unsuccessfully moved for the impeachment of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, for having signed the Second Partition Treaty. He argued that ‘it would reflect upon the justice of the house to have some punished and others as great criminals escape without notice’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>The new Lord Haversham took his seat in the Lords on 27 Nov. 1710, attending the session for 44 per cent of sittings. Over the next four and a half years he attended each of five parliamentary sessions but was present at only one session for two-thirds of all sittings (in spring 1714). For the remaining four he attended for fewer than 50 per cent of sitting days. Unlike his father he remained whiggishly inclined, opposing the new Tory administration in its pursuit of peace with France and concurrent critique of the previous ministry’s foreign policy. On 11 Jan. 1711 he twice protested against Lords’ resolutions concerning the conduct of the war in Spain. On 3 Feb. he protested against resolutions that the Spanish establishment at the time of the battle of Almanza had lacked proper supply (amounting to neglect by the previous ministry). Five days later he twice dissented from resolutions on the representation to the queen concerning the war in Spain. The following day he dissented from a resolution regarding an item to be expunged from the Journal. On 16 Mar. 1711 he attended the session for the last time and registered his proxy in favour of Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>In Dec. 1711 Haversham was listed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a possible Whig ally against the peace process. On 2 Dec. 1711 Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, noted that he was one of the peers to be canvassed before the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion. Haversham was at the House on 7 Dec. for the start of business but attended the session for only 38 per cent of sittings. He was forecast on 19 Dec. as being opposed to Scottish peers sitting in the House by right of a British title created after the Union and voted accordingly on the following day. Two days later he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. It was vacated with his attendance on 28 Mar. 1712.</p><p>On 20 May 1712 Haversham acted as a teller in the division for the passage of the Grants bill. On 28 May he registered his protest against the decision of the House not to ask the queen for a military offensive against France. On 7 June he protested against the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace. Six days later he attended the session for the last time, missing the last week of business. In Feb. 1713 he was again listed by Oxford as a peer to be canvassed before the next session. Haversham attended the House on 9 Apr. for the start of the new session and was present thereafter for half of all sittings. On 13 June Oxford speculated that he would oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Haversham did not attend the session after 10 July 1713.</p><p>On 8 Aug. 1713 Parliament was dissolved. There is no available evidence that Haversham involved himself in the ensuing parliamentary elections, but his political affiliations were being examined by the Hanoverians. On 31 July, in a schedule prepared for the elector of Hanover, Haversham was listed as one of the ‘poor lords’ as one who would ‘always … be right out of principle’ but was currently in the ‘lowest condition’, perhaps because of the ongoing litigation that prevented the settlement of his father’s estate.</p><p>On 18 Feb. 1714, Haversham resumed his seat on the third day of the new Parliament and attended the session for 66 per cent of sittings. He was in the House on 5 Apr. 1714 for the division on the supposed danger to the Protestant succession, almost certainly voting with the slim majority that declared it was not.<sup>11</sup> He was again present on 13 Apr. when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to the address on the danger posed by the Pretender. By this time, Haversham’s ongoing battle to secure his patrimony had reached the House. On 11 Dec. 1713 chancery had found in his favour in the cause of <em>Haversham v. Haversham</em> regarding the jointure of Martha, Dowager Lady Haversham.<sup>12</sup> On 5 Apr. 1714 her appeal for a reversal of the decree came before the House.<sup>13</sup> On 2 June the House heard the case, dismissed the appeal and affirmed the chancery decree, although the estate was not finally settled until 1717.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 27 May 1714 Haversham was forecast as an opponent of the Tory schism bill. He attended throughout the passage of the bill, acting as a teller on 9 June in the division of the committee of the whole. On the 15th the bill passed the House by a majority of only eight votes; Haversham was one of the 33 lords who registered their protest. On 5 July he quarrelled at the House with Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon (possibly because of the Haversham inheritance dispute). With the two lords poised to take their fight outside the chamber, the House was informed that ‘from some words which passed between the earl of Abingdon and the Lord Haversham, there is reason to believe a quarrel may ensue’. They were duly ordered ‘not to proceed any further in this matter’. Both submitted to the injunction. On 8 July Haversham protested against the resolution regarding the asiento contract and the South Sea Company, a company in which he had a commercial interest. He was present for the prorogation the following day.</p><p>Haversham did not attend the brief session that met in the wake of Queen Anne’s death until 13 August. He was present on only five sitting days before the prorogation on the 25th. Following the elections for the new Parliament of 1715, he missed the first two months of business in spring 1715 and did not resume his seat until 23 May. His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next phase of this work.</p><p>The title was extinguished at Haversham’s death without surviving male issue on 11 Apr. 1745. He made his wife Elizabeth sole executrix of his will, bequeathing all of his real estate in Britain, Ireland and the American colonies to be held in trust by Charles Annesley of Dublin, Major General John Guys of Kensington and the clergyman James Altham of Essex for sale to benefit his wife and grand-daughters, Ann and Elizabeth Carter, and Helena Gregory and Maurice Thompson Guernley. He was buried at Haversham on 19 Apr. 1745 despite having sold the family seat in 1728.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
THYNNE, Thomas (1640-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>THYNNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1640–1714)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>11 Dec. 1682 Visct. WEYMOUTH |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 9 July 1714 |
|
MP Oxford University 1674, Tamworth 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.) |
<p><em>b</em>. 8 Sept. 1640, 1st s. of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne, bt. and Mary, da. of Thomas Coventry<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Coventry;<sup>1</sup> bro. of James Thynne<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Kingston-on-Thames g.s., Hayes, Mdx. (Dr Thomas Triplett); Christ Church, Oxf. 1657. <em>m</em>. by 1673 (with £7,000)<sup>2</sup> Frances, (<em>d</em>.1712) da. of Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea,<sup>3</sup> 2s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 1da. ?<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. as 2nd bt. 6 Mar. 1680, cos. in Wiltshire estates 12 Feb. 1682. <em>d</em>. 28 July 1714;<sup>4</sup> <em>will</em> 4 Nov. 1709 (undated codicil), pr. 4 Aug. 1714.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of the bedchamber to James*, duke of York, 1666-72; envoy to Sweden 1666-9; PC 18 June 1702-May 1707,<sup>6</sup> 8 Mar. 1712-<em>d</em>.; first ld. of trade and plantations 1702-7.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Commr. for assessment Glos. and Salop 1673-80, Oxford Univ. 1677-9, Herefs., Staffs. and Warws. 1677-80, for recusants Oxford 1675; dep. lt. Staffs. 1678-?87, Som. 1682,<sup>8</sup> Wilts. 1682-3; steward Sutton Coldfield 1679-<em>d</em>.; high steward Tamworth 1681-<em>d</em>., Lichfield 1712-<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Wilts. 1683-88, 1690-1706,<sup>9</sup> 1711-<em>d</em>.;<sup>10</sup> warden Forest of Dean 1712-<em>d.</em>;<sup>11</sup> constable of St Briavels Castle 1712-<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1664; mbr. SPG 1701-<em>d</em>.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, 1675, Courtauld Gallery, London.</p> |
<h2><em>The Thynne Inheritance</em></h2><p>The Thynnes claimed descent from a Poitevin family, the Boteviles, who were granted land in Stretton, Shropshire during the reign of King John. According to family mythology the surname Thynne derived from John Botevile (<em>fl</em>. 1460), known on account of his principal property holding as John of th’inn. By the 16th century the family had prospered and was established in several counties with the most celebrated estate at Longleat being acquired in 1540.<sup>13</sup> Other substantial holdings were also developed in Shropshire, Gloucestershire and Staffordshire. By the 17th century the family was divided into two distinct branches in Wiltshire and in Gloucestershire and Shropshire. The Wiltshire estates were the more substantial, with their holder enjoying an income in excess of £10,000. In 1682 this was Thomas Thynne<sup>‡</sup> of Longleat (‘Tom of ten thousand’). His murder in 1682 would reunite the majority of the family’s estates in the hands of the head of the other branch, his cousin, Sir Thomas Thynne, 2nd bt., of Drayton Bassett. Sir Thomas was soon afterwards created Viscount Weymouth.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Initially attached to the court, the then Sir Thomas Thynne had served as groom of the bedchamber to the duke of York and as a diplomat in Sweden before a falling out with his former patron encouraged him to stand in the country interest for Oxford University in 1674 and for Tamworth in 1679. He was able to bring his own interest to bear at Lichfield in 1679 on behalf of his cousin Daniel Finch*, later 2nd earl of Nottingham.<sup>15</sup> Thynne’s marriage to Frances Finch was the foundation of an enduring association with both branches of the Finch family and especially with Nottingham. Another cousin, George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, was also an important influence on him, while the advantageous marriage of Thynne’s sister Katherine to Sir John Lowther*, later Viscount Lonsdale, extended his interest into the north-west.</p><p>Thynne’s marriage had added substantially to his estates. Already possessed of lands in Gloucestershire and Shropshire, Thynne acquired the manor of Drayton Bassett in Staffordshire, estates in Herefordshire and an estimated 22,000 acres in Ireland by the will of his wife’s grandmother, Frances, duchess of Somerset.<sup>16</sup> A codicil to the duchess’s will had dramatically increased Thynne’s share and for almost seven years after her death in 1674 he was involved in a complicated legal tussle with the other claimants, among them his father in law, Winchilsea, who accused him of fraudulently imposing the codicil on the dying duchess when her reason had gone.<sup>17</sup> Although a settlement was finally arrived at in April 1680, eight years later Weymouth (as he had by then become) faced a new challenge to his tenure of the Longleat estates when Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, initiated further proceedings against him in an effort to recover a third of the estate in right of his wife, Elizabeth, widow of the murdered Thomas Thynne.<sup>18</sup> Despite the long legal dispute, relations between Thynne and his Finch cousins remained remarkably cordial.<sup>19</sup> Thynne’s inheritance of the duchess’s estates may have been one of the reasons for his own father leaving him comparatively little when he died in 1680. Although determined to ‘make no disturbance in the family’ Thynne was clearly disconcerted by his father’s last action towards him and he complained that ‘at present I have not £1,000 a year from my father nor ever shall have above £2,800, for Kempsford if all rented will not exceed £1,700’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Despite his reputation as a staunch upholder of the Anglican Church (prior to the Restoration he had been an habitué of the Oxford congregation presided over by John Fell*, afterwards bishop of Oxford), in the 1670s Thynne was a determined opponent of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds.<sup>21</sup> During the Exclusion Parliaments he, along with his uncle Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup> and his cousin Halifax, returned to supporting the court. In August 1681 the corporation of Gloucester offered Thynne the seat previously held by the exclusionist Charles Berkeley*, styled Lord Dursley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley).<sup>22</sup> The following year he was nominated a deputy lieutenant in Somerset by Winchilsea.</p><h2><em>Viscount Weymouth and the Tory Reaction</em></h2><p>His cousin was murdered in February 1682. Thynne’s inheritance of Longleat presented the court with a valuable counterbalance to the whiggism then prevalent in Wiltshire.<sup>23</sup> Towards the end of November it was rumoured that he was to be one of a new clutch of barons and the following month he was promoted Baron Thynne and Viscount Weymouth.<sup>24</sup> The peerages were created with a special remainder conveying both his barony and the viscountcy to his brothers’ heirs male in the event of his dying without male heirs of his own.<sup>25</sup> It was also rumoured that further advancement would follow soon after.<sup>26</sup> His new honours notwithstanding, Weymouth’s authority at Longleat was challenged by some of his own tenants, who remained committed to his deceased cousin’s politics. One such, Robert Fitzclothier, was reported to have invited Weymouth to ‘kiss his arse.’<sup>27</sup> Weymouth saw the revelation of the Rye House Plot in the summer of 1683 as an opportunity (as he declared to Halifax) ‘to justify all that you have or shall do.’<sup>28</sup> The following month, Weymouth was instrumental in the drawing up of a loyal address from the justices and grand jury of Wiltshire in response to the Plot. Weymouth excused his inability to present the address to the king in person, explaining the necessity of his presence at the assizes and of ‘securing the peace and watching the motions of that restless faction.’ Besides responses to ‘the Hellish conspiracy’, the majority of the business occupying the assizes during the summer involved cases involving the proliferation of clipping and coining. Weymouth petitioned the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, successfully on behalf of two of the condemned, telling him that although he had ‘no personal knowledge of either nor any concern in the matter than compassion’, ‘most men speak well of them and think them pretty hardly used by the jury.’ He also applied to Halifax to seek his intervention on behalf of a man convicted for manslaughter.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Weymouth’s activities during the summer brought him into conflict with the other dominant peer in the county, the notoriously unstable Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. In August 1683 Weymouth visited him at Wilton House in an effort to arrive at some sort of accommodation noting that, ‘he was very ceremonious, but when the wine is in, his jealousy breaks out.’ He predicted that should Pembroke be removed from his joint offices of lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> one of the Hyde brothers, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, or Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, would expect to replace him.<sup>30</sup> When Pembroke died shortly after, though, it was Weymouth who succeeded as <em>custos</em>, while the office of lord lieutenant remained with the Herbert family, being granted to the late earl’s brother and successor, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Weymouth’s appointment as <em>custos</em> in Wiltshire was almost certainly the result of Halifax’s patronage. In October 1683 amid heightened speculation that a new Parliament would shortly be called Weymouth assured Halifax that he would do nothing without his directions.<sup>32</sup> The following year, Weymouth’s brother, Henry, was appointed one of the treasury commissioners.<sup>33</sup> This was widely interpreted as further evidence of Halifax’s dominance; Weymouth certainly considered it the result of Halifax’s favour to his family.<sup>34</sup> In addition to his increased responsibilities in Wiltshire, Weymouth also remained keenly interested in his midlands holdings. <em>Quo</em> <em>warranto</em> proceedings in Lichfield, close to Weymouth’s Staffordshire estates, led to the drawing up of a new charter in January 1685. Through Weymouth’s influence its issue was delayed for a further 14 months.<sup>35</sup> Having made such efforts on the town’s behalf, Weymouth was dismayed not to be chosen recorder as he had been promised. He proposed to Halifax that a new post of high steward might be created for him instead.<sup>36</sup> Making no secret of his irritation he wrote fulsomely to the man who had supplanted him as recorder, George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, ‘that they have made an infinitely better and discreter choice of your lordship I do most readily acknowledge, though their carriage towards me is not very obliging.’<sup>37</sup> At the general election Dartmouth united his interest with that of Weymouth and Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury (later duke of Shrewsbury), in supporting Richard Leveson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>38</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of James II and the Revolution, 1685-90</em></h2><p>Weymouth served in the modest office of assistant to the cupbearer to the queen at the coronation in April 1685.<sup>39</sup> On 19 May he was finally able to take his seat in the House, introduced between the only two other viscounts then sitting, Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, and Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford). Present on 93 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 21 May he was named to the standing committees for petitions and privileges and to the sub-committee for the Journal. On 10 June he was entrusted with his father-in-law’s proxy, which was vacated by Winchilsea’s return to the House two days later.</p><p>The outbreak of Monmouth’s rebellion during the summer threatened to engulf Weymouth’s estates at Longleat. One of Monmouth’s principal followers, John Kidd, had been gamekeeper on the estate under Weymouth’s predecessor. Monmouth’s base at Frome was on the peripheries of Weymouth’s land. At one point during the rising a handful of Monmouth’s soldiers presented themselves at the house. Monmouth’s defeat at Sedgemoor saved Weymouth from further inconvenience and he demonstrated his antipathy to the rebels by ignoring an appeal by William Penn to petition the king for clemency on Kidd’s behalf.<sup>40</sup> Weymouth played little part in the assizes held at Salisbury in September, finding, as he told Halifax, ‘the judges so well informed of all things, and so little wanting the assistance of others, that there is no need of my attendance’, though he did stay long enough to provoke a dispute with the judges over precedence. Although Weymouth pretended to be unconcerned on the matter, declaring that precedence was ‘none of the things I regard’, in advance of the assize he had written to Halifax on precisely this issue, being eager to avoid incurring ‘the censure of the House for losing what belongs to the peers’.<sup>41</sup> Weymouth resumed his seat in the House on 11 Nov. at Halifax’s prompting, having formerly ‘taken other resolutions’.<sup>42</sup> He then continued to attend until the close nine days later.</p><p>By the beginning of 1686 Weymouth, his wife and son all appear to have been troubled by poor health. With his family sickening and convinced that his influence was declining, Weymouth resolved to leave the country. In considering possible places of refuge he ruled out France initially as ‘inhospitable’ and soon after expressed a desire to travel to Portugal.<sup>43</sup> He hoped that its warmer climate would be beneficial to his health but he professed himself to be worried about the Inquisition and concerned that ‘a heretic family, when not secured by public character may be liable to it, especially when accompanied by a chaplain’.<sup>44</sup> Although permission to travel was granted later that year, by July he seems to have rejected Portugal as too remote and by the middle of August, confident that his son was not as unwell as had been feared and his wife much improved, he decided to lay aside his plans for a foreign tour for the time being.<sup>45</sup></p><p>The death of Weymouth’s uncle, Sir William Coventry, that summer gave him further cause for discontent as he received only a modest legacy of £50 to buy a mourning ring. Weymouth struggled to disguise his disappointment, commenting to Halifax that ‘though he [Sir William] has not expressed it to either of us in legacies at the rate he has to others; yet I suppose he thought we wanted not such evidences of kindness nor expected them from him’.<sup>46</sup> Weymouth himself had a reputation for generosity, and when the same year he was approached by Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> to donate £200 towards the ransom of one Captain Spurrell, who had been enslaved by Barbary corsairs, he and his mother obliged willingly, though Weymouth subsequently professed himself unable to do anything more for Spurrell following his release claiming ‘my interest is not strong enough in any place to serve either my friends or myself.’<sup>47</sup></p><p>Poor health was clearly not the only reason that Weymouth had earlier considered quitting the country. By 1687 he found himself increasingly at odds with the king’s religious policies. In January he was noted among those opposed to repeal of the Test. In May he was included in a list of those opposed to the king’s policies and in November he was again assessed as an opponent of repeal. Weymouth was not just opposed to indulgence for Catholics. In March he reported to Halifax the meetings of nonconformists in Wiltshire, swelled by ‘having daily new teachers from London of what complexion I know not.’<sup>48</sup> In expectation of the calling of a new Parliament towards the end of the year it was reported that Weymouth had written to Tamworth to desire the return of his brother-in-law, Richard Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> (who had previously requested Weymouth’s interest) and John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>49</sup> The same year, he is said to have rejected an offer from Pembroke’s trustees for a marriage alliance between Pembroke’s daughter and his son, Henry Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, a decision that was to have lasting consequences for his own authority in Wiltshire.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Weymouth’s difficulties were not confined to uncertain health and worries about his influence. Despite his lucrative inheritance and an estimated income of £12,000, he was also plagued by debt and by protracted legal disputes. In April 1688 he complained to Halifax, ‘your lordship knows my condition too well to think I pay debts by good husbandry… like the most insolvent debtors I borrow in one place to pay in another.’<sup>51</sup> Among his creditors was Sir John Banks<sup>‡</sup>, bt., to whom Weymouth owed £7,500 in the summer of 1688.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Weymouth was noted once more as an opponent of repeal of the Test in an assessment drawn up early in 1688. The Revolution, however, placed him in a quandary. Although no friend to most of those engaged in the invasion, he refused to sign a declaration abhorring the prince’s actions or to undertake to assist the king to repel the invaders.<sup>53</sup> Shortly after William’s landing on 5 Nov., Weymouth joined Halifax, Nottingham, Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, and William Lloyd*, bishop of Norwich, in drafting a petition for the king to call Parliament; Clarendon and Rochester, who had initiated the scheme, objected to the draft.<sup>54</sup> Weymouth, along with Halifax and Nottingham then refused to subscribe the alternative petition of 16 Nov. for a free Parliament composed by Rochester and Clarendon.<sup>55</sup> Following the king’s flight, Weymouth was among those who assembled at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. when he was nominated with Rochester, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, and Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, to draw up a declaration explaining the reason for the peers’ meeting. The same day, Weymouth was appointed, along with his local rival Pembroke, the bishop of Ely and Thomas Colepepper*, 2nd Baron Colepepper, as one of the commissioners to wait on the Prince of Orange with the Lords’ declaration.<sup>56</sup> Weymouth’s frosty reception by the prince offended his vanity and confirmed him in his suspicion of Prince William’s ulterior motives.<sup>57</sup> He had returned to London by 22 Dec. when he took his seat in the House of Lords and was then present on the subsequent sittings held on 24 and 25 December.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Weymouth took his seat in the House at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days. He opposed declaring William and Mary king and queen and on 29 Jan. he joined those voting in favour of the establishment of a regency instead. Two days later he voted against the motion for replacing the clause in the Commons’ vote that said the throne was vacant with another declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ employment of the term abdicated. He was nominated one of the reporters of the conference to draw up reasons why the Lords did not agree with the Commons on the subject of King James’s abdication. He was then noticeable by his absence from the subsequent division of 6 Feb. when the Lords resolved at last to concur with the Commons and declare the throne vacant.<sup>59</sup> With the matter settled, Weymouth resumed his place in the House the following day.</p><p>Although reluctant to accept the new regime, Weymouth was equally unwilling to rouse himself on behalf of the exiled king. When he was named a regent by James, along with Nottingham, Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, and William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, he declined to act.<sup>60</sup> On 13 Apr. Weymouth joined Newport to introduce Richard Lumley*, the new Viscount Lumley. Family matters also occupied Weymouth’s time in the House: on 3 May he reported from the committee considering the bill for the sale of the house belonging to his uncle, Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, in Piccadilly, which was passed without further amendment. Weymouth was noted as being sick at a call of the House on 22 May 1689 but he resumed his seat on 28 June and thereafter sat without interruption until the close of the session on 20 August. On 2 July he entered his protest at the resolution to proceed with the impeachment of the loyalist activists Blair, Vaughan, Mole, Elliott and Gray and during the same month he was named reporter of a number of conferences concerning the crown’s succession and the judgment of perjury against Oates. On 23 July Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour, which was vacated by the end of session. A week later Weymouth voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments over the reversal of the judgment of perjury against Titus Oates, employing Burlington’s proxy on the same issue.</p><p>Weymouth returned to the House at the opening of the second session on 19 Oct. 1689 and on 5 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, the duke ‘not being able by reason of my indisposition to attend the House’. The proxy was vacated by the close of the session.<sup>61</sup> In December Weymouth undertook to speak on Chesterfield’s behalf should his absence from the House be questioned.<sup>62</sup> The same month he was entrusted with the proxy of John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, which was also vacated by the close. On 23 Jan. 1690 he acted as one of the tellers for the division concerning the peers’ attendance. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) estimated Weymouth to be an opponent of the court.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>News of the dissolution early in 1690 prompted Weymouth to write to his neighbour, James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, to remind him ‘how absolutely the welfare of the church, nay possibly of the monarchy, are concerned at this time’ and to assure Abingdon of his ‘ready concurrence’ in the forthcoming elections in Wiltshire.<sup>63</sup> Weymouth and Abingdon consequently joined their interests in support of Sir Thomas Fowle<sup>‡</sup> at Devizes, while Weymouth joined with Pembroke and Clarendon in supporting Edward Hyde*, styled Viscount Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon), as knight of the shire.<sup>64</sup> Weymouth’s efforts to bring his interest to bear in a number of other areas met with varying degrees of success. With Beaufort’s consent, he persuaded his brother, James, to stand for Gloucestershire but despite early indications of strong support, James Thynne, hampered by accusations of Jacobitism, was easily defeated by the two Whig candidates. At Tamworth, where he enjoyed the dominant interest, Weymouth ought to have been in a position to dictate affairs, but here his dilatoriness and inconsistent instructions to his agents undermined the campaign. At the same time the alliance of Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Charles Wolseley<sup>‡</sup>, who also had approached Weymouth seeking his approbation, further threatened the Thynne interest.<sup>65</sup> Although consistent in his support of the sitting member, Sir Henry Gough<sup>‡</sup>, Weymouth was unable to make up his mind on a suitable partner. Having at first proposed Edward Repington, who declined to stand, Weymouth then made it known that he would support any ‘Churchman’, thereby encouraging his agent to back Gough’s partner Michael Biddulph<sup>‡</sup>, whose candidature was then undermined by Weymouth’s decision to offer his support to Henry Boyle*, (later Baron Carleton) instead. Gough, though astonished at Weymouth’s behaviour, offered to step aside for Boyle, but warned that switching candidates so late in the day ‘would infallibly set up [the Whigs] Guy and Wolseley.’<sup>66</sup> It was only when it was impressed upon him that the ‘Church’ party was in complete disarray as a result of his vagaries that Weymouth at length agreed to support the Gough-Biddulph alliance.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Weymouth took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, after which he was present on approximately 96 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Apr. he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill recognising William and Mary as king and queen and two days later he entered a further protest at the resolution to expunge the reasons given by the protestors from the Journal.<sup>68</sup> On 5 May he served as one of the tellers following the report on the security of the crown bill and on 12 May he was appointed one of the managers of the conference considering the bill creating the queen regent during the king’s absence.</p><p>Early in June Weymouth predicted a speedy end to the war following the defeat of the Toulon squadron and the collapse of the former king’s campaign in Ireland.<sup>69</sup> The death of Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge [I], later that month led to some speculation that in the absence of any appropriate peers resident in the county Weymouth might succeed to the lieutenancy of Somerset, though this did not happen.<sup>70</sup> In the absence of political advancement Weymouth contented himself with seeing to the advancement of his family with the marriage of his daughter, Frances, to Sir Robert Worsley<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. which was settled that summer.<sup>71</sup> In September he commented on rumours of a general excise, that ‘though the Bishop of Sarum [Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury] tells me without it we must be slaves, for nothing less can resist the French; I know not how we can be secured that will do it without much better management.’<sup>72</sup></p><p>Weymouth had appeared disinclined to attend the following session, anticipating that with so many members posted to their militia companies little business could be done.<sup>73</sup> Nevertheless, he roused himself to leave his garden and took his seat in the session on 6 Oct. 1690. He was present thereafter on approximately 89 per cent of all sitting days during which he was active on a number of committees. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, although he subsequently joined with Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, in standing bail of £5,000 for Peterborough. On 30 Oct. he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill clarifying the powers of the admiralty commissioners.<sup>74</sup> On 2 Dec. Weymouth was one of the peers appointed to draw up a controversial order for the vacating and annulling of all written protections and on 9 Dec. he reported from the committee considering a bill to permit Katherine, Lady Cornbury, to assume certain powers to act as if she were of full age. On 17 Dec. he acted as one of the tellers on the division whether to adjourn the debate over the cause <em>Dod v. Burrows</em> and on 5 Jan. 1691 he was one of the reporters of a series of conferences held that day concerning the bill for the suspension of the navigation and corn acts.</p><p>Weymouth’s loyalty to the new regime came under greater scrutiny when in 1691 he was named by William Fuller and Richard Grahme, Viscount Preston [S], as one of those peers in correspondence with the exiled king. Weymouth had already drawn attention to himself by offering an annuity and lodgings at Longleat to the nonjuror Thomas Ken*, formerly bishop of Bath and Wells, and Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney), certainly seems to have believed the intelligence.<sup>75</sup> Other sources mentioned Weymouth as a regular member of a Jacobite group which included Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury. For all this Preston’s account was unclear about the extent of Weymouth’s activity as a result of which he escaped serious censure in spite of his undoubted Jacobite sympathies.<sup>76</sup> During the summer he remained at liberty to concern himself with family affairs, particularly the question of a suitable marriage for Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, and he even appears to have been considered as a possible replacement for one ailing lord lieutenant.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Weymouth took his seat in the House shortly after the opening of the session of October 1691 after which he was present on approximately 84 per cent of sitting days. On 13 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to dismiss the appeal from <em>Dashwood v. Champante</em> and on 9 Dec. he reported from the committees considering the bill to secure the debts of the 4th earl of Salisbury. The same day he reported from the committee considering a bill to allow the sale of the manor of Manworthy in Devon as well as introducing a bill to permit his nephew, Winchilsea, to settle a jointure on any future wife. On 31 Dec. Weymouth reported the bill for the more effectual discovery and punishment of deer-stealers as being fit to pass without amendment. Towards the end of the year he was included in a list compiled by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, of those Derby thought likely to support his efforts to recover lands alienated prior to the Restoration.<sup>78</sup></p><p>On 2 Jan. 1692 Weymouth entered his protest at the resolution not to send for the original record of a precedent cited during the debate on the Commons’ vote of the previous December concerning the East India Company. On 12 Jan. he entered a further protest at the decision to receive the bill allowing Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce. On 25 Jan. Weymouth’s neighbour, Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 2 Feb. Weymouth protested at the resolution not to agree with the Commons objections to the Lords’ amendments on the appointment of commissioners of accounts. The same month Weymouth was shaken by the death of his grandson, Thynne Worsley, but he continued to sit until the adjournment on 24 Feb. and on 22 Feb. he reported from the conference considering the small tithes bill.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Weymouth appears to have indulged in further Jacobite intrigue during the year: his name appeared on a list of those peers said to have assured King James that they would receive him willingly upon terms.<sup>80</sup> Again, Weymouth seems to have escaped any serious consequences. That summer he resolved to send his heir on a foreign tour, commenting to Halifax cynically that his aim was ‘rather to fill up some years which would have lain upon his hands, than that I expect any wonders from it.’<sup>81</sup> He was also able to conclude a match between his nephew, Winchilsea, and Sarah Nourse with a portion of £7,000, a considerably more modest alliance than the £20,000 portion some had expected Winchilsea to secure. There were continued doubts about Weymouth’s loyalty: in September Bishop Burnet complained to Nottingham of Weymouth’s flagrant refusal to offer prayers to the king and queen and of his employment of a non-juror as chaplain, which he saw as ‘the most insolent affront that is put on the government in the west of England’. Burnet rounded on Nottingham for protecting him:</p><blockquote><p>The whole neighbourhood cry out of this. They indeed do all tell me that the earl of Nottingham is his great friend who will still maintain him <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> and master of the Justices of this county though it be the jest of every one in it.<sup>82</sup></p></blockquote><p>Weymouth was once again initially disinclined to rouse himself from his Wiltshire retirement to take his seat in Parliament for the session of November 1692, commenting dismissively that ‘my private affairs sufficiently require my stay here, and the slender consideration is had of the House of Lords, or that they have indeed for themselves, makes home and quiet very desirable.’<sup>83</sup> Missing at a call of the House on 21 Nov., he did however, overcome his lethargy to take his seat a month into the session on 2 December. He was thereafter present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Dec. he was again entrusted with Ferrers’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 17 Dec. he also received that of Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke, which was vacated by Brooke’s resumption of his seat on 20 Jan. 1693. On 30 Dec. Weymouth acted as one of the reporters of the conference considering the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford. Weymouth voted in favour of committing the place bill on 31 December. On 3 Jan. 1693 he reported from the committee of the whole House considering the bill and when the measure was defeated he was one of those to subscribe the resulting protest. Shortly before this he had also opposed reading the bill to allow Norfolk to divorce. Weymouth was missing from the House on 10 Jan. when a hastily convened meeting of Herefordshire peers and members of the Commons agreed on recommending Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> to stand in the by-election triggered by the recent death of Sir John Morgan<sup>‡</sup> but Weymouth later indicated his support for Harley by letter.<sup>84</sup> He resumed his seat the following day and on 19 Jan. he entered his protest at the resolution that the Lords recede from their amendments to the bill of supply. On 23 Jan. he may have acted as one of the tellers in the division over the reversal of the decree in <em>Bowtell v. Appleby</em> but it is possible the teller on this occasion was in fact Newport. The following month Weymouth was one of only 14 peers to find Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder.<sup>85</sup></p><p>The summer found Weymouth back on his Wiltshire estates, though by the middle of September he was complaining to Abingdon how ‘melancholy’ the county appeared in Abingdon’s absence.<sup>86</sup> Enervated by his rural retreat, Weymouth took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 November. The following day, Ferrers again registered his proxy in favour of Weymouth, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 22 Dec. he entered his protest at the resolution to allow the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman to withdraw their petition concerning Bridgeman’s case with Rowland Holt. Towards the close of the year Weymouth approached Sir Henry Johnson<sup>‡</sup>, bt. on behalf of one Stephens, who was owed money by the recently deceased John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace. Weymouth hoped that Johnson, as Lovelace’s executor, would ensure Stephens was paid as ‘an act of charity as well as justice.’<sup>87</sup> Weymouth was again nominated reporter of several conferences during January 1694 and in February he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. Weymouth was absent from the House after 17 Feb. but on 24 Feb. he registered his own proxy in favour of Halifax, which was vacated by the close of the session on 25 April.</p><p>In March Weymouth received money (to be distributed to ‘such persons as he in his discretion shall think proper objects of his kindness’) in the will of the Tory Sir John Matthewes<sup>‡</sup>, whose wife had previously been married to John Mews, brother to Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester.<sup>88</sup> During the summer he responded to a complaint from Ferrers about a distribution of Irish lands in which Ferrers believed himself to have been treated unfairly, insisting on his willingness to see the matter corrected and that he ‘would not take advantage of the errors of others’.<sup>89</sup> Weymouth was missing at the opening of the new parliamentary session on 12 Nov. 1694 and he was excused at a call of the House on 26 November. Four days later, Winchilsea registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour despite that fact that Weymouth had not yet taken his seat. Weymouth eventually did so on 17 Dec. and the following day he protested at the resolution to pass the triennial bill. On 20 Dec. Ferrers once more registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour. Although present in the House on almost 36 per cent of all sitting days in the session, Weymouth failed to attend from 10 Jan. 1695 until 8 April. On 24 Jan. he registered his proxy in Halifax’s favour, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat. Weymouth’s absence may have been caused by negotiations involving the marriage of his son, Henry Thynne, to the heiress Grace Strode, who brought with her a fortune of £20,000, and in March Weymouth petitioned the king to allow Henry Thynne to suffer recoveries of lands in several counties inherited from his late uncle James Thynne despite being under age.<sup>90</sup> Towards the end of March it was reported that Weymouth had been sent for from London: shortly afterwards he resumed his seat in the Lords.<sup>91</sup> Weymouth’s recall may have been the result of a number of pressing issues coming before the House. On 18 Apr. he entered his dissent at the resolution to exonerate John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), from censure for corruption and towards the end of the month was engaged in the debates concerning the attempted impeachment of the duke of Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become). The affair troubled Weymouth and he declared himself unwilling to be a member of any joint committee for the impeachment, for ‘though I may believe my share of the thing complained of, cannot join in the design, or method, of the prosecution.’ He was also concerned by the way in which the impeachment had forced him to neglect his own affairs and that his son’s bill would not be dispatched until the following week.<sup>92</sup> Even so, he continued to be involved in the House’s business until the close of the session. On 1 May he reported from a committee of the whole house considering a bill for the better encouragement of privateers.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>Weymouth appears to have been in serious financial difficulty by the summer of 1695, though he reassured himself that ‘it is now so commendable a thing to break, that a bankrupt scarce hides his head and therefore I will not pretend to modesty.’<sup>93</sup> He continued to attempt to advance his son’s interests and on the dissolution of Parliament in October he resolved to set the young man up for Weobley.<sup>94</sup> The small Herefordshire town was one of several constituencies in which he commanded interest but the venality of the borough and Henry Thynne’s clear unwillingness to stand undid Weymouth’s scheme.<sup>95</sup> Weymouth had complained that ‘the great difficulty is to get men to stand, who are unwilling, and indeed cannot bear the expense the polls require’ but his initial assessment was that the results would be ‘much the same, not worse, than the last.’ When this proved not to be the case he predicted bleakly that ‘the Church will totter’.<sup>96</sup> Following on from disappointing election results, Weymouth joined with Ferrers in prosecuting a case in chancery against William Barton and Richard Hampden and his heirs over the manor of Redcastle in Shropshire and estates in Ireland, which was eventually settled amicably almost four years later.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Smarting from the Tories’ poor showing in the elections, Weymouth avoided Parliament for the entirety of the session of November 1695 to April 1696. Explaining his resolution to James Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, he insisted that the Lords now had:</p><blockquote><p>no share in the government of this world and what the Commons will do no man can guess before they have a little fermented. For that reason I stay here, that if no good can be done I may not have the disquiet of being a spectator.<sup>98</sup></p></blockquote><p>Weymouth nevertheless kept an eye on business in the Lords. In January 1696 he wrote to William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax (whose father had died in April 1695), to congratulate him for</p><blockquote><p>the heroic vote you have left upon your books, as well as the noble lament upon it, in receding from your amendments, and that for the necessity of saving a bill, which neither the Commons, nor those they represent, will give a clipped sixpence for.<sup>99</sup></p></blockquote><p>Weymouth dismissed efforts to encourage him to attend the second half of the session, insisting that his health would not allow it, and even the revelation of the Assassination Plot and his inclusion in a new list of peers said to have been in contact with the exiled court failed to make him change his mind.<sup>100</sup> The incident brought to the fore again Weymouth’s uncertain relationship with the new regime. On 29 Feb. he wrote to Halifax, ‘the saint I pray to’, seeking his interposition with the House to secure his excuse from being called to attend.<sup>101</sup> He then wrote to Somers on 17 Mar. insisting that he was too indisposed with gout to attend and hoping that the House would accept his explanation not least because of his former diligent attendance. The same day the House resolved to send him a copy of the Association. Both he and Beaufort then addressed letters to the House expressing their abhorrence of the Plot but maintaining their resolutions not to sign. Insistent that his health would not permit his appearance and seeking once more Halifax’s assistance in getting him excused, Weymouth subsequently refused to obey a summons commanding his appearance on 31 March.<sup>102</sup> Adamant that he would not risk the unhealthy air of the capital, Weymouth concentrated instead on private affairs. Desirous of seeing his son established, he decided to quit Longleat and settle at his former home of Drayton Bassett. The resolution was perhaps also driven by his financial problems. In June of the following year Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup> reported that Weymouth had at last left Longleat and removed himself to Drayton Bassett.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Weymouth was still missing at the opening of the new session in October 1696 and on 14 Nov. the House ordered that he should appear on 23 November. In the event he resumed his seat six days earlier than required. He took the oaths and then sat until the beginning of March 1697, being present on approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days. On 28 Nov. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for further remedying the ill state of the coinage and on 2 Dec. he entered a further protest on the same issue. On 23 Dec. he voted against the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and entered his protest when the bill was passed.<sup>104</sup> On 13 Jan. 1697 Weymouth was able to strengthen the ranks of his associates in the Lords when he introduced his brother-in-law, John Lowther, Viscount Lonsdale, into the House. Weymouth’s experiences at the hands of the electors of Weobley may have led to his subscribing the protest of 23 Jan. against the resolution not to give the bill for further regulation of parliamentary elections a second reading. On 5 Feb. Weymouth reported from the committees considering John Keyser’s naturalization bill and a bill for vesting the lands of William Millward of Hereford in trustees for the payment of debts. The same month, Weymouth rallied to the assistance of Ailesbury, who had been incarcerated for almost a year under suspicion of Jacobite conspiracy, joining with Chesterfield, Ferrers and Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, in standing £5,000 bail for him.<sup>105</sup> During the proceedings against Ailesbury in King’s Bench, Weymouth was heard to whisper to his friend, John Conyers, one of the prosecuting counsel, ‘Conyers, hold your tongue; you speak against your heart.’ Conyers was then said to have delivered a singularly incoherent address.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Weymouth absented himself from the House after 6 Mar. 1697 and two days later he registered his proxy with Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford. When Guilford quit the session on 25 Mar. he attempted to register it afresh with Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham. Although Feversham wrote on 1 Apr. acknowledging receipt of the proxy, there is no record of its having been entered in the proxy book.<sup>107</sup></p><p>The summer of 1697 appears to have been taken up with Weymouth’s preparations for moving his establishment from Longleat to Drayton.<sup>108</sup> By the winter his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs was made apparent by his commenting to Halifax that ‘I wish your father’s <em>Letter to a Dissenter</em> were reprinted just now, it may be as seasonable a preservation to the penal laws and test, as when first published.’ He also made plain his disinclination to involve himself with politics by absenting himself from the House during the ensuing session. On 4 Dec. he appealed to Halifax once more to make his excuses for him and on 11 Dec. he wrote again enclosing a blank proxy form which he hoped Halifax would fill in either with his own name or that of Ferrers. Intriguingly, the proxy book records the proxy as having been registered in Ferrers’s favour the previous day (10 Dec.): presumably an administrative mistake. The decision to register the proxy with Ferrers was contrary to Weymouth’s inclination but having held the other man’s proxy on several occasions, Weymouth concluded it would have been ‘unkind if not rude’ to have placed it elsewhere. His uneasy relationship with Ferrers persisted and in August 1699 he reacted equivocally to the news that Ferrers had made himself Weymouth’s ‘double cousin’, (Ferrers had just married into the Finch family): it was something ‘which I should not have congratulated a year ago, whatever I may do now.’<sup>109</sup> The two peers’ difficult relations probably stemmed from the division of estates in Ireland between them in 1694.</p><p>With his proxy settled for the time being, Weymouth remained immoveable from his determination to avoid travelling to London even when he was appealed to by his old Wiltshire ally Abingdon in February 1698 to appear on behalf of Abingdon’s son, James Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, one of the principals in the case <em>Bertie v. Falkland</em> which was anticipated in the lords ‘with as much opposition as a party interest can give it’.<sup>110</sup> Weymouth excused himself claiming that, ‘this being the time of the year when the gout usually returns to me… a journey to London would certainly throw me into it… the apprehensions of that kept me from coming up this sessions of Parliament and will I hope incline your lordship to put a favourable interpretation upon this just apology.’<sup>111</sup> Towards the end of April Weymouth sent Halifax another blank proxy form after his previous one was vacated by Ferrers’ registering of his own proxy with Pembroke on 15 April. Weymouth explained sending in the form blank as he was ‘not only ignorant who have their full number of proxies, but much a stranger to men’s behaviour, for every sessions makes great alterations, I therefore send a blank proxy to be filled up by your lordship with what name you please.’<sup>112</sup> On 3 May the proxy was registered in Rochester’s favour.</p><h2><em>From the 1698 Elections to the Accession of Anne</em></h2><p>The summer of 1698 found Weymouth ‘so harassed with preparations for elections that I have had very few moments of rest.’<sup>113</sup> He subsequently failed to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament later in the summer and it was not until 11 Feb. 1699 that he finally returned to the House, following which he was present on 14 occasions (17 per cent of the whole). During the year, Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, assumed his seat in the House following the death of his father and gravitated towards Nottingham’s grouping, perhaps through Weymouth’s influence.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Weymouth was prostrated with severe gout in the early summer of 1699, which was said to have gone to his head.<sup>115</sup> He was still on crutches in the middle of July but in September he was well enough to entertain Shrewsbury at Longleat and he recovered in time to take his seat in the House a month into the new session on 11 December. He attended almost 89 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>116</sup> On 1 Feb. 1700 he voted in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 8 Feb. he protested at the resolution to put the question whether the Darien colony was inconsistent with the well-being of England’s plantations. Two days later he protested again on the same issue. Weymouth also continued to demonstrate opposition to the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill and on 12 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolution that the bill should pass.</p><p>Preparations for the general election anticipated the formal dissolution of Parliament by several months but Weymouth was distracted by the loss that August of ‘the excellent’ William Savile, 2nd marquess of Halifax. He regarded the coming sessions with a decidedly jaundiced eye believing that ‘nothing is plainer than that their utmost prudence is necessary to give us some consistency, which God grant, to support a sinking trade not to say nation.’<sup>117</sup> He took an interest in the election in Westmorland and also determined once again to promote his son’s interest at Weobley.<sup>118</sup> In October 1700 it was reported that he had secured the support of Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, but although the report was repeated over the next two months, by mid-December Weymouth’s agent expressed his doubts that the bishop would be able to do Weymouth ‘any great service’ and he repeated his assessment a few days later.<sup>119</sup> Although Weymouth declared himself ready to ‘push it as far as it will go and not to spare the prevalent methods there’ and the Thynne party was also assured of assistance from Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup>, the news from Weobley was consistently poor with the Thynne cause hampered by mismanagement and the failure of both Weymouth himself and Henry Thynne to appear in the town.<sup>120</sup> Although Thynne was also promoted enthusiastically by John Poulett*, 4th Baron (later Earl) Poulett, in the election for Somerset, here too his cause was soon overtaken by more popular candidates. An attempt to set him up at Dorchester was also rebuffed. At the poll in January 1701 the Thynne interest again proved itself unequal to the task of dealing with the inhabitants of Weobley as Henry Cornewall<sup>‡</sup> and John Birch<sup>‡</sup> pushed Henry Thynne into third place.<sup>121</sup> In the event Thynne was returned at Weymouth and Melcombe Regis where his father and the Strode family were both influential. At Tamworth, Weymouth was successful in employing his interest on behalf of Sir Henry Gough.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Weymouth took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on approximately 74 per cent of sitting days. Throughout March he entered a series of protests on the subject of the Partition Treaty and on 20 Mar. he dissented from the resolution not to send the address concerning the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. On 16 Apr. Weymouth protested at the resolution to appoint a committee to compose an address asking the king not to punish the four impeached lords until they had been tried. Throughout June he continued to enter protests on the same subject. On 28 May he reported from the committee considering the Minehead harbour bill and on 2 June from that for Jasper Cardoso’s naturalization, which was passed with amendments. On 17 June Weymouth voted against acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers, of the articles of impeachment and entered his protest when the resolution to acquit was carried.</p><p>In the second general election of 1701 Weymouth was much more cautious in his dealings with Weobley, which he now limited to giving his interest to Robert Price<sup>‡</sup>. Weymouth corresponded with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, during the summer and early autumn, thanking him for ‘keeping so equal a correspondence with one who makes you so unequal returns’ and encouraging him to stand for Herefordshire provided he could ‘secure Radnor to a good man.’<sup>123</sup> He also offered support to Sir John Williams<sup>‡</sup> standing again for the other county seat in Herefordshire.<sup>124</sup> Henry Thynne stood successfully at Tamworth, buoyed by his family’s dominant interest. He was also returned for Milborne Port, which might have allowed his father to provide John Howe<sup>‡</sup> with the seat at Tamworth: in the event, though, he settled for representing Tamworth himself.</p><p>Weymouth took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. He was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. He opposed the attainder of James II’s widow, Queen Mary Beatrice, registering his protest on 20 Feb. 1702 at the passage of the bill. Four days later, he subscribed a further protest against the bill for the further security of the king’s person. The death of William III the following month may have encouraged Weymouth and the Tories to hope for greater preferment. The requirement to take the abjuration oath, which had been approved by the Lords on 24 Feb., proved an obstacle some were reluctant to negotiate. Weymouth and Nottingham absented themselves from London during the celebrations for Queen Anne’s succession to consider their response and a newsletter of 19 Mar. noted Weymouth as one of three peers who had been present in the House during the session but had still not taken the oath.<sup>125</sup> On 4 Apr. Weymouth was able to inform Nottingham that he believed he had overcome his scruples and would be ‘proud to follow your lordship to the table’, while adding that he ‘took it for granted that notwithstanding this oath, every man is free to consent to any change… made by Parliament.’<sup>126</sup> Accordingly, he resumed his seat in the House after a break of over a month on 20 Apr. and joined Nottingham in taking the oath. He was then named one of the managers of the conference considering a bill for altering the oath only a few days afterwards. Weymouth’s decision to conform no doubt encouraged reports that he was to be made lord privy seal, though these proved to be erroneous.<sup>127</sup> On 11 May he was entrusted with the proxy of Robert Carey*, 7th Baron Hunsdon, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 14 May he also received that of Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale. Scarsdale’s proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 21 May.</p><p>Although Weymouth was overlooked for senior office, he was soon after appointed one of the commissioners for trade, in spite of the opposition of Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, who considered him ‘a man of faction’, and predicted that ‘he is one that will make an noise and give dissatisfaction to many that I believe wish well and could be useful to the government.’<sup>128</sup> With the office came a salary of £1,000 that must have been a welcome addition for the indebted peer.<sup>129</sup> For all this, he delayed accepting the position as he was affronted at the continued employment of some of the previous commissioners and displacement of another.<sup>130</sup> Having overcome his scruples once again he accepted the post and was sworn of the Privy Council.<sup>131</sup> Fees payable on the occasion of his swearing in on 18 June amounted to £26.<sup>132</sup> Soon after the queen’s accession, Weymouth appears to have been involved in an attempt to offer Thomas Ken the return of his bishopric. The plan was stymied by Ken’s refusal to take the abjuration oath.<sup>133</sup> Weymouth’s close association with the venerable former bishop appears to have attracted the attention of Dr Henry Sacheverell, who dedicated the printed version of his 10 June Fast Day sermon preached at Oxford to Weymouth.<sup>134</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1702</em></h2><p>Weymouth excused himself from remaining in London during the summer months, pleading the July elections: ‘if ever diligence were necessary it is now that all hands and heads are at work to make the new elections suit the interests of the several parties.’ In August he was able to pronounce that ‘we could not wish better elections than those in the north, which shows that the power of some great men sprang from the influence of the government, and that nothing can hurt us if we are not over politic.’ Despite his enthusiasm for the state of the nation, Weymouth’s own financial problems continued to trouble him. The condition of Ireland was particularly sobering and the same month he was forced to concede that he had ‘no prospect of rents’ from his estates there that year.<sup>135</sup></p><p>Weymouth took his seat in the House for the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He failed to attend the House at all in November and that month he found himself uncharacteristically in disagreement with Nottingham over the latter’s proposal for union with Scotland as a surer way of maintaining the Protestant succession. Weymouth was concerned at the implications that union with a Presbyterian country would have on the Church of England.<sup>136</sup> His opinion may well also have been tinged by prejudice as he had made plain his aversion to Scotland five years previously with the withering comment: ‘as to Scotland, it is much easier to keep people in it, than to incline them to go thither when out of it.’<sup>137</sup> He returned to the House on 1 Dec. after which he continued to sit without significant interruption until the prorogation on 27 February. Reports that Weymouth and Ferrers intended to sell their estates in Ireland, and rumours that the lords’ prospective purchasers were Catholic, elicited an alarmed missive from Francis Annesley<sup>‡</sup> in December. (Annesley also hoped that Weymouth would use his influence to ensure the selection of a suitable successor to the recently deceased primate of Ireland.)<sup>138</sup></p><p>Weymouth, predictably, was estimated to be in full support of Nottingham’s bill for the prevention of occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. 1703 he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Party loyalty may reasonably be assumed to have been the reason why Weymouth entered a protest on 22 Jan. at the dismissal of the appeal of Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup> and John Thompson against Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, over the dispute concerning lead mines in the Honour of Richmond. Weymouth, a local landowner, took a leading interest in the promotion of a bill to allow Andrew Hacket to settle lands in Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Lichfield, which he reported to the House on 1 February.</p><p>News of a clutch of new promotions in the peerage in the spring of 1703 coincided with reports that Weymouth was to be advanced either to a marquessate or an earldom (it was speculated that he would be earl of Bristol) and his heir called to the House by a writ of acceleration. In the event, neither honour was forthcoming.<sup>139</sup> During the summer, Weymouth was faced with fresh cause for anxiety at the news of the queen’s progress towards Bath. Concerned that she might wish to make use of Longleat as a stopping point on her journey, he worried that Longleat would be inadequate to the demands of the royal party.<sup>140</sup></p><p>Weymouth was present at the opening of the new session on 9 Nov. 1703. He attended on over 45 per cent of all sitting days. The following month he received a letter from Price Devereux*, 9th Viscount Hereford, who enclosed a completed proxy form, not knowing ‘any person fitter than yourself to entrust my vote with,’ but no record of the proxy appears in the Proxy Book. When revelations of the Scotch Plot brought Nottingham under threat, Stawell appealed to Weymouth to return from one of his rare absences ‘to be of service to him.’<sup>141</sup> Nottingham included him in a list of members of both Houses he drew up during 1704 which may be an estimate of support over the plot. Early in November 1703, in advance of the session, Weymouth had been included by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, among those thought likely to support the occasional conformity bill. Sunderland repeated his assessment later in the month and on 14 Dec. Weymouth duly divided in favour of the bill and entered his protest when the measure was rejected. The following week, he delivered a report from the commissioners of trade and plantations. In January 1704, Weymouth’s agent at Tamworth, John Mainwaring, reported on manoeuvrings in the town in advance of an expected election. Several candidates were prepared to stand with Weymouth’s approbation. One, John Chetwynd<sup>‡</sup> was already in London seeking both Weymouth’s and Ferrers’s support, though Ferrers was said to have declared that ‘he would not act contrary to his cousin… Lord Weymouth.’<sup>142</sup> In the House, Weymouth again exercised his protest on 14 Jan. over the resolution to reverse the judgment in the cause of <em>Ashby v. White</em>.</p><p>Rumours circulated following the close of the session that April that Weymouth was to lay down his office as first lord of trade, presumably as a demonstration of solidarity on Nottingham’s dismissal, but it was not until the autumn that he gave up his post.<sup>143</sup> In May 1704 he was said to be on the point of purchasing Cobham Hall in Kent from Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>144</sup> His new interest in the area may have been the cause of Winchilsea approaching him in June to help secure the return of Edward Knatchbull<sup>‡</sup> at Rochester in the next election. It also brought him into conflict with Clarendon. Although Clarendon insisted that he was sure that Weymouth was not personally at fault, ‘all your proceedings being so punctual and full of honour’ he remained highly critical of the way Weymouth’s agents had behaved in pursuing the purchase.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Weymouth responded enthusiastically to the news of the victory at Blenheim in August: he wrote to the captain-general John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, that ‘He is a very scurvy Englishman that does not heartily rejoice at the honour your grace has done the arms of the nation.’ The same month Weymouth exhibited a complaint in Chancery against one William Gore for encroaching upon his manor of Cheddar in Somerset. Weymouth accused Gore of intimidating his tenants, and of boasting that the superannuated witnesses Weymouth relied upon to substantiate his arguments were not likely to live long.<sup>146</sup> The death of Weymouth’s younger son in October proved a far greater trial and may have been one of the reasons for his absence from Parliament for the entirety of the session beginning in October 1704. Troubled both by his loss and recurrent poor health, shortly before the opening of the new session he resigned his place as a commissioner of trade.<sup>147</sup> On 1 Nov. he was listed as being a likely supporter of the Tack but on 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House and on 29 Nov. registered his proxy in Nottingham’s favour.</p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1705 and 1708</em></h2><p>Weymouth was assessed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage of 1705. During the general election of that year he engaged his interest in Herefordshire on behalf of James Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Scudamore [I], in spite of not having ‘the good fortune to be known personally’ to him.<sup>148</sup> He supported Joseph Girdler<sup>‡</sup> at Tamworth, who was successful in retaining his seat, and co-operated with Abingdon once more at Westbury.<sup>149</sup> In Oxford he joined with Rochester and Nottingham in support of Thomas Rowney<sup>‡</sup> and Francis Norreys<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>150</sup> Weymouth was crippled with gout during the summer but he was determined to be in London for the new Parliament, ‘for though my thoughts are not so sanguine as to hope much good from it, yet I would willingly be upon the spot if possible to contribute anything to our safety.’<sup>151</sup> He took his seat accordingly a few days after the opening on 31 Oct, following which he was present on 52 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Nov. he was outmanoeuvred by Wharton who succeeded in introducing Weymouth’s nephew Richard Lowther*, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, into the House and settling him among the Whig ranks. Weymouth supported fully an initiative led by Rochester and Nottingham to reinvigorate the Church party by attempting to dominate business in the Lords and on 13 Nov. he was one of only eight (mostly Tory) peers to attend a meeting of the committee for the address chaired by Nottingham. On 30 Nov. Weymouth entered his protest at the failure to give the committee of the whole house further instructions on the question of the bill for securing the queen and the Protestant succession and on 3 Dec. he entered three further protests on the same subject. On 6 Dec. Weymouth protested at the resolution that the Church was not in danger. He entered an additional three protests on the subject of securing the Protestant succession on 31 Jan. 1706 but he was heavily criticized by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, for failing the Tories following the debates over the Partition Bill, which was carried by a single vote in a poorly attended House on 26 February.<sup>152</sup></p><p>Weymouth was removed as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Wiltshire in May, one of several Tories put out at that time, and replaced by Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston.<sup>153</sup> The same month saw the commencement of a case in chancery brought by Charles Bruce*, styled Lord Bruce (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury), following his marriage to Lady Anne Savile. Bruce argued that Weymouth, Nottingham and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, who had been named trustees in Halifax’s will, had failed to act in providing him with Lady Anne’s promised £15,000 portion.<sup>154</sup> Weymouth entered his answer in February of the following year, together with his co-defendants, arguing that he had never acted as a trustee following Halifax’s death and begging leave to be excused the commission.<sup>155</sup></p><p>Weymouth took his seat shortly after the opening of the new session on 5 Dec. 1706, and was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. A consistent opponent of the union of England and Scotland, on 4 Mar. 1707 he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the Union Bill. On 17 Mar. he voted in favour of the rider to the bill which insisted that it was in no way to be interpreted as an acknowledgement of the validity of Presbyterian worship.<sup>156</sup> He then took his place once at the opening of the brief April session, of which he attended six of its nine days.</p><p>Weymouth was omitted from the new Privy Council of Great Britain in May. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Dec. and was present on approximately 53 per cent of all the sitting days in the session. On 2 Mar. 1708 he reported from the committee considering the Watchet Harbour bill. Following the dissolution, Weymouth was again active in the elections. In the middle of May he reported confidently how ‘we do not lose ground though all arts are employed’ and soon afterwards predicted a similar Parliament to the one that had preceded it, ‘unless the North Britons make a change’.<sup>157</sup> Joining with Abingdon, he entertained the electors of Westbury at Longleat on behalf of Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Francis Annesley. He was also able to bring some influence to bear in Somerset in support of John Prowse<sup>‡</sup>, son-in-law of George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells, while Francis Gwyn recommended that the other candidate, Sir William Wyndham<sup>‡</sup>, ‘should be spoken to again to be kept right.’<sup>158</sup> As late as early June, Weymouth remained convinced that the elections had progressed well and that ‘we shall not be so much overrun as was threatened’.<sup>159</sup> His prognostics proved wide of the mark. Although the Thynne-Bertie interest was successful in Wiltshire, overall Whig successes proved far in excess of Weymouth’s estimates. He now worried about repeal of the Test.<sup>160</sup></p><p>Weymouth was again afflicted by poor health over the summer, plagued by an ‘itchy disease’ that proved hard to shake off and robbed him of sleep. He wondered whether it originated from Scotland ‘as a reward for being against the Union.’<sup>161</sup> Weymouth took his seat in the new Parliament on 14 Dec. but six days later he was devastated by the death of his only remaining son and heir, Henry Thynne.<sup>162</sup> It was entirely unexpected, Thynne having told his father only days previously that he was ‘as well as ever he was in his life.’<sup>163</sup> Weymouth’s own health deteriorated: after his son’s demise he failed to attend for a month, not returning to the House until 18 Jan. 1709.<sup>164</sup> Two days after resuming his place he demonstrated his continuing opposition to all things Scots by joining with the Junto in voting against permitting Scots peers holding British peerages from voting in the elections for Scots representative peers. Several other Jacobite Tories did likewise, among them Guilford.<sup>165</sup></p><p>By March 1709 Weymouth was said to have been ‘upon his last legs’ suffering from a variety of conditions and only kept alive by being dosed with cordials.<sup>166</sup> Galvanized by the loss of his son and no doubt mindful of his own declining health, in May Weymouth successfully negotiated a match for his nephew and heir, Thomas Thynne, with Lady Mary Villiers, daughter of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey.<sup>167</sup> Weymouth returned to the House a month into the second session on 5 Dec. 1709 after which he was present until its close on 5 Apr. 1710, attending approximately 58 per cent of sitting days. On 16 Feb. he protested at the resolution not to require the magistrates of Edinburgh to attend the House over the Greenshields’ case and against the resolution not to adjourn. The same day he also protested at the resolution to agree with the Commons’ request that John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, should be sent to Holland and against a further resolution not to adjourn proceedings.</p><p>The following month, Weymouth unsurprisingly rallied to the cause of Henry Sacheverell, a man with whom he had long been on friendly terms, and on 14 Mar. he entered the first of a series of protests over the impeachment.<sup>168</sup> On 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours and he then entered a further protest against the conviction. In April Weymouth was again struck by personal tragedy with the sudden death of his heir, Thomas Thynne, a loss only narrowly ameliorated by the birth of Thynne’s son posthumously the following month.<sup>169</sup> In June Weymouth, Nottingham and Guernsey were required to enter a further answer in their ongoing dispute with Lord Bruce.<sup>170</sup></p><h2><em>The 1710 Elections and after</em></h2><p>In July 1710 Weymouth found himself ‘as busy as if the writs were sealed’ and, eager not to ‘thwart anything that may be designed by ignorance or inadvertence,’ appealed to Robert Harley for ‘directions how to govern’ himself in the coming elections.<sup>171</sup> Weymouth also made use of the opportunity to recommend his former ward, Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>, for preferment, while also submitting a plea on behalf of his nephew, Winchilsea, arguing that, ‘no man is more beloved and pitied… or capable of doing more service; and greater sinners must be restored, if they did not offend out of malicious wickedness.’<sup>172</sup> Towards the close of September he informed Harley of his willingness to return to office. The following month he was again active in employing his interest in the general election.<sup>173</sup> At Tamworth, he and Ferrers joined forces to support the candidacy of Samuel Bracebridge<sup>‡</sup>, while at Westbury he and Abingdon were again successful in beating off challenges to their suzerainty in the borough.<sup>174</sup> The same month, John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret, was married to Weymouth’s granddaughter, Frances Worsley.<sup>175</sup></p><p>Perhaps in response to his offers of service to Harley’s new administration, Weymouth seems to have been offered an earldom during 1710, which he declined.<sup>176</sup> He was reported to be dangerously sick not long after the elections but he rallied sufficiently to take his seat in the House on 7 Dec. after which he was present on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days. On 27 Jan. 1711 he was entrusted with the proxy of William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, which was vacated by the close of the session. The following month, on 5 Feb., Weymouth entered his protest at the resolution to reject the bill repealing the General Naturalization Act.</p><p>Weymouth was present in the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711, but sat for just two days before absenting himself for the remainder of the month. On 11 Dec. he registered his proxy in favour of his grandson-in-law Carteret, which was vacated by his return to the House on 2 Jan. 1712. Weymouth’s support for the earl of Oxford (as Harley had since become) was thought to be in doubt during the session, as he and a number of other peers manoeuvred themselves back towards Nottingham. It was certainly noticeable that he divided with Nottingham against the motion to adjourn the House of 2 January. Weymouth’s desire to see Episcopalianism secured in Scotland remained constant and was perhaps one of the factors that led him to support the grants resumption bill.<sup>177</sup> On 20 Jan. Christopher Vane*, Baron Barnard, registered his proxy in favour of Weymouth, which was vacated five days later, and on 8 Feb. William North*, 6th Baron North and 2nd Baron Grey of Rolleston, also entrusted his proxy to Weymouth, which was vacated by North’s resuming his seat on 26 February. On 17 Mar. Hereford again registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour. The same month Weymouth was appointed warden of the Forest of Dean. The appointment encouraged at least one of his ‘poor Tory’ relations to seek his patronage, eager to secure one of the places under him, ‘proper for a sportsman, and some profit too.’<sup>178</sup> Towards the end of May he voted against the opposition-inspired measure to request the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond from waging an offensive campaign against the French. The following month he was included on one of Oxford’s numerous memoranda as a possible commissioner for trade.<sup>179</sup></p><p>Weymouth was appealed to by North and Grey during the summer of 1712 to employ his interest with Oxford to secure for him the governorship of Dunkirk but Weymouth’s support for the ministry seems gradually to have petered out over the next few months.<sup>180</sup> He was forced to accept the loss of the conservatorship of the Forest of Dean, which was normally combined with the wardenship. In October he was said to have been active in attempting to build up one Mr Helier in opposition to the court candidate.<sup>181</sup> In spite of this, he assured Oxford of his pleasure at the news of the peace. In December asked that one Mr Clapcott be excused from being pricked sheriff of Dorset to ensure the return of suitable members for Weymouth.<sup>182</sup> He was also active in promoting the claims of Adam Ottley*, later bishop of St Davids, to the bishopric of Hereford and of Viscount Hereford to one of the stewardships formerly held by John Vaughan*, 3rd earl of Carbery [I] and 3rd Baron Vaughan.<sup>183</sup> In March 1713 he was still estimated to be a likely supporter of the ministry but during the same year it was speculated that he would desert over the French commerce bill. The financial implications of the peace seem to have been at the heart of Weymouth’s concerns.<sup>184</sup> The profound party divide in Wiltshire preoccupied him towards the end of his life. In August in advance of the elections he offered Oxford his cautious prediction on the state of the county: ‘the party are far from laying down the cudgels, they are active in all places, most especially in this country, where they will succeed in one or two boroughs, and struggle hard for the shire, but there they will be defeated.’<sup>185</sup> The results left him cautiously optimistic, though advising Sir James Grahme of the Tory successes he wrote that ‘if we do not act wisely, the stream will turn.’<sup>186</sup></p><p>Weymouth’s gout returned to trouble him in the winter of 1713 but he recovered sufficiently to take his seat a fortnight into the new Parliament on 2 Mar. 1714.<sup>187</sup> In advance of the session he predicted in one of his regular long letters to James Grahme that it was in the Lords that the ‘great struggles’ of the session would be located.<sup>188</sup> Present on almost 86 per cent of all sitting days in the first session, in May Weymouth’s name appeared on the list of those thought to be in favour of preventing the growth of schism. On 29 May he was again entrusted with Hereford’s proxy. On 3 July, shortly before the close, he summed up the state of affairs gloomily: ‘our ministers are far from agreeing and I fear will scarce unite again which will end in their and our utter confusion’.<sup>189</sup></p><p>Weymouth sat for the last time on 9 July, the final day of the session. On 24 July he was said to be ‘very ill’ and three days later thought likely to be dead before the night was out.<sup>190</sup> He died the following day. The cause of death was said to have been gout.<sup>191</sup> On 29 July a notice in the <em>Post Boy</em> described him as having been, ‘a true friend to monarchy and episcopacy… very generous and compassionate to the poor’, and blessed with an ‘abundance of other good qualities.’<sup>192</sup> His body was carried back to Wiltshire and buried at Longbridge Deverill.<sup>193</sup> In his will of 4 Nov. 1709 Weymouth made a number of substantial bequests totalling over £7,450.<sup>194</sup> In an undated codicil, Weymouth made additional grants including an annuity of £2,500 to his wife and £7,000 to his granddaughter Lady Carteret towards her marriage portion. To his other granddaughters, Jane and Elizabeth Worsley, he left £7,000 to be shared between them, while Frances and Mary Thynne were given £10,000 each.<sup>195</sup> Nottingham, Rochester and Jersey all received small marks of remembrance. Weymouth’s annual charitable donations in Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire amounted to some £442 and at his death, in addition to over £1,000 designated for charitable purposes he required that a further £1,000 should be set aside for the construction of a church at Frome in Somerset as the current structure was inadequate for the needs of the parish.<sup>196</sup> Carteret, Sir Robert Worsley, and Weymouth’s faithful retainers John Mainwaring and John Ord were named executors. The peerage descended to his four-year-old great-nephew Thomas Thynne*, who succeeded as 2nd Viscount Weymouth.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
THYNNE, Thomas (1710-51) |
<p><strong><surname>THYNNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1710–51)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>gt.-uncle 1714 (a minor) as 2nd Visct. WEYMOUTH |
|
First sat 2 Mar. 1732; last sat 18 Nov. 1747 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 21 May 1710, posth. s. of Thomas Thynne (<em>d</em>. 1710), of Kempton Park, Mdx., and Mary, da. of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad, 1727-31 (Holland).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 6 Dec. 1726, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 1729), 2nd but 1st surv. da. of Lionel Sackville*, duke of Dorset, s.p.; (2) 3 July 1733, Louisa (<em>d</em>. 1736), 2nd da. of John Carteret*, Earl Granville, 3s.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 12 Jan. 1751; <em>will</em> 5 Sept. 1748-12 Mar. 1750, pr. 22 Jan. 1751.</p> |
<p>High Steward, Tamworth 1733; Keeper, Hyde Park and Ranger St James’s Park, 1739-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Grand Master, Freemasons (England) 1735-6.</p> |
|
<p>Thynne succeeded to the viscountcy aged just four. Details of his career will be provided in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
TOWNSHEND, Charles (1675-1738) |
<p><strong><surname>TOWNSHEND</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1675–1738)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. Dec. 1687 (a minor) as 2nd Visct. TOWNSHEND |
|
First sat 3 Dec. 1697; last sat 13 May 1730 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Apr. 1675, 1st s. of Horatio Townshend*, Visct. Townshend, and 2nd w. Mary (<em>d</em>. 17 Dec. 1685), da. of Sir Joseph Ashe<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Twickenham, Mdx.; bro. of Hon. Horatio Townshend<sup>‡</sup> and Hon. Roger Townshend<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1686-?91; King’s, Camb. 1691; travelled abroad 1694-97 (Holland, France, Italy). <sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 3 July 1698, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1711), da. of Thomas Pelham*, later Bar. Pelham of Laughton, half-sis. of Thomas Pelham Holles*, later duke of Newcastle, 7s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em><em>.</em>), 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) ?6 July 1713, Dorothy (<em>d</em>.1726), da. of Robert Walpole<sup>‡</sup> of Houghton, Norf., sis. of Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Orford, 4s. 2da.<sup>2</sup> KG 1724. <em>d</em>. 21 June 1738; <em>will</em> 1 Feb. 1737, pr. 10 July 1738.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. Union 1706;<sup>4</sup> capt. yeomen of the guard 1707-11;<sup>5</sup> PC 20 Nov. 1707-<em>d</em>., <sup>6</sup> ld. pres. 11 June 1720-25 June 1721;<sup>7</sup> amb. extraordinary and plenip. (jt.), United Provinces, 1709-11;<sup>8</sup> ld. regent 1 Aug.-18 Sept. 1714;<sup>9</sup> sec. of state (N.) 1714-16, 1721-30; ld. lt. [I] 24 Feb.-16 Apr. 1717.<sup>10</sup></p><p>High steward, Lynn 1701-<em>d</em>.,<sup>11</sup> Norwich cathedral 1701-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Norf. 1701-13, 1714-30; <sup>12</sup> freeman, Gt. Yarmouth, Norwich 1701.<sup>13</sup></p><p>FRS 1706.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1690, NPG 1363; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, ?1704, NPG 3623; oil on canvas aft. Sir G. Kneller, c.1715-20, NPG 1755.</p> |
<p>The holder of one of the dominant interests in Norfolk, in the course of his career Townshend also succeeded in establishing himself as a commanding figure in national politics. Appraisals of his character varied. John Hervey<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Hervey, was typically caustic and dismissed him as lacking in substance and a ‘slave to his passions’.<sup>16</sup> Philip Dormer Stanhope<sup>‡</sup>, 4th earl of Chesterfield, was more generous, but he also noted that it took ‘very long experience and unwearied application’ to turn Townshend into ‘an able man of business’.<sup>17</sup> It was a standing joke in the House that his oratory was unpolished and often ungrammatical, but Townshend appears consciously to have played up this rough haughtiness and to have taken advantage of being thought a dullard.<sup>18</sup> It seems clear that he was at times difficult to get on with but, contrary to what Hervey suggested, he was also unusually willing to acknowledge his fallibility. Even his most ardent critics seem to have agreed that he was honest.<sup>19</sup> A lengthy stint as ambassador at The Hague made him thoroughly pro-Dutch. Townshend struck up early in his career a lasting partnership with his kinsman, Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Orford, who also revelled in his affectedly coarse, rustic demeanour. Between them they were able to command the loyalty of a significant faction in the Commons based on their Norfolk interests, which was to help underpin their ultimate dominance of the reign of George I.<sup>20</sup></p><h2>Early career to 1697</h2><p>Townshend succeeded to the peerage underage following the death of his father in the winter of 1687 and was entrusted to the guardianship of Walpole’s father, also Robert Walpole<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>21</sup> An assessment of January 1688 noting Townshend as an opponent of repeal of the Test was presumably more a reflection of the compiler’s understanding of Townshend’s father’s attitude than an accurate appraisal of what the new viscount made of the king’s proposed policies.</p><p>At the time of his succession both Townshend and his younger brother, Roger Townshend<sup>‡</sup>, were pupils at Eton. There followed a fierce contest between the trustees of the late viscount’s will and other members of the family, who were all eager to secure control of the young peer. Shortly after succeeding he was withdrawn from Eton and housed with his grandmother, Lady Ashe, as part of an effort by his Whig uncle, William Windham (Lady Ashe’s son-in-law) to distance him from his Tory trustees, James Calthorpe and William Thurisby<sup>‡</sup>. By July Calthorpe and Thurisby appear to have prevailed and the young man returned to Eton. Windham’s death the following year effectively brought the struggle to a close.<sup>22</sup></p><p>There is no evidence to suggest that Townshend participated in the Revolution of 1688. He was noted as underage at a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689 and again on 22 May and 28 October. In 1691 he quit Eton for King’s College, Cambridge, where he remained (nominally) for the ensuing three years. According to Dean Prideaux he left Cambridge in November 1693 and took up residence in London. Prideaux suspended his judgment on the young man, declaring him to be ‘as <em>rasa</em> <em>tabula</em>; a twelvemonth hence we shall better see whether good or evil is to be written thereon.’<sup>23</sup> It may have been to this period that Charles Lennox*, 2nd duke of Richmond, was referring when he wrote to Thomas Pelham Holles*, duke of Newcastle, in 1738 seeking Newcastle’s support for a petition to overturn the conviction for buggery of one David Reid. Reid had been convicted on the sole evidence of a 16-year-old, prompting Richmond to remind Newcastle to call to remembrance ‘the judgment Lovel [Sir Salathiel Lovell] pronounced upon the late Lord Townshend upon such an occasion.’<sup>24</sup> If Townshend was indeed caught up in a scandal of this nature there is no evidence to suggest that he was involved subsequently in any similar episodes. Besides, it is not clear what his role was supposed to have been: complainant, defendant or merely witness.</p><p>Townshend was granted a pass to travel abroad in July 1694. By the spring of 1696 when he encountered Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, Viscount Galway [I] in Turin, he had progressed in his education and was noted by Galway as an impressive young man, ‘fort sage, et d'une très bonne conduite’ [very wise and well-mannered].<sup>25</sup> Despite such accomplishments, Townshend was rejected as a potential suitor for one of the daughters of his uncle, Thomas Crew*, 2nd Baron Crew, being still underage and inconveniently out of the country.<sup>26</sup></p><h2>The House of Lords, 1697-1702</h2><p>Having returned to England in the autumn of 1697, Townshend took his seat in the House at the beginning of the third session of the 1695 Parliament on 3 Dec. 1697, after which he was present on just over three quarters of all sitting days. Although he came to be a fairly consistent supporter of the Junto, Townshend’s early career demonstrated a far more independent approach. In his early years in the House he often divided with the Tories, voting for example on 15 Mar. 1698 against committing the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Over the next two days he entered dissents against resolutions in favour of the appellants in the cause <em>James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> v. Viscount Falkland</em>.</p><p>By the close of June 1698 it was rumoured that Townshend was to marry Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Pelham*, later Baron Pelham of Laughton and niece of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle. Townshend quit the chamber from 28 June for the remaining six days of the session, and on 30 June registered his proxy with the moderate Tory, William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, which was vacated by the prorogation. Townshend’s marriage with Elizabeth Pelham was solemnized on 3 July. The new Lady Townshend brought with her a fortune believed to be in the region of £30,000, or as Sir Miles Cooke reported it, ‘She weighs 30,000 p[ounds]’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Townshend returned to the House for the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against agreeing with the committee’s resolution offering to assist the king to retain his Dutch Guards. He then entered his dissent when it was resolved to support the committee’s recommendation. Aside from that, he appears to have made little impression on the session and over the summer was probably caught up with domestic concerns surrounding the birth of a son and heir.<sup>28</sup> Having attended the House on two of the intervening prorogation days, Townshend resumed his seat in the second session on 16 Nov. 1699, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days. In Feb. 1700 he was forecast as being likely to support the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into committee of the whole House to discuss amendments to the bill. On 20 Mar. he reported from the committee considering the bill for confirming a lease between Richard Barry and the city of Norwich, a measure in which he presumably had some local interest.</p><p>Townshend was marked ‘O’ on a list of Whig lords in July 1700, possibly indicating that he was believed to be a potential supporter of the ministry. In December he set about exerting his interest in Norfolk in an effort to secure one of the county seats for his younger brother, Roger. In a letter to Sir William Cook<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt, Townshend conceded that he was ‘sensible that it is an honour that neither myself nor any of my family can pretend to deserve’ but hoped that should the choice fall on his brother he would ‘make you the best acknowledgements that are in his power’ and that if he fell short of expectations ‘I will be one of the first who will declare him unworthy to represent this county’.<sup>29</sup> Although Roger Townshend was successful in February 1701, Townshend’s second candidate, his kinsman Robert Walpole, was squeezed out following the entry of a third Whig pretender, Charles Paston<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Paston.</p><p>Townshend took his seat in the new Parliament on 1 Apr. 1701. Although he had delayed resuming his seat for almost two months following the opening of the session on 8 Feb., he still attended over half of all sitting days. At this point Townshend may have been more engrossed in local matters. The death on 2 Apr. of the lord lieutenant, Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, whose heir was a Catholic and thus ineligible to succeed to the position, created a vacancy in the government of the county. This precipitated concerns that the post might go to a ‘foreigner’, Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, one of the Junto peers under threat of impeachment in that Parliament. <sup>30</sup> The previous year, Dean Prideaux had assessed Townshend as ‘so obvious’ a choice as lord lieutenant that the court could not but appoint him on Norfolk’s death, ‘for nothing else can be acceptable to the county, or in truth do the king any service in it’.<sup>31</sup> Still his appointment was not formally announced until early May, and in the meantime the corporation of King’s Lynn chose him as their high steward for life.<sup>32</sup> With his growing interest in Norfolk, Townshend also seems to have been eager to make his mark in Parliament. On 16 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to appoint a committee to draw an address to the king requesting that the impeached Whig lords not be punished until they had been tried; he also subscribed the subsequent protest on the same day when the House ordered the reasons for that protest to be expurgated from the journal. On 15 May the Member for King’s Lynn, Sir Charles Turner<sup>‡</sup>, expressed his pleasure that Townshend had ‘broken the ice in the peers’ house'. Turner continued emphasizing ‘It would be pity that so clear a light should not be made as conspicuous as it is possible’.<sup>33</sup> The occasion has often been assumed to have been Townshend’s maiden speech. Although it is not clear precisely which debate first brought him to his feet it seems possible that it was in response to the reading on 14 May of Orford’s answers to the articles of impeachment against him. On 26 May Townshend wrote to Walpole relating information about possible Speakers for the Commons in the next Parliament. On 10 June he reported from committee the unamended bill for erecting workhouses and hospitals in King’s Lynn, a further sign of his burgeoning local interest.<sup>34</sup> Although he was marked as present in the journal’s attendance register for 17 June, he is not included in the list of peers giving their verdicts that day at the trial of John Somers*, Baron Somers, in Westminster Hall.</p><p>Further efforts to develop his interest in Norfolk were made apparent when Townshend was feted by the town of Great Yarmouth in August 1701. He was treated to an entertainment in his honour and elected an honorary freeman of the borough.<sup>35</sup> The event proved the beginning of a long but by no means straightforward relationship as Townshend attempted to secure his interest in an otherwise fiercely independent town.<sup>36</sup> At the second election of the year, his brother Roger was again returned for Norfolk in company with Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. In this case, Townshend’s local popularity and his reputation for moderation seems to have helped attract some of the Tory voters away from their candidate, Sir Jacob Astley<sup>‡</sup>, bt. As a further sign of his good standing in the county, Townshend was asked to present to the king both the county and borough addresses on Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender.<sup>37</sup> In spite of his recent successes, however, Townshend’s Walpole kinsmen seemed fretful about his apparent lack of interest at court. This followed his failure to get his way over nominations to the shrievalty and inability to secure the election of any of his candidates in the Norfolk borough seats. They also expressed broader concerns about the divisions between his ‘neighbours and relations’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Townshend took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 December. Assiduous in his attendance during the session, he was present on 94 per cent of all sitting days and, as a further indication of his growing reputation beyond the confines of Norfolk, in early February 1702 it was reported that he either had been or was on the point of being made lord privy seal.<sup>39</sup> The chance of promotion, though, was scotched by the unexpected death of William III in March. Unrestricted by the burden of court office, Townshend concentrated on matters within the House. Reputed to have been a considerate husband to his own wife, Townshend expressed himself disgusted at the behaviour of James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, ‘a very barbarous fellow’, whose marital difficulties were the subject of the House’s interest in late March.<sup>40</sup> On 15 May Townshend took the chair in the committee of the whole considering the bill for importation of Sicilian thrown silk.</p><h2>The Reign of Queen Anne to 1708</h2><p>The accession of Queen Anne seems to have made little immediate difference to Townshend’s career: he was able to retain his place as lord lieutenant in Norfolk. The elections for the new Parliament revealed continuing tensions within Norfolk, though, and in particular between the various Whig factions dating from the previous contest. An attempt to force Holland to stand down misfired and the election resulted in the return of Holland along with the Tory Astley following Roger Townshend’s decision not to contest his seat.<sup>41</sup> With his local interest damaged, Townshend returned to the House at the beginning of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702. Early in 1703 he was estimated as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill. He was nominated a manager for conferences on the Lords’ amendments to it on 17 Dec. 1702 and 9 Jan. 1703. On 16 Jan. 1703 he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the penalty clause. Prior to this, he spoke in the House on 9 Jan., in response to the queen’s address, about the request made by the Dutch for assistance, in which he concurred with the motion proposed by Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, but also made some further suggestions of his own. On 19 Jan. during a committee of the whole considering the bill for Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, he joined with those opposing the clause granting him license, as a foreigner, to continue sitting in the House after the queen’s death. He criticized it as a tack of extraneous material on a money bill, though he insisted on his respect for the prince. He was then one of those to sign the subsequent protest against the House’s decision to retain the clause in the bill.<sup>42</sup> The following day, he reported from the committee for the Great Yarmouth bill. Townshend was noteworthy on 22 Jan. as the only Whig to join in the protest against the resolution to dismiss the petition of Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup> and others in their appeal against Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, concerning the ownership of valuable lead mines in Swaledale in north Yorkshire. He also continued to be active as a committee chairman during the remainder of the session, and on 26 Jan. he reported from the committees considering James Hoare's bill and the bill for the sale of part of Charles Morris’s estate, and on 9 Feb. from that for the bill for improving the collection of tolls from Chancery Lane into Lincoln’s Inn Fields. On 22 Feb. he also subscribed the protest against the failure to commit the bill to establish landed qualification for Members, a stance that appeared once again to align him more with the Tories than with the Whigs.</p><p>In advance of the new session that autumn of 1703, Townshend was one of a number of Walpole’s friends to express their concern at the future premier’s apparent disinclination to return to London for the opening.<sup>43</sup> In early November Townshend was forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill, an estimate that Sunderland was confident of later towards the end of the month. Townshend took his seat in the House on 26 Nov. and was thereafter present on just over 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 14 Dec., as predicted, he voted against the occasional conformity bill. Townshend was present at a meeting on 17 Dec. held at Sunderland’s London home, which may have been convened to discuss the tactics surrounding the ‘Scotch Plot’.<sup>44</sup> As a result of a ballot held the following day Townshend was appointed one of the seven peers assigned to examine Boucher, and others concerning the plot. He joined Somers, Sunderland, Wharton, and Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, in requesting not to be required to act on this committee, but their excuses were dismissed and, two days later, the committee convened to examine Boucher and other prisoners. <sup>45</sup></p><p>Townshend was again present at a gathering hosted by Sunderland early on 13 Feb. 1704 where ‘our discourse was only about the Scotch Plot’. <sup>46</sup> Two days later Townshend was ordered to attend the queen with the address concerning the Scots conspiracy. He was again one of seven peers nominated on 22 Feb. to a committee to make further enquiries into it. <sup>47</sup> On 21 Mar, he entered his dissent from the rejection of a rider to the recruits bill which would require the consent of the local churchwardens and overseers of the poor before conscription. Townshend also became involved in the business relating to the controversial Aylesbury election of 1701 and on 27 Mar. he reported from the committee appointed to draw up the state of the case concerning the writ of error in <em>Ashby v. White</em>. He was also appointed one of the managers of the conference held that same day on the public accounts bill.</p><p>Townshend was absent from the opening of the ensuing session of 1704-5. He was probably engaged with business on his estates as he wrote to Walpole from Rainham on 27 Oct. 1704, the second business day of the session, admitting that he ‘was very impatient to hear what was done upon your first meeting’. He begged Walpole that he might ‘hear from you for though I am extremely fond of the country yet I cannot keep my thoughts entirely from Westminster’. On 6 Nov. he wrote again in response to news that three of his ‘particular friends’ had been named in the list for sheriffs. Two days later he wrote again with further thoughts about keeping some of his Norfolk allies from being pricked. A third letter of 20 Nov. harped on the same subject: ‘you know my engagements to Sir Edward Ward and if he or Ashe Windham<sup>‡</sup> be sheriff I shall make but a very indifferent figure in these parts.’<sup>48</sup> Townshend was excused at a call on 23 Nov. and it was not until 16 Dec. that he finally took his seat, after which he was present on just over 56 per cent of all days in the session. On 21 Dec. he seconded the motion made by Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, that the unsightly, half-finished galleries obscuring the light in the Lords chamber be pulled down.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Townshend was a manager of the conference regarding the case of the Aylesbury men on 28 Feb. 1705, and on 1 Mar. he was also one of a committee of a dozen lords appointed to draw up reasons why the Lords disagreed with one of the clauses in the Jacob Pechels naturalization bill, to be presented to the Commons at a conference. Six days later he was again named a reporter for a conference on the Aylesbury men and was later placed on the committee assigned to draw up the state of proceedings in the cause. Townshend was entrusted with the proxies of William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, and of Evelyn Pierrepont*, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston, on 12 March. That same day he was named one of the managers of the conference considering the amendments to the militia bill. The following day he was also named one of the managers of a conference concerning the Pechels naturalization bill.</p><p>Townshend appears early on to have been considered for a diplomatic posting, though he may have been reluctant to take on the role. A letter of 16 Mar. 1705 from Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, noted that Townshend would not agree to be sent to Vienna.<sup>50</sup> Townshend, second choice for the posting after William Paget*, 2nd Baron Paget, indeed refused the offer of the mission to Vienna in April. That month he was assessed, unsurprisingly, as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession.<sup>51</sup> The elections of May saw Townshend’s brother, Roger, returned for the Norfolk county seat once more with Sir John Holland, the two men having been reunited after their previous misunderstandings. Townshend had been active as early as February that year in mobilizing his interest but in the event no other candidates emerged to challenge the two Whigs.<sup>52</sup> Over the summer, he became embroiled in a bitter contest waged in Norwich between the then mayor and a number of the city’s freemen. Writing to his uncle Newcastle, Townshend warned in apocalyptic terms of the problems caused by the mayor’s ‘very arbitrary and illegal manner’ and how ‘all the mayor’s actions have been attended with so much partiality and so much violence in order to support his party that there will be an end of government in Norwich, if he escape without punishment.’<sup>53</sup> Despite this, the mayor continued to exert a powerful interest and a petition of the freemen of Norwich, backed by Townshend, failed to secure their aims. Townshend professed himself astounded at the petition being ‘baffled in such a manner’ and concerned that having already ‘brought the malice of the mayor and his party upon me’ he would now be the subject of their scorn as well. In spite of his lack of success in the business of Norwich, Townshend continued to press his interest and in July he wrote to his cousin Walpole on behalf of one Drury who was eager to secure a place in Walpole’s office. Acknowledging that he knew little of Drury and therefore was unable to ‘be very earnest in my recommendation’ Townshend still hoped that Walpole would give the man a hearing and be sure to let Drury know that Townshend had mentioned him.<sup>54</sup></p><p>In advance of the meeting of the new Parliament, Townshend, on 8 Oct. 1705, expressed his satisfaction to Walpole at the news that the lord keeper, Nathan Wright<sup>‡</sup>, had been put out, which he considered ‘the best step the court has yet made’. He wrote again shortly afterwards seeking his cousin’s assistance in seeing to it that neither Ward nor Windham were pricked as sheriffs and suggesting two alternative candidates for the unpopular position. He wrote again about the same matter later in the month, on 22 Oct., emphasizing the ‘very ill consequence if any one of our friends be put upon that office’.<sup>55</sup> Townshend himself was, not surprisingly, absent at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 October. Excused at a call on 12 Nov. Townshend was listed in a visiting book of 26 Nov. as being resident at a house in Bond Street, but it was still not until 4 Dec. that he finally took his seat in the session, after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. Once in attendance, Townshend proved himself to be an energetic member of several committees. On 6 Dec. he voted in favour of the Whig motion that the ‘Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration’. Between 7 and 17 Dec. he took part in four conferences between the houses on this resolution.<sup>56</sup> On 26 Jan. 1706 he reported from that considering Holworthy’s bill. On 7, 11 and 19 Feb. he further acted as a manger in conferences on the ‘whimsical’ place clause to the regency bill. On 23 Feb. he joined with the high Tory peers Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, in voting in favour of delaying reading the archbishop of Dublin’s bill until the following Monday (25 Feb.) rather than proceeding with reading the bill at once. On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee for John Abington’s bill, which was recommended to the House as fit to pass and on 9 Mar. he was nominated to the committees for drawing up two addresses, one of them concerning the oppressions under which the province of Carolina was said to labour. He reported on 14 Mar. from the committee considering the petition of the inhabitants of south Lancashire concerning the threat to the area from disgruntled Papists. Townshend’s involvement with the House’s business was not terminated by the close of the session. On 18 July and again on 24 July he was one of the members of the committee for the Journal to sign off the record of proceedings for 31 Jan. and for 6 March. He continued to be an active member of the committee over the ensuing years.</p><p>In April 1706 Townshend was chosen one of the commissioners for the Union negotiations, and was present at a meeting on 12 June concerning the size of the Scottish representation in Parliament. However the Scottish observer John Clerk of Penicuik considered that neither Townshend, nor any of the other ‘great speakers’ on the English side said anything worthy of note on this matter.<sup>57</sup> In late September Townshend attempted to employ his interest once more, writing to Walpole at the instance of Sir Charles Turner to recommend one Baron for a clerical living at Ellingham. Townshend reckoned Baron to be ‘a very honest man’ and that he would prove to be ‘of very great service to our interest in that part of the country’. He would also be a distinct improvement on the previous incumbent, a notorious Jacobite named Crisp. Townshend stayed with Turner in early October in preparation for a journey to Great Yarmouth. By 14 Oct. Townshend was back at his own seat of Raynham, whence he wrote to Walpole again to inform him of the proceedings at the Norwich sessions and to ask once more that Walpole should ensure that their friends were not encumbered with being appointed to the ‘troublesome office’ of sheriff.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Having attended two of the prorogation days on 21 May and 21 Nov. 1706, Townshend took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on 78 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to the committee appointed that day for drawing an address to congratulate the queen on the recent Allied victories, while on 14 Dec. he was named to the committee appointed to draw an address for leave to bring in a bill for settling the continuance of the titles of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, in the event of the duke dying without direct male heirs. Townshend continued to play an active part in the House’s business as a chairman of committees, particularly those with a local flavour. Thus on 13 and 27 Jan. 1707 he presented the House with the findings of two committees considering bills for making captured vessels free ships and on 5 Feb. he reported from the committee for the bill for regulating duties on the importation of coal into Great Yarmouth. The following day, he was one of a number of peers to gather at the home of Somerset, where ‘there was a good deal of company’, including Somers and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax.<sup>59</sup> In the last days of January he was also involved with Sunderland in considering ‘measures concerted for the passing’ of the Union bill and the insertion into it of an act for securing the Church of England, the details of which were discussed by a small group of lords including Marlborough, Wharton, Orford and Halifax.<sup>60</sup></p><p>His growing reputation beyond the confines of Parliament was also underscored by rumours in March 1707 that he was again being considered for a foreign posting, which provoked the furious indignation of Halifax, who considered himself the next in line for a diplomatic mission.<sup>61</sup> Townshend failed to attend the brief session of 14-24 Apr. 1707. At the commencement of the following session of 1707-8, the first of the new Parliament of Great Britain, Townshend was once again concerned about local matters, particularly the selection of sheriffs for Norfolk. He also expressed himself worried, in a letter to Walpole of 6 Nov., by reports of divisions among the Whigs and of the prospect of ‘a troublesome sessions’. Such concerns, though, failed to rouse him to leave Norfolk in time for the start of the session on 23 Oct. 1707, and he insouciantly informed Walpole that ‘the House of Lords I suppose will have little to do and I am very busy in altering my gardens and do not intend to be in town till the beginning of next month’.<sup>62</sup> He was in the capital by 14 Nov. when he kissed the queen's hand to take up his new position as captain of the yeomen of the guard.<sup>63</sup> Townshend’s appointment to this household post had been secured in the face of strong support for one of the previous holders, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, to be restored to the place.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Three days later Townshend took his seat in the chamber on 17 Nov. 1707 and in total attended 83 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 20 Nov., he was also sworn to the Privy Council.<sup>65</sup> He was nominated on 18 Dec. to the committee to draw an address of thanks to the queen for her speech. On 7 Jan. 1708 Townshend reported from the committee considering the the impact on recruitment of sailors for the Navy arising from a recent act relating to the coal trade. He was ordered to bring in a bill to address the matter and on 15 Jan. he introduced the bill for encouraging seamen and better manning of the fleet. Townshend’s increasing profile in the House was reflected in his election on 9 Feb., by ballot, as one of the seven Whig peers assigned to examine William Gregg. At the same time, he distinguished himself from many of his Junto colleagues on this committee in joining the ministry in opposing the bill that would abolish the Scottish Privy Council.<sup>66</sup> On 19 Feb. he joined Halifax and Somers in arguing in favour of the cathedrals bill in a debate in committee of the whole House.<sup>67</sup> Townshend reported from committee on the estate bill for Henry Howard*, earl of Bindon (later 6th earl of Suffolk), on 19 Mar., and, ten days later, from the committee for an address requesting a statement of the debts owing to officers from the time of William III. On 31 Mar. he was named a manager of the conference considering the amendments to the bill for encouraging trade to America. Townshend was again active on the Journals committee, signing off in early April 1708 the record of proceedings for 15 and 23 Dec. 1707 and also for 7 Feb. 1708.</p><h2>The Parliament of 1708 and The Hague</h2><p>In May, shortly after the dissolution of 15 Apr., Townshend was noted as a Whig in a list of party classifications for the first Parliament of Great Britain. The elections that month confirmed the extent of Townshend’s interest within Norfolk and saw him successfully promoting the claims of his brother, Roger, at Great Yarmouth, and of his kinsman, Ashe Windham<sup>‡</sup>, for the county seat in partnership with Holland. He also had the considerable pleasure of seeing his candidates, Waller Bacon<sup>‡</sup> and John Chambers<sup>‡</sup> secure both seats in the notoriously difficult town of Norwich and then of holding onto them in spite of Tory efforts to overturn the result on petition.<sup>68</sup> The elections in Norfolk confirmed Townshend’s dominance in the county, prompting Prideaux to remark how he:</p><blockquote><p>flourishes among us, for the whole county is absolutely at his beck and he has got such an ascendant here over everybody by his courteous carriage that he may do anything among us what he will and that not only in the country but also in all the corporations, except at Thetford where all is sold…<sup>69</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the beginning of June Townshend was even approached by James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], with a request to ensure that his Norfolk neighbour, William Richardson, 4th Lord Cramond [S], place his votes, either in person, or by proxy, for the Squadrone slate of candidates in the forthcoming elections for Scottish representative peers.<sup>70</sup> Townshend continued to undertake the careful cultivation of his Norfolk neighbours throughout that year. He lodged with Charles Trimnell*, the new bishop of Norwich, at the end of July while he was in attendance at the Norwich assizes and took advantage of the bishop’s hospitality again in London when he returned to the capital in early November.<sup>71</sup> Townshend also employed his interest that summer on behalf of his brother, Roger, who was eager to maintain his commission in the army but was unwilling to be sent to Portugal with the rest of his regiment. Townshend interceded with Marlborough via the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, to ensure that his brother was not sent into ‘that awful country’ which he was convinced ‘would kill him’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>In the session of 1707-8 Townshend, with his kinsmen and friends Walpole, Newcastle and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, had distinguished themselves as ‘lord treasurer’s Whigs’, those who had not countenanced or joined in with the disruptive tactics of the Junto in their bid to force their way into office. The Junto had, however, tried to bring them round and by October 1708 it was reported that, unlike the previous session, this time ‘the duke of Devonshire and Lord Townshend have given them [the Junto] fresh assurances that they will not divide from them’. It meant ‘a very ill prospect’ for the duumvirs’ government in the coming Parliament.<sup>73</sup> One member of the Junto with whom Townshend continued to have a fractious relation was Halifax, as in December 1708 there were further promises to Townshend that he would be appointed to a diplomatic posting which Halifax was also eager to secure for himself. Shortly before Christmas 1708 a clearly exasperated Godolphin queried why both men could not be gainfully employed.<sup>74</sup> Townshend took his place in the House for the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 after which he was present on 90 per cent of all sitting days. Townshend was present at a large gathering of English Junto lords and Scots Squadrone members at Devonshire’s London home on 11 December, where tactics and plans for concerted action between the two groups were undoubtedly discussed.<sup>75</sup> Thus on 21 Jan. 1709 Townshend and the Junto-Squadrone alliance voted against permitting Scots peers holding British titles (including Godolphin’s ally James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry) from voting in the elections for Scots representative peers. Marlborough at about this time singled out Somers, Devonshire, Townshend and Newcastle as those formerly moderate Whig peers he hoped would still be ‘reasonable’, and he thought that Walpole could be of use in keeping Devonshire and Townshend ‘in good humour’.<sup>76</sup> In the last days of January Townshend was present in the House when the Commons’ address requesting the queen to remarry was presented. The address was greeted with silence before Townshend rose to his feet to move the Lords’ concurrence, and was seconded by Somers.<sup>77</sup> The following months saw Townshend active once again as a chairman of committees. On 10 Feb. he reported from the committee for the Whitby piers bill. On 14 Mar. he reported from the select committee on the Wymondham Road bill and eight days later from that for the Pacey sureties bill. Between these he reported on 16 Mar. from the committee of the whole considering the bill confirming patrons’ rights to advowsons. On 14 Apr. he seconded Halifax in proposing an amendment to the bill to extend the English law on treason to Scotland, whereby clauses to the bill added by the Commons would not take effect until after the death of the Pretender.<sup>78</sup> A week later Townshend was nominated a manager of a conference concerning the bill to make perpetual a number of acts concerning the coinage.</p><p>The prorogation of 21 Apr. 1709 coincided with reports that Townshend had at last been offered a foreign posting and that he was to travel to Holland with Marlborough to take up his place at The Hague, much to the consternation of Halifax, who felt he had been promised the place by both Somers and Godolphin.<sup>79</sup> Speculation circulated concerning the identities of the plenipotentiaries that were to go with him, with at least one commentator reporting that Townshend was to be joined by Newcastle and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury.<sup>80</sup> While Marlborough and Townshend waited for a favourable wind, Townshend’s potential colleagues busily ruled themselves out. By the beginning of May 1709 Newcastle, Shrewsbury and Devonshire had all refused to go as plenipotentiaries. Halifax seems to have put a similar story about, though some thought he was trying to save face having been turned down by the court.<sup>81</sup> The disinclination of more senior figures to join with Townshend meant that the burden of the negotiations fell on him.</p><p>Townshend finally arrived at The Hague on 17 May 1709. He remained there as ambassador for the next two years.<sup>82</sup> By the end of the month he had secured a house for 13,000 Guilders for the first six months, having apparently declined an offer of lodging with Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland.<sup>83</sup> His prime consideration as ambassador was to ensure the continued support of the Dutch for the allied war effort. In this he was eventually successful by dint of his negotiation of the Barrier Treaty, by which Britain pledged itself to permit Dutch trade in the Spanish Empire and to grant the United Provinces a number of fortified towns in the Spanish Netherlands in return for the United Provinces’ continuing commitment to the war and to the Protestant succession in Britain. It was a scheme that both Townshend, Somers and Sunderland were said to favour but which was ultimately to prove a source of serious dissension at home and to bring Townshend to the brink of impeachment.<sup>84</sup></p><p>Townshend’s early months in Holland appear to have been both frustrating and upsetting. Soon after his arrival he was informed of the death of his brother Roger. Efforts to oversee the resulting by-election from a distance at once ran into difficulties when Townshend misinterpreted a letter from Samuel Fuller<sup>‡</sup>, thereby adding to the fracturing within the town’s Whig ranks. Disaster was eventually averted when a compromise candidate, Nathaniel Symonds<sup>‡</sup> was elected, but it was an early indication of the difficulties Townshend was to face in maintaining his interest while out of the country.<sup>85</sup> Meanwhile, business at The Hague was moving very slowly; in mid-September 1709 Marlborough was reported to have assured his young colleague that although he was not much employed at the present, ‘in a short time he would have as much business as he could turn his head to, innuendo, Peace.’<sup>86</sup> Townshend’s frustration was not just the result of <em>ennui</em>. As the months passed his relationship with Marlborough deteriorated as the two men came to disagree profoundly about the drafting of the treaty. Although at the close of May 1709 Marlborough had expressed himself ‘very well pleased’ with his junior partner, by August it was apparent that their appraisal of the situation was starkly at odds. Marlborough warned Godolphin that he would find ‘the advice given by [Townshend] prove very fatal to the interest’ of England. Later that month, Marlborough sought permission not to sign the Barrier Treaty as he considered that it might ‘meet with such accidents as may prove very troublesome to all those that have given the advice’. Godolphin, on the other hand, seemed disposed to accept that Townshend’s view had some merit.<sup>87</sup> Despite their disagreements over the shape of the treaty, Townshend was quick to congratulate Marlborough in September following his ‘great victory’ (as he described it elsewhere) at Malplaquet. He hailed the battle, which others condemned as no more than pyrrhic, as ‘the greatest action that has been done this war, when it is fairly considered in all its circumstances’.<sup>88</sup></p><p>The Barrier Treaty was signed on 29 Oct. 1709, but Townshend remained behind in post to finalize the negotiations and was thus absent from the opening of the 1709-10 session.<sup>89</sup> Towards the end of November he wrote to Marlborough expressing his satisfaction that Parliament had begun so well and not doubting ‘that they will proceed with the same zeal through the whole session’.<sup>90</sup> If Townshend was indeed in the House on 16 Dec. 1709, as is suggested by the Journal’s attendance register, he had returned to his posting by the middle of January 1710 when he wrote to Marlborough again, insisting that it would ‘be extremely for the public service if your grace would come over as soon as possibly the affairs in England will give you leave.’<sup>91</sup> Concern at moves against Marlborough in England may have encouraged Townshend to return to England and resume his place in the House on 8 Feb., as his name appears in the attendance register for that day. On 31 Jan. he had written to the duke to express ‘the greatest consternation imaginable’ at Marlborough's travails and his threat to resign, but if he did indeed attend in early February, his visit was extremely brief and on 10 Feb. the secretary of state Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton, wrote to him to inform him that Parliament had finally settled the question of supply. The tenor of the letter suggested that Townshend had once more quit the country and appears to question whether he had in fact been present in England a mere two days earlier.<sup>92</sup> By the time of the Sacheverell trial at the end of March, Townshend was once more noted as being resident abroad and was again dependent on Boyle to keep him informed of the progress of events.<sup>93</sup></p><p>The aftermath of the Sacheverell trial appears to have convinced Townshend of the need for caution and by the end of April 1710, he was busily engaged in attempting to persuade his Whig colleagues that (as Godolphin reported it) they should ‘bear with patience a great many things in themselves not fit to be borne’ rather than risk losing the benefits of Marlborough’s military gains..<sup>94</sup> Townshend’s advice to the Whigs failed to avert the gradual dismemberment of the ministry over the coming months. In June he pleaded with Marlborough not to consider resigning his post, anxious that ‘should you retire we shall inevitably run into confusion and all our misfortunes will be laid to your charge.’<sup>95</sup> His anxieties were no doubt heightened by news of the dismissal of Sunderland. He was unlikely to have been reassured by the dispatch containing the information, although it emphasized that the queen had not determined to rid herself of her former secretary ‘out of the least unkindness towards the duke of Marlborough’, that she had no intention of making wholesale alterations in the ministry, and that she intended ‘to continue in conjunction with her allies to prosecute the war against the common enemy with same vigour she has hitherto done’.<sup>96</sup></p><p>The advent of the new ministry headed by Robert Harley and Shrewsbury ostensibly made no immediate impact on Townshend's standing at The Hague, though in July 1710 it was speculated that he would be joined there either by Halifax or by Rochester. The suggestion that Rochester might be one of the new envoys was said to be on account of him being ‘well with Hanover’ and that he would help to keep both Townshend and Marlborough ‘in awe’.<sup>97</sup> In the event Townshend retained his post without any additional colleagues being foisted on him, even though it had been insinuated in June that he was opposed to peace and in September it was queried whether or not he and Walpole were not rather ‘down in the mouth’ about the recent removals.<sup>98</sup> Their collective misery cannot have been alleviated by the Whigs’ poor showing in the Norfolk election that autumn. Both Walpole and Ashe Windham were unsuccessful in the face of a resurgent Tory interest. They had been hampered by Townshend’s absence overseas, even though he did ‘all that he can for the support of our friends in Norfolk by writing’.<sup>99</sup></p><h2>The Parliaments of 1710 and 1713</h2><p>The extent of the alterations in the administration clearly took Townshend by surprise. In the middle of August 1710 he complained of his adversaries’ demeanour and of the ‘violence and madness that their guilt can suggest to them as necessary to protect them in their villainous designs’. Despite this he continued to profess himself to be patient in the face of the uncertain state of affairs and seems to have been determined to work with the new regime.<sup>100</sup> In contrast with the earlier report that he was opposed to peace, Townshend was assessed by John Drummond as being eager to secure peace ‘as soon as it can be obtained with reason and safety’, an attitude that chimed positively with the policy of the new administration. Likewise, Drummond’s belief that although Townshend may have been ‘in with some of the Junto, he has always spoken honourably of the queen’s ministers now employed’ no doubt further helped him to retain his post long after a number of his Whig <em>confrères</em> had been replaced.<sup>101</sup> Townshend’s good relations with the Dutch, the result of ‘his plain and honest methods of dealing with them’ may also have been a factor. Nevertheless, this accommodating attitude on both sides did not last long, and at the beginning of November rumours were circulating that Townshend would soon be recalled. He was, it was feared, ‘too much a creature of Lord Somers as well as of another great lord’ (probably Marlborough).<sup>102</sup> In mid-December, it was thought that he would be replaced by Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, though for the time being he clung onto his position.<sup>103</sup></p><p>By the close of February 1711, a combination of Townshend’s closeness to the Junto and the needs of the new administration to offer places to its supporters finally settled the question and Townshend was presented with his letters of recall.<sup>104</sup> His replacement proved not to be St John but Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford). One paper explained Townshend’s relinquishing of his place as owing to his own request to return home.<sup>105</sup> Drummond warned Harley that Raby would be hard pressed to emulate Townshend’s popularity in Holland. This assessment was echoed in the <em>Daily Courant</em>, which reported that Townshend ‘leaves behind him a great reputation for acquitting himself of his employment with no less ability than candour and probity, and carrying himself towards all with extraordinary affability’.<sup>106</sup> Raby, on the other hand, later complained that Townshend had been less than helpful during the handover.<sup>107</sup> Contrary winds delayed Townshend’s departure until April.<sup>108</sup> On 16 Apr. 1711, four days after landing back in England, he took his seat in the House for the first time in almost two years, after which he attended on a further two days before absenting himself for almost two weeks. <sup>109</sup> On 2 May he registered his proxy with Somers, which most probably took effect from the following day, 3 May, Townshend’s last day in the House in that session.</p><p>Harley’s efforts to rebalance the ministry in favour of a more mixed administration gave rise to reports towards the end of April 1711 that Townshend might replace Dartmouth as secretary of state with Somers also returning to office as lord president.<sup>110</sup> The rumours persisted into the middle of May but in the event neither appointment materialized. Far from being offered additional employment, in mid-June Townshend was stripped of his position as captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, which went to Henry Paget*, later earl of Uxbridge.<sup>111</sup> By then it was believed that Marlborough was so annoyed by Townshend’s decision to sign the Barrier Treaty that he would never forgive the young diplomat.<sup>112</sup> Townshend’s personal concerns more than overshadowed such political developments as the late spring and early summer saw him lose in quick succession his wife, a new-born daughter, and his heir, Horatio.<sup>113</sup></p><p>By the winter of 1711 the possibility of Townshend being recruited by the ministry had all but evaporated. He sat on the new session’s first day, 7 Dec. 1711, and attended just over 70 per cent of its sitting days. On that first day he voted in favour of including a clause in the Address asserting that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’. Certainly he was included in a list compiled by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, which possibly relates to the negotiations between him and the Whigs for a prospective anti-ministry alliance. Townshend also featured among the opponents of the court in an assessment by Oxford (as Robert Harley had become in May 1711) concerning his attempt on 8 Dec. to undo the vote in favour of the clause. Lastly, Oxford also noted Townshend among those office-holders (even though at that point he did not hold office) that rebelled against the ministry over the Address. Townshend was later forecast by Oxford as one of those opposed to the claim of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as the British duke of Brandon, and at the division on 20 Dec. Townshend voted as expected in favour of barring Scots peers holding post-Union British titles from sitting in the Lords.</p><p>On 18 Jan. 1712 Townshend received the proxy of Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick, which was vacated the following day by Howard’s appearance. Howard’s proxy was replaced that same day by that of Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, which Townshend held for the session. Townshend’s poor standing with the government was reflected in rumours in January that he was to be impeached, along with Marlborough, Godolphin and Wharton, for his role in negotiating the Barrier Treaty.<sup>114</sup> One commentator noted the Commons’ proceedings on the matter as ‘a very sore place’, and punned regarding the barrier that he did not know ‘how my Lord Townshend will get over’.<sup>115</sup> On 14 Feb. Townshend was formally censured by the Commons, and dubbed an enemy of the queen and country, for exceeding his instructions by allowing the Dutch to demand, and to receive, more than had been initially allowed.<sup>116</sup> Some thought that the affair revealed the extent to which Townshend had been made a fool of by the Junto and left him with a sadly diminished reputation.<sup>117</sup></p><p>Townshend was absent from the House from 23 Feb. 1712 and on 26 Feb. he registered his proxy with Halifax, which was vacated by Townshend’s resumption of his seat two days later. On 31 Mar. he received Devonshire’s proxy, which he held until the duke’s return on 12 April. This in turn was replaced by the proxy of Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater, registered with Townshend the day Devonshire’s was vacated. Still holding Bridgwater’s proxy, Townshend then entrusted his own proxy with Devonshire on 15 April. Confusingly, Devonshire then returned the favour by registering his proxy with Townshend once again on 23 Apr., though it was not until 28 Apr. that Townshend finally resumed his place in the House, along with his original proxy donor Bridgwater, whose proxy with Townshend was thus vacated. Parliament was adjourned on 29 Apr. to 5 May and Townshend, on 1 May, fired off a panicked letter to Devonshire, then at Newmarket with their Junto colleagues, in which he expressed the concern that the ministry was preparing to lay before a thinly attended House the terms of the French peace negotiators. Townshend thus urged his colleagues to return to Westminster immediately ‘at this crucial juncture’. <sup>118</sup> This letter had its intended effect and Wharton, Bridgwater, and Somerset were all back in the House for the meeting on 5 May, as was the letter’s recipient Devonshire, thus vacating his proxy with Townshend.<sup>119</sup> On 15 May 1712 Townshend was at a meeting convened at Sunderland’s residence, where he, Somers, Halifax and a number of the Whig bishops discussed recent events in Convocation.<sup>120</sup> The following day Townshend was entrusted with the proxy of Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter, which he held until Fitzwalter’s return to the House on 22 May. On 28 May Townshend voted in favour of an address requesting that the government’s ‘restraining orders’ preventing the captain general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from waging an active campaign against the French, be overturned.<sup>121</sup> He then subscribed the protest when the motion for an address was rejected. On 7 June Townshend similarly joined the protest against the resolution not to amend the address responding to the queen’s speech regarding the peace with a clause requesting her to ensure that all the Allies enter into a ‘mutual guarantee’ for the peace and Protestant Succession.</p><p>Townshend’s Tory kinsman, Horatio Walpole I<sup>‡</sup> clearly saw him as a threat, warning Oxford that the lord lieutenant was ‘very active and expensive’ in cultivating his interest in Norfolk in order to overturn the Tory monopoly at the next elections. At the beginning of December 1712 he insisted that Norfolk needed a new lord lieutenant.<sup>122</sup> Poor relations with one Walpole cousin in no way diminished Townshend’s developing partnership with Robert Walpole, though, and towards the end of February 1713 this relationship was reported to be on the verge of being strengthened further with the projected marriage between Townshend and Walpole’s sister, Dorothy.<sup>123</sup> The match, which eventually took place later that summer, created not a little spiteful amusement in Tory ranks as ‘Dolly Walpole’ was well known as one of Wharton’s former mistresses.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Townshend resumed his seat in the House for the new session on 9 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on 78 per cent of all sitting days. On the last day of that month he was put out of his Norfolk lieutenancy and replaced by Ormond.<sup>125</sup> On 1 June Townshend spoke in the debate on the proposal brought in by the Scots members to introduce a bill for the dissolution of the Union. He echoed Halifax and Sunderland by insisting that although he disliked the idea of dissolving the Union yet, ‘as their only design in the Union was the succession, so if they saw that secured and perhaps better provided for they would not be averse to it’. He professed himself in favour only if the Scots could assure that the Hanoverian Succession would still be secure after the Union’s dissolution.<sup>126</sup> At about the same time, Townshend was estimated by Oxford to be opposed to the eighth and ninth articles of the French treaty of commerce.</p><p>The elections of September 1713 confirmed the extent to which Townshend had lost ground in Norfolk. Both county seats went to Tories as did the seats at Great Yarmouth. Only King’s Lynn offered any respite with the re-election of Walpole and Sir Charles Turner, though this probably had little do with Townshend’s interest.<sup>127</sup> In early February 1714 it was reported that Townshend had at last brought his ‘fine lady to town’.<sup>128</sup> He then took his seat on 16 Feb. 1714, the opening day of the new Parliament, after which he was present on just over 85 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Mar. he subscribed the dissent from the resolution not to amend the address requesting the discovery of the author of ‘The Public Spirit of the Whigs’. Five days later he received the proxy of Francis Godolphin*, 2nd earl of Godolphin, which was vacated by Godolphin’s return on 27 April. Townshend received the proxy of John Colepeper*, 3rd Baron Colepeper, on 10 Apr., but then registered his own proxy with Sunderland two days later. Townshend, however, resumed his seat the following day, 13 Apr., and continued to sit regularly thereafter. Colepeper’s proxy was vacated by his return on 7 July, three days before the prorogation.</p><p>On 2 Apr. 1714, during the debate on the address concerning the dangers to the Protestant Succession, Townshend followed Nottingham in haranguing the chamber over the threat from France, but without proposing any specific motion.<sup>129</sup> Six days later, as these debates continued, Townshend launched what proved to be an ill-advised assault on Oxford by moving that the controversial payment of a £4,000 remittance to certain Scots clans, alleged to be Jacobites, be taken into consideration. When the motion came to be debated, it was swatted away by Oxford, prompting Townshend to acknowledge that he had clearly been mistaken and accepting Oxford’s explanation.<sup>130</sup> Despite these attacks Oxford suggested, in a private memorandum of early May 1714, that Townshend be spoken to by the lord privy seal, the earl of Dartmouth, as part of the lord treasurer’s efforts to identify ways to achieve a more balanced administration in order to forestall the attempts of his more ardent Tory colleagues. <sup>131</sup> In late May, Nottingham forecast Townshend as a likely opponent of the schism bill, and on 5 June Townshend spoke in the debates at its first reading. He drew on his experience of living among the Dutch to explain his opposition to the bill, arguing that:</p><blockquote><p>the wealth and strength of that great and powerful commonwealth lies in the number of its inhabitants: but that he was persuaded, that if the States should cause the schools of any one sect tolerated in the United Provinces to be shut up, they would be soon as thin of people, as Sweden or Spain, whereas they now swarm with inhabitants.<sup>132</sup></p></blockquote><p>Townshend was entrusted with Somers’s proxy on 10 June, which was vacated a mere five days later. That same day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the schism bill. On 25 June Townshend, Halifax, Somers, and Wharton, were the peers who argued in the committee of the whole House debating the bill to prohibit subjects from enlisting in the service of the Pretender that the Pretender himself was ‘inconsiderable’ and that the real threat came from France itself, ‘whose interest and constant design was to impose him upon these realms’.<sup>133</sup> Townshend received Somers’s proxy again on 25 June, which was vacated by Somers’s resumption of his seat on 2 July. On 8 July he acted as teller, opposite Viscount Bolingbroke (as Henry St John had become in July 1712), in the division whether to agree to the address concerning the Spanish commercial treaty, which complained that the benefits from the <em>asiento</em> contract had been obstructed by the efforts of individuals—Bolingbroke in particular—to secure private advantages from the contract. The address was rejected by 43 votes to 55, against which decision Townshend formally protested.</p><h2>Later career, 1714-38</h2><p>Townshend’s career was transformed by the Hanoverian succession. He was well liked by the new monarch, whose cause he had championed while a diplomat at The Hague by recommending that the elector should press to be created duke of York and assume the role in cabinet formerly occupied by Queen Anne’s husband.<sup>134</sup> On 5 Aug., when he first sat in the session convened at the queen’s death, he was included in the list of regents to administer the kingdom before the king’s arrival.<sup>135</sup> Soon after, on 17 Sept., Townshend was rewarded with the office of secretary of state and by the close of the year he had also recovered his lieutenancy of Norfolk from Ormond. For the following decade and a half Townshend worked closely with Walpole in a successful political partnership during which he held a succession of significant offices. He eventually retired from public life in 1730 and spent the rest of his life concentrating on agricultural improvements on his estates, an activity that helped earn him the soubriquet of ‘Turnip Townshend’.<sup>136</sup> Full details of the latter phase of his career will be covered by the second part of this work.</p><p>In contrast to the case of his kinsman Walpole, no scent of corruption accompanied Townshend into his retirement. Probity alongside the cause of crop rotation and the virtues of the turnip remained a cornerstone of his character. Coarse he may have been at times, less quick-witted than Walpole and more prone to making errors of judgment, but his was an honest bluffness combined with a steady application to business that formed a stark contrast to the reputation attached to a number of his contemporaries. Townshend died in June 1738 and was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest surviving son, Charles Townshend<sup>†</sup>, as 3rd Viscount Townshend. The new holder of the title inherited a substantially improved estate. He was constituted guardian to his younger siblings and sole executor of Townshend’s will.<sup>137</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
TOWNSHEND, Horatio (1630-87) |
<p><strong><surname>TOWNSHEND</surname></strong>, <strong>Horatio</strong> (1630–87)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Apr. 1661 Bar. TOWNSHEND; <em>cr. </em>2 Dec. 1682 Visct. TOWNSHEND |
|
First sat 8 May 1661; last sat 25 June 1685 |
|
MP Norfolk 1656, 1659, 1660 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 16 Dec. 1630, 2nd s. of Sir Roger Townshend<sup>‡</sup>, bt. (<em>d</em>.1637) of Raynham, Norf. and Mary (1611-69), da. and coh. of Horace Vere<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Vere of Tilbury.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. St John's, Camb. 1644, MA 27 Nov. 1645; travelled abroad (France, Italy, Switzerland) 1646-8. <em>m</em>. (1) October 1649 Mary (1634-73), da. and coh. of Edward Lewkenor of Denham, Suff., <em>s.p</em>.; (2) 27 Nov. 1673 (with £9,575)<sup>2</sup> Mary (<em>d</em>. 17 Dec. 1685), da. of Sir Joseph Ashe<sup>‡</sup>, bt, of Twickenham, Mdx. 3s. 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>3</sup> <em>suc</em>. bro. as 3rd bt. bef. 13 July 1648. <em>d</em>. 1 Dec. 1687; <em>will</em> 16 Mar.-26 Nov., pr. 7 Dec. 1687.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Cllr. of State 17 May-1 Dec. 1659.</p><p>Commr. militia, Norf. 1659, 1660,<sup>5</sup> corporations, Norwich 1662; gov., King's Lynn 1660; dep. lt. Norf. c.1660-1; col. militia horse, Norf. 1660-76; ld. lt. Norf. 1661-76; v.-adm. Norf. 1663-76; high steward, King's Lynn 1664-84; alderman, Thetford by 1669-?82.</p><p>Col. regt. of ft. 1667.</p><p>Asst. R. Fishing Co. 1664.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by P. Lely, c<em>.</em>1665, National Museum Wales; oil on canvas, attrib. R. Cole, National Trust, Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk.</p> |
<h2><em>Local worthy in Norfolk, 1648-58</em></h2><p>The Townshends had been based at Raynham, near King’s Lynn in north Norfolk, since the end of the fourteenth century, but the family’s estate had been greatly enlarged by the exertions of the eminent lawyer Sir Roger Townshend<sup>‡</sup> in the late fifteenth century. Horatio’s paternal grandfather Sir John Townshend<sup>‡</sup> had, through his union with Anne Bacon, married into another illustrious legal clan (her father was Sir Nathaniel Bacon<sup>‡</sup> and uncle was Francis Bacon<sup>†</sup>, Viscount St Albans) and brought the family additional estates in north Norfolk, particularly Stiffkey and Langham. Horatio’s father had been made a baronet in 1617 and in 1627 married a daughter and coheiress of the military leader Baron Vere<sup>†</sup> of Tilbury. The couple had two sons in quick succession – Roger and Horatio – named in honour of these paternal figures. Sir Roger Townshend died in 1637, leaving his new grand residence of Raynham Hall, inspired by the architecture of Inigo Jones<sup>‡</sup>, unfinished and unoccupied and his elder son and namesake heir to the baronetcy. Within almost a year of his death, his widow remarried, her second husband being Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, and it was in this household that Sir Roger Townshend, 2nd bt, and his younger brother Horatio spent their formative years.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In early 1647 the brothers began a tour of the continent, but this was cut short by Sir Roger’s death at Geneva. Horatio thus returned home in mid-July 1648 as the 3rd baronet and one of the largest landowners in the county with, apart from his father’s mansion at Raynham, 30 manors and three lordships in Norfolk, all worth about £4,200 p.a. By October 1649 he was married to Mary Lewkenor, who brought with her lands in that county worth £1,200 p.a.<sup>9</sup> Owing to his standing both the Commonwealth and Protectorate governments turned to him to fulfil local offices and responsibilities – justice of the peace and commissioner of assessment for Norfolk and commissioner of sewers for the Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire fenland, among others.<sup>10</sup> Most significantly he was a knight of the shire for Norfolk in the second and third Protectorate Parliaments.</p><p>The leaders of the Protectorate probably thought they could rely on the young man because he was untainted by involvement in the previous war and came from a renowned puritan background. Townshend’s late father and surviving mother were both zealous Protestants, his maternal grandmother was a benefactress of godly causes and her husband, Baron Vere, had been a champion of English intervention in the International Protestant cause during the religious wars of the early seventeenth century. The Veres were also cousins to the puritan Harley family and Townshend maintained a friendly correspondence with Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> throughout his life.<sup>11</sup> His maternal aunt Lady Anne Vere was married to the parliamentary general Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S]. In addition, his wife’s family, the Lewkenors, had long been celebrated for their piety, charity, and campaigning for further reformation of the Church of England. But Townshend’s loyalties were more complex. His stepfather Westmorland was a former royalist who had been punished with fines and sequestration, nor does Townshend appear to have adhered closely to the religious zealotry of his parents and kin. He later claimed to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, that he ‘might have been a presbyter or fanatic’ had he not been ‘forewarned by their Jesuitical practices and insinuations’. Historians of the Restoration often classify Townshend as a ‘Presbyterian’, but this is primarily because of his later, largely opportunistic, association with the country opposition. His prosecution of nonconformity in Norfolk in the early 1660s does not suggest that he was particularly motivated by any lingering attachment to Dissent.<sup>12</sup></p><h2><em>The Restoration, 1659-60</em></h2><p>Certainly he was not attached to the Protectorate regime itself and from March 1659 his opposition in Parliament to the government was being reported favourably to Hyde.<sup>13</sup> In a surprise move, after the collapse of the Protectorate in May the reinstalled Rump Parliament appointed Townshend to the council of state and to the commission for the Norfolk militia, but he only accepted these places after receiving a dispensation to do so from the king himself. After Charles Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> accused him of being a covert royalist, Townshend left the council for good and retired to the country. From that time Townshend was enlisted, through the agency of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, to try to secure the port of King’s Lynn for the royalists in the general rising that was planned for that summer.<sup>14</sup> Townshend, according to Clarendon’s later account, was ‘a gentleman of the greatest interest and credit in that large county of Norfolk’ and, as he ‘had been under age till long after the end of the war’, he was ‘liable to no reproach or jealousy, yet of very worthy principles, and of a noble fortune which he engaged very frankly to borrow money, which he laid out to provide arms and ammunition’ for the attempt on King’s Lynn. Unfortunately he and his confederate in the attempt, Francis Willoughby*, 4th Baron Willoughby of Parham, were apprehended before the port could be secured and perhaps imprisoned, although there is no other evidence for Townshend’s arrest outside of Clarendon’s account.<sup>15</sup> He was certainly at large in September 1659, when the king’s secretary of state Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> wrote that Townshend had ‘sent to Mr Mordaunt that they will now attempt anything for the king to prevent the ruin of the nation’, but only if ‘there can be but 5,000 men sent over from France of Flanders’.<sup>16</sup> Later that year he and Sir Edward Harley worked together to convince their mutual kinsman Lord Fairfax to support General George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, in his march to London. Townshend even transmitted to Fairfax a letter from Charles II assuring him of his favour despite his past actions.<sup>17</sup> </p><p>Townshend thus emerged as the leader of the Norfolk gentry acting for the restoration of the king and on 28 Jan. 1660 he presented to the Speaker of the Rump a ‘Declaration by the gentry of Norfolk and Norwich’ asserting that without the recall of the members secluded in 1648 the people of Norfolk would not feel obliged to pay taxes.<sup>18</sup> The reinstated Long Parliament in March constituted him a commissioner of the militia for Norfolk as well as governor of King’s Lynn, and the king wrote to him expressing his gratitude and favour. On the king’s behalf he played a prominent part in overseeing the election of royalists to the Convention, and was himself elected a knight of the shire for that assembly.<sup>19</sup> He was also chosen one of the 12 members assigned to travel to Breda to convey the Convention’s invitation to the king for his return. With the king restored, in the summer of 1660 he was made a deputy lieutenant, with a regiment of horse, under the nominal and largely absent lord lieutenant of Norfolk Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton.<sup>20</sup></p><h2><em>Clarendon’s agent in Norfolk, 1661-68</em></h2><p>Hyde, soon to be earl of Clarendon himself, valued the young man as his principal agent in ‘that large county of Norfolk’ and undoubtedly had a role in his elevation to the peerage in the coronation honours of April 1661.<sup>21</sup> Undoubtedly aware of his impending promotion, Townshend declined standing in the general election that year, but his recommendation at a meeting of gentry before the election ensured that his former partner in the Convention, Thomas Richardson<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Lord Cramond [S], and his own brother-in-law Sir Ralph Hare<sup>‡</sup>, bt were returned unopposed for the county seats. Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>, bt, who had sat for the borough of Castle Rising in the Convention, applied himself to Townshend when he changed his mind late in the day and decided that he wished to sit for that borough in the new Parliament after all. He had earlier assured the borough’s patron, Lord Henry Howard*, later 6th duke of Norfolk, that he did not wish to serve at Westminster again. Howard had already settled on his members for Castle Rising, but through Townshend’s offices, he ensured that Holland was returned for his Suffolk borough of Aldeburgh instead. Townshend also shared the interest at Thetford with Howard, and ensured the return of the courtier Sir Allen Apsley<sup>‡</sup>, master of the hawks, for that borough.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Having secured suitable members for Norfolk in the Commons, shortly after his elevation Townshend replaced the absentee Southampton as lord lieutenant. However, his commission of 15 Aug. gave him the wrong forename, and as this mistake took some time to rectify it was not actually until mid-October that he fully entered into his office. Until then, he was still considered a deputy lieutenant.<sup>23</sup> From the time he formally took up his duties he proved an active, conscientious and energetic lord lieutenant for the crown. He may have voted against the Corporation Act, but once it had been passed he enforced its provisions and conducted a thorough purge of those corporations and conventicles sympathetic to the old regime in many of the county’s more troublesome boroughs.<sup>24</sup> In particular, he considered the port of Great Yarmouth a ‘nest of schismatical rogues’, and complained that the town corporation protected ministers ‘against the king and liturgy’. He calculated that Presbyterians or Independents made up two-thirds of the corporation’s officials and under the terms of the Corporation Act and the Act of Uniformity prosecuted those ‘not conformable unto the government of the church’. Clarendon would have been sympathetic to this view for, as high steward of the port, he had already had his share of disagreements with the corporation over the ejection and replacement of a nonconforming minister in August 1663.<sup>25</sup> Disputes with Great Yarmouth continued throughout the 1660s, and when the king tried to force his choice of bailiffs on the corporation in August 1665, supported by a letter of recommendation from Townshend, the town fathers studiously ignored this royal command and instead appointed a suspected nonconformist who had previously taken up arms against Charles I.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Townshend constantly faced opposition from Norfolk’s independent-minded boroughs, not just Great Yarmouth, but Norwich and Thetford as well, where his interest competed with that of the more long-standing and eminent, albeit Catholic, Howard family. When the corporation of Thetford considered renewing its charter in 1664, they ignored Townshend’s help, claiming that ‘they had a friend worth forty of my Lord Townshend who would do it for them … Mr Henry Howard’ (i.e. Lord Henry Howard), and in 1668 the corporation completely bypassed Townshend when drawing up its commission of the peace: a pointed insult. He also felt the need to reassure Clarendon that Norwich remained loyal to the king, despite its long-standing reputation for nonconformity and rebelliousness.<sup>27</sup></p><p>He was only rewarded for his efforts to enforce the central government’s policies with further local responsibilities, and not the position at court he apparently craved. In August 1663, he added to his local duties when he was appointed vice-admiral of the Norfolk coast, and then high steward of King’s Lynn, near his own estate of Raynham, in 1664. <sup>28</sup> With this conglomeration of local roles, he was highly active and effective in organizing the defence of the Norfolk coast from invasion during the second Dutch War, shuttling around the county almost nonstop to prepare the militia and oversee the coastal defences, although he still faced obstruction from the port of Great Yarmouth, so close to the Dutch coast. For this conflict he also raised his own regiment of horse. There was a slight financial recognition of his services, and in June 1664 he was granted a lease of 4 shillings per chaldron of exported coals for 21 years, at a rent of £2,000 p. a., later reduced to £1,000 p.a. in March 1667. This proved to be a useful source of income for the indebted peer, and by 1668 brought him an income of about £2,100 a year.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>Early service in the Lords</em></h2><p>Townshend’s importance in the early years of the Restoration lies far more in his electoral interest and in the local politics of Norfolk than in his activities in the House of Lords itself. He does not stand out as a leading actor in the House during the 1660s and even when present was more often than not overlooked by his peers when forming select committees. The newly created Baron Townshend was present on the opening day of Charles II’s first Parliament on 8 May 1661, but it was not until 11 May that he was introduced formally between George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, and William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard. He came to 81 per cent of the meetings during the first part of the session in spring 1661, but was named to only one select committee throughout this period. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, forecast that he would support the case of his kinsman Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his dispute with Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, over the office of lord great chamberlain. He came to a little less than two-thirds of the meetings between the time Parliament resumed in November 1661 and its prorogation in May 1662, and was named to only nine select committees, including those to consider the uniformity bill and the bill to reform frauds in the collection of customs duties – which may explain the presence of papers entitled ‘Proposals for the better management of his Majesty&rsquos customs’ among his personal papers.<sup>30</sup> He was absent from 8 Feb. to 3 Mar. 1662 and thus missed much of the discussion on the dispute between the ports of Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft concerning the herring fisheries, although he was kept informed of Parliament’s proceedings on this issue by one of the members for Great Yarmouth.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Townshend was present on the opening day of the subsequent session, 18 Feb. 1663. Five days later he informed the House that Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich, was detained in Norfolk owing to his wife’s illness.<sup>32</sup> From 6 Mar. to 2 Apr. he held Maynard’s proxy. He was placed on only six select committees, until he was given official leave to be absent from the House ‘for some time’ on 20 June. He did not attend the House from that point and registered his own proxy with John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, on 23 June. Concerning the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon in July 1663, Wharton forecast that Townshend would support the lord chancellor. His basis for this was Townshend’s proxy with Lucas, whom he mistakenly put on Clarendon’s side, whereas Lucas was in fact one of Bristol’s leading advocates in the house and later became one of Clarendon’s fiercest opponents.<sup>33</sup></p><p>If faulty in his reasoning, Wharton was probably right in placing Townshend in Clarendon’s camp, for throughout this period Townshend remained in close correspondence with the lord chancellor regarding the lieutenancy of Norfolk, and probably served him as manager of the 12 Norfolk members in the Commons.<sup>34</sup> Notes made by Townshend in about April 1663 are suggestive that he may have acted as a ‘parliamentary manager’ alerting the ministry to the concerns of his followers on the backbenches. These included complaints of French and Dutch interference in the fishing trade and of the preponderant influence in Scotland of John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (earl of Guilford).<sup>35</sup> This close collaboration with the lord chancellor was further shown in the session of 1664-5, which followed upon Townshend’s high attendance in the brief session of spring 1664, when he was present at all but two of its 37 sittings. In the run-up to the session starting in November 1664, as Clarendon was casting around for members of the Commons willing to support an unprecedented supply for the intended war against the Dutch, he turned specifically to three members from Norfolk for assistance, undoubtedly with Townshend’s aid and advice. Sir Robert Paston*, later earl of Yarmouth, a burgess for the Howards’ borough of Castle Rising, agreed to take on the daunting task, while the other two, unfortunately unnamed, members from Norfolk agreed to second the motion. On 25 Nov. Paston moved that Parliament grant the Crown supply of £2,500,000<em>, </em>an extravagant proposal which was duly seconded by his two Norfolk colleagues and which surprisingly met with little opposition in the Commons.<sup>36</sup> On that same day Paston introduced in the Commons a bill that would extend the boundaries of Great Yarmouth to include his own property on the south bank of the Yare. After barely passing the lower house by one vote, this controversial bill proved equally difficult in the Lords, but was ably seen through the House through the efforts of a small number of sympathetic peers, including Townshend, whom Paston described at this time (February 1665) as ‘the best friend I have in the world’.<sup>37</sup> Townshend wrote a letter to Clarendon sometime in 1665 recommending Paston for advancement at court, as a reward for his promotion of the king’s interest in the Commons, and continued to act as an intermediary between Clarendon and Paston.<sup>38</sup> When Paston felt himself deceived by promises of a peerage made to him by Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, and Sir Charles Berkeley*, later earl of Falmouth, which did not come through, he ‘complained to a friend of his who he knew had interest in the chancellor’ – almost certainly Townshend – &lsquoand desired him to acquaint him [the chancellor] with all that had passed’. Clarendon, upon receiving the king&#rsquo;s final refusal, ‘truly advertised his friend of all the king had said, who again informed Sir Robert Paston, who thought himself very hardly treated’. The king was unwilling to give much but kind words to Paston at this time, although later he received a lucrative farm on the customs on unwrought wood and other imported commodities and ultimately a peerage.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Townshend was present for all but 18 days of this 1664-5 session, was named to 11 select committees, one of which he chaired on 13 Jan. 1665, and held the proxy of Charles Henry Kirkhoven*, Baron Wotton, throughout. <sup>40</sup> Townshend stayed away from the session held at Oxford in October, but on 30 Apr. 1666 he was one of the members of the House who found Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley (and 7th Baron Monteagle), not guilty of murder (but guilty of manslaughter) in an extraordinary court of the lord high steward convened outside of time of Parliament.<sup>41</sup> He missed only eight of the 89 days of the session of 1666-7, when he was again appointed to 11 select committees and on 24 Jan. 1667 he was provisionally named one of the Lords’ commissioners for the ultimately abortive parliamentary commission of public accounts.</p><p>He was too preoccupied in preparing the defences of the Norfolk coast against Dutch invasion to attend any of the meetings of the brief five-day session of July 1667, but he was present for 61 per cent of the sitting days of the following long session of 1667-9. He was most active in the meetings of winter 1667 before the Christmas recess, when he came to over three-quarters of the sittings, but was still named to only four select committees. Townshend’s principal involvement in these weeks was his own private bill to confirm an exchange of land between himself and the rector of East and West Raynham, which was brought up from the Commons on 30 Oct. 1667. As the bishop of Norwich made clear to the bill’s select committee that he approved of the exchange, the bill was reported and passed the House without amendment on 6 Nov. the same day that Charles Stanhope*, 2nd Baron Stanhope, registered his proxy for the remainder of the session with Townshend. <sup>42</sup> Townshend’s bill received the royal assent on 19 Dec. by which time he had left the House for the winter.</p><p>The main event in Parliament during those winter months was the impeachment and ultimate banishment of Clarendon, and although there is no evidence of Townshend acting vigorously in the lord chancellor’s defence, after the downfall of his erstwhile patron Townshend’s attendance in the House slackened, and at a call of the House on 17 Feb. 1668 his absence was formally excused. In fact he appeared in the House only four days later but he left the House again for an extended period of time between 17 Mar. and 9 Apr. when he was given leave by the House ‘to go into the Country for some time’. In all, he was present at less than half of the sittings from February 1668 until the session’s prorogation on 9 May and was named to only seven select committees. He was likewise lacklustre in his attendance at the following session of winter 1669 when he came to 53 per cent of the meetings, but was only named to the large committees, comprising almost the entire House, assigned to consider the decay of trade and to examine the report of the Commissioners of Accounts.</p><h2><em>‘Country’ leader, 1672-8</em></h2><p>Townshend was a frequent attender of the session that met between February and April 1670. He came to 88 per cent of that period’s sittings, when he was named to 18 select committees. On 30 Mar. he was named to the committee on the bill to repair the harbour of Great Yarmouth. After the bill was reported from committee and sent down to the lower house on 2 Apr. the Commons made clear their dissatisfaction with a proviso in the bill and Townshend was named one of the six reporters delegated to a conference on 5 April. The following day, 6 Apr. his brother-in-law John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, who had recently married Townshend’s half-sister Lady Mary Fane, registered his proxy with Townshend for the remainder of the session, which was adjourned in April for the summer months. Townshend was far less attentive when Parliament resumed on 24 October. He came to just less than half of the meetings before the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1671 and was named to 13 select committees. In the autumn of 1671 the king visited Norfolk and made a point of stopping for a time at Raynham Hall at the end of September when he showed Townshend every mark of favour.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Townshend’s situation, personally and politically, changed dramatically in the year 1673. In May of that year his wife Mary died, aged 38. The couple had been childless, and Townshend quickly took steps to remarry. On 27 Nov. he married as his second wife the 20-year old Mary Ashe.<sup>44</sup> She was reported to have brought ‘£8,000 with her, and a snip of 1,500 guineas from the mama’. Their first son was born in April 1675 and was named Charles*, later 2nd Viscount Townshend, after his godfather the king. A second son, Roger<sup>‡</sup>, followed in 1676, and Horatio<sup>‡</sup> a few years after that. Townshend was reputedly a ‘very joyful father’ and these births significantly changed his attitude both towards his local interest and the legacy he would leave his three sons. In addition, from 1671 letters to Sir Edward Harley from Townshend himself and from Harley’s sister Dorothy, who was married to Townshend’s chaplain William Michell, became increasingly concerned with Townshend’s debilitating and painful bouts of gout – one of which happened only a few weeks after his wedding in late 1673.<sup>45</sup> This recurrent incapacitation was to play an important role in Townshend’s political behaviour in the years ahead.</p><p>The year 1673 also saw the early stages of Norfolk’s division into antagonistic political camps, divisions which had a largely personal dimension, as the groups initially gathered around the lord lieutenant on the one hand, and his erstwhile client, and rising man at court, Paston, on the other. Paston had recently cemented himself more firmly in the king’s affections by the marriage in July 1672 of his son William Paston*, later 2nd earl of Yarmouth, to one of Charles II’s illegitimate daughters. At a by-election in February 1673 to replace the deceased county member Sir Ralph Hare, Townshend fully backed the old parliamentarian Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., who had been nominated to the ‘Other House’ of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> and ‘having been one of Oliver’s lords, retains a respectful memory for his master and his cause, and … would stick at nothing to promote it again’.<sup>46</sup> This controversial choice, perhaps made in a fit of personal pique at his continued neglect by the king, backfired on Townshend and probably played a part in Charles’s decision to create Paston Viscount Yarmouth in August 1673, thus introducing him into the peerage at a higher level than Townshend (a mere baron). In 1675 Townshend alienated himself further from the court when in the course of two by-elections he flouted the apparent preferences of Whitehall. In the by-election at King’s Lynn in April 1675 Townshend clearly set himself against Robert Coke<sup>‡</sup>, a son-in-law of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). Coke won but Danby was not likely to forgive Townshend’s strenuous opposition to his son-in-law and to his attempts to strengthen the court party in Norfolk.<sup>47</sup> Only a month later, in May, Townshend joined with Hobart and Sir John Holland in ensuring the victory of Sir Robert Kemp<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. by using under-handed and oppressive means against the court candidate Sir Neville Catelyn<sup>‡</sup> in another county by-election.<sup>48</sup> Townshend and his associates occupied the lodgings which Catelyn’s supporters were planning to use and forced them into the street, took up positions outside the poll to discourage potential voters for Catelyn, and used the power of the county militia for Kemp’s benefit. It was noted ‘that many of those persons that came to the poll for Sir Robert Kemp cried out that they came for the lord lieutenant&rsquos sake, and others for this colonel, captain, or justice, but rarely any man said he came for Sir Robert Kemp’s sake’.<sup>49</sup> Townshend’s motives for this strenuous opposition to the court are not clear, but it seems to have been born more out of a need to exert his personal influence and interest in the county where he may have felt his power slipping away with the rise of Yarmouth and his patron Danby, than from any strong ideological objection to the policies pursued by the lord treasurer. One Norfolk contemporary lamented the lord lieutenant’s heavy-handed interference in the recent elections and saw it as a personal bid for influence: ‘My Lord Townshend by his greatness alone made Sir John Hobart [a knight of the shire] and now Sir Robert Kemp must be an addition to his glory, so our parliament men are made by the peer, not the gentry and commoners&rsquo.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Townshend’s stance towards Danby and his court party in the turbulent sessions of 1673-4 is unclear. On 24 Jan. 1673 William Willoughby*, 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, brother of Townshend’s old colleague in the royalist attempt on King’s Lynn in the summer of 1659, registered his proxy with him for the session which was to begin on 4 Feb. but this was vacated by Willoughby of Parham’s death on 10 Apr. when Parliament was in adjournment. Townshend also received the proxy of his fellow East Anglian magnate Leicester Devereux*, 6th Viscount Hereford, on 11 Mar. which he was able to hold until the prorogation. Townshend was present for 58 per cent of the meetings in spring 1673, when he was only named to the large select committee assigned to draft advices to the king against the growth of popery. He was present for two sittings in late October 1673, but his absence owing to an attack of the gout was excused by the House on 12 Jan. 1674, at the beginning of the session of early 1674. Eventually he was able to come to almost three-quarters of the sittings of that session.</p><p>The year 1675 marked his watershed in the House, just as it did in Norfolk electoral politics. Townshend was present for exactly half of the session of spring 1675 which saw the concerted campaign against Danby’s non-resisting test bill. Danby himself, doing battle with Townshend in King’s Lynn at almost the same time as the test bill was before the House, clearly thought that Townshend would be an opponent. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in the <em>Letter of a Person of Quality</em> also mentioned Townshend, ‘a man justly of great esteem and power in his country’, among the bill’s opponents. Yet though contemporaries were clear where Townshend’s stance on this issue lay, he did not subscribe his name to any of the protests drawn up by those opposed to the bill throughout the debates in April and May. He came to two-thirds of the meetings of the following short session that autumn. In the 14 days he was in the House he was named to two select committees, and on 15 Nov. complained before the House of the ‘scandalous words’ uttered against him by Dr Owen Hughes, commissary of the Norwich and Norfolk archdeaconry and a confidant of Lady Yarmouth. Hughes had used the interest of Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> and the earl of Norwich (as Lord Henry Howard had become in 1672) to be made, alongside his ecclesiastical appointments, a justice of the peace and a judge of the vice-admiralty court. From these positions he had vigorously attacked Dissenters, supported the candidacy of Robert Coke in King’s Lynn and opposed that of Sir Robert Kemp in Norfolk. The final straw had been a scurrilous paper distributed during the Norfolk by-election, with words reflecting on Townshend, which the baron insisted had been composed by Hughes. The case was to be heard before the House on 19 Nov. but as Townshend’s witnesses had not come up to town, the case was put off for a week. It never came to that, for on the following day, in the final act of the House before its speedy prorogation, Townshend joined other country peers in voting in favour of the motion to address the king to dissolve Parliament –indeed contemporaries considered him one of the 12 ‘chief lords of the address’ – and he then subscribed the protest when this motion was rejected by a mere two votes.<sup>51</sup></p><p>This vote set a seal on Townshend’s ostracism from the court. In early March 1676 he was dismissed from all his local offices, most notably that of lord lieutenant, and replaced by Yarmouth. It was reported to Yarmouth upon his taking up the post that the rumour going around was that Townshend had been ‘turned out for tyrannizing in his country, caballing with Shaftesbury, Sir Samuel Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>, etc’.<sup>52</sup> In later years a commentator on Norfolk affairs saw this change as the crucial event in forming the later divisions in Norfolk and he provided a brief survey of recent Norfolk political history:</p><blockquote><p>It is the general opinion that Lord Townshend whilst lord lieutenant had by his industry and conduct gained as great an influence as any lord lieutenant had and that he would in time have reduced all parties to the king’s service, but Lord Danby, as ’tis said, being angry with him for preferring a particular friend of his own in the choice of burgesses for Lynn before Mr Coke, the earl’s son-in-law, never left off till he got him removed from being lord lieutenant and procured Lord Yarmouth to be put in his place, which Lord Townshend looked on as so great an injury, reflecting on his services to the Crown, having spent above £20,000 in promoting the Restoration, and likewise that he was supplanted by one he looked on as a creature of his own, he having brought him first to Court and there helped to advance him from a mean fortune to his present share in the king’s favour, could not contain his resentment, but joined himself to Sir J. Hobart’s party...<sup>53</sup></p></blockquote><p>The appointment led to turbulence in the administration of the county as many of Townshend’s ‘friends’, such as Holland, Kemp, and Hobart, refused to take up the deputy lieutenancies offered them by Yarmouth.<sup>54</sup> The perspicacious commentator on Norfolk affairs in 1682, saw the animosity between the personal followers of Townshend and those of Yarmouth overlapping, and confusing, the boundaries of the ideological camps into which Norfolk and the rest of the country were slowly hardening:</p><blockquote><p>The commissions of the peace being altered and Lord Townshend’s friends put out, and persons put in their places that have neither interest or estate here or elsewhere, they take it so very ill that those who at first only took part in Lord Townshend’s disgrace are become dissatisfied for their own account too and are entirely of Sir John Hobart’s party.<sup>55</sup></p></blockquote><p>Yarmouth for his part saw Townshend as an enemy of his own patron Danby. He reported that Townshend had supposedly said ‘that the king should never have penny of money in Parliament as long as he was Treasurer, and threatens terrible things at the next Parliament’.<sup>56</sup> Townshend’s threats were empty. After his vote for the address to the king for the dissolution of Parliament on 20 Nov. 1675, he did not attend Parliament again until March 1679, completely missing the turbulent sessions of 1677-8. When both Shaftesbury and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, solicited his attendance for the session beginning in February 1677, Townshend turned them each down, explaining that ‘my infirmities of body are such and the gout hath so prevailed all over me as that I am fit for nothing but to keep home and in that my chamber rather than parlour, and bed than either’. He did ask Shaftesbury to accept his proxy, ‘and if your Lordship be full, you may please to present it … to my lord of Salisbury [James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury]’. To Holles he added further that ‘my parliament talent is not worth the carrying up so far under the difficulties I must struggle with’.<sup>57</sup> It was Shaftesbury who took up his offer of a proxy, formally registered with the earl on 13 Feb. 1677, two days before the opening of the new session, and through this proxy Townshend’s absence was excused at a call of the House on 9 March. By then Shaftesbury was incarcerated in the Tower, where in his analysis of the political sentiments of the peerage, he noted Townshend ‘triply worthy’. As late as December 1678 Townshend was still so ill that he could reportedly eat nothing but ‘spoonmeat’ and vomited up whatever food he could ingest.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Away from Westminster Townshend devoted himself to county politics, where enemies seemed to be encircling him. In late July 1676 Edward Reynolds, the ‘presbyterian’ bishop of Norwich, died who had worked closely and harmoniously with Townshend, frequently turning a blind eye to the widespread nonconformity in his diocese. Reynolds was replaced, as Yarmouth wished, by Anthony Sparrow*, bishop of Exeter, a convinced ceremonialist and foe of Dissent. From this point both the secular and ecclesiastical administrators of the county were set against Townshend and his colleagues. Instead of taking a moderate and conciliatory stance with the new and hostile regime, as his friend Holland suggested, Townshend adopted a paranoid and combative stance against his local enemies.<sup>59</sup> He won a victory in his vendetta against Owen Hughes, which had been curtailed by the prorogation of Parliament. In early 1676 Townshend brought an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against him. An assize jury awarded Townshend damages of £4,000 in July, a punitive verdict later upheld by the court of common pleas in February 1677, upon Hughes’s appeal to that court. Sometime in 1677 Townshend felt he had to rebut to a friend still in London charges of disobedience to the king and participation in nonconformist conventicles. He could only conclude wearily, ‘But that they who write me out of my commission and the king’s service have a mind to work me out of the country too is no news to me, who know I can never be other than a[n] eye sore to them’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>He once again quickly got wrapped up in electioneering, this time for the country opposition. The first trial of strength came following the death of the sitting member for Norwich Christopher Jay<sup>‡</sup> in August 1677. Yarmouth and the earl of Norwich, who succeeded as 6th duke of Norfolk in December 1677, put forward Yarmouth’s son William Paston as a replacement. Townshend and Hobart encouraged opposition to Paston from the Norwich corporation and its mayor, who was described by Yarmouth as ‘the impudentest fanatic in the world’. In the event, and ‘notwithstanding the strange strategems and tricks used by the Raynham and Blickling Cabal’ (Blickling being Hobart’s seat), William Paston won the election handily, by a three-to-one margin.<sup>61</sup> Yarmouth soon followed up this success by enforcing a purge of his opponents from the corporation, which, as he told secretary of state Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, ‘put an opportunity into my hands to make that city the loyalest in England’. In addition, another by-election had to be held in May 1678 to replace the other recently deceased burgess. The moderate alderman Augustine Briggs<sup>‡</sup> was returned, with no opposition from Yarmouth and no support from Townshend and his allies.<sup>62</sup></p><h2><em>Fractures among the Norfolk Whigs, 1679-84</em></h2><p>Norwich returned Paston and Briggs for all three Exclusion Parliaments, and throughout 1679-81 the county and boroughs of Norfolk saw a series of bitterly contested elections, with Yarmouth and his court interest going head-to-head with the country faction represented by Townshend, Hobart and Holland. Townshend, more concerned with shoring up his own interest and prestige than working for party unity, could be more of a hindrance than a help to his more committed and energetic ally Hobart. In King’s Lynn, the death of Danby’s son-in-law Robert Coke on 19 Jan. 1679, only five days before the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament, left the field wide open for the elections there. Hobart took the first step and wrote a letter to Townshend’s brother-in-law William Windham of Felbrigg (married to another daughter of Sir Joseph Ashe) encouraging him to stand, and assuring him of Townshend’s support and interest.<sup>63</sup> But Townshend, still smarting from the personal humiliation of 1675, haughtily remained aloof from the corporation of ‘his’ borough. Windham’s candidacy never got off the ground, leading Yarmouth to conclude that ‘my lord Townshend’s influence prevails not in that place at all’. Similarly in the borough of Thetford, Townshend strongly encouraged the corporation to return the incumbent member Sir Allen Apsley, and further emphasized that the lord chamberlain, Arlington, would also be ‘very earnest’ on Apsley’s behalf.<sup>64</sup> Little note appears to have been taken of this request and William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> was returned in Apsley’s place, alongside the other incumbent, Sir Joseph Williamson. Yarmouth ‘morally secured’ himself to his ally the secretary of state that he would send down to Westminster for the county Sir Christopher Calthorpe<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Neville Catelyn<sup>‡</sup>, ‘men that will not meddle with ministers of state’, against their opponent Hobart.<sup>65</sup> Calthorpe and Catelyn defeated Hobart, standing singly, by some 500 votes at the poll on 10 Feb. 1679, but Hobart petitioned the elections committee against the result, and the matter swiftly became a partisan issue in the Commons. Townshend was heavily engaged and he and Windham marshalled the witnesses for Hobart, while Yarmouth’s letter to the Commons in support of Calthorpe and Catelyn was deemed to contain veiled threats.<sup>66</sup> The election was declared void on 21 Apr. and the ensuing by-election on 5 May saw four candidates competing, William Windham, having again been persuaded to try his hand at campaigning, joining with Hobart for the country party. Only a little more than 500 votes separated Hobart, at the top of the poll, from the unfortunate Windham, who came bottom. Hobart and Catelyn were deemed the winners, although by the time of their election less than three weeks remained to run in the Parliament. After the election, Townshend and Hobart fell out over Townshend’s apparent satisfaction with a mixed representation at Westminster and his unwillingness to give his backing to another petition disputing Windham’s defeat. Surveying the course of the elections, Hobart lamented that Townshend’s interest was ‘not much stronger … than his present constitution of body’. He regarded him as ‘almost as dead as a herring … some men’s tempers are like spring tides, suffering great ebbs and flows’.<sup>67</sup> Townshend’s apparent changeability and inconsistency may also have been behind the unusual project put forward in May 1679 by James*, duke of York, at that time in Brussels, to George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth, asking him to solicit Townshend to approach Shaftesbury (temporarily in favour as lord president of the council) on York’s behalf with terms for a reconciliation.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Townshend missed the Exclusion Parliament’s six-day sitting of 6-13 Mar. 1679, and first sat in the Parliament’s 61-day second session on 18 Mar. 1679. This was his first appearance in the House since the prorogation on 22 Nov. 1675. He attended regularly for about a week from 25 Mar. to 2 Apr. and then stayed away from the House until 10 May, perhaps in order to oversee the election for the county seats. On the day of his return he voted in favour of appointing a committee of both houses to consider the methods of the trials of the impeached peers and signed the country protest against the rejection of this proposal. He continued coming to the House reasonably regularly after this and was present on the day of prorogation, 27 May, when he voted against the motion to adhere to the vote allowing the lords spiritual to be present at trials involving capital punishment. He ended his brief participation in this session by signing the protest against the motion in favour of the bishops’ presence in such cases. He had attended just under 30 per cent of sitting days in the session.</p><p>After the dissolution of this Parliament Townshend convened a meeting of the Norfolk Whigs at Raynham, who chose Hobart and Sir Peter Gleane<sup>‡,</sup>, bt. as their candidates for the following election.<sup>69</sup> But after having presided over this choice, Townshend was not active in the campaigning. Hobart and Gleane won, and this election marked the height of Whig power in the county, as ten of the 12 members returned were associated with that party. During the long period between the elections and the actual convening of Parliament in October 1680 party unity fractured further, especially under fears about the reliability of Gleane, and a dispute between Townshend and Hobart over election expenses.<sup>70</sup> In December 1679 Townshend, although apparently resident at Raynham at that time, was sufficiently associated with the Whigs to be included, inaccurately, in accounts of those peers who signed the petition requesting the king to summon immediately the Parliament elected that summer.<sup>71</sup> By early 1680, though, he was openly talking of ‘accommodation’ in Norfolk and disapproved of overt partisan organization, such as the regular meetings Hobart and his allies were having to discuss political strategy during the period of Parliament’s prorogation. In March it was reported that Townshend was reconciled to the court, and in May he made an ambitious proposal to the king that if he convened Parliament immediately, he would manage Parliament for the king’s benefit. Townshend was distancing himself from Shaftesbury at this time. He took the opportunity of his memorial to the king to suggest that the continued delay was playing into Shaftesbury’s hands, as he wished to see the king’s supply run out so that his ‘affairs may be more desperate and his wants more pressing and so his Majesty be constrained in to greater compliances’.<sup>72</sup> Despite his pretensions as a parliamentary manager, when Parliament was finally convened in October Townshend once again stayed away. He was excused because he was ‘sick’ at a call of the House on 30 Oct. although he does appear to have been in the capital at the time. Consequently he was absent for the vote to reject the exclusion bill on 15 Nov. even though Hobart was later to assert that Townshend had always advocated the necessity of exclusion. Despite the evident tensions between Townshend and the more ideologically committed Whigs, he still endorsed Hobart and Gleane at the elections of February 1681, but barely campaigned for them. They were able to squeak by at the poll by the smallest margin of any of the Exclusion Parliaments.<sup>73</sup> Townshend himself attended none of the meetings of the House in Oxford in March.</p><p>After the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, Townshend tried to set himself up as a moderate figure who could find compromise candidates for what all assumed would be another Parliament quickly summoned. He proposed to call another caucus at Raynham in the summer of 1681, from which Hobart would be specifically excluded, as Townshend was resentful that he acted ‘as if there were no other [but him] worthy to serve their country’. Those to whom Townshend addressed himself, most of whom still saw Hobart as the ‘support of our religion and liberties’, rejected this attempt at compromise with their ideological opponents.<sup>74</sup> No election was forthcoming in the remainder of Charles II’s reign but partisan feeling remained high. A commentator on the state of Norfolk in early 1682 thought society was hopelessly divided and noticed that, ‘Lord Townshend, perceiving these mischievous effects, begins now to repent joining that party and endeavours to remedy the evil he has wrought, but finds it now very late, for he having put them into the saddle, they think they can ride without his assistance’. He formally cut his ties in January 1682 when at the county quarter sessions he announced, through his kinsman Thomas Townshend, that ‘I will not concern myself in the next elections, nor shall not desire or advise anybody as my friend to appear either for Sir J. Hobart or Sir P Gleane … it being my opinion that there are other securities as effectual and powerful against popery as the bill of exclusion. And therefore I cannot give my consent to the choosing of any person, who hath for 3 parliaments and will in the next give his vote and insist upon that bill’. According to the analyst of the situation in Norfolk the Whigs attending the session gave Mr Townshend ‘no answer but cried out tumultuously for a good time “A Hobart, A Gleane”’.<sup>75</sup> Townshend’s action prompted a resigned response from Hobart, who commented with surprise at Townshend’s renunciation of exclusion when Hobart remembered that he had ‘twenty times declared, that there would be no other security of our religion and properties but by the passing the bill of exclusion’ and wearily sighed, ‘If I had not been well acquainted (even a great part of my life) with the various, uncertain and changeable steps (to say no more) of this noble person, I should have been much more surprised at the whole series and carriage of this affair’.<sup>76</sup> Again the anonymous commentator observed that:</p><blockquote><p>That party [Hobart and the Whigs] has ever since treated Lord Townshend with such open indignities, that he is become more their enemy than ever he was their friend, so that now he has no interest except with his particular friends, many of which he carried over to Sir John’s party, and those perhaps he may be able to bring back.<sup>77</sup></p></blockquote><p>He concluded:</p><blockquote><p>If Lord Townshend’s disgust to the opposite party were made use of to regain him and a better understanding wrought between him and Lord Yarmouth and some of Lord Townshend’s friends restored to the commission of the peace, ’tis most likely the king’s party would find the good effects of it, for several put out at the last great reform were no otherwise disaffected than that Lord Townshend was out of the lieutenancy and therefore by good treatment might easily be reduced again.<sup>78</sup></p></blockquote><p>This advice seems to have been taken and moves taken to conciliate the former lord lieutenant, for in January 1682 Luttrell confidently reported that ‘Lord Townshend is entirely come over to the court party’.<sup>79</sup> But there was no immediate advantage to this submission to the king. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to regain his position as lord lieutenant, which he claimed (with some irony considering his own constant complaints of gout) he was more suitable for because Yarmouth had become ‘lame and unserviceable, and himself is the man who hath the great interest in the country’.<sup>80</sup> Without office nor signs of renewed favour, he retired to Raynham Hall in May 1682, after a period of two and a half years in the capital. He maintained old animosities back in the county, and continued his arguments with Gleane or Hobart, with whom there were differences ‘grounded upon such indispensable reasons as cannot in prudence and honour be ever … obliterated’. Even when the king urged him to make peace with Yarmouth, Townshend refused to make the first move. His only reward for his return to the court was a viscountcy conferred on him belatedly in December, at a time when ten other new creations or promotions were distributed to adherents of the court.<sup>81</sup> Even with this new honour he remained below his rival Yarmouth in precedence, who had been created an earl in July 1679 for his services in the elections.</p><h2><em>Under James II, 1685-7</em></h2><p>Townshend was encouraged by the death of Yarmouth on 8 Mar. 1683 to expect a reinstatement in his old position as leader of the county, but it quickly became clear that he would be passed over in favour of Henry Howard*, Baron Mowbray (later 7th duke of Norfolk), the Protestant heir to the 6th duke. In August the death of his other principal rival, Hobart, would also seem to have boded well for Townshend’s renewed influence as a moderate peacemaker for the warring factions in the county. He was reconciled with Gleane and encouraged him and Sir Robert Kemp to share the county and borough seats with Tories in the next election, which was abortively scheduled for March 1684.<sup>82</sup> It was not until March 1685, in the elections for James II’s Parliament, that Townshend was able to return to the electoral arena. Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, wrote to him asking him to use his influence to ensure that ‘well-affected’ members be chosen for the Parliament. The new lord lieutenant, 7th duke of Norfolk since January 1684, also sought to work with Townshend, and ordered his deputy lieutenants to consult with him and Holland regarding candidates to put up for the county seats.<sup>83</sup> Townshend probably played a part in selecting Sir Thomas Hare<sup>‡</sup>, bt and Sir Jacob Astley<sup>‡</sup>, bt, the defeated candidates in the 1681 election, who were approved at a gentry meeting and who in March 1685 soundly beat, by large margins, Sir John Holland and Sir Henry Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, bt, the son and successor of Townshend’s old ally turned adversary.</p><p>Throughout the 1680s Townshend continued to be plagued by ill health and incapacitation from gout. His recurrent illness prevented him from attending the coronation of James II, and he was only able to attend 20 days in James II’s Parliament, all in its first part in May and June.<sup>84</sup> He was introduced to the House as Viscount Townshend, between Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, and Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford), on the Parliament’s first day, 19 May, along with 20 other peers promoted or created since the last meeting of Parliament. He was named to two large select committees in this his last Parliament, and after a committee of the whole house had considered the Deeping Fens bill for a time, Townshend, with an obvious local interest in the matter of fen drainage, was nominated on 22 June to the committee assigned to amend the bill. He left the House on 25 June, his last sitting.</p><p>His wife’s death from small pox in December 1685 left him grief-stricken and, coupled with his own recurring illness, further reduced his political activity.<sup>85</sup> The following month witnessed the conclusion of the final piece of local politics with which he was involved. This had had its origins in January 1685 when the justices of the peace meeting in one of Norfolk’s three districts in Norwich decreed that no money for the payment of pensions throughout the county was to be disbursed without authorization from the Norwich justices. Officials of the other two regions, at King’s Lynn and Fakenham, were infuriated and turned to Townshend, who lived in the King’s Lynn district, for support. He took up the cudgels for the neglected and implicitly second-class areas with enthusiasm. He ‘espoused the business and gave out that if those justices of the peace of the Norwich division did not revoke this order that he would bring the complaint before the king and council’. The octogenarian Holland, spokesman of the Norwich justices, was eventually able to effect a compromise with his old colleague Townshend on this matter in January 1686, a full year after the matter had first been broached.<sup>86</sup></p><p>That was Townshend’s last foray into local politics. His declining health, his retirement after his wife&#rsquo;s death, and the careful estate management he undertook to provide his three sons with a sufficient inheritance conspired to make him withdraw further from public life. Throughout 1687 contemporaries included him in their assessments of the attitudes of members of the peerage to James II’s policies, and all agreed that he would be opposed to the repeal of the Test Act. Whether he would have been actively engaged in the attack on James II cannot be known, for Townshend died at Raynham on 1 December. As his political star had faded his financial situation had improved owing to his careful estate management. In 1684 the rental income from his estates in Norfolk and Suffolk was £5,557, an improvement of almost £2,000 on its condition in 1655, only a few years after Townshend had inherited the estate. He left his three sons with a good estate. By his will of March 1687 he assigned his trustees Robert Walpole<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Jacob Astley, James Calthorpe and William Thurisby to raise legacies for his two younger sons Roger and Horatio of £8,000 each, money to be secured largely on his Suffolk lands. Under the careful management of the trustees, and especially the principal trustee Calthorpe, the estate remained flourishing and the two younger sons were well provided for while the heir Charles, still just 12 years old on his father’s death, was able to grow up as a wealthy and cultured young man of promise, soon to take his rank among the premier Whigs of Anne’s reign and in later years a secretary of state under George I.<sup>87</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
TREVOR, Thomas (1658-1730) |
<p><strong><surname>TREVOR</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1658–1730)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. TREVOR |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 15 May 1730 |
|
MP Plympton Erle 1692–8; Lewes Feb.–June 1701 |
<p><em>b</em>. 14 Sept. 1658,<sup>1</sup> 2nd s. of Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup> (1624–72) of Trevalyn, Denb. and Westminster, sec. of state 1668–72, and Ruth (1628–87), da. of John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> of Great Hampden, Bucks. <em>educ</em>. Shilton, Burford, Oxon. (Samuel Birch, ejected minister); ?travelled abroad (France) 1671;<sup>2</sup> Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1673; adm. I. Temple 1672; called to the bar 1680; bencher 1689. <em>m</em>. (1) 5 June 1690, Elizabeth (c.1672–1702), da. and coh. of John Searle of Finchley, Mdx. 2s. 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 25 Sept. 1704, cos. Anne (<em>d</em>.1746), da. of Robert Weldon of St Lawrence Jewry, London, wid. of Sir Robert Bernard (Barnard), 3rd bt. of Brampton, Hunts.<sup>3</sup> 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>4</sup> Kntd. 21 Oct. 1692. <em>d</em>. 19 June 1730; <em>will</em> 23 Dec. 1723–3 Jan. 1724, pr. 16 July 1730.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>KC, Duchy of Lancaster 1683, 1685–9; queen’s attorney and KC 1689; solicitor-gen. 1692-5; attorney-gen. 1695-1701; serjeant-at-law 1701; l.c.j.c.p. 1701-14.</p><p>Commr. rebuilding St Paul’s, 1692,<sup>6</sup> 1711,<sup>7</sup> Greenwich Hosp. 1695;<sup>8</sup> union with Scotland 1702-3; PC 1702-14, 1726-<em>d</em>.; 1st commr. of gt. seal Sept.-Oct. 1710; lord privy seal 1726-1730; ld. justice (regency) 1727; ld. pres. of council 1730.</p><p>Freeman, Bedford 1714</p><p>Treas. I. Temple 1689-90; FRS 1707; gov. Charterhouse ?–<em>d</em>.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, c.1705, Government Art Collection; line engraving by R. White after T. Murray, 1702, NPG D39289.</p> |
<p>One of 12 Tory peers created in January 1712 by his childhood friend Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, Trevor was a highly respected lawyer, placeman and former court Whig member of the Commons. Like Harley, Trevor became increasingly distanced from William III and the Whig Junto in the late 1690s.<sup>11</sup> He was perceived by some observers as a trimmer for moving into the Tory camp during the reign of Anne and then realigning himself with the Hanoverian regime in the 1720s, but he was also remembered as a ‘very just and good’ judge, ‘upright’ and ‘enlightened’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Descended from prosperous Welsh and English families, Trevor’s family had strong leanings towards nonconformity but an equally firm heritage in government. His father had served as secretary of state in the 1670s; his maternal grandfather was the parliamentarian leader John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>. Trevor was wealthy (in 1708 he purchased his Bedfordshire estate at a cost of over £21,000), his annual salary as lord chief justice was £1,000 and he had enjoyed a healthy private legal practice. By the time of his death he was able to bequeath legacies in their thousands and landed estates in Bedfordshire and Surrey.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Acquainted since childhood not only with Harley but also with Simon Harcourt* (later Viscount Harcourt), Trevor was a protégé of the attorney general John Somers* (later Baron Somers). In 1693 Somers and the archbishop of Canterbury, John Tillotson*, recommended him for the office of attorney general. However, Trevor had earned the enmity of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, for his hostile speeches against the latter’s role in naval failures, and the appointment was blocked, provoking a quarrel between Somers and the king.<sup>14</sup> Trevor was made to wait another two years for the place.</p><p>As attorney general and later as chief justice, Trevor’s expert opinion was sought by both Parliament and Convocation, on one occasion his opinion giving rise to conflict in the synod over the issue of the divine right of episcopacy.<sup>15</sup> In spite of his close association with Somers, he was far from being a stalwart of the Junto Whigs. He opposed the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and proved similarly unwilling to agree to the punishment of Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. After 1698 he gravitated towards the Tories, angry at what he perceived as Junto ‘pretensions’. He also chose to stand down from the Commons.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Trevor seems to have remained unwilling to emerge from the shadows over the next few years. He refused to accept the great seal after Somers’ dismissal in April 1700, despite confident rumours of his appointment and pressure from Harley to take the post.<sup>17</sup> He was instead appointed lord chief justice of commons pleas the following year. Trevor remained on close terms with Harley, though, as evidenced by Harley’s instruction to his sister to send Trevor ‘a very good buck’ while he was at the Herefordshire assizes.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Trevor persisted with his reluctance to give way to efforts to persuade him to take on a senior role in the administration. In March 1705 he refused an offer of the lord keepership, for which he had been proposed by John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, and supported by both Somers and Harley.<sup>19</sup> Thereafter he repeatedly refused the offices of lord keeper and lord chancellor.</p><p>Reluctance to accept high office did not mean that Trevor was uninvolved in the business of the House. Following his appointment as lord chief justice, petitions and bills were frequently referred to him for expert opinion and oversight, though he appears to have been cautious about offering his opinion on matters relating to privilege. On 11 Jan. 1703 the Lords queried whether a bill should be brought in to protect those peers born out of England prior to the passage of the Act for the further limitation of the crown from the disabilities contained in the legislation. The House had proposed to hear the judges on the ‘force of a law already passed, for limitation of the crown’; after debate, Trevor (on behalf of all the judges) asked the House to excuse them from giving an opinion on the grounds that ‘it is on the right of peerage, and of Lords sitting in Parliament; but that, if it was their Lordships’ pleasure to command them to give their opinions, they desired to have further time allowed them’.</p><p>Numerous other instances of his involvement in the Lords followed throughout the reign of Anne. On 15 Dec. 1703 it was ordered in the House that Trevor, the lord chief baron (Sir Edward Ward) and Mr Justice Powys (with any other judges deemed necessary) should prepare and introduce a bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices. On 15 Jan. 1705 Trevor sent to the Commons a reminder of the bill to appoint commissioners for the treaty of Union between England and Scotland. On 17 Dec. 1706 the House ordered that Trevor, with the lord chief justice of queen’s bench (Sir Littleton Powys) and Ward, prepare and introduce a bill to settle the estate of Woodstock and house of Blenheim. In February and March 1707 (along with Sir Littleton Powys) he presented reports on the petitions of William Hyde, John Farmer and Matthew Humberstone. On 4 Mar. 1707 he was appointed to consider the private bill for Robert Hitch and to furnish the House with legal opinion on the legislation, and on 11 Mar. he (and Robert Price<sup>‡</sup>, one of the puisne barons of the exchequer) conveyed a message to the Commons seeking their concurrence in a bill settling the estates of Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort.</p><p>On 21 Jan. 1708 Trevor and Justice Powys delivered their report on the bill to settle the estate of John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter. The following month, on 11 Feb., they were ordered to prepare a bill to settle the method of returning the 16 representative peers of Scotland; Trever delivered the bill to the House on 23 February. Between 1709 and 1711 he regularly reported on petitions and private bills that had been referred to the judges. During the trial of Henry Sacheverell in the spring of 1710, he was involved in the heated exchanges surrounding Judge John Powell’s decision to bail one of those involved in the riots, ‘for which their lordships were going to send him to the Tower’. Trevor told the House that if Powell were imprisoned ‘they would all go with him’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The formation of the new ministry renewed pressure on Trevor to accept office. On 22 Sept. 1710 he wrote at length to Harley to explain his continuing reluctance to give way. He hoped that there was ‘not the least doubt but that I shall upon all occasions be ready to serve the queen to the utmost of my power’ but begged that he might ‘have the liberty of doing it in my present station’. He continued:</p><blockquote><p>’Tis not the want of honour or profit which hath hitherto induced me to decline the other you mention … but the knowledge of my own weakness and want of strength to discharge the duty of that place. For though I enjoy a tolerable share of health … the fatigue of that place would utterly destroy it … ’tis a great uneasiness to me to be obliged to return an answer that may be unacceptable to so gracious and honourable a proposal, and I earnestly entreat you that this may put a full stop to any further consideration of this matter.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Trevor finally agreed to act as first commissioner of the great seal on a temporary basis only, but by 5 Oct. was asking Harley to press the queen to name a new lord chancellor before the start of the new term. He insisted that he had accepted the commission only so that writs for a new Parliament could be issued, but was ‘unwilling to enter upon the business of the court in hearing causes’.<sup>22</sup> Three days later, still fearful of the queen’s reaction to his continuing refusal, he implored Harley, ‘as you are my friend you will represent this matter so to her majesty that I may not be so unhappy as to incur her displeasure’. He recommended a number of persons for the post, including Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), though he wanted Harley to keep his suggestions as ‘the greatest secret’.<sup>23</sup> By the 12th, Trevor could report that he was on his way to deliver up the great seal and on the 19th he dined at Hampton Court after the swearing in of his old friend Harcourt.<sup>24</sup></p><p>The crisis that enveloped the Oxford ministry in the winter of 1711–12 put paid to Trevor’s efforts to maintain a low profile. On 29 Dec. it was reported that he was to be one of a number of new peers called to the Lords and on 1 Jan. 1712 he was accordingly raised to the peerage as one of Oxford’s ‘dozen’. He took his seat in the House the following day, introduced between Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, and Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle. The reason for Trevor’s selection was no doubt his closeness to Oxford but also his appropriate standing in society. He was the first ever lord chief justice of common pleas to be raised to the peerage – George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, had been chief justice of king’s bench – but he was believed to be a man acceptable to all sides.<sup>25</sup> He attended the session for 73 per cent of sittings.</p><p>At some point in January 1712, while in the House, Trevor spoke with William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, about a case involving John Smith, who was shortly afterwards instituted as rector of Hemingford Abbots in Huntingdonshire; Trevor’s wife was one of the patrons of the parish.<sup>26</sup> On 29 Feb. he received the proxy of John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham (vacated the following day). On 13 Mar. he reported from the committee for the bill involving the Buckinghamshire rectory of Gothurst (possibly co-ordinating with Wake) and on 28 Mar. from the committee on the Bromsall Estate bill.<sup>27</sup> On 29 Apr. he reported from the committee on the petition of the minor Thomas Wise that related to an appeal heard five years previously, <em>Calthorpe v. May</em>, ruling that the original judgment of the House was not intended to deprive the petitioner’s father of his lands and ordering the Irish court of chancery to make a similar ruling in favour of the petitioner. On 28 May he voted with the ministry in the division on the ‘restraining orders’.<sup>28</sup> On 6 June he received the proxy of Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon (vacated on 12 June). On 8 July he joined with Oxford to introduce the recently elevated Henry St John* as Viscount Bolingbroke.</p><p>Trevor presided over the trial concerning the claim of Mary Hill Morton to be married to Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds, in July 1712.<sup>29</sup> Later that year his reputation for impartiality may have been behind Dr William Stratford’s desire for him to act as the college’s representative during the dispute at Christ Church, which had been provoked by the appointment of Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, as dean. Trevor was thought a suitable candidate being a former member of the college, but perhaps more importantly he was believed to be ‘not more acquainted with one party than the other’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Trevor attended three prorogation days following the close of the previous session. On 10 Mar. 1713 he officiated as Speaker during Harcourt’s illness.<sup>31</sup> He returned to his place for the start of the new session on 9 Apr. and thereafter attended for 70 per cent of sittings. Three days later he was present in the congregation at Camberwell church when Henry Sacheverell was the preacher.<sup>32</sup> On 1 June he spoke in the debate on the state of the nation on the unsuccessful motion to dissolve the Union. He ‘made a vehement speech against it, as a thing hardly to be done’, in which he was supported by Oxford.<sup>33</sup> Trevor and Oxford agreed that Scottish grievances ‘might be just’ and they conceded the desire for redress but queried why this necessitated a dissolution of the Union. On 8 June, when the House went into a committee of the whole on the malt bill, Trevor was in attendance but, like lord chancellor Harcourt, remained silent.<sup>34</sup> By the 13th he was forecast by Oxford as being in favour of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He attended for the prorogation on 16 July 1713, when he was one of those who examined the Journal.</p><p>Following the dissolution, Trevor left London for the midland circuit. He was at Nottingham by 24 July 1713.<sup>35</sup> The following month he rejected a suggestion by Oxford for his son to contest one of the seats at Bedford, pointing out that he had ‘no thoughts of my son’s coming into this next Parliament’. When he did stand, Trevor insisted he would seek out a seat ‘more remote from my estate in Bedford for him to serve in’.<sup>36</sup> James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, requested that Oxford might press Trevor to support Brigadier Richard Waring, an Irish army officer, at Bedford, but this approach appears also to have been rebuffed and in the event Waring did not stand.<sup>37</sup> Trevor’s response to Oxford’s suggestion may be indicative of his gradual withdrawal from allegiance to the lord treasurer and movement towards Bolingbroke. Nevertheless, early in September Trevor made a point of congratulating Oxford on the marriage of his heir Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley (later 2nd earl of Oxford) which he insisted was ‘a reward of providence for the many eminent services your lordship has done for our queen and country’. He also continued to espouse Oxford, wishing him success in his ‘other great designs for the repairing and establishment of our constitution’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>As well as his role in the House and as a (potential) holder of influence in Bedford, Trevor remained active on the judicial bench.<sup>39</sup> He attended the House for the start of business on 16 Feb. 1714 and thereafter was present for just over half of all sittings. On 28 Feb. (a Sunday) he sought a private audience with Oxford ‘before the Parliament meets’, and on 21 Mar. he again sought a meeting at ‘the first opportunity’.<sup>40</sup> Oxford had been dismayed by revelations of Bolingbroke and Moore’s dealings over Spanish trade and Trevor was instrumental in dissuading him from resigning as a consequence.<sup>41</sup> In the debate on the state of the nation and Oxford’s motion for an adjournment to 31 Mar. to stop heated debate on the Catalans, Trevor was again a prominent supporter, seconding the motion.<sup>42</sup> By April, however, it was widely accepted that a rift was growing in the political establishment over the succession. Trevor, Bolingbroke and Harcourt were believed to be increasingly unhappy with Oxford’s direction and Trevor was convinced that the French would act independently, regardless of British actions and agreements.<sup>43</sup> Such concerns seem increasingly to have driven Trevor into Bolingbroke’s arms.</p><p>On 8 Apr. 1714 following the motion proposed by Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, and seconded by Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, that the queen be addressed to set a reward for the apprehension of the Pretender, dead or alive, William North*, 6th Baron North, spoke against it as a barbaric encouragement to ‘murder and assassination’. He was backed by Trevor, who argued in response to the question whether it would be murder to kill the Pretender:</p><blockquote><p>what that noble peer had spoke, was sufficient to show, how inconsistent such a proceeding was to Christianity, and the civil law; and therefore he would confine himself to our own laws: and if he knew, or understood any thing of these, he was confident they were as opposite to such proceedings as the civil law. That he knew, he did not speak there as a lawyer or judge, but as a peer; but he was fully satisfied of our law discountenancing all such proceedings; that if ever any such case should come before him, as a judge, he would think himself bound in justice, honour and conscience, to condemn such an action as murder, and therefore he hoped the supreme court of judicature would not make a precedent for encouraging assassination.</p></blockquote><p>As a result of the interventions the motion was amended and the terms of the address altered to the Pretender’s apprehension and bringing to justice. Trevor later contributed to the debate again to help explain the queen’s meaning in urging the House to ‘put an end to jealousies’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>In May 1714, with ‘nothing of any great moment transacted’ in the Lords, ‘the most noise’ was said to have been caused by the House’s decision to overturn a chancery decree in the cause <em>Ratcliffe and Constable v. Roper et al</em>., which had been awarded by lord chancellor Harcourt, assisted by Trevor and the master of the rolls (Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>). The decree, which had determined that the personal estate of Ratcliffe (a Catholic) was not comprehended in the act disabling Catholics from disposing of their estates, had been questioned by the lord chief justice of king’s bench, Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Macclesfield, and it was Parker’s opinion that the Lords now preferred in the ruling delivered on 1 May 1714.<sup>45</sup></p><p>If the House of Lords was believed to be remarkably quiet, the same was not true of the administration, which by May had fallen into two clear factions. As ever, Trevor attempted to retain a sense of balance and, while he was one of those steadily drawn into Bolingbroke’s circle, he endeavoured to remain on friendly terms with Oxford.<sup>46</sup> He declined an invitation to dinner with Oxford for 12 May 1714, citing business at the Guildhall and a plan to go to Peckham for a ‘short vacation’ for health reasons as his excuse. On the 25th, however, Trevor informed Oxford that he would return to town the following day and offered him his ‘poor assistance towards preventing the ill consequences of any designs that may tend to any public mischief’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Trevor was assessed a likely supporter of the Schism bill. He was nevertheless absent from the House on 11 June 1714 for the vote on extending the bill to Ireland. He returned on the 15th, when the bill passed the House by a slim majority. On 28 June he attended the session for the last time and on the 30th registered his proxy in favour of Harcourt. Unwell, he complained to Oxford on 2 July that he remained ‘weak and faint’ but had avoided suffering a fit with the use of ‘Jesuits’ bark’ (a form of naturally occurring quinine).<sup>48</sup> On the 12th Trevor informed Oxford that he was still reliant on the bark to ‘prevent a return of my ague’ but that he planned to be in London the following day and would wait on Oxford that evening.<sup>49</sup> Following Oxford’s resignation, it was rumoured that Trevor would be made lord president of the council in place of Buckingham. It was subsequently put about that Trevor rather than Bolingbroke had been expected to ‘have had the chief credit’ in a new administration.<sup>50</sup></p><p>The queen’s death put an end to such speculation and heralded a lengthy period in the wilderness. Trevor took his place in House on 2 Aug. 1714, a day into the brief session summoned in the wake of the queen’s death, after which he attended two more days before quitting the session for just over a fortnight. By the 11th he had travelled home to Bedfordshire to attend to family affairs. He returned to the chamber on 21 Aug. and then attended one more day before the session was brought to a close. The following month Trevor was said to be in a state of ‘thoughtfulness’, with members of his household contributing to rumours about his now uncertain future.<sup>51</sup></p><p>In October, on the recommendation of William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, Trevor was removed from his position as lord chief justice. The following year he took an active role in opposing the government’s legislative programme, speaking with the opposition in the debate on the king’s speech on 23 Mar. 1715. In May it was rumoured, wrongly, that he was one of the members of the former administration to be impeached.<sup>52</sup> He remained loyal to Oxford during the proceedings against the former lord treasurer and in May 1717 presented Oxford’s petition to the Lords, having acted as the earl’s chief legal advisor.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Trevor’s political and parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the next phase of this work. he died in Peckham on 19 June 1730 from an acute stomach condition. He had retired to bed in apparently perfect health, only to be carried off in the night from what was at first thought to be an attack of colic.<sup>54</sup> He left two daughters and four sons, three of whom eventually took their seats in the Lords (Thomas Trevor<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Trevor, John<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Trevor, and Richard<sup>†</sup>, successively bishop of St Davids and of Durham). In his will Trevor made provision of £5,000 and an annuity of £14 for his elder daughter, Anne; his younger sons John and Richard also received £14 annuities. Trevor’s younger daughter, Elizabeth, was bequeathed £5,000, while the three younger sons each received £2,000. He also bequeathed £10 to the poor of the parish of Camberwell. He was buried at Bromham, where a memorial including a lengthy inscription was erected (as he had requested in his will) on the north wall of the church.<sup>55</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
TUCHET, James (1612-84) |
<p><strong><surname>TUCHET</surname></strong> (<strong>TOUCHET</strong>), <strong>James</strong> (1612–84)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 14 May 1631 (a minor) as 3rd earl of Castlehaven [I]; <em>rest. </em>3 June 1633 13th Bar. AUDLEY (by letters patent, confirmed by act of Parliament 1678) |
|
First sat 18 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 6 Nov. 1660; last sat 23 Aug. 1680 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 26 July 1612, 1st s. of Sir Mervyn Tuchet<sup>†</sup>, later 12 Bar. Audley and 2nd earl of Castlehaven [I] and 1st w. Elizabeth, da. and h. of Benedict Barnham<sup>‡</sup>, alderman of London; bro. of Mervin Tuchet*, 14th Bar. Audley and 4th earl of Castlehaven. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1626 his step-sis., Elizabeth Brydges (<em>bur.</em> 16 Mar. 1679), da. of Grey Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 5th Bar. Chandos and Anne, da. and coh. of Ferdinando Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Derby; (2) (lic. 19 June 1679), Elizabeth Graves (<em>d</em>.1720). ?1s. illegit.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 11 Oct. 1684.</p> |
<p>Col. Spanish Netherlands army 1666; ‘sergeant-major de battalia’ 1670.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>The Tuchet family held extensive estates in both England and Ireland. The 3rd earl of Castlehaven’s father, a Protestant, inherited property in Wiltshire from his maternal grandfather, Sir James Mervyn and chose to base himself entirely in England. Castlehaven was baptized at Abbotsbury, Dorset and unlike his father became a Catholic. In or about 1626, he married his step-sister, but in 1631 his father was convicted and sentenced to death for assisting in the rape of his wife and step-daughter and committing sodomy with his servants. Following his father’s execution on 14 May 1631, the English peerage of Audley and lands were forfeited to the crown. He succeeded to the family’s Irish titles, and was generally known as Castlehaven. In 1633 he was restored to his English title and most of the family’s English estates, but not all of them as the crown had granted Fonthill Gifford to Sir Francis Cottington<sup>†</sup>, Baron Cottington. Further sales took place and by 1640 Castlehaven had sold the majority of his English properties.<sup>3</sup></p><p>In somewhat straitened circumstances, Castlehaven dedicated himself to a life of military service for the English crown and its European allies. He fought in the Bishops’ Wars and after active service in Ireland in the cause of Charles I, he served under the Prince of Condé in the Fronde, being taken prisoner by Turenne at Comercy and released after intervention by James*, duke of York. He was then commissioned to lead an Irish regiment in the French service fighting against the Spanish.</p><p>The Restoration brought little change to Castlehaven’s political and financial situation. Together with his brother Mervyn, he set about using his influence with the king to rebuild his finances. Taking note that their estates had been ‘sold at Drury House during the late distractions’, and that they were ‘left unable to support the honours conferred on them by his majesty’s ancestors’ they petitioned for a grant of all wasted and encroached lands in five counties. A similar petition was presented in April 1662 and possibly again in November 1664.<sup>4</sup> Like many Anglo-Irish Catholics he faced a struggle to regain his Irish lands confiscated by the Cromwellian regime and granted to various New English interests. He petitioned Charles II for restoration to his Irish estates, and the king’s letters were sent to Dublin in December 1660, January and July 1661 ordering the Irish lords justices to restore him to certain estates.<sup>5</sup> When these royal missives proved unsuccessful, Castlehaven was forced to seek restoration in the first Court of Claims, set up under the terms of the subsequent Act of Settlement in Ireland (1662), which required him to prove his innocence in the 1640s. This was a lengthy and costly legal procedure and it was perhaps to finance this process and maintain himself that Castlehaven was forced to sell his remaining English lands. In 1663 he sold Compton Bassett to Sir John Weld for £5,000.<sup>6</sup> His Irish estates were estimated in 1675 to cover about 3,173 acres, and those of his estranged countess a further 4,887 acres.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Castlehaven used all his influence with James Butler*, duke of Ormond, and the king to alleviate the situation. He subscribed to the Irish Catholic remonstrance, December 1661, which pledged temporal loyalty to the king despite any orders to the contrary from the Pope or the Catholic church. He even signed a circular letter in March 1663 urging his fellow Catholic peers and gentry to subscribe to the remonstrance.<sup>8</sup> He received a royal pardon for his alliance with the Irish rebels, and in July 1662 the king ordered the receivers of the adventurers’ funds in Ireland to pay Castlehaven £4,000 out of the first payments. By April 1663 this grant had still not been paid, so Castlehaven pursued the money in other ways, a task which was to take up much of the remainder of his life.<sup>9</sup> In 1665 Castlehaven went to serve in the fleet, which gave him another call on the king’s favour. As a reward the king sought to secure £5,000 for him from Irish assets.<sup>10</sup> Castlehaven actively pursued the ‘speedy settling’ of this money for, as he wrote to Sir George Lane on 5 Apr. 1666 ‘without it I am like a ship without water that cannot stir let the occasions be never so fair’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Castlehaven took his place in the House, sitting there under his English title of Baron Audley. On 31 July 1660 he was excused attendance on the House and he sat in the Convention on only two days, 6 and 17 November. However, he was present on the opening day of the 1661 Parliament, 8 May, and on the last day before the adjournment on 30 July. In between he attended on 48 days of that part of the session, 74 per cent of the total. He was present when the Lords resumed the adjourned session on 20 Nov. 1661, sitting on 56 days of the session, including the last, 19 May 1662. On that day he entered his protest against the resolution to agree with the Commons and so drop two provisos suggested by the Lords from the highways bill, the issue at stake being the right of the Lords to amend a money bill. In all he attended on 44 percent of that part of the session.</p><p>Given his financial predicament Castlehaven was now determined to seek employment abroad. In April 1662 he offered his services, together with five regiments of infantry to be raised in Ireland, to the Venetian Republic.<sup>12</sup> Similar offers of service may explain why in the middle of May 1662 Louis XIV asked that Castlehaven be informed that ‘I am very pleased with the offers he has made’ and his declaration that ‘he would be happier to serve me than any other prince if I should have need of him, so I too would be happier to employ him than any other foreigner should the need arise’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In July 1662 Castlehaven was reported to have gone to Ireland to be with Ormond. He probably remained there until well into the following year. He was there in November, and he was still there when his absence from the beginning of the 1663 session was excused on 23 Feb. 1663. On 9 May he wrote from Dublin to the king soliciting the command of the king’s troops in Portugal, claiming ‘I can speak Spanish though I have never served the Spaniard’.<sup>14</sup> He first sat during the session on 25 June. On 13 July Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton predicted that he would support the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. He attended on 17 days of the session, including the last, 27 July, 20 per cent of the total. In October 1663 Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> noted that Castlehaven was going to raise 10,000 men to fight against the Turks, but nothing seems to have come of this scheme.<sup>15</sup> Another, perhaps related, scheme was revealed by John King, Baron Kingston [I], to Ormond in March 1664, an alleged endeavour to enlist troops in Ireland to be employed in Germany.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Castlehaven was present when the next session opened on 16 Mar. 1664, attending on 29 days of the session, including the last, 17 May, 81 per cent of the total. He attended the prorogation on 20 Aug. and was present when the next session began on 24 Nov. 1664. However, he only sat on five days of the session, a mere 9 per cent of the total, being absent from a call of the House on 7 Dec. and last sitting on 20 Dec. 1664.</p><p>On 4 Apr. 1665 the navy commissioners were informed that Castlehaven had arrived at Dover from Ostend.<sup>17</sup> He attended the prorogations on 21 June and 1 Aug. and was present on the opening day of the next session, 9 Oct. 1665. After attending the first four days of the session, he registered his proxy on 13 Oct. with fellow Catholic, William Stourton*, 11th Baron Stourton. However, he was present on the next sitting day, 16 Oct. before being absent until 20 October. On 29 Oct. Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, told Ormond that when the bill to prevent the import of foreign cattle and fish had been brought up to the Lords it had been committed to a select committee after a long debate in which Castlehaven ‘showed them how much your grace had done in Ireland’, even outstripping Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, ‘to make that kingdom considerable, and to confirm it did swear and stamp for half an hour together, that I believe he converted many’.<sup>18</sup> In all he sat on 13 days of the session, including the last on 31 Oct., 68 per cent of the total.</p><p>In November 1665, it was reported to Louis XIV that there had been talk of raising troops to send to the assistance of the bishop of Münster; these were to be raised in Ireland rather than England to avoid the risk of spreading plague. Furthermore, Charles II had chosen Castlehaven ‘to go as resident to this bishop’, a choice which showed the ‘shortage there is here of good subjects’ as he was ‘a man of courage but of very little judgment, and is not capable of discerning what England may expect of this prince’s diversion’.<sup>19</sup> In January 1666 Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington supported Castlehaven’s claims to the colonelcy of ‘the old Irish regiment’ in the Spanish Netherlands. According to Arlington, Castlehaven was a worthy appointment because of ‘his good service to him [King of Spain] in Flanders, in the Prince of Condé’s army, his constant affection to and service of the House of Austria and his great credit amongst the Irish for having served there as a general’, which would enable him to obtain recruits for the Irish regiment.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Castlehaven attended the prorogations on 20 Feb. and 23 Apr. 1666. He was present when the next session began on 18 September. On 14 Jan. 1667, he entered his protest against agreeing with the Commons that the importing of Irish cattle should be classed as a public and common nuisance. On 23 Jan. he entered his dissent against the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and the House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes concerning houses destroyed by the Fire of London. On 5 Feb. he entered his dissent to the resolution to refuse the Commons’ request for a conference concerning the impeachment of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt. He attended the last day of the session, 8 Feb. 1667, having been present on 85 days, 93 per cent of the total.</p><p>By the end of May 1667, Castlehaven’s project of serving the Spanish cause in Flanders had been realized.<sup>21</sup> On 8 June 1667 it was reported that ‘500 English have landed at Ostend, being the Earl of Castlehaven’s regiment for the Spanish service’.<sup>22</sup> He was accordingly absent when the House met on 10 Oct. 1667, being excused attendance on 29 Oct., because he was abroad.</p><p>In mid January 1668 Castlehaven returned to England.<sup>23</sup> He also returned to the House, taking his seat when the 1667-9 session resumed on 6 Feb. 1668 and subsequently attending for 48 days, 73 per cent of that part of the session. Money remained an important issue. In September 1668, when he wrote from London to Ormond that ‘my great friend hath taken much pains as also the treasurer, yet all has been labour lost if my Lord Arlington had not interposed in declaring the justness of my pretentions and the expedients by which he hath ever obliged me’.<sup>24</sup> This may have referred to Castlehaven’s quest for his pension. In June 1670 a warrant was granted to pay Castlehaven £400 ‘any general orders disallowing such payments notwithstanding’. In September 1670 the accounts of the lord lieutenant of Ireland show that he had a pension of £400 p.a. However, in February 1671 Ormond was resisting putting it on the Irish establishment.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Castlehaven was present on all 36 days of the 1669 session. During the session, on 4 Nov., Arlington pressed the English ambassador in Spain to obtain the title of sergeant major de battalia for Castlehaven, because of his seniority and quality, a request he renewed in July 1670.<sup>26</sup> On 3 Dec. 1669, three witnesses testified at the bar that Castlehaven’s wife had been arrested the previous month, contrary to privilege of peerage, and on 7 Dec. several of the bailiffs involved were ordered into custody.</p><p>Castlehaven attended the first day of the new session on 14 Feb. 1670. At this time Castlehaven had taken lodgings in two houses in King Street, Westminster, one for himself and the other for his servants, papers and parliamentary robes ‘whilst he remains in England’. On 12 Mar. he raised another complaint of breach of privilege concerning an incident on 25 Feb. when Samuel Nurse and Erasmus Dreydon, pretending to be constables, had threatened to break into his lodgings and invaded his rooms. They were ordered into custody.<sup>27</sup> On 17 Mar. he entered his dissent to the second reading of the divorce bill of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, the later duke of Rutland. He last attended on 8 Apr., having been present on 38 days in total, 90 per cent of that part of the session.</p><p>Castlehaven attended on 24 Oct. 1670, the first day of the resumed session and last attended on 20 Dec., 37 days in all. He was excused attendance on 10 Feb. 1671, being en route for Ireland, where he had the drums beaten for volunteers to serve in Flanders.<sup>28</sup> He attended again on 1 Mar. 1671, sitting on a further 40 days of the session. On 14 Apr., when the matter of the precedency of George Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley, was to be discussed, Castlehaven offered to set forth his own rights of precedency, as he was shortly to go abroad, and desired that nothing might be admitted to his prejudice in his absence, to which the House agreed. He last sat on the final day of the session, 22 Apr. 1671, having attended on 77 days, 62 per cent of the total. By the end of April a treasury memorandum referred to Castlehaven as ‘at Brussels’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Castlehaven attended the prorogation of 30 Oct. 1672, but he missed the opening of the 1673 session, first attending on 13 February. During the committee deliberations on the test bill in March, there was some debate as to whether he should be exempted from its provisions, but in the end his name was not among those included in the amendment.<sup>30</sup> He last sat on the day of the adjournment on 29 Mar. 1673, having attended on 34 days of the session, 89.5 per cent of the total.</p><p>In the summer of 1673 Castlehaven was in Brussels, from whence he wrote to Ormond that he had never been much in the favour of the duke of York ‘nor ever understood his ways; but I suspected no good issue, knowing some of his councillors’, and that as for the duke ‘quitting’ over the test it would not be to his advantage. As for the declaration of indulgence, ‘the wiser sort of my religion in England never liked the declaration nor the carrying it on, and so I believe may as little approve this action of the duke and my lord treasurer,’ Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. He ended by noting he was an ‘unlucky man’ having for years been ‘persecuted for having been of your party’ and now ‘I am as bad here for justifying the king in many things untruly said of him’. Despite his treatment at the hands of the governor, he still felt that a good understanding was necessary between England and Spain to counteract the French.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Castlehaven sat on three of the four days of the short session of October-November 1673. He then sat for all 38 days of the 1674 session. On 14 Jan. he was one of the Catholic lords who took the oath of allegiance. On 1 Apr. 1674 the king reminded Ormond of the failure to pay Castlehaven £5,000 as a reward for his past services, and indicated that his pension should be raised to £500 on the Irish establishment, until the £5,000 had been paid.<sup>32</sup> In January 1676 a warrant was granted for the £5,000 to be passed under the Great Seal of England, in another attempt to ensure that he received £500 p.a. as part of the £5,000.</p><p>Following the conclusion of peace with the Dutch early in 1674 Castlehaven served the Spanish in alliance with the Dutch. On 8 Feb. 1675 Sir Richard Bulstrode informed Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> that Castlehaven, intended to escort Don Pedro Ronquillos, the Spanish ambassador to Charles II, into England.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In April 1675 Castlehaven returned from Flanders, missing the opening of the 1675 session, first sitting on the 21st. Shortly after his return it was reported that he,</p><blockquote><p>inveighs publicly about the danger of France occupying the whole of the Spanish Netherlands, unless England prevents it by vigorous opposition. The report affects the court the more as it has impressed Parliament and some members insist on the great necessity for the king to declare himself in favour of Spain.<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>It was also noted that he spoke against the bill to prevent danger to the government from disaffected persons, and on 29 Apr. he joined such luminaries of the country opposition as Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury in entering his protest against the resolution that the protest of 26 Apr. (which he had not signed) reflected on the honour of the House.<sup>35</sup> He last sat on 8 June, the penultimate day of the session, having attended on 30 days, 76 per cent of the total. He had clearly been agitating for the payment of his Irish pension, for on 28 May 1675, William Harbord<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, ‘if you knew how great a clamour Castlehaven made and how readily’ Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, and Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Ranelagh [I], ‘put it upon Essex, and how uneasy King was at it’.<sup>36</sup> On 19 June 1675 he left Dover for Flanders.<sup>37</sup> Castlehaven was absent from the session of October-November 1675 and was excused attendance on 10 November. In 1676 his service saw him command the Spanish infantry at the siege of Maastricht and he also saw action at Charleroi and Mons.<sup>38</sup></p><p>In Shaftesbury’s analysis of lay peers in 1677-8 he was classed as both ‘worthy’ and a ‘papist’. On 14 Jan. 1677 Castlehaven wrote to Essex of his arrival in Madrid, just prior to the beginning of the year, whereupon he reported his opinion that ‘the entire conquest of Flanders’ lay open to Louis XIV, which might then be followed by Holland, and posed the question ‘how far England may be concerned in the overgrowth of the French Empire?’<sup>39</sup> It was later reported that he ‘much extols the P. of Orange’s conduct in the lost battle [Cassel], and commends his present army’.<sup>40</sup> Castlehaven did not sit until 9 Apr. 1677, being excused attendance on 9 Mar. because he was abroad. He sat on seven days of that part of the session which adjourned on 16 Apr., including the last day. He was absent when the session resumed on 21 May, but was present on 25 May and for two other days before the adjournment on 28 May 1677. In all he sat for ten days of this part of the session, 18.5 per cent of the total.</p><p>Castlehaven was present when the session resumed again on 15 Jan. 1678. On 19 Jan. Southwell recorded that ‘Castlehaven is here amongst us’ reporting on the apprehension of war felt in Flanders.<sup>41</sup> On the second day of the session, 28 Jan., he was one of those who objected unsuccessfully to the precedency among the barons accorded to the newly summoned (by acceleration) Henry Howard*, Baron Mowbray, the future 7th duke of Norfolk.<sup>42</sup> When it emerged that the crown alone had not possessed the legal power to restore the forfeited Audley peerage 1633 an Act of Parliament was passed to rectify the situation. The bill restoring the dignity and title of Baron Audley of Hely to the family and posterity of Mervyn, Lord Audley, deceased, was given a first reading on 7 Feb. 1678. The committee stage was reported by Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, on 26 February. In the Commons the bill was reported on 30 Apr. by Sir John Malet<sup>‡</sup> and it received the royal assent at the end of the session in May. On 2 Mar. Southwell added that Castlehaven ‘who passes here for an exalted Spaniard, has frankly emptied his quiver and said many things that men of greater wealth are sorry to hear’.<sup>43</sup> He last sat on 11 Mar., having been present on 32 days, 52.5 per cent of that part of the session. On that day he was given leave by the Lords to go to his Spanish command in Flanders, when he told ‘them plainly Flanders must necessarily be lost’. As Southwell noted, the debate scheduled for the following day on the danger to Flanders had been ‘moved and animated’ by Castlehaven, who had departed ‘telling their Lordships that England was not more in danger the month before William the Conqueror’s arrival than it was at the present, with many other expressions thought by some very rash and hasty, and accordingly undervalued, but the more it was stirred the more it took place’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>By late March 1678 he was in Bruges and consequently did not attend the session of May-July. In March 1678 the king asked the lord lieutenant of Ireland to remove the stop of Castlehaven’s £500 p.a. On 31 Aug. 1678 he was able to take a personal recommendation from the king to Ormond when he went for Ireland about ‘his pension and his quit rents’. By December 1678 Castlehaven was asking for his pension to be paid out of the quit-rents of Ireland.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Castlehaven was present on the opening day of the following session, 21 Oct. 1678, sitting on 34 days of the session, 58 per cent of the total. On 15 Nov., he voted against the motion in the committee of the whole House on the bill disabling papists from sitting in Parliament that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths, and 20 Nov. he entered his dissent to the passage of the bill. He last sat on 30 Nov., when the Test Act took effect, ‘making such a valedictory oration to the Lords that they have recommended him to his majesty’s bounty. And all men agree that never man spoke in any case with more eloquence or more art against this bill than he did when it was first in debate’.<sup>46</sup> As the <em>Journal</em> recorded, Castlehaven ‘taking his leave of their Lordships, and expressing his great duty to his majesty, and the welfare and peace of this kingdom, to the great satisfaction of the whole House’, the lord chancellor was commanded to recommend him to the king ‘considering his ancient descent, and the great actions done by his ancestors in France in former times, and the small estate and fortune left to his family by reason of his fortune spent in that service by his ancestors’. Furthermore, he was given leave to travel with several servants to any port in the kingdom so as to pass freely into Flanders. On 3 Dec. 1678 his name was among those certified to be able to reside in London.<sup>47</sup> On 17 Feb. 1679 Castlehaven received a pass ‘to land and travel’ to London.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Following the passage of the Test Act Castlehaven was unable to sit in Parliament, although on 10 May 1679 an order was drafted for the attendance of Castlehaven and his brother on behalf of those Lords arrested over the Popish Plot.<sup>49</sup> On 30 June Castlehaven and his servants were again given leave to travel.<sup>50</sup> He may have come under renewed pressure for his Catholicism as there exists an exemplification dated March 1680 of the indictment and outlawry in Ireland of Castlehaven and others for their role in the rebellion there in October 1641, even though he had subsequently received a pardon.<sup>51</sup> Despite his inability to take the new oaths he attended four consecutive prorogations on 17 May, 1 July, 22 July and 23 Aug. 1680.</p><p>In 1680 Castlehaven published his <em>Memoirs</em> of the wars in Ireland that was critical of the Dublin administration in the early 1640s and subsequent developments in Ireland and England. His aim was to exonerate himself and to emphasize the point that Catholicism and loyalty were not incompatible and that mistakes had been made in the 1640s by Protestants as well as Catholics. Ormond, who was always sensitive to any criticism of authority and Dublin administrations in particular, dismissed Castlehaven’s work as ‘foolish and unreasonable’.<sup>52</sup> Anglesey, who wrote a reply to Castlehaven’s work, also found himself embroiled in controversy with Ormond, and became the main victim of the affair.</p><p>On 22 Nov. 1681 Castlehaven wrote that ‘I have been in great disorder for some months, since I lost my command in Flanders and am now to seek a new fortune’, yet he remained an intimate of the king. Thus, in February 1682 Francis Aungier<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Longford [I], reported ‘being in the bedchamber’, where ‘Castlehaven entertained the king after his usual way of talking’.<sup>53</sup> On 3 Aug. 1682 Castlehaven attended the Privy Council at Hampton Court where ‘the memoirs were adjudged a libel and the dedication of them to his majesty presumptive’.<sup>54</sup> On 27 Nov. 1682 the treasury commissioners wrote to Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I], who sat in the Lords under his English title as Baron Butler of Weston, concerning a suspension of payments of Castlehaven’s pension ordered on 8 Aug. and the king’s pleasure that his directions be ignored with respect to some bills drawn on the farmers of the Irish revenue.<sup>55</sup> On 25 Nov. 1682 John Evelyn recorded dining at the Swedish resident’s along with among others Castlehaven, even then described as the ‘son of him who was executed 50 years before for enormous lusts &c’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>On 6 Aug. 1683 Castlehaven won the important point that he was not a pensioner of £500 p.a., but the holder of a patent for £500 p.a. until £5,000 had been paid him and so should be removed from the list of pensioners.<sup>57</sup> He died unexpectedly on 11 Oct. 1684 at his sister’s house in Kilcash, co. Tipperary, being succeeded by his brother Mervin. In 1692 his widow petitioned for and received a grant of the remainder of £500 p.a. granted to her husband until £5,000 had been paid, it being her jointure, which following his death had been left out of the new establishment.<sup>58</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
TUCHET, James (d. 1700) |
<p><strong><surname>TUCHET</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (d. 1700)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 2 Nov. 1686 as 15th Bar. AUDLEY (AWDLEY) and 5th earl of Castlehaven [I] |
|
First sat 20 Dec. 1697; last sat 1 Aug. 1700 |
|
|
<p>s. of Mervin Tuchet*, 14th Bar. Audley and 4th earl of Castlehaven [I], and Mary (<em>d</em>. Mar. 1711), da. of John Talbot<sup>†</sup>, 10th earl of Shrewsbury. <em>m</em>. Anne (<em>d</em>.1733), da. of Richard Pelson of St. George’s-in-the-Fields, London, and Anne (<em>d</em>.1670), da. and event. h. of Christopher Villiers*, earl of Anglesey, wid. of Thomas Savile<sup>†</sup>, earl of Sussex, 1s. <em>d</em>. 9 Aug. 1700; <em>admon</em>. 1 Dec. 1701 to Nicholas Walter, principal creditor.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Lt. of horse 1685; capt. 1687.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Tuchet’s date of birth is unknown, but he was the elder of two sons. He was born into a family with limited finances but significant social and political connections. His uncle James Tuchet*, 13th Baron Audley and 3rd earl of Castlehaven [I], and his father were respected royalist military officers during the civil war years and continued to serve as soldiers during the Restoration. Tuchet followed the family tradition of military service, being made a lieutenant in the regiment of horse of Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, in August 1685 and transferring in November 1685 to the regiment of major-general Robert Werden<sup>‡</sup>. The same month his name was included in a warrant pardoning various officers from the penalties of the acts against recusants for not taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. In February 1687, by which time he had succeeded to his father’s English and Irish titles, he was promoted to captain in the regiment of Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, a close associate of the king.<sup>3</sup></p><p>As a Catholic, Castlehaven did not attend Parliament under James II. However, contemporaries were clear where his political sympathies lay. His name appeared on four lists relating to the repeal of the penal laws and the Test Act, and to the king’s religious policies, all of which designated him as a Roman Catholic. A watchful eye was therefore kept on his activities. In February 1687 a newsletter reported that the king had bestowed Sir Michael Wentworth’s<sup>‡</sup> regiment on Castlehaven, and in April of the same year Edmund Verney reported that Castlehaven had been at Woodstock in Oxfordshire.<sup>4</sup> Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, reported dining in June 1687 with Castlehaven and Peterborough and taking supper at court with him in August.<sup>5</sup> In August 1688 Castlehaven was identified by Roger Whitley<sup>‡</sup> as the captain of a company of soldiers at Northampton.<sup>6</sup> His role in the Revolution of 1688 is unclear.</p><p>Castlehaven’s absence from the House of Lords was noted on 25 Jan. 1689, 31 Mar. 1690 and 2 Nov. 1691. He was also absent from James II’s Irish parliament, which met on 7 May 1689.<sup>7</sup> The journals record him as present in the Irish Lords on 25 Nov. 1692, but this appears to be an error. In October 1695, his relative Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, intervened on his behalf after he had received a summons to the Irish parliament, explaining to the Irish lord chancellor that, as Castlehaven was a Roman Catholic, he was unable to sit and that to travel to Ireland would be ‘very prejudicial to his private concerns at this time’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>An important shift was soon to occur, however, for at the end of October 1697 Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that Castlehaven had ‘resolved to embrace the Protestant religion’. He attended the Lords on 20 Dec. 1697, which was noted as his first sitting since the death of his father, and duly took the oaths and made and subscribed the declaration, pursuant to the statutes excluding Catholics. Luttrell spelled it out, noting that he had ‘lately abjured the Romish religion’ and took his place as the ‘second baron of England’.<sup>9</sup> Thereafter Castlehaven played a full part in proceedings and on 23 Feb. 1698 he was granted a royal bounty of £100.<sup>10</sup> On 4 Mar. he entered his dissent to the resolution to give the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> a second reading and on 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill.<sup>11</sup> In March and April he chaired the select committee into the use of exchequer bills.<sup>12</sup> On 31 Mar. he reported the bill for confirming a lease granted by the bishop of Winchester for erecting a water-works on a parcel of waste ground in Alverstoke, and the following day he reported the bill for erecting hospitals and workhouses in Tiverton. Having sat on 8 Apr., when he reported Sir John Churchill’s<sup>‡</sup> estate bill, he registered his proxy to James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, on the 11th, which was cancelled by his return to the House on 3 May. On 11 May he reported the bill for naturalizing the children of servants of the government who had been born abroad during the war; three days later he reported another naturalization bill. On 28 June he was appointed to a conference on the impeachments of John Goudet and others. On 1 July he protested against giving a second reading to the bill establishing the £2m fund and settling the trade to the East Indies. He continued to sit regularly until the end of the session on 5 July, having been present for 92 sittings (70 per cent of the total).</p><p>Castlehaven first attended the 1698 Parliament on the opening day of the session, 6 Dec. 1698. On 9 Jan. 1699 he reported a naturalization bill, as he did on the 16th. On 27 Jan. he was named to a conference on the bill to prevent the export of corn. On 20 Feb. he reported a bill allowing several ships to trade as free ships, as well as a naturalization bill. He attended 54 sittings in the session (63 per cent). In March 1699 he received a further £200 royal bounty and at the end of May a pension of £300 p.a. backdated to March.<sup>13</sup> He also attended the prorogation on 1 June 1699.</p><p>Castlehaven first attended the 1699–1700 session on the opening day, 16 Nov. 1699. On 6 Dec. he reported from a committee on whether, when the attorney-general was heard on the king’s behalf, the counsel of the other parties might be present. This was part of the proceedings in the case against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids; following the report, it was voted not to allow the bishop his privilege.<sup>14</sup> On 23 Jan. 1700 Castlehaven entered his protest against the resolution to reverse the judgment in the case of <em>Williamson v. the Crown</em>. In February he was forecast as likely to oppose the bill continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on the 23rd was against adjourning the House, which was effectively voting against putting the House into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments made to the bill. On 5 Mar. he reported a bill to enable the king’s natural-born subjects to inherit the estate of their ancestors, lineal or collateral, notwithstanding whether their parents were aliens. On 7 and 11 Mar. he reported from the committee on Riddell’s estate bill, a letter from two of the family being addressed to Castlehaven at his lodgings in St James’s Palace.<sup>15</sup> On 2 Apr. he was named to report a conference on the bill taking off the duties on woollen manufactures. Two days later he protested against the resolution to give a second reading to the land tax and forfeited Irish estates bill and on 10 Apr. against the decision not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the bill, having been named to three conferences on the bill on 9 and 10 April. He was present on the last day of the session, 11 Apr. 1700, having attended 69 sittings (76 per cent of the total).</p><p>Castlehaven attended the prorogation on 1 Aug. 1700 but died shortly afterwards of an apoplexy at Winchester on 9 Aug.; he was buried in the cathedral the following day.<sup>16</sup> He was succeeded by his son James Tuchet*, 16th Baron Audley and 6th earl of Castlehaven.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
TUCHET, James (bef. 1700-40) |
<p><strong><surname>TUCHET</surname></strong> (<strong>TOUCHET</strong>), <strong>James</strong> (bef. 1700–40)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 9 Aug. 1700 as 16th Bar. AUDLEY (AWDLEY) and 6th earl of Castlehaven [I] |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p>s. of James Tuchet*, 15th Bar. Audley and 5th earl of Castlehaven [I], and Anne Pelson, da. of Richard Pelson of St George’s-in-the-fields, London. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 24 May 1722, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 16 June 1743), da. of Henry Arundell*, 5th Bar. Arundell of Wardour, and Elizabeth Panton, 2s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 12 or 29 Oct. 1740;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 8 Oct. 1726, pr. 7 Apr. 1741.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Castlehaven, whose date of birth is unknown, was born into an well-known Anglo-Irish Catholic family with a history of military service and loyalty to the English crown. His father eventually took the oaths to William III and his seat in the Lords. In August 1700 Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> noted that the son had recently returned from ‘travelling beyond sea at his majesty’s charge’.<sup>4</sup> The pension of £300 p.a. granted by William III to his father was reported to be one year and three-quarters in arrears at the king’s death, suggesting that it may have been transferred to his son.<sup>5</sup></p><p>In March 1705 Castlehaven was listed as one of those Catholics licensed to bear arms in Ireland.<sup>6</sup> He married into another important English Catholic family, the Arundells of Wardour, but apparently took no active part in English or Irish politics. However, his name appears on two parliamentary lists: on a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain in 1708 he was marked as underage and given the assignation Whig, which was then crossed out; on the division list of 20 Mar. 1710 on Sacheverell he was listed as a Roman Catholic.</p><p>In 1716 Castlehaven was mentioned in Jacobite intrigue.<sup>7</sup> He died in Paris on either 12 or 29 Oct. 1740 and was buried at St Sulpice, Paris. His widow died on 16 June 1743 and was buried at St Pancras, Middlesex. He was succeeded by his son James Tuchet<sup>†</sup>, 17th Baron Audley and 7th earl of Castlehaven [I].</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
TUCHET, Mervin (Mervyn) (d. 1686) |
<p><strong><surname>TUCHET</surname></strong> (<strong>TOUCHET</strong>), <strong>Mervin (Mervyn)</strong> (d. 1686)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 1684 as 14th Bar. AUDLEY and 4th earl of Castlehaven [I] |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. aft. 1612, 3rd s. of Sir Mervin Tuchet<sup>†</sup>, 12th Bar. Audley and 2nd earl of Castlehaven [I], and 1st w. Elizabeth, da. and h. of Benedict Barnham<sup>‡</sup>, alderman of London; bro. of James Tuchet*, 13th Bar. Audley and 13th earl of Castlehaven [I]. <em>m</em>. bef. 1674, Mary (<em>d</em>. Mar. 1711), da. of John Talbot<sup>†</sup>, 10th earl of Shrewsbury, and Mary Fortescue, wid. of Charles Arundell (<em>d</em>.1651),<sup>1</sup> 2s. 3da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 2 Nov. 1686.</p> |
<p>Lt.-col. of horse 1644-5, 1651;<sup>3</sup> capt. of horse 1667.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Tuchet succeeded his eldest brother on 11 Oct. 1684. His older brother George, a Benedictine monk, had voluntarily surrendered his succession rights under the act of 1678 that formally restored the family’s English barony of Audley. Like his brother, he was known by his Irish title earl of Castlehaven. He was principally a military man, a Catholic royalist with influential connections at court, in Ireland and among the English peerage.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Little is known of Castlehaven’s early life. He was in Ireland in the mid 1630s associating with his brother James and his sisters, Frances and Dorothy, both of whom married close relatives of James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond. After the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in 1641, when his brother James found himself in considerable difficulties with the Dublin government, Tuchet acted as an intermediary between the two parties. Unlike his brother, he managed to make his way to England and the king’s service during the Civil Wars and was one of those who helped Charles II escape after the battle of Worcester.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Tuchet’s marriage to Lady Mary Talbot linked him to two significant English Catholic families, the Arundells and the Talbots. In January 1674, Tuchet and other members of the Talbot family, petitioned the Lords on behalf of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, a minor. Having detailed the ‘wicked and scandalous life’ led by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and his lover Anna-Marie, countess of Shrewsbury, the boy’s mother, the petitioners asked the Lords to protect and relieve the suffering of the young earl.<sup>7</sup></p><p>After the Restoration, Tuchet joined his brother in a petition to Charles II requesting a grant of the waste and encroached lands belonging to the Crown in several counties, a petition renewed in April 1662 and possibly 1664.<sup>8</sup> The family finances were precarious and he sought Ormond’s help in securing some provision for himself.<sup>9</sup> In 1667 Mervin was commissioned to serve as captain of horse under the command of Prince Rupert.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On 10 May 1678 Tuchet’s name appeared on a draft order of witnesses to be called on behalf of the imprisoned popish lords. On 26 Mar. 1679 he was authorized by the Lords to visit London and Westminster for one month to take care of some personal business. On 12 Apr. 1679 Tuchet and his wife were ordered to be exempted from the bill for the better discovery and more speedy conviction of popish recusants owing to his role in preserving the king from capture in 1651; a proviso required Tuchet and the others only to take the oath of allegiance and not subscribe to the declaration against transubstantiation.<sup>11</sup> This was a significant concession at a time of perceived national emergency and shows considerable court influence.</p><p>Upon succeeding his brother in October 1684, Castlehaven wrote to George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, requesting the continuation of the Irish pension his brother had received.<sup>12</sup> In November 1684 lord Lieutenant Ormond was informed that the king intended to continue payment of the pension of £500 p.a. to Castlehaven, which the latter pressed upon Ormond considering he had ‘three poor children totally unprovided for’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>On 12 Mar. 1686 Castlehaven’s name appeared in a warrant sent to the attorney-general authorising him and other Catholic noblemen to be dispensed from the travel restrictions imposed upon Catholics. On 12 Apr. 1686 a warrant was sent to the lord lieutenant of Ireland granting Castlehaven ‘in consideration of his loyal and faithful service to the crown’, an annuity of £500 during pleasure.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Unable to take the Test, Castlehaven was barred from the House. He died on 2 Nov. 1686, being succeeded by his eldest son James Tuchet*, as 5th Baron Audley and 15th earl of Castlehaven [I].</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
TUFTON, John (1608-64) |
<p><strong><surname>TUFTON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1608–64)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1628-31 Ld. Tufton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1 July 1631 as 2nd earl of THANET |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 7 Aug. 1660; last sat 27 July 1663 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 15 Dec. 1608, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Nicholas Tufton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd bt. (later earl of Thanet), and Frances (<em>d</em>.1653), da. of Thomas Cecil<sup>†</sup>, earl of Exeter. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 21 Apr. 1629, Margaret (1614–76), da and coh. of Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset, 6s. 6da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). kntd. 5 Dec. 1627. <em>d</em>. 7 May 1664; <em>will</em> 26 June 1662–23 Apr. 1664, pr. 18 May 1664.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Warden, Hove Court, Suss. 1639–42;<sup>2</sup> sheriff, Kent 1654–5.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas, William Dobson, Lakeland Arts Trust (AH 2321/81).</p> |
<p>John Tufton was the first surviving son of Nicholas Tufton, a wealthy official and landowner with property in both Kent and Sussex who purchased his way into the peerage as Baron Tufton in 1626 and, two years later, bought the earldom of Thanet. In 1629 Lord Tufton, as John Tufton was styled from the time of his father’s earldom, married Margaret, the elder daughter of the late Kentish magnate Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset, and Anne Clifford, <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Clifford. As heiress to her father, Margaret brought with her lands worth £5,000 p.a. in Kent and Sussex, including Bolebroke House in Sussex.<sup>3</sup></p><p>On 1 July 1631 Tufton, barely past his majority, succeeded to the earldom of his father, becoming one of the richest peers in Kent – the committee for compounding estimated his income as £10,000 p.a. ‘at the least’ in 1644 – although much of his property was in Sussex and his influence in Kent tended to be limited to the area between Ashford and Maidstone.<sup>4</sup> He first sat in the House at the convening of the Short Parliament in April 1640, though he did not attend that or the subsequent Long Parliament frequently. He joined the king in 1642 and may have fought at Edgehill and other engagements, but by 1643 his health had failed and he was given permission to go abroad to take the waters at Spa. His lands were sequestrated in his absence but in 1645 he was able to reduce his composition fine from £20,000, which he claimed was based on an inflated estimate of his worth, to £9,000 and was eventually discharged from his sequestration. He kept a low profile thereafter, but the Protectorate government insisted on placing him in minor local offices, ‘though he willingly would have avoided it’, and in 1655, perhaps in an effort to bind him more strongly to the regime, appointed him sheriff of Kent.<sup>5</sup> His family always remained under suspicion, and his eldest son, Nicholas Tufton*, styled Lord Tufton until he succeeded as 3rd earl of Thanet in 1664, was imprisoned twice during the 1650s for his involvement in Penruddock’s rising and other royalist plots.<sup>6</sup> Thanet was seen as an old royalist at the Restoration, and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, considered him as one of the ‘Lords with the King’ in his forecast of the potential membership of the Convention House of Lords.</p><p>Thanet continued his disengagement from politics into the Restoration, hindered by old age and illness. At a call of the House on 31 July 1660 he was marked as sick and did not appear in the Convention until 7 August. Thereafter he only came to 15 further meetings of the House during the remainder of the year, and was named to no select committees considering legislation, although on 13 Aug. he was appointed one of the peers assigned to negotiate with City merchants for an immediate loan of £100,000. He was at only a third of the sittings of the first session (1661–2) of the Cavalier Parliament, and was named to five select committees, mostly on private legislation. He did, however, appear on 22 May 1661 to complain of a breach of his privilege in the case of the arrest of one of his servants, which matter was resolved at Thanet’s request on 30 May.<sup>7</sup></p><p>At a call of the House on 25 Nov. 1661, illness again excused his absence from the first few days of the reconvened House. He was in the House on 3 Dec. and made an intervention on 7 Feb. 1662 when he petitioned against the private bill, introduced on 7 Jan., which would allow William Milward to sell part of his estate to settle his debts. Thanet’s sister Christian was Milward’s wife and he argued that the land in question had been settled on her as part of the original marriage settlement, without which agreement the marriage would not have taken place. Furthermore, he was eager to point out, Milward had not run into such serious debt ‘by the honourable account stated in the bill’, that is, service to the king in the late wars, but instead by ‘bad husbandry’. Perhaps it was Thanet’s petition which delayed the bill’s second reading until 19 February. His opposition to it continued in committee, for he objected to the manner in which his title was expressed in the bill. On 19 Mar. Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, reported to the House (from which Thanet was absent for all of March) that the title of Thanet in the bill ‘is found to be according to his patent’. <sup>8</sup> Despite Thanet’s efforts the bill passed both Houses and received the royal assent on 19 May 1662.</p><p>Thanet was even more neglectful of the second session of the Cavalier Parliament in 1663, coming to only 14 of its 86 sittings and being named to no committees. Wharton could not even guess which side Thanet would take in the dispute between George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in July 1663, although that month was one of the few when he was regularly attending the House. On 18 July 1663 he was appointed a commissioner to assess his fellow peers for the subsidy. On 30 May Thanet had brought before the House the petition of his mother-in-law, Lady Anne Clifford, dowager countess of Dorset and Pembroke, who claimed the ancient barony of Clifford, a barony by writ, as heir general of her father. In this she was opposed by her cousin Elizabeth Clifford, who also claimed the Clifford barony, and by Elizabeth’s husband, Richard Boyle*, 2nd earl of Cork [I] (later earl of Burlington), who had been created Baron Clifford of Lanesborough in 1644 on account of this marriage.<sup>9</sup></p><p>The last few months of Thanet’s life were marked by a temporary disgrace arising from the long-running dispute surrounding Sackville College in Sussex, an almshouse founded by Robert Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Dorset, which was to be maintained by the income from his estates. His son the 3rd earl had sold much of this land and, although he tried to make alternative provision for the almshouse, died so heavily in debt that the income from the remaining estate could not satisfy both his creditors and the needs of the college. As many of the lands charged with supporting the almshouse were part of the portion which the countess of Thanet had brought with her to the marriage, Thanet was considered one of those responsible for raising the necessary funds and among all those with an interest in this matter he bore the heaviest brunt of the anger over the failure to provide for the college. In 1648 he had successfully fended off a petition by the almspeople to have chancery decrees against him enforced, but during much of the 1650s he and his fellow Dorset son-in-law James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, were engaged in further legal battles against their Sackville kinsman the 5th earl of Dorset. Chancery eventually decreed against them in February 1660. From 21 Dec. 1663 to 21 Jan. 1664 Thanet was imprisoned over his refusal to provide the funds for Sackville College.<sup>10</sup> Perhaps this latest ignominy of a month spent in the Fleet in the dead of winter hastened his demise, for he died on 7 May 1664 at his London residence, Thanet House.<sup>11</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
TUFTON, John (1638-80) |
<p><strong><surname>TUFTON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1638–80)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 24 Nov. 1679 as 4th earl of THANET <em>de jure</em> 16th Bar. Clifford (by decision of 12 Dec. 1691) |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 7 Aug. 1638, 2nd s. of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet and Margaret, da. and coh. of Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset; bro. of Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, Richard Tufton*, 5th earl of Thanet, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet and Sackville Tufton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1653-4;<sup>1</sup> Queen’s, Oxf. 1654-6 (without matric.);<sup>2</sup> travelled abroad (Low Countries: tutor, George Sedgewick) 1656-7, (France) 1660-3.<sup>3</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 27 Apr. 1680; <em>will</em> 22 Oct. 1679, <em>admon</em>. 17 June 1680.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. sheriff, Westmld. 1676-9; sheriff (hered.) Westmld. 1679-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>It is clear from the diary of his maternal grandmother, Lady Anne Clifford, dowager countess of Pembroke and Montgomery, that John Tufton, second son of John Tufton, 2nd earl of Thanet, was her favourite grandson. She meticulously recorded the frequent and long visits he made to her northern residences in Westmorland and Yorkshire and provided him with generous benefactions in her will. He was almost more of a Clifford than a Tufton, and while his elder brother Nicholas, 3rd earl of Thanet, was based in the family’s ancestral properties in Kent and Sussex, John Tufton appears to have increasingly identified with the northern properties of his grandmother and spent a growing amount of time there.<sup>6</sup> Lady Anne, whose interest in Appleby was described as ‘absolute’, pressed Tufton to be her nominee at the by-election in early 1668 for the borough seat, in the face of stiff opposition from the under-secretary of state Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>. He refused on the grounds that he was ‘in favour of a country life’, and she then turned to his younger brothers in turn until Thomas Tufton, later 6th earl of Thanet, accepted and was duly selected.<sup>7</sup> She was most generous to John in her will in which she bequeathed to him the reversion to the Clifford lands in both Westmorland and the Craven region of Yorkshire, pointedly bypassing her eldest grandson Nicholas stating that he already had sufficient estates in the south.</p><p>John Tufton’s doting grandmother died in March 1676, upon which her daughter, Tufton’s mother Margaret, dowager countess of Thanet, inherited the Westmorland property and with it the hereditary shrievalty of the county. She appointed Tufton her deputy sheriff, and he inherited the Westmorland estates upon his mother’s death shortly thereafter in August 1676. He continued to be deputy sheriff under his brother, the 3rd earl of Thanet, the new sheriff by inheritance.<sup>8</sup> In 1678 his cousin Alathea Compton, last surviving child of James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, and Lady Anne Clifford’s younger daughter, Isabella, died childless and underage. She had been in line to inherit the Craven properties, but at her death they too reverted to Tufton.</p><p>Tufton and his brother Nicholas were at odds in 1678-9 over this Yorkshire inheritance, and over Tufton’s treatment of Thanet’s tenants in the north, a dispute which came before the House briefly in May 1679.<sup>9</sup> Tufton finally acquired the unquestioned possession of all the Clifford properties in the north when he succeeded to the earldom upon his brother’s death in November 1679, but he died unexpectedly after barely five months in possession of the title, a period during which the second Exclusion Parliament was prorogued. He never had an opportunity to sit in the House, and as he died unmarried and childless, it was his next brother, Richard Tufton, who sat in the Exclusion Parliament as earl of Thanet.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
TUFTON, Nicholas (1631-79) |
<p><strong><surname>TUFTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Nicholas</strong> (1631–79)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1631-64 Ld. Tufton; <em>suc. </em>fa. 7 May 1664 as 3rd earl of THANET; <em>suc. </em>grandmother (by termination of abeyance) 14 Oct. 1678 as <em>de jure</em> 15th Bar. Clifford (by decision of 12 Dec. 1691) |
|
First sat 14 May 1664; last sat 27 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 7 Aug. 1631, 1st s. of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet, and Margaret (<em>d</em>.1676), da. and coh. of Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset; bro. of John Tufton*, 4th earl of Thanet, Richard Tufton*, 5th earl of Thanet, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, and Hon. Sackville Tufton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Italy) 1651–3.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 11 Apr. 1664 (with £10,000),<sup>2</sup> Elizabeth (1643–1725), da. of Richard Boyle*, 2nd earl of Cork [I] and Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington), <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 24 Nov. 1679; <em>will</em> 18 June 1677, pr. 8 Dec. 1679.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Sheriff (hered.), Westmld. 1676–<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Capt. coy. of horse 1666.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: funerary monument, c.1679, St Margaret’s parish church, Rainham, Kent.</p> |
<p>Nicholas Tufton, Lord Tufton, was, unlike his father John Tufton, 2nd earl of Thanet, an active royalist and was preparing to raise his family’s county of Kent, and the rest of the south, for Penruddock’s Rising when he was apprehended and imprisoned in the Tower from March to December 1655 and again, still under suspicion, from September 1656 to June 1658.<sup>8</sup> He maintained some local office in Kent after the Restoration, frequently being placed on commissions for sewers for the many waterways in the south-eastern counties.<sup>9</sup> But he became more involved in an ancient family squabble involving substantial landholdings and influence in the northern counties of England as a result of his marriage on 11 April 1664 to Elizabeth Boyle, whose mother, Elizabeth Clifford, was <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Clifford (by virtue of a writ of summons in 1628 to her father Henry Clifford<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Cumberland). Elizabeth Clifford was also the cousin of Tufton’s maternal grandmother, Lady Anne Clifford, dowager countess of Dorset and Pembroke, who also claimed to be <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Clifford by the transmission through the heirs general of an earlier barony by a writ of 1299.<sup>10</sup> Despite the legal wrangling over the Clifford barony and its estates in Westmorland and West Yorkshire that had been going on since 1650, the two baronesses Clifford tried to remain on sociable terms. Lady Anne had even been made godmother of the younger Elizabeth Boyle. The marriage of Elizabeth to Lord Tufton was seen by all parties as a means of uniting the divided estates and the warring branches of the Clifford family, especially after Lord Tufton became the 3rd earl of Thanet by the unexpected death of his father shortly after the marriage.<sup>11</sup> It was his father-in-law, the earl of Cork (and Baron Clifford of Lanesborough in the English peerage), who presented the new earl of Thanet to Charles II and James Stuart*, duke of York, to kiss their hands on 14 May 1664, the first day that Thanet attended the House, three days before the session was prorogued.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Thanet came to three-quarters of the sitting days of the next session, of 1664–5, but this level of regular attendance, only to be exceeded at the very end of his parliamentary career, was probably because of his need to guide through a potentially controversial private act. His marriage to Elizabeth Boyle had been conducted privately, without the knowledge of his parents, and the dowager countess of Thanet appears to have extracted from him, as a condition of her consent, his agreement to provide maintenance for his five younger brothers. The ‘Act for confirming a deed of settlement between the earl of Thanet and his younger brethren’ was given its first reading on 28 Jan. 1665, was committed three days later and was passed by the House on 13 February. The proceedings on the bill were to show that, despite the marriage, all was not well between the two branches of the Clifford family, as the dowager countess of Thanet complained that Cork was referred to as ‘Lord Clifford’ throughout the bill, without the addition of ‘of Lanesborough’ to distinguish between the various Clifford baronies. She saw this as a derogation of the claims of her mother, Lady Anne Clifford, who herself on 30 May 1663 had petitioned Parliament on this same point, claiming to be the sole heir general of the original Baron Clifford and insisting that Cork distinguish his title from hers by the addition ‘of Lanesborough’.</p><p>Cork appears to have agreed to be referred to by his Irish title, but when he discovered that Thanet had told a committee of the Commons considering the bill that Cork had agreed to remove the offending term ‘Lord Clifford’ from the bill he flew into a rage against his son-in-law. Telling him he ‘would rather suffer the act to miscarry than to suffer such an injury’, Cork insisted that he continue to be referred to as ‘Lord Clifford’ in the bill, but agreed to have the distinguishing addition ‘of Lanesborough’. He consented to this on condition that Thanet formally sign an engagement before the attorney general that Cork’s styling himself ‘Clifford of Lanesborough’ would not prejudice him in case he ever chose to claim the ancient honour. Cork’s fellow peers in the House agreed to this alteration when the bill was returned from the lower chamber on 27 Feb. and the lord privy seal, John Robartes*, Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), led the committee which set out reasons to justify this change to the Commons. In the free conference on 1 Mar., Robartes and the House’s managers were able to convince the Commons to accept the amended wording, just in time to allow the bill to receive the royal assent at the prorogation of Parliament the following day.<sup>13</sup></p><p>After that burst of activity Thanet completely dropped out of significant parliamentary business for over a decade, probably impeded by illness, or at least suspected illness, as John Aubrey, whose antiquarian researches Thanet began to patronize from around 1670, considered him ‘much hypochondriac’.<sup>14</sup> Certainly illness was the excuse that Thanet used when explaining to his kinsman Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, his absence from the session which met at Oxford in October 1665.<sup>15</sup> He was well enough, however, to attend the court of the lord high steward convened on 30 Apr. 1666 to try Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley. Here he was one of only three peers who did not concur with the majority verdict of ‘not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter’, but further refined this by finding Morley ‘not guilty of murder but of manslaughter in his own defence’.<sup>16</sup> He was also considered healthy enough to be appointed a captain of horse to defend the south-eastern coast against Dutch invasion in July 1666.<sup>17</sup></p><p>But these activities in 1666 were Thanet’s last interventions in public life until January 1674. He registered his proxy with his father-in-law, by this time earl of Burlington in the English peerage, on 9 Nov. 1667, three days before the articles of impeachment against Burlington’s friend and ally Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, were brought up from the Commons. Burlington had his proxy again in the session of late 1669, though the exact date of registration is not recorded. Over the next few years there was a serious falling out between Burlington and the eccentric Thanet, probably owing to Thanet’s maltreatment of Burlington’s daughter. There had been charges within the Boyle family as early as June 1667 that he was failing to supply her with an allowance adequate for her position and birth, ‘and him in very wine for his house when strangers come’.<sup>18</sup> More serious accusations were to follow. The sources are oblique, but it appears that in 1671–2 Thanet was suspected of having tried to poison Burlington’s daughter, and perhaps even Burlington himself, through the agency of a servant. Burlington agreed to preserve Thanet from public ignominy only because his daughter insisted on continuing to live with him.<sup>19</sup></p><p>No longer enjoying Burlington’s favour, on 3 Mar. 1673 Thanet switched his proxy to his cousin Dorset, and in July found it prudent to procure a pass to travel abroad ‘for the recovery of his health’ (and perhaps his reputation).<sup>20</sup> He had returned by January 1674, for he sat again in the House on two occasions in the session of early 1674, on 27 and 29 January. He returned to the House for three sittings in the first week of March 1677 during the frequently adjourned session of 1677–8. Perhaps surprised by the reappearance of this long-absent member, the House named him to three committees on his first day of sitting, 3 Mar. 1677. Around this time Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, considered Thanet ‘worthy’, but this view may have been influenced by the negotiations that Shaftesbury was undertaking with Thanet in the spring of 1677 for the lease of the Tuftons’ London residence, Thanet House, located on Aldersgate Street and conveniently close to the radical Whigs in London.<sup>21</sup> Whether this transaction reveals any sympathy on Thanet’s part with Shaftesbury’s political aims cannot be known with any certainty, but it is probably significant that on 2 Mar. 1678 Thanet registered his proxy for the remainder of the session with Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, a leading member of the presbyterian group in Parliament, although a crossed-out marginal annotation in the manuscript minutes for 7 Mar. 1678 indicates that at one point there was a query of some sort surrounding this proxy.<sup>22</sup></p><p>By the terms of the will of Lady Anne Clifford the Clifford lands in Westmorland, and the county’s hereditary shrievalty, were to go immediately to Lady Anne’s daughter Margaret, dowager countess of Thanet, and the lands in Craven in Yorkshire to Alathea Compton, the last heir of Lady Anne’s other daughter, Isabella, late wife of James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton. The reversion of both these estates was bequeathed to Thanet’s younger brothers in turn, starting with his next brother, John Tufton, later 4th earl of Thanet, who was also Lady Anne’s favourite grandchild. Shortly after the death of Lady Anne in March 1676, Thanet’s own mother died. She had confirmed the terms of her mother’s will in her own testament, and John Tufton consequently inherited the Clifford estates in Westmorland.</p><p>In mid-October 1678 Thanet’s cousin Alathea Compton died underage and unmarried. With her death the Clifford estates in Craven also in turn reverted, according to the will of Lady Anne Clifford, to Thanet’s younger brother John. Despite Lady Anne’s explanation in her will that she had excluded Thanet from the reversion of the northern estates because he already had sufficient property in the south, he did not accept the terms of his grandmother’s and mother’s wills and successfully sued John in the courts to reclaim possession of the Westmorland lands and shrievalty, albeit briefly. On Alathea’s death Thanet inherited the title of Lord Clifford (1299), which had been held in abeyance between the two daughters of Lady Anne Clifford and their heirs since her death in 1676. Upon the young woman’s death without children, the title of Lord Clifford reverted solely to Thanet, heir male of the older daughter. As this contentious point on the Clifford title, and indeed on the doctrine of the heritability of baronies by writ through the female line, was only decided and declared by the House on 12 Dec. 1691, it is not surprising that Thanet himself was not aware of this inheritance and never used the title during his lifetime.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Perhaps because of his wish to stake his claim to the Clifford lands, for which he might need the sympathy of his fellow peers, Thanet from this point began to attend the House quite frequently. In so doing he belied Shaftesbury’s judgment of him as ‘worthy’, as he consistently voted with the court and the ministry of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). He attended 32 per cent of the sittings of the last session of the Cavalier Parliament in the winter of 1678 and was named to no committees, but on 26 Dec. he voted in favour of the amendment in the Disbandment bill that would place the money raised in the exchequer. The following day he voted against the motion to commit the impeached Danby. In the weeks preceding the Exclusion Parliament, Danby saw Thanet as one who would support him in his impeachment hearings. Thanet was present at 89 per cent of the sitting days in the session which began on 15 Mar. 1679 – the highest attendance rate of his parliamentary career – and was named to two committees, one of them for the bill to prevent Danby ‘taking undue advantage’ from his office by pleading a royal pardon at his impeachment hearings. Throughout April 1679 Thanet voted against the bill to attaint Danby if he did not surrender himself and later opposed the proposal to establish a joint committee to consider the method of trying the impeached lords. On 3 May he brought a complaint of breach of privilege before the House. This arose from the dispute between him and his brother John over the inheritance of the Clifford lands. He successfully convinced his fellow peers that Tufton’s stewards in Westmorland had infringed his privilege by evicting a tenant from land and housing which, so Thanet claimed, rightfully belonged to him.<sup>24</sup> On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>Thanet did not have long to enjoy his victory over his brother’s pretensions, as he died childless only a few months later, on 24 Nov. 1679, during the prorogation of the Parliament elected earlier that summer. In his brief will he left his personal estate to his wife and executrix, Elizabeth, Lady Thanet (who ironically, considering the accusations of 1671–2, survived him by almost 50 years) and left his fee simple lands to be divided equally among his three younger brothers, Richard, Thomas and Sackville Tufton, leaving out his heir, John. This was probably because John was already amply provided for, inheriting by the third earl’s death the Thanet title, the entailed Tufton estates in Kent and Sussex and the Clifford lands in Westmorland and Craven specifically bequeathed to him by his grandmother.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
TUFTON, Richard (1640-84) |
<p><strong><surname>TUFTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1640–84)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 27 Apr. 1680 as 5th earl of THANET and <em>de jure</em> 17th Bar. Clifford (by decision of 12 Dec. 1691) |
|
First sat 21 Oct. 1680; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
|
MP Appleby 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.)–27 Apr. 1680 |
<p><em>b</em>. 30 May 1640, 3rd s. of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet, and Margaret (1614–76), da. and coh. of Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset; bro. of Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, John Tufton*, 4th earl of Thanet, Thomas Tufton* 6th earl of Thanet, and Hon. Sackville Tufton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France, Low Countries) 1660–3. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 8 Mar. 1684; <em>will</em> 1–14 Feb., pr. 11 Mar.; <em>admon</em>. 20 Mar. 1684 to Thomas and Sackville Tufton.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Sheriff (hered.), Westmld. 1680–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt., Col. Russell’s Regt. of Ft. Gds. 1673–<em>d</em>., blockhouses, West Tilbury and Gravesend 1681–<em>d</em>., indep. coy. of ft. Gravesend 1681–<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>As in the case of his elder brother John Tufton, 4th earl of Thanet, what we know of the early life of Richard Tufton comes from the diary of his grandmother, Lady Anne Clifford, dowager countess of Dorset and Pembroke, and her records of his infrequent visits to her northern castles.<sup>3</sup> The countess was determined to nominate one of her younger grandsons at the January 1668 by-election for Appleby and, as Daniel Fleming<sup>‡</sup> warned another aspiring candidate, the under-secretary of state Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>,</p><blockquote><p>unless you can secure Lady Pembroke, which I fear will be hard to do, you will have a cold appearance of the electors of Appleby, since they dare not go any way but that chalked out by my lady, who is as absolute in that borough as any are in any other.<sup>4</sup></p></blockquote><p>She offered the seat first to her favourite grandson John, who declined (perhaps persuaded by Williamson) ‘in favour of a country life’, and then to the next eldest, Richard, who likewise preferred to continue his travels, before settling it on the fourth, Thomas.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Richard pursued a military career instead, and in April 1673 was commissioned a captain in Colonel Russell’s regiment of Foot Guards, the ‘King’s Regiment’.<sup>6</sup> Confusion in tracing the course of his military career is caused by the fact that his younger brother (the second earl’s fifth son) Sackville also became a captain in the same regiment the following year, thus leading to many references to a ‘Captain Tufton’.<sup>7</sup> Richard was later formally made governor of the blockhouses at Tilbury and Gravesend in June 1681, although he had been unofficially commanding the garrisons there since late 1679.<sup>8</sup> These commands further solidified his prominent position in Kentish society, which he had been exercising since coming to adulthood in the 1660s. By August 1678 he was still engaging in some of his family’s ancient land disputes, such as one concerning the lighthouse at Dungeness, and at the time of the Rye House Plot was seen as a natural leader for a volunteer troop of Kentish gentlemen.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In both elections of 1679 he was selected on the Clifford interest as burgess for the northern borough of Appleby, replacing his younger brother Thomas. He was marked ‘base’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and continued his association with the court faction after he had succeeded his elder brother to the earldom of Thanet in August 1680, during the long prorogation of the second Exclusion Parliament.<sup>10</sup> He continued his northern connection after inheriting the earldom, and with it the reversion to the Clifford estates in Westmorland, and was evidently acting himself in his role as hereditary sheriff of the county in September 1680, instead of appointing a deputy.<sup>11</sup> He also ensured that his youngest brother, Sackville, replaced him in the parliamentary representation of the borough.</p><p>Thanet first sat in the House on 21 Oct. 1680, when the second Exclusion Parliament finally convened after months of prorogation, and he continued to attend for 83 per cent of the meetings of that Parliament. He was not active in select committees, being named to only two during the Parliament. He was opposed to the country party and voted to reject the Exclusion bill on 15 Nov., while a week later he voted against the establishment of a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom and on 7 Dec. he judged William Howard*, earl of Stafford, not guilty. He was also concerned in protecting his own rights and brought before the House two complaints of breach of privilege. On 10 Dec. 1680 he informed the House that John Blow and his servant had forcibly seized some of his horses; after their submission five days later he requested their discharge from custody. On 20 Dec. he accused John Matson of infringing his privilege by distraining property on the farm of John Lidgate, one of Thanet’s tenants.</p><p>In the weeks before the Oxford Parliament in March 1681, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), considered Thanet one of those lords who would support his petition for bail at the forthcoming Parliament. Danby’s son Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, listed the earl as one of Danby’s ‘friends’ who had not yet arrived in Oxford by 23 Mar. to help present the petition.<sup>12</sup> Thanet arrived the following day and on 25 Mar. was appointed to the committee to receive information about the Popish Plot, but does not appear to have taken part in any other proceedings of this short-lived Parliament. He still supported Danby in the months following the dissolution of Charles II’s last Parliament and was one of the signatories to a petition to request the king to consult with the judges about the legality of Danby’s continued imprisonment and the possibility of his bail.<sup>13</sup></p><p>At the beginning of February 1684 Thanet was afflicted with a devastating fever. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> was able to report on 23 Feb. that he was ‘yet alive’, although this was the 29th day of his ailment: ‘He sleeps better than he did, which gives some hopes of recovery. But when he awakes he is light-headed, which is looked upon as a very ill sign.’<sup>14</sup> Verney’s initial confidence was misplaced, as Thanet died on 8 Mar. 1684, unmarried and childless. By his will of February 1684 he divided his personal estate and fee-simple lands between his two younger brothers, Thomas and Sackville, while the Thanet title and the entailed estates in Kent, Sussex, Westmorland and Yorkshire passed to the next in the long line of Tufton brothers, Thomas, the 6th earl of Thanet.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
TUFTON, Thomas (1644-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>TUFTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1644–1729)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 8 Mar. 1684 as 6th earl of THANET and also <em>de jure</em> 18th Bar. Clifford (claim allowed 12 Dec. 1691) |
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 31 July 1721 |
|
MP Appleby 2 Mar. 1668 |
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Aug. 1644, 4th s. of John Tufton*, 2nd earl of Thanet, and Margaret (1614-76), da. and coh. of Richard Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Dorset; bro. of Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet, John Tufton*, 4th earl of Thanet, Richard Tufton*, 5th earl of Thanet and Hon. Sackville Tufton<sup>‡</sup>; <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France, Low Countries) 1660-3; <em>m</em>. 14 Aug. 1684 (with £12,000)<sup>1</sup> Catherine (1665-1712), da. and coh. of Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, 3s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 5da. <em>d</em>. 30 July 1729; <em>will</em> 31 July 1721-4 Feb. 1729, pr. 24 Jan. 1730.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of the bedchamber, James* [1665], duke of York 1675-84; commr. Greenwich Hosptial 1695; PC 20 Mar. 1703-May 1707, 13 Dec. 1711-Sept. 1714.</p><p>Dep. lt., Suss. 1670-?84; sheriff (hered.), Westmld. 1684-<em>d</em>.; recorder, Canterbury 1684-7, Appleby 1685-8; ld. lt. Cumb. and Westmld. 1685-7; <em>custos rot</em>., Cumb. 1685-7, 1714-15, Westmld. 1702-6, May-Nov. 1714.</p><p>Capt., tp. of horse 20 June-27 July 1685; col., 27 July 1685-24 Oct. 1686.</p><p>Mbr. SPG 1701.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by S. Pietersz. Verelst, c.1685, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria; oil on panel by J. Richardson the elder, 1719, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria.</p> |
<h2><em>James II, Revolution and Convention, 1684-90</em></h2><p>Thomas Tufton was the fourth son in the large family of John Tufton, 2nd earl of Thanet. In his youth he had relied on the patronage of his formidable and doting grandmother Lady Anne Clifford, dowager countess of Dorset and Pembroke and in her own right (although not recognized by the House as such in her lifetime) Lady Clifford, to be elected to the Commons for the Clifford borough of Appleby in Westmorland at a by-election in 1668, even over the under-secretary of state Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>4</sup> By the end of 1675 he had been made a groom of the bedchamber of James Stuart, duke of York, and from this time he also was involved in a long-running contest with Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, for the right to appoint a deputy to fill any vacancies among the six clerks of chancery.<sup>5</sup> Thomas stood down in favour of his elder brother Richard Tufton, later 5th earl of Thanet, for the first two Exclusion Parliaments and when Richard succeeded to the earldom of Thanet in August 1680 the Appleby seat was successfully passed to the youngest surviving Tufton brother, the Hon. Sackville Tufton.</p><p>On his elder brother’s death on 8 Mar. 1684 Thomas succeeded to the earldom of Thanet, and with it to Tufton estates in Kent (centred on Hothfield House) and Sussex (Bolebroke House in Hartfield), the Clifford properties in Yorkshire (Skipton and its castle) and Westmorland (Appleby, Brough and Brougham and their castles). He also succeeded as hereditary sheriff of Westmorland, another inheritance from the Cliffords. By May Thanet was negotiating with Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle, to marry Newcastle’s fourth daughter Lady Catherine Cavendish. Although Newcastle expressed his ‘great esteem’ for Thanet and that he found a marital alliance with him ‘pleasing’, he wished Thanet would consider his third daughter Margaret to whom he intended to leave the larger portion of his estate, rather than insist on Catherine. Years later, however, when there was acrimony over the sisters’ inheritance, it was claimed that Newcastle had always been dissatisfied with Thanet’s estate.<sup>6</sup> Thanet married Catherine, who was 21 years his junior but enjoyed a portion of £12,000, on 14 Aug. 1684 and departed with her to spend several months on his Yorkshire and Westmorland estates.<sup>7</sup> Thanet had initially intended his visit to be brief, but on 9 Nov. wrote to his brother-in-law Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, explaining that he intended to stay at Skipton Castle until the spring as not only was business more complicated than he had anticipated, but ‘this country [was] better than many believe it’ and Skipton Castle itself was more comfortable than he had expected. He had also begun the repair and remodelling of the dilapidated Appleby Castle.<sup>8</sup> In the event Thanet’s principal country residence remained Hothfield in Kent, but his attachment to his Westmorland and Yorkshire estates remained strong, despite their being geographically remote.</p><p>James II saw Thanet as a new and friendly power in the north and appointed him lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland and <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Cumberland in early March 1685. This was a dynastic shift: Edward Howard*, 2nd earl of Carlisle, the son and heir of the recently deceased holder of those offices, Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, had effectively been deputizing for his father in those roles from at least 1678 and could reasonably have expected the appointment.<sup>9</sup> Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, commented that ‘there was ever country enmities’ between the two families.<sup>10</sup> Many of the other regional rivalries and alliances that were to mark the remainder of Thanet’s long political career were already in evidence during his electioneering for James II’s first Parliament. Thanet deployed his electoral influence in Appleby alongside that of Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. to bring in Musgrave’s son Philip Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> for the borough, returning his own brother Sackville for the other seat. As sheriff and thus returning officer Thanet, usually acting through his under-sheriff, could exercise a great deal of control over the Westmorland county election and in 1685 he tried unsuccessfully to persuade Daniel Fleming<sup>‡</sup> to stand in opposition to the sitting member John Lowther*, later Viscount Lonsdale, whose family had a long and intense rivalry with the Musgraves.<sup>11</sup> Lowther claimed that the origin of his feud with Musgrave and Thanet lay in their successful undermining of a project in 1684 whereby Lowther would exchange some lands in Leicestershire and Hampshire for crown lands in Westmorland, and they ‘continued ever since to do me [Lowther] all manner of ill offices, only because, as I suppose, they could not forgive me the injury they had done me’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Thanet was present on the first day of James II’s Parliament on 19 May 1685 and came to 56 per cent of the sittings, during which he was named to two committees on legislation. He raised a troop of horse to help suppress the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, but in October 1685 he resigned his commission, ‘on the account of the ill state of his health’.<sup>13</sup> This illness, and shoring up his position with his mercurial father-in-law Newcastle, appears to have preoccupied him for most of James II’s reign, and Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt, noted his ‘jealousy’ towards Newcastle’s plans in 1686-7 to marry his favourite daughter Margaret to the king’s companion Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham.<sup>14</sup> Reresby also noted that in August 1686 Thanet was disgruntled, complaining ‘of the king’s proceedings in point of religion’.<sup>15</sup> Thanet, marked as an opponent of the king’s religious policies in all contemporary lists, was divested of the lieutenancy of the north-western counties in 1687, replaced by the more reliably Catholic Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S].<sup>16</sup> Thanet signed the Guildhall Declaration on 11 Dec. 1688 and became a regular member of the peers’ provisional government. He did so out of concern for the Church of England rather than enthusiasm for William of Orange. On 12 Dec. he argued against allowing the Quaker leader William Penn, then detained by the peers, to exercise any influence on events, although Roger Morrice thought the lords ‘knew very well that noble lord understood [Penn] not’.<sup>17</sup> The ambivalence of his position was caught both by the proposal at about this time that he become an officer of Princess Mary’s household, and by the erroneous statement in a newsletter of 15 Jan. 1689 that he had fled to France.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Thanet was diligent in his attendance during the important first few weeks of the Convention. He was present on its first day, 22 Jan. 1689, and quickly made known his opposition to William of Orange’s accession. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour or establishing a regency and two days later voted against the motion to insert words declaring William and Mary king and queen in the draft text of the vote on the disposition of the crown. On 4 Feb. he was a teller, almost certainly for the not contents (especially considering that William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, told for the opposite side of the question), in the division on whether to agree with the Commons that James II had ‘abdicated’ the throne.<sup>19</sup> However at the crucial vote two days later, on 6 Feb., he ‘went off’ from his previous attitude and voted with the Williamites that James had abdicated and that the throne was vacant. After the division Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, queried Thanet, who ‘had gone all along with us in every vote’, why he ‘came to leave us in this last vote’. Thanet explained his actions by saying ‘he was of our mind, and thought we had done ill in admitting the monarchy to be elective; for so this vote had made it: but he thought there was an absolute necessity of having a government; and he did not see it likely to be any other way than this’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Having helped to bring, however reluctantly, William and Mary to the throne, Thanet remained engaged in the proceedings of the House throughout the remainder of the spring of 1689. During this time he was named to six committees on legislation, including those on the bills for the trial of peers, for reversing the attainder of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Russell, for ‘uniting Protestants’ (the comprehension bill), for reviving proceedings at law, and for establishing commissioners of the Great Seal. He was a teller on 27 Mar. 1689 in the division whether to give judgment in the case of <em>Roper v Roper</em> and on 4 Apr. was again a teller on the question whether to use the word ‘approve’ in one of the clauses in the toleration bill. His soon-to-be brother-in-law, John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare, later duke of Newcastle, was teller for the opposite side in this latter division.<sup>21</sup> On 8 Apr. he was appointed manager for a conference on the bill for removing papists from the capital, after which he was further placed on the committee assigned to draw up reasons why the House insisted on its proviso exempting servants of Charles II’s queen dowager from the bill’s strictures. He received formal permission from the House on 13 Apr. ‘to go into the country for his health’, and registered his proxy with Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, on 16 Apr., his last day in the House for that session, on which he also helped to manage a further conference on the disagreement over the queen dowager’s Catholic servants. Owing to this early departure he was present at only 30 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the Convention. Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (and later duke of Leeds), classed him as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding that he was to be spoken to by the duchess of Albemarle, his sister-in-law.</p><p>Thanet returned to the House on 15 Nov. 1689, almost three weeks into its proceedings. On his first day he was added to the ‘Committee of Inspections’, which had been assigned to investigate the judicial murders of Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup> and others as well as the <em>quo</em> <em>warranto</em> proceedings against corporations. Four days after this he was added to ‘all the committees’ then acting, but was named to only an additional three committees of legislation after this, including that on the bill for restraining the export of arms. On 23 Nov. 1689 he was a teller in a division whether the proposed rider which would prohibit the use of royal pardons to bypass impeachments brought by the Commons should be incorporated into the Bill of Rights; the virulent Whig Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, later earl of Warrington, was the opposite teller. He was a teller again on 21 Dec. 1689, this time in the division on the motion to hear the report from the committee dealing with the suborning of witnesses against a number of Whig peers following Monmouth’s rising. This time the opposite teller was Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester. In total Thanet came to just over half of the sittings of this second session of the Convention.</p><h2><em>William III’s first Parliament, 1690-5</em></h2><p>Thanet first sat in William III’s first Parliament in its second session of 1690-1, of which he came to almost three-quarters of the sittings, the best attendance of any session in his career. He was named to seven committees on legislation. On 7 Oct. 1690, his second day in the House, he stood bail for £5,000 for the Catholic peer James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, from which charge he was later discharged on the penultimate day of that month. <sup>22</sup> He was a teller on 9 Dec. in the division on the motion to proceed with debate on the bill to reverse the conviction of John Arnold by the court of king’s bench, and on 26 Dec. he was placed on the committee assigned to draft the bill concerning the regulation of alnage (the statutorily prescribed measures of woollen cloth) and collection of alnage duties. On 5 Jan. 1691 he helped to manage four last-ditch conferences in order to reach agreement on the bill to suspend provisions of the Navigation Acts before the prorogation scheduled for that day.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Most significantly for Thanet, this and the following session saw the culmination in the House of a long-simmering dispute between his family and the Boyles, whose head was Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork [I], over the barony of Clifford created by a writ of summons to Robert de Clifford in 1299. Thanet’s grandmother Lady Anne Clifford had claimed the barony in 1628 on the basis that the title descended through the heir general and that she had inherited it from her father George Clifford<sup>†</sup>, 12th Baron Clifford and 3rd earl of Cumberland. Elizabeth Clifford, countess of Burlington and Cork, claimed it by descent through the heir male and her father, the 3rd earl of Cumberland’s nephew Henry Clifford<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Cumberland, who had been summoned to Parliament in 1628 as ‘Lord Clifford’ on the assumption that the barony of 1299 was a junior title of his father Francis Clifford<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Cumberland. Charles I had confused matters more when in 1643 he created Elizabeth Clifford’s husband Richard Boyle, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough by letters patent. The competing Ladies Clifford, Anne and Elizabeth, had effected something of a reconciliation in 1664 through the marriage of Lady Elizabeth Clifford’s daughter, Elizabeth Boyle, to Lady Anne Clifford’s grandson Nicholas Tufton, styled Lord Tufton, who succeeded as 3rd earl of Thanet soon after.</p><p>Burlington’s son and heir, the late 3rd earl of Thanet’s brother-in-law, Charles Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, first sat in the House on 18 July 1689 under a writ of acceleration; he was first erroneously called Lord Boyle, but on 10 Aug. this was amended to Lord Clifford.<sup>24</sup> In the elections of February 1690 for the new Parliament Thanet ensured the election for Appleby of Clifford of Lanesborough’s son and heir Charles Boyle*, later 2nd earl of Burlington, perhaps to help smooth relations with the Boyles and thus help to ensure the passage of the petition which he submitted to the House on 27 Nov. 1690, claiming the barony of Clifford by descent through the heir general, his grandmother Lady Anne Clifford. The countess of Burlington put in her own counter-petition on 2 Dec. claiming the barony as daughter and sole heir general of Henry Clifford, summoned as Lord Clifford in 1628, but Parliament was prorogued on 5 Jan. 1691 before it could hear counsel for either side, and Lady Burlington died on the following day.<sup>25</sup> The matter was left to rest for much of 1691.</p><p>Thanet was apparently in London by 24 Oct. 1691, two days after the opening of the new session, when he was reportedly one of the lords who dined with George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, then imprisoned in the Tower of London on suspicion of Jacobite conspiracy; but if so he did not take his seat until 31 October.<sup>26</sup> Thanet’s favour to the young Charles Boyle appears to have brought the expected dividends, as Clifford of Lanesborough assured the House on 8 Dec. 1691 that he did ‘not obstruct the said claim’ of Thanet to the Clifford barony. Four days later the committee of privileges resolved and reported that the ‘title and barony of Lord Clifford’ did of right belong to Thanet, which was agreed upon by the House. Thanet was soon after confronted by another problem arising from his north-western inheritance. On 15 Dec. 1691 George Wilson, one of his officials in his role as hereditary sheriff of Westmorland, was committed by order of the House for arresting a reputed menial servant of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley. Upon Wilson’s petition the House resolved on 4 Jan. 1692 that Morley had never registered this protection and ordered him to the Tower for abusing his privilege as a peer. On 27 Jan. Thanet’s under-sheriff John Hall prayed for the protection of the House from any suits brought against him for discharging persons claiming Morley’s protections, now deemed by the House itself to be invalid, and on 1 Feb. the House ordered that both Thanet and his under-sheriff were to be granted indemnity for any wrongful releases.<sup>27</sup></p><p>In other matters during this session, Thanet was appointed on 31 Dec. 1691 to a committee to draw up heads for a conference on the Commons’ resolution, as stated in a printed vote, to address the king regarding the incorporation of the East India Company without the concurrence of the House. On 27 Jan. 1692 he told in the division whether the Speaker should be required to stand with his hat off when addressing the duchess of Norfolk in the hearings surrounding the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.<sup>28</sup> On 1 Feb. 1692 he was made a reporter on a conference concerning amendments to the bill for commissioners of public accounts. He was a teller on 22 Feb. 1692 in the division on the question whether to agree with the committee of the whole House’s report rejecting a proviso for the judges bill.<sup>29</sup> Overall, Thanet came to 56 per cent of the sittings of this session and was named to 18 committees on legislation.</p><p>From early 1692, Thanet began a long series of challenges to the will of his father-in-law Newcastle, who shortly before his death on 26 July 1691 had amended it to leave the entirety of his estate to his third daughter Margaret, excluding Thanet’s wife Catherine. Thanet insisted that Newcastle had not been in <em>compos</em> <em>mentis</em> when he revised his will.<sup>30</sup> On 13 May 1692 this suit spilled over into a duel between Thanet and Margaret’s husband the earl of Clare ‘upon some words arising at a hearing’. Thanet was wounded in the shoulder and Clare in the hand.<sup>31</sup> Thanet’s suits against Clare, in which he was later joined by another disgruntled and excluded Cavendish son-in-law, Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, rumbled on for the next two years.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Estate and inheritance matters continued to preoccupy Thanet in the following sessions of William III’s first Parliament, where he sat in a little over two-thirds of the sittings of the 1692-3 session. He brought to the attention of the House on 2 Dec. 1692 a breach of his privilege wherein one of his stewards in Silsden manor in the Craven district of west Yorkshire, a part of the Clifford inheritance long in dispute between the family’s different branches, had been arrested at the suit of various inhabitants who refused to recognize Thanet’s right to the property. The perpetrators of the breach of privilege all made their submission and were discharged by the House by 4 Jan. 1693.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In the winter of 1692-3 Thanet was also involved in the debates in the committee of the whole House considering the ‘advice’ the House should give the king concerning the recent military reverses, at both sea and land, the English forces had suffered the previous summer. On 10 Dec. he was placed on the committee to consider the papers regarding the failure to launch a ‘descent’ on France after the naval victories at Barfleur and La Hogue. Four days later the committee of the whole House placed him on a sub-committee to draw up a clause to state that English officers were to have precedence over any similarly ranked officer of another nation, regardless of the date of commission. On 2 Jan. 1693 he voted against the second reading of the Norfolk divorce bill while the following day he voted for the place bill and signed the protest when that bill was rejected. He supported the proposed amendment to the land tax bill which provided that peers would be assessed by a commission of their own, and on 19 Jan. he dissented, first, from the House’s refusal to refer this amendment to the committee for privileges and then from the resolution to abandon it entirely. The following day he was placed on the committee to consider methods for the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb. he voted the young nobleman not guilty of murder. On 11 Feb. Thanet was placed on the drafting committee for an address to the king concerning the number of foreign officers employed in the Board of Ordnance. In the first days of March 1693 he was assigned to be a reporter for two conferences on the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions, one scheduled for 1 Mar. which was aborted, the other taking place two days later. Throughout the session he was named to 13 committees on legislation.</p><p>He was present on the first day of the 1693-4 session and proceeded to sit in just under half of its meetings, during which he was named to seven committees on legislation and, on 16 Jan. 1694, was a manager for a conference dealing with the dispatching of intelligence regarding the sailing of the Brest fleet prior to its mauling of the Smyrna convoy the previous summer. He introduced on 15 Feb. 1694 a bill which would allow him and his younger brother Sackville Tufton to lease out their family’s former town residence, Thanet House in Aldersgate, for a further 60 years. The bill was committed the following day and John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, reported it as fit to pass without amendment on 19 February. (Bridgwater shared interests with Thanet in lead smelting in Yorkshire.)<sup>34</sup> It received the royal assent on 16 Mar., only four days after it had been brought back up from the Commons without any amendment. At the same time as his own bill was being discussed Thanet, on 17 and 24 Feb. 1694, protested against the rejection in turn of two petitions brought in by his brother-in-law the earl of Montagu in his testamentary dispute with John Granville*, earl of Bath. Thanet was even a teller on 22 Feb. on the question whether to dismiss Montagu’s petition.<sup>35</sup> Thanet’s active support of the Whig Montagu in this case can be attributed to the alliance that had grown up between them in their mutual legal action against Clare; in the same period Clare voted against Montagu’s petitions.<sup>36</sup> The two cases came together, disastrously for Montagu, at the same time, as Thanet’s and Montagu’s action against Clare was dismissed by chancery on 19 Feb. 1694, in the midst of the hearings in the House of <em>Montagu v Bath</em>. As Luttrell reported that immediately after the dismissal of his bill Thanet was considering launching an appeal in the House, it is likely that Thanet considered it prudent to support his fellow plaintiff Montagu in his other legal proceedings before the House.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Thanet first came to the House for the 1694-5 session on 4 Feb. 1695, almost three months into its proceedings, and came perhaps for a specific personal reason, for a week after his arrival he introduced a private bill to confirm the deed and indentures he had entered into with his brother Sackville for dividing the southern Tufton properties more equitably. The bill was committed the following day and on 13 Feb., only two days after its introduction, the bill was reported as fit to pass without amendment. It received the royal assent on 22 Apr. without any further obstructions.<sup>38</sup> More troublesome was another matter which claimed Thanet’s attention in that part of the session. On 10 Jan. 1695 the House had rejected the claim of Sir Richard Verney*, bt, subsequently recognized as 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, to be styled ‘Lord Broke’ on the basis of a writ of summons of 1491. The rejection was based in part on the disputed point whether writs of summons issued without reference to a creation by letters patent conferred a hereditary barony on its recipients’ heirs general, even when the barony passed through a female line, precisely the line of descent Thanet claimed for his own title of Lord Clifford. On 13 Feb. 1695 Thanet was added to the large committee considering Verney’s claim. A week later he himself demanded that the House declare upon what basis they rejected Verney’s claim and that a date should be set for him and some of his colleagues to offer their reasons to the House for the validity of baronies by writ passing through the female line.<sup>39</sup> Counsel for Thanet was finally heard on 12 Mar. 1695 and a week later the House passed a resolution that male heirs to baronies by writ through a single female ancestor did have the right to demand a writ of summons and sit in the House, a decision which prompted a lengthy protest signed by ten peers.<sup>40</sup> He was involved in the hearings on corruption in the East India Company which closed this session. On 16 Apr. he was placed on the drafting committee for a bill to indemnify Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡ </sup>for any evidence he might provide about bribes given by the Company. Six days later Thanet was chosen by ballot to be one of the 12 peers to serve on the joint commission with the Commons to hear Cooke’s testimony, while on 24 Apr. he was part of a delegation to a conference on this evidence and was placed on another joint committee to examine other officials of the Company such as Sir Basil Firebrace<sup>‡</sup>. On 2 May 1695 he was manager of a conference concerning the House’s objections to the Commons’ amendments to the bill for the imprisonment of Cooke and Firebrace.<sup>41</sup> With his late arrival, Thanet came to only 43 per cent of the sittings in this session, the last of William III’s first Parliament, and was nominated to nine committees on legislation.</p><h2><em>Under William III, 1695-1702</em></h2><p>The general election of 1695 went smoothly for Thanet, where he convinced the two sitting members for Appleby to stand down in favour of two Tories favoured by the leadership at Westminster: the Kentish gentleman Sir William Twisden<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, and Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. Electoral management aside, Thanet was never again quite as involved in the business of the House as he had been before 1695. He had been teller on eight occasions in the period 1689-95, but last told for a division on 27 Jan. 1696, on the question whether to re-commit the small tithes bill, and never again acted in this role in the House.<sup>42</sup> Nor did he maintain a high attendance level in the House and for the remainder of the reign of William III and during all of Anne’s Thanet usually came to about half of the sittings of any one session, and in some sessions noticeably fewer. He was generally named to about half of the select committees established during the days of his attendance in the House, and almost all of his committee nominations were for private bills. He was described in the early years of Anne’s reign as ‘a good country gentleman, a great assertor of the prerogatives of the monarchy and the Church’. <sup>43</sup> He certainly distinguished himself as a stalwart and consistent High Church Tory, with definite country attitudes, throughout all the parliaments of the next 20 years.</p><p>Thanet was closely allied socially and politically throughout this time to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, who was his nephew by his marriage in 1685 to Thanet’s niece Anne Hatton, daughter of Christopher Hatton, Viscount Hatton, and Thanet’s late sister Cicely. <sup>44</sup> Thanet attended 47 per cent of sittings in the 1695-6 session. Arriving in the House for the new Parliament on 5 Dec., when it was embroiled in a series of contentious meetings of the committee of the whole House, Thanet quickly wrote to his brother-in-law Hatton encouraging him to attend, ‘for besides the great sums of money expected, the calling in the coin and the settling of the East India Company in Scotland will prove I fear great difficulties to alter’. Thanet was also anxious for Nottingham’s arrival, ‘for he is already very much wanted by us’.<sup>45</sup> Thanet later joined Nottingham in refusing to sign the Association pledging allegiance to William III as ‘rightful and loyal king’, even though on 24 Feb. 1696 he had been placed on the committee to draft it and present it to the Commons in conference.<sup>46</sup> On 17 Mar. the Kentish Tory Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, a kinsman of Nottingham, registered his proxy with Thanet, who maintained it for the remainder of the session. In the weeks following this Thanet registered his dissent from two bills: one (on 27 Mar.) for the recruitment of seamen, in which he was joined only by Nottingham and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and the other (on 31 Mar.), to encourage bringing in plate to the Mint for the recoinage, in which he was among 15 Tory peers, including Nottingham. On 14 Apr. he was also named to the committee assigned to draw up heads for a conference on the bill for prohibiting trade with France.</p><p>Thanet attended 51 per cent of the 1696-7 session. He was among the Tory opposition to the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. He signed the dissents from the decision of 15 Dec. 1696 to hear the written evidence of the absent and disreputable Cardell Goodman and from the resolution of three days later to give the bill a second reading. Winchilsea once again entrusted him with his proxy, registered on 23 Dec. 1696, when Thanet would thus have been able to bring two votes against the Fenwick attainder bill; he later entered his own protest against the bill’s passage.<sup>47</sup> Exactly a month later he protested against the resolution that the place bill be denied a second reading. On 12 Feb. 1697 he stood bail for the earl of Ailesbury upon his release from prison.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Thanet was present for most of the first four months of the session of 1697-8. From 23 Feb. 1698 he once again held the proxy of Winchilsea, which he may have used when voting on 15 Mar. against the commitment of the Whig-inspired bill to punish the Exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡.</sup> Thanet last attended the House on 1 Apr. 1698, and 11 days later registered his proxy with William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, for the remainder of the session. In total he had come to just over a third of the sittings of that session.</p><p>At the election of 1698 Thanet returned two Tory kinsmen in Appleby, his nephew Sir John Walter<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt, and his wife’s maternal uncle Gervase Pierrepont*, later Baron Pierrepont. He came to only 41 per cent of the first session of the new Parliament, in 1698-9, and was present at 53 percent of the following session of 1699-1700. On 23 Feb. 1700 he supported the Tory bill to maintain the old East India Company as a corporation, while on 8 Mar. he protested against the second reading of the bill for the divorce of the duke of Norfolk. As the session reached a rancorous end, he was, on 2 Apr., made a reporter for the conference on the bill that would remove duties from woollen manufactures and on 9-10 Apr. was delegated to represent the House in three contentious conferences on the disagreements on the bill to resume the forfeited Irish lands granted by the king to his followers.</p><p>At the election of winter 1700 Thanet was only able to retain one of his candidates at Appleby: Pierrepont easily headed the poll, but Walter was defeated by one vote by Wharton Dunch<sup>‡</sup>, nephew of Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton. Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, emphasized to Sir Christopher Musgrave’s friends at Oxford that the leaders of the Tory party, disturbed by the narrowness of Musgrave’s victory in his own county, had decided that he should sit for Westmorland and not Oxford University. Otherwise, Sprat warned, ‘my Lord Thanet and all the true Church of England men will never be able to hold up their heads again in any elections for town or counties’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Thanet came to 46 per cent (48 meetings) of the House in the Parliament which convened on 6 Feb. 1701 but he was busy in putting his names to dissents and protests during those few days, such as against the resolution of 8 Mar. to request the king to lift the suspension of the disgraced naval officer Captain James Norris. Most of his dissents, though, concerned the second Partition Treaty and the impeachment of the Junto lords in the spring of 1701. On 15 Mar. he subscribed to the protests against the decision to reject two heads of the report on the Partition Treaty which caused offence among the Whigs and five days later he further objected to the House’s refusal to seek the Commons’ concurrence to its address to the king regarding the treaty. Through his dissents and protests he showed his opposition to all of the House’s measures which tried to avoid the impeachment and punishment of the Junto lords. He dissented from the decision to address the king asking that the impeached lords not be dismissed pending the hearings (on 16 Apr.), from the refusal to establish a joint committee with the Commons to discuss the procedures for the trial (14 June) and from the resolutions to proceed to Westminster Hall to try John Somers*, Baron Somers, and to acquit him (both 17 June). At the general election of late 1701, Thanet’s principal agent in Appleby, the town clerk Thomas Carleton, saw disaster looming because of Thanet’s delay in naming his candidates and laxness in purchasing those burgages which became available and conveying them to ‘faggot voters’, a practice that was being pursued vigorously by Wharton’s agents. Pierrepont and Dunch were again returned for Appleby in December 1701, while for the county elections Thanet supported Musgrave, who was defeated (he was later returned for Totnes), and Henry Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, who won the second seat, though an informant told Henry’s father James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> that ‘we should have lost it entirely but for Lord Thanet’s interest’.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Thanet first appeared in William III’s last parliament on 19 Jan. 1702 and came to only 27 sittings, 27 per cent of the whole. He dissented from the passage of the abjuration bill on 24 Feb. 1702 (although he did sign the House’s address condemning Louis XIV for recognizing the Pretender) and on 8 Mar. was made, along with the rest of the House present, a manager of a conference on arrangements for the accession of Anne.</p><p><em>The reign of Anne to 1710</em></p><p>Thanet was reportedly offered the position of lord chamberlain by Anne, but refused, supposedly on the grounds that ‘on coming to the title and estate I took a resolution to retire and to live a private life’ and because he was widely suspected of Jacobitism and would thereby bring the queen into disrepute. <sup>51</sup> He was offered the place of lord lieutenant of Westmorland and Cumberland, which after some indecision he refused, and <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Westmorland, which he took up in June 1702.<sup>52</sup> Bolstered by Thanet’s new prominence as <em>custos</em>, the Tories swept Westmorland in the elections of 1702, Musgrave and Henry Grahme being returned for the county and Pierrepont and James Grahme for Appleby. Thanet was absent for the first two months of the new Parliament’s first session, and only attended 29 per cent of sittings. He first sat on 14 Dec. 1702, five days after the occasional conformity bill had been sent back to the Commons with its controversial amendments, and it was conceivably his support for this bill that brought him back to the House. On 20 Mar. 1703 Thanet was sworn to the Privy Council. Ailesbury claimed he only accepted the appointment because it did not require his living in London. <sup>53</sup> Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, lord treasurer, wrote on 28 Mar. that despite Thanet’s uneasiness over accepting the lieutenancy of Cumberland and Westmorland, he believed Thanet could be brought to accept the appointment, but on 8 May he thought that Thanet’s acceptance seemed remote. Godolphin professed himself ‘indifferent’ to Thanet’s appointment but intimated that it was the queen’s intention he pursue it.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Thanet attended 43 per cent of sittings in the 1703-4 session, and again seems to have been spurred into attendance by the fortunes of the occasional conformity bill. He was present on 14 Dec. 1703, voting with the minority for the bill and registering his dissent from its rejection. Further dissents followed in March 1704, when he opposed the decision to remove Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> from the list of commissioners of public accounts (on 16 Mar.), dissented from the passage of the bill for raising recruits (21 Mar.) and objected to the resolution, part of the attack on Nottingham in the Scotch Plot affair, that the failure to take Robert Ferguson into custody for further questioning was an encouragement to the crown’s enemies (25 Mar.). Thanet was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the Plot.</p><p>Thanet first sat in the 1704-5 session on 2 Dec. 1704, almost two months into proceedings, and attended 44 per cent of the whole session. On 15 Dec. 1704 he again voted for the occasional conformity bill and again dissented from the House’s continued rejection of it. He was opposed to the union with Scotland from the first and on 20 Dec. 1704 voted against the passage of the bill to establish commissioners to treat with the Scots about a union.<sup>55</sup> Part of his opposition to the Scots and the Union may have come from his distaste for the Presbyterian Scottish Kirk and his support of the beleaguered Episcopalians in Scotland. In January 1705 William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, reported that on a visit to the earl he found him &lsquoin the same generous temper, as heretofore, towards the Episcopal clergy in Scotland’, and a year later Nicolson on another visit found Thanet ‘resolved to continue his charity in Scotland&rsquo.<sup>56</sup> On 22 Jan. 1705 Thanet protested against the rejection of the petition of Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, to be given further time to assign errors in his writ of error, while on 2 Mar. he entered his dissent from the act for recruiting soldiers and sailors. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was nominated to a committee to draw up heads for a conference with the Commons on their denial of a writ of habeas corpus to the ‘Aylesbury men’.</p><p>As <em>custos</em> Thanet was able to place members of Appleby corporation on tax commissions, and could also influence appointments in the army.<sup>57</sup> Such patronage set the stage for another resounding Tory victory in Appleby in 1705, as James Grahme was returned with another Tory, William Harvey<sup>‡</sup>, without opposition. In the first session of Anne’s second Parliament, in 1705-6, Thanet attended 50 per cent of sittings. He supported the Tories’ ‘Hanoverian motion’ calling for the dowager electress of Hanover to reside in England during the lifetime of the queen and opposed the Whig’s counter-measure, the regency bill. In the last-gasp Tory attempt to stop or alter the bill on 3 Dec. 1705, Thanet put his name to three protests against the House’s refusal to consider proposed riders to the bill which would ensure that the lord justices charged with the government of the realm in the interim between the queen’s death and the arrival of the Hanoverian monarch could not repeal or alter a number of acts of the previous 30 years concerning religious tests and toleration, the duration of parliaments, treason and the succession. Those attempts having failed, Thanet also subscribed his name to the long protest against the passage of the regency bill which ended that day’s sitting. Three days later he further voted and protested against the resolution made in the committee of the whole House that ‘the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration’.<sup>58</sup></p><p>The regency bill was returned to the House early in the new year, with the addition of the Commons’ ‘whimsical’ place clause. In the debate on 31 Jan. 1706, Thanet joined in three dissents against the attempts of the court interest in the House to amend out of recognition the country clause. Thanet and his fellow Tory dissenters may have seen the place clause as a ‘wrecking amendment’ which would be sure to prompt a royal veto of the bill in its entirety if included. This attempt once again to derail the bill was ultimately unsuccessful and the regency bill, without the place clause, received the royal assent on the last day of the session on 19 Mar. 1706. In the days running up to this prorogation Thanet, on 6 Mar., dissented from another act for recruiting the armed forces and five days later he, along with the rest of the House present, was made a manager for two conferences on the printed letter from Sir Rowland Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, which was deemed a seditious libel.</p><p>During the session of 1706-7, of which he attended 42 per cent of sittings, Thanet was most clearly concerned by the Union bill and its implications for the Church of England – and for himself. On 3 Feb. 1707 he dissented from the resolution not to insert a clause reaffirming the inviolability of the 1673 Test Act into the bill to secure the Church of England. In a debate on the Union bill on 24 Feb. he requested from the judges the full import of the 20th article, which affected him personally as it placed restrictions on heritable offices, such as Thanet’s own office as sheriff of Westmorland. Nicolson recorded that Thanet was ‘for [his] rights, which Lord Wharton calls tyranny and oppression’, but in practice Thanet’s position as hereditary sheriff of Westmorland was never threatened.<sup>59</sup> On 4 Mar. 1707 he voted in a favour of a rider declaring that nothing in the Union bill should be construed to be an acknowledgement of the validity of the Church of Scotland and dissented both from the rejection of that motion and from the passage of the Act of Union. Wharton and the Junto, who had already had Thanet ousted from the office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> in Westmorland and had tried to undermine his position as sheriff, used Thanet’s opposition to the Union to have him removed from the Privy Council in May 1707.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Thanet only attended 40 per cent of sittings in the 1707-8 session, chiefly in February and March 1708. On 31 Mar. 1708 he dissented from the House’s decision that the arrest of the Catholic Marmaduke Langdale*, 3rd Baron Langdale, was not a breach of privilege, because he felt that the statement agreed on by the House did not go far enough in explaining that Langdale was ineligible for privilege because he had never taken the oaths and test.</p><p>At the 1708 election, Thanet secured one seat for Edward Duncombe<sup>‡ </sup>in Appleby, but Wharton’s candidate, Nicholas Lechmere<sup>†</sup>, later Baron Lechmere, won the second seat by seven votes.<sup>.</sup> The first session of 1708-9 in the following Parliament saw Thanet’s highest attendance rate, 57 per cent, for the entire period 1695-1715. He was involved in the petition of the Squadrone peers against the right of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and duke of Dover in the British peerage, to vote in the elections of the Scottish representative peers for the new Parliament. He was appointed to the committee to consider this petition on 10 Jan. 1709 and 11 days later, somewhat surprisingly, voted with the Junto and Squadrone peers against Queensberry and his ally the lord treasurer Godolphin. On the other hand Thanet joined many other Tories in protesting against the commitment of the general naturalization bill on 15 March. On 26 Mar. Thanet complained against a provision in the ‘attorneys’ bill’ against fraud in stamp duties which specifically required Thanet, as hereditary sheriff of Westmorland, to appoint a new under-sheriff every year. Four days later his counsel was heard at the bar and Nicolson recorded that Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, ‘to make the work short’ of the matter, moved that the offending clause be rejected. In this he was seconded, surprisingly, by Wharton, who usually took any opportunity to undermine Thanet’s position as sheriff.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Montagu’s death on 9 Mar. 1709 brought the complicated relations between the daughters of the 2nd duke of Newcastle and their spouses to the fore again. Montagu had married Newcastle’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who was widely considered a lunatic. Thanet and his brother-in-law the duke of Newcastle (as Clare had been created in May 1694), now lord privy seal, sought a commission to guard their sister-in-law and her estate, worth £8,000 p.a. ‘and upwards’. Whatever their own differences both these brothers-in-law had a common cause, along with their fellow commissioner Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, who had briefly been married to the fourth Cavendish daughter, to see that further inroads on the Cavendish-Newcastle estate were not made.<sup>62</sup></p><p>The matter of the Newcastle inheritance perhaps distracted Thanet from taking his seat in the 1709-10 session until 10 Jan. 1710. He proceeded to sit for only a further 35 days, but those meetings, primarily in February and March, were some of the most contentious of his career. On 16 Feb. he dissented from the decision to proceed with the debate on the Commons’ address that John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, should be immediately sent to the Low Countries. On that same day Thanet also dissented from the House’s decision not to require the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates to attend the House before the minister’s appeal against the Kirk officials would be formally received. He was understandably even more agitated by the treatment of Dr Sacheverell and subscribed to eight dissents and protests in this matter in the period 14-21 Mar. 1710. In particular he protested against the decisions: that the ‘criminal’ words did not have to be included verbatim in the articles of impeachment (14 Mar.); that the Commons had proved the first four articles in the impeachment (16 and 17 Mar.); that peers were limited to a single vote of guilty or not guilty upon all the articles (18 Mar.); that Sacheverell was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours (20 Mar.); and that he be imprisoned and barred from preaching for seven years (21 Mar.).<sup>63</sup></p><p>In July 1710 Thanet nominated as his two candidates for Appleby, the sitting Member Duncombe and the Tory lawyer, Thomas Lutwyche<sup>‡</sup>. Thanet’s confidence of victory in the elections of 1710 was borne out by Wharton’s choice of Joshua Blackwell, a man with sound Tory principles, a desperate attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to prevent Thanet from controlling both seats for the borough.<sup>64</sup> After the reversal of political fortunes following the Sacheverell trial, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford and Mortimer, sought Thanet’s support for the new ministry of 1710. Thanet saw Harley’s rise as an opportunity too, and during the summer of 1710 had ended one of his letters to his steward Thomas Carleton – also now mayor of Appleby – with the injunction ‘as soon as the election is over send me up a list of such of the corporation as are qualified for the Excise or Salt or Stamp Office’, and sought to obtain these places for them or other dependents.<sup>65</sup></p><h2><em>The Oxford ministry</em></h2><p>With a ministry more to his taste, Thanet became more active in the House. He came to 57 per cent of the meetings of the 1710-11 session in the new Tory-dominated Parliament, his highest attendance rate in any session (apart from 1708-9) in the 20 years from 1695 to 1715. He was more involved than in previous years as well, and even reported on 7 Mar. 1711, for the first time in his parliamentary career, from a select committee considering a private bill, that allowing the sale or settlement of the lands and herediments in Kent of William Henden. He was named to the large committee established on 22 Jan. 1711 to consider the unprepared state of the forces in Spain which had led to the debacle of Almanza and on 3 Feb. he was placed on another committee to draft an address to the queen regarding the insufficiency of the numbers and equipment of the forces in Spain – and the previous ministry’s responsibility in this.</p><p>The possibility was raised that Thanet be restored to his former positions of influence, to cement the Tory dominance in the north. Sir Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, suggested in May 1711 that Thanet replace Wharton as <em>custos</em> of Westmorland.<sup>66</sup> The appointment was not made at this time. Thanet was present at only a third of the meetings of the second session of 1711-12. He took part in the controversial votes on 7-8 Dec. 1711 about the clause to the address to the queen insisting that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’. On 7 Dec. 1711 he was placed on the committee to prepare an address on the queen’s speech regarding the peace. He disagreed with the stance Nottingham took at this point that the address should contain a clause making it clear that there could be ‘No Peace without Spain’. His actions the next day, when there was a controversial and ultimately abortive division on whether to include this clause in the address, are difficult to interpret. One anonymous observer appears to have marked Thanet as supporting the clause, with Nottingham, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth and Nottingham’s brother Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, later earl of Aylesford. However, Thanet’s name appears clearly among those dissenting from the resolution to include the clause (a list which does not include Nottingham, Weymouth or Guernsey) recorded in the Journal. The rough division list for this day may be inaccurate in its assessment of Thanet’s voting or he may have changed his mind between the division on 8 Dec. and the deadline for subscribing to the protest (the end of the following day of sitting).<sup>67</sup> Two days later Oxford (as Harley had since become) listed Thanet and other supporters of Nottingham among those for whom preferment should be found.<sup>68</sup> On 13 Dec. Oxford had Thanet sworn to the Privy Council, in what should probably be seen as a move to reward him for his siding with the ministry by his protest and to detach him from Nottingham’s interest. This favour does not appear to have had the desired effect, and over the next few weeks Thanet slowly drifted back to Nottingham’s camp, and probably joined his band of ‘Hanoverian Tories’ in the last months of the reign. On 20 Dec. 1711, in the case of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], Thanet sided with Nottingham and against the Oxford ministry by voting that no peer with a Scottish title created before the Union could sit in the House under a title created in the new Great British peerage after the Union.</p><p>Thanet, Nottingham and others attracted widespread comment on 2 Jan. 1712 by voting against Oxford’s motion to adjourn the House to 14 Jan. when the queen would give both Lords and Commons more details on the peace negotiations.<sup>69</sup> On 3 Mar. 1712 Thanet received the proxy of George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, who had consistently voted Tory in the preceding years of Anne’s reign. The first wife of Northampton’s father, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, had been Thanet’s maternal aunt, but there was no blood relation between him and the 4th earl who was the child of the second wife. Thanet exercised this proxy until 14 Apr. when he left the House for the session and he in turn registered his proxy with Northampton, now returned to the House.</p><p>The ministry still sought some accommodatsion with Thanet, and on 1 May 1712 Sir John Lowther<sup>‡</sup> anticipated that ‘the making my lord Thanet lord lieutenant I fear will occasion some alterations in the commission of peace purely to be vexatious.’<sup>70</sup> In June Oxford considered appointing Thanet a commissioner of trade.<sup>71</sup> In July 1712 James Grahme suggested to Oxford that if Thanet continued to refuse the lord lieutenancies of Cumberland and Westmorland, the lord treasurer should appoint Grahme’s son-in-law and presumptive heir, Henry Bowes Howard*, 4th earl of Berkshire.<sup>72</sup> Thanet appears to have been more solicitous that his chaplain be appointed to a prebend either at Westminster or Windsor.<sup>73</sup> In October Grahme wrote that appointments of ‘worse men’ in Westmorland were being made in Thanet’s name, but without his knowledge.<sup>74</sup> The lord-lieutenancies, however, remained with the Whig Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, apparently pending a definitive refusal or acceptance from Thanet, Archdeacon Hugh Todd pressing Berkshire’s claim to the offices in July 1713.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Excluding an appearance on a prorogation day on 17 Mar. 1713, Thanet only came to 5 sittings in the third session, eight per cent of the whole, all during April 1713. Oxford still forecast that Thanet would support the French commercial treaty of June 1713 that foundered in the Commons. At the 1713 election he secured the return of Thomas Lutwyche in one of the Appleby seats, but James Grahme had sold his burgages to Richard Lowther*, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, a Whig, whose candidate secured the second seat.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Thanet came to only 29 per cent of the meetings of the first session of spring 1714. He left the House on 11 May 1714, but despite his absence Nottingham forecast that he would support the schism bill, which was voted on later that month. That month he was appointed <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Westmorland, replacing Wharton. On 2 June 1714 Thanet gave his proxy to Northampton for the remainder of the session, as he did again on 10 Aug. when he left the House after sitting for only three days in the 15-day session convened upon the queen’s death.</p><p>An account of his sparse activity in the House after the Hanoverian Succession will appear in the subsequent volumes of this project. Thanet died at Hothfield in Kent on 30 July 1729 and was succeeded in the earldom of Thanet and his entailed estates by his nephew Sackville Tufton<sup>†</sup>, although the barony of Clifford, whose descent through the female line Thanet had worked so hard to have recognized, fell into abeyance between his five daughters as heirs general. As well as leaving £20,000 to each of these daughters, his will appointed trustees to administer funds in the interest of several charitable projects intended to benefit the education of the poor and the clergy of the Church of England.</p> |
C.G.D.L./M.C.K. |
|
VANE, Christopher (1653-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>VANE</surname></strong>, <strong>Christopher</strong> (1653–1723)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>25 July 1698 Bar. BARNARD |
|
First sat 22 Dec. 1698; last sat 25 May 1717 |
|
MP co. Dur. 25 Oct. 1675–1679 (Jan.) Boroughbridge 1689–18 Nov. 1690 |
<p><em>b</em>. 21 May 1653, 7th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>. 14 June 1662) of Fairlawn, Shipbourne, Kent, and Frances (<em>d</em>.1680), da. of Sir Christopher Wray<sup>‡</sup> of Ashby, Lincs. <em>educ</em>. I. Temple 1671. <em>m</em>. lic. 9 May 1676, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 9 Nov. 1725), da. of Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, and coh. of her bro. John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>suc</em>. bro. 1675. <em>d</em>. 28 Oct. 1723; <em>will</em> 27 Sept. 1715, codicil 26 May 1716, pr. 11 Nov. 1723.</p> |
<p>PC 6 July–13 Dec. 1688.</p><p>Commr. for recusants, co. Dur. 1675; freeman, Durham 1675, Hartlepool 1676; ranger, Teesdale forest 1689–<em>d</em>.; dep. lt., Kent Feb. 1688–bef. 1701, co. Dur. by 1701–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>The Vane family were originally from Kent and were related to the Fanes, earls of Westmorland. Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup> (1589–1655), Charles I’s secretary of state, adopted Vane, the older version of the family name, and in 1626 purchased Raby Castle, Barnard Castle, and its estate from the crown for £18,000. Sir Henry Vane’s son, also Sir Henry Vane, was one of the most effective parliamentary strategists and leaders in the Long Parliament during the civil wars and Interregnum. Although not a regicide, after the Restoration he was indicted for ‘crimes’ during the Interregnum, exempted from the Act of Indemnity and ultimately tried and executed in June 1662.<sup>1</sup> With some foresight, he had already transferred his property in Co. Durham to his eldest son, Thomas Vane<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Christopher Vane, Sir Henry’s second surviving son, was born in Lincolnshire in 1653.<sup>2</sup> His mother maintained an independent minister as her chaplain and applied for a licence to hold a conventicle in 1672. She presumably presided over the extensive property of the family, worth over £3,000 per annum in 1650, although the Kentish property was later forfeited to the crown.<sup>3</sup> Christopher Vane succeeded to the family estates in June 1675, on the death of his older brother Thomas, also succeeding to his parliamentary seat, the newly enfranchised county of Durham, in October, having made Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, ‘and most of the gentry of his side’.<sup>4</sup> In May 1676 Vane made an influential and lucrative marriage to Elizabeth Holles, eventually coheiress to her brother John Holles, duke of Newcastle. Simultaneously, the king granted him the family’s lands in Kent which had been claimed by the crown.<sup>5</sup> A prominent northern Whig, and a member of the Green Ribbon Club, Vane was unable to secure election to the Exclusion parliaments. He was also left out of the commission of the peace in 1680.<sup>6</sup> On 5 June 1682 Vane, his wife, son Gilbert and daughter Elizabeth, with four men and three women servants, received a pass to travel abroad.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Late in the reign of James II, Vane seems to have sensed an opportunity for advancement. In January 1688 he petitioned for a grant of the rangership of the forest of Teesdale, which had been forfeited by his father’s attainder, it being</p><blockquote><p>a cold open piece of ground without trees or shelter whereby the game is not easily preserved and was never known to exceed the number of 50 deer and the forest being so remote and the country about it so wild that it affords neither profit nor pleasure [to the king] and is only of convenience to Mr Vane, who is proprietor of the lands about it.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote><p>Vane seems to have been keen on the land to complement his attempts to lease out lead mines in the area.<sup>9</sup> Although he did not obtain the grant until after the Revolution, in May 1689, he received some marks of favour during 1688, probably in the course of James’s attempt to co-opt Protestant radicals into his project for religious toleration.<sup>10</sup> As part of the regulation of the county lieutenancies, in February 1688 Vane was made a deputy lieutenant for Kent.<sup>11</sup> He was also made a justice for the county.<sup>12</sup> On 6 July 1688 he, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup> and Silus Titus<sup>‡</sup> were sworn members of the Privy Council, following which the king reaffirmed his commitment to ‘an equal liberty to all persuasions’.<sup>13</sup> Their appointment prompted Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, to exclaim, ‘Good God bless us! What will the world come to?’<sup>14</sup> Clarendon also told the prince of Orange that the king had said:</p><blockquote><p>they were honest able men and would serve him his own way, in which I believe his majesty will be deceived; or if they do, they will not be useful to him, further than in their own persons, for when they are thought less zealous for the Protestant religion, from that hour they will lose their interest.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> thought that Vane and his fellow appointees had ‘been consulted in the modelling of the justices in the counties and for the next Parliament’.<sup>16</sup> John Evelyn interpreted their promotion as a ploy by the king to prevent the presbyterians and independents from joining the Church of England party in the wake of the Seven Bishops’ acquittal on 30 June.<sup>17</sup> William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth also thought his appointment was to ‘gratify’ the Dissenters.<sup>18</sup> On 12 Oct. 1688 Vane received a free and general pardon of all treasons.<sup>19</sup></p><p>In James II’s will of 17 Nov. 1688, Vane was nominated as one of the advisers to his queen in the event of his death.<sup>20</sup> Despite his apparent collaboration with James’s policies, Vane supported the Revolution and was involved in the capture of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, York and Berwick for the prince of Orange in December 1688.<sup>21</sup> On 1 Dec. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), wrote to the prince of Orange that Vane and his brother-in-law, Holles, now styled Lord Houghton, and several others from York would attend him.<sup>22</sup> On 18 Feb. 1689 Danby added that Vane deserved the king’s consideration for his ‘estates and interest’ in his country.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Vane was subsequently returned to the Convention for Boroughbridge in 1689; although re-elected in 1690, he was unseated on petition.<sup>24</sup> While he did not stand again for Parliament he maintained an active role in local politics in co. Durham. Meanwhile, in April 1692 letters to him, among others, from the Jacobite court were intercepted inviting him to witness the forthcoming royal birth.<sup>25</sup> In October 1695 Ralph Thoresby was informed that the county of Durham, ‘thanks to Mr Vane of Raby’, would choose Sir William Bowes<sup>‡</sup> and William Lambton<sup>‡</sup>, which may indicate that Vane was instrumental in brokering a compromise whereby his cousin Lionel Vane<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Robert Eden<sup>‡</sup> were returned.<sup>26</sup> In 1698 he again backed his cousin, who triumphed after a contest.</p><p>A warrant for a peerage for Vane was ordered on 5 June 1698.<sup>27</sup> On 13 July James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, that ‘Mr Christopher Vane of Raby Castle is made a lord, but it is to be a secret till the bill is signed.’<sup>28</sup> It was announced in a newsletter on 22 July.<sup>29</sup> Vane’s elevation to the peerage as Baron Barnard on 25 July 1698 was thus unexpected to contemporaries. It was rumoured to have been part of the bargain whereby his brother-in-law Newcastle obtained the Garter.<sup>30</sup> These developments may have been politically expedient, coming as they did in July 1698 at the dissolution of Parliament. Barnard was permitted to adopt his father’s coat-of-arms despite the fact that legally they had been forfeited on the elder Vane’s attainder in 1662.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Barnard first attended the 1698–9 session on 22 Dec. 1698, when he was introduced into the House by Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, and Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against agreeing with the resolution offering to assist the king to retain his Dutch guards, and entered his protest against its adoption. On 28 Mar. he was the youngest baron to vote at the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, for the murder of Richard Coote, declaring him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. On the following day he voted Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of the same crime.<sup>32</sup> On 3 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill laying a duty on paper. In all he attended on 40 days of the session, 49 per cent of the total, and was named to two committees.</p><p>Barnard seems to have led a peripatetic existence when in London. In the 1698–9 session he resided in Red Lion Square. According to doorkeepers’ records, for the 1705–6 session he lived in Norfolk Street, switching to Cecil Street for the 1708–9 session.<sup>33</sup> On 17 July 1699 a pass was issued for Barnard and his wife, son and daughter to visit France, and by September it was reported that he had gone to travel abroad.<sup>34</sup> He did not attend the session of 1699–1700, or the single-session Parliaments of 1701 and 1701–2, being excused attendance on 5 Jan. 1702.</p><p>Barnard returned for the opening day of the 1702 Parliament, 20 Oct. 1702, and the following day he was named to the usual sessional committees and to that on the address. On 12 Nov. he attended the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s.<sup>35</sup> In about January 1703 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, thought that Barnard would support the bill against occasional conformity and he duly voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendments to the penalties clause of the bill on 16 January. On 22 Feb. he protested against the Lords’ decision not to commit the bill requiring a property qualification for Members of Parliament. He attended on 46 days of the session, 53.5 per cent of the total and was named to a further 15 committees. He also attended the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1703.</p><p>Barnard attended the further prorogation of 4 Nov. 1703 and the opening of the session on the 9th. He was named to the committee on the address on 10 November. That month Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that he would support the bill against occasional conformity; Barnard duly voted for the bill on 14 Dec. 1703. Nottingham included him on the list he drew up in 1704 of members of both Houses, which may indicate his support over the ‘Scotch Plot’. Barnard last sat on 30 Mar., having attended on 36 days of the session (37 per cent of the total). In November 1704 he was listed as a likely supporter of the Tack. He first attended the 1704–5 session on 23 Nov., when the House was called over, attending on only four days of the session, just 4 per cent of the total. On an analysis in relation to the Succession conducted in April 1705, he was classed as a Hanoverian.</p><p>Barnard was excused attendance of the Lords when the House was called over on 12 Nov. 1705. Indeed, he was present on only one day of the 1705–6 session, the last day before the Christmas recess, 21 Dec. 1705. His appearance then may have been related to a petition presented to the Lords on 14 Dec. by his younger son, William Vane<sup>‡</sup>, and his wife, and their son, Christopher Vane, claiming that, having been forced to bring a bill in chancery against Barnard and his wife for the execution of his marriage settlement made in November 1703, they could not proceed because Barnard was insisting on his privilege and therefore praying liberty to prosecute the suit. The House then ordered Barnard to have a copy of the petition and to answer it either in person or in writing. The suit seems to have lapsed for the time being.<sup>36</sup> On 26 Jan. 1706 Barnard registered a proxy in favour of Francis North*, 2nd baron Guilford.</p><p>In the 1706–7 session, Barnard attended on only three occasions, on 29 Jan. 1707 when the House was called over, and two days at the beginning of February. On 14 Feb. his son renewed his petition from the previous session to which Barnard delivered in his answer on 3 March. After several delays the House considered the matter on 18 Mar., referring it to the committee for privileges. Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, reported from the committee on 26 Mar. that Barnard’s answer to the petition amounted to a waiver of his privilege, and the House agreed.<sup>37</sup> On 14 Mar. 1707 Barnard registered a proxy in favour of his brother-in-law, Newcastle. He attended only one sitting of the short session of April 1707.</p><p>In May 1707 Sir John Cropley<sup>‡</sup> reported to Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, that he had heard from John Somers*, Baron Somers, that Newcastle was seeking Shaftesbury’s support to obtain a seat at Poole for Barnard’s son, William Vane.<sup>38</sup> Newcastle was certainly close to Barnard: in August 1707 he made his will, in which many of his estates were entailed on the male heirs of his sisters, firstly the Pelhams and then the Vanes.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Barnard was present on the opening day of the 1707–8 session, 23 Oct. 1707. He last sat on 31 Mar. 1708, having attended on 25 days of the session, less than a quarter of the total. On a list of about May 1708 he was classed as a Whig. On 30 June Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> recorded a commission of lunacy being opened in the exchequer, brought by Barnard against his eldest son, Gilbert, who had married a daughter of Morgan Randyll<sup>‡</sup>, and had since made a settlement that meant that she would inherit all of the estate after Barnard’s death.<sup>40</sup> A visitor to Barnard in June 1708 recalled drinking healths to the family, but not to the eldest son, whom he described as a ‘mad-man’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Barnard attended on the second day of the 1708–9 session, 18 Nov. 1708, taking the oaths and being appointed to the committee for privileges. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against allowing Scottish peers with British titles to vote in the election for Scottish representative peers. As James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> put it, lord treasurer Godolphin lost the vote in favour of the duke of Dover (James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensbury [S]) because of the ‘Jacobite Tories’ (one of whom he named as Barnard) who wished to ‘have their revenges’ on him ‘for his diligence’ against Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt.<sup>42</sup> Barnard last attended on 18 Feb. 1709, having been present for 15 days of the session, just 16 per cent of the total. He did not attend the 1709–10 session, evidence suggesting that by the beginning of the session he was in Durham.<sup>43</sup> When the votes were taken during the Sacheverell trial he was listed as being ‘in the country’.</p><p>In August 1710, Robert Price<sup>‡</sup> reported that ‘for the county of Durham, my Lord Barnard is persuaded to drop Mr Vane’, his son; Barnard was said to have thought ‘’tis folly at this time of day to strive against the stream’.<sup>44</sup> This was despite an offer by Newcastle to defray £1,000 of his nephew’s expenses should Barnard set him up for the county.<sup>45</sup> Newcastle wrote to Henry Paget*, the future Baron Burton and earl of Uxbridge, on 27 Sept. 1710 that ‘my nephew Vane I’m sure will do his utmost as you shall direct him’ in Staffordshire, where his wife had an interest.<sup>46</sup></p><p>According to an analysis by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, made on 3 Oct. 1710, Barnard was expected to support the new ministry. However, Barnard was absent from the Lords throughout the 1710–11 session. He was in London well in advance of the opening of the 1711–12 session, and on 10 Nov. 1711 he wrote from Kent hoping that Oxford (as Harley had since become) was well enough to go abroad, ‘then I should not doubt but to see accomplished this glorious work of making the peace which I am sure is the only remedy to prevent our ruin’. In that case he intended to be in town for Parliament ‘in Tuesday 14 days’ and he did attend the prorogation on that day, 27 November.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Barnard’s name appears on a list compiled by Oxford, just prior to the opening of the 1711–12 session, which probably indicates that he was seen as a supporter of the lord treasurer. His name also appeared on Oxford’s canvassing list of 2 December. Indeed, there is an undated letter, which may have been a reply to such a solicitation, promising to attend the House.<sup>48</sup> He was certainly in attendance on the opening day, 7 Dec. 1711, when he was named to the address committee. He was forecast by Oxford on 19 Dec. as likely to support the pretension of James Hamilton*, duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the Lords as a British peer, but when the division was held the following day he had registered a proxy in favour of Guilford, and proxies were not used. Oxford listed him as one of the lords to be contacted during the Christmas recess. Barnard next attended on 14 Jan. 1712, but on the 20th he registered a proxy in favour of Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth. He next sat on 25 January. Thereafter he did not attend again until June 1712, although his name appears on a list as a supporter of the ministry in the vote on 28 May on the ‘restraining orders’ sent to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>49</sup> In all, Barnard attended only nine sittings, just 8 per cent of the total.</p><p>Before the beginning of the 1713 session, he was listed by Jonathan Swift (with notes by Oxford) as likely to support the ministry. He was present when the session opened on 9 Apr., but then absent until 5 May. Around 13 June he was thought by Oxford as likely to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Over the course of the session he attended on 11 days, 17 per cent of the total.</p><p>On 31 Aug. 1713 Oxford’s son Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley, the future 2nd earl of Oxford, married Lady Barnard’s niece, Lady Henrietta Holles. The Barnards wrote letters of congratulation to Oxford, with Barnard adding a note of a rumour that ‘our militia will soon be called out, in order to have occasion to vex our honest voters’.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Barnard attended on the opening day of the 1714 session, 16 Feb. 1714. He registered a proxy in favour of Weymouth on 1 Apr., but attended on the following day, then registered another to Weymouth on 5 Apr., but attended again on the 13th. He was last present on 14 April. At the end of May or beginning of June 1714 he was forecast by Nottingham as likely to support the schism bill. On 28 May he registered a proxy in favour of Guilford. In all he attended on ten days of the session (13 per cent), and then was present for just two days of the short session following the death of Queen Anne. He attended only the first two days of the session which began in March 1715. On 12 Apr. 1716 he registered a proxy in favour of Dartmouth. The remainder of his career will be considered in the subsequent section of this work.</p><p>Barnard died on 28 Oct. 1723 at Fairlawn, Kent, and was succeeded by his son Gilbert Vane<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Barnard. His will betrayed his disenchantment with his daughter-in-law, whom he described as a ‘scandalous mother, who has brought by her carriage so much misfortune upon my family; and by which means has deprived her said son of a very considerable part of my personal estate I had otherwise designed him’. This was his grandson Henry<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Darlington, who was to receive £500 when aged 21. Barnard’s library of books and manuscripts was to go after his widow’s death to his second son, William, the future Viscount Vane [I]. James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> was the recipient of £100. Barnard’s funeral sermon was preached by Thomas Curteis of Wrotham, ‘formerly a Dissenter, and medical Doctor’, ordained by Charles Trimnell*, when bishop of Norwich, at the request of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>51</sup> In it he explained that Barnard ‘seldom cared to enter much into politics, though very few understood them better’, and that he had ‘a very just and honourable zeal for our excellent established church and its interests; yet, not without a charitable latitude towards those who conscientiously differed from it’.<sup>52</sup></p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
VAUGHAN, John (1639-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>VAUGHAN</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1639–1713)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Vaughan 1667-86; <em>suc. </em>fa. 3 June 1686 as 2nd Bar. VAUGHAN and 3rd earl of Carbery [I] |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 14 Feb. 1712 |
|
MP Carmarthen 1661-79, Carm. 1679-81, 1685-3 June 1686 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 18 July 1639, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Richard Vaughan*, Bar. Vaughan and 2nd earl of Carbery [I], and 2nd w. Frances Altham (1620–50); bro. of Francis Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Ld. Vaughan, and Altham Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (Jeremy Taylor); Christ Church, Oxf. 1656; I. Temple 1658. <em>m</em>. (1) 1672? Mary (<em>d</em>.1674), da. of George Brown of Green Castle, Carm. <em>s</em>.<em>p.</em>; (2) 10 Aug. 1682 (with £10,000), Anne Savile (1663–90), da. of George Savile*, mq. of Halifax, 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>., 1da. KB 1661. <em>d</em>. 16 Jan. 1713; <em>will</em> 25 May 1710, pr. 2 Feb. 1713.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. Jamaica 1674–8; supernumerary commr. admiralty 17 Apr.–19 May 1684, commr. admiralty 8 Mar. 1689–23 Jan. 1691.</p><p><em>Custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Card. and Carm. 1686–<em>d</em>.; gov. Milford Haven 1686;<sup>2</sup> v.-adm. S. Wales 1689–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. regt. of ft. 1673–4, 1689–?<sup>3</sup></p><p>FRS 1661, re-elected 1685, president 1686–9.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1700, NPG 3196.</p> |
<p>The Vaughans dof Golden Grove had dominated affairs in south Wales since the middle of the 16th century and although they had taken the side of Charles I in the civil wars still managed to emerge politically almost unscathed following the king’s defeat. Financially they were less fortunate, and although Vaughan’s father, the 2nd earl of Carbery, was released from his fines by Parliament it was left to his successor to restore the family’s fortunes, first through his ruthless exploitation of his office of governor of Jamaica and towards the end of his life by his tendency towards parsimony.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Returned to the Cavalier Parliament for Carmarthen, Vaughan appears initially to have been an inactive member. He seems to have had some Quaker sympathies: in 1664 he was arrested at a meeting at Mile End Green.<sup>7</sup> Both Vaughan’s mother and her brother-in-law, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, may also have had Dissenting sympathies. Unlike his father, who was at first one of the lord chancellor’s allies, Vaughan proved to be one of the foremost critics of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and in 1667 he was instrumental in securing a Commons’ majority for Clarendon’s impeachment.<sup>8</sup> (In this he should not be confused with another prominent anti-Clarendonian in the House, John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Cardiganshire.) The same year, by the death of his older brother, Francis, he became heir to the earldom of Carbery.</p><p>The family interest came under assault in the early 1670s over Carbery’s reputed mismanagement of the council of Wales, which resulted in his displacement. In 1674, as part of the compensation for his father’s loss of office, Vaughan was appointed governor of Jamaica and set out for his new posting towards the end of December.<sup>9</sup> His tenure of the post proved quite as controversial as his father’s had been in Wales. Having from the very beginning of his governorship fallen out with his deputy, the notorious buccaneer Henry Morgan, he was accused of selling members of his household, including his chaplain, into slavery and of overseeing a particularly brutal regime on the island.<sup>10</sup> After being in post for less than three years he was recalled and replaced by Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle (for whom the post had originally been intended).</p><p>Vaughan’s political allegiances altered dramatically between his departure for Jamaica and the close of the reign. During his absence he was noted as thrice vile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and elsewhere as a court supporter. On his return to England he appealed to his neighbour Sir Sackville Crow for his interest in Carmarthenshire at the first Exclusion election, for which he was returned without contest.<sup>11</sup> The same year, in spite of his already chequered reputation, it was rumoured that he was being considered for the post of ambassador to Constantinople.<sup>12</sup> Although Shaftesbury again marked Vaughan ‘vile’ and he was absent from the first division on the Exclusion bill, by 1681 he was generally believed to be a supporter of exclusion.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, in August 1681 Vaughan accompanied Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, who had been granted leave to travel abroad for his health, and Sir Cyril Wyche<sup>‡</sup> in visiting Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup>, the English envoy in France.<sup>14</sup> The following year (perhaps as a result of this encounter) he turned heads by marrying Savile’s niece, Anne.<sup>15</sup> Having only recently been associated with the most vociferous of the exclusionists, it was now reported that Vaughan intended to ‘become Tory’. Although ‘the other party’ was reported to be ‘very angry at this match’, Vaughan remained thereafter on close terms with his father-in-law, Halifax.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Re-elected to the Royal Society in 1685, Vaughan was elected its president the following year, a post he held for the next three years.<sup>17</sup> On the death of his father in June 1686 he succeeded to the Irish earldom of Carbery as well as to his seat in the House of Lords at Westminster as Baron Vaughan.<sup>18</sup> He was consistently listed as an opponent of the king’s policies. A report that he was to be one of 15 new members of the Privy Council to be appointed in July proved to be as inaccurate as it had been unlikely.<sup>19</sup> Carbery was unwilling to subscribe the petition for a free Parliament in November 1688. He was then the sole peer to attend all sessions of the provisional government that met in the wake of the king’s flight. Although he does not appear to have taken a particularly prominent role in its discussions, on 11 Dec. he was one of those to sign the declaration to the prince of Orange and to subscribe the letter to George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, ordering him to remove all Catholics from their commands in the fleet and to do his utmost to avoid clashing with the Dutch fleet.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Carbery took his seat for the first time in the House of Lords at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he attended on three-quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to 27 committees. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of inserting the words declaring William and Mary king and queen, subscribing the protest when this failed to be adopted. On 4 Feb. he supported the use of the term ‘abdicated’ and protested once more at the House’s decision not to agree with the Commons. Two days later he again voted in favour of employing the phrases ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He was appointed one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning the proclamation on 12 Feb. and on 21 Mar. he protested once more against the inclusion of a clause in the bill for abrogating oaths. On 24 Apr. he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the same business and on 31 May he voted in favour of reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates, once more subscribing the protest when the proposition failed to be carried. On 3 June Carbery was named to the committee considering the bill for abolishing the court of the marches of Wales, in which he presumably had a particular interest. He subscribed further protests against resolutions relating to the Oates case on 10 and 12 July and on 30 July he subscribed a further protest at the Lords’ resolution to adhere to their amendments.</p><p>Carbery’s support for the new regime no doubt encouraged him to submit a petition during the course of the first session for the grant of various Welsh offices that had previously been held by James’s ministers.<sup>21</sup> He did not go unrewarded and he was one of those to be granted command of a regiment as well as being appointed to the admiralty commission. He resumed his seat in the second session on 23 Oct. 1689, was present on almost 88 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to 17 committees. Among these was the committee enquiring into the death of William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, who had married Francis Vaughan’s widow. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), he was classified as a supporter of the court. On 23 Jan. 1690 he subscribed the protest at the resolution to remove the clause from the bill restoring the corporations, declaring that the surrender of charters under Charles II and James II was ‘illegal and void’.</p><p>Carbery almost certainly supported his kinsman Sir Rice Rudd<sup>‡</sup>, for Carmarthenshire in the March election of 1690; the borough seat went to another relation, Richard Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup> Absent from the opening of the new Parliament, Carbery was noted as being sick at a call on 31 Mar. but he resumed his seat on 3 Apr., after which he was present for a little over 46 per cent of all sitting days in the first session and was named to four committees. On 13 May, during the deliberations over the restoration of the charter of the corporation of London, he protested at the resolution not to permit the corporation more time to be heard by their counsel.</p><p>Carbery was present on five of the prorogation days, during which no business was transacted, between July and September 1690. That summer he also attended meetings of the admiralty commissioners presided over by the queen. At one he was noted to have ‘spoke once and no more’ but on a subsequent occasion he joined with several of his colleagues in speaking out against and then refusing to sign the commission appointing Sir Richard Haddock. At the beginning of August the queen complained that he was one of three members of the board to ‘continue obstinate’ on the matter.<sup>23</sup> Following this unsatisfactory episode Carbery retreated to Kent in company with Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford.<sup>24</sup> He returned to London in time to take his seat in the second session on 2 Oct. 1690, after which he was present on 71 per cent of all sitting days and named to 21 committees. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding that he hoped that he ‘would at least be absent’ on future occasions.<sup>25</sup> On 18 Oct. he acquainted the House of the committal of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, to the custody of the marshal of the high court of admiralty and it was as a result of the turmoil in the admiralty over Torrington’s arrest that Carbery stood down as one of the admiralty commissioners.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Carbery played host to a drunken gathering including Rice Rudd in mid-February 1691.<sup>27</sup> He attended three prorogation days and then returned to the House for the following session on 23 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on just under 68 per cent of all sitting days. Named to 29 committees in the course of the session, on 28 Nov. he received the proxy of Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield, who had succeeded Carbery’s father as the royalist commander in south Wales in 1643, which was vacated by Macclesfield’s resumption of his seat on 29 December. Carbery entered his dissent at the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, on 12 Jan. 1692 and he was also noted by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, among those likely to be opposed to his bill for recovering lands in Wales conveyed away during the Interregnum.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In June 1692 Carbery stood as one of the sureties for John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, and in August he was noted as being one of a gathering of peers and Members of Parliament at Pontacks, among them Marlborough, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin.<sup>29</sup> He resumed his seat in the fourth session on 7 Nov. 1692 and continued to attend for almost 86 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to 35 committees, including that on 12 Dec. to consider the bill repealing part of the act for the preservation of fisheries in the Severn, which may have had some local interest. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill. On 1 Jan. 1693 he was forecast as being in favour of the Norfolk divorce bill but, in keeping with his previous opposition to the measure, the following day he voted against reading the bill. Two days later he again voted in favour of the place bill, signing the protest when it failed. On 19 Jan. he entered two dissents: first at the resolution not to refer the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill to the committee for privileges and second at the decision to recede from those amendments. The following month he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder and on 1 and 3 Mar. he was named one of the managers of a succession of conferences concerning the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions. On 8 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to reject provisos concerning the searching of peers’ houses from the bill for reviving former laws.</p><p>Carbery once more attended on three of the prorogation days before resuming his seat in the fifth session on 7 Nov. 1693. Present for approximately 83 per cent of all sitting days, he was again nominated to a considerable number of committees including, on 5 Jan. 1694, that considering the bill repealing the Henrician Act limiting the number of justices in Wales. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted in favour of reversing the dismission by the court of chancery in the notorious case of <em>Montagu v Bath</em>.</p><p>Carbery narrowly missed out on being appointed to the lieutenancy of north Wales during the summer through Shrewsbury’s interest, though the post was also sought by Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, who had ‘set his heart’ on acquiring it. Carbery, it would appear, was ignorant of the manoeuvrings being undertaken on his behalf.<sup>30</sup> In the event Shrewsbury was himself appointed, only to be succeeded two years later by Macclesfield. Absent for the entirety of the following session, which sat from November 1694 to May 1695, on 24 Nov. Carbery registered his proxy with Shrewsbury and two days later was excused at a call of the House. Carbery’s absence at the opening of the session may have been on account of the December by-election in Cardiganshire, for which he employed his interest on behalf of his kinsman, John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Lisburne [I]), though this does not explain his continued absence for the remainder of the session.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Carbery attended the two prorogation days in September and October 1695. He resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, after which he was present for three-quarters of all sitting days. Named to 22 committees, 2 of which concerned naval affairs, on 6 Apr. he was nominated as one of the managers of the conference concerning the privateers’ bill. Problems arising from his inheritance continued to plague him: that year he was forced to resort to exhibiting a bill in chancery against his kinsman John Vaughan over the lease of part of the Carmarthenshire estate, which Vaughan was accused of permitting to fall into disrepair and for which he refused to pay rent.<sup>32</sup> Carbery returned to the House for the following session of Parliament on 20 Oct. 1696. Again present for slightly more than three-quarters of all sitting days, he was once more named to a substantial number of select committees, including that nominated on 2 Dec. to consider the answers submitted to the House by the admiralty commissioners. On 23 Dec. he voted in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Having attended the House on four of the prorogation days following the close of the session in April 1697, Carbery resumed his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 3 December. Present for almost 64 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to 23 committees. On 7 Feb. 1698 he petitioned the House, complaining of a breach of privilege committed by Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, who had brought a case in exchequer for the recovery of certain fee-farm rents. Following examination of the case in the committee for privileges, Carbery’s complaint was upheld and a stop ordered to all proceedings for the duration of the time of privilege.<sup>33</sup> On 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡ </sup>and the following day he registered his dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the case between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S]. On 25 May he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for the more effectual suppression of blasphemy and on 28 June to that concerning the impeachments of Goudet and others.</p><p>Absent at the opening of the new Parliament, Carbery resumed his seat in the House on 12 Jan. 1699, after which he continued to attend for approximately 60 per cent of all sitting days, being named to seven committees. On 29 Mar. he was one of five peers to be excused attendance at Mohun’s trial, possibly on account of ill health. On 3 May he was named one of the managers of an abortive conference with the Commons concerning the bill on paper and the following day, although omitted from the attendance list, he was one of those nominated to determine what should be done about the missed conference.</p><p>Rumours of alterations in the administration that circulated early that summer made mention of Carbery as a ‘close courtier’ but attached no particular role to him.<sup>34</sup> Such reports were no doubt encouraged by the news that began to circulate at the close of the previous year that Shrewsbury was to marry Carbery’s daughter, Anne (who was Carbery’s sole heir following the death of his second wife in childbirth).<sup>35</sup> In August 1699 further rumours circulated of Shrewsbury’s likely match with Anne Vaughan, ‘the greatest fortune of England’, but no progress was made, perhaps on account of Shrewsbury’s notoriously uncertain health.<sup>36</sup> Relations between Shrewsbury and his prospective father-in-law appear to have remained cordial and in September they travelled together to wait on the lord chancellor, John Somers*, Baron Somers, at Tunbridge Wells.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Carbery returned to the House for the second session on 23 Nov. 1699, after which he was present on approximately 65 per cent of all sitting days, but he was named to just four committees. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against the House adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss the proposed amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 8 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to read the Norfolk divorce bill a second time and four days later dissented at the resolution that the bill should pass. The previous month he had sarcastically proposed, in response to reports that numerous divorce bills were expected to be presented to the House in the event of Norfolk’s divorce being granted, that the House should save time by passing one general measure with the names of the parties written on the back of the bill in the same way that they dealt with naturalizations.<sup>38</sup> On 18 Mar. he entered a further dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for preventing the growth of popery.</p><p>Rumours of the Shrewsbury–Vaughan match continued to circulate. Shrewsbury spent part of the summer in Wales becoming acquainted with his prospective bride and in August details of a settlement were drawn up.<sup>39</sup> By September 1700 it was reported confidently that all was now settled for the marriage and that ‘the articles are at last adjusted with old Carbery’.<sup>40</sup> The following month, it was still believed that Shrewsbury was to marry Lady Anne, ‘a great fortune’, but it came to nothing.<sup>41</sup> Some concluded that Carbery’s parsimony had got the better of him and that he had failed to offer a sufficient dowry, though it is more probable that the duke’s notoriously fragile health intervened to postpone the match indefinitely.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Carbery took his seat in the first Parliament of 1701 on 10 Feb. and attended just over 70 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to seven committees, including that named on 13 May for William and Frances Vaughan, possibly members of his family. Following the dissolution, he employed the Vaughan interest in Carmarthenshire on behalf of Griffith Rice<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>43</sup> He also presented the Carmarthenshire county address to the king on 6 December.<sup>44</sup> He then returned to the House for the second Parliament of the year on 30 Dec., after which he attended on 80 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>Carbery resumed his seat in the new Parliament of Queen Anne on 6 Nov. 1702, and was present for just under half of all sitting days. On 1 Jan. 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be opposed to the occasional conformity bill and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. He resumed his seat in the second session on 9 Nov. 1703 and was present on 74 per cent of all sitting days in the session. In or about late November Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, predicted that he would oppose the occasional conformity bill and on 14 Dec. he voted against the measure as expected. On 20 Jan. 1704 he was present at a dinner attended by a number of Whig peers, including Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, and Torrington.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Carbery took his seat in the third session on 24 Oct. 1704, after which he attended on 67 per cent of all sitting days. He may have been listed among those peers believed to be in favour of the tack, though the mark on the list sits in between his name and that of William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron (who was probably the more likely supporter of the measure).<sup>46</sup> On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to the committee considering heads of the conference with the Commons concerning the Ailesbury men.</p><p>Carbery took his seat at the opening of the 1705 Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days in the session. He then resumed his seat in the following session on 3 Dec. 1706, and attended on 52 per cent of all sitting days. Having attended seven of the ten days of the brief session of April 1707, he was absent for the entirety of the ensuing Parliaments of 1707 and 1708. He was marked as a Whig in a list of party classifications of May 1708. Noted as being sick during the trial of Dr Sacheverell, Carbery returned to the House on 25 Nov. 1710 at the opening of the new Parliament.<sup>47</sup> In advance of the session he was noted as an opponent by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. His opposition may have been in part the result of a challenge to his authority in Cardiganshire by the Jacobite sympathizer Lewis Pryse<sup>‡</sup>, who had appealed to Harley for support over the management of various lordships in the area.<sup>48</sup> In the event, his opposition to Harley was of little account in the House as he attended on just over 17 per cent of all sitting days.</p><p>Listed among the members of the Kit Cat Club in 1711, Carbery took his seat in the House towards the close of that year on 7 Dec., after which he attended on just nine further occasions.<sup>49</sup> Following his first sitting he dined at the Queen’s Arms in company with a number of prominent Whig politicians, including Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, and Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>50</sup> The following day (8 Dec.) he was marked as an opponent of the court over the address containing the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon and the following day he voted in favour of barring Scots peers at the time of union from sitting by virtue of post-union British peerages.</p><p>Carbery registered his proxy with Devonshire on 4 Feb. 1712, which was vacated by his return to the House on 14 February. Having sat on just that day he quit the chamber for the last time and on 6 Mar. he registered his proxy with Wharton, which was vacated by the close of the session. In September he faced a further challenge to his management of his Welsh interests when Thomas Mansell*, Baron Mansell, petitioned Oxford (as Harley had since become) to convey a post at Milford held by Carbery’s steward, who it was noted had lived in London ever since being appointed, to one of Mansell’s followers.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Carbery died of apoplexy at his house in Chelsea in January 1713, shortly after returning from a meeting with his banker. It was a fitting end to one who had pursued gain throughout his career and who towards the end of his life had acquired an unflattering reputation as a miser.<sup>52</sup> Following his death there ensued a rather indecorous pursuit of his daughter and heir, Lady Anne Vaughan, by a number of hopeful candidates, among them Algernon Seymour*, styled earl of Hertford (later 7th duke of Somerset), Richard Lumley<sup>†</em> styled Viscount Lumley (later 2nd earl of Scarbrough), and Charles Powlett<sup>†</em>, styled marquess of Winchester (later 3rd duke of Bolton). The last of these proved to be successful, though the marriage ended in separation not long after.<sup>53</sup></p><p>In his will, Carbery made provision for the payment of annuities of £150 to his sisters, Frances and Althamia Vaughan, and a bequest of £100 to Charles Phillips, purser of the ship <em>Canterbury</em>, whose connection with Carbery is unclear. The remainder of his estates and possessions was left to Anne Vaughan, who, with her cousins, Richard Vaughan and John Vaughan, was constituted executor of her father’s will.<sup>54</sup> In the absence of a male heir the barony of Vaughan and earldom of Carbery [I] became extinct.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
VAUGHAN, Richard (c. 1600-86) |
<p><strong><surname>VAUGHAN</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (c. 1600–86)</p> |
<em>styled </em>Ld. Vaughan 1628-34; <em>suc. </em>fa. 6 May 1634 as 2nd earl of Carbery [I]; <em>cr. </em>25 Oct. 1643 Bar. VAUGHAN [I] |
|
First sat 1 June 1660; last sat 27 May 1679 |
|
MP Carm. 1624-6, 1628. |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1600, 1st s. of Sir John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Carbery [I], and 1st w. Margaret, da. of Sir Gelly Meyrick<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (Spain) 1622–3; G. Inn 1638. <em>m</em>. (1) by ?1626, Bridget (<em>d</em>.1636), da. of Thomas Lloyd of Llanllyr, Card. 2s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) 8 Aug. 1637, Frances (c.1621–50), da. of Sir James Altham of Oxhey, Herts. 3s. (2 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.), 6da. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (3) July 1652 (with £6,000), Alice (<em>d</em>. 1689), da. of John Egerton<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bridgwater, 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. KB 1 Feb. 1626. <em>d</em>. 3 June 1686;<sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> 10 Dec. 1639, pr. 10 May 1688.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr., council in the Marches 1645; ?v.-pres., Wales 1645; ld. pres., council in the Marches 1661–72; PC 1661–79.</p><p><em>Custos rot.</em>, Card. 1630–49, 1669–<em>d</em>., Carm. 1644–49, 1660–<em>d</em>., Pemb. 1643–6; bailiff, Kidwelly and Carreg Cennen castles, Carm. 1630–4 (jt.) 1634–?<em>d</em>. (sole); dep. lt. Carm. and Card. by 1637–42; ld. lt. Wales and the Marches 1660–72; constable, Radnor Castle 1660–?<em>d.</em>, Ludlow Castle, Salop 1665; chamberlain and steward of Brecon, Brec. 1660–<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> kpr. king’s game, Wales and the Marches 1661.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Col. ft. (roy.) 1642–3; capt. gen. (roy.), Wales, the Marches, and Chester 1643; lt. gen. (roy.), Carm., Pemb. and Card. 1643–5; gov. Milford Haven, Pemb. 1643.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, attrib. to William Dobson/Adriaen Hanneman, c.1670, Carmarthenshire County Museum.</p> |
<p>The Vaughans of Golden Grove claimed their descent from a bastard line of the mediaeval princes of Powys. The first member of the family to become established in the south of the principality was Hugh Fychan (Vaughan) (<em>fl</em>. 1490), whose son, John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup> (1525–74), was the first member of the family to sit in Parliament. Thereafter, members of the Vaughan family or their kin sat consistently for one or both of the seats in Carmarthen from 1558 until 1722.<sup>5</sup> John Vaughan’s grandson, also John Vaughan, was fortunate not to suffer the fate of his father-in-law, Sir Gelly Meyrick, who was executed for his part in the rebellion staged by his patron, Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, earl of Essex, in 1600.<sup>6</sup> Vaughan survived temporary disgrace to flourish under the new monarch, James I, and in 1621 he was created Baron Vaughan in the Irish peerage, ‘the first Carmarthenshire Welshman to be made a peer’. Vaughan accompanied Prince Charles to Spain in 1623, where it seems likely that he was accompanied by his heir, Richard Vaughan, who may have already been at Madrid as part of his foreign tour.<sup>7</sup> Although Vaughan failed to achieve high office when Prince Charles succeeded to the throne, he was promoted in the peerage as earl of Carbery [I], and Richard Vaughan (styled Lord Vaughan [I] from 1628) was knighted at the coronation.</p><p>The first earl died in May 1634, leaving a substantial estate to his heir, who proceeded to enlarge his territory in Wales over the ensuing 50 years, as well as developing interests in England by a series of astute marriages. On the outbreak of civil war Carbery was nominated both by Parliament and the king to oversee affairs in Wales but in the event sided with the royalist cause. Although he was an unsuccessful general, in 1643 he was rewarded with an English peerage as Baron Vaughan. Thus requited, after 1644 he retired within his ‘private walls to enjoy the happiness of a holy, quiet and innocent repose’ and took no further part in the conflict.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Despite his retirement, Carbery’s prominent role as a royalist commander initially attracted severe treatment from Parliament. In 1645 he was fined £160 and assessed by the committee for compounding as a delinquent at £4,500, but two years later he was pardoned, thanks in part to the intervention of his former enemy, the parliamentarian commander in Wales, Rowland Laugharne<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup> Carbery’s good fortune led to some accusing him of having turned coat, accusations that were strengthened by his opposition to a royalist uprising in south Wales in 1648 and by the manner in which he continued to dominate affairs in his native Carmarthenshire throughout the 1650s, having won the trust of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>10</sup> Nevertheless, in 1655 he was believed to be heavily involved in the risings that year.<sup>11</sup> During the Interregnum, Golden Grove served as a haven for former royalists, the most prominent of whom was Jeremy Taylor, who was employed as Carbery’s chaplain. Taylor dedicated a series of works to his patron and entitled his 1655 volume of prayers, <em>The Golden Grove</em>, after the place where he found sanctuary. In 1651 Carbery penned an essay of his own in the form of letters of advice to his son, styled Lord Vaughan, in which he enjoined him to fear God and honour the king and his family. More cynically he advised his son to learn how to tack and respond to the prevailing wind, ‘because commonwealths have their shelves and rocks, therefore get the skill of coasting and shifting your sails’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Despite his successful navigation of the stormy seas of the Commonwealth, Carbery undoubtedly welcomed the Restoration. As most of his kinsmen were disabled from standing for Parliament on account of their royalism, in the elections to the Convention he lent his interest at Carmarthen to Arthur Annesley* (later earl of Anglesey), who was married to Lady Carbery’s sister, Elizabeth.<sup>13</sup> In May 1660 he voiced his resentment at the way in which Edward Hyde* (later earl of Clarendon), had been sidelined during the king’s reception and he continued to be closely associated with Hyde over the next few years.<sup>14</sup> The following month he was one of those to set their signatures to the Welsh loyal address to the new king.<sup>15</sup> Rewards were quick to follow with Carbery appointed to the constableship of the castles of Radnor and Ludlow (to which Carbery named his secretary, the satirical author Samuel Butler, as steward), as well as a number of other local offices in Wales.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Carbery took his seat in the House (sitting as Baron Vaughan), along with a number of other peers holding titles created in the civil wars, on 1 June 1660, after which he sat was present for approximately 43 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 4 June he was added to the committee for privileges and he was named to three further select committees in the course of the session. On 31 July, although present on the attendance list that day, he was noted as being absent at a call of the House and fined 5<em>s</em>. Carbery was appointed lord lieutenant of both north and south Wales in September. He resumed his seat in the House at the opening of the second session of the Convention on 6 Nov. 1660, after which he was present for just over 82 per cent of all sitting days, though he was named to just one committee.</p><p>Carbery’s dominance in Wales was underlined by his appointment to the presidency of the reconstituted council in Wales and the Marches in January 1661 but his selection met with a distinctly lukewarm response in some quarters. Edward Herbert* 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, complained of Carbery’s ‘long neglect of the king’s service’, though he conceded that should Carbery deal ‘cordially in the king’s affairs’ he would revise his opinion.<sup>17</sup> Herbert was quick to demonstrate his own zealousness, sending Carbery a lengthy screed on 24 Jan. detailing the decisions taken in Merioneth, Caernarvon, and Anglesey, as well as ‘the rest of our proceedings and intentions’, while urging Carbery to ‘let me know what numbers of trained bands or volunteers, horse and foot are raised or to be raised in South Wales that I may argue the case with my countrymen who seem very backward in my opinion’.<sup>18</sup> Although Carbery’s status in Wales was unrivalled, the manner of his appointment later created difficulties for his successors in the office. On his dismissal from the post the following decade, it was discovered that the marcher counties of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire had been omitted from his patent ‘to please the earl of Clarendon’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Carbery employed his extensive interest in the elections for the Cavalier Parliament, but failed to secure the return of his chosen candidate for Breconshire.<sup>20</sup> The election for New Radnor proved to be similarly contentious and resulted in a dispute between Carbery and the high sheriff for Carmarthenshire, Evan Davies, when Carbery attempted to put up ‘a stranger’, Sir Allen Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> (former secretary to the Sealed Knot and a creature of Clarendon’s), in opposition to the former steward, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>21</sup> In the event Carbery’s interest at New Radnor proved unequal to the task of overturning that of Davies and the Harleys. He was, however, successful in persuading the sitting member for the county, George Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, to stand down in favour of Sir Richard Lloyd<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup> In Carmarthenshire, the Golden Grove interest also prevailed, seeing both seats taken by Carbery’s sons, Francis Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Vaughan, for the county and John Vaughan* (later 3rd earl of Carbery), for the borough. The latter should not be confused with the Member of the Commons and prominent lawyer of the same name.</p><p>Carbery took his seat at the opening of Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he continued to attend for approximately 46 per cent of all sitting days in the session and was named to 11 committees. The decision of Sir Heneage Finch* (later earl of Nottingham), to sit for Oxford University rather than Beaumaris triggered a by-election there in July, at which Carbery was successful in securing the return of John Robinson<sup>‡</sup>, assisted by the failure of Thomas Butler* earl of Ossory [I] (later Baron Butler of Moore Park), to notify Robert Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Bulkeley [I], in time of his own intention to stand on the Bulkeley interest.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Carbery registered his proxy with the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley* 4th earl of Southampton (his eldest son’s father-in-law), on 10 Dec. 1661, to enable him to concentrate on affairs in Wales. The first few weeks of 1662 found him at Ludlow overseeing his new responsibilities, in preparation for which he had written to the local officers at the close of December to ‘keep strict watch and ward in all passages and highways by day and night to prevent the dangerous designs of malicious disturbers of the peace’.<sup>24</sup> On 16 Jan. 1662 (in his absence) the House was informed of a breach of privilege committed against Carbery by the arrest of one of his servants, Clement Oxonbridge. Two months later, on 22 Mar., Anglesey informed the House that the offender, Samuel Wightwick, had given way, acknowledging Carbery’s protection of his servant. Carbery resumed his seat in April. In July he was noted as being opposed to the claim put forward by Aubrey de Vere* 20th earl of Oxford, for the lord great chamberlaincy. His opposition may well have been motivated by a personal dispute with Oxford over the settlement of the estate of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Viscount Bayning.<sup>25</sup> Litigation concerning a debt owed by Carbery to the Bayning estate, which was claimed by Oxford in right of his wife, continued until 1674 and there is some suggestion that Carbery’s role in the affair was far from straight.<sup>26</sup> Carbery also continued to court controversy over his management in Wales and in May 1662 George Goring* earl of Norwich, complained that Carbery was obstructing the passing of his patent to be secretary to the council of Wales.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Carbery took his seat in the second session of the Cavalier Parliament on 18 Feb. 1663, when he was named to the committee for privileges. He was named to the committee for petitions on 25 Feb. and to a further six committees in the course of the session, of which he attended approximately 45 per cent of all sitting days. The reason for his absence for over half of the session was probably his responsibilities in the principality and on 29 Apr. he was granted leave of absence so that he could attend to the council in Wales. Having sat for one more day he was then absent until 23 June 1663 and it was probably during this absence that he registered his proxy once more with Southampton, though the date of the proxy is uncertain. On 13 July, Philip Wharton* 4th Baron Wharton, forecast Carbery, unsurprisingly, as being opposed to the attempt made by George Digby* 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon. Carbery’s close association with both Clarendon and Southampton had been apparent since at least the spring of 1660.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Carbery returned to the House for the following session on 16 Mar. 1664, after which he attended on each day of the 36-day session. Despite this assiduousness he was named to just two committees. In July his younger son, John Vaughan, was arrested at a Quaker meeting at Mile End Green and gaoled in Newgate.<sup>29</sup> There is no indication that any other member of the family shared his religious sympathies, though Lady Carbery was noted for her piety. Indeed, Carbery himself had stressed in his letter to his eldest son, ‘For thy religion, distinguish not thy self by, be not factious for, nor serve under any sect whatsoever.’<sup>30</sup> Responsibilities in Wales again account for Carbery’s late return to the House for the ensuing (1664–5) session. The session opened on 24 Nov. 1664 but on 28 Nov. he was at Ludlow Castle, whence he wrote to the deputy lieutenants for Caernarvonshire requesting that they send up the names of the militia offices to him at London.<sup>31</sup> Missing at a call on 7 Dec. he was noted as being en route to London and he took his seat five days later. He thereafter attended on approximately 58 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to eight committees. On 11 Feb. 1665 the House was informed that Carbery’s privilege had again been infringed by several of his neighbours carrying away corn from his barns, and ordered that full restitution should be made.</p><p>Carbery was absent for the entirety of the session of October 1665 and he was also missing from the opening weeks of the following session that opened on 18 Sept. 1666. On 1 Nov. he again registered his proxy with Southampton, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 12 December. He was thereafter present on just under 10 per cent of all sitting days and was named to a single committee before once more absenting himself. In February 1667, Carbery and Southampton employed their collective interest with Clarendon to secure payment of fees owing to Sir Job Charlton<sup>‡</sup> but the death of Carbery’s heir, Lord Vaughan, the following month and his continuing responsibilities in Wales perhaps explain his reduced attendance of the House at this time.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Present on two of the prorogation days in July 1667, Carbery took his seat in the seventh session on 10 Oct., after which he was present on approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days and was named to seven committees. By this time he appears to have departed from his former loyalty to Clarendon and on 20 Nov. he joined with a number of opposition peers in subscribing the protest at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request to commit Clarendon without a specific charge. On 6 Dec. Carbery had another complaint referred to the privileges committee over the arrest of one of his servants (George Welden) by the high bailiff of Westminster. The committee ordered Welden’s release and restitution of his goods on 10 Dec. but there was further consideration of the question of Carbery’s privilege on 6 Apr. 1668. Welden’s cause resurfaced on 13 Apr. when continued efforts to secure the payment of his debts were considered in <em>Worth v Welden</em><em>. </em></p><p>Carbery was in London during the summer of 1668. He attended a meeting of the Privy Council, of which he had been a member since 1661 on 15 June and on 18 Sept. he was present at a meeting of the commissioners appointed to settle trade between England and Scotland, though this appears to have been the only occasion on which he participated in this business.<sup>33</sup> He was then absent from the House for the whole of the session of October to December 1669 and on 13 Oct. he registered his proxy with George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. Still absent at the opening of the ensuing Parliament, he was excused at a call on 21 Feb. 1670 and, after taking his seat on 26 Feb., he attended for just 15 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to seven committees. In March the arrest of another of Carbery’s servants (William Davyes) by one David Morgan precipitated a further hearing in the committee for privileges but on this occasion the committee ordered that Morgan should be granted leave to proceed to trial against Davyes.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Carbery’s poor attendance at this time may have been connected with complaints beginning to circulate about his administration in Wales. In June 1670 he was instructed to put out the deputy clerk of the council of Wales for having ‘abused his office by illegal proceedings’ and in July Thomas Hunton, yeoman of the wardrobe at Ludlow, made a direct complaint against Carbery himself, accusing him of misappropriating funds.<sup>35</sup> According to Hunton, of the £9,000 allocated to Carbery for repairs and purchase of new furniture for Ludlow Castle he had spent only £3,000 and had skimped on the new furniture by buying second-hand items. Officials were despatched to Ludlow to investigate the complaint. Although they were said to have been roughly treated by Carbery’s servants and even by his countess, of whom one of the officers is said to have complained that it was ‘well she cannot take away the castle with her’, in August the Privy Council cleared him of any wrongdoing.<sup>36</sup> Even so, Carbery appears to have resolved to protect his interests in Wales in person over the next two years. On 15 Oct. 1670 he registered his proxy with John Granville* earl of Bath. He was excused at a call of the House on 14 Nov. and was then excused again on 10 Feb. 1671. The following month, on 30 Mar., he approached his brother-in-law, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater to ask if he would take over the proxy as Bath had quit the session and registered his own with John Belayse*, Baron Belasyse, on 14 March. Bridgwater was unable to comply, being already in possession of two proxies. Carbery was also concerned to enlist Bridgwater’s aid in having David Morgan and Morgan Lloyd arrested for their continuing efforts to prosecute William Davies.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Carbery was present in the House on just two occasions between April 1670 and February 1673. Despite being exonerated by the Privy Council, complaints about his management in Wales continued to escalate, such that in January 1672 it was predicted that he would be replaced as president of the council of Wales by Henry Somerset* marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort).<sup>38</sup> Following the accusation of embezzlement, the latest reports charged Carbery with maltreating his tenants. The allegations appear to have arisen from a suit in chancery initiated by William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, to regain possession of estates in right of his wife, Lady Rachel, widow of Carbery’s eldest son, Francis, Lord Vaughan.<sup>39</sup> Carbery’s agents subjected the inhabitants of the estates awarded to Russell to a vicious assault: ‘some their ears cut off and one his tongue cut out, and all dispossessed’.<sup>40</sup> In the face of such constant criticism of his mismanagement, Carbery was put out as predicted, leaving it to his successor, Beaufort, to attend to the dilapidated condition of Ludlow.<sup>41</sup> For all this Carbery was unrepentant following his dismissal and was swift to petition the king for compensation, arguing that he had:</p><blockquote><p>endeavoured to serve well rather than to profit himself, and being burdened with debt from his sufferings for loyalty, he is compelled lest his family want bread to remind His Majesty of his promises of relief, it being a sacred observation that in the word of a king there is power and safety.<sup>42</sup></p></blockquote><p>Carbery returned to the House on 4 Feb. 1673, after which he attended on almost 88 per cent of all sitting days, but he was named to just one committee. He attended three of the four days of the brief session of October 1673, once more resuming his seat in the ensuing session on 7 Jan. 1674. That month, in response to his appeals for financial assistance, he was awarded a royal bounty of £200 and the same year his heir, John, styled Lord Vaughan, was appointed governor of Jamaica.<sup>43</sup> Carbery’s attendance remained high during the session, at 87 per cent of all sitting days, but he was again named to only one committee besides the sessional committees. He attended the prorogation day on 10 Nov. 1674 and then resumed his seat for the first session of 1675 on 13 Apr., when he again displayed a high rate of attendance (95 per cent) and was named to seven committees. Believed to be likely to support the non-resisting test, on 10 May he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to affirm the decree in the cause of <em>Barret v Viscount Loftus</em>.</p><p>Carbery was again assiduous in his attendance in the short second session of 1675. Present on over 85 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to six committees, on 20 Nov. he voted against addressing the crown for a dissolution. He resumed his seat at the opening of the following session on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he was present for 97 per cent of all sitting days. Named to the committees for privileges and petitions on the first day, over the course of the session he was also named to a further 36 select committees. Anthony Ashley Cooper* earl of Shaftesbury, assessed Carbery as ‘thrice vile’ in May 1677. After the brief recess, Carbery returned to the House for the following session on 23 May 1678, when he was again named to the sessional committees for petitions, privileges, and the Journal. Once more assiduous in his attendance, he was present for almost 84 per cent of all sitting days in the session and was named to a further six committees. Having attended on three of the prorogation days in August and October, he resumed his seat in the new session of October 1678, after which he was present for almost 92 per cent of the remaining days. On 15 Nov. he voted against disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament and on 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the disbanding bill. The following day he voted against committing Thomas Osborne* earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>Carbery was listed by Danby as a likely supporter in a series of forecasts drawn up in advance of the new Parliament. He attended on six days of the abortive first session of March 1679, then took his seat at the opening of the first Exclusion Parliament on 15 Mar., after which he was present on every sitting day. Named to the sessional committees for privileges, petitions, and the Journal on 17 Mar., he was thereafter named to a further four committees in the course of the session. Carbery voted against Danby’s attainder on 1 and 14 Apr. and on 10 May he voted against appointing a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords.</p><p>Omitted from the reconstituted Privy Council in April 1679, Carbery sat for the final time on 27 May, when he probably voted for the right of the bishops to remain in the House during consideration of capital cases. By March 1680 he described himself as being in ‘retirement’ at Golden Grove.<sup>44</sup> On 30 Oct. 1680 he was excused at a call of the House and on 15 Nov. he was included in a list of those missing from the divisions on the exclusion bill. Danby again recorded Carbery as a supporter in a pre-sessional forecast of March 1681, but Carbery did not attend the brief Parliament of 1681.</p><p>Carbery ‘nobly entertained’ the duke of Beaufort (as Worcester had become), his successor in the presidency of the council of Wales, during the latter’s progress through Wales in 1684.<sup>45</sup> In spite of this demonstration of lavish hospitality, financial concerns appear to have plagued Carbery’s declining years.<sup>46</sup> Cases continued to be brought against his heirs after his demise over the non-payment of debts in which, as in his dispute with Oxford, he seems to have been guilty of sharp practice.<sup>47</sup> He failed to take his seat in the first Parliament of the new reign in 1685 and died the following year on 3 June 1686.<sup>48</sup> Contrary to his desire that he be buried in the family vault at Llandeilo Fawr, he was instead interred at Llanfihangel Aberbythych. Limited administration of his will, which he had composed in 1639 and which he had left unchanged despite the subsequent deaths of his then wife, Frances, and heir, Francis, Lord Vaughan, was granted to his sister-in-law (by his long-deceased second wife), Elizabeth, countess of Anglesey, in 1687. The whole was finally proved in May 1688.<sup>49</sup> Carbery’s enduring legacy was probably to the Welsh language, which he had championed, petitioning successfully for royal support for an edition of the Bible and other texts in ‘the British language’.<sup>50</sup> In other regards he was best remembered as a rapacious landlord and corrupt official. He was succeeded as 3rd earl of Carbery by his eldest surviving son, John, Lord Vaughan. His other surviving son, Altham Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, like his brothers, served as Member for Carmarthen.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
VAUX, Edward (1588-1661) |
<p><strong><surname>VAUX</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1588–1661)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 20 Aug. 1595 as 4th Bar. VAUX of HARROWDEN |
|
First sat 19 Feb. 1624; last sat 10 Mar. 1629 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 13 Sep. 1588, s. of George Vaux (<em>d</em>. 13 July 1594), of Harrowden Hall, Northants. and Elizabeth, da. of John Roper<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Teynham; bro. of Henry Vaux* 5th Bar. Vaux. <em>educ.</em> travelled abroad (Italy 1609–11, Low Countries 1611). <em>m</em>. bef. 2 July 1632, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1658), wid. of William Knollys<sup>†</sup>, earl of Banbury, <em>s.p.,</em> 2s. illegit. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 8 Sept. 1661; <em>will</em> 25 Apr., pr. 9 Sept. 1661.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Vaux had a long history of involvement in Catholic opposition to the crown. He had been implicated in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and imprisoned from 1612 to 1614 for refusing to take the oath of allegiance and again in 1625 for resisting a search for arms at his house in Boughton. In 1632 he married Elizabeth Knollys, widow of William Knollys<sup>†</sup> earl of Banbury. She too was a Catholic and had been living at Vaux’s house for some time. Vaux was widely believed to be the father of her two sons, Edward and Nicholas. Suspicion was fuelled by the speed of their marriage – some five weeks after the death of her first husband – and by Vaux’s unusual arrangements for the settlement of his estate. In 1635 he settled all his lands on the eldest son of the countess as Edward (1627–45), ‘commonly called Edward Vaux’; after Edward’s death, he settled the same in 1646 on her other son, Nicholas, ‘now earl of Banbury … heretofore called Nicholas Vaux’.</p><p>Vaux’s Catholicism made him a target of the parliamentarian regime but he spent much of the civil wars abroad.<sup>2</sup> His Northamptonshire lands were sequestered for recusancy, his house was looted and timber was also seized.<sup>3</sup> His compositions suggest that he had been forced to sell much of his land, probably on disadvantageous terms.<sup>4</sup> In a petition read before the Lords on 18 June 1660 he claimed that sequestration had cost him ‘personal estate to the value of £10,000 and upwards’ and that he was left with scarcely £300 a year with which to maintain himself and his family. Although one might expect Vaux to exaggerate his difficulties, even the sequestrators had valued his estates at only £300 a year in 1644.<sup>5</sup> Twenty years after his death the manors of Great and Little Harrowden, which he had settled on his illegitimate son Nicholas Knollys*, titular 3rd earl of Banbury, were said to be worth between £1,100 and £1,200 a year, but this is likely to be an overestimate.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Vaux made no attempt to take his seat in the House of Lords. At a call of the House on 30 July 1660 he was listed as absent and was thus not present during the proceedings over the right of Banbury to take his seat. On 20 May 1661 he was listed as having leave to be absent. He died in September and was succeeded by his brother, Henry.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
VAUX, Henry (c. 1591-1663) |
<p><strong><surname>VAUX</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1591–1663)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 8 Sept. 1661 as 5th Bar. VAUX of HARROWDEN |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1591,<sup>1</sup> ?3rd but 2nd surv. s. of George Vaux (<em>d</em>. 13 July 1594), of Harrowden Hall, Northants. and Elizabeth, da. John Roper<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Teynham; bro. of Edward Vaux*, 4th Bar. Vaux. <em>educ</em>. English College, Rome, 1610–18. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 20 Sept. 1663; <em>will</em> 11 Sept. 1661–19 Sept. 1663, pr. 12 Oct. 1663.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Like his brother, Vaux had a long history of involvement in Catholic opposition to the crown. His estates were sequestered for recusancy during the Interregnum and he seems to have resided at Eye in Suffolk.<sup>3</sup> He inherited no lands with his title, they having been settled on Nicholas Knollys*, titular 3rd earl of Banbury, but he was granted an annuity of £100 p.a.</p><p>Following the death of his brother, Vaux sent a petition to the king asking for a writ of summons, but there is no evidence that he actually took his seat.<sup>4</sup> He was absent when the House was called over on 25 Nov. 1661. At his death the title fell into abeyance until 1838.</p> |
R.P./S.N.H. |
|
VENABLES BERTIE, Montagu (1673-1743) |
<p><strong><surname>VENABLES BERTIE</surname></strong> (<em>formerly</em> <strong>BERTIE</strong>), <strong>Montagu</strong> (1673–1743)</p> |
<em>styled </em> Ld. Norreys 1682-99; <em>suc. </em>fa. 22 May 1699 as 2nd earl of ABINGDON |
|
First sat 18 Dec. 1699; last sat 26 May 1742 |
|
MP Berks. 1689, Oxon. 1690-22 May 1699 |
<p><em>b</em>. 4 Feb. 1673, 1st s. of James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, and Eleanora, da. and coh. of Sir Henry Lee<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. of Quarrendon, Bucks. and Ditchley, Oxon.; bro. of Henry<sup>‡</sup>, James<sup>‡</sup>, and Robert Bertie<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1685. <em>m</em>. (1) 22 Sept. 1687 (with £4,000), Anne <em>styled</em> Baroness Kinderton, (<em>d</em>.1715), da. and coh. of Peter Venables (<em>d</em>.1679), <em>styled</em> Bar. Kinderton, of Kinderton, Cheshire, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) 13 Feb. 1717, Mary (<em>d</em>.1757), da. and h. of James Gould<sup>‡</sup> of Dorchester, Dorset, wid. of Charles Churchill<sup>‡</sup> of Minterne Magna, Dorset, 1s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 16 June 1743; <em>will</em> 3 Apr. 1736, pr. 1 July 1743.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Constable of the Tower 1702–5; c.j. in eyre south of Trent 1702–6, 1711–15; PC 21 Apr. 1702–20 May 1707, 9 Feb. 1711–14, 29 Sept. 1714–15, 20 Sept. 1727, 2 Oct. 1727; ld. justice 1 Aug.–18 Sept. 1714.</p><p>Freeman, Woodstock 1686, Oxford 1687, Chester 1712; commr. for assessment, Berks., Cheshire, Oxon., and Wilts. 1689–90; dep. lt. Berks. 1689–1701; high steward, Malmesbury 1699–1701,<sup>2</sup> Oxford 1699–<em>d</em>.,<sup>3</sup> Wallingford 1699–<em>d</em>.,<sup>4</sup> Abingdon by 1713;<sup>5</sup> <em>custos rot</em>. Berks. 1701–2; ld. lt., Berks. 1701–2, Oxon. 1702–6, 1712–15, Tower Hamlets 1702–5; j.p. Berks. 1701–?<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt. of horse, Oxf. Univ. militia 1685.</p> |
|
<p>A leader of the Tories under Queen Anne and the head of a significant parliamentary connection, Norreys (as he was styled until his inheritance of the earldom) began his political apprenticeship early when his father attempted to have him returned for Woodstock at the age of just 13. Despite the overwhelming strength of the Bertie interest in the area, and the avowal of his grandmother, Lady Rochester, that there were other younger Members in the House at the time, the young man was unsuccessful.<sup>7</sup> Two years later he enjoyed better fortune when he was returned to the Convention for Berkshire on the family interest, despite still being clearly underage. The following year he switched to Oxfordshire, which he continued to represent until his elevation to the Lords.</p><p>Norreys’s additional surname was adopted at the time of his marriage to Anne Venables, a niece of Robert Shirley*, Baron Ferrers (later Earl Ferrers). Lady Norreys also claimed the style of Baroness Kinderton through her succession to the manor of Kinderton in Cheshire. While the match brought Norreys only a modest fortune and no obvious local interest, his wife was later to prove an influential ally on account of her intimacy with Queen Anne as one of her ladies of the bedchamber.<sup>8</sup> Part of an intricate kinship network dominated by the Berties and Osbornes, Norreys’s close relationship to Robert Bertie*, marquess of Lindsey (later duke of Ancaster), and Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, helped to consolidate his political interest. Another kinsman, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (and later marquess of) Wharton, on the other hand, proved to be a serious and consistent rival. With the earldom, Norreys inherited a long-running dispute with Wharton over the Lee estates, whose partition between Anne and Eleanora Lee had led to disagreements between their husbands. The case, first brought by Wharton against the 1st earl of Abingdon in 1687, was to prove a serious distraction for both families for a number of years.<sup>9</sup></p><p><em>First years in the Lords, 1699–1705</em></p><p>Norreys succeeded to the earldom following his father’s death from the effects of ‘an ague and a most violent fever’ in May 1699.<sup>10</sup> Already a seasoned campaigner, with the peerage the new earl succeeded to the considerable Bertie interest.<sup>11</sup> This included practically unchallenged influence at Westbury in Wiltshire and a commanding interest in New Woodstock and in Berkshire. The strength of Bertie influence in Oxford itself was demonstrated by Abingdon’s unanimous election as high steward in succession to his father, despite a concerted effort made by John Somers*, Baron Somers, to set himself up as a rival candidate.<sup>12</sup> Abingdon was also honoured with election as high steward at Malmesbury in place of another prominent member of the Junto, his cousin Wharton, though this appears to have given him only limited interest in the borough.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Abingdon’s succession to the peerage occurred during the prorogation between the first and second sessions of the 1698 Parliament, so it was not until December 1699 that he was able to take his seat in the House, after which he was present for approximately 60 per cent of sitting days in the session. Named to three committees in January 1700, on 1 Feb. he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 8 Feb. he registered his dissent at the resolution to put the question whether the Scots colony at Darien was inconsistent with the wellbeing of England’s plantations. Two days later he subscribed the protest at the resolution to concur with the committee in the address to the king embodying the Lords’ resolutions concerning the Darien colony. On 23 Feb. Abingdon voted in favour of adjourning so that two amendments could be discussed in a committee of the whole House considering the East India Company bill.</p><p>Named to two further committees in March, Abingdon continued to sit until the close of the session on 11 April. That month it was speculated that he would soon be appointed lord lieutenant of Berkshire, a prediction that was proved right the following year.<sup>14</sup> After the dissolution in December 1700, he employed his interest in Oxfordshire to force the sitting Member, his successor in the seat, Sir Robert Dashwood<sup>‡</sup> with whom he was said to have had ‘a misunderstanding’, to stand down at the election of January 1701.<sup>15</sup> Abingdon’s kinsman Sir Edward Norreys<sup>‡</sup> was elected in Dashwood’s stead, along with Sir Robert Jenkinson<sup>‡</sup>, who was also returned unopposed on the Bertie interest.<sup>16</sup> Elsewhere the family interest also held reasonably firm, with Abingdon’s brothers Robert and James being returned respectively at Westbury and New Woodstock. Despite a direct approach from Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]), Abingdon seems not to have made use of his interest on Verney’s account in Buckinghamshire.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Feb. 1701, after which he continued to sit for the majority of the session, being present on approximately 77 per cent of sitting days. On 14 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw up an address concerning the partition treaty and the following day he subscribed the first of a number of protests during the session, protesting at the resolution to reject the second and third heads of the report relating to the partition treaty. Three days later he dissented from the resolution to refer a head declaring that the French king’s acceptance of the Spanish king’s will was a breach of the treaty to the committee drawing up the address concerning the partition treaty. The same day he also dissented from the resolution not to send a head stating that the emperor was excluded from the latter stages of the negotiations to the same committee. On 20 Mar. Abingdon subscribed a protest complaining at the resolution not to send the address on the partition treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. On 15 Apr. he acted as teller during the division on the Brookfield Market bill and the next day again acted as teller on the question of whether to appoint a committee for the impeached lords. The same day he subscribed protests at the resolution to expunge the reasons given in a protest of the previous day from the Journal and at the resolution to appoint a committee to draw up an address requesting that the king not punish the four impeached lords until they had been tried.</p><p>Abingdon was appointed lord lieutenant of Berkshire at the close of April 1701. Further appointments also appeared to be in prospect, though the following month it was noted that his patent to be constable of the Tower had not yet passed and a report at the close of June that he was one of two peers thought likely to be made lord privy seal proved inaccurate.<sup>18</sup> Amid these expectations, he continued to be active in the House and on 3 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to accept the final paragraph of the answer drawn by the committee to the Commons’ message concerning the impeachment of the Whig lords. He subscribed a further protest on 9 June at the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons’ committee regarding the impeachments. The following day he was teller for the division on whether to adjourn during the debates on the supply bill and was named to the committee considering the preliminaries for the trials of the impeached lords. On 11 June he protested at the resolution to put the question whether a lord being tried on an impeachment for high crimes should be without the bar of the House; three days later he protested again at the message to the Commons requesting a conference on the impeachments, and at the resolution to insist on the Lords’ resolution not to appoint a committee of both Houses on the matter of the impeachment of the Whig lords. Abingdon registered two more protests on 17 June, first at the resolution to put the question to acquit Somers, and second at the resolution to proceed to Westminster Hall for Somers’s trial; on the latter point he also acted as teller. The same day he voted against acquitting Somers. </p><p>Abingdon appears to have spent some time at Bath during the summer of 1701.<sup>19</sup> He resumed his seat for the new session on 28 Feb. 1702, during the course of which he attended just over half of all sitting days. On 19 Mar. the House granted leave for him to bring in a bill to sell certain lands so that he could purchase others more convenient for the management of his estates.<sup>20</sup> Ferrers reported from the committee considering Abingdon’s bill on 1 Apr., recommending it as fit to pass with certain minor amendments.</p><p>Abingdon’s prospects of being appointed to office improved markedly following the accession of Queen Anne. Lady Abingdon was one of the new appointees as lady of the bedchamber, while Abingdon himself was appointed to the Privy Council. Rumours circulated that he was to replace Wharton as comptroller of the household or be appointed constable of the Tower.<sup>21</sup> By mid-April it was thought that the comptrollership lay between Abingdon and Colonel Granville (John Granville*, Baron Granville of Potheridge) but in the event the place went to Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. Excused at a call of the House on 1 May, Abingdon resumed his seat three days later and on 7 May he was one of the managers of a conference on the bill for altering the oath of abjuration. On 16 May he acted as teller in the division on the question of whether to burn Bincks’s sermon, and on 21 May on the question of whether to dismiss Roche during the debates on Lavallin’s bill.</p><p>Following a month of speculation, Abingdon was finally constituted constable of the Tower on 21 May 1702.<sup>22</sup> Nine days later he was also appointed lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire in place of Wharton. As part of this arrangement he relinquished his lieutenancy of Berkshire, which was granted to William Craven*, 2nd Baron Craven.<sup>23</sup> Abingdon’s uncle, Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, joined him in the administration of the Tower as deputy governor.<sup>24</sup> On 20 June the lieutenancy of the Tower Hamlets was added to his responsibilities and he was also appointed chief justice in eyre south of Trent, again in succession to Wharton. Clearly recognizing the Bertie ascendancy in the locality, the city of Oxford voted an address of thanks to Abingdon in June, in acknowledgement of ‘how exceedingly kind and helpful’ he had been towards the delegation present at the coronation.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution, Abingdon was able to use his interest with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, on behalf of his cousin D’Oyly, and from about this time he appears to have co-operated fairly closely with Nottingham in the House.<sup>26</sup> In particular, they agreed warmly on the subject of defence of the Church. Abingdon was able to secure the return of two Tories at Woodstock in the August elections.<sup>27</sup> The return of two more Tory members for Oxfordshire was a further reflection of his influence in the county, as was the queen’s decision to stay at Rycote on her way to Bath.<sup>28</sup> Abingdon’s interest at Westbury came under unusually fierce attack, with both seats being taken by Whigs, though they were later unseated on petition and replaced by two of Abingdon’s kinsmen.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Abingdon resumed his seat in the House on 20 Oct. 1702, and attended on 70 of the 91 days of the session, being named to five committees before the close of the year. Affairs in Parliament the following January were dominated by debates over the occasional conformity bill. As a well-known supporter of the Church of England, Abingdon was predictably enough assessed by Nottingham as being in favour of the measure. Later in the year the queen was reported to have assured Abingdon that she would stand by the Church, something that he was then able to communicate to the Oxford quarter sessions.<sup>30</sup> On 16 Jan. 1703 he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause, acting as a teller for the division. The following month, on 12 Feb., he acted as teller on the question of whether to read the copy of the survey in the case concerning his local rival, <em>Wharton v Squire</em>, and on 22 Feb. he registered his protest at the resolution not to commit the bill for the landed qualification of Members of the Commons.</p><p>Abingdon’s accrual of honours looked set to be crowned with an appointment to the order of the Garter in the spring of 1703 but the award did not materialize.<sup>31</sup> He was also disappointed by the appointment of Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup> as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Buckingham, a place he had hoped would go to Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater.<sup>32</sup> At the opening of the new session in November 1703 Abingdon was again predicted as a supporter of the occasional conformity bill. On 14 Dec. he voted in favour of the measure and protested at its rejection. The beginning of the new year found him eager to use his interest on behalf of two men who sought commissions in the new regiments in Ireland.<sup>33</sup> Ten days after resuming his seat following the Christmas recess, he acted as teller during the division over whether to adjourn the debate in the case of <em>Ashby v White</em>, and the same day (14 Jan. 1704) he entered his protest at the resolution to reverse the judgment in the writ of error.</p><p>On 1 Mar. Abingdon registered his dissent at the resolution to retain in the address to the crown requesting a pardon for Boucher the words making the pardon entirely dependent on Boucher making a full confession concerning the ‘Scotch Plot’. His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which perhaps indicates support for him over the plot. On 3 Mar. he dissented again at the resolution to make known the key to the Gibberish Letters only to the queen and those lords nominated to the committee investigating the plot. On 16 Mar. he was teller on the question of whether to agree to the amendment in the report on the public accounts bill and the same day he registered a further dissent at the resolution to agree with the committee of the whole house to remove Robert Byerley’s<sup>‡</sup> name from the list of commissioners examining public accounts. Abingdon entered another protest on 21 Mar. at the resolution to pass the bill for raising recruits for the army and marines, and the same day dissented from the resolution not to add a rider to the bill requiring that the churchwardens and overseers of the poor should give their consent to the recruitment of men from their parishes. He registered another dissent on 25 Mar. against putting the question whether the failure to censure Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the crown’s enemies during the debates on the Scotch Plot and he was then teller on the question of whether to agree to the motion that the failure to take up or prosecute Robert Ferguson was of dangerous consequence. He entered a further dissent the same day when the resolution was passed.</p><p>The marriage of William Courtenay<sup>‡</sup> of Powderham to Abingdon’s sister in July 1704 added a further element to Abingdon’s grouping in the Commons.<sup>34</sup> Over the summer he was also engaged in developing an understanding with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. Abingdon insisted ‘how extremely I value the good opinions you are pleased to have of me and how much I shall always be devoted to your service’.<sup>35</sup> Other areas of family politics proved less positive: matters between Abingdon and Wharton concerning the partition of the Lee estates once more came to the fore as Wharton attempted to overcome Abingdon’s delaying tactics and gain access to the papers concerning the Lee estates. In July the court of chancery ordered that Wharton should be permitted access provided he gave Abingdon a week’s notice. Wharton’s absence from town in September caused further delay. Towards the end of that month he declared himself willing to ‘comply with any reasonable proposition’ that might be to Abingdon’s satisfaction but by October he had clearly lost patience with Abingdon’s intransigence. Wharton also complained of the ‘squarson’, Francis Henry Carey for ‘confederating and combining’ with Abingdon to conceal the deeds. The lack of trust between the two parties is incontestable. Carey and his agents appear to have done their utmost to frustrate Wharton and in January 1705 Abingdon wrote approvingly to Carey of the care he had taken. He hoped that he would prevent Wharton from ‘having any opportunity of either falsifying or embezzling’ any of the papers. It was to take a further year before resolution of the dispute was arrived at by another order of chancery.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Abingdon resumed his seat in the House for the 3rd session on 24 Oct. 1704, after which he was present on 65 per cent of sitting days. The following day he attempted to add a commendation of the conduct of Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> with the Lords’ address to the queen but his motion was opposed by Wharton and Abingdon was unable to prevail on anyone to second him.<sup>37</sup> Rivalry with Wharton came to the fore once again later in the year when the queen accepted Wharton’s recommendation for sheriff of Buckinghamshire despite Abingdon’s objections.<sup>38</sup> With the session dominated by issues that threatened to divide the Tories ever more starkly from the Whigs, on 1 Nov. he was listed as being likely to support the Tack. By the beginning of the following month he was noted as at the head of one of the more intransigent Tory factions, whose ‘zeal is turned to rage’ and who were said to aim at manipulating a wholesale purge of Whigs from office.<sup>39</sup> On 15 Dec. he argued in favour of the passing of the occasional conformity bill.<sup>40</sup> He entered his dissent when the House resolved not to read the bill a second time and again when it was resolved to reject the bill.</p><p>During the febrile atmosphere generated in the House that month, Abingdon was responsible for averting a duel between Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, and Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough. Having overheard their argument, he moved for the House to enjoin them to reconcile.<sup>41</sup> On 22 Jan. 1705, he protested at the resolution to reject the petition of Thomas Watson*, the deprived bishop of St Davids, requesting leave to assign errors for a writ of error as part of the legal wrangling concerning his deprivation. The following month, on 27 Feb., Abingdon was actively involved in another of the prominent disputes of the session (again involving Wharton) when he was named one of the managers of the conference considering the case of the Aylesbury men.</p><p><em>Conflict with Marlborough, 1705–1710</em></p><p>Viewed with considerable suspicion by the Whigs, Abingdon was listed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage drawn up in or about early 1705. The elections of May 1705 proved disappointing to him. His ‘creature’, Thomas Renda<sup>‡</sup>, failed to secure re-election at Wallingford; more worrying still was the emergence of a threat to the Bertie interest at New Woodstock.<sup>42</sup> The grant of the manor to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, earlier in the year had given Marlborough a powerful interest in the town, which was extended still further when he was also elected the borough’s high steward. Marlborough’s new authority in the area threatened to bring the two parties into direct competition. Marlborough seems initially to have promised not to interfere in the borough, but the Oxford Member, Thomas Rowney<sup>‡</sup>, predicted that Abingdon’s candidates, his cousin Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Walter<sup>‡</sup>, were likely to ‘meet with strong opposition at Woodstock … contrary to all assurances and promises’.<sup>43</sup> The resulting contest saw the return of Charles Bertie on his cousin’s interest and of William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Cadogan, with Marlborough’s support.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Complaints that Abingdon had refused to deal fairly with the duke led to calls for his dismissal from office. On 21 May Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, referring to Abingdon’s command of the Tower, commented that, ‘I should think a man that is a soldier had a better title to an employment of that nature than my lord Abingdon, who will never make a campaign but for Jacobite elections.’<sup>45</sup> Marlborough himself added to the calls for Abingdon’s removal from office but was eager that it should not be seen to be on his account, suggesting to Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, that,</p><blockquote><p>If you should think it for the queen’s service to put [Abingdon], out of his place I should be glad some other occasion might be taken than that of opposing at Woodstock, it being a reason that will not be approved of. He is so idle a talker that he will give many occasions.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Marlboroughs’ pressure worked and the same month Abingdon was removed as constable of the Tower. In July Marlborough’s man of business in Woodstock emphasized the extent to which the Berties had been sidelined there by declaring his intention of denying gifts of venison to those who had ‘violently espoused’ Abingdon’s cause.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Further discomfitures followed and early in October it was reported that Abingdon was to join several other high-profile Tories being put out of office.<sup>48</sup> According to one rumour his old enemy, Wharton, was expected to replace him as constable of the Tower, though this proved not to be the case.<sup>49</sup> Although Abingdon was said to have resolved to live privately following his displacement, he appears to have been one of the instigators of a horse race held at Port Meadow in Oxford, which was set up as a direct rival to the annual event held in Woodstock, as a protest at Cadogan’s election. The duchess of Marlborough retaliated by sponsoring her own competition at the Woodstock meet. The turnout the first year was disappointing with ‘only a parcel of Whiggish, mobbish people’ appearing, while that held the following September attracted only one entrant, and very few spectators.<sup>50</sup> In spite of his diminishing standing at court, Abingdon clearly remained a popular local figure. He was said to have been treated to a boisterous reception when he entered Oxford in October 1705, being greeted by ‘280 gentlemen on horseback and received by the acclamations of the people, the city music playing all the while’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, but his attendance during the session was dramatically reduced, with him present on just 28 per cent of all sitting days. On 12 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House. The same month, under instruction from her husband but apparently against her will, Lady Abingdon resigned her place as lady of the bedchamber, he being adamant that she could not retain her place when he had lost his.<sup>52</sup> Abingdon resumed his seat on 15 Nov. 1705 and the same day protested at failure to agree a resolution to invite Princess Sophia to live in England. On 30 Nov. he acted as teller on the question of whether to agree the instructions to a committee of the whole concerning the Protestant succession bill. Following the division, he entered his dissent at the failure to give any further instructions to the committee. Abingdon again acted as teller on the question of whether to read a rider for a second time during the third reading of the Protestant succession bill on 3 Dec. and the same day he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to read the rider a second time to prevent the lords justices from giving the royal assent to any bill repealing or altering the 1673 and 1678 Test Acts. On 6 Dec. he entered a further protest at the resolution to agree with the committee of the whole in its conclusion that the Church was not in danger.</p><p>Abingdon failed to sit in the session after 19 Dec. 1705, entrusting his proxy to Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, on 8 Jan. 1706. He spent part of the ensuing summer at Bath but he returned to London in time to take his seat in the House on 19 Dec. 1706, following which his attendance improved slightly to just over a third of sitting days during the session.<sup>53</sup> On 8 Feb. 1707 he again registered his proxy in Carnarvon’s favour, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 15 February. On 27 Feb. he registered his dissent at the passing of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 25th resolutions concerning union with Scotland and on 4 Mar. he voted in favour of reading a second time a rider declaring that nothing in the bill for union should be construed an acknowledgment of the truth of Presbyterian worship or that the Church of Scotland was the true Protestant religion. He dissented again when it was resolved not to read the rider. Abingdon registered his proxy with Carnarvon once more on 10 Mar., but it was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Abingdon proved to be an elusive member of the House for the remainder of the year, sitting for a mere 6 out of the 108 days of the first Parliament of Great Britain. Given his opposition, it is of little surprise that he was omitted from the new Privy Council.<sup>54</sup> Manoeuvring for candidates for Oxfordshire in anticipation of the anticipated elections in May 1708 offered him a chance of being restored to favour. It was acknowledged by Marlborough and Godolphin that their candidate, Godolphin’s son and Marlborough’s son-in-law, Francis Godolphin*, styled Viscount Rialton (later 2nd earl of Godolphin), stood little chance without the support of the Bertie interest. Accordingly, Abingdon and Marlborough were reconciled formally in the spring of 1707 and the Tory candidate, Chamberlain Dashwood, was prevailed upon to desist from challenging for the seat.<sup>55</sup> Although Abingdon seems not to have been wholly content with the arrangement, he was restored to favour and in May admitted once more to the Privy Council.<sup>56</sup> The following year, Rialton was duly elected for Oxfordshire, along with the Tory Sir Robert Jenkinson<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>The rapprochement failed to prevent the collapse of the Bertie interest at Woodstock, where Cadogan and Sir Thomas Wheate<sup>‡</sup> were returned unopposed, even those who had previously ‘been most zealous for lord Abingdon’ failing to mount a challenge.<sup>57</sup> There was some consolation in Abingdon’s continued dominance at Westbury, where both his candidates, Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Francis Annesley<sup>‡</sup>, were probably returned without any opposition, despite tentative soundings by Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, for the second seat.<sup>58</sup> One commentator criticized Abingdon for his behaviour in Oxfordshire, suggesting that he had ‘turned about and cringed to the Whiggish interest’.<sup>59</sup> Whether he had performed a volte-face or not, he was thereafter consistent in his support for the Hanoverian succession and became a prominent figure among the ‘Hanoverian Tories’ in the Lords.</p><p>Abingdon took his seat in the 1708 Parliament on 16 Nov., and attended on approximately half of all sitting days. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the elections for Scots representative peers. On 15 Mar. he acted as a teller in the division on the foreign Protestants naturalization bill and entered a solitary protest against the bill when it was passed. On 6 Apr. he was a teller in the division on the stamp duties frauds bill and on 12 Apr. he reported from the committee considering the bill on the commissioners of sewers in London.</p><p><em>Alliance with the earl of Oxford, 1710–14</em></p><p>Abingdon took his seat for the second session on 4 Feb. 1710 and although he was present for little more than a third of the entire session he soon became closely involved in the trial of Henry Sacheverell. When Sir Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, requested a delay in opening the defence case on 2 Mar., Abingdon moved successfully for an adjournment. On 7 Mar. the corporation of Oxford requested that Abingdon and his brother Henry Bertie should present their address to the queen.<sup>60</sup> On 14 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolution that it was not necessary to include the particular words supposed to be criminal in an impeachment. The same day he dissented from the resolution not to adjourn. On 16 Mar. he protested at the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment against Sacheverell and the following day registered protests at the passing of the second, third, and fourth articles. Two days later he protested at the resolution to limit peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty and on 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell not guilty of the charges brought against him. The same day he entered his dissent at the guilty verdict and on 21 Mar. he dissented from the censure passed against Sacheverell. On 1 Apr. Abingdon acted as teller on the question of whether to adjourn the House. Following the dissolution he and his followers were at the forefront of those welcoming Sacheverell to Oxford during his progress in the summer of 1710.<sup>61</sup> On 14 May, William Tilly preached a sermon in praise of the doctor at St Mary’s, and the following day Abingdon and Thomas Rowney entertained Sacheverell at a lavish celebration.<sup>62</sup></p><p>As the head of a significant interest in the Commons, it is unsurprising that Abingdon was among those whom Harley hoped to attract to his new ministry. In September, Harley noted Abingdon as a ‘peer to be provided for’ and he also appears to have considered Abingdon for the office of captain of the yeomen of the guard.<sup>63</sup> Harley’s success provoked his opponents to take extreme measures. At the close of the month news of a plot to bring in the Pretender circulated. Harley and his family were reputed to be at the head of the conspiracy but Abingdon was also among those named as being involved.<sup>64</sup> The fictitious plot seems quickly to have been put to one side and Abingdon was, unsurprisingly, reckoned to be a Harley supporter in an assessment drawn up in October 1710.</p><p>In stark contrast to much of the rest of the country, where constituencies witnessed a Tory landslide, during the October 1710 election the Bertie interest at Woodstock collapsed. It was noted that an opportunity to throw out Sir Thomas Wheate was lost for want of an alternative candidate and when Abingdon was called away to Westbury, where he also found his normally invulnerable interest under threat, all hope was lost of displacing Wheate.<sup>65</sup> Elsewhere, despite a number of challenges, the Bertie connection held firm. With the assistance of Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, the challenge at Westbury mounted by Henry Cornish was seen off and Abingdon’s brothers James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup> were also successful at Middlesex and Beaumaris.<sup>66</sup> Abingdon appears to have been suffering from poor health at the time. Towards the end of the month rumours circulated that he had died but despite this and his undoubted difficulties in Woodstock it is apparent that the Bertie interest in Oxfordshire as a whole was regaining some of its former potency.<sup>67</sup> On 30 Oct. Marlborough complained gloomily to his duchess, ‘I do not see how I can have any pleasure in living in a country where I have so few friends, and after what has passed, it would be no surprise to me if I heard the earl of Abingdon were again lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire.’<sup>68</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s prediction proved premature but Abingdon had clearly recovered some of his former vigour and he was soon after reappointed to the lucrative position of chief justice in eyre south of Trent.<sup>69</sup> A report that his countess had been reappointed to the bed chamber at the same time seems to have been premature, Lady Abingdon not resuming her place there until January 1712. Abingdon’s health seems to have remained a cause for concern into November 1710 but he rallied in time to take his seat on 25 Nov., following which he was present on approximately 73 per cent of sitting days during the session.<sup>70</sup> During January and early February 1711 he chaired 12 committees of the whole House debating the state of the war in Spain and a further two select committees considering matters relevant to the war.<sup>71</sup> On 11 Jan. he gave it as his opinion that a letter read out by Peterborough as part of his evidence to the House was not done so ‘regularly’ as it was orated in French.<sup>72</sup> The following day, after debating a procedural point as to whether the committee then sitting was to be considered a new one, Abingdon interposed that it ‘was the same committee; for the house resumed, and then adjourned during pleasure, before he could get directions to report’.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Abingdon entered his dissent at the resolution to reject the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act on 5 Feb. 1711 and on 9 Feb. he acted as a teller during the division on the question of whether to expunge part of the reason for the recent protest lodged against the state of the war in Spain. He seconded a motion proposed by William North*, 6th Baron North, early in March that the sentence against James Greenshields had been illegal but the proposal was dropped following opposition led by John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham.<sup>74</sup> Abingdon received his cousin Lindsey’s proxy on 12 Mar. but this was vacated the same day when Abingdon registered his own proxy with Leeds. The latter was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 5 April.</p><p>Harley’s elevation to the earldom of Oxford threatened to sour his relations with the Berties as the title was one to which they also laid claim.<sup>75</sup> In May it was reported that Abingdon intended to enter a caveat against Harley but the dispute petered out following Harley’s agreement to take the double title of Oxford and Mortimer.<sup>76</sup> On 23 May (two days before Harley’s introduction in the Lords) Abingdon, suffering from poor health, apologized for being slow in responding to a missive from Harley and insisted that it would ‘be for me the greatest uneasiness my distemper could give me, if it should hinder me from having the pleasure of introducing you to the House of Peers’. On 25 May he managed to rally himself sufficiently to officiate as deputy lord great chamberlain (Lindsey also being indisposed) at Oxford’s introduction.<sup>77</sup></p><p>In advance of the new session, Abingdon was requested to continue to deputize for Lindsey as lord great chamberlain, as Lindsey remained indisposed and unable to attend the House.<sup>78</sup> A list of December 1711 again estimated Abingdon to be a likely supporter of Oxford and he was also included on one of Oxford’s memoranda compiled shortly after the opening of the session. Having resumed his seat at the opening of the session on 7 Dec. 1711, he continued to attend on 85 per cent of all sitting days. On the first day he acted as a teller on the question of whether to make additions to the address in reply to the queen’s speech on the question of the peace. The following day he was prominent among the ministry’s supporters who were wrong-footed by procedural confusion in the abortive division to reverse the decision of the previous day.<sup>79</sup> The chaos was described by Peter Wentworth to his brother Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford,</p><blockquote><p>They that were for having the advice part of the address was ordered without the bar, and they that stayed in the house saw they would lose several they had the day before, cried yield, the others cried tell, tell, so that for some time there was a great noise in the house. The Keeper appointed two tellers, Lord Abingdon and Lord Sunderland [Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland]; Lord A would not tell because those of his part said yield, but Sunderland said if he did not do his duty he would his, and tell without him, and so begun. But they that would not be told hopped and skipped about, which was sport for us that were spectators.<sup>80</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 10 Dec. Abingdon was listed among those office-holders and pensioners who had voted with the ministry on the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as being in favour of permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as duke of Brandon. During the debates on the Hamilton peerage case the following day, Abingdon spoke forcefully in favour of Hamilton’s right, desiring that:</p><blockquote><p>the orders of the House might be read, and they would find upon their books that the duke of Queensberry [James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]], was introduced into the House duke of Dover, that for three years he had sat and voted there as such without dispute; the only dispute was whether he could have a voice in the election of the sixteen and it was determined he could not, which was a farther acknowledgement of his being a peer of Great Britain.</p></blockquote><p>In answer to Abingdon’s arguments, Sunderland and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), pointed out that Queensberry’s case had never been properly decided and that his continued attendance was ‘only connived at for a time’.<sup>81</sup> Unswayed by this, on 20 Dec. Abingdon voted against barring Scots peers with post-Union British titles from attending the House.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Early in 1712 rumours circulated that Abingdon was to be appointed treasurer of the household but these again proved inaccurate.<sup>83</sup> Meanwhile there were reports of tensions within the Bertie clan, with one correspondent recording how, shortly before the Christmas adjournment, Lindsey had withdrawn his proxy from Abingdon and handed it to Marlborough instead. The proxy was registered with Marlborough on 26 Dec. 1711 and the event gave rise to rumours that ‘there will be a schism in a certain county’.<sup>84</sup> Such divisions failed to deflect Abingdon from his continuing activities in the session and on 18 Jan. 1712 he spoke to justify the regularity of the motion put forward by Edward Hyde*, 3rd earl of Clarendon, for an address in response to that delivered on behalf of the queen.<sup>85</sup> On 25 Jan. he acted as a teller on the question of whether to resume the House from a committee of the whole on the subject of the Scots peers. A controversial sermon delivered by Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich (later bishop of Winchester), on 30 Jan. was the occasion for complaint from several peers the following day. Abingdon joined in censuring the bishop, recollecting that ‘the drift of the sermon seemed to be calculated to extenuate the crimes of the rebellion, by reminding his audience that the Royal Martyr was the occasion of it by the prosecution of the ship money’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Abingdon was unsuccessful in moving that the abjuration oath should be altered on 15 Feb. 1712.<sup>87</sup> On 21 Feb. he received Clarendon’s proxy and on 29 Feb. was a teller on the question of whether to agree to an amendment to the officers in the House of Commons bill. Abingdon chaired the committee considering the Duloe vicarage bill on 29 Mar. and committees of the whole House on 8 Apr. and 14 May. On 17 May he acted as teller on the question of whether to read the grants bill a second time and two days later as teller for the division on whether to go into a committee of the whole House to discuss the same measure, which he then chaired. The same day he was restored to his lieutenancy of Oxfordshire. Absent briefly between 23 and 27 May, he ensured his proxy was registered in favour of John Poulett*, Earl Poulett.</p><p>On 28 May, he supported the ministry in voting against the opposition motion to overturn the ‘restraining orders’ preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from launching offensive operations against the French.<sup>88</sup> A curious entry in the proxy book recorded that Abingdon registered his proxy again shortly after, this time in favour of Thomas Trevor*, Baron Trevor, but as he was present in the House throughout the relevant period (6–12 June) this seems unlikely to be correct. Moreover, he also received the proxy of George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, on 7 June, which was vacated on 8 July. He told on the question of whether to add material to the address in response to the queen’s speech on the peace on 7 June. On 20 June he was again requested by the city of Oxford to present their address to the queen.<sup>89</sup> Standing in for his cousin Lindsey, Abingdon then officiated as lord great chamberlain at Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke’s introduction on 8 July.</p><p>Having spent the spring and early summer of the previous year engaged with great matters of state, at the opening of 1713 Abingdon was concerned with a much smaller and more personal concern when he was forced to advertise in the newspapers for the return of one of his ‘hawking spaniels’.<sup>90</sup> By the early spring, more pressing issues had returned to the fore and Abingdon featured on another of Oxford’s memoranda in March.<sup>91</sup> The same month he was also listed by Jonathan Swift as being a likely supporter of the ministry. In April it was speculated that Lady Abingdon was to be put out of her place in the bedchamber to make room for Lady Masham but no such change of personnel came to pass.<sup>92</sup> The episode may have added to (or been occasioned by) ministerial uncertainty about Abingdon’s continued loyalty. This was perhaps reflected in his inclusion on a list of those either thought to be possible opponents of the French treaty of commerce or who should be contacted about the measure. Meanwhile his attention appears to have been taken up with a protracted attempt to arrive at a settlement with Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, to whom Abingdon owed money. By the winter of that year, Trumbull, frustrated by continual delays, was forced to initiate proceedings in chancery to settle the matter.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Abingdon took his seat on 9 Apr. 1713, after which he was present for approximately 68 per cent of sitting days. On 13 June he was again listed as a possible opponent of the eighth and ninth articles of the treaty. Another analysis of the same day listed him as one of 12 court supporters expected to desert over the measure. He was one of the treaty’s most vigorous opponents: when the bill was rejected by the Commons, it was noted that even if it had passed it ‘would have been in danger in the House of Lords’ on account of the concerted opposition of Abingdon and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey.<sup>94</sup> In spite of standing out against the ministry on this score, Abingdon was equally concerned by the rising profile of Oxford’s rival, Bolingbroke, and was reported to have been alarmed by the prospect of ‘blood and confusion’ resulting from the secretary’s ‘loose talk’ in favour of a restoration of the Pretender.<sup>95</sup></p><p>The elections of August 1713 appear to have found the Bertie interest untroubled at Westbury, where Henry Bertie and Francis Annesley were again returned without opposition. The Bertie interest at Woodstock, on the other hand, seems to have all but disappeared. At the beginning of the month it was noted that Wharton had arrived in the town, accompanied by several people whom he intended to have sworn as freemen, but Abingdon seems to have failed to respond in kind to balance the interests.<sup>96</sup> In the rest of the county the impression was similar and there appears little evidence of Abingdon exerting much influence in any of the Oxfordshire seats.</p><p>By the winter of 1713 Abingdon was said to be ‘in no great esteem’ with Oxford.<sup>97</sup> He was also brought under increasing pressure to satisfy Trumbull’s claims and in December his countess was compelled to approach Oxford directly for the payment of both of their arrears.<sup>98</sup> He took his place in the new Parliament of 16 Feb. 1714, following which he was present for the majority of the session, attending on 70 out of 79 sitting days. Prominent as one of the leaders of the Hanoverian Tories, Abingdon joined Anglesey, with whom he was now operating in close alliance, in deserting to the opposition on the question of whether the Protestant succession was in danger under Oxford’s administration.<sup>99</sup> On 13 Apr. he acted as teller in the division on whether to append additional words to the address on the Protestant succession and four days later he again served as one of the tellers in the division on the House of Commons officers bill.</p><p>Abingdon moved the address of thanks to the queen on 20 April. On 27 May he was teller on the question of whether to commit the malt bill, after which he chaired the committee of the whole House considering the measure. Forecast by Nottingham as being in favour of the schism bill on 1 and 5 June he spoke vigorously in its favour.<sup>100</sup> During a committee of the whole House on 9 June lasting from 1 pm to 8 pm considering whether there should be specifically nonconformist schools, Abingdon spoke firmly against, though the motion was carried by 62 to 48.<sup>101</sup> On 14 June he acted as teller on the question of whether to agree to the amendment to the schism bill. On 5 July the House was informed of an argument between Abingdon and Maurice Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham, which it was believed might result in blows. The House required the two peers to agree not to continue with their dispute. The nature of the argument is uncertain but it is possible that it was connected with an ongoing dispute between Haversham and Anglesey.<sup>102</sup></p><p><em>Later life, 1715–1743</em></p><p>It is an indication of Abingdon’s influence both within the House and beyond, and of the importance of his connection with Anglesey and other ‘Hanoverian Tories’, that following the queen’s death on 1 Aug. he was appointed one of the lords justices to administer the country until the king’s arrival. As Strafford commented to him, ‘the distinction the king showed of your merit by the voluntary choice he made of your lordship is much more than the thing itself’.<sup>103</sup> In January 1715 Abingdon was listed as one of the Tories still in office but in February of that year his attention was taken up with the sicknesses of his wife and one of his sisters.<sup>104</sup> Both were attended to by Sir Hans Sloane but, while his sister rallied, Lady Abingdon’s condition worsened and she died on 28 April.<sup>105</sup> Shortly after, on 2 May, Abingdon registered his proxy in favour of his colleague, Anglesey, which was vacated by his return to the House on 21 June.</p><p>Despite his support for the Hanoverian succession and the mark of favour shown him by his appointment as a lord justice, Abingdon was removed from all his offices in the course of 1715.<sup>106</sup> This may have encouraged some to suspect him of developing Jacobite sympathies. He was listed as one of the Oxfordshire ‘chiefs’ thought sympathetic to a Jacobite restoration in 1721 and Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, urged Anglesey to encourage Abingdon to attend the House at the time of his trial two years later.<sup>107</sup> Yet there is little reason to believe that he departed from his earlier convictions. Any sympathy for the exiled royal house did not prevent him from continuing to sit in the House for 27 years after the accession of George I. Details of the latter part of his parliamentary career will be considered in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Lacking an heir, Abingdon remarried in February 1717. His only son by this marriage, James Bertie, styled Lord Norreys, died aged just three months the following year. Abingdon himself died on 16 June 1743 and was buried at his particular request at Rycote, ‘and not in Westminster Abbey’. In his will he left considerable bequests amounting to over £10,000 to his relations and servants, as well as £200 to raise a monument to his father, mother, and first wife, stipulating that it be ‘handsome and decent rather than sumptuous and expensive’. He was succeeded in the peerage by his nephew Willoughby Bertie<sup>†</sup>, as 3rd earl of Abingdon.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
VERE, Aubrey de (1627-1703) |
<p><strong><surname>VERE</surname></strong>, <strong>Aubrey de</strong> (1627–1703)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1632 (a minor) as 20th earl of OXFORD |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 27 Feb. 1702 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Feb. 1627, 1st s. of Robert de Vere<sup>†</sup>, 19th earl of Oxford, and Beatrice van Hemmema of Friesland. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. (1) 18 June 1647, Anne (<em>d</em>.1659), da. and coh. of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Visct. Bayning; (2) 1 Jan. 1672,<sup>1</sup> Diana (<em>d</em>.1719), da. of George Kirke, kpr. of Whitehall Palace, 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 3 da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). 1s. illegit. with Hester Davenport. KG 1660. <em>d</em>. 12 Mar. 1703. <em>admon</em>. 29 Apr. 1703 to wid.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1670–9, 1681–<em>d</em>.; extra gent. bedchamber 1674–7; gent. bedchamber 1677–85, 1689–1702; envoy extraordinary to king of France July 1680; dep. Speaker, House of Lords 1 Aug. 1700–18 Sept. 1701.</p><p>C.j. in eyre south of Trent 1660–73; ld. lt. Essex 1660–75 (sole), 1675-18 Feb. 1688 (jt.), 25 Oct. 1688–<em>d</em>. (sole); warden, New Forest 1667–?;<sup>3</sup> high steward, Colchester 1684–8, 1688–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Essex 1689–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. Royal Regt. Horse, 1661–4 Feb. 1688, 17 Dec. 1688–<em>d</em>.; lt. gen. Horse and Ft. 4 May 1689.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by G. Soest, c.1656-62, Dulwich Picture Gallery; oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1670s, National Trust, Antony, Cornw.; oil on canvas, by Sir G. Kneller, c.1690, NPG 4941.</p> |
<p><em>Impoverished cavalier</em></p><p>Handsome, brave, and possessed of one the most ancient of noble titles, Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, seemed to be the epitome of the romantic cavalier. His father had however inherited the earldom indirectly and neither he nor his son was sufficiently wealthy to support the dignity of so prestigious a title. Furthermore, Oxford’s good looks and ‘naturally noble’ air could not disguise his lack of intellectual ability: ‘from his outward appearance, you would suppose he was really possessed of some sense; but as soon as ever you hear him speak, you are perfectly convinced of the contrary’.<sup>4</sup> He was a very young child when his father, a career soldier, was killed at Maastricht and he became the ward of John Holles*, 2nd earl of Clare, Thomas Howard<sup>†</sup>, 21st earl of Arundel, and Henry Bourchier<sup>†</sup>, 5th earl of Bath. A set of accounts, preserved among the state papers, suggests that Oxford inherited very small estates in Herefordshire and Essex and that his annual income may have been less than £300. Even in his father’s lifetime, concern had been expressed in Parliament about the family’s poverty.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Like his father, Oxford became a soldier. He left England to fight for the Dutch in 1641 but had returned to England before his marriage in 1647. After the execution of Charles I he again left the country; in the spring of 1650 he was said to be in Breda and in 1652 he was in Antwerp.<sup>6</sup> However, he seems to have been back in England well before 1655. During the later years of the Interregnum he corresponded with the royal court in exile, was involved in a number of royalist conspiracies, and was twice imprisoned. He liked to think of himself as one of the exiled king’s most prominent and valued supporters and was clearly jealous of anyone who had a similar claim, especially John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, of whom he had ‘but a slight opinion’. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, believed that Oxford’s refusal to co-operate was a contributory factor to the failure of the uprising in 1659.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In 1647, in an attempt to secure his fortunes, Oxford married Anne Bayning, then ten years old, co-heiress to the Bayning fortune, which reputedly consisted of extensive estates in London, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Kent, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire, and elsewhere in England valued at between £5,000 and £6,000 a year. Unfortunately for Oxford, the death of her father, Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Viscount Bayning, at a very young age had left the Bayning fortune vulnerable. In 1639, the marriage of Bayning’s widow, Penelope, to Philip Herbert*, then styled Lord Herbert, later 5th earl of Pembroke, was said to be part of an attempt by the Herberts to ‘swallow the whole of Bayning’s estate’.<sup>8</sup> The predatory intentions of the Herberts were confirmed by the subsequent marriage of Lord Herbert’s son, John, to Anne Bayning’s younger sister and co-heiress, also named Penelope. As a known royalist, Oxford’s marriage to a reputed heiress also drew the attention of the committee for compounding.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Neither Oxford nor Herbert could gain control of their wives’ inheritance until the birth of a live child. In 1655, when Anne Bayning was 19 and her sister 17, their failure to conceive led their husbands to draw up an agreement to guarantee that, if either died without issue, the husband of the surviving sister would guarantee an income of £2,000 a year to the husband of the deceased sister. When Penelope Bayning the younger died in April 1657, Oxford reneged on the agreement, claiming that John Herbert had tricked him into it in the full knowledge that Penelope was already dying, that he had exercised undue influence over her to secure the conveyance of parts of the estate in order to create an estate for himself and his brother William Herbert*, later 6th earl of Pembroke, and that the agreement was void because it was drawn up without the knowledge or agreement of Anne Bayning.</p><p>Anne Bayning’s death without issue in 1659 brought fresh complications, since the estates then became subject to the unsatisfied claims of the heirs of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Bayning. Oxford also became entitled to his wife’s legacy of £20,000 from her father but his attempts to claim it involved him in a complex web of litigation between himself, Henry Glemham*, bishop of St Asaph from 1667, as executor of the will of the 2nd Viscount Bayning, and those who had failed to repay the substantial sums that they had borrowed either from the 1st Viscount Bayning or from Henry Glemham himself. Oxford was probably correct in his belief that at least one of these debtors, Richard Vaughan*, 2nd earl of Carbery [I] and Baron Vaughan, had arranged his financial affairs with the express intention of defrauding his creditors.<sup>10</sup> Those who assisted Oxford against Carbery were threatened with unjustified prosecutions.<sup>11</sup> Litigation continued well into the 1680s. The surviving documentation for Oxford’s action against Carbery also reveals that Oxford entered into a debt trust on 15 Sept. 1668.<sup>12</sup> His financial difficulties were compounded by heavy gambling.<sup>13</sup> However, unlike many supplicants, he seems to have had little difficulty in securing payment of his various salaries from the crown.</p><p>After the death of his wife, Oxford initially appeared reluctant to remarry. In February 1660 he was said to have refused one of the best matches in England as ‘he could not think of settling his family and fortune until the king was restored’. In 1661 there were rumours that he was to marry Lady Anne Digby but at or about this time he had already entered into a liaison with a popular actress, Hester Davenport. Reputedly, her refusal to become his mistress led Oxford to arrange a mock marriage ceremony in which a trumpeter from his regiment played the role of priest.<sup>14</sup> Depositions in an action in the consistory court of London in 1686 make it clear that the story of the mock marriage was widely known. The couple lived together as man and wife for six years, during which time Hester Davenport was regarded as the countess of Oxford.<sup>15</sup> She continued to call herself countess of Oxford for the rest of her life and this, coupled with her refusal to remarry until after Oxford’s death, suggests that she did believe herself to be legally married to him. It is unlikely (unless the man who married them really was an Anglican minister) that the marriage was legal, but she was convinced that their child, baptized as Aubrey de Vere in 1664, was the legitimate heir to the earldom. The claim must have carried some credibility, so much so that the boy’s life was threatened by the family of Oxford’s second wife, Diana Kirke.<sup>16</sup></p><p><em>The rewards of loyalty</em></p><p>At the Restoration, Oxford entered fully into the social life of the court and even stood godfather to one of the children born of the liaison between Charles II and Lady Castlemaine.<sup>17</sup> He looked to the crown for what he considered due to him, not only for his services during the civil wars but also to repair his family’s fortunes and to ‘put him and his posterity in a condition to support his quality’.<sup>18</sup> His desire for recognition was assuaged temporarily with an appointment to the order of the Garter. His military experience and unquestionable loyalty to the crown then brought other rewards: he became colonel of one of the few regiments that remained after the disbanding of the army. His commitment to military life was such that he valued the role of the military above that of the law as the ultimate bulwark of the constitution; in a telling exchange with the lawyer Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup>, he described the army as ‘the principal defence and safeguard of the king’s person. Adding, where were your gowns when the king’s head was cut off?’<sup>19</sup></p><p>Despite his poverty, Oxford was appointed lord lieutenant of Essex in 1660. This was a post that would not normally have been given to so impoverished a peer. James Hay*, 2nd earl of Carlisle, who had been joint lord lieutenant until 1642, was still alive, although too ill to undertake onerous duties. The extensive landholdings of Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick, made him an even more obvious candidate, but his Presbyterian and parliamentarian past rendered his loyalty suspect.<sup>20</sup> The most obvious candidate of all was George Monck*, the newly created duke of Albemarle, who was one of the richest men in the country and who both possessed extensive lands in Essex and lived there – for the most part at New Hall, a former royal palace – but he was almost certainly too busy to take on the lieutenancy from November 1675.</p><p>Essex was a frontline county, vulnerable to invasion from the Dutch. It was also thought to be disaffected to the new regime and it was feared that an uprising there might easily spread to London. What Oxford lacked in wealth, he more than made up for in prestige and military expertise. Under his leadership the Essex militia was provided with weapons, uniforms, training, and regulations and developed into a well-disciplined, effective and loyal organization. They proved reliable when called out during the invasion scare of 1667 and again during James Scott*, duke of Monmouth’s rising of 1685.<sup>21</sup> Although Oxford left no personal archive, the survival of some of his letters among the papers of others, such as the Essex Mildmay family, shows him to have been a busy and conscientious lord lieutenant and it seems likely that he bore the brunt of the work even after he was joined in the lieutenancy by the young Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle.<sup>22</sup> Oxford played no role in the management of the commission of the peace since the office of <em>custos rotulorum</em> was held by Carlisle, until his death in November 1660, and then by William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, until 1688.</p><p>Oxford was also appointed chief justice in eyre south of the Trent. The survival of some of his papers as chief justice make it clear that the office conferred a considerable amount of patronage, touching all sectors of the community. Oxford gained the right to appoint forest officials and to protect them from arrest, to license ale houses in the forests, issue warrants for the preservation of game, and to arrest trespassers and deer killers, and the power to grant licences to fell trees, dig peat, enclose land, build barns, demolish, extend, or rebuild houses, and to hunt and hawk in the forests. In his first full year of office, he issued 12 licences to fell trees; by 1667 he was issuing well over 40 a year.<sup>23</sup> He was convinced that forest law could be made to be profitable and petitioned for a grant of sums due to the crown in at least one of the forests within his jurisdiction and for the right to prosecute and recover them.<sup>24</sup> Perhaps fearful of resuscitating pre-civil war tensions over the application of forest law in Essex, the king resisted Oxford’s requests.</p><p><em>Public life, 1660–7</em></p><p>Oxford had not sat in the Lords before the civil wars. The suggestion that he had signed protests in 1640 and 1641, while still a minor, is incorrect: he appears to have been confused with Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke.<sup>25</sup> Like the other ‘young lords’ he was initially persuaded by Monck to stay away from the House, but on 27 Apr. 1660, encouraged by Mordaunt, Oxford and William Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, secured a declaration that Monck would not prevent their attendance and Oxford then led the rest of the ‘young lords’ into the chamber.<sup>26</sup> Oxford was named that day to the committee of safety and as a manager of the conference for ways and means of settling the nation. On 1 May 1660 he was named to the committee to draw up a letter of thanks to the king and two days later he was selected as one of the six peers to present Charles II with the petition for his return to England. On 11 May, just before he left to meet the king, he presented a petition to the House in pursuance of one of his major ambitions – securing the office of lord great chamberlain. This hereditary office had been held for generations by the earls of Oxford, but had been held capable of descent through the female line and so had parted company from the earldom in 1626. The office does not appear to have been a lucrative one but it was immensely prestigious.</p><p>Oxford was back in England by the closing days of May. The decision of the House on 9 June that all members should take the oath of allegiance appears to have been taken at his prompting.<sup>27</sup> On 14 June he was deputed by the committee for privileges to investigate charges against Robert Danvers*, who had renounced any claim to the viscountcy of Purbeck.<sup>28</sup> Although Oxford was absent from the House for much of July, he was present on the 27th to complain about a breach of privilege of Parliament – the arrest of his servant, Michael Torwood – and on the 31st to agree to the release of the guilty parties. Oxford was again absent for much of the autumn, probably through illness for in mid-September he was rumoured to have died of smallpox.<sup>29</sup> He was not listed as present on 21 Dec. 1660 when another petition concerning the lord great chamberlaincy was presented on his behalf; Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, petitioned to the same effect. Then on 28 Dec. the stakes were raised still higher when the holder of the office, Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, petitioned for the Oxford earldom on the grounds that, like the lord chamberlaincy, it should have descended through the female line, and demanded that Oxford be removed from the House.<sup>30</sup> The dissolution of the Convention the following day terminated proceedings. Overall, since his first appearance in the House on 27 April, Oxford had been present at 40 per cent of sittings.</p><p>In Jan. 1661 Oxford was involved with Albemarle and George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, in putting down Venner’s rebellion.<sup>31</sup> During the 1661–2 session his attendance was nearly 45 per cent of sitting days. It would have been higher but for his exceptionally low attendances between mid-Dec. 1661 and mid-Mar. 1662. On 11 May 1661 he revived his claim to the lord great chamberlaincy. Discussion of the issue had still not taken place when on 15 May he again invoked privilege of Parliament – this time concerning the attachment of his coach. The offenders were released at Oxford’s request on 28 May.</p><p>A further debate concerning the great chamberlaincy was held on 8 June 1661; it sidestepped the main issue, concerning itself instead with the question of whether the subject was properly before the House. Oxford and Derby then petitioned the crown and on 15 June, Philip Herbert, now 5th earl of Pembroke, presented the two petitions to the House with a referral from the king. On 25 June permission was given for the matter to be argued by counsel; in the process the House revived an ancient procedural rule: that a tied vote be decided in the negative. At considerable expense, Oxford retained Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, and John Vaughan<sup>†</sup>, two of the leading common lawyers of the day, to advise him. The fees of the lawyers (£21) constituted the single largest item of expenditure in the case but Oxford’s accounts also show disbursements to a judge, the cost of a dinner, and payments to various officials of the House for copies of Derby’s petition and the various orders, as well as <em>douceurs</em> to the doorkeepers.<sup>32</sup> The expense did not stop there: a carefully argued account of his case was published as a pamphlet, presumably for circulation to his fellow peers.<sup>33</sup> Oxford succeeded in having the case reconsidered but lost the subsequent division by a single vote.</p><p>During the 1663 session Oxford’s attendance reached 50 per cent. Attendance at Parliament went alongside a social life that involved hard drinking: both Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> and the French ambassador reported ‘high words and some blows and pulling off of perriwiggs’ at a drunken entertainment given by Oxford on 15 May.<sup>34</sup> On 19 June he raised yet another complaint about privilege, this time concerning the arrest of a servant by the under-sheriff of Nottinghamshire, who had seen and dismissed Oxford’s protection by declaring that ‘He valued the Lord Oxon’s protection not more than the straw at his feet’.</p><p>Oxford was also deeply involved in factional disputes. During the Interregnum, he had been feared to be under the influence of supporters of the queen, and seems to have been close to George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, as well as to James*, duke of York.<sup>35</sup> Scattered references to his activities after the Restoration suggest that he and York had many friends in common and were probably part of the same semi-military political and social circle; Oxford also socialized with Albemarle.<sup>36</sup> Despite the connection to York, there are indications that Oxford disliked Edward Hyde, now earl of Clarendon.<sup>37</sup> In May 1660 Oxford was said to be ‘out of countenance’ as a result of slights against him in the House of Lords in which Clarendon, then still a Sir Edward Hyde, was somehow involved.<sup>38</sup> Clarendon had also opposed Oxford’s claim to the great chamberlaincy, stating that the House should respect its previous decisions and those of Charles I.<sup>39</sup> Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, listed Oxford as a supporter of Bristol’s attempt to impeach Clarendon in the summer of 1663.<sup>40</sup> In Mar. 1664 Bristol named Oxford, along with Albemarle, as someone to whom he was prepared to surrender himself.<sup>41</sup></p><p>The first 1664 session saw Oxford’s attendance maintained at about 40 per cent. On 14 May he was one of the messengers deputed by the House to ask the king to delay the recess in order to allow more time to discuss the controversial conventicle bill. After the prorogation, in June, Oxford was one of the candidates being tipped as governor of Tangiers, although in the event this did not materialize.<sup>42</sup></p><p>During the 1664–5 session Oxford’s attendance was maintained at just over 50 per cent, although his presence has left little trace, apart from occasional nominations to committees. The short session in Oct. 1665 saw him present on just two days, probably because he was preoccupied with the defence of the Essex coast against a Dutch landing.<sup>43</sup> He was not present on 21 Oct. when a complaint of privilege was made on his behalf concerning the impounding of a wagon by an innkeeper.<sup>44</sup> After the end of the session it was noted that Oxford’s troops dealt ‘more sharply than others have done’ with Quakers who kept their shops open on Christmas Day ‘to show their contempt of authority’.<sup>45</sup> The continuing threat of a Dutch invasion kept Oxford and the Essex militia occupied well into the spring of 1666 and his troop of regular soldiers was deployed in the area for much of the rest of the year.<sup>46</sup> He was also entrusted with the task of raising government loans in Essex.<sup>47</sup> His own financial situation continued to be precarious: as a result of his first marriage Oxford had gained possession of the Bayning mansion, Bentley Hall, in Essex, but he was so poor that he was now contemplating demolishing it and felling some £2,000 worth of trees.<sup>48</sup></p><p>In April 1666 Oxford was named as one of the lord triers at the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley. Oxford had himself been involved in several duels, so it is perhaps not surprising that he voted Morley guilty of manslaughter only.<sup>49</sup> In September he was in London assisting in preserving order in the aftermath of the Great Fire.<sup>50</sup> During the subsequent (1666–7) session he was present on just over 57 per cent of sitting days. In accordance with his royalist beliefs, on 23 Jan. 1667 he signed a dissent against the resolution not to add a right of appeal to the king and the House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes about houses destroyed in the fire. During the recess Oxford shocked Pepys by wearing his Garter robes all day and riding into the park with them on, but his social activities, however scandalous, did not detract from his attention to his military duties and in June 1667 he was again active in organizing the defence of Essex and the south coast against the Dutch.<sup>51</sup></p><p><em>Public life, 1667–88</em></p><p>From the commencement of the 1667–9 session in October 1667 until the end of the year, Oxford was present on nearly 75 per cent of sitting days. His unusually high attendance was almost certainly prompted by the fall of Clarendon and the subsequent attempt to impeach him. There is no record of his vote but on 15, 19, 21, and 28 Nov. 1667 he was named as one of the managers of the several conferences held to discuss the refusal of the House of Lords to commit Clarendon. Arguably this was more a defence of the rights of the House of Lords than of Clarendon. When Parliament reassembled after Christmas his attendance dropped markedly, to just over 27 per cent. In January 1668 he was involved in a quarrel with Charles Sackville*, then styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset), apparently caused by some insult about Buckingham. Albemarle had to interpose to prevent a duel.<sup>52</sup> Meanwhile Oxford continued to carry out the normal duties of a courtier and solder, accompanying the king in his inspection of Harwich and to the races at Newmarket, as well as fulfilling his duties as chief justice in eyre south of the Trent.<sup>53</sup></p><p>During the short and troubled 1669 session Oxford was again present for about half the sittings, with most of his absences clustered towards the beginning and end of the session. He was excused attendance on 26 Oct. but there is no indication as to whether this resulted from illness or absence on royal business. In January 1670 he was sworn as a Privy Councillor, perhaps as a replacement for the recently deceased duke of Abermarle, and in March he was one of the chief mourners at the funeral of the duchess of Albemarle.<sup>54</sup> During that year, in what was said to be an attempt to ‘gratify’ Oxford, the king finally authorized a full-scale forest eyre.<sup>55</sup> Oxford prepared for the occasion conscientiously, sending for the records of previous eyres, and was given £2,000 ‘for his expenses in holding his justice seat as justice in eyre south of the Trent, and as a mark of bounty’. A further £2,000 royal bounty was authorized in November.<sup>56</sup></p><p>If all this was part of a concerted effort to fix him more firmly in the court interest, it is somewhat puzzling that his attendance at Parliament during the 1670–1 session actually fell, unless he was distracted from his parliamentary duties by those of the eyre. His attendance was only 37 per cent overall. He received a proxy from the 6th earl of Pembroke on 13 Mar. but was only present on two days before vacating it by registering his own proxy (in favour of John Granville*, earl of Bath) on 2 Apr., which was in turn vacated by his presence on 31 Oct. 1670. Over half the absences were concentrated in the early months of 1671 and there is no record of a proxy to cover this period. The eyre proceedings were notable for the severity of the fines imposed but they did at least demonstrate that Oxford was as concerned for the privileges of his fellow peers as for his own. Although Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, was convicted for his failure to appear, William Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke, admitted illegal enclosures, and Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, admitted illegally cutting logs, all were excused by the court on the grounds that they were protected by privilege of Parliament.<sup>57</sup></p><p>In October 1671 Oxford and Buckingham quarrelled at Newmarket and a duel was only averted by the intervention of the king.<sup>58</sup> In the early months of 1672 Oxford appears to have been occupied by military duties but he was taken ill in May and was forced to leave the fleet.<sup>59</sup> Later that month a treasury demand that he account for militia moneys implied that they suspected malfeasance.<sup>60</sup> That year also saw fresh developments in the litigation over the Bayning inheritance.<sup>61</sup> At least some of Oxford’s financial problems must have been solved by his sale of the office of chief justice in eyre south of the Trent to Monmouth for £5,000. Whether he did so voluntarily or was persuaded to do so because of controversy over the harsh penalties he had imposed is unknown.<sup>62</sup></p><p>The short 1673 session saw Oxford present on just over 50 per cent of the sitting days. He did not attend the (even briefer) autumn session at all. Between sessions, in April 1673, he acknowledged that he was married to Diana Kirke, a celebrated beauty some 20 years his junior.<sup>63</sup> In the course of litigation in 1686, Lady Oxford’s mother, Mary Kirke, testified that the marriage had taken place privately in Whitehall on 1 Jan. 1672.<sup>64</sup> Diana Kirke was said previously to have been mistress to several courtiers, including Prince Rupert*, who sat in the House as duke of Cumberland, and after her marriage was strongly suspected of a liaison with Henry Sydney*, later earl of Romney. Diana Kirke’s family were all closely associated with the court. Her father was keeper of Whitehall Palace; her brother Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup> was a career soldier who had served in Oxford’s regiment and who owed his preferment to the influence of James, duke of York; her sister, Mary Kirke, was at one time Monmouth’s mistress and was also reputed to have been York’s mistress. Diana Kirke later claimed that Oxford had been ordered to marry her by Charles II, who had granted them a gift of £2,000 and a pension of £2,000 a year to cover her portion and jointure. After Oxford’s death, she complained that the sum was inadequate to her needs.<sup>65</sup></p><p>When Parliament reconvened early in 1674 Oxford was present on just 21 per cent of sitting days. During the summer he was reported to be ill and there were rumours of his death. He recovered, but his infant daughter died in October.<sup>66</sup> In February 1675 he was named as one of the commissioners to investigate the surrender of New York to the Dutch.<sup>67</sup> During the first session of 1675 his attendance reached 28 per cent. When the autumn session opened on 13 October 1675, Oxford was at the Newmarket races but he had arranged to send a proxy registered to Maynard, which was vacated by his arrival on 20 Oct., after which he was present on each of the remaining 18 days of the session. In June 1676, during the interval between sessions, he was summoned as one of the triers for the trial of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, returning a verdict of not guilty.<sup>68</sup></p><p>During the 1677–8 session Oxford’s attendance reached 60 per cent; some at least of his absences in February 1677 may have been caused by the illness and death of his son. No evidence has been found to establish that the child died of neglect but stray references suggest that this may well have been so; the story of the boy dying in ‘a miserable cottage’ was even repeated by Horace Walpole in 1748.<sup>69</sup> On 15 Mar. 1677 Oxford was one of 14 peers who entered a protest against the passage of a bill to secure the Protestant religion by limiting the powers of a Catholic king. Nevertheless his contacts with the ‘country’ opposition seem to have remained strong, for Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, dubbed him worthy and in May Oxford acted as go-between in presenting the petition of James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, imprisoned for his part in supporting Shaftesbury’s motion for an address for a new Parliament.<sup>70</sup> On 4 Apr. 1678 Oxford voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Oxford’s financial situation was increasingly serious. In 1676 at least two individuals had approached the treasury asking that payments due to him be made to them directly as a way of forcing him to settle his debts. A similar application was made in 1678.<sup>71</sup> As a court dependant he was seriously incommoded by the stop of the exchequer but claimed to accept its necessity until, in the spring of 1678, on learning that Bristol was to be paid, he made his own application to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), ‘my grant being of like force and my occasions greater at this time’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>The second session of 1678 saw Oxford’s attendance reach an uncharacteristic 88 per cent. On 7 June he joined ten other peers, including Shaftesbury, in protesting against the decision of the House to hear the ‘whole matter’ of Robert Villiers’s claim to the Purbeck viscountcy, arguing that in a complex case the House should proceed ‘upon the case agreed, or single propositions, except where the House is unanimous in judgment; whereas in this cause they appear yet much divided’. On 20 June he protested again, this time in company with Danby and five other peers, against the resolution to address the crown for leave to bring in a bill to disable the claimant – a ‘course, in the arbitrariness of it, against rules and judgments of law, to be derogatory from the justice of Parliament, of evil example, and of dangerous consequence both to peers and commoners’.</p><p>While it might be expected that the revelations of a Popish Plot in August 1678 would encourage an even higher turnout, Oxford’s attendance actually dropped slightly for the autumn session of 1678, to 80 per cent. He was present on 15 Nov. when the Lords voted on whether the declaration against transubstantiation should be part of the Test. How he cast his vote is unknown but can be inferred from his failure to protest. It is unlikely to be coincidental that a warrant for payments of salary to various grooms of the bedchamber, including Oxford, was passed the same day.<sup>73</sup> On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendments to the disbanding bill and the following day voted against committing Danby.</p><p>During the first Exclusion Parliament Oxford maintained his attendance at about 79 per cent. His financial situation had not improved. When he approached Danby to secure payment of monies that the king had promised to his wife, he made it clear that he knew payment depended on persuading Danby to ‘befriend us in a especial manner’ and in return for favour he would ‘be always ready to acknowledge in anything wherein your lordship shall think me worthy to serve you’.<sup>74</sup> Throughout the spring of 1679 Danby consistently listed Oxford as a supporter, although the notation against his name on the division list of April suggests that it is possible that Oxford voted against him in the early stages of attainder proceedings. On 24 Apr. Oxford was named as one of the reporters of the conference on the answers of the impeached lords. In May Monmouth’s henchman, Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup>, sought his support in favour of Monmouth’s claim to the throne. Horrified – and clearly wishing to prove his loyalty – Oxford not only refused but went straight to the king.<sup>75</sup> On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. His financial problems continued to be acute: by 1680 he had not only been forced to sell Bentley Hall but even to sell the fabric of the building for use as building materials.<sup>76</sup></p><p>During the second Exclusion Parliament Oxford’s attendance fell back to 59 per cent but most of his absences were concentrated in the period after the Exclusion bill had been thrown out by the Lords on 15 Nov. 1680. All the extant division lists agree that Oxford was one of those who voted against it. On 7 Dec. he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason. At or about this time it seems that a second son was sick and dying.<sup>77</sup></p><p>At the general election of 1681 Oxford backed Walter Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, the anti-exclusionist candidate for Colchester, and cousin of his fellow lord lieutenant, the 2nd duke of Albemarle. The election was lost when Titus Oates intervened and accused all three – Oxford, Albemarle, and Clarges – of being ‘papistly affected’.<sup>78</sup> Oxford did not attend the Oxford Parliament at all. In May 1681 he was one of 24 peers who successfully petitioned the king for a pardon for the vicious earl of Pembroke, accused of murder for the second time.<sup>79</sup> The following month he sat with the loyal courtiers at the trial of Edward Fitzharris and in July he was one of the Privy Councillors who signed the warrant for the committal of Shaftesbury.<sup>80</sup> His association with the forces of the ‘Tory reaction’ was underlined still further in the spring of 1682 when he was not only present with York at the feast of the Royal Artillery Company but was elected a steward for the following year.</p><p>In June 1682, together with other supporters, he was in court when Danby made his abortive application for <em>habeas corpus</em>.<sup>81</sup> Then in November he was the messenger who conveyed the king’s instructions to Monmouth to leave the court ‘and upon his peril be seen there again’.<sup>82</sup> Over the winter and into the spring of 1683 he was also involved in the repression of minor incidents of seditious words, and after the discovery of the Rye House Plot he became involved in attempts to arrest the conspirators.<sup>83</sup> In 1684 he was one of the co-signatories to Danby’s petition for release from imprisonment and stood bail for him.<sup>84</sup> In June of that year he was appointed high steward of Colchester under the terms of the town’s new charter.<sup>85</sup></p><p>At the accession of James II Oxford lost his position as a gentleman of the bedchamber but the £2,000 a year pension to him and his wife was continued. He and Albemarle were also reappointed as joint lords lieutenant of Essex and were active in trying to prevent ‘heats’ in the election there.<sup>86</sup> Oxford’s overall attendance at the ensuing Parliament of 1685 was only 41 per cent but almost all his absences were concentrated in the summer when, in the wake of Monmouth’s rebellion, he was away from London, concentrating on the preservation of order in Essex.<sup>87</sup> In 1686 he was appointed one of the lords triers for the trial of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington).</p><p>Oxford resigned his regiment to James II’s illegitimate son James FitzJames*, duke of Berwick (unwillingly, according to Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>), in return for an additional pension of £1,000 a year.<sup>88</sup> Despite his financial dependence on the court, he opposed the king’s pro-Catholic policies and in Feb. 1688, ‘being commanded by the king to use his interest in his lieutenancy for the taking off the penal laws and the test, told the king plainly he could not persuade that to others which he was averse to in his own conscience’.<sup>89</sup> James promptly dismissed him, appointing the Catholic Thomas Petre*, 6th Baron Petre, lord lieutenant in his stead; Petre also replaced him as high steward of Colchester. Oxford’s sudden discovery of his conscience was viciously satirized by supporters of the King:</p><blockquote><p>Old Oxford, whose untainted family<br />So long have boasted noble loyalty,<br />The fool in all his actions has express’d<br />But ne’er till now the fool and knave confess’d.</p><p>The spending his estate, marrying his whore,<br />Suffering his son to perish at his door,<br />Are things that may with honor be perform’d:<br />No crime but taking off the Test is scorn’d.<sup>90</sup></p></blockquote><p>By October 1688 the threat of a Dutch invasion had exposed the folly of Oxford’s dismissal. The gentlemen of the county were unwilling to collaborate with Petre, and the Essex militia, with its twin dependence on the goodwill of the gentry and Oxford’s leadership, had rapidly fallen into decay. Oxford was reappointed as lord lieutenant and called his deputy lieutenants to a meeting in Chelmsford on 5 November. He also resumed his post as high steward of Colchester. Early in November, Oxford’s former regiment, minus its newly appointed Catholic officers, defected to the prince of Orange.<sup>91</sup> His brother-in-law Percy Kirke had already joined the Dutch forces.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Oxford was in London in November when he refused to sign the petition to the king for a free Parliament. In the presence of his fellow peers and James II, he explained that he had refused to sign because he knew that it would displease the king. His explanation to Sir John Bramston was very slightly different: ‘he thought it would displease the king, and he believed the Prince of Orange too’.<sup>93</sup> He arrived in William’s camp on 5 Dec. 1688, ostentatiously wearing his Garter, and reputedly bringing with him the money that he had been given by James II to bolster his interest in Essex.<sup>94</sup> Three days later it was as a representative of William that he took the chair at the meeting in Hungerford and on 10 Dec. he represented William at a meeting with James’s commissioners.<sup>95</sup> Although there is no firm documentary evidence, it seems likely that William had approached Oxford long before the invasion. Oxford’s name appears on an undated list of possible opponents of James II which is believed to have been drawn up for William’s use.<sup>96</sup></p><p><em>The Williamite courtier, 1688–1703</em></p><p>Oxford was present on 21 Dec. 1688 when the peers met William in the queen’s presence chamber and at subsequent meetings of the peers in the House of Lords. On 24 Dec. it was his suggestion that all the peers should sign ‘with their own hands’ the addresses to William to take on himself the regency and to summon a convention.<sup>97</sup> Under the new regime Oxford’s pension was continued and he was not only reappointed as lord lieutenant of Essex but also became <em>custos rotulorum</em> as well. His military expertise was also once more in demand. He was restored to his regiment in Dec. 1688 and, despite a rumour in 1692 that he would retire on a pension, retained the regiment until his death.<sup>98</sup> In 1689 he was appointed lieutenant general of horse and foot with precedency over John Churchill*, then earl (later duke) of Marlborough. He was with William III at the Battle of the Boyne and in a number of continental campaigns. Oxford was for once in little doubt that his services were truly appreciated. William’s recognition of his services included regular gifts of money as royal bounty and appointment as commissioner of appeals for prizes, as well as reappointment to the Privy Council and the bedchamber.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Much of the evidence about Oxford’s parliamentary activities in the Interregnum of 1689 and the early years of the reign of William and Mary naturally relates to his role in the design and implementation of the post-revolution settlement. The pattern of his activities is more suggestive of a court dependant than of a man committed to party political allegiances or ideology. At the election for Maldon in 1689, he supported Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, who was to become one of the leading lords of the Whig Junto. The losing candidate was the sitting Member Sir John Bramston, who sourly identified Oxford as one of ‘the factious party’, by which he meant ‘a party always averse to the governors of the town, for, as to the present Government, they were well enough affected’.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Oxford’s attendance level during the first session of the Convention was just over 72 per cent; during the session he held the proxy of Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, from 14 April. A further proxy, from John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle), is dated 30 July but was probably intended to cover the following (1689–90) session.<sup>101</sup> Oxford proved to be a loyal follower of the new king. On 31 Jan. 1689 he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and entered a dissent on the same day to the resolution not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 and 6 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons that James II had abdicated rather than deserted the throne and prior to the second of those votes was one of the managers of the conference on the subject. On 23 Mar. he protested at the resolution to reject the proviso extending the time for taking the sacramental test. He was named as one of the managers for the conferences on the additional poll bill on 27 and 31 May. On 31 May Oxford voted in favour of the resolution to reverse the judgments for perjury against Titus Oates and entered a dissent when the resolution failed. He again signalled his sympathy for Oates on 10 July when he entered a dissent to all the questions touching the judgments against Oates, on 27 July when he dissented to the failure to agree a conference with the Commons, and on 30 July when he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments and protested when the resolution passed. In the meantime, on 13 July he was named to the committee to draw up reasons in favour of the Lords’ amendments in favour of including Hanover in the succession to the crown, which were used in the conference on 16 July.</p><p>Perhaps not surprisingly, given this level of support for the new king and queen, Oxford’s pension was continued and in March 1689 he was reappointed as lord lieutenant of Essex. Later in the year he received £1,000 as royal bounty and became <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Essex.<sup>102</sup> For the rest of his life Oxford exercised the power of the lord lieutenancy in favour of those associated with Dissent and the Whigs. His desertion of James II may explain why the House had to interpose on 3 June 1689 to prevent a duel with the Jacobite sympathizer Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. The House’s intervention may not have been entirely successful for another report suggests that further steps had to be taken to stop the fight.<sup>103</sup> During the second session of the Convention Oxford’s attendance fell slightly to just over 68 per cent; apart from being nominated (along with almost everyone else in the chamber) to a few select committees on public bills (such as the prevention of minors contracting clandestine marriages) there is no record of his activities. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) classified him as among supporters of the court, and added that the king had most influence with him.</p><p>In Essex at the general election of 1690 Oxford backed Henry Mildmay<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Francis Masham<sup>‡</sup>, whose Dissenting sympathies were well known, against the Church candidates, whose supporters included Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. The opening of the first session of the 1690 Parliament saw Oxford’s attendance rise to 83 per cent and his continuing support for the new regime. On 5 Apr. he followed Nottingham’s lead in protesting at the decision to accept the compromise amendments to the bill for recognizing William and Mary as rightful and lawful sovereigns and to confirm the acts of the Convention. When the House debated the abjuration bill on 1 May, Oxford declared himself in favour of committing the bill for a second reading.<sup>104</sup> Then on 13 May he protested at the failure to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel. In June, shortly before the session was prorogued, he was one of the ‘zealots for the cause’ who accompanied William III on his Irish campaign.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Oxford’s attendance fell to 61 per cent in the following (1690–1) session but his activities are again difficult to trace, apart from his protest on 30 Oct. 1690 at the passage of the bill brought in by Carmarthen and Nottingham to clarify the powers of the admiralty commissioners. He certainly had plenty of distractions outside Parliament: one was his campaign to acquire the forfeited goods of an Essex man executed for murder; another, and presumably more demanding one, was the threat of disaffection in the county.<sup>106</sup> In July 1691 he was involved in yet another threatened duel, this time with James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury.<sup>107</sup> Reports of the quarrel reveal that he had been entertaining a surprisingly eclectic mix of dinner guests, who included the former freethinker John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> as well as Salisbury, who was regarded, with good reason, as a Jacobite sympathizer.<sup>108</sup> Oxford continued to enjoy payments from the court: one list of 1691 suggests £5,500, though whether this includes the £4,000 paid as a ‘free gift’ in December of that year is unclear.<sup>109</sup> He was also able to act as intermediary for Clare, who was angling for a dukedom.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Over the 1691–2 session Oxford’s attendance fell to 58 per cent, with the majority of his absences concentrated in the autumn of 1691. Once again he left little mark on the session. During and after this session he was also regularly named as one of the lords commissioners. In March 1692, when the House was adjourned before formal prorogation on 12 Apr., Oxford was reported to be dangerously ill but he was soon back to full health and managed to attend some 76 per cent of the sitting days during the 1692–3 session.<sup>111</sup> On 23 Nov. 1692 he was one of three earls deputed to address the king to grant marks of grace and favour to Sir Robert Atkins, who had acted as Speaker of the House for some three years. Oxford was in the House on 31 Dec. 1692 to vote in favour of committing the place bill. Rumours that he was to quit his regiment in view of his ‘great age’ and accept a pension in lieu proved to be incorrect. Surprisingly, given his close contacts with the Whigs, in Feb. 1693 Oxford joined the minority in voting Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder. On 2 Mar. he intervened unsuccessfully on behalf of Henry Lord, one of the clerks of the House, whose rudeness to a witness during examinations into the state of affairs in Ireland led to an order that he be imprisoned.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Oxford’s role in managing elections in Essex remained a crucial one. At the Essex by-election in Jan. 1693 caused by the death of Henry Mildmay, he supported John Lamotte Honywood<sup>‡</sup> and threatened his displeasure against those who supported Honywood’s opponent. During the summer recess of 1693 he enhanced his influence in the turbulent constituency of Colchester by using his position as a Privy Councillor to ensure that the borough’s new charter retained a wide franchise and by the practical assistance offered to the town in obtaining the charter by his steward.<sup>113</sup></p><p>Oxford’s attendance during the 1693–4 session rose to over 86 per cent. In Oct. 1693, before the session began, he had been involved in the investigations into the conduct of the admirals (and by implication the management of the war by Nottingham) in his capacity as a Privy Councillor. In the course of questioning he told them that their conduct affected not only the interest but also the honour of the nation.<sup>114</sup> When Parliament met again in November 1693 he continued the attack, moving for an inquiry into the matter on 11 Dec. and entering a protest on 10 Jan. 1694 against the resolution that the admirals of the fleet had done well in executing their orders.<sup>115</sup> He was recorded as having voted in favour of the Whig courtier Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the Albemarle inheritance case on 17 Feb. 1694, and his pro-Montagu sympathies are confirmed by the entry of dissents on 17 and 24 Feb. over Montagu’s failure to secure the objects of his petitions. On 7 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw reasons for adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the mutiny bill; consequently he should have been one of the managers of the conference on 29 Mar. but was absent that day. Towards the end of the session, in April 1694, Oxford’s daughter Diana married Charles Beauclerk*, duke of St Albans, and one of Charles II’s illegitimate sons. The couple were granted an annuity of £2,000 a year, partly for support of their dignity but also in recognition of ‘the good services’ of Oxford and his new son-in-law.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Despite a long absence in April 1695, Oxford’s overall attendance during the 1694–5 session was 74 per cent. On 19 Jan. 1695, in the aftermath of the Lancashire plot, he protested against the decision not to engross the bill to make subornation of perjury in certain cases felonious. After the end of the session he was required by the king to be one of the three general officers to attend the enquiries into abuses.<sup>117</sup> The new Parliament opened on 22 November. Oxford’s attendance in the first session of 1695-6was only 37 per cent, primarily because he was absent for all but one day after 10 Feb. 1696. His absence may have been related to the discovery that month of the Assassination Plot. William III was repeatedly warned that neither Oxford nor the troops who served under him could be trusted to remain loyal or to protect his person and, in the aftermath of the plot, several of Oxford’s troopers were arrested on suspicion of complicity.<sup>118</sup> However, Oxford’s name conspicuously headed the list of those who signed the Essex association oath and his regiment was considered to be sufficiently loyal to be entrusted with the custody of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>119</sup> Despite his absence he held the proxy of his son-in-law St Albans from 11 April 1696. The panic over the Assassination Plot did not prevent Oxford from maintaining good relations with those whose loyalty was suspect. It was his intervention in June 1696 that ensured that his Catholic neighbour Petre was issued with a licence to keep his horses, even though Lady Petre was a member of a leading Jacobite family and was herself a Jacobite sympathizer.<sup>120</sup></p><p>The 1696–7 session saw Oxford’s attendance recover to nearly 73 per cent. He was the third proposer of the motion to read the bill of attainder against Fenwick and voted in favour of the third reading on 23 Dec. 1696.<sup>121</sup> During the subsequent discussions over the conduct of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), Oxford supported Monmouth’s allegations that the witnesses were of no credit and proposed an immediate acquittal. He had been part of a small group of peers who had met at the house of Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, ‘to consider how they might mitigate his censure, if they could not bring him off’.<sup>122</sup> Oxford’s finances were still a matter of major concern and in February 1697 he petitioned for a 21-year lease of Irish quit rents or ‘reliefs’ payable under a statute of 14 Charles II. In March, the Irish attorney general and solicitor general advised against such an award, arguing that it would ‘tend to the utter ruin of the subjects here’, but according to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> the grant was made the following month; Luttrell was possibly confused by an award of £2,000 as royal bounty.<sup>123</sup> From 17 Mar. 1697 Oxford held the proxy of John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater.</p><p>Oxford’s activities both in and out of Parliament in these last years of his life are extremely difficult to trace. His attendance over the 1697–8 session was 74 per cent. On 7 Mar. 1698 he was appointed one of the managers of the conference on amendments to the poor relief bill. Later that month he sided with Charles Montagu and the Whigs over the bill of pains and penalties against the banker Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, acting as one of the managers of the conference on 11 Mar., voting for the rejection of the bill, and entering a formal dissent to its committal on 15 March. On 25 May, despite his own somewhat tarnished moral reputation, he was appointed a manager for the conference on the bill for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness.</p><p>During the 1698-9 session Oxford was again present for 74 per cent of sitting days. His attendance was particularly assiduous during February 1699, when the question of the king’s Dutch Guards was raised. Issues surrounding the call for the disbanding of the army were of personal interest to Oxford since they were likely to affect his own regiment, but there is no information about his reaction to the issue or his voting intentions. Shortly before the next (1699–1700) session opened in November 1699 he was in court to offer bail for his brother-in-law Percy Kirke, who had killed a man in a duel.<sup>124</sup> He attended Parliament in November and December but was then absent for all but one day of the remainder of the session. If it were illness that prevented his attendance, he was sufficiently recovered by the beginning of August 1700 to serve as temporary Speaker of the Lords at the 1 Aug. prorogation. A few days later, he acted as one of the assistants to the chief mourner at the funeral of Queen Anne’s son, the young William, duke of Gloucester. He then served as Speaker again on 12 Sept., in spite of reports of a serious and possibly terminal illness circulating only days before.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Oxford’s attendance at the new Parliament in 1701 fell to 58 per cent, largely attributable to a prolonged absence in April and early May 1701. On 8 Mar. 1701 he entered a protest at the resolution to address the king to lift the suspension of Captain Norris. Surprisingly for one so regularly aligned with the Whigs and committed to the prestige of the nobility and the rights of the upper House, he backed the Commons and the Tories in the fight against the impeached Whig lords. On 3 June he entered two protests over the resolutions concerning the answer to the Commons about the impeachment of John Somers*, Baron Somers, and protested again on 9 June about the decision not to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons on the issue. He followed this up with further protests on 17 June about the decision to proceed with the trial, and then voted against Somer’s acquittal.</p><p>Marked by a long absence between 2 Jan. and 9 Mar. 1702 and several shorter absences, Oxford’s attendance dropped to 36 per cent in William III’s last Parliament. Despite, or perhaps because of, his failing health the new queen reappointed him to the Privy Council, to the lord lieutenancy of Essex, and to his regiment. She also authorized a payment of £1,000 in May 1702 as royal bounty, although one suspects it was perhaps a commentary on his willingness to pay his debts that she ordered half of it to be used to repay an advance from Sir Benjamin Bathurst<sup>‡</sup>. A request for another £1,000 as royal bounty in July 1702 elicited a polite but firm refusal.<sup>126</sup> The next (1702–3) session saw Oxford continue his intermittent attendance, although overall it rose to 48 per cent. His declining health was presumably responsible for a rumour that he was to give up his regiment to Marlborough in return for a pension.<sup>127</sup> Nottingham listed Oxford as likely to oppose the bill against occasional conformity and he did indeed vote against it on 16 Jan. 1703.</p><p>The session ended on 27 Feb. 1703; Oxford died just two weeks later. Such was his poverty that Queen Anne authorized the payment of £200 to his widow to defray the expenses of his funeral.<sup>128</sup> Surprisingly for one who had been involved in so many duels and who had survived several near fatal illnesses, he left no will. An inventory of his goods taken a fortnight after his death shows that his house was comfortably furnished and that, despite his reported foolishness, his possessions included ‘a parcel of books to the number of about one hundred and fifty’ in his personal drawing room and 29 pictures in his bedchamber.<sup>129</sup> Of the five children born during his marriage to Diana Kirke, only two daughters survived him. Their paternity may have been doubtful for Diana Kirke’s reputation for sexual immorality apparently equalled that of her husband; Grace Worthley, discarded mistress of Henry Sydney, earl of Romney, referred to ‘the common countess of Oxford and her adulterous bastards’.<sup>130</sup> In March 1703 Hester Davenport renewed her demand to be regarded as Oxford’s legal widow, claiming the earldom for their son. She sought the intervention of John Sharp*, archbishop of York, to whom she recounted her great affliction at ‘my lord of Oxford’s cruel injustice to me and his son which we have suffered many years without complaint in hopes when he came to die he would shew himself an honester man than he had lived’.<sup>131</sup> Her son petitioned the crown for the earldom after his father’s death but there is no record that his claim was ever referred to the House of Lords and he died without heirs in 1708.<sup>132</sup></p><p>The succession to the earldom was further complicated by doubts about the correct rules of descent to apply. The earldom had been recreated in 1393 and it was not clear whether this should be regarded as a new creation or a reinstatement of the original peerage. The possibility that distant relatives might be able to establish a valid claim to the medieval title underlay the decision in 1711 to create Robert Harley earl of Oxford and Mortimer.</p> |
R.P. |
|
VERNEY, George (1661-1728) |
<p><strong><surname>VERNEY</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1661–1728)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 18 July 1711 as 12th Bar. WILLOUGHBY de BROKE |
|
First sat 13 Nov. 1711; last sat 24 May 1725 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Mar. 1661, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Richard Verney*, 11th Bar. Willoughby de Broke, and 1st w. Mary Pretyman, da. of Sir John Pretyman<sup>‡</sup>, bt.; bro. of John Verney<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Winchester 1674–8, New Coll. matric. 1679, MA 1686, DD 1699. <em>m</em>. 2 Dec. 1688, Margaret, da. and h. of Sir John Heath<sup>‡</sup> of Brasted, Kent, 5s. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>)<sup>1</sup> 1da. <em>d.</em> 26 Dec. 1728; <em>will</em> 11 Oct. 1727, pr. 29 Jan. 1729.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Hallaton 1683, Kimcote 1696, Southam 1700–<em>d</em>.; bro. St Katherine’s by the Tower; royal chaplain 1699; canon, Windsor 1701; dean, Windsor 1714–<em>d</em>.; register of Order of the Garter, 1714–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Fell. New Coll. Oxf.</p> |
|
<p>As a second son George Verney was from an early age intended for the Church and had little expectation of succeeding to the peerage. Marriage to Margaret Heath, heiress to the Brasted estate, ensured his financial security but the deaths of the heir of his older brother, John Verney, in 1700, and then of John Verney himself from a fever seven years later transformed George Verney’s prospects.<sup>6</sup> Having already acquired a fellowship at Oxford, three livings and a stall at Windsor, in May 1709 he was rumoured to be likely to succeed to the newly vacant bishopric of Chichester, though Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of London, was insistent that ‘the opposition to Dr Verney is so warm and open, on account of his siding with the Tory interest in the last election, that though he is much talked of abroad, I do not find our friends in any fear that the queen will make that step’. Gibson proved to be correct and by the close of the month Verney’s name was ‘less talked of’, having been superseded by other candidates.<sup>7</sup> Although overlooked for promotion to the Lords as a bishop, he remained a supporter of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford.</p><p>In July 1711 he succeeded his father to the barony of Willoughby de Broke and an estate that included lands in Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire.<sup>8</sup> Willoughby took his seat for the first time on 13 Nov. 1711. Jonathan Swift recorded that the new baron intended to appear in the House in his clerical gown as well as his baron’s robes but it is not clear whether he in fact did so.<sup>9</sup> He sat on another of the prorogation days (27 Nov.) before taking his place at the opening of the new session a few days later on 7 Dec.1711; the following day he registered his first protest in opposition to the resolution to present the address to the queen containing the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. Present in the House on 61 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 19 Dec. he was forecast as being likely to support the pretensions of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as duke of Brandon. The following day he voted against barring Scots peers holding post-Union British peerages from sitting in the House.</p><p>Willoughby acted as one of the sponsors of Thomas Willoughby* (one of Oxford’s ‘dozen’) on his introduction into the House as Baron Middleton on 2 Jan. 1712, a further indication of his support for Oxford’s ministry. This was confirmed when he voted with the ministry on 28 May in opposition to the motion for overturning the restraining orders imposed on James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>10</sup> Shortly before the close of the session, he preached the annual charity sermon at St Sepulchre’s on 12 June 1712, ‘before a most numerous congregation’.<sup>11</sup> He took as his text <em>Acts</em> 20:35, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’, a sentiment he perhaps hoped that Oxford would emulate. The sermon was subsequently published and a copy sent to the lord treasurer.<sup>12</sup> In October of that year Oxford included him in a list of possible new officeholders, Willoughby being pencilled in as a warden of the New Forest.<sup>13</sup> Although he again appears to have been overlooked, in March 1713 Swift listed him once more as a likely supporter of the ministry.</p><p>Willoughby appears to have been one of several Warwickshire peers willing to be directed to a greater or lesser extent by William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, the Speaker of the Commons.<sup>14</sup> He was present on four of the prorogation days in advance of the new session of April 1713 and then resumed his seat on 9 Apr. (after which he was present on approximately 59 per cent of all sitting days). In June he was estimated as being in favour of confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce treaty and in July he attempted to capitalize on his position as a ministry supporter by petitioning Oxford directly for the bishopric of London.<sup>15</sup> Although he was again overlooked, later that year his persistence was finally rewarded with his appointment to the vacant deanery of Windsor, a position he continued to hold for the remainder of his life. In this capacity he preached before the queen on Christmas day.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Willoughby took his seat in the new Parliament on 2 Mar. 1714. Present on 58 per cent of all sitting days, on 17 Mar. he registered his proxy with John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham (vacated by his return to the House on 2 Apr.), and again on 7 May 1714 (vacated by his resumption of his seat four days later). On 27 May he was forecast as a likely supporter of the schism bill.</p><p>Willoughby attended just three days of the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death in August 1714. Despite his Tory sympathies he did not suffer by the Hanoverian succession, maintaining his office as dean of Windsor, though it is perhaps significant that he failed to be granted any further promotion in the Church. Details of the latter part of his career, in particular his vain efforts to introduce a bill for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness, will be dealt with in the next phase of this work.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Suffering from crippling attacks of gout from 1724, Willoughby failed to attend the House after 24 May 1725.<sup>18</sup> He made his will two years later and died in December 1728. His fourth (but eldest surviving) son, Richard Verney<sup>†</sup>, succeeded as 13th Baron Willoughby de Broke. Execution of his will was entrusted to his younger son, John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Downton, a decision that sparked disagreement between the brothers for the ensuing few years.<sup>19</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
VERNEY, Richard (1622-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>VERNEY</surname></strong> (<strong>VARNEY</strong>), <strong>Richard</strong> (1622–1711)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>gt.-nephew 23 Aug. 1683 as <em>de jure</em> 11th Bar. WILLOUGHBY de BROKE, claim allowed 13 Feb. 1696 |
|
First sat 27 Feb. 1697; last sat 24 Dec. 1710 |
|
MP Warws. 1685, 1689 |
<p><em>b</em>. 28 Jan. 1622, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Greville Verney<sup>‡</sup> (d. 1642) and Katherine Southwell. <em>educ</em>. Jesus, Camb. 1640. <em>m</em>. (1) 8 Jan. 1652 (settlement Nov. 1651), Mary (1632–63), da. of Sir John Pretyman<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Loddington, Leics. 6s. (4 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 2da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.);<sup>1</sup> (2) c.1665, Frances (<em>b</em>. c.1625), da. of Thomas Dove of Upton, Northants. 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>. 1da.<sup>2</sup> Kntd. 1 Apr. 1685. <em>d</em>. 18 July 1711; <em>admon</em>. 1 Dec. 1762.</p> |
<p>Freeman, Portsmouth 1677; sheriff, Rutland 1681–2, Warws. 1683–4; dep. lt., Rutland 1682–Mar. 1688, Warws. 1686–7, 1689-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Maj., militia ft. Warws. by 1680–?7.</p> |
|
<p>‘A gentleman … of a noble and courteous disposition’, Verney was already in his sixties when he succeeded his great-nephew as heir to the dormant barony of Brooke (or Willoughby de Broke).<sup>5</sup> There is some doubt as to his precise age: most authorities give his birth year as 1622 but a pedigree compiled by Verney himself recorded the year as 1624.<sup>6</sup> Already a substantial landowner, he had purchased the estates of Allexton in Leicestershire in 1652 and Belton in Rutland in the 1670s.<sup>7</sup> Marriage to Mary Pretyman, daughter of the unfortunate Sir John Pretyman, allied him to the Heath family of Brasted in Kent and Cottesmore in Rutland, and on the death of his nephew, Sir Greville Verney, in 1668 Verney was said to have benefited by ‘a great windfall’, inheriting lands valued at £4,000 a year and £20,000 in money.<sup>8</sup> With the death of his great-nephew, William Verney, the remainder of the Verney estate reverted to his control.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Verney’s new lands extended his midlands interests into Warwickshire but it is perhaps indicative of his attitude towards his claims on the peerage that he made no attempt to petition for a writ of summons and was content to demonstrate his increased influence in the area by presenting himself for election to the Commons as knight of the shire for Warwickshire in 1685. Solidly Tory in outlook, Verney does not appear to have been an active member of the lower House, nor does he appear to have played a prominent role during the Revolution. He continued to represent Warwickshire in the Convention and voted against the resolution that the throne was vacant.<sup>10</sup> Such opposition to the new regime perhaps led to the loss of his seat at the 1690 general election.</p><p>In the autumn of 1694, formal proceedings were begun to revive the barony of Brooke, though the initiator of this move appears to have been Verney’s son John<sup>‡</sup>, rather than himself.<sup>11</sup> Verney’s cause brought him into direct conflict with his cousin Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke. The dispute was, in essence, over style and precedence. In 1611 James I had conferred the barony of Brooke of Beauchamps Court on Sir Fulke Greville<sup>†</sup> but Sir Fulke (Lord Brooke) and Richard Verney’s father, Sir Greville Verney, had also been co-heirs to the Willoughby barony of Broke (or Brooke).<sup>12</sup> Brooke’s death without direct heirs vested the latter in the Verney family, while the barony of Brooke of Beauchamps Court passed by special remainder to Brooke’s cousin Robert Greville<sup>†</sup>, who succeeded as 2nd Baron Brooke.</p><p>It was thus Verney’s insistence on being styled Brooke rather than Willoughby de Broke or Verney of Broke, both which forms were suggested as suitable alternatives, that was initially at the heart of the disagreement.<sup>13</sup> Brooke did not contest Verney’s right to be summoned as the Willoughby heir (although some lawyers of the time did question whether Sir Fulke’s acceptance of the barony of Brooke of Beauchamps Court had <em>de</em> <em>facto</em> extinguished the older Brooke barony); he merely wanted to ensure that Verney would not be permitted to take a title too close to his own or to challenge his precedence within the House.<sup>14</sup> Brooke’s lawyers made painstaking investigations into the Willoughby peerage. They found that the records were ambiguous on point of style, though one at least concluded that the Willoughbys had indeed styled themselves as Lords Brooke. Before the winter sessions, Verney approached Brooke to press for the cause to be settled by arbitration. Brooke, however, was unwilling to settle and Verney’s continuing intransigence on the point of style made an early resolution impossible.<sup>15</sup></p><p>On 11 Dec. 1694 Verney presented the first of several petitions to the House for recognition as Baron Brooke.<sup>16</sup> The confusion and ambiguities surrounding the peerage were exemplified by the continually evolving appeals made by Verney to further his cause. Concerned that his pedigree had not been represented from the bar ‘so clear as your petitioner is ready to make the same appear’, he requested to be heard in person and in another petition he acknowledged the controversy surrounding the style of his title and admitted that as he had ‘been informed that the direction of the … writ being Roberto Willoughby de Broke Chevalier, the title created thereby might not be the same which your petitioner claimed’.<sup>17</sup> Nine days after entering the first petition, counsel was heard on both sides. The House resolved that the attorney general should also be heard and, after further deliberation, on 10 Jan. 1695 the House rejected Verney’s claim. The following day a committee was established to draw up a report to be presented to the king explaining the House’s decision; it met on 12 Jan. chaired by John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby).<sup>18</sup></p><p>The dismissal of Verney’s petition failed to conclude the issue, which became increasingly enveloped by the broader question concerning the rights of all peers holding baronies by writ to a writ of summons. The committee sat again on 16 Feb. 1695 but failed to come to a resolution.<sup>19</sup> Opposition to the rights of those claiming their baronies by writ was led by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, while several peers, led by James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, and Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, vigorously supported their claims, dismayed by the possible implications for their own baronies as a result of the rejection of Verney’s petition. On 20 Feb. Thanet moved that the House should declare its reasons for rejecting Verney’s claim, after which a series of debates ensued over the following weeks. On 8 Mar. a long debate was held in the House on the matter. The continuing contretemps brought Brooke back to London but he remained adamant that he would not agree to Verney being granted precedence over him. Following further hearings, on 19 Mar. the House finally passed a resolution that heirs to baronies by writ did have the right to demand a writ of summons. Among the eight protestors were Rochester, Brooke and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, patron of John Verney’s rivals in Leicestershire. The House’s resolution clearly rendered rejection of Verney’s claim untenable, leading Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, to move that the vote in Verney’s case should be withdrawn, but consideration of his motion was postponed and no further progress was made prior to the prorogation.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Verney renewed his petition for a writ of summons in January 1696 and on 3 Feb. the Lords’ original decision was finally overturned.<sup>21</sup> By a compromise, it was at last resolved that Verney should be summoned as Baron Willoughby de Broke but he was granted precedence over his cousin Brooke.<sup>22</sup> He took his seat without introduction as a peer by descent on 27 February. He then sat for a mere 11 days before retiring to the country, registering his proxy in Normanby’s favour on 16 March. Having at last received his writ, Willoughby was troubled with a demand for the payment of fees amounting to £26 6<em>s</em>. 8<em>d</em>. Once again, it seems to have been John Verney who took the initiative, employing the controversial Lancaster Herald, Gregory King, to take up the matter with the clerks, arguing that as a peer by descent Willoughby was exempt from such charges.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Willoughby took his seat during the following session on 19 Nov. 1696 and sat on 36 occasions until 27 Jan. 1697 (approximately 32 per cent of all sitting days in the session). On 15 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to read Goodman’s information against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and three days later he dissented again at the resolution to read the bill of attainder a second time. He then voted against passing the bill on 23 Dec. and subscribed the protest when the measure was carried. On 10 Feb. he again registered his proxy in favour of Normanby, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Willoughby returned to the House for the opening of the next session on 3 Dec. 1697. Present on just 14 per cent of all sitting days, on 4 Mar. 1698 he protested against the second reading of the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. He voted against the committal of the bill on 15 March. He returned to the House for the first session of the new Parliament on 16 Dec. 1698 (attending for 22 per cent of all sitting days) and on 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against agreeing with the committee resolution offering to assist the king to retain his Dutch Guards. He then registered a further dissent at the resolution to agree with the committee’s findings.</p><p>Willoughby was absent from the House from March 1699 until February 1700, when he sat on just one occasion (7 February). In December of that year he was active, with his neighbour Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, in the Warwickshire elections on behalf of his son-in-law, Sir Charles Shuckburgh<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup> but Mordaunt complained that Willoughby and Sir Henry Parker had been ‘making an interest with the freeholders in their neighbourhood for Sir Charles and my self which was without my knowledge and consent’.<sup>24</sup> Mordaunt fell sick shortly after but Leigh and Willoughby were successful in persuading the sheriff to put off the county meeting until Mordaunt had recovered.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Willoughby took his seat once more shortly after the opening of the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on 16 per cent of all sitting days. The following month, on 20 Mar. he protested at the resolution not to send the address relating to the Treaty of Partition to the Commons for their concurrence. He was absent from the House again from April until the end of the year. Notwithstanding his lacklustre attendance in the House, Willoughby’s interest in Warwickshire remained strong. He was one of those who met at the Swan in Warwick on 25 Nov. 1701 to decide on the county’s representatives, and an undated letter from him to Sir John Mordaunt requesting that he stand with Andrew Archer<sup>‡</sup> for the county may date from the same election, as it was considered unlikely that Sir Charles Shuckburgh would agree to contest the seat again.<sup>26</sup> In the event Shuckburgh underwent a change of heart and the usual pairing of Mordaunt and Shuckburgh was returned with little difficulty.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Willoughby returned to the House on 19 Jan. 1702. He sat for just eight days before retiring for two months but ensured that his proxy was again registered in favour of Normanby on 14 February. The proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 15 Apr., after which he sat for just three more days (in all he was present on just 12 per cent of days in the whole session). Queen Anne’s coronation of 23 Apr. presented him with a new dilemma. Having failed to secure a set of second-hand robes for the ceremony, he was eventually compelled to have a new set tailored for the occasion. He entrusted the commission to his neighbour Sir John Mordaunt, pressing him to discover whether a coronet was ‘absolutely necessary’.<sup>28</sup> Willoughby’s reluctance to invest in the robes may not just have been a matter of parsimony but could also underline the comparative novelty of barons being granted the right to wear ‘robes of estate’.</p><p>Willoughby took his seat at the opening of Queen Anne’s first Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702 but he sat on just one other day in the session, after which he was away from the House for three years. Despite his prolonged absence, he was listed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being in favour of the bill for preventing occasional conformity. A further estimate by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, on the same issue echoed Nottingham’s forecast. A division list of December 1703 appears to suggest that Willoughby voted as expected by proxy but the proxy book is defective and no record of the proxy has survived. Willoughby was excused at a call of the House on 23 Nov. 1704 and on 2 Dec. he again registered his proxy in favour of the duke of Buckingham (as Normanby had since become), which was vacated by the close of the session. Despite his absence, Willoughby was included by Nottingham in a list of members of both Houses he drew up in 1704 which may indicate expected support over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Willoughby continued to command sizeable interest in Warwickshire and at the time of the elections for the new Parliament in 1705 he was courted by the maverick Captain George Lucy, who hoped that the baron’s impatience with the Tackers might be sufficient to secure his support.<sup>29</sup> Willoughby was included in a list of ‘noblemen and gentry in Capt Lucy’s interest’ of April 1705 but it seems unlikely that he gave Lucy any real encouragement.<sup>30</sup> An undated letter from Willoughby addressed jointly to Mordaunt and Shuckburgh probably originates from this contest, in which he explains,</p><blockquote><p>my late being with Captain Lucy was nothing to this affair, neither does he desire me to interest my self in the matter having always declared I will neither meddle or make in elections, his only ambition (if I take him right) is to undeceive those that book him down for an enemy to our Church and the government …<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>Willoughby was present in the House for the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 but he proceeded to attend for just two days.<sup>32</sup> On 12 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House and on the 22nd he registered his proxy in favour of the redoubtable Buckingham. He remained away from the House throughout 1706 and on 13 Jan. 1707 he registered his proxy in Buckingham’s favour once more. He took his seat again on 23 Oct. 1707 but failed to return the following day and was then absent for the remainder of the session. Willoughby’s hasty departure may have been caused by the sudden death of both his daughter-in-law and his son and heir, John Verney, who died within days of each other during that month.<sup>33</sup> He also appears to have suffered increasingly poor health. He offered his interest to Mordaunt and Andrew Archer<sup>‡</sup> for the election of May 1708 but asked to be excused from attending the county meeting, complaining that the ‘badness of the weather … has caused me to be very lame of sciatica pains’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>John Verney’s death compelled Willoughby to make alternative arrangements for the distribution of his estate after his death. On 24 Feb. 1709 he petitioned the House to bring in a bill to enable him to raise a jointure for his grandson’s prospective wife. The bill was read in committee on 18 Mar. and received the royal assent on 21 April.<sup>35</sup> The same month it was rumoured that Willoughby’s younger son, George Verney*, later 12th Baron Willoughby de Broke, was to succeed as bishop of Chichester, though this promotion failed to transpire.<sup>36</sup> In May, Willoughby’s grandson, Thomas Verney, married the daughter of his Warwickshire neighbour Leigh, with a portion of £15,000.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Following a two-year absence Willoughby returned to Parliament in February 1710, spurred into action by the Sacheverell affair. He took his seat on 18 Feb., following which he was present on approximately 24 per cent of all sitting days. A newsletter of 23 Feb. reported his arrival in town in company with John Manners*, duke of Rutland, and John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter, and claimed that, ‘’tis whispered that they’ll be of the right side, but it’s impossible that should be known till their lordships have heard the merit of their cause’. On 14 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolution that it was not necessary to include the particular words supposed to be criminal in an impeachment; the same day he protested at the resolution not to adjourn. Two days later he protested at the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment against Sacheverell and on 17 Mar. he entered a further protest against the resolution that the Commons had made good the remaining articles. The following day he dissented from the resolution to limit peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty and on 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell not guilty of the charges against him. He then subscribed the protest against the guilty verdict. Willoughby was later one of those peers to fete Sacheverell in his progress through Warwickshire.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Willoughby returned to the House on 4 Dec. 1710. He absented himself the following day and on 6 Dec. registered his proxy in favour of Buckingham for the last time. In June 1711 his name appeared on a list of Tory patriots of the previous session. He died the following month. He was succeeded by his younger son, George Verney, dean of Windsor, as 12th Baron Willoughby de Broke. Willoughby died without composing a will and it was not until December 1762 that final settlement was made of his estate. The reason for the delay is unclear.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
VILLIERS, Charles (c. 1627-61) |
<p><strong><surname>VILLIERS</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (c. 1627–61)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 3 Apr. 1630 (a minor) as 2nd earl of ANGLESEY |
|
First sat 15 June 1660; last sat 5 July 1660 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. 1627, s. of Christopher (Kit) Villiers<sup>†</sup>, earl of Anglesey, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 12 Apr. 1662), da. of Thomas Sheldon of Howby, Leics. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1642; Peterhouse, Camb. admitted 13 Dec. 1644, aged 15; travelled abroad 1647.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 25 Apr. 1648, Mary (<em>d</em>. Jan. 1672),<sup>2</sup> 3rd da. of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Bayning, wid. of William Villiers, 2nd Visct. Grandison [I], <em>s.p</em>. <em>bur</em>. 4 Feb. 1661 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Mdx.; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
|
|
<p>Villiers’s father was a younger brother of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, and as such an influential courtier at the early Stuart court. The date of his birth is unclear: his university matriculation suggests 1629, whereas his marriage licence suggests 1626/7. Anglesey was thus a very young child when he succeeded to the peerage and was unable to take his seat in the pre-Restoration House of Lords. On 26 Jan. 1647 he was given leave by the Lords to travel abroad with three servants.</p><p>At the Restoration, Anglesey was in a prime position to benefit from his connections at court. His cousin George Villiers* 2nd duke of Buckingham, was a close friend of the king. Moreover, Anglesey’s wife was the mother, by her first marriage, of Barbara Villiers, countess of Castlemaine (later duchess of Cleveland), a favourite mistress of Charles II. Anglesey took his seat in the Lords on 15 June 1660 but attended only one other sitting of the House, on 5 July. He died of smallpox and was buried on 4 Feb. 1661 at St Martin-in-the-Fields.<sup>3</sup> As he died without issue, his peerage became extinct; it was revived on 20 Apr. 1661 for Arthur Annesley* earl of Anglesey.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
VILLIERS, Edward (c. 1655-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>VILLIERS</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (c. 1655–1711)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Mar. 1691 Visct. VILLIERS; <em>cr. </em>24 Sept. 1697 earl of JERSEY |
|
First sat 31 Mar. 1691; last sat 21 Aug. 1711 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 18 Nov. 1655, s. of Sir Edward Villiers (1620–89) and Frances, da. of Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk. <em>educ</em>. St John’s, Camb. matric. 1671; DCL Oxf. 1702. <em>m</em>. lic. 8 Dec. 1681 (with £10,000),<sup>1</sup> Barbara (<em>d</em>.1735), da. of William Chiffinch<sup>‡</sup> 3s. (?1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.) 1da. <em>d</em>. 26 Aug. 1711;<sup>2</sup> <em>bur</em>. Westminster Abbey; <em>admon</em>. 10 Sept. 1711 to wid.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Master of the horse to Queen Mary 1689–95; kt. marshal 1689–1700; kpr. of Hyde Park 1692;<sup>4</sup> envoy extraordinary at the Hague 1695–7, amb. to France 1698–9; PC 1697–1707; ld. just. Ireland 1697; ld. just. 1699,<sup>5</sup> 1700, 1701; sec. of state (southern dept.) 1699–1700; ld. chamberlain 1700–4; ld. privy seal 26 Aug. 1711.</p><p>Envoy extraordinary at the Hague 1695–7; amb. to France 1698–9.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1699, St John’s, Camb.</p> |
<p>Villiers, the son of a household official and married to the daughter of the key court insider of the court of Charles II, rose to prominence in the service of William III and Mary II. Along with his sisters Barbara, Elizabeth, and Anne, he had been a childhood companion of Princess Mary, and with Elizabeth and Anne he accompanied her when she went to the Netherlands to marry the prince of Orange.<sup>7</sup> Lampooned for possessing few qualities beyond his natural good looks, his continual preferment under William III has been attributed largely to his good fortune: one of his sisters, Elizabeth, later countess of Orkney [S], became the king’s mistress, and another, Anne, married the king’s favourite, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, thought Villiers and his wife ‘as designing, ill people as is possible’.<sup>8</sup> John Macky concluded that</p><blockquote><p>He has gone through all the great offices of the kingdom, with a very ordinary understanding; was employed by one of the greatest kings that ever was, in affairs of the greatest consequence, and yet a man of a weak capacity. He makes a good figure in his person, being tall, well shaped, handsome, and dresses clean.<sup>9</sup></p></blockquote><p>Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, commented more stridently that ‘it was one of the reproaches of the… reign, that he had so much credit with [King William]; who was so sensible of it, that if he had lived a little while longer, he would have dismissed him’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>While he was an intimate of King William and Queen Mary, Villiers’s relations with Queen Anne proved far less amicable. He earned the then princess’s undying animosity in the year of his elevation for his behaviour towards her during her period of self-imposed exile from court at Sion House. Sarah, countess (later duchess) of Marlborough, described how, following Princess Anne’s frosty audience with the queen in February 1692 over the queen’s insistence that she remove Sarah from her service, ‘she met in the next room my Lord Jersey who at that time had not so much manners as to offer the princess his hand to open a door for her, or call her servants who by accident were out of the way’.<sup>11</sup></p><h2><em>The new peer, 1691–1702</em></h2><p>As a reward for his loyal household service, Villiers was raised to the peerage in March 1691 as Viscount Villiers. He was introduced into the House within a few days of his elevation on 31 Mar. (a prorogation day) between Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford), and Charles Granville*, styled Viscount Lansdown (who sat in the House as Baron Granville, and later succeeded as 2nd earl of Bath). He then resumed his seat at the opening of the 1691-2 session on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on just over 60 per cent of all sitting days. On 27 Oct. he was ordered to wait on the queen to discover when the House might attend her with their address. On 4 Jan. 1692, the House took into consideration Villiers’s petition that his mother’s brother, Henry Howard*, 5th earl of Suffolk, might be proceeded against for non-payment of money owing to his sisters. The case was referred to the committee for privileges, which considered it on 11 January.<sup>12</sup> Bishop Burnet reported from the committee on 12 Jan. confirming Suffolk’s willingness to waive his privilege so that Villiers and his sisters could prosecute their case in the courts. The same day, Villiers’s bill for vesting some of his lands in trustees to be sold to raise funds for the purchase of alternative estates was read for a second time and committed. John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, reported from the committee considering the bill three days later, recommending that it be engrossed with some amendments. The following month, on 18 Feb. 1692, Villiers requested that his objections to the bill for recovering small debts in Westminster courts might be heard, having been unable to do so prior to the bill’s second reading. The House ordered that all concerned in the bill should be heard at the bar the following Saturday, though the Journal makes no mention of this having taken place.<sup>13</sup> Villiers’s own bill was managed in the Commons by Edward Clarke<sup>‡</sup> and received the royal assent on 24 February.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Villiers resumed his seat at the outset of the following session on 4 Nov. 1692, after which he was present on just over 70 per cent of sitting days. On 12 Dec. the House considered a further bill to clarify certain aspects of his former act, which was later also managed in the Commons by Edward Clarke, returned to the Lords on 9 Jan. 1693 without amendment, and received royal assent on 20 January.<sup>15</sup> On 3 Jan. 1693 Villiers voted against passing the place bill and the following month, on 4 Feb., he joined with the majority in finding Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. He took his place at the opening of the following session on 7 Nov. 1693, after which he was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. It was reflective of his favoured status that shortly after the close of the session a rumour circulated that he was to be promoted duke of Buckingham (vacant by the death six years previously of his kinsman, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham), while his nephew was to be married to Lady Mary de Vere and ennobled as a viscount with the promise of an earldom on Villiers’s death.<sup>16</sup> None of these things was realized.</p><p>Present again at the opening of the new session on 12 Nov. 1694 (of which he attended approximately 63 per cent of all sitting days), Villiers took a prominent role in Queen Mary’s funeral the following February, leading her horse in the procession, accompanied by four equerries.<sup>17</sup> Later that year, he was sent as envoy extraordinary to the States General, setting out for his mission in mid-June 1695.<sup>18</sup> He was in consequence absent from the House for the ensuing two sessions. Granted £1,228 to cover his expenses as envoy, he quickly earned a reputation for extravagance, organizing a lavish firework display to mark the king’s birthday.<sup>19</sup> In spite of their apparently frosty relations, by August 1696 rumours were circulating that Villiers was ‘intriguing for the princess of Denmark’ (later Queen Anne) from his posting.<sup>20</sup> He was absent from the House at the time of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> but he wrote to Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, from The Hague to assure him of his support, hoping that, ‘the House of Commons has done everybody right and disposed of Sir John Fenwick as his new plot deserves, which I cannot treat seriously enough’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Appointed one of the plenipotentiaries to attend the peace congress at Ryswick early in February 1697, Villiers appears to have found the negotiations frustrating and griped at the constant prevarications.<sup>22</sup> The secretary of state, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, lamented Villiers’s poor grasp of affairs, complaining that ‘the accounts Lord Villers gives are very imperfect’.<sup>23</sup> Villiers was also occasionally criticized by the king for his poor decisions.<sup>24</sup> Following the Treaty of Ryswick, some Whigs expressed fears that William was himself now sympathetic to a Jacobite restoration. Villiers is said to have confirmed that a proposal was mooted at one stage for the pretender (James Edward Stuart) to be educated in England.<sup>25</sup> Despite Villiers’s perceived shortcomings, he was soon given another prominent appointment as one of the lords justices of Ireland along with Charles Powlett*, styled marquess of Winchester (later 2nd duke of Bolton), and Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I].<sup>26</sup> Villiers owed his appointment in part to Shrewsbury’s recommendation but he also thanked Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> for his assistance in procuring him the position.<sup>27</sup></p><p>In accordance with a promise made on Galway’s promotion to an earldom in May 1697, that summer, while the king was at Breda, Villiers was also advanced in the peerage as earl of Jersey, as a more appropriate dignity for his status as ambassador. Reports of his promotion circulated from mid-August.<sup>28</sup> Towards the close of September he was said to be making his preparations for leaving The Hague and taking up his new post at Dublin, hoping to get there ‘before my Lord Galway has done all that is to be done’, but instead he returned to England in November with the king, content to leave the management of Irish affairs to his other partners.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Villiers was introduced into the House in his new dignity as earl of Jersey on 3 Dec. 1697, supported by his uncle, Suffolk, and George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton. He was then present on 62 per cent of all sitting days in the 1697-8 session. After his experiences on the continent he found the House’s attitude to some subjects perplexing and complained of ‘our wise senators, who think English militia better than any French regulated troops’.<sup>30</sup> Towards the close of the month, it was reported that Jersey was once more planning to take up his post in Ireland, though John Methuen<sup>‡</sup> advised Galway that he spoke of his journey ‘in such a manner that I do not know what to think of it, and whether there be not some punctilio about his place in the commission’. Methuen clearly found Jersey difficult to make out, noting how he ‘solicits and attends much at court as though he minded some other matter, is looked on as a great favourite and some think he is capable of imagining he may come to Ireland alone, but I do not believe it’.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Further reports of Jersey’s imminent departure for Ireland circulated at the beginning of January 1698 but these also coincided with rumours that he was to be appointed to the vacant office of lord chamberlain.<sup>32</sup> Methuen continued to report Jersey’s irresolution and his belief that Jersey aimed ‘at something greater than lord justice of Ireland’. The destruction of part of Whitehall by fire early in January forced Jersey into temporary lodgings but he continued to prevaricate over his departure for Ireland, dissatisfied at his inability to procure his expenses. By March 1698, buoyed by his alliance with the king’s new favourite, Arnold Joost van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, he appears to have resolved on securing an alternative office. Methuen concluded once more that Jersey had ‘hopes of some great things and I believe if the king follows his own humour he will be secretary’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>That March the business of the House was dominated by proceedings against Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Aligning himself with the Whigs for the time being, on 15 Mar. 1698 Jersey voted in favour of committing the bill for punishing the disgraced official and registered his dissent when the House failed to do so. The following day he registered a further dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the legal action between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S]. Jersey’s situation remained uncertain. Poor relations with Galway made it impractical for him to take up his position in Ireland.<sup>34</sup> In April 1698 he was appointed ambassador to Paris in succession to Portland, despite his own disinclination to accept the post, fearing that ‘the business as well as the people I shall have to do with are both too great’.<sup>35</sup> He was also concerned by the expenses that he would incur.<sup>36</sup> In the absence of a substantial landed estate, he relied heavily on his official salaries. He was in receipt of £1,500 for his equipage as ambassador to Paris, along with a salary of £100 a week. Nevertheless, fretting that if he took up the French embassy he would lose his salary as one of the lord justices in Ireland, he petitioned to retain it despite being absent from his post.<sup>37</sup> The other two lord justices, Winchester and Galway, were appalled and appealed not to have to deliver up a third of their income to their non-resident colleague; Winchester explained that there was no precedent for delivering up the salary to an absentee and that he and Galway had already spent their income, ‘the time of the sitting of Parliament being very expensive’.<sup>38</sup> Galway claimed that he was owed £66 from the treasury as it was and baulked at Jersey’s expectation of over £2,000:</p><blockquote><p>If I had the wherewithal to pay back what I have received of the third part of the salary claimed by Lord Jersey, I would have given it at once to Mr Robinson, in order always to obey the king’s commands without questioning them. But the fact is I have not £20.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite these appeals, Jersey was permitted to retain his salary and in May 1698 a warrant was issued for Galway and Winchester to yield up £2,871.<sup>40</sup> In addition, the king assured Jersey that he would be allowed to overspend his ambassadorial allowance.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Jersey set out for France in the middle of August 1698, arriving at his new posting the following month.<sup>42</sup> He was consequently absent for the entirety of the first session of the 1698 Parliament. His public entry into Paris was described as being ‘extraordinary splendid’.<sup>43</sup> When he left the post the following May, Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> wrote to assure him that ‘people talk so of your magnificence and economy that when you are a duke, it shall be put into your patent’. When preparing to serve as ambassador to Paris in 1712, Shrewsbury cited Jersey’s expenditure of £12,000 to justify his own claims.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Jersey’s mission to Paris was generally considered a success and in May 1699 he was recalled to England to take up a new appointment as secretary of state for the southern department on Shrewsbury’s resignation.<sup>45</sup> The appointment had come in spite of calls by the Whig Junto for Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton (later marquess of Wharton), to be preferred. Jersey was lampooned in a political satire of July 1699, <em>The Titles of Several Public Acts Agreed to in the Cabal</em>. The 13th of these was ‘An Act to make the Lords Rum. [Henry Sydney*, earl of Romney], and Jer[sey], two able ministers of state’.<sup>46</sup> Another satirical piece assaulted both Jersey and his fellow secretary, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, declaring that</p><blockquote><p>Vernon’s by all men believed a mere tool,<br />And Jersey’s acknowledged to have ne’er been at school.<sup>47</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite the ribaldry in the press at their expense, one sensible departure agreed to by Jersey and Vernon was that the fees normally fought over by the two departments should be pooled and divided equally.<sup>48</sup> Vernon was concerned that the arrangement would affront Jersey, but he appears to have accepted it with a good grace. He soon wearied of the pressures of the post, however, which was rendered more difficult by his frosty relationship with Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Jersey attended the House for the prorogation day on 1 June 1699 and he took his seat at the opening of the new session on 16 Nov., after which he was present for 46 per cent of the session. The closing days of the session found Jersey engaged in one of the most contentious issues of his secretaryship: the dispute between Lords and Commons over the Irish forfeitures bill, which was sent up from the Commons at the beginning of April 1700. Although Jersey, Portland, and Albemarle voted in favour of giving the bill a second reading, the House, stirred up by Wharton and the lord privy seal, John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, voted to remove one of the clauses in the bill excluding excise officials from the Commons, 56 to 33.<sup>50</sup> The Commons rejected the Lords’ decision and the atmosphere became increasingly charged. Jersey, ‘frighted… out of his wits’, was given permission by the king to attempt to persuade the Lords not to insist on their amendment but Vernon reported that ‘some of the lords were offended that my Lord Jersey should pretend to influence them by a message’. Notwithstanding Jersey’s attempts to manage the House, only he and Romney appeared willing to allow the Commons to have their way. After the departure of several of the bishops, however, a new division found 39 agreeing with the Commons against 34 still opposing the bill.<sup>51</sup></p><p>In the aftermath of the session there were renewed expectations of changes at court. Jersey attracted opprobrium for his botched attempt to relieve John Somers*, Baron Somers, of the great seal. Having demanded it without a warrant, he was forced to return for one before Somers would agree to yield it.<sup>52</sup> On another occasion Jersey attempted to order the new lord keeper, Sir Nathan Wright, to affix the great seal to a commission for ships of the East India Company to seize pirates. Vernon reported that Wright ‘boggles at it, and takes it to be illegal’. Following a month of rumours, towards the end of June 1700 Jersey replaced Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain. In spite of his wishes to the contrary, the secretaryship was left vacant.<sup>53</sup> The same year, he bought Squerries, in Kent, from the Crisp family, enabling him to establish some influence in Kent politics.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Shortly after his appointment as chamberlain, Jersey travelled to Holland to attend the king.<sup>55</sup> From there he maintained close contact with various figures in England, operating as mediator between the king and the lord justices. In September he wrote to Marlborough that</p><blockquote><p>If you think that the king’s being over early would be of any service to him, I wish you could so order it that the lords justices might say something of it when they write to know the time of the next prorogation of Parliament, for without some such stratagem I fear we shall not be at home so soon as we were last year…<sup>56</sup></p></blockquote><p>Jersey had returned to England by November 1700, by which time his influence was beginning to cause disquiet among some, it being said that he ‘grows very much a minister and is in a fair way of being very great’.<sup>57</sup> The following month, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, commented that Jersey ‘has more interest with the king than ever’.<sup>58</sup> Others cautioned that he was the person at court ‘who obstructs all’.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Jersey attended 62 per cent of sitting days during the only session of the first 1701 Parliament. On 17 Feb. he was nominated as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning the Lords’ address to the king. The following month the countess of Jersey gave birth to a son, who was shortly afterwards baptized, with the king and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, standing godfathers.<sup>60</sup> The child probably died while still an infant. Having acted as one of the plenipotentiaries for the second Treaty of Partition, Jersey was fortunate to escape being impeached by the Commons during the session, an attempt by Sir John Thompson*, later Baron Haversham, to have Jersey included being overruled by the Speaker.<sup>61</sup> The House’s debates over the Partition Treaty were dominated by concerns that the plenipotentiaries had not been given proper instructions and they resolved to summon Jersey and Portland to attend.<sup>62</sup> Jersey was said to have been affronted by the manner in which he was overlooked during the negotiations over the treaty and that this had led him into intriguing its failure with Albemarle.<sup>63</sup> Despite his own good fortune in escaping censure, he showed no sympathy for Somers and, according to Macky, was ‘very active’ in driving on the impeachment of the Whig ministers.<sup>64</sup> On 17 June he subscribed the protest at the decision to put the question to acquit Somers and then voted against acquitting him of the articles of impeachment.</p><p>Following the trials of the impeached peers in the summer of 1701, Jersey became embroiled in a dispute with Robert Bertie*, 4th earl of Lindsey (later duke of Ancaster and Kesteven), who had recently succeeded to the lord great chamberlaincy. Jersey accused him of removing furniture that had been provided for the impeachment in Westminster Hall; Lindsey vigorously denied taking anything but ‘what belongs to me as great chamberlain of England’.<sup>65</sup> Jersey took his seat at the opening of the first (1701-2) session of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701, after which he was present on 43 per cent of all sitting days. The opening of Parliament coincided with rumours that he and several others were to be removed from office but in March 1702 he was still in post and he was one of those named to the commission for passing a number of bills while the king lay indisposed.<sup>66</sup> Present at the king’s bedside during his last illness, Jersey wrote a stream of letters to Princess Anne informing her of his decline.<sup>67</sup> Following the king’s death, he was quick to assert his right as lord chamberlain to a sizeable proportion of his late master’s furniture. Discovering that his counterpart in the United Provinces also expected to lay claim to what was left in the king’s Dutch houses, Jersey swiftly claimed these too.<sup>68</sup> Marlborough criticized Jersey’s attempts to organize the mourning arrangements for the late king but, despite rumours that persisted into the summer that he was to be replaced as lord chamberlain, for the time being Jersey retained his post.<sup>69</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of Queen Anne</em></h2><p>Jersey was reported to be ‘very much indisposed’ at the close of July.<sup>70</sup> He rallied, however, in time to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on 58 per cent of all sitting days. At the beginning of 1703 he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to support the bill for preventing occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ proposed amendments to the penalty clause. He attended on 65 per cent of sitting days during the 1703-4 session. In two forecasts drawn up by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, Jersey was listed as a likely supporter of the occasional conformity bill. As expected, he voted in its favour on 14 Dec. 1703 and he then went on to enter protests at the resolution not to give the bill a second reading and at its rejection. On 25 Mar. 1704 he registered two further dissents, first at the resolution to put the question that the failure to censure Robert Ferguson was an encouragement to the crown’s enemies and second at the passage of that motion. He was on a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704, which perhaps indicates support over the ‘Scotch Plot’.</p><p>Rumours of Jersey’s removal continued to circulate.<sup>71</sup> His stance over the prosecution of the war and his objections to the much-vaunted visit of Prince Eugene offered his detractors renewed opportunities to press for his removal.<sup>72</sup> Yet when he was finally dismissed in April 1704, the move came as a complete surprise, even to Jersey.<sup>73</sup> He hurried to the lord treasurer’s to discover why he had been displaced, ‘but could get nothing laid to my charge but my herding and protecting some that took measures contrary to the queen’s service’. After leaving the lord treasurer ‘very civilly, and as an innocent person, though a much wronged one’, Jersey demanded an audience with the queen, explaining later to Richard Hill that ‘I argued my case a little with her majesty not for my staff, but for my own justification.’<sup>74</sup> The queen remained unmoved and Jersey never enjoyed office again.</p><p>Even so Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, still regarded Jersey as a threat through an association with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and Abigail Masham. When Benjamin Hoadly<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Worcester, was denied a vacant prebend at Canterbury, she blamed the decision on Jersey and Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>. The queen denied that Jersey enjoyed any such influence and protested that ‘it was impossible to help being very much concerned, to find after all the assurances I had formerly given you that I had no manner of value for Lord Jersey, you still thought him one of my oracles’.<sup>75</sup> The influence of Jersey and Nottingham in the Church continued to cause disquiet to the ministry. In a letter of November 1704 to the duchess of Marlborough, Elizabeth Burnet worried that John Sharp*, archbishop of York, ‘hears too much of one side and Lord Nottingham and Lord Jersey are so indefatigable in some things with him, but of himself he would be much more reasonable’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Jersey returned to the House a little over a fortnight into the next session, on 11 Nov. 1704, after which he was present on 48 per cent of all sitting days. Earlier that month he had been included in a list of those thought likely to support the Tack. In spite of his previous service to William III and Queen Anne, his attitude to the succession remained the subject of debate. Many regarded him a Jacobite, though a list of about April 1705 included him among those whose loyalties were uncertain.</p><p>Following the elections for the new Parliament, Jersey returned to the House a few days after the opening of the new session on 31 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on half of all sitting days. In the months following his removal from office, he had done nothing to propitiate the queen and continued to support policies that courted her displeasure. On 15 Nov. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to put the question for an address to be prepared inviting Electress Sophia to England and on 30 Nov. he registered his dissent at the failure to give further instructions to the committee of the whole House considering the bill for securing the queen’s person and the Protestant succession. On 11 Mar. 1706 he was one of a number of peers nominated to manage the conferences concerning the letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford.</p><p>After the end of the session Jersey wrote to Marlborough to congratulate him on his latest victory of Ramillies, rejoicing in the ‘glorious success of her majesty’s arms’.<sup>77</sup> He resumed his seat in the following session on 9 Dec. 1706 (of which he attended 48 per cent of all sitting days). He then attended six days of the brief ten-day session of April 1707 that followed the passage of the Treaty of Union, registering a dissent on 23 Apr. at the resolution to consider the judges’ refusal to answer whether existing laws were sufficient to prevent the fraudulent avoidance of English duties. Omitted from the Privy Council in May 1707, three months later, in advance of the new Parliament, Jersey wrote again to Marlborough, hoping that his latest successes ‘will contribute to make an easy and quiet Parliament the next meeting’ and assuring the duke that he would ‘contribute towards it wherever it is in my power’.<sup>78</sup> He took his seat in the House a fortnight into the new Parliament on 6 Nov. 1707, after which he was present on almost 68 per cent of all sitting days. Following the dissolution, Jersey was unsurprisingly marked a Tory in a list of peers’ party allegiances. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 23 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on 55 per cent of all sitting days; on 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election of Scots representative peers.</p><p>Jersey attended the 1709-10 session for 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 16 Feb. 1710 he registered two dissents, first at the decision not to require James Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates to attend the Lords and second at the decision not to adjourn. The following month he rallied to the cause of the impeached cleric Henry Sacheverell. On 14 Mar. he was one of a handful of peers to join with Nottingham in questioning whether all the words deemed criminal ought to have been entered in the indictment, subscribing the protest at the House’s agreement with the Commons that it was not necessary to do so.<sup>79</sup> The same day he registered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn the House. Two days later he subscribed two further protests, first at the putting of the question whether the Commons had made good the first article of the impeachment, and subsequently when the House decided to agree with the Commons. On 17 Mar. he protested again at the resolution that the Commons had successfully made their case for the second, third, and fourth articles and on 18 Mar. he protested against the resolution limiting the peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty. Two days later, unsurprisingly, he found Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, registering a further dissent at the guilty verdict.</p><p>The advent of the new ministry led by Harley and Shrewsbury offered Jersey the prospect of a return to favour. Between August 1710 and April 1711 his negotiations with the French agent Abbé François Gaultier built the foundations for the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.<sup>80</sup> The majority of the cabinet was unaware of this dialogue in its early stages, though both Shrewsbury and Harley were closely involved: Shrewsbury was noted in Gaultier’s reports as Jersey’s ‘<em>associé</em>’.<sup>81</sup> The ‘Jersey’ period of negotiations created an outline of the main agreement including the contentious determination to secure a separate peace irrespective of the wishes of Britain’s allies and holding out the possibility of engineering the Pretender’s accession on Anne’s death. Jersey’s central role in the discussions was underlined by Gaultier’s recommendation to the marquis de Torcy that Jersey be offered £5,000 per annum to ensure his continued good will. A payment of £3,000 was authorized in January 1711, though it is unclear whether Jersey ever received the money.<sup>82</sup> No mention of it was made in the inventory of Jersey’s possessions following his death submitted by the dowager countess.<sup>83</sup></p><p>As a reward for Jersey’s role in overseeing the peace negotiations, Shrewsbury and Harley strove to convince the queen to readmit him to office. His name was mentioned a memorandum of September 1710 indicating Harley’s intentions for a new admiralty commission.<sup>84</sup> He also appears in another list by Harley of lords to be provided for. Although Shrewsbury warned that Jersey and a number of other Tory peers would remain dissatisfied unless measures were taken to please them, the queen remained unconvinced.<sup>85</sup> Perhaps she was right, for Jersey canvassed actively on behalf of the ministry in the autumn elections. He advised William Legge*, 2nd Baron (soon after earl of) Dartmouth, that Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset, should be put out as warden of the Cinque Ports, warning that, otherwise, ‘what [he] has already done will have a very ill effect on the elections in the county by encouraging the choice of those who are entirely against the queen’s measures’. Nevertheless, he was later able to boast of his success, ‘notwithstanding the power and zeal of a lord warden and lord lieutenant [Lewis Watson*, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham]’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Jersey’s increased activity in Kent may have been the source of a series of inaccurate reports that he had been made governor of Dover Castle and lord warden of the Cinque Ports, and was soon to be lord lieutenant of Kent.<sup>87</sup> Harley noted Jersey a likely supporter of the ministry in October 1710. The queen, however, still refused to admit him to office. The following month, Shrewsbury reported that Jersey was barred from becoming first lord of the admiralty through the queen’s continued objections, ‘which are no ways to be overcome but by the sad reflection how few there are capable of that post’.<sup>88</sup> Efforts to secure Jersey the place continued; in January 1711, Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, who was angling for the office himself, still believed that Jersey was likely to be appointed.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Jersey took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days. The final months of his life witnessed an almost manic quest for office at all costs. In May 1711, the death of Rochester, offered Jersey a new opportunity to be admitted to the ministry, but although he wrote to Harley directly asking for his assistance in securing the now vacant place of lord president, he was unsuccessful.<sup>90</sup> Such reversals did not prevent Jersey from making patronage requests.<sup>91</sup> In July it was rumoured that he was to have been (at last) appointed to head the admiralty, but that the preferment had been prevented by the intervention of the Dutch, who objected to someone believed to be opposed to the Hanoverian succession holding that office.<sup>92</sup> When the office of lord privy seal fell vacant on the death of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, Jersey turned to Oxford (as Harley had become) and Abigail Masham (‘your female solicitrix’) to urge his pretensions to the place. He assured Oxford ‘I wholly lay aside the merit of it, and shall entirely own the success of it where it is due, to your lordship’s particular friendship to me’.<sup>93</sup> Soon afterwards he again begged Oxford to resolve his predicament, ‘either by fixing me here with some reputation, or sending me to my gardens in the country, where I shall have nothing to complain of but the uncertainty of the weather’.<sup>94</sup> The queen continued to resist.<sup>95</sup> Jersey fretted that rumours of his Jacobitism were standing in his way.<sup>96</sup> The previous year he had been the subject of stories in the newspapers, setting ‘the parish bells ringing on [my] account’, and causing him to appeal to Dartmouth ‘to issue a warrant that his humble servant, for want of other news, may not be stuffed into a public paper’. In an effort to answer such criticisms, he again requested an interview with the queen, arguing that ‘I doubt not but I can give so many instances of my loyalty and dutiful behaviour towards her, that [it will] be impossible for any to give the least credit to a report, whose circumstances disprove itself, and that has no other foundation than the malice of my enemies.’<sup>97</sup></p><p>Jersey attended the House for the final time on the prorogation day of 21 Aug. 1711. A few days later, wearied by months of petitioning, the queen eventually gave way to Oxford’s importunities and agreed to Jersey’s appointment as lord privy seal, but the final element of the increasingly farcical story of Jersey’s quest for office was yet to be played out. In the early hours of the very day that the appointment was due to have been made public, and having previously given no indications of poor health, Jersey promptly suffered a fit of apoplexy and died.<sup>98</sup> According to Swift, he died ‘of the gout in his stomach, or apoplexy, or both’.<sup>99</sup> An autopsy found his organs to be sound but his brain ‘vitiated and yellow’.<sup>100</sup> His loss was greeted by Shrewsbury as being ‘very surprising and melancholy’, while Jersey’s sister, Lady Orkney, regretted that he and her brother had not been able to be reconciled before Jersey’s death.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Jersey died intestate. Within days of his death, his widow appealed to Oxford for his assistance in recommending her to the queen.<sup>102</sup> The dowager was a Catholic and open Jacobite who caused consternation by quitting England for France without leave in 1713, taking with her her youngest son, Henry. Matthew Prior speculated that she intended to convert the boy to Catholicism and perhaps enter him for the priesthood, despite the fact that he was being educated at Queen Anne’s cost at Westminster.<sup>103</sup> The Pretender later created her countess of Jersey in the Jacobite peerage. Jersey’s eldest son, William Villiers*, succeeded him as 2nd earl of Jersey.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
VILLIERS, George (1628-87) |
<p><strong><surname>VILLIERS</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1628–87)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 23 Aug. 1628 (a minor) as 2nd duke of BUCKINGHAM |
|
First sat 1 May 1660; last sat 2 July 1685 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Jan. 1628, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, and Katherine (<em>d</em>.1649), da. of Francis Manners<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Rutland. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Camb. MA 5 Mar. 1642; travelled abroad 1643-7 (France, Italy).<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 15 Sept. 1657 Mary (<em>d</em>.1704), da. of Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Bar. Fairfax of Cameron [S]; <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. 1s. with Anna Maria, countess of Shrewsbury. KG 1649. <em>d</em>. 16 Apr. 1687; <em>admon</em>. 2 May 1687-5 Mar. 1720.</p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1650-7, 1661-25 Feb. 1667, 23 Sept. 1667-2 Mar. 1674; PC 1650, 28 Apr. 1662-25 Feb. 1667, 23 Sept. 1667-21 Apr. 1679;<sup>2</sup> master of the horse 1668-5 Mar. 1674;<sup>3</sup> member, cttee. for foreign affairs, trade and plantations 1668;<sup>4</sup> amb. extraordinary to France July-Sept. 1670, envoy extraordinary (jt.) to France and Low Countries June-July 1672; commr. admiralty 9 July 1673-31 Oct. 1674.</p><p>Col. regt. of horse 1651; capt. tp. of horse 1666; col. regt. of foot 1672-3; lt.-gen. 1672-3.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Yorks. (W. Riding) 5 Sept. 1661-14 Mar. 1667,<sup>6</sup> 22 Nov.1667-13 Mar. 1674;<sup>7</sup> high steward, York ?-1683,<sup>8</sup> Oxford 1669;<sup>9</sup> <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. Yorks. (W. Riding) 1671-9; chan. Cambs. Univ. 1671-4;<sup>10</sup> kpr. of Enfield Chase 1672-5.</p><p>FRS 1661-85;<sup>11</sup> gov., Charterhouse 1669;<sup>12</sup> grand master of freemasons 1674-9;<sup>13</sup> freeman, City of London (liveryman of Merchant Taylors’ Co.) 1681.<sup>14</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1675, NPG 279; line engraving by R. White, 1679, NPG D1131; mezzotint by I. Becket, aft. S. Verelst, c.1681-8, NPG D1130.</p> |
<p>Buckingham has fascinated historians more than any other figure in the Restoration court. He has inspired a number of biographies as well as a study of the Cabal, the loose association of leading courtiers who dominated politics at the close of Charles II’s first decade on the throne. He also maintains a prominent place in a number of articles and scholarly theses.<sup>18</sup> The cause of his appeal is no doubt in part his rare combination of political significance, ability as an author and colourful personal life. The events of January 1674, when the House of Commons took into consideration a catalogue of abuses that were being levelled against him, perhaps sums this up as well as any other episode in Buckingham’s career. The list included extorting money, apostasy, murder, adultery as well as attempted buggery. Although on this occasion, as on so many others, Buckingham succeeded in bluffing his way through the horrors that were laid to his charge, he was never able to shake off the reputation of being a man of at best loose morals, incapable of loyalty and prone to excess.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Buckingham has come to be portrayed as the ultimate exemplar of the vicious licentiousness of the court of Charles II, an amoral rake who also possessed some of the less desirable attributes of a medieval over-mighty subject. The reputation, compounded by John Dryden’s characterization of him as Zimri in <em>Absalom and Achitophel</em>, is not entirely justified.<sup>20</sup> Contrary to popular perception, Buckingham was not a wastrel and he (or more correctly those to whom he entrusted his estates) kept a vigilant eye on his finances.<sup>21</sup> His end was not the sordid, poverty-stricken death in a dirty inn that seemed so appropriate an allegory for one of his lifestyle. Rather, he died in a state of some financial comfort in one of many properties that he owned and rented out in Yorkshire. He was popular in the north, where most of his estates lay, and in the latter part of his career he was successful in developing a following in the city of London.<sup>22</sup> Like the king, he was witty and inquisitive if occasionally given to bouts of languor and boredom. He dabbled in chemistry and natural philosophy and had a hand in the composition of a large number of plays, poems and satires. Though he was no doubt proud of his heritage, private writings sometimes attributed to him, or possibly the work of his client Martin Clifford, revealed some contempt for the merits of hereditary nobility.<sup>23</sup></p><p>As a politician, though, Buckingham was unreliable. His experiences both as the heir of the notorious and assassinated favourite of two kings and latterly during the Civil War and Interregnum as soldier, exile and petitioner, serves in part to explain his Janus-faced attitude. Perhaps most significant, though, was his desire to be popular. To this end he was not as interested in maintaining a consistent course as many of his contemporaries and his failure to maintain the king’s trust led to his sense of ill treatment and disappointment. This in turn contributed to the occasionally unruly behaviour that he exhibited for the remainder of his life.</p><h2><em>Before and after the Restoration</em></h2><p>Brought up with the future king, Prince Charles, after the assassination of his father, Buckingham was too young to fight in the first Civil War, much of which he claimed to have spent abroad. In July 1648, however, he was involved in the doomed royalist uprising in Surrey, in which his brother was killed. He escaped to the continent, was proscribed by Parliament as a traitor, and accompanied Charles II on his expedition to Scotland in 1651 (where he may have been initiated into freemasonry).<sup>24</sup> Buckingham was seen as drawn into the ambit of the Covenanter leader Archibald Campbell, marquess, then duke, of Argyll, and then as discontented that while he was commander of the English royalists in the army that invaded England, he was not made general-in-chief. After the defeat at Worcester, he followed the king into renewed exile, but failed to establish himself as one of the king’s senior advisers. Three years before the Restoration, Buckingham, having fallen out with a number of central figures in the exiled court (the king included), returned to England and married into the family of the former parliamentarian commander, Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S].<sup>25</sup> It was a shrewd move that reunited Buckingham with the majority of his confiscated estates. The marriage was regarded by the Protector with marked suspicion as a Presbyterian scheme: shortly after the marriage, Buckingham was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower on the orders of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>. He remained there until February 1659, when he was released on security of £20,000 provided by his father-in-law.<sup>26</sup> By August his activities had again aroused the suspicion of the authorities and an order was sent out once more for his apprehension, though royalists were equally suspicious of him, believing that he was consorting with John Wildman<sup>‡</sup> over a scheme involving James*, duke of York.<sup>27</sup> By the close of the year Buckingham was closely involved in royalist plotting with Fairfax, serving as commander of a troop raised to oppose the manoeuvrings of Lambert and in support of George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Buckingham arrived in London in Monck’s train in January 1660. According to the French envoy, he intended to ‘vindicate Fairfax’.<sup>29</sup> In March he was included in a list compiled by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as one of those peers who had remained loyal to the king in the Civil War.<sup>30</sup> Buoyed by his change of fortune, the same month he was noted as being ‘very jocund’.<sup>31</sup> He seems to have maintained his high spirits through to the end of April when he reassumed his Garter and declared his intention of taking his place in the Convention. Sir Allen Apsley<sup>‡</sup> assessed that he had put aside any thoughts of stirring up trouble for Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, whom Buckingham regarded as a rival as the king’s principal adviser. If so the resolution appears soon to have been forgotten and by December 1660, Buckingham was accounted one of Clarendon’s most prominent enemies.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 May. On that day he was also named to the committee appointed to consider an answer to the king’s letter from Breda. He was thereafter present on just over half of all sitting days in the Convention. The following day (2 May) he was nominated to a further three committees, including that for settling the militia, and on 3 May he secured an order of the House to put a stop to timber felling or demolition works taking place on lands to which he laid claim and which had been confiscated from him since July 1651. Later that month, the House (with the Commons’ concurrence) ordered the return of his lands and the order was later adjusted to comprehend those estates alienated from the duke since 1648.<sup>33</sup> Buckingham was added to the committee of privileges on 7 May and the following day he was appointed to the committee for preparing the king’s reception. On 9 May he was named to the committee established to present to the House the votes necessary to be sent with the lords that were to wait on the king and on 14 May he was added to the committee for petitions (though he had already been nominated to the committee the day after his first sitting). On 15 May he was also named to the committee for repealing ordinances made since the House’s abolition in 1649.</p><p>Although Buckingham was not among those appointed to wait on the king, on 22 May he was one of eight peers given leave to travel to Kent to be present at the king’s arrival. His reception there was distinctly cold. Neither Charles nor his inner circle had forgotten Buckingham’s abandonment of the court in exile, nor his largely unhelpful contribution to the Scottish expedition in 1651. Even so, when the king’s entourage set off, Buckingham, uninvited, took advantage of the king’s carriage having an open boot to make space for himself within it. By the time the king arrived in London, Buckingham had succeeded in restoring himself within the king’s good graces and he was by then prominent among those riding in his entourage. Even so, he was the only member of the pre-Restoration Privy Council not to be admitted to the new body.<sup>34</sup> It was a further two years before he was restored to it.</p><p>Buckingham submitted a further petition to the Lords to be restored to his estates on 13 June 1660, which was referred to the committee for petitions. The following day, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, reported from the committee recommending that Buckingham be restored to his lands and on 2 July the House ordered that he should be put in possession of relevant papers for the claim. Buckingham joined with John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, in introducing Monck as duke of Albemarle on 13 July. On 31 July, although noted as present on the attendance list, Buckingham was marked as missing at a call of the House. His absence was a brief one and he resumed his seat on 2 August. Four days later, he was involved in a dispute with George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, when Bristol chose to recommend the claim of William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, for reparations over that of Buckingham, Newcastle being (according to Bristol) a man of ‘more merit’. Some ‘hot and high words’ were exchanged and the two men had to be forcibly restrained before peace was restored in the chamber.<sup>35</sup> After this shambolic opening to his career in the House, Buckingham was no doubt glad of an opportunity of absenting himself once more for a few weeks. On 16 Aug. he was granted leave to travel to France. He attended one more day of the session on 1 Sept. and it was presumably after this date that he departed for the continent to visit his sister, the duchess of Richmond, who had just lost her son, Esmé Stuart*, duke of Richmond, to smallpox.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Buckingham had returned to England by November, when he was described by Bartet, one of the French agents in London, as ‘a real man of pleasure, who thinks of nothing but enjoying himself.’<sup>37</sup> Later that month it was reported that he and Bristol had been reconciled.<sup>38</sup> Buckingham took his seat in the second part of the Convention on 7 Nov. 1660, of which he attended 14 of its 45 sitting days. On 17 Nov. he was added to the bill for restoring Thomas Howard*, 23rd or 16th earl of Arundel, to the dukedom of Norfolk and on 15 Dec. he was named to a further two committees considering the bill for the due observation of the Sabbath and the Hatfield Level bill. On 18 Dec. he was named to the committee for the excise bill. Two days later he reported from the committee for the Hatfield Level bill, which was an attempt to settle legal disputes arising from the draining of Hatfield Chase in south Yorkshire by the Dutch engineer Vermuyden earlier in the century. Buckingham may have been eager to impress his authority in the area. Some of the parties had requested more time to settle the issue, so the committee recommended that an order should be made to prevent local disputes by fixing the possession of the lands as they were until a final decision could be arrived at.</p><p>At the end of December 1660 the French agent Bartet was referring to Buckingham as one of Clarendon’s last enemies over the affair of the marriage of Clarendon’s daughter to the duke of York. Buckingham wrote to Clarendon, though, at the end of January 1661: Clarendon’s elaborate reply suggests that Buckingham may have gone abroad again, and that his letter offered the chancellor an olive branch.<sup>39</sup> The elections for the new Parliament do not appear to have found Buckingham particularly eager to press his influence in the areas where he held estates and in early January 1661 he was said to have sent down to Leominster (where he was lord of the manor) to order his agents there to suspend his interest until he gave further directions. A fortnight later it was said that his interest and that of Fitzwilliam Coningsby<sup>‡</sup> would carry the borough ‘against all’, and in March Thomas Harley related information from the steward at Leominster that, ‘they would attend the duke of Buckingham’s directions and conform thereto.’<sup>40</sup> In the event, Buckingham’s candidate, Ranald Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, was returned along with Coningsby’s partner, Humphrey Cornewall<sup>‡</sup>, after Grahme disputed Coningsby’s ability to stand as he was at the time imprisoned for debt.<sup>41</sup> In the meantime, Buckingham’s principal concern continued to be his position at court and more particularly a dalliance he appears to have been engaged in with the king’s sister, Princess Henrietta Anne (Minette), whom he accompanied to France for her marriage to the duc d’Orléans.<sup>42</sup> On his return to England, he resumed his activities in the elections and in making his own preparations for the coronation, at which he carried the orb.<sup>43</sup></p><h2><em>In search of office, 1661-6</em></h2><p>Buckingham took his seat in the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was present on just under 53 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to at least 23 committees, including that for repealing the acts of the Long Parliament, to which he was nominated on 24 Jan. 1662. An annotated list of the members of the committee drawn up by the clerk included Buckingham’s name marked with a cross.<sup>44</sup> In July 1661, Buckingham was noted among those expected to support Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his efforts to be restored to the lord great chamberlaincy.<sup>45</sup> His support for Oxford served to confirm an earlier assessment by John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt that the two were friends.<sup>46</sup> Still without significant office, by the close of July 1661 Buckingham was said to have been hard at work in attempting to undermine the lord chancellor, Clarendon.<sup>47</sup> His appointment as lord lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire that September did nothing to distract him from his feelings of being poorly rewarded by the new regime, which were exacerbated by his failure to secure the restoration of the Council of the North and with it his appointment to the presidency early in 1662. On 25 Jan. he was involved in an altercation with Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, during the House’s deliberations over the proposed restoration of the council. After Northumberland had argued that there was little enthusiasm for the court’s re-establishment, Buckingham answered that it was only ‘a few individuals, who had formerly been against the king, who were against it.’ Although the House ordered that they should lay aside their argument, Buckingham soon after left his place and walked over to Northumberland to resume the quarrel during which ‘harsh words’ were exchanged. In response, the House ordered both men to withdraw after which a fierce debate raged on how to punish the two peers. According to the French resident, the issue divided the House starkly in two, the ‘Presbyterians’ all favouring Northumberland and the ‘royalists’ Buckingham.<sup>48</sup> Eventually, it was resolved to reprehend Buckingham for his conduct, but not to confine him to his chamber.<sup>49</sup> The row with Northumberland may have been lent added piquancy by the fact that Parliament during the Civil War had given him custody of Buckingham’s goods to cover the expenses of the army.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Buckingham’s continuing involvement in the affairs of his own locality was reflected in his being added to the committee for the bill for regulating cloth-making in Yorkshire in February 1662. The same month he was also added to the committee for uniformity. In April he was named to the committee to draw up a clause concerning those clergymen deprived under the bill. Buckingham’s involvement in committee work occasionally resulted in his presiding over particular pieces of business but his activities were (as in so many other aspects of his life) sporadic. On 28 Jan. he had taken the chair in a session of the committee for repealing acts but after several points were discussed the committee was adjourned and taken over by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, when it next met. Buckingham showed greater interest in the militia bill. He presided over a meeting of the committee for the bill on 22 Mar. and a further three sessions of the committee on 11, 12 and 14 April. These included a marathon session on 12 Apr. which was finally adjourned at 11.30 at night after a number of amendments had been made to the text.<sup>51</sup></p><p>It may not be a coincidence that it was during the same month that he was finally admitted to the Privy Council. In May, he was nominated one of a sub-committee of eight peers to draw up reasons why the Lords had agreed not to employ the word ‘lord’ in conjunction with ‘lieutenant’ within the terms of the militia bill, presumably as a result of concerns about confusion of privilege in the case of a county lieutenant not being a peer. He was then one of five peers named to prepare an expedient reflecting the sense of the peers’ debate on the matter. On 14 May he reported from the committee nominated to draw up heads for a conference on the militia bill and two days later he was again named to a sub-committee to prepare amendments to a proviso within the bill. With the session expected to be brought to a conclusion imminently, on 19 May he was one of four peers directed to wait on the king to request the preservation of works made for the Great Level of the Fens until such time as Parliament could put in place legislation to protect them.</p><p>Following the close of the session, Buckingham joined the king at Portsmouth to greet the new queen.<sup>52</sup> Later in the summer he was involved in yet another altercation, on this occasion with Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, over a race in which a number of courtiers, including the king, had participated. The king had to intervene personally to prevent the two men coming to blows, but blame for the argument getting out of hand was laid at Prince Rupert’s door.<sup>53</sup> Buckingham set out for his estates in Yorkshire early in the autumn, reaching York in mid-October.<sup>54</sup> Buckingham’s patronage of radical Dissent (already hinted at by his contacts with John Wildman during the later 1650s) is suggested by an incident of November 1662 when Buckingham was embarrassed by accusations levelled against his porter, who was reported to have said that he ‘hoped soon to trample in bishops’ and king’s blood.’<sup>55</sup> His interest in toleration was also implied by his friendship with the earl of Bristol, which the French envoy, Comminges, noted at the beginning of 1663, though it may equally have been aimed at securing a more dominant role in the king’s counsels. Comminges referred to an obscure incident in the previous session, apparently during debates on the uniformity bill, in which Buckingham had come to Bristol’s rescue when he was under pressure as a result of his Catholicism.<sup>56</sup> The relationship overcame a natural antagonism, given the hostility of their fathers following the failure of the Spanish match in 1623.</p><p>Buckingham returned to London in time to take his seat at the beginning of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663, on which day he was appointed with the lord privy seal (John Robartes*, Baron Robartes, later earl of Radnor) to wait on the king with the House’s thanks for his speech, which may be indicative of his support for legislation giving effect to the 1662 Declaration of Indulgence. He was thereafter present on just over a quarter of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to five committees, in addition to the standing committees.<sup>57</sup> On 6 Mar. he registered his proxy with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 23 March. The following month, he survived an assassination attempt staged by one of his servants, only days after being told by a fortune teller that he would meet the same fate as his father. What was said to have been more remarkable was that the duke was found by the servant spending the night in the same chamber as his duchess.<sup>58</sup> The attempt may have been linked to the growth of radical conspiracy in the North.<sup>59</sup></p><p>By mid-May 1663 Buckingham was reckoned by Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> to have been one of a handful of favourites at court who had virtually ousted Clarendon from power, the others being Bristol, Ashley, Henry Bennet*, soon to be promoted Baron (later earl of) Arlington and Sir Charles Berkeley*, later Viscount Fitzharding [I] and earl of Falmouth.<sup>60</sup> Buckingham was one of those nominated a commissioner for treating with the French in June.<sup>61</sup> There is little evidence of Buckingham’s direct involvement in Bristol’s efforts to impeach Clarendon in July, though he was noted by Wharton among those thought likely to vote in favour of the impeachment.<sup>62</sup> He was also numbered among those thought likely to screen Bristol from ruin after his plans misfired.<sup>63</sup> Buckingham seconded Wharton’s motion designed to protect Bristol from being arrested when he was no longer protected by privilege; he was also named to the committee to consider what satisfaction was due to the lord chancellor as a result of Bristol’s false accusations.<sup>64</sup></p><p>That summer he was also said to have been involved with advising his ‘very great friend’, Frances Stuart, not to settle for ‘any fortune that is not very great’ in response to an offer of marriage she had received from Mr Griffin (probably Edward Griffin*, later Baron Griffin).<sup>65</sup> But the late summer and early autumn was dominated by lieutenancy business. In early August, very soon after the close of the session, Buckingham was dispatched to the north to take command of forces being mustered against what appeared to be developing plans for an insurrection centred on Yorkshire. Comminges complained that his abrupt departure from London set back progress with the treaty negotiations but his handling of the situation—which only matured into some small rendezvous and no fighting—earned him some praise both at court and in the north. He appears to have succeeded in striking a fine balance between mercy and retribution for those involved and was more than ready to make the most of the plaudits he received for his efforts.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Buckingham was absent from the opening of the new session, having previously been reported to have left town on purpose to avoid taking his seat. He may have been eager to maintain a low profile so as to avoid Bristol’s expected efforts to revive his cause against Clarendon. Buckingham’s failure to attend resulted in ‘much discourse’.<sup>67</sup> On 4 Apr. 1664 he was noted as being absent at a call of the House and it was not until the end of the month that he finally took his seat on 26 Apr., after which he was present on 16 of the remaining days in the session (44 per cent of the whole). On 4 May the House was presented with a complaint following the arrest of one of Buckingham’s servants contrary to privilege. All those involved were ordered to appear at the bar of the House to explain their actions. Shortly before the close of the session, on 13 May, Buckingham was added as one of the managers for the conference concerning the conventicles bill. He was a manager of the subsequent conferences on the bill over the ensuing days.</p><p>Despite his success in managing the government’s response to the Yorkshire conspiracy, Buckingham remained without significant central office. A series of reports in the second half of the year suggested that he would shortly to be granted a place but rumours that he was to purchase the mastership of the horse from Albemarle that summer failed to be realized. Albemarle’s duchess was said to have rejected Buckingham’s proposal that he pay for the place in instalments of £1,000 a year for 20 years.<sup>68</sup> Two months later, it was said that Buckingham had lost interest in the post as it was too expensive.<sup>69</sup> A report shortly after that he had been appointed to the presidency of a revived council of the North also proved not to be the case.<sup>70</sup> In the event the council was not called back into existence, though the rumour was sufficiently convincing to provoke another of the pretenders to the office, William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, to complain to James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (who sat in the House as earl of Brecknock), and Clarendon that they had promised the place to him. Buckingham had greater success in his negotiations with Ormond for the marriage of his niece, Lady Mary Stuart, with Ormond’s son, Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I] (who later sat in the House as Baron Butler of Weston).<sup>71</sup></p><p>Buckingham had been nominated one of the commissioners for proroguing parliament in August 1664. Shortly before Parliament met again in November, Buckingham was also one of a number of peers to travel to Portsmouth intending to serve as a volunteer in the fleet under the command of York.<sup>72</sup> He returned from his brief experience of naval life and resumed his seat in the new session on 24 Nov. 1664, after which he was present on almost 40 per cent of all sitting days. Divisions among the Yorkshire gentry over the anticipated re-establishment of the council of the North continued to manifest themselves during the session, though when the northern magnate, Richard Boyle*, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough (later earl of Burlington), waited on Buckingham on 19 Dec. Burlington noted that not a word was spoken about the matter.<sup>73</sup> Buckingham continued to develop his northern interest and in January 1665 he was successful in securing the return to the Commons of Sir Thomas Osborne*, later duke of Leeds, in a by-election at York. Osborne’s return was not without incident, though, and while he was able to report to Buckingham how most of the citizens of York were ‘very ready to give me their assistance upon your grace‘s account’, he complained of encountering opposition from some of the officers of Buckingham’s regiment.<sup>74</sup> On 3 Feb. Buckingham was added to the committee for the Deeping Fen bill. He was named to two further committees prior to the prorogation and towards the end of February, he was one of a handful of peers to receive the particular thanks of Sir Robert Paston*, later earl of Yarmouth, for his assistance in securing the passage of the Yarmouth harbour bill.<sup>75</sup> On 1 Mar. he was nominated one of the reporters of the conference for the bill for Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet.</p><p>Buckingham’s brief rapprochement with Ormond seems rapidly to have descended into acrimony. Buckingham accused Ormond of failing to do all that he had promised to secure for him the presidency of the council of the North. In a letter to Ormond of 26 Apr. Buckingham complained bitterly of being ‘so long in the habit of being ill-used, that now he may well begin to think that he deserves no better usage.’<sup>76</sup> The two quarrelled again when Ormond discovered that Buckingham intended to nominate the unborn child of his sister, the dowager duchess of Richmond, who had recently remarried, as heir to his estates, rather than his niece, Lady Arran.</p><p>Following his demonstration of willingness to serve the previous winter, Buckingham rejoined the fleet for the new campaign in April 1665. His attitude revealed much of his ability to gain popular appeal while infuriating his peers. Although he was commended by the sailors aboard the <em>George</em> for his ‘very noble’ behaviour whilst serving with them (in 1667 he would be accused of trying to foment rebellion among the sailors), Buckingham proved so insubordinate towards the fleet’s commanders, York, and Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, that he was ordered ashore.<sup>77</sup> Buckingham retreated to his estates. Over the summer, he was involved in an altercation with Henry Cavendish*, styled earl of Ogle (later 2nd duke of Newcastle), while staying at Welbeck.<sup>78</sup> He was then absent for the entirety of the next session of Parliament in October 1665.</p><p>Buckingham spent Christmas in the country at the seat of William Crofts*, Baron Crofts, along with Crofts’ kinsman, Arlington.<sup>79</sup> By the spring of 1666, he seems once again to have recovered his spirits and his popularity with the king, whom he accompanied to Newmarket in March with York, Prince Rupert and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>80</sup> In the summer he returned to Yorkshire where he was later involved in a quarrel with Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg, ‘upon some words spoken by the duke’, but a duel was averted when Buckingham demonstrated that he ‘had more mind to parley than to fight.’<sup>81</sup> As a consequence he lost face with at least some of his adherents. It was also during this visit to the north that he was thought to have commenced what proved to be a ‘fatal amour’ with one of his guests, Lady Shrewsbury.<sup>82</sup></p><h2><em>The Irish Cattle Bill, 1666-7</em></h2><p>Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 5 Oct. 1666, after which he was present on approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days. The session witnessed the early stages of what appears to have been a concerted effort by Buckingham to take a greater interest in the House’s business. The diarist John Milward<sup>‡</sup>, for example, noted Buckingham listening in on debates in the Commons on the Irish cattle bill, a measure in which he took a close interest not least as it presented an opportunity of humbling Ormond.<sup>83</sup> At the same time he was cultivating a following in the Commons. He was able to make the most of his patronage as lieutenant in Yorkshire and ownership of lands in other counties to promote likely supporters, though his active electioneering was sporadic. Nevertheless, when Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup> was returned at a by-election for Great Grimsby in November 1666 on Buckingham’s interest, he joined a substantial group (by the end of the decade these numbered around 40 individuals, the majority of them representing northern constituencies) who had some association with the duke.<sup>84</sup></p><p>As a sign of his intention to play a more prominent role in Parliament, on the opening day of the session Buckingham subjected the House to a long harangue against those involved in cheating the public revenue and proposed that those found guilty of such offences should be executed for treason. Pepys recorded that Buckingham’s proposal was greeted with mirth in the Lords. According to Sir Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford, ‘the House made no order, but left him to do as he thought fit, and he is now hard at it drawing up his bill and has nothing else in his head.’<sup>85</sup> Clifford’s assessment could not have been further from the truth. On 17, 23 and 30 Oct. Buckingham was named one of the managers of a series of conferences concerning the bill for prohibiting the importation of foreign goods, but the principal focus of the session became the bill for preventing the importation of Irish cattle. The bill, which had been carried in the Commons in spite of the opposition of Clarendon, Ormond and the king, was brought up to the Lords by Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, one of Buckingham’s adherents in the lower house. Buckingham then worked enthusiastically to secure the measure’s passage.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Debates over the Irish cattle bill quickly became personal. On 26 Oct. Buckingham informed the House that he had been challenged the previous day by another of Ormond’s sons, Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (who sat in the House as Baron Butler of Moore Park), following a speech Buckingham had made in support of the bill, in which he had said that those in opposition were displaying an ‘Irish understanding’ of the issue. This challenge, Buckingham maintained, amounted to a breach of privilege as it resulted from something spoken within the chamber.<sup>87</sup> The attack provoked Arlington into taking ‘up the bucklers’ for his brother-in-law, Ossory, requiring the House to intervene to prevent them from fighting as well.<sup>88</sup> On 29 Oct. the House ordered Ossory to the Tower while Buckingham was handed over into the custody of Black Rod.<sup>89</sup> Both men petitioned successfully to be released from their confinement two days later.<sup>90</sup> Although swiftly settled, the affair may have contributed to Buckingham’s and Arlington’s growing mutual hostility.</p><p>Buckingham resumed his seat on 8 Nov. 1666 and with it his activity in pursuit of the bill. On 9 Nov. he presided over the House while it gave consideration to the second and third clauses in the bill as a committee of the whole. By the middle of the month Buckingham and Ashley had allied themselves with John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who later sat in the House as earl of Guilford), to ensure that Scottish cattle would not be encompassed within the bill. On 17 Nov. Buckingham was again casting aspersions upon the motivation of the Irish in seeking to provide homeless Londoners with their beef. Tempers flared again and he, Ashley and Ossory were once more ordered to abide by the House’s injunction not to quarrel. According to Edward Conway*, Viscount (later earl of) Conway, at the heart of Buckingham and Ashley’s motivation for driving forward the measure was their ‘implacable hatred’ towards Ormond.<sup>91</sup> The bill eventually passed the House on 23 Nov. but without the contentious ‘nuisance’ clause that had been insisted on by the Commons, supported by Buckingham and Ashley. Following the Commons’ rejection of the change, on 17 Dec., Buckingham was one of a select committee of seven peers appointed to draw up reasons to be presented to the Commons why the Lords could not accept the use of the term ‘nuisance’ and he was then appointed one of the managers of the ensuing conferences held on 2, 9 and 14 Jan. 1667.</p><p>Besides his prominent role in the Irish cattle bill, Buckingham was also an active participant in several other areas of business. On 20 Nov. 1666 he was entrusted with the proxy of Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, with whose countess Buckingham was said to have formed a relationship during the year, and on 27 Nov. he also received that of Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield), which was vacated on 5 December. On 22 Nov. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference concerning the public accounts and he was named sole manager of a further conference on the same matter six days later. He was closely involved with the manoeuvres surrounding the attempt by his kinsman, John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to secure a divorce from his wife. On 17 Nov. Buckingham was added to the committee considering the bill for illegitimating Lady Roos’s children. During a session of the committee on 26 Nov. consideration was taken of an objection made by Buckingham to Roos making use of his courtesy title, to which Buckingham also laid claim as a scion of the Manners family. On 29 Nov. the lord chamberlain (Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester) reported Buckingham’s objection, as a result of which it had been agreed to alter the wording to ‘John Manners, commonly called Lord Roos’.<sup>92</sup> The solution failed to satisfy the parties and on 6 Dec. the House heard counsel on the matter. The business was referred back to the committee to find out an expedient satisfactory to both men. On 12 Dec., with the committee unable to do so, the dispute was put off until 21 January. The same day, the Lords received a complaint from one of the duke’s servants, George Mangie, asserting that he had been arrested in Oxford in November of the previous year, notwithstanding the fact that he was in possession of a written protection from Buckingham. The House ordered those responsible to appear at the bar to answer the complaint.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Buckingham’s behaviour in the session was probably a concerted effort to impress upon the king his significance as a political broker. In addition to his quarrels with Ossory and Roos, Buckingham found further opportunities for his turbulent disposition in the debates concerning the Canary patent. On 29 Nov. 1666 both he and John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, took exception to the procedure being employed over the dispute and the following month, he became involved in a tussle with Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, during a conference concerning the same business. Dorchester and Buckingham’s dislike of one another was well known. Having found themselves squeezed together in a crowded conference chamber, they fell to jostling for position before Buckingham seized Dorchester (one reporter mistakenly suggested that it was Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester) by the nose and then plucked off his periwig. Both peers were conveyed to the Tower for their undignified behaviour.<sup>94</sup> On 22 Dec. Buckingham petitioned the House (once more) to be released from confinement and on 29 Dec. he resumed his seat in the House having conveyed his thanks for his enlargement. Unlike Dorchester, he appears to have made no attempt to make his submission to the king, which caused adverse comment, and, unabashed, he continued to take a leading role in the House’s business in the new year.<sup>95</sup> On 12 Jan. 1667, Sir Allen Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> reported to Ormond how Buckingham ‘behaves himself with great insolency and joins throughout with all the malcontents in the House of Commons.’<sup>96</sup> On 14 Jan. Buckingham reported the poll bill from the committee of the whole, the same day on which he was nominated one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning the Irish cattle bill. Addressing the lower house, Buckingham informed the Commons that the Lords had at last resolved to concede the point on the ‘nuisance’ clause in order to maintain a ‘good correspondence’ with them, while retaining their view that there were good reasons for requesting its removal. On 23 Jan. Buckingham entered his dissent at the resolution not to add a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill for resolving disputes over property destroyed in the Great Fire.</p><p>Shortly before the close of the session, one of Buckingham’s associates, John Heydon, was arrested on a charge of treason; Henry North, Buckingham’s steward, was also arrested. Heydon’s arrest seems to have been the culmination of a concerted effort on the part of the court and in particular Arlington to damage the duke. In building up their case, the administration made use of a number of informers, among them William Leving, a former Yorkshire plotter, who were willing to testify that Buckingham had been engaged in stirring up unrest in the country and, in particular, inciting the seamen to mutiny. Heydon was a self-styled Rosicrucian, who claimed to have ‘predicted’ the Restoration, and had been in Buckingham’s train for some time. In June 1660 he had attended a dinner given by his patron for the king. Now he stood accused of casting the king’s horoscope (a treasonable activity) on Buckingham’s orders.<sup>97</sup></p><p>Arlington’s efforts to discredit the duke proved markedly successful at first and by the end of February 1667 Buckingham had been put out of all his offices. His Yorkshire clients, Osborne and George Savile*, later marquess of Halifax, laid down their commissions as deputy lieutenants in Yorkshire.<sup>98</sup> An order was made out for Buckingham’s arrest, though he evaded capture and remained at large for the ensuing four months.<sup>99</sup> In March, it was rumoured that he was in London incognito, attempting to win his way back into favour supported by the efforts made on his behalf by his duchess and his sister, though it was also said that his duchess had been forbidden the court because of her high-handed treatment of the king’s messenger.<sup>100</sup> The same month, Buckingham’s hopes of a swift change in his fortunes were thwarted when a royal proclamation was issued for his discovery and apprehension, accusing him of ‘tending to raise mutinies in some of his majesty’s forces’ and of stirring up ‘sedition amongst his people, and other traitorous designs and practices’.<sup>101</sup> Another report claimed that the ‘prosecution arises from his disarming Papists in Yorkshire.’<sup>102</sup> On 24 Mar. Buckingham’s auditor, Stephen Monteage, was interrogated by Arlington about his receipt of a letter from Heydon, in which Heydon had insisted that Buckingham was ‘wronged, and with my life I will let the world know it.’<sup>103</sup> Monteage responded to Arlington’s questioning with no little cheek commenting, ‘my lord I know your lordship has of a long time been my lord’s (Buckingham’s) friend, and would be glad to see him clear himself.’<sup>104</sup></p><p>As Buckingham continued to elude arrest, a factional mêlée ensued at court. Although a number of his friends were reported to ‘bewail his ill conduct’, Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> noted in April that the king had been persuaded by others to think ‘better of him than formerly.’ Brodrick disagreed and informed Ormond that the king had declared Buckingham to be the cause of the continuing war with the Dutch.<sup>105</sup> Both the lord chancellor and the secretary were thought to have had a hand in inventing the accusations against Buckingham but Arlington was credited with fabricating the details of the case by suborning witnesses.<sup>106</sup></p><p>The Dutch attack on the Medway in the second week of June offered Buckingham an opportunity of returning to favour. The prosecution seems to have enhanced Buckingham’s standing, and his friends in Yorkshire may have helped to derail it by arresting the government’s chief informer, Leving, on a charge of highway robbery.<sup>107</sup> Towards the end of the month, it was rumoured that the duke was on the point of giving himself up, which he eventually did on 28 June. He ensured that the occasion was turned into a triumph, dining <em>en</em> <em>route</em> to the Tower with Monmouth and a number of friends and accompanied by a crowd of well-wishers. This may have given rise to early reports of his almost immediate release, though these were quickly corrected.<sup>108</sup> By way of explanation for his failure to submit earlier, Buckingham insisted that there was no limitation of time mentioned within the proclamation.<sup>109</sup> Interrogated before the Council at the beginning of July, Buckingham protested that he had never trusted Heydon with anything, thinking him ‘so silly a fellow that I would not think it fit to trust him with a tallow candle’.<sup>110</sup></p><p>For all his apparent confidence some reckoned that Buckingham appeared sufficiently guilty to stand in need of the king’s pardon and he was riled enough to become involved in ‘bitter and sharp’ exchanges with Arlington during the proceedings.<sup>111</sup> The death of three of the witnesses against him, including Leving, in mysterious circumstances, suggests that there was much more to the case than met the eye. Even so, by the middle of July Buckingham had once again been granted his freedom.<sup>112</sup> According to Pepys it was achieved through the intervention of his kinswoman, Lady Castlemaine.<sup>113</sup> Buckingham’s reception by the king was said to have been ‘cold enough’, but his experience did nothing to dampen his exuberance.<sup>114</sup> On 25 July he was again involved in an altercation at the Playhouse, this time with Henry Killigrew, and towards the end of the month he was said to have been one of those responsible for propagating stories that Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, was a ‘wencher’.<sup>115</sup> Commenting on the first encounter, the countess of Strafford doubted how Buckingham could fail to avoid further difficulties, even though he had ‘got great reputation for getting the advantage of Mr Killigrew and when he was drunk too, but seriously his grace has very good fortune if after all his crimes laid to his charge he comes off without any more trouble.’<sup>116</sup></p><h2><em>The Fall of Clarendon, 1667-8</em></h2><p>Buckingham’s restoration to favour coincided with Clarendon’s fall from grace. Buckingham appears at first to have attempted to convince the lord chancellor to join with him in opposition to Arlington, but the efforts made by Martin Clifford and Clarendon’s secretary, Matthew Wren<sup>‡</sup>, to win over the lord chancellor met with a firm refusal.<sup>117</sup> Although it was reported in August that Buckingham and Albemarle were working together to reconcile the king with Clarendon, Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup> insisted that the duke was ‘very far from having any correspondence with the chancellor.’<sup>118</sup> In any case, Clarendon proved unwilling to enter into Buckingham’s scheme. The lord chancellor’s obduracy forced Buckingham to look to Arlington instead.<sup>119</sup> He was thereafter at the head of those demanding Clarendon’s impeachment, though he was also responsible for preventing Clarendon’s incarceration in the Tower, arguing that ‘parliament would be offended by such violence and that the hatred it had for him (Clarendon) would be replaced by compassion for the change in his fortunes’. Instead he advocated Clarendon being confined to his country estate to remove him from the scene.<sup>120</sup></p><p>By September 1667, Buckingham’s star had returned, dramatically, to the ascendant.<sup>121</sup> During the latter part of the summer ‘great endeavours’ had been made to bring about ‘a reconciliation between the duke of Buckingham and the Lord Arlington.’<sup>122</sup> Similar efforts to effect a rapprochement with York in October proved unavailing, though, as York remained for the time being loyal to his father-in-law.<sup>123</sup> Restored to ‘all his places and employments again’, with the exception of the lieutenancy of the West Riding which remained in Burlington’s hands until the end of October, Buckingham was reported by the French envoy, Ruvigny, to be at the head of ‘the most respected’ party in Parliament, ‘the martyr of this assembly’ and an advocate of a policy intent on humbling the Dutch following their successful assault on the fleet at anchor in the Thames.<sup>124</sup> In reality, Buckingham’s position remained as malleable as ever and he strove to maintain a correspondence, whether openly or covertly, with most parties.</p><p>However mercurial he may have remained, Buckingham’s clear intention was to take on himself the management of Parliament, working closely with his Commons allies, Edward Seymour, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>. In return they expected places in the administration at the expense of the old order headed by Clarendon.<sup>125</sup> Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 10 Oct. 1667, after which he was present on 57 per cent of all sitting days. Named to each of the standing committees on 11 Oct., he was thereafter named to a further 19 committees during the course of the session as well as a manager in a series of conferences concerning the proceedings against Clarendon.<sup>126</sup> Reported to be ‘taking all the credit in both chambers’ for the king’s decision to dismiss Clarendon from office and his concession to allow Parliament free rein to seek out those responsible for the country&rsquos financial plight, Buckingham was also said to be one of the prime movers of a similar assault on Ormond. Both Buckingham and Ashley had backed the unsuccessful petition of Alderman Barker against Ormond in the Privy Council on 11 October. Even so, efforts were made by those responsible for patching up the accommodation between Buckingham and Arlington to reconcile Buckingham with Ossory, though Ossory remained unwilling to consider friendship with a professed enemy of his father.<sup>127</sup> In addition, Buckingham may still have been open to an alliance with Clarendon against Arlington as he and Clarendon were reported to be ‘frequently together, locked up’ in the middle of October.<sup>128</sup> He was also at pains to maintain his relationship with the French envoy, assuring him of his commitment to the French alliance.<sup>129</sup> By 20 Oct., when the king finally agreed to allow Clarendon’s impeachment to proceed, such possibilities had receded into the background and Buckingham and his allies turned their hands to composing the articles to be presented against the disgraced lord chancellor.<sup>130</sup> On 23 Oct. he demanded that the thanks of both Houses and the king’s response to the exclusion of Clarendon from state affairs should be entered in the Journal, though this was opposed by York and referred to the committee for privileges.<sup>131</sup> On 31 Oct. he reported from the committee for privileges, which he had chaired two days previously, concerning the summoning of John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), underage.<sup>132</sup> A number of queries concerning the matter were referred to the judges for their opinion. The following month, the Commons decided to impeach Clarendon.</p><p>The French envoy was in no doubt that Buckingham had played a crucial role in bringing around certain members of the lower House to agree.<sup>133</sup> This view was supported by John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, who related that, &lsquothe d[uke] of Bucks is the great man who carries all before him, and has as it’s said undertaken to his majesty by his interest in the House of Commons to make them do whatsoever he shall desire.’<sup>134</sup> Pepys also reckoned that by the middle of the month Buckingham, in association with Bristol, had succeeded in all but monopolizing the king’s ear.<sup>135</sup> At the heart of Buckingham’s success was his ability to convince the king that he alone was capable of controlling the Commons and ensuring that supply was voted. In the event he was unable to make good on these promises, proving incapable of holding together the alliance of members who had united to bring down Clarendon.<sup>136</sup></p><p>In the Lords, Buckingham chaired two sessions of the committee considering the trials of peers bill on 7 and 9 November.<sup>137</sup> A week later, on 16 Nov., he reported the committee’s conclusions to the House. The same month he was also said to have joined with Bristol in encouraging Lady Dacres to submit a bill before the House for the restoration of Sutton Court, which had been leased to Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>138</sup> Although unsuccessful in his efforts to direct impeachment proceedings against Ormond, Buckingham’s continuing dominance of affairs led to rumours that he would replace Ormond as lord steward.<sup>139</sup> His central position at court also encouraged the French envoy, Ruvigny, to recommend the payment of <em>douceurs</em> to keep the duke amenable to the French interest.<sup>140</sup></p><p>On 20 Nov. 1667 Buckingham voted in favour of committing Clarendon on an unspecified charge of treason.<sup>141</sup> He then entered his protest when the motion was rejected.<sup>142</sup> In all, 29 peers protested against the decision, and Ruvigny, writing on 22 Nov., referred to this group as a ‘party’, led by Buckingham and Albemarle and backed by the king himself, who were determined to ‘get rid of monsieur the chancellor (Clarendon) completely and vigorously to oppose the plans of those who would like to save him’. Buckingham and his parliamentary allies, Ruvigny wrote, had ‘vigour, the people and the government’ on their side. Others were beginning to fear the effect of their success. Ruvigny also told Louis XIV that Ashley and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, were intent on establishing a ‘third party in Parliament’ under the leadership of Northumberland, which it was hoped might counterbalance Buckingham’s following. Arlington was said to be ‘of this concert’, being apprehensive of Buckingham’s ‘brusque and haughty manner’, and doubtful of his ability to control the duke.<sup>143</sup> On 22 Nov. Buckingham was one of seven peers named to prepare heads for a conference concerning the proceedings against Clarendon, of which he was named one of the managers on 25 November. With the Commons and the Lords at an impasse over the question of Clarendon’s commitment, on the 27th, according to Ruvigny, Buckingham ‘surprised the assembly’ by opposing the Commons’ request for a further conference. His reason, Ruvigny thought, was to enable the Commons:</p><blockquote><p>to show the people that they had done their duty in accusing the chancellor of England, but [that] there are friends who are his accomplices and are turning all their efforts towards saving him against the security and intention of the king of England and to the prejudice of the public.<sup>144</sup></p></blockquote><p>With the stakes in the contest apparently rising alarmingly – according to Ruvigny, Buckingham had been told by the king to raise the militia in Yorkshire, and there were signs of unrest ‘in the provinces’ – Clarendon slipped away into exile on 30 November.<sup>145</sup> On 4 Dec. Buckingham was named a manager of the conference to deliver Clarendon’s petition, which the House had concluded to be scandalous and seditious, to the Commons. Presenting the petition to the Commons, Buckingham (perhaps ironically) requested that once they had perused it, it should be returned to the Lords, ‘they being willing to keep the original for the excellency of the style.’<sup>146</sup></p><h2><em>The succession to Clarendon and the Shrewsbury affair, 1668</em></h2><p>In the month after Clarendon’s departure, the struggle for power continued. Buckingham was said to be ‘much in esteem’ with some of the old republicans and he made no secret of his encouragement of their ambitions.<sup>147</sup> According to Pepys, Buckingham’s return to favour had given new heart to the nonconformists, who ‘do expect to have their day now soon’. As well as his associates in the City of London, Buckingham was believed to be at the centre of a court ‘cabal’ dominated by men with Presbyterian sympathies, including Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Albemarle and Robartes.<sup>148</sup> Although it was reported that Buckingham was attempting (once more) to forge a reconciliation with York, he, Arlington and Albemarle were also said to be pressing the king to move against Clarendon’s relatives, being people ‘offensive to parliament’.<sup>149</sup> Buckingham was one of the principal advocates in the Lords of the public accounts bill, which Pepys reckoned to be ‘senseless, impracticable, ineffectual… foolish’.<sup>150</sup> At least one of those appointed to the public accounts commission, John Wildman, was well known as one of Buckingham’s adherents; only recently released from incarceration as a result of Buckingham’s intercession he was said to have become the duke’s secretary.<sup>151</sup> The proposal to include Wildman in the commission was attacked in the Commons by some of Clarendon’s supporters. Pepys noted that Sir John Talbot<sup>‡</sup> ‘did fly out and very hot in the business of Wildman’s being named’, while Ruvigny reported that some members declared it ‘beyond astonishment that a person of quality, recently appointed by the king of England to his most secret counsels, should take for one of his principal servants a man who was always against the king’s service and in Cromwell’s entourage.’<sup>152</sup></p><p>Ruvigny reported in the middle of the month that Buckingham was coming under attack because he had become ‘suspect to the Spanish faction’. Certainly, while alliance with the enemies of France had been important in the movement against Clarendon, Buckingham seems to have been keen (as he would continue to be) to forge an alliance with France, telling the ambassador at the beginning of 1668 Buckingham that although high in the king’s trust, he was not yet sufficiently established in council to sustain the project for binding England and France closer in alliance.<sup>153</sup> Buckingham’s interest was said by some to be more reputation than reality.<sup>154</sup> In the elaborate negotiations with the various continental powers both Buckingham and Arlington sought to extract concessions from Ruvigny: reports reached his ears even that Buckingham might in consequence be tempted to join Arlington’s pro-Spanish party.<sup>155</sup> Buckingham’s new political prominence was threatened by the intervention of his lurid personal life, the latest scandal being caused by his duel with the husband of his long-term paramour, Lady Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury, having long tolerated the affair, appears finally to have cracked early in 1668, possibly egged on by his kinsman, Sir John Talbot (who also happened to be one of Buckingham’s creditors at that point). Whatever the reason for the timing, he challenged Buckingham to a duel and threatened ‘to pistol him wherever he met him’ if the duke declined to fight.<sup>156</sup> Efforts to prevent the affray came unstuck when both the king and Albemarle failed to act, each believing the other to be engaged in separating the protagonists.<sup>157</sup> The resulting bout was fought out by Buckingham and Shrewsbury on 21 Jan. 1668 accompanied by two seconds apiece. The onslaught left one of Buckingham’s seconds dead on the field, Shrewsbury seriously injured and all the combatants wounded to a greater or lesser degree.<sup>158</sup> The melodramatic story of the countess watching the whole proceeding disguised as a page and then cavorting in bed with Buckingham while he was still dressed in a shirt dashed with her husband’s blood, served to add to the popular preoccupation with the affair.<sup>159</sup> Despite this, it was reported early on that the king was satisfied that Buckingham had been forced to participate as a result of Shrewsbury’s threats and within days of the duel it was thought ‘certain’ that he would be pardoned for the affray. At least one commentator thought this appeared ‘a little strange among sober men’. A second duel between Oxford and Charles Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst (who became earl of Middlesex in 1675 and 6th earl of Dorset in 1677), arising from the previous bout was narrowly averted in late January.<sup>160</sup></p><p>Buckingham’s pardon (which was granted at the close of January, then stopped through Robartes’s interposition and ordered to be redrafted early the next month, finally passing at the end of February) took on greater significance with the House set to resume on 6 February.<sup>161</sup> Prior to taking his seat, Buckingham informed Ruvigny ‘in great secrecy’:</p><blockquote><p>that there are certain people in this country, rich, clever and well-concerted, who are not in parliament but are in close correspondence with it through their friends and relations, who are resolved to change the face of the court and instil in it conduct which would be beneficial to the nation, and to restore to it the esteem it has lost through the ministry of certain people who are entirely incapable of governing this kingdom.<sup>162</sup></p></blockquote><p>Buckingham took his seat on the first day after the adjournment, before he was in receipt of his pardon. His ability to do so emphasized his dominance at this stage. Pepys thought that Parliament would be likely to ‘fall heavy on the business’ of the pardon. But Conway argued that Buckingham was the leader of a ‘great interest’ in the kingdom being at the head of ‘the fanatics’: ‘the king complies with him out of fear, the Commons are swayed by him as a favourite and a premier minister; he himself thinks to arrive to be another Oliver.’ Another correspondent echoed Conway’s assessment and concluded that ‘the duke of Buckingham is the great favourite, and his cabal are Major Wildman, Dr Owen, and the rest of that fraternity, so that some say we are carried in Oliver’s basket.’<sup>163</sup> The view was not universal and some thought that Buckingham had already shot his bolt. By the middle of February 1668, Ruvigny reported that Buckingham and ‘his friends’ in Parliament had been discredited through the efforts of Arlington; Ossory wrote to his father Ormond following the failure of the efforts to introduce a triennial bill that ‘my lord of Buckingham’s friends that are called the undertakers do daily lose ground and did the king withdraw his countenance from them would be very insignificant.’<sup>164</sup></p><p>Buckingham was missing at a call of the House on 17 Feb. but he resumed his place two days after. At the heart of the policies aimed at by Buckingham and his allies was a moderating religious programme represented by a comprehension bill to ease the position of some Protestant dissenters. The measure was supported by one of Buckingham’s clerical associates, John Wilkins*, later bishop of Chester, but the pre-emptive hostility expressed in the House of Commons towards comprehension during a debate on 10 February, and the ensuing efforts in there to pass a conventicle act to replace the 1664 act set to expire in May underlined the limits to Buckingham’s influence in the lower House. His ‘undertaking’ had disintegrated almost as soon as it had met. On 24 Feb. Ruvigny was concluding that Buckingham had ‘lost much of his credit at court and Parliament through the shortcomings of his conduct, which has never been controllable, and by the skill of Isola’ (the imperial ambassador).<sup>165</sup> Ruvigny reported a few days later that Arlington, perhaps hoping that Buckingham could be removed from England, had offered Buckingham the viceroyalty of Ireland, and Isola had suggested he take a command in the imperial army.<sup>166</sup> It was also reported that Buckingham and Albemarle had entered into ‘a confederacy offensive and defensive’ in opposition to Ormond.<sup>167</sup> While Buckingham insisted, disingenuously, that as a kinsman of Ormond he would not contribute to Ormond’s removal, by the beginning of March the rumour that Buckingham was either to replace Ormond as lord lieutenant or succeed him at court as lord steward had gained ground. It was believed that, if it was the former, he would delegate the post to John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. The charged political atmosphere was further highlighted by rumours of another duel ‘designed between the duke of Buckingham and my Lord Halifax [as Sir George Savile had now become] or Sir W[illiam] Coventry<sup>‡</sup>’, which had been averted by the interposition of the king and Arlington.<sup>168</sup></p><p>Shrewsbury died on 16 March. On the 18th, William Prynne<sup>‡</sup> moved in the Commons for a bill to be drawn up stripping duellists of their estates. He was answered by Buckingham’s associate, Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>, who urged that although the affair was a sad one, Buckingham had been granted a pardon and the matter was effectively closed. Littleton then turned his attention to a fresh assault on the bishops, clearly indicating the policy Buckingham and his faction were eager to advance.<sup>169</sup> As well as spirited defence from men like Littleton, Buckingham also benefitted from an autopsy carried out on Shrewsbury which indicated the cause of death to have been consumption rather than the wound he had received in the duel.<sup>170</sup> Even so, Buckingham proceeded to test the patience of wider society by bringing home the now widowed Lady Shrewsbury two months later and by treating his duchess with callous disregard. When she protested at the unsuitability of both wife and mistress living under the same roof, Buckingham was said to have answered ‘Why, Madam, I did think so; and therefore have ordered your coach to be ready to carry you to your father’s.’<sup>171</sup></p><p>Throughout these domestic dramas, Buckingham continued to be active in the House. On 24 Apr. he was named, ironically enough, to the committee for the bill to prevent duels. At the end of the month he chaired a session of the committee for privileges considering the East India Company’s petition to the Commons. The Company’s complaint concerned the actions of Thomas Skinner, who had lodged a case with the Lords seeking compensation from them the previous year. The Lords had finally found in Skinner’s favour in March 1668 triggering the Company’s petition in which they protested at the use of the upper chamber for an original cause. Buckingham reported to the House from the privileges committee on 1 May.<sup>172</sup> He was probably keen to exploit the dispute between the two Houses over Skinner as a way of preventing progress on the conventicle bill, which had passed the Commons in April. Disagreements over the Skinner case dominated the closing days of the session and continued to divide the Houses until 1670.<sup>173</sup></p><p>Buckingham was one of three peers appointed to wait on the king to request deferring the prorogation for a few days to enable the House to bring to a conclusion its privilege dispute with the Commons.<sup>174</sup> On 6 May he reported back to communicate the king’s desire for supply to be dispatched as soon as possible and giving leave for the session to continue for a further few days. On 8 May, Buckingham was nominated one of the managers of the conference with the Commons concerning their dispute over Skinner, which he opened with a lengthy speech, later printed. In it he insisted that:</p><blockquote><p>If we are in the wrong, we and our predecessors have been so for these many hundred of years, and not only our predecessors, but yours too: this being the first time that ever an appeal was made in point of judicature, from the Lords House to the House of Commons.</p></blockquote><p>Claiming that ‘a greater interest does oblige us at this time, rather to join in the preservation of both our privileges, than to differ about the violation of either’, he argued that ‘the dispute at present is not between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, but between us and Westminster Hall’. He concluded with a warning that ‘if you do not allow us in some cases to try men without juries, you will then absolutely take away the use of impeachments, which I humbly conceive you will not think proper to have done at this time.’<sup>175</sup> On his return to the House from the conference, Buckingham was reported to have urged the Lords in response to a speech by Bristol not to be ‘cozened of their privileges’.<sup>176</sup></p><p>The session ended a few days later with the divisions between the Houses unresolved. Buckingham and his adherents were blamed by the king for the turmoil of the previous two sessions of Parliament. Sir Richard Temple, in his memorandum discussing the reasons for the chaos of the previous session, noted that the anti-Clarendonian coalition had been divided by the competition between Buckingham and Arlington, which had been egged on by Ormond and Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery<sup>‡</sup>, and had been ‘too much countenanced by the king’. In spite of this, Buckingham was at last able to secure a significant place at court around the end of May by purchasing the mastership of the horse from Albemarle for £20,000, or £10,000 plus certain lands. The move prompted a rumour that more changes would soon follow.<sup>177</sup></p><p>During the summer Oxford reported, implausibly, that a new friendship had been struck between Buckingham and Ormond.<sup>178</sup> Even he thought it was unsustainable and it appears clear that it was at best a temporary truce: at the end of June Ormond queried how far he would be able to rely upon Arlington’s support, ‘whenever my Lord of Buckingham and I should come to declared enmity’.<sup>179</sup> The death in July of Buckingham’s niece, Lady Arran, removed the most obvious tie binding the two men together. Their relationship was further worsened by Buckingham’s appointment as one of the commissioners for examining the government of Ireland.<sup>180</sup> Although Buckingham insisted that he would be ‘actuated by no animosities’ against him, by the close of the month it was openly appreciated that he was Ormond’s ‘great enemy’.<sup>181</sup> In August 1668 there were new reports that Buckingham would succeed Ormond as lieutenant of Ireland, though Ormond found it hard to believe that Buckingham would give up his place in England in return for one which, ‘though great, is yet remote from spectators.’<sup>182</sup> Besides his continuing interest in the affairs of Ireland, Buckingham also appears to have been intent on emulating his father by asserting his interest within the admiralty. Pepys reckoned Buckingham to be one of his enemies and by the end of August was daily in expectation of being turned out of his place.<sup>183</sup></p><h2><em>The French treaty and the lieutenancy of Ireland, 1668-9</em></h2><p>The new French ambassador, Colbert de Croissy, dispatched by Louis XIV to try to negotiate a new treaty of friendship with Charles II to overcome the cooling in relations caused by France’s alliance with the Dutch and by Arlington’s Triple Alliance earlier in the year, made a particular point of visiting Buckingham early in his embassy (though he had waited a long time for Buckingham to visit him). When they did meet, at the beginning of September, Buckingham was full of apparent enthusiasm for the treaty project, and effusive in his professions of service to the French king, though he would blow hot and cold on the subject of the treaty over the next year.<sup>184</sup> As Colbert discovered, the major issue of the late summer and early autumn of 1668 was whether to allow Parliament to sit in November. wrote to Louis XIV on 7 Sept. about how the issue was ‘often discussed’ between Arlington and Buckingham; and how recently,</p><blockquote><p>the king having done me the honour of coming to dine with me, and brought them with him, on rising from dinner, they spent two whole hours walking, just the two of them, in my garden, speaking of what should be done, and did not even follow the king when he left. I knew that they were speaking only of this affair, and that the duke of Buckingham has so far shown great repugnance at the dissolution of this Parliament, thinking to have enough credit with it to carry his sentiments, although it is said that this is very much diminished.<sup>185</sup></p></blockquote><p>This remarkable scene of apparent harmony and cooperation did not belie the continued existence of a rivalry between the two for the king’s favour and the position of principal minister, with the position of Ormond and succession to the office of lord treasurer being particular bones of contention. Others, including York and Lauderdale (who was said to have been reconciled with Buckingham through the mediation of Lord Keeper Bridgeman) were still seen as taking sides in the contest.<sup>186</sup> However, both men seem to have come to believe that neutralizing other threats (particularly York, and the return of Clarendon) was more important than their rivalry, or at least were accepting the king’s insistence that they work together: Arlington, the ambassador reported in early October, was seeking to detach himself from Ormond, in order to consolidate a better relationship with Buckingham.<sup>187</sup> Although in September it was reported that it was through Buckingham’s interest that Wilkins had been promoted to the bishopric of Chester, a subsequent report suggested that it was the joint interest of Buckingham and Arlington that had prevailed against the wishes of the archbishop of Canterbury (Gilbert Sheldon) and Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, who had proposed William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>188</sup> Buckingham was unable to secure the office of secretary of state for another client, Sir Robert Howard, Arlington proving on this occasion ‘too hard for him’; according to Pepys, though, writing at the end of October, both men were worried about York persuading the king to allow Clarendon’s return. And yet Pepys also noted at the beginning of November that Buckingham was ‘carrying all before him’, and was concerned by the possibility of him securing York’s dismssal.<sup>189</sup> It was at about this time that Buckingham began to travel everywhere accompanied by a body of musketeers, apparently claiming to fear, assassination at the instigation of York.<sup>190</sup></p><p>Buckingham was at this time unusually active in attempting to assert his control over policy. With Lord Keeper Bridgeman, he was holding talks with Lauderdale on the subject of Anglo-Scottish Union. He was talking regularly to the French ministers in London, both in person and through his secretary, Ellis Leighton, assuring them of his intention to secure an Anglo-French alliance and of his disinclination to see Parliament recalled. He was said to be meeting with Wildman and other former commonwealthmen, hiding his association with this last group from the king by allowing rumours to circulate that he was out wenching.<sup>191</sup> By early November, in contradiction to the French ambassador’s report two months earlier, it was being reported that Buckingham and his party favoured a dissolution and the summoning of a new Parliament, which would expropriate Church lands in order to overcome the king’s current financial plans.<sup>192</sup></p><p>Such a change of mind and the impracticality of the scheme might have been one factor affecting the delicate balance of factions at the end of 1668, with the king perhaps beginning to recognize that Buckingham could offer little in terms of control over the present Parliament. In December 1668, he was not only snubbed by York but also by the king, who took his brother’s part and criticized Buckingham for failing to meet his obligations (presumably referring to his inability to extract satisfactory supply from Parliament as he had promised).<sup>193</sup> The new French ambassador, Charles Colbert, marquis de Croissy, also seemed increasingly distrustful of Buckingham’s promises.<sup>194</sup> The duke’s chief antagonist, however, was said to be Lady Castlemaine, who was clearly unswayed by bonds of kinship and was reported to be working with the duke and duchess of York in the interests of the Hyde family. Consequently in January 1669 Buckingham and Arlington failed to displace Henry Hyde*, styled Viscount Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon), as lord chamberlain to the queen and replace him with their protégé Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland.<sup>195</sup> They had more success with Ormond, who angrily confronted the king over Buckingham and his campaign against him in early February. In the middle of the month Ellis Leighton told the French ambassador that Buckingham and Arlington had reached a pact, based on Arlington undertaking to abandon the lord lieutenant. Ormond was indeed removed from the lieutenancy on the day of Leighton’s conversation with the ambassador, although the beneficiary was not Buckingham, but Robartes. Buckingham was also said to be the subject of strong solicitations from the Dutch ambassador.<sup>196</sup></p><p>In March 1669, Buckingham’s play, <em>The Country Gentleman</em>, provoked Sir William Coventry, who was transparently ridiculed in it, into challenging the duke to a duel.<sup>197</sup> Coventry was committed to the Tower for plotting the death of a member of the Privy Council, in spite of ‘all the solicitations of the duke of York, for whom Coventry had previously acted as secretary, who is extremely mortified by it’.<sup>198</sup> Pepys predicted that Buckingham had by now gone so far that he must become unstuck. Colbert reported that everyone was ‘amazed’ that he ‘should take his enmities to such extremes.’ Though he did not come unstuck, his manoeuvres met with little success. In mid-March it was reported, inaccurately, that Bishop Wilkins was to be translated to Winchester and made lord treasurer through Buckingham’s agency.<sup>199</sup> As a result of a meeting at Newmarket the same month, Arlington and Buckingham appear to have agreed to co-operate to bring down Baptist May<sup>‡</sup>, keeper of the privy purse, perhaps an attempt to strengthen their access to the king; May, however, survived in post for the remainder of the reign.<sup>200</sup> Buckingham was reported to have returned to London in private at the close of the month, and he had still not appeared again at court by the beginning of April, occasioning ‘much discourse’. His absence may have been on account of poor health as it was reported later in the month that he had been suffering from an ague, or it may have been symptomatic of a sense of disgruntlement, possibly linked to the discussion, going on at around the same time, as to whether or not a new Parliament would be summoned. Arlington and Buckingham were thought to favour dissolving the Cavalier Parliament and summoning a new assembly, while York and Albemarle were believed to prefer continuing the current one.<sup>201</sup> Negotiations continued throughout April, with Buckingham said to be both courting members of Parliament as well as pressing for the summoning of a new assembly.<sup>202</sup> The following month, he was again distracted from affairs by the actions of his mistress, Lady Shrewsbury, who was said to have attempted to have Henry Killigrew killed.<sup>203</sup> Although Buckingham was broadly successful in convincing the court that he had not been party to the assault on Killigrew and the scandal did not prevent him from playing host to a great feast attended by the king, York and the visiting grand duke of Tuscany, the affair was said once again to have damaged his standing with the king.<sup>204</sup> In July, the king was said to have remarked that while Lauderdale could give him reassurance about Scotland and Arlington had pulled off the remarkable coup of the Triple Alliance, Buckingham could keep himself in ‘the good graces of the king only by the charm of his personality.’<sup>205</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, the king did not visibly withdraw his favour from Buckingham, and the tension between Buckingham and other members of the court, in particular York, continued over the summer, and may have grown as a meeting of Parliament drew nearer.<sup>206</sup> Buckingham was said to have been intent on persuading the king to dissolve his marriage to Queen Catharine (and thereby to attempt to ensure a legitimate heir who would prevent York’s eventual succession). He believed that ‘his advocacy of it is going well’ but in the middle of June he was critical of the king’s lack of resolution both on this score and over the treaty with France.<sup>207</sup> In early July he was telling Colbert that nothing would be decided in the business of the treaty before the ‘dispositions of this great assembly (Parliament) are known’.<sup>208</sup> At the end of July Ormond noted the emergence of a cabal surrounding Buckingham which apart from his familiar allies—Sir Thomas Osborne and Bishop Wilkins—also included Orrery, the latter ‘very well liked’ by Buckingham and thought by some to be on the point of being appointed lord treasurer, with the support of both Buckingham and York.<sup>209</sup> In August, Buckingham was waited on by representatives from the city of Oxford, who had elected him its lord steward following the death of Thomas Howard*, earl of Berkshire.<sup>210</sup> The move was intended to counterbalance Ormond’s authority as chancellor of the University. During the remainder of the decade the city of Oxford persisted in identifying itself with figures inimical to the university and to the court.<sup>211</sup></p><p>With Parliament due to meet again in October, speculation about the unstable state of court politics remained at a high level.<sup>212</sup> Colbert and Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, related that Arlington had reconciled with York to the detriment of Buckingham; Edward Arden, writing to Miles Stapylton, reported that Arlington’s star was falling and that Buckingham’s ally, Orrery, was to replace him; Buckingham’s uncertain health at the time no doubt helped fuel rumours that he was the one in decline.<sup>213</sup> At the close of September the king held at least two sessions of the council at Buckingham’s bedside, with Ormond in attendance.<sup>214</sup> In mid-October Buckingham and Arlington were said to be ‘pecking one at the other’ though they were shortly afterwards compelled to reconcile once more on the king’s orders.<sup>215</sup> The staged rapprochement fooled no one. By the end of the month it was reported that the king had asked Bishop Wilkins to make another attempt to bring them together.<sup>216</sup> Within a few weeks they were once again said to be at loggerheads.<sup>217</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat the first day of the new session, on 19 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on 35 per cent of all sitting days. On 25 Oct. he was named to the committee to consider the decay of trade and fall of rents and on 6 Nov. to that for considering the report presented by the commissioners for accounts. On 10 Nov. he intervened in the debate over the bill sent up from the Commons for taking away the Lords’ privileges to try original causes. He argued that the bill before them should either be amended to the Lords’ satisfaction or thrown out and that a committee should then be nominated to draw up a new bill for regulating the peers’ privileges (which had previously been suggested by William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington). Buckingham was seconded in the last point by a number of peers, including York, and the bill was duly rejected by all bar two.<sup>218</sup> At the close of the month he offered firm support to the revised trials of peers bill, which provided for peers to be proceeded against by the whole House rather than selected peers nominated by the king. He was opposed in this by his former client, Halifax, and by York.<sup>219</sup> An attempt in the Commons to bring charges of treason against Buckingham’s ally, Orrery, in the Commons was dropped once the king had secured an undertaking from Buckingham and Orrery that they would not then seek their revenge on Ormond, who was thought to have inspired the attack.<sup>220</sup></p><p>By the time the session was brought to a close in December 1669, Buckingham was said by the earl of Sandwich to be at the head of an interest in the House which comprised Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, John Carey*, 2nd earl of Dover, Widdrington, and Bristol as well as eight members of the Commons: Lord Buckhurst, Sir Thomas Osborne, Lord Vaughan, Sir Frescheville Hollis, Edward Seymour, Sir Robert Howard and Sir Richard Temple. Buckingham’s ‘party’, Sandwich noted, ‘of itself is found not so strong in the House of Commons as was supposed, and only is strong when in point of accounts, liberty of conscience, or trade, the country gentlemen or the Presbyterians join with them but they dare not undertake anything alone’. His interest in the Lords, Sandwich estimated ‘not to be great’.<sup>221</sup> According to Colbert, the king had been prevailed upon by Buckingham to prorogue Parliament in order to thwart an effort made by Robartes to send witnesses to depose against Orrery.<sup>222</sup> Buckingham was also said to have been behind an order to put out Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> from his place as a groom of the bedchamber at the end of December (possibly related to Coventry’s intervention in the Commons on 18 Nov. in which he called for ‘commissioners with power to enquire into the designs of persons, who would alter the Government, and persuade dissolving of Parliaments’).<sup>223</sup> Buckingham’s success did not come without criticism and he faced complaints over his disturbingly populist approach.<sup>224</sup> On the death of Albemarle Buckingham attempted to secure the keepership of Hampton Court, which he claimed was a perquisite of the master of the horse; it went, however, to the countess of Castlemaine instead. He also laid claim to rooms in the Cockpit, though he was unsuccessful in acquiring the former.<sup>225</sup></p><h2><em>The French and the Cabal, 1670-1</em></h2><p>The king’s decision to recall Robartes from Ireland early in 1670 and replace him with Berkeley of Stratton, which was done without consulting Buckingham, was said to have left the duke disgruntled at missing out again on securing the lieutenancy for himself.<sup>226</sup> His disappointment coincided with a prolonged period of poor health. At the end of January 1670 he took a house in Surrey to enable him to recuperate.<sup>227</sup> At the end of the month it was said that the king had been to visit him and had succeeded in extracting from him an undertaking to participate constructively in the coming session.<sup>228</sup> Buckingham returned to court at the beginning of February, but by 5 Feb. he was said once more to be sick. By the middle of the month he was complaining to Colbert that he expected no good to come from the new session.<sup>229</sup> It was in fact the most successful since the early days of the Parliament, with the king trading a new conventicle bill for supply. Buckingham was absent from its opening on 14 Feb. 1670. He was still missing at a call a week later and on 4 Mar. he registered his proxy with Berkshire, which was vacated when he at last took his seat the following day. <sup>230</sup> He proceeded to attend on 57 occasions (35 per cent of the whole) during which he was named to 15 committees.<sup>231</sup> Among them was the committee appointed on 19 Mar. to consider the Roos remarriage bill, a measure which was said to have been encouraged by Buckingham and supported by the king but opposed by York and the queen.<sup>232</sup> Said once more to be high in the king’s favour and ‘more than ever the enemy of milord Arlington’, Buckingham spoke in the House in favour of the bill on 28 Mar. (on which day he may also have been entrusted with Conway’s proxy, which was vacated on 3 Dec.) and the measure passed by 42 votes to 35 (though without proxies being employed).<sup>233</sup> Buckingham received the proxy of Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, the following day and on 30 Mar. he was named one of the reporters of the conference for the conventicle bill. He continued to serve as one of the managers of the subsequent conferences on the same matter over the next few days.<sup>234</sup></p><p>Following the adjournment in April 1670, Buckingham was once again at Newmarket in the king’s company by which time government was reported to be in the hands of a cabinet comprising Buckingham, Orrery, Lauderdale, the lord keeper (Bridgeman) and Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>235</sup> Another report listed Lauderdale, Ashley and Arlington among those now backing Buckingham and his faction.<sup>236</sup> Despite this, Buckingham was not sufficiently trusted by the king to be one of the signatories of the secret treaty of Dover. Instead, unaware of the secret treaty, he was commissioned to negotiate a parallel treaty in combination with Ashley and Lauderdale, which made no mention of the secret treaty’s undertaking to return England to Catholicism—the famous ‘<em>traité simulé</em>’. Employing Buckingham in this manner had the desired effect of flattering the duke into thinking he was at the heart of affairs while also shielding the king’s true policy from general view.<sup>237</sup> In June, through the interposition of the king’s sister, the duchesse d’Orléans, Buckingham, Arlington and York were (again) temporarily reconciled.<sup>238</sup> The same month Buckingham stood godfather to Nell Gwynn’s son, Charles Beauclerk*, later duke of St Albans.<sup>239</sup> In July, he offered to undertake a mission to France as ambassador extraordinary to condole with the king and duc d’Orléans following the sudden death of the duchesse.<sup>240</sup> The proposal was strenuously opposed by York and also by Buckingham’s associate, Osborne who feared that it was not in the duke’s best interests. Nevertheless, the king seized on the opportunity and Buckingham, insisting on the importance of the mission for his own career’s sake, departed at the close of July.<sup>241</sup> He then remained in France for the majority of the following month, engaging in further negotiations with the French relating to the <em>traité</em> <em>simulé</em>.<sup>242</sup> On Buckingham’s return, discussion of his mission concentrated largely upon his receipt of a bejewelled sword as a gift from the French king.<sup>243</sup> Colbert reported to his master the striking change in the duke’s attitude following the embassy and how ‘I see every day the effect of the promises he came to make me to press not only for the conclusion of the treaty, but also for its execution’.<sup>244</sup> No mention was made of Buckingham’s reputed <em>faux</em> <em>pas</em> of neglecting to escort back to England Louise de Kéroualle, though it was an oversight that she (later duchess of Portsmouth) was said never to have forgotten.<sup>245</sup></p><p>Buckingham remained engaged in the treaty process into the autumn, when he pressed to be permitted to return to France to conclude the negotiations ‘in the face of everyone’s opposition’.<sup>246</sup> Besides his renewed enthusiasm for promoting closer relations with France, Buckingham was also engaged in negotiations with the Scots concerning the proposed treaty of union, during which he surprised one of the participants by displaying greater than expected sympathy to some of the Scots’ demands concerning the preservation of their laws.<sup>247</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat in the session following the adjournment on 24 Oct. 1670, on which day he introduced the king’s son, James Scott*, as duke of Monmouth. Absent at a call on 14 Nov., by the close of the year Buckingham’s enthusiasm for the alliance with France was perceived to have waned in the face of broad popular opposition.<sup>248</sup> As well as being discontented with the direction of foreign policy Buckingham also seems to have been associating with murky elements attached to the dissenters and may have been behind Thomas Blood’s foiled attempted kidnapping or murder of Ormond in December.<sup>249</sup> Noticeably he was absent from the chamber on 14 Jan. 1671 when a committee was named to investigate the assault on the lord steward. Discontent with the French treaty helped to fuel an increasingly petulant session and by early February Buckingham found it necessary to defend himself from accusations of being too close to the French, trying to deflect the charge onto Arlington.<sup>250</sup> He appealed to the House to uphold his privilege after some of his servants were assaulted by deer poachers at Whaddon Chase.<sup>251</sup></p><p>On 11 Feb. Buckingham was named to the committee for the bill for exporting beer and on 7 Apr. to the committee for the game bill. Later that month, on 18 Apr., he was added as a manager of the conference with the Commons concerning the additional impositions on foreign commodities. His reputation was further diminished when he scandalized society in March by arranging to have his recently deceased bastard son by the countess of Shrewsbury interred in the Villiers family vault in Westminster Abbey under the honorific title of earl of Coventry.<sup>252</sup> Before the session ended, he was active in asserting the Lords’ claims to privilege and the competence of the upper House to alter money bills.<sup>253</sup> The earl of Sandwich’s account of the dispute over the foreign excise bill suggested that it was a result of the Arlington-Buckingham competition: it was Arlington’s court party in the Commons who whipped up the row with the Lords,</p><blockquote><p>finding this a great advantage to render the duke of Bucks ill with the king, to lay the blame of the loss of the bill upon him, and the country party, finding a difference at court, were glad to blow the coal. Besides that magnifying the house of Commons (whom Clifford and Arlington governs) did make those persons considerable and of great power with the king, which if the house of peers had been suffered to control them, the peerage wouold have lessened their power and interest, and Buckingham and Ashley and the nobles would have grown most in the king’s esteem.<sup>254</sup></p></blockquote><p>By the end of the session on 22 April 1671, Colbert reported that Buckingham, unable to ‘desist from the affectation of pleasing the people, although his way of life and his talent are against it… has declaimed in all sorts of company that he finds himself against the alliance with France.’<sup>255</sup> Nevertheless, shortly before the close of the session he submitted, through Colbert, a request to wait on the French king and in the middle of the month it was reported that he was to join John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, in travelling to France on a diplomatic mission.<sup>256</sup> Continuing fractious relations with Arlington were no doubt behind rumours that Buckingham was to replace his rival as lord chamberlain and in mid-May it was reported that he was to be elected chancellor of Cambridge University. Buckingham set about courting the university’s fellows by rejecting the king’s offer of guaranteeing him the chancellorship and declaring that he would instead throw himself on the good graces of the university.<sup>257</sup></p><p>In May 1671, Buckingham finally took a major step towards sorting out his chaotic affairs by placing his extensive (though heavily indebted) estates in trustees headed by the banking partnership of Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup> and John Morris. Although his gross annual income was said to be in the region of £19,600, making him one of the richest peers in the country on paper, one estimate set his debts at £123,140.<sup>258</sup> As a result of the corruption of Buckingham’s chamberlain and the ad hoc manner in which the duke managed his own expenses it was several years before they were able to sort out his real level of indebtedness. When they did, they worked it out at more than £135,000. Thereafter, they were able to bring matters under control, making the duke solvent by 1676.<sup>259</sup></p><p>After the turbulent session that had just passed, the duke and York were said to be in uncharacteristic agreement against a further recall of Parliament. Although towards the end of July another reconciliation with Arlington was staged, by September it was reported that Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale were now ranged against Arlington and the duchess of Cleveland (as the countess of Castlemaine now was). By October, it was reported that Buckingham had declared himself opposed to the current Parliament’s ever meeting again.<sup>260</sup> A duel with Oxford resulting from a quarrel between the men at Newmarket towards the close of the month was averted by the king’s intervention.<sup>261</sup></p><h2><em>The Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672-4</em></h2><p>While at Newmarket Buckingham had assured Colbert of his continuing good intentions towards France, but by the middle of November he was said not to be ‘so fierce for the French as formerly’. In December, when further international developments relating to the role of the Swedes and Danes were discussed, it was reported that, ‘Buckingham, Arlington, Clifford, Ashley and Lauderdale are the junto about this grand affair’ and at the close of the year, these five were appointed commissioners to negotiate with the French ambassador.<sup>262</sup> At the beginning of 1672 Buckingham’s fortunes were thought to be once more in decline, having lost ground to Arlington and Clifford and fallen out with Ashley.<sup>263</sup> He was frustrated in his ambitions to be awarded a significant military command in the conflict with the Dutch that broke out that February. Buckingham seems to have been present, and contributed to the discussion, at the meeting of the foreign affairs committee in Arlington’s lodgings that discussed the Declaration of Indulgence on 7 Mar., and at the meeting on 28 Mar. when a draft of the Declaration was discussed, though he did not attend all of the meetings on the subject and his views do not emerge clearly from the minutes.<sup>264</sup> Despite his failure to obtain a military command, he was dispatched to the continent in the summer with Arlington and Halifax as part of an unsuccessful embassy to bring the war (which had failed to achieve its objectives) to an early conclusion.<sup>265</sup> The French ambassador, Colbert, seems to have believed that by this trip Buckingham had been let into the secret of the secret treaty.<sup>266</sup> Following their return to England, both Buckingham and Arlington were offered rich gifts by Colbert in the hopes that ‘when the need arises they will give proofs of the gratitude they expressed to me.’<sup>267</sup> The following month (September), Buckingham was said to have purposely avoided attending a meeting of the council at which it was debated whether or not to postpone summoning Parliament, so that he could insist that any decision to delay the next sitting was not made with his agreement. He was certainly not at the meetings of the foreign affairs committee that month when the subject was debated.<sup>268</sup></p><p>By the opening of 1673, Buckingham was said to have recovered his enthusiasm for the war with Holland.<sup>269</sup> It was even rumoured that he would be commissioned a lieutenant general.<sup>270</sup> At some point during the previous year a rejoinder to a pamphlet by Slingsby Bethel<sup>‡</sup> appeared, <em>A Letter to Sir Thomas Osborne</em>, generally attributed to Buckingham. Bethel had advocated a close alliance with the Dutch against the French. Buckingham’s pamphlet concurred in some of what Bethel wrote (part of which chimed closely with the views of Arlington), ‘that we ought to keep a good correspondence with Spain, that we should hinder the ruin of Flanders, and that we are to use our utmost endeavours to preserve the command of the Baltic Sea from falling into the hands, either of the king of Denmark, or the king of Sweden’, as well as with Bethel’s view that there was much that united the English and Dutch, but insisted that at the heart of England’s security was her trade and as such the Dutch were obvious rivals. The solution, as Buckingham saw it, was to ensure English supremacy at sea. The pamphlet constituted a defence of the rationale for war against the Dutch.<sup>271</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat in the House for the new session on 4 Feb. after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. On 1 Mar. he was nominated to the sub-committee (of eight peers) appointed to consider a vote of thanks to the king, from which he reported the same day and he was then one of three ordered to wait on the king to discover when the House might attend him. He was then named to a further three committees during the remainder of the session, which was dominated by criticism of the conduct of the war and by consideration of the Declaration of Indulgence <sup>272</sup> According to Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, both Buckingham and Berkeley of Stratton recommended to the king use of the army to eject members of either House who raised opposition to the Declaration. Although not listed among those present at the meeting of the foreign affairs committee on 12 Feb., which discussed how to respond to the Commons’ rejection of the Declaration, a contribution by him is apparently recorded, though what he said is not clear. In the event the king was forced to withdraw the declaration. In its place Parliament hurried through the test act, barring Catholics from holding office. Buckingham was careful to ensure that he fulfilled the legal obligation to take the sacrament at St Margaret’s Westminster a few weeks after the close of the session.<sup>273</sup> On 20 Oct. 1673 he was named a commissioner for proroguing Parliament.</p><p>During the summer of 1673, Colbert reported that York and Buckingham had become linked with Clifford and Lauderdale, amid rumours of Arlington being eclipsed by Buckingham’s former client, Sir Thomas Osborne, who succeeded as lord treasurer that year.<sup>274</sup> According to Reresby, Buckingham was the ‘main instrument’ in procuring the office for Osborne once Clifford had been forced out under the terms of the Test Act.<sup>275</sup> York and Buckingham were expected to lead the assault on the Netherlands during the next campaigning season as respectively general and lieutenant general.<sup>276</sup> In spite of Buckingham’s previously well-publicized hostility towards the Catholic religion, in June 1673 it was said that he had found difficulty in recruiting forces for the expected campaign against the Dutch on the grounds that he was thought to be a Papist. He was thus compelled to take the sacrament again at York to reassure the local people of his continuing commitment to the Church of England.<sup>277</sup> As the war continued to progress poorly for the English forces, he also made a point of distancing himself from the French alliance. Neither of these seems to have helped his reputation. He antagonized the other commanders in the army by arriving late for the muster and was in turn snubbed by being superseded by the Huguenot professional soldier, Frederick Herman Schomberg*, later duke of Schomberg.<sup>278</sup></p><p>In July it was rumoured that Buckingham would quit his post of master of the horse and be replaced by Monmouth. The choice of Monmouth as his replacement was in itself a disappointment as Buckingham was said to have preferred the claims of ‘Don Carlos’ (Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth), the king’s bastard by Catherine Pegge.<sup>279</sup> Ormond claimed that reports of Buckingham laying down his places were false and that Buckingham was in fact intent on seeking once more the restoration of the council of the north.<sup>280</sup> The following month Buckingham approached his former client, the new treasurer Viscount Latimer (as Osborne had recently been created) in the hopes of securing appointment to the governorship of the Isle of Wight.<sup>281</sup> Buckingham’s increasingly distant relations with his former client appear to be confirmed by the progress of the by-election held in York in September 1673. Although Buckingham wrote to the corporation recommending Latimer’s son, insisting that to ignore young Osborne would be a personal affront to him,<sup>282</sup> the corporation appeared to be influenced by reports that Buckingham had redirected his interest in favour of Sir Henry Thompson<sup>‡</sup>. Osborne subsequently withdrew and his replacement, Sir John Hewley, was soundly beaten by Thompson at the polls.<sup>283</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 27 Oct. 1673 and attended on one further occasion before the brief 4-day session was prorogued. In spite of reports of Buckingham’s retirement to the country and desire to break with the French, he continued to offer his services in return for substantial funds. These he undertook would be used to purchase members to support his faction in Parliament.<sup>284</sup> By November relations between Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale had once more collapsed. Asserted to be a prominent member of the faction comprising Lauderdale, Latimer and Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> in opposition to Arlington, Shaftesbury (as Ashley had since become), Anglesey, Ormond and York, in reality Buckingham’s hold over Latimer had dwindled. He continued to play a double game, assuring Colbert of his commitment to the French alliance, while insisting to his followers in the Commons that he was intent on breaking the tie. By the end of November 1673, Colbert was convinced that Buckingham had overplayed his hand and assessed that he had ‘almost no friends left in Parliament, since among the five hundred voices of which the lower chamber is composed, there are perhaps not even ten who favour the duke’.<sup>285</sup> In December Buckingham’s efforts to have Arlington impeached came to nothing.<sup>286</sup> Although it Montagu, who was sent to the Tower on 3 Dec. for quarrelling with Buckingham in the king’s presence, Sir Ralph Verney reckoned that it would be prudent for Buckingham to retire to France as he was bound to face assault from all sides in the coming session.<sup>287</sup></p><p>In the run-up to the opening of the new session in January 1674, Buckingham seems to have decided that Parliament’s suspicion of the French alliance needed to be met head-on. Writing to the French king, de Ruvigny reported Buckingham’s claim that he had ‘already won influential people to your majesty’s cause’, and the assurance of ‘his emissaries’ that ‘the town of London says loudly that if you do not act against religion and the freedom of England there would be nothing more advantageous for it than your alliance.’<sup>288</sup> From a subsequent conversation with Ruvigny, the ambassador gathered that he had managed to convince Shaftesbury, Berkshire and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, to forsake Spain and join his pro-French grouping.<sup>289</sup> Much of this seems to have gone out of the window as soon as Buckingham took his seat in the House on 7 Jan. (after which he was present on half of all sitting days) and was at once brought under pressure from a petition delivered to the House by the relatives of the slaughtered earl of Shrewsbury, who sought redress for the scandalous behaviour of Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury.<sup>290</sup> Although Buckingham attempted to assure the House that he had done all in his power ‘to remove from her [Lady Shrewsbury’s] spirit the passion she had felt for him’, Ormond, Bristol, Anglesey and Berkshire all combined to attack his conduct. With the king unwilling to interpose, Buckingham again considered retreating to France, but he was almost at once faced with a more serious attack from the Commons, who were intent on impeaching both him and Lauderdale. They had prepared an address comprising 14 articles against Buckingham ranging from buggery to fraud. On 13 and 14 Jan. Buckingham appeared at the bar of the Commons to answer the charges against him, thereby attracting further attacks in the Lords on the grounds that they had infringed the privilege of the peerage. Buckingham’s uncharacteristically nervous first appearance did not help his cause. One newsletter writer described the Commons’ surprise ‘at the loose, shallow and immethodical representation he made’.<sup>291</sup> During his address on the second day Buckingham apologized for his previous performance, asking the Commons to consider ‘the condition I am in, in danger of passing, in the censure of the world, for a vicious person, and a betrayer of my country.’ Attempting to redirect some of the criticisms towards Arlington, he appealed to them to believe him innocent of the charges against him:</p><blockquote><p>I am sure I have lost as much Estate as some men have gotten; (and that is a big word). I am honest, and when I appear otherwise, I desire to die. I am not the man that has gotten by all this; yet after all this I am a grievance: I am the cheapest grievance this house ever had; and so I humbly ask the pardon of the House for the trouble I have given.<sup>292</sup></p></blockquote><p>Buckingham saved himself from impeachment, but the Commons nevertheless resolved to request the king that he strip Buckingham of his employments, and remove him from his own presence and counsels, though in their debates it was acknowledged that the duke’s post of master of the horse was a freehold as he had it by purchase and recognized that he might need to be compensated for being forced to part with it.<sup>293</sup> The Lords too came down heavily on Buckingham and his mistress, ordering both of them on 6 Feb. to enter into a bond of £10,000 to remain apart.<sup>294</sup> Although Ruvigny was still hopeful at the end of January 1674 that Buckingham might yet ‘return to favour’, according to Sir Ralph Verney the king was now so disgusted by the duke’s behaviour that he could not even bring himself to talk to him and that as a result Buckingham was ‘quite out’.<sup>295</sup></p><p>Once more Buckingham thought of retiring to France, though Ruvigny attempted to dissuade him, ‘because of the difficulties there would be in giving him all the treatment he could wish for.’<sup>296</sup> He set about divesting himself of his offices. He sold the mastership of the horse to Monmouth, to whom he was also expected to relinquish the chancellorship of Cambridge. His place in the bedchamber went to Latimer’s brother-in-law, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, for £6,000. Buckingham’s lord lieutenancy was granted to Latimer himself, in spite of efforts made by Strafford to secure it. Buckingham was said to have obtained a pension of £1,600 a year in compensation to add to a former annual grant of £4,000 on the Irish establishment.<sup>297</sup> Buckingham, aggrieved at his treatment, wrote later that year wrote to Danby (as Latimer had since become) emphasizing his achievements as master of the horse and insisting that ‘if I have not served the king better than ever he was served before when it cost him £3,000 a year more… I will be contented to pass the rest of my life for as errant an ass and as errant a knave as any of those that have taken upon them to censure me.’<sup>298</sup></p><p>Prevented from seeing out his days in France, in March, Buckingham determined to retire to his estates in Yorkshire instead.<sup>299</sup> By the middle of the summer, his interest seemed to have all but disappeared. In September, Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> confided to his memoirs that the cause of Buckingham’s fall from favour was the king’s mistress, Louise de Kéroualle, duchess of Portsmouth; Buckingham’s appearance before the Commons, which had annoyed both king and House of Lords, was also cited as a reason for his sudden decline.<sup>300</sup> Nevertheless, Buckingham’s retirement was neither complete nor likely to be permanent. He continued to press Ruvigny to see to it that a pension promised to Berkshire would be honoured by the French.<sup>301</sup> He supported an effort to move the Buckinghamshire assizes to the county town, though it was acknowledged that his intervention would have little or no impact.<sup>302</sup> By the close of the year, though, rumours circulated that his friends were again angling to secure his return to favour at the expense of Ormond. In December it was thought that he had returned to town to see his new satirical play <em>The Rehearsal</em>, in which he squared off against both literary rivals such as Dryden and political enemies like Arlington, performed before the king, duke of York and other members of the court.<sup>303</sup> In advance of the new parliamentary session, Buckingham wrote to one of his stewards asking him to ensure that his debts were paid as he anticipated that his creditors, encouraged by some of his adversaries, planned to petition the House. Buckingham professed to be bewildered by this, not least because he had only recently made efforts to put his finances on a more even footing by settling his estates in trustees, though he was ‘fully satisfied of the extraordinary parts of my enemies in these generous kind of contrivances.’<sup>304</sup></p><h2><em>The ‘Country’ Opposition: 1675-8</em></h2><p>Buckingham returned from his sojourn in the country to take his seat in the House on 13 Apr. 1675, determined to take a leading role in the opposition developing against Danby and his alliance with the Church. Present on 93 per cent of all sitting days, he joined with Shaftesbury and Halifax in speaking against the passage of the non-resisting test act promoted by Danby. In the epic account of the fight against the Test associated with the earl of Shaftesbury and probably written by John Locke, the <em>Letter from a Person of Quality</em>, Buckingham was praised as ‘general of the party’ opposing the bill; Baxter wrote of him as having been one of those to have spoken best on the issue; and Andrew Marvell after the end of the session described to a friend how ‘never were poor men exposed and abused, all the session, as the bishops were by the duke of Buckingham upon the Test; never the like, nor so infinitely pleasant: and no men were ever grown so odiously ridiculous’. Marvell would later, in his <em>Account of the Growth of Popery</em>, singled out Shaftesbury and Buckingham as between them doing as much as all the other opponents of the bill put together. Buckingham subscribed to all of the protests against the bill: on 21 Apr. against the resolution that the non-resisting bill did not encroach upon the privileges of the Lords; on 26 Apr. against the bill’s committal to the whole House; three days later against the resolution that the previous protest had reflected on the honour of the House. During the debates in committee on 30 Apr. he treated the House to a speech of ‘eloquent and well-placed nonsense’ to demonstrate the absurdity of the oath being proposed; and four days later, he subscribed to the fourth protest, at the resolution to include Members of Parliament and Lords within the scope of the bill’s first enacting clause.<sup>305</sup> On 18 May he was named to the committee for the bill to prevent the importation of foreign manufactures and on 2 June he was nominated a reporter of a second conference concerning a privilege dispute with the Commons over the arrest of Sir John Churchill and others. On 3 June, the day appointed by the House to hear the objections of Buckingham and Denbigh to the petition of Robert Danvers to be recognized as Viscount Purbeck, no counsel appeared for either peer and the House ordered Denbigh’s petition dismissed and Buckingham to pay £20 costs.</p><p>During the autumn 1675 session, Buckingham remained a prominent figure in the country opposition, apparently in close concert with Shaftesbury. Having taken his seat in the House on 13 Oct. 1675, he was then present on just over three quarters of all sitting days. On 14 Oct. he was named to the committee for the bill to explain the bill concerning Popish recusants. Excused at a call on 10 Nov, he resumed his seat the following day and on 16 Nov. he announced to the House that he intended to introduce a bill to ease the lot of Protestant dissenters, closely relating his arguments to the right to liberty and property:</p><blockquote><p>It is certainly a very uneasy kind of life to any man, that has either christian charity, good nature, or humanity, to see his fellow subjects daily abused, divested of their liberties and birth-rights, and miserably thrown out of their possessions and free-holds, only because they cannot agree with others in some opinions and niceties of religion, which their consciences will not give them leave to consent to, and, which even by the consent of those who would impose them, are no way necessary to salvation.<sup>306</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the heated atmosphere arising out of the disputes between Lords and Commons over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, it is perhaps surprising that Buckingham did not apparently become embroiled in the arguments that erupted on 20 Nov. between several members of the House, though he joined with Shaftesbury in seconding the motion put forward by Shaftesbury’s associate Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, for an address to the king for Parliament to be dissolved.<sup>307</sup> He then subscribed the protest when the motion was rejected. On 22 Nov. Parliament was prorogued once more.<sup>308</sup> It did not meet again until the spring of 1677. Buckingham’s 16 Nov. speech was later printed in Amsterdam together with a speech of Shaftesbury’s on the <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> dispute and the votes at the end of the session for dissolving Parliament. Late the following month one of the correspondents of Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> noted the arrival of a packet boat from Holland and how they were ‘well stored with speeches and votes’ including those of Buckingham and Shaftesbury: ‘so that no endeavours are wanting to make the court odious to the people’.<sup>309</sup></p><p>The French had, for the moment, written Buckingham off as a useful ally: in the middle of the autumn session Ruvigny confided to the French king that little ‘except shows of spirit’ could be hoped for at the moment from its handful of usual allies, particularly Buckingham, ‘who is so involved in the cabal of the best minds in the Lords who are called the confederates, that he dare not act in another manner for fear of being discovered and of losing by this means the belief that these men have in him.’<sup>310</sup> Early the following year, a ‘flying report’ claimed that Buckingham had once again kissed the king’s hand, though Sir Ralph Verney could ‘hardly believe it’, and by April 1676 Buckingham was again retired from court, although advice prepared for the new French ambassador suggested that even if he was ‘distanced from affairs, he will still be important, not only because he will easily reconcile himself with the king his master… but because he has many friends in his own right.’<sup>311</sup> Buckingham continued to profess his attachment to the French in correspondence with the new ambassador, Courtin, but seemed more intent on his new alliances with opposition figures.<sup>312</sup> In the absence of Parliament over the fifteen month prorogation, both he and Shaftesbury turned their sights on the City of London. Buckingham bought a house formerly belonging to one of his creditors’ relatives; in June he was believed to have been behind the speech made by Francis Jenks at the election for new aldermen in the City, calling for the summoning of a new Parliament; it was said that Buckingham even intended to stand for election as an alderman himself. The king dubbed his erstwhile companion ‘Alderman George’, but though he subjected Jenks to interrogation, he failed to establish the direct link between him and Buckingham that he was after.<sup>313</sup> When Thomas Garway was interviewed by Joseph Williamson in early October about what Buckingham had said when taking a cup of tea at Garway’s coffee-house with Major Wildman and others, Williamson was keen to hear whether he had drunk to Jenks’s health. He had not, at least not in Garway’s presence; though he had drunk a health to a ‘new Parliament, and to all those honest gentlemen of it that would give the king no money’.<sup>314</sup> The Jenks affair, though, did open cracks in his alliance with Shaftesbury, who was irritated with his wayward ally for precipitating the issue, ‘judging their business was not yet ripe’; according to Charles Hatton it ‘occasioned great feuds amongst their partisans’. Reports in October that Buckingham’s supporters had taken to wearing green ribbons in their hats in imitation of their patron, who was said to have drunk the health of ‘all that would not give money and were for a new Parliament’ in Garroway’s coffee house, were later dismissed as being the result of a misunderstanding. Buckingham himself does not appear to have been a member of the Green Ribbon Club.<sup>315</sup></p><p>Buckingham was reported to have suffered ‘a generous fit’ of the gout at the opening of 1677.<sup>316</sup> Well in advance of the new session, it was widely known that both he and Shaftesbury now believed Parliament to be dissolved by virtue of the 15-month prorogation and intent on making a demonstration early in the session.<sup>317</sup> On 15 Feb. Buckingham took his seat bedecked ‘in great bravery in liveries of blue but all diversified’ and launched into a lengthy diatribe on the reasons why the current session was invalid. Excusing himself for having ‘often troubled your lordships with my discourse’ he now assured them that ‘I never did it with more trouble to myself than at this time for I scarce know how to begin what I have to say to your lordships.’ He cited statutes from the time of Edward III, which showed, he claimed, that Parliament should be held at least once a year, the same argument that had previously been advanced by Jenks.<sup>318</sup> Buckingham was seconded by Shaftesbury and also by Wharton and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury; he was opposed by Danby, with whom Buckingham had ‘high and bitter clashings’.<sup>319</sup> After the House resolved to put aside the debate, John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, seconded by Richard Arundel*, Baron Arundel of Trerice (both associates of Danby), moved that Buckingham should be called to the bar to answer for his reflections on the legitimacy of the Parliament.<sup>320</sup> Further debate was then adjourned to the following day when it was ordered that the four peers should be attached, but Buckingham, ‘foreseeing which way the vote would go, slunk out of the house, and winged with fear… leaped into a pair of oars and made them put off in all haste.’<sup>321</sup> (John Verney added that the duke paused first to ‘make water’ before taking to the river.<sup>322</sup>) On 17 Feb. black rod declared that he could not find the missing peer, but, a little later Buckingham resumed his place, insouciantly and provocatively claiming that ‘his ague made him retreat’ the previous day.<sup>323</sup> The House ordered his immediate withdrawal and he was then brought to the bar and commanded to kneel. Buckingham at first refused to do so, but was assured by the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham) that the other three peers had all submitted to kneel and so he gave way. There followed a moment of great tension as the lord chancellor demanded of the House whether Buckingham should be sent to the Tower. He was greeted by a pregnant pause of six or seven minutes, eventually broken when Ormond moved for his old rival to be conveyed to the Tower. There was then further silence as no one else appeared willing to second the motion. This was at last broken when Lauderdale suggested that in such cases, where a motion was made with none speaking against it, it should pass for an order of the House. Buckingham was ordered, therefore, to the Tower. Like his fellows, he requested to be accompanied there by his cook and butler. His demand was granted, but attracted sufficiently opprobrious comments from the lord chancellor that Buckingham was provoked into cautioning him to mind what he said, before stalking out.<sup>324</sup></p><p>In contrast to his triumphal march to the Tower in 1667, Buckingham now appears to have attracted little sympathy from the London citizenry.<sup>325</sup> He seems to have spent the initial period of his incarceration experimenting with his chemistry laboratory, which he had also secured permission to bring with him to his confinement.<sup>326</sup> He also continued to take an interest in family politics. Early in March Buckingham’s kinsman, Denbigh, secured the House’s permission to wait on the duke to confer with him about a renewed effort by Robert Danvers to be recognized as Viscount Purbeck. The title of Purbeck had been conferred on Buckingham’s uncle, John Villiers<sup>†</sup>, but he had died without legitimate issue: Danvers was generally accepted to be the son of the first viscount’s wife and her lover Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>. Granting him the title clearly had implications for the wider Villiers clan and on 7 Mar. Denbigh communicated to the Lords Buckingham’s wish that no further proceedings should be held on the claim until he was able to attend; a stay in proceedings for the time being was ordered.<sup>327</sup> Buckingham was noted as missing at a call of the House on 9 March. An attempt on 20 Mar. by George Booth*, Baron Delamer, seconded by Clarendon (as Cornbury had since become) and Halifax to have the four peers released came to nothing. On 16 Apr., though, Buckingham was successful in seeking to have his privilege upheld following the seizure of some of the goods belonging to one of his servants.<sup>328</sup></p><p>Despite their joint action in February and their joint incarceration, Buckingham was reckoned merely ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury in the latter’s assessment in May.<sup>329</sup> The same month, Buckingham employed Middlesex (as Buckhurst had since become) to petition the king for his release.<sup>330</sup> Although on this occasion a decision was deferred, at the end of June he was permitted out for a few days to inspect the progress of his building works at Cliveden.<sup>331</sup> At the close of the following month, having made ‘a very full submission’, he was again permitted out on license.<sup>332</sup> A combination of Nell Gwynne, Middlesex, John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, and other members of the so-called ‘merry gang’ were credited with obtaining his enlargement to enable him to recover from a series of illnesses he had contracted in the Tower’s damp conditions. Danby also may have played a role, though he was later dismayed by the speed with which Buckingham was once more welcomed back at court.<sup>333</sup></p><p>Following his release, Buckingham considered taking a house in St James’s. As early as 2 Aug. it was said that the king and he had been ‘very merry’ one night at Rochester’s lodgings, where Buckingham was then staying, and there was speculation that he would soon be returned to favour and even restored to office as lord steward. Although it was later reported that his enemies had ensured that he was once more forbidden the court, in mid-November he was nevertheless said to have dined with the king again, this time at Nell Gwynne’s residence.<sup>334</sup></p><p>When the House reassembled on 28 Jan. 1678, an attempt by the lord chancellor to protest at the release from the Tower of three of the peers (Wharton, Salisbury and Buckingham) without making satisfaction to the House was curtailed by Berkshire interrupting and seeking to deliver a petition from Buckingham, in which he offered his submission and desired to be readmitted to his place.<sup>335</sup> He resumed his seat the same day and was thereafter noted to be ‘as brisk as ever’, though he does not appear to have been nominated to any committees during the remainder of the session.<sup>336</sup> On 16 Feb. he was missing from the attendance list, but not among those noted as absent at the call held that day, so presumably he took his seat after the roll had been taken. The following month, he was again notified by the House of the claim being lodged by Robert Danvers <em>alias</em> Villiers to the viscountcy of Purbeck, so that he could prepare his opposition to Danvers’ pretensions, but no further progress was made in the peerage claim during the session.<sup>337</sup></p><p>By early February 1678 Buckingham was said to be back in favour. It was reported that he had been seen walking in the park with the king and later that month, it was noted that he was once more in frequent attendance at court.<sup>338</sup> Buckingham’s restoration to favour was said to have irritated Monmouth. Buckingham refused to reconcile with his former client, Danby, whom he lambasted as ‘a man who is ungrateful and ignorant.’<sup>339</sup> Not long after, it was reported that Buckingham was working with Nell Gwynne to drive Danby out of office and to bring in Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, in his stead.<sup>340</sup> They were also said to have been attempting to recruit Secretary Coventry and the duchess of Cleveland (the former Lady Castlemaine) to their cause.<sup>341</sup> His contribution to the debate on 16 Mar. on the Commons’ address for an immediate declaration of war against France ranged him still with the country opposition, including Shaftesbury, Halifax and Clarendon against Danby (Buckingham having first, mockingly, supported a motion by one of the bishops for the appointment of a fast day).<sup>342</sup> The following month, on 4 Apr., he was among the majority who found Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter following his trial before the peers for the death of Nathaniel Cony.<sup>343</sup></p><p>Following the brief prorogation in May which provided the opportunity to conclude a settlement with France, Buckingham took his seat in the new session on 23 May 1678, of which he attended 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 5 June both his and Robert Danvers’ counsel were heard concerning the Purbeck viscountcy, but debate was then adjourned to the following Friday. Ten days later, Buckingham complained to the House of a paper containing information ‘scandalous to the memory of his father and the honour of his family’, which he accused Danvers of writing. Danvers refused to answer the charge and was ordered to withdraw. The following month, on 5 July, Buckingham registered his dissent at the resolution to ascertain the relief of the petitioner in the cause <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em>.</p><p>By the middle of the summer, it was believed that Buckingham would shortly be sent abroad as an ambassador (though details of the embassy remained unclear).<sup>344</sup> Such rumours coincided with reports that Buckingham was already in France in a private capacity.<sup>345</sup> Said to have been there in disguise, according to at least one newsletter, ‘the cause of his going is yet a mystery’.<sup>346</sup> Henry Savile wrote on 27 Aug. that he was in Paris incognito: ‘some will have it upon a politic account, but others give him no better errand than the pursuit of a lady’.<sup>347</sup> A few weeks later he wrote again, supposing that ‘by this time my Lord Buckingham’s voyage hither is unriddled in the coffee house, and that, as it often happens upon other occasions, his great business is found to be no business at all.’<sup>348</sup> It is possible that Buckingham had offered himself to the French as their contact in England, even a proposal for a French force under his command in the event of England finding itself in need of a strong martial force to maintain order.<sup>349</sup> His appearance at the prorogation day on 29 Aug. confused the gossip-mongers—Shaftesbury, clearly ignorant of his colleague’s activities, professed it to be ‘a great comfort’ to learn that Buckingham was still in the country—but it failed to quieten the rumours.<sup>350</sup> Buckingham denied that he had been in Paris, but he was contradicted by ‘several letters from Paris’, according to one correspondent, who also wrote that his denials only served to make people ‘the more suspicious’.<sup>351</sup></p><h2><em>The Popish Plot and the Crisis, 1678-81</em></h2><p>Buckingham returned to the House for the autumn, and final session of the Parliament on 22 Oct. 1678, of which he attended approximately two thirds of all sitting days. Towards the end of the month, complaint was made to the House once again of a breach of his privilege, when it was related how one of his servants, Robert Feilding, had been arrested by one of the Westminster bailiffs even though Feilding was in possession of Buckingham’s protection.<sup>352</sup> Order was made for Feilding to be released and the following day (29 Oct.) the House took evidence from Francis Snape, Feilding’s creditor, who claimed that Buckingham had undertaken to withdraw the protection if the debt were found to be just. Further progress in examining the case was interrupted by the investigation into the Popish Plot which dominated the session, although on 7 Nov. Buckingham secured Snape’s his release from the custody of black rod, where he had languished since appearing before the House a fortnight previously.</p><p>Buckingham was an active in several of the committees investigating the Plot, demonstrating the kind of nervous energy with which he could occasionally turn his mind to business, although Buckingham’s interest in prosecuting the plot stemmed from his desire to tap the popular mood rather from the kind of convinced anti-catholicism that drove some of his allies at the time, especially Shaftesbury and Monmouth. On 23 Oct. Buckingham was named to the committee appointed to examine papers relating to the conspiracy and the following day to the committee for examining constables. On 28 Oct. he was instrumental in the decision to appoint a sub-committee to examine witnesses concerning the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and was also to the fore in nominating other members to sit on the committee with him, among them Shaftesbury and Halifax.<sup>353</sup> The same month both he and Shaftesbury spoke in favour of sending Coleman’s information to the Commons for their inspection, even though it was understood to be imperfect.<sup>354</sup> Both Buckingham and Shaftesbury’s activities in seeking out those involved in the Plot was later condemned by some who appeared before them, notably Mary Gibbons, one of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s neighbours. In response to her testimony that the death of Godfrey was probably suicide Gibbons claimed that Buckingham rounded on her declaring, ‘if you were a man, I would sheathe my sword in your heart’s blood, for you have undone all the business by endeavouring to take off the report that Sir Edmund was murdered by the papists.’<sup>355</sup> Gibbons was not alone in depicting Buckingham at this time as tense and excited. A French pamphlet composed the following year related how in response to Oates’s efforts to have the queen accused of being part of the Plot, Buckingham vented in exasperation, ‘This rascal will spoil our business. He can’t govern himself.’<sup>356</sup></p><p>Buckingham was named a reporter of the conference for the preservation of the king’s person on 1 Nov. 1678 and on 26 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the bill for raising the militia. Two days later, he was successful in moving the House on behalf of the earls of Dorset (as Middlesex had since become) and Pembroke, who had been arrested following a quarrel, but who had now agreed to be reconciled and the House accordingly ordered the two men to be released.<sup>357</sup> On 9 Dec. Buckingham was appointed a manager of the conference for disbanding forces and on 20 Dec. he entered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendments to the disbanding bill. On 23 Dec. he was one of four peers nominated to attend the king to inform him about the information of Miles Prance, who claimed to be able to make a discovery about the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The same day he entered his dissent at the decision not to require Danby to withdraw following the reading of the impeachment articles against him. Three days later he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill and on 27 Dec. he voted in favour of committing Danby. He had already made the most of information provided by his agent, Ellis Leighton, to spread reports that Danby had taken bribes from the French.<sup>358</sup></p><p>After the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament Buckingham actively employed his interest on behalf of opposition candidates in the elections of February/March 1679 for the new assembly. He was said at this point to be in constant contact with Shaftesbury and Monmouth, though the relationship would break down over the course of the year, with Shaftesbury suspicious of Buckingham’s tendency to look to France and Buckingham of Shaftesbury’s sponsorship of Monmouth.<sup>359</sup> On 4 Feb. he wrote to Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, thanking him for giving him the opportunity of offering his support to John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, even though Hampden was unknown to him, and undertaking to be at Aylesbury for the county election.<sup>360</sup> He attended the poll accordingly the next day at which both Wharton and Hampden were returned before returning to the town of Buckingham, where he attempted to employ his interest on behalf of his old associate John Wildman along with Sir Peter Tyrrell<sup>‡</sup>. Although the duke threatened the town with his displeasure if they failed to return his preferred candidates, he later withdrew his support from Wildman on discovering that he was unlikely to win. He then directed his effort to the elections at Oxford, where he recommended the re-election of Brome Whorwood<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned along with a former mayor, William Wright<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>361</sup></p><p>In March, however, Buckingham performed one of his by now habitual disappearing acts, and was absent from public view for the next two months, and thus from the first two months of the new Parliament.<sup>362</sup> Rumours abounded over the cause. According to Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, whose election for the town of Buckingham the duke had opposed, Buckingham had absconded ‘for private offences and sins’. He certainly seems to have been in negotiation with the king for a new pardon in return for which he offered to discover designs against the government. He was also engaged in an ongoing feud with Danby and with Danby’s son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, <em>styled</em> Viscount Latimer. According to Barillon the duke was concerned that Danby intended to bring sodomy charges against him.<sup>363</sup> One result of his absence was his omission from the new Privy Council. Another was that he missed witnessing Danby’s resignation. Missing at a call of the House on 9 May, in the middle of the month he put an end to the conjecture by reappearing in London and on 17 May he took his seat in the House, after which he was present on a further seven days (13 per cent of the whole session).<sup>364</sup> On 20 May he spoke in the debate about the right of bishops to sit in cases of blood, arguing that acts could be made without the concurrence of the spiritual lords and that according to <em>Magna</em> <em>Carta</em>, peers could only be tried by peers.<sup>365</sup> Three days later, he entered two dissents, first at the resolution to proceed with the trials of the five lords before that of Danby and second at the resolution that the Lords would give no other answer with regard to the bishops’ voting.<sup>366</sup> On 27 May he dissented again at the Lords’ insistence on the bishops’ right to remain in court until sentence was pronounced.</p><p>Following the close of the Parliament, Buckingham was again active in the elections of August 1679. At the end of July both Buckingham and John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, had appeared in support of Sir Ralph Verney at the Abingdon assizes, where Verney had a lawsuit pending, and the following month it was reported that Buckingham had at last found his old client, Wildman, a safe seat at Abingdon.<sup>367</sup> At the close of the month, Buckingham appeared with William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, in support of Hampden and Thomas Wharton for the Buckinghamshire election and when their opponents attempted to wrong-foot them by transferring the poll from Aylesbury to Buckingham, he ‘marched at the head of the electors from Aylesbury to Winslow and the following morning from Winslow to Buckingham’, where they succeeded in securing Hampden and Wharton’s returns. He once more offered his support to Sir Peter Tyrrell for the town of Buckingham, this time unsuccessfully.<sup>368</sup> He also appeared at Brentford in September in support of Sir William Roberts<sup>‡</sup>, bt., one of the sitting members for Middlesex.<sup>369</sup> In early September Buckingham also promoted the cause of his associate, Francis Jenks, in the London shrieval election as part of an attempt to seize control of the corporation but Jenks was defeated by a court candidate.<sup>370</sup></p><p>Buckingham’s hyper-activity at the elections had at least again aroused the king’s irritation. There were rumours that he had been involved in more than just electioneering, at least during the king’s serious illness of late August, which brought James back from exile. A story that Buckingham, Shaftesbury and Radnor (as Robartes had since become) had plotted to promote Monmouth as heir but that they had been rebuffed when they attempted to recruit Oxford to their cause may have assumed more than actually happened; but Buckingham certainly held conversations with Monmouth’s lieutenant, Sir Thomas Armstrong, concerning an attempt to take control of the London common council.<sup>371</sup> In September Buckingham was said to be ‘in great displeasure with the king’; it was also reported that he was to be proceeded against for sedition. In October Buckingham was said to have sought sanctuary overseas and to be in Holland, even attempting to instigate a Presbyterian uprising.<sup>372</sup> Certainly he characteristically went to ground, with little heard of him for several months.</p><p>There was clearly not enough evidence to proceed against Buckingham, though a series of moves against him in early 1680 were clearly coordinated. At the beginning of 1680, he, Lovelace and Thomas Wharton were all put out of the Buckinghamshire commission of the peace, and over the ensuing weeks, Buckingham was removed as a justice in practically every county to which he had previously been appointed. In February reports circulated of accusations being levelled against him by a variety of witnesses, including his erstwhile associate, Colonel Blood.<sup>373</sup><sup>374</sup> That these latest charges (foreshadowed by the rumours of the previous year) had been fabricated is indicated by the arrest in January of Edward Christian, a former steward who had since migrated to become one of Danby’s clients, on suspicion of suborning witnesses to appear against the duke.<sup>375</sup> In April a grand jury was presented with an indictment against Buckingham for attempted buggery. Barillon appears to have thought that it was inspired by Danby to keep Buckingham away from the Lords.<sup>376</sup> Buckingham entered a counter-suit against those involved for perjury and forgery. On 6 May, the proceedings on the buggery charge opened at Hicks Hall but, having heard all the witnesses against him ‘with great solemnity’, the grand jury brought in the bill <em>ignoramus</em>, thus enabling Buckingham to proceed with his counter-suit.<sup>377</sup> In preparing the duke’s case, according to Daniel Finch* (later 2nd earl of Nottingham), his agents were ‘more than ordinary diligent and officious in it, and not without considerable expense to him’.<sup>378</sup> On 21 May the trial of the conspirators was heard in Westminster Hall, with the jury finding against the accused without bothering to adjourn to deliberate.<sup>379</sup> Over the summer Buckingham actively pursued those who had contributed to his danger and embarrassment. In July he was expected to appear at the Buckingham assizes ‘in great splendour’ where he had submitted two or three cases including a case for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em> against Howard, a local barber, who had declared that Buckingham’s accusers had spoken the truth. On 20 July Buckingham was awarded £1,000 damages from Howard, but John Verney questioned why Buckingham was so intent on proceeding against such ‘mean folk’. Sir Ralph Verney, who had served as jury foreman, was confident that the duke would not concern himself with recovering the money, but Howard decided not to put this to the test and removed himself to London ‘to enter himself of the king’s Lifeguards to secure his person’ from Buckingham.<sup>380</sup></p><p>Buckingham was unwell in the autumn. Although on 12 Oct. it was reported that he had recovered ‘with the help of the Jesuits’ powder’, when the new Parliament was finally allowed to sit on 21 Oct. he was absent and he was still noted as missing at a call of the House on 30 October.<sup>381</sup> He was still away on 11 Nov., when the Lords agreed to raze the account of the proceedings against him, Shaftesbury, Salisbury and Wharton from the Journal. He finally took his seat on 22 Nov., ‘the first day his sickness would permit him.’<sup>382</sup> He was thereafter present on 39 per cent of all sitting days and named to four committees.<sup>383</sup> Buckingham’s late appearance in the session meant that he avoided the initial proceedings relating to exclusion. His own attitude appears to have been in favour of limitations rather than exclusion, not least because he was on far from good terms with either of the likely alternatives to York. The day after he resumed his place he proposed the formation of a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. He voted in favour of his own motion, and subscribed the protest when it was defeated (Monmouth, and other opposition peers, also subscribed it; Shaftesbury did not).<sup>384</sup> On 26 Nov. he took over from the lord privy seal (Anglesey) in chairing a session of the committee concerning Protestant dissenters. He reported the committee’s findings the following day but subsequent sessions of the committee were chaired by other members of the House.<sup>385</sup> On 7 Dec. he was entrusted with Lovelace’s proxy, which was vacated when Lovelace resumed his seat on 14 December. The same day Buckingham joined with the majority in finding William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason.<sup>386</sup></p><p>At about the same time as the verdict on Stafford the sheriff of London and Buckingham’s political ally, Slingsby Bethel, provocatively exercised his right to propose him to be free of the City.<sup>387</sup> After some opposition by a number of court loyalists in the corporation, Buckingham was duly admitted to the Merchants Taylors’ company in March 1681. Later the same year it was even suggested that he might be elected sheriff.<sup>388</sup> Despite his interest in decisive intervention in city politics, Buckingham’s involvement in the election contests in February was unreliable and possibly over-ambitious (Sir Ralph Verney said the duke was ‘an active man and loves to be doing everywhere’). He was expected initially at Aylesbury, but failed to appear: it was hoped that he would be present at Buckingham, but Sir Ralph Verney, even though he ‘caused daily inquiry to be made’, failed to track him down. He turned out to have gone to Oxford, marching into the city on the evening of 3 Feb. Buckingham in a torchlight procession to assist with the election of Brome Whorwood<sup>‡</sup> and William Wright<sup>‡</sup> the following day. Despite more appeals being sent to get him to come to the Buckingham poll, on 7 Feb. it was reported that he had been in hiding at College Hill and although on 9 Feb. it was reported once more that he was expected at Buckingham, he failed again to be present for the election.<sup>389</sup> Buckingham’s non-appearance in Buckinghamshire may have been owing to his efforts at Southwark on behalf of Bethel and Edward Smyth, but these proved unsuccessful, with Sir Richard How<sup>‡</sup> and Peter Rich<sup>‡</sup> being returned instead. A pre-sessional forecast compiled by Danby listed Buckingham as an opponent of the former lord treasurer’s request to be bailed from the Tower. In the event, perhaps disappointed at his inability to influence events, the duke failed to take his seat in the Oxford Parliament even though he was said to have been present in the city and lodging with William Wright.<sup>390</sup></p><p>Buckingham’s activities in the elections to the Exclusion Parliaments appear to have lost him the king’s friendship once and for all. Cold-shouldered at court, Buckingham persisted in his efforts to court the city of London instead. He then spent the summer continuing to pursue his enemies. In June, Edward Christian, who had been found guilty of conspiring against Buckingham the previous year, appealed to Danby for his assistance, being fearful that Buckingham intended to proceed against him for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em>. The following month, in spite of his former undertakings to the contrary, Buckingham initiated proceedings against Howard for non-payment of the £1,000 damages that had been awarded against him.<sup>391</sup> Howard appealed to Sir Ralph Verney to intercede with Buckingham on his behalf, but Verney was unable to locate the duke and wrote to Howard that ‘I fear your enemies have so incensed him (Buckingham) against you that I shall not prevail with him for your releasement’.<sup>392</sup> Buckingham’s move against Howard was thought to be in retaliation for the arrest of one Barton by Sir Richard Temple.<sup>393</sup> By late summer negotiations were in train between Temple and Verney with Buckingham’s agents over the case; but at the end of September both Howard and Barton were still in custody and Verney, having waited on the duke, was unable to give Howard cause to hope for a speedy release. Howard was still in gaol more than three years later.<sup>394</sup></p><h2><em>Impotence and decline</em></h2><p>In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament Buckingham himself might have felt under threat. In June 1681, Danby wrote to the king warning of the role played by Whittaker, Buckingham’s former solicitor, ‘if not his master also’ in a conspiracy against the crown.<sup>395</sup> During the summer, Whittaker, who had boldly indicted the bishop of London for praemunire in February, was committed to the Tower on a charge of treason.<sup>396</sup> The indictment of Shaftesbury for treason that winter also implied difficulty for the duke. One of the witnesses to depose against Shaftesbury alleged that it had been one of Shaftesbury’s pronouncements that Buckingham had as much right to the crown as the king by virtue of his descent from Edward IV. In February 1682 one of Buckingham’s servants was discovered murdered in London and in July his cook was executed at Tyburn, having been convicted of murdering his counterpart in the employment of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham.<sup>397</sup></p><p>By then, however, Buckingham had become rarely mentioned and politically irrelevant. At the beginning of 1683, he was said to be engaged in talks with Monmouth and Halifax about forging a new alliance.<sup>398</sup> However, the reports that he had secured an annuity of £4,000 in compensation for the loss of the mastership of the horse in May, and that in July he was one of a group of peers who had kissed the king’s hand suggests he was no longer involved in serious opposition politics.<sup>399</sup> A measure of his unimportance was the fact that he was passed over by the city of York, whose corporation chose to elect the young Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, as their high steward instead of Buckingham whom they considered ‘not so able to serve them’ as Richmond. Buckingham’s response icily thanked them for their ‘politic obliging and generous letter.’<sup>400</sup></p><p>During the summer of 1683, Buckingham became engaged in a case with his kinsman, Rutland (as Lord Roos had since become), over the collection of tithes at Helmsley, though it was not until the following year that the cause came to trial at king’s bench. Buckingham attended the trial in person but then proceeded to sabotage his own case by openly mocking his counsel and suggesting that the man had been poorly briefed.<sup>401</sup> The case continued until the next year, when Buckingham held up proceedings by insisting on his privilege (as did Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, who was also a party in the case; he was also one of Buckingham’s trustees and probably served as a chaplain). Rutland was again successful in 1686 when the court of exchequer found for him once more against the duke.<sup>402</sup></p><p>Although Buckingham had all but retired from court life and retreated to his northern estates by the time of the king’s death, there were still occasional rumours during the final years of Charles II’s reign of his return to favour. In 1681 it was reported that he might go to France as ambassador and three years later there was talk of him taking up the office of viceroy in the West Indies.<sup>403</sup> He also retained an active interest in toleration and soon after the accession of James II published a pamphlet on the issue. His contribution, <em>A Short Discourse upon the Reasonableness of Men’s having a Religion, or Worship of God,</em> may have been deliberately designed to provoke debate in print and was perhaps co-ordinated with William Penn, with the aim of promoting liberty of conscience. Over the course of the year Buckingham’s piece was subjected to attack on a variety of fronts. Buckingham issued a rejoinder to one of these and was defended in other works.<sup>404</sup></p><p>Buckingham took his seat in the new Parliament on 23 May 1685, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He seems to have played no part, on either side, during the Monmouth rebellion and there is little reason to believe that he would have welcomed a Monmouth victory. While his relations with James II had frequently been strained, Buckingham was informed the following year by William Penn that James was now ‘so changed in his opinion of his [Buckingham’s] ability to serve him, that he desires it’ and how the king ‘was not willing it should be thought he had not more esteem for the duke of Buckingham than a mere indifference.’<sup>405</sup> No more appears to have been made of the overture.</p><p>The remainder of Buckingham’s life appears to have been a steady physical decline. Reports circulated in early March 1687 that he had fallen seriously ill while staying on his estates in Yorkshire. Although he rallied a fortnight later and was expected back in London, rumours spread of his demise at York early in April.<sup>406</sup> Although these were premature, he fell sick again soon after while out hunting and was forced to take refuge in the house of one of his tenants in Kirkby Moorside. On 15 Apr. he was sufficiently well to give orders relating to a cause in which he was engaged in the court of exchequer, but he then suffered a further relapse and died the following day.<sup>407</sup> Having initially been interred in the local church at Kirkby Moorside, Buckingham’s corpse was later removed and reinterred in the family vault at Westminster Abbey.<sup>408</sup></p><p>In spite of last minute efforts made by his kinsmen to persuade him to settle his affairs, Buckingham died intestate and with no legitimate heir. It was also speculated that Buckingham had died a Catholic, though this was contradicted by reports that he had been prevailed upon by his relatives, among them James Hamilton*, styled earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and Brandon), to receive the sacrament from an Anglican clergyman prior to his death.<sup>409</sup> Buckingham’s religious views were undoubtedly difficult to gauge. Through his career he had courted dissenters and advocated liberty of conscience but he seems also to have maintained Anglican chaplains. Thomas Sprat was probably one; another such may have been Hugh Davis, author of a defence of the 1662 church settlement: <em>De Jure Uniformitatis Ecclesiasticae</em>, as well as a collector of songs and an associate of some in Buckingham’s artistic circle.<sup>410</sup> The king communicated the news of Buckingham’s demise to the Prince of Orange, commenting ‘what will become of his encumbered estate nobody as yet can know and besides, there will be several pretenders to it.’<sup>411</sup> There were indeed rumours that the titular Viscount Purbeck was likely to succeed to his earldom or to the marquessate of Buckingham.<sup>412</sup> Administration of his estate was expected to be awarded to his duchess, amid rumours that he had made a settlement granting to her £100,000. Eight months after his death and shortly after Buckingham’s estate was claimed by Purbeck as the duke’s heir at law, it was reported that the young man’s pretence had been stymied by the late discovery of a will in which Buckingham settled his estate, reputed to be worth £5,000 a year, on a kinsman, Sir William Villiers.<sup>413</sup> In fact, administration of the duke&#rsquo;s estates passed to the trustees he had appointed in 1671 to oversee his affairs. Over the next few years, the estates were gradually dismembered as large parcels of land were sold off to satisfy the demands of his creditors. This continued a process that had already been long underway at the time of the duke’s death. The principal trustee of his estate, Sir Robert Clayton, made the most of his position managing the sales. In 1693, Nottingham was said to have been about purchasing one estate for £90,000 and two years later, Thomas Wharton was believed to be on the point of buying Whaddon Chase.<sup>414</sup> Purbeck never inherited the title either: the dukedom of Buckingham was later revived (though with an addition to the title of Normanby to prevent any future disputes) for Mulgrave.</p><p>By the time of his death, the world in which Buckingham had flourished had all but evaporated. Most of his associates and principal rivals (with the exception of Danby) had either died or retreated into retirement or exile. Buckingham’s commitment to the causes he championed has usually been regarded with scepticism, but that should not detract from their significance. In the commonplace book once thought to have been his but still believed to reflect some of his views, under the entry for politician the writer noted of such a person, ‘he puts men into places, as they do stones into slings, only to fling them out again’: a telling perception of Buckingham’s own experience.<sup>415</sup> Nevertheless, his achievement as both court politician and parliamentarian should not be overlooked. A compelling orator and a sporadically enthusiastic legislator, he was a figure whom the king and numerous other figures in court, Parliament and beyond, whatever their true opinions of the man, found impossible to ignore.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
VILLIERS, William (c. 1682-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>VILLIERS</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1682–1721)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1697-1711 Visct. Villiers; <em>suc. </em>fa. 26 Aug. 1711 as 2nd earl of JERSEY |
|
First sat 13 Nov. 1711; last sat 26 June 1717 |
|
MP Kent 1705 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1682, 1st s. of Edward Villiers*, later earl of Jersey, and Barbara (<em>d</em>.1735), da. of William Chiffinch, kpr. of royal closet. <em>educ</em>. Queens’, Camb. 1699, MA 1700; travelled abroad (France) 1700–1.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 22 Mar. 1705 (with more than £30,000), Judith (<em>d</em>.1732), da. of Frederick Herne<sup>‡</sup>, merchant of London, 2s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 13 July 1721; <em>will</em> 9 July, pr. 4 Dec. 1721.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Teller of exch. 1701–2.</p><p>Freeman, Rochester 1705.</p><p>Merchant adventurer 1703.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: William Villiers, 2nd earl of Jersey, and Mary Granville, Lady Lansdowne, mezzotinte by John Smith, aft. Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1700 (NPG D36508).</p> |
<p>A rather enigmatic character, Villiers was reckoned by many to be a Jacobite but he was not averse to voting with the Whigs on occasion and he was a recipient of both a peerage from the Pretender and a pension from King George I.<sup>5</sup> Despite his family’s ancient pedigree, he did not possess particularly extensive lands. His principal residence at Squerries Court, near Westerham in Kent, was a recent acquisition by his father, and other estates such as that of Burnham in Buckinghamshire produced only very modest rent-rolls.<sup>6</sup> There were further estates in Kent, Suffolk, and Essex but, again, these were not especially lucrative.<sup>7</sup> Consequently, he was dependent for much of his adult life on pensions and handouts, which may go some way towards explaining his political flexibility.</p><p>On his return from a tour of France in 1701, where Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup> feared that he had developed a worrying propensity towards gambling, Villiers was made a teller of the exchequer, though his appointment does not feature in the official rolls and he seems never to have exercised the office.<sup>8</sup> Sir John Stanley officiated during Villiers’s minority; then, at the accession of Queen Anne, Villiers was replaced by James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, relinquishing the post in favour of a pension of £1,000 p.a.<sup>9</sup> In 1705 he married Judith Herne, whom he was said to have been courting for the previous year. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reckoned her fortune to be in excess of £30,000 (other sources estimated the figure to have been between £40,000 and £80,000).<sup>10</sup> Villiers and his wife soon acquired unsavoury reputations on account of their numerous infidelities. The marriage was reported to have been in trouble as early as 1710, when there were also problems over distribution of the settlement money.<sup>11</sup> By May 1711 Villiers, dubbed by society ‘the Marshal’, was reputedly engaged in a very public liaison with the duchess of Montagu and by the end of November that year, his wife (by then countess of Jersey) was also described as being in a ‘pickle’ for her sins.<sup>12</sup> Such indiscretions did not prevent Villiers from being classed as a ‘Churchman’ but he was an inactive member of the Commons and at a county meeting of August 1707 several of the Kentish magnates, dissatisfied with his performance, spoke in favour of deselecting him as their candidate.<sup>13</sup> He took the hint and did not stand again.</p><p>In August 1711 Villiers succeeded his father as earl of Jersey. Shortly after succeeding to the peerage, he was elected to The Society, the group of which Jonathan Swift, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and Jersey’s brother-in-law, George Granville*, later Baron Lansdowne, were members. Jersey appears to have been ejected from the club on Swift’s advice a few months later.<sup>14</sup> At the close of August, still signing himself ‘Villiers’, he wrote to Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, offering his interest and assuring the lord treasurer that he would ‘always find me true to my father’s memory by being faithful to your service’. A fortnight later he wrote again seeking a convenient time to wait on Oxford, perhaps eager to secure the treasurer’s assistance in the face of an emerging dispute with the dowager countess, who was also intent on gaining Oxford’s interposition.<sup>15</sup> Disagreements between the new earl and his mother rumbled on for at least two more years.</p><p>Jersey took his seat in the House on the single sitting day of 13 Nov. 1711. He then resumed his place at the opening of the 1711–12 session after which he was present on approximately 48 per cent of all sitting days. In or about December 1711 he was listed as a probable supporter of Oxford’s ministry and he was also included among the peers to be canvassed on the question of no peace without Spain. It is a reflection, perhaps, of the uncertainty with which Jersey was still viewed that his name appeared both as a supporter and as an opponent on lists forecasting votes in the division on whether or not to permit his kinsman James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], from sitting in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon. In the event, Jersey voted against disabling Hamilton from sitting as an hereditary British peer. The following year, on 9 Feb. 1712, Lionel Sackville*, 7th earl (later duke) of Dorset, registered his proxy with Jersey, which was vacated on Dorset’s return to the House on 14 February. Two months later, on 26 Apr., Jersey was entrusted with that of James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley (like Dorset a member of the Kit Cat Club), which was vacated on 5 May. Following the debates over the address of thanks to the queen for her speech of 6 June outlining the details of the peace treaty, Jersey was one of a number of peers to absent themselves from the vote the next day on whether to append a clause to the address, a decision that contributed to the court securing a substantial majority.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Jersey attended the single sitting day on 25 Sept. 1712. Over the next few months, his brother-in-law, George Granville, newly ennobled as Baron Lansdowne, sought to link his own interests with those of Jersey. In December Lansdowne wrote to Oxford, concerned that he ‘should be wanting to your lordship’s service if I omitted putting you in mind of my Lord Jersey’ to be considered for one of the places then held by John Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Fitzhardinge [I], whose death was imminent. Despite Lansdowne’s efforts, and rumours that he would indeed be gratified, Jersey’s pretensions were overlooked. <sup>17</sup> In what was perhaps a reflection of his resentment at his lack of preferment, his name was added to a list compiled by Swift in March or April 1713 of those expected to oppose the ministry in the new session (the addition being in Oxford’s hand). He resumed his seat in the House on 10 Apr. and in May he was again listed either as a possible opponent or as one of those to be contacted in advance of the vote on the bill confirming the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Present for a little under one-third of all sitting days in the session, on 1 June 1713 Jersey joined with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in seconding the Whig motion to adjourn the debate on dissolving the Union.<sup>18</sup> Later the same month, in spite of earlier predictions that he would oppose the measure, he was thought likely to rally to the ministry over passing the French commercial treaty. During the summer his distant kinsman Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, appears to have recommended Jersey for employment, perhaps hinting that he might replace Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, at Madrid.<sup>19</sup> Bolingbroke continued to use his interest on Jersey’s behalf in September, writing to him familiarly as ‘dear doctor’ and professing that he wished to see him distinguished</p><blockquote><p>from the illiterate crew of fops, who disgrace the names they wear: I would have you enter the queen’s service, not because you are related to, or intimate with, those in power, but because you are wanted in it … in the midst of this dearth of capacity, which is but too apparent among the nobility …<sup>20</sup></p></blockquote><p>It was an aspiration never to be realized. In October, when Jersey was compelled to return to London, it was not in anticipation of government office but on account of his mother’s behaviour over the settlement of the 1st earl’s estate. Having refused to pay her late husband’s debts, the dowager countess had sold the personal estate and, shortly after, absconded to France, taking with her Jersey’s younger brother, Henry Villiers, despite his being the queen’s ward.<sup>21</sup> Residing in Paris openly as a Jacobite agent, the dowager countess’s behaviour created a scandal that necessitated the intervention of both Bolingbroke and Matthew Prior. Alluding to an incident during the 1st earl’s life, Prior lamented that he had been such a ‘puppy’ as to prevent the late earl from murdering his wayward countess.<sup>22</sup> Although Henry Villiers returned to England in February 1714, having resisted his mother’s efforts to convert him, legal actions over payment of the 1st earl’s debts, which also entangled Jersey, continued until 1718.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Jersey returned to the House on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on approximately 65 per cent of all sitting days during the first session of the year. He voted with the Whigs against the government motion that the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover was not in danger.<sup>24</sup> Yet in late May or early June Nottingham estimated that Jersey was likely to support the bill sponsored by Bolingbroke for preventing the growth of schism. From 28 May to 4 June, Jersey held his brother-in-law Lansdowne’s proxy. Nine days after its cancellation, Lansdowne again registered his proxy in Jersey’s favour; it was vacated on 1 August. Jersey’s return to the Tory fold no doubt coincided with his renewed efforts to secure a place from Oxford.<sup>25</sup> His continuing association with Bolingbroke was reflected at the close of June when it was commented that he and Allen Bathurst*, Baron Bathurst (later Earl Bathurst), were acting as Bolingbroke’s ‘pimps’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Jersey’s hopes of attaining office died with Queen Anne. He attended just two days of the second session of 1714, but resumed his usual attendance pattern the following year, sitting on 78 days between March 1715 and June 1716. He rallied to the embattled Oxford and on 9 July 1715 dissented from the resolutions not to refer to the judges the question of whether the articles against Oxford amounted to treason and not to delay consideration of the articles against him, and from the resolution to commit him to Black Rod. The following month he subscribed the protest against the resolution to attaint Bolingbroke. Implicated in the Jacobite uprising of that year, Jersey was imprisoned in the Tower in September 1715, along with his sister and brother-in-law, Lansdowne, but it is noticeable that he was able to secure his release much more expeditiously than the other detainees: he was freed in December, while the Lansdownes remained incarcerated until February 1717.</p><p>Jersey resumed his seat in the House on 9 Jan. 1716. In April he was created earl of Jersey in the Jacobite peerage, an indication of the exiled court’s refusal to acknowledge his Williamite earldom. His dual honours were almost certainly the result of his mother’s intercession with the Pretender rather than on account of any efforts made by Jersey himself.<sup>27</sup> His new Jacobite peerage did not prevent him from continuing to sit in the House and in April he voted with the court in favour of passing the Septennial Act.<sup>28</sup> He resumed his seat for the second session of the Parliament on 20 Feb. 1717, but attended for just 16 days before sitting for the last time on 27 June. It was reported that during August and September he indulged in a frenzy of excess, his behaviour said to have been owing to desperation caused by his countess’s continued indiscretions. During one week he consumed nothing but brandy, with the result that by September 1717 he had been rendered senseless.<sup>29</sup> Jersey’s relatives doubted whether he would ever recover, but he was sufficiently alert by November to sign his name when he registered his proxy in favour of the Whig peer, Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, which was vacated by the close of the session. A full account of his parliamentary career after 1715 will be found in subsequent volumes of this series.</p><p>Jersey travelled to France the following May to recover his health, in company with the Jacobite Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S].<sup>30</sup> During his absence he ensured that his proxy was registered for each session that he missed. On 11 Nov. 1718 it was registered in Lincoln’s favour, and on 21 Nov. 1719 in favour of Anthony Grey*, who sat under a writ in acceleration as Baron Lucas of Crudwell. On 7 Dec. 1720 Jersey registered his proxy in Lincoln’s favour once more.</p><p>Indulging perhaps in wishful thinking, Lady Jersey predicted in January 1720 that, given his continued state of ill health, her husband could not live long.<sup>31</sup> Her prognosis proved only slightly premature. A year later Jersey had recovered his health sufficiently to return to England and in February 1721 he moved his belongings from his house in Golden Square to that of his executor, Shuckburgh Sill, at Castlethorpe in Buckinghamshire, where he died a few days after making his final will on 13 July. Two days later his final proxy was cancelled. He was buried at Westerham, but no memorial was constructed and no record remains of the precise site of his interment.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Jersey’s meagre possessions at his death included a one-eyed coach horse and a lame grey mare ‘that cannot go’. In all, his goods at Castlethorpe were valued at just £103 14<em>s</em>. 6<em>d</em>., though it was estimated that at his death he was owed rental income from his estates in Kent, Suffolk, Buckinghamshire, and Essex in excess of £800.<sup>33</sup> In his will, Jersey snubbed both his wife and daughter by leaving each just one shilling. To his second son, Thomas Villiers*, later earl of Clarendon, he was more generous, providing him with an annuity during his minority and a lump sum of £3,000 on attaining his majority. Jersey named his relative Thomas Chiffinch and his friend Shuckburgh Sill as executors. He was succeeded by his eldest son, William Villiers*, as 3rd earl of Jersey.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WALDEGRAVE, Henry (1661-90) |
<p><strong><surname>WALDEGRAVE</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1661–90)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>20 Jan. 1686 Bar. WALDEGRAVE |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1661, 1st s. of Sir Charles Waldegrave, 3rd bt. and Helen, da. of Sir Francis Englefield, 2nd bt. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. 29 Nov. 1683, Henrietta Fitzjames (<em>d</em>. 3 Apr. 1730), illegit. da. of James Stuart*, duke of York, and Arabella Churchill, 1s. 1da. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1684. <em>d</em>. 14 Jan. 1690; <em>will</em> 29 Dec. 1689; pr. 2 Dec. 1691.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Comptroller of household, 1687–Dec. 1688 (Whitehall), Dec. 1688-<em>d</em>. (court of St Germain); envoy extraordinary (court of St Germain) to France Nov. 1688–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ld. lt. Som. July 1687–Nov. 1688; recorder, Taunton Sept.-Dec. 1688; high steward, Bath Aug.-Dec. 1688.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>The Waldegraves, a devout Catholic royalist family, had landed interests stretching over three counties, Essex, Somerset and Norfolk. Waldegrave’s early life is obscure but his marriage to Henrietta Fitzjames brought him into the centre of the Stuart court at a time when her father was becoming increasingly dominant, shortly before his accession as James II. Waldegrave’s elevation to a peerage in 1686, after James II’s Parliament had been prorogued, meant that he had no opportunity to take his seat in the House of Lords. As a ‘good and zealous Catholic’ he would in any case have been unable to do so.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, the various assessments of attitudes to James II’s religious policies and the repeal of the Test Act classified Waldegrave as a Roman Catholic. As such, he remained faithful to James II throughout the crisis of 1688. Waldegrave was appointed envoy extraordinary to France in November 1688 at the height of the emergency. He left on 20 Nov. and remained abroad after the Revolution, serving the exiled king as comptroller of the household at the Stuart court in St Germain-en-Laye until his death at the Châteauvieux on 14/24 Jan. 1690. In his will Waldegrave referred to ‘the deeds of settlement of my estate, which I cannot now come at’, making his provisions somewhat vague and conditional. He was concerned to provide for his debts and for his younger children but the terms of the will necessitated a private bill to enable his son’s trustees to make leases and to grant copyhold estates for the payment of the arrears of annuities to his father. The bill received the royal assent on 24 Feb. 1692.</p> |
A.C./S.N.H. |
|
WALDEGRAVE, James (1684-1741) |
<p><strong><surname>WALDEGRAVE</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1684–1741)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 14 Jan. 1690 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. WALDEGRAVE; <em>cr. </em>13 Sept. 1729 Earl WALDEGRAVE |
|
First sat 12 Feb. 1722; last sat 13 Feb. 1741 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1684, s. of Henry Waldegrave*, (later Bar. Waldegrave) and Henrietta Fitzjames (<em>d</em>.1730),<sup>1</sup> illegit. da. of James Stuart*, duke of York (later King James II) and Arabella Churchill. <em>educ</em>. abroad (Jesuit College, La Flèche, Anjou, France; Italy).<sup>2</sup> <em>m.</em> 20 May 1714 (with £12,000) Mary (<em>d</em>.1719), da. of Sir John Webb, bt. of Hatherop, Glos., 2s., ?1da. KG 20 Feb. 1738. <em>d</em>. 11 Apr. 1741; <em>will</em> (at Paris) 29 Jan. 1739 n.s., (at London) 8 Mar. 1741 o.s., pr. 21 Apr. 1741.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber, 1723-7, 1730-<em>d</em>.; PC 12 Feb. 1735-<em>d</em>.</p><p>V.-adm., Essex 1735-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Envoy extraordinary, Paris Sept.-Oct. 1725, Dec. 1727-Apr. 1728; amb. extraordinary and plenip., Vienna 1728-30; amb. extraordinary, Paris 1730-40.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: pastel by Gustaf Lundberg, c.1738-40, NPG 1875.</p> |
<p>Although brought up a Catholic and closely related to the exiled Stuart dynasty, Waldegrave conformed after his wife’s death in 1719 and established himself as a significant diplomat in the service of both George I and George II. He was rewarded for his services with household office and promotion in the peerage to an earldom. Full details of his career will be considered in the second part of this work. He died of dropsy and jaundice in the spring of 1741 and was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son as 2nd Earl Waldegrave.<sup>5</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WARD, Edward (1631-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>WARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1631–1701)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 14 Oct. 1670 as 2nd Bar. WARD; <em>suc. </em>mo. Aug. 1697 as 7th Bar. DUDLEY |
|
First sat 5 Dec. 1670; last sat 22 May 1701 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>.1631, s. and h. of Humble Ward*, Baron Ward, and Frances (1611–97), da. of Sir Fernando Sutton or Dudley, kt., later <em>suo jure</em> 6th Baroness Dudley. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. c.1651,<sup>1</sup> Frances (<em>d</em>.1676), da. of Sir William Brereton<sup>‡</sup>, 1st bt., of Handford, Cheshire, and sis. and coh. of Sir Thomas Brereton, 2nd bt. 4s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 3 Aug. 1701; <em>will</em> 23 June–2 Aug., pr. 2 Nov. 1704.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Staffs. 1677, 1680, 1685.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Edward Ward (not to be confused with his namesake, the lord chief baron of the exchequer) was descended on his father’s side from a wealthy mercantile family and on his mother’s side from the Suttons, Barons Dudley. He succeeded not only to his father’s barony but also almost 30 years later to the much older barony of Dudley which had been held by his mother in her own right since 1643. With few surviving personal papers and equally few references in the secondary literature, Ward’s political life is difficult to reconstruct with any confidence. He was described in one antiquarian study as a ‘zealous supporter of the Whig party’ but his parliamentary behaviour and political activity in Staffordshire suggest an allegiance to the court rather than to any particular political party.<sup>5</sup> His father was probably something of an inactive royalist but Edward Ward’s marriage (brokered as part of a deal to release his father from sequestration) brought him links with the parliamentarians. He earned the contempt of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, supported William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, against charges of treason, vacillated over support for Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), and registered his proxy with peers who displayed a range of party political opinion. He does seem to have rallied behind court candidates in elections during the reign of Charles II but he was a clear supporter of the Revolution of 1688, appearing (unusually) in the House of Lords on time for the start of the 1689 Convention. The limited sources available suggest that he lacked any consistent political motivation but voted instead on the issues at hand. Nor is his personal wealth easy to estimate. In 1689, following the Act for a General Aid to their Majesties, Ward claimed in a self-assessment for taxation purposes that his personal estate amounted to ‘none that is chargeable by the act unless some coach horses and other horses and some provision for them worth about three hundred pounds’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Ward’s parliamentary career lasted for more than 30 years but, with the exception of formal entries in the Lords Journal, little information of his political activities or his involvement in the business of the House survives. His political life in the provinces was based primarily in the midlands: Dudley itself was an island in Worcestershire but was surrounded by Staffordshire, where Ward and his extended family held the manors of Himley, Sedgley, and Willingsworth as part of the Dudley Castle estate. As a deputy lieutenant of Staffordshire throughout the reigns of Charles II and James II, he represented just one of the many gentry interests in Staffordshire. His brother William Ward was based at Sedgley Park in Staffordshire and the latter’s son William Ward<sup>‡</sup> became the Member for Staffordshire from 1710. Baron Ward was involved in the county election campaign for the first Exclusion Parliament but does not seem to have had any involvement in the elections at Stafford corporation which came under the influence of the Chetwynd family.<sup>7</sup> However, as noted below, there is evidence that he was recruited to help secure court candidates in elections in neighbouring Worcestershire.</p><p>During his parliamentary career, Ward attended all but 7 of the 27 sessions in which he was entitled to sit, 9 for fewer than half of all sittings, and only 3 for more than 70 per cent of the session (those being times of political importance: the spring of 1674, the autumn of 1680 during the Exclusion crisis, and the Convention after the 1688 Revolution). During his first session of 1670-1 he first sat on 5 Dec. 1670. He attended 54 per cent of sittings and was named to 19 select committees. On 10 Feb. 1671 he was registered as excused at a call of the House but he returned the following day and attended regularly until the prorogation on 22 April. The next session assembled on 4 Feb. 1673; on 13 Feb. at a call of the House, it was noted that Ward was travelling to London. Arriving at the House three weeks after the start of business, he attended for 64 per cent of sittings. He was named to three select committees, including the bill to prepare advice to the king. He left the House at the long adjournment of 29 Mar. and did not attend the brief autumn session of 1673.</p><p>By 7 Jan. 1674 Ward was at Westminster for the start of the next parliamentary session and thereafter attended nearly 71 per cent of sittings during the seven-week-long session. He was named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions and to three select committees, including that on English manufactures, to which he was added with Henry Sandys*, 7th Baron Sandys. On 12 Jan. 1674 he was registered as excused at a call of the House, but attended the following day to take the oath of allegiance. In the session of April 1675 he arrived on 24 Apr., during the second week of business, and thereafter attended 67 per cent of sittings; he was named to only one select committee, on tithes. He attended sporadically until the prorogation on 9 June 1675.</p><p>Ward did not attend the October 1675 session and on 14 Oct. registered his proxy in favour of former royalist plotter Richard Byron*, 2nd Baron Byron (vacated at the end of the session). He arrived at Westminster on 1 Mar. 1677 two weeks after the start of the February 1677 session and attended 66 per cent of its sittings. He was named to two standing committees and to 25 select committees on a range of public and private bills. In April 1677 he was appointed one of the deputy lieutenants of Staffordshire. In May he was listed by Shaftesbury as ‘doubly vile’, a label that places him outside the ‘country’ party network and allied to court loyalists. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter.</p><p>Ward attended 67 per cent of the sittings of the session of spring 1678 but only the last three sittings in the last week of December in the October session. On 21 Oct. he registered his proxy in favour of John Maitland*, earl of Guilford (duke of Lauderdale [S]). The proxy was vacated with Ward’s attendance on 26 Dec. 1678. On that day, in the division on the supply bill (to disband the army), he opposed the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and was noted by Danby among the ‘opposition lords’. On 27 Dec. he voted to commit Danby on charges of treason, a vote that he would reverse in the new year. By the spring of 1679 Danby considered Ward a supporter, his canvassing list placing Ward on the supporters’ list under the supervision of Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup>. Further lists of early March 1679 listed Ward as a Danby supporter and on the 12th of that month he was listed as a ‘court lord’.</p><p>The Staffordshire county election of 13 Feb. 1679 had returned a mixed political ticket: the court supporter Sir Walter Bagot<sup>‡</sup> and the country opponent Sir John Bowyer<sup>‡</sup> (both of whom were returned without opposition throughout the Exclusion crisis).<sup>8</sup> It is not clear whether Ward, one of the principal landowners of the county, actually supported Bagot, since the latter appeared in the Lords in 1680 to give evidence against Viscount Stafford, while Ward opposed the guilty verdict. During the election campaign Ward, whose family had been intermarried with the Wrottesleys, appears to have supported the unsuccessful candidature of Sir Walter Wrottesley over Bowyer.<sup>9</sup> On 4 Feb. 1679 Ward had summoned the gentry to a meeting at Stafford, where it was thought initially that Bagot and Wrottesely had sufficient support for victory. Bowyer did not attend this meeting; Wrottesley, for unknown reasons, stood down and the nomination went instead to the split political ticket of Bagot and Bowyer.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Ward did not attend the early March 1679 session of the first Exclusion Parliament and he missed the first two weeks of the next session, arriving at the House on 1 April. He attended 64 per cent of all sittings in the session, but was named to only one select committee, on the private bill concerning Sir Charles Houghton<sup>‡</sup> on 24 May 1679. On 1 Apr. he voted against early stages of Danby’s attainder bill, continuing to support Danby on the 14th when he voted to oppose the Commons’ bill. On 10 May, Ward voted against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, and on 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during consideration of capital cases. Meanwhile, on 8 Apr. the Lords had heard a petition from Ward (on behalf of his nephew, the minor William Ward) appealing a decree in chancery on 18 Feb. 1679 regarding lands in Chester previously owned by the late Sir Thomas Brereton, Ward’s brother-in-law. Ward’s appeal was dismissed on 24 May but the dispute was revived in chancery in 1694.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Ward was in the House for the prorogation on 27 May 1679 but it is probable that he spent much of the following year at home in the midlands. He was in London by 3 Nov. 1680 when he arrived at Westminster for the second Exclusion Parliament; thereafter he attended for 72 per cent of sittings. Named to only one select committee, on the penal laws against Roman Catholics, Ward’s voting behaviour was broadly in favour of the court: on 15 Nov. 1680, he voted against the introduction of the exclusion Bill and rejected the bill on its first reading; on 23 Nov. he voted against the appointment of a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom; on 7 Dec. he voted that Stafford was not guilty of treason. He attended sporadically until the last day of the session on 10 Jan. 1681. On 17 Mar. 1681 it was forecast that he would support Danby’s application for bail. He attended the Oxford Parliament in March for half of all its sittings, was named to one select committee (to receive witness statements on the Popish Plot), and was present on 28 Mar. for the abrupt dissolution of Parliament.</p><p>In anticipation of a new Parliament in the autumn, Ward became involved in the Worcestershire election campaign after the lord lieutenant of Worcestershire, Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), determined to oust the two sitting Members, Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> and Bridges Nanfan<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>12</sup> Windsor informed George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax that Ward and ‘all our chief gentry’ would be having a meeting at Stourbridge ‘to understand what interest every one of us … made for the election of our intended knights for the county’.<sup>13</sup> The campaign evaporated as it became obvious that there would be no Parliament. By August 1684 Ward’s interests were far more parochial: on the 24th of that month he was granted the right to hold two annual fairs in the town and manor of Dudley, following the usual royal enquiries that the grant would not prejudice the crown or neighbouring economic interests.<sup>14</sup></p><p>On 22 May 1685 Ward and his brother William were named deputy lieutenants of Staffordshire. He arrived at Westminster for the first Parliament of the reign of James II three weeks after the start of business; thereafter he attended 35 per cent of sittings, was named to four select committees, and was added to the committee for privileges. He attended on 19 Nov. 1685 for the ill-tempered debates on the king’s Catholic army officers.</p><p>There is no evidence of Ward’s opposition to the policies of James II but his subsequent political behaviour suggests full support for the Revolution. He attended the first day of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and was present thereafter for nearly 88 per cent of sittings. He was not named to any select committees but was added to the Journal committee. On 31 Jan., following a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey, he registered his dissent against the resolution not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant, and in a committee of the whole House he voted to insert into the vote a clause that William and Mary be declared king and queen. In early February he voted to agree with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’ and on 4 Feb. registered his dissent after the division rejecting that term. On 12 Feb. he was named as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on the proclamation declaring William and Mary king and queen. At the end of May 1689, he voted to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates; on 30 July he voted with the minority against the Lords’ amendments to the bill and subsequently entered his protest.</p><p>Ward attended the second session of the Convention for 44 per cent of sittings; he was added to all three sessional committees but not named to select committees. By now he was listed by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) as a ‘court lord’ to be approached through James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon.<sup>15</sup> Ward did not attend the first session of the new Parliament of 1690. In late October he arrived at the House after the first three weeks of business of the 1690–1 session; he attended for 56 per cent of sittings and was named to six select committees. He did not attend the session the following autumn (1691) and on 5 Nov. 1691 registered his proxy in favour of the Whig Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>It seems likely that, as an influential figure in south Staffordshire, he continued to take part in the customary meetings of county gentry which attempted to reach a consensus and avoid the potentially divisive effects of electoral campaigns.<sup>16</sup> In December 1691 he was listed by William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, as a potential supporter of Derby’s bill (to restore to him four manors), on the grounds that he had supported an earlier attempt to secure a private bill in May 1685. If Ward did support it, he did so outside Parliament since there is no record of him attending the House in May 1685. He was absent when Derby’s bill was reintroduced and later in the month when it failed in the face of an opposing petition.<sup>17</sup> He did attend the autumn 1692 session, but for only 30 per cent of sittings, being named to just four select committees. Absent on 21 Nov. 1692 at a call of the House, he arrived five days later and was present for deliberations on the place bill. He voted against the court on 31 Dec. 1692 in favour of committing the bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 supported its passage. He also (as was forecast) supported the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, voting on 2 Jan. for the bill to be read. He attended the session for the last time on 9 Jan. when he was given leave of absence. On 11 Jan. he again entered his proxy in favour of Montagu; it was vacated when Parliament was prorogued on 14 Mar. 1693.</p><p>Ward did not arrive at Westminster for the 1693–4 session until 23 Jan. 1694. He again attended some 30 per cent of sittings and was named to two select committees. On 17 Feb. he voted to reverse the chancery dismission in the case of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. He did not attend the 1694–5 session but came to the first (1695–6) session of the new Parliament for 56 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees. On 27 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association and he attended fairly regularly until the end of the session in April. Returning to the midlands, he was occupied with local law and order and in September 1696 was thanked by the king for his efforts in apprehending clippers and coiners in his neighbourhood.<sup>18</sup> He was not active in the 1696–7 parliamentary session, arriving at the House only at the end of November after the House ordered all members to attend in preparation for the trial of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He attended only 14 per cent of sittings and was named to just one select committee, on the heads of the bill for the ease of the subject on 10 December. He attended on 23 Dec. for the third reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick and voted with the court for a guilty verdict. On 11 Jan. 1697 he was given leave of absence on health grounds. Two weeks later he again entered his proxy in favour of Montagu (vacated with the prorogation on 16 Apr. 1697).</p><p>In August 1697 Ward succeeded his mother in the barony of Dudley. He received a writ of summons in his new honour on 28 Jan. 1698 and took his seat as Baron Dudley the same day. He attended only 23 per cent of sittings between January and April and was named to 13 select committees, all but two on private bills. On 15 Mar. he voted to commit the bill to punish the Tory exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. It is likely that after his last attendance that session (in April 1698), Dudley spent the summer months in Staffordshire. He returned to London in January 1699 to attend the next parliamentary session, being present for some 30 per cent of sittings and named to 11 select committees. Having attended for one day, 23 Jan. 1699, Dudley then disappeared once more, sending the House a letter (read on 27 Jan.) in which he requested a further leave of absence. He was absent until 14 Feb., by which time the House had been acquainted with a legal dispute involving Dudley’s extended family and his Irish in-laws.</p><p>The case had weighty implications for relations between the English and Irish Parliaments as it raised the claim of the English House of Lords to have jurisdiction over its Irish counterpart. Dudley’s involvement had come about through the disputed inheritance of lands in Rochestown, county Cork, involving Edward Brabazon, 4th earl of Meath [I], and his wife Cecilia, another daughter of Sir William Brereton (and thus Dudley’s sister-in-law). The Dudley appeal was brought to the notice of the English Lords in February 1699, when the House heard a petition on behalf of Dudley’s grandson, Edward Ward*, styled Lord Ward (later 8th Baron Dudley), by the child’s widowed mother, Frances Ward (Dudley’s daughter-in-law). She appealed against an order of the Irish Lords in October 1695 reversing an order of the palatine court of chancery of Tipperary in favour of Ward. The Irish Lords had reversed this judgment and found in favour of Meath. The English House of Lords discussed Ward’s petition in conjunction with the case of the <em>Ulster</em><em> Society v bishop of Derry</em> on 11 Feb. 1699. On 14 Feb. Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, having chaired the Lords’ committee, reported that Ward’s petition was of the ‘same nature’ as that of the Ulster Society and could be proceeded upon following enquiries to the lord justices in Ireland. Meath, acting through his English barrister, Paul Jodrell, petitioned against a hearing in the English Lords.<sup>19</sup> On 29 Apr. 1699 the House was informed that Meath had not responded to Ward’s petition and overruled Meath’s plea against a hearing in the English Lords. After further deliberation the House ruled that the original appeal by Meath to the Irish Lords was <em>coram non judice</em>, that its proceedings were null and void and that the Tipperary court must give possession of the disputed lands to Lord Ward. If Meath and his wife objected to the order, they were at liberty to appeal to the English Lords.</p><p>For the rest of William’s reign and into the reign of Queen Anne, Meath’s case continued to occupy the Irish parliament, which considered the actions of the English Parliament an affront to its honour. In 1703 the lord lieutenant, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, wrote to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, of his great concern at the disruption of relations between the two Parliaments and the determination of the Irish Lords to ‘assert and vindicate the honour, jurisdiction and privileges of their House’. The queen’s later attempt to defuse the whole issue by offering a compensatory pension of £300 per annum to Meath was itself a matter for further concern. Ormond’s determination to expedite the whole matter ‘quietly’ was frustrated by the equal determination of some ‘busy’ Irish lords to convert the episode into the wider issue of Irish subservience to the English Parliament.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Dudley seems to have kept a low profile throughout the case, attending only sporadically throughout the spring of 1699. According to the manuscript minutes, but not the printed Journal, he was present on 28 Mar. for the division on the verdict of manslaughter reached against Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick.<sup>21</sup> He subsequently attended for the prorogation on 4 May 1699. In the summer of 1700, back at Dudley Castle, he gave hospitality to William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, who had preached and confirmed in Dudley while on his visitation.<sup>22</sup> Dudley did not attend the following session and there is no evidence that he was actively involved in the parliamentary elections for Staffordshire after the dissolution in December 1700. He was, however, involved in the Worcestershire campaign when, on 15 Jan. 1701, together with the lord lieutenant, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, he endorsed the candidature of the sitting Member and Junto supporter, William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Dudley returned to Westminster for the new Parliament of spring 1701 and attended for nearly two-fifths of sittings; he was named to five select committees. He attended the House for the final time on 22 May. Having returned home, he died on 3 Aug. at Himley at the age of 70. He was buried on 8 Aug. 1701 in the family vault at Himley. His will confirmed all existing arrangements for the transfer of landed estates and he made his brother William Ward the guardian of his grandson and heir, Edward Ward. His heir and John Hodgetts were named as executors; Dudley’s surviving son, Ferdinando Dudley Ward (who died unmarried) was named as a residuary legatee only if Edward Ward refused to abide by the conditions of his guardianship. Probate was delayed until 1704, after the premature death from smallpox of the 8th Baron Dudley and the posthumous birth of the 9th Baron, also named Edward Ward*.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
WARD, Edward (1683-1704) |
<p><strong><surname>WARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1683–1704)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 3 Aug. 1701 (a minor) as 8th Bar. DUDLEY and 3rd Bar. WARD |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 20 Dec. 1683, o. s. and h. of William Ward (<em>d</em>.1692) and Frances, da. of William Dilke of Maxstoke Castle, Warws. <em>educ</em>. Rugby 1695; Magdalen, Oxf. matric. 1702. <em>m</em>. 9 Apr. 1703, Diana, da. and h. of Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup> of Ashtead, Surr. 1s. <em>d</em>. 28 Mar. 1704; <em>will</em> 19 Jan., pr. 29 Mar. 1704 and 10 July 1718.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Edward Ward never took his seat in the House; he died in March 1704 at the age of only twenty. His only involvement in the life of the House of Lords related to the possibility of a jurisdictional clash between the English House of Lords and its counterpart in Ireland arising from a continuing dispute with Edward Brabazon, 4th earl of Meath [I]. Politicians on both sides of the Irish Sea were anxious to defuse the issue and worked successfully to do so.<sup>2</sup> Fuller details of this case are given in the biography of Ward’s grandfather, also named Edward Ward*, 7th Baron Dudley.</p><p>Dudley’s political allegiances are unclear but he was on close terms with John Somers*, Baron Somers. In his will he named Somers as co-trustee (with his mother-in-law, Lady Diana Howard) of his wife’s affairs until she came of age. He died of smallpox on 28 Mar. 1704, leaving his wife (and executrix) heavily pregnant.<sup>3</sup> He was buried on 5 Apr. 1704 at the family seat of Himley. His son, Edward Ward*, 9th Baron Dudley, was born three months later.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
WARD, Edward (1704-31) |
<p><strong><surname>WARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1704–31)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 16 June 1704 (a minor) as 9th Bar. DUDLEY and 4th Bar. WARD |
|
First sat 20 Jan. 1726; last sat 20 Jan. 1726 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 16 June 1704, posth. s. of Edward Ward*, 8th Bar. Dudley and 3rd Bar. Ward, and Diana Howard, da. of Thomas Howard<sup>‡</sup> of Ashtead, Surr. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 6 Sept. 1731; <em>will</em> 23 Feb. 1730, pr. 7 Sept. 1731.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Dudley and Ward succeeded to the title at his birth. He appears to have lived principally at his maternal estate of Ashtead in Surrey. He died, following a fall from his horse, while still unmarried, leaving the title to devolve on his cousin John Ward<sup>†</sup>, then member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme.<sup>2</sup> Further details of his career will be presented in the second part of this work.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WARD, Humble (1613-70) |
<p><strong><surname>WARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Humble</strong> (1613–70)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>23 Mar. 1644 Bar. WARD |
|
First sat 22 June 1660; last sat 11 Apr. 1670 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 31 Oct. 1613,<sup>1</sup> o. s. of William Ward of Cheapside, London, goldsmith, and Elizabeth, da. and h. of Richard Humble of Goosehays, Essex, vintner. <em>educ</em>. privately. <em>m.</em> settlement 17 Feb. 1628, Frances (<em>d</em>.1697) (later <em>suo jure</em> Baroness Dudley), da. and h. of Sir Ferdinando Sutton and Honora, da. of Edward Seymour, styled Ld. Beauchamp, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da.<sup>2</sup> kt. 1643. <em>d</em>. 14 Oct. 1670; <em>will</em> 1 July 1655, pr. 11 Nov. 1670.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>High sheriff, Staffs. 1658-9.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>The son and heir of a wealthy London goldsmith and court jeweller, Humble Ward’s match with Frances Sutton, granddaughter of the bankrupt playboy Edward Sutton<sup>†</sup>, 5th Baron Dudley, was secured by Ward’s father’s payment of £10,000 to redeem the mortgaged Dudley estates.<sup>5</sup> Frances (whose father predeceased the 5th Baron) was granted the style and precedence of the daughter of a baron in 1635 and inherited the barony in 1643 on the death of her grandfather.<sup>6</sup> Although both of Ward’s parents were descended from armigerous families, it is clear that despite his active royalism, his elevation to the peerage was due principally to his wife’s superior status.<sup>7</sup> Ward was knighted in June 1643 on the day after his wife succeeded to the barony of Dudley; he was granted his own barony the following spring. Ward later claimed that he took no active part in the Civil War and protested that Dudley Castle had been garrisoned by the royalists against his will. His professions are at odds with his presence in Oxford in 1644, his receipt of the barony and presence at Dudley Castle during its second siege of 1646. In 1648, though, he was pardoned for delinquency on condition that he relinquish the castle. His sequestration was finally discharged in 1656 by which time he had taken steps to keep Dudley Castle in the family.<sup>8</sup> Within two years of the castle’s surrender to Parliament, Ward’s eldest son and heir (Edward, the future 7th Baron Dudley and 2nd Baron Ward) was married to Frances Brereton, daughter of Sir William Brereton<sup>‡</sup>, the parliamentary general who had commanded the siege of Dudley and to whom the castle was surrendered.<sup>9</sup> By the time of his death, Ward was in possession of numerous properties in Worcestershire and Staffordshire and was in a position to make money bequests of over £2,500.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Ward took his seat in the Convention on 22 June 1660 and attended the session for some 47 per cent of sittings. He was named to only one committee: the Covent Garden bill on 22 December. Four days after taking his seat, Ward’s wife’s claims on the barony of Dudley were challenged by a petition submitted by her cousin, Edward Gibson, grandson of the 9th baron’s younger son, John. The petition was referred to the committee for privileges but no further progress was made in the claim.<sup>11</sup> The dispute rumbled on to 1667 when the baroness petitioned the king for the ‘title, style and precedence’ of the barons of Dudley as her ‘birthright … in discharge of her duty to God and her posterity’. The petition was referred to the lords commissioners for the earl marshal; they confirmed the grant made to the baroness by Charles I.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Ward returned to the House for the opening of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament. He attended frequently (for just over 85 per cent of sittings) but was named to only five committees: for mending streets and highways, for preserving deer and for the private bills for Sir Aston Cockayne and Charles and Gilbert Barnsley. On 1 Feb. 1662 he was added to the committee for petitions and on 24 Apr. (along with Christopher Roper*, 4th Baron Teynham) to the glass bottles bill.</p><p>Ward took his place once more at the opening of the new session on 18 Feb. 1663 and attended nearly 80 per cent of sittings. On 19 Mar. he was again added to the committee for the glass bottles bill. During the session he was named to only six more committees, for bills on: John Guest’s charity; the estate of John Robinson<sup>‡</sup>; the Killigrew’s naturalization bill; the port of Wells; the observation of the Sabbath; and the assignment to James*, duke of York, of the profits of the post office and wine licences. In July he was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as likely to oppose the attempted impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Ward arrived two weeks into the parliamentary session that opened on 16 Mar. 1664 and attended for nearly 70 per cent of sittings. He was in the House throughout the passage of the conventicles bill but was named to no committees. He joined the autumn 1664 session on 9 Dec. and attended 63 per cent of sittings; on 7 Dec., at a call of the House, he had been noted as being sick. On 13 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill to enable Henry Hastings*, Baron Loughborough, to make the river and shore navigable from near Bristow (Brixton) Causeway in Surrey to the Thames. The following day he was named to the committee for the bill settling the estate of Samuel Sandys<sup>‡</sup> (a Worcestershire man and former royalist lieutenant colonel).<sup>13</sup> In February 1665 further committee nominations followed. On 18 Feb. he was added to the committee for the pinmakers’ bill, on 22 Feb. he was nominated to the committee for the bill for Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup> and on 28 Feb. to the committee considering legislation to prevent arrests of judgments.</p><p>Ward did not attend the Oxford Parliament in autumn 1665. On 16 Oct. he was excused attendance having previously registered his proxy in favour of James Fiennes*, 2nd Viscount Saye and Sele, a choice which may suggest Ward’s opposition to Clarendon.<sup>14</sup> Ward took his seat once more one week into the autumn 1666 session; he was named to the sessional committees. His pattern of frequent attendance and infrequent committee involvement continued. He attended nearly 90 per cent of the sittings yet was named to only six committees, for bills on: preventing the spread of plague; the jointure of Lady Elizabeth Noel; the price of provisions; the estate of Henry Mildmay; the estate of Sir Seymour Shirley; and the relief of French merchants.</p><p>The same pattern was repeated in the following session in autumn 1667. He attended 76 per cent of sittings in the eighteen-month long session but was named to only ten committees on a range of measures, including the estate bill of Sir Kingsmill Lucy<sup>‡</sup>, and the bill for Clarendon’s banishment (whose impeachment he had supported in the vote of 20 November). On 17 Feb. 1668 he was excused at a call of the House. He returned to his place on 22 February. Thereafter he attended regularly until early May.</p><p>Ward returned to his place six days into the start of the session that began in October 1669 and attended 86 per cent of sittings. On 9 Nov. he was named to the committee to consider the commissioners’ accounts. On 3 Dec. the House was informed that Richard Gough (a prisoner for debt in Shrewsbury jail) had been released by virtue of one of Ward’s protections. Ward now claimed that he had been ‘misinformed concerning the person of the man’ and undertook to ensure that the creditor, William Dorsett, was reimbursed all the expenses and debts incurred as a consequence of Gough’s release.</p><p>Ward returned to the House on 14 Feb. 1670 for the start of the new session and was named to the sessional committees. Although his final illness meant that he attended for only ten per cent of sittings, Ward was named to 16 committees, including that for the bill to allow the remarriage of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) – a measure that Ward appears to have supported. On 29 Mar. he was named to a subcommittee of the privileges committee tasked with ensuring that the record of the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, was razed from the Journal.<sup>15</sup> He attended the House for the last time on 11 April.</p><p>In a parliamentary career that had spanned ten years and involved well over 600 sittings, Ward seems not to have been an active parliamentarian. It is unclear whether his relative lack of activity was due to prolonged absences from the chamber or if it reflected a more deliberate process of selection (either by Ward himself or by his colleagues). Ward seems to have been no more active at a local level. Given the lack of significant territorial interest by any one landholder in Staffordshire at this point, the period saw a marked desire for unanimity and county elections were not contested.<sup>16</sup> Ward’s second son, on the other hand, seems to have been more politically active; William Ward (to whom Ward had bequeathed four estates and £1,000) was involved in county affairs under both Charles II and James II, opposing the policies of James II. Ward was succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, Edward Ward*, 2nd Baron Ward (and later 9th Baron Dudley), and was buried on 19 Oct. 1670 in Himley church.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
WATSON, Edward (1630-89) |
<p><strong><surname>WATSON</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1630–89)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 5 Jan. 1653 as 2nd Bar. ROCKINGHAM |
|
First sat 2 June 1660; last sat 26 Apr. 1689 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 30 June 1630, 3rd but o. surv. s. of Sir Lewis Watson<sup>†</sup>, bt. (later Bar. Rockingham), and 2nd w. Eleanor (<em>d</em>.1679), da. of Sir George Manners<sup>‡</sup>, sis. of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 24 Nov. 1654, Anne (<em>d</em>.1695), da. of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 4da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 22 June 1689; <em>admon</em>. 9 July 1689, 28 Jan. 1696.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>The Watsons, originally from Cambridgeshire and Rutland, had planted themselves in Northamptonshire in the mid-sixteenth century. They faced some obstacles in securing support for their parliamentary ambitions on the grounds of their Catholicism, but by the mid-seventeenth century the main branch of the family appear to have conformed. Sir Lewis Watson attempted, unsuccessfully, to balance his loyalties during the civil wars: his own inclinations tending towards the king, those of his wife’s family, the Manners, towards Parliament. Charles I forgave him his ambivalent behaviour and elevated him to the barony of Rockingham in 1645. During the war, the parliamentarians successfully besieged Rockingham Castle and Rockingham was at one point imprisoned at his brother-in-law’s home of Belvoir. He returned to his estates following the king’s defeat and spent the rest of his life attempting to restore his devastated home. On succeeding to the title, Edward Watson, 2nd Baron Rockingham, continued his father’s work of restoration.<sup>3</sup> In 1654 he married the daughter of his father’s old friend, Strafford, whom he was later accused of treating ‘basely’.<sup>4</sup> The family’s reputation for royalist sympathy was such that in the confused state of affairs following the fall of Richard Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> and amid threats of royalist uprisings, Parliament ordered Rockingham Castle to be garrisoned, though the order appears not to have been carried out.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Rockingham appears to have enjoyed some success in restoring the family estates following their devastation during the civil wars and he was estimated to have been worth over £5,000 a year by the time of his marriage.<sup>6</sup> Through Lady Rockingham’s influence, he agreed to assist his beleaguered brother-in-law, William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, who offered in turn to marry Rockingham’s younger son, Thomas (later Thomas Watson Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>), to his niece, Charlotte, and make him his heir.<sup>7</sup> Strafford was said to have been ‘sadly entangled in his estate’, and wrangling over the settlement led to tensions within the family. Strafford declared himself ‘surprised at my lord Rockingham’s carriage’ and was frustrated by Rockingham’s reluctance to commit himself. The marriage did not take place but Strafford made Thomas his heir nonetheless.</p><p>For all his improved financial position and his close kinship with a number of influential families in the area, notably the Manners and the Montagus, Rockingham does not appear to have wielded the kind of influence within Northamptonshire of some of the other county magnates, or to have been as generous. Following the great fire of Northampton in 1675, he and his wife contributed only £25 to the fund for rebuilding the town, a modest donation when compared with that of James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, who gave £120.<sup>8</sup> While Rockingham himself was not completely without interest, Lady Rockingham appears to have been determined to exercise influence in her own right. In February 1679 she called upon her cousin John Wentworth, hoping to secure a seat for her son, Lewis Watson*, later earl of Rockingham, explaining that ‘he designs to stand for the county of Northampton, but there are several considerable competitors and he may miss it; wherefore understanding that her cousin has the making of two parliament men, she prays him to reserve one place for her son’.<sup>9</sup> Lady Rockingham also wrote to her uncle George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, in the same month, requesting his assistance when Lewis Watson presented a bill to the House concerning the ownership of his wife’s estate.<sup>10</sup> In spite of her efforts, Watson was not elected until 1681, when he was returned for Canterbury through the interest of his wife’s family, the Sondes.<sup>11</sup> Rockingham appears to have taken advantage of the family connection with Halifax also, writing to him in 1684 to apologize for being unable to wait on him owing to a trial in the court of exchequer.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Rockingham was one of half a dozen peers to wait on George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, on 4 May 1660 to seek his permission to allow them to take their seats in the restored House. Monck appears to have dissuaded them from doing so, in spite of the presence in the House of several royalist peers who had taken their seats on the first day of the session.<sup>13</sup> Monck’s disinclination to allow a peer such as Rockingham to attend was presumably because Rockingham’s peerage was a disputed civil war one. At the king’s return, Rockingham was among those joining the royal procession through London. He eventually took his seat in the House on 2 June, after which he was present on half of all sitting days in the session and was named to two committees. He resumed his place following the September adjournment on 13 Nov., after which he attended a further 27 days before the dissolution and was named to three select committees.</p><p>Rockingham appears not to have made any particular impression on the elections in Northamptonshire in the spring of 1661. He resumed his seat two days after the opening of the new Parliament on 10 May and the following day introduced his neighbour, John Crew*, as Baron Crew. He was thereafter present on approximately 41 per cent of all sitting days in the session, but was again named to just two committees.</p><p>This rather half-hearted attendance of the House persisted for the remainder of the decade. Absent at the opening of the second session, after taking his seat almost a month into it on 14 Mar. 1663, Rockingham attended on just 10 occasions (a little under 12 per cent of the whole) before retiring. He was named to just one committee in the meantime. He resumed his seat for the subsequent session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he attended on approximately 44 per cent of all sitting days. Having failed to attend the following two sessions at all, being missing without explanation at calls on 7 Dec. 1664 and 1 Oct. 1666, he rallied to attend approximately 37 per cent of all sitting days in the session of October 1666, but was again named to just two committees. On 26 Nov. he appealed to the House to uphold his privilege following the issuing of a process against him by Dr George Wake, a commissary of Joseph Henshaw*, bishop of Peterborough. Wake appeared at the bar of the House on 27 Nov. to answer the complaint, where he apologized for his error; following Rockingham’s agreement, the House ordered Wake to be released the next day. On 23 Jan. 1667 Rockingham registered his first dissent, being one of 29 peers to object to the failure to include the right to an appeal to the king and Lords in the bill for erecting a judicature for determining disagreements over houses lost in the Great Fire.</p><p>Despite his disappointment at not being permitted to attend the coronation in his hereditary office of master of the buckhounds, Rockingham seems initially to have supported the court. A letter describing the events in the House of Commons during the impeachment proceedings against Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, suggested that Rockingham’s correspondent, P.S. (possibly the member for Rutland, Philip Sherard<sup>‡</sup>), and thus presumably also Rockingham, opposed the impeachment.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Rockingham took his seat in the House in the following session on 21 Oct. 1667 and was thereafter present on almost 47 per cent of all sitting days. He was excused at a call on 17 Feb. 1668 but had resumed his seat a week later. During the course of the session he was named to three committees, besides the committee for petitions, to which he was added on 31 Mar. 1668. Absent at the opening of the following session, he took his seat on 6 Nov. 1669 after which he attended almost 42 per cent of all sitting days. It appears to have been around this time that he dined with Anne Walsh, where he was said to have expressed ‘what a great honour and love he had’ for his neighbour, Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Rockingham was again absent from the opening of the ensuing session on 14 Feb. 1670. He registered his proxy with his kinsman, Rutland, on 7 Mar., which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 7 Nov. 1670. He then attended on just nine days (a mere 5 per cent of the whole) before retiring for the remainder of the session. He was present for just long enough to be named to the committee for the bill enabling Thomas Leigh*, Baron Leigh, to sell lands to raise money for his daughters’ portions on 2 December. His final appearance that session was on 14 December. He had left London by 17 Dec. when Benjamin Chancy tried to secure his assistance in putting a motion to the House concerning a privilege case brought by the dowager Lady Gerard and her young son, Digby Gerard*, 5th Baron Gerard of Gerards Bromley.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Rockingham returned to the House just over two years later on 13 Feb. 1673. Although he was present on almost 44 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to no committees and made no impression on the session. He failed to attend the brief session of October 1673 but took his seat once more on 12 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on just under 40 per cent of all sitting days. Again, he was named to no committees. The following year, in advance of the new session, Rockingham was included among those thought likely to support the non-resisting Test. Absent at the opening of the new session on 13 Apr. 1675, he was excused at a call on 29 April. He took his seat on 8 May, after which he was present on some 38 per cent of all sitting days, before once more retreating. He was again absent for the following session and was excused once again at a call on 10 November.</p><p>Rockingham appears to have finally abandoned the court for the opposition by the mid-1670s, which may be reflected in his increased activity in the House in the subsequent session. Having taken his seat on 17 Feb. 1677, he attended some 34 per cent of all sitting days, during which he was named to eight committees. On 9 Mar. he registered his proxy with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. Monmouth had written to his father, the king, a few years previously, commending one ‘Mr Watson’, presumably Rockingham’s kinsman Captain Watson, who appears to have managed Monmouth’s household, as well as Rockingham’s son, presumably Lewis Watson. Both were both serving with him at the siege of Maastricht.<sup>17</sup> The proxy was vacated by Rockingham’s resumption of his seat on 19 March. On 1 May he was noted ‘worthy’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury.</p><p>Rockingham resumed his seat in the new session on 24 May 1678, after which he was present on almost 77 per cent of all sitting days. His much higher level of attendance in the short session was also reflected in his nomination to seven committees. He then resumed his seat in the final session of the Cavalier Parliament on 11 Nov. 1678, after which his enthusiasm appears to have dissipated, since he was present on under half of all sitting days and was named to no further committees. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of including the declaration against transubstantiation within the test bill. On 20 Dec. he subscribed the protest against the proposed alterations to the bill for disbanding the army and three days later he registered his dissent at the resolution not to insist on the disgraced lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), withdrawing following the reading of the articles of impeachment against him. On 26 Dec. he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the bill for disbanding the army, registering a further dissent when the resolution was carried. The following day he voted in favour of committing Danby.</p><p>In advance of the new Parliament, Danby included Rockingham among those whom he expected to oppose him in two forecasts drawn up around March and April 1679, noting him as ‘unreliable’. Rockingham attended three days of the abortive session of March 1679, before taking his seat in the first Exclusion Parliament on 15 March. Although he was thereafter present on 95 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to just two committees. In early April he was among those to vote in favour of the early stages of the Danby attainder bill and on 4 Apr. he voted in favour of passing the measure. Ten days later he voted to agree with the Commons’ attempt to attaint the former lord treasurer and on 10 May he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. Meanwhile, on 2 May he introduced to the House his cousin John Manners*, as Baron Manners (later duke of Rutland). On 27 May he voted against adhering to an earlier vote that the lords spiritual had a right to stay in court in capital cases until judgment of death came to be pronounced.</p><p>That winter, Rockingham signed the address to the king for a new Parliament but he was again missing without explanation at a call following the opening of the subsequent Parliament on 30 Oct. 1680. He took his seat in the House a few days later on 3 Nov., and on 15 Nov. voted both against putting the question to reject the Exclusion bill at first reading and then against its rejection. On 23 Nov. he voted in favour of appointing a joint committee to consider the state of the nation. The following month, he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason and on 7 Jan. 1681 he entered his dissent when the House resolved not to request the king to suspend Sir William Scroggs from his office of lord justice.</p><p>Rockingham failed to attend the third Exclusion Parliament at Oxford. Following the accession of James II, he petitioned to be recognized as master of the buckhounds for the coronation but his suit was again refused and the place was awarded instead to James Graham.<sup>18</sup> Throughout 1687 and 1688 he was consistently listed as an opponent of the repeal of the Test. At the Revolution, predictably, he joined the ranks of those in opposition to James II.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Rockingham does not appear to have turned out at the Revolution and he was absent from the opening of the Convention. He took his seat almost a month into its proceedings, on 18 February. He was thereafter present on approximately one-quarter of all sitting days. On 5 Mar. he was nominated a reporter of the conference for assisting the king. Although Rockingham’s name was missing from the attendance list on 27 Apr. 1689 he was named to the committee for the bill for preventing questions concerning revenue collecting, so it may be assumed he was in the House at that time. This appears to have been the date of his last attendance. He was again absent at a call on 22 May and he died the following month at Rockingham Castle. He left no will and was succeeded in the title by his son Lewis Watson*, who was later created earl of Rockingham. His third son, Thomas, inherited the Wentworth estates of his uncle, Strafford, and was the progenitor of the later marquesses of Rockingham.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WATSON, Lewis (1655-1724) |
<p><strong><surname>WATSON</surname></strong>, <strong>Lewis</strong> (1655–1724)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 June 1689 as 3rd Bar. ROCKINGHAM; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1714 earl of ROCKINGHAM |
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1689; last sat 9 Oct. 1722 |
|
MP Canterbury 1681, Higham Ferrers 1689 |
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Dec. 1655, 1st s. of Edward Watson*, 2nd Bar. Rockingham, and Anne (<em>d</em>.1696), da. of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. July 1677, Lady Catherine Sondes (<em>d</em>.1696), da. and coh. of George Sondes*, earl of Feversham, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em><em>.</em>), 7da. <em>d</em>. 19 or 20 Mar. 1724;<sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> 2 Apr.–27 Oct. 1722, pr. 9 May 1724.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for assessment, Northants. 1677–9, Kent 1679–80, Kent and Northants. 1689; freeman, Canterbury 1681; ld. lt. Kent 1705–<em>d</em>.; <em>custos rot</em>. Kent 1705–<em>d</em>.; v.-adm. Kent 1705–<em>d</em>.; steward honour of Higham Ferrers 1707–16.</p> |
|
<p>Watson was a member of an extended network of families whose links crossed political boundaries. He was a cousin of John Manners*, duke of Rutland, and brother-in-law to both the Tory peer Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and the Exclusionist Sir James Oxenden<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>4</sup> The family estates spread across several counties, providing him with a significant interest in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, and Lincolnshire.<sup>5</sup> The inheritance of the majority of the Wentworth estates in Yorkshire by Watson’s younger brother, Thomas Watson Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>, in 1695 provoked vituperative hostility towards the Watsons by their Wentworth cousins, which was barely assuaged by Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Raby, eventually securing the restoration of the earldom of Strafford in 1711.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Watson was probably one of ‘the lord Rockingham’s two sons’ to see service among the gentlemen volunteers with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, at the siege of Maastricht in 1673; their kinsman Captain Watson had the charge of Monmouth’s household.<sup>7</sup> At the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament, Watson’s mother attempted to employ her interest to secure him a seat in the Commons.<sup>8</sup> She also sought the assistance of George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, in obtaining the reversal of an order that had been awarded against Watson in a dispute with his brother-in-law Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, over the latter’s rights to his annuity after the death of his wife. The case was eventually settled in Feversham’s favour in the House.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Watson was disappointed in his efforts to secure a seat on this occasion and it was not until 1681 that he was returned to the Commons, where he served as member for Canterbury and, after the Revolution, for Higham Ferrers. He was also approached to represent Sandwich in 1689 and he offered to stand for that constituency at the next election.<sup>10</sup> Such considerations were rendered meaningless by his succession to the peerage in June 1689. On his elevation he came into an estate of at least £3,000 p.a. in Kent, as well as the family estates in Northamptonshire. Through his marriage to Lady Catherine Sondes, Rockingham also succeeded to a significant political interest in Kent and the promise of a further £3,000 p.a. after the death of his brother-in-law Feversham.<sup>11</sup> Despite this, Rockingham’s response to the request for a self-assessment in September 1689 elicited an estimation from him that his personal estate ‘taxable by the late act’ amounted to just £1,000.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Rockingham had still not received his writ of summons by 28 Oct. 1689 when he was excused at a call of the House. The writ was finally issued on 21 Nov. and he took his seat four days later. Thereafter he sat on approximately 56 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Though classed as an opponent of the court in a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690 by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen and later duke of Leeds, over the following six years Rockingham demonstrated little interest in the House’s business. Absent at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, he did not take his seat until 29 Apr. and was then present for much of May, attending a little under a half of the whole session. His attendance remained lacklustre during the following (1690–1) session. Having returned to the House two months into the new session on 1 Dec. 1690, he sat for the majority of that month, but his overall attendance accounted for only 19 sitting days in the session as a whole. Rockingham attended the single sitting day of 26 May 1691 but then failed to attend the 1691–2 session at all. He was present once more for the prorogation day of 24 May 1692, resuming his seat again almost three weeks into the following session on 21 Nov. 1692, after which he was present on approximately 20 per cent of all sitting days. On or about 31 Dec. 1692/1 Jan. 1693 he was forecast as a likely opponent of the divorce bill for the Whig peer Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, one of a group of Northamptonshire peers to rally to the support of the erring duchess, and on 2 Jan. he duly voted against it. The following day he voted in favour of passing the place bill.</p><p>Over the next two years Rockingham’s attendance at the House remained marginal. Absent at the opening of the new session on 7 Nov. 1693, he was excused at a call of the House on 14 Nov. and did not resume his seat until towards the end of the session on 9 Apr. 1694, after which he was present for just seven days (5 per cent of the whole). He then failed to attend the final (1694–5) session of the Parliament. He was again absent when the new Parliament opened in November 1695, only resuming his seat on 9 Dec., after which he was present on 14 days in the session as a whole (11 per cent of all sitting days). The death of Lady Rockingham in March 1696 may in part account for his absence from the House at that time. He covered his absence by a proxy in favour of John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, registered on 9 Apr. and vacated by the close of the session. Rockingham resumed his seat at the opening of the new session of October 1696, after which he demonstrated renewed vigour, being present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. In December he voted in favour of attainting Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Rockingham continued to attend with greater regularity during the following (1697–8) session. Having again taken his seat at the opening of the session on 3 Dec. 1697, he attended 64 per cent of sitting days. On 7 Mar. 1698 he was named one of the managers of the conference for amendments to the bill for explaining poor relief and on 15 Mar. he voted in favour of committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. The following day he entered his dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the appellants in the cause between James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and Lucius Henry Carey, 6th Viscount Falkland [S], and on 17 Mar. he dissented again from the resolution to allow the appellant to enjoy Carey’s estate for the life of Mrs Bertie.</p><p>Rockingham was named one of the managers of the conference for the bill of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, on 20 June 1698, and on 4 July he was named to the committee to inspect the Journals for 1640 and 1641 over proceedings against his grandfather, Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford. His level of attendance increased again in the ensuing Parliament: having taken his seat on 29 Nov. 1698, he was present on approximately 78 per cent of sitting days during the 1698–9 session. He attended the single sitting day of 1 June 1699 and resumed his place at the opening of the new session on 16 Nov., after which he was present on 60 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1700 he voted against adjourning during the debate for continuing the East India Company as a corporation and in July he was marked as a Junto supporter in a list differentiating between the various Whig peers.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Rockingham resumed his seat shortly after the opening of the first Parliament of 1701 on 10 February. Present on 74 per cent of all sitting days, in June he voted in favour of acquitting the impeached Whig lords, John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. During the election that winter, he approached Newcastle for his interest on behalf of his brother, Thomas Watson Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>, but without success.<sup>14</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701 (after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days) and the following year he was mentioned as co-operating with John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, ‘the grand vizier’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>He was present again at the opening of the next Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702 and he attended approximately two-thirds of all sitting days in the first (1702–3) session. On 17 Dec. Rockingham was one of those named to manage the conference over the bill to prevent occasional conformity; he was also named to the second conference on the same issue on 9 Jan. 1703. Estimated as being an opponent of the measure at the beginning of January 1703, on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Rockingham entered his protest on 19 Jan. at the resolution not to agree with the committee in omitting the clause for Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, in the bill for settling a revenue on the prince in the event of the queen predeceasing him. Later that year, according to some sources, he was confirmed in the hereditary office of master of the buckhounds, an appointment that had eluded his father. There appears to be some ambiguity about this office, which may have been distinct from the identically named place in the royal household, which remained vacant at the time.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Rockingham resumed his seat shortly after the opening of the new session on 16 Nov. 1703, after which he was present on 61 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he had been estimated as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill in two forecasts and in December he voted against the measure, though one division list gave his name, erroneously, as Buckingham rather than Rockingham. Later that month he was one of a number of Whig peers present at a conclave at the home of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland.<sup>17</sup> In March 1704 he entered his protest at the resolution not to put the question whether the information contained in the examination of Sir John Maclean was imperfect. The same month, Rockingham brought an action in chancery against his brother-in-law Sir James Oxenden over his alleged failure to provide his wife, the former Lady Arabella Watson, with the agreed annuity of £1,000 for her maintenance. Rockingham accused Oxenden of compelling his sister to resort to the charity of her friends, despite receiving £12,000 with his wife. The following July the court decreed in the plaintiffs’ favour but the dispute appears to have continued until at least 1708.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Rockingham resumed his seat on 11 Nov. 1704, after which he was again present on 61 per cent of sitting days in the session. In January 1705 it was reported that he had sent out his steward to make enquiries as to how the Northamptonshire freeholders stood affected for the forthcoming election.<sup>19</sup> In March it was rumoured that he was to replace Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, as lord lieutenant of Kent as part of the wider redistribution of offices in favour of the Whigs. The appointment was confirmed the following month, when he was also appointed vice-admiral of Kent. The delay in confirming Rockingham in post was said to have been due to his request that the lieutenancy be divided between the east and west of the county, a desire that Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, professed himself unable to comprehend.<sup>20</sup> Evidently nobody else recognized the need for the division either and Rockingham was named sole lieutenant, though 14 additional justices were added to the commission of the peace, presumably as a sop to Rockingham’s concern at needing to control so diverse a county.<sup>21</sup></p><p>An analysis of the peerage in or about 1705 listed Rockingham, predictably enough, as a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. On 2 Feb. he was named one of the managers of the conference to consider the heads of the conference to be held with the Commons concerning the Aylesbury men. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on almost 68 per cent of all sitting days in the first (1705–6) session. On 11 Mar. 1706 he was named one of the managers of two conferences concerning the letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and of another on 13 Mar. concerning the militia bill. Despite his prominent role within Kent, Rockingham appears to have concentrated increasingly on his interest in Northamptonshire from 1705 onwards, attempting to bolster his position, along with Sunderland, as one of the principal Whig managers in the county.<sup>22</sup> In the summer of 1706, in preparation for the next elections, he involved himself actively in Northamptonshire, penning a circular letter in support of the Whig candidates, though in the event the expected early poll failed to occur.<sup>23</sup> That summer he also presented the Kentish address to the queen.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Rockingham resumed his seat in the second session on 3 Dec. 1706, after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. He attended on six out of the ten days of the brief session of April 1707 and then resumed his seat on 23 Oct. at the opening of the new (1707–8) session, after which he was present on just over two-thirds of all sitting days. In April 1708 his heir, Edward Watson<sup>‡</sup>, married Lady Catherine Tufton, a match that further extended the family’s interest in Kent and brought with it a substantial portion, of £13,000.<sup>25</sup> The following month, Rockingham was, unsurprisingly, included in an annotated list of members of the Parliament of Great Britain as a Whig.</p><p>Rockingham took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days. In January 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the election for Scots representative peers. In April, Feversham’s death without heirs finally brought into Rockingham’s possession the remainder of the Sondes estates, along with an annual income of £3,000, which had been settled on Feversham by Rockingham’s father-in-law.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Present again at the opening of the new session on 15 Nov. 1709, Rockingham attended on just over two-thirds of all sitting days. Local interest was presumably behind his role in reporting from the committee for the Tonbridge road bill on 13 Mar. 1710. On 27 Mar. he was named one of the managers of the conference considering amendments to the act concerning the marriage settlements of Edward Southwell. The same month, he predictably found Henry Sacheverell guilty. In July, following the close of the session, rumours circulated, erroneously, that he was to be replaced as lord lieutenant by Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford).<sup>27</sup> The following month Rockingham undertook to use his interest on behalf of Sir Thomas Palmer<sup>‡</sup> in Kent but Palmer was nevertheless unseated at the general election.<sup>28</sup> Rockingham complained that he had been unable to sign the Kent address to the queen but his failure to sign and absence from the assizes may have been a deliberate tactical omission on account of the perceived threat to his position as lord lieutenant.<sup>29</sup> In September there were further rumours that he would be replaced, this time by Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, but this again failed to transpire.<sup>30</sup> In October, Harley noted him as being certain to oppose the ministry.</p><p>Rockingham took his seat two days into the new Parliament on 27 Nov. 1710, after which he was present on approximately 76 per cent of all sitting days during the first (1710–11) session. On 11 Jan. 1711 he registered his protest at the resolution to reject the petitions of the generals in command of the British forces at the disaster of Almanza. He also protested at the resolution to agree with the committee investigating whether the debacle at Alamanza was the result of the poor judgment exercised by the generals. Rockingham registered a third protest the following day in response to the resolution to censure the conduct of ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. The following month saw him continuing to register his dissatisfaction with the manner in which the conduct of the war was being criticized by the new ministry, entering protests on 3 Feb. against the resolution to agree with the committee that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of the battle of Alamanza were not properly supplied and at the resolution that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament amounted to a neglect of the service. On 8 Feb. he registered dissents both at the resolution to present to the queen the representation concerning the war with Spain and at the resolution to retain the words ‘and the profusion of vast sums of money given by Parliament’ within the address.</p><p>Rockingham appears to have anticipated being absent from the opening of the new (1711–12) session, as he registered his proxy in favour of Sunderland on 1 Dec. 1711, but this was vacated when he resumed his seat on the first day of the session on 7 December. In advance of the session, his name was included in a list compiled by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, which may have been a further assessment of likely attitudes to the occasional conformity bill. On 8 Dec. Rockingham was also listed as a probable opponent of the court in an assessment of those opposed to presenting the address containing the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion. Present on just over 56 per cent of all sitting days that session, on 19 Dec. he was listed as opposed to permitting James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House as duke of Brandon; the following day he voted to prevent Scots peers from sitting in the House by virtue of British titles created after the Union. Rockingham was entrusted with the proxy of his neighbour George Nevill*, 13th Baron Abergavenny, on 21 Dec., which was vacated on 7 Mar. 1712. He held Abergavenny’s proxy again from 19 Mar. to the close of the session. On 24 Mar. John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland, also entrusted Rockingham with his proxy, which was vacated on 13 May. On 28 May Rockingham protested at the resolution not to address the queen requesting her to order an offensive war.</p><p>Rockingham was listed by Swift as a likely opponent of the ministry in or about March 1713. Having attended half a dozen prorogation days in between the close of the previous session and opening of the new one, he resumed his place on 9 Apr., after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. In June he was estimated by Oxford (as Harley had since become) to be opposed to the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. During that summer, he was again involved with canvassing in Northamptonshire; his steward was reported to be ‘making interest for votes against the next election’, while Rockingham may himself have been responsible for proposing an alliance between his brother and Thomas Cartwright<sup>‡</sup> in an attempt to foil the Tory effort.<sup>31</sup></p><p>He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on 77 per cent of all sitting days during the first session. On 5 Apr. he acted as one of the tellers for the division on whether to agree to an address on the Protestant succession, which was carried by 14 votes. Rockingham was entrusted with the proxy of his Kentish neighbour Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, on 19 Apr. (vacated 28 Apr.) and on 23 Apr. he also received Abergavenny’s proxy, vacated on 16 June. He was again entrusted with Westmorland’s proxy on 13 May (vacated by the prorogation on 9 July). On 27 May he was forecast as likely to oppose the schism bill and on 15 June he duly entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill. On 8 July he entered a further protest at the resolution not to make a representation to the queen stating that the benefit of the Assiento contract had been obstructed by the efforts of some individuals to obtain personal advantages from the contract.</p><p>Rockingham’s interest within Kent was further consolidated by the marriage of his daughter Arabella to Sir Robert Furnese<sup>‡</sup> in July 1714.<sup>32</sup> Present on 12 days of the brief 17-day session that met in the wake of the queen’s death in August 1714, his support for the Hanoverian succession was acknowledged by his subsequent promotion to the earldom of Rockingham. He took his seat in the House after his elevation on 21 Mar. 1715, introduced between Henry Clinton*, 7th earl of Lincoln, and Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor. Rockingham’s attendance declined after 1716. He failed to attend at all in 1718, and he sat for only six days in 1719. Despite this he employed his interest on behalf of his cousin Lord William Manners<sup>‡</sup> in Leicestershire, though he lamented that he had not ‘been better able to serve’ his relation.<sup>33</sup> He sat with greater regularity in 1720 and 1721 but attended for the final time on 9 Oct. 1722, the opening day of the new session. A more detailed study of his career after 1715 will be treated in the second phase of this work.</p><p>Rockingham died on 19 or 20 Mar. 1724. A rental of his estates in Northamptonshire, Huntingdon, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and Kent recorded his annual income to have been £4,114 15<em>s</em>. 8¼<em>d</em>.<sup>34</sup> In his will, he requested that his wishes ‘be performed as near my intent and meaning as may be for the quiet support and preservation of my children, family and posterity’. He named his youngest daughter, Margaret Watson, as his sole executrix and bequeathed substantial sums to be raised for portions for her and his other surviving daughters. He was succeeded by his ten-year-old grandson, Lewis Watson<sup>†</sup>, as 2nd earl of Rockingham, his eldest son having died two years previously of consumption.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WENTWORTH, Thomas (1591-1667) |
<p><strong><surname>WENTWORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1591–1667)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 16 Aug. 1593 (a minor) as 4th Bar. WENTWORTH; <em>cr. </em>5 Feb. 1626 earl of CLEVELAND |
|
First sat 2 May 1614; first sat after 1660, 23 May 1660; last sat 17 Jan. 1667 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1591, 1st s. of Henry Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Wentworth, and Anne (<em>d</em>.1625), da. of Sir Owen Hopton<sup>‡</sup>, lt. of Tower of London. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Oxf. 1602; G. Inn 1620; adm. I. Temple 1662. <em>m</em>. (1) c. 1612, Anne (<em>d</em>. 16 Jan. 1638), da. of Sir John Crofts<sup>‡</sup> of Little Saxham, Suff. 3s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) bef. 25 Oct. 1638, Lucy (<em>d</em>. 23 Nov. 1651), da. of Sir John Wentworth, bt. of Gosfield, Essex, 1da. KB 2 June 1610. <em>d</em>. 25 Mar. 1667; <em>will</em> 21 Sept. 1640, <em>admon</em>. 2 June 1668 to William Dickinson, a creditor, 15 Oct. 1686 to Anne, Lady Wentworth and Lovelace.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. gent. pens. 1642–6, 1660–<em>d</em>.</p><p><em>Custos rot</em>. Beds 1618–42, 1660–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Beds. (jt.) 1625–39, (sole) 1639–42, (jt.) 1660–<em>d</em>.; commr. array, Beds. 1642.</p><p>Cdr. brig. of horse (roy.) 1644–6; col. regt. of horse 1662–?<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Thomas Wentworth’s great-grandfather was created Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk, in 1529; Thomas inherited his peerage as 4th Baron Wentworth and the family estates in Suffolk and Middlesex at the age of two, following the early death from plague of his father, Henry Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Wentworth. In 1614 he improved his estate further when he inherited the manor of Toddington in Bedfordshire from his great-aunt Jane, dowager Baroness Cheney. From this time he made Toddington his principal residence and so prominent did he become in local society that in 1618 he was made <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Bedfordshire.</p><p>Wentworth found favour from his near-contemporary Charles I, and perhaps more importantly from George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, whose close companion he became. On 5 Feb. 1626, at the time of the coronation, Wentworth was raised in the peerage as earl of Cleveland. Thereafter, Cleveland began to indulge in an extravagant lifestyle that plunged him deeply into debt.<sup>3</sup> On 27 Apr. 1641 a bill was introduced into Parliament permitting him to mortgage or sell land in his manors of Stepney and Hackney to pay his debts.<sup>4</sup> He also secured an interim order allowing for the immediate sale of these properties to purchasers nominated by Cleveland himself. The bill never got further than the committee stage and the arrangement provided for by the order of 27 Apr. quickly broke down in the confused circumstances of the Civil War. Cleveland did enter into one arrangement which was to prove important in later years: in 1641, under the terms of this order, he mortgaged to William Smith<sup>‡</sup> much of his land in Stepney and Hackney. In the years following, when Cleveland was incapable of seeing to his Middlesex interests, Smith bought out the interests of other creditors so that his own claim on the Cleveland property in Middlesex amounted to £32,568.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Cleveland became a leading royalist military commander during the Civil War, proving himself ‘a man of signal courage, and an excellent officer upon any bold enterprise’, remembered as ‘a nobleman of daring, courage, full of industry and activity, as well as firm loyalty, and usually successful in what he attempted’.<sup>6</sup> Captured in 1644, he escaped by June 1649 to join Charles II and the royalist effort on the continent and he performed signal, though ultimately futile, service at Worcester in 1651, where he was once more captured and imprisoned until his release in 1656.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Following the 1651 act providing for the sale of royalists’ lands, almost all of Cleveland’s property in Middlesex and Bedfordshire was dispersed. William Smith, who held the greatest interest in Stepney and Hackney, was granted the lordships and the greater part of the two manors. Smith in turn conveyed the manors to Sir Richard Blackwell<sup>‡</sup>, a commissioner for prize goods who became indebted for nearly £13,000 to the exchequer for his underhanded practices in that office. Consequently, the exchequer put the Middlesex estates back in the trust of William Smith, who was to manage them to pay Blackwell’s debts. From 1653 to 1660 Smith proceeded to sell off portions of the estate piecemeal. It has been suggested that ‘no other royalist with land in south-eastern England was so financially embarrassed’ as Cleveland – his debts, with interest, at the time of the sales have been estimated to have amounted to £112,082 – and consequently probably no other royalist saw his property so scattered and dispersed during this time.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Cleveland first sat in the Convention House of Lords on 23 May 1660, and on Charles II’s entry into the capital six days later he led a group of gentry from Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, ‘a thousand gentlemen, all in buff, laced with silver’, to greet the returning monarch.<sup>9</sup> In the succeeding weeks he was honoured with re-appointment to the offices which he had enjoyed before the civil wars – captain of the gentlemen pensioners and <em>custos rotulorum</em> and joint lord lieutenant of Bedfordshire. In this latter role he was active in setting the county on guard against the rumoured insurrection in the north in autumn 1663.<sup>10</sup> He also felt free to intervene in elections. After his fellow lord lieutenant Robert Bruce*, Baron Bruce (later earl of Ailesbury), proceeded to the upper House in 1664, Cleveland took measures, in concert with John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, to move the polling place for the Bedfordshire by-election from Ampthill to Bedford, to thwart the candidacy of Sir Henry Chester<sup>‡</sup> and to support that of Bridgwater’s nephew, Sir John Napier<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>11</sup> In 1662 Cleveland was further commissioned colonel of a regiment of cavalry, which appears to have seen service in the Dutch war in the summer of 1666.<sup>12</sup> John Evelyn recorded how on 4 July 1663 he saw a procession of His Majesty’s Guards, ‘where the old earl of Cleveland trailed a pike and led the right-hand file in a foot company commanded by the Lord Wentworth his son [Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Wentworth, a colonel of the Regiment of Foot Guards], a worthy spectacle and example, being both of them old and valiant soldiers’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Cleveland was a fairly regular member of the House after his first sitting on 23 May 1660, despite being excused for a period of about a week from 15 June ‘in regard of his ill health’. In total he came to 62 per cent of the sittings, but was most assiduous during the summer of 1660 when the petition he and his son had submitted on 2 July was under consideration. They wished to bring in another bill to enable them to sell the Stepney and Hackney land to help them pay their debts and argued that the many conveyances of their property from May 1642, done in contravention of the agreement of April 1641 and without their knowledge or consent, were invalid. A committee of 21 peers was established to consider this petition.<sup>14</sup> The committee heard witnesses and creditors throughout July and, perhaps to help Cleveland in his effort, another former royalist officer and colleague, John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, who also had the reversion to Cleveland’s office of captain of the gentlemen pensioners, registered his proxy with the earl on 25 July; Cleveland retained control of it for the remainder of the Convention.<sup>15</sup> Counsel was able to convince the committee that Cleveland retained the right to redeem the mortgages and on 30 July, the committee chairman, John Finch*, Baron Finch, reported to the House that Cleveland and Wentworth should be allowed to bring in their bill to settle the estates of Stepney and Hackney.</p><p>The bill was first read before the House on 13 Aug. 1660 and committed two days later.<sup>16</sup> The committee met several times in late August and heard the arguments of the principal purchasers of Cleveland’s land but resolved in the end that ‘it is a mortgage throughout, looking on it as it was in 1641 when the bill was brought in first’. The only person for whom the committee made explicit exemption was Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, who had purchased part of the estate in 1639–40. On 29 Aug. Finch again reported from committee that the bill was fit to pass with some amendments, as it did on its third reading two days later. It made its way through the Commons after the summer recess, and the lower chamber returned it to the House largely rewritten, with a few more names added to the schedule of creditors and a proviso confirming the absolute sale and exemption from the act of that part of Cleveland’s estate purchased by Manchester.<sup>17</sup> None of these changes seem to have perturbed the House for they accepted them without debate or further amendment and passed the bill as soon as it was brought up on 27 Dec. 1660; the bill received the royal assent at the dissolution of the Convention two days later. The bill named five trustees, worthies of both London and Bedfordshire, to manage Cleveland’s lands in both Middlesex and Bedfordshire ‘free of encumbrance’ to raise money for his debts. It also gave Cleveland a window of seven years to redeem the mortgages on his lands.</p><p>The issue was raised again in the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in 1661–2, when the Commons introduced a bill ‘for Confirmation and Explanation of an Act for settling some of the manors and lands of the earl of Cleveland in trustees to be sold’. This bill should perhaps be seen in the context of Cleveland’s increasingly confident claim to his rights in Stepney, even against the crown’s attempts at encroachment.<sup>18</sup> It went through the upper House quickly: brought up from the Commons on 10 July 1661, it was committed two days later and reported without amendment on 15 July. It received the royal assent, which had been solicited of the king by Cleveland himself, on 30 July 1661.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Apart from promoting a contentious private act which questioned the validity of legal and property transactions made during the Interregnum, Cleveland himself was not a particularly active member of the House. He continued to attend fairly regularly over the first few sessions of the Cavalier Parliament, coming to almost three-quarters of the sittings of the first session of 1661–2, but his attendance gradually decreased over time – he was present for a little over half of the sittings in spring 1663; exactly half in spring 1664; and two-thirds in 1664–5. He was infrequently named to committees on legislation, being appointed to only 17 in the whole period from the beginning of the Convention to the end of the 1664–5 session, including those for the militia bills (19 July 1661 and again on 18 July 1662), the duchy of Cornwall bill (22 Nov. 1661), the Antholne Level bill (4 Mar. 1662), the temporalty subsidy bill (17 July 1663) and the bill for the transport of felons (2 Apr. 1664). Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that Cleveland would oppose the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, in July 1663 and would support the lord chancellor. On the other hand, Cleveland registered his proxy with Clarendon’s rival Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl) of Arlington, on 21 Oct. 1665, in the middle of the session convened in Oxford, which Cleveland did not attend at all.</p><p>Cleveland was probably busy during this time shoring up his interest in Stepney, the principal estate remaining to him.<sup>20</sup> From early 1665 another obstacle in his affairs arose. The right to the debt of Sir Richard Blackwell<sup>‡</sup> to the exchequer, still outstanding at the Restoration, had been assumed by Charles II himself and then in 1662 been transferred by him to John Lindsay, 17th earl of Crawford [S], and Margaret, Lady Belhaven [S]. Cleveland’s 1660 act had included a ‘saving’ of the king’s rights and claims in the Middlesex properties. Crawford and Belhaven argued that Blackwell’s debt, now owing to them as a royal grant, was part of the king’s rights in the estate, exempted from the other provisions in the act, and therefore they refused to accept Cleveland’s payments to Blackwell as redemption of a mortgage, nor would they allow the trustees to settle the property on others. Cleveland pressed for an account to be made of the amount due from Blackwell, to prove that he had cleared his own debt to Blackwell. Throughout 1665 the dispute rumbled on in the court of exchequer, and the king’s ministers were urged to find a way to relieve Cleveland, ‘who has deserved so eminently in the king’s service’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>The matter moved into the House in the session of 1666–7, when on 19 Oct. 1666 Cleveland’s grandson John Lovelace*, later 3rd Baron Lovelace, brought up from the Commons a bill to extend the time allowed to Cleveland to redeem the mortgages on his lands. The bill was first read on 23 Oct. but shortly after its commitment the next day it was met with a flurry of petitions and printed handbills from Crawford, Belhaven and others arguing that the bill would in effect destroy the original saving of the king’s rights and that it was a bald attempt by Cleveland to evade a decree against him expected imminently from exchequer. Cleveland naturally printed his response, falling back on the argument he had always used – that the lands had always only been mortgaged, according to the terms of the order of 1641, and thus could be redeemed by him.<sup>22</sup></p><p>This bill was much the most controversial of the three that Cleveland saw passed during his lifetime, and in the last days of October 1666 the arguments of Crawford and Belhaven were heard both in the select committee and at the bar of the House, causing ‘a small debate thereof’ in the latter. The bill was recommitted on 6 Nov. and four days later the committee chairman, James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, reported that an impasse had been reached because counsel for both parties refused to agree to an accommodation, let alone draw up an account of Blackwell’s outstanding debts.<sup>23</sup> On 26 Nov. the bill was recommitted again and two days later the lord chief justice of common pleas and the lord chief baron of the exchequer were assigned to provide their advice to the committee. One sentence from the committee notes from 29 Nov. summarizes the confused situation the lords were being asked to resolve: ‘Lady Belhaven claimed a debt from the king, the king from Blackwell, Blackwell from Sir William Smith [he had been knighted in 1661], Sir William Smith from the earl of Cleveland.’ Eventually, on 4 Dec. 1666, Northampton reported that, benefitting from the advice of the legal experts ‘in the points that were difficult’, the committee offered the bill to pass without further amendment. There still ‘arose some debates concerning particulars of it’, but the bill did pass the House, made its way through the lower House and eventually received the royal assent on 18 Jan. 1667.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Cleveland was present in the House from 1 Oct. 1666 for the proceedings on this bill and attended a total of 21 days until 17 Jan. 1667. The bill having received the royal assent, he probably no longer felt the need to attend the House and he never returned to it. Age and his military service were by this time taking their toll. On 12 Mar. it was reported that ‘the old earl of Cleveland, extremely decrepit by age and wounds, lies very desperate’ and close to death. He succumbed less than two weeks later, on 25 Mar. 1667. His coveted office of captain of the gentleman pensioners duly passed to Belasyse according to the reversion of 1660.<sup>25</sup> At his death all that could be found was a will dating from September 1640, when the condition of his estate and obligations were very different, and his estate was so encumbered that in June 1668 it was put into the administration of one of his creditors. His only son and heir, Wentworth, having predeceased him in 1665, the earldom of Cleveland became extinct, and quickly became a coveted title for others. In December 1667 it was reported that Arlington was to be made earl of Cleveland.<sup>26</sup> Ultimately the title was granted to Charles II’s mistress, Barbara Villiers, countess of Castlemaine, who became in her own right duchess of Cleveland. The barony of Wentworth was inherited by Cleveland’s heirs general, first his granddaughter Henrietta, who as Lady Wentworth became infamous as the mistress of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. After her death in 1686 it passed to her aunt, Cleveland’s daughter and sole remaining heir general, Anne, widow of John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace. She also took out further letters of administration to settle the troubled estate in her name.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WENTWORTH, Thomas (1613-65) |
<p><strong><surname>WENTWORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1613–65)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1626-40 Ld. Wentworth; <em>accel. </em>3 Nov. 1640 Bar. WENTWORTH |
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1640; first sat after 1660, 1 June 1660; last sat 23 Feb. 1663 |
|
MP Beds. 1640 (Mar.), 1640 (Oct.-3 Nov.) |
<p><em>bap</em>. 2 Feb. 1613, 1st s. of Thomas Wentworth*, 4th Bar. Wentworth (later earl of Cleveland), and Anne (<em>d</em>. 16 Jan. 1638), da. of Sir John Crofts of Little Saxham, Suff. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France and Netherlands) 1630–1. <em>m</em>. bef. 1658, Philadelphia (<em>d</em>. 4 May 1696), da. of Sir Ferdinando Carey, 1da. KB 1 Feb. 1626. <em>d</em>. 1 Mar. 1665; <em>admon</em>. 24 May 1665 to wid. Philadelphia, Lady Wentworth.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1639–42?, 1649–<em>d</em>.;<sup>2</sup> council of war 1643;<sup>3</sup> PC 1654–<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Dep. lt. Beds. c.1635–42, 1660–<em>d</em>.;<sup>5</sup> commr. array, Beds. 1642.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Capt. tp. of horse 1638–40; col., regt. of drag. 1642–4, Prince of Wales Regt. of Horse 1644–?6; maj. gen., drag. 1643–4, horse Aug.–Nov. 1644; field marshal gen. Feb.–Nov. 1645; c.-in-c. Prince of Wales’s army, Nov. 1645–Jan. 1646; lt. gen. horse (Prince of Wales’s army) Jan.–Mar. 1646; col. Regt. of Ft. Gds. (later 1st Ft. Gds.) 1656–<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, 1640.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Thomas Wentworth, styled Lord Wentworth, was closely associated with his father Thomas Wentworth, earl of Cleveland, in royalism, war and debt throughout his life. He appears to have participated with his father in the extravagance with which they signalled their status at the court of Charles I. In 1631 he and his father borrowed £5,000 from Sir John Weld and as security conveyed to him their lands in Toddington, Bedfordshire, the family seat.<sup>9</sup> Three years later, father and son borrowed over £12,000 from the widow of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Bayning, and from Mary, countess of Home [S], and offered as security their other principal manors of Hackney and Stepney in Middlesex.<sup>10</sup> Such transactions and the liabilities they imposed were to bedevil the Wentworths for the rest of their lives.</p><p>Wentworth first sat in Parliament as knight of the shire for Bedfordshire in the Short Parliament, but was summoned to the Lords by a writ of acceleration in his father’s barony of Wentworth on 3 Nov. 1640, the first day of the Long Parliament. He first took his seat there three weeks later. He was appointed a commissioner of array for Bedfordshire in 1642 and joined the king’s army almost immediately upon the outbreak of war. In November 1645 he took over the general command of the Prince of Wales’s army in the west for a short time before his ineffectual command and haughty manner led to his replacement by Ralph Hopton<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Hopton.<sup>11</sup> By October 1647 Wentworth had fled England and joined the exiled court on the continent, where over the course of the 1650s he became a leading courtier and counsellor of Charles II, being appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber, a Privy Councillor and Charles II’s envoy to the court of Denmark and to smaller German principalities.<sup>12</sup> In 1656, as part of the treaty with Spain, Wentworth raised and commanded a regiment of foot guards, a body of former royalist officers and soldiers. While in the Netherlands, he had met and, by March 1658, had married Philadelphia Carey, a member of that branch of the Carey family, descendants of Henry Carey<sup>†</sup>, Baron Hunsdon, who had settled in the Netherlands and had served with the Dutch army for at least three generations.</p><p>Wentworth returned to England with Charles II on 25 May 1660. All the posts and offices that he had held in the court in exile were reconfirmed in the new setting of Westminster. His chief responsibilities continued to be military. His regiment remained garrisoned at Dunkirk while he was in England, but at the sale of that town to France in 1662 his troops were brought back to England.<sup>13</sup> John Evelyn recorded his observations of a procession of the king’s Guards on 4 July 1663, ‘where the old earl of Cleveland trailed a pike and led the right-hand file in a foot company commanded by the Lord Wentworth his son, a worthy spectacle and example, being both of them old and valiant soldiers’.<sup>14</sup> As a further mark of favour, in November 1663 the king granted Wentworth a ‘free gift’ of £500.<sup>15</sup> Wentworth still had hanging over him the many debts he had incurred before the civil wars; with his financial situation further exacerbated by sequestration, he was dependent on such generosity from the king and the continued payment of his pension.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Wentworth took his seat on 1 June 1660 and attended one-third of the meetings of the Convention but was named to no committees apart from the large sessional committees for privileges and petitions. From 28 Aug. until 17 Nov. 1660 he held the proxy of Edward Herbert*, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury. His attendance was slightly better during the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in 1661–2, in which he came to 45 per cent of the sittings. Here he was named to seven committees, including some dealing with subjects about which, as an old royalist soldier, he would have had strong feelings: the pains and penalties to be inflicted on those exempted from the Act of Indemnity (25 July 1661); the repeal of the acts and ordinances of the Long Parliament (24 Jan. 1662); the jurisdiction of the court of admiralty (15 Mar. 1662); and the provision of the fund for indigent royalist officers (25 Apr. 1662).</p><p>His principal concern in the Convention and in the 1661–2 session is likely to have been to ensure the passage of the private acts allowing the Wentworth lands in Stepney, Hackney and Bedfordshire to be sold to pay his and his father’s long-standing creditors. Although these bills are usually annotated in the Journals as ‘the earl of Cleveland’s bill’, the provisions were clearly to satisfy the creditors of both Cleveland and Wentworth. They first petitioned the House to bring in a bill on this matter on 2 July 1660, but the bill ‘for the settling of all the manors and lands of the earl of Cleveland for settling the debts of him and his son, Lord Wentworth’ was not read in the House until 13 August. It was passed in the House on 31 Aug. and received the royal assent on 29 Dec. 1660, after the Commons had considered it for some time following the summer recess. Another bill ‘for the confirmation and explanation of an Act for settling some of the manors of the earl of Cleveland’ was brought up from the Commons and received its first reading in the House on 11 July 1661, in the first session of the Cavalier Parliament. It was passed by the House only four days later and received the royal assent on 30 July. A full account of the scope and progress of these bills in 1660 and 1661, and of the controversy that could be generated by them, is given in the biography of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Cleveland. Wentworth had another private bill under consideration in 1661–2, the bill to naturalize his Dutch-born wife, Philadelphia. This was read first in the House on 13 Dec. 1661 and Lady Wentworth formally took the oaths of supremacy and allegiance before the House a week later. On 11 Jan. 1662 the bill was passed without amendment, was sent to the Commons for its approval and received the royal assent on 17 May.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Wentworth came to just over half of the meetings of the session of spring 1663, where he was named to seven committees, including that established on 9 July for the bill to settle the Post Office revenue on James Stuart*, duke of York. He was part of a delegation which on 2 July presented to the committee considering the dispute between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his son Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St John (later duke of Bolton), the most recent conditions and offers of Lord St John. Wentworth was then made part of a larger team assigned to treat with the marquess and his son in order to resolve the matter.<sup>18</sup> Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, in drawing up his forecast of how the House would divide over the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, could not be sure which side Wentworth would take. Wentworth came to 69 per cent of the meetings of the following session, in spring 1664, and was nominated to two committees in the space of only a few days: for an estate bill on 19 Apr. and for the bill against gaming two days later. He held the proxy of his distant kinsman William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, from 29 Mar. until the end of the session.</p><p>Wentworth came to 31 meetings of the 1664–5 session before he last sat in the House on 23 Feb. 1665. Even within that period he was named to four committees, including a navigation bill, a fen drainage bill and two estate bills. He died unexpectedly on 1 Mar., one day before the session was prorogued, leaving behind him a widow and one daughter, Henrietta Maria, a mountain of debts and no will. Wentworth’s estate was left to the administration of his widow, Philadelphia, Lady Wentworth, who was granted an irregularly paid pension of £600 and with economies was able to salvage some of the estate, including the principal residence of Toddington Manor.<sup>19</sup> When her grandfather the earl of Cleveland died in 1667, Henrietta Maria, the heir general, became <em>suo jure</em> Baronness Wentworth. In the late 1670s she became the mistress of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, despite the constant offers of marriage which she received from the scions of other prominent noble houses.<sup>20</sup> She joined Monmouth in his exile in the Netherlands after 1683 but returned to England only after his execution, where she died in April 1686. At her death the title passed to her aunt Anne, widow of John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace, and then to Anne’s granddaughter Martha, at whose childless death in 1745 the title became extinct.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WENTWORTH, Thomas (1672-1739) |
<p><strong><surname>WENTWORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1672–1739)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 16 Oct. 1695 as 3rd Baron RABY; <em>cr. </em>4 Sept. 1711 earl of STRAFFORD |
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1695; last sat 14 June 1739 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 17 Sept. 1672, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir William Wentworth<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>. June 1692) of Northgate Head, Wakefield, Yorks. and Isabella (<em>d</em>.1733), da. of Sir Allen Apsley<sup>‡</sup>; <em>educ</em>. unknown; <em>m</em>. 6 Sept. 1711 (with £60,000), Anne (<em>d</em>. 19 Sept. 1754), da. of Sir Henry Johnson<sup>‡</sup> of Bradenham, Bucks and Toddington, Beds.; 1s. 3da.; KG 25 Oct. 1712; <em>d</em>. 15 Nov. 1739; <em>will</em> 22 June 1732- 6 Oct. 1739, pr. 21 Dec. 1739.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Page of Honour to queen consort 1687; groom of bedchamber 1695-1702; PC 23 June 1711-Sept. 1714; first ld. Admiralty 1712-14; ld. justice 1 Aug.-18 Sept. 1714.</p><p>Cornet, Lord Colchester's Regt. of Horse 1688; maj. 1st Tp. of Life Gds. 1693; col. Royal Regt. of Drag. 1697-1715; brig.-gen. 1703; major-gen. 1704; lt.-gen. 1707.</p><p>Envoy, Brandenburg-Prussia May-June 1701; envoy extraordinary, Brandenburg-Prussia 1703-5; amb. extraordinary, Brandenburg-Prussia 1705-11; amb. extraordinary and plenip., States-General 1711-14; amb. plenip., Congress of Utrecht 1711-14.</p><p>Trinity House, elder bro. 1712, master 1713-15.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by P. C. Leygebe, 1711, Government Art Collection; oil on canvas by C. D’Agar, c<em>.</em>1712, Palace of Westminster, London; oil on canvas by G. Kneller, oils, 1714, Huntington Library, California.</p> |
<p><em>Baron Raby under William III, 1695-1702</em></p><p>Thomas Wentworth was the second son of Sir William Wentworth<sup>‡ </sup>of Northgate Head near Wakefield in Yorkshire, and grandson of another Sir William Wentworth, of Ashby Puerorum in Lincolnshire, the latter Sir William a younger brother of Charles I’s redoubtable minister Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. Through his mother Isabella Apsley, daughter of the treasurer of the household to James Stuart*, duke of York, the young Thomas Wentworth served briefly as a page of honour to Mary of Modena, but he quickly threw in his lot with William of Orange and in 1689 joined William’s army in the Highlands campaign against the Scots Jacobites. He went on to serve in every summer campaign in Flanders until the Peace of Ryswick in 1697, even acting as aide-de-camp to William III at Landen. He steadily rose in the army and at court, and was commissioned a cornet and major in the first troop of Life Guards in January 1694 and was made a groom of the royal bedchamber in May 1695.</p><p>On 16 Oct. 1695 Thomas’s first cousin once removed William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, died without any direct male heirs, and Thomas found himself the closest living relation, through the male line, of the deceased Strafford (as both Thomas’s father and elder brother had themselves died within the previous few years).<sup>3</sup> But Thomas did not benefit from this kinship connection as much as he thought just or equitable. He only inherited the title of Baron Raby, as a special remainder in the original creation of the earldom of Strafford in 1640 had ensured that barony could pass to the heirs of the first earl of Strafford’s younger brothers. He did not receive the earldom of Strafford itself, as that was to descend only through the first earl’s direct descendants in the male line, and thus became extinct at the second earl’s death. Furthermore, although the 2nd earl of Strafford had long complained of his poverty, he left in his will of 9 Sept. 1695 bequests amounting to just under £15,000 and annuities of £460 – but none of them to his cousin Thomas. Controversially, Strafford bequeathed to his nephew Thomas, second surviving son of his sister Anne and Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, the remainder of his estate, including his vast landholdings in Ireland and Yorkshire, centred around Wentworth Woodhouse in the West Riding.<sup>4</sup> The second earl had long been on acrimonious terms with Thomas’s father, Sir William, whom Strafford accused of cheating him out of money due to him while serving as his agent and steward in Ireland, and thus he refused to bequeath any part of his estate to a family he distrusted so much.<sup>5</sup> Raby’s sense of outrage at what he saw at this unjust apportionment of Strafford’s legacy coloured much of his future life and gave rise to his ceaseless importuning of the great and powerful for further offices and titles, particularly the symbolic earldom of Strafford, which he finally obtained in 1711. It also helped to fester a long and acrimonious battle between him and Thomas Watson Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>, or merely ‘Mr Watson’ as Raby insisted on referring to him, which led in part to his construction of the grand Wentworth Castle in Stainborough, Yorkshire, impudently close to Watson Wentworth’s own residence of Wentworth Woodhouse.</p><p>Thomas Wentworth’s first encounter with the House of Lords concerned precisely this inheritance, for on the first day on which the House met after the death of the 2nd earl of Strafford, 22 Nov. 1695, he asked the House how and if he should be formally introduced as Baron Raby. The clerks were assigned to search the Journals for precedents. On the following day was read the case of Louis de Duras*, Baron Duras, who had been introduced to the House as 2nd earl of Feversham on 21 May 1677, and for whom it had been noted in the Journal that he ‘came in by succession and not by descent’ after the death of his father-in-law George Sondes*, who had had a special remainder passing on his title to Duras inserted in his patent creating him earl of Feversham. Consequently Raby first took his seat in the House the following day of business, 25 Nov. 1695, introduced between Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford and Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston (and earl of Arran [I]), and the clerks specifically noted that he was introduced ‘not claiming by descent’, while the House later ordered ‘that the reasons why Thomas, Lord Raby was introduced shall be entered in the roll of standing orders of this House’. <sup>6</sup></p><p>After this introduction, Raby was a fairly diligent attender of the House and attended 71 per cent of the 1695-6 session, during which period he was named to ten select committees considering private bills, as well as the committees for the sheriffs‘ accounts bill and the bill to prevent counterfeiting of coin. On 9 Jan. 1696 he was placed on the select committee assigned to draw up reasons for the Lords’ adherence to their amendments to the bill for regulating the coinage, but he was not present to take part in the proceedings on this conference over the following two days, despite being appointed a manager. He maintained exactly the same attendance rate, 71 per cent, in the following session of 1696-7. On its first day, 20 Oct. 1696, Raby, with Robert Lucas*, 3rd Baron Lucas of Shenfield, helped to introduce to the House John Thompson*, Baron Haversham. On the last day of November he was appointed a manager for the conference on the Commons’ resolution to waive privilege of parliament during times when parliament was not in session. Although he is marked as present in the attendance register for 27 Jan. 1697, he was noted as absent when the Book of Protections was read that day and his name came up as one who may have abused the system of granting protections to menial servants. On that day the House made an order vacating all protections and abolishing the practice of granting them.<sup>7</sup> Throughout he continued to show his adherence to William III, first by signing the Association on the first day it became available for subscription, and later by voting with the court in favour of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. However Raby was one of the ‘twelve or thirteen dissenting lords’ who objected to the resolution of the House of 18 Jan. 1697 condemning Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), for his role in priming Lady Mary Fenwick for her defence before the House.<sup>8</sup> On 22 Jan. 1697 Raby was further named to the committee of 17 assigned to draw up an address requesting the king to give Fenwick a week’s reprieve from his execution.</p><p>He was rewarded for his loyalty with a royal grant in July 1696 of the farm of the post-fines, at an annual rent of £2,276.<sup>9</sup> Later, on 30 May 1697, over a month after the prorogation of Parliament, Raby was further promoted in the military to be colonel of the royal regiment of dragoons, a clear sign of William’s trust in his military abilities, but soon rendered redundant by the peace hammered out that summer at Ryswick. The brief period of peace which followed was to set Raby on another career direction, though one which he never seemed to prefer over his favoured military vocation. He was present in the House when it reconvened on 3 Dec. 1697, but left it for a period of several months from 8 Jan. 1698, registering his proxy with Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, when he served as part of the retinue of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, on his embassy to France, in what can be seen as the beginning of his long diplomatic career. Raby’s proxy with Scarbrough was vacated by his return to the House many months later on 21 June, only about two weeks before the prorogation. Raby’s only significant activity in this sparsely-attended session (he was present at only twenty sitting days) was his appointment on the penultimate day, 4 July, to a committee of 18 members who were to inspect the Journal for 1640 and 1641, to examine what had been done to the record of the proceedings around the 1st earl of Strafford&rsquos attainder pursuant to the Act of 1661 to reverse the attainder and obliterate its record—a matter of no little interest or importance to Raby’s own claim to the title.</p><p>Raby came to two-thirds of the 1698-9 session, the first of the new Parliament, convened in December 1698. He was named to four select committees, including those on the bills to enlarge the Russia trade and to encourage woollen manufacture. On 2 Mar. 1699, he was a manager for a conference on the bill to prevent the distilling of corn. He, like much of the House, was exercised by the Commons’ attempts to tack clauses on to money bills, and on 27 Apr. he was one of the nine members who entered their protest against the passage of the supply bill for disbanding the army, objecting that the clause constituting commissioners to take an account of the forfeited land in Ireland was an unwarranted tack of matter foreign to the bill.. On the day of prorogation, 4 May, Raby was appointed to the committee to consider what steps to take following the lower House’s non-appearance at a conference scheduled earlier that day on the dispute over the House’s amendments to the bill for laying a duty upon paper and parchment.<sup>10</sup> He had undoubtedly earlier been opposed to the disbandment bill itself, which directly affected his own career, but he was fortunate enough to survive the cull and his regiment of dragoons was one of the few to be maintained after the disbandment of February 1699.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In the following session, that of 1699-1700, Raby maintained the same attendance rate and much the same concerns as in the previous session, though there is little record of his activities in this session. Siding with the Tories, on 23 Feb. 1700 he voted to adjourn the House into committee of the whole to further the bill that would maintain the old East India Company as a corporation. At the end of the 1699-1700 session he was one of the large number of members who protested against the failure to adhere to the House’s amendments against the tack for the resumption of forfeited Irish land in the Commons’ supply bill. With Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, and others, he attested before the House that Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, had disrespectfully muttered disparaging comments during a speech made by James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, in defence of the amendments and the privilege of the peerage. In the irreverently-written newsletter reporting this incident Raby appears to be referred to by the nickname ‘his majesty’, perhaps evidence that the pride, haughtiness and self-regard for which he was later infamous were already apparent.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In March 1701 William III appointed Raby to go as his envoy to Frederick, elector of Brandenburg, to congratulate him upon being crowned king in Prussia, then a distinct entity from the electorate.<sup>13</sup> This new duty prevented Raby from attending much of the new Parliament which first met on 6 Feb. 1701, and which he attended only until 8 April. In his absence a number of matters came before the House which concerned him and with which he was unable to deal directly. He was a proprietor of land in the Eight Hundred Fen in Lincolnshire, and had long been concerned with the riots which had destroyed many of the embankments and had flooded much of the fenland. In July 1699 he had been appointed the head of a commission assigned to examine these disturbances, and on 12 Apr. 1701 when a bill was before the House to confirm the heirs of the original undertakers of the Lindsey Level fen drainage scheme in their rights and property, which the bill claimed included part of Raby’s Lincolnshire land, Raby submitted a petition that the committee hearings on the bill might be postponed for a month until he returned to England. <sup>14</sup> His concerns were forestalled by the bill’s rejection at the engrossment stage only a few days after his petition was brought before the House.<sup>15</sup> The other matter which arose in the House in his absence was the petition and appeal, read on 14 May, of Thomas Watson Wentworth<sup>‡</sup> against several decrees in the Irish court of chancery against him and other executors of the 2nd earl of Strafford in their long-running dispute with Sir William Wentworth<sup>‡</sup> and his heir Raby about Sir William’s alleged mismanagement of the Wentworth estates in Ireland. <sup>16</sup></p><p>This matter did confront Raby when he returned from his mission and his long involvement in this dispute with his upstart usurper (as Raby saw him) may explain the baron’s high attendance rate in the Parliament of early 1702, when he came to 82 per cent of the sitting days, his highest attendance level to that time. On 19 Jan. 1702 Raby not only submitted his answer to Watson Wentworth’s original appeal, but then submitted his own appeal against other decrees in the Irish chancery which had gone against him. The hearing of these two concurrent appeals was continuously postponed throughout February, but eventually Watson Wentworth’s appeal was heard via his counsel on 28 Feb. 1702. The hearings, which had lasted long, were continued on 2 Mar. when Raby’s counsel William Cowper*, later Earl Cowper, gave what Raby thought was a star performance. Cowper suggested that the appellants’ case made their uncle the second earl look like a gullible, easily imposed-upon, fool, as it was premised on the idea that Sir William Wentworth had tricked Strafford into entering into no fewer than 11 disadvantageous mortgages with him. With Cowper’s help, Watson Wentworth’s appeal was dismissed.<sup>17</sup> Even in the midst of intense partisan conflict in later years, Raby always expressed deep gratitude to and appreciation of Cowper for these efforts in rescuing him from Watson Wentworth’s appeal.<sup>18</sup> Raby’s cross-appeal against Watson Wentworth was successively postponed throughout March as the parties sought to reach an accommodation outside of the House through the arbitration of Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. These two mediators signed and sealed an award to Raby on 21 Apr., but it was not until near the end of the session, on 18 May, that the House formally allowed Raby to withdraw his appeal without prejudice.</p><p><em>A soldier and diplomat for Marlborough, 1702-10</em></p><p>Raby returned to Westminster from overseeing his regiment’s embarkation to Flanders when he heard the news of the king’s fatal accident, and he was appointed, along with the rest of the House present, to the committee to consider the arrangements to be made at the king’s death and Anne’s accession. On 30 Mar. 1702 he was placed on the drafting committee for the address of thanks for the queen’s speech that day. On 18 Apr. he served as chair of the committee of the whole House in considering the bill for the relief of Captain Thomas Bellew, a Protestant Irish soldier whose lands had been confiscated from him by the Irish Resumption Act of April 1700.<sup>19</sup> Raby was particularly busy during the last month of the session, in May 1702. On 7 May he was a manager for a conference on the bill for altering the oath of abrogation, and two days later he was a teller in a division. He was placed on 15 May on the committee of 15 members assigned to draw the address to the queen requesting her to prohibit all correspondence between the Allies and the French now that war had resumed, and three days later, after the address had been reported, he was one of 12 members appointed to manage a conference with the lower House. Raby was also nominated to 18 select committees during this Parliament, most of them coming in the period after the death of William III.</p><p>With the renewal of the war against France, Raby’s military services were once again needed and he saw action in Flanders during that first summer of campaigning. Occupied with his regiment in Flanders, he first sat in Anne’s first Parliament on 23 Nov. 1702, well over a month after its commencement, and after this late start, he attended just 59 per cent of that session of 1702-3, during which he was named to 17 select committees. He was heavily involved in the debates on the occasional conformity bill and in a note about a debate of 4 Dec. 1702, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, obliquely noted that ‘Lord Raby handsomely apologized for his change of sides’.<sup>20</sup> It is not immediately obvious how to interpret Nicolson’s terse comment, but perhaps Raby had originally been opposed to the bill, but was worked upon to change his mind by his new mentor, military commander and patron, the ministry leader John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. On 17 Dec. Raby was named a manager for the conference on the House’s controversial amendments to the bill and he continued to be involved in conferences on this matter on 9 and 16 Jan. 1703. Upon the report of this latter conference he voted with the ministry, but against the majority, in opposing the House’s adhering to the wrecking amendments. He also took part in the debate of 11 Jan. 1703 on whether a clause against William III’s Dutch followers in the bill to settle a revenue on Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, was a ‘tack’ on a money bill, which would directly contravene a declaration which the majority of the house had signed only a month previously against the practice of tacking foreign matters to money bills. Raby, according to Nicolson’s account, ‘professed himself a subscriber, and yet for admitting the clause, because he did not think this a money bill’.<sup>21</sup> He also acted as teller on two occasions in early 1703: on whether costs should be paid to the respondents after a petition and appeal had been dismissed by the House (28 Jan.); and on whether the phrase ‘and to the subversion of the constitution’ should be included in the House’s resolution against the intemperate language used in the Commons’ criticism of the upper House’s exoneration of Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax (18 February).<sup>22</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1702 Marlborough had tried to persuade a reluctant Raby to take up the governorship of Jamaica, and Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> was even reporting for 12 Sept. 1702 that the baron’s commission for the post was passing the seals. <sup>23</sup> This project fell through, but his military service was at last recognized and rewarded by Marlborough when Raby was made a brigadier-general of horse early in 1703. It was only following Parliament’s prorogation on 27 Feb. 1703, however, that Raby’s situation changed significantly when he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the court of Frederick I, king of Prussia, at Berlin. A character sketch of Raby at about the time of his appointment attributed Raby’s posting to the ‘inclinations’ of the king of Prussia himself and described Raby as ‘a young gentleman, <em>de bon naturel</em>, handsome, of fine understanding, and, with application, may prove a man of business’. Jonathan Swift was years later to dispute some of these points in his marginal annotations to Macky, judging Raby’s understanding ‘very bad and cannot spell’ and pointing out that in contrast to the claim that Raby was ‘of low stature’ the envoy was actually quite tall.<sup>24</sup> Raby formally embarked for his new post on 19 Mar. 1703. By his own account he had first been convinced by the queen to take it up as early in November 1702, and he appears not to have been in any particular haste to arrive, visiting Marlborough at Bonn and Sophia, electress dowager of Hanover, en route before reaching Berlin about 9 June.</p><p>Raby remained stationed in Berlin until March 1711, after having been raised in February 1705 to the more dignified post of ambassador extraordinary.<sup>25</sup> During the time of his embassy Raby continuously bombarded the ministers Godolphin and Marlborough, as well as his other diplomatic and military colleagues, with long letters full of news about Prussian politics. These missives also usually asked these patrons to satisfy him in what he saw as his ‘just pretensions’—the earldom of Strafford; military promotion and a return to his regiment; a prominent and lucrative post in England such as a commissioner of trade; or a more prestigious or more central diplomatic posting.<sup>26</sup> He received some slight satisfaction in his request for further military recognition and involvement with his promotion to major-general in April 1705, despite being far removed from the battlefield.<sup>27</sup> In the summer of 1706, when the king of Prussia was on a visit to the United Provinces after the important victory at Ramillies (in which his Prussian troops had played no part), Raby took the opportunity of travelling with him to the scene of the battle and to take part in that summer’s campaign. On the way he visited Hanover to help further the negotiations for the marriage between the king of Prussia’s son Frederick William and Sophia Dorothea, the only daughter of the elector Georg Ludwig, by which he was able to renew his close ties with the dowager electress and the House of Hanover.<sup>28</sup> Having joined the army in the Netherlands in June, he was in constant attendance upon Marlborough during the siege of Menin and was almost captured during a forage outside of Tournai.<sup>29</sup> Back in Berlin, Raby was from late August 1706 seriously considered as ambassador to the republic of Venice (which he rejected, not wishing to go to ‘an employ so remote’) and then as envoy extraordinary to the Imperial court at Vienna in the place of George Stepney, who was out of favour with the Emperor. By late October Queen Anne, at the request of the king of Prussia, who greatly appreciated Raby, had relented and confirmed him in his Berlin appointment, which was some relief to Raby as Stepney had confided in him that Vienna ‘is now the most disagreeable station we have abroad and will become more so every day’.<sup>30</sup> The duumvirs did not comply with most of Raby’s other endlessly-repeated wishes for advancement at this time, but on one point Marlborough did concede to Raby’s badgering requests, and in April 1708 promoted him again in the army, making him a lieutenant-general and backdating the promotion a full year and a half to January 1707.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Raby took advantage of a brief lull of business at the Brandenburg court to return to England from late May to early September 1708, his only extended period in England throughout the period of his embassy. <sup>32</sup> He spent his time trying to shore up his standing in England. He bought an estate at Stainborough, near Barnsley in Yorkshire, where he began to construct his grand residence of Wentworth Castle. He also took advantage of his presence in England to press his many pretensions in person to Godolphin, particularly his desire to be made a Privy Councillor and to be created earl of Strafford. Once again, these solicitations, now even made in person, were unsuccessful, to Raby’s intense frustration.</p><p>After his return to Berlin in late 1708 (after an extended tour of Italy) Raby’s letters to the ministers took on an even more querulous and badgering tone, and his ambitions became grander, as he sought either a more prestigious, or more lucrative, diplomatic post, such as a plenipotentiary at the peace negotiations of 1709 and 1710, or to be brought back into the army, as he begged of Marlborough time and time again. But he was also anxious to reassure the duumvirs that, in the context of the growing partisan conflicts in England, ‘I am not engaged in any other interest but yours, nor have I the least obligation to parties or persons but you two’. <sup>33</sup> In early 1709 Raby wrote an inordinately long—even by his high standards in this genre—letter to his military colleague and Marlborough’s aide, William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Cadogan, setting out his dissatisfaction with his position and with Marlborough’s perceived neglect of him:</p><blockquote><p>I grow old in a strange country, and am forgot by my friends in England; besides, I lose my interest in the House of Lords, where I might say, without vanity, I had more interest when I came away than any young lord in England. And what do I get here? I spend more than the queen’s pay, and see no prospect of getting out honourably. My lord duke takes no notice of designing me one of the plenipotentiaries at the general peace, to which I have all the right imaginable. In England all the good places are given as soon as they fall, that an absent man can get nothing; and in the army the duke seems not inclined to let me come again, though I would subscribe to anything he should propose, if he would let me serve again. Here I want all your friendship; for God’s sake, counsel me what I shall do. I would not be importunate to my lord duke, and I would not live in despair. <sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>Relations between Raby and Marlborough continued to deteriorate during 1710, beneath the outward politeness and flattery of their letters, as the ambassador continued to push for a place as a plenipotentiary in the peace negotiations at The Hague and Gertruydenburg.<sup>35</sup> This prompted Marlborough’s secretary Adam de Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> at one point to inform the ambassador that the duke was ‘uneasy of late, at your mentioning the same thing so often, after having received his repeated answers’ and to advise him that ‘if you would endeavour to enjoy the present, you might be very happy’.<sup>36</sup></p><p><em>Rewarded by Harley, 1710-11</em></p><p>Marlborough had suspected as far back as July 1708 that Raby was ‘in friendship’ with the disgraced former secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, ‘and all that cabal’ during his brief stay in England and therefore hoped that Godolphin would not countenance his many pretensions. In June 1709 he described Raby to his duchess as ‘impertinent and insignificant’ though feared that he could not afford to snub him too openly, as ‘it would look like malice, and that should be avoided’. <sup>37</sup> Raby probably did consult with Harley while in England, and by 1710 Harley saw Raby as a dissatisfied courtier who could be brought over to his new ministry by the promise of favour. He included Raby in a list of peers who should be ‘provided for’ while he was constituting his new ministry and preparing for the elections of October 1710.<sup>38</sup> What Harley was able to promise Raby became clear in the following year of 1711 and succeeded in binding the ambassador closely to the new ministry, to the point where Raby was able to assure Harley that:</p><blockquote><p>I am sensible of all the obligations I have to you, which confirms the just character given you of being a true friend to those you profess a kindness for and who rely upon you, as I do assure your lordship I do, and will entirely, for however before I went into England I might have been made believe my obligations were divided between your lordship and another, I am now convinced they are entirely due to your lordship; and being so, your lordship may depend, I am entirely yours; and as much so, as any man can be another’s.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote><p>In March 1711 Raby was moved from his post in Berlin, where he was deeply unhappy and frustrated, to the more important post of ambassador extraordinary to the States General at The Hague, where he replaced the Whig ambassador Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, who had negotiated the controversial Barrier Treaty which to Tory eyes gave too many advantageous trading concessions to the Dutch. At roughly the same time measures were put on foot to draw up Raby’s patent to make him earl of Strafford. Raby’s brother and correspondent Peter Wentworth, an equerry to the queen, thought the patent would be ready by late May, so that Raby would be raised to an earldom at about the same time as his patron Harley himself was to be created earl of Oxford and Mortimer. It was later decided to wait until Raby was actually in England to confer this honour on him (much to Raby’s own disappointment).<sup>40</sup> Raby arrived in England from The Hague on about 13 June 1711 (only a day or so after Parliament had been prorogued for the summer) for a stay of several eventful months. Despite a flurry of rumours that his patent of creation was imminently to pass the seals and that he was to marry Lady Elizabeth Hastings, sister and heiress of George Hastings*, 8th earl of Huntingdon, with a fortune popularly estimated to be about £100,000, neither marriage nor earldom were forthcoming for most of the summer. But in the space of only a few days in early September 1711 Strafford’s fortune and status was radically altered. First his long-delayed patent for the earldom of Strafford finally passed the seals on 4 Sept. 1711, one of a group of six new creations or promotions made in early September. The patent included a special remainder to his brother Peter Wentworth and the heirs male of his body, ensuring that any remaining heirs to the barony of Raby would also succeed to the new Strafford earldom, and thereby avoiding (at least as far as the title was concerned) a repetition of the slight he had felt on not succeeding to the entire Strafford legacy. Only two days after this honour was done him, Strafford solidified his financial future by marrying, not Elizabeth Hastings, but Anne Johnson, daughter and sole heiress of the wealthy shipbuilder Sir Henry Johnson<sup>‡</sup> of Bradenham, Buckinghamshire and of Toddington in Bedfordshire, who brought with her a portion which Swift put at £60,000 in ‘ready money, besides the rest at the father’s death’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>His diplomatic prestige was also burgeoning, for he returned to The Hague in early October armed with the details of the heads of the general peace terms that had been hammered out in secret between the French and English negotiators in late September, and he was assigned to convey these to his old patron Marlborough and to persuade a resistant States-General to accept them as the basis for negotiations.<sup>42</sup> Swift predicted that ‘there will be the devil and all to pay’ when the Dutch received this unwelcome news, ‘but we’ll make them swallow it with a pox’.<sup>43</sup> Strafford, having performed his duty with the States-General, wrote to John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], who sat in the Lords as earl of Greenwich, an account of this embassy, expressing his own disdain for both the Dutch allies and his former general and patron:</p><blockquote><p>though formerly they [the Dutch] led us by the nose, yet seeing we will be their dupes no longer, they grow mighty tractable and we may do now with them what we please. Nay they say themselves in their own justification, that it was the fault of our former ministers that nothing was done for England, for they asked no more, and that our ministers never asked anything of them they did not grant. I don’t care to rip up old sores, else here is a great many things to be answered for in this country, which has been certainly the fault of our own ministers. The duke of Marlborough is here [The Hague] but does not make that figure he used to do… I own I pity him to see the changement, but I can’t but be pleased to see some about him mortified, though he nor they never cared for me, though I did not deserve it from them, and till I found he was doing me ill offices, I never left his party.<sup>44</sup></p></blockquote><p>Strafford further showed his contempt for the Allies and their war effort by his attempts, encouraged by the ministry in Westminster, to block Prince Eugene of Savoy from embarking from The Hague for his triumphant visit to England.</p><p>Following this commission to the Dutch, it was understandable that Strafford was nominated in November to be one of the plenipotentiaries for the planned peace negotiations at Utrecht, which did not formally begin until 29 Jan. 1712. His colleagues were to be the experienced diplomat John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol, lord privy seal, and initially the poet-diplomat Matthew Prior<sup>‡</sup>. <sup>45</sup> Jonathan Swift wrote to ‘Stella’ at the time of these appointments that ‘Lord Strafford is as proud as hell, and how he will bear one of Prior’s mean birth on an equal character with him, I know not’.<sup>46</sup> It appears that it may have been the queen herself who objected to a man of Prior’s ‘mean extraction’ being placed in such a prominent position, but Strafford did show his infamous pride by his constant chafing under his position as second plenipotentiary, below Robinson, while outranking the bishop in terms of social precedence.<sup>47</sup> There were continuous rumours of discord between Strafford and Robinson during the negotiations.<sup>48</sup> Swift confided to Stella in February 1712 that the two plenipotentiaries ‘are both long practised in business, but neither of them of much parts. Strafford has some life and spirit, but is infinitely proud, and wholly illiterate’.<sup>49</sup> Robinson for his part was anxious to insist that he and the earl worked well together and told his friends that Strafford ‘is a very active and vigilant man and that there is a very happy agreement between them’, though few seemed inclined to believe these reassurances.<sup>50</sup></p><p>From the time of his return to The Hague in November 1711, Strafford was amply kept informed of the tumultuous proceedings in Parliament concerning the peace negotiations from regular political correspondents, his own brother Peter Wentworth, an equerry to the queen, and his friend, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and Privy Councillor, William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton.<sup>51</sup> At the same time he was receiving regular news and advice from the copious letters of the secretary of state Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke.<sup>52</sup> Through these letters Strafford learned of the changes at Westminster at the turn of 1711-12, with the dismissal of Marlborough and the creation of 12 new peers, and would have been kept informed of the growing opposition in England to the peace terms he was negotiating, and particularly to the apparent concessions being made to the French. ‘I must tell you the French proposals do not go down well here’, Berkeley of Stratton confided to Strafford on 15 Feb. 1712. ‘Besides Dunkirk which they [the French] must be paid for, I do not see they yield anything, which does not look like people who have had the worse of the war’.<sup>53</sup></p><p><em>The Peace of Utrecht and the Lords, 1712-13</em></p><p>Strafford encountered this opposition first-hand when he came over to England to present the peace terms in mid-May 1712 at the tail end of a highly contentious session of Parliament, where his presence was bound to increase the partisan wrangling. He had indeed already ‘appeared’ in this 1711-12 session when on 14 Mar. 1712, at the second reading of the bill for making sheriffs’ accounts more easy, John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, presented to the House a petition from the countess of Strafford on behalf of her husband asking that counsel be heard regarding clauses in the bill affecting Strafford’s farm of the revenue of the post fines. This and other petitions regarding the sheriffs’ accounts bill were heard on 17 Mar. 1712, and by 25 Mar. Berkeley of Stratton could tell Strafford with some relief ‘that the sheriff’s bill is not in a likely way of passing, for after three days fruitlessly spent about it they have been forced to refer it to a private committee, where in all probability it will draw in length and come to nothing’.<sup>54</sup> On 6 May, about a week before Strafford arrived in England, Berkeley of Stratton warned him that a bill to set up a commission of enquiry into all crown grants made since the Revolution was on the anvil in the Commons, which again directly affected Strafford with his grant of the farm of the post-fines.<sup>55</sup> But the bill was a government measure promoted by the ministry and Oxford, foreseeing strong opposition to it in the House, asked Strafford not to vote against it. More than a year later, at a time when Strafford was once again feeling insufficiently rewarded by the ministry, he reminded Oxford of his compliance to his wishes on 20 May 1712, when the bill for a commission came to its third reading in the house:</p><blockquote><p>all I can brag on to show you my gratitude to your Lordship is that when you desired me to forbear voting against the bill for resumption of grants, though the thing then seemed to turn on my single vote and I had so great a stake depending and had even the queen’s leave to vote as I would, I then told your Lordship if you would take it as a mark of my friendship and respect for you I would not go to the House, which you was pleased to say you would and afterwards to assure me you took it for such a mark of friendship you would never forget it.<sup>56</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the division that day, the ministry, ‘notwithstanding the creation of twelve new peers and the influence of my lord treasurer’s staff’, lost the bill, though only very narrowly as the voices were equal on each side – confirming Strafford’s later claim that the outcome depended on his single vote and abstention.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Strafford sat in the House, for the first time in over nine years, at its next sitting on 22 May 1712 and was formally introduced as the earl of Strafford, almost a year after he had received his patent of creation. It may not have been a coincidence that the queen also attended the House that day and one commentator speculated ‘and then perhaps the world will be appraised of the meaning of Lord Strafford’s journey, which hitherto continues a mystery’.<sup>58</sup> Evidently there was a sense that with Strafford’s arrival there would be news of developments in the treaty negotiations, and the earl’s first intervention in the House did indeed concern the peace. On 28 May 1712 Halifax revealed to the House the existence of the ministry’s orders to the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, not to engage in offensive measures against France pending the negotiations. This sparked a fierce and lengthy debate in the House—three hours long according to one commentator—and a Whig-inspired motion for an address to the queen requesting her to order Ormond to engage the French in battle. Strafford, at the heart of the peace negotiations which relied on this clandestine cessation of arms, argued strongly in favour of these ‘restraining orders’ and at one point had an altercation with his former patron Marlborough who had questioned the veracity of one of his statements, prompting Strafford effectively to call his former general both a liar and a villain. At the division Strafford voted against the address, which was defeated 68 voices to 40.<sup>59</sup> After this controversial division, Oxford sought to reassure the House that ‘there was not a separate peace, and that the same would be foolish, knavish and villainous’, and to confirm this assurance, Strafford successfully moved for an address to the queen requesting that she cause to be laid before the House the papers relating to the previous peace negotiations at The Hague and at Gertruydenberg 1709-10.<sup>60</sup></p><p>One commentator predicted that this row would prompt the ministry to lay the peace terms before Parliament in a week’s time.<sup>61</sup> Sure enough, on 6 June 1712 the queen delivered a long speech to both houses setting forth the agreed treaty conditions. The following day the speech was debated, and Marlborough roundly condemned the ministry, for ‘the measures entered into, and pursued in England for this year past, were contrary to her Majesty’s engagements with the Allies; did sully the triumphs and glories of her reign, and would render the English name odious to all other nations’. In response, ‘Lord Strafford spoke a great deal and with a notable malice against the Dutch, not without reflexions, as was judged, upon my Lord Marlborough’. What in effect Strafford delivered, in an ungrammatical and halting speech (he ‘had not expressed himself in all the purity of the English tongue’ as one commentator obliquely put it), was a harangue against the Dutch resistance to the Peace, which he attributed to ‘some members’ of the House ‘who maintained a secret correspondence with them and endeavoured to persuade them to carry on the war, feeding them with hopes that they should be supported by a strong party here’. Marlborough responded to this transparent aspersion on him ‘very strongly in his mild way’, but Cowper, to whom Strafford always expressed friendship and appreciation for his earlier role in his appeal against Watson Wentworth, was far less mild. He regaled the House with the comment that</p><blockquote><p>this noble Lord [Strafford] had been so long abroad, that he had almost forgot, not only the language, but the constitution of his own country. That, according to our laws, it could never be suggested as a crime in the meanest subject, much less in any member of that august assembly, to hold correspondence with our Allies: such Allies especially, whose interest her Majesty had declared to be inseparable from her own, in her speech at the opening of this session. Whereas it would be a hard matter to justify, and reconcile, either to our own laws, or the laws of honour and justice, the conduct of some persons, in treating clandestinely with the common enemy without the participation of the Allies.<sup>62</sup></p></blockquote><p>Following this debate, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, moved to include a clause at the end of the proposed address of thanks for the queen’s speech that would encourage the queen and her allies to work together for a ‘mutual guarantee’ that would avoid any of them engaging in a separate peace with France. After Wharton’s mistrustful clause was rejected by a majority of 45 voices, Strafford was placed on the committee of 19 members assigned to draft the address of thanks.<sup>63</sup> A week later the House passed a series of motions expunging from the Journal all the reasons given in the protest of 28 May against the rejection of the address requesting the queen to allow Ormond to engage France in offensive war. It was noted that these motions were largely redundant as the offensive (to the ministry) reasons for the protest had already been printed and widely distributed, contrary to a standing order of the House against publicizing the proceedings of the House. Strafford was placed on the committee entrusted with discovering the printer and publisher of the reasons, and bringing them before the House.</p><p>Almost immediately after the session was prorogued on 21 June 1712, Strafford was sent back to the continent with specific orders from the queen to pursue the peace regardless of the concerns of the Dutch. He spent the next several months helping to hammer out the peace in Utrecht, while the constant delays in the negotiations led to a series of postponements and prorogations of Parliament, as the ministry was anxious not to reconvene the Houses until it could present a comprehensive peace treaty. Berkeley of Stratton attended virtually every single one of the prorogations of Parliament from July 1712 to March 1713, and he expressed in his many letters to Strafford his frustration over the halting progress of the peace negotiations.<sup>64</sup> Strafford himself was not inactive in domestic politics during these months, and he was able to extract from the ministry further office, honours, and income for his diplomatic services. He returned briefly to England for a period from 12 Oct. to about 6 Dec. 1712, when he was reported to have brought the treaty by which the States General formally agreed to the cessation of arms to which Britain, France and Spain had agreed earlier that summer.<sup>65</sup> While in England, he was present to attend a prorogation of the House on 6 Nov. where he acted as a commissioner of prorogation. He may have sat by virtue of his new office for in the last days of September his appointment as first lord of the Admiralty had been made official, and he took advantage of his sojourn in England to wheedle out of the Oxford ministry a grant of a further bonus of £2,000 p.a. on top of the usual salary of this office. Further reward awaited him during his stay when on 25 Oct. he was elected a knight of the Garter, and for several months afterwards Strafford badgered the ministry to be allowed dispensation to wear his star of the Garter while conducting negotiations on the continent, even though he was still only a knight-elect of the order. He received support for this licence by his co-negotiator Bishop Robinson, who appeared well-versed in the regulations of the order.<sup>66</sup> A fellow knight-elect, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, reassured Strafford that he, despite what the ambassador had been told, had no objection to Strafford’s wearing his star while abroad in Utrecht—as long as he did not dare do so in England.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Strafford was still at Utrecht or The Hague for the entirety of the session of April-July 1713 when the Treaty of Utrecht was finally laid before Parliament, but he was in effect an invisible presence at Westminster in all the proceedings of that spring as it was largely his handiwork that was being so hotly debated. He was kept regularly informed of how the treaties were faring in Parliament by his brother Peter, and particularly by Berkeley of Stratton, who was only able to sigh with despair in June 1713 that ‘my head is so full of the business of trade, with hearing of nothing else, within and without the House of Lords, that it puts out all other thoughts, and yet [I] know so little of it, that I should get no credit with speaking of it’.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Strafford remained in the Netherlands after this session to tie up the many remaining loose ends and to continue as ambassador to the States-General, and was not in England when he was formally installed as a knight of the Garter by proxy on 4 Aug. 1713, a ceremony reported to him by his courtier brother Peter.<sup>69</sup> Soon after Strafford had another punctilio of honour over which to fret and obsess. He had long resented the formal precedence over him of Bishop Robinson in the British delegation at Utrecht, which Robinson enjoyed as lord privy seal even though Strafford was above him in social rank. This situation was altered when Robinson was replaced as lord privy seal, and promoted within the Church to the see of London, in late August 1713. Robinson’s requests to return home, as he perceived that he was ‘under a disgrace in the face of all Europe’ by his demotion which placed his former underling Strafford above him, were refused by the ministry. <sup>70</sup> Strafford for his part insisted that a new commission for the plenipotentiaries needed to be drawn up reflecting their change of positions and offices, in which he assumed he would be preeminent.<sup>71</sup> A compromise was eventually reached where a new commission was issued dividing the diplomatic responsibilities of Strafford, who was to deal with Spain, France and Italy, and Robinson, who was to work on northern European diplomacy, with a special remit to accommodate the Emperor and France.<sup>72</sup></p><p>This arrangement still did not satisfy Strafford and he came over ‘in disgust’ to England for another brief stay in mid-October 1713. Although in September 1713 his brother Peter had exulted to him that ‘we Tories carry the elections everywhere’, Strafford did not remain in England to attend the first session of the new Parliament.<sup>73</sup> He was back at The Hague and Utrecht by 13 Feb. 1714 when Bolingbroke was able to inform him of the imminent opening of Parliament by a commission from the ailing queen.<sup>74</sup> Once again the absent Strafford was kept informed of proceedings by his regular correspondents Peter Wentworth, Berkeley of Stratton, and a recent arrival in the House of Lords, his cousin Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later Earl) Bathurst.<sup>75</sup> He also heard frequently from Bolingbroke, who continued to assert his confidence in the Tories and their ultimate success, despite the divisions between them:</p><blockquote><p>Had we dared in the last session, as we have done in this, to oppose at the same time the Whigs and those who detach themselves occasionally from us, the peace had been long ago sanctified, commerce opened with France, and the cry about the Protestant succession silenced. The reverse of this we did and the reverse of this happened… But my lord to stand for more than a month the severest inquisition into the conduct of three the busiest years of a century, to account not only for what has been done but also for every step by which it was done, neither to divert enquiries by the common artifice of courts, nor to screen ourselves behind the throne, these considerations give me I confess some satisfaction, since the conclusion of all that the opposers have been able to fix no blame, nor to charge any one man.<sup>76</sup></p></blockquote><p><em>The Hanoverian Succession and opposition 1714-39</em></p><p>Strafford continued his abrasive diplomacy with the States General during these months after the Peace, when there were further discussions about the Dutch Barrier, thrown into question by the attitude of the Emperor and his vice-regents in the Austrian Netherlands. As Strafford confided to the exiled Jacobite Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, in Brussels, he had little sympathy for the Dutch, who ‘deserve a little of that uneasiness they have caused us by their opposition of every measure the Queen has taken’.<sup>77</sup> He was still stationed at The Hague when the queen died on 1 Aug. 1714. Owing to his position as first lord of the Admiralty he was a regent or lord justice for the interim awaiting the arrival of the elector of Hanover, now George I, to Britain. The issue quickly arose whether he should be recalled from his diplomatic post to take up his role in the government of the realm, or whether he should remain where he was. While the lord treasurer, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, was in favour of recalling him to Westminster, many of the Whigs in the regency, who formed the majority of the lords justices, overruled the duke and left Strafford to twist in the wind at The Hague.<sup>78</sup> Strafford himself wrote to Cowper asking his advice on how he was to take the requisite oaths as lord justice while abroad.<sup>79</sup> The autumn months saw anxious correspondence between him and Berkeley of Stratton concerning the anticipated changes in the ministry upon the king’s arrival and the feared ostracism of the Tories. <sup>80</sup> Strafford’s position was rendered fragile by George I’s evident preference for the Whigs and his dislike of the Peace which Strafford had helped to negotiate. From the autumn of 1714 Strafford was divested in quick succession of all his offices – as ambassador, colonel, first lord of Admiralty and Privy Councillor – and was never appointed to further office under the Hanoverians.</p><p>Berkeley of Stratton had worryingly informed Strafford in October 1714 that ‘the Whigs are inveterate against you’, but took some comfort that ‘I reckon much their spleen will evaporate in words, and since the bishop of London is taken into the Council, I know nothing you can be accused of, of which he is not a sharer’.<sup>81</sup> This confidence was misplaced, for with the Whigs in power again, Strafford alone, and not Robinson, was blamed for the ‘dishonourable’ Peace of Utrecht. He joined the other Tory leaders Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Ormond as the principal targets of the Whig attacks and campaign of retribution in the new Parliament.</p><p>Strafford’s successful deflection of impeachment and the remainder of his parliamentary career will be examined further in the second part of this work. Strafford died of the stone on 15 Nov. 1739 at his house of Wentworth Castle at Stainborough.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WENTWORTH, William (1626-95) |
<p><strong><surname>WENTWORTH</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1626–95)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1640-41 Bar. Raby; <em>cr. </em>1 Dec. 1641 (a minor) earl of STRAFFORD; <em>rest. </em>19 May 1662 2nd earl of STRAFFORD (on reversal of father’s attainder) |
|
First sat 27 Apr. 1660; last sat 5 Mar. 1694 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 8 June 1626, o. surv. s. of Sir Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, 2nd bt (later earl of Strafford) and 2nd w. Arabella (<em>d</em>. 5 Oct. 1631), da. of John Holles<sup>†</sup>, earl of Clare. <em>educ</em>. privately, c.1633-38; Trinity, Dublin, matric. 12 Jan. 1638; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 21 Mar. 1642; travelled abroad (France), 1642-51.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 27 Feb. 1655 Henrietta Mary (1630-85), da. of James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) 18 Sept. 1694 (with c.£5,000), Henrietta (<em>d</em>.1732), da. of Fréderic Charles de Roye de la Rochefoucauld, comte de Roye and Roussy [France], <em>s.p</em>. kntd. 28 June 1635; KG 1 Apr. 1661. <em>d</em>. 16 Oct. 1695; <em>will</em> 9 Sept. 1695; pr. 7 Nov. 1695 at York and 2 Feb. 1697 at Armagh [I].<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 4 Dec. 1674-21 Apr. 1679; PC [I] ? Nov. 1677-c. Mar. 1685.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Capt. tp. of horse [I], 1641-?51.<sup>4</sup></p><p>FRS 1668-85.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by R. Walker, 1654, Museums Sheffield; memorial sculpture in marble by J. van Nost, 1695, Lady Chapel, south aisle, York Minster.</p> |
<p>William, earl of Strafford, lived constantly in the shadow of the reputation, both good and ill, of his father, who had been attainted and executed in May 1641 for his role as Charles I’s most ‘thorough’ minister. The younger Strafford was able to benefit from the sympathies of many of those who saw his father as the first martyr of the royalist cause. In the first few years of the Restoration he was made a knight of the Garter and his father’s attainder was reversed. At the same time the disruptions of the 1640s had left the family estate in ruins, and the 2nd earl spent most of his time and energy trying to reclaim and consolidate his father’s possessions and to relieve himself of the large debt charged on them. Despite his father’s reputation, both as a highly competent administrator and councillor and as a royalist martyr, he was never appointed to an office of responsibility, except for a brief period as a Privy Councillor. Besides, his frequent attacks of gout and other debilitating illnesses frequently kept him away from the House. There was some truth to a contemporary’s comment that the 2nd earl was ‘so little’ the son of his father.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Charles I had tried to rectify his acquiescence in Strafford’s execution by almost immediately after his death in May 1641 granting the 1st earl’s trustees access to his attainted estates to raise money for his substantial debts, calculated at £107,000, and to provide for his children.<sup>6</sup> In addition a patent of creation passed the seals on 1 Dec. 1641 giving the underage William Wentworth all his father’s old titles—Baron Raby, Viscount Wentworth, earl of Strafford. The elder Strafford’s protégé James Butler*, marquess of Ormond [I] (later duke of Ormond), gave the new earl a commission as captain of a troop of horse during the wars in Ireland in the 1640s, but this was purely an honorific appointment. Strafford was allowed to leave England in late 1642 and stayed on the continent, principally in France, for the next nine years.<sup>7</sup> He returned to England in 1652. Thereafter he tried to shore up his troubled estate with the help of his uncle Sir George Wentworth<sup>‡</sup> and his cousins the Wentworths of Wooley, Yorkshire.<sup>8</sup> He further solidified his place in royalist circles by marrying in 1655 Henrietta Mary, the second daughter of the late James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby, who had joined the elder Strafford in the pantheon of martyrs for the king through his public beheading at Bolton after the defeat at Worcester. In the wake of the rising of 1655 John Thurloe’s<sup>‡</sup> spies insisted that Strafford be arrested, as he had been ‘deeply engaged’ in the plot; and Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> received frequent reports on Strafford, who from 1656 was living in the Lancashire residence of the royalist heroine Charlotte de la Trémouille, countess dowager of Derby.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, in the weeks before the first meeting of the Convention both the presbyterian Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and the royalist John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, saw Strafford as a potential royalist peer in the re-established House of Lords. Mordaunt reported to Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, that</p><blockquote><p>I have made it my business with the earls of Oxford [Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford] and Strafford to put them to asserting their privileges, who have equal right, without exceptions, with the other [peers], … I hope at least so far to defeat the old lords as they shall not sit, unless they admit the others.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>Mordaunt’s persuasions succeeded, as Strafford and Oxford appear to have held discussions with George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, as representatives of the ‘young lords’, those who had come of age or succeeded to their title during the Interregnum and who had not fought in the conflict. They came to an agreement with the general that they would be able to take their seats in the House with his permission. In the wake of the unexpected entry of a number of these young lords into the House, done without Monck’s knowledge and to his annoyance, on 26 Apr. Strafford dashed off a brief note to the general asking for clarification:</p><blockquote><p>My Lord, I understood we had been all clearly absolved of any engagement and free to go into the House though however I confess it had been fit to have understood it directly from your Lordship and must desire your pardon for my haste in my other letter. I shall not offer to go into the House till I know certainly from your Lordship I am free in respect of what was promised and I doubt not but your Lordship will find the same from us all besides that could meet together, namely my Lord of Oxford, my Lord of Bridgwater [John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater] and my Lord of Bolingbroke [Oliver St John*, 2nd earl of Bolingbroke].</p></blockquote><p>The next day, Strafford and 18 other peers were able to take their seats in the House for the first time in the wake of Oxford’s formal request, initially opposed by many of those lords already sitting in the House, to be escorted into the House by two earls, in recognition of his status as the premier earl of England.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Despite his apparent eagerness to assert his rights and attend the House in the first days of the Convention, Strafford did not spend a great deal of time in the House, coming to only 55 per cent of the Convention’s sittings. On his first day he was named to the committee for privileges and the committee to draw up heads for a conference on ways to settle the ‘distractions’ of the nation. On 1-2 May he was placed, first, on the drafting committee for an answer to the Declaration of Breda and then on the committee for petitions. On 9 May he was one of those chosen to decide which recently-passed votes of the Convention were to be shown to the king by the delegates about to visit him in Breda. From that point to the dissolution of 29 Dec. he was named only to a further five committees. On 14 June in a meeting of the committee for privileges about the requirement of peers to take the oath of allegiance, he objected that the oath’s constraints on conscience was a breach of privilege of peerage, and moved instead ‘that an oath may be framed not touching upon doctrine but subjection, to be administered as the oath of allegiance was accustomed to be done’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>At the time of the coronation it seemed fitting that Strafford, son of the first royalist martyr, should be made a knight of the garter. He was granted the dignity on 1 Apr. 1661 and installed a fortnight later, the first such installation at Windsor since the Restoration. He was present on 8 May, the first day of the Cavalier Parliament, and within a week (13 May) a bill was introduced into the House to reverse his father’s attainder. It may have been introduced by Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, who in the early committee meetings on the bill heavily amended its wording. By this the intent of the bill changed from merely reversing an existing and valid act to ‘making void’ a measure which was supposedly rendered invalid owing to the intimidation under which it had originally been passed. It was an argument that opened up the possibility that most of the legislation of 1641 could be disposed of in the same way. Most in the House could not acquiesce to such a sweeping move. On Dorset’s report on 21 May the House voted that the words ‘null and void’ should be left out of the bill, which was then recommitted three days later.<sup>13</sup> It was not reported again from committee until 22 Jan. 1662, after the recess, when it was again linked to a larger agenda to abolish all the legislation since November 1640. On that same day Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, moved that there be a debate on repealing all the acts of the Long Parliament.<sup>14</sup> The bill was once again referred back to the committee, which was consequently enlarged, and, after further discussion, it was finally decided to replace ‘repealing and making void’ with the word ‘reversing’ in the title of the bill and to excise the section on Strafford’s advising that Charles I concede to his execution. In this form the bill passed the House at its third reading on 17 Feb. and received the royal assent at the end of the session on 19 May.<sup>15</sup> By this act the first earl’s titles and precedence were restored. In consequence Strafford now ‘succeeded’ as 2nd earl to his father’s original creation of January 1640.</p><p>Even before his father’s title was formally restored to him, Strafford was relying on the mood of royalist reaction in Parliament to regain prestige and privilege. On 31 May 1661 he brought a case of breach of privilege to the attention of his peers.<sup>16</sup> On 1 July petitions were presented to the House to restore the Council of the North, abolished by statute in 1641 partly because of its close association with the first earl of Strafford. Strafford saw himself as a natural candidate to step into his father’s shoes as president of the council, but there were many rivals for this powerful position, the most aggressive being George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. Strafford also suffered from his father’s lingering reputation among the northern gentry. At a meeting of the Privy Council on 20 Dec., as the government was trying to draw up a bill for the re-establishment of the council, the king passed to Clarendon (as Hyde had become) a note reporting ‘the great alarm amongst the Yorkshire gentlemen’ at the prospect of a Strafford presidency, for ‘I find that he is not at all beloved in that country’. Clarendon responded, ‘I believe you can hardly choose anybody with whom the rest would be pleased, there be 3 or 4 would have it for themselves, and sure he is as fit as any of them’.<sup>17</sup> The bill, introduced in January 1662, was opposed by many of the northern nobility and gentry and quickly was dropped in the press of other legislation in that session. There were rumours of other projects to establish the council in 1663 and again in 1664 (in the wake of the Farnley Wood Plot). In November 1664 Strafford wrote to Ormond complaining that he and Clarendon had promised him the presidency, but it now appeared to be headed towards Buckingham.<sup>18</sup> Nothing came of this either and after 1665 no subsequent efforts were made to revive the council.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Strafford only attended a little less than three-fifths of the meetings of this first session of Parliament (1661-2) and in the subsequent session of 1663 he came to just less than half of the sittings. He was attending the House at the time George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, submitted his charges against Clarendon, and Wharton placed Strafford among those opposed to this attempted impeachment of the lord chancellor. By March 1664 it was being suggested that ‘he is of an unactive spirit and therefore unfit for employment’. Strafford himself attributed this reputation to ‘an ill custom of being often late in a morning’ by which ‘I may have given colour for some to doubt I would not be so active upon occasion’. To disprove these allegations he planned to join James*, duke of York, at sea in 1664, ‘but it has been so little approved and I have been so hardly dealt with that … I neither intend again to desire employments nor anything else’. He dropped out of parliamentary life throughout 1664-6, not attending a single session. He only registered his proxy once during these years, on 29 Mar. 1664 in favour of his kinsman Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Wentworth, who held it until the prorogation on 17 May. However, in preparation for the abortive session of July 1667 he did write to Gervase Holles<sup>‡</sup>, urging him to press forward both in the Commons and in committee the estate bill of their mutual kinsman Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Strafford reappeared in the House two weeks into the session of autumn 1667. He attended half of its sittings, and was present consistently during the hearings on the impeachment of Clarendon. Strafford signed the protest of 12 Dec. against the bill banishing and disenabling the lord chancellor. Probably the attack on Clarendon, and the weak evidence of treason produced to try him, reminded him too much of his own father’s trial. He entered in the Journal his own personal protest against the bill, consisting of seven detailed points. He was undoubtedly alluding to his father’s trial in the last point, where he stated, ‘The commitment upon a general impeachment hath been heretofore, and may be again, of most evil and dangerous consequence’.</p><p>On 16 Dec. he chaired the committee on the bill against atheism, and over the following years he began to express an interest in religious issues and provide advice on them, even when not present in the House.<sup>21</sup> Initially he was a supporter of the comprehension of Protestant nonconformists and in May 1670 rejoiced with his kinsman Gervase Holles that the Dissenters ‘have seemed willing to comply if some things had been granted to them which might have been’. By 13 Oct. 1673 he was willing to give a wide degree of latitude to nonconformists, and even to extend some generosity to Catholics. As he expressed to Holles:</p><blockquote><p>As to matters of religion especially, I am much against violence, but none wish the securing of the Protestant religion more, which besides other discreet and moderate ways, I think as to the Papists might be best done by allowing them a set number of priests for every country ... and for the nonconformists … I should wish their ministers were dispensed for using the cross in baptism, ring in marriage, surplice, and some other lesser matters … hoping they might in a little time be wiser and in the mean that we might all live like good subjects together in Christian charity.<sup>22</sup> </p></blockquote><p>Later in the decade, in the wake of the Popish Plot, and with the situation in Ireland firmly in mind, he took an increasingly hard line against Catholics. His advocacy of comprehension did not extend to James II’s policies of toleration and dispensation.</p><p>He did not attend the session of autumn 1669, nor the first few months of the following one of 1670-71. His uncle Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, held his proxy for the periods of 8 Nov.-11 Dec. 1669 and then again from 16 Feb. to 2 Dec. 1670, on which day Strafford returned to the House. It was Holles who apparently introduced to the House on 29 Mar. 1670 the absent Strafford’s petition for a reversal of a chancery decree of 8 June 1669 ordering Strafford to pay £1,500 to the London draper William Wandesford as a composition for debts incurred by both the first and second earls from 1638. Wandesford submitted his answer on 4 Apr., but the matter was not taken up again until 7 Nov. 1670, after the summer recess, and on 15 Nov. the House ordered that a bill of review would be admitted to Strafford.<sup>23</sup> This apparently was not sufficient for the earl, who began to attend the House himself from early December when he asked more boldly that the peers themselves rehear the cause from the beginning. On 12 Dec. the House refused this petition, but Holles intervened so that Strafford’s offensive petition was merely withdrawn and not formally rejected.<sup>24</sup></p><p>He continued to sit regularly for the remainder of the session, and even chaired a meeting on the Haslington church bill on 13 Jan. 1671. After the session was prorogued on 22 Apr. Strafford was left without the help of his peers, and in July chancery issued out a commission for part of Strafford’s estate to be sequestered for payment of the debt.<sup>25</sup> Over the succeeding decades Strafford became even more preoccupied with salvaging what he could of his embattled estate. In 1673 a pension of £2,000 a year was granted to him, but seldom paid. This soon became the overriding matter touched on in just about all his letters to his many correspondents in the following years.<sup>26</sup> For help he looked to his father’s old friend Ormond, with whom Strafford became linked by the marriage of Ormond’s granddaughter to Strafford’s nephew, William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, in 1673.<sup>27</sup> Ormond duly wrote to Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, in August of that year that ‘nothing but [Strafford’s] privilege of parliament keeps him from being turned out of his dwelling house by creditors, and nothing can prevent that in a prorogation but his Majesty’s giving order that his pension be paid him’.<sup>28</sup> Strafford found another potential protector in the new lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), who in December 1674 managed to have Strafford sworn of the Privy Council. In July 1675 Strafford emphasized to Danby his reliance on his unpaid pension by calculating that he owed £20,000-30,000 in debts and that his houses, including his principal residence of Wentworth Woodhouse, were mortgaged for up to £16,000, while he was only receiving £3,000 annually in rents.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Strafford came to all but three of the sittings of the session of spring 1675, the first he had attended since April 1671. Danby expected him to support his non-resisting test bill and certainly Strafford’s name does not appear in any of the protests against the bill of that spring. On 5 May 1675 Strafford complained to the House formally that a short pamphlet had been published, ‘The Case of William Eyres, esq’, which impugned both him and his father. Eyres claimed that the first earl had illegally cozened the barony of Shelalagh, with its valuable forest, and castle of Carnow (both in county Wicklow) out of Eyre’s father-in-law, Calcot Chambres, and that the second earl was still in illegal possession of the land. On 11 May the matter was referred to the committee for privileges and on 3 June Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, supplied evidence to the committee in favour of Strafford and John Crew*, Baron Crew, one of the trustees of the estate, who was also attacked in the pamphlet. It was decided that Holles, Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, and Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, would talk to Strafford about the case to effect some sort of conciliation, but the session was prorogued before the matter could be taken further.<sup>30</sup> </p><p>Strafford took his seat again on 15 Feb. 1677, the first day of the long session of 1677-78. He was then absent for just over a month but on 24 Feb. registered his proxy with John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who sat in the Lords as earl of Guilford). The proxy was vacated when Strafford returned to the House on 19 March. He continued to sit intermittently until the first adjournment of 16 Apr., and then during all of the sittings in the brief meeting of May. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, at the time of his imprisonment in the spring of 1677, regarded Strafford as ‘worthy’ in his political views. In August, as he was making plans for a trip to his estates in Ireland, Strafford was able to get both the king and Ormond to provide him with a warrant for a place on the Irish privy council, although it is not clear when, if ever, he was formally sworn to the board.<sup>31</sup> He came to no meetings of the House in January-May 1678 and made a tour of his lands in Ireland in the summer of 1678. At the same time he was clearly angling to succeed Ormond as lord lieutenant, as his father had been, an ambition which for a time Ormond was able to indulge, until Strafford’s attacks began to strike too close to home.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Strafford was back in England to attend assiduously the final session of the Cavalier Parliament. On 15 Nov. 1678 he voted against the motion to include the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the other oaths in the Test Act. He took an increasingly hard line against Catholics and constantly warned the House and the committee examining the Popish Plot of the danger of popery in Ireland and Ormond’s ineffective measures against it. After the session’s end Strafford felt the need to apologize to Ormond for what he felt were exaggerated rumours of what he was saying in the House that may have come to Ormond’s ears: ‘it was reported all over Dublin I had said in the Parliament your Grace minded nothing in Ireland but playing at cards, dancing and revelling’. Strafford’s only excuse was ‘though I cannot discourse so wisely as others can, yet I have not been used to make such foolish speeches in Parliament as these’ and</p><blockquote><p>but that I might have expressed what I did many respects much better I do not at all doubt. Your Grace may easily call to mind that few of us are so clearly masters of our language in Parliament as not to make greater suspicions that those you have conceived of me.</p></blockquote><p>Despite these excuses, Strafford received in early March 1679 a cold and formal letter from Ormond, expressing disappointment in his comments, but still professing his service out of due reverence for his father’s memory.<sup>33</sup> On 26 Dec. 1678 Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, registered his proxy with Strafford and on that same day Strafford was able to use it in voting against the House’s insistence that money for the disbandment of the army be placed in the exchequer. The following day he voted for the commitment of Danby following his impeachment by the Commons. This latter stance took many by surprise and Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt, noted that:</p><blockquote><p>The king, observing that the earl of Strafford was violent against my Lord of Danby in the House (which indeed was from a personal pique he had to him for obstructing a pension which he had from the crown) told me he wondered at it, since his father came to that unfortunate end by the same method of proceeding.<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>Danby fully expected Strafford to continue his opposition to him in the new Parliament called for spring 1679. Yet when it came to the issue of the Commons’ bill threatening the former lord treasurer with attainder, Strafford did, as the king had suggested, remember the fate of his own father. He opposed the bill and appears to have voted against it, even when it passed the House in an amended form, which mitigated the threatened penalty to banishment, on 4 April. Ten days later, after the Commons had had the better of a free conference on the Houses’ continuing dispute over this bill, Strafford was granted leave to withdraw before the question on the bill’s passage was put, ostensibly because of illness.<sup>35</sup> A contemporary still included him among those voting against the passage of the bill that day. Strafford continued his attacks on Ormond’s administration that spring, when within barely a week of Parliament’s convening, he alarmed the committee established to examine the Plot with news of the dangerous situation in Ireland, ‘and my Lord Shaftesbury in his ingenuous manner shook his head and said he did not like the management of affairs there’. On 15 Apr. Strafford was one of the seven lords, most of them with Irish connections, appointed to a sub-committee to consider the present state of Ireland and two days later this sub-committee was delegated to present the king with an address advising him to give orders for the more stringent treatment of Catholics there.<sup>36</sup> In late April he supported Clare in his opposition to the description of Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, as a ‘prince of the blood’ in the declaration announcing the remodelled Privy Council. While Clare objected that the term was not known in English law, Strafford objected to ‘it being a French term of art, and of a large extent there; and that already the king’s natural sons did greatly encroach on the ancient nobility by placing themselves above all others of the same classes’. This argument made many in the House uneasy and ‘as it had the bad luck so abruptly to be begun, so had it the good luck to end quietly, neither being answered nor seconded by any, but fell of itself’.<sup>37</sup> On 8 and 10 May Strafford voted in favour of forming a joint committee with the Commons to discuss the procedures for the trial of the impeached lords, and on both days he signed the dissents when this proposal was defeated. In the last days of the session he subscribed with the members of the country opposition to a number of further dissents—against the directions to inform the House’s committee consulting with the Commons that the House would try the five Catholic peers before Danby (23 May); and against two resolutions of the House to insist that the bishops could sit in judgment in capital trials (23 and 27 May). In all he attended 92 per cent of sitting days in the second, longer, session of the Parliament.</p><p>He missed the following two Parliaments entirely, but gave his first cousin once removed George Savile*, earl (later marquess) of Halifax, his political views in this tumultuous period. Just before the Parliament in Oxford in March 1681 Strafford was concerned that ‘I see no use yet made of this interval, which … were to be wished twice as long and yet too little to let one week slip’. He nevertheless expressed confidence in Halifax’s ability to manage the Parliament and sent him his best wishes. Strafford excused himself from attending through another attack of the gout. After Parliament’s abrupt dissolution Strafford continued to hope throughout the autumn of 1681 that another Parliament would be imminently convened and that ‘our great concerns to bring back the duke [York] to our Church … ought now to be the farthest pressed that is possible. … I am very sorry our churchmen have done so little’. At the same period he was writing to John Tillotson*, then dean of Canterbury and later archbishop, to assure him that at the next meeting of Parliament ‘we shall use the most vigorous means we can imagine to bring him [York] perfectly back to our Church … by these means our clergy will at least right themselves’. He continued to press for a new Parliament throughout the first half of the 1680s, assuring Halifax in July 1682, ‘I do not see of what service I can be to the public at present anywhere but in Parliament, and I am not so vain as to think I signify much there neither’. His letters to Halifax in the 1680s also clearly show his continuing hostility towards Ormond and his desire for his office, or indeed any office or royal employment, in which he could serve the king and gain some income.<sup>38</sup></p><p>During the 1680s Strafford continued to be plagued with ill health, which prevented him from travelling outside Yorkshire, as he often complained to Halifax.<sup>39</sup> His unwillingness to move outside of the county did not go unnoticed by James II. The new king left Strafford off his remodelled privy council in Ireland, which led Strafford to complain that he was ‘just as kindly used in Ireland as I was in England’, and the snub may have been more keenly felt as he had recently been an appreciated benefactor to his old university, Trinity College Dublin.<sup>40</sup> Strafford himself had to ask James II formally to excuse his absence from the coronation due to his continuing ill health.<sup>41</sup> Nevertheless, he was still able to attend over three-quarters of the sittings in James’s Parliament of 1685. Contemporaries consistently listed him as one of those opposed to James II’s religious policies, except for a list of around May 1687 compiled for the Dutch envoy, Dijkvelt, in which Strafford’s name is conspicuously absent, probably because at that very time he was rumoured to be dead (Strafford’s absence from the list is the clue which has helped date this list more precisely).<sup>42</sup> He was probably too ill to take any part in the Revolution but sent a letter informing his peers in the Convention on 18 Mar. 1689 that pursuant to their orders he would try to rouse himself from his sickbed and come to London in a litter to attend the House.<sup>43</sup> In the end he missed the entirety of both sessions of the Convention Parliament and the first two sessions of the 1690 Parliament.</p><p>He came to only 30 per cent of sittings of the session of 1691-2, but on 8 Jan. 1692 he formally ‘opened’ proceedings on the bill for the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, a matter which was to preoccupy the House for the next several weeks. So concerned was he with the progress of this bill that on the same day on which he introduced the bill to the House he registered his proxy with his kinsman John Holles*, 4th earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle), to ensure that his voice was not absent from proceedings. The proxy was vacated a mere three days later when Strafford returned to the House, but he left it for good on 19 January. He maintained a similar attendance of 35 per cent in the following session of 1692-3. He once again supported Norfolk’s divorce bill and on 2 Jan. 1693 voted that it be read a second time. The following day he voted against the place bill. He took his place in the following session of 1693-4 on 20 Nov. 1693 (three weeks after the opening). He attended around 38 per cent of the total and on 10 Jan. 1694 subscribed a protest against the resolution exonerating the Tory admirals from blame over the Smyrna fleet disaster of the previous summer. On 17 Feb. he voted against the reversal of chancery’s dismissal in the cause of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>.</p><p>Strafford had made serious attempts to remarry from the time of his wife’s death in 1685. In spring 1687, through the medium of Halifax, he engaged in protracted negotiations with William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, for his daughter’s hand, but Bedford baulked at Strafford’s request of a portion of £15,000.<sup>44</sup> Halifax was also central in the discussions over the summer of 1694 for the marriage of Strafford, aged 68, to the much younger Henriette de la Rochefoucauld, niece of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham. Even here Strafford was disappointed by the small size of her portion, which was below the £5,000 he had set as a minimum.<sup>45</sup> The marriage did not last long, as Strafford died just over a year later, on 16 Oct. 1695.</p><p>Despite his constant complaints of poverty Strafford left in his will bequests amounting to just under £15,000 and annuities of £460. He also laid out over £2,000 for the restoration of York Minster and the erection of a monument there to his family. He also bequeathed as heirlooms with Wentworth Woodhouse a remarkable collection of over 50 portraits, including all of Van Dyck’s paintings of the first earl of Strafford and William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury, as well as many portraits by Mytens, Honthorst, Van Dyck, Lely, Kneller and others of members of the Stanley, de la Trémouille and Holles families. With no children of his own, Strafford made his nephew Thomas Watson<sup>‡</sup> (later Watson Wentworth), third son of his sister Anne and Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, heir to the residue of his estate (his trustees having first settled all debts). The barony of Raby was inherited by Strafford’s first cousin once removed, Thomas Wentworth*, as a special remainder at its original creation had ensured the title could pass to the heirs of the first earl of Strafford’s younger brothers. Raby did not receive the earldom of Strafford, as that was to descend only through the earl’s male heirs. The second earl had long been on acrimonious terms with Raby’s father, Sir William Wentworth<sup>‡</sup>, whom he accused of cheating him out of money due to him while serving as his agent in Ireland. He thus refused to bequeath his estate to a family he distrusted so much. <sup>46</sup> Raby and Watson Wentworth spent several years in dispute over Strafford’s land, and eventually Raby was able to extract from Queen Anne a new creation, making him earl of Strafford in 1711. Thomas Watson Wentworth kept the large estates in Yorkshire and Ireland and was the ancestor of the marquesses of Rockingham, prominent statesmen of the eighteenth century.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WEST, Charles (1626-87) |
<p><strong><surname>WEST</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1626–87)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1 June 1628 (a minor) as 5th Bar. DE LA WARR |
|
First sat 16 Feb. 1647; first sat after 1660, 26 Apr. 1660; last sat 24 Aug. 1687 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Jan. 1626,<sup>1</sup> o. s. of Henry West<sup>†</sup> (1603–28), 4th Bar. De la Warr, and Isabella (1607–79), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Edmondes<sup>‡</sup>, treas. of the household. <em>m</em>. 15 Sept. 1642, Anne (<em>d</em>.1703), da. of John Wilde<sup>‡</sup> of Droitwich, Worcs., sjt.-at-law, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>) ?3da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 22 Dec. 1687; <em>admon</em>. 2 Jan. 1688.</p> |
<p>Capt. Lord Gerard’s regt. of Horse 1666.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>West was apparently two years, four months and two days old at the decease of his father, giving a birth date of 30 Jan. 1626. He was probably baptized in April 1626, at the house of his paternal grandfather, with Charles I being named as one of his godfathers.<sup>4</sup> His maternal grandfather’s estates were settled on his mother, while a widow, following the death of her brothers and the disinheritance of her sister.<sup>5</sup> However, by her will of November 1679, De la Warr was left only the rent and arrears of a manor in Hampshire; the remainder of the estate went to his sister Mary and her husband, William Orme.<sup>6</sup> De la Warr first sat on 16 Feb. 1647 and attended Parliament from his coming of age until 9 Nov. 1648. At some point before the Restoration he joined the royalist cause, being imprisoned on account of the rising of Sir George Booth*, the future Baron Delamer.<sup>7</sup></p><p>As a former parliamentarian, De la Warr was an obvious choice for re-admittance into the Lords once the Convention had been called. It may have been with an eye to future developments in the spring of 1660 that Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, included him on a list of peers, probably compiled with a view to their attitude to presbyterian peers, as a peer who had sat previously. On 19 Apr. 1660, John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, wrote to Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, including De la Warr among the number of those lords who had sat in 1648 who would be admitted on the first day of the Convention.<sup>8</sup> On that opening day (25 Apr.) a letter was dispatched to De la Warr requesting his attendance, and he was present the next day. On 27 Apr. he was named to a committee to draw up the heads for a conference with the Commons on settling the nation.</p><p>On 3 May 1660 a precedency dispute between De la Warr and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, was referred to the committee for privileges, to which De la Warr was added on 7 May. The committee reported on 27 June and a hearing at the bar was ordered for 17 July, but this was repeatedly postponed. De la Warr was named to a further four committees during the session, before the adjournment on 13 Sept. 1660; he sat for the last time on 16 August. Before the adjournment he had attended on 69 days, 59 per cent of the total. He was absent when the House resumed on 6 Nov. 1660, first sitting on 19 November. He then attended on 15 days, a third of the total, being appointed to one committee. On 7 Dec. his precedency cause with Berkeley was ordered to be heard at the bar on the 14th, but nothing happened thereafter.</p><p>De la Warr was present at the opening of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661. He attended on 42 days of the first part of the session before the adjournment at the end of July, 65 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. On 11 July he was listed as a supporter of the claim of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to be lord great chamberlain. On 17 May the lord chamberlain put before the House the petition that Berkeley had sent to the king renewing his claims of precedency against De la Warr, and a hearing was ordered for 24 May. De la Warr was then absent for the next two sittings, including a call of the House on the 20th. On the 21st he was present, at which time the cause was put off to the 30th; he was then absent until the 28th. After hearing counsel on the 30th, the House put off the cause until 7 June, when De la Warr’s contention that the matter had already been settled by a ruling under Elizabeth I was overruled. Following some debate ‘it was agreed between the counsel on both sides, to state the evidence and the case amongst themselves’ and then the House would appoint a further day to hear the business. On 14 June it was ordered that, if De la Warr’s counsel had not met with their counterparts by 20 June, the House would proceed with a hearing at the bar. However, nothing happened for the remainder of the session. Meanwhile on 26 July De la Warr attended the committee for privileges when it considered the complaint of a breach of privilege against Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln.<sup>9</sup></p><p>De la Warr was absent from the beginning of the second part of the session when Parliament reconvened on 6 Nov. 1661. He was also absent from a call of the House on 25 Nov. and did not sit until 15 Feb. 1662. He attended on 36 days of this part of the session, a little over 28 per cent of the total. On 19 May he entered his protest against the decision of the House to leave out two provisos from the highways bill which asserted the rights of the Lords to initiate or amend any bill that charged money for repairing or paving of highways, for mending of bridges or for other public use.</p><p>De la Warr was present on 18 Feb. 1663, the opening day of the 1663 session but on 23 Feb. he was absent from a call of the House. He attended on 43 days of the session, half the total, and was named to five committees. On 13 July Wharton classed him as doubtful on his forecast of the probable division on the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon.<sup>10</sup></p><p>De la Warr missed the opening of the 1664 session on 16 Mar., first sitting on 2 April. He attended on 18 days of the session, 50 per cent of the total. He was present on 24 Nov. for the opening of the 1664–5 session, attending thereafter on 23 days of the session, 43 per cent of the total. On 26 Jan. 1665 he complained to the House that his servant Thomas Williams had been arrested and detained as a prisoner in the Poultry Compter, contrary to parliamentary privilege. Williams was released and George Waterman, one of the sheriffs of London, ordered to attend. Waterman had refused to release Williams despite a letter from De la Warr, on the grounds that he did not know the peer’s handwriting. The Lords discharged Waterman on 28 Jan. after suggesting that he ought to have sent to De la Warr in order to verify his hand.</p><p>In the session of October 1665, De la Warr attended on six days, 32 per cent of the total. He also attended the prorogations on 20 Feb. and 23 Apr. 1666. In the brief invasion scare of June-July 1666 he was appointed a captain of a troop of horse to be raised in the regiment commanded by Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield).<sup>11</sup> He was absent from the beginning of the 1666–7 session, first sitting on 22 Oct. and thereafter attending on 29 days of the session, 32 per cent of the total. On 14 Jan. 1667 he protested against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the term ‘nuisance’ in the bill prohibiting the import of Irish cattle.</p><p>In May 1667 it was reported that De la Warr was to be appointed lord lieutenant of Hampshire, possibly jointly with another peer, but Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St. John, the future duke of Bolton, was appointed instead.<sup>12</sup> He did not feel able to offer De la Warr a deputy lieutenancy in case he refused it.<sup>13</sup> De la Warr did not attend the Lords on 25 and 29 July 1667 when the king announced the conclusion of the peace. He also missed the opening of the 1667–9 session, first sitting on 17 Oct. 1667. He attended on 31 days of the first part of the session from October–December 1667, 61 per cent of the total, and was appointed to five committees. He attended on the second day, 10 Feb. 1668, after Parliament reconvened on the 6th. In all he was present on 20 days of that part of the session, 30 per cent of the total and was appointed to three committees.</p><p>De la Warr attended on only 8 and 9 Dec. of the session of October–December 1669, 5.5 per cent of the total. On the latter day he was excused from a fine of £40 imposed upon him by the House for his absence. He was present on 14 Feb. 1670, the opening day of the 1670–1 session. Thereafter his attendance before the adjournment on 11 Apr. was much higher than previously, at 33 days, 82.5 per cent of the total; he was also named to seven committees. Following the adjournment, De la Warr was engaged in a treaty to marry one of his sons, presumably his eldest, Charles<sup>‡</sup>, to Letitia Popham. Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> was employed and ‘took pains in perusing the long conveyances of the Lord De la Warr’s estate’, including the jointure of De la Warr’s mother. Although Whitelocke pronounced De la Warr ‘just and honourable’, the negotiations were terminated by Miss Popham.<sup>14</sup></p><p>De la Warr was missing when the session reconvened on 24 Oct. 1670, first sitting on 4 Nov., the day upon which the House met to consider the petition of 31 Oct. presented on behalf of his mother for a breach of privilege in having her house invaded by bailiffs. The House found the action a breach of the privilege of peerage and the privilege of Parliament, the bailiffs having forcibly entered her house, made an inventory of her goods and uttered vilifying language against her, and they were ordered into the custody of Black Rod. De la Warr was missing from a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1670. Nor was he present on the 15th when it was ordered that the exigent and outlawry against his mother and all proceedings on them be vacated, and the committee of privileges ordered to consider the fittest way to achieve that end. He next attended on 22 November. On 5 Dec. 1670 those pursuing his mother were served with an order to appear on 8 Dec. before the committee for privileges.<sup>15</sup> De la Warr was also present on 8 Dec. when Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset reported that, having consulted judges of the court of common pleas, they found that the exigent and outlawry against his mother could be vacated by the directions of the judges of that court, whereupon the Lords ordered the judges to give directions for so doing. On 19 Dec. De la Warr was present when the bailiffs were ordered to be brought before the bar the following day, whereupon they were released.</p><p>Meanwhile, also on 19 Dec., the Lords ordered that Berkeley be heard by counsel on 10 Jan. 1671 as to his claim to precedency. After several postponements, the cause came on to be heard on 14 Feb., whereupon De la Warr was granted until 14 Apr. to search for records pertaining to the case. At that date he again asked for, and was granted, more time to gather evidence in the case. In all, De la Warr had attended on 43 days of the session, 34 per cent of the total, and been named to three committees.</p><p>De la Warr was absent from the beginning of the February–March 1673 session; he first sat on 1 Mar., attending in all on 24 days of the session, 58.5 per cent of the total, and being named to four committees. Berkeley renewed his claims of precedency against De la Warr and on 18 Feb., since De la Warr was absent and no-one appeared for him, it was ordered that the Lords would proceed to give judgment therein on 3 March. On 26 Feb. De la Warr was again granted more time, until 11 Mar., because he was ‘sick in the country’. Despite his regular attendance after 1 Mar., on the 7th the case was further postponed until 26 Mar., ‘on the joint consent’ of De la Warr and Berkeley. On 26 Mar., with counsel on both sides ready, the House postponed the case until the ‘second Thursday after the recess’, whereupon, once again, nothing happened.</p><p>De la Warr did not attend the short session of October–November 1673. He was also absent at the beginning of the session of January–February 1674. He first sat on 3 Feb., attending on 10 days of the session, 26 per cent of the total, and being named to a single committee. On 13 Feb. five bailiffs of the sheriff of Hampshire were ordered into custody for arresting his servant. He did not attend Parliament in 1675, being excused on 29 April. Nor did he attend the first part of the session. However, he was present for the last part of the 1677–8 session, from January to May 1678, first sitting on 28 January. Thereafter he attended on 32 days of this part of the session, 52.5 per cent of the total, and was named to three committees. On 28 Jan. he was named as one of the peers deputed to ask the king when he would be attended by the House with their address of thanks for the marriage of Princess Mary and William of Orange. On the analysis of lay peers in 1677–8 compiled by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, De la Warr was classed as ‘worthy’.</p><p>The marriage of De la Warr’s son Charles to Mary Huddlestone in February 1677 had provided for the payment of a £10,000 portion to such as De la Warr should appoint for the payment of his debts. He directed the money to Sir John Cutler<sup>‡</sup>, but lacked witnesses to prove it, so that after the death of his daughter-in-law he had to resort to chancery in February–March 1678. In June, Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, gave the parties three days to come to an agreement, saying, ‘if I were the Lord De la Warr I would not exact the whole and if I were Mr. Huddlestone I would be thankful for any abatement’. Although De la Warr offered to accept £6,000, Huddlestone was not ready to pay or to offer security for payment; thereupon Nottingham ‘decreed the £10,000 and interest’, but also ordered that if £6,000 were ‘paid or secured within a year’ that would end the matter.<sup>16</sup> This case was followed closely by Cary Gardiner, who was originally misled into declaiming that ‘my Lord Chancellor is much clamoured on for overturning a decree the Master made between my Lord De la Warr and Mr. Holston [Huddleston], as married his daughter to my Lord’s son … all believes corruption in the case and he to be faulty’. However, she quickly retracted her criticism to note that ‘the whole value of [the] ten thousand [was] made to my Lord to secure the £6,000’.<sup>17</sup> His son Charles referred to the dispute in his will, and the lack of satisfaction that he had received from his father and Cutler, which had made him take the case to chancery. At his death in 1684 he instructed his wife, his sole executrix, to revive the suit.<sup>18</sup> Cutler subsequently paid the £6,600 and interest to Mrs Huddlestone and her administrator.<sup>19</sup></p><p>De la Warr was absent from Parliament at the beginning of the session of May–July 1678, first sitting on 10 June. He attended on 16 days of this part of the session, just over 37 per cent of the total, and was named to three committees. On 20 June he entered his protest against the resolutions passed by the House over the claims to the peerage of Robert Villiers, who styled himself Viscount Purbeck. De la Warr was absent from the beginning of the winter 1678 session on 21 Oct., first sitting on 6 December. In total he attended on just 11 days, 18 per cent of the total. On 27 Dec. he voted against the motion to commit Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>De la Warr did not attend the first Exclusion Parliament until 3 Apr. 1679. His absence was noted in Danby’s forecasts around this time, where he was reckoned as a likely supporter. Indeed, on one list this assessment of support was qualified with a note that he was absent – which was in turn crossed through, probably because he had taken his seat. He attended on 28 days of the session, just over 46 per cent of the total, and was named to two committees. On another list Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> was detailed to canvass his support. De la Warr’s name appears on two further lists around March–April 1679, again as a likely supporter of Danby. He went on to vote against the attempt to attaint Danby, and when the bill passed on 4 Apr. he entered his protest against it. He was also listed on 14 Apr. as against agreeing with the Commons on the bill. On 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached Lords and four days later he dissented from the resolution to pass the bill regulating the trials of peers. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.</p><p>De la Warr attended the prorogations on 26 Jan., 1 July and 23 Aug. 1680, but was present on only two days (21 and 23 Dec.) of the second Exclusion Parliament and was thus absent from the division of 15 Nov. on the Exclusion bill. On 9 Mar. 1681 he wrote to Danby that he would ‘hasten’ to Oxford at the beginning of the Parliament to be held there, adding that the earl’s long confinement was ‘a great injustice to the king’s royal prerogative’.<sup>20</sup> This no doubt explains his presence on Danby’s pre-sessional forecast of 17 Mar. on a possible division over granting him bail from his imprisonment in the Tower among ‘such as I conceive will be for my bail if they are there’. Danby was correct to add the caveat about De la Warr’s presence for on 23 Mar. Danby’s son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, reported that De la Warr had not yet arrived in Oxford.<sup>21</sup> Nor did he arrive before the end of the session on 28 March.</p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day of James II’s Parliament on 19 May 1685, when, together with William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, he introduced the lord keeper, Sir Francis North*, Baron Guilford, into the Lords. Later on, with William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, he performed the same function for John Bennet*, Baron Ossulton. He attended on 28 days of the session before its adjournment on 2 July, just over 90 per cent of the total, being named to six committees. He also attended on the last day of the resumed session, 20 Nov. 1685, nine per cent of the total, as well as the prorogations on 22 Nov. 1686 and 28 Apr. 1687.</p><p>In March 1687 De la Warr applied for and was granted a royal licence and dispensation to appoint his heir John West*, the future 6th Baron De la Warr (his heir apparent Charles having predeceased him in 1684), to the prebend rectory of Wherwell, ‘notwithstanding he is not a priest in orders’.<sup>22</sup> However, he had reckoned without Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, who on 22 June informed William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, that</p><blockquote><p>Lord De la Warr is creating me a very great one [trouble], there being a rural prebend (which was never yet held but by a clergyman) now vacant which he hath a design to settle his eldest son in, who is not in order[s]: and having obtained a dispensation under the Broad Seal to hold it, and in that dispensation an injunction to the Bishop of Winton to give him institution and induction his son demands of me. But I refused it, telling him that institution was an ecclesiastical act, and a layman was incapable of it. For this I am not a little threatened.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>The king may have used this as a bargaining chip in soliciting De la Warr’s support for his policies. On one list of peers in 1687, the peer’s attitude to the repeal of the Test Act was uncertain. In about May 1687 he was classed as a possible supporter of James II’s plans, but another list of about November indicated that he had not made his opinion known on the repeal of the Test Act. It is unclear whether it was De la Warr or his son who consented to all three of James II’s questions.<sup>24</sup></p><p>De la Warr died on 22 Dec. 1687 and was buried at Wherwell, Hampshire. Although he managed to retain his precedency, thereby showing that the Lords only recognized baronies by patent, not by tenure, his main legacy was a debt to Sir John Cutler<sup>‡</sup>, amounting, according to Cutler, to £35,000.<sup>25</sup> He was succeeded by his son John, who was left to attempt to clear up this financial mess.</p> |
S.N.H. |
|
WEST, John (c. 1654-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>WEST</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1654–1723)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 Dec. 1687 as 6th Bar. DE LA WARR |
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 20 May 1723 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1654, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Charles West*, 5th Bar. De la Warr and Anne (<em>d</em>.1703), da. of John Wylde<sup>‡</sup> of Droitwich, Worcs. <em>educ</em>. DCL, Oxford Univ. 1702; <em>m</em>. 18 June 1691, Margaret (<em>d</em>.1738), da. of John Freeman, merchant of London, wid. of Thomas Salwey, 1s. 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 26 May 1723; <em>will</em> 21 May 1723; pr. 27 June 1723.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Groom of stole and first gent. of bedchamber to George*, prince of Denmark 1697-1708; <sup>3</sup> treas. of chamber 1713-14; <sup>4</sup> teller of exch. 1714-15; recvr.-gen. of excise 1715-17.</p> |
|
<h2><em>Early life to 1689</em></h2><p>West’s date of birth is problematic. Most sources have about 1663, but at the beginning of 1713, he described himself as ‘travelling fast on towards threescore’, which suggests a date of birth nearer to 1654.<sup>6</sup> His two elder brothers were baptised in 1645 and 1646 respectively, but his sister, Sophia, was not baptised until 1661.<sup>7</sup> It seems likely that he was the ‘John West’ approved of as a deputy-lieutenant for Hampshire in May 1685.<sup>8</sup> The financial difficulties of his father seem to have cast a shadow over West’s early years. His father may have attempted to relieve his pressed finances by putting his son into the prebend vicarage of Wherwell in 1687, but this was thwarted by Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, on the grounds that he was not in orders.<sup>9</sup> Since West inherited in December 1687, it is uncertain if it was De la Warr, or his father, who consented to the ‘three questions’ posed by James II’s agents.<sup>10</sup> In January 1688 he was listed as absent on a list of lords detailing their attitude towards repeal of the Test Act. However, in April, he was one of a group of eight deputy lieutenants approved of for Hampshire.<sup>11</sup> In early November he was rumoured to have been made lord lieutenant of Hampshire in place of James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick, but if so the appointment was soon made redundant by the Revolution.<sup>12</sup> De la Warr attended meetings of the peers acting as the provisional government on the afternoon of 13 Dec. 1688 and the following morning. After James II’s second flight, he was summoned on 20 Dec. by the Prince of Orange to meet on the next day, duly attending on 21, 22, 24 and 25 December.<sup>13</sup></p><p>De la Warr attended on the opening day of the Convention, 22 Jan. 1689, and on 133 days of the subsequent session (82 per cent), and was named to 21 committees. On 29 Jan. he voted in favour of regency as the best way to preserve the Protestant religion and the nation’s laws. On 31 Jan. he voted in the committee of the whole against declaring William and Mary king and queen. He voted on 4 Feb. against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’, and voted the same way two days later, when the majority of the House resolved to accept the Commons’ wording. He subsequently entered his dissent from the resolution. Despite this consistent attitude against the settlement of the crown on William and Mary, on 2 Mar. he took the oaths to the new monarchs. On 6 Mar he entered his protest against the passage of the bill for better regulating the trial of peers. On 20 Apr. he acted as a teller on the opposite side to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, on whether to agree with the reasons the Commons had given for rejecting the Lords’ amendments to the bill abrogating the oaths. On 11 July, together with John Bennet*, Baron Ossulston, he introduced first Charles Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), and then Robert Sydney*, Baron Sydney (later 4th earl of Leicester), into the House, both of them heirs to existing peers summoned by writs of acceleration. On 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments in the bill to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. When the Convention resumed on 19 Oct. 1689 after the adjournment, De la Warr was present and he attended on 21 Oct. when the Convention was prorogued. Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), classed him as among the supporters of the court in a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690.</p><h2><em>The Reign of William III</em></h2><p>De la Warr missed the opening day of the second session of the Convention, 23 Oct. 1689, and first sat on the following day. He was present on 32 days of this session of 1689-90 (44 per cent), and was appointed to three committees. He was present on the opening day of the 1690 Parliament, 20 Mar. 1690, sat on 42 days of this session (78 per cent), and was named to 10 committees. He was still in the House on 7 July 1690, when Parliament was prorogued. He was not present at the opening of the 1690-1 session on 2 Oct., and made his first appearance twenty days later, although he was later absent from the call of the House on 2 November. In all he attended 35 sittings of the House in this session (48 per cent), and was named to 12 committees. He was still present on 5 Jan. 1691, when Parliament was adjourned to 31 Mar. but did not sit again until 26 May, when the session was prorogued. On 31 May he attended the consecration of John Tillotson*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>14</sup> On 18 June he married Margaret Freeman, ‘a widow, only daughter to a Turkey merchant’, reputedly worth £20,000.<sup>15</sup> Her previous husband, Thomas Salwey, merchant of London, in his will of June 1686 left his wife £2,000 and a half share of his estate.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Although De la Warr was at the further prorogation on 3 Aug. 1691, he was absent on 22 Oct., the opening of the 1691-2 session, and first sat on 6 November. He was present on 58 days of the session (60 per cent), and was appointed to 23 committees. On 11 Dec. he asked leave of the House to ‘make his application to the House of Commons’. The following day the committee of privileges, to whom the matter had been referred, reported in favour of allowing him to apply to the Commons ‘in his own concerns’. On 29 Dec. his petition to the Commons was read setting out the grounds why Sir John Cutler<sup>‡</sup>, a member of the Commons, should not be allowed to resume his privilege. The cause revolved around the amount De la Warr was indebted to Cutler by virtue of loans to his father, who in February 1677 (or 1678) had borrowed £10,000 upon some manors of his Hampshire estate, and then subsequently increased his indebtedness. Following his father’s death, De la Warr applied to Cutler to pay off the mortgage, only to find that Cutler claimed a debt of £35,000. De la Warr considered this a fraudulent account, but his attempts at legal redress were thwarted by Cutler’s claim of privilege. When Cutler finally waived his privilege, it was decreed that upon the submission of a proper account, De la Warr could pay the requisite sum and the estates would be re-conveyed to him by Cutler. Cutler had since resumed his privilege to the inconvenience of De la Warr who had raised money ready to redeem the mortgage. After an extensive debate in which Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Robert Sawyer<sup>‡</sup> led off for De la Warr, and he received support from John Smith<sup>‡</sup> and Charles Montagu*, (later earl of Halifax), the House ordered that Cutler ought not to resume his privilege.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The Commons then considered a counter-petition from Cutler, in which he outlined the chronology of the debt which had risen to £35,000, and prayed that he might have leave to apply to the Lords to reverse a decree which threatened to deprive him of £10,000 of his debt. Consideration of this petition was postponed for three weeks, and then ignored. A further petition from Cutler on 6 Feb. 1692, praying that he have liberty to seek relief against a Chancery decree in favour of De la Warr or to resume his privilege was left to lie on the table in the Commons. Meanwhile, on 5 Feb. De la Warr acted as a teller opposite Vere Fane*, 4th earl of Westmorland, on the motion to reverse the decree in the case of <em>Gawdey v. Scroggs</em>. He last attended on 17 Feb., a week before the prorogation. He also was present at a subsequent prorogation on 11 July.</p><p>De la Warr attended on the opening day of the 1692-3 session, 4 Nov. 1692. He was present on 63 days of the session (62 per cent), and was named to 24 committees. On 14 Nov. he acted as a teller opposite Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on the question of agreeing with the resolution on the commitment of peers for treason or felony. On 19 Jan. 1693 he entered his dissent to the decision not to refer to the committee for privileges the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill. However, he did not protest when the Lords receded from their amendment. On 25 Jan. he acted as a teller opposite Berkeley on the resolution to commit the bill to prevent the dangers which might happen from persons disaffected to the government. On 31 Jan. he entered his protest against the resolution of the House not to proceed immediately with the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, and on 4 Feb. he voted Mohun not guilty of murder. He chaired and reported from one committee, on Browne’s estate bill, on 10 Jan. 1693.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Cutler had died in April 1693, so the legal case devolved upon his executors, his son-in-law, Charles Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, and his nephew, Edmund Boulter<sup>‡</sup>. In late June 1693, there was ‘a great hearing in Chancery’ between De la Warr and Cutler’s executors, which confirmed ‘a mortgage of £40,000’ on De la Warr’s estate.<sup>19</sup> This success for Radnor and Boulter proved costly for De la Warr, and, although Boulter later acknowledged receipt from De la Warr of over £5,000 in part payment of the debt, he was able to purchase the Hampshire estates in 1695.<sup>20</sup> Thereafter, De la Warr lived mainly in London; he had a house in Queen’s Square until 1707, and lodgings in St James’s Palace until at least the end of Anne’s reign, having ‘a large apartment’ in October 1714.<sup>21</sup></p><p>De la Warr was present at the prorogation on 26 Oct. 1693, but missed the opening of the 1693-4 session on 7 Nov., and was still absent when the House was called over on the 14th. He first attended on 29 Nov. and was present on 58 days of the session (45 per cent). On 19 Dec. his proxy was registered with Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. De la Warr was then absent from 21 Dec. until 15 Jan. 1694, when the proxy was vacated. On 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission of the petition of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the cause of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. He last attended during this session on 5 Apr. and that same day his proxy was registered with Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, who held it until the prorogation on 25 April. During this session De la Warr was named to 11 committees, and chaired the committee on Turner’s estate bill on 9 and 13 Feb. and reported it as fit to pass on 14 Feb. 1694.<sup>22</sup></p><p>De la Warr was absent from the opening of the 1694-5 session on 12 Nov. 1694, and his proxy with Montagu was registered that same day. He did not take his seat until 9 Feb. 1695. He attended 33 sittings (28 per cent), and was named to 12 committees. He was absent between 15 Mar. and 15 Apr. 1695. Following his last attendance on 25 Apr., on 29 Apr. his proxy was registered with Robert Bertie*, Baron Willoughby de Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), who held it until the prorogation of 3 May. De la Warr attended the prorogation on 18 June, but he missed the opening two days of the new Parliament elected that autumn, first attending on its third day, 25 Nov. 1695. He signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696. On 2 Apr. he acted as a teller opposite Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, on the resolution to reverse the judgment in the case of <em>Swayne v. Middleton</em>. In all he was present on 70 days of the session (57 per cent), and was appointed to 24 committees. He last attended on 3 Apr. and on 6 Apr. his proxy was registered with Basil Feilding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, who held it until the prorogation of 27 April. De la Warr was, however, present at the prorogations on 28 July and 1 Sept. 1696.</p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day of the 1696-7 session, 20 Oct. 1696. He attended 103 sittings of the session (90 per cent). On 23 Dec. he voted in favour of the passage of the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. On 15 Jan. 1697 James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> reported on the proceedings in the Lords relating to Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), noting that De la Warr was one of those against sending Monmouth to the Tower.<sup>23</sup> This was confirmed on 16 Jan. by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, who noted that De la Warr had been one of a dozen lords that had dissented from the vote.<sup>24</sup> On 1 Feb. De la Warr received the proxy of Denbigh, but this was quickly vacated by his return to the House four days later. In all he was named to 37 committees during the session, chairing and reporting from six of them: Sir John Hanham’s estate bill (chaired on 21 Dec. 1696, 12, 14, 15 Jan. 1697 and reported 18 Jan.), Oliver Neve’s estate bill (20 Jan.), the bill to settle the estate of the deceased Francis Holles*, 2nd Baron Holles (5 Feb.), Edward Leigh’s estate bill (18 and 20 Feb.), Charles Milson’s estate bill (1 Mar.), and the bill amending Neve’s act (10 Mar.). He also chaired one session on the James estate bill on 25 Jan., but did not report the bill.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In March 1697 De la Warr succeeded the deceased John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, as groom of the stole to Prince George, duke of Cumberland, a place worth £1200 p.a.<sup>26</sup> He attended the prorogation on 26 Aug. 1697 and was present on the opening day of the 1697-8 session, 3 December. He attended on 109 days of the session (83 per cent). On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe.<sup>‡</sup> On 19 May 1698 he received the proxy of James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos. This was vacated by Chandos’s return to the House on 15 June, but Chandos left the House two days later for the remainder of the session and again entrusted his proxy with De la Warr, on 29 June. On 24 May De la Warr was named to a conference on the bill for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness. On 7 June, after the House had heard several merchants and counsel for the Russia Company against the bill for improving and encouraging trade to Russia, De la Warr offered some proposals on behalf of the Company relating to the tobacco contract recently negotiated with the Czar. When the House took up the matter again on 16 June, he proposed, on behalf of the Company, an amendment to the terms whereby the tobacco merchants would be admitted to membership of the Russia Company.<sup>27</sup> When the House came to vote, he acted as a teller opposite Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron Fitzwalter, in a division on the question whether the proposals were reasonable. On 15 June he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for a conference for the Lords’ adhering to their resolution of 9 June on the trial of John Goudet. He was named to 50 committees, and chaired and reported from two of them: Fanquier’s naturalization bill (1 Apr.) and the bill confirming a conveyance from George Pitt and others to John Pitt (4 and 6 June).<sup>28</sup></p><p>De la Warr’s interest in trade was also manifest when the newly appointed ambassador to the Porte, Sir James Rushout<sup>‡</sup>, died in February 1698, before he set out on his embassy to Constantinople. De la Warr was described as a ‘pretender to’ the post, although he was passed over.<sup>29</sup> He attended the prorogations on 24 Aug., 27 Sept. and 27 Oct. 1698, and was present on the opening of the 1698-9 session on 6 December. He attended 36 sittings in the session (44 per cent), but was absent after 8 Mar. 1699. He was named to 11 committees. He attended the prorogation on 1 June, but missed the opening day of the 1699-1700 session, 16 Nov. 1699, attending for the first time a week later. He attended on 51 days of the session (65 per cent). About February 1700 he was forecast as likely to support the bill continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 23 Feb. he acted as a teller opposite Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, in a division whether to adjourn into a committee of the whole in order to expedite the passage of the bill. He was listed as in favour of the adjournment, and most likely told for that side as well. In all he was named to 18 committees, chairing one on them, Wallop’s estate bill, on 22 Feb. and reporting it the following day.<sup>30</sup></p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day of the 1701 Parliament on 10 February 1701. He attended 89 sittings (85 per cent). On 24 Mar. he acted as a teller opposite William North*, 6th Baron North, on the motion to adjourn the debate on the petition of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, for further time to pay £10,000 according to his divorce act. In April, De la Warr wrote a letter to Governor Thomas Pitt<sup>‡</sup> of the Old East India Company, in which, after thanking him for a favour to a fellow servant of Prince George, he informed him of the recent political changes:</p><blockquote><p>This present alteration in the ministry will prove so advantageous to the nation in general and old East India Company in particular, that all mankind which are for monarchy and the Church of England and the trade are resolved to exert their utmost interest to support it and to prevent those Presbyterian rats from infesting the government and plundering it any more.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>At this date De la Warr had £2,000 invested in the Old East India Company, and he had the same amount in April 1702, although by April 1707 this had been reduced to £900 in the United Company.<sup>32</sup></p><p>De la Warr’s Toryism came to the fore on the issue of the impeachment of the Junto lords. On 3 June 1701 he entered his protest against the resolutions, first, to accept the second amended paragraph of the reasons to be given by the Lords at a conference concerning the impeachments, and then to accept the final paragraph of the same set of reasons. On 6 and 10 June he was appointed to conferences on the impeachments, and on 9 June he protested against the resolution not to appoint a committee to meet with the Commons to discuss procedure. On 14 June he entered his protest against sending a message to the Commons requesting another conference before a previous conference had determined and also protested against insisting on the resolution not to appoint a committee of both Houses on the impeachments. On 17 June he entered his protest against the decision to put the question whether to acquit John Somers*, Baron Somers, and also against the decision to go into Westminster Hall to proceed with his trial. There he duly voted against the acquittal of Somers. In all he was appointed to 34 committees, chairing five of them and reporting from three: Bagneol’s naturalization bill (chaired on 19 May 1701 and reported 28 May); Barrington’s estate bill and Apsley’s estate bill (both chaired 7 June and reported 9 June); Trevisa’s bill (chaired 11 June); and Bigg’s bill (chaired 14 and 16 June).<sup>33</sup> He was also present at the prorogation of 7 August.</p><p>De la Warr missed the opening of the 1701-2 Parliament, and first sat on 7 Jan. 1702. He attended 66 days of the session (66 per cent). On 8 Mar. he was named to a conference on the death of William III and accession of Queen Anne. Although present on 11 Mar. he was not recorded as taking the oaths to the new queen, and he was then absent for 10 days. On 7 May he was appointed to a conference on the bill for altering the oath of abjuration. He acted as a teller on 12 May, on the opposite side to Wharton, on the question whether to leave out the words ‘groundless, false, and scandalous’, in the question condemning the pamphlet <em>Tom Double returned out of the Country</em>. On 19 May he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for the relief of Captain Richard Wolseley, and other Protestant lessees in Ireland. He last attended this session on 23 May. Over the course of the Parliament he was named to 23 committees and chaired and reported from four of them: the bill to naturalize the wife of Hugh Boscawen<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Falmouth (21 Feb.); the bill to improve Suffolk Place in Southwark (27 Mar.); the Darwent navigation bill and the bill regulating gold and silver thread (both 14 Apr.). He also chaired one session of the Hunt estate bill, on 10 Mar. 1702.<sup>34</sup></p><p>On 16 Apr. 1702 he introduced the representatives from Corfe Castle to present their address to the queen.<sup>35</sup> In June it was reported that De la Warr was one of four gentlemen of the bedchamber made by Prince George at a salary of £600 p.a., but this was merely a continuation of his old post as groom of the stole and first gentleman of the bedchamber.<sup>36</sup> On 27 Aug. De la Warr was awarded the degree of DCL by Oxford University, probably in recognition of his standing and favour at court rather than for any outstanding academic achievements. John Macky made the interesting observation of him around this year as ‘a free jolly gentleman, turned of forty years old,’ who was ‘always attached to the present queen’s family; seldom waited on King William’.<sup>37</sup></p><h2><em>The Reign of Queen Anne</em></h2><p>De la Warr was present on 20 Oct. 1702, the opening day of the 1702-3 session of Queen Anne’s first Parliament. He attended 76 sittings (88 per cent), and was named to 35 committees. He chaired and reported from three of these: Aldworth’s estate bill (14 Jan. 1703); Thomas Erle’s estate bill (22 Jan.); and Castelman’s estate bill (25 Jan.). He also chaired the committees on the Lone estate bill, the Morris estate bill and Hoare’s estate bill, all on 25 January.<sup>38</sup> On 9 Dec. 1702 he acted as a teller opposite Wharton in favour of a motion to adjourn the House rather than vote on a motion condemning tacking. He acted as a teller on 11 Dec. on a motion to proceed further on the <em>Sherard v. Harcourt</em> case. On 17 Dec. he was named to a conference on the bill to prevent occasional conformity, as he was again on 9 Jan. 1703. In January he was listed by Nottingham as likely to support the bill to prevent occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause in the bill. On 21 Jan. he acted as a teller opposite John Poulett*, 4th Baron (later Earl) Poulett, on whether to hear the cause of <em>The Haberdashers Company v. the attorney general</em>. On 29 Jan. he attended a dinner at Wharton’s London residence, along with several other peers, possibly (if somewhat oddly in his case) in relation to the occasional conformity bill.<sup>39</sup> On 17 Feb. he acted as a teller opposite Mohun on whether to agree a motion on Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup> relating to his conduct of the expedition to Cadiz. He acted as a teller on 19 Feb. opposite Poulett on the motion to reverse the decree in the case of <em>The attorney general v. the mayor of Coventry</em>. He was also present at the prorogation on 23 April.</p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day of the 1703-4 session, 9 Nov. 1703. He attended on 73 days of the session (75 per cent), and was named to 29 committees. He chaired and reported from five of them: the estate bill of Henry, Viscount Dillon [I] (13 Jan. 1704); Robert Cawdron’s estate bill (9 Feb.); the bill settling the estate of the late Thomas Jermyn*, 2nd Baron Jermyn (10 Feb.); John Jenkins’s estate bill (16 Feb.); and Bernard Cotton’s estate bill, (6 and 9 Mar.).<sup>40</sup> In about November 1703, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast him as a likely to be in favour of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. On Sunderland’s revised forecast made between 26 Nov. and 8 Dec. he was classed as a likely supporter of the bill. On 6 Dec., together with John Granville* Baron Granville, he introduced John Leveson Gower* Baron Gower, into the House. He was then absent until 14 Dec., when his name appears on both lists of the division of that day as voting in favour of the bill, and he duly registered his protest against the resolutions not to give the bill a second reading and to reject the bill. On 21 Mar. 1704 he acted as a teller in a division opposite Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, on the recruiting bill.</p><p>At Windsor in September 1704, De la Warr was wounded in a duel with a Mr. Feilding, formerly a page to William III. This prompted the queen to threaten to turn out of her service any officer of her court that issued a challenge.<sup>41</sup> After attending the prorogation on 19 Oct., he was present on the opening day of the session on 24 October. He attended 49 sittings of the 1704-5 session (about 49 per cent), and was named to 23 committees. In November he may have been listed as likely to support the Tack, but the markings on the list may refer to Baron Ferrers. On 8 Dec. he reported from the committee of the whole on the land tax bill. He was absent from 30 Jan. 1705 and registered his proxy with William Byron*, 4th Baron Byron, on 1 February. He briefly returned to the House on 19 Feb., but was absent from 21 Feb., once again entrusting his proxy with Byron (on 26 Feb.), until he briefly returned on 12 Mar. for the last three days of the session. On 13 Apr. he was classed as uncertain in his attitude to the succession. He attended the service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s on 23 August.<sup>42</sup> In September it was reported that Lady De la Warr’s mother, Mrs Freeman, had married her coachman; she was worth £20,000 and had been living with Lady De la Warr since the death of her husband.<sup>43</sup></p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 25 Oct. 1705. He attended 42 days of the session (44 per cent), and was named to 19 committees. On 6 Dec. he voted that the Church was not in danger under the current administration. That month De la Warr also sent a memorandum to the secretary of state, Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, arguing that Joseph Mellish should be excused from being sheriff of Nottinghamshire for the ensuing year, partly because John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, ‘desires that he be excused this year’.<sup>44</sup> De la Warr was successful in his lobbying as Mellish did not serve as sheriff. He did not attend after 1 Feb. 1706, and registered his proxy on 6 Feb. with Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater, who held it until the prorogation of 19 March. De la Warr was present at the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s on 27 June.<sup>45</sup></p><p>He further attended the prorogations on 22 Oct. and 21 Nov. 1706, but was absent from the beginning of the following 1706-7 session on 3 Dec., and sat for the first time that session on 16 December. He was present on 49 days of the session (57 per cent), and was named to 26 committees. On 30 Dec., together with Thomas Howard*, 6th Baron Howard of Effingham, he introduced the lord keeper, William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, into the House. In February 1707, De la Warr had the promise of the first vacancy as a page to the queen, for his son, John West<sup>†</sup>, the future 7th Baron De la Warr.<sup>46</sup> He attended seven of the nine sittings of the session of April 1707. On 24 Apr. he examined the journals up to 27 February. Interestingly, De la Warr’s name does not appear on a list of addresses of peers and bishops in 1706.<sup>47</sup> In August 1704 he had lodgings in the Inner Court at St James’s, which Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> intended to convert into a chapel for the prince, and in May 1707, it was reported by Ralph Brydges that ‘Mr. [John] Dolben<sup>‡</sup> has bought my Lord Delaware’s house in Queen’s Square, Westminster and has given 1400 guineas for it.’<sup>48</sup> It seems probable that by this date De la Warr was residing permanently in St James’s Palace, especially as a list of peers’ addresses from the 1708-9 session gave his address as ‘St James’s House’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day of the 1707-8 session, 23 Oct. 1707, and attended 33 days of the session (31 per cent), and was named to 12 committees. On 8 Dec. 1707 he acted as a teller opposite Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, on the question of whether to receive the appeal in the case of <em>Radnor v. Childe</em>. He did not attend after the Christmas recess on 23 December. Through his service with Prince George, De la Warr had long been associated with the Churchills: indeed he rarely failed to congratulate John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, on his military exploits. More pertinently, on 1 May 1708 De la Warr wrote from Bath to the duchess of Marlborough to inform her of the death of one of the domestic servants of the Prince,</p><blockquote><p>if there is any particular person that your grace has a mind to oblige with it let me know your pleasure and it shall be obeyed, for as I owe the honour of my station about the Prince to your goodness of your grace’s intercession, so Madam shall I always think myself obliged as long as I remain in it, to submit all the powers of it to your grace’s direction.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>De la Warr also played an important ceremonial role, as groom of the stole, at the funeral of Prince George on 13 November.<sup>51</sup></p><p>On a list forecasting the composition of the 1708 Parliament, De la Warr was classed as a Tory. He was present on the opening day of the 1708-9 session, 16 November. He attended 79 sittings in this session (86 per cent). On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted in favour of the motion that Scottish peers with British titles should be permitted to vote in the election for Scottish representative peers. He was appointed to 28 committees, chairing the committee on 1 Mar. on the Newcastle estate bill, which he reported later that day.<sup>52</sup> He also reported from two committees of the whole House: on the estate bill of John Bourke, 9th earl of Clanricarde [I], (15 Apr.) and on the bill continuing several duties and for raising a loan (20 Apr.). On 21 Apr. he was named to a conference on the bill continuing the acts to prevent coining.</p><p>De la Warr was intent on swapping his pension of £1,200, held as a continuation of his salary as a servant of the Prince, for a more secure office. Upon the death of the first lord of trade, Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, in January 1709, he had applied unsuccessfully to the lord treasurer for the vacancy at the board of trade.<sup>53</sup> He did, however retain his lodgings in St James’s, and was thus in and around London and the court.<sup>54</sup> On 2 Mar. De la Warr dined at the house of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], possibly in preparation for the case of <em>Grey v. Hamilton</em>, which was heard on 4 March.<sup>55</sup> On 27 Apr. he examined the Journals up to 25 January. After attending the prorogation on 19 May and 6 Oct., he appears to have left London for a while because on 3 Nov. he gave away the bride, Mary Reeve, daughter of Sir Robert Reeve<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. of Thwayte, Suffolk, reputedly a ‘great fortune’, at her marriage to Hon. Thomas Sydney conducted by John Moore*, bishop of Ely, in his chapel.<sup>56</sup> De la Warr had only retained a residual political interest in Hampshire, for at the beginning of December Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, wrote to Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> in connection with his attempt to gain the county seat in a by-election: ‘I have secured Mr Fryar that has Lord Delaware’s estate for you.’<sup>57</sup></p><p>De la Warr attended the opening day of the 1709-10 session, 15 November. He was present on 86 days of the session (93 per cent), and was named to 29 committees, two of which he chaired and reported from: Smyth’s estate bill (25 Nov. 1709) and Cogg’s estate bill (5 Apr. 1710).<sup>58</sup> From this session, De la Warr becomes a more visible presence in the chamber, particularly in the chair of the committee of the whole. He reported from the committee on: the land tax bill (10 Dec. 1709); the window tax bill (18 Jan. 1710); the raw silk bill (13 Feb.); the candle duty bill (23 Mar.); the bill regulating the price of bread (1 Apr.); and the bill to prevent excessive gaming (23 Mar.). On 25 Feb. he acted as a teller opposite Mohun on the previous question that the Lords should sign and seal their tickets for the trial of Dr Sacheverell and on 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. On 5 Apr. he was further named to a conference on the copyright bill.</p><p>De la Warr was present at the prorogations on 18 Apr., 2 and 16 May, 20 June, 4 and 18 July and 1 Aug. 1710. As Harley considered the strength of his new ministry in October 1710, he thought De la Warr likely to support the ministry. De la Warr was present at the beginning of the 1710 Parliament on 25 November. He attended 99 sittings (88 per cent), and was named to 25 committees. He may have felt some strain, as a courtier and one who had acknowledged debts of patronage to the Marlboroughs, now that they were out of favour. According to the royal physician, Dr Hamilton, on 29 Jan. 1711, when De la Warr asked the queen how he should vote, she replied ‘as the rest of the ministers’.<sup>59</sup> On 2 Mar. De la Warr proposed to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, that the queen should be persuaded to grant the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields (whose appeal against a judgment of the Edinburgh magistrates had been upheld by the House the previous day) ‘a subsistence in England’ to help sustain him. Nicolson passed the idea of this expedient on to John Sharp*, archbishop of York. On 9 Mar. De la Warr was named to a conference on the safety of the queen’s person. On 4 Apr. he was one of a committee that read through the journal.<sup>60</sup> He received the proxy of Howard of Effingham on 7 May and three days later he was named to a conference on the amendments to the bill for the preservation of pine forests in the American colonies.</p><p>During the latter part of this session De la Warr continued to report from select committees: Monoux’s estate bill (1 Feb. 1711); Matthew’s estate bill (20 Feb.); Allin’s estate bill (reported2 Mar.); the estate bill of Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester ( 9 Mar.); Weller’s estate bill (7 May); Clerk’s estate bill (17 May); Salemarshe’s estate bill (22 May); and the estate bill of Charles, Viscount Cullen [I] (31 May). Likewise, he chaired and reported from committees of the whole, on: the Dunstable road bill (24 Apr.); the Exeter Castle bill (27 Apr.); the bill establishing the Post Office (7 May); the bill making it a felony to attempt the life of a privy councillor and the bill imposing a duty on hides and other goods (9 May); the naval stores bill (22 and 23 May); the woollen manufactures bill (23 May); the bill allowing John Williams, ‘a negro’, to give evidence in civil cases (25 May); the South Sea deficiencies bill (31 May); and the Scotch linen bill (1 June).</p><p>In August 1711 De la Warr wrote to thank Oxford (as Harley had since become) for the queen’s decision to continue to pay the salaries of the servants of the late prince.<sup>61</sup> He was present at the prorogations of 9 Oct. and 13 and 27 Nov. and attended on the opening day of the 1711-12 session on 7 December. He was in the House on 100 days in this session (94 per cent), and was named to 26 committees. On 8 Dec. he protested against the resolution to present the Address as it contained the ‘No Peace Without Spain’ clause. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support the duke of Hamilton’s cause, and on the following day voted against the motion that ‘no patent of honour, granted to any peer of Great Britain, who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, can entitle such a peer to sit and vote in Parliament’. On 2 Jan. 1712 he introduced two of the twelve peers created by the queen at the turn of the year into the House: Henry Paget*, Baron Burton (with Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle, known as 4th earl of Orrery [I]), and Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham (with Baron Byron). He was also involved in protecting the financial interests of the absent Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, when the House came to discuss the bill for more easily passing sheriffs’ accounts. On 7 Mar. Peter Wentworth was able to inform his brother Strafford that De la Warr had already promised to be against the bill ‘upon your account’.<sup>62</sup> On 14 Mar. De la Warr presented the petition from the countess of Strafford requesting that counsel could be heard on the bill in order to protect Strafford’s ‘interest in the post fines’.<sup>63</sup> On 6 May De la Warr acted as a teller opposite Masham at the report stage of the county elections’ bill, in favour of leaving out the amendment in favour of Quakers. On 28 May he supported the ministry in the division over the ‘restraining orders’ sent to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. On 29 May he received the proxy of William Carey*, 6th Baron Hunsdon, but this was vacated as early as 3 June by Hunsdon’s return. Hunsdon entrusted his proxy with him again on 20 June, and this time De la Warr held it until the last day of the session.</p><p>De la Warr was again heavily involved in legislative activities in the latter part of the session, including reporting from the committee of the whole on: the bill for making the <em>Success</em> a free ship (10 Apr.); the bill concerning the enrolment of crown leases (14 Apr.); the bill for the relief of merchants shipping prize goods from America (5 May); the Ipswich road bill (7 May); the lottery bill (20 May); the Highgate-Barnet and the Northfleet-Gravesend-Rochester road bills (30 May); the bills enlarging the time for Scots ministers to take the abjuration oath, making effectual any agreement between the African Company and its creditors and concerning Peirson’s estate (all 5 June); the bill to make more effectual the act in favour of Coggs (both 5 and 11 June); and the bill laying additional duties on hides and other goods. (21 June). On 28 Apr. he reported from committee on the estate bills of the late Arthur Henley and Simon Patrick.</p><p>De la Warr attended the meeting on 8 July 1712, when Parliament was prorogued (and Hunsdon returned to vacate his proxy). He examined the journals twice, on 12 and 17 June. Following the death of John Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Fitzhardinge [I], treasurer of the chamber, on 23 Dec. 1712 it was reported that De la Warr was soliciting for the post, and offering ‘to quit his pension of £1,200 a year for it, they say that is £1,400 a year.’<sup>64</sup> He had written to Oxford to exchange his pension for the post, lamenting to the lord treasurer his loss of office after the death of Prince George and claiming ‘that to support the queen’s interest in Parliament from the Revolution, to this day, has been always my study and my greatest ambition’. In a further missive of 6 Jan. 1713, De la Warr underlined his necessitous situation and emphasized ‘the legacies of an unkind father ....Your Lordship cannot choose but remember my story, it was before the House of Commons in a point of privilege’. He also invoked the queen’s ‘princely commiseration’ which had allowed him to serve Prince George for 14 years. He added that ‘I am very infirm, afflicted with the gout and am travelling fast on towards threescore, too late to think of a new course of life, but am capable to perform this office’.<sup>65</sup> He was present at the prorogations of 31 July 1712, 13 January, 3 February, 3, 10 and 26 Mar. 1713, while Parliament awaited the results of the peace conference at Utrecht. In mid-March to early April 1713, he was listed by Jonathan Swift as expected to support the ministry.</p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day of the 1713 session, 9 April. He attended on 65 days of the session (99 per cent), and was named to 20 committees. When Oxford in early June made an estimate of the possible voting on the French commercial treaty, he expected De la Warr to support the bill. Again the management of legislation loomed large in De la Warr’s activities. He reported from select committees on: the Charlton parsonage bill (2 May); Sir Charles Gresham’s estate bill (3 June); Enden’s naturalization bill (8 June); Ellin’s indemnity bill, which the House then rejected (9 June); and the hackney chairs bill and Arran’s oath bill (14 July). In the same period he reported from committees of the whole on: the land tax bill (4 May); the Shoreditch to Enfield road bill and the malt bill (8 June); the Scots election bill (25 June); the militia bill, the naval stores bill and the northern borders bill (4 July); the perpetuating laws bill (10 July); and the mutiny bill (both 15 and 16 July). On the two days following the end of the session on 16 July, he was one of the peers that examined the journals for the accuracy of its record.</p><p>During the summer of 1713 De la Warr renewed his petition for the post of treasurer of the chamber, offering Oxford the reassurance that ‘all the monies which shall at any time be paid into the treasurer of the chamber’s office whilst I am in it shall be duly applied as your Lordship directs’.<sup>66</sup> On 21 Aug. the queen wrote to Oxford expressing surprise that he should think that she had changed her determination to appoint De la Warr treasurer of the chamber.<sup>67</sup> Her insistence thwarted Oxford’s plan to give the office to Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley.<sup>68</sup> De la Warr wrote to inform the duchess of Newcastle on 22 Aug. that he had kissed the queen’s hands for the post, acknowledging ‘I could never have hoped for the favour the Lord Treasurer has shewed me but from the powerful influence of your intercession.’<sup>69</sup> Dr Arbuthnot ventured the opinion on 2 Sept. that ‘happiness depending upon opinion, one would think it impossible to be more so than my Lord De la Warr is’, while the same day Peter Wentworth noted to his brother Strafford that, ‘I believe the place Lord De la Warr has was purely the pleasure of the queen without any advice of the ministry’. De la Warr apparently thought so too ‘for’, as Wentworth explained, ‘there was several that would have persuaded his pension was better, but my Lord thanked them for that he had rather be his own paymaster.’ De la Warr himself expressed to Strafford at the same time his opinion that holding office in the royal household is ‘a blessing far more valuable than life itself’<sup>70</sup> A warrant for his appointment was issued on 7 Sept., and he was appointed a week later, his accounts running from 22 Sept. 1713 to 4 Nov. 1714.<sup>71</sup> At the end of January 1714, De la Warr tackled Oxford over the arrears of his pension, which at Christmas 1712 amounted to £2,400.<sup>72</sup> That very day, William Lowndes<sup>‡</sup> ordered Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>], the future earl of Wilmington, to pay the arrears for two years to Christmas 1712, amounting to £2,400, ‘from which time said pension is to cease’.<sup>73</sup></p><p>De la Warr attended the opening day of the 1714 Parliament, 16 February. He was present on 68 days of the session (90 per cent), and was appointed to 21 committees. On 9 Mar. he registered his proxy with Oxford, although he only missed two sittings before returning on 15 Mar. to vacate it. On 17 Apr. he acted as a teller opposite Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), in the committee of the whole in favour of retaining the offices of attorney- and solicitor-general in the place bill. On 13 May De la Warr delivered a petition from Katherine Bourchier to the Lords for an estate bill because Chandos was unwell and unable to do it.<sup>74</sup> Between 27 May and about 4 June Nottingham forecast De la Warr as likely to be in favour of the schism bill. On 27 May he reported from the committee of privileges on the case of the arrest of a servant of Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough. He received the proxy of Hunsdon on 28 May, which was vacated on 7 June, and that of Chandos on 4 June, which he held for the remainder of the session. On 9 June he acted as a teller in the committee of the whole opposite Maurice Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham, on a question concerning the wording of a clause in the schism bill. He reported several bills from committee: Cherry’s estate bill (28 May); William Brown’s estate bill (2 June); the estate bill of Clotworthy Skeffington, 4th Viscount Massereene [I] (24 June); and Brereton Bourchier’s estate bill (25 June). He again reported several bills from the committee of the whole: the Edinburgh road bill (1 June); and the Scotch linen bill, the bill preserving wrecks and the lottery bill (all 7 July). He also examined the journals for this session on 15 July 1715.</p><p>De la Warr was present on the opening day, 1 Aug. 1714, of the session called in the wake of the queen’s death. He attended on 12 days of the session (80 per cent), and was named to two committees. On the first days of the session he signed the proclamation of George I as king of Great Britain.<sup>75</sup> On 20 Aug. he reported from the committee of the whole on both the bill rectifying mistakes in the commissioners of the land tax and the one enabling people in Britain to take the oaths for Irish offices.</p><p>De la Warr prospered following the Hanoverian Succession. On 4 Nov. 1714 letters patent were issued for him to be a teller of the exchequer, and he was admitted to the office two days later. His career in the House under George I will be treated in the following volumes of this series. He died on 26 May 1723 in New Palace Yard and was buried on 2 June in St Margaret’s, Westminster. De la Warr was clearly a Tory, but one for whom party played a subservient role to being a courtier, which he felt was ‘a blessing far more valuable than life itself’.<sup>76</sup></p> |
S.N.H. |
|
WESTON, Charles (1639-65) |
<p><strong><surname>WESTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1639–65)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1639-63 Ld. Weston; <em>suc. </em>fa. 17 Mar. 1663 as 3rd earl of PORTLAND |
|
First sat 7 Apr. 1663; last sat 28 Feb. 1665 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 19 May 1639, o. s. of Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, and Frances, da. of Esmé Stuart, 3rd duke of Lennox [S]. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France) 1656. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 3 June 1665; <em>will</em> 29 May 1665, pr. 23 Feb., 2 Mar., 27 June 1666.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Vol. RN 1665.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, English school, c.1664-5, NMM.</p> |
<p>A young man ‘of very good parts’, if ‘of a melancholic nature’, Portland took his seat in the House on 7 Apr. 1663 within a few weeks of succeeding to the peerage, though as with other peers who claimed places by descent the event went unnoticed in the Journal.<sup>2</sup> He was thereafter present on 36 days in the remainder of the session (42 per cent of the whole). With the peerage he inherited a long-running dispute with Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>, in which the 2nd earl had been engaged at the time of his death.<sup>3</sup> The resulting bill, which aimed to settle an annuity of £300 on Portland in lieu of bequests made under the disputed will of Dr Thomas Winston, was introduced into the House by Whitelocke’s kinsman Francis Willoughby*, 4th Baron Willoughby of Parham (<em>CP </em>5th), and received its first reading on 2 April. It was committed two days later and, following hearings in committee on 6 and 7 Apr., recommitted on the 9th. Whitelocke’s diary stressed the difficulties encountered in promoting the measure, but it was warmly supported by the 2nd earl’s old friend Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, who ‘spoke to most of the Lords for the passing of it’.<sup>4</sup> Clarendon made a particular point of recommending Portland, ‘a worthy young man’, to Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, hoping that he would employ his interest on Portland’s behalf: ‘God knows, [he] has need of it, for the payment of some crying debts, which must else blast all his hopes.’<sup>5</sup> In the event, though not without some difficulty, the combined influence of Clarendon, Whitelocke, Portland and his allies succeeded in steering the bill through both Houses, and on 3 June it was given the royal assent.</p><p>Besides his involvement in this business, Portland appears to have made little impact in the House. He proved loyal to his patron, Clarendon, and was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as being opposed to the attempt made by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach the lord chancellor. He may at a future date have been entrusted with the proxy of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (sitting as earl of Brecknock). If so, no record remains beyond a reference by Ormond over a year after Portland’s death, probably confusing him with his father, who had held Ormond’s proxy in 1662.<sup>6</sup> Besides this, he was named to just one committee in his first session. He was similarly inactive in the subsequent session of March 1664 (of which he attended two-thirds of all sitting days), during which he was again named to just one committee. Portland took his seat two days into the following session, on 26 Nov. 1664, but was recorded on the presence list on just 15 per cent of all sitting days. It is possible that he attended marginally more frequently as, although he was not included on the attendance list on 7 Dec., he was not marked among those peers noted missing at a call that day. In any case, he sat for the final time a few days before the close of the session, on 28 Feb. 1665. Early that summer, along with a number of other peers and peers’ sons, he joined the fleet as a volunteer. His career was brought to a premature conclusion when he was killed serving alongside his kinsman James Ley*, 3rd earl of Marlborough, aboard the <em>Royal James</em> at the battle of Lowestoft.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In his will, drawn up just a few days before his death, in which he named another kinsman, William Glascock<sup>‡</sup>, and Francis Bramston as his executors, Portland bequeathed his principal residence, Ashley House, to his mother. He made a few other modest bequests amounting to £230 and also made provision for an annuity of £40 to one Katherine Thoroughgood.<sup>8</sup> The earldom descended to his uncle, Thomas Weston*. Three years later, Glascock and Bramston resigned their trust to Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, in response to a chancery suit launched by Arundell on behalf of three of Portland’s sisters.<sup>9</sup> The reason for Arundell’s interest in the welfare of the Weston girls is unclear, though he may have been concerned to assist them as fellow Catholics. All of them later entered the convent of the Poor Clares at Rouen.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WESTON, Jerome (Jeremy) (1605-63) |
<p><strong><surname>WESTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Jerome (Jeremy)</strong> (1605–63)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1633-35 Ld. Weston; <em>suc. </em>fa. 13 Mar. 1635 as 2nd earl of PORTLAND |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 18 May 1660; last sat 12 Mar. 1663 |
|
MP Lewes 1628 |
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Dec. 1605, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Richard Weston<sup>†</sup>, earl of Portland, being 1st s. with 2nd w. Frances, da. of Nicholas Waldegrave of Borley, Essex; bro. of Benjamin,<sup>‡</sup> Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Weston*, 4th earl of Portland. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Camb. 1623, MA 1626; M. Temple 1626; travelled abroad 1629; Padua Univ. 1632.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 18 June 1632 (with £6,000), Frances (<em>d</em>.1694), yst. da. of Esmé Stuart, 3rd duke of Lennox [S], and Katherine, <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswald, 1s. 4da. <em>d</em>. 17 Mar. 1663; <em>will</em> 4 Nov. 1657–8 Oct. 1661, pr. 2 Sept. 1663.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. trade 1660, plantations 1660, loyal and indigent officers 1662; PC 3 Apr. 1662-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Freeman, Newport, I.o.W. 1631, Yarmouth, I.o.W. 1634, Portsmouth 1635; gov. I.o.W. 1633–42, 1660–1;<sup>4</sup> v.-adm. Hants. 1635, 1660; ld. lt. (jt.) Hants 1635–42; kpr. Richmond New Park 1637; ld. pres. Munster [I] 1644; steward, Berkhampstead manor 1660.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Amb. extraordinary Savoy, Venice, Tuscany, Paris 1631-3.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Asst. Royal Fishing Co. 1661.</p> |
|
<p>Weston was adopted as his father’s heir when his older half-brother, Richard Weston, who appears to have suffered from some variety of mental illness, ‘fell distracted’, and so it was his sons by his second marriage who were named in the 1st earl’s patent of creation as the heirs to the peerage. In the event, the special remainder proved to be unnecessary as Richard Weston died during his father’s lifetime. Originating in Essex, the Weston family experienced a swift rise under Charles I, as a result of which they were able to expand their estates into Surrey and East Anglia and their political interest into Hampshire. After the death of George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, the 1st earl of Portland assumed many of the responsibilities of the king’s former favourite. This pre-eminence was reflected in Weston’s marriage to the king’s cousin Lady Frances Stuart, though the match also served to highlight the religious divisions within the family. Both Portland and Weston appear to have been solid Anglicans, but the countess and the new Lady Weston were both Catholic and they appear to have used their interest to ensure that the majority of their children were brought up in their faith.<sup>7</sup> Four of Weston’s daughters and one of his sisters later became nuns and his brother Thomas ended his days as a boarder at a convent in Flanders.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Prior to his succession to the earldom in 1635, Weston had been appointed to the governorship of the Isle of Wight, a command that he continued to hold until disabled by Parliament. Further family divisions were apparent on the outbreak of Civil War when, although Portland and two of his brothers (Thomas and Nicholas) remained loyal to the king, their youngest brother, Benjamin, supported Parliament. A prominent member of the ‘peace party’, Portland was imprisoned from 1642 until 1643, after which he joined the king at Oxford. On the king’s defeat he compounded for delinquency. He was fined £9,953, which was later reduced to £5,297.<sup>9</sup> Portland’s brother Thomas opted for exile during the Interregnum and in 1648 three of Portland’s daughters were also granted passes to travel abroad.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Portland seems not to have been involved in royalist plotting, though both he and his brother Benjamin were active in attempting to assist Catholics under threat of sequestration.<sup>11</sup> His loyalties were in no doubt, however. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, noted him among the lords ‘with the king’ and at the Restoration he was restored to the governorship of the Isle of Wight. He continued to enjoy a steady flow of grants over the remaining years of his life, including an annual pension of £1,000 as compensation for his loss of the presidency of Munster.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Two days before resuming his place in the House in May 1660, Portland conveyed a message to the Lords requesting their assistance in his efforts to recover a bronze statue of the late king that had stood in his father’s park at Putney. Portland appears to have sold his interest in the house prior to the war.<sup>13</sup> Although the statue had been ordered to be destroyed after Charles I’s execution it had been preserved. The Lords issued an order for it to remain undisturbed so that Portland could establish his claim to it. It was later bought by the king and relocated to Charing Cross.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Portland took his seat in the House on 18 May 1660 and was thereafter present on 73 per cent of all sitting days of the session up until the September adjournment. Named to 22 committees, on 14 June he spoke in a session of the committee of privileges, arguing against moves to alter the oath of allegiance to make it more palatable to Catholics and urging that ‘the oath of fealty may be taken by us all’.<sup>15</sup> On 24 July he reported from the committee for the excise bill and on 14 Aug. he was appointed to the committee to prepare material for the conference on poll money. On 10 Sept. he was one of four peers to be named reporters of the conference for the bill for restoring ministers. He returned to the House on 20 Nov. a fortnight after the House had resumed after the adjournment. Present on 69 per cent of all sitting days in the second part of the Convention, during which he was named to a further dozen committees, on 30 Nov. he reported from the committees for the bill for tanning leather and for Radcliffe’s bill. On 13 Dec. he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines. He reported from the committee for the bill for pricing wines on 28 December. The measure was considered fit to pass without alteration and was voted through the same day.</p><p>The elections for the new Parliament in the spring of 1661 found Portland enjoying only partial success in his efforts to employ his interest on the Isle of Wight. Although he was able to secure the return of William Glascock<sup>‡</sup> at Newport, he failed to sway the voters to rally to Daniel O’Neill<sup>‡</sup> at Newtown, leaving O’Neill with no option but to look elsewhere.<sup>16</sup> Later that year, Portland resigned the governorship to Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Portland took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament, after which he was present on 96 per cent of all sitting days. Named to more than 60 committees in the course of the session, he proved to be one of the most assiduous committee chairmen, no doubt acting in close concert with his friend Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. On 24 and 25 May he chaired sessions of the committee considering the bill for preserving the king’s person (reporting back from the committee on 27 May), and on 27 May he also chaired the committee for the bill for reversing the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. Portland chaired the committee for Radcliffe’s bill on 5 June and reported the measure to the House later the same day, and on 27 June he chaired a session of the committee for the Hatfield level bill. On 1 July he chaired the committee considering the penal laws against Catholics and, following his report to the House the same day, it was resolved that the committee should meet again to consider whether anything further should be added. Portland continued to chair sessions of this committee on several occasions throughout the month, including one occasion on 3 July when he was also in the chair for committees considering the bill for confirming public acts, the masters in chancery bill and Francis Brudenell’s naturalization bill. He reported the findings of the committees considering these other three bills on 4 July and on 15 July he reported from the committee appointed to consider the restoration of the Council of the North. He recommended that a bill should be prepared to that effect to be introduced following the adjournment (though no minutes appear to have survived for the committee’s deliberations on this point). On 17 July he reported from the committee for the Westminster streets bill (again minutes are wanting for this committee) and, the same day, he registered his dissent once more at the resolution to pass the bill vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines. Portland chaired the committee for the recommitted highways bill on 23 July, which was agreed to be reported back with amendments.<sup>18</sup> He also reported from the committee for the corporations bill, communicating the substantial alterations to the measure which threatened to set the Lords and Commons at variance. The following day he presented the amended Westminster streets bill to the House, which was passed accordingly. Two days later (26 July) he was nominated a reporter of the conference held with the Commons to discuss the corporations bill.</p><p>Following the adjournment Portland resumed his seat in the House on 20 November. Between 5 and 7 Dec. 1661 he chaired three sessions of the committee for confirming private acts, reporting the committee’s findings to the House after the third session. On 7 Dec. he also chaired the committee for Dr Peyton’s bill, the effect of which he reported to the House on 12 December. In the meantime, he chaired the committee for the duchy of Cornwall bill on 9 Dec. (reporting to the House the same day) and on 10 Dec. a further session of the committee considering the corporations bill, which had been recommitted but was then adjourned.<sup>19</sup> He was named one of the reporters of the conference for the bill for confirming private acts on 14 December. Three days later he was also nominated a manager of the conference for the corporations bill. He was again nominated to manage a further conference on the matter on 19 Dec., after which he reported the conference’s findings back to the House.</p><p>Portland was absent from the House over the Christmas recess between 20 Dec. and 7 Jan. 1662. On 11 Jan. he chaired the committee for the brokers’ bill and on 23 Jan. that considering the uniformity bill. On 4 Feb. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning confirmation of three acts and the same day he chaired the committee for the Dudston and Kingsbarton bill. He chaired the committee again the following day, reporting the committee’s findings to the House on 8 February. In the meantime, on 6 Feb. he chaired the committee for the Admiralty bill.<sup>20</sup> The same day he registered his protest at the passage of the bill enabling Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to recover various estates in Wales. Over the ensuing few days, Portland was engaged with chairing further sessions of the committees concerning the Admiralty bill and the bill for assurances. He reported from the latter on 20 Feb. and two days later he again chaired a session of the committee for the Admiralty bill. The same day (22 Feb.) he chaired the committee for the bill for curates’ allowances.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Lady Portland was reported to have been disappointed not to have been appointed first lady of the bedchamber to Queen Catharine in February 1662, the honour going instead to the countess of Suffolk.<sup>22</sup> His wife’s disappointment seems not to have troubled Portland overmuch and he continued to bustle about in the House, chairing the committee for the Norwich stuffs bill on 13 and 17 Mar., the committee for the Admiralty bill on 15 and 26 Mar. (which was adjourned without discussion) and that considering the bill for George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, on 25 March. He chaired three further sessions of the committee for the Admiralty bill the following month, as well as managing sessions of the committees considering the highways and Wells port bills. On 7 Apr. he chaired the committee for the Killegrew naturalization bill, reporting the committee’s findings to the House later the same day.<sup>23</sup></p><p>On 10 Apr. Portland was entrusted with the proxy of Henry Carey*, earl of Dover, and just over a fortnight later with that of James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (sitting as earl of Brecknock). Ormond had informed Clarendon that he had conveyed his proxy to Portland in a letter of 12 March.<sup>24</sup> Between 6 and 7 May and again on 9 May Portland chaired further sessions of the committee for the highways bill.<sup>25</sup> The following day he was nominated one of the reporters of the conference for settling the kingdom’s forces and two days later (12 May) he was nominated a reporter of a further conference concerning the bill for money for royalist officers.</p><p>In the midst of this activity, Portland managed to fit in a flying visit to Portsmouth between 12 and 13 May. Present on the attendance list in the House on both those days, he appears to have travelled to Portsmouth on the afternoon of 12 May, dispatched a quick message to Clarendon that evening reporting on the preparations for the reception of Queen Catharine, in which he apologized for the ‘imperfections’ of his account (having ‘not slept since I saw you’), and then returned to London in time to resume his place in the House the next day.<sup>26</sup> The following day (14 May) he was named a reporter of the conference concerning the Norwich stuffs bill and the same day he was named with Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, to prepare a proviso to be attached to the bill for money for royalist officers. Nominated a manager of the conference concerning this business on 15 May, Portland was named a reporter of the conferences for the militia bill held over the ensuing two days. On 17 May he was also nominated a manager of the conference concerning five bills then in consideration and during the afternoon session that day was further nominated a reporter of the conference for the highways bill. He had returned to Portsmouth by the evening of 19 May and the following day he reported once more to Clarendon on the final preparations for the marriage between the king and Queen Catharine.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Little is known of Portland’s activities following the prorogation, but in November 1662 he wrote to secretary Henry Bennet* (later earl of Arlington) informing him that the Lords had declined meeting the commission for assessing the value of peers’ estates because only two – Portland himself and Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex – had so far submitted any returns.<sup>28</sup> Portland took his seat in the new session on 18 Feb. 1663 but sat on just 11 occasions before attending for the last time on 12 March. In advance of the session he had written to Sir Allen Broderick<sup>‡</sup> assuring him that Clarendon remained ‘more in the good opinion of the Parliament than those who wish him ill’. He also reported news of an anticipated marriage between Lady Anne Digby, one of the daughters of Clarendon’s opponent George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and Clarendon’s heir, which he hoped would ‘make up all friends’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Besides his concerns with the lord chancellor’s standing, Portland was engaged with his own affairs. Shortly before the House reassembled he had been involved in efforts to settle a long-standing dispute with Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>. The dispute had originated with the death of Dr Thomas Winston in 1655, who had bequeathed to Portland one of his properties. Whitelocke, who had been involved in drawing up the will and whose family also stood to gain from Winston’s death, complained at the time of the ‘powerful and haughty adversary’ he had in Portland. In 1656 a resolution was arrived at through the mediation of Chaloner Chute<sup>‡</sup>, whereby Portland was paid £1,000 and an annuity of £200 was settled on his heir, Charles Weston*, styled Lord Weston (later 3rd earl of Portland). The changed circumstances of the Restoration appear to have inspired Portland to improve on this settlement.<sup>30</sup> His manoeuvrings resulted in the composition of a bill settling £300 per annum on Weston but matters were still unresolved when Portland died from an attack of apoplexy at his brother’s residence at Walton-on-Thames, ‘having struggled four days for life’.</p><p>In reporting Portland’s death to Ormond, Clarendon bemoaned the ‘great loss to the public’, lauding his former friend as ‘a man of great wisdom and integrity’. Doubtless Clarendon was also concerned by the loss of so close an ally at a time when pressure was mounting on him from Bennet, Bristol and other discontented forces at court and in Parliament. Portland may have been in receipt of Ormond’s proxy at the time of his demise, or anticipating receiving it. This appears to be the implication of a letter from Clarendon to Ormond recommending that he convey the proxy to John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater instead.<sup>31</sup></p><p>At the time of his death Portland had managed to do little to restore the family’s fortunes. His widow was able to rely on a crown pension of £1,000 for her maintenance, but a few years after her husband’s death she was one of a number of notables to fall prey to highway robbery; she also had plate worth £300 stolen from her some years after that.<sup>32</sup> In his will Portland nominated his youngest brother, Benjamin, as sole executor. He was succeeded in the peerage by his only son, Weston, as 3rd earl of Portland.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WESTON, Thomas (1609-88) |
<p><strong><surname>WESTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1609–88)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew 3 June 1665 as 4th earl of PORTLAND |
|
First sat 10 Oct. 1667; last sat 1 Mar. 1669 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 9 Oct. 1609, 3rd s. of Richard Weston<sup>†</sup>, earl of Portland, and 2nd w. Frances Waldegrave; bro. of Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland, Nicholas Weston<sup>‡</sup> and Benjamin Weston<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Wadham Coll. Oxf. matric. 12 May 1626, MA Camb. 1629. <em>m</em>. 18 July 1667,<sup>1</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>.1669), da. of John Boteler<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Boteler, and Elizabeth Villiers, wid. of Mountjoy Blount*, earl of Newport, <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. May 1688.</p> |
<p>Col. of horse (roy.) 1644.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>One of the younger sons of the earl of Portland, like his sisters Thomas Weston appears to have been raised a Catholic by their mother’s auspices and he was noted later in life as being ‘a religious man’.<sup>4</sup> He served as an officer in the royalist army in the Civil War, seeing action with his brother Nicholas and with George Goring<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Goring, at the siege of Portsmouth. He was later captured at the battle of Rowton Heath in 1645. After the king’s defeat Weston appears to have opted for exile. He may have been in Rouen in 1649 and at some point in the early 1650s was boarding at the convent of St Monica at Louvain where his sister, Lady Mary Weston, also lived.<sup>5</sup></p><p>The death of his nephew Charles Weston*, 3rd earl of Portland, at the battle of Lowestoft brought the peerage to Weston in the summer of 1665, but he appears to have been reluctant to shoulder the responsibility. Noted as missing at a call on 1 Oct. 1666, he left it to the following year before finally taking his seat in the House. Present for the first time on 10 Oct. 1667, the following day he was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was named to a further five committees in the course of the session, of which he attended 62 per cent of all sitting days. Never a very active member of the House, Portland sat for the last time on 1 Mar. 1669. Two months later, he suffered the loss of his countess, who appears to have been in poor health from the outset of their marriage.<sup>6</sup> Although by her death he benefited from an inheritance of £2,500 and the residue of her estate, he was also encumbered with the executorship of both her will and that of her former husband, which she had failed to settle fully by the time of her death.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Portland had sold his paternal inheritance, the estate at Skreens, prior to the Civil War and, according to his Wadham contemporary Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup>, ‘having little to support his title’, after the death of his countess he opted once more for life abroad.<sup>8</sup> He was noted as abroad at calls of the House on 21 Feb. and 14 Nov. 1670 and at several subsequent calls. Portland was dismissed by Antony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, as ‘doubly vile’ (and a papist) in an assessment of May 1677. Two years later Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), thought him doubtful in an analysis of likely supporters (though he also described Portland mistakenly as a minor). By 1683 Portland appears to have settled permanently at Louvain, boarding once again at the convent of St Monica, where Bramston mistakenly believed that his sister and fellow boarder, Lady Mary Weston, was a nun.<sup>9</sup> The king sent him a bounty of £100 at Christmas 1687.</p><p>Portland continued to feature in occasional forecasts, being noted as a Catholic in lists of those peers thought likely to support repeal of the Test in January and November 1687 and again in January 1688. He died later that year without leaving a will. He was described in the convent’s chronicle as having been ‘a singular benefactor and dear friend to this monastery’.<sup>10</sup> At his death the peerage became extinct, but the title was revived early the following year for William III’s favourite, Hans Willem Bentinck*, who was created earl of Portland of the second creation.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WHARTON, Philip (1613-96) |
<p><strong><surname>WHARTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Philip</strong> (1613–96)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>grandfa. 26 Mar. 1625 (a minor) as 4th Bar. WHARTON |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1660; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 19 Mar. 1695 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 8 Apr. 1613, 1st s. of Sir Thomas Wharton of Aske (<em>d</em>.1622), and Philadelphia, da. of Robert Carey,<sup>†</sup> earl of Monmouth; bro. of Thomas Wharton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1624-5; Exeter Coll. Oxf. matric. 3 Mar. 1626; travelled abroad 1629-32; adm. L. Inn 18 Jan. 1638. <em>m</em>. (1) Sept. 1632 Elizabeth (1613-35), da. of Sir Rowland Wandesford of Pickhill, Yorks., 1da.; (2) Sept. 1637 Jane (1614-58), da. of Arthur Goodwin<sup>‡</sup> of Winchendon, Bucks., 6s. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (?4 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (3) 24 Aug. 1661 Anne (1615-92), da. of William Kerr, wid. of Edward Popham, 1s. (<em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 4 or 5 Feb.1696; <em>will</em> 1 Feb., pr. 21 Feb. 1696.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 13 Feb. 1689-<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Ld. lt., (Parl.) Lancs., Bucks. 1642, Westmld. 1644.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Col. regt. ft. (Parl.) 1642.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir A. van Dyck, 1632, National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA, 1937.1.50; (with 2nd wife) oil on canvas, by unknown artist, c.1656, Wycombe Museum; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1685, Tate Britain, T12029.</p> |
<p>At the time of his succession to the peerage, Wharton’s family held extensive estates principally in Westmorland and Yorkshire. The latter included significant lead mines in Swaledale.<sup>5</sup> Wharton’s family had reputedly been prominent members of the local gentry in Westmorland since before the Norman Conquest, though it was under the Tudors that they emerged from the ranks of the greater gentry as prominent marcher barons. Wharton was related to numerous other northern magnates including the Clifford earls of Cumberland and the Musgraves. Over the course of his long life Wharton developed his family’s estates successfully both by judicious marriage alliances and careful management of his lands in England and Ireland. His first marriage added to his Yorkshire holdings significantly, while by his second marriage to Jane Goodwin, he shifted the family’s territorial focus southwards, enabling him to become associated with the parliamentary opposition to Charles I concentrated in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.<sup>6</sup> As a result of the Goodwin alliance Wharton’s own principal seat moved from Healaugh to Upper Winchendon and thence, after the death of Jane, Lady Wharton in 1658, to Wooburn.</p><p>At least one of Wharton’s post-Reformation forebears had been Catholic (Thomas Wharton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Wharton), but the family thereafter reverted to Protestantism and the 4th Baron came to be regarded as one of the foremost Independents in Parliament. While close association with John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, William Lenthall<sup>‡</sup> and William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele, brought Wharton into the very centre of the parliamentary cause, his relation to prominent royalists such as his brother, Sir Thomas Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, and his Musgrave cousins provided him with a foot in both camps. Although a central figure in parliamentary politics after the Restoration and until his death mid-way through the reign of William III, Wharton’s significance as a parliamentary leader remains difficult to determine precisely. His exhaustive lists of presumed friends and his detailed recording of the minutiae of numerous matters that came before Parliament could be said to have influenced some historians into according him a standing that is not entirely deserved. But, while there are undoubtedly difficulties with some of the lists he created, Wharton clearly perceived himself to be central to certain topics that came before Parliament (particularly those concerning indulgence towards Dissenters) and that he was perceived similarly by others of undoubted influence. It is also significant that, despite his frequent opposition to three Stuart kings, he inspired affection from them all and a degree of toleration denied to many more influential figures.</p><h2><em>Before the Restoration, 1634-1660</em></h2><p>Wharton succeeded his grandfather in the barony when just 12 years old and, on his coming of age in 1634, he gained control of estates worth an estimated £8,000 p.a.<sup>7</sup> His second marriage in 1637 appears to have been of particular significance for his future political activities and it is noticeable that the following year he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on Lenthall’s interest. Wharton took his seat in the House on 13 Apr. 1640 and was soon a prominent member of the opposition to the king’s policies. Following the dissolution of the Short Parliament, he was active in campaigning for a new Parliament to be summoned and in September, despite his relative inexperience, he was one of those appointed to negotiate with the Scots at Ripon.<sup>8</sup> Local rivalry with his Yorkshire neighbour, Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, may in part explain their personal animosity and when Wharton was accused of sedition for his role in urging negotiations with the Scots, Strafford was said to have proposed that he (Wharton) be shot at the head of the army. Wharton had his revenge not long after when he was prominent in working for Strafford’s impeachment and execution.<sup>9</sup> He was also to the fore in bringing about the execution of William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Wharton was appointed lord lieutenant of Lancashire in February 1642 and in June Parliament added the lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire to his responsibilities. He was also appointed as colonel-general of the ‘adventurer’s army’, which was to be raised to quell the Irish rebellion, but which was never, in the end, assembled. One of the most active peers in the House, on 30 July he was appointed colonel of a regiment of foot within the army commanded by Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex (though he was also notable for contributing the fewest horses of any peer on the parliamentary side and just £300). The conduct of Wharton’s regiment at the battle of Edgehill was far from exemplary, while he was also the subject of mocking rumours that he had hidden in a saw-pit during the affray (giving rise to his <em>sobriquet</em> ‘Saw-Pit Wharton’). Despite this, Wharton was one of those sent from the army to report on the battle to Parliament where his behaviour was praised.<sup>11</sup> He remained a central figure in Parliament throughout the Civil War, particularly active in the field of religious settlement, and, although he did not take to the field again, he continued to serve in the parliamentarian army until disqualified by the self-denying ordinance.<sup>12</sup> In 1644 he was appointed to the Lords committee for drawing up instructions for the commissioners meeting with the Scots and was then appointed one of the commissioners.<sup>13</sup> The same year he was awarded the wardship of Sir George Savile*, 4th bt., later marquess of Halifax.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Although Wharton’s activity in Parliament declined after 1646, his close association with Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> meant that he retained considerable influence and his activities following the king’s defeat continued to dog him long after the Restoration. Most insidious was his ambiguous behaviour over an apparent plot to assassinate the king. Wharton had nominated one of Charles I’s attendants in his captivity at Carisbrooke Castle, Richard Osborne, who soon after became involved in one of the king’s numerous escape attempts. When the plan was discovered, Osborne fled to London and informed Wharton of a conspiracy to murder the king led by the governor of the Isle of Wight, Colonel Hammond, and Edmund Rolph.<sup>15</sup> Wharton’s failure to disclose this information compelled Osborne to write to Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester (the Speaker of the House of Lords) and to the Speaker of the Commons pointing out Wharton’s omission. Wharton was forced to make his excuses in the House on 19 June 1648, in which he claimed, bizarrely, to have passed the information on at once to Hammond. Although the House accepted his explanation, Wharton’s apparent quiescence in a plot to assassinate Charles I invited swift condemnation in the press.<sup>16</sup></p><p>His suspicious behaviour in the summer of 1648 notwithstanding, Wharton appears genuinely to have parted company with the army by the time of Pride’s Purge. He sat for the last time on 7 Dec. and on 28 Dec., in response to an order to attend, pleaded ‘urgent occasions’ for his failure to comply. He refused to participate in the king’s subsequent trial and, in spite of the earnest attempts made by Cromwell to bring him into the administration between 1649 and 1651 he remained in effective retirement for the remainder of the Interregnum. He also rebuffed an effort made by Cromwell to ally their families with the marriage of his son, Henry Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, to Wharton’s daughter, Elizabeth. He was later persuaded by Saye and Sele to reject Cromwell’s offer of a place in the Other House.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>Head of the Presbyterian Cabal?</em></h2><p>Although by the time of the Restoration Wharton had been removed from direct involvement in public affairs for more than a decade, he was early on identified as a prominent figure among those seeking a solution to the country’s difficulties. Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, directed one of his agents, Colonel Hollis, to ‘comply with L.W.’ (possibly meaning Wharton) ‘in all things’ as early as August 1659.<sup>18</sup> The marriage of Elizabeth Wharton to the royalist Robert Bertie*, styled Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 3rd earl of Lindsey) in that year perhaps indicates the direction in which Wharton had decided to proceed, though it may also be regarded as a further example of his ability to forge alliances with people of all persuasions in spite of his reputation as a staunch and unyielding puritan.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to London in February 1660, according to his own account (penned after the Restoration), ‘with full resolution to endeavour a happy settlement’.<sup>20</sup> He soon emerged as one of the foremost figures within the ‘Presbyterian junto,’ seeking to achieve a restoration along the lines of the treaty of Newport. Meetings of this group were divided between Wharton’s London residence and that of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland. Quite as important for Wharton as the quest for a satisfactory political settlement was his own need to achieve security from any future actions against those involved in the cause against the late king. By March this appears to have become his overriding consideration and on 23 Mar. Lady Mordaunt wrote to Hyde requesting him to send ‘by the first opportunity Lord Wharton’s pardon.’<sup>21</sup> The following month her husband, John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, commented in a letter to Edward Hyde how Wharton ‘will almost believe himself in heaven when he receives his pardon.’ Mordaunt’s letter also cast doubt on Wharton’s commanding role within the ‘cabal’ as it was clear that he was not always present among the group seeking, it was believed, to thwart the designs of George Monck* (later duke of Albemarle).<sup>22</sup></p><p>While Mordaunt’s information may have questioned it, the perception that Wharton was the ‘head of the junto’ has been reinforced by his composition of a list of the newly returned members of the House of Commons. Of the entire list of 526 names, more than half (276) were annotated with a variety of symbols, indicating their relative trustworthiness on a range of issues, while 121 were assigned to 23 ‘managers’ (including Wharton himself), over whom he, presumably, expected to be able to exert his influence to a greater or lesser degree in the Convention.<sup>23</sup> Undoubtedly, Wharton had friends and retainers in the House of Commons. The elections had seen the return of his brother, Sir Thomas Wharton, his steward, William Briscoe<sup>‡</sup>, and a close political ally, Sir Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup>, the first and last of whom were listed among his principal managers in the Commons. The question of the reliability of this list and of a subsequent one compiled for the Cavalier Parliament as an indication of political loyalty lies at the heart of understanding the extent of Wharton’s interest in Parliament. The vast majority of those whom Wharton considered friends do appear to have been Presbyterian or to have been sympathetic to Presbyterianism but a number of those included are surprising. Sir Walter Acton<sup>‡</sup> of Bridgnorth has been described as a ‘high cavalier’; Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Broghill [I] (later earl of Orrery [I]) ‘a Royalist and an Anglican at heart’; and Henry Carey<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Falkland [S], would also not appear to have been in obvious sympathy with Wharton. As far as the last is concerned, his management (and that of two others) was assigned to his Oxfordshire neighbour and Wharton’s kinsman, Thomas Wenman<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Wenman [I] (also a surprising addition to the list), which may explain his inclusion. As a man who had fought a duel maintaining the king’s honour in the 1640s and who had been involved in providing arms for the royalist movement, Samuel Enys’s<sup>‡</sup> inclusion as one of Wharton’s ‘friends’ makes little obvious sense. Equally unexpected is Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup>, who has been described as a ‘dedicated Anglican’.<sup>24</sup> Others such as Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S], and Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup> (Pym’s son-in-law) are easier to comprehend. However, Wharton numbered among his friends and relations a broad cross-section of political society including royalists from the Musgrave and Bertie families as well as more obviously parliamentarian figures. Topography also appears to have been a significant determining factor in inclusion. Wharton’s ‘friends’ predominantly held seats in Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Yorkshire and East Anglia.</p><p>It is certainly unwise to dismiss Wharton’s list as little more than an inaccurate wish list. There was clearly purpose in the compilation, for while Thomas Crew<sup>‡</sup>, returned for Brackley, was included, his father, John Crew*, later Baron Crew, also a staunch Presbyterian who sat for the same borough, was not. Although George Pitt<sup>‡</sup> was a cavalier, he appears to have had Presbyterian and Independent sympathies, which presumably explains his inclusion. The list also illustrates the fluid situation of the spring of 1660.<sup>25</sup> One of Wharton’s supposed friends, Edward King<sup>‡</sup>, who had a reputation for being ‘factious and fanatical enough’ and a rigid Presbyterian, must have been thought a reliable addition, but after his conversion to the court only days before Parliament met, it was soon reported that ‘none act more vigorously for the king … than William Prynne and King.’<sup>26</sup> While it would be unreasonable, then, to infer from this list that Wharton expected that those included would behave as a coherent group, it is possible that he hoped for each to exhibit some sympathy towards his views or (perhaps more importantly) towards himself.</p><p>For the Lords, Wharton compiled a separate list, noting down the previous allegiances of each peer. As with the Commons list, this record presents some difficulties, particularly among those peers who Wharton evidently did not know well. George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, was listed as ‘Lord Bartlett’, while William Sandys*, 6th Baron Sandys, who had inherited the peerage from his grandmother, was inaccurately listed as a peer whose father had sat. The same error was made in the case of Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), though he was marked with a query. Wharton noted himself as one of those peers ‘who sat’.<sup>27</sup></p><h2><em>The Convention Parliament 1660-1</em></h2><p>Wharton took his seat in the House at the opening of the Convention on 25 Apr. 1660. As an indication of how raw memories of the 1640s remained for men of his stamp, when Wharton passed the bench formerly occupied by Laud, it was said his ‘blood did rise to see where that accursed man did sit.’<sup>28</sup> Wharton attended almost three-quarters of all sitting days in the first part of the Convention, during which he was named to 25 committees.<sup>29</sup> Named to two committees on the first day, the same day he reported from that considering which lords should be sent letters requiring their attendance. As a result it was recommended that letters should be sent to six more peers (Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham, Dudley North*, 3rd Baron North, Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, Charles West*, 5th Baron De la Warr, Thomas Bruce*, earl of Elgin [S] who sat as Baron Bruce, and John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland).<sup>30</sup> Wharton was named to a further three committees on 27 Apr., but on 1 May he was granted leave of absence for, ‘as often as he finds occasion in respect of his indisposition of health and lameness.’</p><p>In spite of his apparent poor health, which may well have been used as a ploy, Wharton remained an active participant in the House’s business. The same day that he was granted leave for his health, he acted as the manager of a conference considering ‘ways and means to make up the breaches and distractions of the kingdom’. He was present again the following day (2 May) when he was named to the committee for settling the militia and on 9 May, when he was named to the committee concerning the commissioners to be sent to the king. The following day (10 May) he was named with Saye and Sele, Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, and Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh, to make some amendments to the commissioners’ instructions in reference to the arms of the Commonwealth. He reported the proposed amendments the same day, which were agreed to by the House. Added to the committee for petitions on 16 May, on 22 May he was absent from the attendance list but named to the committee considering an answer to be returned to the Commons concerning a free conference over the fate of Charles I’s judges. He was also restored to the office of <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> for Buckinghamshire and Westmorland.</p><p>Despite his sober, puritan upbringing, Wharton was more than ready to indulge in fine clothes and to enjoy the pleasures of dancing and court masques.<sup>31</sup> He was also a connoisseur of the arts and a patron of the portraitist, Peter Lely. This side of his character was reflected in his appearance at the king’s reception on 29 May, where he was noted as dressed in mourning (for his recently deceased wife) but embellished with diamonds and riding a horse equipped with furniture said to have cost £8,000.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Wharton’s apparent pleasure at the restoration of the monarchy failed to curb rumours that continued to circulate over the following two months that moves were afoot to have him excepted out of the bill of indemnity.<sup>33</sup> Wharton’s apparent peril did not prevent him from continuing to play a prominent role in the House’s business and on 7 June he was named along with the lord chamberlain (Manchester), James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, John Colepeper*, Baron Colepeper and John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), to prepare a draft petition to the king from both houses requesting that he would make a proclamation against profanity, to be read in churches and at the assizes. Two days later he reported the draft to the House, which was approved. Wharton’s precarious situation was highlighted when on 11 June the House heard a petition from his former ward, Sir George Savile, demanding that the bill of indemnity should not extend to protecting Wharton from his (Savile’s) efforts to recoup the £4,000 he claimed Wharton had been in receipt of annually from his estates as his official guardian.<sup>34</sup> Named to the committee considering the oath of allegiance on 14 June, the same day Wharton’s safety was threatened more directly when the House again took into consideration Richard Osborne’s letters of June 1648 concerning the alleged plot against the king’s life. In his letter to Manchester, Osborne had queried what reason there had been for the suppression of his information, ‘except it be to give those time that are concerned in it, better to think of some stratagem to evade this discovery.’<sup>35</sup> Wharton’s apparent complicity in suppressing Osborne’s report was presumably one of the reasons for the renewed attempts to have him excepted from pardon. These were countered firmly by the interposition of his son-in-law, Willoughby de Eresby, and of his cousin, Sir Philip Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. (whom Wharton had protected during the Interregnum), who presented Wharton to the king at Greenwich for his pardon.<sup>36</sup> He also received valuable support from Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, and from the king’s brother, James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Despite his pardon, the spectre of Osborne’s information against him may explain the decline in Wharton’s activities in the House in July and August, during which time he was named to just six committees, but his involvement increased once more in September. On 3 Sept. he was added to the committee for the bill concerning patents and grants obtained during the troubles and three days later he reported from that concerning Augustine Skynner. On 10 Sept. he reported from the committee for the bill for restoring ministers in livings, amendments to which were passed. The same day, during the afternoon session, he was named one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons concerning amendments to the bill for ministers and the following day (11 Sept.) he continued to be heavily involved in the measure, being named to the committee appointed to make further amendments to the bill, and reporting from the conference held with the Commons, as a result of which the proposed proviso was agreed to, generating protests from four peers. Wharton was then named once more to be a reporter of a further conference with the Commons on the same business.</p><p>Wharton returned to the House for the second part of the Convention on 6 Nov. and was again present for approximately three quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to 10 committees.<sup>38</sup> On 12 Dec. he was named to the sub-committee appointed to consider the bill for attainting the murderers of the late king. The following day he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for vacating Sir Edward Powell’s fines.<sup>39</sup> On 22 Dec. he reported from the committee concerning the bill for review of the poll bill and on the same day he was named with Northumberland and Robartes to consider whether the Lords had been provided for in the bill for taking away the court of wards. On 28 Dec. he was named to a further committee considering the conference concerning the same business.</p><p>Wharton’s interest in the Commons declined substantially as a result of the elections for the Cavalier Parliament.<sup>40</sup> The elections for Buckinghamshire saw the return of Sir William Bowyer<sup>‡</sup> and William Tyringham<sup>‡</sup> in place of Wharton’s candidates, Richard Hampden<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Winwood<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>41</sup> The broader extent of the decline is revealed by a second list he compiled, again detailing those he considered to be his ‘friends’ in the House. Most striking was the reduction in the number of ‘managers’ at his disposal. Whereas he had identified 22 in addition to himself in his first assessment, by 1661 a mere six remained. These comprised one Mr Stevens (probably Edward Stephens<sup>‡</sup>), Mr Lever (as yet unidentified), Edmund Petty<sup>‡</sup>, Mr Browne (possibly Richard Browne<sup>‡</sup>, member for Ludgershall), Sir Richard Onslow and Wharton himself. Between them the six managers were allotted approximately 133 individuals, but of these a number are almost impossible to identify (two are listed simply as ‘Mr…’) or failed to be returned. Of the 124 remaining, there are again a number of unlikely names, including Lawrence Hyde<sup>‡</sup>, cousin of the earl of Clarendon (as Sir Edward Hyde had since become).<sup>42</sup></p><h2><em>Cavalier Parliament 1661-67</em></h2><p>Wharton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661. On 11 May he was named to the standing committees for petitions, privileges and the journal. Three days later (14 May) he was named to that considering the bill for reversing Strafford’s attainder and to a further 17 committees over the course of the session, during which he attended on almost 78 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>43</sup> In June Wharton took a prominent role in the debates over the bill of uniformity, arguing that Catholics could not be bound to any oaths that conflicted with their allegiance to Rome and that the retention of the penal laws might prove of use in seeking to end Catholic persecution of protestants abroad.<sup>44</sup> On 17 July Wharton chaired the committee considering John Orlibeare’s bill.<sup>45</sup> He reported it as fit to pass two days later and on 25 July he was named to the committee considering the penalties to be imposed on those excepted out of the act of indemnity (among whom Wharton had narrowly avoided being included). Wharton appears to have supported his kinsman Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, the current holder of the office, in Lindsey’s contest with Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford over the great chamberlaincy, concerning whose rival claim he had compiled notes the previous month.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Although Wharton resumed his seat following the adjournment on 21 Nov. he was named to no further committees until 24 Jan. 1662, when he was included on that considering the bill for repealing acts of the Long Parliament. Reflecting his close interest in the religious settlement, on 8 Apr. he was named to the committee nominated to draw up a proviso for members of the clergy deprived by the provisions of the uniformity bill and on 30 Apr. he was named to the committee considering the bill for restoring advowsons taken away upon compositions. On 12 May Wharton chaired the committee for stoppages on common highways, from which he reported back on 14 May.<sup>47</sup> Following debate he was appointed with Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, to amend part of the bill. He reported their amendments the same day, which were read through and agreed. Three days later (17 May) Wharton was named one of the reporters of a conference considering the same bill, reporting its findings on the House’s resumption later that day, when he was also named a manager of the conference on the bill for poor relief. Wharton reported further amendments to the common highways bill on 19 May and was again appointed to draw up what was fit to be discussed with the Commons at the forthcoming free conference between the two Houses. The same day he was named manager of the conference held with the Commons concerning the bill to restrain disorderly printing.</p><p>In December one of Wharton’s servants, Walter Jones, formerly a servant to one of Cromwell’s kinsmen, was arrested as a result of information provided by Sir John Denham<sup>‡</sup>. Jones was questioned by Sir Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, but was freed shortly after at Wharton’s request.<sup>48</sup> The incident both hints at Wharton’s own potential vulnerability at this point and the strength of his interest that he was able to secure Jones’s release relatively quickly. Wharton took his seat at the opening of the ensuing session on 18 Feb. 1663. On 19 Mar. he was named to the committee considering the bill for repealing acts of the Long Parliament and to a further six committees in the course of the session, of which he attended just under 60 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>49</sup> In July Wharton was among those most forward in supporting the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to have the lord chancellor impeached. Wharton’s support for the measure may have been on account of Clarendon’s reputed role in advancing Catholics at court, though their antipathy long antedated this.<sup>50</sup> As early as May 1660 Clarendon had been warned of the ‘ill offices’ being done to him by his enemies: Northumberland, Manchester, Saye and Sele and Wharton. Clarendon’s role in securing the restoration of the bishops to their places in the Lords was a further reason for Wharton to seek his displacement.<sup>51</sup> When Bristol’s efforts misfired, Wharton attempted to secure his unlikely ally from the chancellor’s ire by moving during the debate in the House on Tuesday 13 July that Bristol should be protected by privilege arguing that, ‘no lord should be questioned, during the prorogation, or session of Parliament, for any thing that he had done in Parliament, that was not treason.’<sup>52</sup> Although George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, seconded the motion, it was sidestepped deftly by Clarendon and his supporters. When it was proposed to adjourn the debate to the next day, Wharton attempted to secure more time for Bristol and his supporters by proposing that the House be adjourned to 16 July (Thursday), though this too was rejected. In the debates of the following day (14 July) Wharton was again prominent in arguing the importance of privilege in protecting the House from royal interference.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Whatever Wharton’s precise motivation in attacking Clarendon, his role in the affair is again both enhanced and complicated by his composition of a list, which probably represents his assessment of how he expected the peers to act on the question of the impeachment. According to his forecast (which is open to interpretation), 43 or 44 peers holding 15 proxies were expected to support Bristol, while only 24 or 26 (and their three or eight proxies) were expected to hold firm for Clarendon. Fourteen or 15 were believed to be uncommitted. John Granville*, earl of Bath, appeared twice, noted as being both in favour of Bristol’s attempt and opposed to it. William Grey*, Baron Grey of Warke, was listed both as opposed to Bristol and uncertain. Only five prelates appear on the sheet, though it is clear that Wharton expected all of the 17 bishops present to back Clarendon.<sup>54</sup> The resulting numbers, 58 (or 59) against 44 (or 51) with 14 or 15 undecided undoubtedly exaggerated the strength of Bristol’s support but, despite the difficulties presented by his assessment, Wharton’s list underscores the serious level of discontent in the House towards the lord chancellor in the summer of 1663, coalescing around the Catholic peers and former parliamentarians. It also suggests Wharton’s own determination to see Clarendon brought low.<sup>55</sup></p><p>In the wake of Bristol’s failed attempt, Wharton remained active in the House. He opposed the passage of the conventicle bill in July and condemned the fact that ‘the exorbitant power given to a single justice of the peace or town officer [is] greater than the judges and all the justices of peace together now have or ever had.’<sup>56</sup> Although the end of the session prevented further progress being made in this measure, Wharton’s very public disillusionment may have encouraged belief that he would be willing to lend his support to schemes to overturn the administration, which presumably explains his rumoured involvement in the Yorkshire plot of that year. In a letter of 24 Oct. 1663, in which he reported his progress in rounding up the conspirators, Sir Thomas Gower<sup>‡</sup> reported to Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> how those that had been arrested ‘impeach one another, and great men are named’, proceeding to wonder whether Wharton would be among those implicated, ‘his carriage being much suspected, but he could get little and might lose much, considering his wealth.’ Evidence provided by Captain Robert Atkinson suggested that Fairfax and Manchester ‘were acquainted with the plot but disowned it’ and that Wharton ‘was privy to it.’<sup>57</sup> Wharton himself was only too eager to distance himself from any possible association with the rising and to jettison any of his retainers whose conduct appeared to be in any way questionable. In an undated letter of that year in reference to one of his servants, whose movements had provoked suspicion, he entreated his correspondent to:</p><blockquote><p>let Sir [Philip Musgrave] know that if there be jealousies concerning Ric[hard] Waller, I will not keep [him] in my service. My private opinion of him is that he is a very harmless fellow, and upon my knowledge he had… occasion of his repairing into Westmorland when he did (since my return out of the north) for the supplying himself with monies for paying of debts he is run into, but I say notwithstanding this or what ever I think of him I shall readily quit him, though I judge him to be so helpless a young man that I doubt much he will not know how to dispose of himself when he is gone from me.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>The man in question may have been the same sought out by Arlington at the beginning of December, who appears already to have been arrested and released (at Wharton’s intercession) the previous year. As far as his own conduct was concerned (which was certainly open to suspicion), Wharton was again able to rely upon his brother to counter any accusations of involvement with the plotters. On 18 Jan. 1664, Sir Thomas wrote to Wharton advising that he speak ‘with the king and good men in this, because I perceive by reports spread… that some people are busy to blast your good name’. Wharton was assisted by the speed with which information against him degenerated into claim and counter-claim among those taken up. One, Walters, swore that another conspirator, Denham, had proposed that Wharton should be their general, but that when ‘he had sent to let my lord know that the eyes of some were upon him’ he ‘found that he was not to be dealt with.’<sup>59</sup></p><p>Poor health and concentration on clearing his name may explain a substantial decline in Wharton’s activity in the House over the following three sessions. He took his seat in the third session of the Cavalier Parliament on 29 Mar. 1664, but was then absent for almost three weeks. Excused at a call of the House on 4 Apr. (he was reported to have been ‘very ill of an ague’ that month) he resumed his place on 18 Apr., after which he attended on 55 per cent of all sitting days.<sup>60</sup> He was named to just one committee (perhaps significantly, this was for the bill for transporting felons). Present for the prorogation day on 20 Aug., Wharton took his seat once more at the opening of the fourth session on 24 Nov., and was thereafter present for a little over a third of all sitting days. Excused at a call of the House on 7 Dec., he resumed his seat on 19 Jan. 1665 and was then named to just two committees before the close of the session.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Wharton was absent from the opening of the following session that met at Oxford on 9 Oct. 1665, but he took his seat two days later and then proceeded to attend nine days of the brief 19-day session. Named to the committee considering the additional bill to prevent the plague on 26 Oct., the following day he was named to the committee concerning a bill in which he was closely interested: that for restraining nonconformists from residing within corporations. On 30 Oct. he was prominent among those who spoke in opposition to this, the five-mile bill, but their demand to have the bill recommitted was defeated through York’s interest.<sup>62</sup> The Lords’ rejection of the Irish cattle bill, which had been first presented to the Commons on 18 Oct. by Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, elicited a relieved missive from Wharton’s Irish agent, Samuel Bull, who wrote to Wharton on 15 Nov. that the news of its rejection ‘revives our spirits, the truth is if that bill had been enacted the inhabitants of this kingdom had been undone’.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Wharton was one of only two peers (the other being Anthony Ashley Cooper* Baron Ashley) to find Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley and 6th Baron Monteagle, guilty of murder at his trial in April 1666.<sup>64</sup> He returned to the House for the ensuing session on 24 Sept., after which he was present for approximately 53 per cent of all sitting days. Absent at a call on 1 Oct., he resumed his seat on 19 Oct. and on 17 Nov. he was named to the committee considering the proviso to be added to the Irish cattle bill, which was again before the House. On 29 Dec. he was appointed one of the managers of a conference concerning the poll bill and to a further conference on the same matter on 2 Jan. 1667, on which day he was also named a manager of a conference concerning the public accounts. On 9 Jan. Wharton served as a manager of the conference concerning public accounts and on 12 Jan. he was appointed one of the reporters of a further conference on the poll bill. He was again a manager of the conference concerning public accounts on 24 January.</p><h2><em>From Clarendon’s fall to Exclusion, 1667-1678</em></h2><p>Wharton’s uncertain health intervened again later in the year and he was absent from the initial six months of the ensuing session. On 29 Oct. he was excused at a call on account of poor health and he was excused once more on 17 Feb. 1668. His ill health may explain his failure to support those attempting once more to achieve Clarendon’s impeachment. It may be that his neutrality was more deliberate and linked to hopes to obtain Clarendon’s assistance to achieve comprehension.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Poor health certainly does not appear to have prevented Wharton from pursuing his own business. In May 1668 he appears to have been working closely with Andrew Marvell over the composition of an address to the crown desiring intervention to bring about better relations between Protestants, though nothing came of it.<sup>66</sup> Towards the end of October he wrote to Samuel Bull, with letters enclosed for one Mr Eliot and James Annesley*, styled Lord Annesley (later 2nd earl of Anglesey), concerning his petition to be given restitution for his losses in Ireland. Bull’s response, of 16 Nov., was dispiriting. Acknowledging receipt of the letters, he informed Wharton that ‘whoever informed your lordship that they could advance your lordship’s affairs does not know Ireland, if they do I am told to say that they do not know the commissioners as well as I do’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>The anticipated resignation (or likely imminent death) of Sir Edward Atkyns, baron of the exchequer, at the close of 1668 was the occasion of Wharton seeking to propose William Ellys<sup>‡</sup>, one of those he had included on his list of 1660, for preferment. He approached John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester, on Ellys’s behalf asking that Wilkins might use his interest with the lord keeper, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), to procure him the vacant place but on 1 Jan. 1669 Wilkins replied advising Wharton that the place had already been promised to someone else.<sup>68</sup> Wharton finally returned to his seat in the House on 9 Mar., after which he attended on a further 20 days (approximately 17 per cent of the whole session) during which he was named to two committees.</p><p>Following four years of poor health, Wharton’s attendance improved steadily for the remaining sessions of the parliament. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 19 Oct. 1669 when he was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the journal. Absent without explanation at a call of the House on 26 Oct., he resumed his seat four days later and was, thereafter, present without major interruption for the remainder of the session (a little under 70 per cent of the whole). Despite this, he was named to only one committee when on 9 Nov. he was added to that considering the report from the commissioners for accounts. Wharton was again present at the opening of the ensuing session on 14 Feb. 1670, after which he was present for approximately 67 per cent of all sitting days. Named again to all three standing committees, he was named to a further 19 committees in the course of the session.<sup>69</sup> On 26 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the conventicles bill, something that threatened to touch him closely as it was reported the same day that he had been among those arrested the previous Sunday for attending the conventicle led by Dr Martin.<sup>70</sup> On 8 Apr. he entered a further dissent against the supply bill. Five days after the adjournment (14 Apr.), Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup> noted in his diary a visit by Wharton and Lady Wharton, commenting that, ‘his lordship came often to Whitelocke about the business of liberty of conscience, to which he was a friend.’<sup>71</sup></p><p>During the summer adjournment Wharton was again perceived to be to the fore among those seeking a general toleration.<sup>72</sup> He returned to the House on 24 Oct. 1670, but it is perhaps significant that despite his presence in the chamber for much of November and December he was not named to any further committees until 18 Jan. 1671 when he was added to that for the bill examining the accounts of money given to the poor during the plague and Great Fire of London. Named to a further 10 committees between February and April, on 20 Apr. he was named to the committee considering the bill for better observation of the Sabbath.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to the House on 4 Feb. 1673 at the opening of the session that followed the lengthy prorogation that had lasted from April 1671 to February 1673 (interrupted only by his attendance at two sittings on 16 Apr. and 30 Oct. 1672). He was thereafter present for approximately two thirds of all sitting days. Named to the standing committees for privileges and petitions on 4 Feb., on 13 Feb. he was excused at a call of the House, but he resumed his seat again on 25 Feb., and was named to three committees during the remainder of the session.<sup>74</sup> Closely involved, as ever, with matters relating to Protestant Dissent, Wharton communicated details of the session’s exchanges on the matter to the Dissenting minister, Samuel Hieron, though he took the precaution of omitting his name from the outside of the packets in which he sealed his messages.<sup>75</sup></p><p>During the summer of 1673 Wharton’s attentions were taken up with attempting to secure a match for his heir, Thomas Wharton* (later marquess of Wharton). In doing so he was aided by the assistance of his Buckinghamshire neighbour, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> (who was credited with ‘making’ the match) and the Dissenting minister, William Denton.<sup>76</sup> In September September a match was concluded with Anne Lee, niece of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, and sister-in-law to James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). Norreys was already related to Wharton by virtue of the marriage of his half-brother, Willoughby de Eresby (now 3rd earl of Lindsey), to Elizabeth Wharton. The marriage proved controversial as Anne Lee had been intended originally to marry John Arundell*, later 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, who had the king’s blessing for the match, but the combined pressure of Verney, the dowager Lady Rochester and Wharton himself ensured that Thomas Wharton secured Anne and her £10,000 dowry.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to the House at the opening of the session of October, but attended just one of its four days. He took his seat in the ensuing session on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on almost 90 per cent of all sitting days but was named to just two committees.<sup>78</sup> Wharton’s commitment to the Dissenting cause was highlighted during the ensuing 14-month prorogation when he was again arrested for worshipping at a conventicle in March 1675. Other notables in attendance at Thomas Manton’s meeting house in Covent Garden included the countess of Bedford, dowager countess of Manchester and Lady Diana Verney.<sup>79</sup> Wharton appears to have exercised some restraint over Manton and to have persuaded him not to preach on the occasion enabling Wharton and his fellow sufferers to initiate proceedings against the local justices for their treatment, for which they sought damages of £30,000.<sup>80</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the new session the following month on 13 Apr. and was once more assiduous in his attendance, being present on all but one of the 42 days in the session, during which he was named to six committees. Increasingly identified, as was Thomas Wharton, with the opposition grouping coalescing around the earl of Shaftesbury (as Ashley had now become), on the opening day of the session Wharton was one of 10 peers to register their protest against the vote of thanks to the king.<sup>81</sup> The session was dominated by a series of protests against the test bill, to many of which Wharton subscribed. On 21 Apr. he registered his protest at the resolution that the bill to prevent dangers presented to the government by disaffected persons did not encroach upon the Lords’ privileges and five days later (26 Apr.) he protested again at the committal of the bill. On 29 Apr. he protested at the resolution that the previous protest had reflected upon the honour of the House and the following day he was again a prominent member of the opposition grouping, speaking in the debate within the committee of the whole considering the bill. He proposed an addition to the bill, which was rejected, and asked what was acknowledged to be ‘a very hard question’, whether the bishops claimed the power to excommunicate the king, to which they evaded giving a response. Later the same day, Wharton ‘apprehending the dialect’ interrupted a speech ‘of eloquent and well-placed nonsense’ delivered by Buckingham, bringing the debate to an end.<sup>82</sup> He registered a further protest on 4 May at the decision to agree with the committee’s amendment that included both peers and members of the Commons in the first enacting clause.</p><p>Wharton returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session and was thereafter present on each day of the session. On 8 Nov. he was named to the committee established to discover the identity of the publisher of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em> (in which he featured, being described as ‘an old and expert Parliament man of eminent piety and abilities’), and to a further five committees during the brief 21-day session.<sup>83</sup> On 20 Nov. he voted in favour of composing an address requesting that Parliament be dissolved. He then registered his protest at the rejection of the proposal.<sup>84</sup> Wharton’s association with Shaftesbury continued to develop during the prorogation and together with Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, the two men were observed whispering together during the trial for murder of Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis.<sup>85</sup></p><p>During the summer of 1676 Wharton was once more noted as one of the notables frequenting Thomas Manton’s meeting house in Covent Garden.<sup>86</sup> Wharton’s continuing attendance at dissenting assemblies, as well as his association with Shaftesbury, appears to have led to him coming under close scrutiny during the year. <sup>87</sup> His activities certainly attracted the interest of Sir Joseph Williamson around this time and in October Wharton’s cousin, Sir Philip Musgrave, submitted to him a detailed report of Wharton’s movements in the north, noting two meetings with Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester (later duke of Bolton), and of the presence of one Murray, ‘a Scotch gentleman… frequently with LW at his house in London and in the country and as often with Lord Shaftesbury.’ Musgrave recorded that Murray was the recipient of regular sums of money from Wharton’s secretary, but ‘to what end is not known nor what his business is with LW.’<sup>88</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677. Although one of the principal supporters of Shaftesbury and Buckingham in their contention that Parliament was dissolved by the 15-month prorogation, Wharton’s own argument differed significantly from that of his associates.<sup>89</sup> He held that the prorogation had been illegal but did not extrapolate from that the conclusion that Parliament was thereby dissolved.<sup>90</sup> Even so, the next day, following a further two hours of debate, John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, and Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice (father of Anne Lee’s former suitor) moved that Wharton, Buckingham, Shaftesbury and James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, the four peers who had questioned the legality of the prorogation, should be called to the bar.<sup>91</sup> While the House recognized that Wharton had not ‘positively asserted and maintained that this Parliament is dissolved’ they did ‘observe your lordship did assert and maintain that this prorogation is illegal, about which the House has taken very great offence.’<sup>92</sup> When Wharton (like his comrades) refused to sue for pardon (insisting that he had already done so before leaving the chamber the previous day), he was ordered to kneel at the bar of the House as a delinquent and was then sent to the Tower, where he remained for the following five months.<sup>93</sup> He was the only one of the four not to request to be joined in the Tower by his own cook. The peers’ confinement was, at first, unexpectedly severe and after a week’s internment it was noted that they were being kept in the Tower as ‘close prisoners’ and not permitted any visitors except by permission of the king and House.<sup>94</sup> On 20 Feb. the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Robinson<sup>‡</sup>, who had previously been included among Wharton’s list of friends in the Convention, reported that he had sent away a number of people closely associated with the opposition, among them Thomas Wharton and William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Russell, who had attempted to wait upon the imprisoned peers.<sup>95</sup> Their incarceration gave rise to at least one comic verse, which ran:</p><blockquote><p>What Cooper designs Sawpit dares not oppose,<br />And George leads soft Cecil about by the nose,<br />The first is a statesman, The second his tool,<br />The third a d[amned] Atheist, The fourth is a fool.<sup>96</sup></p></blockquote><p>Wharton’s experience appears to have persuaded him to detach himself from Shaftesbury and his co-internees. While the other three initially submitted joint petitions, in his efforts to gain his release Wharton appears always to have acted unilaterally. After two months’ confinement in the Tower, ‘deeply sensible of the displeasure he is under,’ he petitioned the House that he might be set at liberty, ‘in regard of his bodily infirmities and the affairs of his family.’<sup>97</sup> On 16 Apr. the petition was referred to the king, who soon after expressed his ‘willingness on account of Lord Wharton’s indisposition’ to allow him a period of parole at his house in Buckinghamshire until 21 May. The other three peers’ joint petition submitted at the same time was less favourably received.<sup>98</sup> Despite the growing distance between them, Wharton was noted ‘thrice worthy’ by Shaftesbury early in May.<sup>99</sup> Wharton sought the interest of a variety of his acquaintance in the hopes of achieving his permanent release, among them his brother’s old patron, James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (who sat in the House by right of his English earldom of Brecknock), and in a further petition to the king he expressed, ‘his deepest sorrow for having fallen under your majesty’s pardon’ and beseeched that he might, ‘out of your innate goodness and clemency [be] graciously pleased to grant a full release to your aged and infirm petitioner.’<sup>100</sup> To strengthen his cause, Wharton also appealed to his Buckinghamshire neighbour, Sir Ralph Verney, for his assistance:</p><blockquote><p>You will easily suppose I desire a total release and I am not out of hopes of it. You know of how great an import it would be to me to have a good word from my lord keeper therein, and I cannot bethink myself of any who I believe would be so ready to do me that kindness as yourself.<sup>101</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite these efforts, Wharton was recommitted to the Tower on 21 May according to the terms of his parole.<sup>102</sup> On 30 June he wrote to Verney again, this time on behalf of his daughter, Margaret Dunch, asking him to use his interest with the lord chancellor (Finch) to ensure that the forthcoming Berkshire assizes might be held at Abingdon rather than Reading. Salisbury’s successful application to be released in July inspired Wharton to write to Verney again on 25 July enclosing another petition ‘in the essentials’ conforming to Salisbury’s, though ‘the circumstance varying… it was requisite it should not be throughout the same (word for word).’<sup>103</sup> On 29 July, Williamson at last communicated to Wharton that this latest petition for release had been successful. The king, he was informed, ‘accepts your submission as to that part of the offence which relates to him, and as to what relates to the House of Peers, he expects you to make the submission which the House enjoined you.’ The same day a warrant was passed for his release and two days later (31 July) he was freed from his confinement.<sup>104</sup></p><p>In a letter of 7 Aug. 1677 Andrew Marvell recounted Wharton’s subsequent and remarkably jocular interview with the king. The latter, it was said:</p><blockquote><p>jested with him and said he would teach him a text of scripture; ‘It will be very acceptable from your Majesty’. ‘Sin no more’. ‘Your Majesty has that from my quotation of it to my Lord Arlington when he had been before the House of Commons.’ ‘Well my lord you and I are both old men, and we should love quietness.’ ‘Beside all other obligations I have reason to desire it having some £1500 a year to lose.’ ‘Ay my lord but you have an aching tooth still.’ ‘No indeed, mine are all fallen out.’<sup>105</sup></p></blockquote><p>As his self-deprecating remark about the decay of his teeth suggested, Wharton’s incarceration appears to have taken its toll on his already uncertain health. In September it was even put about that he had died at his home in Buckinghamshire.<sup>106</sup></p><p>On 7 Feb. 1678, almost exactly a year after he had first been imprisoned, Wharton returned to his seat in the House. In advance of his return efforts appear to have been made to incarcerate him, Salisbury and Buckingham again when the lord chancellor complained ‘of their being released out of the Tower without making satisfaction to the House’. Finch was not permitted to finish his accusation. Charles Howard*, 2nd earl of Berkshire, interrupted him to inform the House that ‘to his knowledge one of them was ready to give all satisfaction’ and he also revealed that he was in possession of a petition from Buckingham.<sup>107</sup> In the face of vocal support for the formerly incarcerated peers, Finch was compelled to back down, enabling Wharton to return to his place having made his submission at last for his offences of the previous year.<sup>108</sup> The same day he was added to the committee for the bill concerning Deeping Fen and to a further four committees during the remainder of the session.<sup>109</sup> As a consequence of his period in the Tower, Wharton was present for only 39 per cent of all sitting days in the session, but following his return he was regular in his attendance, sitting throughout February and March and for the majority of sitting days in May. Imprisonment had done nothing to temper his views and in mid-March he was noted, with Shaftesbury, Buckingham and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, as one of the peers most eager for an immediate declaration of war with France.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat at the opening of the new session on 23 May 1678, following the brief 10-day prorogation. In the course of the session, of which he attended approximately 86 per cent of all sitting days, he was named to the standing committees and to a further 13 committees.<sup>111</sup> He returned to the House two days into the following session on 23 Oct. when he was named to the committee appointed to examine papers concerning the Popish Plot. On the day the session opened Wharton compiled a list of those peers who had registered their proxies and who held them.<sup>112</sup> Present for almost 84 per cent of all sitting days in the session, in November Wharton was named to the committee for examining constables to determine whether or not they were Catholics and to a further three committees relating to the emergency.<sup>113</sup> On 9 Nov. he noted a list of ‘five expedients propounded concerning the papist lords’, in which it was proposed that no Catholic should be able to vote in matters of religion, that the king should not create any Catholic a peer, that no convert to Rome should sit in either House, that no Catholic peers should sit when there was a Catholic king on the throne and, finally, that no peer should sit unless he had sworn not to undermine the established Church. On 15 Nov. 1678 Wharton voted in favour of the motion made in committee of the whole considering the bill for disabling papists from sitting in Parliament that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths. On 19 Nov. he received Holles’s proxy, which was vacated by Holles’s return to the House on 13 December. On 29 Nov. Wharton voted in favour of the Commons’ motion that the queen and her Catholic retainers be removed from Whitehall.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Early in December Wharton was again the subject of controversy within the House. On 2 Dec. it was questioned whether or not he had taken the oaths correctly, after it was noted that he had failed to kiss the Bible. Wharton argued in his defence that it was ‘idolatry to kiss the book’, which invited a rejoinder from his erstwhile associate, Shaftesbury, that, ‘he hoped kissing was no idolatry for then they must forbear kissing their wives’.<sup>115</sup> Unwilling to back down, Wharton withdrew from the chamber and his name was struck from the roll. His behaviour precipitated a debate in the House on the implications for a peer not taking the oaths, ‘the clear sense of the House’ being, ‘that peers that took not the oaths were not degraded thereby, but upon taking the oaths should sit in their places and be in <em>statu</em> <em>quo</em>.’<sup>116</sup> On Wharton’s return the following day he was permitted to resume his seat having retaken the oaths in the proper form and on 4 Dec. he chaired the afternoon session of the committee for examinations concerning the Popish Plot.<sup>117</sup> Wharton received the proxy of the weak-minded William Fiennes*, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele (grandson of his friend the 1st viscount), on 6 Dec., which was vacated by the close of the session. The following day (7 Dec.) he was named to the committee for the bill to disable Catholic recusants from exercising certain trades.</p><p>In the midst of his vigorous efforts to curb the freedoms of the Catholic population, Wharton still found time to indulge his passion for art-collecting. On 10 Dec. 1678 he wrote to Peter Lely to confirm receipt of a painting of Ormond in garter robes. He complimented both artist and sitter in his praise of the work, ‘it being so excellent a piece of so excellent a person.’<sup>118</sup> On 20 Dec. Wharton’s focus returned to Parliament again when he registered his dissent at the resolution to agree to amendments to the supply bill and three days later he registered a further dissent at the resolution that Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later successively marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) should not withdraw following the reading of the articles of impeachment against him. Wharton voted against insisting on the amendments to the supply bill on 26 Dec. and registered his dissent again when the resolution was carried. The following day he voted in favour of committing Danby and dissented once more at the resolution not to do so.<sup>119</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution, Wharton was active in the elections in Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire. He corresponded extensively with his son, Thomas, eager to discover where he intended standing and promising to do all he could ‘with all the lawyers and attorneys in town’ to engage agents to further their electioneering efforts.<sup>120</sup> Both Wharton and Richard Hampden (with whom Wharton co-operated closely) were eager to offer their interest in Buckinghamshire to John Egerton*, styled Viscount Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater), son of the county’s lord lieutenant, John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater.<sup>121</sup> When Brackley declined to stand, Wharton acceded to Sir Ralph Verney’s request that his son, Thomas Wharton, stand for the county, in spite of his earlier intention that Thomas should stand for Malmesbury in partnership with Sir Walter St John<sup>‡</sup> (a kinsman of Lady Rochester).<sup>122</sup> To help secure his return, Wharton suggested that Thomas might bribe the under-sheriff of Buckinghamshire so that the poll were held at Aylesbury close to his and Hampden’s estates:</p><blockquote><p>I have advised about preventing the election being at Buckingham, but cannot find any way to do it but by dealing with the under-sheriff who is now at Aylesbury and will be to the middle of the week. It may be 20 guineas may prevail with him if it be rightly managed. Or less.<sup>123</sup></p></blockquote><p>Leaving no stone unturned, Wharton prevailed on the duke of Buckingham to be present in person at Aylesbury on the day of the election and he also advised Thomas Wharton to send to another associate, John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, for his interest. Thomas Wharton was duly returned with Hampden’s son, John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>124</sup></p><h2><em>Exclusion and the reign of James II 1679-1688</em></h2><p>Wharton took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679 and attended on each of the initial six days of the abandoned first session. On 11 Mar. he was named to the standing committees and the committee to receive information concerning the plot. He resumed his seat on 15 Mar., the effective opening of the new Parliament, and attended every day but one of the second session. On 17 Mar. was again named to the committees to which he had been nominated six days previously. In advance of the session he had been assessed by Danby as a likely opponent in two forecasts, though in a third (of 2 Mar.) he was noted merely as an ‘unreliable’ opponent.<sup>125</sup> On 20 Mar. Wharton was named to the committee for the bill to disable anyone from sitting in Convocation before taking the oaths and two days later he was named to the committee appointed to draw up a bill for disqualifying Danby. Wharton received Saye and Sele’s proxy again on 29 Mar. (which was vacated on 9 May) and on 1 Apr. he was named to the committee for the bill to clear London and Westminster of papists. He voted in favour of the early stages of the bill for attainting Danby.<sup>126</sup> On 10 Apr. Wharton was named to the committee for the bill for hindering the lord treasurer and other officers of state from making undue advantage from their places and on 14 Apr. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in the bill.<sup>127</sup></p><p>It was perhaps in connection with his interest in assessing the strength of both sides that on 16 Apr. Wharton again compiled a list of those peers who had registered proxies, including his own possession of that of Saye and Sele.<sup>128</sup> Nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning Danby’s impeachment on 24 Apr., on 3 May Wharton again acted a reporter of the conference concerning amendments to the <em>habeas</em> <em>corpus</em> bill. During that month he was one of three opposition peers suggested by Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, to his father, Lord Montagu of Boughton, as suitable candidates with whom he could register his proxy.<sup>129</sup> On 9 May 1679 Wharton was one of three peers to be appointed to draw up what was to be offered to the Commons at a conference concerning amendments to the <em>habeas corpus</em> bill. The following day, Wharton voted in favour of appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords.<sup>130</sup> It was noted (that same day) that when the king expatiated on the recent ‘barbarous murder’ of the archbishop of St Andrews, expressing ‘great indignation against both the assassinates and their faction’, he directed his remarks pointedly towards Wharton.<sup>131</sup> The king’s allusions seem not to have affected Wharton’s prominence in the session and on 11 May he was named to the committee appointed to meet with one from the Commons to consider the trials of the impeached lords.</p><p>Wharton was named to a further six committees during the remainder of the session.<sup>132</sup> He took a prominent role in the debates that ranged between 6 and 20 May on the question of whether or not the bishops might vote in cases of blood.<sup>133</sup> On 22 May he was again nominated one of the managers of a free conference with the Commons concerning the <em>habeas corpus</em> bill and on 23 May he registered his dissent at the decision to instruct the Lords committee meeting with that of the Commons that they could give no other answer with regard to the bishops’ voting. He dissented again the same day at a further resolution, instructing the committee that the House had decided to proceed with the trial of the five Catholic peers before that of the earl of Danby. Wharton was appointed a manager of the conference concerning <em>habeas corpus</em> on 26 May and the following day he registered his dissent at the resolution to insist upon the bishops’ right to remain in court in capital causes (a list of those peers who protested with him was again added to his collection).<sup>134</sup> On the final day of the session (27 May) Wharton was again named a manager of the conference concerning <em>habeas</em> <em>corpus</em>.</p><p>Thomas Wharton was returned for Buckinghamshire again in the second election of 1679 on the opposition interest, but Wharton appears to have achieved some degree of <em>rapprochement</em> with the king following the dissolution. He also appears to have adopted a more cautious approach following his unwelcome five months in the Tower. While assuring those petitioning for a new Parliament at the close of the year that ‘his heart was with them,’ he followed Anglesey’s advice and avoided putting his name to any such request.<sup>135</sup> Despite such circumspection, Wharton remained a central figure in the opposition. He was one of those rumoured (inaccurately) to be included in a new Privy Council (‘the lord Shaftesbury, Lord Radnor, duke of Buckingham, earl of Essex (Arthur Capell*), earl of Halifax, and Lord Wharton, with such other like mad and improbable mixtures’), but was also one of only ‘very few’ people still to be seen visiting James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, in November 1679. In March 1680 he hosted a meeting of the ‘malcontent lords.’ Later that year, Simpson Tongue reported that Wharton was one of three peers with whom his father, Israel, one of the central pedlars of the Popish Plot, had been particularly intimate.<sup>136</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat four days into the new Parliament (the second Exclusion Parliament) on 25 Oct. 1680, when he was added to the committee for receiving information for the discovery of the plot. Present on approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days, Wharton was named to a further eight committees in the course of the session and on 15 Nov. he voted against rejecting the exclusion bill at its first reading.<sup>137</sup> On 23 Nov., he voted in favour of appointing a committee to meet in conjunction with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom, entering his protest the same day when the resolution was not adopted.<sup>138</sup> The following day he was one of five peers appointed to meet with the Commons to determine arrangements for the forthcoming trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford.<sup>139</sup> On 7 Dec. Wharton found Stafford guilty and on 18 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to reject a proviso over regulating the trials of peers.<sup>140</sup> In the middle of the month Wharton was granted leave to travel to Yorkshire, presumably to oversee his interests there, but he seems not to have hurried away as he was present in the House on 7 Jan. 1681 to enter a further protest at the resolution not to put the question whether to address the king to suspend the former lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Wharton’s association with Shaftesbury appears to have declined by the time of the meeting of the Parliament at Oxford in March 1681. When Wharton’s servant, Thomas Gilbert, purposely arranged Wharton’s accommodation so that he and Shaftesbury could be in close proximity, Wharton rejected the proffered lodgings.<sup>142</sup> There was no diminution, however, in his opposition to Danby. A pre-sessional forecast predicted that Wharton would oppose Danby’s efforts to be bailed in spite of Danby’s apparent efforts to appeal to Wharton along with several others using (in Wharton’s case) his daughter-in-law as a mediator.<sup>143</sup> Wharton took his seat at the opening of the session on 21 Mar. and attended each day of the brief Parliament, during which he was named to the standing committees and the committee to receive information concerning the plot. On 26 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law rather than impeachment.<sup>144</sup></p><p>The ensuing ‘Tory reaction’ in no way cowed Wharton, by then aged almost 70, into quiescence and he continued to be associated with radical opposition to the court and with championing dissent. In 1681 the grievances of certain Protestant Dissenters in Kendal were addressed to Wharton and in September 1683 rumours circulated of his being implicated with Robert Ferguson.<sup>145</sup> Despite this, Wharton gave way gradually to a new generation. In May 1684 he made his submission to York, confessing himself to be an ‘old sinner’: a sentiment with which York concurred.<sup>146</sup> Following the death of Charles II, the elections for the new Parliament demonstrated Thomas Wharton’s increasing prominence at the head of the family’s electoral interest in Buckinghamshire while Wharton himself was unable to bring sufficient influence to bear even to secure a seat for his younger son, William, at Cockermouth.<sup>147</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat in the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 but attended on just 10 days (approximately 23 per cent of all sitting days) before retiring from the remainder of the session. On 17 June he registered his proxy with William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, and on 7 Aug. he was granted a passport to travel overseas for his health.<sup>148</sup></p><h2><em>Final years, 1685-96</em></h2><p>Wharton’s journey overseas was not quite voluntary exile but, accompanied by the Dissenting minister John Howe, his decision to leave the country may have been a reaction to James’s pro-Catholic policies.<sup>149</sup> Although Wharton’s original intention had been to travel to Bourbonne les Bains, finding ‘the proper season for taking the baths was over’ he headed instead for the Rhineland. A letter from the elector of Brandenburg to Alexander, Baron von Spaen, concerning Wharton’s sojourn in his territories suggested that Wharton’s reputation preceded him:</p><blockquote><p>A certain English lord, named Wharton, has requested leave to make some stay in the district of Cleves and has shown various passports in token of his not being under the displeasure of his own sovereign. It is the elector’s pleasure that Lord Wharton should be protected against any act of violence or injustice; but should also be kept under watchful observation. Should any demand be made by the king of England for his expulsion his continuance within the elector’s dominions will be undesirable.<sup>150</sup></p></blockquote><p>There seems no reason to believe that Wharton’s activities on the continent were in any way suspicious but he clearly felt the necessity of explaining his actions to his hosts. From his retreat, on 18 Oct. Wharton penned a brief autobiographical memoir, addressed to von Spaen. No doubt eager to represent his former actions in the best possible light and perhaps mellowed by age, Wharton set out how ‘the three kings I have mentioned, from the first to the last, openly showed me all tokens of goodwill despite my constant opposition to the counsels prevailing, especially with the late and the present king’.<sup>151</sup> The same month that he composed this ‘testament’ it was rumoured that Wharton had died while abroad (‘but no certainty’). The information proved fallacious but was not until September of the following year (1686) that he returned to England. By then his health appears to have improved and with it, some thought, a return of his political ambition. William Denton commented to Wharton’s neighbour, Sir Ralph Verney, ‘I hear Lord Wharton is come over and some will have it to do a job towards toleration, but cannot believe it.’<sup>152</sup></p><p>Denton’s caution was well-founded. Nothing in Wharton’s actions after his return suggested that he intended to be involved with facilitating the kind of toleration desired by the king. At an audience he indulged in some badinage with James about the benefits of attending one of the Jesuit colleges he had met with on his travels but the drift of the conversation was dominated by the king’s suspicious enquiries as to why Howe had remained in the Low Countries.<sup>153</sup> Wharton was noted as being opposed to repeal of the Test in two assessments of January and November 1687 and in May (1687) he was listed as an opponent of the king’s policies. He was again noted as opposed to repeal of the Test in January 1688.<sup>154</sup> A rumour that July that Wharton was to be one of 15 new privy councillors was dismissed (correctly) by Morrice as improbable.<sup>155</sup></p><p>In November Wharton rallied to the support of William of Orange (his son Thomas was one of the first to arrive in the prince’s camp). Noted as joining with Devonshire in presenting 20 Dissenting ministers to the prince in November, on 11 Dec. Wharton joined the peers assembled at the Guildhall.<sup>156</sup> That day, he was one of the foremost in overturning the declaration composed by Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, demanding the omission of the clause affirming James’s right to the throne.<sup>157</sup> Opposition to the former king did not prevent him from offering assistance to some identified with the old regime. Following the seizure of William Penn, Wharton was one of those to offer bail of £5,000, though in the event the sum was underwritten by two of Penn’s neighbours. Wharton also trod a distinctively individual line when it came to expressing his support for the new order. Although undoubtedly a firm supporter of the prince’s intervention, on being presented with the Association to sign on 21 Dec. Wharton demurred, commenting cynically:</p><blockquote><p>That he had in several times signed several declarations, but he never found any signify much; had forgot many he had signed; and perhaps the words of this may not be agreeable to all men; and that, therefore, their lordships may consider of something that all may agree to, which their lordships may sign to prevent a division.<sup>158</sup></p></blockquote><p>Wharton’s attitude to the former king and his family was far more uncompromising. When it was suggested during the debates of 24 Dec. that the prince of Wales’s rights should be considered, Wharton was quick to point out that ‘the prince of Wales, as well as the king is gone’ and when Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon moved that the House might inquire into the events surrounding James Francis Edward’s birth, Wharton responded angrily, ‘My Lords, I did not expect, at this time of day, to hear any body mention that child, who was called the prince of Wales. Indeed I did not; and I hope we shall hear no more of him.’<sup>159</sup> Wharton was then named with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and four others, to compose an application to the Prince of Orange to assume control of the administration.<sup>160</sup> Wharton’s long-standing identification with the opposition and his support for William of Orange was no doubt the reason for his inclusion in a list compiled by Gilbert Burnet* (later bishop of Salisbury) as one of those who ought to benefit from the change of regime. Burnet’s list noted Wharton among those who ought to receive a promotion in the peerage to an earldom. No such award was made, though Wharton was included in the new Privy Council.<sup>161</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he attended on approximately three-quarters of all sitting days in the first session. He took a prominent role in the debates on the settlement of the administration, warmly defending the <em>de</em> <em>facto</em> government of the new king, and was named to some 29 committees.<sup>162</sup> On the opening day, Wharton was one of those nominated to draw up an address of thanks to be presented to the prince and on 23 Jan. he was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the Journal. Wharton’s interest in securing a satisfactory religious settlement was also evident. On 28 Jan. he was added to the committee concerning papists and he was also named to that considering which clauses in the <em>Book of Common Prayer</em> might be left out on the day of thanksgiving. On 31 Jan. he voted in favour of declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and on 4 Feb. he voted to agree with the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated.’ On 6 Feb. he again supported the Commons in their employment of the phrases ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant.’<sup>163</sup> Over the ensuing few days he was nominated to the sub-committee to draw up an oath of fidelity and nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the Lords’ amendment to the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen.<sup>164</sup></p><p>Wharton’s commitment to achieving liberties for protestant non-conformists remained constant after the Revolution. In January and again in March 1689 he was one of those to present representatives of the nonconformist clergy to the prince. He also drew up a memorandum ‘to be discoursed with Mr Hampden’ detailing ways in which such a settlement might be accomplished.<sup>165</sup> Advancing years did not diminish his willingness to dispute when he saw it to be necessary and over the following three months he entered a number of protests against resolutions of the House. On 23 Mar. he registered his protest at the resolution to reject a proviso extending the time for taking the sacramental test and allowing the sacrament to be taken in any protestant church, and on 25 May he protested again, this time at the resolution that the published paper entitled <em>The Case of Titus Oates</em> constituted a breach of the Lords’ privilege.<sup>166</sup> On 31 May Wharton voted to reverse the judgments against Oates and registered his protest when the reversal was rejected.<sup>167</sup></p><p>In spite of their vigorous disagreement in the House at the close of 1688, Wharton appears to have remained on amicable terms with Clarendon following the latter’s retirement from the Lords. In return Clarendon expressed ‘an extraordinary kindness and value for’ Wharton and noted Wharton’s efforts to assist him over his unwillingness to take the oaths.<sup>168</sup> Nominated as one of the managers of a conference concerning the bill for the commissioners of the great seal on 20 June, Wharton was named to a further conference on the same matter the following day. On 25 June he registered his protest at the resolution not to reverse the overturning of a judgment in the cause of <em>Sir Samuel Barnardiston v. Sir W. Soames</em>. On 26 July Wharton was appointed one of the managers of a conference concerning the reversal of the perjury judgments against Oates and on 30 July he voted against the Lords’ amendments to the reversal of Oates’s perjury convictions. He then registered his dissent at the resolution to adhere to the amendments.<sup>169</sup> Clarendon and Wharton continued to exchange visits and pleasantries in the late summer of 1689. In particular, Clarendon thanked Wharton for ‘his civilities in the House’, but while Wharton offered ‘assurances of the continuance of his friendship’ he again advised Clarendon ‘not to appear in the town.’<sup>170</sup> Wharton seems to have been the victim of fraud at around the same time, the House taking notice of a protection claimed by a Cornish innkeeper, which he claimed to have been made out by Wharton. The offending publican was summoned to appear at the bar to answer the charges at the beginning of September.<sup>171</sup> Wharton’s attendance of the House declined markedly after the first session of the Convention, apparently on account of renewed ill health.<sup>172</sup> Absent at the opening of the second session, Wharton took his seat on 28 Oct. 1689, after which he sat for approximately 45 per cent of all sitting days. Named to just three committees in the course of the session, on 14 Jan. 1690 he entered his dissent at the resolution that it was the ancient right of peers to be tried only in full Parliament for capital offences.<sup>173</sup> Carmarthen (as the earl of Danby had become) classed him as an opponent of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding that he was to be approached by Charles Powlett, now duke of Bolton.</p><p>Wharton’s interest in Cockermouth came under assault again during the general election, from both the local Tory magnate, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Sir Wilfred Lawson<sup>‡</sup>, who had previously acted as one of Wharton’s managers in the Commons.<sup>174</sup> Lawson’s decision to contest the seat was probably the more damaging as he had previously undertaken not to stand against Wharton’s younger son, Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, ‘for the honour he had for your lordship and family.’ Sir Wilfred’s behaviour led a number of the burgesses to write to Wharton to inform him of Lawson’s ‘double-dealing’ and to warn him that ‘we have too much reason to believe that your lordship has the like from others.’ The result was that the seats were carried by Sir Orlando Gee<sup>‡</sup> (on the Somerset interest) and Sir Wilfred Lawson, leaving Goodwin Wharton trailing in third place.<sup>175</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to the House for the new Parliament on 21 Mar. 1690 but was then absent for the following 10 days. He resumed his seat on 31 Mar. after which he was present on approximately 72 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Named to just one committee, on 2 May he contributed a brief interjection to the debate at the second reading of the abjuration bill, pressing for information to be heard before any resolutions were taken, and on 13 May he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to allow the Corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel.<sup>176</sup> Following the adjournment on 23 May, Wharton was again noted as one of Clarendon’s visitors and on 6 June Clarendon attempted to reciprocate, but found Wharton away from home.<sup>177</sup> Absent from the opening days of the following session of October 1690, Wharton took his seat at last on 21 Nov., after which he was present for almost 29 per cent of all sitting days. Added to the sessional committee for privileges on 25 Nov. he was named to a further four committees during the session, including that for annulling the marriage between Mary Wharton and James Campbell.<sup>178</sup> Wharton was absent from the first three months of the ensuing session of October. He returned to the House on 27 Jan. 1692 and was thereafter present for just under 17 per cent of all sitting days in the session, during which he was named to one committee.<sup>179</sup> At around the same time he featured on a list compiled by William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, among those Derby thought opposed to restoring to him family lands lost during the commonwealth.</p><p>The (long-expected) death of Lady Wharton in August 1692 may perhaps explain Wharton’s absence from the opening of the following session of November.<sup>180</sup> The bereavement left some on the fringes of the family gloomily expectant of the dynasty’s imminent extinction: Wharton being by now elderly and neither of his surviving sons having heirs.<sup>181</sup> If this was the opinion of those around him, Wharton appears not to have allowed such maudlin concerns to stand in his way. Having taken his seat on 30 Dec. his attendance proved slightly higher than in the previous session (some 26 per cent of all sitting days) and on 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill. On 3 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of passing the bill and on 18 Jan. he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill.<sup>182</sup> On 17 Feb. he moved for the inclusion of a clause condemning the Tory-dominated London lieutenancy and on 22 Feb. he was named to the committee concerning the bill for transferring the duty of alnage to the customs house. On 4 Mar. he was named to the committee for drawing an address to the king on the state of Ireland.<sup>183</sup> Wharton was absent once more from the opening of the following session. He was excused at a call of the House on 14 Nov. before taking his seat on 30 Nov. after which he was present for approximately 28 per cent of all sitting days. On 22 Feb. 1694 he was named to the committee for the bill for settling the estate of John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, but he was then named to just one more committee during the session (that considering the mutiny bill).<sup>184</sup></p><p>A year after the death of his third wife, Wharton appears to have contemplated marrying again. The initial object of his interest seems to have been a Welsh heiress and on her death rumours circulated that he had redirected his attentions almost at once to the widow Ludlow, ‘who he took for her hair’.<sup>185</sup> No marriage resulted, however. Fresh from his wooing, Wharton took his seat in the 6th session on 22 Dec. 1694 but attended on just 15 days (approximately 13 per cent of the whole) before sitting for the last time on 19 Mar. 1695. Late in August 1695 rumours began to circulate that Wharton was critically ill.<sup>186</sup> The following month it was reported that he had died, though this proved to be premature.<sup>187</sup> Early in February 1696 it was observed that his heir was unnaturally quiet during a debate in the Commons, which was thought to be a sure indication that Wharton had at last succumbed. Wharton died a few days later between 4 and 5 Feb. at his house at Hampstead.<sup>188</sup> In his will Wharton made provision for the members of his household to be given board and lodging for a month after his death as well as bequeathing a number of sums of money to individual servants amounting to £131. The remainder of his estates were divided between his surviving sons Thomas and Goodwin. Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Rooksby, John White<sup>‡</sup>, Harley’s second son, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Bendlows and William Mortimer were appointed executors. Wharton was buried at Wooburn and succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas, as 5th Baron Wharton, to whom he bequeathed his Parliament robes, an estate estimated at £16,000 per annum and the foundations of one of the richest electoral interests in the kingdom.<sup>189</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WHARTON, Thomas (c. 1648-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>WHARTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1648–1715)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Feb. 1696 as 5th Bar. WHARTON; <em>cr. </em>23 Dec. 1706 earl of WHARTON; <em>cr. </em>15 Feb. 1715 mq. of WHARTON and mq. of MALMESBURY; <em>cr. </em>12 Apr. 1715 mq. of Catherlough [I] |
|
First sat 24 Feb. 1696; last sat 1 Apr. 1715 |
|
MP Wendover 1673-1679 (Jan.), Buckinghamshire 1679 (Mar.)-1696 |
<p><em>bap</em>. 23 Oct. 1648, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Philip Wharton*, 4th Bar. Wharton, and 2nd w. Jane (<em>d</em>.1658), da. of Arthur Goodwin<sup>‡</sup> of Winchenden Bucks.; bro. of Goodwin<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Wharton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (tutor Theophilus Gale);<sup>1</sup> Protestant academy at Caen 1662-4;<sup>2</sup> travelled abroad (France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands) 1664-6;<sup>3</sup> LLD Camb. 1705. <em>m</em>. (1) 16 Sept. 1673 (with £2,500 p.a. and £10,000), Anne (<em>d</em>.1685),<sup>4</sup> da. and coh. of Sir Henry Lee, 3rd bt. of Quarrendon, Bucks., <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) July 1692 Lucy (<em>d</em>.1717), da. of Adam Loftus, Visct. Lisburne [I],<sup>5</sup> 1s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 12 Apr. 1715;<sup>6</sup> <em>will</em> 8 Apr. 1715, pr. 13 Sept. 1715.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>PC 19 Feb. 1689-1702,<sup>8</sup> 1708-10;<sup>9</sup> commr. abuses in army 1689,<sup>10</sup> appeals for prizes 1695, appeal in Admiralty cases 1697,<sup>11</sup> Union with Scotland 1706;<sup>12</sup> comptroller of household 1689-1702;<sup>13</sup> c.j. in eyre south of Trent 1697-1702,<sup>14</sup> 1706-10;<sup>15</sup> ld. lt. [I] Dec. 1708- Oct. 1710;<sup>16</sup> ld. privy seal, 23 Sept. 1714-<em>d</em>.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Commr. recusants, Bucks. 1675; <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>., Bucks. 1689-1702, Westmld. 1700-2, 1706-14,<sup>18</sup> Oxon. 1697-1702,<sup>19</sup> 1714-<em>d</em>.; high steward, Malmesbury 1689-98, 1704-11, Chipping Wycombe 1694-<em>d</em>., Tewkesbury 1710-<em>d</em>.; lt. Woodstock Park 1690;<sup>20</sup> freeman, Chipping Wycombe 1691, Woodstock 1697, Appleby, 1700, Dublin 1709; ld. lt., Oxon. 1697-1702,<sup>21</sup> Bucks. Jan.-June 1702; alderman Appleby 1700,<sup>22</sup> mayor 1708-9.</p><p>Col. drag. [I] Apr.-Oct. 1710.</p><p>Asst. Mines Adventurers 1693; commr. Greenwich Hosp. (ex officio) 1695; Q. Anne’s Bounty 1704.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1710-15, NPG 3233.</p> |
<h2><em>‘Honest Tom’ and ‘The detestable Wharton’</em></h2><p>Wharton was one of the most prominent members of the Whig Junto.<sup>27</sup> It might even be said that he was the glue that bound his disparate and frequently quarrelsome colleagues together. As a young man he rebelled against his father’s puritanism and embraced the most hedonistic excesses of the Restoration. He was an early supporter of the Revolution for which he was rewarded with office in the household of William of Orange, though he was denied more senior posts which he felt were his due. Always vigorous in the rough and tumble of political life Wharton, a keen student of the turf, was on one occasion told that ‘a jockey’s whip became him better than a white staff.’<sup>28</sup> In later life he moderated his behaviour without losing any of his passion for the Whig cause.</p><p>Responses to Wharton tended to be emphatic: absolute detestation or complete devotion. To his supporters he was ‘Honest Tom’, the uncompromising adherent of the cause of whiggery. To his opponents he was little better than the devil incarnate. An acrostic that appeared in the <em>Post Boy</em> ran:</p><blockquote><p>Whiggs the first letter of his odious name<br />Hypocrisy the second of the same,<br />Anarchy, his darling and his aim;<br />Rebellion, discord, mutiny, and faction.<br />Tom, captain of the mob, in soul and action;<br />O’ergrown in sin, cornuted [horned] and in debt;<br />Nol’s soul, and Ireton’s live within him yet.<sup>29</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the mid-eighteenth century he was still held up as the epitome of factionalism and ‘the detestable Wharton’ featured within Samuel Johnson’s dictionary in a definition of party leadership. He was closely associated with a number of early clubs that helped to consolidate party identities, notably the Kit Cat, of which his second wife was one of the toasts, and the Hanover Club, which flowered briefly in 1712 but was credited with helping to hold the Whigs together when faced with a reinvigorated Tory ministry.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Wharton’s parliamentary career spanned four decades. He sat in the Commons without interruption from 1673 until his succession to the peerage. A bravura performer in the Commons, he was said to have spent two hours a day while on grand tour honing his oratorical skills in the manner of Cicero. In spite of the classical foundation, when he advanced to the Lords he brought to the upper chamber a more informal style of debate.<sup>31</sup> Quite as importantly, he also commanded interest in a number of boroughs and counties, which both underpinned the significance of his leadership among other members of the Junto as well as bringing him into conflict with a number of his neighbours. His interests stretched from Cumberland and Westmorland in the north-west to Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire in the south and south-west. As a result he was able to dictate the result to a greater or lesser degree in over 20 seats and he was always willing to underwrite a campaign waged by those who shared his passion for the ‘honest party’.<sup>32</sup> Not that all of his efforts were successful. He struggled to inveigle his way into Oxfordshire in the face of concerted opposition from the Bertie family and he faced similar difficulties in his efforts to dominate in Malmesbury.</p><p>Perhaps Wharton’s most significant contribution to the politics of the period was to make Parliament the venue for several dramatic confrontations. He championed the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Sacheverell as well as manipulating tensions between the Lords and Commons over the case of the Aylesbury men. Yet while a determined foe he rarely lost command of his temper. Even at the height of his rivalry with Robert Harley*, who would become earl of Oxford, he was always ready with a humorous quip. Nevertheless, his usual good humour did not disguise his determination to further both his own fortunes and those of the Junto; neither did it in any way limit his willingness to destroy those that stood in his way.</p><p>Wharton’s Dissenting background precluded admission to Oxford or Cambridge so he was sent abroad with his younger brother Goodwin, accompanied by Theophilus Gale, and entered at the Protestant academy at Caen. His progress in France was viewed with considerable concern by Gale, who reported back to Lord Wharton:</p><blockquote><p>I am not without some fears and difficulties as to your sons especially Mr Wharton, in point of religion and conversation… My greatest fears are lest they should suck in any atheistical or unchristian principles which though they continue civil in their conversations… for the present, may end at last in open wickedness.<sup>33</sup></p></blockquote><p>Gale’s concerns proved prescient. On Wharton’s return to England he embarked on a career as one of the period’s more outrageous rakes. He affronted his neighbours with wild parties and scandalized society with his odd habit of taking home urchins.</p><h2><em>The House of Commons 1673-96</em></h2><p>Alongside such activities, Wharton embraced an active political career. He secured election for Wendover in 1673 and by the mid-1670s he was closely associated with the opposition. He was a noted follower of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and a regular companion of John Lovelace* 3rd Baron Lovelace, and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. The same year in which he was returned to the Commons, Wharton was married to Anne Lee. The match, which had been opposed by the king, consolidated his interest in Buckinghamshire and neighbouring Oxfordshire but precipitated a long and ill-tempered legal battle with his brother-in-law, James Bertie*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon). As well as having to contend with the king’s distaste for the match, Wharton was also forced to fight a duel with another suitor, John Arundell*, later 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, who disarmed him in the bout. In spite of this Wharton’s interest in the area seems to have convinced Anne Lee’s family to agree to the match even though at least one relative expressed a preference for Arundell’s principles.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Following some last-minute alterations and contrary to his father’s original plan that he would stand for Westmorland, Wharton transferred to Buckinghamshire for the first Exclusion Parliament. He appears to have been reluctant to contest the county seat because of the expense but was evidently prevailed on to lay aside his reservations. He was supported by Lovelace and George Villiers* 2nd duke of Buckingham, who combined to ensure his return. Besides his own election Wharton was also engaged with employing his interest at Malmesbury.<sup>35</sup> He defended his seat successfully in the second election of 1679, again supported by Buckingham and by William Paget* 7th Baron Paget. He is not known to have spoken in favour of the exclusion bill but there is no doubt that he supported the measure, and was one of those to carry the bill up to the Lords. As a result he was dismissed from the Buckinghamshire commission of the peace early in 1680. Shortly after, hopes were expressed that he and Norreys might at last be induced to settle their differences. Wharton was thought likely to acquiesce not least because by then he was known to have ‘great occasion for ready money.’ Agreement seems to have been reached finally by the late spring.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Wharton’s notoriety was not confined to his political activities. In 1682 he participated in a scandalous ‘frolic’ at the church of Great Barrington on the Oxfordshire-Gloucestershire borders, vandalizing the place and (possibly) employing the font as a latrine and the pulpit as a close stool. The evening had commenced at the house of one of the local gentry (possibly Reginald Bray of Barrington Park) but rapidly got out of hand. Wharton was compelled to submit to Robert Frampton*, bishop of Gloucester, but was let off with only the most minor of penances.<sup>37</sup> The following year (1683), Wharton risked rather more than a mild Episcopal rebuke when he was implicated in the Rye House Plot. Arms were seized from his seat at Winchendon but he was able to evade arrest.<sup>38</sup> He was involved with another disturbance early in 1684 when a quarrel with Sir Henry Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. in a coffee house resulted in a duel. Wharton ran Hobart through, but the injury was not life-threatening.<sup>39</sup> Such events may have encouraged Wharton to seek sanctuary overseas: during the summer of 1684 he appears to have gone to France, though his sojourn can not have been of long duration.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Following James II’s accession Wharton was returned once more for Buckinghamshire in spite of vigorous efforts to thwart his election, led by George Jeffreys*, about to become Baron Jeffreys. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> reckoned Wharton would ‘serve the king and country very faithfully, though he is wild enough, especially when he is in drink’ but Wharton continued his studied opposition to the regime.<sup>41</sup> Although he avoided being dragged into the rebellion of his former companion, Monmouth, he was later a prominent member of the Treason Club that met at the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden. He may have been a member of the Green Ribbon Club as well.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Late in 1685 Wharton suffered the loss of his wife and although it was believed that she had left the majority of her estate to him the event sparked a renewal of tension with his brother-in-law Abingdon (as Norreys had since become) over the inheritance.<sup>43</sup> The following year he was again implicated in a scandalous escapade, this time at Eythrope in Buckinghamshire, seat of Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon. Wharton and a handful of others were said to have broken their way into Carnarvon’s house and subjected the peer to a thrashing as well as ‘some other peccadilloes of that kind’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Having avoided direct association with the two earlier rebellions, Wharton played a more active part in the 1688 Revolution. His association with the opposition to James’s policies had continued unabated throughout the reign. In 1686 he was credited with the composition of <em>Lilliburlero</em>, set to a tune by Henry Purcell, satirizing the appointment of Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I], as lieutenant of Ireland. The following year he stood bail for William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire.<sup>45</sup> With the aid of his brother, Henry, Wharton was involved in the army conspiracy. He was one of the first to join William of Orange at Exeter, where he found himself in unusual alliance with his brother-in-law, Abingdon. He also co-operated with the local Tory magnate, normally his diametrical opposite, Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, to draw up an address.<sup>46</sup></p><p>In the Convention, Wharton was to the fore in arguing for William’s succession. He pressed the waverers to accept James’s abdication arguing that ‘abdication and dereliction are hard words for me, but I would have no loophole to let in a king; for I believe not myself nor any Protestant in England safe, if we admit him.’<sup>47</sup> In return for such forthright support, Wharton was rewarded with a place on the Privy Council and the office of comptroller of the household.<sup>48</sup> According to George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, Wharton owed these distinctions to his recommendation: William was reluctant to prefer someone whom he considered a firebrand and of dubious moral character.<sup>49</sup> A rumour, repeated later that year, that Wharton was also to be summoned to the Lords proved unfounded, and over the next few years he was disappointed on several occasions in his expectation of securing a place as secretary of state.<sup>50</sup> Although denied more senior office, the comptrollership gave Wharton access to the king and enabled him to concentrate on management of the Commons.</p><p>Wharton quickly became dissatisfied with the new regime, his annoyance no doubt caused in part by a series of personal disappointments. He criticized the king for his employment of ‘flatterers, knaves and villains’, chief among them Tories who, he was convinced, ought to have been excluded from the administration altogether. His frustration boiled over in a letter to the king in which he castigated William for his ‘coldness, slowness and indifference’ which he suggested had both weakened the commitment of the king’s natural friends and strengthened the resolution of his enemies. Worst of all was the king’s broad-bottom policy. This Wharton characterized as ‘trimming between parties’, which he considered ‘beneath both you and your cause’.<sup>51</sup> Wharton did not limit himself to his angry remonstrance against the king. In April 1695 he was a driving force behind the abortive attempt to impeach Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds.<sup>52</sup> Later that summer rumours circulated of his promotion to the peerage, connected with his expected purchase of Whaddon Chase, but the anticipated award failed to materialize.<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>The House of Lords, 1696-7</em></h2><p>Wharton was present in the Commons on 31 Jan. 1696 but it was noted that he was silent throughout the debate, ‘by which it is thought his father is dead.’ Reports of Lord Wharton’s demise were repeated on 2 February.<sup>54</sup> Two days later Wharton himself was said to be sick, so much so that he was carried into the Commons in a chair.<sup>55</sup> The rumours of his father’s death proved to be premature by just a few days and, having presumably spent the ensuing three weeks recovering from his own sickness and arranging his father’s affairs, Wharton took his seat in the Lords mid-way through the Parliament on 24 February. With the peerage he succeeded to an estimated £8,000 per annum along with the undisputed dominance of a number of boroughs of which he had already been effectively in control during his father’s final years.<sup>56</sup> His first sitting coincided with the king’s announcement of the discovery of the Assassination Plot. Wharton was subsequently a signatory to a Privy Council order commanding local lieutenants to seize all horses belonging to Catholics.<sup>57</sup> He continued to attend the House for a further 27 days (22 per cent of the whole session). Besides the response to the news of the plot, Wharton’s attention was also taken up with the by-election for his former seat.<sup>58</sup> He was successful in promoting the candidacy of William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup> (later 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S]), formerly a Wharton nominee at Appleby, in preference to several other candidates (though all seem to have been Whig).</p><p>The summer of 1696 found Wharton once again overlooked for at least two expected distinctions. Reports in May that he was to be promoted in the peerage to a viscountcy proved not to be true. His anticipated new honour was supposed to coincide with the promotion of his Junto colleague, Edward Russell*, to an earldom, which also proved not to be the case.<sup>59</sup> The following month it was put about that he was to be made lieutenant of Ireland. Again, he failed to secure the position.<sup>60</sup></p><p>In spite of such disappointments, Wharton returned to London from a summer visit to his northern estates (according to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland) ‘full of compliment’ and, along with his Junto colleagues, eager to ensure a successful new session of Parliament.<sup>61</sup> At the forefront of his mind were the anticipated proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, whose information relating to the plot had implicated several Whig ministers, chief among them Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, and Admiral Russell. Fenwick’s decision to accuse these two men in particular determined Wharton and John Somers*, later Baron Somers, to move decisively against him. Although it appears to have been Somers who was the initiator of the plan to impeach Fenwick, Wharton rapidly took on a prominent role in managing the prosecution.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat just over a week into the new session on 28 Oct. 1696 after which he proceeded to attend on 61 per cent of all sitting days. Throughout the first half of the session he maintained a steady correspondence with Shrewsbury, with whom he enjoyed a somewhat unlikely friendship, and the day before he returned to the House he was engaged in a series of meetings concerning Fenwick. His mind was not so completely taken up with the matter of the impeachment, though, to overlook supplying Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, with ‘a couple of large handsome hounds’.<sup>63</sup> By 20 Nov. Wharton was able to report to Shrewsbury with confidence that the attainder would pass the Commons, though he was troubled to find ‘a good many of our friends very good-natured, or scrupulous in it.’ In overcoming such considerations he was able to employ his brother, Goodwin, and old companion, Charles Godfrey<sup>‡</sup>, to help keep Whig support together in the Commons. He was far less certain of its reception in the Lords and urged Shrewsbury, who was sick in the country, to return to the chamber to help the matter along.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Wharton was out of town for the second half of November, presumably engaged in canvassing for the Buckinghamshire seat left vacant by the death of Sir Richard Atkins<sup>‡</sup>. Although Anne Nicholas was confident at first that Wharton would support Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, later Viscount Fermanagh [I], Verney was not persuaded. Verney’s pessimistic appraisal proved the more astute and Wharton set his weight behind Henry Neale<sup>‡</sup> after his original candidate, Pigott, refused to stand. Neale was returned accordingly, leaving Verney in third place. The election revealed several features of Wharton’s close control over those areas in which he was involved. Observing that Verney had only a short time to make his interest felt, Cary Gardiner remarked that Wharton always had ‘one ready in case of any vacancy.’ The election also demonstrated Wharton’s ruthless streak. John Hampden<sup>‡</sup>, who had been shunned by Wharton after he had blasphemed against Whig orthodoxy by expressing his belief in the reality of the Rye House plot, cut his throat after being abandoned by his former patron.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to the House at the beginning of December and on 18 Dec. 1696 was one of those to speak in favour of the Fenwick attainder. He rebutted the suggestion that the accusations against Fenwick did not amount to treason and urged that to fail to condemn him would only serve to encourage France. Unsurprisingly, he voted consistently in favour of the bill’s passage.<sup>66</sup> Having been instrumental in ensuring Shrewsbury’s security by silencing Fenwick, Wharton was then involved in censuring Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough).</p><p>During the remainder of the session Wharton continued to be active in the House, acting as teller in three divisions relating to the case <em>Rex v. Walcott</em> (29 Jan. 1697), amendments to the wrought silks bill (20 Feb.) and the bill in restraint of stockjobbing (15 April). However, having successfully secured Fenwick’s destruction, Wharton suffered a series of disappointments during the course of 1697. He was omitted from the list of lord justices during the king’s absence following the close of the session and in April was overlooked for one of the posts of lord justice in Ireland. The king was at pains to emphasize Wharton’s ‘very good parts’ but explained his decision on the grounds that Wharton, he was sure, would not take kindly to being one of a commission of three.<sup>67</sup> In May he was overlooked again when the corporation of Buckingham chose to elect Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt. as their high steward.<sup>68</sup> His importance as a local figure was recognized, however, with his appointment as both lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire and chief justice in eyre south of Trent in place of his old rival, Abingdon.<sup>69</sup> During the summer, he went head to head with Abingdon at Oxford. Wharton arrived in the city to oversee the assizes attended by a guard of two or three hundred horse; the following day Abingdon upstaged him by being greeted by an estimated 500 people. Wharton made his annoyance at not being accorded the respect his ‘quality and qualifications merited’ more than apparent.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Wharton suffered further disappointments later in the year. In October it was confidently said that he would succeed Shrewsbury as secretary of state. Wharton himself remained taciturn about the prospect while some of his allies proved reluctant to support his nomination.<sup>71</sup> At the close of the year he was again spoken of as Shrewsbury’s most likely successor.<sup>72</sup> Failing that, he was expected to be offered the other secretaryship following the resignation of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>. He was overlooked once again and James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> was appointed instead. At the heart of the divisions within the administration in the summer and autumn of 1697 was the rivalry between Sunderland and the Junto lords. In this Wharton was undoubtedly one of the most prominent of Sunderland’s tormentors. When Sunderland resigned his place as lord chamberlain, he complained that he had been ‘ground’ between Wharton and Monmouth. Even Somers conceded that ‘the greatest measure of guilt is laid at my Lord Wharton’s door.’<sup>73</sup></p><p>Having attended the two prorogation days of 22 July and 23 Nov. 1697 Wharton took his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. On 12 Mar. 1698 he acted as one of the tellers in the division over the reversal of judgment in the case <em>Rex v. Mellen</em>. Rather more significant, though, were his activities relating to the assault on Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Early in March Wharton was nominated a manager of two conferences concerning the bill for punishing Duncombe and on 15 Mar. he voted in favour of committing it. He then registered his dissent at the decision not to do so.<sup>74</sup> Rumours of alterations in the administration continued to obsess political observers into the spring of 1698. Several were convinced of Wharton’s imminent appointment as secretary.<sup>75</sup> In spite of a concerted effort on the part of Somers to convince the king of the necessity of admitting Wharton to the office, he continued to be denied his ambition. Even so early in May he was spoken of along with Somers, Orford and Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, as ‘the only persons that are at present in the management of affairs.’<sup>76</sup> Towards the end of June he offered Montagu his support and engaged to be present in the Lords to participate in the debate over the East India Company bill.<sup>77</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1698 and 1701</em></h2><p>About the end of July or start of August 1698, Wharton was offered a diplomatic posting in Madrid, but he rejected the suggestion. <sup>78</sup> Instead, he was prompted by the dissolution into actively pressing his interest in a number of constituencies. Wharton had spent the previous three months preparing the ground for his brother, Goodwin, to join Henry Neale at Buckinghamshire. The strength of his interest there persuaded Sir John Verney not even to attempt to launch a challenge but even so Wharton was unable to carry both seats and Neale was forced into fourth place. Elsewhere Wharton also faced an uphill task. Neither of his candidates was returned for Oxfordshire.<sup>79</sup> He was approached by Elizabeth Browne to support the candidacy of her young relative Charles Boyle* later 4th earl of Orrery [I] and Baron Boyle of Marston at Cockermouth but Wharton was already committed to the cause of his kinsman, Harry Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>. Boyle was forced to wait till the next election to secure a seat at Huntingdon and Mordaunt was also unsuccessful with the seats at Cockermouth going to candidates proposed by the rival Seymour interest and by the local gentry.<sup>80</sup></p><p>With his Commons’ interest weaker than he had experienced it for some time, Wharton took his seat in the new Parliament on 29 Nov. 1698. He proceeded to attend almost 78 per cent of all sitting days. The apparent decline in his interest did not prevent him from soliciting ‘very vehemently’ on Harry Mordaunt’s behalf for a place as teller of the exchequer, which he claimed had been promised to him at the same time as Colonel Godfrey’s appointment as master of the jewel office.<sup>81</sup> In December there were renewed rumours of his appointment to office, this time as lord chamberlain, and that he was also to be advanced in the peerage to an earldom: neither proved to be the case.<sup>82</sup> The one positive development was the birth of an heir for whom Wharton was gratified by the king, Shrewsbury and Princess Anne agreeing to stand godparents.<sup>83</sup> By the latter part of April 1699, far from being expected to be promoted in office, it was reported that Wharton intended to resign from the comptrollership.<sup>84</sup> In early summer his young kinsman, Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, supplanted him as high steward of Malmesbury, though in this case Wharton’s discomfiture came as small surprise. He had commented the previous year that there were by then only a few in the ‘sweet town… who don’t wish me heartily hanged.’<sup>85</sup> In July rivalry with William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], boiled over at the Buckinghamshire quarter sessions following an argument over precedence and resulted in a duel in which Wharton disarmed his opponent. Some feared that the bout would (ironically) lead to a reconciliation between the two men but they remained divided and, on the accession of Anne, Cheyne replaced Wharton as lieutenant in Buckinghamshire.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Wharton was one of a number of Whig grandees to attend a meeting convened by Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, at Boughton in August 1699 and the following month he hosted a similar gathering at his own seat.<sup>87</sup> His successful efforts to attract the Buckingham member, Edmund Denton<sup>‡</sup>, to his colours at the time were viewed with concern by his Tory opposites in the county who thought it a shame that Denton would ‘truckle to one as their fathers defied stooping to.’ Similar disquiet was expressed at the news that Wharton intended to hobble one of his political rivals, Sir John Verney, by having him pricked as sheriff.<sup>88</sup> For all this, Wharton continued to struggle to assert his interest. Although he worked closely with Somers to ensure that the writ for the Oxfordshire by-election was dispatched at the most opportune moment and was assured of the warm support of other local magnates such as Shrewsbury, he was again unable to bring about the return of Thomas Wheate<sup>‡</sup> (Wheate having previously been defeated at the general election standing on Wharton’s interest).<sup>89</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat at the opening of the new session on 16 Nov. 1699, when the Lords ordered several people to be taken into custody on a charge of breaching Wharton’s privilege.<sup>90</sup> Wharton was then absent until 4 Dec. presumably engaged with affairs in Oxfordshire (though only two sitting days actually intervened during his absence). Having resumed his place he was present on a further 34 days in the session (44 per cent of the whole). On 15 Dec. he seems to have taken the lead during the debate examining Matthew Smith’s book impugning Shrewsbury and was credited with managing the proceedings that resulted in the volume being burnt by the common hangman.<sup>91</sup> On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning into committee of the whole to consider amendments to the East India Company bill (he was one of the tellers on the division). The same day he registered his dissent at the passage of the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. The following month, amidst talk of the outcome of the divorce proceedings of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, it was suggested that Wharton might be next to seek to rid himself of his wife (whom he had married in 1692). Doubts were discussed openly about the true paternity of his heir.<sup>92</sup> In April he voiced his concerns about the Irish forfeitures bill, which he feared would be ‘a great imposition on the peerage’ and was in need of thorough amendment. He and the lord privy seal (John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale) were thought ‘the great instruments’ in galvanizing the Lords into making the necessary alterations but he then quit the House for a brief stay at Newmarket leaving his supporters adrift. Reporting on his ‘strange game’, Vernon commented that Wharton’s ‘trick’ had been anticipated by some but that he was now ‘railed at in both Houses.’<sup>93</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session, it was expected once again that ‘great alterations’ would soon be made at court and that Wharton was one of several Whig lords to be removed from office.<sup>94</sup> In the event he clung on to his post and in June was present at a meeting of the Junto where it was decided to launch a strike against Sunderland.<sup>95</sup> The following month he was, unsurprisingly, included on a list of Whig lords. The prospect of new elections once again raised the question of Wharton’s ability to influence the results. In Westmorland he developed his interest at Appleby, where he had recently been made an alderman, though there was some confusion when the king seemed to indicate that he was to succeed the recently deceased Lonsdale as lieutenant of the county. It was pointed out that the post belonged already to Carlisle.<sup>96</sup> In Buckinghamshire, Wharton and Shrewsbury had been observed concerting with Robert Dormer<sup>‡</sup> at the latter’s house in preparation for setting him up for the county seat.<sup>97</sup> In the event, Dormer was pushed into third place in the election of January 1701 though he was successful when he challenged the seat again in the second election that winter.</p><p>Wharton took his seat shortly after the opening of the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701 and was thereafter present on over two thirds of all sitting days. On 29 Apr. he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to agree to a clause in the report on Dillon’s divorce bill and on 15 May he was again a teller for the division whether to agree with the resolution concerning the meeting of Parliament. The death of John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, that spring led to speculation that Wharton would succeed him as lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, though it was not until January of the following year that the appointment was confirmed.<sup>98</sup> The focus of the latter stage of the session was the Commons’ attempt to impeach Wharton’s Junto colleagues Somers and Halifax along with the king’s trusted confidant, Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. On 17 June Wharton voted to acquit Somers and on 23 June he did likewise for Halifax. The affair proved a turning-point in Wharton’s relations with his erstwhile friend, Shrewsbury, who had by then given way to a series of ailments and sought refuge abroad. His refusal to remain on hand to assist those who had proved faithful to him over Fenwick was taken by Wharton to be an unpardonable offence. When Shrewsbury returned from his self-imposed exile the Junto treated him with suspicion and although Wharton was later delegated to mediate with his former friend, it was quite apparent that he no longer trusted the duke.<sup>99</sup></p><p>The charged atmosphere was not confined to relations between the Junto and its associates. Following the close of the session, a report circulated that Wharton had been involved in a duel involving five other lords at Newmarket and that he had been slain in the affray. The story, widely circulated and published in the <em>Post Boy</em>, was quickly withdrawn. None the worse for his apparent demise, Wharton returned to the campaign trail that autumn. He approached his Buckinghamshire opponent, Sir John Verney, for his support for Goodwin Wharton’s re-election for the county seat, receiving in return an assurance from Verney that Goodwin’s candidacy was ‘in no way disagreeable’ for him but that he was resolved not to ‘meddle’ in the contest.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. Present on 64 per cent of all sitting days, early in the session Wharton joined with John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, in drawing up a bill for the security of the king’s person in response to the news that Louis XIV had chosen to recognize the Pretender (as James III) following the death of James II in September.<sup>101</sup> On 20 Feb. 1702 he acted as one of the tellers for the division over the passage of the bill for attainting Queen Mary Beatrice and on 25 Feb. he was again a teller for the division held in committee of the whole for the Quakers’ affirmation bill.</p><p>The king’s death a few days later prompted widespread expectation that Wharton and his Junto colleagues would swiftly be turned out of their places. At William’s funeral, Wharton joined the other household officers in breaking their staves; unlike them, he was not reappointed to his position by the queen. Indeed Anne appears to have taken particular relish in snatching Wharton’s staff of office from him in full view of the court and presenting it to his successor.<sup>102</sup> Early speculation had suggested that Abingdon or Colonel Granville (John Granville*, soon to be promoted Baron Granville of Potheridge) would be handed the place. In the event the queen settled on Sir Edward Seymour.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Wharton’s removal from office came as no surprise. As a member of the Junto he had been expected to be put out on the queen’s accession. His removal was also thoroughly anticipated on personal grounds as his riotous private life was viewed by the new sovereign with dislike verging on revulsion. Over the next few months he was, accordingly, stripped of most of his remaining positions. Abingdon succeeded to the lieutenancy of Oxfordshire and Newhaven to that of Buckinghamshire.<sup>104</sup> Despite these reversals, Wharton continued to be active in Parliament. On 12 May 1702 he acted as one of the tellers in two divisions held that day concerning the Lords’ enquiries into the author of a scandalous book, <em>Tom Double returned out of the country</em>, and on 21 May he was again a teller for a division in a bill of relief for Jane Lavallin relating to forfeited estates in Ireland. The same month Wharton introduced the Appleby members to the queen with a copy of their town’s loyal address. In July it was predicted that, in spite of their travails, Wharton and his ‘party’ would carry the county seat in Buckinghamshire in the forthcoming election necessitated by the accession of Queen Anne.<sup>105</sup> The assessment proved to be overly optimistic, though, and although Goodwin Wharton retained his seat, Dormer was pushed back into third place by Newhaven.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1702-5</em></h2><p>In advance of the meeting of the new 1702 Parliament, Wharton was again at a meeting convened by Montagu in Northamptonshire, which was also attended by Somers.<sup>106</sup> Absent from the first fortnight of the new session, Wharton at last took his seat on 4 Nov. 1702 after which he was present on two-thirds of all sitting days. His return coincided with a trial in queen’s bench of disputed rights to lands in Yorkshire where Wharton and several others were eager to exploit valuable lead mines. Wharton, as the plaintiff, was unsuccessful in challenging the rights of several other landowners there.<sup>107</sup></p><p>In mid-November Wharton moved that the House should address the queen concerning the recent success at the battle of Vigo Bay (23 Oct. 1702) and that an estimate of the value of the spoils from the encounter be prepared.<sup>108</sup> At the beginning of December he redirected his attention to the occasional conformity bill, which arrived in the Lords from the Commons on 2 December.<sup>109</sup> Two days later he acted as one of the tellers for the division held in committee of the whole over an amendment to the bill and on 9 Dec. he was again a teller for the division over whether to adjourn during the debate on tacking. On 19 Dec. he presented a petition concerning his dispute with Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup> over lead mines in Yorkshire. Early in 1703, Wharton was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be an opponent of the occasional conformity bill. On 16 Jan. 1703 Wharton voted accordingly in favour of adhering to the Lords’ ameliorating amendment to the penalty clause. Correct form and precedent was something that Wharton was always eager to employ to his advantage. On 7 Jan. he was engaged in an altercation with Leeds, after the duke presented the House with Robert Squire’s petition answering his own presented on 19 December. Wharton’s complained that Leeds had not informed Wharton that he intended to present Squire’s counter-petition, which Wharton insisted was the usual practice. Wharton put in his answer to Squire’s petition a fortnight later and the case continued to occupy the Lords until mid-February. On 8 Feb. the lord mayor and aldermen of London requested to be heard in the affair, being interested as the owners of land adjoining that involved in the case. Wharton granted his assent on condition that they were not then made parties to the bill, which according to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, was precisely what they had intended. On 12 Feb. the case was debated late into the night and when the question was at last put whether to reverse the chancery decree in Squire’s favour, the votes were equal at 19 apiece. The result was a failure to overturn the original decision and Wharton was taken aback to find both Halifax and Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, among those ranged against him.<sup>110</sup> Wharton would have struggled to understand their stance: for him party cohesion was central to the purpose of the Junto Whigs and certainly trumped personal considerations.</p><p>The opening days of January 1703 saw Wharton involved with other contentious business. On 7 Jan. he had moved for a second reading of the bill for George*, prince of Denmark and duke of Cumberland, while alerting his colleagues to the concern that part of the proposed measure might contain matter ‘touching upon the privileges and peerage of that House’. On 9 Jan. Wharton joined several other Whigs in taking the remaining Tories in the cabinet to task for the delay in presenting to Parliament a request from John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough for his army to be reinforced with an additional 10,000 troops. Two days later, after animated debates in committee of the whole House considering the prince’s bill, Wharton moved that the House might be resumed, which was passed by 54 votes to 46. The House returned to the matter on 19 Jan. when Carlisle led the way by opposing the adoption of the clause permitting the prince to continue to hold office and to attend the House and Privy Council in the event of him surviving the queen. Carlisle dismissed this addition as a tack and Wharton and half a dozen other Whig peers spoke to the same theme.<sup>111</sup> He then courted the queen’s further displeasure by subscribing the protest at the resolution not to endorse the committee’s recommendation that the contentious clause should be left out.</p><p>Wharton’s vigorous defence of the Protestant Succession was demonstrated at the beginning of February 1703 when the Lords took into consideration the bill sent up from the Commons for granting to those who had not yet taken the abjuration oath a further year to comply. Wharton moved that a clause should be added making it treason to attempt to alter the 1701 Act of Settlement or to challenge the claim of Electress Sophia or her son George Lewis (later King George I). On the advice of the judges his proposal was amended to extend only to the immediate heir to the crown.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Wharton was absent from the final week of the session having been taken ill with ‘the spotted fever’.<sup>113</sup> Early in March his life was despaired of but he had recovered sufficiently by the beginning of May to travel to his estates in Yorkshire to ‘strengthen the brethren’ there.<sup>114</sup> Over the next few months his condition remained uncertain with his enemies taking a particular relish in the prospect of his imminent demise.<sup>115</sup> He retreated to Bath in search of a cure, where he was set upon by Robert Dashwood (the younger), heir to Wharton’s Buckinghamshire rival, Sir Robert Dashwood<sup>‡</sup>, bt. In spite of being in no condition to fight a duel Wharton gained considerable currency by succeeding in fending off his assailant until the local guards intervened.<sup>116</sup> The affair did nothing to improve his health, though, and by October he was again said to be dangerously ill. Predictions of his imminent demise proved, however, to be inaccurate.<sup>117</sup></p><p>With his recovery still far from assured Wharton returned to town to prepare for the new session.<sup>118</sup> Towards the end of November 1703 he had the satisfaction of securing a verdict in his favour in the dispute over the Yorkshire lands.<sup>119</sup> He took his seat on the opening day (9 Nov.) and was present thereafter on approximately 70 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was noted by his Junto colleague, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill, which was again set to be presented to the House, and on 14 Dec. he divided once more with those opposed to the bill. Three days later he was present at a gathering of several Whig peers hosted by Sunderland. The following day he pleaded ill health in attempting to be excused from acting on the committee balloted to investigate the Scotch Plot but the House insisted that all those chosen should serve.<sup>120</sup> Wharton was thus among those meeting at the house of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, to consider the matter. He also attended further gatherings at Sunderland’s on 13 Feb. and 21 Mar. 1704.<sup>121</sup> The same day (21 Mar.) he registered his dissent at the failure to give a second reading to a rider to the bill for raising new recruits for the army and three days later, registering Whig suspicions of a cover-up, he subscribed the protest at the failure to put the question on whether the information contained in Sir John Maclean’s examination, concerning the Scotch Plot, was imperfect.</p><p>Besides these matters, the opening months of 1704 were dominated for Wharton by a series of disputes between Lords and Commons concerning cases in which he was directly involved. The first was the Yorkshire lead mines dispute, in which the Commons took exception to the Lords’ orders of the previous autumn overturning those of the court of exchequer.<sup>122</sup> The second was the case of the men of Aylesbury, which had first come before the House some three years before. Wharton’s efforts to exert his interest in the borough against that of the Tory Sir John Pakington<sup>‡ </sup>had been apparent since before his accession to the title. The dispute that came before Parliament had its origins in the 1698 election when some of those voting for Wharton’s candidate had been denied their votes by Pakington’s constables. When one of these, Matthew Ashby, was barred again in 1701 he brought a case against the returning officer at the county assizes. There followed a series of actions resulting from an original judgment awarding Ashby £5 in damages, Ashby’s legal costs throughout being defrayed by Wharton.<sup>123</sup> On 14 Jan. 1704 the case reached the Lords when Wharton was successful in having a writ of error against the latest judgment from queen’s bench moved in the upper House in spite of the arguments of Thomas Trevor*, then lord chief justice, later Baron Trevor, that the Commons alone had the right to determine the result of elections. The result was, as Wharton intended, a stand-off between the Tory-dominated Commons and Whig-majority Lords. The Commons resolved to censure those responsible for bringing the case to court and was successful in committing several of them to Newgate, while the Lords sought to protect the litigants.<sup>124</sup></p><p>In March Wharton was pursuing a case against Sir Arthur Sheen for breach of privilege arising from a case in the Irish exchequer. He was also involved, once again, in actions concerning the settlement of his late wife’s estates. Proceedings relating to this were still in train well into the following parliamentary session. The lack of trust between Wharton and Abingdon by then was made apparent by the latter’s careful instructions to his agent to prevent Wharton from ‘falsifying or embezzling’ any of the documents relating to the settlement.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Wharton was one of a number of peers to attend the thanksgiving at St Paul’s early in September for the victory at Blenheim.<sup>126</sup> He returned to the House at the beginning of the new session on 24 Oct. 1704 after which he was present on just over three quarters of all sitting days. On 4 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of Ralph Eure*, 7th Baron Eure, and on 12 Nov. he received Carlisle’s. The new session found the Whigs, Wharton in particular, in bullish mood, confident that they would soon be able to force the ministry to reward them with office. In Wharton’s own terms, they had lord treasurer Godolphin’s (Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin) ‘head in a bag’ as they had made his political survival in the House dependent on Whig support, especially in Scottish matters.<sup>127</sup> Wharton retained a close eye on his local rivalries. Prominent in opposing Abingdon’s motion concerning Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, He was later successful in securing the nomination for sheriff of Buckinghamshire again in preference to Abingdon’s candidate.<sup>128</sup></p><p>The Aylesbury case continued to occupy Wharton’s attention. On 21 Nov. 1704 Bishop Nicolson noted in his diary that he had found Wharton at his town residence in Dover Street ‘crowded with members of the House of Commons’ as he attempted to court supporters for the struggle to come, though hopes that a breach between the two houses might be avoided seemed to be confirmed towards the end of the year.<sup>129</sup> At the close of November Wharton joined Somers in opposing a motion proposed by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and backed by Nottingham, that the Scottish act of security should be read and then went on to propose that new legislation should be passed to prevent any ill consequences. On 11 Dec. he opened the subsequent debate on the same matter, underlining the ‘deplorable’ condition of England’s relations with Scotland and how the earlier attempts to secure a union had been stymied because they had been overseen by those inimical to the cause.<sup>130</sup> In addition to pressing for regularization of the relationship between England and Scotland, Wharton was also once more prominent in opposing the renewed attempt to press forward the occasional conformity bill. On 15 Dec. 1704 he was one of those to speak out against the bill and when Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, suggested that the Commons would insist on the bill’s passage Wharton called on him to explain his meaning.<sup>131</sup> Wharton demonstrated his procedural expertise once again on 21 Dec. when he interrupted a motion made by Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, that the new galleries recently erected in the chamber should be pulled down, and insisted that a motion to adjourn should take precedence over Guilford’s new business. Wharton’s motion was carried by 9 votes (22 to 13).<sup>132</sup> On 10 Feb. 1705, he demonstrated his support for the bill for excluding new officeholders from the Commons, acting as a teller on the division held on 10 Feb. 1705 which was carried by 44 to 30 votes.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Soon after the close of the session, rumours circulated of widespread alterations in the ministry. Wharton was thought likely to succeed to the lieutenancy of Ireland, though Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, Baron Coningsby [I] (later earl of Coningsby), was doubtful of such reports. Similar rumours were current early the following year.<sup>134</sup> In April he was one of a number of gentlemen honoured by Cambridge with honorary doctorates and the same month he was noted in an analysis of the peerage, unsurprisingly enough, as a likely supporter of the Hanoverian succession.<sup>135</sup> Such developments no doubt added to high expectations for the forthcoming elections. Even before the session had ended, Wharton had begun preparations in earnest and in the course of the elections of 1705 he was believed to have expended £12,000 in the various constituencies in which he was engaged.<sup>136</sup> It was understood that he and Somerset had agreed to combine their interests at Cockermouth in support of James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope, and Harry Mordaunt, who had forsaken his usual seat at Brackley, in opposition to Thomas Lamplugh<sup>‡</sup>. Wharton’s interest proved unequal to the task, though, and Mordaunt was driven into third place behind Lamplugh. In November he was able to take advantage of a by-election at Brackley and the combined support of the duchess of Marlborough and Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater, to win back his former seat.<sup>137</sup> Wharton experienced similar disappointment at Westmorland, where he failed to convince Robert Lowther<sup>‡</sup> to join with Sir Richard Sandford<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and in the resulting election Lowther chose to stand with Henry Grahme<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>138</sup> Further south, Wharton proved equally eager to assert his interest in Buckinghamshire, though again with mixed results. At Devizes he joined with Sunderland in support of the ‘low churchmen’ apparently supporting the campaign of a London merchant, Josiah Diston<sup>‡</sup>, who busily out-bribed all his competitors. In spite of this, and in spite of joining with the sitting member, John Methuen<sup>‡</sup>, Diston was relegated to third place.<sup>139</sup> Wharton’s mixed fortunes persisted into December and at the by-election at Buckingham triggered by the decision of Sir Richard Temple<sup>‡</sup>, bt. to represent the county, Browne Willis<sup>‡</sup> was able to defeat Wharton’s preferred candidate, James Tyrell, even though, as Willis asserted, Wharton ‘was hardly known ever to be so busy.’<sup>140</sup></p><p>If Wharton’s ability to guarantee the election of his candidates appeared compromised, he was still a force to be reckoned with. In July it was reported that the anticipated dismissal of the lord keeper (Sir Nathan Wright) was the result of disagreements he had had with Wharton and other ‘Whiggish peers’ about the commission for the peace in Buckinghamshire and his refusal to follow their commands.<sup>141</sup> However Wharton’s efforts to secure office for Sir John Hawles<sup>‡</sup>, whom he may have come across during the Fenwick trial, were not successful. Moreover reports that he was to be made constable of the Tower and appointed lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire in succession to Abingdon proved to be unreliable.<sup>142</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1705</em></h2><p>Wharton took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 after which he was present on 58 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Nov. he stole a march on the Tory Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, by introducing Richard Lowther*, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, whom he had been at pains to cultivate. Wharton’s success in luring Lonsdale away from his kinsman was all the more impressive when it was pointed out that the young man had dined with Weymouth only the night before and managed not to let slip his intention.<sup>143</sup></p><p>Wharton’s sleight of hand more than hinted at the charged state of affairs in the early days of the session. On 19 Nov. 1705 he was a prominent participant in the debates on the regency bill. According to Bishop Burnet, he spoke ‘in a manner that charmed the whole House’ but his pointed allusions to Tory peers thought lukewarm on the Hanoverian succession were hard to miss. He remarked ironically how the queen’s speech had worked miracles ‘in bringing all men to be zealous for the Hanover Succession’ and then went on to propose various heads for the bill. As far as protecting the succession was concerned, he was uncompromising in his attitude: ‘The only way to do this thoroughly is to bring down the power of France – that great tyrant abroad, who would be a tyrant on us.’ To this end he argued for more rigorous penalties to be attached to correspondence with the court in exile.<sup>144</sup></p><p>Three days later, following an unsuccessful bid by Nottingham to have an address to the queen approved seeking an inquiry into recent reversals in the campaign on the continent, Wharton moved an address to the queen seeking assurance that alliances with the kingdom’s present allies, especially the Dutch, would be maintained, and sought an undertaking that efforts would be made to inspire the allies to prosecute the war against France with vigour. After Wharton’s motion was accepted unanimously, Rochester attempted once again to press Nottingham’s point. Wharton ‘with more assurance than authority’ rounded on him, asserting that his motion was unparliamentary, and moved an adjournment, which was seconded by Halifax.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Wharton’s oratorical duel with Rochester persisted into the beginning of December when the House was again the scene of a lively debate following Rochester’s assertion that the Church was in danger under the administration. Following a series of interventions, Wharton held forth in typically caustic fashion during the proceedings of 6 December. The only danger he suggested he was able to glean from reading James Drake’s pamphlet, the <em>Memorial of the Church of England</em>, was that neither Rochester nor John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, were in the administration: both, as he was at pains to emphasize, former members of James II’s ecclesiastical commission. Two days later (8 Dec.) he moved that the House might be adjourned to enable the members to recover from several days of long debate. Nicolson thought the true reason was to release three of Wharton’s associates, who were lawyers involved in a case then before the Lords, so that they could participate in the Commons’ debate on the church in danger.<sup>146</sup></p><p>In November 1705 one of his local opponents, Sir Thomas Cave<sup>‡</sup>, quipped in response to the news of the birth of a daughter to the Whartons that at least it was a girl rather than a boy, and therefore ‘one Whig the less’.<sup>147</sup> In spite of the disappointing election results in his north-western zone of interest the previous year, Wharton continued to cultivate the area. Early in 1706 he undertook to assist James Lowther<sup>‡</sup>, temporarily out of the Commons, with opposition to the Lamplugh-inspired Parton bill, which aimed to develop the small town of Parton as a rival harbour to Whitehaven.<sup>148</sup> At the beginning of February he sought Bishop Nicolson’s assistance in opposing the measure and on 19 Feb. (on his instructions) Nicolson presented the Lords with petitions from Cumberland and from the citizens of Carlisle objecting to the bill. Three days later, Wharton pressed for the petitions to be heard but after it had been moved by Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, ‘and others’ that the bill might be immediately thrown out, Wharton unexpectedly gave way to a proposal from Rochester that the customs commissioners should be heard in the matter. Nicolson surmised that Wharton was anxious not to rile the duke of Somerset and wished to let the bill drop quietly. Wharton was absent from the House from 24 to 28 February. In his absence, the customs commissioners were heard on 25 Feb. and the House, paying no attention to a motion by Nicolson (at Wharton’s behest) not to proceed with the matter until Wharton could resume his place, then agreed to tackle the bill in a committee of the whole the following day (26 February). With Wharton unable to make an impression on the proceedings and Somerset in the chair the bill was passed by a single vote.<sup>149</sup></p><p>Wharton’s ambiguous stance over combatting the Parton bill may have been in part a result of his eagerness not to damage his already fragile political alliance with Somerset at Cockermouth. Certainly, his detached handling of the affair was in sharp contrast to his lively, focused and very personal participation in other aspects of the House’s business during the session. On 28 Jan. 1706 he was entrusted with the proxy of Willem van Nassau van Zuylestein*, earl of Rochford. The following day when the House took into consideration the Commons’ proposed amendments to the regency bill, he opposed ‘smoothly’ the second proposal for the exclusion of certain officers from the Commons, observing that there were other parts of the first succession act still in need of amendment. Having made his point, he moved an adjournment. This was seconded by Sunderland, who underscored his concern at the speed with which they were being required to rush through the legislation, and passed <em>nem.</em> <em>con</em>. Wharton opened the renewed debate on the succession on 31 Jan. pressing that the transmission of the crown should be assured ‘without any clog.’ Once again, he was seconded by one of his Junto brethren, this time Somers.<sup>150</sup></p><p>Wharton was again spoken of as one of those being considered for the lieutenancy of Ireland in the spring of 1706.<sup>151</sup> While this remained out of his reach, that summer he was warmly recommended by Sunderland to be restored to the office of chief justice in eyre, over which he and the Berties had squabbled for some time.<sup>152</sup> Wharton (and his wife) were also later credited with the appointment of Christian Temple as maid of honour to the queen.<sup>153</sup> In addition to this, Wharton stirred himself to forward the progress of the Union negotiations, which he argued grandiloquently to one Scottish peer would result in ‘bringing the greatest advantages imaginable to both nations’ and to insuring the continuance of ‘the civil rights and liberties not only of this island but of all Europe.’<sup>154</sup></p><p>Wharton attended two prorogation days on 21 May and 21 November. Prior to the opening of the new session he was active in promoting Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Lord Fairfax [S], for Yorkshire in the by-election triggered by the death of Sir John Kaye<sup>‡</sup>, bt.<sup>155</sup> Wharton took his seat once more at the beginning of the new session on 3 Dec. 1706. The same day his attention was drawn to problems facing the management of the herd of deer at Farnham, which were temporarily without a master while the see of Winchester remained vacant. Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, dismissing the animals as ‘none of my flock’ referred the problem to Wharton in his capacity of chief justice.<sup>156</sup> Just under three weeks after the opening, Wharton was at last compensated for his continuing lack of central employment by being created, on 23 Dec., an earl (one of eight peers to be promoted along with an additional three new creations). Contrary to some reports that circulated at the time he retained the style Wharton rather than adopting a new title as earl of Winchendon.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Progress of the Union negotiations kept Wharton engaged throughout the early months of the session. On 14 Jan. 1707 he rallied to the support of the lord treasurer (Godolphin) following an attempt by the Tories to insist on papers relating to the negotiations to be laid before the House at once.<sup>158</sup> On at least three occasions in late January and the first half of February he either attended or hosted gatherings of Whig peers, presumably with the intention of preparing for the coming days’ debates. On 29 Jan. he was one of those to take part in discussions over the content of the bill for securing the Church of England held at the London residence of William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury).<sup>159</sup> Two days later he reported back to Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], confident that the efforts to deflect the progress of Union on account of religious differences would be defeated. On 3 Feb. he insisted on the importance of as much care being taken of the Church of England as the Scots had taken of the Kirk during the debates about the act of security.<sup>160</sup> On 15 Feb. he acted as one of the tellers for the division held in a committee of the whole whether to postpone the first article of the treaty (which was rejected by 71 votes to 21). For all his efforts to ensure the passage of the bill, Wharton seems to have regarded the Union cynically and to have been more than happy to denigrate the Scottish peers for permitting themselves to be so sidelined. According to one observer, Wharton admitted in the House that ‘he doubted much he could have been prevailed on to have parted with his birthright had he been a Scotch lord.’<sup>161</sup></p><p>The end of the session found Wharton intent once more on making progress in his case about the lead mines in Yorkshire.<sup>162</sup> His determination to be satisfied in it may have been all the more acute after it was apparent that he would once again be overlooked for central office.<sup>163</sup> During the summer it was noted that he and his Junto colleagues were reluctant to lend their support to Marlborough and Godolphin’s attempt to coax Shrewsbury back into government to prevent him from consorting with Harley.<sup>164</sup> In July Wharton suffered the indignity of being put aside by the corporation of Malmesbury as their high steward and replaced with a local gentleman of modest estate. The affront occurred under a month after Wharton had presented the Malmesbury address to the queen and Wharton was reported to have left the town in no doubt of his ill feelings about the affair: ‘as they had been an ungrateful, perfidious corporation to him, so he would endeavour to extirpate them as such, and would never more be seen within their villainous town.’<sup>165</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to the House a week into the new session, the first Parliament of Great Britain, on 30 Oct. 1707 after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. On 13 Nov. he proposed that the House adjourn into committee of the whole the following Wednesday to consider the state of the nation with reference to trade and convoys. He was seconded by Somers and Halifax. He then opened the subsequent debate, which resulted in the appointment of a committee to hear the complaints of merchants protesting at the want of protection for their ships.<sup>166</sup> In December Wharton proposed an address of thanks to the queen for her care in preparing forces for the campaign in Spain. He also seconded a motion made by Somers for an address insisting that peace was not possible until the House of Austria had recovered its Spanish possessions. Wharton’s uncompromising support for the war was made more than apparent by his dramatic ending to a speech of 27 Dec. in which he insisted that ‘we are at our last stake, Europe, and to prevent our posterity falling into slavery, and therefore we must carry on the war even whether we can or no.’<sup>167</sup> The end of the year saw Wharton, once again, involved in the early jostling for position for the anticipated elections of the following year.<sup>168</sup></p><p>Once again an active member of the House, Wharton acted as teller on two occasions during the session, first on 5 Feb. 1708 for the division over the Union completion bill and second on 3 Mar. over whether the House should proceed with consideration of the cause <em>Alibon v. attorney general</em>. As usual, though, he was most actively involved with efforts to destabilize his political foes. In February he was an enthusiastic investigator of the activities of Harley’s secretary, William Greg. He was then one of seven peers (most of them fairly blatant opponents of Harley) elected to examine Greg once sentence of death had been passed.<sup>169</sup> He was also prominent in demanding an inquiry into the state of the navy, which attracted the support of his political opposite, Rochester.<sup>170</sup> On 17 Feb. this unusual alliance was made apparent by Wharton, Somers and Rochester all joining to demand an address seeking answers about naval maladministration.<sup>171</sup> By the middle of February, following the resignations of Harley and several of his associates, Wharton’s long wait for a return to office appeared on the brink of ending and it was reported that he was at last to succeed to the lieutenancy of Ireland.<sup>172</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session, and before Wharton plunged into his usual feverish electoral activity, he joined three other peers in putting his signature to a petition from the inhabitants of the Middlesex towns of Acton and Ealing seeking permission to take down and bury a criminal who had been hanged in chains in their area but whose unpleasant stench was beginning to disturb the populace.<sup>173</sup> In May he was noted in a list of members’ party affiliations, as might be expected, as a Whig. The same month the court of exchequer found in favour of his opponent, Marriot, in his court action over the Yorkshire lead mines. Wharton immediately riposted by appealing against much of the evidence that had been employed against him in the proceedings.<sup>174</sup> He had was better success in several of the electoral contests of 1708 in which he interested himself. He was able to secure the return of both Buckinghamshire members. At Aylesbury, his long-standing agent, Simon Mayne<sup>‡</sup>, was re-elected along with the other sitting member, Sir John Wittewronge<sup>‡</sup>, bt., and in the county town another Wharton associate, Alexander Denton<sup>‡</sup>, was also returned. There was similar success at Appleby, where Wharton’s interest proved strong enough to ensure the return of Nicholas Lechmere<sup>‡</sup>. In spite of this, Wharton found himself hard-pressed in a number of other seats and his overall haul may have been lower than the previous election.<sup>175</sup></p><p>Even if Wharton was less successful than he might have anticipated, Whig advances in the elections enabled the Junto to put increasing pressure on the administration to give way to their demands for office. In this, Wharton was a central participant. During the interval between the close of the old session and opening of the new one Wharton persisted with attempting to employ his interest, recommending among others William Lee to Sunderland for the reversion of the office of sealer of the great seal.<sup>176</sup> He also continued to attempt to break the deadlock between the Junto and the duumvirs by insisting that he should join Somers in being brought into the cabinet. To this end, Godolphin visited him at Winchendon towards the end of August, though the queen remained reluctant to welcome men like Wharton back into the administration.<sup>177</sup></p><p>By the end of the summer of 1708 the duumvirs’ inability to secure for the Junto what Wharton, Somers and their associates considered their due had left both camps regarding each other with unease. After weeks of difficult discussion the impasse appeared on the point of being resolved towards the end of October when the death of the queen’s consort altered the dynamic at court and the need to replace Prince George at the admiralty initiated a series of alterations. Wharton was early on mentioned as a likely recipient of the Irish lieutenancy. Somers too was expected to be offered a post, though Godolphin showed no inclination to trouble himself about their other allies.<sup>178</sup> In return the Junto agreed not to force a contest for the Speakership in the Commons, having previously agitated for the return of Sir Peter King in preference to the court candidate, Sir Richard Onslow<sup>†</sup>, later Baron Onslow.<sup>179</sup></p><h2><em>Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1708-9</em></h2><p>By early November the shape of the new administration was becoming clearer. Wharton himself was widely understood to have been offered the Irish lieutenancy with Somers returning to the ministry as lord president, and no opposition was expected, as a result, for Onslow as speaker.<sup>180</sup> However, the decision by Somers and Wharton to accept office while their colleagues Orford and Halifax remained unprovided for was later credited for a serious split in the Junto’s ranks.<sup>181</sup> Having campaigned for so long for all of his colleagues to be brought into the ministry and also having argued in the electoral contests in which he was involved that Whig candidates should make common cause, Wharton was well aware that his acceptance of office weakened the alliance fundamentally. His language in conversation with Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> about the fractious negotiations between the Junto and the Duumvirs was too colourful to be reported back to the duchess of Marlborough. Even if some of Wharton’s conversation was unrepeatable, Maynwaring assured the duchess of his eagerness to rely on her support.<sup>182</sup></p><p>Wharton took his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 (having previously attended the prorogation day of 8 July), and his appointment was confirmed a little over a fortnight later. By the time of his appointment he was seriously in debt. The day after he had kissed hands for the place some of his creditors took the opportunity of his promotion to dupe his servants into granting them entry to his London house, enabling them to rifle through the contents.<sup>183</sup> Financial concerns may explain his tardiness in quitting England to take up his new posting, though this enabled him to attend on 63 per cent of all sitting days. <sup>184</sup> In January 1709 he was one of those to speak during the debate on the state of the nation precipitated by the abortive Jacobite invasion of the previous year.<sup>185</sup> Later that month he was among the majority voting against permitting Scottish peers with British titles created after the Union from voting in the elections for Scottish representative peers. He acted as one of the tellers for the division. He was again prominent a few days later in insisting that proxy voices should be counted for the division relating to the Scottish peers’ elections.<sup>186</sup> On 30 Mar. he seconded Halifax’s motion that a clause within the stamp bill should be thrown out as a tack, after Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, had complained at the implications of the proposed measure that would have required him as hereditary sheriff of Westmorland to appoint an under-sheriff each year. Wharton’s interest in the matter presumably combined procedural and local considerations.<sup>187</sup></p><p>The spring of 1709 was marked by rumours of further honours for Wharton, with him being one of those mentioned as a possible recipient of one of the vacant places as knight of the Garter.<sup>188</sup> Shortly after the close of the session he at last set out for Ireland and by the beginning of May he was established at Dublin Castle.<sup>189</sup> In preparation for his new role he commissioned 18 coats of arms, a new coach and other accoutrements for his equipage.<sup>190</sup> Wharton arrived in Ireland intent on overcoming factional divisions in Ireland. His secretary Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> insisted that his master was ‘indefatigable’ in his efforts to mediate between the leading members of the Irish Parliament and reported optimistically that Wharton had succeeded in breaking all those that ‘had endeavoured to form against him, and removed all obstructions to public business.’ Wharton’s own appraisal in his first dispatch to Sunderland was not dissimilar. He trusted that the session would ‘be carried on as amicably and quietly as could be expected from a number of men that love one another as heartily as it is possible to imagine and that are pretty equally divided.’<sup>191</sup> By the end of June his tone had altered somewhat, though he remained optimistic that matters were not as bleak as they might be.<sup>192</sup> His optimism was not shared by Godolphin who complained to Marlborough that he did not see the session ending well and that Wharton appeared to have resolved rather to make ’his court in that country than to please his old friends in this.’ His behaviour, Godolphin considered, had alienated Somers and Sunderland and was contributing significantly to tensions within the Junto’s ranks.<sup>193</sup></p><p>Wharton was not long in detecting that his absence from London was weakening his grip on his colleagues. He was also offended by having officials foisted on him without his agreement. A new muster-master was appointed through Marlborough’s influence, to Wharton’s annoyance, and when Colonel Pennyfeather presented himself as commissary-general and asked for his orders, Wharton refused to comply.<sup>194</sup> As well as fearing that his position in Ireland was being deliberately undermined he was also concerned that Godolphin was being fed information from sources in Ireland intent on damaging his reputation back home. Early in July 1709 he sought Sunderland’s assistance in securing the queen’s leave for him to return to England to attend to his affairs. As the month progressed his reasons for dissatisfaction continued to mount. He doubted the wisdom of an amendment made in England to the Irish supply bill, which, he was convinced, would result in it being rejected. More particularly, he complained that recommendations had been made for the disposal of a post in the revenue commission without reference to him: he feared it would destroy what credit he had left and was aggrieved at the treatment he had received.<sup>195</sup> The duchess of Marlborough thought Wharton’s annoyance about the revenue commission post merely the result of discontent that he would not be able to benefit financially from selling the place to the highest bidder.<sup>196</sup></p><p>Wharton’s concerns about the reaction to the alterations made to the money bill proved prescient and at the end of July he could only hope that the imminent adjournment would ‘allow the ferment… to abate.’ While he undertook to spare no pains in trying to settle the matter he warned that if he should fail in that, ‘or indeed in anything else, it must not be wondered at.’<sup>197</sup> Joseph Addison assessed that Wharton’s survival in post depended very much on his ability to manage the remainder of the session effectively. By the middle of August it seemed by no means certain that he would be able to do so and Wharton himself was writing openly of his ‘tottering administration’. Addison insisted to Sunderland the ‘pains’ Wharton had taken to rally his support in the Irish Commons, and in spite of the very public desertion of two office holders, Wharton was in the end able to secure a majority for the bill’s committal.<sup>198</sup> Despite this, criticism of his management of his post continued to circulate with the duchess of Marlborough and her agent Maynwaring at the forefront of those tilting at his reputation. Maynwaring crowed that Wharton may well make ‘a very good miner in an army, to work underground at a siege, but he is by no means fit to be a general.’<sup>199</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to England in mid-September.<sup>200</sup> He took his seat in the new session on 15 Nov. 1709 and was thereafter present on 71 days (just over three quarters of the whole). By then talk was open of a breakdown in the relations between some members of the Junto, in particular between Wharton and Somers, and in early December it was discoursed that Wharton intended to see both Somers and Godolphin turned out and replaced by Lechmere and Halifax.<sup>201</sup> Wharton’s stock at court, however, appears to have risen and it was rumoured once more that he was to be one of five new knights of the Garter.<sup>202</sup></p><h2><em>Sacheverell, 1709-10</em></h2><p>The brouhaha that resulted from Henry Sacheverell’s inflammatory sermon of November 1709 offered the Junto an opportunity to close ranks and co-operate once more. Soon after printed copies of the sermon began circulating in December, the Whig-dominated administration and its law-officers (among them Wharton’s client, Lechmere) began considering ways to respond to the doctor’s harangue. As with the Fenwick trial, Wharton was at the heart of the decision to proceed against Sacheverell by impeachment rather than by common law.<sup>203</sup> When approached by Marlborough for his views on what should be done with the cleric, Wharton was said to have responded in uncompromising vein, ‘do with him my lord? Quash him and damn him.’<sup>204</sup></p><p>Wharton was present in the House on 15 Dec. when John Dolben<sup>‡</sup> brought the impeachment articles against Sacheverell up to the Lords. Wharton’s central role in overseeing the case for impeachment was demonstrated by his nomination to the committee investigating precedents for impeachments later that day and on 16 Dec. he chaired the committee and reported its initial findings. He reported from the same committee again on 22 Dec. and chaired a further session the following day. He returned to the House after the Christmas recess on 10 Jan. 1710. Two days later, the House ordered Sacheverell to be taken into custody. He appeared at the bar the same day when he had the articles of impeachment read out to him. On 14 Jan. Wharton chaired the committee considering Sacheverell’s request to be bailed and on 16 Jan. he reported the committee’s findings to the House, as a result of which bail was set at £6,000. On 24 Jan. Wharton attended a meeting convened by Sunderland and the following day was present in the House when Sacheverell’s answer was brought in.<sup>205</sup></p><p>As well as preparing the Sacheverell impeachment, Wharton was one of two peers to speak out against the place bill in February, following which the measure was abandoned without a division.<sup>206</sup> The focus of the session, though, was on Sacheverell, and throughout the proceedings Wharton was a key figure in managing the prosecution. On 1 Mar. he attempted to intercede on Dolben’s behalf during the heated debate back in the Lords following Dolben’s remark about ‘false brethren’ which Sacheverell’s defence had taken to be a calculated insult levelled at them. Wharton insisted that Dolben had made a mere slip and claimed that John Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham, in objecting to Dolben had himself blundered in describing the prosecutors as managers <em>against</em> the impeachment. In the event Dolben was called upon to explain himself.<sup>207</sup></p><p>Wharton was subjected to abuse by the mob during the night of rioting that followed the opening to the trial and his house was one of those targeted by the rioters. It was presumably in reference to this that he later declared that he would ‘willingly submit to anything, even a fillip upon the nose, so that the doctor might be found guilty.’ Even so he was more fortunate than Dolben who narrowly avoided being lynched.<sup>208</sup> After the riots Wharton was engaged in an angry exchange with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich), over a proposal backed by the Whigs that Judge Powell should be sent to the Tower for bailing a member of the Sacheverell mob. When Argyll defended the judge Wharton harangued Argyll with ‘very ill language’ for which Argyll demanded an apology.<sup>209</sup></p><p>Wharton was again called on to distract attention from the managers following Sacheverell’s performance on 7 Mar. 1710. When none of the prosecutors seemed clear what to say in answer to the speech, Wharton stepped in to request an adjournment. Once the case had been presented and the focus returned to the Lords, Wharton was again a prominent contributor. On 16 Mar., during the debates over whether or not the Commons had made good the first article against the doctor, Wharton drew attention to the disparity between the ‘spirit of asperity’ apparent in the sermon and Sacheverell’s later mollifying speech before Parliament. The change in tone, Wharton insisted, demonstrated that Sacheverell’s defence was insincere. In response to Sacheverell’s arguments about the nature of non-resistance, Wharton countered, ‘all he has advanced about non-resistance and unlimited obedience is ridiculous and false… The doctrine of passive obedience, as pressed by the Doctor, is not reconcilable to the practice of churchmen.’ Over the following days, he continued to take a prominent role in the debates, speaking in support of the administration and justifying the Revolution. With regard to the latter he was uncompromising in his attitude, declaring starkly at one point ‘if the Revolution is not lawful, many in this House and vast numbers without are guilty of blood, murder, rapine and injustice.’<sup>210</sup> Such statements, unsurprisingly, set him at odds with a number of Tory peers, in particular Rochester and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford). While they were intent on questioning the validity of the impeachment process, Wharton was equally eager to demonstrate that he too was anxious that the trial should be seen to be properly conducted.<sup>211</sup> On 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell guilty and, following Sacheverell’s conviction, moved that the reasons offered by the lords who had voted against and subscribed a protest against the judgment ought to be expunged from the Journal.<sup>212</sup></p><p>Wharton’s triumph was short-lived. At the beginning of April he experienced a reverse in a dispute with Colonel John Lovett over the Eddystone lighthouse bill, losing in a division in the Lords by 17 to 15. He was also unsuccessful in attempting to make a party issue over a dispute relating to the parish of Hammersmith. The presentation to the place was claimed jointly by Henry Compton*, as bishop of London, and one Burton, ‘a scandalous clergyman’, whose case Wharton supported. The bishop’s right, already awarded to him by the court of exchequer, was upheld on appeal to the Lords.<sup>213</sup></p><p>These relatively minor reverses were cast well and truly into the shade by the unexpected alteration to the ministry brought about by Shrewsbury’s return to office as lord chamberlain. Maynwaring reported Wharton as being ‘a good deal concerned at this turn’, which threatened to reopen the breaches so recently patched together by the Junto uniting to attack Sacheverell.<sup>214</sup> It is perhaps indicative of quite how anxious Wharton and his allies were at this development that the same month Wharton was the driving force behind the expulsion of Somerset from the Kit Cat club on suspicion of caballing with Harley.<sup>215</sup> While Shrewsbury’s recruitment into the ministry was undoubtedly unwelcome to the Junto, it did offer them a renewed object against which to unite. Unlike Somers, though, Wharton seems to have been willing to attempt to co-operate with his erstwhile friend. At the same time it was reported that he was to be promoted in the peerage once again to a marquessate. Rather than an indication of his security, it was possibly assumed to be intended as compensation in the event of him being removed from office, as it was speculated he might soon be in the middle of May.<sup>216</sup></p><p>Wharton was back in Ireland by the late spring of 1710. From there he lambasted his colleague, Orford, for having ousted William Bodens from a place in the admiralty. For this and for his suspected negotiations with Harley, Orford, Wharton declared, ‘ought to hide his head in the cellar, when he considers the barbarity that he has been guilty of upon this occasion.’<sup>217</sup> His sojourn in Ireland proved briefer than his previous stint and by the beginning of September he was expected back in England in preparation for the new elections.<sup>218</sup> By the end of the first week of September it was reported that he was to be put out of his lieutenancy and replaced by James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>219</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1710</em></h2><p>Wharton’s declining influence in the ministry did not in any way negate his eagerness to assert his interest where possible. He remained a crucial figure in holding together the Junto, which found itself under greater pressure than ever, and was credited with dissuading several of its associates from taking service with the new ministry.<sup>220</sup> He also remained a force to be reckoned with in electoral politics. Shortly after the rumours of his likely displacement began to circulate he was preparing to set out for his northern estates to oversee the elections there.<sup>221</sup> In late August it was put about that he intended to drop Lechmere at Appleby and replace him with his nephew, Albemarle Bertie<sup>‡</sup>. Bertie had represented Cockermouth on Wharton’s interest since 1708 but appears not to have been willing to stand there again and in the event chose not to stand for Parliament again until the following reign. Lechmere was successful in transferring to the now vacant seat at Cockermouth even though Wharton’s interest there was now thought to be ‘precarious’.<sup>222</sup> On 9 Sept. Wharton met with Somers in London to concert measures with him.<sup>223</sup> Towards the end of the month he joined with Somerset in recommending Lowther for Cumberland.<sup>224</sup> The eagerness with which Wharton campaigned proved no match for the rising Harley interest, though, and in the contests for Buckinghamshire it was reported that none of his candidates had been successful.<sup>225</sup> At Appleby, where he had long held sway, his nephew, Sir Charles Kemys, was pushed into third place.<sup>226</sup></p><p>By the beginning of October 1710 news of Wharton’s removal from his Irish post was ‘expected every packet’. At the same time he was noted predictably enough by Harley as a likely opponent of his new administration. Wharton’s dismissal was finally announced to the council by the queen on 20 October. He was also put out as chief justice in eyre. No immediate announcement was made about his replacement in that post, but by the end of the year it had been directed back to Abingdon.<sup>227</sup> Wharton left behind him an unflattering reputation among at least some of his Irish charges. According to Hugh Speke, writing from Dublin, ‘no lord lieutenant ever lived so sordidly mean and did such mean things, and indeed my lord’s very name is infamous here.’<sup>228</sup></p><p>Wharton took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710. He was thereafter present on 68 days in the session (60 per cent of the whole). He took a prominent role in rallying to the defence of the army commanders who had overseen the Spanish campaign and were now being examined by the new administration.<sup>229</sup> In his efforts to do so he was marked out for particular attention by William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], who asked Wharton how he now liked the Union, since all of the Scottish peers had sided with the court in the proceedings about the army.<sup>230</sup></p><p>On 9 Jan. 1711 Wharton acted as one of the tellers for a procedural division over whether to resume the House from committee of the whole considering the state of the war in Spain. Two days later he subscribed the protests against the rejection of the petitions of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], concerning their management of the campaign, and against the committee’s resolution that the defeat at Almanza had been brought about by the actions of the allied commanders, Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope. On 12 Jan. he protested again at the resolution to censure the ministers for approving offensive operations in Spain. On 3 Feb. he protested twice more. First at the resolution to agree with the committee that found that the army in Spain had not been sufficiently supplied; and second at the resolution that the ministers’ failures had amounted to a neglect of the service.</p><p>With the members of the previous administration so fiercely under attack, Wharton and his colleagues seem to have made a particular effort to co-ordinate their activities. In February, Wharton was again noted among those dining at various gatherings attended by other prominent Whig peers.<sup>231</sup> On 5 Feb. he registered his proxy with Mohun, which was vacated by his return to the House 10 days later. It may have been during the following month that he was one of the members of the former administration said to be under threat of impeachment by the Commons.<sup>232</sup> He registered his proxy with Mohun again on 2 Apr., vacated by his resumption of his seat a fortnight later. Between 12 and 17 May Wharton was named manager of a series of conferences considering the game bill. He was then absent from the House again between 18 May and 5 June, lodging his proxy on 21 May with Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (and later duke of Kingston). On 31 May he was again named a manager of a further conference for the game bill.</p><p>Early in the summer Wharton was earmarked to be stripped of his lieutenancy of Westmorland.<sup>233</sup> He was also, incongruously, one of those to stand bail for the Middleton brothers, who had been captured in the <em>Salisbury</em> in the abortive invasion of 1708 and since imprisoned in the Tower.<sup>234</sup> On 6 June he was entrusted with the proxy of Dorchester. He himself attended, however, just one further day in the session. In July he was set to join the majority of prominent Whig peers gathering at the races at Quainton, presumably a further opportunity to concert measures for the coming session.<sup>235</sup> In preparation for future elections, he was said to have joined with two other Yorkshire Whigs in buying up burgages in boroughs in the county.<sup>236</sup></p><p>Wharton attended the two prorogation days of 13 and 27 Nov. 1711 before taking his seat in the new session on 7 December. He then acted as one of the tellers in the division whether to amend the reply to the address. In advance of the session Wharton’s name had been included by Nottingham in a list of peers possibly expected to collaborate in opposition to the ministry’s policy of ending the war and the day after the opening, Wharton was again included on a list of those believed to be in opposition to the ministry. The prospect of unsettling the ministry over the peace negotiations seems to have reinvigorated Wharton. Leaving the chamber after Harley’s, now earl of Oxford, botched attempt to reverse the previous day’s resolution on no peace without Spain, he was seen to clap his hand on Oxford’s back and declare ‘by God, my Lord, if you can bear this you are the strongest man in England.’ There was further evidence of his concerting tactics with his allies in his presence among a number of other Whig notables at a dinner held at the Queen’s Arms.<sup>237</sup></p><p>A week into the session (15 Dec.) the new unholy alliance between Nottingham and the Whigs was made apparent with the re-introduction of the occasional conformity bill, which was to be presented by Nottingham and seconded by Wharton. The prospect caused some mirth and Wharton was unable to restrain himself from making a quip about his nomination of Nottingham and Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Cleveland, to the committee for the address, pointing out that they were well matched both being changelings.<sup>238</sup> Wharton proved equally robust in his opposition to the admission of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], as duke of Brandon. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to object to Hamilton’s admission and after Oxford had argued for the judges’ opinions to be heard on the matter, which he insisted was a matter of law, Wharton and Sunderland opposed the motion, arguing that it was a question of privilege.<sup>239</sup> The following day Wharton divided as expected with those opposed to permitting Hamilton to sit by virtue of his British dukedom.</p><p>At the opening of 1712 Oxford bolstered the ministry’s ranks in the Lords with 12 new peers in order to ensure the passage of the peace proposals. Following their first appearance on 2 Jan. Wharton asked disparagingly of them whether they were to vote singly or by foreman.<sup>240</sup> With the ministry proof for the while against defeat in the Lords, there were renewed rumours of proceedings against members of the former administration. Wharton again was one of those thought likely to be impeached.<sup>241</sup> In spite of this, he continued to be an important point of contact for the opposition. On 12 Jan. he received Carlisle’s proxy, on 16 Feb. he was entrusted with that of Richard Newport*, 2nd earl of Bradford, on 6 Mar. with that of John Vaughan*, 3rd earl of Carbery [I] (2nd Baron Vaughan), and on 11 Mar. with that of Dorchester. Wharton registered his own proxy with Carlisle on 2 Apr., which was vacated by his resumption of his seat eight days later. On 12 Apr. he was entrusted with Bradford’s proxy and again on 5 June. On 26 Apr. he lodged his own proxy with Carlisle once more. At the end of May, unsurprisingly, he voted in favour of the motion to overturn the orders preventing Ormond from launching an offensive campaign against the French.<sup>242</sup> He then subscribed the resulting protest when the motion was rejected.<sup>243</sup> On 2 June he chaired the committee of the whole considering the Quakers’ bill and on 6 June he moved a vote of thanks to the queen for that part of her address which related to the security of the Protestant succession. He also moved that the peace proposals be taken into consideration the following day and proposed an amendment to the address, but that was rejected as being too limiting on the queen’s prerogative.<sup>244</sup> On 7 June he acted as one of the tellers (the other being his familiar rival, Abingdon) for the division over whether to amend the address in reply to the queen’s speech on the peace. He then entered his protest when the motion to amend the address was rejected. Wharton quit the session after 11 June, registering his proxy the following day with Dorchester.</p><p>Wharton attended six of the prorogation days between 8 July 1712 and 17 Mar. 1713. He may have spent some of the intervening time in preparation for elections, though his focus during the summer seems to have been on racing. This would appear to have been behind a comment from Sir Thomas Cave in September referring to Wharton’s ‘luck’ at Aylesbury and hoping that the Whigs ‘may never succeed better.’ The following month Cave referred again to ‘King Tom’ and the Whigs’ ability to keep the best horses, because they were so much better funded than their competitors.<sup>245</sup></p><p>Wharton returned to his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713 and was thereafter present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 15 Apr. he was observed as part of a ‘great crew’ of lords meeting at Somers’s residence in Leicester Fields.<sup>246</sup> Early in the session a report from the commissioners of accounts appeared to open up the prospect of a renewed investigation into Wharton’s management of Ireland and influence over the former administration but within days it was reported that little was likely to be made of the affair and Wharton himself proved to be in defiant mood. When the matter was brought before the Lords, Wharton denied the accusation that he had accepted £1,000 for recommending to Godolphin a candidate for a place in the customs. According to one commentator, far from being culpable, Wharton’s behaviour was ‘one of the best actions his lordship ever did’, as he had not kept the money but handed over £200 to one sister in need and the remaining £800 to her daughter.<sup>247</sup></p><p>Wharton was able to shrug off the attempt against him in the Lords and the following month he proved similarly immune to another effort in the Commons. Although he was censured, no further action was taken against him as he was protected by the 1708 Indemnity Act.<sup>248</sup> That summer, he became embroiled in the attempt of a number of disgruntled Scottish members to reject the ministry’s intended extension of the malt bill into Scotland and to bring in an act for dissolving the Union. Wharton’s apparently cynical willingness to undo the Union, something for which he had worked so closely, for the purpose of harming the ministry attracted general opprobrium.<sup>249</sup> His subsequent decision to abandon the Scots compounded the harm to his reputation. In June he was missing from the House when their efforts to delay the second reading of the malt bill were defeated.<sup>250</sup> Whether or not Wharton was truly willing to see the Union unravelled, his commitment to the safety of the Protestant succession remained as certain as ever and at the end of June he moved an address to be drawn up requesting the queen use her interest with the duke of Lorraine to have the Pretender removed from his territory. The motion was admitted with only one dissenting voice.<sup>251</sup></p><p>The close of the session found Wharton once more active in consolidating his interest for the expected elections. He took a party to Woodstock to have them made freemen of the borough so that they would be able to participate in the poll, presumably on behalf of Marlborough’s candidates, who were eventually returned though only after a disputed election. He had poorer success nearer to his own estates. He was unable to secure either of the Buckinghamshire seats for his candidates and there was disharmony at Cockermouth, where he was unable to work effectively with Somerset. The result was a Tory challenger topping the poll there, though Wharton’s associate, Lechmere, was able to secure the second seat.<sup>252</sup> Further tensions within the ranks of the Junto were apparent when Wharton refused to offer his usual backing at Chipping Wycombe to Charles Godfrey, an uncle of Lady Sunderland. Godfrey had courted Wharton’s displeasure by voting in favour of the French commerce bill. The result was his effective de-selection and replacement by Wittewronge.<sup>253</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1713 and the Hanoverian Succession</em></h2><p>Wharton took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on approximately 84 per cent of all sitting days. On 28 Feb. he was entrusted with the proxy of James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley. In March he led the assault on Swift’s pamphlet, the <em>Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>, but was wrong-footed by Oxford’s careful manipulation of the situation that prevented Swift from being identified.<sup>254</sup> Later that month he attempted to unsettle the ministry once more by requesting that an address be made to the queen for all pardons granted in the last three years to be laid before the House. Again, Oxford sidestepped him by moving that the address should seek sight of all pardons granted during the reign.<sup>255</sup> At the beginning of April Wharton opened the debate on the queen’s speech and the state of the nation, arguing that the Hanoverian succession was in danger under the present administration. Once more, Oxford’s ministry was able to fend off the attack, though at least one commentator reckoned the injuries done to the administration were mortal.<sup>256</sup></p><p>Wharton was entrusted with Bradford’s proxy on 6 and again on 10 April. On 13 Apr. he registered his own proxy with Dorchester, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat the following day. On 24 Apr. Dorchester lodged his own proxy with Wharton and on 24 May Wharton was also entrusted with that of Charles Willoughby*, 13th (<em>CP</em> 14th) Baron Willoughby of Parham. Three days later, he was forecast by Nottingham as a likely opponent of the schism bill. Wharton regarded the bill with unease. ‘It is melancholy and surprising’ he lamented ‘that at this very time a bill should be brought in, which cannot but tend to divide Protestants and consequently to weaken their interests and hasten their ruin’, He then qualified his appraisal. Melancholy it may have been but not so surprising given the ‘mad men’ who were ‘the contrivers and promoters’ of the measure.<sup>257</sup> Underscoring his opposition to the measure and his reputation as a friend of the nonconformists, he submitted a petition seeking permission for a deputation of Dissenters to be heard to voice their concerns about the bill. The petition was rejected by a majority of six.<sup>258</sup> On 15 June he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill. Five days before this he had been entrusted with Sunderland’s proxy and on 21 June he also received that of Carlisle.</p><p>By this time, with Somers incapacitated, Wharton was acknowledged by many as the effective head of the Whigs in the Lords.<sup>259</sup> It was thanks to evidence he laid before the House about the activities of Jacobite recruiting agents that Oxford was forced to give way to a proclamation promising a reward to anyone seizing the Pretender should he be captured in Britain.<sup>260</sup> A scheme to encourage the electoral prince (Prince George Augustus*, duke of Cambridge, later George II) to travel to England incognito and ‘surprise’ the queen was said, though, to have been a contrivance of both Wharton and Somers.<sup>261</sup> Any such plan was laid aside on the news of the Electress Sophia’s death in June.</p><p>Wharton’s efforts against the ministry persisted into the following month when he took exception to the queen’s address relating to the <em>Asiento</em>. On 6 July he opened the debate on the Spanish commercial treaty referring explicitly to the belief that Arthur Moore<sup>‡</sup> had been offered a substantial bribe for assisting the passage of the measure: ‘he did not doubt one of these gentlemen could make it appear that the treaty of commerce with Spain was very advantageous.’ Two days later he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to address the queen advising her that the benefits of the contract had been lessened by certain individuals’ efforts to obtain personal advantages. The following day he was again one of those to speak out against the queen’s answer but efforts to have Moore censured were frustrated by the prorogation.<sup>262</sup></p><p>Wharton’s struggle against the administration was brought to a premature conclusion by the queen’s final illness and death at the beginning of August 1714. Wharton was initially disappointed of an immediate upturn in his fortunes when it was revealed that his name was not among the regents.<sup>263</sup> He was nevertheless an early beneficiary of the Hanoverian succession. In September he returned to the administration as lord privy seal and in February of the following year was promoted in the peerage once again to a marquessate (he was also made a marquess in the peerage of Ireland).<sup>264</sup></p><p>In the elections for the first Parliament of the new reign Wharton exerted his interest in Buckinghamshire as usual. It was rumoured that he had made £1,000 available to ease Richard Hampden’s<sup>‡</sup> return, though he was forced to participate in a ‘shameful compromise’ whereby the second seat was conceded to the Tory John Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>265</sup> He had greater success at Chipping Wycombe and at Malmesbury. In these boroughs both of his preferred candidates were returned.<sup>266</sup> His reputation preceded him even among the youngest members of the new court. When he attempted to compliment the seven-year-old Princess Anne, she teased him that she had heard of him in Hanover and that he was ‘a great courtier and flatterer of the ladies.’<sup>267</sup></p><p>By the time the new Parliament met the following spring, Wharton’s health was failing. His sudden decline was in part attributed by his friends to a bitter dispute with his heir, Philip Wharton<sup>†</sup>, styled Viscount Winchendon (later duke of Wharton), who had rebelled against his father and contracted a Fleet marriage.<sup>268</sup> This seems to have been the ‘misfortune’ referred to in letters written in mid and late March.<sup>269</sup> Wharton was able to attend just five days of the first Parliament of the new reign in March 1715 and sat for the final time on 1 April. On 22 Mar. he was one of those to speak in favour of employing the word ‘retrieve’ in the address to the king, which aspired to ‘retrieve the lost honour’ of the nation. By 11 Apr., though, he was said to be ‘very ill of a fever and St Anthony’s fire’.<sup>270</sup> By then he was thought beyond help. He died the following day. Anne, countess of Sunderland, who had by no means always appreciated his interventions, bemoaned that he ‘could never be spared less.’<sup>271</sup></p><p>Wharton left an estate valued at over £65,000.<sup>272</sup> He left portions of respectively £8,000 and £6,000 to his daughters Jane and Lucy. Management of his estates was left in the hands of trustees – Kingston (as Dorchester had become), Carlisle and Nicholas Lechmere – during the minority of his heir.<sup>273</sup> Supervision of Wharton’s will was later disputed by his heir and daughters. The manor of Ashe in Yorkshire was sold to settle Wharton’s debts.<sup>274</sup></p><p>Throughout his career, Wharton sought to make both houses of Parliament venues for settling scores both political and private. His insistence on using the Aylesbury case to hold a Tory-dominated Commons to ransom at the hands of a Whig-majority Lords owed much to his early experiences under Shaftesbury. The ruthlessness with which Wharton (in close association with Somers) pursued Fenwick and Sacheverell by means of impeachment, and even attainder, when a case in the courts would never have succeeded pointed to a steely quality that belied Wharton’s usual bonhomie. His pitiless pursuit of his quarry underscored his absolute commitment to the cause of his party. His dismay at Shrewsbury’s betrayal was quite genuine as was his suspicion of those of his colleagues who demonstrated less fixed political principles, such as Halifax, Orford and even Somers. Only Sunderland, perhaps, shared Wharton’s unwavering belief in the necessity for the Whigs to hold together at all times irrespective of the cause for the greater good. In return, the more extreme Whigs looked to Wharton as their guide and their ‘tutelary God’.<sup>275</sup></p><p>If Wharton’s commitment to his party was unswayable, he was far more willing to compromise on other matters. Swift derided him as ‘a Presbyterian in politics and an atheist in religion’ while continuing to note that despite these ‘he chooses at present to whore with a papist’.<sup>276</sup> Another contemporary conceded that it was to no purpose ever to accuse Wharton of perjury ‘when he invokes God and Christ, because he has often fairly given public notice to the world, that he believes in neither.’<sup>277</sup> Wharton was doubtless conscious of the bizarre figure he struck as defender of the Church of England at the time of the Union and as a supporter of occasional conformity as the price of securing Nottingham’s assistance in 1711. For Wharton religion was a matter to be traded in favour of something he considered more important: the success of the Revolution settlement and the perpetual exclusion of the Catholic Stuarts. In these aims he was undeviating and it was as a reward for such constancy that he was promoted in the peerage and restored to office at the Hanoverian accession.</p><p>Wharton’s political legacy was short-lived. As an inherent believer in the importance of the Whigs holding together he would have been dismayed by the rapid descent into factionalism among the various Whig groupings following George I’s accession. The steady decline of the House of Lords as a venue where significant political events were settled would also have dismayed him. Nevertheless, his reputation as an orator and as a party manager endured and his demise was quickly marked by a series of works extolling his achievements or decrying his influence. As someone who had so willingly courted controversy, he may not have been displeased by the partisan epitaphs from both sides of the political divide.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WIDDRINGTON, William (c. 1630-75) |
<p><strong><surname>WIDDRINGTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1630–75)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 26 Aug. 1651 as 2nd Bar. WIDDRINGTON |
|
First sat 2 June 1660; last sat 10 Nov. 1675 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1630, 1st s. of William Widdrington<sup>†</sup>, later Bar. Widdrington, and Mary, da. of Sir Anthony Thorold of Blankney, Lincs.; bro. of Ralph Widdrington<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. 12 Jan. 1654, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em>1715), da. of Hon. Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>, 5s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 7da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> 15 Dec. 1675; <em>will</em> 30 June 1673, pr. 7 Sept. 1676.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p><em>Custos rot</em>. Northumb. 1660–<em>d</em>.; dep. lt, Lincs. 1660–<em>d</em>.,<sup>3</sup> Northumb. 1669–<em>d</em>., Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1671–<em>d</em>., co. Dur. 1672–<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> commr. fishing, River Tweed 1662;<sup>5</sup> ld. lt. co. Dur. 1672–4.</p><p>Gov. and col. regt. of ft., Berwick-on-Tweed and Holy Island, 1660–<em>d</em>.; capt. tp. of horse June–Sept. 1667;<sup>6</sup> col. Col. James Hamilton’s Regt. of Ft. 1673–<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Jacob Huysmans, c.1670, sold at Christie’s 20 Jan. 2010, sale no. 5984; oil on canvas, artist unknown, c.1660, Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum, Burnley.</p> |
<p>The Widdringtons were an ancient Northumbrian family who had long owned the township of Widdrington and other estates on the north-east coast of England. William Widdrington’s father became one of the most trusted officers of William Cavendish*, marquess (later duke) of Newcastle, in the northern royalist army in the Civil War and even served as president of Newcastle’s council of war. By his marriage to Mary Thorold in 1630, Sir William Widdrington acquired the manor of Blankney in Lincolnshire, and Newcastle appointed him, as a ‘person of honour’, commander-in-chief of Lincolnshire, Rutland and Nottingham during the brief royalist occupation of those counties in 1643. When Sir William was made a baron on 10 Nov. 1643 for his services to the king, he was created Baron Widdrington of Blankney, emphasizing his family’s connection with Lincolnshire.</p><p>Widdrington accompanied his commander Newcastle into exile after the defeat at Marston Moor.<sup>8</sup> He returned in 1650 and was mortally wounded at the battle of Wigan Lane in August 1651 in an encounter which made him a royalist hero and martyr. His son William, perhaps just having reached his majority, succeeded to his title and shortly after entered into the Widdrington estates in Northumberland, despite their initial confiscation. As the committee for compounding determined on 29 Jan. 1652, the Widdrington lands had been entailed in 1621 and his father had only been a life tenant of them. Similarly, his mother was able to keep the Lincolnshire lands including Blankney free from confiscation, as her father had settled them on her upon her marriage to Sir William Widdrington in 1635.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Widdrington’s activities during the Interregnum are unknown. On 4 May 1660 he was part of a group of ‘Oxford peers’ – those who had been created or elevated by Charles I in Oxford during the Civil War or, as in Widdrington’s case, their successors – who fruitlessly requested from George Monck*, the future duke of Albemarle, permission to take their places in the Convention House of Lords.<sup>10</sup> A few days after this meeting, Widdrington was sent over to the continent to deliver a letter from Theophilus Clinton*, 4th earl of Lincoln, another Lincolnshire landowner, professing loyalty and service to Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon. Widdrington stayed abroad after this mission, and at the end of May he was one of those few willing to accompany his father’s former commander Newcastle back to England in (according to the duchess of Newcastle’s later memoirs) a rickety unseaworthy vessel that many others refused to venture in.<sup>11</sup> At the Restoration Widdrington was quickly rewarded for his father’s loyalty.</p><p>Widdrington, like his father, followed a military vocation – as did three of his younger brothers.<sup>12</sup> He was active in the defence of the north-east coast against possible Dutch attack and was a commissioned officer in regiments that were quickly formed during the two Dutch wars.<sup>13</sup> From his military post at Berwick, he was able to maintain the family’s influence in Northumberland. He almost certainly had a part in the selection of his kinsman Sir Thomas Widdrington<sup>‡</sup> as Member for Berwick in both the Convention and the Cavalier Parliament, although Sir Thomas’s term in the latter was cut short by his death in 1664.<sup>14</sup> Widdrington was also named to a commission to regulate fishing in the River Tweed in 1662 and on 8 May 1675 he petitioned the House of Lords to summon the mayor and burgesses of Berwick to answer for their interference in his rights over the river.<sup>15</sup></p><p>His marriage had also increased Widdrington’s landholdings and influence in Lincolnshire. His wife’s uncle Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire, gave him a commission as deputy lieutenant in 1660, renewed after the passage of the Militia Act in 1662.<sup>16</sup> Widdrington’s connection with the Berties may have involved him in various land reclamation projects in that county. He was appointed a commissioner of sewers for Lincolnshire from 1660 and on 7 Mar. 1662 was named to a select committee to consider a bill confirming various decrees of the commissioners of sewers for the River Ancholme in Lincolnshire.<sup>17</sup> On 26 Nov. 1670 he was appointed to a committee entrusted with a bill for improving navigation between Boston and the River Trent, and he appears to have actively contributed to its meetings. He chaired the last meeting of the committee which decided on the final amendments and he reported the committee’s work to the House on 14 December.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Apart from enhancing his Lincolnshire landholdings, Widdrington’s marriage brought him important political connections with the Berties, headed by Lindsey and then by his son Robert Bertie*, the 3rd earl of Lindsey, and to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), whose wife, Bridget, was cousin to Widdrington’s wife. After his death, Widdrington’s widow was able to exert her late husband’s electoral influence when she worked, in tandem with Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle, to have Danby’s younger son Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S], later 2nd duke of Leeds, elected Member for Berwick in a by-election of 1677.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Having returned with Newcastle in the king’s train, Widdrington first sat in the House on 2 June 1660, the day that saw an influx of returning royalists. After this late start he was a relatively diligent attender of the House, turning up for just over half of the sittings of the Convention until the adjournment on 13 Sept. 1660. He was not particularly active in this period and was named to only four committees on legislation, three of them in the space of two days, on 7–8 September. Having been appointed governor of Berwick-on-Tweed in August 1660, he was probably in the far north to take up his duties in the months following and did not return to the capital to attend the Convention after it resumed on 6 November.</p><p>Widdrington was back in the House for the first sitting of the Cavalier Parliament, 11 May 1661, but he went on to attend on only just under half of the days of that session. Some three-quarters of them were concentrated in the first part of the session, before the adjournment of summer 1661. It was not until 1 July that he was placed on his first committee, that to consider the petition to re-establish the Council of the North, with which he would have had a close concern. At about that time Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, understandably placed him among the opponents of the claims of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, for the hereditary office of the great chamberlaincy against Widdrington’s kinsman Lindsey.</p><p>Widdrington did not return to the House until 17 Feb. 1662, many weeks after the House had resumed in late November 1661, and through this late start he only came to about a third of this part of the session before the prorogation on 19 May 1662. He returned with one principal purpose in mind, for on 22 Feb. he introduced in the House a bill to enable him to sell land in the Lincolnshire manor of Evedon in order to pay for the portions of his seven siblings and to provide for his own younger children. The bill was committed three days later to 19 members of the House. The proceedings in the committee took a long time, from 27 Feb. to 17 Mar., as the bill provoked the opposition of his own mother, who submitted a petition stating that Widdrington’s marriage settlement with Elizabeth Bertie had stipulated that the manor of Evedon was to be put in trust to provide for his brothers and sisters and that this attempt to void the settlement risked the welfare of her other children. Nor was Widdrington’s wife happy with this attempt to alienate what she considered to be her own inheritance. A proviso was finally agreed upon in committee that satisfied all the parties and on 20 Mar. the much-altered bill was reported by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, and was passed by the House five days later. It was sent down to the Commons on 3 Apr., where it was largely ignored among the great quantity of business dealt with in the last weeks of the session. It was only read for the first time on 11 Apr. and then not committed until six days later. Widdrington’s bill was lost at the prorogation on 19 May 1662 and he never reintroduced it in a subsequent session.<sup>20</sup></p><p>In this period of the session Widdrington was named to nine committees on legislation. On 28 Apr. 1662 he was added to the already-existing committees for the bills for distributing £60,000 to the ‘loyal and indigent’ officers of the civil wars, and for regulating the northern borders – in both of which matters he clearly had both a personal interest and knowledge. His experience in the fenlands of Lincolnshire, on the other hand, was reflected in his appointment on 4 Mar. to the committee for the bill to confirm decrees made by the commissioners of sewers in the Isle of Axholme.</p><p>Widdrington appeared in the House for the second day of the session of spring 1663 but left shortly thereafter, after only a further ten sittings. On 23 Mar. he was given the House’s leave to be absent, ‘having his Majesty’s leave to give his proxy’, which he duly registered the following day with his captain-general, Albemarle. Wharton forecast that, through his proxy with Albemarle, the absent Widdrington could be considered a supporter of the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Digby, to impeach Clarendon in July 1663. Widdrington was still absent when the Parliament resumed on 16 Mar. 1664 but did appear on 20 Apr., and was present for only 13 sitting days in the session of spring 1664. He was absent for all of the following session of 1664–5, for which he again registered his proxy with Albemarle on 27 Jan. 1665. He did not appear in the House again until 9 Nov. 1666 and when he did return he sat only ten times until 23 Nov., when he and a number of other military commanders, such as Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, and John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, were dispatched back to their posts in the north.<sup>21</sup> He was back in the House on 4 Feb. 1667, presumably with one specific goal in mind, for the next day, upon Widdrington’s complaint and testimony heard at the bar from one of his servants, the House ordered the arrest of James Smith, Bernard White and the solicitor John Blount for entering into Widdrington’s lordship of Ellington and driving away his livestock, contrary to his privilege. This matter was lost at the prorogation of the session three days later.</p><p>Widdrington was still absent for the first part of the session of 1667–8 when a bill seeking to enable trustees to make leases on the Lincolnshire lands of Sir Charles Stanley in order to pay his debts and provide for his children was read in the House on 22 Oct. 1667.<sup>22</sup> Widdrington had an interest in this bill and indeed in the troubled career of Stanley, his own brother-in-law, married to his sister Jane. The committee considering the bill throughout November determined that the absent Widdrington’s consent, as a guardian to his sister’s interests, was necessary for the bill to pass. Widdrington gave his agreement by a letter to the committee, also requesting that the trustees named in the bill be replaced – he nominated Sir John Monson<sup>‡</sup> as a replacement – and that the mortgage on Ancaster House in Lincolnshire be redeemed and it be settled on his nephew, Sir Charles Stanley’s eldest son, William. His suggestion of Monson as trustee was not adopted by the committee, but Widdrington’s insistence on the redemption and disposition of Ancaster House was incorporated into the amendments to the bill.<sup>23</sup> The prosecution of the bill was delayed by the proceedings surrounding the impeachment and eventual banishment of Clarendon, and it was not sent down to the lower House until 3 Dec. 1667. Consideration of the bill was severely delayed there and it did not receive the royal assent until 9 May 1668.</p><p>Widdrington himself first sat in the House in this session on 6 Dec. 1667 and three days later he was added to the committee considering the state of trade between England and Scotland. He only sat in the House for eleven days from the time of his re-appearance there until the adjournment on 19 December. He was present, however, when the House reconvened on 6 Feb. 1668, and attended just over three-quarters of the meetings of this part of the session, until the adjournment of 9 May. This part of the session saw his first formal dissents. On 9 Mar. he was one of five dissenters from the resolution to grant relief to the petitioners Cuthbert Morley and Bernard Grenvile<sup>‡</sup>, whose case against Jeremy Elwes had earlier been dismissed in chancery. A week later he dissented again, this time from the subsequent resolution to reverse the chancery dismissal. He was named to six committees during this time, and on 12 Mar. was placed on the committee delegated to determine the compensation due to Thomas Skinner from the East India Company in the cause <em>Skinner vs. East India Company</em>, an appointment which was subsequently expunged from the Journal under Widdrington’s own reluctant supervision.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Widdrington first sat in the following session of winter 1669 on 4 Nov. 1669 and missed only nine of the sitting days of this brief session. He was active in the proceedings surrounding the continuing dispute between the houses over <em>Skinner vs. East India Company</em>. On 11 Nov. he was prominent in the debate when the Commons’ bill to remove the Lords’ judicature in original causes was first read. Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, noted that ‘there was a universal indignation’ against the bill and that Widdrington was one of the many who moved to reject it, but that Widdrington also added the motion that in response the House should draft its own bill explicitly regulating and asserting the House’s rights in judicature. Just as the House was ready to reject the bill outright, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, argued strenuously that either it should be maintained and amended to reflect the House’s rights in judicature or that Widdrington’s motion should be accepted and an entirely new bill be drafted, stating the House’s rights and privileges. It was probably this incident, where Widdrington put forward a motion approved by Buckingham himself in a perhaps pre-concerted move, that led Sandwich to place Widdrington among the four followers of Buckingham who ‘appeared’ in the House that session. Another one of Buckingham’s followers named in this list was Widdrington’s cousin Sir Thomas Osborne, one of Buckingham’s leading clients, and this may have been the connection which first brought Widdrington and Buckingham together.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Widdrington was in the House on the second day of the 1670–1 session, but only sat for a further 25 sittings before he received leave of the House on 23 Mar. 1670 to go into the country, ‘about his occasions’. During this brief period he was named to nine committees. He maintained his opposition to the Commons’ claims in <em>Skinner vs. East India Company</em> and on 21 Feb. 1670 was one of only nine peers who voted against the motion that all record of the dispute for the past two years should be expunged from the Journal, as specifically requested by the king himself.<sup>26</sup> He saw this action as a further derogation of the House’s privileges, but ironically (and perhaps purposely), as a member of the sub-committee for the Journal, he was placed two days later on the small committee of eight members charged with ensuring that this vote was put into execution and all record of the debate erased from the Journal.</p><p>His former proxy recipient, Albemarle, having died at the beginning of 1670, Widdrington turned instead to a fellow military commander of the northern border, Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland, to receive his proxy, which was registered on 24 March. This proxy was vacated on 27 Oct. 1670, when Widdrington returned to the House after the summer adjournment. In this second, longer, part of the session he came to two-thirds of the sitting days. He was placed on 18 committees on legislation, including, on 26 Nov., the one for the bill to make navigation of the River Trent around Boston more navigable. This spoke to his Lincolnshire interests and experience, and it was Widdrington who chaired the final meeting of the committee and reported the amended bill on 14 December.<sup>27</sup> Near the end of the session, on 17 Apr. 1671, he was placed on another bill for river navigation: that to make the River Wey in Surrey more navigable. He was also added, on 10 Jan. 1671, to the existing committee considering the bill to prevent fraud in servants and apprentices. He was to be more closely involved in these two matters – river navigation and servants and their wages – in the succeeding session.</p><p>During the third Anglo-Dutch War of 1672–4, Widdrington, as governor of Berwick and, from 1672, a commissioner for the lord lieutenancy of the county palatine of Durham, was closely involved in the defence of the north-eastern coast. On 7 June 1673 he was commissioned colonel of the infantry regiment until recently commanded by James Hamilton, who had died of wounds incurred during his first naval engagement in its command.<sup>28</sup> He wrote his will at the end of that month, ‘shortly to go into his Majesty’s service in the War’, as he explained, and he and his new regiment served on board the <em>Royal Charles</em> that summer.<sup>29</sup> Before then, Widdrington managed to come to all but six of the 38 sittings of Parliament in early 1673, when he was named to 12 committees on legislation. He was more than usually busy in committees and between 14 and 24 Mar. he was nominated to and chaired committees on the bills for regulating servants’ and apprentices’ wages, for making the Parrett and Tone rivers navigable, and for taking off aliens’ export duties.<sup>30</sup> On the last day of the session (29 Mar.) he reported from the committee for privileges with copious precedents of impeachment proceedings continuing in <em>statu quo</em> over prorogations in the same Parliament, precedents which were still being referred to in 1716.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Most notable during this period was Widdrington’s involvement, even if peripheral, in proceedings framing the anti-Catholic legislation of the period, and particularly the Test Act of 1673. In the earlier session of 1670–1 he had been appointed on 24 Mar. 1671 to the committee for the bill to prevent the growth of popery and on 13 Apr., in a meeting of the committee, he was nominated to a subcommittee assigned to draw up the test and oath for this bill, the genesis of the later Test.<sup>32</sup> In the last week of the 1673 session he was appointed a manager for conferences with the Commons concerning religious nonconformists, one considering the test bill (24 Mar.) and the other the bill for the ease of Protestant Dissenters (two conferences on 29 March). Widdrington came from a strongly Catholic family and many of his immediate family members were open adherents of the faith. His father had practised the religion publicly once in exile on the continent, and one of Widdrington’s brothers became a Jesuit. All of Widdrington’s children were openly Catholic as well; one son took orders as a Jesuit, and three of his daughters settled on the continent as nuns, or even abbesses. Widdrington himself must have strongly promoted the old faith in his own family, but does not appear to have espoused it openly himself, or at least not to the point where it hindered his public career. Even after the Test Act of March 1673 he continued in his military posts and was even granted an important commission in the Dutch war.</p><p>Widdrington first sat in the session of early 1674 on 16 Jan. and came to 71 per cent of the session’s sitting days. He was named to only three committees on legislation, including that with which he was so associated, the bill for governing servants and apprentices (16 February). The principal outcome of this session was the Treaty of Westminster, which put an end to the unpopular third Anglo-Dutch War and freed up Widdrington from many of his military responsibilities. Thus he had more time to devote to Parliament and he attended all but five of the sittings of the session of spring 1675 (probably the most consistent attendance record of his career) and was named to 11 committees on legislation.</p><p>By this time, Widdrington’s cousin the earl of Danby, as Sir Thomas Osborne had been created in 1674, had been appointed lord treasurer and had become the manager of the court and Church interest in Parliament. One of his strategies to suppress the growing country opposition was his ‘non-resisting’ test bill, which aimed to exclude from Parliament all those who were unwilling to swear that they would never attempt to make any alterations in Church or state. Danby forecast that his cousin would support him in pushing this measure through, and in this he was probably right, as Widdrington’s name does not appear in any of the protests signed by members of the country opposition in an attempt to halt the bill. His only signed protest of the session came on 10 May 1675, when, after hearing counsel in the dispute between Dacre Barrett and Edward Loftus, 2nd Viscount Loftus [I], he joined six other peers in dissenting from the resolution to overturn the decree made by the Long Parliament on 3 May 1642 in favour of Loftus’s father, then lord chancellor of Ireland, in his dispute with Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford.</p><p>Widdrington’s principal activity in the House this session was to take care of personal matters, particularly perceived breaches of his privilege. He submitted a petition to the House on 8 May 1675 against the mayor and burgesses of Berwick-on-Tweed for their failure to take proper action against those who encroached upon his right held since 1662 to control fishing in the River Tweed. Eleven days later, Widdrington complained that his servant George Burall had been arrested in November 1674, during time of Parliament, on the order of the attorney Mr Robinson and at the suit of John Heron. When Robinson and Heron begged the pardon of the House, Widdrington interceded on their behalf and they were discharged on 4 June 1675, only five days before the prorogation.</p><p>Widdrington sat for a further eight meetings from 13 Oct. to 10 Nov. 1675. He was dead by 5 Dec. and his body reached Widdrington by sea for burial at his ancestral home on 15 December.<sup>33</sup> His will, unaltered since first written on 30 June 1673, put all his estate in Northumberland and Lincolnshire in trust to his widow and brother Ralph Widdrington<sup>‡</sup> in order to provide £12,500 in maintenance and marriage portions for his ten surviving children, six of them daughters. Upon his death the title passed to the eldest son in this large family, the resolutely Catholic William Widdrington*, 3rd Baron Widdrington.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WIDDRINGTON, William (1656-95) |
<p><strong><surname>WIDDRINGTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1656–95)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Dec. 1675 (a minor) as 3rd Bar. WIDDRINGTON |
|
First sat 21 May 1677; last sat 18 Mar. 1678 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 26 Jan. 1656, 1st s. of William Widdrington*, 2nd Bar. Widdrington, and Elizabeth Bertie, da. of Hon. Peregrine Bertie<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m.</em> bef. 2 Aug. 1678, Alathea Fairfax (<em>d.</em>1693), da. of Charles Fairfax, 5th Visct. Fairfax of Elmley [I], 3s. 3da. <em>d.</em> 10 Feb. 1695; <em>will.</em> 26 Mar. 1694, pr. 4 May 1695.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Northumb. 1688.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Ensign, Ld. Widdrington’s Regt. of Ft. 1673; gov. Berwick-upon-Tweed and Holy Island, 1686–8.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas (as a child, in a portrait of his father), Jacob Huysmans, c.1670, sold at Christie’s, 20 Jan. 2010.</p> |
<p>While the 2nd Baron Widdrington had been able to maintain an active public life in the 1660s and early 1670s despite his Catholicism, his son’s adherence to the old faith limited his opportunity to participate in politics. His first opportunity to take his seat came in the session beginning 15 Feb. 1677, but he did not do so immediately, instead registering his proxy on 6 Mar. with Henry Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Newcastle. He attended for the first time on 21 May 1677 and sat in all but one of the meetings of that convening of Parliament before it was adjourned once again until January 1678. He attended less than half of the sitting days of the House when it reconvened in the first months of 1678, during which time he was named to three committees. He sat for the last time on 18 March, and in the next two sessions of 1678 his proxy was held by his fellow Catholic James*, duke of York, registered on 13 June and 22 Oct. respectively. It is not surprising then that Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, condemned him as a ‘Papist’ and considered him ‘triply vile’. At the very end of 1678, after the passage of the Test Act which barred him from participation in the House, Widdrington received a pass to travel overseas with his wife and father-in-law.<sup>3</sup> They were back in England by October 1681, as a correspondent of Newcastle recounted that he had gone to wait on the Lords Fairfax and Widdrington, and later that month Widdrington himself presented the loyal address from Northumberland to the king.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Under James II Widdrington was favoured and protected; ecclesiastical court proceedings against him and his family were stopped and he was dispensed by order of the king from taking the oath of allegiance. In 1686 he was made a justice of the peace for both Lincolnshire and Northumbria – the two counties where his family had their principal landholdings – and was also given the important military command of governor of Berwick-on-Tweed, a post that members of his family had held since the Restoration.<sup>5</sup> Contemporaries considered him to be one of the Catholic lords who would support the repeal of the Test Act. He held Berwick for James II as long as he could during William of Orange’s invasion, but with most of the rest of the north declaring for William by mid-December, Widdrington acceded to the demand of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), to surrender, and handed the Berwick garrison over to his lieutenant colonel, Rupert Billingsley, on 16 December 1688.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Widdrington’s movements after the Revolution are difficult to trace. A newsletter writer asserted that he had fled to France with his family as early as 16 Jan. 1689. He may have gone abroad to establish his children in the Catholic country, for his son and heir, William Widdrington*, later 4th Baron Widdrington, and his brothers were educated at the Jesuit Collège de Louis-le-Grand in Paris during the 1690s.<sup>7</sup> Widdrington himself appears to have returned to England shortly thereafter, for in April 1689 a royal agent told Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, that a group of horsemen 70 to 80 strong had been seen congregating at Widdrington’s house in Northumbria and at the residence of his neighbour (and fellow Catholic) Francis Radclyffe*, earl of Derwentwater. At one point Widdrington himself was seen leaving his house with 16 armed horsemen.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In September 1689 Widdrington responded to a request from the government for an assessment of his personal estate with the comment that ‘my personal estate will not by far pay my debts’.<sup>9</sup> Ironically, the French themselves did more harm to Widdrington’s finances than the English government ever did. In July 1691 a French privateer employed in supporting the intended invasion of that summer landed on the Northumbrian coast and sacked the nearest available noble house – which happened to be Widdrington Castle. The castle was plundered and many of the outlying houses and cottages burnt; the damage cost about £6,000. The French captain later apologized to Widdrington, claiming that he only realized that he was sacking a Catholic household after he had examined the booty he had taken aboard.<sup>10</sup> Some suspected that this was an elaborate ploy to transfer money safely – up to £40,000 by one estimate – from Widdrington’s castle to the Jacobite cause in France for whom it was intended.<sup>11</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1691 Widdrington, as executor of the will of Sir William Stanley, petitioned that Stanley’s second cousin William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, be made to waive his privilege so that evidence and depositions concerning the will could be taken in chancery. Widdrington claimed that he was obliged by the terms of the will to secure several years’ worth of arrears of an annuity of £600 that was due to Stanley from Derby’s estate. The committee for privileges found in favour of Widdrington on 15 Dec. despite Derby’s claim that Widdrington and others in his Catholic coterie had obtained the will from Sir William by subterfuge in his last delirious moments.<sup>12</sup> Derby continued to find ways of avoiding payment and in his own will Widdrington entrusted his executors, his father-in-law Fairfax and his uncle Ralph Widdrington<sup>‡</sup>, with the responsibility of obtaining the annuity and paying Stanley’s debts.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Widdrington died on 10 Feb. 1695, apparently in France, for his death is noted in a list of ‘Englishmen in France with king James’.<sup>14</sup> By his will his executors were also entrusted to provide for his six children out of the income from his estates in Northumberland and Lincolnshire with annuities worth £750 for his sons and marriage portions totalling £5,000 for his three daughters. All of his children followed their father in the Catholic faith: one daughter became a nun in Paris in 1701, while the other two married into solidly Catholic northern families (the Langdales and the Townleys), and all three of his sons were leaders of the northern Catholic troops in the Jacobite rising of 1715. At the 3rd Baron’s death the title passed to the eldest of these three sons, William, then about 16 years old.<sup>15</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WIDDRINGTON, William (1678-1743) |
<p><strong><surname>WIDDRINGTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1678–1743)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Feb. 1695 (a minor) as 4th Baron WIDDRINGTON; attainted 9 Feb. 1716 |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 2 Aug. 1678, 1st s. of William Widdrington*, 3rd Baron Widdrington, and Alathea (<em>d</em>.1694), da. and h. of Charles Fairfax, 5th Visct. Fairfax of Emley [I]. <em>educ.</em> Morpeth g.s.; Collège de Louis-le-Grand, Paris, c.1690–6. <em>m.</em> (1) c.13 Apr. 1700, Jane (<em>d.</em> 9 Sept. 1714), da. and h. of Sir Thomas Tempest, 4th bt. of Stella Hall, co. Dur. 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 6da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>);<sup>1</sup> (2) c.July 1718, Catherine (<em>d.</em>11 Dec. 1757), da. of Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, 1st Visct. Preston [S], <em>s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 19 Apr. 1743; <em>admon</em>. 13 May 1743 to wid.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, Joseph Highmore, c.1730, Nunnington Hall, Yorks. (N. Riding).</p> |
<p>The 4th Baron Widdrington joined his father in his commitment to Roman Catholicism and to the Jacobite cause.<sup>4</sup> He and his two younger brothers, Charles and Peregrine, fled with their father to the exiled court at St Germain shortly after the Revolution. As a young man he met many English peers and members of the gentry as they passed through Catholic Europe, and his early carousing with James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope, in Brussels in November 1697 may have benefited him later when he was under sentence of death.<sup>5</sup> He was back in England by 1700, when he married Jane Tempest, a member of a family noted for its Catholicism and Jacobitism. By this marriage he also acquired the valuable coal-rich manor of Stella, with its accompanying manor house, in Durham. He made Stella Hall his home, his family’s ancestral residence of Widdrington Castle having been ruinously sacked in a French raid in 1691. He enjoyed a rent roll of £4,000 p.a. from his lands and coal-mining interests, through which he was able to indulge a passion for field sports and to develop a reputation for generous hospitality among Catholic, Jacobite and Tory circles in the north-east. His continuing refusal to abjure his Catholic faith by taking the required oaths meant that he never sat in the House, but on 25 May 1711 he did petition his peers, albeit unsuccessfully, against a bill ‘for the further encouragement of the coal trade’, which he claimed would prejudice his economic interests in Stella.</p><p>Widdrington’s wife died on 9 Sept. 1714, leaving behind three sons and five daughters, but he maintained both his residence and interest in Stella and his commitment to the Catholic Jacobite cause. He raised a troop of Northumbrian Jacobites and mustered them near Alnwick on 6 Oct. 1715 with a view to joining the Scottish Jacobites making their way south.<sup>6</sup> He was not given a military command, having had no military experience, and Robert Patten later condemned his lack of vigour in the struggle, ‘unless it consisted in his early persuasions to surrender’.<sup>7</sup> Widdrington was confined to his bed by gout during the engagement at Preston on 14 Nov. 1715, and was foremost in persuading Thomas Forster and other Jacobite leaders to surrender to the numerically superior royal troops. Brought to London and imprisoned in the Tower, he and his noble accomplices (one English and five Scottish lords) were impeached for high treason before the House by the Commons on 9 Jan. 1716. In his answer to the charges, submitted on 19 Jan., Widdrington tried to mitigate his sentence by arguing that he was the first to propose a surrender and a bloodless resolution to the conflict. The Jacobite peers pleaded guilty at their trial in Westminster Hall on 9 Feb. and were condemned to death.<sup>8</sup> Only a few hours before their planned execution on 24 Feb. Widdrington was reprieved, no doubt assisted by a delegation from the House which had petitioned the king earlier that day to show mercy to the condemned peers. Widdrington himself appears to have turned to William Wake*, archbishop of Canterbury, and later thanked him fulsomely for his ‘most obliging and charitable interecession’ with the king for his mercy.<sup>9</sup> John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, may also have played a role in procuring the reprieve, as Widdrington also felt the need to thank him and to solicit his continuing favour.<sup>10</sup> Widdrington continued to have his punishment delayed until, on 22 Nov. 1717, the House released him from imprisonment and the capital sentence under the terms of the Act of General and Free Pardon.</p><p>Widdrington’s real estate was seized by the Forfeited Estates Commission in April 1716 and sold over the following years, to the value of ‘£100,000 and upwards’ by February 1733.<sup>11</sup> In Durham, he found a protector in his old schoolmate from Morpeth grammar school Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, who was also a kinsman of Widdrington’s second wife, Catherine, the daughter of the Jacobite Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S]. Carlisle had been made a trustee for Widdrington’s children only a few months before the ’Fifteen and after Widdrington’s attainder he was diligent in keeping intact the Stella estates, which had been forfeited for the term of Widdrington’s life only and were to go to his heirs at his death.<sup>12</sup></p><p>On 27 Feb. 1719 Widdrington, with his five surviving children, unsuccessfully petitioned the Commons, requesting that £700 from the annual revenue of £800 from the estates in Stella be directed to the relief of his children.<sup>13</sup> He was more successful in 1723, when a supply bill was passed on 27 May, a clause of which provided that £12,000 of the money raised by the sale of Widdrington’s property was to be paid to him for his and his family’s maintenance.<sup>14</sup> Ten years later a bill was passed to relieve him of some of the disabilities he suffered under when engaging in legal actions concerning real property, supported by Carlisle’s son Henry Howard*, styled Viscount Morpeth (later 4th earl of Carlisle).<sup>15</sup></p><p>Widdrington died intestate at Bath in 1743. Although his eldest son, Henry Francis, continued to style himself ‘Lord Widdrington’, the claim was not recognized and the peerage never restored.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, Charles (1650-79) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1650–79)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. Sept. 1678 as 9th (<em>CP</em> 10th) Bar. WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM |
|
First sat 9 May 1679; last sat 27 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 6 Oct. 1650, 8th and yst. s. of William Willoughby*, later 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham,<sup>1</sup> and Anne, da. of Sir Philip Carey<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of George Willoughby*, 6th (<em>CP</em> 7th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham, and John Willoughby*, 8th (<em>CP</em> 9th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m.</em> c. 1675, Mary (<em>d.</em> 1716), da. of Sir Beaumont Dixie, 2nd bt., of Bosworth, Leics.; <em>s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> c. 9 Dec. 1679; <em>will</em> 8 Dec. 1679, pr. 6 Jan. 1680.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Just before his departure in March 1667 to take up the government of Barbados, William Willoughby*, 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, wrote to the king asking him to take care of ‘the good breeder (my good wife) I leave behind, who hath brought your Majesty seven he subjects such as I dare own’.<sup>3</sup> All the pride and hope he placed in this large brood were dashed in a little over ten years. Only four of these sons outlived him and three of these were to die within five years of their father’s death.<sup>4</sup> Charles Willoughby, the 9th (<em>CP</em> 10th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, was the youngest of the 5th Baron’s many sons, and only came to the title after his whole cohort of male siblings (and one nephew) had expired as young adults. Charles himself was not to enjoy the title long. He died aged 29, at which point this branch of the Willoughbys of Parham was left without any male heirs at all, despite the impressive fecundity of his parents.</p><p>Like his elder brothers, Charles spent the period before coming to the title helping to administer Barbados and in May 1673 he, with his brother John, had been made executor of his father’s will on the island.<sup>5</sup> He was probably still on Barbados, or en route from it, in late 1678, for he was not present in the House during the last weeks of the Cavalier Parliament. Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), also noted his absence during the first few weeks of the first Exclusion Parliament and tentatively placed him among the opposition lords in a list of peers absent from the House on 12 Mar. 1679. Willoughby of Parham first sat in the House on 9 May 1679, when the issue of the procedures for the trials of Danby and the Catholic peers was coming to a head. He attended every sitting until that Parliament was prorogued on 27 May, 28 per cent of the whole. On 14 and 15 May he was named to two select committees, both of them for private estate bills. Danby’s earlier calculation that Willoughby would be part of the opposition turned out to be incorrect, judging from the few votes he did cast. Danby recorded him as voting on 10 May (although he is not noted in the attendance list for the morning session of that day) against the motion to have a separate Lords’ committee meet with the Commons to discuss procedure for the trials of the lords; later, on the last day of the Parliament, he probably supported the Lords’ insistence that the bishops could attend these trials, even though they could involve a capital sentence.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Willoughby of Parham died in early December 1679, during the long prorogation of the second Exclusion Parliament. At his death the male line of his grandfather William Willoughby<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Willoughby of Parham, became extinct. The 77-year-old son of the youngest son of the 9th baron’s great-great-grandfather Charles Willoughby<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Willoughby of Parham, thereupon claimed the title and was summoned to the first meeting of the second Exclusion Parliament in October 1680 by writ. In the mid-eighteenth century, when it was discovered that the barony had passed to the wrong branch of the Willoughbys, this writ was retrospectively considered to have established a new creation of the title.<sup>7</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, Charles (1681-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1681–1715)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 13 Apr. 1713 as 13th (<em>CP</em> 14th) Bar. WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM (in 1767 retrospectively adjudged to be 3rd Bar. Willoughby of Parham) |
|
First sat 18 June 1713; last sat 9 June 1715 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Dec. 1681, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Francis Willoughby (<em>d</em>. bef. 11 May 1704), of Haigh, Lancs. and Eleanor (<em>d</em>. aft. April 1713), da. of Thomas Rothwell of Haigh, Lancs.; bro. of Edward Willoughby*, 12th (<em>CP</em> 13th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 18 Oct. 1705, Esther (c.1684–1761), da. of Henry Davenport, of Darcy Lever, Lancs. 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 2da. <em>d</em>. 12 June 1715; <em>will</em> 12 May, pr. 6 Aug. 1715.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Charles Willoughby was the last surviving son of Francis Willoughby, younger brother of Hugh Willoughby*, 11th (<em>CP</em> 12th) Baron Willoughby of Parham.<sup>2</sup> His activities before his elevation to the title upon the death of his elder brother Edward, in April 1713, are obscure. Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in his analysis of the ‘poor lords’ needing financial assistance in 1713, and Sunderland’s mother-in-law, the duchess of Marlborough, both described Willoughby as a carpenter.<sup>3</sup> On the other hand, the Dutch and Brandenburg envoys l’Hermitage and Bonet both stated that he had worked as a weaver, ‘in a far-away province’ (i.e. Lancashire). Sunderland asserted that Willoughby was only worth £150 p.a., while l’Hermitage put the figure lower, at £100 p.a., and further explained that that income only came from the interest on the pensions given to the two previous barons.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Willoughby’s education was apparently minimal, and one condescending description claimed that ‘he cannot read himself’.<sup>5</sup> If true, this lack of basic learning is surprising considering his father’s close involvement in numerous Dissenting academies in Lancashire, such as the Rivington Free Grammar School and Blackrod School. Willoughby himself appears to have been a local worthy among the nonconformists of Horwich and Rivington and ‘enjoyed a great reputation among the Presbyterians’.<sup>6</sup> In early May 1713 John Sumner, an agent of the Member for Wigan Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>, himself a client of Robert Harley* earl of Oxford, held a meeting with the new Baron Willoughby of Parham in which he tried to convince him to travel immediately to Westminster to take his seat in the House. He reported to Bradshaigh that Willoughby:</p><blockquote><p>complained as before of his state of health as unfit for a London journey, that he must have a special regard to it before any temporal consideration, not without a canting glance, in his way, at his spiritual concern. I urged the favourableness of the season, and the necessity of his showing a towardly disposition to appear in Parliament to qualify him to appoint a proxy and then he might retire as soon as he pleased into the country. I suggested that without such a compliance no favours could be hoped from above … and that no private concern here, could bear any proportion to the encouragement of showing himself above. Upon which he recounted his want of education, how unfit to appear in an assembly of lords, and what disorder such a presence would put him into. I assured him such a countenance would be given him above, that he would take his place in the House without the least confusion, or being gazed at, that all parties would be in hopes of him, and therefore everybody would show him respect. I thought it best not to determine him to any party, that being best done there, though the hints were broad enough to a man of the least capacity. I hope at length his own interest, and the honour of his family, will prevail with [him] over the senseless cant of those that would delude him, though he really is of an odd kind of temper … sullen and surly at parting.<sup>7</sup></p></blockquote><p>Willoughby of Parham eventually gave in to these persuasions and sat in the House for the first time (and the only time in that session) on 18 June 1713.</p><p>Regardless of Sumner’s assurances, the appearance of this most unusual peer in the House did attract attention and the Dutch envoy l’Hermitage devoted much of his dispatch to the States-General to describing the strange history of this title, ‘one of the oldest of the kingdom … fallen for several recent years to very obscure collateral lines’.<sup>8</sup> Sumner’s earlier solicitations for Willoughby to align himself with the Oxford ministry, done through ‘hints … broad enough to a man of the least capacity’, were backed up by the lord treasurer himself, who, according to Sunderland in his 1713 memorandum submitted to the Hanoverian agent Schütz, had offered the peer, ‘under his own hand’, a pension of £1,000. Willoughby, however, had refused this offer and ‘came up to town and voted right, and always will do so’. The Hanoverian resident, Kreienberg, had earlier promised to supply the peer with £300 a year and the expenses of his journey to London, but this had not been paid and thus Sunderland urged Schütz to pay the impoverished peer what had been promised him to ensure Willoughby’s adherence to the Whigs. Bradshaigh in a letter to his patron and paymaster, Oxford, written during the time of the expensive elections for his seat of Wigan in September 1713, asserted that it was Sunderland himself and his Junto colleague Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, who subsidized Willoughby’s brief period in London:</p><blockquote><p>That sad wretch my Lord Willoughby was to make me a visit last week. He has been very impertinent to his power at our elections, but he looks so ill that I believe he will scarce venture on another London journey this winter. He has at this time a governor to take care of him, appointed by my Lord Wharton and Lord Sunderland with an allowance of 30 lib. per annum, and his lordship was supplied with all necessaries at London by them with large promises of future favours.<sup>9</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, gave the Whig interpretation of Willoughby’s situation when she wrote in a letter of about this time that</p><blockquote><p>I have often thought how much a better figure an honest carpenter makes, who declares, like my Lord Willoughby of Parham, that he will never be but in the interest of his country, than those lords (who, though they have had the advantage of a better education) have betrayed it, for trifles, ribbons, and money, which instead of being an honour to them is only a bag of infamy.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>As Bradshaigh predicted, Willoughby did not come up to London for the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714. He first appeared in the House on 16 Apr. and proceeded to sit only a further nine times before he left on 1 May. On 24 May he registered his proxy for the remainder of the session with his patron Wharton, who already held that of Sunderland as well. He may have been relying on Wharton to use his vote to oppose the schism bill, as Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast he would. That measure aimed precisely at the type of Dissenting schools and academies with which Willoughby and his family had long been associated and, during the second half of 1714, when he was away from the House, Willoughby was closely involved in the defence of the nonconformists in his native Lancashire and particularly in a struggle with the diocese of Chester over control of Dissenting chapels.</p><p>George I, unwilling to subsidize Willoughby openly during Anne’s reign, sought after his accession to reward him for his loyalty to the Hanoverian succession and as early as 13 Oct. 1714 it was decided that Willoughby and a number of other poor lords should have something given to them to tide them over ‘till his majesty was ready to make some competent provision for their maintenance’.<sup>11</sup> Willoughby first sat in George I’s new Parliament on 11 Apr. 1715. He registered his proxy with another prominent Whig, Thomas Pelham Holles*, earl of Clare (later duke of Newcastle), on 30 May 1715, and stopped attending the House on 9 June. A week previously the king had made ‘competent provision’ for Willoughby and had signed a warrant directing that £200 be paid to him as royal bounty.<sup>12</sup> He did not have much time to enjoy this royal largesse, as he died on 12 June at his home in Lancashire and was buried at Horwich chapel. Willoughby’s will appointed his widow, Esther, and a local Dissenting minister John Walker as executors for the care of his sole surviving infant son, Hugh Willoughby<sup>†</sup>, 14th (<em>CP</em> 15th) /5th Baron Willoughby of Parham.</p><p>Willoughby of Parham’s legacy was insufficient to support his widow and three young children, including one who needed to be appropriately educated for the peerage. In the petitions submitted in the early years of George I asking for a subsidy for the family, the late baron’s reputation as a Whig hero, if not martyr, was constantly invoked. The dowager baroness reminded the king that her husband’s integrity had made him refuse</p><blockquote><p>the temptations that were made to him from those who knew how unequal the estate of the family is to their ancient honour. … But he took the first opportunity of going up to Parliament, though his little appearance in public, the length of the journey and the visible decay of his health made it very uneasy to him,</p></blockquote><p>while the nonconformist minister Thomas Bradbury emphasized to the secretary of state, Sunderland, that ‘Your lordship knows with what zeal and toil’ the late baron ‘came up to serve his country and his majesty’s interest, and how steadily he resisted the temptations of the court’.<sup>13</sup> These efforts for the maintenance of the young heir were not to be in vain, for the 14th Baron Willoughby of Parham became, like his father, a staunch Dissenter and Whig, and, unlike him and almost all other Willoughbys of Parham before him, well educated (at Dissenting academies), long-lived and energetic in both his parliamentary duties and his intellectual interests.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, Edward (1676-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1676–1713)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>uncle 3 July 1712 as 12th (<em>CP</em> 13th) Bar. WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM (in 1767 retrospectively adjudged to be 3rd Bar. Willoughby of Parham) |
|
First sat 13 Jan. 1713; last sat 17 Feb. 1713 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 12 Apr. 1676, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Francis Willoughby (<em>d</em>. bef. 11 May 1704), of Haigh, Lancs. and Eleanor (Ellen) (<em>d</em>. aft. April 1713), da. of Thomas Rothwell of Haigh, Lancs;<sup>1</sup> bro. of Charles Willoughby*, 13th (<em>CP</em> 14th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham. <em>educ</em>. ?Rivington Free g.s. ?Blackrod sch. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 13 Apr. 1713; <em>admon</em>. 6 May 1713 to Thurstan Clayton, principal creditor.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. coy. of militia ft. Lancs. by Mar. 1708–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Edward Willoughby’s father, Francis, was the younger brother of Hugh Willoughby*, 11th (<em>CP</em> 12th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, and a yeoman farmer with a tenancy at Willoughby Farm, Haigh, in Lancashire.<sup>4</sup> Francis followed his father and brother in supporting the Revolution and promoting nonconformist chapels and schools, serving as a governor of both Rivington and Blackrod schools.<sup>5</sup> Francis’s second son, Edward (who may have been educated at one of those schools), served in the Flanders army of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, as a ‘private gentleman’, a ‘<em>simple soldat</em>’ or ‘<em>fantassin</em>’, as l’Hermitage and Bonet each dubbed him when he eventually took his seat in the House.<sup>6</sup> He appears again in his home county in Mar. 1708 as a militia captain searching the houses of suspected papists at the time of the invasion scare and later that year was in receipt of payments for the militia.<sup>7</sup></p><p>By May 1704, after the death of both his elder brother and his father, Edward found himself heir to his uncle Hugh Willoughby. He inherited the title from his childless uncle on 3 July 1712, just before Parliament was prorogued, and was quickly appointed a justice of the peace for Lancashire, though not initially to the quorum. He was closely linked to Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>, the leading landowner at Haigh, Member for Wigan and a supporter of the administration of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford. Willoughby appears to have been with Bradshaigh in London by November 1712, for on 18 Nov. Bradshaigh wrote to George Kenyon<sup>‡</sup> that together with Willoughby he had recently had dinner with the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, when they had discussed Kenyon’s candidacy for the Wigan seat. Willoughby first sat in the House at the next opportunity available to him, on 13 Jan. 1713, a day of prorogation. He only attended the House two more times (on 3 and 17 Feb.), also prorogations, and failed to attend the next prorogation on 3 March.</p><p>The young and impoverished peer may have been targeted for recruitment to the Tories despite his whiggish family background. His close association with Bradshaigh suggests this, as does the royal warrant, dated 3 Mar. 1713, issued to pay Willoughby £400 as a ‘free gift and royal bounty’.<sup>8</sup> By 21 Mar. he had left London. In a letter of that date Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup> (still in London) inquired of Kenyon<sup>‡</sup> in Manchester what he thought of Willoughby ‘since his coming down’. He further added that the peer was in bad health and was not intending to live in Shaw Place, the family seat previously occupied by the preceding baron.<sup>9</sup> The young peer did die from his ailment shortly thereafter, on 13 Apr., before he had been able to participate in any full parliamentary proceedings and with his government pension still unpaid.</p><p>Willoughby’s death on the day after his 37th birthday took people by surprise, not least himself, as he died with his estate in disarray. The consistory court of Chester awarded the administration of his goods and chattels – which was valued as worth only £64 2<em>s</em>. 9<em>d</em>. – to his principal creditor, both his mother and his younger brother Charles, who inherited the title as 13th (<em>CP</em> 14th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, having renounced their claims to it.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, Francis (1612-66) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1612–66)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. Aug. 1617 (a minor) as 4th (<em>CP</em> 5th) Bar. WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM |
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1660; first sat after 1660, 2 May 1660; last sat 19 June 1663 |
|
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 8 Sept. 1612, 1st s. of William Willoughby<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Bar. Willoughby of Parham (1584–1617), and Frances (1588–1643), da. of John Manners<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Rutland; bro. of William Willoughby*, 5th (<em>CP </em>6th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham. <em>educ.</em> Eton, 1623–4; <em>m.</em> c.1629, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em> March 1661), da. of Edward Cecil<sup>†</sup>, Visct. Wimbledon, 2s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d.</em> c. 23 July 1666; <em>will</em> 17 July 1666, pr. 10 May 1678.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. excise 1645, relief of Ireland 1645, rents of Westminster 1645, Scottish army in England 1645, scandalous offences 1646, bishops’ lands 1646, compounding 1647, visitation of Oxford 1647, indemnity 1647,<sup>2</sup> trade 1660, plantations 1660.</p><p>Ld. lt. (parl.) Lincs. 1642–3?;<sup>3</sup> dep. lt. Lincs. 1660–3?;<sup>4</sup> col. militia tp. of horse, Lincs. 1660–3?<sup>5</sup></p><p>Col. (parl.) regt. of horse by 23 Oct. 1642–9 Jan. 1643;<sup>6</sup> c.-in-c. (parl.) Lincs. forces, 9 Jan.–20 Sept. 1643; v.-adm. (roy.) 13 June–by 7 Nov. 1648;<sup>7</sup> gov. Barbados and Carribee Islands, 1650-2, 1663-<em>d.</em></p><p>Asst. Royal Fishing Co. 1664.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by R. Sawyer, 1647, NPG D27158; line engraving, unknown, mid-17th century, NPG D27155.</p> |
<p>Francis Willoughby came from a distinguished and ancient Lincolnshire family, one of whose members had first been summoned by writ to the House of Lords in 1313. The main title had passed through an heiress to the Berties, but Francis’s great-great-grandfather was created Baron Willoughby of Parham in 1547, the suffix ‘of Parham’ being added to distinguish this new barony from the more established, and related, title of Willoughby of Eresby, held by the Berties. The family’s residence was located near the village of Knaith on the River Trent in the north-western region of Lincolnshire near the Nottinghamshire border, some three miles from Gainsborough.<sup>10</sup> The idea that the 3rd Baron Willoughby of Parham was succeeded by an elder son Henry, rather than Francis, has resulted in Francis being identified as the 5th, rather than the 4th, Baron Willoughby; this however is based on an eighteenth century transcription error which is described in an appendix to volume 1 of this work.</p><p>Appointed lord lieutenant of Lincolnshire under the Militia Ordinance, Willoughby led the Parliamentary forces in that county during the royalist invasion of the summer of 1643. Lincolnshire was joined to the Eastern Association in September 1643, and was thus under the command of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester. Although both Manchester and Willoughby were formally thanked by the House on 20 Jan. 1644 for their role in the re-conquest of the county, Willoughby’s demotion from overall military command may have helped turn him against the parliamentarian leaders, and especially the aggressive war party.<sup>11</sup> From at least March 1646 he allied himself with Robert Devereux<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex, and the presbyterian party in the House. He even became the presbyterian leader after the death of Essex in 1646 and was impeached in 1647 for his support for the City’s rising against the army that summer.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Early the following year he fled to join the royalists and, despite his lack of naval experience, was quickly appointed vice-admiral of the fleet which ineffectually hovered off Yarmouth during the spring.<sup>13</sup> After the failure of these military efforts, Willoughby took possession of his property of Barbados, which he had leased in 1647 from its proprietor, James Hay*, 2nd earl of Carlisle, for 21 years. He remained in effective control of the island, while also establishing his own plantation at Surinam on the Guyana coast, from the time of his arrival in May 1650 until he was compelled to capitulate to Commonwealth forces in January 1652.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Under the terms of the surrender, Willoughby was allowed to return to England, where he was frequently in and out of confinement for his royalist plotting throughout the 1650s.<sup>15</sup> In June 1659 the king added him to the commission originally established in March of royalists entrusted to treat with disaffected presbyterians about projects for a restoration.<sup>16</sup> Later Willoughby and Sir Horatio Townshend* (later Viscount Townshend) were enlisted, through the efforts of John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, to assist the rising planned for the summer of 1659. However, they were apprehended the day before the operation and, apparently, imprisoned.<sup>17</sup> Throughout early 1660 Willoughby was in close contact with Mordaunt in England and conducted a correspondence with Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, abroad, keeping him informed of the rapidly changing political events.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, then, when Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, was drawing up his list of the potential membership of the Convention House of Lords in early April 1660, he listed Willoughby as one of those lords ‘with the king’. Mordaunt hoped, seemingly against the odds, that the newly convened House would admit Willoughby.<sup>19</sup> Willoughby himself was also reluctant to sit in the Convention without receiving express orders from the king to do so. From about the third day of the Convention, however, it was expected that ‘Willoughby of Parham will be invited to sit if he do not offer himself’ first and he was quickly ‘importuned’ to attend by a number of peers and others, among whom he singled out George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, ‘by whose direction and advice’, Willoughby later informed the king, ‘I have gone in and sit there’. On 1 May the House, upon hearing that Willoughby was now ready to attend, ordered that he be formally requested ‘to give his attendance on this House as a peer’ and Willoughby duly first appeared in the Convention on the following day. By the middle of that month he was able to report to the king that ‘I find my lords in very good temper and the House very much disposed to uphold your Majesty’s just rights and prerogative so as I hope all things will succeed to your Majesty’s great satisfaction.’<sup>20</sup></p><p>Willoughby himself was active for the king in the Convention, three-quarters of whose sittings he attended. Throughout May he was named to committees involved in making preparations for the return of the king: to draft an ordinance for a committee of safety (5 May); ‘to consider of all things for his Majesty’s reception’ (8 May); to arrange the stationing of soldiers in Whitehall to protect the king (26 May) and to prepare a proclamation, to be issued in the king’s name, to suppress the ‘troubles in Ireland’ (26 May). With the king safely returned, Willoughby joined John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), on 14 June 1660 as the only two protesters against the decision to lay aside discussion of the proper action to be taken towards those lords who had sworn the oath of abjuration against their monarch, although for some reason only Willoughby’s signature appears in the Journal for this protest. In that month he also argued successfully against the proposal to exclude his old friend and brother-in-law, Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>, from the general pardon, pointing out that Whitelocke had helped him and other royalists during the Interregnum.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In the following month, on 2 July, he was assigned to consider the petitions of the impoverished royalist Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland. On 16 Aug. he protested against the decision to accept the petition of Warwick Mohun*, 2nd Baron Mohun, which sought to claim payment of damages for the breach of privilege he had suffered through his trial by common process in 1651. Mohun returned the compliment two weeks later when he was the only dissenter from the House’s order to pay Willoughby £2150 15<em>s</em>. 10<em>d</em>. still owing to him by an ordinance of 1646. On 11 Sept. Willoughby was also placed on the committee for the bill to annex Dunkirk, Mardijk and Jamaica to the crown. He came to all but eight of the meetings when the Convention resumed in November and on 13 Dec. he protested against the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell, arguing with the other protesters that ‘fines are the foundations of the assurances of the realm’. He was busy until the very end, and on the penultimate day of the Convention was named one of six members of the House assigned to consider the Commons’ objections to the House’s proviso to the poll tax bill and to draw up a response to them.</p><p>With eight years left to run on his lease on the Carlisle proprietorship of Barbados, Willoughby had a sufficiently valid claim on the island for Charles II to entrust him, on 9 July 1660, with the government of it and the Caribbee Islands, as well as to issue a warrant to grant him the plantation in Surinam which he himself had established. However, a number of competitors in Barbados and England contested his ownership of the islands, and Willoughby’s additional claim to Surinam was strongly opposed by members of the Privy Council’s committee of foreign plantations, who were concerned to avoid giving one man such extensive powers over a large swathe of the West Indies.<sup>22</sup> Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), in particular opposed Willoughby’s wish to govern both Barbados and Surinam and helped to successfully block his commission for several years.<sup>23</sup></p><p>During the many months of petitioning for his commission, Willoughby spent little time in the House or in Lincolnshire politics. He held some local commissions but was only a deputy lieutenant in the militia, the lord lieutenancy having been granted to Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey, at the Restoration. <sup>24</sup> He does not appear to have exercised any interest in the elections either to the Convention or to the Cavalier Parliament, his own influence in the county being outweighed by his distant kinsmen the Berties and by the county Member, George Saunderson<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Viscount Castleton [I]. In the House he attended 42 per cent of the meetings of the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in 1661–2, but was particularly attentive in the first part before the summer adjournment. He first sat on 16 May 1661, a week into proceedings, but three days earlier his younger brother William Willoughby had informed the House that the goods of one of Willoughby’s servants had been seized. The perpetrators of this breach of privilege were both released upon their submission by 24 May. Barely a month later, on 10 July the House heard of another breach of Willoughby’s privilege, when one of his menial servants in Lincolnshire had also been arrested in a suit, but both parties had submitted themselves to Willoughby by 26 July.</p><p>Earlier that month Wharton had forecast that Willoughby would oppose the petition of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, claiming a hereditary right to the office of lord great chamberlain, which had been held by the Berties since the early seventeenth century. On 17 July Willoughby subscribed to the protest against the second passage in the House of the bill to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell, the bill having been lost at the dissolution after its earlier passage in the Convention. Before the summer adjournment he was named to six committees, including those for the bill for draining the Lincolnshire fenland (16 May) and for the Corporation bill (18 July), in both of which he would have had an interest in his role as a deputy lieutenant.</p><p>After Parliament resumed in November 1661 Willoughby was a far less frequent attender, coming to only 35 per cent of the sitting days. He was named to five committees and on 6 Feb. 1662 probably signed the protest against the passage of the bill to restore to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, the lands he had conveyed by legal instruments during the Interregnum. Willoughby’s signature appears to have been among those cut off from the bottom of the page of the protest in the manuscript journal, and thus is omitted from the printed Journal for that day, which only lists 25 protesting lords. But his name does appear among the longer lists of 34 protesters compiled by two different contemporaries both involved and interested in Derby’s bill – James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], and Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon.<sup>25</sup> Near the end of the session, on 25 Apr. 1662, Willoughby was placed on the committee for the bill to distribute £60,000 among ‘loyal and indigent’ royalist officers.</p><p>He came to just under a quarter of the sittings of the session of February–July 1663. On 2 Apr. he introduced a bill on behalf of Bulstrode Whitelocke and, as a trustee for Whitelocke’s underage sons, to settle a long-standing dispute between Whitelocke and the recently deceased Jerome Weston*, 2nd earl of Portland. The bill aimed to settle an annuity of £300 on the young Charles Weston*, 3rd earl of Portland, in lieu of bequests formally made to him under the will of Dr Thomas Winston, which had been disputed by Whitelocke. The bill was contentious and, after hearings in committee on 6 and 7 Apr., it was recommitted. In the end it took the combined efforts of Clarendon, Whitelocke and the young earl of Portland himself to steer the bill through both Houses so that it received the royal assent on 3 June, just before Willoughby left the country for the Caribbean.<sup>26</sup></p><p>On 12 June 1663 Willoughby finally received his long-awaited commission as royal governor of Barbados, although the proprietorship of the island had had to be ceded to the crown itself, which then bought out Carlisle’s remaining creditors.<sup>27</sup> Further, on 6 May Willoughby and Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester, second son to Edward Hyde, now earl of Clarendon, had received a joint grant of the Surinam plantation.<sup>28</sup> Willoughby’s friend Clarendon appears to have been instrumental in furthering his colonial interests, and the inclusion of his younger son in the Surinam grant can probably be seen as an indication of the price exacted for his assistance.</p><p>Willoughby also looked to Clarendon as his advocate at court, especially in light of the many conflicts he had with the island’s leading planters as he tried, with little attempt at conciliation, to impose the royal authority. He arrived in Barbados by mid-August and first presided over a meeting of the island’s council on 18 Aug. 1663.<sup>29</sup> On 12 Dec. news reached England that he had seized 1,000 acres of land of merchants living in England, ‘which hath so incensed them here that they talk very high, and threaten to have my Lord sent for over’.<sup>30</sup> He continued to impose his and the king’s rule with a high hand, causing serious rifts with the island’s council and even with his own officers.<sup>31</sup> In February 1664 he wrote to Clarendon warning him of the imminent arrival in England of Robert Harley<sup>‡</sup>, whom Willoughby had appointed keeper of the seals and chief justice of the revenue court in Barbados upon his arrival there, but had had arrested when Harley refused to seal a writ which he considered illegal.<sup>32</sup> Clarendon later recounted how his enemy George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, had tried unsuccessfully to extract from the resentful Harley allegations that Willoughby had bribed Clarendon for the post as governor, ‘for’, Clarendon admitted, ‘it was well known that the Chancellor [i.e. Clarendon], had been his chief friend in procuring that government for him, and in discountenancing and suppressing those who in England or in the islands had complained of him’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>An even more serious case arose around Willoughby’s principal opponent in the Barbadian Assembly, Samuel Farmer, who in 1665 had led that representative body in defying Willoughby’s request for a further levy to help defend the island during the second Dutch War. Willoughby’s political views may perhaps best be seen in his description of Farmer as</p><blockquote><p>a great Magna Charta man and Petition of Right maker, the first that started up that kind of language here … where he set all the people into a flame, and brought them to think that they were not governed by his Majesty’s Commission, or anything but their own laws … for they were beginning to dance after the Long Parliament’s pipe, styling it the best of Parliaments.<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>Farmer was at liberty in England by February 1666 and was confident that the Privy Council would see the justice of his cause, particularly if he could enlist the support of Ashley, whom he had understood was one of Willoughby’s enemies.<sup>35</sup></p><p>By the time of the session of 1666–7 Farmer and Willoughby’s other foes in London had publicized his arbitrary actions and belligerent imposition of royal authority in Barbados to the point where his behaviour became a political issue in the Commons. In a letter of 1 Dec. 1666 Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> informed the mayor of Kingston-upon-Hull that, in the Commons, ‘The Committee of Grievances hath had much work and still continues about my Lord Mordaunt’s misgovernments at Windsor and my Lord Willoughby’s at the Barbados.’<sup>36</sup> As Willoughby was an ally of Clarendon, the attack on him was part of, and ammunition for, the larger attack on the lord chancellor. One of the articles of impeachment eventually levelled in winter 1667 against Clarendon was ‘That he had introduced an arbitrary government in His Majesty’s foreign plantations; and had caused such as complained thereof before His Majesty and his Council, to be long imprisoned for so doing’. In his rebuttal to these articles, Clarendon concentrated on his involvement in Barbadian affairs, aware that the article was mainly aimed at Willoughby, and he provided a detailed defence of his role in settling the government of the island on his friend and in prosecuting his enemies, particularly Farmer, in England.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Willoughby was a central figure in the second Dutch War, in which the West Indies was a major theatre of operations between England, France and the Dutch. In July 1666, hearing of the loss of the island of St Christopher’s to the French, he fitted out and led an expedition himself for its recovery, but was lost at sea in the wake of a sudden hurricane.<sup>38</sup> News of his certain death did not reach England until December 1666, when the Commons was still considering his arbitrary acts in Barbados.<sup>39</sup> His will, written just before he left on his campaign, made provision for the payment of his large debts and left his plantations and the revenue allotted to him in Barbados and Surinam to his only surviving children, his two daughters, Frances, wife of Sir William Brereton<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Baron Brereton [I], and Elizabeth, wife of Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I].<sup>40</sup> His estate was seriously depleted by this time through his colonial ventures. In 1676 the then governor of Barbados, Sir Jonathan Atkin, writing to the lords of trade and plantations of the futility of the Surinam plantation, told how Willoughby, ‘a gentleman of stirring spirit’, was forced to mortgage and sell his lands in England ‘to manage these fruitless designs’, which cost him in total £50,000.<sup>41</sup> Willoughby’s younger brother William, who inherited the title as 5th (<em>CP </em>6th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, also found the estate in bad condition, estimating that the 4th Baron had ‘in his Majesty’s service in the West Indies spent his paternal estate to the value of £4,000 per annum’.<sup>42</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, George (1639-74) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1639–74)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Apr. 1673 as 6th (<em>CP</em> 7th) Baron WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 18 March 1639, 1st s. of William Willoughby*, later 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th)<sup>1</sup> Bar. Willoughby of Parham, and Anne, da. of Sir Philip Carey<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of John Willoughby*, 8th (<em>CP</em> 9th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham, and Charles Willoughby*, 9th (<em>CP</em> 10th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m.</em> 9 Oct. 1666, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em>1679), da. and coh. of Henry Clinton, <em>alias</em> Fiennes, of Kirkstead, Lincs., 1s. 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d.</em> 1674.</p> |
|
|
<p>George Willoughby, the eldest of the eight sons born to William Willoughby, 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, remained in England while his father and younger brothers went to Barbados, his father having settled upon him much of his estate in Lincolnshire upon his marriage in 1666.<sup>2</sup> George Willoughby did not attend the brief parliamentary sessions of late 1673 and early 1674, and at the call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674 he was marked as excused without further explanation. He may already have been ill with whatever ailment cut short his life sometime in 1674, aged 35, when his title descended to his underage son, John Willoughby*, 7th (<em>CP</em> 8th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, who died as a minor early in 1678, whereupon the title passed to the nearest male kin, his uncle, also named John Willoughby.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, Hugh (c. 1643-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>Hugh</strong> (c. 1643–1712)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 29 Feb. 1692 as 11th (<em>CP</em> 12th) Bar. WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM (in 1767 retrospectively adjudged to be 2nd Bar. Willoughby of Parham) |
|
First sat 26 Sept. 1692; last sat 26 Nov. 1703 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1643, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Thomas Willoughby* (later 10th (<em>CP </em>11th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham) and Ellen (<em>d</em>. after Nov. 1696), da. of Hugh Whittle of Horwich, Lancs. <em>educ.</em> ?Rivington g.s. Lancs. <em>m</em>. (1) 29 Dec. 1663, Anne (<em>d</em>. bef. 1678), da. of Laurence Halliwell, of Hordern, Lancs. 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em>; (2) lic. 5 Oct. 1692, Honora (<em>d</em>. 11 Sept. 1730), da. of Sir Thomas Leigh<sup>‡</sup>, of Stoneleigh, wid. of Sir William Egerton<sup>‡</sup>, KB, of Worsley, Lancs. 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 3 July 1712; <em>will</em> 29 Nov. 1711, pr. 16 Aug. 1712.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Dep. lt. Lancs. by 1692–1702, 1708–<em>d</em>.; commr. traitors’ estates, Lancs. 1702, 1703, 1708.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Hugh Willoughby acted throughout the 1690s, his period of greatest influence, as the leader of Lancashire’s sizeable minority of Dissenters and the closest ally of the county’s lord lieutenant, Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield.<sup>4</sup> It may have been Hugh who persuaded his aged father to claim the barony of Willoughby of Parham upon the death of the 9th (<em>CP </em>10th)<sup>5</sup> baron in 1679 and certainly he used his new position, first as the eldest son of a peer and then as a peer himself, to rise to local prominence in Lancashire during the reigns of James II and William III. James II relied on the family to lead the Lancashire Dissenters in accepting the repeal of the Test Act and penal laws, and Hugh and his father, Thomas Willoughby, 10th (<em>CP</em> 11th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, were personally introduced to the king during his visit to Chester in August 1687 by the leading deputy lieutenant of the county, Charles Gerard, at that point styled Viscount Brandon. Father and son were two of the small number of Protestants, among a sea of Catholics, who were placed on a revamped commission of the peace for the county in April 1688.<sup>6</sup> Unlike the Catholics, Hugh was not purged from the commission at the accession of William and Mary and was even able to increase his local influence when in May 1689 he was made the principal deputy lieutenant and a captain of militia for the newly appointed lord lieutenant of Lancashire, Viscount Brandon.<sup>7</sup></p><p>At the end of Feb. 1692 Willoughby succeeded to the peerage. He was an incongruous figure for a peer, as he still largely led the life of a yeoman farmer. Years later the Dutch envoy l’Hermitage, in describing the strange history of this noble title, ‘one of the oldest in the kingdom, [which] has fallen for several recent years to very obscure collateral lines’, described Willoughby upon his inheritance as a ‘farmer’ (<em>paisan</em>).<sup>8</sup> Throughout his tenure of the title Willoughby continued to receive the pension of £200 p.a. allocated to his father, which was occasionally topped up with further ‘bounties’ from the crown.<sup>9</sup> He quickly took steps to shore up his new dignity. He first took his seat in the House on 26 Sept. 1692, a day of prorogation, and only a few days after that received a licence to marry as his second wife Honora Egerton, the widow of Sir William Egerton<sup>‡</sup>, a younger son of John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater. He apparently made promises to release her from the clutches of her late husband’s creditors to gain her favour, but soon took advantage of her himself. In September 1693 he was able to take possession of her jointured house and demesne of Worsley Hall near Manchester, which gave him a residence approriate to his new position in local society, while at about the same time he made applications to the college of arms for a heraldic device to confirm his aristocratic status.</p><p>This rampant social climbing and acquisitiveness caused friction in the marriage and in January 1694 Willoughby’s Tory opponent Roger Kenyon<sup>‡</sup> was informed by his wife that ‘Lord Willoughby and his Lady are fallen out extremely; they are the talk of the town and country’, while another of Kenyon’s colleagues suggested that the dissension was over her property and Willoughby’s claims on it.<sup>10</sup> By 1695 relations between the couple had broken down so completely that Lady Willoughby turned to Kenyon for support, complaining that her husband was ‘such a devil, nobody can live with him, and one of the greatest cheats that ever were, and marries only to rob and plunder all he can, and then, if he could, would set them going, to be at liberty to cheat somebody else’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Membership of the House was another marker of Willoughby’s new status that he initially took seriously. He first attended the House for a full session of Parliament on 4 Nov. 1692, and he came to just over three-quarters of the sittings of this session, during which he was named to 18 select committees. He voted for the commitment of the place bill at the end of December 1692, but when the bill came up for a final vote early the next year he decided against it. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, noted this surprising change of heart in his record of the division, which may be attributable to Willoughby’s dependence for payment of his pension by the court, which had made its opposition to the measure clear in the intervening days. In early 1693 Willoughby also voted in favour of reading the bill allowing the divorce of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder, along with the majority of his peers.</p><p>Willoughby left the House at the prorogation of 14 Mar. 1693 and did not attend again until 2 Dec. 1695. He was not inactive in this intervening period, but limited his involvement to local Lancashire affairs, where he served both as a justice of the peace and as the principal deputy lieutenant for the lord lieutenant, the 2nd earl of Macclesfield, as Viscount Brandon had become upon the death of his father in January 1694. Willoughby took the opportunity of his patron’s promotion to the House to register his proxy with him on 12 Feb. 1694 for the remainder of that session, and in March it was reported to Roger Kenyon that Macclesfield, about to travel to Flanders to take part in the wars there, had expressed the wish that ‘if he had power to depute one to act as lord lieutenant in his absence the Lord Willoughby would be the man’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Willoughby was also an engaged justice of the peace at the quarter sessions, where he proved himself aggressive in support of nonconformists and their attempts to establish ‘chapels of ease’ in the large Lancashire parishes.<sup>13</sup> In May 1694 Lady Margaret Standish, widow of Sir Richard Standish<sup>‡</sup>, who had been an opponent of Willoughby’s patron Macclesfield, was worried about her case coming before the magistrates at Manchester sessions, for ‘I fear there is too many of my Lord Willoughby’s faction there, and I have no reason to expect any justice of that gang’. In January 1695 there were rumours that Willoughby was behind the plans to place a number of his Dissenting friends who worked in trade and manufacture on the county’s commission of the peace.<sup>14</sup> In the summer of 1694, in his role both as a deputy lieutenant and a magistrate, he played a leading role in the prosecution against the suspects in the pretended Jacobite ‘Lancashire Plot’, which was aggressively pursued by Macclesfield upon his return from the continent.<sup>15</sup> Willoughby assigned his proxy again with Macclesfield for the following parliamentary session, from 4 Jan. 1695, and it was the earl who on 29 Apr. conveyed to the House Willoughby’s reluctant decision to acquiesce to the petition of Lady Margaret Standish that he waive his privilege in her suit, as her opponents (‘Lord Willoughby’s faction’) had brought him in as a party to their cause so that his privilege could frustrate the course of law in the inferior courts.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1695 Willoughby also assisted the lord lieutenant in his attempt to have Whig members returned to Parliament. He had already played a leading role in the controversial by-election at Clitheroe in 1693, where the poll had to be held twice because of the underhanded methods used to return the lord lieutenant’s younger brother Fitton Gerard*, later 3rd earl of Macclesfield. Willoughby had involved himself in elections for the borough of Wigan, close to his family’s home of Horwich, since at least 1690 and had been the principal agent for the lord lieutenant’s candidate Colonel Edward Matthews in a by-election in late 1693. Matthews was unable to build an interest in the borough, and at the 1695 election Willoughby, as Macclesfield’s agent, was present on polling day to support Alexander Rigby<sup>‡</sup>, though this candidate was also unsuccessful against the stronger interest of Sir Roger Bradshaigh<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Willoughby returned to the House in the first session of the new Parliament, sitting for 13 meetings from 2 Dec. 1695 before assigning his proxy to Macclesfield again on 19 Dec. for the remainder of the session. He renewed his proxy with his lord lieutenant in the following session on 10 Jan. 1697. Meanwhile he was still causing controversy in Lancashire during these years with his aggressive support of Dissent and Dissenters. Respectable Anglican opinion was shocked by Willoughby’s vigorous espousal of the miraculous claims of the notorious ‘Surey demoniac’ in 1695, which prompted a vigorous pamphlet war between Anglicans and Dissenters from 1697.<sup>18</sup> His long-anticipated project to intrude Dissenting colleagues involved in trade and manufacture onto the commission of the peace was finally effected in March 1696 and at the Ormskirk quarter sessions that summer he was able to engineer that St Helens chapel of ease be awarded to the Dissenters, although Roger Kenyon was later able to reverse this decision through a direct appeal to the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.<sup>19</sup> Kenyon was similarly angered when Willoughby, ‘the only nonconformist of anything that hath the name of a gentleman in our country’, tried to expel the conformist minister from Ellenbrook chapel, which Willoughby successfully claimed was a domestic chapel of his house of Worsley Hall, and worked to insert a Dissenting chaplain there.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Willoughby returned to the House after his long absence on 3 Dec. 1697. He probably came to Westminster specifically to present to the king an address from the members of the nonconformist Lancashire Association of United Ministers.<sup>21</sup> He stayed for a further 38 meetings of the session, attending for the last time on 26 March. Shortly afterwards, on 6 Apr., he assigned his proxy to Macclesfield, who probably continued to be the recipient of his proxy in the following sessions as well, but the proxy registers are missing from December 1698. Willoughby did not return to the House until 10 Mar. 1701, when he attended 36 sittings until 27 May (thereby not taking part in the eventual acquittal of the Junto lords).</p><p>At the beginning of the eighteenth century Willoughby’s fortunes took a turn for the worse. By the death of his step-son John Egerton in July 1700, the head of the senior branch of the family, John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, was able to reclaim possession of Worsley Hall. In November 1701 Macclesfield died, to be replaced as lord lieutenant by the far less sympathetic William Richard George Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, the nominal leader of the Lancashire Tories. Not surprisingly, Willoughby suffered in the Tory redistribution of offices in the early days of Anne’s reign, and was excluded from the commission of the peace and the deputy lieutenancy in July 1702, although he was reappointed to these offices when the Whigs were in the ascendancy from 1706.<sup>22</sup> In this role he led the roundup of ‘Papists, nonjurors and disaffected persons’ in Lancashire during the invasion scare of Mar. 1708. During Anne’s reign he came to just eight sittings of the House, in November 1703, and he sat for his last time on 26 November. He was marked as having voted against the second occasional conformity bill on 14 Dec. 1703 by proxy, but the proxy register for this session is unfortunately missing. Willoughby did later register his proxy on 7 Nov. 1704 with Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers (who had land-holding interests in Lancashire), and that earl may have held Willoughby’s proxy in December 1703 as well, as he did vote against the bill.</p><p>Although he never sat again in Parliament, Willoughby was still included in the calculations of parliamentary managers and observers. He was listed as a Whig in a printed list of Parliament in May 1708, and in January 1712 John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, suggested to the Hanoverian agent in England, Bothmer, that the emperor give Willoughby a pension of £300 in order to secure his opposition to a separate Anglo-French peace. Willoughby died childless in July 1712, and his personal estate was shortly thereafter valued at £395. By his will of 29 Nov. 1711 he entailed his Lancashire properties in Heath Charnock, Rivington, Anglezark, Adlington, Witton and Mellor to his nephew Edward Willoughby*, who succeeded as 12th (<em>CP </em>13th) Baron Willoughby of Parham.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, John (1643-78) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1643–78)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>nephew Jan. 1678 as 8th (<em>CP</em> 9th) Baron WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 29 Dec. 1643, 5th but 2nd surv. s. of William Willoughby*, later 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th)<sup>1</sup> Bar. Willoughby of Parham, and Anne, da. of Sir Philip Carey<sup>‡</sup>; bro. of George Willoughby*, 6th (<em>CP</em> 7th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham, and Charles Willoughby*, 9th (<em>CP</em> 10th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham. <em>educ.</em> unknown. <em>m</em>. Anne Bolterton (<em>d.</em>1683) of Bermuda, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> c. 16 Sept. 1678; <em>will</em> 10 June, pr. 7 and 19 Nov. 1678.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Mbr. council of Barbados 1673–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Col. regt. of ft. Barbados 1673–<em>d.</em><sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>An ‘eminent’ planter in Barbados, with 450 acres, from 1673 this younger son of William Willoughby*, 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, the governor of Barbados, sat on the council of Barbados and commanded a regiment of infantry.<sup>4</sup> Willoughby wrote his will on 10 June 1678 at Barbados before setting out for home to claim his peerage but died very shortly after his arrival in England. The will was published on 28 Sept., certified by those who had witnessed his death at his maternal uncle John Carey’s estate at Stanwell, Middlesex. He bequeathed his estates in the West Indies to his wife, Anne, a number of small bequests and goods to his surviving sisters and friends in Barbados and England, and his inherited lands in England and the household goods ‘in my manor house of Knaith’ to his younger, and only remaining, brother and heir to the title, Charles Willoughby*, 9th (<em>CP</em> 10th) Baron Willoughby of Parham.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, John (1669-77) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1669–77)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 1674 (a minor) as 7th (<em>CP</em> 8th) Bar. WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 16 July 1669, o. s. of George Willoughby*, later 6th (<em>CP</em> 7th) Bar. Willoughby of Parham, and Elizabeth (<em>d.</em>1679), da. of Henry Clinton, <em>alias</em> Fiennes, of Kirkstead, Lincs. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> c. Dec. 1677;<sup>1</sup> <em>admon</em>. 15 Feb. 1678.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>John Willoughby, only son of the 6th (<em>CP</em> 7th)<sup>3</sup> Baron, inherited the title as a minor and died near the beginning of December 1677 at ‘about eight years of age’, reportedly ‘of convulsions’.<sup>4</sup> Upon his death the barony passed to his nearest male kin, his uncle, also named John Willoughby*, 8th (<em>CP</em> 9th) Baron Willoughby of Parham.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, Thomas (1602-92) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1602–92)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 9 Dec. 1679 as 10th (<em>CP</em> 11th) Bar. WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM (in 1767 retrospectively adjudged to be 1st Bar. Willoughby of Parham) |
|
First sat 21 Oct. 1680; last sat 12 June 1689 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1602, o. s. of Sir Thomas Willoughby (<em>d</em>. aft. Jan. 1624), of Newton-on-Trent, Lincs. and Mary, da. of John Thornhagh of Fenton, Notts. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. lic. 22 Feb. 1640, Ellen (living Nov. 1696), da. of Hugh Whittle of Horwich, Lancs. 3s. 3da. <em>d</em>. 29 Feb. 1692; <em>will</em> 21 Aug. 1690, pr. 12 May 1692.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Capt. coy. of foot (parl.), 1642–4?;<sup>2</sup> major (parl.) 1644?–60.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Gov. Rivington g.s. 1650–<em>d.</em></p> |
|
<p>At the death of Charles Willoughby*, 9th (<em>CP</em> 10th)<sup>4</sup> Baron Willoughby of Parham, the line of male descendants of William Willoughby, eldest son of Charles Willoughby<sup>†</sup>, 2nd baron Willoughby of Parham, became extinct.<sup>5</sup> The grandson of Ambrose Willoughby, William’s next younger brother, was at that point alive and had the legitimate claim to the title, but he had emigrated to Virginia and those in England were unaware of his existence. Thus in December 1679 it was Thomas Willoughby, the 77-year-old son of Sir Thomas Willoughby, youngest son of the 2nd Baron Willoughby of Parham, whose claim to the barony was accepted without question or prolonged enquiry. He was granted a writ of summons to the House and first took his seat on 21 Oct. 1680. When in 1767 the true heir to the barony was allowed to sit in the House (following the extinction in 1765 of the line through the 2nd baron’s youngest son), it was determined that the writ of summons of 1680, although incorrectly stating that Thomas Willoughby took his seat ‘by descent’, had in effect created a new barony by writ and ennobled that branch of the family. It was adjudged in 1767 that, as ‘different peers may sit by the same nominal title’, the Barons Willoughby of Parham created by writ in 1680 had not all this time been depriving the older branch of their due rights and place in the House. Though considered at the time, therefore, to have continued the existing line of Barons Willoughby of Parham (he would be referred to as the 11th, although as a result of another genealogical mixup to which this family seem to have been prone and which is explained in an appendix in volume 1 of this publication, he was in fact the 10th), after 1767 he was retrospectively deemed to have been the first holder of a new barony of that same name.</p><p>Thomas Willoughby’s family were originally of Lincolnshire extraction, but from the time of his own marriage in 1640 to Eleanor Whittle, daughter and heiress of a yeoman of Horwich, he and his branch of the family were firmly based in Lancashire. He sided with Parliament from the early days of the Civil War, signing the Protestation in early 1642, and served as an infantry captain in the Battle of Middlewich in December 1643 and the unsuccessful defence of Bolton in May 1644. He maintained his commission as a major throughout the Interregnum, for he was still referred to as ‘Major Willoughby’ in the records of the Rivington Free Grammar School, founded by the Elizabethan puritan James Pilkington<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Durham. Willoughby became a governor of the school in 1650. He was probably the ‘Willoby of Horwich’ who was to be secured by the county militia in August 1665 under suspicion of a nonconformist plot.<sup>6</sup> In 1672 he had his house at Horwich licensed as a Presbyterian meeting-house under the provisions of the Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>7</sup></p><p>There had long been almost no contact between the Lincolnshire and Lancashire branches of the family and the 9th (<em>CP</em> 10th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, the last of the Lincolnshire Willoughbys, unaware of the existence of a successor to the title, had bequeathed almost all his remaining estate to his niece Elizabeth, later the wife of James Bertie<sup>‡</sup> and mother of Willoughby Bertie<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Abingdon. In late Feb. 1680 the new 10th (<em>CP</em> 11th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, with no fortune of his own and married to a yeoman’s daughter, was provided with an annual secret service pension of £200, in order to allow him to maintain the dignity of his title. This appears to have been paid regularly throughout that decade.<sup>8</sup> The reaction of William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, to the poverty and piety of Willoughby of Parham’s youngest son, Jonathan, reveals much about the circumstances of the baron himself. Lloyd first found Jonathan ‘very raw’ after attending his ‘mean country school’ in Rivington, but in 1684 recommended him to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, on the ground that ‘his poor father can do nothing for him’ and ‘for his religion and morals he deserves singular commendation … he eats but one meal a day and thinks no clothes too mean for him to wear’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Willoughby of Parham first took his seat in the House at the beginning of the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680 but, perhaps because of his advanced age and distance from Westminster, only attended three times, the last on 27 October. Three days later, at a call of the House, he was formally excused from attending and he did not sit again in any of Charles II’s remaining parliaments, nor did he register his proxy with any other peer. He dutifully attended the opening of James II’s Parliament on 19 May 1685, but his attendance there was equally short-lived, and he only sat six times, the last being on 19 June.</p><p>He may not have made much of an impact at Westminster, but it appears that Willoughby maintained local influence in Lancashire, particularly among the Dissenters there. His signature certified a list of Lancashire justices of the peace submitted to the committee which in November 1680 considered recent pro-Catholic alterations made to the commissions of the peace.<sup>10</sup> James II counted on Willoughby of Parham as an important northern ally in the coalition which he attempted to forge between Catholics and nonconformists, and all contemporary commentators and foreign observers during 1687–8 predicted that Willoughby would support the plans to repeal the Test Act. Willoughby and his son Hugh Willoughby*, later 11th (<em>CP</em> 12th) /2nd Baron Willoughby of Parham, were singled out among Lancashire Dissenters for favour during James II’s visit to Chester and Holywell in August 1687, when they were presented to the king by the Whig collaborator Charles Gerard*, styled Lord Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield). By the end of the year both father and son were suggested as justices of the peace for Lancashire and in April 1688 they were among the few Protestants placed on a new commission of the peace for the county, their remaining colleagues being almost all Catholics.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Willoughby was not removed from this responsibility until 20 Mar. 1689, when the new regime of William and Mary effected a purge of collaborators of James II from the magistrates’ bench (although his son Hugh was retained in the commission).<sup>12</sup> He nevertheless demonstrated his commitment to the new Protestant monarchs when he appeared in the House the next day, and continued to sit for the next several weeks during his only extended and regularly attended period in the House. In May he voted in favour of reversing the two judgments of perjury found against Titus Oates and, already in his late 80s, took part in proceedings until he left the House for good on 12 June.</p><p>Despite Willoughby’s brief alliance with James II, William III continued to authorize his pension of £200 p.a., and in the first year of his reign topped it up with a ‘bounty’, taking the amount to £350.<sup>13</sup> In January 1692 it was decided to transfer payment of his pension from the secret service funds to the exchequer, but Willoughby did not live long to enjoy his newly confirmed payment as he died in Feb. 1692.<sup>14</sup> His will suggests that, regardless of his title, his existence was still that of a yeoman farmer. The most valuable items listed in the inventory of his goods and chattels taken in March 1692 are his oxen, cows and horses, worth £70 altogether. In total his personal estate was worth £182 19<em>s</em>. 2<em>d</em>., which he divided among his wife and six children. His eldest son, Hugh, inherited the title and five shillings, but not much else. To his wife and executrix, Ellen, he bequeathed the house at Horwich, which by that time was known as ‘Old Lord’s’ in his honour.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, Thomas (1672-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1672–1729)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. MIDDLETON |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 6 May 1725 |
|
MP Notts. 1698-1702, 1705-10; Newark 1710–1 Jan. 1712 |
<p><em>b</em>. 9 Apr. 1672,<sup>1</sup> 2nd s. of Francis Willoughby (1635–72) of Wollaton, Notts. and of Middleton, Warws. and Emma (1644–1725), da. and coh. of Sir Henry Barnard of Bridgnorth, Salop. <em>educ</em>. St Catharine’s, Camb. 1683; Jesus, Camb. 1685–8 (tutor, Thomas Man); private tutor (Thomas Man) 1688–90. <em>m</em>. 9 Apr. 1691 (with £10,000), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1736), da. and coh. of Sir Richard Rothwell<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Ewerby and Stapleford, Lincs., 4s. <em>suc</em>. bro. as 2nd bt. 13 Sept. 1688. <em>d</em>. 2 Apr. 1729; <em>will</em> n.d., pr. 13 May 1729.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Forester, Langton Arbor Walk, Sherwood Forest, Notts. 1690–<em>d</em>.; dep. lt., Notts. 1692–1701, Lincs. 1699–?1712;<sup>3</sup> sheriff Notts. 1695–6; high steward, Peveril honour, Notts. and Derbys. 1706–<em>d</em>., Tamworth 1715–<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1693.</p> |
|
<p>Thomas Willoughby was still a newborn infant at the time of the death of his father, the celebrated natural philosopher Francis Willoughby. He was aged four when his widowed mother married the wealthy director of the East India Company, Sir Josiah Child<sup>‡</sup>, after which the family resettled in Wanstead in Essex. His elder brother Francis was granted a baronetcy, with a special remainder to Thomas, in 1677 (at the age of nine) in posthumous recognition of their father’s achievements. Sir Francis, in dispute with his stepfather, entered Cambridge in 1682 and from there took upon himself the education of his younger brother, matriculating him first at his own college, St Catharine’s, in 1683 and then, becoming dissatisfied with that establishment, moving him to Jesus College under the tutelage of Dr Thomas Man in 1685.</p><p>In 1687 Sir Francis, engaged in legal disputes with his stepfather over the disposition of the Willoughby inheritance, set up his own household in the family’s neglected and damaged Elizabethan residence of Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire, where his younger sister Cassandra settled to act as housekeeper. Upon Sir Francis’ death, aged 20, in September 1688, Thomas inherited his baronetcy and the following year left Cambridge to replace him as master of Wollaton Hall.<sup>4</sup> Through his mother’s side of the family he enjoyed (when Sir Josiah Child allowed him) the resources of a wealthy mercantile family trading to Turkey and the East Indies. Through his brother and their father he inherited a landed estate with property in Nottinghamshire, especially the manor of Wollaton near Newark; in Warwickshire, where lay the family’s principal mansion, Middleton Hall; and in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire. He added to his Lincolnshire holdings by marrying, in April 1691, Elizabeth Rothwell, who was rumoured to be worth almost £50,000 p.a. She was a co-heiress of her father, inheriting at his death in 1694 his Lincolnshire estate at Stapleford, which lay near to and adjoined many of the Willoughbys’ estates.<sup>5</sup> By the mid-1690s, then, Sir Thomas Willoughby was a wealthy, and still young, member of the east midlands gentry; it was estimated in around 1694 that he could provide his sister Cassandra with a £10,000 marriage portion.<sup>6</sup> In 1711, shortly after the death of the great Nottinghamshire magnate John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, Willoughby could claim that ‘now I believe no one of that country will pretend to a better fortune than myself’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Willoughby distinguished himself by his career in the government and administration of Nottinghamshire and, after his father-in-law’s death, of Lincolnshire. He held a series of local offices in both counties (but principally Nottinghamshire) from 1689. In 1698 he was able to ride the wave of ‘country’ gentry discontent against taxes and the standing army to victory over the sitting Whig members in Nottinghamshire’s parliamentary elections. He was re-elected for the county as a Tory in every subsequent election except for Queen Anne’s first Parliament in 1702, when he declined to stand. He was also a formidable election manager for the party in many of the borough seats and was credited with managing Tory electoral successes at Nottingham, Newark, Retford, and Leicester in 1705.<sup>8</sup> In the summer of 1710 Newcastle, trying to implement the plans of his associate Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, for a non-partisan House of Commons, approached Willoughby to join with Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Howe [I], to form a ‘moderate’ Whig–Tory ticket for the county. Willoughby, dissatisfied by Newcastle’s lukewarm support and with the backing of the ‘rigids’ in the Tory party, instead stood for Newark, where he came top of the poll.<sup>9</sup> He was later reported to be one of the ‘old beer-drinkers’ who frequented meetings of the October Club.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Following the death of Newcastle in July 1711, Willoughby probably intended to step into his role as the newly created earl of Oxford’s leading ally in Nottinghamshire.<sup>11</sup> With his wealth, local influence, and loyalty to the ministry (even if he did flirt with the ‘rigids’ and the October Club) he was an obvious candidate to be raised to the peerage to assure the Oxford ministry’s majority in the House after their defeats in December 1711. He was duly created Baron Middleton, after the name of the family seat in Warwickshire, on 1 Jan. 1712. He was introduced to the House the following day and almost certainly helped the ministry pass the important motion to adjourn.</p><p>Apart from that service on his first day, Middleton may well have disappointed Oxford. He had never been a particularly active parliamentarian while in the Commons and was not about to start now that he was raised to the peerage. In total he only came to a further 36 sittings of the 1711–12 session (one-third of the meetings of the entire session) and was nominated for a single select committee – the only committee to which he was named in his entire parliamentary career. Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, held his proxy on two occasions during this session: between 7 and 10 Mar. 1712 and then again from 6 to 21 June.</p><p>Middleton came to 34 of the 77 sittings of the following session of spring and summer 1713, absented himself entirely from the first session of the following Parliament in early 1714, and attended three meetings of the session of August 1714, following Queen Anne’s death. He does not appear to have registered proxies for his votes during this period. Furthermore, despite having been promoted to the House to act as one of Oxford’s devoted followers, there was substantial doubt whether he would support the ministry over the French commercial treaty in June 1713, when he was one of 12 nominal court supporters expected to ‘desert’.</p><p>Middleton may have been inactive in the House but he continued his involvement in Nottinghamshire affairs and elections well after his elevation to the peerage. He aspired to be made warden of Sherwood Forest, which position he had first applied for shortly after the death of Newcastle. By February 1712 he found that his chief obstruction was the dowager duchess of Newcastle, who took upon herself the exercise of her husband’s former offices and electoral interests.<sup>12</sup> In the months following Newcastle’s death, Oxford probably valued Middleton for the Tory interest that he could bring to Nottinghamshire politics but the lord treasurer soon took more direct control of the county himself. He became an adviser to the dowager duchess and then arranged for the marriage of his son Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley (later 2nd earl of Oxford), to Newcastle’s sole surviving child and heir, Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles. As early as January 1712, when Middleton was trying to promote John Digby<sup>‡</sup> as his successor for the Newark seat, Middleton had to go through Oxford to have his candidate recommended to the dowager duchess.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Middleton and his family used the increased influence of the Harleys in the county to their advantage in the years of Oxford’s dominance. In the summer of 1713 Oxford procured from the dowager duchess her approval of Middleton as <em>custos rotulorum</em> for Nottinghamshire (although he was never actually appointed), while in 1713 and 1715 Middleton and his son Francis Willoughby<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd Baron Middleton, relied on Oxford and Lord Harley to help Francis and his fellow Tory William Levinz<sup>‡</sup> be elected as knights of the shire.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The accession of George I and the establishment of his Whig ministry brought serious reverses to Middleton and his associates. Francis Willoughby and Levinz were elected to the overwhelmingly Whig House of Commons but Middleton himself only came to 16 sittings of the long first session of George I’s Parliament, entering dissents on 9 July 1715 against the arrest and impeachment of his disgraced patron, Oxford. With Oxford’s fall from power, the dowager duchess of Newcastle’s death in 1716, and Lord Harley’s disengagement from politics, the maintenance of the Tory interest in Nottinghamshire during the reign of George I fell largely on Middleton at Wollaton Hall. He was generally unable to prevail against the greater resources and influence of the late duke of Newcastle’s principal heir, Thomas Pelham Holles*, duke of Newcastle, the wealthiest landowner in the county (if not the country) and one of the great Whig magnates of the age. Middleton showed his party allegiance during the few periods when he did attend the House, as when he supported the ‘Church interest’ against the attempt to repeal the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts in 1719, and when he defended Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, in 1723 from the measures taken against him in the wake of the revelations of the Atterbury Plot. Further details of Middleton’s parliamentary career under George I, such as it was, will be rehearsed in the subsequent volumes on the House of Lords.</p><p>Middleton died on 2 Apr. 1729, having left an undated will by which he divided his estate up between his four sons, with the lion’s share going to his heir, Francis, who, as 2nd Baron Middleton, took on leadership of the Nottinghamshire Tories.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILLOUGHBY, William (1615-73) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLOUGHBY</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1615–73)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 23 July 1666 as 5th (<em>CP</em> 6th) Baron WILLOUGHBY of PARHAM |
|
First sat 26 Jan. 1667; last sat 16 Apr. 1672 |
|
MP Midhurst 1660 |
<p><em>b.</em> 3 Aug. 1615, 3rd s. of William Willoughby<sup>†</sup>, 3rd Baron Willoughby of Parham (1584–1617), and Frances (1588–1643), da. of John Manners<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Rutland; bro. of Francis Willoughby*, 4th (<em>CP </em>5th) Baron Willoughby of Parham. <em>educ.</em> Eton 1623–4; travelled abroad (Italy) 1636; M. Temple 1652. <em>m.</em> by 1637 Anne (<em>bur.</em> 12 Jan. 1672), da. of Sir Philip Carey<sup>‡</sup>, of Aldenham, Herts. and St Olave’s, Silver Street, London, 8s. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 6da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> 10 April 1673; <em>will</em> 18 May 1672, pr. 27 Nov. 1673. <sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. plantations 1660–?1667.</p><p>Kpr. (jt.), Bestwood Park, Notts. 1638–49, 1660–72; commr., militia, Herts. and Notts. March 1660, assessment, Herts. and Lincs. Aug. 1660–66, Notts. 1661–66, loyal and indigent officers, Herts. 1662; col. militia ft. Herts. Apr. 1660; dep. lt. Herts. c. Aug. 1660.</p><p>Capt.-gen., gov. and v-adm. Barbados and Caribbee Islands, 1667–72; capt.-gen., gov. and v.-adm., Barbados and Windward Islands (excluding Leeward Islands), 1672–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>In 1638 the young and recently married William Willoughby, having returned from his travels abroad, replaced his uncle George Manners<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Rutland, as keeper of Bestwood Park in Nottinghamshire, an office he shared jointly with his wife’s brother John Carey<sup>‡</sup>. Through his uncle Rutland he probably further acquired the nearby manor of Warsop.<sup>4</sup> He also lived for several years as a tenant at Stanstead Abbot in Hertfordshire before purchasing the manor and royal residence of Hunsdon in that county from his wife’s kinsman Henry Carey*, earl of Dover, in 1653.<sup>5</sup> Despite the Willoughbys’ long-standing links with Lincolnshire, William was seen principally as a landowner with local influence in Hertfordshire and Nottinghamshire and served in a number of local offices and commissions in both counties (particularly Hertfordshire) – deputy lieutenant and militia officer, justice of the peace and commissioner of the poll tax, assessment and sewers – throughout the 1660s.</p><p>Apart from looking after his own interests and his rapidly expanding family, William spent the years before his succession to the title protecting the interests of both his royalist elder brother Francis Willoughby, 4th (<em>CP</em> 5th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, and his parliamentarian brother-in-law Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>6</sup> Made a trustee of Francis’s estate in 1647, William, assisted by Whitelocke, spent much time trying to preserve those lands from the committee for compounding before their restitution to the Willoughby of Parham in 1652 under the terms of the Articles of Barbados. In 1658 he was extracting promises from agents of Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, that the king would keep Willoughby of Parham in his posts if there were a restoration.<sup>7</sup> At the same time, when Whitelocke feared persecution from the newly re-established Rump in December 1659, he was able to find sanctuary in his brother-in-law’s residence at Hunsdon House.<sup>8</sup> William knew John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, well enough for that royalist leader in April 1660 to forward to Charles II William’s letter declaring his fervent loyalty to the monarchy.<sup>9</sup></p><p>William’s recently discovered royalism did not disqualify him from sitting in the Convention, where he represented Midhurst in Sussex, although the reasons for his election in this constituency are not clear. There he worked for both brother and brother-in-law again, arguing strenuously and successfully that Whitelocke should not be excluded from the general pardon that was part of the bill for indemnity and oblivion, and furthering the passage through the Commons of a bill to compensate Willoughby for his services to Parliament in the 1640s.<sup>10</sup> He did not stand for the Cavalier Parliament, but he continued to act as agent in London for his brother in Barbados. Judging by petitions and memoranda that he submitted, by 1665–6 he was sufficiently familiar with the court and council to consult personally with the king, James Stuart*, duke of York, lord chancellor Clarendon, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, and other members of the Privy Council on West Indian and colonial matters.<sup>11</sup></p><p>As late as 8–9 Nov. 1666 William was still representing his brother, by petitioning the House on his behalf in the matter of the bill to settle the debts of Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Cleveland.<sup>12</sup> By the last days of that month news had reached England which confirmed the Willoughby of Parham’s death with his fleet in a hurricane in July.<sup>13</sup> William Willoughby now assumed the title (the idea that the 3rd Baron Willoughby of Parham was succeeded by an elder son Henry, rather than Francis, has resulted in William being identified as the 6th, rather than the 5th, Baron Willoughby; this however is based on an 18th century transcription error which is described in an appendix in volume 1 of this work. Willoughby petitioned the king to confer on him his brother’s governorship of Barbados so that he could manage his brother’s colonial plantations, for ‘there is no other estate to support the dignity [of the barony]’, the previous baron having ‘in your Majesty’s service in the West Indies spent his paternal estate to the value of £4,000 per annum’. William received his commission appointing him governor of Barbados and the Caribbee Islands on 3 Jan. 1667. Three weeks later, the lord high admiral, the duke of York, further commissioned him vice-admiral of the same territories.<sup>14</sup> Willoughby’s writ of summons to the House was dated on that same day, 24 Jan. 1667, and he first took his seat in the House two days later, continuing to attend for all but one of the succeeding sittings of the 1666–7 session until Parliament was prorogued on 8 February.<sup>15</sup> On 11 Mar. he set sail for the Caribbean from Portsmouth, keeping Clarendon informed of his progress throughout, and arrived at Barbados on 23 April.<sup>16</sup></p><p>For the next few months he organized the defence of the English West Indies against the French and the Dutch in the last days of the second Anglo-Dutch War, during which his second son, lieutenant-general Henry Willoughby, scored some notable victories at Nevis, Montserat and Antigua.<sup>17</sup> After news of the Peace of Breda finally reached Barbados late in 1667, the island returned to its usual divided and turbulent politics and in early 1669 Willoughby set out for England again in order to defend his own and Barbadian interests at Whitehall.<sup>18</sup> He arrived early in February 1669 and, after having been robbed on the road from Portsmouth, made it back to the capital in time to attend the prorogation of the long 1667–9 session on 1 Mar. 1669.<sup>19</sup> He remained in England until the summer of 1672 and assiduously participated in the parliamentary sessions of October–December 1669 and February 1670–April 1671.</p><p>Willoughby was present at all but one sitting day of the session of autumn 1669. He was placed on the committees to consider the decay of trade (25 Oct.) and to prevent frauds in exports of wool (7 Dec.) and was reappointed to these same committees when they were re-established, on 17 Feb. and 3 Mar. 1670 respectively, early in the 1670–1 session, where he was present at 93 per cent of the sitting days. He was named to 20 committees in the first part of this session before the summer adjournment on 11 Apr. 1670, including committees on bills to settle the proper jurisdiction of the Admiralty (14 Mar.), to improve tillage (22 Mar.), to prevent arson (24 Mar.), to repair bridges and highways (30 Mar.) and to set an imposition on foreign brandy (7 April). On 26 Mar. he subscribed to the protest against the passage of the conventicle bill. Two days after this, Whitelocke dined with him and commented that Willoughby ‘seemed a good friend’ to liberty of conscience.<sup>20</sup></p><p>He was chairman for two committee meetings on 28 Mar. 1670, on bills to prevent the abduction of children and on standard measures of corn and fuel.<sup>21</sup> He also appears to have chaired the committee, established on 30 Mar., on the bill to repair the harbour of Great Yarmouth, for he reported the bill and some amendments on 2 April. When the session resumed after its adjournment on 27 Oct. 1670 he was nominated to a further 36 committees before the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1671, including those on bills to further discourage the import of foreign brandy (19 Dec. 1670), to encourage the export of native liquors (11 Feb. 1671), to reinvest the power to grant wine licences in the king (13 Feb.), to prevent the disturbances of seamen (14 Mar.), to prevent the growth of popery (24 Mar.) and to prevent the cultivation of tobacco and to promote that of flax and hemp (both on 6 April). On 9 Mar. he dissented from the resolutions that in effect rejected the bill to limit privilege of Parliament.</p><p>From January 1671 Willoughby and a group of Barbadian merchants in London, known as the ‘Gentlemen Planters’, began to meet regularly in a tavern on Cheapside as ‘The Committee for the Public Concerns of Barbados’ to further co-ordinate their lobbying on trade matters.<sup>22</sup> By the beginning of 1671 this group was concerned by the passage through the Commons of the bill for impositions, which provided for an increased duty on West Indian sugar, both raw and refined. At the meeting of the Gentlemen Planters on 23 Mar. 1671 it was ordered that</p><blockquote><p>Since we can have no relief in the imposition laid on sugars in the House of Commons, it is ordered by the Committee that Sir Peter Colleton<sup>‡</sup>, Col. Henry Drax and Capt. Ferdinando Gorges do attend the Parliament at Westminster and consult with his Excellency the Lord Willoughby of a convenient time to petition the House of Lords against this tax.<sup>23</sup></p></blockquote><p>The bill was first read in the House five days after this decision and committed the following day to a committee of 49 peers, including Willoughby. From 29 Mar. to 8 Apr. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), chaired the committee, attendance at which ranged from 16 members to 32. Willoughby appears to have been a constant and active member of the committee and on 30 Mar. Sir Peter Colleton, his colleague in the Gentlemen Planters, argued before the committee against the Commons’ proposed impositions on white and brown sugar.<sup>24</sup> On 8 Apr. the House accepted the amendments of this committee to lower the imposition on white sugar in favour of the West Indian planters and two days later chose Willoughby as one of the ten peers assigned to manage the conference at which both these amendments and a proposed address encouraging the king to desist from wearing clothes of foreign manufacture were to be discussed. The Commons agreed to discuss the amendments in conference, but not the address, a response which the Lords considered ‘unparliamentary’. The House refused to continue before this matter of procedure was settled and Willoughby was also appointed a manager for the conference held on the afternoon of 11 Apr. on this matter.</p><p>The first conference on the content of the amendments was held the following day, after Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, had presented to the House a long and detailed rationale for lowering the imposition on sugar. The debate between the houses quickly centred on the Commons’ objections to the Lords’ attempts to amend what they saw as an unalterable supply bill. These points were discussed in another four conferences held during the week from 15 Apr., for all of which Willoughby was a manager. Eventually Charles II, realizing that there was to be no agreement between the two houses, prorogued Parliament on 22 Apr. 1671.</p><p>The Gentlemen Planters in England emphasized Willoughby’s important role in these proceedings in their account of them to the Assembly of Barbados:</p><blockquote><p>And we undoubtedly had had the same success here [the House of Lords], that we had with the Commons had not the Lord Willoughby, who was one of the Committee and infinitely concerned for you, with great efficacy convinced the Lords of the mistake the merchants were running them upon … with which their Lordships being satisfied reduced white sugars to two farthings and a half … We think it our duty also to let you know that my Lord Willoughby hath showed himself wonderful affectionate and zealous in your concerns, and very instrumental with the Lords in the ease you have.</p></blockquote><p>They further pointed out that Willoughby had also been important in convincing the House to delete clauses prohibiting trade between the West Indies and Ireland in the bill for preventing the planting of tobacco in England.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Willoughby departed for the West Indies again in late July 1672 to prepare for the renewed war against the Dutch.<sup>26</sup> For the parliamentary session beginning on 4 Feb. 1673 he registered his proxy with Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, his brother’s old colleague in the royalist attempt on King’s Lynn in the summer of 1659. In the first days of April Willoughby scored some notable successes against the Dutch in Tobago but he died suddenly on 10 Apr. 1673, in the middle of campaigning.<sup>27</sup> At his death he was in possession of several manors in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, but he left many of them in the care of trustees to raise money to pay his debts of £8,859 and to provide marriage portions for his two daughters totalling £5,000. To his three younger surviving sons he was only able to bequeath household goods at Bestwood Park, and to his eldest son and heir, George Willoughby*, 6th (<em>CP</em> 7th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, he left a portion of his estates, with the further instructions that he was to sell Thorpe in Lincolnshire towards payment of the debts he had incurred by providing for the government of Barbados out of his own pocket.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Just before his departure for Barbados in March 1667 Willoughby had written to the king asking him to protect ‘the good breeder (my good wife) I leave behind, who hath brought your Majesty seven he subjects such as I dare own’.<sup>29</sup> Willoughby and his wife had had fourteen children, including eight sons. All the hopes he placed in this large brood were dashed in a little over ten years from the time of this letter. He apparently had seven surviving sons in 1667, but three of these died in the intervening years; only four outlived him and three of these were to die within five years of their father’s death. Charles Willoughby*, the future 9th (<em>CP </em>10th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, was the youngest of the 5th Baron’s eight sons. He came to the title in September 1678 after his whole cohort of male siblings (and one nephew) had expired as young adults. Charles himself died within a year of succeeding to the title, at which point the Lincolnshire branch of the Willoughbys of Parham was left without male heirs and the title passed to an obscure Lancashire branch of the family.</p> |
C.G.D.L. |
|
WILMOT, Charles (1670-81) |
<p><strong><surname>WILMOT</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1670–81)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1670-80 Ld. Wilmot; <em>suc. </em>fa. July 1680 (a minor) as 3rd earl of ROCHESTER |
|
Never sat. |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 2 Jan. 1671, o. s. of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1681), da. of John Mallett of Enmore, Som. (<em>d</em>.1656). <em>educ</em>. privately (Thomas Smith); ?Eton c.1678.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 12 Nov. 1681; <em>admon</em>. to grandmother Anne, dowager countess of Rochester, 30 May 1682.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas? by Willem Wissing and Jan Van der Vaart, private collection.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>The sickly only son of the rakish poet earl of Rochester, Wilmot had early on displayed symptoms believed at the time to be the king’s evil (scrofula). He was touched for the condition by Charles II, but it seems more likely that he was in fact a victim of congenital syphilis.<sup>5</sup> Although prone to crippling bouts of illness, by 1677 he was described by his father’s circle as ‘a fair-haired brilliant boy’ and at the time of his death though ‘scarce ten years old … of parts beyond twenty’.<sup>6</sup> It is possible that aged eight he was sent to Eton (though no record exists of his admission in the school’s register).<sup>7</sup></p><p>Wilmot succeeded to the earldom aged just nine, following his father’s much publicized death in the summer of 1680. Under the terms of his father’s will he was entrusted to the guardianship of his grandmother and mother.<sup>8</sup> With the peerage he inherited interests in Oxfordshire and Somerset, though it is unlikely that he exercised any personal influence over his estates during his short life and he was too young to attend the Oxford Parliament that met in the spring of 1681.<sup>9</sup> That summer, precisely a year after his father’s death, Rochester lost his mother to a fit of apoplexy.<sup>10</sup> His own condition deteriorated markedly soon after and by November his life was despaired of.<sup>11</sup> He died on 12 Nov. and was buried almost a month later in the family vault at Spelsbury.<sup>12</sup> On his death the earldom became extinct. Inheritance of the Wilmot estates passed to his three sisters, Anne (later wife of Fulke Greville*, 5th Baron Brooke), Elizabeth (later wife of Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich) and Malet (later wife of John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Lisburne [I]). Administration was granted to his grandmother Anne, dowager countess of Rochester, during his sisters’ minorities.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WILMOT, John (1647-80) |
<p><strong><surname>WILMOT</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1647–80)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1652-58 Visct. Wilmot; <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Feb. 1658 (a minor) as 2nd earl of ROCHESTER |
|
First sat 10 Oct. 1667; last sat 26 Jan. 1680 |
|
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1 Apr. 1647,<sup>1</sup> 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Henry Wilmot, 2nd Visct. Wilmot [I] (later earl of Rochester), and 2nd w. Anne (1614-96), da. of Sir John St John<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and wid. of Sir Francis Henry Lee, 2nd bt. <em>educ</em>. Burford g.s.; Wadham, Oxf. 1660, MA 9 Sept 1661; travelled abroad c.1661-5 (France, Italy).<sup>2</sup> <em>m.</em> 29 Jan 1667, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1681)<sup>,</sup> da. of John Malet (Malett) of Enmore, Somerset, 1s. 3da.;<sup>3</sup> 1 illegit. <em>da.</em> with Elizabeth Barry.<sup>4</sup> <em>d.</em> 26 July 1680;<sup>5</sup> <em>will</em> 22 June 1680, pr. 23 Feb. 1681.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1667-<em>d</em>.;<sup>7</sup> kpr. of the king’s game, Oxon. 1668-<em>d</em>.;<sup>8</sup> ranger, Woodstock Park 1674-<em>d</em>.;<sup>9</sup> master of the king’s hawks 1675-<em>d</em>.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Dep. lt., Som. 1672-<em>d</em>.;<sup>11</sup> alderman, Taunton 1677-?<em>d</em>.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Vol., RN 1665, 1666;<sup>13</sup> capt. tp. of horse, duke of Monmouth's regt. 1666.<sup>14</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist (after orig. by J. Huysmans), c.1665-70, NPG 804; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1666-7, V&A Museum.</p> |
<p>The subject of numerous biographies and literary studies, Rochester is best known as one of the foremost poets and rakes of the Restoration. The word ‘excess’ might well have been invented for him. His verses both amused and annoyed while his sharp tongue and sharper satires involved him in a series of duels and altercations. On occasion he landed himself in hot water for his jibes and boisterous behaviour but his time out of favour was usually brief as the king tended to enjoy Wilmot’s company more than he was offended by the young man’s invective. As one of the ‘wits’ of the Caroline court, Wilmot ensured his immortality by the composition of pieces such as <em>A Satyr against Mankind</em>, though doubt has been cast on the authorship of a number of works previously thought to have been by him. He achieved no less notoriety for his riotous private life. A companion of Sir George Etherege and William Wycherley, he was also one of John Dryden’s patrons, though the relationship was an awkward one. When not indulging his hedonistic tendencies, Wilmot was at times a significant force both at court and in Parliament. Through his association with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, he was an important associate of those opposed to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and latterly to Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). His friendship with Nell Gwyn furthered his position at court and he later assisted her as a trustee supporting her attempts to acquire lands in Ireland.<sup>15</sup> Wilmot’s connection with Buckingham and Lovelace seems to have gone beyond political sympathy: Buckingham and Wilmot were said to have run a tavern together at one point; Lovelace was a close neighbour and shared responsibility with Rochester for the manor of Woodstock, where they both hosted Buckingham for a fortnight in 1677.<sup>16</sup></p><h2><em>Early career to 1667</em></h2><p>Like so much else about Wilmot’s life, there appears to have been some doubt about his paternity. Wood thought his real father was his mother’s cousin, Sir Allen Apsley<sup>‡</sup> but there seems little reason to give credence to this report.<sup>17</sup> Wilmot’s father (real or otherwise) was prominent in the Civil War as a royalist cavalry commander and rewarded with the earldom of Rochester in 1652, having been one of those to aid the king’s escape after the battle of Worcester. He subsequently joined Charles II in exile. Wilmot meanwhile remained in England with his mother at Ditchley, Oxfordshire, under the guardianship of Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>18</sup> The countess’s puritan background ensured that her estates were saved from sequestration. Her husband’s estates at Adderbury fared less well, though the house there itself remained in the family’s possession (and was eventually effectively purchased by the countess from her exiled husband). Wilmot’s mother is reported to have spent between two and four thousand pounds on building work and refurbishments after 1661. Even so, the house was comparatively modest and in 1665 it was assessed at just 14 hearths.<sup>19</sup> Wilmot’s upbringing was dominated by his mother’s puritan austerity but her family ties brought him into contact with his royalist relatives, the Lees of Ditchley and the Berties of Rycote. <sup>20</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, thought Wilmot was ‘naturally modest, till the court corrupted him. ... He gave himself up to all sorts of extravagance, and to the wildest frolics that a wanton wit could devise’. Anthony Wood echoed the sentiment, adding that the court ‘not only debauched him but made him a perfect Hobbist’. Thomas Hearne, on the other hand, blamed the young peer’s fall into debauchery on his experiences at Oxford.<sup>21</sup></p><p>On the death of his father Wilmot succeeded both to the earldom of Rochester and to significant interest in Oxfordshire. At the time of the Restoration he was still barely 13 years old, but given his background it is perhaps unsurprising that both the newly restored king and Hyde took a keen interest in the young peer. Rochester repaid them by being highly critical of the former and rebelling against the latter’s proffered patronage.<sup>22</sup> In 1665 Rochester, having returned from his foreign tour, was put forward, upon the recommendation of the king himself, for a match with the Somersetshire heiress Elizabeth Malet, whom Grammont described as ‘melancholy’ and Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, with scant regard for geography, as ‘the fortune of the north’. Rochester’s modest inheritance required that he marry well. With characteristic lack of concern for the consequences, he took matters into his own hands and on 26 May abducted the young woman. They were quickly overtaken: Rochester was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower and Elizabeth Malet returned to her family. <sup>23</sup> Within a few weeks, though, Rochester was admitted back into favour and allowed to volunteer in the navy during the second Anglo-Dutch war. He was commended by Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, for his bravery.<sup>24</sup> Rochester returned from the fleet in September 1665 with the news of the fleet’s victory and was rewarded with a free gift of £750.<sup>25</sup> He was involved in the following spring’s campaign and once again distinguished himself for bravery, both in battle and in his penchant for issuing challenges to other young blades.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>Marriage and majority, 1667-1675</em></h2><p>On 29 Jan. 1667, against all expectations and despite rival suits from Lord John Butler (later earl of Gowran [I]), and Sandwich’s heir, Edward Montagu*, styled Lord Hinchingbrooke (later 2nd earl of Sandwich), Rochester was married to Elizabeth Malet.<sup>27</sup> She remained for the remainder of his life, a devoted, if badly neglected, wife. Rochester’s marriage to an heiress whom Pepys believed to be worth £2,500 p.a., solved his immediate financial problems.<sup>28</sup> The king rewarded him generously too, however, and there seems little reason to believe Pepys’ assessment that the new countess had agreed to marry Rochester out of charity.<sup>29</sup> Rochester already enjoyed a pension of £500 p.a. and shortly after the wedding was the beneficiary of a temporary downturn in Buckingham’s fortunes when on 6 Mar. 1667 he was appointed to the duke’s place as gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, at a salary of £1,000 p.a.<sup>30</sup> By 1672, however, Rochester was owed £3,375 in arrears and he seems to have struggled to keep his word in assuring his wife that he would not expect her to maintain him. <sup>31</sup> Rochester’s marriage also brought him new lands and influence in Somerset.<sup>32</sup> In October 1672 he was appointed a deputy lieutenant for the county and in 1677 an alderman of Taunton under the town’s new charter.<sup>33</sup></p><p>As his star continued to rise, Rochester was, on 29 July 1667, summoned to the House, along with his rival, John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), despite both peers being under-age.<sup>34</sup> The reason for their early writs was believed to be the expectation that they would help bolster the court in the Lords.<sup>35</sup> Mulgrave (later satirized by Rochester as ‘Lord All-Pride’) chose not to answer the summons.<sup>36</sup> Rochester, though, presented himself in the House on 10 Oct., the opening day of the new session. His appearance provoked serious debate and the question of whether minors could attend the House preoccupied the committee for privileges. The matter was still unresolved on 11 Feb. 1668 when James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, complained that the sub-committee for the Journal was unable to complete its work until some resolution had been reached.<sup>37</sup> Exactly a month later the sub-committee was still impatient to have some resolution in order to proceed. In spite of the House’s deliberations, the king overruled the Lords’ objections and insisted on the young lords’ right to sit. The decision served later as a precedent for Monmouth’s early admission in 1670. With his right to attend secured, Rochester was present on just under a quarter of all sitting days in the remainder of the session. He willingly supported Clarendon’s impeachment and on 20 Nov. subscribed the protest at the failure to insist on Clarendon’s commitment. Verses celebrating the former lord chancellor’s disgrace were later attributed to him:</p><blockquote><p>Pride, lust, ambition and the people’s hate,<br />The kingdom’s broker, ruin of the state,<br />Dunkirk’s sad loss, divider of the fleet,<br />Tangier’s compounder for a barren sheet:<br />This shrub of gentry married to the crown,<br />His daughter to the heir, is tumbled down.<br />The grand despiser of the nobles lies<br />Grovelling in dust, a just sacrifice.<sup>38</sup></p></blockquote><p>His last sitting in 1667 was on 27 Nov., but he returned on 17 Feb. 1668 and continued to make occasional appearances in the House. He last sat on 8 May, the day before the adjournment.</p><p>The controversy raised by his presence in the House when still underage was probably the greatest impact Rochester had on the House during his brief parliamentary career. He was never an assiduous attender, at least until the sessions of the late 1670s, and even when he did appear in the House his activity was minimal. He was rarely named to select committees, and was even left off of the standing committees for privileges and petitions until the session of 1673. There is little record of any intervention by him in the affairs of the House.</p><p>His principal arena was the court and the theatre where he quickly earned a reputation for excess, in both liquor and libido. He was the cause of much scandal and newsletter gossip in 1669. On 16 Feb. he was at a dinner at the Dutch ambassador’s residence when, ‘heated with wine’, he dared to strike Thomas Killigrew in the king’s presence. Despite this offence to royal majesty, Pepys was scandalized to see ‘so idle a rogue’ in the king’s presence the following day, ‘to the king’s everlasting shame’.<sup>39</sup> In mid-March Rochester was further involved in a disturbance, this time a quarrel between Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, and James Hamilton. Rochester was said to have ‘spoke but oddly of the king’, with ‘ugly slighting things’. The inevitable scandal compelled Rochester to make an immediate departure for France.<sup>40</sup> When the duchess of Orléans presented him to Louis XIV, the French king made it plain that he would not so readily forgive such affronts to royal dignity and commanded Rochester to leave his presence.<sup>41</sup> An evening at the Palais d’Orléans with William Cavendish*, styled Lord Cavendish (later duke of Devonshire), resulted in a violent brawl. Whereas Cavendish nearly died through the several wounds he received, Rochester, ‘by retreating, extricated himself from a violence at once barbarous and out of all proportion’.<sup>42</sup> Perhaps it was such dexterity which led the English ambassador, Ralph Montagu* (later duke of Montagu), to recommend Rochester to Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, as one worthy of favour.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Rochester had returned from his exile by the early autumn and on 29 Oct. 1669 he took his seat in the new session, of which he again attended a quarter of all sitting days. The following month he was engaged in an inglorious squabble with Mulgrave, which resulted in a farcical attempted duel. Rochester, pleading ill health, requested that the bout be fought on horseback but when he appeared on the field accompanied by a heavily armed lifeguard, Mulgrave’s second protested that the combatants were unevenly matched. <sup>44</sup> The king was outraged when the earl escaped capture by slipping out the back door, commenting that ‘as the earl of Rochester is his servant, he knows what course to take with him’. On 23 Nov. the House ordered both miscreant peers to be secured, and three days later Rochester was compelled to make a formal apology before the House, though he took the opportunity of ridiculing his opponent while pretending to make amends for their misunderstanding.</p><p>Rochester’s uncontrolled behaviour resulted in tragedy early in 1670 when it was reported that he had run through and killed (or grievously wounded) a waterman. The circumstances of the tussle were unclear, which presumably assisted Rochester in again escaping serious consequences for his actions.<sup>45</sup> Nevertheless it must have come as some relief to his friends and relations when he announced his intention of setting out for his Somersetshire estates towards the end of April. Even this proved no complete remedy for his excesses and by the middle of the summer he was seeking advances of money after losing large amounts at play. Efforts to control his spending and settle his financial situation persisted late into the year.<sup>46</sup></p><p>It was with his affairs still in a state of some disarray that Rochester took his seat in the House once more on 24 Oct. 1670, having failed to attend the opening on 14 February. He proceeded to attend on just 14 days of the session (8 per cent of the total). Although he was not in the House in January 1671 when members of the Talbot family lodged a petition accusing Buckingham of killing Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, he was said to have worked on Buckingham’s behalf with Nell Gwynn and Charles Sackville*, styled Lord Buckhurst (later 6th earl of Dorset), to frustrate the Talbots’ aims.<sup>47</sup> Rochester was again barred from court in December 1671 because of the publication of a libel attributed to him involving the king’s mistress, the duchess of Cleveland, and John Churchill* (later duke of Marlborough). As was predicted, the matter soon blew over and he was quickly restored to favour. He then celebrated this, characteristically enough, by engaging in yet another brawl in the last days of the year.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the House once more on 10 Feb. 1673, a week after the opening of the new session, of which he attended just over half of all sitting days. On 15 Mar. he appeared before the committee on the bill for making the rivers Parret and Tone navigable, to which he himself had been named the previous day, in order to recommend its passage, a matter in which he appears to have been involved along with his Malet relations. Rochester assured the committee that the Somerset towns of Bridgwater and Taunton were both eager to see the measure pass, though both this and the subsequent meeting of the committee on 17 Mar. revealed concerns about the financing of the project. One of the local aldermen, John Forth, made a spirited intervention against the imposition of one amendment to part of the bill. The amendment was dropped and on 22 Mar. it was at last recommended that the bill should be reported to the House with a proviso that had been offered by Rochester and acceded to by Forth. The bill passed the Lords three days later.<sup>49</sup> By the time the committee had concluded its deliberations Rochester was back in custody. On 21 Mar. 1673 the earl marshal informed the House that Rochester and the murderous Robert Constable, 3rd Viscount Dunbar [S], had been secured to forestall an intended duel.<sup>50</sup> The following day, Rochester was brought before the House and, despite his protests of innocence, was enjoined to lay aside the quarrel and keep the peace. The cause of the dispute is uncertain but both men had been part of a group, including Monmouth, that had assaulted and killed Peter Virnell or Vernell two years previously.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Rochester returned to the House on 27 Oct. 1673 for the next session, of which he attended three of the four sitting days. By the first day of the following year, he had again pushed his luck too far and was once more in disgrace, this time over some ‘witty, spiteful verses, which touch too severely upon the king.’<sup>52</sup> This did not prevent him from taking his seat in the House on 16 Feb. 1674, but he was then present on just seven days of the session (18 per cent of all its sitting days). As ever, by the spring he had managed to inveigle his way back into favour and in early March he was promised the offices of keeper and ranger at Woodstock in order to allow him some independence from his mother, whose longevity was the cause of increasing friction as it prevented him from taking control of the estates at Adderbury.<sup>53</sup> Rochester’s new responsibilities brought with them an official residence at the high lodge where he spent much of his time away from London and which enabled him to exert his interest in the locality. He also made efforts to expand his influence into Ireland, as well as acquiring property in London.<sup>54</sup> In 1675 he was granted a 41-year lease of the manor of Edmonton.<sup>55</sup> Such preferments made no difference to Rochester’s riotous lifestyle and at the close of 1674 he was engaged (as second to his good friend Henry Savile) in another duel with Mulgrave. On this occasion it was Savile who had triggered the quarrel by insulting Rochester’s ‘goggle-eyed’ rival.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the following session on 20 Apr. 1675 and was present on 48 per cent of all its sittings. In advance of the session he was assessed among those peers thought likely to support Danby’s non-resisting test bill and certainly his name does not appear in any of the protests against it. Shortly after the prorogation of 9 June Rochester, in company with other ‘wits’ including his friend Savile, participated in another notorious frolic which resulted in the destruction of a sun-dial, in the king’s garden at Whitehall. <sup>57</sup> Both this and earlier indiscretions may have been behind a downturn in his relations with the king’s mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth, that resulted in yet another command to leave the court. He retreated to Woodstock. Over that summer of 1675 Rochester and his neighbour and associate Lovelace appear to have fallen foul of the efforts made by Danby to control the management of the royal estates when both received firm orders to ensure that no more timber was illegally felled.<sup>58</sup> Further trouble emanated from Woodstock that autumn over the appointment of Rochester’s kinsman, Edward Henry Lee*, earl of Lichfield, to the reversion of the rangership of the park. In response Rochester (and Lovelace) demanded a caveat to be drawn up protecting their interests in their offices within the manor during their lifetimes. Rochester’s inability to secure the office for his own heirs is perhaps indicative of his diminished influence at court at the time.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat once more on 13 Oct. 1675 but he was again rarely in attendance, troubling the clerk only five times during the session (just under a quarter of all sitting days). He last sat in that session on 27 Oct. and by the beginning of November was back in the country. On 15 Nov. he registered his proxy with Monmouth, which the duke held until the prorogation a week later. Sickness was again, probably, the reason for his poor attendance. Early the following year rumours circulated of his demise. Rochester took pleasure in informing his companion, Henry Savile<sup>‡</sup>, of the ‘unhappy news of my own death and burial.’ Dislike of the identities of the rumoured replacements for the few offices he held had a briefly revitalizing effect on him and, by the spring, Rochester had resolved to dedicate more time to the Lords. He quizzed Savile on the likely date of the next session, explaining that as, ‘the peers of England being grown of late years very considerable in the government, I would make one at the session. Livy and sickness has a little inclined me to policy.’ Shortly after, his enthusiasm appears to have abated and in a further letter to Savile he mocked ‘They who would be great in our little government’ who seemed ‘as ridiculous to me as schoolboys who with much endeavour and some danger climb a crab-tree, venturing their necks for fruit which solid pigs would disdain if they were not starving.’<sup>60</sup></p><h2><em>Decline and death 1676-1680</em></h2><p>Rochester’s earnest resolutions of the beginning of the year were soon forgotten and in late June 1676 he was engaged in another altercation at Epsom, in which he reportedly ‘abjectly hid himself’ while his companions ‘were exposed’ to assault; one of his associates was killed in the fray. One of Rochester’s kinsmen noted he was:</p><blockquote><p>every now and then entangled in brangles and though hitherto he has escaped pretty well, yet one time or another he will be made to pay for all, for as to his person it is weak and there is not one ordinary man in ten but is able to beat his lordship to stockfish.<sup>61</sup></p></blockquote><p>A desire to avoid this last indignity was probably the determining factor in leading Rochester back to his wife and estates at Adderbury that summer, where they played host to Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, on 22 August.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Rochester took his seat in the following session on 15 Feb. 1677, following which he was present on 24 per cent of all its sitting days. Rochester was again the subject of scandal, this time over the breakdown of relations between Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and his baroness. Rochester emerged from the affair with little credit. The previous autumn he had reportedly offered to help Lady Leigh abscond from her husband and to pay her an allowance of £500, pending his recovery from gout.<sup>63</sup> Perhaps distracted by this scandal, Rochester seems not to have played a significant role in the debates at the beginning of the session over the validity of Parliament’s sitting after the lengthy prorogation. He was away from the House for just over a fortnight between 20 Feb. and 3 Mar., but ensured that his proxy was held during that period by Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield). He was noted nonetheless as ‘worthy’ by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, in the spring of 1677. Rochester does appear to have become associated with Shaftesbury’s opposition group, probably on account of his friendship with Buckingham and Lovelace. He was also one of the companions of Monmouth, who was a visitor at Woodstock on at least one occasion.<sup>64</sup> Rochester and other members of ‘the merry gang’ were to the fore in putting pressure on the king to have Buckingham released from the Tower. Once Buckingham was free, it was at Rochester’s lodgings that he sought sanctuary before his return to court in August. Subsequent rumours that Buckingham was to replace James Butler*, duke of Ormond, as lord steward gained currency as a result of Rochester engineering a meeting between the king and duke.<sup>65</sup> Their partnership invited criticism at court and Rochester’s talent for libellous verses left him open to assault through works attributed to him. In August Buckingham wrote warning him that ‘my noble friends at court have now resolved as the most politic notions they can go upon to lie most abominably of your lordship and me in order to which they have brought in a new treasonable lampoon of which your lordship is to be the author.’<sup>66</sup> In September more lurid rumours circulated about Rochester following reports of a ‘beastly prank’ in which he, Lovelace and a group of others had indulged, holding nude races in the park at Woodstock.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Rochester returned to the House for a further three days towards the close of the session early in 1678. He was present again in the House for the adjournment of 15 Jan. 1678, but was not there when it resumed for business on 28 January. On 31 Jan. he registered his proxy again with Gerard, which was vacated by Rochester’s return to the House on 20 February. On 4 Apr. he was present for the trial of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, when he was among the 18 peers who found Pembroke not guilty of murder; he was not among the majority who found him guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.<sup>68</sup> He failed to return to the House for the brief session of May to July 1678, probably on account of increasingly poor health, though he was able to rely on Henry Savile to keep him apprised of developments in Parliament.<sup>69</sup> Earlier in the year he had been given over by his physicians.<sup>70</sup> His condition continued to fluctuate over the next few months and in mid-April he was believed (erroneously) to have died. According to Lady Chaworth, having been at the ‘gates of death’ he had become ‘so penitent’ that he was resolved to ‘be an example of penitence to the whole world.’<sup>71</sup> Such resolutions appear to have been short-lived. In September he had rallied sufficiently to engage in yet another argument, this time with his cousin, James Bertie*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), most likely over rival interests in Oxfordshire. The <em>contretemps</em> was said to have been referred to the lord privy seal (Anglesey) to settle.<sup>72</sup> Rochester took his seat once more in the ensuing session on 15 Nov. 1678, over three weeks into its proceedings. He was present on 24 per cent of its sitting days. On his first day he voted in a division in a committee of the whole with James Stuart*, duke of York, and Monmouth, but in opposition to Shaftesbury, against the motion that the declaration against transubstantiation provided for in the test bill should be under the same penalties as the oaths .<sup>73</sup> On 9 Dec. he was, with Buckingham and Monmouth, nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the disbandment of part of the army.</p><p>The early months of 1679 found Rochester initially engaged in attempting to maintain control over Woodstock, where Lovelace had recently been displaced from his position as ranger of Woodstock Park. Rochester ordered his agent, Heron, ‘not to stir’ from the place to ensure a smooth transition to the new office-holder.<sup>74</sup> He does not, though, appear to have made much impact on the elections for the new Parliament. He took his seat in the abortive week-long session of the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679, and attended four days in total. He then returned to the chamber at the opening of the following session on 15 Mar. after which he attended unusually assiduously, being present on 77 per cent of the total. In advance of the session Danby initially noted him as a peer who could be relied on (though requiring the king’s solicitation) to oppose the impeachment, but over the next few days Danby amended his predictions, incrementally downgrading Rochester to ‘unreliable’ and ultimately to an undoubted opponent. Danby’s assessment was proved correct when Rochester joined Monmouth, as well as his old rival Mulgrave, in turning his back on Danby and supporting in the first two weeks of April the Commons’ bill to have the former lord treasurer attainted, rather than merely banished, in case he did not surrender himself to face impeachment.<sup>75</sup> On 10 May he also voted in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the manner of proceeding against the impeached lords, and registered his dissent when the motion failed to carry. He dissented again almost a fortnight later, on 23 May, from the resolutions to insist on the Lords’ answer relating to the right of the bishops to vote in capital cases and to proceed with the trials of the five lords in the Tower before that of Danby. Four days later he dissented once more from the Lords’ further resolution to confirm their decision that the bishops might sit as judges in court until sentence of death was pronounced.</p><p>Although Rochester refused to assist Danby, the assault on the lord treasurer combined with the furore over the Popish Plot appears to have distanced him from his former colleagues Buckingham and Lovelace. He wrote to his wife in the country describing the situation in London at about this time as, ‘reduced to that extremity on all sides that a man dares not turn his back for fear of being hanged.’<sup>76</sup> In a letter composed over the course of almost a month from the end of May to the last week of June, he reported to Savile how, ‘Every man in this court thinks he stands fair for minister. Some give it to Shaftesbury, others to Halifax [George Savile*, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax], but Mr Waller says S[underland] [Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland], does all.’ It was a struggle in which Rochester had little interest in participating and he resolved instead to retire once again into Oxfordshire.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Rochester is said to have broken his usual silence in the House to speak out against Exclusion, but this is difficult to verify.<sup>78</sup> One speech sometimes attributed to him was most likely made by Laurence Hyde*, later earl of Rochester of the second creation.<sup>79</sup> Another, delivered on what occasion it is not clear, that was said to have consisted only of the lines, ‘My lords, I divide my speech into four parts. My lords, if I ever rise to speak again in this House, I give you leave to cut me in pieces’, may well be a later invention.<sup>80</sup> A rumour suggesting that Rochester had persuaded his countess to convert to Catholicism in anticipation of York’s succession is equally difficult to substantiate. According to evidence presented during the investigation of Stephen College (the ‘Protestant Joiner’), it was College, a trooper in Rochester’s regiment of horse, who was responsible for introducing Lady Rochester to a Catholic priest.<sup>81</sup> The only action that Rochester undoubtedly took in the Parliament of spring 1679 was to insist on 15 Mar. on his parliamentary privilege to secure the release of one of his servants who had been imprisoned for debt. </p><p>Following the dissolution in July 1679, Rochester enjoyed some success in the races at Woodstock that September, where his grey was reported to have won the plate.<sup>82</sup> The following month his health had once more collapsed and he was described as being ‘exceeding ill.’<sup>83</sup> He rallied early the following year to attend the House for the final time at the prorogation of 26 Jan. 1680. In March, for the last time, he managed to avoid yet another duel, which was to have been fought, like his abortive bout with Mulgrave, on horseback.<sup>84</sup> Rochester’s condition steadily deteriorated over the next few months, his style of living having damaged his health irreparably.<sup>85</sup> At the beginning of June, John Cary predicted that Rochester did not have long to live. His announcement was followed by the usual contradictory reports of the earl’s demise and steady recovery.<sup>86</sup> The former proved to be closer to the mark and on 26 July, aged only 33, Rochester finally succumbed to his excesses. Given the number of accounts of his expected recovery it is hardly surprising that at least one correspondent remained hopeful that once again the news was false.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Rochester’s early death was preceded by his spectacular conversion to the Church of England through the mediation of his chaplain Robert Parsons and Gilbert Burnet. In solidarity with her husband, his countess also returned to the Anglican fold.<sup>88</sup> Given his former demonstrations of penitence when <em>in extremis</em>, Rochester’s drinking companions not unreasonably assumed that his new-found religiosity was a temporary veneer. Rochester’s caustic response to their wishes that he might recover and return to his former amusements as well as later comments about his demeanour on his sickbed made by Dr Radcliffe suggests that his resolution to change his ways was genuine enough.<sup>89</sup> John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, certainly regretted that ‘an example which might have been of so much use and advantage to the world is so soon taken from us.’<sup>90</sup> Rochester’s passing was marked by an elegy by his half-sister Anne Lee, wife of Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Rochester left considerable debts.<sup>92</sup> His lodgings at Whitehall were sold to satisfy his creditors, who seem still to have been unsatisfied five years after his death.<sup>93</sup> Evidence of his extravagant and venal lifestyle remained among his belongings. Of his large collection of paintings, Lady Lindsey expressed an interest in securing first refusal on ‘all the little Dutch pictures that are fit for a woman to buy’ but added that there were numerous others in the collection ‘fitter to be burnt.’<sup>94</sup> In spite of this, Rochester’s children’s expectations were considerable and his daughters benefited financially from the early death of Charles Wilmot*, 3rd earl of Rochester, their brother . The three Wilmot girls were thus said to be expected to share an estate of £60,000 between them on attaining their majorities. Unsurprisingly, each married well. Rochester’s second daughter, Elizabeth, later married Edward Montagu*, 3rd earl of Sandwich, son of the Lord Hinchingbrooke whom her own mother had spurned. His youngest daughter, Mallet, was married to John Vaughan, Viscount Lisburne [I].<sup>95</sup> Rochester’s natural daughter by Elizabeth Barry appears to have been the beneficiary of £3,000 left to her by Anne Wharton.<sup>96</sup> Rochester was succeeded by his reputedly scrofulous son, Charles, but on his death only a year after his father, the peerage became extinct. The title was revived shortly afterwards for Clarendon’s younger son, Laurence Hyde, Viscount Hyde.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WINDSOR, Other (1679-1725) |
<p><strong><surname>WINDSOR</surname></strong>, <strong>Other</strong> (1679–1725)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1684-87 Ld. Windsor; <em>suc. </em>grandfa. 3 Nov. 1687 (a minor) as 2nd earl of PLYMOUTH |
|
First sat 10 Feb. 1701; last sat 27 Feb. 1721 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 27 Aug. 1679, o. s. of Other Windsor, later <em>styled</em> Ld. Windsor (<em>d</em>.1684) and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1688), da. of Thomas Turvey of Walcot and Wadborough, Worcs. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1694–7, DCL 1706; travelled abroad (France) 1700.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 27 Apr. 1705, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1711), da. of Thomas Whitley<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1696) of Peel Hall, Cheshire, 2s. <em>suc</em>. fa. 1684. <em>d</em>. 26 Dec. 1725; <em>will</em> 11 May 1722–5 March 1725, pr. 15 June 1726.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Freeman, Worcester 1710; <em>custos rot</em>. Worcs. 1710–15; ld. lt. Cheshire and N. Wales 1713–14; recorder, Worcester 1720–<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Described by Macky as ‘a handsome well made man, of a fair complexion’, who ‘loves his bottle and play’ and ‘has good sense when he pleases to shew it’, Windsor succeeded to the earldom of Plymouth at the age of eight. He owed his curious Christian name to his family’s conviction that they were descended from a Viking adventurer at the court of King Alfred.<sup>4</sup> His father had died three years previously and a year after his succession to the peerage the young earl also lost his mother. During his minority, administration of his lands (worth at least £3,000 per annum) and his guardianship were entrusted to George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, Sir William Coventry and Sir Willoughby Hickman<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup> Plymouth succeeded to a considerable estate in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, as well as to an interest in the scheme to render the rivers Stour and Salwarpe navigable.<sup>6</sup> The prospect of a long minority appears to have encouraged disputes among Plymouth’s trustees and in July 1690 a suit was launched by one of his guardians, Thomas Medhurst, against Halifax, Weymouth and Ursula, dowager countess of Plymouth, over the manor of Bromsgrove.<sup>7</sup></p><p>According to some sources Plymouth matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in October 1694, though there is no mention of this in <em>Alumni Oxonienses</em>. The college’s own records suggest that he attended from October 1694 to March 1697 but did not matriculate formally. He appears to have been a reluctant student. A letter from William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, in December 1696 expressed the hope that the earl had returned to Oxford and warned him to be ‘a little sensible of your present condition’.<sup>8</sup> Plymouth travelled to Paris in 1700 but he had returned to England by January 1701, when he offered his support to Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Rous at the election in Worcestershire.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Plymouth took his seat in the House on 10 Feb. 1701, four days into the new Parliament. He sat for a mere three days in February, one in March and was then absent throughout April, but he demonstrated renewed interest in the latter stages of the session and sat on 28 days from 5 May until the dissolution on 24 June (30 per cent of all sitting days). On 22 May he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for further limiting the crown and securing the rights of the subject and on 17 June he voted against acquitting John Somers*, Baron Somers. He then subscribed the two protests at the resolution to acquit the former lord keeper.</p><p>Missing at a call of the House on 5 Jan. 1702, Plymouth took his seat once more on 19 Jan., after which he was present on some 44 per cent of sittings during the session. On 20 Feb. he subscribed the protest against the resolution to attaint Queen Mary Beatrice of high treason and four days later he protested again at the resolution to pass the bill for the further security of the king’s person. On 16 May he registered his proxy with Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guildford, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Following Queen Anne’s succession, Plymouth was one of only four peers to delay swearing the abjuration oath, a stand that may reflect the influence of his guardian Weymouth.<sup>10</sup> He returned to the House at the beginning of the new Parliament on 6 Nov., and was thereafter present on 55 occasions until 26 Feb. 1703 (64 per cent of the whole). In January 1703 he was estimated to be in favour of the prevention of occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause.</p><p>The summer of 1703 found Plymouth grappling with his financial problems. In June he entered a complaint in chancery against William Asplin, who had been appointed steward of his Worcestershire estates by Halifax during his minority. The earl accused Asplin of causing ‘great damage’ to his lands, for which he sought restitution.<sup>11</sup> Plymouth was again estimated among those likely to support the occasional conformity bill in a forecast of November 1703. He took his seat in the second session on 8 Dec. and on the 14th voted in favour of passing the bill. His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’. He sat on 34 occasions until 27 Mar. 1704 (just over a third of the whole), after which he was absent from the House until February 1705. His absence may have been connected with rumours of a marriage in train with ‘Lady Sebright’ (possibly Anne, Lady Sebright, widow of Sir Edward Sebright, who later married another Worcestershire neighbour, Charles Littleton), but if there was any substance to the speculation the marriage failed to materialize.<sup>12</sup> Whatever the true reason for his failure to attend, Plymouth remained secluded in the country during the late summer of 1704.<sup>13</sup> Missing from the opening of the new session that October, the following month he was marked among those thought likely to support the Tack. He finally took his seat once more on 8 Feb. 1705, after which he was present on 11 sitting days (approximately 11 per cent of the whole).</p><p>Although an analysis of the peerage of April 1705 noted Plymouth as a Jacobite, the same month he married Elizabeth Whitley of Peel Hall in Cheshire, daughter of one of the most influential Whig figures in Flintshire.<sup>14</sup> This marriage brought Plymouth estates in the county and also connected him to the whiggish Mainwarings and to Sir Michael Biddulph<sup>‡</sup> of Elmshurst in Staffordshire.<sup>15</sup> Plymouth was absent, presumably on his honeymoon, for the election of May 1705 but he combined his interest with his cousin Gilbert Coventry*, later 4th earl of Coventry, at Worcestershire in support of Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>16</sup> Excused at a call of the House on 12 Nov. on the 24th Plymouth appears to have been at The Hague.<sup>17</sup> He had returned to England by the following month and took his seat on 10 Dec. sitting for a further 19 days before the close of the session in March 1706 (a fifth of the whole). On 9 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution to agree with the Commons that Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> letter was a scandalous, false and malicious libel.</p><p>Plymouth failed to attend the second session of 1706–7. He was missing at a call of the House on 29 Jan. 1707 and on 4 Feb. he registered his proxy in favour of Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea, which was vacated by the close of the session on 24 April. His absence may have been due to his efforts to set up his local interest in opposition to Sir John Talbot and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, who were both active promoters of the Droitwich bill, which threatened to reduce Plymouth’s revenues by enabling the corporation of Droitwich to convey their brine to the Severn in pipes, rather than by river up the Salwarpe. Although Plymouth was vocal in his opposition, Shrewsbury was dismissive of the influence he would be able to wield.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Plymouth took his seat during the following session on 10 Mar. 1708 and on 31 Mar. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to amend the decision of the committee for privileges that the committing of Marmaduke Langdale*, 3rd Baron Langdale, as a suspected papist was not a breach of privilege. During the same session, with Pakington, Robert Steynor and Martin Sandys, Plymouth opposed moves by the corporation of Droitwich. He does not seem to have inherited his grandfather’s obsession with navigation schemes but he was clearly unwilling to permit the corporation to deprive him of valuable tolls and the bill was eventually permitted to die quietly in committee.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Noted as a Tory in a list of party affiliations produced in May 1708, the same month Plymouth was involved in a further legal case, when he was defendant in an action brought by Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield complained that Plymouth had been remiss in keeping up with payment of interest on a mortgage of his lands at Tardebigge, which had originally been entered into by Plymouth’s father and grandfather in 1681. Chesterfield rapidly lost patience with Plymouth’s prevarications and in June he obtained an order to sequester the profits of both his real and personal estate. The order propelled Plymouth into answering the original complaint but once more he asked for more time to make good the debt.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Plymouth returned to the House at the beginning of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 (after which he was present on 47 per cent of all sitting days). In December he was named in a suit brought by Sir Francis Dashwood<sup>‡</sup> against Lady Plymouth and her mother, concerning the inheritance of Lady Plymouth’s cousin Thomas Lewes of Stamford. Dashwood claimed that mother and daughter had appropriated part of the estate, and that he was prevented from pursuing the matter by Plymouth’s privilege as a peer.<sup>21</sup> Dashwood later became Plymouth’s uncle by marriage when in 1720 he married Lady Elizabeth Windsor, as his fourth wife.<sup>22</sup></p><p>On 21 Jan. 1709 Plymouth voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the elections for Scots representative peers. He also continued to be troubled by his own financial problems and in February he presented a bill for vesting some of his estates in trustees to be sold to enable him to pay his debts, presumably in response to the earlier suit by Chesterfield. In March 1709 the bill was committed, and recommended to be passed with some minor amendments.<sup>23</sup> Edward Conway, Nathaniel Pigott and Pakington were named as the trustees.<sup>24</sup> In April he was named one of the reporters of a conference for the bill for the continuation of acts to prevent coining.</p><p>Plymouth next took his seat on 9 Jan. 1710, after which he was present on 34 per cent of all sitting days. On 16 Feb. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to adjourn. The same month he entered a further dissent at the resolution not to require James Greenshields to attend the House and at the resolution to request the queen to order John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, to Holland. The move to impeach Dr Sacheverell found Plymouth firmly in support of the embattled cleric and throughout March he entered a series of protests on the subject. Plymouth subscribed to a protest at the resolution that it was not necessary to include the particular words deemed criminal in an impeachment and the same month he dissented once more from the resolution not to adjourn. The campaign culminated in his finding Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, following which he entered a further dissent against the censure passed against him.</p><p>Plymouth was listed among those thought likely to support the new ministry in October 1710. During the week before the election held at Worcester on 17 Oct. he was greeted on his entry into the town by 1,000 horse and admitted a freeman amid ‘great entertainments’.<sup>25</sup> The following month he replaced the recently deceased Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, as <em>custos</em> <em>rotulorum</em> of Worcester.<sup>26</sup> He took his seat on 25 Nov. (after which he was present on just over 40 per cent of all sitting days) and in December he petitioned the House to allow him to bring in a bill to vest the manor of Wadborough in trustees to pay off his remaining debts. The bill was committed on 9 Feb. 1711 and on 17 Mar. received the royal assent. Conway, Pigott and Pakington were again named as trustees.<sup>27</sup> On 17 May Plymouth registered his proxy in favour of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], which was vacated by the close of the session on 12 June. On 10 June Lady Plymouth died in childbirth at Bath, which was presumably the reason for Plymouth’s absence during the final month of the session.</p><p>Plymouth was listed among the ‘Tory patriots’ of the previous session in June 1711. In advance of the new session, Francis Seymour Conway*, 2nd Baron Conway, undertook to ‘endeavour to bring my Lord Plymouth with me’ when he returned to London for the opening of Parliament and in December Plymouth was listed by Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, among those on whom he hoped to be able to rely.<sup>28</sup> Plymouth took his seat on the first day of the new session on 7 Dec. and he was thereafter present on 60 per cent of all sitting days in the session. The following day he entered his protest at the resolution to present the address to the queen. That month he featured on another memorandum drawn up by Oxford, possibly indicating that he was one of those being considered for appointment to the Privy Council or to the council of trade. On 10 Dec. he was listed among those who had held firm to the ministry on the question of ‘No Peace without Spain’. Five days later, Price Devereux*, 9th Viscount Hereford, registered his proxy in Plymouth’s favour. Four days after that Plymouth was noted among those thought to be in favour of allowing James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon but on 20 Dec. he voted in favour of barring Scots peers holding post-Union British titles from sitting.</p><p>The extent of Plymouth’s financial problems was confirmed in January 1712 with his inclusion in a list of the ‘poor lords’. In his case it was considered that a pension of £1,000 would secure his allegiance to the Hanoverian succession but it is perhaps an indication of his relative lack of influence that he was one of nine peers on the list not to be granted a pension.<sup>29</sup> On 12 Mar. Plymouth’s cousin Coventry registered his proxy in his favour, which was vacated by the close of the session. Towards the end of May Plymouth divided with the supporters of the ministry in voting against the opposition-inspired motion to address the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from mounting an offensive campaign against the French.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Oxford listed Plymouth among those whom he wished to contact in advance of the new session in February 1713. The following month Plymouth was included by Jonathan Swift among the likely supporters of the ministry. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr., after which he was present on approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days. In June he was believed to be in favour of adopting the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. His support for the regime finally looked set to be rewarded with his appointment to local office, though the following month he urged Oxford to complete the business, insisting that remaining in London was ‘very injurious’ to his health.<sup>31</sup> In September he was accordingly appointed to the lieutenancies of Cheshire and North Wales but there appears to be little evidence of his exercising much interest in either area during his brief tenure of the posts.</p><p>Plymouth attended two prorogation days on 10 Dec. 1713 and 12 Jan. 1714. The following month, on 9 Feb. he petitioned for a lease on the manor of Great Sanghall in Cheshire and two days later his petition was referred to the surveyor general of crown lands.<sup>32</sup> He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament a few days later on 16 Feb. but his level of attendance declined to just under a third of all sitting days. On 17 Mar. he registered his proxy with Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, which was vacated by his return to the House on 30 April. In May Plymouth was considered to be in favour of preventing the growth of schism and on 3 June he was entrusted with the proxy of his uncle Viscount Windsor [I] (sitting as Baron Mountjoy). Plymouth was also absent from the House briefly during July but he ensured that his proxy was registered on 3 July in favour of Nicholas Leke*, 4th earl of Scarsdale. The proxy was vacated by Plymouth’s return to the House for a single day on 8 July. He attended just two days of the brief session that met following the death of Queen Anne in August. On 6 Aug. he registered his proxy with Shrewsbury, which was vacated by his resumption of his place on 21 October. The same month he was removed as lord lieutenant of Cheshire, one of a number of Tories to be put out by the new regime.</p><p>Plymouth’s attendance of the House declined markedly after the Hanoverian succession. He was missing for the first three months of the new Parliament of March 1715, not taking his seat until 7 July. The same month he entered his dissent at the resolution not to delay consideration of the articles of impeachment against Oxford and at the resolution not to refer the question of whether the charges against Oxford amounted to treason to the judges for their consideration. Plymouth then entered a further dissent at the resolution to commit Oxford to Black Rod. On 27 Feb. 1716 he registered his proxy in favour of his uncle Windsor, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 24 May. During the remainder of his life Plymouth’s attendance became increasingly sporadic, with his absences covered by a series of proxies held by Windsor. Full details of the latter part of his career will be treated in the next section of this work.</p><p>In spite of his removal from the majority of his places of trust, Plymouth was elected recorder of Worcester in 1720. He attended the House for the last time on 27 Feb. 1721. In his will of 11 May 1722 he assigned the guardianship of his heir to his uncle Windsor and made bequests amounting to more than £1,000 to retainers, as well as £1,400 to his younger son, Henry Windsor. He died on 26 Dec. 1725 and was succeeded in the peerage by his elder son, another Other Windsor<sup>†</sup>, as 3rd earl of Plymouth.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WINDSOR, Thomas (c. 1669-1738) |
<p><strong><surname>WINDSOR</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1669–1738)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>19 June 1699 Visct. Windsor [I]; <em>cr. </em>1 Jan. 1712 Bar. MOUNTJOY |
|
First sat 2 Jan. 1712; last sat 21 June 1737 |
|
MP Droitwich 1685-7; Bramber 1705-8; Monmouthshire 1708-1 Jan. 1712 |
<p><em>b.</em> ?c.1669 2nd s. of Thomas Windsor*, 7th Bar. Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), but 1st by his 2nd w. Ursula, (<em>d</em>.1717), da. aand coh. of Sir Thomas Widdrington<sup>‡</sup> of Sherburn Grange, Northumb.; bro. of Andrews<sup>‡</sup> and Dixie Windsor<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. unknown. <em>m</em>. 28 Aug. 1703, Charlotte (<em>d</em>.1733), da. of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, wid. of John Jeffreys*, 2nd Bar. Jeffreys, 2s. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.),<sup>1</sup> 4da.<sup>2</sup> 1s. illegit. <em>d</em>. 8 June 1738; <em>will</em> 30 July 1737, pr. 2 June 1739.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Page of Honour by 1685-8; groom of the bedchamber 1692-1702.</p><p>Cornet, indep. tp. of horse 1685, 3rd Drag. Gds. 1685, capt. 1687, lt. col. 1690-4; col., regt. of horse 1694-7, 1702-7, 1711-12, 3rd Drag. Gds. 1712-17; brig. gen. 1702; maj. gen. 1704; lt. gen. 1707.</p><p>Freeman, Worcester 1685; steward, manor of Reigate 1695-7; dep. lt. Worcs. 1699, 1701;<sup>4</sup> steward of Bramber by 1708-?<em>d</em>.</p> |
|
<p>Windsor was said to have been ‘stirring’ for his elevation to the Lords for some time before his eventual promotion.<sup>9</sup> His father, Plymouth, had held office in the household of James*, duke of York, as master of the horse, and it was presumably through his interest that Windsor was appointed a page of honour at about the time of James’s accession to the throne.<sup>10</sup> Windsor did not share his father’s unquestioning loyalty to James II. He supported the Revolution, fought at the Boyne and became a successful career soldier under William III and Queen Anne. Although his regiment was disbanded in 1697, two years later he was made an Irish peer as a reward for his military service in Flanders.</p><p>In 1703 Windsor was able to add to his younger son’s inheritance thanks to a lucrative marriage to the widow of the 2nd Baron Jeffreys. His new wife, a niece of the duchess of Portsmouth, was suspected of Catholicism, but she brought with her the Welsh lands of her father, Pembroke, comprising some 60 manors in Wales (the most significant of which was the lordship of Cardiff) as well as an interest at Bramber in Sussex inherited from her former husband.<sup>11</sup> Windsor was thus able to add these estates to the rather modest interest at Reigate in Surrey, which he had inherited from his father.<sup>12</sup> Despite this he was unsuccessful at Bramber in November 1703, when he was warned by one of his agents of ‘a plot contriving’ against him.<sup>13</sup> He was again unsuccessful at the by-election of February of the following year. Windsor was finally returned during the election of May 1705. The same year he employed his interest on behalf of his younger brother, Dixie, for Cambridge University in opposition to Francis Godolphin*, then styled Lord Rialton, later 2nd earl of Godolphin, thereby earning the extreme displeasure of the lord treasurer (Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin).</p><p>Godolphin had his revenge two years later when Windsor was put out of his command of the 3rd dragoon guards. Robert Harley* (later earl of Oxford) and Abigail Masham were believed to have been behind his removal. The instruction informing Windsor of his replacement (as well as that of his brother Dixie) penned by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, was curt in the extreme.<sup>14</sup> Windsor’s removal elicited profound annoyance within much of the officer corps, among whom he was well liked and respected.<sup>15</sup> It also provoked him to complain directly to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, of the manner with which he had been dealt, which had left him ‘on a sudden, I know not how, nor why, discarded and disgraced.’<sup>16</sup> The financial implications of the loss of his regiment were compounded by a downturn in the rents accruing from Windsor’s Welsh lands in 1708, and he was further troubled at about this time with a series of legal disputes.<sup>17</sup> An action in Chancery initiated in 1707, which was brought by some of the creditors of the late earl of Pembroke, against Lady Windsor continued until at least 1711, while another dispute concerning Windsor’s purchase of land at Bramber remained unsettled in 1717.<sup>18</sup> Despite these distractions, Windsor was able to employ his interest successfully on behalf of William Shippen<sup>‡</sup>, Dixie Windsor’s brother-in-law, at the by-election at Bramber in December 1707. Windsor was also able to secure his own return for both Bramber and Monmouthshire the following year.<sup>19</sup> He chose to sit for the latter, and continued to do so until his elevation to the Lords in January 1712.</p><p>Windsor’s rental income rallied in 1709.<sup>20</sup> In May 1710 he exhibited a bill in chancery against his ally, Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, over an enclosure dispute in one of his Welsh manors.<sup>21</sup> Later the same year he was again successful at Bramber. He also employed his interest there on behalf of his brother, Andrews Windsor. Towards the end of the year rumours circulated that Windsor would be restored to a command in the army either displacing William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Cadogan, as colonel of a cavalry regiment or succeeding to that headed by Samuel Masham*, later Baron Masham, who was expected to be offered a place in the royal household. Windsor was restored finally to a colonelcy in April 1711, though Cadogan maintained command of his regiment until the following year.<sup>22</sup> Perhaps encouraged by this upturn in his fortunes, Windsor was noted by Peter Wentworth<sup>‡</sup> in June, to be ‘stirring about to make interest to be made an English peer’. He also recorded his irritation at the rumour that Sir Richard Child<sup>‡</sup>, later Earl Tylney [I], was shortly to be ennobled in return for a payment of £10,000, complaining ‘that’s beginning too soon to be like the duchess of M[arlborough], to do anything for money, making a man that’s no gentleman a lord.’<sup>23</sup></p><p>In spite of his efforts, Windsor was not among those promoted in September 1711.<sup>24</sup> He finally achieved his objective of an English peerage in January of the following year when he came in as one of the 12 new creations engineered by Oxford (as Harley had since become) to bolster support for the ministry in the House. Although he was the first of the 1 Jan. 1712 creations, with his patent timed 7 a.m. to distinguish him from Henry Paget*, Baron Burton (later earl of Uxbridge) whose patent was timed an hour later, Windsor was disappointed in his expectation that he would be first in precedence and he had to accept second place behind Oxford’s son-in-law, George Hay*, Baron Hay (later 8th earl of Kinnoull [S]), who outranked Windsor by virtue of his Scottish viscountcy of Dupplin.<sup>25</sup> Windsor found it impossible to disguise his bitterness at falling behind those he considered to be his true social equals. Commenting to his brother Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, a former comrade-in-arms and close friend of Windsor, Peter Wentworth recorded how:</p><blockquote><p>I was today to wish my Lord Windsor joy, and he told me he and you used to go hand in hand in your preferments, but now you had so far outstripped him that there was no hopes of his overtaking you unless his nephew [Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth], and children died, and then he might be before. He spoke this only to show how the world went, for nobody could have more satisfaction in your preferment than he had. I believe he really wishes you well, but I can but think has some little burning of envy.<sup>26</sup></p></blockquote><p>William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, confirmed Peter Wentworth’s assessment. On Windsor’s elevation he wondered ‘how a man of his singularity likes coming in with so much company.’<sup>27</sup></p><p>Whatever Windsor’s disappointment at ‘coming in’ as part of a mass creation, he took his seat in the House as Baron Mountjoy on 2 Jan. 1712, introduced between Francis North*, Baron Guilford, and Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle (and 4th earl of Orrery [I]). Windsor’s choice of title was intended as a reference to one of his family’s forebears, who had married a sister of Edward Blount<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Mountjoy, a barony extinguished at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Windsor proved regular in his attendance during the session, being present on 64 per cent of all sitting days. He came under heavy criticism for voting in favour of the grants bill but answered his critics by asserting that he had been told that if he did not vote he would ‘destroy the man to whom he owed it that he had a right to vote at all.’<sup>28</sup> On 23 May he received the proxy of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, which was vacated on 27 May. Although he was marked as being present on the attendance list that day, Windsor registered his own proxy in favour of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury (perhaps in anticipation of the general summons for the following day). In the event it proved unnecessary and the proxy was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 28 May on which day he voted with the ministry in rejecting the opposition’s calls for an address to the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from campaigning against the French.<sup>29</sup> At the beginning of June Windsor was included in a list of doubtful court supporters compiled by Oxford, but in advance of the following session he was noted by Dean Swift as one of those expected to support the ministry.</p><p>Windsor took his seat on 9 Apr. 1713, and again proved conscientious in his attendance, being present for approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days. Oxford’s forecast of his likely behaviour in the session proved to be more reliable than that of Swift. On 31 May 1713 Windsor was listed as one of those to be contacted in advance of the vote for confirming the French commerce treaty, and on 13 June he was noted by Oxford as being probably opposed to the measure. The same day he was included in a further list of 12 court supporters expected to oppose the ministry in the vote on the treaty. Other peers listed included Lady Windsor’s uncle, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, but Windsor’s opposition probably stemmed from his association with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (also earl of Greenwich), and Arthur Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey. Both were increasingly hostile to Oxford’s leadership and Windsor appears thereafter to have been a consistent member of Anglesey’s grouping of ‘Hanoverian Tories’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Despite his growing disquiet at Oxford’s administration, Windsor was one of those detailed to greet the French ambassador, the duc d’Aumont, at this formal entry in July 1713.<sup>31</sup> At the general election the following month Windsor again employed his interest successfully at Bramber on behalf of his brother, Andrews, but he withdrew his support from Shippen in favour of Francis Hawley<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Baron Hawley [I] (another associate of Anglesey’s group). In Monmouthshire, where the principal interest was contested between the Morgans of Tredegar and the dukes of Beaufort, Windsor offered his assistance to the latter in favour of Sir Charles Kemys<sup>‡</sup>, who was returned narrowly ahead of his Whig competitor, Thomas Lewis<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>32</sup> Continuing difficulties over the settlement of the former earl of Pembroke’s debts (in excess of £2,200) led to a proposal to sell off some of the Welsh estates in December 1713, but this scheme proved difficult to execute. The Monmouthshire estates were found to be too encumbered and income from the Glamorganshire estates was no longer sufficient to cover annuities.<sup>33</sup> In Worcestershire, Windsor indicated his eagerness to co-operate with William Lloyd*, of Worcester, by presenting his nephew, Dr Lloyd, to a living reputed to be worth £600 a year.<sup>34</sup></p><p>In advance of the session Windsor let it be known that he favoured inviting the electoral prince, Prince George*, duke of Cambridge, (later King George II), to England in reaction to the news of the queen’s ill health.<sup>35</sup> He took his seat in the House for the new Parliament on 2 Mar. 1714. The following day he demonstrated once more his discontent with the ministry by registering his proxy in Orrery’s favour.<sup>36</sup> Orrery employed it on 5 Apr. in opposition to the motion that the words ‘under her majesty’s government’ be added to the question whether the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover was in danger.<sup>37</sup> The proxy was vacated on Windsor’s return to the House on 12 April. In the intervening period Windsor had entertained the Scots Member, George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, at his retreat at Twickenham: another instance of Windsor’s association with Whigs and their associates at this juncture.<sup>38</sup> It was perhaps in response to such perceived acts of disloyalty that it was rumoured that Windsor was to be deprived of his regiment.<sup>39</sup> On 27 May he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being in favour of the schism bill. Absent again briefly from 28 May, on 3 June he registered his proxy with his nephew, Plymouth, possibly to ensure that his vote was not lost in any divisions on the schism bill, which was then being debated. The proxy was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 10 June.</p><p>Following the death of Queen Anne, Windsor attended ten days of the brief fifteen-day session, but he was said to have been ‘very angry’ not to have been made one of the regents. He was equally critical of the <em>Daily Courant</em>’s reporting of a speech given by Strafford, in which he was said to have declared King George’s ‘acquired right’ to the crown rather than his ‘undoubted’ right, as Windsor insisted it should have been expressed.<sup>40</sup> Support for the Hanoverian succession presumably saved Windsor from being removed from his colonelcy and on 26 Jan. 1715 he was included on a list of Tories still in office. He retained the command of his regiment for a further two years and continued to attend the House regularly for the remainder of his life, sitting for the final time on 21 June 1737. The latter part of his career will be dealt with in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Windsor died on 8 June 1738 and was buried according to his wishes next to his wife in Salisbury cathedral. An inventory of his goods at his house in Albemarle Street valued them at a little over £400 but his trustees’ accounts suggest that at the time of his death his estates generated approximately £32,000 p.a.<sup>41</sup> In his will provision for the inheritance of his estates was made among his daughters and surviving brother, Andrews Windsor. A natural son, William FitzThomas (alias Windsor) noted as a lieutenant in the regiment commanded by General George Wade<sup>‡</sup> was also acknowledged. Windsor was succeeded in the peerage by his second, but only surviving legitimate son, Herbert Windsor<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Viscount Windsor [I] and 2nd Baron Mountjoy, who had been married the previous year to one of the daughters of Sir John Clavering. The marriage was said to have brought with it £60,000. Following the 2nd Viscount’s death without male heirs all interest in the Windsor estates passed to the family of the earls of Bute.<sup>42</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WINDSOR, Thomas Windsor (1626-87) |
<p><strong><surname>WINDSOR</surname></strong> (<em>alias</em> <strong>HICKMAN</strong>), <strong>Thomas Windsor</strong> (1626–87)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1646-60 Ld. Windsor; <em>suc. </em>uncle 16 June 1660 as 7th Bar. WINDSOR; <em>cr. </em>6 Dec. 1682 earl of PLYMOUTH |
|
First sat 18 June 1660; last sat 28 Apr. 1687 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Sept 1626, s. of Dixie Hickman (<em>b</em>. c.1588) and Elizabeth (<em>b</em>. c.1592), da. of Henry Windsor<sup>†</sup>, 5th Bar. Windsor, sis. and coh. of Thomas Windsor<sup>†</sup>, 6th Bar. Windsor. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1657 (with £7,000) Anne (1635-67), da. of Sir William Savile<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, of Thornhill, Yorks., sis. of George Savile*, later mq. of Halifax, 1s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>., 2da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.);<sup>1</sup> (2) lic. 8 Apr. 1668 Ursula (1647-1717), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Widdrington<sup>‡</sup> of Sherburn Grange, Northumb. 3s. 5da.<sup>2</sup> <em>suc. </em>uncle 6 Dec. 1641; <em>d</em>. 3 Nov. 1687;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 11 June 1685, pr. 17 Mar. 1688.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Master of horse to James Stuart*, duke of York, 1674-6;<sup>5</sup> PC 30 Oct. 1685-<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. Worcs. 1660-62, 1663-<em>d</em>.; gov., Portsmouth 1681-<em>d</em>.,<sup>7</sup> Kingston-upon-Hull 1682-<em>d</em>.;<sup>8</sup> high steward Kingston-upon-Hull 1683-<em>d</em>.;<sup>9</sup> recorder, Worcester 1685-<em>d</em>.<sup>10</sup> Kingston-upon-Hull 1685-<em>d</em>.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Lt.-col. Sandys’ Regt. 1642-?6; gov. Jamaica 1661-4;<sup>12</sup> capt., duke of Richmond’s regt. of horse 1666,<sup>13</sup> Prince Rupert’s regt. of horse 1666;<sup>14</sup> col. regt. of horse (later 3rd Drag. Gds.) 1685-<em>d</em>.<sup>15</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1660, Gainsborough Old Hall, Lincs.</p> |
<p>The Windsor family traced their descent to before the Conquest. The earliest recorded member of the family was Othere (or Otho), who was variously described as a descendant of the dukes of Tuscany or of a Viking adventurer.<sup>18</sup> The family prospered throughout the middle ages, and in 1529 Henry VIII created Sir Andrews Windsor<sup>†</sup>, Baron Windsor of Bradenham. By the beginning of the 17th century, the family held property in Worcestershire, Surrey, Hampshire and Buckinghamshire. Despite continuing preferment from the time of the Reformation, the Windsors remained loyal to the Catholic Church.</p><p>In 1619 Elizabeth Windsor, sister to the 6th Baron Windsor, married Dixie Hickman of Kew, a cousin of Sir William Hickman<sup>‡</sup> of Gainsborough. Dixie Hickman was almost certainly a Protestant, but the 6th Baron adopted their son, who had been pointedly baptized Thomas Windsor, as his heir, and there is some suggestion that the boy was brought up a Catholic.<sup>19</sup> On the 6th Baron’s death at the end of 1641, Thomas Windsor inherited his uncle’s estate and assumed his surname and arms, thereby saddling himself with the ungainly name Thomas Windsor Windsor. Windsor’s inheritance included lands in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Suffolk, but was hardly an enviable one, his predecessor’s debts amounting to almost £45,000. A minor at the time of his succession to his uncle’s property, following the death of his parents shortly after, Windsor was made a ward of William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele. It may have been under Saye and Sele’s influence that Windsor converted to Protestantism, but unlike his guardian, Windsor remained solidly royalist in his sympathies. On the outbreak of the Civil War he succeeded in slipping away to raise a troop for the king. Windsor’s force operated throughout the conflict, by the close of which he was a full colonel.<sup>20</sup> Windsor demonstrated conspicuous gallantry at the battle of Naseby. In return for his service, Charles I proposed that the barony of Windsor should be brought out of abeyance in Windsor’s favour, but although from 1646 he was styled Lord Windsor, the peerage was not formally revived.</p><p>In 1646 Windsor surrendered to parliamentary forces at Hartlebury Castle, and the following year he compounded for his estates, paying £1,100.<sup>21</sup> He appears to have spent most of the Interregnum peacefully, concentrating on developing navigation schemes, and clearing his debts by undertaking extensive land sales, but doubts remained about his loyalty to the new regime. In 1651 he was summoned before the council of state and compelled to enter into a bond for his good behaviour over allegations that he had intended to fight a duel in Flanders, and in 1655 he was implicated in Penruddock’s rising.<sup>22</sup> The following year, on arrival in London he was one of a number of suspected royalists to be obliged to report his presence in the capital, though he seems to have escaped being required to declare where he was lodging.<sup>23</sup> The winter of 1656 found him engaged in the final stages of negotiations with Sir George Savile*, later marquess of Halifax, prior to his marriage to Savile’s sister, Anne. Windsor protested that the question of a portion was of little concern to him and that he was ‘not inclined to make unreasonable proposals’, but it seems clear that he was eager to have the terms of the marriage settlement secured. As well as bringing him into the circle of Sir George Savile and Sir William<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, the alliance also cemented Windsor’s already close relations with Christopher Hatton*, later Viscount Hatton.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Windsor was apparently disgruntled not to have been appointed one of the commissioners of the Great Trust, but in 1660 he was one of those to present General George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, with a declaration from the royalists of Worcestershire.<sup>25</sup> In March he was closely involved with the elections to the Convention, predicting ‘a great contest between the Presbyterian parsons and the Gentry’.<sup>26</sup> In the event, despite the efforts of Richard Baxter, both those returned for the county could boast firm Royalist credentials.<sup>27</sup></p><p>At the Restoration the abeyance of the barony of Windsor was finally terminated in his favour by a patent of restitution.<sup>28</sup> The manner of the award was controversial, the wording of the grant attempting to forestall any potential objections by explaining that, ‘if this declaration be ineffectual in law, his Majesty hereby erects, confirms and establishes to him and his heirs male the said dignity with all privileges and immunities thereunto belonging.’<sup>29</sup> Effectively, while the king had terminated the abeyance in Windsor’s favour, and limited the succession to his male heirs, in the event of any challenge the understanding was that Windsor would still enjoy his title as if a new creation.</p><p>Windsor took his seat in the House on 18 June 1660, two days after his title’s restitution, and was inaccurately listed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as ‘one of the lords whose fathers sat.’ The following month, Windsor was appointed lord lieutenant of Worcestershire. Windsor attended the first part of the Convention through much of July and August 1660. He was missing without explanation at a call of the House on 31 July but on 20 Aug. he was granted leave of absence and he last sat in the House during that part of the Convention on 28 August. In all he attended 45 per cent of the Convention’s sitting days up to the adjournment of 13 Sept., during which he was named to three committees.</p><p>In September, Windsor played a prominent role in overseeing the purging of the Worcester corporation.<sup>30</sup> He returned to the House, after the autumn adjournment, on 12 Nov. 1660 for the second part of the Convention (of which he attended 64 per cent of all sitting days), and on the following day submitted an account of the state of the militia in Worcestershire. Windsor’s authority was evidently not accepted without challenge, and one militia captain was imprisoned for questioning Windsor’s position.<sup>31</sup> On 17 Nov. and again on 3 Dec. he was added to the membership of a committee but the extent of his ambition was revealed on 27 Dec. when he delivered a petition asserting his claim to the hereditary office of lord high chamberlain. The office was in dispute between several competitors and Windsor submitted his claim as a direct descendant of John de Vere<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Oxford. The petition was referred to the House, but when the question of the disputed chamberlaincy was raised again, Windsor’s claim had been quietly laid aside.</p><p>Windsor returned to the House on 8 May 1661 for the opening of the Cavalier Parliament. On 11 May he and Hatton, introduced Anthony Ashley Cooper* as Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury). Quite why Windsor should have sponsored Ashley is unclear, though he was a distant relation by marriage. Windsor sat for much of the first session, approximately three quarters of all sitting days, during which he was named to 16 committees, and in June he was closely involved with the passing of the Rivers Salwerpe and Stour navigation bill. The measure was one with which he had a keen interest as the corporation of Droitwich had undertaken to pay him £550 for overseeing the work and at a session of the committee on 11 June both his role in the development and that of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, was noted in amendments to the bill.<sup>32</sup> Throughout his career, Windsor remained interested in similar projects. His close connection with Droitwich and also with Worcester was further evident by his addition to committees on 5 July, one for the bill uniting two parishes within Droitwich and the other for confirming the privileges of the Worcester weavers’ company. On 6 July he reported the continuing progress of his ‘bill about the rivers’, which had since been referred to a committee of the Commons, and on 9 July he was nominated to a sub-committee of three enjoined to hear parties involved in the bill of Sir Edward Mosely&<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>33</sup> Unsurprisingly, given his own interest in the office, he was noted as being opposed to the attempt of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, to secure the lord great chamberlaincy. At the end of the month of July Windsor was appointed governor of Jamaica with a pension of £2,000; his commission was dated 2 August.<sup>34</sup> Negotiations about the post had been current for some time but failed to meet with his wife’s approval. In mid-May she had admonished her brother and her uncle, Sir William Coventry, for Windsor’s unwelcome advancement. Concerned at the ‘diseases’ her husband would contract she begged her brother to dissuade Windsor from accepting the position.<sup>35</sup> Windsor evidently was similarly disinclined to risk the perils of the Indies. He made no immediate plans to take up his employment, concentrating instead on securing his pension and continuing with his attendance of the House until the adjournment of 30 July.</p><p>In September 1661, Windsor took a prominent part at the introduction of George Morley*, bishop of Worcester, into the city for his enthronement, the whole cavalcade supported by the ‘blare of trumpets, the volunteer militia, and the trained bands of the city and of the clergy.’<sup>36</sup> He returned to his place in the House on 21 Nov. and on 24 Jan. 1662 his name appeared in a manuscript list of members of the committee for drawing up an act for repealing acts of the Long Parliament. Along with the majority on the list his name was annotated with a cross, whose precise meaning is not clear.<sup>37</sup> On 3 Feb. 1662 Windsor complained to the Lords of an invasion of his privilege perpetrated by Thomas Mariott, who had attempted to evict his tenants from the manor of Church Honyborne in Worcestershire. The House ordered that Windsor’s tenants should be left in possession during the period of privilege. Three days later, Windsor entered his protest against the passing of the bill to restore to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, estates sold under the Commonwealth. Three weeks later, on 27 Feb., he was added to the committee for a navigation bill.</p><p>Windsor finally prepared to leave for Jamaica that April 1662. Sometime between 24 and 29 Apr. his proxy with Thomas Wriothesley* 4th earl of Southampton, was registered and he last sat in the House on 28 Apr., leaving England in early May.<sup>38</sup> Southampton also took over Windsor’s duties as lord-lieutenant of Worcestershire during his absence. Windsor arrived in Barbados in July where he paused to recruit settlers. Windsor’s activity in Barbados aroused the resentment of the council there, which complained that Windsor had failed to vet his new colonists properly, enabling a number of debtors and servants to abscond.<sup>39</sup> On arrival in Jamaica in August, Windsor found the island in some disarray. His predecessor, Colonel Edward D’Oyley, had exploited his position for his own benefit and that of the military. In accordance with his instructions, Windsor set about disbanding the old army, establishing a new militia, and a civilian constitution. In some respects he was successful in his tasks, but in at least one created an intractable problem for his successors by proclaiming all those born to English settlers on the island free denizens of England and as having ‘the same privileges, to all intents and purposes, as our free born subjects of England.’<sup>40</sup> Unsurprisingly, Windsor’s controversial proclamation was met with dismay by the government, which was eager to have the declaration overturned.</p><p>Faced with bands of potentially mutinous soldiers, Windsor initiated a raid on the Spanish fortress of St Iago.<sup>41</sup> The assault resulted in substantial plunder which helped satisfy at least some of his troublesome charges’ complaints, and enabled him to quit his post at the end of October 1662 on a positive note.<sup>42</sup> He left his brother-in-law, Colonel William Mitchell, in charge of the colony’s navy, and Sir Charles Lyttelton<sup>‡</sup> as lieutenant governor. Windsor’s relations with Lyttelton were far from harmonious. Lyttelton claimed that Windsor had cheated him of money owing to him. He also blamed Windsor for his wife’s death in the unhealthy climate of Jamaica. <sup>43</sup> After his return Windsor faced other criticisms arising from his governorship.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Windsor landed in Ireland in mid-February 1663 and later the same month arrived back in England. He made his return complaining of ill health, but boasting considerable achievements in regulating Jamaica’s government.<sup>45</sup> His swift return earned him a scathing comment from Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> who refused to believe Windsor’s expansive claims for his three-month tour of duty. The assault upon St Iago earned Windsor some plaudits at court, though the king was reported by some to be dissatisfied with Windsor’s actions, which had the unwelcome consequence of causing a diplomatic furore with the court of Spain, and an embargo on all English ships in Spanish waters.<sup>46</sup> Windsor was content shortly after to resign the office.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Windsor was missing but excused at a call of the House on 23 Feb. 1663, and finally took his seat on 30 April. Having returned to his place he proceeded to attend on just over a quarter of all sitting days in the 1663 session, and on 8 May he was named to the committee considering a bill to enable Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt, to sell lands in order to pay debts and raise portions.<sup>48</sup> Pakington was a relative by marriage, which may well explain Windsor’s inclusion on the committee. The following day Windsor was named to the committee considering John Robinson’s bill, and on 1 June that considering the free school at Witney, and the bill concerning the composition of differences between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his heir Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St John (later duke of Bolton). Windsor was then absent from the House from 12 June until the end of the session.</p><p>Windsor was away from the House for the first two months of the following session in 1664, but returned on 2 May and sat for the remaining fifteen days of the session (attending in all 39 per cent of all sitting days) during which he was named to three committees. He was then absent from the House for the following four sessions. Windsor’s absence may have been in part because of his duties in Worcestershire, but he also continued to be closely involved in the promotion of navigation schemes. In November 1664 he commissioned Andrew Yarranton to oversee a project to make the Avon navigable from Evesham to Stratford. Windsor eventually settled his rights in the Avon on his second wife Ursula, at which time he estimated they were worth some £400 p.a. The expected war with the French in 1665 found Windsor keen to find a role for himself in any resulting hostilities. Although he opposed conflict with what he deemed ‘the powerfullest nation we can engage against,’ he professed that, ‘in state affairs the King shall be my Pope, for I am resolved to believe as he does and obey what he commands.’<sup>49</sup></p><p>In the meantime, Windsor’s search for office continued and in June 1666 his wife approached her brother George Savile in the hopes of procuring for Windsor the governorship of Portsmouth, understanding it to be a ‘good place’ and declaring that Windsor would be as capable of overseeing ‘the place as well as another.’<sup>50</sup> In July Windsor approached Hatton with the offer of a place in one of the new independent troops then being commissioned, of which Windsor was to have the command.<sup>51</sup> The following year, Windsor was devastated by his wife’s death, his grief making him contemplate leaving the country. Continuing hostilities made travel abroad impractical, though, and Windsor resolved to remain in England until the end of the war.<sup>52</sup></p><p>On 21 Oct. 1667 Windsor took his seat once more in the House after a three-year absence. Three days later he was one of five peers to be added to the committee for the bill for enforcing the laws concerning pricing of wines. During the course of the session, of which he attended just under three quarters of all sitting days, Windsor was named to some dozen committees. On 20 Nov. he backed the moves against Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and on 20 Nov. entered his protest at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request to commit Clarendon without a specific charge.<sup>53</sup> On 9 Dec. he was added to the committee for the bill for Clarendon’s banishment. Windsor continued to sit regularly for the remaining weeks of 1667, but on 17 Feb. 1668 he was missing without explanation at a call of the House. He returned on 22 Feb. and two days later was added to the committee concerning trade. On 9 Mar. Windsor entered his protest at the resolution to grant relief to Cuthbert Morley and Bernard Grenville<sup>‡</sup>, plaintiffs in a case versus Jeremy and Henry Elwes. A week later, Windsor entered a further protest in the same cause and on 31 Mar. a third against the resolution to remit their cause to the court of chancery. On 24 Apr. Windsor was named to the committee considering the bill against duels.</p><p>In May 1669 Windsor decamped to the north for a month, taking care to advise his late wife’s brother, Halifax (as George Savile had since become), of his movements and requesting his ‘commands’ should he have any. By August he was settled at Hewell.<sup>54</sup> In October Windsor appears to have promoted the candidacy of Sir John Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> in the by-election for Evesham occasioned by the death of Abraham Cullen<sup>‡</sup>. Windsor returned to the House on 8 Nov. 1669. He was present on 69 per cent of all sitting days, attending until 9 Dec., two days before the end of the session, but was named to only two committees. He was granted leave of absence on 7 December. The Evesham election had bitterly divided the town, and on 22 Nov. Hanmer’s election was declared invalid. Windsor threw himself into campaigning on Hanmer’s behalf during the re-election, which resulted in Hanmer being elected once again. A further petition against his return was prevented by the death of the remaining Member allowing Hanmer’s principal rival to acquire the second seat without contest.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Windsor took his seat for the following session on 26 Feb. 1670, after which he was present on just 27 per cent of all sitting days but was named to 15 committees, many of them considering private bills. Evidence of his continuing interest in navigation schemes was apparent later in the session when on 6 Dec. he was added to the bill for improving navigation in Boston river. Absent from 15 Mar., Windsor entrusted his proxy to James Stuart*, duke of York until his return on 9 Nov., after the House had reconvened following the adjournment. During the long mid-year recess, Windsor travelled to Ireland, where he had been offered a command, which he again appears to have been reluctant to accept. <sup>56</sup> He sought Halifax’s advice about the matter as it had been intimated to him that he could be serviceable there on York’s behalf. On arrival, he was informed that his new post had already been given to Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], instead. The slight offered Windsor a convenient excuse for quitting Ireland. Windsor professed himself relieved, commenting that the lord lieutenant, John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, had done him ‘a kindness, for the commands here are not worth my attendance.’<sup>57</sup> On 22 Nov. Windsor, now back in the House, was named to the committee considering the Worcester gaol bill, which presumably had some local interest for him. On 16 Dec. he was granted leave of absence and he remained away for the remainder of the session, again entrusting his proxy to York. Towards the end of the session, on 15 Apr. 1671, the House heard the complaint of John Rawlins, one of Windsor’s servants, who had been arrested at the suit of John Watson and been subjected to abusive language by the arresting bailiffs. The House ordered the attachment of the offending parties, who were to be brought before the bar to answer the charges against them.</p><p>Windsor’s absence from the final months of the session may have been in part relating to his attempts to resolve an ongoing dispute involving his niece, Mary Ware, and Berkeley of Stratton. Mary Ware claimed to have been forcibly married to one James Shirley in Ireland in 1668, and accused Shirley of rape. Shirley was shortly after freed by Berkeley’s interposition, and the case led to Berkeley issuing Windsor with a challenge during Windsor’s visit to Ireland. <sup>58</sup> Windsor claimed to have refused the challenge at the time, not wishing to fight with the king’s deputy, but on Berkeley’s return to England in June 1671, Windsor reminded him of the as yet unfought duel and now offered him satisfaction. Berkeley denied ever having challenged him. He declined to fight and hurried to report the matter to the king. The business was taken up by the Council and as a result, Windsor was imprisoned in the Tower. There, he was feted by much of society and following a petition claiming that he had ‘offended by mistake’ he was quickly released and restored to favour at court, though the Council reputedly ‘would hear nothing in favour of him.’<sup>59</sup> It was widely believed that the conflict was at least in part caused by the attempts of Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, to maintain her supremacy over the king’s other mistresses.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Windsor continued to be troubled by personal difficulties. He had remarried in April 1668 (his new wife Ursula, daughter of Sir Thomas Widdrington<sup>‡</sup>, had been referred to by Margaret Elmes rather dismissively as ‘one of Sir Something Wetherington’s daughters’), but in 1672 he was dismayed to learn that his late wife Anne had deliberately hidden from him certain articles concerning provision to be made for their daughter, Mary.<sup>61</sup> News of the deception only reached Windsor when his daughter married Sir Thomas Cooke in August 1672. Attempting to justify himself to his kinsman Henry Coventry, Windsor protested that:</p><blockquote><p>to be distrusted by her, that I would have deceived her will and my own child was an unkind thought… I think myself only happy that whilst I am living and when I am dead, it will be found I never spent or gave away a farthing belonging… to her children and that yourself and the rest of her relatives have seen me change my daughter’s estate… from being only for life to inheritance.<sup>62</sup></p></blockquote><p>Anne, Lady Windsor may simply have been attempting to protect her daughter’s interests against her husband’s natural inclination to concentrate all his resources in the interest of their son, the singularly named Other Windsor. Following his daughter’s marriage petulance at being duped perhaps decided him against adding to her allocation of jewellery. In explaining his decision Windsor slighted his new son-in-law’s family, pointing out that, ‘that family not being used to such things, may turn both into money, and the less I give away, it will be better for Other.’<sup>63</sup></p><p>Windsor returned to the House on 15 Feb. 1673, shortly after the opening of the new session, after which he was present on 61 per cent of all sitting days. He was added to the committee for the bill concerning attorneys. Named to a further eight committees during the session, he was nominated to that considering the bill concerning the dean and chapter of Bristol on 27 February. The previous day, Windsor was forced to raise once more the question of his servant, Rawlins, and his arrest in April 1671, as neither Watson nor the bailiffs had answered the summons to appear at the bar. The House once again issued an order for their apprehension.</p><p>In the autumn of 1673, Windsor faced a dilemma. The death of the member for Tewkesbury, Richard Dowdeswell<sup>‡</sup>, necessitated a by-election which was contested by Dowdeswell’s son, Charles, and Sir Francis Russell<sup>‡</sup>. York opposed Russell’s candidature, and Windsor was approached by Henry Coventry to use his influence in the town on Dowdeswell’s behalf. Windsor excused himself explaining that the inhabitants of Tewkesbury being ‘most sectaries’ his acquaintance there was very small, in addition to which he was engaged in a dispute with the corporation over his ownership of a lock on the town’s waterways. A further difficulty was that Russell, one of Windsor’s deputy lieutenants, had acted on Windsor’s behalf in negotiating a marriage for Windsor’s heir. With so many factors limiting his influence, Windsor begged Coventry to ‘prevent any farther commands to me in this business.’<sup>64</sup> The election for Bewdley, also in November 1673, found Windsor more eager to assist on behalf of Thomas Thynne<sup>‡</sup>, though he was forced to concede that Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> had at least three quarters of the vote.<sup>65</sup> Faced with such opposition, Thynne appears not to have stood.</p><p>Windsor failed to attend during the brief 4-day session of late October 1673, but took his seat once more on 24 Jan. 1674, three weeks into the following session, after which he was present on 58 per cent of all sitting days. From 26 Jan. he held the proxy of James Fiennes*, 2nd Viscount Say and Sele, for the entire session. Shortly after the conclusion of this session Windsor, in early March, became master of horse for York. <sup>66</sup> Windsor attended the prorogation day on 10 Nov. and then returned to the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 13 Apr. 1675. The following day he was named to the committee considering the bill to prevent frauds and perjuries. On 29 Apr. he was nominated to the committee considering the bill for Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, and on 28 May to that considering the bill for the better government of the Thames watermen. Windsor was passionately interested in matters concerning navigation, which may explain his inclusion on this committee. He was named to a further five committees, and continued to sit until the close of the session on 9 June, having attended 95 per cent of all sitting days. Interestingly, his name does not appear in any of the accounts of the debates or protests on the non-resisting test bill.</p><p>Windsor was absent from the opening of the following session of autumn 1675, but ensured that his proxy was once again entrusted to York. In the first of two letters of 15 Oct. he enquired of George Legge*, later Baron Dartmouth, whether York required the proxy, given that Windsor planned to be in London early the next month and in the second letter he conveyed the completed proxy form to Legge, seeking that he assure York that ‘not only my vote, but my life shall always be at his disposal’.<sup>67</sup> The proxy was vacated by Windsor’s eventual return to the House on 20 Nov. when he was among the court majority voting against the motion for an address requesting a dissolution, a division in which he surprisingly took a stance opposite his master York. That was the only time he attended that session, which was prorogued two days later.</p><p>In the interval between the close of the session and the opening of the new one, Windsor in March 1676 sold his place as master of the duke’s horse to Legge. In its place he appears to have angled after a military position, though a posting to Ireland also seems to have remained on the horizon. In May it was said that he was retreating to the country and that his new house in St James’s had been taken for the duchess of Mazarin, a development that ‘infinitely displeased’ her rival, the duchess of Portsmouth.<sup>68</sup> The second half of that year appears to have found Windsor concentrating on settling his financial affairs. Disagreements with his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Cooke, also continued to exercise him and by the end of the year relations had reached such a low ebb that Lady Cooke was forbidden to visit her father.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Concerns about his children continued to disturb Windsor in the first months of 1677. His daughter-in-law had been in London for a month, causing him concern on her behalf but also on account of the likely reaction of her husband, his son Other, to any gossip about her behaviour. Windsor worried that his heir had developed ‘something of an Italian humour’. He entrusted Lady Cooke to Halifax, worrying ‘how many young ladies (in our time) have brought virtue and modesty to town with them, and there lost it’. Concerns about their behaviour continued to perplex Windsor well into the following year.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Windsor was back in town in time to take his seat at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677, after which he was present on approximately 59 per cent of all sitting days of this frequently interrupted session. On 1 Mar. he was added to the committee for the bill for Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, on 6 Feb. 1678 to the bill for Cartwright’s estate and on 23 Mar. 1678 to the bill for charitable uses concerning Henry Smith. In all he was named to some 27 committees in the course of the session. Alongside of his activities in the House, Windsor also appears to have found time to continue his business dealings and on 5 Apr. 1677 he wrote to Hatton, having failed to find him at one of the committees, conveying information about a financial transaction.<sup>71</sup> As a staunch supporter of the court, Windsor was initially noted by Shaftesbury (as Ashley had since become) as ‘doubly vile’, though it appears that Shaftesbury reduced this opinion to just ‘singly vile’ at some point. Windsor quit the session after 26 May 1677, two days before it was adjourned, and by early July he was in Yorkshire from where he intended to visit Halifax at Rufford. His hopes of the birth of a grandson were blasted when his daughter-in-law miscarried in October.<sup>72</sup> He returned to the House on 29 Jan. 1678 and sat until the prorogation. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of murder.</p><p>Windsor sat for just under 35 per cent of all days in the following session of summer 1678. Although missing from the attendance list on the opening day of 23 May, he was nominated to the committee for petitions, so presumably took his place once the day’s business was underway. The following day he was named to the committee for the Protestant strangers relief bill and he was named to a further three committees in the course of the session. On 5 July he signed the dissent from the resolution to ascertain the relief of the petitioner in the cause of <em>Darrell v Whichcot</em>. Once again he kept Hatton informed of events, reporting to him the proceedings between Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, and ‘your countryman’, Lewis Watson*, later earl of Rockingham, about Watson’s marriage settlement.<sup>73</sup> His hopes of ‘public employment’ were said to have disappeared with the conclusion of peace. Windsor himself commented gloomily before the following session’s opening that, ‘unless there be a war I think not to be there at their first meeting, for if our House continue in the late ways of proceeding, there is little use of many.’ He was also dismayed by the ongoing tensions within his family. Relations with the Cookes remained poor. His son’s apparent refusal to dismiss one of their servants, possibly a mistress, was another cause of ill will; relations with his daughter-in-law were no better but he had to admit that she was ‘too fast linked to my family to be removed, but must be endured’. By September he appears to have resolved to forgive his son, but only on condition that he ‘put away Lucy’: the servant in question.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Having attended the prorogation day of 1 Aug. Windsor took his place in the House on 14 Nov. 1678, three weeks into the new session. Even though his name appears on the attendance register for the following day, 15 Nov., it does not appear in the list drawn up by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), of those present to vote on a motion regarding the test bill. However at least one contemporary included Windsor among the chief opposers of the test bill.<sup>75</sup> He was present for about half of the sittings of this final session of the Cavalier Parliament. On 22 Nov. he was named to the committee for inspecting the terms for calling out the militia. He was named to two more committees during the session and on 7 Dec. was added to the committee for examinations. On 30 Nov. a letter was read in the House addressed to Windsor from Sir John Pakington detailing the action taken in Worcestershire against the local Catholic population and on 3 Dec., following information provided by Windsor, the House considered a dispatch from the mayor of Worcester, relating the scandalous behaviour of two local men who had impugned the Protestantism of the majority of the bishops. One of them, Whitaker, was required to provide bail against his appearance at the bar. Yet on 20 Dec. he joined a large number of ‘country’ peers in registering his dissent from the resolution to agree with the amendments proposed by the committee considering the disbandment bill.</p><p>Windsor was missing from the first six weeks of the new Parliament, in advance of which he had been estimated by Danby as one of his potential supporters (though noted likely to be absent). In this final decade of his life, Windsor began to suffer from violent fits and on 31 Mar. 1679 he wrote to Halifax, ‘This being some hours before the time of expecting my ninth fit, I am just able, and that not without difficulty, in my own hand, to give you thanks for moving the House to dispense with my absence’. Promising to attend as soon as his strength allowed, Windsor undertook to entrust Halifax with his proxy should he be unable to sit throughout the session.<sup>76</sup> On 3 Apr. he was excused his attendance following the deposition of two witnesses that he was ‘so sick of an ague’ that the journey might endanger his life. Windsor recovered sufficiently to return to the House for the session on 28 Apr. after which he sat regularly until the prorogation of 27 May (attending in all 43 per cent of all sitting days). On 10 May he again joined the ‘country’ peers in voting in favour of appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached peers, and he even signed the dissent when that proposal was rejected. He further entered his dissent on 27 May from the resolution to insist on the vote confirming the bishops’ right to remain in court in capital cases.</p><p>Poor health did not prevent Windsor from being mentioned as a possible commander for the forces being sent north to counter the Scots rebellion in June of 1679; neither did it prevent him from continuing to exercise his duties in Worcestershire with his usual application.<sup>77</sup> Among those proposed as deputy lieutenants in 1679 were Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Lechmere. Windsor felt obliged to draw attention to Lechmere, his father having been in arms for Parliament in the Civil War, but he asserted that he had otherwise ‘never heard ill of this gentleman.’ Foley, on the other hand, Windsor had only added to the list unwillingly, and he was at pains to explain that his inclusion in the commission might not be thought fit, particularly as he was ‘no way well affected’ and ‘against the crown’s continuing in the right line.’<sup>78</sup> Windsor was similarly rigorous over enforcement of the oaths to be tendered to the county’s Catholic population, which in April 1680 resulted in over 400 Catholics being bound over to appear before the next sessions. Windsor may have been eager to stress his commitment to the established church and sensitive of the rumours of his earliest Catholic upbringing. At the quarter sessions he had a letter read out which he had received from a local Catholic ‘in vindication of myself’ and proceeded to emphasize that he was ‘very far from being of that religion, and did both hope and believe I never should be of that opinion, and therefore would not be thought to be their friend otherwise than to be civil to any gentleman and especially to any that served the king in the war’.<sup>79</sup> In June 1680 Windsor approached Halifax in the hopes of obtaining a settlement for one of his sons whom he intended to send into the Church of England ‘finding he will make a scholar and is of a modest and even temper.’ Windsor hoped that Halifax would undertake to present the young man (probably Dixie Windsor<sup>‡</sup>) to his ‘best parsonage’.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Windsor was present for almost all the sittings of the following two Parliaments. Having attended the prorogation day on 22 July, he took his seat in the second exclusion Parliament on 22 Oct.1680, a day into its proceedings, after which he was present on 67 per cent of all sitting days and named to three committees. On 15 Nov. he (perhaps following the lead of Halifax) voted in favour of rejecting the bill for exclusion on its first reading and on 23 Nov. he voted against appointing a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom. The following month, on 7 Dec., he found William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason.</p><p>Windsor was active in the elections to the 1681 Parliament, campaigning in Worcestershire with his relative John Coventry*, 4th Baron Coventry, on behalf of Samuel Sandys<sup>‡</sup> who was standing against Foley.<sup>81</sup> Windsor featured prominently at a meeting of the local gentry held on 10 Feb. and pledged £200 in the event of the election ending in a poll. But despite expending over £500 during the contest, he was unable to impose his will on the county and Foley was duly returned.<sup>82</sup> Windsor’s efforts were clearly called into question as he later insisted that he had ‘not in the least let the inclinations of the honest party cool,’ while his opponents celebrated his discomfiture with a ballad mocking his decision to find Viscount Stafford not guilty.<sup>83</sup> In a pre-sessional forecast of 17 Mar. 1681, Danby estimated that Windsor would support moves to bail him from the Tower and three days later, Danby’s son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Viscount Latimer, informed his father of Windsor’s promise to assist him despite his former ‘coolness’ towards the imprisoned earl.<sup>84</sup> Windsor took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament in Oxford the following day, 21 Mar., and proceeded to attend each day of the week-long session.</p><p>Windsor persisted with his efforts to seek his own advancement. He was able to rely on York’s interest to help further his ‘concerns’ with the king towards the end of 1680. In April the following year, hearing that Prince Rupert was thought likely to die, which would result in a vacancy in the office of constable of Windsor Castle, he approached Legge, Halifax and Laurence Hyde*, Viscount Hyde (later earl of Rochester), in the hopes of acquiring it, even though he now professed himself ‘afraid of losing the substance in catching at a shadow’. He cited his family’s previous tenure of the post ‘from before the conquest’ and justified the wisdom of his selection ‘because it is possible if the office once come again into the family it may some time remain there.’<sup>85</sup> In this Windsor was unsuccessful, but in May he approached Legge once more hoping that he would intercede with York in procuring him an office, complaining that, ‘it will much discourage me to see lawyers and men of private families advanced before me, who will not stand by him [York] when I will.’<sup>86</sup> Over the next two months reports circulated that he was to be appointed to the governorship of Portsmouth, but in this too Windsor was disappointed and the position eventually fell to Edward Noel*, Baron Noel (later earl of Gainsborough).<sup>87</sup></p><p>In the absence of a new office, Windsor returned to Worcestershire in the summer of 1681 to preside over the county assizes and to agree on candidates for the anticipated elections.<sup>88</sup> He continued his correspondence with Legge (whom he later approached to stand godparent to his latest son along with Lady Halifax and Lawrence Womock*, bishop of St Davids), thanking him for passing on information to the king and also continued to press for favours. He alerted Halifax to an expected vacancy among the Worcester prebends, which he hoped to secure for his chaplain, and approached Legge to use his interest on behalf of one of his sons, whom he hoped might be made a page to the duchess of York. In reporting to Halifax his efforts to keep order in Worcester, he also made sure to remind his kinsman of his own qualifications and that if ‘there fall any employment where I may be capable to serve’ that he would not be overlooked.<sup>89</sup> His continuing interest in matters relating to navigation was reflected in his entering into a business partnership with George Pitt and Cresheld Draper<sup>‡</sup> involving a new wet dock invention.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Constant loyalty to the regime, and Halifax’s patronage, resulted eventually in further honours for Windsor.<sup>91</sup> On 9 Nov. 1682 it was reported (inaccurately) that he was to be made master of the Cinque Ports; the same day a report circulated of his appointment to the governorship of Kingston-on-Hull, newly vacated following the disgrace of John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham).<sup>92</sup> Shortly after, on 6 Dec., he was advanced in the peerage to the earldom of Plymouth.<sup>93</sup> The following year, he was closely involved with the drawing up of new charters for Evesham and Worcester.<sup>94</sup> His responsibilities at Hull commanded much of his attention and in July 1683, having failed to persuade Halifax to accept the honour, he was appointed high steward of Hull, replacing James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>95</sup> The same month, it was rumoured that Plymouth was to succeed Ralph Montagu*, later duke of Montagu, as master of the wardrobe but nothing came of this.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Poor health once again intervened to curb Plymouth’s advance. Evesham’s new charter, it was feared, would be delayed by Plymouth falling seriously ill during the winter of 1683, and in December it was reported that he was ‘so grievously afflicted with the palsy in both arms that he cannot hold a pen.’<sup>97</sup> Plymouth was further afflicted in November 1684 with the death of his heir, Other Windsor.<sup>98</sup> Sickness hardly explains Plymouth’s poor decision to invest £70 in two horses, formerly owned by James Hamilton*, styled earl of Arran [S] (later 4th duke of Hamilton [S]), ‘both faulty. The one with sore heels… the other bad feet’. Arran’s agent reckoned them ‘useless and expensive’ but was still able to fleece Plymouth for £10 more than they had cost to buy in the first place.<sup>99</sup></p><p>In September 1684 the corporation of Hull surrendered its charter. Plymouth was closely involved with drawing up its replacement but the new charter had still not been finalized by the time of the election to the 1685 Parliament (managed in that borough for the administration by Plymouth). The eventual document agreed upon in July 1685 confirmed Plymouth’s influence in the town by naming him as recorder. His influence was similarly indicated by the corporation’s agreement that Plymouth should name one of the candidates to the governing body, prompting an offer to Halifax’s heir, Henry Savile, styled Lord Eland. Eland clearly proved unwilling and the seats went instead to Plymouth’s kinsman, Sir Willoughby Hickman<sup>‡</sup>, and to the corporation’s own candidate, John Ramsden<sup>‡</sup>. Plymouth’s influence in Droitwich was also underlined by the return of his son, Thomas Windsor*, later Viscount Windsor [I] and Baron Mountjoy, despite his being only 16 years old. The death of Plymouth’s heir the previous year was presumably the reason for hastening the career of his now eldest surviving son. Plymouth was less successful in Evesham where he failed to persuade the corporation to accept one of his nominees, Sir Thomas Haslewood, though his other candidate, Henry Parker<sup>‡</sup>, was returned apparently unopposed.<sup>100</sup></p><p>Plymouth took his seat at the opening of James II’s Parliament, when he was introduced in his new dignity between Ailesbury and Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. Thereafter he was present on just under three quarters of all sitting days and was named to 10 committees between 23 May and 27 June, in the first part of the session before the adjournment called to deal with Monmouth’s rebellion. On 26 May the House was informed that Plymouth had been subject to a breach of his privilege concerning a suit in chancery, when one of the masters, Sir William Beversham, had refused to allow Plymouth to give his evidence by his ‘honour’ rather than on an oath sworn on the Bible. Beversham was brought before the bar of the House the following day to make submission for the offence. On 20 June he was ordered, along with a number of other lords lieutenants, to raise the militia in response to the Monmouth rebellion and to imprison all known disaffected people, and he last sat in the House before the adjournment on 27 June.<sup>101</sup> On 15 July he was commissioned to raise a regiment of horse to suppress the rebellion, which later became known as the 3rd Dragoon Guards.<sup>102</sup> Having fulfilled his duties in suppressing rebellion, by September he was still at his seat in Worcestershire from where he reported the disbelief of the locals to news of Monmouth’s death. They were, he noted, ‘generally uneasy, I wish it have no ill consequence.’<sup>103</sup></p><p>On 30 Oct. 1685 Plymouth was appointed to the Privy Council and in January 1686 he was one of those named as triers of Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), in the court of the lord high steward.<sup>104</sup> He suffered from further ill health in April, being incapacitated with gout, but in May he was actively involved with suppressing disorders in Worcester, and by June was well enough to join his regiment stationed at Hounslow Heath.<sup>105</sup> Shortly after, it was rumoured that in spite of his unflagging support for James while duke of York, and for the new king’s policy of repealing the Test Act, he was to be displaced as lord lieutenant of Worcester in favour of the Catholic, Francis Smith*, 2nd Viscount Carrington. It was also speculated that he was to lose his governorship of Hull. The rumour continued to circulate into the following year but in the event Plymouth held onto his offices until his demise in the autumn of 1687.<sup>106</sup></p><p>At the beginning of 1687 Plymouth was still thought likely to support repeal of the Test Acts but by the early summer some appear to have thought that he had altered his position and was now sympathetic to those opposed to the king’s catholicizing policies. If so, he seems to have been reluctant to act explicitly. Roger Morrice recorded a conversation Plymouth had with ‘an English gentleman’ in which Plymouth, having lamented the ‘danger of Popery’, was accused of having used his influence to promote ‘such persons in elections as have brought these dangers upon us.’ On being asked whether he would call a meeting in his county to select ‘fit persons’ to serve in Parliament who would act against popery, Plymouth reportedly ‘shrugged his shoulders and would not come up to that point’; nevertheless, Morrice thought there was reason to believe the earl would not stand in the way of such ‘fit persons’ being chosen.<sup>107</sup>In spite of such ambiguous reports, Plymouth remained doggedly loyal and in July 1687 it was even speculated that he was to be entrusted with an additional responsibility as lord lieutenant of the East Riding.<sup>108</sup> On the production of Hull’s address to the king in response to the Declaration of Indulgence, Plymouth, finding the wording insufficiently abject, rewrote the document himself.<sup>109</sup> In October 1687 he was active in selecting candidates in Worcestershire for the anticipated new elections.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Plymouth did not live to see the result of his labours, dying on 3 Nov. 1687 (though a newsletter to the diplomat Edmund Poley dated 4 Nov. recorded the death as having happened two days before).<sup>111</sup> In his will of 11 June 1685 Plymouth nominated Halifax, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, Sir William Coventry and Sir Willoughby Hickman to be guardians to his grandchildren, Other Windsor*, styled Lord Windsor (later 2nd earl of Plymouth), and Henry Windsor. Clearly mindful that he had been unable to provide satisfactory sums for his five daughters by his second wife, Plymouth required that a further £1,000 should be added to each daughter’s portion of £1,300 on their marriage days. Gifts of the same amount were also to be made to his sons Dixie and Andrews Windsor<sup>‡</sup> on attaining their 21st birthdays. As a final act of loyalty and as a symbol of past comradeship as his former master of the horse, Plymouth also made a bequest of £200 to the king for the purchase of a pair of hunting horses. Ursula, countess of Plymouth, Sir Willoughby Hickman, Sir Robert Markham, Sir Robert Shafto, Dr Ralph Widdrington and Theophilus Leigh were nominated to act as executors.<sup>112</sup> Plymouth was buried at Hewell and succeeded in the peerage by his eight-year-old grandson, Other Windsor.<sup>113</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
WRIOTHESLEY, Thomas (1608-67) |
<p><strong><surname>WRIOTHESLEY</surname></strong> (<strong>RISLEY</strong>), <strong>Thomas</strong> (1608–67)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 10 Nov. 1624 (a minor) as 4th earl of SOUTHAMPTON; <em>suc. </em>fa.-in-law 21 Dec. 1653 as 2nd earl of CHICHESTER |
|
First sat 22 Mar. 1628; first sat after 1660, 21 May 1660; last sat 29 Nov. 1666 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Mar. 1608, 2nd but o. surv. s. of Henry Wriothesley<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Southampton and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. c.1655), da. of John Vernon of Hodnet, Salop. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1613-19; St John’s, Cambs. 1625-6; travelled abroad (France, Low Countries). <em>m</em>. (1) 18 Aug. 1634, Rachel (<em>d</em>.1640), da. of Daniel de Massue, seigneur de Ruvigny, wid. of Elysée de Beaujeu, seigneur de la Maisonfort in Perche, 2s. <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>., 3da. (1 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); (2) c.24 Apr. 1642, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1658), da. of Francis Leigh<sup>†</sup>, earl of Chichester, 4da. (3 <em>d</em>.<em>v</em>.<em>p</em>.); (3) settlement 7 May 1659, Frances (<em>d</em>.1680), da. of William Seymour*, marquess of Hertford (later 2nd duke of Somerset), wid. of Richard Molyneux, 2nd Visct. Molyneux [I], <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. KG 1661. <em>d</em>. 16 May 1667; <em>will</em> 11 July 1666, pr. 22 May 1667.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber 1642; PC 1642, 1660-<em>d</em>.; cllr. to Prince of Wales 1645; ld. high treas. 1660-<em>d</em>.; chan. of the exch. 1660-1;<sup>2</sup> commr. trade and foreign plantations 1660-<em>d</em>.; Royal Fishery 1661.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Warden of New Forest 1629-46, 1660-<em>d.</em>; high steward Univ. of Cambs. 1642-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt., Hants 1641 (jt.), 1660-<em>d</em>. (sole), Norf. 1660-1, Wilts. 1661-<em>d</em>., Worcs. 1662-3, Kent 1662-<em>d</em>.; recorder Lichfield 1664-<em>d.</em><sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, NPG 681.</p> |
<p>Southampton was described by Edward Hyde*, future earl of Clarendon, as ‘one of the most excellent persons living. Of great affection to the king; of great honour; and of an understanding superior to most men.’<sup>7</sup> Clarendon and Southampton formed a close political alliance both during the Civil War and after the Restoration. A peer who had suffered some of the excesses of Charles I’s regime and been an early opponent of the court, Southampton was nevertheless a loyalist, appalled at the decline in reverence to the crown, who became an unwavering supporter of Charles I in the 1640s, while remaining closely concerned in efforts to achieve an accommodation. Following the Restoration, Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, and subsequent commentators saw him as a moderate who counterbalanced the high Anglicanism of the Cavalier Commons: someone who sought accommodation with moderate Dissent and opposed the extravagance of the court. As lord treasurer he was frequently looked on as incorruptible and well-meaning but lacking the energy to restrain those elements of which he disapproved.<sup>8</sup> Subsequent assessments have varied. Some have seen him as weak, lethargic and verging on incompetent. Yet Southampton appears to have been more rigorous in his efforts to grapple with the intricacies of Stuart finance – and open-minded in seizing hold of the innovations of the Interregnum – than such negative analyses suggest.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Southampton succeeded to the peerage while still a minor. Having taken his seat in the Lords in 1629 he spent much of the ensuing period abroad in France and the Low Countries. The king’s assault upon holders of forest lands in the mid-1630s threatened drastically to reduce Southampton’s income, perhaps by as much as £2,000 a year.<sup>10</sup> In spite of this, by the time of the attack on Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, Southampton had rallied to the court’s side. Even though he was one of Strafford’s personal opponents, Southampton opposed the attainder and soon came to be regarded as a central figure in the mobilization of court support in the Lords. He joined the king at York in March 1642 and the following month was nominated for the office of groom of the stole.<sup>11</sup> Over the next few years he was involved in unsuccessful negotiations with Parliament. Following the surrender of the royalist forces, Southampton petitioned to compound and was fined £6,466.<sup>12</sup> Although he appears to have avoided direct involvement in plotting during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, Southampton’s royalist sympathies remained undiluted. On hearing news of Charles II’s plight following the defeat at Worcester, Southampton had a ship made ready for the king’s escape.<sup>13</sup> Although Charles found other ways to cross the channel, he acknowledged Southampton’s gesture and assured him of his eternal gratitude. Briefly imprisoned in November 1655 for failing to provide information for the decimation, Southampton formed an important alliance the following year with the marriage of Antony Ashley Cooper* (later earl of Shaftesbury), to his niece, Lady Margaret Spencer. In 1658 he suffered the first of a series of bouts of crippling illness in which ‘his pains were very intolerable and his disease in the opinion of most physicians desperate.’<sup>14</sup> He recovered from the attack and the following year married for the third time.</p><h2><em>The Restoration</em></h2><p>The collapse of the Protectorate brought Southampton out of the shadows. In advance of the summoning of the Convention he was noted by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as ‘one of the lords with the king’. He arrived in London in April 1660, ostensibly to oversee final negotiations with Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, for the marriage of Northumberland’s heir, Josceline Percy*, styled Lord Percy (later 5th earl of Northumberland), to Southampton’s daughter, Lady Audrey Wriothesley, but he was also probably engaged in negotiations to secure the support of Northumberland, William Fiennes*, Viscount Saye and Sele and Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, at the king’s behest.<sup>15</sup> Northumberland noted that negotiations with Southampton proceeded ‘as hopefully as the public concernment of the nation does’, but the projected marriage fell through with the unexpected death of Lady Audrey in October.<sup>16</sup> Despite this, the families persevered with the connection and three years later Percy married Southampton’s youngest daughter, Lady Elizabeth Wriothesley, instead.</p><p>Southampton had less success securing seats for his nominees in the Convention. It was reported that he ‘would fain have had Husse to have stood in opposition to Sir Walter St John’ at Great Bedwyn, but there is no evidence that anyone named Husse contested the seat.<sup>17</sup> In the event Southampton’s kinsman, Robert Spencer<sup>‡</sup> (‘Godly Robin’) and Thomas Gape<sup>‡</sup>, steward to William Seymour, marquess of Hertford, were returned, both standing on Hertford’s recommendation.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Southampton was slow to take his seat in the Lords but by 27 Apr. 1660 it was reported that the ‘cabal’ of old parliamentarians such as Northumberland and Saye and Sele were eager for Southampton and Hertford (Southampton’s father-in-law) to take their places so that they might act as a moderating influence on the young royalists who were taking charge of events.<sup>19</sup> His absence did not mean that he was inactive. On 3 May Sir Allen Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> explained to Hyde that he was acting in Parliament ‘in concert with Palmer [Sir Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup>], Southampton and the ablest lawyers’; and on 5 May the extent of Southampton’s influence was revealed when it was reported that he had obtained leave from George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, to have an invitation to the king moved in both houses of Parliament the following Monday. Two days later Brodrick wrote to Hyde informing him that he was meeting with Southampton every evening at his chambers to obtain ‘instructions for his friends in the House.’<sup>20</sup> John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, was similarly engaged in meetings hosted by Southampton which served to bring together the king’s agents with Ashley Cooper and other parliamentarians.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Southampton returned to the House finally after an interval of 18 years on 21 May 1660. The same day he was named to the committee considering the ordinance for a monthly assessment of £70,000. Present for almost 57 per cent of all days in the session, on 22 May he was named to the committee appointed to draw up an answer to the Commons following a conference about the late king’s judges and on 24 May he was nominated to the committee charged with drafting a letter to the king on his arrival. Southampton joined a number of peers waiting on the king at Canterbury, where he was decorated with the order of the Garter alongside Monck (though it was noted that Monck’s blue ribbon was given to him by the king’s brothers while Southampton received his from a herald).<sup>22</sup> Added to the committee for petitions on 6 June, during the remainder of the session Southampton was nominated to a further 14 committees. On 6 Aug. he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Leigh*, Baron Leigh. More significantly, he was appointed lord treasurer in preference to Manchester. Excused attendance on account of poor health on 16 Aug., in his absence John Robartes*, Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), was appointed to act as referee over a dispute concerning the city of Winchester (in which Southampton may have had an interest as high steward). Southampton had resumed his place by 18 Aug. when he was named to the committees considering the bill for his kinsman, Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, and that examining the claim made by Edward Somerset*, marquess of Worcester, to the dukedom of Somerset, which was also claimed by Hertford. Hertford’s claim to the dukedom was recognized the following month. Southampton was also appointed as lord lieutenant of Norfolk.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Southampton was a central figure in government in the first few years after the Restoration, particularly during the ascendancy of Clarendon, who regarded him with reverence and affection. Clarendon wrote that ‘the friendship was so great between the treasurer and him, and so notorious from an ancient date, and from a joint confidence in each other in the service of the last king, that neither of them concluded any matter of importance without consulting with the other’.<sup>24</sup> But despite his credentials, Southampton appeared to have less influence at court than appeared due to him. Often seen as unwilling to exert himself, he suffered from chronic illnesses. <sup>25</sup> He failed, for example, to appear at the <em>swainmot</em> (forest court) of the New Forest in his capacity as keeper and warden in September and by the end of October 1660 he was said to have been ‘long sick’. The same month his father-in-law, the newly restored 2nd duke of Somerset, died having enjoyed his title for less than a month.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Following the adjournment Southampton did not resume his seat until 15 Dec. 1660 and he attended on just seven of the 45 days of the latter part of the Convention, during which he was named to two committees (both concerning financial bills). On 20 Dec. he was appointed one of the commissioners for assessing the lords for poll money. Elections to the new Parliament again found Southampton unsuccessful in his efforts to employ his interest. His cousin, Sir Henry Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, was defeated at Lichfield despite Southampton’s recommendation and he was also unable initially to secure a seat for Richard Gorges<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Baron Gorges [I]. He was more successful in protecting his nephew, Henry Wallop<sup>‡</sup>. Wallop’s father, Robert<sup>‡</sup>, had been excepted from the Act of Indemnity as a regicide, but his life had been spared and his estates granted to Southampton in trust.<sup>27</sup> Under Southampton’s sympathetic regime in Hampshire, Henry Wallop was kept in office as a justice of the peace as well as maintaining his command in the militia.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>Lord Treasurer</em></h2><p>Though his appointment had been planned before the Restoration, Southampton’s appointment as lord treasurer was not formally completed until early September 1660 (Clarendon wrote that he had been reluctant to take on the position until the crown’s revenue was at least formally settled).<sup>29</sup> He soon found the task one of exceptional difficulty. In a report he wrote for the king in 1663 he complained of the state of public finances:</p><blockquote><p>I have taken several occasions to present you the true state of it, particularly at Hampton Court I gave your majesty a view of your royal father (of blessed memory) his revenue, as likewise of the several heads of the revenue in the late times of usurpation, in both which it was visible that the worm that ate into both those governments was the excess of payments beyond that of the receipts, for even those rebels that began and concluded that tyranny and rapine over the estates of your loyal subjects, had the fate of King Henry VIII that found great treasure and hastily got great revenues and concluded their reign in poverty.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>Dismayed by the way in which the Commons restricted the crown’s resources, Southampton excused his pessimistic appraisal, explaining that it was essential:</p><blockquote><p>to show the ill consequences of the necessities of the crown, of the danger it will be in thereby in this conjuncture of time, when even the genius of the nation tends too much to democracy and that the balance of all wealth and election of burgesses… belongs most to merchants, traders and yeomanry, and that revenue or supply is seldom given, but that some regalia or prerogatives are the price of it.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>Among the problems he faced was the alienation of crown lands. Southampton was compelled to give way over a number of grants that he would otherwise have preferred not to approve. One such was the king’s award to Mordaunt of a fourth part of certain lands that had been reserved for the crown to which Southampton responded reluctantly, ‘the motives that lead your majesty to refer this petition induces me to give way … that which gave me most resistance was that by reason of this grant there will be nothing reserved to the crown during this lease.’<sup>32</sup></p><p>Southampton’s acknowledged probity, and his closeness to Clarendon, resulted in him being drawn into questions closely concerning the royal family, including acting as a go-between to Clarendon in late 1660 over the question of the latter’s daughter’s marriage to James*, duke of York; in February 1661 he was deputed to preside at an embarrassing meeting of the Council where he quizzed York about the details, which was designed to bring the affair to a close.<sup>33</sup> About the same time he was appointed to the committee managing the affairs of the prince of Orange during his minority. Business associated with his office included membership of a committee of the Council detailed to consider ways of compelling peers and members of the royal household to pay their poll bills.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Having been nominated over a decade previously, Southampton was at last installed as a knight of the Garter on 15 Apr. 1661. He took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661 but was absent on 11 May when his friend, Edward Hyde, was introduced as earl of Clarendon and his kinsman, Ashley Cooper, was introduced as Baron Ashley. Back in the House on 14 May, Southampton was named to the committees for the bill for reversing Strafford’s attainder and the bill for preventing tumults. He was thereafter present on 55 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to a further 21 committees as well as being nominated manager of a number of conferences. On 16 May he was entrusted with the proxy of Henry Grey*, earl of Stamford, and on 28 May with that of Marmaduke Langdale*, Baron Langdale. On 11 July he was noted as being likely to oppose Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, in his efforts to be appointed lord great chamberlain. At the same time he resisted calls for the navigation acts to be extended to the Scots, fearing that they would thereby be able to undercut English, Welsh and Irish trade.<sup>35</sup> Southampton was named one of the reporters of a conference concerning the corporations bill on 26 July, where he attempted to defuse a confrontation between the two Houses, and the following day to another conference concerning the bill for pains and penalties. On 29 July he was named one of the reporters of the conference for the bill to restrain disorderly printing and the following day of that concerning the bill for repairing Westminster’s streets. The same day (30 July) he was requested to recommend Dr. Hodges to the king ‘for some good ecclesiastical preferment’ in acknowledgment of his services to the House as chaplain.</p><p>During the recess, in September, Southampton communicated an optimistic appraisal of the state of affairs to Winchilsea, newly appointed ambassador to Turkey. He noted:</p><blockquote><p>the evidence of the good affections and wisdom of the late Parliament… in asserting the great rights and prerogatives of the crown in the militia, and for securing his majesty’s person, making even words treasonable, if proceeding from an ill design, and asserting these and other things, even against the authority of the two Houses, which you know was the ground of our late unhappy wars, and I hope what in this kind is now past has plucked up such doctrines by the root.</p></blockquote><p>Southampton’s only reservation was that the state of the finances was not better. He concluded wistfully, ‘had we had time, or rather had we not in this conjuncture supposed it fitter to decline pressing for taxes, I believe we had had a fuller coffer than now we enjoy, which you know is very natural for a treasurer to complain of.’<sup>36</sup> </p><p>After the House returned, Southampton was entrusted with two more proxies: that of Lord Leigh again on 10 Nov. 1661 and a month later with that of Richard Vaughan*, Baron Vaughan (2nd earl of Carbery [I]). He continued to play an active role in managing conferences, being named a manager of that concerning the swearing of witnesses at the bar on 7 Dec. and a further conference concerning the corporations bill on 17 December. On 23 Jan. 1662 he moved that all acts of the Long Parliament should be rescinded.<sup>37</sup> The following day he was named to the committee considering the act for putting his motion into effect. Although committed to the re-establishment of a strong episcopal establishment, Southampton took a relatively moderate stance concerning uniformity: he was said by Burnet to have supported the proposals of John Gauden*, bishop of Exeter, in Council in February to make some of the provisions of the Book of Common Prayer more acceptable for Presbyterians.<sup>38</sup> A suit involving Southampton’s daughter, Lady Elizabeth Wriothesley, was referred to the committee for privileges on 31 Jan. querying how far she, as the daughter of a peer, should be permitted privilege in the case <em>Vanlore v. Bushell</em>. A list compiled by James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] (sitting as earl of Brecknock), suggested that although Southampton did not subscribe the protest (being absent from the House at the time), he was one of a number of peers who opposed restoring lands to Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, which had been sold during the 1650s.<sup>39</sup> Southampton was present at the meeting of the subcommittee for the militia bill on 14 Apr., at which he seems to have proposed an amendment allowing for those charged with providing horses and equipment under the bill’s provisions to be exempted on payment of a fee.<sup>40</sup> The proposal implied that part of the resources dedicated to the militia might be used to create a centrally directed force, and it was rejected in the Commons, where it was identified as a way of introducing a standing army by the back door; Southampton’s apparent sponsorship of the measure is a puzzle, given that Burnet recorded his opposition to a standing army – though the reason he backed this measure was perhaps because it offered the means to pay for one.<sup>41</sup> On 14 Apr. he was also ordered to acquaint the king of the House’s desire that the serjeants at arms and knight marshal’s men should be granted £200 in recognition of their service to the House.</p><p>At the close of April 1662 Southampton was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth). On 12 May he reported the conference concerning the bill to prevent the exportation of sheep. Three days later Southampton conveyed a message to the House from the king recommending the dispatch of certain public bills and the same day he was named a manager of the conference concerning payment for officers who had served the king during the Civil War. Over the following two days Southampton was nominated one of the managers of conferences for the militia bill, although the diary of Richard Boyle*, 2nd earl of Cork [I] (sitting as Baron Clifford of Lanesborough and later earl of Burlington), suggests that Southampton was not one of the three peers who presided during the proceedings.<sup>42</sup> On 19 May Southampton was ordered to attend the king to recommend the preservation of works made for the great level of the Fens.</p><p>Southampton added the lieutenancy of Kent to his portfolio in the second half of 1662. He took on the additional post at the prompting of the previous holder, Winchilsea, who was concerned that during his absence overseas others were attempting to ‘crowd me out.’<sup>43</sup> In spite of this, it was rumoured shortly after that Southampton was soon to retire or to be granted a ‘writ of ease’. It was thought that he would be replaced as treasurer either by Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, or Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London.<sup>44</sup> The reports coincided with the replacement of the aged Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> with Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, as secretary of state. Nicholas’s replacement was noted by Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> as ‘a victory for the young royalists’ over Clarendon and Southampton. It no doubt helped to inspire similar rumours of Southampton’s impending retirement, which were afforded greater credibility by his steadily declining health.<sup>45</sup> Southampton’s reputation for thriftiness was another reason some were eager to see him removed from office.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Concerns about the revenue were also the cause of Clarendon’s approach to the French in the late summer of 1662 proposing the sale of Dunkirk. In his memoir Clarendon attributed the first proposal for sale of the territory to the treasurer.<sup>47</sup> In his communications with the French (as passed on to Louis XIV by their envoy), however, Clarendon was said to have acknowledged that Southampton was yet to be won over to the policy and that it would not be realizable without ‘large sums of money.’ In this case it seems most likely that Clarendon would have meant substantial sums for the nation’s coffers rather than a bribe to the notoriously upright Southampton.<sup>48</sup> Haggling was going on in August, but negotiations were far enough advanced for the king on 1 Sept. to issue a formal commission to Clarendon, Southampton, Albemarle and Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich to conduct negotiations on the sale.<sup>49</sup> In September Southampton was one of the commissioners appointed by Charles to treat with the French about the sale of Dunkirk. The French envoy subsequently complained to his master about the objections raised by Southampton at the lack of suitable sureties. Clarendon, Albemarle and Charles, it was noted, were far less concerned with such matters and the matter was settled towards the end of October.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Southampton took his seat at the opening of the new session of February 1663, after which he was present on 67 per cent of all sitting days. Named to a dozen committees, for all his reputation as a moderate he responded with unveiled hostility to the king’s Declaration of Indulgence ‘as unfit to be received … being a design against the protestant religion, and in favour of the papists.’<sup>51</sup> In April 1663 Southampton was sick with gout, which Clarendon (who was suffering from the same malady) blamed for their inability to make further progress with the ‘pious work’ proposed by Winchilsea for redeeming Christian slaves.<sup>52</sup> The same month a rumour reached Ormond in Ireland that Clarendon and Southampton had fallen out. In May amidst continuing reports of both Southampton and Clarendon’s reduced influence at court it was rumoured that Ashley was to succeed ‘the good old man’ as lord treasurer.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Southampton continued to play a prominent part in the negotiations with the French for a treaty in the summer of 1663.<sup>54</sup> He was also reckoned to be opposed to the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to have the lord chancellor impeached in July. On 10 July, when Bristol attempted to move an impeachment in the House, Southampton was among the first to speak in defence of Clarendon, proposing successfully that the articles should be referred to the judges for their opinion.<sup>55</sup> Southampton was reported to have been frustrated with Clarendon’s response to Bristol’s bungled efforts, in particular by his desire to postpone further consideration of the affair to the following session.<sup>56</sup> On 18 July he was nominated one of the peers’ assessors in the subsidies bill and on 25 July, following the reading in committee of a proviso to be added to the measure, he was ordered to collaborate with John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, in making some amendments to the hearth tax bill.<sup>57</sup> At the beginning of September he reported the latest progress concerning the peers’ assessment to Clarendon, noting how ‘every one is kinder to himself and friend than large-hearted to the public.’ The result would be, he warned, a sum not much different to that of 20 years previously.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Southampton was laid up with gout in November.<sup>59</sup> The following month he assured Winchilsea that he would employ his interest on his behalf, while warning him of the uncertain nature of events at home:</p><blockquote><p>our stars here move seditious minds to follow their late practices and to permit no quiet to others whilst they are disturbed in their own thoughts. But the care of his majesty’s officers and the good affection of the loyal party in all places make so soon discoveries, that we will promise ourselves at last, as they heretofore triumphed in their success and prosperity, their often failing and being frustrated will cure them of this megrum [migraine].<sup>60</sup></p></blockquote><p>In advance of the new session, Southampton attempted to alert the king to the developing fiscal crisis, but without success.<sup>61</sup> He returned to the House at the opening of the session on 16 Mar. 1664, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days and he was named to three committees. Following his abortive attempt against Clarendon, Bristol had continued to plot against the lord chancellor, hinting in a series of letters that he had information of consequence to convey to the House. Southampton responded to the request that the Lords consider one such letter by asking how the peer who had pressed the case came to know of the letter’s contents.<sup>62</sup></p><p>In April 1664 Southampton was prominent in urging the passing of a bill to have those convicted of petty larceny transported. When his subordinate, the chancellor of the exchequer, Lord Ashley, queried whether it would not be better for those of good family who were convicted to pay a fine to the king instead, Southampton moved to have the bill recommitted on that point alone, though in the event the entire bill was recommitted for further discussion.<sup>63</sup> On 22 Apr. he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning foreign trade, at which the Commons delivered their findings concerning the threat to English trade posed by the Dutch and their resolution proposing ‘speedy and effectual course for the redress thereof’. On 13 May he was added as a manager of the conference concerning seditious conventicles.</p><p>Clarendon described how in advance of the 1664-5 session he and Southampton insisted that a large grant be requested from the Commons in order to make preparations for war against the Dutch.<sup>64</sup> The strategy was highly successful, although Southampton himself spent little time in Parliament during the session. He took his seat on 24 Nov. at its opening, but was present on just 12 days (23 per cent of the total) and was named to just one select committee: that considering the duchy of Cornwall bill. On 10 Dec. he was entrusted with the proxy of Charles Seymour*, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, which was vacated by the prorogation of 2 Mar. 1665. Southampton’s own continuing poor health and the steadily growing financial crisis were presumably behind the calls at this time for his removal from the treasurership by Arlington, Ashley and Sir William Coventry<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Clarendon complained in February 1665 that he and Southampton had ‘not seen each other these two months, having so long been kept asunder by the gout’.<sup>65</sup> Southampton was sufficiently recovered by 9 Feb. to entertain John Evelyn and discuss his building developments in Bloomsbury and, although he was not noted as present on the attendance list of the House that day, he was presumably in attendance in the Lords on 28 Feb. when he was ordered to acquaint the king with the service provided by the marshal’s men.<sup>66</sup> Clarendon, Ormond and Southampton had warned against war with the Dutch; Southampton was clearly daunted by the problems of paying for one – Pepys records him asking at a meeting with the officers of the navy in April why it was proving so difficult to raise loans. By the summer of 1665, however, the conflict had begun.<sup>67</sup></p><h2><em>Last years 1665-7</em></h2><p>During the summer, a dispute over the succession to the post of master of the horse to the queen appeared to Clarendon to have been engineered in order to divide him and Southampton (Southampton sought the post for his nephew, Robert Spencer), and to others indicative of a poor relationship between the duke of York and the treasurer.<sup>68</sup> Southampton returned to the House one day into the new session of October 1665 held at Oxford, after which he was present on 13 of its 19 sitting days, during which he was named to four committees. During the debates on the Five Mile Act, he was noted to have expressed his opposition to the measure ‘with much reason, but more heat.’<sup>69</sup> Making plain that he was ‘against the drift of the bill’ which he thought would give those targeted ‘further countenance and get a further provocation’, Southampton complained that he ‘did not know that our laws are like the Medes and Persians’ which were not to be altered’. Having ‘purposely avoided being at the committee because he was against this bill’ he now took the opportunity of speaking against it and moved that the phrase ‘I will not endeavour tumultuarily and seditiously the alteration of government’ should be added to the oath instead. In response to Southampton’s appeal that ministers unable to conform should ‘not be made desperate’, Gilbert Sheldon (now archbishop of Canterbury) replied that ‘they need not be desperate for they may conform and have livings if they will’ only for Southampton to riposte ‘by the act set forth they cannot.’<sup>70</sup> Southampton and the other opponents of the bill were then disappointed in their efforts to have the draft recommitted.<sup>71</sup> Some observers attributed Southampton’s unwillingness to limit further the religious freedoms of non-Anglican Protestants to his relationship with Ashley (in spite of their divergence over the war).<sup>72</sup> His stance made him unpopular with the episcopal bench, which reckoned him insufficiently supportive of the Church and far too ‘desirous, that somewhat more might have been done to gratify the Presbyterians than they thought just.’<sup>73</sup> Another instance of Southampton’s unfashionable moderation was his willingness to continue the services of a number of Hampshire justices of the peace who had been in post during the Interregnum.<sup>74</sup> Southampton’s connection with Ashley may also have influenced his support for the Irish cattle bill during the same session. He was named to the committee considering the bill on 26 Oct. and one opponent of the measure, Robert Boyle, accounted Southampton ‘our great adversary’.<sup>75</sup> Support for the Irish cattle bill set Southampton at variance with Clarendon, who had promised to oppose the measure.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Despite their differences of opinion and continuing rumours of a rift between Southampton and Clarendon, the two men were united in their opposition to Sir George Downing’s<sup>‡</sup> proposals incorporated into the supply bill that would have stripped the treasury of much of its independence.<sup>77</sup> In January 1666, as a further indication that their relations had not been unduly harmed by their disagreements of the previous year, Clarendon appointed Southampton one of the overseers of his will.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Over the summer of 1666, the problems of financing the war grew considerably worse, compounded by the impact of the plague and the Fire of London on the economy. A new parliamentary session in the autumn was required to raise urgent funding to continue the war in the following season. Southampton took his seat in the new session on 18 Sept. 1666 but proceeded to attend just 29 of its 91 sitting days, during which he was named to a mere three committees. Captain Cock, for one, attributed such poor attendance to laziness. He complained to Pepys of Southampton’s lethargy, suggesting that, ‘if he can have his £8,000 per annum and a game at <em>l’ombre</em>, he is well’.<sup>79</sup> After Southampton’s death, his nephew, Robert Spencer, was forced to defend his uncle from charges that he had allowed Clarendon to run the treasury at his pleasure’.<sup>80</sup> Despite his relatively low attendance in the session, Southampton received the proxy of another kinsman, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on 4 Oct., which was vacated on 26 Nov., and on 1 Nov. he was entrusted with Carbery’s proxy, which was vacated on 12 December. On 15 Oct. Southampton was involved with the committee considering the jointure of his daughter, Elizabeth Noel, but he was also able to find time to travel to Lyndhurst to appear at the New Forest <em>swainmot</em> on 20 November.<sup>81</sup> Although absent from the House that day (presumably travelling up from Hampshire), on 21 Nov. he and Ashley were ordered to acquaint the king with the coinage bill to ensure that it had the king’s approbation. Having resumed his seat on 23 Nov. Southampton was absent again on 26 Nov. when Ashley reported back with the king’s agreement for the bill to continue.</p><p>Southampton sat for the final time on 29 Nov. 1666. Soon after, he fell seriously sick. Poor health did not prevent him continuing to be the butt of criticism and in February 1667 he was upbraided for having failed to seek legal counsel concerning the poll bill. In March it was again rumoured that he would resign or be put out and be replaced by Arlington. The following month, John Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> complained that ‘much of our misfortune has been for want of an active lord treasurer’.<sup>82</sup> Duncombe’s sentiments were echoed by Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, in May, when he lamented to Ormond how Southampton’s ‘languishing sickness … has retarded the complete fixing our assignations for the Irish money.’<sup>83</sup></p><p>By the beginning of May 1667 Southampton was reported to be extremely ill. It was said that ‘his spirits decay from the violence of his pains’.<sup>84</sup> Expectation of his imminent demise led to predictable jostling between the various pretenders for his office, chief among them Arlington and Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich.<sup>85</sup> Although he was said to be ‘dangerously ill’ on 15 May and in considerable agony, Southampton still had the presence of mind in his last few hours to enquire after the duke of York’s sons, whose conditions were also terminal.<sup>86</sup> Southampton died the following day of complications following a pioneering (but misguided) attempt to cure him of the stone.<sup>87</sup> An autopsy found no evidence of kidney stones but detected a large hard stone in the bladder and the organ itself to be of ‘a livid colour especially towards the neck.’<sup>88</sup> Following his death Arlington and Sandwich were disappointed in their ambitions and the treasury was put into commission.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Southampton lay in state for six weeks prior to his interment in the family vault at St Peter’s Titchfield in Hampshire. In his will, he made provision for an annuity of £500 to his countess as well as £2,000 in money and a life interest in Southampton House. The remainder of his estate, saddled with debts of £20,000, passed to his surviving daughters to be overseen by his trustees, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, Robert Leigh, Sir Henry Vernon and Sir Philip Warwick<sup>‡</sup> (who had served Southampton loyally as secretary to the treasury), who each received £50 to buy mourning rings. To a servant, John Neale, Southampton also bequeathed a £50 annuity.</p><p>Southampton’s passing was mourned by many. One noted that ‘every sober person laments his death as truly honest and a patron to such.’<sup>90</sup> During his life, aside from complaints about his laziness, Pepys had recorded how, ‘nothing displeased me in him but his long nails, which he lets grow upon a pretty thick white short hand, that it troubled me to see them.’<sup>91</sup> More seriously, under increasing pressure from his enemies, Clarendon felt the loss of his ally acutely. To Burlington (as Clifford of Lanesborough had since become) he bemoaned the ‘irreparable loss’ and to Ormond he commented how he had ‘lost a friend – a firm and unshaken friend and whether my only friend, or no, you only know.’<sup>92</sup> It was said that few lord treasurers had left office having gained so little materially from the position as Southampton.<sup>93</sup> Clarendon’s earlier assessment of his friend as being ‘of honour superior to any temptation’ appears to have been a fair one.<sup>94</sup> Yet while most were willing to acknowledge his incorruptibility, he left an uncertain legacy, with many blaming him for failing to address the fundamental problems facing the revenue. Fearful of the future, Pepys summed up the situation that Southampton bequeathed the nation:</p><blockquote><p>I pray God that the Treasury may not be worse managed by the hand or hands it shall now be put into; though, for certain, the slowness (though he was of great integrity) of this man, and remissness, have gone as far to undo the nation as anything else that has happened.<sup>95</sup></p></blockquote> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
YELVERTON, Charles (1657-79) |
<p><strong><surname>YELVERTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1657–79)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>mother 28 Jan. 1676 (a minor) as 14th Bar. GREY of RUTHIN (RUTHEN, de RUTHYN) |
|
First sat 21 Oct. 1678; last sat 12 May 1679 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 21 Aug. 1657, 1st s. of Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. and Susannah (Susan) <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Grey of Ruthin (<em>d</em>.1676), da. of Charles Longueville<sup>†</sup>, 12th Bar. Grey of Ruthin; bro. of Henry Yelverton*, later 15th Bar. Grey of Ruthin. <em>educ</em>. Eton; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1 July 1673; travelled abroad (France) 1676–7.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>suc</em>. fa. 3 Oct. 1670 as 3rd bt. <em>d</em>. 17 May 1679; <em>admon</em>. 7 July 1679.</p> |
|
|
<p>The Yelverton family, originally from Norfolk, settled in Northamptonshire towards the close of the sixteenth century. They also possessed extensive estates in Yorkshire.<sup>2</sup> A series of advantageous marriages tied the family into a powerful local network that included the Montagu earls of Manchester. Yelverton’s father, Sir Henry, had died when he was just 13, so his education and that of his younger brothers was committed to the care of their neighbour Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, who later married Yelverton’s sister Frances.<sup>3</sup> Soon after Sir Henry’s death, Yelverton’s mother, Baroness Grey in her own right, managed a bill through Parliament for making provision for Yelverton’s brother Neville, who had been born posthumously. The bill attracted lively debate and was opposed vigorously by John Lucas*, Baron Lucas, whose son-in-law, Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, also had a claim to the barony. At one point Lady Grey appears to have been advised to get Yelverton to appear in the House, even though he was significantly underage, perhaps in the hopes of preventing any future challenges to his title. The bill passed the House on 17 Mar. 1671.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Yelverton succeeded to the barony of Grey of Ruthin on the death of his mother five years later. A proud and difficult boy, Grey was regarded as ‘a child of an unsettled head’ by his tutor at Eton, who feared that his ‘late accession of honour and estate has filled it with a thousand fancies more than were in it before’.<sup>5</sup> Some confusion surrounded the descent of the barony of Grey. Even the correct style of the title was uncertain. Rather than Grey of Ruthin, William Dugdale insisted that the correct form was simply Grey, while in other cases the title was represented as de Grey.<sup>6</sup> In 1677 there was a further effort to secure Grey’s right to the peerage before he attained his majority when Hatton approached Dugdale querying whether or not Grey could apply for his writ of summons while under age in response to an attempt by Kent to lay claim to the barony.<sup>7</sup> Dugdale’s response was that Grey could not petition for his writ early but he assured Hatton that his title to the peerage was quite safe.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Following his time at Eton Grey was sent to complete his education in France, where his tutor, Rigby, worried that there was ‘much to be done before the nobleness of his mien answer the sprightliness of his other qualities’.<sup>9</sup> These latter character traits seem to have led Grey into becoming entangled while abroad and rumours circulated of a private marriage brokered between him and the daughter of Lady Harvey (probably his distant kinswoman Elizabeth, Lady Harvey, wife of Sir Daniel Harvey<sup>‡</sup> and daughter of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton).<sup>10</sup> The possibility of a surreptitious liaison caused great anxiety among Grey’s friends and prompted an angry response from him that their lack of trust had made a fool of him.<sup>11</sup> The judgment of John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, that the affair would ‘prove a laughing matter’ was shown to be correct but in the short term the phantom engagement caused a serious rupture between Grey and his friends, he being ‘much troubled that the alarm was taken by us, and is resolute not to come home’.<sup>12</sup> A more pressing reason for his continuing abroad appears to have been some wrangling over the terms of his settlement. His sister Lady Hatton noted that their cousin John Palmer, archdeacon of Northampton, ‘grudged him his money’.<sup>13</sup> In his absence he was noted by Antony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, as a ‘worthy minor’.</p><p>Grey had returned to England by the close of April 1678. He came back ‘one of the finest gentlemen in England’ and ‘much improved’, but annoyance with his family appears to have influenced some of his future actions. Despite Fell’s encouragement that he should now marry, he was disinclined to do so.<sup>14</sup> Far more appealing was involvement in politics and, despite his comparative youth, Grey appears to have been more than ready to exercise his influence. In London in advance of the new parliamentary session in September 1678, he attempted to wield his interest on Hatton’s behalf in an effort to secure Hatton’s recall from Guernsey but, finding that there was ‘very little encouragement to invite your lordship amongst us’, he acquiesced in following Charles Hatton’s advice and delegated the matter to James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Grey took his seat on 21 Oct. 1678 (the opening day of the final session of the Cavalier Parliament), four days after the discovery of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s body. Despite earlier indications that his title might be questioned by Kent, no challenge was made, no doubt owing to the escalating crisis surrounding the Popish Plot. Grey sat assiduously throughout the session, attending on almost 94 per cent of all sitting days. He explained his diligence in a letter to his cousin Palmer, stressing that:</p><blockquote><p>I do not love to neglect the House in this crisis, especially when I have seen at first ourselves outnumbered by the popish lords … both houses avoid to the utmost all cause of dissension, and everybody is so zealous, that though we have ordered things of the highest nature, never anything was put to the question.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite such regular attendance, Grey was named to few committees. Those to which he was named were directly connected to the conspiracy. Two days after taking his seat, he was appointed to the committee examining the papers about the Popish Plot and the following day to that examining whether constables and other city officers were Catholics. On 26 Nov. 1678 he was named to the committee considering the bill to raise the militia, which was rejected impatiently by the king. Grey may have voted in favour of disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament in the division held in a committee of the whole on 15 Nov. and on 29 Nov. he was one of only five peers who voted to agree with the Commons in their attempt to have the queen and her retainers removed from Whitehall. Such activities gained for him the approbation of John Twysden, who asked Archdeacon Palmer to convey his service to Grey, ‘who I hear gives a very honest vote in Parliament’.<sup>17</sup> The following month, on 23 Dec., Grey registered his dissent at the resolution that Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), should not be required to withdraw from the chamber following the reading of the articles of impeachment against him. Three days later he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the disbanding bill and the following day he took the opposite stance to the majority of his kinsmen once again by voting in favour of committing Danby. He then recorded his dissent at the failure to carry the motion.</p><p>Towards the close of the session Grey had lost much of his earlier zealousness in prosecuting the Popish Plot and he admitted to Hatton: ‘we are now so tired with these discourses, that as before we took all the pains imaginable to approve or discountenance a new witness, we let them now proceed in their method, and had rather suffer ourselves to be accused, than to engage ourselves afresh in those endless quarrels’.<sup>18</sup> Growing cynicism over the business of the Plot did not extend to Grey’s attitude to Danby. Although Danby’s wife had been a friend of Grey’s mother, throughout the early months of the following year Danby consistently reckoned Grey as one of his opponents. Despite this, at the first election of 1679, in alliance with his uncle Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, Grey encouraged his cousin Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup>, one of Danby’s supporters, to stand for Northampton.<sup>19</sup> Support for Cholmley clearly had more to do with family loyalty than any factional considerations; Grey’s developing association with the country party was more obviously revealed by his efforts to persuade Hatton to support the candidacy of Miles Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> for Northamptonshire. Grey was confident that he ‘need not much importune you for him’, Hatton having ‘always expressed so much kindness to his interest’.<sup>20</sup> In the event Fleetwood was beaten into third place.</p><p>Grey attended five days of the abortive first session that convened on 6 Mar. 1679. He then took his seat two days after the opening of the new Parliament on 17 Mar., after which he was present on 37 sitting days (54 per cent of the whole). He may have been the Lord Grey named as one of the managers of a conference held with the Commons concerning Danby on 22 Mar. and in early April he voted in favour of Danby’s attainder. He continued to do so on two subsequent occasions. By doing so he found himself once more in opposition to Hatton, who remained loyal to the disgraced lord treasurer. On 7 Apr. Grey registered a further dissent against the resolution that Sidway stand committed for his information against Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely. On 8 May he dissented once more at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request for a joint committee to consider the manner of proceeding against the impeached lords. Two days later he divided in favour of appointing such a committee and then entered his dissent once again when the motion failed to carry.</p><p>Grey sat for the final time on 12 May 1679 (two months before the close of the session). Taken ill suddenly, he died ‘of the spotted fever’ (wrongly identified at first as smallpox) five days later, aged just 22.<sup>21</sup> He was buried at Easton Maudit and was succeeded by his brother Henry Yelverton as 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin.<sup>22</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
YELVERTON, Henry (1664-1704) |
<p><strong><surname>YELVERTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1664–1704)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 17 May 1679 (a minor) as 15th Bar. GREY of RUTHIN (RUTHEN, de RUTHYN); <em>cr. </em>21 Apr. 1690 Visct. LONGUEVILLE |
|
First sat 10 June 1685; last sat 20 Jan. 1704 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. on or aft. 10 June 1664, 2nd s. of Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. (1633–70) and Susannah (Susan), <em>suo</em> <em>jure</em> Baroness Grey of Ruthin, da. of Charles Longueville<sup>†</sup>, 12th Bar. Grey of Ruthin; bro. of Charles Yelverton*, later 14th Bar. Grey of Ruthin. <em>educ</em>. Eton; Christ Church, Oxf.; travelled abroad (France and Italy) 1683–4.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 11 July 1689, Barbara (<em>d</em>.1763), da. of Sir John Talbot of Lacock<sup>‡</sup>, 2s. 5da. <em>d</em>. 24 Mar. 1704; <em>will</em> 24 Feb., pr. 1 June 1704.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. for raising poll money 1690;<sup>3</sup> gent. of the bedchamber to Prince George*, of Denmark 1702–<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Capt. earl of Plymouth’s Regt. of Horse 1686.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1685–9, National Trust, Lacock Abbey.</p> |
<p>Grey of Ruthin succeeded to the title unexpectedly on the premature death of his older brother Charles Yelverton, 14th Baron Grey of Ruthin, in May 1679. Already orphaned, Grey’s education had been entrusted to his brother-in-law Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton. At Oxford he was closely supervised by John Fell*, bishop of Oxford. In October 1681 his kinsman Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, recommended that he be sent to an academy or to France as he was wasting his time in Oxford but it was not until the beginning of 1683 that Grey embarked on his lengthy foreign tour.<sup>6</sup> His time overseas caused both Fell and Hatton considerable qualms. A tendency to mix with the wrong company and an inclination to act rashly caused the young lord difficulties early on.<sup>7</sup> Grey’s older brother had narrowly missed being embroiled in a clandestine marriage while in Paris in 1677 and Grey’s sojourn sparked fresh fears of unwanted liaisons. Confident reports that he had married one Miss Lawson proved false but served to encourage Hatton to engineer Grey’s return as soon as possible.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Despite his brother’s unchallenged succession to the barony, doubts still remained about the title of Grey of Ruthin, which was also claimed by the earls of Kent. In an attempt to stifle any objections, Grey received his summons to Parliament when still underage.<sup>9</sup> The warrant, issued on 19 Mar. 1685, made it plain that the intention was for Grey to sit before turning 21, the writ being issued ‘although he wants something of being completely one and twenty years of age, the king being well satisfied not only of the loyalty of his family but of the maturity of his parts and of his ability to serve him and his country’.<sup>10</sup> Grey was also allowed his claim to a hereditary right of carrying the spurs at James II’s coronation. Bishop Fell was keen to see Grey’s right observed because, ‘though … bearing a pair of spurs in a procession seem not of great importance, yet since outward ceremonies make the distinctions of the world, ’tis a valuable thing to have an hereditary concern in the greatest solemnity of a nation’. He also hoped that recognition of Grey’s pretensions would ‘supersede a more troublesome dispute with the earl of Kent [Antony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent] in the House of Lords about the title of Ruthen’.<sup>11</sup> Grey delayed taking his seat until 10 June 1685 (which might indicate that he came of age that day) and he was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. Thereafter he attended every session but one during his 19-year career in the House.</p><p>News of the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, found Grey rallying to the king’s defence by raising funds for his cavalry troop, an activity that won the firm approval of Bishop Fell, who clearly viewed the young peer as worryingly flighty. The summer also witnessed interest in finding Grey a wife but here too he failed to toe the family line. Lengthy negotiations with Elizabeth Wilbraham of Newbottle, who came highly recommended as ‘being of parts, and no way deformed’ and sole heiress to an estate worth at least £1,200 in capital, broke down amid general recriminations over Grey’s behaviour in the affair, and annoyance at the interference of his aunt, the countess of Manchester. Fell and Hatton worried that Grey had come under the influence of other counsellors, while Grey’s refusal to commit elicited exasperated expostulations from Fell, who complained that ‘Lord Grey is such a kind of lover, that no account is to be given of him: for not to be satisfied when every thing he desires is offered, is such a greediness, and canine appetite as is to be reckoned among the worst and most incurable diseases.’<sup>12</sup> Oblivious, Grey continued to procrastinate and, having finally rejected Elizabeth Wilbraham, he then turned his attention to one of Hatton’s daughters (probably Anna), apparently with the encouragement of Sir Charles Lyttleton.<sup>‡</sup> Although his choice pleased Fell and was apparently welcomed by Hatton, once again negotiations failed.<sup>13</sup> Anna Hatton married Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in December of the same year, while Elizabeth Wilbraham married Sackville Tufton<sup>‡</sup> in 1686.<sup>14</sup> It was not until 1689 that Grey eventually settled for Barbara Talbot.</p><p>Despite Fell’s expectation that recognition of Grey’s hereditary role in the coronation would frustrate Kent’s ambitions, Grey’s succession to the barony did spark renewed debate with Kent over claims to the title. It is noticeable that Kent, who had failed to question the previous baron’s title, neglected to intervene immediately on this occasion. Absent from the House on 10 June 1685 when Grey first took his seat, he was present two days later yet still failed to take exception to Grey’s name being entered in the roll of peers until 16 November. The House ordered the matter to be referred to the committee for privileges, which reported back the following day that Grey was rightly summoned to Parliament as lineally descended from Reginald, Lord de Grey. Kent’s conduct is difficult to fathom. It is possible that he had been unwilling to stand in the way of the 14th Baron Grey, with whom he appears to have shared similar political views. The 15th Baron Grey, though, was Kent’s political opposite and this may have inspired the renewed challenge.</p><p>Faithful to his family’s traditional adherence to solid Anglicanism, Grey quickly found himself in opposition to the king’s policy of toleration. In December 1685 it was reported that he was one of those to have been removed from their commands in the army and in May 1686 he resigned his commission.<sup>15</sup> That summer he busied himself with fitting out his servants with new liveries ordered from France.<sup>16</sup> In June 1688 he was one of those proposed as a possible surety for one of the Seven Bishops, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, and on 15 June he was present in Westminster Hall for their trial. Grey found the close press of people uncomfortable and asked the judges if he might have a seat. Asked by one of the judges what business he had there, Grey replied haughtily that ‘he was there to see justice done to the bishops and had a right to be there being a peer’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The summer of 1688 found Grey involved in a new venture for the recovery of gold and silver from wrecks off the coast of St Helena.<sup>18</sup> More significantly, he was also recruited into the conspiracy against the king. His inclusion was probably the work of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, who may have decided to approach the young lord as a result of his support for the Seven Bishops. In November Grey joined the Northamptonshire rebellion.<sup>19</sup> He concealed his intention to join the rebels from his guardian Hatton:</p><blockquote><p>not out of any disrespect to your lordship to whom in gratitude I owe all the respect and service that I am capable of but that I was loath to trouble you with a design which was so hazardous to my self that I was sure it would be a trouble to your lordship.<sup>20</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 Nov. 1688, Grey, accompanied by George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, and Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, entered Northampton at the head of between 300 and 500 men.<sup>21</sup> There they were joined by other insurgents from Buckingham and thence made their way north to join William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, at Nottingham. Grey remained with the Nottingham rebels, forming part of Princess Anne’s bodyguard after her arrival with Bishop Compton, and signed the Association.<sup>22</sup> He then joined the progress south to Oxford and on 21 Dec. was present at the gathering of peers in the Queen’s Presence Chamber in Whitehall, where he again put his name to the Association. He attended subsequent sessions of the provisional government on 22 and 25 December.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Grey took his seat in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. Unlike many of his close connections, who opposed James II’s policies but had no wish to see the king deposed, Grey fully supported William and Mary’s adoption as king and queen. He voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ desire to insist on the words ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’, and registered his dissent when this resolution was rejected by the House on 31 Jan. and again on 4 February. On 21 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolution not to add a clause repealing the sacramental test of 1673. Later in the session he voted in favour of reversing Titus Oates’s convictions for perjury.</p><p>At the beginning of March 1689 Grey was one of those rumoured to be appointed a colonel of a foot regiment and in September he was granted a 31-year lease of land in St James’s.<sup>24</sup> He took his seat in the second session of the Convention on 19 Oct. 1689, following which he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days. He was classed by Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), as among the supporters of the court in a list of October 1689 to February 1690. After the dissolution of the Convention, he was active in the elections to the new Parliament. He then took his seat in the new session on 20 Mar. 1690 and again proceeded to attend on three-quarters of all sitting days.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Grey’s desertion of James II and his support for William and Mary was further rewarded in April with his advancement in the peerage as Viscount Longueville. Some confusion surrounded the creation of this new title. A warrant of 8 Apr. 1690 ordered the drawing up of letters patent for Grey’s creation as Viscount Glamorgan but by 21 Apr. this had been altered to Longueville.<sup>26</sup> The reason for the change of title is uncertain but was probably to avoid objections from the Somerset and Granville families. The earldom of Glamorgan had been promised to Edward Somerset*, 2nd marquess of Worcester, by Charles I during the Civil War, but the requisite letters patent had never been issued. John Granville*, earl of Bath, also claimed that the earldom had previously been in his family, and he had been assured by Charles II that, should the male line of the Worcesters ever fail, it would be restored to the Granvilles in preference to anyone else.<sup>27</sup> The alteration of the grant also offered an opportunity to add a special remainder in favour of Longueville’s brother Christopher Yelverton. Yelverton had failed to secure election for Higham Ferrers in February 1690 despite confident predictions that he had secured 50 votes and the recommendation of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, as well as, presumably, his brother’s support.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Despite Longueville’s failure to reveal his intention to join the rising to Viscount Hatton in 1688, no serious rift appears to have been opened between the two families. In May 1690 Hatton stood godfather to Longueville’s son Talbot Yelverton*, later 2nd Viscount Longueville and earl of Sussex, while Longueville undertook to use his influence with Bishop Compton to procure a living for one of Hatton’s retainers.<sup>29</sup> Throughout the 1690s, Longueville regularly reported the House’s business to Hatton during the latter’s lengthy absences. He also remained a staunch upholder of the Anglican interest with which Hatton was closely associated. Longueville appears for the most part to have followed Nottingham’s lead in the House and he stood godfather to one of Nottingham’s daughters in 1698.</p><p>Longueville returned to the House for the new session on 18 Oct. 1690, following which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1691 he was one of those to stand bail for one of his wife’s kinsmen, Bruno Talbot, brother of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, Talbot having been indicted for treason.<sup>30</sup> Longueville took his seat in the following session on 27 Oct. 1691, after which he proceeded to attend on 36 per cent of all sitting days. In December he found himself inadvertently the cause of a serious attempt to close the theatres following an assault upon him by guards at the playhouse.<sup>31</sup> Having related his experience to the House on 16 Dec., he was strenuously supported by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, who moved that all playhouses should be suppressed as ‘illegal and tending to the increase of debauchery’.<sup>32</sup> Pending the Lords’ investigation, the lord chamberlain was instructed to suspend all performances, and on the next day Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, was ordered to request the king’s permission to forbid soldiers from guarding the playhouses in future. The king acquiesced on 18 Dec. and the following day, in response to a request from the managers of the playhouse, the suspension was lifted. Longueville’s own attitude is uncertain, but near relatives such as Manchester ‘pressed … very much’ for the theatres’ closure.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Longueville was absent from the House during January and February 1692, during which time his proxy was held by Nottingham. The same year, he was named one of the trustees of an agreement with John Arundell*, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, conveying several manors in Devon and Cornwall into the trustees’ hands for raising a portion for Arundell’s daughter, Gertrude. Control of the estates may have offered Longueville the opportunity to exert significant influence in a number of south-western boroughs. Following Arundell’s death, Gertrude’s husband, Peter Whitcombe, entered a complaint against the trustees for failing to observe the terms of the agreement.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Longueville returned to the House for the opening of the fourth session on 4 Nov. 1692, which was dominated by concerns in both Houses over the conduct of the war and the king’s reliance on foreign generals. Longueville reported to the absent Hatton that ‘I believe the king will not thank them that advised him to ask our advice for we are very free with it.’<sup>35</sup> On 7 Dec. he subscribed a protest at the resolution not to propose the establishment of a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation. His appointment as chairman of the conferences held on 20 and 21 Dec. examining Nottingham’s papers concerning the navy, which had been laid before the House, reflected his support for Nottingham, who was eager to justify his actions before the Lords.<sup>36</sup> The following year, Longueville wrote to Hatton to inform him of the king’s proposal of a union with Scotland, which Longueville dismissed as ‘a jest’.<sup>37</sup> Certainly, no progress was made in the scheme. In January 1693 he was believed to be in favour of passing Norfolk’s divorce bill and on 2 Jan. he voted in favour of reading the bill. On 19 Jan. he entered his dissent at the resolution not to refer the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill to the privileges committee. In February of the same year Longueville found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.</p><p>Longueville attended the prorogation day of 26 Oct. 1693 and then took his seat in the new session on 7 Nov., following which he was present on 71 per cent of all sitting days. His involvement with naval affairs in the House continued the following year. On 3 Jan. and again on 15 Jan. 1694 he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the admirals who had commanded the summer fleet. Meanwhile, in February he entered his dissent at the order to dismiss the petition of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, for the court of chancery’s verdict to be laid aside in his dispute with Bath.</p><p>Longueville was absent from the opening of the new session and it was not until 31 Jan. 1695 that he took his seat. He was thereafter present on 21 sitting days (17 per cent of the whole). On 30 July he attended the prorogation day and then took his seat once more in the new Parliament on 22 Nov., following which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. He returned to the House for the subsequent session on 23 Nov. 1696 but he then proceeded to attend on just 21 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 30 Nov. he was one of the managers of a conference over waiving and resuming privilege. The following month he entered a series of dissents against the resolution to try Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He then voted against passing the bill of attainder and registered his dissent when the measure was carried. In refusing to commit Fenwick it is possible that Longueville objected to the dubious use of Parliament to attaint a man who could not be convicted by ordinary process of law, but the true reason for his objections was probably reflected in an undated letter to Hatton in which he commented that there had been ‘many people before the Lords Justices to make out a plot but they have only proved themselves to be rascals’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Longueville was absent from the House from 23 Dec. 1696 and did not return until the opening of the third session on 6 Dec. 1698. During his absence William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, held his proxy. The 1698 election found Longueville called upon to join with Hatton in supporting the return of Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> for Northamptonshire. He ‘endeavoured to serve Sir Justinian’ but, intending to be absent from the county at the time of the election, excused himself from ‘doing him so much service as I otherwise should have’.<sup>39</sup> He may well have been distracted by the illness and sudden death of his brother Christopher in July.<sup>40</sup> Whatever the limitations of Longueville’s assistance, Isham was duly elected, though the second seat fell to the Whig John Parkhurst<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Longueville took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698. In January 1699 he supported moves to disband the army, reporting to Hatton that the bill had met with so ‘cool a reception’ in the House that ‘the court intend to throw it out of the House of Lords which will make us very popular’.<sup>42</sup> All the Northamptonshire Members (with the exceptions of Christopher Montagu<sup>‡</sup> and John Parkhurst<sup>‡</sup>) were also in favour of disbanding and Longueville was convinced that ‘the Commons will enter upon no business till they know the fate of this bill’.<sup>43</sup> On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against the resolution to retain the Dutch guards and entered his dissent when it passed.</p><p>In the midst of his parliamentary activities Longueville continued to develop his estates. In April 1699 he petitioned successfully for a grant of a market at Egton in North Yorkshire, which he had acquired in 1686.<sup>44</sup> His son and heir, Talbot Yelverton, sold the lordship of the manor in 1730 for £38,000.<sup>45</sup> Longueville took his seat in the new session on 29 Nov. 1699, following which he was present on 91 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1700 he was forecast as likely to be in favour of the East India Company continuing as a corporation and the same month he entered his protest at the resolution to agree with the House’s resolutions concerning the colony at Darien. On 18 Mar. he entered his dissent at the passing of the bill to prevent the growth of popery. He was nominated chairman of three conferences in April, the first concerning the bill for removing duties from woollen manufactures and the latter two regarding amendments to the land tax. On 6 Apr. he acted as teller for the vote on the successful amendment offered at the third reading of the forfeited Irish estates bill.</p><p>Longueville took his seat in the House for the opening of the 1701 Parliament on 6 February. Present on approximately 69 per cent of all sitting days, on 15 Mar. he entered protests at the resolution to reject the second and third heads of the report relating to the partition treaty and on 20 Mar. he entered a further protest at the resolution not to send the address relating to the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. The following month he chaired two conferences on the subject of the treaty. On 11 Apr. he was chairman during a committee of the whole concerning Lady Anglesey’s separation act. On 25 Apr. he was again called upon to chair a committee of the whole concerning Dillon’s divorce. Four days later he was teller for the minority supporting the committee’s recommendations. Longueville chaired a select committee concerning the prisons bill on 3 May, and two days later he served as chairman during a committee of the whole deliberating the amendments to the act for regulating the king’s bench and Fleet prisons. The same month, during discussions in a committee of the whole concerning the succession bill, he proposed that an annual income of £4,000 should be made the minimum qualification for all newly created viscounts, while barons should be expected to be in possession of estates of £3,000 p.a. He went on to argue that lands belonging to peers should be inalienable from the peerage.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Longueville took his seat in the new Parliament on 15 Jan. 1702, after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days. Perhaps unwilling to allow vindictive acts to be passed against the defeated Stuarts, he entered his protest at the bill for the attainder of Queen Mary Beatrice in February 1702 and he also reported back from the conference held concerning the bill to attaint James Edward, the ‘pretended’ prince of Wales. On 24 Feb. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for the further security of the queen. The same month he chaired two committees of the whole House concerning the perjury bill.</p><p>Prominent as one of the peers that had rallied to her protection in 1688, at the accession of Queen Anne, Longueville was named one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark. Longueville’s reputation for solid Anglicanism may also have served to recommend him to the queen, though he proved difficult to please with this new appointment. A series of letters between his wife and Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, revealed his concern at the extent of his duties. The senior member of a notoriously sickly family (Longueville’s father and both of his brothers had died comparatively young), Longueville may have been unwilling to overburden himself.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Despite his disinclination to spend more time at court than was necessary, Longueville continued to be an active participant in the House and was frequently named to chair conferences. He also acted as teller on several occasions. He continued to chair a number of committees of the whole House in 1702 and on 18 Apr. he was nominated to that concerning the Abjuration Oath Alteration Act.<sup>48</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, following which he was present on 93 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Nov. he was appointed one of the members of the Lords to make the necessary preparations for a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral for the recent military successes.<sup>49</sup> During the same month, he acted as a member of the court of delegates commissioned to examine a complaint brought by Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, that his step-mother had persuaded Gregory King, Lancaster herald, to display false arms and a false genealogy for her at the funeral of the 1st earl in an attempt to disguise her own menial background.<sup>50</sup></p><p>On 25 Nov. 1702 Longueville proposed that the House should adjourn following a desultory showing at prayers at the beginning of the day, in spite of an order made the day before. He made his suggestion ‘in resentment of an order not obeyed by those that made it’ but his motion, which is not minuted in the Journal, failed owing to the interposition of Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford.<sup>51</sup> Two days later, he correctly contradicted a suggestion made by Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, that as there were only two bishops present in the House, should one leave the chamber the House ought to adjourn. Mews mistakenly believed that the constitution of the House required the presence of both lords spiritual and temporal.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Following discussion in a committee of the whole of the bill to prevent occasional conformity on 4 Dec. 1702, Longueville was teller for those voting against the amendment permitting those bearing office to receive the sacrament four times a year. The amendment was narrowly rejected, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, acting as teller for the defeated side. On 22 Dec., Longueville reported back from a committee considering Sir Robert Marsham’s bill and the same day he chaired a committee of the whole considering the land tax, though according to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, who was one of Longueville’s close acquaintances, few of those present bothered to pay much attention.<sup>53</sup> Longueville chaired a committee considering Prince George’s bill following its second reading on 11 Jan. 1703, his nomination perhaps significant given his position in the prince’s household. On 9 Feb. he moved that, in addition to the list of licences granted by Queen Anne to French immigrants, a list of those granted by William III should also be produced, which was agreed to by Nottingham. On 24 Feb. he protested against the House's decision to publish an account of its dealings with the Commons over the occasional conformity bill.</p><p>Longueville returned to the House just under three weeks into the new session on 29 Nov. 1703, following which he was present on approximately 19 per cent of all sitting days. In December he entered his dissent at the failure to carry the bill for preventing occasional conformity. He sat for the final time on 20 Jan. 1704 and died at Bath, ‘much lamented’, two months later.<sup>54</sup> He left a considerable estate, with lands in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and North Yorkshire. In his will he made provision for the raising of £14,000 for his daughters’ portions and an annuity for his son Henry Yelverton. Barbara, Viscountess Longueville, was left sole guardian to their young children and Sir John Talbot of Lacock, Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> and William Livesay were constituted overseers. Longueville was succeeded as 2nd Viscount Longueville by his elder son, Talbot Yelverton, later earl of Sussex.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
YELVERTON, Talbot (1690-1731) |
<p><strong><surname>YELVERTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Talbot</strong> (1690–1731)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 24 Mar. 1704 (a minor) as 2nd Visct. LONGUEVILLE; <em>cr. </em>26 Sept. 1717 earl of SUSSEX |
|
First sat 3 Feb. 1713; last sat 7 May 1731 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 May 1690, 1st s. of Henry Yelverton*, Visct. Longueville, and Barbara, da. of Sir John Talbot<sup>‡</sup> of Lacock, Wilts. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. 1705–7; travelled abroad (Italy) 1709–11.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. bef. 1 Nov. 1726, Lucy (<em>d</em>.1731), da. of Henry Pelham<sup>‡</sup> of Lewes, Suss. clerk of the pells, 2s. <em>suc</em>. fa. 24 Mar. 1704 as 4th bt.; KB 1725. <em>d</em>. 27 Oct. 1731; <em>will</em> 5 June 1730, pr. 25 June 1732.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber, 1722–7; dep. earl marshal, 1725–31; PC 1727; commr. of claims for coronation of King George II 1727.</p><p>FRS 1722; FSA 1725.</p> |
|
<p>During Longueville’s minority his education was entrusted to his mother and her Talbot relatives, and in the winter of 1706–7 his distant cousin Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, undertook to find a suitable tutor for the young viscount on his forthcoming grand tour.<sup>4</sup> An unusually scholarly young man, when Longueville visited the duchess of Shrewsbury at Heythrop in the summer of 1707 he was said to have been ‘so intent on his studies that he would not be prevailed with to stay one night’.<sup>5</sup> He was also engaged politically. Prior to his travels, he was one of almost 40 notables to attend the election meeting at Northampton in August 1708, possibly in company with his neighbour George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, whose lands adjoined his own.<sup>6</sup> The following year Longueville departed for Italy.<sup>7</sup> There, despite Shrewsbury’s efforts, he suffered continual problems with an unsuitable tutor. Left to ‘govern himself’, he was reported to be travelling back from Rome in August 1711 ‘with a wounded heart, as you know all young men do that that have been long in a place’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Longueville returned to England at some point before February 1712, when he was reported as being present at a meeting hosted by Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, at which were also Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford (with whom he was already acquainted), William Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Henry Grey*, duke of Kent, Hugh Cholmondeley*, earl of Cholmondeley, and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford).<sup>9</sup> In April he attempted to use his interest on behalf of a neighbour, John Chapman, who had been found in contempt of the ecclesiastical court.<sup>10</sup> Although he was associated at this time with the Oxford administration (no doubt through his connection with Shrewsbury), in June Longueville was listed as a doubtful court supporter. He finally took his seat in the House in February 1713 and then proceeded to attend on five further prorogation days prior to the opening of the new session. In March he was listed among those peers thought likely to support the ministry. Longueville took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr., following which he was present on approximately 83 per cent of all sitting days. His loyalty to the ministry soon proved to be fragile. In May he was listed as one of those to be contacted about the French treaty of commerce, only for Oxford to estimate him as likely to oppose the eighth and ninth articles of the treaty the following month.</p><p>In October 1713 Longueville appears to have rejected Shrewsbury’s offer of his interest to acquire him a position at court.<sup>11</sup> By the following year he appears to have distanced himself from the ministry still further. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on almost 74 per cent of all sitting days. In March he voted against the government for the first time by supporting Guernsey’s attempt to amend the proclamation offering a reward for the discovery of the author of (Jonathan Swift’s) <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>.<sup>12</sup> Voting with Longueville in this division was his cousin Kent, and the two continued to associate closely for the remainder of Longueville’s life. In May Longueville featured on one of Oxford’s memoranda, perhaps indicating a continuing effort to persuade him to support the ministry.<sup>13</sup> The same month he was forecast by Nottingham as being likely to oppose the Schism bill and on 15 June he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the measure. Kent registered his proxy in Longueville’s favour on 24 June and the same day Longueville was also entrusted with that of his Northamptonshire neighbour Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland: a clear indication of where Longueville’s loyalties now lay. Both proxies, presumably registered to cover the peers’ absence from the House on the day of the composition of the Lords’ address to the queen (though no division was held), were vacated the following day (25 June). Longueville registered his own proxy with Kent on 2 July, which was vacated by the close of the session.</p><p>Longueville took his seat shortly after the opening of the new session on 3 Aug. 1714 and sat for a little over half of the brief final session of the reign of Queen Anne. He attended one day in September and was then active following the dissolution in the elections for Northamptonshire in the Whig interest. Having been encouraged to stand ‘for the sake of preserving peace and good neighbourhood’, the Tory Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup> appealed to his son to wait on Longueville and other of the county’s peers to seek their support, but he bemoaned Longueville’s ‘betrayal’ when it became apparent that the latter intended to employ his interest on behalf of Isham’s opponent. Isham reassured himself that Longueville’s influence in the county was small and his confidence was proved well founded by his re-election.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Longueville returned to the House on 17 Mar. 1715 for George I’s opening Parliament. He prospered under the new regime. In 1715 he was appointed master of the horse to the princess of Wales and two years later he was promoted in the peerage as earl of Sussex.<sup>15</sup> In 1725 he was made a knight of the Bath at the revival of the order and was admitted deputy earl marshal, officiating as earl marshal at the coronation of George II in 1727. <sup>16</sup> The same year he was one of the six peers to support the pall at the funeral of Sir Isaac Newton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>17</sup> Details of the latter part of his career will be considered fully in the next part of this work.</p><p>Sussex married in 1726 but the marriage, reportedly an extremely happy one, was brief; Lady Sussex died in childbirth in 1730. Although still described as being ‘well’ in November of that year, Sussex’s own health deteriorated soon after and he died at Bath in October 1731 aged 41, ‘a martyr to … the unfashionable love of his wife’.<sup>18</sup> His fidelity earned him a fulsome tribute from John Boyle<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Boyle (5th earl of Cork [I]), who proclaimed, ‘Poor Lord Sussex … Such a man, in such an age, would be sainted in any other church but ours.’<sup>19</sup> In his will, Sussex named his cousin Grey Longueville and his brother-in-law, Thomas Pelham, as executors. He bequeathed the sum of £2,000 to his younger son, Henry Yelverton, and was succeeded in the earldom by his elder son, George Augustus Yelverton<sup>†</sup>, aged just four.</p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
ATTERBURY, Francis (1663-1732) |
<p><strong><surname>ATTERBURY</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1663–1732)</p> |
|
|
First sat 7 July 1713; last sat 6 Mar. 1722 |
cons. 5 July 1713 bp. of ROCHESTER; depr. 1 June 1723 |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Mar. 1663, 2nd s. of Lewis Atterbury (<em>d</em>.1693) rect. of Middleton (Milton Keynes), Bucks. and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1668), da. of Francis Giffard. <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1674-80; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 17 Dec. 1680, BA 1684, MA 1687, DD 1701; ord. deacon 1687, priest 1691. <em>m</em>. 1695, Catherine Osborne (<em>d</em>.1722), 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.),<sup>1</sup> 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 22 Feb. 1732; <em>will</em> 31 Dec. 1725, pr. 10 May 1732.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to William III and Mary II by 1691, to Anne 1702.</p><p>‘Minister’ to Old Pretender 1724-7.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Lecturer, St Bride’s, Fleet Street, London 1691-8;<sup>4</sup> preacher, Bridewell hospital 1693, Rolls Chapel 1698-1712;<sup>5</sup> adn. Totnes 1701-13;<sup>6</sup> preb. Exeter 1704; dean, Carlisle 1704-11, Christ Church, Oxf. 1711-13, Westminster 1713-23;<sup>7</sup> prolocutor lower house of convoc. of Canterbury 1710-13.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Commr. 50 new churches 1711;<sup>9</sup> gov. Bridewell and Bethlehem hospitals.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1718, Christ Church, Oxf.</p> |
<p>The Tory firebrand Francis Atterbury was born into a family of Anglican clergymen. His father, Lewis, was a favourite of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. As the second son, he did not inherit the family patrimony in Great Houghton, Northamptonshire.<sup>10</sup> Nonetheless, he did inherit from his father property in the Newport Pagnell area of Buckinghamshire, along with other land in Hornsey, north London, and in Little Houghton, Northamptonshire.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Well known for his arrogance, Atterbury could, on occasion, be subject to furious rages and splenetic outbursts. He was, though, thought highly of by his Christ Church peers and high Tory mentor Henry Aldrich. At Oxford he composed verses in honour of Princess Anne, who visited the city in 1688.<sup>12</sup> He became noted for his prolific Anglican apologetics and ‘forceful’ conservative sermons and tutored a number of establishment figures including Charles Boyle*, 4th earl of Orrery [I] (later Baron Boyle in the British peerage).<sup>13</sup> Ambitious for preferment, his career advanced steadily through the 1690s through the patronage of Henry Compton*, bishop of London and of Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, a close friend and political ally at Oxford. Making his name as a preacher in London at Bridewell, Atterbury reached a more prestigious audience through his sermons at court in the 1690s.</p><p>Atterbury’s fondness for dispute was apparent early on when he provided practical support to Trelawny in the latter’s legal case over the visitation of Exeter College (which did not end until Trelawny’s appeal was dismissed by the Lords on 7 Feb. 1695).<sup>14</sup> He came to prominence when he set off the ‘Convocation controversy’ over the synod’s constitutional role (contrary to the policy of the government and of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury) with his anonymous 1696 pamphlet <em>Letter to a Convocation Man</em>.<sup>15</sup> The dispute assumed an increasingly political edge in relation to the position of the Church alongside the government as Atterbury engaged in such heated polemical exchanges with William Wake*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, that John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, thought it expedient that Convocation cease to meet.<sup>16</sup> Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, on the other hand, used Atterbury’s arguments to insist on Convocation being recalled in return for his willingness to join the administration in the winter of 1700. The affair (which rumbled on between 1696 and 1703) helped make Atterbury the acknowledged leader of the high-flying Tory clique within the Church establishment, and on 23 May 1701 he was asked by the Tories Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, and William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> to preach before the Commons on Restoration Day.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Although he would not be made a bishop for another 12 years, Atterbury’s extensive contacts in the Commons and his persistent political activism ensured that he was thoroughly immersed in parliamentary business. He contracted a secret agreement with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, on 21 Oct. 1702 to challenge Archbishop Tenison’s right to prorogue Convocation and became a key component in Harley’s own political ambitions.<sup>18</sup> An alliance between the lower house of Convocation and the Commons during the session beginning in November 1703 was apparent when Atterbury, Aldrich and George Smalridge*, later bishop of Bristol, attended Harley (as Speaker) to present their thanks for the Commons’ efforts on behalf of the Church.<sup>19</sup> He remained very close to Trelawny and the two frequently exchanged political news and strategies to counter the Whigs.<sup>20</sup> In 1704, through the influence of Harley, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin and John Sharp*, archbishop of York, Atterbury was appointed to the deanery of Carlisle to help offset the whiggish appointments promoted by the Junto. According to Harley, when Atterbury kissed hands for his new post he was assured by the queen that this was ‘but a beginning of her favour’. He became embroiled immediately in a dispute with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, with whom he had previously locked horns during the Convocation controversy. The University of Oxford had even refused Nicolson a doctorate at the time of his election as bishop in retaliation for his assault on Atterbury.<sup>21</sup> Now the bishop demanded that Atterbury renounce ‘three propositions relating to her majesty’s supremacy’ contained in Atterbury’s volume concerning Convocation before he agreed to Atterbury’s institution. Unsurprisingly, Atterbury refused. After a stand-off Nicolson relented, but the affair helped push the bishop further into the arms of the Whigs. Atterbury was still actively engaged in asserting the legality of his position in the summer of the following year.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Atterbury’s prominent role in orchestrating the ‘Church in Danger’ campaign of 1705-6 (about which he corresponded with Adam Ottley*, later bishop of St Davids, did nothing to ameliorate relations with his diocesan. He continued to engage in quarrelsome behaviour, engaging Nicolson in dispute over the cathedral chapter.<sup>23</sup> It was worthy of comment by Nicolson when Atterbury waited on him ‘in a peaceful temper’, and in February 1708 Atterbury was ‘peremptory’ in his refusal to agree to Hugh Todd (one of the Carlisle canons, who had been excommunicated by Nicolson) being required to kneel when seeking absolution from the bishop.<sup>24</sup> When Nicolson’s cathedrals bill came before Parliament that spring, Atterbury engineered opposition in both Houses, securing the aid of Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, in the Commons and of the Tory bishops in the Lords.<sup>25</sup> Although Atterbury failed to prevent the bill’s passage, his strategy had further polarized parties in both Houses.<sup>26</sup> He continued to use the pulpit to promulgate high Tory political theology: in October 1708 the City of London aldermen refused to print his sermon at the mayoral election because of its theme of passive obedience.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Atterbury’s identification with the doctrine of non-resistance was again made apparent in the spring of 1710 during the proceedings against Henry Sacheverell. Atterbury was present to hear himself ‘severely reflected on’ by James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> later Earl Stanhope, and he was widely believed to be at least partially responsible for the composition of Henry Sacheverell’s speech of 7 March. He later claimed the credit for causing ‘rejoicings to be made at Farnham’ in response to ‘Sacheverell’s escape’, and when he visited Totnes in May to undertake his visitation there as archdeacon, he was accompanied by Sacheverell.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Following the removal of Godolphin, Atterbury attempted to mediate between the high Tories and Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, communicating to the latter the disappointment some felt at the failure thus far to put out more of the Whigs or to dissolve Parliament. The ill-judged intervention was said to have provoked Harley into a rare demonstration of ‘passion’.<sup>29</sup> The subsequent Tory election victory of 1710 provided Atterbury with further opportunities to press his high-flying agenda. He constantly lobbied Members of both Houses of Parliament and conducted a polemical campaign in Convocation and in the press. Tenison made no effort to disguise his loathing for Atterbury, refusing him permission to visit him at Lambeth. His dislike was also made apparent when, in December, Atterbury and Smalridge were said to have made ‘excellent speeches’ on Atterbury’s presentation as prolocutor of Convocation; Tenison’s response by contrast ‘had nothing in it but peevishness and bad Latin’.<sup>30</sup> By the close of the year it was rumoured that Atterbury was to succeed his old mentor as dean of Christ Church, following Aldrich’s death in mid December. It was a post to which he felt entitled, though Harley was reluctant to allow the appointment to go forward, fearing the influence of the intemperate Atterbury on Oxford’s most influential college. A temporary solution was arrived at with a resolution that the appointment would be delayed until a suitable position could also be found for Smalridge.<sup>31</sup></p><p>In January 1711 Atterbury produced a draft representation to the Commons from Convocation on ‘the late excessive growth of infidelity, heresy, and profaneness’ and used his friend William Bromley, by now Speaker, to widen the remit of a Commons’ select committee, originally appointed to examine a petition from the parish of Greenwich, to examine the state of London churches.<sup>32</sup> His opposition to the Whig bishops (Tenison in particular) in Convocation was planned in meticulous detail.<sup>33</sup> He also drafted the queen’s speech to Convocation that year.<sup>34</sup> On 28 Feb. Atterbury and Smalridge were again in discussions with Bromley.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Atterbury’s continuing prominence was no doubt the reason for Nicolson stunning some dining companions in late February 1711 with his prediction that Atterbury would shortly succeed the ailing Compton as bishop of London. In the event Compton rallied, robbing Atterbury of the chance (if it ever existed) of securing so important a see. Disappointed by the relative ‘moderation’ of ecclesiastical policies of the Harley ministry, Atterbury steadily moved into the orbit of St John and Harcourt, though he continued to operate on Harley’s behalf, assuring Nicolson, for one, that Harley posed no danger.<sup>36</sup> His eventual appointment as dean of Christ Church late in the summer of 1711, however, was the result of an ultimatum laid down by St John as well as forming part of Harcourt’s campaign to maintain the dominance of high-fliers within the university. If the earl of Oxford (as Harley had become) was unhappy, though, the appointment of Atterbury to Christ Church held some advantages as Oxford’s heir, Edward Harley*, styled Lord Harley (later 2nd earl of Oxford), was a student at the college and thus able to keep his father informed of Atterbury’s manoeuvres. Smalridge was compensated with the deanery of Carlisle.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Atterbury’s association with the militant Tory October Club signalled his continuing role at the ‘hectic’ end of Tory politics.<sup>38</sup> He ran quickly into difficulties at Christ Church, where his campaigns to reform the college, to assert the power of the dean and to support Harcourt’s ambitions caused a breach in his old friendship with Smalridge and others (including Francis Gastrell*, later bishop of Chester), as well as reverberations throughout Oxford and beyond. Not unusually for one of his obstreperous temperament, Atterbury betrayed signs of a thin skin. He felt clearly the pointed slights of his Whig neighbours keenly and in July 1712 reported to Oxford how John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, had failed to abide by his usual policy of providing venison from Blenheim for all the heads of houses in Oxford, deciding instead to deliver the gifts to the masters of just two colleges and to two other academics, one of them, John Potter<sup>†</sup>, later archbishop of Canterbury, one of the canons of Christ Church. This, Atterbury was convinced, was so that ‘the passing me over might be the more observable’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>From his bases in Oxford and in Convocation, Atterbury became a vital element in Bolingbroke’s parliamentary ‘confederation’ to outmanoeuvre Oxford in the Lords.<sup>40</sup> In early 1713 he drafted a bill (to prevent the too frequent denunciation of excommunication) to revive the power of Church courts, recruiting Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), to introduce the bill in an attempt to bring Tories such as Guernsey’s brother, Nottingham, and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, into the Bolingbroke camp.<sup>41</sup> The bill was introduced on 5 May and managed through the House by William Dawes*, of Chester, who reported from a committee of the whole on 19 June.</p><p>Already a veteran of parliamentary politics, Atterbury was elevated to the see of Rochester in June 1713 (with which went the deanery of Westminster). His promotion had been urged upon the queen by Harcourt and came with Bolingbroke’s support; it was achieved in spite of Oxford’s extreme disinclination, fierce opposition from Tory grandee William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, and the ‘reluctancy’ of the queen who now acknowledged Atterbury’s ‘meddling and troublesome’ behaviour.<sup>42</sup> Playing on the Latin version of his new title, at least one of Atterbury’s opponents subsequently referred to him as ‘Ruffian’. Atterbury made a point of thanking Oxford for the honour, and requested that he might keep his prebend of Exeter as an acknowledgment of Trelawny’s favour to him. It would also offset the loss he would sustain by resigning the deanship of Christ Church, though by that time he was said rarely to be seen in his college, which had descended into acrimonious in-fighting, to a large extent thanks to his abrasive manner of dealing with his colleagues. Lord Harley’s correspondent, Christ Church canon and Atterbury’s antagonist, William Stratford, urged on the patent for appointing Atterbury’s replacement at Christ Church, complaining that the place had ‘suffered enough already’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>In stark contrast with his time as dean of Christ Church, Atterbury’s tenure of his bishopric is generally assumed to have been both efficient and uncontroversial, but his major focus remained political. On 7 July Atterbury took his seat in the House. He attended each of the remaining nine sittings of the session and made polite overtures to Oxford.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Atterbury attended the House for the first day of the February 1714 session and was thereafter present for some 45 per cent of sittings and was named to the usual sessional committees. On 20 Mar. he registered his proxy in favour of John Robinson*, bishop of London (vacated 27 May); he did not attend at all during April when the House was involved in heated debates and close divisions on the danger to the Protestant succession. On 13 Apr. Atterbury was noted by one source as having voted with the court in the division on the queen’s reply to the address on the danger posed by the Pretender. However, his proxy-holder, Robinson, in common with the majority of the bishops, voted with the opposition, and other sources have assumed that Atterbury’s vote had been cast the same way.<sup>45</sup> In May 1714 Atterbury drafted the Schism Bill, another measure intended to embarrass Oxford and flush out ‘moderate’ Tories. Heated debate on 4 June was followed by Dawes’ management of the bill through a committee of the whole; Oxford was dismayed when Atterbury’s speech in the Lords denied that Dissent could ever be a valid part of the English ecclesiastical polity.<sup>46</sup> Atterbury was present on 11 June to vote in favour of extending the Schism Bill to Ireland (he had been waited on earlier in the month by Anglesey, to solicit his support for the extension).<sup>47</sup> He voted again on 15 June for the passage of the bill. At the end of June William Wake noted ‘Atterbury’s business’ coming before Convocation. The result, according to Wake, was ‘confusion, and heat, and clamour: nothing concluded’. He blamed Atterbury for raising ‘such contentions among us’.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Early in July the Schism Bill passed Parliament, though Ralph Bridges pointed out another schism remained ‘at the height amongst the great ones at court’, with Atterbury one of a triumvirate believed to be ‘the men chiefly concerned in what they call the new scheme’.<sup>49</sup> It was rumoured at the end of July that Atterbury might be offered (together with Robinson) the post of joint lord high treasurer. It had been suggested earlier that he was to be lord privy seal and Robinson first commissioner of the Treasury. The death of the queen, however, effected a sudden change in his political fortunes.<sup>50</sup> Aware that the Tories had little alternative but to accept the Hanoverian regime, Atterbury attended on 1 Aug. for the first day of the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. He attended five sittings and used the occasion to attempt personal conciliation with leading Harleians, including Smalridge, begging him to forgive their past disagreements.<sup>51</sup> At the close of August Atterbury presided at the queen’s funeral at Westminster Abbey.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Atterbury’s loyalty to the new regime was widely suspected especially after writing an (albeit anonymous) electioneering pamphlet before the 1715 general election which included a personal attack on George I.<sup>53</sup> His arrival at the House in the second week of the new spring 1715 Parliament heralded the start of his vociferous parliamentary opposition. On 9 July when articles of impeachment against Oxford were brought up from the Commons his attempt to defend his old ally was greeted by a hostile John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], (earl of Greenwich), with the observation that Atterbury had ‘studied more politics than divinity’.<sup>54</sup> On 18 Aug. together with other leading Tories he entered a dissent to the refusal of the House to enquire whether Bolingbroke had been properly summoned to answer the bill of attainder against him. In November 1715 he refused to sign the abhorrence of the Jacobite rebellion (on the grounds that he was shown the document too late at night).<sup>55</sup> He constantly challenged government policy, speaking frequently in the Lords and assuming a leading role in the House. He registered his protest or dissent on more than 40 occasions between 1715 and 1722, and he continued to exchange proxies with John Robinson, Smalridge, Trelawny, Gastrell, and Adam Ottley. His parliamentary career after 1715 and trial for Jacobite plotting will be examined in detail in the next part of this work.</p><p>Finally betrayed by John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], Atterbury was committed to the Tower on 24 Aug. 1722 on suspicion of plotting against the government. The Commons’ motion to bring in a bill of pains and penalties (including deprivation and exile) was carried without a division and the bill received the royal assent on 27 May 1723.<sup>56</sup> Atterbury went into exile – taking with him £10,000 raised by Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later Earl) Bathurst, from Tory sympathizers.<sup>57</sup> His position as minister to the Old Pretender proved difficult and unrewarding. Although he maintained as many friendships as possible, the penalties of communicating with Atterbury ensured that he became increasingly isolated. In the autumn of 1728 he quit Paris for Montpellier, driven there in part by a need to retrench but also on account of political pressure.<sup>58</sup> Already sick and disillusioned, the death of his only surviving daughter Mary Morice in November 1729 was a blow from which he never recovered. He died on 22 Feb. 1732 in Paris.</p><p>The full extent of Atterbury’s personal wealth at the time of his death is difficult to determine. Four years earlier he had complained that he had ‘lost near a third part of my income since I came abroad’ and he was more than aware of the difficulties that faced him in settling his property. Even so, he was insistent that should he outlive his brother, the family estates were his by right.<sup>59</sup> Atterbury’s post was rifled as a matter of routine, and suspicions about his involvement in plotting were such that orders were given for the container holding his remains to be searched on its arrival back in England; his son-in-law William Morice was also ordered to be searched and his belongings taken into custody.<sup>60</sup> At the insistence of the king, Atterbury’s burial in Westminster Abbey was kept as private as possible.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
BARLOW, Thomas (1607-91) |
<p><strong><surname>BARLOW</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1607–91)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Oct. 1675; last sat 16 Apr. 1689 |
cons. 27 June 1675 bp. of LINCOLN |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1607, s. of Richard Barlow (<em>d.</em>1637) of Orton, Westmld. <em>educ.</em> Appleby g.s.; Queen’s, Oxf. matric. 1625, BA 1630, MA 1633, fell. 1633, BD 1657, DD 1660. <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 8 Oct. 1691; <em>will</em> 29 Sept. 1691, pr. 3 Dec.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Preb. Worcester 1660–75; adn. Oxf. 1664–75.</p><p>Reader in metaphysics, Oxf. 1635; keeper, Bodl. Oxf. 1652–60; provost, Queen’s, Oxf. 1658–60; Lady Margaret Prof. Divinity, Oxf. 1660–75.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. Sir P. Lely, Bodl. Oxf.; oil on canvas, by unknown artist, c. 1657, Queen’s, Oxf.</p> |
<p>The elevation in 1675 of Thomas Barlow, fervent royalist and ‘a very Hercules of orthodoxy’, did not meet with universal approval.<sup>2</sup> According to Wood, Barlow had ‘truckled to the Independents … partly to keep himself safe and secure, and partly to gain popular applause’. He and Gilbert Sheldon*, of Canterbury, had been in rival theological camps at Oxford before the civil wars and Sheldon remained suspicious of Barlow’s ‘thorough-paced’ Calvinism, which refused to bend to the theological emphases of the Restoration Church.<sup>3</sup> Barlow’s intellectual and political framework was informed by a strident anti-Catholicism that echoed the prejudices of the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Church.<sup>4</sup> Hostile to ‘the unbridled profaneness and atheism of our age’, the ‘machinations of papists, nonconformists and fanatics’ and the hypocrisy of Church careerists, he found himself constantly at odds with Restoration religious politics.<sup>5</sup> As Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, remarked, ‘it is incongruous to say that a bishop of the Church of England should be against prelacy, but so it was’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Barlow was an interested observer of the two failed comprehension initiatives of 1667 and 1668; his annotated collection of pamphlets on the subject provides one of the best sources for the abortive negotiations.<sup>7</sup> He did not, however, support the proposals. In January 1669, when a possible dissolution of Parliament seemed likely, he wrote that,</p><blockquote><p>all men believe that the Presbyterians and all nonconformists desire and endeavour the dissolution of this, and the call of another parliament hoping to choose such members as may give a toleration (if not a greater encouragement or establishment) of their sect and way, and also (to ease the people of taxes) give the king the Church lands to raise money out of the church’s ruins; and so rob God, and invest the pious donations of their ancestors to the paying of the public debts … I hope you and I shall not live to see that day. Sure I am this present parliament will never do an Act so manifestly sacrilegious, and if (<em>quod absit</em>) another parliament should endeavour it, I am persuaded his sacred majesty (on whose head may the crown flourish) will never consent.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote><p>In February 1673, in the wake of debates in the Commons criticizing the king’s Declaration of Indulgence, Barlow also wrote approvingly to Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> about ‘the zeal of your House for the protestant religion’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Barlow’s Calvinist leanings and ability to survive relatively unscathed during the interregnum made him something of an object of suspicion. According to Wood, Barlow’s scholarly merits were exaggerated and he was a friend to none unless ‘the person is in capacity to do him service’. Wood may have been needlessly spiteful but Barlow certainly was careful to avoid making unnecessary political enemies. When he requested information about current affairs in 1669, for example, he explained that he needed it ‘so I might better know how to go myself: not that I mean to go along with world when it goes wrong, but that (being forewarned) I might endeavour to go well when it goes ill’.<sup>10</sup> And two of Barlow’s friends, the secretaries of state Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>, were indeed in a capacity to do him service. It was through their influence that, despite the open hostility of Sheldon, Barlow was elevated to a bishopric in 1675.<sup>11</sup> George Morley*, of Winchester, also championed Barlow as a supporter of reformed orthodoxy and performed Barlow’s consecration when Sheldon refused to officiate.<sup>12</sup> In a letter to Sir William Morrice<sup>‡</sup>, Barlow made his priorities clear: he wanted to tackle ‘the unbridled profaneness and atheism of our age’ and to protect the Church ‘from the unwearied machinations of papists, nonconformists and fanatics, and … some who pretend to be good sons of the Church of England (and as such enjoy great preferments and dignities) and yet publicly impugn her doctrine’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Over the course of 12 parliamentary sessions held during Barlow’s episcopate, he attended nine. There is no clear indication that he intervened in parliamentary elections and his ability to do so was circumscribed by his reluctance to visit his new diocese. He was, however, active in the business of the House. He was frequently named to the sessional committees and, as an active member of the Journals committee, helped to examine and amend the Journal on several occasions. In the course of his parliamentary career he was also named to more than 40 select committees.</p><p>Barlow took his seat in the Lords at the start of business on 13 Oct. 1675 and attended for 86 per cent of sittings. He was present at the contentious opening of the 1677–8 session and attended 51 per cent of sittings thereafter. He opposed in print the denial by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, of the divine origins of ‘kingly power’.<sup>14</sup> On 6 Mar. 1678 he was one of those named to attend the king with the resolution of the House refusing the claim of John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, to precedence as if he were heir to a creation of the late thirteenth century.</p><p>After the revelations of a Popish Plot in the summer of 1678, the session that assembled on 21 Oct. was increasingly obsessed with the perceived Catholic threat. Again taking his seat at the start of business, Barlow attended 69 per cent of sittings in the two-month session. When the Test bill came before the Lords he voted that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalty as the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Four days later, he challenged William Sancroft*, of Canterbury, Peter Gunning*, of Ely, and John Dolben*, then bishop of Rochester, for opposing the declaration in the Test that all image-worship was idolatrous.<sup>15</sup> On 19 Nov. Barlow was one of only 11 members of the House who voted for the removal from Whitehall of the queen and her Catholic retinue. James Stuart*, duke of York, was exempted from the Test Act on 21 Nov., a day on which Barlow (perhaps prudently) absented himself from the House. As the session drew to a close at the end of December 1678, Barlow voted against a Lords’ amendment to the disbanding bill. On 27 Dec. he also voted against the committal of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). His support was not unequivocal: Barlow’s name is absent from Danby’s surviving calculations of probable supporters or opponents.</p><p>In March 1679 Barlow attended the first six days of the first Exclusion Parliament, when virtually no business was transacted; after the main session began on 15 Mar. he was present for 74 per cent of sittings. His ingrained hostility towards the ‘exorbitant jurisdiction’ of the prelates was revealed in the division on Danby’s attainder on 14 April. When Shaftesbury moved that the bishops were not entitled to vote in ‘cases of blood’, Barlow left the chamber rather than vote in a capital case. He went further, joining with Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, to argue in print against the bishops’ right to vote in cases of blood. He was dubbed ‘a bitter enemy of episcopacy’, his loyalty to the king was questioned and it was said that the ‘the sound of Tom of Lincoln is very pleasant to the people’s ears’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Early in 1680 Barlow complained of ill health and the frailties of old age.<sup>17</sup> He arrived five weeks into the second Exclusion Parliament, answering a call of the House on 30 Oct. with the excuse that he was travelling to London. As a consequence, this long-time enemy of all things Catholic contrived to avoid upsetting York by missing the crucial vote on exclusion on 15 November. He attended the remainder of proceedings for just under one-fifth of all sittings, but was present every day of the short-lived Oxford Parliament in March 1681. He then chose to re-publish, with caustic annotations, the papal bulls which had pronounced the excommunications of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, demonstrating thereby that the Catholic Church had always denied that the Church of England was a true church and that it was therefore the enemy of Englishmen and English Protestants. Thereafter he largely retreated to Buckden, writing in anonymity as a ‘cordial friend’ of Protestantism.<sup>18</sup> He nevertheless did visit London occasionally. In 1682–3, for example, he sat as a member of the court of delegates on the Hyde–Emerton affair, delivering a decision in favour of the Emerton marriage that was perhaps still influenced by his dislike of Danby.</p><p>Early in 1684 Barlow’s continuing crusade against Restoration Church aesthetics led to the commencement of an unsuccessful suit in the court of arches against Moulton parish church, where effigies of the 12 apostles had been set up. An outraged Barlow claimed in his breviate that images were outlawed by the Church and could only ‘defile and pollute’ her worship.<sup>19</sup> Later that year his only response to a ‘sharp order’ made by the Bedfordshire quarter sessions against Dissenters was to send a circular letter to his clergy requiring them to publish the order ‘and diligently to advance the design of it’ by means that included ‘preaching and catechizing (to take away all excuses for their ignorance)’.<sup>20</sup> This was in keeping with his tract on toleration, originally written in 1660, in which he had argued that individuals should be persuaded of truth, not forced into it.<sup>21</sup> It was, however, the sort of response that his critics found deficient. In May 1684 he received a letter from Archbishop William Sancroft alerting him to reports that he favoured nonconformists and neglected his duties. In his response Barlow insisted that the accusations against him had been made ‘not because I am a favourer of non-conformists, but because I am not … a favourer of papists’. In late 1684 he was threatened with a metropolitan visitation for pastoral neglect, and was temporarily reprieved by the ‘undeserved charity and kindness of the excellent’ George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and the ‘prudence and diligence’ of his friend Sir Peter Pett. He excused his non-residence in Lincoln on the grounds of age and infirmity – in January 1685 he claimed to have been housebound for over a year – as well as the convenient location of Buckden for diocesan business.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Following the accession of James II, Barlow composed an address of thanks to the king for the declaration to preserve the Church, explaining to a friend that to court the anger of a Roman Catholic prince was no way to sustain the English Reformation.<sup>23</sup> He attended Westminster for the opening of Parliament on 19 May 1685 and was present for 82 per cent of sittings. On 16 Nov. he was added to the committee for privileges. He was present on 19 Nov. for the controversial debate on the king’s decision to retain Catholic officers in the army, but (perhaps with a sense of self-preservation) does not appear to have contributed to the debate. Nevertheless he found himself under attack. While in London he was accused before Sancroft and many of his fellow bishops of behaving ‘in a way unbecoming a good Christian, a bishop and a brother’, with the result that by the spring of 1686, on the instructions of the king, Sancroft had asked Thomas White*, of Peterborough, to conduct a visitation of Barlow’s diocese. White regretted that ‘so grave and learned a person’ as Barlow should have invited unwelcome attention. James II’s involvement was further underlined when White felt obliged to ask ‘what enquiry should be made about Catholics and whether his majesty will suffer them to be presented though the censures of the Church do not pass upon them’.<sup>24</sup> Barlow protested that Sancroft should have given him a chance to rectify any faults before ordering the visitation, declaring that it was strange,</p><blockquote><p>that I should be the only man to be brought upon the stage, and my faults publicly examined; especially at this time, and in those circumstances the Church of England now is; when prudence and Christian charity would rather hide and conceal our faults, then publicly expose them, to the scandal of our Church, and gratification of our adversaries.<sup>25</sup></p></blockquote><p>Throughout 1687 and 1688 Barlow was classified as an opponent of James II’s policies. Nevertheless, in 1687 he signed an address of thanks to the king for the first Declaration of Indulgence and encouraged others to do likewise, ‘that he might not seem backward in so acceptable a service’. He was so anxious to appease the king that in July 1687 he offered to omit an argument against idolatry from his latest pamphlet in case it proved offensive. Barely a month later, in the midst of the Magdalen College affair, he presented the son of James II’s appointee, Thomas Cartwright*, of Chester, to a living that had long been promised to one of his archdeacons but which was now withdrawn, ‘he having offended the bishop in the business of addressing’.<sup>26</sup> Yet Barlow’s underlying beliefs had not changed. In a letter to the staunch Anglican Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, in March 1688, he wrote of his frustration at being forced to omit proof of the ‘stupid idolatry’ of Rome in order to get his pamphlet licensed.<sup>27</sup> His ability to play both sides of the game was again demonstrated after the second Declaration of Indulgence when, in response to a query from one of his clergymen, he wrote that,</p><blockquote><p>By his Majesty’s command I was required to send that declaration to all churches in my diocese. In obedience whereto I sent them. Now the same authority which requires me to send them, requires you to read them. But whether you should, or you should not read them, is a question of that difficulty in the circumstances we now are, that you cannot expect that I should hastily answer it, especially in writing. For myself I shall neither persuade or dissuade you, but leave it to your prudence or conscience, whether you will, or you will not read it.</p></blockquote><p>He went on to say that, if the recipient decided to read it against his conscience, ‘it will be your sin, and you to blame for doing it’.<sup>28</sup> He did not sign the petition of the Seven Bishops and remained hostile to Sancroft’s prelatical leadership of the Restoration Church.<sup>29</sup> Perhaps this hostility to Sancroft was enough to secure the king’s support, for in August 1688 it was rumoured that he would be translated to York.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On 22 Jan. 1689 the 80-year-old Barlow attended the opening of the Convention, but was present thereafter for only 31 per cent of sittings. On 29 Jan. he voted for a regency and on the 31st against a motion declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen. When the Lords came to debate the wording of the offer of the crown on 4 and 6 Feb., Barlow remained in the ‘loyal’ camp, opposing both the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and the expression ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He was canvassed by Ailesbury, who reported that Barlow was ‘very likely’ to lend his support; in the event, he was one of 54 lords who ‘made all good in the House of Lords, and most strenuously opposed the question’.<sup>31</sup> Barlow joined Ailesbury as one of the conference managers on the abdication question. When the critical vote was lost on 6 Feb. he was one of 38 to register his protest. He absented himself from the House on 13 Feb. 1689 when William and Mary were proclaimed joint monarchs but attended the next sitting, on 15 February. On 8 Mar. he was named to the delegation to attend the new monarchs with thanks for his answer to the address of both houses. He took the oaths of fealty to the new monarchy and even attended the coronation.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Barlow attended the House for the final time on 16 Apr. 1689. On 22 May he was given leave of absence for the last four months of the 1689 session, his proxy having been entered in favour of Henry Compton*, of London, on 7 May. He remained at Buckden, immersed in his books. This conservative bishop viewed the new regime’s religious policy with contempt and he claimed that the passage of the 1689 Act of Toleration served Dissenters despite their having ‘ruined church and state, and murdered their king’.<sup>33</sup> He believed fervently that no state should tolerate any religion ‘which may be destructive to the civil peace’ and was particularly unhappy with toleration for Quakers, whose abrasive behaviour put them beyond the bounds of ‘reason and civility’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>On 12 Nov. 1689 Barlow registered his proxy in Compton’s favour for the winter 1689 session. There is no record of a further proxy for the sessions from 1690 to 1691. Shortly before his death in October 1691 at Buckden, he made his final will. In 1689 he had valued his personal estate as worth £300.<sup>35</sup> The contents of his personal library were divided between the Bodleian and Queen’s College, Oxford. Controversy pursued Barlow even after death. His friend Sir Peter Pett published assorted manuscripts as <em>The Genuine Remains</em>, only to be accused by William Offley and Henry Brougham, Barlow’s executors, of injuring the bishop’s reputation for financial gain.<sup>36</sup> His posthumous standing was however irreparably damaged by Anthony Wood, who described the bishop somewhat simplistically as one who had ‘flattered and run with the times’.<sup>37</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
BARROW, Isaac (1612-80) |
<p><strong><surname>BARROW</surname></strong>, <strong>Isaac</strong> (1612–80)</p> |
|
|
First sat 26 Mar. 1670; last sat 20 Nov. 1670 |
cons. 5 July 1663 bp. of Sodor and Man; transl. 21 Mar. 1670 bp. of ST ASAPH |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1612/13, s. of Isaac Barrow of Spinney Abbey, Cambs. and Katharine, da. of Marlion Rythe of Twickenham, Mdx. <em>educ</em>. Peterhouse, Camb. matric. 1631, BA 1632–3, MA 1636, fell. ?–1644, ejected 1644, 1660–?, DD 1660; ord. priest 1641. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 24 June 1680; <em>will</em> 14 Dec. 1679, pr. 14 Sept. 1680.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gov. Isle of Man, 1664–71.</p><p>Vic. Cherry Hinton, Cambs. 1641; chap. New Coll. Oxf. 1644–5; fell. Eton, 1660–70; rect. Downham, Cambs. 1660, Llandrinio, Mont. 1670; adn. St Asaph, 1670.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by M. Beale, Trinity, Camb.</p> |
<p>A Cambridgeshire minister and fellow of Peterhouse before the Civil Wars, Barrow suffered ejection in 1644; around this time, with his lifelong friend Peter Gunning*, the future bishop of Ely, he helped to compose a treatise against the ‘utterly unlawful’ aim in the solemn league and covenant to rid the Church of its bishops.<sup>2</sup> In July 1662, he became bishop of Sodor and Man through the recommendation of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, Lord of Man.<sup>3</sup> As bishop of Man, Barrow was not entitled to sit in the Lords, but on the death of Henry Glemham*, of St Asaph, he was nominated to succeed him. He took his seat on 26 Mar. 1670 and immediately became involved in the business of the House. On 28 Mar. the bill which would allow John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (the future 9th earl and duke of Rutland), to remarry received its third reading. Thirteen members of the episcopal bench, including Barrow, registered their dissent.</p><p>Barrow attended for over half of the sittings during the 1670–1 session and was named to 19 select committees. He was also now more strategically placed to preach at court and on 30 Jan. 1671 he delivered a ‘most learned’ sermon.<sup>4</sup> At the same time he was absorbed with diocesan business: this included imposing a ban on extempore prayer (Barrow was a strict disciplinarian)<sup>5</sup> and engaging in active pastoral work, particularly the funding of apprenticeships and scholarships.<sup>6</sup></p><p>As early as 1671, Barrow became embroiled in a dispute with the dean and chapter over the cost of cathedral repairs.<sup>7</sup> Dean Humphrey Lloyd*, later bishop of Bangor, was castigated by Gilbert Sheldon*, of Canterbury, and the dispute was mediated by another Welsh bishop, Robert Morgan*, of Bangor.<sup>8</sup> Financial problems were partly due to the poor revenues from existing lead mines. In 1671 Barrow and Morgan therefore moved to exploit their landowning rights in a private bill enabling them to let all lead mines on their lands for 21 years.<sup>9</sup> Barrow was present when the bill was read for the first time on 11 Jan. 1671. It was committed on 17 Jan. when neither man was in attendance, but the management of the bill nevertheless had a distinctly Welsh flavour. The committee met on 20 Jan. 1671 under the chairmanship of William Herbert*, 3rd Baron Powis, and oversaw amendments. Powis reported back to the House on the 26th, the bill was recommitted and, after two further meetings on 27 Jan. and 1 Feb., it passed the Lords.<sup>10</sup> In the Commons it was committed to Sir Henry Herbert<sup>‡</sup> and ‘all that serve for the several counties of Wales’, finally receiving the royal assent on 6 Mar. 1671.<sup>11</sup></p><p>By December 1672, following the Declaration of Indulgence, Sheldon was concerned that the ongoing dispute between Barrow and his chapter might interfere with the bishop’s parliamentary duties; his attendance at the House was required as it was ‘like to be so critical a time … that it admits of no ordinary excuse’.<sup>12</sup> Barrow accordingly arrived at the House for the first day of the new session on 4 Feb. 1673 and attended most days until the brief session ended on 29 March. During that time he was named to four select committees. Thereafter, his attendance suffered as a result of poor health and the difficult journeys between north Wales and London. He made eight appearances in the House in the autumn of 1675; Parliament was prorogued two days after his last visit and he never attended again. In July 1676, even though Parliament was not in session, Barrow registered his proxy to Peter Gunning.</p><p>In 1677, John Parry, bishop of Ossory [I], informed Secretary Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> that ‘the good bishop’ was ‘past recovery’: Parry solicited the post for his brother.<sup>13</sup> Barrow survived that winter but felt ‘utterly disabled’ to fulfil his responsibilities. Disillusioned with life in St Asaph, where the gentry had been unenthusiastic about his charitable projects, he moved to Shrewsbury to live with his sister Martha.<sup>14</sup> At the same time, he begged William Sancroft*, of Canterbury, to accept his resignation, but was unsuccessful.<sup>15</sup> In the autumn of 1678 he was reported as being so weak that he was expected to die at any moment.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Despite his failing health, Barrow continued to complain about diocesan finances and sought further private legislation to ameliorate a number of structural problems, not least the funding of repairs necessitated by the cathedral’s exposed position.<sup>17</sup> On 27 Feb. 1678 the Lords read for the first time a bill to appropriate the rectories of Llanrhaiadr in Mochnant and Skeiviog to maintain the cathedral and its choir and to unite several sinecures for the augmentation of poor vicarages. The bill was committed the following day under the chairmanship of Henry Compton*, of London. The select committee dealt speedily with necessary amendments, reporting back to the House on 7 Mar., and the bill received the royal assent on 13 May.<sup>18</sup> Barrow thanked Sancroft for supporting the legislation, ‘a work of great charity and indeed necessity’ since Welsh vicarages were poorly endowed and the clergy ‘illiterate and contemptible … for want of books and all improvements for their ministry’.<sup>19</sup> His attempts to address clerical poverty in his diocese often lacked support and he was under considerable pressure (not least from the king himself) to grant leases and award vacant sinecures.<sup>20</sup> Nevertheless, on 1 Apr. 1679 he received the king’s blessing for his refusal to renew the valuable lease of Meliden in order to preserve it for the bishopric. His refusal cost him £700 in loss of fines, but he was assured by the king that his successor would be obliged to do likewise.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In the increasingly anti-clerical atmosphere following the popish plot, Barrow faced the enmity of the ‘country’ opposition. Anthony Wood reported that, in April 1679, five bishops, including Barrow, had been accused of involvement in the plot by John Sidway.<sup>22</sup> This episode, which coincided with the impeachment of the five Catholic lords, led to a debate in the House on 7 Apr. which resulted in the committal of Sidway to the Gatehouse. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, headed the list of those who dissented. Barrow’s reputation as a strict churchman, together with his longstanding alliance with his fellow accused, the conservative Gunning, made him especially vulnerable.</p><p>Barrow died in Shrewsbury on 24 June 1680 and was buried on 1 July in the churchyard of his cathedral. Five years after his death, his sister and his nephew, the main beneficiaries and executors of his will, became defendants in a lengthy exchequer case.<sup>23</sup> Furthermore, ‘a great noise’ was made about the epitaph that Barrow had composed, which suggested that prayers from the living could benefit the dead.<sup>24</sup> Whig anti-clericalists exploited the inscription as confirmation that the bishop had been a closet Roman Catholic.<sup>25</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
BEAW, William (1616-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>BEAW</surname></strong> (<strong>BEW</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1616–1706)</p> |
|
|
First sat 6 Nov. 1680; last sat 12 Nov. 1705 |
cons. 22 June 1679 bp. of LLANDAFF |
|
<p><em>b</em>. Dec. 1616, s. of William Bew (Beaw), clergyman and Elizabeth Twysse of Newbury, Berks. <em>educ.</em> Winchester Sch.; New Coll. Oxf. fell. 1637 (ejected 1648), 1660–1, BA 1639, MA 1643, BD 1666. <em>m.</em> Frances, da. of Alexander Bowsier of Southampton, Hants, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 9da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 10 Feb. 1706; <em>will</em> 17 May 1703, pr. 18 Feb. 1706.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Maj. royalist regt. horse, 1644; overseas military service with Swedish and Russian forces 1648–?57;<sup>3</sup> royalist agent, Copenhagen ?1652.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Vic. Adderbury, Oxon. 1660–1706 (rect. from 1691); rect. Bedwas, Mon., St Andrew’s, Glam. 1679-d.;<sup>5</sup> preb. Llandaff 1682.</p><p>Proctor, Oxf. 1647.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, diocese of Llandaff; oil on canvas, National Trust, Croft Castle.</p> |
<p>Despite his early education under the influence of the puritan divine William Twysse, Beaw ‘out of zeal to my religion and my king … took up arms in the cause of both’ and was subsequently captured and imprisoned by the parliamentary forces. After his release and ejection from Oxford he embarked on a series of military and diplomatic adventures. In his own account of his life he claimed that at the Restoration there was no preferment in the Church that was not his for the asking – except that he was not in orders. It was presumably the ‘long and earnest solicitations’ of Robert Skinner*, bishop of Oxford, that persuaded him to accept ordination; it was certainly Skinner who ordained him deacon and priest on 8 Aug. 1660.</p><p>Although Beaw claimed to have been satisfied with the lucrative living of Adderbury, he was, or so he said,</p><blockquote><p>forced … by some who thought it an indignity (other wise than I thought myself) that my past services should continue unrewarded. Whereupon I was sent so to pitch upon any preferment in the Church (I know not whether a bishopric was intended in the message … it was not excepted) and it should be secured with me.<sup>6</sup></p></blockquote><p>Anthony Wood gave the credit for Beaw’s elevation to John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, whose residence at Adderbury House indicates a physical proximity to Beaw. A more recent account emphasizes the importance of the Hyde connection and suggests that it was Laurence Hyde*, created earl of Rochester in 1682, who acted in Beaw’s interest.<sup>7</sup> In 1699 Beaw was coy about the identity of his patrons, merely confirming that he was persuaded to accept Llandaff by two letters, one ‘from a person of quality yet living to whom I am the most obliged of any in the world’ and who had assured him that it would be merely the start of a career in the episcopate.<sup>8</sup> Expecting imminent translation out of Wales, he found himself stranded there for 26 years and, despite his valuable living at Adderbury and several commendams, spent much of his episcopate complaining about his poverty and failure to secure further promotion.</p><p>On 6 Nov. 1680 Beaw took his seat in the House, two weeks into the second Exclusion Parliament. His parliamentary career of more than 25 years was constrained by both age and the rigours of travel to Westminster. Of 20 sessions, he attended 11 (and of those only three for more than half of all sittings) and was named to fewer than 30 select committees. He attended his first session for 64 per cent of sittings and was a consistent supporter of the king and his fellow bishops. In November 1680 he rejected exclusion and voted against the appointment of a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom. The following year, he made three appearances at the week-long Oxford Parliament in March 1681 before the dissolution. In the summer of 1683 Beaw suffered a compound fracture of the ankle which permanently impaired his mobility and put him in such ‘great torment’ that he ordered prayers to be said throughout his own diocese and instructed a diocesan official to beg William Sancroft*, of Canterbury,for additional intercessions.<sup>9</sup></p><p>When Henry Compton*, of London, issued a summons for the coronation of James II in April 1685, Beaw refused to attend (citing his difficulty in walking) but indicated that he intended to be present for the new king’s Parliament at the start of the session.<sup>10</sup> He arrived at Westminster on 22 May 1685, the third day of business, and attended the session for just over half of all sittings. Perhaps his attendance was linked to his attempt, in July 1685, to improve his finances under the new regime. At this point he wrote an account of his ‘sufferings’ in the service of two previous kings, asking Francis Turner*, of Ely, to mediate with James II and represent his ‘forlorn’ situation.<sup>11</sup> Meanwhile, he ran into difficulties both in Adderbury and in his diocese. The churchwardens of Barford presented Beaw in 1686 for his failure to provide divine service and he was accused of allowing his congregation to lapse into indifference.<sup>12</sup> In 1687 his decision to appoint his son, also named William Beaw<sup>‡</sup>, as chancellor of Llandaff in succession to Sir Richard Lloyd<sup>‡</sup>, dean of arches, was challenged in the courts by John Jones, who claimed the post under a grant from Beaw’s predecessor.<sup>13</sup></p><p>As the reign progressed Beaw opposed the repeal of the Test Acts and resisted the catholicizing drift of James’s religious policies. In the spring of 1688 he sympathized with the Seven Bishops in their challenge to the second Declaration of Indulgence. When a copy of their petition reached Beaw via Robert Frampton*, of Gloucester, Beaw described himself as being ‘absent in body only’. He forbade the reading of the Declaration in his own diocese and expressed a hope that the bishops should all ‘be of one mind, and dare to do well in evil times’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Following the Revolution, Beaw attended the Convention for 47 per cent of sittings. Although he did not join Sancroft as a non-juror, he was clearly uncomfortable with the new political situation, supporting a regency and voting against declaring William and Mary to be king and queen. On 4 Feb. 1689 he voted with the opposition in the abdication debates and, two days later, joined with 11 of his fellow bishops in the formal dissent. He was nevertheless present at the coronation on 11 April.<sup>15</sup> On 19 June he registered his proxy in favour of Henry Compton and attended the House for the last time that session on the following day. Beaw was now identified with the high church faction in the House. He attended the second session of the Convention for 44 per cent of sittings; on 19 Nov. 1689 he joined the dissent to the third reading of the bill to prevent clandestine marriages, arguing that when a marriage had been ‘religiously contracted and consummated, it cannot be nulled’.</p><p>Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen classed him as an opponent of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, adding that he was to be approached by the bishop of London to be absent. In the spring of 1690, however, Beaw attended the House more regularly than at any other time in his career – for nearly 83 per cent of sittings. On 8 Apr., as a reliable ally of Rochester, he objected to the wording of the bill that confirmed the acts of the Convention as ‘destructive of the legal constitution of this monarchy’.<sup>16</sup> He was, though, present at the winter session of 1690–1 on only 14 occasions and failed to attend the session at the end of 1691, quite possibly preoccupied with the continuing dispute over the appointment of his son as diocesan chancellor in 1688. In May 1691 Jones won his case; the younger William Beaw then appealed to the Lords, where the case was heard, and dismissed with costs, on 18 Feb. 1692.<sup>17</sup> It was almost certainly this that prompted Beaw to register his proxy in favour of Peter Mews*, of Winchester, on 27 Jan. 1692 (vacated at the end of the session). The Beaws would not accept the decision and perhaps this was why the bishop attended the autumn 1692 session more regularly than usual (63 per cent of sittings). On 19 Nov. 1692 Beaw’s son petitioned the House unsuccessfully for an abatement of costs. Further difficulties arose when Sir Adam Ottley, a master in chancery, pointed out that the younger Beaw, as a diocesan official, could claim protection under his father’s privilege of Parliament. Jones petitioned the House on 9 Feb. 1693 to discharge the offending protection but the bishop’s privilege was upheld.<sup>18</sup> Meanwhile, in January 1693 Beaw had opposed both the Place bill and the committal of the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On 17 Jan. he also protested against the Lords’ dismissal of the Banbury peerage claim.</p><p>Beaw had long had hopes of a translation to Hereford but, unfortunately for him, Herbert Croft* although</p><blockquote><p>old and feeble and sick, and dropping every hour off … thought not good to go out of the world in King Charles’ reign, nor in King James’ reign neither, but deferred his departure till this government when a brother of mine, who was upon the watch, and too quick for me, made the first catch at the bishopric, and caught it.</p></blockquote><p>In 1692 the death of Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, encouraged Beaw to try again for translation. Realizing that Lichfield was beyond his grasp he made it clear that he was prepared to settle for St Asaph and sought Compton’s help to secure it, but ‘it had been buzzed into the queen’s ears … that a Welsh bishop ought to be a Welshman’, an argument with which John Tillotson*, archbishop of Canterbury, agreed. Beaw was incensed, claiming that Tillotson had insulted former kings and primates who had imposed English bishops on the Welsh Church. English, he insisted, was the primary language in Welsh market towns, where a sermon in Welsh would not be understood. He claimed that he had tried to overcome his anger towards Tillotson, not least since the archbishop often sat close to Beaw on the bishops’ bench ‘as if to invite’ Beaw into conversation. Tillotson subsequently promised that a ‘worthy’ commendam would be added to the bishopric to ease Beaw’s acute financial difficulties but the archbishop’s unexpected death left Beaw’s hopes ‘extinct’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>For the following seven sessions of Parliament, alienated politically from the government and disgruntled with his circumstances, Beaw failed to attend. Nor, according to surviving records, did he ever send a proxy. On 23 Nov. 1696, when the House was enforcing attendance in preparation for the forthcoming proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, he was excused after informing the House that he was almost 80 years old and that his age ought to bring ‘a full discharge from all other labour and sorrow than what itself brings’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Beaw again asserted his privilege of Parliament on 27 Feb. 1697 when he petitioned against two men who had ‘forcibly entered’ his estate in an attempt to recover unpaid debts from his tenants. In August 1699 anticipation of an imminent vacancy in the episcopate through the deprivation of Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, prompted him to compile a long letter to Thomas Tenison*, of Canterbury, rehearsing details of his career and his thwarted expectations of preferment, and complaining of the ‘indignity’ of a ‘little bishopric’ where living according to his dignity rather than his income left him in need of charity.<sup>21</sup></p><p>With the accession of Anne in 1702, the 86-year-old Beaw made one last ‘pitch’ at translation. On the day of her coronation he drafted a memorandum to the queen and attended the ceremony, walking ‘all the way both forward and backward’.<sup>22</sup> There is no evidence that he delivered this letter or, if he did, that he received any reply. Nevertheless, in April 1702 Beaw reappeared on the episcopal bench but he attended only eight sittings before the end of the session. On 11 Oct. he informed Humphrey Humphreys*, of Hereford, that he had intended to stay away from Parliament but that he now planned to ‘hasten up’, leave a proxy and return to Hereford, where he was staying.<sup>23</sup> He attended the House twice in December 1702 but then absented himself until a final visit three years later. Although William Nicolson*, of Carlisle, recorded Beaw as voting with the Tories on 16 Jan. 1703 on the Lords’ amendments to the Occasional Conformity Bill, he was not listed as being in attendance that day.<sup>24</sup> It is possible that he voted by proxy but this cannot be confirmed as the proxy book is defective. A printed list of the division on the bill on 14 Dec. 1703 does indicate that Beaw voted for the bill by proxy. It was probably cast by Henry Compton but again this cannot be confirmed because the proxy book for the 1703–4 session is missing. Beaw’s proxy was registered in Compton’s favour on 6 Oct. 1704; it was vacated at the end of the session. He attended the winter 1705 session on one day only, 12 Nov., his final appearance in the House of Lords. On 28 Nov. he registered his proxy once again in favour of Compton.</p><p>From 1697 Beaw had exchanged his pinched life in Monmouthshire for the relative comfort of his Oxfordshire vicarage. The medieval bishop’s palace at Mathern slipped into disuse; Beaw was the last bishop to live there. In 1704 the ageing bishop petitioned the queen for assistance for his ‘destitute’ family; the following spring he approached Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, with a new plea for additional income by appropriating to the bishopric the income of a vacant archdeaconry. All he got, in 1705, was a pension of 20 shillings as ‘royal bounty’.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Beaw died on 10 Feb. 1706 and was buried not in his cathedral but at Adderbury. He bequeathed only five shillings to each of his children and made his wife sole executrix and the residuary beneficiary. Anne granted his widow a yearly pension of £40, but her various costs and debts after the death of the bishop exceeded £500 and she claimed to be owed in excess of £800 by Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, for a lease granted by her husband. With three unmarried daughters still without provision and Beaufort attempting to avoid payment of his debt, she was reduced to a ‘deplorable condition’.<sup>26</sup> Nor did Beaw’s eldest son thrive: he fell into debt and, following a short and lacklustre career as a Member of the Commons, died in the Fleet prison in 1738.<sup>27</sup> Beaw himself left a poor pastoral legacy and is not remembered kindly by the Welsh, not least because it was ‘manifest that in upwards of 26 years he never gave any dignity in this Church, but to one native and that on a particular consideration’.<sup>28</sup> Browne Willis<sup>‡</sup> also remarked on the poverty of Beaw’s legacy to Llandaff, the bishop having spent ‘not one farthing’ towards the Church.<sup>29</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
BEVERIDGE, William (1637-1708) |
<p><strong><surname>BEVERIDGE</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1637–1708)</p> |
|
|
First sat 25 Oct. 1704; last sat 20 Jan. 1708 |
cons. 16 July 1704 bp. of ST ASAPH |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Feb. 1637, 3rd s. of William Beveridge, vic. Barrow, Leics. <em>educ</em>. New Free Sch. Oakham, Rutland; St John’s, Camb. BA 1656, MA 1660, DD 1679; ord. deacon 1661, priest 1661. <em>m</em>. Lucy, da. of William Stanley of Hinckley, Leics. <em>d.s.p</em>.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 5 Mar. 1708; <em>will</em> 11 May 1706, pr. 29 Mar. 1708.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1683–5, James II 1685–8, William and Mary 1688–92.</p><p>Vic. Ealing, Mdx. 1661–72; chap. to Humphrey Henchman*, bp. of London, c.1672;<sup>3</sup> rect. St Peter Cornhill, London 1673-1704; canon, Chichester 1673, Chiswick, St Paul’s 1674, Canterbury 1684–1708; adn. Colchester 1681–1704.</p><p>Pres. Sion Coll. 1689; mbr. SPG, 1701.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by B. Ferrers, Bodl. Oxf.; engraving by M. Vandergucht, after Ferrers, NPG D31440.</p> |
<p>A patristic scholar well respected by his fellow high churchmen, William Beveridge is remembered almost exclusively as a pastor and theologian. He was born into a minor clerical dynasty and inherited from his father the Leicestershire estate of Hall Orchard in Barrow. At the time of his death, he bequeathed both Hall Orchard and other properties in Barrow worth an annual rental income of £53, in addition to more than £1,200 in cash. An inventory taken in 1712 revealed that his personal estate was worth over £2,500.<sup>5</sup> Beveridge enjoyed the patronage of the bishops of London throughout his career, being presented by Gilbert Sheldon*, then of London, later archbishop of Canterbury, to his first living.<sup>6</sup> As a theologian in the same vein as John Pearson*, of Chester, and George Bull*, of St Davids, he was pivotal to the high churchmanship that developed in the early eighteenth century Church. He helped to develop the martyrology of Charles I and, as an outspoken advocate of Anglican royalist politics and religious uniformity, opposed the comprehension projects of 1668 and 1674. In 1681 he preached his famous sermon on the merits of the prayer book (perennially popular, it had gone into 44 editions by 1824) and he never retreated from the opinion that Anglican public worship fostered political loyalty.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In 1672, Beveridge joined the ranks of influential London clergymen when he was presented to the City church of St Peter Cornhill. On 19 May 1688, he was one of 17 clergymen who gathered in London to co-ordinate their opposition to the second Declaration of Indulgence. He was nevertheless unhappy about the events of the revolution of 1688. In January 1689 he was one of several Tory clergymen who opposed the decision by Henry Compton*, of London to omit the customary prayers for the royal family from the public liturgy. On 13 Sept. of that year Beveridge was named to the ecclesiastical commission to revise the liturgy along the lines agreed between John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland. The contentious debates in convocation in December 1689 showed that he was firmly allied to Tillotson.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Beveridge’s elevation to the episcopate was widely anticipated and on 22 Apr. 1691 he was nominated to replace the non-juror Thomas Ken*, at Bath and Wells.<sup>9</sup> William Sancroft*, of Canterbury, advised him to reject the appointment although he did not expect Beveridge to follow his guidance. Having first accepted the nomination Beveridge then changed his mind, claiming to be worried about accepting a post that was not canonically vacant, although he was also concerned about the strength of support for Ken in the diocese and the threat of an action in king’s bench. His refusal offended the king and provoked an attack in the press (attributed to Edward Stillingfleet*, of Worcester).<sup>10</sup> Beveridge nevertheless continued to make his mark as a Tory clergyman in convocation.<sup>11</sup></p><p>It was only with the accession of Anne that his career fortunes changed. A favourite with the new queen for his stance on royal authority and supported by John Sharp*, archbishop of York, Beveridge was elevated to St Asaph as one of four Tory bishops to be appointed in the first three years of Anne’s reign. He was consecrated on 16 July 1704 and went into his new diocese determined on pastoral reform. A prolific writer of learned doctrinal expositions and devotionals, he took a pragmatic stance towards the paucity of academically qualified clergy in his new diocese.<sup>12</sup> He encouraged branches of the SPCK and the translation into Welsh of his publications.<sup>13</sup> In an area dominated by Tories, his contribution to Welsh life was ecclesiastical rather than political. Even when other parts of the country were gripped with election fever in 1705 and 1706, there was no evidence of partisan activity to engage the new bishop.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Beveridge took his seat in the House on 24 Oct. 1704, the first day of a new parliamentary session, when he was ordered to preach to the House on 5 November. He was also named to the committee to draw up a congratulatory address on the military successes of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. His sporadic attendance during the session (only 12 per cent of sittings) marked the start of a lacklustre parliamentary career. A lack of interest in Parliament did not denote a lack of interest in national politics, however, for he used the pulpit to deliver political sermons of considerable partisanship. On 5 Nov. 1704, his sermon before the Lords foreshadowed the controversial Sacheverell sermon of 1709; he applied his text (Esther ix. 27–28) in such a way as to commemorate only the gunpowder plot and not William III’s landing at Torbay. Beveridge attributed the revolution to providence, rather than William III.<sup>15</sup> On 14 Dec. he registered his proxy in favour of his fellow Tory George Hooper*, of Bath and Wells. The following day, after a four-hour debate on the occasional conformity bill and the division on its second reading, William Nicolson*, of Carlisle, noted that Beveridge (by proxy) was one of the 33 who voted in favour of the bill.<sup>16</sup> Beveridge excused himself from the 1704 Christmas dinner at Lambeth Palace on the grounds of ill health. At the time he was also fretful at the prospect of the case of Thomas Watson*, the deprived bishop of St Davids, coming before the Lords, fearing that it would have divisive consequences whatever the outcome.<sup>17</sup> He returned to the House on 20 Feb. 1705 and attended for a further 12 days before the end of the session.</p><p>Beveridge arrived at the October 1705 session six days after the start of business. He attended 30 per cent of sittings and was named to eight committees. On 8 Jan. 1706, he was ordered to give the annual sermon commemorating the execution of Charles I. His sermon (on the Christian martyr Stephen) repeated his apology for the sainthood of Charles I, who, he claimed, had died defending the Church from puritans inspired by the devil.<sup>18</sup> On 1 Feb. the House ordered its publication. Beveridge attended again on 19 Mar. 1706 but missed the last two months of the session.</p><p>On 3 Dec. 1706, Beveridge arrived on the first day of the 1706–7 session and attended 35 per cent of sittings (a total of 30 days). Throughout December 1706 he did the social round in London with his nephew Dean William Stanley and with William Nicolson.<sup>19</sup> Parliamentary business in the new year revolved around the union with Scotland. Francis Annesley<sup>‡</sup>, the Member for Preston, informed the archbishop of Dublin that Beveridge, Hooper, Compton, and Sharp were opposed to the ‘Scotch Acts’.<sup>20</sup> Beveridge in particular feared that Scottish Presbyterianism would in some way contaminate the Church of England. On 3 Feb. 1707, he supported Sharp’s unsuccessful amendment that the Test Act should be an integral part of the Act of Union. On 3 Mar. he was again among the minority trying to block the article that would give official recognition to the Scottish kirk. He thanked George Bull for his speech affirming the Church of England as the ideal Protestant church, wishing that he and Bull had responsibility for writing the bill themselves; faced with arguments that national security was of a higher priority than the Anglican monopoly, however, Beveridge and other like-minded bishops duly voted for the offending article.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Beveridge consistently devoted more time to ecclesiastical than parliamentary business. On 8 Mar. 1707, the fifth anniversary of the queen’s accession, he was not in the House but with the two archbishops in the royal chapel. The House rose on 8 Apr. and Beveridge failed to attend the subsequent short session that began on 14 Apr. 1707. He arrived 18 days after the start of the 1707–8 session. Attending only nine per cent of sittings, he was absent from the House between 12 Dec. 1707 and 20 Jan. 1708 but was seen on Christmas Day receiving communion at St Margaret’s Church, and he attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth.<sup>22</sup> His health was now in decline and on 20 Jan. 1708 he attended the House for the final time. He died in his apartments in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey on 5 Mar. 1708 and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral with no memorial inscription.<sup>23</sup> In addition to his bequests of Leicestershire land and legacies to friends, family, and the poor, he bequeathed £100 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, his books to a library for London clergy, and the advowson of Barrow vicarage to his Cambridge college.</p> |
B.A. |
|
BISSE, Philip (1666-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>BISSE</surname></strong>, <strong>Philip</strong> (1666–1721)</p> |
|
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1710; last sat 6 Apr. 1719 |
cons. 19 Nov. 1710 bp. of ST DAVIDS; transl. 16 Feb. 1713 bp. of HEREFORD |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 28 May 1666, eldest s. of John Bisse, rect. of Oldbury-on-the-Hill, Glos. and Joyce Gyles. <em>educ</em>. Winchester 1682–6; New Coll. Oxf. matric. 1686, BA 1690, MA 1694, BD and DD 1706. <em>m</em>. ?1704, Bridget (1661–1718), da. of Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, and wid. of Charles Fitzcharles*, earl of Plymouth; <em>d.s.p. d</em>. 6 Sept. 1721; <em>will</em> 21 July 1718–29 Sept. 1719, pr. 20 Dec. 1721.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Bridget, countess of Plymouth.</p><p>Fell. New Coll. Oxf. 1694.</p><p>FRS 1706.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas attrib. to T. Hill, 1719, New Coll., Oxf.; line engraving aft. foregoing, G. Vertue, 1719, NPG D31450.</p> |
<p>Bisse came from a long clerical tradition, being the second of seven children born to a Gloucestershire clergyman descended from an armigerous Somerset family.<sup>2</sup> He was ordained in 1692 by John Hough*, then bishop of Oxford, but does not appear to have held any ecclesiastical livings before gaining a prestigious chaplaincy to Lady Plymouth. After the death of her first husband she married Bisse but the marriage was not publicly acknowledged until 1706. At least initially, it was not the connection to the extensive Osborne family network that was most influential in shaping Bisse’s career but his kinship to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. The Osbornes disapproved of the marriage, presumably because Bisse’s social status was vastly inferior to that of a ducal family, and it was Harley whose support and willingness to own Bisse as his relation and to disclose the marriage to the queen earned the couple’s gratitude.<sup>3</sup> Details of both Bisse’s personal relationships and financial circumstances are hazy; by the time of his death, he owned real estate in Herefordshire and Middlesex, although its extent is unknown.</p><p>By 1708, Bisse was a prominent Tory clergyman and enthusiastic proponent of the theology of good works. In his sermons and in convocation, he helped to politicize the Anglican doctrinal struggle between the promoters of practical piety – with its perceived advantages of social stability – and diehard Calvinists such as John Williams*, of Chichester.<sup>4</sup> Early in May 1709 he was said to be a candidate for the vacant bishopric of Chichester but to have little chance of success. By the end of the month his prospects had improved. The queen had been instrumental in effecting a reconciliation between his wife and her father, and had promised Bisse ‘the title of lord’. Bisse also secured the support of John Sharp*, archbishop of York.<sup>5</sup> His reputation was further enhanced by the rousing fast sermon that he delivered to the Commons in March 1710.<sup>6</sup> He was thus ideally placed to benefit from his cousin’s political position when the Harley ministry of 1710 saw a dramatic improvement in the career prospects of Tory clerics. By April 1710 it was already rumoured that Bisse, then aged only 43 (and with no previous ecclesiastical preferments), would be elevated to the episcopate. As he later acknowledged, his elevation was entirely due to the ‘favour’ of Oxford (as Harley had become).<sup>7</sup> As Harley’s client, Bisse’s appointment constituted something of a snub to the ‘hot’ Tories such as Henry Sacheverell and Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester.</p><p>Bisse was consecrated in Lambeth Palace chapel on 19 Nov. 1710.<sup>8</sup> As an avowed Anglophile, he acted to the detriment of Welsh culture, refusing to subscribe to Welsh books because it would ‘obstruct the English tongue’. Unlike both his predecessor George Bull*, and his successor Adam Ottley*, he enforced the use of English by erecting charity schools in which only English was spoken.<sup>9</sup> There is no evidence that Bisse took a prominent role in Pembrokeshire electoral politics, although his elevation to St Davids dovetailed neatly with the collapse of Whig power in Wales when the Sacheverell trial polarized local party opinion.<sup>10</sup> He is known, however, to have acted as Oxford’s agent in the Shropshire elections in 1713.<sup>11</sup> On 3 Oct. 1710, Bisse (as bishop-elect) was named in a list of Lords expected to support the ministry. He received his writ of summons on 24 Nov. and took his seat in the House on the following day. <sup>12</sup> He attended for nearly 70 per cent of sittings during the session and held the proxy of John Robinson*, then bishop of Bristol, from 11 Dec. for three days. The extant diaries of William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle and William Wake*, then bishop of Lincoln, as well as that of the clergyman Henry Brydges, show that Bisse frequently dined with his fellow bishops when in London and that sometimes these meetings had a partisan political flavour. Strategies for parliamentary as well as Church business must have figured in the table talk.<sup>13</sup></p><p>On 6 Dec. 1710, Bisse had voted in convocation for Atterbury to be confirmed as prolocutor and on 21 Feb. 1711 he was named in the queen’s new licence for the convocation quorum (with John Robinson, Offspring Blackall*, of Exeter, and Jonathan Trelawny*, ofWinchester). Many of the existing bishops were offended by the inclusion of such new appointees to the episcopate and by what was in effect an intrusion on the authority of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury. Age and inexperience notwithstanding, Bisse proved to be a shrewd and effective negotiator. He brokered a compromise and persuaded the queen to amend the offending licence. Nicolson, recorded Bisse’s ‘kind wish’ for unanimity on the episcopal bench.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Bisse was also involved in non-parliamentary activities. Late in December 1710 he attended a Whitehall meeting of the commissioners of Queen Anne’s bounty, and in March 1711 he was named to a committee of bishops sitting in the heresy case against the Cambridge professor William Whiston.<sup>15</sup> On 15 May 1711, Bisse was ordered to preach to the Lords at the public thanksgiving for the Restoration. His sermon lauded an English constitution established for at least 2,000 years. He looked back (with considerable venom) on the interregnum polity that had been ‘torn to pieces by the republican spirit’ and infiltrated by ‘the very dregs of the people’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Bisse was in the House on 7 Dec. 1711 for the first day of the new parliamentary session, and he attended 80 per cent of sittings. The following day he protested against the resolution to present the address on account of the additional ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause that encroached on the royal prerogative in foreign affairs. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support claims of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit as a British peer and on 20th duly voted against the resolution disabling hi from sitting as duke of Brandon. The next day he again received the proxy of John Robinson (vacated at the end of the session). On 26 Feb. 1712, he voted to agree with the Commons’ amendment in the episcopal communion (Scotland) bill, and on the same day he received the proxy of Thomas Manningham*, bishop of Chester (vacated 13 May 1712). On 1 Mar. Bisse supported Greenshields in his appeal before the Lords.<sup>17</sup> Clearly a popular preacher in elevated social circles, Bisse took an increasingly prominent role as Oxford’s friend and ally. Over the course of the year he was deeply involved in the somewhat fraught negotiations for the marriage of Oxford’s daughter Elizabeth to Peregrine Hyde Osborne*, then styled marquess of Carmarthen, later 3rd duke of Leeds. In convocation, a dispute over the validity of lay baptism led him to become involved in ‘anxious’ meetings with Sharp and Atterbury in which they discussed the need for Oxford to press the queen to prohibit all discussion of controversial doctrinal issues.<sup>18</sup> On 11 June 1712, he again received Manningham’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Thoroughly integrated into the social life of the episcopate, Bisse attended the St Stephen’s day dinner at Lambeth Palace on 26 Dec. 1712.<sup>19</sup> On 6 Feb. 1713, again through Oxford’s influence, he was translated to the see of Hereford, a city firmly in the grip of the Tories. The translation entrenched Bisse as a member of the Harley–Foley political alliance in Herefordshire but it also brought him into opposition with Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, Baron Coningsby [I], the future earl of Coningsby, who later described Bisse as ‘the worst of bishops’.<sup>20</sup> Unsurprisingly, on 15 Mar. 1713, Oxford and Jonathan Swift together listed Bisse as a supporter of the ministry in the approaching session. On the first day, 9 Apr. 1713, he took his seat as bishop of Hereford, attending the session for 56 per cent of sittings. On 13 June it was forecast that he would support another Tory measure, the French commerce bill. In mid-July he was named to the committee on new London churches, reporting from the committee on 13 July and recommending that a clause be added to preserve the right of petitioners. That summer, ‘being on the spot and having easy access to the treasurer [Oxford] … as well as his inclination to make his court’, he was tipped as the successor to Henry Compton*, bishop of London.<sup>21</sup> That the post went instead to Robinson did not dampen expectations of further preferment. In February 1714 Bisse was again being tipped for promotion, this time to be archbishop of York. He was reputed to be so anxious for promotion that he had alienated his Hereford diocese by revealing his enthusiasm to leave them for a better see as soon as possible. He lost out to Dawes of Chester, probably because Bisse’s allegiance to Oxford was firm, while Dawes needed encouraging.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Bisse was again in the House on the first day of the next parliamentary session (16 Feb. 1714); he attended this session for some 53 per cent of sittings. On 17 Mar. 1714 he registered his proxy (vacated on 31 Mar.) in favour of his successor at St Davids, Adam Ottley. On 5 Apr. he was named to the committee to prepare an address to the queen that, in conjunction with the States General, the emperor should be asked to guarantee the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover. In forecasts for voting on the schism bill, Bisse was listed as a likely supporter. Bisse dined with Ottley, Nicolson, and George Smalridge*, of Bristol, at the home of John Robinson on 25 May 1714.<sup>23</sup> Two weeks later Bisse, Ottley, Smalridge, and Robinson all voted in favour of extending the schism bill to Ireland. Bisse again voted for the schism bill on 15 June. Six days later, he received the proxy of another of Oxford’s episcopal allies, George Hooper*, of Bath and Wells (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Bisse arrived three days into the brief session following the queen’s death and attended on one day only. On 20 Oct. 1714, the coronation of George I was greeted with riots in Hereford; Bisse horrified Hereford Tories when he appeared before the clergy ‘with a joyful and entirely pleased countenance’. Yet the previous year, after a sermon delivered by Sacheverell to the sons of the clergy, he had attended a social gathering where the musicians played a popular Jacobite song that was received ‘with universal acclamations’.<sup>24</sup> There is also some evidence that, after the accession of George I, Bisse went into opposition and became part of an undercover group that was associated with the Jacobite cause.<sup>25</sup> His political and parliamentary career after 1715 will be discussed further in the next phase of this work. He died at Westminster on 6 Sept. 1721, aged 54. Having bequeathed £100 to his Oxford college for its ‘beautifying’, he left the bulk of his real and personal estate to his brother Thomas Bisse (founder of the Three Choirs Festival) and to his sister Joyce Bisse, requesting interment next to his wife, who had predeceased him. Lauded by a contemporary, Abel Boyer, as a man of singular integrity and sweetness, Bisse was buried in his cathedral on 11 Sept. with a ‘sumptuous’ monument.<sup>26</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
BLACKALL, Offspring (1655-1716) |
<p><strong><surname>BLACKALL</surname></strong> (<strong>BLACKHALL</strong>), <strong>Offspring</strong> (1655–1716)</p> |
|
|
First sat 2 Mar. 1708; last sat 11 May 1714 |
cons. 8 Feb. 1708 bp. of EXETER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 26 Apr. 1655, s. of Thomas Blackall (<em>d</em>.1688), freeman Haberdashers’ Co. and alderman, London, and Martha, da. of Charles Offspring, rect. St Antholin, London. <em>educ</em>. Hackney sch.;<sup>1</sup> St Catherine’s, Camb. BA 1675, MA 1678, DD 1700; ord. deacon 1677, ord. priest 1680. <em>m</em>. Anne (<em>d</em>.1762), da. of James Dillingham of London, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 29 Nov. 1716; <em>will</em> 4 July 1715-20 Nov. 1716, pr. 26 Jan. 1717.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Fell. St Catherine’s, Camb. 1679-87; Boyle lecturer 1700.</p><p>Rect. S. Ockenden, Essex 1690-4, St Mary Aldermary, London 1694, Shobrooke, Devon 1708-16; lecturer, St Olave Jewry 1695-8, St Dunstan-in-the-West 1698; dean, St Burian, Cornw. 1708-16; adn. Exeter 1708-16; treas. Exeter 1709.</p><p>Chap. to William and Mary, 1699-1708; chap. ord. to Anne bef. 1704.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by M. Dahl, before 1706, Bishop’s Palace Exeter, engraved by G. Vertue, 1722 (NPG 9131).</p> |
<p>A personal favourite of Queen Anne, Offspring Blackall is generally remembered for engaging in religious polemics with John Toland and Benjamin Hoadly<sup>†</sup>. Yet his career was also politically significant if only because his controversial elevation to the episcopate ignited a ministerial crisis. Once he became a bishop he found himself one of a Tory minority in an episcopate dominated by Whig bishops and was condemned as a Jacobite by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury. Blackall had a puritan heritage through his maternal grandfather, Charles Offspring (Ofspring). His father, a propertied and armigerous City alderman, was originally from Oxfordshire but had settled in Dalston.<sup>6</sup> Offspring Blackall inherited property in Minford, Somerset, from his father, who also owned lands in Hertfordshire, Kent, Somerset, Middlesex and London.<sup>7</sup> It was believed that Blackall never acquired wealth because of his poor diocese and large family but he actually added considerably to his patrimony, investing heavily in government lotteries and stock. By the time of his death, he had acquired considerable assets and was able to bequeath lands in Bristol, Somerset and Gloucestershire, annuities worth over £200 a year as well as cash and bonds (including over £2,000 in South Sea stock) worth nearly £5,000.</p><p>By 1693 Blackall had come to the attention of Henry Compton*, bishop of London. At a time when churchmen were increasingly anxious about the effects of the Act of Toleration, a sermon by Blackall against religious sectarianism was particularly well received.<sup>8</sup> In 1699, in a sermon to the House of Commons, he denounced the deist John Toland and, more broadly, rationalist intrusions into religious doctrine.<sup>9</sup> In 1705 he delivered a sermon, published as <em>The Subject’s Duty</em>, that identified him as a stalwart advocate of the doctrine of nonresistance and created suspicions of nonjuring sympathies.<sup>10</sup> His high church clericalism and authoritarian approach to civil obedience attracted criticism from all points on the political spectrum: his views were disliked by Whigs, Jacobites and rationalists alike.</p><p>In 1707 Anne made a private promise of preferment to Blackall and William Dawes*, the future bishop of Chester, another Tory cleric. When news leaked of her intentions, her ministers, desperate to shore up their parliamentary support by appeasing the Whig Junto, were appalled; the Junto Whigs were furious. John Somers*, Baron Somers, demanded that Thomas Tenison*, of Canterbury, block Blackall’s appointment. Tenison (despite boasting that he would speak ‘freely’ to the queen), prevaricated in the face of the queen’s obduracy.<sup>11</sup> Insisting that Blackall was a personal choice, Anne claimed that opposition to the appointment could only proceed from Whig malice, for Blackall and Dawes were ‘very fit for the station I design them, and indeed I think myself obliged to fill the bishops’ bench with those that will be a credit to it, and to the Church.’ She went on to deny that the appointments were influenced by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, or that they represented a breach with the duumvirs, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough.<sup>12</sup> The duumvirs, certain that Harley was at the root of the problem, continued to pressurize the queen to abandon Blackall. In September Godolphin protested that Blackall’s appointment would ‘hearken and encourage’ the opposition in Parliament, insisting that,</p><blockquote><p>The liberties of all Europe, the safety of your majesty’s person and of these kingdoms, the future preservation of the protestant religion, the strength of your government, and the glory of your reign, depend upon the success of next sessions of Parliament, & indeed upon every sessions of Parliament while this war lasts. … This being truly the case, what colour of reason can incline your majesty to discourage and dissatisfy those whose principles and interest lead them on with so much warmth and zeal to carry you through the difficulties of this war, and have already given you so many unquestionable proofs of their preferring your majesty’s interest and the support of your government, above all others? And what appearance will it have, what reflection will it not cause in the world, that all these weighty things together, cannot stand in the balance with this single point, whether Dr Blackall, at this time, be made a bishop or a dean or a prebend.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>However, by October the opening of additional patronage opportunities for churchmen had calmed the situation. Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, (later bishop of London) confided in William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln and the future archbishop of Canterbury, that he believed it ‘agreed, on the Whig side, that Dr Blackhall’s going to Exeter shall break no squares.’<sup>14</sup></p><p>On 6 Jan. 1708 Anne made a formal announcement of Blackall’s nomination as bishop of Exeter.<sup>15</sup> He received his writ of summons on 2 Mar. 1708 and took his seat in the House on the same day.<sup>16</sup> He appears to have been a diligent pastor but a less than conscientious parliamentarian. Although he put in an appearance at seven of the nine sessions held during his episcopate, he never attended for more than two-fifths of sittings and usually attended for less than a quarter. Rather, he resided almost constantly in his diocese, and is said to have declared that bishops should concentrate on their dioceses ‘where they could do much good, and not be so fond of attending Parliament, where they could do little or none’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Taking his seat four months after the start of the winter 1707 parliamentary session, Blackall attended for only ten days before the session closed on 1 Apr. 1708. There was no effort to enlist his support in the April 1708 Exeter by-election but the situation had changed by the time of the general election a month later. John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, assuming that intervention by the bishop would swing the Exeter electorate, asked Harley to pressurize Blackall into supporting the Poulett candidate, Tory merchant Nicholas Wood<sup>‡</sup>. Wood was elected but Blackall’s role in the election is unclear. Blackall’s intervention was also sought by George Granville*, later Baron Lansdown, who wanted the bishop’s assistance in electing Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, for Lostwithiel against the interest of his local rival Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In May 1708 a printed list of party affiliation unsurprisingly marked Blackall as a Tory. He arrived ten days after the start of business for the November 1708 session and attended one quarter of the sittings. On 31 Jan. 1709 he preached a dour sermon before the House of Lords on the sins of the fathers being visited on their children.<sup>19</sup> The second reading of the general naturalization bill on 15 Mar. 1709 split the episcopal bench. In the vote on whether to retain the words ‘some protestant reformed congregation’, Blackall was one of ten bishops who divided on party lines in favour of the much more restrictive phrase ‘parochial church’; seven Whig bishops led by Tenison voted to keep the original wording. On 22 Mar. 1709, in the division of a committee of the whole sitting on the bill to improve the union on a question of Scottish law (whether those accused of treason should be given a list of witnesses five days before their trial), Blackall voted in opposition to the court. On 25 Mar. Blackall voted to postpone discussion of the validity of Scots marriage settlements under the new treason law to the following day, voting with the court Whig William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, and Godolphin against the Junto-led opposition, including Somers and Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland.<sup>20</sup></p><p>The session ended on 21 Apr. 1709 and Blackall became immersed in a vicious dispute with Benjamin Hoadly<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Winchest, that sparked debate in Parliament about the concept of popular sovereignty and the constitutional role of the Lords. The altercation arose from Blackall’s sermon at St James on 8 Mar. 1709 (the anniversary of Anne’s accession) in which he took as his text the defining biblical sanction for absolute authority (Rom. 13:4).<sup>21</sup> The sermon, which repeated the sentiments already voiced in <em>The Subject’s Duty</em>, created anxious ripples in Whig circles. Hoadly responded to it in <em>Some considerations humbly offered to … the Bishop of Exeter</em>, accusing Blackall of attacking the Revolution: the quarrel became so ugly that it was rumoured Blackall would resort to legal action; at least one observer thought that Hoadly risked an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>.<sup>22</sup> Throughout Blackall reiterated the divine origin of doctrines of subjection and nonresistance, both of which, he maintained, were vital ‘to the honour of Christianity and the security of human society’. To Blackall accountability of human authority to God was a doctrine higher even ‘than the very tip-top of Toryism’.<sup>23</sup> Back in his diocese he set his face against the tactics of the reformation of manners movement; when he preached to the grand jury he chose to take as his subject the ninth commandment (against bearing false witness) and ‘represented how odious and ignominious it was to be an informer and that, excepting the cases of treason, murder or such heinous crimes, no body was bound to detect his neighbour’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Although listed as attending the Lords on 25 Jan. 1710 (his only attendance that session), it seems likely that, as Ralph Bridges later wrote he had been at Exeter all winter and had received private instructions from the queen to stay away from the House. Indeed, when the House divided on the question of guilt of Henry Sacheverell on 25 Mar., it was noted that Blackall was in the country.<sup>25</sup> In September 1710, after the Tory victory in the general election, Blackall and the cathedral chapter drew up a loyal address.<sup>26</sup> The following month Harley’s analysis of the House of Lords listed Blackall as a supporter of the new ministry. The election victory appears to have propelled Blackall to Westminster for the new session of Parliament that began in November 1710 when he put in his highest level of attendance (38 per cent). Blackall arrived two days after the start of the session. Remaining in London over Christmas, he attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth and the meeting for Queen Anne’s Bounty at Whitehall three days later.<sup>27</sup></p><p>On 5 Feb. 1711 he registered his dissent against the repeal of the General Naturalization Act. The following day, after the queen’s levée, Blackall and William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle dined in Kensington where there was ‘Tory discourse’.<sup>28</sup> On 21 Feb. the queen’s new licence named Blackall to the Convocation quorum, thus offending the more senior bishops.<sup>29</sup> He attended the House on 1 Mar. for the debate on the appeal of James Greenshields but did not attend the session after 26 March.</p><p>On 29 Nov. 1711 (in advance of the new session that opened on 7 Dec.) Blackall excused his inability to attend Parliament by reference to an outbreak of smallpox in the region and once more registered his proxy in favour of Dawes.<sup>30</sup> Blackall attended for one-fifth of sittings, but again missed the last ten weeks of business. On 2 Jan. 1712, after the debate on the adjournment (following the creation of Harley’s ‘dozen’), the episcopal bench again split on party lines. Eleven of the bishops present voted with the Junto; the remaining four, all Tories and including Dawes, voted against the Junto. Blackall was not present but his proxy was used by Dawes.<sup>31</sup> The proxy was vacated on 11 Feb. with Blackall’s attendance. On 26 Feb., in the division on the Scottish toleration bill, Blackall voted to agree with the Commons’ amendment. The Easter dinner at Lambeth on 22 Apr. was marked by another rift between Tory and Whig bishops when the validity of lay baptism was discussed. A horrified Sharp then summoned Blackall and Dawes to a meeting where they agreed that such a recognition would ‘be too great an encouragement to the Dissenter’.<sup>32</sup> Blackall attended the House on 28 Apr., but two days later again registered his proxy in favour of William Dawes (vacated at the end of the session on 8 July).</p><p>Blackall’s unswerving loyalty to the Oxford ministry was noted in spring 1713 in a party listing compiled by Jonathan Swift. His poor attendance, nevertheless, limited his usefulness to the ministry. On 14 Feb. he responded to a command to ‘hasten to London’ with an excuse about the delays caused by poor weather and an insistence that his inability to make anything other than short journeys would delay his arrival until the end of the month. His attendance record was so poor that he felt obliged to remind Oxford that he had indeed attended the previous session.<sup>33</sup> On 9 Apr., Blackall attended the House for the first day of the new session and attended for nine per cent of sittings (just six days during April). He missed the last 11 weeks of the session. On 13 June he was listed in Oxford’s estimate of support for the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. The next parliamentary session opened on 16 Feb. 1714 and Blackall arrived at the House on 2 Mar. He attended for some 28 per cent of sittings. Blackall attended the House for the final time on 11 May. Two days later he again registered his proxy with William Dawes, now archbishop of York.</p><p>In May 1714 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast that Blackall would support the schism bill. On 11 June, in the division on extending the schism bill to Ireland, Blackall’s proxy was used by Dawes to carry the vote by 75 to 74. Four days later, in the main division on the bill, Blackall’s proxy was again used in support of the measure.<sup>34</sup> He failed to attend either of the short sessions following the demise of the queen or the long session at the beginning of the new king’s reign. It is possible that Blackall deliberately avoided Parliament after the accession of George I on political grounds, but he suffered from tenesmus which probably made the journey to London a daunting prospect. His reluctance to attend was so well known that the declaration of an intention to do so in November 1715 was interpreted as symptomatic of the determination of the Tories to summon ‘their whole strength to fight impeachments and other affairs, inch by inch with the government.’<sup>35</sup></p><p>On 2 Sept. 1716, while on visitation in Cornwall, Blackall fell from his horse and suffered a serious injury. Gangrene set in and he died on 29 Nov. 1716.<sup>36</sup> Before his death he may have tried to set in train a series of resignations in order to be able to transfer his commendams to friends and relatives.<sup>37</sup> In his will he requested a ‘very private burial’ without sermon, monument or burial inscription. On 2 Dec. 1716 he was duly given a quiet funeral in Exeter Cathedral. Blackall left a wife (his executrix) and seven children, all well provided for with state lottery tickets, stock and land. He was succeeded as bishop of Exeter by Lancelot Blackburne<sup>†</sup>. His works were published with a preface by William Dawes.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
BLANDFORD, Walter (1615-75) |
<p><strong><surname>BLANDFORD</surname></strong>, <strong>Walter</strong> (1615–75)</p> |
|
|
First sat 1 Oct. 1666; last sat 21 Mar. 1673 |
cons. 3 Dec. 1665 bp. of OXFORD; transl. 13 June 1671 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1615/16 s. of Walter Blandford and ?Mary Sheppard (Shepherd) of Mere, Wilts.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1635; Wadham, Oxf. BA 1639, MA 1642, fell. 1644, DD 1660. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 9 July 1675; <em>will</em> 4 July 1675, pr. 28 Nov. 1676.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. ord. 1660; clerk of the closet 1668–9; dean chapel royal 1669–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Chap. to John Lovelace*, 2nd Bar. Lovelace, 1648, to Sir Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, 1660; rect. Southrop, Glos. 1645-<em>d.</em>; Remenham, Berks. 1660, Witney, Oxon. 1665–71, Chinnor, Oxon. 1665;<sup>3</sup> preb. Gloucester 1660–5.</p><p>Warden, Wadham, Oxf. 1659–65; univ. visitor Oxf. 1660;<sup>4</sup> v.-chan. Oxf. 1662–4.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Wadham, Oxf.</p> |
<p>Of obscure parentage, but from a family with deep roots in the border between Dorset and Wiltshire, Walter Blandford went up to Oxford as a servitor. He is not reckoned among the ‘suffering’ clergy and initially accommodated himself to the parliamentary regime during the Civil Wars.<sup>5</sup> By the end of the second civil war his sympathies were clearly with the royalists, and in 1648 he left Oxford to tutor John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace. In 1659 Blandford succeeded John Wilkins*, the future bishop of Chester, as warden of Wadham, the Oxford college especially popular with royalist families during the interregnum.<sup>6</sup> At the Restoration, he was appointed as one of the Oxford University visitors and thus played an important role in the subsequent purge of the university. He also became chaplain to Sir Edward Hyde, the future earl of Clarendon, whose patronage brought him further preferment. In August 1665 Clarendon told Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, that he intended to use his influence to persuade Blandford to accept elevation to the bishopric of Oxford. Blandford appears to have been reluctant to accept, in part because of the cost of consecration but perhaps also because his health was not good.<sup>7</sup> Nevertheless, on 3 Dec. 1665, with the court at Oxford, he was consecrated bishop of Oxford in New College chapel by Humphrey Henchman*, of London, William Nicholson*, of Gloucester, and Seth Ward*, of Salisbury.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Blandford took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 Oct. 1666, and attended for a quarter of the sittings in that session. On 12 Oct. he was named to a committee to prepare for the Lords’ conference with the Commons on French imports. He helped to manage both that and subsequent conferences on 23 and 30 Oct. 1666. He was not, however, named to any other select committees and his last attendance that session was on 10 Nov. 1666, when he entered his proxy (vacated at the end of the session on 8 Feb. 1667) in favour of Sheldon.</p><p>A more active period of parliamentary activity started in the autumn of 1667. Presumably spurred by the attack on Clarendon. Blandford attended for some two-thirds of all sittings between 10 Oct. 1667 and 1 Mar. 1669. In addition to the sessional committees he was named to a range of select committees, including that to consider the lead mines bill involving John Cosin*, of Durham. He was present in the House on 20 Nov. 1667 for the debate on the impeachment of his former patron, Clarendon. Assuming that he was in the chamber for the vote, he maintained episcopal solidarity by supporting the chancellor and opposing the king.</p><p>The fall of his patron did not damage Blandford’s career. On the contrary, he benefitted from the associated eclipse of Sheldon and his episcopal allies. In February 1668 Blandford replaced Sheldon’s nephew, John Dolben*, of Rochester, as clerk of the closet. Dolben’s duties had been carried out for some months by Ward, now bishop of Salisbury, who expected the appointment himself.<sup>9</sup> Blandford’s new duties were time-consuming. George Morley*, of Winchester, another who lost favour through his association with Clarendon, added to Blandford’s workload by arranging for the latter to succeed him as spiritual adviser to Anne, duchess of York.<sup>10</sup> Theologically, Blandford stood at the moderate end of the spectrum; it would seem logical for him to have supported a broader national church, but there is no evidence to link him directly to the comprehension projects mooted at this time.</p><p>In the parliamentary session from 19 Oct. 1669 to 11 Dec. 1669 Blandford again attended for some two-thirds of all sittings. His pattern of activity remained unchanged and, although he was appointed to the committee for privileges on the first day of the session, he was named to no other committees. His attendance pattern for the session from 14 Feb. 1670 to 22 Apr. 1671 was almost identical to the previous two sessions, but his name started to appear more regularly on committee nominations and he attended when the House went into committee on the second conventicle bill. On both 17 Mar. 1670 and 28 Mar. 1670 he registered his dissent against legislation to grant a divorce to John Manners*, <em>styled</em> Lord Roos (later 9th earl of Rutland). Following the death of Robert Skinner*, of Worcester, court gossip was rife about the likely translation of Blandford to the see of Worcester but the royal directive for this was not issued for almost a year.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Blandford attended for the first day of the resumed session on 24 Oct. 1670, but on 14 Nov. was excused attendance at a call of the House; he returned the following day. He was again named to a number of select committees, including (on 17 Jan. 1671) the committee on the Welsh lead mines bill promoted by Robert Morgan* of Bangor and Isaac Barrow* of St Asaph. On 10 Feb. 1671 he was again excused attendance when he baptized Katherine, the infant daughter of James Stuart*, duke of York, in the duke’s private chapel.<sup>12</sup> In March he became involved in a controversy surrounding catholicism at court when he was summoned to attend the dying duchess of York.<sup>13</sup> In the judgment of Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, Blandford’s behaviour was habitually ‘modest and humble, even to a fault’ and he failed to say the appropriate Anglican prayers at the bedside. York’s recollection was slightly different. He recalled that he had refused Blandford admission unless he agreed not to try to force a deathbed conversion. Accordingly Blandford simply ‘made her a short Christian exhortation suitable to the condition she was in’. The incident hardened the perception that Blandford was a court stooge, called to the bedside ‘to blind the world’ to her conversion.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In April 1671 he joined Peter Mews*,of Bath and Wells, and eight other commissioners to examine charges of abuse at Oxford, and the following month the king issued the directive for his translation to Worcester.<sup>15</sup> Blandford took his seat as bishop of Worcester on 16 Apr. 1672, when the only business was a further prorogation to the following October. During the first session of 1673 he attended for some 30 per cent of sittings, but was named to no committees. Given his deteriorating health, it is perhaps not surprising that he now found himself to be less useful to the court. On 13 Feb. 1673, at a call of the House, he was registered as sick and he did not attend again after 29 March. On 12 Jan. 1674 it was noted that he had registered his proxy (vacated at the end of the session) in favour of Nathaniel Crew*, then bishop of Oxford, two days previously.</p><p>From the summer of 1673 Blandford appears to have been confined at Worcester in declining health; by August 1674 he was at Bath as part of his latest attempt ‘to support a frail and ruinous body’.<sup>16</sup> A royal summons in October to consider the interests of the Church with John Pearson*, of Chester, Richard Sterne*, of York, and George Morley*, of Winchester, included a personal proviso that Blandford should not make the journey to London to the detriment of his health, and it is unlikely that he did so for the bishops’ subsequent report does not bear his name.<sup>17</sup> He again registered his proxy in favour of Nathaniel Crew on 8 Apr. 1675, in time for the parliamentary debate on Danby’s non-resisting Test.</p><p>Blandford died at Hartlebury on 9 July 1675. He had never married and had already distributed part of his estate to his relatives. The residue – some £1,600 and his library – included a bequest for the refurbishment of Church property, though it is unclear whether the legacy was put to this purpose.<sup>18</sup> His most trusted contacts, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, John Fell*, of Oxford, and his dean at Worcester, William Thomas*, then of St Asaph, were appointed executors of his estate. Blandford was buried in his cathedral. Like his predecessor, he left ‘little trace’ of his government as bishop of Worcester, but he appears to have been popular in the region and the mayor of Worcester ordered a special ‘funeral knell’ to be rung throughout the city in his honour.<sup>19</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
BRIDEOAKE, Ralph (1613-78) |
<p><strong><surname>BRIDEOAKE</surname></strong> (<strong>BRIDDOCK</strong>), <strong>Ralph</strong> (1613–78)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Apr. 1675; last sat 15 July 1678 |
cons. 18 Apr. 1675 bp. of CHICHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 31 Jan. 1613, s. of Richard Brideoake of Cheetham Hill, Lancs. and Cecily, da. of John Booth of Lancs. <em>educ</em>. Brasenose, Oxf. matric. 1631, BA 1634, MA 1636, DD 1660; ord. priest 1636 (John Bancroft<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Oxford); <em>m</em>. (with £2,600),<sup>1</sup> Mary, da. and coh. Sir Richard Saltonstall, kt. of Ockenden, Essex, 3s. 1da. (<em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 5 Oct. 1678; <em>will</em> admon. 19 ?Nov. 1679 to wid.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. approbation of ministers 1659; chap. to Charles II 1660–74.</p><p>Pro-chap. New Coll. Oxf. 1634; cur. Wytham, Oxon.(unknown dates); chap. to James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby, c.1644–51, to William Lenthall<sup>‡</sup> 1651; rect. Standish, Lancs. 1644–<em>d</em>., Witney, Oxon. 1655–63, St Bartholomew Exchange, London, 1660–c.1670;<sup>4</sup> preacher Chapel of the Rolls c.1651; preb. Windsor 1660–78; dean and canon residentiary Salisbury 1667–75.</p><p>Corrector of press Oxf.; master Manchester Free Sch. c.1638–?.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: W. Bird, marble effigy on monument, 1678, St George’s Chapel, Windsor.</p> |
<p>Ralph Brideoake was born into a well-established Lancashire family. A good scholar of ‘mean’ condition, he was employed in several positions before the first Civil War, including a chaplaincy to the royalist earl of Derby. He had a talent for survival: pleading for Derby’s life in 1651, Brideoake impressed William Lenthall and won appointment as the Speaker’s chaplain and client. The relationship with Lenthall survived until 1662, when Brideoake attended his deathbed.<sup>5</sup> During the Interregnum Brideoake was able to forge a working relationship with Presbyterians and the protectorate and even became a trier for the ordination of Presbyterian ministers. His income increased through his marriage to the eldest daughter of Sir Richard Saltonstall, a man ‘of a very good personal estate’.<sup>6</sup> By the time of his death his annual income was some £600, enhanced by the valuable <em>commendams</em> of Windsor and Standish. His persistent quest for greater social standing brought him censure for vanity when he decorated the stall of the Salisbury deanery (‘with wit as he thought’) with ‘two hands joining as the emblem of bride holding a bough of oak’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>To his more critical detractors, Brideoake’s ability to ‘elbow’ his way into patronage at the Restoration allowed him a comfortable and undeserved return to the re-established Church.<sup>8</sup> The prestige of his post-Restoration appointments, together with his preferment in 1667 as dean of Salisbury (where Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, was the influential high steward of the local corporation), suggests that Brideoake had powerful friends in the Clarendon circle. The Stanley interest at court was weak, so it seems likely that Brideoake had acquired other patrons.</p><p>According to White Kennet<sup>†</sup> (the future bishop of Peterborough) while resident in Windsor Brideoake went out of his way to ingratiate himself with the king’s mistress, Louise de Kérouaille, duchess of Portsmouth.<sup>9</sup> A contemporary hinted that it was a bribe to the duchess that secured him a bishopric when Peter Gunning*, of Chichester was translated to Ely.<sup>10</sup> Dean Prideaux regretted that ‘such a knave as Brideoake should be made a bishop’ but, as a vocal supporter of the king’s absolute supremacy in matters ecclesiastical and happy to turn a blind eye to the monarch’s infidelities, Brideoake was favoured at court.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Brideoake’s brief but active parliamentary career began when he took his seat in the House on 20 Apr. 1675. During absences there is no evidence that he ever registered his proxy. He attended for some 60 per cent of the first session of 1675 and over 80 per cent of the second. On 20 Nov. he showed solidarity with the king and with Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), by opposing the vote on the address to dissolve Parliament. Despite an almost unbroken record of attendance in the session that ran from spring 1677 to July 1678, there is no accessible record of Brideoake’s voting behaviour other than a dissent on 14 Feb. 1678, when he joined Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville, and Peter Mews*, of Bath and Wells, to protest against the dismissal of a petition by Dacre Barret.</p><p>With high levels of Dissent and ‘very troublesome concerns’ in his diocese, Brideoake fell victim to chapter factionalism, which was itself grafted onto disputes within the town, and found himself in a bitter dispute with George Stradling, dean of Chichester.<sup>12</sup> The bishop’s overbearing personality led him to overreach his proper remit and in 1676 his unlawful excommunication of a churchwarden who had refused an oath tendered ‘in a cause neither matrimonial nor testamentary’ was overturned by the court of common pleas.<sup>13</sup></p><p>At the age of 64, Brideoake died suddenly from ‘a raging fever’. He was buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor, where his widow erected an impressive alabaster monument.<sup>14</sup> Brideoake left three sons, two of whom followed their father into the church.<sup>15</sup> Although the specific nature of his services to the crown is unclear, he was clearly the king’s man through and through: in 1680 the king promoted Brideoake’s son Ralph on account of his father’s ‘zeal, loyalty and many faithful services’.<sup>16</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
BULL, George (1634-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>BULL</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1634–1710)</p> |
|
|
First sat 3 Dec. 1706; last sat 24 Apr. 1707 |
cons. 29 Apr. 1705 bp. of ST DAVIDS |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Mar. 1634, s. of George Bull (<em>d</em>.1639), merchant and mayor of Wells, and Elizabeth Perkins (?<em>d</em>.1634). <em>educ</em>. Wells g.s.; free sch. Tiverton; Exeter Coll. Oxf. 1648-50; privately with William Thomas, rect. Ubley, Som.; ord. 1655; DD by dip. Oxf. 1687. <em>m</em>. 20 May 1658, Bridget (<em>d</em>.1712), da. Alexander Gregory, vic. Cirencester, 5s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 6da. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.)<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 17 Feb. 1710.</p> |
<p>Vic. St George’s, Bristol c.1655; rect. Siddington St Mary, Glos. 1658, Siddington St Peter, Glos. 1662, Avening, Glos. 1685-1705; preb. Glos. 1678-1705; adn. Llandaff 1686-1704.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: Oil on canvas by unknown artist, c. 1700, Exeter Coll., Oxf.</p> |
<p>Born into a mercantile family established in Somerset, the theologian George Bull was a fierce opponent of the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone. His doctrinal works were adopted in the nineteenth century by the Oxford Movement as part of the canon of Anglo-Catholic theology.<sup>2</sup> Not elevated until he was 71 years old, his career in the House of Lords was brief.</p><p>Bull went up to Oxford in 1648 where he formed a close friendship with Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. Refusing the oath to the Commonwealth, he left university without his degree, but continued his studies and sought ordination from Robert Skinner*, bishop of Oxford. He later claimed that he had hosted secret meetings of royalists planning to restore the king.<sup>3</sup> By 1663 Bull had acquired the patronage of William Nicholson*, bishop of Gloucester.<sup>4</sup> Bull’s first treatise (<em>Harmonia Apostolica</em>), published in 1670, sparked a theological dispute which split eminent churchmen into two distinct camps over the question of whether it showed Bull to be socinian: Thomas Barlow*, later bishop of Lincoln, George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, all opposed Bull, while his supporters included Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, Simon Patrick*, later successively bishop of Chichester and Ely, and the Presbyterian, Richard Baxter.<sup>5</sup> The fall of the Cabal and the death of Nicholson in 1672 left Bull with no obvious patron. Clifford’s career as lord treasurer was short and his efforts on Bull’s behalf were unsuccessful, not just because Bull was a controversial figure but, according to his biographer, because Bull did not understand ‘the art of intriguing for preferment’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Bull, nevertheless, won the respect of Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, and his clerical associates. In October 1678, he was made a canon of Gloucester on the recommendation of John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York.<sup>7</sup> Bull dedicated his <em>Defensio Fidei Nicenae</em> to Nottingham, but a publisher was not forthcoming until John Fell published the treatise at his own cost in 1685.<sup>8</sup> He was recommended by Robert Frampton*, bishop of Gloucester, to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, as a ‘man of vast learning, sound principles and exemplary life’, an ‘ornament to our cathedral’, who needed a greater income to support his ‘very numerous’ family, but his presentation to the well-endowed rectory of Avening was, according to his biographer, a spontaneous act of its patron, Richard Sheppard of neighbouring Minchinhampton; Sancroft provided him in 1686 with the archdeaconry of Llandaff.<sup>9</sup> In 1686 he was nominated by Fell for a doctorate in recognition of his scholarship, even though he had no academic degree.<sup>10</sup> The <em>Defensio Fidei Nicenae</em> brought Bull a Europe-wide reputation for scholarly theology, and the endorsement of Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, leading light of the Gallican church. His <em>Judicium Ecclesiae Catholicae</em> published in 1694 consolidated his reputation, and <em>Primitiva et</em> <em>Apostolica Traditio</em> (1703) furthered it as an opponent of Socinianism and unitarianism.</p><p>Bull’s appointment to the neglected see of St Davids in 1705 came, wrote his biographer, as a surprise to him, and the reasons for it are obscure.<sup>11</sup> The Whig cleric Maurice Wheeler was doubtful, writing that though Bull was ‘a very good man’, ‘a life of of hard study, and now a heavy load of many years’ had rendered him now ‘less capable of business, and especially in such a diocese, that has ... lain waste for many years’.<sup>12</sup> He stayed at Brecon, due to the state of the palace near Carmarthen, and, in poor health, he travelled little within the diocese, his son-in-law the archdeacon of Brecon conducting the 1708 visitation on his behalf.<sup>13</sup> Age and failing health had an impact on his attendance in the House of Lords, too. He appeared in the House on only 22 occasions. In the six sessions held during his episcopate, Bull attended only two, and those for less than a quarter of sittings. He did not attend for the session that began in the autumn of 1705, being excused at a call of the House on 12 November. By the winter of 1706 he was in London keeping company with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, and John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, and on 3 Dec. 1706 Bull took his seat in the House.<sup>14</sup> On 28 Jan. 1707 he was present in House for the reading of the articles relating to the Union between Scotland and England, the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and for the bill securing the English Church. He attended the debates on religion in February 1707 but on 7 Feb. 1707, during the reading of the bill on the security of the Church, sat in the lobby of the Lords chamber smoking his pipe.<sup>15</sup> He was present on 15 Feb. 1707 and again on 19 Feb. 1707 for debates on the Union. On 4 Mar. 1707 (when a rider was offered against Presbyterianism being the true Protestant religion) Bull was listed present but did not sign the dissent against the rejection of the rider. Those who did included stalwart churchmen (and members of the Gloucestershire establishment) Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells, and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth. Perhaps Bull had left the chamber since there are indications he would have been sympathetic to the rider. Bull’s earliest biographer recounts a debate on the Scottish church during which Bull seconded a motion that the ‘excellent’ character of the Church of England be specified within the bill. When he was thanked for his speech by William Beveridge*, bishop of St Asaph, Bull responded that he regarded it an ‘indispensable obligation’ of all the bishops and prelates of the Church to behave with ‘holy boldness’ in the highest court of England, ‘without being awed or biased by the torrent of the times, or made sordidly to crouch to a prevailing power of worldly politicians’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In May 1707 Bull suffered a serious bereavement with the death from smallpox of his son George, a Christ Church don to whom he had resigned his Llandaff archdeaconry in 1704. It is clear that Bull had been grooming his son as a potential successor and was devastated by his loss.<sup>17</sup> He did not attend the House for the session that ran from October 1707 to April 1708, a period for which the proxy book does not survive. A printed parliamentary list of May 1708 suggested that Bull was of Whig sympathies. In religious and moral affairs, however, he was ‘inflexible’ and saw toleration as a threat to the Church, condemning the ‘impudence of those mechanics that have leapt from the shop-board or plough into the pulpit’.<sup>18</sup> In October 1708, encouraged by Bull, the Carmarthen magistrates began a campaign against immorality. ‘The most vigorous of episcopal greybeards’, Bull founded branches of the societies for the reformation of manners, established schools and libraries and promoted the Welsh prayer book.<sup>19</sup> There is no evidence that he was involved in any of the parliamentary elections during his episcopate. With the revival of the Beaufort interest in Wales, there was little need.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Bull failed to attend the two parliamentary sessions that began in the autumn of 1708 and 1709. He died on 17 Feb. 1710 and was buried at Brecknock.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
BURNET, Gilbert (1643-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>BURNET</surname></strong>, <strong>Gilbert</strong> (1643–1715)</p> |
|
|
First sat 3 Apr. 1689; last sat 21 Aug. 1714 |
cons. 31 Mar. 1689 bp. of SALISBURY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Sep. 1643, Edinburgh, s. of Sir Robert Burnet, and Rachel, da. of James Johnston of Wariston, sis. of Archibald Johnston<sup>‡</sup>, of Wariston. <em>educ</em>. privately; Marischal Coll. Aberdeen. matric. 1652, MA 1657; ct. of justice 1657-8. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1672-3, Lady Margaret (<em>d.</em> May 1685), da. of John Kennedy, 6th earl of Cassilis [S], <em>s.p.</em> (2) 25 May 1687,<sup>1</sup> Mary Scott (<em>d.</em>1698), of The Hague, 5s. (2 <em>d.v.p.)</em> 2da.<sup>2</sup> (3) c. 23 May 1700,<sup>3</sup> Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 3 Feb. 1709), da. of Sir Richard Blake of The Strand, Mdx. wid. of Robert Berkeley of Spetchley, Worcs. 2da. <em>d.v.p.</em><sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 17 Mar. 1715; <em>will</em> 24 Oct. 1711-17 Apr. 1714; pr. 24 Mar. 1715.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Probationer 1661; minister Saltoun 1665-69; clerk of presbytery Haddington 1667; prof. of divinity Glasgow Univ. 1669-1674; royal chap. 1673; chap. Rolls Chapel 1675-84; lecturer St. Clement Danes 1675-83, St Mary-le-Bow Jan. 1689;<sup>6</sup> DD Lambeth 1680;<sup>7</sup> Chap. to Prince of Orange 1688; chan. Order of Garter 1689; preceptor to duke of Gloucester 1698-1700.</p><p>Eccles. commr. [I], 1690,<sup>8</sup> Eng. Mar. 1695,<sup>9</sup> 1699.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Commr. hospitals 1691,<sup>11</sup> Q. Anne’s Bounty 1704.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Freeman/burgher, Amsterdam 1687;<sup>13</sup> mbr. SPCK 1700;<sup>14</sup> SPG.<sup>15</sup></p><p>FRS 1664.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Mary Beale, c.1675, St Edmundsbury Museum, Suffolk; oil on canvas aft. J. Riley, c.1689-91, NPG 159; oil on canvas by Sarah Hoadly, aft. 1689, University of Aberdeen; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, aft. 1689, National Trust, Wimpole Hall, Cambs.</p> |
<h2><em>Early Career</em></h2><p>Brought up by his mother, the sister of the covenanter politician Archibald Johnston of Wariston who had been leader of the protestor movement and close to the English Independents in the 1650s, but rigorously educated by his Episcopalian father, Burnet’s was an ambiguous intellectual and political inheritance. Precociously learned, Burnet made use of time in England in 1663 making connections with London’s religious and scientific circles, followed up by tours of the Netherlands and France. A parish minister from 1665, his forthright criticism attracted the enmity of many of the Scottish bishops and the patronage of John Maitland*, earl, later duke of Lauderdale [S], for whose project of accommodation with moderate Scottish Dissent in 1669 he would become an unsuccessful cheerleader. Burnet turned down the proposal by Lauderdale to make him into a Scottish bishop, and now a professor in the University of Glasgow, he increasingly gravitated into the orbit of the dukes of Hamilton, whose relation he married. In the summer of 1673, Burnet came to London to secure permission to publish his <em>Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton</em>; though he was initially encouraged by the king and the duke of York, Lauderdale’s enthusiasm rapidly turned into hostility. Burnet, concluding that Lauderdale would make his continued career in Scotland impossible, settled in London. Involvement in the opposition to Lauderdale included an appearance before a committee of the Commons during the attempt to remove him in 1675, which contributed to his worsening relationship with the court.<sup>16</sup> By the time his Hamilton memoirs appeared in 1677 Burnet was serving as successful preacher, at the Rolls Chapel and at St Clements, had begun work on <em>The History of the Reformation</em>, and was a frequent contributor to pamphlet religious controversy.</p><p>Burnet would become closely linked to country politicians in London and the London clergy who were close to them, but he claimed to have been sceptical of the reality of the Popish Plot, and to have been consulted on several occasions by the king as a result. The publication of the <em>History of the Reformation</em>, on the other hand, gave him a considerable reputation as a defender of the Church of England against its Catholic foes; flirting with the idea of excluding James Stuart*, duke of York, from the throne, Burnet became close to many of the leading Whigs, including Arthur Capel*, earl of Essex, and Lord William Russell<sup>‡</sup>, and was tainted by association with them after the Rye House Plot. His service to Russell at his trial and execution in July 1683 cost him any residual royal favour. He lost his posts as a preacher and lecturer.</p><p>Soon after the duke of York, succeeded as king in 1685, Burnet left for voluntary exile. After travelling through France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, he reached the Netherlands in 1686 where he was taken into the service of the prince and princess of Orange, being ‘so great a servant of theirs, and gives such characters of them’ as to be seen as an significant promoter of their interest.<sup>17</sup> Burnet played an important part in the exiled community, and came to be seen as a threat by James II, who put pressure on the prince and princess to dismiss him: in compliance he was forbidden their court. He remained in touch with them however, as well as with events in England: by February 1688 he was being delivered ‘such great packets of letters constantly as few receive but public ministers’.<sup>18</sup> Burnet’s anonymous writings on English affairs, including his <em>Reasons against Repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test</em>, published before an anticipated meeting of Parliament in April 1687, incited James to take direct action against him, though Burnet wrote that what really precipitated it was news of his engagement to ‘a considerable fortune at the Hague’. As early as 2 Apr. 1687, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> reported to his father that Burnet had indeed ‘married a lady with a great fortune’.<sup>19</sup> A prosecution against Burnet for treason was begun in Scotland in April; Burnet responded by obtaining naturalization from the States General, before it was generally known in the Netherlands. His marriage seems to have taken place in May 1687 to ‘the daughter of a very rich widow’. His mother-in-law died five months afterwards, when reportedly the ‘whole estate is come into hand, it is thought to be full £12,000’.<sup>20</sup> Once James II had fled, Burnet became a leading advocate of William assuming the crown. On 20 Dec. 1688 Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> told Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, that he had seen George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, in ‘deep conference’ with Burnet ‘who is the prince’s clerk of his closet and chaplain and a great man of state.’<sup>21</sup> Morrice, too, thought Burnet to be clerk of the closet in February 1689, but officially he never appears to have been more than the prince’s chaplain; it was John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, who became clerk in April 1689, although Burnet was still being called clerk of the closet by some in 1694.<sup>22</sup> On 20 Dec. Burnet introduced four of the seven bishops, William Lloyd*, of St Asaph, Francis Turner*, of Ely, Thomas White*, of Peterborough, and Thomas Ken*, of Bath and Wells, to the prince.<sup>23</sup> On 22 Dec. Burnet preached at St James’s before the Prince and ‘a very numerous assembly of the nobility, gentry and citizens’ delivering ‘a most learned, eloquent and edifying sermon; exhorting to gratitude, first to God and then to his highness for this happy deliverance from popery and slavery’.<sup>24</sup> Despite being pestered by ‘many impertinent people that press in upon me’, Burnet was able on 25 Dec. 1688 to send from St James’s an assessment of affairs to Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington:</p><blockquote><p>as to the settling of the government, there are two different opinions, for a third, which was for treating with the king, has fallen by his second withdrawing yesterday… Some are for calling together with the peers all such as have been Parliament men, that so they may go to declare that, the king having left his people and withdrawn the pretended prince, the princess is queen, and so proceed to call a legal Parliament by writs in her name. Others think that a Parliament or rather a Convention is to be summoned, which will be the true representation of the kingdom, and that, though they have no legal writs, yet they being returned upon a free choice, this will be upon the matter a free Parliament, and that this assembly is to judge both the king’s falling from the crown and the birth of the pretended prince; and that then a Parliament may be legally held after they have declared in whom the right of the crown lies. This last is liable to this exception that the slowness of it may expose Holland to be lost before England can be settled or ready to act.<sup>25</sup></p></blockquote><p>Burnet was also advising William on appointments. A comprehensive list of possible nominees for the whole gamut of government posts exists in the papers of Henry Sydney*, the future Viscount Sydney, as well as a letter containing pen portraits of London clerics to be employed.<sup>26</sup> From December 1688, Burnet met a number of times with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, though the encounters did not encourage the latter: on 5 Dec., after a discussion about whom William might appoint to his government, Burnet, ‘in wonderful warmth’, denied that there could be a treaty between the king and the prince. Clarendon wrote in his diary ‘Good God, what are we like to come to, if this man speaks the prince’s sense?’ On the following day, Clarendon asked him why he had refused to say the collect for the king in Exeter cathedral, making an ‘ugly noise with his mouth’ instead. On 11 Jan. 1689 Clarendon noted that Burnet ‘is always so bitter in talking of deposing the king.’<sup>27</sup> According to Bishop Turner on 11 Jan. it was planned that a group of City clergymen, including Simon Patrick*, the future bishop of Ely, Thomas Tenison*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, Dr William Sherlock and Dr John Scott would meet with himself, Lloyd of St Asaph and White, with Burnet being invited ‘to sustain his notion of the forfeiture’.<sup>28</sup> This probably related to a meeting on 14 Jan. when Burnet attended a long conference with various Anglican divines including Turner, in which he justified his stance in support of William.<sup>29</sup> Certainly, Clarendon thought that Lloyd of St Asaph had been ‘wheedled’ by Burnet to make ‘the king’s going away a cessation’, and later claimed that Burnet had said he ‘could make the bishop of St Asaph do anything’.<sup>30</sup> On 1 Feb. 1689 Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup> visited Halifax, where he found Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> and Burnet, ‘the great creature of the prince of Orange’, who ‘argued violently for the crowning of the prince’.<sup>31</sup> Burnet himself believed that he had a ‘great share… in the private managing’ of debates in the Lords, ‘particularly with many of the clergy, and with men of the most scrupulous and tender consciences’.<sup>32</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Salisbury and the Convention</em></h2><p>Initially some believed that Burnet would be rewarded with the see of Durham since Nathaniel Crew*, the incumbent bishop, was expected to refuse the oaths to the new regime.<sup>33</sup> Clarendon thought that Lloyd of St Asaph was instrumental in securing the vacant see of Salisbury for Burnet, even though William had apparently promised it to Jonathan Trelawny*, of Bristol, or to Patrick.<sup>34</sup> Years later, Thomas Naish heard the story that Trelawny had ‘kissed hands’ for it, two or three days before Burnet’s appointment, and that this was ‘the first occasion of the grudge and misunderstanding between them’.<sup>35</sup> Burnet’s promotion to Salisbury brought him much trouble in the light of his repeated criticism of episcopacy and his refusal to accept a bishopric during the reign of Charles II. Thomas Burnet explained that his father ‘was indeed so little anxious after his own preferment, that when the bishopric of Salisbury became void, as it did soon after King William and Queen Mary were established on the throne, he solicited for it in favour of his old friend Dr Lloyd, then bishop of St Asaph’. William, however, ‘answered him in a cold way, <em>that he had another person in view</em>; and the next day he was himself nominated to that see.’<sup>36</sup> The prize was worth having, Elizabeth Burnet later assessing it as ‘one year with another [a] good £2500 a year, ’tis called £3000, but I think it not so much.’<sup>37</sup> Recognizing the futility of questioning the king’s decision Burnet ‘set myself seriously to form a method how I could behave myself in that station. I spent a whole week in retirement and sat up the whole night before I was consecrated.’ During his retreat he examined ‘all the thoughts I had at any time entertained of the duty of bishops and made solemn vows to God to put them in practice.’ Amongst many resolutions, in accordance with his earlier criticisms of the episcopate, he wrote that he was determined ‘never to indulge looseness or luxury nor to raise fortunes to my children out of the revenues of the Church’ and ‘resolved to abstract myself from courts and secular affairs as much as was possible, and never to engage in the persecuting of any what side soever on the account of differences of religion’. He also dedicated himself ‘to the functions belonging to the order, preaching, catechizing, confirming, and ordaining and governing the clergy in the best manner I could.’<sup>38</sup></p><p>On 3 Apr. 1689 Burnet took his seat in the House of Lords as bishop of Salisbury. He was to be an assiduous attender, being present on 88 days of the remainder of the session, a little over 79 per cent of the total. He was named to 36 committees before the adjournment in July 1689, and 22 committees afterwards. On 4 Apr. the House received the report from the committee which had examined the bill for uniting their majesties protestant subjects. As Burnet later recorded, the committee had added a proviso to the bill allowing a group of clergymen and laymen to ‘prepare such a reformation of things, relating to the Church, as might be offered to king and Parliament, in order to the healing our divisions, and the correcting what might be amiss, or defective, in our constitution. This was pressed with great earnestness by many of the temporal lords.’ Burnet admitted that ‘I at that time did imagine, that the clergy would have come into such a design with zeal and unanimity; and I feared this would be looked upon by them as taking the matter out of their hands; and for that reason I argued so warmly against this, that it was carried by a small majority to let fall.’ When another proviso in the bill was being considered he moved ‘that the subscription, instead of assent and consent, should only be to submit with a promise of conformity’. When a violent debate arose about whether to dispense with kneeling at the giving of the sacrament, Burnet took a clear stance in favour because this ‘posture being the chief exception that the Dissenters had, the giving up this was thought to be the opening a way for them to come into employments’, and therefore ‘I declared myself zealous for it: for, since it was acknowledged that the posture was not essential, and that scruples, how ill grounded soever, were raised upon it, it seemed reasonable to leave this matter as indifferent in its practice as it was in its nature.’<sup>39</sup></p><p>On 8 Apr. 1689 Burnet was appointed one of the managers of the conference on the amendments in the bill for removing of papists out of London. Following the report of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, Burnet was named to a committee to draw up reasons in support of their proposal that the queen dowager be allowed 30 English servants and was named to a further conference on the bill on 16 April. On 11 Apr. Burnet preached the sermon at the coronation of William and Mary.<sup>40</sup> On 14 Apr. Reresby found Burnet with Halifax, where he was critical of the slow proceedings of the Commons, the fault for which he imputed to ‘the Church of England party’, who he felt ‘designed the advantage of King James and his service by it’. Both Halifax and Burnet were angry at the address of the Commons of the previous day calling for Convocation to be summoned.<sup>41</sup> On 17 Apr. the House amended the clause which concerned the bishops taking the oaths in the toleration bill, and appointed Burnet and five others to make the rest of the bill agree with the amendments. On 20 Apr. 1689 Burnet was named to report a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill for abrogating the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and then named to draw up reasons why the Lords insisted upon their amendments. He was named to manage the conference on the 22nd. At the conference Burnet was the second of the Lords managers to speak in favour of exempting the clergy from the oaths. He observed that the clergy regularly prayed for the monarchs as required by the Book of Common Prayer and that the communion service contained a protestation of fidelity. Could it be imagined he questioned, ‘that the clergy will so solemnly pray thus, and not obey the king and queen? This is more than an oath, which is but one single act; this is done every day; they themselves pronounce the words in the sacrament service.’ He concluded that the ‘eyes of all England are upon this matter. The Lords are of opinion they have made so much a better security than what you have made, that they hope you will agree with them’.<sup>42</sup> He was then named to manage a further conference and on 23 Apr. reported that the Commons insisted that all persons should be enjoined to take the oaths; and that there should be no difference between the clergy and the laity. After further debate it was resolved to agree with the Commons. On 24 Apr. Burnet was one of six lords appointed to manage another conference on the bill, at which the Commons accepted the Lords’ proviso. Burnet later commented that ‘I was the chief manager of the debate in favour of the clergy, both in the House of Lords, and at the conferences with the Commons; but, seeing it could not be carried I acquiesced the more easily’. He explained that at the beginning of these debates ‘I was assured, that those who seemed resolved not to take the oaths, yet prayed for the king in their chapels; yet I found afterwards this was not true, for they named no king, nor queen, and so it was easy to guess whom they meant by such an indefinite designation.’ At the same time he ‘also heard many things that made me conclude they were endeavouring to raise all the opposition to the government possible.’<sup>43</sup></p><p>On 22 May 1689, when a committee of the whole considered the bill of rights, a clause was added to prevent Catholics from succeeding to the crown, to which Burnet ‘proposed an additional clause, absolving the subjects, in that case, from their allegiance... and it passed without any opposition or debate’. Then, at the king’s instance, Burnet proposed ‘the naming the duchess of Hanover, and her posterity, next in the succession. He signified his pleasure in this case also to his ministers; but he ordered me to begin this motion in the House, because I had already set it on foot.’<sup>44</sup> The amendment adding Princess Sophia, as being the next Protestant in the lineal succession of the royal family, and her heirs, was agreed to by a sub-committee on 24 May when Burnet was in the chair. He played a leading role in the conferences that ensued when the Commons rejected this. According to the report delivered to the Commons he was the ‘chief manager’ at the final conference on 31 July, after which the bill fell.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Burnet’s conduct was much approved at Hanover and his efforts ‘made that illustrious house from thenceforth consider him as one firmly attached to their interests, and with whom they might therefore enter into the strictest confidence.’ According to Thomas Burnet, his father had given early notice of the invasion to the court of Hanover, ‘intimating that the success of this enterprise must naturally end in an entail of the British crown upon that illustrious house’. Princess Sophia wrote that she was ‘very grateful for the warmth you have been pleased to testify for my interests, which is a great personal satisfaction to me, as if your good intentions had been more successful’. As Burnet’s son later observed, this was the beginning of a correspondence that lasted until Sophia’s death, the extant letters ‘all written in her own hand.’<sup>46</sup></p><p>Burnet recollected that he came into Lords ‘when… comprehension and toleration was in debate, and I went so high in those points, that I was sometimes upon the division of the House single against the whole bench of bishops.’ He thought that his standing was enhanced by his opposition to the bill ‘which enacted the taking the oaths’, but he again ‘fell under great prejudices’ when he realized that by praying for an unnamed king the non-jurors were ‘plainly praying for King James’. It was, however, his attitude to the Scottish episcopate and the recognition of the Presbyterian Kirk as the national Church of Scotland that proved the greatest source of disagreement with his English colleagues. Burnet observed that it was ‘generally thought that I could have hindered the change of the government of the Church that was made in Scotland, and that I went into it too easily’, but he was convinced by William that it was a matter of necessity because ‘the whole Episcopal party, a very few only excepted, went into King James’s interest: and therefore, since the Presbyterians were the only party that he had there, the granting of their desires at that time were unavoidable.’<sup>47</sup></p><p>On 25 May 1689 Burnet reported from committee reasons to be offered to the Commons at a conference explaining why the Lords did not agree to leave out their amendment to the additional poll bill. That day Roger Morrice noted that Burnet was the only bishop not to vote Titus Oates guilty of a breach of privilege for distributing a printed account of his case. On 31 May Burnet voted against reversing the two judgments of perjury against Oates, arguing that ‘if such rascals and perjured persons were capacitated to give evidence no honest man was secure of his life’. On 22 July Burnet was named to report on a conference on the bill reversing the judgments against Oates but on the 30th he changed his mind and voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to it. On 20 and 21 June Burnet was named to report a conference on the bill appointing commissioners of the great seal. On 2 July he was the only bishop in favour of proceeding with the impeachment of Sir Adam Blair and his co-defendants.<sup>48</sup> On 13 July, after Carmarthen (the former Danby) and Halifax narrowly escaped censure by the Commons, Burnet noted that he had dined with one of the marquesses, presumably Halifax, ‘who seems not to be much troubled at it; perhaps he thought it was a victory because the debate was adjourned’.<sup>49</sup></p><p>In July 1689 Burnet was unsuccessful in securing the translation of Lloyd of St Asaph to Worcester.<sup>50</sup> On 13 Sept. he responded to a request for an assessment of his personal estate in England by noting that he had no personal estate in England other than his furniture and his books, along with ‘a debt that is more than twice the value of it.’<sup>51</sup> On 19 Sept. Tillotson attributed his elevation to Canterbury to Burnet, ‘one of the worst and best friends I know. Best, for his singular good opinion of me: and the worst, for directing the king to this method... as if his lordship and I had concerted the matter, now to finish this foolish piece of dissimulation in running away from a bishopric to catch an archbishopric.’<sup>52</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Burnet was still pursuing the prize of comprehension. In June 1689 Morrice had noted that Burnet and Lloyd of Asaph together with John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> were in discussions about a bill, which the king was thought to favour.<sup>53</sup> In September a commission was appointed by the king to consider reforms to the liturgy, ceremonial, canons and courts of the Church to prepare the way for comprehension. Burnet missed the first two of the 18 meetings of the commission early in October.<sup>54</sup> Indeed, on 5 Oct. 1689, William Douglas, duke of Hamilton [S], thought that Burnet shunned coming to London, to avoid being lobbied by the many Scots in the capital; ‘he has got a good fat bishopric and now he is so wise as not to meddle.’<sup>55</sup> Nevertheless, he was present for the remainder of the meetings between 3 Oct. and 18 November. Its demise followed the meeting of Convocation on 20 Nov. 1689.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Burnet was present when Parliament reassembled on 19 Oct. 1689, and for the new session which began on 23 October. He was present on 65 days of the session, just over 89 per cent of the total. At the end of May 1689, it had been reported that Burnet had been one of those asked by the earl of Essex’s widow to desist from investigating his death in the Tower six years before.<sup>57</sup> The first report of the committee appointed to consider the deaths of Essex, Russell, and others, as well as the surrender of the corporate charters, on 6 Nov. may have been the occasion of the debate reported by Morrice in which Charles North*, 5th Baron North, moved the word ‘murder’ not be used in the terms of reference for the committee, and Burnet counter-proposed that the same word be used as was used in the act reversing their attainder. Also on that day, the thanks of the House were ordered to be given to Burnet for his sermon preached on the previous day. On 23 Jan. 1690 Burnet ‘spoke very well against the surrendry [of corporation charters], but he went out of the House when the question was put’ to leave out the words which declared the surrender to be illegal.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Following the adjournment of Convocation on 14 Dec. 1689 Burnet and Lloyd of St Asaph acted as the intermediaries between the court and the suspended, non-juring bishops in an attempt to broker a compromise involving compensation for the loss of their bishoprics.<sup>59</sup> On 24 Dec. it was reported that Burnet ‘out of his abundant zeal for the hierarchy and its revenues, has of late frequently appeared at the lobby of the Commons discoursing some leading members about service for the suspended bishops and ’tis said they endeavour to find flaws in their own act that it may not be executed.’<sup>60</sup> According to Morrice, Burnet attended a meeting (either on 30 Dec. or 6 Jan. 1690) along with Thomas Lamplugh*, archbishop of York and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, with several non-juring bishops, at which it was pledged that the bishops in the Lords would oppose deprivation. In February he was one of the bishops reported to have approached the king on their behalf.<sup>61</sup> In the summer of 1690, Burnet conducted more negotiations with the non-juring bishops under Queen Mary’s direction, which failed over allegations that they were implicated in Jacobite intrigues.<sup>62</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690</em></h2><p>Burnet was present when the 1690 Parliament convened on 20 Mar., attending on 36 days, exactly two-thirds of the first session. On 7 Apr. 1690, when the committee of the whole was debating the recognition bill, he was named to a sub-committee to draw a clause relating to recognizing the Convention as a Parliament.<sup>63</sup> On 9 Apr. Burnet was given leave to be absent ‘for a while’. Although he did attend on the 10th, he was absent by the time the vote came on whether to erase the words of the protests against the recognition bill, having been ‘at first for this bill and then neither for it nor against it’.<sup>64</sup> He next attended on 26 April. The tenor of Burnet’s two interventions in the debate on 2 May on the second reading of the abjuration bill was that it should be committed and amended. Morrice noted his support for committal.<sup>65</sup> On 3 May Burnet opposed the idea that those not subscribing to the new oaths should lose their right to sit in the House. The relevant parliamentary list for the vote on 8 May concerning the use of the words ‘right and lawful’ in the new oaths refers to ‘all the bishops’ rather than recording them individually: Burnet was marked present on the attendance list so if he was still in the chamber for the vote, he voted to leave out ‘right and lawful’. On 7 May, when the Lords inquired into the London lieutenancy, Burnet ‘made a set speech’ against an investigation into the personal qualifications of men, likening it to the Catholic inquisition. He supported continuing the present militia. On 12 May he was named to manage a conference on the regency bill. On 14 May Morrice was unsure whether Burnet had joined Bishop Patrick in voting against the bill restoring the corporation of London.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Burnet was absent when the 1690-1 session began on 2 Oct., first attending on the 9th. In all he attended on 40 days, nearly 56 per cent of the total. On 14 Oct. 1690 he reported that having been in town for a week he was optimistic that the necessary finance for the war would be granted by the Commons, although he did fear that excessive zeal in turning out Episcopalians in Scotland would create difficulties for the government in England.<sup>67</sup> On 11 Nov. the House voted against Burnet’s use of privilege in a patronage dispute with the dean and chapter of Windsor.<sup>68</sup> During December the passage of the bill of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, relating to the Seymour estates, was assisted by Burnet, who was Ailesbury’s ‘great stickler and never missed being at the committees’.<sup>69</sup> On 5 Jan. Burnet was named to manage the conferences held on the bill that suspended parts of the Navigation Act. By 10 Jan. Burnet was back in Salisbury, apologizing to Robert Boyle for his failure to wait on him on the 5th, because ‘the messages between the two Houses held us so late’ that by the time he had finished other business in London ‘it was not possible to get back before your time of going to bed was past’.<sup>70</sup> He was still there early in April 1691, but back in London by 31 May when he assisted at the consecration of Tillotson at Bow Church.<sup>71</sup> During the 1691-2 session Burnet was present on 65 days, 67 per cent of the total and was named to 39 committees. On 30 Oct. and 2, 6, 9 and 10 Nov. 1691 he chaired and reported progress from a committee of the whole on the bill preventing clandestine marriages. On 10 Nov. he was named to a committee to consider clauses on the forging of marriage licences and Quaker marriages, which he reported on 11 November. He was named to report conferences on the safety of the kingdom (17 Nov.) and on the amendments made by the Lords to the bill for abrogating the oath of supremacy in Ireland (1 Dec.), following which on 3 Dec. he was named to a committee of five to draw up reasons why the Lords disagreed to the Commons’ amendments to the bill. On 12 and 15 Dec. he reported from the committee for privileges on the claim of Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, to the barony of Clifford; on the cause of <em>Stamford v Suffolk</em>; on the petition of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, relating to the barons of the exchequer; on the request of John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, for leave to apply to the Commons; on <em>Maynard v Suffolk</em>, <em>Widdrington v Derby</em> and <em>Watt v Hopkins</em>. On 12 Jan. 1692 he reported on two more, on <em>Villiers v Suffolk</em> and on Felton’s claim to the barony of Walden. On 3 Dec. 1691 he had been named to a small committee to prepare a clause for debate in committee of the whole on the bill regulating treason trials; he was named on 17 Dec. to report the subsequent conference, and then to draw up reasons for the Lords’ insisting on several of their amendments. On 18 Dec. he chaired the adjournment of the committee on the bill preserving bay salt for the navy.<sup>72</sup> On 2 Feb. 1692 Burnet was given leave to go into the country, and he last attended on the following day, three weeks before the end of the session, signing a proxy in favour of John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, on 8 February. </p><p>Over the summer, in May, Burnet was unsurprisingly excluded from James II’s pardon.<sup>73</sup> In September he told Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, of the temper of his diocese, particularly on those matters such as ‘the judges bill’, treason legislation and the East India Company, which were likely to figure in Parliament. During the 1692-3 session, he was present on 71 days, nearly 70 per cent of the total and was named to 35 committees. He continued to be an active member of the House, regularly reporting from committees, including, on 18 Nov. 1692, the committee appointed to draw up addresses to the king and queen. On 29 Dec. he was named to a committee to inspect the Journal to see if the Commons had transmitted their vote approving the conduct of Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, in the correct manner and to consider heads for the conference which was held on 4 Jan. 1693. On 31 Dec. 1692 Burnet had voted in favour of the committal of the place bill, but on 3 Jan. 1693 he was listed as one of the Lords ‘that went away’, although he was not listed as attending that day.</p><p>In February 1692, it had been reported that Burnet had been ‘earnestly’ soliciting in favour of the Norfolk divorce.<sup>74</sup> Burnet was indeed forecast as a likely supporter of such a bill and on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted for it. During January he chaired two committees of the whole: on the bill vesting superstitious trusts and uses in the crown (4 Jan.) and to consider an amendment to the bill for frequent parliaments (18 January). On 20 Jan. Burnet’s <em>A Pastoral Letter</em> was attacked in the Commons. Although Burnet was defended as a man ‘zealous’ for the government, who had written ‘with no ill design’, merely laying ‘down the several grounds on which this government may be said to be laid for the satisfaction of all persons, and amongst the rest mentions that by conquest’, on 23 Jan. the Commons ordered the work to be burnt by the common hangman.<sup>75</sup> On 25 Jan. Burnet voted in favour of the committal of the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. He was absent between 14 Feb. and 6 Mar., and last attended on 9 Mar., a few days before the session ended. In May it was reported that he had ‘declared the burning his book was a barbarous usage’, upon which ‘a Parliament man took notice of it, and designs to charge him with it, if they come to sit’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Burnet attended on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 Nov. 1693, and was present on 100 days, just over 78 per cent of the total, being appointed to 18 committees. He was again active as a chair of committees of the whole, including that on the triennial bill (4 and 6 Dec.) and on the bill for the easier recovery of small tithes (26 March). On 17 Feb. he voted against the reversal of the chancery decree in the case of <em>Montagu v Bath</em>. On 22 Feb. he spoke in the debate on the bill regulating trials for treason, citing historical precedents.<sup>77</sup> He reported from numerous other committees during March, last attending that session on 31 March.</p><p>Burnet spent the summer of 1694 back in Salisbury.<sup>78</sup> He was back in London by November and attended on 88 days of the 1694-5 session, just over 73 per cent of the total, being was named to 25 committees. According to Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> the cause of <em>Tattershall v Fitzherbert</em> heard on 24 Jan. 1695 saw the appeal of the former, ‘put into a living’ by Burnet, dismissed in favour of the latter.<sup>79</sup> Burnet reported on the Finch estate bill (14 Feb.) and from committees of the whole on 13 and 21 March. During April and May he acted as a manager for four conferences (two of which were on the treason trials bill. On 29 Apr. 1695 he took the oaths in chancery in order to qualify to act as a member of the new commission for disposing of ecclesiastical preferments.<sup>80</sup> During September he expressed his support for Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> should he stand for Berkshire in the forthcoming election.<sup>81</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1695</em></h2><p>Burnet missed the opening of the 1695 Parliament on 22 Nov., first attending on 2 Dec. 1695. He was present on 74 days, nearly 60 per cent of the total. On 9 Dec. Burnet asked a question in the committee of the whole considering the act of the Scottish parliament in establishing an East India Company, concerning the possible promise of shares to people to get them to invest in the company.<sup>82</sup> He was appointed to 23 committees and was again active as a chair of the committee of the whole, reporting on the supply bill dealing with annuities (17 Jan.); the recovery of small tithes (25 Jan.); and the East India Company (28 Jan. and 1, 4 Feb.); and preventing frauds and regulating abuses in the plantation trade (24 March). </p><p>Burnet had signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696 (as he did again in Salisbury).<sup>83</sup> Writing to Princess Sophia on 7 Apr. Burnet had remarked that the recent conspiracy ‘has kindled in all men’s minds a zeal for the king and a horror of King James beyond what I am able to express.’<sup>84</sup> Burnet missed the opening of the next session on 20 Oct. 1696, telling Lady Russell on 31 Oct. that ‘I do not think of coming up yet this fortnight, if I am not called for’.<sup>85</sup> He first attended on 14 Nov., then being present on 60 days, nearly 53 per cent, and was named to 19 committees. Burnet attended John Hampden following his botched but ultimately successful suicide attempt of 3 Dec. 1696.<sup>86</sup></p><p>As Burnet himself recounted, the ‘great business of this session that held longest in both houses, was a bill relating to Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>.’<sup>87</sup> Burnet supported the bill at its second reading, there being ‘both a power and a necessity of doing it’.<sup>88</sup> It was probably on 23 Dec. 1696, on the third reading of the bill, that Burnet made a speech arguing that ‘the nature of government required that the legislature should be recurred to, in extraordinary cases, for which effectual provision could not be made by fixed and standing laws’. He supported his arguments with detailed historical precedents designed to demonstrate that ‘the nation had upon extraordinary occasions proceeded in this parliamentary way by bill.’ Condemning Fenwick would ‘be striking a terror to all that negotiate with France’, and the good in the bill would outweigh the bad.<sup>89</sup> He was duly recorded as voting for the third reading of the bill. In justifying himself, Burnet explained that the Lords ‘by severe votes, obliged all the peers to be present, and to give their votes in the matter’, and that ‘I thought it was incumbent on me, when my opinion determined me to the severer side, to offer what reasons occurred to me in justification of my vote. But this did not exempt me from falling under a great cloud of censure upon this occasion.’ That said, Burnet claimed to have been helpful to Fenwick who, as he prepared to face the executioner, ‘desired the assistance of one of the deprived bishops, which was not easily granted; but in that, and several other matters, I did him much service, that he wrote me a letter of thanks upon it.’ This brought an end of ‘that unacceptable affair, in which I had a much larger share than might seem to become a man of my profession’.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Burnet was involved in one further consequence of the proceedings against Fenwick: the punishment of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), for attempting to manipulate the affair to his own advantage. On 15 Jan. 1697 Burnet argued that although ‘there could no excusing him from being author of those papers’, there should be some note taken ‘of some eminent services he had done for this government’. Nevertheless, according to his own account Burnet then moved that Monmouth be sent to the Tower.<sup>91</sup> Further, on 22 Jan. Burnet intervened in the debate on the petition of Lady Mary Fenwick for a reprieve of one week for her husband, to note that there was a letter dropped in the street ‘which had dark expressions, as if the king would not live to see Fenwick executed’. The effect of his intervention was to alter the address to ask for a reprieve if the king thought it consistent with his safety and the safety of the government.<sup>92</sup> Rather mischievously, there was a proposal that he accompany Bishop Compton with the address, to which Burnet reacted badly, saying that the House had every right to send him to the Tower, but not to Kensington – remarks for which he had to apologize.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Burnet last attended that session on 17 Mar. 1697, and on the 18th he signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Patrick. On 17 Mar. James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> wrote that Burnet was ‘of great use in the House of Lords and is at present more in favour with the king than ever he was, or ever I thought should have been’.<sup>94</sup> In July Burnet was in Salisbury.<sup>95</sup> He returned to London good time for the opening of the 1697-8 session.<sup>96</sup> He attended on 82 days of the session, just under 63 per cent of the total and was appointed to 42 committees. Possibly at the bill’s second reading on 24 Feb. 1698 Burnet spoke in in favour of the divorce bill of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, ‘showing the necessity and lawfulness of such extraordinary proceedings in some particular case.’<sup>97</sup> On 5 Mar. Burnet was appointed to a committee for a conference on the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, and was one of the managers of the resultant conferences on 7 and 11 March. On 15 Mar. Burnet voted for the bill and entered a protest when it was lost. He was named, amongst others, to the conference on the bill for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness on 24 May. On 27 May he explained that under this law ‘men convicted of such crimes are only excluded from public office, and first offences are condoned on a profession of penitence. Nor are any under this law to be condemned, but such as offend of malice prepense and deliberately’.<sup>98</sup> Burnet last attended the session on 1 June 1698, over a month before it ended. His early departure may have been related to the ill health of his wife, who died in Holland, on 8/18 June.<sup>99</sup> On 13 July he was described as ‘a most deserted mourner’, although he was coming up to town upon the establishment of the household of the duke of Gloucester, of whom he was soon to be named preceptor.<sup>100</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliaments of 1698 and 1701</em></h2><p>Burnet attended on the second day of the 1698 Parliament, 9 Dec., and was present on 46 days, nearly 57 per cent of the total, being named to 10 committees. On 4 Jan. 1699 Burnet was ordered to preach the martyrdom sermon on 30 January. The House formally thanked him on 1 Feb., although some were critical that he had said very little about the death of Charles I.<sup>101</sup> He was again active as a chair of the committee of the whole. On 29 Mar. protested against the resolution in the cause of the <em>London Ulster Society v. the Bishop of Derry</em>. He was present on the last day of the session, 4 May. As was to be usual during his care of Gloucester, Burnet spent much of the summer at Windsor.<sup>102</sup> In August Burnet was one of the bishops who found Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, guilty of various offences, which led to the sentence of deprivation.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Burnet was present on the opening day of the next session, 16 Nov. 1699. He attended on 55 days, 70 per cent of the total, and was named to 13 committees. James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> noted on 12 Dec. that when the Commons considered the debt due to Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, ‘there were some speeches reflecting upon’ Burnet, and a motion made for an address to remove him as governor to the duke of Gloucester, ‘but let fall for the present’.<sup>104</sup> James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> attributed the attack firstly to Sir John Bolles<sup>‡</sup> and then to Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> in ‘a set speech as if it had been concerted’. Pakington was an old enemy of Burnet’s, having previously remarked of his pamphlet that ‘if they had voted the author to be hanged, he believed the whole nation would have been pleased at it’.<sup>105</sup> When the attack on Burnet was resumed on the 13th, the ‘chief thing’ charged against him was his authorship of <em>A Pastoral Letter</em> and its alleged claim that the king came to the crown by conquest; others thought his being a Scot disparaged the abilities of the English. The bishop was defended as having written so much in defence of the Protestant religion and English liberty that this ‘was more than a sufficient atonement for any slip he might have made amongst the many volumes he had writ’, and that ‘turning him out for being a Scotchman, would not be the way to bring that nation out of the heats they were already in.’<sup>106</sup> He survived the censure by 40 votes.</p><p>According to Charles Hatton, ‘in the heat of the debate’ on 10 Jan. 1700 over the Darien colony, the excitable Burnet told Bishop Lloyd (now translated to Worcester) that he was ‘an old dotard, intoxicated with tobacco and Revelations.’<sup>107</sup> On 23 Jan. Burnet protested against the decision to reverse the decree in <em>Williamson v the Crown</em>. On 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 18 Mar. he chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill for the further preventing the growth of popery. On 10 Apr. Burnet favoured the passage of the bill for a land tax and for the sale of the forfeited estates in Ireland, which was the subject of conferences between the Houses, and faced being lost if the Lords were to stick to their amendments. When James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, was speaking on the defence of the rights of the peerage, and so in favour of adhering to their amendments, Burnet cried out ‘stuff, stuff, with his cap on at the table, this was so loud, that it drew the eyes of several lords upon him and the ears of the lord a speaking, who took notice of it, and appealed to the House for justice upon such indecent irregularity’. Burnet ‘flatly denied upon honour, conscience and salvation’ his offence, but having been overheard by several peers, ‘so that he was going to the bar forthwith, but was suffered to explain and excuse himself’, which he managed ‘by saying his zeal for the royal cause the princess and duke had transported him beyond his reasonable thoughts and so got off with that fumbling excuse as foreign to the matter as his sermons are usually to his texts.’<sup>108</sup></p><p>With the dismissal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, at the end of April 1700, and the consequent rumours of ministerial change, including the possible translation of Burnet to Winchester, Charles Trimnell*, the future bishop of Norwich, thought that Burnet ‘in most peoples’ opinion cannot stand long at St James, and as for his removal to Winchester I believe our Oxford colleges of that bishop’s visitation need not fear any from Dr B.’<sup>109</sup> Meanwhile, on 23 May, Thomas Bateman noted that Burnet had married a widow with a jointure worth £800 a year.<sup>110</sup> At some point during the summer of 1700 Burnet’s name appears on a printed list with annotations which may suggest that he was regarded as a potential supporter of the new ministry. </p><p>Burnet was first present at the first Parliament of 1701 on 10 February. He attended on 93 days, nearly 89 per cent of the total and was named to 33 committees. On 8 Mar. Pakington was ordered to bring in a bill into the Commons which included provision to prevent the translations of bishops, apparently prompted by renewed rumours of Burnet’s intended translation to Winchester. The rumour had been current from at least March 1699 when it had been reported that the king had given the ‘reversion’ of it to Burnet.<sup>111</sup> Burnet chaired and reported from committee of the whole on the divorce bill of Ralph Box (10 Apr.) and on the bill settling the crown (21 May). Burnet’s own recollection concerning the latter was that when the Commons sent the bill up to the Lords ‘we expected great opposition would be made to it’, but this failed to materialize because many ‘of the lords absented themselves on design’. The Act of Settlement having passed, as Burnet wrote later, ‘we reckoned it a great point carried that we had now a law on our side for a Protestant successor; for we plainly saw a great party formed against it, in favour of the pretended prince of Wales.’ Princess Sophia acknowledged Burnet’s support for the Hanoverian Succession in the letter of June 1701, in which she thanked him ‘for the affection which you have testified to me in the affair of the succession, which excludes at the same time all Catholic heirs, who have always caused so many disorders in England.’<sup>112</sup> He continued to be active in the management of conferences, including those of 6 and 10 June concerning the impeachment of Whig peers. Later that month he voted to acquit Somers and Orford. </p><p>With a new ministry, and the revival of convocation, Burnet again came under attack for some of his writings. In May 1701 Thomas Naish was told of three charges ready to be drawn up against Burnet in Convocation, relating to heresy, protecting servants guilty of extortion and promoting simony.<sup>113</sup> This was a response to Burnet’s <em>Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles</em> (1699), which aimed to assist in healing the doctrinal divisions between dissenters and the Church.<sup>114</sup> As Burnet himself put it, the censure of his <em>Exposition</em> was for favouring ‘a diversity of opinions, which the articles were framed to avoid’.<sup>115</sup> The attack ended with the sudden death of Prolocutor Woodward on 13 Feb. 1702.<sup>116</sup> Woodward’s pursuit of Burnet is likely to have been related to an existing dispute between the two men. Woodward was dean of Salisbury; he had been cited for contempt and disobedience, which had in turn led to a complaint from the lower house of Convocation, which the bishops had rejected.<sup>117</sup> An attack on Burnet planned for March 1704 was discouraged by George Hooper*, the prolocutor, recently appointed bishop of Bath and Wells.<sup>118</sup></fn></p><p>In July and August 1701 Burnet was based in Salisbury, and making preparations for a visitation in September.<sup>119</sup> He made strenuous efforts to secure the support of his clergy for the two Whig candidates in the Wiltshire election of November 1701. Burnet would later also try to direct his clergy in the 1702 and 1705 elections, and in elections to convocation, though in 1703 he claimed never to do so, merely ‘declaring my own opinion and knowledge of two persons without ever speaking to any person except my own tenants for his vote’. <sup>120</sup></p><p>Burnet was present when Parliament opened on 30 Dec. 1701. He attended on 65 days of the session (65 per cent of the total) and was named to 23 committees. He reaffirmed his commitment to the Hanoverian Succession at the beginning of the session when he signed the Lords’ address of 1 Jan. 1702. Burnet himself noted that the ‘matter that occasioned the longest and warmest debates in both Houses, was an act for abjuring the pretended prince of Wales, and for swearing to the king by the title of rightful and lawful king, and to his heirs, according to the act of settlement’.<sup>121</sup> On 12 Jan. the Lords gave a second reading to the abjuration bill, which occasioned a great debate in which Burnet responded to the insistence of Nottingham and John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby, that the term abjuration be defined and the oath limited. Burnet added that he thought the oath ‘as necessary for the securing of our civil rights as that oath of abjuration of the pope’s supremacy’ and that the ‘doctrine of <em>jure divino</em> was a false doctrine and but of 200 years standing.’<sup>122</sup> On 12 Feb. Burnet was added to the managers of the conference on the bill for the attainder of the pretended prince of Wales.<sup>123</sup> On 23 Feb. he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the abjuration bill.</p><h2><em>The Accession of Anne and the Parliament of 1702</em></h2><p>Following the king’s riding accident at the end of February 1702, Burnet ‘did not stir from him till he died,’ and thought his death ‘was a dreadful’ stroke.<sup>124</sup> As one newsletter observed, it did not prevent Burnet being the first person to bring Queen Anne news of William’s death. He ‘upon his knees by her majesty’s bedside kissed her hand and assured her he would be her majesty’s loyal and faithful subject, excusing his zeal to the service of his late majesty.’<sup>125</sup> Parliament was not dissolved immediately after the king’s death and on 18 Apr. Burnet chaired and reported from committee of the whole on the bill enabling the queen to appoint commissioners to treat for a union between England and Scotland. </p><p>Burnet was present when the new Parliament convened on 20 Oct. 1702. He attended on 76 days (over 88 per cent of the total) and was named to 30 committees. On 16 Nov. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted that Burnet was ‘in good heart, not valuing the grins of the lower house of Convocation’. He was certainly engaged in the debates in the upper house of convocation, having on 15 Dec. 1702 ‘sharp repartees’ with Bishop Trelawny over a legal opinion on a paper from the lower House.<sup>126</sup> In November 1702 the queen asked the Commons to make provision for her husband, Prince George, in case he should outlive her. The Commons voted £100,000 for the prince but a motion was made to exempt the prince from a clause in the Act of Settlement that incapacitated foreigners who had been naturalized from holding office or sitting in Parliament. Although the original provision ‘plainly related only to those who should be naturalized in a future reign’, Burnet observed that making a special case for Prince George implied that a similar exemption was required by those who were already naturalized: it is not clear from his text whether this was because it might have had some bearing on his own situation; certainly it was seen as a ‘prejudice’ to those who had been promoted by King William.<sup>127</sup> Burnet went to see the queen at St James’s on 31 Dec. 1702 to explain his objections. After his audience he met Bishop Nicolson, who noted that his colleague was ‘in some heat and concern’, and told him ‘that the queen seemed set upon having that bill pass; saying that she had rather an affront were given to herself than to the prince. Yet the bishop was so free as to move for a two days prorogation, that the contents of this might be put into two bills.’<sup>128</sup></p><p>Burnet regarded the provision on office-holding as ‘put in the bill, by some in the House of Commons, only because they believed it would be opposed by those, against whom they intended to irritate the queen’.<sup>129</sup> The stratagem appears to have worked. A newsletter on 14 Jan. 1703 reported that the previous day the queen had asked Burnet remove from his lodgings in St James’s.<sup>130</sup> On 19 Jan. Burnet spoke ‘under great perplexity’ in the committee of the whole on the bill. After expressing ‘the highest obligations of duty and gratitude to the prince’, he thought that ‘justice... was to take the place of gratitude, and he thought it would be an apparent injustice to the other foreign lords’, if the bill now passed so that the provision could not be reckoned any honour or dignity to him.<sup>131</sup> When the committee divided about including this clause the votes were equal, so, according to convention, it was removed from the bill, only to be restored when the bill was reported, sparking a protest from Burnet. Burnet concluded that ‘the queen was highly displeased with those who had opposed it, among whom I had my share.’ On 4 Feb. when the House considered the bill enlarging the time for taking the oath of abjuration, it added clauses against any attempt to prevent Princess Sophia from coming to the throne, and extending the oath to Ireland. Burnet noted that all ‘people were surprised to see a bill that was begun in favour of the Jacobites turned so terribly upon them, since by it we had a new security given, both in England and Ireland, for a Protestant successor.’<sup>132</sup> </p><p>Burnet seems to have seen the Test and Corporation Acts as allowing moderate Dissenters to serve in office in return for occasional conformity and was thus opposed to the attempt to outlaw the practice with the occasional conformity bill brought up from the Commons on 2 Dec. 1702.<sup>133</sup> On the next day he supported a proposal made by Somers that the committee of the whole on the bill should be instructed that it should be ‘extended to no other persons than the Test Act’. In committee of the whole on 4 Dec., he almost certainly opposed an amendment that all office-holders should receive the sacrament four times a year and attend church at least once a month. Similarly, on the 7th, he almost certainly supported the resolution of the committee to remove the financial penalties from it, effectively a wrecking amendment.<sup>134</sup> On 9 Dec. when it was rumoured that the Commons were considering adding the legislation to a money bill in order to force it through the Lords, Burnet signed the Lords’ resolution that such a ‘tack’ was ‘unparliamentary’, and tending towards the ‘destruction of the constitution of this government’. Unsurprisingly Nottingham’s forecast drawn up in or about January 1703, listed Burnet as a likely opponent of the bill. That month a number of conferences were held between the two Houses to discuss the impasse over the bill. Burnet acted as a manager of the conference on 16 Jan. 1703, on the eve of which he received a visit from two dissenting ministers, Edmund Calamy and Benjamin Robinson. Calamy later noted that their conversation was reflected in Burnet’s speech at the conference.<sup>135</sup> The bill was lost in the dispute between the Houses. Burnet wrote that the bishops who had opposed the bill were ‘censured as cold and slack in the concerns of the Church... A great part of this fell on myself; for I bore a large share in the debates, both in the House of Lords and at the free conference.’<sup>136</sup> In other business that session, Burnet voted against Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton, in his cause with Robert Squire<sup>‡ </sup>on 12 Feb. 1703.<sup>137</sup> On 17 Feb., when the Lords gave its verdict on the party controversy over the action at Vigo the previous October, voting that Sir George Rooke<sup>‡</sup>, had ‘done his duty, and behaved himself like a worthy and brave commander, with honour to the nation’, Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, noted ‘no bishop was against’ him and that Burnet ‘and nine, there present, were for him.’<sup>138</sup></p><p>Burnet was present when the next session began on 9 Nov. 1703 and attended on 85 days, 86.7 per cent of the total. As was by now automatic for those in the chamber, he was regularly named to committees. In November and early December, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that Burnet would continue to oppose attempts to pass a bill against occasional conformity and Burnet did vote against the bill on 14 December. As Burnet noted, the bishops ‘were almost equally divided’ but ‘I had the largest share of censure on me, because I spoke much against the bill’.<sup>139</sup> During his speech he admitted that ‘I myself was an occasional conformist in Geneva and Holland’ an experience which had convinced him that ‘occasional conformity, with a less perfect church, may well consist with the continuing to worship God in a more perfect one.’ He made it clear that he believed the bill was designed to limit toleration.<sup>140</sup> Following the defeat of the bill Burnet printed his speech ‘which drew many virulent pamphlets upon me, but I answered none of them’.<sup>141</sup> Sir Charles Turner<sup>‡</sup> asked his brother-in-law Robert Walpole<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Orford, for a copy to ‘bind up with the bill and Lords amendments which I find the Lords have ordered to be printed.’<sup>142</sup></p><p>Burnet remained an active committee chairman, reporting back on five occasions during January and February 1704. In March a newsletter reported that Burnet, seconded by John Sharp*, archbishop of York, had instigated a debate about James Bourchier or Boucher, one of those implicated in the Scotch Plot. This presumably relates to the debate of 1 Mar. when the House agreed to address the queen for clemency on his behalf if he confessed what he knew of the plot.<sup>143</sup> On 13 Mar. Burnet reported from committee of the whole on the bill that established the scheme known as Queen Anne’s Bounty. Burnet had long advocated such a scheme, so it was appropriate that he should be involved in the legislation bringing it into effect.<sup>144</sup> On 24 Mar. Burnet entered a protest against the decision not to put the question that the part of the narrative relating to Sir John Maclean, part of the evidence relating to the Scotch conspiracy, was ‘imperfect.’ When writing his account of this session of Parliament, Burnet commented on ‘the discoveries made of a plot which took up much of the Lords’ time, and gave occasion to many sharp reflections that passed between the two Houses in their addresses to the queen.’ Much time and effort was expended on the enquiry and at the end of it ‘the Lords concluded the whole matter with voting that there had been dangerous plots between some in Scotland and the court of France and St Germains; and that the encouragement of this plotting came from the not settling the succession to the crown of Scotland in the house of Hanover.’<sup>145</sup></p><p>During the subsequent, 1704-5 session, Burnet was present on 80 days, nearly 81 per cent of the total. Over the summer the Scottish parliament had met and forced the crown to accept the Scottish Act of Security, which threatened to dissolve the personal union of the crowns of England and Scotland at the death of the queen. The queen was present on 29 Nov. when the Lords went into a committee of a whole on the state of the nation with reference to Scotland, Burnet noting that ‘the debate about the Scotch act was taken up with great heat’ in the Lords.<sup>146</sup> Burnet, according to his wife, was no longer in touch with events and individuals in Scotland.<sup>147</sup> Nevertheless he made a long speech in which he examined the misfortunes that had afflicted Scotland since the union of the crowns in 1603.<sup>148</sup></p><p>On 15 Dec. 1704, Nicolson recorded that Burnet spoke against giving a second reading to the bill against occasional conformity, and that Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, was ‘hard’ on Burnet, ‘having (accidentally) his <em>Glasgow Dialogue</em> in his pocket, out of which he read two or three pages very severe upon the Dissenters’. He reported from a number of committees and was involved in managing conferences with the Commons. These included the high profile conferences held in February 1705 over the controversial issue of the Aylesbury men, but he was also involved in conferences on lesser issues: the militia bill (named 12 Mar.) and the Peschell naturalization bill (reported 13 March). He was also active in the Journals committee and on 19 and 24 Mar. was recorded as examining the journal up to 1 Feb. 1705.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1705</em></h2><p>In June 1705 Burnet brought several actions of <em>scandalum magnatum</em>, one of which was settled out of court in November by a Mr Smeaton, and another by Henry Chivers<sup>‡</sup>, for ‘impudent scandalous lies’.<sup>149</sup> Burnet intervened, unsuccessfully, against candidates who had supported the tack, in the 1705 elections for Salisbury and Wiltshire. He organized a ‘public entertainment’ to publicize the printed list of tackers and declaimed against them from his pulpit, declaring that it was the orders of the queen and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, ‘to excite the people against Tackers’. He even sent a circular letter to the inferior clergy of his diocese: ‘gentlemen, I have been a bishop 16 years and never meddled with any elections till now but now the queen seeing which way things are going gave us particular commands to take care and send such persons as will support her and her government’, and therefore recommending Sir Edward Ernle<sup>‡</sup> and William Ashe<sup>‡</sup>. Defoe reported that not only had Burnet’s candidate, Harris, lost the election at Salisbury, but ‘the bishop’s friends were very ill treated by the clergy at the county election’. It seems that he ‘was too warm, and disgusted some with his too great zeal’.<sup>150</sup></p><p>Burnet was present for the opening of the 1705 Parliament on 25 October. He attended on 82 days, some 86 per cent of the total. On 17 Nov. 1705 Thomas Hearne was informed that Burnet had ‘preached eight or nine times stoutly against occasional conformity. The reasons he supposes are only a means to reconcile him to some persons whom by scandals and disingenuous reports he has very much offended’.<sup>151</sup> Apprehensive that Parliament was giving further provocation to the Scots by its actions, Burnet was relieved when the next session of the Scottish Parliament agreed to allow the queen to nominate commissioners to negotiate a union with England provided the provision that designated the Scots as aliens in the event of the failure to settle either the Union or the Succession, was repealed. This was achieved on 23 Nov. 1705 whereupon Burnet, ‘as a Scotchman’ thanked the House ‘for their generous vote; and privately invited all to an £100 treat on this day sevennight, St Andrew’s Day.’<sup>152</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1705 Burnet attended a dinner at Lambeth, along with Nicolson and Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, where they prepared for the forthcoming church in danger debate. Opening the debate on 6 Dec. Rochester suggested that the Church was in peril under the queen’s administration particularly as a result of the ‘danger from Scotland’. Burnet was one of a number of peers who argued and voted to the contrary. Accounts of his speech by Nicolson and White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, show that Burnet insisted that the Church was flourishing ‘from the frequent communions; the many emissaries sent to the plantations; the care taken for catechizing; and the queen’s bounty to the poor clergy.’ He attacked the inconsistency between Compton’s current views on resistance and his decision to appear in arms at the Revolution and in an even more overtly partisan swipe suggested that it was necessary to ‘bless God for the danger we have escaped. Bishops imprisoned. Ecclesiastical commissions. And a prospect of ruin if not rescued by King William.’<sup>153</sup> He was named as one of the managers of the subsequent conferences (7, 12, 14 and 17 December).</p><p>Burnet played a full role in the disputes in Convocation; thus on 15 Dec. 1705 he moved for thanks to be given to the minority who had protested against the proceedings of the lower house ‘for their duty and care to preserve the ancient constitution of the Convocation of this province’, which was agreed, with two dissidents, Bishops Trelawny and Hooper.<sup>154</sup> He continued to be active in committee work. On 4 Feb. Nicolson reported a ‘difference’ between Burnet and John Hough*, of Lichfield and Coventry, over the bill for augmenting the number of canons residentiary and for improving the deanery and prebends in the cathedral of Lichfield. On 20 Feb. Burnet (together with Sunderland) was ‘severe’ on William Binckes (dean of Lichfield and prolocutor of convocation) in the committee on the bill and insisted on having the queen’s formal consent to it, whereupon the committee was adjourned.<sup>155</sup> The bill was eventually amended and passed. On 7, 11 and 19 Feb. Burnet was involved in managing conferences on the regency bill, including a role in the committee to draw up reasons why the Lords would adhere to their amendments. On 23 Feb., in committee of the whole House on a bill for restoring to the archbishop of Dublin the town and lands of Sea Town and repaying to him the money he paid for it from the trustees for sale of the forfeited estates in Ireland, Burnet was the only bishop in favour of omitting the ‘repayment’ clause. He was then presumably in favour of reading the bill for a third time on the 25th rather than immediately.<sup>156</sup></p><p>Early in March 1706, when the House was considering a bill to prevent the further growth of popery, enquiry was made as to why bishops had not returned lists of papists as requested by the Lords the previous year. Burnet replied that ‘he had written to all his clergy in pursuance of their lordships’ orders but because it was at a time when the country was engaged in disputes about elections of Parliament-men and it happened that the clergymen and papists were generally in the same interest they had neglected to return their names.’<sup>157</sup> On 11 Mar. Burnet was probably named to manage a conference relating to Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter to the Earl of Stamford</em>, as all those present in the House were so named. </p><p>On 15 June 1706, in the aftermath of the victory at Ramillies, Burnet wrote from Salisbury to Tenison, enclosing a copy of a celebratory address to the queen for which he was collecting signatures.<sup>158</sup> According to Thomas Naish, many of the Wiltshire clergy declined to sign it because it stated that ‘none but the confederates of our enemies and those who are deluded by them can imagine our church to be in danger’; they subscribed to the grand jury’s address instead.<sup>159</sup> The death of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, on 9 Nov. 1706, raised the prospect of promotion for Burnet. However Trelawny had long been promised the diocese by Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, and it was Trelawny who got it.<sup>160</sup> An embittered Burnet allegedly then went to the queen and charged his rival with mistreating his wife.<sup>161</sup></p><p>Burnet was in London before the opening of the session, at Lambeth on 23 Nov. 1706 to settle the form of the thanksgiving for the military victories of the previous campaign. He was present when the next session began on 3 Dec., attending on 70 days, just over 81 per cent of the total and was as usual habitually involved in committee business. On 10 Jan. 1707, on the second reading of the bill repealing a clause in the act for the better apprehending, prosecuting, and punishing felons, Burnet moved for the ‘removal of the <em>farce</em> of benefit of clergy’. On 25 Jan. he was in attendance at Lambeth when Tenison unveiled his bill for the security of the Church of England, whereupon he fell out with Nicolson ‘on the time of passing that in Scotland’.<sup>162</sup> On 3 Feb. Burnet chaired the committee of the whole on the resultant bill and was thus in the chair when the Tories tried to insert in it reference to the Test Act. On 15, 19, 21 and 24 Feb. Burnet chaired and reported progress from the committee of the whole which considered the articles of the treaty of Union, and on 27 Feb. he reported the committee’s resolutions. He chaired the committee of the whole on the resultant bill for the Union on 3 March. Burnet claimed to be one of the leading advocates of the treaty in the Lords.<sup>163</sup> On 17 Feb. Bishop Patrick of Ely signed a proxy in his favour. On 25 Feb. Burnet chaired the committee of the whole on the Jermyn divorce bill, reporting to the House that it should be rejected. He was present on the last day of the session, 8 Apr., when he was named to a conference on the vagrancy bill. Burnet was present for eight of the nine days of the short session of April 1707. On 15 Apr. he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for the relief of bankrupts. During that session, on 18 Apr., he examined the Journal up to 31 Jan. 1707. </p><p>Burnet was present when the next session convened on 23 Oct. 1707, attending on 80 days of the session, nearly 75 per cent of the total. On 5 and 7 Feb. 1708 he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill rendering the Union more complete, reporting it on the 7th. Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup>, presumably referring to the vote on abolishing the Scots Privy Council on 1 May, recorded that Burnet ‘spoke very much against the tyranny of a Privy Council in Scotland and was followed in his vote… by all the bishops’ except William Talbot*, of Oxford, and Trelawny of Winchester.<sup>164</sup> If Mrs Burnet may be taken as an accurate indicator of her husband’s views, the ministerial crisis which resulted in the dismissal of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, was seen as a victory and ‘had this affair hung in suspense’, not only Burnet ‘but most of the other bishops’ would have offered Marlborough and Godolphin ‘all the service in their power’ and ‘been ready to join in anything’ to show their regard to the duumvirs.<sup>165</sup> During February and March Burnet was again to the fore in matters relating to the Union, chairing committees of the whole on issues relating to the election of Scottish representative peers on 10 and 12 Feb. and 1 and 3 March. During March he also reported on three estate bills and a naturalization bill as well as chairing and reporting from the committee of the whole on the ecclesiastical livings bill (27 March). Unsurprisingly in about May 1708 Burnet was listed as Whig.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1708</em></h2><p>Burnet was present on 16 Nov. 1708, when the Parliament began, attending on 56 days, nearly 61 per cent of the total. He attended the traditional dinner at Lambeth on 28 December.<sup>166</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 Burnet voted against the resolution that Scottish peers with British titles could vote in elections for Scottish representative peers. On 24 Jan. he supported Johnston in his legal cause before the Lords, presumably that of the <em>Attorney-general v. Crofts et al</em>, which was the only one heard that day.<sup>167</sup> He was absent from 1-28 Feb. 1709 probably on account of the death of his wife on the 3rd, and her interment at Spetchley. During her illness she had been ‘constantly attended by my Lady Marlborough with whom she was to go to Holland, had her grace gone, or to Hanover’.<sup>168</sup> Henceforth, when in London Burnet usually resided at St John’s Court, Clerkenwell, in the house left to him by his spouse.<sup>169</sup></p><p>On 15 Mar. 1709 in committee of the whole House on the general naturalization bill, Burnet voted in favour of retaining the provision allowing the new arrivals to take the sacrament in ‘some Protestant reformed congregation’ rather than in a ‘parochial church’. As he himself said, he spoke ‘copiously’ for the bill.<sup>170</sup> When a bill for improving the Union of the two kingdoms went into a committee of the whole on 16 Mar. Burnet was chosen as its chairman. The first head of the bill stated that ‘all crimes which were high-treason by the law of England (and these only) were to be high-treason in Scotland’. His fellow countrymen were very unhappy at this prospect and argued that such crimes should be ‘enumerated in the act, for the information of the Scotch nation; otherwise they must study the book of statutes, to know when they were safe, and when they were guilty’.<sup>171</sup> Burnet’s report to the House reflected this concern as the judges were requested to bring in an account of the several laws that related to treason. He was again in the chair on 18 Mar. when the judges delivered in their report. In relation to the first head, a question was put ‘whether the English statutes be particularly enumerated’, which was lost, with Bishop Nicolson recording that there was not one bishop amongst the non contents. Burnet’s chairmanship was described by Nicolson as ‘blundering’ and when the committee met the next day it had a new chair. On 22 Mar. Burnet voted in favour of the ultimately unsuccessful proposal to allow defendants a list of prosecution witnesses five days before trial. On 23 Mar. he was one of two bishops to vote with the Scots in a division, technically over resuming the House, but effectively about forfeitures, as he was ‘against all forfeitures but personal’.<sup>172</sup> On 25 Mar. he voted in favour of the motion that the House be resumed, so that consideration of Scottish marriage settlements could be delayed until the following day.<sup>173</sup> On 28 Mar. he protested against the rejection of another attempt to require defendants in treason trials to be given a copy of the indictment, and a list of prosecution witnesses at least five days before the trial. He then protested against the passage of the bill itself. When the bill was amended and returned to the Lords on 14 Apr., according to both Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, Lord Yester, the future 3rd marquess of Tweedale [S] and Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, Burnet joined all the bishops in voting against the amendment to the clause that there be no forfeitures for high treason, which stated that it was not to come into force until the Pretender’s death rather than on 1 July, and was the only bishop to vote against the same change to the clause allowing the defendants to have lists of witnesses.<sup>174</sup> However, according to Nicolson, ‘all the bishops present’, including Burnet, agreed to both the amendments that the statute should not commence till after the Pretender’s death.<sup>175</sup></p><p>About this time, as his son later observed, Burnet ‘grew more abstracted from the world, than the situation he had been in during the former parts of his life had permitted. To avoid the distraction of useless visits’, he settled in St John’s Court, ‘and kept up only an intercourse with his most select and intimate acquaintance’.<sup>176</sup> It was probably in October 1709 that Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> wrote that Burnet was ‘daily writing a History which everybody will read when he is dead’.<sup>177</sup> In keeping with this resolution, perhaps, Burnet did not appear for the 1709-10 session until 10 Jan. 1710, the second day after the Christmas recess, although he was in London by 2 Jan., when he dined at Lambeth with Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, and others.<sup>178</sup> He attended on 47 days, just over 50 per cent of the total.</p><p>What seems to have brought Burnet out of his chosen inactivity was the decision to impeach Dr Sacheverell. Burnet judged Sacheverell to be ‘a bold insolent man, with a very small measure of religion, virtue, learning or good sense’, who had ‘resolved to force himself into popularity and preferment, by the most petulant railings at Dissenters, and low-churchmen’. Burnet was particularly stung by Sacheverell’s assertion of ‘the doctrine of non-resistance in the highest strain possible’. He complained that Sacheverell had argued ‘that to charge the Revolution with resistance, was to cast black and odious imputations on it; pretending that the late king [William] had disowned it, and cited for the proof of that, some words in his declaration, by which he vindicated himself from a design of conquest.’<sup>179</sup> The impeachment provoked widespread rioting in London, some of which came uncomfortably close to Burnet. On 1 Mar. he was insulted near his home and on 2 Mar. he complained of his treatment to the Lords but as the Commons took notice of the tumults, the Lords left the matter to them.<sup>180</sup> On 4 Mar. Sacheverell’s counsel was able to use passages from Burnet’s own <em>Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland</em> (1673) to demonstrate the orthodoxy of his opinion, whereupon Burnet responded by ‘sneaking from his place to deliver the managers a book of his own out of his bosom, and directing them to call for a passage to contradict himself’.<sup>181</sup></p><p>Aware that Sacheverell was also questioning the validity of the Hanoverian Succession, Burnet set himself the task of refuting his assertions in the speech he gave to the House of Lords on 16 Mar. during consideration of the first article of the impeachment. He began with the observation that ‘since it is grown to be a vulgar opinion, that by the doctrine of the Church of England, all resistance in any case whatsoever, without exception, is condemned; I think it is incumbent upon me... to give you... a clear account of this point’. He then embarked on a long, historical account of the doctrine of the Church before concluding that Sacheverell’s assertion of passive obedience and non-resistance in his sermon was ‘certainly a condemning the Revolution: and this is further aggravated from those limitations on our obedience, in an act passed soon after the Revolution, by which, in case our princes turn Papists, or marry Papists, the subjects are, in express words, discharged from their allegiance to them.’ He ended by saying that ‘he was as much against severity to the Dr’s person as any but was for censuring the sermon and settling the doctrine.’<sup>182</sup> There is a possibility that the printed version of Burnet’s speech omitted a section on the ‘spirit of Jacobitism’ which he alleged pervaded the clergy and poisoned the universities. One contemporary printed account, purporting to have been written on that day, judged it to be ‘a sermon in <em>Defence of Resistance</em>’, even to the extent of suggesting that so long as the doctrine of non-resistance was condemned, Burnet would be ‘<em>very well content the Doctor might escape</em>’.<sup>183</sup></p><p>According to Rev. Ralph Bridges, on 17 Mar. 1710 Burnet ‘opened’ the fourth article of the impeachment and ‘having quoted and distorted several words to show the ministry’s being reflected upon’, argued that ‘it was a matter of amazement to anyone to hear such expressions from the pulpit in her majesty’s reign, which was the wonder of the present age and would be so of posterity and which therefore ought to be the object of our idolatry, if possible’. Burnet then told a story of a</p><blockquote><p>hotheaded bishop (at the naming of which words the whole House fell a-laughing) who having by his influence caused a synagogue of Jews at Alexandria to be suppressed and afterwards a good pious lady of that religion coming thither and abounding in works of charity, it enraged the bishop so much that he stirred up the people there and made them tear her all to pieces. And he was the Sacheverell of those days, concluded my Lord of Sarum.<sup>184</sup></p></blockquote><p>Another account had Burnet seconding Wharton on the article, speaking with ‘vehemence’ against Sacheverell, ‘who by inveighing against the Revolution, Toleration, and Union, seemed to arraign and attack the queen herself’. Sacheverell’s attack upon her ministers was plain because he had ‘so well marked out a notable peer [Godolphin], there present by an ugly and scurrilous epithet [Volpone], (which he would not speak) that ’twas not possible to mistake him’. His speech was somewhat ruined by ‘the whole House a-laughing and several Lords cried out name him’, which William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, ruled out of order.<sup>185</sup> On 20 Mar. Burnet voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Upon reflection, he felt that Sacheverell’s punishment in being forbidden to preach for three years and his sermon burnt in the presence of the lord mayor and alderman of London, was a ‘mild judgment’, while on 28 Mar. Ralph Bridges noted that Burnet ‘could not forbear saying that he thought this favourable sentence was returning of him thanks’.<sup>186</sup> However, in keeping with his earlier view, there is evidence that on 21 Mar., following Cowper’s proposal for a seven-year ‘silence’ and three months’ imprisonment, Burnet and Talbot were among the few that supported John Campbell*, duke of Argyll, that he had voted for the impeachment upon a promise that ‘no severe punishment should be insisted on’.<sup>187</sup></p><p>Burnet attended the last day of the session, 5 Apr. 1710 and the prorogation of 18 April. On 20 May he wrote to William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, from Salisbury in fairly optimistic vein, regarding the nomination of two bishops as ‘a good step’. Bristol and St Davids were vacant: John Robinson*, the diplomat, would fill that of Bristol and Philip Bisse*, a relative of Harley’s, that of St Davids; both were moderate Tories. ‘I pray God’, he went on, ‘it may be followed by more that are of a piece with it for how high soever our jury rises a very little management [may] gain it.’<sup>188</sup> On 29 May he preached a sermon in Salisbury Cathedral in support of resistance theory, which led to conflict with some of the corporation, who had been somewhat exuberant in their support for Sacheverell.<sup>189</sup> In September it was reported that Burnet had had a severe fit of the stone.<sup>190</sup> Somers wrote to him on 9 Sept.: ‘I hear you have returned to Salisbury from Bath in a very ill state of health’.<sup>191</sup> On 3 Oct. Harley included Burnet among those likely to oppose the new ministry.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1710</em></h2><p>Burnet was in London before the 1710 Parliament opened on 25 Nov., visiting Lambeth on 11 Nov., arriving at the end of a meeting of bishops discussing Convocation.<sup>192</sup> He took his seat on 27 Nov. and was then present on 44 days, a little under 39 per cent of the total. Before the New Year he only sat on 27 and 28 Nov. and on 4 days in December. According to Burnet, in the winter following the change of ministry, the queen encouraged him ‘to speak more freely to her of her affairs than I had ever ventured to do formerly. I told her what reports were secretly spread of her through the nation, as if she favoured the design of bringing the Pretender to succeed the Crown, upon a bargain that she should hold it during her life.’ The queen ‘heard me patiently: she was for the most part silent; yet by what she said, she seemed desirous to make me think she agreed to what I had laid before her, but I found afterwards it had no effect upon her.’ Burnet opposed the attack in the Lords on the conduct of the war in Spain under the former ministry, remarking that ‘I never saw anything carried on in the House of Lords so little to their honour as this was; some who voted with the rest seemed ashamed of it’. He suspected that the defeat at the battle of Almanza in April 1707, was being used to justify the queen changing her ministers because most of what else they had done had been successful. Whilst this seemed to confirm that the queen had ignored his advice he felt no regret at having spoken out ‘since I had, with an honest freedom, made the best use I could have of the access I had to her.’<sup>193</sup> On 9 Jan. 1711 in committee of the whole, Burnet spoke against the motion that the earl of Peterborough (formerly earl of Monmouth), whose evidence was used to criticize the conduct of the campaign, had given a true, just and honourable account of the council of war in Valencia. Burnet said that ‘he was for as much (honourable) as they pleased, but could not come up to the words (true and just). This occasioned great laughter.’<sup>194</sup> He opposed the motion by voting against the procedural motion to resume the House. On 11 Jan. he protested against the decision to reject the petitions of Henry de Massue, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and then he protested against the resolution that the opinions in the council of war of Galway, Tyrawley, and General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Stanhope, had occasioned the defeat at Almanza, and the subsequent losses. On 12 Jan. he protested against the resolution censuring ministers for approving and directing an offensive war in Spain. On 3 Feb. he protested against two resolutions further censuring ministers for failures in the supply of the troops in the Spanish campaign. On 7 Feb. 1711 Burnet won £100 in damages in another trial for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against an apothecary from Salisbury, William Naish, who had accused the bishop of preaching lies.<sup>195</sup> On 24 Feb. Burnet met Wake and several other bishops to discuss Convocation matters.<sup>196</sup> Burnet was recorded as present on 1 Mar. when it was noted that all the bishops supported the vote that the appeal of James Greenshields was regularly brought before the Lords.<sup>197</sup> Sir James Dunbar<sup>‡</sup> specifically noticed that Burnet was one of the majority against adjourning this question until the following day and in favour of proceeding to hear counsel.<sup>198</sup> This being done, the decree was then reversed. On 9 Mar. Burnet chaired the committee of the whole on Jermyn’s divorce bill, and was reportedly ‘ill-treated’ by Argyll, so much so that when the order was read for a committee of the whole on 12 Mar on the divorce bill of Benedict Leonard Calvert<sup>‡</sup>, the future 4th Baron Baltimore [I], no Lord was ‘willing to take the chair’ after Burnet ‘had fared so ill’, so the House was resumed.<sup>199</sup> He last sat on 9 May, a month before the end of the session, having signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Moore (now translated to Ely) on 12 May. </p><p>Burnet was increasingly worried about the succession. On 31 Mar. 1711 Nicolson had heard that Burnet had warned the queen ‘on the change of her ministry, the growth of the Pretender’s interest’.<sup>200</sup> On 28 Nov. the queen informed David Hamilton that Burnet had told her ‘we are ripening for judgment, and that the Dutch come into the Peace by force’, perhaps in the same interview in which Burnet stressed the danger of all Europe falling under (Catholic) Bourbon control, leading to the murder of the queen and a re-kindling of the fires in Smithfield; he ended, ‘I pursued this long, till I saw she grew uneasy’ and withdrew. On 4 Dec. the queen and Hamilton discussed Burnet’s sermon at Mercers’ Chapel, in which he again declaimed on the imminent dangers from popery and the French monarchy which would see the Pretender restored even in the queen’s lifetime.<sup>201</sup></p><p>Burnet was present on the opening day of the session, 7 Dec. 1711, when presumably he voted for the inclusion of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the Address. On 8 Dec. he was listed as supporting the presentation of the address containing that clause in the abandoned division of that day. About December Burnet’s name appears on a list compiled by Nottingham, possibly concerning his alliance with the Whigs over the peace (or occasional conformity). On 19 Dec. Burnet was forecast as likely to oppose the claims of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House under his British title, but on the 20th he ‘went out’ of the House before the vote was taken. On 5 Jan. 1712 Burnet was one of nine Whig bishops who dined at Bishop Trelawny’s at Chelsea, though just what was under discussion remains unknown.<sup>202</sup> Complaints in the House on 31 Jan. concerning the sermon preached to it by Bishop Trimnell the previous day led Burnet, who had actually heard the sermon, to profess that ‘he never heard a better, and that there was nobody could find fault with it, but those that were against the late happy Revolution’. This led to calls for him to be brought to the bar, but Burnet avoided this fate by moving to the clerk’s table and saying ‘my Lords I do protest before God I meant no one in this House’.<sup>203</sup></p><p>Apropos of the legislation that was alleged to be designed to weaken the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, Burnet observed that those ‘who were suspected to have very bad designs applied themselves with great industry to drive on such, as they hoped would give the Presbyterians in Scotland such alarms as might dispose them to remonstrate that the union was broken.’ The first of these was the Episcopal toleration bill.<sup>204</sup> In the committee of the whole on the bill on 13 Feb. Burnet and Halifax both opposed it.<sup>205</sup> When the Lords re-considered the bill on 26 Feb. Burnet was noted as disagreeing to the Commons’ amendment to the Lords’ own amendment.<sup>206</sup> The bill was followed by another to restore patronages in Scotland. Burnet told a deputation from the Church of Scotland lobbying against it, that ‘I resolve to speak some very free things in the House on that subject, and I will tell them I noticed the king of France to proceed just this way in revoking the Edict of Nantes, and piece by piece, he wore in; and at length took it away, and turned persecutor.’<sup>207</sup> On 12 Apr. Burnet spoke and voted against the committal of the bill.<sup>208</sup> He asserted that the bill was ‘contrary to the Kirk establishment by the Union’ in a ‘very long historical speech on behalf of the Kirk rights’. He also claimed that the bill ‘was not designed for the benefits of the Church, but to favour the Pretender’, telling Oxford that ‘this is not a time to weaken Protestants and create divisions by such <em>bills</em>, but we ought to unite against popery’.<sup>209</sup> Greenshields wrote that Burnet ‘speeched vehemently’ against it, whilst Gibson noted that Burnet was one of four bishops voting with the minority.<sup>210</sup> Burnet’s opposition may have been counter-productive; Sir Hugh Paterson<sup>‡</sup> thought that Burnet ‘was one of the greatest sticklers against it, which I believe made it not go the worse’.<sup>211</sup></p><p>On 22 Apr. 1712, Burnet attended the traditional Easter dinner at Lambeth, where he ‘opened’ with ‘some warmth’ the matter of Thomas Brett’s sermon ‘asserting the invalidity of lay baptism’, a position held by some high-flying divines.<sup>212</sup> On 28 May Burnet protested against the resolution to reject a humble address that the queen issue orders to James Butler*, 2nd duke Ormond, to act offensively against France in order to obtain a safe and honourable peace, although his name does not appear on the printed list of the division.<sup>213</sup> On 29 May he substituted Bishop Moore as his proxy in Convocation.<sup>214</sup> He last sat on 16 June, shortly before the end of the session, having attended on 64 days, a little under 60 per cent of the total. </p><p>Burnet was one of nine bishops attending the traditional dinner with Tenison at Lambeth on 26 Dec. 1712.<sup>215</sup> On 22 Jan. 1713 speaking of Burnet, the queen said that ‘he knows all things, and says more than anybody, and that last summer he said the Pretender would be here before six weeks’.<sup>216</sup> On 16 Feb. Bridges reported that when Parliament met it would order Burnet’s preface to be burnt, presumably a reference to the third edition of <em>A Discourse of the Pastoral Care</em>, which included ‘a new preface suited to the present time’ lamenting the state of religion among the clergy. Bridges added that ‘the bishop, I hear, is very desirous they should, being very eager and forward to show his zeal for the good old cause’. He elaborated on 27 Feb. that the preface was certainly by Burnet ‘being both his style and several of his arguments and expressions he made use of last sessions in the House of Lords, so says our good Lord of London.’<sup>217</sup></p><p>Burnet attended the prorogations on 17 Feb. 3, 10, and 26 Mar. 1713, on the latter occasion being accompanied by Bishop Wake.<sup>218</sup> Before the beginning of the session, a list compiled by Swift, and amended by Oxford, marked Burnet as expected to oppose the ministry. He was present when the session began on 9 April. He attended on 45 days, a little over 68 per cent of the total. On 1 June he joined the Whigs in supporting the motion of James Oglivy*, earl of Findlater [S] for a dissolution of the Union, at least in so far as supporting a motion for appointing another day to consider of it.<sup>219</sup> About 13 June, he was classed by Oxford as likely to oppose the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty. He last attended on 15 July, the penultimate day of the session, and by the 24th he was back in Salisbury, as he was in late September 1713.<sup>220</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1713 and the Hanoverian Succession</em></h2><p>On 8 Feb. 1714, when Tenison was discussing the names of his commissioners in the licence allowing Convocation to sit, he insisted on including Burnet, ‘the second senior and must not be leaped over, tho’ perhaps, he, being intent on his great work, may not attend’.<sup>221</sup> Burnet was present when Parliament opened on 16 February. He attended on 42 days, just over 55 per cent of the total. On 11 Mar. Burnet protested against the decision not to add words to an address on the discovery of the author of the pamphlet, <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>, to indicate that the author (widely and accurately believed to be Oxford’s ally, Jonathan Swift) pretended to know the secrets of the queen’s administration. On 16 Apr. Burnet opposed the proposal for an address of thanks for the ‘safe, honourable and just’ peace with France and Spain. For Burnet, the ministry had persuaded the queen ‘to break her word in making a separate peace’ and had deserted her allies.<sup>222</sup> Burnet was present sporadically in May and on 29 May signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Moore. He next attended on 25 June, George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> reporting on the 26th that the bishop had returned in good health, contradicting rumours of his death.<sup>223</sup> This may have been a diplomatic absence, as at the end of May or beginning of June, Nottingham had forecast that Burnet would oppose the schism bill. However, he voted by proxy against extending the schism bill to Ireland (11 June) and against the passage of the bill (15 June). On 8 July he protested against the decision not to proceed with a representation to the queen that the benefits of the Asiento contract had been obstructed by unwarrantable endeavours to gain private advantages to particular persons. He attended on the last day of the session, 9 July.</p><p>Burnet was missing from the opening of the session convened on the death of Queen Anne, on 1 Aug. 1714. He first sat on 12 Aug. and attended for four of the 15 days. On 21 Sept., Burnet, General Stanhope, Lord Chief Justice, Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Macclesfield, and Thomas Pelham*, 2nd Baron Pelham, ‘were all hussaed’, during George I’s arrival into the capital.<sup>224</sup> On 22 Sept. it was reported to Trumbull that Burnet was to be made dean of the chapel royal in place of John Robinson*, bishop of London, but this turned out to be false.<sup>225</sup> As Charlett was informed on 29 Sept., George Smalridge*, bishop of Bristol, and Robinson ‘officiated last Sunday, the one as almoner, the other as dean of the Chapel. ’Tis said the Lord Nottingham has kept them in, declaring in the council that putting them out and Burnet in would disoblige three parts in four of the nation. This not shame or repentance keeps them and others in, but fear’.<sup>226</sup> On 18 Oct. Burnet went with Wake to court and waited on the king, prince and princess of Wales and the young princesses before attending the coronation on the 20th.<sup>227</sup></p><p>On 5 Mar. 1715 Burnet preached before George I.<sup>228</sup> Shortly afterwards, he ‘was taken ill of a violent cold, which soon turned to a pleuritic fever’, otherwise described as ‘inflammation of the lungs’, and died on 17 March.<sup>229</sup> He was able to leave to his five children their mother’s estate, plus the money he had invested from his salary as preceptor.<sup>230</sup> In his will he provided for two endowments, which were, as Henry Fletcher of Saltoun (with which family and parish Burnet had been closely associated at the beginning of his career) reported ‘twenty thousand merks to the parish of Saltoun for educating youth, and as much to the College of Aberdeen, but the money is in the public funds and cannot be made good sooner than five year.’<sup>231</sup></p><p>Soon after his emergence into London society, Burnet had been described by John Evelyn in 1674 as a ‘famous and excellent preacher’, who spoke with ‘such a flood of eloquence and fullness of matter as shewed him to be a person of extraordinary parts’.<sup>232</sup> To these advantages, he added ambition: Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, regarding him as a ‘forward Scotsman’ with ‘a bishopric in his head’.<sup>233</sup> Having achieved this aim, Burnet has been perceived as an ‘energetic and reforming diocesan’.<sup>234</sup> He seems to have had a fundamental horror of persecution, arguing that worldly power should never be used to advance Godly belief, and as a consequence he opposed the high-church attack on Dissenters, whilst agreeing that they were proud schismatics who should never have left the Church.<sup>235</sup> As his will proclaimed</p><blockquote><p>I am a true protestant according to the Church of England, full of affection and brotherly love to all who have received the reformed religion tho’ in some points different from our constitution. I die as I all along lived and professed myself to be full of charity and tenderness for those among us who yet dissent from us and heartily pray that God would heal our breaches and make us like minded in all things that so we may unite our zeal and join our endeavours against atheism and infidelity that have prevailed much and against popery the greatest enemy to our Church more to be dreaded than all other parties whatsoever.</p></blockquote><p>Parliamentary historians have seen Burnet as one of ‘a small core of active peers and bishops who regularly took the lead in debates’.<sup>236</sup> Burnet never missed a parliamentary session, undertook a large quantity of committee work and spoke his mind, despite inviting ridicule and getting into trouble for his words. However, his forthright and uncompromising whiggish views made him many enemies to whom his wife once referred as ‘very unreasonable in both inventing false stories and improving any that, by being in any part true, give an advantage of easier belief.’<sup>237</sup> Furthermore, Burnet was a meddler and a gossip, and a man of ‘intense excitability’, who was not good on confidentiality.<sup>238</sup> Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, wrote on 10 Jan. 1696 that ‘it is no easy matter I perceive, to deal with a person of the Bishop of Salisbury’s temper; for the same heat which runs him into mistakes makes him impatient when he is told of them.’<sup>239</sup> Added to this was a disarming (or irritating) frankness with his fellow men, and while gruff sailors like Torrington and Orford were able to treat his moral strictures lightly, others could not.<sup>240</sup> Thus, despite his value to William III as a polemicist and ‘a man very close to the heart of Williamite counsels’, William was heard to complain ‘of Burnet’s breaking in upon him whether he would or no, and asking such questions as he did not know how to answer, without trusting him more than he was willing to do; having a very bad opinion of his retentive faculty’.<sup>241</sup> Indeed, Halifax noted in April 1689 that he had ‘never heard the king say a kind word of him’, and Halifax himself was noted by William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, to speak of him ‘with the utmost contempt, as a facetious, turbulent, busy man, that was most officiously meddling with what he had nothing to do, and very dangerous to put any confidence in, having met with many scandalous breaches of trust while he had any conversation with him’.<sup>242</sup></p> |
G.M.T./S.N.H. |
|
CARLETON, Guy (Guido) (1605-85) |
<p><strong><surname>CARLETON</surname></strong>, <strong>Guy (Guido)</strong> (1605–85)</p> |
|
|
First sat 21 Feb. 1673; last sat 2 July 1685 |
cons. 11 Feb. 1672 bp. of BRISTOL; transl. 8 Jan. 1679 bp. of CHICHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1605, 6th s. of Lancelot Carleton (1549–1615) of Penrith, Cumb. and Eleanor, da. of ?Kirkby.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Free Sch. Carlisle; Queen’s, Oxf. matric. 1625, BA 1626, MA 1629, proctor 1635, DD 1660. <em>m</em>. unknown, 3da. (at least 2 others <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 6 July 1685. <em>admon</em>. to da. Hester, w. of George Vane, esq.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1660.</p><p>Rect. Caythorpe, Lincs. 1637,<sup>4</sup> Sywouldby, Leics. 1638, Arthuret, Cumb. 1639,<sup>5</sup> Wolsingham, co. Dur. 1671–9;<sup>6</sup> vic. Randworth, Norf. 1641, Bucklebury, Berks. 1648,<sup>7</sup> 1660; chap. in western army 1645; dean Carlisle 1660–72; preb. Durham 1660–85.</p><p>Sub-commr. to survey Rose Castle, Durham 1671.</p> |
|
<p>Carleton’s father was a member of a Cumbrian gentry family whose relocation to Ireland in the early seventeenth century founded the Anglo-Irish branch of the Carleton family.<sup>8</sup> Guy may have been related to George Carleton<sup>†</sup> (1558–1628), bishop of Chichester, but no such connection is mentioned in the extensive genealogy supplied by Collins <em>Peerage</em> for his relative and namesake Guy Carleton<sup>†</sup>, Baron Dorchester. Three of Carleton’s brothers died on active service in the Civil Wars.<sup>9</sup> He himself also joined the royalist army, as a chaplain. After the Civil Wars, under the patronage of the Gravets of Hartley Court in Berkshire, he appears to have satisfied the assembly of divines in 1648 for a Berkshire living, but was ejected by the triers sometime before 1656.<sup>10</sup> He is said to have become a royalist conspirator, to have been taken prisoner and to have been condemned to death before escaping to join the court in exile.<sup>11</sup> The ecclesiastical planning lists drawn up before the Restoration by Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, included him as one of the ‘Worthy men to be preferred to dignities in the Church’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>For Carleton the Restoration signalled only the temporary defeat of his political enemies; he remained on battle alert for the rest of his life. His ability to ascribe political and religious motives to any opposition (personal or political) led to a series of bellicose outpourings addressed to his archbishops and the secretaries of state. These letters are marked by persistent themes of plotting, treachery and sedition. On 19 Dec. 1663 he wrote to Sir William Blakiston<sup>‡</sup> (later Member for Durham) with information on the ‘late intended massacre of the king’ that was evident in the ‘peremptory carriage and proud language’ of the opposition.<sup>13</sup> When disappointed with the response to his intelligence, Carleton accused Blakiston of insufficient zeal against a suspected member of the Derwentdale plot.<sup>14</sup> In October 1664 he provided Secretary Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, with an account of the Durham assizes and recommendations to the bench.<sup>15</sup> His interference continued throughout the 1660s. He accused John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, of seizing the estate of the attainted Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup>, of packing juries with his ‘creatures’ and of doing too little to combat ‘fanatics’ throughout the north.<sup>16</sup> Carleton may have had a personal interest in the fate of the Vane estate: his daughter Hester later married Vane’s nephew.<sup>17</sup> By November 1665 he had elaborated his complaint into a lengthy accusation of Cosin’s ‘usurpation of his majesty’s rights’ in the exercise of his episcopal and palatine authority.<sup>18</sup> Carleton and Cosin were also at odds over the strength of nonconformity: in December 1668 Cosin’s enquiries numbered one conventicle at 500; Carleton reported the same congregation as 3,000 strong, including the wife of the mayor of Newcastle.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Carleton’s appetite for a fight never abated, whether over material affairs or his perception of political loyalty. By November 1671 he was in dispute with the dean and chapter of Durham for rejecting a royal nominee (Robert Collingwood), and he threatened to make considerable political capital at court over the Durham chapter’s ‘dishonourable and dishonest treatment’.<sup>20</sup> On 10 Nov. 1671 he left Durham for London, claiming that the king had sent for him. Locally it was suspected that Carleton believed Cosin was dying and was hurrying to London to secure the imminent vacancy.<sup>21</sup> In reality the death of Gilbert Ironside*, of Bristol, meant that he was about to be appointed to that see. Despite his elevation, the dispute over Collingwood rumbled on. By the time that Carleton had been consecrated bishop of Bristol, William Sancroft*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, was fully aware that Carleton had behaved badly at Durham and that the archdeacon of Northumberland (Isaac Basire) was ‘scandalised at his [Carleton’s] passion and unhandsome expressions of it’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Carleton could not have been elevated to a more polarized bishopric. Bristol cathedral was already in dispute with the corporation over ‘encroachments’ on its jurisdiction, a quarrel exacerbated by the corporation’s ownership of the advowsons of many city livings (consequently conferring power over their incumbents). Further, the common council acted <em>ex officio</em> as justices for the city.<sup>23</sup> Carleton ‘began briskly’ against Dissenters, but his ability to achieve his aims was hampered by his willingness to become involved, alongside Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), in factional rivalries within the corporation.<sup>24</sup></p><p>On 21 Feb. 1673 Carleton took his seat in the House, 17 days after the start of the session. His parliamentary career, unlike his political activity outside the House, is difficult to evaluate because of the paucity of sources recording his behaviour in divisions, debates and committees. Of 12 parliamentary sessions held during his episcopate he attended 10, missing only the very short sessions of March 1679 and March 1681. In his first parliamentary session he attended nearly two-thirds of all sittings and was named to six select committees, including one in which he had a clear personal interest, the committee on the bill involving the dean and chapter of Bristol and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron Berkeley. After attending the adjournment of 29 Mar. he embarked on his primary visitation.<sup>25</sup> He was back at the House on 20 Oct. when Parliament was prorogued and again on 27 Oct. for the following, brief session; attending every sitting, he was named only to the sessional committee for petitions.</p><p>On 7 Jan. 1674, Carleton attended for the start of the next session and thereafter was present at 60 per cent of sittings. He was named to two select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions, sitting until the penultimate day of the session in February 1674. He then returned to Bristol, whence he complained to Secretary Williamson<sup>‡</sup> that he needed a <em>commendam</em> because his episcopal revenue was ‘scandalous’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Carleton’s ‘very cold reception’ on his arrival in Bristol in December 1674 was in marked contrast to the welcome afforded the mayor, who was greeted by more than 70 horse.<sup>27</sup> This unpopularity stemmed from his campaign against Dissenters. Appointing attorney John Hellier to his personal staff, he recruited informers, attended raids on meeting houses in person (on one occasion baiting a nonconformist minister ‘with virulent language’), intervened in the legal process to prevent bail and sat with the magistrates on the bench, hectoring counsel, abusing Dissenters’ legal representatives and threatening the magistrates.<sup>28</sup> In February 1675, he led a raid on a meeting of Independents.<sup>29</sup> The following month, reports reached London that he had been ‘very vigorous in his proceedings against the conventiclers’. Tensions worsened after the Independent leader John Thompson died in custody. Carleton authorized a published ‘narrative’ to counter ‘false reports’ that he had insisted on Thompson’s incarceration in ‘filthy’ conditions, asserting instead that Thompson had died of overeating.<sup>30</sup> With 1,500 Bristol citizens under indictment, Carleton worried the king and provoked fierce political opposition from the mayor, Sir Robert Cann<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>31</sup> James Stuart*, duke of York, persuaded the king to pardon Bristol Dissenters, while Secretary Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> advised Carleton to adopt a more lenient approach to those who were ‘modest and quiet’ in order to justify severity to the ‘insolent’.</p><p>Over the winter of 1674–5 Carleton was probably involved in the pre-sessional meetings of bishops and privy counsellors ordered by the king to develop proposals for ‘some things that might unite and best pacify the minds of people’.<sup>32</sup> He attended the House on 13 Apr. 1675 for the first day of the new session and was present for three-quarters of all sittings. He was again named to two select committees and to the sessional committees for petitions and privileges.</p><p>Returning to Bristol, Carleton remained in belligerent mood; in August 1675 he wrote to Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> about his latest differences with the town clerk and aldermen: he would accept mediation only if ‘they act nothing against the king and the Church’.<sup>33</sup> In September an inaccurate report of the death of William Lucy*, bishop of St Davids, led to a rumour that Carleton would be translated there in order to enable John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, to replace him in Bristol, the latter’s temperament being thought to be more suited to the volatile political and religious climate there ‘than the hot spirit of the present bishop’.<sup>34</sup> Tillotson was reluctant to accept elevation to so poor a diocese and in any case Lucy survived for another two years. Carleton was thus still ensconced in Bristol at the time of the contested Dorset by-election of October 1675. He intervened in support of the court candidate, John Digby*, later 3rd earl of Bristol, against the Presbyterian Thomas Moore<sup>‡</sup>, who was backed by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury. Carleton circulated the clergy with propaganda against Moore, claiming that the latter had ‘dissenting principles … as wide as the other’s loyalty’. As Moore’s success would threaten the interests of king and Church, it was Carleton’s duty to instruct the clergy not only to vote for Digby but also to ‘engage what freeholders you can to vote with you’ out of ‘duty and interest’. Digby secured a landslide victory, though it is likely that this should be attributed more to his family’s local prominence than to Carleton’s intervention.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Carleton returned to the House for the second day of the brief autumn 1675 parliamentary session. He attended 80 per cent of sittings but was not nominated to any select committees. By November 1676 he was complaining at length to Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, of Bristol’s negative example to the west country as a whole: the city was ‘the standard by which the fanatic party all take their measures so that if faction prosper here the dependent parts influenced by it clap their wings and crow victory’. Decrying the lack of action by his predecessor, Ironside, he claimed that regional Dissent had developed into a hydra ‘that (Goliath-like) … durst defy … both king and Church’s authority’. Although he had been advised ‘to sit still and … enjoy my quiet as he before me had done’ and although he had ‘one foot in the grave and the other upon the brink’, he could not ignore his duty. Bristol, he claimed, was ‘in a good condition’ until he had had to make a visit to Durham. On his return the situation had deteriorated to such an extent that it ‘needs a stronger hand than mine’. Accordingly he sought the support of the Privy Council to instruct the mayor of Bristol to enforce the Five Mile Act and to inform him that his activities would be reported to the king by Carleton himself: ‘A paper bullet … will do execution enough without further sort of powder’.<sup>36</sup> Later in November he was regaling Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, with details of John Jekyll (1611–90), a London religious radical who, Carleton claimed, advised the politically disaffected in the city.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Carleton was back at the House on 15 Feb. 1677 for the start of the new session and attended nearly half of all sittings. In what appears to have been his most active parliamentary session, he was named to 21 select committees (17 on private bills) and to 2 sessional committees. During the long adjournment of the House between May 1677 and January 1678he continued to be engaged in disputes in his diocese. In September 1677 Samuel Crossman, a Bristol prebendary (later dean), described the way in which Carleton had inflamed local relationships. He had created a difficult (and probably unjustified) jurisdictional dispute with the city by forbidding a layman living within the precinct of the cathedral to pay his rates and had then made matters worse by reflecting publicly on the long-standing Bristol custom of praying for the magistrates, mere artisans such as ‘coopers and heelmakers before the most dignified persons in the Church’.<sup>38</sup> On 5 Nov. 1677 he was snubbed by Bristol grandees who absented themselves from the customary cathedral worship and attended a chapel outside the town. Even Peter Mews*, bishop of Bath and Wells, who clearly believed that Carleton was technically correct, had to acknowledge that the latter had behaved provocatively: ‘upon the whole matter I could wish my brother had not touched so hard upon that string in a place of so unmusical a temper’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>The dispute with the corporation continued to fester. By March 1678 Sir John Knight<sup>‡</sup> (by Carleton’s account ‘the great patron of fanatic preachers’ and responsible for the existence of ‘this monstrous many-headed schism’) had composed a litany of the ‘arbitrary and illegal acts’ committed by the bishop. According to Carleton, Knight was ridiculed when he attempted to present his grievances to the Commons shortly after the commencement of the 1678 session, so he was forced to resort instead to a complaint to Sancroft and the threat of a legal action. Carleton remained belligerent, writing contemptuously of his opponents as ‘a peddling pack of as unworthy mechanics as any part of this nation affords’. He did seek Sancroft’s assistance in resolving the dispute but wished for a solution on his own terms, imploring Sancroft ‘for God’s sake allow them not their own way’.<sup>40</sup> By 29 June 1678, Carleton boasted that the mayor and aldermen had capitulated and would attend cathedral worship and that within six months he would have rid Bristol of Dissenters: ‘none of that kind of vermin shall dare to be seen within the smoke of this city’. He was mistaken. In September Crossman reported that ‘we continue still under very ill habits, and our distempers rather shift than heal’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Having unsuccessfully petitioned for a translation to St Davids at the death of Lucy in 1677, Carleton was prompted by rumours of the imminent death of Isaac Barrow*, bishop of St Asaph, to ask for that see instead in September 1678.<sup>42</sup> The rumours proved to be inaccurate but Sancroft and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, were nevertheless keen to remove Carleton from Bristol.<sup>43</sup> The opportune death of Ralph Brideoake*, of Chichester, on 5 Oct. 1678 provided an opening to translate Carleton to a less contentious see.</p><p>On 21 Oct. 1678, Carleton, still technically bishop of Bristol, attended the House for the start of the new session. He was present for 45 per cent of sittings and was named to one select committee and to all three standing committees. For two weeks in November he was confined to bed and unable to attend; he nevertheless composed a valedictory account of his political efforts in Bristol, where he had ‘made the seat easy and quiet’ for his successor.<sup>44</sup> His election to Chichester was confirmed on 13 Dec. 1678. On 27 Dec. Carleton attended the House but, whether by accident or design, seems to have been absent for the vote that day on the committal of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).</p><p>On 5 Feb. 1679 Carleton was installed in Chichester by proxy. The general election campaigns were already in full swing and it is unclear what if any influence Carleton could have exercised, but in Chichester as in Bristol he proved to be an ardent opponent of nonconformists. Once again, he complained that the local justices were reluctant to implement the penal laws, although he himself created obstacles to conformity by moving the Sunday sermon from the body of the cathedral to the choir, thus severely limiting the space available for the congregation.<sup>45</sup> Finally, he soon found himself, as in Bristol, involved in a jurisdictional dispute with the city over the status of the cathedral precinct and the liability of its residents to pay rates to the parish (and subdeanery) of St Peter the Great; once more he identified the vestrymen who disagreed with him as ‘a pack of fanatics’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Carleton did not attend the first Exclusion Parliament until mid-March 1679. He was present at 46 per cent of sittings in the substantive session, beginning 15 Mar., and was named to three select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. On 23 Apr. he attended the House for the last time that session, missing the last month of business. Ten days later he entered his proxy in favour of Peter Mews (vacated at the end of the session). At a call of the House on 9 May he was registered as excused attendance.</p><p>Following the dissolution of Parliament on 12 July 1679 and the calling of another general election, Carleton again went into battle against nonconformity, defining himself as a member of the ‘honest party that love our king, Church and country’. He hoped to block the re-election of the radical nonconformist John Braman<sup>‡</sup> by means of excommunication, which would (or so Carleton thought) render ‘him incapable of being chosen, and them ashamed that appear for him’. The difficulty with this strategy was that Braman’s residence fell within a metropolitan peculiar under the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. Carleton sought Sancroft’s authority to proceed and by 23 July 1679 it was reported that Braman had been excommunicated on the grounds of non-attendance at church. A correspondent of the exclusionist Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> wondered, ‘of what validity that will be to exclude him from the Parliament, I know not, but believe it will not be without controversy’. He went on to warn Jervoise that the bishops were hoping to use excommunication generally as a way ‘to free the House of Commons from some opposites to the court’.<sup>47</sup> Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> similarly believed that Braman’s excommunication would be followed by others, but he was convinced that the Commons would not permit so obvious a political ploy to be successful, ‘for then the bishops (by that trick) may keep out twenty or thirty such men’.<sup>48</sup> Presumably Verney was right – or the reports of actual excommunication were inaccurate – for Braman became an active Member of the second Exclusion Parliament.</p><p>Carleton also supplied Secretary Coventry with information regarding the issuing of electoral writs in Chichester, over which, he claimed, the high sheriff and ‘that grand villain’ Braman had acted illegally. He continued to disseminate propaganda against exclusionists, claiming that their adherents were now boasting that ‘they have now such choice of members for this approaching Parliament that will not be sent back again by the king as the last have been but such as will do their work’.<sup>49</sup> When Braman was elected, Carleton sent Coventry details of electoral interference by Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), and by ‘the fanatic party’.<sup>50</sup> Not content with intervening in parliamentary elections, he also monitored elections to convocation to ensure the appointment of politically loyal clergy.<sup>51</sup></p><p>In February 1680 Carleton sent Sancroft details of the reception of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth reception in Chichester. Monmouth wore a scarlet suit and cloak, ‘which the great men petitioning for Parliament called the red flag’ (i.e. a symbol of defiance), and was attended by ‘a rabble of brutes’ some 50 or 60 strong. Carleton, who refused to wait on the duke, reported that his failure to ‘bow my knee to the people’s idol’ resulted in an attack on his house by a mob insisting that ‘the bishop was an old Popish rogue’. Whilst he was pleased that the gentlemen of the city also refused to wait on Monmouth, he was dismayed that the duke was welcomed by ‘the great men of our cathedral’ and by James Butler<sup>‡</sup>, the Member for Arundel.<sup>52</sup> Despite this setback, by the following month Carleton professed himself delighted in the attack on Dissenters’ morale, ‘since his majesty began to act like himself, like a king, and to let the people know they are but subjects’.<sup>53</sup></p><p>In the meantime Carleton had begun yet another local dispute, this time with his diocesan chancellor, Thomas Briggs. On or about 9 Jan. 1680 Briggs complained that Carleton had accused him in open court of taking bribes and of being a ‘knave, rascal and brazen-faced fellow’, before declaring him to be contumacious. Even Carleton had to acknowledge his own intemperate behaviour, his ‘natural and great frailty in … being apt on the sudden to be passionately angry and in that heat to speak unadvisedly’, but he did not withdraw his allegations. In July, after a failed attempt at mediation, Briggs took his case to the court of arches. Carleton pleaded privilege so the case was not heard, but he was nevertheless issued with an inhibition. This made him so angry that he attempted to manhandle Briggs, not only knocking off Briggs’s hat and wig but throwing the hat into the watching crowd. While Carleton originally claimed that he had started to investigate Briggs because of complaints from nonconformists of malpractice, the trajectory of the dispute soon led him to identify Briggs as an ally of Carleton’s dissenting enemies.<sup>54</sup> Convinced that a victory for Briggs was also a victory for the ‘ill affected party’, he insisted that</p><blockquote><p>If I be butchered by Dr Briggs and his Presbyterian petitioners as the archbishop of St Andrews was by their Scottish brethren of the same leaven I will never depart from my episcopal authority in mine own court, nor suffer Dr Briggs to sit again in the court at Chichester so long as there is breath in my body.<sup>55</sup></p></blockquote><p>Carleton’s inability to control his temper had, according to Briggs, handed a weapon to his opponents, who were determined to bait him in order to ‘to put him into a passion … he has laid himself very low in the esteem of the country already and the more he shows himself the worse it will be’.<sup>56</sup> In August 1680 Carleton agreed to abandon his privilege on condition that Sancroft postpone hearings in the case, ‘a great part of my counsel and papers being out of town’. Although the tone of this letter was more careful and considered than his earlier communications, he could not conceal his continuing intransigence for, if he were to lose the case, ‘farewell episcopacy’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Carleton attended the House on 21 Oct. 1680 for the first day of the second Exclusion Parliament. He was present for just over one-fifth of all sittings and was named to the standing committees but not to any select committees. On 28 Oct. the business before the Lords included the preliminary stage of his jurisdictional dispute with the Chichester parish of St Peter the Great. On 9 Nov. he waived privilege and the case was referred to the next Sussex assizes. Carleton was in the House on 10 Nov. but did not attend for the remainder of the session. On 15 Nov. 1680 he again registered his proxy in favour of Peter Mews.</p><p>Following a coaching accident, Carleton was excused attendance at the Oxford Parliament.<sup>58</sup> In April 1681, anticipating another general election, he again began to consider tactics. He planned to summon Braman before a consistory court ‘to declare his religion, and upon suspicion of living incontinently with a woman whom he calls his wife’, in order once again to excommunicate Braman on the assumption that this would disqualify him from standing for Parliament. Once more, however, jurisdictional problems meant that he needed Sancroft’s assistance – all the more because Sancroft’s surrogate in the peculiar in question was Thomas Briggs, with whom Carleton was still in dispute.</p><p>Intransigent as ever, on 14 Nov. 1681 Carleton complained that his rightful authority as bishop had been constantly disturbed ‘by impudent barefaced opposers of monarchy and our church government’.<sup>59</sup> Further problems surfaced in December when James Butler accused him of laying waste to woodland in Amberley, where Butler was the bishop’s much-despised tenant (as well as a political opponent). Carleton as usual took refuge in an appeal to his rights as bishop, his need to support the dignity of his station and a fresh attack on Dissenters who, he claimed, ‘carry themselves with such insolence and speak so boldly as if they were just drawing their swords and every day expected the hoped-for command to stand to their arms’. The dispute was almost certainly part of a larger quarrel over the renewal of Butler’s lease. This too led to legal action and a declaration by Carleton that Butler ‘shall never swallow this bishopric so long as it hath sixpence of its revenue left to defend itself from such sacrilegious cormorants’. By 1683, with legal costs in the dispute running at £400, Carleton needed royal assistance with the confirmation of leases to outwit his political enemies.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Throughout the ‘Tory reaction’, Carleton continued to attack nonconformity and vent his political prejudices. Defending one ‘true son’ of the Church suspended by some ‘notorious’ men ‘that make a mock of religion … and all of them men of associating principles and practice’, he now condemned the diplomat (and future Jacobite) Sir Richard Bulstrode (‘solicitor-general for the dissenting brotherhood’), whose proximity to the king allegedly provided Dissenters with ‘an exact account of court affairs’.<sup>61</sup> As in Bristol his efforts to combat opposition were ineffective. On 5 Sept. 1682 he was contacted by Sir William Williams<sup>‡</sup> about the ‘spirit of anarchy and sedition’ on display in Chichester during the mayoral election.<sup>62</sup> His dispute with St Peter the Great over the payment of rates was still ongoing, made all the worse by the ‘malicious hypocritical Presbyterian’ vicar of the parish and by the vicar’s ability to call on the support of the sometime churchwarden, Richard Farrington<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In his own mind, Carleton was beset by enemies on all sides. Early in 1683 he wrote to the duke of York, alerting him to the ‘true state’ of affairs in Chichester under the recorder, Sir Richard May<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>64</sup> Although May was an anti-exclusionist and had been knighted on presenting a loyal address from Chichester in 1681, he had allied himself with Braman against the cathedral interest at the first general election in 1679, thus earning himself the bishop’s lasting enmity. In March 1683 Carleton forwarded a letter to Sancroft from Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, on a scheme to promote uniformity of worship and secure the ‘vigorous suppression of … poisonous pesthouses of faction and schism’.<sup>65</sup> Complaining in July of the mayor’s prevarication on searches of ‘disaffected’ houses, he supplied the government with details of a ship allegedly used in the escape of Grey of Warke after the Rye House Plot, and complained of the ‘inconsideration’ of sheriff Edward Selwyn<sup>‡</sup> in absenting himself from the county, where, if present, he might have prevented the escape of Monmouth, Grey and other Rye House plotters.<sup>66</sup></p><p>In September 1683 Carleton failed to obtain the office of lord almoner for himself but he was more successful in securing the future of his nephew and secretary (and long-time collaborator), Samuel Carleton, who from about 1681 to at least 1683 had taken on ‘the chargeable as well as most troublesome office of chief constable of the city without whom the most seditious and tumultuous meetings of factious conventicles could not here be suppressed’. Carleton wanted to give his nephew the reversion of the place of registrar for Chichester and Lewes but his relationship with the dean, George Stradling (who ‘hath always favoured the factious party’), and chapter was too contentious to obtain the necessary agreement and he had to appeal to the crown to secure the appointment.<sup>67</sup></p><p>The surrender of Chichester’s charter in August 1684 provided Carleton with an opportunity to settle his long-running dispute with the town over the cathedral’s privileges and to secure the cathedral’s exemption from temporal jurisdiction. Negotiations over the details of the new charter (especially those affecting the ability of the bishop and chapter to vote in city elections) continued for several months and in September, at Carleton’s prompting, the crown ordered the mayoral election to be postponed.<sup>68</sup> The existing dispute between the city and the bishop was now to be arbitrated by Sancroft and the attorney-general.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Now almost 80 years of age, and coping with the death of another daughter, on 28 Mar. 1685 Carleton excused himself from attending the coronation of James II, claiming to have exhausted himself ‘making interest for Parliament men’ during the recent general election. Nevertheless, two days later he assured Sancroft that he would be in London before the new session opened. Whether through his own efforts or not, the elections in both city and county went well for the court. Sir Richard May was again returned for the city, along with the anti-exclusionist George Gounter<sup>‡</sup>. The county returned the court supporter Sir Henry Goring<sup>‡</sup> and the Tory Anglican Sir Thomas Dyke<sup>‡</sup>. This result, according to Carleton, was attributable solely to his interest with the clergy ‘and theirs upon my account with the freeholders of their parish’. He told Sancroft that both Goring and Dyke ‘were very sensible that my interest did their work for them, and withall that it was now visible that the bishop and his interest was able to turn the scale and make whom they pleased members in Parliament at such elections in this county’.<sup>70</sup> Carleton attended the House on 19 May 1685 for the start of the first session of the new Parliament. Despite his recent excuses of frailty and overwork, he was present for 67 per cent of sittings and was named to four select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. His final attendance was on 2 July 1685. He died four days later, reputedly having choked on a kidney bean.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Carleton’s political legacy was questionable. Unsurprisingly, Samuel Carleton eulogized his uncle as ‘a pious prelate [of] eminent and constant loyalty to the crown, his expensive reformation of those unsupportable abuses this Church groaned under, and his great charity to the poor and needy will remain as everlasting monuments to his immortal honour’.<sup>72</sup> Others questioned his conduct and his inability to distinguish between personal and political enemies. An account of the life and works of his supposedly factious dean, George Stradling, insisted that Stradling had been defended from Carleton’s attacks by a ‘great minister of state’ and that Charles II had been ‘satisfied that he was both able and willing to promote the king’s service, with as much zeal as his accuser, and with much more sincerity, discretion and success’.<sup>73</sup> Even Carleton’s success in rooting out conventiclers was questionable: his successor, John Lake*, found Chichester still ‘singularly … fanatic’.<sup>74</sup></p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
CARTWRIGHT, Thomas (1634-89) |
<p><strong><surname>CARTWRIGHT</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1634–89)</p> |
|
|
First sat 28 Apr. 1687; last sat 28 Apr. 1687 |
cons. 17 Oct. 1686 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Sept. 1634, s. of Thomas Cartwright, DD, master of Brentwood g.s., Essex. <em>educ</em>. Northampton g.s.; Magdalen, Oxf.; Queen’s, Oxf. matric. 1650, BA 1653, MA 1655, DD 1661. <em>m</em>. (1) 25 Mar. 1656, Mary Halldanby (<em>d</em>. 3 Dec. 1661) of St Clements without Temple Bar, 2s. 2da.;<sup>1</sup> (2) lic. 27 May 1662, Sarah, da. of Henry Wight of Barking, Essex, 4s.; (3) 1684, Frances Barnard.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 15 Apr. 1689; <em>will</em> 1 Sept. 1687, pr. 12 June 1689.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Henry, duke of Gloucester, 1660, to Charles II 1672.</p><p>Vic. Walthamstow, Essex 1657, Barking, Essex 1660–88; chap. to alderman John Robinson<sup>‡</sup>, bt., sheriff of London, 1659; preacher, St Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, London 1659; rect. St Thomas Apostle, Queen St., London 1665, Wigan 1686–9; canon Wells 1660-84; prebend, St Paul’s 1665-86, Durham 1672-86; dean Ripon 1675–86.</p><p>Commr. for ecclesiastical causes 1687–8.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after G. Soest, c.1680, NPG 1090; oil on canvas by unknown artist, c. 1686-9, NPG 1613.</p> |
<p>Thomas Cartwright, staunch political ally of James II, was shunned both in life and after his death by those who assumed that he was part of a conspiracy to reunite the churches of England and Rome. The son of Presbyterian parents and grandson of the famous Elizabethan puritan Thomas Cartwright (1535–1603), Cartwright’s religious background is more easily defined than his social status. By the time of his death he was using the arms of the Nottinghamshire Cartwrights of Ossington, a family that included a former servant of Archbishop William Laud<sup>†</sup>.<sup>4</sup> Yet, apart from the use of similar forenames, there is little evidence of a direct family connection and Cartwright’s immediate family is difficult to trace. His diary speaks of extended family networks and social contacts both in his native Northamptonshire and in Essex.<sup>5</sup> These latter connections were almost certainly a legacy of his father’s position in Brentwood, his own time as a parish priest in Essex and his second marriage to an Essex woman. In the course of his lifetime, he acquired position, wealth and estates, bequeathing to his large family nine separate properties scattered through Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Essex and money in excess of £3,000.</p><p>Cartwright’s active political career has been subsumed into the historiography of the 1688 revolution. As he was deeply unpopular with his contemporaries, it became the received wisdom that he actively undermined the Church of England and was a dynamic force in promoting the catholicizing policies of James II. According to Anthony Wood, as a student at Oxford he identified himself closely with the parliamentary cause.<sup>6</sup> Yet he sought episcopal ordination and by 1660 it is clear that he was well regarded at court. Ambitious and litigious (he was involved in at least 13 cases in the arches while vicar of Barking), Cartwright advanced rapidly within the Church.<sup>7</sup></p><p>By the early 1670s it was evident that Cartwright’s career ambitions lay in the north of England. His will shows that he had acquired farmlands and stables in the diocese of Durham as well as a share in the Durham collieries on lease from the dean and chapter. In 1673 the king promised him first refusal on the deanery of Ripon and the rectories of Stanhope, Sedgfield and Haughton (all in the bishopric of Durham).<sup>8</sup> On 1 Jan. 1675, when Cartwright reminded Secretary Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> of the king’s promise and of the assurances of Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, that he would expedite the matter, he also laid claim to the living of Northallerton so that he could consolidate ‘all … concerns into the north’.<sup>9</sup> By the spring of that year, Cartwright had been promised the first of ‘five of the best livings’ in the gift of the bishop of Durham.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Cartwright’s diary shows that he was well integrated in the northern political and social elite.<sup>11</sup> One of his influential contacts was Sir Edmund Jennings<sup>‡</sup>, to whom he dedicated his sermon at the July 1676 York assizes on strong kingship.<sup>12</sup> Jennings strongly opposed the interest of Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, in the liberty of Ripon and it seems highly likely that, as dean, Cartwright was involved in the <em>quo warranto</em> against the archbishop.<sup>13</sup> By Christmas 1679, Cartwright, deeply involved in Ripon politics, grumbled to Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, that Sterne’s changes to the commission of the peace (which included at least one former nonconformist) were ‘prejudicial both to the king and church’. As a royal chaplain, he claimed, it would be a ‘venial sin’ to stay silent on the matter.<sup>14</sup></p><p>With the dissolution of Parliament in 1681, Cartwright orchestrated an address of thanks from the corporation of Ripon.<sup>15</sup> A staunch, even extreme, Tory Anglican, his advocacy of supreme royal power strengthened his existing relationship with James Stuart*, duke of York. Having attended the duke throughout the exclusion crisis in Scotland, he continued to promote the catholicity of the Church of England. At the death of Archbishop Sterne in 1683, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, still imprisoned in the Tower, took time out from his own concerns to recommend Cartwright to the vacancy ‘being well assured that he would both be very acceptable to the loyal party in that county, and that he would be highly serviceable to the king’s interest there’.<sup>16</sup> When he failed to get York, Cartwright’s attentions turned to the recently vacant see of Rochester, and when that too failed he made ‘great importunities’ instead for St Davids. With St Davids passing instead to the royalist propagandist Lawrence Womock*, a disgruntled Cartwright excused his ‘vanity in expecting the bishopric’ on the grounds that he had been given firm expectations by the king.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Even at the height of the Tory reaction, senior clergymen considered Cartwright’s brand of royal absolutism to be extreme; on learning that Cartwright would not after all get St Davids, the future non-juror, William Lloyd*, of Norwich, wrote to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, expressing his joy at the news. John Dolben*, the newly appointed archbishop of York, was similarly suspicious of Cartwright. In August 1685 he wrote to warn Sancroft that Cartwright now had his eyes on Chester, where the incumbent bishop, John Pearson*, was becoming increasingly frail. Cartwright was already boasting of his success. ‘Surely,’ wrote Dolben, ‘(if he must be a bishop) it were better to place him where he may do less harm.’<sup>18</sup></p><p>Cartwright was exceptionally well placed to benefit from the accession of James II. Not only were his beliefs about royal power in tune with those of the new monarch, but he was able to regard James’s close friend Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, as his patron.<sup>19</sup> Pearson of Chester died in July 1686; a month later it was widely known that the king had appointed Cartwright to succeed him. Holding <em>in commendam</em> his rectories of Barking and Wigan (the latter carrying with it the politically important lordship of the manor), Cartwright was consecrated in October 1686.<sup>20</sup> Burnet later reported that Sancroft had conducted the consecration through fear that he might otherwise be threatened with a <em>praemunire</em>. That Sancroft stumbled and fell during the ceremony was taken as a mark of the extent to which he was distracted by his opposition to the appointment.<sup>21</sup></p><p>In January 1687 Cartwright mediated between Colonel Roger Whitley<sup>‡ </sup>and the Chester gentry (‘whom the late heats had divided’). Whitley, a country opposition supporter, had been excluded from office under the new Chester charter of 1684 but was now taken under the bishop’s wing as a ‘penitent’ and recommended by Cartwright as a deputy lieutenant of Cheshire.<sup>22</sup> At the time of the first Declaration of Indulgence Cartwright returned to London to canvass support for the king.<sup>23</sup> On 20 Apr. 1687 he was one of the bishops summoned by George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffeys, and told that the king expected formal thanks for his promise to protect the Church of England.<sup>24</sup> Cartwright duly composed the address and attempted, with varying degrees of success, to rally support for it.<sup>25</sup></p><p>On 28 Apr. 1687 Cartwright took his seat for the first and only time in the House. On 1 May he attended St James Chapel with the papal vicar-apostolic John Leyburn when the papal nuncio, Monsignor Dada, was consecrated archbishop of Amasea. Although even Anthony Wood claimed that Cartwright went only ‘out of curiosity’, his presence at the ceremony was taken as tacit approval for the king’s religious policies and in June, when he tried to move an address at a Yorkshire feast, he was roundly snubbed when Danby’s son, Edward Osborne<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Latimer, insisted that the purpose of the feast was not to make addresses but to eat and drink.<sup>26</sup> Cartwright’s enthusiastic welcome when the king visited Chester in August did nothing to allay such fears.<sup>27</sup> He offered assistance for the establishment of a Catholic chapel in Chester, and allowed the Quaker (and friend of the king) William Penn to preach.<sup>28</sup> He was even seen in public with the king’s Catholic adviser, Father Petre.<sup>29</sup></p><p>In October 1687, Cartwright acquired further notoriety when he was appointed as a special commissioner to impose on Oxford University the king’s preferred candidates. His speech there generated ‘a general noise and humming’ that the judges construed to amount to riot.<sup>30</sup> So unpopular had Cartwright become that on 10 Dec. 1687, in a calculated insult that defied the accepted hierarchical rules of etiquette, Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup> blocked Cartwright’s path, commenting that he had already followed the bishop ‘too long’ and would ‘now go before’ him.<sup>31</sup> In early December, to the dismay (and fear) of the London clergy, it was rumoured that Cartwright was poised to take over the bishopric of London in place of the suspended Henry Compton*.<sup>32</sup> He appears to have scuppered his chances after a drunken outburst when he insulted both Jeffreys and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland as ‘not being true to their trust’ and accused them of passing secret information to the Dutch. He was subsequently forced to beg forgiveness on his knees.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Unsurprisingly, parliamentary observers listed Cartwright as an unequivocal supporter of the king’s religious policies and the repeal of the Test Act. In March 1688 he was presumably complicit in the decision to revoke the charter of Wigan in order to replace the corporation with Catholics who would endorse the repeal of the penal laws.<sup>34</sup> In May, after the publication of the second Declaration of Indulgence, Cartwright ordered his clergy to read it, threatening suspension for disobedience. Even so it was read in only one church in Chester and the bishop was unable to convince the clergy of his diocese to support the revocation of the Test.<sup>35</sup> On 12 May he dined at Lambeth Palace with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, several fellow bishops and senior clergy. So distrusted was he that it was only after he left that those present began to plan the strategy that would lead to the trial of the Seven Bishops.<sup>36</sup> After their acquittal, he continued to be identified with royal policy. In July it was even rumoured that he might be promoted to the vacant archbishopric of York. In August he recommended that the recorder of Chester, Richard Levinge<sup>‡</sup>, stand as court candidate, and he must surely have had some knowledge of and involvement in the Privy Council’s decision to order the removal of almost all the corporation, and then, when the corporation refused to co-operate, to issue a new charter.<sup>37</sup></p><p>In December 1688, in the aftermath of the Dutch invasion, Cartwright fled the country.<sup>38</sup> The following March he accompanied James II to Ireland, where he died a month later, probably from dysentery. Suspicions that he was a closet Catholic at heart were dispelled by his refusal to undergo a deathbed conversion.<sup>39</sup> He was buried in Christ Church, Dublin.</p> |
B.A. |
|
COMPTON, Henry (1632-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>COMPTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1632–1713)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1675; last sat 8 June 1713 |
cons. 6 Dec. 1674 bp. of OXFORD; transl. 18 Dec. 1675 bp. of LONDON; susp. 6 Sept. 1686 |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1632, 6th s. of Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Northampton, and Mary (<em>d</em>.1654), da. of Sir Francis Beaumont<sup>‡</sup> of Coleorton, Leics; bro. of James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, Sir Charles Compton<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Francis Compton<sup>‡</sup>, Sir William Compton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Uppingham g.s.; Queen’s, Oxf., matric. 1654; travelled abroad (France and Italy) 1652-4, 1663-6; MA Camb. 1661; Christ Church Oxf., MA (incorp. from Camb.) 1666, ord. 1666, BD 1669, DD 1669. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 7 July 1713; <em>will</em> 31 Aug. 1708, pr. 8 Aug. 1713.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1676-85, 1689-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Dean, chapel royal 1675-85, 1689-<em>d</em>.; clerk of the closet 1675-85.</p><p>Rect. Llandinam, Mont. 1666-74, Cottenham, Cambs. 1671-4, Witney, Oxon. 1674-5; master, St Cross Hospital, Winchester 1667-75; canon Christ Church, Oxf. 1669-75; commr. ecclesiastical preferments 1681,<sup>2</sup> Tangiers bef. 1684,<sup>3</sup> hospitals 1691,<sup>4</sup> prizes 1694, 1695,<sup>5</sup> of appeal in Admiralty cases 1697,<sup>6</sup> Q. Anne’s Bounty bef. 1705,<sup>7</sup> redemption of captives 1707,<sup>8</sup> for building 50 new churches 1711;<sup>9</sup> founder mbr. SPG 1701.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Cornet, Royal Horse Gds. 1661; lt. 1666.<sup>11</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1675, Christ Church, Oxf.; line engraving by David Loggan, 1679, NPG D34056; oil on canvas by John Riley, c.1680-5, Queen’s, Oxf.; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1712, NPG 2952.</p> |
<h2><em>In search of a career</em></h2><p>Henry Compton, born into the English aristocracy, was urbane, cosmopolitan, royalist and fiercely anti-Catholic. He slid from the military into the Church in the 1660s and, with equal ease, took up arms in support of the Revolution of 1688. As one of the ‘immortal seven’ who signed the invasion petition to William of Orange, Compton became the heroic defender of the Protestant cause in both post-revolutionary propaganda and Whig historiography. His earliest biography appeared in the year of his death followed by a panegyric in 1715. Both set the tone for subsequent evaluations of his character and career.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Compton’s father and older brothers fought for the royalist cause during the Civil Wars and he himself had travelled in Europe, and may have fought in Flanders, during the Interregnum. He returned to England at the Restoration. He was sent to Tangiers on military service in 1662, but by 1664 he was in France, considering the possibility of journeying on to Rome. He left France in 1666 to return to Oxford and an academic career under John Fell*, the future bishop of Oxford.<sup>13</sup> He was made master of St Cross Hospital in Winchester through the patronage of George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, and the encouragement of his brother-in-law, Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, who condemned the failure of the bishops who ‘do not enough consult the interest and concern of the Church in not encouraging the nobility and gentry to be of their profession’.<sup>14</sup> A Christ Church canonry followed, but Compton had little interest in acquiring parochial experience, his livings functioning more as a form of income than employment. Simply and tellingly described as ‘expensive’, Compton was unable to subsist on a clerical income. By the early 1670s, he was in debt to the undersecretary of state, Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, and repeatedly failed to honour promises to repay him. There are indications that Williamson was not his only creditor.<sup>15</sup> Compton had no great reputation either as a preacher or as a scholar, but he clearly had a good command of French and Italian and used his language skills to contribute to anti-Catholic propaganda. In 1666 he published a translation of Gregorio Leti’s <em>Life of Donna Olimpia Maldachini</em>, the notorious adviser to Pope Innocent X, and in 1669 he published a translation of the anti-Catholic diatribe, <em>The Jesuits Intrigues</em>. He remained virulently anti-Catholic and sympathetic to Huguenot, Bohemian, Vaudois and other European strands of protestantism for the rest of his life.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Even before he entered the episcopate Compton used his clerical and aristocratic standing to make strategic recommendations to the higher clergy. In 1670 Compton and Nicholas helped to place Herbert Astley in the deanery of Norwich, where he could counter any lingering Presbyterian sympathies fostered by Edward Reynolds*, the bishop there. Compton recommended Astley to Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon*, but Sheldon was out of favour and readily admitted his difficulty in being heard at court; Nicholas then advised Astley to approach Compton’s brother, Northampton, for a recommendation to Henry Bennet*, then Baron, later earl of, Arlington.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>Allied to Danby 1674-9</em></h2><p>By March 1674 Compton, still in his early 40s, was tipped for elevation to the see of Oxford, probably through the influence of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury would later describe him ‘as a property to Lord Danby … [who] was turned by him as he pleased’.<sup>18</sup> Compton was elected prematurely by the Oxford chapter in a bureaucratic bungle and then again, correctly, on 10 Nov. 1674.<sup>19</sup> His consecration sermon was preached by his chaplain, William Jane, a royalist Anglican who perceived both Catholics and Nonconformists as enemies of the Church. Jane would become increasingly important when Compton promoted the highfliers later in his career.<sup>20</sup> Sheldon made ample use of his new bishop who was later described by Roger Morrice as the archbishop’s ‘tool and monkey to pull the chestnut out of the fire when he himself thought not fit to do it’.<sup>21</sup> In November 1674 Williamson issued a warrant allowing Compton to keep several of his offices <em>in commendam</em>.<sup>22</sup> He had incurred substantial expenses in the process of elevation and the income of the bishopric, less than £350 a year, was clearly insufficient to meet his needs.</p><p>On 13 Apr. 1675, the first day of a new session, Compton took his seat in the Lords, joining his brother, the earl of Northampton. Compton’s parliamentary career spanned 39 years. Of the 36 parliamentary sessions held during his episcopate, he attended every session, was in his seat on the first day for all but one session and took a wide-ranging role in the business of the House, contributing to debates, managing numerous conferences and being named to both select and sessional committees. The frequency with which he reported back to the House from select committees suggests that he not only served on committees but also chaired them. For 17 sessions he attended for more than three-quarters of all sittings and, as a member of the sessional committee, also examined the Journal.</p><p>In his first parliamentary session Compton attended 67 per cent of all sittings and was named to 15 select committees including the committee to uncover the publisher of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em>. In the spring of 1675 he attended throughout the abortive attempt by Danby to secure a bill against the politically ‘disaffected’ and impose a ‘no alteration’ test. In July 1675 he was appointed as dean of the chapel royal, a post that placed him in charge of the religious education of Princesses Mary and Anne. The choice was resented deeply by their father, James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>23</sup></p><p>During the brief autumn session of 1675, Compton attended 95 per cent of all sittings and was named only to the sessional committees. On 18 Oct. 1675 he received the proxy of Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham (another aristocratic bishop, whom he had succeeded at Oxford), which was cancelled 8 November. By that time it was already anticipated that he would be appointed to the newly vacant see of London. He was translated in December.<sup>24</sup> His annual diocesan income increased to more than £2,000.<sup>25</sup> Unusually, he was allowed to keep one commendam to augment that income; the treasury books also detail ad hoc payments (possibly for ceremonial duties).<sup>26</sup> Compton now held a pivotal role in Danby’s ministry. His appointment to the Privy Council in January 1676 was part of a general political realignment for as he joined, George Savile*, Viscount (later earl and marquess) Halifax, and Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, were removed. Concern about possible limitations on his ability to enforce clerical discipline led him to petition for an extension of his jurisdiction to the anomalous area of the Minories.<sup>27</sup> He also instituted regular diocesan conferences where he led focused debates on subjects of interest to the parish clergy which both enabled him to impart his own views and provided an opportunity for the clergy to air their problems to their bishop.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Compton’s relationship with York was damaged in December 1675 when he sought permission to confirm the Princesses Mary and Anne. York refused but the king commanded that the confirmation go ahead.<sup>29</sup> The 1676 ‘Compton Census’, set in motion by Sheldon in January 1676, was part and parcel of Danby’s policy to assure the king that nonconformity was of little account and comprehension unnecessary for Protestant unity.<sup>30</sup> Compton supported Danby’s policy of suppressing Dissent. In March 1676 Compton is reported to have said that any person could enjoy liberty of conscience in the privacy of his own home with five other people (a comment on the provisions of the Conventicles Act).<sup>31</sup> On occasion he felt as though he lacked support in his campaign against recusants and Dissenters: on several days during June 1676 he was said to have shown the council a copy of a book reputed to have been written by Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, probably <em>Mr Smirke or the Divine in Mode</em>, hoping to convince others of its seditious nature, but as Marvell reported, ‘none takes notice’ and, indeed, it was not even minuted in the Privy Council registers.<sup>32</sup></p><p>On 21 July 1676 Compton was present at the Privy Council when the bookseller Anthony Lawrence was brought before it for printing a translation of the mass entitled <em>The Great Sacrifice of the New Law</em>, and it was to Compton that the wardens of the Stationer’s company were directed to deliver copies seized for destruction. A similar order for ‘popish books’ to be seized and delivered to Compton for destruction was made on 9 August.<sup>33</sup> This second set of books appears to have been an expanded edition of <em>The Great Sacrifice</em> printed at the order of the Portuguese ambassador, Francesco de Mello, and ostensibly intended for the use of the queen’s household. The ambassador claimed that he had authorized the printing of 100 copies for this purpose but that the licence mistakenly specified 900 copies which were accordingly printed. That same month Compton’s anti-Catholic zeal also led him to offend York by complaining to the king that York’s secretary, Edward Colman, had published a book in defence of papal supremacy. Colman denied the charge. York was said to have been all the more offended as Compton had not first consulted him and ‘the duke [having] formerly told him, if he did, he shou’d take it very ill’. As if this were not enough, Compton also complained to the king about Colman’s intervention to prevent the prosecution of nonconformists in Norfolk. The king advised York to discharge Colman which York ‘did highly resent from the bishop and told him as much, and is now afresh provoked’.<sup>34</sup> According to a French diplomatic communiqué, Compton was fomenting trouble out of personal ambition: he was young, ‘and the only one, among all the clergy in England, who is distinguished by his birth: he sees that the archbishop of Canterbury is 80 years old, and he is trying to put in a bid for his position’.<sup>35</sup> Compton was already effectively deputizing for the ageing archbishop and he (and others) must have been well aware that like Sheldon the previous four holders of the post had been promoted from London. What he does not seem to have realized was the continuing influence of York and the need to maintain a good relationship with him. In the same letter the French ambassador remarked on Compton’s tactless failure to pay ‘compliments’ to the queen and York.</p><p>Compton may have been acting as an intermediary between Danby and Sheldon, as in early January 1677 Compton informed Sheldon that a royal proclamation ‘puts some stress upon a full Parliament at the first meeting, so it is thought very requisite that you give my lords the bishops timely notice of sending their proxies up in good time’.<sup>36</sup> Before the new session he received the proxy of Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford (vacated at the end of the session), and that of William Lucy*, bishop of St Davids (vacated by the latter’s death). On 15 Feb. 1677, after the long prorogation, Compton took his seat for the first time as the bishop of London. He attended the session for 81 per cent of all sittings and was named to 74 select committees on a wide range of public and private business.</p><p>On 4 Nov. 1677, during the adjournment, Compton conducted the wedding of Princess Mary and William of Orange, a cause of further irritation for York. Even before Sheldon’s death on 9 Nov. the archbishop’s ailing condition had prompted much speculation about his successor. Most commentators expected Compton to succeed but as early as 16 Oct. Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> indicated that Compton was ‘greatly in want’ of favour and that his friendship with Danby would prove insufficient to secure the post. According to Southwell Compton ‘bends all his energies’ in favour of the candidacy of Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, ‘not only for having been his quondam tutor, but for being a man very positive and intractable in his way, and even older than my lord of Canterbury that is dying’.<sup>37</sup> By 19 Nov. ‘common discourse’ in Cambridge (informed by statements from Compton’s domestic chaplain) correctly identified William Sancroft*, currently serving under Compton as dean of St Paul’s, as Sheldon’s successor. According to Edward Lake (chaplain and tutor to the princesses), Danby deserted Compton and secretly promoted Sancroft’s candidacy instead, probably because Compton’s candidacy was opposed by York. Edward Colman made his master’s opposition clear when he ‘openly and freely said, that the bishop of London must not expect to be the man, because of his forwardness in persecuting the Roman Catholics, particularly the Portugal ambassador and himself’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>On 15 Jan. 1678 the House resumed. On 29 Jan. Compton joined a group of nine, including York, the new archbishop, Sancroft, and Sterne, to dissent to the decision to release of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. Compton was acutely aware that Danby’s political power was already on the wane. In February he described Danby as ‘a lost man’. He, nevertheless, did his best to help Danby by wrapping up a warning against the influence of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in a sermon that was delivered that same month at court. Compton ‘did so particularly explain the dangers of ill-conversation, or the showing any degree of countenance or delight in those who were under marks and blemishes of evil life, that the meaning was very visible to all’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>In the House Compton immersed himself in business. He chaired the select committee on the bill to appropriate two rectories for the maintenance of St Asaph cathedral, reporting back to the House on 7 Mar. 1678 and the bill passed uneventfully to the royal assent.<sup>40</sup> During the remainder of the session, he helped to manage conferences on the address for a war with France and for burying in woollen. He reported from select committees on the Protestant strangers bill in May and the bill to increase the revenue of the deanery of St Paul’s in June. On 6 June Compton received the proxy of William Lloyd*, bishop of Llandaff and later of Peterborough, (vacated with the prorogation on 15 July). During the course of the year he made his own contribution to the hysteria of the popish plot allegations by reprinting his translation of the life of Olimpia Maldichini. As a member of the Privy Council Compton was in the forefront of investigating the plot, which served, at least temporarily, to shore up his and Danby’s position, especially during and after the arrest, trial and execution of his old enemy, Colman. In anticipation of the new parliamentary session in October 1678, Compton had received two proxies, the first from Lloyd of Llandaff (vacated with Lloyd’s attendance on 27 Dec.), the second from Richard Sterne, vacated at the end of the session.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Compton resumed his seat on 21 Oct. 1678 and attended 91 per cent of all sittings during that session. He was named to 14 select committees, including that to consider the answers of the five impeached Catholic lords and the objections of the Commons. On 26 Oct. the Lords named Compton and Danby, amongst others, to examine Colman and other prisoners in Newgate.<sup>42</sup> Two days later Compton was ordered by the House to seize any Catholic publications. On 29 Oct., after Danby had reported on the examination of prisoners, a contentious debate followed the motion (not minuted in the Journal) made by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, that York’s letters be read. Nearly a fortnight earlier, on 16 Oct., Compton had been present when the council considered a report from the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, then Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham. Finch had examined Colman’s papers and concluded that York was not party to his designs.<sup>43</sup> Yet on 29 Oct. Compton seconded Shaftesbury’s motion, in direct opposition to York, an action that was scarcely likely to help repair his relationship with the heir apparent.<sup>44</sup> 31 Oct. On 31 Oct. Compton was added to the subcommittee investigating the death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The following day, the House ordered that a trunk of Catholic books seized from a bookseller should be delivered to Compton ‘to be disposed of as his lordship shall direct’. That day he was the only bishop named as one of the conference managers on the preservation of the king’s person and the safety of the Protestant state. On 15 Nov. Compton voted in favour of including a declaration against the fundamental Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation in the Test Act. In early December he, together with Sancroft and the two secretaries of state, were appointed to supervise the messengers who were to keep watch and identify unauthorized participants in the Catholic masses at the chapels of the queen and foreign ambassadors.<sup>45</sup> He appears to have been an active member of the committee investigating the Popish Plot, for an examination taken before him was presented by the committee to the House on 21 December. On 26 Dec. he reported the results of Sterne’s investigations into an alleged nunnery in Ripley. He voted to insist on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer on 26 Dec. and the following day voted against the committal of Danby. On 28 Dec. he was named to the committee to draw up reasons for a conference with the Commons on supply for disbanding the forces, helping to manage the subsequent conference.</p><h2><em>The Exclusion Crisis 1679-80</em></h2><p>Compton’s anti-Catholic vendetta, carried on in council as well as in the Lords, helped earn the king’s displeasure. The fall of Danby removed his closest ally at court and his precarious position may not have been helped by a quarrel with Arlington over the right to appoint Lent preachers, though the precise date of this dispute is unknown.<sup>46</sup> Matters were made still worse when Compton failed to pay his respects to the king. On 14 Jan. 1679, fretting that ‘it is a grievous thing for a loyal person to lie under the displeasure of his prince’, Compton asked Sancroft</p><blockquote><p>to let me know whether you have yet acquainted his majesty, that I did not fail at my first coming to town to present my most humble duty and respects by your grace’s mediation. For if it be not done … I find I shall lie under great reflections if I do not immediately take care to have it done some other way.<sup>47</sup></p></blockquote><p>In November 1678 Compton had been rumoured to be in ‘close counsels’ with Shaftesbury, but if true, the flirtation did not last long, for on 31 Dec. Compton was said to have ‘forsaken’ Shaftesbury.<sup>48</sup> In the parliamentary elections that followed the dissolution in January 1679 Compton supported his diocesan chancellor, Sir Thomas Exton<sup>‡</sup>, as a candidate for Cambridge University. Shaftesbury judged Exton ‘vile’.</p><p>Compton attended every sitting of the first week of the new Parliament in early March, when virtually no business other than the taking of the new oaths was transacted. On 3 Mar. 1679 Compton was one of the witnesses to the king’s declaration in council that he had never been married to anyone other than the queen.<sup>49</sup> He attended every sitting of the first week of the new Parliament in early March, when virtually no business other than the taking of the new oaths was transacted due to problems over choosing a speaker in the Commons. A new session began on 15 March. Compton then attended 98 per cent of all sittings. On 19 Mar. he spoke in the debate concerning the question of whether an impeachment started in a previous Parliament continued in the next. He agreed with Shaftesbury that it was inconvenient to raise disputes between the king and the Lords ‘because of the dangerous consequence’, but considered it vital to deal with the question of injury to a peer and the implications of imprisonment.<sup>50</sup> On 21 Mar. he took part in the long debate resulting from the Commons’ demand that Danby be sequestered from Parliament and committed to safe custody. When Shaftesbury claimed that he could not forget how Danby ‘dallied with the king’s life’ in managing the Plot and moved that Danby be committed to Black Rod, Compton went on the attack:</p><blockquote><p>our votes are a sufficient reason to the House of Commons; ... I am much confirmed in my opinion, since that lord who is so very able could make nothing but such trivial and slight arguments ... the Commons are so reasonable that when you are satisfied they will be so too.<sup>51</sup></p></blockquote><p>Like others present he interpreted the Commons’ request as posing a potential breach of the Lords’ privileges. Danby’s opponents and supporters alike then called for the debate to be adjourned. In April Compton voted against the passage of the bill of attainder and on 24 Apr. was named as one of the managers of a conference with the Commons on the subject of the five impeached Catholic peers. At the end of April he issued to his clergy an official broadsheet following up conferences he had held with them the previous year on baptism, the communion and catechizing, and urging them to compliance with the canons and rubrics in the Prayer Book.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Despite his anti-Catholicism and difficult relationship with York, Compton retained his place on the Privy Council when the king dissolved it in April and created a new one. During May 1679, when the House debated the contentious issue of the right of the bishops to vote in ‘blood cases’, Compton intervened to insist that ‘we shall not do anything which our ancestors have not done’.<sup>53</sup> On 10 May he voted against the appointment of a joint committee with the Commons to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords, but on 26 May was named as a conference manager on the preservation of ‘a good correspondence’ with the lower House.</p><p>The prorogation of 27 May 1679 was followed by the dissolution and parliamentary elections. In July 1679 Compton was approached by the justices of Middlesex to support the candidature of former royalist officer and property developer, William Smith<sup>‡</sup>, who had acquired a reputation for severity against both Catholic and Protestant nonconformists when chairing the Middlesex quarter sessions. Smith ran a lacklustre campaign and withdrew after polling only three votes.<sup>54</sup> Meanwhile, the enmity of the duke of York was further exacerbated by information he received that Danby had made overtures to Presbyterians for his own advantage and that he considered the case proven by ‘the bishop of London’s violence against him’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>On 16 July 1680 he was contacted by Secretary Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> with an urgent request from the recorder of London, George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, who wanted Compton to intervene in the City elections and engage the clergy so that ‘the good men be chosen and that the ill ones have not so clear a view of their own strength’.<sup>56</sup> It is likely that Compton complied willingly. In July too he sent out a new printed circular to the clergy of his diocese: in response to ‘the hellish plot of the papists’, churchmen must be found, he advised, ‘in the best posture ... against this common enemy’, and he warned about various subversive Catholic religious practices (including ‘half communion’, reading prayers in a foreign tongue and the invocation of saints, instructing clergy to prosecute the laws vigorously and warning that he would be checking at his forthcoming visitation that ‘not a recusant has escaped our notice’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>With both anti-clericalist and anti-Catholic feelings running high, Compton took steps to promote and consolidate Protestant unity. In the late summer of 1680 he wrote to three prominent European Protestant leaders asking for their opinions about English nonconformity. All three replied that there was no justification for Protestants to separate from the Anglican Church. The following year these responses were included as an appendix to <em>The Unreasonableness of Separation</em>, a pamphlet published by Compton’s ally and dean of St Paul’s, Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester.</p><p>The new Parliament opened on 21 Oct. 1680. Compton resumed his seat, attended 86 per cent of all sittings and was named to six select committees, two on the penal laws against Catholics and further investigations into the Popish Plot. In an unminuted Privy Council discussion (the clerks were asked to withdraw) early in October 1680, Compton was one of a small majority who voted that York should not be required to leave England; the king, nevertheless, instructed him to leave for Scotland.<sup>58</sup> On 12 Nov. 1680, with debate on the exclusion bill imminent, John Pritchett*, of Gloucester registered his proxy to Compton, the proxy being vacated six weeks later at Pritchett’s death. On 15 Nov. Compton spoke in the debate on the bill and voted to reject it on its first reading. On 23 Nov. Compton voted against the appointment of a committee to consider, with the Commons, the state of the kingdom. On 30 Nov., on behalf of the bishops, he requested the leave of the House for them to be absent from the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, ‘by protestation, saving to themselves and their successors all such rights in judicature as they have by law, and of right ought to have’.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued on 10 Jan. 1681. On 27 Feb. the king ordered that no preferment in the Church or favour in the universities should be granted without the approbation of Compton and Sancroft. Nevertheless in June, against their express wishes, he appointed Nottingham’s chaplain, John Sharp*, later archbishop of York, to the deanery of Norwich. In July and August he somewhat insultingly added ‘as referees’ four prominent laymen: Halifax, Laurence Hyde*, Viscount Hyde (later earl of Rochester), Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> and John Robartes*, earl of Radnor.<sup>59</sup> Meanwhile, in April the king ordered the prosecution of all Catholic recusants and at Sancroft’s request, Compton transmitted an attested copy of the order to all the bishops of the province.<sup>60</sup></p><h2><em>The Tory reaction 1681-5</em></h2><p>When the new Parliament assembled in Oxford on 21 Mar. 1681, Compton attended every sitting of the week-long session and was again named to the select committee on the Plot. The ensuing four years without a Parliament were nevertheless full of political activity for the bishop. Throughout the Tory reaction Compton was a visible and repressive presence, hounding nonconformists and Catholics alike. Compton retaliated to attacks on his authority from the perpetually controversial cleric Edmund Hickeringill (1631-1708) by pursuing him through the courts, eventually suing him for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> and securing an award of £2,000, which he put towards the fund for rebuilding St Paul’s.<sup>61</sup></p><p>In June 1682 Compton was using his ‘very great’ interest to secure the election of a complaisant alderman in the City, though the kudos he received for this from the government was offset by annoyance at his inability to control Dr Wells (probably John Wells, prebendary of St Paul’s) who had gone into the country ‘when he knew that all the nonconformist preachers were doing their utmost by way of solicitation against us in this matter’.<sup>62</sup> In January 1683 he attempted to have the dissenting physician Sir John Baber banned from waiting on the king and the duke of York since it sent encouraging signals to nonconformists.<sup>63</sup> One circular to his diocesan clergy in 1683 concentrated on the enforcement of regular church attendance; the second issued in July, against unlicensed preachers, adopted a distinctly military tone. The ‘body politic’ was under the strictness of martial law and only uniformity would maintain its security from enemy forces:</p><blockquote><p>we are to consider our selves in the state of church-discipline, as watchmen and shepherds to guard and secure our flocks ... we must drive away all erroneous doctrines, and avoid disorderly walkers. We must drive away the bold wolves, the little foxes, and all beasts of prey.<sup>64</sup></p></blockquote><p>Over the period he helped to monitor county benches and corporations for their political stance and sought to have Whigs replaced with reliable Tories.<sup>65</sup> In July 1683 Compton officiated at the wedding of Princess Anne and Prince George*, the future duke of Cumberland. In 1684 he was one of those (the other being William Lloyd*, bishop of Peterborough) to whom the dispute between Thomas Wood*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and Sir Andrew Hacket<sup>‡</sup>, over dilapidations of the episcopal palace and other matters, was referred. Compton was Wood’s nominee.<sup>66</sup> In February 1684 he issued a new printed circular to his clergy on Easter communion.<sup>67</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II, 1685-8</em></h2><p>Within a week of the accession of James II, Compton and Sancroft were summoned to a private audience, at which they were discouraged from all anti-Catholic activism.<sup>68</sup> Within ten days of James II’s accession, Compton composed a loyal address from his diocese, presenting it in person.<sup>69</sup> Initially his position seemed secure as the king made a point of reappointing all those who had been members of Charles II’s existing Privy Council. During the subsequent election campaign for a new Parliament, Compton orchestrated support for Tory candidates, telling his rural deans on 21 Feb. 1685 that</p><blockquote><p>You will likewise now have an opportunity to give a real evidence of your professed fidelity by using your utmost interest among the gentry and other freeholders ... to give their voices for such sober and prudent men as will seek the peace of the Church and the State by promoting the king’s and the kingdom’s service. I need not warn you of the great diligence used by the enemies of both, to make choice of factious and turbulent spirits; and I hope the truth and justice of your cause will make you no less industrious to prevent such wicked and pernicious designs, which bear so fatal an aspect upon all honest men.<sup>70</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 2 May 1685, as the new Parliament approached, Compton discussed tactics with Lloyd of Peterborough (formerly bishop of Llandaff), apparently unaware that Lloyd had already had a similar discussion with Sancroft. Lloyd and Compton ‘agreed that it was the interest, as well as the credit and safety of the bishops, to be unanimous in their votes and that it was not expedient, or perhaps safe, to propose or desire any new laws at the ensuing Parliament, how plausible soever they might seem to be’. Compton initially proposed that Sancroft summon a meeting of the bishops but was persuaded that this might be provocative and that it would be more expedient for them to receive Sancroft’s instructions individually.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Compton resumed his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685 and attended 88 per cent of all sittings. He was named to 12 select committees. Despite his recent discussion with Lloyd on the desirability of avoiding new measures, he introduced a bill on small tithes, but on 1 June he was given leave to withdraw it because counsel had made some errors in the draft. On 25 and 26 June he reported from the committee on the Bangor cathedral bill. Although still a member of the council, Compton’s attendance was now infrequent. He did not attend even during the period of the rebellion of James Scott* duke of Monmouth. Whether this was by choice or because he was not regularly summoned is unknown. His record of harassing Catholics was an obvious factor in his alienation from the court. On 16 Oct. he received a warrant for stay of process against 13 recusants.<sup>72</sup> An undated letter from Halifax which probably belongs to late October or early November 1685 listed Compton as one of the court lords who ‘wear red coats, that have leapt hedge and ditch in everything, but swear they will not give up these bills’ (the Tests).<sup>73</sup></p><p>Compton ordered the reading throughout his diocese of the act to keep the anti-Catholic anniversary of 5 November.<sup>74</sup> When Parliament re-assembled on 9 Nov. 1685, the king’s speech made particular mention of his intention to retain Catholic officers in the army, contrary to the Test Acts. According to one account, on 19 Nov., following the king’s acknowledgement of the address of thanks, Compton</p><blockquote><p>courageously moved, in the name of himself and all his brethren, that the House would particularly debate the king’s speech, and the 23rd of this month was accordingly appointed; which as it was extraordinary and unusual in the House, so it was not less surprising to the king and court, who soon showed a particular jealousy at these proceedings.<sup>75</sup></p></blockquote><p>Another account identifies Compton as seconding the motion. Whether he proposed or seconded, it is clear that he made a long speech in opposition to the king in which he spoke ‘with great respect and deference to his majesty, yet very full and home; and when he ended, he said he spoke the sense of the whole bench, at which they all rose up’.<sup>76</sup> James II responded by proroguing Parliament the next day.</p><p>Compton’s support for Huguenots fleeing from French persecution led to his removal from the Privy Council and other offices in December 1685. The presence of large numbers of such refugees in England and particularly in London was a cause of alarm to the king, who regarded them as fundamentally anti-monarchical. In July 1685 he had tried to have a clause concerning the liturgy inserted into a general naturalization bill presented to the Commons which would effectively have annihilated the French church.<sup>77</sup> The bill failed when Parliament was prorogued at news of Monmouth’s rebellion. There were also rumours that the king intended to take out a <em>quo warranto</em> against the French church.<sup>78</sup> The <em>quo warranto</em> was probably not issued; instead the government seems to have given serious consideration to reviving the suggestion first made in 1670 that the method of worship in the French church be brought under closer control by transferring its governing structure to a superintendent. Such plans were subsequently subsumed into preparations for a charitable brief on behalf of the Huguenots.<sup>79</sup> Compton was not present at the Privy Council on 23 Nov. 1685 when the brief was authorized; nor did he have any part in drafting it. According to Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup>, Compton left London in December after receiving a ‘gracious reception’ from the king, but on 23 Dec. in his absence and apparently without his knowledge, the king dismissed him from the Privy Council. Dolben later reported that the king gave as his reasons for Compton’s dismissal, that he ‘cavilled and consulted with disaffected men’.<sup>80</sup> (It was joked that the dismissal was for travelling to perform a marriage ceremony for his nephew on a Sunday – Lord’s Day observance had been the theme of Compton’s most recent diocesan circular, in April.)<sup>81</sup> At least one modern commentator has suggested that whilst Compton’s dismissal was probably inevitable, its timing may have been influenced by the perception that he was the Huguenots’ champion and that removing him from office would encourage many of them to leave the country.<sup>82</sup> Compton also lost his posts in the chapel royal and as clerk of the closet. That same month Compton secured a place for William Stanley (later dean of St Asaph) as chaplain to Princess Mary, thus ensuring a continuing ability to receive reliable intelligence from the Dutch court.<sup>83</sup> Compton began to cold shoulder some of the king’s more trusted clerics, including Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, who complained that Compton had given one of his clients ‘a mortifying raillery in public ... and ... will not leave off affronting me perpetually in this manner’.<sup>84</sup> It was now said that Compton’s ‘fame runs high in the vogue of the people’.<sup>85</sup> Like others exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Compton found his authority undermined by the king’s intervention in individual cases. In March 1686, for example, the king directed him to halt proceedings against two suspected persons who had produced ‘certificates of the loyalty and sufferings of themselves and their families’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>In March 1686 the brief for the Huguenots was finally issued. Unlike a similar brief issued by Charles II, it included a clause requiring recipients of the charity to take communion according to Anglican rites. Compton found himself blamed for a reluctance to distribute the money thus collected, when in reality he was constrained by the terms of the brief. It was said that only some 4,000 of the 20,000 plus refugees were able to benefit; many of the rest did, as James probably hoped, leave the country.<sup>87</sup> In May 1686, in response to pressure to enforce greater conformity on the Huguenots, Compton told Sancroft that ‘it would be an insolent demand in me, to require more of the French Church in the Savoy, than the late king himself did in his constitution of them which only requires their conformity according to the usage of Guernsey and Jersey, where never surplice or sign of the cross were ever used or required and where they have always taken care of their churches by consistory.’<sup>88</sup> English nonconformists were a different matter. That same month, Compton was reported to have sent out a bullish letter to his clergy, instructing them to act against Dissenters and remarking that ‘he would drive the Dissenters either to the Church, or to the devil’.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Compton’s final breach with the king came on 14 June 1686 when James II instructed him to suspend John Sharp*, then rector of St Giles and dean of Norwich (and later archbishop of York), for preaching an anti-Catholic sermon likely ‘to beget in the minds of his hearers an evil opinion of us and our government ... and to lead them into disobedience and rebellion’. Compton refused, insisting that he must ‘proceed according to law and … no judge condemns any man before he has knowledge of the cause, and has cited the party’.<sup>90</sup> He was then summoned before the ecclesiastical commission, whose jurisdiction to act as what was essentially a court of law was contentious. Compton claimed that he would ‘run all hazards in maintaining the law, and thought it was best to demur to the jurisdiction of the court’. The eminent lawyer, Sir John Maynard, was less certain. He judged ‘it was not very advisable to demur to the jurisdiction of the court, lest it should be interpreted a disowning, or refusing to submit to the king’s supremacy’. Demurring to the court could thus lead to a charge of treason and incur ‘a far greater punishment than can be inflicted ... for the crime alleged by the commissioners’.<sup>91</sup> Between 3 Aug. and 6 Sept. Compton appeared before the commission on four occasions. When he asked for a copy of the commission Jeffreys told him that he could read one in any coffee house, a riposte that shocked contemporaries for ‘that great measure and degree of rudeness and unmannerliness ... was monstrous in him that was lately raised to what he was by the king’s mere favour to treat a person of the bishop of London’s extraction, reputation and interest at such a rate.’<sup>92</sup></p><p>Roger Morrice feared that Compton might be susceptible to any plan that secured his preferments: ‘whether he has a true principle of moral severity and integrity and honesty to bear him up under such great trials God only knoweth his life has not been free from notorious blemishes’.<sup>93</sup> At the final hearing Compton questioned the authority of the court (in the light of the 1641 act for the abolition of the court of high commission) ‘but did not preclude himself from the liberty of pleading over’.</p><p>On 6 Sept. 1686 Compton was suspended from office although he was allowed to keep his episcopal income, a decision that suggests concerns at court that deprivation would spark an action at common law. Despite his suspension, in December 1686 Compton issued another of his annual circulars to his clergy, following a diocesan conference. It amounted to a summons to resistance, albeit to passive resistance.<sup>94</sup> In the very first sentence, he wrote that nothing was more pernicious than to ‘carry the duty of submission beyond the bounds of just reason and due patience’. He continued,</p><blockquote><p>we are forbid to declare, limit or bound the constitutive laws of the realm between prince and people ... because our business is to teach a Christian behaviour upon all occasions, without entering into the merits of any cause betwixt prince and people … But if we exalt the king’s prerogative above the law, we do as good tell the people, that notwithstanding their rights, the king may ravish their wives, spoil their goods, and cut their throats at pleasure ... I look upon it as a rule, that we ought in common prudence to set our selves in this affair; to be as cautious of flattering our prince into tyranny, as of stirring up the people to sedition and tumult … we have a prince of another religion ... and what the mercies of that religion are ... we all very well know. … If we be a lessening, hindrance or discredit to our own religion by disorderly walking, supine negligence, or any other fault ... he will then think it just to abandon us ... the least we can expect from one so wedded to that religion is that he should promote it all he could ... my daily prayer shall be ... that we may be courageous in this day of trial, and behave ourselves like men.</p></blockquote><p>In March 1687 Compton petitioned the king for reinstatement; yet ‘he made no proper submission in it. He does not think that this will put a stop to his deprivation, but he thinks it will make it a little more difficult, and gain him some time’.<sup>95</sup> As 1687 drew to a close, it was rumoured that the bishop would be deprived and replaced with Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester. In the somewhat feverish and fearful political atmosphere it was also suggested that the king was about to call convocation in order to confirm his supremacy and dispensing power and to command the clergy’s acknowledgement under threat of <em>praemunire</em>.<sup>96</sup> Unsurprisingly, in the new year Compton was listed by Danby as an opponent of the government. On 12 May 1688 Compton dined at Lambeth, together with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and several bishops and was party to the discussions that led to the petition of the Seven Bishops against reading the Declaration.<sup>97</sup> Although not a signatory to the actual petition, he signified his approval of its contents on 23 May.<sup>98</sup> Compton was active on behalf of the Seven Bishops throughout their trial, coordinating intelligence and legal advice, and sending condolences ‘that his majesty has no more confidence in his best friends’.<sup>99</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution of 1688</em></h2><p>On 30 June, the day the Seven Bishops were acquitted, Compton became one of the ‘immortal seven’ who invited William of Orange to invade.<sup>100</sup> In September the king issued a proclamation warning of the intended Dutch invasion. He also reinstated Compton and summoned him to court. Compton meanwhile had travelled north, ostensibly to visit his sister, but actually to recruit and coordinate support for rebellion.<sup>101</sup> On 31 Oct., clearly suspicious that Compton might be one of the lords spiritual mentioned in the prince of Orange’s declaration, James II summoned him to a private audience. Confronted with the copy of William’s declaration, Compton obfuscated, telling the king that he ‘was confident, the rest of the bishops would as readily answer in the negative as myself’.<sup>102</sup> On 2 Nov. together with Sancroft, Crew, Cartwright and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, he attended the king yet again, this time to face the king’s demand that they issue an abhorrence of the Orange invasion. Sancroft may have been prepared to do so but Compton persuaded the bishops otherwise. They called instead for a Parliament.<sup>103</sup> It was later alleged that in early November Compton had attended a gathering at the lodgings of his nephew, Hatton Compton, together with John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (the future duke of Marlborough), Colonel Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup> and Sir George Hewitt, where they agreed to deliver the king in person to the invading prince and, if necessary, to assassinate the king’s bodyguard.<sup>104</sup></p><p>On the night of 25/26 Nov. Compton engineered Princess Anne’s escape from London, escorting her to Nottingham where they met up with other Orangist sympathizers, including Prince George.<sup>105</sup> His letters for this period read more like those of a soldier than a bishop. He fretted that the forces with him were ‘raw’ and lacked discipline; he sought the prince’s advice; and he wrote to Danby (then in York) begging tactical guidance and cavalry, and sending intelligence about the king’s plans.<sup>106</sup> He even drew up an undertaking for an association to protect the Revolution and to avenge any harm to William by killing all English Catholics.<sup>107</sup> On 15 Dec. he was the only cleric among 15 of the nobility to enter Oxford. In breach of canon law, he rode as commander of Princess Anne’s guards, ‘in a purple cloak, martial habit, pistols before him, and his sword drawn’. His standard bore the motto, <em>Nolumus leges Angliae mutari</em> (we do not want the laws of England to be changed) written in letters of gold.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Back in London, Compton met his clergy and agreed an address of thanks to William, which they presented together on 21 December.<sup>109</sup> The same day, in response to William’s summons, he was one of the members of the House who attended the prince in the queen’s presence chamber to advise on how best to carry out the designs of his declaration. The following day he attended the meeting of the provisional government at the House of Lords. In the course of the debate on removing Catholics from London he added that those who held office but had not taken the Test should also be removed.<sup>110</sup> Two of the three surviving accounts of the debate also add that he seconded the proposal of William Paget*, 7th Baron Paget, that the king’s flight was a ‘demise’ in law; Mary could therefore be proclaimed queen and issue writs for Parliament in her own name. The third account agrees that Compton considered the government to be dissolved. After the debate, Compton was one of those named to ask the prince to assume the management of public affairs.<sup>111</sup></p><h2><em>Thwarted ambition 1689-91</em></h2><p>In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, Compton must have believed that his prospects for advancement were good, although Halifax’s notes of conversations with William suggest that even at this early stage it had probably already been decided that should the archbishopric become vacant, it would go to John Tillotson*, dean of Canterbury.<sup>112</sup> Nevertheless, in the short term Sancroft’s self-imposed detachment from public affairs meant that Compton became acting primate by default. On 3 Jan. 1689 he was appointed dean of the chapel royal, and in the course of the month sent a letter to his rural deans extolling ‘the great blessings we enjoy by this wonderful revolution, which has procured to us so full a deliverance from popery and arbitrary power’.<sup>113</sup> He was even said to have instructed his clergy to leave out prayers for the royal family, in contravention of the Book of Common Prayer.<sup>114</sup> It was Compton, rather than Sancroft, who officiated at the coronation on 11 Apr. 1689.</p><p>Compton resumed his seat in the House at the start of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 when he and several other bishops were asked by the House to compose a prayer for a day of thanksgiving. He attended the session for 85 per cent of all sittings. It was reported that Compton told the king in January that it was only illness that kept Sancroft from the Convention and that he was holding the archbishop’s proxy, but no such proxy was entered in the proxy books.<sup>115</sup> When the question of a regency was debated on 29 Jan. 1689 in a committee of the whole, he was either (according to one account) the only bishop to vote against it, or (according to two others) one of only two to vote against it.<sup>116</sup> Two days later he is somewhat confusingly listed as having voted in favour of declaring William and Mary king and queen, yet also voting against agreeing with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. 1689 he opposed the use of the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’, helping to manage two conferences against the use of the word ‘abdicated’ on 4 and 5 February. Then on 6 Feb. he changed sides and voted to agree with the Commons that the king had abdicated and the throne was vacant. On the 8th he was named as a conference manager on the declaration of the new monarchs and the oaths and on 12 Feb. as a manager of the conference on proclaiming them. On 13 Feb. 1689, after the declaration of William and Mary as monarchs, Compton preached before them in the Whitehall Chapel, taking as his text Galatians 6:15, ‘For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature’.<sup>117</sup> The following day he was appointed to the new Privy Council.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Compton seems to have been supportive of the new regime’s ecclesiastical policy. In an undated letter that appears to belong to spring 1689, he informed Sancroft that Parliament would consider comprehension and toleration bills: ‘two great works in which the being of our church is concerned … for though we are under a conquest God has given [us] favour in the eyes of our rulers’.<sup>119</sup> To signify his assent to the legislation, he took 100 of his own clergy to kiss hands at court; he also thought it expedient that the nonconformist ministers did likewise, ‘the rather because the present conjuncture made it somewhat necessary to give them some countenance who were so universally and inflexibly devoted to the king’. It is unlikely that they needed his encouragement: 90 or more Presbyterian and Congregational ministers had attended the Prince of Orange on 2 Jan. to congratulate him on the success of his ‘hazardous and heroical expedition’. On that occasion they were introduced not by Compton but by William Cavendish*, fourth earl and later duke of Devonshire, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and Charles Powlett*, then styled Lord Wiltshire (later 2nd duke of Bolton). A further address, couched in extravagant and visionary language, followed on 28 Feb. after the prince and princess were declared to be king and queen.<sup>120</sup></p><p>On 2 Mar. 1689 Compton was punctual in taking the oaths to the new monarchs. During debates on the oaths he spoke at length against multiplying oaths and forcing the bishops to take them but when he tried to make it clear that he did not speak for himself and said that there ‘was not nor could be made an oath to the present government that he could not take’ the House descended into laughter.<sup>121</sup> On 5 Mar. 1689 he helped to manage the conference on assisting the king and, on the following day registered his protest against the passage of the bill for the better regulating the trials of peers. On 16 Mar. he was named as one of the peers to question the Catholic James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, about his younger brothers, who had allegedly been sent into France to be educated there. On 8, 16 and 17 Apr. 1689 he was a conference manager on the bill to remove Catholics from the cities of London and Westminster. On 20 and 22 Apr. 1689 he was one of the conference managers on the bill for abrogating the oaths. He was also added to the select committee on simony. On 7 May 1689 he received the proxy of the ageing Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln (vacated at the end of the session), and the following day helped to manage the conference on the bill for the convicting and disarming of Catholics. On 31 May he voted against the reversal of the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. He was named as a conference manager on the bill and subsequently voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments. On 19 June 1689 he received the proxy of William Beaw*, bishop of Llandaff, although since Beaw attended the House the following day, it was probably not effective until 21 June. During July he was one of seven Tory bishops who dissented from the decision to proceed with the impeachment of the Jacobites Sir Adam Blair and his co-defendants. He helped to manage the conference on the bill concerning the succession on 12 July and, on 25 and 27 July, the conference on the tea and coffee duty bill.</p><p>Closely associated with William Lloyd*, then bishop of St Asaph, later successively bishop of Lichfield and Coventry and Worcester, it seems likely that Compton was involved with him in negotiations to prevent a nonjuring schism after 1 Aug. 1689, the date set by the Act for Abrogating the Oaths (by which bishops and other office holders were required to take the oaths to the new monarchs).<sup>122</sup> A letter from Compton to an Essex clergyman, which by internal evidence must belong to the period between the declaration of the new monarchs and the dissolution of the Convention on 9 Feb. 1690, probably belongs to the summer or autumn of 1689. It reflected the propaganda needs of the new regime, especially with regard to those who either were, or were in danger of becoming, nonjurors. It seems likely that the letter circulated more widely than to its ostensible recipient, for a copy survived to be published in 1710 as part of a different propaganda initiative – the case against Dr Sacheverell. In it Compton argued that ‘all the best lawyers’ had justified ‘our obedience to a king <em>de facto</em>, tho’ he is not <em>de jure</em>’ and that the Convention (‘the body of the nation assembled in the best manner, the present exigencies of affairs will permit’) was the arena in which disputes between king and people should be decided, ‘For if we will not upon such occasion submit to their determination, we set up that private spirit in <em>civil policy</em>, which by experience we have so justly condemned in <em>ecclesiastical</em>’.<sup>123</sup> It was probably in response to news of this letter that Compton was accused of</p><blockquote><p>unworthy compliances under all sorts of government ... not contenting yourself to have renounced your faith and allegiance, and the personal homage done the king at his coronation, you ... justify the taking the new oaths, and thereby endeavouring as much as in you lies, to involve the whole nation in the guilt of perjury.<sup>124</sup></p></blockquote><p>When Archbishop Sancroft was formally suspended on 1 Aug. 1689 as a result of his failure to take the oaths, Compton was upset to discover that the archi-episcopal jurisdiction was to be entrusted to Tillotson as dean of Canterbury. This was in accordance with precedent during a vacancy, but Compton, clearly anxious that Tillotson enjoyed a favoured position at court, argued unsuccessfully that Sancroft’s suspension did not amount to a vacancy in the ordinary sense.<sup>125</sup></p><p>In September 1689 William and Mary issued a commission to Thomas Lamplugh*, archbishop of York, Compton and others empowering them to review the liturgy for approval by Convocation and presentation to Parliament.<sup>126</sup> The second session of the Convention began the following month. Compton was present for the first day, 23 Oct. 1689, and attended 91 per cent of all sittings. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Carmarthen (as Danby was now known) reckoned Compton to be a court supporter, although one to be spoken to. On 8 Nov. 1689 Compton reported from the select committee on the bill to relieve those who had not taken the oaths within the set time limits. Three days later he was added to the Lords’ committee for inspections. On 12 Nov. 1689 he again received the proxy of Thomas Barlow (vacated at the end of the session) and on 15 Nov. reported from the committee on the church rates bill. On 19 Nov. he protested against the third reading of the bill to prevent clandestine marriages on the grounds that once religiously contracted and consummated, no marriage could be annulled.</p><p>Events in Convocation impinged directly on Parliament’s own legislative programme. On 26 Nov. Compton was authorized by the crown to preside over Convocation and to lead discussions over alterations to the liturgy.<sup>127</sup> In elections for prolocutor of the lower House, Compton’s former chaplain, the high Tory William Jane, was elected in opposition to Tillotson. Tillotson had no doubt that Compton ‘was at the bottom of it, out of a jealousy that I might be a hindrance to him in attaining what he desires’. Jane’s election guaranteed that Convocation would reject those liturgical changes that tended to comprehension. Despite failing to meet the August deadline for taking the new oaths, the nonjuring bishops had been given a further six months to comply although the reaction in convocation suggested that any attempt to deprive them risked creating considerable controversy.<sup>128</sup> Compton and Lloyd of St Asaph continued to negotiate with the nonjuring bishops. In October the nonjurors had refused a suggestion that they give recognizances for good behaviour.<sup>129</sup> In December further expedients were proposed, one of which was a short act of Parliament to enable the king to dispense with the requirement for taking the oaths. This too was refused.<sup>130</sup> Such a proposal would have avoided controversy whilst at the same time robbing Tillotson of the primacy, perhaps allowing Compton further breathing space to repair his career chances. Compton’s earlier devotion to Princess Anne provides the background to a complaint to the House on 17 Jan. 1690 that a Stephen Howard was in custody under privilege of Parliament for accusing Compton of plotting to make Anne queen of England. Howard apologized and was released three days before the end of the session.</p><p>Shortly before or just after the dissolution, the king sought a change in the London lieutenancy, asking Compton, Carmarthen, Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to review both the lieutenancy and the commission of the peace. According to Burnet the king wanted them to name some moderate churchmen to the commission ‘so the two parties in the City might be kept in balance’; instead, Compton gave him a list of ‘the most violent Tories in the city, who had been engaged in some of the worst things that passed in the end of king Charles’ reign’.<sup>131</sup> Compton threw himself into the 1690 election campaign on behalf of the Tories, writing at length to both the clergy and the laity and advocating the re-election of the sitting Members for Middlesex, Tories Sir Charles Gerard<sup>‡</sup> and Ralph Hawtrey<sup>‡</sup>. He even forbade his clergy ‘upon canonical obedience’ to vote for the Whig candidate Sir John Maynard.<sup>132</sup> Compton ‘appeared in the field’ at the Essex election, together with a full ecclesiastical retinue, the episode evoking his military escapade during the Revolution. The Tories were nevertheless defeated.<sup>133</sup></p><p>The new Parliament opened on 20 Mar. 1690. Compton, resuming his seat at the start of business, attended 95 per cent of all sittings, still acting as a quasi-archbishop by collating and presenting the excuses of those bishops who wished to be excused attendance.<sup>134</sup> On 5 and 8 Apr. he reported back to the House on the small tithes bill. On 8 Apr. the House debated the bill for the recognition of the king and queen, and the legitimacy of the Convention. Much contention was caused by one particular clause and when the clause in question passed unaltered Compton was one of several Tory Members to enter a protest. Two days later, together with Nottingham and others, Compton protested against expunging the reasons for the protest on the grounds that to do so suggested that they had voted against the bill as a whole ‘which is contrary to our sense and intentions’. On 12 Apr. 1690 he registered his proxy in favour of Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, to cover a three day absence. On 30 Apr. 1690 Compton received the proxy of Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, which was vacated two days later when both Compton and Stratford attended a long debate on the abjuration bill. Compton spoke against the bill, arguing that it offered no security and would merely ‘raise scruples’.<sup>135</sup> On 6 May 1690 when the bill was discussed in a committee of the whole, Compton and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, proposed a new test ‘which was well received and the former (which caused such great heats) thrown out’.<sup>136</sup> On 9 May 1690 Compton received the proxy of Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Bristol (vacated at the end of the session on 23 May 1690).</p><p>In the summer of 1690 Compton intervened in Irish church affairs, sending a long list of candidates for preferment to senior posts to Sir Robert Southwell, secretary of state for Ireland. He justified his intervention on the grounds that the primate, Michael Boyle of Armagh, was so partial in promoting his relations that he was in ‘no way fit to advise the king’.<sup>137</sup> In September he again intervened in English electoral politics. Somewhat oddly, given that received opinion considered that the Church interest in Harwich was dependent on the candidature of Charles Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Newhaven [S], he asked Lady Albemarle to allow Cheyne to take his seat as Member for the Cornish borough of Newport (to which he had also been elected). Compton intended to recommend another candidate ‘for the government and Church’s sake’ but his request was unsuccessful.<sup>138</sup> Equally oddly, an undated note amongst the king’s papers that appears to belong to 1690, referred to Compton as having ‘influence over most of the Whig party’.<sup>139</sup></p><p>The 1690-1 session opened on 2 Oct. 1690; Compton attended 88 per cent of all sittings and on 7 Oct. again received Ironside’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session). On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of the earl of Salisbury and of Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. He spent much of the session engaged in Irish affairs, providing forms of prayer to be used for the Irish day of thanksgiving on 16 Nov. and working with senior clerics on the royal commission to settle the church in Ireland.<sup>140</sup> On the last day of the session, 5 Jan. 1691, he helped to manage all four conferences on the bill for the suspension of the navigation and corn acts.</p><p>Following revelations of the possible involvement of Turner of Ely in the Preston Plot, news circulated that Compton, together with Lloyd of St Asaph, Nottingham and Carmarthen, had ‘vehemently pressed’ the king to fill the vacant bishoprics before leaving for Holland.<sup>141</sup> In what may have been a last-ditch effort to change the king’s mind over Tillotson’s imminent promotion, he accompanied William to The Hague in February 1691.<sup>142</sup> By mid March he was back in England. According to Sancroft, Compton learned that he was not to get Canterbury as he was on his way into the council chamber on 23 Apr. 1691 ‘when a friend pulled him by the sleeve, and shewed him the whole scheme’. Sancroft, who clearly enjoyed the thought of Compton’s discomfiture, reported that he had then ‘retreated’. If he did retreat, it must have been after the meeting had begun for he is listed in the attendance list that day.<sup>143</sup></p><h2><em>Living with disappointment 1691-1702</em></h2><p>Compton appears to have been responsible for ensuring that the popular Robert Frampton*, bishop of Gloucester, remained at his Standish rectory after deprivation—a favour that Sancroft contemptuously regarded as an attempt to persuade the remaining nonjurors that ‘we too might at last have had a feather of our own goose, restored, to stick in our caps’.<sup>144</sup> When Compton visited Lambeth on 29 Apr. 1691, a scornful Sancroft waspishly observed ‘O quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore! [How changed from that Hector] So kind, so debonair, and so obliging, that it would have pleased you to observe it’.<sup>145</sup> Compton was conspicuously absent from Tillotson’s consecration and from his swearing-in at the Privy Council.<sup>146</sup> He buried himself in ecclesiastical affairs, becoming an enthusiastic supporter of missionary work in the colonies and the foundation of Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.</p><p>He maintained his vigour as a parliamentarian, resuming his seat at the start of business on 22 Oct. 1691 and attending the session for 70 per cent of all sittings. From 24 Nov. until the end of the session, he held Gilbert Ironside’s proxy. On 27 Dec. he signed the bishops’ petition to the king to implement the penal laws against impiety and vice.<sup>147</sup> On 2 Jan. 1692 he dissented from the arguments of the Lords for a conference on the Commons’ decision to publish their desire for an address for the incorporation of the East India Company in their votes and also from the decision not to send for the original record of a precedent cited in a debate on the subject on 18 Dec. 1691. On 4 Jan. 1692 the House gave a first reading to the bill to allow Compton to sell Bushey Manor for the improvement of his bishopric. The bill was committed the following day (with Compton named to the select committee); it passed the House on 8 January.</p><p>The most controversial legislation during the 1692 session was the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, duke of Norfolk. Compton was present on 12 Jan. for the initial debate, when counsel for the duchess argued that the case should not be heard until it had come before the ecclesiastical courts.<sup>148</sup> When the House decided to receive the bill, 19 Tories, including Compton, protested against it. On 21 Jan. 1692 Compton received the proxy of Thomas Sprat*, of Rochester. It was vacated by Sprat’s attendance on 16 Feb., the day that the House voted not to use proxies in future divisions on the Norfolk divorce bill. On 17 Feb. Norfolk lost his cause by five votes. Compton voted with the majority against the bill but it was noted that ‘all the new bishops’ supported Norfolk.<sup>149</sup> Meanwhile, on 13 Jan. 1692 Compton reported on the Cambridge University bill and was subsequently added to the new subcommittee. He again reported back to the House on 16 February. </p><p>During spring 1692 Compton seemed resigned to his situation. His circular letter to his clergy that year, dated 29 Mar., concentrated at length on problems arising from toleration and a strategy to combat immorality and irreligion through vigorous pastoral activity and by engaging Dissenters in respectful conversation.<sup>150</sup> On 11 Apr., Tillotson convened a pastoral meeting at Lambeth which proved unexpectedly harmonious, Compton concurring ‘cheerfully’ with the proposals.<sup>151</sup> In July he became involved in a dispute with the queen over his right to present Dr Peter Birch to St James Piccadilly. Birch had once been one of William’s chaplains but was subsequently regarded as one of the discontented. The queen’s candidate was William Wake*, who became bishop of Lincoln in 1705 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1716.<sup>152</sup> That same month, as relations soured between the court and Princess Anne, it was rumoured that Compton had been forbidden from attending the princess. Nevertheless, he dined with her and Prince George a few days later ‘which is taken notice of’.<sup>153</sup> In an attempt either to ingratiate himself with the queen or to ensure that Birch was in good standing with her, in October he instructed Birch to obey the queen’s instructions and to snub Anne should she attempt to worship at St James.<sup>154</sup></p><p>He resumed his seat in the Lords at the start of the new session on 4 Nov. 1692 and attended 82 per cent of all sittings. On 2 Jan. 1693 Compton again voted to throw out Norfolk’s divorce bill. The following day he voted with the majority of bishops in accordance with the wishes of the court against the passage of the place bill. Meanwhile, in the the Essex by-election held on 10 Jan. 1693 Compton canvassed on behalf of the Tory Sir Eliab Harvey<sup>‡</sup>. Harvey lost amidst accusations of electoral malpractice.<sup>155</sup> On 17 Jan. Compton twice dissented from the Lords’ resolutions against the Banbury peerage claim and on the 25th voted to commit the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On 11 Feb. he was one of the bishops named to the committee to draw up address of advice to the king on the employment of foreigners at the board of ordnance or as keeper of stores in the Tower. On 18 Feb. the bill that would allow Compton and Monmouth to exchange episcopal land in Fulham for other property of a similar value was reported to the House by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford and passed the House. On 14 Mar., the last day of the session, Compton was named as a conference manager on the bill to prohibit trade with France and for the encouragement of privateers.</p><p>During the summer of 1693 an energetic Compton conducted a demanding visitation of his diocese during which he again rehearsed his visceral hostility to catholicism.<sup>156</sup> He was back at Westminster for the new session on 7 Nov. and attended 85 per cent of all sittings. On 5 Jan. 1694 after a conference on the place bill, the Commons accepted all but one of the Lords amendments. The Lords then gave way to the Commons, sparking a protest from Rochester and Compton who were unhappy that the Speaker of the Commons should be excepted from the bill, maintaining that the Speaker ‘if he can be capable of being corrupted, may, by himself alone, do much more mischief than a great many of the members can do together’. Another Essex by-election was held in February 1694, resulting in the return of the Church candidate Sir Charles Barrington<sup>‡</sup>, with Compton’s support.<sup>157</sup> On 17 Feb. Compton voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath,</em> and on 6 Mar. was named as a conference manager on the mutiny bill. On 3 and 4 Apr. he reported from the select committee on the small tithes bill. On the 5th he helped to manage the conference on the private bill for William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell.</p><p>Compton was back in the House at the start of business in the following session on 12 Nov. 1694 and attended for three-quarters of all sittings. At the death of Tillotson on 22 Nov. 1694 the king again overlooked Compton and translated Thomas Tenison*, bishop of Lincoln, to Canterbury.<sup>158</sup> The following month, according to his earliest biographer, Compton experienced ‘unexpressable grief’ at the death of the queen, though his relations with her can scarcely have been close.<sup>159</sup> He waited on the king on 10 Jan. 1695 to express his condolences and, on 16 Jan., having apparently come to terms with his failure to secure promotion, attended Tenison’s confirmation.<sup>160</sup> Over the years many bills for the more easy recovery of small tithes had been introduced and subsequently lost. Compton appears to have been responsible for the one that received its first reading in the Lords on 11 Feb. 1695. It passed the House but was lost in the Commons after as a result of a nonconformist campaign against it.<sup>161</sup></p><p>The dispute over Compton’s right of presentation to St James came before the House in January 1695. Compton had lost the case in king’s bench and sought to appeal the decision by means of a writ of error. On 11 Jan. the Lords heard counsel for Compton; the verdict in king’s bench was upheld the following day by a majority of ten votes.<sup>162</sup> That same day the king drew up plans for a ‘commission for the better disposal of ecclesiastical preferments’. In what was clearly intended as a snub, and probably a commentary on his growing identification with the Tory highfliers, Compton was omitted from its membership.<sup>163</sup> On 23 Jan. Compton dissented from the decision to postpone implementation of the bill to regulate treason trials. On 12 Feb. he reported from the select committee on the bill to confirm a grant of St Martin’s churchyard made by the rector of the united parishes of St Michael Royall and St Martin’s in the Vintry, London. He held Ironside’s proxy from 16 Feb. to the end of the session in May. On 16 and 23 Feb. and 15 and 20 Apr. he was one of the conference managers on the trials for treason bill.</p><p>After the dissolution in October 1695, Compton was again involved in electioneering, supporting Tory candidates in opposition to the court. He and Sprat supported Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> at Oxford; he was also actively involved, with varying degrees of success, in the campaigns in Westminster, Essex and Cambridge University.<sup>164</sup> Resuming his seat in the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695, Compton attended 84 per cent of all sittings. On 9 Jan. 1696, following a division on the bill to regulate silver coinage, he protested against the rejection of a clause requiring that the deficiency on all clipped coin be made good and, on 31 Mar., dissented to the passage of the bill to encourage the import of plate to the Mint. His continuing loyalty to the regime, irrespective of his opposition to court policies, was demonstrated on 27 Feb. when, in the wake of the discovery of the Assassination Plot, he signed the Association in the House and again on 10 Apr, when he signed the ‘repugnance’ at the absolution by nonjuring clergy of the convicted plotters Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>165</sup> On 9 Apr. 1696 he reported back to the House on the bill to encourage ‘charitable gifts and dispositions’.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued on 27 Apr. 1696. Compton had meanwhile fallen out with the king over the arrest and imprisonment of the deprived bishop Robert Frampton on suspicion of Jacobite plotting. The arrest warrant was issued on 18 Mar. and according to Frampton’s biographer, he surrendered himself shortly afterwards.<sup>166</sup> Compton is said to have insisted that Frampton was no threat and to have offered to house him in his own lodgings but</p><blockquote><p>The king answered, I have heard his character and know him to be ill affected to my government and I am very sorry that you will protect any of my enemies. If you will keep any of my enemies in your house in private you may. But I desire not in public.<sup>167</sup></p></blockquote><p>Compton attended the 1696-7 parliamentary session for 84 per cent of sittings. The session was dominated by the controversial bill of attainder brought against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. There was insufficient evidence to convict Fenwick in the ordinary way and this turned the parliamentary proceedings into both a travesty of justice and a party political issue.<sup>168</sup> Compton, like most Tories, was appalled. On 15 Dec. he dissented from the resolution to read a witness statement that would have been inadmissible in a court of law. Notes taken at the second reading on 18 Dec. show that he argued that the ‘best discouragement to the enemy is to show that notwithstanding such a base attack the country was proceeding according to its laws’. The proceedings might possibly be justified by ‘unavoidable necessity’ but that was ‘not so in this case as the prisoner is too unimportant to have the safety of the king and government in his hands’.<sup>169</sup> When the bill received its third reading on 23 Dec. he observed that if the true intent of the bill was to force a confession from Fenwick, it was ‘equivalent to a torture’. He voted against the bill and registered another protest at its passage.<sup>170</sup></p><p>On 23 Jan. 1697 Compton dissented from the rejection of the bill to further regulate parliamentary elections. In early February a bill to allow Compton and Nottingham to exchange a number of advowsons passed rapidly through the House, receiving its third reading on 8 February. It passed equally rapidly through the Commons and received the royal assent on 8 March. On 5 Mar. 1697 Compton helped to manage the conference on the bill to prohibit the import of Indian silks and on 17 Mar. reported back from the committee on the bill to complete St Paul’s and to repair Westminster Abbey. He received Ironside’s proxy on 18 Mar. (vacated nine days later when Ironside resumed his seat). On 25 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to pave and regulate the Haymarket and on 13 Apr. the bill to enable easier land partition held in coparcenary, joint tenancy, and tenancy in common.</p><p>On 2 Dec. 1697 Compton conducted the thanksgiving service for the peace of Rijswijk at St Paul’s.<sup>171</sup> The following day he took his seat for the start of the new session, attending the session for 73 per cent of all sittings. He held proxies from Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, from 16 May and from Watson from 24 May 1698. Both were vacated by the end of the session on 5 July. He reported from a committee of the whole on 25 Feb. 1698 on the bill for suppressing atheism and blasphemy. On 15 Mar. the bill to punish Sir Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> was lost by a single vote, Compton being one of those who voted against it. The Lords’ bill against atheism and blasphemy having been lost in favour of one that originated in the Commons, on 2 May Compton reported, again from a committee of the whole, on the Commons’ bill. On 13 May he reported on the bill for tea and coffee duties. On 25 May he reported back to the House from the conference on the Lords’ amendments to the blasphemy bill. On 6 June Compton reported on a naturalization bill and, on 20 June, he helped to manage the conference on the Alverstoke waterworks bill for Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester. Nine days later he reported back to the House on the bill to encourage the Royal Lustring Company and to prevent fraudulent imports of ‘lustrings and alamodes’, the weaving industry (in which Compton’s protégés, the Protestant strangers, had a prominent role) needing protection from the illegal import of silks from the continent. On 1 July 1698 he protested against the second reading of the bill to establish the two million fund to settle the East India trade. Three days later he reported back to the House on the bill to allow the <em>Sally Rose</em> (formerly taken as prize) to arrive, import her cargo and trade as an English-built ship.</p><p>Following the dissolution of Parliament on 7 July 1698, Compton was again involved in elections. In a heated campaign for Middlesex, Compton proved ‘a great stickler’ for the Tory Warwick Lake<sup>‡</sup> who ousted one of the sitting Members. In Essex, Compton endorsed the choice of the gentry, supporting Barrington and Edward Bullock<sup>‡</sup>. At Cambridge University, Compton sent ‘his chaplain and forty letters’ in support of Nottingham’s favoured candidate the high churchman Anthony Hammond<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>172</sup></p><p>Compton took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698, attending the session for 60 per cent of all sittings. On 8 Feb. 1699 he voted against the committee resolution to assist the king in retaining the Dutch guards and registered his dissent when it passed. On 29 Mar. he also dissented from the address to the king requesting that the bishop of Derry and others be sent for in custody in relation to the case of the <em>London Ulster Society v. Bishop of Derry</em>. On 25 Apr. he was named to the committee to draw up reasons for their insistence on retaining the Lords proviso on the Billingsgate market bill. Whether he participated in the committee’s deliberations is unknown, but he was not in the House on 26 Apr., the day the committee met.</p><p>Over the course of the summer he was one of the bishops appointed to assist Tenison in the hearing of the politically motivated case against the Tory, and probable Jacobite sympathizer, Watson of St Davids. When Watson was convicted on 3 Aug. Compton was a dissenting voice. He agreed that Watson was guilty on various lesser charges but found that the most serious accusation, that of simony, was unproven. As a result of the proceedings, Watson was nevertheless deprived of his bishopric. During the next (1699-1700) session (which Compton attended for 72 per cent of sittings) Watson tried to bring his case before the House as a matter of privilege. Compton argued Watson’s case in a lengthy debate on 6 Dec. 1699, but the House ruled that bishops had no privilege against the jurisdiction of the archbishop.<sup>173</sup></p><p>On 8 Feb. 1700, Compton protested against putting the question of whether the Scottish colony of Darien was inconsistent with the good of the English plantation trade. It had been forecast that Compton would support the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation and, on 23 Feb. 1700, he duly voted for an adjournment during pleasure to allow the House to go into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 8 Mar. he protested against the second reading of the new divorce bill for the duke of Norfolk. Four days later, Compton dissented to the passage of the bill.</p><p>During the recess, Compton was engaged in his usual combination of political and ecclesiastical affairs. Parliament was dissolved on 19 Dec. 1700 and Compton was involved in the elections the following spring. On 7 Jan. 1701, he once again backed the Essex gentry’s choice of Barrington and Bullock, informing his clergy that ‘they cannot do better than to use their interest for them’. Barrington was returned, but Compton’s backing could not help Bullock, who was defeated due to rival East India interests and his own political ambivalence.<sup>174</sup></p><p>The new Parliament opened on 6 Feb. 1701 and Compton attended 70 per cent of all sittings. On 17 Feb., he helped to manage the conference on the Lords’ address to the king; on 20 Mar., he protested against the refusal to send the address on the second Partition Treaty to the Commons. Throughout April and June, he registered protests against resolutions concerning the impeachment of the Whig lords. On 17 June he voted against the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers and protested twice about procedural resolutions relating to the trial.</p><p>Following the prorogation on 24 June, Compton attended a meeting at Lambeth where he was chosen as a founder member of the corporation to propagate religion in foreign plantations.<sup>175</sup> During the elections that followed the dissolution of Parliament on 11 Nov. 1701 Compton again backed Barrington and Bullock in Essex; once again Barrington was returned and Bullock was defeated.<sup>176</sup></p><p>In December 1701 Compton took his seat in the new Parliament but sat for only 36 per cent of all sittings. The parliamentary session was accompanied by a session of Convocation, where party rivalries were being acted out with increasing ferocity. Compton and his protégé Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, were deeply involved in the controversies that encouraged the lower clergy to believe that they had rights independent of the upper House, setting in train a decade of controversy which fed into Parliament.<sup>177</sup> In the Lords, on 20 Feb. 1702, Compton was the only bishop to protest against the passage of the bill to attaint the exiled Mary Beatrice, widow of James II, for high treason. Four days later, Compton and Sprat were the only bishops to dissent from the passage of the succession of the crown bill, which required an abjuration of Jacobite claims, on the grounds that ‘some worthy men ... may be entangled by it’.<sup>178</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of Anne 1702-13</em></h2><p>The accession of Anne changed Compton’s public and political profile. His first biographer attributed this to the queen’s sense that she ‘knew his heart as well as her own to be entirely English, and that no consideration whatsoever should ever be able to divert him from the true interest of the Church and the crown’.<sup>179</sup> It was clearly also Compton’s expectation that his former loyalty would now be rewarded. On 5 May 1702, in an overt display of favour towards her former rescuer, she visited Compton at Fulham, ‘the first her majesty made since her coming to the crown’, but that was virtually the sum of his rewards.<sup>180</sup> The elections that followed the dissolution of Parliament on 2 July 1702 again saw Compton’s intervention on behalf of the Tory Church interest in Essex, but he had softened in tone, merely asking his rural deans, ‘to let the clergy of your deanery know that I earnestly desire of them to appear at the time, and give their votes according to their conscience’.<sup>181</sup> In the Middlesex election campaign, Compton demonstrated his support for Warwick Lake when they both waited on the queen with a delegation of local gentry in early May 1702 to express their support for her foreign and domestic policies.<sup>182</sup></p><p>Over the summer, Compton persuaded the queen not to renew the commission for ecclesiastical affairs which had played so prominent a role in the preferment of whiggishly inclined clergymen. He may have hoped to increase his own influence thereby, but by the end of the year ecclesiastical management had passed to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.<sup>183</sup> Compton took his seat at the start of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702 and attended the session for 62 per cent of all sittings. In Convocation on 25 Nov. 1702, Compton, Sprat and Trelawny broke episcopal ranks in the upper house and voted that the bishops should not deny the lower the additional session they sought. On 3 Dec., back in the Lords, when the bill against occasional conformity had its second reading, Compton voted against the amendment proposed by Somers which limited the scope of the bill to those covered by the Test Act. The following day, Compton voted against another proposed amendment to the effect that office-holders receive the sacrament four times a year and attend Church once a month. To Compton and the Tories this was a ‘farther prostitution’ of the sacrament and they successfully voted to reject it. On 7 Dec. in the ‘grand debate’ on leaving out the proposed financial penalties, Compton voted to keep them in, no doubt well aware that since the bill had originated in the Commons such an alteration would be considered an infringement of its privileges by the lower House and lead to the loss of the bill in its entirety. On 9 Dec., aware that the Commons’ strategy for securing the passage of the bill involved tacking it to a money bill, he voted against the resolution that deemed tacking to be unparliamentary. On 17 Dec., after a conference demanded by the Commons on the amendments to the occasional conformity bill, the House divided on an adjournment. The Tory minority, including Compton, voted for the delay, but the motion was defeated.<sup>184</sup></p><p>In or about January 1703, Compton was unsurprisingly forecast as a supporter of the legislation against occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. he voted against retaining the Lords’ wrecking amendment on penalties. Five days earlier Compton had voted with the minority in the division for an adjournment during the debate on a declaratory bill to explain the Act of Succession. On 19 Jan. his name appears in the attendance list, although William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, indicates that he arrived late and came into the chamber during the debate in a committee of the whole on the prince of Denmark’s bill. Nicolson’s account of the voting, which may be unreliable, indicates that Compton voted in favour of resuming the House.<sup>185</sup></p><p>During January and February 1703 Compton reported back to the House on a wide range of bills on ecclesiastical and economic matters: to improve ground in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields for the use of the poor; the Gloucester poor bill; the St Paul’s Cathedral bill; to continue acts concerning leather exports and vagrancy; to encourage the consumption of malted corn; and to prevent illegal imports of French and foreign brandy. On 4 Feb. 1703, Compton again revealed his ecclesiastical Toryism when he moved the House that clergymen already instituted into vacant livings should not be deprived if they refused the oath of abjuration. On 8 Feb. he brought a petition into the House from the lord mayor of London and aldermen concerning the appeal brought by Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton.<sup>186</sup></p><p>In the recess following the prorogation of 27 Feb. 1703, Compton was authorized to seek out in Essex persons suspected of ‘unlawful correspondence’.<sup>187</sup> During November 1703 he was twice forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a supporter of another occasional conformity bill. He attended the 1703-4 session for just over half of all sittings. On 14 Dec. 1703 he voted with the Tories in favour of the new occasional conformity bill, dissenting from the resolution to throw it out before its second reading. On 14 Jan. 1704 he dissented from the Lords’ grant of a writ of error in <em>Ashby v. White</em> and on 3 Mar. from the resolution that the key to the ‘Gibberish Letters’ be made known only to the queen and to the lords examining the Scotch Plot. On 16 Mar. he entered dissents during the passage of the bill for examining the public accounts, one to the removal of the Robert Byerley<sup>‡</sup> from the list of commissioners and another to the resolution to replace him with a further three commissioners. On 21 Mar. 1704 he registered three dissents concerning the bill for raising recruits for the armed forces: against the failure to adjourn the House; against the rejection of a rider that would require the consent of the churchwardens and overseers of the poor; and against the passage of the bill on the specific grounds that it enabled the compulsory conscription of ‘such able-bodied men as have not any lawful calling or employment, or visible means for their maintenance and livelihood’. Four days later he again dissented in the matter of the plotter Ferguson, believing that failure to pass censure or to arrest and prosecute him encouraged the enemies of the crown.</p><p>In advance of the 1704-5 session he received the proxy of William Beaw (vacated at the end of the session). He took his seat on 24 Oct. 1704. Now over 70 years of age, his attendance was beginning to decline; he was present for just 47 per cent of sittings. On 9 Nov. he again received Trelawny’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session). He attended the House on 15 Dec. when the queen was present and the Commons brought up the latest occasional conformity bill; Compton spoke for the bill in a lengthy debate and voted for a second reading, using Trelawny’s proxy. When the House voted to throw out the bill, he registered his dissent. As usual he joined the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth, showing solidarity with the Whig bishops only in their shared Protestant evangelism.<sup>188</sup></p><p>After the dissolution on 5 Apr. 1705 Compton campaigned vigorously for the Tories, having used his influence to create freemen where possible to affect the franchise. On 10 May, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, complained to the duchess of Marlborough that at Maldon no one could stand for election, ‘or can pretend to stand till the humour is much altered in Essex, for they have made all the persons and creatures of the bishop of London free of the town’. Two tackers won the Maldon poll with Compton’s backing.<sup>189</sup> His success was not repeated in Essex where 16 Tories had been removed from the deputy lieutenancy. Compton’s candidates were defeated amidst rancorous accusations of foul play, not least a suspicious increase in the size of the electorate.<sup>190</sup></p><p>Compton attended the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 but he attended the session for only 19 per cent of sittings. On 20 Nov. in the debate on a regency in the event of the queen’s death, he was one of six Tory bishops who voted against the attempt of Rochester and Nottingham to exclude Sidney Godolphin*, Earl Godolphin, from being an <em>ex officio</em> regent. Compton and George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells alone voted that the lord mayor of London be one of the regents.<sup>191</sup> On 28 Nov. he again received Beaw’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session), almost certainly for divisions on the succession. Two days later he dissented from the resolution that no further instructions be given to the committee of the whole on the bill to secure the person of the queen and the Protestant succession (regency bill). On 3 Dec. he protested three times during the passage of the bill on the rejection of riders to prevent the lords justices from repealing what were perceived to be fundamental constitutional laws, including the Habeas Corpus Act, The Toleration Act, the Test Acts of 1673 and 1678 and the Act of Succession.</p><p>Loyal to his own Tory principles but determined to protect the queen from the criticism implied in the ‘Church in danger’ campaign, Compton spoke at length in the House on 6 Dec. 1705, venting his anger indiscriminately on a range of issues:</p><blockquote><p>[He] prefaced his discourse with professing his entire confidence in the queen and in the present great ministry at court ... but complained that the minds of the inferior subjects were debauched by atheistical and lewd pamphlets. He lamented his own fruitless struggle with Hickeringill ... he then took notice (in an odd manner) of reports that had passed in relation to briberies in election of members of the other House.</p></blockquote><p>He also raged against Toland’s <em>Memorial of the State of England</em>, the Calves-head club and the Scots, and disparaged the sermons of Benjamin Hoadly<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Bangor, especially one on civil government preached recently in the City.<sup>192</sup> His censure of the Scots infuriated Burnet who responded that Compton could not with integrity criticize any doctrine of resistance or ‘he did not know what defence his lordship could make for his appearing in arms at Nottingham’.<sup>193</sup> Compton voted against the motion that the Church was not in danger and subsequently registered his protest when it passed. On 31 Jan. 1706, during debate on the repeal of the place clause in the Act of Succession, Compton and Sharp abstained by withdrawing from the House before the division.<sup>194</sup></p><p>He resumed his seat in the Lords at the start of business on 3 Dec. 1706, but attended for only 22 per cent of all sittings. Compton may have been involved in the negotiations relating to the crisis caused by the queen’s desire to elevate the Tories William Dawes*, to Chester, and Offspring Blackall*, to Exeter. The sermon preached at his funeral referred obscurely to Compton’s claim to have given the queen ‘such reasonable (and to her own pious inclinations, such agreeable) advice, upon the vacancy of two dioceses, as occasion’d their being well fill’d, when ’twas little expected’.<sup>195</sup> The queen, however, always insisted that she and she alone had taken the decision to promote Dawes and Blackall.</p><p>Back in the House on 13 Jan. 1707 for the debate on union with Scotland, Compton voted against the ‘Scotch Acts’, which were perceived as a threat to the Church of England.<sup>196</sup> On this particular issue he was allied to Tenison, supporting the archbishop’s bill for the security of the Church. On 3 Feb. he protested against the resolution not to instruct the committee of the whole to insert a clause declaring the 1673 Test Act ‘perpetual and unalterable’ and on 15 Feb. voted to postpone consideration of the first article of union. Compton attended the debate on the ratification bill on 3 Mar. and voted against it.<sup>197</sup></p><p>Compton attended the short April 1707 parliamentary session for 30 per cent of sittings. He took his seat for the next session at the start of business on 23 Oct., attending for 32 per cent of all sittings. Nevertheless, he was increasingly withdrawn from public life, professing an aversion both to London and to business.<sup>198</sup> He joined both archbishops and lord chief justice Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup> on 12 Jan. 1708 to discuss a bill on libels. He opposed (unsuccessfully) Somers’ church statutes bill (which favoured Nicolson rather than Atterbury in their dispute over the rights of the deanery of Carlisle), defying a directive from Lambeth that he support the legislation.<sup>199</sup> On 19 Mar. 1708 Compton reported back from the committee of the whole on St Paul’s bill. His close alliance with Harley meant that after the latter’s fall from power, Compton was even more distanced from the ministry.</p><p>Nevertheless, over the summer of 1708 Compton commuted between Colchester and Fulham, preparing for the general election.<sup>200</sup> Although the Essex electorate followed the national trend for Whig success, Compton sustained his influence in Maldon, where Sir Richard Child<sup>‡</sup> was elected following the creation of Tory freemen.<sup>201</sup> Following the death of Prince George at the end of October 1708, Compton visited the queen to comfort her every day. Her welfare was not his only concern; he was agitating behind the scenes for the election of Atterbury as prolocutor of Convocation.<sup>202</sup> When Parliament opened on 16 Nov. 1708, Compton resumed his seat but he came to the House for only 20 per cent of sittings. He was by now suffering from regular attacks of gout and it was gout that kept him from the House on 21 Jan. 1709 for the vote on whether Scots peers with British titles could vote in the elections for Scots representative peers. In April, together with James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and duke of Dover, he received a report from Nicolson about the case of the episcopal clergy in Aberdeen who were trying to have an address presented to the queen concerning their grievances under Prebysterian domination. Queensberry, the Scottish secretary of state, had proved to be unsympathetic and it was Compton who presented the address to the queen on 25 May.<sup>203</sup></p><p>Compton resumed his seat on the first day of the November 1709 session and attended 40 per cent of all sittings. On 25 Feb. 1710 the Lords received an appeal from the court of exchequer concerning Compton’s right to present to the chapel at Hammersmith. The appeal was delayed pending the trial of Henry Sacheverell. Compton, an ardent supporter of Sacheverell, was determined, despite ‘a fit of the gravel’, to attend the trial and to use Trelawny’s proxy in Sacheverell’s favour. The trial began in Westminster Hall on 27 Feb., with Compton attending throughout. On 14 Mar. he voted unsuccessfully to secure an adjournment and entered his protest. He also protested against the resolution that it was not necessary to include in an impeachment the particular words supposed to be criminal. At the start of the debate on 16 Mar. into the impeachment articles, Compton spoke against the first article, blaming Sacheverell for his ‘heat and indiscretion, yet thought he was far from deserving an impeachment of high crimes and misdemeanours’.<sup>204</sup> He ‘justified the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance but disapproved of the doctor’s way of maintaining it’.<sup>205</sup> He went on to protest against putting the question and against the resolution that the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment. The following day he registered further protests against the measure. He also protested against the resolution limiting peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty. On 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell not guilty, dissented against the verdict and, the following day, dissented against the censure. A week later he was ‘a little revived with the distant hopes that this impeachment may turn one day or other to the advantage of the Church’.<sup>206</sup></p><p>With the Sacheverell case out of the way there was time for the House to settle the Hammersmith case. The dispute clearly reflected a division within what was then the hamlet of Hammersmith. The case against Compton had been dismissed in exchequer, apparently because it was the wrong venue, but sympathetic remarks by the judges encouraged his opponents (said to be ‘the meaner sort of inhabitants’) to take possession of the chapel, and prevent its use until their appeal was determined. An order from the House, issued on 25 Mar., failed to dislodge them so an order for their attachment was issued on 27 March. Compton finally won his case on 1 April. Compton’s chaplain, Ralph Bridges, who thought Compton’s right ‘was as clear as day’ but who nevertheless found it desirable to lobby at least one peer for support, reported that ‘My Lord Wh[arto]n & some other Whig lords did all they could to make a party cause of this private matter, which was carried for my lord [Compton], but by one vote.’<sup>207</sup></p><p>Later in April 1710 Bridges wrote that Compton had tried to advise Sacheverell on his conduct, but that his guidance had been spurned. Just what the advice was remains a matter for speculation, but Bridges thought that ‘it will be best for us to be silent about it, till the wind turns, which may be very quickly with him as it has been with much greater men before him’ which seems to imply that Compton wanted Sacheverell to keep a low profile. After the prorogation, Compton returned to Fulham and, on 30 Apr. 1710, confirmed three ‘Indian kings’ (converted native Americans).<sup>208</sup> Early in August, with a cabinet reshuffle imminent, Compton assured Harley that he would abandon the election campaign and rush to London if his presence were required. Within days he had arranged to travel to London with ‘all haste possible’ but he clearly had no idea why his presence was required, ‘being utterly a stranger to all late transactions, so that I must entreat you to direct somebody to instruct me a little what it is you would have me do’.<sup>209</sup></p><p>With Godolphin out of the treasury and Harley restored to the ministry, Compton began a series of visits to the clergy. On 21 Aug. 1710, he assembled them at St Paul’s to subscribe an address to the queen, designed particularly as counter propaganda to <em>The Good Old Cause</em>, a ‘very pernicious book’ by Charles Leslie. The address was given greater currency and increased circulation by being published, in a prominent position, in the <em>London Gazette</em> of 22-24 Aug., inserted there at the specific request of the secretary of state, William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth.<sup>210</sup> Whigs naturally perceived this as ‘unrestrained Toryism’ and subjected Compton to virulent attack, calumniating such addresses ‘as reproaches unjustly fastened on the Church and more becoming an inflam’d headless mob, than men setting up as the only patrons of religion and, and patriots of the constitution’.<sup>211</sup></p><p>With a general election in the offing, Compton wrote to Harley on 31 Aug. 1710 warning him that many of their Tory supporters were worried about Whig domination of local government so that ‘unless the most obnoxious of the justices of peace and deputy lieutenants be left out, and new commissions with some of the queen’s best friends put in, it will not be in their power to choose whom they like best for fear of ill usage from tyrants’.<sup>212</sup> When Parliament was dissolved on 21 Sept., Compton swung into action for the forthcoming elections. In Essex the Tories gained only one of the two seats but even this was seen as a major victory for the Church. Compton also intervened at Colchester on behalf of William Gore<sup>‡</sup>, husband of his great-niece Mary. Gore lost but was subsequently seated on petition.<sup>213</sup></p><p>Compton also sustained his interest in overseas issues. He wrote to Dartmouth about appointing a chaplain to the English trading factory in Leghorn: ‘so many public transactions are now on foot in the City ... the persons concerned in sending this chaplain over to Leghorn are many of the most considerable merchants in London’.<sup>214</sup> Maintaining an interest in the fate of the Church in the colonies, in October 1710 he also informed Dartmouth of the ‘great disorderliness of several parishes in the Leeward Islands ... by pretending to a separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction’.<sup>215</sup></p><p>Compton attended the opening of Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710 but, riddled with gout, attended only 17 per cent of all sittings. He was confined at home from 18 Dec. to mid-March 1711, thus missing the queen’s attempts to placate the Tory lower clergy in Convocation and the issue of a licence empowering him and other Tory bishops to ‘expedite’ matters and which was clearly calculated to undermine Tenison. He also missed the Lords’ debates on the Spanish war and the conduct of the previous ministry.<sup>216</sup> On 6 Feb. 1711, one day after the Tories had failed to secure the repeal of the Whig Act of General Naturalization, he registered his proxy in favour of John Sharp. Compton’s absence meant that the appeal brought by the Scottish Episcopalian minister, James Greenshields, was deliberately delayed ‘because the bishop of London who is his great friend could not come to the House’.<sup>217</sup> Compton returned to the House on 13 March. On 18 Apr. he attended Convocation to vote on the Whiston heresy charge, protesting against an address to the queen to refer the case to the judges on whether the synod had the power to censure for heresy.<sup>218</sup> The dispute in Hammersmith rumbled on and was taken to chancery. Early in May Compton won the case there but his opponents promptly applied to the Lords for a writ of error, only to have their case dismissed on 18 May.</p><p>Compton planned his summer visitation with half an eye on Tenison’s poor health, apparently sure the queen would translate him to Lambeth in the event of his death.<sup>219</sup> He also sought the rewards of loyalty from Harley, newly ennobled as earl of Oxford. In June 1711 he asked Oxford to intervene with the queen on behalf of his nephew George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton; Northampton was re-admitted to the Privy Council in December and made constable of the Tower in the new year. It also seems to have been Compton’s influence that secured the deanery of Christ Church for Atterbury.<sup>220</sup></p><p>Compton took his seat at the start of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711. He attended one third of all sittings, receiving Hooper’s proxy on the first day of business and holding it for the whole session. Compton missed the December vote on the Hamilton peerage case and did not return to the House until 14 Jan. 1712. He was again absent on 31 Jan. when the House received his petition complaining that the inhabitants of Hammersmith had failed to pay the costs in their appeal of the previous year. The House ordered the offending litigants to be attached; costs were then paid and the order discharged on 8 February.</p><p>In February 1712 Alexander Rose, the nonjuring bishop of Edinburgh, wrote to Compton and others about the Scottish toleration bill, ‘begging them for God’s sake to stop the passing of that bill for it would ruin their interest here’.<sup>221</sup> The problem with the bill was that it included a requirement to take the oath of abjuration and would thus exclude nonjurors from its provisions. Nevertheless, on 26 Feb. Compton voted with the majority in favour of the bill as it had been received from the Commons.<sup>222</sup> Three days later he received the proxy of Thomas Sprat (vacated on 6 June).</p><p>Compton was now entering his final decline. On 8 Oct. 1712 he wrote to Oxford that although ‘the world believes me to be on the mending hand’ the reality was that his case was dangerous ‘and I must change my address from desiring a pension to beg a charity’. He had hitherto kept his financial embarrassments secret but now revealed them to Oxford. He needed £3,000 ‘immediately to prevent the utmost shame’ and asked for the money ‘as secret service by bank bills’.<sup>223</sup> Whether the money was paid is as yet unknown. Compton continued to press Oxford for favours for relatives and clients.<sup>224</sup> He was also still actively pursuing the interests of the Church in the colonies. In December 1712 he proposed ‘the building a church in each of the two towns where Indians inhabit in Virginia and maintaining a minister and assistant at each of them with 200l. per an. for that purpose’. In the following April he was involved in plans to send a chaplain to the Leeward Islands.<sup>225</sup></p><p>Compton was still seen as one of the leaders of the Tory bishops. On 9 Feb. 1713 Hooper asked him to act as an intermediary in obtaining leave of absence from the House and court duties; he had already tried and failed to contact Sharp of York for the same purpose and he seems to have made no attempt to secure Tenison’s support.<sup>226</sup> Although he was present for the start of the new session on 9 Apr., Compton attended this, his final session, for only 13 per cent of all sittings. He attended on 5 June for the debate on the malt tax bill, presumably voting on the side of the court since John Elphinstone*, 4th Baron Balmerinoch regretted that they had lacked the support of several members including ‘the poor old bishop of London’.<sup>227</sup> Later that month he was estimated by Oxford as a supporter of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty but by then he was too ill to attend the House. On 4 July Bridges reported that ‘we are preparing ourselves to part with him’.<sup>228</sup> Compton died on the evening of 7 July aged 81. He bequeathed his books to Sion College, St Paul’s and the Free School of Colchester and the impropriate tithes and glebe of Mark’s Tey in Essex for the maintenance of a minister. His residuary heir and executor was his nephew, Hatton Compton, appointed lieutenant of the Tower of London in 1715.</p><p>The glowing sermons that were printed after his death testify to the high regard in which Compton was held by his clergy.<sup>229</sup> Compton’s earliest biography began as the sermon delivered at his funeral by one of his chaplains, Thomas Gooch<sup>†</sup>, who became bishop of Norwich in 1738 and of Ely in 1747.<sup>230</sup> Gooch regarded Compton as a man who had been let down by those in power after the Revolution, a view that was probably shared by Compton himself but which ignores the extent to which Compton’s aristocratic background provided him with a confidence in his own destiny that was not matched by his political skills.. He was buried on 15 July 1713 in Fulham parish churchyard.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
COSIN, John (1595-1672) |
<p><strong><surname>COSIN</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1595–1672)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 18 Apr. 1671 |
cons. 2 Dec. 1660 bp. of DURHAM |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Nov. 1595, eldest s. of Giles Cosin (<em>d</em>.1608), citizen of Norwich, and Elizabeth Remington. <em>educ</em>. Norwich g.s.; Gonville and Caius, Camb. Norwich fell. 1610, BA 1614, MA 1617, junior fell. 1620, BD 1623, DD 1630. <em>m</em>. 15 Aug. 1626, Frances (<em>d</em>.1642), da. of Marmaduke Blakiston, clergyman, 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 15 Jan. 1672; <em>will</em> 11–13 Dec. 1671, pr. 2 Apr. 1672.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. extraordinary 1633, to Charles I 1636, to the court in exile 1644–9, to Henrietta Maria 1649–60.</p><p>Chap. to Richard Neile<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Durham, 1619–aft. 1634; master Greatham Hospital 1624; rect. Elwick, co. Dur. c.1624–60, Brancepeth, co. Dur. 1626; preb. Durham 1624–60; adn. Yorks. (E. Riding) 1625–60; treas. Durham 1633–4; dean Peterborough 1640–60; commr. revision of Book of Common Prayer 1661,<sup>2</sup> union with Scotland 1670.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Sec. and librarian to John Overall<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Norwich 1617–19;<sup>4</sup> Rhetoric praelector, Camb. 1620–1; univ. preacher, Camb. 1622; master, Peterhouse, Camb. 1635–44, 1660; v.-chan. Camb. 1639–40.</p><p>Ld. lt. co. Dur. 1661–<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving, Walter Dolle, 1673 (NPG D29526); line engraving, unknown, mid-eighteenth century (NPG D29527); stipple and line engraving, Edward Scriven, 1815 (NPG D14050).</p> |
<p>John Cosin, adopted by the nineteenth-century Oxford Movement as one of its most significant influences, was born into a well-established gentry family of Norfolk and married into one of the most ancient houses of county Durham. An autocratic and uncompromisingly regal quasi-prince-bishop of the Durham palatinate (which included the role of lord lieutenant), Cosin successfully suppressed efforts from the local gentry to obtain parliamentary representation in the Commons.<sup>6</sup> Although he was often on bad terms with his chapter, he was able to appoint like-minded individuals to significant office in the diocese. Some of these were individuals whom he had probably known in Cambridge: his chaplain (appointed in succession to William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, in 1662), George Davenport; the treasurer of the cathedral, Canon Richard Wrench; and Archdeacon Isaac Basire (whose son and namesake would eventually become the fourth husband of Cosin’s daughter, Elizabeth).<sup>7</sup> More surprising was his choice of Miles Stapylton (or Stapleton) as his secretary.Stapylton came from a prominent Presbyterian family. His brother, Henry Stapleton<sup>‡</sup>, was knighted at the Restoration but had previously been an opponent of Charles I’s policies, although he was not quite as notorious a critic as their kinsman, Sir Philip Stapylton<sup>‡</sup>. Presumably he was the brother of ‘bad principles’ referred to by Cosin in 1669.<sup>8</sup> The Stapyltons were not the only family divided by religious and political differences: Cosin’s brother-in-law was the regicide John Blakiston<sup>‡</sup>; and Cosin’s own anti-Catholicism did not prevent his only son from converting to Rome.</p><p>Throughout Cosin’s career in the episcopate there was a tension between the demands of his regional and his parliamentary duties; he resolved this problem by constant communication with Stapylton.<sup>9</sup> It is clear from the survival of this correspondence that, despite shouldering his share of the parliamentary workload while at Westminster, Cosin’s highest priorities were his palatinate, lieutenancy and commercial interests. Even at a politically volatile period when he was too ill to travel to Parliament, he maintained that he could serve the king more effectively as lord lieutenant than as a vote in Parliament.<sup>10</sup></p><p><em>Wealth</em></p><p>Cosin, as a court pensioner under Charles I, had been reasonably prosperous but he was reduced to penury after the death of the king. By 1644 he had left England for France, where he became dependent on charity from his fellow exiles and from the clergy at home (including his own chaplain, William Sancroft), while his daughters subsisted on a small pension from the Protectorate.<sup>11</sup> Returning to England at the Restoration he begged Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, to ‘reflect upon my necessities’.<sup>12</sup> He rapidly recovered his personal fortune, proving remarkably careful with his money (on one occasion having his secretary obtain estimates for work, on the grounds that a workman would inflate the price for a bishop).<sup>13</sup> In his first year as bishop of Durham he received £19,800 from leases but he also spent lavishly on rebuilding the episcopal residences and charitable purposes.<sup>14</sup> A matter of constant concern was the requirement, imposed during the reign of Elizabeth, that an annual rent of £880 be paid to the Crown for diocesan lands; the Crown had subsequently allocated this rent as a pension to Queen Henrietta Maria.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Cosin spent in excess of £34,000 on public works and refurbishments during the first eight years of his episcopate.<sup>16</sup> Although he claimed in his will that none of his £20,000 episcopal revenue had been diverted to personal expenditure, at his death he was able to bequeath a large amount of real estate, extensive annuities and over £5,000 in money. He was not always able to lay hands on ready cash for his elaborate plans, and at the end of 1664 he sought a loan of £300 in gold from the London alderman Sir William Turner.<sup>17</sup> Thrifty and austere in his personal taste (in sharp contrast to his love of ecclesiastical baroque), he would nevertheless remark of his financial situation 18 months before his death that he could only ‘lament the bishop of Durham’s condition’.<sup>18</sup></p><p><em>Early career, to 1660</em></p><p>A veteran of the Caroline higher clergy, Cosin was an active member, with William Laud<sup>†</sup>, of the Durham House Group of anti-Calvinists and polemicists, an Arminian theological grouping that clustered around Richard Neile in the 1620s and 1630s. As a historian of the liturgy, eucharist and canon of scripture he prepared devotional manuals for the Caroline court to counter accusations that Protestant courtiers were less well served than their Catholic counterparts. He continued to produce such works in exile.<sup>19</sup> His zeal for reform, as both a ceremonialist and a musical liturgist, meant that he was vilified by orthodox reformed Protestants.<sup>20</sup> His own father-in-law commented ‘take heed of my son Cosin for he will make you all papists, if you look not to yourselves’.<sup>21</sup> In 1635 he was appointed master of Peterhouse, where he was responsible for elaborate alterations to the chapel and for a marked increase in the use of music in its services. From 1639, as vice-chancellor of the university, his ability to promote controversial Laudian innovations was enhanced still further. He gained a reputation as a domineering administrator and also alienated the corporation of Cambridge.</p><p>The calling of a new Parliament in 1640 provided a forum for complaints against Cosin. He became a victim of puritan satire, lost his ecclesiastical and academic positions and joined the court in exile as chaplain in 1644.<sup>22</sup> There he sustained a robust defence of the Church of England against Rome and, through his contacts with French Huguenots, developed a more nuanced attitude towards reformed protestantism.<sup>23</sup> His defence of the Church failed to prevent the conversion of his only son, John, to Rome in 1651. In 1652, however, Charles II hoped to ‘reward the service … and the sufferings you have undergone for us’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Edward Hyde had planned to make Cosin bishop of Peterborough, although he was uneasy about Cosin’s speedy resumption of the use of the still-proscribed Anglican liturgy.<sup>25</sup> Although Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London and future archbishop of Canterbury, sought to marginalize strict Laudians, Cosin petitioned successfully for restoration to his livings and to the mastership of Peterhouse.<sup>26</sup> In October 1660, he was elevated to the see of Durham. After the resignation of Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd viscount Fauconberg, in 1661, he also became lord lieutenant – effectively ‘prince-bishop’ of Durham.</p><p><em>Bishop of Durham</em></p><p>Cosin embarked on an energetic episcopate, as much secular as it was spiritual. On 2 July 1660, three months before his nomination as bishop, he had already welcomed the royal commission to preserve the mines and coal pits of the see of Durham but was disappointed that it did not extend to the management of woods and game.<sup>27</sup> He was severe with both Protestant and Catholic dissenters. He also argued with his dean and chapter and was on perpetually prickly terms with Guy Carleton*, canon of Durham and dean of Carlisle, later bishop of Bristol and ultimately bishop of Chichester.<sup>28</sup> Cosin was repeatedly undermined by Carleton’s complaints, not least for seizing forfeitures due to the Crown from the attainted Sir Henry Vane, whose nephew subsequently married Carleton’s daughter Hester.<sup>29</sup> There were many competing jurisdictions in the palatinate and Cosin exploited jealousies between them, prioritizing his lieutenancy and the assertion of his own rights and privileges, often in opposition to the gentry (especially those from Newcastle), who feuded among themselves and with whom he waged a constant battle of wills.<sup>30</sup> If his attempts to recover his rights were not always successful, he made extensive use of the leases in his gift to benefit his own family, especially his son-in-law Gilbert Gerard<sup>‡</sup>, to whom he gave first refusal of Tanfield Colliery. He also appointed Gerard constable of Durham.<sup>31</sup> Ten days after his consecration, while not yet a Member of the House of Lords, he drafted (unsuccessfully) a proviso to the act to remove wards and liveries, arguing that, because of his ‘<em>jura regalia</em>’ in the palatine, he and his successors should be compensated out of the annual excise for the loss of his jurisdiction. He later estimated the loss to his income at £2,000 a year.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Cosin also resented attempts to give parliamentary representation to Durham city and county, arguing that it was unnecessary because incoming bishops of Durham swore an oath to protect the palatine authority’s rights, privileges and immunities.<sup>33</sup> A bill to enfranchise Durham was introduced into the Convention by Sir Thomas Widdrington<sup>‡</sup>. Widdrington, a former parliamentarian and kin to William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington, was a significant political figure in the region who would shortly add to his influence (and capacity to annoy Cosin) by becoming chancellor of the diocese. His bill passed the Commons on 8 Aug. 1660 and was sent up to the Lords, where it was committed on 24 August. Despite two reminders from the Commons, it was lost with the dissolution.<sup>34</sup> The gentry continued to agitate for representation but 18 months later Cosin was delighted when ‘the gentlemen at the sessions were [again] persuaded to pass over that business for knights and burgesses so quietly’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Elections to the Cavalier Parliament in the spring of 1661 revealed Cosin’s influence in those boroughs which were permitted to vote. As lord of the manor of Northallerton he put up his son-in-law, Gerard, who was returned with a local cavalier, Roger Talbot<sup>‡</sup>. Gerard became one of Cosin’s men of business in the Commons, supporting the bishop’s religious policies and commercial interests.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Cosin’s liturgical skills, born of a lifelong interest in correcting the Book of Common Prayer, led him, in March 1661, to begin revision of the prayer book, both at the Savoy conference and in convocation. Richard Baxter acknowledged Cosin’s learning and found him ‘more affable and familiar than the rest’ but insisted that he talked ‘with so little logic, natural or artificial, that I perceived no one much moved by anything he said’.<sup>37</sup> Although Cosin’s rigour for uniformity won the day, the royal quest for liturgical compromise sidelined the bishop’s attempt to incorporate elements of the Sarum Missal into the revised prayer book; more than half of his proposals were rejected.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Cosin went north to his bishopric in August 1661.<sup>39</sup> He lost the battle to keep Sancroft in the north as his chaplain but was more successful in his recommendations to the deputy lieutenancy.<sup>40</sup> He had expected to return to London no later than Michaelmas (29 Sept.) 1661 to avoid the chaos of winter travel, not least since Sheldon had made it clear that after the readmission of the bishops the king expected them to take their seats in Parliament promptly.<sup>41</sup> He took his seat in the House on 20 Nov. 1661, the first day the bishops were readmitted to the Lords, and attended his first session for 62 per cent of all sittings.</p><p><em>Prayer book revisions and the Uniformity Bill, 1661–2 </em></p><p>Cosin’s parliamentary career was circumscribed by ill health and the difficulties of travel from the far north of England but, once installed in his Pall Mall lodgings, he took a full role in the business of the House, reporting from committees, speaking in debate and helping to manage conferences with the Commons. He was a regular member of the Journal committee, examining the Journal on eight occasions. Of the nine sessions during his episcopate, he attended seven, four of those for more than two-thirds of all sittings. There are no available division lists for votes in which he participated but his voting intentions on numerous matters are clear from his correspondence. In his first session, Cosin was named to 60 select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. On 20 Mar. 1662 he reported to the House on private legislation for Sir Thomas Lee<sup>‡</sup>. On 29 Apr. he also reported back from the committee on the Wye and Lugg navigation (having chaired the latter the same day).<sup>42</sup> On 7 Dec. 1661 he was named as a conference manager on the swearing of witnesses to be examined in the Commons.</p><p>The prayer book revisions were finally complete by December 1661. Cosin was one of the bishops who, together with Sheldon attended the Privy Council where the liturgy was approved and sent to the House of Lords.<sup>43</sup> On 7 Jan. 1662 he was one of the managers of the conference on the joint committee with the Commons concerning the most recent political plot. During this session he was granted (with backdated profits) the estate in Durham forfeited by the late Sir Arthur Hesilrige<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>44</sup> He continued to recover Church patrimony and was clearly maximizing his revenues, dealing harshly with his tenants in Peterborough.<sup>45</sup> On 25 Jan. it was reported by his secretary that he had spoken in the House about the sum of £25,000 to be recovered for the palatine as reimbursement for maintenance of the Scottish army after the battle of Newburn in 1640, and was confident ‘to bring it to good conclusion’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>On 10 Mar. 1662 Cosin reported back to the House from the select committee on the bill on the religious settlement (‘to confirm three acts’). As a supporter of a narrow Anglican uniformity he antagonized Presbyterians still more by his ‘speaking and carriage in this business’.<sup>47</sup> Emotive debates erupted in the Lords on 18 Mar. over the uniformity bill and the proposed royal proviso to exempt certain clergy from its provisions. Cosin supported the challenge to Clarendon by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, who claimed that the proviso was a breach of privilege. Cosin’s strong views on the <em>jure divino</em> nature of the episcopate made his willingness to support such a challenge easily understandable. He had long held strong views on the subject: in 1628 he was reported to have said that the king ‘is not supreme head of the Church of England next under Christ, nor hath he any more power of excommunication than my man that rubs my horse[’s] heels’. Although he denied having said it, the sentiment was technically correct for, while the king was supreme governor of the Church, he lacked sacerdotal power.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Cosin nevertheless insisted that such powers could be wielded only by an archbishop.<sup>49</sup> The furore deepened when Bristol challenged Clarendon’s reference to Cosin’s speech as a breach of the rules of the House; the House overruled Bristol’s objection but he and Cosin had secured the defeat of the proviso.<sup>50</sup></p><p>On 8 May 1662 Cosin acquainted the House that he, George Griffith*, of St Asaph, and Richard Sterne*, of Carlisle, had authority from convocation to amend a scribal error in the new version of the Book of Common Prayer and did so at the clerk’s table. On 17 May the special privileges of the palatine were again raised when the conference on the northern borders bill was reported by Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby. The bill enabled the justices of the peace for Northumberland and Cumberland to impose a tax or rate in order to fund local units to protect the inhabitants against marauding ‘moss troopers’. The Lords bowed to the Commons’ refusal to agree to their proviso to extend the bill to the county palatine and Newcastle.<sup>51</sup></p><p><em>Diocesan affairs, 1662–4</em></p><p>Cosin attended for the prorogation on 19 May 1662, then returned to his bishopric and maintained that he was ‘hugely busy’. He nevertheless planned to be at Doncaster by the end of May, unless delayed by William Cavendish*, marquess of Newcastle, and intended to be in Northumberland by July.<sup>52</sup> In the wake of the new Act of Uniformity, he conducted a thoroughgoing visitation of both diocese and cathedral, corresponded with Sancroft and Henry King*, of Chichester, and attempted to raise funds for the redemption of Barbary slaves.<sup>53</sup> Sheldon was unimpressed with his efforts (he raised only £300) and urged greater exertion.<sup>54</sup> Sheldon continued to criticize Cosin: a letter in October warned of complaints about Cosin’s ‘severity’ towards the recusant son of Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, which did ‘not well comply with the lenity of his majesty’s government and this present conjuncture’. When Cosin defended himself, Sheldon prickled at what he perceived as Cosin’s ‘ill gloss’ on his advice and warned that he might leave Cosin to ‘other intelligencers’ in the future. Cosin also argued with Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, who was in arrears with his leasehold rent on Durham House in the Strand. Cosin, who chafed constantly about the obligation to pay the queen mother’s pension, contemplated selling off the rental arrears to Pembroke ‘for a good sum and buy off the queen’s pension by act of Parliament’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, Cosin’s detailed scrutiny of every detail of secular and pastoral life took its toll on his health and by December 1662 he was complaining of dizzy spells while negotiating with George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, over a vacancy on the Durham chapter.<sup>56</sup> He was warned by Sheldon on 26 Dec. that the Privy Council had voted for a declaration of indulgence to nonconformists and Catholics. Sheldon insisted that if Cosin were too ill to travel to Parliament (when ‘the Church is like to be in great danger’), he must send his proxy to one of the other bishops but not to Sheldon himself, who, in his own attempt to control the Lords, was already ‘full’. As the February 1663 session approached, Accepted Frewen*, of York, reminded Cosin to send up his proxy. On 1 Feb. it was registered in favour of Matthew Wren*, of Ely (vacated with Cosin’s attendance in April 1663). Sterne expressed concern that Cosin should be absent at a time of ‘men’s ill affections to the church upon all occasions’ but was glad that Cosin had not been present to witness the introduction of the bill to allow the king to dispense with the Act of Uniformity.<sup>57</sup> By mid-March Cosin planned to leave the north, instructing his secretary to find London lodgings not in Westminster, where they would be too costly, but in nearby Covent Garden. He was almost certainly reluctant to leave his bishopric at a time when officers were in the county intending to distrain the bishop’s tenants for arrears of the annual pension owing to the queen mother since the time of his predecessor, Thomas Morton<sup>†</sup>, ‘contrary to … St Albans promise’. Cosin expected Henry Jermyn*, earl of St Albans, the queen mother’s chamberlain, to keep his word ‘that nothing should be done in this arrear’ without first consulting the bishop. He also embarrassed Sheldon by pressing Pembroke and William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, for their rents.<sup>58</sup></p><p>With rumours of sedition rife throughout the spring of 1663, Cosin reissued instructions to his deputy lieutenants.<sup>59</sup> The abortive Muggleswick Plot (ostensibly to murder the bishop and overthrow the government) justified (in his mind) his habitual rigour against nonconformists.<sup>60</sup> He had instructed the deputy lieutenants and militia to keep constant vigilance the previous November, directing Gilbert Gerard to search for Thomas Gore and Paul Hobson, ‘two of the most dangerous fellows in the North’, whose intercepted mail revealed that they were communicating in code. Intelligence suggested that Hobson had been corresponding with anabaptists in Durham.<sup>61</sup> Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> had heard rumours in a London coffee house of a planned rising in the north but on 30 Mar. 1663 Cosin informed the Privy Council that, despite sworn testimony by an informer from Newcastle, the combined forces of bishop, deputy lieutenants, magistrates and militia had arrested only nine men and were unable to find any evidence of a major plot against the government.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Thus occupied with local difficulties, Cosin did not return to Westminster until 29 Apr. 1663; he attended the session for 55 per cent of all sittings and was named to 23 select committees. On 29 June he chaired the select committee on Witney Free School, reporting back to the House on 1 July.<sup>63</sup> He also maintained communication with Archbishop Frewen about the possibility of legislation against conventicles.<sup>64</sup></p><p>By May 1663 Cosin had turned his back on his straightened circumstances in exile and settled into his role as a prince-bishop; the diarist John Evelyn recorded that he had supported Cosin during his exile but was ‘little remembered’ by the bishop ‘in his greatness’.<sup>65</sup> Cosin continued to restore diocesan finances. In June 1663 he produced a detailed account of revenues and incremental losses under successive monarchs. Having lost an annual £2,000 by the removal of the court of wards and liveries, he again sought reimbursement out of the excise; instead he was awarded remission of the annual rent due to the Crown for diocesan lands – but only after the death of the queen mother.<sup>66</sup></p><p>After visiting Cambridge in early July, Cosin returned to London and attended the session until four days before the prorogation of 27 July 1663.<sup>67</sup> During the summer months, he employed his extensive powers as lord lieutenant to apprehend political suspects, particularly during the Derwentdale Plot.<sup>68</sup> By September, Sheldon was insisting that Cosin come to Parliament, where he ‘may do … duty to the Church as well here as in your diocese and perhaps better’, but Cosin remained in Durham, sounding the alarm in mid-October about a ‘fanatic’ rising in the north.<sup>69</sup> He deemed it unnecessary to keep the militia in readiness, yet seems to have encouraged a belief in the continuing reality of the conspiracy, for in December Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds, was under the impression that Cosin was actively pursuing plotters.<sup>70</sup> Cosin’s enemies seized the opportunity to accuse him of incompetence; Carleton accused two of the deputy lieutenants, John Tempest<sup>‡ </sup>and the Cosin loyalist William Blakiston<sup>‡</sup>, of ineffectiveness against the rebels.<sup>71</sup> According to Carleton, Cosin was impotent without the assistance of Charles Gerard*, 4th Baron Gerard, and both commissioners and militia were ineffective. Cosin appeared even less competent when an informant from Northumberland claimed that he had warned the bishop in spring 1663 of another possible rising but had not been believed. On 29 Jan. 1664 Cosin reported the latest round of arrests; none, in his opinion, would be found guilty at trial because of the lack of reliable witnesses.<sup>72</sup></p><p><em>Tensions at home and abroad, 1664–5</em></p><p>Although reluctant to leave his diocese, Cosin obeyed Sheldon and was at Westminster for the start of business on 16 Mar. 1664.<sup>73</sup> He attended 97 per cent of all sittings and was named to 11 select committees and to all 3 sessional committees. On 6 May he attended the select committee on the conventicles bill and he was present in the House regularly until the prorogation on 17 May.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Growing tensions with the Dutch prompted plans for a rendezvous of militia and volunteers in Durham on 26 July 1664 but it was aborted in response to rumours of a rising planned for 25 July. Blakiston feared that former parliamentarians outnumbered royalists and advised Cosin to conduct a survey of every parish. The bishop duly instructed secret investigations into any parishioners who might have served in parliamentary forces under Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> and a report on their current political principles.<sup>75</sup> Carleton, continuing to furnish the government with his own observations, provided Secretary Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, with an account of the Durham assizes and recommendations to the bench; he accused Cosin of packing juries and doing too little to combat ‘fanatics’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>By October 1664 Cosin had become concerned about the extent of naval jurisdiction in Durham granted to Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle (lord lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland). The bishop was questioned by Ralph Delaval<sup>‡</sup>, deputy lieutenant of Northumberland, who feared that the palatine could prove a haven for seamen hoping to escape the press. Jealous of his jurisdiction, Cosin secured his own commission to impress seamen throughout the palatinate.<sup>77</sup> Meanwhile he continued to quarrel with the cathedral chapter, especially over its refusal to confirm a lease of the ‘grand colliery’.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Back in the Lords for the start of the new session on 24 Nov. 1664, Cosin attended for 76 per cent of all sittings and was named to 14 select committees. Despite being at Parliament, he continued to keep an eye on northern affairs. By the spring of 1665, Cosin had learned of plans to cut a 40-foot-wide drainage channel which would affect his land. Marmaduke Langdale*, 2nd Baron Langdale, intended to obtain a parliamentary act to complete the work, which it was suggested would ‘prove to the disadvantage of my lord [Cosin] and his tenants’. No such bill appears to have been introduced into either House, suggesting the distinct possibility that Cosin had succeeded in blocking it.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Cosin attended the House until the prorogation on 2 Mar. 1665, after which he was again able to give his full attention to his own affairs. On 1 May he again tried to secure relief from payment of the queen’s pension.<sup>80</sup> The outbreak of plague that year created another financial burden for the bishop, as the king ordered additional charitable collections for London victims. Having completed the fund-raising, Cosin made special application for the funds to be given not to the London victims but to those of Cambridge.<sup>81</sup></p><p>At the start of the Anglo-Dutch war in May 1665, Cosin’s competence and integrity once again came under scrutiny from Carleton, who informed Secretary Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> in July that not only were nonconformists meeting in numbers but also that Cosin had illegally helped himself to the forfeited estate of Sir Henry Vane<sup>‡</sup>. He added that any contesting of the estate should be carried out in London, since Cosin ‘nominates sheriffs and coroner, they are his creatures, and the adverse party fear a packed jury … if the case were in London, the witnesses would neither be overawed nor tampered with’.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Cosin conducted a visitation over the summer but his primary concerns were political rather than ecclesiastical, especially once he had been warned by Fauconberg of yet another plot, this time a rumoured uprising of Quakers.<sup>83</sup> On 8 Aug. 1665, James Stuart*, duke of York, warned Cosin that ‘fanatics’ were again plotting treason; York was unwilling to instruct Cosin to assemble the county militia but gave Cosin due notice that he must be ‘very watchful, to observe the behaviour and correspondences of all dangerous people within your lieutenancy’.<sup>84</sup> Throughout the autumn of 1665 Sterne supplied reports on engagements with the Dutch and informed Cosin that Sheldon would probably secure leave of absence from the Oxford session of Parliament for the ‘remote bishops’ if they provided proxies.<sup>85</sup> On 21 Sept. 1665 Cosin’s proxy was registered in favour of Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, vacated at the end of the session); it was presumably used in connection with the passage of the five mile bill.</p><p><em>Disputes over the Vane estates and with Denis Granville</em></p><p>On 6 Nov. 1665, Cosin was again attacked by Carleton, who repeated the charge that Cosin had appropriated Vane’s estates in Barnard Castle and Raby, that he had sued the tenants for arrears of rent and that he had, on learning that the estates were to be seized for the duke of York, stationed soldiers in Raby Castle after removing all livestock and household goods. Furthermore, according to Carleton, Cosin had forbidden the tenants to attend the court kept by the royal receiver and had refused to empanel a jury to sit on the king’s commission to investigate Vane’s estates, ‘giving to the disaffected party the bad example of contempt of authority’. Cosin was also accused of a ‘usurpation of his majesty’s rights’ in the exercise of his episcopal and palatine authority.<sup>86</sup> In January 1666 Carleton issued further warning that if Cosin was not checked in his political ambitions ‘the people will think that the king’s authority must submit to that of the county palatine of Durham’.<sup>87</sup> However, the Privy Council was more concerned with invasion threats and instructed Cosin to defend the coast. The troops were poorly paid and equipped and Cosin’s remit led to clashes with those deployed by government and the Crown and neighbouring lords lieutenant.<sup>88</sup></p><p>In February, Cosin’s flouting of royal authority in the matter of the Vane estates was again criticized, this time by John Bainbridge, one of the king’s commissioners, who corroborated Carleton’s accusations that Cosin ‘pretends royal rights in the bishopric, has seized all the rents and arrears, and refused to return a jury, in contempt of the writ’. The commission would have failed but for the intervention of the duke of York. Bainbridge forwarded to London depositions which revealed that Cosin had received £1,200 in arrears of rents due to the king since Vane’s death.<sup>89</sup> The bishop was not easily discredited, however. In March 1666 the king, recognizing that Cosin had as yet received no compensation for the losses caused by the abolition of the court of wards, confirmed three leases, despite the opposition of the Durham chapter.<sup>90</sup></p><p>It was a family matter that finally earned Cosin the rebuke of the king and involved the bishop in greater political scrutiny. By April 1666 he was in dispute with his clerical son-in-law and archdeacon of Durham, Denis Granville, over the latter’s extravagance and his treatment of Cosin’s daughter Anne. Cosin was warned by John Granville*, earl of Bath (Denis’ brother and an intimate friend of the king), that the marriage might have wrecked Denis Granville’s career owing to the king’s dislike of married clergy. Bath’s kinsman and close associate, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, weighed in to support Denis Granville’s demand for his wife’s unpaid portion. Albemarle claimed that Granville had come ‘to great misfortune’ through his marriage to an unstable woman.<sup>91</sup> A lengthy royal reprimand soon followed:</p><blockquote><p>we are … fully satisfied that he [Denis Granville] deserves that good report which is generally given of him, notwithstanding all that hath been said to the contrary to some of our public ministers of state … cannot but recommend him in most effectual manner unto you, as a person not only well deserving in himself, but relating to a family whose favour you would not do well to condemn, that have done and suffered so much for our royal father as well as ourself, assuring you that in bestowing a fortune on him suitable to his present unhappiness, and helping him out of his distractions occasioned by his debts (which may now prove very injurious to your daughter …) you will not only do yourself a great kindness, but a most grateful and acceptable thing to us, and divers considerable persons who heartily solicit on his behalf … expecting your compliance herein, and an account of the same, (which for your own sake as well as his we shall be very sorry you should fail of) …<sup>92</sup></p></blockquote><p>It is likely that Cosin complied with the command but his hatred for his son-in-law endured for years thereafter, not least when his daughter was treated with mercury as a supposed cure for her ‘distemper’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Cosin complained of illness and weakness but pressed on with the recovery of what he saw as his financial rights. He sent an account of his dispute with Pembroke to Clarendon and Sheldon, and on 24 June 1666 he informed his chancellor, Sir Francis Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>, that he wanted to proceed speedily at common law to preserve the privileges of the see and uphold the act of Parliament that gave him those rights. Sheldon responded that he had spoken with Pembroke’s solicitor but thought Cosin ‘would do little good’ with his persistence.<sup>94</sup></p><p>On 19 Mar. 1666 Cosin refused to travel to Parliament on grounds of ill health. On 27 Aug. he again informed Sheldon that he would not be able to attend the House without risk to his life. He undertook to attend Parliament in the spring but meanwhile maintained that he could best serve king and country by fulfilling his role as lord lieutenant.<sup>95</sup> A warning from the earl of Carlisle that Quakers were still plotting sedition perhaps helped him to justify this, although Carlisle insisted that the threat was not a formidable one.<sup>96</sup> On 8 Sept. 1666 Cosin received news of the Great Fire in London, including the suspicions of French complicity and instructions that he would be informed if the militia needed to assemble. Durham troops doubled their guard in anticipation of an attack within days.<sup>97</sup> Meanwhile, the bishop’s poor relationship with the chapter led to accusations of financial mismanagement of diocesan properties. The matter was still unsettled when it was overtaken by further security instructions from Arlington: with the defeat of rebels in Scotland, Cosin should desist from arresting ‘all disaffected persons in his lieutenancy’ but restrict his activities to those ‘who, on strong presumptions, are concluded to have been in confederacy with the late rebels’.<sup>98</sup></p><p><em>The lead mines bills, 1666–7</em></p><p>Cosin did not attend the session that opened in September 1666, registering his proxy to Henchman instead. Despite being a conscientious parliamentarian when at Westminster, he undoubtedly preferred to remain in Durham and was probably confident that with his son-in-law Gerard and his chancellor, Goodricke, in the Commons, his personal parliamentary interests would be well looked after. Any confidence that he felt was soon tested. During November Gerard was appointed to the Commons select committee considering a bill to empower Cosin to lease certain flooded lead mines to Humphrey Wharton<sup>‡</sup>. Wharton was Cosin’s moormaster, with responsibility for licensing lead mines, and the payment of a royalty on lead ore (‘the bishop’s lot’) meant that Cosin had a commercial incentive to secure the bill. It passed the Commons on 3 Dec. 1666, steered through by Goodricke. The committee that then considered it in the Lords included Humphrey Wharton’s kinsman Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and was chaired by Cosin’s metropolitan, Sterne.<sup>99</sup></p><p>All was not, however, well. In accordance with established procedure the committee sought the opinion of the dean and chapter, whose interests were also affected by the bill. Cosin deeply resented this. Unwilling to countenance any challenge to his authority, he insisted that, having received his own assent to the bill, the select committee needed to make no further investigation; such a precedent would encourage the chapter ‘to challenge a superintendency over the bishop, and give an ill example to all the deans and chapters in England to take part with any one of their own body against their bishop and his tenants’. The reality was that he and Wharton were both in dispute with the Durham chapter over the lease. By January 1667 Cosin had lobbied his fellow bishops and Anthony Ashley Cooper*, then Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury, in favour of the bill. Cosin advised his moormaster to comply as far as possible with the chapter’s demands, so that the lead mines bill would pass that session, ‘for if it be stopped or rejected now, how you will bring it on again hereafter, and satisfy all opposition that may arise against it, I do not know’. Isaac Basire, who opposed the bill, learned details of the committee discussions from Edward Rainbowe*, of Carlisle, who made it clear that opposition to the bill came mainly from the bishops (who were concerned about long-term damage to Church interests) but that they had been outnumbered by the lords temporal, who were prepared to negotiate with Wharton. Sheldon had then arrived and threatened to oppose the bill in its entirety.<sup>100</sup> The bill was lost with the prorogation on 8 Feb. 1667.</p><p>In July 1667 Cosin travelled south to attend the House, only to discover that Parliament was to be prorogued. He almost certainly remained in London since he was present for the first day of the new session on 10 Oct. 1667. He attended 82 per cent of all sittings and was named to 19 select committees. On 12 Oct., when proposals for toleration were being floated, he wrote to Sheldon, encouraging him to have a copy of the Commons’ address to the king on religious indulgence included as an appendix to the pamphlets that the archbishop had caused to be published.<sup>101</sup> On 30 Oct. 1667 Cosin attended the select committee on colliers, wood-mongers and butchers.<sup>102</sup> The major national issue that autumn was the attempt to impeach Clarendon, and Cosin was well placed to keep his associates informed; George Davenport described the bishop as ‘the best intelligence’ in London, after an exchange that discussed how Parliament was ‘about to hum the late lord chancellor’s jig’.<sup>103</sup> On 20 Nov. Cosin, Lucy and King were the only bishops named to a genuinely select committee on the bill to banish Clarendon.</p><p>Meanwhile Cosin was also pursuing personal and regional issues. On 11 Nov. 1667 a new bill to enable him to lease lead mines was brought up from the Commons, where Sir Gilbert Gerard had again assisted its passage.<sup>104</sup> The Lords committed it on 16 Nov. and it then passed rapidly through the House. Despite being in the House that day, Cosin was not named to the select committee (but he did attend it on 23 and 27 Nov.). His adversary, Dean Sudbury, also appeared before the committee and opposed the bill on behalf of the Durham chapter; the objections again centred on the length of the lease (three lives instead of 21 years as mandated by cathedral statutes) and the potential for a long-term loss of revenue. Isaac Basire may have withdrawn his objections; the new text explicitly protected his right (as rector of the parishes concerned) to tithes based on the value of the ore.<sup>105</sup> On this occasion Cosin won; the bill received the royal assent on 19 December.</p><p>Cosin and his dean and chapter were also at odds over the payment of subsidies. In December 1667 Sudbury approached Sancroft, hoping that he would present their case against the payment of subsidies to Ashley (in his capacity as chancellor of the exchequer). Not unreasonably, Cosin’s insistence that they were liable was seen as a petty act of revenge, there being no precedent for charging a cathedral chapter with subsidies.<sup>106</sup> Meanwhile, Cosin’s economic interests were also affected by another piece of legislation, the act to regulate the manufacture of broad woollen cloth. Presumably it was his lobbying that secured an order of the House on 22 Apr. 1668 that the rights of the alnager of the see of Durham should not be prejudiced by the new act.</p><p><em>Parliamentary representation for Durham</em></p><p>The question of parliamentary representation for Durham was another issue that concerned the bishop. In February 1668 he wrote that he had heard ‘that there is a great deal of plotting among some men in this country … against me and the rights of the county palatine which I labour to defend’. There was to be a new petition for parliamentary elections ‘and to annex a complaint thereunto that the bishop by his officers keep much of the country money in his own hands, and have not duly paid it in … the rumour runs here too fast and some men are apt enough to give it credit or credulity’.<sup>107</sup> In October 1666, the Durham bench had endorsed a petition from the grand jury for parliamentary representation, the jury maintaining that the subjects of Durham were politically disadvantaged. Cosin, under pressure from Arlington (who wanted to nominate Sir Joseph Williamson to a safe parliamentary seat) had agreed to compromise over elections in Durham as long as any legislation gave him the right of nomination and approval of the franchise.<sup>108</sup> On 23 Nov. 1667 he informed Stapylton that he had not yet seen the county address for knights and burgesses and that he would</p><blockquote><p>stand upon the nomination of one burgess and one knight which they promised should be reserved unto me and my successors and which they are not able to make sure and good but by a clause inserted for that purpose in the act of Parliament, and about this we are now disputing as likewise about the votes of the leasehold and copyholders and customary tenants to have right in the election of one knight and one burgess … but it may cost the country dear to maintain their agents … and to pay all other costs of drawing and passing this bill before the business be ended, but Mr Morland [George Morland<sup>‡</sup>] and some others have too good a faculty to drain their purses …<sup>109</sup></p></blockquote><p>Morland, the son-in-law of Cuthbert Carr, another agitator for parliamentary representation, joined John Tempest, the deputy lieutenant, in Cosin’s black books. Tempest was dismissed from his local offices for supporting the scheme.<sup>110</sup></p><p>On 13 Dec. 1667 the bill for electing two Members for the county of Durham and two for the cathedral city was given its first reading in the Commons.<sup>111</sup> It did not contain the clauses that Cosin had asked for and the following day he asked the Lords if he might defend those rights either in person or by counsel in the lower House; the Lords left the matter to Cosin’s discretion. In March Cosin made it clear that he feared an encroachment from the ‘Newcastle men’ who aspired to be parliamentary representatives ‘that they may swallow up all the rights if they can of the county palatine’.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Despite the bishop’s objections the bill was popular locally. In May 1668 Cosin was disturbed by reports of triumphant celebrations in Durham for the bill’s proponents and by suggestions that at his return his own welcome would be insignificant. He was so upset by the implicit insult that he wondered if there should be a prosecution ‘for the affront thereby done to the king and the bishop as should make them sensible of their presumption herein who can give no just account of such a number meeting together in a troop without orders’.<sup>113</sup> He worked diligently against the bill behind the scenes and it ran into trouble at its third reading in the Commons, where his spiritual chancellor, Thomas Burwell<sup>‡</sup>, argued that ‘if this bill should pass, all the bishop’s tenants (which were a great part of the county) would be excluded from having voices, they being copyholders, and so the free-holders, which are not a tenth part of the county, should only be the electors’.<sup>114</sup> The bill never reached the Lords: it was defeated by 15 votes in the Commons with Gerard and Burwell telling for the noes.<sup>115</sup></p><p><em>Continuing diocesan unrest</em></p><p>Cosin returned to Durham to conduct his visitation; in early June 1668 he was at Newcastle and Tynemouth and, with Basire, consecrated a new church on ground donated by Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland.<sup>116</sup> In August, in poor health, he conducted what would be his final visitation of the cathedral.<sup>117</sup> He continued to give leases to those with whom he had close connections, including Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (first cousin to his son-in-law), and Miles Stapylton.<sup>118</sup> By September he was on his way to London ‘to prepare for a trial the next term in a suit with the town of Newcastle about a ballast shore and other our rights’.<sup>119</sup></p><p>In mid-September 1668 it was said that Cosin was not ‘in so great favour and power’ as ‘all good men’ might wish. The court preferred the likes of John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester, who told Cosin that political and religious moderation would secure English protestantism more effectively than the latter’s authoritarian tactics.<sup>120</sup> Cosin attended the House on 10 Nov. for the adjournment to the following spring. Five days later, he deliberately sat on the fence while supporters of the Cabal tussled with former Clarendonians about a dissolution of Parliament. He also helped to consecrate Wilkins at Ely House despite the refusal of Sheldon and Henchman to participate in the ceremony.<sup>121</sup> His willingness to take part in the consecration ceremony did not indicate any sympathy with Wilkins’ quest for moderation. Cosin and the regional authorities remained deeply suspicious of treasonable activity under the guise of nonconformist meetings. On 23 Nov. 1668 he forwarded a complaint received from Newcastle about a religious meeting of 500 people of the ‘congregation of saints’. He complained that the meeting’s devotions were not pious but political: by singing psalm 149, ‘to bind their stately kings in chains, their lords in iron bands … this honour all his saints shall have …’, they were identifying themselves with its text and advertising their seditious intent.<sup>122</sup> In December Cosin, who frequently damned with faint praise, thanked the mayor of Newcastle for his corporation’s stated determination to prosecute conventicles but regretted their difficulty in finding witnesses; the aldermen, he complained, were ‘very great strangers to the affairs and disturbances of your own town’.<sup>123</sup></p><p>Carleton continued to undermine Cosin by sending alarmist messages to central government about nonconformity in the region. His perception of the strength of the nonconformist threat was diametrically opposed to Cosin’s: the conventicle that Cosin had reported as having 500 attendees, Carleton declared to be 3,000 strong, including the wife of the mayor of Newcastle. The scale of their differences meant that the bishop felt under constant pressure to demonstrate his competence.<sup>124</sup> Moreover, he was expected by John Hacket*, of Lichfield and Coventry, to recall Thomas Wood*, who would later replace Hacket at Lichfield, to his Durham prebendal residence in order to rid Hacket of his ‘most intractable and filthy-natured dean’. Such an action would undoubtedly have exacerbated Cosin’s difficulties with the cathedral chapter.<sup>125</sup></p><p><em>Final years in Parliament, 1669–71</em></p><p>The shift in power at court to Arlington and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, made Cosin uneasy. In January 1669 he complained to Stapylton that ‘there is a watch over me as there is over other bishops what we do herein contrary to the king’s command … that no lease of 21 years be turned into three lives’. He was also concerned that one of his tenants was procuring the assistance of Buckingham and Arlington for his own benefit against Cosin’s interests. He feared that this would ‘open a gap to all others to rush in after him and continually to disquiet me, till all my tenants that are considerable make themselves masters over me’.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Cosin attended the House on 1 Mar. 1669 for the prorogation and then returned to the north-east, where he recovered better health. By June he was commuting between Auckland Castle and Durham and, with news of a new parliamentary session anticipated as early as October, expected to return to London. The death of the queen mother in September 1669 gave him a renewed incentive to apply for an abatement of the annual pension; by the following summer, he had still failed, despite presenting himself in person at the treasury.<sup>127</sup> Presumably anxious to preserve relationships with other members of the elite, he acceded to a request from James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, that a Northampton relative jump the queue for a Cosin scholarship at Peterhouse; Northampton, he wrote, ‘must not be denied’.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Six days before the start of the new session, Cosin received the proxy of William Lucy (vacated at the end of the session). He attended the House on 19 Oct. 1669 for the start of business, was present for 67 per cent of all sittings and was named to four select committees and to all three of the sessional committees. For Cosin the main issue of the session was the revival of attempts to enfranchise Durham. By 23 Oct. he had instructed Stapylton to organize the sympathetic gentry ‘to be ready in all such matters as may contribute to quash any such efforts for knights and burgesses’. During the winter months, with his chaplain William Flower in constant communication with Stapylton, Cosin was confident that a meeting at Chester-le-Street about a new attempt to obtain parliamentary representation would misfire. Proponents of reform appear to have counted on the support of Charles Powlett*, then styled Lord St John of Basing, (later 6th marquess of Winchester and duke of Bolton), who had acquired interests in the north-east through his second marriage. Cosin, with earlier differences with Bath presumably mended, was however confident that St John would ‘neither afford them his furtherance in their restless design … nor oppose my lord the earl of Bath between whom and him there is a great dearness of friendship’.<sup>129</sup> Yet he was dismayed that two of the activists were George Morland and William Bristow of Great Lumley, men whom Cosin had put into the commission of the peace on the condition that ‘they would act nothing against the privileges of the county palatine and the rights of the bishop’s courts and officers at Durham; which if they continue to do … they will extremely disturb the country and give me much trouble’. In the end, Cosin managed to secure the support of St John and instructed Stapylton to orchestrate an opportunity to invoke the statute against tumultuous petitioning.<sup>130</sup></p><p>In November 1669 Cosin expressed dismay over the continuing factional struggles associated with <em>Skinner’s Case</em>.<sup>131</sup> His focus nevertheless remained firmly on his palatinate. On 14 Dec. 1669, administering his northern affairs from London, Cosin warned Stapylton that John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (who later sat as earl of Guilford), would be returning from Scotland via Durham and that he must be entertained with full hospitality at the bishop’s castle. He remained angry about the continuing campaign to secure parliamentary representation for Durham and told Stapylton that,</p><blockquote><p>I like not Mr Morland’s answer which he gave you, for it hath some mischief in the belly of it, besides some untruth that there is in it; for when first … the foreman of the Grand Jury brought in the petition about k[night]s and b[urgesse]s and about a contribution made for the promoting that design, Mr Morland protested to myself, who questioned him about it, that he had no hand in it at all, and would never meddle with it, which you may tell him again from me. Nor do I like Mr Bristow’s answer, who it seems would meddle in the matter and not be seen in it; else why did he go to the meeting …<sup>132</sup></p></blockquote><p>As the 1670–1 parliamentary session approached, Cosin was confident that the king would stick ‘unto his own party in the Parliament which I make no question will very faithfully and amply serve him in the defence of his kingdom and the Church’.<sup>133</sup> Presumably he intended to be in the Lords at the beginning of the session, for on 9 Feb. 1670 he received William Lucy’s proxy; in the event, however, he was ill and did not attend the first two weeks of the session.<sup>134</sup> He took his seat on 26 Feb., attended 26 per cent of all sittings and was named to 18 select committees. He told Stapylton that on 21 Mar. 1670 the king had attended the Lords for debates on the conventicles bill, insisting that Charles was ‘firm to the Parliament and the Parliament to him: both fast against the conventicles’.<sup>135</sup> As the bill passed through both Houses, Cosin may have been reflecting on the trouble caused by his seizing of the Vane estates; he objected to the Commons’ clause on forfeitures, which, by reserving them to the palatine courts, made him look greedy, if not corrupt:</p><blockquote><p>I have no desire to get any thing either by their forfeitures or the forfeitures of others upon this score, and therefore I wished my friends in the House of Commons to let the Act stand as it was penned, that the forfeitures should be recovered in any of the king’s courts at Westminster, whereunto if I had added the courts established within the county Palatine of Durham, as they in the Marches of Wales and elsewhere did not, it would have been interpreted to be a greediness and a desire of gain in me, and besides it would have been an envious thing from the justices and other officers or delinquents in our country that I should take their forfeitures to myself, against which you know I have often made profession, and so I pray tell them all …<sup>136</sup></p></blockquote><p>Cosin’s reluctance should not be construed as a willingness to give up the proposed forfeitures altogether. Later in the summer, he expected Stapylton to co-ordinate efforts among the bishop’s supporters ‘to preserve them to me against the faction that are ready to take them away’.<sup>137</sup></p><p>In March 1670 the divorce bill of John Manners*, Lord Roos, the future 9th earl and duke of Rutland, came before the House. Even before the debate began, it was known that Cosin would defy the majority of the bishops and support the bill.<sup>138</sup> His careful analysis of biblical teaching on the validity of divorce in cases of adultery was republished and re-examined on several occasions after his death. The strength of his views, and his determination to support Roos, meant that he found himself once again in a somewhat strange alliance with the tolerationist John Wilkins. Cosin and Wilkins were the only bishops named to the select committee on 19 Mar. but not before Cosin, on his own admission, generated another three-and-a-half hours of work for the Lords.<sup>139</sup> While it is possible that he was diplomatically absent from the House between 24 Mar. (when the bill was reported from committee) and 9 Apr., he does appear to have been genuinely ill, since on 2 Apr. it was reported that he had been ‘extremely pained with the strangury’ for the past week.<sup>140</sup></p><p>On 28 Mar. Cosin registered his proxy in favour of Wilkins (thus also vacating the proxy he held from Lucy), presumably anticipating that it would be used in favour of the bill. Proxies had been used at the first and second readings and it seems likely therefore that they were also used at the third reading, though there is no evidence to confirm this. While still absent from the House, Cosin re-registered his proxy in favour of Seth Ward*, of Salisbury, on 4 Apr., presumably for use in any potential vote on the conventicles bill. Ward, unlike Wilkins, could be trusted to oppose it. The proxy was vacated with Cosin’s attendance five days later. Once the bill had passed he sent a copy to Stapylton, instructing him to co-ordinate its implementation. Later that summer Stapylton, despairing ‘ever either to write or doe any thing that shall be pleasing or acceptable’ to the bishop, tendered his resignation. Cosin insisted that ‘his frequent and kind expressions’ proved the contrary and denied Stapylton’s right to resign.<sup>141</sup></p><p>During May 1670, it was rumoured in York that Cosin had died. He was certainly suffering at that time and was scared of a new attack of strangury, ‘which is so great a torture to be endured that I … do all I can to prevent it’. Now suffering from incontinence, he was advised against travel. Unable to face the journey to Durham, he preferred to remain at his lodgings near to St James’s Park, where he had his papers and books.<sup>142</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Cosin was becoming increasingly angry with Denis Granville, not only because of his daughter’s unhappiness but also because Granville had absented himself without leave from Durham and, as he later described it, was ‘gadding at Oxford’ on borrowed money. He ordered an action against Granville for debt and for failing to pay his daughter’s trustees. Granville had already consulted five doctors about his wife (‘whom he labours to prove mad’ and subject to ‘maniac passion’) but the London physicians diagnosed her as having ‘fits of the mother’ (i.e. hysterical episodes, possibly accompanied by convulsions). Cosin imputed Granville’s motives to resentment at his obligations to the bishop.<sup>143</sup></p><p>By the end of August 1670 Cosin was anticipating the end of the summer recess. He was named as a commissioner for the union with Scotland but remained pessimistic in the light of objections raised during the reign of James I. Despite his opposition to the proposals, he attended meetings regularly before the commission was adjourned. He had anticipated that its deliberations would move forward very slowly, given the demands of the Scots and the strength of hostility to the plan.<sup>144</sup> On 24 Oct. 1670 he resumed his seat in the House. According to the Lords’ Journal, he did not attend again until 2 Dec. but his letters to Stapylton reveal that he went to the House on 25 Nov., when he spoke to the king and received a royal undertaking that he should have the presentation of the next Durham prebend. Back in Durham, Cuthbert Carr was still agitating for Durham to have parliamentary representatives. Cosin blamed Sir Richard Neile, under-sheriff of Durham, ‘whose nature is to do me all the mischief he can’, for encouraging the proposals, but the county remained without parliamentary representation until after the bishop’s death.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Cosin was excused attendance at a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1670. Conducting his business affairs by mail, he fell into a new dispute with the deputy postmaster, Arlington’s older brother, John Bennet*, later Baron Ossulston, about the postage payable on packets (but not letters) during the sitting of Parliament. Cosin insisted that this was a breach of parliamentary privilege. He instructed Stapylton to refuse to pay post-office charges on certain forms of mail since, having spoken to several lords, ‘I shall do the House of Peers much wrong if either I or my officers pay any such tax upon packets whether they contain a leaf of paper concerning rents which ought all to be free as long as I am bound here to attend the Parliament’. During December, at Cosin’s request, Arlington intervened with his brother, confirming that Cosin’s interpretation was correct.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Although he was in London, Cosin attended the House less regularly over the winter, being determined to ‘fence’ himself from the cold.<sup>147</sup> On 21 Feb. 1671 a request from the Commons that the Lords agree to a joint delegation to the king on the laws against Catholic recusancy convinced him that a bill against Catholics would follow shortly. During March he reported ‘great agitations in Parliament about the Roman recusants’ and planned to prosecute his own clerks of sessions if they failed to present Catholics.<sup>148</sup> In the meantime, he had forwarded to Durham the royal proclamation for the arrest of those who had tried to abduct James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], who sat as earl of Brecknock and eventually as duke of Ormond [E]. He also quarrelled with his kinsman Robert Blakiston, who maintained that Cosin lacked the scriptural requirements of bishops (with what Cosin termed ‘a deal of other such Presbyterian stuff’), and in March 1671 he complained that he had been ‘very unkindly used’ by Lord Widdrington over a matter of stolen livestock.<sup>149</sup> He also resumed the mutual animosity with Carleton by accusing the latter of failing to pay for books.</p><p>Furthermore, his difficulties with Granville multiplied as the latter disappeared to the continent, leaving Cosin perplexed about ‘the juggle that … is used between the archdeacon and his agents’ and unaware of his daughter’s whereabouts.<sup>150</sup> On 14 Mar. 1671 he consulted ‘an eminent lord of the Parliament’, who explained that ‘neither any convocation man or peer of the realm if he be abroad in another kingdom can be allowed any privilege against the suits of law that are brought for debt; so that we need not trouble ourselves any farther for fear that [Granville] will claim for privilege’.<sup>151</sup> He was not present on 17 Mar. when the Lords agreed to hear an appeal from a decree (<em>Haswell v. Gray</em>) in the county palatine court of chancery, but attended early on 1 Apr. following the death, the previous day, of the duchess of York. After a conference with the Commons on the petition to the king about Catholicism, Cosin waited impatiently for the Lords to pass an act against recusants, in order to know the penalties involved. He doubted any legislation would pass both Houses before the end of the session.<sup>152</sup> On 18 Apr. 1671 he attended the House for the final time, three days before the prorogation on Easter Saturday.</p><p>Cosin continued with business from London, supporting an unsuccessful attempt by the king to secure the election of Buckingham as chancellor of Cambridge and pressing Arlington to obtain the king’s approval for his nomination of Sir George Vane as a deputy lieutenant of the county palatine. He also demanded that Stapylton check episcopal rights over shipwrecks on the Easington coast, seeking legal confirmation that they belonged not to the vice-admiral but to the bishop.<sup>153</sup></p><p><em>Death and legacy</em></p><p>A newsletter of early May reported that Cosin was sick and unlikely to recover. Aware that he would be unable to return to the north-east to conduct his visitation, the bishop sought a formal commission for his diocesan officers to perform it in his place.<sup>154</sup> He remained in London where his health deteriorated. By November he was complaining of having trouble breathing, probably the result of his heavy smoking.<sup>155</sup> He survived over Christmas and on 2 Jan. 1672 instructed Stapylton to collect and send on his rents since he needed them for the maintenance of his grandchildren.<sup>156</sup> He died on 15 Jan. 1672 at his Pall Mall lodgings, after ‘violent’ attacks of pain from kidney stones.<sup>157</sup> Over the following days, his body was subject to a post mortem (which revealed kidney stones as well as fluid on the right lung), after which it was embalmed and encased in lead.</p><p>There was an interval of three months between Cosin’s death and burial. The funeral was delayed until the roads were passable, as the body, lead and coffin weighed in excess of 500 lbs.<sup>158</sup> His coffin was carried in elaborate pageantry through London, before being conveyed to Durham (for a solemn requiem service conducted by his nemesis, Guy Carleton) and thence to Bishop Auckland, where, on 27 Apr. 1672, he was interred in his own baroque chapel at Auckland Castle. Isaac Basire, the archdeacon of Northumberland, preached the funeral sermon.<sup>159</sup></p><p>A statement of benefits conferred on the see of Durham by Cosin showed that he had spent over £16,000 on the episcopal residences in the north-east and £3,000 on his public library, and had founded eight scholarships at Cambridge. Embellishments to his own chapel included at least 20 stained glass coats of arms. His signature woodwork, a unique form of ‘gothic’ embellishment, was introduced into all the churches and chapels that he refurbished.<sup>160</sup> He made many bequests to public bodies and charities in his native Norwich as well as in the north-east; there were also a number of legacies to family members, including £100 to his estranged and ‘lost son’ John, whose conversion to Catholicism had caused the bishop ‘great grief and trouble’. He named as his executors Sir Thomas Orby, John Durell, George Davenport and Miles Stapylton.</p><p>Eight years after his death, at the height of the Exclusion Crisis, Cosin’s years of exile in France became the subject of a Privy Council investigation. A committee of intelligence was ordered to enquire into allegations that he had left a ‘black box’ with papers that proved the king’s marriage to the mother of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. Word circulated that Cosin had left instructions for the box to remain locked until the king’s death but that Sir Gilbert Gerard, opening it anyway, had discovered evidence of the marriage, performed by Cosin while in France. Gerard denied it.<sup>161</sup></p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
CREIGHTON, Robert (1593-1672) |
<p><strong><surname>CREIGHTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1593–1672)</p> |
|
|
Never sat. |
cons. 19 June 1670 bp. of BATH AND WELLS |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1593, s. of Thomas Creighton and Margaret Stuart. <em>educ.</em> Westminster; Trinity, Camb. BA 1618, Fell. 1619, MA 1621; incorp. Oxf. 1628; DD 1643. <em>m</em>. Frances (c.1615–83), da. of William Walrond of Ile Brewers, Som. sis of Amos Walrond<sup>‡</sup>. 3s. 1da. <em>d.</em> 21 Nov. 1672; <em>will</em> 17 Nov., pr. 31 Dec. 1672.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I, 1645.</p><p>Preb. Caistor, Lincoln 1632–70, Taunton, Wells 1632–60; treas. Wells 1632–60; rect. Huggate, Yorks. 1641, St Burian’s, Cornw. 1642–5, 1660-?, Uplowman, Devon 1664–70; vic. Greenwich 1642, Cheddar, Som. 1665–70; dean, Wells 1660–70.</p><p>Regius prof. Greek, Camb. 1625–39; public orator, Camb. 1627–39.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, Bishops’ Palace, Wells, Som.</p> |
<p>Distantly related to the crown by kinship to the Stuart earls of Atholl, the court favourite Robert Creighton was an ardent royalist during the civil wars. Imprisoned and sequestered, he eventually joined the king at Oxford as one of his chaplains, thereafter escaping to join the court in exile.<sup>2</sup> At The Hague, with his expertise in classics and ‘a great deal of combative orthodoxy’ going to waste, he became tutor to the son of Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, whose admiration for Creighton was such that he once wrote that if it were in his power he would make Creighton pope.<sup>3</sup> He was also set to work by Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, on a <em>History of the Council of Florence</em>. Creighton, uncomfortable in exile, complained that he would have been ‘better used among … cannibals than at the Hague’ but praised his benefactors, including the ‘miraculous good man’ William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>4</sup> A prominent figure in exile, he debated with Jesuits, ministered to assembled royalty, and prefaced his <em>Council of Florence</em> with historical precedents for the Church of England.</p><p>In May 1660 he was still at The Hague, engrossed in his studies, but soon returned to become dean of Wells, a post that had been projected for him in Hyde’s planning lists for the restored Church.<sup>5</sup> In June he petitioned for the Cornish living from which he had been ejected and secured an order from the House of Lords to protect the profits until the legal position had been decided.<sup>6</sup> Over the next decade he disbursed over £2,000 on public and charitable projects and spent liberally on the cathedral.<sup>7</sup> He was a popular preacher at court, Evelyn finding him ‘a most eloquent man’ with ‘extraordinary’ talent.<sup>8</sup> In March 1662 Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> was similarly swayed with his comic skill when Creighton protested that the returning ‘poor Cavalier’ was treated worse than a Newgate prisoner.<sup>9</sup></p><p>As a royal chaplain, Creighton habitually delivered ‘honest’ and ‘severe’ sermons, vilifying Dissenters and ‘puritan’ lay magistrates and lamenting the bishops’ lack of effective authority. In January 1661 he even criticized the king, suggesting that is was ‘below the majesty of a king to appear in common playhouses’. He even called into question English courage in the face of Dutch aggression.<sup>10</sup> In 1669, as dean of Wells, he was involved in a jurisdictional dispute between William Piers*, bishop of Bath and Wells,and the cathedral chapter, during which he castigated the prebends’ ‘sullen stubborness’ while blaming the elderly and absentee Piers ‘for leaving his church in this confusion’. His role in the dispute did not endear him to Gilbert Sheldon*, then bishop of London, who resented the adverse publicity generated by such open quarrels in the Church.<sup>11</sup></p><p>With Creighton long regarded as the natural successor to Piers, in the summer of 1670 the king assented to his election as bishop of Bath and Wells, the first Scotsman to hold an English bishopric. The king also presented Creighton’s son and namesake to his father’s former Devonshire rectory and authorized the new bishop to pay his first fruits over four years.<sup>12</sup> Creighton almost immediately became involved in another local dispute, this time with William Piers, his predecessor’s son, who had sublet his canonical house with the tacit approval of his father. So disgraceful did Creighton consider such conduct that he was convinced ‘Dr Piers’ example will do more mischief than all the wicked times of usurpation’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In his late seventies and suffering from the ‘tearing vigorous disease’ which he attributed to drinking ‘strong old Rhenish’ wine when in exile in Cologne, Creighton never took his seat in the Lords. On 7 Oct. 1670 he gave his proxy to his fellow royalist exile Benjamin Lany*, of Ely.<sup>14</sup> On 17 Nov. 1672, he made a nuncupative will; among other bequests, he left his library to his son Robert (who followed in his father’s footsteps as a royal chaplain, precentor of Wells, and scourge of Dissenters) and the diamond ring presented to him by the queen of Sweden to his daughter, Katherine, married to Francis Poulett, son of John Poulett<sup>†</sup>, Baron Poulett. Creighton died on 21 Nov. 1672 and was buried in Wells cathedral, where a ‘ponderous’ marble tomb and effigy of Creighton’s own design were erected.<sup>15</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
CROFT, Herbert (1603-91) |
<p><strong><surname>CROFT</surname></strong>, <strong>Herbert</strong> (1603–91)</p> |
|
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1662; last sat 26 Apr. 1675 |
cons. 9 Feb. 1662 bp. of HEREFORD |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Oct. 1603, 3rd s. of Sir Herbert Croft<sup>‡</sup>, and Mary, da. of Anthony Bourne, Holt Castle, Worcs. <em>educ</em>. Coll. Eng. Fathers, St Omer 1617; Eng. Coll. Rome 1626; Christ Church, Oxf. BD 25 June 1636, DD 18 Apr. 1640; ord. deacon and priest, 1638. <em>m</em>. bef. 1651, Anne, da. of Jonathan Browne, dean of Hereford, 1s. 1da. (<em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 18 May 1691; <em>suc</em>. bro. 1659; <em>d</em>. 18 May 1691; <em>will</em> 4 Jan. 1689, pr. 13 July 1691.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I 1640; dean, chapel royal 1668–9.</p><p>Rect. Uley, Glos. 1638, Harding, Oxon. 1639; chap. to Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland, 1639; canon, Salisbury 1639–44, Worcester 1640–62, Windsor 1641; dean, Hereford 1644; seq. 1644; restored to all posts 1660.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, c.1665–1670, Croft Castle, Herefs.</p> |
<p>Herbert Croft’s father converted to Catholicism in 1617 and retired to a Benedictine monastery in France. The young Croft joined him and also became a Catholic. After a decade of study abroad, Herbert returned to the Church of England from what he described in his will as the ‘errors and gross superstitions’ of the Church of Rome. His career in the Anglican Church was then facilitated by the patronage of William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury from 1633.</p><p>After the fall of Hereford to parliamentarian forces, Croft preached vigorously against vandalism but his audacity almost cost him his life. In a celebrated confrontation in Hereford cathedral, soldiers held their fire only when dissuaded by John Birch<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>3</sup> After the confiscation of his livings, Croft lived with Sir Rowland Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>4</sup> However, he became a Herefordshire magnate in his own right when he succeeded to the Croft Castle estates in 1659. These were said to provide an annual income of £2,000 but in 1689 he claimed that his personal estate for taxation purposes amounted to only £500.<sup>5</sup></p><p><em>Bishop of Hereford</em></p><p>Within weeks of the Restoration, Croft hectored the king over his Civil War engagement with the Presbyterian Scots, claiming that the royalist defeat at Worcester was providential comment on the king’s desertion of the established Church. Although the king expressed his dislike of the sermon, calling Croft ‘a passionate preacher’, when Nicholas Monck*, of Hereford, died prematurely in 1662, Croft, who was familiar with political configurations in the region, filled the vacancy.<sup>6</sup> He did not have an active parliamentary career and attended only nine sessions. For the first 13 years of his episcopate, he attended only sporadically and for only four sessions was he present for more than half of all sittings. He did not sit after the 1688 Revolution. He was moderately active in convocation, helping to revise the 1640 canons.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Croft was far more concerned with ecclesiastical than parliamentary affairs, bringing order to cathedral life and music to its liturgy, and ensuring weekly doles to the poor. In the decade after 1660, in a bishopric worth £900 a year, he claimed to have spent over £8,000 on public and charitable uses, but £5,000 of that represented the value of leases transferred to George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, for the benefit of Nicholas Monck’s widow and children (and which Croft confirmed by order of the king), and a further £2,000 was to remove the encumbrances created by interregnum leases issued to Albemarle’s ally, John Birch. Only £400 was spent on building and repairs, with a further £700 to augment livings. In 1681 William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, made it clear that he expected rather more to have been done in the way of augmentations but Croft excused himself on the grounds of the ‘hard terms’ on which he had accepted the bishopric, its low value and the lack of a <em>commendam</em>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>As a private landowner, Croft had extensive dealings with the local gentry and nobility. In his capacity as bishop, he could neither ignore the Presbyterian presence in his diocese nor conceal his distaste for the schism generated by the Act of Uniformity. He was active in the committee stages of the legislation and on 8 Apr. was one of those appointed to draw up the abortive proviso that would allow the king to provide for the ejected clergy.<sup>9</sup> Croft did his utmost to persuade his own clergy to conform. In some instances he allowed them breathing space beyond the deadline, informing one minister that it was ‘contrary to his inclination to have such as he removed … it was the law that turned him out and not he’.<sup>10</sup> Required by the Secretary of State, Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, to supply the names of non-subscribers, Croft reported that he had ‘prevailed with all the considerable persons’ in his diocese except for Dr John Tombes, the ‘proud Anabaptist’.<sup>11</sup> Only 23 ministers in Herefordshire were ejected from their livings.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Croft seems to have been able to make a clear distinction between personal and theological failings, one that was probably not appreciated by others. Christian charity, he claimed, obliged the churchwardens of Greet to forgive their ‘drunken, brawling’ but contrite and conformable minister.<sup>13</sup> In contrast, those who were deficient in ‘right principles in religion’ fared badly: ministers lacking education or loyalty were refused institution in his diocese.<sup>14</sup> ‘Vipers’ such as the dissenting pamphleteer Ralph Wallis or the ‘pitiful’ poorly educated fellows admitted to the ministry by the sons of William Lucy*, of St Davids (‘to whom any fee is welcome’) were distinctly unwelcome.<sup>15</sup> Croft’s careful scrutiny of pastoral provision also extended to Wales: under the terms of the Act of Uniformity, Parliament entrusted him with shared responsibility for providing a revised Welsh book of common prayer.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In his first three sessions in the House, Croft was named to numerous select committees on disparate pieces of legislation. He was present for the debates on the Act of Uniformity and it may have been on one of these occasions (or perhaps more probably for the debate on a possible amendment to the act in the summer of 1663) that he told the House that unity in the Church was so important that ‘he should not only be content to part with any of the ceremonies and much more to leave them all as indifferent in their use as they were in their nature but even to dispense with the belief of some things in the creed itself’.<sup>17</sup> On 23 Mar. 1663 the House appointed him as one of four bishops who were first named to prepare a petition to the king for a royal proclamation against Catholics and then to manage conferences with the Commons on 26 and 28 March. Imbued with a puritanical distaste of vice, he chaired all four of the Lords’ committee meetings on the gaming bill in July 1663. In the same week he sat on the committee for the private bill to settle the dispute between John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, and his son, Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St John, the future 6th marquess of Winchester and Duke of Bolton, and was named as an intermediary in the case.<sup>18</sup></p><p>On 24 July 1663 Croft was named to the committee that framed the contentious and ultimately unsuccessful amendment to the Act of Uniformity stating that the declaration of ‘assent and consent’ should be understood ‘only as to the practice and obedience to the said Act, and not otherwise’. He attended the House throughout the passage of the first Conventicle Act in April 1664. At the 1665 session in Oxford he was named to the committee for further provision for the plague; then, on 27 Oct., together with nine of his fellow bishops, he was named to the select committee on what was to become the Five Mile Act, attending until the legislation received the royal assent on 31 October. During the next (1666–7) session, Croft was present for only 27 per cent of sittings, registering his proxy in favour of George Hall*, of Chester, on 15 Dec. 1666 (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p><em>The fall of Clarendon and the Cabal, 1667-8</em></p><p>Croft’s position as a trusted courtier was tested to the full when Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, was ousted from power. On 12 Nov. 1667 the chancellor was impeached at the bar of the House of Lords. Four days later the king, particularly ‘concerned’ at levels of support for Clarendon, claimed that he had ‘one bishop on his side [Croft] and but one’ and was left with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, as his ‘only cabinet council’.<sup>19</sup> In the crucial division on 20 Nov. Croft voted against the chancellor and went on to sign the protest when the resolution to commit him was lost. Henry Glemham*, bishop of St Asaph, also signed the protest – but then removed his name as he had missed the vote; perhaps this was why Croft was entrusted with his proxy a few days later.<sup>20</sup> Despite his opposition to the Lords’ vote, on 14 Dec. the House appointed Croft and Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, to draw up reasons defending the Lords’ decision and to manage the subsequent conference with the Commons.</p><p>In his autobiography Clarendon complained bitterly that Croft had behaved towards him with ‘very signal ingratitude’ and recounted the bishop’s attempt to mediate. The king authorized Croft to guarantee Clarendon safe passage abroad and to promise that ‘he should not be in any degree prosecuted, or suffer in his honour or fortune by his absence’. Directed to avoid mentioning the king by name, Croft became increasingly ‘more involved and perplexed’. Clarendon refused the offer outright and the king in turn refused to grant a written pass, each message conveyed via the agitated bishop. Only when James Stuart*, duke of York, intervened to confirm Croft’s offer did Clarendon leave for France.<sup>21</sup></p><p>It was a sign of Croft’s continuing favour with the king that he was invited to preach on Christmas day 1667 in place of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury. Then, in February 1668, Croft replaced another Clarendon ally, George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, as dean of the chapel royal. His influence at court was nevertheless limited: in the autumn of 1668 he joined forces with Sheldon in an unsuccessful attempt to oppose the appointment of the natural philosopher, John Wilkins*, to Chester and to secure the appointment of William Sancroft instead.<sup>22</sup></p><p><em>Retirement from court, 1669–75</em></p><p>In April 1669, less than 18 months after his appointment, Croft resigned his position at the chapel royal. No one was quite sure why. Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, reported that Croft intended to lead ‘a retired life’ in Herefordshire. He was perhaps more inclined to such a life because of his grief at the recent death of his daughter. There was also speculation that his decision was prompted by having his last sermon ‘evil spoken of’, which suggests that there may have been some truth in the explanation offered by Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, that the bishop had ‘lost ground quickly’ by using ‘much freedom with the king … in the wrong place, not in private, but in the pulpit’.<sup>23</sup> Yet another possibility is his embarrassment at the revival of a report that his wife had converted to Rome, although, given Croft’s virulent anti-Catholicism, such a conversion seems scarcely credible.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Croft attended Parliament for the adjournment on 1 Mar. 1668 but was then absent, apart from an appearance at the prorogation on 9 May 1669 and at the opening of the brief 1673 session on 27 Oct., until he began to attend regularly again in 1674. His presence on 27 Oct. 1673 was almost certainly a by-product of a visit to London, during which, together with Morley, he had made a concerted attempt to reclaim the duke of York for the Church of England.<sup>25</sup> On 4 Feb. 1674 he delivered a forthright fast sermon to the House, lecturing the assembled lords on their moral laxity. They had been warned of their sins by plague, fire and the audacious attack by the Dutch in home waters, yet continued to behave as ‘lascivious goats’. He warned that, without a commitment to moral reform, famine, fire and brimstone would be next on the providential agenda. The Lords, he went on, should be concerned only ‘for God’s glory … [not their] own privileges’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Within days of Croft’s sermon, the Lords were occupied with another bill to invite into the Church ‘sober and peaceably-minded Dissenters’. Although he attended the House more regularly during this session, Croft was not present for the bill’s first or second readings and the proposed legislation was lost with prorogation on 24 February. In April he preached before the king, delivering not a lecture but a classic statement of Protestant faith.<sup>27</sup> Throughout 1674, presumably impelled by revelations the previous year of York’s conversion to Rome, he became increasingly absorbed with the threat of Catholicism. Fearful that senior churchmen were betraying the fundamentals of Protestantism, he published an attack on ‘popish idolatry’, warning Englishmen of the need to protect the purity of their Church.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Croft attended the opening of the 1675 session but was present for only three days, making his final appearance in the House on 26 Apr., the day on which the House debated the contentious ‘no alteration’ oath proposed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). At a call of the House on 29 Apr. 1675 he was excused attendance.</p><p><em>The Naked Truth</em></p><p>As Danby’s alliance with the bishops became more entrenched and the embryonic Whig party made political capital out of anti-clericalism, Croft worked assiduously for Protestant unity. Addressed directly to the Lords and Commons, his pamphlet <em>The Naked Truth</em> appeared anonymously in 1675 ‘like a comet’. This plea for unity and his willingness to abolish the more controversial Church ceremonies fell foul of churchmen and laity alike. The book was distributed at Westminster in advance of the brief session in autumn 1675, carefully timed to create support for a bill for the relief of nonconformists that Buckingham tried to introduce. Anglican hardliners, including Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, and Francis Turner*, who would succeed Gunning at Ely, were appalled. It was even rumoured that if his authorship could be proved Croft would be suspended from his bishopric.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Locally this encouraged the renascent country party to seek Croft’s support by offering his son, Sir Herbert Croft<sup>‡</sup>, a seat in the Commons at the next election as Member for Leominster. The offer was refused, perhaps because of a desire to avoid further factional entanglement, especially as political uncertainties seem to have been encouraging anti-clerical sentiments in his own diocese. The chaplain to local country party supporter Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> found himself under investigation and bound over to appear at the assizes for saying ‘that the bishops should be excluded, that they were a dead weight, and that, whenever they gave their voices for themselves or by proxies, for the most part they were on the crown side’. Such a view is supported by Croft’s decision to register his proxy in favour of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, on 9 Feb. 1677. It is however rather more likely that, as a territorial magnate in his own right, Croft was affronted by arrangements that were intended to secure election for the county for Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> and to fob Croft off with the offer of a mere borough seat for his son.<sup>30</sup></p><p><em>From the Popish Plot to 1688</em></p><p>When Parliament reconvened on 21 Oct. 1678 its business was dominated by the revelations made over the previous summer about a supposed Popish Plot. These included claims that Croft was an assassination target because of his apostasy from Rome.<sup>31</sup> Croft’s proxy, registered with Thomas Lamplugh*, of Exeter, on 25 Oct., was used in the collective episcopal support for Danby.<sup>32</sup> Croft seems to have had no doubts about the reality of the plot, which he linked to the anger of providence against a sinful nation, the Popish Plot being ‘contrived by popish priests for the destruction both of … Church and state’, and he declared that national ‘humiliation’ was necessary to avert a ‘fearful judgment’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Although absent from the House, Croft nevertheless became engaged in parliamentary business. On 7 Dec. 1678 the Lords learned that a property in Combe (Cwm), Herefordshire, was being used as a college for Jesuits and ordered Croft to investigate. On 26 Dec., excusing his absence on account of ‘his great age and infirmities’, he informed the Lords that he had indeed discovered a Jesuit college and would investigate further. Two days later, the Lords committee for examinations heard that the library at Combe had been seized, and required Croft to dispose of the offending material. Writing to Henry Compton in the immediate aftermath of the raid, Croft was anxious about reactions in the House, especially the likely displeasure of Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort).<sup>34</sup> His report of the ransacking of Combe appeared in print the following year, describing the discovery of communion wafers, crucifixes and relics, together with unequivocal proof that one of the priests had sold an indulgence for £30.<sup>35</sup> The cause of Croft’s anxiety became clear later when it transpired that the priests had all been harboured by Monmouthshire gentry, from whom the future James II had hoped to form a ‘Catholic political class’, and who were clients of Worcester.<sup>36</sup> The episode produced a wave of invective to which Croft contributed, claiming that, since his ‘bloody enemies the Jesuitical priests’ were determined to kill him, there was a pressing need to examine at length ‘all the controversies’ with Catholicism.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Croft’s desire to avoid public (and potential parliamentary) criticism resulted in particular difficulty in 1682 when he had to handle competing demands about how to deal with Lady Scudamore’s adultery with Thomas Coningsby<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Coningsby. Fully aware of ‘the great clamour of the country and … of the kingdom’, he commenced a prosecution against the couple in the Church courts, insisting that the Church was ‘bound to prosecute such notorious wickedness in great persons as well as in mean’. In his eyes, Lady Scudamore was the more guilty of the two: ‘For both by the laws of God and man adultery is more punishable in the woman than the man.’ Sancroft disagreed: he considered Coningsby to be more worthy of punishment and wanted the matter settled by a private reconciliation in Croft’s chapel. Anxious to avoid responsibility, Croft told Sancroft in August that ‘I heartily wish your grace would make use of your court of the arches and take it out of mine’. By December he was trying to wash his hands of the whole affair, suggesting that Sancroft persuade Lady Scudamore ‘to acknowledge her crime and submit herself to the Church’s discipline before such witnesses as your grace should think fit and perform such other things in your chapel there as your grace proposed to be done in mine here’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>As the Scudamore/Coningsby affair demonstrated, living a retired life did not mean freedom from personal and political dilemmas. In May 1684, Croft had to defend himself to Sancroft for the delay in sending the Hereford address to the king; the clergy had not appeared to subscribe previous addresses and he wished to avoid being ‘singular’ in the matter.<sup>39</sup> He was even challenged directly from the pulpit of his own cathedral: ‘if ever popery breaks in upon us’, the preacher claimed, it would be the fault of those who had advocated comprehension.<sup>40</sup></p><p>After the accession of James II to the throne, Croft’s anti-catholicism gave way in the face of the need to demonstrate loyalty to the new king. An exchange of letters between Sancroft and William Lloyd*, then bishop of Llandaff, suggests that this engendered a considerable level of distrust. Discussing a letter recently sent by Croft to Beaufort, Lloyd accused the former of having moved from ‘naked truth to barefaced flattery’ and feared that he had paved the way for the new king to ‘cancel the obligation of that most gracious … royal promise’ to protect the Church of England.<sup>41</sup> Anxious to secure the king’s goodwill and distance himself from his earlier strictures against Catholics, in March 1687 Croft directed his archdeacon, Adam Ottley*, later bishop of St Davids,</p><blockquote><p>to recommend unto all persons their loyalty and special duty they owe unto our sovereign for his gracious inclinations to us by god’s particular providence and dispensation to suffer us so freely to enjoy our religion which is so contrary to the general inclination of those men of his own persuasion …<sup>42</sup></p></blockquote><p>Croft’s name is absent from the various lists compiled in 1687–8 of those who supported the king’s religious policies; but nor was he listed as an opponent. When James II instructed the bishops to disseminate his second Declaration of Indulgence on the first two Sundays in June 1688, there was a widespread expectation that Croft would comply. Indeed, early in June 1688 Croft told the king that</p><blockquote><p>It hath been my great good fortune that I have found no trouble at all in conscience by obeying your Majesty’s commands … A true Church of England man can never rebel or be disloyal in the least, his religion commanding him absolutely to obey, either by acting or by suffering, and to lay himself as a worm under your majesty’s feet …<sup>43</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sir Edward Harley, assisted by his son Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, spent several weeks, beginning in mid May, attempting to dissuade Croft, pointing out that ‘whatsoever is read in the Church is by law required to be warranted by the king or the bishop, so that whatsoever is read there, is not merely narrative or rehearsal, but authoritative, consequently implies consent’. Croft nevertheless instructed his clergy to read it ‘on their obedience canonical’. He told Harley that refusing to read the declaration was unnecessarily antagonistic and that the clergy could and should rely on the king’s promise to preserve the Anglican religion.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Croft was appalled to find that he was now suspected of being a Catholic sympathizer and rushed into print to defend his actions, claiming that he had spent a sleepless night in ‘a perfect agony’ as he tried to reconcile his duty to his king with that to his fellow bishops and the Church.<sup>45</sup> The Dutch ambassador reported, almost certainly inaccurately, that Croft had recanted and had joined the other bishops in opposition to the Declaration. Nevertheless Croft probably did soften his position, for by the end of June it was reported that he was allowing his clergy the freedom to decide for themselves whether or not they should read the Declaration.<sup>46</sup> In August he began to try to repair the breach with Sancroft, using Archdeacon Ottley to circulate copies of his letter to James II and to make it known that he was resolutely opposed to the repeal of the Test ‘or doing anything prejudicial to the Church of England’.<sup>47</sup> Heartened by Ottley’s response, on 22 Aug. 1688 Croft wrote to Sancroft directly, reaffirming that his intent in agreeing to distribute the Declaration had been to preserve James II’s goodwill and did not imply approval of its content: ‘And when a man intends no evil, charity will certainly judge no evil of that man, but will rather take it to be a mistake in judgment, easily pardonable, especially in a man of my age’.<sup>48</sup></p><p><em>Final years</em></p><p>At a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689, Croft’s absence was attributed to age and he was again excused parliamentary duty. He was clearly too frail to travel to London but he was also unable to reconcile himself to the Revolution. In his will, composed the same month, he wrote of ‘these evil days wherein we have lived to see such sad revolutions and dismal catastrophes’. He failed to take the new oaths and on 22 Apr. 1691 Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Bristol, was nominated to the see of Hereford in Croft’s place. Early in May Croft’s dislike of the new regime was underlined when he refused to assist local celebrations for the safe return to England of William III. His windows were broken in revenge.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Ironside was not formally translated until October 1691 so Croft was still technically bishop of Hereford when he died on 18 May 1691 and is thus not normally counted among the non-jurors. He bequeathed Croft Castle to his only son, Sir Herbert Croft; his final arrangements were otherwise concerned primarily with charitable donations, including the establishment of a £1,200 trust to provide for the widows of poor ministers. He was buried between the communion rails of his cathedral, to be joined within 15 months by his dean, George Benson. Their conjoined memorial tablets, with two hands intertwined, commemorated a deep and lasting friendship.<sup>50</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
CUMBERLAND, Richard (1632-1718) |
<p><strong><surname>CUMBERLAND</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1632–1718)</p> |
|
|
First sat 27 Oct. 1691; last sat 22 Feb. 1716 |
cons. 5 July 1691 bp. of PETERBOROUGH |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 15 July 1632, s. of Richard Cumberland, tailor and citizen of Fleet Street, London and Marjory (Margaret, Mary), (surname unknown). <em>educ</em>. St Paul’s; Magdalene, Camb. matric. 1650, BA 1653, MA 1656, fell. 1656, BD 1663; incorp. Oxf. 1657; DD 1680. <em>m</em>. 22 Sept. 1670, Anne (<em>d</em>.1684), da. of [forename unknown] Quinsey (Quincy) of Aslackby, Lincs. 1s. 3da.<sup>1</sup> (4 ch. <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 9 Oct. 1718; <em>will</em> 15 Sept. 1714-9 Sept. 1717, pr. 4 Nov. 1718.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Brampton-by-Dingley, Northants. 1658-91, St Peter’s Stamford, Lincs. 1670; preacher Univ. Cambridge 1661; chap. to Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, bt.; vic. All Saints Stamford, Lincs. 1670-1718; lecturer Stamford, Lincs. 1670.</p><p>Elected mbr. lower house of Convoc. 1675; commr. Q. Anne’s Bounty 1705.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Thomas Murray, 1706, the Palace, Peterborough; mezzotint, after Murray, by J. Smith, 1714, NPG D1609.</p> |
<p>Richard Cumberland’s first biographer, his son-in-law and domestic chaplain Squire Payne, described how Cumberland, who had not sought promotion or frequented the court, read of his elevation in a coffee house newspaper.<sup>4</sup> His reputation had been made in moral and political philosophy rather than ecclesiastical intrigue or polemic. Little of his correspondence survives and he left only one sermon in print and that many decades after his death.<sup>5</sup> Any account of his life is heavily reliant on Payne and on a short account composed by the bishop’s playwright great-grandson and namesake.</p><p>Cumberland was a student at Cambridge during the Interregnum, where his friends included Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>. There is no record of his episcopal ordination, whether before or after the Restoration. When preferred to the rectory of Brampton, Northamptonshire, by Sir John Norwich<sup>‡</sup> in 1658, he underwent an interrogation by three presbyterian ‘triers’ but this did not preclude the possibility that he had already been ordained by a bishop.<sup>6</sup></p><p>While at Bampton, he maintained his connections with his Cambridge friends. In 1667 Samuel Pepys regretted that ‘a most excellent person… as any I know… should be lost and buried in a little country town’.<sup>7</sup> Nevertheless, within a few years Cumberland had become chaplain to lord keeper Orlando Bridgeman, whose patronage obtained him his Stamford vicarage.<sup>8</sup> Bridgeman’s history of negotiating a comprehension bill must have lent Cumberland an association with religious toleration. His major work of political philosophy, <em>De legibus naturae disquisitio philosophica</em> (1672) was dedicated to Bridgeman. Its argument, in which the doctrines of Thomas Hobbes were seemingly adopted only for them to be used to refute Hobbes’s position, has intrigued many generations of scholars, with Cumberland being variously claimed as a prophet of probability theory or of utilitarianism, and a secularist in ecclesiastical clothing. By the late twentieth century it was becoming recognized that Cumberland was arguing from Hobbes that rational enquiry demonstrated the active involvement of God in ordaining natural law, that human impulses tended towards the upholding of such natural law rather than offering no evidence for it and that the divine role in natural law could be demonstrated without recourse to scriptural authority.<sup>9</sup> This apparent secularism went further than, but in the same direction as, some arguments made by Cumberland’s eventual ecclesiastical superiors Thomas Tenison*, and John Tillotson*, archbishops of Canterbury. Combining elements of the patriarchicalism beloved of royalists and high churchmen with a theory of knowledge associated with republicanism may explain why Tenison and Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, characterised Cumberland at the time he was considered for elevation as a ‘moderate’.</p><p>Pepys had hoped that Cumberland would marry his younger sister Paulina, but he instead married into the Quincy family of Aslackby, Lincolnshire.<sup>10</sup> He performed the response at the Cambridge university commencement in 1680, defending the theses that Peter was not given jurisdiction over the other apostles, and that separation from the Church of England was schismatic.<sup>11</sup> Cumberland was so fearful for the future of the Church under James II that on one occasion he is alleged to have developed ‘a dangerous Fit of Sickness, one of the severest Fevers from which ever Man recovered.’ His edition of <em>Sanchoniatho’s Phoenician History</em> constituted a robust defence of Protestantism and though ready for publication in 1688, Cumberland’s bookseller was unwilling to issue so anti-Catholic a text in fear of royal reprisals.<sup>12</sup></p><p>The Revolution created a political and religious context far more amenable to Cumberland. One contemporary claimed that he was ‘so modest and retired’ that he would never have achieved higher office without the intervention of his friend John Tillotson, a fellow rational divine.<sup>13</sup> Tillotson recommended Cumberland as a clergyman who had experience on the ground in the diocese (but no experience whatever of service in the higher clergy) to replace Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, the nonjuror. He was also supported by Gilbert Burnet (with whom he would remain very close throughout their lengthy careers on the episcopal bench) who described Cumberland as a ‘most learned and worthy minister … and always a moderate man’.<sup>14</sup> On 22 Apr. 1691 the king issued the warrant for Cumberland’s election. The royal assent on 9 June was followed by consecration on 5 July.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Enthroned in his new cathedral in September 1691, Cumberland travelled to Westminster to begin a parliamentary career in the House of Lords that spanned 25 years. He took his seat in the House on 27 Oct. 1691. He attended 26 sessions between 1691 and 1716, only two of them for fewer than half of all sittings. Usually present at the start of each session (for 22 of his 26 sessions), there was little other discernible pattern to his attendance, except towards the end of his life when travel to the House was clearly more of an effort. Throughout his career, he was named repeatedly to the sessional committees and to a wide range of select committees on both public and private bills. In the reign of William III alone he was nominated to more than 250 select committees and examined the journal on numerous occasions. In the parliamentary session that had opened five days before he took his seat, Cumberland attended 81 per cent of sittings. He was named to 19 committees and remained at Westminster until the end of the session on 24 Feb. 1692. During this session he signed the bishops’ petition to the king calling for the enforcement of laws against impiety and vice.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Elevation to the episcopate appears to have made little difference to Cumberland’s lifestyle. He proved a diligent diocesan in the early years of his episcopate, conducting triennial visitations until he was 80 years of age. He insisted that his clergy should feel ‘easy’ and championed the cause of low-paid and overworked curates.<sup>17</sup> He governed himself with a lively work ethic on the grounds that it was better to ‘wear out than rust out’, but consistently refused translation to a larger see.<sup>18</sup> By 1718, when William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, was complaining at his own lack of promotion, Cumberland was the only bishop more senior to Nicolson who was still in his original see.<sup>19</sup> Cumberland showed little interest in parliamentary elections. The dean and chapter of Peterborough were lords of the manor and held a major interest in the city, but they were overshadowed by the Whig Fitzwilliam interest and by the Tory influence of Cecil earls of Exeter, lords paramount of the soke of Peterborough and <em>custodes rotulorum</em>, renewed by John Cecil*, 6th earl of Exeter, after 1710. Nor was Cumberland bound by a narrow Whig political interest in the 1690s. He supported the Church interest in 1695 in the person of Tory Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup>, the son of John Dolben*, archbishop of York, although it seems unlikely that Gilbert Dolben would have retained Cumberland’s support after refusing the Association in 1696.</p><p>Cumberland was present on the first day of the November 1692 session, attended nearly 84 per cent of sittings, and was named to the sessional committees for privileges, the Journal and petitions and to 31 select committees. Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, forecast he would support the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 2 Jan. 1693 Cumberland voted for the reading of the bill. The following day he voted against the passage of the bill for free proceedings in Parliament (place bill). On 17 Jan. he registered his dissent against the resolution that Charles Knollys had no right to the earldom of Banbury. A staunch defender of the revolutionary regime, he voted on 25 Jan. to commit the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons.<sup>20</sup> Present on 13 Mar., he missed only the last day of business that session.</p><p>In the diocese for the summer months, Cumberland was concerned with the payment of his first fruits and with pastoral matters, not least the rooting out (on the orders of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham) of a Peterborough clergyman who had been preaching that William and Mary had not been appointed as rulers by God, ‘but only permitted them [to reign] as He often does judgments for the sins of a nation.’<sup>21</sup> Again present on the opening day of the November 1693 session, Cumberland attended 86 per cent of sittings, was named to the sessional committee for privileges and to 19 select committees. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against the reversal of chancery’s ruling in the Albemarle inheritance case (involving Ralph Montagu*, earl of Montagu, and John Granville*, earl of Bath). Cumberland remained at Westminster until the House rose on 25 April. He repeated this pattern in the following session, attending for nearly 85 per cent of sittings; he was named to 30 select committees, and to the committees for privileges and for the Journal. On 18 Apr. 1695 he helped to manage the conference on the bill to continue existing legislation, was present on the last day of the session, 3 May, and examined the Journal. On 8 Oct. Cumberland was the only bishop to be present at the prorogation.</p><p>Following the 1695 election Cumberland attended for the start of the session beginning in November. He attended 92 per cent of sittings, was named to the committees for privileges and for the Journal and to 32 select committees. On 6 Dec. he was the only bishop to be named to the committee to draw an address to the king for an army and navy list. He signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696 and, on 10 Apr., the ‘repugnance’ at the absolution by nonjuring clergy at the execution of Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup> Little else is known of his parliamentary activity that session apart from his being a manager, on 6 Apr., of the conference on the privateers bill. He attended on 25 Apr. but missed the last two days of business.</p><p>Back at Westminster for the start of the next session in October 1696, Cumberland attended nearly 77 per cent of sittings. He was again named to the committees for privileges and the journal and to 21 select committees. On 23 Dec., as a firm adherent to the court, he supported the king in voting for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. As a reliable presence in the House, he received two proxies during the session: on 3 Mar. 1697 from Whig John Hall*, bishop of Bristol, and on 8 Mar. 1697 from the Tory Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester (both vacated at the end of the session). He was back at Westminster for the first day of the session that opened on 3 Dec. 1697, again attended for an impressive 87 per cent of sittings, was named to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal, and to 40 select committees. On 15 Mar. 1698 he registered his dissent against the resolution not to commit the bill to punish Tory financier, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. Receiving the proxy on 16 June 1698 of James Gardiner*, bishop of Lincoln (vacated at the end of the session), he remained at Westminster until the House rose on 5 July 1698.</p><p>The December 1698 and November 1699 sessions followed the now familiar pattern. Cumberland was present on the first day of each, attended 69 per cent and 84 per cent of sittings respectively and was named to the sessional committees and to 21 select committees in each session. On 8 Feb. 1699 he acted as teller for the contents in the division in the committee of the whole on the resumption of the House. On 23 Jan. 1700 he protested against the resolution that the judgment be reversed in the writ of error in <em>R. Williamson v. the Crown</em> and a month later, voted against an adjournment during the debate on the future constitution of the East India Company. During the summer recess of 1700 he was recorded on a printed list of party affiliation as a Whig who was a potential supporter of the new ministry. A more pressing concern for Cumberland at that time was the increasingly vociferous debates between high and low churchmen. He was a faithful acolyte of Archbishop Tension, especially in the partisan Convocation of 1701, and sat with Tension when he pronounced the sentence of suspension against Edward Jones*, bishop of St Asaph on 18 June.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Cumberland attended the House on the first day of the session beginning in February 1701 and thereafter was present for 79 per cent of sittings. He was named to 19 select committees and to the committees for privileges and the Journal. Cumberland rallied to the support of both John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. On 17 June he voted in favour of Somers’ acquittal against impeachment; six days later he followed suit with a similar vote in favour of the acquittal of Orford. At Westminster until the end of the session on 24 June, it is probable that he then returned to Peterborough. He was back on the episcopal bench for the first day of the December session, attending 70 per cent of subsequent sittings. On 26 Feb. 1702, consistent with the opposition to schismatics he had defended in Cambridge in 1680, he registered his dissent against the resolution to continue the 1696 Quaker Affirmation Act.</p><p>With the death of William III on 8 Mar. 1702, Cumberland reported from the committee on the address to Queen Anne on her accession. He attended the session for the last time on 19 May, six days before its end. Present for Anne’s first session of Parliament (in October 1702) he attended nearly 69 per cent of sittings. On 22 Nov. he attended the queen’s chapel in the politically mixed company of John Sharp*, archbishop of York, Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, and Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford. He also attended the 1702 St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth.<sup>24</sup> The atmosphere at ecclesiastical gatherings clearly transcended partisan politics, but in the House Cumberland was a consistent supporter of the Whig party line. On 3 Dec. 1702, in the division on Somers’ amendment to the occasional conformity bill (to restrict the act to those covered only by the Test), he voted to support the amendment.</p><p>Cumberland had retained his scholarly eye for detail and on 8 Jan. 1703 offered an amendment to a private bill during its third reading. He was stopped by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, on the grounds that this was a procedural irregularity and should have been done at an earlier stage; lord keeper Nathan Wright subsequently allowed the amendment since it related only to a transcription error.<sup>25</sup> As predicted by Nottingham, Cumberland voted on 16 Jan. 1703 for the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause in the occasional conformity bill. Three days later, still firmly in the Whig camp, he registered his protest against the resolution concerning Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland.</p><p>In November 1703, after the summer recess, Cumberland was twice forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as an opponent of a new attempt to pass an occasional conformity bill. Back on the episcopal bench for the first day of the 1703-4 session (during which he attended for 73 per cent of sittings), Cumberland rejected the passage of the bill on 14 December. Later in the session, on 25 Mar. 1704, he dissented from the decision to put the question on whether the failure to censure Ferguson encouraged enemies of the crown.</p><p>In his place for the start of the October 1704 session, he subsequently attended 69 per cent of sittings. On Sunday 5 Nov. he, Nicolson and Archbishop Tension were the only bishops to attend the House before the customary Protestant service of thanksgiving. Ten days later Cumberland received the proxy of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely (vacated 16 Nov.) in advance of the reintroduction of the occasional conformity bill in December. Remaining at his London home over Christmas, he again attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. Frequently in the company of Burnet and Nicolson, the three men attended the committee on 9 Jan. 1705 to discuss the private bill for Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup> (with Nicholas Stratford and Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick).<sup>26</sup> The House rose on 14 Mar. 1705 and the following day Cumberland returned to ecclesiastical politics. He joined Burnet, John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, and John Hough*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, in informing the Tory clergy in Convocation that they must govern themselves according to the rules of the constitution, and not according to their own wishes.<sup>27</sup></p><p>On 25 Oct. 1705 Cumberland was in the House for the start of the new session (and throughout the session attended nearly 65 per cent of sittings). He was present for the lengthy ‘Church in Danger’ debate of 6 Dec. 1705 and for the various divisions that day in the committee of the whole House. On 12 Jan. 1706 Cumberland and Nicolson together with Burnet attended the Lords’ committee on two naturalization bills. The traditional martyrdom service of 30 Jan. saw Cumberland (again with Burnet and Nicolson) accompany lord keeper William Cowper*, Baron (later earl) Cowper, to the Abbey together with Trelawny and John Evans*, bishop of Bangor. During February he also attended a Whitehall committee of Queen Anne’s Bounty. On 23 Feb., when the committee of the whole House debated the private bill of the archbishop of Dublin, Cumberland and the other bishops present except Burnet supported the archbishop in the division about the refunding clause. The following day he attended matins at Whitehall, the only bishop at a service attended by Robert Bertie*, marquess of Lindsey, Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, William Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, Robert Darcy*, 3rd earl of Holdernesse, and Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford.<sup>28</sup> On 11 Mar., like the other peers present, he managed both conferences on Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter</em> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford. Unusually, Cumberland missed the last two months of business, attending the session for the last time on 19 March.</p><p>Cumberland, present for the start of the autumn 1706 session, attended 74 per cent of sittings. On Christmas Day he and Nicolson took communion at St Margaret’s Westminster.<sup>29</sup> The following short session (opening on 14 Apr. 1707) saw a slight drop in his attendance to 60 per cent of sittings. He attended the October 1707 session for 80 per cent of sittings.</p><p>His diocesan regime in Peterborough remained consistently whiggish. In 1707 the politically active White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Canterbury, was installed as dean of Peterborough and Cumberland installed his son Richard (already on the cathedral chapter since 1699) as archdeacon of the diocese. Cumberland remained relatively active in London: aside from his parliamentary attendance he attended the 26 Dec. 1707 dinner at Lambeth and in February 1708 was identified by Nicolson as an ally in his legal proceedings against Hugh Todd, prebendary of Carlisle, over the governance of the cathedral, and so was presented with a copy of the case.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Cumberland’s Whig affiliations were recorded in <em>A True List of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal</em> in May 1708, though this does not seem to have translated into direct involvement with the June 1708 general election. He was in his seat in the House at the start of the November 1708 session and attended 74 per cent of sittings in the course of the session. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted with the opposition in the division on the voting rights of Scottish peers with British titles created since the Union, siding with Somers, Moore, William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln and Tenison and those Whigs associated with the Junto. On 17 Feb. five bishops, including Cumberland, went to the Abbey with Cowper, 11 lay peers (nine of them Scots) and seven members of the order of the Thistle for a service of thanksgiving preached by Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich. Cumberland continued to vote consistently with the Whig bishops; in the 15 Mar. division on the bill of general naturalization and the clause including the word ‘parochial’, he voted with Tenison, Burnet, Hough, Moore and Trimnell in opposition to the clause proposed by Tory William Dawes*, bishop of Chester. His sympathy for the Union was again demonstrated on 22 Mar. when he supported the northern lords against the court in the division on Scottish law (whether those accused of treason should have a list of witnesses before the trial) in the bill to improve the Union. Cumberland maintained his previous allegiances by voting with Burnet, Nicolson, Williams and John Tyler*, bishop of Llandaff. He was present on 25 Mar. in the committee of the whole House when it debated the treason bill (specifically the question of Scottish marriage settlements); in the division on an adjournment, Cumberland, Nicolson and Burnet voted with Cowper and Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, for a resumption of the House. The House rose on 21 Apr. 1709 but Cumberland remained in London to attend the Easter Day service in the Abbey on the 24th.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Back in the House for the first day of the November 1709 session, Cumberland attended 76 per cent of sittings and voted on strict party lines for a guilty verdict in the trial of Henry Sacheverell on 25 Mar. 1710. Meanwhile, Cumberland was coming under criticism for his ecclesiastical conduct. The Trinity ordination in the diocese was allegedly marked by a ‘laxity’ that allowed at least one prospective deacon to bypass the age qualification required.<sup>32</sup> It later transpired that Cumberland had conducted a number of ordinations without first assuring himself of candidates’ fitness for a position in the Church.<sup>33</sup></p><p>As usual, Cumberland was present on 25 Nov. 1710 for the start of the new session, but his level of attendance was now beginning to decline; he attended this session for 56 per cent of sittings. Throughout the debates on the war in Spain, he helped to defend the foreign policy of the duumvirs’ ministry. On 9 Jan. 1711, he voted, firstly, for a resumption of the House and, secondly, with the non-government Whigs, in opposition to the account of the war given by Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough.<sup>34</sup> Two days later, with nine Whig bishops (including Burnet), Cumberland twice registered his protest: against the rejection of the petitions of Henry de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], concerning the conduct of the war in Spain and against the resolution that defeat at Almanza was the consequence of their tactics and those of James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope. On 12 Jan., he also registered his protest against the censure of the Whig ministry for having approved military hostilities. On 3 Feb., he protested twice against further resolutions: that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of Almanza were insufficiently supplied, and that the failure of ministers to supply material amounted to neglect. Five days later he registered his dissent against two more resolutions: to present to the queen a representation concerning the war in Spain and to retain the wording in the representation relating to the grant of ‘vast sums of money’.</p><p>Throughout the spring Cumberland continued with his round of parliamentary, ecclesiastical and social activities, examining the Lords’ journals on 24 Mar. 1711 with Nicolson and Tyler, attending the fast sermon in the Abbey and dining in April in Chelsea at the home of Jonathan Trelawny, with his friend Nicolson and staunch Whigs Trimnell, Kennet and Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London.<sup>35</sup> In an attempt to quash the stridency of the high-fliers (under the leadership of Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester), Cumberland advocated in a letter of 17 June that the crown exercise the royal prerogative in banning the discussion or preaching of any doctrinal issue not contained in the Church articles.<sup>36</sup> Cumberland’s whiggery harmed his family’s position in the diocese as towards the end of the year his son, the archdeacon, was purged from the magisterial bench in Peterborough by John Cecil, 6th earl of Exeter.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Cumberland was back at Westminster on 7 Dec. 1711 for the first day of the new session (which he attended for 58 per cent of sittings) and was listed as a supporter of presenting the address to queen containing the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. Later in the month he was forecast as opposing the claim of James Hamilton*, duke of Hamilton [S] to sit in the House under his British title as duke of Brandon but was not listed as present when the House voted on the matter on 20 December. He voted along party lines on 26 Feb. 1712 when he divided against the Commons’ amendment to the Scottish toleration bill. On 21 May he received John Moore’s proxy (vacated 5 June) and on 27 May that of Trelawny (vacated on 2 June). He in turn registered his proxy with Trelawny on 4 June (it was vacated two days later). It is possible that this flurry of proxy giving was related to proceedings concerning Quaker affirmation. Cumberland missed the last five weeks of business and it is likely that he returned to Peterborough. Although the House was not in session during the autumn of 1712, Cumberland was back at Lambeth by 26 Dec. for the annual St Stephen’s dinner and in March 1713, unsurprisingly, was listed by the Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford as an opponent of the Tory ministry.<sup>38</sup> In April Cumberland was in his place for the start of the session, but attended only 20 per cent of sittings. During an acutely partisan period of divisions over foreign policy towards France, Oxford assumed that Cumberland would oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>In February 1714 Cumberland failed to live up to his usual punctuality and arrived one week after the start of the session. He attended nearly 30 per cent of sittings, including that of 5 Apr. when the House divided over the question of whether the Protestant succession was in danger. It is not known how Cumberland voted, although his previous record suggests that it can be assumed that he was a supporter of the Hanoverian succession; he was not, however, nominated to the Lords’ committee to draw up a suitable address to the queen. He was in the House on 13 Apr. when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to the address on the danger from the Pretender, a danger perceived to be so threatening that even some moderate Tories deserted the ministry. It was reported that only two of the bishops (Francis Atterbury and Nathaniel Crew) supported the court.<sup>39</sup> Cumberland attended the House for the last time that session on 4 May, thus missing divisions on the contentious Schism bill. On 8 May he deposited his proxy with Bishop Nicolson. On 27 May Nottingham forecast that Cumberland would oppose the measure, but Cumberland was absent on 11 June for the vote on extending the bill to Ireland. Nicolson claimed that Cumberland’s proxy was used to oppose the bill, but it is not clear from the proxy book who held the proxy on that day.<sup>40</sup> On 14 June Cumberland registered his proxy with William Wake (vacated at the end of the session) who used it to oppose the passage of the bill on the 15th.</p><p>The summer of 1714 saw a watershed in Cumberland’s parliamentary career. After the accession of George I, Cumberland attended the House on only 11 days. He did not attend the session in August 1714 and then attended for a brief period only in April and May 1715. He sat in the House of Lords for the final time on 22 Feb. 1716.</p><p>Although it is impossible to determine his overall wealth, he was clearly rich in property, some of which had been owned by his father and bequeathed to Cumberland’s brothers, William and Henry.<sup>41</sup> It is unclear how Richard Cumberland came to have these properties at his disposal (his brothers’ wills are unhelpful in this respect), but at his death he was able to bequeath houses and land in Westminster, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire.<sup>42</sup> Following a period of physical and intellectual decline, on 9 Oct. 1718, at the age of 86, Cumberland suffered a massive stroke whilst reading the newspaper in his study; he died the same day.<sup>43</sup></p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
DAVIES, Francis (1605-75) |
<p><strong><surname>DAVIES</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1605–75)</p> |
|
|
First sat 10 Oct. 1667; last sat 24 Feb. 1674 |
cons. 24 Aug. 1667 bp. of LLANDAFF |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 14 Mar. 1605, parents unknown. <em>educ.</em> Jesus, Oxf. matric. 1621, BA 1625, MA 1628, fell. c.1628, BD 1640, DD 1661. <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 14 Mar. 1675; <em>will</em> 6 Mar., pr. 12 Apr. 1675.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Pen-tyrch and Radyr, Glam. 1630, Llan-gan with Llantrithyd, Glam. 1638, St Andrew, Glam. 1667, Llangattock, Brec. 1667, Bedwas, Mon. 1668; preb. St. Andrew’s, Llandaff 1639, Fairwater, Llandaff 1668; adn. St Davids 1644, ejected c.1645, adn. Llandaff 1660; chap. to Penelope, countess of Peterborough, c.1656–9.</p> |
|
<p>A bookish ascetic from the ‘Laudian heartland’ of Glamorgan, Francis Davies succeeded his royalist friend Hugh Lloyd* as bishop of Llandaff in 1667. While his family background is unknown, he was a member of the ‘high Anglican’ circle at Jesus College, Oxford, in the 1630s, and a friend of Gilbert Sheldon*, later bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury. As a ‘sufferer’ Davies was assured a place in the Anglican martyrology to which his nephew and namesake contributed.<sup>2</sup> During and after the civil wars, he was a member of the county royalist network and a natural target for the governing puritan faction. For a while his ‘great piety’ earned him the protection of the parliamentarian commander Colonel Philip Jones but in or about 1656 his precarious financial position obliged him to leave Wales for London, where he became chaplain to the countess of Peterborough, whose husband, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, was not only a prominent royalist but a close friend of James Stuart*, duke of York.<sup>3</sup></p><p>In 1667 Davies’ friendship with Sheldon, his loyalism and his Anglican credentials made him a natural successor to Lloyd. Conscientious in both pastoral and diocesan bureaucracy (providing a full response to Sheldon’s census of conventicles in 1669), he conducted a rigorous visitation in 1671.<sup>4</sup> His tenure of the episcopate coincided with a particularly volatile period in the politics of religion but there is no record of his contribution to the debates and he was nominated to only a handful of select committees throughout his parliamentary career.</p><p>Davies took his seat in the House of Lords at the opening of the contentious 1667–9 session. He was then present on all but three days until the adjournment on 19 Dec. 1667, but he failed to return after the recess, registering his proxy on 6 Feb. 1668 in favour of Edward Rainbowe*, of Carlisle. He attended all but two days of the brief 1669 session and reappeared in the House for the opening of the 1670–1 session, missing only two days before the adjournment of 11 Apr. 1670. He was thus present throughout the debates on the controversial divorce bill for John Manners*, Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland), and recorded dissents against the passage of the bill on 17 and 28 March. He was absent when Parliament re-assembled in October 1670, claiming to be too ‘disabled’ for a journey to London, and again covered his absence with a proxy registered to Rainbowe on 21 October.<sup>5</sup> He did not return to the House until the opening of the first session of 1673 on 4 Feb., again attending for all but two days. He was present every day of the brief second session of 1673 and for the 1674 session. He made his final visit to the House on 24 Feb. 1674.</p><p>Davies died on his seventieth birthday in March 1675, and was buried by ‘some of the fellows’ of Jesus College in Llandaff cathedral.<sup>6</sup> Being unmarried, he bequeathed his modest estate of some £300 to his extended family. An active antiquarian, he took a special interest in the refurbishment of the cathedral library, donating valuable editions both in his lifetime and in his will. During his lifetime he also spent heavily on repairs to the cathedral and on the augmentation of poor livings.<sup>7</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
DAWES, William (1671-1724) |
<p><strong><surname>DAWES</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1671–1724)</p> |
|
|
First sat 2 Mar. 1708; last sat 15 Apr. 1724 |
cons. 8 Feb. 1708 bp. of CHESTER; transl. 9 Mar. 1714 abp. of YORK |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 12 Sept. 1671, 3rd s. of Sir John Dawes, bt. (1644-71) of Bocking, Essex and Christian, da. of Robert Hawkins (<em>d</em>.1654) of Bocking, Essex, freeman of London.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ.</em> Merchant Taylors’ Sch. 1680-7; St John’s, Oxf., scholar 1687-9; St Catherine’s, Camb. fell. and MA 1695, DD 1696. <em>m</em>. 1 Dec. 1692, Frances (c.1676-1705), da. and event. coh. of Sir Thomas Darcy<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Braxted Lodge, Essex, 5s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>suc</em>. bro. as 3rd bt. bef. 29 July 1690. <em>d</em>. 30 Apr. 1724; <em>will</em> 29 Apr., pr. 20 May 1724.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to William III 1697,<sup>4</sup> to Anne 1702.</p><p>Preb. Worcester 1698-1708; rect. and dean Bocking, Essex 1699-1714.</p><p>Master, St Catherine’s, Camb. 1697-1714; v.-chan. Camb. 1698-9; commr. 50 new churches 1712-<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Ld. justice 1714; PC 1714-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Claude Laudius Guynier, 1714, St Catherine's, Camb.; line engraving by S. Gribelin after J. Closterman, NPG D31420; line engraving by G. Vertue after T. Murray, NPG D34828.</p> |
<p>Before the Civil War, the great-grandfather of Dawes, Sir Abraham Dawes, had been accounted ‘one of the richest commoners of his age’.<sup>6</sup> In 1643 the estates of Sir Abraham, and his two sons, Sir Thomas and John Dawes, were ordered to be sequestrated, an order not lifted until the end of 1645.<sup>7</sup> Sir Thomas’s son, also named John Dawes, was advanced from a knighthood to a baronetcy in June 1663 as partial compensation for the family’s losses and generous loans to the court in exile.<sup>8</sup> It was ‘to repair his damaged fortune’ that he sought to marry a young heiress, Christian Hawkins. Although the earliest biographer of Dawes and the <em>Complete Baronetage</em> have confused both her name and pedigree, it is clear that Christian Hawkins was a woman of substance who had inherited from her father estates in Suffolk and several properties in Lamb Alley, St Giles-in-the-Fields, as well as Bocking.<sup>9</sup> She was ‘worth £1,000 per annum present good land and some money’, when she absconded at the age of 16 from Sir Andrew Riccard<sup>‡</sup>, her wealthy guardian, although her aunt (Riccard’s wife) had given her consent.<sup>10</sup> After Sir John Dawes’s death, in 1678 she married again, to Sir Anthony Deane<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>As a younger son, William Dawes was destined for a career in the Church. The death of his two older brothers, Sir Robert Dawes and John Dawes, a lieutenant in the navy, and thus his inheritance of the family estates and baronetcy, did not alter his career path.<sup>11</sup> It did mean that he was able to draw upon considerable private resources to supplement his income from ecclesiastical sources. By the time Dawes became a bishop he had ‘a good living or two’ in addition to his Worcester prebend.<sup>12</sup> His marriage in 1692 to a daughter of Sir Thomas Darcy<sup>‡</sup>, who died the following year, added to his wealth following the death in 1698 of his wife’s brother; as Ralph Palmer put it, `Sir George Darcy is dead in three days time of the smallpox, Sir William Dawes wife’s brother, so that a good estate comes to the three sisters.’<sup>13</sup></p><h2><em>Early career in the Church</em></h2><p>Dawes made steady progress in his clerical career and seems to have made a good impression on William III when he preached before the king on 5 Nov. 1696. It led to the promise of further preferment.<sup>14</sup> On 20 Feb. 1697 Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, thought Dawes a candidate to succeed Dr William Payne as a prebend of Westminster as ‘he’s very much in the good opinion of the king and the great ones at court’.<sup>15</sup> By May 1697 Dawes was thought to be making an interest for the deanery of York in competition with Henry Finch, brother of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Robert Booth, the uncle of George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington.<sup>16</sup> In the event another candidate altogether secured the post and Dawes gained instead a place on the Worcester chapter in July 1698.<sup>17</sup> At some point the parishioners of Bocking apparently petitioned Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, for Dawes to be presented as their minister and on 10 Nov. 1698 he was collated as rector and on 19 Dec. as dean of Bocking.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Dawes was re-appointed a royal chaplain upon Queen Anne’s accession, preaching a sermon on 15 Nov. 1702 that William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, thought an ‘excellent discourse’.<sup>19</sup> Dawes’s career prospects had improved markedly, given that Anne’s main religious confidante was his own patron, John Sharp*, archbishop of York. Indeed, on 28 May 1703 Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, noted that Sharp had ‘struggled hard’ for Dawes to succeed as bishop of St Asaph, and a newsletter of 1 June reported this rumour, although the appointment went to George Hooper*, later bishop of Bath and Wells, as part of the court’s strategy for reducing conflict in Convocation.<sup>20</sup> Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, noted on 19 Nov. 1704 that Dawes had preached ‘an admirable’ sermon before the queen that day.<sup>21</sup> The death of James Gardiner*, bishop of Lincoln, on 1 Mar. 1705 provided another opportunity for his elevation to the episcopate and he was widely anticipated to be the queen’s first choice. By mid April Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, was sure that Dawes was to be elevated since Sharp had ‘struggled hard’ for him.<sup>22</sup> However, the general political situation in the wake of the ‘tack’ told against Dawes. His outspoken sermon at court on 30 Jan. 1705, in which he made derogatory observations about the Whig Junto, combined with Whig political imperatives following the 1705 parliamentary election, meant that his promotion was blocked.<sup>23</sup> On 16 July 1705 Anne finally succumbed to ministerial pressure and appointed William Wake*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, to Lincoln instead. Dawes dismissed the observation that his sermon had been responsible for his failure to gain the bishopric, with the comment that he never thought to gain one by preaching.<sup>24</sup></p><h2><em>The bishoprics crisis of 1707</em></h2><p>The death of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, in November 1706, and the subsequent vacancy following the expected promotion of Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, to succeed him, plus the death of Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, in February 1707 saw the queen promise the vacancies to Dawes and to Offspring Blackall*, another Tory. In so doing, the queen created a problem of political management for Godolphin. As the lord treasurer put it,</p><blockquote><p>the misfortune is that [the queen] happens to be entangled in a promise [to Dawes and Blackall] that is extremely inconvenient, and upon which so much weight is laid, and such inference made, that to affect this promise would be destruction; at the same time [the queen] is uneasy with everybody that but endeavours to show the true consequences which attend it.<sup>25</sup></p></blockquote><p>Godolphin needed to demonstrate his support for the Whigs in order to ensure the successful management of the next parliamentary session. According to Gilbert Burnet*, of Salisbury, Dawes was ‘looked on as an aspiring man, who would set himself at the head of the Tory party; so this nomination gave a great disgust’ to the Whigs.<sup>26</sup> The Whigs already had their own candidates, including Charles Trimnell*, who later became bishop of Norwich. A protracted delay ensued as Godolphin tried to find a solution to the crisis and during the next few months conflicting reports emanated from London. On 19 May 1707, the Rev. Ralph Bridges thought that Dawes would succeed at Chester, and in Chester on the 23rd the deputy registrar, Henry Prescott, received the news that Dawes would be the man.<sup>27</sup> Things were less sure on the 26th when Prescott and several companions downed two bottles of claret ‘in votes for Sir William Dawes or his rich competitor’, Dr Samuel Freeman. June saw Henry Prescott’s diary entries preoccupied with the uncertainty.<sup>28</sup> Bridges reported on 4 June that Dawes and Blackall were still expected to be appointed to the vacant sees, and also noted the death (on 31 May) of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, and his immediate replacement by John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, a man acceptable to all sides.<sup>29</sup> Norwich was now vacant and herein lay the germ of a solution. Meanwhile, in mid-July Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, informed his namesake Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, that discontent amongst their friends could result in the matter being ‘compounded’ with Dawes’s posting being withdrawn.<sup>30</sup> Further, Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, feared that Dawes would not like Chester ‘since the living is gone from it’, a reference to the rectory of Wigan, commonly used as a commendam for the bishop but which had been taken over by Edward Finch<sup>‡</sup>, another of Nottingham’s brothers. On 2 July Sharp wrote to Dawes:</p><blockquote><p>is there any hope of your coming among us? ... we are all here very much pleased with it, but I must confess I shall still be doubtful till we hear of it in the prints that you have kissed the queen’s hand for the bishopric ... will you give me leave to ask you in good earnest whether the bishopric of Chester has been offered you or no ... [and], if it has why you have not accepted it. It is not so mean a bishopric as perhaps you may have represented to you.... it may be valued at £900 per annum without the living of Wigan and if so I take it to be as good as Lincoln.</p></blockquote><p>On 1 Aug. 1707 Dawes sent a tactful reply, hoping that Sharp would consecrate him but doubting that his nomination would be imminent; ‘on the contrary, I have reason to believe, that none will be made, until the queen’s coming to town in winter; and about that time, I hope your grace will be in town likewise.’<sup>31</sup> It was common knowledge that the promise to Dawes came from the queen in person.<sup>32</sup> Indeed, in response to the point made by John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, that she would have to choose to follow the measures proposed by Godolphin or Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, she claimed to know only those measures laid down by Godolphin and Marlborough when he was in England, adding that ‘my having nominated’ Dawes and Blackall was ‘no breach of them, they being worthy men; and all the clamour that is raised against them proceeds only from the malice of the Whigs’. She flatly denied that Harley had recommended them: ‘these men were my own choice’, and she felt ‘obliged to fill the bishops’ bench with those that will be a credit to it’.<sup>33</sup> On 29 Aug. Gibson thought that</p><blockquote><p>Exeter and Chester will go to Dr Blackall and Sir William [Dawes], and Norwich to Dr Trimnell. ’Tis certain the two first have been in the Closet; and, considering how long that was made a secret, somebody may have been there for Norwich too, for ought we can tell. ... His grace (I find) is in no pain about it. There are those who are sanguine enough to hope well of the other two, especially Chester; but how is it possible for the Court (if they were so disposed) to retire, after the steps the[y], are certainly known to have taken.<sup>34</sup></p></blockquote><p>John Somers*, Baron Somers, wrote to Archbishop Tenison on 3 June to complain that ‘when I have remonstrated pretty strongly upon occasion of the talk of supplying late vacancies, to have been told that the Archbishop is principally in fault who does not speak plainly and fully to the Queen, when the Archbishop of York never suffers her to rest.’<sup>35</sup> Dawes’s elevation also exercised William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, who, in conference on 1 Sept. with Godolphin, learned that the treasurer had informed the queen of ‘the necessity of agreeing with the Whigs and court’, and ‘did not think it possible to go on with [the] other party’. Godolphin put it down to the queen’s ‘personal inclination and engagements’, and to him ‘not being able when asked to tell her they were obnoxious to any’.<sup>36</sup> On 2 Oct. Gibson wrote that the episcopal ‘promotions’ are in a ‘status quo’; ‘with this only difference, that within these eight or nine days, Chester seems to our friends to be in a more hopeful way than before. Norwich and the Professorship [the regius professorship of divinity at Oxford, destined for Dr John Potter<sup>†</sup>, the future archbishop of Canterbury, Marlborough’s candidate] are reckon[ed], safe; and it seems to be agreed, on the Whig side, that Dr Blackall’s going to Exeter shall break no squares.’<sup>37</sup></p><p>When the first Parliament of Great Britain assembled on 23 Oct. 1707 the appointments of Dawes and Blackall had still not been announced officially. Gibson reflected that the present situation could not continue as long as the court, which was ‘thought to be much devoted to the side that thinks itself extremely disobliged by these two promotions’ gave secular offices to the Whigs but ecclesiastical appointments to the Tories like Dawes.<sup>38</sup> Dawes’s elevation was finally confirmed on 7 Jan. 1708. He was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on 8 Feb. by Archbishop Sharp. Tenison, meanwhile, consecrated Blackall and Trimnell at Lambeth.<sup>39</sup> On 16 Feb. Dawes visited his friend Nicolson (with the gift of a pair of consecration gloves) and read over with approval Nicolson’s legal case against Francis Atterbury (at that point the dean of Carlisle) which led ultimately to Somers’ cathedrals bill.<sup>40</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Chester</em></h2><p>Dawes took his seat in the House of Lords on 2 Mar. 1708. He attended only eight sittings before the prorogation on 1 Apr. 1708 (30 per cent). Following the dissolution of Parliament in spring 1708, Dawes was unsurprisingly recorded as a Tory in a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain. He arrived back in his episcopal palace on 22 May, attended services in Chester cathedral, entertained the mayor and aldermen at the bishop’s palace and spent the summer of 1708 meeting local worthies and performing numerous confirmations. On 16 Aug. he conversed with the nonjuror Peter Legh<sup>‡</sup> on ‘the subject of complying with the government and abjuration’, with discussions continuing over the following days. At one of his convivial dinners he was ‘provoked’ into admitting that he thought the Pretender ‘an imposture’. On 12 Aug. he dined with a group of clergy and gentry, including Cecil Booth (Warrington’s uncle), with whom he held an animated conversation about nonconformity. Dawes maintained that ‘he never knew any Dissenter that differed from [him], upon a principle, but upon humour, pride, prejudice or the like’, satisfying the Tories among the assembled company with his defence of the Church of England. <sup>41</sup></p><p>Dawes set out from Cheshire again about 22 Sept. 1708.<sup>42</sup> He was present when the new Parliament opened on 16 Nov., attending on 33 days of the session (36 per cent). Dawes may have voted on 21 Jan. 1709 against the motion that a Scottish peer with a British title had the right to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers, but the way the division list was compiled makes it possible that he was one of the bishops in attendance that day who did not vote, especially as Sharp voted the other way. During the consideration of the general naturalization bill in the committee of the whole on 15 Mar., Dawes offered an amendment to enforce worship not in ‘some Protestant Reformed congregation’ but in a ‘parochial church’, a change which would have made Anglican conformity for all Protestant ‘strangers’ a condition of British citizenship. In the division that followed, Dawes had the support of ten bishops but the clause was rejected 45-15.<sup>43</sup> Burnet claimed that he ‘spoke copiously’ in favour of the bill, but that Dawes ‘spoke as zealously against it, for he seemed resolved to distinguish himself as a zealot for that which was called high church’.<sup>44</sup> On 30 Mar. 1709 Dawes attended the session for the last time, missing the last three weeks of business.</p><p>During the recess, Dawes went into his diocese, arriving back in Chester on 7 May 1709. On 24 May he delivered his visitation charge, in which, it was reported, he directed his clergy to ‘preserve their people from atheism, socianism, [and] to beware of the popish and Protestant dissenters’, distinguished between ‘toleration and establishment’, and said ‘the schism is schism still’. He then commenced upon his primary visitation. Having proceeded into Lonsdale hundred he took the opportunity of waiting upon Bishop Nicolson at Rose Castle on 12 July.<sup>45</sup> On the 13th Nicolson recorded the bishop as ‘open against the bishop of Ely [Moore], and Lord Treasurer for the wardenship of Manchester <em>in commendam</em>, great with the queen &c’. After a visit to Carlisle, he left again on the 14th.<sup>46</sup></p><p>As Nicolson wrote on 18 July, ‘our robust brother of Chester’,</p><blockquote><p>came hither the last week from Whitehaven; and went hence to Newcastle upon Tyne. He is now at Durham, from where he comes back to the remaining part of his visitation at Richmond and Boroughbridge about the end of this week. When his own necessary duties are over, he goes into Bishopsthorp, and thence returning (by Nottingham) to Chester, will have visited every county in this whole province.<sup>47</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 15 Nov. 1709 Dawes was again present on the first day of the new parliamentary session, subsequently attending on 40 days (43 per cent). He attended the House on 27 Feb. 1710 when the Sacheverell trial opened in Westminster Hall, and was consistent in his sympathy towards the doctor. On 14 Mar. he registered his dissent against the resolution not to adjourn the House and subsequently protested against the resolution that it was unnecessary to include in the impeachment the particular words supposed to be criminal spoken by Sacheverell. On 16 Mar. Dawes entered his dissent to the decision to put the question on whether the Commons had proved the first article of their impeachment, and then to the resolution itself, which he was noted as voting against.<sup>48</sup> On the 17th he again registered his protest against Lords’ resolutions that the Commons had made good its charges in the second, third and fourth articles of the impeachment. The following day he dissented from the resolution limiting peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty upon all articles of impeachment and, on 20 Mar., when the Lords finally voted on Sacheverell’s guilt, Dawes voted against the majority verdict and registered his dissent. He attended the session for the last time on 25 March. Dawes then went into his diocese, arriving at Broxton on 19 April.<sup>49</sup> While there he hosted a visit to Chester from Sacheverell during the latter’s triumphalist progress.<sup>50</sup> He was still in his diocese in the latter part of July 1710.<sup>51</sup></p><p>On 25 Nov. 1710 Dawes attended the House for the first day of the new Parliament and was present on 45 days (40 per cent) of the session. On 3 Jan. 1711 he was ordered by the Lords to preach the sermon on the martyrdom of Charles I at the end of January. In what Nicolson found to be ‘a loyal and honest sermon’ in its appeal against extremism, Dawes took the opportunity to make his most outspoken challenge on the party system.<sup>52</sup> In one passage he argued that, ‘we ought to take great care never to list ourselves, as thorough members of any party’, because</p><blockquote><p>there never yet was, and I fear, never will be any party upon earth, that has not, or will not ... run into extravagancies. And how few have been ever found of such parties, that have been able to forbear running along with them? that have been resolute enough to endure the shame of forsaking their party, the hard looks, opprobrious language, and malicious usage, of it, and to stick fast to their reason and religion, in spite of them? So small has the number of these heroic souls ever been, such vast toil have they undergone, and so much opposition and contradiction have they fought their way through; that I cannot but think it too great and dangerous a risk, for a man to tie himself to any party. Besides, if there were no danger, yet certainly there is always a great deal of trouble in it: and why should a wise man give himself that trouble, which he may so easily avoid?<sup>53</sup></p></blockquote><p>Dawes was thanked by the House the following day.</p><p>On 5 Feb. 1711 Dawes dissented from the Lords’ rejection of the bill to repeal the general naturalization act. The following day he hosted Nicolson and Blackall for dinner at Kensington where they joined Sir John Cotton<sup>‡</sup> and his son, John Hynde Cotton<sup>‡</sup>, who ‘explained’ the October Club, in what Nicolson described as ‘Tory discourse’. On 7 Feb. he received the proxy of Bishop Hooper. On 14 Mar. he reported from select committees on the Burgoyne, Grosvenor and Poynter estate bills (all three having been referred to the same committee). On 14 Mar. he confessed his shame ‘of having Dr S[acheverell], to read the prayers on Thursday last’ at St Botolph, Aldgate, to celebrate the opening of a charity school. Dawes had preached the sermon, but Sacheverell’s prayers had made ‘a mob and noise’ during the procession to a public hall for dinner.<sup>54</sup> He last attended on 5 Apr. 1711, when he wrote a letter to the physician, Dr Hans Sloane, asking him to visit his home, ‘because I am to go into the country on the morrow: I live in Church Lane in Kensington, and desire your company after four because I cannot be sure of getting home from the House of Lords before that time’.<sup>55</sup> He was expected at Broxton on 25 Apr. 1711. He left Broxton again at the beginning of September.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Dawes was in London in good time for the opening of the 1711-12 session, attending the prorogations of 13 and 27 Nov. 1711, and fitting a visit into the ‘country’, presumably his Essex estates, in between.<sup>57</sup> On 28 Nov. Sharp, not able to attend Parliament, informed Oxford that he had ‘some time ago’ sent his proxy to Dawes who, he was sure, ‘will on all occasions vote honestly’.<sup>58</sup> Dawes received the proxy, vital for Oxford in his political management of the House, on 1 Dec. 1711; it was vacated on 31 Jan. 1712 by Sharp’s attendance. On 29 Nov. 1711 Dawes also received the proxy of his colleague Blackall, who informed Oxford that he would do everything possible to ensure that his (and the queen’s) voting intentions were ‘punctually complied with’.<sup>59</sup> The proxy was vacated by Blackall’s attendance on 11 Feb. 1712. Dawes was in the House on 7 Dec. 1711 for the start of the new session, and able to employ the two proxies on the ministerial side in the division on whether to include a reference to ‘No Peace without Spain’ in the address.<sup>60</sup> Dawes was present on 80 days (75 per cent) of the session.</p><p>On 19 Dec. 1711 Dawes was forecast by Oxford as being in favour of allowing James Hamilton*, duke of Hamilton [S] the right to sit in the Lords by virtue of his British peerage, and on the 20th voted against the motion that such peers could not sit in the House. He continued to support the Oxford ministry on 2 Jan. 1712 following the creation of 12 Tory peers and voted in favour of Oxford’s adjournment motion, using Blackall’s and Sharp’s proxies to support the ministry.<sup>61</sup> On 9 Jan. Nicolson visited Dawes’s ‘pleasant house’ in Kensington. On 22 Jan. Nicolson recorded being at the House, where he and Dawes ‘cooked Dr Dent’s bill’, Dent being a canon of Westminster. On 26 Feb. Dawes voted to pass the Scottish episcopal toleration bill, complete with the Commons’ amendments that were more favourable to the episcopalians. On 21 Feb. Dawes had been ordered to preach before the Lords on 8 Mar. to commemorate the anniversary of the queen’s accession. His preaching on this occasion was uncontroversial and he was thanked by the House on 10 Mar. for his ‘excellent sermon’. That day he was also present at a committee meeting in the Banqueting House with Nicolson and William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Dawes was active in non-parliamentary matters. He regularly attended meetings of the commissioners of Queen Anne’s Bounty in Whitehall.<sup>63</sup> More pertinently for religious divisions, he was involved in April 1712 in the baptism controversy and the Tory opposition to Tenison’s proposed letter to the clergy on the validity of lay baptism. Summoned by Sharp (together with Blackall and George Bull*, bishop of St Davids) to discuss the ramifications of Tenison’s proposals, Dawes shared Sharp’s misgivings. Tenison was informed that they could not concur with the letter, since it would be an encouragement to nonconformists. The issue led to further political polarization on the episcopal bench which Dawes did nothing to defuse despite his disavowal of party extremism.<sup>64</sup> On 13 Apr. he received the proxy of Bishop Blackall and on 7 June that of Archbishop Sharp. On 15 May he examined the Lords’ Journal for a period up to 4 February. On 28 May he voted against the ministry in the division on the ‘restraining orders’ sent to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, a harbinger of a more critical stance towards the administration. An absent Bishop Nicolson commented on 9 June that he was expecting a busy day at Carlisle, ‘my two great fellow suffragans (Durham and Chester) giving me the honour of their proxies on this occasion, whilst they are personally ratifying the safe and honourable peace at Westminster.’<sup>65</sup> Dawes was present on the adjournment of 21 June, the effective end of the session.</p><p>Dawes arrived back at his episcopal palace on 3 July 1712. On 8 July he gave his visitation charge, ‘founded on her majesty’s late letter to the bishops’.<sup>66</sup> On 31 July Nicolson wrote that ‘our brother of Chester is now in my neighbourhood, at Kendal and will be yet nearer the next week. Whether he’ll do this place the usual honour of a call, in his road from Cockermouth to Richmond, is that [sic] he has yet been pleased to notify’.<sup>67</sup> Dawes left his episcopal palace on 3 September.<sup>68</sup> By 7 Oct. he was back in London where White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, informed Wake that Dawes had been with Tenison to obtain leave ‘for a longer remove in B[ock]ing because of debts on his estate’.<sup>69</sup> As early as April 1712, Dawes had sought and gained a legal opinion from the attorney general allowing for a new dispensation to be issued for him to hold the rectory of Bocking <em>in commendam</em> with his bishopric.<sup>70</sup></p><h2><em>Dawes and the Whimsical Tories</em></h2><p>On 26 Dec. 1712 Dawes attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth.<sup>71</sup> Between 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713, he attended the House on seven occasions for further prorogations of Parliament. On 26 Jan. Sharp hoped (in vain) that since he had ‘appointed so good a proxy’ as Dawes the queen would dispense with his attendance at the House for the remainder of the session.<sup>72</sup> Blackall was equally trusting of Dawes, informing Oxford in response to a summons to Parliament that until he arrived his proxy was registered with Dawes who would give his vote ‘as shall be most for her majesty’s service, and the public good’.<sup>73</sup> Oxford may not have been pleased with their choice, for Dawes was exhibiting more signs of being unhappy with the ministry’s foreign policy. On 3 Mar. the Hanoverian resident Kreienberg reported that Dawes had been publicly voicing his worries over the peace.<sup>74</sup> This was reflected in Oxford’s assessment of the situation before the session began in a list in Swift’s hand, which placed Dawes among the probable opponents of the ministry. Dawes was present when the session opened on 9 Apr. attending on 42 days (64 per cent) of the session. Oxford’s suspicions of Dawes’s intentions were confirmed when on the opening day of the session, Dawes joined both Nottingham and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, to vote with the Whig opposition on their motion regarding the peace negotiations, to oppose the address of thanks for the Queen’s Speech.<sup>75</sup> News of Dawes’s defection spread rapidly; that evening, Jonathan Swift was visiting George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], where he heard that Dawes, despite being a ‘high Tory’, was now in political opposition. According to the account Swift heard there, Dawes had been summoned by the duchess of Marlborough shortly before her departure from court in January ‘to justify herself to him in relation to the queen, and showed him letters, and told him stories, which the weak man believed, and was perverted’.<sup>76</sup> This story was corroborated by Ralph Bridges who noted that just prior to the departure of the duchess for the continent, Dawes ‘had a private conference with her and they say was her confessor’. He explained though, that in the 9 Apr. debate Dawes had been careful to avoid complete adherence to the Whigs: ‘in the debate about thanking the queen he pretends amongst his Church acquaintance to [ha]ve been guided much by Lord Guernsey’s speech and his stating the words of the question’, and although ‘he voted with the Whigs, yet he refused to protest and attended the Lords with their address at St James’s’.<sup>77</sup> In September Oxford learned from John Drummond<sup>‡</sup> that upon being told that she had ‘converted’ Dawes by telling him that the queen favoured the Pretender, the duchess denied ever hearing the queen speak favourably of the Pretender.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Bolingbroke’s strategy for uniting the Tories behind his own leadership was to promote legislation which would drive a wedge between the so-called Hanoverian or Whimsical Tories and the Whigs. One such measure was a bill, drafted by Atterbury, to prevent the too frequent use of excommunication in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which was introduced to the Lords on 5 May 1713. Dawes took the chair of the committee of the whole on it on 18 June, reporting it on the following day. The bill subsequently fell at the end of the session as the two Houses could not agree on one of its clauses.<sup>79</sup> Dawes’s name appears on a second list compiled by Swift, for Oxford, probably in May, which indicated his opposition to the ministry or possibly that he was to be canvassed over the French commercial treaty. About 13 June Dawes was listed as likely to oppose the French commercial bill, and about the same date his name appears on a list of court supporters expected to desert the government over the commerce bill and also on Oxford’s estimate of the voting on the bill.</p><p>On 5 June 1713 Dawes chaired the committees on the Harrington, Constable and Chamberlen estate bills, reporting from the first two, although there were no further proceedings on the latter.<sup>80</sup> On the following day he reported two further bills from committee, an estate bill and the bill allowing for enclosures in the West Riding to endow poor vicarages and chapelries. On 23 June Dawes attended the House for the last time that session. Ensconced at Christ Church Oxford, he missed the contentious ‘Lorraine’ motion of 30 June. His host, Dr William Stratford (son of Dawes’s predecessor, and a friend of Oxford), reported to Edward Harley<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Harley, later 2nd earl of Oxford, that he expected Dawes to let him ‘into the secret of the trade bill’ and to reveal all the ministry’s faults. He also noted that Dawes appeared ‘disinterested’ since he felt able to leave London while Henry Compton*, of London, was reportedly very ill.<sup>81</sup></p><p>The Hanoverian envoy Schütz had warned on 23 Oct. 1713 that in the opinion of Dawes, without direct encouragement from the elector, Tories with similar views to his own would not break cover.<sup>82</sup> Dawes was back in London by 12 Nov., when John Chamberlayne reported that he had an audience with the queen about the rules and regulations of Queen Anne’s Bounty.<sup>83</sup> Dawes, assisted by Philip Bisse*, bishop of Hereford, had administered the sacrament to the queen and had then been granted an audience the following morning.<sup>84</sup> He attended the prorogation on 10 Dec. 1713. Before the appointment of Bishop Thomas Lindsey to the Irish primacy, Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, had suggested an Englishman, and named Dawes as a possible candidate.<sup>85</sup></p><h2><em>Archbishop of York</em></h2><p>Archbishop Sharp died on 2 Feb. 1714. On 5 Feb. Stratford thought that Dawes and Bisse would be the two competitors for the archbishopric. He told Lord Harley that Dawes</p><blockquote><p>will certainly vote against you if he has not York, and I am afraid will not be firm to you, if he has it. He will then hope for no more from you and think himself at liberty to do as he pleases, and the very best you can hope for from him will be to be whimsical. It is a very unaccountable part that he has taken on him ever since the change of the ministry, to reflect publicly in all companies on your father [Oxford], and for that too for which no other person ever pretended to tax him, for want of sense.<sup>86</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 10 Feb. Stratford added that in his diocese Dawes’s credit ‘was sunk to a degree, scarce credible, for his votes in the last session’ as not one gentleman ‘would converse with him, of those amongst whom he had been very popular’. Further, Dawes had been fortunate in receiving more in entry fines than the previous bishop had done in 18 years, and had refused to renew one lease that had previously been used to augment the salaries of the petty canons, giving it instead to his own son. Despite being a wealthy man, Dawes had ‘so stripped it’, as to impoverish his successor.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Six days later Stratford wrote again, of having heard of a ‘design in which many Tories have combined to move to bring over Hanover’, in which case Dawes would be one of those implicated.<sup>88</sup> Dawes attended the House for the first day of the new Parliament that day, 16 Feb. 1714, and was present on 59 days (78 per cent) of the session. A <em>congé d’élire</em> was issued on 20 Feb. for his election as archbishop of York, the queen, without consulting her ministers, having honoured Sharp’s wishes despite the rival candidacy of John Robinson*, bishop of London.<sup>89</sup> Oxford was not consulted over the appointment. There was a slight hiatus between 6 Mar. when Dawes sat as bishop of Chester and 17 Mar. when he took his seat as archbishop. At least one contemporary was pleased; the dowager viscountess of Irwin thought him ‘a fine young bishop, who is not much above 40 and a baronet and has a good estate’, so much so that she expected the Minster to become ‘a very fashionable place’.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Tories of the stamp of George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> were as dismayed by the translation of Dawes as they were by the election of Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> as Speaker of the Commons, since they had ‘in the last session of Parliament voted in most material points against the ministry, which rendered it unaccountable and unexcusable in them, to prefer men of such principles and practices to posts of so great weight in church and state’. Lockhart attributed Dawes’s promotion to the hope that it would ‘draw him off to their interest’, but felt the ‘prelate’s intrinsic worth was not of any equal value to so great a prize’ even if it had succeeded in its attempt.<sup>91</sup></p><p>During the Easter recess (19-31 Mar.) Dawes was recruited to an alliance between the Whigs and the Hanoverian Tories to secure the succession. As Schütz reported on 26 Mar., Dawes would meet on the following day with Nottingham and John Campbell*, duke of Argyll [S].<sup>92</sup> Another meeting was held on 1 Apr. involving Dawes, Nottingham, Hanmer and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, at which agreement was reached with the Whigs over a variety of issues, including the succession, the expulsion of the Pretender from Lorraine, trade, and even the need for a treasury commission to succeed Oxford.<sup>93</sup></p><p>When the Queen’s Speech was taken into further consideration on 5 Apr. 1714, the court sprung a surprise with a motion that the Protestant succession was not in danger. According to George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, Dawes followed Anglesey in speaking ‘well’ against the motion, and when the House divided over the addition of an amendment to add the words ‘under her majesty’s government’ and on the procedural motion that the full question be put, Dawes was able to draw ‘after him the whole bench of bishops, three courtiers only excepted’.<sup>94</sup> Lockhart noted that Dawes had ‘said he could not say but it was in danger whilst the Pretender was alive and had friends, but if the question was meant [to mean] that it was not in danger under the queen’s administration, he would vote as he had done in the former address’. However, ‘the worthless bishop of York notwithstanding of his speech’ had then ‘deserted’ the Tories.<sup>95</sup> Following this vote, which showed the strength of the whimsical Tories when allied to the Whigs, the queen closeted Dawes and Anglesey.<sup>96</sup> The effect of the queen’s intervention was seen on 8 Apr. when the Lords considered their address over the Pretender; the court was able to make the final version more palatable to the queen and Thomas Wentworth*, earl of Strafford, reported that Dawes was one of ‘four straggling lords returned to us’.<sup>97</sup> When the Lords considered the queen’s answer to this address (in the wake of Schütz’s request for a writ for the future George II*, as duke of Cambridge) on 13 Apr., Dawes was joined by 11 other Tories, including Bishops Robinson, Hooper and George Smalridge*, of Bristol in voting for a second address, a vote won by the ministry only after the proxies had been counted.<sup>98</sup></p><p>Facing opposition not only from the Whigs but also from whimsicals such as Dawes, Oxford penned a memorandum on 19 Apr. 1714 for an audience with the queen in which he advised her to ‘send for such persons of the clergy and laity, Lords and Commons, and she in her great wisdom shall think fit, and let them know from her own mouth her majesty’s thoughts about the succession’.<sup>99</sup> On 1 May James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> reported that Oxford had got the queen ‘to send for the Archbishop of York and solemnly declare herself for Hanover and that she was ever so’.<sup>100</sup> Nevertheless, rumours circulated that Dawes had in fact told the queen that he was against the present ministers.<sup>101</sup> On 27 Apr., John Chamberlayne wrote to the Electress Sophia that Dawes (‘there is no man in England more devoted to your interest’) had informed him of his meeting with the queen, wherein the queen had permitted Dawes had ‘with great liberty, and with that candour and sincerity that is natural to his grace, to lay before her his thoughts of the people’s fears and jealousies concerning the Pretender, and the dangers to the succession so much apprehended by all good Protestants’, after which the queen had assured him of her unalterable support for the electoral family.<sup>102</sup> As Thomas Bateman reported it on 27 Apr.:</p><blockquote><p>I hear that the Archbishop of York had a free conference with the queen last Friday [23 Apr.], and one point was the Hanover Succession, for which she made a very solemn declaration, which may satisfy some fears that have been expressed, tho’ they say it may fall hard on Lord B[olingbro]ke, and that our friend [Oxford], may be safe.<sup>103</sup></p></blockquote><p>Almost immediately, Dawes wrote to the Electress Sophia to express not only his personal loyalty but that of the English clergy:</p><blockquote><p>Madam, I want words to express my deep sense of the great honour, which your royal highness has done me, in vouchsafing to take notice of, and kindly accept, my poor endeavours, to serve your illustrious house, and, in that, the protestant interest, in general, and our own happy constitution in church and state, in particular. ... I hope your royal highness will, every day more and more, have the satisfaction of seeing that, not only I myself, but the whole body of our clergy, are faithful and zealous, as becomes us, in this respect; and that the same good spirit is still amongst us, which so laudably, and through the blessing of God, successfully opposed and got the better of the attempts of France and popery in King James’ reign ... I ... pray to God ... that he would guard and maintain your right of succeeding to the crown of these realms, as now by law established.<sup>104</sup></p></blockquote><p>When Dawes’s conversation with the queen was reported to the duchess of Marlborough, she thought it ‘disagreeable what [Dawes] says himself, that he introduced the discourse with the q[ueen], by saying it was not merely noise and faction the fears of popery. What a way that is of treating men of consideration that are struggling to save their country’. She then mentioned hearing ‘a very strange account’ of one of Dawes’s recent sermons in which he mentioned not only the war but ‘the gainers by it’ which she described as ‘monstrous ... and only to bring in malice … when he allowed there was but few that got and one of them that he meant I suppose, the chief, was the duke of Marlborough at Antwerp’. Dawes, according to the duchess, had entertained no such scruples when the duke was in political favour.<sup>105</sup> On 7 May William Cadogan<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Cadogan, wrote to the Hanoverian diplomat Bothmer that if Prince George did not come to England, then ‘our new allies’, namely Anglesey, Dawes and Hanmer ‘will leave us soon: for they declare publicly enough, that the succession cannot be secured but by the presence of the prince’.<sup>106</sup></p><p>Other legislative matters engaged Dawes during the session. On 7 May 1714 Dawes reported from the committee on the act to remove mortuaries in the diocese of St Asaph. Presumably, he was instrumental in passing a series of amendments to the bill which annexed valuable livings to university colleges, including his own.<sup>107</sup> The bill that received the royal assent on 5 June had a much wider scope, reflected in its amended title: ‘an act for taking away mortuaries, within the dioceses of Bangor, Landaff, St Davids, and St Asaph, and giving a recompence therefore to the bishops of the said respective dioceses; and for confirming several letters patents granted by her majesty, for perpetually annexing a prebend of Gloucester to the mastership of Pembroke College in Oxford, and a prebend of Rochester to the provostship of Oriel College in Oxford, and a prebend of Norwich to the mastership of Catherine Hall in Cambridge’. With Bishop Robinson he was forced to dissociate himself from a story that ‘they applied to the queen in favour of [the nonjuror Hilkiah] Bedford, but the ministry give the last the lie in express words.’ James Johnston wrote on 14 May 1714 that ‘the papists’</p><blockquote><p>have trumped up a new title to make void my brother’s grant and have restitution etc. visibly upon the supposition of the Pretender’s being in possession and upon the same foot an appeal from Scotland was to be heard before the House of Lords on Wednesday last [12 May], but the matter made such a noise that the Court interposed and the archbishop of York, in the queen’s name, made the appellant desist, which the adverse party would not agree to without security, so the Lords reconfirmed their decree without hearing the cause.<sup>108</sup></p></blockquote><p>This related to the estates of the Jacobite exile Sir Roger Strickland<sup>‡</sup>, which Johnston claimed, although this was contested by General George Cholmondeley<sup>‡</sup> and Strickland himself, who hoped for a pardon.<sup>109</sup> On 13 May Dawes received Blackall’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>On 27 May 1714, the day after the Lords resumed after an adjournment of two weeks, Dawes presented to the House (with the queen’s consent), a bill to secure the maintenance of poor clergy (part of Queen Anne’s Bounty). About this date he was forecast by Nottingham as a supporter of the schism bill. In part, this bill was promoted by Bolingbroke to unite the Tory party, and Dawes duly supported it at its first reading on 4 June.<sup>110</sup> Dawes chaired the committee of the whole on the schism bill from 9th to the 11th, reporting back to the House on each occasion that they had made progress but needed further time to deliberate. On the 11th the committee requested the power to receive a clause extending the bill’s provisions to Ireland, which was carried by a single vote, with Dawes casting his own vote, and Blackall’s proxy, in favour.<sup>111</sup> Dawes reported the bill on the 14th, and the bill with the amendment extending it to Ireland was agreed to. On 15 June Dawes voted with the majority of bishops present in favour of bill and it passed the House by eight votes.<sup>112</sup> He last attended the House on 8 July, the day before the prorogation. Dawes was still championing James Greenshields, more specifically his quest for a pension which the queen had apparently granted in 1711, but which had not been paid. According to a later petition, the queen assured Dawes on 11 July that it would be paid, but events overtook the order.<sup>113</sup></p><h2><em>Reign of George I</em></h2><p>At the end of the July 1714 Dawes had travelled north following the prorogation and had just arrived at his palace when he learnt of the queen’s death.<sup>114</sup> He joined the lord mayor of York in proclaiming the king, and then returned to London.<sup>115</sup> By 9 Aug. he had arrived back in the capital when he first attended the parliamentary session summoned on the death of the queen. Dawes was in an important position, having been named (albeit <em>ex officio</em> as archbishop of York) by George I as one of the regents to govern the kingdom in his absence.<sup>116</sup> One indication of this appears in a memorandum by Oxford which indicated that the former lord treasurer had already paid a courtesy call on the archbishop by 10 August.<sup>117</sup> On 13, 21 and 25 Aug. Dawes also sat in the House as one of the lords justices. On 13 Aug. it was reported that Dawes and Hanmer had recommended Samuel Hill for the vacant bishopric of Ely.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Dawes attended for further prorogations on 23 Sept. and 21 Oct. 1714 and was now embarking on a career as political advisor to George I. Having already secured his position with the Hanoverians, unlike many of his less flexible colleagues, Dawes was one of the Tories to remain in favour at the start of the new reign. Ralph Palmer reported on 30 Oct. that Dawes had told a ‘great man’ that ‘he might depend upon it, that among the Tories he wanted not able and hearty friends (however he might be misinformed) that would be faithful and zealous to serve him’.<sup>119</sup> In an account of the king’s Lutheran faith Dawes attempted to persuade Lutherans that the Church of England was no threat and, in essence, little different.<sup>120</sup> On 26 Jan. 1715 he was listed as a Tory still in office. His subsequent parliamentary career will be considered in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Dawes died suddenly on 30 Apr. 1724 in Cecil Street, London, of an acute attack of ‘inflammation of the bowels’.<sup>121</sup> He had outlived his wife and most of his children, naming as the executors of his will his son-in-law Sir William Milner<sup>‡</sup> and Peniston Lamb of Lincoln’s Inn. He placed his entire real and personal estate in trust for the benefit of his only son, Darcy Dawes. According to his own wishes, Dawes was buried next to his wife in a family vault in the chapel of St Catherine’s Hall, Cambridge.</p><p>Dawes rose through the Church hierarchy to the archbishopric of York earning the praise of one biographer as ‘the most complete pulpit orator of his age’.<sup>122</sup> Socially and financially, the urbane Dawes was hardly typical of the early modern episcopate. One contemporary scribbler commented on his patrician charm:</p><blockquote><p>Sir William does in every church display<br />the air of something new and something gay<br />’tis heaven, at least, to hear him preach or pray<br />He dignifies his pulpit, see, and lawn,<br />and is a very angel of a man.<sup>123</sup></p></blockquote><p>In parliamentary terms, Dawes was most important as a leading Hanoverian Tory during the last years of Anne’s reign. Indeed, Arthur Onslow<sup>‡</sup> later noted that ‘he always adhered very strongly to the protestant succession’, and was one of the ‘chief’ Hanoverian Tories.<sup>124</sup></p> |
B.A./S.N.H. |
|
DOLBEN, John (1625-86) |
<p><strong><surname>DOLBEN</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1625–86)</p> |
|
|
First sat 29 Nov. 1666; last sat 20 Nov. 1685 |
cons. 25 Nov. 1666 bp. of ROCHESTER; transl. 16 Aug. 1683 abp. of YORK |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 20 Mar. 1625, eld. s. of Dr William Dolben (<em>d</em>.1631), preb. of Lincoln and rect. of Stanwick, Northants., and Elizabeth, da. of Capt. Hugh Williams of Cochwillan, Caern., niece of John Williams<sup>†</sup>, abp. of York.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1637-40; Christ Church, Oxf., matric. 1640, MA 1647, deprived 1648, ord. priest 1656, DD 1660; G. Inn, 1674. <em>m</em>. Catherine (1626-1706), da. of Ralph Sheldon of Stanton Derbys., niece of Gilbert Sheldon*, later abp. of Canterbury, 2s. 1da. (<em>d.v.p</em>.) <em>d</em>. 11 Apr. 1686; <em>admon</em>. 20 Apr. 1686, to Catherine Dolben.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Clerk of the closet 1664-68; ld. almoner 1675-84.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Rect. Newington-cum-Britwell, Oxon. 1660; canon Christ Church Oxf. 1660-6,<sup>4</sup> St Paul’s 1661-6; adn. London 1662-4; dean Westminster 1662-83; vic. St Giles, Cripplegate, London, 1662.</p><p>Commr. Rose Castle dilapidations 1669,<sup>5</sup> rebuilding of St Paul’s bef. 1677.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Ensign, royalist army, York 1644, Marston Moor, 1644; maj. 1645-6.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1675.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by unknown artist, Christ Church, Oxf.; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely c.1660 (Group portrait, with John Fell*, later bishop of Oxford, and Richard Allestree), Christ Church, Oxf.; funeral effigy, attrib. J. Latham, York Minster; mezzotint, after J. Huysmans, c.1678-79, NPG D1651.</p> |
<p>John Dolben was born into a clerical dynasty based in Wales. His family appears to have settled in Denbighshire under Henry VII but the place of Dolben’s birth is given variously as Denbighshire or Stanwick in Northamptonshire where his father was rector. His mother was niece to John Williams<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of York.<sup>9</sup> Dolben’s own marriage to a niece of Gilbert Sheldon was key to Dolben’s future career in the Church and offered him a wide network of supportive relatives.<sup>10</sup> Dolben was also related to Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup>, a prominent supporter of the Country party (with whom he acted over tithes disputes in their Welsh properties) and to the Wynns of Gwydir.<sup>11</sup> Although the majority of Dolben’s sermons have not survived in print, he left numerous personal papers. From the time of his translation to York, he engaged in lengthy exchanges of correspondence with his diocesan chancellor, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> about a range of subjects including court gossip, diocesan affairs, and patronage.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Dolben’s family wealth was augmented when his wife Catherine became a beneficiary under Sheldon’s will.<sup>13</sup> By the time of Dolben’s death, he was able to leave a large estate to his son and heir, Sir Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup>, bt.<sup>14</sup> He had been allowed the deanery of Westminster in commendam with the bishopric of Rochester and united the see to the deanery, giving the impoverished bishopric a town residence and additional income.<sup>15</sup> He spent considerable sums from his own pocket in repairing the bishop’s palace at Bromley and in 1683 consecrated a new chapel at the palace.<sup>16</sup> His two sons each married co-heiresses to the Northamptonshire Finedon estates, thus handsomely augmenting the Dolben patrimony and extending the family’s political network.</p><h2><em>Early career</em></h2><p>Dolben took up arms for the royalists in the Civil Wars and was twice wounded in battle. He was deprived of his Oxford fellowship in 1647. Ordained covertly by Henry King*, bishop of Chichester, until the Restoration, he lived with his Sheldon in-laws in Oxford, where he read the proscribed Anglican liturgy with Francis Turner*, the future bishop of Rochester and Ely, Thomas Ken*, the future bishop of Bath and Wells, and John Fell*, the future bishop of Oxford: an act of loyalism of which he was able to make rhetorical use after the return of the king.<sup>17</sup></p><p>At the Restoration, Dolben petitioned successfully for the canonry of Christ Church, Oxford.<sup>18</sup> His military service and illustrious relations guaranteed him status at court (and as such he was satirized by Dryden).<sup>19</sup> In 1662 he succeeded to the prestigious Westminster deanery, where he maintained the abbey’s jurisdictional independence from diocesan control.<sup>20</sup> Dolben was also reputed to have made much of his place at court and to have behaved with marked familiarity in the king’s presence.<sup>21</sup> At least three of the sermons he preached before the king during this period were subsequently printed by royal command.<sup>22</sup> He also proved an effective leader at the outbreak of the Great Fire, when he assembled the king’s scholars at Westminster and organized them into an ad hoc fire-fighting force to protect the abbey.<sup>23</sup> In October 1666 his emotive sermon before the Commons on the fire’s providential origins impelled the lower House to appoint a committee to examine the penal laws against atheism.<sup>24</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Rochester</em></h2><p>On 31 Oct. 1666, the king directed Dolben’s election as bishop of Rochester. The following month, a warrant was issued granting him permission to retain his deanery in commendam.<sup>25</sup> At least two observers hoped that Dolben would follow the career path of most bishops of that poverty-stricken see and achieve translation to something more attractive.<sup>26</sup> Four days after his consecration, Dolben took his seat in the House of Lords. There he proved to be one of Sheldon’s most effective parliamentary allies. Having missed the first nine weeks of parliamentary business, he attended his first session for 51 per cent of all sittings and was named to 15 committees in addition to being nominated one of the lords commissioners for accounts (24 Jan.) and to a joint committee (28 Jan.) to wait on the king with an address relating to complaints from French merchants. His subsequent career in the House revealed that Dolben was a keen parliamentarian and political operator. Of 16 parliamentary sessions held during his episcopate he attended every one, none for fewer than half of all sittings, 13 for more than three-quarters of all sittings and, of those, eight for more than 80 per cent of sittings. He was always in his seat on the first day of business and for only two sessions failed to sit until an adjournment or prorogation. As such a regular presence at Parliament, he helped to manage conferences with the Commons, received several proxies in the course of his episcopate and also chaired and reported from both select committees and committees of the whole house. He also examined the journal on numerous occasions. In early January 1667 Dolben’s help was solicited by John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, in the private bill to grant lead-mine leases to Humphrey Wharton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>27</sup> Dolben was subsequently named to the select committee on the bill and attended the committee on 3 and 16 January.<sup>28</sup> On 4 Feb. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference on a private bill concerning James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys, later earl of Abingdon, and again on 7 Feb. on the bill to rebuild the city of London. </p><p>Dolben’s role as an important figure in Sheldon’s political and parliamentary strategy soon became clear. On 24 Aug. 1667 he assisted in the consecration at Lambeth of another of Sheldon’s political allies, Francis Davies*, bishop of Llandaff.<sup>29</sup> The following month John Hacket*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, warning Sheldon of his possible absence from Parliament, informed the archbishop that he would register his proxy in favour of Dolben if necessary.<sup>30</sup> On numerous occasions Dolben also held the proxy of Robert Morgan*, bishop of Bangor, another Sheldon loyalist who was wracked by poor health and preferred to avoid a daunting journey from his bishopric in north Wales.</p><p>On 10 Oct. 1667 Dolben was present for the start of business. He continued to attend the session for 77 per cent of sittings. He was named to 21 committees and on 17 Oct. attended the committee on the bill to punish atheism, where he was asked to bring in a replacement clause ‘to make it more plain to a country jury’.<sup>31</sup> On 27 Nov. Dolben was nominated one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on the impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Clarendon’s fall from grace had direct implications for those bishops most closely associated with the Restoration regime. It certainly provided a convenient excuse for removing Dolben from his post of clerk of the closet. Over the Christmas period, Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup>, bt. became aware of an ‘ugly, shameful report all over London (and I doubt the country too)’ explaining Dolben’s anticipated dismissal. Verney reported that it had greatly saddened Dolben’s uncle, Sheldon, and that ‘whether it be true, or false, it will be too much credited’.<sup>32</sup> The rumours related to Dolben’s alleged homosexuality. A newsletter elaborating on the ‘very foul story’ about Dolben’s ‘being too familiar’ with Charles Mohun*, 3rd Baron Mohun, deemed the rumours as ‘supposed false, the king having questioned him about it, and he denies it utterly, and is so much troubled at it, that he can hardly eat or drink’. The king, apparently wishing ‘to do right to the bishop of Rochester, who hath been brought under a most infamous and malicious scandal of late hath ... appointed to have the imputation heard and severely examined by a committee of the council’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In spite of the king’s public support for Dolben, at the beginning of February he was dismissed as clerk of the closet.<sup>34</sup> Rumours of his sexuality continued to circulate. Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> learned that the bishop had been accused of being ‘given to boys and of his putting his hand into a gentleman ... his codpiece while they were at table together’.<sup>35</sup> The Italian diplomat Lorenzo Magalotti spared no details in his accounts of court life, while acknowledging the political context. Dolben had made, he reported:</p><blockquote><p>a lively attempt ... to put his hand into the front of the hose of Lord Mohun, a boy on account of his age, but not on account of the beauty of his face, who is apt to confirm the evil interpretation given to the intentions of this prelate. The result is that the poor man is in a very miserable state because of the universal scandal that the indiscreet gossip of this young man has sown among that Presbyterian rabble, who have not only acted to have him dismissed from the office that he had ... but want to make him lose his church. It is quite true that if he had not been a close friend of the chancellor, the thing would not have been publicly known as much as it has; and they tell me that it is a fact, that this is not the first sign that there has been of the inclinations of this prelate. However, the thing is there, and from this standpoint he is paying more for his steadfastness to an old friend [Clarendon] than for his fragility towards the young man....’ <sup>36</sup> </p></blockquote><p>Dolben’s brother, William, attributed the rumours of the bishop’s sexual inclinations to those who envied Rochester’s position; he was certain that no sober man would give the story any credit.<sup>37</sup> Once ignited, though, the story gave ample scope to satirists and continued to haunt Dolben for the remainder of his life. In 1680 one ballad made reference to this affair and how Dolben had been ‘cashier’d for carnal arsery’, another gloated how ‘fat Dolben loves Sodom for fear of a clap’.<sup>38</sup> The scandal was also raised at Westminster. During discussions on the putative comprehension bill (being negotiated by Richard Baxter and a handful of bishops), it was said to have featured in the conversation of a ‘solemn Presbyterian’ with the bishop’s brother. The Presbyterian:</p><blockquote><p>protested that the Catholics ought not to be excluded, maintaining this with effective reasons. When he had finished [Dolben’s brother] said to the man beside him, but in such a way that it could be overheard, “it seems that this man has the pope in his body”. The Presbyterian rose. “Certainly”, he replied, “I’d much rather have the pope in my body than the bishop in my backside”’.<sup>39</sup> </p></blockquote><p>Dolben’s allies appear to have turned a blind eye to his supposed activities. Hacket, unwilling to move from his bishopric to attend Parliament, ignored the gossip (if indeed it ever reached him), informing Sheldon on 20 Jan. 1668 that he hoped for the archbishop’s approval in entrusting Dolben, his ‘most intimate friend’, with his proxy for the session.<sup>40</sup> With Dolben’s uncharacteristic absence from the House until early February, Hacket’s proxy went instead to Benjamin Laney*, bishop of Ely. Dolben returned to the bishops’ bench on 10 Feb., receiving the proxies of Bishop Morgan and Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Bristol. Later in February, Dolben was visited by Pepys, who found the bishop, despite being ‘under disgrace at court’, living ‘like a great prelate’ with his wife and two young sons, one ‘fat and black’ just like his father.<sup>41</sup></p><h2><em>Rehabilitation at court</em></h2><p>On 24 Apr. 1668, Dolben was named as one of the conference managers on the impeachment of Sir William Penn<sup>‡</sup>. Adjournments from May 1668 to March 1669 absolved Dolben of parliamentary attendance and in September 1668 he conducted his primary visitation of the see of Rochester.<sup>42</sup> By the close of the year his rehabilitation was well on the way. It became apparent that the court factions had been ‘reconciled’ when Sheldon returned to favour at Christmas 1668.<sup>43</sup> Even so, it was not until 30 Aug. 1669 that Dolben returned to court.<sup>44</sup> His rehabilitation was also signalled by his nomination as one of the 15 commissioners to examine the complex dilapidations case concerning Rose Castle.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Three days before the next parliamentary session, Dolben again received the proxy of Bishop Ironside. Taking his seat at the start of business on 19 Oct. 1669, he attended the session for three-quarters of all sittings, but was named to only three select committees in addition to the standing committees. He was also one of those named on 9 Nov. to the committee considering papers submitted to the Lords by the commissioners for accounts. He chaired the committee on the charitable uses bill relating to John Warner*, the previous bishop of Rochester. The committee met on several occasions throughout December and again the following March.<sup>46</sup></p><p>On 7 Feb. 1670 Dolben again received Ironside’s proxy. A week later he resumed his seat in the House for the start of the new session, attended thereafter for 76 per cent of sittings and was named to nearly 50 select committees. On 17 Mar. 1670 when the House gave a second reading to the divorce bill of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, the future duke of Rutland, Dolben joined Sheldon and the majority of the bishops in opposing the bill on doctrinal grounds.<sup>47</sup> He then dissented against the second reading. On 5 Apr. he was named as a conference manager for the bill to repair the harbour and piers at Great Yarmouth. At the end of October he again received the proxy of Bishop Morgan until cancelled by Morgan’s attendance on 23 Jan. 1671. On 10 Nov. 1670 Dolben and Joseph Henshaw*, bishop of Peterborough, were added to the select committee for the bill to prevent the burning of corn and destruction of cattle. Dolben was present in the chamber on 3 Feb. 1671 but the same day a note was made that he was undertaking parochial visitations. He was back in his place the following day when he was added to the committee on the bill concerning brandy.<sup>48</sup> On 27 Feb. he chaired the select committee on the bill to unite the vicarage and parsonage in the Herefordshire parish of Ross.<sup>49</sup> On 1 Mar. he was named to the committee to prepare heads for a conference on the growth of Catholicism, a subject on which Dolben and George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, harboured growing fears following the conversion to Rome of the duchess of York.<sup>50</sup> The following day Dolben was nominated a manger of the conference on the subsidy bill. On 15 Mar., after an appeal to the House from a judgment in the court of king’s bench in Ireland, Dolben and Morgan were the only bishops to dissent against the resolution to suspend the judgment against John Cusack in <em>Cusack v. Usher</em>. The petition had caused ripples of unease since it was unclear whether the English Lords could hear an appeal from the Irish court of chancery and had sought the expert opinion of the Irish judiciary. Towards the end of the session, Dolben, together with Buckingham, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (and later earl of Shaftesbury), and George Savile*, Viscount Halifax, was said to have been one of those blamed for the loss of the foreign excise bill: Dolben was a member of the committee appointed on 29 Mar., and with Ashley and Halifax, was among the managers appointed on 10 April for a conference on the bill which ended in a series of acrimonious exchanges.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Concerns about the duchess of York’s conversion were brought to an end by her death in the spring of 1671 and in early April Dolben, as dean of Westminster, presided at the burial service.<sup>52</sup> The same year he participated in a more controversial interment involving the infant son of Buckingham, and the dowager countess of Shrewsbury, whom they had honoured (without authority) with the honorific title, earl of Coventry.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Occupied throughout 1671 and 1672 on diocesan, deanery and pastoral affairs (including the correction of liturgical papers for under-secretary Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>), following the death of Bishop Cosin in January 1672, Dolben was considered for translation to Durham (which remained vacant until October 1674). ‘Great interest’ was made for him, not least by Sheldon, and at one point he was told by the earl of Shaftesbury to put on his boots and spurs for he was to go to the north. In spite of this, it was thought that the ambitious Dolben, ‘most fair’ to succeed Sheldon at Canterbury, would be loath to take up a post so far from court.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Dolben took his seat at the opening of the new session on 4 Feb. 1673 and attended for 81 per cent of sittings; he was named to 13 select committees in addition to the standing committees. On 5 Feb. he was one of the Lords appointed to wait on the king to present the House’s thanks for the King’s Speech and on 18 Feb. he was added to the committee for the bill concerning Sir Ralph Bankes<sup>‡</sup>. Dolben was later added specifically to the committee for the bill concerning Bankes' trustees on 4 Feb. 1678. On 10 Mar. 1673 Dolben received the proxy of Bishop Morgan (vacated by Morgan’s death in September). On 15 Mar. the sub-committee for the anti-Catholic Test Bill included Dolben.<sup>55</sup> Following a request from the Commons on 24 Mar. for a conference, Dolben was named as one of the conference managers.</p><p>Richard Baxter wrote that Dolben, with Seth Ward* and Morley had talked late in 1671 about comprehension as a means of strengthening the Church against the threat of Rome, though Baxter was sceptical about their motives and true intentions, claiming that Dolben and his colleagues employed pious rhetoric never matched by their actions.<sup>56</sup> Dolben was involved, though, in the proceedings on the bill for the ease of Protestant dissenters which was committed to the whole House on 21 March. After several sessions in committee, the House named Dolben as the only bishop among eight lords to manage both conferences with the Commons on the 29th. A prompt adjournment of Parliament the same day put the matter on hold and when the House resumed on 20 Oct. 1673, with Dolben in attendance, Parliament was prorogued. He was again in his seat on 27 Oct. 1673 for the first day of the week-long session, during which he attended on two days and was named to the sessional committees. </p><p>Resuming his seat at the start of the session on 7 Jan. 1674, Dolben attended for 93 per cent of sittings and was named to seven select committees. On 16 Jan. he was ordered to preach a fast sermon in the abbey on 4 February. Two days after the start of the session, possibly in anticipation of two new bills (to secure the Protestant religion and to invite ‘sober and peaceably-minded Dissenters into the service of the Church’), Dolben received the proxy of Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich. That Reynolds, a former Presbyterian, should entrust his proxy to Dolben at this time might suggest either that Sheldon had specifically instructed Reynolds to do so, or that Reynolds knew of Dolben’s support for the comprehension bill. On 5 Feb. Dolben was thanked for his fast sermon of the previous day and on 6 Feb. he was one of a number of Lords appointed to oversee the complaint brought by the family of the young Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, against Buckingham concerning the killing of Shrewsbury’s father and Buckingham’s co-habitation with Shrewsbury’s mother. Dolben was present on 13 Feb. when Bishop Morley introduced the comprehension bill. He lent Morley his support on the 19th, when the bill was read for a second time and the Lords had a ‘great debate’ in which Dolben was ‘for the commitment and spoke for the thing’.<sup>57</sup> It was reported that Dolben was one of the bishops to support the propositions that no minister be obliged to wear the surplice or use the cross in baptism, and that the clauses in the Act of Uniformity relating to assent and consent to the liturgy, and the renunciation of the covenant, be repealed, and that the latter was carried by almost 20 votes.<sup>58</sup> The bill was lost with the peremptory prorogation on 24 Feb., the day before the House was due to debate the comprehension bill in committee. Meanwhile, during February, Dolben had offered a clause on the performance of stage-plays in the bill to suppress atheism and profaneness, another bill scuppered by the prorogation.<sup>59</sup></p><p>In January 1675 Dolben, with Sheldon, Morley, Ward and John Pearson*, bishop of Chester, was present at the meeting at Lambeth initiated by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, to formulate proposals ‘to suppress popery and establish the Church of England’.<sup>60</sup> The Venetian ambassador recorded that five bishops subscribed the outcome of their deliberations; Ward and Morley were the most enthusiastic, together with Danby and Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch. Dolben, Sheldon and Pearson, ‘three good and quiet ones’, merely gave ‘silent consent’. The findings had a mixed reception at the Privy Council, where the allies of James Stuart* duke of York perceived an opportunity to divide the episcopal bench and the resulting proclamation was perceived as very mild towards the nonconformists.<sup>61</sup></p><h2><em>Alliance</em><em> with the duke of York</em></h2><p>Dolben took his seat in the Lords on 13 Apr. 1675 at the start of the new session. He attended 92 per cent of sittings and was named to nine select committees, holding Bishop Reynolds’ proxy for the whole session. Dolben began to distance himself from the majority of the bishops in their hostility to Catholicism. On 30 Apr. he joined with York in seconding the amendment moved by Charles North*, Baron Grey of Rolleston, to distinguish between legal and illegal methods of altering the government, in answer to Danby’s ‘no alteration’ bill. They were opposed by Danby and the amendment was rejected, but the bill was lost with the prorogation.<sup>62</sup> Towards the close of the session Dolben was named a manager of the conferences of 17, 19 and 21 May over <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> and again on 28 May for that concerning the Commons’ privileges.</p><p>In September 1675 fresh rumours circulated of Dolben’s expected promotion, this time to the see of London. In the event it was Danby’s candidate, Henry Compton*, who was given the coveted bishopric. During the autumn Dolben, with Sheldon and Meres, became involved in a tithe dispute against Henry Bridgeman, bishop of Sodor and Man, and his predecessor Isaac Barrow*, bishop of St Asaph, which involved his own aunt, Lady Grace Wynn. Dolben ‘mortified’ Bridgeman in a public forum and ‘made him promise her full satisfaction’.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In advance of the next session, Dolben was again entrusted with Reynolds’ proxy. Five days after the start of business on 13 Oct. 1675, he also received that of Humphrey Lloyd*, bishop of Bangor. He attended 91 per cent of sittings and was named to five select committees. Within days of the new session’s opening, Dolben’s influence at court was signalled by his appointment as lord almoner.<sup>64</sup> On 19 Nov. he was again named manager of the conference on the preservation of good understanding between the two Houses (an attempt to head off a revival of the <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> case). During the lengthy recess, he preached at court on 5 Nov. 1676.<sup>65</sup> He also secured for his brother, William, the king’s nomination as recorder of London, despite the opposition of the City.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Dolben took his seat in the House on 15 Feb. 1677, after the contentious long prorogation, in a session in which Danby’s programme of measures to secure the Church in case York succeeded to the throne was a prominent theme. Dolben attended the session for three-quarters of all sitting days and was named to nearly 60 select committees. He was present on 22 Feb. when the House debated heads of bills to secure the Protestant religion, but no evidence has been found to support the claim that on 1 Mar. it was Dolben who introduced one of these, the bill for further securing the protestant religion, which may have been Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York.<sup>67</sup></p><p>On 2 Mar. 1677 Dolben attended a select committee on the private bill for Sir Edward Hungerford<sup>‡</sup>, lodging a complaint on behalf of the Westminster deanery that Hungerford’s proposed leases would interfere with his own tenants’ passage to their houses. In the event a compromise was reached.<sup>68</sup> Six days later he received the proxy of his old friend Bishop Fell of Oxford, which was cancelled on 21 May. On 13 and 15 Mar. Dolben was twice named as a conference manager on the address to the king for the preservation of the Spanish Netherlands. On 29 Mar. he reported from a committee of the whole House with the recommendation that the bill ‘for the better observation of the Lord’s Day, the baptizing of infants, and the exercise of catechism’ be divided into two separate bills and that the House go into committee the next morning to start with the bill to better observe the Sabbath. On 4 Apr. he reported from the committee on the naturalization of Jacob David and others, recommending that the bill pass without amendment. The same day he reported from the committee of the whole House on the Sabbath observation bill.</p><p>Dolben continued to attend the House until the adjournment on 28 May 1677 and subsequent adjournment 16 July. During the recess he was engaged in his usual round of ecclesiastical and personal activities, including mediating with William Sancroft*, the new archbishop of Canterbury, over the contents of Sheldon’s library.<sup>69</sup> He attended the House on 3 Dec. but Parliament was again adjourned to the following January. On Christmas Day he preached at Whitehall chapel before the king.<sup>70</sup> Shortly after the resumption of the session, Dolben again received Bishop Lloyd’s proxy. In the new year, Dolben was in correspondence with John Paterson, bishop of Galloway, about the state of disaffected forces in Scotland.<sup>71</sup> On 21 Mar. 1678 Dolben was one of three bishops added to the committee for the bills concerning servants and highways and on 26 June he was named as a conference manager on the bill to grant supply to the king for disbanding the forces raised since September of the previous year. </p><p>The increasingly poor health of James Margetson, archbishop of Armagh, through the summer of 1678 prompted James Butler*, duke of Ormond, to raise the possibility of Dolben being translated to Ireland. In June Ormond mooted various possibilities that he hoped might appeal to Dolben and which he hoped the king would approve. One was Dolben’s promotion to the primacy in Ireland. Ormond thought that Dolben ‘would fit the place well and discharge it with great ability.’ Failing that he suggested Dolben might take on the archbishopric of Dublin and the office of lord chancellor in Ireland, with the present incumbent moving to Armagh. In spite of Ormond’s warm recommendation, and apparently to the surprise of the king, Dolben declined the offer.<sup>72</sup> Dolben’s interest in the law was again hinted at on 5 July when he was the only bishop to join 18 protesters against the resolution in the cause <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em>. The case clearly had implications for the judicial business of the House and during the first Exclusion Parliament, on 18 Mar. 1679, when Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, reported to the House from the committee of privileges concerning the validity of appeals and impeachments left over from the previous Parliament, Dolben maintained that they should read the reports of the House on the receipt of appeals in <em>Darrell v. Whichcot</em> the previous spring.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Dolben was present, as usual, for the first day of the new session on 21 Oct. 1678, attending thereafter for 79 per cent of sittings. The session found him closely involved with committees relating to the Popish Plot, including that appointed on 23 Oct. to examine information regarding the Plot and witness statements regarding the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, which he chaired from 23-30 Oct. and on 1 and 8 Nov, and from which he reported on 26, 30 Oct. and 1 November.<sup>74</sup> On 8 Nov. he reported to the House that Robert Walsh should be acquitted of all suspicion regarding the plot, on 16 Nov. he was named to the committee considering which papers should be presented at Coleman’s trial and on 20 Nov. he was nominated to that concerning the Conyers attainder bill.</p><p>On 15 Nov. 1678 Dolben voted against making transubstantiation part of the Test bill, which would thereby disable Roman Catholics from sitting in Parliament. In this he was joined by Sancroft and Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> opining that the Test had ‘it seems some new clause about idolatry or adoration which did so far stumble’ them that they voted against it.<sup>75</sup> Although York was exempted from the new test in a later division, Dolben remained one of the bill’s ‘chief opposers’, leading to speculation as to why any bishop of the Church of England should oppose such a bill.<sup>76</sup> On 26 Dec. he voted against a motion to insist on retaining the Lords’ amendment in the supply bill disbanding the army relating to the payment of money into the exchequer. The same day he joined his fellow bishops in voting against Danby’s committal. He attended for the prorogation on 30 Dec. but there is little detail of his activities during the recess apart from being contacted in his capacity as royal almoner by James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Dolben took his seat in the House at the start of the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679 and attended five sittings of the short-lived session, being named to the sessional committees and to the select committee on information regarding the Popish Plot. After a short prorogation, he returned to the House for the beginning of the next session on 15 Mar. 1679, during which he was present on 79 per cent of sitting days. He was named to nine select committees, including the committee on 17 Apr. to examine the bill for better securing the liberty of the subject (habeas corpus) preparatory for it being considered in a committee of the whole and on 24 Apr. to that considering objections raised by the Commons to the answers delivered by the five impeached lords. On 22 Mar., Dolben joined Bishop Compton in reporting to the House that the king had appointed the following Monday at the Banqueting House to receive a parliamentary address concerning a fast.<sup>78</sup> He joined his fellow bishops in voting against Danby’s attainder on 1 and 4 Apr., and on 14 Apr. he opposed agreement with the Commons over the attainder bill.<sup>79</sup> On 11 Apr. Dolben preached the fast sermon at the abbey and was thanked by the House the following day.<sup>80</sup> The same month he spoke in Ormond’s defence over criticism of the duke’s administration in Ireland occasion for speech.<sup>81</sup></p><p>During the involved debates that dominated the attention of the Lords between 6-20 May on the rights of bishops to vote in capital cases, Dolben spoke out for the bishops. He argued that they were:</p><blockquote><p>not willing to have that power which it is thought [we] desire – we cannot say or do any thing in this case but it will offend a great many of you. My lord Shaftesbury gives with one hand and takes with the other. We are trusted not for our posterity but our successors ... my see is ennobled though my person is not. </p></blockquote><p>He later cited the legal precedent of the trial of Thomas Cromwell<sup>†</sup>, earl of Essex. On the final day of the debate, when Buckingham maintained that judges could not vote in their own cases, Dolben responded that the Catholic lords had recently voted in a division that resulted in their own expulsion from the House. His statement was challenged by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and after further speeches Dolben and Wharton made the concluding remarks.<sup>82</sup> Two days later, Dolben was named as a manager of the conference on the supply bill to pay arrears to the army and of the conference concerning the trials of Danby and the five lords imprisoned in the Tower. On the 10th he was appointed one of the managers of the conference on the petition received from Danby. On 26 May he was again nominated a manager of the conference to preserve ‘a good correspondence’ between the houses. </p><p>Dolben continued to preach regularly, both at Whitehall and in prominent London churches. According to John Verney when he preached in the church at Covent Garden on 19 Nov. (at the height of the debates on the bishops’ role in trials) a gold fringe with tassels had been cut off from the cloth covering the pulpit.<sup>83</sup> He attended the House for further prorogations throughout 1679 and 1680. During 1680 he was involved in a chancery dispute with his diocesan registrar John Stowell, who had charged him in the ecclesiastical court with financial irregularities.<sup>84</sup> Dolben also found himself at odds with Ormond in the second half of the year over the office of high bailiff of Westminster. Ormond (on the authority of the Privy Council) sought the dismissal of Essex Strode<sup>‡</sup> from the post after Strode’s bungled invasion of the Savoy and arrest of Ormond’s kinsman, Sir James Butler<sup>‡</sup>. Dolben eventually capitulated, though with considerable reluctance, because he thought it an unlawful action, ‘it being a judicial as well as a ministerial office’.<sup>85</sup></p><p>On 21 Oct. 1680 Dolben attended the House for the start of the new Parliament and attended the session for 86 per cent of sittings; he was named to three select committees. On 15 Nov. he voted to reject the exclusion bill on its first reading and on the 23rd opposed the appointment of a committee to consider, in conjunction with the Commons, the state of the kingdom. He then attended each day of the brief Oxford Parliament in March 1681. In May 1682 he foiled an attempt to dismiss his brother from the judiciary.<sup>86</sup></p><h2><em>Archbishop of York 1683-6</em></h2><p>Dolben was said to have been second choice, after Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, for translation to York, but by June 1683 news had reached the York chapter of Dolben’s nomination.<sup>87</sup> Following the official directive from the king, Dolben was elected on 28 July and the news was widely known by the time of the royal assent in August.<sup>88</sup> Bishop Fell was summoned to London to assist in the formalities of translation.<sup>89</sup> In the week of 20 Sept. Dolben, always given to the high life, left London ‘with a very great train’.<sup>90</sup> Five days later he entered York, where he met with an enthusiastic reception.<sup>91</sup> Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], sent Dolben warm congratulations when he learned of Dolben’s translation, noting that ‘the trouble of it will be to your Lordship, but the advantage will be to the Church and to us’.<sup>92</sup> Dolben informed Sancroft by the end of October of his plans for the diocese, noting the need to prepare the bishop of Durham for what he wished to do. These included the weekly communions that he had previously rejected and additional celebrations of saints’ days. The latter resulted in his having to defend himself from ‘Romish superstition’.<sup>93</sup> He had misgivings about his equally ‘furious’ deans at York and at Ripon, Tobias Wickham and Thomas Cartwright*, later bishop of Chester, and predicted stormy relations between York Minster and the corporation.<sup>94</sup> He was also at odds with Halifax; the governor of York, Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, bt., observing that differences between the two men were now expressed ‘with more animosity than before’.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Within a week of arriving in the diocese, Dolben had appointed his son, Gilbert, to the office of seneschal of the liberty of Ripon for life at the salary of £6 a year.<sup>96</sup> The following month he consolidated his family’s connection to the Mulso family of Finedon by securing the marriage of his second son, John Dolben<sup>‡</sup>, to Elizabeth Mulso, the daughter and coheir of Tanfield Mulso of Finedon: his eldest, Gilbert, had already married the other Mulso sister, Anne.<sup>97</sup> By 16 Nov. 1683 Dolben had returned south from his diocese and surrendered his almoner’s place at Windsor. He had earlier expressed concerns about the choice of his successor, Francis Turner, bishop of Rochester, whose appointment so soon after being elevated to the bishopric he feared might ‘bring envy with it’. Once Turner had been confirmed, though, he welcomed him as his ‘successor throughout’. He proceeded to regale Turner with a detailed exposition of the workings of the office of almoner, recommending officials on whom he could rely while warning him that his deputies were ‘generally knaves’. Fearful that Yorkshire politics were ‘refining mightily’ on Danby’s ‘new honour’ and his alliance with Halifax, Dolben wanted Sancroft to use his influence to prevent Danby ‘from any design to the prejudice of the Church’. In March 1684, Dolben tried to secure the translation of the northern bred and ‘well-principled’ John Lake*, the future bishop of Chichester, to Carlisle.<sup>98</sup> He ‘invited and encouraged’ Lake to apply for the vacancy, but the ecclesiastical commissioners ignored Dolben and sent Lake to the politically volatile city of Bristol instead.<sup>99</sup> Following a visitation of the West Ridng, he returned to York in May ‘disordered’ with diarrhoea to find that his innovation of weekly communion was still proving unpopular.<sup>100</sup></p><p>By the beginning of June 1684 Dolben appears to have been regretting his elevation to York. He complained to Turner that the ‘little diocese’ of Ely (to which it was thought Turner would soon be translated) would have suited him much better ‘and you would better have traversed this vast tract of ground, much of which will not abide a coach’.<sup>101</sup> Dolben was also unhappy at the elevation of Thomas Smith*, bishop of Carlisle, on account of Smith’s suspected simony, even though he professed ‘both kindness and esteem’ for him. He was assisted by Lake and Crew in Smith’s consecration at York.<sup>102</sup> By July, he was expecting the arrival at York of the lord chief justice, George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, ‘where they say he will do greater things as a privy councillor than as a judge’. He also hoped that Bishop Compton would visit him since they had much to discuss that Dolben would not commit to writing.<sup>103</sup> It was rumoured across London in late July that Dolben was dead, because of his ill health.<sup>104</sup> He blamed overwork, having ‘undertaken too much at once, to visit Chester diocese, metropolitically, and [his] own diocese together’.<sup>105</sup> He learned from Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup> 4th bt., that Compton was definitely coming to York, but the anticipation of a visit did not dispel his gloom.<sup>106</sup> He was also concerned that Reresby had become ‘a creature’ of Halifax.<sup>107</sup></p><p>During the campaign to remodel corporations by <em>quo warranto</em>, it was decided to surrender Ripon’s charter into Dolben’s hands ‘to the use of his majesty’, it being judged by the aldermen that ‘to have the concurrence of the archbishop with them in this act was thought a good means, not to allay all jealousies, but to procure some advantages to the town’. In spite of this aspiration, by the time of the accession of the new king, Ripon was still without a charter, possibly on account of Dolben’s opposition.<sup>108</sup> Probably with reference to an anticipated session of Parliament, Dolben corresponded with Bishop Turner in the autumn of 1684, noting that ‘coming up’ would be ‘very grievous to me in many respects’. He concluded that his vote ‘will be as useful in your hand, as my own presence can make it’ and also commented self-deprecatingly on his impetuousness in debate: ‘my bolt is soon shot, at random, and to small purpose’.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Freed from the need to make another journey to London, Dolben concentrated on affairs in York. He relied on his wife’s mediation to improve his relations with Reresby.<sup>110</sup> The period witnessed feverish activity in the city in preparation for a visit by the duke of York on his way north to preside over a planned Scottish parliament in the new year. All this was overtaken by events. Dolben was actively engaged in conducting a controversial visitation of the cathedral chapter shortly before learning from Reresby at a meeting in York Minster that the king was ill.<sup>111</sup> The following day (6 Feb. 1685), they both processed to the castle yard with the gentry to proclaim the accession of James II.<sup>112</sup> Dolben published the declaration ‘with tears’, but within days had warned Sancroft to ‘prepare for trouble’.<sup>113</sup> He thought it best to remain in York where he could be of use in the imminent general election. On 16 Feb. a meeting of the gentry and clergy at York agreed to subscribe an address wherein both laity and clergy would express their thanks for the king’s declaration to preserve the Church of England. Universal agreement was not forthcoming. Although Dolben agreed to fall in with the majority of the country in the address, many were loathe to offer thanks. Others, such as the dean, seemed to Dolben to be acting without integrity, ‘designing to please, the later to vapour’. In March he ordered Bishop Smith of Carlisle to attend the coronation.<sup>114</sup></p><p>In the general election campaign, Dolben put forward his son, Gilbert, for Ripon. On 6 Mar. 1685 he received an address from the inhabitants expressing their delight at the recommendation.<sup>115</sup> On 20 Mar. Gilbert Dolben, was returned together with Sir Edmund Jennings<sup>‡</sup>, the archbishop having secured generous support for his son and promising to choose the second candidate of ‘good affections to the crown’.<sup>116</sup> He also promised Henry Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Baron Fairfax of Cameron [S], support for Hon. Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup> insisting if his ‘little interest in Yorkshire can serve Captain Fairfax he is master of it’; he assured Fairfax that he had already helped Reresby by circulating his tenants in several places and would be ‘at least as zealously active for the captain’.<sup>117</sup> Fairfax was duly elected for Malton; the city of York returned Reresby with Sir Metcalfe Robinson<sup>‡</sup>, bt.<sup>118</sup> Early in May 1685 Dolben complained to Reresby about the lack of activity shown by Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, in attempting to prevent some of the York aldermen being turned out of their places. By the close of the month, Dolben appears to have lost his appetite for the struggle too, leaving it to Halifax to defend them. The effort proved in vain and the aldermen were removed.<sup>119</sup></p><p>Travelling to London to rejoin the bishops’ bench for the start of parliamentary business on 19 May 1685 (and to take his seat as primate of York), Dolben attended the session for 88 per cent of sittings and was named to nine select committees. He attended until Parliament was adjourned on 2 July, returning to Bishopthorpe on 17 July and instructing his clergy, in the wake of the Monmouth Rebellion, to preach ‘to make the people sensible of the great deliverance ... that they should exhort them earnestly to loyalty according to the principle of our common Christianity, and the peculiar doctrine of our church’. Despite having received no formal instruction to celebrate thanksgiving he went ahead anyway. The cathedral, he claimed, was never fuller; inclined to ‘tremble’ at the thought of more rebellions, he advised Sancroft to speak with the king privately as the latter was more likely to be susceptible to reason if not disturbed by onlookers. He reminded Sancroft that he had already succeeded with James in another (unspecified) personal matter.<sup>120</sup></p><p>By August 1685, the king’s religious politics were alarming the episcopate. Dolben was anxious about the future: ‘no man hath more need of being assisted by worthy and able men, being so deficient in myself as I am’. He asked Sancroft to block the elevation of Thomas Cartwright, whose ambitions for the see of Chester were matched only by the noise of his boasting to friends in York before the formal announcement; Dolben wanted Cartwright posted ‘where he may do less harm’. He also sought Sancroft’s assistance in discouraging the presentation to ‘that excellent living at Prestwich’ of one Mr Ashton, through the patronage of John Digby*, 3rd earl of Bristol, as Ashton already possessed a living in Nottinghamshire, which Dolben considered too far away to justify him holding both at once. A fellowship in Manchester, he considered, might be more suitable.<sup>121</sup> By the end of September he confided in Trumbull that he wished he ‘were so fit to die, as I am unlike and indeed unfit to live, useless and unprofitable in my station’. It is unclear whether his mood reflected personal or pastoral concerns, but he clearly fretted for the future of the established Church, ‘notwithstanding all our provocations’ and wished Sancroft well in his attempts to protect them.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Sir John Reresby, the governor of York, took the whole Dolben family to dine at the castle in early October, treating them to the diversion of a company of men exercising and firing grenade shells (Reresby noted that Dolben had himself been a military man).<sup>123</sup> Despite his enervated mood and the trials of travelling, he was determined to attend Parliament ‘in obedience to his majesty’s commands’ and planned to leave York on 29 October.<sup>124</sup> He met up with Reresby and Sir Henry Goodricke<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., at Doncaster, where he learned that Halifax had been dismissed and that a bill in favour of Catholics might come before Parliament.<sup>125</sup> By 4 Nov. Dolben had nearly reached London, bringing with him (according to Gilbert Dolben) ‘his good look and his good stomach’.<sup>126</sup> Soon after his arrival in London, Dolben appears to have had a meeting with the king at which James informed him that he was relying on Dolben’s vote in favour of taking off the test, not least as Dolben had opposed its imposition previously. Dolben answered that although he had formerly been opposed to it, he now felt that it was important that the measure be retained. It was widely accepted that Dolben, Fell and Compton would support the London clergy in their opposition to the king’s religious policies.<sup>127</sup> During the debate on the king’s speech on 9 Nov., Dolben and Compton ‘spoke much’ about retaining Catholic officers and it was reported that together they ‘did well in Parliament’.<sup>128</sup> On 19 Nov. William Cavendish*, 4th earl of Devonshire, backed by Halifax, moved the Lords to consider the king’s speech, but was opposed by Dolben on procedural grounds, as it had not been set down as the business for that day.<sup>129</sup> The House was prorogued the following day.</p><p>Ten days later Dolben dined with Compton. He remained in the capital where, on 6 Dec. 1685, ‘the princess’ (presumably Anne) received the sacrament ‘with extraordinary devotion’ from Dolben. He enjoyed the usual social round, especially frequent visits from Turner.<sup>130</sup> He also kept his ear to the ground for political gossip, informing Reresby, falsely, that Halifax was to be reinstated. More accurate was the news he received on the 29th about Compton’s dismissal from the Privy Council for his speech against Catholic officers.<sup>131</sup> In January 1686, Dolben waited on the king to wish him well for the new year. The king informed Dolben of his intention to defer the sitting of Parliament until after the following autumn and explained his removal of Compton. Dolben finally left London on 22 Mar. 1686. According to Gilbert Dolben, he had only lingered in London as his daughter was on the verge of giving birth. The day after she had been churched, Dolben intended to head back to the north.<sup>132</sup> On the journey back he stayed in an inn infected with smallpox. He preached at York Minster on Good Friday 1686, but fell ill the following week of a ‘lethargic distemper’. With an ‘utterly hopeless’ prognosis, he died in the early hours of 11 Apr. before his wife could return to York to be with him.<sup>133</sup> </p><p>News of Dolben’s condition remained confused for several days. Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> had reported him dead several days before he finally expired.<sup>134</sup> John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) reported that Dolben had suffered an apoplectic fit; others thought him still alive but suffering from smallpox. Thomas Comber, his precentor at York, said that he had died ‘rather of grief at the melancholy prospect of public affairs, than of the smallpox’.<sup>135</sup> The day after his death Dolben was buried in the south aisle of York Minster. A marble monument with Dolben’s effigy dressed formally in his episcopal cope and mitre was later erected to mark the place.<sup>136</sup> Both Comber and the archbishop’s son, Gilbert (whose wife also contracted smallpox), informed Sancroft promptly of his death and within two days, the news had reached London.<sup>137</sup> Although letters of administration were granted to Dolben’s wife, his son and heir Gilbert bore the brunt of probate duties and the removal of the household from Bishopthorpe to the family home at Finedon.<sup>138</sup> Dolben’s second son, John, later became a driving force in the prosecution of Dr Henry Sacheverell.<sup>139</sup></p><p>Dolben’s reputation, perhaps unsurprisingly, was mixed. Even Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, whose customary bias against Tory Anglicans was almost certainly exacerbated when Dolben refused to assist his academic research, praised the archbishop, but not without some caveats: he was a ‘man of more spirit than discretion, an excellent preacher, but of a fine conversation, which laid him open to much censure in a vicious court’.<sup>140</sup> Trumbull eulogized him as a great parliamentarian with greater ‘interest and authority’ in the House of Lords than any other bishop at this time. He had, Trumbull wrote,</p><blockquote><p>easily mastered all the forms of proceeding. He had studied much of our laws, especially those of the Parliament, and was not to be brow-beat or daunted by the arrogance or titles of any courtier or favourite. His presence of mind and readiness of elocution, accompanied with good breeding and an inimitable wit, gave him a greater superiority than any other lord could pretend to from his dignity or office.<sup>141</sup></p></blockquote><p>Other eulogies did nothing to prevent scandal pursuing Dolben beyond the grave: the licenser of Anthony Wood’s <em>Athenae Oxonienses</em> found in it ‘horrible reflections’ on the archbishop.<sup>142</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
DUPPA, Brian (1589-1662) |
<p><strong><surname>DUPPA</surname></strong>, <strong>Brian</strong> (1589–1662)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; last sat 3 Jan. 1642 |
cons. 17 June 1638 bp. of CHICHESTER; transl. 11 Dec. 1641 bp. of SALISBURY; transl. 4 Oct. 1660 bp. of WINCHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 Mar. 1589, 2nd s. of Jeffrey Duppa, purveyor of buttery to Elizabeth I and brewer to James I, and Lucrece Marshall [Maresall]. <em>educ</em>. Westminster Sch.; Christ Church, Oxf., matric. 1605, BA 1609; All Soul’s, Oxf. fell. 1612, MA 1614, proctor 1619, BD 1625, DD 1625; DD Camb. (incorp.) 1641. <em>m</em>. 23 Nov. 1626, Jane, da. Nicholas Killingtree [Chillington] of Longham, Norf. <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 26 Mar. 1662 at Richmond, Surr.; <em>will</em> 4 Feb., pr. 16 May 1662.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Tutor to Charles II and James II 1638–41; almoner 1660–2.</p><p>Vic. Hailsham, Suss. 1625, Westham, Suss. 1626, Withyham, Suss. 1627; chap. to the Prince Palatine 1625, to Edward Sackville<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Dorset c.1625; dean Christ Church, Oxf. 1629–38; chan. Salisbury, 1634–8; rect. Petworth, Suss. 1638–41.</p><p>V.-chan. Oxf. 1632–4.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by H. Howard, after lost original by J.M. Wright, Christ Church, Oxf., engraved by R. White, 1674.</p> |
<p>In 1660, the nobility and the clergy expressed approval when Brian Duppa was translated from Salisbury to the prestigious and wealthy diocese of Winchester.<sup>2</sup> In the brief time that he held the see he received £50,000 in fines. He remitted £30,000 to his tenants and spent at least £12,000 on repairs, his translation and charitable works, although this did not prevent his successor from bringing a dilapidations suit in which it was alleged that he ‘did not do as much as was incumbent upon him’ and left the bishop’s palace a ruin.<sup>3</sup> By the time of his death he could bequeath more than £4,000 in over 40 individual bequests to family, friends and servants, including legacies to ten former commanders of the royalist army. He was also able to use his position to further the career of his nephew Thomas Duppa, whom he introduced to court and who would be appointed as black rod in 1683.<sup>4</sup></p><p>A much respected figure in the royal court in the 1630s, tutor to the sons of Charles I, Duppa spent the Civil War at Oxford, accompanied Prince Charles in the West in 1645-46, and his advice was repeatedly sought by the king in his imprisonment. He spent the Interregnum in retirement, largely at Richmond, forging a close friendship with Sir Justinian Isham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>5</sup> Throughout the 1650s Duppa was active in maintaining contact with other Episcopal clergy, including Gilbert Sheldon*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and made some attempt to provide leadership on the approach to the formal legal requirements in reading the Book of Common Prayer, but he disappointed Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, in failing to take stronger action to undertake consecrations to ensure the maintenance of the Episcopal succession. Duppa himself pointed out how closely he was watched by the Interregnum authorities, particularly (as in the late summer of 1659) at times of suspected involvement in or knowledge of royalist plots.<sup>6</sup> By March 1660 Duppa was delighting in the ‘miraculous’ change of affairs but the uncertainty about the religious settlement and the future of the episcopate remained troubling. In April he told Justinian Isham that ‘It is yet standing water with us, we neither flow nor ebb; how far the near approaching Parliament may either advance, or drive us back I know not.’<sup>7</sup> On 4 May Duppa met with two other surviving bishops, Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely, and John Warner*, bishop of Rochester, as well as other key clergy, and drafted letters to the king and to James Butler*, marquess of Ormond [I], later earl of Brecknock and duke of Ormond, expressing the loyalty of the Church. The same three bishops were present on 29 May to greet the king at his arrival in Whitehall.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Shortly after the Restoration Duppa moved to London from Richmond at the king’s request, ‘that [he] might be more useful to him’, although as he told Sheldon in mid-August, the opportunity to assist the king had not yet arisen, and he was clearly troubled about the shape of the religious settlement, for ‘all the professed enemies of our church, look upon this as the critical time to use their dernier resort to shake his majesty’s constancy’.<sup>9</sup> Later that month he was worrying about Parliament, particularly that many of ‘our best friends’ had quitted London for the country.<sup>10</sup> Duppa’s churchmanship and style of preaching may have alienated some not used to it: Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, attending a service in the chapel royal disliked Duppa’s ‘cold’ sermon and the ‘overdone’ ceremonies.<sup>11</sup> As the most senior surviving prelate, he was the chief consecrator of the five new bishops in October<sup>12</sup> By December frailty had confined him to his chambers in Westminster. He did not return to the House after the readmission of the bishops in November 1661, registering his proxy for the session in favour of Gilbert Sheldon. Nevertheless, he remained absorbed with matters of Church and state, not least in Convocation’s revision of the prayer book to accompany the uniformity bill. On 24 Feb. 1662 he appeared before the privy council for their reading of the book and subsequent recommendation of the text to the Lords.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Within a month, Duppa was dying. Charles II visited his former tutor at Richmond on 25 Mar. 1662, kneeling for a blessing at the bedside.<sup>14</sup> Duppa died the following day; his body was taken to York House in the Strand where it lay in state for four weeks, after which his well-attended funeral was ‘the solemnest … known of any prelate in these last ages’.<sup>15</sup> His contemporaries were almost unanimous in their praise of the bishop’s practical piety, which set the tone for the Restoration Church.<sup>16</sup></p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
EARLE, John (c. 1601-65) |
<p><strong><surname>EARLE</surname></strong> (<strong>EARLES</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (c. 1601–65)</p> |
|
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1663; last sat 31 Oct. 1665 |
cons. 30 Nov. 1662 bp. of WORCESTER; transl. 20 Sept. 1663 bp. of SALISBURY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1601, York, s. of Thomas Earle, registrar archbishop’s court, York. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. BA 1619; Merton, Oxf. fell. 1619, MA 1624, proctor 1631; incorp. Camb. 1632, DD 1642. <em>m</em>. ?1637, Bridget ?Dixye. <em>d</em>. 17 Nov. 1665; <em>will</em> 15 Nov., pr. 18 Dec. 1665.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Tutor and chap. to Prince of Wales (Charles II) 1641–7; clerk of closet to Charles II 1650–64.</p><p>Chap. to Philip Herbert<sup>†</sup>, 4th earl of Pembroke, 1631; rect. Gamlingay, Cambs. 1632, Bishopstone, Wilts. 1639, deprived 1644; chan. Salisbury 1644–62; dean Westminster 1660–2.</p><p>Commr. Savoy conference 1661.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, NPG 1531.</p> |
<p>John Earle, the satirist and author of the popular (though anonymous) <em>Microcosmographie</em> (1628), was introduced to the court of Charles I by Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke. A prominent figure in literary circles, he was a habitué of the Great Tew circle along with Gilbert Sheldon*, later archbishop of Canterbury, George Morley*, later bishop of Winchester, and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon (who would regard him as one of his closest friends).<sup>3</sup> He succeeded Brian Duppa*, bishop of Salisbury, as tutor to the future Charles II in 1641; in exile from the late 1640s, he produced Latin translations of the <em>Eikon Basilike</em> and Hooker’s <em>Ecclesiastical Polity</em>, and was part of a close-knit circle of clergy and laymen including Morley and Hyde. Appointed chaplain to Charles II, he was included in planning lists for the restored Church.<sup>4</sup> Returning to England at the Restoration, he was made dean of Westminster (for which he had been designated at least as early as July 1659) in which capacity he oversaw the exhumation of the regicides.<sup>5</sup> As dean, with the interest of the abbey at his disposal, he helped to secure the election at Westminster in 1661 of his friend Sir Philip Warwick<sup>‡ </sup>.<sup>6</sup> With Sheldon and Morley he was entrusted with the task of sifting the flood of petitions for clerical preferment within the king’s gift that arrived in the course of 1660.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In March 1661 he was named as one of the commissioners to the Savoy conference, although Richard Baxter (who retained considerable respect for him) noted that he ‘never came’.<sup>8</sup> In the spring of 1662 he declined the bishopric of Worcester, leaving the way open for John Gauden*, though when Gauden died suddenly after only four months in the see, Earle succumbed to Sheldon’s insistence that he take the post, protesting unsuccessfully that his age and infirmity made him ‘ill fitted’ for it.<sup>9</sup> He was consecrated on 30 Nov. 1662, the lavish consecration banquet, costing some £600, attended by ‘innumerable’ members of the nobility, gentry and Church.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On 18 Feb. 1663, the first day of the 1663 session, Earle took his seat in the House of Lords, subsequently attending for over 80 per cent of sittings and being named to four select committees. He held the see of Worcester for less than a year, being translated to Salisbury in the reshuffle of episcopal posts that followed the death of William Juxon*, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1663. Clarendon ensured that the formalities were completed quickly in September.<sup>11</sup> When he arrived in the House for the 1664 session it was as bishop of Salisbury. He was again present for over 80 per cent of sittings, attending throughout the passage of the first Conventicle Act. His attendance dropped to 26 per cent in the 1664–5 session, largely owing to his intermittent attendance between 20 Dec. 1664 and the beginning of March 1665. He was probably ill. In September 1664 he mentioned suffering from bladder stones and expressed his fear of a recurrence; he had also lost his appetite.<sup>12</sup></p><p>When Parliament met in Oxford in October 1665, Earle accompanied the king and lodged in University College. He was present on all but two days of the short session. On 12 Oct. he was named to the sessional committees and on 27 Oct., along with almost all others present, to the committee on the contentious Five Mile Act. According to Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, Earle ‘declared himself much against this act’, yet he is not identified as such in the only known account of the debate in the Lords, which states that ‘all’ of the bishops and James Stuart*, duke of York, carried the bill ‘so strongly’ that its opponents could not have it recommitted.<sup>13</sup> Though Earle’s background and friendships suggest a relatively strong line on nonconformity, Earle’s proxy partners might suggest some flexibility: in February 1663 and September 1665 he was entrusted with the proxy of Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich, the one Presbyterian minister who had accepted elevation to the episcopate; in November 1664 he also accepted the proxy of Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Bristol, whose sympathies may have been Laudian, but whose attitudes towards dissent seem to have been rather equivocal. These are more likely to be instances of the civility and ‘peaceableness’ which Baxter admired, however, than indications of ecclesiastical or theological views.</p><p>Earle never returned from Oxford. He fell into his final illness within days of the prorogation and died on 17 Nov. 1665. Adored by the diarist John Evelyn, he was regarded by his contemporaries as ‘a contemner of the world’; he placed little value on material belongings, hence his dishevelled appearance, the ‘careless indifference’ of his life and the muddle of his personal papers.<sup>14</sup> He made a nuncupative will two days before his death, leaving his entire estate to his wife, Bridget. Earle was buried with considerable pomp on 25 Nov. in Merton College Chapel, near to the high altar.</p> |
B.A. |
|
EVANS, John (c. 1651-1724) |
<p><strong><surname>EVANS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1651–1724)</p> |
|
|
First sat 12 Jan. 1702; last sat 14 Dec. 1715 |
cons. 4 Jan. 1702 bp. of BANGOR; transl. 19 Jan. 1716 bp. of Meath [I] |
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1651, s. of Ynyr Evans and Elin, da. Michael ap Rhys Wynn, of Bodhenlli, Anglesey.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Gloucester Hall, Oxf. matric. 1668; Jesus, Oxf. BA 1681, MA 1684, BD 1695, DD 1695; ord. priest Dec. 1672.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 13 Feb. 1679, Elizabeth Trenchfield (<em>d</em>.1686), sis. of Richard Trenchfield, interloping merchant, 2 ch. <em>d.v.p.</em>;<sup>3</sup> (2) May 1698, Frances ?Roles.<sup>4</sup> <em>d</em>. 2 Mar. 1724; <em>will</em> 15 Feb., pr. 11 Apr. 1724.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to HEICS Bengal and Madras, 1677-92.</p><p>Cur. St Magnus the Martyr London, Isleworth Mdx.; rect. Llanaelhaiarn, Caern. c.1695.</p><p>Founder mbr. Most Honourable and Loyal Society of Ancient Britons; mbr. SPCK 1699, SPG 1701;<sup>6</sup> commr. Q. Anne’s Bounty 1705,<sup>7</sup> 50 new churches 1715.<sup>8</sup></p><p>PC [I], 11 Jul 1716.<sup>9</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Oil on canvas, 1707.<sup>10</sup></p> |
<p>John Evans was born into the same network of interconnected Anglesey and Caernarvonshire gentry as Humphrey Humphreys*, his predecessor at Bangor, and whom Evans addressed as ‘cousin’. Through his mother, Evans claimed descent from the ninth-century Welsh lord Cilmyn Droed Ddu. His coat of arms as bishop impaled the arms of Cilmyn Droed Ddu with those of the see; they have also been identified specifically as the arms of the Glyn of Elernion family of Llanaelhaiarn, who also claimed descent from Cilmyn and who were seated in the parish of which Evans became rector in the mid 1690s.<sup>11</sup> Evans was not wealthy, but his mother had enough money to support him through university on an allowance of £30 a year plus the expenses of his degrees.<sup>12</sup> Evans’s first political patron was Sir Joseph Ashe<sup>‡</sup>, governor of the East India Company who secured him a chaplaincy with the company in 1677. Evans immersed himself in commerce with great enthusiasm. Despite fulfilling his pastoral activities in India, he consorted with the ‘interlopers’, those who traded without licence from the company.<sup>13</sup> He was dismissed from the company in 1692 on the grounds that he had ‘betaken himself so entirely to merchandizing’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Evans returned to England having supposedly amassed a fortune in India in excess of £30,000.<sup>15</sup> Having lost first his two children (in 1682) and his wife (in 1686), he then married a ‘rich widow’.<sup>16</sup> He divided his time between his London residence and Jesus College, Oxford, where he took his divinity degrees. He was appointed to a living in the diocese of Bangor by Humphreys.<sup>17</sup> Evans lived in London rather than in his Caernarvonshire parish, but by correspondence he co-ordinated the activities of the SPCK in Wales and patronized Welsh writers of moralist and devotional texts, undertaking himself a translation of <em>A Brief Exposition of the Church Catechism</em> by John Williams*, bishop of Chichester.<sup>18</sup> He also had a correspondent in Denmark, though whether of religious or other nature is unknown.<sup>19</sup> He failed to secure the see in 1699 when Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, was facing suspension, but his career prospects benefited not only from his efforts in enhancing religious education in rural Wales, but also from his Whig politics and perhaps his cousinship with Owen Hughes<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Beaumaris in the 1698-1700 Parliament, who had turned from client to opponent of the dominant Tory Bulkeley family. Evans was nominated to Bangor on 4 Dec. 1701.<sup>20</sup> The appointment’s wider political context may lie in William III’s reconstruction of the ministry around the lay Whig leadership in the knowledge that ‘the whole moderate church party’ (as outlined by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland) was estranged from the Tories but unwilling to support the new ministry.<sup>21</sup> Evans’s ties with business and with low church evangelism may have suggested he was likely to support it or at least take a pragmatic view. His appointment was greeted by Evans’s former fellow-interloper Thomas Pitt<sup>‡</sup> with a pun that his ‘old friend Doctor Evans’ was now bishop of ‘Bangor alias Bengal’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>On 12 Jan. 1702, two weeks into the spring session of Parliament, Evans took his seat in the House to begin an active parliamentary career. Of the 16 sessions that assembled during his tenure of Bangor, Evans attended all but four; during those 12, his attendance fell beneath 75 per cent on only two occasions. He failed to attend the 1704-5 session, that of 1709-10 which included the Sacheverell trial, the brief spring session in 1713 which saw the ratification of the peace of Utrecht, and the three week session in August 1714 after the death of Anne. While the House was in session, Evans’s comfortable material circumstances allowed him to live in his residences in Bloomsbury or Soho; he did not resume the lease of Bangor House in Shoe Lane which had been made by his predecessor Humphreys.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Evans attended his first parliamentary session for 85 per cent of sittings. Amongst the various committees to which he was named was that to prepare for a conference with the Commons on the encouragement of privateers, a subject with echoes of his India days.<sup>24</sup> On 26 Feb. 1702 he protested against the resolution to continue the Quaker Affirmation Act. He was at the House on 20 Oct. for the start of Anne’s first Parliament during which he attended 77 per cent of sittings. On 5 Nov. he preached at the Abbey and was thanked by the House the following day. Later in the session (on 12 Feb. 1703) William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted that Evans had not had the sermon printed, despite the request of the House.<sup>25</sup> It appears that he never did so.</p><p>Evans’s attendance at Convocation in November 1702 attracted a vote of censure from the Lower House as he had not brought representatives of the diocesan lower clergy as his summons from the archbishop of Canterbury required.<sup>26</sup> Nicolson thought the Lower House’s attitude to Evans ‘insolent’, but he also recorded the view of the high churchman William Moore, a representative of Oxford diocese, that Evans’s reply was ‘unmannerly’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Evans dined with Nicolson and Humphreys on 28 November 1702 to discuss the proposed legislation to combat occasional conformity; two Scottish peers, William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], and Thomas Livingston, viscount of Teviot [S], were also present. On 7 Dec. 1702, in the ‘grand debate’ and question on financial penalties, Evans and Nicolson voted against Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, and six Whig bishops, and with the minority which included Tory bishops John Sharp*, archbishop of York, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, and Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter. He remained in London over Christmas and attended the St Stephen’s day dinner at Lambeth.<sup>28</sup> Evans’s vote in the December division on occasional conformity presumably led Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to list him as a ‘doubtful’ supporter of occasional conformity legislation. On 16 Jan. 1703 Evans duly voted for the Whig amendment to the bill. Three days later he registered his protest against clauses in the bill settling a revenue upon Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland should he survive the queen, to serve as Privy Councillor and to sit in the Lords, on the grounds that the grants were not laid before the House and that the ‘saving clauses’ potentially preferred ‘their payment before his’.</p><p>In about November 1703, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland (a Whig ally), correctly forecast that Evans would oppose a renewed attempt at occasional conformity legislation. On 9 Nov. Evans arrived for the first day of the session. He attended 90 per cent of sittings and was also named to the standing committees. Sunderland’s second forecast that month again listed Evans as a certain opponent of an occasional conformity bill. On 14 Dec. Evans duly voted against the measure, using (according to one source) Humphreys’ proxy.<sup>29</sup> The claim is plausible given the relationship between the two bishops, but as the proxy book does not survive, cannot be confirmed. Evans attended the House until the end of the session on 3 Apr. 1704. He did not attend the autumn 1704 session and at a call of the House on 23 Nov., it was noted that he was excused. On 27 Nov. he entered his proxy in favour of Tenison (vacated at the end of the session on 14 Mar. 1705). In May 1705, despite Whig victories in much of England and Wales, parliamentary elections returned the Tories, Henry Bertie<sup>‡</sup> (son of James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon) in Beaumaris, Richard Vaughan<sup>‡</sup> in Merioneth, and Richard Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Viscount Bulkeley [I], in Anglesey, all unlikely to have been favoured by Evans.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Evans returned to Westminster on the third day of the session that began in October 1705. The House promptly ordered a census of Roman Catholics. Evans identified the presence of Roman Catholics in 13 parishes in the diocese of Bangor, remonstrating with his neighbour Humphreys on the inadequacy, as he perceived it, of the Herefordshire returns.<sup>31</sup> Evans also criticized Humphreys for inadequate protection of diocesan revenue by letting the bishop’s claims to maritime wrecks lapse, possibly due to pressure from the competing interest of the vice admiral of North Wales, Bulkeley. During the session, Evans attended more than 90 per cent of sittings. On 6 Dec. he voted in favour of the motion that the Church was not in danger following the debate in which the Whig ministry hoped to flush out Tory critics of the Church in the presence of the queen.</p><p>On 5 Jan. 1706 Evans joined Nicolson, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, and White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Peterborough, at a Lambeth meeting with Sir Francis Masham<sup>‡</sup>, the Whig member for Essex. On the martyrdom anniversary on 30 Jan. 1706 he attended the Abbey to hear the sermon by William Beveridge*, bishop of St Asaph.<sup>32</sup> Although by this period it was standard procedure for all those in the chamber to be nominated to committees, it is perhaps worth noting that on 16 Feb. 1706 he was named to the select committee concerning private legislation for his adversary Viscount Bulkeley. Evans had sufficient personal wealth to maintain his own coach, which was not the case with other bishops: on 2 Mar. it was Evans’s coach which came for William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, when he was sent for by Sunderland to participate in the debates on the acts of the assembly in Carolina that controversially mirrored attempts to ban occasional conformity in England.<sup>33</sup> On 1 Oct. Evans was at Kensington, alongside the Whig serjeant-at-law John Hook of the North Wales circuit, presenting an address to the queen from the justices of the peace and grand jury of Merioneth that congratulated John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough on his victory at Ramilles.<sup>34</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1706 Evans was again in the House on the first day of the new session, and attended 86 per cent of sittings. The union with Scotland had given concern to those churchmen who perceived the prospect of closer ties with the Scottish Kirk as a threat. On 25 Jan. 1707 Evans was invited to a Lambeth meeting where Tenison showed the assembled company his draft for a bill for the security of the Church of England.<sup>35</sup> In a letter to Humphreys, Evans complained that the newspapers which had printed false minutes of the Lords reporting the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts had behaved ‘very wickedly’ and that a committee had been created to investigate this ‘grievous abuse’.<sup>36</sup> On the last day of the session, 8 Apr. 1707, Evans was one of the managers of the conference on the vagrants bill. He remained in town and attended almost every day of the ten-day session later in April.</p><p>He spent the summer in his diocese and was reported as about to set out for London in a letter of 21 September<sup>37</sup> On 23 Oct. 1707 he was again present on the first day of the autumn session and thereafter attended nearly 90 per cent of sittings. He was at Lambeth for the customary St Stephen’s day dinner, and frequently in the company of Nicolson, sharing the latter’s anxieties on his case to be heard in the Lords, and lending support by reading through the affidavits. On 27 Feb. 1708 Evans and John Hough*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, acted as messengers to Nicolson for John Somers*, Baron Somers. Somers was now urging Nicolson to grant absolution to Hugh Todd, one of his adversaries in the dispute over the cathedral statutes of Carlisle.<sup>38</sup></p><p>The session ended on 1 Apr. 1708 and Evans was back in the diocese within a week. From Bangor he communicated to Sunderland his deep concern at affairs in Wales and how ‘the general interest of the government cannot be carried on there’. The government, he asserted, must give ‘a public mark of displeasure’ to those who were remiss in carrying out their duties in order for there to be ‘two or three good elections’ in the region.<sup>39</sup> Enclosed were letters from one of Evans’s contacts in the diocese, Lloyd Bodvel of Bodfan, Anglesey. Bodvel, who was a kinsman of Evans, was enraged by a Bulkeley address to the grand jury in which there was no mention of the Protestant succession. Bodvel was on the point of forwarding it to another kinsman, the court Whig Hugh Cholmondley*, earl of Cholmondley (who had his own territorial disputes with Bulkeley in North Wales), but sent details instead to Evans. If Evans hoped for ministerial intervention against the Tory ascendancy in north-west Wales, it was not forthcoming, as on 13 May Bulkeley enjoyed another election victory.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Evans discussed Convocation with William Wake and Hough on 14 Nov. 1708, and attended the House two days later for the first day of the new parliamentary session (in which he attended nearly 53 per cent of sittings). As was customary, he dined with many of his fellow bishops at Lambeth on 26 December. On 21 Jan. 1709, he voted with the Whig majority against the right of Scottish peers with British titles to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. He was at Convocation for its prorogation on 25 February.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Evans did not follow the Whig party line in every division in the House. On 15 Mar. 1709 he voted with the Tories on the centrality of the established Church to English society and of conformity as a mark of citizenship. In the division on the motion proposed by William Dawes*, of Chester, on the general naturalization bill, Evans voted against Tenison: he joined the Tory bishops who included Sprat, Nathaniel Crew*, of Durham, and Offspring Blackall*, of Exeter, in their insistence that citizens attend a ‘parochial church’ rather than any ‘Protestant Reformed congregation’.</p><p>On 22 Mar. 1709 Evans voted against the Scottish lords in the division on the bill to improve the Union.<sup>42</sup> Three days later, in a division of the committee of the whole on the treason bill (on the validity of Scottish marriage settlements) Evans voted with the minority including Sunderland and Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich against a resumption of the House.<sup>43</sup> Uncharacteristically, he missed the last three weeks of business during April. At the start of April, Wake had reported him ‘very ill of the stone and colic’, and Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London mentioned the return of the same ‘complication of distempers’ on 7 May.<sup>44</sup> Evans recovered sufficiently to leave London for his diocese. There, he was appealed to by Thomas Bulkeley to intervene against the gentlemen and clergy in Anglesey who had circulated three documents denouncing his uncle, Lord Bulkeley. Evans’s failure to respond elicited another letter from Thomas Bulkeley which accused him of sharing the views of the authors of the papers.<sup>45</sup> Evans failed to attend the following session of the House that assembled on 15 Nov. 1709. On 15 Dec. Nicolson reported that he was still recovering from a fall from his horse some weeks earlier, and ‘says nothing of a London journey’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>The 1710 election in Anglesey was complicated by Evans’s dispute with Lord Bulkeley. On 25 Nov. 1709 men from Beaumaris had seized 200 oysters dredged by Evans’s servants.<sup>47</sup> Evans considered this one of a series of slights against him and against the bishop’s historic privileges. In return, Bulkeley complained to the dean of Bangor, John Jones, about ‘that unworthy prelate’ who had treated him as ‘an enemy to the Church and an oppressor of the rights of it’ ever since he assumed the bishopric. A note of the conversation between Bulkeley’s emissary, also named John Evans, and Bishop Evans appeared to support Bulkeley’s allegations. Jones diplomatically blamed ‘much of this melancholy variance betwixt your lordships’ on ‘misinformation and mistake’ and insisted that Evans had expressed his disapprobation of clergy who subscribed to political attacks on Bulkeley. Bulkeley’s election victory in North Wales on 26 Oct. this time shared in the national trend. In the wake of the victory, Evans apologized for the involvement of his clergy in the opposition to Bulkeley and nominated three mediators, led by Jones, to settle matters between Bulkeley and his critics in the diocese. Evans was pressed to declare his ‘dislike and abhorrence’ of the campaign against Bulkeley and communicate this to ‘those who otherwise may doubt of it’.<sup>48</sup></p><p>During this storm in his diocese, Evans was in London.<sup>49</sup> In the wake of the Tory success, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, was certain that Evans would oppose his new ministry. Evans attended a meeting at Lambeth Palace on 11 Nov. 1710 with Wake, Hough, William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph, and Moore, which planned the opening of Convocation, including ‘an address … that shall meddle with no state affairs.’<sup>50</sup> He attended the House on 25 Nov., the first day of the session, and again attended very regularly – nearly 85 per cent of sittings. By now, Evans was often found in the company of Nicolson and Edmund Gibson. On 28 Dec. 1710, Evans took Nicolson in his coach to visit William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, at his country residence, and Evans graced Nicolson with ‘a pure visit’ early in January 1711. On 9 Jan. Nicolson reported that Evans opposed the motion in a committee of the whole House that the account of the Almanza campaign given by Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, was ‘faithful and honourable’.<sup>51</sup> Two days later Evans was one of ten bishops to register protests against the rejection of the petitions of Henry Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and against the resolution that defeat at Almanza was the fault of Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, later Earl Stanhope. On the 12th, he also protested against the censure of Whig ministry for having approved military hostilities against Spain.</p><p>On 3 Feb. 1711, Evans again supported the actions of the former ministry when he registered his protest against resolutions that the Spanish establishment had been inadequately supplied, and that the ministry had failed to remedy deficiencies in military materiel.<sup>52</sup> On the same day he was named to the committee to draw a representation to the queen concerning the war. Expressing his hostility to peace negotiations with France, on 8 Feb. Evans registered his dissent both from the resolution to present an address to the queen and from its wording. Later that month, on 27 Feb. Evans, Nicolson, Somers, Cowper, Wake and Trimnell met to agree their parliamentary strategy in the case of the Scottish episcopalian James Greenshields, prosecuted for his practice of episcopalian worship in Scotland; they resolved not to challenge the authority of the Kirk and to concentrate on the civil aspect of the case.<sup>53</sup> He was entrusted with the proxies, on 4 Apr., of his friend Nicolson and, on 23 Apr., of John Hough (both vacated at the end of the session on 12 June 1711).</p><p>Evans continued to serve in Convocation and in March 1711 was involved in the cross-party committee on the William Whiston heresy case.<sup>54</sup> In July and August he visited Chichester and was embroiled in an ecclesiastical dispute when he was asked by Tenison to conduct confirmations in the diocese, an action seen as a public rebuke by Thomas Manningham*, bishop of Chichester, who had intended to make no confirmations until after harvest. Evans went ahead and a piqued Manningham insisted that he would conduct his own confirmations on the same day.<sup>55</sup> This minor affair demonstrated the trust placed in Evans by Tenison despite their occasional disagreements in parliamentary divisions. By November Evans was back in London where on 26 Nov. 1711 he attended a meeting with Wake, Nicolson, William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford, and Trimnell ‘about the business tomorrow’ – presumably the prorogation of Convocation rather than of Parliament which took place the same day.<sup>56</sup> On 29 Nov. 1711 he received the proxy of John Tyler*, bishop of Llandaff (held for the whole session). He was again in the House at the start of the following session, which he attended for 80 per cent of sittings. About the beginning of December Nottingham listed Evans as a possible ally in his attack on the Oxford ministry’s peace policy. On 7 Dec. Evans was named to the committee to draw an address to the queen on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ address and in the abandoned division held the following day, he favoured presenting the relevant address to the queen. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as voting in line with the Junto in the peerage case involving James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and his rights as duke of Brandon; on the 20th he duly voted with the opposition that no Scottish peer at the time of the Union could sit in the House by right of a British title created after the Union.</p><p>On 2 Jan. 1712, after the creation of 12 new Tory peers, Evans joined ten of his fellow bishops to vote with the Whig opposition in a division against a further adjournment of the House to the 14th.<sup>57</sup> On 5 Jan., Evans joined six bishops for dinner at the Chelsea home of Jonathan Trelawny, a temporary adherent of the opposition on account of the peace. Whig strategies were co-ordinated in regular meetings outside Parliament and nine days later, Evans met Marlborough at his home together with Talbot and Trimnell before all left together for the House.<sup>58</sup> He frequently met Wake, discussing the marriage article before the upper house of Convocation with him, Trimnell and Fleetwood on 21 February.<sup>59</sup> On 26 Feb., in a division on the Scottish toleration bill, Evans and Wake together stopped Nicolson from leaving the chamber and appear to have been responsible for his somewhat surprising decision to vote against the Commons’ amendment to the bill.<sup>60</sup> On 31 Mar. Evans again received Nicolson’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Evans’s socio-political round continued throughout the session. He dined at Lambeth on 1 Mar. 1712. On 28 Mar. 1he paid a visit to a sick Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, with Nicolson, Maurice Thompson*, 2nd Baron Haversham and John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret.<sup>61</sup> On 15 May he met with fellow bishops Wake, Fleetwood and Talbot and temporal peers Somers, Halifax and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, at Sunderland’s house, to confirm their agreement that the archbishop of Canterbury had the power to continue the business of Convocation from session to session and that it did not begin anew with each royal writ.<sup>62</sup> Evans voted and registered his protest against the decision not to address the queen requesting a military offensive against France following reports of the restraining orders against such action on 28 May, and on 7 June protested against the resolution on the queen’s speech regarding the peace.<sup>63</sup> Evans was involved simultaneously in normal parliamentary business and on 2 June reported back from the May estate bill committee. He returned to his diocese in July, where ‘he meets more wise men in these parts than he expected.’<sup>64</sup></p><p>Little is known of his activities throughout the remainder of 1712, and he failed to attend the session of spring 1713 during the ratification of the Treaty of Utrecht, perhaps out of political distaste. On 13 June Oxford estimated that Evans’s vote would be used to oppose the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. It is possible that another election victory for Bulkeley in September 1713 added to Evans’s lack of enthusiasm for a Tory dominated House; before the spring 1714 session he sought leave to be absent, but was refused permission.<sup>65</sup> It was confirmed by Gibson on 12 Nov. 1713 that Evans would be in London before Parliament met. Tenison, too ill to preside over Convocation, described Evans as ‘a sure man’ when writing notes on candidates for the commission to act on his behalf to Wake.<sup>66</sup> Evans appeared in the Lords on 16 Feb. 1714 for the start of the session and attended nearly 75 per cent of sittings.</p><p>Evans was present for the 5 Apr. 1714 division on the danger to the Protestant succession in which all the bishops present, ‘three courtiers only excepted’ followed Tenison’s lead.<sup>67</sup> Proxy registration in favour of Evans seems to have increased with the introduction of the Schism bill (Nottingham had rightly forecast that Evans would oppose the measure). Evans received the proxy of Trimnell on 14 Apr. (vacated on the 27th) and again on 17 May (vacated on 25 Aug.), as well as that of Talbot on 25 May (vacated 12 August). On 11 June he opposed the extension of the Schism bill to Ireland; on the 15th he opposed the passage of the bill itself, entering his protest against the resolution together with his Whig colleagues, Wake, Fleetwood and Tyler and 28 peers. Shortly before the end of the session on 9 July, Evans paid a breakfast visit to Wake before attending Convocation.<sup>68</sup> By 5 Aug., back in Bangor, he was relieved to hear of the peaceful proclamation of George I.<sup>69</sup> He did not attend the brief parliament that same month.</p><p>Wary of possible sedition, he sent for information from Sir Hans Sloane<sup>‡</sup> about the political affiliations of a visitor to the diocese. If the man were ‘wrong in his notions’, Evans would be ‘civil … and no farther’.<sup>70</sup> With John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Lisburne [I] (Whig Member for Cardiganshire), he founded the Welsh Whig political club, the Most Honourable and Loyal Society of Ancient Britons.<sup>71</sup> Evans’s political and parliamentary career after 1715, including the circumstances of his translation to the Irish see of Meath, will be examined in the next phase of this work.</p><p>After suffering from a ‘violent fit of the gout’ for over a week, Evans died suddenly in Dublin on 2 Mar. 1724.<sup>72</sup> He was supposedly a very material bishop who, it was said, understood ‘the muslin and calico part of divinity very well’.<sup>73</sup> His will, as with many in this period, is uninformative and leaves it impossible to estimate the extent of his real and personal estate at the time of his death. A memorial tablet was installed in the Welsh parish church of Llanaelhaiarn, near to the remains of the Glyn family of Elernion whose arms Evans had adopted. Evans’s episcopal wand survives in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.<sup>74</sup></p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
FELL, John (1625-86) |
<p><strong><surname>FELL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1625–86)</p> |
|
|
First sat 15 Feb. 1677; last sat 19 Nov. 1685 |
cons. 6 Feb. 1676 bp. of OXFORD |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 23 June 1625, 1st s. of Samuel Fell (1584–1649), rect. Longworth (later dean, Christ Church, Oxf.), and Margaret, da. of Thomas Wyld, esq. of the Commandery, Worcester. <em>educ</em>. Lord Williams’s g.s. Thame; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 25 May 1637, BA 24 Oct. 1640, MA 2 June 1643, DD 3 Oct. 1660. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 10 July 1686; <em>will</em> 11, 27 June 1686, pr. 20 Dec. 1686.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. in waiting 1660–69, 1669–75.</p><p>Canon, Christ Church, Oxf. 27 July 1660, dean 30 Nov. 1660–<em>d.</em>; master of St Oswald’s Hospital, Worcs. 1660; preb. Chichester 1660; dean, St Paul’s 1660; v.-chan. Oxf. 1666–9.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, Christ Church, Oxf.; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, group portrait with John Dolben and Richard Allestree, Christ Church, Oxf.; oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, 1665–70, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.</p> |
<p>John Fell came from a family firmly connected with Church and university. His father, Samuel Fell, became dean of Christ Church in 1638, and John Fell and his many siblings followed their father into university and ecclesiastical posts, or married into families of similar background. Originally from London, Samuel Fell acquired substantial property in Berkshire, the most prominent of which was Gaunt House, which had reputedly been built by John of Gaunt in the 14th century.<sup>3</sup> John Fell joined the king’s army at Oxford and served in the garrison there until the city’s fall in June 1646. The following year he was ordained and for the remainder of the interregnum ministered to a congregation of perhaps 300 Anglicans in spite of his deprivation by the parliamentary visitors and supposed banishment from Oxford.<sup>4</sup> In this Fell was assisted by his lifelong friends Richard Allestree and John Dolben*, later archbishop of York.</p><p>On the eve of the Restoration, Fell published <em>The Interest of England Stated</em>, a pamphlet that sought to demonstrate the manner in which the commonwealth and protectorate had failed and how the only solution for the country’s ills was the return of the monarchy. Fell argued that ‘as an hereditary Prince’ the king’s ‘private interest must be the same with that of the nation’, extolled ‘his moderation, sobriety and justice’, and declared that ‘no person in the world, besides the king, is in a capacity to avert the impendent ruin’ of the nation.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Fell greeted the return of the secluded members in February 1660 with considerable scepticism, commenting to his young friend Thomas Thynne*, later Viscount Weymouth:</p><blockquote><p>You will hardly believe … with what coldness we heard of the admission of the secluded members, that entertained the promise of it with infinite joys, and extravagant triumphs. The reason of our change is your general’s speech, and the engagement that the members took; the effects of which, our long acquaintance with a knavish world, bids us suspect.<sup>6</sup></p></blockquote><p>Canvassing openly in the royalist interest for the Convention, Fell asserted that ‘by my particular employment, and my engagements for the parliament candidates I have scarce a day in the week at my disposal’.<sup>7</sup> His labours were rewarded at the Restoration when he was restored to his fellowship. Further preferment followed rapidly and indicated the importance that the restored government attached to Oxford as a breeding ground for men of assured royalist sentiment. Fell responded to this trust by endeavouring to make the university, and Christ Church in particular, synonymous with elite, loyal Anglicanism. He was particularly successful in attracting the sons of the nobility and gentry to his college, forging especially close relations with the Yelverton family and with Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton (later Viscount Hatton), Thynne, and James Butler*, duke of Ormond.</p><p>Fell became vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1666, enabling him to extend the principles that he had inculcated at Christ Church throughout the university. He made strenuous efforts to curb coffee houses, inns, and other places he considered morally harmful, and even established regulations for correct attire for students in order to make more gradations in social status more obvious. His tireless activities and rather dour brand of puritanical Anglicanism won him many enemies, but also a certain degree of admiration. Heneage Finch commented that Fell actively monitored the quality of teaching and learning, as well as the students’ social lives: ‘He is in all things so watchful that he does intend to alter their manners too, as well as their habits; he does so harass them about that everybody … do curse him, which is still but a greater credit and honour to him…’.<sup>8</sup> Meanwhile, Fell’s development of Oxford University Press was clearly one of his most important achievements, establishing a printing house devoted to the production of devotional and incontrovertibly royalist works. He also expended great efforts on building projects, overseeing Christopher Wren’s<sup>‡</sup> developments at Christ Church and the construction of new university buildings including the Sheldonian Theatre.</p><p>In all these things Fell worked closely with Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, and it was through Sheldon’s patronage that Fell was elected bishop of Oxford in January 1676 when Henry Compton*, the incumbent bishop of Oxford, was translated to London. Rumours of Fell’s promotion had been current since at least October of the previous year, when he told Lady Pakington (wife of the former Christ Church student Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>) that he found ‘the charge of a college so weighty a duty, as not to think it reasonable to have a diocese added to it’. Over the next few months, reports of his reluctance to accept the bishopric continued to circulate. According to Humphrey Prideaux, one reason for this was Fell’s determination ‘not to keep pluralities’.<sup>9</sup> One suspects that the opposite might have been the case. Fell, who insisted that he accepted promotion only at the peremptory command of the king and on the advice of Sheldon and others, maintained that to refuse would be sinful. Uniquely, he was permitted to hold his deanery in commendam with the bishopric and it seems unlikely that this was achieved without negotiation.<sup>10</sup> In part, this was an acknowledgement of the relative poverty of the see, which in 1675 had been valued at £381 11<em>s</em>. per annum, but it was also a clear recognition of Fell’s value to the government as a senior figure in the university. Within six weeks of his consecration in February 1676, he announced his primary visitation, the first of four that he would hold during his episcopate. He undoubtedly believed that nonconformity should be suppressed but he also recognized that the Church of England needed to ensure that its own conduct was above reproach to assist in winning back Dissenters into the Anglican fold.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Fell took his seat in the House on 15 Feb. 1677 at the opening of the first parliamentary session since his elevation to the episcopate, following which he was present on a third of all sitting days and was named to a number of committees. At the same time, he became embroiled with a suit in chancery brought by Thomas Wise over the responsibility for repairing the estate at Hook Norton, part of the former monastery of Osney.<sup>12</sup> He was absent from the House for the second and third weeks of March; at a call of the House on 9 Mar. Fell’s name was omitted both from the attendance list and from the list of those peers who had left their proxies, although a proxy dated 8 Mar. was registered in favour of Dolben. It was vacated when Fell returned to the House on 21 May, at which point he sat for a further three days before retiring again. Fell resumed his seat in the House on 15 Jan. 1678, after which he sat for a further 19 days before the close of the session. On 28 Feb. he was named to the committee considering the St Asaph cathedral bill and on 11 May to that considering the act to provide relief for Protestant strangers.</p><p>In October 1678, Anthony Wood reported that the king had given Fell a patent for an earldom worth £1,000. Fell intended to bestow the patent on a wealthy gentleman commoner of Christ Church, and to use the proceeds towards completing the great gate of the college. The student can be identified as either Francis<sup>†</sup> or Alexander Luttrell<sup>†</sup>, both of Dunster Castle, whose wealth was much exaggerated and neither of whom was ever elevated to a peerage.<sup>13</sup> Fell was recorded as having attended just one day of the brief session that lasted from May to July 1678. Although he was missing from the attendance list on 23 May, he was named to the committees for petitions and privileges, perhaps suggesting that he was present in the House at some later point during the day. He returned to the House for the new session on 30 Oct. 1678, after which he was present on approximately 69 per cent of sitting days. Against a background of heightened tensions over allegations of a popish plot, during the debates in a committee of the whole house on 15 Nov. over the bill to disable papists from sitting in Parliament, he voted in favour of attaching the same penalty to the declaration against transubstantiation as to the oaths. On 18 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of William Thomas*, bishop of St Davids, which was vacated by Thomas’ return to the House on 2 December. On 29 Nov. Fell supported the Commons’ address that the queen and all other Catholics should be removed from Whitehall. He continued to be involved with anti-Catholic measures during the session, being named to the committee considering the bill to disable popish recusants from exercising certain trades on 7 Dec. and to that considering the popish recusants’ children’s bill on 12 December.</p><p>In January 1679, Ormond’s grandson, James Butler*, styled Lord Butler, shortly to become Baron Butler of Moore Park and later 2nd duke of Ormond, was entrusted to Fell’s safekeeping at Christ Church. The year also witnessed Fell’s second visitation of his diocese. Among the enquiries put to the ministers in the diocese were the habitual preoccupations with pluralism and the numbers of ‘heretics, or schismatics’ in the parish; unusually Fell also asked about the Jewish population.<sup>14</sup> He took his seat in the new session of Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679, attending on three days of the abortive session before returning to Oxford.<sup>15</sup> He then resumed his place on 31 Mar. but was present on just 13 days (approximately 21 per cent of the whole). The condition of London during the session disturbed him and in April he professed himself alarmed to find evidence of ‘much more endeavour to prosecute private hatred and ambitions than to promote the public peace’.<sup>16</sup> In June, as one of the executors of Walter Blandford*, the former bishop of Worcester, he became involved in a protracted dispute with the new bishop, James Fleetwood*, over the allocation of funds from Blandford’s estate to contribute towards repairs at Hartlebury Castle. The case went against him.<sup>17</sup></p><p>The dissolution of the first Exclusion Parliament in July 1679 and summoning of the second surprised Fell. He viewed the forthcoming elections with little enthusiasm, complaining to Thynne that:</p><blockquote><p>unless the elections are better elsewhere than they are likely to be in this neighbourhood, there will be little gained by the last dissolution. It is a sad thing to see the sober and considerable gentlemen of the nation utterly give out, and leave the house to be filled by commonwealth men and fanatics.<sup>18</sup></p></blockquote><p>Fell’s worries about the Oxfordshire elections proved to be well founded. The moderate Sir Edward Norreys<sup>‡</sup> appears to have withdrawn before the poll, leaving the seat to be contested by three exclusionists. The city seats were also secured by exclusionists. Only the university remained relatively untouched by the crisis.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Fell’s unpopularity among many within Oxford was perhaps reflected by the fact that when James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, visited the city in September 1680 healths were drunk ‘to the confusion of the bishop’, who had effectively snubbed the duke.<sup>20</sup> Despite his own determined opposition to Catholicism, Fell’s loyalty to the monarchy proved unshakeable. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 3 Nov. 1680, after which he was present on a third of all sitting days, and on 15 Nov. he voted in favour of rejecting the exclusion bill on its first reading. Fell’s account of the debate in his weekly bulletin to Lady Hatton clearly reflected both his weariness with the day’s exertions and his fears for the future:</p><blockquote><p>My Lord [Hatton] and the rest of the house of Peers, are under somewhat hard duty, being detained yesterday about twelve hours, before we were dismissed; so that it was ten of the clock at night before we had liberty to eat our breakfasts. The occasion which detained us was the bill of exclusion of the duke of York, which the Lords, to the great dissatisfaction of the Commons have cast out … We are not far from breaking out into hostility. I pray God restrain the minds of unquiet and tumultuous men.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Fell voted against appointing a joint committee of Lords and Commons to consider the state of the kingdom on 23 November. The following month, on 22 Dec., he preached before the House on the importance of unity and of the dangers of schism. He took as his text Matthew xii. 25, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation’, arguing that:</p><blockquote><p>schism is so severely branded in the holy scripture, that even they who place their religion in separation acknowledge the guilt of it; and lay the blame of their dissent on those from whom they differ; alleging either the immorality of their lives, or errors in the faith: and in fine, resolve their separation is therefore innocent because ’twas necessary.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>The dissolution of Parliament in January 1681 troubled Fell profoundly and he lamented that it ‘strikes a great damp upon the minds of all who have a concernment for the king’s safety and the government. I pray God the intended parliament may sit, and the king and nation reap benefit thereby.’<sup>23</sup> The publication of Fell’s translation of St Cyprian on ‘the unity of the church’ the same year further emphasized the necessity for the Church of England to remain united and to attract nonconformists to return.</p><p>The summoning of the new Parliament to assemble on 21 Mar. 1681 at Oxford prompted Fell to intervene in the elections. His mediation between the opposing factions headed by John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, and the lord lieutenant, James Bertie*, Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), initially appeared to be successful. When Fell explained to Lovelace ‘the inconveniences which would follow if upon occasion of election of knights for this county dissentions should be fomented’, Lovelace assured the bishop that, ‘however he might be represented as a turbulent person, he desired the service of the king, and peace of the country’. Nevertheless there was a contest for the county as well as for the city of Oxford, and it was the Whigs rather than the government candidates who won.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Aside from his negotiations between the embattled factions in the county, Fell took a prominent role in preparations for the new Parliament, in his role both as bishop and as dean, since Christ Church was to play host to the king and various other university buildings were to be employed as debating chambers, committee rooms, and lodgings. He attended all but one of the days of the brief session and on 25 Mar. he was named to the committee to receive information concerning the plot.</p><p>Two months after the dissolution, Fell outlined his political (and religious) position in a letter to Sir Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup>:</p><blockquote><p>The preservation of the Protestant religion, and the established government, is our common care, but … you imagine the nation can only be preserved, by letting in all dissenters into the Church; and on the other side, we are most firmly persuaded that your proceedings must draw after them the alteration of the government, and Popery: Toleration being certainly destructive of our reformed religion, whether procured by a Lord Clifford [Thomas Clifford*, Baron Clifford of Chudleigh] or a popular pretence to the uniting of Protestants … I pray consider, that every one who seems to have the same honest aims with you, is not sincere as you are. We remember very well the time, when blood and rapine put on the mask of Godliness and reformation; and we lost our king, our liberty and property and religion … I hope we shall still continue: and be as willing to suffer and die for our religion, as others are to talk of it.<sup>25</sup></p></blockquote><p>The dissolution of Parliament did not free Fell from involvement in heated political divisions within Oxford, as a bitter election for a new town clerk in the summer of 1681 rekindled animosities.<sup>26</sup> In March 1682 he was compelled to act as mediator between Norreys and the Oxford burgess Brome Whorwood<sup>‡</sup>. Their dispute resulted in Whorwood bringing an action of battery against Norreys, while Norreys sued Whorwood for <em>scandalum</em> <em>magnatum</em>. Eager to avoid the kind of rancour that might lead to divisions throughout the county, Fell convinced both men to desist, gaining in the process ‘great reputation’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>In the meantime Fell had published his translation of St Cyprian, a work that intended to double both as an exhortation to unity and obedience to Anglican forms of worship and as a condemnation of Catholicism. At least one of his fellow bishops, Peter Gunning*, of Ely, found the work provocative, suggesting that,</p><blockquote><p>it may be feared … not seasonable at this time of all to debate or expatiate about the bounds of metropolitans, what and how much of their <em>jus metropoliticum </em>came from the apostle and ever has been in the Church … it may be feared, I say lest some that zealously follow the independency of each bishop asserted lately in a posthumous book put out under the name of Dr Isaac Barrow* [the former bishop of St Asaph], of the unity of the Church … may greedily catch at this passage in the preface being dedicated to all the bishops etc. And lest the same also be catched at by Mr [Richard] Baxter and his followers in his new model of episcopacy.<sup>28</sup></p></blockquote><p>Predictably, Fell reacted with disgust and astonishment to the revelations of the Rye House Plot in 1683, though he appears to have welcomed the possibility that it might provide the impetus to call a new Parliament.<sup>29</sup> He argued forcefully for a day of public thanksgiving that would also provide an opportunity ‘of representing to the nation the detestable effects of sedition and discontent’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Political divisions within Oxford continued to trouble Fell during negotiations over the granting of a new charter. In August 1683 he pressed Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> to ensure that the charter secured the independence of the university and added that, ‘unless you remove the high steward, Alderman Wright and Mr Pawling and set the city entirely on a loyal bottom, your reformation will signify nothing and all will return in a short time to the old pass’. Bad-tempered discussions continued throughout the summer of 1683 and into the following year.<sup>31</sup> Monmouth’s return to court and pardon in December caused Fell further disquiet; Fell told Hatton that ‘there are not such tides in the sea wherewith you are encompassed as there is in Court interest and favour’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In November 1684 Fell came under pressure from the government to eject John Locke from Christ Church.<sup>33</sup> He made a token effort to protect his controversial student and justified his failure to expel him hitherto, explaining that he had ‘for divers years had an eye upon him’ but that ‘after several strict enquiries I may confidently affirm there is not any man in the college, however familiar with him who had heard him speak either against or so much as concerning the government’. He went on to point out that Locke was at that time absent through ill health. He had summoned Locke to return, ‘which is done with this prospect, that if he comes not back, he will be liable to expulsion for contumacy; and if he does he will be answerable to the law for what he has done amiss’. This neat solution did not satisfy the king, and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, instructed Fell to expel Locke forthwith.<sup>34</sup></p><p>It may well have been as a result of the unwanted publicity created by the Locke affair that Fell wrote to Denis Granville, dean of Durham, in December, appealing to him to refrain from publishing a book critical of the university. Fell explained that,</p><blockquote><p>reflections made upon what passes in the University, which although said with a good mind by you, will be of ill consequence to us … You cannot be ignorant what endeavours are used by the Papists, fanatics, travailed fops, wits, virtuosi, and atheists; a list of men that make a great number in the kingdom, to disparage and decry university education, and affright all persons from sending their children hither; by which means, much of the growing youth of the nation, are bred by little pedagogues in ignorance, and either without principles, or with such as are worse than none …<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite his own anti-Catholicism, Fell does not seem to have been worried by the accession of James II. In February 1685, just weeks after Charles II’s death, he wrote confidently that the elections in Oxfordshire were ‘likely to pass here without contest; those who were busy against the succession, being not willing to provoke more anger’. He remained confident as the elections progressed, writing in early March ‘that if the house be as unanimous after the choice, as the several bodies were in choosing, there will be no faction to disturb the government’, but this was in itself cause for concern. In that letter he continued ‘God grant a like concern for the preservation of Religion’; three weeks earlier he had predicted that the Parliament ‘probably will be made of men, who if not altered by the genius of the place, will be very apt to comply, with what will be desired of them’.<sup>36</sup> His charge to the clergy at the initiation of his final visitation in March was even more revealing:</p><blockquote><p>I need not tell you in what condition the Church now is, assaulted by the furious malice of Papists on the one hand and fanatics on the other, and, amidst the machinations of those who are zealous for a sect or party, more fatally attempted by the licentiousness and sloth of those who are indifferent to any or opposite to all.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>By late March he commented gloomily that</p><blockquote><p>the ferment is so strong in many places, and as I am told particularly in the north, that a great many who were against the succession will be chosen, which way they intend to do mischief it is not easy to guess; but such men are likely to do mischief one way or another.<sup>38</sup></p></blockquote><p>Fell took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685, after which he was present on approximately 44 per cent of all sitting days. The outbreak of Monmouth’s rebellion during the summer precipitated his return to Oxford.<sup>39</sup> Admonished by the Lords for failing to attend during the crisis, he excused himself by arguing that his presence in Oxford was crucial to its defence: ‘I think I should have done ill to turn my back upon this place, which happened to have scarce any one present, who could take care of it.’<sup>40</sup> In close partnership with Abingdon and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, he proposed the establishment of several companies of volunteers from among the students at Oxford. Anxious to avoid inflaming rivalries between the university and the civic authorities, Fell recommended Montagu Bertie*, styled Lord Norreys (later 2nd earl of Abingdon), as commander of the new force; Norreys was himself a student, but he was also the son and heir to the lord lieutenant.<sup>41</sup></p><p>News of the defeat of the rebellion gave Fell little cause for rejoicing. In July he wrote to Hatton noting how, ‘by God’s blessing we are free from the hazard of one sort of Enthusiasts, he grant we may not be overrun by another’.<sup>42</sup> Reports that Monmouth had attempted to save his life by professing a willingness to convert elicited a weary response:</p><blockquote><p>We are here told that the Protestant Duke does now declare himself to be of the Church of Rome. I am not so hard hearted to envy that Church the reputation of such a proselyte; if the story be true, I hope it may be of good use to instruct the wretched populace, who run out of their lives and fortunes to free themselves from the government of their lawful sovereign, because he is of the Church of Rome; when they find the usurper whom they would set up, through all the miseries of war to be of the same religion. But I fear the madness of sectaries cannot be cured by any conviction.<sup>43</sup></p></blockquote><p>Concerns about Church and state went alongside a preoccupation with the marital prospects of Hatton’s young (and flighty) brother-in-law, Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin (later Viscount Longueville). Throughout the summer, a stream of letters witnessed Fell’s exasperation with Grey’s refusal to commit to what Fell believed to be an eminently suitable match.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Fell was both disillusioned and ill. In November he was approached by a number of senior clerics eager to persuade him to attend the winter sessions but he refused, ‘saying it was too late, all attempts would be in vain, for Popery would come in’.<sup>45</sup> He thought better of his decision and took his seat on 11 Nov. but sat for just seven days before retiring from the House for the final time. He remained uncompromising in his attitude to Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), who was convicted in November 1685 for his part in the Rye House Plot, hoping that ‘he may close a very licentious life, by a recollected and pious death’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Over the next few months a variety of reports indicate that Fell’s health was in rapid decline.<sup>47</sup> Between 11 and 26 June 1686 he composed a new will, and he finally succumbed on 10 July. He was buried in his cathedral at Christ Church and a memorial was erected by his nephews, Thomas Willis and Henry Jones.<sup>48</sup> In his will, Fell made a number of bequests, including a £15 annuity to Francis Davis, vicar of Spelsbury, ‘an indigent and helpless person’. Fell’s nephews, Jones and Willis, together with John Crosse, were named trustees and charged with raising funds from Fell’s estates over a ten-year period towards the establishment of a charity for ‘ingenious and indigent’ students at Christ Church. A codicil of 27 June made bequests of personal items to Fell’s many friends among the nobility, including Hatton, Grey of Ruthin, the dowager countess of Rochester, the countess of Abingdon, and the dowager Baroness Lovelace.</p><p>Fell’s death was a profound blow both to the university and diocese, and the succession to the deanery of a lay Catholic, John Massey, was something that Fell himself would have found quite unconscionable. Assessments of his achievement were mixed. John Aubrey was scathing, commenting only, ‘who can pardon such a dry bone? a stalking, consecrated engine of hypocrisy’. Wood was more generous, concluding that ‘he was a bold and resolute man, and did not value what the generality said or thought of him so that he could accomplish his just and generous designs: which being too many to effect, was the chief reason of shortening his days’.<sup>49</sup> Evelyn reckoned his death ‘an extraordinary loss at this time to the poor church’, whereas Morrice, though conceding that the bishop had not been aware of their ‘viciousness’, concluded that Fell had not served his students well and had permitted himself to be fooled into believing in their moral uprightness when they lived corrupt lives thinly veneered with exterior conformity.<sup>50</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
FERNE, Henry (1602-62) |
<p><strong><surname>FERNE</surname></strong> (<strong>FEARNE</strong>), <strong>Henry</strong> (1602–62)</p> |
|
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1662; last sat 7 Mar. 1662 |
cons. 9 Feb. 1662 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1602, 8th and yst s. of Sir John Fern (<em>d</em>.1609), writer on heraldry and administrator, of Temple Belwood, Yorks. and Elizabeth, da. of John Needham of Wymondley, Herts. <em>educ.</em> Free Sch., Uppingham, Rutland; St Mary Hall, Oxf. 1618–20; Trinity, Camb. matric. 1620, BA 1623, fell. 1624, MA 1626, BD 1632, DD 1641; incorp. Oxf. 15 June 1643. <em>d</em>. 16 Mar. 1662; <em>will</em> 9 Aug. 1659, pr. 30 May 1663.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I, 1643.</p><p>Chap. to Thomas Morton<sup>†</sup>, bp. Durham c.1632, to lords commrs. at Uxbridge 1645; vic. Masham, Yorks. 1638–9; rect. Medbourne, Leics. 1639–46 (ejected); adn. Leicester 1641–61; dean, Ely 1661–2; prolocutor, lower house, Convocation 1661.</p><p>Master, Trinity, Camb. 1660–2; v.-chan. Camb. 1660–1.</p> |
|
<p>When Henry Ferne, the son of an Elizabethan courtier, died suddenly in 1662 after a parliamentary career of only three weeks, the ‘loyal party’ mourned a man of whom they had expected great things.<sup>2</sup> During the 1640s Ferne’s writings condemning armed resistance to the crown were among the most influential royalist polemics. His first work in support of the crown, <em>The Resolving of Conscience</em>, published in the summer of 1642, resulted in an order by the Commons for his arrest as a delinquent.<sup>3</sup> He joined the king at Oxford and continued to articulate a royalist political theology, preaching at the Oxford Parliament in April 1644.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Ferne was one of the clerical commissioners for the king at the Uxbridge negotiations in early 1645.<sup>5</sup> In November 1648 he was one of the clergymen given leave to attend Charles I in the Isle of Wight, the publication of his sermon on that occasion later contributing to the burgeoning mythology of royal martyrdom.<sup>6</sup> During the Interregnum Ferne apparently lived in Yorkshire, writing against the Roman Catholic Church and its attempts to label the Church of England as schismatical, and becoming exasperated with the failure of the hierarchy to provide effective leadership.<sup>7</sup></p><p>The planning lists drawn up in exile by Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, indicate that Ferne was being considered for the vacant bishopric of Bristol. Bristol however was a very poor see and went instead to Gilbert Ironside*, a man (unlike Ferne) of independent means.<sup>8</sup> Instead, despite some initial difficulties, he slotted back into academic life at Cambridge as master of Trinity College, and was made dean of Ely, an advancement on which Brian Walton*, bishop of Chester, congratulated him, remarking that ‘it was not due to ‘want of merit, but your own modesty that you have not moved in a higher orb’.<sup>9</sup> As vice-chancellor, he secured the election of Sir Richard Fanshaw<sup>‡ </sup>to the Cavalier Parliament, and was in contact with Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> on university matters (particularly the irritating practice of distributing honorary doctorates on the king’s recommendation).<sup>10</sup> When Convocation assembled in May 1661 he was named as prolocutor of the lower house.<sup>11</sup> As such he was also a keen observer of the debates at the Savoy conference, sending a detailed account in July to Sir Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, suggesting that the Presbyterians, particularly Richard Baxter, were obstructive and negotiating in bad faith.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Elevated to Chester in February 1662 (with a dispensation to continue to hold the mastership in commendam for another year), Ferne attended the House of Lords for only 11 days before his death.<sup>13</sup> His health had suffered permanent damage from the ‘constant fastings’ that were attributed by his contemporaries to his extreme piety. Emaciated, he was taken ill and died on 16 Mar. 1662 at the age of 59.<sup>14</sup> He was buried on 25 Mar. in Westminster Abbey. Ferne had made his will three years previously. Plagued by doubts of his efficiency at Trinity College, he bequeathed £10 to its governors ‘by way of restitution’. His modest estate, of less than £200, was distributed among his extended family, though a legal dispute prevented the proving of his will until May 1663.<sup>15</sup> In November 1664, Ferne’s executor, his stepbrother Thomas Nevill, was excused payment of the gifts customarily given to the king by a bishop of Chester.<sup>16</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
FLEETWOOD, James (1603-83) |
<p><strong><surname>FLEETWOOD</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1603–83)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Oct. 1675; last sat 5 Jan. 1681 |
cons. 29 Aug. 1675 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 25 Apr. 1603, 7th s. of Sir George Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> of the Vache, Bucks. and Catherine, da. of Henry Denny of Waltham, Essex. <em>educ</em>. Eton; King’s Camb. matric. 1622, BA 1627, MA 1631, fell. 1626-34; ord. deacon, 1632; DD (Oxon.) 1642. <em>m</em>. bef. 1647, Martha Mercer (<em>d</em>.1677) of Reading, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 4da. <em>d</em>. 17 July 1683; <em>will</em> 8 May, pr. 20 Aug. 1683.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles, prince of Wales (future Charles II), c.1655; chap. ord. 1661.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Chap. to Robert Wright<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Lichfield, 1632, to regt. of John Savage<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Earl Rivers, 1642-5; vic. Prees, Salop 1636; rect. Shaw, Berks. 1636, Sutton Coldfield, Warws. c.1642, seq. 1647, Anstey, Herts. 1662-71, Denham, Bucks. 1669; preb. Lichfield, 1636-66.</p><p>Schoolmaster, Barnes, Surr. c.1647-55; tutor to children of James Stuart<sup>†</sup>, duke of Richmond, 1655; provost King’s Camb. 1660-75; v. chan. Camb., 1663-4, 1667-8.</p> |
|
<p>The Fleetwood family were deeply divided by the events of the Civil War. James Fleetwood was a royalist but he was related to the parliamentarian general, Charles Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup> as well as to the regicide George Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>. He earned his doctorate for services to the king at the battle of Edgehill. As a schoolmaster and tutor during the Interregnum, Fleetwood’s pupils included John Verney<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) and the children of the duke of Richmond. He maintained contact with Charles II throughout the royal exile and in January 1660 was directed by the king to mediate with two unnamed persons, probably his kinsmen, Charles and George Fleetwood.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Fleetwood possessed virtually none of the qualities usually associated with promotion to a bishopric. At Cambridge he proved himself a loyal but scarcely outstanding supporter of the government. He published no theological works and according to John Evelyn, was ‘no great preacher’.<sup>4</sup> A more important factor in his advancement as bishop of Worcester in the summer of 1675 was the patronage of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). Danby was Fleetwood’s first cousin once removed, and Fleetwood had been one of a group of Cambridge scholars to sign a letter congratulating Danby on his appointment as lord treasurer early in 1674. A further connection was that Fleetwood’s son, Arthur, was employed in the treasury.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Perhaps reflecting his relative obscurity, Fleetwood’s consecration feast, though well attended, attracted ‘but few of the grandees, they being mostly out of town’ according to his former pupil, John Verney. An exception may have been Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, who had heard him preach three years before and recorded dining with Fleetwood at Drapers’ Hall on the day of his consecration.<sup>6</sup> Fleetwood took his seat on the first day of the autumn 1675 session, held the proxy of Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield, from October until mid November, and attended for over 95 per cent of that session’s sittings. He was named to the privileges committee and the committee for petitions and on 14 Oct. was also named to the committee for the bill explaining the act concerning Catholic recusants. He was named subsequently to a further four committees. On 19 Nov. he was present when the House moved for frequent meetings of Convocation.</p><p>In the interval between the close of the previous session and opening of the 1677 session, Fleetwood attempted to employ his interest on behalf of his nephew, Jeremy Russell, seeking the assistance of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, in securing Russell a renewal of his patent as receiver for Connaught.<sup>7</sup> Fleetwood did not attend the House at all for the session from February 1677 to May 1678 when the House was deeply involved with Danby’s attempted legislation to strengthen the Church. He covered his absence by registering his proxy on 10 Feb. 1677 with Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely. Fleetwood was, however, one of a small number of bishops present at a dinner at Lambeth early in the summer of 1677, also attended by John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (earl of Guilford), at which Lauderdale sought the assistance of the English bishops in settling the state of the church in Scotland.<sup>8</sup> Concentration on his diocesan visitation may have been one reason for Fleetwood’s continuing failure to attend the House but at the opening of 1678 he explained to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, that ‘the infirmities of old age and the death of my dear wife’ had also hindered him from turning out. That summer Fleetwood sought Sancroft’s permission to institute his chaplain and son-in-law, Edward Webster, to a living in his gift. Widowed, ageing and in failing health, he told Sancroft that he wanted his chaplain and daughter closer to hand.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Fleetwood was missing from the opening of the session of October 1678, again registering his proxy in favour of Gunning (30 October).<sup>10</sup> He informed Sancroft that he had done so ‘that it might be ready to supply [his] absence upon any emergency wherein the interests of the crown and Church might be concerned’. Although he hoped that his health and age provided sufficient excuse for his absence, given the atmosphere of crisis resulting form revelations of the popish plot and the passage of the Test Act, he worried that his actions might be misinterpreted. He implored Sancroft and the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), to represent his absence in a favourable light to the king and offered to come to London if necessary, even at ‘the hazard’ of his life.<sup>11</sup> He soon changed his mind, arriving in the House on 23 Dec. – the very day that the Commons’ declared their intention to impeach Danby. Fleetwood remained at Westminster for the whole of the Christmas period and attended until the final day of the session on 30 December. He voted with supporters of the court to insist on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill on 26 Dec. and the following day joined his fellow bishops in voting against Danby’s committal.</p><p>At the first general election of 1679, Fleetwood instructed his clergy to vote for the election of Samuel Sandys<sup>‡</sup>, the sitting member for Worcestershire, and ‘to engage such as are qualified’ in their parishes to do likewise. Sandys was returned unopposed in both of the 1679 elections but Fleetwood’s attempted intervention fuelled constitutional arguments about the role of bishops in secular affairs. Fleetwood was accused of acting autocratically ‘to exclude the commonalty absolutely to have a hand in the choice’ when his proper task was to ‘superintend’ his flock ‘in spiritual affairs, and in divine mysteries … [not] to charge them with the cares of state’.<sup>12</sup> It may have been at or about this time that one of Sancroft’s correspondents overheard coffee house gossip about Fleetwood’s ‘frequent indiscreet and unjustifiable ordinations’ and his willingness to tolerate two absentee pluralists as his chaplains.<sup>13</sup></p><p>When the first Exclusion Parliament assembled on 6 Mar. 1679, Fleetwood was absent, but by 24 Mar. he had joined the episcopal bench, ready to support Danby throughout the debates and divisions on the attainder. He attended 85 per cent of the main session, which started on 15 March. It may be of some significance that the only committee to which he appears to have been named in the session (10 Apr.) was that considering the act for hindering the lord treasurer and other officers from making undue advantages from their places. On 10 May Fleetwood and other supporters of Danby narrowly won the vote against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider a method of proceeding against the former lord treasurer and the five Catholic lords then in the Tower. Fleetwood was present on 13 May for the long debate on the bishops’ right to vote in capital cases and again on 16 May, when the bishops asked leave to withdraw from the trial of the five lords. He again attended on 27 May for another lengthy debate on the issue and to hear that Parliament was prorogued. Meanwhile Fleetwood was involved in acrimonious litigation over a legacy left by his predecessor Walter Blandford*, for improvements to the bishop’s residence, Hartlebury Castle. John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, complained of the ‘vexation and expense’ that Fleetwood had caused. In August 1680 Fleetwood faced further accusations, this time of exacting unfair fees; he denied any wrongdoing.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Fleetwood was missing from the opening of the new Parliament in October 1680. On the 30th, it was noted at a call of the House that he was travelling to London. He arrived in time for the next sitting day (3 Nov.), after which he attended some 70 per cent of the sittings and was named to three committees. Fleetwood joined his episcopal colleagues on 15 Nov. to oppose the reading of the exclusion bill and subsequently voted to reject the bill itself. On 23 Nov. he voted against the appointment of a committee to consider the state of the kingdom. For the remainder of November and December the House was occupied with the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, but although Fleetwood attended the House throughout the trial, in accordance with the convention agreed earlier, the bishops did not vote. He attended the House for the last time on 5 Jan. 1681. He failed to attend the brief Oxford Parliament two months later.</p><p>Fleetwood spent at least some of the remainder of his life improving his see, though he was at pains to ensure that his executors would not be held responsible for dilapidations for any properties he improved. He made his will in May 1683 and died two months later. He named his son-in-law, Edward Webster, as an executor of his will. Unlike many of his fellow bishops, he made no specific charitable bequests, but divided his residual estate equally between his surviving son, John (archdeacon of Worcester), his four daughters (one of whom married George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth) and his grandson, Henry Fleetwood<sup>‡</sup>. His son, Arthur, had predeceased him.<sup>15</sup> He was buried in Worcester Cathedral and succeeded in the bishopric by William Thomas*, formerly of St Davids.<sup>16</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
FLEETWOOD, William (1656-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>FLEETWOOD</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1656–1723)</p> |
|
|
First sat 15 Mar. 1709; last sat 12 Jan. 1720 |
cons. 6 June 1708 bp. of ST ASAPH; transl. 18 Dec. 1714 bp. of ELY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Jan. 1656, 3rd s. of Capt. Geoffrey Fleetwood (<em>d</em>.1665), ordnance officer at the Tower of London, of Hesketh, Lancs. and Anne, da. of Richard Smith, prothonotary of the Poultry Compter, London.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Eton 1671-5; King’s, Camb. BA 1680, MA 1683, DD 1705. <em>m</em>. 1690 Anne Smith (<em>d</em>.1725), of London,<sup>2</sup> 1s.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 4 Aug. 1723. <em>will</em> 6 Nov. 1718-15 Apr. 1723, pr. 14 Aug. 1723.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Fell., King’s, Camb. 1678, Eton 1691; mbr. SPG 1701;<sup>5</sup> commr. 50 new churches 1715-<em>d</em>. <sup>6</sup></p><p>Lecturer, St Dunstan-in-the-West, London 1689-1705; rect. St Augustine, London 1689-1706, Wexham, Bucks. 1705-23; canon, Windsor 1702-1708.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Chap. to William III, 1691-1702, Queen Anne, 1702-1708.<sup>8</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by John Simon (after J. Richardson), BM 1902,1011.4258.</p> |
<p>A staunch Whig, Fleetwood was slighted by one Tory adversary as both ‘a religious and political bishop.’<sup>9</sup> Although born in the Tower of London where his father was an ordnance officer, Fleetwood was descended from the Lancashire branch of the family. By the time of his death in 1723, he was able to bequeath a ‘small estate’ in Lancashire and £1,500 in cash legacies (not including bonds and annuities). Following in the footsteps of his uncle, the royalist James Fleetwood*, bishop of Worcester, he studied at Eton and King’s College Cambridge before entering the Church.<sup>10</sup> After the 1688 Revolution, Fleetwood became a prolific apologist for Whig ideology. He was able to draw a patriotic lesson from any theme, whether he was preaching on vice, public prayer, education or even coin clipping (which wrecked trade and dishonoured the kingdom). He also became an ardent apologist for the war with France as a national (and Protestant) duty.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Fleetwood made his public debut preaching in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge on 25 Mar. 1689 (in commemoration of the college’s founder, Henry VI) and grew rapidly in popularity, leading to ecclesiastical preferments in London and at court.<sup>12</sup> On 5 Nov. 1691, his anniversary sermon before the Commons gave him the opportunity to vent his ire against Catholicism, embodied in both the French king and the Pretender.<sup>13</sup> Throughout the 1690s, Fleetwood became increasingly politicized, challenging non-jurors with lengthy expositions of ultra-patriotic whiggism, and defending Queen Mary from charges of usurping the throne from her father and younger brother (whose legitimacy he called into question).<sup>14</sup> He was deeply troubled at the loss of the young duke of Gloucester, preaching a sermon in August 1700 that he would re-print in 1712 as his fears grew for the Protestant succession.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In 1702, Fleetwood was made a canon of Windsor.<sup>16</sup> Based in the City of London, where he was linked to the Mercers’ Company, Fleetwood pastored, studied and published, preaching frequently in praise of English military successes.<sup>17</sup> In 1705, he resigned his London appointments to devote more time to his studies and to Eton College.<sup>18</sup> During this period, he broadened his intellectual interests and wrote the statistical treatise that would secure him a place in the history of modern economics.<sup>19</sup></p><p>In spite of his politics, Fleetwood was much liked by the queen, who was instrumental in 1708 in securing his elevation in succession to William Beveridge*, bishop of St Asaph.<sup>20</sup> Yet the timing of his elevation was highly significant; the Junto was at that time influencing political and ecclesiastical appointments and the ministry of Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, was coming under increasing attack for its prosecution of the war.<sup>21</sup> It is likely that Fleetwood was needed to bolster government support in the House. Fleetwood was categorized as a Whig in a printed list of party classifications for the first Parliament of Great Britain, compiled in about May 1708. He was consecrated the following month and in July was appointed to preach the thanksgiving service of 19 Aug. for the British victory at Oudenaarde.<sup>22</sup> His sermon expatiated on his familiar theme of the French threat to English liberty as well as lamenting the assault on the clergy resulting from a swathe of anti-clerical publications.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Fleetwood proved to be a diligent pastor. His devotional works were translated into Welsh, he paved St Asaph cathedral at his own cost, railed against cults and superstitions, and saw local religious traditions as an obstacle to full Protestantisation. He had little respect for the Welsh language, yet disapproved of clergy who used English to impress ‘the best families’ in the parish; this he regarded as pastoral neglect and ‘complaisance to a few’.<sup>24</sup> Fleetwood’s religious approach stressed practical piety as an instrument of social and moral control and his politics were never far from the surface.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Fleetwood took his seat in the House on 15 Mar. 1709, four months after the start of the session, introduced by William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, who would be one of his closest companions in London throughout the following decade.<sup>26</sup> He attended on 15 days (14 of them in April), which may perhaps be linked to the passage of two pieces of closely-fought legislation introduced by the Whigs: the general naturalization bill and the bill for improving the Union (also known as the treason bill); both of which were introduced into the Lords shortly before Fleetwood took his seat. The session ended on 21 Apr. and Fleetwood (always in need of intellectual stimulus and easily bored) requested an associate to procure him a copy of the Latin Councils ‘put out by the Nonjuror whose name I’ve forgotten’, so that he could take it with him to Wales.<sup>27</sup> Fleetwood seems to have been one of several clergymen suggested as possible successors at Chichester in the first quarter of 1709 but at the end of May he appears to have dropped out of the running and was busy making preparations for his journey to his diocese.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Fleetwood returned to the House on 13 Dec. 1709, four weeks after the opening of the session, following which he attended 62 per cent of sittings. On 20 Dec. he was ordered to preach at the Abbey on 30 Jan. 1710. Shortly after his return to London, he was embroiled in at least two disputes involving affairs in St Asaph, presumably resulting from his efforts to stamp his authority on his diocese. One concerned a petition from the dean and chapter of St Asaph seeking legislation to prevent the bishop claiming rights of mortuary on the death of clergy in the diocese.<sup>29</sup> The focus of his attention, though, was the brouhaha arising from Dr Henry Sacheverell’s notorious sermon against the Revolution. In response, Fleetwood had preached against passive obedience and non-resistance, again couching his opposition in terms of patriotic loyalty.<sup>30</sup> He wrote anonymously to the clergy of Shropshire and North Wales, warning against those who used scripture (specifically the ‘divine right’ text, Romans 13) to legitimate the actions of a bad monarch.<sup>31</sup> He defended in print the queen’s title and <em>de facto</em> authority, not only by virtue of her position as the daughter of James II, but because her younger brother’s claim to the throne had been blocked by act of Parliament. He found ‘not ten men of sense and character… but did not absolutely condemn [Sacheverell’s] discourse as a rhapsody of incoherent, ill-digested thoughts dressed in the worst language’. It was, he claimed, worthy of neither a clergyman nor a ‘tolerable Englishman’.<sup>32</sup> Fleetwood used his sermon on 30 Jan. as a political instrument for the present, rather than a memorial of the past, preaching that the regicide had been bad for English honour. Moreover, it had become a difficult anniversary that played into partisan hands: some thought that preaching obedience infringed civil liberties; others believed that to speak of liberty, opened ‘a door to mutiny … and flat rebellion’.<sup>33</sup> On 20 Mar. he voted that Sacheverell was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Fleetwood was in the House for the prorogation on 5 April. The day before, he had accompanied William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln and John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry to the Lords, where they ‘sat upon the booksellers’ bill’. Meanwhile the Sacheverell affair continued to exercise him. A complaint was made that Frederick Cornwall, a Ludlow clergyman (with the collusion of the Montgomeryshire sheriff Francis Herbert<sup>‡</sup>), had forced his way into the pulpit and preached the Welshpool assize sermon held on 25 Mar. in place of Fleetwood’s nominee. Cornwall had then taken the opportunity to condemn the few ‘great men at court’ who governed the Church.<sup>35</sup> Fleetwood was pressed by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland to bring the man to book, but he was forced to refer the matter to Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, as Cornwall was beneficed in that diocese rather than St Asaph. Humphreys’ efforts to discipline Cornwall proved ineffective and he reported to Sunderland that he could only hope that Fleetwood had ‘consulted some learned civilian what method is to be used to bring this man to justice’ fearing that to prosecute ineffectively would only give further publicity to his cause.<sup>36</sup> Fleetwood was similarly hamstrung by his efforts to block Sacheverell’s institution to a living in his diocese. He argued, among other things, that Sacheverell ought to be able to preach in Welsh, but was ultimately forced to give way.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Following the Tory victory in the 1710 election, Fleetwood went into opposition. In a list of 3 Oct. Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, wrote him off as a likely political opponent. Fleetwood remained unswervingly loyal to the ‘old ministry’: his gratitude to queen and country, he claimed, would not allow him to vote against his friends. ‘When I have saved my conscience, I give myself up to what I call my honour, and … I shall always be on the side of the late ministry because … they served the queen and nation so well’. Despite receiving the goodwill of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester and being encouraged to change sides, Fleetwood remained an implacable opponent of peace with France. While Tories asserted that the Whig ministry had prosecuted a ‘calamitous’ war, Fleetwood could see only that ‘all our millions and our blood spent for these twenty years past, will end in a despicable peace’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Fleetwood was one of a number of bishops to attend a meeting at Lambeth on 11 Nov. 1710 which resulted in resolutions ‘to set up a prolocutor’ and ‘to get an address ready that shall meddle with no state affairs’. On 20 Nov. he joined Bishop Wake in waiting on the queen. That evening he was one of a handful of clergy that ‘tallied long’ with Wake and further meeting continued over the few days.<sup>39</sup> On 25 Nov. Fleetwood took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session. He attended 42 per cent of sittings (spread evenly throughout the session). The ministry’s agenda in the House ran alongside a major dispute in Convocation. According to Wake, Fleetwood had not been at Convocation on the day that Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, was presented as prolocutor, but he joined Wake (with nine other bishops) in protesting against Atterbury’s election. The queen’s licence to a new quorum of bishops (dominated by Tories) led to a series of opposition strategy meetings of Whigs including Fleetwood and overseen by John Somers*, Baron Somers, and William Cowper*, Baron Cowper.<sup>40</sup></p><p>The extreme partisanship that split the episcopate was temporarily laid aside by the Christmas celebrations; Fleetwood took Christmas Day communion at Westminster Abbey with his Tory opponents Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, Offspring Blackall*, bishop of Exeter and George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells and they all attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. Fleetwood returned from the latter in Wake’s coach.<sup>41</sup> In the new year, however, Fleetwood voted solidly with the Whigs in all votes concerning the war in Spain. On 9 Jan. 1711 (in a division of the committee of the whole) he voted against the resolution to resume the House, whereupon the House went on to vote that the account of the war in Spain by Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough had been ‘faithful and honourable’.<sup>42</sup> Two days later, he protested against a resolution to reject the petitions of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and then against the resolution that the defeat at Almanza had been caused by the lords in question, together with Genreral James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope. On 12 Jan. he protested against the censure of the previous Whig ministers for having approved a military offensive in Spain and, on 3 Feb. he protested against the resolution that the Whig ministers, by not supplying the deficiencies of men granted by Parliament, had neglected the service. Six days later, Fleetwood, who on several occasions was an active member of the sub-committee for the Journal, signed two of the three protests against the deletion from the Journal of part of the two protests against resolutions made on the 3rd. On 24 Feb. he attended a meeting hosted by Wake to review the Whig strategy reports on the Convocation quorum for presentation to the queen.<sup>43</sup> In March, he preached at court, advising ‘the party that is now uppermost to be very easy and moderate to those that are under for that they would have their turn to be uppermost again’. His address unsurprisingly occasioned ‘much talk’.<sup>44</sup> Absent from the session for four weeks in late spring, on 26 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of John Tyler*, bishop of Llandaff. He returned to the House on 23 May and attended until the end of the session. With only four bishops in the House, he was one of three bishops to make their distaste for the bill for building new churches in London plain by leaving the chamber before the bill came to be read.<sup>45</sup></p><p>The perception that Fleetwood was a committed partisan of the Whig cause is reinforced by a list, probably dating from December 1711, in the hand of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, which listed Fleetwood with three other bishops and 19 peers, in what was probably a memorandum concerning their opposition the ministry’s peace policy. For Fleetwood, the government’s overtures to France were a compelling reason to attend the House more frequently and he attended the following session more than any other (71 per cent of sittings), including the opening day, 7 December. It is almost certain that he supported the addition of a clause advocating ‘No Peace without Spain’ to the Address, as on 8 Dec. he was listed among those thought likely to insist on the inclusion of those words when the Address was finalized. On 10 Dec. he reported to the antiquarian, Thomas Hearne that ‘we have this day passed the bill against occasional conformity, without any manner of dispute or division.’<sup>46</sup> On 16 Dec. Henry Prescott received a letter from Fleetwood in which the bishop ‘triumphs upon the general vogue against the peace and on the access of Lord Nottingham to the Whig side’.<sup>47</sup> Although forecast on 19 Dec. as a likely opponent of permitting Scots peers to sit by virtue of post-Union British titles, on 20 Dec. Fleetwood voted against barring such men from taking their places. With the Whigs in the ascendancy, on the last day before the Christmas recess, 22 Dec., he was invited to preach the fast sermon before the Lords on 16 Jan. 1712.</p><p>The House convened again on 2 Jan. 1712, as planned after a short adjournment engineered by the Whigs, and Fleetwood joined ten of his fellow bishops in voting with the Whigs against a further adjournment.<sup>48</sup> Three days later, he joined a number of his fellow bishops dining at Chelsea, where they were hosted by Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Winchester.<sup>49</sup> The ministry’s fortunes had revived by the time Fleetwood came to preach on 16 Jan., and when they met again, they adjourned the House until the 17th, so preventing him from delivering his sermon. Undeterred, Fleetwood, a seasoned propagandist, gave the piece to the press.<sup>50</sup> It was blatantly political. He took as his theme Psalm 68: 30 (‘the people that delight in war’), manipulating the text to exonerate (the recently dismissed) John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough from his ‘just’ war-mongering whilst damning the Tories’ ‘prostitutions of honour and conscience’ and the ‘sorceries of France’.<sup>51</sup> The ministry’s censors intimidated the publisher into removing three of the most critical passages, but even in its expurgated form, the sermon prompted a series of polemics on the nature of English political and religious identity.<sup>52</sup></p><p>On 26 Feb. 1712 Fleetwood voted in the House with the Whig opposition against the Commons’ anti-Presbyterian amendments to the Scottish Toleration bill.<sup>53</sup> The following day he accompanied Wake and three other bishops to Convocation and on 12 Apr. Fleetwood voted against the committal of the Scottish ecclesiastical patronage bill.<sup>54</sup> Four weeks later, he accompanied Wake, William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford, and John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, to a meeting with Sunderland where, with Somers, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, and Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, they discussed tactics to be employed in Convocation.<sup>55</sup> On 20 May Fleetwood received the proxy of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury and on 26 May that of Bishop Hough (both vacated at the end of the session). On the 28th, Fleetwood joined Bishops Talbot and Evans in voting for an address to the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging the French and then signed the protest against the Lords’ rejection of the motion. The queen outlined the Treaty of Utrecht on 6 June; on the 7th, Fleetwood again registered his protest against the failure to amend the address welcoming the peace. Fleetwood missed the last three weeks of parliamentary business in the summer of 1712.</p><p>In the meantime, Fleetwood had responded to the censorship of his abortive January sermon. He republished four of his political sermons with a new preface, in which, as ‘a good Englishman, as well as a good clergyman’, he defended Marlborough, restated Whig political ideology, and opposed the peace plan.<sup>56</sup> On 21 May Richard Steele<sup>‡</sup> published the preface in the <em>Spectator</em>, increasing its circulation to 14,000 people ‘who would otherwise never have seen or heard of it’.<sup>57</sup> Although White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, dismissed a review of the preface carried in the <em>Examiner</em> as ‘intolerably dull’, Parliament responded promptly. Following a complaint to an outraged House of Commons, a motion of condemnation was proposed on 10 June by John Hungerford<sup>‡</sup>, seconded by John Manley<sup>‡</sup>, ‘thirded by… the court’. There was further support for the motion from Charles Eversfield<sup>‡</sup> and Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke. Fleetwood was defended by Sir Joseph Jekyll<sup>‡</sup>, Nicholas Lechmere†, (later Baron Lechmere) and Peter King<sup>†</sup> (later Baron King). After voting that the <em>Preface</em> was ‘malicious and factious, highly reflecting upon the present administration’, the Commons ordered its burning in Palace Yard. Fleetwood was said to have responded by ordering his cook to burn the Commons’ motion. He was also not alone in remarking that the Commons’ order was a worthy gift to make to the Pretender on his birthday (10 June).<sup>58</sup> A week later, in a letter to his close friend Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, Fleetwood spoke of the action as revenge ‘by a wicked party’ but insisted the assault affected him ‘very little’. From his perspective, England had fallen ‘into the very dregs of Charles the Second’s politics’ and France would ‘use us as she pleases, which … will be as scurvily as we deserve’.<sup>59</sup> In spite of all these provocations, at a Lambeth dinner on 14 June, Fleetwood was reported as being ‘in the best humour’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>The printed responses to the <em>Preface</em> ranged from the crude to the elegant, from the assertion by ‘Tom Trueman’ that all who defended the principle of resistance should have their tongues and hands cut off, to the satirical <em>Tryal and Condemnation of Don Prefatio d’Asaven</em>.<sup>61</sup> The most ruthless satire claimed to be a letter of thanks to Fleetwood from Thomas Wharton*, earl of Wharton, and the Whig Kit-Cat Club.<sup>62</sup> Its true author, Jonathan Swift, equated Fleetwood’s whiggery with atheism and branded the bishop as a self-publicist who ‘had rather live in a blaze, than lie buried in obscurity’. Fleetwood’s anonymous defence of his ‘revolution principles’ heaped more coals on the head of the French king, whilst placing his brand of whiggism firmly in the ideology developed at the time of the Revolution.<sup>63</sup> The Rev. Ralph Bridges, meanwhile, overseeing the effect of the print campaign concluded, ‘if the wise preceding Parliament to this had served Dr S[acheverel]l’s sermons only so, without the solemnity of an impeachment, they might for ought I know been still in being and Lords [over] us’.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Fleetwood was present at the traditional St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth in 1712.<sup>65</sup> In advance of the new session in April 1713, Swift (in a list amended by Oxford) assumed that Fleetwood would continue to oppose the ministry. Fleetwood attended the House on only 10 days (15 per cent of sittings). His activity in the House was nevertheless significant on the question of the Union. On 1 June, in the vote on the motion proposed by James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union, Fleetwood and John Moore*, bishop of Ely (both holding at least one proxy apiece), left the Lords before the 6 o’clock division; by doing so they saved the day for the government by failing to vote with the Whig opposition, who wished to adjourn the debate and prolong the issue, thereby putting further pressure on the ministry.<sup>66</sup> He last attended on 5 June, when the government narrowly won a vote on the second reading of the malt bill, and was thus absent for another narrow defeat on that measure on 8 June.<sup>67</sup> About 13 June Oxford estimated that Fleetwood would oppose the ministry over the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>At the beginning of February 1714 Fleetwood was noted as ‘much out of order’ suffering from a complaint that seems to have troubled him for some time, though he was well enough to be visited by Wake on 6 and 18 Feb. and again on 4 and 10 March.<sup>68</sup> He was consequently absent from the opening of the new session on 16 Feb. and remained absent for the first seven weeks of the session. He first took his seat at last on 8 Apr. and was present for 38 per cent of all sittings. He appears to have taken no part in the passage of the mortuaries in Welsh dioceses bill in spite of the previous efforts of the dean and chapter of St Asaph about the matter.<sup>69</sup> At the end of May or beginning of June Nottingham forecast Fleetwood as a likely opponent of the schism bill; on 11 June Fleetwood voted as expected against the extension of the bill to Ireland in a close division that was carried by the government by a single vote.<sup>70</sup> Four days later, he voted against the bill itself, registering his protest with Wake, Moore, Evans and Tyler on the grounds that Dissenters were already disabled from office and too disparate to threaten the educational monopoly of the Church.<sup>71</sup> In July Fleetwood was one of those consulted by Wake over the heresy case involving the academic Dr Samuel Clarke. Wake assured Clarke that all those to whom he had sent material (Fleetwood among them) were ‘your very good friends’.<sup>72</sup> He last attended on 8 July, the penultimate day of the session.</p><p>Fleetwood did not attend the brief parliamentary session that met in the wake of the queen’s death on 1 August. It was widely anticipated that he would succeed Moore as bishop of Ely as a political reward, but with Nottingham as lord president of the new king’s council and Townshend determined to secure a mixed ministry, Fleetwood’s career prospects were for a while uncertain. Although Nottingham had wanted Ely for his own brother (the dean of York) on 18 Dec. Fleetwood was translated to Ely in a compromise negotiated between Tenison, Nottingham and Townshend.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Having long suffered from convulsions and apoplexy, Fleetwood died in Tottenham on 4 Aug. 1723 and was buried in Ely Cathedral on the 10th.<sup>74</sup> According to Timothy Godwin, bishop of Kilmore [I], both he and Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Winchester and formerly of Norwich ‘had such broken constitutions that it is rather a wonder that they held out so long’.<sup>75</sup> Although he had quarrelled with his only son Charles (a fellow of King’s, Cambridge), whom Fleetwood had refused permission to become a clerical pluralist, he nevertheless made him his residuary legatee.<sup>76</sup> The bishop’s widow and son executed the will. Fleetwood’s nephew, William Powell, canon of Ely, published the bishop’s works in 1737.<sup>77</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
FOWLER, Edward (1632-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>FOWLER</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1632–1714)</p> |
|
|
First sat 6 Nov. 1691; last sat 21 June 1714 |
cons. 5 July 1691 bp. of GLOUCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1632, 3rd s. of Richard Fowler (<em>d</em>.1681), minister of Westerleigh, Glos. <em>educ</em>. College Sch. Gloucester; Corpus Christi Oxf., matric. 1650, BA 1653, BD 1681, DD 1681; Trinity Coll. Camb., MA 1656. <em>m</em>. (1) Ann (<em>d</em>. 19 Dec. 1696), da. of Arthur Barnardiston, master in chancery, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 5da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 2 Apr. 1732), da. of Ralph Trevor, merchant of London, wid. of Hezekiah Burton, clergyman. <em>d</em>. 26 Aug. 1714; <em>will</em> 14 Dec. 1706-c. Apr. 1711, pr. 7 Oct. 1714.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Corpus Christi Oxf. 1653, to Amabel, dowager countess of Kent 1656, to William III and Mary II 1689.</p><p>Rect. Northill, Beds. 1656-c.1673, All Hallows Bread St London 1673-81; canon Gloucester 1676-91; reader in divinity St Paul’s Cathedral 1680; vic. St Giles Cripplegate 1681-1714.</p><p>Mbr. ecclesiastical commn. 1689,<sup>2</sup> SPCK 1699,<sup>3</sup> Welsh Trust, SPG 1701.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: Oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1711, Northill Parish Church, Beds.; mezzotint by J. Smith aft. Kneller, 1717, NPG D31425.</p> |
<p>Fowler was the son of a Gloucestershire clergyman who did not conform to the Church of England in 1662. The Presbyterianism of his family background (and marriage into the nonconformist Barnardiston family) informed his early education and ecclesiastical career and by 1653, he held the chaplaincy of his college because of his talents in extempore prayer.<sup>5</sup> It also framed his politics, religious outlook and development into a Whig polemicist. The Cambridge Platonists contributed another strand to Fowler’s intellectual development; a close friend of Henry More (who proved influential in career terms), Fowler was a lifelong believer in fairies, ghosts, and supernatural entities. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, thought Fowler a ‘good Christian prelate’ but was struck by his ability to speak volumes about his belief in fairies.<sup>6</sup> Fowler’s economic status is somewhat difficult to unravel. His finances were undoubtedly stretched by ‘numerous’ children and a poor bishopric (he claimed that financial constraints forced him to terminate his subscription to the SPG in 1708).<sup>7</sup> Yet by the time of his death in 1714 he held shares in commercial undertakings, government securities and enough capital to bequeath some £3,500 in cash legacies.</p><p>Fowler’s first patron was Amabel, dowager countess of Kent, to whose son (Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent) he served as tutor, and who secured him a living through the Grocers’ Company.<sup>8</sup> In 1662, unlike his father and his brother Stephen, he conformed to the Church of England and moved away from the religious orthodoxy of his roots. A prolific controversialist against Calvinism (especially against John Bunyan), Fowler became an advocate for the Restoration doctrine of holy living as the basis for political loyalty, although, an advocate of accommodation within the Church for Presbyterian Dissenters, he was branded as latitudinarian.<sup>9</sup> His anti-Calvinist credentials impressed Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of London, who in 1673 provided Fowler’s next career move to a City living. By 1676, through the intervention of Henry More and Anne, Lady Conway (wife of Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount Conway), he was promoted into the higher clergy as canon of Gloucester. <sup>10</sup> Apart from his required residencies, he spent his time in his London parish.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Fowler’s background made him into a supporter of Protestant solidarity, who was prepared to tolerate nonconformity and engaged Dissenters back into the Church. He also had close connections with Presbyterian churchmen, including Richard Baxter, Whig politicians, including Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, and intellectuals, including John Locke and Roger Morrice. Moving to the large, poor and rapidly growing parish of St Giles Cripplegate in 1681 (in the gift of St Paul’s), he provoked the agents of Tory reaction who saw whiggery in his every move. He was the victim of considerable political malice and was blocked from further promotion.<sup>12</sup> Yet he was provocative, expressing his visceral hatred of Catholicism by smashing ‘popish’ stained glass in Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester corporation, enraged by one sermon preached in the summer of 1683, refused to attend the cathedral thereafter if the ‘seditious’ Fowler preached. He was even accused of assault. George Vernon wrote to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, in Fowler’s defence insisting that Fowler had been misrepresented and that ‘there was nothing in the sermon but what tended to the honour of our church and the security of the peace’. The bishop of Gloucester, Robert Frampton*, thought Fowler difficult but loyal, though he was subsequently annoyed when Fowler dedicated the printed sermon to him without his permission. The following year, before Fowler’s anticipated return to Gloucester, Frampton begged Sancroft to counsel Fowler against further stirring. The corporation view was bolstered by Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, and in June 1684 the king sent Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to Sancroft to complain that Fowler kept a seditious vestry in London and ‘discouraged the loyal party’.<sup>13</sup> The government became suspicious of Fowler’s links with Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, and with Robert Ferguson the plotter.<sup>14</sup> A case brought against him by some of his parishioners in what had become a deeply politically divided parish complained how he had harboured Dissenters in his parish. Although Fowler regarded it as vexatious, and it was highly political in nature, he was suspended by the Court of Arches for a short period of ten days from 9 Dec. 1685.<sup>15</sup></p><p>During the reign of James II, Fowler was closely involved in the London clerical campaign against the king’s religious policies.<sup>16</sup> He published a series of anti-Catholic tracts, and participated in meetings of the London clergy, and assisted the cause of the Revolution.<sup>17</sup> Known to Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, Fowler was named in Burnet’s list of clerics worthy of promotion.<sup>18</sup> Underlining his political significance in the poorer areas of London outside the walls of the city, in the summer of 1689, he was one of three prominent spokesmen (with Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth and later 3rd earl of Peterborough, and Thomas Firmin) to address the workers of Spitalfields who had massed together to present a petition to Parliament protesting against the bill for encouraging the wearing of woollens rather than silks. As a result of the efforts of Fowler and his colleagues the protesters dispersed peacefully.<sup>19</sup> Close to John Tillotson*, dean of St Paul’s from November 1689, and from 1691 archbishop of Canterbury, Fowler agitated for comprehension and was named to the ecclesiastical commission to review the Prayer Book in 1689. He proved the strongest advocate of comprehension on the commission. Failing in his mission to accommodate nonconformity within the Church of England, he turned his energies to moral reform, both at home and abroad, and to political theology.<sup>20</sup> He became a key supporter of the societies for the reformation of manners, in which his connection with Firmin may have been significant. He would consequently incur the hostility of Thomas Tenison*, who succeeded Tillotson as archbishop in 1695.<sup>21</sup> He was employed as a polemicist by the regime in its quest for legitimacy, publishing two tracts on the ‘semi-official’ doctrine of conquest theory (that William III had obtained the throne by right of conquest in a just war).<sup>22</sup> His efforts were rewarded in 1691 when he replaced the deprived Robert Frampton. Fowler was the only thoroughgoing Whig candidate at a time when Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, was chiefly responsible for ecclesiastical preferments. He owed his appointment to Burnet’s nomination as well as to being a member of Tillotson’s circle. His promotion was greeted warmly by Henry Grey*, styled Lord Grey (later duke of Kent), grandson of Fowler’s old patron.<sup>23</sup> Consecrated in July 1691 at St Mary-Le-Bow, he was dined afterwards at the Mercers’ Chapel (perhaps because his close friend, Thomas Firmin, was a mercer).<sup>24</sup> Fowler held his Cripplegate living <em>in commendam</em> for life, and seems to have favoured London over Gloucester.<sup>25</sup> Frampton did nothing to encourage the nonjuring schism in the diocese and Fowler procured for his predecessor a substantial living worth an annual £200, ‘better than the thirds of the bishopric’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>At a call of the House on 2 Nov. 1691, Fowler was noted as absent, but he took his seat four days later, embarking on a parliamentary career in which he attended consistently (between 30 and 55 per cent of sittings) for every session until the accession of Queen Anne. Thereafter, his parliamentary career went into retreat; of the 13 sessions held during Anne’s 12-year reign, Fowler attended a total of only 58 days. During this first, 1691-2, session, Fowler was named to no committees.</p><p>Fowler arrived at the House 13 days into the start of the 1692-3 session in November 1692 and attended nearly 49 per cent of sittings. He was named to two committees, both on private bills, one of them (7 Jan. 1693) concerning the sale of the office of warden of the Fleet. In December 1692 and January 1693, he opposed both the committal and the passage of the place bill. The session ended on 14 Mar. 1693. During 1693 Fowler launched his attempt to deal with the arguments of Socinianism, which would embroil him in a lengthy pamphlet controversy.<sup>27</sup> In November 1693, he again arrived 13 days into the autumn session and once more attended for 49 per cent of sittings. He was named to three committees, one on coin clipping, and two on private bills. On 22 Jan. 1694 he was ordered to preach the martyrdom sermon on the 30th and was thanked by the House the following day.</p><p>Fowler took his seat at the opening of the following session on 12 Nov. 1694. He attended 44 per cent of sittings and was named to six committees, including that to consider the order of procession for the funeral of the recently deceased Queen Mary. He was also named to the committee to consider a prohibition of trade with France, and to the committee for privileges. On 26 Nov. he was excused attendance from the House. He was back in the chamber by 10 Dec. to register his dissent from the order to reverse the judgment in the writ of error in the cause <em>Phillips v. Bury</em>.</p><p>In spite of his position in Gloucester, Fowler continued to expand his ministry at St Giles Cripplegate. He gave further support to the voluntary movement by permitting the church to be used by a group of devout laymen, led by Edward Stephens, a figure of some significance in the moral reform movement, who wanted to celebrate private communion.<sup>28</sup> Fowler’s unorthodox policy in this instance brought him yet more criticism. Unabashed, he was far more concerned at the political threat from Socinians (‘many of whom are known to be no lovers of the present government’) and he formulated a set of queries in preparation for a coherent intellectual defence of the Church.<sup>29</sup></p><p>By the spring of 1695 Fowler was suffering from poor health.<sup>30</sup> He was nevertheless in the House on the third day of the first session of the new Parliament in November 1695. He attended this session for more sittings than any other (55 per cent of the time). This was probably because of the assassination plot and the threat to the king whose survival, he claimed in a sermon written on the occasion of the death of the queen, was vital to the safety of Protestants across Europe.<sup>31</sup> He was named to eight committees. On 27 Feb. 1696, he signed the Association and on 20 Mar. he was ordered to preach at the service of thanksgiving for William’s escape from assassination. He also signed the ‘repugnance’ of 10 Apr. of the scaffold absolution by two nonjuring clerics of Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup>. On 16 Apr. he preached the thanksgiving sermon, concentrating on ‘deliverance from a French invasion’; his text was the apt Psalm 86 (‘thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell’).<sup>32</sup> The following day, he was thanked by the House and ordered to print his sermon.</p><p>Fowler missed the first three weeks of the session that began in October 1696 but was eventually present for 42 per cent of total sittings. He was named to seven committees, including the committee on the state of trade. On 23 Dec. he appears to have voted (as one might expect) in favour of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> (though at least one source indicated the contrary).<sup>33</sup> He arrived ten days after the start of the 1697-8 session and attended nearly half of all sittings. He was named to 27 committees. On 15 Mar. 1698, Fowler was one of only six bishops to vote against committing the bill to punish Tory goldsmith Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>34</sup> (Fowler may have known Duncombe: it was presumably his father, Alexander Duncombe, who was present at the sermon he gave on the occasion of the meeting of the Sons of the Clergy in 1692, and Duncombe’s later philanthropic activities in London were very much in line with Fowler’s established connections.)<sup>35</sup> Following the second reading of the Gloucester highways bill on 20 Apr. Fowler was named to the committee. It was reported on 6 May by Charles Berkeley*, 2nd earl of Berkeley.</p><p>In keeping with his concerns for Protestant unity Fowler maintained a keen interest in the plight of European Protestants. On 12 May 1698, he and Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, seconded the proposal made by James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, for an address asking the king to intercede with the French ambassador on behalf of French Protestants, but the motion attracted little support and was dropped.<sup>36</sup> During June he received two proxies: on 1 June from Richard Kidder*, bishop of Bath and Wells, and on 10 June from Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester (both vacated at the end of the session). On 1 July he registered his protest against the second reading of the bill to establish the Two Million Fund and to settle the East India trade.</p><p>Fowler’s visitation articles for his second triennial visitation were published in 1698.<sup>37</sup> Fowler missed the first eight weeks of the winter 1698-9 session, the first of the 1698 Parliament. Having taken his place on 23 Jan. 1699 he attended 35 per cent of all sittings, during which he was named to nine committees. On 29 Mar. 1699 he registered his dissent from the committee resolution on the address to the king regarding the bishop of Derry. Fowler’s extra-parliamentary interests, once again, seem to have taken priority and he was busily engaged with promoting the work of voluntary societies to the annoyance of, among others, Archbishop Tenison, who ensured that Fowler was excluded from the traditional Easter Tuesday dinner at Lambeth.<sup>38</sup> After the end of the session on 4 May, there is scant evidence of Fowler’s activities apart from his City sermon, on 26 June, to the societies for the reformation of manners.<sup>39</sup></p><p>He missed the first three weeks of the 1699-1700 session but attended 46 per cent of total sittings and was named to six select committees. On 1 Feb. 1700, he was forecast as being a probable supporter of the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation; three weeks later, he voted for an adjournment so that the House could go into a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to it.</p><p>Fowler was present at the opening of the February 1701 Parliament, attended 48 per cent of sittings and was named to 12 select committees. On 17 June, he voted with the Whigs to acquit John Somers*, Baron Somers, from charges of impeachment. The following day, he sat in the court of delegates when the sentence of suspension was read against Thomas Watson*, of St Davids.<sup>40</sup> Over the summer Maurice Wheeler, master of the cathedral school at Gloucester, encouraged his former student William Wake*, the future bishop of Lincoln, to visit Gloucester on his way to Oxford. Wheeler assured Wake that he need have no concerns of rivalries between Fowler and his predecessor Frampton, as ‘they entertain common friends without any jealous reserve’. His depiction of relations between Fowler and his dean (William Jane) was less positive. According to Wheeler, the locals thought of them as ‘a couple of buckets in the same well, one up and t’other down; but with this difference, that the latter [Jane] sheds again something of what he draws, in charity and hospitality; but the other [Fowler] carries all off with him’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Before the assembly of the December 1701 Parliament, Wheeler wrote to Wake again, warning him of a forthcoming response to one of Fowler’s publications. Wheeler hoped Wake would let Fowler know about it ‘which may perhaps give his lordship the advantage of <em>scand[alum] magna[tum]</em>’.<sup>42</sup> On 30 Dec. 1701, unusually, Fowler was present on the first day of the new parliamentary session. He was named to the committees for privileges and for the Journal and was thereafter present on 45 per cent of sittings. He was named to 11 select committees, ten of which were concerned with private bills. It seems likely that his uncharacteristic punctuality at the start of the session was due to his intention to petition the House for a private bill to make leases of diocesan property. Fowler was advised by a Mr Cocks (probably Charles Coxe<sup>‡</sup> rather than Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup>) to approach the queen directly about the bill so that the matter was not overlooked, as had happened previously under Charles II.<sup>43</sup> Fowler’s petition was heard on 23 Feb. 1702, the bill was committed on 26 Feb. and Fowler was included in the committee nominations. The bill was reported by John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, and on 17 Mar. Fowler was present when it received its third reading. On 7 May Charles Coxe returned the bill to the Lords unamended.<sup>44</sup></p><p>With the accession of Queen Anne and the subsequent round of electioneering in the summer and autumn of 1702, Gloucester witnessed fiercely fought campaigns. The dean, Dr Jane, campaigned tirelessly for the election of John Grobham Howe<sup>‡</sup> for the city, with the consequence that the city reeked of alcoholic excess. The Gloucestershire county election resulted in a defeat for the Whig Sir John Guise<sup>‡</sup>, who promptly took up residence in Fowler’s episcopal residence in order to raise his public profile (which he did, speaking dismissively of the government of the Church by bishops).<sup>45</sup> Fowler was clearly concerned at the political tenor of speeches in Gloucester and he sought clarification of an address given at the Gloucester assizes by Howe in which the Tory Member referred to Queen Anne’s earlier hardships at court in a manner that reflected negatively on William III.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Although Fowler monitored political developments in his diocese, he does not seem to have involved himself directly in local politics, showing far more interest in the voluntary societies. In June 1702, it was commented that Fowler had absented himself from the diocese for a year, almost certainly because of the parliamentary elections, ‘an affair of such tumult and confusion, and which has already occasioned so much disquiet to him, that I believe he would now be glad to have no concernment therein.’ It was also thought ‘there may be other considerations besides, which perhaps may also render the journey less inviting.’<sup>47</sup> Over the next six years he became heavily involved with the establishment of missionary outposts and schools in ‘pagan’ countries and administration of the proselytizing clergy.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Fowler clearly diverged from many of his episcopal colleagues on the lay campaign for moral reform, yet he retained their support in the proposed annexation to his impoverished see of the mastership of the Savoy (for which he was recommended by Tenison, and for which Fowler claimed he had William III’s promise). Despite his formerly hostile response to Fowler, even John Sharp*, archbishop of York, had warmly espoused Tenison’s proposal first made in the early summer of 1700 that Fowler be appointed master of the Savoy.<sup>49</sup> In February 1702, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, together with Tenison, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Burnet, William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, and John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, had signed a recommendation to the king. In the event the institution was dissolved later that year by its visitor, the lord keeper, leaving Fowler disappointed.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Fowler was at Tunbridge Wells over the summer when he was one of those present at the unexpected death of his former pupil, Anthony Grey, 11th earl of Kent. He was then one of those deputed to break the news to Kent’s daughter, who was lodging nearby.<sup>51</sup> Fowler was again late for the start of the new Parliament on 20 October. He missed the first month of business but in the course of the whole session attended half of all sittings. On 1 Jan. 1703, Fowler was correctly forecast by Nottingham as an opponent of the occasional conformity bill. During the debates, Fowler voted for the wrecking amendment proposed by Somers (to apply the occasional conformity bill only to those subject to the Test Act).<sup>52</sup> In the same month (on 25 Jan.), Fowler was named to the committee on the Gloucester poor bill which received its third reading on 28 Jan. after being reported by Compton.</p><p>Fowler may have maintained a long-term association with the Wharton family. On 8 Feb. 1703 he was at the House to hear the petition of the lord mayor and aldermen of London wanting legal representation in the case of <em>Wharton v. Squire</em>. Fowler conversed on the matter with the former Member for London, Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup>. Clayton assured Fowler that City politicians (who usually enjoyed close relations with Whig grandees) regretted the involvement of the London aldermen in opposition to Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton.<sup>53</sup> Fowler’s role in this dispute is unclear, but it is possible that Clayton, acting as a mediator between the City and Wharton, used Fowler as his route to the Whig magnate.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Fowler was (as was apparently habitual with him) late in returning to diocese over the summer of 1703. During the recess, he indulged in assembling anecdotal evidence on the occult, receiving details from his diocese of a man who claimed to have conjured up 18-inch female companions and had subsequently gone into a terminal decline.<sup>55</sup> The case became notorious and highlighted Fowler’s idiosyncratic attitude towards the supernatural. His political views remained broadly Whig, but ill health and an increasing measure of political detachment seems to have disrupted Fowler’s parliamentary career. Before the session (and again on 26 Nov. 1703), Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that Fowler would again oppose the occasional conformity bill. In the event, Fowler attended the session for only ten per cent of sittings. The occasional conformity division of 14 Dec. predictably fell out on party lines; it was noted in a contemporary publication that Fowler’s proxy was used to oppose the bill; the proxy book itself is missing for that session. He finally returned to the House on 20 Jan. 1704 on which day he joined with Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, in moving for the House’s thanks to be offered to the queen for her role in suppressing ‘the lewdness and irreligion of the playhouses’.<sup>56</sup> In March he was successful in securing the queen’s agreement to present the living of Standish to his nephew. According to one account the parish had been held ‘illegally’ by Frampton, who had in turn presented it to his curate, John Kemble; according to Maurice Wheeler, Frampton had been ‘misled by a company of spiteful knaves’ into making the appointment and had been a loser by his naivety.<sup>57</sup> Fowler did not attend the autumn 1704 session, but registered his proxy in favour of John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, on 22 Nov. (it was vacated at the end of the session). On 23 Nov. his absence was excused at a call of the House.</p><p>Fowler’s indirect influence on the county election was made apparent in a list compiled in May 1705, noting at least two parishes in which he wielded interest through the incumbents (one of them being his nephew).<sup>58</sup> The new Parliament opened on 25 Oct. 1705 but Fowler was again absent. He attended only on 4 Feb. 1706 to take the oaths, missing the debate on the ‘Church in danger’ on 6 Dec. 1705. Age and illness are plausible reasons for his absence. By the winter of 1706 he appears to have been in constant pain and in 1707 he gave ‘serious’ illness as his explanation.<sup>59</sup> Yet ample evidence exists of his publishing, preaching, bureaucratic and polemical activities outside of Parliament. In mid March 1706 he was said to have been ‘implacably provoked’ by a recent publication by Dr William Sherlock, and was composing a reply.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Despite the ministry’s need of Whig votes in the Lords and taking a house in Little Chelsea (‘for better air and more quiet’) in May 1707, Fowler did not attend the following two sessions.<sup>61</sup> From Chelsea he issued 26 visitation articles to his clergy, repeating those issued previously with the exception of an enquiry as to whether preachers prayed by name for the queen and for Princess Sophia.<sup>62</sup> The visitation itself, however, was undertaken by commission, he explaining in a charge to his clergy that he was unable to do so himself by reason of ‘a grievous malady, wherewith I have been afflicted ever since my last [visitation] and for some time before’, which had been so severe ‘as to disable me to attend on my duty in the House of Lords: where I have been but once for these three years, and then merely to qualify myself to make a proxy’. He dismissed the distinction between low and high churchmanship, though he condemned ‘an uncharitable and forward spirit towards all dissenting people’.<sup>63</sup> In September of that year he sought the assistance of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, over the presentation of the living of Devynock. The local archdeacon (Griffith) had petitioned for it but Fowler was reluctant to give way, wishing to offer it to his nephew instead, ‘because it is like to be the last [opportunity], I shall have of expressing my love to him, by means of a grievous malady which is dispatching me apace into the other world’. Fowler hoped Harley would ensure his nephew was compensated if the archdeacon’s request were allowed.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Fowler was able to attend the winter 1707 session on one day only (4 December). In January 1708 it was reported that he had ‘lately made a very narrow escape from death … a fever attended with apoplectic symptoms: the next invasion of which … will not be withstood’.<sup>65</sup> Wake recorded visiting the ‘poor bishop of Gloucester’ in March.<sup>66</sup> Fowler once again survived, to be listed as a Whig in an assessment of Lords’ affiliations that year. He attended the winter 1708 session for a single day, 10 Mar. 1709. He managed to respond in print to the <em>Letter Concerning Enthusiasm</em> by the third earl of Shaftesbury, but he once more failed to attend the 1709-10 session that witnessed the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell.<sup>67</sup> On 27 Feb. 1710 he was included in a list of nine bishops absent from the day’s proceedings. His was reported to be sick of ‘a severe and incurable distemper, and a very importunate messenger of death’ that he himself regarded as a warning of his imminent demise.<sup>68</sup></p><p>In April 1710 the Whig corporation of Gloucester issued a condemnation of Sacheverell and refused to join in the Tory celebrations that greeted a visit to the city by Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort; Fowler would almost certainly have supported their stance.<sup>69</sup> The 1710 visitation was again undertaken by commission; Fowler issued another charge to his clergy in which he described himself as being in a ‘languishing condition’, and lamented the political and religious divisions of the times.<sup>70</sup> After the dissolution of Parliament on 21 Sept. 1710 and reconstruction of the administration, Fowler was recorded by Harley as a certain opponent of his new ministry. Fowler did not attend the following session and failed to register his proxy. Affairs within the diocese also remained tense and Maurice Wheeler noted that as far as the selection of representatives for convocation went, the local clergy would ‘oppose any man the bishop likes’.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Fowler’s health was sufficiently recovered by November 1711 for him to enjoy ‘a tankard at noon’, but the issue that eventually drove him to the House in December was the prospect of peace with the French.<sup>72</sup> He arrived on the first day of the session to vote against the Tory peace proposals. His only day at the House that session, 7 Dec., proved eventful. He took the oaths after daily prayers, listened to the Queen’s Speech, and took part in the division on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ address. He was named to the committee to draw the address, but one contemporary noted that Fowler collapsed in the chamber during the proceedings.<sup>73</sup> The following day he entered his proxy in favour of arch-Whig Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich (vacated on 20 Apr. 1712). Fowler did not return to the House again that session. He was forecast as an opponent of the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House under his British title as duke of Brandon, but in the event he was absent from the vote, as was Trimnell.</p><p>Fowler survived his collapse, but was unable to return to the House. With the Whig leadership eager to maintain their voting bloc in the House, when Trimnell was absent for a short period, Fowler’s proxy was re-registered on 20 Apr. 1712 in favour of Hough (vacated on 25 May), again on 25 May in favour of Burnet, (vacated 6 June), and yet again on 6 June with John Moore (finally vacated at the end of the session on 8 July).</p><p>Fowler did not attend the parliamentary session that assembled on 9 Apr. 1713, although he was nevertheless included in a forecast in June as an opponent of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. His prolonged absence from Parliament now became a factor in planning business (and levels of Whig support) in convocation.<sup>74</sup> Missing the start of the February 1714 session, and absent from the debates and divisions of the schism bill, Fowler again attended on a single day, 21 June, to take the oaths. This was his final appearance in the House. On 23 June he registered his proxy in favour of Whig John Tyler*, bishop of Llandaff (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Age and failing health may have been only part of the reason behind Fowler’s lack of parliamentary activity in the last years of his life. It is possible that Fowler, for whom Protestant unity had always been a shibboleth, found the internecine religious politics of the early eighteenth century unedifying. Disputes between high and low churchmen threatened the Protestant solidarity that Fowler considered the basis of national security. He failed to attend the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death in August. He did not long outlive the queen, dying at Chelsea on 26 Aug. at the age of 82.</p><p>Fowler had suffered bouts of ill health since at least 1682 and started to make his will in 1706.<sup>75</sup> Changing family and financial circumstances (not least the loss of his eldest son Nathaniel in 1710) forced him to amend it on several occasions.<sup>76</sup> He had profited from the financial initiatives of his time: an investor in government securities and in the Wine Adventure, he was credited with some £156 in the list of Adventurers.<sup>77</sup> He bequeathed his annuities and shares to his five surviving children (one of whom, a linen-draper, married the daughter of James Chadwick<sup>‡</sup>). Fowler’s legacy to the Church was to secure the impropriation of Newport, Monmouthshire ensuring that the minister enjoyed an annual stipend of £10 for the duration of the lease.<sup>78</sup> Fowler was buried in Hendon churchyard; a memorial tablet was erected at a later date inside the church.<sup>79</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
FRAMPTON, Robert (1622-1708) |
<p><strong><surname>FRAMPTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1622–1708)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 27 Feb. 1689 |
cons. 27 Mar. 1681 bp. of GLOUCESTER; susp. 1 Aug. 1689 ; depr. 1 Feb. 1690 |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 26 Feb. 1622, yst. s. of Robert Frampton, farmer of Pimperne, Dorset and Elizabeth Selby. <em>educ</em>. Free sch. Blandford, Dorset; Corpus Christi, Oxf. matric. 1637; Christ Church, Oxf. BA 1641, BD and DD 1673; <em>m</em>. 10 May ?1667, Mary Caning (Canning) (<em>d</em>.1680) of Foxcote, Ilmington, Warws. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 25 May 1708; <em>will</em> 26 Feb. 1703, pr. 2 Nov. 1708.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. ord. to Charles II 1666; chap. to Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland c.1666.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Pastor Gillingham, Dorset c.1650; chap. to Thomas Bruce, earl of Elgin [S], c.1655, to Levant Co., Aleppo 1655–66, 1667–70, to Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, 1666, to Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, bt. 1671; rect. Fontmell, Dorset 1672–84,<sup>3</sup> Okeford Fitzpaine, Dorset 1679–83, Avening, Glos. 1684–85; preb. Salisbury 1672–83, Gloucester 1672–3; dean, Gloucester 1673–81; vic. Standish, Glos. 1687–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Schoolmaster, Farnham, Dorset; master Gillingham sch. Dorset bef. 1642.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, 1680, Corpus Christi, Oxf.; oil on canvas, attrib. R. More, 1691, Flaxley Abbey, Glos.; oil on canvas, bishop’s palace, Gloucester.</p> |
<p>Robert Frampton was the youngest of eight children of an ‘industrious’ Dorset farmer of a property worth some £30 a year. An ardent royalist, his studies were interrupted by the civil wars; he joined the Dorset clubmen and subsequently participated in the battle of Hambledon Hill. Ordained in secret by Robert Skinner*, bishop of Oxford, he earned a reputation for recklessly outspoken sermons during the Interregnum. He avoided further difficulty by leaving England. Through a Mr Harvey (possibly Eliab Harvey<sup>‡</sup> or one of his close relations, many of whom were prominent Turkey merchants), Frampton obtained a chaplaincy at Aleppo at double the usual salary on account of ‘extraordinary merit’.<sup>4</sup> He remained in the Middle East for more than a decade, travelling extensively, and making an important ally in Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, the ambassador at Constantinople after the Restoration, for whom he acted as a conduit of overseas intelligence.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Frampton returned to England in the summer of 1666. In September he delivered a sermon to the king that declared the devastation caused by the Great Plague and the Fire of London to be divine retribution on a sinful nation and exhorted the monarch to set an example and ‘invite all those of your court and the nobility and gentry to righteous action and to countenance virtue and discount and punish vice’.<sup>6</sup> He was invited to repeat the sermon at court, and was so successful as a preacher that Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> found the pews at his church ‘crammed by twice as many people’ as usual to hear the man who preached ‘the most like an apostle that I ever heard’.<sup>7</sup> Frampton returned to Aleppo after his marriage, which must have taken place in May 1667 (it is entered in the registers among the marriages of 1667 but is dated there as 1666, which must be an error; the license was issued in January 1667). He was recalled from Aleppo in 1670 at his own request and arrived in England in May 1671 (meeting on the way in Florence Henry Howard*, later duke of Norfolk, who would become one of Frampton’s patrons. He took up positions as preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and as chaplain for Lord Keeper Bridgeman.<sup>8</sup> Bridgeman presented him to prebends at Gloucester and Salisbury, and by 1673 well known at court, and noticed by the king for two sermons he had preached there (which had mildly criticized the court), he was made dean of Gloucester.<sup>9</sup></p><p>When it became apparent in late 1680 that the bishop of Gloucester, John Pritchett*, was about to die, Henry Compton*, bishop of London recommended Frampton to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury as Pritchett’s successor.<sup>10</sup> Frampton made the usual display of reluctance to accept such an honour and was particularly concerned about the financial implications of promotion. The see was worth only £600 p.a. and he expected to spend £400 of it on the fees associated with the appointment as well as ‘I know not what’ for a celebratory dinner. Arrangements were made for him to continue to hold three livings in commendam (though by December 1681 he was asking Compton for further provision, the ‘addition of some good parsonage’ to the bishopric).<sup>11</sup> Frampton was consecrated at Oxford while Parliament was sitting there in March 1681, on the day before its dissolution.<sup>12</sup></p><p>According to Frampton, Pritchett had left the diocese in considerable disorder. He intended to preach, exhort and rebuke because action was necessary in a ‘world of pitiful vicarages’ that militated against conformity.<sup>13</sup> In January 1682 Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, then styled Lord Herbert, was seeking the support of Frampton for his campaign against dissent.<sup>14</sup> By March, Frampton was able to report that four conventicles had already been dissolved and that the rest were ‘tottering’.<sup>15</sup> A hagiographical account of his life stresses Frampton’s conciliatory stance, his emphasis on teaching and his willingness to forego the fees of those prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts who showed themselves ‘tractable’. Writing to Sancroft, Frampton naturally highlighted his own role but also acknowledged that the magistracy and gentry had ‘cheerfully’ assisted.<sup>16</sup></p><p>His response to the desecration of Barrington parish church in the summer of 1682 by Thomas Wharton* (later 5th Baron Wharton) and his brother shows Frampton’s wariness in dealing with a potentially powerful opponent. Having devised a suitable punishment (penance in the church and a contribution to the costs of repair), he sought advice from Sancroft and Compton as to whether this was ‘prudent, practicable and sufficient … though I am an old man I am but young in these affairs, and may misstep if I have not good directions’. He later justified his lenience by insisting that the Whartons were ‘true penitents’ and pointing out that they were not under his jurisdiction as they did not live in his diocese.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Frampton’s emphasis on securing an amicable alliance with the corporation and local gentry was challenged by the feud between the city and his dean, Edward Fowler*, later bishop of Gloucester. Fowler, who was opposed to the persecution of dissent and hostile to Toryism, gave a sermon in the cathedral in August 1683 which upset the corporation so much that they voted not to go to church if he were to preach again. Frampton was at a loss as to how to mend the quarrel: he was sure both sides were loyal but both were too ‘warm’ to compromise. Matters deteriorated still further when Fowler had his sermon printed. In December Frampton asked Sancroft to give Fowler ‘some good counsel that he may sacrifice … [and] when he cometh next leave me less embroiled for I am brought into the sewage too on his account and suffer no small reproach because I will not absolutely pronounce against him’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Despite Frampton’s constant claims of poverty, on the death of William Gulston*, bishop of Bristol, in April 1684, he asked for translation to that see. Bristol was worth less than Gloucester but the diocese included Dorset, ‘mine own dear country whereof I am generally beloved by rich and poor’. Frampton may have been wearied by the continuing dispute over Fowler, for in June 1684 he anticipated further confrontations and again beseeched Sancroft to prevent this by giving ‘good counsel’ to Fowler. Indeed, in September, when Fowler again preached in the cathedral, the corporation locked the pews, provoking disorder when the townspeople tried to climb over the rails. Fowler was then charged with assault on a corporation officer (unjustly according to Frampton). For all his earlier claims of harmony between cathedral and corporation, Frampton now referred to the corporation’s ‘affronts and wicked libels with which without any cause I have been pestered for three or four years last past. I am almost weary of my life, but most certainly of my office; were there any way for me to lay it down with decency’. The following month he wrote again of his desire to escape such squabbles and retire into private life.<sup>19</sup></p><p>With the accession of James II, and the calling of a new Parliament, Frampton was in May 1685 at last able to take his seat in the House of Lords. He attended for almost half of the sittings, but was named to only two select committees. On 25 May he was ordered to preach before the House on the anniversary of the Restoration. His preaching soon brought him to the unwelcome attention of the king (who was said to be appreciative of his sermons, despite the hostility of other Catholics at court).<sup>20</sup> In March 1686 he learned that the king had complained to Sancroft about the content of a sermon given at Whitehall. Frampton assured Sancroft that he had spoken ‘to his majesty’s service and honour’ but he was not ashamed to admit that it was ‘much to the honour of my dear mother, the Church of England … and I shall never repent of it’. He ingenuously went on to remark that ‘I take it for granted that his sacred majesty, being a most generous prince, will never have the worse opinion of me for it.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>Frampton soon found himself directly experiencing the king’s catholicizing policies. By May 1687 the mayor of Gloucester was a Catholic and the chapter was instructed to elect his priest to a prebend. They refused. Frampton also used the pulpit to criticize Henry Compton’s suspension from office in 1687 and even took up his case with the king.<sup>22</sup> Not surprisingly he was listed with the majority of his episcopal colleagues as an opponent of the repeal of the Test. In April 1688 he refused to allow the second Declaration of Indulgence to be read in his diocese. He signed the bishops’ petition against the Declaration on 21 May 1688, having arrived in London on 18 May, just too late to accompany his episcopal colleagues when they presented it to the king. After the imprisonment of the original seven signatories, Frampton voluntarily joined his colleagues in the Tower.<sup>23</sup> In August the king threatened to remove him from one of his livings: nevertheless the following month Frampton instituted one of the suspended fellows of Magdalen College to a living in his gift. And he was still sufficiently influential in Gloucestershire to be approached to act as mediator in an attempt to avert a contest at the election that James II was expected to call in the autumn of 1688.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Frampton took his seat in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 but found it difficult to come to terms with the revolution. Before William and Mary were declared king and queen, he pointedly preached before the prince on the theme of ambition; William is said to have observed that ‘the bishop of Gloucester don’t expect a translation’. Frampton opposed all attempts to declare the prince and princess of Orange king and queen. He was present throughout the debates on the wording of the declaration and supported the majority episcopal view that the throne was not vacant. He entered a protest against the final critical vote on 6 Feb.; according to his biographer he signed his name ‘in much larger characters than he had usually entered any other protest’, though Frampton’s limited parliamentary career meant that this was in fact the only protest he ever signed. Frampton himself merely said that he entered his name in capital letters. He is also said to have refused to read prayers in the House for the new king and queen when summoned to do so by Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford). A difficult situation was averted only by the arrival of a more junior bishop, relieving Frampton of his obligation.<sup>25</sup> He did not attend the House on 13 Feb. when William and Mary came to hear the proclamation, but returned on 18 Feb. and was present the next day, when the House debated the legality of the Convention. Frampton attended the House for only four more days in February 1689 and did not return after 27 February.</p><p>His refusal to take the new oaths meant that he faced deprivation. On Christmas Eve 1689, Frampton asked Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (formerly earl of Danby, later duke of Leeds), to move the House to ‘tailor’ the legislation so that a tiny minority, or he alone, might ‘atone’ for clergy facing deprivation.<sup>26</sup> No such attempt was made. The Gloucestershire grand jury petitioned against his deprivation.<sup>27</sup> He may have been offered refuge by the Boevey family at Flaxley Abbey, but Compton and Fowler both claimed credit for arranging for Frampton to remain at Standish rectory, which he had rebuilt, a contrivance that prompted Sancroft to remark waspishly that this favour to Frampton was a strategy ‘to convince us who have not been so supple, that … we too might at last have had a feather of our own goose, restored, to stick in our caps’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In his enforced retirement Frampton continued to attend church, to catechize, to give communion and to preach. He was on friendly terms with both Fowler and William Wake*, the future bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of Canterbury. He intervened in elections to Convocation. He even declared that if James II were to invade with the assistance of foreigners he would be prepared to take up arms against him. When Frampton was suspected of collecting monies in connection with the Assassination Plot in 1696, Compton defended him, incurring a rebuke from the king. Not surprisingly the non-juror Henry Dodwell regarded him as a turncoat who abetted schism, while George Hickes merely remarked that ‘he never was in my esteem of our Communion’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>By 1703 Frampton was no longer a celebrity, ‘almost as much forgotten, as if he had been long in the grave’. Three years later he was living a solitary life with his books ‘with which amusement he pushes on the heavy minutes, and wonders why he cannot die’.<sup>30</sup> He eventually did so on Whitsunday 1708 and was buried in Standish church. In 1689 he had claimed that he was ‘the poorest bishop in England’, with some £600 at his disposal ‘besides little household stuff, a brace of horses and a colt two years of age, with some few books’, but by the time of his death he was able to bequeath in excess of £1,000.<sup>31</sup> A childless widower, he provided for Esther Withers, who had served him for over 30 years, leaving each of her two daughters a dowry of £200.<sup>32</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
FREWEN, Accepted (1588-1664) |
<p><strong><surname>FREWEN</surname></strong> (<strong>FREWIN</strong>), <strong>Accepted</strong> (1588–1664)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 19 May 1662 |
cons. 28 Apr. 1644 bp. of LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY; transl. 4 Oct. 1660 abp. of YORK |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 23 May 1588, eldest s. of John Frewin, rect. Northiam, Suss. and Eleanor (surname unknown) (<em>d</em>.1606). <em>educ.</em> Free sch. Canterbury; Magdalen Oxf. BA 1609, MA 1612, BD 1619, DD 1626; incorp. Camb. 1616. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 28 Mar. 1664; <em>will</em> 22 May 1663, pr. 23 July 1664.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I 1625.</p><p>Chap. to John Digby<sup>†</sup> (later earl of Bristol) 1617, 1621; rect. Warnford, Hants 1626-45, Stanlake, Oxon. 1635; preb. Canterbury, 1625; dean, Gloucester, 1631-43.</p><p>Fell. Magdalen, Oxf. 1612-26, pres. 1626-44; v. chan. Oxf. 1628-30, 1638-40.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Magd., Oxf.</p> |
<p>At the death in 1627 of their father, the combative Jacobean puritan John Frewen, the family real estate went to Accepted Frewen’s younger brother, Thankful. <sup>2</sup> Accepted was clearly by then destined for a successful career, and by the time of his own death, he was a wealthy man. The exact value of his estate at the time of his death is confused, but it is clear that he amassed at least £30,000 in his lifetime, including a controversial windfall, estimated at £20,000, that came from lease renewals at the Restoration.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Frewen’s advancement was aided by his link to the court through his brother, Thankful, purse bearer and secretary to the lord keeper, Sir Thomas Coventry<sup>†</sup> (later Baron Coventry), who had also been a patron of his father’s.<sup>4</sup> He accompanied John Digby<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bristol, on his diplomatic mission to the Emperor Ferdinand in 1621, and to Spain in 1622, where Frewen’s encounter with the young Prince Charles on his ill-conceived mission to secure the hand of the Infanta proved fruitful for his career. Ascetic in lifestyle and originally a Calvinist, in the 1630s he nevertheless became one of the chief Oxford supporters of Archbishop William Laud<sup>†</sup>, supporting his candidacy as chancellor of the university in 1630, and implementing Laud’s altar policy at Magdalen in the face of stiff resistance.<sup>5</sup></p><p>In July 1642, Frewen, along with fellow Oxford college heads John Prideaux<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Worcester, Christopher Potter and Samuel Fell, father of John Fell*, later bishop of Oxford, was accused of attempting to assist the royalist war effort by helping to convey the university plate to the king at York. The Commons ordered his arrest; according to Frewen’s biographer, a £1,000 bounty was put on his head.<sup>6</sup> He went into hiding before migrating back to royalist Oxford where he was elevated in 1644 as bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. By 1655 he was living in obscurity in London and ‘elsewhere, among his relations’, according to Wood, though he was privy to covert and ultimately abortive plans to consecrate new bishops, volunteering to return to France for the proposed ceremonies.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In September 1660 Frewen was nominated archbishop of York. There is no evidence in the proposals made in 1659 by Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, that Frewen was intended for ecclesiastical preferment, and the appointment was described as ‘strange’ by Thomas Smith*, later bishop of Carlisle, but Frewen’s closeness to Gilbert Sheldon*, the future archbishop of Canterbury (whom he referred to in his will as his ‘worthy friend’, leaving him with responsibility for overseeing his bequest to Magdalen College) perhaps explains the preferment.<sup>8</sup> Not only was he translated to the prestigious see of York, but as recompense for his financial losses during the civil wars and Interregnum, he was by ‘an extraordinary act of favour’ permitted to grant leases on his former bishopric during its lengthy vacancy while the see was offered to Richard Baxter and (according to Wood) several others. He estimated the value of new leases at £1200; later it was estimated that he had generated at least £1,500, which, Le Neve claimed, was spent on refurbishing Lichfield cathedral.<sup>9</sup> His brief tenure of York meant that Frewen had little impact on the diocese except for his regularization of cathedral worship and fabric.<sup>10</sup> By December 1662 he told Sheldon that he had spent more than £3000 in repairing Bishopsthorpe, the episcopal palace, plus £300 on fitting and furnishing the chapel, and he was expecting to spend much more. By 1664 he was adding to this numerous small benefactions in augmenting ‘liberally’ all vicarages in his gift, the augmentation of rents for the benefit of his successors, which required him to abate fines, and charitable gifts to distressed cavaliers. <sup>11</sup> There is no evidence of his involvement in parliamentary elections in York itself, where a royalist victory was assured by the personal intervention of the king, but in 1661 Frewen did exercise his electoral interest in the liberty of Ripon; he opposed both of the successful candidates from the 1660 elections – the Presbyterian, Henry Arthington<sup>‡</sup>, and the corporation candidate, Edmund Jennings<sup>‡</sup>, and successfully interposed his diocesan chancellor, Thomas Burwell<sup>‡</sup>, for one of the Ripon seats.<sup>12</sup></p><p>According to Wood Frewen attended the Worcester House Conference in October 1660, though this has since been doubted.<sup>13</sup> In March 1661 he was the most senior bishop at the Savoy Conference, although he participated little in the proceedings: Richard Baxter wrote that he attended only once or twice.<sup>14</sup> He was also involved in Convocation throughout the spring and summer of 1661 in the prayer book revisions, but like William Juxon*, archbishop of Canterbury, he seems to have been no more than an ecclesiastical figurehead.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Frewen took his seat in the House on 20 Nov. 1661. He attended the session for just over 50 per cent of the sittings and was named to nine committees, reporting from one (the Hull churches bill) on 11 December. He was present throughout the passage of the uniformity bill and on 24 Feb. 1662 was absent from the House, attending the Privy Council while the king approved the revised prayer book.<sup>16</sup> He was in the House the following day for the king’s recommendation to the House of the new Anglican liturgy. On 19 May 1662 he was present for the prorogation and did not return to Parliament. By August he was in his diocese, struggling with ‘the ordering of my numerous family within doors, and receiving of hourly welcomes from without’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Frewen, who received a report from the York postmaster in April 1662 about ‘persons formerly known as enemies of the king and Church’, only arrived in his diocese in July 1662 to prepare for the Bartholomew’s day ejections.<sup>18</sup> Writing to Sheldon 11 days before the Act of Uniformity took effect, he described an enthusiastic welcome in York and among the surrounding gentry (‘venison huddles in daily, even from the Lord Fairfax [Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Lord Fairfax] with sundry others’), and his intention to hold an ordination the following Sunday.<sup>19</sup> He performed 81 ordinations to prevent ejections under the Act of Uniformity.<sup>20</sup> The area around York was noted for radical puritanism. Frewen wrote in June 1663 to John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, with whom he enjoyed a close correspondence, referring to the ‘routing’ of a Presbyterian conventicle in York and hoping for legislation against nonconformist meetings.<sup>21</sup> He did little, however, to participate in it. On 6 Dec. 1662, hoping to obtain leave of absence from the House until April to save himself from the attendant ‘inconveniences’, not least the temporary disbandment of his household (of some 40 servants), Frewen sent Sheldon his proxy, which was registered on 17 Jan. 1663.<sup>22</sup> He did not attend the parliamentary session that ran from 18 Feb. to 27 July 1663, and at a call of the House on 23 Feb. 1663 it was noted that he was excused. On 13 July 1663, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, predicted that Frewen’s proxy would be used to oppose the impeachment attempt on Clarendon by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In January 1664, during a quarrel between the cathedral clergy and the city governors over seating in York minster (precipitated by Frewen’s reorganizations) the archbishop fell dangerously ill.<sup>24</sup> He lingered for two months and on 2 Mar. 1664 again entered his proxy in favour of Sheldon for use during the spring 1664 parliamentary session. He died on the morning of 28 Mar. 1664, too soon to hear about the passage of the conventicles bill.</p><p>Frewen never married. He was said to be so misogynistic that he would not even allow female servants in his household.<sup>25</sup> His numerous bequests included a sum of £500 to Magdalen College, personal gifts to Gilbert Sheldon and to John Warner*, bishop of Rochester, and a ring worth 30 shillings to every English bishop as well as the poor and his servants. The residue of his considerable fortune went to his brother Stephen (a wealthy London citizen and alderman of Vintry ward), who invested over £28,000 of the inheritance with the senior City financier, Sir Robert Vyner and suffered severe financial losses during the stop on the Exchequer.<sup>26</sup> The extent to which Frewen had profited from the renewal of Church leases, especially during the vacancy at Coventry and Lichfield, became the subject of some controversy: Le Neve’s claim that he had expended £15,000 in the diocese was treated with polite scepticism by several historians of York, including Browne Willis<sup>‡</sup> (who could ‘find nothing in him of a public spirit’) and Francis Drake (who could find no evidence of anything except at Bishopthorpe), and furiously defended by Frewen’s descendant Thomas Frewen.<sup>27</sup> After lying in state at a house in the Cathedral Close, Frewen was buried on 3 May 1664 in the Lady Chapel at the east end of York Minster, where a large monument was shortly after erected.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
FULLER, William (c. 1608/9-75) |
<p><strong><surname>FULLER</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1608/9-75)</p> |
|
|
First sat 10 Oct. 1667; last sat 24 Feb. 1674 |
cons. 20 Mar. 1664 bp. of Limerick; transl. 1667 bp. of LINCOLN |
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1608-9, s. of Thomas Fuller of London. <em>educ.</em> Westminster. Sch.; Magdalen Hall, Oxf. 1626–30; St Edmund Hall, Oxf. BCL 1632; ord. deacon 1635, priest 1639; DCL Oxf. 1660; incorp. LLD Dublin 1661.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 23 Apr. 1675; <em>will</em> 21 Apr., pr. 24 Apr 1675.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. Christ Church, Oxf. 1639; rect. St Mary Woolchurch, London, June–Dec. 1641, Ewhurst, Suss. 1641, seq. 1644, Tradery, Killaloe 1664–7;<sup>3</sup> chap. to Edward Littleton<sup>†</sup>, Baron Lyttleton, 1645; dean, St Patrick’s, Dublin 1660–6; treas. Christ Church, Dublin 1661–4; chan. Dromore 1662.</p><p>Schoolmaster, Twickenham, Surr. c.1649–61.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, 1667, Ch. Ch., Oxf.</p> |
<p>After sequestration in 1644, William Fuller spent his enforced retirement travelling in Europe and then tutoring children of the political and social elite at his school in Twickenham, where his pupils included James Russell<sup>‡</sup>, son of the parliamentarian-turned-royalist William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, as well as Edward Montagu* (later 2nd earl of Sandwich), son and namesake of the parliamentarian admiral.<sup>4</sup> Unlike other prospective bishops he had not published tracts on Anglican theology, but this drawback to promotion within the Church seems to have been counterbalanced by his influential contacts and his name was included on the Church planning lists as one of the ‘worthy men to be preferred to dignities’.<sup>5</sup> He was rewarded at the Restoration with a post as dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin, where he supported the vigorous imposition of Anglican conformity, encouraged by the Irish episcopal bench and James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] who was created earl of Brecknock in the English peerage a few days after Fuller’s preferment. Fuller also become a man of business for the Irish primate, John Bramhall, and regularly travelled between Dublin and London, reporting parliamentary news from England to his Irish colleagues and representing the concerns of the Irish Church in London.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In August 1663 Fuller was elevated to the see of Limerick but he remained in close touch with his London political contacts and used his friend George Morley*, recently promoted to Winchester,as an intermediary to secure the support of Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> to gain a commendam.<sup>7</sup> He was subsequently in regular correspondence with Williamson, and through him with Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, supplying intelligence about the state of his diocese. Although Williamson was very much younger than Fuller, the two men were clearly on friendly terms. In May 1669, referring to a client’s gratitude to Williamson for a recent favour, Fuller wrote ‘I told them not to thank or esteem you the more for it, as you could not be other unless you would offer violence to your nature, for which I fell in love with you. Continue me in your affection, as you are in mine.’<sup>8</sup></p><p>Fuller’s network of contacts seems to have stretched into the English House of Commons. In 1665 he was one of a group of lobbyists who ‘left nothing undone to stave’ off the passage of the Irish cattle bill through that House.<sup>9</sup> One reason for his interest in English politics and parliamentary affairs was his desire for an English (or Welsh) bishopric. He was clearly happy to accept a minor bishopric, where the revenues would be far lower than those of Limerick, which suggests that he could call on private sources of wealth. In May 1667 he expected a translation to St Asaph as part of the proposed reshuffle that would bring Henry Glemham*, dean of Bristol, into the episcopate. When Glemham settled for St Asaph, Fuller was nominated to Lincoln.<sup>10</sup> Unlike both his predecessors and his successor, he based himself in the city of Lincoln, where he spent heavily on the refurbishment of the cathedral and indulged his elaborate aesthetic sense in the purchase of vestments and other liturgical trappings.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Fuller took his seat at the start of business on 10 Oct. 1667; Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> recorded with pride the sight of his friend seated in the House of Lords. He attended this session for 67 per cent of sittings and was named to 35 select committees. He was present throughout the impeachment proceedings against Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and joined the majority of the bishops in support of the chancellor. In January 1668, when there was much talk of an attempt to introduce toleration or comprehension, he told Pepys it would come to nothing.<sup>12</sup> He nevertheless found it necessary to combat public confusion on the subject: in June 1669, when he thanked the corporation of Grantham for the suppression of a dissenting meeting he took the opportunity to send them proof ‘that his majesty is abused by false reports’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Fuller failed to attend the opening of the October to December 1669 session and on 26 Oct. was excused attendance on the grounds of illness. He was subsequently present for two-thirds of sitting days and was named to four select committees. He returned to Westminster on 14 Feb. 1670 for the first day of the next session and attended just over half of all sittings. On 17 Mar. he voted against the second reading of the controversial bill to allow the divorce and remarriage of John Manners*, Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland), and on 28 Mar. he registered his dissent against the passage of the bill.</p><p>Following the adjournment in April 1670, Fuller became involved in investigations of political activity in London, which he reported to Arlington. His servant was unable to enter one meeting house so went to another where the ‘preacher prayed that the king’s evil counsellors might be converted or destroyed, the land covered with blood, and the Lord’s people defended against their enemies’. He continued, ‘The trumpet sounded thus before the late rebellion.’<sup>14</sup> Fuller was again excused as ill on 14 Nov. 1670 but he soon returned to the House and attended regularly until the prorogation the following April.</p><p>In August 1671 he conducted a visitation of Leicestershire, where he encountered widespread panic engendered by a rumour that the king was about to seize all unbranded livestock. He told Williamson that,</p><blockquote><p>The thing itself is very ridiculous, but is not to be slighted, because it discovers the ill opinion too many weak men have of the government, that they believe anything that knaves report on the least suggestion against it. This report doubtless was, if not raised, yet forwarded by the factious schismatics who endeavour all they can to bring monarchy into hatred and contempt, for the setting up of a Commonwealth.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>Although vigorously opposed to Dissent, he was convinced that most people were well affected to the Church and was careful to avoid confrontational tactics that would alienate local support. As a result he was able to conclude his letter by describing his success in gaining ‘the love of the gentry and kindness of the people, who wherever I come, depart well satisfied with the severity of my proceedings’. His success in marginalizing Dissenters left him particularly dismayed at the encouragement offered to them by the brief toleration introduced by the 1672 Declaration of Indulgence. He complained that ‘All these licensed persons grow insolent and increase strangely. The orthodox poor clergy are out of heart. Shall nothing be done to support them against the Presbyterians, who grow and multiply faster than the other?’<sup>16</sup></p><p>In January 1673 Fuller suffered a severe fit of gout (a recurrent condition) and was again excused attendance at the House.<sup>17</sup> He did not attend the first session of that year at all. His illness did not present him from conducting business by letter, however, and a stray survival of February 1673 shows that he was still acting as a conduit for Anglo-Irish communications: prompted by the Irish chancellor he asked Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, to take notice of the ‘great justice, and friendliness to our church there’ of the lord lieutenant Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Fuller also missed the brief second session of 1673. He arrived at the spring 1674 session at the start of business on 7 Jan. but was then absent until the end of the month through illness (he was excused attendance on 12 Jan. as ‘not well’); overall he attended 34 per cent of sittings. In February he supported the measure introduced by Morley to strengthen the unity of English Protestants by dispensing with two of the more contentious clauses in the Act of Uniformity.<sup>19</sup> He attended the House for the final time on 24 Feb. 1674, when Parliament was prorogued.</p><p>Towards the end of his life, Fuller battled with persistent pain and illness. He was too weak to attend the session in the spring of 1675 and registered his proxy in favour of Morley. It was almost certainly to be used in support of the Test proposed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). This proxy was vacated by Fuller’s death on 23 Apr. 1675. Two days before he died Fuller composed his will, appointing Morley as its overseer. Unlike many of his fellow bishops, he felt no compulsion to restate his theological position, but vindicated himself for having entered into litigation in the court of arches against the ‘encroachments of ungodly men’. A lifelong bachelor, he made the three residuary beneficiaries his nephew Thomas Fuller, Mary Farmery, the wife of his executor, and her sister, Sarah Bligh. He requested ‘decent’ burial near to his sister to one side of the tomb of St Hugh in Lincoln cathedral.</p><p>During his life Fuller appears to have been well liked and to have avoided the sort of confrontational disputes that marked the careers of some of his more intransigent episcopal colleagues. His most controversial moment came several years after his death. In the course of the exclusionist campaign against James Stuart*, duke of York, and investigations into the Popish Plot, the radical pamphleteer Robert Ferguson asserted that James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, was the legitimate heir to the throne, claiming that Fuller, conveniently unable to refute the allegations, had performed a marriage ceremony between the exiled Charles II and Monmouth’s mother, Lucy Walter.<sup>20</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
GARDINER, James (1637-1705) |
<p><strong><surname>GARDINER</surname></strong> (<strong>GARDNER</strong>), <strong>James</strong> (1637–1705)</p> |
|
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1695; last sat 14 Mar. 1704 |
cons. 10 Mar. 1695 bp. of LINCOLN |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1637, 2nd s. of Adrian Gardiner of Nottingham, apothecary, and 2nd w. <em>educ</em>. Emmanuel, Camb. matric. 1649, BA 1653, MA 1656; incorp. Brasenose, Oxf. 1665; DD 1669. <em>m</em>. lic. 1 Aug. 1677, Anne Hale (1656-1703), of Kettlethorpe, Lincs. 3s. 2da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 1 Mar. 1705; <em>will</em> 12 May 1704, pr. 20 Mar. 1705.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Preb. Lincoln 1661-98, Salisbury 1666-71; rect. Epworth, Lincs. 1668-95, Gedney, Lincs. 1671;<sup>3</sup> sub-dean, Lincoln 1671-95.</p><p>Chap. to James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, bef. 1667, to Life Guards, 1668-85.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Mary Beale, c.1695, Lambeth Palace; oil on canvas, Emmanuel, Camb.</p> |
<p>Very little is known about the career of James Gardiner prior to his appointment as chaplain to Monmouth. A Cambridge contemporary of Richard Kidder*, later bishop of Bath and Wells, elevated, like himself, under William III, Gardiner spent most of his pastoral life in Lincolnshire, as a parish minister and as a member of the Lincoln chapter. An attempt to secure a fellowship at his old Cambridge college in 1662 appears to have been unsuccessful.<sup>5</sup> Well regarded at court, he received crown preferments at Salisbury and Epworth in 1666 and 1668, and in 1671 became sub-dean of Lincoln, in accordance with an earlier promise. It was presumably through his connection with Monmouth that he secured the chaplaincy of the Life Guards, of which Monmouth was colonel. Gardiner appears to have lived in comfortable financial circumstances and, by the time of his death, owned properties in Dean’s Yard, Westminster as well as in Bleasby and Asgarby, Lincolnshire.<sup>6</sup> He also sued successfully for <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against William Hide, later rector of Eversholt, with whom he had an ongoing controversy over the latter’s moral standing, but the amount of recovered damages is unclear.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In June 1672 Gardiner was granted a licence to attend Monmouth on his overseas expeditions and to enjoy his ecclesiastical preferments during his absence. It is unclear whether Gardiner’s association with Monmouth subsequently harmed his career prospects, but in September 1681 he was passed over for the deanery of Lincoln.<sup>8</sup> Since Gardiner had not only solicited for the deanery but written a job profile for which he was the ideal candidate, the episode caused some bitterness. He was swift to criticize the new dean as absent ‘in mind if not in body’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>At the height of the Tory reaction, questions seem to have been asked about Gardiner’s loyalty. On 29 May 1683 Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup> requested information about Gardiner from Edward Conway*, earl of Conway. By July, almost certainly aware of the invidious position in which he found himself (and mindful that the king had failed to promote him in 1681), Gardiner was active in submitting information about exclusionists in his Lincolnshire parish of Epworth.<sup>10</sup> Gardiner’s activities during Monmouth’s rebellion are not clear but he may well have opted to steer well clear of the business. That year he made another unsuccessful pitch for the deanery of Lincoln, claiming that he had lost income through the expiry of his chaplaincy to the guards.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Gardiner continued for the next ten years as sub-dean of Lincoln. He enjoyed a prickly relationship with his diocesan – the notoriously negligent Thomas Barlow*, but became a staunch ally of Barlow’s replacement, Thomas Tenison*.<sup>12</sup> With Tenison’s translation to Canterbury in 1695, Gardiner’s career prospects took an instant upturn. Gardiner was consecrated by Tenison on 10 Mar. with a licence to hold his Lincoln prebend <em>in</em> <em>commendam</em> for three years.<sup>13</sup> Although the Lincoln cathedral interest was ‘a force to be reckoned with’ in city government, Gardiner’s political role in his diocese is unclear.<sup>14</sup> He became an ‘exemplary’ diocesan, though, conducting triennial visitations in 1697, 1700 and 1703, encouraging collegiality amongst his clergy and insisting on frequent preaching, moral rigour and bureaucratic efficiency.<sup>15</sup></p><p>On 21 Mar. 1695 Gardiner received his writ of summons.<sup>16</sup> On the same day (more than four months into the session) he took his seat in the House and attended for 13 days before the close on 3 May. Gardiner seems to have been relatively conscientious in his parliamentary duties despite absences at the start and end of many sessions. He attended ten of the 11 parliamentary sessions held during his tenure of the see of Lincoln and was named to a total of 120 committees. His London network at this time included the diarist John Evelyn, William Lloyd*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, and his patron Tenison, with whom he actively supported the voluntary reform movements. His persistent calls for moral reform reflected his negative perception of the moral ‘malignity’ of the nation, articulated in his preface to the sermons of William Outram.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Having spent the summer months in Lincoln (he left London for Lincoln at the end of April 1695), Gardiner returned to Westminster.<sup>18</sup> Present for the start of the new parliamentary session on 22 Nov., he attended for 58 per cent of sittings. On 11 Dec. Gardiner called for a ‘national reformation’ of morals and manners when he preached before the House of Lords on Psalm 79.<sup>19</sup> Ten weeks later, on 27 Feb. 1696, he signed the Association. He was then absent for the last four weeks of business. Over the summer and into the autumn he was involved in a controversy with John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, about the erection of a gallery in Ampthill church. Gardiner initially blocked Ashburnham’s plans, taking the part of Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who complained that the new structure would take light away from the church (and particularly from Ailesbury’s private pew). Gardiner referred the matter to Canterbury and to Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> and seems to have been eager to delay arriving at a determination. By the second week of November Ashburnham’s patience was clearly running out. Gardiner was eventually forced to give way.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Gardiner arrived at Westminster four weeks into the following parliamentary session that had assembled on 20 October. He attended for just under one third of sittings. As a staunch supporter of the government, he voted on 23 Dec. for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. On 19 Feb. 1697 he registered his proxy in favour of Thomas Tenison. He attended the following day but was then absent for the last two months of the session.</p><p>During the summer of 1697 Gardiner undertook his primary visitation, preceded by a lengthy ‘advice’ to the clergy on preaching, pastoral work, and residence.<sup>21</sup> He was back at the House on 3 Dec. for the first day of the session and attended for 60 per cent of sittings. On 24 May 1698 Gardiner was named a manager of the conference on the bill for suppressing blasphemy. Three weeks later, on 16 June, he registered his proxy in favour of Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough, and he was absent for the remainder of the session.</p><p>Gardiner returned to the House three days after the start of the session that began in December 1698. He was present at some 35 per cent of sittings. In a pattern that was now becoming familiar, he missed the last nine weeks of the session. He also arrived four weeks late for the winter 1699 session, after which he attended some 58 per cent of sittings. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning into committee on the East India Company bill.</p><p>On 8 Mar. Gardiner registered his protest against the resolution to give a second reading to the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. In doing so Gardiner, allied with Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely and Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, from the Whig side of the episcopal bench, joined with the Tories Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, and Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, on the grounds that the divorce case had not been brought before the ecclesiastical courts in the first instance. On 12 Mar. Gardiner dissented from the resolution that the divorce bill pass.</p><p>Having been ‘dangerously ill’, Gardiner arrived at the House on 24 Mar. 1701, six weeks after the start of the ensuing session.<sup>22</sup> He attended for 54 per cent of sittings. In mid May it was noted that he was one of those to have ‘adhered to the side of the impeached lords’, and on 17 June he voted to acquit John Somers*, Baron Somers; on 23 June, the penultimate day of the session, he also voted against the impeachment of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford.</p><p>Gardiner arrived at the House on 19 Jan. 1702, three weeks into the next parliamentary session (attending for 41 per cent of sittings). On 26 Feb. he took a strong Church line when he dissented from the resolution that the Quaker affirmation bill pass into law. He attended the session for the last time on 20 Apr., again missing the final weeks of business. He was, however, active in Convocation (which was locked in a bitter partisan struggle throughout the spring of 1702) where he acted as Tenison’s commissary.<sup>23</sup> He also, on 11 May, sat in the court of delegates in the case of James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, against John Thompson*, Baron Haversham.<sup>24</sup> During the summer recess, on 14 Sept., he deputized for Tenison by conducting ordinations on his behalf.<sup>25</sup></p><p>The accession of Queen Anne was greeted warmly in the diocese of Lincoln (and with a loyal address from the dean and chapter).<sup>26</sup> Gardiner was present in the House on 20 Oct. 1702 for the first day of the new Parliament, after which he was present for 40 per cent of sittings. On 3 Dec. the bill against occasional conformity was read for a second time. After the debate on Somers’ motion to restrict the bill to those persons covered by the Test Act, Gardiner joined a cross-party grouping of bishops to vote with the non-contents. The result was a tied vote that only tipped in favour of the contents by the use of proxies.<sup>27</sup></p><p>On 26 Dec. Gardiner attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth Palace.<sup>28</sup> Shortly afterwards, in an estimate of support for the occasional conformity bill, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, assumed that Gardiner would oppose the measure. On 16 Jan. 1703 Gardiner voted (as expected) to adhere to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause in the bill. At the start of February Gardiner was overtaken by personal tragedy. While discussing with William Nicolson the ‘foolish entertainment’ provided for French officers at Oxford by Arthur Charlett, news came in that Gardiner’s wife Anne, who was known to suffer from depression, had committed suicide by jumping from a window of their house in Dean’s Yard. An alternative and more acceptable explanation was that she had fallen from the window ‘being under some disorder of mind’.<sup>29</sup> He absented himself from the remainder of the parliamentary session.</p><p>By November 1703 it was still assumed that Gardiner would oppose any new attempt to pass an occasional conformity bill. Arriving at the House four weeks into the autumn session, his pattern of parliamentary activity appears little changed. He attended for some 39 per cent of sittings. At the end of November or beginning of December in his second forecast of opposition to the occasional conformity bill, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, assumed that Gardiner would vote with the Whig side of the House. As predicted, on 14 Dec., Gardiner voted to throw out the bill.</p><p>Gardiner attended the House for the final time on 14 Mar. 1704. On 6 Nov. he entered his proxy in favour of John Williams*, bishop of Chichester. Seventeen days later he was excused at a call of the House. On 1 Mar. 1705, at the age of 68, he died at his house in Dean’s Yard.<sup>30</sup></p><p>An enthusiastic antiquary, Gardiner bequeathed to Lincoln public library his manuscript volumes of antiquities compiled by Robert Sanderson*, the first post-Restoration bishop of Lincoln. He left mourning rings to Tenison and to John Sharp*, archbishop of York. His properties in Westminster and Lincolnshire went to his sons James (who followed his father as sub-dean of Lincoln in 1704), William (later rector of Hambleton, Rutland) and Charles. He also left £1,500 to each of his daughters, Ann and Jane, at their majority or date of marriage. The farms in Bleasby, Lincolnshire that he had purchased with £3,000 in 1677 (under the terms of his marriage agreement), passed to his eldest son James. Gardiner was buried in Lincoln Cathedral and succeeded by his fellow Whig, William Wake*, later archbishop of Canterbury.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
GASTRELL, Francis (1662-1725) |
<p><strong><surname>GASTRELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1662–1725)</p> |
|
|
First sat 5 Apr. 1714; last sat 19 Apr. 1725 |
cons. 4 Apr. 1714 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 10 May 1662, 2nd s. of Henry Gastrell of Slapton, Northants. gent. and Elizabeth, da. of Edward Bagshaw<sup>‡</sup> of Morton Pinkney, Northants. <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1677-80; Christ Church Oxf. matric. 1680, BA 1684, MA 1687, BD 1694, DD 1700; ord. deacon 1689, priest 1690. <em>m</em>. 20 Aug. 1703, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. 21 Jan. 1761), da. of Rev. John Mapletoft, professor of physic at Gresham Coll., rect. Braybrooke, Northants. and vic. St Lawrence Jewry. 1s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da. <em>d</em>. 24 Nov. 1725; <em>will</em> 2 Jan. 1724, pr. 26 Nov. 1725.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Anne 1711.</p><p>Preacher, L. Inn 1694-1714; chap. to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, 1700-14; canon Christ Church 1703-25; proctor in convoc. 1711.</p><p>Boyle Lecturer 1697; commr. 50 new churches 1711; mbr. SPG 1711.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas, by M. Dahl c.1720, Christ Church, Oxf; line engraving by G. Vertue, after M. Dahl, 1728, NPG D27453.</p> |
<p>Francis Gastrell, a prolific theologian and politically ambitious Tory churchman, was the second son of a ‘gentleman of property’ of Northamptonshire whose family was descended from the Gastrells of Gloucestershire. At Westminster School, Gastrell was a contemporary of Francis Atterbury*, bishop of Rochester, and of George Smalridge*, bishop of Bristol. Ordained in the aftermath of the 1688 Revolution, Gastrell’s reputation as a theologian grew after his participation in the 1690s controversy over the doctrine of the Trinity.<sup>2</sup> His publications brought him to the attention of Robert Harley*, who appointed Gastrell as his chaplain in 1701. As such he appears to have played a pivotal role in the distribution of Harley’s ecclesiastical patronage. It was Gastrell who informed Philip Bisse*, the future bishop of St Davids, of Harley’s intervention with the queen to secure her approval for Bisse’s marriage, and it was Gastrell who kept the Rev. Ralph Bridges informed about the progress of episcopal appointments during the bishoprics crisis of 1707.<sup>3</sup> Gastrell also acted as Harley’s agent in the affairs of the University of Oxford. In December 1712, when factional infighting threatened to get out of hand, Gastrell spent an entire afternoon with Simon Harcourt*, Baron, later Viscount Harcourt, discussing the disputes at Christ Church caused by the contest between Atterbury and Smalridge.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Appointed royal chaplain in 1711, Gastrell gained an even higher public profile with sermons at court. With Harley, now earl of Oxford, at the head of a Tory ministry, his elevation to the episcopacy seemed assured. In July 1713 it was rumoured that Gastrell would succeed John Robinson*, as bishop of Bristol.<sup>5</sup> However, Smalridge was appointed to that see and in 1714 Gastrell was instead rewarded by Oxford for his personal and political loyalty with the see of Chester.</p><p>Gastrell received his writ of summons, took his seat in the House and took the oaths all on 5 Apr. 1714, the day that the House voted that the Protestant succession was not in danger.<sup>6</sup> Retaining his position at Christ Church, he shared his time between Westminster, Oxford and Chester, where he proved himself an assiduous bureaucrat. He compiled a complete record of every diocesan institution in the see of Chester.<sup>7</sup> According to his enemy (and successor), the low church sympathizer, Samuel Peploe<sup>†</sup>, Gastrell also used his episcopal authority in a blatantly partisan fashion.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Gastrell attended his first parliamentary session for almost 61 per cent of sittings. A sermon he delivered to the Lords at the Abbey church on 29 May took as its theme the nature of providence. Gastrell insisted that ‘If God be against us, neither skill, nor force, nor all the art and contrivance that the united wisdom of men is capable of, can stand us in any stead, or be any way serviceable for the compassing and effecting what we undertake.’ Given the queen’s state of health this was clearly a message that could be interpreted as an expression of support for opponents of the Hanoverian succession or for its proponents. It was perhaps particularly significant that whilst Gastrell attributed the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to the workings of divine providence, he made no mention of the role of providence customarily applied to the events of 1688.<sup>9</sup> Unsurprisingly, he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham as a supporter of the schism bill; on 11 June he voted to extend the schism bill to Ireland. Then, four days later, he supported the passage of the bill. On 3 July he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for the maintenance of curates. The session ended six days later. Gastrell did not attend the brief session in August 1714 called on the death of Queen Anne, but he was present on 23 Sept. 1714 to take the oaths to the new regime. The House was prorogued until 21 Oct. 1714 and Gastrell did not attend the House again until 17 Mar. 1715, the first day of the new Parliament.</p><p>Gastrell’s partisanship became even more marked after the accession of George I and he was suspected of crypto-Jacobitism. After 1715 he exchanged proxies almost exclusively with his Tory colleagues, George Smalridge, Francis Atterbury, John Robinson, William Dawes*, archbishop of York, Adam Ottley*, bishop of St Davids, and George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells. Unsurprisingly, he supported his patron Oxford against impeachment, supported Atterbury against charges of sedition and in 1717 defended the University of Oxford in the Lords when it was attacked for rioting on the birthday of the Prince of Wales. For the rest of his life he was engaged in perpetual controversy, almost always motivated by his Tory politics. Gastrell’s parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the next phase of this project.</p><p>At the age of 63, on 24 Nov. 1725, Gastrell died at Christ Church. His brief will left his (unspecified) real and personal estate to his wife and sole executor, Elizabeth Gastrell, asking her to remember his nephew who had been appointed chancellor of Chester. He was buried in Oxford at Christ Church.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
GAUDEN, John (c. 1605-62) |
<p><strong><surname>GAUDEN</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1605–62)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 19 May 1662 |
cons. 2 Dec. 1660 bp. of EXETER; transl. 23 May 1662 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1605,<sup>1</sup> s. of John Gauden (<em>d</em>. bef. 1625), vic. Mayland, Essex. <em>educ</em>. Bury St Edmunds sch.; St John’s, Camb. matric. 1619, BA 1623, MA 1626; Wadham, Oxf. BD 1635, DD 1641. <em>m</em>. abt. 1640, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1671), da. of Sir William Russell<sup>‡</sup> bt. of Chippenham, Cambs. and wid. of Sir Edward Lewknor of Denham, Suff., 4s. 1da. <em>d</em>. 20 Sept. 1662; <em>will</em> 10 Sept. 1662 , pr. 21 Feb. 1663.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. ord. to Charles II, 1660.</p><p>Vic. Chippenham, Cambs. 1640-2; chap. to Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Warwick; dean Bocking, Essex, 1642; preacher at the Temple, 1660.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: relief bust on monument, Worcester Cathedral.</p> |
<p>John Gauden was the son of an Essex clergyman and brother of the navy victualler, Sir Dennis Gauden. He forged influential connections early in his career. Gauden tutored Francis<sup>‡</sup> and William Russell, sons of Sir William Russell of Chippenham, and later married their sister. Although William Russell adhered to the king, the remainder of the family were parliamentarians. Gauden was closely associated with the parliamentarian commander, Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, whose chaplain he became (he would in 1658 publish his sermon at the funeral of Warwick’s son, Robert Rich).<sup>3</sup></p><p>Uncertainty surrounds Gauden’s career in the 1640s. Nominated to the Westminster Assembly of Divines by Sir Dudley North*, later 4th Baron North, and Sir Thomas Chicheley<sup>‡</sup>, he was apparently prepared to take up the position, but the nomination was subsequently set aside and Thomas Goodwin put in instead. He appears to have taken the Covenant, and managed to retain his livings throughout the civil wars and Interregnum.<sup>4</sup> Most mystery attaches to his role in the production of the <em>Eikon Basilike</em>, the political and religious testament of Charles I, which, Gauden claimed in 1661, ‘was wholly and only my invention, making and design, in order to vindicate the kings wisdom, honour and piety’.<sup>5</sup> The initiative to turn some of Charles I’s devotional writings into a highly successful publication more likely came from Edward Symmons, though Gauden, whose living in Essex was next door to Symmons’, may well have had a considerable role in editing, adding to, and preparing the manuscript for publication.<sup>6</sup> A series of defences of the Church of England during the 1650s against Presbyterianism and Independency may have been the reason why by 1658-9 Gauden’s name was appearing on planning lists for the Restoration Church drawn up by Edward Hyde*, future earl of Clarendon.<sup>7</sup> There may or may not be political significance in the marriage, in or before 1659, of his stepdaughter to Horatio Townshend*, later Baron, and then Viscount, Townshend, a man believed to have Presbyterian connections but also deeply involved in royalist conspiracy. Nevertheless, the high Tory partisan, Nathanael Salmon, labelled him as a time-server who took advantage ‘of the gale of oblivion’. <sup>8</sup></p><p>In early 1660 Gauden appears to have been intervening in politics at a high level. <em>Cromwell’s Bloody Slaughter House</em>, a remarkable piece of violent invective against the regicide, appeared around this time, though apparently at the initiative of the printer Dugart, and without Gauden’s own knowledge: Gauden himself republished it in a revised version in February 1661.<sup>9</sup> But he did preach at St Paul’s before the City of London on 28 Feb. 1660, a fast day giving thanks for the restoration of the secluded members to the Rump Parliament, and (in the title of the published sermon) for the ‘door of hope thereby opened [for] the fullness and freedom of future Parliaments: the most probable means under God for healing the hurts and recovering the health of these three British Kingdoms’.<sup>10</sup> The publication in early March of his sermon preached the previous December at the funeral of the Calvinist, Ralph Brownrigg<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Exeter may have been a deliberate attempt to present an attractive model of moderate episcopacy.<sup>11</sup> On 13 Apr. 1660 George Morley*, later bishop of Worcester and Winchester, informed Hyde that the Presbyterians wished to discuss a Church settlement and had named Gauden as one of those they wished to be present. Richard Baxter recorded that such a meeting took place in or about early May, although he noted that despite Gauden’s promises, Morley ‘and others of that party’ did not attend.<sup>12</sup> The Commons’ invitation to Gauden (along with Edmund Calamy and Richard Baxter) to preach on 30 Apr., made on the first day’s sitting of the Convention, represented a significant statement by Presbyterian leaders in the House, and was presumably intended as a tentative movement towards moderated episcopacy.<sup>13</sup> Given a personal introduction to the king in June by James Butler*, marquess of Ormond [I], Gauden reported the king’s inclination to ‘moderate counsels’.<sup>14</sup> Over the next few months he assiduously promoted moderate episcopacy: his <em>Analysis: The loosing of St Peter’s Bands setting forth the True Sense and Solution of the Covenant</em>, dated 12 June, emphasized that the re-establishment of episcopacy was not incompatible with the Covenant, and attracted a number of hostile responses, in particular from Zachary Crofton. In September Gauden also republished his Civil War pamphlet on the subject, <em>Certain scruples and doubts of conscience about taking the Solemn League and Covenant</em>, originally published in 1643 or 1644. He responded directly to Crofton in 1661.<sup>15</sup> He leapt in with a hostile response to the proposal – which he attributed to Cornelius Burgess, and appeared in a single leaf on 8 Sept. (according to Thomason) – that those who had purchased the lands of bishops and deans and chapters should retain them on 99 year leases, in exchange for a large sum raised for the king.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Gauden, who had spoken in February of ‘owning’ ‘Primitive episcopacy with presbytery’, had been involved since June in the discussions between episcopal and Presbyterian divines, and he was present at the meeting at Worcester House on 22 Oct. which resulted in the Declaration a few days later.<sup>17</sup> The role probably ensured his appointment as a bishop, particularly with the refusal of Calamy and Baxter to accept elevation. It was certainly nothing to do with Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London, who, according to Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury had vigorously disowned responsibility: the king, he had told James Stuart*, duke of York, ‘had ordered his promotion for the service he had done’, though it is unknown whether this was a reference to his role in 1660, or in the preparation of <em>Eikon Basilike</em>.<sup>18</sup> By Christmas 1660 Gauden had been consecrated bishop of Exeter in Westminster Abbey. In mid-January 1661 Gauden was at Exeter conducting an ordination service: the pamphlet containing his address on the occasion said that the ordination had been conducted ‘per ipsum episcopum & primores presbyteros’, an indication of commitment to moderate episcopacy, though the translation merely said ‘ordained by him (with the assistance of other grave Ministers)’.<sup>19</sup> To some extent, the Worcester House Declaration programme of moderate episcopacy was indeed being implemented in his diocese.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Within three weeks of his consecration, Gauden sent the first of a stream of letters complaining about his situation. Appointment to a see worth only £500 a year, when at least £1,000 was required to permit him to live ‘in becoming style’ and where the bishop’s palace was in a state of ruin, was, he complained, insufficient reward for his services.<sup>21</sup> There is no evidence that he played any part in the general election campaign of 1661, although as lord of the manor of Penryn, he could have had some influence in the selection of John Birch<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup> Gauden was appointed to the Savoy Conference in March 1661, returning to London and the fashionable house in Clapham that Dennis Gauden had built in anticipation that his brother would be translated to Winchester. He spent the summer in the negotiations over the liturgy, gaining the respect of Richard Baxter: ‘how bitter soever his pen be, he was the only moderator of all the bishops (except our Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich): he showed no logic, nor meddled in any dispute, or point of learning, but a calm, fluent, rhetorical tongue, and if all had been of his mind, we had been reconciled’. <sup>23</sup> He returned to Exeter briefly in September, before taking his seat in the Lords at the readmission of the bishops on 20 Nov.<sup>24</sup> Gauden published a pamphlet to celebrate, arguing that ‘the bringing in of bishops again into your House of Parliament is, as it were, a new consecrating of it, after it had been so lewdly polluted, and horridly profaned, by those Abaddons and Apollyons’, and emphazising that ‘bishops in England have ever been contemporary with Parliaments time out of mind, as they have been in all Christian empires and kingdoms… present and assistant in all their diets and national conventions’.<sup>25</sup> He would early in the next year express his respect for the Lords and his nervousness about speaking in the House: ‘I never found myself (who am thought neither a barren nor a diffident speaker) more surprised with an ingenuous horror in any Audience, then when I adventured to speak in that most august and honourable Assembly of the Lords in Parliament, where there are so many excellent Orators, and accurate Censors; among whom it is safer to hear then to speak, and easier to admire then imitate their judicious eloquence’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>He attended the House for 51 per cent of sittings and was named to numerous committees on a range of political, religious and commercial issues. When Clarendon informed the Lords on 19 Dec. 1661 of a republican conspiracy against the crown, Gauden and Sheldon represented the episcopate on a special committee created to discuss security issues with the Commons over the Christmas recess. Nine days later Gauden wrote to Clarendon about the ‘decay’ of Brian Duppa*, bishop of Winchester. He put himself forward as Duppa’s successor but also suggested that when Duppa died, there should be some redistribution of episcopal wealth since it was inequitable ‘to see so vast a disproportion in … estate among persons of equal age … and honour’.<sup>27</sup> Duppa, though, survived the new year, leaving Gauden’s career hopes temporarily frustrated.</p><p>Gauden was particularly active in the House in early 1662 during the passage of legislation at the heart of the Restoration religious settlement. He backed Clarendon’s efforts to ‘oblige’ the Presbyterians and oppose the Commons’ amendments to the Ministers’ Act.<sup>28</sup> He was also involved in the revision to the Book of Common Prayer, was named on 17 Jan. 1662 to the committee which drafted the amendments to the Uniformity bill, and pressed for the restoration of the ‘black rubric’ relating to kneeling at communion to head off Presbyterian objections to the liturgy (and which was said to have angered Catholics, being an express declaration against the real presence).<sup>29</sup> His pamphlet, <em>A Discourse concerning Public Oaths</em>, dated 20 March 1662 and dedicated to the philosopher Robert Boyle, professes to be an expansion of an intervention he made in the debates on the Quaker bill, perhaps in December 1661 or January 1662. Gauden expressed some distaste for rigorous persecution in religious matters, and argued for the virtues of persuasion into conformity; he proposed a delay to the entrance into effect of the bill to give time for education and argument to convert them to more orthodox religion. Supporting some moderation in the Uniformity bill too, Gauden supported the chancellor when in March 1662 George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, attacked Clarendon in the House over the proviso to the bill that had been recommended by the king.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Bristol, however, had identified Gauden as a likely ally, both potentially sympathetic to a more liberal approach to religious policy and willing to shift patrons. On 19 Mar. Bristol approached Gauden, referring to Gauden’s role in <em>Eikon Basilike</em>, and taking pains to flatter the bishop ‘with the most generous expressions of … esteem and favour’. On 20 Mar. Gauden responded in sycophantic style, clearly perceiving that his career could be advanced through Bristol’s interest. When Duppa died six days later, a hopeful Gauden told Bristol that it was a ‘good omen of Providence’ that his concerns ‘should be credited to so generous a breast’. In a further letter he rehearsed his secret ‘signal service’ to the late king and bold ‘public service’ during the Interregnum, claiming that the king, the duke of York, Clarendon and Sheldon had each assured him of ‘remove to a more easy station upon the first opportunity, such as this of Winchester’. In yet another letter sent on 30 Mar. he angled instead for Worcester or the place of lord almoner.<sup>31</sup></p><p>On 10 Apr. 1662 he joined Clarendon, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, in managing the conference on the bill to repair the streets in Westminster – the issue in dispute being a matter of privilege as the Commons claimed the bill to be a money one. His epistolary conversation with Bristol continued. At the beginning of May (just as Bristol was promoting his own toleration proposals) Gauden wrote again, perhaps with a copy of his pamphlet concerning the Quakers, emphasizing his own recent actions in support of moderation towards Dissenters and his attempts to secure a delay in the implementation of the Quaker Act. ‘This petty piece of charity to Quakers’ demonstrated his ‘latitude and indulgence to all sober Dissenters’ which foreshadowed ‘a scheme rough drawn as yet’.<sup>32</sup> Whilst it is unlikely that Bristol’s own toleration proposals of May 1662 were influenced by Gauden, the bishop clearly approved the initiative.</p><p>Although Gauden felt entitled to Winchester, that see went instead to Morley at Duppa’s death, and on 23 May 1662, just a few days after the prorogation, Gauden accepted the consequent translation to Worcester, abandoning the repairs he had begun to the bishop’s palace.<sup>33</sup> He continued to correspond with Bristol in July, referring to a conversation they had had about Bristol’s conversion to Catholicism, and also writing to recommend the impoverished Lionel Gatford.<sup>34</sup> Though he managed to publish a set of visitation articles, Gauden had little opportunity to enjoy his new diocese, for he died of the ‘strangury’ on 20 Sept. 1662 and was buried in Worcester Cathedral.<sup>35</sup> His will directed that his estate be distributed amongst his family. Gauden’s immediate successor at Worcester, John Earle*, was generous in his assessment of the bishop: ‘a man of excellent parts and though there was something to be desired in him, yet take him altogether, he was both able and likely to do good service in that place’.<sup>36</sup> Others were less kind: Anthony Wood ascribed Gauden’s premature death to providence, arguing that the ‘reverend <em>gaudy</em> prelate’ was punished with a fatal illness after turning on his ‘quondam fellow-covenanters’ in a show of blatant hypocrisy.<sup>37</sup> Peter Barwick was moved by the claim that Gauden had written <em>Eikon Basilike</em> to include a splenetic attack on Gauden – ‘always most addicted to himself before all others’ – and his protégé and defender, Anthony Walker, which referred to a claim that Gauden had written in 1651 to Charles II to urge him to renounce episcopacy, and reported that the king, informed of the bishop’s death, responded that ‘it would be easy to find a more worthy person to fill his place’.<sup>38</sup> Throughout his episcopate Gauden had claimed that he made little profit from his elevation and soon after his death his widow approached Bristol for financial assistance. Anthony Sparrow*, who succeeded at Exeter in 1667, complained that Gauden had ‘let the leases and received the most considerable fines, [and] for ought I can learn carried his money away with him, and left his successor to repair the palace’. A probate inventory valued Gauden’s property at more than £5,000.<sup>39</sup></p> |
B.A./P.C.S. |
|
GLEMHAM, Henry (c. 1603-70) |
<p><strong><surname>GLEMHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (c. 1603–70)</p> |
|
|
First sat 21 Oct. 1667; last sat 29 Nov. 1669 |
cons. 13 Oct. 1667 bp. of ST ASAPH |
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1603, yr. s. of Sir Henry Glemham<sup>‡</sup> and Anne, da. of Thomas Sackville<sup>†</sup>, earl of Dorset; bro. of Sir Thomas Glemham<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Trinity, Oxf. matric. 1619, BA 1621, MA 1623, BD 1631, DD 1633. <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 17 Jan. 1670; <em>will</em> 24 June 1662, pr. 20 July 1671.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Symondsbury, Dorset 1631–45, 1660–70, seq. bef. 1645, Llandrinio 1667–70; dean, Bristol 1660–7.</p> |
|
<p>A worldly and irascible man, Glemham was described by Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> as ‘a drunken, swearing rascal and a scandal to the Church’.<sup>2</sup> His behaviour as a Restoration bishop was clearly unorthodox and he appears to have regarded himself more as a courtier than as a churchman. His elevation to the see of St Asaph owed more to his social and political connections at court than to ecclesiastical merit. Glemham’s father, Sir Henry, had served as a Member of the Commons under both Elizabeth I and James I, while his elder brother, Sir Thomas, distinguished himself during the civil wars.<sup>3</sup> Related through his mother to the earls of Dorset, his sister Mary (<em>d</em>. 1633) was the first wife of William Paul*, who became bishop of Oxford in 1663, and his nephew was the influential Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester. More importantly for his chances of preferment after the Restoration, his great-niece was Barbara Palmer, countess of Castlemaine, Charles II’s powerful mistress.</p><p>Deprived of his Dorset living in 1645, Glemham had joined Charles II in exile, where, it was later alleged, he witnessed the king’s marriage to Lucy Walter.<sup>4</sup> Promoted to the deanery of Bristol at the Restoration, when the see of St Asaph fell vacant at the end of 1666, Glemham became the first Englishman appointed to the diocese since the Reformation.<sup>5</sup> St Asaph was a poor diocese and in March 1667, when Glemham was still only bishop elect, he petitioned Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury for two rectories to be held in commendam as well as a concurrent appointment as archdeacon of St Asaph, arguing that the income of the diocese was ‘no way able to support the dignity episcopal … without the help of some other seasonable remedy’.<sup>6</sup> The congé d’élire was issued in December 1666 and the chapter elected him in February 1667, but finalization of the appointment was delayed because Castlemaine was attempting to have him installed in the much more prestigious see of Carlisle instead (the rumour that she had succeeded appalled and provoked Pepys). It is not possible to catch more than a glimpse of the complex series of negotiations that ensued, but it is clear that Glemham himself hoped for Lincoln. When that diocese went to William Fuller*, he reluctantly settled for St Asaph.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Any account of Glemham’s episcopate is limited by an absence of personal correspondence. Historians of Welsh religion have found little positive to say of him. He was clearly regarded as something of an interloper and is remembered as ‘indolent’ in his management of the diocese, allowing standards of discipline to fall.<sup>8</sup> There is no evidence to suggest that he exerted himself to enforce conformity; on the contrary, he disclaimed responsibility for the conventicles that flourished in north-east Wales, claiming that they built ‘their impunity upon the example of London and other places in the kingdom’.<sup>9</sup> Within months of taking office, Glemham had become involved in a bitter feud with the archbishop over the right to lease the profits of Whitford rectory to the Flintshire magnate Sir Roger Mostyn. In a lengthy dispute, during which neither Glemham nor Sheldon would back down, Glemham was opposed by his dean, Humphrey Lloyd*, later bishop of Bangor, and undermined by his own secretary, Water Lloyd, who kept in close touch with Sheldon’s secretary Miles Smyth. The issue was not resolved until after Glemham’s death.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Glemham’s consecration in October 1667 only a week before Parliament was due to sit and expected to take action against Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon may suggest that his choice as a bishop had some political motive; but although he had the use of rooms in Dorchester’s London residence, his attendance in the House of Lords was as poor as his administration of the diocese.<sup>11</sup> Parliament sat for a total of nine months during his episcopate: Glemham appeared in the House on only 33 occasions and was named to just one committee. Within days of him taking his seat, Parliament was caught up in the furore over the impeachment of Clarendon. Lady Castlemaine was among Clarendon’s opponents; given that Glemham was beholden to Lady Castlemaine for his position, and was also in the habit of borrowing money from her, it seems surprising that he did not sign the dissent of 20 Nov. 1667 against the Lords’ refusal to take Clarendon into custody. The journal of John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, reveals that he intended to do so: Glemham ‘wrote his name but blotted it out again because he was not there present at the passing of the vote’.<sup>12</sup> Two days earlier, in what was probably an indication of his sympathies, Glemham had left his proxy with Herbert Croft* of Hereford, one of only three bishops who did sign the dissent. For the remaining five months of the session, Glemham did not attend the House. When he returned in November 1669, it was for nine days only. The reasons for his resumption of attendance are unclear. </p><p>On 17 Jan. 1670, Glemham died at the family home in Little Glemham, Suffolk, and was buried in the family vault of the parish church, his funeral private and its expenses minimal for a man of such exalted connections.<sup>13</sup> His involvement in an intricate network of financial dealings immediately became apparent. Lady Frances Glemham, his niece by marriage and the mother of the young Thomas Glemham<sup>‡</sup> (c. 1647-1704) scrambled to gain control of his personal estate. The business of probate was complicated, however, by the bishop’s role in the administration of the estate of Paul Bayning<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Viscount Bayning, and the claims against that estate by Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford. A dispute in the prerogative court of Canterbury ensued and administration of the bishop’s goods and chattels was granted to Lady Castlemaine, now duchess of Cleveland.<sup>14</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
GRIFFITH, George (1601-66) |
<p><strong><surname>GRIFFITH</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1601–66)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 2 Mar. 1665 |
cons. 28 Oct. 1660 bp. of ST ASAPH |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 30 Sep. 1601, 3rd s. of Robert Griffith of Carreglywd, Anglesey and Anne, da. of Owen ap Hugh Griffith of Gwynwnog. <em>educ.</em> Worcester Sch.; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1619, BA 1623, MA 1626, BD 1632, DD 1634. <em>m.</em> Jane, da. of Thomas Cobbe (Corbet) of Grange, Hants, 1s. 5da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> 28 Nov. 1666; <em>will</em> 16 Nov. 1666, pr. 2 Jan. 1667.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Newtown, Mont. 1631–2, Whitford, Flint 1632–4,<sup>3</sup> Llandrinio, Mont. 1633–66 (deprived 1650?-60), Llanfechain, Mont. 1633–4, Llanymynach (Llanymynerch), Salop 1634–66, Llanrhaiadyr ym Mochnant, Mont. 1660–6; preb. and adn. St Asaph 1632–60; chap. to John Owen<sup>†</sup>, bp. St Asaph, 1634; proctor, Convocation 1640.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Christ Church, Oxf.</p> |
<p>As archdeacon, personal chaplain of Bishop John Owen (whose daughter married his brother) and the incumbent of three Montgomeryshire livings before the civil wars, George Griffith was no stranger to the diocese of St. Asaph when he became its bishop at the Restoration. A ‘kinsman’ of Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of Salisbury and later of London, he was born into an Anglesey gentry family of a pronounced clerical tradition.<sup>4</sup> In 1650, under the terms of the Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales he lost all of his livings except for Llanymynerch. In 1652 he engaged in a public disputation with the Independent Vavasor Powell, which he extended into a series of tracts on forms of worship and ecclesiastical government.<sup>5</sup> By the time of the Restoration he had acquired a reputation for ‘keeping up the offices and ceremonies of the Church’, and keeping a correspondence with ‘the orthodox’ in London.<sup>6</sup> Probably close to Gilbert Sheldon*, shortly to become bishop of London, in the autumn of 1660 Griffth was elevated to the bishopric and consecrated on 28 Oct. together with Sheldon and others in Westminster Abbey. With a meagre diocesan income of less than £280, he was permitted to hold Llanrhaiadyr, Llnymynach, Llandrinio and the archdeaconry in commendam.<sup>7</sup> He had an extended family for which to provide and a loan agreement of 1663 revealed that he had given over £600 to support his nephew John during his minority.<sup>8</sup> At the time of his death, he bequeathed some £800 to his immediate family.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Griffith attended the Savoy conference in 1661, where he proved an active participant in debates on the canons of 1640 and revisions to the prayer book. His parliamentary career was brief but active: he took his seat in the House of Lords on 20 Nov. 1661 at the readmission of the bishops and thereafter attended the session almost constantly. He was also present at the remaining three sessions held before his death for more than 90 per cent of sittings. He was named to some 30 Lords’ committees on a wide variety of topics, both ecclesiastical and economic. During the 1663 session he held the proxy of William Roberts*, bishop of Bangor, from 7 Feb. 1663 until the prorogation. Throughout the autumn of 1661 and spring of 1662 Griffith also attended Convocation where, on 13 Dec. 1661, he was appointed to assist in the copying of the prayer book manuscript; on 5 Mar. 1662, together with bishops Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York and Henry Ferne*, bishop of Chester, he was appointed by Convocation to consider the parliamentary amendments to the prayer book.<sup>10</sup> During the passage of the Uniformity bill in 1662, Griffith, together with the other Welsh bishops, was given the task of translating the prayer book into Welsh. Historians of Welsh devotional literature have concluded that he undertook the greatest share of work on the edition eventually published in 1664. He also contributed to a translation of the 39 Articles published in the same year, as well as working on refinements to the translation of the Bible into Welsh.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1662 Griffith undertook his primary visitation of the diocese. By the following February he had returned to Westminster for the start of the next parliamentary session, attending the House until the prorogation at the end of July. In the spring of 1664 he was present at every stage of the first Conventicle bill until it received the royal assent on 17 May.<sup>12</sup></p><p>By 1666 Griffith was too ill to attend the House and his proxy was registered in favour of George Hall*, bishop of Chester on 10 Sept. 1666. On 16 Nov., 12 days before his death, he composed a brief will naming only three family beneficiaries. With several of his children already provided for, Griffith appointed his son Thomas as his sole executor, bequeathed to him the bulk of his property and gave his two unmarried daughters cash bequests of £400 each. Although his dean, Humphrey Lloyd* (later bishop of Bangor), would later hint that in 1634 the bishop had been involved in a property transfer of dubious legality, the charge is almost impossible to substantiate and is possibly a reflection of Lloyd’s own career ambitions.<sup>13</sup> Griffith died on 26 Nov. 1666 and was buried in the choir of his cathedral.<sup>14</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
GROVE, Robert (1634-96) |
<p><strong><surname>GROVE</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1634–96)</p> |
|
|
First sat 27 Oct. 1691; last sat 27 Apr. 1696 |
cons. 30 Aug. 1691 bp. of CHICHESTER |
|
<p><em>?bap</em>. 29 Sept. 1634, St Giles Cripplegate, London, s. of William Grove of Morden, Dorset. <em>educ</em>. Winchester; Pembroke Coll. Oxf. matric. 1651; St John’s Coll. Camb., scholar 1653, BA 1657, fell. 1659, MA 1660, BD 1667, DD 1681. <em>m</em>. lic. 7 Apr. 1668, Elizabeth Cole of Lower Hardres, Kent,<sup>1</sup> 4s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da. (<em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 25 Sept. 1696; <em>will</em> 23 Sept., pr. 10 Nov. 1696.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. ord. 1690.</p><p>Chap. to Humphrey Henchman*, bp. of London, 1667; rect. Wennington, Essex 1667-9, Langham, Essex 1669-70, Aldham, Essex 1669, St Andrew Undershaft, London 1670-91; preb. Willesden, St Paul’s Cathedral 1679-90; adn. Mdx. 1690-1.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, St John’s College, Cambridge.</p> |
<p>Born in the City of London into a gentry family long established in Ferne, Wiltshire, Robert Grove was the great-grandson of William Grove<sup>‡</sup>, Member for Shaftesbury in the 1558 Parliament and nephew of Thomas Grove<sup>‡ </sup>who sat for several seats between 1640 and 1660.<sup>3</sup> Becoming chaplain to Humphrey Henchman brought him a significant patron through whose efforts he obtained three livings, including the prestigious London rectory of St Andrew Undershaft where five of his children were baptized.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Throughout the 1670s and 1680s, Grove carved out a role for himself as an apologist for a cohesive English Protestantism to combat the Counter-Reformation, a role in which he repeatedly dismissed differences of opinion within the Church of England and between Protestant churchmen. In one exchange with the nonconformist William Jenkyn, he rejected the charge that Anglican churchmen were in effect Roman Catholics, disputed the existence of a ‘latitudinarian’ party within the Church, claiming that many churchmen labelled as latitudinarian did not display the laxity of doctrine and practice imputed to them by critics, and belittled Jenkyn’s distinctions between Nonconformists and the established Church.<sup>5</sup> In his <em>Short Defence of the Church and Clergy of England</em>, published in 1681, Grove defended the existing ecclesiastical settlement but argued that ‘if the wisdom of our governors ... should judge it expedient to make any concessions of this nature ... I know no man that is not ready to join his hearty prayers that it may succeed, to the putting an end to all our divisions’. Protestants, he claimed, should avoid the sin of schism by remaining within the Church. Some, of course, could not ‘be comprehended by any thing but their own pleasure’ and demanded full toleration, which to Grove, was anathema: toleration was a device to propagate Dissent rather than unity, and was quite possibly a Catholic ruse to derail the English Reformation.<sup>6</sup> The pamphlet was perhaps associated with the comprehension bill debated in the Commons in late 1680 and early 1681. Between November 1682 and February 1683 Grove corresponded with Simon Lowth in an attempt to persuade him to remove disparaging remarks about ‘some persons of note and eminent place in our church,’ (meaning the then deans of Canterbury and St Paul’s, John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester) from the manuscript of <em>The Subject of Church Power</em>, in the interest of maintaining ecclesiastical unity.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Grove translated into Latin the treatise against Catholicism written by Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, and pursued his own comparisons of Anglican and Catholic doctrine. In 1683, at the height of the Tory reaction, Grove repeated his call for unity, focusing his attack not on Dissenters but on Catholics ‘who always attempted to pull down the Church of England by pretended Protestant hands’.<sup>8</sup> Grove’s advice to the electorate in 1685 recommended candidates ‘of approved prudence and integrity, that may be able to assert the known liberties of the people, without entrenching upon the dignity of the crown’.<sup>9</sup> Further, they should be men ‘of known affection to the established Church’, and without ‘the least taint’ of association with exclusion (a bill so ‘dangerous’ that voters could ‘scarce imagine what a heap of miseries you escaped when it was ... rejected in the House of Lords’). Finally, they must be financially sound, ‘of good ... estates ... for the necessitous are the most liable to the temptation of being corrupted’. Justifying his intervention in the secular sphere, he pointed out that clergy, themselves entitled to vote, were as capable as freeholders of making prudent electoral choices.<sup>10</sup> Grove also saw a pressing need to counter the suggestion that clergy were hostile to the institution of Parliament. His other publications included a poem describing in detail William Harvey’s experiments on the circulation of blood. This has led to speculation that he engaged in or at least observed canine vivisection, although his library contained a large number of medical books which could have provided secondary information.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In 1687 Grove defended <em>Irenicum</em> and subsequent writings of Stillingfleet against a series of attacks by Simon Lowth, providing Stillingfleet’s work with a detailed political and religious context.<sup>12</sup> In May 1688 Grove was involved in a series of negotiations between the London clergy on the one hand and Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely and other churchmen who had been closely associated with James II on the other. These meetings culminated in the decisive gathering at Lambeth on 18 May when Grove helped to draft the bishops’ petition to James II in protest against the Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In 1689, in the preface to a theological attack on Catholicism, Grove expressed his personal relief at the ‘late great and happy Revolution’.<sup>14</sup> On 6 March 1689 he preached before the new queen at Whitehall. He did so again on 1 June 1690, on the theme of Christian piety.<sup>15</sup> On 8 Sept. 1690 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Middlesex. From January to April 1691 he accompanied William III to the general congress in The Hague and on the king’s subsequent travels in the Netherlands.<sup>16</sup> Following his return, he was nominated to Chichester. The warrant for the <em>congé d’élire</em> was issued on 30 April, and the warrant for the election followed on 16 July.<sup>17</sup> Despite his earlier arguments on behalf of a measure of comprehension, Grove was not a latitudinarian, as was recognized by the eighteenth-century high churchman John Frewen who cited Grove’s <em>Perswasive</em> in defence of the ecclesiastical establishment.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Consecrated in August 1691, Grove took his seat in the House of Lords on 27 Oct., five days into the autumn 1691 session. For each of the five sessions held during his tenure of Chichester, he attended between 30 and 60 per cent of sittings. He attended least in the winter 1692 session and was most active in the session from November 1693 to 30 Apr. 1694, but he never attended for the first day of a session (and was therefore not appointed to the standing committees) and his activity in the House attracted very little notice. On 2 Dec. 1691 Grove was named to the committee on the bill concerning property arrangements between Patrick and Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, on 13 Jan. 1692 to the special committee on the bill to confirm the charters and liberties of Cambridge University and on 22 Feb. 1692 he was named one of the reporters of the conference on the small tithes bill. His last regular appearance that session was on 24 Feb., though he was present for the prorogation on 14 May. A month earlier, on 12 April 1692, Grove had attended the meeting of eight bishops convened by Tillotson to discuss Tillotson’s circular letter on pastoral reform.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Grove’s first appearance in the session beginning 4 Nov. 1692 was on 18 Nov., and on 26 Nov. he was named to the committee on the Hawley estate bill. He was not present for the vote on committing the place bill on 31 Dec., but he was in the chamber four days later to support the court in rejecting the bill, its defeat accomplished ‘by the power of the court, aided by the bishops’.<sup>20</sup> Grove was present when the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk was read on 2 Jan. 1693. It is probable that he supported the bill; although the bishops were split over the issue, it was noted that all bishops created by William III were in favour (with the exception of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, and Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Hereford). Grove, however, is not named on any of the surviving division lists, suggesting the possibility of a strategic abstention.<sup>21</sup> He was named to the committee on Roger Price’s estate bill and on that on the malicious informations bill on 14 January. He does not seem to have been present in the Lords again that session until the prorogation on 2 May. He returned to the House two weeks into the next session on 17 Nov. but was absent for long periods and was not appointed to a committee until 22 Feb. 1694, where he was named to the committee on the estate bill of the recently deceased John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell though not listed as present at the start of the sitting. On 9 Mar. 1694 Grove was named to the committee on removing the process in Westminster courts for the capiatur fine, and on 20 Mar. 1694 to the committee on the land sale to settle the estate of William Stevens. His last appearance in the session was on 24 Apr. and, as seems to have been his custom, he was not present for the King’s Speech at the start of the next session on 12 November. At a call of the House on 26 Nov. 1694 Grove was excused attendance, but there is no evidence of him entering his proxy during any of his absences. He arrived three weeks into the session on 5 Dec. and on 18 Dec. 1694 was named to the committee on Thomas Kerridge’s land sale bill. At Westminster for much of the following spring, Grove preached in the City on Easter Monday 1695, returning to his habitual themes of piety and charity in a sermon before the mayor and aldermen of London.<sup>22</sup> He last appeared in the Lords that spring on 18 April 1695.</p><p>On his return to Chichester, he again involved himself in an election campaign. Elections in the county of Sussex were dominated by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset and also high steward of the city of Chichester. In 1695 the Whig sitting members for the county were opposed by Somerset’s candidate, the country Tory, Robert Orme<sup>‡</sup> of Woolavington. Grove wrote to his diocesan clergy advocating Orme’s candidature, thereby alienating many of the Sussex Whig gentry, who believed Orme to have Jacobite backing. Orme’s electoral attempt and subsequent protest failed despite suggestions of electoral malpractice at the Chichester poll and an unprecedented adjournment of the election to Lewes.<sup>23</sup> Grove returned to the 1695-96 session in the House on 12 December. He signed the Association in the House on 27 Feb. 1696. He retained his usual low parliamentary profile until the prorogation of 27 Apr., after which he never returned, although he did examine the Journal for 27 Apr. on 13 May.</p><p>In September 1696, at the age of 62, Grove was involved in a fatal accident. Leaping from his runaway coach, he sustained a compound fracture of his leg. The ensuing quarrel between a ‘sea-surgeon’ who urged immediate amputation, and a ‘land-surgeon’ who did not, delayed the removal of the shattered leg until the operation, when performed, was useless to prevent Grove’s death from gangrene.<sup>24</sup> He made a will two days before he died, leaving his personal estate to his wife and the care of his children to be overseen by Thomas Cole of Cowes, Isle of Wight (a relation by marriage), and Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury. Grove’s moderate churchmanship was little commented upon during his lifetime, but it was remarked that Jacobites would see his death as ‘a just judgment of God upon one that forsook his loyalty’, and that Dissenters would see his demise as ‘the end of their peevish adversaries’.<sup>25</sup> His premature death left his widow and children dependent on charity.<sup>26</sup> The case was one of those cited by a later author to argue that the costs incurred by bishops early in their episcopates were ruinous to a bishop’s family should that bishop die too soon after his elevation.<sup>27</sup> Grove’s library of well over 2000 books was sold at auction in 1697 at Tom’s Coffee House in Ludgate.<sup>28</sup> He was buried in Chichester Cathedral where his elaborate marble monument, complete with weeping angels, states the bishop was ‘conspicuous in all things for his dignity, but unostentatious’.<sup>29</sup></p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
GULSTON, William (1636-84) |
<p><strong><surname>GULSTON</surname></strong> (<strong>GOULSTON </strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1636–84)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Mar. 1679; last sat 23 Dec. 1680 |
cons. 9 Mar. 1679 bp. of BRISTOL |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1636, s. of Nathaniel Gulston (<em>d</em>.1648), rect. Wymondham, Leics. <em>educ</em>. Grantham Sch. (Mr Stokes); St John’s, Camb. matric. 1653, BA 1658, MA 1661, DD 1679. <em>m</em>. ?6 Feb. 1665, Ann Gulston (1642–bef. 1684), 2nd da. of Joseph Gulston, dean of Chichester, 1s. 1da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 4 Apr. 1684; <em>will</em> 22 Mar. 1684, pr. 2 Dec. 1686.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to duchess of Somerset bef. 1670–4; rect. Milston, Wilts. 1663–70, Wymondham, Leics. 1665, Nuthurst, Suss. 1669–74, Symondsbury, Dorset 1670–84; preb. Chichester 1666–84.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives.</p> |
<p>The Gulstons had been settled in Leicestershire since at least the early fifteenth century, forming something of a minor clerical dynasty as rectors of Wymondham. William Gulston’s uncle John Gulston became prothonotary of the common pleas, and established his branch of the family in Wyddial, Hertfordshire. John’s son Richard Gulston<sup>‡</sup> and grandson Sir William Gulston<sup>‡</sup> both served in the Commons. William Gulston’s marriage to the daughter of another of John’s sons, Joseph Gulston, was probably crucial to his subsequent career in the Church. Joseph Gulston had been chaplain to Charles I and attended him at his execution; he was rewarded with the deanery of Chichester in 1663 and was clearly well placed to assist the advancement of his new son-in-law.<sup>3</sup></p><p>William Gulston’s appointment to the rectory of Milston in 1663 implies contacts with the Hyde family: Milston was in the gift of Sir Frederick Hyde<sup>‡</sup>, cousin to the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.<sup>4</sup> Some time before 1670, Gulston became chaplain to Frances, duchess of Somerset (widow of William Seymour*, 2nd duke of Somerset), who presented him with the valuable living and perpetual advowson of Symondsbury in Dorset.<sup>5</sup> The chaplaincy itself was less lucrative than might be expected: after the duchess’s death Gulston petitioned her heir and executor, Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, for payment of his salary, allegedly four years in arrears, and seeking Weymouth’s support for further preferment. Gulston also became involved in the various legal disputes over the duchess’s estate.<sup>6</sup> Quite how he had made the acquaintance of the duchess remains obscure; it may be no more than that, as rector of Milston, he was a neighbour of the Somersets, whose main seat was at nearby Great Bedwyn. His attachment to the Seymour family is evident in his decision to use their surname as the forename of his son, born in or about 1672. His sister’s marriage in 1670 to Lancelot Addison, a royal chaplain and close associate of Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, added to his prominent connections.</p><p>In 1679, at the unusually young age of 43, Gulston was elevated to the episcopate, keeping Symondsbury and his prebend at Chichester as commendams. There is no evidence to substantiate the suggestion that he used the living of Symondsbury to bargain his way into the episcopate, offering to annex the rectory to the bishopric of Bristol.<sup>7</sup> It may be significant that by 1679 Weymouth had moved from supporting ‘country’ interests to a stance against exclusion; equally it is possible that Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), the duchess of Somerset’s second husband, had a hand in Gulston’s nomination. Some sort of relationship with Worcester might explain why Gulston appears to have been identified as a potential Catholic convert in April 1679, though it is equally likely that the smear was simply a product of local factional rivalries.<sup>8</sup> Gulston replaced the autocratic Guy Carleton*, who had been translated to Chichester, in a big city with a large dissenting population, a divided corporation, high levels of participation in elections, and, during the crisis of 1678-81, a precocious growth of political organization.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Gulston attended for some 50 per cent of the sittings of the first Exclusion Parliament but was not named to any committees. In accordance with the compromise hammered out on 14 Apr. 1679 over the bishops’ right to vote in capital cases, when the Lords considered the bill of attainder against Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), Gulston abstained by leaving the chamber. On 10 May, voting with his fellow bishops, he rejected the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider proceedings against the impeached lords.</p><p>Although Parliament had been dissolved on 12 July 1679, Gulston had still not arrived in Bristol by late September. He was there by January 1680, when he resolved a bitter dispute about whether prayers for the mayor and corporation should or should not precede those for the bishop and chapter by abandoning Carleton’s insistence that prayers for the clergy had precedence. Though convinced that his actions had removed the ‘evil effects’ of Carleton’s order, Samuel Crossman, a Bristol prebendary (and inveterate complainer), thought it had revived, rather than suppressed, animosities that had already been laid to rest.<sup>10</sup> The divided politics of Bristol at the height of the political crisis placed Gulston under considerable stress. He wrote to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury at the end of May saying how he hoped to keep the factional disputes of the city from affecting the Church, and on 27 Sept. he wrote again from Symondsbury saying that he had not yet recovered his health since returning from Bristol and referring to the burden of ‘a great deal of business about the disturbance of seditious conventicles and the conviction of them in these parts’ at the impending quarter sessions.<sup>11</sup> Perhaps it was this that prompted secretary of state Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> to write on 30 Sept. pointing out that prosecutions of conventicles in and near London had ground to a halt and delivering a strong hint that they should be discontinued in his diocese too:</p><blockquote><p>The reason I conceive to be that, while the danger is so great from the papists, the sectaries may have no pretext to say that they are the most severely punished that are not only less to be feared than papists, but are in equal danger with the Church of England. Whether this be a good reason or not, I dare not determine, but certainly the true season to suppress sectaries has been long since lost. They have put us now on the defensive.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>Gulston might have grumbled too about the lack of encouragement he had received over the matter of prebends. Over the summer of 1681 he nagged Sancroft and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, to intervene with the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham) to ensure that he could have a voice in appointments to Bristol prebends, in order to prevent such ‘as may divide and rent all asunder’ and to provide opportunities to ‘encourage’ the deserving.<sup>13</sup> In September 1681 he particularly asked that the latest vacancy should not go to Richard Thompson, who ‘makes friends for it’ and who was associated with factional rivalries in the corporation as a follower of John Knight<sup>‡</sup>. Thompson, he wrote, would cause divisions within the chapter.<sup>14</sup> His plea was ignored.</p><p>Gulston took his seat for the second Exclusion Parliament on 26 Oct., five days after the start of the session (he had excused himself to Sancroft from providing a sermon to the Lords).<sup>15</sup> He attended for almost half of the sittings and was named to one committee. He voted against exclusion on 15 Nov. and was present on 14 Dec. when a committee of the whole House debated the legal distinction between Protestant nonconformists and Catholic recusants.</p><p>Gulston was absent from the brief Oxford Parliament in March 1681. In August of that year he worried that he had lost favour with the king, complaining that he had been misrepresented by some ‘inveterate fanatics’ or ‘pretending friends to the king and Church’.<sup>16</sup> The issue was perhaps his infrequent appearances in Bristol. The following month he was ordered to return to Bristol and lend his weight to the election of the king’s mayoral candidate (who had been elected to the House of Commons earlier in the year), Thomas Earle<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>17</sup> When Gulston did return to Bristol in late September or early October he was faced with a new dispute between cathedral and corporation which threatened to ‘put the whole city into a flame and divide the loyal party amongst themselves’. An earlier attempt to conciliate the corporation had led to a decision, presumably by the bishop, to allow the corporation to build seats in the choir of the cathedral. The decision was well received in the city, but it was customary for the corporation when attending the cathedral to carry an erect sword and the dean and chapter were appalled at the prospect of such a weapon being carried into the choir (a space traditionally dedicated to religious rather than secular concerns). Gulston complained miserably to Sancroft about Crossman’s efforts to negotiate (‘knowing the temper of the place, [he] will not be successful, as many of his other attempts’); worried that siding with the clergy would ‘put the whole city into a flame and divide the loyal party among themselves’; and remarked that ‘we have here two sorts of persons entitling themselves to loyalty: the one so zealous in Church concerns that they would immediately term it sacrilege to diminish the least shadow of right or privilege. The other though very loyal yet willing to waive this right as a thing not determined by any law or canon, do insist strongly on the grandeur of the city’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>By then Gulston was once more pressing the city to prosecute attenders at conventicles, and was working in concert with the mayor and aldermen so that ‘the world’ might see that the ecclesiastical and civil powers were united in their determination to root out Dissent. His actions earned him a letter of thanks from Jenkins, sent in October at the king’s ‘express command’.<sup>19</sup> In February 1682, together with Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, and seven lay commissioners Gulston had conducted a visitation of the royal peculiar of Canford Magna (Poole), which was allegedly a haven for Dissenters. The proceedings there mirrored the difficulties concerning the prosecution and suppression of Dissent faced by the bishop throughout his diocese. Gulston backed Anthony Ettrick<sup>‡</sup>, ‘a loyal person and true son of the Church of England’ who was associated with Danby, against the incumbent Samuel Hardy, ‘a great seducer of the king’s subjects’. Ettrick worried that the local magnate, John Robartes*, earl of Radnor, was sympathetic to Dissent and would succeed in persuading the king that Ettrick acted ‘only upon a private animosity’. As a result of the visitation, the commission deprived Hardy, but he appealed and continued to act even when technically prevented from doing so by an order of court.<sup>20</sup> Throughout 1682 and into 1683 Gulston was also involved, as a member of the court of delegates, in the long-running dispute over the validity of the Hyde–Emerton marriage, in which Danby sought to have the marriage declared void in order to secure Bridget Hyde’s marriage to his son Peregrine Osborne*, then styled Lord Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds). Gulston, though, was too ill to attend and vote by the time of the final hearing in April 1683.<sup>21</sup></p><p>His main preoccupation continued to be nonconformists and Whigs. In August 1682, he wrote from Symondsbury with information about a Bristol ‘cabal … who meet under the notion of a club … and are on some desperate or treasonable designs’. Although Gulston promised to investigate further, he took advantage of the occasion to bemoan his lot:</p><blockquote><p>I foresee that, if there be truth in this narrative, my further residence at Bristol will be necessary, but then my private concerns will be utterly ruined, for I have spent near three times the value of my bishopric since Michaelmas last by long residing in Bristol, by journeys into my diocese on emergent occasions, by unavoidable losses in my estate here through my absence and by my late chargeable unexpected stay in London on a fruitless account. What injures me most is the rumour of my being arrested, sued and cast in penalty of £30,000 … This defamation, though false, yet weakens my reputation so far that I may be unable to supply myself in case of necessity.<sup>22</sup></p></blockquote><p>In a polite but blunt reply, Jenkins told him that all he could realistically expect were repayment of the costs of his informers. A few days later Jenkins wrote approvingly of Gulston’s commitment to influencing the choice of loyal officials and magistrates; he also referred to the bishop’s sudden incapacity through ‘a flux of blood’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In January 1683 Gulston, still ill, reported the successful ousting of the Bristol recorder (the Whig Robert Atkyns<sup>‡</sup>) by the client of Beaufort (as Worcester had become), Sir John Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. His claims that the continued hounding of ‘fanatics’ had been equally successful were considerably exaggerated. Dissenters may have been driven out of Bristol but they continued to meet elsewhere, requiring the officials of adjacent jurisdictions to take similar actions.<sup>24</sup> This campaign against Dissent was a precursor to a complete purge of the corporation by means of a new city charter. In March 1683 Gulston reported that he had ‘laboured’ to persuade reluctant aldermen to surrender the charter and was confident of securing their acquiescence. He blamed the initial failure to persuade the corporation to make the surrender partly on ‘a rash manager’ (perhaps Beaufort) who had divided the city loyalists and damaged the king’s interest. He also emphasized his willingness to act against Catholics, writing in August 1683 that ‘I am resolved to keep out fanaticism on one hand, and popery, simony and atheism on the other hand’.<sup>25</sup> By November 1683, when it was apparent that the charter would indeed be surrendered, Gulston argued that the bishop should always be named to the commission of the peace ‘and if possible at all counsels there by which means the king may be assured of their designs … many are loyal in word, but few dare venture to act anything for the Church’. It would also, he believed, help to prevent disputes between ecclesiastical and lay authorities, which merely ‘afforded occasion to any factious Hotspurs to set up an interest to the prejudice of government’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Gulston’s involvement in arrangements for the new charter did not prevent him from looking to his own interests. In July 1683 he attempted to secure some of the lands of the convicted Rye House plotter Lord William Russell<sup>‡</sup> for the bishopric, so that the enemies of the Church ‘may build up in part, what they designed to ruin and pull down’.<sup>27</sup> Meanwhile, early in 1684 he turned his attentions to the ‘corrupt’ corporations of Lyme and Bridport, signalling that pressure from loyalists ‘would bring in their charters with great ease’. He also continued to suspend clergy who preached Whiggish sermons.<sup>28</sup></p><p>There were further problems within the chapter. By October 1682 Crossman’s proposals to install an altarpiece and carved images of St Peter and St Paul were creating upset within the chapter, where it was regarded ‘as an introduction of popery and indeed most, if not all here, would be scandalised with bowing daily toward the altar’.<sup>29</sup> In 1683, when Crossman was appointed dean, a fresh dispute broke out over his institution (and related fees), which Gulston insisted was a matter for the bishop. Crossman opposed the bishop’s decision to conduct a visitation of the chapter and, with the help of the lord keeper, Sir Francis North*, later Baron Guilford, forced him to back down. Gulston was also annoyed that Crossman had leased land next to the bishop’s palace to a shipyard, resulting in a loss of ‘privacy, security and quiet enjoyment of my house’ and making him even more reluctant to spend time in Bristol. In addition, the bishop faced opposition from Richard Thompson, whose inaugural sermon as a prebend in 1683 reflected on bishops in general and Gulston in particular, and who continued to insult the bishop thereafter.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Crossman, however, died in February 1684, lamented by few according to the diocesan chancellor. During his own final illness, Gulston had repeatedly begged Sancroft to prevent the deanery going to Thompson, whose appointment would, he claimed, lead to ‘nothing but perpetual contention in that church and city’. Gulston complained that it was ‘hard to be exposed to the implacable malice of fanatics for doing my duty, and yet unworthily torn in pieces too on the other side by pretending friends’. He had already hinted at a desire for translation to a less demanding diocese.<sup>31</sup> Supported by Beaufort, and despite opposition from both Gulston and Sancroft, Thompson nevertheless succeeded to the deanery. Although his appointment was made in early April, he was not installed until 24 May 1684.<sup>32</sup> Gulston may never have known that he had lost this particular battle. His correspondence is peppered with references to recurrent bouts of illness for which the only relief was ‘Jesuit powder’ (a natural source of quinine). He died at Symondsbury on 4 Apr. 1684 at the age of only 48 and was buried there on 18 April.<sup>33</sup> He bequeathed £800 as provision for his young daughter. The advowson of Symondsbury and the residue of his estate were left in the hands of his executors: George Ryves, Frances Gulston and Nicholas Ingram.<sup>34</sup> Gulston’s son, Seymour Gulston, became rector there in 1695.<sup>35</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
GUNNING, Peter (1614-84) |
<p><strong><surname>GUNNING</surname></strong>, <strong>Peter</strong> (1614–84)</p> |
|
|
First sat 21 Mar. 1670; last sat 26 Mar. 1681 |
cons. 6 Mar. 1670 bp. of CHICHESTER; transl. 4 Mar. 1675 bp. of ELY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Jan. 1614, s. of Peter Gunning (1585–1615), vic. Hoo, Kent, and Ellen, sis. of Francis Tresse, gent. of Hoo, Kent.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. King’s Sch. Canterbury; Clare, Camb. BA 1633, MA and fell. 1635, ejected 1644, DD 1660; ord. 1641; New Coll. Oxf. incorp. 1644, BD 1646. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 6 July 1684; <em>will</em> 25 Aug. 1679–26 June 1684, pr. 26 July 1684.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1661–9.</p><p>Cur. St Mary the Less, Camb., c.1635, Cassington, Oxon. 1644; chap. New, Oxf. 1644, to Sir Robert Shirley, 4th bt. bef. 1656; rect. Cottesmore, Rutland 1660–70, Stoke Bruerne, Northants. 1660–70 (presented 1649), Somersham, Hunts. 1662; canon Canterbury 1660–70.</p><p>Tutor to Christopher Hatton*, later Visct. Hatton, and (Sir) Francis Compton<sup>‡</sup>; master, Corpus Christi, Camb. 1660–1; Lady Margaret Prof. Divinity, Camb. 1660–1; Regius Prof. Divinity, Camb. 1661; commr. Savoy conference 1661;<sup>3</sup> master, St John’s, Camb. 1662–9.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, versions at Clare, St John’s, Old Schools, Camb., and as line engraving by D. Loggan, NPG D19281 and mezzotint by Isaac Beckett, NPG D11966; oil on canvas by unknown artist, St John’s, Camb.; effigy, Ely cathedral.</p> |
<p>Gunning was born into a family of clergymen and lawyers from Kent.<sup>4</sup> An outstanding scholar, he brought himself to royal attention by his public rejection of the solemn league and covenant in a 1643 sermon. After being ejected from his fellowship by parliamentary commissioners he left with his friend Isaac Barrow*, later bishop of St Asaph, for Oxford, where he joined the royal court. Until the Restoration he worked in royalist circles as a tutor and household chaplain, to among others, the family of Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton.<sup>5</sup> He defied the parliamentary proscription of Anglican doctrine and practice, preaching regularly to London congregations, particularly sharing duties at Exeter House on the Strand with Jeremy Taylor at some personal risk.<sup>6</sup> He also engaged in theological debate with Catholics and puritans alike. Sir Robert Shirley, imprisoned for his royalism, made an annuity to Gunning of £100 to allow him to serve the Anglican cause through publications to be approved by Henry Hammond, Gilbert Sheldon*, later bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury, and the imprisoned Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely. To Shirley’s dismay, Gunning was more provocative than he had expected, disputing with Papists, Anabaptists and others, elaborating in one sermon on the ‘now sinful abrogation of Christian anniversaries and festivals’ and in October 1659 organizing a fast day for national penance for the state of the ‘calamitous Church’.<sup>7</sup> Involved in at least one gathering of Anglican clergy, in the same year he was included in the planning lists for the Church drawn up by Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon.<sup>8</sup> During the spring of 1660 Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> became a regular attender at Gunning’s sermons and fasts, which he pronounced excellent.<sup>9</sup></p><p>At the Restoration Gunning was restored to his Cambridge fellowship (in the process ousting John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury). Seen as a safe pair of hands in Cambridge, he was nominated by the king to the Lady Margaret chair in divinity in July 1660: ‘some demur’ was overruled by the king’s orders for ‘his immediate admission, notwithstanding any statute to the contrary’. His nomination by the king to the mastership of Benet (Corpus Christi) College was likewise initially rejected by the fellows.<sup>10</sup> These preferments were in June 1661 superseded by the more prestigious mastership of St John’s and the regius professorship, vacated by Anthony Tuckney.</p><p>Gunning took an active role in the Savoy conference: Richard Baxter acknowledged his ‘study and industry’ and his ‘very temperate life’, but found him ‘so vehement for his high imposing principles, and so over-zealous for Arminianism and formality and Church pomp’, and his ‘passionate invectives’ an obstacle to liturgical compromise.<sup>11</sup> In Convocation, Gunning was an active contributor to the revised prayer book. On 26 May 1661, following the Commons’ order of 13 May that all Members must take Anglican communion on pain of exclusion, he delivered an aggressively Anglican sermon at St Margaret’s, Westminster. He denied the sacrament to William Prynne<sup>‡</sup>, who refused to kneel, although he did administer to one of the Boscawen brothers (Edward<sup>‡</sup> or Hugh<sup>‡</sup>) while the latter stood. The following day Prynne and William Morice<sup>‡</sup> responded to Gunning’s intractability by opposing the customary vote of thanks.<sup>12</sup> Gunning’s own brand of Protestantism was clearly far less ‘reformed’ than that of many Anglicans: on 27 Dec. 1661 (nearly a week after he had again preached to the Commons on the 22nd) he surprised Pepys in St Paul’s with an account of a miraculous vision of the Virgin Mary to the fourteenth century Orthodox Bishop Gregory.<sup>13</sup></p><p>At St John’s, he forged the college into such a bastion of loyalty that, after the 1688 revolution, it produced more non-jurors than any other Cambridge college.<sup>14</sup> In 1662 he preached a sermon before the king in which he argued for the apostolic nature of the Lenten fast, opposing recent Presbyterian objections to the institution of Lent and hardening perceptions that he was a closet Catholic.<sup>15</sup> He would reprint this sermon sporadically throughout his episcopal career: significantly in 1677 and 1681, when the Church was perceived to be under attack from Whig anti-clericalism; it was reprinted again in 1690 in the midst of controversies over the future of the non-juring bishops.</p><p>The death of Henry King*, bishop of Chichester, on 30 Sept. 1669 led to much speculation about his successor. According to one newsletter it was ‘tossed up and down to several’ before Gunning accepted the post.<sup>16</sup> Consecrated in March 1670, he was in the diocese in August, when he remarked to Sheldon on the poor state of churches there and referred to his plans to conduct a visitation the following month. Guy Carleton*, a later bishop of Chichester, though, made no bones about accusing Gunning as having ‘looked after no business but his book’.<sup>17</sup> He attended each of the 12 parliamentary sessions held during his episcopate and was usually in his seat on the first and last days of a session. He was also a contributor to debates and, possibly, to committee business, being named to 90 select committees during the course of his parliamentary career.</p><p>Gunning took his seat in the Lords on 21 Mar. 1670 (one week after the start of the 1670–1 session) but attended for only eight days that month, his attendance coinciding with debates on the divorce bill for John Manners*, Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland). On 28 Mar. he registered his dissent against the passage of the bill. He was present in the House the following day but was then absent for a year, not appearing in the House again until 24 Mar. 1671, possibly attracted by the debate on the growth of popery. On two occasions during this long absence (14 Nov. 1670 and 10 Feb. 1671) he was registered as excused at a call of the House.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued on 22 Apr. 1671 and Gunning became absorbed in university politics, supporting the election of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, to the chancellorship against the candidacy of Henry Bennet*, Baron (soon to be earl of) Arlington.<sup>18</sup> By July 1671, still in residence at St John’s, he was ill and planning a trip to take the waters at Tunbridge; six months later he was still complaining of suffering from the ‘ague’.<sup>19</sup> Apparently recovered by the start of the February 1673 parliamentary session, he was present on the first day and thereafter attended 83 per cent of sittings. He was named to four select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. On 11 Mar. 1673 he received the proxy of the eccentric and notoriously negligent Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, which he held until the end of the session.</p><p>Gunning returned to the House for the opening of the second session of 1673 and attended every sitting of the week-long session. On 6 Nov. 1673 the contested Chichester by-election saw the return of the town’s recorder, Richard May<sup>‡</sup>. There is no evidence that Gunning exerted himself on behalf of either of the candidates and the campaign appears to have reflected local interests rather than national politics.<sup>20</sup> He was back at Westminster by 7 Jan. 1674 when he attended the House for the start of the new session; he was present for 88 per cent of sittings and was as usual named to the committees for privileges and petitions but was not nominated to any select committees. After the prorogation on 24 Feb. 1674 his movements are unclear but he was in London on 5 Apr. when he preached before the king on the (presumably provocative) theme of temptation.<sup>21</sup> Roger Morrice believed that Gunning was involved with George Morley*, bishop of Winchester in one of the initiatives in 1673 or 1674 also involving John Tillotson and Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, to negotiate with Presbyterians over comprehension, though there is no other evidence to substantiate the claim.<sup>22</sup> In January 1675 he joined the key conference of five bishops and five privy councillors at Lambeth Palace which discussed responses to popery and dissent.<sup>23</sup> Shortly after that meeting Gunning was selected for translation to the more prestigious (and lucrative) see of Ely As bishop of Chichester Gunning’s annual diocesan income had been £671; that from the see of Ely was valued at more than £2,000.<sup>24</sup> The move was perhaps also a relief from the ‘affronts’ of the dean of Chichester, George Stradling, of which his successor bitterly complained.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Gunning attended 77 per cent of sittings in the first session of 1675 and was named to 14 select committees. It is probable that he spent the summer months in his new diocese. On 2 Oct. 1675, in anticipation of the new session, he received the proxy of Anthony Sparrow*, bishop of Exeter; he took his seat for the second 1675 session when it opened on 13 October. He attended 95 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees. On 20 Nov. 1675, Gunning used Sparrow’s proxy when he voted against the address for the dissolution of Parliament. Remaining in London, he attended a meeting at the Guildhall about the rebuilding of St Paul’s on 2 Dec. 1675.<sup>26</sup> However, his energies were focused on the need to defend the Church against arguments in favour of comprehension and against the Church’s ecclesiology. Gunning was plainly exercised by the publication of <em>The Naked Truth</em> by Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, which appeared during the autumn of 1675, and which aimed to mobilize opinion in favour of comprehension and suggested equality between bishops and presbyters.<sup>27</sup> On 20 Feb. 1676 Gunning used the opportunity of preaching before the king to deliver a direct attack on <em>The Naked Truth</em>, arguing for the divine institution of episcopacy.<sup>28</sup> Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, whose <em>Mr Smirke</em> was a response to the controversy aroused by the tract, was one of several who attributed another response to Croft, <em>Lex Talionis</em>, to Gunning (probably incorrectly).<sup>29</sup></p><p>During the recess, on 10 July 1676 (although the date is possibly in error), Gunning received the proxy of his old friend Isaac Barrow. Seven months later, on 10 Feb. 1677, just five days before the opening of the 1677–8 session, he also received the proxy of James Fleetwood*, bishop of Worcester, which he held until 7 Feb. 1678. He attended the House for this lengthy session for nearly 84 per cent of sittings and was named to 47 select committees. He was absent for a short period at Michaelmas 1677, when he travelled to Cambridge to consecrate the new chapel at Emmanuel College.<sup>30</sup> Back in London on 29 Jan. 1678, he protested against the resolution to address the king for the release from custody of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. Gunning was absent from the House between 7 and 25 Feb. 1678, possibly through illness as he was excused at a call of the House on 16 February. On 8 July he spoke in the lengthy debate concerning the appeal from chancery in the case of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, versus Watson.<sup>31</sup> He was present on 15 July and on 1 Oct. 1678 to hear the House prorogued.</p><p>The autumn parliamentary session opened on 21 Oct. 1678 against the background of the Popish Plot. Gunning attended the House for the first day of business, was present for 82 per cent of sittings and was named to two select committees and to all three sessional committees. He again received James Fleetwood’s proxy, which was registered to him on both 13 and 30 Oct. and vacated with Fleetwood’s attendance on 23 Dec. 1678. On 4 Nov. he examined the Lords’ Journal. During this session, Gunning played a prominent role in the passage of the Test Act. The wording of the bill was unambiguous in its attack on Rome, describing the Catholic mass as guilty of image worship, a sentiment with which he could not agree. On 15 Nov. 1678, following a debate in a committee of the whole House on the declaration against transubstantiation, Gunning voted against it being under the same penalty as the oaths. On 19 Nov., together with Sancroft and John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester, he voted against the legislation, on the grounds that it declared the practices of the Church of Rome idolatrous. Gunning was challenged in the debate by the strongly anti-Romanist Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, though the House ‘did not much mind Gunning’s arguments’ anyway and passed the bill.<sup>32</sup> Gunning nevertheless both took the Test and advised Sir William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>, who sought his guidance, to do likewise.<sup>33</sup> On 26 Dec. 1678, in the division on the supply bill, Gunning voted to insist on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer. The following day he voted against the committal of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds).</p><p>Elections to the first Exclusion Parliament in 1679 were fiercely contested but, while it seems likely that Gunning played a role in Cambridge as well as in the county, there is no evidence of his activities. His involvement in the election for Cambridge University burgesses is much clearer. He openly supported the sitting candidate, the high church Sir Charles Wheler<sup>‡</sup>, but Wheler and his running mate, Thomas Crouch<sup>‡</sup> (a Member already under Gunning’s influence), were replaced by Sir Thomas Exton<sup>‡</sup> and James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, the latter supported by the university’s chancellor, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>34</sup></p><p>When the new Parliament assembled on 6 Mar. 1679, Gunning attended four sittings in the abortive first week and was named to the three sessional committees. He took his seat for the ensuing session on 18 Mar. and then attended for 92 per cent of sittings, being named to ten select committees and again to all three sessional committees. Gunning was an opponent of Danby’s attainder and on 14 Apr. he voted against the passage of the attainder bill. Ten days later, he was listed as having voted to disagree with the Commons in the case of the Danby attainder; unlike six of his fellow bishops, he did not leave the chamber rather than vote in a matter of blood.</p><p>Meanwhile, on 7 Apr. 1679, Roger Morrice recorded a rumour set on foot by John Sidway (or Sedway) that, when Sidway was in Rome, the Catholic Cardinal Barbarini had intimated that Gunning and three other English bishops would support England’s reconversion to Catholicism.<sup>35</sup> Morrice’s information almost certainly came from reports of testimony provided to the Lords’ committee examining witnesses regarding the Popish Plot on either 4 or 5 April. Sidway had also told the committee that Gunning attempted to dissuade him from converting to Protestantism, telling him that Catholicism ‘was a better religion than it was generally believed to be’. Sidway’s credibility was undermined when he proved unable to identify Gunning. Ushered into the House on 7 Apr. ‘by an eloquent earl’ (Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury) to repeat his information, he damaged his credibility still further when questioning revealed that he had probably never been to Rome. Nevertheless, an order for Sidway’s committal was carried by only four votes and triggered a formal protest.<sup>36</sup> The slur on Gunning’s commitment to the Church was not easily removed. Despite the Lords’ findings, on 8 May 1679 the Commons entrusted a committee with the further examination of Sidway.<sup>37</sup> Two days later Gunning voted against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. During the debates in the House held on 6 and 20 May 1679 concerning the right of bishops to vote in blood cases, Gunning insisted that the relevant canon law was that which existed ‘before the dark times of popery’. The bishops were summoned by the king and ‘the law says we must obey the king tho’ the Pope says we shall not meddle in blood’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Parliament was dissolved on 12 July 1679, sparking another round of canvassing for the ensuing general election. Gunning’s interest was once more deployed in support of Sir Charles Wheler in the August elections for Cambridge University, against the king’s candidate, Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>, on the grounds of Temple’s supposed atheism; in the event, Wheler gave way to Temple and did not even attend the poll. In September 1679 Gunning was consulted by Lawrence Womock*, later bishop of St Davids about his pamphlet defending episcopal voting rights in capital cases.<sup>39</sup> Gunning was in London during the early part of 1680 and attended the House for its prorogation on 26 Jan. By 20 July he was back in Ely.<sup>40</sup> He returned to Westminster for 21 Oct. 1680, when he attended the House for the start of the second Exclusion Parliament. He was present for 86 per cent of sittings and was named to four select committees and to all three sessional committees. He spoke in the debate on the Exclusion Bill on 15 Nov. 1680 and voted to reject the bill on its first reading. On 23 Nov. he voted against the appointment of a joint committee to consider the state of the kingdom.</p><p>On 26 Dec. 1680 Gunning officiated at a London parish communion where the communicants (who included Titus Oates and Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt.) joined the bishop for dinner. Oates spoke out rashly against James Stuart*, duke of York, and against several Catholics at court, in a manner that Gunning described as Oates’s ‘usual discourse, and that he had checked him formerly for taking so indecent a liberty, but … to no purpose’.<sup>41</sup> In the new year, Gunning attended the House until 8 Jan. 1681, missing the last two days of parliamentary business. The dissolution by proclamation on 18 Jan. saw another round of electioneering in Cambridge but again without any evidence of Gunning’s intervention. He travelled to Oxford to be present on 21 Mar. for the start of the new Parliament and attended three-quarters of all sittings. He attended Parliament for the final time on 26 Mar. 1681, two days before the abrupt dissolution.</p><p>Throughout the politically bad-tempered spring of 1681, with waves of protest against the dissolution and equally impassioned counter-protest, Gunning and Womock held a number of discussions about ways to represent their ‘sense touching Parliaments’ to the king – presumably in response to Whig addresses. Gunning and Womock became increasingly close and on 17 Aug. 1681 Gunning, who had already recommended Womock to the commission of the peace for both Cambridge and the county, now recommended him to the deanery of Ely, affirming the latter’s ‘constant service of his majesty’ and his ‘learned and orthodox and seasonable’ publications.<sup>42</sup> Another of his allies against the Whigs was William Saywell (another prebendary of Ely and Gunning’s executor), who augmented the spate of Anglican political polemic with a defence of the bishop’s attacks on nonconformity and a vindication of the ‘true and Christian concord’ to be had in Gunning’s assertion of the ‘evangelical and Catholic unity’ of the Church of England.<sup>43</sup></p><p>During 1682 Gunning conducted a diocesan visitation.<sup>44</sup> In December of that year he was added to the commission on the Hyde–Dunblane case in the court of delegates, attending hearings until the sentence in April 1683 and finding in favour of Danby’s son Peregrine Osborne*, Lord Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds).<sup>45</sup> Gunning was now nearing 70 years of age and in such poor health that on 10 Mar. 1683 it was plausibly but erroneously reported that he had died two days previously.<sup>46</sup> Although a pastoral letter was issued under his name in January 1684, he was by then too ill to attend to diocesan business.<sup>47</sup> By May he was so ill that informed circles had already named his successor. He died in the bishop’s palace at Ely in the early hours of 6 July 1684, and was buried in the presbytery of Ely cathedral, where he is commemorated by a marble monument.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Gunning’s complex will, which included seven separate codicils, instructed seven friends to index and revise his writings. His sole executor was the prebend of Ely, William Saywell. Unmarried, Gunning distributed his estate widely, singling out nobody in particular but making special mention of those of his relatives who bore his surname. When he first composed his will in 1679 he was able to bequeath (in addition to pre-existing charitable expenditure) some £700; the seven codicils written over the following five years increased his legacies by £2,700. He had spent lavishly on charitable and educational works and lent £1,000 to Francis Turner*, bishop of Rochester, his successor as bishop of Ely, and like Gunning a former master of St John’s and vice-chancellor of Cambridge, towards the latter’s building projects.<sup>49</sup> Gunning’s political ally and former diocesan colleague Lawence Womock had high hopes of succeeding his friend and was bitterly disappointed when the favoured courtier Turner was translated to Ely in Gunning’s place.<sup>50</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
HACKET, John (1592-1670) |
<p><strong><surname>HACKET</surname></strong> (<strong>HAGGETT</strong>, <strong>HALKET</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1592–1670)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Jan. 1662; last sat 10 Dec. 1669 |
cons. 22 Dec. 1661 bp. of LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Sept. 1592, s. of Andrew Hacket of Pitfirrane, nr. Dunfermline, Fife, and ?Maud Doncaster.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Westminster Sch.; Trinity, Camb. BA 1613, Fell. 1614, MA 1616, ord. 1618, BD 1623, DD 1628; incorp. Oxford 1616; Gray’s Inn 1628. <em>m</em>. (1) 1625 Elizabeth (d.1637) da. of William Stebbing (Stebbins) of Earl Soham, Suff.<sup>2</sup> 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>);<sup>3</sup> (2) 1641 Frances da. of Mr. Bennet of Cheshire and wid. of Dr John Bridgeman,<sup>4</sup> 1s. (<em>d.v.p</em>), 1da.<sup>5</sup> <em>d</em>. 28 Oct. 1670; <em>will</em> 9 Jan. 1665-31 Aug. 1669, pr. 1 Dec. 1670.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James I 1623, to Charles I 1625, to Charles II 1660.</p><p>Rect. Stoke Hammond, Bucks. 1618-24, Kirby-under-Wood, Lincs. 1621, Barcombe, Suss. 1622, St Andrew’s Holborn 1624-43, 1660-62, Cheam, Surr. 1624-?; vic. Trumpington, Cambs. 1620; chap. to John Williams<sup>† </sup>bp. Lincoln 1621-3; preb. Lincoln 1623-61, St Paul’s London 1642-61; adn. Bedford, Lincoln 1631-61; pres. Sion Coll. 1633-4;<sup>7</sup> mbr. Westminster Assembly Divines 1643.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Valentine Ritz, Trinity, Camb.; oil on canvas by unknown artist, Trinity, Camb.; line engraving by W. Faithorne, 1671, NPG D22758.</p> |
<p>As a Westminster scholar of exceptional promise, John Hacket attracted a number of powerful episcopal patrons including Lancelot Andrewes<sup>†</sup>, John King<sup>†</sup> and the lord keeper, John Williams Hacket was directly descended from a cadet branch of the Halkets of Pitfirrane, lairds with a long history of service to Scottish royalty and close friendship to James VI of Scotland.<sup>8</sup> His pupil and biographer, Thomas Plume, wrote that Hacket’s father belonged ‘to the robes of Prince Henry’, and was a senior Westminster burgess. Plume emphasizes their piety and commitment to their only son’s success, whom they entered at Westminster School.<sup>9</sup> A 1621 will survives for an Andrew Hackett, but he described himself as a tailor and citizen of London; he was also unable to sign his name.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Noticed by Lancelot Andrewes, then dean of Westminster, John Hacket was elected to a Trinity College, Cambridge, scholarship along with the poet George Herbert, and enjoyed a stellar academic career.<sup>11</sup> He earned the approval of James I, before whom his comic anti-Jesuit satire <em>Loiola</em> was performed.<sup>12</sup> Taken up by John Williams when he became dean of Westminster (he was shortly afterwards lord keeper and bishop of Lincoln, and in 1642 archbishop of York), patronage flowed easily to Hacket, helped by his fluent preaching.<sup>13</sup> He received the fashionable London living of St Andrews Holborn temporarily in the gift of the crown, along with other livings (and an archdeaconry) at the disposal of the keeper and bishop of Lincoln. The relationship with Williams—Laud’s rival, enemy of Arminianism and a constant irritant of secular and ecclesiastical administration during the 1630s—would become a defining feature of Hacket’s career. Hacket in 1636 got into trouble with Laud himself, when he leapt to Williams’s defence after the bishop crossed swords with Laud’s cheerleader Peter Heylyn over the position of the communion table. In 1658 he completed an admiring biography of his patron, <em>Scrinia Reserata</em>.<sup>14</sup> Although (like Williams) regarded as a Calvinist, Hacket (like Williams) was a respecter of ceremonial (though his biographer also noted how keen he was on psalm-singing), and approved the canons of 1640—while suggesting to Laud that the time was not right for their adoption. Drawn into Williams’s attempt to draw up a scheme for moderated episcopacy in 1641, Hacket served on the sub-committee of divines entrusted with working out the details, and also represented his colleagues in defending deans and chapters in front of the Commons. His house was said to be the meeting place of a group of Calvinist-leaning divines including Ralph Brownrig<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Exeter, and Thomas Morton<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Durham, who tried to solicit statements in favour of the English ecclesiology from English and continental divines of the stature of Salmasius, Grotius and Episcopius.<sup>15</sup> Elected a prebendary of St Pauls shortly before the outbreak of war in March 1642, he was imprisoned for a time in November 1642 for refusing to contribute to Parliament’s war effort. Nevertheless, he was co-opted onto the Westminster Assembly in 1643 although he apparently never attended.<sup>16</sup> Protected by senior political figures including Robert Deveruex<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Essex and John Selden<sup>‡</sup>, he was not sequestered from St Andrew’s, Holborn until December 1645 (when it was the work of ‘a few of his factious parishioners’), and avoided sequestration from his living in Cheam. Though forbidden the use of the Book of Common Prayer by the Surrey County Committee, his biographer claimed he succeeded in subverting their order.<sup>17</sup> He was asked to minister at the executions of the George Goring*, earl of Norwich and Henry Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holland in 1649 (though Norwich in the event escaped death).<sup>18</sup> During the 1650s, as well as composing his life of Williams, he conducted a correspondence with William Dillingham, master of Emmanuel, sending amicable greetings to Dillingham’s friend and successor, William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and he took pupils, including Plume, his biographer.<sup>19</sup> Plume wrote that Hacket had been active in promoting the movement in 1659 and 1660 petitioning for a free Parliament.<sup>20</sup></p><p>By the Restoration, the bishop had already been twice widowed. His marriages had allied him with a number of gentry families, including the Bridgman family and the family of Joseph Henshaw*, later bishop of Peterborough, whose daughter Mary later married Hacket’s son Andrew Hacket<sup>‡</sup>. By the time of his death, Hacket had acquired property in Suffolk and Warwickshire and was able to bequeath more than £5,000.</p><h2><em>Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry</em></h2><p>Within months of the Restoration, Hacket returned to the Stuart court and his royal chaplaincy.<sup>21</sup> He petitioned in December 1660 for the tithe arrears from his Lincoln prebend to be used for repairs to the house tied to the prebend and to reimburse him for losses incurred through sequestration.<sup>22</sup> His sermon before the king on 22 Mar. 1661, about a month before the opening of the Savoy conference, in which he was one of the coadjutors (and to which it alludes), was a plea for moderation and some compromise, but accompanied by an insistence on order and the necessity for the authority of a bishop to prevent contention. Those who asserted their scruples, it argued, robbed the Church of its own liberty ‘to prescribe comeliness and order, for the better beautifying of God’s service’.<sup>23</sup> After the conference, in July, he commented to Dillingham on the Presbyterian proposals for a revision of the liturgy, that they were ‘so unconsonant, so quite different in the frame from our liturgy’. As a result, he calculated, perhaps with regret, ‘since the disagreeing part keep such a distance from the old reformed way, the ancient prayer book shall be held up with some few alterations and additions.’<sup>24</sup></p><p>Hacket was not mentioned in the lists of possible bishops drawn up by Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon in 1659, but according to Plume he turned down Hyde’s offer of the see of Gloucester, presumably before William Nicholson*, accepted it. Hacket claimed to have done so because ‘(as Cato)… he had rather future times should ask why Dr Hacket had not a bishopric than why he had one’.<sup>25</sup> A second chance came, however, following Accepted Frewen*,’s translation from Lichfield and Coventry to York in October 1660. After the Presbyterian Edmund Calamy rejected it, Hacket accepted, despite his reluctance (according to Plume) to leave his old cures at Holborn and Cheam, claiming that ‘Caesar had commanded it’—though Lichfield’s higher revenues (estimated by Frewen at £1,200) and large numbers of expired leases may have made it a more tempting proposition than Gloucester, despite the parlous state of Lichfield cathedral.<sup>26</sup> </p><p>Consecrated on 22 Dec. 1661 at Lambeth, on 20 Jan. 1662 Hacket took his seat in the House of Lords. He attended for some two-fifths of the sittings in his first session and was named to 10 committees, including those on the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford, the repeal of Long Parliament legislation, William Widdrington*, 2nd Baron Widdrington, and, oddly, pilchard fishing.<sup>27</sup> He was present on 25 Feb. 1662 when the revised liturgy was recommended to the House by the king and, with the majority of the episcopate, did not support proposals for a royal proviso to soften the harsher edges of the uniformity bill. Hacket preached at Whitehall on Whitsunday, 18 May 1662, the day before prorogation, where Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> found his sermon ‘most excellent’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Having sorted out his temporalities (including the arrears during the year-long vacancy) Hacket progressed to his diocese, undertaking a visitation on the way.<sup>29</sup> In Shropshire and Stafford in early June he undertook mass confirmations (he was said to have insisted on proper examinations) and preached every other day. There were more mass confirmations in Coventry. During his progress in Derbyshire he re-ordained 23 beneficed clergy. He made a formal entrance in Lichfield on 5 Aug. to a warm welcome from the gentry of three counties, an oration by Archdeacon Ryland and a speech in Latin by a former fellow of Christ’s, Cambridge, Sir Thomas Norton,<sup>‡</sup> bt.<sup>30</sup> There was, however, a big task to be done in the diocese. In a letter to the king of 11 Aug., written after he had completed the demolition of Coventry’s fortifications, the lord lieutenant, James Compton* 3rd earl of Northampton, emphasized the scale of the challenge facing the bishop in the town, with ‘both the possessors of the churches being transcendent in two most excellent qualities ignorance and obstinacy, I may safely add the third, disaffection to the present government both in church and state’. Five days later, the day before the Act of Uniformity came into force, Hacket himself wrote to Clarendon (‘the greatest patron I have living’) of the folly of the Coventry corporation, which had made the destruction of their walls richly deserved, though he had, he wrote, gained some credit with them by interceding with Clarendon, something which may perhaps have contributed to the hint of irritation in Northampton’s earlier letter. He confirmed the picture of the town drawn by the lord lieutenant, including the corporation’s sympathy for nonconformists and the mischief likely to be caused by preachers Dr John Bryan and Dr Obadiah Grew, vicar of St Michael’s, who, he was sure, would remain in the town ‘to bewitch the silly people’.<sup>31</sup> Hacket gave Grew an extra month to conform, but it made no difference.<sup>32</sup> Both Grew and Bryan were still being paid by the corporation in 1664.<sup>33</sup> Hacket was more sympathetic to Jonathan Grew, Obadiah’s nephew, patronized by the Hales family at Caucut, but Grew turned down his offer of a prebend at the Cathedral as an inducement to conform. The bishop was said to have made strenuous but unsuccessful efforts to get Anthony Burgesse, rector of Sutton Coldfield, fellow of Emmanuel and his ‘fast friend’ to conform. Hacket cited the minister at Chesterfield, John Billingsley, before the consistory court as a result of his bitter words about ‘prelatical ministers’ in his farewell sermon.<sup>34</sup> In the same letter of August 1662, Hacket told Clarendon that he was moving on in his visitation to Shrewsbury, and asked for a special commission to be conducted by Francis Newport*, 2nd Baron Newport, Sir Walter Littleton his diocesan chancellor, and Mr Timothy Tourneur, recorder of Lichfield, to inspect the church of St Mary and the public school at Shrewsbury.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Hacket’s biggest task was at Lichfield. Nonconformity there was a smaller problem as the cathedral interest was an important political force, particularly since the bishop in residence had the right to nominate the senior bailiff of the corporation. But the cathedral had been badly damaged in the siege of March 1643 and by neglect since.<sup>36</sup> According to Plume, the morning after his arrival in Lichfield, Hacket set his own horses to work removing rubble and set up a new building fund in which he raised some £20,000.<sup>37</sup> The project was supported by many benefactors, pursued by Hacket for their contributions—a process described by Roger North<sup>‡</sup> as ‘barefaced begging’. ‘No gentleman lodged, or scarce baited in the city’, North wrote, ‘to whom he did not pay his respects by way of visit, which ended in plausible entreaties for some assistance towards rescuing his distressed church from ruin’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>In Lichfield in October 1662, Hacket commented obliquely on the removal of Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup> from office, complaining that the prevailing fashion for replacing Court officials during their lifetime created a ‘planet of mutation’ over the court that would generate political ‘factions, quarrels and briberies’ to pervert the course of good government.<sup>39</sup> He was back in the House of Lords for the first day of the spring session in 1663. In the course of the five month-long session he was named to eight select committees, including those on heralds, tithes, highways and poor relief, abatements of writs of error in Exchequer, the port of Wells, and Sabbath observance.<sup>40</sup> He absented himself from the House after 23 June 1663, and was thus absent for the impeachment attempt on Clarendon. He returned to Lichfield for the summer months and resumed his efforts to secure conformity. He summoned those involved in a ‘great convention’ at Burton on Trent to his consistory court, though, as Sir Bryan Broughton, bt., reported to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, they treated him with some disrespect.<sup>41</sup></p><p>In the parliamentary session that ran from 16 Mar. 1664 to 17 May 1664, Hacket attended almost every sitting. He was named to select committees on transporting felons, highways, poor relief, the regulation of hackney carriages, navy stores, and the Ingoldsby Manor bill of Sir William Armine<sup>‡</sup>, bt. He was present on 6 May 1664 when the House went into committee on the conventicle bill and was present throughout the passage of the measure.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Over the summer Hacket embarked on a series of visits to parish churches in the diocese to ensure that the communion table and font were ‘well placed (beside other reformations)’. In Elford, Staffordshire, he harangued the congregation that he had ‘never seen the holy table worse placed than theirs’ (it was hidden behind an old tomb), but his orders to move it were countermanded by the ‘wilful’ Mrs. Bowes (sister of Sir Francis Burdett. and aunt of Robert Burdett<sup>‡</sup>, later Tory Member for Lichfield). Intending to excommunicate her in his consistory court, Hacket sought the advice of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury. In October 1664, during the negotiations over clerical taxation, Hacket responded at length to Sheldon’s request for opinions on the likely response of the clergy to the change to taxation under parliament, rather than Convocation. Hacket recognized that inflation had eroded the value of subsidies and that the monthly land tax was ‘far the best way by experience’ and thought the clergy should be ‘free hearted and liberal’ with the king because of his protection of the Church, though he pointed out the poverty of many clergy: ‘in this diocese of Lichfield containing 500 benefices with cure… not 50 in the whole diocese of value to maintain a scholar in a competent maintenance and a tolerable library’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>On 6 Nov. 1664, in anticipation of the autumn session, Hacket entered his proxy in favour of Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London (vacated when Hacket arrived in the House on 9 Feb. 1665). He attended the session for only a third of the sittings. When he eventually arrived at Westminster in February 1665, he was named to committees on damage clear, Hertford highways, and a private bill involving Sir Robert Carr<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>44</sup></p><p>He was back in Lichfield by May 1665.<sup>45</sup> In the first half of June he made another of his progresses through Shropshire, preaching in eight market towns on eight successive days, and claiming to have confirmed nearly 6,000 candidates. He reported to Sheldon on the state of the county, especially the activities of its nonconformist ministers and the counter efforts of the archdeacons, and told him of his intentions to move on to Derbyshire. In August he wrote to the archbishop about his concerns that his daughter Theophila was being courted by the ‘passionate’ Francis, son of Sir Lewis Dyve<sup>‡</sup>, and again resorted to Sheldon for advice since, in his estimation, Sir Lewis was not a ‘good Protestant’.<sup>46</sup> The marriage did take place in December 1665, in Lichfield, after which Hacket kept a ‘very open’ Christmas.<sup>47</sup> Another daughter seems to have contracted an unsuitable marriage without the consent of her parents with one Lockhart in 1666: Hacket was furious, but while reluctant to be pacified by Alexander Burnet, archbishop of Glasgow, he acquiesced on Sheldon’s intercession, while bitterly objecting to those who encouraged such marriages by insisting that time would heal the wounds. She died in childbirth in 1667, when Burnet asked Sheldon to intercede again on behalf of her husband and child.<sup>48</sup></p><p>With a new session of Parliament expected to be summoned to Oxford, in September 1665 Hacket pleaded to Sheldon that he would probably be ‘a bad attendant’ because he was always unwell in the autumn and had left his robes in London.<sup>49</sup> He nevertheless arrived in Oxford for the start of the session and attended for three-quarters of it. He was named to committees on damage clear, on further provision for plague and, on 27 Oct. 1665, to the committee on the five mile bill.<sup>50</sup> He was back in Lichfield in time for Christmas and to renew his persistent requests for money to complete the restoration of the cathedral, which he complained proceeded slowly for want of money: he had, he told Sheldon, laid out £1500 over the previous year for putting lead on the spire and received back only £1040, while he planned for the next year a programme of glazing, whitewashing and paving that was going to cost another £1700. A donation of £50 from Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup> on his marriage was some help.<sup>51</sup> In June 1666 he received (via John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton) £100 from the duchess of York; six months later he was still asking Sheldon’s advice on how to secure a similar sum from the duke.<sup>52</sup> In April, Hacket had to defend his replacement of the customary anthem after the sermon in the cathedral with ‘a common psalm’: the archdeacon of Derby complained to Sheldon, claiming that it had been designed to appease the ‘schismatically disposed’ in the town and had caused offence to many of the church’s best allies in the town, as well as the clergy and gentry of the diocese.<sup>53</sup> A more intractable dispute was with his eccentric and perennially absent dean, Thomas Wood*, later to be bishop of the diocese. Hacket had in September 1665 noted the belated arrival of Wood in the diocese months after his appointment and that he had contributed nothing to the cathedral appeal. In April 1666 he wrote that Wood was living in Westminster had had not been seen there since the previous October.<sup>54</sup> </p><p>Hacket missed the beginning of the 1666-7 session: in September 1666 he told Sheldon that he had made preparations to be there but had fallen ill with his regular autumn sickness earlier than usual, and asked Sheldon to excuse his attendance for the first few weeks.<sup>55</sup> He arrived at the House on 17 Oct. and attended the session (which lasted to February 1667) for only 30 per cent of sittings. He was named to three select committees: on the encouragement of coinage, the bill concerning Sir Richard Franklin<sup>‡</sup>, bt and the Southampton churches’ bill. He left before Christmas (sitting for the last time that session on 13 Dec. 1666) before returning to Lichfield.<sup>56</sup></p><p>A month later, at the beginning of 1667, he was telling Sheldon about the dean’s continued absence: Wood’s recent marriage and the charms of the ‘young bride’ might, he thought, be the current excuse, and it was certainly the subject of clerical gossip. He was still complaining about it in March.<sup>57</sup> Hacket’s attention was otherwise occupied with refurbishing a prebendal house as a bishop’s residence (the palace had been destroyed in the war), which cost him £1000; he told Sheldon that he hoped to procure a private act of Parliament to annex the house to the bishopric.<sup>58</sup> In September 1667 he threw his influence behind the candidature of his son Andrew Hacket for the forthcoming Lichfield by-election. Lichfield’s Presbyterians favoured Richard Dyott<sup>‡</sup> who, in Hacket’s opinion, was ‘not honest or a friend to the Church, but true to the king’.<sup>59</sup> Hacket claimed that the ‘worthier part of the city, by my interposing’ favoured his son (who did his father’s bidding as his business agent and fund-raiser in London).<sup>60</sup> The election provided Hacket with an additional excuse to absent himself from Parliament, as well as the onset of his usual autumn ill-health; if he left Lichfield too soon, he was convinced that his son would lose the election, ‘and the Church will suffer in it’.<sup>61</sup> He informed the archbishop that he would send his proxy to his ‘most intimate friend’ John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester and promised that if the parliamentary session resumed after Christmas 1667, he would travel to London.<sup>62</sup> With the impeachment of Clarendon imminent, Sheldon refused permission. Hacket sulkily complied, grumbling that ‘I may not be suffered to cherish myself, when never failing recurrent maladies afflict me’, and said that he would arrive at Westminster on 17 Oct. 1667.<sup>63</sup></p><p>He attended the session for some 30 per cent of sittings and was named to only two committees: on the land exchange between Horatio Townshend*, Baron Townshend and the rector of Raynham, and on the trial of peers.<sup>64</sup> With 21 of his fellow bishops he was present on 20 Nov. for the debate on the impeachment of Clarendon, and voted in support of the ex-chancellor. As in previous sessions, he was absent from the House after mid-December and did not return for the remainder of the session although it continued to March 1669. On 20 Jan. 1668 Hacket sent up his proxy and sought Sheldon’s agreement for it to be given to Dolben. With Dolben himself absent from the House until early February, the proxy was registered with Benjamin Laney*, bishop of Ely, and was not vacated until the end of the session. Hacket fully intended to remain in Lichfield having ‘a quiet time, if a bad and mad dean will permit’.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Absent from Lichfield during the by-election campaign, Hacket had been unable to exert his political influence at close quarters. Andrew Hacket does not seem to have entered the poll on 5 Dec. 1667 and Richard Dyott was elected unopposed.<sup>66</sup> The case of Sir Francis Burdet’s sister and the Elford communion table had now moved to the Stafford Assizes where a ‘packed perjured jury’ (in Hacket’s view) ruled that the bishop’s directions for the repositioned altar would prejudice the use of her pew.<sup>67</sup> But Hacket’s main concern continued to be with the dispute between the cathedral chapter and the dean. Wood, generally regarded as an odd and difficult man (even the archdeacon of Derby who so disliked Hacket’s psalm-singing, called him ‘the strangest man that ever I have had anything to do with’), had influence at Whitehall through his brother, Sir Henry Wood<sup>‡</sup>, treasurer and receiver general to the queen mother, and a curious connection with the countess of Castlemaine. By January 1668 Hacket had taken the drastic step of excommunicating his dean, and the story was spread widely.<sup>68</sup> Wood appealed to the court of arches. Both Sheldon and Hacket were humiliated when Wood was granted absolution by the court without Sheldon being consulted. The reading of Wood’s absolution in the cathedral delighted the local nonconformists. <sup>69</sup> On 28 Jan. there was an attempt at a reconciliation between Wood, the chapter and Hacket, though Hacket claimed Wood remained determined to assert a veto over the chapter, for which he said there was no precedent, and refused to pay up £50 which Hacket insisted he should contribute to the cathedral fabric. Later, Hacket was outraged to find that Wood had offered to spend the £50 on refurbishing the consistory court, his own sphere, instead.<sup>70</sup></p><p>On 15 Feb. 1668 Hacket congratulated Sheldon on his successful efforts to prevent the Commons supporting the moves towards comprehension, though he was not reassured to find that Dyott had been in favour. He observed with disgust as Dyott forged a closer alliance with Lichfield Dissenters: ‘they wholly possess him and converse with him’. In March he was encouraged by the votes against conventicles of the ‘prudent and religious patriots’ in the Commons, proof that ‘the finger of God is immediately in it’, but in ‘a cold sweat’ at the prospect of a dissolution since a newly elected Parliament, if it followed the result of the Lichfield by-election, would almost certainly be more inclined towards religious toleration.<sup>71</sup> He sought Sheldon’s help in resisting the efforts of Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington, to secure a Lichfield prebend on behalf of ‘an ignote’; he intended to thwart Arlington by preferring his own candidate, his former pupil and future biographer, Thomas Plume of Greenwich, ‘who buys all books for me and hath transacted all business for me at London, ever since I was bishop’.<sup>72</sup> Responding to Sheldon’s inquiry designed to overcome the criticism of the episcopate that was being expressed in early 1668, Hacket listed the sums he had raised and laid out on the cathedral since his arrival so that it could be relayed to members of the Commons: £3,500 ‘delivered up for the work of the Church in the first month I came hither’; a further £13,000 raised for the cathedral ‘by collections of benevolence’; augmentations for vicarages worth £90 a year; £700 of his own money on his palace; and £100 donation to release Algerian captives. His first fruits had amounted to £500, and tenths up to the current year were £350, and he had contributed a loan to the king of £500, which had now been repaid.<sup>73</sup> A few weeks later he was seeking Sheldon’s advice in how to pursue James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I] and earl of Brecknock, for a donation of £100 promised four years previously.<sup>74</sup> In July he was complaining still about Ormond, but also how promised gifts from William Cavendish*, duke of Newcastle, Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield and John Freschville*, Baron Freschville, had failed to materialize.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Hacket undertook his third triennial visitation over the summer of 1668 during which he consecrated the new chapel constructed by Basil Feilding*, 2nd earl of Denbigh. Hacket was treated to a ‘costly and magnificent dinner’ and presented with a gift of plate, after which he proceeded on his visitation to Coventry and Coleshill.<sup>76</sup> During a sermon he made in the open air at Polesworth he was heckled by a local Quaker, whom he cited before the consistory court: the bishop was the subject of a hostile pamphlet published a year later in consequence.<sup>77</sup> In July Hacket asked to be excused attendance on Parliament before Christmas (though in the event it continued to be adjourned), in order to deal with the cathedral and other business, and continued throughout the autumn to fulminate about his ‘absurd’, ‘untractable’, ‘illiterate’ and ‘filthy-natured’ dean, whom he alleged to be the patron of the local nonconformists and who had left the town taking with him the cathedral’s building accounts; back before Christmas he failed to attend public prayers, hold a chapter or read an excommunication. <sup>78</sup> In early 1669 he refused a request from Sir Henry Littleton<sup>‡</sup> (elected Member of the Commons for Lichfield in 1678), for a prebend for his chaplain, noting that he had made no contribution to the cathedral fund, and that he had refused similar requests from Newport, Lady Leveson and the countess of Southampton, who were among the project’s greatest benefactors.<sup>79</sup></p><p>With the lapse of the first Conventicle Act in March 1669, Hacket was concerned by the growth in conventicle activity in Coventry, particularly the Independent meeting at which the former (and later exclusionist) Commons’ member for Coventry, Robert Beake<sup>‡</sup>, was a lay preacher. Hacket sought the support of the mayor and suggested a show of force either by quartering of a troop of horse in the city or by raising the county militia ‘to reduce them and their confederates of Birmingham, a desperate and very populous rabble’. <sup>80</sup> Even in Lichfield nonconformity was spreading with the encouragement of Wood, and ‘two rich and violent nonconformists, discarded alderman’—Thomas Minors<sup>‡</sup> and one Jerson or Jesson (possibly the son of William Jesson of Coventry)—who were summoned before the Privy Council in July. Hacket worried that Tamworth MP John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup> would help Minors secure the protection of the lord chamberlain, the earl of Manchester. In August, even though Minors and Jesson made a commitment to cease keeping conventicles, Hacket reported that others would take over, providing information he had received from his archdeacons in Derbyshire and Shropshire on meetings there: all his time, he wrote, was taken up with complaints about conventicles.<sup>81</sup></p><p>By the autumn of 1669, Hacket had secured donations for the cathedral stalls in his ‘new and most beautiful choir’ at £8 apiece from many principal ministers and bishops, (though he grumbled in September that John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes, passing through Lichfield on his way to Ireland had been very complimentary about the project but had failed to give anything towards it.<sup>82</sup> Hacket showed renewed interest in Parliament, promising to attend the House to support ‘strict’ legislation against Dissent, as long as he could spend Christmas at Lichfield, and that Wood be summoned to Convocation so that he would not have the run of the diocese in Hacket’s absence. In the parliamentary session that ran from 19 Oct. to 11 Dec. 1669, Hacket was in almost constant attendance, hoping for a ‘strict’ replacement to the Conventicle Act.<sup>83</sup> He was named to just one select committee: the bill on the charity set up by John Warner*, the late bishop of Rochester.<sup>84</sup> Hacket did not return to the House after 10 Dec. 1669. He was back in Lichfield by the 20th, expressing gratitude to the king for his</p><blockquote><p>noble and firm resolutions to execute strict laws against nonconformists. There is no other course to be taken with such turbulent people, to preserve the peace, nay the being of kingdom, as well as church. I can certify for Coventry, where I lay upon my return, that nothing will bring them into tolerable obedience, but a severe hand. <sup>85</sup></p></blockquote><p>A few days later, on Christmas Eve, his massive rebuilding programme at the cathedral (and personal contribution of over £1,600) was celebrated in a service of re-consecration (with plenty of sermons) followed by three days of feasting.<sup>86</sup></p><p>In January 1670, ‘feeble and indisposed’, as well as desperate to raise another £1100 to complete the steeple with a peal of eight bells, Hacket asked Sheldon to inform the king that his absence from Parliament was not ‘undutifulness... but from want of power in an old ruined carcass’.<sup>87</sup> His proxy was registered on 11 Feb. 1670 in favour of Humphrey Henchman, and vacated only with Hacket’s death. Congratulating Sheldon in April on a successful session of Parliament, Hacket expressed deep offence at the ‘detested’ Roos divorce bill. He thought John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, a ‘strange’ man for supporting the bill, though he forgave him and would bequeath him 40 shillings for a ring, and dubbed John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester, Cosin’s ‘brother in evil’, criticizing the sermon he had recently had printed (which had been no longer than a quarter of an hour), and recounting how he had told Lord Berkeley (probably Berkeley of Stratton), who was singing Wilkins’ praises, that the bishop was a ‘shallow man both in philosophy and divinity’. His main complaint, though, was as always with Wood and his oversight of Lichfield. Presbyterians were doing what they wanted, absenting themselves from church and baptizing ‘hugger-mugger’. Still determined to finish the cathedral, he made an early plea that come the autumn he might stay in his newly refurbished cathedral, to ‘hear new bells jangle, and be spared from hearing an old Parliament wrangle’. <sup>88</sup> In June, Wood, evidently ordered to return to the cathedral by Sheldon, claimed to have dined with Hacket, and wrote to Sheldon hoping that the bishop would have given a favourable report. By September, however, Hacket was again bitterly reviling Wood’s behaviour, who had once more decamped to London without telling anyone, avoiding a septennial visitation of the cathedral chapter by the bishop. Hacket darkly hinted that the archbishop had decided that it was politically impossible to intervene.<sup>89</sup></p><p>During the autumn of 1670, Hacket gave Sheldon some more information about his financial stewardship, stressing his charitable activities and his reasonableness towards his tenants: quite apart from his layout on the cathedral and associated buildings, ‘I preserved all the old tenants in their leases, and all most content with their fines’, though he had increased some rents. He had lent £500 to the king and encouraged his clergy to lend as well. He had given £100 towards the redemption of slaves, £1200 towards the building of the bishop’s hostel in Trinity, Cambridge, with the rents of the chambers in it devoted to the college library: there were gifts to Clare Hall and the library of St John’s College (‘because my noble Lord was the founder thereof’). Moreover,</p><blockquote><p>I keep every day handsome hospitality for the cathedral men, clergy, gentry, inhabitants of the city. And the poor want not their daily refection. I hope I have forgot many things. My private charity I hate to keep in a calendar: only I add, that I give £20 per ann. to some of the decayed gentry, to whom I carry good affection.<sup>90</sup></p></blockquote><p>In response to another Sheldon circular, Hacket suggested using spies or informers to check up on the diligence of the incumbent in holding services in the suspect parishes.<sup>91</sup> At the end of September, he discussed prospects for a series of by-elections in Shropshire, Coventry and Derbyshire. In the latter, caused by the death of ‘worthy’ John Milward<sup>‡</sup>, he told Sheldon of his, and his friends’, support for Sir Harry Everard.<sup>92</sup> In the event William Sacheverell<sup>‡</sup> was elected for the county, supported by the presbyterian vote.<sup>93</sup> In Hacket’s last letter to Sheldon on 15 Oct. he as usual protested that he was too unwell to travel up for Parliament, and again sent his proxy for Henchman, while looking forward to another triennial visitation of the diocese next year, and fulminating about the behaviour of Wood.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Hacket died about two weeks later. Plume wrote that there was a huge turnout for his funeral.<sup>95</sup> His son erected an old-fashioned recumbent effigy in the cathedral.<sup>96</sup> In his will, the bishop made generous money bequests to family, friends, servants and charitable projects amounting to more than £5,000. He was outlived by two sons and three daughters.<sup>97</sup> Hacket’s <em>bête noire</em>, Thomas Wood, succeeded him, and their quarrel was extended into the next generation through a suit concerning Hacket’s failure to rebuild the episcopal palace. Andrew Hacket claimed that his father’s expenditure on the cathedral, the prebendal house and various charities had exceeded his income. The suit ended with an arbitration in 1684 by the bishops of Peterborough and London and Wood’s suspension: Andrew Hacket, dissatisfied with the result, maintained that a veil had been drawn over his father’s achievements.<sup>98</sup></p> |
B.A./P.C.S. |
|
HALL, George (1613-68) |
<p><strong><surname>HALL</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1613–68)</p> |
|
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1663; last sat 19 May 1668 |
cons. 11 May 1662 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 24 Aug. 1613, 3rd s. of Joseph Hall<sup>†</sup> (later bp. Exeter and Norwich) and Elizabeth Winiff (<em>d</em>.1652). <em>educ</em>. Exeter Coll., Oxf, matric. 1628, BA 1631, fell. 1632–8, MA 1634; incorp. Camb. 1635; DD 1660. <em>m</em>. 28 June 1641, Gertrude (<em>d</em>.1669), da. of Edward Meredith of Maristow, Devon, <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 23 Aug. 1668; <em>will</em> 22 Aug., pr. 2 Dec. 1668.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1660.</p><p>Vic. Menheniot, Cornw. 1637–45; seq. 1645; preb. Exeter 1639–61, Windsor 1660–2; adn. Cornwall, Exeter 1641–60, Canterbury 1660–8; minister St Bartholomew Exchange, London 1651; rect. Berwick, Suss. 1654,<sup>2</sup> St Botolph Aldersgate, London 1654–5, Wigan, Lancs. 1662–8.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Exeter, Oxf.; oil on canvas, by unknown artist, Emmanuel, Camb.</p> |
<p>George Hall was the son of the Caroline bishop, controversialist and devotional writer Joseph Hall, whose equivocal position on the Church and episcopacy ended up satisfying neither William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury nor his puritan opponents. Hall had already started to climb the ladder of clerical preferment before the civil wars. Although initially ejected in 1645, he found re-employment during the Interregnum.<sup>3</sup> He impressed John Evelyn as a preacher at St Botolph Aldersgate, and was quickly promoted after the Restoration.<sup>4</sup> When Henry Ferne* died in the spring of 1662, Hall replaced him as bishop of Chester. As a commendam, he was presented to the valuable Lancashire rectory of Wigan by the holder of its advowson, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> (whose brother Henry was dean of Chester cathedral). The living was the most valuable in Lancashire and it seems that the rectory at Wigan provided a far more congenial residence for Hall than Chester.<sup>5</sup> Faced shortly after his consecration with the task of implementing the Act of Uniformity in his diocese, Hall unusually insisted that Presbyterians openly renounce their former orders before they were ordained; Henry Newcome also recounted a rumour that a letter from Hall had been helpful to Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London at the end of Aug. 1662 in resisting attempts to allow dispensations from the Act.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Hall took his seat in the Lords on 18 Feb. 1663, the first day of the spring session. He attended 98 per cent of sittings throughout this ill-tempered term. He would be an active member over the next seven years, possibly at the expense of administration in his diocese (which also suffered from his preference for his Wigan rectory to Chester). Out of six parliamentary sessions he attended five for more than 85 per cent of sittings and was named to numerous select committees. A member of the Journals committee, he helped to examine the Journal on 19 Dec. 1667, 29 Feb. 1688, 18 Mar. 1668 and 18 Apr. 1668. In the spring 1664 session, he arrived for the first day of business and then attended 92 per cent of sittings. He was present throughout the passage of the first Conventicle Act and until the prorogation on 17 May 1664. The following (1664–5) session of Parliament saw him attend 89 per cent of sittings; he was named to 11 select committees.</p><p>In March 1665, during Hall’s absence from his diocese, his chancellor, John Wainwright, complained to Gilbert Sheldon, now archbishop of Canterbury that the bishop was detaining fees due to the chancellor and registrar. Wainwright claimed that Hall was dominated by his wife and was insufficiently respectful to the memory of the first post-Restoration bishop of Chester, Brian Walton*. It was subsequently determined that the fault lay not with Hall but with his secretary, a Mr Dwight, though the relationship between Wainwright and Hall continued to be poor: Hall was pleased to note in September that Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon had rejected his nomination of Wainwright as a member of the commission of the peace and was surprised that Clarendon had ‘taken such a right measure of him whom he personally knows not. His lordship saith he hath ill luck. I think I have ill luck in him too’. Hall added that he was also unfortunate in his dean, Henry Bridgeman.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In August, Hall was in the diocese, rectifying irregularities in his consistory court and acting as Sheldon’s intermediary with the Welsh dioceses.<sup>8</sup> Although Chester had declared for the king at the outbreak of the civil wars, there was a significant nonconformist presence, which Hall had already sought to counteract in February 1663 through securing the right to nominate four itinerant ‘king’s preachers’ in Lancashire, who were each to be paid £50 a year.<sup>9</sup> The city had returned a presbyterian, John Ratcliffe<sup>‡</sup>, to Parliament in 1660 and 1661 and Hall found the magistracy reluctant to implement the penal laws. Unwilling to attempt to ‘appear like a George on horseback with a sword lifted’ he sought assistance from Clarendon, requesting the appointment of an additional two justices. Clarendon obliged with an instruction to the mayor of Chester to deal more effectively with conventicles; as a result, senior members of the corporation ‘promised better activity for the future’.<sup>10</sup> Catholicism was also a problem for Hall, who turned to Sheldon for advice:</p><blockquote><p>I confess I am at a stand and know not in the present condition of times whether I should take cognizance of them or no. It may be imprudence, to undertake a prosecution of them to no issue and it is great scandal and offence to let them alone, though I wish the sectaries were but as quiet, and as yet inoffensive, as they are. To make pecuniary mulcts upon them is base. To proceed by Church censures is vain, to leave them unobserved is to multiply them.</p></blockquote><p>Hall sought to be excused from the brief Oxford Parliament of October 1665, arguing that the session would be ‘a representative, not full Parliament’ and last only as long ‘as the present exigent may require’.<sup>11</sup> Sheldon disagreed and as a result Hall did attend, albeit arriving a week late; he was present for 65 per cent of the short session.</p><p>In contrast, Hall attended 95 per cent of sittings during the 1666–7 session. On 3 Oct. 1666 he preached a warning sermon to the Lords in Westminster Abbey, attributing recent episodes of plague and fire to the wrath of Providence, and advocating closer co-operation between the Church and the magistracy, so that ‘weaker ecclesiastical coercions’ could be supplemented by the secular powers of the law. His theme had a particular warning for the House of Lords: status was no protection from ‘the common obligation and law of religion’ and Providence was no respecter of rank. Just as they would not endure ‘filthy spots upon [their] robes … stars … coronets … [and] escutcheons’, they should shun wickedness despite ‘the fashion to be otherwise’.<sup>12</sup> During the session he was named to numerous committees, including that for the bill which would allow Humphrey Wharton<sup>‡</sup> to lease lead mines from his northern neighbour, John Cosin*, bishop of Durham. Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, normally took the chair at meetings of the committee for the lead mines bill but Hall chaired it on 3 and 16 Jan. 1667. Presumably he was one of the bishops who opposed the bill as damaging to the long-term interests of the Church.<sup>13</sup> During the session he held proxies for three bishops in Wales or the marches: registered by George Griffith*, bishop of St Asaph, on 10 Sept. 1666 (vacated by Griffith’s death in November), by Robert Morgan*, bishop of Bangor, on 14 Sept. 1666 and by Herbert Croft* , bishop of Hereford, on 15 Dec. 1666 (both vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>After the prorogation in February 1667, Hall returned to his Wigan rectory, where he continued to face the dilemmas posed by the strength of Catholicism in Lancashire and the ‘incorrigible’ Protestant nonconformists who continued to preach throughout the diocese, despite his appeals to ‘remiss and languid’ magistrates. Still wary of confronting them himself, he asked Sheldon whether a direct approach for privy council assistance would be appropriate for ‘I would not attempt the restraint of them, till I can be sure to do it.’<sup>14</sup></p><p>Following Sheldon’s general directive to the bishops in August 1667, Hall was present on the first day of business for the 1667–9 session, attending for 89 per cent of sittings. He was again appointed to the sessional committees as well as to numerous select committees. He attended the Lords throughout the proceedings against Clarendon and supported the chancellor in the critical vote on 20 Nov. 1667. He held the proxy of Robert Skinner*, bishop of Worcester from 15 Feb. 1668 (vacated on 20 April).</p><p>Hall attended the House for the last time on 9 May 1668. By early August he was back in Wigan, describing his enjoyable ‘retirement’ over the summer and dreading the ‘punishment’ of his imminent return to Chester where they</p><blockquote><p>quarrel at my long absence as much as if they were affectionately fond of my presence, and while I am conscious of the impotency of my jurisdiction, and so can be content to do as little as may be, I yet see an absolute need of showing myself not asleep to all matters of censure. And as they use to say, the smell of a cat in the house doth keep away some mice though execution be done upon none, so possibly some little service may be done by my appearing near our busy nonconformists.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>Relieved that Parliament had been adjourned until November, he hoped for a further adjournment to the spring to avoid an uncomfortable winter in London.</p><p>Later that month, walking in the rectory garden at Wigan, Hall tripped on his gown and sustained a fatal stab wound from his own pocket knife.<sup>16</sup> He survived just long enough to compose his will, bequeathing lands to Exeter College, Oxford, after making provision for his widow. At her death later the same year, it became clear that Hall had lent money on mortgages to a number of people and the estate was owed in excess of £2,000.<sup>17</sup> He was buried in the chancel of Wigan church.</p> |
B.A. |
|
HALL, John (1633-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>HALL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1633–1710)</p> |
|
|
First sat 23 Nov. 1691; last sat 6 Dec. 1705 |
cons. 30 Aug. 1691 bp. of BRISTOL |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Jan. 1633, s. of John Hall, vic. Bromsgrove, Worcs. and Anne. <em>educ</em>. Merchant Taylors Sch. 1644-50; Pembroke, Oxf. matric. 1650, BA 1651, MA 1653, BD 1666, DD 1669; Presbyterian ord., 1655; episcopal ord., 1661; <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 4 Feb. 1710; <em>will</em> 24 Mar. 1709, pr. 20 Apr. 1710.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II, 1677-82, to William and Mary, 1691-2.</p><p>Rect. St Aldate’s, Oxf. 1664; canon, Worcester, 1676-91.</p><p>Master, Pembroke, Oxf. 1664-1710; Lady Margaret Prof. of Divinity, 1676-91.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: drawing by T. Forster, 1699, Bristol Museums, Galleries, and Archives; oil on canvas by unknown artist, Bristol Museums, Galleries, and Archives.</p> |
<p>Throughout his 19 years as bishop of Bristol, attendance at Parliament appears to have been low on Hall’s list of priorities. Dour and retiring, the ‘austerely whiggish’ Hall was born into a family of clergymen and academics, puritan in ethos and parliamentarian in their political sympathies. A natural scholar in the Calvinist intellectual tradition of Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, he was clearly uncomfortable when removed from his natural habitat in Oxford.</p><p>As an unmarried man who spent little time in his diocese, Hall had few demands on his income. Bristol was a small and impoverished see (in 1762 its annual income was only £450), and Hall was allowed to hold his mastership of Pembroke and college living of St Aldate’s <em>in commendam</em>.<sup>3</sup> As a result, by the time of his death he was able to establish generous trust funds for charitable uses and to bequeath to his nephew tracts of land in the Worcestershire areas of Hanbury and Stoke Prior.</p><p>On 31 Mar. 1661 (having previously received Presbyterian orders) Hall was ordained deacon and priest by Robert Skinner*, bishop of Oxford.<sup>4</sup> On 31 Dec. 1664 he was elected master of Pembroke (where his uncle, Edmund Hall, had also been a fellow). Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury attempted to prevent his election, suspicious of Hall’s Calvinism and his delay in seeking episcopal ordination.<sup>5</sup> In Oxford, Hall found himself in an increasingly hostile political and theological environment. Anthony Wood thought that he had grown increasingly proud and noted how he ‘forsakes by degrees his old companions’.<sup>6</sup> In his sermons in the university church he attached Catholicism; and when preaching before the king he pointed out the perils of immorality.<sup>7</sup> From the time of the Exclusion Crisis, he was identified with the emerging Whig party. He ministered to the condemned Stephen College and headed the list of names in an Oxford pamphlet, <em>A Catalogue of Whigs</em>.<sup>8</sup> He was, however, cautious not to allow himself to become too closely associated with men of College’s stamp, and in July 1683 he was one of those nominated to present James Butler*, duke of Ormond, with the university address condemning various books said to be associated with the Rye House Plot.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In April 1685 Hall preached the coronation sermon at the university church of St Mary’s warning of the dangers of Rome and praying for divine assistance to the king to ‘open his eyes to see the light’. Wood dismissed it as ‘a lukewarm, trimming sermon’.<sup>10</sup> After the Revolution, Hall’s prospects for promotion appeared brighter. In 1689 he was named to the royal commission on the liturgy, but he was still dogged by unpopularity. George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, seems to have been instrumental in dissuading the king from appointing Hall to the bishopric of Worcester.<sup>11</sup> Whether or not he was ever in the running for it, Hall was keen to rule himself out of another rumoured appointment, to St Asaph, writing in July to his friend, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford (with whom he also discussed the printing of the Welsh bible), that ‘if there should be such a design, I beseech you to stop it’.<sup>12</sup> Perhaps he was already aware of the potential political fallout of discontent at Pembroke. Early in 1690 the fellows of the college petitioned the university’s chancellor, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, complaining of Hall’s ‘irregular & exorbitant practices, sometimes by a gross and continued neglect’ as master of the college. Hall entered his defence in March and Ormond found in his favour in June, although on one issue, the allegedly favourable financial privilege given to a dissenting manciple, Ormond required Hall ‘in the presence of the fellows to admonish the manciple carefully and regularly to attend at the beginning of divine service and frequently to receive the holy communion so as not to administer any further occasion of suspicion which he hath hitherto lain under’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Hall had presumably overcome his concerns about becoming a bishop when he was nominated to Bristol in 1691. Harley may have had a hand in the nomination as he had commented to his father, Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, that April that ‘something may be done for Dr Hall’. Hall appears to have been second choice for the see. The original nominee was Ralph Bathurst, dean of Wells and uncle of Allen Bathurst*, later Earl Bathurst. The reason for Bathurst’s withdrawal is unclear but by June his name had been replaced by Hall’s and in August 1691 Hall was consecrated bishop.<sup>14</sup></p><p>On 23 Nov. 1691 Hall took his seat in the Lords. His late arrival for the start of the session hinted at a pattern of attendance that would mark the rest of his parliamentary career. Of the 20 sessions held during his tenure of the bishopric, Hall attended only 11. Throughout his entire parliamentary career he was named to only 20 select committees. He attended the autumn 1691 session for just 13 per cent of the time, during which he was named to three committees. On 23 Dec. 1691 he was given leave to be absent because of ill health. Towards the end of the year he signed the episcopal petition to the king on the suppression of impiety and vice.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Hall arrived six days late for the session that began in November 1692 (after which he was present on just under 18 per cent of all sitting days). He seems not to have made much impact on the House’s business, and in May 1693 when he wrote to Harley in answer to a demand from the commission for accounts, he was on the point of departing for Dorset to make a long overdue visitation of his diocese.<sup>16</sup> He returned to the House for the first day of the following session (7 Nov. 1693) but, again, took no part in business. He failed to appear at all during the session from November 1694 to May 1695. Despite this comparative inactivity, in December 1694, it was ‘generally reported’ that Hall would be translated to Lincoln.<sup>17</sup> He was even considered by the king as a replacement for John Tillotson*, archbishop of Canterbury, but there was always opposition in both the political and ecclesiastical establishment to his advancement and he remained at Bristol for the rest of his life.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Persistently absent from the House on health grounds, on 18 Dec. 1694 Hall’s request to be excused from the requirement to verify his disability was considered by the House. The request was ignored and the House ordered that Hall either attend or send two people to swear on oath that he was too ill to be there. He did not appear until 7 Dec. 1695, two weeks into the following winter session, after which he proceeded to attend on 23 per cent of all sitting days. He failed to attend after 14 Feb. 1696 and was absent throughout the passage of the Bristol hospitals and fresh water bills, measures in which, as bishop, he might have taken an interest. He also failed to sign the Association later that month (being marked sick in the manuscript minutes). His failure to do so was presumably not on ideological grounds as he later conveyed the copy of the Association signed by the Dorset grand jury to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Hall took his seat once more five weeks into the new session on 26 Nov. 1696, in time to participate in the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. He was present for Fenwick’s remand and voted for the attainder on 23 December. From 3 Mar. 1697 to the end of the session, his proxy was registered in favour of fellow Whig Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough. Hall attended the winter 1697 session on one day only (3 Jan. 1698), entering his proxy on 11 June 1698 in favour of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury (vacated at the end of the session). He returned to the House on 25 Jan. 1699, six weeks after the start of business, and attended for 22 per cent of sittings. In March 1699 there appears to have been a renewed effort to promote Hall from Bristol when Thomas Foley<sup>‡ </sup>asked the king to translate him to the vacant bishopric at Worcester. The king’s reply was curt, though more on account of his opinion of Foley, than of any ill feeling towards Hall. In August Hall was one of the bishops to attend the proceedings in the court of delegates against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Towards the close of 1699 Hall was compelled to write to John Somers*, Baron Somers, apologizing for the actions in Parliament of some ‘who pretend to be my friends’ and regretting that anyone associated with him might ‘be promoter of your Lordship’s disturbance’. He undertook to return to the Lords after the Christmas holiday and hoped that Somers would help him to secure an audience with the king, ‘which I have long desired, but could not attain’.<sup>21</sup> Hall duly arrived at the House on 19 Jan. 1700 and proceeded to attend just under a quarter of all sitting days.</p><p>Hall took his seat in the first Parliament of 1701 on 10 May 1701 (three months after the start of business) in good time to vote, on 17 June, for Somers’ acquittal from charges of impeachment. He quit the session that day, having attended in all just ten days in the session. By then, Hall appears to have become disenchanted with his lot. Later that summer, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> reported to his brother, Robert, that he had received a letter from Hall hinting at his desire to be translated.<sup>22</sup> He was not granted his wish. He was missing once again for the session that began in December 1701.</p><p>Hall returned to the chamber on 13 Nov. 1702, after which he was present on 20 days (23 per cent of the whole). On 3 Dec., in a vote that split the episcopal bench, Hall voted for Somers’ wrecking amendment to the occasional conformity bill. Two weeks later he voted for an adjournment when the Commons requested a conference on the bill.<sup>23</sup> On 17 Dec. he was one of those named to inspect the journals of both Ormond and the flag officers for the expedition to Cadiz and Vigo.</p><p>In January and November 1703, both Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that Hall would oppose a renewed attempt to pass the occasional conformity bill. On 16 Jan. he voted in person for the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause; on 14 Dec., his proxy was used to oppose the bill (proxy records for this session do not survive, so it is not possible to know to whom it was registered). Hall did not attend at all during the session from November 1703 to April 1704 and on 4 Jan. 1704 he was again the subject of a letter from the House demanding his attendance. There is no evidence of his reply. He was again missing from the ensuing session, but on 23 Nov. he was noted as ‘excused’ in a call of the House (having registered his proxy on 11 Nov. in favour of John Williams*, bishop of Chichester.</p><p>Hall appeared at the House on four days in November and December 1705, sitting for the last time on 6 December. Six days later he registered his proxy in favour of Thomas Tenison. Hall failed to appear for the last five sessions held during his lifetime. On 2 Jan. 1707 he explained to Somers (and perhaps significantly not to Tenison) that his absence was due to a bad cough that had plagued him throughout the winter and that he dreaded London ‘because I there very seldom escape one’. The last time he had been in town, he had been afflicted with a cough that had taken over a month to shake off. Nor had he sent his proxy because he had been told ‘with great assurance’ that there was no need of it. Now, however, William Lloyd*, then bishop of Worcester, had informed him that he should send his proxy immediately ‘upon account of some motion made in the House by the earl of Nottingham’. Hall forwarded the proxy to Somers, asking him to pass it on to Tenison, whom he deputed to nominate his proxy holder.<sup>24</sup> On the 21st, the proxy was registered in favour of Tenison himself. In a list of party affiliation published in May 1708, Hall was unsurprisingly listed as a Whig.</p><p>Hall died on 4 Feb. 1710 in the master’s lodge at Pembroke. He had already provided a charitable trust for the poor of Bromsgrove and provision of bibles using the revenue from 66 acres of land near Elmbridge.<sup>25</sup> His will, which bequeathed £700 in separate family legacies (including £100 apiece to his sisters, Hannah Spilsbury and Phoebe Hall), left the bulk of his estate to his nephew John Spilsbury, the Dissenting minister of Kidderminster. Hall attracted stern criticism from his opponents. To Wood he was ‘clownish, covetous, and quarrelsome’, while Thomas Hearne dismissed him as an ‘admirer of whining cringing parasites’, and criticized his ‘tedious’ epitaph as having been ‘contrived on purpose to gain proselytes to the whiggish party’.<sup>26</sup> Others, William III in particular, thought more highly of his abilities. Hall was buried in his native parish church of Bromsgrove. His death prompted lively discussion of his likely successor, with several candidates proposed. In the event he was succeeded in the bishopric by John Robinson*, later bishop of London.<sup>27</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
HALL, Timothy (1639-90) |
<p><strong><surname>HALL</surname></strong>, <strong>Timothy</strong> (1639–90)</p> |
|
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 20 Mar. 1690 |
cons. 7 Oct. 1688 bp. of OXFORD |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 17 Mar. 1639, St Katherine by the Tower London, s. of Thomas Hall, woodturner, and Judith. <em>educ</em>. Pembroke Coll., Oxf. matric. 1654, BA 1658. <em>m</em>. 1 May 1658, Sarah Rouls, of Twickenham, Surr., 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em><sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 9 or 10 Apr. 1690; <em>will</em> 7 Apr., pr. 15 May 1690.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Norwood, Surr., Southam, Warws., ejected 1662, Horsenden, Bucks. 1668-77, All Hallows Staining, London 1677-88; perpetual cur. Princes Risborough, Bucks. 1669-77; vic. Bledlow, Bucks. 1674-7.</p> |
|
<p>With the overtly political appointment of Timothy Hall to the see of Oxford in the autumn of 1688, James II disregarded the usual conventions of episcopal preferment. Hall’s family background was modest and his education puritan; his father was a woodturner, who had acquired property in the precincts of St Katherine by the Tower, and Hall entered Pembroke, Oxford, under the tuition of the Presbyterian, Thomas Cheseman (ejected in 1662).<sup>3</sup> Under normal circumstances, Hall, who did not progress academically beyond his bachelor’s degree, would not have been promoted out of the parochial clergy; his reputation as a bishop was thus circumscribed by hostility from his clerical colleagues and, subsequently, by Whig propaganda.</p><p>Ejected from his rectory at Norwood under the terms of the 1662 Act of Uniformity, Hall had conformed by 1668 and was presented to the living of Horsenden by John Grubb, a lay impropriator.<sup>4</sup> Little is known of Hall at this period, but on 20 Dec. 1677 he returned to London when presented by the Grocers’ Company to the rectory of All Hallows Staining.<sup>5</sup> He was now enmeshed in the social and political circle that included former parliamentarian Robert Huntington, the Brumpstead family (one of whom had married John Breedon,<sup>‡</sup> a prominent London Tory and liveryman), and the merchant, Sir John Friend<sup>‡ </sup>.<sup>6</sup> It is likely that Hall and Friend had known each other for some time, a relationship which may explain how Hall came to the king’s attention in 1688. Both men came from the parish of St Katherine, and Friend was appointed deputy lieutenant of London in October 1687 in James II’s political realignment of City institutions.<sup>7</sup></p><p>On 27 Apr. 1688 Hall, still ministering at Allhallows, was one of only five London ministers who read (or ordered the reading of) the second Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>8</sup> It was later reported that Hall obeyed to curry favour with the king but there is evidence that he was a principled supporter of toleration. Roger Morrice had already noted Hall’s support for the Dissenters’ exercise of public ministry, and his claim that it would be ‘such an advantage to the common interest of religion’ that he would happily see his own congregation dwindle as a consequence. His views on the subject meant that he opposed the stand made by the Seven Bishops.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Hall’s willingness to fall in with the king’s policies no doubt explains his elevation to a see that had been vacant since the end of March. In July the king issued a directive for Hall’s election to Oxford, though doubts continued to be expressed in correspondence at the time as to who was most likely to receive the bishopric. He was consecrated at Lambeth by William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, John Lake*, bishop of Chichester, and Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, but on Hall’s arrival at the bishop’s palace in Cuddesdon, the gentry refused the customary greeting and he was denied formal installation.<sup>10</sup> Still reeling from the Magdalen affair, the university refused to grant Hall a doctorate.<sup>11</sup> Perceived as a political stooge, Hall now joined Cartwright and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, as the butt of political satirists.<sup>12</sup> George Hickes, the future nonjuring suffragan bishop of Thetford, declared that Hall’s consecration put him in mind of a prediction that the king’s choice of bishops would enable Rome to ruin the established Church.<sup>13</sup> On 17 Nov. 1688, within weeks of his consecration, Hall signed the petition calling on James II to call a Parliament and he joined the Lords assembled at Whitehall ten days later.<sup>14</sup> He did not participate in the deliberations of the provisional government, but on 13 Jan. 1689 he preached at the Mercers’ Chapel on the theme of fraternal charity, rounding on those whose mouths were ‘half-cocked’ and ready to accuse their colleagues of closet Catholicism. Perhaps speaking for himself, he also defended those currently wrestling with their consciences and advocated mutual tolerance.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Hall took his seat in the Lords on the first day of the Convention on 22 January. He at once attracted criticism by including the formula for the king and prince of Wales when reading the prayers at the commencement of the session and was pointedly not one of those appointed to write the thanksgiving prayer later that day. The following day the prayers for James and Prince Edward were omitted.<sup>16</sup> Hall was appointed to the standing committees for privileges and petitions but his attendance of the House proved to be brief with him attending on only six days. In his brief parliamentary career, Hall voted consistently with the loyalists, voting for a regency on 29 Jan., and against the Commons in the abdication debate on 6 February. He did not, according to the printed Journal, sign the dissent against the final vote, but a manuscript list in the hand of Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, does include Hall as one of 40 dissenting voices.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Denied enthronement and admission to his temporalities, Hall was in reduced circumstances and a member of the ecclesiastical establishment in name only. At Whitsun 1689, unable to fulfil his diocesan duties, he was forced to call on Baptist Levinz, bishop of Sodor and Man, to ordain 84 Oxford ordinands.<sup>18</sup> On 18 Nov. 1689 Hall’s reputation received a further blow when John Hampden<sup>‡</sup> appeared before a Lords’ committee investigating the Rye House Plot. Hampden revealed that Hall had acted as messenger to the duchess of Portsmouth in an attempt to secure Hampden a pardon, though the duchess had soon after conceded her inability to effect his discharge.<sup>19</sup> Hall may have been known to Hampden from his time as a parish minister in Buckinghamshire, but he was roundly censured for his involvement. White Kennett<sup>‡</sup>, later bishop of Peterborough, who dismissed Hall as ‘one of the meanest and most obscure of the city divines’, and used Hampden’s revelation to damn Hall as a grubby time-server and Romanist sympathizer.<sup>20</sup> Macaulay was later to assert that the ‘infamous’ Hall had disgraced his gown by acting as a broker with the duchess of Portsmouth in the sale of pardons.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Hall did not return to the House after 6 Feb. apart from a single visit on 20 Mar. 1690; he did not register a proxy and at a call of the House on the last day of that month was excused as being sick. Two months earlier he had been subjected to an insulting experience when the judges at the Old Bailey refused to allow him to take the oaths, castigating him for the ‘very dangerous example’ he had set by delaying his appearance until the last possible moment. He was referred to Hick’s Hall where he was permitted to take the oaths along with four other clergymen.<sup>22</sup> A popular ballad joked that he was one of those associated with James’s regime to have sold his coach and horses and abandoned Whitehall, but when he died later that spring Hall’s meagre personal estate (ironically enough) did include a coach and horses (worth £27).<sup>23</sup></p><p>Apart from contradicting rumours about the composition of his personal estate and confirming his long-standing friendship with the Jacobite Sir John Friend, his executor and a fellow Hackney resident, Hall’s brief will gives little clue to his surviving family members or social circle. He left a grandson and it seems likely that he had outlived at least one son.<sup>24</sup> According to one of his contemporaries, at the time of his death he was ‘miserably poor’.<sup>25</sup> His response to an assessment of personal estate for tax purposes declared that he had ‘no personal estate taxable but my palace of Cuddesden.’ His household goods were subsequently valued at just over £350.<sup>26</sup> He died at his house in Homerton during the night of 9 Apr. 1690 (some reports recorded his death occurring the next day) and was buried on 13 Apr. at St John’s church in Hackney. The following day the dean and chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, received a recommendation to elect John Hough*, perhaps pointedly, as he had been the President of Magdalen deprived in 1687, as bishop in his stead.<sup>27</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
HENCHMAN, Humphrey (Humfrey) (1592-1675) |
<p><strong><surname>HENCHMAN</surname></strong>, <strong>Humphrey (Humfrey)</strong> (1592–1675)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 5 May 1675 |
cons. 28 Oct. 1660 bp. of SALISBURY; transl. 15 Sept. 1663 bp. of LONDON |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 22 Dec. 1592, 3rd s. of Thomas Henchman, skinner of the City of London and Wellingborough, Northants. and Anne, da. of Robert Griffiths of Caernarfon. <em>educ</em>. Christ’s, Camb. matric. 1609, BA 1613, MA 1616; Clare, Camb. fell. 1617–23, BD 1623, DD 1628. <em>m</em>. 1630, Ellen, da. of Robert Townson<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Salisbury, niece of John Davenant<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Salisbury, and wid. of J. Lowe, 3s. 1da. (1s. 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 7 Oct. 1675; <em>will</em> 25 Aug., pr. 19 Oct. 1675.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Lord almoner 1662–75; PC 1663–75.</p><p>Precentor Salisbury 1623–60; preb. Salisbury 1623–63; rect. St Peter and All Saints, Rushton, Northants. 1624–43, Westbury, Wilts. 1631–43, Wyke Regis, Kingsteignton and Portland, Dorset 1639–43; vic. Yealmpton, Devon 1629–43; commr. Savoy conference 1661.<sup>2</sup></p><p>FRS 1665.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by P. Lely, c.1665, NPG 6496 and copies;<sup>3</sup> mezzotint after Lely, NPG D29525.</p> |
<p>Henchman was already a significant figure in the Church hierarchy by the time of the Restoration, having enjoyed rapid promotion and influence within the Salisbury chapter in the 1620s and 1630s. At the start of the civil wars he joined Charles I in Oxford and as a result he was deprived of his preferments in 1643, his library was destroyed and he was forced to compound in 1648 for £200.<sup>4</sup> Throughout the Interregnum he lived discreetly in Salisbury, though he assisted Charles II on his escape from Worcester and was one of the circle of prominent clergy and laymen, including Gilbert Sheldon*, later bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury, Brian Duppa*, bishop of Salisbury, Henry Hammond, Richard Allestree and John Evelyn, who worked to maintain the operations and morale of the Church of England.<sup>5</sup> In 1658 or 1659 Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, included him on the planning lists for the Church as a potential bishop of Peterborough or Carlisle.<sup>6</sup> Hyde, who would commission a portrait of Henchman in the 1660s, probably knew him from Salisbury connections (and Henchman and Hyde’s cousin Alexander Hyde*, one of his successors as bishop of Salisbury were married to sisters).</p><p>In September 1660, ambitious to secure the see of Salisbury (which was about to be vacated by the translation of Duppa to Winchester), he helped the secretary of state, Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, and his son John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, to arrange leases of church lands in the diocese.<sup>7</sup> Other leases were given to relatives in 1661, and Sheldon’s 1670 enquiry about disposal of the profits made on the renewal of church leases at the Restoration (by which time Henchman had been translated to London) elicited the answer that at the Restoration £24,000 had been received by three people, including Henchman and the dean, ‘but what they laid out in public uses is not visible to us’, together with some resentment that little money had been lavished on the cathedral fabric.<sup>8</sup> He was consecrated with Sheldon and other new bishops at the end of October 1660, at a magnificent ceremony followed by ‘sumptuous’ feasting.<sup>9</sup> In the same month he was one of the representatives of the Church interest at the Worcester House meeting. He took an active role in the Savoy conference of 1661 and impressed the Presbyterian leader Richard Baxter with his ‘grave, comely, reverent aspect’, and his knowledge of church history and theology, if not his flexibility.<sup>10</sup></p><p>By October 1661 Henchman was already searching out political and religious dissidents. He was particularly worried about the situation in Shinfield, Berkshire, where the Anabaptist cordwainer William Stanley continued to preach and praised ‘the good old times’. Stanley, the vicar and ‘factious parishioners’ not only refused to obey the bishop’s order to desist but ‘jointly disclaimed the authority of bishops’. The lord lieutenant, John Lovelace*, 2nd Baron Lovelace, and the local justices of the peace were ‘unwilling to interpose in ecclesiastical affairs, unless some commands from his majesty require them because of the great hazard of sedition which might arise thereby’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Henchman took his seat on 20 Nov. 1661, the first day on which the restored bishops were eligible to attend the House. Generally in his seat on the first day of a parliamentary session, he attended each of the 14 sessions of the Cavalier Parliament that assembled during his episcopate, 11 for more than 60 per cent of sittings and eight of those for more than 80 per cent. In the course of his career he was nominated to more than 240 select committees and chaired at least 15 of those. He also compiled a parliamentary journal for the period 1664 to 1667, one of the few surviving sources for debates and processes in the upper house.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Henchman attended his first parliamentary session (1661–2) for nearly 70 per cent of sittings, despite joining the session more than six months after the start of business. He was named to 52 select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and the Journal. He was an active member of the Journal committee, examining the Journal on 11 Apr. and 2 May 1662. On 14 Dec. 1661 he was one of the managers of the conference on the bill for confirming private acts. He held the proxy of Hugh Lloyd*, bishop of Llandaff, from 28 Apr. 1662 to the end of the session.</p><p>During the summer of 1662, Henchman conducted a scrupulous visitation, reporting that numerous parishes revealed ‘material deficiencies’ in both their fabric and furnishings, and in August sent Clarendon details of livings in the king’s gift vacant as a result of the Act of Uniformity, rather obsequiously requesting one of them for his chaplain.<sup>13</sup> On 18 Feb. 1663, he attended the opening of the 1663 session and thereafter was present for nearly 97 per cent of sittings, again holding Hugh Lloyd’s proxy. He was named to 39 committees as well as to the three sessional committees for privileges, the Journal and petitions. Once again he was an active member of the Journal committee, examining the Journal three times during the course of business. On 26, 28 and 30 Mar. 1663 he managed conferences on Jesuits and Catholic priests. He also occasionally acted as committee chairman: on 19 June, following the adjournment of the committee on the observation of the Sabbath, Henchman took over the chair from Baptist Noel*, 3rd Viscount Campden; he also chaired a session of the bill to naturalize George Willoughby. He helped steer the Select Vestry Act through its committee stage and reported from both it and the observation of the Sabbath bill on 1 July 1663.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Involvement in the vestries bill suggests a close working relationship with Sheldon on an issue of some importance for the latter, and for the Church in London. Indeed, within a fortnight of the death of William Juxon*, archbishop of Canterbury, on 4 June 1663, it was known that Sheldon would replace him and that Henchman would be translated to London in Sheldon’s place.<sup>15</sup> Even after his translation in September it was believed that he still had influence in Salisbury and in April 1664 George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, thought Henchman might be able to assist the election of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>, at the Salisbury by-election.<sup>16</sup> On 16 Mar. Henchman was at the House for the first day of business in the 1664 session. He attended 95 per cent of sittings and was named to 12 select committees and to the standing committees for privileges and the journal. He held the proxy of William Lucy*, bishop of St Davids throughout the session. On 6 May 1664 he chaired the committee on the conventicles bill and the following week chaired the committee on a naturalization bill (reporting back to the House on 13 May).<sup>17</sup> He was present for the prorogation and the royal assent to the Conventicle Act on 17 May 1664.</p><p>During October 1664 Henchman promoted the candidature of his close friend William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, as dean of St Paul’s.<sup>18</sup> Once Sancroft was safely installed in the deanery, the two men worked closely together, as did Henchman with Sheldon, though Henchman’s confidence in his dean did not prevent him from offering advice from time to time, such as on the choice of a new minister for Tottenham, which he told him he should make himself, as the parishioners were not to be trusted.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Henchman again took his seat in the House on the first day of business of the 1664–5 session and thereafter attended 89 per cent of sittings. He was named to 19 select committees and to the 3 sessional committees, examining the journal on three occasions. He held the proxies of John Hacket*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (vacated on 6 Feb. 1665) and Lloyd of Llandaff (vacated at the end of the session). On 11 Feb. 1665 he chaired the committee on the River Avon bill, reporting to the House on 18 Feb., and on 27 Feb. reported to the House from the committee on the regulation of the press. He attended the House for the last day of business and the prorogation on 2 March 1665.</p><p>During the summer months and infestation of the plague, Henchman remained at his post in London, where he complained that he was deserted by most of his diocesan officers but was anxious to reassure Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, in August 1665 that nonconformists had not been able to take advantage of the situation to fill the pulpits vacated by the flight of Anglican ministers, and to stress that the ‘greatest danger is from the distress of the poor’.<sup>20</sup> When Parliament convened at Oxford in October 1665 Henchman lodged at Wadham and attended every sitting, holding the proxies of Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely, and John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, for the entire session. He was named to eight select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and the journal, twice examining the journal. Present throughout the passage of the five mile bill and the imposition of the contentious ‘no alteration’ oath, he joined with James Stuart*, duke of York, and all the bishops present to carry the bill in the face of ‘weighty’ objections.<sup>21</sup> After the end of the session on 31 Oct. 1665, he remained at Wadham until mid-December before travelling to Fulham Palace in time for Christmas.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Already closely involved in the Commission to repair St Paul’s, after the Great Fire of 1666, Henchman took an active role in planning and financing what had now become a project to rebuild the cathedral, as well as soliciting charitable donations from other dioceses and accepting offers of other vacant livings to assist distressed London clergy.<sup>23</sup> He was equally closely involved in work in Parliament to deal with the aftermath of the fire. Henchman attended the House on 18 Sept. 1666 for the start of the 1666–7 session. He was present for nearly 96 per cent of sittings, and was named to 30 select committees and to the committees for privileges and for the Journal, despite being simultaneously committed to meetings of Convocation.<sup>24</sup> He held John Cosin’s proxy for the whole session and that of Robert Skinner*, bishop of Worcester from 5 Oct. (vacated at the end of the session); on 17, 23 and 30 Oct. he managed a total of four conferences concerning the vote for prohibiting the import of French commodities. On 20 Dec. 1666 the Commons sent up a bill to establish a court to settle disputes over the destruction of houses during the Great Fire, legislation that would have a direct impact on Henchman in his capacity as a diocesan landlord. He was named to the committee on 3 Jan. 1667. While it seems likely that he took part in the committee’s deliberations, there is no evidence to confirm this. After legal consultation the committee added a proviso to establish a mechanism for appeal to the Lords, which was defeated in the House on 23 January.<sup>25</sup> Henchman, although in attendance, did not join the sizeable number of protesters against the bill. At or about this time he was also concerned with the vexed question of whether to rebuild or repair St Paul’s Cathedral, drawing up a detailed critique of the plans and of the legislation that would be necessary to implement them; he also commented on a bill for rebuilding the London churches.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The 1667–9 session saw a disruption to Henchman’s usually high attendance at the House. In June he was seeing a doctor for his rheumatism, and a call of the House on 29 Oct. 1667 recorded that he was excused owing to sickness.<sup>27</sup> He registered his proxy to Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York on 13 Nov. and did not return to the House until the adjournment day on 11 Aug. 1668, thus missing the debates over the possible committal and impeachment of Clarendon in November 1667 and the disruption caused by the attempt to renew the Conventicle Act and the case of <em>Skinner v East India Co.</em> in 1668. In January 1668 a newsletter reported that ‘if he be not [dead] he is near it’.<sup>28</sup> He was well enough to attend the Privy Council in September 1668 but the following month tried to cover his reluctance to participate in the unwelcome elevation of the comprehensionist John Wilkins*, as bishop of Chester, by claiming to be unable to do it ‘without hazard of his health’. When the consecration actually took place on 15 Nov. Henchman and Sheldon were said to have demonstrated their opposition to the proceedings by skulking behind a curtain.<sup>29</sup></p><p>In April 1669 a newsletter reported that there would be an enquiry into the disposal of the £5,000 paid to him by the county receivers for the relief of the poor during the plague.<sup>30</sup> That same month, with widespread uncertainty about the legitimacy of the penal laws after the expiry of the first Conventicle Act, Henchman was delighted that the county lieutenancy had been instructed to suppress conventicles, telling Sancroft that he had always predicted ‘that the insolencies of the sectaries would prove to our advantage’.<sup>31</sup> On 10 June 1669 he transmitted Archbishop Sheldon’s directive to all bishops to investigate nonconformist meetings, and communicated the king’s indignation at reports that he favoured conventiclers.<sup>32</sup> The following month the Privy Council named him to a standing committee to enquire into conventicles.<sup>33</sup></p><p>On 19 Oct. 1669, resuming his normal pattern of parliamentary behaviour, Henchman was in attendance on the first day of the session and thereafter attended 89 per cent of sittings. He was named to four select committees and the three sessional committees. Constantly vigilant about legislation concerning London, on 23 Nov. he was proposing to discuss with the lord mayor the bill to rebuild the city, about which ‘we shall soon agree’. A week later he told Sancroft that he was anxious to insert a separate clause into the bill to protect the landholding rights of various London livings and thought it better to give that clause to a member of the Commons to insert into the bill at committee stage, rather ‘than to propose it first to the lord mayor and aldermen’.<sup>34</sup> The bill was introduced in the following session and received the royal assent on 11 Apr. 1670. Henchman was in the House for the start of that session on 14 Feb. 1670; he already held John Hacket’s proxy (vacated at Hacket’s death on 28 Oct. 1670). He attended 77 per cent of sittings during the session, and was named to 54 select committees (including the committee on the bill for the rebuilding of London) and to the three sessional committees. On 3 Mar. he chaired the committee on the bill ‘for settling certain charitable uses’ devised by John Warner*, late bishop of Rochester.<sup>35</sup> On 17 Mar. he was one of the principal speakers opposing the second reading of the divorce bill for John Manners*, Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland).<sup>36</sup> Together with the majority of bishops he registered his dissent when the bill was committed and then on 28 Mar. dissented against the passage of the bill itself.</p><p>On 25 Mar. 1670, with a new conventicle bill under discussion in the House, Henchman was one of the bishops spoken to in the House by the king in an attempt to secure the passage of the proviso concerning royal supremacy.<sup>37</sup> As a result, the proviso passed the House without opposition. It was then opposed in the Commons and Henchman was one of the managers of the ensuing conferences on 4 April. During the recess Henchman emphasized his opposition to nonconformity by appointing an Anglican minister to read divine service at the Quaker meeting house in Gracechurch Street. Inevitably, the episode resulted in a violent confrontation when Quakers objected to the intrusion into their meeting of a man they perceived to be a ‘popish priest and Jesuit’ wearing ‘the garment of the beast’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>A bill ‘for discovery of such as have defrauded the poor of the City … of the monies given for their relief at the times of the late plague and fire, and for recovery of the arrears thereof’ was committed on 12 Dec. 1670. Henchman was in the House but was not named to the committee, which, on 20 Feb. 1671, ordered a new clause to be prepared authorizing Henchman and a group of city aldermen be involved together in ‘the discovery and distribution’ of such funds.<sup>39</sup> While these investigations were taking place, Henchman was involved in the preparation of further legislation to deal with the aftermath of the fire, this time a bill to settle a maintenance on the clerics of destroyed London churches, for which he and Sancroft facilitated negotiations between the ministers of London ‘who attend the bill’ and the City.<sup>40</sup> On 18 Apr. 1671 this measure was read for a second time; Henchman was named to the committee and the bill received the royal assent on 22 April. Meanwhile, on 10 Apr. 1671, he had been added to the committee on the additional (and ultimately abortive) bill against conventicles. After the end of the session, Henchman again concentrated on diocesan matters. In June 1671 he was granted a commission to visit Trinity Chapel in the Minories, a royal peculiar, ‘to correct any abuses’ that might have arisen in the chapel and its vicinity, and by October 1671 he was approving leases made by London incumbents under the terms of the additional act for rebuilding the city.<sup>41</sup></p><p>In the aftermath of the 1672 Declaration of Indulgence, it was widely anticipated that the following session of Parliament would be a volatile one in which the defence of the Church of England would dominate. Accordingly, before the session convened on 4 Feb. 1673, Sheldon provided Henchman with a draft directive to the bishops, summoning them (or their proxies) to Westminster for business in the Lords and in Convocation.<sup>42</sup> Henchman himself was in the House on 4 Feb. 1673 for the first day of business and attended nearly 60 per cent of sittings. He was named to 12 select committees and again to the three sessional committees. He must have been an active member of at least one of these committees for on 10 Mar. he reported back to the House on the Chudleigh rectory bill. He was present on 20 Oct. 1673 for the prorogation and back in the House seven days later for the week-long second session of the year, during which he was as usual named to the sessional committees and also to one select committee.</p><p>In the House on 7 Jan. 1674 for the start of the new parliamentary session, Henchman attended more than 90 per cent of subsequent sittings, and was named to 10 select committees and to the sessional committees. The session ended after only six weeks and Henchman and Sheldon co-ordinated their increased efforts against Catholicism.<sup>43</sup> By the start of the following parliamentary session in April 1675, the 83-year-old Henchman was very frail. He attended the House ten days after the opening but thereafter was present for only eight per cent of sittings. Perhaps in recognition of his age and health, he was not named to any select or sessional committees. On 29 Apr. he was excused attendance at a call of the House and on 5 May 1675 he attended the House for the final time. The following day he registered his proxy in favour of Richard Sterne (vacated at the end of the session on 9 June).</p><p>Henchman died on 7 Oct. 1675 at the bishop’s palace in Aldersgate Street and was buried in Fulham church. In addition to numerous legacies amounting to some £1,100 and annuities of £240 per annum, he had already committed himself to an annual £100 towards the St Paul’s project. His eldest son, Thomas Henchman, and his cousin Thomas Harris were made co-executors, together with Thomas Exton, chancellor of London. He composed his will shortly before his death, appending a statement of his faith in the doctrine of the Church of England and his opposition to the Council of Trent.</p> |
B.A. |
|
HENSHAW, Joseph (1603-79) |
<p><strong><surname>HENSHAW</surname></strong>, <strong>Joseph</strong> (1603–79)</p> |
|
|
First sat 1 June 1663; last sat 7 Mar. 1679 |
cons. 10 May 1663 bp. of PETERBOROUGH |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1603, 2nd s. of Thomas Henshaw<sup>‡</sup> of Basset’s Fee, Shipley, Suss., solicitor gen. [I], and Joan, da. of Richard Wistow, chief surgeon to Elizabeth I. <em>educ</em>. Charterhouse 1614; Magdalen Hall, Oxf. matric 1621, BA 1625; Pembroke, Camb. MA 1628, BD 1635, DD 1639. <em>m</em>. 28 Apr. 1633, Jane (<em>d.</em>1639), da. of John May of Rawmarsh, Suss. 1s. (<em>d.v.p.</em>), 1da. <em>d</em>. 9 Mar. 1679; <em>will</em> 8 Sept. 1675, pr. 11 Mar. 1676.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1660.</p><p>Chap. to John Digby<sup>†</sup>, earl of Bristol bef. 1628; chap. to George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham bef. 1628; preb. Chichester 1628–63; residentiary canon, Chichester 1638–60; vic. St Bartholomew-the-Less London 1631–6; rect. Stedham with Hayshot, Suss. 1634–63, E. Lavant, Suss. 1636–63; seq. 1645; dean and precentor, Chichester 1660–3.</p> |
|
<p>Joseph Henshaw was born into the Sussex branch of an armigerous family originally from Cheshire and had enviable connections to both the early Stuart court and the London legal and mercantile communities.<sup>2</sup> Originally under the patronage of George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, Henshaw’s career survived the duke’s assassination, almost certainly because he had a friend at court in Buckingham’s sworn enemy, the diplomat Francis Cottington<sup>†</sup>, Baron Cottington, to whose wealthy but melancholic wife Henshaw dedicated his successful book of meditations, <em>Horae Succisivae</em>.<sup>3</sup> He gained further connections within the establishment when he married into the May family of Sussex. By the end of his career, he had property in Nottinghamshire, London, and the estates of Shipley, Netherfield, and Shotford in his native county.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Widowed in 1639, and ejected from his living in 1645 (compounding for £177), Henshaw devoted his time to study and publication.<sup>5</sup> During the interregnum he lived in Chiswick and was one of a group of Anglican clerics at the heart of London society.<sup>6</sup> The diarist John Evelyn commended him as one of several ‘firm confessors and excellent persons’, and Henshaw’s name was included on planning lists for the Church drawn up by Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In 1663, Henshaw was elevated to the episcopate. His new diocese of Peterborough (centred on a city whose complex and archaic forms of local government blurred jurisdictional boundaries) included Northamptonshire, a notorious centre of nonconformity. This promotion proved to be something of a mixed blessing. The diocese was a poor one: in 1670 Henshaw stated that it produced an income of about £600 p.a. plus fines that had never yet exceeded £450. Set against this were ‘the great charges of coming into a bishopric’ and the lifestyle that had to be maintained – the ‘servants and attendants; the hospitality they must keep’. Over and above this it was unreasonable to ‘expect that we should lay up nothing, the estates being but during life, but reason and Christian religion do require us to provide for our family, not live splendidly and leave their relations to necessity and contempt’.<sup>8</sup> Furthermore, Henshaw soon discovered that managing the diocese was no easy task. Its politics were complex and he found himself having to deal with some difficult local characters including his archdeacon John Palmer, a kinsman and friend of the staunch Anglican Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup> Yelverton was an enemy to Dissent and, as would soon transpire, to Henshaw too.</p><p>On 9 Apr. 1663 Henshaw took his seat in the House, beginning an active parliamentary career that spanned 16 years. He attended all but one of the 16 parliamentary sessions held during his episcopate, usually attending for at least half of the sittings and, in eight sessions, for more than 70 per cent of the time (1664–5, 1667–73, 1675, and 1677–8). With his fellow bishops, he attended on 10 July 1663 when George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, accused Clarendon of treason, but there is no evidence to suggest how he voted.</p><p>Henshaw was present on the first day of the new session on 16 Mar. 1664 and attended for 95 per cent of sittings, being particularly diligent throughout the passage of the first Conventicle bill. Although there is no available evidence that he actually served on select committees, his committee nominations began to take on a pattern that lasted for the remainder of his career in the House: the overwhelming majority related to private and economic bills, as well as to those dealing with the social and economic infrastructure of London, where he probably owned property. During the two sessions that ran from March 1664 to March 1665 he attended each for nearly three-quarters of all sittings. Between sessions, in June 1665, Henshaw faced accusations from Yelverton of ‘extreme negligence’. Perceiving himself as something of a lone crusader against Dissent in Northampton, where he had only recently prevented the expulsion of ‘the loyal party’ from the corporation, Yelverton insisted that the bishop was insufficiently active in repressing both nonconformity and sedition. The gulf between their differing perceptions of what it was either desirable or possible to achieve was never bridged.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Henshaw joined the Oxford Parliament on 16 Oct. 1665. On 21 Oct. he received the proxy of William Lucy*, of St Davids, (vacated at the end of the session). He attended the House throughout heated debates on the Five Mile bill. Although Parliament was prorogued in October, Henshaw remained with the court in Oxford and on 31 Dec. 1665 helped to consecrate Alexander Hyde*, as bishop of Salisbury, in New College chapel. During that month he was outraged that Yelverton had gone behind his back in an attempt to secure the post of registrar for a relative. It was all the worse because because Yelverton had approached Archdeacon Palmer for help and, as Henshaw pointed out, ‘I did think I had deserved better of both’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Henshaw remained in his diocese throughout the summer of 1666 and did not attend the winter session of Parliament, being excused attendance at a call of the House on 1 October. Whether his absence was due to ill health is unclear. It may have been a tactical withdrawal, linked to the complaint in the House made by Edward Watson*, 2nd Baron Rockingham, on 26 Nov. of a breach of privilege relating to a process in the ecclesiastical court by Henshaw’s commissary, Dr George Wake.</p><p>Although Henshaw dismissed Yelverton’s frequent accusations that he was both inefficient and colluded with ‘sectaries’, it is probable that he did exercise latitude with conscience-troubled nonconformists. In November 1666, Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, remonstrated with Henshaw about his inaction in the case of a minister in his diocese, a Mr Hart, who</p><blockquote><p>reads not the common prayer as he is enjoined but in parts and parcels acc[ording] as the present humour takes him, never wears the surplice, takes no notice of holy days or fasting days, discourages those that like to observe the prayers and ceremonies of the Church, and openly and frequently falls into disputes v. them. I am suffic[iently] convinced of the naughtiness of the man, and so may y[ou]r L[ordshi]p. if you will but make an effectual enquiry into him. To the rest of his faults, I believe you will find him rich and stubborn, and therefore the fitter to be made an example. <sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sheldon went on to explain the procedure to be followed to deprive the minister of his living, concluding that ‘Such a justice as this thoroughly done upon such a person will give y[ou]r L[ordshi]p. much quiet in your diocese and ease me of the trouble of the like complaints’. Two weeks later he entreated Henshaw to make ‘him conformable, or his place too hot for him’ although it seems likely that Henshaw had pointed out that at least some of Hart’s more serious faults might have been pardoned by the Act of Oblivion.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Henshaw planned a diocesan visitation for May 1667. In so doing, he fell into a dispute with Archdeacon Palmer, who continued to hold his court in contempt of the bishop’s authority. Henshaw also found himself having to pacify Bristol over a quarrel between Palmer and Bristol’s kinsman, George Wake, about their respective authorities. Bristol was threatening to take the matter to the king because Wake was a royal appointee who had been appointed as recompense for his sufferings and service. Henshaw advised Palmer to heal the rift.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Henshaw appeared in the House on the second day of the October 1667 session and attended 70 per cent of sittings. On 24 Oct. he was named to the committee on sale of offices and on 8 Nov. to the committee on wool manufacture, both of which he chaired later in the month.<sup>15</sup> A string of committee nominations followed. He was present on 20 Nov. for the impeachment of Clarendon and voted with the majority of the bishops to support the lord chancellor. No evidence has yet emerged of his attitude towards the specific comprehension projects in 1668 and 1669.</p><p>In April 1669 Henslow became involved in yet another dispute with Yelverton over the employment of a schoolmaster in Wellingborough of whom Yelverton strongly disapproved. Yelverton considered the appointment to be a deliberate affront by a bishop who had nothing but animosity for him. He insisted that the schoolmaster in question was so ignorant that he hadn’t heard of Demosthenes ‘and did not know a noun in Greek from a participle’, and that the dispute was ‘merely carried on in a fanatic fury’. The bishop, he insisted, was too lenient to nonconformists and allowed ministers to flout the Act of Uniformity. Henshaw’s defence was a simple one: the schoolmaster in question had renounced the covenant and conformed, and – in what was clearly an attempt to head off any potential opposition from Yelverton – Henshaw had had the man questioned about conventicle attendance by Palmer, Yelverton’s ‘great friend and favourite’. Henshaw’s difficulty, as he told Sheldon was that ‘Our business is to bring over as many of these N[on]C[onformist]s to the C[hurch] of E[ngland] as we can, but if after they have renounced their N[on]C[onform]ity they shall be discountenanced because they were once N[on]C[onformist]s, it will very much discourage others’. Henshaw probably made things worse by suggesting that Yelverton take a lead from John Cecil*, 4th earl of Exeter, by using his secular authority to quash conventicles kept by two ejected ministers. Despite all attempts at moderate language, Henshaw could not in the end resist pointing out that ‘if I am not as fit to license a schoolmaster as a country justice, I am not fit to be b[isho]p’.<sup>16</sup> Contemporaneously with the dispute over the schoolmaster, Henshaw’s prosecution of the offending minister, Mr Hart, finally came to fruition. The bishop had employed an able and experienced proctor to undertake the case but just as sentence was to be delivered the case was stopped by an inhibition from the court of arches.<sup>17</sup></p><p>In October 1669 the see of Chichester fell vacant; Yelverton wrote with some satisfaction that Henshaw would not be considered for it, alleging that he had upset the gentry there during his short tenure as dean. When the two men met in November Yelverton took pleasure in deliberately slighting the bishop by remaining seated, as if in the presence of a social inferior.<sup>18</sup> He also took the opportunity of repeating the rumour that Henshaw was en route for Parliament to make a case for ‘sectaries’.<sup>19</sup> Following the lapse of the first Conventicle Act during 1669, Henshaw issued citations for conventiclers to appear before him at Peterborough.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Henshaw was delayed for the start of the Oct. 1669 parliamentary session; at the call of the House on 26 Oct. he was still travelling to London. He attended the session almost constantly (92 per cent of sittings) and was named to the subcommittee to consider a report from the commissioners of accounts. On 7 Feb. 1670 he received the proxy of William Piers*, of Bath and Wells (vacated at the end of the session). In the session that began a week later, Henshaw was named to some 50 select committees and was present on 15 Mar. when the House went into committee on the second Conventicle bill. On 17 Mar. 1670 he protested against the second reading of the divorce bill for John Manners*, Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland), and entered a dissent to its passage on 28 March.</p><p>While Yelverton may have thought Henshaw too lenient, the Quakers of Northamptonshire held the opposite view. They reported that, in or about April 1670, after the adjournment, Henshaw returned to his diocese and spoke,</p><blockquote><p>openly in the Mass-house, after he had given every officer a charge to put the late Act in execution, that when they met again (meaning the Parliament) they would make a stronger for them, they would get a law made to take away their lands and goods and then they should be sold for bond-slaves.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Virtually nothing is yet known about Henshaw’s activities over the next few years, though in January 1672 he did supply information to Sheldon’s secretary about a dispute between the cathedral and Chichester corporation, in which he had presumably been involved as dean. The information was to be used to ‘guide’ the chapter of Gloucester in a similar dispute with its corporation.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Henshaw arrived at the House one week into the February 1673 session and attended for 81 per cent of sittings. He was named to 15 committees including, on 24 Mar. 1673, the committee on parliamentary representation for the county palatine of Durham. In the brief session the following spring he was absent on 19 Feb. 1674 when a small group of bishops spoke in favour of the bill for composing differences in religion, which would have allowed some relaxation in liturgical dress and practice.</p><p>Henshaw signed the 1675 episcopal address to the king which advised that existing laws against Roman Catholics were sufficient and required only a royal command to put them into execution.<sup>23</sup> During the spring 1675 session (when he attended for 83 per cent of sittings), he maintained episcopal solidarity in the alliance between the Church and Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, supporting proposals for Danby’s non-resisting test. He resumed his seat in the session that began on 13 Apr. 1675, attending for more than 80 per cent of sittings, and he was present throughout early May when his relative Sir John Fagg<sup>‡</sup> appealed to the House in his case against Thomas Sherley.</p><p>Henshaw arrived on the first day of the session in Feb. 1677, attending for 72 per cent of sittings and being named to some 59 committees. On 29 Jan. 1678 he joined James Stuart*, duke of York, and five other bishops to protest against the release of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. As a former dean of Chichester he was asked to comment on the dispute between the current dean, George Stradling, and Ralph Brideoake*, the bishop. Henshaw’s sympathies seem to have been with Stradling, his somewhat terse remark that ‘it was a thing I never did, nor ever heard done’ presumably amounting to a comment on Brideoake’s actions.<sup>24</sup></p><p>In the session beginning 21 Oct. 1678 (when Henshaw’s attendance slumped to some 25 per cent of sittings), he was absent for almost all the debates on the Test Act, being present only for those on 14 and 15 November. On 27 Dec. 1678 he voted against the motion to commit Danby. The previous day he had voted against the Lords’ amendment to the disbanding bill relating to the payment of money into the exchequer. He was back at Westminster on 6 Mar. 1679 for the start of the first Exclusion Parliament but his attendance the following day proved to be his last. Two days later Henshaw was seen at morning prayers in Westminster Abbey, but he died suddenly that night at his lodgings in Covent Garden. His only son had died three years earlier so he directed his estate to be split between his granddaughter and his nephew; he also left monetary bequests amounting to nearly £1,000. He was buried in the parish church of East Lavant, Chichester, near to his wife and son.</p> |
B.A. |
|
HOOPER, George (1640-1727) |
<p><strong><surname>HOOPER</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1640–1727)</p> |
|
|
First sat 10 Nov. 1703; last sat 1 July 1717 |
cons. 31 Oct. 1703 bp. of ST ASAPH; transl. 14 Mar. 1704 bp. of BATH AND WELLS |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Nov. 1640, s. of George Hooper gent. and Joan, da. of Edmund Giles gent. of White Ladies Aston, Worcs. <em>educ</em>. St Paul’s; Westminster; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1657, BA 1661, MA 1663, BD 1673, DD 1677; ord. deacon 1666, priest 1668. <em>m</em>. 2 May 1679, Abigail (1655-1726), da. of Richard Guilford, Lambeth, brewer,<sup>1</sup> 2s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.), 6da. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 6 Sept. 1727; <em>will</em> 2 Apr. 1722, pr. 1 Dec. 1727.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Almoner to Princess Mary, The Hague 1678-9; chap. to Charles II 1681, to James II bef. 1687, to William III and Mary II 1691.</p><p>Rect. Havant, Hants 1671, E. Woodhay, Hants 1672-91, St Mary, Lambeth 1675-1703; chap. to George Morley*, bp. Winchester, 1672-3, to Gilbert Sheldon*, abp. Canterbury 1673; precentor Exeter Cathedral 1677-1704; dean, Canterbury 1691-1703; prolocutor convoc. 1701-2.</p><p>Commr. to visit London Hospitals 1691,<sup>4</sup> charitable funds for Vaudois Protestants 1699;<sup>5</sup> mbr. SPG 1701.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by T. Hill, Bishop’s Palace, Wells; oil on canvas by T. Hill, 1723, Christ Church, Oxf.; mezzotint by G. White after T. Hill, 1728, NPG D35964.</p> |
<h2><em>Ecclesiastical apprenticeship</em></h2><p>Born in Worcestershire into a minor gentry family, George Hooper benefited from early recognition and support from his head master at Westminster, Richard Busby, and his tutor at Oxford, Edward Pococke.<sup>7</sup> After several years in Oxford as one of the leading young students of Christ Church, in 1672 he migrated to the diocese of Winchester as chaplain to Bishop George Morley. Hooper’s early career shadowed that of his lifelong friend Thomas Ken*, the future bishop of Bath and Wells. Despite his ‘unpromising … exterior’ (he became bald at such an early age that Archbishop Sheldon advised him to wear a wig contrary to clerical tradition), he was identified as a candidate for leading office in Church and state.<sup>8</sup> When in 1672 he was engaged to be married, Morley suggested to Sheldon that Hooper be appointed chaplain to secretary of state Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup> Neither marriage nor chaplaincy appointment took place, but the request may have led to Hooper’s move to Sheldon’s household at Lambeth in 1673.<sup>10</sup> Service to both Morley and Sheldon probably drew Hooper to the attention of the court, and following Sheldon’s death he was appointed chaplain and almoner to Mary, princess of Orange at The Hague. Hooper championed high church ceremony in the religious practice of the princess which brought him into direct conflict with the Calvinist inclinations of William of Orange. According to his daughter, Abigail Prowse, during the Popish Plot agitation Hooper refused to share William’s expression of admiration for the proposed toleration of Dissenters. William told him that should William have any say in English affairs, Hooper would never become a bishop. Thomas Ken had replaced him as Mary’s chaplain by 14 Dec. 1679.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Back in England, Hooper gained a reputation as ‘one of the first rank of pulpit men in the nation’, as John Evelyn wrote after hearing his sermon before the king on 5 Nov. 1681 on the usurpations of the Church of Rome.<sup>12</sup> In 1682, reportedly at the request of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Hooper wrote a defence of Church ceremonial, a strict liturgy and the use of vestments while rejecting the doctrine of Roman Catholicism; the intention seems to have been to defend Anglican orthodoxy while reaching out to Dissenters.<sup>13</sup> In July 1683 he expressed exasperation with ‘the silly people’ of Newbury, whose obsession with new taxes to the exclusion of threats to Church and state left them vulnerable to manipulation by Whigs who wanted to underplay the Rye House Plot.<sup>14</sup> In autumn 1683 his diligent service to Exeter Cathedral impressed his bishop, Thomas Lamplugh*, later archbishop of York.<sup>15</sup> Lamplugh entrusted to Hooper the preservation of Church privileges during the town’s charter renewal the following year.<sup>16</sup> During this period rivalries emerged between Hooper and Jonathan Trelawny*, the future bishop of Exeter, whose family wielded political influence in the West Country. John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, suggested that the solution to the problem would be for Hooper to relinquish his concerns in the region in favour of the Trelawny interest; in return Trelawny could use his own influence to procure Hooper a position in Oxford.<sup>17</sup> Hooper, however, clung doggedly to his Exeter preferments, though material self-interest could be justified on the grounds of his growing family. He displayed limited flexibility in his pastoral judgments. He attended James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, before and at his execution.<sup>18</sup> Like his colleagues Thomas Ken, Francis Turner*, of Ely, and Thomas Tenison*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, he denied Monmouth the sacrament, though in his case apparently less for failing to acknowledge that Monmouth’s invasion was an act of rebellion than for his insistence that his adultery with Lady Henrietta Wentworth was a marriage in the sight of God.<sup>19</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury listed Hooper among the participants in the pamphlet war against Catholicism in James’s reign, though the only title publicly attributed to him between James’s accession and the Revolution was a 1685 edition of <em>The Church of England free from the Imputation of Popery</em>.<sup>20</sup> He was one of two men recommended to James II in 1687 for the deanery of Christ Church by William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>21</sup> He played host to Ken before and during the trial of the seven bishops in June 1688.<sup>22</sup></p><p>After the Revolution, despite pressure from, amongst others, the patristic theologian Henry Dodwell, Hooper took the oaths to the new regime.<sup>23</sup> Francis Turner was extremely concerned that he might also persuade his friend Thomas Ken to do so.<sup>24</sup> Despite the enduring hostility of William III, Hooper prospered for his acquiescence. He remained a chaplain in ordinary and was, in 1691, advanced to dean of Canterbury following the promotion of the incumbent, John Sharp*, to York. Prowse alleged that Mary II took advantage of William’s absence overseas to appoint Hooper, and that the promotion would never have taken place had William been in England to express his opposition. A measure of reconciliation with William III was supposedly effected after Mary’s death through the recommendation of Hooper’s former Christ Church pupil Thomas Pelham*, the future Baron Pelham.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Hooper was hostile from the outset to Archbishop Tenison. In 1699 Tenison deprived Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids; Hooper was later reported to have composed a treatise to prove that archbishops had never before exercised such authority.<sup>26</sup> Prowse recounted that it was Hooper’s reputation as a high church clergyman which encouraged Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to establish a friendship with him, made visible by their confidential discussions on a boat in the middle of the Thames between Harley’s lodgings at York Buildings and Hooper’s Lambeth rectory.<sup>27</sup> By February 1701 Harley enjoyed a working understanding with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, who approved Hooper’s nomination as prolocutor of the lower house of Convocation that month. Hooper’s election, understood as a victory for the high church party, was initially welcomed by Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, self-appointed leader of the radical high churchmen, but Hooper was less strident in defence of Convocation’s constitutional independence from Parliament and of religious orthodoxy than Atterbury wished and his moderation was overtaken by radical demands; he did not stand again for election as prolocutor at the start of the 1702 session.<sup>28</sup> In 1702 Rochester recommended Hooper as archbishop of Armagh, but the Irish primacy was vetoed as too great a career leap by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin. A newsletter’s mention of Hooper as a possible replacement for Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, should he be translated to Armagh, may suggest his wider credibility as a candidate for an episcopal see.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of St Asaph 1703-4</em></h2><p>Hooper’s potential as a man of business was recognized by Harley, who was instrumental in Hooper’s elevation to St Asaph.<sup>30</sup> Godolphin arranged to meet Hooper to discuss his advancement on 25 May.<sup>31</sup> In a letter of 1 June 1703 Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham swept aside the nomination by John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, of Knightly Chetwood, chaplain general to the army in the Netherlands, on the grounds that Hooper’s translation was too far advanced, though Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, in 1714 recalled recommending Hooper’s promotion to Marlborough, and Marlborough acting upon it.<sup>32</sup> The royal warrant for the <em>congé d’élire</em> recommending Hooper to the dean and chapter of St Asaph was dated 7 June 1703.<sup>33</sup> Relations with Tenison were smoothed by a meeting at Lambeth over ‘some part of a bottle of wine’ when the archbishop was ‘very gracious’.<sup>34</sup> Hooper accepted the post but petitioned for five commendams to supplement his new episcopal revenue, including the contentious post at Exeter as well as the deanery of Canterbury, the archdeaconry of St Asaph and rectory of Landrinio and any three benefices within the diocese of St Asaph.<sup>35</sup> The whiggish clergyman Maurice Wheeler professedly thought it odd that a man who spoke ‘Scotch’ should be offered a bishopric in Wales, perhaps a glance at Hooper’s obstruction of Whig Church policy.<sup>36</sup> Despite the employment of a recent legal precedent which enabled his commendams as ‘dispensations of retainer’, the law officers’ opinion was that the commendams contravened the act against pluralities, and Hooper’s consecration, scheduled for 21 Oct. 1703, was postponed. Atterbury suspected ‘a design to give [Hooper], the chief hand in ecclesiastical affairs’; and even though Atterbury thought Hooper’s elevation would mean that he himself would be ‘kept under and oppressed’ as much as he was during the time of John Tillotson*, the previous archbishop of Canterbury, he conceded that advancement ‘sought Him; and not He it’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Hooper’s consecration was delayed until 31 Oct. 1703 while a grant was obtained allowing him to hold the precentorship of Exeter Cathedral for only as long as it took him to procure a private act of Parliament permanently annexing the archdeaconry of St Asaph to the bishopric.<sup>38</sup> Atterbury maintained that Hooper postponed the ceremony to receive the Michaelmas profits from Lambeth, though he mistakenly consoled himself with the idea that Hooper would be kept from attending the House and voting on ‘some trying bills’; in the event the Lords did not sit until 4 November.<sup>39</sup> Certainly Archbishop Tenison, whose hands were tied by the influence of Harley and Sharp at court, was determined to compensate for such a nakedly political appointment. Atterbury reported that Hooper felt ‘the utmost uneasiness’ when his Lambeth rectory was filled by the Whig Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, later successively bishop of Lincoln and London, although Gibson had already been deputizing for Hooper there.<sup>40</sup> In both Convocation and in the Lords, Hooper remained a thorn in the side of the high-fliers. By the end of 1703 he was suspected of advising the government on strategies for managing high church extremists.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Hooper demonstrated a tendency to drag his feet over parliamentary attendance. Suffering from a cold, he missed the first two opportunities to sit in the Lords, on 4 Nov. and 9 November. Taking his seat on 10 Nov., the day after Anne addressed Parliament, he was appointed to the committee on the Address. Thereafter, his appearances coincided with debates on which he held strong opinions (such as the ‘Church in danger’, the Union with Scotland and the Sacheverell trial), with personal interest (as in May 1715 in an appeal from exchequer) or with the impeachment in 1717 of Oxford. He was named to the standing committee for privileges only once (on 9 Apr. 1713) and, with the exception of the sessions between October 1704 and May 1706, and November 1709 and May 1710, was rarely in the chamber to be nominated to select committees. He did make a brisk start, attending his first parliamentary session for 81 per cent of sittings, almost certainly because of the introduction of the occasional conformity bill. Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, correctly forecast that Hooper would support the measure. On 14 Dec. 1703, he voted with John Sharp and seven other Tory bishops in favour of the bill; when it was thrown out, Hooper registered his dissent.</p><p>According to Atterbury, within a month of taking his seat Hooper was employing his interest at court to replace Richard Kidder*, bishop of Bath and Wells, killed during the great gale of 26-27 Nov. 1703, though Abigail Prowse remembered the queen sending for Hooper as soon as news of Kidder’s death reached London.<sup>42</sup> It was hoped that Hooper could ‘sweeten’ the uncompromising nonjuror Ken, who proved willing to recognize his friend as his legitimate successor.<sup>43</sup> Hooper requested that he be allowed to retain the precentorship of Exeter and use the £200 stipend to provide a pension for Ken, but this was opposed by Trelawny.<sup>44</sup> In December 1703 it looked as though Hooper would be ‘too nimble’ for Trelawny, but the bishop of Exeter, now supported by Harley and Godolphin, challenged Hooper’s argument that he continued in the precentorship by the queen’s wish.<sup>45</sup> Hooper thus began to feel the effects of having defied government ministers over the occasional conformity measure. Trelawny threatened Godolphin that he would tear up their electoral pact in the Cornish boroughs if Hooper were allowed to keep his Exeter commendam.<sup>46</sup> Atterbury thought Hooper had engineered the timing of his translation from St Asaph to Bath and Wells in order to maximize his income, calculating that he had earned £3,600 that year.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Throughout the first few months of 1704 Hooper attended the House regularly, performing the junior bishop’s task of reading prayers at the opening of each sitting. On 14 Jan., when the verdict in the case of the Aylesbury men (<em>Ashby v. White)</em> was overturned, Hooper joined fellow Tories in entering a dissent. He preached the martyrdom sermon before the lords on 31 Jan. 1704, affirming the doctrine of passive obedience.<sup>48</sup> On 1 Mar. 1704, he registered his dissent from the resolution to retain the address to the crown regarding the ‘Scotch Plot’. He was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate his support over the plot.</p><h2><em>Bath and Wells</em></h2><p>The <em>congé d’élire</em> directing his election as bishop of Bath and Wells was issued on 19 Jan. 1704 and Hooper was elected six days later, and translated on 14 March.<sup>49</sup> On 21 Mar. Hooper was one of those to register his dissent against the rejection of the rider in the bill for raising recruits to the armed forces (to the effect that recruits should have the consent of local Church officers). He then protested against the passage of the bill. On 25 Mar. he registered his dissent twice against resolutions regretting that the conspirator Robert Ferguson was not censured, imprisoned and prosecuted before his papers were laid before the House. In May Atterbury reported gleefully that Hooper’s discharge from payment of first fruits was hanging ‘in the hedge’ and causing him considerable anxiety.<sup>50</sup> The factionalism amongst clerical Tories heightened as Hooper and his associate Henry Compton locked horns with Trelawny over Hooper’s desire to retain his place on the Exeter chapter. Trelawny was also aggrieved over Hopper’s pretensions to electoral influence in the county, in direct conflict with his own.<sup>51</sup> On 17 July Harley expressed his resentment towards Hooper’s ingratitude to the ministry, telling Godolphin that Trelawny should be mollified if only to ‘please a man of interest and mortify another who hath made her Majesty very ill returns’ for her favours.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Hooper was absent from the Lords until 30 Nov. 1704, weeks into the 1704-5 session. Thereafter he attended 47 per cent of sittings. According to Prowse, the queen had pressed Hooper to use his influence with the Tory activists in the Commons to dissuade them from tacking the third occasional conformity bill to the land tax bill. Hooper refused, claiming that he lacked influence in the Commons. Godolphin reminded Hooper of his obligations to the ministry, but Hooper was adamant that he could not vote against his ‘honour and conscience’.<sup>53</sup> On 14 Dec. 1704, in anticipation of the division in the Lords, he received the proxy of William Beveridge*, his successor at St Asaph. The following day Hooper protested both against the rejection of the second reading of the occasional conformity bill and the rejection of the bill itself, arguing ‘largely and very fully’ for the measure.<sup>54</sup> Abigail Prowse later recounted that John Sharp ‘merrily’ remarked on the disappointment of Hooper’s former ministerial patrons at his conduct; Hooper responded that they could have back their episcopal seat if they reimbursed his costs in attending the House. Godolphin tried to extract Hooper’s waived first fruits in retribution; Hooper refused to pay.<sup>55</sup> Over the Christmas period in 1704 he attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. On Christmas day itself he dined at the home of Thomas Sprat with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, and Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester. There he again argued vehemently against the archbishop’s powers of deprivation. Despite his opinion, he did not bring in the petition of the deprived Thomas Watson to the House at the start of January, leaving that role to Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford.<sup>56</sup> He did, however, dissent from the Lords’ rejection of the petition on 22 January. On 2 Mar. he was elected to a smaller than usual committee to consider the bill for the relief of the creditors of Thomas Pitkin and the discovery of Pitkin’s fraudulent practices.</p><p>It was probably in this session that Hooper was challenged in the House, and in the presence of the queen, by Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, over a sermon that he had preached before the Commons on 4 Apr. 1701.<sup>57</sup> Flourishing a copy of the printed sermon, Halifax accused Hooper of Catholic sympathies and invited the Lords to censure the bishop. The House ordered Hooper to read the offending passage from the sermon at the bar. Permitted to read the whole sermon to provide the proper context for the passage in question, Hooper was vindicated and Halifax forced to withdraw. Hooper’s daughter suggested that Tenison had put Halifax up to the challenge. The incident certainly allowed Tenison to show his displeasure with Hooper: warming himself by the fire in the Lords’ chamber, he caustically declared ‘he thought plain sermons best for he did not like wit in ’em’.<sup>58</sup> The session ended on 14 Mar. 1705 and Hooper returned to his new diocese. Hooper was at ease politically in Somerset, where both county gentry and civic elite were staunchly Tory, and the dominant electoral influences were Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, and John Poulett*, 4th Baron Poulett. The dissolution of 5 Apr. 1705 was followed by an election campaign in which Harley, Godolphin and Marlborough opposed the tackers and sought more ‘moderate’ government in Church and state. The Wells electorate returned the Tory Maurice Berkeley<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Hooper’s ongoing dispute with Trelawny over his Exeter precentorship influenced the election in the diocese of Exeter. Hooper expressed his support for the tackers’ parliamentary candidates for the Cornwall county seats through his friends among the clergy there, led by Archdeacon Edward Drewe. They sought to frustrate the Trelawny electoral campaign, which enjoyed the full support of Godolphin and the ministry. Hooper’s political allies in the diocese were unsuccessful, and Trelawny and Godolphin secured the election of Hugh Boscawen<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Falmouth.<sup>59</sup> Hooper was prepared to bide his time. Tenison told William Cowper*, later Baron and Earl Cowper, that Hooper had told his clergy to have patience:</p><blockquote>that notwithstanding her majesty had lately preferred some people not so acceptable to the Church, the same was from reason of state; and that in a little time she would shew them her inclination was otherwise, and that she would convince the world it was not of choice, but for a present purpose only.<sup>60</sup></blockquote><p>Hooper returned to the Lords on 12 Nov. 1705, the eleventh day of business in the autumn 1705 session, and attended 30 per cent of sittings. On 15 Nov. 1705 he left the chamber rather than vote on Rochester’s motion calling Anne to summon the heir presumptive Sophia to England.<sup>61</sup> Hooper (again closely allied to Compton) thereby avoided open opposition to Rochester and Nottingham, who signed the protest against the vote’s defeat. On 20 Nov. he and Compton were the only two bishops to vote for the proposal that the lord mayor of London be included on the list of lords justices named in the regency bill.<sup>62</sup> On 30 Nov. 1705 he registered his dissent from the resolution on the Protestant succession (that no further instructions be given to the committee of the whole following the successful move to prohibit repeal or amendment of the Act of Uniformity). Three days later he signed protests against the rejection of three riders that would have prevented the lords justices from giving the royal assent to any bill repealing or altering laws against Catholics, from changing the succession to the crown, and from repealing or altering the Habeas Corpus Act, the toleration of Protestant dissenters, the frequency of parliaments and the treason laws. He did not, however, sign the protest against the bill itself.</p><p>If support for the queen and her objection to the presence of her successor had been his motive for rejecting the motion proposed by Rochester on the succession, one might have expected that his intervention in the ‘Church in danger’ debate of 6 Dec. 1705, would have been similarly tactful. His speech amounted to an attempt to claim the high ground. The summary in Timberland emphasizes Hooper’s profession of moderation, arguing that the difference between high and low Church had been exaggerated. Nicolson’s report emphasized the difficulties Hooper believed the Presbyterian settlement of the Church of Scotland would cause any proposed union, providing an opportunity for Scots and English Protestant Dissenters joining to oppose a Church of England which they thought ‘Anti-Christian’. Hooper’s praise of ‘Western Shepherds’ who saw that clouds were gathering in the northern sky presumably flattered his diocese and himself. Nicolson considered the speech ‘a rambling … discourse upon nothing’.<sup>63</sup> Predictably, Hooper protested against the resolution that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s government. On 31 Jan. 1706, in the division on the regency bill, Hooper and Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, voted with the minority against the motion (proposed by John Somers*, Baron Somers) to repeal the ‘place’ clause in the 1701 Act of Settlement.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Hooper missed the last three months of business in spring 1706 and arrived nine weeks after the start of the autumn 1706 session. He attended only 18 per cent of sittings but took part in the debates that commenced on 15 Feb. 1707 on the union with Scotland. In the committee of the whole on 21 Feb. he supported the unsuccessful demand of John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, for debate on the first article to be postponed. Speaking on 24 Feb. he claimed it was impossible to reconcile two kingdoms with very different ecclesiastical structures (two ‘strong liquors of a contrary nature in one and the same vessel’). The proposed 16 Scottish representative peers would be a ‘dead weight’ in the Lords; they should not, he asserted, be allowed any vote concerning the English Church.<sup>65</sup> On 27 Feb. he registered his dissent from ratification of the last four resolutions (having not been present at the passing of the first 21). On 4 Mar. he supported the rider to the ratification bill of the Union on the Scottish church (that nothing in the bill should be construed as an acknowledgement that Presbyterianism was the true Protestant religion) this time voting with Nottingham.<sup>66</sup> Whereas, as was customary, he had previously been routinely named to committees when in attendance, during this session he was often not nominated even when his name appears in the presence list. Whether this indicates a disengagement from business, or whether he had simply left the chamber, is unclear. The session ended on 8 Apr. 1707 and Hooper failed to attend the brief session later that month.</p><p>It is probable that he spent the summer months in the diocese, since he arrived at the House one month late for the start for the October 1707 session. He attended 19 per cent of sittings. He was in London at Christmas when he attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth.<sup>67</sup> Despite not being listed as present, he was appointed to the committee on the earl of Exeter’s estate bill on 24 Jan. 1708. Though listed as present on 19 Feb. he was one of the few peers not nominated to the committee on the Harwich to London highways bill.</p><p>The end of the session on 1 Apr. 1708 was followed by election campaigns. The June election saw a nationwide Whig victory. Somerset did not follow the national trend; there, Hooper was actively and successfully engaged in procuring for his son-in-law, John Prowse<sup>‡</sup>, the support of the Tory gentry. In May 1708 Prowse was elected unopposed for the county.<sup>68</sup> On 16 Nov. 1708 Hooper arrived on the first day of the new session but then attended for only four per cent of sittings. At the end of the year, Weymouth feared that the Junto ministry would attempt a repeal of the Test and pressed Hooper to attend diligently. Hooper prevaricated and then blamed the bad weather for his failure to attend.<sup>69</sup> In the event he attended the House on only three occasions in February, March and April. He was not present on 21 Jan. 1709 for the division on the protests concerning the election of Scottish representative peers, an issue on which he might have been expected to show a keen interest. He missed almost four months at the start of the winter 1709-10 session, but in total attended 22 per cent of sittings during that session. He explained that he had been absent during the autumn due to ill health, convalescence after surgery for a swelling on his back being complicated by a bout of colic and a ‘feverish distemper’.<sup>70</sup> He was present on 27 Feb. 1710 when the Sacheverell trial opened in Westminster Hall and attended on 21 separate days throughout the next six weeks. The instances in which he was named to committees on days which he was listed present continued to diminish, but on 13 Mar. he was chosen to the committee ‘to search and inspect precedents of impeachments, concerning high crimes and misdemeanors’, and on the following day to the committee on the bill for more effectual provision for the poor in Kingston upon Hull. On 14 Mar. he registered his dissent from the resolution not to adjourn the House. On the same day he also dissented (with Sharp, Compton and Sprat) from the resolution that it was not necessary to include in an impeachment the ostensibly ‘criminal’ words, since this went against legal precedent. Two days later, on 16 Mar., Hooper spoke in the debate on the first article of impeachment.<sup>71</sup> On the question of resistance, he insisted that ‘original compact’ was a ‘dangerous’ concept; the necessity for resistance in extraordinary circumstances was a fact that should be concealed from the populace. Sacheverell had merely obeyed the imperative of preaching up passive obedience at a time when resistance was being justified.<sup>72</sup> Given his own willingness to take the oaths to William and Mary, Hooper left himself open to charges of hypocrisy. On 16, 17 and 18 Mar. he entered protests against the conduct of the proceedings and on 20 Mar., he found Sacheverell not guilty. He registered his protest against the majority verdict. The following day he dissented against the censure of Sacheverell. Hooper was shortly afterwards to snub Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, later earl of Macclesfield, who as Member for Derby had led the prosecution on the fourth article and was ‘vital’ to the Whig case, when Parker was made lord chief justice and turned up at the Wells assizes.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Parliament was dissolved in September 1710. In a list drawn up the following month, Harley indicated that, despite Hooper’s former unreliability, he expected to be able to rely on Hooper’s support for an administration inclusive of Tories. With the start of the new Parliament in November, Hooper arrived one week into the start of business and again attended 22 per cent of sittings. On Christmas Day he took communion at Westminster Abbey; the following day at Lambeth saw the most well attended St Stephen’s dinner in its history.<sup>74</sup> The nomination of Hooper, with Compton and Tenison, as one of the three chairmen of Convocation was interpreted as a ministerial device to undermine Tenison’s authority. Hooper refused to act in this role (as Compton and Tenison were both ill, it would have exposed him to possible opprobrium as a ministerial placeman) and in February Tenison was appointed sole president. The parliamentary session ended on 12 June 1711 but Hooper did not attend after 3 May.</p><p>Harley’s creation as earl of Oxford and the construction of a largely Tory ministry had coincided with a renewed bond between him and Hooper, yet with a diminished political role for the bishop. It was noted that Oxford often sat with him on the episcopal bench to discuss the weather and visited Hooper at Kensington (where he lived in close proximity to Weymouth) several times a week, but did not include him in political discussions.<sup>75</sup> According to Prowse, Hooper was several times invited to join the Privy Council by Oxford, but refused.<sup>76</sup> He did not attend the parliamentary session that opened in December 1711, registering his proxy with Henry Compton, who appears to have exercised it in favour of the restraining orders on the duke of Ormond on 28 May 1712. He was in Bath with his family at the start of October, where he ‘expressed great zeal’ for the bill on commerce with France and also ‘an earnest desire to use his own words to have the gentlemen made as free to serve as the queen is now to command by repealing the triennial act.’<sup>77</sup></p><p>Hooper suffered from poor health for much of the following year. On 9 Feb. 1713 he wrote to Compton expressing surprise that his name was listed in the <em>Gazette</em> as a Lent preacher; his health, he claimed, would not permit the journey and he asked Compton to present his excuses. Five days later he wrote to Oxford that the winter had rendered him ‘not hardy enough’ to cope with travel during bad weather. Delighted with the peace of Utrecht, he asked Oxford to present his apologies to the queen for his absence from court..<sup>78</sup> Oxford noted that Hooper should be contacted in advance of the next session and by the end of March Hooper was back at his lodgings in Kensington, clearly at Oxford’s request.<sup>79</sup> He was present on 9 Apr., the first day of the session, but attended only ten per cent of sittings. That day he was one of the overwhelming majority of peers chosen to the committee on privileges, but was not one of the almost as large group chosen to the committee on the Lords Journal. In May he wrote to Oxford that he had been ill and prevented from obeying the queen’s commands, but Oxford made another note on 31 May that Hooper be contacted concerning the bill to confirm the French Commercial Treaty.<sup>80</sup> He was counting on Hooper’s support in the forthcoming division and calculated that Hooper would support confirmation of the eighth and ninth articles of the treaty. Perhaps for this reason, Hooper was entrusted with preaching at the thanksgiving service in June.<sup>81</sup> On 30 June he was appointed to the committee considering the method taken by the crown to demand supplies. On 6 July, with the summer recess approaching, Hooper was concerned about a new vacancy in his diocese in the gift of the privy seal and contacted the lord keeper, Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, for assistance.<sup>82</sup> The following day he preached a thanksgiving sermon for the peace before the House, but in a coded signal of unfulfilled Tory aspirations for the Church, prayed that the queen would yet ‘perform her whole work’.<sup>83</sup> Compton died that day, 7 July; Hooper’s daughter claimed that he was offered the see of London on the death of Compton, but that ‘he refused, as the revenues of it were no way answerable to the great expense, of always living in and near London, to a man of his extensive acquaintance, besides the great business belonging to that Diocese, he said required a younger man, for he was then above seventy’; others thought Hooper’s attendance in the House far too indifferent for a bishop of London and that Harcourt had blocked the promotion.<sup>84</sup></p><p>In 1713 Hooper and other Hanoverian Tories such as Sir Thomas Hanmer<sup>‡</sup> were pressed by Nottingham to join an opposition alliance.<sup>85</sup> Hooper refused, remaining in the Oxford camp and supporting the ministry’s policy on trade with France. He did not join the Tory revolt and actively supported the commerce bill in Somerset.<sup>86</sup> Indeed, Oxford’s brother described Hooper, together with all the ‘western gentlemen’, as being ‘perfectly easy’.<sup>87</sup> By the start of February 1714, in obedience to a summons from Oxford, Hooper was preparing to travel to London for the new parliamentary session.<sup>88</sup> At about this time his name was mentioned as a possible successor to John Sharp as archbishop of York, but if the position were offered, he turned it down on the grounds he did not want to leave his daughter, who was settled in Somerset.<sup>89</sup> He did not appear in the House until 17 Mar., but thereafter attended 23 per cent of sittings. He was in the House on 5 Apr. for the division on the perceived danger to the Protestant succession. On 13 Apr., when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to an address on the threat from the Pretender, Hooper (with William Dawes*, archbishop of York, George Smalridge*, bishop of Bristol, and John Robinson*, bishop of London) now voted against the ministry.<sup>90</sup> On 16 Apr. he was chosen to the committee to draft the address to the queen thanking her for the peace. In or about May it was forecast that he would support the schism bill. The bishop was in the House on 7 June for the bill’s second reading, on 11 June for the division on extending the bill to Ireland and on 15 June for the bill’s passage. On 20 June he wrote to Oxford that he would leave Kensington the following day.<sup>91</sup> He promptly registered his proxy in favour of Philip Bisse*, bishop of Hereford; it was vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>The summer months of 1714 saw both the resignation of Oxford and the death of the queen. Hooper failed to attend the first Parliament of the new reign, but undertook his traditional diocesan role at the coronation as escort to the monarch. Jostled aside by the king’s military aides, he was the victim of Tenison’s muddled handling of the ceremonial when the archbishop prevented Hooper from receiving communion with the king.<sup>92</sup> Hooper’s detractors claimed that he tried to mobilize opinion against the king.<sup>93</sup> Abigail Prowse, however, subsequently wrote of the friendly correspondence Hooper enjoyed with George I, conducted through Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>94</sup> Whatever the truth of either claim, the accession of George I coincided with Hooper’s further withdrawal from the business of Parliament unless it was for his own private concerns or in support of his old (if intermittent) ally, Oxford. He attended the House on only 27 occasions between 1715 and his death in 1727.</p><p>Much of his time was spent in diocesan affairs, where his daughter’s account shows he sought to enhance academic standards and the authority of the bishop over the clergy.<sup>95</sup> One aspect of this scheme was the weakening of the influence the family of Robert Creighton*, the long-deceased bishop, held over the cathedral chapter.<sup>96</sup> Creighton’s son, also Robert Creighton, had been precentor of Wells Cathedral since 1674; the younger Creighton’s sons-in-law, Marshall Brydges and Henry Layng, had been chancellor and sub-dean since 1696 and 1698 respectively. Hooper refused further appointments of Creighton family members to clerical posts, especially following the lease of a canonical house in July 1714 to Robert Creighton (son of the precentor), who ‘often attempted to make use of it as a qualification for a canonry’. Resentment from the Creighton family was bought off by the promotion of Henry Layng to the archdeaconry of Wells and the appointment of another Creighton son-in-law as chancellor of the diocese. Hooper’s quest to improve diocesan revenues led to his victorious exchequer case against the tenants of West Buckland for rent arrears in February 1713, confirmed after an appeal to the Lords on 27 May 1715.<sup>97</sup></p><p>On 6 Sept. 1727 he died at the home of his daughter Abigail Prowse in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. Ten days later, George Hooper was buried in Wells Cathedral next to his wife.<sup>98</sup> Abigail Prowse inherited his entire (but undefined) estate, both real and personal. The wife of John Prowse and mother of Thomas Prowse<sup>‡</sup>, her manuscript biography of Hooper formed the basis for subsequent biographies.<sup>99</sup> Both Atterbury and Burnet provided more critical commentaries. In a moment of pique, Atterbury accused Hooper of manipulating Church preferments for material gain and claimed that he alone was responsible for Hooper’s rise in the Church: without the high Tory agenda in Convocation in 1701, Hooper would never have come to prominence.<sup>100</sup> Burnet, from the other end of the political spectrum, thought otherwise, judging Hooper an ambitious man who was ‘reserved, crafty and ambitious’.<sup>101</sup></p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
HOUGH, John (1651-1743) |
<p><strong><surname>HOUGH</surname></strong> (<strong>HUFF</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1651–1743)</p> |
|
|
First sat 16 May 1690; last sat 10 May 1721 |
cons. 11 May 1690 bp. of OXFORD; transl. 5 Aug. 1699 bp. of COVENTRY AND LICHFIELD; transl. 28 Sept. 1717 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 12 Apr. 1651, s. of John Hough of London, gent. and Margaret, da. of John Byrche (Burche), of Leacroft, Staffs. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen, Oxf. matric. 1669, BA 1673, ord. priest 1675, MA 1676, BD 1687, fell. 1674-8, DD 1687; incorp. Camb. 1689. <em>m</em>. lic. 12 May 1702, Lettice (1659-1722),<sup>1</sup> da. of Thomas Fisher, of Walsall, Staffs. wid. of Sir Charles Lee, of Billesley, Warws.<sup>2</sup> <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 8 May 1743. <em>will</em> 2 Mar. 1742-10 Jan. 1743, pr. 28 May 1743.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], 1677;<sup>4</sup> rect. N. Aston, Oxon. 1678-87, Tempsford, Beds. 1687-90; preb. Worcester 1686-90.</p><p>Pres. Magdalen, Oxf. 15 Apr.-21 Oct. 1687, Oct. 1688-1701; commr. for Church of Ireland 1690,<sup>5</sup> 50 new churches 1715-27;<sup>6</sup> mbr. SPG.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, Lambeth Palace, Surr.; oil on canvas by unknown artist, Bodleian Lib. Oxf.; watercolour miniature by S. Digby 1695, NPG 3685; funerary bas-relief by L.F. Roubiliac, 1746, Worcester Cathedral.</p> |
<p>Lionized in the Whig tradition as a ‘freeman of England’ for facing the ‘tyranny’ of James II, Hough became an enduring Protestant icon for his role in the Magdalen College affair.<sup>7</sup> The incident propelled him into the political limelight where he combined the role of ‘gentleman and ... bishop’ for nearly 53 years with, it was claimed, remarkable affability (except of course towards Catholics).<sup>8</sup> Writing at the time of Hough’s marriage, Cary Gardiner remarked ‘a better natured good man I never heard of’ and that he was also ‘very handsome’ to boot. Hearne, unsurprisingly, was less complimentary. According to him Hough was ‘not famed for doing much good’; he saw Hough as a ‘nice carver’ careerist who sat back and enjoyed the benefits of ecclesiastical preferment for the remainder of his lengthy career.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, although his local Whig friends promoted his appointment to the episcopal bench, he found himself on the side of the Tories on some questions, and while president of Magdalen, Hough was an early patron of Henry Sacheverell. Indeed, he has been seen as one of a number of ‘moderate high churchmen’ in the 1690s, who found themselves converted to ‘low Church-Whig’ in reaction to ‘highflying attacks’.<sup>10</sup> A detailed examination of Hough’s political life, however, is hampered by the accidental destruction in the early 19th-century of much of his episcopal correspondence.<sup>11</sup></p><h2><em>Magdalen</em><em> College</em></h2><p>Hough was born in the city of London, his father a citizen descended from a family originally from Cheshire. Destined for the Church, he became a fellow of Magdalen, Oxford and in 1677, Hough became chaplain to the duke of Ormond. Ormond stayed at Magdalen that year as a guest of the then president, Henry Clerke, which seems to have resulted in the introduction. The connection may have led to Hough’s rooms being searched in 1679 during the Popish Plot investigations.<sup>12</sup> In October 1682, while in Dublin with Ormond, he preached a sermon commemorating an Irish massacre in terms so offensive to Catholics that the Irish Catholic gentry determined to block Hough’s future career. Ormond thought otherwise and was reported to have declared that if anyone in England asked after his (the duke’s) religion they were to say ‘I am of Mr. Hough’s religion’.<sup>13</sup> Ormond’s patronage proved the more potent and four years later Hough was appointed to the Worcester chapter.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Already a known quantity as the chaplain of the Ormond, the chancellor of the University, Hough was elected president of Magdalen in April 1687 in preference to the king’s Catholic candidate, Anthony Farmer.<sup>15</sup> Within days, Hough entertained a ‘very dismal prospect’ of the likely outcome with only a faint hope that Ormond could repeat his repulsion of Catholic intruders from the Charterhouse. <sup>16</sup> Although the college appealed successfully against the imposition of the unqualified Farmer (whose candidacy was thereafter dropped), in June the ecclesiastical commission also voided Hough’s election, leaving the college without a recognized head of house.</p><p>The college remained obdurate. Later that summer the king summoned representatives from Magdalen to him at Christ Church and harangued them for their disobedience. Hough ensured he was out of town for the occasion. With legal advice from his maternal uncle, Serjeant Edward Byrche, he persisted in his resistance, and a conference with William Penn at Windsor in early October failed to settle matters. On 21 Oct. a deputation of three members of the ecclesiastical commission (Sir Thomas Jenner<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Robert Wright<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester) arrived in Oxford and the following day, having failed to persuade Hough to resign, put him out as president. He was replaced with the ailing Samuel Parker*, bishop of Oxford. <sup>17</sup> Cartwright, one of the king’s special visitors, regarded the college’s actions as tantamount to rebellion and advised Hough and the fellows that the king ‘had thorns enough in the crown’ without their adding to them.<sup>18</sup> According to one of the commissioners, the lord chief justice, Sir Robert Wright, Hough’s demeanour at the October meeting came close to inciting a riot. He was bound over for £1,000 to King’s Bench.<sup>19</sup> Hough seems to have taken it all in his stride; on the same day that he was removed he dined with the countess of Ossory (Ormond’s daughter-in-law), enjoyed a bottle of Moselle and was subsequently bailed by the prominent London physician Walter Needham.<sup>20</sup> Despite the king’s particular pique, Hough was discharged from King’s Bench on a technicality.<sup>21</sup> In July 1688 Hough was able to capitalize on his relations with the Butler family by giving the university early notice of Ormond’s death thereby enabling the authorities to move smartly to elect his heir, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, as chancellor, before the court had a chance to propose an unwelcome alternative. Three months later Hough was restored to the presidency (almost exactly a year to the day after his ejection). He celebrated with a dinner that has become an annual tradition.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Hough’s emblematic speech to the commissioners, refusing to relinquish his presidency or the keys to his lodgings, thereby forcing the royal commissioners to have the doors broken down, entered Whig historiography as being almost wholly responsible for outlawing the use of royal mandates in Church appointments.<sup>23</sup> In November 1689, the case was still being discussed in the Commons.<sup>24</sup> After the brief episcopates of Samuel Parker and Timothy Hall*, bishop of Oxford, Hough was recommended by Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup> to the new king and to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, as a man ‘at the height of his reputation’ as well as having ‘impeccable’ Anglican credentials.<sup>25</sup> Hough also seems to have canvassed the support of another Worcestershire Member, Sir John Somers*, the future Baron Somers, the solicitor-general.<sup>26</sup> Unlike many of the clerical appointments made immediately after the Revolution, Hough was not one of those associated with John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and did not have extensive parochial experience or long service within the higher clergy. Nor was he a high-profile preacher. His network relied almost entirely on his Oxford contacts and included former colleagues and fellow students such as William Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Digby [I]. Hough was later one of seven trustees named in the act of 1715 appointing persons to care for Digby’s mentally disturbed heir, John, and it was at Digby’s request that Hough composed the epitaph for John Digby*, 3rd earl of Bristol.<sup>27</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Oxford, 1690-9</em> </h2><p>Hough was at his residence in Worcester in the spring of 1690 when the chapter of Christ Church, Oxford was directed to elect him bishop a few days after Hall’s death.<sup>28</sup> The royal assent and dispensation to hold <em>in commendam</em> the presidency of Magdalen (where he maintained a ‘tolerable claret and a hearty welcome’) was followed on 11 May 1690 by consecration at Fulham Palace by Henry Compton*, bishop of London, William Beaw*, bishop of Llandaff, William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury and Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester.<sup>29</sup> One week before the end of the parliamentary session, on 16 May 1690 (the same day that he received his writ of summons), Hough took his seat in the House.<sup>30</sup> In the course of 27 parliamentary sessions between 1690 and 1715, Hough attended all but three, but he was rarely present for more than half of all sittings. His frequent absence at the start of a session ensured that he was rarely named to the standing committees, but he did report occasionally from a number of select committees.</p><p>Hough attended the House on 2 Oct. 1690 for the first day of the new session and thereafter attended 68 per cent of sittings. On this occasion he was named to the standing committees for privileges, the journal and petitions and to 24 select committees. On 6 Oct. he voted for the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. During the session, he was named by the king as a commissioner for settling Irish church preferments and was contacted by Nottingham with the names of suitable candidates.<sup>31</sup> Active in the revolutionary church settlement in England (in the interval before the replacement of the non-jurors) Hough was appointed administrator for the diocese of Gloucester following the suspension of Robert Frampton*, bishop of Gloucester.<sup>32</sup> He ensured that Magdalen fellows all took the oath of allegiance to the new monarchs and on 31 May 1691 assisted in the consecration of John Tillotson as archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In October 1691, Hough arrived at the House five days into the session, attended 63 per cent of sittings and was named to 27 select committees. On 27 Dec., he signed the episcopal petition to the king for a royal proclamation against impiety and vice.<sup>34</sup> On 22 Feb. 1692 he was named a manager of the conference on the small tithes bill. Hough, who had made great show of protecting the constitutional rights of the university against James II, now used his vote in the lords to defend the parliamentary constitution. On 23 Feb. he was the only bishop of the seven peers (including Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester and Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury) to register his protest against the tack of a proviso onto the supply (poll tax) bill for the war against France. The proviso (to establish a commission of accounts) was, the protesters argued, both unparliamentary and prejudicial to the privilege of peers. </p><p>Hough remained at Westminster until the end of the session. He missed the first week of business of the session that assembled on 4 Nov. 1692, but having taken his place attended nearly 60 per cent of sittings and was named to 32 committees. He was present on 3 Dec. for the first reading of the bill to confirm the charters, liberties and privileges of the University of Oxford. On 23 Dec., Hough and James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, each informed the House that town and university had come to an agreement over the bill and moved that it be read. He was subsequently nominated to the committee overseeing the bill. Also on the 23rd, Hough registered his dissent against the order to reverse the judgment in the cause <em>Leach v. Thompson</em>.</p><p>Hough’s distance, at that time from Whig politics was evident when on 31 Dec. 1692 he voted with the majority (against the court and 17 of his fellow bishops) to commit the place bill. On 3 Jan. 1693 he was one of only four bishops who voted for passing the bill (with Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids) and then registered his dissent against its rejection.<sup>35</sup> Their actions were explained by Hanoverian envoy Bonet as being, perhaps, the direct result of a harangue delivered by Burnet.<sup>36</sup> Hough was marked as a query on Ailesbury’s forecast for the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. Although Hough was listed as in attendance on 2 Jan. 1693 for the reading of the bill, his name is not recorded on the division list and it is probable that he absented himself from the chamber or abstained. On 19 Jan. he registered his dissent (again with bishops Watson and Trelawny) against the resolution not to refer to the privileges committee consideration of the Lords’ amendments to the supply (land tax) bill. On 25 Jan. he voted against committing the Whig bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons (against Archbishop Tillotson).<sup>37</sup> Three days later, he reported from the committee on Abraham Hinde’s estate bill.</p><p>According to the biographer of Bishop William Lloyd, Hough preached before the Lords on 30 Jan. 1693 but refused to print the sermon because it had pleased ‘no party.<sup>38</sup> A similar story was told by Hough himself in later life with the elaboration that Hough had ‘managed matters so as to please no party’ and that it was Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, and Portland who had come with the king’s order that it be printed, only for Hough to refuse the request.<sup>39</sup> He missed the last five weeks of business before the end of the session on 14 Mar. 1693 and there is again scant evidence as to his activity during the summer months. It is possible that he was in London for at least some of the time since he was listed as a Lenten preacher for 2 April.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Hough attended the House for the first day of the November 1693 session. He attended one fifth of sittings and was named to the standing committees for privileges and the journal, but was not nominated to any select committees. On 23 Nov. his concern for the maintenance of existing constitutional privileges (whether in university, Parliament or establishment) was again evident when he protested (as one of six bishops out of ten dissentients) against the resolution that the House would not receive any petition for protecting servants of the crown. The resolution, the protestors argued, was an infringement of crown privileges. On 4 Dec., Hough was present when the House went into a committee of the whole on the triennial bill. According to Bishop Watson, Bishops Hough and Sprat were among those who had ‘gone off’, that is ceased to espouse the bill they had favoured in the previous session.<sup>41</sup> On 16 Dec. 1693 Hough registered his proxy with Bishop Stillingfleet, and he did not return for the remaining four months of the session. </p><p>The early months of 1694 found Hough and the Magdalen fellows engaged in a dispute with the university over the appointment of the president of neighbouring Magdalen Hall. In an echo of Hough’s own experience under James II, the college attempted to foist its candidate on the hall in the face of considerable opposition. Although the visitor, Bishop Mews, ordered Hough and his colleagues to refrain from interfering they persisted and in June brought their case before the court of common pleas. The court found for the university and Magdalen College was forced to retreat.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Hough arrived at the House the following autumn, two weeks after the start of the session. He attended 63 per cent of sittings and was named to 22 select committees. On 22 Nov. 1694 he wrote to Thomas Turner, president of Corpus Christi college, how the sudden death of Tillotson ‘did wonderfully surprise’ him. Tillotson’s demise inevitably resulted in speculation as to his successor, with Hough noting that ‘one who understands very well how the wind sits at Court tells me he will lay a wager on’ Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely ‘against any other competitor: amongst whom (which you will wonder at) I do not find the Bishop of Worcester [Stillingfleet] so much as named’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Hough continued to attend the House sporadically until the end of April 1695, missing the last week of business. His primary concern, the University of Oxford, kept him occupied with a prevalent ‘spirit of Jacobitism’ and he invested considerable energy ensuring the university’s political quiescence.<sup>44</sup> Paradoxically, the conflict between his duties as bishop of Oxford and as president of Magdalen gradually eroded his position in the university.<sup>45</sup> The 1695 election, though, saw much of the university eager to support the candidature of the new secretary of state, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>. Magdalen proved solid in its support for him and Hough may also have put pressure on Dean Aldrich of Christ Church to follow suit. As well as this he was also engaged with plans for a projected royal visit to Magdalen.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Oxford business delayed Hough’s return to Westminster and he arrived for the start of the new Parliament four weeks after the start of the session, taking the oaths on 18 Dec. 1695. He attended nearly 40 per cent of sittings and was named to 18 select committees. On 28 Jan. 1696 he informed a friend that on the previous day ‘with much struggling, we got the bill of small tithes to pass in the House of Lords; it will be of great benefit to poor vicars; but it was violently, and with very invidious arguments, opposed by some that would be thought the Church’s best friends’.<sup>47</sup> On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee on the private bill concerning Sir Thomas Wagstaffe<sup>‡</sup>. He last attended on 27 Mar., missing the last month of business up to the end of the session on 27 Apr. 1696. </p><p>Hough delayed returning to Westminster until five weeks after the start of the October 1696 session. He attended for 38 per cent of sittings and was named to 13 select committees. At a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1696, it had been noted that Hough should attend by the 23rd of that month; he arrived eventually three days after that, having been engaged in a visitation.<sup>48</sup> On 23 Dec., following the third reading and debate on the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> bt, Hough voted with the court for the passage of the bill, so his delayed return seems not to have been caused by a desire to avoid voting on the matter. He missed the last four weeks of the parliamentary session, last attending on 23 Mar. 1697. By mid-April he was corresponding from Magdalen about patronage matters, and offering the hope that a peace abroad ‘would have smoothed our affairs at home’.<sup>49</sup> One of Hough’s students at Magdalen caused him particular difficulties. Henry Sacheverell had been ordained deacon by Hough in May 1695 but two years later was denied ordination to the priesthood by Bishop Lloyd on the grounds that his Latin was inadequate. Hough was forced to apologize to Lloyd for Sacheverell’s imperious behaviour at the interview. In his letter of June 1697 he also assured Lloyd that he would not ordain him ‘not only till your lordship has pardoned him, but till I am satisfied he so behaves himself as to deserve it’. Three months later Sacheverell was presented to Lloyd again, complete with a new recommendation from Hough, and this time the ordination proceeded as planned.<sup>50</sup></p><p>At the House on 3 Dec. 1697 for the first day of the new session, Hough attended 27 per cent of sittings, was named to 14 select committees as well as to the standing committees for privileges and the journal. When the bill to prevent undue marriages for infants was brought into the Lords (possibly the bill on undue marriages for infants in the 1697-8 session), it was proposed that bishops sign the licences themselves, on pain of deprivation should the licence prove improper. It was possibly on 16 Dec. 1697 that the episcopal bench sat in stony silence while the bill was debated in a committee of the whole House until Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford, probed Hough for the reason: Hough responded: ‘do you think that we shall ever sign any licences, when deprivation is to be the penalty of signing a wrong one?’<sup>51</sup> On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted to commit the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and registered his dissent when the vote was lost. He attended the session for the last time on 19 May, missing the last seven weeks of that Parliament.</p><p>Hough seems not to have played a major role at the time of the 1698 election for the Oxford university burgesses, though the Magdalen electors appear to have favoured electing Trumbull once more. Hough may have been preoccupied by a fellowship election in the college, in which his casting vote proved decisive. The high Tory dean of Christ Church, Henry Aldrich, thus carried the day at the parliamentary election with his own candidates, Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, bt and Sir William Glynne<sup>‡</sup>, bt, though the latter also seems to have been able to rely on some support in Magdalen.<sup>52</sup> Hough did not attend the late autumn 1698 session of Parliament until after the new year; in the course of the session he attended one third of sittings but was named to just one select committee. On 23 Jan. 1699, the bill for regulating printing was referred to a committee of the whole. Hough was missing from the attendance list that day, but may have been present in the chamber for what was the last business of the day. He wrote that evening to a colleague at Oxford that the bill had passed the committee but had been ‘reduced to one single article’, namely that</p><blockquote><p>the names of the printer and author shall be given in to the Master and wardens of the [Stationers] Company and that if any person sells or publishes an exceptionable book he shall be punished as the author; it is likewise inserted that the universities shall have copies of all books, which is all the mention made of ’em.</p></blockquote><p>He continued that the ‘bill for disbanding the army is to have its first reading tomorrow, but I cannot tell you beforehand what will be the fate on’t. Both sides begin to ferment and let the wind sit where it will I doubt we shall have a warm day of it’.<sup>53</sup> He was duly listed as attending on the following day for the first reading of the supply bill providing for the disbandment, and on the 27th and 28th for the reading and committal of the bill. His concern to oppose any infringement against the constitution and proper parliamentary procedure again reared its head on 27 Apr. 1699 when he protested against the tacking of a proviso on Irish forfeitures to the disbanding bill on the grounds that it was unparliamentary. Hough was the only bishop out of nine dissentients to register his protest about the tack. He attended the House on the last day of the session, 4 May 1699, for the prorogation, and also the prorogations of 1 June and 13 July.</p><h2><em>Coventry</em><em> and Lichfield, 1699-1717</em></h2><p>On 31 May 1699, Hough was released from an increasingly partisan and hostile Tory Oxford when the king sent out the directive for his translation to Lichfield and Coventry, though he retained for the time being the presidency of Magdalen. The appointment was confirmed by Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, on 5 Aug. 1699 and Hough received his temporalities three days later.<sup>54</sup> Although one of Hough’s biographers claimed that the translation severed his connection with Oxford, it is clear that the Magdalen presidency ensured he retained more than a passing interest in university business.<sup>55</sup> Shortly before his translation was confirmed, Hough was summoned to Lambeth to hear the latest stage of Bishop Watson’s disciplinary hearing. Hough was clearly reluctant to participate and hoped that this next episode ‘puts an end to that tedious and melancholy cause of which I have heard but too much already; however his grace must be obeyed’.<sup>56</sup> He appears to have concurred with Tenison in Watson’s deprivation; Hough was reported as having expressed ‘a full persuasion’ of Watson’s guilt of simony, extortion and <em>crimen falsi</em>.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Despite translation to Lichfield at the start of August 1699 and having a permanent residence in London in Kensington Square, Hough had left for Oxford by mid-August, ‘in haste for a little fresh air and elbow room’. There he concentrated on catching up on financial affairs (not least the outstanding expenses for his translation).<sup>58</sup> He was back at Westminster on 4 Dec. (three weeks after the session commenced, though the fourth sitting day since its opening) to take his seat for the first time as bishop of Lichfield. He attended 47 per cent of sittings and was named to five select committees. On a printed list, marked up after 10 July 1700, Hough was classed as a potential supporter of the new ministry, as opposed to a loyal follower of the Junto. </p><p>Hough attended the new Parliament for the first time on 24 Feb. 1701 and was present for nearly 37 per cent of all sittings; he was named to just four select committees. Having been ordered to preach a fast sermon on 4 Apr., Hough preached before the assembled Lords in the Abbey on the need for godliness in both religious and secular affairs.<sup>59</sup> On 7 Apr. the House ordered that he should be thanked and the sermon printed. On 15 May Hough joined with Bishops Burnet and Patrick and James Gardiner*, bishop of Lincoln, on the side of the impeached lords and against the new ministry when he supported ‘two questions about the dissolution of the last Parliament’.<sup>60</sup> On 17 June Hough voted to acquit Baron Somers, and on 23 June gave a similar vote in the case of Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. He was also involved in the ecclesiastical case involving Edward Jones*, bishop of St Asaph and sat with Tenison on 18 June when Jones was suspended.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Hough was at Westminster for the start of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. He was named to the standing committee for privileges and to 17 other select committees, and attended for 51 per cent of sittings. On 16 May 1702, one of the proctors from his diocese, Dr. William Binckes, was censured by the House for preaching an offensive martyrdom sermon before the lower house of Convocation on 30 January. By suggesting that Charles I had suffered more than Christ, the Lords voted that his sermon had given ‘just scandal and offence to all Christian people’. Following a division, the House rejected the motion to burn the sermon. Instead, it was resolved to inform Hough (as his diocesan) of the censure. Although Hough was listed as in attendance on the 16 May, he missed the remainder of the session, which was prorogued on 25 May. One reason for this was his impending marriage; on 13 May Hough had taken out a licence to marry Lady Lettice Lee, a Staffordshire widow, whom he later described as ‘the dear companion’ of his life.<sup>62</sup> The actual date of the marriage is unknown, but may have been shortly after the date on the licence for on 21 July 1702 it was reported to Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, the future Viscount Fermanagh [I] as a relatively recent event.<sup>63</sup> His wife was independently wealthy and she retained authority over her estate under their marriage settlement, Hough inheriting her estate after her death in 1722.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Hough took his seat in the first Parliament of Anne’s reign on the second day of the session, 21 Oct. 1702, and attended a little more than half of all sittings. He was named to the committee for privileges and to 16 select committees. On 3 Dec., after the second reading of the bill against occasional conformity, Hough (in company with John Sharp*, archbishop of York, Bishop Compton and seven other bishops) voted against Somers’ amendment to the bill, to restrict its remit to those covered only by the Test Act.<sup>65</sup> Nonetheless, in January 1703 it was estimated by Nottingham that he would probably oppose the occasional conformity bill. On 16 Jan. Hough voted to adhere to the Lords’ (wrecking) amendment to the penalty clause, in opposition to many of the bishops he had sided with in December.</p><p>Hough was engaged in a variety of other business during the session. On 18 Dec. 1702 he reported from the committee on the private bill for John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, a non-partisan issue. In contrast, on 13 Jan. 1703, the first reading of a bill on the navigability of the River Derwent elicited strong feelings on both sides of the House. Hough joined all the bishops present in favour of a second reading the bill. The bill’s opponents included William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire.<sup>66</sup> On 19 Jan. 1703 Hough registered two protests against the passage of the ‘Prince’s bill’, namely the bill enabling the queen to settle a revenue the support of Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, in case he survived her.<sup>67</sup> Hough then continued to attend the House sporadically until the penultimate day of the session at the end of February. </p><p>In November 1703, Hough was twice forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as an opponent of a new occasional conformity bill. He attended the session on the second day of business, attended 45 per cent of sittings, and was named to 11 select committees and to the committee for the journal. On 14 Dec. 1703, he voted against the occasional conformity bill, this time uniting with Tenison and 13 bishops against Archbishop Sharp and eight Tory bishops. On 20 Jan. 1704 he reported from the committee on the private bill concerning William Adams, a Northamptonshire cleric. He was present on the last day of the session on 3 April.</p><p>On 24 Oct. 1704 Hough attended the House for the first day of the new session; he was present thereafter on 48 per cent of sittings, was named to 21 select committees and to the committee for the Journal. One of the most contentious issues of the session was the Scottish Parliament’s act of security, regarded as ‘anti-English’ at Westminster. On 2 Nov., William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle noted that Hough was ‘earnest’ in calling for those who had advised its passage to attend, a position adopted by many Whigs as they sought to put pressure on from the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin.<sup>68</sup> Another controversial measure was the re-introduction of the occasional conformity bill early in December. Its expected introduction may explain why on 20 Nov. Hough received the proxy of William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford (vacated on 17 Feb. 1705) and on the 22nd that of Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester (vacated at the end of the session). On 27 Feb. he was named to the committee to devise heads of a conference with the Commons regarding the Aylesbury men. He attended the last day of the session on 14 March. The following day, now pushed increasingly into the Whig camp by the actions of the highflying Tory clergy, he signed (with bishops Burnet, Williams, John Moore*, bishop of Norwich and Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough) the complaint against the proceedings of the lower house of Convocation advising them to ‘govern themselves by the constitution’.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Hough was at Westminster on 25 Oct. 1705, the first day of the new Parliament, to take the oaths, after which he attended 36 per cent of sittings, was named to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal and to 14 select committees. On 2 Nov. he attended a meeting of commissioners of Queen Anne’s Bounty in the morning and on 5 Nov. preached before the queen at St James’s.<sup>70</sup> He again received the proxy of Bishop Talbot on 23 Nov. 1705. On 1 Dec. he was named to a Convocation committee (with Bishop Moore and Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford and William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln) to consider the internal dispute regarding an address to the queen over the highfliers’ perceptions of danger to the Church.<sup>71</sup> Three days later, Bishops Wake and Williams visited him to discuss ‘what was fit to be done to prevent the increase of popery’.<sup>72</sup> On 6 Dec. Hough spoke in the ‘Church in danger’ debate in the Lords immediately after Nottingham had outlined his fears of the Dissenting academies and the practice of occasional conformity. The danger, according to Hough, was ‘nearer home … in this House, and even upon this bench’ amongst those who portrayed the ‘low church’ bishops (including himself) as fanatics, ‘addicted to presbytery’.<sup>73</sup> He maintained that the debate was focussing on entirely the ‘wrong topic’ by concentrating on ‘modish censures’ of the ministry and called for the debate to come back to the point in hand.<sup>74</sup> On Christmas Day 1705 he joined an ‘abundance’ of people taking communion in Whitehall.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Throughout the previous year Hough had also been concerned with his own private legislation regarding the size and economic status of the Lichfield chapter. On 18 Nov. 1704 he had dined at Lambeth with Nicolson, Lloyd and Burnet, explaining over dinner his intention to bring in a bill to reduce his 30 prebendaries to eight residentiary canons.<sup>76</sup> Hough’s Lichfield canons and deanery bill was subsequently introduced into the Commons by Henry Paget*, the future Baron Burton and earl of Uxbridge, then knight of the shire for Staffordshire. During December 1705 and January 1706, Paget managed the bill through all its stages in the Commons.<sup>77</sup> The bill was given its first reading in the Lords on 1 Feb. 1706. Three days later, Hough was involved in a disagreement with Burnet over the bill and on the 7th, he was pressed to delay its second reading; it was again postponed on the 11th. After committal the following day (Hough was nominated to the select committee), it was clear that objections raised by Burnet, Sunderland and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, stemmed from their opposition to the dean, Dr. William Binckes, whose sermon had caused such offence in 1702, and who was now Prolocutor of the lower house of Convocation. They also insisted that the queen give formal consent to unite the living of Tattenhall (in the gift of the crown) with the deanery. After an early committee meeting on 22 Feb. when Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, provided the required consent, the bill was reported the same day by Rochester and subsequently passed the House.<sup>78</sup> Hough attended for the prorogation on 19 Mar. 1706 and left London for the spring and summer months.</p><p>Hough did not attend the 1706-7 session of the House, and on 9 Dec. 1706 he registered his proxy with Bishop Talbot. Despite his absence, the following spring he was involved in the project to build a new church in Birmingham which required an act of Parliament and was promoted by Baron Digby, among others. On 2 Mar. 1707 Hough proposed William Colemore<sup>‡</sup> (former member for Warwick) to Sir John Mordaunt<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt. as an additional commissioners for the project on the grounds that Colemore’s close involvement in the rebuilding of Warwick following the 1694 fire had ‘given him a good deal of experience in the building and contriving of a church and he is upon all accounts a very fit person to be advised with and entrusted in this affair’.<sup>79</sup> However, Somers appeared to have reservations about the bill, particularly over the make-up of the commission. Hough hoped to remove Somers’ ‘scruples’ in the Birmingham matter by appointing as commissioners ‘persons of the best quality and best character’ rather than mere townsmen. Significantly, Hough had heard that opponents of the bill were saying ‘that the bishop was undoubtedly against the bill otherwise Lord Somers would not have been the person to oppose it’. He duly sent up to Somers a list of commissioners on 8 Mar., ready for the committee proceedings on the bill following the second reading on 11 March <sup>80</sup> The bill was read for the first time in the Lords on 19 Mar., but ran out of time following a failed attempt on 3 Apr. to waive the standing orders relating private bills and was lost with the prorogation on the 8th. Hough’s religious stance may perhaps be summed up by his comment in a letter of 12 Apr. that ‘one cannot well treat the Reformed [churches] abroad with too much tenderness, or the Dissenters at home with too much plainness.’<sup>81</sup></p><p>Hough did not attend the short session of late April 1707. He arrived at the House one week into the October 1707 session, attended 41 per cent of sittings and was named to 16 select committees. On 9 Dec. he was ordered to preach a fast and humiliation sermon on 14 January. He duly preached before the Lords on Psalm 75 when it was noted that ‘most of the lords of North Britain were present’. He attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth on 26 Dec. 1707 and on 29 Jan. 1708 dined with Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, together Sunderland, Somers and Bishops Moore and Nicolson. The following month there was further interaction between Somers, Nicolson and Hough, possibly relating to Dr. Hugh Todd, one of the Carlisle prebendaries.<sup>82</sup> Hough attended the House on the last day of the session on 1 Apr. 1708. In about May 1708, Hough was identified as a Whig on a printed list marked with party classifications.</p><p>Hough was in London before the opening of the 1708 Parliament. Having missed a visit from Wake on 11 Nov., together with John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, they met at Wake’s house on the 14th to discuss the approaching Convocation.<sup>83</sup> Hough attended the House on 16 Nov. for the first day of the new Parliament and thereafter attended one third of sittings. He was named to nine select committees as well as to the standing committee for privileges. By December 1708, Nottingham considered Hough to be of sufficient influence with the queen to suggest that he, together with Sharp and Moore, could second Rochester in a direct approach to persuade her that the bills for abrogating the sacramental Test and for a general naturalization were prejudicial to the Church and the Protestant religion.<sup>84</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 Hough opposed the voting rights of Scottish peers in the election of Scottish representative peers if they possessed a British title. As a telling indication of his continuing interest in affairs at Oxford, the same day he approached Wake about petitioning the provost of Oriel for a fellowship for one of the Digbys’ kinsmen.<sup>85</sup> He dined at Lambeth on 7 Feb. with Nicolson and White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough. On 15 Mar. the House gave a second reading to the general naturalization bill, when Hough joined with Tenison, Burnet, Moore, Cumberland and Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, against the wording of a clause proposed by the Tory William Dawes*, bishop of Chester; he favoured the retention of the words ‘some Protestant Reformed congregation’ and was against their replacement with the phrase ‘parochial church’. On 22 Mar. Hough voted with the court (opposing the motion) in the division on the bill for improving the Union, allowing those accused of treason access to a list of witnesses five days before their trial.<sup>86</sup> On 25 Mar. he voted in company with Somers, Sunderland, and Bishops Trelawny, Evans, and Trimnell against an adjournment of the committee of the whole on the bill, intended to enable Scottish marriage settlements to be considered more fully.<sup>87</sup> On 24 Mar. Hough had reported from the committee on a new Birmingham Church bill which had been brought up from the Commons on the 17th. This time the bill passed without amendment. He attended until two days before the prorogation of 21 April. </p><p>Hough was at Westminster on 15 Nov. 1709 for the first day of the new session, confounding a report made by Thomas Manningham*, bishop of Chichester, at the beginning of the month that Hough was ‘much afraid’ of smallpox at the time and consequently afraid to travel. He attended 40 per cent of sittings, and was named to 17 select committees as well as the standing committees for privileges and the journal. On the first day he was ordered to preach before the House on 22 November. He delivered a rousingly patriotic thanksgiving sermon before the Lords in Westminster Abbey, in which he attacked the continuing ‘spiritual bondage’ of those governed by the Church of Rome and praised England’s deliverance by Providence.<sup>88</sup> Hough participated in a ‘long conference’ on 2 Jan. 1710 at Lambeth ‘about the present state of affairs’. On 24 Jan. he accompanied Wake and a number of other peers and bishops to Sunderland’s house where they discussed the following day’s business on the Sacheverell trial.<sup>89</sup> Hough was listed as present in the House during the trial in Westminster Hall, but was absent between 14 and 27 Mar., thereby missing the divisions on Sacheverell’s guilt and his subsequent punishment. On 4 Apr. Wake recorded that he went to the House with Hough and William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph, where they ‘sat upon the booksellers’ bill’. He attended six prorogations of 18 Apr., 16 May, 5 June, 4 July, 18 July, 1 Aug. prior to the dissolution in September.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Hough was one of few bishops in town in the first of half of October 1710.<sup>91</sup> By then he had been assessed by Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, as a likely opponent of his new ministry. On 11 Nov. 1710, Hough attended a meeting at Lambeth with Bishops Wake, Evans, Moore, and Fleetwood.<sup>92</sup> He attended the new session of Parliament on 28 Nov. and thereafter attended nearly 22 per cent of sittings, was named to four select committees and to the committee for privileges. He absented himself from the traditional St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth on account of his wife’s illness, telling Nicolson that he was ‘in dread of a rheumatism’.<sup>93</sup> He was nevertheless in better health than Archbishop Tenison whose proxy he received on 4 Jan. 1711. On 11 Jan. Hough protested against the resolution to reject the petitions of Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], concerning the war in Spain, and against the resolution on the causes of the defeat at Almanza. The following day he subscribed a further protest against the censure of those ministers who had approved the military offensive in Spain. Lady Clavering noted his support for the censured Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope, in a letter penned on 16 January.<sup>94</sup> On 28 Jan. he attended Ely House for a meeting on Convocation matters with Somers, William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, Moore, Trimnell and Wake; he continued to be heavily involved in Convocation business throughout the spring.<sup>95</sup> On 3 Feb. he twice registered protests: one against a resolution that regiments in the Spanish establishment at the time of Almanza had been insufficiently supplied and another against a resolution that a failure of military resources amounted to ministerial neglect. He was listed as present on 1 Mar. when the House debated Greenshields’ appeal, and it was reported that ‘all the bishops went one way in his [Greenshields’] favour’.<sup>96</sup> He last attended on 15 Mar. 1711 and on 23 Apr. he registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Evans. </p><p>Hough was back in London by the end of October 1711 and on 12 Nov. he visited Wake with Talbot, Trimnell and Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough; after visiting Tenison at Lambeth they asked Wake to meet them the following day at the House when Parliament was prorogued. <sup>97</sup> Hough took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711 after which he was present on 41 per cent of sittings. He was named to eight select committees and to the standing committees for privileges and the journal. Presumably he supported including ‘No Peace without Spain’ in the address to the queen, because on the 8th he was listed as an opponent of those court supporters who sought to avoid presenting the address so amended with that clause. On 19 Dec. he was noted as a likely opponent in the peerage case of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and the following day duly voted in favour of barring Scots peers from sitting in the House by right of a British title created after the Union. Hough was in the House for the resumption of business on 2 Jan. 1712, and was one of 11 (out of 15 bishops present) who voted with the Whigs against a further adjournment until the 14th.<sup>98</sup> Three days after the debate, he dined at the Chelsea home of Bishop Trelawny with Bishops Burnet, Moore, Talbot, Evans and Trimnell. On 19 Jan. he took time out from his parliamentaty duties to visit the impressive library and museum in the home of Sir Hans Sloane in Bloomsbury Square.<sup>99</sup> Sloane was to prove his effectiveness as a physician in July 1712 when curing Hough’s ‘nearest relation in blood’, his wife’s nephew.<sup>100</sup> On Easter Monday, he preached at St Bride’s before the mayor and aldermen.<sup>101</sup> On 26 Feb., Hough voted against the Commons’ amendment to the Scottish episcopal (toleration) communion bill.<sup>102</sup> He may have quit town briefly at the end of the month as Ralph Bridges reported to Trumbull on 3 Mar. that he was then ‘absent from town and above 100 miles off’.<sup>103</sup> If this was so, he had returned by 4 Mar. when he was again noted on the attendance list. Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, noted that either Hough or Moore had joined Bishops Burnet, Trimnell and Fleetwood in voting on 12 Apr. against the passage of the bill restoring patrons to their ancient rights of presentation in Scotland (although neither of them was listed as present on that day).<sup>104</sup> On 20 Apr. Hough received the proxy of Bishop Fowler (vacated 25 May) and on 26 May he entered his own proxy in favour of Bishop Fleetwood. Hough attended the session for the last time on 24 May 1712 and missed the last four weeks of business.</p><p>Hough was expected back in town by the middle of October 1712 and he proceeded to attend the prorogations on 6 Nov. 1712, 13 Jan., 3 Feb. and 17 Mar. 1713.<sup>105</sup> He returned to the House for the first day of the following session on 9 Apr. 1713. He attended only 15 per cent of sittings but was named to two select committees and to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal. During the debate on the motion to dissolve the Union with Scotland on 1 June, it was reported that Hough ‘went out with another proxy’, thereby avoiding the substantive question, although, in effect, he merely ensured that the Whigs were not powerful enough to defeat a Tory motion (on the previous question) that the motion be put and then defeated.<sup>106</sup> Around 13 June Oxford included Hough among his estimate as an opponent of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He last attended on 8 June, whereupon he decamped back to his diocese.</p><p>Hough was reported by Gibson (who was marshalling episcopal forces for Archbishop Tenison) on 3 Oct. 1713 to be coming up in time for the forthcoming opening of Parliament, scheduled for 12 November.<sup>107</sup> He attended the prorogation of 10 December. On 7 Feb. 1714, Gibson wrote to Tenison to report the opinion of Bishops Trimnell and Wake that ‘three in the commission (viz. Winchester, Lichfield and Ely) and no more, will be least liable to exception, as being seniors’, as acting in Convocation in the absence of the archbishop.<sup>108</sup> Hough attended the House on the second day of the session, 18 Feb., duly taking the oaths, but was then absent until 2 Mar. and attended only four days that month. In all he attended one quarter of all sittings, and was named to the committee for privileges as well as three select committees. As he was present on 5 Apr. it is likely that he joined all but three of his episcopal brethren (all courtiers) in voting against the motion that the Protestant Succession was not in danger under her majesty’s government. Similarly, on the 13th when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to an address on the danger from the Pretender, it was noted that all but two of the bishops had opposed the ministry’s more general address of thanks, and Hough was listed as present.<sup>109</sup> On 16 Apr. he received the proxy of Bishop Moore. Hough then attended the House for the final time that session on 11 May. Six days later he registered his proxy with Moore (who resumed his place on 2 June). On the end of May and the beginning of June 1714, Nottingham forecast that Hough would be a certain opponent of the schism bill. The vote of 11 June to extend the bill to Ireland was carried by only one vote, with Hough’s proxy being used to oppose the motion.<sup>110</sup> His proxy was again used on 15 June to oppose the bill.<sup>111</sup> By July, Hough was in residence at Eccleshall dealing with diocesan business.<sup>112</sup> He failed to return for the brief session of August 1714 that met in the wake of the queen’s death.</p><p>Hough continued to take an active interest in secular, court and ecclesiastical politics under the new regime. In 1717, he was translated to Worcester, where he remained until his death. He died ‘very sedately’ at Hartlebury on 8 May 1743,his death ‘occasioned by a cold, in venturing abroad during the severe north-east wind’, and only four days after penning a letter to Gibson.<sup>113</sup> Hough was buried next to his wife in the Lady Chapel of Worcester Cathedral.<sup>114</sup> In his will, he bequeathed his title in two leases in Wirral and Cheshire from the bishop of Lichfield to his maternal kinsman Thomas Byrche of Leacroft, Staffordshire. Hough also gave £20 a year towards the completion of Thomas Carte’s history of England and £100 to the Georgia Satsburghers. The imposing monument erected by his heir included a bas-relief by Roubilliac depicting Hough challenging the sentence of the commissioners in the Magdalen College affair. It remained the political act for which he was most remembered and for which subsequent generations of historians would laud his display of ‘manly and patriotic virtue’.<sup>115</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
HUMPHREYS, Humphrey (1648-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>HUMPHREYS</surname></strong>, <strong>Humphrey</strong> (1648–1712)</p> |
|
|
First sat 12 July 1689; last sat 5 Mar. 1706 |
cons. 30 June 1689 bp. of BANGOR; transl. 2 Dec. 1701 bp. of HEREFORD |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Nov. 1648, 1st s. of Richard Humphreys of Llanihangel, Merion. and Margaret, da. of Robert Wynne of Cesail Gyfarch, Caern. <em>educ</em>. Oswestry free sch. Salop.; Bangor free sch. (Friars sch.), Caern.; Jesus, Oxf. matric. 16 Feb. 1666, BA 1669, MA 1672, Fell. 1673, BD 1679, DD 1682; <em>m</em>. April 1681 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>. bef. Dec. 1700), da. of Robert Morgan*, bp. of Bangor; 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), <em>d</em>. 20 Nov. 1712; <sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> intestate, <em>admon</em>. 6 Dec. 1712, to da. Margaret Lloyd.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Llanfrothen, Merion. 1670, Trawsfynydd, Merion. 1672, Criccieth als Merthir, Caern. 1677, Llaniestyn, Caern. 1680-<em>d</em>., Eastyn als Queenhope, Flint 1685-<em>d</em>.; chap., Humphrey Lloyd*, bp. of Bangor 1673; prebend, Bangor 1677; dean, Bangor 1680-89.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Mbr. SPCK 1699; SPG 1701.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1690, Gwynedd Museum and Art Gallery.</p> |
<h2><em>Dean and Bishop of Bangor, 1689-1701</em></h2><p>Humphreys, the son of a royalist army officer, was descended from an old Caernarvonshire family. After an education at Jesus College, Oxford, and a number of cures in Merionethshire, by 1673 Humphreys was serving as household chaplain to Humphrey Lloyd, bishop of Bangor. He had also been close to Lloyd’s predecessor, Bishop Morgan, whose daughter he married in 1681. By 1675 he had further befriended the dean of Bangor, William Lloyd*, future bishop of St Asaph, who hand-picked Humphreys as his replacement as dean when he was elevated to the episcopal bench. Humphreys was favoured by the <em>custos rotulorum</em> of Caernarvonshire, and its leading landowner, Richard Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Bulkeley of Cashel [I], who personally thanked Lloyd for securing Humphreys’s appointment.<sup>6</sup> As dean of Bangor Humphreys over-hauled and methodized diocesan administration, as well as delving into the archives to compile a history of the bishops and deans of the Welsh diocese. Presumably, he helped to promote the bill, introduced into the House of Lords on 22 June 1685, which redirected a number of tithes from the sinecure of Llandinam to form a permanent endowment for the repair of the cathedral and an augmentation of episcopal revenue and which received the royal assent on 2 July 1685.<sup>7</sup> By 1686 Lloyd of St Aspah was recommending Humphreys to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, as the best candidate to replace the ailing Lloyd of Bangor, describing Humphreys as ‘a singular good man, and of all other best knows the diocese, and would be the most acceptable of all men to the clergy and people that live in it’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>When the elderly Bishop Lloyd died on 18 Jan. 1689, Humphreys could not have been better placed to succeed him, as he himself subtly made clear to Sancroft in his letter informing him of the bishop’s death.<sup>9</sup> He was nominated bishop of Bangor on 24 May 1689 and four days later vacated his deanery. On 28 June 1689 Humphreys was granted two Welsh rectories in commendam with the bishopric, in order to increase its paltry revenue, and two days later he was consecrated as bishop at Fulham Palace.<sup>10</sup> His response in September 1689 to a query about the extent of his personal estate was oblique. He claimed that his personal estate had been ‘worth something’ earlier in the year, before the expenses of his translation to the see of Hereford had reduced it ‘to nothing’ and that he also possessed ‘some estate of inheritance beside… church preferment, but… real not personal’.<sup>11</sup> He was one of the last Welsh bishops of Bangor diocese before a number of English appointments under the Hanoverians, and throughout his tenure he promoted the Welsh language, as well as Welsh literature and poetry, historical studies and antiquarianism.<sup>12</sup> As one might expect of a protégé and colleague of Lloyd of St Asaph, Humphreys quickly distinguished himself as a supporter of the new Williamite regime and an opponent of the measures of the previous king. Even before his formal appointment as bishop, he had tried to block the election to the Convention Parliament for Beaumaris of Sir William Williams<sup>‡</sup>, bt., solicitor-general under James II and the prosecutor of the seven bishops. Humphreys proposed instead the local attorney Owen Hughes<sup>‡</sup> but Williams was elected on the Bulkeley interest when the franchise was extended to include the ‘common burgesses’.<sup>13</sup> As was usually the case, any ‘cathedral’ influence Humphreys may have wished to exercise in elections in this region was outstripped by the interest of the predominant high Tory Bulkeley family, leading landowners of the region.</p><p>On 12 July 1689 Humphreys first took his seat in the Convention. His parliamentary career was sporadic and of the 26 sessions that he could have attended during his bishopric, he was present at only 12. He did not attend the House at all after 5 Mar. 1706. In his first parliamentary session of 1689, Humphreys, with his late arrival in the House, attended just under 20 per cent of the sittings and was named to ten committees on legislation. On 30 July he voted to adhere to the House’s punitive amendments to the bill to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. Humphreys attended that session for the last time on 20 Aug. 1689, when it was adjourned to 20 September. During this period of adjournment Humphreys was, on 13 Sept., named to the ecclesiastical commission to review and amend the Anglican liturgy, in view of shaping a bill for comprehending moderate Dissenters within the Church. <sup>14</sup> The meetings of the commission commenced on 10 Oct and on 28 Oct., five days into the second session of the Convention, his absence was excused at a call of the House, possibly on account of his duties on the commission. Humphreys was present at a meeting of the commission on 1 Nov. for discussions on the prayer book and Athanasian Creed and he first sat in the House for that session the following day. <sup>15</sup> He attended for 66 per cent of sittings and was named to 12 committees on legislation including that on the small tithes bill, to which he was added on 9 Nov. 1689. On that day he received the proxy of Thomas Smith*, bishop of Carlisle, which Humphreys was able to exercise until he himself left the House on 24 Jan. 1690, three days before the prorogation. </p><p>Following the dissolution of the Convention on 6 Feb. 1690, Humphreys was in the House on 20 Mar. 1690 for the first day of the new Parliament. He attended one-third of the sittings and was named to five committees on legislation. On 26 Mar. a bill was introduced to make the chapel of Worthenbury a distinct church from the parish church of Bangor. Humphreys was not in the House for either its first or second reading and consequently was not placed on its committee. The bill, however, passed through both houses easily and received the royal assent on 14 April. On 10 Apr. he signed the protest against the resolution to expunge from the Journal the reasons for the protest of two days previously against wording in the bill to recognize William and Mary as king and queen. Humphreys was marked as present on the day of the earlier protest, but his name does not appear among its signatories in the Journal, although he was listed among the protesters by a contemporary newsletter writer.<sup>16</sup> The reasons for the protest of 10 Apr. affirmed the right of the lords in Parliament to protest its decisions without recrimination. He last sat in the House for that session on 21 Apr. and registered his proxy with Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, a week later.</p><p>Humphreys set a precedent by conducting his primary visitation in the summer of 1690 entirely in the Welsh language. The visitation articles emphasized the recovery of Dissenters and Catholics despite the fact that nonconformity does not appear to have been a problem in the diocese at that point.<sup>17</sup> He did not attend the session of 1690-1: on 1 Oct. 1690, the day before its first meeting, registered his proxy with Lloyd of St Asaph. Nor did Humphreys attend the following session of 1691-2. On 2 Nov. 1691 he was excused attendance at a call of the House but he does not appear to have registered a proxy for the session. He did however arrive in the House on 14 Nov. 1692, ten days into the session of 1692-3. He attended just over three-quarters of the sittings and was named to 30 committees on legislation. He voted on 31 Dec. 1692 against the committal of the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 against its passage. The previous day, he had voted to read the bill for the divorce of the Protestant Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, from his Catholic wife. On 18 Jan. he reported from committee that the bill to enable Roger Price to sell some of his estate to provide for portions was fit to pass with amendments. One week later Humphreys voted against committing the bill to prevent dangers from persons disaffected to their majesties’ government. Humphreys was present on 24 Jan. for the first reading of a bill to allow him to lease Bangor House in the parish of St Andrew’s, Holborn, and two days later he was named to the bill committee. The bill was dealt with quickly and four days later Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, reported from it with the completed bill. Humphreys was again present on 14 Mar. 1693 when the bill received the royal assent.</p><p>Humphreys registered his proxy with Edward Jones*, bishop of St Asaph, on 24 Oct. 1693 for the session of 1693-4, none of whose sittings he attended. The proxy was noted when Humphrey’s was excused attendance at a call of the House on 14 Nov. 1693. Humphreys was back at Westminster in time for the first day of the following session, 12 Nov. 1694. He attended 43 per cent of sittings and was named to 17 select committees. On 16 Jan. 1695 Humphreys took part in the confirmation ceremony, at St Mary-le-Bow, of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>18</sup> He attended the session for the last time on 9 Mar., missing the last two months of parliamentary business.</p><p>Humphreys arrived at the House on 19 Dec. 1695, one month into the new Parliament’s first session. He attended 44 per cent of sittings and was named to 21 committees on legislation. On 1 Jan. 1696 he was ordered to preach at the end of the month to commemorate the martyrdom of Charles I, and the day after he received the customary thanks of the House and was ordered to publish his sermon. He signed the Association on 27 Feb. and last sat on 12 Mar. 1696. Humphreys did not return to the House promptly for the next session and on 14 Nov. 1696 the House ordered his attendance by 7 Dec. to take part in the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. On 23 Nov. the House read a letter from Humphreys asking to be excused attendance and he was given a week longer to appear. He duly appeared on 14 Dec. and likewise came to the House the following day, but on 16 Dec. the House once again gave him dispensation from attending the House, he ‘being indisposed’. He sat on 17 Dec. and then absented himself for several weeks, possibly to avoid involvement in the bill for Fenwick’s attainder: he last sat the day before the vote to commit the bill, and he returned to the House on 8 Jan. 1697, the day after those opposed to the bill were allowed to sign the protest against its passage. From that point for the next month he attended the House more consistently, but he still only managed to come to just under a fifth of the sittings of that session, during which he was named to nine committees on legislation. On 1 Feb. he was granted permission to leave the House ‘for the recovery of his health’, but he continued to attend until 10 Feb. and on 19 Feb. registered his proxy with Archbishop Tenison. Diocesan business may have been what kept the obviously ailing Humphreys in Westminster during these winter weeks. At this point he was involved in a complex dispute about the proper recipient of the tithes for the sinecure of Llandinam on Montgomeryshire, which was disputed by the lay patron of the parish on behalf of the parish’s curate John Spademan. Throughout January and February 1697, Humphreys was in frequent contact with the under-secretary John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> about the progress of the bill for re-investing the Llandinam in John Spademan in trust for Joseph Hill, which passed the Commons on 8 Mar. 1697.<sup>19</sup> On 12 Mar., while Humphreys himself was absent, a petition from the dean and chapter of Bangor succeeded in getting the bill rejected at its first reading in the House on the grounds that it disinherited them and defeated the aims of the charities for which they were trustees.<sup>20</sup> In late July 1697, Humphreys was part of the commission that was deputed by Archbishop Tenison to hear the complaints of the diocesan clergy against Bishop Jones of St Asaph. It also included Bishop Lloyd of Lichfield and the dean of the Arches Edward Oxenden. Proceedings against Jones were long and drawn-out and he was not suspended by the archbishop until June 1701.<sup>21</sup> In the meantime, having submitted his report on Jones’s misdeeds, on 29 Nov. 1697 Humphreys registered his proxy with John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, for the 1697-8 session, none of whose sittings he attended. </p><p>Following the dissolution of July 1698, the whig Owen Hughes, whom Humphreys had supported in 1689, was elected for Beaumaris in opposition to the Bulkeley interest. Humphreys first sat in the House in the new Parliament on 23 Feb. 1699 and overall attended 42 per cent of sittings, and was named to ten committees on legislation. On 16 Mar. he was ordered to preach on 5 April. On 25 Apr he was named to the committee to draw up reasons why the House insisted on a proviso in the bill concerning Billingsgate market and then to manage the ensuing conference on the 27th. Humphreys remained in attendance on the House until the last day of the session, 4 May 1699.</p><p>Back in his diocese that summer, Humphreys circulated archbishop Tenison’s letter calling for the suppression of vice. From this point Humphreys became closely involved in the SPCK and actively sponsored its efforts to distribute devotional works written in the Welsh language.<sup>22</sup> He did not attend the 1699-1700 parliamentary session. Following the dissolution in December 1700, Humphreys arrived in the House on 13 Feb. 1701, one week into the new Parliament’s proceedings. He attended 71 per cent of sittings and was named to 22 committees on legislation. Humphreys was drawn into the disputes in Convocation over the independence of the lower house, confronting the prolocutor, George Hooper*, later bishop of St Asaph, and bishop of Bath and Wells, whom he was said to have accused of lying to him over the proceedings of a conference on 30 May, and had his accusation entered in the journal of the session, inflaming the dispute.<sup>23</sup> On 17 June Humphreys voted in the Lords for the acquittal of John Somers*, Baron Somers, from the impeachment charges brought against him by the Commons. He was present on 24 June for the prorogation and three days later attended at Lambeth the first meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, another proselytizing organization with which he became closely associated, encouraging educational works in Welsh.<sup>24</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Hereford, 1701-6</em></h2><p>The death of Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Hereford on 27 Aug. 1701 immediately led to speculation on who would replace him, but it soon became clear that the lords justices governing during William’s absence on the continent preferred Humphreys. He was nominated on 1 Oct. and on the king’s return he gave his assent to Humphreys’ translation on 29 November. Humphreys formally entered into his new office on 2 Dec. 1701.<sup>25</sup> Looking back from the vantage point of 1730, William Brome of Hereford, thought Humphreys ‘was translated to our see in a pretty advanced age, when infirmities were coming upon him; which meeting with a sanguine constitution made him not so conversable as in his younger days’. Nevertheless he treated his visitors to learned conversations on Welsh history.<sup>26</sup> The appointment brought him firmly within the sphere of influence of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford and the two corresponded for the rest of the bishop’s life. </p><p>On 30 Dec. 1701 Humphreys was present on the first day of the new Parliament. He attended just over half of its sittings and was named to 15 committees on legislation. On 26 Feb. 1702 he joined the like-minded William Lloyd, now bishop of Worcester, and five other bishops in signing the protest against the passage of the bill to continue the Quaker Affirmation Act. On 8 Mar. 1702 Humphreys, along with the remainder of the House present that day, was appointed to manage the conference on the accession of Anne following the death of William III. He did not attend the House after 28 Apr. 1702. By 24 Sept. Humphreys was back in Hereford, where he wrote apologizing to Harley for not waiting on him at Brampton, adding that since his arrival he had been either too ill or too busy to have waited on anybody.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Humphreys first attended the House for the new session on 31 Oct. 1702. He was present for a little over two-thirds of its sittings and was named to 21 committees on legislation, plus the committee appointed on 9 Nov. to draw up an address to the queen congratulating her on the recovery of Prince George*, duke of Cumberland. Humphreys, however, seems to have divided his working days during 1702-3 between the Lords and Convocation, while the diaries of William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, reveal that the two bishops spent many evenings after the day’s business in each other’s company discussing their common antiquarian and linguistic interests. It has been calculated that Humphreys was Nicolson’s most frequent social associate during the 1702-3 session. On 28 Nov. the two bishops dined together at Lambeth together with John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, for a discussion on occasional conformity. Humphreys was present for the second reading of the occasional conformity bill on 3 Dec., when it was committed to the whole House; in the division on Somers’s ‘wrecking’ amendment to restrict the scope of the bill to only those already covered by the 1673 Test Act, Humphreys voted for the amendment with along with Archbishop Tenison, Lloyd of Worcester and eight other mainly Whig bishops. On 9 Dec. he signed the resolution of the House against the ‘unparliamentary’ tacking of ‘foreign’ clauses to supply bills and when an adjournment of the House was moved on 17 Dec., Humphreys voted in support of it. On 20 Dec. he preached at St Botolph, Aldgate, a sermon which Nicolson considered ‘very good and pious’. Humphreys was back in the House on 29 Dec., when he reported from two committees on private estate bills: one regarding Edward Owen of Shropshire and the other, Thomas Lyster of Gloucester. On 13 Jan. 1703 he reported from a committee on the bill to allow Viscount Bulkeley to make a marriage settlement on his son Richard Bulkeley<sup>‡</sup>. On 16 Jan., following a heated conference with the Commons, Humphreys sided with the Whigs to vote to adhere to the amendment to the penalty clause in the occasional conformity bill, which was destined to scupper the measure in the lower House. Humphreys was subsequently absent from the House between 20 and 29 Jan., being ill with a cold, as recorded by his ‘good neighbour’ Nicolson in his entry for 21 January.<sup>28</sup> After his return to the House at the end of January, Humphreys continued to attend reasonably regularly until the last day of the session on 27 Feb. 1703.</p><p>In these first months of 1703 Humphreys continued to associate with Nicolson, spending time with him after the commemoration of 30 Jan. and again at court on 6 Feb., the queen’s birthday. The attention of these two bishops, and their frequent episcopal companions, often turned to the theological and ecclesiological issues convulsing convocation. Tempers were high in that assembly as its lower house, under the impetus of Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester and Dr Henry Aldrich, dean of Christ Church, led a revolt against the authority of the archbishop and of the upper house in general. Humphreys did not neglect his duty in Convocation, in defending the rights and authority of the episcopal bench. On the evening of 7 Jan. 1703, Humphreys and Nicolson spent time editing the <em>Commentary</em> by Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, on the controversy.<sup>29</sup> The earlier attack by Humphreys on the prolocutor of the lower house in the Convocation of 1701 remained a sore subject for Atterbury, who agitated that Humphreys’ derogatory comments be erased from the Convocation journals. Tenison, speaking to Convocation in a ‘higher tone than ever’, informed the highfliers that nothing could be expunged from the account of an earlier synod and that Humphreys’s attack must stand.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Humphreys did not attend the 1703-4 session. At its start he was twice forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland to be an opponent of the occasional conformity bill, and on 14 Dec. Humphreys’s proxy was used to vote against the bill, according to the printed division list of the division. Unfortunately it cannot be determined with whom Humphreys had entrusted his proxy, but it was presumably from among the ranks of the 11 bishops voting against the bill in person, including Archbishop Tenison, Lloyd of Worcester and Evans of Bangor. Despite Humphreys’s absence from the House for the entire session, newsletters of 20 Jan. 1704 nevertheless reported that he and Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, had tabled a successful motion that day that the House thank the queen for suppressing ‘lewdness and irreligion’ and other ‘irregularities’ on the stage.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Humphreys seems to have been engaged at this time in visitation business, and also spent some time in Wales. He was in Hereford in March 1704, but on 8 May he responded to a letter from Harley which had been sent on to him in Caernarvonshire ‘where I was then so indisposed that I was not in a capacity to acknowledge it.’ He had returned to Hereford the previous week, having not seen a newsletter for seven weeks, and so had been unaware of the delay in the delivery of a diocesan address of thanks to the queen for her ‘great bounty’ to the clergy.<sup>32</sup> When Harley was named secretary of state, Humphreys was prompt in sending his congratulations on 22 May, knowing it to be ‘a laborious and difficult station, having spent some time in a secretary of state’s family in a very difficult time also’: the reference here is obscure.<sup>33</sup> Humphrey’s chaplain, Roger Griffith, who had spent nine or ten weeks with the bishop in north Wales, wrote to Harley at about the same time, bemoaning the bishop’s small reserves of patronage, and seeking Harley’s support instead. He also noted that the bishop intended to travel to Whitbourne ‘and from thence towards the latter end of summer comes to London.’<sup>34</sup> Humphreys acknowledged Harley’s patronage for Griffiths on 13 Sept. when writing from Hereford; he also noted that ‘your brother, Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> and his family were all well last Saturday when I dined at his house’.<sup>35</sup> Contray to Griffith’s expectation, Humphreys did not move to London, and remained at Whitbourne Court, the manor house of the bishops of Hereford, throughout the 1704-5 session. On 27 Oct. 1704, three days into the session, his proxy with archbishop Tenison was registered and on 23 Nov. the bishop’s absence was excused at a call of the House. Nicolson recorded in his diary on 22 Dec. 1704 that Archbishop Tenison ‘wants assistants among the bishops of his province, since the bishop of Hereford keeps at home’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>The involvement of Bishop Humphreys in the elections in Herefordshire appears to have been minimal, no doubt affected by the powerful electoral interests of the Harleys, the Foleys, the Brydges, the Gorges and other Marcher landowners. Humphreys attended the opening day of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, was present for two-thirds of the sittings of its first session, and was named to 27 committees on legislation. He also sat in Convocation during this session. Both assemblies were convulsed in December 1705 by the proposition from the high Church Tories that the ‘Church was in danger’ under the queen’s administration. On 1 Dec. 1705, he was appointed to a committee of the upper house of Convocation, together with William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry and John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, to consider how to respond to the address to the queen concerning this putative ‘danger’ to the Church.<sup>37</sup> After the sitting of the House of Lords two days later, Humphreys, Nicolson and Burnet dined with Tenison where they resolved that each bishop should speak of the state of his own diocese in the imminent debate on the question.<sup>38</sup> According to the Journal Humphreys was in the House for this debate on 6 Dec. 1705 later, but his name is omitted from the incomplete list of the division on the motion that ‘the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration’ drawn up by Charles Bruce*, Lord Bruce, the future 3rd earl of Ailesbury. Judging by his companions in both the convocation committee and at Tenison’s dinner, all of whom voted in favour of the motion, it is most likely that Humphreys also voted that the Church was not in danger.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Throughout the 1705-6 session Humphreys and Nicolson resumed their frequent dinners and antiquarian and linguistic consultations which had been interrupted by the former’s absence from the capital during the previous two sessions. At the same time they continued their involvement in some of the key issues convulsing Parliament that session. Bumping into Nicolson on 27 Jan. 1706 in the vestry of St James’s, Humphreys expressed his hope that the two Houses could ‘easily adjust’ their differences over the place clause to the regency bill (or Hanover Bill, as Nicolson termed it). This did not happen, although a compromise was eventually reached between the Junto promoting the bill and a section of the country Whigs, which eventually helped to lead to the passage of the Regency Act. In committee of the whole House on 23 Feb. 1706 on the bill to allow William King, archbishop of Dublin, to be restored to previously forfeited lands in Ireland resumed by the parliamentary commissioners, Humphreys joined all of the bishops, except for Burnet, in voting in favour of retaining the clause which would provide for King to be refunded the money he had originally paid William III’s trustees of forfeited Irish lands. Humphreys vote was crucial, as the motion to retain the refunding clause passed by a majority of only two. At the resumption of the House Humphreys voted in favour of the motion to read the bill a third time in two days’ time, rather than immediately. In this he sided with Nicolson, Rochester, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, and apparently against Archbishop Tension (although Nicolson’s phrasing is difficult to interpret precisely), in another close division in which the contents prevailed by a scant majority of three.<sup>40</sup> Humphreys continued to attend the House until 5 Mar. 1706, two weeks before its prorogation, his last attendance in the House.</p><h2><em>In retirement from the House, 1706-12</em></h2><p>Humphreys remained in London until the end of the March 1706 and returned to Whitbourne on 5 Apr. 1706 where he quickly got stuck into diocesan business.<sup>41</sup> Humphrey’s dean John Tyler*, was made bishop of Llandaff on 30 June 1706, although he remained dean of Hereford in commendam, and as the following session of 1706-7 approached he turned to Humphreys for advice and assistance in dealing with his new responsibilities in the House. In the event, Tyler took Humphreys’ blank proxy to Westminster with him when he travelled up to the capital in late October. Tyler then warned Humphreys that he would almost certainly be summoned to London for debates on the Union, but was sure that the ‘circumstances’ of Humphreys’s ‘only and dear daughter’ and his proxy would be enough to excuse him from attendance.<sup>42</sup> Humphreys’ proxy was registered with Archbishop Tenison on 2 Dec. 1706, the day before the session was set to start for business. At about this time Humphreys felt the necessity of explaining his absence (due to illness), both to Harley by letter, and to Tenison via Bishop Evans of Bangor.<sup>43</sup> Humphreys also relied on Evans for news of proceedings in Parliament, such as the bill for the security of the Church of England attendant on the Union with Scotland.<sup>44</sup></p><p>In April 1707 Humphreys, at the suggestion of Gibson and Sir John Philipps<sup>‡</sup>, a Welsh evangelical philanthropist, undertook to sponsor a new edition of the Welsh Book of Common Prayer. This project, which had had its origin in the council of the SPCK back in December 1705, was to occupy Humphreys for the next few months and to involve him in a long correspondence with Gibson. As the commencement of the 1707-8 session drew near, pressure mounted on Humphreys to attend the House. Gibson assumed that he would be there and Humphreys learned that both Tenison and the queen expected all bishops to attend. Only on 16 Oct. 1707, a week before the session was due to start, did Humphreys hear from Gibson that Tenison had acknowledged his request to be absent, though he still hoped that Humphreys’ illness would not hinder him ‘from appearing and making your proxy’. Gibson emphasized to Tenison the value of the service Humphreys was doing to the public, especially the Welsh-reading public, instead of his parliamentary attendance.<sup>45</sup></p><p>At the end of May 1708, Humphreys apologized for not waiting on Harley, who had arrived in Herefordshire. Humphreys had been visiting Hartlebury and was now unable to leave Hereford as his coach had been used to send his daughter to Hammersmith. In September Humphreys seems to have been intending to attend Parliament in the autumn, for he wrote to Harley on the 11th that although ‘of late I have been confined’, and he was ‘now to enter on a course of physic for my fits which still trouble me’, he hoped ‘at least to wait on you early in London’, but in November he again explained his failure to wait on Harley at Brampton, after the latter’s return from Wales, because he was still ‘confined’ in Hereford. He solicited Harley’s assistance to get a living for another chaplain, Richard Langford. <sup>46</sup><sup>47</sup> In the event, Humphreys did not attend the 1708 Parliament at all. At the verdict on Dr. Henry Sacheverell on 20 Mar. 1710 it was merely noted by one contemporary that Humphreys was away ‘in the country’. On an annotated printed list of the Lords with a record of their voting on Sacheverell, Humphreys was merely marked as a Whig. In early April 1710 Sunderland forwarded instructions for Humphreys to prosecute another ‘seditious’ Tory clergyman, a ‘Mr Cornwall’, minister of Ludlow, for his anti-government sermon. Humphreys, however, informed Sunderland on 12 Apr. that he was unwilling to discipline Cornwall in case he was unable to substantiate the charge and the prosecution failed, which would be a ‘triumph to his [Cornwall’s] party’.<sup>48</sup></p><p>In August 1710 Humphreys, staying at the Welsh residence of Sir John Wynn<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt, Member for Caernarvonshire, sent Harley congratulations on his promotion to the chancellorship of the exchequer and <em>de facto</em> leader of the ministry.<sup>49</sup> Yet despite these good wishes and the two men’s long association, on a list drawn up on 3 Oct. 1710 Harley reckoned that Humphreys would be certain to oppose his new ministry. Humphreys did not attend any of the sessions of the Parliament elected in October 1710, but he was in the capital in the early months of 1711. During this visit, Humphreys confined his attention to Convocation. Bishop Wake recorded going to Lambeth in the company of Humphreys and John Moore, now bishop of Ely, on 25 Jan. 1711 and on 17 Mar., recorded a meeting of the committee, of which Humphreys was a member, dealing with the theological views of William Whiston.<sup>50</sup> No House of Lords proxy was registered for Humphreys, presumably because the bishop had not taken his seat in the Lords during that Parliament. By the session’s end Humphreys was back in Hereford and on 7 July 1711 he wrote to Harley to congratulate him on his elevation to the peerage as earl of Oxford, to agree to collate to the vicarage of Wigmore the person recommended by Harley, even though he as bishop claimed the right to present to it, and to apologize for using a different hand as he had an indisposition in his own. During the next session, Humphreys wrote to Oxford on 26 Jan. 1712 excusing his continuing absence from the House, claiming that ‘in this great juncture of affairs’ he found himself ‘so far from a capacity to do any service to your lordship or the public’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Humphreys died at the episcopal residence of Whitbourne Court on 20 Nov. 1712. He died intestate and, his wife and one daughter having predeceased him, administration of his estate was given to his one surviving daughter Margaret, the widow of John Lloyd, son of the nonjuror William Lloyd*, the former bishop of Norwich.<sup>52</sup> He apparently had little financial benefit from his livings and it does appear that once he was bishop of Hereford, he struggled financially because of problems with poor harvests and rent arrears, and was forced to use ‘a little old gold’ for daily expenses.<sup>53</sup> His greatest legacy was scholarly, and was more keenly felt in his native Wales than in the English diocese in which he died. He is remembered as a great patron of Welsh literature and poetry – Edward Lhuyd considered him a ‘greater master’ than himself in the language - and of Christian missionary works written in Welsh through the auspices of the SPCK. His extensive researches on the history and genealogy of the Welsh higher clergy were printed posthumously, most conspicuously as addenda to the edition published by Philip Bliss of Anthony Wood’s <em>Athenae Oxonienses</em>. In 1730 the antiquarian Thomas Hearne was especially busy searching out the bishop’s manuscripts from a number of sources, as he considered them highly and thought it would be a ‘crime to suppress them’.<sup>54</sup> Despite these strong ties to Wales, Humphreys was buried on the north side of the altar in Hereford Cathedral where he is commemorated by a black marble slab.</p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
HYDE, Alexander (1598-1667) |
<p><strong><surname>HYDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Alexander</strong> (1598–1667)</p> |
|
|
First sat 18 Sept. 1666; last sat 6 Dec. 1666 |
cons. 31 Dec. 1665 bp. of SALISBURY |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 30 Apr. 1598, 4th s. of Sir Laurence Hyde<sup>‡</sup>, att. gen. to Anne of Denmark, and Barbara (1574–1641), da. of John Baptist Castilion (Castiliogne, Castilian) of Benham Valence, Berks.; bro. of Sir Robert Hyde<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Frederick Hyde<sup>‡</sup>; <em>educ</em>. Winchester Sch. 1610; New, Oxf. matric. 1615, fell. 1615, BCL 1623, DCL 1632. <em>m</em>. 3 May 1636, Mary (<em>d.</em> bef. 1667), da. of Robert Townson<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Salisbury, and niece of John Davenant<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Salisbury, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 5 da. (1 d.v.p.). <em>d</em>. 22 Aug. 1667; <em>will</em> 17 July, pr. 21 Nov. 1667.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Little Langford and Wylye, Wilts. 1634; preb. Salisbury 1639–65, residentiary Salisbury 1660–5; subdean Salisbury 1637–61; seq. 1645;<sup>2</sup> dean Winchester 1660–5.</p> |
|
<p>At the Restoration Alexander Hyde’s connections to the higher clergy in Salisbury and to one of the key families in Restoration Wiltshire and England gave him a good chance of preferment. His brother Henry, then royalist ambassador at Constantinople, had been executed in 1650 for plotting against Parliament’s trading interests; another brother, Robert Hyde, had been elected to the Long Parliament, joined Charles I at Oxford and was later chief justice of the king’s bench; a third, Edward, also a clergyman, determinedly defended the cause of the Church and the king in Oxford during the Interregnum, though he died in 1659.<sup>3</sup> Most significantly, Hyde was first cousin to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>Alexander Hyde initially read law but by 1634 had been ordained and instituted to his first living in his native Wiltshire, and was soon preferred to the chapter of Salisbury. In 1645, charged with taking the royal oath of association and corresponding with royalists, he was deprived of his rectories; as owner of the advowson of Colsterworth in Lincolnshire he presented his relative John Castilion, though he was also deprived.<sup>4</sup> In September 1660 he became dean of Winchester, and received over £2,100 in fines during his first two years in office.<sup>5</sup> Being also the heir of estates in Wiltshire at Swindon, Heale, Durnford and Dinton, he was ideally placed for promotion within the diocese of Salisbury.<sup>6</sup> When John Earle*, bishop of Salisbury, died in November 1665, Hyde was elevated to the episcopate ‘by the endeavours of his kinsman’ Clarendon. The court having moved to Oxford to escape the plague, he was consecrated on 31 Dec. 1665 in New College chapel by Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>7</sup> Three weeks later, he received a ‘friendly’ warning from Sheldon that he should ratify the appointment to the chapter of a royal nominee, particularly since he owed the king ‘a great deal more than so small a return’ and should not incur his anger in this ‘first act of duty and observance’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Hyde took his seat in the Lords on 18 Sept. 1666; a fourth brother, Sir Frederick Hyde, joined the Commons as Member for Haverfordwest in the same month.<sup>9</sup> In a parliamentary career that lasted less than three months, the bishop attended the House regularly until early December 1666 but was named to only three committees, including the privileges committee. After Christmas 1666, having been present for only half of the sittings that session, Hyde did not return to Parliament and there is no evidence that he registered a proxy to cover his absence. His approach to both parliamentary and episcopal duty suggests a marked lethargy. One observer reported to the secretary of state that Hyde had been quite unconcerned when his ecclesiastical jurisdiction was challenged by the mayor of Devizes.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Hyde died on 22 Aug. 1667. At his own request, he was buried in the south aisle of Salisbury cathedral. In his will he made generous charitable bequests and provided dowries of £1,000 for each of his three younger daughters. His eldest daughter, Margaret, given a dowry of £1,500, had already married Henry Parker<sup>‡</sup>, who was named as joint executor of the will.<sup>11</sup> His landed estates went to his only surviving son, Robert Hyde<sup>‡</sup>.</p> |
B.A. |
|
IRONSIDE, Gilbert (1588-1671) |
<p><strong><surname>IRONSIDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Gilbert</strong> (1588–1671)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 17 May 1664 |
cons. 6 Jan. 1661 bp. of BRISTOL |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Nov. 1588, s. of Ralph Ironside, clergyman, and Jane, da. of William Gilbert, ‘superior beadle of arts’, Oxf.; <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Oxf. matric. 1604, BA 1608, MA 1612, fell. 1613, BD 1619; incorp. Camb. 1620; DD 1660. <em>m</em>. (1) Elizabeth, da. of Edward Frenchman of E. Compton, Dorset, 5s.;<sup>1</sup> (2) c.1653, Alice, wid. of John White, da. of William Glisson of Marnhull, Dorset.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 19 Sept. 1671; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
<p>Rect. Winterbourne Steepleton, Dorset 1618, Winterbourne Abbas, Dorset 1625, Yeovilton, Som. 1662–71; preb. York 1660–2.</p> |
<p>Likeness: oil on canvas, unknown artist, Trinity, Oxf.</p> |
<p>The son of a Dorset clergyman, Ironside was presented to his first living in 1619 by Sir Robert Miller<sup>‡</sup>. His only work of controversy, an anti-sabbatarian piece published in defence of the government’s position on the Book of Sports in 1637, was dedicated to William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>3</sup> John Walker, in <em>The Sufferings of the Clergy</em>, recorded that he had lost his Dorset estates valued at £500 per annum, was imprisoned at Dorchester until the Restoration and almost starved to death, though he appears to have continued to officiate in Dorset through most of the Interregnum.<sup>4</sup> In May 1660, he delivered to the Dorset gentry an address on the miraculous return of their ‘David’. By this time he described himself as ‘an old man, much decayed in strength, lungs, parts [and] plundered of abilities as well as books by … our late confusions’.<sup>5</sup> Nonetheless, he was of independent means and, although he had never held a senior position in the Church, ‘yet being wealthy, he was looked upon as the fittest person to enter upon that mean bishopric’ of Bristol.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Ironside took his seat in the Lords at the readmission of the bishops on 20 Nov. 1661, five days before his 73rd birthday. He attended the first session for some 38 per cent of sittings and was present in the House for nearly 70 per cent of sittings in both 1663 and 1664. He was rarely named to committees. Although present for the committal of the 1662 uniformity bill and to hear the king’s recommendation of the revised Book of Common Prayer on 25 Feb. 1662, Ironside did not attend during the stormy period in April when the Lords disputed the ultimately abortive proposals for a royal proviso to the legislation. During this period he registered his proxy in favour of William Nicholson*, bishop of Gloucester (vacated at the end of the session). In the summer of 1662 he conducted his first visitation, overseeing the repair of church property and restoring the Anglican liturgy.<sup>7</sup></p><p>During the 1663 session, Ironside was not named to the committee for the bill to amend the Act of Uniformity on 24 July 1663, although recorded as present for both sittings that day. He arrived for the start of the following session on 16 Mar. 1664 and was nominated to the committee for privileges on 21 March. He remained throughout the passage of the conventicle bill but did not return to the House after 17 May 1664. Thereafter he registered proxies: on 22 Nov. 1664 with John Earle*, bishop of Salisbury; on 2 Oct. 1665 with Seth Ward*, bishop of Exeter; on 27 Oct. 1666 with Edward Rainbowe*, bishop of Carlisle; on 27 Sept. 1667 with William Nicholson; and on three occasions between 1668 and 1670 with John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester.</p><p>Ironside failed to attend the House again, perhaps finding the maintenance of discipline in a diocese that not only included England’s third largest city but was also a heartland of Quakerism and Independency a sufficiently absorbing task. The corporation of Bristol itself had a jealous regard for its civic traditions and autonomy, and for much of his episcopate, Ironside was involved in a long-running dispute over its attempt to exercise jurisdiction within the cathedral precincts, a quarrel which continued for some years after his death.<sup>8</sup> He appears to have done little to suppress nonconformity himself, unlike the hard-line Anglican mayor of Bristol, John Knight<sup>‡</sup>, who instigated a particularly vicious bout of persecution under the 1664 Conventicle Act.<sup>9</sup> Yet he perpetually complained that the failure to prosecute Dissenters was the fault of the local magistrates and their failure to co-operate. In October 1666, he asked for the assistance of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, to punish the more intractable offenders. He received an irritated response: Sheldon was unable to support Ironside’s ‘endeavour … to make the justices a little more warm in their duty’ since the bishop had provided only general information; ‘instance me some particular cases … and then something may be done’. The relationship between the two men seems indeed to have been a frosty one. In June 1666 the archbishop had chastised Ironside for his poor performance in levying clerical subscriptions for the royal loan in 1666: the ‘pitifully mean’ amounts were unsurprising given that they ‘had not the encouragement of your Lordship’s example to lead them on’. Four months later, on 11 Oct., Sheldon wrote again, regretting that Ironside’s ‘indispositions’ would not allow him to attend the House and instructing him to send his proxy since they ‘may suddenly have very earnest occasions for it’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>In July 1669, worrying about the consequences of the lapse of the first Conventicle Act, Ironside wrote to Nicholson asking ‘how the Church affairs are likely either to stand or fall’; he was still complaining that in Bristol the magistrates were ‘averse from doing their duty’ to quash nonconformity.<sup>11</sup> He nevertheless failed to attend the ensuing parliamentary session, being recorded as sick at a call of the House on 26 Oct. 1669. For the rest of his life, his proxy was held by John Dolben. In 1670, after the passage of the second Conventicle Act, Ironside came under pressure from Sheldon to implement the legislation and reportedly hired informers to identify Dissenters.<sup>12</sup></p><p>By 1671, the 82-year-old Ironside was extremely frail. Shortly after new year it was rumoured that he was already dead;<sup>13</sup> however, he lingered until 19 Sept. 1671. He was buried in his cathedral without any memorial. His son and namesake, Gilbert Ironside*, was appointed bishop of Bristol in 1689.</p> |
B.A. |
|
IRONSIDE, Gilbert (1632-1701) |
<p><strong><surname>IRONSIDE</surname></strong>, <strong>Gilbert</strong> (1632–1701)</p> |
|
|
First sat 25 Oct. 1689; last sat 7 Aug. 1701 |
cons. 13 Oct. 1689 bp. of BRISTOL; transl. 29 July 1691 bp. of HEREFORD |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1632, 3rd s. Gilbert Ironside*, later bp. of Bristol, and Elizabeth, da. of Edward Frenchman (Trencham). <em>educ</em>. Wadham, Oxf. matric. 1650, BA 1653, MA 1655, fell. 1656, BD 1664, DD 1666. <em>m</em>. c.1692, Mary, da. of John Robins of Matson, King’s Barton, Glos.<sup>1</sup> <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 27 Aug. 1701;<em> admon</em>. 22 Sept. 1701 to wid.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1672-87.</p><p>Rect. Winterbourne Farrington and Winterbourne Jermyn, Dorset 1663, Winterbourne Steepleton, Dorset 1666-89; canon, York 1664.</p><p>Warden, Wadham, Oxf. 1665-89; v.-chan. Oxf. 1687-9.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1690, Wadham, Oxf.</p> |
<p>Gilbert Ironside was born into a Gloucestershire family of clerics and Oxford academics. He was, according to Anthony Wood, a ‘Forward, saucy, domineering, impudent, lascivious’ man. He had a high regard for John Wilkins*, the future bishop of Chester, but Wood recorded that Wilkins regarded him as ‘always a prating and proud coxcomb, as indeed he is.’ In December 1665 he began a reign of over 20 years as the warden of Wadham, falling out repeatedly with John Fell*, the vice-chancellor of the university and future bishop of Oxford, who, again according to Anthony Wood, thwarted any attempt to promote him.<sup>3</sup> Nevertheless, Ironside was himself nominated university vice chancellor in 1676 – a position he refused at the time on the grounds that he had insufficient income to support the dignity of office.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In 1684, during the ‘Tory reaction’, Ironside took a hard line in support of Anglican uniformity; preaching at Whitehall against religious toleration, he insisted that religious separatists must be pressed into conformity by force.<sup>5</sup> During the reign of James II, he was strongly identified with anti-Catholic activism at Oxford, spurred on by the university visitor, William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph.<sup>6</sup> Apparently unaware of the extent to which the new king resented anti-Catholic propaganda, in the spring of 1686 he complained that ‘after so many years’ attendance at court he had ‘not been considered at all for his service, but is fain to live still upon the scant commons of his college, which have almost worn out his teeth’ and used Lloyd as an intermediary in an attempt to persuade William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, to exert himself in Ironside’s favour. Sancroft was asked to encourage Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, to use his influence with ‘them that can best speak to his Majesty’ on Ironside’s behalf. Sprat had already recommended Ironside to Sancroft, suggesting that he be appointed to the deanery of Bristol. Ironside’s case was also espoused by Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In 1687 Ironside accepted nomination as vice chancellor. During the Magdalen College affair he confronted James II, reminded the king that the Church had supported his cause during the Exclusion Crisis and did his utmost to stem the flow of Catholic appointments at Oxford.<sup>8</sup> He made some efforts to prevent disturbances when the king’s commissioners, the lord chief justice, Sir Robert Wright<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, conducted their visitation at Magdalen in October 1687. He also defended his position throughout the episode by rigorous adherence to university regulations.<sup>9</sup></p><p>By 1688 Ironside found himself joining forces with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys to oppose a <em>quo warranto</em> against the university’s charter.<sup>10</sup> It was rumoured that he had grovelled to Jeffreys after the latter’s failure to be elected chancellor.<sup>11</sup> In August 1688, he provocatively authorized the publication of a disputation by the Marian Oxford martyr Nicholas Ridley<sup>†</sup>, bishop of London on the eucharist, a transparent act of defiance against James II’s religious policy.<sup>12</sup></p><p>In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution of 1688, Ironside’s loyalties were ambivalent. He absented himself when the mayor of Oxford proclaimed the new king and queen on 14 Feb. 1689.<sup>13</sup> Yet a later (Tory-biased) account claimed that Ironside was ‘a great stickler’ for the prince of Orange, though motivated only by the prospect of gaining a bishopric. It was also reported that before William ‘had any pretended right to the crown from the Convention,’ Ironside administered the oath of allegiance to the new king in the Oxford Congregation House.<sup>14</sup> Whatever the reality of his political and personal motivation, Ironside quickly allied himself to the new government by taking a firm stance against nonjurors and clamping down on rabble-rousing in the city’s coffee houses.<sup>15</sup> His reward soon followed. The directive for his elevation to Bristol was issued on 28 Mar. 1689.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Bristol was not a wealthy diocese, but it was geographically and politically strategic and Ironside was left in no doubt as to his political role. On 11 June 1689 Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, contacted the new bishop about a seditious pamphlet circulating in Bristol. The king, Shrewsbury pointedly remarked, did not doubt Ironside’s ‘care and diligence in suppressing anything else of the same kind’.<sup>17</sup> Although there is little evidence of his involvement in electoral politics in Bristol, Ironside’s Tory leanings matched those of the city’s parliamentary representatives, Sir Richard Hart<sup>‡</sup> and Sir John Knight<sup>‡</sup>, and it seems most likely that he supported their role in civic governance.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Ironside began a somewhat lacklustre parliamentary career on 25 Oct. 1689. His attendance never exceeded more than one half of sittings in any one session, and he absented himself altogether from four of the 13 sessions held during his episcopate. During this first session he was present for half the sittings. On 19 Nov. 1689 he protested against the bill to prevent clandestine marriages, on the grounds that marriage was not a matter for the secular authorities.</p><p>Ironside did not appear at the House for the first six weeks of the spring 1690 session and then attended on only five days. He was excused attendance on the grounds of sickness at a call of the House on 31 Mar. 1690. On 9 May 1690 he registered his proxy in favour of Henry Compton*, bishop of London (vacated at the end of the session on 23 May 1690). Ironside did not attend the session that ran from 2 Oct. 1690 to 5 Jan. 1691, again registering his proxy in favour of Compton. His reluctance to attend the House proved to be no bar to promotion and in the spring of 1691 he was nominated as bishop of Hereford. His translation was greeted with outrage by the peevish William Beaw*, bishop of Llandaff, who, wanting Hereford for himself, described how Ironside had been ‘upon the watch, and too quick’ for anyone else in the running.<sup>19</sup></p><p>With Tory Herefordshire dominated by the Harleys of Brampton Bryan and overseen by the dukes of Beaufort, Ironside must have found his new post rather more agreeable than Bristol. He took his seat as bishop of Hereford on 6 Nov. 1691, attending the session that opened on 22 Oct. 1691 for just 11 days (ten per cent of sittings), missing the first two weeks and the last three months of business. From 24 Nov. his proxy was again held by Compton. The next parliamentary session opened on 4 Nov. 1692; Ironside arrived 11 days into the session and attended for 54 per cent of sittings, his highest level of attendance (perhaps prompted by the proposal for legislation about placemen and the Norfolk divorce).</p><p>Ironside firmly supported the court over the place bill. On 31 Dec. 1692 he voted against its committal; four days later, on 3 Jan. 1693, he voted against the passing of the bill. Early in January he was also opposed to the reading of the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, but in this he was out of kilter with the other bishops nominated by William III. He appears to have opposed the bill on doctrinal grounds, but it is equally possible that he voted against the measure out of sympathy with the Tory duchess of Norfolk. On 25 Jan. he voted against committal of the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons.</p><p>Ironside was not present at the start of the November 1693 session; he arrived a week into the session and then attended for a little over one half of sittings. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against a reversal of chancery’s dismissal of the cause between Ralph Montagu*, earl of Montagu and John Granville*, earl of Bath, in their dispute over the Albemarle inheritance. During the summer recess of 1694, he ordered the defacing of the memorial inscription for the recently deceased Member of the Commons for Weobley, John Birch<sup>‡</sup>, since its wording appeared to sanction both the civil wars and the regicide.<sup>20</sup> The action infuriated Birch’s family, but the memorial remained in its vandalized condition until after Ironside’s death.</p><p>Ironside was absent for the whole of the 1694-5 session. On 16 Feb. 1695 his proxy was registered to Compton who held it to the end of the session. He did attend the 1695-6 session for 45 per cent of sittings, but missed the first five weeks of business. On 31 Mar. 1696 he registered his dissent against the bill to encourage the bringing in of plate to the Mint. On 10 Apr. Ironside was one of 14 bishops to sign the ‘repugnance’ at the public absolution by nonjuring clerics for the Jacobites, Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Freind<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Ironside again arrived five weeks late for the 1696-7 session, attending 36 per cent of sittings. He was named to three committees, one involving the state of trade, another concerning James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond (whom Ironside knew in his capacity as Oxford chancellor). This session again revealed Ironside’s innate Toryism. In December 1696, despite pressure from the court and his archbishop, he opposed the bill to attaint the Jacobite Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. On 18 and 23 Dec. he was one of the eight Tory bishops to register their dissent against the second and third readings of the bill, grounding their opposition in the evidential irregularities that had enabled Fenwick to be convicted and concluding that he was too ‘inconsiderable a man’ to warrant such extraordinary proceedings. After 18 Mar. 1697 Compton again held Ironside’s proxy (vacated nine days later when Ironside arrived in the House).</p><p>The following session (1697-8) saw Ironside present for 47 per cent of sittings and named to 22 committees. He was also present throughout the passage of the Hereford workhouses legislation in May 1698. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted for the committal of the bill to punish the Tory goldsmith, Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, for the false endorsement of exchequer bills and, on 25 May he was appointed as one of the managers of the conference on the bill to suppress blasphemy. He missed the last five weeks of the session, registering his proxy on 4 June in favour of his friend Thomas Sprat (vacated at the end of the session on 5 July 1698). He did not attend the 1698-9 or 1699-1700 sessions but did support the parliamentary candidature of the Harleyite Tory and Beaufort client, Robert Price<sup>‡</sup> in the controverted Weobley election.<sup>22</sup> Ironside attended the House for only a handful of days thereafter. In the session that opened on 6 Feb. 1701, he did not arrive at the House until 10 May 1701 and attended the session on only six days.</p><p>After several days’ illness in August 1701, Ironside died on 27 Aug. at the age of 69. He was buried in the church of St Mary Somerset, Thames Street, London but his remains were transferred to Hereford Cathedral in 1867.<sup>23</sup> A confirmed bachelor until the age of 60, Ironside had surprised his contemporaries in 1692 by marrying a widow, sole heiress to her father’s Gloucestershire manor. He died intestate and his wealth at death is unknown.</p> |
B.A. |
|
JONES, Edward (1641-1703) |
<p><strong><surname>JONES</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1641–1703)</p> |
|
|
First sat 17 Jan. 1693; last sat 3 Feb. 1703 |
cons. 11 Mar. 1683 bp. of Cloyne; cons. 17 Jan. 1693 bp. of ST ASAPH |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 24 July 1641, 1st s. of Richard Jones (<em>d</em>.1688) and Sarah (<em>d</em>.1685), da. of John Pyttes of Marrington, Salop. <em>educ</em>. Westminster; Trinity, Camb. BA 1664, ord. priest May 1667, fell. 1667, MA 1668, DD 1692. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 2 Feb. 1668, Maria (<em>d</em>.1670), da. of Col. Humphrey Hurd, of Lisdowney, co. Kilkenny, ?<em>s</em>.<em>p</em>.; (2) aft. 1670, Elizabeth, da. of Sir Richard Kennedy, bt., of Newmountkennedy, co. Wicklow, 6ch. (at least 3s., at least 1da.). <em>d</em>. 10 May 1703;<sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> 16 Apr. 1699, pr. 13 Mar. 1703.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], from 1670; Master, Kilkenny Coll. 1670-?83; preb. Aghour and Freshford 1677-83; dean, Lismore 1678-83;<sup>3</sup> rect. Aber-Hafesp 1690, Halkin 1694, Caerwys 1695, Llansainffraid (Llansantfraid) 1696.<sup>4</sup></p> |
|
<p>Edward Jones appears to have come from a relatively humble, lower gentry background. There is little evidence of the family’s total fortune, but under the terms of his parents’ marriage settlement lands in Montgomeryshire worth a modest £60 a year were settled on his mother for her life.<sup>7</sup> Quite how Jones, a new fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, came to the attention of the duke of Ormond is unclear; by the time of his first marriage he was evidently already living in Kilkenny, Ireland, where Ormond was the dominate magnate. Jones’s relationship with the duke was to prove crucial to his career. All his Irish preferments, from the mastership of the recently re-founded Kilkenny College (where his students included the future Dean Swift) to the bishopric of Cloyne came through the patronage either of Ormond himself or of Ormond’s son, Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I], (Baron Butler in the English peerage).<sup>8</sup></p><p>Despite his promotion to an Irish bishopric and a promise to Arran that he would not ask for another post to be held <em>in commendam</em>, Jones demanded to be allowed to retain the deanery of Lismore, arguing that it lay just three miles outside of his diocese and that his ‘small income’ as bishop of Cloyne was insufficient for his needs. His persistence clearly annoyed Arran and Ormond, who tried to persuade him to settle for the hope of ‘an advantageous remove’ instead. Even before Jones had been consecrated, the death of the bishop of Dromore created another opportunity for promotion, but Ormond was determined to send Jones to Cloyne, where he considered that ‘the want of a resident bishop [had given] great advantage to perverters of all sorts to withdraw and keep the people from the service of the Church and from their loyalty’.<sup>9</sup> Jones got to keep the deanery of Lismore, but this did not stop him from exploring other opportunities for promotion: in 1685 he asked for the see of Cashel; a year later he approached Ormond’s successor as lord lieutenant of Ireland, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, in an attempt to obtain a translation to Ossory. Clarendon had little hesitation about recommending such a step. He wrote to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, describing Jones in glowing terms as a man who had done much ‘to promote the interest of the church’ and ‘does good where he lives and will always make his calling his business’.<sup>10</sup> Jones also had a role in greasing the workings of the Irish patronage system. In February 1690, for example, he was exploring the possibilities of persuading Ormond to obtain a baronetcy for a client and attempting to find out ‘what money may be expected for the honour.’<sup>11</sup></p><p>Jones appears to have left Ireland, where he had acquired an estate worth about £500 at some point in 1688, probably in response to the changed religious policies imposed by Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel [I]. He seems not to have returned to Ireland thereafter. Having been forced to abandon his Irish estates, his financial situation seems to have been precarious. In an undated petition for preferment which probably dates to the period between the assumption of the crown by William and Mary in 1689 and Jones’s appointment to St Asaph in the autumn of 1692, he sought translation to a richer Irish bishopric, referring to the ‘great losses’ he had sustained and the demands of his ‘numerous family’.<sup>12</sup> In 1688 the death of his father meant that he inherited his mother’s jointure lands in Montgomeryshire, which were immediately mortgaged for £300; a little later he used them as security for a further loan of £550.<sup>13</sup> These may have been the properties at Tregynon and Betton whose sale to pay debts he authorized in his will. A considerable part of Jones’s financial difficulties seems to have been caused by his desire to make generous provision for his six children: he was later said to be determined to give his daughter a portion of £4,000, an extraordinarily high sum for the daughter of a bishop.<sup>14</sup> In his petition Jones had asked for translation to a more lucrative Irish see and it is not clear why he should have been appointed to a Welsh one instead, although it is likely that as a Welshman (able to write and speak Welsh) he was considered a suitable candidate.</p><p>Jones was summoned to Parliament as bishop of St Asaph by a writ dated 16 Jan. 1693 – that is, one day before his consecration.<sup>15</sup> He took his seat the following day, but it is not clear whether this was before or after the act of consecration. He was subsequently present on almost every one of the remaining sitting days of the session (just under 40 per cent of the whole). During the summer recess he journeyed to his diocese for the first time, where he began to upset some of the local clergy by his inattention to his duties. He was also said to have declared that having found that bishops’ secretaries were often untrustworthy, that ‘I design to make my wife my treasurer’. The role of the bishop’s wife in the life of the diocese would later prove one of the central complaints brought against Jones’s administration there.<sup>16</sup></p><p>He returned to the House three days into the new session in November 1693 and then maintained his high level of attendance throughout the session (just under 84 per cent of all sitting days), during which he held the proxy of Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Bangor. On 17 Feb.1694 he voted against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the long-running case of <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. In the summer of 1694 Jones was named as one of the commissioners for the metropolitical visitation that investigated allegations of extortion and simony that had been made against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Jones was present on some 67 per cent of the sitting days in the 1694-5 session, but his attendance fell back to 54 per cent in the 1695-6 session. On 6 Mar. 1696 his petition relating to a Member of the Commons, Hugh Nanney<sup>‡</sup>, was presented to the House. As Nanney was not in the Chamber, consideration was delayed until the following Monday (9 March). The petition alleged that Nanney was protecting Peter Price, who had ejected Robert Wynn from the rectory of Llanillin. The matter was referred to the Commons’ privileges committee.<sup>18</sup> On 6 Apr. 1696 he was named as a manager of the conference on the privateers bill. A few days later he demonstrated his loyalty to the new regime by signing the repugnance at the decision of the nonjuring clergymen, Cook and Snatt, to grant absolution to the men who were executed for their part in the Assassination Plot.<sup>19</sup> In the 1696-7 session his attendance dropped still further to just under 46 per cent. Perhaps his health was deteriorating, for in November 1696 he asked to be excused attendance a little longer on the grounds that he was ‘so crippled with the gout that he has not the use of his limbs’ and needed to build up his strength before undertaking ‘so hard and hazardous a journey’.<sup>20</sup> Perhaps he wished to avoid being present for the impeachment of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. It is also possible that he was already worried about the simmering discontent in his diocese. As a result it was not until 7 Jan. 1697 that he finally took his seat in the House.</p><p>The local clergy were upset about a variety of issues including the bishop’s failure to ensure that holy communion was celebrated weekly or to employ an organist for the cathedral. Jones then created a powerful enemy by attempting to block the election of Francis Evans as clerk to the chapter. Evans not only had considerable local influence but was also close to Jones’s predecessor at St Asaph, William Lloyd*, now bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to whom he had once been secretary. In the summer of 1696 Jones added to his enemies when he appointed his brother-in-law, Daniel Price, as dean of St Asaph instead of promoting the chancellor, Robert Wynne.<sup>21</sup> Price was also given a valuable living, the presentation to which had already been the cause of some dispute. Under the agreement, Price was granted the living in trust with the income going towards the education of Jones’s son, Thomas. The ejected incumbent sued Price, alleging that he had obtained the place by simony, and won his case. Price’s subsequent attempt to overturn the ruling failed.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In March 1697, presumably inspired by the example of their neighbours in St Davids as well as by the recent successful case brought against Dean Price, 38 local clergymen drew up a comprehensive list of examples of diocesan mismanagement and presented their complaint to Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>23</sup> Given the action then pending against Bishop Watson, Tenison had little option but to order a metropolitical visitation. Responsibility for it was handed to Jones’s predecessor, Bishop Lloyd; even before he had set out, he passed on to Tenison a complaint against Jones relating to the parish of Llansainffraid.<sup>24</sup> When the visitation commenced in July, the complaints were turned into a series of formal presentments. The complainants declared that Jones had given ‘great offence by his discourse and behaviour and has uttered several scandalous expressions to defame his clergy calling them knaves and rascals with unchristian imprecations and wishing their death and ruin’. The charges also included multiple accusations of simony and of ordering unauthorized fees to be paid to his servants.<sup>25</sup></p><p>While the investigations continued, Jones continued to attend the House. He was present for the prorogation day of 13 May before taking his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697. He was thereafter present on about 60 per cent of all sitting days for the session. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. In July the charges made against him at the visitation were turned into formal articles, with the examination of witnesses beginning in November. The case continued for the ensuing two years. Embarrassingly, given the continuing proceedings against Bishop Watson, it soon became clear not only that Jones was guilty of far more serious offences of simony than Watson, but that his practices were not significantly different to those of his predecessor, Bishop Lloyd.</p><p>Jones did not attend the return to the House until 23 Jan. 1699 and was then present for just under 31 per cent of the remaining sitting days. He was again present for a prorogation day during the summer, and when Parliament reconvened in November 1699 he attended over 55 per cent of the sitting days of the session. Significantly, on 6 Dec. he was among the minority speaking in favour of allowing Bishop Watson privilege.<sup>26</sup> Jones was present on 23 Feb. 1700 to vote against going into a committee of the whole house to discuss amendments to bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 5 Apr., when it had become clear that the complaints about his conduct would result in a trial before the archbishop of Canterbury, he declared that he would not insist on his own privilege.<sup>27</sup> Sentence was anticipated on 5 June or shortly afterwards, but it was a further year before a definitive sentence was arrived at.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Jones was present on just under 57 per cent of the sittings of the first session of the 1701 Parliament. On 17 June 1701 he voted to acquit John Somers*, Baron Somers. The following day Archbishop Tenison finally pronounced sentence against him but, contrary to expectation, Jones was merely suspended for six months.<sup>29</sup> Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> was not the only observer who had expected Jones to be deprived when commenting on the case back in the summer of 1699, but the bishop had a wide range of influential connections and he had put considerable effort into marshalling their support. Testimonials to his good character, his hospitality and his piety from high ranking individuals, some of whom were former pupils, had been amassed during the summer months of 1699. At least one seems also to have hinted at anti-Irish bias among the Welsh clergy. Chancellor Wynn was reported to have threatened to ‘make his Irish understanding sensible that the said bishop would want him more than he the bishop’.<sup>30</sup> Despite overwhelming evidence against him, Jones was cleared of actual simony and convicted only on a number of lesser charges, including permitting laymen to act as curates, omitting the oath of simony at a collation and failing to maintain ecclesiastical discipline. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, later rather unconvincingly explained that the judges had distinguished between actual simony and practices of a simoniacal tendency.<sup>31</sup> Jones’s failure to make adequate submission meant that the sentence was not lifted until May 1702 after he had at last made a full and abject confession, in which he apologized for his crimes concerning misgovernment of the diocese and for practices that might have given risen to a suspicion of simony. The contrast between his sentence and the deprivation inflicted on Watson was a matter for considerable comment and encouraged a belief that Jones had received favourable treatment because he was politically more in tune with his archbishop and the Whigs than his neighbour in St Davids.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Jones did not return to Parliament until 20 Mar. 1702. He was then present on almost every remaining sitting day of the session (though just 33 per cent of the whole). During the summer he was busy with his triennial visitation during which, according to a contemporary pamphlet, he reminded his clergy of their solemn vows of obedience, declaring that ‘I shall not determine the extent of those Oaths and Vows, and the obligation they have upon the conscience; but leave you to reflect on your late behaviour … and I shall heartily pray that he may forgive you all’.<sup>33</sup> He failed to attend the House for the opening of the new Parliament in October 1702. His first attendance of the session was on 2 December. He attended only 17 days in the session (just under a fifth of the whole). Despite his alleged whiggishness, in January 1703 he was listed as a supporter of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. He stopped attending the House three weeks before the close of the session and died at his house in Westminster in May, leaving his eldest surviving son, Richard, to struggle to find a way to pay his debts.<sup>34</sup> Although he had expressed a wish in his will to be buried at Forden, he was instead interred in the parish church of St Margaret, Westminster.</p> |
R.P./R.D.E.E. |
|
JUXON, William (1582-1663) |
<p><strong><surname>JUXON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1582–1663)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; last sat 4 Feb. 1642 |
cons. 30 Sept. 1633 bp. of LONDON; transl. 25 Sept. 1660 abp. of CANTERBURY |
|
<p><em>bap.</em> Oct. 1582, s. of Richard Juxon, registrar of diocese of Chichester; <em>educ</em>. St John’s, Oxf. fell. 1598, BCL 1603, DCL 1621; ord. deacon 1606, priest 1607; admitted G. Inn 1636. <em>unm.</em> <em>d.</em> 4 June 1663; <em>will</em> 1 May 1663, pr. 4 July.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Clerk of the closet 1632; dean, chapel royal 1633; chap. ord. to the king by 1633; lord high treasurer of England 1636–41.</p><p>Vic. St Giles, Oxf. 1609; rect. Somerton, Oxon. 1615, East Marden, Suss. 1622; canon, Chichester 1622; dean Worcester 1627.</p><p>Dep. bursar, St John’s, Oxf. 1607–8, jun. bursar 1608–9, v.-pres. 1610–21, pres. 1621–3; v.-chan. Oxf. 1626–8.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on panel by B. Gerbier d'Ouvilly, Oxford; oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1640, NPG 500; oil on canvas, by unknown artist, 1633, and oil on canvas, by unknown artist (on deathbed, 1663), Lambeth Palace.</p> |
<p>Although William Juxon’s father was a clerical administrator, the family’s origins were strongly mercantile and several generations had been closely associated with London and the Merchant Taylor’s Company. Little is known about the details of the finances of William’s branch of the family but it was clearly prosperous: as rector of Somerton, he was able to rebuild the rectory at his own expense. It was probably also he who built the palatial residence at Little Compton in Warwickshire that ultimately became the seat of his brother John’s descendants. According to his nephew and executor, Sir William Juxon, Juxon enjoyed an income of £700 a year from his own lands during the Interregnum.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Juxon’s decision to study civil law at Oxford was an unusual choice for the time, suggesting that he was intended for an administrative career like his father’s. He even obtained the reversion of his father’s offices.<sup>3</sup> He soon changed his mind, however, perhaps through the influence of John Buckeridge<sup>†</sup> (president of St John’s from 1605 and later successively bishop of Rochester and Ely), and was ordained by John Bridges<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Oxford. His appointment as bishop of London, then the traditional stepping stone to the office of primate, identified him as a probable successor and rival to William Laud<sup>†</sup> archbishop of Canterbury, while his role at the execution of Charles I linked him forever in the public mind with the martyred king. Juxon remained on good terms with those antagonistic to Laud, helped perhaps by his own family background. His mercantile cousins were prominent members of London’s ‘godly’ network, with strong connections to several prominent Independent preachers, and one of his cousins was probably a Presbyterian elder.<sup>4</sup> This branch of the family was to support Parliament in the civil wars: two fought for Parliament at Newbury; one died there.</p><p>His connections with prominent parliamentarians probably helped Juxon live out the Interregnum in relative calm. He was also careful not to attract unfavourable attention. Although he was reputed to have conducted services using the proscribed <em>Book of Common Prayer</em> and licensed the polyglot bible, he did not follow the lead of others, like Brian Duppa*, then bishop of Salisbury, later of Winchester, who remained in touch with the exiled court and conducted clandestine ordinations. He was known less for his religious convictions than for his excellent pack of hounds.<sup>5</sup> Nevertheless at the Restoration he was the obvious choice for Canterbury. The only other candidates were Duppa, who was said to have been reluctant to accept the post; Matthew Wren*, of Ely, whose appointment would have offended even the mildest of nonconformists; or Gilbert Sheldon*, himself a future archbishop of Canterbury, who had no experience of episcopal office at all and whose whole-hearted commitment to the exiled court might have made him an object of suspicion.<sup>6</sup> As bishop of London, Juxon was, after all, the established heir apparent to Canterbury and his uneventful retirement during the Interregnum meant that, in the tricky political and religious climate of the Restoration, his appointment could offend no one. That he was elderly and extremely frail held out certain advantages: it meant that the real work of his office could be performed on his behalf by Sheldon, who was promptly appointed to the vacant see of London.</p><p>Even before the civil wars, Juxon appears to have played an inactive part in the life of the House of Lords, which seems surprising given the religious controversies of the day. He did not attend the House after 1660 and his only recorded interaction with it arose from what appears to have been a misunderstanding. Towards the end of 1661 the House ordered Matthew Hardy to rebuild the tomb of Matthew Parker<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury and to re-inter his bones. Hardy’s attempt to carry out his orders was obstructed by Juxon’s servants, possibly because the archbishop saw the issue as a matter for spiritual rather than secular concern. Juxon went on to arrange the re-interment himself.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Juxon’s careful distinction between the secular and the spiritual may also have played a part in encouraging the dishonesty of his treasurer, John Pory, brother of Juxon’s chaplain (and nephew-in-law), Robert Pory. Juxon refused, as a matter of principle to take interest himself, but was happy for Pory to do so, as long as he placed the archbishop’s money in low-interest, safe investments. Given access to the vast windfall profits (estimated at £54,000 in entry fines) that accrued to Juxon as the first post-Restoration archbishop of Canterbury, Pory abandoned all caution and lent at high interest on dubious securities.<sup>8</sup> Juxon’s executor and residuary legatee, his nephew Sir William Juxon, was forced into a series of legal actions and had to secure a private act of Parliament to recover the capital.<sup>9</sup></p><p>The archbishop also wielded considerable patronage. Some of that patronage was used to please the king: it was the king’s intervention that prompted Juxon’s controversial interference to secure the election of the minority candidate, Thomas Clayton, as warden of Merton in 1661.<sup>10</sup> Most, however, was entrusted to Robert Pory, who gained a remarkable number of preferments for himself and reputedly accepted bribes to dispose of others.<sup>11</sup> Robert Pory was allegedly also implicated in John Pory’s embezzlement.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Juxon left the management of the Restoration religious settlement to Sheldon, and his own views on the subject are obscure. Long after the archbishop’s death, Laurence Womock*, bishop of St Davids, quoted him as saying that ‘If yielding of some few matters of indifferency would win them to join cordially with us in the practice of the rest, he would very well be content with it …’ but that he believed ‘there is no way to govern this sort of people but by strait rein’, and the appointment of Robert Pory as president of Sion College was seen as a major victory for Anglican conformity.<sup>13</sup> Yet Juxon is reported to have told Robert Dodd, the Presbyterian minister whom he ordained in 1660, that ‘he was not for going high against the Presbyterians’, and to have granted another Presbyterian, Daniel Poyntel, permission to preach occasionally in his old parish at Staplehurst in Kent if the new incumbent would agree (which he did not).<sup>14</sup> In 1661 he was willing to defer the calling of Convocation ‘longer’, according to Peter Heylyn, ‘than may stand with the safety of the Church’, because of fears of parliamentary intervention.<sup>15</sup></p><p>William Juxon died on 4 June 1663, leaving goods and chattels valued at nearly £21,000 after payment of debts and allowances.<sup>16</sup> According to his nephew his estate was worth over £50,000 in total – of which £35,000 consisted of the sums owed by John Pory.<sup>17</sup> The archbishop left generous amounts to his servants and to members of his extended family, including John Pory and his children, as well as substantial bequests to ensure his enduring legacy to the Anglican Church, which included the rebuilding of the great hall at Lambeth Palace in traditional style, the repair of St Paul’s Cathedral and £7,000 to St John’s College, Oxford. Although he left directions in his will for a simple funeral, he was buried at a cost of nearly £500, with between £500 and £1,000 expended on ‘blacks’ for the mourners.<sup>18</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
KEN, Thomas (1637-1711) |
<p><strong><surname>KEN</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1637–1711)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 12 Feb. 1689 |
cons. 25 Jan. 1685 bp. of BATH AND WELLS; susp. 1 Aug. 1689 ; depr. Feb. 1691 |
|
<p><em>b</em>. July 1637, yr. s. of Thomas Ken (<em>d</em>.1651) of London, att.<sup>1</sup> and 2nd. w. Martha (<em>d</em>.1641), da. of John Chalkhill, poet, of St Giles Cripplegate, London and Berkhamsted Herts. <em>educ</em>. Winchester, 1651-6; Hart Hall, Oxf. 1657; New, Oxf., BA 1661, ord. 1662, MA, 1665, DD 1679. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 19 Mar. 1711; <em>will</em> undated, pr. 24 Apr. 1711.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Mary, Princess of Orange, 1679-80,<sup>3</sup> to Charles II, 1680-84.</p><p>Fell. New Coll., Oxf. 1661-6, Winchester, 1666-85.</p><p>Rect. Little Easton, Essex, 1663-65, Brightstone, I.o.W, 1667-9; East Woodhay, Hants 1669-72; spiritual adviser to Margaret, Baroness Maynard 1663-82; chap. to George Morley*, bp. of Winchester, 1665-84, to George Legge*, Bar. Dartmouth, 1683-4; non-stipendary cur. St John in the Soke, Winchester, Hants 1665-75; preb. Winchester 1669.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by F. Scheffer, c.1700, NPG 1821.</p> |
<p>Thomas Ken has acquired a reputation for saintliness that far exceeds that of his fellow bishops. He was a man of seeming contradictions: both an ascetic who would not be parted from the luxury of his coffee-pot and a celibate with intense female friendships.<sup>4</sup> Accounts of Ken’s life have tended towards hagiography from the first, written by his great-nephew William Hawkins.<sup>5</sup> The perception of Ken as saint was established in his lifetime: John Dryden’s ascetic priest of ‘The Character of a Good Parson’ (1700), who ‘made almost a sin of abstinence’ and despised ‘the worldly pomp of prelacy’ while having been ‘in purple… crucified’, was probably intended as a portrait of Ken: although, as an ‘enlarged’ imitation of Geoffrey Chaucer<sup>‡</sup>, the parson’s principled opposition to the removal of a divinely-appointed monarch was presented as a rejection of the replacement of Richard II by Henry IV, a reader of 1700 would have had little doubt that James II and William III were meant.<sup>6</sup> Ken’s piety, devotion to the sacred character of the priestly office and to the sacraments led in the nineteenth century to his appropriation by the Oxford Movement: as early as 1825 John Keble and his brother Thomas considered editing ‘some of Bishop Ken’s remains’, and in 1836 John Henry Newman proposed a form of service for his commemoration.<sup>7</sup> Subsequently, Ken was commemorated by a lesser holy day by the Church of England. Nineteenth-century biographies were heavily informed by contemporary theological developments, but Edward Plumptre’s made the most effort to recover Ken’s own intellectual and social environment.<sup>8</sup></p><h2><em>Early career</em></h2><p>After the death in 1651 of his father, a London attorney descended from the cadet branch of an armigerous Somerset family, Ken came under the guardianship of his half-sister Anne Walton.<sup>9</sup> Anne’s husband, the royalist writer Izaak Walton (best remembered for <em>The Compleat Angler</em>), kept a sociable household where Ken came into contact with many churchmen, including Walton’s close friend George Morley. It has been suggested that Walton’s pet dog Bryan was even named after Brian Duppa*, then bishop of Salisbury.<sup>10</sup></p><p>At Winchester and at New College Oxford, Ken formed ’a friendship, so closely... cemented’ with Francis Turner*, later bishop of Ely.<sup>11</sup> Other enduring friendships were established with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, and George Hooper*, eventually himself bishop of Bath and Wells. While at Oxford, he almost certainly joined Turner, John Fell*, later bishop of Oxford, and John Dolben*, later archbishop of York, for secret readings of the proscribed Prayer Book liturgy. Ken was presented to his first living by William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard, whose wife Margaret was of a devout temperament.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Ken’s route to preferment was begun through Walton’s ecclesiastical connections. As chaplain to George Morley from 1665, Ken enjoyed the benefits of Morley’s patronage and own position in the household of James Stuart*, duke of York. Ken’s network of friends and patrons was solidly Yorkist: Morley was spiritual adviser to the duchess of York, Francis Turner was one of York’s chaplains, Maynard was comptroller of York’s household. Both the king and the duke of York spent so much time visiting Morley’s Winchester and Farnham residences that they must have had frequent contact with Ken.<sup>13</sup> Ken was also linked to the mercantile world through his older brother Ion Ken, who was in the service of the East India Company, and married to the daughter of Sir Thomas Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, a City merchant, but this seems to have played little part in his career.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In 1675 Ken accompanied his nephew, the younger Izaak Walton, on a European tour, including a visit to Rome.<sup>15</sup> The experience made him ‘more confirmed of the purity of the Protestant religion’, although according to Anthony Wood he lost some of his popularity as a preacher on his return, supposedly being ‘tinged with popery’. Those who thought so, he added, were ‘altogether mistaken’.<sup>16</sup> Ken grew in popularity as a preacher, especially in London when he attended Morley at Winchester House. It may have been at the instance of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, that around December 1679 he took over the chaplaincy to the duke of York’s daughter, the princess of Orange, at The Hague, from his friend, George Hooper, who had fallen out with the prince.<sup>17</sup> Ken insisted to the English envoy, Henry Sydney*, the future earl of Romney that he would confront the prince of Orange over his wife’s spiritual and physical welfare; whether and how he did so is unclear.<sup>18</sup> By August 1680 Ken claimed to be ‘much in favour’ with both William and Hans Willem Bentinck*, later earl of Portland. In January 1681, however, he angered William by persuading the prince’s kinsman William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein*, later earl of Rochford, to marry Jane Wroth, whom Zuylestein had seduced, but Ken’s reputation within the English court probably protected him from dismissal.<sup>19</sup></p><p>With Ken installed in the Dutch court, Compton and William Lloyd*, later bishop of St Asaph and of Worcester, sought to use him as a mediator with Dutch Reformed churchmen with a view to uniting the Dutch and English churches. Ken did not cooperate, claiming that most Dutch divines considered English churchmen ‘at least half papists’ and would require the English Parliament’s acknowledgement of their ordination. Such a concession would have direct implications for a similar recognition of non-episcopal ordination in England (a common sticking point in negotiations for religious comprehension). Ken was far more concerned with the conversion of Catholics to the Church of England. His triumphal reports to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, and to Compton of his conversion to the Church of England of Colonel Fitzpatrick, a relation of James Butler*, earl of Brecknock and duke of Ormond [I], elicited from Compton the prickly reminder that he had failed to extract from Fitzpatrick the required formal abjuration of Roman doctrine.<sup>20</sup> On his return to England in late 1680 Ken was appointed a chaplain to the king. He remained close to the duke of York’s circle, especially to Maynard, for whose wife he preached the funeral sermon in June 1682.<sup>21</sup> Probably early in 1683, he snubbed Nell Gwyn during a royal visit to Winchester by refusing to allow her accommodation in his house on the grounds that ‘A woman of ill-repute ought not to be endured in the house of a clergyman, least of all in that of the King’s chaplain’.<sup>22</sup> It brought him to the king’s attention. Whether as reward or punishment, he was soon after made chaplain to George Legge, Baron Dartmouth, who left that August to dismantle the English fortifications at Tangier.<sup>23</sup> Following their return and Dartmouth’s reappointment as master of Trinity House, Ken preached before the Trinity company on 26 May 1684, where he defended the historical authenticity of Noah’s Ark and the capabilities of seamen against their detractors. He presumably then joined the Trinity company feast with Dartmouth, William Craven*, earl of Craven, and George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley.<sup>24</sup> Ken’s links with Dartmouth’s political associates came to include James Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, another of the duke of York’s servants, with whom he was in correspondence by July 1684.<sup>25</sup></p><h2><em>Promotion to bishop</em></h2><p>In October 1684, (Sir) William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> thought Charles II ‘was so pleased with a sermon of Dr Ken’s preaching at Westm[inster], that (now he has assumed the power) he will make him ere long a bishop.’<sup>26</sup> The death of Morley and subsequent translation of Peter Mews*, to Winchester, as well as the death of Anthony Sparrow*, of Norwich, raised expectations of an opening for Ken, described as ‘a man as eminent for his learning as piety’. Bath and Wells, reportedly earmarked for Thomas Lamplugh*, the future archbishop of York was thought to be the most likely see.<sup>27</sup> The <em>congé d’élire</em> was issued at Whitehall on 24 Nov., and Ken elected on 16 Dec.<sup>28</sup></p><p>The promotion of Ken to Bath and Wells followed the practice of the commission for ecclesiastical promotions in promoting reliable allies of the duke of York, although by the time of Ken’s promotion Charles II had revoked the commission. On 25 Jan. 1685, at the relatively young age of 47, Ken was consecrated in Lambeth Palace by Sancroft, Compton, William Lloyd*, bishop of Peterborough, Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, and his old friend Francis Turner. Ken refused to hold the customary celebratory banquet and instead donated £100 towards the rebuilding of St Paul’s.<sup>29</sup> When the king suffered a stroke a week later, Ken was summoned to the royal bedside. He urged the king to repentance and exiled the duchess of Portsmouth from the bedchamber, reminding him of the wrong his maintenance of mistresses had done to the queen.<sup>30</sup> Reports that Charles had refused Anglican Communion circulated widely and were included by Ken’s first biographer Hawkins, whose description of a sacrament ‘not absolutely rejected’ but ‘yet delayed’ by the king possibly came from conversation with Ken himself. Instead, Ken and the others attending – Sancroft, Compton, Crew and Turner – were dismissed from the room while Charles received the Catholic sacrament from Father John Huddlestone.<sup>31</sup> Ken’s absence in London meant that he could not be enthroned as bishop in person, the cathedral chancellor, Thomas Holt, being installed as his proxy on 6 Feb.<sup>32</sup> Although still absent from Wells, the diocesan loyal address to James II of 2 Mar. was explicitly and unusually from ‘the bishop and clergy’, made reference to James’s accession declaration to the privy council, and pledged ‘to teach and to inculcate allegiance’, perhaps indications of Ken’s direct involvement.<sup>33</sup> He preached the Lenten sermon at Whitehall on 8 March.<sup>34</sup></p><p>On 19 May 1685, Ken took his seat in the Lords to begin a parliamentary career that was truncated by the revolution. He attended almost 80 per cent of sittings in the only session of James II’s reign. On 22 May he attended for the king’s speech on the defence of the Church and supported the Lords’ reversal of the order on impeachment proceedings. The next day he was named to the committee to prevent minors from undertaking clandestine marriages and on 26 May to the committee on the naturalization of John Esselbron. On 3 June, Ken was present when the House went into committee on the reversal of the attainder of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford. Between 4 and 27 June, Ken was named to a number of committees: that on the exportation of leather bill (leather being important to the economy of his own diocese) on 4 June, the bill to provide the king with carriages on 13 June, the bill for the maintenance of the piers at Great Yarmouth on 17 June, that for the relief of Edward Mellor’s debts on 18 June, the Bangor Cathedral bill on 23 June, the reviving acts bill on 26 June, and the tillage bill on 27 June.</p><p>Meanwhile, Ken’s diocese lay exposed to the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, whose landing at Lyme was reported to the House on 13 June. On 18 June, Wells cathedral chapter lent the king, through the lord-lieutenant Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, £100 for the defence of the county.<sup>35</sup> On 2 July 1685 Ken was present when the House was adjourned. If Ken spent the entire period of the rebellion in London, as seems probable, he missed the reprisals of early July carried out by Colonel Percy Kirke<sup>‡</sup>, whom he had known in Tangier. On 15 July 1685 Ken and Turner were sent to attend Monmouth before his execution, but Monmouth rejected Ken’s plea that the duke make a public confession.<sup>36</sup> On 4 Aug. 1685 Ken was present when the House was again adjourned. </p><p>Ken’s precise movements in the remainder of summer 1685 are unclear. On 5 Aug. he was in Winchester where he commended his book <em>The Practice of Divine Love</em> to his university friend Weymouth. At some point he returned to his diocese to deal with the consequences of the rebellion, especially the ‘Bloody Assizes’ presided over by George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys. According to his response to the Privy Council in 1696, he regularly visited ‘about a thousand or more’ rebel prisoners even though ‘many of them were such that I had reason to believe them ill men, and void of all religion… I supply’d them with necessaries myself, as far as I could, and encouraged others to do the same.’ <sup>37</sup> The condemned to whom he ministered included Alice Lisle, widow of one of the regicides of 1649 and a shelterer of fugitives, who was beheaded in Winchester on 2 September.<sup>38</sup> Another was one of those fugitives, John Hickes, nonconformist minister and brother of George Hickes, dean of Worcester. George Hickes on 17 Oct. 1685 referred to Ken’s ‘charity towards his brother in praying with him and for him’.<sup>39</sup> On 16 Sept. he joined the king (with whom he discussed miracles) Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport, the earl of Arran – probably Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I] and Baron Butler of Weston – and John Evelyn for dinner at the home of Richard Meggott, dean of Winchester.<sup>40</sup> The year saw the publication of <em>Directions for Prayer for the Diocese of Bath and Wells</em>, perhaps influenced by his meetings with rebels following the defeat of the Momnouth rebellion.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Ken returned to the House on 11 Nov. 1685. He attended regularly until 19 Nov. when he supported Compton’s attack on the employment of Catholic officers in the army.<sup>42</sup> After the prorogation the following day, Ken again entertained the king, and plead for the lives of remaining delinquents, perhaps including Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), ‘to stop the vein that has already bled so plentifully’.<sup>43</sup> Little is known of Ken’s attitude towards diocesan estate business, but a letter to Weymouth of 2 Oct. 1686 suggests that he may have treated tenants robustly, seeking to manage the episcopal estates to the general improvement of the bishop’s revenue in a manner that anticipated the governance of George Hooper, his eventual successor as bishop of Bath and Wells.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Although Ken was opposed to Rome and to any policy that would actively disadvantage the Church of England, he nevertheless was not unsympathetic to the king’s inclination to religious toleration. When the royal pardon of 10 Mar. 1686 halted all legal proceedings against Dissent there is no evidence that Ken protested. His sermon at the chapel royal of 14 Mar. 1686, exhorting constancy towards the Protestant religion, surprised John Evelyn who found the sermon ‘unexpected’ from a bishop who had been suspected of sympathy towards catholicism, though ‘the contrary thereof no man could more shew’.<sup>45</sup> The sermon may have suggested a greater sympathy to French Protestant exiles than officially allowed by Sancroft’s bill of that month. On 15 Apr. he wrote an encyclical to his diocesan clergy urging that they collect money on behalf of the French Protestants; and in April 1687 he remarked that ‘when he had, or if again he should have the greatest power to prosecute sober Protestant Dissenters – he never would for he knows many of them to be learned and godly persons’.<sup>46</sup> However, as the king sought to extend toleration Ken took a prominent role in the rousing of public sentiment against catholicism. On 13 Mar. 1687, before Princess Anne and ‘an innumerable crowd of people, and at least 30 of the greatest nobility’, he made an impassioned but reasoned attack on ‘the Romish priests and their new Trent religion’, comparing the teaching of counter-reformation Catholic clergy to ‘legends and fables of the scribes and pharisees’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>It was assumed in two parliamentary lists that Ken would oppose the repeal of the Test Acts. Following the publication of the first Declaration of Indulgence in April 1687, Ken continued to express his opposition to Catholic teaching. In May, while the queen was at Bath taking the waters, Ken preached in the Abbey a sermon only known from a Catholic pamphlet written in response, but which seems to have denounced Catholic doctrines and practices as innovations and idolatries.<sup>48</sup> The response suggested that Ken was using the sermon to clear himself from suspicion being cast on his true religious allegiance; but suspicion continued. In a letter of 9 July Ken told William Wake*, who would much later become archbishop of Canterbury, that he knew name was being used to win converts to Catholicism, as, it was claimed, he ‘would within a month declare himself of that religion’, though he felt that attacks from Catholic pamphleteers at least ‘satisfied the world I am no Papist’.<sup>49</sup> The king retaliated against his sermon by conducting a ‘touching’ for the king’s evil in the Abbey in August, during his progress into the west country. Father Huddlestone preached a proselytising sermon during the ceremony. Ken told Sancroft shortly afterwards, in a letter of 26 Aug., that he was taken by surprise but could not challenge the king directly nor accommodate the crowds wishing to participate in the ‘great healing’ anywhere but the abbey church. His response was to preach another sermon in the Abbey on the shared belief in charity between Samaritan and Jew, an obvious metaphor for Catholic and Anglican. The king’s action was thereby delicately accommodated in an argument which depicted the monarch as outside the true Church but which appealed to areas of agreement between denominations and the king’s own policy of toleration.<sup>50</sup> James’s progress through the western counties looked likely to incorporate Wells as well, a source of some worry to Ken, who on 6 Sept. 1687 wrote to Dartmouth, protesting that while he would accommodate the king he knew not how to entertain him.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Despite the events in Bath, Ken was still treated with some suspicion or irritation by Sancroft. In October 1687, Ken defended himself to the archbishop for ordaining and instituting to livings clergy who were not graduates. Sancroft seems to have been exasperated by Ken’s ‘insincere dealing’ on the subject.<sup>52</sup> On 17 Feb. 1688 Ken sent a pastoral circular to his clergy directed at their conduct at a time of political and spiritual crisis in England. He urged them to mourn ‘for the sins of the nation’ and to emphasize ‘public prayers, in the constant devout use of which the safety both of Church and state is highly concerned’<sup>53</sup> His Lenten sermon at Whitehall on 1 Apr. was preceded by the noisy disruption of the communion service as crowds rushed into the chapel: he preached, wrote Evelyn, ‘with his accustom’d action, zeal and energy, so as people flock’d from all quarters to hear him’. Presenting himself as an English oracle (‘there are times when prophets cannot ... keep silence’), Ken employed the analogy of the church of Judah surviving her own ‘Babylonish persecution’.<sup>54</sup> Hearing of the sermon, the king summoned him and berated him for its bitterness; Ken was reported to have told James that he had neglected his royal duty by being absent.<sup>55</sup> </p><p>On 3 Apr. 1688, Ken, Turner, William Lloyd of St Asaph, and Thomas Tenison*, later archbishop of Canterbury, dined with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon.<sup>56</sup> Ken left London at some point afterwards, and was away as the bishops decided on a response to the reissue of the Declaration of Indulgence and the king’s order that it be read in churches. Summoned back after a meeting at Lambeth on 12 May, he returned to London on the 17th and on 18 May, he signed the petition of the seven bishops and with his colleagues visited James to present it. They were summoned, on 27 May, to appear before the council on 8 June. In the interim, Ken returned to his diocese and was said to have preached a sermon which ‘drew tears to his auditors’ eyes, believing it to be his farewell or last sermon’. Preparing to go back to London he took his leave of Princess Anne who was visiting Bath and who ‘seemed much concerned at his present trouble’.<sup>57</sup> Back in London by 5 June, then and on the 6th he visited Clarendon to discuss the bishops’ legal position, accompanied by Turner on both days and by Lloyd of St Asaph and Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, on the second. <sup>58</sup> On their appearance at council on 8 June, all seven bishops were sent to the Tower.<sup>59</sup> Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, and Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, were suggested by Compton as lords who would stand surety for Ken when the seven appeared at king’s bench on 15 June, with Sancroft adding Crew as an alternative.<sup>60</sup> It was also rumoured that ‘a certain Quaker of considerable property offered his bail to the bishop of Bath and Wells’.<sup>61</sup> This was almost certainly William Penn, Ken’s former associate from The Hague, and an ally of James in his quest for religious toleration. At the trial two weeks later, on the 29th and 30th, the bishops were acquitted. </p><h2><em>The Revolution</em></h2><p>After his acquittal at the end of June, Ken returned to Wells. On 1 Sep. he wrote to Weymouth believing that ‘God is doing some great thing for the good of his Church, but in all probability, some medicinal chastisement will go before, to render us the more fit to receive a blessing’. In the meantime, he warned, ‘we are not to rely on the arm of flesh’.<sup>62</sup> Ken probably understood confrontation as counter-productive both religiously (resisting God’s will) and politically (renouncing what influence he hoped to have with James II). In anticipation of the Church’s attitude towards James’s reign being called into question, George Hickes wrote to Francis Turner on 3 Sept. urging that he and Ken should make better known their intercession on behalf of ‘the wretched criminals in the west’ in 1685, and the Church’s opposition to the indiscriminate reprisals of the authorities.<sup>63</sup> On 23 Sep., Ken informed Dartmouth that he had always thought ‘his Majesty would never believe our Church would be disloyal’ and that he was ready to serve James ‘as far as can be consistent with my superior duty to God and to that holy religion I profess’.<sup>64</sup> He took part in the unproductive discussions some of the bishops had with James on 28 September. <sup>65</sup> He also took part in drawing up and presenting the bishops’ 10 propositions to the king of 3 Oct. 1688, including the demand that he desist from using the dispensing power until it had been settled in a new Parliament, for which James should issue writs immediately. There was another meeting on the 8th, at which the bishops were asked to draw up prayers to be read in churches in advance of the expected invasion, which Ken and Turner presented to him on 10 Oct., being thanked the next day.<sup>66</sup> Ken then returned to Wells and was not part of subsequent discussions in London concerning the reaction of king and Church to William’s invasion. He did not sign the petition to James II for a free Parliament presented by Sancroft, Turner and others on 17 November.<sup>67</sup></p><p>On 24 Nov. 1688, Ken informed Sancroft that the Dutch were ‘just coming to Wells’ and that he had fled to Wiltshire. He explained that his former connections with the Dutch court might give ‘occasions of suspicion’ and that he was ‘resolving to remain in a firm loyalty to the king’.<sup>68</sup> Although Gilbert Burnet subsequently claimed that Ken (for whom he had barely a good word) had ‘declared heartily’ for William when he first landed ‘and advised all the gentlemen that he saw’ to join him, the accusation does not accord with Ken’s actual movements or subsequent behaviour.<sup>69</sup></p><p>Ken remained in Wells and did not sign the Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of 11 Dec. 1688.<sup>70</sup> He was reported on 22 Dec. to have been received ‘very kindly’ with other bishops by the prince of Orange, but it seems unlikely this meeting took place.<sup>71</sup> On that day he wrote to Sancroft that he was unable to be in London before Christmas, but would make the journey as soon as the weather permitted.<sup>72</sup> He returned to London only after the king’s departure, when he lodged with his friend George Hooper. On 15 Jan. 1689 he joined discussions at Lambeth on proposals for a regency, the return of the king upon conditions, or apprehensions of a republic.<sup>73</sup> Ken attended the House of Lords on 22 Jan. for the first day of the Convention and was named to the committee of bishops who were to compose a prayer of thanksgiving for the revolution. On 28 Jan. 1689 the House issued an order to the bishops to compose a special prayer for the Prince of Orange; Ken was also named to the committee to consider amendments to the liturgy. He attended for the abdication debates and while partaking in the unanimous vote that it was ‘inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant nation to be governed by a popish prince’, voted consistently for a regency.<sup>74</sup> Attending the House throughout the first week of February 1689 he voted against the abdication and vacancy of the throne and registered his dissent on the 6th.<sup>75</sup> He continued to sit in the House until 12 Feb., but absented himself from the Lords’ sitting before their attendance at Whitehall on 13 Feb. for the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen, and did not sit in the House thereafter. There is no evidence that he registered his proxy between that time and his deprivation. </p><p>Ken retired west to manage his diocese. He told Weymouth on 2 Mar. that he would send to Convocation men who would ‘row against the stream, or those who … shall not have their brains turned by the air of the town’. Although he acknowledged Parliament’s latitude in giving the bishops an extended period to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, he wrote that it would not prevent his eventual ‘ruin’.<sup>76</sup> On 15 Mar., Ken begged Weymouth for political news since he was now ‘wholly in the dark’ and needed advice as he was ‘certainly designed for ruin’. He promised to burn Weymouth’s reply.<sup>77</sup> Two days later, it was reported that he would not appear at the House to take the requisite oaths before the deadline.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Throughout the summer of 1689 came under pressure to take the oaths, and seemed less certain to hold out than some others. On the one hand, Roger Morrice thought it unlikely that any bishops would be faithful to oaths taken except perhaps Ken and one other; the ‘hierarchical party’ was, he thought, too weak to have any effect one way or the other.<sup>79</sup> Ken’s vacillation and refusal to condemn those who did comply irritated more determined nonjurors such as Henry Dodwell, who wrote to him in May accusing him of ‘vacillation’.<sup>80</sup> Ken was suspended on 1 August. In October, Gilbert Burnet, who acted as commissary for the diocese, wrote to him in some heat, suggesting that Ken had not been consistent in his views on the oaths, ‘giving great advantages to those who were so severe as to say there was somewhat else than conscience at the bottom’. Ken’s reply implied, what was already apparently rumoured, that he had considered taking the oaths when it was rumoured that James had ceded Ireland to France, but stuck to his original decision when the intelligence proved false.<sup>81</sup> On 16 Sept. he replied to a circular letter sent requiring bishops to assess themselves for tax with a protest that he had ‘no goods by me but my books, and the necessary furniture of my house. I have no money at interest, and as for ready money, I thank God I have enough beforehand, to serve the present exigencies of my self, of my family and of the poor, and to pay every one their due’. As such, he argued, he was not liable for taxation.<sup>82</sup> At a call of the House on 28 Oct. 1689, Ken was registered as absent, offering (in the words of Sir Charles Cottrell<sup>‡</sup>) ‘stiff adherence … to that highest point of passive obedience’.<sup>83</sup></p><p>In January 1690, Ken went with Turner to see Clarendon, perhaps about his impending deprivation. It is not clear whether Ken endorsed a plan to promote a petition from the clergy of the diocese of Bath and Wells was prepared which was proposed in a number of dioceses seeking to prevent deprivation.<sup>84</sup> A petition was made by the grand jury of Gloucestershire, which specifically cited Ken, on 29 Mar. 1690.<sup>85</sup> The deadline for taking the oaths had by then already passed on 1 February. On that day Ken protested from his episcopal chair in Wells Cathedral and asserted his ‘canonical right’ (a phrase he chose, as he later wrote to Lord Weymouth’s chaplain, with some care) in the diocese.<sup>86</sup> With four of the other nonjuring bishops (and having commented on the text in a letter of 17 July 1690), he signed Sancroft’s ‘Vindication’, a response to the pamphlet <em>A Modest Enquiry into the Causes of the Present Disasters</em>, denying involvement in plots or any correspondence ‘with any minister or agent of France’, not least since they had hazarded everything ‘in opposing popery and arbitrary power in England.<sup>87</sup> By April 1691, it was known that the diocese of Bath and Wells had been offered firstly to William Wake and then to William Beveridge*, later bishop of St Asaph; a warrant was issued for Beveridge’s election on 22 April.<sup>88</sup> But that Ken was ‘exceedingly beloved’ in his diocese and was actively enlisting local support was a disincentive to any potential successor, and Beveridge, having taken advice from Sancroft, had cold feet in early May about taking it up.<sup>89</sup> On 13 May Dr Blagrave wrote to William Lloyd, bishop of Worcester, that Ken ‘is a popular man, and perhaps affects to show his courage in suffering’; he favoured a solution by which a friend of Ken, such as George Hooper, might be installed at Bath and Wells in the hope that Ken could regard them as a coadjutor.<sup>90</sup> In the event, when Beveridge withdrew from the field, Richard Kidder*, rector of St Paul’s Covent Garden, was pressed to take Ken’s place.<sup>91</sup> Ken referred to his ‘supplanter’ as ‘a person of whom I have no knowledge’.<sup>92</sup></p><h2><em>After deprivation</em></h2><p>Ken subsequently resided principally at Longleat with his old friend Weymouth or at Poulshott with his nephew Isaac Walton, also visiting other friends in Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire.<sup>93</sup> He continued to be suspected of treasonable activity, especially in 1691, after the flight of Turner, and when Weymouth came under scrutiny: in May Sancroft expected his arrest.<sup>94</sup> He was sustained financially by the generosity of friends and admirers, and Weymouth’s conversion of the £700 accumulated from the sale of his effects at Wells into an annuity of £80. A further option was marriage to a wealthy woman: in June 1691 it was rumoured that he was to marry ‘Lady Gainsborough’, probably Katherine, <em>née</em> Greville, widow of Wriothesley Baptist Noel*, 2nd earl of Gainsborough.<sup>95</sup> The marriage did not take place, although he received £100 from her in June 1693.<sup>96</sup> There is some evidence of Ken’s involvement in a peripatetic ministry, where he visited ‘non-swearers’ in Herefordshire and elsewhere.<sup>97</sup></p><p>William’s absence abroad in spring 1692 was seen by James as an opportunity for a restoration, and an invasion was prepared with French support. Between 27 and 29 Apr. 1692, Ken made several attempts to communicate with the queen, warning her against ‘all unnatural opposition to her most tender and royal father’ using language suggesting that James II would return to ‘assert his right’ imminently. Ken helpfully assured Mary (whom he would not address as ‘majesty’) that he believed her ‘rather misguided than wilfully evil’. The letters suggest that Ken’s zeal for a restoration of both James and what he regarded as the Christian duty of a daughter to her father overcame any realistic assessment of how Mary or her servants could receive so self-righteous and disparaging an appeal <sup>98</sup> On 10 May 1692, warrants were issued for the arrest of a number of nonjurors, including Ken. He was reported to have been committed to the Tower, though any incarceration was probably brief.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Ken wrote a response to Archbishop Tenison’s sermon at the funeral of Queen Mary in which he accused him of pastoral neglect in failing to bring her to repentance.<sup>100</sup> Ken continued to behave provocatively and on 15 Apr. 1695 took the funeral service for his nonjuring friend, John Kettlewell, dressed in his full episcopal robes, an action regarded with extreme hostility by the government.<sup>101</sup> Ken was one of the signatories of the letter dated 22 July 1695 organized by John Kettlewell recommending the deprived clergy to all ‘such tender-hearted persons as are inclined to commiserate and relieve the Afflicted Servants of God’.<sup>102</sup> On 2 Mar. 1696, he expressed anxiety that a bill would be introduced making the declaration and oaths taken by ‘Association’ signatories universal and compulsory; if it passed into law, he claimed, ‘the prisons will be filled with the malcontents’, including himself. Following the execution of Sir John Freind<sup>‡</sup> and his public absolution on the scaffold by two nonjurors, warrants went out for the five deprived bishops including Ken who had signed the circular appeal for assistance to the deprived clergy the previous July.<sup>103</sup> On 28 Apr., Ken was questioned at length by the Privy Council and detained in custody until 23 May.<sup>104</sup> On 11 Sep. 1696, the Lords Justices refused to allow Ken to minister to Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> ‘by reason of the late ill behaviour of the non-jurors’.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Ken was probably more important as a touchstone of ideological constancy than he was ever an active conspirator. The French spy Abbé Eusebe Renaudot commented that Ken was one of the principal nonjurors – and the only one he named – worth cultivating in England, though as a source of advice rather than as someone with practical political effect.<sup>106</sup> In 1699, Ken stayed at Bagshot, where James Grahme had a house.<sup>107</sup> Although Grahme was the younger brother of a prominent Jacobite (Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S]) and himself implicated in plots earlier in the decade, he was able to coexist with William’s regime.<sup>108</sup> Apart from involvement in the project to solicit contributions for the deprived clergy, Ken seems not to have been closely involved with other nonjurors (though there must have been some contact with Turner), and he opposed the deepening of the nonjuring schism through clandestine consecrations.<sup>109</sup> Ken even corresponded with George Hickes about the possibility of ending the schism in October and November 1701, possibly the reason for the rumours, current by then, that he intended to resign his bishopric, which Hickes bitterly opposed.<sup>110</sup> However, he had not abandoned his principles, and on 10 Jan. 1702, Ken expressed concern over the bill of attainder ‘against a minor’ (the prince of Wales). He was even more concerned about the oath of abjuration and sought advance warning of its implementation.<sup>111</sup> There is no evidence that Ken was ever tendered the oath.</p><p>On William III’s death in March 1702 and Anne’s succession, Ken was still unprepared to take the oaths or to acknowledge Anne as rightful monarch; but he responded to Lloyd’s approach, shortly after William’s death, that he would ‘gladly concur’ in ‘some expedient’ to end the schism, though he was unwilling to break his country retirement and engage once more in clerical politics. He was optimistic, too, that Convocation would break with the ‘Erastianism’ of William’s reign. He now spent more time at Poulshot than at Longleat, where he was no longer comfortable with family prayers following Weymouth’s recognition of Anne.<sup>112</sup> However, Ken’s attitude to the new regime was a source of speculation: Weymouth’s appointment to the Privy Council was also an encouraging sign that the government now wanted to mend relations with nonjurors; Weymouth was said to have proposed an arrangement – the translation of Kidder – that might enable Ken to be restored to his see, but Ken refused to be involved.<sup>113</sup> At Christmas 1702 it was rumoured that Ken might take the oath of allegiance but that the abjuration oath would probably bar the way to his full rehabilitation.<sup>114</sup> In correspondence with William Lloyd during 1703, he expressed his fears for the Church of England from both the confirmation of a Presbyterian settlement in Scotland and from those nonjurors who ‘run too high’, to the advantage, he thought, of Catholicism. He also showed support for the occasional conformity bill. At Poulshot in November 1703, he learned of the death of Kidder and his wife in the great storm of November 1703. Hooper was offered the diocese, but indicated that he would give way to Ken. Ken instead assured his ‘worthy’ friend that he would now resign his canonical claim to the diocese and allow Hooper undisputed possession. He abandoned his abbreviated episcopal signature of ‘T. B. & W.’ for plain ‘T. K.’ on 20 Dec. 1703. Ken’s ‘lapse’ in resigning his bishopric in favour of a schismatic was an ‘occasion of great lamentation’ to the irreconcilable nonjurors, reinforced by Lloyd’s apparent co-operation with it, though Lloyd had apparently requested Ken only act once the opinion of other leading nonjurors was established. In a letter to Lloyd of 21 Feb. 1704, Ken presented his role in Hooper’s election as the means by which he had saved his flock from the ‘spirit of latitudinarianism, which is a common sewer of all heresies imaginable.’ Ken spent Christmas 1703 and the early months of 1704 with ‘the good virgins of Naish’, Mary and Anne Kemeys, daughters of the royalist Sir Charles Kemeys, bt. There, he received hostile letters from Bristol and London Jacobites who opposed his relinquishing his episcopal orders to Hooper, and admonition from Lloyd, from whom he had expected support. While resuming his episcopal signature of ‘T. B. & W.’, he also challenged Lloyd with examples of the compromises Lloyd had made with the regime, such as co-operating with or approving his son’s conforming to the post-revolution church. A series of letters ended on 1 May with Ken’s apology to Lloyd for his ‘indecent expressions’.<sup>115</sup></p><p>Little more is known of Ken’s political life. He accepted a pension of £200 per annum from the Treasury in May 1704, and in June was happy to refer to Queen Anne as ‘her Majesty’ in a letter to Hooper, indicating that he could regard her as queen, perhaps as long as her half-brother James remained a Catholic. Lloyd’s death on 1 Jan. 1710 left Ken the last surviving nonjuring bishop. In an exchange of letters with Henry Dodwell, the leading nonjuring layman, he recommended the end of the schism and effectively accepted the legitimacy of the Revolution Church, in preference to leaving ‘good people in the country’ without divine office; by 1710, he was taking communion with Hooper. Nevertheless, he continued to absent himself from that part of the Anglican liturgy where the sovereign was named in person, even as he advised others to attend services, as he would not publicly cast doubt on his earlier insistence that James II (and therefore also his son James ‘III’) was the only lawful monarch nor invite exploration of his ambivalent attitude towards Anne.<sup>116</sup> Increasingly weak from a variety of ailments, Ken appears to have been aware of his imminent mortality and returned to Longleat on 10 Mar. 1711. He dressed himself in his shroud, which he had carried with him for several years in order that his body might not be stripped after death, and spent that evening ‘adjusting some papers’.<sup>117</sup> He then confined himself to his room, where he died on 19 Mar. 1711. Apart from modest bequests to family members and to the deprived clergy totalling £400, Ken left his large collection of French, Italian and Spanish books to Bath library. He was buried in Frome parish churchyard. The testy burial inscription that he composed for himself made the bald political statement that he was ‘uncanonically deprived for not transferring his allegiance’ from James II.<sup>118</sup> It was never used.</p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
KIDDER, Richard (1634-1703) |
<p><strong><surname>KIDDER</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1634–1703)</p> |
|
|
First sat 30 Oct. 1691; last sat 5 Feb. 1703 |
cons. 30 Aug. 1691 bp. of BATH AND WELLS |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 9 Feb. 1634, 8th ch. of William Kidder (<em>d</em>.1671), saddler, of E. Grinstead, Suss. and Elizabeth of Wickenden (Wichenden) (<em>d</em>. c.1648); <em>educ</em>. g.s. (tutor, Reiner Harman); Emmanuel, Camb. matric. 1649 (Samuel Cradock, tutor), BA 1653, fell. 1655-?9, MA 1656, DD 1690; ord. 1658. <em>m</em>. bef. 1662, Elizabeth (surname unknown) (<em>d</em>.1703), 3s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3ch. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 26 Nov. 1703; <em>will</em> 25 Feb. 1695, pr. 14 Feb. 1704.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. William and Mary 1689-91.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Vic. Stanground, Hunts. 1659-62 (ejected); rect. Rayne, Essex 1664-74, St Martin Outwich, London 1674-91; preacher, Rolls Chapel 1674-81; preb. Norwich 1681-91; dean, Peterborough 1689-91.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Mbr. SPG.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, aft. Mary Beale, aft. 1691, Bishop’s Palace and Gardens, Wells, Somerset; oil on canvas, style of Charles Jervas, aft. 1691, Wells Town Hall.</p> |
<p>Richard Kidder, according to his autobiography (which is more of an apologia for the many controversies in his diocese in which he was later involved), was the penultimate child in the large brood of nine children of William Kidder, a man ‘of great diligence and industry’, who ‘made a shift with a little estate of his own ... to give his children a decent education’. His mother he described as ‘a woman of great sanctity and piety’, who had ‘the name of a puritan fixed upon her’. As his father was unable to provide for his education at university, Kidder was intended as an apothecary, but through the efforts of two friends, apparently London ministers, he was able to enter Emmanuel College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1649. Though tutored at the puritan-leaning Emmanuel by the nonconformist Samuel Cradock, about whom Kidder later claimed, ‘it is hardly possible that one man can owe to another more than I do to him’, Kidder consciously took the decision to take episcopal orders, rather than Presbyterian. Ralph Brownrigg<sup>†</sup>, the deprived bishop of Exeter, ordained him in a private house in 1658 and the following year Kidder entered into a living in the gift of the college, the vicarage of Stanground in Huntingdonshire. Despite his episcopal orders, and his refusal to sign the Engagement or the Covenant, he was still ejected from that living on St Bartholomew’s Day in 1662, because he refused to subscribe to the newly amended prayer book without seeing a copy of it first; a copy was not made available to him until three weeks after his ejectment. He conformed soon afterwards and through the mediation of a university friend was able in October 1664 to obtain the rectory of Rayne in Essex, in the gift of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex.<sup>7</sup></p><p>From 1674 London became the centre of his ecclesiastical career. In that year William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, offered Kidder the living of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, in his gift as dean of St Paul’s. Kidder remained in charge of the parish only briefly and refused to be instituted, as he was unwilling to enforce kneeling at communion on reluctant parishioners. The Presbyterian Sir Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, master of the rolls, did prevail upon him to accept the post of preacher at the Rolls Chapel and shortly afterwards he also accepted from the Merchant Taylors’ Company the small and poor living of St Martin Outwich, neighbour to his rejected parish of St Helen’s. With these London commitments, he took up permanent residence in the capital and began to gain a glowing reputation as a pastor, preacher and scholar, which brought him the patronage of many leading families. It also brought him tragedy. Three of his children died during an outbreak of smallpox in 1680.</p><p>Kidder was concerned with the education of many of the children of the City elite and placed many of them in both Merchant Taylors’ School and then Emmanuel College. In particular he was the tutor and patron of the future nonjuror George Harbin and of William Dawes*, the future archbishop of York. Kidder later named the latter’s stepfather, the naval official Sir Anthony Deane<sup>‡</sup> as one of his executors. Kidder became most closely integrated with the Finch family, acquiring his most potent patrons in Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, and his son Daniel Finch*, later 2nd earl of Nottingham, nephew to Kidder’s earlier benefactor, Mary Rich, the widowed countess of Warwick. In London Kidder also became closely connected with John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and he became integrated into an influential body of prominent London clerics, many of whom owed their position to Nottingham’s influence and who were later to serve as bishops – John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York, Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, Thomas Tenison*, another future archbishop of Canterbury, John Moore*, who would become bishop of Norwich, and Simon Patrick*, later bishop of Ely. Kidder was also particularly close to leading figures in the movement for the ‘reformation of manners’, particularly Edward Fowler*, then vicar of St Giles, Cripplegate and a future bishop of Gloucester, and to the famous German ‘pathetic preacher’ at the Savoy, Anthony Horneck, whose eulogistic biography he wrote after Horneck’s death in 1697.<sup>8</sup></p><p>On 16 Sept. 1681 Kidder was, through Nottingham’s patronage, appointed a canon of Norwich at the same time as John Sharp, Nottingham’s chaplain, was made dean of that chapter. Kidder refused several additional livings over the next four years including the lectureship at Ipswich, which he was twice offered, by both Charles II and James II. He was tempted by this latter offer but seems to have been keen to maintain his London connections and preferred to retain his living in the City. With the accession of James II, Kidder defended the Church of England against the threat of Catholicism both in the pulpit and in print. He joined with the other clerics in London of the Nottingham-Sharp circle in publishing and preaching against the teachings of Rome and was particularly concerned by the situation in Norwich which he felt was the town in greatest danger of apostasy. After the acquittal of the Seven Bishops, one of them, William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, stayed at Kidder’s London residence for several weeks as it was thought ‘the danger was not over ... though they were acquitted in Westminster Hall’. Nevertheless, Kidder later in his memoirs felt the need to justify some of his behaviour in the final months of James’s reign, particularly his unpublished sermon of 15 Jan. 1688 which seemed to assent to the king’s policies.<sup>9</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1689 Nottingham and Tillotson, clerk of the closet from March 1689, promoted their colleagues among the London clergy to ecclesiastical positions and Kidder was appointed dean of Peterborough and royal chaplain. He was also placed on the commission of ten bishops and 20 clergy assigned to make alterations in the prayer book and liturgy to aid in the comprehension of Dissenters into the national Church. Kidder supported Nottingham and Tillotson in their plan for comprehension, but this quickly ran into opposition and Roger Morrice recorded that even when Kidder argued for changes to some of the ‘minuter things in the Commons Prayer’, it met with ‘great opposition from all the rest present’ in the commission.<sup>10</sup> In 1691 Kidder was considered as the replacement for the nonjuror Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, but Tillotson doubted whether he would accept ‘because the bishopric is very poor and so is he’.<sup>11</sup> Reluctant to join the episcopate, Kidder equally shrank from the prospect of promotion to the see of Bath and Wells, not least since the nonjuror Thomas Ken*, the incumbent bishop, had orchestrated a strong base of local support and refused to go quietly. In the end, Tillotson bullied Kidder into accepting Bath and Wells with a peremptory note announcing his appointment making it impossible for him to refuse. Even at this stage Kidder claimed that his nomination placed him</p><blockquote><p>in such trouble and consternation as I have seldom been in during my whole life. I saw the strait I was then in. If I took this bishopric, I well knew I must meet with trouble and envy. If I refused, I knew the consequence of that also, especially Dr Beveridge having so lately done it.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>The reference to the fate of William Beveridge*, later bishop of St Asaph, whose decision to refuse Bath and Wells led him to be overlooked for promotion to a bishopric until the following reign, suggests that at least part of his consternation resulted from a fear of stifling his promotion prospects. He had certainly already let it be known that he was desirous of becoming a bishop and ‘would not be so stiff as absolutely to refuse a bishopric’, although he had excepted Bath.<sup>13</sup> By 4 June 1691 it was common knowledge that Kidder was the new candidate; his patronage was increasingly in demand as the queen issued directions for his election. On 30 Aug. 1691, at the age of 57, he was consecrated in St Mary-le-Bow with Robert Grove*, bishop of Chichester and John Hall*, bishop of Bristol, before going to Wells to be installed in person.<sup>14</sup></p><p>He returned to the capital in October for the winter. On 31 Oct. 1691, nine days into the session of 1691-2, Kidder took his seat in the House to take the requisite oaths as bishop of Bath and Wells. He attended half of the session’s sitting days during which he was named to 13 committees on legislation. He was one of the 14 bishops to sign the petition of late December 1691 asking the king for a proclamation against impiety and vice and for a more rigorous implementation of the laws against blasphemy.<sup>15</sup> On 2 Jan. 1692 the House ordered him to preach in Westminster Abbey at the end of the month, in commemoration of Charles I’s martyrdom. On 1 Feb. the House formally thanked Kidder for his sermon delivered two days previously and ordered its publication.<sup>16</sup> Near the end of the session, on 22 Feb., Kidder was appointed a reporter for the conference on the small tithes bill.</p><p>Kidder returned to Wells in the summer and began his primary visitation, issuing strong pastoral directions to the clergy on the need to instigate moral reformation in the diocese.<sup>17</sup> Kidder’s government of the see of Bath and Wells was fraught with difficulty and conflict from the start. His autobiography contains a litany of confrontations not helped by his unpopularity with the gentry in Somerset where a predominantly Tory elite were still loyal to Ken. Ken himself encouraged this attitude and himself saw Kidder as a ‘latitudinarian traditour’, a ‘hireling’, and a ‘stranger ravaging the flock’, who ‘instead of keeping the flock within the fold encouraged them to stray’. Kidder’s officious approach to residence, procedure and discipline further rankled with Ken’s allies on the diocesan chapter. The chapter disliked Kidder’s favouring, and even ordination, of former Dissenters, and objected vehemently to Nicholas Mallarhé, a former nonconformist. Kidder’s own account of the matter makes it clear that the canons objected to Mallarhé because he was not a graduate, had insufficient testimonials and, crucially, was unwilling to preach a recantation sermon. Whilst he mentioned that Mallarhé was ‘bred beyond sea’, there is no indication that part of Mallarhé’s problem was (as suggested by Ken’s biographer) that he was ‘a West Indian, with negro blood in him’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Kidder was in the capital again by 5 Nov. 1692, as that day he preached to the king and queen a sermon of thanksgiving at Whitehall for deliverance from ‘cruel and bloodthirsty men’. He did not sit in the House until 10 Nov. 1692 and again proceeded to attend just under half (47 per cent) of the sittings of the 1692-3 session, during which he was named to six committees on private estate bills. Although he was marked as present on 31 Dec. 1692, his vote on the motion to commit the place bill was not recorded by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, suggesting that he may have chosen to abstain. He was present on 3 Jan. 1693 when he did join both Tillotson and Nottingham in voting against the passage of the bill. At the same time it was predicted that he would support the bill to divorce the Protestant Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, from his Catholic wife, but again he appears to have abstained from the vote on whether to read the bill on 2 Jan. 1693, for his name does not appear in Ailesbury’s list, although he is marked as present in the Journal. He ended his winter sojourn in the capital in some controversy when he preached the Lenten sermon at Whitehall on 12 Mar., two days before the end of the session. He chose for his text Matthew 5:43, ‘to speak of praying for our enemies, and did more particularly consider those places in the book of Psalms where the Psalmist seems to pray against them. I gave that account of that matter which I judged was agreeable to truth’. However, such sentiments did not agree with a government engaged in a long war with France and prompted attacks on him and his views.<sup>19</sup></p><p>There were other areas where Kidder’s views were not greeted with universal acclaim. John Evelyn resented that Sir John Rotheram forced Evelyn and the other trustees to name Kidder as the Boyle lecturer for both 1693 and 1694, the second and third year of the lecture series, instead of the classicist Richard Bentley, who had acquitted himself so well in the first lecture in 1692. Evelyn attended Kidder’s lecture on 2 Jan. 1693 where he was ‘asserting the doctrine of Christ, against the Jews, with the usual topics, but speaking nothing extraordinary’.<sup>20</sup> On 7 Nov., after another turbulent summer in Wells, Kidder arrived for the first day of the new session but a week later was formally excused attendance at a call of the House. He, nevertheless, appeared three days later but in the remaining days of the session, of whose sittings he attended 41 per cent until the prorogation on 25 Apr. 1694, he was only named to four committees on legislation. At this time he was preparing for publication his <em>Notes on the Pentateuch</em> and the ‘drawing up the prefaces, and the dissertation, and preparing it for the press had taken me up some time when I was attending on the Parliament’. On 9 Apr. he preached before the mayor and aldermen of the City at St Bride’s church on the plight of the poor and after the end of the session he preached, on 23 May, the fast sermon at Whitehall on his favourite theme of moral reformation, which was subsequently published.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Kidder recounted that he ‘met with a great many troubles’ in 1694, including problems with one of his archdeacons, Edwin Sandys, who refused to recognize Kidder as his bishop.<sup>22</sup> Kidder arrived four weeks into the session of 1694-5, on 14 Dec. 1694, and attended 27 per cent of the sittings, being named to only two committees on legislation. His diocesan troubles followed him to the capital, when a Mr Doble, a vicar he had suspended for his public Jacobite statements and his refusal to say the prayers for the reigning monarchs, followed him to Westminster seeking reinstatement.<sup>23</sup> Kidder was absent from the House from 3 Jan. to 27 Mar. 1695, but from his return in April Kidder sat regularly in the House until the prorogation of 3 May. He did not attend the first session of the new Parliament in 1695-6. At this point he was engaged in fractious dispute with his dean Robert Creighton (son of Robert Creighton*, the former bishop of Bath and Wells) over the irregular election of canons over the previous few years. That kept Kidder occupied enough but in addition, as he recorded, ‘I continued at Wells the following winter [1695-6], not being able to go to the Parliament for want of health’. The House was well aware of this, for on 26 Feb. 1696 Kidder was excused from having to attend the House to sign the Association.<sup>24</sup> During the summer and autumn of 1696 Kidder learned of further allegations of Jacobite practices against Sandys. Hoping to raise this troublesome case before the king and archbishop, Kidder made an effort to travel to the capital to attend the session due to open on 20 Oct. 1696. As soon as he arrived though, he was stricken with another attack of the gout and was not able to attend the House for the first eight weeks. On 14 Nov. 1696 the House peremptorily ordered him to appear by 30 Nov. in order to take part in the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, but on 8 Dec. his absence was excused, he ‘being not well’. According to Kidder, he was so determined to participate in the proceedings against Fenwick that he was borne in a chair to the House until he was actually able to walk unaided from his lodgings nearby in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey to the Lords’ chamber. His own statement is corroborated by his attendance record in the proceedings on the Fenwick attainder bill. An unsourced, but often repeated, anecdote that seems first to have appeared in 1806 recounts that Kidder may have summoned the strength to come to the House because he had been peremptorily ordered by the government to attend to vote for the Fenwick attainder bill, being unsubtly reminded to ‘consider whose bread you eat’. To this Kidder responded to the court’s messenger, ‘I eat no man’s bread but poor Dr Ken’s, and if he will take the oaths, he shall have it again. I did not think of going to the Parliament, but now I shall undoubtedly go, and vote contrary to your commands’.<sup>25</sup> Kidder sat in the House for the first time in that session on 14 December. Three days later the House once again gave him leave to be absent, ‘being indisposed’. Nevertheless, he ignored this dispensation and struggled into the House over the following days to register his opposition to the Fenwick attainder bill, in defiance of the court. On 18 Dec. he voted against the second reading of the bill and he later signed the protest against that decision. James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> described Kidder’s vote (with those of Sharp of York and Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Hereford) as ‘more remarkable than the rest, it not being expected’, perhaps again reflecting the complacency of the court that the bishop ‘knew whose bread he ate’. He was again in the House on 22 Dec. 1696, when ‘the passing of the bill was debated anew, and all was said on both sides which the matter would bear’. The following day he was one of only nine bishops to vote against the attainder – as did his erstwhile patron, Nottingham. Kidder provided his most detailed account of his involvement in the House in his narrative of the proceedings on this bill, in which he set out his own reasons for opposing it:</p><blockquote><p>1) It was a matter of blood, and I could not vote for the bill without two credible witnesses and full proof. 2) I feared it would be an ill precedent. For if the present law [the Treason Trials Act of 1696], might be broke in upon now it might be of ill consequence in after reigns. And 3) because I saw no necessity at all in the present case, why we should use extraordinary means. The government could not fear Sir John Fenwick, and I was (and am still) of opinion that such methods ought not to be used unless upon exigences and dangers that were very extraordinary. I am sure I went against all my worldly interest in this vote, but I went according to my conscience.<sup>26</sup></p></blockquote><p>As he explicitly recorded, he returned to the House on 7 Jan. 1697 to put his name to the formal protest in the Journal, complete with its own extensive reasons against the passage of the bill. He continued to attend regularly until he was, on 27 Jan. 1697, again given leave to go to the country for his health, and this time he took the House up on its offer and retreated from the House from that day, missing the final three months of the session. In May 1697 he informed a friend that he had been ‘dangerously ill’, but he continued to manage his diocese, pursuing clergy with forged orders.<sup>27</sup></p><p>He did not attend the next four parliamentary sessions and on 1 June 1698 his proxy with Edward Fowler of Gloucester was registered for the last weeks of the 1697-8 session. He may have registered his proxy in the succeeding three sessions, of 1698-9, 1699-1700 and the Parliament of 1701, but the proxy registers for those sessions are now lost. Kidder remained at Wells during this long period, complaining ‘how piety decays, and how rampant both vice and popery are’ and urging that ‘’tis time for this poor Church of England to be awakened’.<sup>28</sup> To this end he became involved in the formation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and other similar organizations for the reformation of manners.<sup>29</sup> On 20 June 1700 he returned to the House for the first time since 27 Jan. 1697, the only bishop present for the prorogation that day, before Parliament was dissolved on 19 Dec. 1700. He did not attend the House for any remaining sittings under William III.</p><p>Kidder reappeared in Parliament on 28 Apr. 1702, after the accession of Anne, but still he only attended a further seven sittings of that Parliament, which was dissolved on 2 July. He returned to the House for the following session of 1702-3, on 9 Nov., on which day he was named to the committee to compose an address congratulating the queen on the recovery of Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland. He attended for little more than ten per cent of the session and the dates of his sittings show a clear concern with the occasional conformity bill. On 3 Dec. 1702 he was present for the second reading of the bill and its committal to the whole House. Kidder voted for a wrecking amendment proposed by John Somers*, Baron Somers which would limit the scope of the bill to those affected by the 1673 Test Act, thus removing corporation officials from its penalties. A group of bishops led by Tenison of Canterbury (and which appears to have included Kidder) voted for the measure, while ten Tory-inclined bishops, led by Sharp of York, opposed it.<sup>30</sup> Kidder registered his proxy to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle on 11 Jan. 1703 and Nicolson used it that day during the debates on the bill for Prince George. Nottingham predicted that the proxy would be used to support the occasional conformity bill but by 16 Jan., with the debates on the House’s controversial amendments to the bill imminent, Kidder had second thoughts about the wisdom of entrusting his proxy to Nicolson and wrote to him that morning asking that his proxy might be superseded. The clerk of the House, informed of Kidder’s request, responded that the proxy could be vacated only by his own attendance. Nicolson conveyed the ruling to Kidder at his Kensington lodgings ‘and immediately he posted to us, though (that very morning) he had assured Mr Richardson, that he could not for a world come to Town.’ His appearance that day is noted in the manuscript minutes, but he is not included in the attendance register in the official Journal, which suggests it must have been compiled earlier in the day, perhaps at or about prayers. In addition, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, included Kidder among those ‘good’ voters on that day, that is, those voting for the ‘wrecking’ amendments to the bill, while Nicolson of Carlisle, Kidder’s putative proxy holder until his appearance in the House, was considered ‘bad’, voting in support of the bill. In the event, Kidder’s vote in person may have proved crucial in seeing through the penalties clause which eventually scuttled the occasional conformity bill in the Commons.<sup>31</sup></p><p>On 5 Feb. 1703 Kidder attended the House for the last time and returned to Wells. During the ‘great storm’ of 26 Nov. 1703, his troubled tenure as bishop of Bath and Wells ended suddenly when he and his wife were crushed in bed by a falling chimney stack.<sup>32</sup> They were buried in Wells Cathedral on 14 Dec., leaving only two daughters, Susanna and Anne. Susanna married Sir Richard Everard<sup>‡</sup>, while Anne died unmarried.<sup>33</sup> According to his will, by the end of his life Kidder had acquired property in Essex, Sussex, Hertfordshire and Somerset. He was also able to bequeath over £2,000 in dowries for his two daughters, while a further £100 was left to friends, relatives and the poor of Wells. The bishop’s trustees, apart from his clerical friends Anthony Horneck (deceased) and Peter Fisher, included Sir Anthony Deane, stepfather to Kidder’s old student, William Dawes. Kidder’s death aroused little compassion in his predecessor Thomas Ken, who attributed the ‘great storm’ to divine retribution and who encouraged George Hooper*, a man more to his liking, to accept translation from St Asaph.</p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
KING, Henry (1592-1669) |
<p><strong><surname>KING</surname></strong>, <strong>Henry</strong> (1592–1669)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 1 Mar. 1669 |
cons. 6 Feb. 1642 bp. of CHICHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 16 Jan. 1592, eldest s. of John King<sup>†</sup>, later bp. of London, and Joan, da. of Henry Freeman of Henley, Bucks. <em>educ</em>. Lord Williams’ Sch. Thame, Oxon.; Worcester Sch.; Christ Church, Oxf. matric. 1609, BA 1611, MA 1614, ord. priest 1616, BD and DD 1625. <em>m</em>. Anne (<em>d.</em>1624), da. of Sir Robert Berkeley<sup>‡</sup> of Boycourt, Kent, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 30 Sept. 1669; <em>will</em> 14 July 1653, pr. 16 Nov. 1669.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James I and Charles I.</p><p>Preb. St Paul’s 1616–41, Christ Church, Oxf. 1624–42; rect. Chigwell, Essex 1616, Fulham 1618-42, Petworth, Suss. 1642; adn. Colchester 1617–41; dean Rochester 1639–42; commr. Savoy conference 1661.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by unknown artist, The Council House, Chichester; oil on canvas, by unknown artist, Christ Church, Oxf.</p> |
<p>Noted more as a poet, close to John Donne (whose executor he was) than as a bishop, Henry King was a well-connected member of a clerical dynasty. Known for his preaching, he gained a clutch of significant preferments shortly after his ordination. Presumably at this time he was responsible for the upbringing of a nephew, the later Sir Robert Holte<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>3</sup> Thought to be a moderate, his appointment to the episcopate came as one of a number of preferments in October 1641 designed to conciliate puritan opinion. He was consecrated the day after Lords passed the bill excluding the bishops from Parliament. Some six months after the surrender of Chichester at the end of 1642, the Commons ordered King to be sequestrated.<sup>4</sup> Compounding in the early 1650s, he later described how this ‘common gulf of sacrilege’ reduced him to the mere basics of ‘food and raiment’.<sup>5</sup> For the duration of the civil wars and the Interregnum he lived with sympathetic royalists, Sir Richard Hobart and Lady Salter (the latter the niece of Brian Duppa*, King’s predecessor as bishop of Salisbury), wrote prolifically and conducted secret ordinations.<sup>6</sup> Involved in attempts to ensure the survival of the Church of England by conducting covert episcopal consecrations, he offered in 1655 to go to France to hold them there; but after the Restoration he justified the lack of achievement in a funeral sermon for Duppa that emphasized the dangers that had been involved.<sup>7</sup></p><p>King joined Duppa, Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely, and John Warner*, bishop of Rochester in meeting the king at his entry into Whitehall on 29 May 1660.<sup>8</sup> During the summer of 1660 King was busy conducting a large number of ordinations.<sup>9</sup> In March 1661 he was named as one of the commissioners for the Savoy conference and at the coronation he preached at Whitehall, inferring Charles II’s popularity and virtue from his physical beauty.<sup>10</sup> But although he delivered the occasional ‘great flattering sermon’ before the king (Samuel Pepys<sup>‡<sup>’s disapproval was to do with his dislike of clergy meddling with ‘matters of state’) and was an admired preacher at Court, he was believed to have resented his failure to be translated to a better see, something often attributed to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon’s irritation at the bishops’ caution over the issue of consecrations during the Interregnum – although there was a rumour in Sussex in 1660, encouraged by King himself, that he might be translated to York, and the fact that this did not happen was said to be the result of poor timing and judgment in leaving for the country at the wrong moment.<sup>11</sup></p><p>King took his seat in the Lords at the first opportunity, on 20 Nov. 1661, attending the House for 89 per cent of the remaining sitting days and being named to 37 committees. In April, King’s sermon at Duppa’s funeral in Westminster Abbey criticized the ‘preciser sort’ who disliked church ceremonies and the ‘tender and soft conscienced men … who strain at gnats and swallow camels’.<sup>12</sup> On 15 May he invoked privilege on behalf of his servant John Poole, who had been arrested and imprisoned in the Marshalsea. The arresting officer was taken into custody but, at King’s request, the House ordered his release on 17 May. Meanwhile, on 16 May 1662 King was named to the committee on the bill for draining the great level of the fens and he reported back to the House that afternoon with minor amendments; the bill was lost at the end of the session. On 19 May he was the only bishop to defend the privileges of the House by dissenting from the decision not to adhere to the amendments to the highways bill (which the Commons claimed to be a money bill).</p><p>Anthony Wood reported that King was thought to be a favourer of Presbyterians, and certainly, after the passage of the Act of Uniformity he offered several ministers incentives to conform; Matthew Woodman, vicar of Slinfold in Sussex, was assured that, if he remained within the Church, he would have King’s ‘utmost interest’ for the deanery.<sup>13</sup> However, in a sermon delivered at Lewes in October 1662 during his visitation King reiterated his warnings about ‘unnecessary scruples’ and asserted the Anglican orthodoxy that ‘there can be no greater danger to a settled Church, than liberty to dispute and call in question the points and articles of an established religion’.<sup>14</sup> King complained in 1666 of Lewes as a place ‘full of fanatics and disaffected people’ (the same, he suggested, could be said of much of the rest of Sussex), and told Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, of his refusal to institute Francis Challoner to the church of St Johns there.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The 1663 session saw King’s attendance fall to just below 25 per cent. His absence was concentrated in the first months of the session and was presumably caused by illness as he was excused attendance as sick on 23 Feb. 1663. He had already registered his proxy to John Warner on 14 Feb.; this was vacated on 5 Mar. when King attended the House for the debate of the king’s powers in ecclesiastical affairs. He was present again on 12 Mar. when the debate was resumed. Presumably it was a struggle for him to do so for he was then absent until 1 July, when he resumed regular attendance until the end of the session later that month. He attended all but six days of the short 1664 session, during which he held Warner’s proxy.</p><p>King’s attendance for the 1664–5 rose to 70 per cent. On 9 Feb. 1664 he again invoked privilege, this time to protect himself from the ‘very scandalous words’ of Thomas Chadwell, who was reported to have said, ‘Where is the pitiful bishop of Chichester? He hath no more right to sit in the House of Peers than I.’ Chadwell was ordered into custody and was committed to the Gatehouse prison on 11 February. On 16 Feb., having made a submission at the bar and receiving a reprimand from the House, he was released at the ‘special instance’ of the bishop on payment of his fees.</p><p>King did not attend the brief Oxford session in the autumn of 1665 or any of the 1666–7 session, registering his proxy with Seth Ward*, then bishop of Exeter, for the former and with George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, for the latter. He reappeared in the House on 10 Oct. 1667, the first day of the long and troubled 1667–9 session, and attended for 77 per cent of sitting days. How he voted on 20 Nov. concerning the attempt to commit Clarendon on a general charge of treason is unknown but he did not join the chancellor’s enemies by signing the protest that day. On 7 Dec. King was one of only three bishops named to the committee to consider the bill to banish Clarendon, although 18 prelates were listed as being in attendance. It may be significant that his fellow bishops on the committee, John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, and William Lucy*, bishop of St Davids, had both objected to the decision not to commit Clarendon, suggesting that King, still nurturing a grievance over his lack of promotion, might also be counted among the chancellor’s opponents.</p><p>King made his final appearance in the House on 1 Mar. 1669, a few days after preaching at court. He died on 30 Sept. 1669, weeks after a triennial visitation. He was was buried in Chichester cathedral.<sup>16</sup> Written during the Interregnum, his lyrical will bemoaned his lack of disposable property, owing to the civil wars. Guy Carleton*, a future bishop of Chichester, however, later claimed that King had benefitted from his bishopric to the sum of over £23,000.<sup>17</sup> In a letter to Sheldon written in April 1666, King bemoaned the poverty of his diocese, stating that his annual diocesan revenues amounted to £1,000 although additional sources of income that netted him £10,000 a year.<sup>18</sup> At his death he was able to bequeath an estate of more than £4,000 to his extended family.</p> |
B.A. |
|
LAKE, John (1624-89) |
<p><strong><surname>LAKE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1624–89)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 28 Feb. 1689 |
cons. 7 Jan. 1683 bp. of Sodor and Man; transl. 12 Aug. 1684 bp. of BRISTOL; transl. 19 Oct. 1685 bp. of CHICHESTER; susp. 1 Aug. 1689 |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 Dec. 1624, eldest s. of Thomas Lake, yeoman and ‘grocer’ (i.e. wholesaler), to the local woollen trade, of Halifax. <em>educ</em>. Halifax g.s.; St. John’s, Camb. BA 1642, ord. 1647; DD 1661. <em>m</em>. Judith, da. of Gilbert Deane, 6 clerk, of Exley, Yorks. 2s. <em>d</em>. 30 Aug. 1689; <em>will</em> 26 Aug., pr. 10 Sept. 1689.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James Stuart*, duke of York, bef. 1679.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Cur. Prestwich-cum-Oldham, Lancs. 1649-c.54; vic. Leeds, Yorks. 1661-3; rect. St Botolph, Bishopsgate 1663-70, Prestwich-cum-Oldham, Lancs. 1669-85, Carlton in Lindrick, Notts. 1670-82; preb. St Paul’s 1667-82, Fridaythorpe, York 1670-85, Southwell, York 1670-82; master Bawtry Hospital 1674; adn. Cleveland 1680-2.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by M. Beale, Parliamentary art collection, c. 1685; oil on canvas by M. Beale, St John’s, Oxf.</p> |
<p>John Lake served in arms for the royalist cause in the first Civil War before entering holy orders. At the Restoration his appointment to the living of Leeds was so unpopular with the Puritan laity that it sparked civil disorder.<sup>3</sup> He was brought to the attention of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury and summoned to London where he was given a City living and a prebend of St Paul’s. He also held ecclesiastical office in his native Yorkshire where he dealt abrasively with local youths who used the minster as a meeting place on Sundays and holidays. Tempers finally snapped in February 1673 when he tried to disperse those who had gathered in the minster and minster yard on Shrove Tuesday. Troops had to be called to deal with the ensuing riot and to protect Lake’s house. Lake was so unpopular that after he had repaired his broken windows the rioters returned and broke them again. This was merely the latest and worst of ‘several other remarkable circumstances of disorder’, and Lake was so incensed at what he perceived as the reluctance of the lord mayor to take appropriate action to quell the riot that he sent a lengthy account of the incident to Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> and asked him to report it to Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, ‘and whether he will stir up the lord mayor to a diligent inquiry after so great a violation of public peace and order, and a care to prevent the like for the future.’ The corporation then become afraid that the incident would be interpreted as a local manifestation of the problems being experienced in London as Parliament fought to overturn the Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>4</sup> Such incidents, so easily interpreted as politically motivated, probably helped rather than hindered Lake’s career in the Church, but he was also assisted by influential connections. At St Paul’s (and perhaps earlier given his Yorkshire connections) he came into contact with William Sancroft*, the future archbishop of Canterbury. He also formed a friendship with Sancroft’s companion Dr Henry Paman. At some point before 1679 he became chaplain to the duke of York. As prebendary of Cleveland he came to the attention of William Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, and speculation about the vacant deanery of Norwich in 1681 reveals that he also enjoyed the patronage of Robert Paston*, earl of Yarmouth.</p><p>Lake made his political loyalties abundantly clear. When, in the summer of 1682 in the wake of the Exclusion debates, the corporation of Pontefract (where Lake owned property) added his name to their loyal address, at the suggestion of Sir John Kaye<sup>‡</sup>, Lake complained that</p><blockquote><p>although no man would be more free and forward to subscribe an Address, which in good language, breathed that loyalty which it pretended to: yet in such a case I would judge for myself; and I detest and abhor such a trifle as that (which hath neither matter, nor words in it) as much as the late tumultuous petitions. … it adds (lawful successors) so improperly and impertinently that I think it had better have been left out. In short, such is my present sense of it, that if all my brethren of the clergy had signed it, I would not; and I would (if it was practicable) go twice as far as Pontefract to blot my name out again; and when it is published, I shall blush to think that my name is at a thing, which will look … so scandalously, amongst the meanest of the addresses which have hitherto been made.<sup>5</sup></p></blockquote><p>In autumn 1682 Derby (in his capacity as lord of Man) nominated Lake to the bishopric of Sodor and Man. The see was a poor one and did not qualify the holder to sit in the House of Lords. It is unlikely that Lake spent much time there, and he soon wearied of the post. In March 1684 John Dolben*, of York, recommended him as a candidate for the recently vacant see of Carlisle. As a Yorkshire man who ‘after many years well spent in better company’ had returned to the north and experienced life in the Isle of Man, Lake was thought well suited to life on the Scottish border. His one weakness ‘a little roughness sometimes, and but sometimes observable in him … will not be unsuitable for such a rough country’. When he failed to secure Carlisle he reluctantly settled instead for Bristol, an impoverished and difficult see that had already been turned down by the Anglican polemicist, Thomas Long. The appointment was delayed for several months, in part so that Lake would be able to assist Dolben in the consecration of Edward Rainbow*, as bishop of Carlisle, but more importantly so that Lake could ‘make some profit in Man which hitherto hath yielded very little’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Lake arrived in Bristol in the immediate aftermath of the divisive <em>quo warranto</em> action against the corporation. The city was, he reported, ‘divided and distracted and there are persons truly and highly loyal on both hands’. On his arrival in September 1684 he noted that Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, was actively interfering in clerical appointments and began to get the measure of Richard Thompson, the quarrelsome dean of whom he remarked that ‘all things are fair and friendly thus far … but if any man would bet upon nature’s side I durst scarcely wager with him’. By November he declared that if it were not for Thompson and his ally, Sir John Knight<sup>‡</sup>, ‘I could render Bristol easy enough’. He had also taken steps to secure an alliance with Beaufort, whose mind had been poisoned against him.<sup>7</sup></p><p>At the accession of James II, Lake went out of his way to ensure that Bristol presented itself in a good light, arranging for not one but four loyal addresses from different interests within the city and a fifth from the clergy.<sup>8</sup> His brief tenure of the bishopric does seem to have buttressed Beaufort’s own authority. With a new charter in place and political opposition suppressed, the March 1685 election to James II’s first Parliament proved more peaceable than previous contests.<sup>9</sup></p><p>On 19 May 1685 Lake took his seat in the Lords. Although he attended the session for almost 60 per cent of sittings, Lake was not active in the business of the House and was appointed to only two select committees. By June there was already talk of a further translation, not so much in recognition of Lake’s merits but as part of James II’s determination to create a vacancy in order to promote his loyal supporter, Sir Jonathan Trelawny*, the future bishop of Bristol, Exeter and Winchester to a west country see. At that point the possibility was translation to Peterborough. But on 8 July when Lake wrote enthusiastically to Sancroft about Beaufort’s activity in ensuring that Bristol would not fall to supporters of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, he added a request for translation to Chichester instead which had become vacant by the death of Guy Carleton*, two days earlier. When the request was promptly granted Lake wrote of his relief at being delivered from his confrontational dean, Richard Thompson, who ‘seemeth to emulate ... the bitter zeal of his grand exemplar’, namely Thomas Pierce, dean of Salisbury.<sup>10</sup> In September he journeyed to Lichfield to conduct a visitation there during the suspension of Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. By November he was in Chichester where there was so much business to transact that he had to delay his attendance at the House for a few days.<sup>11</sup> He returned to Westminster on 12 Nov. 1685, but the session lasted for only another week before the first of many prorogations.</p><p>Lake found his new diocese to have been much neglected. Despite Carleton’s efforts, Lake considered the diocese to be ‘singularly factious and fanatic’ with conventicles in the major towns and Catholics eagerly seeking converts. During his first visitation in 1686 he travelled to places ‘where no man alive has seen a bishop before’. He also inherited yet another difficult local relationship, this time with the diocesan chancellor, Thomas Briggs.<sup>12</sup> In Chichester he replicated the strategy he had operated in Bristol by reorganizing city worship to make cathedral sermons more accessible and to strengthen the Church’s hold on the city and diocese by dividing the dissenters.<sup>13</sup> It was something of a testimony to his previous success in Bristol, and to the trust he inspired in Sancroft, that in July he was sent to Salisbury to deal with Thomas Pierce in an attempt to restore harmony to the chapter there.<sup>14</sup></p><p>By 1687 Lake was identified as an opponent of the king’s religious policies and was known to oppose the repeal of the Tests. He responded promptly to Sancroft’s summons about the reading of the second Declaration of Indulgence, joining his fellow bishops at Lambeth on 18 May 1688 and signing the petition to the king. Together with the other six signatories he refused to enter a recognizance of £500 to appear in king’s bench on a charge of seditious libel and was committed to the Tower.<sup>15</sup> On 30 June 1688 the Seven Bishops were acquitted and Lake soon returned to Chichester. He conducted a visitation over the summer, finding the clergy ‘tractable’ and the gentry ‘obliging’, and noting that Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, was ‘singularly obliging’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>On 28 Sept. Lake was one of the bishops present at Whitehall to hear the king backtrack on his policies, including a promise to revoke the suspension of Henry Compton*, of London, and the abolition of the ecclesiastical commissioners. A few days later, on 3 Oct., he was again at Whitehall with his fellow bishops proffering the demands of the Church to the king, thinly disguised as ‘heads of advice’.<sup>17</sup> At the Revolution Lake joined the assembled Lords at Whitehall, signed the address to the Prince of Orange to take on the business of government until the Convention, and was one of those summoned by William to attend him on 28 Dec. 1688.<sup>18</sup> He remained, however, firmly opposed to the deposition of James II. When the diarist John Evelyn visited Sancroft on 15 Jan. 1689, he found Lake, Francis Turner*, of Ely, and Thomas White*, of Peterborough, in attendance, determined on a regency.<sup>19</sup></p><p>On 22 Jan. 1689 Lake took his seat in the Convention. He remained in the House throughout the debates on the regency, voted in favour of it on 29 Jan. and opposed the accession of William and Mary on 31 January. He continued to attend throughout the abdication debates of early February, when he voted against the Commons’ wording and entered his protest after the final vote on 6 Feb. 1689. He was present the following day when the House approved the new oaths but although he was present on 18 Feb. to hear the new king’s speech his attendance had become erratic and he made his final appearance in the House on 28 Feb. 1689. Following Sancroft’s lead, he refused the new oaths, telling the archbishop that he was ‘very proud to be reckoned of the same feather with your grace’.<sup>20</sup> On 27 Aug. 1689, three days before his death, he dictated his final profession of faith, defending the Church’s doctrine of non-resistance.<sup>21</sup> The statement was carried by William Lloyd*, of Norwich, from Lake’s bedside to Lambeth from whence it was dispersed as an encouragement to other non-jurors wrestling with their consciences. After a modest bequest to the poor of Chichester, Lake left an estate of some £400 to be divided between his two sons and his wife Judith. He left his property in Pontefract to his eldest son James, a citizen and haberdasher of London, and his books to his son William, a fellow of St John’s Cambridge who followed in his father’s footsteps as a non-juror. Lake died on 30 Aug. 1689 before he could be deprived formally of his bishopric and was buried on 3 Sept. in St Botolph’s Church in Bishopsgate.</p> |
B.A. |
|
LAMPLUGH, Thomas (1615-91) |
<p><strong><surname>LAMPLUGH</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1615–91)</p> |
|
|
First sat 16 Feb. 1677; last sat 20 Aug. 1689 |
cons. 12 Nov. 1676 bp. of EXETER; transl. 8 Dec. 1688 abp. of YORK |
|
<p><em>bap.</em> 1615, s. of Christopher Lamplugh of Little Riston, Yorks. and Anne (1595–1661), da. of Thomas Roper of Octon, Yorks. (E. Riding). <em>educ</em>. St Bees g.s.; Queen’s, Oxf. matric. 1634, BA 1639, fell. 1642, MA 1642, BD 1657, DD 1660; incorp. Camb. 1668. <em>m</em>. (1) lic. 9 Nov. 1663, Katherine (1633–71), da. of Dr Edward Davenant, clergyman, of Gillingham, Dorset; 1s. 1da. (3 ch. <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) Mary (surname unknown), ?2s. <em>d.</em> 5 May 1691; <em>will</em> 2 May 1691, pr. 1 Dec. 1707.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1664–76.</p><p>Minister, Holy Rood, Southampton bef. 1648; lecturer, St Martin Carfax, Oxf. 1648–57; rect. Charlton-on-Otmoor, Oxon. 1658–85, Binfield, Berks. 1659,<sup>2</sup> St Antholin, London 1664–71; adn. Oxf. 1663–4, London 1664-76; canon, Worcester 1669–76; vic. St Martin-in-the-Fields 1670–6; dean, Rochester 1673–88; mbr. ecclesiastical commn. 1689.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Principal, St Alban Hall 1664–73.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after G. Kneller, 1689, Queen’s, Oxf.; oil on canvas, Bishop’s Palace, Exeter; standing effigy, York Cathedral, G. Gibbons, 1691.</p> |
<p>Tracing Thomas Lamplugh’s family background is complicated by several amendments to parish and college registers, but it seems certain that he was descended from the Yorkshire branch of the ‘ancient’ armigerous Lamplugh family originally from Cumberland.<sup>4</sup> Lamplugh managed to survive changes of regime over a period of some 50 years. He was ordained by Robert Skinner*, then bishop of Oxford, in 1645 and assisted him (on at least 300 occasions) in the ordination of other Church loyalists, yet he survived the parliamentary visitation of Oxford university in 1648 by taking the Covenant and probably also through the influence of his uncle and patron, the lawyer Thomas Lamplugh, who was a parliamentary commissioner. In 1660 (according to Anthony Wood) Lamplugh used ‘flatteries and rewards [and] shuffled himself into considerable spiritualities’ but had been ‘A great cringer … to Presbyterians and independents’ when it was expedient’.<sup>5</sup> Yet Lamplugh had appeared on the ecclesiastical planning lists of Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, in 1659, suggesting that Wood’s observations owed more to spleen than to accuracy.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Lamplugh was not prominent at the Restoration and he did not take part in the Savoy Conference. Nevertheless his career prospects were looking auspicious. His fellow Cumbrian and Queen’s College man Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> had become under-secretary of state and in 1663 he married into a clerical dynasty, the Davenant family (his new father-in-law was nephew to a recent bishop of Salisbury). An appointment as archdeacon of Christ Church, Oxford, sparked a legal challenge by his rival Thomas Barlow*, future bishop of Lincoln. Lamplugh lost that fight but he soon received other preferments and moved steadily upwards in the clerical hierarchy. During this period he also came into contact with Henry Bennet*, later Baron Arlington, whom he assisted in October 1669 in a controversial case at University College, Oxford.<sup>7</sup> As vicar of the fashionable church of St Martin-in-the-Fields he ministered to leading members of the nobility and the political elite. He was in regular correspondence with Williamson and as canon of Worcester he sent him information about the state of the diocese following the passage of the second Conventicle Act. Lamplugh praised the mayor of Worcester for his courage ‘in suppressing conventicles and seditious meetings’ and for his political acumen in dealing with those who tried to exploit legal loopholes to evade the Act.<sup>8</sup></p><h2><em>The last years of the Cavalier Parliament, 1676–88</em></h2><p>A preacher who spoke ‘very practically’ (and was thus to the king’s taste), Lamplugh was well placed for elevation.<sup>9</sup> After months of speculation about the vacant see of Exeter and the belief that he might be appointed to the deanery (which was apparently more lucrative than the bishopric itself), the royal directive was sent on 8 Aug. 1676 to the chapter of Exeter cathedral for Lamplugh’s election as bishop.<sup>10</sup> His writ of summons was issued on 10 Feb. 1677 and he took his seat in the Lords on 16 Feb., the second day of the new parliamentary session.<sup>11</sup> His parliamentary career, lasting some 12 years, was marked by very high levels of attendance and involvement in the procedural business of the House. He attended every session of Parliament in the reigns of Charles II and James II, all but one for more than 80 per cent of all sittings.</p><p>During his first parliamentary session, Lamplugh attended 78 per cent of sittings and was named to 67 select committees, as well as to the sessional committees. Shortly after taking his seat, James Stuart*, duke of York, crossed the House to wish Lamplugh ‘joy of his bishopric’ and asked who was to succeed him as vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields; Lamplugh, who had never before spoken to York, was apparently nonplussed at the exchange.<sup>12</sup> He received the proxy of Edward Rainbowe*, bishop of Carlisle (signed on 1 Feb. and cancelled on 11 Apr. 1677). On 22 Feb. he also received the proxy of Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield; the proxy was vacated on 11 Apr. 1677 when Wood attended. The proxies held by Lamplugh were almost certainly employed in the passage of the Act for the more effectual conviction and prosecution of popish recusants and the Act for further securing the Protestant Religion, which passed the House on 7 Mar. and 15 Mar. 1677 respectively, both fully supported by the episcopal bench.</p><p>Over the summer and early autumn months Lamplugh conducted his primary visitation.<sup>13</sup> Back in the House by 15 Jan. 1678, he continued to attend until 18 June, four weeks before the prorogation of 15 July. Such was the contentious nature of this session (not least the debates about the legality of the long prorogation between 1675 and 1677) that no fewer than 43 sections of the Journal were later expunged from the official record by order of the House on 13 Nov. 1680 (during the second Exclusion Parliament). The grounds for this action (in which Lamplugh was involved as a member of the Journal committee) were that the original minutes recorded ‘unparliamentary’ proceedings and should not be available in the future as examples of parliamentary precedent.</p><p>Once again, over the summer months of 1678 Lamplugh visited his diocese (monitoring clerical appointments and seeking the assistance of William Sancroft*, of Canterbury, to block those of which he did not approve).<sup>14</sup> He attended 82 per cent of sittings and was named to three select committees. The Popish Plot continued to dominate political and ecclesiastical life. On 5 Nov. 1678 he and John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, preached before the Lords and Commons respectively on the same text (Luke ix. 55–56), an orchestrated attempt to channel anti-Catholic animosity into a force for moral reform. Lamplugh told the Lords that there was ‘imminent danger’ to both the king and the kingdom and that the reformation of only ‘a few’ sinners might avert catastrophe by placating an angry God and preserving ‘public peace and safety’.<sup>15</sup> The parallel sermons became a talking (and selling) point: when Lamplugh’s sermon came out in print by the end of the month, the first print run of 4,000 was said to have sold out in a day and by the first week in December it had gone to a third impression.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Further parliamentary defences against Catholicism were afoot and on 15 Nov. 1678, in divisions on the Test bill, Lamplugh voted in a committee of the whole House to augment the existing oaths of allegiance and supremacy with a new test on transubstantiation.<sup>17</sup> During the session he held the proxies of Edward Rainbowe and Herbert Croft*, of Hereford, and almost certainly used these to favour the passage of the Test on 20 November. On 29 Nov. he supported the Commons’ address to the king to remove the queen and her entourage from the court.</p><p>The following week, on 3 Dec. 1678, the House was informed of the arrest of two men in Worcester for asserting that Lamplugh, Henry Compton*, of London, John Fell*, of Oxford, and two others were the only Protestant bishops in England. One individual was already in custody but was bailed on condition of appearing before the House. When he failed to appear he was re-arrested and spent a week in Newgate before being released on 21 December. Lamplugh was added to the committee for the Journal on 4 Dec. and his signature on eight entries between 9 Nov. and 7 Jan. 1679 shows that he was an active member of the committee. Some of those entries (11 Nov. and 12 and 28 Dec. 1678) involved amendments to the minutes. Given the sensitivity of the official record of testimonies relating to the Popish Plot, there seems to have been a meticulous approach to the official record at this time: the amendments of 12 Dec. corrected the narrative of William Bedloe’s testimony. On 26 Dec. 1678, on an issue that divided the bishops, Lamplugh voted against the Lords’ amendment which would divert the payment of supply from the Chamber of London into the exchequer but did not sign the subsequent protest. The following day he voted against the committal of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby. He attended the House on 30 Dec. 1678, when Parliament was prorogued.</p><h2><em>Exclusion, 1679–81</em></h2><p>On 24 Jan. 1679 Parliament was dissolved and, in the elections that followed, Lamplugh may have encouraged Williamson to stand for Oxford University.<sup>18</sup> It is highly unlikely that he had any role in the election of his first cousin Richard Lamplugh<sup>‡</sup>, who became the exclusionist member for Cumberland, and equally unlikely that he was happy with the electorate’s choice in his cathedral city of Exeter, where the nonconformist interest prevailed with the return of William Glyde<sup>‡</sup> and Malachi Pyne<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Lamplugh attended the House on 6 Mar. 1679 for the start of the new Parliament and attended five sittings in the week before the prorogation. He was named only to the three sessional committees. Back in the House on 15 Mar. 1679 when Parliament re-assembled, he attended 97 per cent of sittings, being named to all three standing committees and to 12 select committees, including legislation that would impose the Test oaths on members of Convocation. He was again an active member of the Journal committee, examining the Journal on three occasions. On 14 Apr. 1679 he was one of the six bishops who defied the king and left the chamber rather than vote in a matter of blood on the attainder of Danby. He voted against the appointment, on 10 May, of a joint committee of both houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords and subsequently attended the House for prorogations on 27 May (and for two further prorogations on 17 Oct. 1679 and 26 Jan. 1680). By June 1679 he was back in Exeter, whence he wrote to Sancroft suggesting the necessity of some public vindication of the bishops from allegations emanating from returning Members of the Commons ‘that the Bishops were the cause of the late prorogation of this Parliament’. He also advised Sancroft to publish the text of his attempt to convert James, duke of York, ‘to let the world know what persuasive means have been used to reduce that most unfortunate Prince to his mother the Church of England’.<sup>20</sup> During the course of the year Lamplugh published a pastoral letter to his clergy instructing them to catechize their parishioners and further the cause of Protestantism.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Parliament was dissolved on 12 July 1679. The sitting members were returned in Exeter without a contest and there is no evidence of Lamplugh’s involvement in any other campaigns at this election. Rather, he concentrated on ensuring that the elections to Convocation passed off ‘without tumult’.<sup>22</sup> That there was ill feeling within the chapter is revealed in a letter written in February 1680 by Lamplugh’s predecessor at Exeter, Anthony Sparrow*, now bishop of Norwich. Lamplugh stood accused of ‘requiring several things of them contrary, as they think to their oath’, resulting in an appeal to Sancroft.<sup>23</sup> In April Lamplugh reported back to the archbishop on his visitation of Devon and Cornwall, claiming to have persuaded the local gentry against the sale of benefices (probably by bonds of resignation) so that ‘those ecclesiastical markets are put down, and now they will bestow their benefices not as merchants but as patrons’. He had also successfully (or so he claimed) pressed the magistracy of Exeter to enforce the penal laws against conventicles so that nonconformists could have no hope to expect sympathy ‘from above’.<sup>24</sup> Despite the earlier indications of a dispute with his chapter, Lamplugh boasted at the end of May 1680 that the ‘affairs of the church and of our city … are in a good posture’, with the deputy lieutenants all ‘very well affected and very resolute to preserve the peace’; as for conventicles, he insisted that the evidence from Exeter suggested that all would conform ‘if it were in earnest desired’.<sup>25</sup></p><p>On 16 June 1680, Lamplugh informed Sancroft that if the court were ready to summon a new Parliament, ‘we are in a condition to send you good members’ in both Devon and Cornwall.<sup>26</sup> On 7 Sept. 1680, Secretary Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Lamplugh hoping that the bishop had conveyed the king’s thanks to the ‘loyal citizens’ of Exeter ‘most justly due to them for the regard they showed to his majesty’s honour when the [James Scott*,] duke of Monmouth was among them’. That Lamplugh’s diocese was still regarded as a hotbed of partisan sentiment was evident four days later when Jenkins was forced to qualify his earlier message to Lamplugh from the king: the king was displeased that some had ‘made bold’ with the royal name, ‘as if he had approved of the proceedings of some gentlemen in your parts, who visited, treated and complimented the duke of Monmouth … [whereas] … he very well approved of those who did neither visit, treat or compliment the duke’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Lamplugh left his diocese to travel to Westminster in October 1680 and arrived at the second Exclusion Parliament one week after the start of the session. He attended 81 per cent of sittings and was named to the Journal committee, of which he was now a very experienced member, and to seven select committees. He examined the Journal on ten occasions during the session. Six years later (on 9 Dec. 1686) he and other members of the committee amended the entry for 29 Nov. 1680 relating to the excuses offered to the House for the absences of Edward Montagu*, 2nd Baron Montagu, Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, William Cavendish*, 3rd earl of Devonshire, and John Frescheville*, Baron Frescheville. On 15 Nov. 1680, Lamplugh voted to reject the Exclusion bill on its first reading and on 23 Nov. voted against a joint committee with the Commons to discuss the safety of the three kingdoms. He attended the House when Parliament was prorogued on 10 Jan. 1681 and almost certainly took part in the subsequent parliamentary elections in Exeter. While it seems likely that Lamplugh was involved in the underhand manoeuvres that ousted the sitting members Glyde and Pyne in favour of the court candidates, Sir Thomas Carew<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Walker<sup>‡</sup>, there is no evidence to confirm that this was so.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>Tory reaction, 1681–5</em></h2><p>Lamplugh attended every sitting of the brief Oxford Parliament from 21 to 28 Mar. 1681. He was named only to the three sessional committees and was again involved in examining the Journal. Parliament was dissolved abruptly on 28 Mar., too soon for the Commons to hear the petition into possible misconduct at the Exeter election.<sup>29</sup> Returning to his diocese, Lamplugh told Sancroft that throughout his journey to Exeter he had found the people ‘generally well satisfied’ with the dissolution of the previous two Parliaments, and that the royal declaration had enjoyed a good reception and would find even greater approval if he had further copies to distribute in his parishes, ‘which would undeceive some and keep others from being infected by such ill men, as do endeavour to beget in them a bad opinion of the government’. The justices and gentry had shown themselves at the quarter sessions to be in favour of executing the penal laws ‘if they meet with no check from above’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Over the next few years Lamplugh was an active supporter of the ‘Tory reaction’, though he sometimes found himself having to weigh national against local pressures. In July 1681, for example, the local magnate Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle (whom Lamplugh ‘would not willingly disoblige’), created a dilemma for the bishop when he leant his support to a candidate for a Plymouth benefice who was regarded by Lamplugh as ‘not fit for the place’.<sup>31</sup> A stream of correspondence illustrated the campaign against nonconformity, and the ways in which collaboration between the bishop and justices of the peace had raised awareness of the political and social dangers posed by Dissent.<sup>32</sup> By October 1683, after the Devonshire justices had ‘exceeded all other presentments whatsoever’, Lamplugh had expressed wholehearted approval and directed their orders to be read in churches across the diocese.<sup>33</sup> Following further instructions from Sancroft, Lamplugh maintained that he would now be able, through the justices, ‘to encourage the king’s friends in these parts, by letting them know his majesty’s steadiness and resolution to reform or suppress that pestilent faction which hath so long infested and so often involved this nation in blood and confusion’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>For all Lamplugh’s positive reports about local successes, the reality was that the division of power between cathedral and corporation always carried the potential for misunderstanding and discord. In January 1684 he again referred to the need to defend cathedral privileges against ‘our unkind and encroaching neighbours of this city’; by August he was dealing with fresh disputes about seating and the setting up of the city sword.<sup>35</sup> During the negotiations over a new charter for Exeter that took place in August and September 1684 he pressed for a proviso to preserve the privileges of the Church. He also wanted to be named in the commission of the peace in the new charter in order to ‘to preserve order and conformity in the city’ and to outwit the ‘huffing’ mayor.<sup>36</sup> The new charter, with the desired proviso, was issued in October.<sup>37</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II, 1685–8</em></h2><p>On 11 Feb. 1685, following James II’s declaration that he would protect the Church of England, Lamplugh was back at Exeter awaiting Sancroft’s instructions on the tenor of any loyal address in response.<sup>38</sup> By 7 Mar. 1685 he was being pressed by his diocesan clergy to prepare an address and again sought Sancroft’s advice, since he ‘would not be singular, nor too officious’.<sup>39</sup> A week later he insisted that he could not travel to London in time to preach on Palm Sunday because his affairs in Exeter were ‘so entangled’ and he was suffering from ‘age and infirmities’, but he promised that subscriptions to the address would be ready before the end of April.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Lamplugh remained in his diocese throughout the parliamentary elections and in March 1685 the former Tory mayor James Walker<sup>‡</sup> and the recorder Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> were returned for the city of Exeter.<sup>41</sup> The bishop went up to London for the start of the new Parliament on 19 May 1685. He attended the session for 90 per cent of sittings, and was named to five select committees and to all three sessional committees, examining the Journal on eight occasions. There is no other evidence of his activity during the session apart from his attendance until 19 Nov., the day of the ill-tempered debate on Catholic officers in the army, which led to the peremptory prorogation the following day.</p><p>In June 1685, while the Monmouth rebellion was in full spate in the west country, James II planned to install his ally, Jonathan Trelawny*, as bishop of Exeter, where his local knowledge and networks would be politically useful. In order to facilitate this, Lamplugh was to be translated to Peterborough but he refused to move.<sup>42</sup> He seems to have remained in London until the following spring, attending a further prorogation on 10 Feb. 1686, but he had returned to his diocese by 20 Feb. 1686 when he wrote to Sancroft that Devon and neighbouring counties were ‘full of soldiers and full of complaints against them’.<sup>43</sup> In July 1686 he visited Salisbury as one of a special commission appointed by Sancroft to resolve a dispute within the cathedral chapter.<sup>44</sup></p><p>By early 1687, Lamplugh was reporting that his diocese was peaceful ‘and the people are firm to their religion’.<sup>45</sup> He almost certainly supported the Exeter corporation when it became the subject of a further regulation that year, if only because the new charter removed the proviso protecting Church interests.<sup>46</sup> It was common knowledge that Lamplugh opposed the repeal of the Test Act and the king’s policies in general. By 1688, however, he appeared to be collaborating with the government: in May 1688 he broke ranks from the majority of the bishops and ordered his diocesan clergy to read the second Declaration of Indulgence. The hostile reaction that this provoked may have led Lamplugh to change tack, for later that month he belatedly added his signature to the seven bishops’ petition.<sup>47</sup> Yet in mid-August Jonathan Trelawny was still complaining to Sancroft of Lamplugh’s attitude to the Declaration, which he had only recalled when his dean sent word that even if Lamplugh ‘would betray the Church he should not [betray] the cathedral’.<sup>48</sup> When James II backtracked in November and restored the charter, Lamplugh once again went along with the flow of events. The west country magnate, John Granville*, earl of Bath, instructed</p><blockquote><p>the old loyal civil magistrates of this place … to come in a body to the cathedral church, where was the lord bishop of the diocese, the dean, and cannons of the church, the officers of the militia, many of the deputy lieutenants, and other gentlemen of the county, with myself to meet the restored mayor and aldermen, and thousands of the city expressing their joy all along from the guildhall to the cathedral, to see the sword rescued from a conventicle and carried once more after the ancient manner to the cathedral church …<sup>49</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>Revolution, 1688–9</em></h2><p>Delivering a sermon ‘entirely against the prince … with great vehemency and abhorrency’, Lamplugh fled to London. On 9 Nov. 1688 William of Orange entered Exeter with both infantry and cavalry to the ‘acclaim’ of the populace, but was not greeted by the gentry, clergy, or mayor.<sup>50</sup> One account maintained that, following Lamplugh’s flight, the clergy refused to attend a sermon in the cathedral by Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, and that even the Dissenters refused to hand over the keys of their meeting house to the prince’s agent.<sup>51</sup> At a conference with the Exeter clergy Burnet had to explain,</p><blockquote><p>that this expedition was undertaken upon the request of the Church of England and was designed for their good; that the prince had with him the subscription of the majority of the temporal lords in this nation; and that therefore it was hoped that they would give him a favourable reception at Exeter and promote his interest.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>An eighteenth-century historian of York, Francis Drake, attempted to rehabilitate Lamplugh’s reputation, pointing out that the bishop fled to London only after advising the city to hold firm for the king, ‘but finding the tide run too strong for him … presented himself to the king at Whitehall’ in mid-November 1688, whereupon James II is reported to have told Lamplugh that he was ‘a genuine old Cavalier’ and must have the see of York (which had been vacant for two years) as a reward.<sup>53</sup> Lamplugh appears to have been the king’s second choice; he first offered it to Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, who turned it down.<sup>54</sup></p><p>In the eight weeks between the invasion and the flight of James II into exile, Lamplugh swam with the tide of events. In mid-November he joined with Sancroft, Francis Turner*, of Ely, Thomas Sprat*, of Rochester, and a number of lords temporal to petition the king for a free Parliament. He attended the meeting of lords at the Guildhall and on 11 Dec. 1688 signed the declaration to William, the orders to secure the Tower, and a request to George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, to issue orders to prevent ‘all acts of hostility’. The following day, with Peter Mews*, then bishop of Bath and Wells, Sprat, and Thomas White*, of Peterborough, he assembled with temporal peers in the Council Chamber at Whitehall to sign a number of interim orders.<sup>55</sup> During Sancroft’s sporadic absences from the Guildhall, Lamplugh deputized for him.<sup>56</sup> Yet on 17 Dec. 1688 he went with Turner, White, and Sprat to the king (who had returned temporarily to Whitehall) and came away reassured about royal intentions; he was now perceived as the nominal head ‘of this powerful faction that labours to narrow and enervate the prince’s designs’.<sup>57</sup> On 21 Dec., when he attended the Queen’s Presence chamber at St James to hear William’s speech, he was once again the most senior clergyman present. He continued to function as one of the more senior members of the provisional government, and on 22, 24, and 25 Dec. 1688 headed the House of Lords, signing various addresses to the prince of Orange. <sup>58</sup> Meanwhile, in an emotional farewell between the king and a few select bishops, James II claimed that he was being chased out the kingdom by the prince of Orange and was not leaving voluntarily.<sup>59</sup></p><h2><em>Final parliamentary attendance, 1689</em></h2><p>In the general election that preceded the Convention, Lamplugh does not appear to have exercised his recently acquired archiepiscopal privileges in the liberty of Ripon.<sup>60</sup> He was at Westminster on 22 Jan. 1689 for the first day of the Convention, taking his seat for the first time as the archbishop of York. He attended the session for 93 per cent of sittings and was named to all three sessional committees and to 20 select committees. It was possibly in acknowledgment of his special expertise that he was added to the committee on simoniacal promotions and to the conference with the Commons on Roman Catholics. On 29 Jan. 1689 he voted for a regency as the best way to preserve Church and state, and on 31 Jan. in a committee of the whole house, voted against the motion to declare William and Mary joint monarchs. He and Sancroft wrote to the Speaker of the Commons, on 2 Feb., in response to the vote of the previous day (to thank the clergy of the Church of England for resisting Catholicism, refusing to read the second Declaration of Indulgence, and resisting the ecclesiastical commission). The two archbishops thanked the Commons for the vote and gave their assurance that ‘so far as our observation can reach, the bishops, and clergy of the Church of England are unmovably fixed to the Protestant religion; and absolutely irreconcilable both to popery and arbitrary power’.<sup>61</sup> On 4 Feb. Lamplugh helped to manage the conference on the ‘abdication’ debate and on both 4 and 6 Feb. voted against agreeing with the Commons on the word ‘abdicated’ instead of ‘deserted’. On 6 Feb. 1689 he registered his dissent against the resolution of the House to agree with the Commons that the throne was now vacant.</p><p>On 2 Mar. 1689 it was reported to the House that Lamplugh was unwell, but would attend the following Monday to take the oaths to the new king and queen; he was accordingly excused attendance. He took the oaths in the House two days later, only the fourth bishop to do so, and was joined by William Beaw*, of Llandaff, William Lloyd*, of St Asaph, Sprat, and Mews.<sup>62</sup> He acted as an intermediary between Sancroft and the House of Lords, reporting to the acting Speaker George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, that his fellow archbishop was indisposed and ‘took no notice at all of the assembly as a Parliament, nor of the speaker’.<sup>63</sup> On 8 Mar., having attended the new king and queen, Lamplugh reported back to the House that William was ready to do whatever was necessary for the good of the nation. On the same day, Edward Stillingfleet*, of Worcester, a seasoned drafter of parliamentary legislation, informed Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham of the need for a new commission to revise the Church canons and reform the ecclesiastical courts, and that both Lamplugh and Sancroft should act on the commission to maintain its credibility.<sup>64</sup> On 14 Mar. Lamplugh was present for the committal of the comprehension bill and was thus named to the committee.</p><p>On 11 Apr. 1689 he assisted Compton in the coronation of the new king and queen.<sup>65</sup> Later in the month, now fully part of the Orange regime, he helped to compose an emotive (and virulently anti-Catholic) appeal on behalf of Irish Protestants, signing it together with Compton, Mews, Lloyd of St Asaph, and his subsequent detractor Gilbert Burnet.<sup>66</sup> On 8 May he managed the conference for the bill ‘for more speedy and effectual convicting and disarming of papists’ and on 31 May voted against a reversal of the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. On 2 July 1689 he was one of 21 lords (including Compton and five other bishops) to register his dissent against the resolution to proceed with the impeachment for high treason against Sir Adam Blaire and his accomplices. Despite their apparent disagreements of the previous summer, on 22 July Lamplugh received the proxy of his successor at Exeter, Jonathan Trelawny (vacated at the end of the session). On 30 July 1689, using Trelawny’s proxy, he voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments in the division on the reversal of judgments against Oates.</p><h2><em>Retirement from Westminster</em></h2><p>On 20 Aug. 1689 Lamplugh attended the House of Lords for the final time. Thereafter his political behaviour suggests a tactical, but not wholesale, withdrawal from the business of government. On 19 Sept. he received a letter from Nottingham, with his nomination to a commission to review the liturgy and prepare draft proposals of ecclesiastical reform to present to Convocation and thence to Parliament.<sup>67</sup> The commission met in the Jerusalem Chamber on 10 Oct. but Lamplugh was not present at its opening and never attended subsequent meetings. On 23 Oct. and 30 Oct. 1689 he registered his proxy in favour of Henry Compton (vacated at the end of the session and possibly used for the Succession bill in November). By the start of the November, news had reached Roger Morrice that, ‘for some time past’, Lamplugh, Mews, and Sprat had ‘openly and publicly refused to act’ with the ecclesiastical commissioners, whose proposals were clearly in favour of admitting to the Church of England a large proportion of Dissenters.<sup>68</sup></p><p>Lamplugh continued to persuade the non-jurors to take the oaths and thus avoid deprivation. On 6 Jan. 1690, he attended a ‘great meeting of bishops’ at Lambeth with Compton and Burnet and promised to use his influence in Parliament to pass an act to protect the non-juring bishops from deprivation, but make them ineligible for new preferments. The proposals were rejected.<sup>69</sup> He continued with his diocesan and metropolitan duties, circulating injunctions to his clergy in preparation for his 1690 primary visitation.<sup>70</sup> On 3 Mar. he told Sir William Lowther<sup>‡</sup> that he hoped to be excused from the start of the new Parliament since he was about to start his visitation. He had asked Henry Compton to obtain leave of absence; if refused, he would abandon his diocesan duties ‘rather than be wanting to my duty there’.<sup>71</sup> At a call of the House on 31 Mar. 1690, he was duly registered as excused.</p><p>Lamplugh’s tenure of the province of York was hardly an ecclesiastical triumph; his confirmation service at Retford on 16 May 1690 was ‘confused’ and disorganized and his somewhat biased successor at York, John Sharp*, maintained that Lamplugh had been lax during his tenure of the see.<sup>72</sup> On 19 Jan. 1691, Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, sought his archbishop’s permission to conduct a metropolitan visitation in his place, fearing that Lamplugh was too old and frail to conduct the visitation himself. Stratford deemed such a visitation to be absolutely necessary because ‘for thirteen years last past … no visitation has been made by any bishop of this diocese; that by reason of this long neglect, many things are scandalously amiss, and very much need correction’.<sup>73</sup></p><p>On 5 May 1691, Lamplugh died at the bishop’s palace in Bishopsthorpe. His will, written only three days before his death, expressed fears for the unity of the Church of England, now ‘rent by discord’. It provided no details of any landed property and his bequests were relatively modest, leaving his communion plate to his successors at York and less than £500 to various relatives and to the poor of five separate parishes. Some 20 months earlier, in response to a circular requesting a self-assessment for tax purposes, Lamplugh had replied that, having ‘been at great expenses by reason of my translation from Exeter to York and my long attendance in London’, his personal estate amounted to only about £1,000. His son, Thomas (later archdeacon of Richmond), was the sole executor. Lamplugh was buried in York Minster, where his son commissioned a lavish monument by Grinling Gibbons.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Lamplugh’s ability to survive and build a career despite the vicissitudes of civil war and revolution makes it easy to adopt Wood’s condemnation of him as a ‘cringer’ or to regard him rather more politely as overly flexible. The reality is perhaps a little more complicated. His theology and attitude to nonconformity seems to have been quite consistent but it ran alongside an instinct for self-preservation that made him somewhat unpredictable and prone to panic at moments of stress. It also ran alongside a remarkable streak of luck that is perhaps best epitomized by the consequences of his flight from Exeter. Under other circumstances he could have become the subject of the king’s ire for deserting his post; instead he arrived in London just as the king was casting around for ways of rebuilding clerical support. He owed his promotion to York to the king’s desperation rather than to his own abilities or theological credentials. Being in the right place at the right time was just as important as the ability to ‘cringe’ to those in power.</p> |
B.A. |
|
LANY, Benjamin (1591-1675) |
<p><strong><surname>LANY</surname></strong> (<strong>LANEY</strong>), <strong>Benjamin</strong> (1591–1675)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 10 Nov. 1674 |
cons. 2 Dec. 1660 bp. of PETERBOROUGH; transl. 2 Apr. 1663 bp. of LINCOLN; transl. 24 May 1667 bp. of ELY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1591, 4th s. of John Laney<sup>‡</sup> of Cratfield, Suff., barrister, and Mary, da. of John Poley (Poolie) of Badley, Suff. <em>educ.</em> Christ’s, Camb. matric. 1608, BA 1611, MA, 1615; fell. Pembroke, Camb. 1616, ord. deacon and priest 1619, BD 1622, DD 1630, incorp. MA (Oxon.) 1617. <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 24 Jan. 1675; <em>will</em> 21 Jan., pr. 20 Feb. 1675.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I 1634, to Charles II in exile.</p><p>Cur. Harston, Cambs. 1619; vic. Madingley, Cambs. 1619-24, Hambledon, Hants 1628, Bishops Waltham, Hants 1629-31; rect. Buriton with Petersfield, Hants, 1633-60 (seq. 1645); chap. to Sir Edward Barrett bef. 1625, to Richard Neile<sup>†</sup>, bp. of Winchester 1629; preb. Winchester, 1631-9, Westminster. 1639-63; dean, Rochester 1660; commr. Savoy conference 1661.</p><p>Master, Pembroke Hall 1630-44, 1660-2; v.-chan. Camb. 1632-3; gov. Charterhouse 1669.</p><p>FRS 1666.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Pembroke Camb.</p> |
<p>Benjamin Laney was an exponent of practical piety, one of the touchstones of the Restoration Church. His printed sermons suggest that he was also a powerful orator and an unashamed ecclesiastical politician, but a lack of sources makes it difficult to establish his true political and parliamentary significance. The son of a prosperous lawyer, Laney was financially comfortable, but he also spent heavily; on at least two occasions, he petitioned the king for an extended period over which to pay his first fruits.<sup>2</sup> Accounts from 1669 revealed that over the previous two years, Laney had received some £4,700 in fines and rents, and spent nearly £4,300.<sup>3</sup></p><p>By 1632 Laney had already served as vice-chancellor of Cambridge proving an energetic supporter of university privileges.<sup>4</sup> He was at the heart of the establishment during the reign of Charles I and as far as William Prynne<sup>&Dagger</sup> was concerned was one of those introduced to the university by Archbishop Laud<sup>†</sup>, of Canterbury to oversee ‘Popish innovations’ there. <sup>5</sup> He joined Gilbert Sheldon*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry Ferne*, later bishop of Chester, as Church representatives at the abortive Uxbridge treaty negotiations in January 1644 and joined Charles II in exile after being ejected from his academic post at Cambridge.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Laney’s name appeared on the planning lists drawn up before the Restoration by Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon. In July 1660 he was rewarded for his political loyalty with the deanery of Rochester followed by the see of Peterborough in the autumn. His primary visitation at Peterborough was concerned with conformity and with restoring churches to their former decorum.<sup>7</sup> In March 1661 a similar concern for conformity marked his first sermon at court. He rounded on those who resisted the counsels of the Church’s ‘shepherds’, reducing arguments for liberty of conscience to a ‘true arbitrary will-worship, instead of a lawful orderly serving of God’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Laney took his seat in the Lords at the re-admission of the bishops on 20 Nov. 1661. There is little evidence with which to illuminate his parliamentary career, but he was conscientious in his attendance and was an active member of the sessional committees for the Journal, helping to examine the Lords’ proceedings on 27 occasions (17 as bishop of Lincoln and ten as bishop of Ely). He chaired select committees in 1663 (on legislation regarding the Sabbath) and in 1667 (on the lead mines bill).</p><p>He attended this first session for 67 per cent of sittings and was present throughout the passage of the Uniformity bill. Following its passage he held a special ordination ceremony in advance of the effective date for the Act of Uniformity to allow as many clerics as possible to conform.<sup>9</sup> Trying to distance himself from the more vindictive aspects of the legislation, he informed his clergy that its stringent requirements were not of his personal doing, but the exercise of the law. He is remembered for having looked ‘through his fingers’ at Dissenters.<sup>10</sup> Sir Roger Burgoyne<sup>‡</sup> thought the bishop to be ‘sufficiently severe’ but others disagreed. When reports of lax discipline in the diocese reached Sheldon he advised Laney to use his ‘best endeavour to hinder the reign and gravity of this spreading evil’.<sup>11</sup> Laney clearly distinguished between the more conservative of the ejected ministers, but retained his hatred for the ‘vile and contemptible wretches’ who, for him, epitomized Interregnum sectarianism.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Laney attended the spring 1663 session of Parliament for nearly 97 per cent of sittings. During the session he was translated to the more lucrative see of Lincoln. Over the next four sessions Laney attended each for more than 90 per cent of sittings. Laney was translated to Ely in the spring of 1667. He attended the 1667-9 session for nearly 74 per cent of sittings, including the days on which the fate of Clarendon was debated. On 31 Jan. 1668 he received the proxy of John Hacket*, of Lichfield and Coventry (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>In the absence of evidence about what Laney actually did in Parliament his general political outlook can be gleaned from the speeches that he delivered to the king in the form of sermons. Five were brought together and published in a single volume in 1669 when proposals for a conventicles act were under discussion. They carried a consistent message against comprehension and toleration. A homily on the nature of prayer, first delivered in 1663, condemned dissenters in passing as ‘a kind of godly atheists’ who meet together ‘only to tell one another their dreams’ but reserved its real venom for those who pressed for alterations in the liturgy. Another, originally delivered in 1665, affirmed that to separate from the head of the Church was akin to treason against the state.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Laney attended the autumn 1669 session for nearly 90 per cent of sittings and the following session (1670-1) for 85 per cent. On 28 Mar. 1670, together with the majority of the bishops, he opposed the bill which would allow John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, (later 9th earl of Rutland) to remarry. In preparation for the 1670-1 session he received the proxy of Robert Creighton*, of Bath and Wells, on 7 Oct. 1670 which he held until the prorogation. Laney continued to attend Parliament regularly. He attended the February 1673 session for 53 per cent of sittings, the brief autumn 1673 session for every sitting, the January 1674 session for 32 per cent of sittings and the late spring session in 1675 for just 17 per cent.</p><p>In February 1674, in the aftermath of revelations about the conversion to Catholicism of James Stuart*, duke of York, Parliament considered another comprehension bill. Laney voted in favour of leniency over wearing a surplice or making the sign of the cross in baptism.<sup>14</sup> Yet he was still vehemently opposed to comprehension. On Palm Sunday 1674, he delivered his final highly politicized sermon at court, reminding listeners that ‘many hundreds of parishes’ were served by clergymen who earned less than a footman and declaring that comprehension would simply bring the sectaries’</p><blockquote><p>divisions into the bowels of the church, where the flame will be more fierce and dangerous, then when it burnt only without. All the benefit can be hoped for by taking away the confessions and canons, is but to secure them from punishment, but leaves them free to all other causes of dissension, or rather fortifies and animates them to pursue their differences with more violence. … It is not toleration but mastery they aim at … and when we refuse them, we do not condemn them to hell. All we say is if they will not go to heaven our way, they shall not go in our company.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 24 Jan. 1675 Laney died at Ely House in London. Six of his sermons were promptly reprinted ‘to give satisfaction in certain points to such who have thereupon endeavoured to unsettle the state and government of the Church’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>During his lifetime Laney had already contributed £3,000 to the expenses of his nephew, John Laney, but made a further bequest to him of £1,100 and left £1,000 to the rebuilding of St Paul’s and for schooling in Cambridge.</p> |
B.A. |
|
LLOYD, Hugh (1588/9-1667) |
<p><strong><surname>LLOYD</surname></strong>, <strong>Hugh</strong> (1588/9-1667)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 26 Apr. 1662 |
cons. 2 Dec. 1660 bp. of LLANDAFF |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1588/9, parents unknown; <em>educ</em>. Oriel, Oxf. matric. 1607, BA 1611, MA 1614; Jesus, Oxf. fell., BD 1624, DD 1638. <em>d.</em> 7 June 1667.</p> |
<p>Rect. St Andrew, Glam. 1617, St Nicholas, Glam. 1626, Denbigh, Mont. 1637, Hirnant, Mont. 1638, Llangattock, Brec. 1661; preb. St Davids 1644, Llandaff 1660; adn. St Davids 1644–67.</p> |
|
<p>‘A very pious, learned, charitable and primitive good man’, Hugh Lloyd was firmly rooted in the diocese of Llandaff well before the civil wars. His family background and details of his marriage are hard to verify, although it has been claimed that he was of armigerous descent. Lloyd entered Oxford as a ‘poor scholar’ and thereafter became an experienced member of the Anglican Church in Wales. He took part in the Glamorganshire ‘insurrection’ of 1647, was taken prisoner after the battle of St Fagans in 1648 and was very severely used by the Interregnum authorities.<sup>1</sup> His property in Glamorganshire was forfeited for treason in 1652; although he was allowed to retain a tenement in Eye, Herefordshire, which he claimed in right of his wife, he lost the profits of his Welsh livings.<sup>2</sup></p><p>After the Restoration, the re-establishment of the Church in Glamorganshire was in part influenced by the Welsh royalists connected with Jesus College, Oxford, where Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> was elected as principal in 1661. Despite general acceptance of the pre-war church order, many of the county’s gentry were sympathetic to the piety of moderate Presbyterians and Independents. Lloyd tried to employ the ardent royalism of the local gentry to help with the re-establishment of the Church but they were divided among themselves over the issue of Dissent: some harboured itinerant preachers, and implementation of the penal laws was sporadic and inconsistent. Lloyd’s own appointment owed much to his long-standing relationship with the diocese as well as to the desire (arising from being a Welsh-speaker himself) to secure the appointment of Welshmen able to minister to their countrymen in their own language. He instituted a pastoral regime that he considered most likely to return the people to religious orthodoxy. This involved flouting Church rules that stipulated the ordination only of graduates; only 19 of the 100 men that he ordained were graduates. His ordinands were drawn from the same close-knit rural communities that they would serve as ministers. He also appointed Welshmen to the diocesan higher clergy, taking advantage of the situation to appoint two of his own sons-in-law.<sup>3</sup></p><p>On 20 Nov. 1661 the 72-year-old Lloyd took his seat in the House of Lords. Although he attended the session for more than half of its sittings, he did not return after a final visit on 26 Apr. 1662. For the remainder of his episcopate he covered his absences by registering proxies. His proxy was most often registered with Humphrey Henchman*, successively bishop of Salisbury and London, (on 28 Apr. 1662, 2 Feb. 1663, 29 Mar. 1664, 10 Nov. 1664) but also once with Seth Ward*, of Exeter and Salisbury (from 2 Oct. 1666). Despite his absence from parliament, in the summer of 1663 he was listed as a likely opponent of the attempt by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon.</p><p>In 1662 Lloyd conducted a diocesan visitation.<sup>4</sup> The bishop’s leniency against Dissent resulted in an anonymous petition to Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, in January 1665 pleading for Sheldon’s intervention. The petitioner alleged that religion had become ‘faint’ through Lloyd’s failure to censure the ‘vicious and profane’ and through his ordination of those ‘whom none sober, religious, or loyal could approve of’. Lloyd was accused of using presentations to church livings as a way of augmenting portions for his granddaughters and kinswomen and of appointing clergymen so inclined to drunkenness that ‘the common people … know them by their rubied cheeks and studded noses as by their coats’.<sup>5</sup> Sheldon appears to have ignored the allegations; later that year, in response to a plea from the ageing bishop, Sheldon’s secretary (and Lloyd’s kinsman), Miles Smith, allowed Lloyd an additional commendam.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Lloyd died on 7 June 1667 and was buried in Llandaff cathedral, his simple epitaph stating that he had ‘dispersed abroad and given to the poor; his righteousness remaineth for ever’.</p> |
B.A. |
|
LLOYD, Humphrey (Humfrey) (1610-89) |
<p><strong><surname>LLOYD</surname></strong>, <strong>Humphrey (Humfrey)</strong> (1610–89)</p> |
|
|
First sat 12 Jan. 1674; last sat 2 July 1685 |
cons. 16 Nov. 1673 bp. of BANGOR |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1610, 3rd s. of Dr Richard Lloyd, vic. Ruabon, Denb. and Jane (<em>d.</em> c.1648), da. of Rhydderch Hughes, clergyman. <em>educ.</em> Jesus, Oxf. matric. 1628; Oriel, Oxf. BA 1630, fell. 1631, MA 1635, DD 1661. <em>m</em>. Jane, da. of John Griffith<sup>‡ </sup>of Cefnamwlch, Caern. and wid. of Edward Brereton of Borras, Denb. 4s.<sup>1</sup> 1da. (<em>d.v.p.</em>).<sup>2</sup> <em>d.</em> 18 Jan. 1689: <em>will</em> 22 Dec. 1686–9 Jan. 1689; pr. 7 Mar. 1689.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Preb. Ampleforth, York 1644, 1660–89, St Asaph 1661, Bangor 1676; vic. Ruabon, Denb. 1647 (deprived), 1660–73, Northop, Flint 1661–4, Gresford, Denb. 1673; dean St Asaph, 1663–74; adn. Bangor and Anglesey, 1673–89; rect. Llanrhaider-in-Kimmerch, Denb. 1679, Llandinam, Mont. 1683.</p> |
|
<p>Within one month of the onset of the first Civil War in 1642, Humphrey Lloyd had been imprisoned for declaring that ‘he had rather lend the king a thousand pound than one penny to the Parliament’.<sup>4</sup> He celebrated the Restoration with a flurry of petitions to the king for ecclesiastical preferment.<sup>5</sup> As a chaplain to Archbishop John Williams<sup>†</sup> of York, Lloyd had been presented to the prebend of Ampleforth in York in April 1644 but was denied installation by the advance of the Scots army. In 1660, having suffered for the royal cause, he was restored to that prebend, and the following year also given a prebend on the chapter of St Asaph. Promoted as dean of St Asaph in December 1663, he was in a position to serve the interests of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, when a legal battle broke out in 1668 between the archbishop and the newly appointed bishop of St Asaph, Henry Glemham*, over the disposal of the rectory of Whitford. Glemham had leased it to the Flintshire magnate and ardent royalist Sir Roger Mostyn<sup>‡</sup>, but the archbishop claimed that the disposal of the rectory was his, and sent his caveat protesting against the confirmation directly to Lloyd and to the chapter of St Asaph. Since the dean and chapter had not yet assembled to confirm the bishop’s act they were placed in the unenviable position of mediating between their bishop and their archbishop. During the dispute, Lloyd was in frequent and covert contact with Sheldon, who thanked him, in February 1669, for having acted with ‘justice’.<sup>6</sup> Even after Glemham’s death and his replacement by Isaac Barrow*, Lloyd was in frequent correspondence with Sheldon over the allocation of responsibility for rectifying the ‘ruinous condition’ of the cathedral between the new bishop and his dean and chapter. Responsibility for its repair remained a point of contention until Sheldon, irritated with all parties at ‘so critical a time’ in Church politics, referred the matter to the arbitration of Robert Morgan*, bishop of Bangor, and to the chancellor of Chester.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Lloyd’s reputation as a tenacious defender of the Church and his close connection with the archbishop paid dividends. On 18 Sept. 1673, after the congé d’elire had been issued for his election as bishop, Sheldon told Lloyd that he wished that the ‘dignity were in any wise equal to your worth’. On a rather more practical note, the archbishop was insistent ‘that the whole solemnity may be completed before the Parliament reassembles at what time there may be much occasion to make use of your assistance’.<sup>8</sup> On 11 Oct. 1673 Lloyd was elected bishop and later in the month received into his commendam the archdeaconries of Bangor and Anglesey, the prebend of Ampleforth in York, and the vicarage of Gresford, where the living had fallen vacant on the death of Lloyd’s brother Samuel. He received his writ of summons on 8 Jan. 1674 and took his seat in the House on 12 January. <sup>9</sup> He spent much of the spring session at Westminster, attending this, his first session for just over 80 per cent of sittings, a far more regular attendance record than at any other point in his parliamentary career. He was not present for the brief session in autumn 1675 at all, registering his proxy on 18 Oct. in favour of John Dolben*, of Rochester; it was used on 20 Nov. against addressing the king to dissolve Parliament.</p><p>Unlike some other Welsh bishops, Humphrey Lloyd seemed less concerned with serving the specific pastoral needs of his Welsh-speaking flock than with defending the rights and patrimony of the Church. He was haunted by the political past and determined to rid Wales of puritanism. As a consequence, he suspected the underlying motives for the educational initiative of the Welsh Trust, describing its main promoter, Thomas Gouge, as ‘an itinerant emissary, entrusted by the leading sectaries, to insinuate into the affections of the credulous common people (he adventures also here and there upon the weaker gentry) and covertly to draw them into a disaffection to the government and liturgy of the Church’. He was also deeply sceptical of Gouge’s attempts to raise funds for a new Welsh edition of the Bible. Recognizing that it was impossible for the bishops of Wales to discourage such a pious objective, he suggested instead that Sheldon order an edition to be prepared in Oxford, under the supervision of two Welsh-speaking ministers. Sheldon shared his concerns but insisted that ‘considering the nature of it, the design, it must receive no open discouragement from us’ and that the best strategy was not to oppose it but to take steps ‘to secure the publication from any gross faults’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>After Sheldon’s death in 1677, Lloyd’s familiar communications with Lambeth assumed a more formal character under his new metropolitan, William Sancroft*. He attended just a quarter of all sittings in the autumn 1677 session and on 7 Jan. 1678 again registered his proxy in favour of John Dolben. Attending the winter 1678 session for 45 per cent of sittings, on 27 Dec. 1678 he voted against the committal of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, and on 10 May 1679 against the appointment of a joint committee with the Commons to consider a method of proceeding against the impeached lords. He did not attend the first session of the Exclusion Parliament but came up for the ten-week session from March to May 1679, attending 48 per cent of sittings.</p><p>On 30 Oct. 1680, shortly after the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament, Lloyd was recorded at a call of the House as travelling to London. He subsequently attended for nearly 30 per cent of sittings. He did not travel to Oxford for the brief Parliament in March 1681. In October 1682 he petitioned on behalf of his son Francis for the rectory of Llandwrnog, but met with objections from Sancroft, who had been told that the rectory was customarily held in commendam with the bishopric. Lloyd, who somewhat waspishly described Sancroft’s informant as ‘some one who thinks good to reach beyond his line into another man’s concerns’ responded with a long letter listing the incumbents of the rectory over the past 80 years in an attempt to establish the contrary.<sup>11</sup> He was rather more intemperate in a letter to Sir Richard Lloyd<sup>‡</sup> in which he insisted that he would dispose of his own as he thought fit. Sancroft did eventually agree to the appointment of Lloyd’s son, but he clearly had a low opinion of Lloyd and was anxious to improve diocesan revenues for the benefit of Lloyd’s successors, rather than for Lloyd himself. In response, in May 1683 Lloyd suggested that another rectory, Llandinam, be annexed to the bishopric so that the revenue could be used to maintain the cathedral, and that at Lloyd’s death the rectory of Llanrhaider (which he held in commendam) should also be annexed to the bishopric. Although it seems that Sancroft approved the project concerning Llandinam, it was not as easy to accomplish as Lloyd thought. After two reminders, he wrote again in September 1683 insisting that, despite the precedent of a similar appropriation in St Asaph having been achieved by legislation, ‘the patron, and the bishop and the king confirming are able to make a good appropriation in law’.<sup>12</sup> Approached for advice, William Lloyd*, bishop of Peterborough, told Sancroft in December that appropriating a rectory to the bishopric could be achieved by the bishop petitioning the crown:</p><blockquote><p>When his Majesty grants this petition and signs it, and your Grace also as Archbishop of Canterbury and privy councillor and this act be entered in the Council Book I think there is no question but it will avail until there be a Parliament and then this act of Council may be (with little or no charge) tacked upon an Act of Parliament. By this short and safe way, the King[’s] hand is tied up from disposing of the sine cura otherwise and your Grace also to whom it may fall by option, lapse or otherwise, and the Bishop and his successors will be tied up by their own act and deed and that will be a considerable advantage to them.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>In March 1684 Humphrey Lloyd was informed that Sancroft’s right to present to Llandinam was about to expire and that steps had to be taken to protect the archbishop’s interest. Lloyd then had to confess that (for fear as he claimed of just such an eventuality) he had actually presented himself to Llandinam the previous September, just before the right of presentation passed to Sancroft. He had done so privately in the presence of his son and nephews only. With a grovelling apology he requested Sancroft’s absolution, insisting that ‘whether I have done foolishly or not, we have gained thereby some longer time to consider what your Grace shall think expedient in this case’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Only the previous year Lloyd had been highly commended by the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, for his wisdom and pious judgment in the disposal of preferments and Jenkins had promised ‘to watch a moment to lay it before the king and to put it as a pattern into the hands of the Lords for Ecclesiastical Preferments, hoping they will find opportunities to do the Church advantages by it’.<sup>15</sup> Now Lloyd found himself dealing with an angry archbishop who took a very different view, and who regarded Lloyd’s actions as an open insult, seeing ‘plainly … how little consideration you had of me, or your see, when flesh and blood stood on the other side, and that you were resolved to put your son into that rectory’. Sancroft insisted that the annexation of Llandinam to the cathedral (‘you mean I suppose the dean and chapter’) required an act of Parliament,</p><blockquote>For ’tis one thing to annex a benefice within the bishop’s patronage to the bishopric itself for ever, and quite another to alienate it from the bishopric and settle it upon another corporation. For neither can you grant it away, nor they receive it without an Act of Parliament … And that I suppose, might put you upon the design of turning Llandinam upon the dean and chapter (though still to your own use) because you were not capable of it yourself without quitting something else. For you hold already with the bishopric (as I understand) the vicarage of Gresford, the prebend of Ampleford your three archdeaconries and the sine cura of Llan-Rhaider and for ought I know, something else, though your commendam itself (monstrously large as it is) limits you to hold with your bishopric only two benefices with cure and 2 without cure. Or (not And) 2 dignities … That clancular action before your own children only discovers how mean an opinion you have of me and that you were so unkind as to interpret that the slow proceedings in your proposal (which yet was not practicable) had been with design to bring Llandinam into his own dispose by lapse, or at least, that you durst not trust me, though I had sent you word that I would not take that advantage. <sup>16</sup></blockquote><p>In his defence, Lloyd attributed his large commendam to the benevolence of his friend Sheldon, to whom ‘he had the happiness to be long known’ since his youth in Oxford, and insisted that he would never ‘make a pretence of piety’ to cloak personal greed.<sup>17</sup></p><p>James II’s decision to call a Parliament in 1685 gave Lloyd and Sancroft an opportunity to regularize the situation. Lloyd attended the House regularly (nearly 63 per cent of sittings), not least to oversee the passage of the Act for the repair of the Cathedral Church of Bangor. He was in the House for each sitting when the bill was discussed. From its first and second readings in the Lords on 22 and 23 June 1685, it passed speedily through its committee stage, was reported from committee by Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and was subsequently returned unaltered from the Commons by Sir Richard Lloyd, who had provided the legal advice on which Sancroft had relied during his correspondence with the bishop and who had steered the bill through the Commons.<sup>18</sup> Its speedy course through Parliament suggested that there was little opposition, but the circulation of a printed paper objecting to the bill and a response in its support indicates that, within his own diocese, Humphrey Lloyd’s motives and actions were not perceived as wholly altruistic.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Lloyd’s last visit to the Lords coincided with the bill receiving the royal assent on 2 July 1685. His health was now failing. He returned to Gresford, claiming to be too frail to complete the financial enquiries that were necessary for the act to take effect. In September 1685, Sancroft and Lloyd finally attached their respective seals to the instrument which would make the act effective.<sup>20</sup> When Lloyd returned the instrument to Lambeth in October, he excused himself from further parliamentary attendance on the grounds of age and illness and claimed that he had sent his proxy to his friends William Lloyd, formerly of Peterborough, now bishop of Norwich, and William Lloyd*, of St Asaph, ‘persons trusty and well devoted to his Majesty’s and the Church’s service’.<sup>21</sup> The Lords’ proxy book records that it was registered on 5 Nov. 1685 to Lloyd of Norwich.</p><p>In March 1686 Lloyd of St Asaph was already making recommendations for a successor at Bangor, expecting that the see would soon be vacant; a month later he reported that the bishop of Bangor was ‘again about the house, though very feeble’ and increasingly anxious about letting Bangor House in Holborn, a concern that was not entirely without self-interest: ‘He is very solicitous’ reported St Asaph, ‘to know that he may do to improve the bishopric for his successors by letting Bangor-House, and yet not to lose the fine he might have had before the passing of the Act that enables him to let for 40 years’. As St Asaph pointed out, gratifying Humphrey Lloyd in this point would be beneficial as the act gave Lloyd of Bangor personal powers to make a building lease for Bangor House, and those powers – and ‘all the benefit of the act’ – would die with him.<sup>22</sup> Frail as he was, Humphrey Lloyd still managed to outmanoeuvre his archbishop. By July 1686 he had taken full advantage of his power and had let Bangor House on a building lease for 40 years at no more than the old rent. His own son benefited to the tune of £300. St Asaph was shocked at what was essentially sharp practice on Lloyd of Bangor’s part but was cautiously hopeful that it was ‘so plain an abuse of the power that was given him by the Act … that the next bishop may make it void at the next sitting of a Parliament, and then in all probability he will have the ground ready built upon fall into his hands’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Expectations of Humphrey Lloyd’s imminent death proved to be misplaced. In December 1686 he was still managing the diocese, notwithstanding a ‘great weakness and dimness of … sight’.<sup>24</sup> Nor did his enthusiasm for the Anglican polity diminish. Predictably, in 1687 he was listed as a probable opponent of the repeal of the Test and as an opponent to the religious policies of James II. By that time he had become blind and was unable to perform most of his episcopal duties without support.<sup>25</sup> He eventually died ‘after a very tedious sickness’ on 18 Jan. 1689 and two days after the return to the Convention of his step-son, Edward Brereton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>26</sup> He bequeathed over £1,000 in cash legacies to his sons, to numerous other family members, and to the poor of seven parishes. He was buried in the grave of his predecessor, Henry Rowlands<sup>†</sup>, in Bangor cathedral.<sup>27</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
LLOYD, John (1642-87) |
<p><strong><surname>LLOYD</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1642–87)</p> |
|
|
Never sat. |
cons. 17 Oct. 1686 bp. of ST DAVIDS |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1642, s. of Morgan Lloyd of Pendine, Carm. <em>educ.</em> Merton, Oxf. matric. 1657, BA 1659; Jesus, Oxf. fell. 1662, MA 1662, BD 1670, DD 1674. <em>unm</em>. <em>d.</em> 13 Feb. 1687; <em>will</em> 12 Feb., pr. 3 Mar. 1687.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Llan-dawg, Carm. 1668–87, Llangwm, Pemb. 1671, Burton, Pemb. 1672–87; precentor, Llandaff 9 Apr. 1672; treas. Llandaff 1679.</p><p>Principal, Jesus, Oxf. 1673–87; v.-chan. Oxf. 1682–5.</p> |
|
<p>Nominated to the see of St Davids by James II, John Lloyd was bishop for too brief a period to take his seat in the Lords and it is doubtful that he ever visited his bishopric. He was a graduate of Jesus College, Oxford, where he succeeded his friend Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> as college principal in 1673. He became a prominent figure in Oxford politics after the exclusion crisis and was one of seven senior academics chosen to replace four aldermen on the commission of the peace for the university and city in February 1682.<sup>2</sup> In the autumn of 1682 he was elected university vice-chancellor. Once installed, he was a tireless supporter of his chancellor, James Butler*, earl of Brecknock and duke of Ormond, in their joint imposition on Oxford of ‘rampant’ Toryism.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Lloyd’s political strategy involved constant communication with Secretary Jenkins and the tireless promotion of loyal Tory views. The king approved ‘very well’ of Lloyd’s ‘courage’ in his dealings with discordant voices in Oxford, advising him to be watchful and ‘to have a strict eye on all the cabals and secret meetings of the disaffected’.<sup>4</sup> After the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683 and the university’s celebrated decree against ‘impious, seditious, rebellious and atheistical principles’, Lloyd informed Ormond that the decree and symbolic burning of unorthodox books had affirmed the institution’s tradition of loyalty.<sup>5</sup> When the city of Oxford surrendered its charter in early 1684, Lloyd joined Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, and John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, in maintaining the rights of the university against an often hostile town.</p><p>On the accession of James II, Lloyd demonstrated his continuing support for the government by nominating Secretary Jenkins and Charles Perrot<sup>‡</sup> to serve as the university’s Members for a third term. Both men were chosen without opposition. In the wake of the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, Lloyd willingly contributed university forces to serve under Abingdon; as a reward, in March 1686 James II nominated his pliant supporter to the see of St Davids.<sup>6</sup></p><p>There was no parliamentary session during Lloyd’s brief tenure of the see and by 17 Jan. 1687 his health was failing. He informed William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, that he was ‘so very weak as hardly to be able to walk cross my room’.<sup>7</sup> He died on 13 Feb. 1687. Two days later he was buried in Jesus College chapel, next to his old ally, Sir Leoline Jenkins.<sup>8</sup> Lloyd’s brief will, written the day before his death, bequeathed £100 to his college and the remainder of his estate, including lands in Montgomeryshire and Carmarthenshire, to two Jesus scholars, William Bevan and John Laugharne<sup>‡</sup>. While his politics may have endeared him to the king and his Tory supporters, Anthony Wood dismissed him as ‘a bibing fellow … pedantical … of little or no behaviour’ and reported that Lloyd’s Convocation speech in 1685 was marred by sloppy Latin.<sup>9</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
LLOYD, William (1627-1717) |
<p><strong><surname>LLOYD</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1627–1717)</p> |
|
|
First sat 21 Oct. 1680; last sat 6 June 1712 |
cons. 3 Oct. 1680 bp. of ST ASAPH; transl. 20 Oct. 1692 bp. of LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY; transl. 22 June 1699 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Aug. 1627, s. of Richard Lloyd (1595-1659), rect. of Tilehurst and vic. of Sonning, Berks and Joan Wicken. <em>educ</em>. Oriel, Oxf., matric. 1639; Jesus, Oxf., BA 1642, MA 1646, BD 1667, DD 1667; Camb. incorp. 1660; ord. deacon 1648, priest 1656. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1650 ‘Mrs Cheney’ (<em>d</em>.1654), <em>s.p</em>. (2) 3 Dec. 1668, Anne (1646-1719), da. of Dr Walter Jones, preb. Westminster; 1s. 1da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 30 Aug. 1717. <em>will</em> 31 May-7 June 1711, pr. 17 Sept. 1717.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. in ord. to Charles II 1666-80; chap. to Mary, princess of Orange, 1677-8; lord almoner 1689-1702.</p><p>Rect. Bradfield, Berks. 1653-4, Llandudno, Caern. 1668, Eastyn or Queenhope, Flints. 1685, Llanymynech, Salop. 1685, Llanarmon-in-Yale, Denbigh 1686, Whitford, Flints. 1686, Bangor Monachorum, Flints. 1690, Marchweil, Denbigh 1691; preb. Ripon 1660-80, Salisbury 1667-80, Llandaff 1679; vic. St Mary’s Reading, Berks. 1668-76, Llan-fawr, Merioneth 1668, St Martin-in-the-Fields 1676-80, Llanefydd 1680; adn. Merioneth 1668-72; dean Bangor 1672-80; canon residentiary Salisbury 1674-80.</p><p>Tutor to children of William Backhouse, alchemist and antiquary of Swallowfield, Berks., c.1648-51, 1656-9;<sup>3</sup> commr. review of the liturgy 1689,<sup>4</sup> Church in Ireland 1690,<sup>5</sup> London hospitals 1691,<sup>6</sup> eccles. appointments 1695, 1699,<sup>7</sup> 1700,<sup>8</sup> rebuilding St Paul’s 1702,<sup>9</sup> Q. Anne’s Bounty, bef. 1705;<sup>10</sup> founder mbr. SPG 1701.<sup>11</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving, by David Loggan, c.1680, NPG 633; oil on canvas by unknown artist, 1699, Lambeth Palace; line engraving by G. Vertue after F. Weideman, 1714, NPG D30889.</p> |
<h2><em>Lloyd’s public life, 1660-85</em></h2><p>William Lloyd, dubbed ‘Old Mysterio’ in Tory satire, because of his interest in interpreting biblical prophesies, is easily confused with his namesake and contemporary in the episcopate, the non-juror William Lloyd*, successively bishop of Llandaff, Peterborough and Norwich, although politically the two men were poles apart.<sup>12</sup> The William Lloyd who is the subject of this biography was the son of a royalist vicar, said to have been imprisoned ‘four or five times’ between 1644 and 1659. According to his friend Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, Lloyd had been ‘formed’ by John Wilkins*, later bishop of Chester, who he had perhaps come across when he accompanied his charge, John Backhouse, to Wadham in 1650. He preached Wilkins’s funeral sermon in 1672, and became involved in his project of a universal philosophical language. Burnet praised his learning and his immense application to it: ‘he was so exact in everything he set about, that he never gave over any part of study, until he had mastered it’. <sup>13</sup><sup>14</sup> He spent the Interregnum as a tutor in the Backhouse family and as the incumbent of a Berkshire living, accepted by the puritan authorities, though he received episcopal ordination from Ralph Browning<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Exeter in 1656. In 1659, according to Anthony Wood, Lloyd took part in ‘a piece of waggery’ that involved disguising a London merchant as a Greek Orthodox patriarch and encouraging the gullible of Oxford to do reverence to him. The joke earned him a temporary suspension and the disapproval of Presbyterians.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Lloyd’s career flourished after the Restoration, though it is not quite clear why: he was a prebend in Ripon from 1660, royal chaplain in 1666, a vicar in Reading by 1666, a series of Welsh benefices from 1668. He may have been assisted by his marriage, on 3 Dec. 1668, to the daughter of a canon of Westminster, as well as by his friendship with his cousin Robert Morgan*, bishop of Bangor. In April 1673, when Morgan was contemplating his own death, he recommended Lloyd as his successor at Bangor.<sup>16</sup> On that occasion Lloyd was passed over, but during the 1670s, he became increasingly well-known at court through his sermons.<sup>17</sup> His court connections were probably enhanced by the marriage in 1670 of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, to Flower Backhouse. Lloyd had been tutor in the Backhouse household, and may have had closer ties with the family as one of his sisters was married to a Mr Backhouse. Burnet recalled a story about the origin of the Great Fire of London in 1666 together with the countess of Clarendon, about events on estates that belonged to her. Lloyd’s closeness to Clarendon seems to have been well known.<sup>18</sup></p><p>In 1677 Lloyd published a proposal to sow divisions among English Catholics by allowing them toleration if they renounced both the pope’s infallibility and deposing power.<sup>19</sup> It may have earned the favour of James Stuart*, duke of York, because of Lloyd’s rejection of ‘impertinent and extravagant, false and wild notions of popery’, and his openness to the idea of toleration; some opponents of Catholicism, however, feared that ‘all this was intended only to take off so much from the apprehensions that the nation had of popery’.<sup>20</sup> Lloyd was instituted to the large and prestigious London parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields in December 1676. During his tenure there he became embroiled in a dispute with Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles, and his son Francis Holles*, 2nd Baron Holles, over their claim to exclusive access to a chancel pew. Lloyd insisted on keeping ‘all the chancel seats free for the use of them that come to serve God, and not to take any rent, nor to suffer anything to be paid but what people were pleased to give freely to the chancel keeper for his attendance which is all that he has for keeping the place clean and decent’.<sup>21</sup> In 1677 he was sent to Holland with Mary, princess of Orange ‘to settle her chapel’.<sup>22</sup> He was instrumental in securing the installation of another brother-in-law, Jonathan Blagrave, as chaplain at The Hague, an appointment that facilitated his communications with the Dutch court.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the magistrate who died in suspicious circumstances in October 1678, was one of Lloyd’s parishioners and it was Lloyd who delivered the uncompromisingly anti-Catholic sermon at his funeral on 31 Oct. 1678. Believing that Godfrey had been murdered, he declared that ‘The innocent blood speaks and cries in the ears of God… it speaks and cries aloud to him for vengeance’. He pinned responsibility for his death firmly on the Jesuits.<sup>24</sup> Six days later, Lloyd was again in the pulpit for the customary anti-Catholic festival of 5 Nov. and delivered another sermon contrasting the errors of Rome with the true apostolical Church of England.<sup>25</sup> Lloyd viewed the body, and persuaded the king that Godfrey had indeed been murdered, rather than had committed suicide.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>St Asaph, 1680-92</em></h2><p>In January 1679 Lloyd was entrusted by the Privy Council’s committee of examinations with questioning Miles Prance, whose evidence subsequently convicted Berry, Green and Hill of Godfrey’s murder.<sup>27</sup> In March 1679 he was granted a prebend of Llandaff, an appointment widely perceived as political reward for services rendered during the Popish Plot. Further evidence of his employment as a court agent came in August 1680 when, already bishop elect of St Asaph, he was commissioned by the secretary of state to spy (with full expenses for informers) against political subversives in Reading.<sup>28</sup> It has been suggested that Lloyd’s elevation to St Asaph in the autumn of 1680 was a reward for protecting the court from embarrassing information contained in the various confessions extracted during the plot.<sup>29</sup></p><p>On 21 Oct. 1680, Lloyd took his seat on the first day of the second Exclusion Parliament to begin a parliamentary career that spanned more than three decades. In his first session, he attended 62 per cent of sittings, was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions and to six select committees. Ordered to preach before the Lords on 5 Nov. 1680, his sermon defended his earlier advocacy of a scheme for a modified toleration of Catholicism, claiming that he had formulated his thoughts long before the Popish Plot demonstrated how far matters had degenerated into ‘such a dangerous crisis’.<sup>30</sup> On 11 Nov., Lloyd warned William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, that letters from Flanders to the archbishop and to Henry Compton*, of London, may have been intercepted ‘and made use of for ill purposes’, though there is no indication of just why the letters might be deemed sensitive.<sup>31</sup> During the autumn Lloyd approached the Presbyterian John Howe to discuss comprehension proposals. The two men subsequently met at the house of John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury. They agreed on a further meeting on 15 Nov., this time at the home of Edward Stillingfleet*, the future bishop of Worcester. Stillingfleet provided ‘a very handsome treat’ but Lloyd did not turn up. He may have been detained in Parliament where that very day he voted to reject the Exclusion Bill, but Howe recorded that they waited for several hours ‘till near ten a clock; but the bishop neither came, nor sent, nor took any notice of the matter afterwards’.<sup>32</sup> On 23 Nov. 1680, he also voted against the appointment of a committee to consider, in conjunction with the Commons, the state of the kingdom. He was in the House for much of the trial of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, though in accordance with the convention established during the impeachment of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, he did not vote. Nor did he testify, although he knew the prosecution witness Edward Turberville and might have been able to discredit him, having been told by Turberville that he had no knowledge of Catholic plots. He is said to have consulted widely before deciding to remain silent, perhaps aware that Turberville’s denials would not necessarily invalidate Turberville’s testimony, although Burnet thought it was simply because Lloyd was too frightened. Because his <em>Considerations Touching the True Way to Suppress Popery</em> had been interpreted as a pro-Catholic tract ‘it was not thought fit, nor indeed safe, for him to declare what he knew concerning Turberville’.<sup>33</sup> As required, in the early months of 1681 Lloyd forwarded testimonies on oath from the potentially seditious in Reading.<sup>34</sup> He did not attend the Oxford Parliament in March 1681, but helped to buttress the government’s position after the dissolution by publishing against resistance.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Lloyd took up residence at St Asaph in May 1681. With North Wales dominated by politically powerful men such as George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, and Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort), Lloyd spent the early years in the diocese concentrating largely (and intensively) on ecclesiastical affairs. Related to, or on friendly terms with many in the Welsh establishment, he instituted a reform programme which included the recovery of church patrimony and the dissemination of devotional texts in the Welsh language, holding weekly communion, and seeking to raise standards of everyday behaviour.<sup>36</sup> He did not heed the proscription against ordaining non-graduates, explaining in 1686 that</p><blockquote><p>We have a great many more cure of souls than we have graduates in this country and most of the people understanding nothing but Welsh, we cannot supply the cures with any other but Welshmen. But yet of those whom I have ordained, the graduates have not been always the best scholars. I have more than once seen them shamefully outdone by men that never saw the university.<sup>37</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite close involvement in diocesan affairs, Lloyd retained a high profile in London. In June 1682 he was appointed as one of the councillors to review the Hyde-Emerton affair, a dispute arising from Danby’s attempt to secure a politically and financially advantageous marriage for his son (Peregrine Osborne*, then styled Viscount Dunblane, later 2nd duke of Leeds) even though the prospective bride, Bridget Hyde, was already married. Lloyd was clearly unwilling to become too deeply involved in so contentious an affair. He seems to have been absent at a meeting of the court of delegates on 15 July called to judge the validity of Bridget Hyde’s first marriage. Although Danby, who wanted the first marriage overturned, was informed that Lloyd was ‘steady in his judgment’ of the affair on 20 July, it was apparent by October that he intended to abstain by refusing to attend to give sentence. Danby wrote scornfully that his excuse ‘that his obligations... kept him from coming to discharge a better conscience here, in keeping a woman from misery’ was transparently inadequate. In response Lloyd wrote a long and carefully reasoned letter insisting that he would not attend unless ordered to do so by the king and that although he had initially been willing to give a verdict in Danby’s favour he had since come to doubt Bridget Hyde’s testimony. Danby, imprisoned in the Tower, still had influence at court, and on 14 Nov. Lloyd learned from Edward Conway*, earl of Conway, that the king commanded his attendance. Up until that point he had kept his doubts between himself and the Osbornes, but he now openly told Conway that ‘I cannot satisfy my judgment in delivering any opinion in this cause’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>In October 1682 he gave Sancroft the names of several persons who preached without orders in neighbouring dioceses, crowing that his own was ‘wholly clear from that sort of vermin’. The desire to avoid unwelcome publicity evident in his attitude to the Hyde-Emerton affair seems to have been reflected in his initial implementation of the policies of the ‘Tory reaction’ in his diocese. In December 1682 he asked Sancroft to secure the support of Jeffreys (whose nephew was high sheriff) and of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, in order to suppress a conventicle in Wrexham – but insisted his part in the request be kept secret. What was not to be kept secret was his offer of the vicarage of Wrexham to Jeffreys’ brother. He wanted Sancroft to tell Jeffreys that Lloyd considered him ‘an excellent judge and particularly very zealous for the Church’.<sup>39</sup> In January 1683 he referred to the ‘heat’ of his visitation but after the discovery of the Rye House Plot later that year he became far more strident in his directions to the clergy to seek out the perpetrators of the ‘wicked and dangerous conspiracy of atheists and fanatics’ and he drew up more effective guidelines for implementing excommunication.<sup>40</sup> At the time of the Seven Bishops’ trial in 1688, Roger Morrice noted that although the bishops claimed that they had never prosecuted nonconformists and had always sought Protestant unity in the face of against popery, ‘it is false, for they had all countenanced it, and some of them had been actually engaged in it, as particularly the bishop of St Asaph, though he saith he did not prosecute Dissenters, but only kept them under instruction. Which by the common law they might, but his instruction was very severe discipline’</p><p>Lloyd expected Sancroft to intervene in his diocesan dispute over the rectory of Llangollen by leaning on the judge ‘not for favour but for patience and attention’.<sup>41</sup> Lloyd continued with his antiquarian studies, publishing in 1684 his <em>Historical Account of Church-Government</em> and sparking a dispute with the lord advocate Sir George Mackenzie for appearing to minimise the importance of the Scottish monarchy and thereby having ‘done episcopacy much wrong here’. Lloyd’s friend Stillingfleet pitched in to support Lloyd’s erastian principles in which the Church was subordinated to the secular mechanisms of the state.<sup>42</sup> Lloyd’s namesake Lloyd of Peterborough, would fulminate in May 1685 about how, if Stillingfleet’s anticipated election as prolocutor of Convocation caused were blocked it might give him ‘an occasion to make himself very popular and suggest that the king or the Bishops or both, do begin to show their displeasure against the champion of the Church of England as he was lately called, and no doubt but many will make sinister interpretations of the case’. Lloyd suggested bitterly that the bishop of St Asaph, as Stillingfleet’s ‘great chum’, was suggested as someone who should tackle Stillingfleet to ask him ‘by what authority he took to barter away the rights and discipline of the established Church’.<sup>43</sup></p><h2><em>James II and the fate of the Church 1685-92</em></h2><p>On 19 May 1685, Lloyd arrived at the House on the third day of James II’s new Parliament. He attended the session for 78 per cent of sittings, was named to the three sessional committees, and to three select committees, including the Bangor Cathedral bill in which, as a former dean of Bangor, he had a personal interest. On 18 Oct. 1685 Humphrey Lloyd*, the ailing bishop of Bangor, sent his proxy to both the two William Lloyds. The proxy was eventually registered in favour of Lloyd of Norwich. Lloyd of St Asaph was in the House on 20 Nov. 1685 for the prorogation. By December, he was ‘mustering all the North Wales gentry’ to receive his friend the earl of Clarendon on the latter’s way to Ireland.<sup>44</sup> In March 1686 he reminded Sancroft that Humphrey Lloyd was in poor health and suggested that he would soon be dead. The prediction was premature – Lloyd of Bangor did not die until 1689 – but he nevertheless provided Sancroft with a list of potential successors, including Jeffreys’ brother.<sup>45</sup> Lloyd of St Asaph’s correspondence with Sancroft during this period reflects a regional rather than purely diocesan role within the Church.</p><p>Lloyd’s role in the investigation of the Popish Plot exposed him to potential censure in the reign of James II. In a letter that can be dated by internal evidence to the second half of 1685, Samuel Parker*, the future bishop of Oxford, maintained that</p><blockquote><p>the plot had never come to anything without Godfrey’s murder, nor Godfrey’s murder without Prance’s evidence, nor Prance’s evidence without the bishop of St Asaph, who (like a good divine) with infinite pains reduced him back to his first perjury to save his life, after he had abjured it to save his soul.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lloyd, continued Parker, was now ‘president of a trimming cabal of London divines ... a leading man in all the episcopal consults’. By the spring of 1686 Sir Roger L’Estrange<sup>‡</sup> was investigating the evidence for the Popish Plot, with a clear view to discrediting it. Lloyd found that conduct that had once enhanced his reputation now put him under a cloud. In April 1686 he told Sancroft that in reply to queries from L’Estrange,</p><blockquote><p>I frankly told him concerning that gentleman’s death I am still of the same opinion that I was when I preached at his funeral. I confess I am not able to answer the arguments that I used then, nor I have not yet seen anything to alter my opinion, but the information of Oates, Bedloe and Prance which I could never reconcile with what I knew of that story. And their tales, when I durst not contradict, I did never countenance or encourage.<sup>47</sup></p></blockquote><p>He was also concerned about a rumour alleged to be current amongst the Catholics in his diocese about his role in supporting Oates during his imprisonment. Sancroft replied that ‘those that love you here, have been lately much concern’d for you’ as there was a report that Lloyd had been summoned to London to answer questions following Prance’s retraction of his confession.<sup>48</sup> Lloyd’s continuing belief that Godfrey had been murdered by Jesuits did not get mentioned in L’Estrange’s subsequent account; his doubts about Prance did.<sup>49</sup></p><p>In an undated letter that presumably belongs to the reign of James II, Lloyd reported that one of his sermons damning Catholicism had clearly had an effect on at least ‘one face in the church’, alerting him to the existence of a spy in the congregation and the likelihood of a hostile report to the magistrate.<sup>50</sup> Lloyd continued to correspond with Sancroft, bemoaning the fate of the ‘poor Church’, and continuing his by now customary barrage of recommendations for ecclesiastical preferments. In October 1686 he told Sancroft that ‘I am well assured that in these six counties there are not six persons fewer in the communion of our Church than there were in the beginning of his majesty’s reign’ and ‘all seem to be very sensible of the great blessing we have in our primate’.<sup>51</sup> Anxious to curry favour with Lord Jeffreys, as well as to protect the interests of the Church, when he suspected in November that the death of Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, would shortly create a vacancy, he wrote to Sancroft to</p><blockquote><p>make bold to put you in mind of Dr Jeffreys, whom probably his brother would not be the first to propose to HM, but if he were proposed by my lord treasurer [Rochester] or some other that would do it at your Grace’s request, he would drive the nail home, and not only shut that door against such a one as we have reason to fear may come in that way, but secure as such a bishop will be a blessing to the Church.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ward survived till January 1689, but the influence of the Jeffreys family was still worth cultivating. In January 1687 when the vicarage of Wrexham became available Lloyd told Sancroft that there were ‘near 20 Papists and many more other separatists in that parish’, and ‘because it is the place where my lord chancellor was born, whose good influence may do much in that parish I writ to his brother, Dr Jeffreys to advise me how to dispose of it’. That same month he told Sancroft that he was suffering from tinnitus.<sup>53</sup> He also became involved in discussions with nonconformists to foster Protestant unity, arranging to meet the ejected minister William Bate at the house of Nicholas Stratford*, then vicar of St Mary, Aldermanbury, and later bishop of Chester, in or about late November.<sup>54</sup></p><p>The various lists compiled during 1687-8 make it clear that Lloyd opposed the religious policies of James II. He was unhappy, too, about the king’s most recent episcopal appointees including the unpopular Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, ‘a man of very great brows’ who, Lloyd claimed, had a history of financial sharp practice.<sup>55</sup> In December, whilst on a visit to Oxford, Lloyd reported anxiously that the university press was under threat.<sup>56</sup> The following year he became involved in a heated pamphlet dispute with Samuel Parker (another of James II’s episcopal appointees) over the abrogation of the Test. Parker claimed that the Test eroded privilege of peerage: Lloyd, responding swiftly (but anonymously, as ‘a person of quality’) to the ‘amphibious-ambidextrous bishop’, asserted that the Test merely suspended rather than removed the right to vote in the House, much as minority did. He reserved most of his venom for Parker’s attempted ‘palliation of the most irreconcilable points of the popish religion’ and described Parker’s arguments as ‘lies and sophistry’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Lloyd vehemently opposed the two Declarations of Indulgence and on 12 May 1688, when some of the bishops in London met at Lambeth and decided to refuse to read the second Declaration and to petition the king against doing so, it was also agreed ‘to get as many bishops to town as were within reach’, one of whom was Lloyd of St Asaph. Four days later he was in London and joining in discussions over strategy with his friend Clarendon and the other bishops before signing the Seven Bishops’ petition on 18 May 1688 and presenting it to the king, who, he told Clarendon (with whom he was staying) was ‘angry, and said he did not expect such a petition from them’.<sup>58</sup> With the other original signatories, he was summoned to appear before the Privy Council on 8 June 1688 where he asserted that ‘no subject was bound to accuse himself’.<sup>59</sup> After the trial and acquittal of the Seven Bishops Lloyd returned to his diocese, but he continued to support Sancroft in the fight against the king’s religious policies.<sup>60</sup> He composed a list ‘of things to be insisted upon by the b[isho]ps in their address to the clergy and people of their respective dioceses’ which included the need to be on guard against ‘Romish emissaries like the old serpent’ and to encourage the recovery of protestant nonconformists to the Church of England’.<sup>61</sup> By September 1688, in anticipation of fresh parliamentary elections, he was using his visitation ‘to frustrate the king’s purposes in having equal members elected to Parliament in North Wales’.<sup>62</sup> Nevertheless, when approached by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, with an ostensibly hypothetical question about whether it was possible ‘in conscience’ to break the law in order forcibly to oppose a ‘manifest design of destroying our religious and civil rights and liberties’, he advised against it. Nottingham declined any role in inviting William of Orange to come to the nation’s assistance.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Although there were reports that Lloyd was present during the September meetings between bishops and the king and that he signed the bishops’ ‘ten advices’ that were presented to the king on 3 Oct. 1688, it is unlikely that this is accurate; he is not named in the list of those summoned to meet the king (although his namesake, Lloyd of Norwich, was) and the entry for 7 Oct. in Clarendon’s diary specifically states that Lloyd ‘came to town last night’ and that he ‘was very well pleased he was not here, for he had no mind to go to the king’.<sup>64</sup> Lloyd was also absent from the meeting on 6 Nov. when the king called upon the bishops to declare that they had had no hand in the invitation to William of Orange.<sup>65</sup> On the evening of 8 Nov. he and Lloyd of Norwich accepted a suggestion from Rochester and Clarendon that they involve Sancroft in pushing for an address from the lords spiritual and temporal to the king to summon Parliament. Sancroft quickly approved the idea and the two Lloyds then began to canvas other members of the House. Though the scheme split the temporal nobility, a petition was presented to the king on 17 November.<sup>66</sup> On 27 Nov. 1688, Lloyd attended Whitehall in response to the king’s summons where the king informed the assembled lords that they faced an invasion ‘tending to the ruin of all that was dear to him and them’.<sup>67</sup> On 11 Dec. 1688, after the king’s first flight, he signed the declaration to William of Orange.<sup>68</sup> On 13 Dec., though not one of those sent to take the declaration to the prince, he was with those who were at Henley, where they met William. When he returned to London the following day, he stayed with William’s greatest clerical supporter, Gilbert Burnet. At dinner on Sunday 16th with both of them, Clarendon was shocked to hear Lloyd say that ‘the king by going away had made a cession’. Clarendon concluded, sadly that Lloyd had been ‘poisoned’ by Burnet, and ‘was not the same man I left him at Henley’.<sup>69</sup> Even at this early date it is clear that Lloyd’s sympathies were entirely with the Orange cause.</p><p>On 17 Dec. 1688, presumably exploiting his connections with the Dutch court, he was acting as an intermediary in order to arrange a time when the bishops might pay their duty to William of Orange, which they did the following day. Although he had assured Simon Patrick*, the future bishop of Ely, and Thomas Tenison*, later archbishop of Canterbury, that Sancroft agreed with this course of action and would go with them, in the event he did not.<sup>70</sup> On 17 Dec. he wrote to Prince William at Syon House, reporting on a conversation with Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, who had told him that the king was now prepared ‘to make large concessions’ and that had assured him the king was even prepared ‘to be reduced to the state of a duke of Venice, committing all the power of war and peace, and of making all officers, ecclesiastical and civil, to the Prince for his life-time’. Lloyd considered such an arrangement was unsafe and had pressed Turner to propose to James ‘the other way of cession’—presumably abdication.<sup>71</sup> On 21 Dec. 1688 Lloyd attended the assembly that met William in the queen’s presence chamber and the following day joined the ‘provisional government’ meeting in the House of Lords. His commitment to William became still more obvious when the prince received communion from him on 30 December.<sup>72</sup> The bishops were involved in negotiations throughout January 1689. On 11 Jan. Lloyd met with Turner, Lloyd of Norwich, Tenison and Patrick amongst others to listen to Gilbert Burnet ‘sustain his notion of the forfeiture’. Three days later Lloyd was at a meeting that included Patrick and Tenison to discuss comprehension and draw up the basis of a parliamentary bill, for which he claimed to have Sancroft’s permission<sup>73</sup> Lloyd was now said ‘to be for the advancement of the protestant Reformed interest throughout the world, and the deserting that narrow foundation that was laid in Church and State in 1660’.<sup>74</sup> On the 15th Clarendon found him at Lambeth, ‘much wheedled’ by Burnet, and determined to ‘make the king’s going away to be a cession (a word he is very fond of)’.<sup>75</sup></p><p>On 22 Jan. 1689, he attended the House for the first day of the Convention. Present for 76 per cent of sittings, he was named to the committee for the journal. He was also added to the committee on simoniacal promotions. Despite his earlier enthusiasm for ‘cession’, on the 29th he voted for the regency. On 22 Jan. Lloyd had been charged with preaching before the Lords on the day appointed for thanksgiving for the recent events. He was, though, reported to be ill on 31 Jan., perhaps a convenient illness, given the intervening and following debates: he was not present for the votes that afternoon on the vacancy of the throne.<sup>76</sup> During the abdication debates of early February, however, he was involved in two conferences with the Commons and on 6 Feb. 1689 voted against agreeing with the Commons in the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was vacant. By mid-February, when William and Mary were proclaimed as monarchs, it was noted that although he claimed ‘not to be pleased’ he called William ‘an usurper indeed but the best of usurpers’.<sup>77</sup> Although he had told Sancroft on 28 Feb. that he would not take the oaths to the new monarchs, to Sancroft’s great pleasure. On hearing this, Clarendon remarked in his diary ‘it is strange to see how many good men have their jealousies about St Asaph, as if he were not right’; but in a conversation with Lloyd on the following day, the latter explained that he simply did not feel able to take them at present, said he felt that no obligation remained on him from his oaths to James II and justified taking the new ones. Though troubled by Clarendon’s suggestion that if he took the oaths now, he would simply be seen as having been influenced by Burnet, on 4 Mar. he did so.<sup>78</sup> In another conversation with Clarendon on 11 Mar., he failed to respond directly (‘after a long pause, too habitual to him’) to Clarendon’s question whether he had done the Church service in helping to make Burnet bishop of Salisbury. Clarendon had heard that Lloyd had pressed Burnet’s candidacy so strongly on William ‘that he could have no quiet from his importunity till he had given it to Burnet’. Lloyd, now ‘deep in that comprehending project’, also told Clarendon that he would ‘by no means’ take a role in the coronation.<sup>79</sup> On 31 Mar. when Sancroft refused to officiate at the consecration of Burnet, Lloyd assisted Compton instead. In April, despite what he told Clarendon, he assisted Compton in the coronation ceremony.<sup>80</sup> In the Convention he was named as one of the managers of the conferences with the Commons on the bill for abrogating the oaths on 20 and 22 April. On 8 May, he managed the conference on the bill for the more speedy and effectual convicting and disarming of Catholics. On 31 May he voted against the reversal of the two judgments of perjury against Oates, and on 30 July voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments on the reversal, votes that indicate clear doubts about the validity of Oates’s testimony. In late May Sancroft had complained to Clarendon about Lloyd ‘tormenting him’ about bringing Burnet to see him; Lloyd, he told him, was ‘strangely busy’ about persuading the clergy to take the oaths.<sup>81</sup></p><p>In July 1689 it was rumoured that Lloyd would be translated to Worcester to replace the recently deceased William Thomas*, but that post went instead to Stillingfleet.<sup>82</sup> Such a remove would presumably have been welcome to Lloyd, who had only recently complained of his poverty, claiming to be unwilling to borrow as little as £10, for fear of inability to repay it, and whose self assessment for tax purposes stated that ‘I have not in my own possession or in the possession of any other in trust for me any estate in goods, chattels or personal estate whatsoever that yields any manner of yearly profit, except my books and such goods as are used for household stuff and a small stock upon my demesne.’<sup>83</sup> Perhaps his poverty was shared by his staff for there is evidence that Lloyd’s secretary accepted money to secure the bishop’s recommendation for preferments.<sup>84</sup> Lloyd spent much of the summer of 1689 discussing with Dissenters terms for a comprehension bill and in September was nominated to the ecclesiastical commission to review the liturgy.<sup>85</sup> When the ecclesiastical commission opened in the Jerusalem Chamber on 10 Oct., Lloyd made the barbed comment that ‘those who were not satisfied about the commission might withdraw and not be spies on the rest’.<sup>86</sup> Meanwhile he had continued to attend the House, including the last day of business 20 Aug. and the adjournment on 20 September. He was also present on 19 Oct. but absent when Parliament was prorogued on 21st.</p><p>Lloyd resumed his seat in the House a few days later, on the third day after Parliament resumed for the second session of the Convention, and attended 47 per cent of sittings. Preaching at Whitehall on 5 Nov. 1689 (and taking the opportunity to establish that the occasion was now a double anniversary in the Protestant calendar), Lloyd’s career was once more in the ascendant.<sup>87</sup> He almost certainly had a hand in the promotion of his brother-in-law Jonathan Blagrave to a prebend at Worcester.<sup>88</sup> In a list compiled sometime between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) reckoned Lloyd to be a supporter of the court, although one to be spoken to. Although he had thrown his lot in with the new regime Lloyd was keen to maintain friendly links with Sancroft and the non-jurors and became something of a go-between. It was Lloyd for example who warned Lloyd of Norwich in December that the non-juring bishops would be deprived the following month. That month, with the king’s approval and backed by a ‘leading chief minister’, Lloyd and Compton opened negotiations with Sancroft, Turner and Lloyd of Norwich.<sup>89</sup> Lloyd visited Clarendon on 16 Dec. and discussed possible exemptions with him and James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon.<sup>90</sup> But in the negotiations with the bishops, all of the expedients proposed (one of which was that there be a short bill ‘giving the king power to dispense with them during pleasure’) were rejected, the bishops answering ‘that they could do nothing; if the king thought fit for his own sake, that they should not be deprived, he must make it his business … and besides they were not now all together, and therefore could make no other answer’.<sup>91</sup> After this failure, Lloyd had an argument at dinner with Clarendon on 7 Jan. 1690 when he told him that though he had voted for a regency, ‘now, things being as they are, and that the Prince of Orange was crowned king, he looked upon acquisition to beget a right’.<sup>92</sup> In February, when the king learned that a ‘great concourse of people’ attended Turner’s chapel in Ely House, despite his deprivation, he used Lloyd as an errand-boy to advise Turner to desist.<sup>93</sup> That month it was rumoured that Lloyd, Compton and Burnet would act as commissioners for the see of Canterbury in Sancroft’s place.<sup>94</sup></p><p>In February 1690, after the dissolution of the Convention and the summons of a new Parliament, Lloyd wrote that although it was important to have ‘good men’ chosen for Convocation, he was far more concerned in the choice of ‘good Parliament men... if they are such as love the Church and will be firm to the government, there is now a door open to them’; he commended Dean Humphrey Prideaux on the political progress to such an end in Norfolk and sent news of the imminent poll in Westminster.<sup>95</sup> But with Merioneth in the grip of veteran Tory Sir John Wynn<sup>‡</sup>, Flintshire the preserve of a ‘charmed circle of greater gentry’ who rotated the representation, and neighbouring Denbighshire and the Denbigh boroughs dominated by the Tory Myddletons of Chirk Castle, there was apparently little scope for meddling in the 1690 elections.<sup>96</sup></p><p>On 20 Mar. 1690 he attended on the first day of the new Parliament and thereafter was present for 76 per cent of sittings during the March to May session. On 8 Apr., when the Lords gave a third reading to the bill for recognizing the king and queen and for confirming the acts of the Convention, Lloyd was one of 17 members of the House (six of them bishops) to enter a protest on the wording of the last clause (a compromise deal had altered the original design which had been designed to expose the Tories to charges of disloyalty). Two days later he protested against the resolution to expunge from the Journals the reasons for that protest, on the grounds that to do so contravened privilege of peerage and led to a misrepresentation of their motives.<sup>97</sup> Lloyd was not always in harmony even with the bishops with whom he worked so closely; in the debate of 2 May on the abjuration bill, he spoke ‘for another bill’, while Burnet was for committal and amendment at the committee stage and Compton wanted to reject it outright.<sup>98</sup> In July, though ‘very sour and severe’ on Clarendon, who had been arrested on suspicion of treason, he visited him in the Tower until told by the queen to stop.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Shortly before the beginning of the second session of the 1690 Parliament, on 1 Oct., he received the proxy of his old colleague from Bangor, Humphrey Humphreys*, vacated at the end of the session. The next day he attended for the start of business and thereafter was present for 67 per cent of sittings. He was named to the three sessional committees and to the committee on a land exchange in Lincolnshire involving Philip Hildeyard. On 6 Nov. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding that he ‘is already converted’.<sup>100</sup> On 25 Nov. 1690 he complained of a breach of privilege arising from the ejection of the rector of Llanwillyn. A week later, a report from the committee for privileges found in his favour and on 3 Dec. the House instructed the sheriff of Merioneth to reverse the ejectment.</p><p>In January 1691 following revelations of Francis Turner’s involvement in a Jacobite plot and of his assurances to the exiled king of the bishops’ support, the pressure to fill the vacant bishoprics intensified, with Lloyd, Compton, Nottingham and Carmarthen said to be at the forefront of the demands to do so. The king refused to act, still anxious to come to some accommodation with the non-jurors but in April Lloyd told Sancroft that the vacancies were at last to be filled. In May Lloyd tried, unsuccessfully, to get Sancroft to vacate Lambeth Palace so that John Tillotson could take possession; he also assisted at Tillotson’s consecration.<sup>101</sup> During the year he published a pamphlet providing providential justifications for the revolution, which marked him out as a useful cog in the Orange propaganda machine.<sup>102</sup> Lloyd did not attend the following parliamentary session and on 17 Oct. registered his proxy in favour of Edward Stillingfleet (vacated at the end of the session). On 2 Nov. he was listed as excused attendance at a call of the House. Lloyd remained in London, however, preaching the Restoration anniversary sermon at court on 29 May 1692 and preparing another propaganda tract in favour of the new regime in response to the threat of a French invasion.<sup>103</sup></p><h2><em>Lichfield and Coventry 1692-99</em></h2><p>Thomas Wood*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, died in April 1692. In July a congé d’élire was issued for Lloyd’s translation to Lichfield.<sup>104</sup> The non-juror Henry Dodwell to wrote to him, probably as a result, warning of the danger to his soul of being an ‘accessory to the schism now made in the Church by erecting new altars against the altars of the brethren, and to the ruining of your own church by owning the power of a lay authority sufficient to vacate your thrones’. Dodwell, who had already made his views clear in a conversation with Lloyd’s brother in law, Jonathan Blagrave, the previous year, now reminded Lloyd that Henry Compton had rejected the erastian position in 1686 when he challenged ‘the competency of a secular tribunal’ over an ecclesiastical one.<sup>105</sup></p><p>On 4 Nov. 1692, the first day of the new parliamentary session, Lloyd took his seat in the House as bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. He attended 62 per cent of sittings and was named to the sessional committees for petitions and privileges. On 21 Nov. 1692 he received Stillingfleet’s proxy, which was vacated at the end of the session, using it when voting on 31 Dec. against committing the place bill. On 2 Jan. 1693 he may have voted to read the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. The following day he again used Stillingfleet’s proxy to support the court by opposing the passage of the place bill. That month the pamphlet <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em> re-ignited the contentious debate over the nature of William’s right to be king, and Bishop Burnet’s <em>Pastoral Letter</em> raised similar issues; after the Commons voted to have both burnt, Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup> made an unsuccessful attempt to have Lloyd’s <em>Discourse of God’s ways of Disposing of Kingdoms</em> subjected to the same treatment.<sup>106</sup> Perhaps bruised by the Commons’ comments, Lloyd dissuaded John Hough*, then bishop of Oxford, from publishing his martyrdom sermon to the Lords since it would please neither party.<sup>107</sup></p><p>In his visitation of his new diocese over the summer of 1693 Lloyd gave indications of his flexibility over ceremony, allowing public baptisms without the sign of the cross or the presence of godparents, as Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, learned.<sup>108</sup> With the queen’s permission to miss the 1693-4 session entirely, Lloyd registered his proxy in favour of Stillingfleet, who, according to a note from Tenison sent in November, would respect Lloyd’s wishes in its use.<sup>109</sup> He next attended the House on 6 Nov. 1694 for the prorogation, and then for the start of the 1694-5 session a week later on 12 November. He attended 56 per cent of the sittings of the session, and was named to the committee for privileges. On 20 Apr. 1695, reporting that both Houses of Parliament had been so absorbed with the bribery scandal involving Sir Thomas Cooke<sup>‡</sup> and the East India Company ‘that they have little attended other matters’ Lloyd advised Humphrey Prideaux, dean of Norwich, against seeking parliamentary assistance for his long cherished project to secure a Protestant ministry in India.<sup>110</sup> On 29 Apr. 1695 he was sworn as a commissioner for ecclesiastical preferments during the king’s absences from the country.<sup>111</sup></p><p>On 11 Oct., Parliament was dissolved, triggering parliamentary elections. Lloyd’s attempt the previous July to nominate the Lichfield senior bailiff, who was also its returning officer, may have been intended to enhance his control of the election there, but it was blocked by the corporation and Lloyd was forced to back down. In the event, the parliamentary election on 7 Nov. 1695 saw the return of the Whig Sir Michael Biddulph<sup>‡</sup> and the Tory Robert Burdett<sup>‡</sup>; the extent to which Lloyd was involved in the choice of candidates in unknown.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Lloyd attended the House on 22 Nov. 1695 for the first day of the new Parliament and attended 42 per cent of sittings. In spring 1696, he was known to be an opponent of the bill for altering the act abrogating the oath of supremacy in Ireland. The bill did not become law.<sup>113</sup> During the session his influence was sought by his friend John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, during his dispute with Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, over plans to build a private gallery for the Ashburnham family in Ampthill church.<sup>114</sup> Lloyd signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696 and on 10 Apr. 1696 subscribed the ‘repugnance’ at the absolution by two non-juring clergymen of the Jacobite conspirators Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>115</sup> On 8 May he examined the Journal.</p><p>Lloyd was absent at the beginning of the next session in October 1696, having sent his proxy directly to Tenison.<sup>116</sup> He eventually arrived on 7 Dec. in response to the order of the House of 30 Nov. that all members attend on pain of being taken into custody. He attended throughout the trial of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> and into January and February 1697 before again absenting himself, attending for the last time that session on 15 February. He did not register his proxy (in favour of John Moore*, bishop of Norwich) until 13 March. Overall he was present for only 17 per cent of sittings. On 23 Dec. 1696 he voted to attaint Sir John Fenwick. He left the House on 15 Feb., but did not register his proxy until 13 Mar. 1697 when it was again registered his proxy to Moore (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>In 1697 Lloyd refused to ordain Henry Sacheverell, ostensibly for his poor Latin but possibly because Sacheverell was already identified with the more extreme Tories (though Sacheverell was successful on a second application).<sup>117</sup> That same year Lloyd became involved in organizing a visitation of St Asaph, in connection with which he raised suspicions about simoniacal promotions under Edward Jones*, his successor there.<sup>118</sup> Early in October 1697, in the wake of news of the Treaty of Ryswick, Lloyd was said to be ‘full of fears’ about the forthcoming parliamentary session. He extrapolated from his knowledge of gentry discontent in Oxfordshire to a prediction ‘that it would be as difficult a matter to keep peace at home as ’twas to make it abroad’.<sup>119</sup> Despite his fears he did not attend the winter 1697 session, and on 20 Dec. 1697 again registered his proxy in favour of John Moore. Pressing Moore to help him obtain relief of his first fruits, ‘and to give your vote for me as you think I would do if I were in the House’ in the case of the Welsh rectories, he promised to reimburse Moore’s costs by paying the fees for the proxy both in the present and previous sessions.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Whether Lloyd intervened in the elections after the dissolution of 7 July 1698 is unclear although the election at Lichfield was controverted and the unsuccessful candidate, Humphrey Wyrley, complained of Tory intimidation.<sup>121</sup> He was present on 6 Dec. 1698 for the start of the new Parliament and attended 68 per cent of the sittings of the 1698-9 Parliament. On 29 Mar. 1699 he entered his dissent against the resolution to address to the king on the matter of the <em>London Ulster Society v. Bishop of Derry</em>. He was present on the last day of the session, 4 May. A little while previously, on 23 Apr. the king had directed Lloyd’s translation to Worcester.<sup>122</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Worcester 1699-1717</em></h2><p>Remaining in London, Lloyd was in the House on 1 June and 13 July 1699 for further prorogations. Over the summer he participated in the hearings at Lambeth of the case against Thomas Watson*, the Tory bishop of St Davids, helping to find Watson guilty of simony and extortion.<sup>123</sup> In August he went into his new diocese to be enthroned. For the Whigs, Lloyd’s translation to a more prestigious see merely enhanced their authority, but for the Tories it was a provocative move: Tory antagonists published a vicious assault on his character, beliefs and practice, suggesting that Lloyd neglected his pastoral function and gave heart to atheists: it was said that he preached only occasionally and then only at court when ‘pleas’d to harangue the auditory’.<sup>124</sup> On 23 Nov. 1699 Lloyd arrived at the House one week into the session to sit for the first time as bishop of Worcester. He attended 42 per cent of sittings. On 23 Jan. 1700 he entered his protest against the resolution that the judgment be reversed in the writ of error <em>R. Williamson v. the Crown</em>. He voted against the adjournment during pleasure on 23 Feb. during the debate on the East India Company. Returning to his diocese slowly in April, preaching and confirming on the way and staying with (among others) Richard Verney*, 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke at Compton Verney, and dining with Sir Henry Puckering<sup>‡</sup> in Warwick. Spending the summer in his diocese, busy with ordinations, confirmations, the assizes and other diocesan affairs (including the presentation of his son, William Lloyd, to the vicarage of Blockley), he visited William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Ward*, 2nd Baron Ward and 8th Baron Dudley, and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury (a couple of months before the departure of the latter for the continent), and received a letter from Clarendon asking him to help him in the administration of the deceased Lady Clarendon’s estate.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Parliament was dissolved in December 1700, allowing Lloyd full rein for his electioneering activities. Lloyd’s translation, the succession of the whiggish Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, and the absence abroad of Shrewsbury, prevented a gentry meeting to ensure an uncontested election for the county.<sup>126</sup> Now assisted by his son William, as chancellor of Worcester, Lloyd began to intervene on behalf of the Whigs and to skew the vote in favour of William Walsh<sup>‡</sup>, a member of the Kit-Kat club and Junto candidate allied to John Somers*, Baron Somers. The ‘vociferous and unrelenting’ Tory, Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>, was informed that Lloyd was sending out circular letters ‘but... to none but such as he has some sort of obligation upon; so that it will be difficult, if possible to gain any of his letters’. Pakington’s supporters retaliated with what Lloyd later described as ‘two libels against the bishops with malicious lies against several of them’.<sup>127</sup> Lloyd was also involved in the elections in Lichfield, where one of the candidates was William Walmisley<sup>‡</sup>, the diocesan chancellor. When Walmisley (who was later accused of misappropriating church funds to assist his campaign) became involved in a legal suit with a local rector, Lloyd intervened in an attempt to prevent any split in the cathedral interest.<sup>128</sup></p><p>On 10 Feb. 1701 Lloyd arrived at the House on the fifth day of the new Parliament. He attended the session for 72 per cent of sittings and was named to the committee for the Journal but there is no further evidence about his activities in the House. His dislike of Pakington could only have been increased by that Member’s introduction of a bill in the Commons in the spring of 1701 to prevent the translation of bishops. He attended on 24 June 1701 for the prorogation and went back to his diocese where Worcestershire Whigs were adding their voice to the campaign for another general election in the hope of securing a Commons more in tune with the king’s foreign policy.<sup>129</sup> In August 1701, the beleaguered Somers, was told by Sir Joseph Jekyll<sup>‡</sup> that Lloyd and the recently appointed William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford, were working on his behalf: ‘Both the b[isho]ps seems to be very hearty, but especially Worcester, who mentioned the hardship of your lordship’s case at a meeting of his clergy of one of his deaneries’.<sup>130</sup> Immediately after the dissolution in November 1701, Lloyd circulated letters to his tenants with instructions to canvass all voters to cast their votes for William Bromley and William Walsh on the grounds that Pakington was not ‘fit’ to serve ‘king and country’. The county returned Pakington and Bromley, pushing Walsh into third place by only 15 votes.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Lloyd, back in London by Christmas 1701, joined Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, and Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, to ‘treat’ the imperial and Venetian ambassadors.<sup>132</sup> He attended for the first day of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701 and thereafter for 66 per cent of sittings. He was named to the committee for privileges, registered his dissent (with six other Whig bishops) against the resolution to continue the Quaker Affirmation Act on 26 Feb. 1702 and on 8 Mar. managed the conference on the death of William III and the accession of Anne. Remaining in London, he attended the House until 12 May 1702 but missed the last two weeks of business. Apparently thoroughly convinced that the Old Pretender was not the child of James II and his queen, after the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 he composed and circulated a lengthy set of ‘remarks upon the birth of the pretended prince of Wales … not taken notice of in other books on the subject’. One recipient of his missive condemned it for its ‘many blunders, false reasonings and childish ridiculous stories’. Another condemned him for deserting his brethren ‘upon such slight reasons’.<sup>133</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1702, in the third set of elections since the beginning of 1701, Lloyd took up again his feud with Pakington. In August 1702, he identified Pakington as the author of the libels against the bishops circulated before the previous election and</p><blockquote><p>I therefore sent him word that I thought myself obliged to do what I could to oppose his election and therefore to avoid this I begged of him not to stand but to transfer his votes to whom he would. This I did three times before I began to make any opposition. On his last denial being then to go my triennial visitation I did what I thought I lawfully could to engage the clergy against his election. And I have engaged as many as I can of the bishop’s tenants. The meanwhile there is come out a third libel which is against myself in particular for opposing the election of Sir John Pakington.<sup>134</sup></p></blockquote><p>A contemporary Tory account accused Lloyd of using his visitation to deliver ‘long harangues as formidable as he could’ against Pakington and when ‘his rhetoric and artificial insinuations could not prevail he then urged their canonical obedience... closeting of them, using all means imaginable to persuade or deter them from voting’ for Pakington. It was even said that Lloyd had refused institution and induction to some ‘unless the party would vote as ordered’.<sup>135</sup> Remaining in Worcester for the election on 5 Aug., Lloyd was gratified that at least he had helped secure the election of Walsh who, according to Tory election propaganda, was not only a ‘creature’ of Somers, but an atheist.<sup>136</sup> The anonymous contributions of Richard West (who castigated Tory churchmen in <em>The True Character of a Churchman</em>) and Henry Sacheverell (whose <em>Character of a Low Church Man</em> vilified Lloyd), fanned the flames. Pakington was nevertheless also elected.</p><p>Lloyd arrived in London on 17 Oct. 1702, six days before the opening of the new Parliament.<sup>137</sup> Attending the House for the first day of business, he subsequently attended 65 per cent of the sittings of the 1702-3 session. He soon found that he was himself the subject of parliamentary business. On 2 Nov. 1702, Pakington complained to the Commons about Lloyd’s electoral interference. Secretary of state Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> initially hoped that the Commons would carry the matter no further, but feelings ran high and by 16 Nov. William Nicolson*, of Carlisle, feared that Lloyd was in danger of being taken into custody.<sup>138</sup> On 18 Nov. Pakington presented a formal petition to the Commons, producing as evidence witnesses and letters written by Lloyd in July to his clergy and ‘friends’. The House resolved</p><blockquote><p>That the proceedings of William, lord bishop of Worcester, his son, and his agents, in order to the hindering the election of a Member for the county of Worcester, has been malicious, unchristian, and arbitrary, in high violation of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of England.</p></blockquote><p>They also requested that the queen dismiss him as lord almoner and ordered the prosecution of Lloyd’s son after the lapsing of his privilege as a sitting member of Convocation.<sup>139</sup></p><p>The House of Lords came to Lloyd’s defence. On 19 Nov. 1702, Lloyd was present when three Whig peers (Charles Boyle*, 2nd earl of Burlington, Mohun and Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton) secured a debate on the Commons resolutions and an address to the queen to maintain Lloyd in post until ‘some crime shall be legally proved against him’. Nottingham maintained that this would be to constrain the royal prerogative, but he was overruled.<sup>140</sup> Lloyd was absent for the following four days, not returning until 23 November. Meanwhile, the prospect of a breach between the Houses and the partisan nature of the dispute raised fears of impeachment. On 20 Nov. Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, delivered the queen’s carefully worded response to their address in which she acknowledged the right of any accused person to make a defence, asserted that she had received no complaint about Lloyd and pointedly affirmed that it was her ‘undoubted right, to continue, or displace, any servant attending upon my own person, when I shall think proper’. A lengthy debate ensued before the Lords resolved ‘that no lord of this House ought to suffer any sort of punishment by any proceeding of the House of Commons, otherwise than according to the known and ancient rules and methods of Parliament’. In the Commons the queen’s reply to the Commons’ address (in which she agreed that Lloyd would no longer exercise the office of almoner, though she did not actually say he would be removed) was presented by Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, who successfully moved for thanks for as a means of pressurizing the queen into taking action against Lloyd.<sup>141</sup> The decision of Convocation to thank the Commons for having respected its privilege in the case of Lloyd’s son, is suggestive of some hostility to Lloyd as well as of an alliance between the Tory lower clergy in Convocation and the Commons.<sup>142</sup></p><p>Lloyd resumed his seat on 23 Nov., by which time he had been dismissed from the post of almoner and the occasional conformity bill had been revived in the Commons. Two days later the Commons ordered that Lloyd’s offending letters be printed. Business in the Lords was dominated by discussion of the instructions given to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, concerning the attack on Cadiz and nothing further was done on Lloyd’s matter. The occasional conformity bill arrived in the Lords on 2 Dec., and on the next day, Lloyd voted for Somers’ wrecking amendment to the bill together with Tenison and nine other Whig bishops.<sup>143</sup> Six days later, he signed the resolution against tacking. Unsurprisingly reckoned by Nottingham to be opposed to the occasional conformity bill, on 16 Jan. 1703 Lloyd voted in favour of another Lords’ amendment to it. On 19 Jan. he was one of 28 members of the House to protest against the inclusion in the bill providing an income for Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, of a clause clarifying his right to hold grants and offices from the crown after the death of the queen.</p><p>After the prorogation at the end of February 1703, Lloyd left London for Oxford, where he remained for several months, interspersed by journeys to Bath and to various friends.<sup>144</sup> In August the Tory John Sharp*, archbishop of York gently suggested that Lloyd might stay away from the next session of Parliament in order to concentrate instead on his latest publication—a work on the early Church and Old Testament prophecies of Christ’s ministry and death.<sup>145</sup> He did miss the first month of parliamentary business in the 1703-4 session, not arriving until 7 Dec. 1703. He attended for 28 per cent of its sittings. Estimated by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as an opponent of a renewed attempt to pass the occasional conformity bill, he duly opposed it on 14 December. On 28 Jan. 1704 a bill to establish a workhouse in Worcester, in which Lloyd must have had a guiding hand, was given its first reading; he was named to the committee on 1 February. Somers reported back to the House on 8 Feb. and the bill received the royal assent on 24 February. Lloyd attended the House for the last time that session on 25 Feb. 1704, and missed the last five weeks of business during which the Lords and Commons entered into an angry procedural and constitutional dispute over the investigation in to the Scotch Plot. When the Lords challenged the right of the lower House to address the crown directly without first calling for a conference, the Commons cited their request for Lloyd’s dismissal in November 1702 as a precedent. On 28 Mar. 1704 the Lords, in their turn, rehearsed their grievance that Lloyd had been voted ‘unchristian, which surely is aspersing the innocent without possibility of reparation, as well as it was condemning him without a trial’. The session ended in deadlock between the two Houses and Parliament was prorogued on 3 April. Lloyd spent most of the summer in his diocese.</p><p>Meanwhile Lloyd worried that his dismissal from the post of almoner meant that he was under the queen’s displeasure and had to be reassured by John Sharp that ‘she seems on the contrary to have a kindness and respect for you’.<sup>146</sup> Perhaps through Sharp’s intervention, Lloyd had a long audience with the queen at Windsor on 12 Sept., followed by dinner.<sup>147</sup> He took his seat for the 1704-5 session on 16 Nov., and attended 44 per cent of sittings. On 14 Dec. he received Moore’s proxy (vacated on 10 Jan. 1705). On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to the committee to consider points for discussion with the Commons at the conference on the Aylesbury men. He attended the House for the last time that Parliament on 5 Mar. 1705, nine days before the end of the session, leaving the same day for Oxford and remaining there for seven weeks.<sup>148</sup> He was back in Worcester shortly before the elections, certainly by 5 May 1705 when Sir Edward Goodere<sup>‡</sup> informed Pakington’s wife that Lloyd was ‘now here and doing all the mischief he can’.<sup>149</sup> Lloyd told Tenison that any of his tenants who supported Pakington would be prosecuted in the consistory court.<sup>150</sup> It also emerged that the Whigs had attempted to rush the election writ to Worcester while Pakington was absent in Buckinghamshire and had colluded in a ‘scurrilous pamphlet’ aimed at Pakington. On 23 May, Pakington was returned with Bromley; in a repeat of the 1701 poll, Lloyd’s candidate William Walsh was once again driven into third place but this time by a far greater margin.<sup>151</sup> Pakington had capitalized on the ‘Church in danger’ theme, carrying a banner depicting a falling church. As his campaign supporters marched through Worcester’s Foregate, they encountered Lloyd’s coach whose horses, according to local legend, were startled and turned away from the hustings.<sup>152</sup> Pakington did not repeat his complaint to the Commons but instead on 6 June 1705 wrote to Lloyd in an attempt to put an end to their feud. He insisted that he believed episcopacy to be the best form of Church government and painted himself, with some justification, as a hapless victim of Lloyd’s persecution:</p><blockquote><p>I forbear to mention many vexatious and unneighbourly proceedings against your own tenants. But your lordship must give me leave to tell you once more, that this way of acting neither consists with Christian charity in respect of yourself, nor with the liberty of a free Parliament in respect to the votes; it being contrary to the constitution, that threats or any compulsive methods should be made use of to gain or hinder any elector from voting for whom he pleases. I have nothing more to add but to assure your lordship that it lies wholly in your power to put an end to these disputes by ceasing to persecute my friends; but if your lordship does not I must with great regret endeavour again to right myself and them.<sup>153</sup></p></blockquote><p>During the summer of 1705, Lloyd conducted his visitation.<sup>154</sup> He arrived in London on 24 Oct., attending the House the following day for the first day of the new Parliament, and attended 30 per cent of sittings in the 1705-6 session.<sup>155</sup> On 2 Nov. he attended a meeting at Whitehall on Queen Anne’s Bounty.<sup>156</sup> Ten days later, however, it was noted at a call of the House that he was excused attendance and on 15 Nov. he registered his proxy in favour of William Talbot. That proxy was vacated on 27 Nov. when Lloyd attended for the queen’s speech on victory in Spain, so on 29 Nov. 1705 he registered his proxy again, now in favour of John Moore (vacated the following day). He was present on 6 Dec. 1705 for the ‘Church in danger’ debate, but what, if any, contribution he made to the debate is unknown. On 13 Mar. 1706 Lloyd attended the session for the last time. He spent the summer and autumn months in Oxford and Worcester, attending his diocese for the August assizes and treating the mayor and aldermen. On 15 Sept. 1706, in an indication of warmer relations than hitherto, Pakington and his wife visited Lloyd, bringing three of their daughters for confirmation; the following week, Lloyd visited the Pakington’s estate at Westwood.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Lloyd did not attend the 1706-7 session of Parliament until 24 Jan. 1707. Thereafter he attended for only 15 per cent of its sittings. Nevertheless, Lloyd was in touch with the Whig managers in the Lords since on 21 Jan. 1707 John Hall*, bishop of Bristol, wrote to tell Somers that he had not previously sent a proxy but had been told by Lloyd the previous Saturday that he needed to send it ‘speedily upon account of some motion made in the House by the earl of Nottingham’. The issue concerned, discussed over dinner at Lambeth on 25 Jan., was Tenison’s bill of security for the Church.<sup>158</sup> On 6 Feb. Lloyd registered his own proxy in favour of John Moore (vacated on 6 March). On 25 Feb., the House was informed of a breach of Lloyd’s privilege after two men entered his property and removed timber while Parliament was sitting; both were taken into custody. Lloyd attended on 4 Apr., but missed the last four days of business. He did not attend the brief pre-Union session later that month at all.</p><p>Lloyd attended for only one day, 8 Oct. 1707 of the 1707-8 session of Parliament. Despite the previous year’s apparent cessation of hostilities, his battle with Pakington was far from over. The death of William Bromley, Pakington’s partner in Worcestershire, had seen Lloyd behind an electoral pact (proposed on his behalf by Anthony Lechmere<sup>‡</sup>) which would avoid a by-election and delay the poll until the general election due to be held in summer 1708 under the terms of the Triennial Act. The pact was to ensure the shire representation was shared between the Tory Samuel Pytts<sup>‡</sup> and the Whig Sir Thomas Cookes Winford<sup>‡</sup>, on the assumption that Pakington would stand down in the interests of county harmony. (Lloyd had been a frequent visitor to Winford’s uncle, Sir Thomas Cookes, and had been instrumental in persuading him to leave his money to found a new Oxford college, Worcester, before his death in 1702.) When Lloyd’s involvement in the scheme became public knowledge, however, the plan collapsed.<sup>159</sup> Nevertheless, on 3 Dec. 1707 Winford was returned at the contested by-election. Meanwhile, in October, upset by the delays caused by the right of appeal to the court of arches, Lloyd had lobbied Tenison into hurrying along the hearing in a case involving some ‘vile clergymen’ at Stratford upon Avon.<sup>160</sup></p><p>Parliament was dissolved in April 1708 and Lloyd went to Worcester for the general election and for his visitation.<sup>161</sup> On 19 May 1708, despite Lloyd’s electoral campaign, Pakington was again returned for the county, this time partnered with Winford. Lloyd did not attend the first session of the 1708 Parliament. His efforts at the time were concentrated on charitable works. An enthusiastic supporter of French Protestants, Lloyd produced a scheme of union between Anglicans and the protestant stranger churches.<sup>162</sup> Together with Tenison, he was nominated in the will of Francis Newport*, earl of Bradford, to distribute bequests to French Protestant refugees.<sup>163</sup> Despite his age (he was now 82), Lloyd was considered by one observer to be ‘vigorous beyond... expectation... at least 20 years short of his age’: he would live for another twenty if he avoided the ‘poison’ of the Westminster air.<sup>164</sup></p><p>Lloyd did not attend the 1709-10 session either and was thus absent throughout the Sacheverell debates and trial. His distaste for Sacheverell was nevertheless clear. He described the reception received by Sacheverell on his progress from Oxford towards Wales as ‘a very high affront to the highest court of judicature in this kingdom and such as ought not to be suffer’d by any that are in government ecclesiastical or civil’. He ordered the clergy and church wardens in his diocese not to ring bells ‘upon any occasion whatsoever’ during Sacheverell’s triumphal return to London.<sup>165</sup> The Whig bishops applauded him for his stance: William Nicolson commented to William Wake*, then bishop of Lincoln, later archbishop of Canterbury, that their ‘heroic old friend at Worcester’ had ‘slain the dragon’ of Sacheverell’s ‘overacted’ posturing.<sup>166</sup> The Sacheverell camp naturally took a rather different view, recalling that Lloyd had once been called ‘antichristian and uncharitable’ by the Commons and describing the bishop’s instructions to his diocese as</p><blockquote><p>so ridiculous, it must be attributed to the old gentleman’s infirmities, as well as to the inveterate prejudice of his hot importunate son… We have very little ringing of bells in any part of the diocese where he and his son come, and that may be the reason why they envy’d Dr Sacheverell this small compliment.<sup>167</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the elections that followed the dissolution on 21 Sept. 1710, Lloyd was involved not only in Worcestershire but also in his former diocese. On 9 Oct., he told Wake that he had persuaded William Walmisley to stand again for Lichfield, ‘the only man I know will do her majesty or the Church of England faithful service’. Since ‘we must not lose a vote that we can gain for him, nor suffer any other to come that we can keep away’ he also asked for Wake’s assistance in preventing the Tory chancellor of Lincoln from exercising his vote in the city. He was nevertheless confident ‘that God will take care of his Church, even in this sinful nation; and will not suffer it to be destroyed by them that have so long cried it was in danger and now at last done w[ha]t they could to bring it to be so’.<sup>168</sup> In the event, Walmisley was beaten by two Tory opponents despite all of Lloyd’s efforts to mobilize the clerical vote, and, following the national trend, Pakington and Samuel Pytts won both seats for the Tories in Worcestershire.<sup>169</sup></p><p>Lloyd was listed, naturally, by Harley in October 1710 as an opponent of the new Tory ministry. He did not attend the first (1710-11) session of the new Parliament, but remained politically active locally. In April 1711 when a cleric who had entertained Sacheverell on his progress was invited to give the assize sermon, Lloyd and William Talbot prevented him from doing so; the sheriff of the county ostentatiously boycotted the sermon given by their replacement candidate.<sup>170</sup> Lloyd did not travel to London for the start of the December 1711 parliamentary session. That month, on learning from Richard Foley<sup>‡ </sup>of the possibility of an imminent peace, he shared with him his apocalyptic interpretation of biblical prophecies, and then wrote to Robert Harley (now earl of Oxford), warning him that a lasting peace was impossible for ‘we are certainly within a very few years of that war of religion which will last till the final destruction of pope and popery’. It followed therefore that an attempt to secure a peace would ‘bring many and great mischiefs on her majesty and her kingdoms; and destruction upon you and your family, and on all others that shall be found to have joined with you in it’. As he told Harley, when he had tried to explain the biblical evidence to Foley, Foley made his excuses and left, ‘and so we parted’, wrote Lloyd,</p><blockquote><p>which indeed was on my part very unwillingly, for I would gladly have shown him those things which he might have shown your lordship at his coming to London. They were such as I believed might have stopped that speed with which your lordship is said to be advancing in this negotiation.<sup>171</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lloyd attended the session on two days only (5 and 6 June 1712) almost certainly for consideration of the bill ‘for enlarging the time for the ministers in Scotland to take the abjuration oath’ and for the queen’s speech on the peace negotiations. Lloyd never returned to the Lords. On 7 June 1712 he registered his proxy in favour of John Moore (vacated at the end of the session). Two accounts suggest that he visited the queen in order to dissuade her from the peace because of the inevitability of a war of religion. According to one account this was early in June, and the queen answered ‘let us then have peace in the meantime that we may be the better able to engage in a new war’. Whilst it is possible to interpret this remark in a kindly light, it seems likely that when Lloyd was invited to a second interview at the end of June in order to debate the issue with Oxford, the purpose was to make fun of the old man.<sup>172</sup> Jonathan Swift wrote of the interview that</p><blockquote><p>the old bishop of Worcester, who pretends to be a prophet, went to the queen by appointment, to prove to her majesty, out of Daniel and the Revelation, that four years hence there would be a war of religion; that the king of France would be a Protestant, and fight on their side; that the popedom would be destroyed, &c.; and declared that he would be content to give up his bishopric if it were not true. Lord treasurer [Oxford], who told it me, was by, and some others; and I am told lord treasurer confounded him sadly in his own learning, which made the old fool very quarrelsome.<sup>173</sup></p></blockquote><p>Apocalyptic visions of the destruction of popery apart, Lloyd’s political sensibilities were constantly offended by the new government. When Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, pressed for Sacheverell’s elevation, Lloyd is said to have claimed that ‘thoughts of death are nothing near so terrible’ as the possibility of Sacheverell succeeding him in the episcopate.<sup>174</sup> Lloyd was equally concerned with his son’s career, nagging Sharp to use his interest with the queen to advance it. Sharp eventually told Lloyd that the sticking point was the younger Lloyd’s violent and vocal opposition to the ministry. Lloyd accused Pakington (‘that debauch’d gentleman’) of maligning his son and then wrote directly to the queen, complaining of the ‘malice’ of ‘party displeasure’ that had blighted his son’s career ever since Pakington’s complaint in the Commons back in 1702.<sup>175</sup></p><p>Despite Lloyd’s absence from the House, he was listed by Oxford as a certain opponent of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. In the elections of August 1713, Lloyd, unable to let a general election pass without an attempt to unseat the Tories, was foiled by an electorate satisfied with what the Tory, Pytts, described as ‘the good things... lately done for the public’.<sup>176</sup> Pytts and Pakington were again returned for the county. By now nearly 90 years of age, Lloyd did not attend the new Parliament, despite the politically highly charged debates concerning schism and the danger to the Protestant succession. As he had not made an appearance he was unable to enter his proxy. He was, by then, very frail. A letter that can be dated by internal evidence to February 1715 suggested that his death was imminent; he himself wrote the following month of being too frail and infirm to venture out and of his dependence on his chancellor and archdeacon. Later that year John Potter<sup>†</sup>, then bishop of Oxford, later archbishop of Canterbury, undertook to ordain candidates on Lloyd’s behalf, ‘he being unable to undergo that fatigue himself’.<sup>177</sup></p><p>Given fresh heart by the accession of George I and prospect of a general election, Lloyd resumed his electoral crusade against Pakington, who nevertheless came top of the poll, although in a partial triumph for Lloyd, Pytts lost his seat. News of the Jacobite rebellion led Lloyd to circulate a printed letter to his clergy together with the declaration of Tenison and the other bishops gathered in London, exhorting them to read both from the pulpit during divine service and to ‘endeavour by example as well as doctrine, to instruct your people in the duty they owe to our most gracious sovereign King George’.<sup>178</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1716 he again sought assistance in carrying out ordinations. He took the opportunity to secure further advancement for his son (and chancellor), pointing out to Wake that,</p><blockquote><p>all other parts of my episcopal office are duly discharged for me by my chancellor, who is perfectly well acquainted with all the concerns both spiritual & temporal of this bishopric; and who might also make me easy in these respects, if I could prevail to have him consecrated as a coadjutor or suffragan to me... and entirely submit to your great wisdom, whether I shall take any further step towards it.</p></blockquote><p>Still vengeful against Pakington, he refused a request for a faculty from Pakington’s domestic chaplain who, Lloyd maintained, had given ‘false evidence’ before the Commons in 1702 and been rewarded for it with Pakington’s gift of the rectory of Hampton Lovett.<sup>179</sup></p><p>On 26 Jan. 1717 Lloyd was taken ill, prompting Edward Chandler<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to lobby hard for the expected vacancy at Lichfield, consequent on the translation of Hough to replace Lloyd at Worcester.<sup>180</sup> Going into a final decline in July, Lloyd died on 30 Aug. 1717 at Hartlebury Castle, 12 days after his ninetieth birthday. Hough was so confident of succeeding him that the very next day, he asked for the congé d’élire to be sent without the formality of kissing the king’s hand, ‘for I would fain stay here till the ordination is over, & many persons in this diocese & that of Worcester will be disappointed if I do not’.<sup>181</sup> Lloyd’s true wealth is difficult to estimate. The see of St Asaph was worth an annual £800, that of Lichfield some £1,000 and, at the time of his death in 1717, his episcopal revenue from Worcester was estimated to be in the order of £1,200 a year. He had homes in Oxford and London, apart from his episcopal residences in Worcester and Hartlebury; but he also spent heavily on projects to refurbish Church property.<sup>182</sup> He bequeathed the bulk of his estate to his son; his daughter was already provided for, having married Walter Offley, a Cheshire rector who became dean of Chester in 1718. Lloyd’s widow was named sole executrix; she and their son outlived the bishop by little more than two years.<sup>183</sup> A codicil to the will (regarding his co-trusteeship of lands owned by Flower, Lady Clarendon) bequeathed all remaining trust lands to Dr Richard Willis<sup>†</sup>, then dean of Lincoln (later bishop of Winchester) and to Richard Minshull of the Inner Temple. Lloyd was buried on 10 Sept. 1717 at the parish church of Fladbury where his son held the living.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
LLOYD, William (1637-1710) |
<p><strong><surname>LLOYD</surname></strong> (<strong>FLOYD</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1637–1710)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Apr. 1675; last sat 18 Feb. 1689 |
cons. 18 Apr. 1675 bp. of LLANDAFF; transl. 17 May 1679 bp. of PETERBOROUGH; transl. 4 July 1685 bp. of NORWICH; depr. 1 Feb. 1690 |
|
<p><em>b</em>.1637, s. of Edward Lloyd, rect. Llangower, Merion. <em>educ</em>. Ruthin Sch.; St John’s, Camb. matric. 1655, BA 1659, MA 1662, DD 1670 (royal mandate). <em>m</em>. Anne (<em>d</em>.1708), 2s. (<em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da. <em>d</em>. 1 Jan. 1710; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II.</p><p>Cur. Deptford, Kent bef. 1662; chap. to English Factory, Lisbon, to Thomas Clifford*, later Bar. Clifford of Chudleigh, bef. 1673; preb. St Paul’s 1672–5; vic. Battersea, Surr. bef. 1675; rect. St Andrew’s, Llandaff 1675–9.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Corpus Christi, Oxf.</p> |
<p>William Lloyd was the last Welsh-speaking bishop of Llandaff for 200 years. His family background and circumstances are obscure, and attempts to unravel the details are complicated by considerable confusion with his namesake and contemporary William Lloyd* (successively bishop of St Asaph, Lichfield and Coventry, and Worcester). Equally uncertain is the state of Lloyd’s personal finances, a problem complicated by the apparent lack of probate material. His episcopal income clearly increased with successive translations. The diocese of Llandaff was notorious for its poverty, with an annual income in 1675, including commendams, of less than £550; Lloyd spent his four years as bishop there improving the revenue but the amounts involved were very low.<sup>1</sup> In contrast, by 1683 his income as bishop of Peterborough amounted to nearly £700 a year after deductions, though here too there was a dispute over church property. In an undated, but c.1683, overview of the finances of the see he added that he had expended nearly £1,300 since being appointed to Peterborough and dropped a heavy hint that his predecessors had been somewhat negligent: ‘I am not willing to say anything of those who are gone to give an account of their stewardship, but this I must aver that few of those papers were transmitted to me from my predecessors’.<sup>2</sup> He owned personal property (a ‘small pittance and estate’) in Acton, but appears to have experienced legal difficulties proving ownership after losing the deeds in a fire at the Temple in 1683.<sup>3</sup> By 1689, in response to an official circular to provide self-assessment under the Act for a General Aid, he claimed that he had no personal estate apart from household goods and books and only £200 to support his family.<sup>4</sup> His daughter later claimed that he had given James II £2,500 ‘out of his own slender fortune’.<sup>5</sup></p><p>On 23 June 1670 the king recommended Lloyd for a Cambridge doctorate two years earlier than was customary because he had ‘taken great pains in the English factory at Lisbon’ and should graduate before returning to Portugal, where he was expected to remain for at least the next two years.<sup>6</sup> Whether Lloyd did return to Portugal is something of a moot point, as the diarist John Evelyn noted hearing him preach on 10 July and 11 Dec. 1670; by 1673, as chaplain to Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, as a member of the chapter of St Paul’s and with a vicarage in Battersea, Lloyd had become well known at court through his Lent sermons.<sup>7</sup> At the relatively young age of 40 he was ‘particularly recommended’ by Gilbert Sheldon*, of Canterbury, to the king, who was determined to have a native Welshman elected to the see of Llandaff.<sup>8</sup></p><p><em>Bishop of Llandaff, 1675–9</em></p><p>Lloyd took his seat in the House on 20 Apr. 1675, seven days after the start of a new parliamentary session. He then attended for some 45 per cent of sittings and was named to three select committees. In the brief autumn 1675 session, he was present for 71 per cent of sittings, but was named to only one select committee and to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. Returning to Monmouthshire for the summer months, Lloyd engineered the dismissal from the county bench of Sir Edward Morgan<sup>‡</sup>, who had ‘strong inclinations towards Rome’ and who was related to Henry Somerset*, 3rd marquess of Worcester (later duke of Beaufort).<sup>9</sup></p><p>Lloyd attended the 1677–8 session for 83 per cent of sittings, being named to the sessional committees and to 41 select committees. In March 1678 he deputized for Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, in preaching at court;<sup>10</sup> the survival of a prolonged and affectionate correspondence between the two men reveals that they enjoyed a mutually supportive and close political alliance. In June 1678, as part of something of a crusade against ‘a stubborn schismatic who hath for these two years last past created me all the trouble and expense that he and his brethren could conceive’, he sought the assistance of Lord Chancellor Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), before cutting short his attendance at the first short session of 1678 and returning to his diocese, where, as he told Sancroft, ‘papists and sectaries are wonderfully bold’.<sup>11</sup> He covered his absence by a proxy registered to Henry Compton*, of London, on 6 June (vacated at the end of the session); the absence meant that his attendance for this session fell to just 25 per cent.</p><p>In October 1678, in anticipation of the autumn parliamentary session, Lloyd again registered his proxy in favour of Compton (vacated when he attended on 27 December). Interestingly he felt obliged to explain his absence not to his archbishop but to the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). He told Danby that he had been subject to ‘a dangerous fit of sickness that confined me to my bed for eight weeks together’, before going on to express his concern about the ‘traitorous contrivances’ associated with revelations of a Popish Plot and to describe his own attempts to uncover further details of the plot by interviewing William Bedloe’s relatives.<sup>12</sup> On 28 Nov. 1678 he was informed by Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> that the information he had supplied about a pocket of some 80 Jesuits in the vicinity of Chepstow had not been correctly taken on oath. By early December Lloyd had rectified the error, but Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, was concerned that the information, once reported to the House, would ‘displease’ Worcester.<sup>13</sup> Lloyd himself appears to have had few concerns about displeasing Worcester and had formed a political alliance with Worcester’s son, Charles Somerset<sup>‡</sup>, the Member for Monmouth; the two men ensured the restoration to the county bench of John Arnold<sup>‡</sup>, turned out of the commission by Worcester after a spate of political feuding.<sup>14</sup></p><p>On 4 Dec. 1678 the House learned of an allegation by Lloyd that neither Francis Spalding, the deputy governor of Chepstow Castle, nor the garrison had received Anglican communion for the previous three years. The House ordered Lloyd, with the assistance of several local gentlemen, to enquire into the matter and report back to the House, and reiterated its order on 7 December. Worcester, who was responsible for the Chepstow garrison, informed his wife that Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, had used the information as a political weapon against the government, and had demanded an enquiry. Worcester tried and failed to have the matter examined by the House rather than referred to local investigators who were bound to include the bishop, openly stating that Lloyd ‘was not a fit person to whom to refer the case’ because of his quarrel with Spalding. However, he was eventually forced to accept what was in effect a mediation, whereby the matter would be examined by Lloyd and two of his assistants and three men on Worcester’s side.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Lloyd attended the session on only two sitting days (27 and 28 Dec.), the first for the debate and vote on the committal of Danby – Lloyd voted with his fellow bishops in Danby’s support – and the second for the receipt by the House of further information regarding Catholic plotting. The session ended three days after the division on the committal of Danby. Within a fortnight, Lloyd had delivered to Secretary Williamson his report into the alleged nonconformity of Spalding and his garrison.<sup>16</sup> He sustained pressure on the Catholic community and on 31 Jan. 1679 reported to Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> that he had converted 236 Catholics to the Church of England and had confiscated Catholic books which he was donating to Llandaff library.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Lloyd was in London for the first Exclusion Parliament in March 1679 and attended five of the first six days of the abortive opening. He was absent when the new session opened on 15 Mar. but thereafter attended 69 per cent of sitting days and was named to the three standing committees and to four select committees, including, on 20 Mar., that to disable members from sitting in Convocation unless they had taken the oaths. He was not named to the committee that had been created on 11 Mar. to examine the late ‘horrid conspiracy’ but, as part of its investigations, was examined on oath about ‘Mr Berry’, denying that the person concerned had confessed anything to him.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Despite his somewhat patchy attendance record, on 18 Mar. 1679 Lloyd’s loyalty was rewarded when the king issued a directive for his election as bishop of Peterborough.<sup>19</sup> On 27 Mar., still technically bishop of Llandaff, Lloyd was in the House for the examination of Francis Spalding at the bar. Spalding had been imprisoned in the king’s bench prison on 21 Nov. 1678 but had subsequently been bailed. In what was presumably a new chapter in the ongoing local dispute, the House now learned of a fresh accusation against him. A deposition sworn before Lloyd in his capacity as a justice of the peace claimed that, while at Chepstow Castle, Spalding had been heard to say that had he had the chance he would have prevented William Bedloe from revealing details of the Popish Plot. Although Spalding denied the allegation, the House accepted that he had ‘misbehaved himself’ as deputy governor of the castle and ordered him back to prison.</p><p>Not surprisingly, Lloyd was still a supporter of the embattled lord treasurer and during April voted consistently against the proposed attainder. On 9 May 1679 it was noted at a call of the House that he was excused attendance, but he was present the following day when he voted against the proposal to appoint a joint committee of both houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. He subsequently attended until three days before the end of the session at the end of May 1679.</p><p><em>Bishop of Peterborough, 1679–85</em></p><p>Lloyd was enthroned in Peterborough on 12 July 1679.<sup>20</sup> His vigour was reflected in a huge workload: he confirmed nearly 8,000 people in the four years from 1679. By early October 1679 Lloyd had returned to London. He took his seat for the first time as bishop of Peterborough on 15 Apr. 1680 (a prorogation day) but was back in his diocese in August to do battle with the commissioners for the streets of Northampton, whose plans threatened a section of the old churchyard. He also conducted a visitation of his diocese, reporting ‘that the concerns of the Church are not in so bad a posture as some men would persuade and abuse the world’.<sup>21</sup> He returned to Westminster for the first day of the second Exclusion Parliament on 21 Oct. 1680, thereafter attending 72 per cent of sittings and being named to two select committees. Loyal to the crown and James Stuart*, duke of York, he voted on 15 Nov. in favour of putting the question that the Exclusion bill be rejected on its first reading, and subsequently voted to reject the bill. On 22 Nov. he examined the manuscript Journal. The following day he voted with the court against the motion for a joint committee with the Commons to debate the safety of the kingdom. He missed the first day of the March 1681 Parliament but attended each of the remaining six days.</p><p>Having returned to Peterborough after the abrupt dissolution, by June 1681 Lloyd was reported to be conducting a visitation on Sancroft’s behalf.<sup>22</sup> A loyal supporter of the Tory reaction, in July he secured a ‘moderate’ diocesan address approving the dissolution of the previous two Parliaments. Secretary Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> promised to ensure that it was given proper priority at the printers and by the end of the month the address, subscribed by Lloyd, most of his clergy, the grand jury and nearly 6,000 inhabitants, was in print.<sup>23</sup> In October, concerned to outwit ‘those ecclesiastical proctors who sit and watch vacancies in the church’, Lloyd informed Sancroft of a vacancy on his chapter and his choice of candidate.<sup>24</sup> By December he had begun a parochial visitation and sent Sancroft an account of Catholics there.<sup>25</sup> A later account of the state of his diocese may refer to this period. On his arrival in the diocese he had counted himself ‘lucky in his post’ but soon realised that the information supplied by parochial churchwardens was misleading. Accordingly he revived the ‘decayed discipline of rural deans’ appointing ‘the most loyal and confiding clergymen that I could think of’ to provide accurate information. As a result he discovered ‘that there were above three and thirty clergy-men that wore no surplices in officiating at Divine Service. I found that others mangl’d the divine offices and said the prayers by halves and not as the law directs’ and that most of the churches were decaying and dilapidated. Furthermore there were 29 ‘capital conventicles’ that were flourishing as a result of ‘the midwifery of the late popish plot’.<sup>26</sup> In January 1682 Lloyd expressed delight at the appointment of Christopher Hatton*, 2nd Baron Hatton, as <em>custos</em> for Northamptonshire.<sup>27</sup> An alliance with Hatton and other local worthies, including Sir Roger Norwich<sup>‡</sup>, the stalwart (and unpopular) Anglican Member for Northamptonshire, ensured a vigorous enforcement of the laws against Dissenters by the local magistrates. By the time he wrote his account of the diocese, probably in or after 1683, the result was that even the ‘boldest obstinate fanatics’ had been brought to heel and whilst ‘there may be (according to the watchful and crafty humour of the schismatics) some sly and secret conventicles . . . especially among the Quakers and Anabaptists’ there were no longer ‘any great and public conventicles’. Over 2,000 individuals had been presented for not taking the sacarament almost all of whom had subsequently complied. Additionally there were 66 popish recusants, most of them under threat of excommunication for contumacy.<sup>28</sup></p><p>By March 1682, back at his home in Acton and suffering from a fever, Lloyd nevertheless prepared to undertake another visitation of Canterbury as Sancroft’s suffragan. Such was the unease caused by Lloyd’s visitation that at least one local clergyman contacted Sancroft as a go-between on behalf of the mayor and aldermen of Canterbury, who were worried that their political loyalty might have been misrepresented.<sup>29</sup> Punctiliously, Lloyd in August checked the text of the Act for the better observation of the Sabbath to see whether the clergy were required to read it from the pulpit.<sup>30</sup></p><p>From June 1682 Lloyd was also involved as a member of the court of delegates tasked to adjudicate in the Hyde–Emerton affair, a dispute about the validity of the marriage of the heiress Bridget Hyde to her cousin John Emerton, which had become politicized through Danby’s determination to secure her as a wife for his son Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds). Lloyd did not even attempt to maintain a façade of impartiality: he advised Danby on the management of the case, lobbied his fellow delegates (his namesake William Lloyd of St Asaph and William Gulston*, bishop of Bristol) and continued to express his admiration for Danby’s zeal for the government and the Church. When it became apparent that Lloyd of St Asaph would not travel to London for the hearing, he joined with Danby in an attempt to secure St Asaph’s attendance. Not surprisingly, in October Lloyd voted against the validity of the Hyde–Emerton marriage.<sup>31</sup></p><p>In July 1683, in the wake of the Rye House Plot, Lloyd drafted another loyal address for presentation by the grand jury and justices of the peace of Northamptonshire, submitting it to Sancroft for approval.<sup>32</sup> Quite apart from his normal ecclesiastical and parliamentary duties, his legal advice was clearly much valued by the archbishop. An undated letter to Sancroft that appears to have been written in 1683 or 1684 contains an opinion on whether a presentation by the lord keeper could be recalled. In December 1683 Lloyd described the process for annexing a living to a bishopric; as no Parliament was then sitting he advised that an act of the privy council would ‘avail’ until the next Parliament, at which point the matter could be ‘tacked’ to a new statute.<sup>33</sup></p><p>During the summer of 1684, together with Henry Compton, Lloyd mediated in the dispute involving Sancroft’s disciplinary case against Thomas Wood*, of Lichfield and Coventry. Lloyd, acting on behalf of Sancroft, and Compton, acting for Wood, met frequently at Fulham Palace to discuss the case.<sup>34</sup> Following the death of Peter Gunning*, of Ely, in July, Lloyd appears to have harboured hopes of a translation to that see but ‘submitted’ to the judgment of his superiors in appointing Francis Turner*, York’s chaplain, instead.<sup>35</sup></p><p><em>The reign of James II, 1685–9</em></p><p>At the accession of James II, Lloyd was informed by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, that the new king was ‘well satisfied’ with the bishop and wanted him to use his ‘utmost endeavour and … interest’ to ensure the election to Parliament of ‘persons of approved loyalty and affection to the government’.<sup>36</sup> Yet, even at this early stage, Lloyd was worried about the impact of the king’s religious policies on his diocese. By April 1685, when back at Peterborough, he observed that the Dissenters were ‘brisk and active’ following the royal pardon, in the hope that they would receive an indulgence in the ensuing Parliament, and were crowing that ‘the bishops’ domineering time’ was over. Individuals imprisoned on excommunication process were being released on bail and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, had ordered the high sheriff not to pursue recusants for fines. An exasperated Lloyd blamed the king for ‘at one blow’ destroying his drive for conformity over the previous four years.<sup>37</sup> He also attacked Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, for publishing an apology for the erastian constitution of the Church; Lloyd demanded ‘by what authority he undertook to barter away the rights and discipline of the established church’ and hoped that Convocation would ‘humble him and the trimming tribe’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>In expectation of a new Parliament, Sancroft and Lloyd had already discussed the question of the bishops’ parliamentary strategy when Compton visited Lloyd at Acton on 2 May 1685 to confer on the same subject. Compton and Lloyd both,</p><blockquote><p>agreed that it was the interest, as well as the credit and safety of the bishops, to be unanimous in their votes and that it was not expedient, or perhaps safe, to propose or desire any new laws at the ensuing Parliament, how plausible soever they might seem to be.</p></blockquote><p>In order to attain this aim Compton proposed that Sancroft call a meeting of the bishops and ‘press that point upon them’. When Lloyd, who made a point of telling Sancroft that he had not disclosed anything of their discussions on ecclesiastical affairs to Compton, noted that this tactic would leave the bishops open to an action of praemunire,</p><blockquote><p>my lord of London did agree that it was no way expedient for the bishops to come in a troop to your grace upon such an occasion, but rather, that your grace should let the bishops of your province (as they come occasionally to wait upon you) know singularly as much of your mind in the point as your grace shall think meet to impart unto them and we doubted not but any kind of hint from your grace would make the bishops of your province entirely unanimous.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 19 May 1685, Lloyd attended the House for the first day of the new Parliament. Thereafter, he was present for 80 per cent of sittings and was named to 11 select committees as well as the three sessional committees. Only a few days later the royal warrant was issued for his election as bishop of Norwich.<sup>40</sup> He was enthroned by proxy in his new diocese on 23 July but did not travel to Norwich until the end of September, receiving, by his own account, a rapturous reception from the mayor, aldermen and other local worthies, and preparing to embark on a new round of setting things to rights. His latest project became so absorbing that he asked Sancroft for leave of absence from the autumn session of Parliament, since a trip to London would merely ‘perplex and confound’ his plans.<sup>41</sup> By November he had submitted, with ill grace, to Sancroft’s desire that he attend the House.<sup>42</sup> He arrived on 12 Nov., already in possession of the proxies of Humphrey Lloyd*, of Bangor, and William Thomas*, of Worcester, both vacated at the end of the session. He then attended for the remaining eight days of the short session. On 16 Nov. he examined the Journal and three days later he was present in the House for the ill-tempered debate on the king’s determination to retain Catholic officers in the army.</p><p>By 11 Dec. 1685 Lloyd was back in Norwich, complaining about the problems caused by his diocesan officials, many of whom were non-resident. He attributed disputes in the chapter to ‘running after sordid lucre to the oppression of the country, the dishonour of the Church and its regular discipline’; he also complained of the excessive number of surrogates, whose existence allowed the county to be ‘eaten up by so many caterpillars’. Determined to stay in the diocese and conduct a spring visitation, he sought Sancroft’s permission to absent himself from preaching at court. Given his past concerns about nonconformity, his comments on rumours of a possible toleration were curiously neutral: he merely remarked that just as it was ‘a matter of great joy to some, so it is a great grief to others’.<sup>43</sup> Although Lloyd does seem to have been uneasy about the king’s promises on religion, loyalty to the crown, and being perceived to be loyal, seems to have overridden other concerns. In January 1686, in case the matter should be ‘oddly represented above’, he hastened to distance himself from the sentiments of an ‘odd and imprudent’ sermon delivered in his cathedral by a local clergyman and designed ‘to put his auditors into some degree of distrust of his majesty’s late gracious declaration and therefore would intimate and suggest that we were all sailing to Rome’. In order to prevent a recurrence, he declared that he would in future vet all cathedral sermons before they were delivered.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Lloyd began his visitation in April 1686 and reported that in the space of three months he had trebled the number of communicants in the diocese.<sup>45</sup> A clergyman who had been imprisoned and then pardoned by the king was denied a preaching licence until he had given ‘public satisfaction for his scandalous practices’.<sup>46</sup> In such manner, Lloyd supported all of Sancroft’s attempts to strengthen the Church against the incursions of Catholicism. His own measures against both Catholic and Protestant nonconformity were, he claimed, bearing fruit: by February 1686 he had cajoled the mayor and aldermen of Norwich to attend cathedral communion in a single group and during Lent confirmed over 7,000 people.<sup>47</sup> Roger Morrice (not without bias) reported that Lloyd, who had initially given ‘great encouragement to religion, and set up evening exercises in his family … and explained the whole duty of man’, had now become even more severe against nonconformity, appointing a set day for Dissenters to receive the sacrament; if they failed to attend, he promised to ‘proceed against them with all severity’. Even many churchmen, according to Morrice, ‘always had and still have very hard thoughts of him’.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Throughout 1686 and 1687 Lloyd was in frequent correspondence with Sancroft, providing intelligence from Norwich and soliciting Sancroft’s advice on tricky ecclesiastical cases; in return, he received information about events in London, including an account of the proceedings against Henry Compton.<sup>49</sup> In the spring of 1687, after the issuing of the first Declaration of Indulgence, Lloyd fretted over the status of the oaths required by law but now set aside by the toleration: ‘what shall a country bishop do … who hath no lawyer to consult … the law requires the oaths, the toleration sets them aside. What then is to be done?’<sup>50</sup> Plans for the clergy to present a loyal address of thanks for the Declaration caused him further anguish. On 30 Apr. Thomas Watson*, bishop elect of St Davids, sent him an encouraging reminder about the clerical address, pointing out that ‘your care to have the address subscribed by the clergy in Norfolk and Suffolk &c will be very well accepted by the king’. Even some of Lloyd’s diocesan clergy began to question why he was ‘not so forward as others’ in the address; telling them ‘that things of that nature ought to move deliberately and regularly and that in convenient time I should acquaint them with what was meet to be done in that case’, he sought Sancroft’s advice. His fear was that if he failed to promote an address others would do so. Pressure for an address was redoubled in the autumn with the arrival of Robert Paston*, 2nd earl of Yarmouth. In September Lloyd reported that the mayor and aldermen of Norwich had gone to wait on Yarmouth ‘and I suppose this matter will be offered unto them’; even worse, the corporation of Yarmouth had already produced an address ‘agreeable to the whole tenor of the declaration’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, by November 1687 Lloyd’s name had appeared in the lists of the king’s political opponents. Throughout the spring of 1688 he corresponded with Sancroft about the state of his diocese and the attempts to regulate local corporations. In February he reported that ‘six honest men’ had been removed from Yarmouth corporation and replaced by Independents; he feared that the ‘same storm’ would hit Norwich but more heavily. He also fretted about his own security:</p><blockquote><p>The papists here have frequent meetings and at the same time they entertain themselves by drinking confusion to all that will not consent to take off the penal laws. This they do publicly and without any remorse. They were the last week intending to draw articles against me from somewhat I preached here last Christmas day, they have had several meetings about it, as I am well informed by one who is of their gang. How far they will proceed besides drinking my confusion a little time will discover. They have their spies in our churches and watch all opportunities for our ruin.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>Alongside news of a major purge of the county bench, it was perhaps some comfort that the corporation of Norwich decided to take the sacrament en masse in the cathedral ‘to let us see they are of our communion’, even though they did so in expectation of an imminent regulation.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Lloyd was not in London on 18 May 1688 for the presentation of the petition by the Seven Bishops but he arrived to sign the petition on 23 May and supported his colleagues while they were held in the Tower.<sup>54</sup> Meanwhile, in his diocese, when the king required the admission of 38 Quakers to the freedom of the city of Norwich in July, churchmen and nonconformists were temporarily united in opposition to the demand.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Amid fears of an invasion, Lloyd received a list of approved parliamentary candidates from the court. He told Sancroft on 26 Sept. that he believed that the county would return Sir Jacob Astley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Cook<sup>‡</sup>, both of whom opposed the repeal of the Test Acts. The situation in the corporations was rather different, for all of them except Norwich were ‘so regulated and terrified from above that I doubt I shall not be able to give your grace so good an account … as I heartily wish’. He pinned his hopes on Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, who ‘seems to me very steady for the established government’. Norfolk had drunk to Sancroft’s health ‘with great expressions of service … and this was the same day known everywhere in this place and reckoned as a mark of his zeal for the Church of England’. As for the way the court was trying to lobby support among the bishops, Lloyd hoped ‘that no court holy water shall be able to slacken or shatter the present good understanding among the nobility, clergy and gentry of the Church of England’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Alongside matters of high political moment, Lloyd was still dealing with issues of personal and ecclesiastical concern. A long-running dilapidations dispute with Thomas White*, his successor at Peterborough, led to an order to pay £164. When Lloyd deducted from this sum the value of goods that he had left behind at Peterborough, he received a monition from Sir Thomas Exton<sup>‡</sup>, diocesan chancellor of London (and Member for Cambridge University). Lloyd was incensed; he questioned the authority of a lay chancellor ‘to inflict the censure of the Church upon a bishop’ and sought to appeal his case to Sancroft.<sup>57</sup></p><p>As William of Orange was landing his invasion force at Torbay, Lloyd denied (almost certainly truthfully) any knowledge of the prince’s plans. On 14 Nov. 1688 he suggested to Sancroft that, in the absence of a Parliament, an emergency council of peers could be called in accordance with the precedent established by Charles I (in the face of the Scottish invasion); ‘Such a council’, he wrote, ‘might be highly useful to prevent the calamities that now threaten us’. Still in Norwich, he informed the archbishop that the Norfolk gentry supported the petition to the king for a free Parliament and that he was himself prepared to support Sancroft’s advice to the king in favour of a Parliament.<sup>58</sup> Summoned to London on 18 Dec. by Sancroft on account of the recent ‘great revolutions … and the perplexed state of affairs’, Lloyd duly hurried to the capital, where, on the afternoon of 27 Dec., together with Francis Turner he dined with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, to discuss their preferred option of a regency, before visiting Danby.<sup>59</sup></p><p>On 22 Jan. 1689 Lloyd attended the first day of the Convention but thereafter was present for only 10 per cent of sittings. Accordingly he was named to the three sessional committees but to only one select committee. Together with ten of the other bishops present that day he was ordered ‘to draw up a form of prayers and thanksgiving to almighty god, for having made his highness the Prince of Orange the glorious instrument of the great deliverance of this kingdom from popery and arbitrary power’. On 29 Jan. he voted for a regency and two days later, in a Committee of the whole House, he voted against declaring William and Mary to be king and queen. Throughout the debates of 4 and 6 Feb. he voted consistently against the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and appointed to manage the subsequent conferences on 4 and 5 February. On 6 Feb. he registered his dissent against the resolution to agree with the Commons that the king had abdicated and that the throne was thus vacant. Somewhat surprisingly, given his opposition to the decision to proclaim William and Mary as king and queen, he attended Parliament on 18 Feb., when, in response to the new king’s request for a speedy political settlement, a bill was presented to the House to regularize the status of the Convention. This proved to be his last appearance in the House.</p><p><em>Non-juror, 1689–1710</em></p><p>In an attempt to evade implementing an order of the House made on 8 Mar. 1689 specifically directing the clergy in his diocese and in the diocese of Winchester to pray for William and Mary, Lloyd informed Sancroft that a Privy Council order would be of ‘infinite more authority’ than his own directions as diocesan. Later that month he reported rumours circulating in the diocese that James II had ‘lodged’ at his house, rumours almost certainly designed to incite mob violence against him. Fearful of an imminent invitation to the coronation, he sought Sancroft’s advice: he had already sworn an oath at a coronation and considered himself ‘not free to do so again’.<sup>60</sup> By the end of April he was preparing for another trip to London to ‘resolve of my measure’ in the matter of the new oaths, and, together with Francis Turner, he was directly involved in putting pressure on Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells, not to take the oaths.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Lloyd had effectively embarked on a new career as Sancroft’s most trusted non-juring ally. He was suspended on 1 Aug. 1689 and by the end of the month was involved in the preparation of a justification of their cause. The propaganda campaign continued when, after attending the deathbed of his fellow non-juror John Lake*, of Chichester, Lloyd carried Lake’s final profession of faith (defending the Church’s doctrine of non-resistance) to Lambeth, whence it was dispersed as an encouragement to other non-jurors wrestling with their consciences.<sup>62</sup> In October he warned Sancroft that a projected scheme to ‘fend off’ deprivation which centred on giving recognizances for good behaviour might be hemmed in with ‘luring and consequential snares’, since the definition of good behaviour might be open to a variety of interpretations, and that they should not involve themselves in it personally. He went on to suggest that it might ‘be very improper to stir the point, till we see in what temper the gent[lemen] are that meet at St Stephen’s Chapel’. In December, at a meeting with Sancroft, Lloyd and Turner, Compton and Lloyd of St Asaph pressed a similar expedient on them, only to be told that ‘if the king thought it fit for his own sake, that they should not be deprived, he must make it his own business’. Compton, Thomas Lamplugh*, of York, and Gilbert Burnet*, of Salisbury, were equally unsuccessful when they pressed Lloyd and other senior non-jurors at a meeting on 6 Jan. 1690.<sup>63</sup> Lloyd was finally deprived of his bishopric and episcopal duties on 1 Feb. 1690.</p><p>Such was the unpopularity of the non-jurors that on 4 Aug. 1690 Lloyd was forced out of his house in order to avoid the ‘rabble’ who had been inflamed against the bishops by ‘the fanatics’.<sup>64</sup> His situation was made still worse in January 1691 by allegations of Turner’s involvement with Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], in Jacobite plotting and of Turner’s assurances to the exiled court of the support of several non-juring bishops, including Lloyd. As Lloyd soon discovered, the revelations incensed ‘the whole court and in a manner all sorts of people’. Lloyd of St Asaph, Compton, Carmarthen (as Danby had become) and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, now ‘vehemently pressed’ for their replacement. Lloyd countered a demand that he and the other non-jurors vindicate themselves from involvement in Jacobitism by saying that ‘experience taught us … [that] if we did not come up to the terms expected at court, we should but provoke more than vindicate, and thereby bring greater hardship upon ourselves’. Such an answer was clearly never going to be considered satisfactory to William III’s courtiers, who thought the issue was a very simple one: either Lloyd was involved in Jacobite plotting or he was not.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Early in February 1691 Lloyd learned of the publication of the aspersions on ‘the reverend club’ of Lambeth in the anti-Jacobite tract <em>A Modest Enquiry into the Causes of the Present Disasters in England</em>. He pressed Sancroft to authorize a response ‘not in a way of vindication but purely in a method to divert the noise of the common people’.<sup>66</sup> The two men remained in close contact, exchanging news and gossip; then in April they learned that the non-juring vacancies were being filled.<sup>67</sup> Lloyd remained fearful of the government’s intentions. In March he had warned Sancroft ‘not to send any writing … beyond the dyke’; now he interpreted letters received from Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and from a Mr Bertie, one of several brothers of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, either as part of a continuing design to implicate him in the Preston and Turner plot or as an attempt to buy him off by encouraging him to petition for the thirds of the bishopric. It soon transpired that it was the financial option that concerned ‘the talkative Mr Bertie’, who was clearly acting on behalf of ‘his great brother-in-law [Carmarthen] who is so well versed and deeply engaged in the intrigues of the Court’. Carmarthen was indeed holding out hopes of an income in return for a declaration that would distance the non-jurors from Jacobitism. Sancroft was dismissive of the proposals but he and Lloyd nevertheless discussed them with Thomas White and Compton; once again, nothing came of the negotiations.<sup>68</sup></p><p>It was symptomatic both of the moral dilemma posed by deprivation and of Lloyd’s local popularity that, as ‘the vengeance of the new oaths’ started to bite, he sought Sancroft’s opinion on how best to advise his sympathizers in the Norwich chapter who shrank from electing his replacement. He was also instrumental in persuading William Beveridge*, later bishop of St Asaph, to refuse the see of Bath and Wells.<sup>69</sup> The problems associated with deprivation continued. Lloyd took legal advice about the ability of the non-juring bishops to retain possession of their episcopal palaces and was advised that to do so would render them liable to costs and ‘hard questions’. He was, however, delighted to learn of quarrels among William’s courtiers: ‘let them scuffle like the creatures of old in the amphitheatre’.<sup>70</sup> Lloyd and Sancroft, rarely out of contact for more than a day or two, continued to support each other in their uncompromising stance towards the new regime; both were dismayed to learn of the accommodation reached between Robert Frampton*, the non-juring bishop of Gloucester, and Edward Fowler*, who replaced him in the autumn of 1691.<sup>71</sup></p><p>On 2 June 1691 Lloyd’s bishopric was filled by John Moore*.<sup>72</sup> Yet he refused to quit public life. He remained socially active, dining with a range of figures including the diarist John Evelyn and bishop Richard Cumberland*, of Peterborough, and earned Sancroft’s admiration for his willingness to ‘jeopard’ himself ‘to the utmost in the high places of the field’.<sup>73</sup> On 9 Feb. 1692 Sancroft formally delegated his metropolitan authority to Lloyd and at Sancroft’s death in November 1693 Lloyd was recognized by the non-jurors as archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>74</sup> He took the non-juring schism to a new level in February 1694 when he performed the covert consecration of Thomas Wagstaffe as bishop of Ipswich and George Hickes as bishop of Thetford. And he was so intransigent that in 1698 he absented himself from the burial service for Thomas White because it was to be read by a juring minister.<sup>75</sup> In 1700 he opposed the negotiations between Thomas Tenison*, of Canterbury, and Henry Dodwell that were designed to heal the schism.<sup>76</sup></p><p>On 1 Jan. 1710, following a fall, Lloyd died at Hammersmith and was buried in the church there. His political legacy was a mixed one. His studied refusal to compromise over the oaths or to accept the need to deny any involvement in Jacobite plotting clearly made him an object of suspicion. Those suspicions were redoubled when Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> alleged at his trial in 1696 that Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, regularly showed correspondence from the exiled king to Lloyd at his house in Hoxton.<sup>77</sup> Lloyd’s insistence that the non-jurors represented the true Church of England, and that it was those who accepted the change of regime who were schismatic, contrasts oddly with his son John’s ability to take the oaths required to graduate at Cambridge (albeit from the non-juring stronghold of St John’s) and then to marry the daughter of Humphrey Humphreys*, successively bishop of Bangor and Hereford. His dominant influence within the non-juring communion meant that it was only after his death that other prominent non-jurors such as Henry Dodwell felt free to rejoin the mainstream Church.</p> |
B.A. |
|
LUCY, William (b. 1594-1677) |
<p><strong><surname>LUCY</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (b. 1594–1677)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 7 May 1668 |
cons. 1660 bp. of ST DAVIDS |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1594 4th s. of Sir Thomas Lucy<sup>‡</sup> of Charlecote, Warws. and Constance, da. of Richard Kingsmill<sup>‡</sup> of Highclere, Hants; bro. of Sir Thomas Lucy<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Richard Lucy<sup>‡</sup>, uncle of Sir Fulk Lucy<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Lucy<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ.</em> Trinity, Oxf. BA 1613; Lincoln’s Inn, 1614; Gonville and Caius, Camb. 1615, MA 1616; ord. deacon 1617, BD 1623, DD 1623. <em>m</em>. 12 Feb. 1629, Martha, da. of William Angell, 5s. 2da. <em>d.</em> 4 Oct. 1677; <em>will</em> 3-29 Sept., pr. 15 Oct. 1677.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Burghclere, Hants 1619-42, Highclere, Hants 1626-42; chap. to George Villiers<sup>†</sup>, duke of Buckingham, c.1621; seq. 1651.<sup>2</sup></p> |
|
<p>William Lucy, a stalwart supporter of Laudian churchmanship before the civil wars, and chaplain to the duke of Buckingham, was identified with the growing Arminian faction at the court of Charles I.<sup>3</sup> After training initially in the law, he took holy orders, then settled to academic life and parish priesthood on the family estates in Hampshire. Sequestered during the Interregnum, his papers were frequently searched by the authorities.<sup>4</sup> He was perceived by the court in exile as a loyal sufferer and elevated in the first tranche of consecrations after the Restoration.</p><p>His new diocese, ‘near a hundred miles long’, was plagued by structural weaknesses, including poverty, neglect, lay impropriations and a language barrier. The cathedral was in ruins, as were the bishop’s houses. By June 1663 he had spent £1,900 on diocesan repairs and augmentations.<sup>5</sup> Taking up residence in Brecon, ‘the furthest point to which most Englishmen were prepared to venture’, Lucy was in the fortunate position of being able to appoint his own sons to senior diocesan posts.</p><p>In 1661, as <em>ex officio</em> dean of Brecon, Lucy intervened in the parliamentary election for Brecon borough, opposing the candidature of Sir Herbert Price<sup>‡</sup> against Kingsmill Lucy.<sup>6</sup> His own parliamentary career began with the re-admission of the bishops on 20 Nov. 1661, when he was at last able to take his seat in the House. Of the 15 sessions held during his tenure of the bishopric, he attended only four, his parliamentary career circumscribed by the hazardous journey from Wales and his own increasing frailty. Over the course of his attendance he was named to over 30 select committees, 20 of these during his first session in the House.</p><p>Lucy attended his first session for 64 per cent of sittings, the bishops being re-admitted to the Lords six months into the session. He attended the House throughout the passage of the Act of Uniformity and followed up the act (by which 30 of his clergymen were ejected) with a visitation.<sup>7</sup> Although Lucy was involved in provisions under the 1662 Act of Uniformity to translate the prayer book into Welsh, unlike his William Thomas*, who succeeded him at St Davids, he was less concerned with evangelizing in Welsh than in ridding his diocese of political and religious radicalism. He encouraged the cult of the royal martyr, and the anniversary of the regicide became a day not only for ritual breast-beating but for the routine vilification of Puritan Dissent.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Lucy attended the 1663 session of parliament for 54 per cent of sittings, missing the first 12 weeks of business. He was named to two select committees, the private bill involving George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, and the bill for the observation of the Sabbath. During that year he embarked on a damaging wrangle with his fellow bishop, William Nicholson*, of Gloucester, who held the archdeaconry of Brecon. Despite the intervention of Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, the dispute over Nicholson’s archidiaconal visitation rights was finally settled in the court of arches which upheld Lucy’s understanding of Nicholson’s ‘largely ceremonial’ functions and deprived the diocese of archidiaconal visitations for two centuries.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Registering his proxy in favour of Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London on 3 Mar. 1664, Lucy did not attend the spring 1664 session. He was present for the first day of the next session on 24 Nov. 1664 and attended nearly 60 per cent of sittings up to the prorogation on 2 Mar. 1665 but left no mark of his activities there. He did not attend the Oxford Parliament in October 1665 (entering his proxy in favour of Joseph Henshaw*, of Peterborough) nor the following session from September 1666 to February 1667, when his proxy was registered in favour of Matthew Wren*, of Ely.</p><p>In 1666 Lucy was still struggling to deal with the political reality that many of the Welsh gentry held attitudes towards nonconformity that were far less rigid than his own. In an attempt to combine secular and ecclesiastical authority he wrote to the deputy lieutenants, justices of the peace and captains of the trained bands in the Gower to co-ordinate efforts against a conventicler that he suspected of sedition.<sup>10</sup> He excommunicated the ejected minister Stephen Hughes in December 1667 but could not prevent Hughes from benefiting from his connections, especially as Hughes, unlike Lucy, was fluent in Welsh and deeply involved in preparing and disseminating protestant devotional literature in the Welsh language. He claimed that ‘leading men of the country … whose frowns overawe the poor curates’, intimidated them into allowing Hughes to preach in parish churches. He once excommunicated over one hundred people in a single occasion for non-payment of the church rate. He complained to Sheldon of his impotence in dealing with Dissenters through the church courts alone and found that he could not enforce conformity without the assistance of the civil courts, whose officers were often reluctant to assist.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In autumn 1667 Lucy again travelled up to London to attend the House; subsequently attending the session for two-thirds of all sittings. On 20 Nov. 1667, together with John Cosin*, of Durham, and Herbert Croft*, of Hereford, he broke ranks with his fellow bishops over the impeachment of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon and signed the dissent to the refusal to commit the disgraced chancellor. Having already been excused attendance on grounds of ill health at a call of the House on 26 Mar. 1668, Lucy attended the House for the final time on 7 May 1668. Increasingly unwell and immobile, he was forced to abandon his parliamentary duties. His proxy thereafter was registered on 13 Oct. 1669 and 9 Feb. 1670 with John Cosin, on 29 Dec. 1673 and 10 Apr. 1675 with Peter Mews*, of Bath and Wells, and on 12 Feb. 1677 to Henry Compton*, of London.</p><p>In 1672 Lucy was dismayed by the royal Declaration of Indulgence which resulted in 136 preaching licences being taken out in South Wales alone.<sup>12</sup> In February 1673, just a month before the Declaration was withdrawn, he wrote to Sheldon about the dilemma he faced in dealing with nonconformity, for</p><blockquote><p>if the parents may go to these licensed conventicles, who can be offended with their children that go with them or with them that carry their children since I know no provision made against them. My Lord ... I who am exceeding cautious in observing his majesty’s will, would be very glad to have your grace’s directions what I should do in those and the like emergencies … I shall question, suspend, perhaps excommunicate a schoolmaster, when I have done that he shall be licensed to preach, so may and will teach children as well as men.</p></blockquote><p>Later in the same letter he described some of the options open to him, doubted their efficacy and repeated his fear of offending the king: ‘I have an awe with me of displeasing the king, that without I may be allowed it, I shall not adventure’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Despite his opposition to the Declaration, in January 1673, a month before the beginning of the new parliamentary session, he again excused himself from attendance. Now almost 80 years old, he was ‘so over-sensible of cold’ that he could not leave his fireside.<sup>14</sup> Even after the Declaration was rescinded in March 1673, he was uncertain how to act and again sought Sheldon’s advice. This was a wise move since, as Sheldon pointed out in his reply, the lifting of the Declaration meant that the bishops could act ‘as formerly against such as for the future shall offend’ but that the imminent act of general pardon was likely to protect all who were currently under presentment or censure.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Lucy failed to attend the second session of 1673, claiming that he was so unwell that he had not ventured more than a mile from home in 18 months. He was similarly excused from every other session during the remaining years of his life.<sup>16</sup> He died on 4 Oct. 1677.</p><p>Lucy’s personal wealth is difficult to determine. He claimed to be the ‘poorest bishop’ in England or Wales, and at his death left his sons only £5 each. During his lifetime, however, he had not only provided well for his sons by means of office and preferments in the Church but claimed to have clothed ‘diverse poor’ at Christmas, kept a number of children in education, and supported the destitute offspring of Theophilus Field<sup>†</sup>, the former bishop of Hereford.<sup>17</sup> He also spent copiously on repairs to church property, not all of which would have been affordable on his annual episcopal revenue of some £500.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Lucy made few, if any, concessions to Welsh language and culture, and he is not remembered well by historians of Welsh religious history.<sup>19</sup> Yet to Anthony Wood he was the ideal churchman, and his epitaph on the imposing alabaster monument in the Collegiate Church of Brecon claimed that he was a ‘shining star in the … Church’ and ‘a strenuous ornament of the hierarchy’.<sup>20</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
MANNINGHAM, Thomas (c. 1649-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>MANNINGHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1649–1722)</p> |
|
|
First sat 1 Dec. 1709; last sat 9 Nov. 1721 |
cons. 13 Nov. 1709 bp. of CHICHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1649, s. Richard Manningham (<em>d</em>.1682), rect. Michelmersh, Hants and Bridget Blackwell. educ. Winchester Coll. 1661-9; New Coll. Oxf. matric. 12 Aug. 1669, fell. 1671-81, BA 1673, MA 1677; Lambeth DD 1691. <em>m</em>. bef. 1683 Elizabeth (surname unknown) (1657-1714), 4s. 2da. 4 o. ch.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 25 Aug. 1722; <em>will</em> 6 Aug., pr. 4 Sept. 1722.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. in ordinary, Charles II 1684-5, William III and Mary II 1689-94, William III 1694-1702;<sup>3</sup> commr. charitable collection for Vaudois Protestants 1699,<sup>4</sup> Q. Anne’s Bounty bef. 1710.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Rect. E. Tisted, Hants 1681, St Andrew’s, Holborn 1691-1713, Great Haseley, Oxon. 1708; preacher, Chapel of the Rolls, 1684; chap. to Speaker, House of Commons 1690-4; lecturer, Temple Church 1691; canon, Windsor 1693-1709; dean, Windsor 26 Feb.-3 Dec. 1709.</p><p>Mbr. SPG 1701.<sup>6</sup></p> |
|
<p>Thomas Manningham was born in Southwark, the son of a clergyman who owed his benefice to his maternal uncle Walter Curl<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Winchester. His grandfather was the diarist, John Manningham.<sup>7</sup> As a fellow of New College, Oxford, Thomas Manningham acquired a reputation as a ‘wit’ and was involved in two failed elections for the place as orator at Oxford University.<sup>8</sup> His first cure was as rector of the wealthy living of East Tisted in Hampshire in 1681, where the advowson was owned by Sir John Norton<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>9</sup> He quickly found favour with Charles II who in 1684 appointed him a chaplain in ordinary and promised him a prebend at Winchester. When that failed to materialize, Manningham replaced Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, as preacher at the Rolls Chapel after the Scotsman had made a controversial sermon.<sup>10</sup> There is some evidence that Manningham may have continued as a chaplain to James II after 1685. In any case, his career took off after the Revolution. From early in the reign he was a chaplain in ordinary to the new monarchs William and Mary. Manningham was, in 1690, appointed by Sir John Trevor<sup>‡ </sup>as chaplain to the Speaker of the Commons and in 1691 obtained the prestigious living of St Andrew’s Holborn, where the advowson was held by Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu. Manningham proved highly popular with the Commons, and as early as 23 May 1690 they addressed the king in support of Manningham’s preferment to the next vacancy in the chapter of Windsor or Westminster, a request which they had to repeat for the next two sessions, on 3 Jan. and 19 Dec. 1691. Manningham was not installed as a canon of Windsor until 28 Jan. 1693.<sup>11</sup></p><p>During the reign of Anne his sermons and his publication on ‘true mirth’ put him increasingly in the public eye. By 1705 he was included in gatherings of senior churchmen at Lambeth as well.<sup>12</sup> In 1708 he became rector of Great Haseley, Oxfordshire and on 26 Feb. 1709 he was installed as dean of Windsor.<sup>13</sup> A further sign of the royal, and ministerial favour he enjoyed at that time came on 14 Mar. 1709, when the secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, introduced to the House, by royal command, Manningham’s petition for permission to bring in a bill to annex the rectory of Haseley in Oxfordshire to the deanery of Windsor and to vest the perpetual advowson of the rectory of North Berkhamstead in Hertfordshire in the dean and chapter of Windsor. The petition was not even referred to the judges, but read and agreed to immediately. The bill itself quickly went through both Houses and received the royal assent on 21 April.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The death of John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, on 24 Apr. 1709 had the potential to plunge the Church into another crisis similar to the ‘bishoprics crisis’ which had followed the vacancies of the sees of Exeter and Chester. At this point, by the spring of 1709, Anne’s ministry was dominated and controlled by the Whigs, which gave hope to Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, then precentor of the chapter of Chichester (and later bishop of London), that the new bishop would be, as he termed it to William Wake*,bishop of Lincoln, in a letter of 7 May 1709, one of ‘our friends’. The inexplicable delay in nominating a successor made Gibson worry ‘that the second part of Exeter and Chester was going on’ and that the queen was unlikely to nominate a Whig to the chapter. The Whig peers Sunderland, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset and William Cowper*, Baron Cowper had first promoted the candidacy of Dr Thomas Hayley, dean of Chichester, but after finding that he was crippled, they turned their attention, together with Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, to the dean of Lincoln, Richard Willis<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Gloucester. Gibson fretted that by all he could see, Willis ‘will not go down at court’ and ‘that our friends are not to be gratified in the bishopric’. The Whigs insisted that ‘they would stand by the dean of Lincoln’, but Tenison also suggested the translation of the Whig, William Fleetwood*, who had been consecrated bishop of St Asaph as recently as 6 June 1708. By early July the queen instead had fixed on John Robinson*, at that time chaplain to the British embassy and envoy extraordinary at the Swedish court (and later bishop of London). Robinson had been outside of the bear pit of domestic British politics for many years, and was unwilling to take on such an onerous office. The queen then turned to Manningham, and decided to move him on to Chichester while placing Robinson in his former post as dean of Windsor. These appointments, including the detail that Manningham was to continue to hold the rectory of St Andrews Holborn <em>in commendam</em> for three years, were well known to Gibson and newsletter writers in the first week of August. Manningham was clearly acceptable to the queen and does not appear to have been wholly offensive to the Whigs. Gibson, while lamenting the ineffectiveness of the Whig ministers in procuring the desired ecclesiastical appointments, still assured Wake that Manningham would be ‘no doubt to the great honour of this church and diocese’ and Manningham himself professed deep friendship and admiration for Wake, at least when he wrote to him apologizing for not inviting him to his consecration on 13 Nov. 1709, apparently because Wake was suffering from smallpox at the time. After his consecration Manningham was formally introduced to the queen by Sunderland when he went to pay homage for his bishopric.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Manningham did not take his seat in the House until 1 Dec. 1709, when he was introduced by Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham and Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich. He attended 60 per cent of the sittings of this session of 1709-10, and was present on 27 Feb. 1710 when the impeachment proceedings against Sacheverell opened in Westminster Hall. The following day Manningham was ordered by the House to preach the sermon for the day appointed by the queen for a general fast, 15 Mar. 1710. This sermon, at which Wake records his attendance, proved contentious. Manningham chose as his theme the dignity of the clergy and the decline in their material and career fortunes, and advocated a restoration to the Church of abbey lands. This may have been meant as a piece of hyperbole in order to poke fun at Sacheverell’s own exaggerated claims, but nevertheless in the debate the following day, 16 Mar. 1710, when the discussion on the first article of impeachment was reckoned ‘the longest in living memory’, Manningham came under attack from John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (who sat as earl of Greenwich). Argyll accused churchmen of meddling in politics and referred to Manningham’s fast sermon. During Argyll’s attack, a bewildered Manningham asked Gilbert Burnet to whom Argyll was referring. Burnet responded, patting Manningham indulgently on the head, ‘who should it be, but thou child’. Manningham, nevertheless, ‘stole away’ from the chamber before the end of the twelve-hour debate and the vote that the Commons had made good the first article.<sup>16</sup> Manningham similarly, and more controversially, absented himself on 20 Mar. 1710 for the final vote on Sacheverell’s guilt, although he was marked as present at the trial itself that day. This abstention upset the Whigs and the ministry, who appear to have been counting on his vote. A correspondent of Wake commented on the ‘scandalous story ... why the bishop of Chichester went out of the House, and would not vote on either side’ while John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, upon seeing a division list of the vote expressed his surprise that Manningham, along with eight lay peers, ‘were influenced to be for Sacheverell’ as ‘I should have thought all these would have been on the other side’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Marlborough’s comment suggests that Manningham’s political position remained indeterminate. Certainly, in early October 1710 Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, could only list the bishop as a ‘court Whig’ or even a ‘doubtful’ supporter of the new ministry. Manningham was present on 25 Nov. for the first day of the new session and attended just over one third of the sittings. As there is little evidence of his activity in the House, it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of Harley’s analysis. In any case Manningham left the House for the session on 18 May 1711, though Ralph Bridges appears to have misidentified him as one of the three bishops – the other two, Fleetwood and Trimnell, being Whigs – who left the chamber on 31 May in protest at the third reading of the bill to provide funds for the act for building 50 new churches in London.<sup>18</sup> Manningham may have been more engaged in extra-parliamentary bodies at this point. On 29 Dec. 1710 he attended a meeting at Whitehall of the commissioners for Queen Anne’s bounty.<sup>19</sup> He was also active in Convocation and on 14 Mar. 1711 was appointed to a committee of 13 bishops to consider the controversial heresy case of Cambridge academic William Whiston. Manningham banned Whiston from attending communion at St Andrew, Holborn for more than a year, which led to several angry petitions from Whiston to Tenison.<sup>20</sup> Manningham was also concerned with diocesan business and in June 1711 was exercised by the compromised and indebted position of one of his curates.<sup>21</sup> There are suggestions that Tenison and other of his ecclesiastical colleagues may not have been fully satisfied with Manningham’s administration of his see. In August 1711 the archbishop asked John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, to conduct confirmations while he was on a visit to Chichester. Manningham, perceiving Tenison’s request as a public slight, became ‘much out of humour’ and insisted that he had been conducting confirmations himself on the very day of Evans’s visit.<sup>22</sup> Later, in February 1712, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, was regaled by Richard Bowchier, an archdeacon in Chichester diocese, with reports of ‘the bishop’s blunders’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Manningham attended 27 per cent of the sittings of the session of 1711-12. He was present on its first day, 7 Dec. 1711, and the following day protested against the resolution to present to the queen the address of thanks with the inclusion of ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause. On 20 Dec. he voted in favour of the motion to disable James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, from sitting in the House under his British title of duke of Brandon. Manningham was present in the House on 2 Jan. 1712, immediately following the introduction in the House of 12 new Tory peers. On the ministry’s motion for an adjournment for a further two weeks he was one of only four bishops (with Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, William Dawes*, bishop of Chester and Philip Bisse*, bishop of St Davids) who voted in favour of the motion, in contrast to the 11 bishops who sided with the Whigs against it.<sup>24</sup> Manningham absented himself from the House for a long period from 16 Feb., and on 26 Feb. he registered his proxy with Philip Bisse. This was vacated upon his return to the House on 13 May. In early June Oxford (as Harley had become) once again listed Manningham as an uncertain or doubtful supporter of the ministry, an uncertainty most likely caused by the bishop’s low attendance in the House. Indeed, Manningham left the House on 7 June and again registered his proxy with Bisse four days later, who held it until the prorogation on 8 July.</p><p>By March 1713 Jonathan Swift could list Manningham as one of those now expected to support the ministry. On 9 Apr. he attended the new session on its first day and attended 21 per cent of sittings. As in the previous session he may have delegated his vote to proxies during his periods of absence, but this cannot be confirmed as the proxy register for this session is missing. Despite his haphazard attendance, he featured in the voting calculations of the ministry during this contentious session in which the details of the peace of Utrecht were hotly debated. At the end of May Swift listed him as a possible opponent of the French commercial treaty, or one who should be lobbied to support it, and in June, when it appeared that the bill might come before the House, Oxford placed Manningham among its supporters. The bill never did come before the House, and in any case Manningham left the House for that session on 16 June. He probably left to conduct his diocesan visitation of that summer, and to oversee the marriage of one of his sons to the daughter of a local Surrey gentleman.<sup>25</sup> He may also have retreated to his diocese to be present for the elections for the borough of Chichester which followed the dissolution of 8 Aug., but there is little or no indication of any involvement of the ‘cathedral interest’ in the election which returned two Tories to Parliament – despite the concerns of the whiggish chapter precentor, Edmund Gibson.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Manningham arrived in the House on 18 Feb. 1714, the third day of actual business of the new Parliament, and went on to attend only one fifth of its sittings. On 5 Apr. he, together with all but three of the bishops present, voted with the Whigs in favour of the amendment to motion that the Protestant succession was not in danger ‘under her majesty’s government’. He was present on 13 Apr. when the House considered the reply of the queen to an address concerning the danger from the Pretender and the necessity of his expulsion from Lorraine. Manningham again joined the rest of the 16 bishops present (save two, Sprat and Crew) in voting with the Whigs for a more strongly worded address on this matter, but the ministry carried, by only two votes cast by proxy, a resolution that the address be couched in purely general terms.<sup>27</sup> He last sat for the session on 16 Apr. and the following day registered his proxy with John Robinson, just recently appointed bishop of London. Thus he was not present for the debates and proceedings on the schism bill, but contemporaries such as Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, regarded Manningham as a supporter of the bill against the dissenting academies, through his proxy holder Robinson, a consistent advocate of the bill.</p><p>Manningham was engaged in diocesan business throughout the summer months of 1714, dealing with a jurisdictional dispute as well as misbehaviour by members of his chapter, including the organist who proclaimed William III an irreligious pickpocket, and the canon who had made an ‘intimate acquaintance’ of Mrs Maggot of the cathedral close.<sup>28</sup> By this point age and infirmity appears to have been taking its toll. He failed to attend any of the sittings of the short session of August 1714 following the queen’s death, but did appear in the House on the first day of George I’s Parliament on 17 Mar. 1715, although he attended only 20 days of that session. When the new archbishop William Wake ordered him in late January 1716 to ‘undertake a public performance’, Manningham could only assume ‘that your Grace is not well apprised of my weakness and ill state of health, that may be apt to impute my retiredness and non-attendance of Parliament to somewhat of humour or as an effect of that laziness to which I have been formerly subject’. Instead, as Manningham explained, ‘my constitution of body is very much broken by continual colds, frequent colics, and languishing sweats for whole nights together besides a cluster of smaller infirmities’.<sup>29</sup> As suggested by this painful litany of ailments, he only attended the House on a further 24 sitting days from the time of this letter of 25 Jan. 1716 until his death on 25 Aug. 1722. His political and parliamentary career after 1715, such as it was, will be examined in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Manningham died on 25 Aug. 1722 at his home in Greville Street, Holborn, a relatively wealthy man. In his will, written just days before his death, he was able to bequeath some £2,500 in legacies, an annuity of £50 over 90 years, and four other annuities of £20. He had already settled part of his estate on his ten surviving children. At least four of these were sons and all but one of them became a clergyman. His son Thomas (1683-1750) even followed in his father’s footsteps and became chaplain to the Speaker of the Commons. In contrast his son Richard became a man-midwife, celebrated for exposing in 1726 the claims of Mary Toft that she had given birth to a brood of rabbits. Thomas Manningham was buried in the parish church of which he had long been rector, St Andrew’s Church, Holborn.</p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
MEWS, Peter (1619-1706) |
<p><strong><surname>MEWS</surname></strong>, <strong>Peter</strong> (1619–1706)</p> |
|
|
First sat 15 Feb. 1673; last sat 27 Mar. 1704 |
cons. 9 Feb. 1673 bp. of BATH AND WELLS; transl. Nov. 1684 bp. of WINCHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 25 Mar. 1619, s. of Elisha Mews of Purse Caundle, Dorset, and Elizabeth Winniffe. <em>educ</em>. Merchant Taylors’ sch. London; St John’s, Oxf. BA 1641, MA 1645, fell. 1641–8, 1661, DCL 1660. <em>m</em>. Mary, da. of Richard Baylie, pres. of St John’s, Oxf. <em>d.</em> 9 Nov. 1706;<em> admon</em>. 13 Dec 1706 to nephew Peter Mews.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II.</p><p>Ord. deacon 14 Jan. 1645; adn. Huntingdon 1649 (installed 1660)–1666, Berkshire 1665–73; vic. St Mary, Reading 1661; rect. Farthingstone, Northants. 1645, S. Warnborough, Hants 1662–8, N. Moreton, Berks. 1667, Hanborough, Oxon. 1668–?1679; canon, ?Lincoln 1645, Windsor 1662–73, St Davids 1662; dean, Rochester 1670–3.</p><p>Capt. tp. of gds. (Roy.), 1642–8.</p><p>President, St John’s, Oxf. 1667–78; v.-chan. Oxf. 1669–73; gov. Charterhouse sch. 1687–?<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: miniature on vellum by D. Loggan, c.1680, NPG 1872; oil on canvas, after 1684, Magdalen, Oxf.</p> |
<p>Shortly after graduating and obtaining a fellowship at St John’s College, Oxford, Peter Mews joined the king’s army with the rank of captain. In January 1645 he was ordained deacon in the chapel of Trinity College, Oxford, by Robert Skinner*, bishop of Oxford; his subsequent ordination as a priest has yet to be traced. Presumably ordination went hand in hand with an intention to return to academic life because canon law should have prevented him from continuing in arms. Yet when, in June 1645, he was wounded and captured at Naseby it was as a soldier rather than a clergyman. Mews was ejected from his fellowship at St John’s by the parliamentary visitors in 1648 and subsequently became involved in royalist activities in Scotland and Flanders, where he served under James Stuart*, duke of York. He was friendly with Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, who became secretary of state at the Restoration and to whom Mews considered himself ‘engag’d … more then to any other person living’.<sup>3</sup> He also had useful Church connections through his uncle, Thomas Winniffe<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Lincoln. It was Winniffe who appointed him archdeacon of Huntingdon in 1649, although subsequent events meant that he could not be installed until 1660. Winniffe probably also appointed him as a canon of Lincoln; the appointment is noted in <em>Alumni Oxonienses</em> but he may never have taken possession of his canonry. Unusually for a clergyman, Mews continued to be known by his military rank and at one stage during the Interregnum was contemplating settling a dispute by means of a duel.<sup>4</sup></p><p>At the Restoration, Mews ‘came home’, as one early biographer put it, ‘with the tide’.<sup>5</sup> As befitted a loyal royalist with excellent social, clerical, and political connections – or, as Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury put it, through the ‘obsequiousness and zeal’ that were necessary to make up for his intellectual shortcomings – he soon received rapid promotion in the Church.<sup>6</sup> He was restored to his fellowship at St John’s at the king’s request and it was also the king’s influence that procured him the presidency of St John’s after the death of his father-in-law, Richard Baylie. His time at Oxford introduced him to potentially influential friends such as John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] and later earl of Guilford, whose nephew was a student at the university.<sup>7</sup> It was probably also at Oxford that he met Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup>. Coventry played a pivotal role in nursing the Restoration settlement through the Commons, including the passage of the bill for the readmission of bishops to the House of Lords; he was later to act as Mews’s principal patron. Mews’s own political and religious outlook was deeply influenced by the events of the civil wars and led him to associate Dissent with rebellion. In September 1667 he was deeply dismayed by rumours of some form of toleration, insisting ‘that the Presbyterians generally are all schismatics’. He is known to have led campaigns against Dissenters as vicar of Reading in 1663 and as vice-chancellor of Oxford in 1670 but his antipathy to Dissent was so great that he was almost certainly far more deeply involved in prosecutions than these isolated examples suggest.<sup>8</sup></p><h2><em>T</em><em>he campaign against Dissent, 1673–8</em></h2><p>By 1672 it had become clear that Mews was destined to be a bishop. In September of that year Nathaniel Crew*, then bishop of Oxford (later bishop of Durham), tipped him off about the possibility of an imminent vacancy at Rochester, through the promotion of John Dolben*, to York. Mews, who claimed to detest London and probably already had his eyes on a more lucrative see, was then faced with the need to write a tactful letter to his patron Sir Henry Coventry combining a modest disavowal of any ambition towards a bishopric with a refusal to accept one that had not been offered.<sup>9</sup> His appointment as bishop of Bath and Wells was predicted within days of the death of his predecessor, Robert Creighton*, on 20 Nov. 1672, and he was consecrated the following spring, barely six weeks before his 53rd birthday.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Mews paid serious attention to his parliamentary duties. He took his seat soon after consecration and was then present for some 84 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the session. During the course of the session he was named to 11 committees whose subject matter ranged from estate bills to the prohibition of new buildings in London and the bill of advice to the king. Although in March 1673 it was reported that he was one of five bishops named to the committee to consider the bill for easing Protestant Dissenters, the Journal records that the committee stage of this bill was conducted over three days (22, 26, and 27 Mar.) in a committee of the whole House.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In July he was back in his diocese, where he found himself having to deal with a group of local Catholics who had taken to taunting a Protestant convert as he walked through the streets. Although Mews was determined to proceed against them he made sure that the government knew of his actions for fear that his enemies would misrepresent him to the king. He also noted that talk of the bill for easing Dissenters had led to a resurgence in the activities of the ‘fanatics’. He remained in his diocese throughout the summer, conducted a visitation there in September, and stayed on into mid-October in order to be present at the opening of quarter sessions. Comments scattered throughout his correspondence reveal that he regarded his role at the various quarter sessions of his diocese as one of the utmost importance. They gave him an opportunity to act as the hinge between local and central government. It was also at quarter sessions that he had an opportunity to meet the gentry of the locality and to impress upon them the necessity of acting against Dissenters and to communicate the king’s policies to them. He took a similar attitude to the meetings of the twice-yearly assize courts, taking great care to instruct, influence, and advise whichever local clergyman had been selected to deliver the assize sermon.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Mews was back in London by late October and attended all four remaining days of the brief autumn session. He was named to the committees for privileges, petitions, and the Journal and to the select committee on English manufactures. During the December recess the proxy of William Lucy*, bishop of St Davids, was registered in his favour. Presumably he held it until the end of the following session in February 1674. He was present on all but three of the sitting days of the 1674 session and was again named to the sessional committees. Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> reported that he had been named to the committee of both Houses to inspect the treaty with France, but this is not recorded in the Journal.<sup>13</sup> He was named to eight further committees.</p><p>During the summer recess Mews continued his campaign against Dissenters in his diocese. He reported that there was an expectation of some form of toleration and that as a consequence ‘they bear themselves very high’. He was particularly affronted by an attack on one of his officers by those who ‘triumph in their victory, wishing as I am told that the bishop had been there’.<sup>14</sup> He was also asked to draft an act of Parliament that would confirm the power of the Church – rather than of the justices of the peace – to enforce catechizing and the regulation of schools, which together formed ‘the best expedients for preservation of unity both in the Church and commonwealth’.<sup>15</sup> Catechizing was but one weapon in what Mews clearly believed was an ongoing battle against Dissent. Excommunication was another. In August 1674 when rumours of a toleration were circulating once again, Mews was horrified, declaring that: ‘until they have it they shall have no quarter from me (I mean the ringleaders) for when they have it (which God forbid ever they should) I expect none from them’. The willingness of the court of arches to overturn some of Mews’s sentences of excommunication suggests that at times his enthusiasm for the cause of the Church led him to overstep the mark and meant that his attempts at prosecution proved counter-productive, for ‘This hath so encouraged the rest of the faction that they now plainly say they care not for our proceedings here, indeed, they need not if absolutions from above be so easily obtained’.<sup>16</sup> Accounts of his treatment of Quakers suggest that he was equally willing to bend the law when dealing with Dissenters in his secular jurisdiction as a justice of the peace. He was assisted in this campaign against Dissenters by his chancellor and brother-in-law, John Bailie.<sup>17</sup></p><p>During the session of spring and summer 1675 Mews was present every day and was as usual named to the sessional committees. His signature at the inspection of the Journals confirms that he was an active member of the committee for the Journal. He was also named to 12 select committees, ranging in topic from naturalization to the regulation of watermen on the Thames and the augmentation of small vicarages. He held William Lucy’s proxy from 10 April. At the end of the session he returned to his diocese, where he ‘discoursed’ the ‘principal and most knowing part of the clergy’ on Church issues and somewhat conveniently (given his own beliefs) discovered a demand among the clergy for ‘the ordinary assistance of the law to countenance them’ in their fight against Dissent.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Mews was present on all but one of the sitting days of the autumn 1675 session. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to nine other committees. Only one of the committees was politically controversial: its remit was to discover the publisher of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country</em>.</p><h2><em>Electoral influence, 1673–84</em></h2><p>Mews’s interest in Parliament extended to an interest in parliamentary elections and candidates. According to Boyer, he was much loved by the gentlemen of his diocese, ‘who were in a manner unanimous in their county elections, and other public concerns during his residence amongst them’.<sup>19</sup> In reality Somerset, as home to noted nonconformists such as the Spodes and Spekes, was the focus of intense political activity. The corporations too were the scene of much political commotion. Bridgwater was ‘a Presbyterian stronghold, remarkable for the acrimony between churchmen and Dissenters’. The town surrendered its charter in 1683 under pressure from Mews, acting in concert with Sir John Stawell.<sup>20</sup> In Wells, the cathedral city, it has been noted that non-Anglicans stood little chance of election but the corporation was nevertheless remodelled in 1683.<sup>21</sup> Mews, with his outspoken views on Presbyterians and fanatics, was incapable of standing aside from such conflicts. He was said to be the ‘great patron’ of the court supporter Sir William Bassett<sup>‡</sup>, who, with the exception of the second Exclusion Parliament, sat for Bath from 1669 until his death in 1693.<sup>22</sup></p><p>By August 1676, when Parliament had been prorogued for nearly a year, Mews noted that there was already something of a local election campaign in anticipation of the news of a dissolution. Predictably it was the court’s opponents who were most active: ‘some members who have not gone very right for the king was very busy in caressing the places for which they serve and others using all industry to keep out those that are loyal from being elected’. He also warned the government against alienating the local gentry by allowing governors of towns and castles to bestow their patronage on relatives ‘for it gives great disgust and is pressed on hard by some that favour the fanatic party’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Mews was not the only person in the diocese to be haunted by memories of the civil wars. More than 30 years after the event the residents of the former parliamentary stronghold of Taunton were still celebrating the anniversary of the lifting of the royalist siege of their town (11 May 1645). Taunton remained a hotbed of Dissent and was notoriously anti-royalist. It was seemingly impossible to close down the conventicles there, one of ‘which is kept up with greater solemnity and impudence then anywhere in England’. Mews was convinced that ‘Were the place reduced to order (which how it can be done but by a corporation or a military power I know not) I durst be responsible for the whole county’s being immediately made at the king’s devotion.’<sup>24</sup></p><p>Mews was present on over 90 per cent of sitting days in the 1677–8 session and was named to the three sessional committees. Perhaps appropriately, in view of his concerns about electioneering in Somerset, he was named to the committee to discover the author and contriver of the pamphlet <em>Some Considerations upon the Question, whether the Parliament is Dissolved by Prorogation for Fifteene Monthes</em>, as well as to another 58 committees over the session. He held the proxy of James Fleetwood*, bishop of Worcester, from 10 Feb. 1677 and that of Anthony Sparrow*, bishop of Norwich, from 1 Jan. 1678 to the end of the session on 13 May 1678. On 14 Feb. he entered a dissent to the resolution to dismiss Barret’s petition in <em>Barret v Viscount Loftus</em>.</p><p>When Parliament was adjourned for six weeks on 28 May 1677, Mews feared that the adjournment might be used as a propaganda weapon against the king but assured Henry Coventry that ‘I have not, nor shall be wanting to do my duty in undeceiving those who have been misinformed.’ (He was relieved to discover at the July meeting of gentry at Bridgwater sessions that the king’s service had not been prejudiced after all.) In the same letter he broached the subject of his own future. Rumour suggested that Henry Compton*, would be translated from London to Canterbury and that Mews would be Compton’s replacement. In a letter reminiscent of the one he had written about the potential vacancy at Rochester five years earlier, he conveyed both his modesty – ‘I am not so vain as to believe I am thought worthy of that province’ – and his total unwillingness to accept the post. Presumably there was some pressure on him to accept for he had to repeat his refusal in September and again in November.<sup>25</sup></p><p>During the long adjournment he also kept Coventry informed of the state of affairs in the neighbouring diocese of Bristol, where problems with Dissenters and the mayor had driven the bishop, Guy Carleton*, to despair. Mews considered the problems of Bristol to be his own, for ‘the greatest trouble I receive in my diocese proceeds from those schismatical preachers which receive protection and encouragement there’.<sup>26</sup> Within his own diocese he was confident that Taunton was at last set to come under control when a new charter, naming Mews as one of the aldermen, was imposed on the town in November 1677.<sup>27</sup> In practice he soon discovered that it was going to take rather more than a charter to change the character of the town. Conventicles continued to spring up, the locals threw libels into the houses of the clergy and magistrates, and they ‘are resolved to persist in their faction’ in the belief that the Cavalier Parliament was about to be dissolved and that a new Parliament ‘will do as they will have them’. Mews advised that the right of election should be vested in the new corporation and he blamed the failure to do so for the return of two exclusionists in the spring of 1679.<sup>28</sup></p><p><em>The Plot and the Tory reaction, 1678–84</em></p><p>From the first session of 1678 to the dissolution of the 1681 Parliament on 28 Mar. 1681 Mews was present on all but four sitting days and also attended the prorogation days in March 1679 and on 26 Jan. 1680. At the opening of the May–July 1678 session he was predictably named to the three sessional committees; he was also named to 25 other committees and reported one of them (on the bill to unite the Essex churches of Beaumont and Mose) to the House. On 25 June 1678 he was named as one of the managers of the conference to discuss the refusal of the House to accept a proviso to the supply bill offered by the Commons. He held Sparrow’s proxy from 22 May to the end of the session.</p><p>At the opening of the last session of the Cavalier Parliament in October 1678 Mews was again named to the three sessional committees. Sparrow’s proxy was registered in his favour on 14 Oct. before the session had opened and Mews held it until the session closed on 30 Dec. 1678. On 23 Oct. he was named to the committee to enquire into the Popish Plot and the death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. The following day he was named to the committee to examine whether any of the constables of London and Westminster were papists. He clearly played an active role in these committees for he reported from the committee to examine the plot on 7 Nov. and asked the House to administer an oath to a fresh witness, one Mr Whitehall. He was also named to the committees for Conyers’ attainder, for raising the militia, for popish recusants, and for preventing the children of popish recusants being sent overseas. Throughout this period he was an unflinching supporter of the anti-Catholic measures of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) but also an equally staunch anti-exclusionist. In November 1678 he was content that the declaration against transubstantiation should be under the same penalties as the oaths designed to prevent papists from sitting in Parliament. The following month he voted to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the supply bill. He is also presumed to have voted against the commitment of Danby; Danby’s canvassing lists compiled in April 1679 indicate that he regarded Mews as a supporter.</p><p>During the election campaign of February 1679 Mews canvassed energetically for government candidates in an attempt to counter-balance the ‘great arts’ of those who were trying to brand ‘all those who have any employment under his majesty as unfit to be chosen’. He was amused and somewhat surprised to discover that his support for the court and the duke of York, had led his opponents to brand him a papist. The allegation simply confirmed his belief that lying was ‘a presbyterian grace’ for he remained in no doubt that popery was ‘a false religion’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>When the first Exclusion Parliament opened in March 1679 Mews was named to the three sessional committees, to the committee to receive informations concerning the plot, and to the select committee considering the bill requiring members of convocation to take the oaths. Mews reported from both committees on 20 and 26 Mar. respectively. He was present at 98 per cent of sittings in the Parliament’s main session, which began on 15 March. He brought Prance’s revelations of a plot to kill Antony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, to the House from the former and requested leave to bring in another bill to include more of the clergy from the latter. He was also named to ten other committees, several on politically contentious issues such as the bills to force all clergymen to subscribe to the declaration, for <em>habeas corpus</em>, and to clear London and Westminster of papists, as well as the committee to consider the objections of the House of Commons to the answers of the impeached lords. It was presumably a sign of his active membership of such committees that he was named as one of the managers of the conferences on the habeas corpus bill on 3 May and on the refusal of counsel to appear for Danby on 10 May.</p><p>On 7 Apr. when John Sidway (or Sedway) repeated allegations that Mews was one of the bishops who was sympathetic to the introduction of popery into England, he was committed to the Gatehouse. It was perhaps an interesting commentary on the anxieties of the House that the vote was carried by a majority of only four.<sup>30</sup> Mews held Carleton’s proxy from 3 May 1679 to the end of the session on 27 May. On 10 May he voted against appointing a joint committee of both Houses to consider the way of proceeding against the impeached lords. His known contributions to the debates that month over the right of the bishops to sit and vote in blood cases are tantalizingly ambiguous: he referred to the role of the bishops in the trial of Thomas Becket (archbishop of Canterbury 1162–70) but also asked that ‘we may stand in <em>statu quo</em> [for] we are divided betwixt modesty and courage’.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Over the summer of 1679 Mews was once again involved in protecting court interests during the election campaign for what was to become the second Exclusion Parliament. He reported that those opposing the court interest were bent upon traducing the king and were trying to convince the voters that the king, the House of Lords, and especially the bishops were all implicated in attempts to protect the imprisoned Catholic peers from trial. He also began to voice criticisms of the clumsy and uninformed implementation of government policies, claiming that a local purge of the commission of the peace had removed a loyal and upright friend of the crown and that rumours of toleration in Scotland were having a negative impact on public opinion. By August he was in despair, accurately predicting that the county would return the exclusionist George Speke<sup>‡</sup>, who ‘hath all the fanatics for him to a man’ and declaring that ‘we are ruined unless other counsels be speedily taken …. God help us is not enough for wise men.’<sup>32</sup></p><p>Mews himself inflamed local opinion still further by his intransigence over the burial of Alice Gifford, whom he had excommunicated as a popish recusant. Mews was horrified to learn that she had been buried in the aisle of St Cuthbert’s, the parish church of Wells. He ordered that her body be exhumed and reburied. Mews claimed that the new grave was in a disused part of the churchyard that was reputed to be unconsecrated; his opponents insisted that she had been buried in a dunghill. Protests on both sides revealed that Mews used excommunication readily and that he regularly refused burial in consecrated ground to the excommunicated. Mrs Gifford’s case caused uproar because her family were prosperous, with impeccable royalist antecedents, and of unquestionable ‘quality’.</p><p>The timing of the incident and Mrs Gifford’s family’s complaints were particularly unwelcome. Mews had long coveted a translation to Winchester and believed that the incumbent bishop, George Morley*, was in imminent danger of death. Stressing the difficulties of his diocese – ‘Betwixt papists and fanatics (both of them being now more insolent than ever) I have a very hard province’ – and his disdain of Catholic threats against him, he was nevertheless extremely anxious to explain and excuse his conduct in order to remain in the king’s favour. It was perhaps as an offering to prove his continued usefulness to the government that he also reported plans to bring in a second Exclusion bill and to secure the king’s divorce.<sup>33</sup></p><p>During December 1679 Mews attended the sessions at Wells ‘in order to his Majesty’s service, which I shall ever zealously promote’.<sup>34</sup> He sent the government increasingly bleak reports about his never-ending struggle with the seditious. At Taunton local people were so afraid to testify against a particularly notorious offender that Mews asked for a detachment of troops to attend the assizes. Matters were made still worse by the government’s having listened to advice from others, leading to the restoration of disaffected men such as Essex Strode<sup>‡</sup> to the commission of the peace. Ilchester, ‘a place of which I can give no good character’, also posed problems because of the influence there of the Speke family, ‘the greatest encourager of sedition in this country’. Furthermore, the whole county still suffered from the constant danger of contagion from Bristol.<sup>35</sup></p><p>During the 1680–1 session Mews was absent on 23 Oct. when the usual sessional committees were named. He was added to the committee for the Journal on 25 Oct. but not to the others. During the course of the session he was named to eight other committees, including politically sensitive ones such as those to enquire into abuses in commissions of the peace, to inspect the laws against papists, and to examine fines on delinquents. Carleton’s proxy was registered in his favour on 15 Nov. 1680, presumably for potential use in the vote on the Exclusion bill later that day. All surviving copies of the division on Exclusion agree that Mews voted to reject it on its first reading. The following week he voted in favour of the unsuccessful motion of George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham to appoint a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. He was the only bishop to do so.<sup>36</sup></p><p>During the short-lived Oxford Parliament of 1681 Mews was again named to the three sessional committees. He was also named to the committee to receive informations about the plot. In the long interval between the end of the Oxford Parliament and the calling of James II’s first Parliament in 1685 Mews continued to be active in enforcing the laws against Dissenters. Over 80 Quakers were summoned to Somerset sessions accused of having attended ‘riotous assemblies’ and it was reported that, although the court appeared moderate, many were thrown out of work by the arrest of Quaker employers and that Mews sat on the bench encouraging his fellow justices to convict them. Those who were found not guilty were re-arrested at Mews’s instigation and convicted of unlawful assembly instead.<sup>37</sup></p><p>The cathedral interest in Wells was strengthened under a new charter issued in 1683 in which the bishop and chancellor of the diocese were named as justices by virtue of their office.<sup>38</sup> In 1683, he helped Ralph Stawell*, Baron Stawell in having the 1628 charter of the corporation of Bridgwater surrendered. The new charter enabled the removal of the recorder, and ten burgesses, which ensured a Tory majority in the elections of 1685.<sup>39</sup> In September 1684 Mews started to clamp down on members of his own Church, issuing a letter to his clergy admonishing them to conduct services according to the and to train their parishioners about when to stand and when to kneel. Those who ‘obstinately’ refused to follow instructions were to be reported for prosecution.<sup>40</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Winchester, 1685–8</em></h2><p>Mews’s loyalty was again rewarded in November 1684 when he was translated to the see of Winchester. He attended the first session of the 1685 Parliament daily until 18 June 1685, the day that James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, was proclaimed king at Taunton. He was named to the three sessional committees and eight others. News of Monmouth’s landing had been given to Parliament on 13 June but it took Mews nearly a week to return to his old diocese. Morrice somewhat unkindly suggested that when Mews learned that there were rebels in Wells he ‘returned in great haste and safety to Bath’, but the story was almost certainly apocryphal for a few weeks later he reported Mews’s presence in the king’s army on the moors near Bridgwater.<sup>41</sup> It is generally accepted that Mews not only joined the king’s forces but used his military training to good effect by advising on and assisting the deployment of the artillery. In September he was sufficiently undistracted by the aftermath of the Rebellion to be able to recommend a candidate for election to Parliament in the place of the recently deceased Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>42</sup> The bloody reality of the king’s vengeance was soon to strike home, however. In October he was approached by the justices of Bath to back their petition for clemency for the convicted rebel William Plumley. It was said that the extent of Plumley’s offence was to send a horse to the rebel army when ‘sick in his bed, and not able to escape from their fury’.<sup>43</sup> Despite Mews’s intervention, Plumley was hanged. According to Morrice, Mews did successfully mediate for Francis Speke, youngest son of George Speke, but it is difficult to understand why Mews would have wished to save a member of a family he had long regarded with horror. Morrice’s story seems to be somewhat garbled: George Speke’s youngest son was not Francis but Charles, who was executed for no more (so it was said) than shaking hands with Monmouth as he passed through Ilminster.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Mews returned to Parliament on 9 Nov. for the second session of 1685; he was present on every sitting day and was added to one further committee. Initially he remained firmly loyal to James II and in February 1686 wrote confidently to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, that the king’s policy of giving directions to preachers rather than simply suppressing all afternoon preachers would commend him ‘to all who love his interest’.<sup>45</sup> Less than a year later, however, a canvassing list included his name as an opponent of the repeal of the Test Acts. Subsequent lists also identified Mews as opposed to the king’s policies. In April 1687, as visitor of Magdalen College, he encouraged the fellows there to defy the king and to elect John Hough*, the future bishop of Oxford. The following month he refused to sign the address from the Church of England for the king’s kindness to them.<sup>46</sup> He also found himself in opposition to the king over the wish of Charles West*, 5th baron De la Warr, to appoint his son to a rural prebend. Although De la Warr’s son was not in orders, De la Warr had obtained a royal dispensation with an injunction to Mews to grant induction and institution. Mews’s refusal to do so left him ‘not a little threatened’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>In May 1688 when Sancroft began orchestrating the bishops’ response to the Declaration of Indulgence, Mews was invited to join them. He ascribed his inability to do so to his need for medical treatment.<sup>48</sup> Although it is tempting to wonder if the illness were strategic, he had complained of ill health in March, more than a month before the declaration had been issued and he was more than willing to add his signature to the seven bishops’ petition at a later date.<sup>49</sup> He did not merely discourage the reading of the king’s Declaration in his diocese, he forbade it, and it was with some relief that he was able to report that when he met the king in August their conversation passed off without ‘any the least reflection’.<sup>50</sup> It was perhaps a significant indicator of Mews’s standing within the Church and the royalist community that he was one of the first to be told of the king’s decision to reverse his policies and of his resolution ‘to support the Church of England; and that the world should see, he would not lay aside his old friends’. It was Mews who, on leaving a meeting with his fellow bishops and the king in September 1688, responded to anxious enquirers with the words ‘<em>Omnia Bene</em>’ (all is well).<sup>51</sup></p><p>Clearly uneasy at opposing his king after a lifetime of loyalty, Mews was relieved at the king’s change of policy and chose to interpret it as a genuine change of heart. By the end of October 1688 he had ejected all of the newly installed popish fellows from Magdalen College.<sup>52</sup> When James II met the bishops and demanded that they condemn William of Orange’s invasion, Mews was one of the few who was prepared to do so. He also acted with Compton and the seven bishops to draw up heads of advice for the beleaguered king.<sup>53</sup> Still committed to the king’s service, he attended James at Salisbury, where he used ‘all imaginable arguments to call a Parliament as the most visible way to put a stop to those confusions that threatened the government; and I left him in a far more inclinable disposition to it than I found him’.<sup>54</sup> On 27 Nov. he was one of the members of the House summoned to Whitehall to advise the king. On 11 Dec. he attended the meeting of lords spiritual and temporal at the Guildhall and signed the ensuing declaration. He continued to attend meetings of what was in effect the provisional government throughout the crisis.</p><p>On 18 Dec. Mews was one of the bishops who met William of Orange at St James’s to thank and congratulate him for ‘his great enterprise for the redeeming of religion, liberty laws &c’. He was one of the 67 peers and bishops who attended the prince at St James on 21 December. Nevertheless he also attended James II at Rochester to advise him against flight and it was through Mews that the king made an abortive approach to the bishops for a promise of security should he return to London.<sup>55</sup></p><h2><em>Final years, 1689–1706</em></h2><p>Mews was present on 80 per cent of sitting days in the first session of the Convention Parliament, with the majority of his absences concentrated in two periods during February and March and July 1689. Despite the king’s flight he found it difficult to accept the logic of the new constitutional situation. In January 1689 he supported the proposition that a regency would be the best way to preserve the Protestant religion and the nation’s laws, and opposed attempts to declare William and Mary king and queen. The following month he voted against the use of the word abdicated and the attempt to declare the throne vacant. On 4 and 6 Feb. he was also named as one of the managers of the two conferences to discuss the peers’ insistence on the word ‘deserted’ rather than ‘abdicated’.</p><p>Yet for all his misgivings he was as active in Parliament as ever and soon came to accept the reality of the new situation. By 1698, and probably much earlier, he prayed daily for the preservation of the government.<sup>56</sup> He was appointed to the three sessional committees and to another 31 committees during the course of the session. Some of these were associated with the changes required to establish the new regime, such as the committees to inspect the prayer book, to unite Protestants, to abrogate the old oaths, to appoint commissioners of the great sea, to make it treasonable to correspond with the exiled king, and to suspend <em>habeas corpus</em>. Others – such as the bill to prevent simoniacal promotions, to encourage the recovery of small tithes, and to prevent the clandestine marriage of minors – related to Church issues. The remainder were a miscellaneous collection of public and private matters ranging from abolishing the Welsh court of marches to Yarmouth pier and the exportation of wool. He was also named to the committee to draw an address to the crown to put the garrisons in repair.</p><p>Aware that his record made him suspect to the new regime, Mews was anxious to explain away any action that might be construed as opposition. When the House was informed on 8 Mar. 1689 that some ministers in his diocese did not pray for William and Mary according to the order of council, Mews – then ‘unhappily disabled’ from attending in person – nevertheless wrote immediately to George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, insisting that he had circulated the order and asking for details of the parishes concerned so that he could write to the ministers personally.<sup>57</sup> In March he participated in the consecration of Burnet as bishop of Salisbury, and, despite his initial opposition to declaring William and Mary king and queen, he attended the coronation in April. During April he was also active as a member of the committee for privileges, which was considering the etiquette of wearing hats in the presence of the monarch. The issue may now seem trivial but at the time it was highly contentious since it reflected the hierarchical values of society. Mews told the committee that when Charles I put his hat on in the chapel he made a sign to the peers that they might also wear hats.<sup>58</sup></p><p>His first major absence from the House – from 18 Feb. to 11 Mar. – was broken by his attendance on 4 Mar. to take the oaths to the new regime. On 31 May he voted against reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. On 2 July he entered his protest against the decision to proceed on the impeachment of Sir Adam Blair and others. His absences from 13–20 July coincided with debates over the succession but this may not be significant as he was present on 29 July to hear the report of the conference on the disagreement with the Commons over naming the House of Hanover to the succession and he was present for similar debates in the following Parliament. The following day he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill to reverse the perjury verdicts against Oates. On 14 Aug. the House was besieged by silk-weavers protesting against the bill to enjoin the wearing of woollen. Mews, together with several other members of the House who were all said to have set themselves up as ‘Publicolas’ (friends or lovers of the people), addressed the crowd ‘but their eloquence prevailed very little’ and they were forced to promise that nothing would be done until counsel had been heard against the bill.<sup>59</sup> Members of the House were sufficiently worried by this expression of popular demands to order a guard of troops from the trained bands in order to prevent a similar incursion in the future. Having made a stand in this way, the House then went on to reject the bill in its entirety. In September 1689, a rumour that Mews had died may indicate that his health was in decline, but he was well enough to be appointed to the new ecclesiastical commission.<sup>60</sup> He went to one or two meetings of the commissioners but by November 1689 was said to have ceased attendance ‘for some time past’.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Mews’s attendance remained high during the second (1689–90) session of the Convention Parliament, when it averaged just over 83 per cent of sitting days; his single most significant absence was in the first week of January 1690. He was again named to the three sessional committees and also to six select committees. On 19 Nov. he joined with eight fellow members of the House in a protest against the third reading of the bill to prevent clandestine marriages of minors, for ‘though we approve the design of the bill, yet we enter our dissent, because we believe marriage to be so sacred an ordinance of God, that, after it is religiously contracted and consummated, it cannot be nulled’. His absence on 4 Dec. 1689 was almost certainly attributable to his attendance at Convocation, where an unpleasant dispute broke out between the houses over Dean Annesley’s attempts to discover whether the bishops had voted unanimously in favour of the address of thanks to the king. Roger Morrice was probably not the only person to suspect that Mews had opposed it.<sup>62</sup> Carmarthen (as Danby had now become) classed him among the supporters of the court on a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690.</p><p>Mews was present every day of the first session of the 1690 Parliament except for the prorogation on 7 July. Unusually he was not named to the three sessional committees but he was named to 11 other committees. He reported from two of them (the bills to render the children of John Lewkenor<sup>‡</sup> as illegitimate and to enable Sir Edwin Sadler to sell lands for his debts). On 8 Apr. 1690 he dissented to the passage of the bill recognizing William and Mary as right and lawful sovereigns, and when the House voted to expunge the reasons for the protest on 10 Apr. he protested again, partly on grounds of privilege and precedent but also because expunging the reasons meant that ‘it appears that we have protested against the whole bill, which is contrary to our sense and intentions’. On 12 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill for the queen to be regent.</p><p>A short absence between 14 and 30 Oct. 1690 together with two single-day absences later in the session brought Mews’s attendance during the 1690–1 session down to just under 87 per cent of sitting days. He was appointed to the three sessional committees and to seven other committees. He was also named to the committee to examine precedents on carrying over impeachments from session to session. In May, during the recess, he was one of six bishops who consecrated John Tillotson*, as archbishop of Canterbury on the same day that the deposed archbishop, William Sancroft, gave the sacrament at Lambeth.<sup>63</sup></p><p>During the 1691–2 session Mews was present on nearly 96 per cent of sitting days and was again added to the sessional committees, besides being named to 34 select committees. On 12 Jan. he protested against the resolution to receive the divorce bill presented by Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 22 Feb. he was named as one of the reporters of the conference on small tithes. He held the proxy of William Beaw*, of Llandaff, from 27 Jan. to the end of the session.</p><p>Mews was present for 93 per cent of sitting days during the 1692–3 session, and was added to the usual sessional committees. He was named to 27 committees on a wide variety of subjects. He reported from one committee, that considering the bill to make parishioners of united churches liable to contribute to repair and ornaments. In January 1693 he opposed Norfolk’s attempts to divorce his wife, as well as the place bill and the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On 17 Jan. he entered two dissents to decisions concerning the rejection of the Banbury peerage claim. He was present for prayers on 1 and 2 Feb. 1693 but withdrew before the business of the day, which was the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.</p><p>During the 1693–4 session Mews’s attendance dropped to a little under 62 per cent of sitting days. He was added to the committees for privileges and the Journal and to 13 other committees. On 23 Nov. 1693 he joined in a cross-party protest against the resolution that the House would not receive any petition for protecting their majesties’ servants. On 22 Jan. 1694 he joined the opposition to Gulston’s waterworks bill on the grounds that it would be prejudicial to his tenants in Southwark. He had last been present in the House on 10 Jan. and sent his objections by letter, explaining that ‘I am confined to my bed by the distemper of my old wounds, so that I cannot attend my duty in the House.’ On 3 Feb. he was reported to be dangerously ill but he was able to resume his attendance on the 19th.<sup>64</sup> On 16 Apr. 1694 he was appointed one of the managers of the conference to discuss issues arising from the bill for the more easy recovery of small tithes.</p><p>The 1694–5 session saw Mews’s attendance back to its usual high levels: he was present on nearly 88 per cent of sitting days. Although he attended on 12 Nov. when the committee for privileges was named he was not added to that committee. He was, however, named to the committee for the Journal when the House next met on 20 November. On 23 Jan. 1695 he entered a dissent to the resolution that the provisions of the bill for regulating treason trials be postponed until 1698. During the course of the session he continued to prove himself to be an all-purpose committee man, being named to 18 committees including a somewhat predictable nomination to the committee on the bill for small tithes, as well as a large number of estate bills.</p><p>During the first session of the 1695 Parliament Mews was present on 82 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal and to eight other committees, and signed the Association on 27 Feb. having first declared, in common with his fellow bishops, that the word ‘revenging’ did not oblige him to any action inconsistent with his clerical status. On 31 Mar. he entered a dissent to the passage of the bill to encourage the bringing in of plate to the mint. In April he signed the repugnance at the absolution of Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Freind<sup>‡</sup> by two non-juring clergymen.<sup>65</sup> Later that month, on 25 Apr., he was named as one of the reporters of the conference on the Greenland trade bill.</p><p>The second session of the 1695 Parliament, 1696–7, saw Mews attending for nearly 93 per cent of sitting days. He was again named to the committees for privileges and the Journal and during the course of the session was named to 14 other committees, including the committees to consider the answers of the admiralty commissioners and the state of trade. During the debates over the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup> in December 1696 he entered dissents against the resolution to read Goodman’s information and against the second reading of the bill itself. Not surprisingly, on 23 Dec. 1696 he went on to vote against the bill’s third reading and entered a protest at its passage.</p><p>With the immediate threat of rebellion receding, Mews’s attendance during the 1697–8 session dropped to 61 per cent of sitting days. By now nearly 80 years old, the deterioration in his handwriting suggests that he was somewhat frail.<sup>66</sup> He was absent when the committees for privileges and the Journal were named but his name was added to the committee for the Journal just before the prorogation on 5 July. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted in favour of the bill to punish Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, entering a dissent when the bill failed. On 1 July he entered another dissent, this time protesting at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill to establish the two million fund and to settle the East India trade. Despite what for him was a somewhat low attendance he was named to 22 committees, including that to consider his own bill for Alverstoke Water Works, which received the royal assent on 5 July.</p><p>The first session of the 1698 Parliament opened on 6 Dec. 1698 but Mews did not appear until 13 December. His last attendance for this session was on 4 Apr., a full month before the adjournment. He was also absent on a number of days in between. Overall his attendance averaged 64 per cent of sitting days. On 27 Jan. 1699 he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prohibit the export of corn and during the course of the session he was named to 15 committees.</p><p>He arrived at the second session of the 1698 Parliament for its opening on 16 Nov. 1699. He was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal and to the committee to consider whether counsel for Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, could be present when the attorney general made his arguments to the House concerning the king’s prerogative in ecclesiastical affairs. He was also named to seven other committees. He was absent for the whole of January and the first week of February 1700, but returned to the House on 8 Feb., possibly drawn by the debates on the proposed union with Scotland and the Darien scheme. On 23 Feb. he voted in favour of discussing amendments to the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. His attendance became sporadic after 8 Mar. and his final attendance of the session was on 23 Mar. 1700. Overall his attendance averaged 41 per cent of sitting days. It is likely that the fall in Mews’s attendance was caused by ill health for, although he managed to attend the funeral of the young duke of Gloucester in August 1700, by October he was said to be ‘much indisposed’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>By the time the 1701 Parliament opened on 6 Feb. 1701, Mews had rallied. He was present for the opening ceremonials and was named yet again to the committees for privileges and the Journal. Although his attendance faltered in early March he was present fairly consistently until 4 April. He returned to the House on 14 Apr. but was then absent until 13 June, when the impeachment of the Whig lords was looming. His overall attendance rate was just under 30 per cent of sitting days but he was nevertheless named to five committees, including that on the state of the fleet.</p><p>His attendance fell still lower during the 1701 Parliament, averaging just 10 per cent of possible sitting days, his attendances being concentrated in the second half of March 1702. He was named to six committees. During the 1702–3 session he was present on just 16 days, 11 of which were in December 1702 when the main business was the occasional conformity bill. On 9 Dec. 1702 he signed the resolution against tacking and on 17 Dec. he was named to the committee to consider the journals of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond and the flag officers. His last attendance of the session was on 23 Dec. 1702.</p><p>Despite the clear decline in Mews’s health and activity his support was still considered a valuable asset. During the summer of 1703 there was a dispute over the election of the warden for New College, Oxford. The partisans of Charles Trimnell*, (later bishop of Norwich and of Winchester), hoped to involve Mews in his capacity as visitor, believing that this would secure the post for Trimnell. Trimnell lost the election.<sup>68</sup> Mews attended the House for 25 days during the 1703–4 session. Many of his attendances coincided with discussions of <em>Ashby v White</em> and later the Scotch conspiracy, but he may also have had had an interest in the progress of the bill promoted by Sir George Wheeler DD to authorize the making of leases for property in Westminster; he was named to the committee for Wheeler’s bill. He made his final appearance in the House shortly after his 84th birthday on 27 Mar. 1704, when the Lords declared their judgment in <em>Ashby v. White</em>. His parliamentary life was not quite over for shortly after the beginning of the next session on 27 Nov. 1704 he entered a proxy in favour of his fellow Tory Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester.</p><p>By now an extremely frail old man, Mews seems to have spent the rest of his life in his diocese. His death in November 1706 was reputedly hastened by taking hartshorn (which contains ammonia) in mistake for a medicinal cordial but the state of his health (and of his income, which was reputed to be £7,000 a year) was such that at least two other bishops were eagerly awaiting his demise. Burnet fired a letter off to Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, as soon as he heard the news, while Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, made it equally clear that he expected the bishopric for himself. It was also said that Dr. Godolphin, brother to Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, hoped for the post. Faced with so many conflicting demands, Godolphin decided to keep the see vacant. It was to be a full year before Trelawny got his wish.<sup>69</sup></p> |
R.P. |
|
MONCK, Nicholas (c. 1610-61) |
<p><strong><surname>MONCK</surname></strong>, <strong>Nicholas</strong> (c. 1610–61)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 21 Nov. 1661 |
cons. 6 Jan. 1661 bp. of HEREFORD |
|
<p><em>b.</em> c.1610, 5th but 3rd surv. s. of Sir Thomas Monck<sup>‡</sup> of Potheridge (Powderwick), Devon and Elizabeth, da. of Sir George Smyth of Madford (Maydeworthy), Devon; bro. of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. <em>educ.</em> Wadham, Oxf., matric. 1629, BA 1631, MA 1633, ord. 1634,<sup>1</sup> DD 1660. <em>m</em>. lic. 7 Oct. 1642, Susanna (<em>d</em>.1666), da. of Thomas Payne, rect. Plymtree and wid. of Christopher Trosse (<em>d</em>.1635), priest, 1s. (<em>d.v.p.</em>) 2da. <em>d.</em> 17 Dec. 1661; <em>will</em> 16 Dec. 1661, pr. 13 Mar. 1662.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Langtree, Devon 1640-?1662, Plymtree, Devon 1647, Kilkhampton, Corn. 1653-61; provost, Eton, 1660.</p> |
|
<p>It has been the fate of Nicholas Monck, the bishop of Hereford for less than a year in 1661, to be remembered as the ‘unremarkable’ country parson who was promoted to the episcopate merely as a reward to his more able brother. Certainly, Nicholas Monck retained his Devonshire living throughout the Interregnum because of the general’s position. Yet he was one of the clerics on the planning lists for the restored Church.<sup>3</sup> Nicholas and George Monck were related to John Granville* (later earl of Bath) who marked out Nicholas for royal service in the 1650s. Granville owned the advowson of Kilkhampton, worth some £300 a year, and, recognizing the potential utility of his kinsman, presented Nicholas Monck to the living on the condition, it was later said, that he assist the royalist cause.<sup>4</sup></p><p>After the death of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> in the autumn of 1658, Granville allegedly called on Nicholas Monck’s services in a secret mission to bring General Monck over to the royalist cause. After the Restoration, Granville’s patronage continued to prove lucrative. He presented Nicholas Monck to the king where the ‘honest plain hearted’ cleric supposedly impressed the monarch with his candour.<sup>5</sup> In June 1660 the future earl of Bath was again instrumental in Nicholas Monck’s appointment as provost of Eton. There he received an annual allowance of £500 together with his requirements for subsistence, remuneration which he was to be allowed to keep <em>in commendam</em> for two years after his elevation to Hereford in December 1660.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Monck attended the House of Lords for only the first two days of the session in November 1661 before falling ill and dying at his lodgings in Old Palace Yard, Westminster. The rewards for royal service had been considerable; Monck, the youngest son of an impoverished gentry family and a country parson for most of his career, was able to bequeath to his wife and daughters over £4,000.<sup>7</sup> His daughters both married future Members of the Commons: Mary to Arthur Farwell<sup>‡</sup> and Elizabeth to Curwen Rawlinson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>The precipitate nature of Bishop Monck’s elevation, brief tenure of office, and sudden death left diocesan affairs in some confusion. In April 1662, Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, received a petition from Monck’s widow, Susanna, for an order to the new bishop, Herbert Croft*, to seal several leases which Nicholas had signed over to his brother but had been unable to seal himself.<sup>9</sup> Croft was duly ordered to grant a lease to Susanna and her two daughters, the loss of fines to Croft amounting to £5,000.<sup>10</sup></p><p>After lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, Monck was given a lavish funeral in Westminster Abbey on 20 Jan. 1662. The occasion set the aesthetic tone for the Restoration Church in its emphasis on pomp and hierarchy.<sup>11</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
MOORE, John (1646-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>MOORE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1646–1714)</p> |
|
|
First sat 22 Oct. 1691; last sat 8 July 1714 |
cons. 5 July 1691 bp. of NORWICH; transl. 31 July 1707 bp. of ELY |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 May 1646,<sup>1</sup> 1st s. of Thomas Moore (1621-86), ironmonger of Market Harborough, Leics. and Elizabeth, da. of Edward Wright of Sutton-juxta-Broughton, Leics. <em>educ</em>. Market Harborough Free Sch.; Clare, Camb., matric. 28 June 1662, BA 1666, fell. 1667-77, MA 1669, DD 1681; ord. 1671; incorp. Oxf. 1673. <em>m</em>. (1) 22 May 1679,<sup>2</sup> Rose (<em>d</em>. 18 Aug. 1689), 5th da. of Neville Butler of Barnwell Priory, Cambs. 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) c.1691, Dorothy, da. of William Barnes of Darlington, co. Dur., wid. of Michael Blackett of Morton Palms, co. Dur. and of Sir Richard Browne, bt., 3s.<sup>3</sup> <em>d</em>. 31 Jul. 1714; <em>will</em> 27 Jul., pr. 30 Aug. 1714.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to William III and Mary II, 1689-91; commr. eccl. preferment 1699.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Chap. to Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, 1670-82,<sup>6</sup> to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, 1682-91; vic. St Andrew the Less, Barnwell, Cambs. 1671-6; rect. Blaby, Leics., 1676-87, St Augustine, London, 1687-9, St Andrew, Holborn, 1689-91; preb. Ely, 1679-91.</p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1710-<em>d</em>.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by G. Kneller, 1705, Clare, Camb.; oil on canvas by unknown artist (J. Kerseboom?), c.1705-10, Clare, Camb.; oil on canvas by follower of G. Kneller, 1707, Lambeth Palace; oil on canvas by I. Whood (aft. G. Kneller), 1736, CUL.</p> |
<h2><em>Bishop of Norwich under William III, 1691-1702</em></h2><p>Moore’s father was a wealthy ironmonger. At his death in October 1686 his personal goods were valued at £1,518.<sup>9</sup> Nevertheless, it was to the patronage of Lord Chancellor Finch that Moore owed his early career. Indeed, Moore’s rapid advancement in the Church of England was in spite of the opposition of his nonconformist father, son of the Interregnum preacher John Moore, and himself of ‘rigid persuasion’. According to one account, ‘Though he gave his son the university education, yet he never intended him for the episcopate order and when he saw he would comply ... he angrily ... made him account for a refund which he cost at Cambridge and the bishop paid him’.<sup>10</sup> This early setback had little impact on Moore’s economic wellbeing, and he apparently lived and died a wealthy man. As early as 1679, the year of his installation as a prebend of Ely (through Finch’s patronage) his diary noted payment of the wages of more than 20 servants, including six footmen and two butlers. The increased household may have been as a result of his marriage to Rose Butler that year. On 19 Apr. a month before his marriage, he had written to the rector of Barnwell of his desire ‘to consummate my love affair which has been so long depending’ and his wish that the minister might ‘perform that act of kindness’. When Moore’s wife died in August 1689 she was buried in the chancel of St-Giles-in-the-Fields, reflecting Moore’s base in the ecclesiastical circles of the capital at that time.<sup>11</sup></p><p>As part of the Finch family’s circle of clerical adherents, Moore was associated with future colleagues such as John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Tenison*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and John Sharp*, later archbishop of York. He was a popular preacher in the capital, and on 31 Dec. 1687 was presented to the rectory of St Augustine’s in the City. At this point Moore was at the forefront of formulating proposals for the comprehension of nonconformists which, it was hoped, would be introduced to the Parliament that James promised to summon for November 1688.<sup>12</sup> His career flourished after the Revolution when his patron, the 2nd earl of Nottingham (son of his original patron, the lord chancellor), was appointed secretary of state and became in effect William III’s chief adviser on ecclesiastical appointments. In 1689, he was appointed to the prestigious living of St Andrew’s Holborn by the crown commissioners, with the tacit approval of the patron, Ralph Montagu*, 3rd Baron (later duke of) Montagu. He was also appointed a chaplain to the new monarchs.<sup>13</sup> In this latter role, he often preached before the queen and a sermon preached before William and Mary in July 1689, which appeared to accuse Protestant Dissenters of schism, prompted a stinging reply from that quarter.<sup>14</sup></p><p>After the consistent refusal of William Lloyd*, bishop of Norwich, to take the oaths to the new monarchs, in the spring of 1691 the king issued a warrant for Moore to replace the non-juror in that diocese.<sup>15</sup> Without doubt he owed his promotion to Nottingham, but even so he appears to have been third choice for the see after both Sharp and the much younger William Wake*, later archbishop of Canterbury, refused to take it on. Sharp had been mooted for the bishopric of Norwich as early as December 1689. Moore was consecrated at St Mary-le-Bow on 5 July. The Norwich prebendary Humphrey Prideaux dismissed the new bishop as ‘a close designing man that will regard little but what tends to his own or relations’ interests… Whatever the Church may be advantaged by others of the new promotion, I expect it will be very little by him’. Certainly, Moore was far more committed to the life and networks he had cultivated in London and over the succeeding years he irritated Prideaux by his absenteeism.<sup>16</sup> Moore continued to invest time and attention on his extra-ecclesiastical hobbies, such as gathering medicinal recipes from his brother and other correspondents, treatments which were often sought from a wide circle of contacts.<sup>17</sup> His principal claim to fame, though, was as a collector of books. He amassed one of the greatest libraries of his period – ‘one of the best and amplest collections of all sorts of good books in England’ - consisting of nearly 29,000 books and 1,790 manuscripts, which later formed, through the gift of its eventual purchaser George I, the ‘Royal Collection’ at the heart of Cambridge University Library.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Moore took his seat in the House on 22 Oct. 1691, the first day of the 1691-2 session. He attended 86 per cent of sittings of this, his first session in the House, and although he was present at every single remaining session in his lifetime under William III and Anne, he never again matched the attendance level of over 80 per cent he attained in his first two sessions. In this first session he was named to 28 committees on legislation, 19 of them on private bills. The other nominations included the committees for some bills in which he may have had a particular interest as a churchman in East Anglia: for setting the tithes on hemp and flax (established on 10 Dec. 1691); for confirming the charters and liberties of the University of Cambridge (13 Jan. 1692); and for regulating the militia (28 Jan.). He may also have taken interest in the small tithes bill, to which committee he was named on 14 Jan. 1692. On 22 Feb. only two days before the end of the session, he was appointed a reporter for a conference on the House’s amendments to the bill. A letter from Sharp (dating from a subsequent session when the act was due to expire) requested that he might remind Tillotson to have the act continued.<sup>19</sup> On 3 Jan. 1692 Sir William Rawlinson wrote to him to request that he would attend the House ‘a little sooner than ordinary’ the next day, to make enquiries of one of the Lords’ messengers and then to join with some other lords on Rawlinson’s behalf (presumably relating to the case <em>Bromhall v. Manlove</em> which was considered in the House on the 4th). On 3 Feb. he received the proxy of Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, and on 8 Feb. that of Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury; he held both until the end of the session on 24 February. After the end of the session, on 11 Apr. Moore attended a meeting convened by Tillotson to discuss a circular letter for ecclesiastical reform, which the bishops present discussed ‘very calmly and without the least clashing’. Soon after, Moore travelled to Norwich where he undertook his visitation. He had completed his work by the end of June. Prideaux noted that it had been ‘little more than pro forma, for the truth is, in our present case of unsettlement the times will not bear doing more’. Moore may also have decided to conduct a relatively cursory inspection as he was eager to return to London to be with his recently-married second wife, ‘who had a big belly to lay down’, their first child. According to Prideaux Moore intended to return to Norwich with his family towards the end of July.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Moore was in London by the middle of July when he received Sharp’s congratulation on his wife’s successful delivery. Sharp also warned him that his residence in London would ‘be at your cost for I shall be ever and anon giving you trouble about some affair or other’. In September Moore was asked to secure the archbishop of Canterbury’s support for the nomination of another Finch associate, Mr Wootton, to a prebend of Worcester. Nottingham’s brother, William Finch<sup>‡</sup> was confident that Stillingfleet would be glad to have him, ‘being already personally known to him’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Moore attended the House on 4 Nov. 1692, the first day of the new session of 1692-3. As in the previous session, he attended 86 per cent of the sittings and was named to 31 committees on a wide range of private and public bills. His recorded activity in the House was most noticeable in the weeks surrounding the turn of the year. On 23 Dec. he joined a small number of Whigs in subscribing to the protest against the reversal of the judgment against Sir Simon Leach<sup>‡</sup>. Four days later he received Sharp’s proxy, which he held until the end of the session. The focus of the first months of the session, though, was the inquiry into the summer’s naval miscarriages, which increasingly centred on Moore’s patron, Nottingham. In the Commons the attack on Nottingham was at first pursued obliquely by assaulting those associated with him, one of those to fall being Edmund Bohun, licenser of the press, who had been appointed to the post on Moore’s recommendation. Bohun later complained that Moore assured him of his help in getting the post back but that the bishop recommended Major Herne as his replacement instead.<sup>22</sup> In the Lords, a series of committees was nominated in December to examine the various shortcomings of the campaign, with Moore named to a number of them. On 29 Dec. he was placed on the committee to examine the propriety of the proceedings at the conference at which the Commons had read their unsolicited vote approving the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, during the campaign. Later, on 11 Feb. 1693, with Burnet, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, from the bishops’ bench, he was named to the committee to draw up an address of advice to the king concerning the military and naval setbacks of the previous summer.</p><p>In other matters, on 2 Jan. 1693, he voted to give the divorce bill of the lord lieutenant of Norfolk, Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, a second reading, as Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, forecast he would. The following day Moore followed the wishes of the king and court in voting against the passage of the place bill. After the close of the session, Moore had some involvement with members of the nascent Junto. He was thought to be willing to accept the recommendation of Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax, for one Laughton (a fellow of Trinity) to a prebendal stall at Norwich, but appears to have queried the suitability of a candidate for the living of Marlingford being proposed by John Somers*, Baron Somers.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Moore was present on 7 Nov. 1693, the first day of the 1693-4 session. He attended 59 per cent of the sittings and was named to 14 committees on legislation, ten of them on private bills, as well as the committees on the bills for creating a new parish in Wapping (established on 11 Apr. 1694) and for building good and defensible ships (19 April). On 23 Nov. he subscribed to the protest against the resolution that the House would reject any petition for protecting servants of the crown. On 15 Jan. 1694 Moore was named a manager of the conference to be held the following day on the loss of the Smyrna fleet the previous summer, and particularly the miscommunications between the ministry and the admirals over the intelligence surrounding the sailing of the French fleet from Brest.</p><p>In early January 1694 Moore was informed that he was the subject of complaint over his perceived kindness to John Jeffreys, archdeacon of Norwich, a kinsman of James II’s lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys. The chancellor of Norwich, Robert Pepper, warned Moore it was ‘the admiration of all sober and good men that a King William’s bishop should be so kind to a professed enemy to the government’.<sup>24</sup> Moore spent the first part of the summer in East Anglia, where he was offered the use of Brome Hall, seat of the absent Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, as his base during his visitation of Suffolk.<sup>25</sup> On 24 July he was appointed one of the commissioners to examine the charges laid against Thomas Watson, bishop of St Davids, which led to Watson’s suspension from episcopal office in August.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Moore was back in the capital for the prorogation on 25 Oct. when he and Tillotson were the only bishops present. He received Sharp’s proxy two days in advance of the new session that assembled on 12 Nov. and maintained it throughout the proceedings. Present for 58 per cent of sittings, Moore was named to 17 committees on legislation, ten of them on private bills. The session was overshadowed by the death of Queen Mary towards the end of December and, according to a later account of Gilbert Burnet’s wife Elizabeth, upon hearing of her death both Moore and the new archbishop of Canterbury, Tenison, sought to effect a reconciliation between William III and Princess Anne.<sup>27</sup> On 17 Apr. 1695 he was placed on the committee for the bill to declare the date on which the Act for prohibiting trade with France and encouraging privateers was to start. He appears to have had some degree of involvement in this bill for on 29 Apr. he was one of 11 members assigned to draw up reasons to be presented in conference why the House could not agree with the Commons’ proviso to the bill. He was also appointed on 1 May a manager for the conference held that day at which these reasons were presented. The matter was halted with the prorogation on 3 May. Also on 29 Apr. Moore was placed on the large committee to consider the precedents for the impeachment of Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, but this business was also lost with the prorogation.</p><p>Moore may have ‘interposed’ on behalf of John Isham at Cambridge University in the elections that October, but if he did so, it was without success as Isham came third in the poll.<sup>28</sup> Moore was present in the House on 22 Nov. for the first day of the new Parliament. He came to 62 per cent of the sittings of the session of 1695-6 during which he was named to 17 committees on legislation, of which 13 were private bills. Regular proceedings in the House were interrupted by news of the Assassination Plot and on 27 Feb. 1696 Moore signed the Association pledging support to William III and asserting that he was ‘rightful and lawful’ monarch. On 10 Apr. he subscribed the episcopal ‘repugnance’ at the public absolution by two non-jurors of Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup>, who had been executed for their part in the Assassination Plot. On the thanksgiving day he preached before the king.<sup>29</sup> Throughout May Moore procured subscriptions from the diocesan clergy to the Association but remained in London, which prompted Prideaux to complain that Moore was taking ‘as little notice of his diocese as if he were not concerned in it at all’. ‘He will be sure to take care of himself, and that is all he minds’. Prideaux also reported that Moore had swapped with Sharp, who was originally to have preached the thanksgiving sermon, so that he could render himself more visible at court with a view to securing translation to Ely.<sup>30</sup> As well as promoting his prospects in the church, Moore was engaged with developing his financial investments, and corresponding with Charles Montagu both about Mr Lamb, who was to be a prebend of Lichfield, and about possible solutions to the problems of clipped coinage. Montagu, though, seems to have rejected a scheme for establishing a branch of the Bank at Norwich ‘because it would be a disadvantage to the receiver, by destroying all profit that is made in making returns to London’.<sup>31</sup></p><p>The session of 1696-7 saw a break in the pattern of Moore’s attendance at the House. The new session had assembled on 20 Oct. 1696, but Moore did not arrive for the first six weeks. It is possible that he felt uncomfortable with the growing partisan tensions between the ministry and an opposition centred on Nottingham over the controversial attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. Certainly he was not eager to attend despite increasingly severe promptings of the House. On 14 Nov. the House fixed days for the attendance of absent lords and Moore was summoned for the last day of the month. When he did not appear on 30 Nov. he was issued a further warning that if he did not attend by 4 Dec. he would be taken into custody. When he still failed to appear on that day as well, the House ordered that he be taken into custody by the sergeant at arms and forcibly brought to the House. He was back on the episcopal bench by 7 December. The following day, William spoke personally to Moore and Sharp at Kensington, pressing them both to support the Fenwick attainder bill. In the subsequent vote of 23 Dec. Moore obeyed the king by voting in favour of the bill, thereby standing against Nottingham and Sharp.<sup>32</sup> As a result of his late arrival in the session, Moore came to only 38 per cent of the sittings, during which he was named to nine committees on legislation, as well as the committee established on 10 Feb. to consider the state of trade. On 13 Mar. he received the proxy of his friend William Lloyd*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, which he held until the prorogation of 16 April. He and Lloyd had previously attended dinners at Lambeth Palace during the session of 1695-6 and corresponded in the summer of 1696 over a matter of church preferment for Lloyd’s nephew.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Over the summer Moore was involved with efforts to secure the deanery of York for Henry Finch, though in the event Finch was made to wait until 1702 for the place.<sup>34</sup> Moore attended the first day of the session of 1697-8 on 3 Dec. 1697. He came to just over half of the sittings and was named to 21 committees on legislation, including the one on the bill for the benefit of his episcopal colleague Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely. From 20 Dec. he held Lloyd’s proxy again, which he retained until the prorogation. Ordered by the House to preach in Westminster Abbey for the commemoration of Charles I’s martyrdom on 31 Jan. 1698, he was awarded formal thanks from the House on 7 Feb. and an order was given for the sermon to be printed.<sup>35</sup> On 15 Mar. he voted with the Whigs to commit the bill for the punishment of the Tory exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>, an issue which split the episcopal bench, or at least the 14 who were present for the vote, into two almost equal partisan camps.<sup>36</sup> On 6 Apr. Lloyd wrote to Moore asking him to be sure to be present when a particular cause came into the House and ‘to give your vote for me as you think I would do if I were in the House’.<sup>37</sup> Moore added Sharp’s proxy to Lloyd’s from 27 Apr. which he also held until the end of the session on 5 July. </p><p>Parliament was dissolved two days later and by the beginning of August Moore was back in Norwich.<sup>38</sup> In the subsequent elections for Cambridgeshire one of the Whig candidates, John Cutts, Baron Cutts<sup>‡</sup> [I], earnestly solicited Moore’s interest; it is not known, though, to what extent Moore complied with this request.<sup>39</sup> Moore himself took the oaths and signed the declaration for the new Parliament on 22 Dec. 1698, about two weeks into its first session, and attended the session for 54 per cent of its total sittings. He was named to nine committees on legislation, including that established on 14 Mar. 1699 to encourage the woollen manufacture in England, which was of considerable importance to the economic welfare of his own diocese. He was also placed on the committee assigned on 24 Mar. to consider the dispute between the Ulster Society of London and William King, bishop of Derry [I]. On 7 Mar. he was named to the committee to inspect the Journal for precedents in the trials of peers in criminal cases, established in order to bring Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, to a speedy trial. Three weeks after this appointment, along with all the other bishops present, he withdrew from the chamber after prayers in order to avoid giving judgment in Warwick’s potentially capital trial. The session was prorogued on 4 May. Shortly afterwards, Moore kissed hands as one of the commissioners for ecclesiastical preferments, though the commission seems not to have passed the great seal until the end of October.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Moore arrived back in Norwich on 19 May. By the end of July he appears to have been angling to leave as his ultimate successor at Norwich, Charles Trimnell*, conceded in a letter that he could not ‘press your lordship’s staying’.<sup>41</sup> He was still at Norwich in August when he wrote to Tenison querying his membership of the ecclesiastical commission and also raising issues relating to deprivation of Thomas Watson. Moore was subsequently a member of the court of delegates which confirmed Watson’s deprivation.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Moore was present on 16 Nov. 1699, the first day of the 1699-1700 session, of which he again attended just over half of the sittings. He was named to eight committees on legislation, including two with ecclesiastical and diocesan importance – that established on 26 Feb. 1700 for the bill to establish a conformist French Church in St Martins Ongar and the one set up on 19 Mar. for the bill on street-lighting in Norwich. He was also, on 13 Feb., placed on the committee to draft a bill to authorize commissioners to negotiate a union with Scotland. By the end of May he was back in Norwich.<sup>43</sup> In July 1700, a reckoning of political allegiances listed Moore as a Whig who would nevertheless be inclined to support the new ‘mixed’ ministry then being formed under Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester. Certainly, Moore’s political views are hard to gauge at this time. In a letter to Arthur Charlett recounting the removal of Somers, he noted that even Somers’ enemies were ‘forced to own that no man ever behaved himself better in Westminster Hall or in the Parliament House, so that his fall seems to have been occasioned by his making himself so much a party in the affairs at the council table.’<sup>44</sup> Besides, Moore was plainly disappointed by the king’s actions in appointing a ‘Mr Stappylton’, a chaplain of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, to a prebend of Worcester, over the heads of the commission for ecclesiastical preferments. On 27 May he wrote to Tenison that he was ‘sorry his Majesty should be moved to anything which may tend to weaken if not break his commission’, as his commissioners ‘have only recommended persons ... who have been best qualified in respect of their piety, wisdom and learning’. He hoped Tenison would represent to the king the continuing usefulness, and validity of the commission, but despite being irked by the king’s peremptory action, Moore agreed to continue to serve on it. <sup>45</sup></p><p>Moore’s correspondence of this period reveals his acquaintance with a wide circle of friends and contacts from across the growing partisan divide, although most wrote to him for medical advice rather than to sound out his political views. Among his episcopal correspondents were the two archbishops, Tenison, and Sharp.<sup>46</sup> He was also in contact with his old patron Nottingham and members of the wider Finch ‘circle’, largely Tories, such as Nottingham’s son-in-law William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, and his cousin Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea.<sup>47</sup> Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, referred to him as ‘my good friend’. He also wrote, on both business and medical matters, to both members of Anne’s future ‘duumvirate’ John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin.<sup>48</sup> Other correspondents included fellow scholars, most of them Whigs, such as Sir Hans Sloane, with whom he would exchange books and medical information throughout the following decade, as well as his own chaplain and librarian Thomas Tanner<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of St Asaph.<sup>49</sup> In 1701 Moore married off his ‘short, fat, plump’ daughter Rose, ‘remarkable for drinking brandy’ (as the Tory Thomas Hearne described her) to Tanner. He then rapidly promoted his new son-in-law up the Norwich diocesan hierarchy before Rose’s death in March 1707. <sup>50</sup></p><p>Moore took his seat in the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701, its fourth day, and two days later was placed on the large committee to draft an address on the king’s speech. He came to 57 per cent of the Parliament’s sitting days, during which he and was named to 23 committees on legislation. On 27 May he was named to the committees on three bills and was present to hear the first reading of the bill to establish a court of conscience, a court for the recovery of small debts under 40s., in Norwich. He obviously had some interest in this bill and, having already agreed with the Norwich chapter that the bill should not extend to the cathedral close, he was named to the bill’s committee the following day.<sup>51</sup> On 4 June he was named to the committee on another bill with local import: that for the appointment of assay-masters for wrought plate in Norwich and other towns. Six days after this he was placed on the large committee to consider the trials of the impeached Junto peers. He voted, with the majority of the House, for the acquittal of both Somers and Orford on 17 and 23 June respectively. The day following the second acquittal, Parliament was prorogued. The king then continued to postpone its next meeting through a series of prorogations. Moore, Tenison and Patrick were the only bishops present for the prorogation of 6 November. Parliament was eventually dissolved on 11 November.</p><p>Moore was again present on the first day of the new Parliament on 30 December. He attended 43 per cent of its sittings and was named to 14 committees on legislation. On 1 Jan. 1702, he signed the address condemning Louis XIV’s acknowledgement of the Pretender as king of England. The following day he was named to the committee to draw up an address to the king to assure him of Parliament’s support for the impending war against France and its ‘exorbitant power’. Following the king’s death, Moore, along with all other members then present, was assigned a reporter for the conference on 8 Mar. to discuss the accession of Queen Anne. Three days later he was involved in the court of delegates in the case of John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, against John Thompson*, Baron Haversham.<sup>52</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Norwich under Anne, 1702-7</em></h2><p>William III’s last Parliament was dissolved on 2 July 1702. During the summer months, Moore, in Norwich recovering from a brief illness, approached Nottingham, newly appointed secretary of state, asking for the earl’s recommendation of his brother-in-law for the office of postmaster in Norwich.<sup>53</sup> Moore revealed a shifting attitude towards Nottingham and the Tories as early as the first session of Anne’s first Parliament. He was present on its first day, 21 Oct. 1702, and attended just over half of its sittings. On 3 Dec. at the second reading of the occasional conformity bill, Moore, after ‘many long and warm debates’ in the House, sided with bishops Sharp, Compton, Crew and the Tories, against Tenison, Lloyd, Burnet and the Whigs, in voting against the motion put forward by Somers, that the bill be restricted to those persons covered by the Test Act. The amendment would have exempted from the bill’s provisions corporation officials, the principal target of Tory anger. During the succeeding weeks while the bill was in the Commons, Moore signed the resolution against ‘tacking’ irrelevant and extraneous clauses to supply legislation on 9 Dec. and eight days later he was placed on the committee to examine the journal of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, on the military expedition at Vigo and Cadiz Bay. He attended the annual St Stephen’s day dinner hosted by the archbishop of Canterbury for all the bishops in the capital. In the new year, on 9 Jan. 1703, he was named to the committee to draw an address to the queen urging her to agree with the States General on an appropriate ‘augmentation’ of land forces on the continent and to prohibit all communication from England with both France and Spain. A week later, on 16 Jan. with the occasional conformity bill back before the House, Moore voted for the Whig ‘wrecking’ amendment to the penalty clause, as his old patron Nottingham had forecast he would.</p><p>From this period Moore seems to have developed a close friendship with William Nicolson*, recently consecrated bishop of Carlisle. Moore first appeared in Nicolson’s London diaries on 27 Nov. 1702. By January 1703 Moore, by now a seasoned parliamentarian, advised the novice Nicolson ‘never to give a forward voice for or against an adjournment’ since the temporal lords ‘do not love to see a bishop offer to interpose in that matter’. On 6 Feb. three weeks before the prorogation, Moore accompanied Nicolson and a number of other bishops to court for the queen’s birthday. On the way, Moore gave his fellow bibliophile Nicolson advice on removing stains from books.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Moore returned to the House on 9 Nov. 1703, the first day of the 1703-4 session, during which he attended 57 per cent of sittings. In the weeks before the occasional conformity bill was brought up to the House again Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, consistently forecast Moore as a likely opponent of the bill. This prediction was borne out on 14 Dec. when Moore voted to reject the bill on its second reading; it was thrown out by 71 votes to 59. Weeks later, on 21 Mar. 1704, Moore joined a diverse group—including the Whigs Somers, Sunderland, Orford and Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, and the Tories Nottingham, Rochester, and Henry Compton of London—in signing the dissent from the rejection of a rider to the bill for raising recruits for the armed forces, which would have provided that no person would be obliged to serve in the army without the prior permission of the parish churchwardens and overseers of the poor.</p><p>The session was prorogued on 3 April. Moore then missed the first ten weeks of the session of 1704-5. Despite his absence from affairs, he maintained a high reputation among the episcopal bench, or at least among the followers of Tenison, and in the late autumn and early winter of 1704 Nicolson recorded the unfounded rumour that Moore would be translated to either the see of London or Ely. In the event he remained at Norwich for another three years. On 14 Dec. almost two months into the session, Moore registered his proxy with William Lloyd of Worcester, although Nicolson’s London diary suggests that Moore was in the capital from early November.<sup>55</sup> This was vacated when Moore finally attended the House on 10 Jan. 1705. Owing to his late arrival, he was present in the House at only slightly less than a third of the session’s sitting days. On 27 Feb. he was assigned to the committee to prepare an explanation for the six resolutions of the House in defence of the right of the ‘Aylesbury men’ to seek redress in their dispute with the Commons in a court of law; however he was not named a manager for the ensuing conference held the following day. Throughout the session Convocation had become increasingly fractious, reflecting the partisan divisions in Parliament. On 15 Mar. Moore was a signatory along with four other bishops (Burnet of Salisbury, John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough) to a written statement desiring that the rebellious high church clergy in the lower house of Convocation would ‘govern themselves by the constitution as it is, and not as they would desire it might be’.<sup>56</sup> It had little effect and over the following months the ‘highflyers’ promoted concerns that the Church was in danger under the administration of the duumvirs.</p><p>Anne’s first Parliament was dissolved on 5 Apr. 1705. Over the following months Moore appears to have drawn closer to Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, the Whig lord lieutenant of the bitterly divided county of Norfolk, using his influence with Godolphin to assist the viscount in his legal affairs.<sup>57</sup> Moore himself was back in the capital by October and assisted on 21 Oct. at the consecration at Lambeth Palace of William Wake as bishop of Lincoln.<sup>58</sup> He was then present at the opening of Parliament on 25 October. He attended the 1705-6 session for 55 per cent of sittings and on 29 Nov. received William Lloyd’s proxy, which was vacated by Lloyd’s presence the following day. Lloyd had held Moore’s for much of the previous session. Moore was closely involved in the turbulent proceedings of the session on the Tory motions calling for the electress of Hanover to be invited to reside in England during the queen’s lifetime, and that the Church was in danger under the current administration. Moore appears to have been privy to Tory policy for he informed Nicolson on 13 Nov., as the Tories were preparing to introduce the ‘Hanover motion’, that Rochester had been planning such a strategy since the previous summer, although Moore thought that the ‘addressing lords’ would call for the electress’s grandson Prince George Augustus*, the future duke of Cambridge and George II, to be called over to reside in the country instead. In the ‘Church in danger’ debate of 6 Dec. Moore underscored the harmonious state of his own diocese, part of a campaign concerted by Tenison and the Whig bishops at Lambeth three days previously to defeat the claims of the Church’s peril. According to a summary of his speech, he claimed that in Norwich diocese the church was ‘in as flourishing a condition as our divisions will permit. Many Dissenting teachers come over to us, are ordained and beneficed among us. The foreign churches [independent Protestant churches] come nearer to us in liturgy and even in episcopacy’. The Tory resolution that the Church was in danger under the present administration was defeated and the Whigs, in committee of the whole House, modified the motion, substituting their own contention that the Church was in fact ‘flourishing’ under the queen. Not surprisingly, Moore voted in favour of this revised Whig motion. He did, however, second Sharp’s motion calling on the judges to give their expert opinion on the legal status of dissenting academies, but the question was not put since Godolphin argued that it was incidental to the main question. At the end of the year Moore confided to Nicolson that he knew nothing of the letter from the electress to Archbishop Tenison, in which she purportedly agreed to her proposed removal to England, ‘but thinks the report groundless’. This spurious letter later, accompanied by an open letter of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to the Whig Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, formed part of a printed pamphlet which caused consternation in Parliament by reviving the controversy which was thought to have been settled by the Regency Act. On 11 Mar. 1706, Moore, with the rest of the House present, was appointed a reporter for the two conferences held that day which quickly devised an address condemning this publication. Earlier, on 17 Feb. he had preached before the queen ‘an argumentative discourse on the nature of divine providence and the necessity of prayer’.<sup>59</sup> Moore last sat in the House for this session on 19 Mar. and then absented himself for the final two months of business.</p><p>Moore was back in the capital by the end of October and on 23 Nov. met with Nicolson, Burnet and Tenison at Lambeth to draft a prayer of thanksgiving for a service at St Paul’s in recognition of a year of military triumphs for that Allies. He was in the House for the first day of the session beginning 3 Dec. and attended 62 per cent of all sittings. Around the turn of the year he was requested by Sharp (in Yorkshire) to remind Tenison to have the act for recovering small tithes continued, which was due to expire. The focus of the session, though, was the passage of the Act of Union, in which Moore was also heavily involved. He was in close contact with the Junto peers who worked to push through the Union and on 3 Jan. 1707 he and Nicolson paid separate visits to Somers, Wharton and Sunderland. Charles Trimnell, Sunderland’s former tutor, was also present at the latter meeting.<sup>60</sup> Between 23 and 27 Jan. there was a series of meetings between Moore, Nicolson, Tenison, Wake and Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup> later bishop of London, both at Lambeth Palace and at Moore’s London residence, to draft a bill, with Somers’s legal advice, for the security of the Church of England in the light of the Union with Scotland and its Presbyterian Kirk. On 29 Jan. the draft bill was amended at Sunderland’s house with Moore, Wake, Godolphin, Marlborough, Orford, Halifax, Townshend and Wharton in attendance. It was first read in the House two days later.<sup>61</sup> In preparation for the debates on this bill, which began in earnest on 3 Feb., Moore held from 6 Feb. the proxy of William Lloyd of Worcester, which he kept until Lloyd’s return to the House on 6 Mar. and from 13 Feb. that of William Wake, which he maintained for the remainder of the session. The Act for the better security of the Church of England received the royal assent on 13 February. In the debates on the Union bill itself, which was brought up to the House on 1 Mar. Burnet later singled Moore out as one of the bill’s principal advocates, along with Burnet himself, William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford, Godolphin, Sunderland, Wharton, Halifax, Townshend, and especially Somers. In May 1707, Moore organized a formal diocesan address to the queen approving of the Union. At the same time as the Union was being debated Moore promised Wake that, with his proxy, he would manage in the House the bill to rebuild the parish church of Humberstone in the diocese of Lincoln, first read on 4 Mar. and committed three days later.<sup>62</sup> On 28 Mar. Moore chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill to discharge holders of small ecclesiastical livings from paying their first fruits and tenths, a measure that dovetailed with his interest and involvement in Queen Anne’s bounty. The bill was passed without amendment that day. He remained in attendance until the last day of the session on 8 April. Moore attended the ten-day-long session between 14 and 24 Apr. for one day only, its first day, and was not involved in any business in the House.</p><h2><em>Bishop of Ely, 1707-14</em></h2><p>Moore’s translation to Ely occurred in the midst of the bishoprics’ crisis, precipitated by divisions over the nominations to several sees vacant since the winter of the previous year. Although Godolphin protested to Marlborough at yet another instance where he had been unable to influence the choice of candidate, Moore’s nomination to Ely, vacant by the death of Simon Patrick on 31 May, was relatively uncontroversial. He was acceptable to a wide range of opinion and Anne herself declared that she ‘had a kindness’ towards him. He kissed hands for his new bishopric within hours of Patrick’s death and the warrant for his translation was signed and the appointment gazetted within the first week of June 1707. Moore was formally translated to the see of Ely on 31 July.<sup>63</sup> If his own translation proved relatively straightforward, though, Moore’s departure from Norwich provided a new focus for division with the Junto eager to secure Trimnell’s nomination to Moore’s former bishopric. Tenison reported to Somers that although he had ‘pressed’ Moore ‘to drop a word about a successor’ Moore was yet to declare his hand. Tenison also wanted Moore to succeed as governor of the Charterhouse, for which he sought Somer’s opinion. Moore’s appointment to Ely certainly met with Somers’ approval: he congratulated Tenison on ‘the making one good bishop without importunity and tearing.’<sup>64</sup></p><p>Moore was in Norwich in June but intended to be back in London for the beginning of July. In early August he approached Sunderland about a place for a relative of one of those in the employment of Tenison’s wife. The man’s father, an Essex clergyman, he assured Sunderland, had ‘always voted according to your lordship’s judgment of things’. The same month, before the convening of the first Parliament of Great Britain, he attended a conference at Sunderland’s residence to discuss various matters, including the war in Spain and relations with Scotland.<sup>65</sup> Now one of the most senior members of the House, Moore was again present on the first day of the new session, 23 Oct. 1707. Yet following his promotion, his parliamentary attendance fell away – he attended only one third of the sittings of the session. Part of this reason may have been his increasing absorption in the refurbishment of Ely House in London to accommodate his massive library, ‘the best in any private library in Europe’ according to one contemporary, in rooms round the old cloister of the house.<sup>66</sup> On 19 Nov. and then again on 22 Dec. he was placed on some of the large committees entrusted to investigate the state of the Navy – the lack of merchant convoys, the encouragement of privateers in the West Indies, the state of shipbuilding and victualling, and the exemption from military service of sailors working in the coal trade – which were largely part of the Whig campaign to expose corruption and incompetence in the Tory-led Admiralty commission. On 26 Dec. he attended the annual dinner hosted by the archbishop at Lambeth, joined by the two archbishops and 13 other bishops.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Throughout 1708 his political activity was largely found outside of the House in such social gatherings, particularly with his growing number of Whig colleagues. On 5 Jan. 1708, he visited Sunderland and five days later took Nicolson to visit Somers to discuss the cathedrals and collegiate churches bill, which was almost Nicolson’s personal project. On the 29th Moore dined at Halifax’s residence with Sunderland, Somers, Nicolson, Hough of Lichfield and Coventry and Richard Bentley. On 18 Feb. Nicolson visited Moore in order to solicit his support for his cathedral bill, which was to be heard the next day. He found Moore ‘very obliging, but so pained in his cheek that I fear his confinement’ from the House. This illness may explain Moore’s absence from 14 Feb. to 2 March.<sup>68</sup> On 7 May, about three weeks after the dissolution of Parliament on 15 Apr. Moore, Trimnell (his successor at Norwich) and Wake met Tenison at the Cockpit, where they agreed ‘several matters’ on Convocation business.<sup>69</sup> Later that summer, Moore and the Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, Charles Roderick, were said to have made such a blunder of the latter’s institution to the deanery of Ely (vacant by the death of John Lamb in August) that the place had fallen void and back into the queen’s hands. Godolphin’s younger brother, Henry, sought the lord treasurer’s assistance in persuading the queen to make out a new grant for the place. Moore’s attention may have been on other things. In October he hosted a ‘key’ conference at his episcopal residence in Ely, conveniently close to Newmarket, at which Godolphin and members of the Junto negotiated the conditions under which the Whigs would continue to provide parliamentary support to the lord treasurer in the forthcoming Parliament. According to Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, was ‘highly displeased’ at not having been included.<sup>70</sup> In the week of 11-18 Nov. Moore was busy with Wake and a number of other bishops, including Trimnell, in preparing for the imminent meeting of both Parliament and Convocation and attending the funeral of the prince consort, George of Denmark*, duke of Cumberland.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Moore was, as usual, present for the first day of the new Parliament, 16 Nov. 1708, but he only attended 39 per cent of the first session. Nottingham, from his seat at Burley, hoped that Moore might be encouraged to join with Rochester and others to try to prevent the progress of the Whig bills to repeal the sacramental test and to offer a general naturalization to foreign Protestant immigrants by making representations against them to the queen.<sup>72</sup> Moore’s actions in the session quickly proved Nottingham misguided in his calculations. On 21 Jan. 1709 Moore joined with the Junto and the Scottish ‘Squadrone’ by voting against the right of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S] (duke of Dover in the British peerage), to vote in the elections of the Scottish representative peers. In the debate of 15 Mar. 1709 on the general naturalization bill Moore voted with the Whig bishops Tenison, Burnet, Hough, Cumberland, Williams, and Trimnell, against Sharp and his coterie of bishops (which on this occasion included Nicolson) to retain the words ‘some Protestant Reformed Congregation’ in the bill, thereby preserving the right of immigrants to worship and communicate in the many autonomous Protestant ‘stranger churches’ in England. On 6 Apr. Moore spoke in the debate on whether the clause to exempt certificates of Quaker marriages from taxation should form part of the stamp bill. He and all the other eight bishops present, including Nicolson, later voted with the minority against the clause. Tenison’s latest illness in late April appears to have revealed the extent of Moore’s family’s ambitions for him as it was reported that they hoped that they might soon be settled at Lambeth. The archbishop’s swift recovery, though, kept them in the Fens.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Denied promotion to Canterbury, Moore tried to advance his family in other ways. In September 1709 he married off one of his daughters, ‘a young sanguine girl of about 24’, to the elderly and infirm canon of Ely Robert Cannon. Cannon was a favourite of Godolphin, ‘exceedingly troubled with the falling of the gut, which usually takes him up all the morning to get it up’. According to Prideaux, it was ‘hard to say which is the greatest fool of the two in this matter … a folly on both sides which is not to be accounted for, and must end ill on both sides’.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Moore took his place once more at the opening of the new session on 15 Nov. ten days after the notorious sermon preached by Dr Henry Sacheverell. He came to half of the meetings of this session, which was dominated by Sacheverell’s impeachment. On 24 Jan. 1710, Moore attended a meeting at Sunderland’s residence with Wharton, Somers, Orford, William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, and bishops Wake, Hough, and Trimnell to discuss the following day’s business in Parliament, when Sacheverell was scheduled to submit his answer to the articles of impeachment. He was due to visit Sunderland again on 18 Feb. possibly for further discussions relating to the Sacheverell affair.<sup>75</sup> On that same day he was named to the committee to determine the number of tickets each peer should be allowed for the trial in Westminster Hall. Moore attended the House throughout the proceedings on Sacheverell’s impeachment and on 28 Feb. was placed on the committee to consider the public disorder arising from the trial. A week later, on 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued on 5 April. The subsequent fall of the duumvirs and development of Harley’s new scheme, prompted Moore to shore up Whig influence, particularly in Cambridgeshire. He was concerned that there would be a change in the lieutenancy of the Isle of Ely and sought, with Orford, to ensure a Whig victory in the county elections following the dissolution of 21 Sept., though with little effect as two Tories, John Bromley<sup>‡</sup> and John Jenyns<sup>‡</sup>, were returned.<sup>76</sup> In the weeks before the convening of the new Parliament on 25 Nov. Harley correctly reckoned that Moore would oppose his new ministry. Moore attended 42 per cent of sittings of the first session of 1710-11, which was dominated by Tory recriminations against the former Whig ministry’s handling of the unsuccessful Allied campaign in Spain. Throughout January and February 1711, Moore was part of the Whig battle against the Tories’ censure of the previous ministry’s conduct of the war, and particularly the attack on the generals who had led the Peninsular campaign: Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I]. The debates were most intense in the period 9-11 January. On 9 Jan. Moore joined a large number of Whig bishops in voting against the resolution that Peterborough had ‘given a just, faithful and honourable account’ of the council of war that had decided on the strategy prior to the defeat at Almanza.<sup>77</sup> On 11 Jan. he subscribed the two protests against the resolutions to reject the petitions of Galway and Tyrawley and to blame them single-handedly for the defeat at Almanza. The following day Moore was the only bishop to speak in debate, maintaining that it had not appeared to him ‘that there was any premeditated ill design in the ministry, when they gave their opinion for an offensive war’ in Spain and consequently he signed the protest that day against the resolution condemning the Whig ministry for approving the plans for an offensive war.<sup>78</sup> He protested again on 3 Feb. against the two resolutions of that day which further condemned the previous ministers for inadequately supplying the Allied troops in Spain with men and materiel, which was proclaimed a ‘neglect of service’. Five days later he further signed the two protests which sought to halt the presentation to the queen of an address condemning the recent conduct of the war in Spain.<sup>79</sup> On 1 and 12 May he received the proxies of, respectively, Tenison and Burnet, both of which he held until the prorogation of 12 June. During this session, Moore was also involved in meetings of the commissioners for the rebuilding of St Paul’s, and for Queen Anne’s bounty.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Moore was again entrusted with the ailing Tenison’s proxy from 6 Dec. 1711, the day before the first meeting of the subsequent session of 1711-12, of whose sittings Moore attended 43 per cent. The principal business of this session focused on the controversial peace negotiations with France. On its first day Moore was named to the committee to prepare an address to the queen asserting that there could be ‘no peace without Spain’. He was forecast as a certain opponent of the ministry in the division on whether to include this Whig motion in the address. On 17 Dec. Moore chaired a committee of the whole House considering the bill ‘for preserving the Protestant religion, by better securing the Church of England’. He reported the bill with some amendments, which were quickly passed. He was forecast as a probable opponent of the ministry in the case of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and on 20 Dec. voted against Hamilton’s right to sit in the House under his British title of duke of Brandon. On 2 Jan. 1712 Moore attended the debate on Oxford’s (as Harley had since become) motion to adjourn the House immediately after the creation of 12 new Tory peers and he was one of 11 out of 15 bishops who followed the Whig line in denouncing the motion as an infringement of parliamentary privilege and in voting against the adjournment.<sup>81</sup> In the early months of 1712 he continued his work on Queen Anne’s bounty and met frequently with Wake and Trimnell.<sup>82</sup> Moore was also very active in Convocation on behalf of Tenison and against the claims of the highflying lower clergy. Moore’s partisan conduct, and apparent dishonesty, dismayed the Rev. Ralph Bridges, who reported that:</p><blockquote><p>old Ely has made the most remarkable halt lately, which the lower house have detected and resent very much. He told them that he and the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield [Hough] had been to deliver a message [to] the queen by order of the upper house about whether the Convocation should proceed <em>de novo</em> or not and that the queen had taken time to consider of it. When, in truth, it appears, as the dean of Christ Church [Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester] tells me, that the said bishop never went to the queen at all, at least the queen protests she remembers nothing of it. But what makes the lie very complete, it happened that the bishop of Lichfield had been and is still absent from town and above an hundred miles off.<sup>83</sup></p></blockquote><p>Moore was involved in a flurry of proxy exchanges. Unwell with an ‘ague’, on 19 Mar. he registered his proxy with Trimnell, which was vacated upon his return to the House on 14 April.<sup>84</sup> On 9 May Moore in turn received the proxy of Jonathan Trelawny, now bishop of Winchester. This proxy was vacated by 21 May when Moore himself entrusted his own proxy, once again, to Cumberland of Peterborough. Cumberland almost certainly used this proxy to vote in favour of the motion of 28 May to address the queen against the ‘restraining orders’ that had been issued to Ormond against undertaking offensive actions against the French in the coming campaign, though Cumberland’s own name does not appear on the division list for the vote.<sup>85</sup> The Whigs’ defeat may have prompted Moore to resume his place in time for another series of important votes. Probably in a concerted move among the Whig bishops, and perhaps acting as the ailing Tenison’s deputy, Moore returned to the House on 6 June. That day he received the proxy of the long-absent Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, and the following day he reached his full complement of two proxies when that of his old friend William Lloyd of Worcester, who had only left the House for the session the previous day, was also registered in his name. These additional votes were most likely given to him in anticipation of the debate on the queen’s speech concerning the peace the next day. The Whig attempt to amend the address of thanks to the queen, to insist that measures should be taken with the allies to ‘guarantee’ the Hanoverian Succession in any peace settlement, was comprehensively defeated by the ministry by 81 to 36. Moore, with his two proxies, was among the minority, as he put his name to the protest against the rejection of this motion. After this defeat Moore continued to hold the proxies of both of his colleagues until the prorogation of 8 July.</p><p>By this point Moore appears to have been closely associated with Wake. In a letter of October 1712, Wake wished that ‘God preserve your lordship and all your good family, that we may disappoint the hopes of our enemies, and not give them the double satisfaction of getting rid of us, and coming themselves into our places, especially since I have the vanity to think the Church would not get by it’.<sup>86</sup> Jonathan Swift had the same opinion and in the weeks preceding the long-postponed session of spring 1713, at which the terms of the peace negotiated at Utrecht were to be presented, he reckoned that Moore would almost certainly be in opposition to the ministry. Moore was present on the first day of the session, 9 Apr. 1713, and proceeded to attend just a little over a third of its sittings. Swift’s assessment was accurate and in early June Oxford calculated too that Moore would oppose the ministry’s treaty of commerce with France. However, Moore was not always the most effective or consistent ally of the Junto in their opposition to the Oxford ministry. On 1 June, at the crucial vote on the question whether to vote straight away – rather than postpone discussion to a further date, as the Whigs and the Scots preferred – on the bill for dissolving the Union, sponsored by James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], Moore and Fleetwood left the chamber before the division at 6 p.m. thereby helping to prevent the ministry’s defeat. Contemporary accounts also suggested that Moore abandoned the chamber before the crucial moment entrusted with valuable proxies which could have helped sway the vote to the Whigs even further. The Whig Edmund Gibson was disappointed and lamented to Nicolson, ‘had they [Moore and Fleetwood] stayed it had come to what our friends desired, namely the appointment of a day to hear the proposition on the part of Scotland with regard to the succession’.<sup>87</sup> The session was prorogued some weeks later, on 16 July, and Parliament was dissolved on 8 August.</p><p>Moore was, as usual, in his place on the first day of the new Parliament, 16 Feb. 1714, after which he attended 44 per cent of what was to be his last session. On 5 Apr. he was named to a committee to prepare an address requesting the queen to enter into a mutual guarantee with the allies to ensure the Hanoverian succession. Eleven days later he registered his proxy with Hough, but Hough himself left the House on 11 May and in turn registered his proxy with Moore on 17 May. To this proxy Moore, still absent from the House, added that of Burnet on 29 May (vacated on 25 June). This may have been a concerted action among the Whig bishops, for Moore, with his full allotment of two proxies, returned to the House on 2 June, two days before the first reading of the schism bill. Nottingham forecasted correctly that Moore opposed this measure of the ‘highflying’ Tories and on 10 and 11 June Moore and his Whig allies commenced their efforts to wreck the bill in stages. On 11 June, Moore, with the proxies of Hough and Burnet, voted against the committee of the whole House receiving a clause which would extend the bill to Ireland. The motion for the clause passed by a single vote, with the episcopal bench evenly divided, Moore heading the list of episcopal ‘not contents’ drawn up by Nicolson (who voted the same way).<sup>88</sup> On 15 June Moore voted against the bill and, with a large body of Whigs, registered his protest against its passage. Nine days later he was named to the committee to prepare an address to encourage the queen to offer a reward for the apprehension of the Pretender if he set foot on British soil and to enter into a mutual guarantee for the Hanoverian succession. The following month, on 7 July, Moore chaired a committee of the whole House considering the bill to offer a reward for the discovery of a means to determine longitude at sea, which he reported as fit to pass without amendment. His attendance the next day, 8 July, was his last in the House. The session was prorogued the following day.</p><p>Moore predeceased Queen Anne by one day. He caught a chill while presiding in his capacity as visitor of Trinity College, Cambridge, over the lengthy trial of Richard Bentley, whom he had previously supported as episcopal candidate for Chichester. He died on 31 July and was buried on 5 Aug. at Ely. By his will of 27 July he bequeathed to his second wife the property in Darlington that she had brought to the marriage. She, with whom (according to one observer) he had ‘lived miserably snarling together, always quarrelling’, thereafter styled herself by her former married name of Lady Browne. His eldest son Daniel was to have the property in reversion, which was then to be passed on in order to his other surviving six children. In addition, Moore bequeathed to his third son Charles government securities worth £60 a year for a term of 99 years and his remaining six offspring were each to receive the equivalent of those shares’ market value.<sup>89</sup></p><p>Moore’s greatest legacy was his library which contained, according to one astonished observer, ‘the greatest number of books that I believe is to be seen in any private library in Europe’.<sup>90</sup> Amassing the collection had been a great drain on his finances, so that during his time at Norwich in particular he almost consistently used up all, or more, of his annual net revenue from the diocese – usually around £1,941 p.a. – on purchasing books, in addition to his usual clerical expenses. In 1714 he had offered the collection of 30,756 titles to the earl of Oxford for £8,000. Oxford refused when Moore wanted the cash in advance but wished to retain the library for his own use during his lifetime. Shortly after Moore’s death, Townshend persuaded George I to buy the collection for £6,450 and to present it to Cambridge University, ‘to furnish you [the university] with those materials of learning which … would become so many weapons in your hands to guard and maintain the faith of the Church, the rights of the crown and the liberties of the British constitution’. The donation, which more than doubled the size of the university library, may well have been a political gesture against Tory Oxford. It sparked the publication of satirical verse in which Moore’s library became the subject of political and academic antagonism between Oxford and Cambridge.<sup>91</sup></p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
MORGAN, Robert (1608-73) |
<p><strong><surname>MORGAN</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1608–73)</p> |
|
|
First sat 10 Oct. 1667; last sat 1 Apr. 1671 |
cons. 1 July 1666 bp. of BANGOR |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1608, 3rd s. of Richard Morgan<sup>‡</sup> and Margaret, da. of Thomas Lloyd of Gwernybuarth, and wid. of Charles Powell of Llandysul. <em>educ</em>. Jesus, Camb. BA 1628, MA 1631; St John’s, Camb. BD 1638; DD 1666; ord. deacon and priest 1629. <em>m</em>. Anne, da. of William Lloyd, rect. of Llaneilian, Anglesey, and cos. of William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph; 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 4da. <em>d.</em> 1 Sept. 1673; <em>will</em> 24 Feb., pr. 18 Nov. 1673.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Vic. Llanwnnog, Mont. 1632, Llanfair-Dyffryn-Clwyd, 1637–42; rect. Llangynhafal, Denb. 1632–42, Efenechtyd 1638–42, Llandyffnan 1642–66; Trefdraeth, Anglesey 1642–66; chap. to David Dolben<sup>†</sup>, bp. Bangor, 1632, to William Roberts*, bp. Bangor, 1637; preb. Chester 1642–66, Bangor 1657–61; comportioner, Llandinam 1660; adn. Anglesey 1660,<sup>2</sup> Merioneth 1660–6.</p> |
|
<p>The son of a former Member of Parliament for the Montgomeryshire boroughs, Morgan was unswervingly royalist throughout the civil wars and interregnum, helping to organize the Caernarvonshire declaration for the king in 1648.<sup>3</sup> When William Roberts bishop of Bangor, died in 1665, the king quickly settled on Robert Price (bishop of Ferns in Ireland) as his replacement, issuing the congé d’elire for his election on 7 Sept. 1665.<sup>4</sup> Price died in March 1666, before he could be consecrated.<sup>5</sup> Morgan, whose long service in the diocese may have convinced him that he was Roberts’ natural successor, then appears to have commenced a lobbying campaign to secure the see for himself. It is otherwise difficult to explain the glowing testimonials forwarded to Lambeth Palace on his behalf. Even one of Morgan’s allies feared that this might be an unusual course of action and ‘too tumultuous and popular’, and it seems that Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, had reservations about the appointment, but the campaign was nevertheless successful.<sup>6</sup> One of Morgan’s first acts as bishop elect was to petition to have his archdeaconry permanently annexed to the bishopric: it was worth £200 a year whereas the bishopric was worth only £120.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Of the six parliamentary sessions in which he was entitled to sit, Morgan attended only two, both for fewer than half of all sittings; he was named to only 13 select committees throughout his time in the House of Lords. He did not attend the House for the 1666-7 session, registering his proxy to George Hall*, bishop of Chester. Morgan took his seat on the first day of the 1667–9 session, some 15 months after his consecration. He then attended almost every day until his final appearance that session on 19 Dec. 1667. On 6 Feb. 1668 he entered his proxy in favour of John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Morgan appears to have had a role in Welsh ecclesiastical life that transcended diocesan boundaries. In October 1668, after Henry Glemham*, bishop of St Asaph, confirmed the lease of the Whitford rectory profits to Sir Roger Mostyn, Morgan intervened to warn Sheldon of an infringement of the archbishop’s prerogative rights.<sup>8</sup> Unlike his fellow bishops in south Wales, Morgan was not overly troubled by the activities of Dissenters: in January 1669 he reported that the diocese was wholeheartedly conformist.<sup>9</sup> At or about this time he became embroiled in a dispute with Thomas Jones, the minister of Llandyrnog. Jones, a former chaplain to James Stuart*, duke of York, had been dismissed from his position at court after the conversion of the duchess of York and blamed George Morley*, bishop of Winchester. He now found himself prosecuted in the consistory courts in Bangor for what he later called ‘a frivolous controversy about a reading seat’. Llandyrnog had previously been held in commendam by the bishops of Bangor. Morgan wanted it back but Jones refused either to exchange or quit it. His determination to use ‘the stately seat’ erected for the use of the bishops provided an excuse for the churchwardens to commence a prosecution against him, which Jones clearly believed to have been instigated by Morgan, in alliance with Morley.<sup>10</sup></p><p>The next session of Parliament opened in October 1669. When the House was called on 26 Oct. 1669 Morgan was excused attendance on grounds of ill health and promised to send a proxy, although there is no record that he ever did so. The 1670–1 session saw him present for nearly 48 per cent of sittings; in particular he attended throughout the prolonged debates on the second Conventicle bill in March 1670. During this session he helped to sustain episcopal solidarity when he opposed John Cosin*, of Durham and registered his dissent on 17 and 28 Mar. against the divorce bill for John Manners*, Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland). Parliament was adjourned on 11 April; when it reassembled in October Morgan was absent. He registered his proxy in Dolben’s favour on 28 Oct. 1670; it was cancelled on 23 Jan. 1671 when Morgan returned to the House. During the course of the year he had become involved in yet another dispute with Thomas Jones, this time as a witness in the <em>scandalum magnatum</em> case brought against Jones by Morley.<sup>11</sup></p><p>On 15 Mar. 1671 Morgan registered his dissent against the suspension of the judgment against John Cusack in <em>Cusack v Lord Dungannon</em>. Of the 14 bishops present in the House that day, only Morgan and Dolben registered their protest, together with Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, and James Butler*, duke of Ormond, two peers clearly identified with the government of Ireland. The resolution highlighted the perennial difficulties over procedure and jurisdiction in the Irish courts. Morgan’s interest in the case is unclear, but Lady Dungannon was the daughter of John Lewis of Anglesey and Morgan had other connections to Irish affairs through Griffith Williams, his controversial absentee dean who was also bishop of Ossory.</p><p>It is probable that Morgan’s more conscientious attendance throughout this session was also due to the passage of a bill enabling him and Isaac Barrow*, bishop of St Asaph, to set lead mines on their land for 21 years.<sup>12</sup> Read for the first and second times on 11 and 17 Jan. 1671, the bill was reported from committee by William Herbert*, 3rd Baron Powis, on 8 Feb. and sent to the Commons three days later. Passed without amendments, it received the royal assent on 6 March. Back in his diocese, in the summer of 1672 Morgan was appointed by Sheldon (on the recommendation of Humphrey Lloyd*, then dean of St Asaph, later bishop of Bangor) as a ‘very fit’ arbitrator in the dilapidations dispute between Barrow and his chapter.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In December 1672 Sheldon asked Morgan to attend the House for the forthcoming 1673 session despite the rigours of winter travel. The bishop reported that he was too ill to do so. Too old to ‘raise false excuses’, he promised to send to Convocation proctors who were loyal to the king and ‘true sons of the Church’.<sup>14</sup> His proxy was again registered in Dolben’s favour on 10 Feb. 1673. In April 1673, aware of the imminent end of his ‘earthly pilgrimage’ he was determined to spend his remaining time on ‘righteous’ acts. These included improving the income of the diocese for his successors by uniting the archdeaconry of Bangor to the bishopric. He told Sheldon that he had</p><blockquote><p>laboured for an annexation and employed my most dear friend Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> therein, but he met with so many obstructions and difficulties that I was forced to write unto him for to desist foreseeing that nothing would do it but an Act of Parliament, and as poor as I am, I would not have been deterred as to charges of going that way, but that I conceived it difficult for to have the Bill pass, my self not able to be there to solicit it in person.<sup>15</sup></p></blockquote><p>Morgan asked Sheldon to secure an act of Parliament for the purpose, fearing that the archdeaconry might be ‘snatched away’ at his death, in the same way that Llandyrnog had been at his predecessor’s death. He also recommended his cousin William Lloyd, later bishop of St Asaph and eventually of Worcester, as his successor. Morgan died on 1 Sept. 1673 and was buried in Bangor Cathedral. He was not without property and at his death bequeathed land scattered throughout Montgomeryshire and Anglesey to his sons.</p> |
B.A. |
|
MORLEY, George (1598-1684) |
<p><strong><surname>MORLEY</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1598–1684)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 6 Mar. 1679 |
cons. 28 Oct. 1660 bp. of WORCESTER; transl. 14 May 1662 bp. of WINCHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 Mar. 1598, eldest s. of Francis Morley and Sarah, da. of William Denham and sis. of Sir John Denham, bar. of Exch. <em>educ</em>. Westminster 1611; Christ Church, Oxf. BA 1618, MA 1621, DD 1642; Lincoln’s Inn 1664; Gray’s Inn 1664. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 29 Oct. 1684. <em>will</em> 12 July-8 Oct. 1684, pr. 31 Oct. 1684.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I 1641; PC, 1675-9.</p><p>Chap. to Robert Dormer<sup>†</sup>, earl of Carnarvon, to c.1640-1, to Lady Ormond c.1650, to Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, c.1653; rect. Hartfield, Suss. 1640-8, Mildenhall, Wilts. 1641-5, Pennant, Mont. 1644-53, Gt. Haseley, Oxon. 1660; canon Christ Church Oxf. 1642-8, 1660, Wells 1660; dean Christ Church Oxf. 1660, chapel royal 1663-8.</p><p>Mbr. Westminster Assembly of Divines 1643; commr. Uxbridge treaty 1645.</p><p>Gov. Charterhouse, 1663; commr. for repair of St Paul’s bef. 1665.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: chalk drawing, after Sir P. Lely, NPG 491; oil on canvas, studio of P. Lely, oils, c.1662, NPG 2951.</p> |
<p>Born in Cheapside to a well-connected gentry family in precarious financial circumstances, George Morley was orphaned by the age of 13. At Oxford, and through association with Lucius Carey<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Falkland [S], and his friends at Great Tew in the 1630s, Morley would become close to key figures in the Restoration church and state, including Gilbert Sheldon*, later archbishop of Canterbury, Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, John Earle*, later bishop of Worcester and Salisbury, and Robert Sanderson*, later bishop of Lincoln. Morley’s relationship with Sheldon was a close political and personal partnership that endured until Sheldon’s death in 1677. Morley was described in the archbishop’s will as an especially close friend.<sup>3</sup> Morley’s off-the-cuff response to the question about what the Arminians held—all the best bishoprics and deaneries, he was supposed to have said—may help to explain the failure of an exceptionally able churchman to receive significant preferment during the 1630s, though his friendship with men of the stamp of Sheldon, Henry Hammond and William Chillingworth, suggests that despite holding Calvinist views, he was in no sense doctrinaire; moreover serving as chaplain to the earl of Carnarvon would have exposed him to a well-known recusant family.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Morley’s reputation was as a man who did not accumulate wealth for personal comfort, and the early part of his career—acting as a chaplain until securing a living at the age of 43—does not suggest careerism or a determination to secure a comfortable income. Planning notes for ecclesiastical appointments drawn up around 1659 reflected this. Morley was listed as a potential dean of the chapel royal, and a note by his name stated that ‘it must have one that desires not to gain by it, because it’s so much out of order’.<sup>5</sup> As soon as he was made bishop of Worcester, he converted a £300 fine into gifts to Worcester Cathedral and Christ Church Oxford; by the end of 1661, Morley had spent £6,000 on cathedral repairs, a sum far in excess of the windfall diocesan revenues at the Restoration.<sup>6</sup> Ascetic in personal habits and morality (George Hooper*, later on bishop of Bath and Wells, could not cope with the rigours of Morley’s household), Morley chose to live in a tiny room with his own coffin whilst refurbishing his chapel and residences to a luxurious standard.<sup>7</sup> He spent in excess of £4,000 buying Winchester House in Chelsea for use as an episcopal residence, £8,000 on refurbishments to Farnham Castle and Wolvesey House, and during his lifetime gave generously to Oxford colleges and Winchester Cathedral.<sup>8</sup> Despite his own asceticism, Morley was so noted for his liberality that after his translation to the wealthy diocese of Winchester, the king declared he would never be the richer for his great income (nearly £4,000 a year in 1663-4).<sup>9</sup> In September 1662, John Earle, then the dean of Westminster, referred to Morley’s reputation for ‘integrity, courage, eloquence, piety, and liberality’.<sup>10</sup> Morley told Henry Compton*, the future bishop of London, that he ‘never was nor ever will be a hoarder of money, but as it comes in, so it goes out’.<sup>11</sup> Nevertheless by the time of his death, his will suggests that his residual wealth not already committed to various charitable and building projects was still in excess of £3,000.</p><h2><em>Civil War to Restoration</em></h2><p>Nominated to the Westminster Assembly of Divines in June 1643, Morley did not attend it and probably spent the Civil War in Oxford. In 1645 he was a royalist delegate at the Uxbridge peace talks. Active in the resistance of the university of Oxford to the parliamentary visitors, he was ejected from his canonry in 1648. In early 1649, he attended Arthur Capell<sup>†</sup>, Baron Capell, to the scaffold before going into exile.<sup>12</sup> He was later joined by his nephew Francis Morley<sup>‡</sup>, who was linked to a plot to assassinate Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>13</sup> Much of his time was spent in the royal court, some of it in association with his friend Hyde: from 1650 to around 1653 he was living in Hyde’s household in Antwerp where he gave religious instruction to his children.<sup>14</sup> Alert to potential obstacles to the Restoration, he warned James Stuart*, duke of York, in 1659 that the latter had fallen under suspicion of Catholicism and should exercise caution.<sup>15</sup></p><p>With a reputation as an effective political operator, connections with some of the most important continental reformed divines (including Claude Saumaise and Samuel Bochart), and closeness to Charles II’s key minister Edward Hyde, Morley was well known to the English Presbyterian community before the Restoration. He was despatched to England in March 1660 in order to ‘enter into conversation, and have frequent conferences with the Presbyterian party’ in order to ‘reduce them to such a temper as is consistent with the good of the Church’.<sup>16</sup> He also saw it as his job to ensure that non-Presbyterian clergy would maintain a moderate and peaceable stance, despite their growing jubilation. Hyde was confident that Morley, who appears to have arrived in England by the end of March, would ‘do all he can to advance the affairs of the Church’<sup>17</sup> On 4 Apr. 1660, questioned by the Council of State, he undertook ‘to act nothing prejudicial’.<sup>18</sup> He reported back to Hyde the following day with his initial impressions.<sup>19</sup> On 13 Apr. Morley reported his progress to Hyde. The restoration of episcopacy, he told him, was still a difficult issue. The ‘chief Presbyterians’ were willing to ‘admit the name’ but wanted limitations on the power of bishops and Morley had had to assure them that ‘the canons, ecclesiastical laws and a free synod’ would prevent an arbitrary episcopacy. He had managed to satisfy Edward Reynolds*, who would later become bishop of Norwich, but others were proving more difficult even though Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, had promised his assistance in persuading them to be well disposed to episcopacy. Morley aimed to convince the Presbyterian leaders that they had nothing to fear from a restoration of monarchy or from Hyde’s prominence amongst the king’s counsellors, defended York against allegations of catholicism and keeping the more extreme Anglican clergy from expressing their sentiments.<sup>20</sup> Three days later, in a letter to James Butler*, marquess of Ormond [I], later duke of Ormond, he was arguing that the royal party should declare their acquiescence ‘in what this present council of state, and future Parliament, should determine, as well as in order to our ecclesiastical as to civil concernments without so much as disputing or debating, and much less anticipating, or predetermining, what is now, and shall be in deliberation’, and also commenting on suspicions of the Protestantism of the duke of York and John Berkeley*, Baron Berkeley of Stratton.<sup>21</sup> John Mordaunt*, later Viscount Mordaunt, wrote approvingly of how Morley’s moderation was defusing Presbyterian enmity.<sup>22</sup> The Presbyterian leader Richard Baxter was among those who sought him out to ascertain the real intentions of any restored regime. At this stage, Baxter wrote, he unquestioningly accepted that Morley really was ‘a moderate, orthodox man’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Sheldon had arrived in London by 1 May and he and Morley began to work together, Sheldon conveying concerns of the royalists while Morley continued to talk to Presbyterians, including Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup>, who was anxious to obtain assurances from him about the king’s commitment to Protestantism.<sup>24</sup> By 4 May, having secured acceptance of episcopacy and a set liturgy from leading Presbyterians such as Reynolds and Manchester, Morley recommended that a handful of their leaders be ‘gratified’ with preferments. This would be ‘a great means to bring over their whole party’ which ‘though... it be not so powerful as absolutely to hinder, yet it is strong enough I fear to give the king much trouble’. The big obstacle to Presbyterian acceptance of an episcopal settlement, he recognized, was the question of the validity of Presbyterian orders, and he recommended to Hyde the solution of ‘hypothetical’ episcopal reordination, which would fudge the issue. He also attempted to mollify Presbyterian concerns that the king did not sufficiently recognize their services, and warned Hyde about attempts to remove him from his position close to the king, and complaints about the king’s failure to honour promises of office (including those of his cousin, Denham).<sup>25</sup> Two days later he remarked to Ormond that there was still ‘a mischievous and malicious spirit’ in the army.<sup>26</sup> On 9 and 10 May, writing to Hyde, he was anxious to stamp on a proposal for a synod ‘of the three nations’ with the involvement of foreign divines.<sup>27</sup> Working together with Mordaunt, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th the earl of Southampton, Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup> and Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup>, sending recommendations to Hyde for clerical appointments, Morley was in mid-May one of the pivotal figures of the king’s party in London.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Even after the return of Charles II to England, with the lord chancellor Sir Edward Hyde, Morley remained a key informant for Hyde, warning him of Lord Falkland’s unhappiness about the appointment of a lord lieutenant for Oxfordshire in early June,<sup>29</sup> In July 1660, Sheldon and Morley, together with John Earle, were entrusted with making recommendations for the use of part of the crown’s ecclesiastical patronage.<sup>30</sup> Morley was a central figure in the continuing negotiations with the Presbyterians over a Church settlement during the summer and early autumn. Morley pushed for the ‘hypothetical ordination’ solution to the question of Presbyterian orders in the discussions that led to the Worcester House Declaration at the end of October, although this did not in fact form part of the final Declaration. Morley was optimistic about the Declaration, writing (in advance of the final negotiations on the ordination question) on 23 Oct. that he hoped it would</p><blockquote><p>give abundant satisfaction to the honest and peaceably minded men of both parties, and make them cease to be parties any longer, but unanimously to join against the common enemy the papists, who will grow much more insolent than ever they were if somewhat be not quickly done to prevent it.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>Speed was indeed of the essence since the queen mother’s arrival was imminent ‘which’ Morley continued, ‘will be a great countenance and encouragement’ to the Catholics. </p><h2><em>Bishop of Worcester and the Act of Uniformity, 1660-62</em></h2><p>Morley’s appointment as bishop of Worcester (he was consecrated on 28 Oct. 1660) was a recognition of the fact that he and Sheldon were, as Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury wrote, among the men who had the greatest credit at court.<sup>32</sup> He helped to cajole a reluctant John Gauden* into accepting the diocese of Exeter.<sup>33</sup> On 10 Apr. 1661 the election in Morley’s new diocese saw the return, with Morley’s help in ‘securing... voices to him in case they had been necessary’, of the royalist Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> for Worcestershire.<sup>34</sup> Pakington, a persecutor of Dissent, would be a strong supporter of the Church and a close ally of Morley: his wife, the daughter of Thomas Coventry*, 2nd Baron Coventry, maintained correspondence with Morley and the bishop lent Pakington £500 towards a portion for one of his daughters.<sup>35</sup></p><p>On 23 Apr. 1661, Morley preached at the coronation.<sup>36</sup> In May, still excluded from the Lords, he was one of the main episcopal managers at the Savoy conference, ‘the chief speaker of all the bishops, and the greatest interrupter of us’, Baxter wrote.<sup>37</sup> On 12 Sept. 1661, Morley went into his diocese for enthronement. He was accompanied into Worcester by Thomas Windsor*, 7th Baron Windsor, ‘most of the gentry and all the clergy’ and accompanied by ‘ten trumpets... volunteer militia horse, the trained bands... and clergy band of foot in arms, giving divers volleys of shot’. He then processed to the cathedral choir for the formal ceremony of enthronement and a subsequent ‘noble treatment’ at the episcopal palace.<sup>38</sup> Morley’s relations with Richard Baxter (who had in 1660 regarded him as a moderate) had worsened during the Savoy conference, and took a further dive when he refused to allow him a licence to preach. Baxter resorted to publishing his complaints about what he perceived to be Morley’s intransigence at the Savoy Conference and his role in obstructing him from obtaining a licence to preach in the Kidderminster parish from which he had been ejected by the returning incumbent. Baxter’s letter to his parishioners is dated 11 Nov.; Morley responded in vitriol in a pamphlet that must have appeared at the end of 1661 or early January 1662, defending himself against ‘a generation of men (St John Baptist would have called them a generation of vipers) who in the art of holy juggling and malicious slandering have out done the Pharisees themselves’. He was provoked to fury against Presbyterians in general and Baxter in particular:</p><blockquote><p>is it any wonder that those that are such enemies to kings, should not be friends to bishops? or that one (who hath done what he could to make the late king odious unto his people) should do what he can likewise to make the pastor odious unto his flock? to this flock I say; for it is the bishop of Worcester, and not Mr Baxter that is pastor of Kidderminster, as well as of all other parochial churches in that diocese… Mr Baxter was never either parson, vicar or curate there or any where else in my diocese; for he never came in by the door, that is, by any legal right or lawful admission into that sheepfold, but climbed up some other way, namely, by violence and intrusion, and therefore by Christ’s own inference he was a thief and a robber.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote><p>The exchange resulted in a further attack, by Edmund Bagshaw, in January 1662, and further responses by Samuel Holden and Roger L’Estrange<sup>‡</sup>, <sup>40</sup></p><p>Morley had returned to London in order to take his seat along with the other re-admitted bishops on the first day after the recess, 20 Nov. 1661, the beginning of a parliamentary career of nearly 18 years’ duration. He attended all but four sessions in the reign of Charles II and became a familiar presence in the House, attending seven sessions for more than 90 per cent of sittings and a further five for more than 70 per cent. He was an active parliamentarian, invariably in the House on the first day of the session (and thus usually appointed to the sessional committees), sitting on select committees (he was nominated to more than 280), examining the Journal, helping to draft legislation and exchanging proxies. He used Parliament constantly to buttress Church interests. Lobbied by John Parker, bishop of Elphin, to secure an advantageous religious settlement for the Church of Ireland, he was later commended by Michael Boyle, archbishop of Dublin, as a man who would never let a chance slip to advance the interests of the Church ‘either at the council table, or in the Parliament house’.<sup>41</sup></p><p>In his first parliamentary session, Morley attended 63 per cent of sittings, was added to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal and to 43 select committees, including the bills on Quakers, corporations, the uniformity bill and the reversal of the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford. On his second day in the Lords, he was named to a committee to prepare an address to the king for a proclamation ‘that all suspicious and loose persons may be forthwith sent out of these towns of London and Westminster and the liberties thereof, for some time’. On 14 Dec. Morley was one of the managers of the conference on the bill to confirm private acts and on 7 Jan. 1662 of the conference on the dissolution of the joint committee concerning the recent plot.</p><p>Morley was deeply concerned along with Clarendon (as Hyde had now become) and Sheldon in the arguments over achieving a final settlement of the Church. These began to come to a head with the heated discussions in February 1662 over the confirmation of the Convention’s Act for settling ministers, a precursor to the arguments that would ensue over the Act of Uniformity. Clarendon was said to have engaged Morley, Sheldon, York, George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and ‘all the popish lords’ to secure confirmation.<sup>42</sup> Morley had been named to the Lords committee considering the bill on 17 Jan., and he is recorded in the committee proceedings on 27 Feb. insisting that any amendments to the Book of Common Prayer should be made under the authority of Convocation, rather than the House of Lords. The committee that day seems also to have ordered that ‘what was lately promised to the House of Commons to be provided for by way of conformity may be done accordingly’—the incorporation of the Commons amendments to the ministers’ confirmation bill into the uniformity bill.<sup>43</sup> On 24 Feb., he was one of the bishops who attended the Privy Council to present to the king the revised Book of Common Prayer.<sup>44</sup> Burnet later claimed that at some point between late December 1661 and February 1662, in order to remove some nonconformist objections, Morley had supported Gauden’s proposal for the restoration to the Prayer Book of the ‘black rubric’ that explained that the requirement to kneel at communion did not constitute idolatry. If so (and it is not clear that Burnet was correct) Morley may have disagreed with Sheldon.<sup>45</sup> Morley implied in his rebuttal of Baxter’s accusations that the question of kneeling was indifferent as far as he was concerned, but uniformity of practice was essential:</p><blockquote><p>he that kneeleth at the sacrament, will be thought to be idolatrous or superstitious by him that kneeleth not, and him that kneeleth not will be thought wilful, or weak, by him that kneeleth. And thus from diversity grows dislike, from dislike enmity, from enmity opposition, and from opposition, first separation and schism in the Church, and then faction, sedition and rebellion in the state; which is a progress very natural, and I would we had not found it to be so by our own experience; for as the state depends upon the safety of the Church, so the safety of the Church depends upon unity, and unity it self depends upon uniformity, and uniformity there cannot be, as long as there is diversity or divers ways of worship in the same Church, which will be always, unless it be lawful for public authority to oblige all particulars to one way of public worship, and that under such penalties, as the law-givers shall think necessary to prevent the disturbing of the public peace and safety.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>During the passage of the uniformity bill, Morley continued to make support moderating provisions. After the bill was reported to the House, Morley backed Clarendon over a series of provisos designed to moderate it (a proviso ‘for avoiding re-ordination’ was quite possibly Morley’s proposal, echoing his interest in the issue in 1660, though it did not make it to the final bill). On 18 Mar., both he and Sheldon supported Clarendon in the face of opposition from the earl of Bristol, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and even John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, over the attempt to insert a proviso that would allow the king to dispense individual clergymen from using the surplice and cross in baptism; the proviso was subsequently thrown out by the Commons.<sup>47</sup> On 7 Apr. 1662, when the House continued its debates on the bill, Morley offered another clause to dilute the declaration abjuring the Covenant (by declaring that there no longer remained any formal obligation from the oath), but this was discarded after debate on 8 April. On the same day, the Lords ordered a committee to draft a clause that would allow the king to make provision for the support of the ejected clerics; it was an unusually small committee and it seems likely that the nominees, who included Morley, had been active in proposing the need for such a clause.<sup>48</sup> Morley continued to attend the House that session until 17 May, two days before the prorogation; for the last few weeks of the session (probably from 19 Apr.) he held the proxy of William Nicholson*, of Gloucester.</p><h2><em>Bishop of Winchester 1662-6</em></h2><p>Morley was translated to Winchester, a far more prestigious see, following the death in March 1662 of Brian Duppa*, the previous incumbent. The proximity of the diocese to London ensured that Morley remained closely in touch with the activities of the court. Reminiscing in 1684, Humphrey Prideaux (later dean of Norwich) wrote that Morley was visited at Farnham Castle so frequently by the royal brothers that he, or perhaps his relatives, complained that they used his residence as a coaching inn, after which the king was so offended that he never visited again.<sup>49</sup> Morley’s principal circle at court, however, continued to be built around Anglican royalists, particularly those with whom he had spent time on the contact, such as the duke of Ormond, to whom he wrote on 24 July, describing him ‘as one so qualified by the eminency of his birth, and the excellency of his abilities both morral and intellectual, as I dare say there is no one person in any of the 3 kingdoms as able to do God and the king, and the Church, and the state more service than your grace is able to do’.<sup>50</sup></p><p>On 26 Aug., two days after the Act of Uniformity came into force, Morley began his primary visitation of Winchester, making a last ditch attempt to persuade non-conforming clergy to adhere to the terms of the act. He reported to Clarendon that he had found most clergy of an acceptable standard, with the exception of one minister who lacked episcopal ordination and whom he considered to be guilty of fomenting political disloyalty in his parish.<sup>51</sup> Very much aware of ongoing discussions about the possibility of some sort of dispensation to prevent the ejection of Presbyterian ministers, on 28 Aug. 1662, Morley told Clarendon that there needed no royal dispensation in his own diocese. He argued that the case of ‘country obscure nonconformists’ was very different to that of the London ‘grandees’ who could claim to have been so ‘instrumental to the restoring of the king, as that the silencing of them would very much disaffect any considerable persons either for their number or for their quality, and therefore... I do not see any reason to dispense with them here’.<sup>52</sup></p><p>A week later, Morley wrote again to chide the chancellor for his ‘sad apprehensions’ about the possibility of unrest as a result of the Act of Uniformity. He was convinced that public opinion, as expressed by the officers of the militia in the City and in his own area, was firmly against any indulgence. He dismissed the likelihood that the Presbyterians would involve themselves in civil disorder:</p><blockquote><p>I do not think that they are such zealots that for anything done, especially done by law, to their ministers, they will hazard their great wealth and their lives to boot by forfeiting the Act of Indemnity, as they must do, if they mingle with or abet any that shall openly oppose or secretly undermine the present government. Neither have they now the advantages they had formerly, when they had a Parliament, the navy, all the magazines of arms, and the strongest garrisons in the kingdom, together with the unanimous assistance of all Scotland, and the militia of London wholly for them – so that they cannot begin a war with a great assurance that they shall prevail in it; but are sure (if they do not prevail) to be undone by it; and I think they have not showed themselves to be men of that courage as to hazard all upon such uncertainties.<sup>53</sup></p></blockquote><p>Morley maintained that fewer than 20 clergy in his diocese would fail to conform. It was nearer 50.<sup>54</sup></p><p>On Christmas Day 1662 Morley preached at Whitehall about immorality at court; Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> approved of neither the sermon nor of its contemptuous reception by the more hedonistic courtiers.<sup>55</sup> Before the spring 1663 parliamentary session opened, Morley received the proxies of Nicholson of Gloucester (vacated with Nicholson’s return to the House on 3 Mar.) and William Piers*, bishop of Bath and Wells (vacated 1 July 1663). He attended the House on 18 Feb. for the start of the new session; thereafter he attended more than 90 per cent of sittings and was named to 32 select committees and to all three sessional committees. On 23 Mar. Morley (with Sheldon) was named to the committee to draft an address to the king on the expulsion from England of Jesuits and priests and on three occasions (26, 28 and 30 Mar. 1663) managed conferences on the address. On 4 May he moved the House for its direction on fees payable to the officers of the House by bishops on translation and by lords temporal on promotion to a higher honour. The House ordered that consideration of the matter be referred the committee for privileges. During the session, Morley sought a private act of Parliament to raise funds to purchase a new palace in London and to repair the ruined bishop’s palace at Farnham. On 15 May 1663, it received its first reading in the Lords and was committed three days later (Morley was not named to the committee despite being in attendance). It was reported on 21 May and passed the Lords the following day. In the Commons, the bill was reported from committee by the lawyer Robert Milward<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir Thomas Meres<sup>‡</sup> and William Sandys<sup>‡</sup> acted as teller for it at the third reading (Sandys also supported Morley’s private bill in 1665).<sup>56</sup> The act permitted Morley to lease tenements built on the site of the former ‘mansion house’ in St Saviour’s parish, Southwark, but obliged him to spend £7,000 to benefit the diocese, £4,000 of which was to purchase a house within three miles of London to be named Winchester House for the purpose of episcopal residence during parliamentary sessions. The remaining £3,000 was earmarked to repair Farnham Castle.<sup>57</sup></p><p>On 18 June he was named as one of the referees to mediate in the case of George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergavenny, and the Dowager Lady Abergavenny. On 2 July he was at a meeting of the select committee concerning a private bill for John Paulet*, 5th marquess of Winchester, where he was named as co-mediator in the settlement.<sup>58</sup> He attended the House on 13 July 1663 when the judges delivered their opinion that the charges brought by Bristol, against Clarendon did not amount to high treason. Morley was then said to have been named to a committee to discuss satisfaction for the chancellor, but there is no record of this in the Journal.<sup>59</sup></p><p>On 24 July 1663 Morley was named to the committee on the bill to mitigate the effects of the Act of Uniformity for those who had been unable to subscribe at the time ‘by sickness or other impediment’. Some of those named to the committee, including Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury) were known to be sympathetic to indulgence; others, like Sheldon, were not. During the committee proceedings a clause was added to the bill to explain the ‘assent and consent’ requirement in the original act. The House accepted the clause on 25 July, but its opponents (who somewhat conspicuously did not include any of the bishops) protested against it as ‘destructive to the Church of England’. The clause was thrown out of the bill on the same day by the Commons.<sup>60</sup> Also on 25 July Morley examined the Journal and he was present for the prorogation on the 27th.</p><p>On 2 Oct. Morley was appointed dean of the chapel royal.<sup>61</sup> He attended the House on 16 Mar. 1664 for the start of the new session and thereafter attended nearly 87 per cent of sittings. He was named to 10 select committees (including the bill on transporting felons and the measures against gaming). On 20 Mar. he received the proxy of William Paul*, bishop of Oxford (vacated 21 April). Together with other government supporters, on 22 Apr. he managed the critical conference on foreign trade. He was present on 17 May and on 20 Aug. for prorogations.</p><p>During the summer months, Morley was absorbed with diocesan business in cooperation with Sheldon. Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton, was instructed by Clarendon to write up a report on the church in Guernsey and to send copies to Morley (diocesan for the Channel Islands) and to the archbishop.<sup>62</sup> Morley was also concerned with securing the future of the Church in the London area and assisted Sheldon’s campaign to create select vestries; select vestries for St Olave, Southwark and Wandsworth, both then in the diocese of Winchester, were authorized by Morley.<sup>63</sup></p><p>On 24 Nov. 1664, Morley was present, as was now his customary pattern, for the start of the new parliamentary session and attended for 85 per cent of sittings. He was named to 12 select committees. On 28 Jan. 1665 the House gave a first reading to another bill which would allow Morley to convey 100 acres of land in the ‘great disparked park of Bishop’s Waltham’ to the rector of the parish church there in lieu of tithes due from Waltham Parks. This bill was committed on the 31 Nov. (again without Morley named to the committee despite his attendance that day), and reported on 3 Feb. by Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough,. When it was sent to the Commons the committee on it included several Anglican loyalists including Sir John Berkenhead<sup>‡</sup>, Sir William Lowther<sup>‡</sup> and Morley’s own relation, Sir John Denham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>64</sup> The Commons returned the bill with amendments on 24 Feb. 1665 and it passed the Lords the following day. Over the summer Morley’s care for the prospects of his ‘friend and kinsman’ William Fuller*, then bishop of Limerick, later bishop of Lincoln, meant that Sheldon and Clarendon were both ‘sheltering’ from his importunities.<sup>65</sup> He travelled to Oxford for the parliamentary session of 1665, attending on 9 Oct. for the start of business. He attended the brief session for 70 per cent of sittings, was named to eight select committees, including those on the five mile bill, on the imports of foreign cattle and the additional bill against the spread of the plague. On 17 Oct. he received the proxy of Robert Skinner*, bishop of Worcester (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Morley spoke ‘vigorously and with passion’ in favour of the five mile bill in the debate on 30 October.<sup>66</sup> He insisted that</p><blockquote><p>There are no persons dangerous if those persons are not dangerous. They trouble great cities and corporations, and undermine the work of our incumbents in private parishes… This law doth but remove them from their habitation and from corporations and doth but send them where they shall do no hurt to themselves nor others… I have asked them can you read the Book of Common Prayer? Yes. Can you use the ceremonies? Yes. Why do you not then subscribe to the assent and consent since it is only to the use of it? I can. Can you subscribe that which concerns the Covenant? No. Here they stick. They will not say they will renounce the last war, and they will forestall another.<sup>67</sup></p></blockquote><p>Morley was named to the committee on 27 Oct. and the bill passed the House three days later. After the prorogation at the end of the Oxford session on 31 Oct., Morley appears to have returned to Farnham.<sup>68</sup> On 23 Apr. 1666, Morley attended for the prorogation and it is probable that he then spent the summer months again on diocesan business.</p><h2><em>The fall of Clarendon and rise of Danby 1666-75</em></h2><p>On 17 Sept. 1666, a day before the start of the autumn parliamentary session, he received the proxy of Henry King*, bishop of Chichester (vacated at the end of the session). He attended the House for the first day of business on 18 Sept. and thereafter attended for 97 per cent of sittings. He was named to 37 select committees, including the bills against atheism and the plague. On 11 Oct. 1666, Sheldon instructed Gilbert Ironside*, of Bristol, to send his proxy to Morley on account of imminent ‘earnest occasions’ in Parliament.<sup>69</sup> On 30 Oct. Morley, Sheldon and Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, were ordered by the House to attend the king on the matter of French commodities.<sup>70</sup> On 5 Nov., Morley preached at Whitehall on the gunpowder plot, using the occasion to attack Catholics by dissecting their behaviour in 1605 and demonstrating that they retained exactly ‘the same principles’.<sup>71</sup> On 23 Jan. 1667 he supported York in the defence of Dr Isaac Basire (archdeacon of Northumberland, ardent Anglican and former chaplain to Charles I) when an unnamed peer demanded that Basire’s name be razed from a naturalization act because he failed to pray for the king in his role as king of France. The accusation was probably made by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, since it appears to have originated in a dispute between one of his kinsmen and Basire over the payment of tithes.<sup>72</sup> Morley attended the House until two days before the prorogation of 8 February. He also attended the prorogation on 29 July.</p><p>As the autumn session approached, Morley received the proxy of William Piers on 26 Sept. 1667 (vacated at the end of the session). The major issue that autumn was the dismissal of Clarendon and Burnet identified Morley together with Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork [I], as one of the friends who talked with Clarendon about his defence before the session.<sup>73</sup> As usual, Morley attended the House on the first day of the session, 10 October. Thereafter he attended nearly 86 per cent of sittings and was named to 25 select committees in the course of the session. He again preached the anniversary sermon for 5 Nov. this time using the sermon to promote the political theology of non-resistance; it was ‘the peculiar glory of the Church of England’ that she had declared ‘without ifs or ands, or any other clause, or words of exception or reservation’ that subjects could not lawfully take up arms against the crown.<sup>74</sup> On 27 Nov., Morley managed the conference with the Commons on the impeachment of Clarendon. On 29 Nov. York sent him to tell Clarendon that the king had sent word that ‘it was absolutely necessary for him speedily to be gone’.<sup>75</sup> With Clarendon in exile, Morley, like Sheldon, fell under a cloud. It soon became common knowledge that Morley would be replaced by Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, as dean of the chapel royal. In February 1668 he was forbidden to preach at court and formally replaced at the chapel royal, ‘a mortifying way of removal’ according to John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (later also earl of Guilford).<sup>76</sup> Morley’s downfall was not merely the result of Clarendon’s fall from grace but also due to his continuing relationship with the duke and duchess of York.<sup>77</sup> Morley arranged for Walter Blandford*, bishop of Oxford, to succeed him as spiritual advisor to the duchess, but he remained her ‘spiritual director in things pertaining to religion’ for nearly six months after Clarendon’s exile.<sup>78</sup> Two years later (when her conversion to catholicism became likely), Morley described how he had continued to attend the Yorks and Henry Hyde*, then styled Viscount Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon), at St James until complaints to the king were made of his ‘caballing together in order to some ill end or other’.<sup>79</sup> Burlington’s diary shows that Burlington and Morley regularly met and dined together over the course of 1668; Morley was instrumental in reconciling Burlington to Ormond and at various points all three men discussed Clarendon and were on good terms with York.<sup>80</sup> Though out of favour Morley nevertheless continued to be involved in Parliament. He became involved in the by-election for Appleby in spring 1668. The redoubtable dowager countess of Pembroke (Lady Anne Clifford), ‘as absolute in that borough as... any other’, wanted Morley and James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton, as ‘relations of hers’ to oppose Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>. Her candidate was her grandson, Thomas Tufton*, later 6th earl of Thanet, who was duly returned.<sup>81</sup> On 9 May Morley attended the House for the last time that session and returned to his diocese to conduct his summer visitation.<sup>82</sup></p><p>By the end of 1668 Morley was poised to return to royal favour, signalling yet another change of political direction at the centre. On 25 Aug. 1669, it was reported that Morley had kissed the king’s hand and returned to court.<sup>83</sup> On 19 Oct. he attended the opening of the short 1669 sesion. He already held William Nicholson’s proxy, registered on 4 Oct. 1669, and now received that of Robert Skinner (both vacated at the end of the session). He sat for 92 per cent of sittings and was named to four committees. Morley was in London again by February 1670 for the start of the new parliamentary session. He attended for 73 per cent of sittings and was named to 46 select committees. On 15 Mar. he again received the proxy of Robert Skinner (vacated by Skinner’s death in June). On 17 Mar. he registered his dissent against the second reading of the bill to allow John Manners*, styled Lord Roos, later 9th earl of Rutland, to divorce, joining Sheldon and Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, in their opposition to the measure. On 28 Mar. Morley spoke in the Lords’ debate on the third reading of the bill, challenging an argument from scripture put forward by the veteran Presbyterian leader, Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles. He explained that ‘obscure’ rules in scripture must not only be placed in their historical context but interpreted by other scriptural prescriptions that were unequivocal. Marriage, he went on, was sacrosanct: ‘the essence of marriage does not lie in the condition nor are the words of the liturgy always necessary: I, John, take thee, Joan, is enough’.<sup>84</sup> When the bill passed he registered another dissent against it. On 6 Apr. he helped to manage a conference on the highways bill, not long before Parliament was adjourned. During 1670, he began the process of seeking a private bill to unite a number of small parishes in his diocese, petitioning the king for permission to remit his arrears of tenths from the churches in question.<sup>85</sup> He responded to Sheldon on 8 Oct. concerning the commission on union with Scotland. Morley opposed the ‘unintelligible union’, telling Sheldon that it was ‘designed to pick a quarrel rather than to make us more friends than we are, which can never be by making one kingdom in appearance only, and not so indeed’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>On 15 Oct., shortly before Parliament met again, he again received the ailing William Nicholson’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session). His regular attendance in Parliament was noted as allowing those desirous of his patronage to seek him out at the House.<sup>87</sup> He was also involved in the by-election on 15 Dec. for Downton (a Wiltshire manor owned by Morley in his capacity as bishop) where Sir Joseph Ashe<sup>‡</sup> beat John Man, a candidate fielded by Lord Ashley; Morley had started to make an interest for his nephew and heir Francis Morley, but at this point was unable to secure trustworthy support from the prominent Eyre family.<sup>88</sup></p><p>During the autumn, winter and early spring of 1670-1, rumours emerged of the conversion of the duchess of York to Catholicism. Morley’s close relationship with the duke and duchess placed him in a particularly difficult position. By late October 1670 Cornbury had told York that rumours of her conversion were ‘spread all the world over’ and had even reached his father in exile.<sup>89</sup> Morley may previously have been involved in the attempts to persuade the duchess to remain within the Church of England: she was said to have discussed religious matters with two of the most learned Anglican bishops, who were identified in the version of her narrative published in English in 1686 as Sheldon and Walter Blandford though it has been suggested that Morley, rather than Sheldon, was more likely to have been the person concerned.<sup>90</sup> Morley wrote in 1671, however, that after Clarendon’s departure he had been a constant visitor to the duke and duchess and Viscount Cornbury at St James’s, and when he found it politic to leave off his visits, he had arranged for Blandford to stand in for him as spiritual director for the duchess. In January 1671 Morley remonstrated in writing with the duchess, pointing out that false rumours of the conversion of Charles I had caused the civil wars and that Catholics would never enjoy the trust of the English people. It was possible, he pointed out, to be Catholic and remain within the Church of England by submitting to the gospel, but not to the Pope and particularly not to the dictates of the Council of Trent. Following the duchess of York’s death on 1 Apr. 1671, Morley found it necessary to defend himself from suspicions that he had done nothing in his pastoral capacity to halt her conversion to Rome. He informed his dean that his attempts to minister to her had been thwarted by the duke.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Rumours of the Yorks’ conversion helped to fuel increasing political concern about catholicism. On 1 Mar. 1671 Morley was named to a committee to prepare heads for a conference on the growth of catholicism; on 3 Mar. he managed the subsequent conference on the petition to the king. York later claimed that Morley, Ward and John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester, had been involved in a ‘design... to introduce comprehension under another name and pretence, and with so much cunning’ that it might pass the Commons.<sup>92</sup> In July 1672, more than a year after the debates in March 1671, and several months after the issue of the Declaration of Indulgence, Morley wrote to Anglesey about how he had indeed seen the threat of catholicism as a reason to promote the assimilation of English presbyterians into the Church:</p><blockquote><p>you know what I was for in the late sessions of parliament (I mean not a comprehension but a coalition or incorporation of the presbyterian party into the church as it is by law established), and I am still of the opinion that it is the only effectual expedient, to hinder the growth of popery, and to secure both parties; and I am very confident that there are no presbyterians in the world (the Scotch only excepted) that would not conform to all that is required by our Church, especially in such a juncture of time as this is.<sup>93</sup></p></blockquote><p>Richard Baxter confirmed that the bishops had increased their propaganda against catholicism and that Morley, Ward and John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester, had talked of strengthening the protestant interest by encouraging moderate Presbyterians to join the Church of England by means of ‘some abatement of the new oaths and subscriptions’. Baxter was far from convinced of their sincerity, for ‘after long talk there is nothing done’.<sup>94</sup> There was some return to the discussion about how to enable catholics to prove their loyalty. On 13 Apr. 1671 Morley was named to a sub-committee of the Lords’ committee on popery that was instructed to draw up ‘such a test or oath according to the debate of the committee this day which being taken, may obtain a mitigation of the penalties of the law following conviction to such recusants’. The sub-committee were to report on 17 Apr. but seem never to have done so, and there was no progress on comprehension.<sup>95</sup> A bill passed late in the session seems to have been intended to resolve a controversy in which he had become embroiled with the parishioners of St Saviour’s, Southwark, over the right to elect churchwardens, A private bill to make Paris Garden manor into a parish and to enable the parishioners to raise money for maintenance of a minister was reported from committee on 17 Mar. by Morley’s associate Seth Ward. It received the royal assent at the end of the session on 22 Apr., when Morley was present.<sup>96</sup></p><p>In August Morley began his visitation of Winchester, determined to carry out a number of reforms both in his own ecclesiastical courts and in the elections of Winchester College students to university places, although in the event he refrained from meddling.<sup>97</sup> An extremely important and influential local figure, he was described as always ‘courted like a prince and... extremely civil to all that visit him’. In September he was said to be dissatisfied that the meeting of Parliament had been put off.<sup>98</sup> On 8 July 1672 he informed Sheldon that he had sought Ormond’s help in stopping Charles Powlett*, styled Lord St John, the future 6th marquess of Winchester and duke of Bolton, from breaking a charter on rights in the New Forest – concerned that St John’s royal warrant would prove a precedent to break all charters given to bishops and thus ‘open a gap for the making void of all other charters by the same means’.<sup>99</sup> Later that month, he congratulated Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, on his appointment as lord lieutenant of Ireland, delighted (in the circumstances) that the king had chosen a loyal Anglican for the post.<sup>100</sup> By the autumn he was becoming increasingly suspicious of royal policy. He and Sheldon were both concerned about the purpose of the newly raised army,</p><blockquote><p>because it seems too late in the year for any employment abroad for them. And if they... be made use of at home, I confess the whole fabric of my scheme is ruined, but so the fabric of the church and state will be also. What will afterwards be formed out of that chaos he that made all out of the first only knows. Yet the darkness which at present covers all that is in design cannot continue much longer.<sup>101</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sheldon invited Morley to stay at Lambeth but Morley, convinced that he was now ‘an outcast’ at court feared that such a visit would prejudice his old friend. Further, his attempts to negotiate with the presbyterians had done nothing to improve his reputation. In September 1672 he told Sheldon that he would ‘quickly make it appear that I am no more a presbyterian than I am a popish bishop, though I have been said to be both the one and the other, and indeed as much one as the other’.<sup>102</sup> The following month he was encouraged by what turned out to be false rumours that Dolben would be translated to Durham, an event that would give hope that Sheldon was about to be restored to favour. In an undated letter that probably belongs to early 1673, he again referred to the way events had ruined his ‘scheme’ and to being ‘wholly in the dark, till I see whether the Parliament will hold and what will be done if it do hold’.<sup>103</sup> His scheme appears to have been no more than a revival of his earlier proposals, to dispense with the assent and dissent declaration and to renounce the covenant. His hopes were dashed at the end of October when Parliament was prorogued and Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Oxford, was given the strategically important northern see.</p><p>In mid January 1673 Morley was very ill and rumoured to be at death’s door. During that month he presented a family member to the parsonage of Cheriton: Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> waspishly remarked that ‘some call this smock simony, but you may call it as you please’.<sup>104</sup> By the start of the new session of Parliament on 4 Feb. 1673, Morley was still too frail to attend.<sup>105</sup> On 5 Feb. he registered his proxy in Sheldon’s favour; it was cancelled on 20 Oct. 1673 when Morley made his sole appearance that session. Morley expressed pleasure at the failure at the end of the session of the government’s bill for the relief of Protestant Dissenters that had been introduced into the Commons on 27 Feb., and was designed to replace the prerogative indulgence. Although the bill included Morley’s own proposal to dispense with the ‘assent and consent’ declaration in the Act of Uniformity, it had gone much further in allowing an effective toleration. He told Sheldon on 7 Apr. 1673 that it would have created a</p><blockquote><p>schism by a law and that would have been much worse than any connivance nay than a toleration can be by the king’s dispensation or declaration… I never would have consented nor ever will consent to that which they call a comprehension, that is to their being admitted in to the Church or to any employment or preferment in the Church without an express and exact conformity and subscription to all the articles and canons of the Church without any dispensation either in point of judgment or in point of practice in relation either to the one or to the other. And that this hath been always my opinion, your Grace may be pleased to remember that several years ago when the bishop of Hereford out of his zeal to unity in the Church said in the House of Lords that to so good an end as that was he should not only be content to part with any of the ceremonies and much more to leave them all as indifferent in their use as they were in their nature but even to dispense with the belief of some things in the Creed itself. I did presently reply (without reflecting upon what he said last, as being but a passionate transport of his zeal for peace in the Church) that I was so far from being of this opinion that all the ceremonies ought to be left indifferent in the use of them, to bring in any of our dissenting brethren that I had rather give my vote to the altering or abolishing of them all, than to the leaving of any one of them arbitrary or indifferent as to the using or not using of it. For this as I then said would be evidently to set up and establish a schism by law, and consequently an everlasting bar to peace … a perpetual faction in the state and a schism in the Church. This I said then and of the same opinion I am still.<sup>106</sup></p></blockquote><p>According to Roger Morrice, Morley’s aspirations were rather more sinister. His opposition to the bill was based in it ‘not answering his end which was a toleration for all mainly for the papists’.<sup>107</sup> On 20 Oct. 1673, Morley attended the House for the prorogation, dining that day with Sheldon and Humphrey Henchman. It was rumoured, falsely, that Morley and Herbert Croft had ‘done great matters’ with York to make him disavow his Catholic faith.<sup>108</sup> Morley remained in London and attended every sitting of the week-long session from 27 Oct. 1673. He was named to only one select committee (on English manufactures). On 7 Jan. 1674, he attended for the first day of the session and thereafter attended nearly 93 per cent of sittings. He was named to seven select committees. He commanded his chaplain, Francis Turner*, the future bishop of Ely, to obtain a copy of the speech made by William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, at his admission as prolocutor of the lower house of Convocation, clearly approving Sancroft’s hints about what needed to be done ‘in order to the restoring our discipline and maintaining our doctrine’ to counter ‘the insupportable clamour of the people against the bishops’.<sup>109</sup> The Lords addressed the king to send all Catholics (except for peers and their households) out of town and named a committee of six, including Morley, to inspect the treaty with France.<sup>110</sup></p><p>Morley continued to oppose legislation that would bring Dissenters into the Church of England by amending its doctrine or liturgy. On 13 Feb. 1674, Morley introduced to the House his own bill ‘for composing differences in religion and inviting sober and peaceably-minded Dissenters into the service of the Church’. As before, all he sought was the repeal of the ‘unfeigned assent and consent’ clauses in the Act of Uniformity, and the formal renunciation of the Covenant.<sup>111</sup> Morley was supported from the episcopal benches by John Pearson*, of Chester, Seth Ward and John Dolben.<sup>112</sup> The motion to commit the bill was carried on 19 Feb. by a majority of nearly 20 votes. The bill died with the prorogation on 24 Feb. 1674, but at least one contemporary assumed that this modest bill was merely the prelude to a renewed attempt at comprehension—and that Morley and his allies in the House would support it.<sup>113</sup></p><h2><em>From the Test Act to Exclusion, 1675-80 </em></h2><p>When Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, began to woo churchmen into a new political alliance with the court he sought Morley’s support. In late October 1674, he visited Morley at Farnham with a message from the king to the effect that the ‘Fathers of the Church’ should consult with members of the Privy Council ‘in order to concert measures which may tend to pacify the minds of the people before the next Parliament’.<sup>114</sup> On 1 Jan. 1675 Morley was appointed by the king as one of a group of bishops to discuss the security of the protestant religion and advise on the suppression of catholicism.<sup>115</sup> On 25 Jan. Sheldon hosted a conference at Lambeth Palace that brought leading Privy Councillors together with five bishops, including Morley and Ward, to discuss religious policy. As the Venetian ambassador pointed out, those bishops who ‘were mildly inclined’ were excluded and the dialogue was dominated by Morley and the ‘turbulent’ Ward. The subsequent recommendation for the strict enforcement of the penal laws against Catholics and Dissenters, though watered-down by Danby and at the behest of York, formed the basis of a new policy designed to attract Anglican royalist support in Parliament.<sup>116</sup></p><p>Despite these discussions with Danby, Morley and Ward nevertheless appear to have kept open negotiations with Baxter over the winter, using John Tillotson*, who would become archbishop of Canterbury after the Revolution, and Edward Stillingfleet*, who would become bishop of Worcester, to mediate and to draft another bill to be introduced into the spring 1675 session of Parliament. Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], who was involved in the negotiations, assured the nonconformists that Morley ‘vehemently professed his desires of it’. Baxter was so far from convinced that Morley ‘had done so much to the contrary, and never anything this way since his professions of that sort, that till his real endeavours convinced men, it would not be believed that he was serious’.<sup>117</sup> The Venetian ambassador agreed. The previous November, he wrote that neither Morley or Ward had any intention of accommodating the Presbyterians,</p><blockquote><p>because they know that once the Presbyterians are admitted they will, by their wealth and intelligence obtain the distribution of Church preferment, to the exclusion of the Protestants [and] therefore preach to the effect that they cannot understand how the king should wish to encourage the union of the nonconformists, as it would be more politic to divide and confound them.<sup>118</sup></p></blockquote><p>In his memoir, Richard Baxter described Morley’s outspoken attacks on the dangers of catholicism and how in previous Parliaments he had gained a reputation as a leading supporter of comprehension by talking ‘much for abatements and taking in the nonconformists or else we are like all to fall in to the papists’ hands’. As far as Baxter was concerned (and he was scarcely the most impartial of witnesses), Morley’s actions did not match his rhetoric; they confirmed that he was playing a double game and that ‘all his professions for abatement and concord were deceitful snares’. The attempts to pave the way for a bill along the lines Morley proposed were indeed doomed: on 11 Apr. 1675 Tillotson informed Baxter that there was ‘no hope of the bill passing either House without the countenance of a considerable part of the bishops... which is unlikely’.<sup>119</sup></p><p>Just before the beginning of the new session, on 12 Apr. 1675 Morley received the proxy of William Fuller, now translated to Lincoln. It was vacated by Fuller’s death later that year. On 13 Apr., Morley attended for the start of the session and thereafter attended for 92 per cent of sittings. He was named to 11 select committees, including measures on Catholic recusancy, blasphemy and the augmentations of clerical livings, all matters that came within the scope of the court’s new strategy. The central plank of this policy, which Morley helped to draft, was the bill to enact Danby’s non-resisting test. It was recommended to the House by Morley with support from Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch and Ward, but attracted heated opposition from Shaftesbury, Holles and Buckingham. Morley attacked those who opposed the imposition of an oath (on the grounds that it would undermine the Lords’ privileges) and the bishops’ votes carried the division.<sup>120</sup> The bill was nevertheless lost. During the recess, on 27 June, when Sheldon refused to perform the ceremony, he officiated at the consecration of Thomas Barlow*, Fuller’s replacement at Lincoln. Morley also spoke to the king on Barlow’s behalf to ask for commendams.<sup>121</sup> Morley was present in the House on 13 Oct. 1675 for the first day of the autumn parliamentary session. He attended 90 per cent of sittings and was named to 10 select committees, including, on 8 Nov. 1675, the committee to investigate responsibility for the publication of <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country</em> describing the debates on the test bill. Two days later he managed the conference on the address to the king to recall the army.</p><p>In the long recess that followed the prorogation of 22 Nov. 1675, Morley continued to deal with routine diocesan business, including making clerical appointments (with Hatton) to the garrison of Guernsey.<sup>122</sup> He supported the 1676 census of nonconformist conventicles, an exercise designed to prove to the king that Dissenters made up a relatively insignificant proportion of the population and could be suppressed with ease: writing to Danby on 10 June 1676, Morley maintained that the census was ‘absolutely necessary for the securing of the legally established government of the Church, and consequently as absolutely necessary for the securing of the legally established government in the state also’.<sup>123</sup> In November 1676, for some reason seemingly doubtful of his standing with his ‘old friend’ Sheldon, he expressed the hope that he retained ‘the same place in [the archbishop’s] favour as I have had above these fifty years together’. Sheldon promptly affirmed their friendship.<sup>124</sup></p><p>Despite failing sight, Morley attended the House on 15 Feb. 1677 for the new session that lasted until May 1678. He was present for only two-fifths of all sittings. He was named to 36 select committees including, on 16 Feb., the committee to enquire into the publisher of the pamphlet on the prorogation. On 26 Mar. he reported from the bill on Ledbury vicarage and on 1 Mar. and 23 May 1677 and 15 Jan. 1678 examined the Journal. After the House rose in April 1677 he began a five week long visitation of his diocese.<sup>125</sup> He was nevertheless beginning to feel his age and the continuing press of ‘so many engagements’.<sup>126</sup> When Sheldon died in November, Morley was said to be hopeful of seeing him succeeded by either Compton or Ward, a wish that he had expressed even before Sheldon’s death.<sup>127</sup> On 27 Jan. 1678 he claimed to be too indisposed to venture out to Sancroft’s consecration.<sup>128</sup> On 16 Feb. he was registered as excused at a call of the House. He attended the House for the final time that session on 11 April. On 24 May 1678 his auditor Edward Dallow petitioned the House against a breach of the bishop’s parliamentary privilege committed by William Grove and the attorney John Stannard who had pursued Dallow to outlawry and seized his possessions. On 1 June, Grove and Stannard were discharged.</p><p>Parliament was prorogued on 15 July 1678. Clearly delighted with the marriage of Princess Mary to the protestant William of Orange, but aware of pro-French and pro-Catholic tendencies at court, Morley warned against a delay of the next session of Parliament. The king had certainly benefitted from the public popularity of the royal marriage, but should avoid squandering that goodwill: ‘the warmth newly kindled in the people’s affections should not be suffered to cool by deferring our next meeting so long’.<sup>129</sup> When the next session assembled on 21 Oct. 1678, Morley was unable to attend, registering his proxy in favour of Seth Ward; it was vacated at the end of the session. Morley was by now living in virtual retirement at Farnham Castle, having obtained the king’s permission ‘to quit my attendance upon all public business’ so that he could prepare himself for death.<sup>130</sup> He was nevertheless unable to escape the consequences of the unfolding revelations about the Popish Plot. He was himself in danger of being implicated when arms were found in the roof space of his Chelsea house. A bricklayer named George Osborne confessed to having secreted them there. The House ordered discharged Osborne from custody on 17 Dec. 1678, but ordered that investigations continue. Then, on 11 Feb. 1679, Morley received a lengthy request for help from William Sancroft, to whom the king had made an appeal for</p><blockquote><p>some further attempt… to recover the duke of York out of that foul apostacy into which the busy traitors of Rome have seduced him. And he names your Lordship, if not the only person proper for such a negotiation, at least as most fit to appear in the head of it... your particular friends here will be careful to provide you so fair accommodations as may abate as much as possible of the danger... though we cannot expect you should immediately on the receipt hereof come towards us; yet we hope you will immediately resolve and let us know it; for the matter is pressing, and I am urged to hasten it to an issue.<sup>131</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 21 Feb. 1679, Morley and Sancroft were granted an audience with the duke at St James’s at which Sancroft read a prepared speech in support of the Church of England and their hope that York would not desert her. Morley’s presence and especially his willingness to rouse himself from retirement ‘gave hopes that the duke had good inclinations’ but the attempt failed and Morley once again retired from court.<sup>132</sup></p><p>There is no evidence that the aged Morley involved himself in parliamentary elections to the first Exclusion Parliament. He attended the House for the final time on 6 Mar. 1679 to take the oaths and enable him to register his proxy in favour of Seth Ward. From Farnham he reflected on the momentum of opinion against the bishops: ‘with what an evil eye those of our order and all their actions (especially such as are of public concernment) are now looked upon’.<sup>133</sup> Parliament was dissolved on 12 July 1679, and at the end of that month Morley, not expecting to live much longer, wrote in pessimistic tones to Sancroft about the elections in his diocese in which he feared an undermining of the present government through ‘the zeal of the ill affected’.<sup>134</sup> The ill-affected had their uses for Morley who was rumoured to have been a witness to Charles II’s marriage to Lucy Walter, and hence that their son, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, was the legitimate heir to the throne.<sup>135</sup></p><h2><em>1680 to 1684</em></h2><p>Despite his retirement to Winchester, Morley continued to worry about catholicism at court. The appointment of Francis Turner to the deanery of Windsor would, he hoped, increase Anglican influences around the duke of York.<sup>136</sup> He also worried about his own reputation. Morley placed his Anglican loyalties above those of reformed protestantism at large. His lack of sympathy for European Protestants and proximity to the Yorks made him vulnerable to attack from both Dissenters and Catholics. In 1682 York’s former chaplain, Thomas Jones, published a claim that Morley was a ‘Protestant in masquerade’ who had hounded him out of York’s service and that Morley and members of York’s household were implicated in the Popish Plot. Morley’s defence to the charges was published the following year and included a vindication of his role in challenging the conversion to Rome of Anne Hyde, duchess of York, making public a letter that he had written to her in 1670 on her failure to communicate.<sup>137</sup> This was not the only pamphlet in which Morley exerted himself to publicize his Anglican credentials. He also revisited his disputes with Richard Baxter.<sup>138</sup> In 1684 he appealed to Sancroft to appoint a new chaplain to the duke of York who would defend core Anglican doctrines.<sup>139</sup></p><p>As he reached the end of his life, Morley’s judgment was increasingly suspect. In the summer of 1683 his candidate for a Nottinghamshire archdeaconry was said to be regarded as ‘the maygame [laughing stock] of the whole county, everybody having some story or other of him’.<sup>140</sup> By 1684, he was clearly approaching the end of his life. After being pestered for at least three weeks by nephews who wanted the bishop to transfer diocesan leases on favourable terms while there was still time, Morley died in the small hours of 29 Oct. 1684.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Morley had been a lavish benefactor of public, educational and ecclesiastical projects. He had endowed a hospital modelled on that established by John Warner*, bishop of Rochester, subscribed to the refurbishment of Lichfield Cathedral and supported protestant students abroad.<sup>142</sup> He also planned major refurbishments to the bishop of Worcester’s residence at Hartlebury (although this payment became increasingly complicated since it was assigned out of funds lent to Sir John Pakington).<sup>143</sup> Morley’s own will, itself a testament to his formidable attention to fine detail, directed that he be buried without ‘attendance of heralds or any secular pomp or solemnity’ and with no ‘stately tomb’. Bequests included the foundation of a public library with a salaried librarian and prescribed opening times. With numerous cash legacies to his nieces and nephews, the residue of his estate went to his nephew Francis Morley, who was also appointed his sole executor.</p><p>Morley remained a Calvinist: his hostility to Armininanism was evident in his hostility to the <em>Harmonia Apostolica</em> by George Bull*, the future bishop of St Davids, a controversial work licensed on behalf of Sheldon in 1669: Morley forbade his clergy from even reading it.<sup>144</sup> The Baptist John Tombes dedicated his published response of 1676 to Morley, and Bull’s other detractors included Thomas Barlow, bishop of Lincoln, and Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey.<sup>145</sup> That Calvinism may have been the basis for Morley’s keenness to draw Presbyterians back into the Church; but his emphasis on uniformity meant that he would never be remembered with fondness by the nonconformist community. Three years after his death, Roger Morrice commented that</p><blockquote>It is agreed that the hierarchists, though they are civil and give fair words now, would, had they the power, be more severe then ever, for it is well remembered that Bishop Morley gave as fair words and made as many promises, and sent as many civil and kind messages ... often acknowledging that they brought in the king which must never be forgot, and yet he took vengeance upon them when he had power, and turned them all out and was also false to them in all his negotiations with them....<sup>146</sup></blockquote> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
NICHOLSON, William (1591-1672) |
<p><strong><surname>NICHOLSON</surname></strong> (<strong>NICOLSON</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1591–1672)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 29 Mar. 1670 |
cons. 13 Jan. 1661 bp. of GLOUCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Nov. 1591, s. of Christopher Nicholson, clothier. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen Oxf. g.s.; Magdalen Oxf. matric. 1610, MA 1615, DD 1660. <em>m</em>. 24 Feb. 1619, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1663), da. of Edward Heighton, of Croydon, Surr., wid. of Robert Brigstocke of Llechdwnni, Carm. <em>s</em>.<em>p</em>. <em>d</em>. 5 Feb. 1672; <em>will</em> 18 Nov. 1671-29 Jan. 1672, pr. 30 Apr. 1672.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. Magdalen Oxf. 1616-18; tutor to Algernon Percy*, <em>styled</em> Ld. Percy (later 4th earl of Northumberland); master of free sch., Croydon 1616-29, Newton Hall sch., Carm. 1645-1657;<sup>2</sup> vic. New Shoreham, Suss. 1614-15;<sup>3</sup> rect. Llandeilo Fawr (Llandilovaur), Carm. 1626-65, Bishop’s Cleeve, Glos. 1660-72, Llansantffraid-in-Mechan, Mont. 1663; adn. Brecon 1644-72; canon St Davids 1660-8.</p> |
|
<p>The son of a wealthy Suffolk clothier, William Nicholson secured early preferment as chaplain of his former college at Oxford, where his arms later decorated one of the stained glass windows in the hall, and a living at New Shoreham in Sussex. He may have served as chaplain to Henry Percy<sup>†</sup>, 3rd earl of Northumberland, during Northumberland’s imprisonment in the Tower following the Gunpowder Plot, as well as being employed as a tutor in the earl’s household.<sup>4</sup> Nicholson’s marriage to Elizabeth Brigstocke appears to have brought with it an interest in sizeable estates in Wales.</p><p>Despite being elected to the Assembly of Divines in 1643 through the influence of his former pupil, Algernon Percy, now 4th earl of Northumberland, Nicholson remained loyal to the Church of England during the Civil Wars and Interregnum. Although he was deprived of his livings under the Commonwealth, Nicholson was able to run a school throughout the 1650s with Jeremy Taylor (later bishop of Down and Connor) and William Wyatt.<sup>5</sup> During this time Nicholson also composed a number of works in defence of the Church of England, notably the <em>Apology for the Discipline of the Ancient Church</em> (1659).</p><p>At the Restoration Nicholson was quickly rewarded for his loyalty with the return of his former benefices, a canon’s stall at St Davids where his former patron William Laud<sup>†</sup> had once been bishop and, shortly after, with the vacant bishopric of Gloucester. Nicholson’s name had not appeared on any of the lists of proposed new bishops which circulated between 1659 and 1660 and Gloucester, one of the poorest dioceses in the country, was originally offered to John Hacket*, later bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.<sup>6</sup> Wood suggested that Nicholson secured the see by bribing Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon) with £1,000 but this seems unlikely.<sup>7</sup> Nicholson himself believed Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London, (later archbishop of Canterbury) to have been responsible for his promotion. In 1661 when Nicholson published <em>An Exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England</em> he dedicated it to Sheldon, declaring that, ‘In all gratitude I do acknowledge, that next to his majesty, for whose goodness to me I can never return sufficient thanks, your endeavours from an obscure man have advanced me to a place of honour and dignity in the Church’.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Gloucester’s comparative poverty as a see led to a successful request to keep his two Welsh parishes <em>in</em> <em>commendam</em>, as well as his archdeaconate of Brecon. He was also granted the parish of Bishop’s Cleeve in Gloucestershire through Clarendon’s influence.<sup>9</sup> The archdeaconry brought him into conflict with William Lucy*, of St Davids over his visitation rights. A meeting between the two bishops to settle the dispute rapidly descended into a farcical exchange of unpleasantries and resulted in Lucy storming out.<sup>10</sup> The court of arches eventually settled the dispute in Lucy’s favour.</p><p>His complaints about the poverty of his diocese got short shrift from Sheldon. In 1666 when Nicholson complained that he could not afford to subscribe £100 to the loan to the king, Sheldon’s response was singularly unsympathetic. Whilst he could ‘easily conclude … that £100 were enough for the poor bishopric of Gloucester … the sum is too little for an example to the clergy’ and urged that the amount be doubled. In the event Nicholson estimated that the diocese would provide £160 with the dean and chapter lending a further £150.<sup>11</sup></p><p>As well as being one of the poorest dioceses, Gloucester was also perceived to be one of the most troublesome because of its history of support for Parliament in the Civil Wars and its substantial dissenting population. In 1662 Gloucester was one of three cities to have its walls razed to the ground as a precaution against any uprising.<sup>12</sup> Nicholson’s visitation of the same year offered a spiritual answer to the problem of disaffection by emphasizing the importance of the catechism.<sup>13</sup> Nicholson’s writings make it quite clear that he was a determined opponent of nonconformity. While he was sympathetic to the Quaker John Roberts, and used his influence to keep him out of gaol, Nicholson showed no such leniency with another Quaker, Walter Bishop, who was imprisoned for two years ‘for his obstinacy in not obeying the law.’ Bishop was eventually persuaded of the error of his ways, formally absolved and admitted to the Church by Nicholson himself who had regularly dined with Bishop during his imprisonment in an effort to secure his conversion.<sup>14</sup> Nicholson’s visitation of 1664 attempted both to enforce uniformity and to stamp out abuses.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Nicholson bemoaned the failure of the local justices to act against Dissent.<sup>16</sup> At the same time he found his own prosecutions in the church courts being undermined by the court of arches, which reversed his attempts to secure at least one local Anabaptist. The court’s approach prompted Sheldon to write to the dean of arches expressing his dismay at their actions. By 1666 Nicholson admitted himself to be ‘perplexed at the many impudent conventicles in every part of [the], county, and the numbers that openly appear at them.’<sup>17</sup> It was perhaps in response to his desire to quell Dissent that Nicholson appears to have supported some degree of comprehension.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Nicholson was not nominated as one of the commissioners at the Savoy Conference but in the Convocation of 21 Nov. 1661 he was one of the bishops named to the committee to consider revision of the prayer book.<sup>19</sup> He had taken his seat in Parliament at the re-admission of the bishops the previous day. He then attended on more than three-quarters of all sitting days. He held the proxy of Gilbert Ironside*, of Bristol, from 22 Mar. 1662, but this was vacated in late April when he covered his own absence with a proxy to George Morley*, of Worcester. His activities left little mark on the records of the House. He was named to only a few committees. Two of these were clearly of personal or local interest. On 7 Jan. 1662 he was named to that for the bill enabling John Scudamore<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Scudamore [I], to endow a number of churches. Scudamore had been a student at Magdalen when Nicholson was chaplain there. On 31 Jan. Nicholson was named to the committee for the bill to limit the power of the corporation of Gloucester by restoring the hundred of Dudston and Kings Barton to the county. It passed its third reading in the House on 8 Feb. and received the royal assent at the end of the session on 19 May.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Nicholson was absent from the opening of the second (1663) session but had registered his proxy with George Morley, now translated to Winchester, on 9 Jan. 1663. It was vacated on Nicholson’s arrival on 3 March. Present on just under 30 per cent of all sitting days in the session, he was named to only one committee. He was present in the House for the vote on Clarendon’s impeachment initiated by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, on 13 July, when he supported Clarendon.</p><p>Nicholson resumed his seat for the 1664 session on 21 Mar. after which he was present on almost 78 per cent of all sitting days, but he was named to no committees besides the sessional committee for privileges. He returned to the House for the following (1664-5) session on 24 Nov., during which his rate of attendance increased to almost 87 per cent of all sitting days; he was named to nine committees. He attended on eight of the 19 days of the October 1665 session and was named to two committees.</p><p>On 22 Sept. 1666 he wrote to Sheldon pleading that he be ‘excused from coming to London’ for the next (1666-7) session, explaining that he was ‘utterly exhausted by this year’s extraordinary expense and loan and besides somewhat infirm lately.’ He then pointedly suggested that:</p><blockquote><p>I know that those truant bishops, that are further off, are fatter, and some nearer better able in body and purse, and if they will eat the provender it is reason they do the work, and not lay the load upon a poor old jade, that can scarce stand on his legs.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nicholson promised to ensure that his proxy would be sent up, which was registered accordingly with Seth Ward*, of Exeter, on 27 September. Despite this, he was noted as missing without excuse at a call of the House three days later. Nicholson resumed his place on 25 July 1667, attending two days of the brief five day meeting during which no business was transacted, and he was then once more in attendance at the opening of the new session on 10 October. Prior to the first sitting he received Bishop Ironside’s proxy, and on 1 Oct. he also received that of Robert Skinner*, bishop of Worcester. He was present on just under 59 per cent of all sitting days prior to the December 1667 adjournment, including those days on which the possible committal of Clarendon was discussed, but failed to resume his seat following the recess. On 24 Jan. 1668 he registered his proxy with Bishop Morley, thereby vacating the two proxies he still held. He was then absent from the House for the ensuing two years.</p><p>Nicholson’s failure to attend the session of October 1669 was attributed to poor health.<sup>22</sup> He covered his absence by a proxy to Morley, registered on 4 October. He returned to the House for the opening of the ensuing session on 14 Feb. 1670, after which he was present for just over half of all sitting days prior to the adjournment (though this constituted just 13 per cent of all sitting days in the whole). He sat for the last time on 29 March. The previous day Nicholson had entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill enabling John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) to remarry. On 15 Oct. he registered his proxy once again with Bishop Morley.</p><p>Political turmoil within Gloucester predominated in the closing years of Nicholson’s life. In September 1670 discontent within the city reached such a pass that it was reported that a ‘seditious faction’ had arisen to prevent the election of Dr Henry Fowler as mayor in favour of alderman William Bubb. Nicholson worked along with other members of the royalist grouping in the city to ensure Fowler’s election. The following year discontent arose again when Fowler presided over a botched purge of the corporation. As a result a commission was appointed by the Privy Council to resolve the disputes in the composition of a new city charter.<sup>23</sup> A list of suitable aldermen was drawn up and as part of the new charter the cathedral, bishop’s palace and cathedral close were all constituted a liberty within the city.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Nicholson died on 5 Feb. 1672. Within days of his death rumours were circulating that he had profiteered from renewing diocesan leases, which compelled his cousin, John Nicholson, chancellor of the diocese of Gloucester, to write to Sheldon to deny the allegations.<sup>25</sup> Whatever the truth of these charges Nicholson, like many Gloucestershire landowners, had been involved in the illegal cultivation of tobacco.<sup>26</sup> Despite his claims of poverty he was able to leave a substantial personal estate. He bequeathed the lordship of the manor of Llyaen in Carmarthenshire to his step-great-grandson, William Brigstocke (probably the father of the future Commons member, Owen Brigstocke<sup>‡</sup>), a mortgage of £300 to John Nicholson, and £100 to a step-granddaughter, Bridget Langley. Nicholson was buried at Gloucester, and a memorial was later erected by Owen Brigstocke of Llechdwnny. The epitaph was composed by Nicholson’s protégé George Bull*, later bishop of St Davids, for whom Nicholson had been a ‘truly primitive bishop’ well loved for his ‘affability, modesty and candour.’<sup>27</sup></p> |
R.D.E.E. |
|
NICOLSON, William (1655-1727) |
<p><strong><surname>NICOLSON</surname></strong> (<strong>NICHOLSON</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1655–1727)</p> |
|
|
First sat 18 Nov. 1702; last sat 21 Mar. 1718 |
cons. 14 June 1702 bp. of CARLISLE; transl. 2 May 1718 bp. of Derry; transl. 18 Jan. 1727 abp. of Cashel and Emly |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1655, eldest s. of Joseph Nicolson, clergyman and Mary (<em>d</em>.1689), da. of John Briscoe of Crofton Hall, Cumb. <em>educ</em>. Dovenby sch.; Queen’s, Oxf., matric. 1670, BA 1676, MA 1679, fell. 1679; Leipzig Univ., Germany, 1678; ord. deacon 1679, priest 1681. <em>m</em>. 3 June 1686, Elizabeth (1656-1712), da. of Dr John Archer of Oxenholme, Kendal, Cumb., 2s. 5da. (1da. <em>d.v.p</em>).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 14 Feb. 1727. <em>will</em> 30 Mar. 1725, pr. 11 Apr. 1727.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Almoner to George I, 1716-18.</p><p>Vic. Torpenhow, Cumb. 1681-99, Addingham, Cumb. 1699-1702; preb. Carlisle 1681-1702; adn. Carlisle 1682-1702; rect. Great Salkeld, Cumb. 1682; Lecturer, Queen’s, Oxf. 1679-82; FRS 1705;<sup>3</sup> commr. Q. Anne’s Bounty.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, copy by W. Miln, 1891 after original attrib. M. Dahl, c.1715-20, Queens’ College, Oxf.</p> |
<p>William Nicolson was the son of a Cumberland clergyman whose career may have suffered both from his royalist sympathies and his accommodation with the Presbyterian settlement. Although of little wealth, Nicolson was sent to Queen’s College, Oxford, where he was of sufficient scholarly promise to be elected to the foundation as a taberdar. He seems to have made visits to London to engage with its intellectuals, including Robert Hooke; there he attracted the notice of another Cumberland clergyman’s son and Queen’s man, Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>, who paid for him to spend 1677-8 in Germany. If Williamson intended Nicolson for a diplomatic career, his protégé did not follow his lead, but instead returned to Oxford. Nevertheless his German experience was formative: he enjoyed writing asides in idiosyncratic German in his diaries and his sense of familiarity with the country may have encouraged his later sympathies with the House of Hanover. He also assisted Williamson with the reorganization of state papers, anticipating his later activities on a Lords’ committee, and became the first holder of the lectureship in Anglo-Saxon at Queens’ established by Williamson. Nicolson’s exploration of the antiquity of English institutions of church and government was commensurate both with his clerical vocation and the pursuit of rational enquiry demonstrated in his friendships with natural philosophers. However, his energies were directed away from linguistic scholarship towards another project which promised (misleadingly) to be more commercial, <em>The English Atlas</em>: he contributed to one (1680) and wrote two (1681-2) of the four published volumes, drawing lightly on his brief personal experience of Germany and more heavily on secondary sources. Although 11 volumes had been planned, in 1685 the bookseller Moses Pitt, the project’s initiator, was arrested for debt and the prospect of a long-term monetary reward dried up.<sup>4</sup> In 1684 Thomas Lamplugh*, then bishop of Exeter, recommended him for promotion from archdeacon to dean of Carlisle, describing him to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, as ‘a very good scholar, [and] a sober, prudent man’.<sup>5</sup> These qualities were not enough for a young clergyman ambitious of establishing his place in Cumberland society. His lack of money frustrated his intended marriage to Barbara Copley of Gosforth Hall, Cumberland, who in July 1684 was persuaded to break an engagement on the grounds of Nicolson’s uncertain financial prospects. He eventually married Elizabeth Archer, daughter of a Kendal gentleman physician in 1686. Nicolson was never wealthy, and when his wife died in 1712 he was still enjoying only a moderate income on which to support his ‘cargo of seven children’.<sup>6</sup> As archdeacon and prebendary of Carlisle and rector of Great Salkeld his income was at least £100 a year, though only £4 of this came from the archdeaconry; Torpenhow brought him £140 a year.<sup>7</sup> Certainly his income of some £800 a year as bishop of Carlisle was meagre in comparison to other bishoprics. In 1714 Nicolson told a friend, though, that he wanted for little and that his family was ‘like to be left in as good condition’ as that of his father ‘and as none of those are in beggary or great want, I am not much solicitous for more’.<sup>8</sup> Translation into the Church of Ireland in 1718 nevertheless boosted his income. By the time of his death in 1727, he was able to bequeath £1,000 each to his six surviving children.<sup>9</sup></p><h2><em>Early career in church and local politics</em></h2><p>As archdeacon in Carlisle, Nicolson associated himself with the Musgraves, to whom he was distantly related on his mother’s side, and the Grahmes, who were directly represented at Carlisle Cathedral by the dean, William Grahme. Nicolson dedicated his sermon on the accession of James II to Philip Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, clerk of the Privy Council and son of the Member for Carlisle in the preceding and ensuing Parliaments, Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> (from 1687 4th bt.). Carlisle’s loyalty, he wrote, ‘has been sufficiently signalized in her being owned by the Musgraves’.<sup>10</sup> Nicolson endorsed the Revolution of 1688 in a letter of 15 May 1689. He affirmed ‘our antient principles of loyalty… the glory of our Church’ but noted that the times required ‘a deal of unprejudiced reasoning and circumspection’ to avoid ‘the very dregs of treason and rebellion’. In this way true allegiance was owed to William and Mary: </p><blockquote><p>a prince and princess ... in whom we are ready enough to acknowledge all accomplishments that we can wish for in our governors, provided their title to the present possession of the crown was unquestionable; and therefore ... we should rather greedily catch at any appearance of proof that may justify their pretensions, than dwell upon such arguments as seemingly overturn them.<sup>11</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nicolson intervened regularly in parliamentary elections in Cumberland and Westmorland. In Sept. 1695 he sent letters on behalf of the bishop, Thomas Smith*, bishop of Carlisle, to the clergy of the deanery of Westmorland urging that they support the re-election of Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, second son of the 4th baronet, in Carlisle. Nicolson made his and Smith’s support for Musgrave be known though other channels in the diocese, though without success.<sup>12</sup> Before the 1698 election, Nicolson attempted to secure the interest of John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, for a Musgrave candidate in Carlisle or Westmorland. After he was rebuffed by the Lowthers, Nicolson claimed that he had evidence of conventicle attendance by their candidate for Carlisle, James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> (the son of Sir John Lowther<sup>‡</sup> of Whitehaven). A public denial by the Lowthers charged Nicolson with making the accusation ‘to serve some turn’.<sup>13</sup> Despite Nicolson’s efforts the Lowther interest prevailed.</p><p>At the same time as he was aligned with the Tory Musgraves in Cumberland and Westmorland, Nicolson was associated through his antiquarian pursuits with a circle of clergymen who would become Whigs as the party boundaries hardened in Anne’s reign. These included a fellow Queen’s College man and Westmorland native, Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, and later William Wake*, who would become archbishop of Canterbury under the Hanoverians, as well as White Kennett<sup>†</sup> (later bishop of Peterborough). The 1690s Convocation controversy marked the start of Nicolson’s philosophical (if not practical) movement away from Toryism. Nicolson’s great scholarly endeavour, <em>The English Historical Library</em>, published in three volumes between 1696 and 1699, comprised a historical survey of available sources for the history of the English state and church. Nicolson’s impolitic assessments of the work of some of his contemporaries attracted resentment. Edmund Gibson attributed his friend’s free expression to a naiveté born of ’having lived so long out of the world’, presumably referring as much to the distance between Cumberland and London as to his distance from regular contact with ecclesiastical and political discussion.<sup>14</sup> In the second part of the work, Nicolson’s account of ecclesiastical historians emphasized the authority of the crown against the claims not only of the Roman Catholic church but of the prelacy and clergy in general, celebrating, for example, the lives of archbishops who served their kings such as Simon Sudbury<sup>†</sup> who sealed ‘his loyalty to his prince with his blood at his death’ and Henry Chichele<sup>†</sup>, the ‘most faithful servant’ of Henry VI, Edward IV and Henry VII. Prelates who opposed the crown were dismissed as misguided allies of ‘the court of Rome’ led into ‘disgraceful circumstances with their sovereigns’ but ‘precious in the esteem of those bigoted monks’ who recorded their deeds.<sup>15</sup> Nicolson’s sentiments contradicted in spirit and in letter the argument for the autonomy of the Church put forward by Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, in his <em>Letter to a Convocation Man</em> (1696), and aligned him with the arguments for state supremacy over the Church put forward in William Wake’s reply to Atterbury. It was the basis for Nicolson’s estrangement from a high church position in politics and his move into eventual alliance with the Whigs.</p><p>Nicolson himself would find himself embroiled in controversy with Atterbury, who attacked his scholarship, as well as Wake’s, in <em>The Rights, Powers and Privileges of an English Convocation</em> (1700). In a letter to William Elstob of 3 Feb. 1701, Nicolson explained that the preface to his <em>Scottish Historical Library</em> would refute the allegations of Atterbury, ‘this foul-mouthed preacher’ who had accused Nicolson of misrepresenting the office of king’s chaplain by translating a term found in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle as ‘hired clerk’.<sup>16</sup> In the preface to the new book Nicolson argued that he had not intended a value judgment in his choice of words: ‘it signifies neither more nor less than a court chaplain.’<sup>17</sup> When Nicolson wrote to Sir Christopher Musgrave in October, he defended the loyal address from the gentlemen of Cumberland and Westmorland in 1701 which (to his annoyance) had been misinterpreted by critics as an endorsement of the Pretender, and told him of his worries about the reception of his book; only if John Sharp*, archbishop of York, gave it his blessing, he wrote, would he proceed to publication.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Nicolson had intervened in the county election for Westmorland in January 1701 behind the Tory Henry Grahme<sup>‡</sup> who was elected despite being accused of catholicism, a rumour which Nicolson told the diocesan clergy was an ‘impudent slander’.<sup>19</sup> The Whig dynasties of Howard and Lowther regarded him warily. On 17 May 1701, with Bishop Smith* thought close to death and with the affairs of the diocese in Nicolson’s hands, James Lowther worried about the possibility of Nicolson succeeding him, particularly because of Sir Christopher Musgrave’s friendship with Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and the plan of the Musgraves and Grahmes to control the land tax commissions for Cumberland and Westmorland and use them against the Lowthers. On 20 May Lowther reported that Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, had spoken ‘very plainly to the king about a new bishop and told him of the consequences of it if it should come into the way of such a man as the archdeacon’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Before the winter 1701 election in Carlisle Nicolson again suggested that James Lowther was a nonconformist, although the allegation failed to prevent Lowther’s return.<sup>21</sup> Smith lingered until 12 Apr. 1702. In the weeks before Smith’s death Nicolson appears to have aimed no higher than the deanery of Carlisle. His letters to James Grahme<sup>‡</sup> of 2 and 11 Apr. suggested that he expected and supported the appointment of his correspondent’s brother, the incumbent dean William Grahme, to the see. William Grahme’s refusal of the bishopric, Nicolson told James Grahme on 16 Apr., left him ‘far from being comforted’ as it left him without ‘the most flattering prospect which I ever had in my life’. On 4 May Nicolson related that he had received a letter informing him that John Robinson*, later successively bishop of Bristol and London, would be the new bishop of Carlisle.<sup>22</sup> Nicolson would not have known that it had been reported in London two days earlier that he himself would be appointed bishop.<sup>23</sup> After his election on 21 May Nicolson proceeded to London bearing a letter of recommendation from Sharp to Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. Nicolson, unfamiliar with the customs of court, was to be introduced to the queen ‘to return thanks for her favours and to kiss her hand, and, after he is consecrated, instruct him as to doing homage and all else which concerns him. I am sure you will shew him all respects for his own and Sir Chr[istopher] Musgrave’s sake.’<sup>24</sup> The letter also included Sharp’s nominations to the archdeaconry and prebendal stall at Carlisle and vicarage of Appleby vacated by Nicolson’s promotion.</p><h2><em>Bishop of Carlisle</em></h2><p>Nicolson immediately found himself mired in controversy as a result of Atterbury’s hostility (stoked again by a comprehensive response to the 1701 second edition of Atterbury’s <em>The Rights, Powers and Privileges of an English Convocation</em>, in his <em>Letter to the Reverend Dr White Kennet[t]<sup>†</sup></em>, the future bishop of Peterborough). On learning of his appointment he had written to the University of Oxford requesting that he proceed DD by diploma, as advised by Edmund Gibson, now one of the domestic chaplains of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury. Gibson also wrote to Arthur Charlett, master of University College, asking for confirmation that this was correct form.<sup>25</sup> A party of admirers of Francis Atterbury within the university’s convocation then notified the vice-chancellor that they would vote against the doctorate unless Nicolson apologized for his disagreement with Atterbury over the origins and privileges of the Church’s convocation. The vice-chancellor, Roger Mander, backed down and informed Nicolson that the traditional doctorate would not be awarded. Nicolson learned of the rejection at York on his way down to London in a letter forwarded by his wife on 30 May.<sup>26</sup> His first meeting in London on 9 June was with Gibson and John Waugh<sup>†</sup>, another Cumberland and Queens’ clergyman who would eventually become bishop of Carlisle. Gibson was ‘full of the misbehaviour of the University of Oxford and that other care would be taken.’ In the meantime Nicolson wrote to Charlett that the vice-chancellor’s decision ‘must be submitted to’ and that he was ‘already advanced so far beyond what I ought to have hoped for; that this disappointment is pretty tolerable’; ‘the caprice of a single person’, he wrote, would never alienate him from the University.<sup>27</sup> Richard Bentley, master of Trinity College and vice-chancellor of Cambridge (who had already crossed swords with Atterbury over Bentley’s critique of Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>’s <em>Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris</em>), instead arranged honorary doctorates at Cambridge for Nicolson, Gibson and White Kennet. Nicolson nevertheless tried to mend his fences with Oxford, writing on 18 June to Charlett to assure him that in his <em>Letter to Dr Kennett</em> he had not intended a general attack on the Oxford Convocation and that he therefore amended the text for its second printing, while protesting his anxiety of losing the favour of the university through a work he presented as undertaken in its service.<sup>28</sup> Nicolson left London for Cumberland on 24 June, travelling via Cambridge where he and Gibson were awarded their doctorates in person on 26 June. On 29 June Nicolson learned, to his amusement, that Oxford had after all granted him his doctorate on 25 June.<sup>29</sup> Writing to tell Nicolson that a summons to London would soon reach him in Cumberland, Gibson reported that his Oxford informant said the degree had been carried by a majority of only four.<sup>30</sup> Nicolson’s associates interpreted the snub against him as a snub against the queen.<sup>31</sup> Nicolson himself wrote on 9 July 1702 from Salkeld to Arthur Charlett of his conviction that ‘my good friend Dr Atterbury and others’ had been determined</p><blockquote><p>to upbraid the queen ... [and] ... by this clamour, to have stopped my consecration; fondly imagining that a doctor’s degree was a necessary qualification for the order of a bishop ... I hope all the rest of my Oxford friends will think me unblameable if, under the pressure of so severe a treatment, I sought a redress (of her majesty’s honour, as well as my own) in another university; where I had a reception as unanimously obliging as I could wish.<sup>32</sup></p></blockquote><p>James Lowther decided not to contest the 1702 election in Carlisle, mainly because he had become unconfident about the support of the earl of Carlisle. Nicolson supported the candidacy of Sir Christopher Musgrave’s son Christopher Musgrave. On 21 July, six days before the election, Nicolson was visited by the campaign managers for Thomas Stanwix<sup>‡</sup>, who had unsuccessfully challenged James Lowther in the previous two elections. They assured him they would also support Musgrave and ‘be directed by [Nicolson] hereafter’. Despite this, Nicolson subsequently expressed dismay that the mayor and aldermen at the election failed to support Musgrave, leaving Stanwix in the lead and Musgrave taking the second seat.<sup>33</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1702</em></h2><p>In Gibson’s words, September found Nicolson ‘straitened in time between the business of your diocese and the approach of the Parliament’; he told Nicolson that Sharp would ‘do what he can to make [Nicolson’s late arrival at Parliament] pass easily at court, and among the bishops’, especially the junior ones, although he reminded Nicolson that the queen was ‘of course to be applied to for leave.’ Nicolson’s reply, that he intended to return to London in the middle of November, was appreciated in a letter from Gibson of 17 Oct., which also outlined the issues facing the new Parliament and the uncertainty over the new reign’s political direction: ‘the common opinion is, that the great competition will lay between the [John Churchill*,] earl of Marlborough and [Sidney Godolphin*, Baron] Lord Godolphin on one side and my Lord R[ocheste]r on the other’, with the former being supported by some of the former allies of William III.<sup>34</sup> Nicolson arrived in London on 14 Nov. 1702, almost a month after the opening of Parliament on 20 Oct. He was prepared for his introduction to the House over dinners with Sharp (15 Nov.), Tenison (16 Nov.), and William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester (17 November). Tenison discussed the occasional confomity bill and the bill for repair of churches with him, but it was perhaps the advice given to him by Sir Christopher Musgrave on the evening of 15 Nov., ‘of the eyes that were, and would be, upon my behaviour and voting in the House of Lords’, which most reminded him of political realities. Nicolson took his seat on 18 November. Two days later he read prayers in the House for the first time, and was afterwards ‘kindly cautioned’ by Sharp on his pronunciation of Jesus.<sup>35</sup> In his first session, he attended 60 per cent of sittings.</p><p>Nicolson discussed ‘Convocation broils’ over dinner with Sharp on 24 Nov. 1702. The lower House of the Canterbury Convocation (in which Nicolson did not sit, being a member of the northern province) was engaged in a series of challenges to the authority of the upper House, attributed by Nicolson to what he termed the ‘Atterburian faction’.<sup>36</sup> On 25 Nov. Nicolson was the only bishop among only four Members (and the lord keeper) to honour the order of the previous day that prayers should be said exactly at eleven. At one point on 27 Nov. Nicolson and Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, were the only bishops present, the others all attending Convocation or being otherwise absent, though Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, was also listed in the Journal as having attended on that day. Nicolson noted that Mews observed that the Lords would not be quorate if either of them left the chamber, ‘there being a necessity of having lords spiritual as well as temporal’ a conclusion rejected by Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, and others.<sup>37</sup></p><p>The occasional conformity bill was sent up to the Lords on 2 Dec. 1702. Nicolson prepared to deliver a speech on 3 Dec. in support of the measure, convinced that the occasional conformist was sealing his own damnation by using the sacrament ‘for secular ends and purposes’.<sup>38</sup> Time constraints prevented him from speaking, but he voted with Sharp and eight other bishops against the wrecking amendment proposed by John Somers*, Baron Somers, to restrict the scope of the bill to those covered by the Test Act.<sup>39</sup> Nicolson traced the bill’s progress through each stage, and was at this point in his career opposed to the Lords’ order of 9 Dec. that tacking was unconstitutional.<sup>40</sup> On 21 Dec. Nicolson was ordered by the House to preach the martyrdom sermon on 30 January. He attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth and preached at St Margaret’s Westminster on the 27th.<sup>41</sup> At the start of 1703, he was estimated by Nottingham to be a continuing supporter of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. On 11 Jan. 1703, before prayers, he entered the proxies he had been given by John Sharp and Richard Kidder*, bishop of Bath and Wells. Five days later, Kidder tried to retract the proxy (almost certainly because they had opposing views on occasional conformity), but Nicolson was told by the clerks that Kidder could vacate his proxy only by attending the House.<sup>42</sup> The same day, in a division on the clause in the occasional conformity bill relating to municipal officers, Nicolson joined Sharp and eight other bishops to oppose another wrecking amendment, this time to the penalty clause. With the loss of the vote, a dejected Nicolson left the House at 11 at night.<sup>43</sup> Nicolson observed on 13 Jan. that the vote on the Derwent navigation was the first time he had seen the bishops unanimous.<sup>44</sup> He observed in his diary that the dispute between the Commons and the Lords that month over the settlement bill for Prince George*, duke of Cumberland encouraged the Commons on 15 Jan. to resolve not to send the malt tax up to the Lords, despite its passage on 14 Jan. (in fact there was no formal resolution to withhold it recorded in the Journal, although the bill certainly did not arrive in the Lords until Monday 18 January). Nicolson asked ‘Where will these things end? And, when (at this rate) will this session be brought to a conclusion?’</p><p>Nicolson often read prayers in the Lords, even after losing his position as the most junior bishop; on 23 Jan. 1703, whilst serving on a select committee on the military expedition of the previous summer, he was called out at the start of the sitting to perform the office.<sup>45</sup> Nicolson’s publication of a <em>Scottish Historical Library</em> as well as his consciousness of the vulnerabilities of his border diocese contributed to his interest in the Union, and on 29 Jan. he was visited by John Dalrymple, 2nd Viscount (later first earl of) Stair [S], and his brother Sir Hew Dalrymple, who gave him an account of the progress of negotiations.<sup>46</sup> On 30 Jan. 1703 he preached the martyrdom sermon before the Lords for which William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, moved thanks the following day.<sup>47</sup> Nicolson dined with Sharp and John Aislabie<sup>‡</sup> on 11 Feb. 1703, where he learned of the lengthy ‘remonstrance’ against the previous ministry in the Commons.<sup>48</sup> Nicolson attended the House for the last time that session on 19 Feb., registered his proxy in favour of John Sharp on 21 Feb. after preaching at St James’s, and left London the following day. He returned to his diocese and remained there for some 20 months, one of his lengthiest stays away from the capital during Anne’s reign.<sup>49</sup> Much of March was taken up with his move from ‘sweet Salkeld’ to Rose Castle.<sup>50</sup> Over summer 1703 he conducted his primary visitation and continued his extensive scholarly work.<sup>51</sup> In failing to attend the next parliamentary session, Nicolson missed debates and votes on the newly introduced occasional conformity bill of which Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, had twice forecast Nicolson as a supporter. His political attention was caught by the resistance in Westminster to union with Scotland, writing to Ralph Thoresby that his</p><blockquote><p>correspondents at Edinburgh begin generally to despair of a union. They think our Parliament never intends them any favours, since it has not yet called Sir E.S. [Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>] to account for his lewd reflection on the poverty of their nation. If this be the first step that we must make, I shall as much despair of our ever coming together.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 4 Jan. 1704 Nicolson was summoned to attend the House; he almost certainly obtained official leave of absence, although the printed Journal does not record this.</p><p>On 10 July Nicolson heard ‘from a great many hands, certain news of Her Majesty’s having given the deanery of Carlisle to (my kind friend) Dr Atterbury’. Nicolson learned of Godolphin’s assurance to Sharp that the queen intended to give Atterbury ‘a better preferment when an occasion shall happen for it’, remarking in this diary that this ‘will likewise give her an opportunity of pleasing the bishop of Carlisle’.<sup>53</sup> In August 1704 Nicolson learned that letters patent for the institution of Atterbury were directed formally to the chapter and not to the bishop. His correspondence revealed the hostility with which he regarded the appointment (‘the heaviest misfortune’) and the jealousy with which he guarded his own jurisdiction. Atterbury arrived in the diocese on 15 Sept., but Nicolson refused to institute him unless Atterbury retracted ‘what he had advanced… concerning an absolute and limited sovereign’.<sup>54</sup> Nicolson, advised by White Kennett, claimed persistently that Atterbury was in contravention of the 39 articles, a letter to secretary of state Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> of 16 Sept. 1704 specifying the 37th article which recognized the authority of civil magistrates.<sup>55</sup> Atterbury planned instead to seek Sharp’s mandate for metropolitan institution after demanding that Nicolson renounce his own episcopal rights in the matter; this, predictably, was not forthcoming, Nicolson refusing to give his assent ‘for doing any thing which he would not and could not do himself’.<sup>56</sup> Atterbury’s patron, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, hoped that the whole affair could be attributed to Nicolson’s ‘sudden motions of a zealous temper’ and asked Sharp to mediate before they were forced to bring the matter to the attention of the queen, who had ‘so great hopes to heal that breach which hath been so long amongst the clergy, so much to their reproach, and the weakening their interests’.<sup>57</sup> A smug Atterbury was confident that Harley’s support made Nicolson’s opposition ineffective.<sup>58</sup> Exchanges between Nicolson and Hedges and between Sharp and Harley resulted on 23 Sept. 1704 in Hedges instructing Nicolson on behalf of the queen to institute Atterbury without further delay.<sup>59</sup> The queen was ‘dissatisfied with the bishop of Carlisle’s indiscretion...she thinks it very hard treatment from him, what he would not have ventured to have acted towards one of the meanest patrons in his own country’. Harley told Sharp that the Privy Council (‘in private discourse’) judged that Nicolson’s behaviour ‘hath rendered him liable to very great penalties’. Harley’s appeal that ‘we may all heal divisions and unite against the common enemy, and not be formenting factions’ perhaps sincerely reflects what may have been the queen’s view. Atterbury was duly instituted on 28 Sept., although Nicolson continued to block his tenure of the deanery.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Nicolson arrived in London on 24 Oct. 1704 to resume his seat in Parliament and to begin a hectic round of socio-political meetings and dinners. He attended the House on 25 Oct., the second day of business, and thereafter for 77 per cent of sittings, often reading prayers.<sup>61</sup> He was aware that his dispute with Atterbury had damaged his reputation, and on 30 Oct. Gibson and Kennett urged him to prepare a ‘counter-narrative’ to Atterbury’s version of events.<sup>62</sup> On 4 Nov. 1704 Somers told him his belief that the case between Nicolson and Atterbury had not been represented accurately to the queen.<sup>63</sup> On 10 Nov. Nicolson was appointed to the Lords’ committee for securing the public records in the Tower of London, which brought him into more regular contact with Somers and with another peer associated with the Junto Whigs, Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax. Nicolson’s attention, though, was still on his dispute with Atterbury. On 11 Nov. 1704 Sharp urged him to end his withdrawal from court and pay his respects ‘even (I think) to Mr Secretary Harley’. The next day Tenison seemed to agree with Nicolson that Godolphin, had not favoured Atterbury’s appointment.<sup>64</sup> On 13 Nov. Nicolson visited the office of records at the Tower with John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, where ‘’twas a great trouble to me to see so many waggon-loads of records…in the most dirty and perishing condition imaginable.’<sup>65</sup> Nicolson waited on the queen on 15 Nov.; she received him ‘very graciously and with a smile’.<sup>66</sup> On 17 Nov. he again visited the Tower to inspect work undertaken on the records with Williams and other members of the committee, and on 20 Nov. the deputy keeper, George Holmes, agreed that Nicolson could have access to the keeper’s books and papers in order to prepare a ‘repertory of records’ as a supplement to the <em>Historical Library</em>. The same day Kennett and Gibson approved the text of Nicolson’s <em>A True State of the Controversy between the Present Bishop and Dean of Carlisle</em>. Kennett arranged for its publication.</p><p>Nicolson opposed the tacking of the occasional conformity bill to the land tax and on 28 Nov. 1704 was visited serially by Richard Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> and James Grahme who each assured him neither would vote for the tack; Nicolson thought ‘the former might possibly pay some deference to my opinion in this matter’ but that Grahme was entirely directed by Harley.<sup>67</sup> In the event both men were sincere. On 29 Nov. Nicolson was in the House when, with the queen present, it went into a grand committee on the security of the nation with regard to the act of security in Scotland. Nicolson did not speak in the debate but had begun the morning discussing his work in progress on the laws of the English-Scottish march.<sup>68</sup> A new front opened in the dispute between Nicolson and Atterbury on 30 Nov. when Atterbury demanded Nicolson take action against two minor canons of Carlisle Cathedral whom he had already suspended for ‘kicking, boxing and by word abusing’ each other. Nicolson opted for temporary excommunication, but Atterbury thought excommunication should lead to permanent exclusion from their ecclesiastical positions, which Nicolson thought too harsh. His subsequent support for their restoration was seen by Atterbury as an affront to his privileges as dean.<sup>69</sup> On 2 Dec. Tenison warned Nicolson that Sharp wished to stop his dispute over Atterbury’s installation from being aired in print, but by 4 Dec. 1704 Nicolson’s publication was available from the pamphlet-stalls in Westminster Hall. The pressing political issue for Nicolson was by this stage England’s future relationship with Scotland. On the day the grand committee resumed, 6 Dec., he began by waiting on the hereditary sheriff of Westmorland, Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet, to discuss relations with Scotland, the recent Westmorland by-election and prospects for the general election. On 15 Dec. 1704 the occasional conformity bill came up from the Commons and after a four hour debate was rejected; Nicolson voted with Sharp and nine other bishops for the bill.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Nicolson dined at various points over December with Henry Compton*, bishop of London (who gave him a tour of the latter’s impressive gardens and greenhouses), Nathaniel Crew, Tenison, Sharp, Gibson and Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester.<sup>71</sup> His most important dinner in terms of electoral politics was with the younger Christopher Musgrave (acting head of the family during the minority of the fifth baronet), James Grahme, Joseph Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> Richard Musgrave and Gilfrid Lawson<sup>‡</sup>, to discuss candidacies for the Westmorland elections. An argument over shares of expenditure between Joseph Musgrave and Grahme meant that the former refused to stand, dividing Nicolson’s Musgrave-led Tory alliance and perhaps lending weight to an earlier suspicion of Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth (uncle of Richard Lowther*, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale), that Nicolson’s party allegiances would shift following the death of his old patron Sir Christopher Musgrave.<sup>72</sup> He again attended the St Stephen’s day dinner at Lambeth. On 2 Jan. 1705 he viewed ten documents at the Tower concerning the constitutional relationship between England and Scotland and the origins of border law, dating from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries; on 9 Jan. George Holmes, the deputy keeper of records in the Tower, called on him with papers relevant to the Union with Scotland which Nicolson recommended that he take to Somers.<sup>73</sup></p><p>On 6 Jan. 1705 Nicolson told Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup> of Melbourne that he consented to the Melbourne rectory bill, which ratified an agreement made in 1701 with Nicolson’s predecessor Thomas Smith to turn Melbourne rectory into a freehold property.<sup>74</sup> Nicolson had been present in the House when Coke was given leave to bring in the bill (8 Dec.) and was also present for its passage and carriage to the Commons on 5 February. The bill was given the royal assent on 14 Mar. at the end of the session. On 11 Jan. Nicolson learned from Gibson that he and John Montagu, dean of Durham, had been removed from the list of Lent preachers and in Montagu’s case replaced by Atterbury, apparently at Harley’s behest. The following day Nicolson discussed the petition of Thomas Watson*, the deprived bishop of St Davids, with Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, whose defence of the deprivation Nicolson interpreted as ‘a hardship on all us ecclesiastics… our opposers aim at such a synodical determination (mixed of bishops and presbyters) as the early church never knew.’<sup>75</sup> He was also sought out by Nottingham and Thanet to complain about Joseph Musgrave’s refusal to stand for the Commons at Westmorland in the next election; Nicolson told them that Musgrave was himself ‘the best judge of the weight of his pocket’.<sup>76</sup> On the evening of 12 Jan. and over the following days Nicolson investigated the pressure from Harley on William Grahme, the former dean of Carlisle, to backdate his resignation to 8 July 1704 so that Atterbury could enjoy the emoluments of the deanery from 15 July 1704, which Grahme, with Nicolson’s support, refused to do.<sup>77</sup> If Nicolson’s understanding of the situation was correct, Harley and Atterbury seem to have backed down, as on 4 Feb. Harley countersigned a petition from Atterbury requesting that the date of the letters patent of his appointment be amended to 15 Aug. 1704. Sir Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt recommended the queen’s consent on 14 February.<sup>78</sup> Nicolson did not attend the House after 3 Mar. 1705, missing the last eleven days of the session, and returned to his diocese for the next seven months. </p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1705</em></h2><p>The dissolution of 5 Apr. 1705 was followed by fiercely contested elections. In the city of Carlisle, Nicolson now (along with the earl of Carlisle) backed Halifax’s younger brother, Sir James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>79</sup> On 28 Apr. 1705 Stanwix was reported to be losing ground in Carlisle and had responded by ‘threatening and making a noise’ to Nicolson that the earl of Carlisle would ‘take it very ill’ if the bishop continued ‘so violent against him’.<sup>80</sup> Nicolson was forced, against personal preference, to support Stanwix as Montagu’s colleague rather than Christopher Musgrave. On 19 May Nicolson wrote to Sharp of his unhappiness with the trend which saw electors forced to choose between outsiders such as Montagu and army officers such as Stanwix:</p><blockquote><p>We shall send and give commissions to several other strangers, most of which have commands in the army. Would these gentlemen quarter themselves and their troops amongst us, they might be a security against those apprehensions we are under of danger from the north: but (I confess) I see no occasion we have for their proffered service in another capacity. Yet this is tendered in such a manner as not to be refused.<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>By mid–June, Musgrave was complaining to Nicolson of corrupt practices by Stanwix but was finding it hard to produce evidence of overt bribery.<sup>82</sup> Stanwix was successful and Christopher Musgrave beaten into third place after ugly exchanges in which Nicolson accused Stanwix of boasting that the queen had supported his election by appointing him deputy governor of Carlisle and Stanwix accused Nicolson of ‘giving him the character of a Presbyterian’; Nicolson noted that ‘I hope he will never deserve it.’<sup>83</sup> After the election, Nicolson complained that ‘Mr M[usgrave]’s pretended friends [had] intolerably abused him and me’ and that the result was the consequence of ‘treacherous villainy’.<sup>84</sup> Meanwhile, in the Cumberland election Nicolson had supported a possible Tory partner for Gilfrid Lawson (who had approached the bishop the previous December for support) in opposition to Lord Carlisle’s candidates George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup> and Richard Musgrave.<sup>85</sup> Nicolson, after attending a dinner with most of the county gentry and clergy on 19 Apr., during the Cumberland sessions, reported that a ‘proposal [was] made for the peace of the county’ but that ‘these failing ... war proclaimed’. On 25 May, Nicolson visited the sheriff, Richard Aglionby, to inform him that Lawson had withdrawn.<sup>86</sup> Fletcher and Richard Musgrave were returned without contest.</p><p>Nicolson was just as preoccupied with cathedral affairs: the highfliers were now entrenched in the cathedral, represented by Atterbury and Hugh Todd. Todd, a canon of Carlisle and a former fellow Anglo-Saxonist of Nicolson’s in Oxford, was ambitious but was not thought of great merit by Nicolson and had ‘met with discouragements in his private offers of himself’ when seeking nomination as a proctor for the York provincial convocation before the diocesan election on 12 June.<sup>87</sup> He perhaps saw an alliance with Atterbury as a way to increase his own authority at Nicolson’s expense while proving himself a useful informant and ally of Harley.<sup>88</sup> The summer months were particularly fraught for Nicolson while Atterbury was resident at the deanery. On 6 Aug. 1705 he congratulated his close friend Wake on elevation and hoped fervently to see Atterbury promoted from the northern ‘cold and beggarly climate’, not least since the dean was unable to show respect either to his bishop or to various members of the chapter.<sup>89</sup> Nicolson, determined to be in London punctually despite the continuing challenges to his authority from the dean and chapter, left Rose Castle on 15 Oct. 1705. He arrived in London eleven days later.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Before the new Parliament opened James Lowther sought Nicolson’s support in opposing a bill for the development of Parton Harbour; Nicolson, in his capacity as a justice of the peace, agreed to sign a certificate against it.<sup>91</sup> Nicolson first attended the Lords in the new session on 27 Oct. 1705, when he read prayers and heard with approval the queen’s ‘excellent and healing speech to both Houses’.<sup>92</sup> He attended thereafter for 72 per cent of sittings. His social circle remained based upon his clerical and north country connexions though they expanded beyond it: waiting on Lord Thanet led him also to meet Thanet’s Sussex neighbour John Toke<sup>‡</sup>, a Member of the Commons who supported the exclusion of commissioners of the land tax from the Commons, an early sign of the campaigns against ‘placemen’ which became fashionable that session. On 5 Nov. 1705 he visited Lady Lonsdale and two days later he introduced her son Richard Lowther, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, to Tenison in the House of Lords, though his subsequent attempts to take Lonsdale to see Tenison at Lambeth were frustrated, apparently by Lonsdale’s aversion to bad weather, on 24 Nov. and 1 December. Lonsdale had been introduced to the Lords on 4 Nov. by the Junto peer and his Westmorland neighbour, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton; he and his mother may have been keen on using Nicolson to emphasize their Cumberland connections as well as their Junto ones.<sup> <sup>93</sup></sup></p><p>Nicolson’s own loyalties were themselves difficult to characterize this session. He was appointed to the committee on the address to the queen requesting that she lay before them an account of proceedings in the Parliament of Scotland concerning the succession to the crown and the union of the kingdoms on 12 November. On 3 Dec. Nicolson, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury and Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, dined with Tenison where they resolved that each bishop say something of the state of their own diocese at the ‘Church in danger’ debate expected for 6 December. On 4 Dec. 1705, while the Lords were in committee on the bill to naturalize Princess Sophia, Nicolson left the House to dine at the invitation of Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, a keen collector of antiquarian artefacts. Two days later he attended the House for the ‘Church in danger’ debate, but in the event did not speak in it.<sup>94</sup> His diary comments and his earlier actions suggest more sympathy towards opponents of the motion than supporters, but his vote is not recorded. The autumn was overshadowed by continued disharmony within the Carlisle chapter. On 20 Nov. Nicolson had visited Sharp with more details of Atterbury’s claims to decanal jurisdiction, Sharp attributing the disagreement to Atterbury’s mistaken inference from a Henrician statute that common law presumed ‘the dean’s consent necessary in all grants’.<sup>95</sup> Nicolson scurried around London soliciting support, on 21 Nov. finding Joseph Musgrave ‘much offended’ at his former tutor Dr Todd’s ‘impertinent politics’.<sup>96</sup> On 7 Dec. 1705 Nicolson and Atterbury visited Sharp to debate their controversy before their archbishop.<sup>97</sup> Atterbury offered to refer the case to counsel, establishing a temporary halt to hostilities. Nicolson’s principal political concern remained affairs with Scotland: this seems to have been the subject of a conversation with William Elstob on 12 December. On 15 Dec. Nicolson visited the Parliament office in the unsuccessful hope of finding there a paper by John Drummond, earl of Melfort [S.], James II’s secretary of state in Scotland, ‘representing the Church of England to be in danger, as a proper expedient for advancing the interests’ of the Jacobite court.<sup>98</sup> Later the same day, Halifax moved the House for the revival of the committee for inspecting records; at Nicolson’s request, he proposed that the same committee be empowered to look at the Cotton Library. Somers also moved for a committee to inspect law, propose amendments, and review and reform practices in the courts. Nicolson was honoured ‘to be very early named, both by my Lord President [Pembroke] and several other noble members of the House, for one in each of these committees’. Meanwhile he succumbed to Atterbury’s attempts to make their relationship more civil and after repeated invitations on 18 Dec. the two men left a meeting of the Queen Anne’s Bounty commissioners for a ‘decent’ dinner in Atterbury’s ‘pretty box’ of a home in Chelsea.<sup>99</sup> He spent the morning of 22 Dec. with Halifax, Rochester, Somers and other peers—he was the only bishop—at the committee for records where instructions were given to begin the survey of the Cotton Library, and the state paper and record offices.<sup>100</sup> Nicolson was one of 15 to attend the St Stephen’s day dinner at Lambeth. Back to work on the records on 27 Dec., he inspected the shelves and boxes installed to hold chancery records, including parliament rolls, in Caesar’s Tower. The next morning he sat with Halifax, Rochester and Somers in the committee for records, where reports on work undertaken in the previous six days revealed a long history of neglect in the paper office including by Nicolson’s ‘old Patron’ Sir Joseph Williamson, ‘whose late bequest… of some trunks full of papers to this place proves only a restoring of ’em to the cells from whence they had been borrowed’. No texts of treaties could be found in their places.<sup>101</sup></p><p>Later on 27 Dec., following dinner with Sharp, he asked Gibson about a letter from the Electress Sophia to Tenison quoted by John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, in his <em>Vindication of his Speech in Parliament</em>; Gibson confirmed the existence of a correspondence but knew nothing particularly of this letter.<sup>102</sup> On 2 Jan.1706 Nicolson dined with a ‘kind and cheerful’ Lord Thanet and discussed ‘his charity in Scotland’ and the previous parliamentary election for Westmorland. Two days later Nicolson was ‘confined with the anniversary bile in my neck’ but he was visited by Gibson who took away with him a copy of the dispensation granted to Atterbury which enabled him to reside in London rather than Carlisle. On 6 Jan. he dined with his brother Joseph (also a clergyman), where the assembled company discussed a case between the parish of St Bride’s and the dean and chapter of Westminster to be heard before the Lords on 8 January.<sup>103</sup> When Nicolson dined with Gibson on 10 Jan., he learned that Tenison had consulted with Somers on Atterbury’s dispensation.<sup>104</sup></p><p>The committee for records met again on 16 an 18 January. Peter Le Neve, Norroy king of arms, showed Nicolson ‘the pretended homage of Malcolm [III of Scotland]’, the meaning of which Nicolson had disputed in print in 1704 with William Atwood. Atwood had argued that this document showed Scotland was rightly subject to England; Nicolson had accurately pointed out that Malcolm had only paid homage for the lands he held in fee.<sup>105</sup> The relationship between Scotland and England engaged Nicolson when he dined at Lambeth on 19 Jan. with Williams, Somers and Halifax, among others. Somers and Nicolson agreed that ‘a community of trade’ between Scotland and England was a possibility, with a proportionate number of Scottish representatives in the Lords and Commons during the passage of money bills, but that ‘a farther union (in religion, laws and civil government) must be the work of time.’<sup>106</sup> Nicolson found himself the only bishop in the House for some time on a snowy 25 Jan., before he was joined by Gilbert Burnet.<sup>107</sup> On 27 Jan. he unexpectedly met Humphrey Humphreys in the vestry of St James’s, where he had gone to preach. The two discussed the differences between the Lords and Commons on the regency or Hanover bill brought up from the Commons the day before.<sup>108</sup> On 28 Jan. he and John Williams voted against an adjournment that had been moved by Wharton which prevented the House going into a grand committee on the French wine importation bill.<sup>109</sup> He attended the debates on the bill on 29 and 31 Jan., voting on the latter date with the majority of bishops in the division on the repeal of the ‘place’ clause in the 1701 Act of Settlement.<sup>110</sup> After attending the Lords on 1 Feb., he spent the evening with a group including John Hare, the Richmond herald, gathering intelligence on ‘the abuses at the herald’s office’ with relevance to the work of the committee for records.<sup>111</sup> On 11 Feb. 1706, after attending a Queen Anne’s Bounty meeting in Whitehall, he shared Tenison’s barge to the House where the Lords reported their reasons for maintaining their amendments to the regency bill.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Nicolson joined his fellow-members of the records committee, Rochester, Somers, Halifax and Ralph Grey*, 4th Baron Grey of Wark, at the state paper office on 14 Feb., where they found it in better order than before.<sup>113</sup> He undertook further research on the constitutional relationship of Scotland and England, viewing documents from the reign of David II (erroneously referred to as David I) including several suspected forgeries.<sup>114</sup> He learned on 16 Feb. that Hugh Todd had written letters of complaint about Nicolson’s infringement of the privileges of the Carlisle chapter to both Tenison and Sharp.<sup>115</sup></p><p>On 19 Feb., prompted by Wharton, he presented to the House petitions from the gentlemen and freeholders of Cumberland against the Parton Harbour bill. In promoting Parton as an alternative seaport to Whitehaven the bill struck against established interests in the country including those of James Lowther<sup>‡</sup> and the diocese.<sup>116</sup> Following Tenison’s instructions, ‘very early’ on 21 Feb. Nicolson attended the select committee on the bill to settle the rectory of St Bride’s, before the committee reported to the House the same day. On 22 Feb. the House heard counsel on both sides on the Parton harbour bill, and Nicolson seconded Wharton’s motion to press ‘the contents of the petitions against the bill’. The bill was debated in committee of the whole House on 26 Feb., under the chairmanship of Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, who also had interests in Cumberland and Westmorland. All of Nicolson’s amendments were rejected and the bill was carried by a single vote on its third reading, much to the irritation of Nicolson who grumbled that Weymouth had let them down on the vote.<sup>117</sup> The bill’s opponents maintained that Somerset had deliberately rushed the bill through the House to pre-empt further coordination between Nicolson and Wharton.<sup>118</sup> On 2 Mar. 1706 Nicolson attended the House for the last time that session. Two days later he took his leave of Lonsdale, Sharp and Thanet, went with Kennett to dine with Gibson and received a blessing from a bedridden Tenison. He left London on 5 Mar. and returned to his diocese, remaining there until November.<sup>119</sup></p><p>The cathedral dispute entered a new phase when Hugh Todd (acting on Atterbury’s instructions) presented Nicolson’s sister at the consistory court on a charge of adultery.<sup>120</sup> Throughout the following months Nicolson maintained a strained politeness with his absent dean; on 1 July he forwarded to Atterbury the diocesan loyal address on recent military victories, asking him to wait on Godolphin to make arrangements to present it to the queen.<sup>121</sup> Nicolson returned to London on 20 Nov. 1706 and before the start of the session worked with Tenison, Burnet and John Moore*, then bishop of Norwich, on thanksgiving prayers.<sup>122</sup> He was also reacquainted with records committee business, returning to the Tower on 30 Nov. to see ‘fine (and costly) repairs at both repositories of records’ and was visited by James Tyrrel from the Cotton Library on 2 December.<sup>123</sup> He attended the House on 3 Dec. for the first day of the session and attended thereafter for 68 per cent of sittings. Much of December was devoted to research into Scottish affairs among the newly ordered public records and dining with members of the Lords and Commons associated with the northern counties, particularly Cumberland and Westmorland. He was one of 13 bishops to attend the St Stephen’s day dinner that year. He preached before the Society for the Reformation of Manners at Bow Church on 30 Dec. 1706, demonstrating his conversion to the movement (having previously thought of it as a back door to religious comprehension).<sup>124</sup> On 31 Dec., borrowing robes from Wake and travelling in Sharp’s coach, he attended the queen in procession to St Paul’s.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Despite Nicolson’s support for the union with Scotland he was anxious that a bill for the security of the Church should be passed, lobbying Tenison on the subject on 4 Jan. 1707, and asking him on 12 Jan. whether the House should be moved to introduce a bill on the security of the Church the next day.<sup>126</sup> On 13 Jan. he was visited by Richard Musgrave, arguing that the port of Whitehaven to be allowed to import Irish wool, though it would be two years before parliamentary time was given to the development of the port.<sup>127</sup> On 25 Jan. Nicolson dined at Lambeth and was one of five bishops (the others being William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford, John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, Lloyd and Burnet) who approved Tenison’s draft bill on the security of the Church of England. The bill’s second reading on 3 Feb. saw the House divide on Sharp’s amendment which would make the Test Act permanent and unalterable. The amendment was defeated, Nicolson voting with Tenison and the Whig bishops against it.<sup>128</sup> The bill passed the House on 4 February. Nicolson attended on 15 Feb. for the reading of the first articles of Union, and voted for them on 19, 21 and 24 February. On the evening of the last of those days Nicolson received the result of the Westmorland by-election, held four days earlier.<sup>129</sup> On 3 Mar. he again voted with the Whigs in favour of confirming the Scottish religious settlement for their Kirk.<sup>130</sup> He was present to hear the queen give her ‘gracious speech’ when giving royal assent to the Act of Union on 6 Mar., and two days later preached before the queen at St James’s Chapel.<sup>131</sup> On 15 Mar. he attended the House for the last time that session. Three days later James Lowther visited him with the news that he would stand for Cumberland at the next election.<sup>132</sup> On 24 Mar., Nicolson left for Rose Castle in considerable discomfort from an attack of kidney stones. He did not return for the brief session in April 1707. He attended both Archdeacon Fleming’s thanksgiving sermon and the corporation bonfire at Carlisle on 1 May to celebrate the Union.<sup>133</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1707-8 and the Cathedrals Bill</em></h2><p>Nicolson had been forewarned of the difficulties he would face in the diocese by a visit in London from Atterbury on 12 Mar. 1707, who renewed his protests about Nicolson’s proposed visitation of Carlisle Cathedral.<sup>134</sup> Nicolson spent the summer months embroiled in the jurisdictional dispute with Atterbury and Todd.<sup>135</sup> On 19 May he wrote to Atterbury at the start of his triennial visitation in peaceable terms, offering to wait for a discussion of chapter matters until it suited Atterbury.<sup>136</sup> Atterbury, however, forwarded to Harley his legal case and petition to the queen, arguing that the cathedral’s 1541 charter was valid and to be preferred to that of 1545, and Carlisle’s bishops had encroached upon royal rights of patronage.<sup>137</sup> Nicolson’s visitation of the cathedral, it claimed, was contrary to the cathedral statutes, which said visitations should be conducted by the crown and not the bishop. Harley presented the petition early in September, calling for the visitation to be stopped.<sup>138</sup> Nicolson nevertheless pressed ahead with his visitation of the cathedral, only to be confronted and denied access by Todd on three occasions, 25 Sep., 21 Oct. and 24 Nov., the latter case leading to Todd’s excommunication on 27 Nov. Nicolson had already been served with an order by the court of common pleas on 22 Nov. ordering him to show cause within a week why his visitation should not be stayed.<sup>139</sup> Nicolson chose not to answer. He confessed to Wake that he suspected affairs were being orchestrated behind the scenes, writing dejectedly on 29 Nov. that he was unsure ‘what hand it is which moves behind the curtain’ but was certain that ‘no presbyter would bid that defiance to his ordinary, which Dr T[odd] (countenanced by Dr A[tterbury]) has done me, without a supporter of power and authority equal to his insolence’.<sup>140</sup></p><p>The row delayed Nicolson’s arrival for the next session of Parliament, though he expected to attend, sending through Gibson on 2 Sept. a message to Humphrey Humphreys that he would greet him at the first Parliament of the United Kingdom with a ‘salute ... as a brother Briton, in British’.<sup>141</sup> On 2 Oct. Gibson thought him recovered from his decline earlier in the year but ‘the ill-usage he has lately met with from Dr Todd, and just now from the Dean [Atterbury] and Dr Todd jointly, have made him forget… that his constitution is in danger, and if I understand his ailing aright, to forget it is to be well.’<sup>142</sup> Gibson told Humphreys on 16 Oct. that Nicolson would be back at the House ‘about the beginning of December’, but Nicolson did not leave the diocese until 15 Dec. 1707, arriving in the capital nine days later.<sup>143</sup> That Nicolson was joined for Christmas dinner at his brother Joseph Nicolson’s not only by his sister Frances Rothery, but also by his attorneys Johnson and Heatley indicated how far his dispute with Atterbury and Todd now dominated his affairs. On 26 Dec. he sought legal advice from serjeant-at-law John Chesshyre, who thought that should Todd not submit within 40 days of his excommunication he could be arrested and imprisoned. Nicolson then attended the St Stephen’s day dinner where his cause was ‘much encouraged’. He was assured by Sharp on 27 Dec. that the archbishop would not intervene to oppose him, but on 4 Jan. 1708 was dissuaded by Chesshyre from printing his version of the dispute because it would ‘disgust the court’.<sup>144</sup> The visitation dispute did not take all his attention: James Lowther reported that Nicolson had declared his support for Lowther’s candidacy for Cumberland in the forthcoming parliamentary election and anticipated that they would carry it together with the Tory Lawson.<sup>145</sup></p><p>Nicolson did not appear in the House of Lords until 7 Jan. 1708. He attended 61 per cent of sittings during the session. On his first day back, he received further encouragement from Somers, Sunderland and Halifax and relaxed in the evening at the Globe tavern with his fellow Cumberland-men Joseph Musgrave and Philip and Joseph Tullie, discussing the plight of silk weavers in the face of competition from cloth imported by the East India Company.<sup>146</sup> Tenison recommended Nicolson’s cathedral visitation case to his vicar-general, Sir John Cooke, on 8 Jan., and the next day John Evans, the bishop of Bangor, visited Nicolson and was ‘astonished on the reading of my case.’<sup>147</sup> On 12 Jan. Somers told Nicolson that he would bring in a bill for the security of cathedral chapter statutes (the cathedrals bill) aimed at nullifying the cause championed by Atterbury and Todd. The process of steering the bill through Parliament would demonstrate that Nicolson’s natural allies were principally Whig rather than Tory. On 15 Jan. Nicolson passed his draft of a bill to Somers in the Lords, and on the same day, for the first time since Nicolson’s return to London, Atterbury attempted to visit him at his lodgings. On 17 Jan. the barrister and legal writer William Salkeld, apparently working with Chesshyre on Nicolson’s case, assured him that bishops were local visitors of their chapters if no others had been appointed.<sup>148</sup> On 20 Jan. Nicolson attended the House after dinner where, during the protracted reading of letters and papers relating to Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, he conversed with Pembroke about the Irish coinage of King John.<sup>149</sup></p><p>Todd’s case was argued in common pleas on 26 Jan. 1708. Nicolson seemed satisfied with the arguments of his counsel Chesshyre and Sir Joseph Jekyll<sup>‡</sup> but was dismayed by the decision by three of the judges, Lord Chief Justice Thomas Trevor*, later Baron Trevor, Sir John Blencowe<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Tracy, that the case should be heard on 6 February. The fourth judge, Sir Robert Dormer<sup>‡</sup>, argued that common pleas was not the correct venue for the case which should be heard by way of appeal as in ‘the ordinary method of ecclesiastical procedure.’ The next day Nicolson found the gout-stricken Tenison ‘unwilling to stir so much as his tongue for me, till it will be too late’ while Chesshyre urged an unwilling Nicolson to build his case upon defence of the statutes.<sup>150</sup> Meanwhile on 22, 23 and 28 Jan. he attended the committee on the examination of Commodore William Ker, who was accused of having demanded £800 from merchants to provide a convoy for their vessels in the Caribbean, and the report of the committee (in Ker’s favour) on 29 Jan. before dining at Halifax’s with Halifax, Sunderland, Somers, John Moore and John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield where the cathedrals bill was perhaps a major topic of conversation.<sup>151</sup> On 2 Feb. Nicolson was joined by Somers at Lambeth where a circular letter from Tenison to the bishops of Canterbury province was read and approved; it declared Nicolson’s case ‘to be a common cause’ and complained of ‘that evil generation of men who make it their business to search into little flaws in ancient charters and statutes’.<sup>152</sup> The next day Somers introduced the cathedrals bill in the Lords.</p><p>The prospects for Nicolson’s court case looked bleak when Jekyll refused both Nicolson’s second breviat and a fee on 4 Feb., promising to support ‘my bill’ in the Commons instead. On 6 Feb. Trevor, Blencowe, and Tracy (the latter ‘most immoderately’) gave their judgment in favour of Todd and so prevented Nicolson from making his visitation.<sup>153</sup> Wake thought Nicolson ‘very hardly treated’ by the court, ‘but we hope will find some remedy against the violence of some person’s procedure against him.’<sup>154</sup> On 10 Feb. Nicolson was served with a writ of prohibition and received a request from Todd for absolution from excommunication. He refused the latter on the grounds that he was outside his diocese. Aside from his battle with Atterbury, Nicolson was involved in other episcopal business, assisting Sharp on 8 Feb. at the consecration of William Dawes*, as bishop of Chester.<sup>155</sup></p><p>On 11 Feb., the day after the issuing of the writ of prohibition, and the same day on which there was ‘sure news of the quitting of Secretary Harley’, Atterbury came, ‘in a peaceful temper’ to visit Nicolson, and spent some hours with him. Two days later, Nicolson learned from William Cowper*, Baron Cowper that Sharp was opposed to the cathedrals bill on the grounds that the court of common pleas had decided against it, and that he had persuaded the queen to agree with him. Cowper promised to ‘set her right’. Moore and Wake were ‘secured’ on 14 Feb., but Cowper advised the adjourning of the committee on the bill until 19 Feb. so that all the judges could be present, as the best way to win over the queen. Copies of Nicolson’s printed case arrived on 17 Feb. and he began distribution. Sharp told him of his opposition in person.<sup>156</sup> On 18 Feb. Nicolson borrowed Wake’s coach to distribute his paper around London.<sup>157</sup> The next day the bill was debated in a committee of the whole and, despite heated exchanges between Sharp and Somers, it was passed without a division.<sup>158</sup> Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> reported to Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, that despite the presumed efforts of Harley and his allies to persuade her otherwise, the queen ‘expressed herself entirely satisfied with the merits of the bishop’s cause.’<sup>159</sup></p><p>Nicolson moved immediately to lobby the Commons for the bill. On 20 Feb. he gained Tenison’s permission to distribute the archbishop’s letter of 2 Feb. among Members.<sup>160</sup> Nicolson built his support from existing friends and connections, such as the bookseller Awnsham Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. James Lowther, though not at that time a Member, and Robert Dale of the record office at the Tower of London, took six copies each to distribute. He ‘endeavoured’ to leave copies with Richard Musgrave and James Grahme, perhaps an indication that these old Cumberland Tory associates of his were not warm towards Nicolson’s bill, which had been enthusiastically pursued by Whigs. On 24 Feb. Nicolson visited the speaker of the Commons, John Smith<sup>‡</sup>, Jekyll, Burnet, a supportive Sir David Dalrymple<sup>‡</sup>, and William Seton<sup>‡ </sup>(‘The Scots’, he noted, were ‘most zealously, and unanimously, my friends’), as well as Wake before going to the House where the bill was given a third reading and sent down to the Commons.<sup>161</sup></p><p>In his visits on that day, Nicolson learned that Harley intended to orchestrate anticlerical sentiment in opposition to his legislation, and would argue that ‘the passing of this bill into a law will put the election of 28 members in the hands of the bishops’. Nicolson secured the services of Peter King† (later Baron King) to steer the bill through the lower House, though the latter expressed some sympathy with Todd. Furthermore, when Nicolson learned on 26 Feb. that Atterbury had printed and was distributing a pamphlet objecting to the bill, he rapidly composed <em>Short Remarks on a Paper of Reasons against the Passing of the Bill</em> and had it printed that night.<sup>162</sup> On the following day Nicolson was called from dinner with Christopher Musgrave to receive a message from Somers, who urged Nicolson’s immediate absolution of Todd. With little choice but to comply with this unpalatable request, Nicolson visited Doctors’ Commons where neither Sir John Cooke nor Thomas Tillot, clerk of the convocation of Canterbury, could find a precedent for a bishop absolving an excommunicant when outside his own diocese. Following visits to King, Lord Chief Justice Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Parker<sup>† </sup>(later earl of Macclesfield), and a further consultation with Cooke, Nicolson was pressed by Somers and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, to accept the necessity of absolving Todd.<sup>163</sup> On 28 Feb. Nicolson provided absolution in form for Todd. Parker, satisfied that Nicolson was not seeking to frustrate a judgment in common pleas, subsequently helped to manage the debate that day in the Commons.<sup>164</sup></p><p>The opposition to Nicolson’s bill in the Commons was led by Harley, Harcourt, John Sharp<sup>‡</sup>, the son of the archbishop (their conduct was reported to Nicolson as ‘intemperate’) and Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, all of whom had recently resigned from the government. Nicolson’s principal allies were the Whigs King, Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup> and Sir James Montagu. Nicolson collected the statutes of the ‘new cathedrals’ from Lambeth on 1 Mar. and that evening entertained Members who supported the bill at the Dog tavern. The next few days were spent ‘coach[ing] about… soliciting’, revising Wake’s draft of a letter in favour of the bill and circulating this and another by Nicolson which he referred to as his <em>Case of the Twelve Cathedrals</em>.<sup>165</sup> The Commons in committee rejected two wrecking amendments and passed supportive ones on 9 Mar., leaving Nicolson to celebrate success with ‘rejoicing, at dinner’ on 9 Mar. with Kennett, Gibson, John Waugh and Thomas Benson. On 17 Mar. the bill finally passed the Commons without a final rider proposed by the younger John Sharp, whom Nicolson had dubbed ‘spit-fire’ Sharp for his robust opposition to the bill. The next day Nicolson was ‘heartly thanked’ for his services to the Church by Tenison, and told Wake that the Commons had passed the bill without a division since ‘its opposers (not being half the number of its friends) had not the courage to divide upon the question’.<sup>166</sup></p><p>Nicolson was ‘accosted by Dr Todd’ on 19 Mar., and the next day, when the bill had passed the royal assent, Nicolson and Todd effected a formal reconciliation in the presence of Sir James Montagu and James Grahme, the latter having been unsupportive on the bill, much to Nicolson’s frustration.<sup>167</sup> Grahme and Nicolson dined at Christopher Musgrave’s on 23 Mar., where Joseph Musgrave confirmed that he intended to stand for Appleby in the next election to the Commons. He did not want Nicolson’s support, a sign that Nicolson’s alignment with the Whigs at Westminster was not thought helpful by his long-established Tory connections in the northern counties. Nicolson achieved a rapid reconciliation with Sharp at a meeting on 25 Mar., and chose ‘easiness’ with Todd, to Gibson’s disapproval.<sup>168</sup> He was present for the prorogation on 1 April. At his taking leave of Tenison on 3 Apr. the archbishop told him that Harley had been paying a messenger to be sent to Atterbury from the government secret service account. Nicolson left London on 5 Apr., ten days before the dissolution.<sup>169</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1708</em></h2><p>Nicolson was listed as a Whig in the printed list of the first parliament of Great Britain. Despite his apparent change of party allegiance, Nicolson’s electioneering was still deeply informed by his local influences and allies. In his cathedral city, Nicolson had been sympathetic to Christopher Musgrave’s candidacy, but on 15 Apr. he told Richard Aglionby that Musgrave would need the approval of the earl of Carlisle, Sir James Montagu and Joseph Reed, the Whig leader of Carlisle’s butchers’ company. Nicolson recorded, perhaps sympathetically, a Carlisle alderman’s hope that ‘one dry election will help to change interests’ on 6 May; he turned down an offer of money for Musgrave’s campaign ‘till fairer prospect’ on 10 May.<sup>170</sup> Musgrave had his suspicions, regarding Nicolson’s protestations of support as a ‘bamboozle’ in a letter of 15 May. Nicolson may have wished to avoid a contest and ensure the return of Members who would stifle or at least not perpetuate the strife promoted by Atterbury and Todd, and was probably backing Sir James Montagu who had assisted with the cathedrals bill’s passage through the Commons.<sup>171</sup> Montagu and Stanwix were returned on 20 May. In Cumberland Nicolson seems to have aimed to achieve a balance of interests, as he rejected George Fletcher, who was being promoted as a Whig partner for James Lowther, in favour of the Tory Gilfrid Lawson<sup>‡</sup>. Lawson was in the event returned with Lowther. In Westmorland, Nicolson refused to support the candidacy of James Grahme on the grounds that Grahme had abstained in the Commons’ division on the cathedrals bill; Nicolson too would therefore too remain ‘neuter’.<sup>172</sup></p><p>Over the summer Nicolson was engaged in enforcing the laws against Catholics, with the support of the earl of Carlisle as lord lieutenant. Gilfrid Lawson (whose denials that he was a Catholic left the question ‘as cloudy as ever’), though, threatened to make public his disapproval, and Nicolson complained to Wake in early August about the lack of enthusiasm shown by magistrates for taking Catholics into custody.<sup>173</sup> As the first session of the new Parliament approached, Nicolson was reluctant to leave his diocese until he had settled cathedral affairs to his satisfaction. On 9 Oct., Nicolson wrote to Wake that he had ‘flattered’ himself in thinking the Cathedrals Act would have secured peace, but it had failed to have the desired mollifying effect.<sup>174</sup> The new Parliament opened on 16 Nov. 1708 but Nicolson did not resume his seat until the following February. Todd’s rejection of the new cathedral statutes was circumvented on 30 Nov. by having the vice-dean and chapter attest them instead; Todd refused to subscribe them, but withdrew his protestation, though Nicolson considered him ‘entirely in another’s disposal’—meaning Atterbury’s.<sup>175</sup> On 4 Dec. 1708 Nicolson told Wake that he hoped to attend the House after Christmas, and asked him to accept his proxy.<sup>176</sup></p><p>Nicolson’s departure for London was further delayed by appalling weather conditions, but despite lingering thick snow he set out on horseback on 26 Jan. 1709, taking a coach only once he had reached Ware on 5 Feb., arriving in London later the same day.<sup>177</sup> On 6 Feb. he visited Sharp, whom he found ‘kind and pleasant’ when discussing the dominant Whig junto and their Scottish allies the Squadrone; he also visited Christopher Musgrave and his nephew Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt. (one of whom was out and the other still in bed); dined at his sister’s and spent the evening with Tenison and Gibson at Lambeth.<sup>178</sup> On Monday 7 Feb. he resumed his seat in the House. He attended for some 54 per cent of sittings in the whole session. On 8 Feb. he read prayers and was ‘friendly treated’ by Cowper, afterwards dining with Sir James Dalrymple and other Scottish acquaintances; on 9 Feb. he visited Halifax who was ‘wondrous sweet’ and on 12 Feb. expressed shame that Lonsdale waited on him before he had a chance to pay his respects to Lonsdale.<sup>179</sup> Nicolson’s specially noted of 17 Feb. that nine Scots peers were among the 11 lords temporal who accompanied the lord chancellor and bishops to the thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey that day.<sup>180</sup> Atterbury visited him on 19 Feb., complaining about the Cathedrals Act and worrying about the implications for the Church on ‘a second invasion’—the proposed naturalization of foreign Protestants.<sup>181</sup> On 2 Mar. Nicolson repaid a loan from Christopher Musgrave.<sup>182</sup></p><p>On 25 Feb. the bill for preserving and enlarging the harbour of Whitehaven was first read in the Lords, promoted by James Lowther as a response to the Parton Harbour Act. On 4 Mar. Nicolson interpreted the duke of Somerset’s actions in the House as ‘kindness’ to the bill, but the following day Somerset ‘hardly allowed’ the bill to pass a committee of the whole. On 12 Mar., Nicolson recorded the passage of the bill, much to his own and Lowther’s satisfaction.<sup>183</sup> Nicolson was also concerned in the passage of the general naturalization bill. On 15 Mar. he and Dawes offered an amendment to insist that naturalized citizens worship at a parochial service, rather than attend any reformed protestant assembly. This conservative amendment was supported by ten bishops and opposed by seven, including Tenison.<sup>184</sup> When the House went into committee of the whole on 18 Mar. on the Whig bill to improve the Union (also known as the treason bill), Nicolson voted with the other bishops present in the division on amending the bill’s first paragraph (to list the relevant English statutes).<sup>185</sup> Four days later he voted with the Scots peers against the court in favour of the stipulation that those accused of treason be given a list of witnesses five days before their trial. On 23 Mar., after receiving medical treatment at the House on a neck swelling, he voted again on the bill, this time against an amendment proposed by the Scots.<sup>186</sup> Two days later he voted with the Scottish peers for a resumption of the House on the bill, to allow further consideration of a proposal concerning the validity of Scottish marriage settlements, but on 28 Mar. opposed the rider proposed by Francis North*, 2nd Baron Guilford, allowing those accused of treason to be provided with a list of witnesses. Many of the Scottish peers present protested at its rejection and the next day, reading prayers and sitting alone on the bishops’ bench, he recorded that he was ‘frowned on by the northern lords, angry at yesterday’s vote’. That day the earl of Carlisle suggested he and Nicolson ‘settle the affairs of Cumberland’, probably the commission of the peace.<sup>187</sup> On 30 Mar. he signed the Lords’ declaration against tacking. On 2 Apr., Halifax agreed with Nicolson that it would be prudent to drop the treason bill.<sup>188</sup> Nicolson introduced William Fleetwood*, of St Asaph, to the House on 4 April.<sup>189</sup> On the following day, he sat in the Commons gallery to hear the debate on the treason bill. On 6 Apr. he spoke in a debate on the stamp bill; a clause that allowed special conditions for Quakers passed the House despite episcopal opposition; Nicolson, however, proposed a clause concerning Quaker marriages which borrowed a phrase from a statute of 1695. Nicolson had learned on 30 Mar. that he had been attacked in print by the Cumbrian Quaker George Whitehead on his opposition to the Quaker form of marriage.<sup>190</sup></p><p>Concerned in Scottish Episcopalian affairs, Nicolson drew up a paper on 9 Apr. at the solicitation of one James Gordon relating to the Aberdeen clergy for James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S] and duke of Dover, and Henry Compton.<sup>191</sup> On 12 Apr. Nicolson gave Carlisle a list of 12 names to be added to the commission of the peace, later joined the committee of records in the queen’s bench and court of wards, and met Tenison at Lambeth where they discussed their differences over measures in Parliament. The Lords considered the Commons’ amendments to the treason bill on 14 April; all bishops present agreed that the amendments should be implemented only after the death of the Pretender.<sup>192</sup> Nicolson reported to Wake that the debate had ended in peace despite the opposition of Nicolson’s ‘northern neighbours’.<sup>193</sup> The records committee met on 19 Apr. to hear Halifax’s report, to which Nicolson proposed some amendments, which were accepted.<sup>194</sup> On 20 Apr. Nicolson attended the Lords for the single reading of the Act of Indemnity, each lord standing to give his assent until all had voted.<sup> <sup>195</sup></sup> The next day he was present for the prorogation, reporting in detail to an absent Wake the rituals observed during proceedings, and expressing his optimistic opinion of Halifax’s report from the records committee.<sup>196</sup> On Easter Day, 24 Apr., Nicolson preached at the abbey, followed by dinner with Sprat.<sup>197</sup> Three days later, after visiting Somers, Carlisle and Halifax, he was one of those who examined the Lords’ Journal.<sup>198</sup> He left London on 29 April. He did not return for 19 months.<sup>199</sup></p><p>Nicolson’s correspondence with Wake over 1709-10 concerned with the plight of the Palatine protestants, Scottish ecclesiastical affairs and his ongoing feud with Atterbury, who favoured him with yet another ‘elegant harangue against resisting of the powers’.<sup>200</sup> Concerned that his diocese was too poor to make much of a showing in the raising of charitable funds, he observed on 13 Oct. that ‘if large contributions on this occasion be the true distinguishing character of Whigs, we shall assuredly pass for rank Tories’.<sup>201</sup> Nicolson did not attend the November 1709 session, telling Wake that he would not travel to London unless ‘anything of moment comes in view’.<sup>202</sup> He registered his proxy in Wake’s favour, in a letter of 15 Dec. thanking him for this and for having ‘generously patronized my late cause in Parliament, and helped to rescue me out of the power of the lion and the bear’. Nicolson’s main political preoccupation was the establishment of freedom of worship for Episcopalians in Scotland and the possibility that the petition of James Greenshields, then before the court of session in Edinburgh, might be brought to the Lords. While the disposition of the bench of bishops as a whole was ‘a question much too weighty’ for him, ‘my neighbours and I’ recognized that the Presbyterian religion was established by law in Scotland and confirmed by the Treaty of Union. To Nicolson it was inconceivable that the Scots had</p><blockquote><p>any sort of colourable pretence ... to deny her Majesty’s subjects, of our communion, the same privileges ... which we allow to others of theirs. If the extemporary prayers of Presbyterians pass current on this side of the Tweed, why should not the episcopal set forms be likewise received on the other ... provided, that they who officiate are equally conformable to the civil government?</p></blockquote><p>Nicolson was confident that although Greenshields’s petition for toleration of Episcopalian worship might offend the Scottish ‘high-fliers’ (‘for the birds are common to both climates’) the people would accept that an objection ‘savours nothing of that friendly intercourse which is most likely to nourish and strengthen the tender Union’ and was particularly concerned that Wake have no hand in condemning Greenshields’s petition, but would delay its consideration to avoid offending the Scots.<sup>203</sup></p><p>Nicolson had also learned of course of Henry Sacheverell’s notorious sermon and the impeachment proceedings against him. On 5 Jan. 1710 he forwarded to Wake his thoughts on legal precedents, judging that ‘what’s delivered from the pulpit would fall as improperly’, in the first instance, ‘before the great council and judicature of the nation; were it not ... that the causing of a seditious sermon to be printed and published changes the nature of the transgression’.<sup>204</sup> By early February Nicolson had his horses saddled so that he ‘should not be backward in venturing [his] carcass’, as he was aware his proxy could not be used in the Lords in a matter of judicature. Where Wake could use his proxy, Nicolson requested that his friend use it ‘on the same side of the question with your own’.<sup>205</sup> Wake, though, was confident that ‘the doctor and his rabble’ would be dealt with without need for Nicolson to travel.<sup>206</sup> By 25 Feb., happy that he was not in the ‘storm at Westminster’, Nicolson was more concerned about Greenshields’s imprisonment by the Edinburgh magistrates, and was wary of its implications for the Union. If England and Scotland ‘were to be still under the direction of diverse laws, as to religious discipline and our civil rights’, this now looked like ‘a gross mistake, if the supremacy be in the Kirk, independent of her Majesty, and even of the queen and Parliament in conjunctions: which (nevertheless) is the doctrine of our neighbours’.<sup>207</sup> Nicolson thought Sacheverell’s behaviour after the verdict, his ‘forms of prayer and thanksgiving (on the score of his persecution and deliverance)’ amounted to ‘a piece of banter, too much bordering on profaneness or a mockery of the Almighty.’<sup>208</sup></p><p>Nicolson began his next diocesan visitation after Easter 1710 in a far more congenial atmosphere given Atterbury’s absence and Todd’s career ambitions which rendered him temporarily quiescent.<sup>209</sup> He was also sanguine about the political situation in the north. At the end of April he was praised warmly by Lowther for blocking a high Tory address in Carlisle and ensuring ‘that matters went so well there’.<sup>210</sup> Nicolson told Wake that an address had been proposed at the quarter sessions ‘but the projector and his project were immediately hissed off the stage, and the justices were generally inclined to speak (if at all) in another sort of language’.<sup>211</sup> Confident in early May that the Pretender, who was rumoured to have landed in the western highlands, was unlikely to find many friends in the border country, Nicolson boasted that ‘in politics we are still as well tempered as ever’ with no ‘extraordinary frolic in this northern province’, ‘no sacrifices ... (nor fires kindled) to Dr Sacheverell’. He had heard that Sacheverell had been raised in effigy on a signpost at Nottingham alongside representations of Robin Hood and Little John: ‘There let him hang!’<sup>212</sup> A little more concerned about Scotland at the end of May, he reported to Wake intelligence from his chaplain, recently returned from there, that many Scottish Episcopalians were now, under the direction of the deprived bishop of Edinburgh, ‘entirely in the interest of the Pretender, and will allow none of his followers to pray for the queen’, their private liturgy containing prayers for the royal family in only ‘mangled and curtailed’ fashion. These Jacobite ministers, Nicolson claimed, were as much enemies to James Greenshields as to the Scottish Assembly.<sup>213</sup> By July Nicolson also had to admit that he had spoken too hastily of peace in the diocese; he confessed to Lowther that he was ‘very apprehensive of the designs of a great many in favour of the Pretender among those who make such a noise about the strict hereditary right’, and he told Wake about how a seditious address was circulating throughout Cumberland, ‘a work of darkness, carried on only by stealth’.<sup>214</sup></p><p>Nicolson learned from Lord Carlisle on 8 July 1710 that Harley intended to seek support for his new ministry through elections for a new Parliament. He assured James Lowther of an ‘easy election’ in the event of a dissolution.<sup>215</sup> Lowther (who worried that he might have antagonized the county’s Whig peers for ‘standing out against the violent proceedings of both parties’ in the previous Parliament) assumed that Nicolson, as a member of the bench, would speak for him at the assizes if necessary, which might flush out any potential opposition.<sup>216</sup> By 7 Aug., Nicolson, writing to Wake, thought that Harley and his allies should have called elections ‘while the spirit of the Doctor was most vigorously upon us. Whereas, the giving time to cool again appeared ever to me as a sure indication of other kind of purpose’. Even if elections were called, he remained certain that the county of Cumberland would ‘(as at present) send up five Whigs to one Tory’.<sup>217</sup> Nevertheless, throughout August, Nicolson involved himself in each of the electoral campaigns across his diocese. He intended to support Lowther for Cumberland although he was one of only three people to respond positively to Lowther’s initial 69 letters soliciting support.<sup>218</sup> Following news of Godolphin’s dismissal and the subsequent departure of the leading Whigs from government, Nicolson informed the Musgraves that he had prevented an outbreak of addressing and counter-addressing to preserve the peace of the two counties.<sup>219</sup> He became involved in sensitive discussions on the venue for the Cumberland election, favouring Dalston, close to Carlisle and Rose Castle, and ‘amongst the bishops’ tenants, near my Lord Carlisle’s, Lord Lonsdale’s, Lord Portland’s’ [Henry Bentick*, 2nd earl of Portland.<sup>220</sup> In the Westmorland elections, Nicolson was an observer rather than an active participant, reporting (incorrectly) to Lowther that Daniel Wilson<sup>‡</sup> would not stand and that ‘the Junto of Appleby’ were behind Sir Christopher Musgrave.<sup>221</sup> In August, at the home of the earl of Carlisle, Nicolson had been assured by the corporation that the city of Carlisle would continue to support its Whig sitting members, Sir James Montagu and Thomas Stanwix.<sup>222</sup></p><p>Despite Nicolson’s claim that Cumberland had never been ‘much infected with the common contagion’ of Tories riding on support for Dr Sacheverell, the campaign began to reflect the prevailing Tory electoral momentum.<sup>223</sup> Nicolson, at Lady Lonsdale’s request, informed Lowther of the agreement reached between himself, Carlisle, Lawson and Lowther’s agent at the assizes on 31 Aug., that Lowther and Lawson should join forces in the county to oppose any third candidate.<sup>224</sup> Their main concern was that otherwise Lawson would link up with Richard Musgrave to form a joint Tory ticket.<sup>225</sup> Lowther was confident that Nicolson could influence Lawson to agree, and by early September, Nicolson assured Lowther that he was ‘entirely satisfied with Mr Lawson’s declaration’.<sup>226</sup> Nicolson was still engaged in the case of Greenshields who, he feared on 18 Sept., was being misrepresented in Scotland as ‘a daring and seditious incendiary’ determined to bring down Presbyterian church government, thereby preventing the acceptance in Scotland of the English ‘reasonable’ worship and continuing to force Scottish Episcopalians to pray for the Pretender if they valued episcopacy.<sup>227</sup></p><p>After the news of the dissolution on 21 Sept., campaigning began in earnest and Nicolson became more nervous. He wrote on 5 Oct. to Lowther that he wished the latter back in the north ‘since after the opposition raised to such a height at Carlisle and Cockermouth, nothing can be secure till over’.<sup>228</sup> Ultimately he was vindicated when the agreement between Lowther and Lawson not to encourage any third candidate, backed by Nicolson and Carlisle, stood firm.<sup>229</sup> Nicolson did not take an active part in the Westmorland election. In Carlisle, he had been waited on by Colonel Samuel Gledhill, ‘a partisan of the D. of Argyll’ [John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] and earl of Greenwich] but ‘not clear in his pretensions to Parliament’; when Nicolson would not support him, Gledhill turned for support to Hugh Todd.<sup>230</sup> Nicolson campaigned for Montagu and Gledhill was forced into third place.<sup>231</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1710</em></h2><p>Nicolson returned to London on 8 Dec. 1710. He dined with James Greenshields on 11 Dec. who told him that only two of the Scottish representative peers, Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton [S] and John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], could be counted as ‘truly Episcopal’ (supporting the Protestant succession), and thought that the Jacobite bishop of Edinburgh, Alexander Rose, had too strong an influence on the others.<sup>232</sup> Nicolson was prevented from taking the oaths at the House on 14 Dec. by a meeting at Sir James Montagu’s house with the joint postmaster-general, Sir Thomas Frankland<sup>‡</sup>, probably to discuss misconduct by the postmaster at Carlisle, and a visit to Lord Halifax.<sup>233</sup> Over dinner at Lambeth on 16 Dec., Tenison conversed with Nicolson ‘with great freedom’.<sup>234</sup> Nicolson finally resumed his seat on 18 Dec., where he received with delight the news that Atterbury would leave the Carlisle deanery to become dean of Christ Church, Oxford.<sup>235</sup></p><p>Nicolson attended 52 per cent of sittings that session, where much of his time was taken up with the struggle against Samuel Gledhill’s petition against the Carlisle election the previous year, and James Greenshields’s petition for the Lords to hear his case against the city magistrates of Edinburgh. He was one of the two archbishops and 17 bishops who attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth on 26 December.<sup>236</sup> The next day he undertook a series of calls with James Greenshields, meeting Eglinton; James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S]; Balmerinoch; David Melville*, 3rd earl of Leven [S]; and David Carnegie*, 4th earl of Northesk [S]. Nicolson appears to have helped distribute Greenshields’ printed case, and was taken by John Evans to Lord Cowper’s house ‘in the country’ the next day.<sup>237</sup> On 30 Dec. he met Greenshields and Richard Dongworth, the Edinburgh-educated Lincolnshire clergyman who advised Wake on Scottish matters, ‘with papers relating to the true state of religion in Scotland.’ Meanwhile Nicolson expressed his relief to his diary that Marlborough, was ‘highly caressed’ by the court on his return from Flanders.<sup>238</sup> On 3 Jan. 1711 Nicolson waited on the queen; introduced by Somerset, he asked her to honour her apparent assent to Nicolson’s nomination of canon Thomas Tullie to the deanery, which she declined to do explicitly.<sup>239</sup> His dinner with James Lowther, Sir James Montagu and Christopher Wandesford<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Castlecomer [I], Whig member for Morpeth, perhaps concerned their response to the petition of Samuel Gledhill against the result of the Carlisle election the previous year. Gledhill alleged that Nicolson had circulated a letter containing details of Montagu’s £1,000 government pension in order to show that Montagu still retained the queen’s favour, despite his removal from the position of attorney general, and thereby to influence the electorate on behalf of Montagu. It was alleged that the letter had claimed that the pension had been given specifically to help Gledhill to win the election in Carlisle.<sup>240</sup> Nicolson also continued to lobby on behalf of Greenshields, arranging on 8 Jan. for Gibson to introduce him to Tenison, and agreeing, on Eglinton’s urging, to ‘undertake’ Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], in the legal part of Greenshields’s appeal.<sup>241</sup></p><p>During his visit to Balmerinoch on 27 Dec. 1710, Nicolson had learned that Rochester had been warning court supporters of ‘warm work’ ahead on Spanish affairs.<sup>242</sup> The Tory assault on the conduct of the Spanish campaign was unrolled in the Lords in January. On 9 Jan. 1711 in a division in committee of the whole House on the technical question of whether the House be resumed (the real issue being whether Peterborough had given a just account of affairs before the battle of Almanza), Nicolson voted with the majority of bishops against the motion and thus approving Peterborough’s conduct.<sup>243</sup> Two days later, in a more overt attack on the previous ministry regarding the loss of Almanza, Nicolson again voted with the Whigs; having ‘stole off’ at three in the afternoon to celebrate his niece’s birthday he returned in time to register his protest twice against resolutions that defeat at Almanza was the fault of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I] (champion of the Huguenots), Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I] and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup> (later Earl Stanhope).<sup>244</sup> On 12 Jan. he again protested against the censure of Junto ministers for having approved a military offensive in Spain. On the same day Nicolson gave Dongworth and Greenshields abstracts of the answer of the magistrates of Edinburgh to Greenshields’s petition. On 17 Jan. he visited Leven and Balmerinoch and also a Scottish lord who was not a representative peer but who lived in the same street as the other two, James Carmichael, 2nd earl of Hyndford [S].</p><p>The voting on the Spanish campaigns continued over late January and early February. Nicolson’s diary implies that on 24 Jan. he voted against the motion that the earl of Galway’s conduct had dishonoured Great Britain. On 3 Feb. he voted against a motion that implied neglect by the Junto ministry and twice protested against the resolution that the army’s Spanish establishment at the time of Almanza lacked sufficient manpower and resources.<sup>245</sup> Nicolson’s fidelity to the old ministry was matched by his continued liaison with the Whig peers as he prepared for the introduction of Greenshields’ petition into the Lords: Hyndford advised caution regarding the measure on 5 Feb., the day Nicolson again voted with the Whigs against the bill for reversing the Act of General Naturalization. On 6 Feb., after attempts to visit Lords Carlisle and Somers, Nicolson succeeded in meeting Eglinton who thought that Greenshields’ business might be ‘seasonably moved’.<sup>246</sup> The House was still engaged by the debates and votes on the Almanza campaign: on 8 Feb. Nicolson protested against both the resolution to address the queen and the resolution to retain wording in an address to the queen on the war in Spain that implied criticism of the previous ministry’s use of parliamentary grants. The same day he had provided Sir James Montagu with letters relevant to Gledhill’s petition to overturn the Carlisle election, a cause Nicolson considered ‘senseless’.<sup>247</sup> On 15 Feb. he was assured by William North*, 6th Baron North, that he would move Greenshields’ appeal the following Saturday.<sup>248</sup> Nicolson spent the next few days gathering support, including an attempt to wait on George Mackenzie, earl of Cromarty [S], lord justice general of Scotland and an advocate of further integration of England and Scotland. The petition was eventually read in the Lords on Monday 19 Feb. and scheduled to be heard on 1 March.</p><p>On 20 Feb. 1711 Nicolson obtained ‘tacit leave’ to attend the Commons for the debate on Gledhill’s petition, where a chair was provided for him; but Gledhill’s friends, led by the Tory October Club, successfully adjourned the debate for three weeks by 154 to 151 votes, which to Nicolson was ‘leave given for the man’s running away’. Nicolson’s supporters, the Cumberland Members James Lowther and Gilfrid Lawson, were the tellers against the adjournment. Attending the Lords on 21 Feb., Nicolson was ‘much complimented’ for the problems he was undergoing and concerted efforts were made by a discreet Wake and by Harley to prevent Gledhill’s success. On 22 Feb. Nicolson was visited by Balmerino to discuss Greenshields’ case and by Gilfrid Lawson with news that Nicolson’s brother-in-law Edward Carlile was among the witnesses called by Gledhill. Greenshields showed Nicolson the proofs of the printed edition of his case on 25 February.<sup>249</sup> On 26 Feb. Nicolson fell into an argument at the House with Guernsey who argued that he and the Church no longer shared the same faith because (as Nicolson saw it) they were ‘not of his opinion’.<sup>250</sup></p><p>Nicolson was joined at his lodgings the next day by Somers, Cowper, Hough, Evans and Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, to discuss Greenshields’s appeal. They agreed to keep any proposed legislation on religious toleration ‘to the civil part, without touching on the authority of the Kirk’, since the Whig grandees wanted to avoid alienating the Scottish Presbyterians. On 1 Mar. 1711 the House reversed the decree of the Edinburgh magistrates against Greenshields unanimously, the overwhelming majority of bishops (all 20 present in Nicolson’s account) in agreement. The following day John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, in a select committee meeting where both were present, suggested to Nicolson that the queen should provide for Greenshields in England. Nicolson now began to canvass support for religious toleration in Scotland and on 5 Mar. discussed the issue with Eglinton and Balmerinoch, although the latter was not yet in favour of legislation.<sup>251</sup> The Commons’ debate on Gledhill’s case resumed on 14 March. Nicolson was advised by Castlecomer to be ready to attend the Commons to attest what copies he had distributed of Montagu’s letter; Montagu himself followed urging that Nicolson seek admittance to the Commons, but Gilfrid Lawson, counted as one of the October Club but to Nicolson ‘my true friend in this whole matter’ argued that Nicolson’s appearance would be of help to neither as there was in his view no evidence against Montagu. Nicolson attended the Commons twice that time, at first unaware of the protocol that prevented the Commons’ Speaker from asking questions to a member of the Lords. He testified that he had circulated Montagu’s letter but that the words ‘To enable me to carry my election’ had not been in it, and he denied that Montagu had requested him to circulate it. He withdrew before the debate. Following the testimony of his ‘profligate registrar and quondam bailiff’ Richard Aglionby and Edward Walker that they had seen a letter in Nicolson’s handwriting with the offending words included, the motion that Nicolson had distributed the letter ‘reflecting on the honour of her Majesty’ with the intention of influencing the election and therefore ‘hath highly infringed the liberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain’ was carried by 20 votes, though Montagu’s election was confirmed.<sup> <sup>252</sup></sup> Lawson and Lowther again told against the motion. </p><p>The next day, as a result of these proceedings, Nicolson received a flurry of ‘compliments’ (some of congratulation, others of condolence) from John Evans, Sunderland, Somers, Halifax, Cowper, Montagu, Lowther and Lawson.<sup>253</sup> One Commons member reflected that the bishop had been convicted ‘upon evidence of two persons of the most abject character’; this ‘unjust treatment of the bishop’ would prove a Pyrrhic victory to the October Club ‘by whom it was carried’.<sup>254</sup> Two days later Nicolson refused to see Richard Aglionby, one of the witnesses against him, but visited Gibson who advised him to issue a printed statement about the Gledhill affair; Montagu agreed to provide the Commons’ minutes. The circle of support for Nicolson included Harley loyalists such as John Laugharne<sup>‡</sup>, whom Nicolson thanked, along with Montagu and Simon Harcourt, on 17 March. James Greenshields’s assurance on 18 Mar. that ‘all his countrymen (in the House of Commons) would have served’ Nicolson, if he had ‘given up’ Montagu, was however not much comfort, emphasizing the difficulty of maintaining his alliances.<sup>255</sup></p><p>Nicolson dined at Montagu’s with a number of his Commons’ supporters on 19 Mar. 1711, including Lawson, John Hutton<sup>‡</sup>, a ‘Mr Foley’ (probably Thomas Foley<sup>‡</sup>), Simon Harcourt, John Laugharne<sup>‡</sup> and ‘Mr Wortley’, probably Edward Wortley Montagu<sup>‡</sup>. Montagu then took him to Lord Carlisle’s where he also met James Grahme and Charles Cornwallis*, 4th Baron Cornwallis; it was also agreed that Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury should introduce him to the queen. The next day Greenshields and two colleagues conveyed the thanks of the bishop of Edinburgh for Nicolson’s help in relieving Scottish Episcopalians, and perhaps more welcome, Balmerinoch and John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], apologized for the conduct of the Scottish Members in voting against him in the Gledhill case. On 21 Mar. Nicolson visited Lowther to collect material for his planned vindication of himself from the Commons vote. Castlecomer assured him that the vote against him was actually ‘a deadly blow to the October-men’. Other Members expressing their sympathy included William Churchill<sup>‡</sup> and Joshua Churchill<sup>‡</sup>. Archbishop Sharp assured him that his son John Sharp had lent his support in the Commons. This was not in fact the case, but Nicolson does not seem to have borne a grudge against his metropolitan for trying to smooth over the matter.<sup>256</sup></p><p>Alongside Gledhill and Greenshields, Nicolson’s other activities continued; he attended the committee for records on 22 Mar. 1711 and read prayers in the Lords that day. He examined the Lords Journals up to the end of January. On 28 Mar. he attended the House for the last time that session, although the next day he was at the committee for records where he obtained a promise from Halifax and Parker that they would procure a warrant to seize papers from the Rolls Chapel which were in a ‘lame condition’. On 2 Apr. he waited on Carlisle and Wharton, and the latter introduced Nicolson to Shrewsbury, to whom Nicolson gave his statement on the Gledhill case; Shrewsbury agreed to show it to the queen. Later that day he dined with Trimnell, Kennett, Gibson, Lancelot Blackburne<sup>†</sup>, the future archbishop of York and Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Winchester, at Chelsea ‘where nobly entertained, as friends to the old establishment and ministry’. On 3 and 4 Apr. he sat on the Journal committee, chairing it on the latter day, then he registered his proxy in favour of John Evans, which was vacated at the end of the session. On 5 Apr. Nicolson left London in the York coach, missing the last two months of parliamentary business.<sup>257</sup></p><p>Nicolson returned to Rose Castle on 14 Apr. 1711 and made a hero’s entry into Carlisle on 23 April.<sup>258</sup> Anticipating this reception, Lowther was delighted with ‘the country design to show my lord bishop those distinguishing marks of the respect and honour they so justly have for him’.<sup>259</sup> As Nicolson told Wake on 9 June, he had arrived in Carlisle too late to meet his ‘three friends’ (the culprits in the Gledhill affair). His supporters, in contrast,</p><blockquote><p>testified their abhorrence at the rascally treatment I had from these villains; by giving me another of a different kind. The chief of the clergy and magistrates of the diocese met me at a dozen miles distance from my old home, and near twenty from Carlisle whence the officers of the garrison ... advanced two or three miles, with most of the inhabitants of any note. The mayor and aldermen received me at their utmost limits, in their formalities. At our entrance into the city we had nine great guns, and a guard of musketeers, and marching thence to the mayor’s house ... was entertained with a banquet of wine and sweetmeats.<sup>260</sup></p></blockquote><p>In a letter to Wake of 30 Aug. Nicolson acknowledged that any episcopal reshuffle was unlikely to lead to his translation even if Tenison or Henry Compton should die to ‘make way ... for the needy’.<sup>261</sup> On 15 Sept. he received a ‘short letter’ of farewell from Atterbury, who had been appointed dean of Christ Church; on 17 Sept. Nicolson learned Atterbury’s successor as dean of Carlisle would not be Tullie, as he had hoped, but one of Atterbury’s Christ Church associates, George Smalridge*, who would subsequently become bishop of Bristol. He was nevertheless optimistic that the ‘next seven years [would] pass smoother than the last’. On 7 Nov. Nicolson received a summons to return to London.<sup> <sup>262</sup></sup> He visited Wake at his London home on 20 Nov. and again on 26 Nov. (with Evans, Trimnell and Talbot) to prepare for business.<sup>263</sup> He attended the House on 7 Dec. for the start of the new parliamentary session and attended thereafter for 46 per cent of sittings. The following day he was forecast as being in favour of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ address. </p><p>The Gledhill affair was also far from over. On 10 Dec. 1711 the still disgruntled Gledhill (perhaps hoping that the new Tory ministry would be even more sympathetic) re-presented his petition complaining of Nicolson’s intervention in the election, now claiming that several of his supporters had been illegally disenfranchised after Nicolson had bribed and threatened voters. On 19 Dec. Nicolson had been forecast as voting with the opposition on the peerage case of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and the following day duly voted against the sitting of any Scottish peer by right of a British title created after the Union. On 2 Jan. 1712 he attended the House for the introduction of the 12 new Tory peers. In early January he dined mostly with old associates: with Gibson on 2 Jan.; with Gilfrid Lawson, the Tullie brothers and Sir James Montagu on 3 Jan.; with the antiquary Robert Sanderson on 4 Jan.; and with eight other bishops—Fleetwood, Burnet, Hough, Moore, now translated to Ely, Talbot, Evans and Trimnell—at Trelawny’s home in Chelsea on 5 January. In the same period he was visited by Greenshields and visited Lord Carlisle on 3 Jan., and visited Christopher and Sir Christopher Musgrave on 4 Jan. Two Quakers visited him on 10 Jan. ‘with proposals for making their Yea and Nay oaths in law’ in anticipation of discussion over the renewal of the 1696 Affirmation Act. On 16 Jan. Sir Christopher Musgrave visited to make ‘hearty offers of friendship’ to Nicolson and the earl of Carlisle, in the hope that Montagu’s election would be declared void and that he would find himself with a new electoral opportunity. Nicolson visited Montagu to tell him of Musgrave’s ‘false news’ the next day. On 23 Jan. Lowther visited ‘in good hopes’ of Montagu’s success. Nicolson spent much of both 30 and 31 Jan. with Greenshields, waiting on Eglinton and Cromarty on the second day, both of whom confirmed their support for toleration for Scottish Episcopalians. On 1 Feb. Gledhill’s second petition was defeated by nearly 30 votes in the Commons’ committee of elections.<sup>264</sup></p><p>The Quaker issue returned on 9 Feb. when Francis Bugg visited Nicolson with a pamphlet relating to the petition on affirmations which had been rejected that day by the Commons. On 12 Feb. Greenshields visited Nicolson to discuss what proved to be a ‘tedious’ committee on the Scottish toleration bill the next day, in which Nicolson (in opposition to Cowper and nine bishops) spoke against the ninth clause, which extended Episcopalian exemption from the censure of the Kirk to Presbyterians by prohibiting a magistrate from executing an ecclesiastical censure against anyone of either denomination. It was, Nicolson argued, ‘destructive of all ecclesiastical discipline’. Greenshields warned Nicolson on 15 Feb. that the Commons would refuse the inclusion of an abjuration oath in the toleration bill. Nicolson was also lobbied for Lowther’s Whitehaven bill, which extended the terms of his earlier act for the development of this port; Lowther visited Nicolson with ‘farther solicitations’ on 21 Feb., the day of the bill’s second reading. Gledhill’s petition on the Carlisle election came before the Commons on 23 Feb., the day after Montagu had read the committee chairman’s report with Nicolson; the committee’s judgment was confirmed by a majority of 15.<sup>265</sup> On 26 Feb. Nicolson visited Halifax to discuss the latter’s proposal to move records from the Rolls Chapel to the Tower of London. On the same day, the Lords passed the Commons’ pro-Episcopalian amendment to the Scottish toleration bill, Nicolson voting with the Whigs against the amendment after (according to Greenshields) being coerced by Evans and Wake. Greenshields regarded his vote as ‘extraordinary’ given the close involvement Nicolson had had in the preparation of the bill, though Nicolson and Greenshields dined together after the vote, presumably amicably.<sup>266</sup> On 9 Mar. Nicolson dined with a group of ‘high gentlemen’ with Cumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire connections, including Christopher and Joseph Musgrave, James Grahme and Henry Dawnay<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Downe [I].<sup>267</sup> Nicolson last attended the Lords that session on 28 Mar. (though his diary suggests it was the day before), registering his proxy in favour of John Evans on 31 Mar. (vacated at the end of the session on 8 July). On 1 Apr., having taken leave of Tenison, Nicolson left his lodgings and dined with his sister before spending the night at the White Hart in Aldersgate in order to take the early morning coach for Leeds.<sup>268</sup> He was thus not in the Lords when the Quaker affirmation clause (in the bill to prevent multiple voting in county elections), over which he had been solicited, came before the House on 6 May. Nicolson’s political affiliations were sufficiently flexible that on 1 June the earl of Oxford (as Harley had become), listed him as ‘doubtful’ rather than as an unambiguous opposition man. </p><p>Gibson asked Nicolson to keep Tenison informed of ‘how matters go in North Britain’, particularly the reactions of the Church of Scotland to events in Parliament.<sup>269</sup> Nicolson certainly wrote to Wake on Scottish ecclesiastical affairs.<sup>270</sup> Shortly after his return, he seems to have discussed with Lowther the impact on local trade if Parliament passed legislation to retain tobacco duty on exports to Ireland.<sup>271</sup></p><p>His major concern, though, was the ‘stupid’ level of political discourse in the diocese, ‘so little affected with occurrences of the public’ that the justices of Cumberland had to postpone an address to the queen about recent foreign policy until they had received explanations from Utrecht over whether the peace was ‘general’ or ‘separate’.<sup>272</sup> On 3 Aug. Nicolson refused to sign a county address which failed to mention the Protestant succession. The next month he told Wake that some of the ‘northern grandees’ would be upset to find ‘their chief director entirely in the interests of the House of Hanover’; he had heard, he wrote, that this would be made apparent before the end of the next session.<sup>273</sup></p><p>On 16 Nov. 1712 Nicolson’s wife Elizabeth, upon whom he had deeply relied, not only emotionally but particularly regarding communication with the diocese when in London, died after a long illness.<sup>274</sup> Parliament was not expected to sit before early in the new year: Gibson on 30 Nov. conveyed Tenison’s summons to the start of the new session.<sup> <sup>275</sup></sup> Nicolson was rescued from a winter journey south as the peace negotiations were more protracted than anticipated. Gibson wrote on 23 Jan. 1713 that he had delivered Nicolson’s proxy to Wake although he thought Parliament was unlikely to meet on 3 Feb. as planned.<sup>276</sup> In the event it did not meet until 9 April. Nicolson arrived in London on 14 Mar. 1713; the next day he visited Wake, who told him of an alliance between Russia, Prussia and Hanover, and on 16 Mar. called on Gibson, Sharp, Lonsdale, the two Christopher Musgraves and then found Halifax ensconced with Sunderland and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. Nicolson, Sunderland and Orford left when Oxford arrived to see Halifax. Nicolson thus stumbled on one of Oxford’s overtures to prominent Whigs, which led to ‘a report of coalition’.<sup>277</sup> Oxford was now confident that Nicolson would oppose the ministry. Nicolson was drawn into discussions of the forthcoming election: Lowther and Lonsdale hoped to settle matters well in advance of the election in respect of the Cumberland county seat, and Sir Christopher Musgrave assured the bishop that he would not stand for the county seats in either Cumberland or Westmorland.<sup>278</sup> Nicolson attended the House on 17 and 26 Mar. for prorogations and was present on 9 Apr. for the start of business. He attended for only 21 per cent of sittings, not attending after 19 May, ten days after the queen had announced her ratification of the peace and commerce treaties with France and her intention to sign the Treaty of Utrecht. The absence of Nicolson’s diary for the period 16 Mar. to 6 July 1713 leaves his views on developments in this period less clear than for other times in his parliamentary career. He returned to Rose Castle on 8 June and was kept up to date on parliamentary affairs by Gibson.<sup>279</sup> It was estimated in June 1713 by Oxford that Nicolson would oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty, but Nicolson missed all of the relevant divisions and the proxy book for the relevant period is missing. Six days after the dissolution on 8 Aug. 1713, Nicolson and Lonsdale asked Oxford to renew a recommendation of Thomas Tullie for the deanery of Carlisle following Smalridge’s elevation to the episcopate.<sup>280</sup> Nicolson was again refused and his favoured candidate was not named dean until 1716.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1713 and after</em></h2><p>The parliamentary elections of autumn 1713 saw marked changes of fortune. In Carlisle, a disillusioned Montagu did not seek re-election, while Sir Christopher Musgrave was voted in with Thomas Stanwix, although the absence of any contest probably reduced Nicolson’s need to involve himself. This was not the case with the Cockermouth election where he was prepared to support the sitting candidate James Stanhope. Nicolson wrote to Lowther that</p><blockquote><p>one that has been so remarkable buffeted (by your honourable house) for intermeddling in elections, ought not to be fond of thrusting into such crowds, and yet so little impression has that discipline had on me, I would venture very far to serve so good and great a man as General Stanhop[e]. What measures Lord L[onsdale] will think proper on this occasion, I cannot tell; but am very sure that his lordship is very heartily in the interests of this excellent person. You’ll have about half a dozen votes from this neighbourhood, as I am told. If Mr Lawson magnifies the general as much at Cockermouth tomorrow as he did at Carlisle yesterday, he’ll have no hand in the defeat of him: and I hope the burghers will (by this time) have so far recovered their senses as to see the disgrace they must bring upon themselves by quitting so honourable a representative.<sup>281</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite Nicolson’s support Stanhope was pushed into third place behind the Tory Joseph Musgrave and Whig Nicholas Lechmere<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Lechmere.</p><p>Nicolson had informed Gibson that he would return to London before the opening of Parliament, but he became preoccupied with domestic matters, including the unexpected rejection of his marriage proposal by Lady Hasell, a relative of the cathedral dean, Thomas Gibbon.<sup>282</sup> Gibson informed Nicolson that Trimnell had requested he return to the Lords by 16 Feb. 1714 at the latest.<sup>283</sup> The bishop responded that, despite having a visitation planned for 21 Feb., he would come immediately ‘had it been absolutely insisted on’, but since the opening of Parliament was still uncertain, he would set out on 22 Feb. and travel directly to London.<sup>284</sup> Nicolson was further delayed by his daughter’s wedding, and in a letter of 2 Mar., Nicolson learned from Gibson that the Commons intended to make a formal address of their ‘satisfaction ... in the provision already made for the Hanover succession’ and that he should not postpone further his journey south.<sup>285</sup> On 3 Mar. Nicolson finally left his diocese and on 15 Mar. resumed his seat in the House.<sup> <sup>286</sup></sup> He attended the session for 51 per cent of sittings. Before arriving at the House he received Wake’s proxy (vacated on 9 Apr. 1714). He attended the House throughout the debates and divisions on the succession, including for the very close vote on 5 Apr. 1714 on whether the Protestant succession was in danger. He resumed his frequent visits to Wake: he, Evans and Trimnell visited Wake on 12 Apr., the day before the Lords considered the queen’s reply to the address on the Pretender, when Nicolson voted with the majority of the bishops against the court.<sup>287</sup> Nicolson began from Mar. 1714 to exchange parliamentary and political news with Archbishop King in Dublin.<sup>288</sup> On 8 May he received the proxy of Richard Cumberland*, of Peterborough, and on 27 May was forecast by Nottingham as an opponent of the schism bill.<sup>289</sup></p><p>Nicolson’s parliamentary behaviour during the passage of the schism bill has occasioned much speculation due to conflicting and missing evidence. On 31 May Tenison asked Nicolson to attend the House for the debates.<sup>290</sup> In a debate on 11 June in committee of the whole House on extending the bill to Ireland, Nicolson voted with the Whigs against the clause, since to impose such a measure in Ireland would split Irish Protestants. He visited Tenison that afternoon; the substance of any conversation is unknown but he did not attend the House again that session.<sup>291</sup> Instead, the following day he registered his proxy in favour of Wake.<sup>292</sup> On 13 June Nicolson took his leave of colleagues at Westminster, leaving London the following day. His departure has been seen as a desertion of the Whigs before the third reading of the schism bill, which passed the Lords by only a handful of votes on 15 June.<sup>293</sup> Wake appears to have used Nicolson’s proxy to cancel out his own opposition vote.<sup>294</sup> Despite this, Gibson continued to think of Nicolson as a member of the opposition: on 5 July he wrote that he wished Nicolson had been present in the House to vote against the Spanish Commercial Treaty.<sup>295</sup> Following the accession of George I on 1 Aug., Gibson pressed Nicolson to return to the ‘glorious scene’ in the capital; he thought that as Nicolson had once escorted George I to Oxford, the new king might ‘conduct you to [the see of] Durham in due time’.<sup>296</sup></p><p>Nicolson remained at home, perhaps preparing for the necessary parliamentary elections, and did not attend the brief Parliamentary session in August. On 19 Aug., he warned Sir Christopher Musgrave that he would oppose him if he stood for election in Carlisle, as he had decided to support ‘a worthy person’ nominated by Carlisle to stand alongside Stanwix. Musgrave assented reluctantly.<sup>297</sup> In early October Nicolson reported to Lowther that ‘we continue here in the most profound quiet as to matters of election, everyone taking it for granted that there’s no room for the disturbers of our peace to fix a foot amongst us’.<sup>298</sup> By the end of the month he was less confident, telling Lowther that ‘in the country … (though you have the securest hold of any man living) interests are very unstable’, and discussing Lord Carlisle’s proposals for the new commission of the peace: </p><blockquote><p>His lordship was pleased to enclose a list of the late additional justices, and of the 19, I marked about half a dozen (amongst whom were two baronets, Sir C[hristopher] M[usgrave] and Sir Ch[arles] D[alston] whose quality, I thought, entitled them to be continued. Mr Appleby was the only person unnamed, whom I took the liberty to recommend. Nor did I propose the restoring of any, saving Mr. Gilpin and Mr Th[omas] Lamplugh’.</p></blockquote><p>Sir Christopher Musgrave, Nicolson told Lowther, had ‘a hankering’ to be elected for Westmorland; ‘the enterprise’, he added, would be ‘difficult’. Doubting that there would be a dissolution before Christmas since it would be inconvenient to have elections during the holidays, he judged that the reasonable stability of the county bench should ‘prevail with men to be peaceable and good humoured’. The Cumberland election passed without contest, Nicolson informing Lowther of ‘that unanimous choice which … this county have already made of yourself and Mr Lawson for their representatives’.<sup>299</sup></p><p>Nicolson resumed his seat in the new Parliament of March 1715. Nicolson’s political and parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next phase of this work. He eventually accepted translation to Ireland as bishop of Derry in March 1718. On 14 Feb. 1727 he died of apoplexy, shortly after being nominated to the archbishopric of Cashel. He left six children. His two surviving sons had also entered the Church; the eldest, Joseph, was chancellor of Lincoln and the younger, John (named joint executor with Nicolson’s daughter Catherine), had a living in Ireland.<sup>300</sup> Nicolson was buried in Derry Cathedral. Nicolson’s movement from moderate Tory to moderate Whig, and from a close association with Archbishop Sharp and with the Tory Musgraves to association with the Whig bishops Gibson, Wake and even Tenison, with national Whig grandees including Halifax, Somers and even Wharton, and with the dominant local Whigs, the Lowthers, had a variety of causes, including his common interests with Gibson and Wake in antiquarian pursuits, but was mostly forged in his struggle with Atterbury first over the history of Convocation and subsequently over the question of jurisdiction over the cathedral of Carlisle. He retained some of his more Tory attitudes, in particular on occasional conformity, and retained Tory friends and associations, with his links with the Musgraves, Sharp and others never broken.<sup>301</sup></p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
OTTLEY, Adam (1655-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>OTTLEY</surname></strong> (<strong>OATLEY</strong>), <strong>Adam</strong> (1655–1723)</p> |
|
|
First sat 17 Mar. 1713; last sat 3 Apr. 1721 |
cons. 14 Mar. 1713 bp. of ST DAVIDS |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 Jan. 1655, 2nd s. of Sir Richard Ottley<sup>‡</sup>, of Pitchford, Salop. gent. of privy chamber to Charles II, and Lettice (<em>d</em>.1668), da. of Robert Ridgeway, 2nd earl of Londonderry [I]. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Camb. matric. 1672, BA 1676, MA 1679, incorp. Oxf. 1682, Trinity Hall, Camb. fell. 1680-4, DD 1691; ord. priest 1682.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 24 Jan. 1688, Ann (<em>d</em>.1720), da. of Sir Samuel Baldwyn<sup>‡</sup>, of Elsedge, serjeant-at-law, <em>s.p</em>.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 4 Oct. 1723; will 25 Sept., pr. 25 Nov. 1723.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Rect. Pontesbury (Prestbury), Salop 1682, Cound, Salop 1684-1719;<sup>4</sup> residentiary canon Hereford 1686-1723; adn. Shropshire, Hereford 1687-1715; lecturer Hereford Cathedral 1690.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>According to James Brydges*, 8th Baron Chandos, Ottley was ‘blessed … with the good things of this life much above the generality of his brethren’. One of the Ottleys of Pitchford, a ‘very ancient’ royalist family that could trace its origins in Shropshire back to the thirteenth century, Ottley inherited the family estates in 1688 from his uncle Sir Adam Ottley, master of the court of chancery.<sup>6</sup> Both he and his elder brother, Thomas, married into the Baldwyn family (whose members traditionally sat in the Commons for Ludlow), and he enjoyed a well-documented political as well as ecclesiastical career.<sup>7</sup> Notwithstanding an enduring reputation as a ‘bishop of retired saintliness’, Ottley was a keen political observer, ambitious for advancement and accustomed to moving in circles with influential patrons.<sup>8</sup> At the age of 25, impatient for a college fellowship, he sought to procure a royal warrant to speed his promotion. Trinity College, uneasy at the suggestion, compromised by putting him into a Trinity Hall fellowship instead.<sup>9</sup> Within seven years, having fulfilled the qualification of pastoral service in the diocese of Hereford, he was presented by Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, to the archdeaconry of Shropshire.<sup>10</sup> Croft, who insisted that Ottley (during the latter’s archdeaconry visitation) remind his parishioners of their loyalty to James II, trusted his archdeacon sufficiently to request Ottley’s mediation with William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, when Croft was being vilified for reading the second Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Ottley had a wide network of contacts in Parliament and among the gentry. In 1701 he was recommended to Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, by Chandos for the vacant see of Hereford.<sup>12</sup> Throughout his political career, Ottley also remained on friendly terms with Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, and they corresponded regularly after 1704.<sup>13</sup> Ottley’s membership of the lower house of Convocation from 1689 gave him a further foothold in the ecclesiastical establishment, and he was a supporter in the synod of the high church faction.<sup>14</sup> He received an urgent summons from Atterbury in January 1706 to attend Convocation to assist his friends.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Ottley was at the forefront of the ‘Church in danger’ campaign and his provocative stand on the issue incurred the anger of at least one of the Whig bishops, John Tyler*, bishop of Llandaff. Ottley, under instructions from his bishop, Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, to obtain signatures for an address to the queen on the safety of the Church, refused to subscribe the official diocesan address, thanking the queen for her stewardship of a ‘flourishing’ Church. Instead, he sent up a separate, less congratulatory address from the Hereford chapter.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Throughout Anne’s reign, Ottley kept a close watch on political affairs. In 1708 he was in correspondence with Sir Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup> about the ministry’s increasing reliance on the Junto and the political situation following the death of Prince George*, of Denmark and duke of Cumberland.<sup>17</sup> His most influential connection, though, was Harley. Ottley remained on intimate terms with the Harley family throughout his career and was often a vehicle for exchanges of family and political news.<sup>18</sup> Ottley was directly involved in the Shropshire county election in October 1710 when he and his nephew were with ‘above fifty clergymen … [that went] together in a body’ to vote for Tories John Kynaston<sup>‡</sup> and Robert Lloyd<sup>‡</sup>, the latter having presented Henry Sacheverell to a Shropshire living during the summer.<sup>19</sup></p><p>When out of London Ottley was kept abreast of affairs by his nephew (also named Adam Ottley), who in 1713 was appointed a notary public.<sup>20</sup> By 1712, despite his high churchmanship and earlier gaffe over the ‘Church in danger’ address, Ottley was seen by Harley, now earl of Oxford, as a ‘Tory moderate’.<sup>21</sup> This, combined with the support of a number of high profile individuals, placed Ottley in a strong position for further advancement. In October 1712, a month before Humphrey Humphreys’ death, the younger Adam Ottley was in London soliciting the see on behalf of his uncle. He reported that Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, had described Ottley as ‘the fittest man to succeed’ Humphreys, and that Sir Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, and ‘other great men’ were favourable to his candidacy.<sup>22</sup></p><p>The principal candidates in what turned out to be a closely fought contest were Ottley, John Hartstonge, bishop of Ossory [I], and Philip Bisse*, bishop of St Davids. According to Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, later successively bishop of Lincoln and London, Francis Gastrell*, the future bishop of Chester, was also in the frame; Chandos thought Atterbury to be in contention too.<sup>23</sup> Ottley’s qualifications for the see were quickly pressed forward. In late November Herbert Rudhale appealed to Oxford ‘at the request of my neighbouring gentlemen and clergy’ that Ottley should be selected. Henry Compton*, bishop of London, also wrote on Ottley’s behalf in the event that the queen did not intend Hartstonge to have the bishopric: ‘no man’ he insisted ‘would be more acceptable’. Hartstonge’s cause it was said was being pressed by certain ladies of the court, along with James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond (Hartstonge being one of his chaplains). Ottley’s nephew continued to campaign on his uncle’s behalf, promising in December that ‘I will undertake it in the best measure I can; I am sensible we must not be too forward in an affair of that nature nor on the other hand would I be neglectful of it where it will bear.’ On 23 Dec. Ottley wrote to his nephew communicating his belief that Hartstonge would succeed, but by early 1713 the contest was still thought to be in the balance between Hartstonge and Ottley and of the two, Ottley was thought the more likely. His nephew was certainly convinced of the ministry’s definite support, though he was also concerned by the ‘artifices’ employed by Hartstonge in his efforts to secure the place ‘not becoming me even to repeat’. In the event, a compromise was found. In spite of the fact that Bisse was said to have declared himself uninterested in the bishopric, on 20 Jan. Ottley was informed by his nephew of ‘an unexpected turn in this affair’. Bisse was now to have Hereford and Ottley was to replace him at St Davids. According to the younger Ottley, this solution was owing to Oxford’s ‘peculiar goodness’ towards him as a way of countering Hartstonge. After all, as he insisted, ‘this removal is not a compliment that the [bishop of St Davids] much desired’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Although late in January some uncertainty still remained whether Ottley was to have St Davids or Hereford, by the end of the month Ottley’s promotion to St Davids had become common knowledge. He was urged to come to town to attend to the formalities.<sup>25</sup> Following the issue of the <em>congé d’élire</em>, he was elected on 28 Feb., confirmed two weeks later and consecrated at Lambeth. He negotiated for commendams (on Weymouth’s advice) because of the lower revenue of the Welsh see.<sup>26</sup> One month after his elevation he was listed, predictably, as a supporter of the Oxford ministry. He continued to inform Oxford about local political affairs, recommending a prospective parliamentary candidate for a seat in his diocese.<sup>27</sup> Within two months of taking up office, Ottley made his nephew, Adam, registrar general of the diocese.<sup>28</sup></p><p>On 17 Mar. 1713 Ottley took his seat in the House. He returned to the chamber at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. and was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal. Thereafter he attended nearly 82 per cent of sittings. On 4 May he was ordered to preach to the Lords on the 29 May anniversary celebration; the day after the sermon, he was given official thanks by the House. In June Ottley was forecast by Oxford as a likely supporter of the French commerce bill. Towards the close of the session, he reported the rejection of the tobacco bill to his nephew, the measure having been, as he phrased it, ‘clogged with such various tacks’ that the House threw it out on first reading. In the Commons, meanwhile, the mutiny bill was undergoing severe modifications. Ottley predicted that if the Commons continued with the swingeing alterations the bill would pass the Lords after which Parliament would rise. In the event the Lords subjected the bill to further amendments but on 16 July the Commons concurred with the changes enabling the session to be brought to a close.<sup>29</sup> Ottley quit London promptly for his new diocese where, on 29 July, he was enthroned at St Davids.<sup>30</sup> Ottley had spent the previous three months getting estimates (of some £316) for the repairs of Abergwili House and chapel. He started to restore the ruined residence.<sup>31</sup> Despite the convenience of a habitable Welsh residence, Ottley’s commendam as residentiary canon of Hereford had a tied house, and he continued to spend much time at his former home.</p><p>Following George Bull*, his predecessor, he patronized native Welsh clergy and Welsh literature.<sup>32</sup> He encouraged a reformation of morals in the diocese, was a strict disciplinarian (and in a high-profile case hampered the activities of popular evangelical preacher Griffith Jones) and would not permit the diversion of sacrament funds to support SPCK schools.<sup>33</sup> Politically, Ottley was at home in his new diocese. Carmarthenshire had seen a Tory victory in 1710 on a ‘Church in danger’ ticket, Pembrokeshire witnessed the defeat of the Whig Sir Arthur Owen, while Haverfordwest was dominated by John Laugharne<sup>‡</sup>, a local squire who was a ‘strong high church tory’. Pembroke boroughs had witnessed divisive contests but had proved open to manipulation by the Tory Lewis Wogan<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>34</sup> Ottley may have been more concerned with pressing his interest in Shropshire. During the summer of 1713 there were discussions both within the Ottley-Baldwyn family and more widely concerning a possible challenge at Ludlow by Ottley’s nephew, Adam. In the event the younger Ottley did not stand. One seat went to his kinsman, Acton Baldwyn<sup>‡</sup> (a sitting Member) the other to another Tory, Humphrey Walcot<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Ottley returned to Westminster two weeks after the start of the February 1714 session and attended for just over 82 per cent of sittings. He was later one of the members of the Journal subcommittee and signed the record of proceedings for 30 Apr. and for 30 June. On 17 Mar. he received Bisse’s proxy (vacated by Bisse’s attendance on the 31st). He was present in the House on 5 Apr. for the division on the danger to the Protestant Succession, but it is unclear how he voted. He was also present on 13 Apr. when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to the address on the danger from the Pretender. A motion to add some words strengthening the address of thanks was carried by just two votes, and the various accounts of the debate and division indicate that Ottley joined with the majority of the bishops in the House in voting for the ministry and the court.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Ottley was one of those gathered at the London residence of Francis Atterbury (since promoted bishop of Rochester) on 1 May, and on 25 May he attended a dinner hosted by John Robinson*, bishop of London, along with Bisse, George Smalridge*, bishop of Bristol, and William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle.<sup>37</sup> He was present in the House on 5 June for the passage of the bill for removing mortuaries in the Welsh sees. Having been forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham at the end of May or beginning of June as being a likely to support the schism bill, on 11 June he voted in favour of extending the bill’s provisions to Ireland and on 15th he voted for the bill’s pasage.<sup>38</sup> He continued to attend the House until the last day of the session on 9 July before returning to his diocese to conduct the first of his three visitations.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Ottley failed to attend the brief parliamentary session in August 1714 in the wake of the queen’s death but remained in the west of England, maintaining close links with Oxford’s political and social network. Although Oxford’s resignation shortly before Anne’s death was a blow to Ottley’s political position, he continued to fill his diocese with Tory clergy at the request of local politicians (John Barlow<sup>‡</sup>, the Member for Pembrokeshire, wrote to Ottley to forestall the appointment of a ‘Whig’ parson).<sup>40</sup> On 2 Mar. 1715 he wrote to Oxford after enjoying a ‘noble entertainment’ given by Lady Oxford at Brampton. He then travelled to London, taking up residence at Bishop’s Court in Chancery Lane and acting in Parliament with the Tory opposition.<sup>41</sup> Ottley’s political and parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next phase of this work.</p><p>On 23 Sept. 1723 Ottley was taken ill with a stomach illness and fever; he died late in the evening of 4 Oct. at his refurbished home in Abergwili.<sup>42</sup> Leaving some £70 in cash bequests, Ottley’s main beneficiary (in the absence of any children) was his nephew, Adam, to whom he left the estates inherited in 1688 from Sir Adam Ottley. Ottley appointed as residuary legatees and trustees his kinsmen Charles and Samuel Baldwyn and Tamerlane Hords. He died ‘much in debt’, leaving his nephew to complain that though Ottley’s kindness ‘was great … yet the gain thereby must be very inconsiderable’; he recommended that servants be provided with only the most meagre of mourning.<sup>43</sup> Ottley had been an avid collector of books and manuscripts.<sup>44</sup> He was also a well-respected Church historian who assisted Browne Willis<sup>‡</sup> in his study of the see of St Davids.<sup>45</sup> On 19 Apr. 1725 his library (which included a number of valuable first editions and acts of Parliament) was valued at nearly £400 and auctioned at St Paul’s coffee house. Ottley was buried at Abergwili.<sup>46</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
PARKER, Samuel (1640-88) |
<p><strong><surname>PARKER</surname></strong>, <strong>Samuel</strong> (1640–88)</p> |
|
|
Never sat. |
cons. 17 Oct. 1686 bp. of OXFORD |
|
<p><em>b</em>. Sept. 1640, 2nd. s. of John Parker of Weston Underwood, Bucks. judge. <em>educ</em>. Northampton g.s.; Wadham, Oxf. matric. 1657, BA 1660; Trinity, Oxf. MA 1663; ord. priest 1664; incorp. Camb. 1667, DD 1671. <em>m</em>. 1673, Rebecca, da. and h. of Nathaniel Phesant (Pheasant) of London and Upwood, Hunts. merchant, and Abigail Clarke;<sup>1</sup> 2s. <em>d</em>. 20 Mar. 1688; <em>will</em> 1 Feb. 1686, pr. 30 Apr. 1689.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Gilbert Sheldon*, bp of London, 1667–77; rect. Chartham, Kent 1667-86, Ickham, Kent 1671; preb. Canterbury, 1672–85; adn. Canterbury, 1670–88; master, Eastbridge hospital 1673.</p><p>President Magdalen, Oxf. 1687–8.</p><p>FRS 1666.</p> |
|
<p>Samuel Parker’s father was a parliamentarian sympathizer. According to Anthony Wood, both parents were ‘severe puritans and schismatics’ who ensured their son was ‘puritanically educated’. At Wadham he led an austere religious life until he transferred to Trinity and came under the influence of Ralph Bathurst. The ascetic Presbyterian ‘was rescued from the chains and fetters of an unhappy education’ and transformed into an equally ardent apologist for episcopacy by divine right.<sup>3</sup> Gilbert Sheldon, seeing Parker’s potential as a propagandist, gave him his first ecclesiastical preferment and encouraged the publication of the <em>Ecclesiastical Polity</em> (1669), a polemical statement of the state’s political imperative to compel the tender conscience. In December 1678 Parker complained bitterly to William Sancroft*, the archdeacon and later archbishop of Canterbury, of the difficulties put in the way of prosecuting sectaries by the ability to prolong proceedings by means of appeal ‘so that it is not possible for me to proceed against any person or in any cause without the charges and trouble of a long law suit’.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In 1670 he replaced Sancroft as archdeacon of Canterbury. This post, the most prestigious of all English archdeaconries, gave Parker considerable authority in Kent and he began to establish his own property interests in Chartham and on the Isle of Sheppey.<sup>5</sup> In 1673 he married into a dynasty of City lawyers and merchants. His wife, the sole heiress of Nathaniel Phesant (whose estate was worth some £8,000), was also a niece of Stephen Phesant<sup>‡</sup>, a client of Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich; the marriage thus consolidated Parker’s connections with the London legal establishment and with political interests in the east midlands and Kent.<sup>6</sup></p><p>In November 1680 Parker discussed the proofs of his latest publication with Henry Dodwell. <em>The Case of the Church of England Briefly and Truly Stated</em> was intended ‘to blow up’ the arguments in a sermon published by Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, entitled <em>The Mischief of Separation</em> (1680), which called for Protestant unity in the face of the threats posed by the popish plot and denied divine right. The nonconformist opposition that Stillingfleet’s work had provoked led Parker to insist that ‘I am very unwilling to join in the cry. Though for the design itself I think it absolutely necessary to the settlement of the Church’s peace, that it be established upon a divine form of government …’.<sup>7</sup> News of the intended publication came to the ears of Arthur Anneseley*, earl of Anglesey, and thence to Archbishop Sancroft. Sancroft, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, all read the pamphlet and agreed that publication would be damaging, probably because it created an impression of disunity in the Church. Sancroft first advised, then instructed, Parker not to publish the work. Parker agreed to withdraw it, referring to his ‘absolute obedience and subjection to my lord of Canterbury’s judgment’. When it was nevertheless published in the spring of 1681 Parker insisted that the printer had acted without his consent.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In an undated letter to Simon Patrick*, the future bishop of Chichester, that probably belongs to early 1681, Parker complained that the episcopate had been infiltrated by ‘tools’ – bishops who ‘sided and caballed with the Shaftsburian faction’ and whose acceptance of Stillingfleet was influenced by his vindication of the bishops’ right to sit in the House in capital cases because they valued ‘a little prating privilege of Parliament before this gift of the Holy Ghost, prefer their peerage before their religion, and would be content to be deposed from the apostolic office … to preserve their temporal baronies’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Parker’s apparent disobedience over <em>The Case of the Church of England</em> was not the only point of conflict with Sancroft. They also quarrelled in 1681 over the right to appoint a registrar and in 1682 Sancroft appears to have taken Parker to task over the mismanagement of briefs for the rebuilding of St Paul’s. Yet Parker’s support for the royal prerogative (and tacit contempt for Parliament) made him useful to the court. Although in frail health, Parker was in London in Apr. 1684 at the command of James Stuart*, duke of York, and possibly also of the king ‘about some business in which they think I can serve them’.<sup>10</sup> The exact nature of their business is unclear, but in November the clerks of both houses of Parliament were instructed to give Parker access to parliamentary journals and papers.<sup>11</sup> By that point it was thought that Parker was set for elevation either to Bath and Wells or to what was correctly thought to be the imminent vacancy at Norwich.<sup>12</sup> He received neither. Perhaps being passed over spurred the diatribe that he composed at or about the time of Charles II’s death in 1685, in which he accused Sancroft of being his enemy and provided a long list of his grievances to prove it. He accused Sancroft of favouring ‘the Whiggish faction and that in their very acts of sedition’ and described the Popish Plot as the ‘nursling’ of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). According to Parker, Sancroft saw the main threat to the Church coming from Catholicism and was reluctant to prosecute Dissenters; Parker was convinced of the opposite – that nonconformists were the enemy of the Church and state while Roman Catholics were politically reliable.<sup>13</sup> Not surprisingly, his sympathy for Catholics led to suspicions that he was himself one.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In August 1685 Parker annoyed Sancroft still further by resigning his Canterbury prebend in favour of John Bradford. Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, described Parker’s actions as a public affront to the authority of the archbishop (he had surrendered the prebend to the secretary of state rather than to Sancroft). The lord privy seal, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, refused to seal the grant, thinking that ‘for a man in Dr Parker’s circumstances, I mean, having that dependence which he ought by his station to have upon his grace, to resign a preferment in the archbishop’s own church, to a person, for ought I knew, a stranger to his grace, was I thought a very unfit thing’.<sup>15</sup> The delay proved temporary – Bradford was appointed in October, a month after Clarendon had relinquished the seal and been appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland.<sup>16</sup></p><p>In August 1686, James II directed Parker’s election to the see of Oxford.<sup>17</sup> This, wrote Dr William Denton, cannot ‘be well liked of anywhere, or by any honest intelligent number of men’.<sup>18</sup> His final career move was to the presidency of Magdalen, the affair that was emblematic of James II’s Catholicizing policies. In April 1687 he was one of the few bishops prepared to support the Declaration of Indulgence. He even proposed an address of thanks to the king, only to find that his clergy refused to sign it.<sup>19</sup> In August, after the fellows of Magdalen College had refused to admit a Catholic as president, the king nominated Parker instead. Although not yet 50 years old, Parker’s health was precarious and he asked to be admitted to the presidency by proxy. The fellows refused and elected John Hough*, the future bishop of Oxford. Parker was intruded by the ecclesiastical commissioners (led by James II’s other reliable appointee, Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester in October.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Parker’s illness did not prevent him from employing his pen in support of James II’s political policies; his <em>Reasons for Abrogating the Test, Imposed upon All Members of Parliament</em> was licensed for the press on 10 Dec. 1687 and published shortly afterwards. The first impression (2,000 copies) sold out within a day.<sup>21</sup> In it Parker argued that the Test created an ‘ill precedent against the rights of peerage’ and that Parliament lacked the authority to pass a law of ‘an ecclesiastical nature’. Nor could it be argued that the bishops’ votes in the Lords legitimized the Test since they sat in the House ‘as temporal barons’ and not as churchmen: ‘if they … pretend to exercise any ecclesiastical authority in that place, they … profanely pawn the bishop to the lord’. Not surprisingly, the king was said to be particularly pleased with the book, which tended to confirm popular perceptions of Parker as a crypto-Catholic, as did his willingness to obey royal mandates to appoint Catholics to senior academic posts. It was even rumoured that the only obstruction to his open avowal of conversion was his wife’s fears of the consequences.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Becoming increasingly disillusioned, Parker reputedly told a servant that there was ‘no trust in princes’ and that the king had promised him better than to be ‘his tool and his prop’.<sup>23</sup> One Roman Catholic source claimed that the bishop was ready to convert to Rome but that his wife was an impediment.<sup>24</sup> It later emerged that Parker regretted any move towards Catholicism and, in his final illness, refused the ministrations of Catholic priests.<sup>25</sup> Such a refusal did not save his reputation. On learning of his death, Sir Charles Cotterell<sup>‡</sup> wrote to his son-in-law, Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, that</p><blockquote><p>I forgot to tell you that our excellent Bishop of Oxford after but a short enjoyment of his ill gotten preferment, for he hath been sick almost ever since, is lately dead, leaving as ill a fame as any man that ever pretended to die in our Church, which it is said he did after having done it as much mischief as he could to do …<sup>26</sup></p></blockquote> |
B.A. |
|
PATRICK, Simon (Symon) (1626-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>PATRICK</surname></strong>, <strong>Simon (Symon)</strong> (1626–1707)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 Oct. 1689; last sat 6 Dec. 1705 |
cons. 13 Oct. 1689 bp. of CHICHESTER; transl. 2 July 1691 bp. of ELY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 8 Sept. 1626, 1st s. of Henry Patrick (1596-1665), mercer, and Mary, da. of ? Naylor, clergyman, of Notts.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Gainsborough Free Sch., Lincs. to 1643, Queens’, Camb. matric. 25 June 1644, BA 1648, fell. 1649-58, MA 1651; ord. 1653, 5 Apr. 1654; BD 1658; <sup>2</sup> Christ Church, Oxf., incorp. 1666, DD 1666. <em>m</em>. (with £2,500)<sup>3</sup> 1 June 1675, Penelope (1646-1725), da. of William Jephson<sup>‡</sup> of Froyle, Hants, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 31 May 1707; <em>will</em> 22 Mar.-15 Apr. 1703, pr. 22 Oct. 1707.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Royal chap., 1671-87, c. 20 Jan.-13 Oct. 1689.</p><p>Chap., to Sir Walter St. John<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. 1655; vic. Battersea, Surr. 1657-75;<sup>5</sup> rect. St Paul’s Covent Garden, Westminster, 1662-89; canon and sub-dean, Westminster 1672-89;<sup>6</sup> dean, Peterborough 1679-89.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Commr., revision of prayer book 1689, settlement of church in Ireland 1690,<sup>8</sup> visitation of hospitals 1691,<sup>9</sup> rebuilding St Paul’s 1691,<sup>10</sup> ecclesiastical appointments 1695, 1699.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Trustee, SPCK 1701; mbr. SPG 1701; gov., Charterhouse, 1701.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, c.1668, NPG 1500; oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1689, Queens’, Camb.; oil on canvas by unknown artist, Lambeth Palace, 1691.</p> |
<p>The wealth of detail available about Patrick’s life is owing primarily to his autobiography, which was annotated and completed by the clergyman and antiquary Samuel Knight in the 1720s and edited, together with his major works, by Alexander Taylor in 1858.<sup>13</sup> Patrick’s own contemporaries had an exalted view of the prelate. The London bookseller John Dunton felt that Patrick ‘wears not his religion as his lawn sleeves, as an extempore dignity, but, in all the conditions and changes of life, it was incorporated and wrought into the thread of his actions’. ‘In a word’, he summarized, ‘he is deservedly called “the Preaching Bishop” ... for every one of his days is a sermon in effect, and he is ripe for heaven’.<sup>14</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, writing of the turbulent years of 1679-81 included Patrick among those ‘many worthy and eminent men... whose lives and labours did in a great measure rescue the Church from those reproaches that the follies of others drew upon it’, who ‘were an honour, both to the Church, and to the age in which they lived’.<sup>15</sup> Yet as well as being, by such accounts, a pious churchman, Patrick was also politically astute and a keen participant in Parliament. Although not elevated to the episcopate until the Revolution, he had by that time already worked tirelessly for at least the previous two decades in support of both archbishops of Canterbury, challenging any parliamentary initiative to ease the plight of Catholics or nonconformists, until the policies of James II transformed comprehension for Protestants into a political expedient.</p><h2><em>Early life and clerical career, 1626-89</em></h2><p>Simon Patrick was the son of devout puritan parents, although in his memoirs he was at pains to emphasize that his father always conformed to the established church. The dislocations and financial hardships of the civil wars forced him to complete his schooling in several diffrerent locations. He was able to enter Queens’ College at Cambridge University in June 1644 after a struggle to obtain a scholarship and despite his father’s ‘low’ and ‘mean’ condition at that time. While there he was excused the Covenant on the grounds that he was still a minor. While at Cambridge he came heavily under the influence of the mathematics tutor John Smith, and through him the other Cambridge Platonists and the philosophy and theology that formed the background to what would later become known as latitudinarianism.<sup>16</sup> Influenced by Smith and other Cambridge Platonists, Patrick rejected the dogmatic Calvinism, with its emphasis on universal reprobation and absolute predestination, in which he had been raised and embraced a practical theology which stressed God’s wish to save all humans. An enthusiastic supporter of the newly emerging trends in natural philosophy and the ‘new science’, Patrick advocated faith in the ‘Christian doctrine, rationally handled’ and revealed in the natural order.<sup>17</sup> However, if he clearly set out the ‘latitudinarian’ theology and gave the term currency in his <em>Brief Account of the New Sect of Latitude-Men</em> of 1662, he also, in that same text, defended the Anglican liturgy and the unique character of the Church of England as ‘that virtuous mediocrity... between the meretricious gaudiness of Rome, and the squalid sluttery of fanatic conventicles’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Patrick later claimed his ordination by presbyters in London ‘troubled me very much’, and sought covert episcopal ordination in the Church of England on 5 Apr. 1654 from Joseph Hall<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Norwich. He obtained a chaplaincy with Sir Walter St John, 3rd bt., who also presented Patrick to a living in Battersea in 1655 at the urging of St John’s father-in-law, Oliver St John<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>19</sup> At the Restoration he was not ejected as an ‘intruder’ and in 1662 was sufficiently well-regarded by his fellow academics to be elected president of Queen’s College, Cambridge on the death of Edward Martin, though he was forced out soon after by royal mandate in favour of Anthony Sparrow*, later bishop of Norwich. Patrick pursued his case through the courts for three years despite being advised by Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, to back down or be regarded as ‘factious’.<sup>20</sup> Patrick’s disappointment at Cambridge was in part offset by his presentation in 1662 to the rich living of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, by William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, where he enhanced his pastoral reputation by remaining in London throughout the plague. It was probably also here and at this time that he developed a close ‘neo-platonic’ friendship with Elizabeth Gauden, wife of the Navy Victualler, Sir Denis Gauden, and brother of John Gauden*, bishop of Worcester.<sup>21</sup> Granted a metropolitan dispensation to hold the livings of Battersea and Covent Garden in plurality, he secured the services of his younger brother, John, who deputized for him as vicar of Battersea from 1662 to 1671 and whose career Patrick continued to promote.<sup>22</sup> Throughout his long stay at Covent Garden, Patrick repeatedly impressed John Evelyn, who peppered his lengthy notes on Patrick’s sermons with compliments on the future bishop’s style and handling of his text.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Shortly after his installation at Covent Garden, some of the parishioners successfully petitioned Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London (and later archbishop of Canterbury) for a select vestry to strengthen parish governance and political loyalty. It aimed to turn the parish, which included a number of noble parishioners, into ‘a pattern of Anglican royalism’; though one tempered by the Presbyterian inclinations of some of its inhabitants, including the earl of Bedford himself.<sup>24</sup> Patrick formed close relationships with his fellow London clergy including John Sharp*, later archbishop of York, and the latter’s patron Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, to whom he probably owed much of his advancement during the ensuing two decades.<sup>25</sup> He combined his ministry with publishing both devotional and polemic works. He followed up the description of the the ‘new sect of latitude men’ which he had published in 1662 with his <em>Parable of the Pilgrim</em> of 1665.<sup>26</sup> He invited the wrath of nonconformists when he opposed plans for a comprehension bill in 1668 by publishing his controversial <em>Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist</em>. The work went through several editions but its tone annoyed even his former admirer Richard Baxter who found it ‘disingenuous and virulent’.<sup>27</sup> Patrick was politically akin to the more conservative Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, in his guarded approach to religious comprehension than were John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and John Wilkins*, later bishop of Chester. This increased his political credit with both Sheldon and staunch Anglicans such as Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., but earned him the contempt of Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup>, who dubbed Patrick one of his ‘divines in mode’.<sup>28</sup> Patrick was offered the archdeaconry of Huntingdon in 1669 but declined, declaring himself ‘unfit’. He was appointed a royal chaplain in 1671, and canon and sub-dean of Westminster the following year.<sup>29</sup> On 15 Dec. 1672, he preached before the king on the reckoning at judgment day.<sup>30</sup></p><p>In 1673 Patrick published an open letter to his future wife, Penelope Jephson, which proved so popular that it went into several editions despite Patrick’s apparent reluctance to acknowledge his authorship.<sup>31</sup> His meagre patrimony—his father was one of 15 children—was healthily boosted when he finally did marry Penelope in June 1675. Patrick used his wife’s portion of £2,500 to purchase an estate in Glamorgan for her benefit. Thereafter, he seems to have enjoyed comfortable, if not lavish, circumstances. In 1689, Patrick assessed his personal estate for taxation purposes at £1,000.<sup>32</sup> After he became a bishop, he told a colleague that his revenue from the see of Chichester was an annual £1,200, while his yearly income as bishop of Ely was in excess of £2,000. On the marriage of his son in 1702, he purchased at ‘great’ expense the Suffolk estate of Dalham, which his son’s new in-laws valued at some £20,000. His marriage also brought him into a wide and influential political network. His brother-in-law, William Jephson<sup>‡</sup>, later secretary of the treasury in the early years of William III’s reign, became one of Patrick’s closest business associates and, with Daniel Sheldon, nephew of Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon, negotiated Patrick’s marriage settlement in 1674.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Shortly after the dissolution of Parliament on 12 July 1679, both Patrick brothers were promoted: Simon to the deanery of Peterborough, for which he had been making overtures for quite some time, and John to the chapter of Chichester.<sup>34</sup> In 1680 Nottingham (as Finch had since become) sought to move Patrick to the prestigious living at St Martin-in-the-Fields but Patrick recommended instead his friend Thomas Tenison*, later archbishop of Canterbury, in his place.<sup>35</sup> Patrick’s translation of Grotius’s <em>De veritate religionis christianae</em> (<em>Of the Truth of the Christian Religion</em>) was published in 1680, with a dedication to the earl of Bedford (thanking him for ‘contributing so freely to the giving me some ease from that burden which grew too heavy for me’: perhaps an indication of arrangements to provide help to deal with serving the parish), a preface that emphasized Grotius’s intention to provide a text that would be helpful to ordinary people, and an additional book that underlined the Grotian (and latitudinarian) message of the simplicity of religion. In his sermon at Whitehall on 5 Dec. 1680 he spoke to the royal household of the importance of reading scripture under the guidance of Anglican churchmen to avoid all religious schism.<sup>36</sup> Patrick was now in the forefront of the campaign by William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, to improve church practice and discipline. In 1681, as sub-dean of Westminster, he tried without success to persuade his dean John Dolben*, later archbishop of York, to celebrate communion weekly.<sup>37</sup> In July 1683 it was rumoured that Patrick might be elevated to the see of Rochester.<sup>38</sup></p><p>At the end of May 1685 Patrick was regarded as a possible successor to William Lloyd*, bishop of Peterborough, now translated to the see of Norwich. Patrick enjoyed the support of Sancroft, Dolben, Henry Compton*, bishop of London, and Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, but the plan foundered as a result of the king’s abortive efforts to reorganize the episcopal bench to facilitate the translation of Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Bristol, to Exeter.<sup>39</sup> By November, when it was feared that James II would press for the repeal of the Test Acts in the reconvened Parliament, Patrick, as well as his brother John, were among a group of 20 London divines, with ‘a very good understanding one with another’, who determined ‘to meet together and consult by what lawful means they might establish our people in their religion’.<sup>40</sup> Following the prorogation of 20 Nov. 1685, Patrick attended a meeting of clergy in London about the safety of the Church and, with Tenison, Stillingfleet and Tillotson, helped co-ordinate opposition to the king’s ecclesiastical policies.<sup>41</sup> His activities made him unpopular not only with Catholics but also, according to Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, with ‘some zealous Dissenters in our church’ for his vehement defence of the Church of England.<sup>42</sup> Patrick was summoned to Whitehall in November 1686 to take part in a debate with the Catholic priests Bonaventura Gifford and Thomas Godden in a stage-managed attempt to convince Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, of the truth of the Catholic faith. The conference took place on 30 Nov. in the presence of the king. Rochester was confirmed in his Anglicanism, and shortly afterwards Patrick was dismissed from his post as a royal chaplain.<sup>43</sup> The dangers of anti-government activity ensured that Patrick corresponded throughout this period under pseudonym ‘De Vick’.<sup>44</sup> He now feared for his life, and was warned by Tenison, who had previously averted a similar attempt, that a Catholic priest was preparing to ‘take some course’ with the two of them ‘if they met with us in the night, or could get us out under pretence of visiting some sick person, or some such means’.<sup>45</sup></p><p>In the first two weeks of May 1688, Patrick was present at the meetings of Sharp, Tillotson and Stillingfleet and other leading members of the London clergy, with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Rochester, to discuss how to respond to the king’s second Declaration of Indulgence. Patrick was one of those who signed the resolution of the London clergy not to read the Declaration and was further deputed ‘to feel the pulse of all the ministers’ in the capital and ‘to know their minds’ on the subject. He was present at the discussions at Lambeth on 18 May that culminated in the petition of the seven bishops. After their subsequent acquittal he wrote of the outpouring of delight with which the news was greeted in Peterborough, which contrasted starkly with the subdued response to the birth of the prince of Wales. Patrick commented on the phenomenon: ‘so great a difference there is between that which is constrained, and that which is done voluntarily’. <sup>46</sup></p><p>On 7 Aug. 1688 Patrick was told by Tenison about William of Orange’s anticipated invasion, and advised to move money and valuables out of London.<sup>47</sup> In the meantime Patrick, with Sancroft, Tenison, and Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter (and later archbishop of York), began a review of the Anglican liturgy with a view to making concessions to nonconformists to create Protestant solidarity. With Tenison he also worked on legislative proposals for liturgical change in anticipation of a Parliament in November 1688.<sup>48</sup> William of Orange’s invasion altered the dynamic of such preparations. On Christmas Day, Patrick set the tone for the next phase of his career when he preached a celebratory sermon that ‘God in his wonderful mercy has freed us from slavery both in body and soul by this great and noble instrument’.<sup>49</sup> Patrick was recommended to William of Orange by Burnet who shortly afterwards became bishop of Salisbury, as a useful propagandist and Burnet also suggested him as a suitable candidate for the bishopric of Chester in a list drawn up shortly after the invasion.<sup>50</sup> A warm supporter of the Revolution, Patrick argued that James II had forfeited his throne by failing to observe the basic laws of the realm.<sup>51</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Chichester, 1689-91</em></h2><p>At the beginning of 1689 Patrick was at the Ely House meeting to discuss a possible regency and on 14 Jan. 1689 met Stillingfleet to draw up a comprehension bill for introduction to the Lords.<sup>52</sup> Resuming his duties as a royal chaplain, he preached on the 20th in St James’s chapel before William and on the 31st delivered a thanksgiving sermon for ‘the great deliverance of this kingdom... from popery and arbitrary power’.<sup>53</sup> Having preached before the queen at Whitehall in March, many assumed that Patrick would be elevated to the see of Salisbury (he was said to have been one of two divines promised the see by William), but the prized bishopric went instead to Burnet. Patrick invested considerable effort in ‘endeavouring to satisfy men’s scruples about our present settlement’, later claiming that he lost many friends in the process. <sup>54</sup> Yet he did retain influential contacts. Burnet was a prominent supporter of his elevation to a bishopric, considering Patrick to be ‘a man of an eminently shining life, who would be a great ornament to the episcopal order’. He was also supported by Nottingham who hoped that the elevation of a churchman prepared to sanction comprehension would satisfy William.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Having missed Salisbury, on his 63rd birthday, 8 Sept. 1689, Patrick learned from his brother-in-law, William Jephson, now secretary to the treasury and a firm favourite of the new king, that he was summoned to Hampton Court the following morning to be offered the bishopric of Chichester. Patrick expressed himself to be relieved, not only because the vacancy had arisen through the ‘natural, not civil, death’ of the previous bishop, but also for its being a small diocese that would not be too heavy a workload.<sup>56</sup> Although many of the parishioners of Covent Garden anticipated with considerable sadness his farewell sermon, others were said to be glad of his departure and hoped that his successor would prove a better preacher. Indeed for some time they had been spending an annual £100 to provide for additional lecturers to save Patrick the chore of preaching twice a day, ‘although all I meet allow him an excellent man in all other capacities’.<sup>57</sup> The directive for his election and his appointment to the commission of bishops assigned to revise the Book of Common Prayer gave Patrick further authority to make clear his support for the Revolution.<sup>58</sup> He attended the opening of the commission in the Jerusalem Chamber on 3 Oct., was confirmed as bishop two days later by the dean and chapter of Canterbury (Sancroft’s authority having been transferred in the interim) and was consecrated bishop of Chichester at Fulham on the 13th in the same ceremony as Stillingfleet, as bishop of Worcester, and Gilbert Ironside*, as bishop of Bristol (later bishop of Hereford).<sup>59</sup> The appointment of these three new bishops, and the promotion of Tillotson to the deanery of St Paul’s, reassured the old courtier, Sir Charles Cotterell<sup>‡</sup>, that ‘the Church will stand firm, notwithstanding the standing off of those that refuse to take the oaths’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>In mid-October 1689, Patrick was one of those to respond to criticisms made by Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, over the validity of the commission on prayer book revision. Following this, Compton, Stillingfleet, Tenison and Robert Grove*, later bishop of Chichester, dined with Patrick and formed themselves into an unofficial sub-committee to examine the liturgy.<sup>61</sup> It was reported by Morrice that the commission, thought initially to be making concessions to Dissenters, had now backtracked and was now seeking ways to defend the established Church against nonconformist complaints.<sup>62</sup> On 19 Oct., two days before the prorogation of the first session of the Convention, Patrick received his writ of summons and took his seat in the Lords. The same day Thomas Comber of York wrote to the new bishop, congratulating him on his advancement, something he believed he ‘had sooner enjoyed if merit in times past had been more considered’.<sup>63</sup> Patrick was again present on 21 Oct. for the last day of the session.</p><p>Patrick returned to the House two days later on 23 Oct., the first day of the new session and attended thereafter for 67 per cent of its sitting days, during which he was named to half a dozen committees. On 4 Nov. 1689 he and his fellow bishops, under the leadership of Compton, attended the king ‘to wish him many happy years’ before a further meeting of the ecclesiastical commission. Ten days later he went into his new diocese to spend a week in Chichester before returning to London to continue with discussions in the commission and the wording of the creed.<sup>64</sup> Patrick and Burnet, in response to concerns about the Athanasian creed voiced by Edward Fowler*, later bishop of Gloucester, ‘gave him soft language, but he gained little upon them’.<sup>65</sup> In December Patrick had an audience with the king to warn him that the Convocation dispute over comprehension was intractable and that the project would have to be abandoned.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution of both Parliament and Convocation on 6 Feb. 1690, elections in Sussex saw the return without a contest of the Whig sitting members Sir John Pelham<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and Sir William Thomas<sup>‡</sup>, bt. Patrick’s new cathedral city, dominated by the predominantly Tory corporation, returned the Tories Sir Thomas Miller<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas May<sup>‡</sup> in a controverted election, but there is no evidence that Patrick was involved in either campaign at this time. <sup>67</sup> Patrick returned to the House on 20 Mar. for the first day of the new Parliament, after which he was present for 93 per cent of the sitting days and was named to approximately eight committees. On 10 Apr. after the Commons had returned the bill to recognize William and Mary as king and queen and confirm the acts of the Convention, there was a long debate on a motion to expunge from the journal the reasons for the protest of 8 Apr. against some of the wording of the bill, which was deemed ‘neither good English, nor good sense’. Only Patrick and Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, among the nine or so bishops present that day, supported both the bill of recognition and the expunging of reasons for the protest (seven bishops signed the formal protest against the expurgation).<sup>68</sup> Patrick preached a fast sermon before the king and queen at Whitehall on 16 April.<sup>69</sup> On 8 May, the Lords went into a committee of the whole House on the bill for renouncing the previous oaths of allegiance. A long debate on the wording of the declaration renouncing Jacobite activity was followed by a motion to omit the words ‘rightful king and queen’ in reference to William and Mary, which was carried by six votes. Patrick was the only bishop (ten were marked as present that day in the journal) to oppose the motion. His previous fellow protester Stratford had quit the chamber and retired into the country, leaving his proxy in Compton’s hands.<sup>70</sup> On 14 May, Patrick spoke ‘several times’ in committee of the whole House against the bill for ‘restoring the City of London to its ancient rights and privileges’; he then voted with a minority, joined only by Burnet from the episcopal bench, in opposing the measure.<sup>71</sup> He was present for the prorogation on 23 May, after which he travelled to his diocese to settle his family in Chichester and to undertake a diocesan visitation.<sup>72</sup> During the summer he also used his new powers of patronage to appoint his brother John to the precentorship of Chichester.</p><p>Patrick arrived at the House for the 1690-1 session on 14 Oct. 1690, 12 days after the start of the session, and attended 53 per cent of sitting days, during which he was named to 15 committees. On 14 Nov. the House gave a first reading to Patrick’s bill for uniting the parsonage of Petworth to the see of Chichester. The following day the bill was committed, with Patrick among those named to the committee. The bill, reported by Rochester, passed the House on the 18th. On 12 Dec. Patrick was summoned to Compton’s lodgings in Whitehall to hear of his inclusion in the royal commission to settle the church in Ireland. Six days later he attended the session for the last time, missing the last three weeks of business. He returned to Chichester where, amongst other tasks, he authorized the sale of timber, only to be accused of having cut down all the wood belonging to the bishopric. He threatened an action of <em>scandalum magnatum</em> against the person (a minister) responsible for the slur and secured a public confession.<sup>73</sup></p><p>On 24 Apr. 1691 the non-juror William Lloyd of Norwich reported to Sancroft the details of a list of those proposed as replacements for the non-juring bishops which he had been sent from the office of the attorney general. Among those listed was Patrick, who was to be translated to Ely in place of Francis Turner.<sup>74</sup> The news circulated rapidly and by mid-May, Patrick’s name, one of a ‘very learned and worthy’ group of men, appeared on another list sent to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>75</sup> Patrick claimed not to be aware of the intended promotion before it appeared publicly, and not to want it, ‘but it was put upon me without my knowledge, and in that condition wherein affairs were, could not be refused by me without their majesties’ displeasure, which I would by no means incur’. Following the royal assent in June 1691, Patrick was confirmed in his new bishopric on 2 July in a ceremony in Bow Church.<sup>76</sup> He chose not to live at Downham Palace near Ely but instead obtained legal powers to lease out the manor, later confirmed by an act of Parliament.<sup>77</sup> Given his proximity and new powers of patronage, he became increasingly involved in the affairs of Cambridge University.<sup>78</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Ely under William III, 1691-1702</em></h2><p>Appointment to Ely also brought with it an interest in London and, having taken up residence at Ely House in Holborn, Patrick was informed by Nottingham that Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, was anxious to resolve a long-standing dispute over the nearby estate of Hatton Garden. Patrick selected Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Halifax, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, lord chief justice Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup> and Nottingham as mediators; the group decided to settle the matter through a private bill drafted by Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>79</sup> It was introduced to the Lords on 1 Dec. 1691, though Patrick did not attend the House for the committal of the bill the following day. It was reported fit to pass with one amendment by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), on 3 Dec. and passed the House the following day, thus going through all its stages in the House in four days. The bill received the royal assent on 24 December. It is unclear whether Patrick and Hatton were on close terms before the settlement of this dispute, but thereafter Patrick sent Hatton copies of his publications and received from the latter regular gifts of venison.<sup>80</sup></p><p>On 27 Oct. 1691, five days after the start of the new session, Patrick took his seat in the House for the first time as bishop of Ely, along with two other new bishops, his successor at Chichester, Robert Grove, and Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough. He attended the session for 65 per cent of its sitting days and was named to at least 10 committees. On 6 Nov. he was ordered to preach the thanksgiving sermon for military success in Ireland. Preaching at the Abbey on the 26th, he was thanked formally two days later. <sup>81</sup> The following month, as part of the campaign for the national reformation of morals, he signed the bishops’ petition to the king for a royal proclamation against impiety and vice and for orders to the local justices of the peace to present offenders.<sup>82</sup> On 22 Feb. 1692 he was nominated a manager of the conference on the small tithes bill. Two days later Parliament was adjourned. Patrick, though, remained in London where, on 8 Apr., he preached a fast sermon at Whitehall for victory in the coming campaign.<sup>83</sup></p><p>In October 1692, Patrick was ‘afflicted with the frightful news’ that his son, a pupil at Eton, had fallen seriously ill. The boy’s indisposition proved of ‘some hindrance to me in what I was about; but, by God’s goodness, I attended the house of lords, and preached constantly, and went through a great deal of other business in health and cheerfulness’.<sup>84</sup> With his son still unwell, Patrick took his place in the House for the opening of the new session on 4 Nov. 1692, attending thereafter for 68 per cent of its sitting days, during which he was named to 11 committees. On 23 Dec. 1692 he registered his dissent from the order to reverse the judgment in the cause between the Jacobite Sir Simon Leach<sup>‡</sup>, and Thomas Thompson. The appeal had clear partisan ramifications and Patrick’s behaviour, joining in the dissent with John Moore*, bishop of Norwich (and later Patrick’s successor at Ely), and John Hough*, bishop of Oxford (later bishop of Worcester), as well as with the lay peers Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, Henry Booth*, earl of Warrington and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, is unsurprising given that one of Leach’s counsel was the Tory Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup>. Patrick acted as a court Whig when on 31 Dec. he voted against the committal of the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 against the bill’s passage. At around the same time Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, forecast that Patrick would oppose the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 2 Jan. he indeed voted against reading the bill. The divorce was yet another issue splitting the bishops, although Patrick and Gilbert Ironside were the only Williamite bishops to oppose the bill. It is likely that his opposition was on ecclesiastical rather than political grounds.</p><p>Patrick maintained a high profile in the continuing debate about the legitimacy of the new regime. On 21 and 23 Jan. 1693 the Commons ordered the burning of both Charles Blount’s <em>King William and Queen Mary Conquerors</em> and <em>A Pastoral Letter</em> by Gilbert Burnet, two expositions of the idea that the present regime derived its power by conquest. In the Lords’ debate on the subject of 24 Jan., Patrick maintained ‘that he believed most of those that took the oath that were not willing... did it upon the account of conquest’.<sup>85</sup> On 25 Jan. Patrick voted to commit the bill to prevent dangers from the politically disaffected. In February 1693 Lady Anne Fitch, widow of Sir Thomas Fitch, bt., was advised to seek out Patrick, together with Bishop Compton, Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, and Algernon Capell*, 2nd earl of Essex, so that they could exercise their influence in the Lords in her petition against a chancery decree in <em>Fitch v. Fitch</em>.<sup>86</sup> On 17 Feb. the House heard the Fitch petition. It is unclear whether Patrick did indeed attempt to assist her. On 3 Mar. her appeal was dismissed by the Lords. Patrick continued to attend the session until the prorogation on 14 Mar. 1693.</p><p>Patrick returned to London in the autumn of 1693 via the Hertfordshire residence of his ‘most kind friend’ the Tory William Gore<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>87</sup> He attended the House on 7 Nov. for the first day of the new session and thereafter for 67 per cent of its sitting days, during which he was named to 10 committees. On 23 Nov. 1693 he was one of six bishops, the others being Hough, Moore, Tenison, Stillingfleet and Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, to register their protest against the order that the House would no longer receive any petition for protecting crown servants. On 21 Dec. the Whig John Cutts<sup>‡</sup>, Baron Cutts [I], was returned in the Cambridgeshire by-election, in a closely fought contest against his fellow Whig Sir Rushout Cullen<sup>‡</sup>, bt. Cutts enjoyed the support of local ‘churchmen’, which may well have included Patrick. <sup>88</sup> On 17 Feb. 1694, with the overwhelming majority of bishops, including Tenison, Stratford and Burnet, Patrick voted against the reversal of the chancery dismission of the petition of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. On 16 Apr. Patrick was nominated one of the managers for the conference on the small tithes bill, nine days before the session was prorogued.</p><p>Patrick returned to the House on 21 Nov. 1694, nine days after the start of the 1694-5 session, during which he attended 68 per cent of the sitting days and was named to 20 committees. On 22 Nov. 1694 Hough, reporting to a colleague the death of archbishop Tillotson, claimed to have it from one who knew ‘very well how the wind sits at court’ that Patrick was likely to succeed at Canterbury.<sup>89</sup> Tillotson was replaced instead by Patrick’s old colleague Tenison, a decision with which Patrick appeared to be delighted. Patrick was, however, expected in late February 1695 to be named to the commission on ecclesiastical preferments, which was to assume responsibility for appointments in the Church. His place on this commission was confirmed on 29 Apr., and it was composed largely of Nottingham’s favoured churchmen.<sup>90</sup> Patrick attended the prorogation on 3 May, and then returned to his diocese for his second triennial visitation.</p><p>Following the dissolution on 11 Oct. 1695, Patrick observed with interest the subsequent elections. Five years previously he had exercised his episcopal patronage as bishop of Chichester in favour of his politically like-minded brother-in-law Robert Middleton, whom he had installed as vicar of Cuckfield in 1690.<sup>91</sup> Middleton reciprocated by providing Patrick with exhaustive accounts of local politics and elections in Patrick’s former diocese.<sup>92</sup> The elections in Patrick's own diocese saw the sitting Member Cutts returned for Cambridgeshire along with the prominent Junto Member and lord of the admiralty, Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Patrick attended the House on the first day of the new Parliament, 22 Nov. 1695. He attended its first session thereafter for 49 per cent of its sitting days, during which he was named to only two committees, one on 5 Dec. 1695 (on Sir Thomas Parkyns’s bill) and the other on 25 Jan. 1696 (on the Berkhamstead manor bill). On 27 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association after the bishops had clarified that they would avenge the king only in so far as their function permitted. He also, on 10 Apr., signed the document expressing repugnance at the absolution given by three non-juring clergy to the Jacobite conspirators Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup> at their hanging.<sup>94</sup> During the session Patrick was also approached by his friend John Ashburnham*, Baron Ashburnham, who sought Patrick’s support over the repair of Ashburnham vicarage, concerning which the peer was experiencing difficulties with Patrick’s successor at Chichester, Robert Grove. Ashburnham reported to a correspondent Patrick’s agreement to ‘trouble himself so far as to become a referee in the business’. In the same year Ashburnham also became involved in a bitter dispute with Ailesbury about plans to erect a private family gallery in Ampthill parish church. Again, he called on Patrick to intervene.<sup>95</sup> Patrick attended the House erratically until the prorogation of 27 April. He visited Tenison at Lambeth regularly and on one occasion was shown original papers of Charles I agreeing to restore crown impropriations to the Church.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Patrick arrived back in London with his family on 12 Oct. 1696 for the 1696-7 session.<sup>97</sup> He took his seat in the House on 20 Oct. for the first day of the session and attended 70 per cent of sitting days during which he was named to approximately 13 committees. On 26 Oct. he was ordered to preach the 5 Nov. sermon. He wrote to Anne Nicholas in late November about the prospects for Sir John Verney<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt, in the forthcoming by-election in Buckinghamshire triggered by the death of Sir Richard Atkins<sup>‡</sup>, bt. earlier that month. Although he insisted he would do what he could for Verney, he admitted that he could claim no influence over the most significant local magnate, Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, who held the ‘greatest interest of any man in Buckinghamshire’ but had ‘always behaved himself as a stranger’ towards the bishop. Patrick also excused himself from further intervention on the day he wrote as he planned not to be in the House being ‘otherwise engaged’.<sup>98</sup> Patrick later voted with the court Whigs on 23 Dec. in favour of the bill for the attainder of the Jacobite Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. On 18 Mar. 1697 he received Burnet’s proxy, possibly for divisions on the bill for the restraint of stock-jobbing. It was vacated at the end of the session on 16 Apr. 1697.</p><p>Patrick was in Ely over the summer of 1697. Expecting the arrival of a party of friends, he approached Hatton for a gift of venison, the meat being ‘a great rarity in this place, there being no park in the whole isle’.<sup>99</sup> Patrick returned to London in time to take his place on 3 Dec. 1697 for the first day of the 1697-8 session. Thereafter he attended only 36 per cent of sitting days but was named to 15 committees. On 23 Dec. he wrote to Hatton from Ely House about Hatton’s recommendation for a clerical preferment, which had run into technical difficulties, as well as about a young man who was seeking ordination so that he could serve as Hatton’s chaplain. In neither case was Patrick able to promise a satisfactory outcome, though he promised to continue his efforts ‘in anything within any capacity’.<sup>100</sup> He was present on 5 Jan. 1698 for the first reading of a bill to enable him and his successors at Ely to lease the Cambridgeshire manor house and lands of Downham and to clear him from claims for dilapidations there. He was present again two days later when it was committed. It was reported by Stamford, with one amendment, on the 10th. The dean and chapter of Ely petitioned in favour of the bill and the indemnification of all future bishops of Ely, the manor house having been disastrously ruined during the civil wars. The bill received royal assent on 7 March.<sup>101</sup> On 15 Mar. Patrick voted for legislation to punish the exchequer official Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and registered his dissent when it was resolved not to commit the bill. He attended the House for the last time that session on 7 Apr., missing the last three months of business. On 18 June he registered his proxy in favour of Archbishop Tenison.</p><p>Following the dissolution of 7 July 1698, elections in Cambridgeshire on the 28th returned the sitting members Cutts and Cullen.<sup>102</sup> There is no evidence of Patrick’s direct involvement in their election although his approval of the outcome is in little doubt. Patrick attended the House on 6 Dec. 1698 for the first day of the new Parliament and attended thereafter for 63 per cent of the sittings of its first, 1698-9, session when he was named to nine committees. On 29 Mar. 1699 he was one of six bishops to register their dissent from the Lords’ agreement to address the king requesting that the bishop of Derry be sent for in custody for his behaviour in the case of the <em>London Ulster Society v. Bishop of Derry</em>. Patrick appears to have been on good terms with the embattled Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids: in April 1699 Watson thanked him for his help in Watson’s efforts to ensure that the vicar of the Cambridge living of Waterbeach ‘reside or relinquish’.<sup>103</sup> Having left the House for the session on 2 May, two days before the prorogation, on 8 June Patrick was appointed to the court of delegates dealing with Watson’s appeal against his suspension by Archbishop Tenison.<sup>104</sup> Patrick was back in the capital by 29 July in time for the next hearing of the delegates, but was not present on 3 Aug. for the final sentence of deprivation.<sup>105</sup> By 15 Aug. he was back in Ely, from where he wrote to John Humfrey (an ejected minister) who had earned Patrick’s approval for his doctrinal pragmatism and work towards the union of Protestants. Humfrey’s plea for union did not extend to Quakers and his latest anti-Quaker polemic found approval with Patrick, who shared a common view that Friends were a ‘popish faction’, unable to hear reason since they thought themselves to be ‘infallibly guided’.<sup>106</sup> With treason a constant worry to government, Patrick received from the secretary of state, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, instructions to oversee the taking of information from an Ely man suspected of publishing sedition.<sup>107</sup></p><p>Appointed on 28 Oct. 1699 to the new commission for ecclesiastical appointments and preferments, on 16 Nov. Patrick took his seat for the start of the 1699-1700 parliamentary session. He attended 71 per cent of all sitting days and was named to eight committees. On 23 Jan. 1700, he registered his protest against the resolution to reverse the judgment in the writ of error case of <em>R. Williamson v. the Crown</em>. He was not in the House on 2 Feb., attending instead Watson’s latest appeal at the court of delegates and the confirmation of his deprivation.<sup>108</sup> On 23 Feb. Patrick voted against adjourning into a committee of the whole to debate further two amendments to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 8 Mar. he registered his protest against the second reading of Norfolk’s divorce bill, and four days later he registered his dissent against its passage of the bill. Like a number of his colleagues on the bishops’ bench, his principal concern appears to have been that the divorce case had not previously been brought before the ecclesiastical courts.<sup>109</sup> On 9 and 10 Apr., he was nominated one of the managers of three bad-tempered conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the Commons’ bill for the land tax and the resumption of forfeited estates in Ireland. With the Houses at an impasse, the session was prorogued the following day, 11 April.</p><p>With ever-increasing political polarization after the debacle of that session, Patrick found himself in a difficult position as William III, concerned to form a ‘mixed’ ministry, sought to override the decisions of the ecclesiastical commission he had established in 1699, which tended to confine its recommendations to Whiggish clerics. Patrick could only reluctantly accept William’s high-handed manner with the commission, which came to a head when on 22 May 1700 Tenison received a terse message from the secretary of state Edward Villiers* earl of Jersey, that the king had appointed Jersey’s chaplain, a ‘Mr Stappylton’, to a prebend at Worcester without first consulting the commission. While Burnet fired off a fiery protest at this action to Tenison, and Moore hoped Tenison would represent to the king the continuing usefulness of the commission, Patrick appeared to resign himself to the situation, writing to Tenison that if the king wanted to act unilaterally and without consultation in order to gratify Jersey, he did not see ‘what we have to do in the matter’, although he was prepared to go through the formalities of formally mentioning Stappylton to the king if deemed necessary. <sup>110</sup> In July 1700 an annotated list of the House of Lords, with a reckoning of their political allegiances, listed Patrick as a Whig who would nevertheless be inclined to support the new ministry then being formed. This estimation may have been owing to Patrick’s friendships and political connections with a number of prominent Tories such as Nottingham and John Sharp, now archbishop of York. In September 1700 Patrick wrote to Sharp from Ely in the warmest of tones about a projected visit to York that had been disrupted by a family bereavement and had thus forced the Patricks to be ‘content with thinking of our friends without seeing them’.<sup>111</sup> Back in London by Christmas, Patrick was visited by Richard Hill, commissioner of the treasury, with an invitation to discuss religion with Jersey’s Catholic wife. The two met at the Cockpit on 28 Dec. but after nearly three hours’ conversation, she remained firm in her loyalties to Rome.<sup>112</sup></p><p>Following the formation of the new ministry and the dissolution on 19 Dec. 1700, the uneventful Cambridgeshire elections returned the sitting members without a contest, despite a growing Tory interest amongst the county freeholders. <sup>113</sup> Any questions about Patrick’s loyalties were settled by his appointment of Richard Bentley, a fiercely partisan Whig, as archdeacon of Ely. Patrick had also helped to install Bentley as master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the previous year. He also intervened on the side of the Whig faction at Clare College.<sup>114</sup> His political loyalties were also evident in Convocation, whose turbulent meeting in January 1701 he reported to William Wake*, later bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of Canterbury. A further letter on 29 Jan. to Wake about Convocation and the provocative Tory highflier Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, preceded the opening of the new Parliament on 6 February. <sup>115</sup> Patrick attended the House five days after the start of business, on 11 Feb., and was present subsequently for 65 per cent of the sittings. He was involved in the proceedings on the bill to separate Catherine, countess of Anglesey from her violent husband, James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesley. On 11 Apr. Patrick was nominated by the Lords to fetch the countess to the chamber, but he ignored the request (on the grounds that it was not in the form of a ‘command’) until Anglesey asked him in person to do as the Lords had requested. After the hearing in the House, Patrick escorted Lady Anglesey and her mother (Catherine, countess of Dorchester, to whom Patrick already ministered) back to Ely House for refreshments.<sup>116</sup></p><p>The impeachments of Orford (as Edward Russell had since become), Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, affected Patrick deeply; he claimed that he ‘was more broken by attending the issue of them’ than by the sum of his arduous academic studies. Following long sittings of the House until 10 at night, stifling weather and the necessity to sit so long on the episcopal bench, so that he was ‘sweltered by sitting so long in furs’, Patrick caught a chill from which he never fully recovered.<sup>117</sup> On 15 May 1701 Patrick voted against the new ministry as it tried to avoid a division on the motion that the advice given to the king to dissolve the previous Parliament and delay the meeting of the new one so far into the new year ‘was prejudicial to the Bill of Rights’. In this he thus ‘adhered to the side of the impeached lords’, though the vote to adjourn, and thus kill the motion, was carried for the court with the assistance of Tenison in conjunction with Arnold van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, and Jersey.<sup>118</sup></p><p>On 24 May Patrick was ordered to preach the traditional Restoration anniversary sermon for the 29th. While the high churchman Francis Atterbury preached before the Commons on the same day and came out in print with his sermon the same year, Patrick’s concurrent address (for which he was thanked on the 30th) was not published. On the day in question there were just eight members of the episcopal bench present on the journal’s attendance list and one peer in addition to the lord keeper Sir Nathan Wright. Patrick apparently refused to publish his text out of pique. On 17 June his wife told Lady Sarah Cowper that the bishop would never publish it since ‘they would not hear it, they will never read it, being there was but one lord present at the time he preached’. Lady Sarah was convinced that Patrick was far too eminent to have been the butt of an intended ‘slight’, but that the episode signalled deeper political developments: ‘when the convention is made up of vain and empty persons’ the absence of hearers may ‘give notice and presages of future events, and by these offer notions to our minds, not to be neglected’.<sup>119</sup></p><p>The developments Lady Cowper feared were much in evidence at the same time with the bitterness surrounding the attempted impeachment of the Junto peers. On 17 and 23 June 1701 Patrick voted to acquit, respectively, Somers and Orford of the articles of impeachment against them. Following the prorogation of 24 June, Patrick’s health appears to have collapsed, and on 26 July he confided to Wake that he had been so unwell that he had been forced to miss one of his visitation days and that some, he thought, had ‘a great desire... to have me dead’. The cause of his malady seems to have been the chill he had caught while sitting in the House during the impeachment hearings, which had turned into something akin to dysentery leaving him with ‘a perpetual provocation to go to stool’. Illness notwithstanding, he professed himself ‘exceedingly pleased’ with the most recent publication by White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Peterborough, on the history of Convocation, a riposte to the claims of Atterbury and his high church followers concerning the independence of the lower house of Convocation .<sup>120</sup></p><p>Patrick was well enough to return to Westminster in time for the prorogation on 6 Nov. 1701 which he attended with Tenison, Moore and Cumberland as the only bishops. The Parliament was unexpectedly dissolved five days later, and early in December Patrick was said to have been one of those responsible for putting about a report that the Speaker of the previous Parliament, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford had declared in pique, ‘whoever advised the dissolving of the last Parliament ought to lose his head’. Patrick’s name continued to be associated with similar rumours into the middle of the month.<sup>121</sup> On 11 Dec., complaining to Hatton that old age was ‘creeping so fast’ upon him that his studies were being affected, Patrick insisted that he would nevertheless ‘go on slowly to prosecute what I began when I had more vigour’ and would be sure to present Hatton with his published work as and when it was finished. In doing so he maintained (somewhat disingenuously) that he had always loathed ‘those contentions which so lamentably trouble and endanger our Church’ and insisted that he would never engage in them, despite being ‘provoked by a very abusive pamphlet’, probably referring to one of the many works produced in the continuing paper war concerning Convocation and the rights and privileges of its lower house.<sup>122</sup> His moral righteousness now had an institutional outlet in the reform societies, including the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, of which he became a member in around 1701. There he was able to mix with the likes of Lady Sarah Cowper, who judged him a ‘judicious man not like to be imposed upon’.<sup>123</sup></p><p>He attended the new Parliament on 2 Jan. 1702, when he signed the address of the previous day on the danger posed by Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender. He attended the session for 36 per cent of sittings. Still hostile to Quakers, on 26 Feb. he registered his dissent from the passage of the bill to continue the Quaker Affirmation Act. On 4 Mar. a petition was read from Cavendish Weedon requesting leave to bring in a private bill for the demolition of a chapel in Hatton Garden, to which legislation he assured the House Patrick had agreed. Four days later, along with all those present in the House, Patrick was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the death of William III and the accession of Queen Anne. On 18 Apr. 1702 Patrick attended the House for the last time that session before travelling north to Melton in Yorkshire to visit Thomas Fountayne, to whose daughter Patrick arranged the marriage of his son. During the visit Patrick suffered an accidental fall but was convinced that he was preserved by ‘angelical powers’ from more serious injury.<sup>124</sup> Whilst in Yorkshire, he finalized the pre-nuptial contract, which later became the subject of a private bill, and visited Sharp at Bishopthorpe.<sup>125</sup> The marriage of his son in July, with a reputed £5,000 portion from his new wife, led to speculation about Patrick’s personal finances. It was boasted by the Fountaynes that Patrick had settled £20,000 on his son. Patrick rebutted the claims, insisting that the dowry was less than the £5,000 commonly reported and that he had not settled ‘near £20,000 but ... they are well provided for’.<sup>126</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Ely under Anne, 1702-7</em></h2><p>Patrick was probably back in his diocese in time to observe the county elections on 28 July 1702 in which the sitting member Cullen was returned with the Tory Granado Pigot<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>127</sup> The changed face of county representation heralded a more contentious Parliament and Patrick took his place in the House on 4 Nov. 1702, two weeks after the start of the session. He attended only 23 per cent of sittings, probably more for reasons of age and frailty than out of distaste for political contention. Throughout December he acted against the occasional conformity bill. ‘I endeavoured to vote with all uprightness and sincerity, and could not but be against it’, Patrick claimed in his memoirs. He was apparently now less judgmental of nonconformists, as he may have claimed in a speech to the House attributed to him:</p><blockquote><p>he had been known to write against the Dissenters with some warmth in his younger years; but that he had lived long enough to see reason to alter his opinion of that people and that way of writing: and that he was verily persuaded there were some who were honest men, and good Christians, who would be neither, if they did not ordinarily go to church and sometimes to the meeting: and on the other hand, some were honest men and good Christians, who would be neither, if they did not ordinarily go to the meetings and sometimes to the church.<sup>128</sup></p></blockquote><p>In his own memoirs he makes clear that he regarded the bill</p><blockquote><p>as making a manifest breach upon the act of indulgence, which had made great peace, quiet and love among us. For it struck at the very best of the nonconformists, who, looking upon us as good Christians that had nothing sinful in our worship, thought they ought upon occasion to communicate with us: but imagining they had something better in their way of worship, could not leave it, but adhere to their Dissenting ministers. This I took not to be an argument of their hypocrisy, as many called it, but of their conscientious sincerity.<sup>129</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 3 Dec. Patrick supported Somers’s successful motion to instruct the committee of the whole House debating the bill that it devise an amendment to restrict the bill’s force only to those officers covered by the Test Acts (thereby excluding corporation officers, the principal target of the bill). The new bishop William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, noted Patrick among Tenison’s core of ten or so bishops opposed to the bill in this and the subsequent division the following day on the motion to insert a clause compelling officers to attend a service of the established Church at least once a month. When the motion was defeated by one vote Patrick (who according to Nicolson probably also voted against the bill as a whole) wrote that he had asked one of his fellow bishops why he had voted against ‘such a pious clause’. His fellow diocesan, unfortunately unnamed, ‘had nothing to say but that it would lose the bill, for the House of Commons would never pass it’. It is also almost certain that Patrick was one of the seven bishops, beside Tenison himself, who according to Nicolson voted on 7 Dec. to agree with Somers’ motion to excise the stringent pecuniary penalties against offenders in the Commons’ version of the bill, a motion which was ‘agreed, on all hands, to be (in effect) a throwing out of the bill, since the Commons will not allow an amendment in the money part’. On 9 Dec. Patrick signed the resolution against the tacking of non-relevant clauses to bills of supply. So committed was Patrick to these debates that, aged and sickly as he was, he stayed till 11 o’clock on the night of 16 Dec. to attend a long report of and debate on a free conference with the Commons on the Lords’ wrecking amendments. <sup>130</sup> On 16 Jan. 1703, after another tempestuous conference with the Commons, Patrick duly voted to adhere to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause. </p><p>Patrick attended just under 15 per cent of sittings of the following session of 1703-4. The reasons for his low attendance now were possibly less to do with his health and more to do with parliamentary attacks on his Whig zeal. Patrick had taken to circulating a story that proved that the Pretender was an imposter. He was sufficiently persuasive to convince Lady Sarah Cowper, but she believed that Patrick’s ‘talking too much of these things, and intending to write what he knew of this subject, might be the cause he was so roughly handled’ in the previous session of Parliament.<sup>131</sup> Throughout November 1703, Patrick was, not surprisingly, forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as a likely opponent of the renewed attempt to pass the occasional conformity bill. Patrick finally took his seat on 9 Dec., one month after the start of the session, his return almost certainly timed for the re-introduction of the bill in the House on 14 December. The measure again split the episcopal bench and a long debate followed a motion against reading the bill a second time. Patrick and Burnet both spoke against the bill, while Sharp roundly defended it. Ultimately it was rejected at its second reading by 71 to 59. Patrick voted with Tenison and 12 other Whig bishops against nine members of the episcopate led by Sharp.<sup>132</sup> Following the prorogation on 3 Apr. 1704, Patrick went on his fifth triennial visitation during which he consecrated a chapel in Catherine Hall, Cambridge.<sup>133</sup></p><p>On 16 Nov. 1704 he took his place in the House three weeks into the 1704-5 session but thereafter attended only ten more sitting days, 11 per cent of all sittings. On 15 Dec., the day of the re-introduction of the occasional conformity bill for the third time, he registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Cumberland. As Cumberland had in the previous two occasions joined Patrick in voting against the bill, it is likely that Patrick entrusted his proxy to him at this time with the goal of defeating it yet again. The bill was once again rejected at its second reading in the House. The proxy was vacated when Patrick returned to the House on 17 Jan. 1705, but he sat only a further six times before leaving the House for the session on 10 Feb., missing the last four weeks.</p><p>Patrick was in his diocese in May 1705, where he involved himself in the election for the Cambridge University representatives. The Whig candidates, Francis Godolphin*, later 2nd earl of Godolphin, and Sir Isaac Newton<sup>‡</sup> were defeated, in spite of clear indications that they enjoyed ministerial (even royal) approval. Although Patrick had been an active political manager of the university, he was hindered in his efforts by the recent inactivity of the chancellor, Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset. There was also evidence of a last minute change of plans as a ‘Mr Patrick’, possibly a relation of the bishop, had dropped out of the campaign, to be replaced by Newton late in the day.<sup>134</sup> By this time, Patrick’s health was in serious decline. On 22 Sept. 1705, apologizing to Wake for the delay in offering congratulations on his elevation to the episcopate as bishop of Lincoln, Patrick admitted that his memory was also starting to fail him.<sup>135</sup> The new Parliament assembled on 25 Oct., but Patrick attended only two days of the session, 12 Nov., when the House was called, and 6 December 1705. It is significant that this, his final appearance in the House, was also the day of the setpiece debate in the committee of the whole House on the Tory and High Church allegation that the Church was ‘in danger’ under the queen’s administration. In the days preceding this debate he had consulted with Tenison, who had planned that his group of bishops contribute to the debate to make clear the dangers to the established Church represented by the ‘high-flying’ churchmen.<sup>136</sup> Patrick did his part and speaking of the dangers to the Church within the universities, he argued that ‘the universities are in danger of this factious humour that thrusts out arts and sciences’, drawing particular attention to the recent Cambridge election, when, as he claimed, many students had been encouraged ‘in hollowing like school-boys and porters, and crying out, No fanatic, no occasional conformity, against two worthy gentlemen that stood candidates.’ He concluded with a controversial motion ‘that the judges may consider how far a royal visitation may be necessary to reclaim these disorders’. At the division Patrick voted in favour of the motion that the Church was not in danger under the present administration.<sup>137</sup></p><p>In spite of his absence from the chamber for much of the session, Patrick was the beneficiary of an order in his favour relating to an appeal from chancery. On 14 Nov. 1705, the House had heard the petition by Catherine Tooke in the case of <em>Tooke v. Dolben</em> in which Patrick had an interest with Sir Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup>. Tooke pleaded for discharge from the order of chancery of 21 July 1705 allowing Patrick and Dolben to submit their pleas. Patrick and Dolben submitted their answers to the appeal to the House on 13 Dec., after petitioning that more time be allowed them, but the matter was frequently postponed throughout December until on 9 Jan. 1706, shortly after the House had resumed after the Christmas recess, Tooke’s appeal was dismissed.<sup>138</sup> Patrick’s own account in his memoirs muddled the Tooke case and a different chancery suit against him regarding his Dalham estates, but is a remarkable testament to his faith in the judicial function of the House and of his ability to marshal support in the chamber. In managing this episode, he claimed, he had experienced:</p><blockquote><p>no more trouble but to entreat all the lords of my acquaintance to be present and attend … and they were so kind, that not one of them failed to be at the house on the 9th of January, when the cause was heard. And moreover, they were so kind as to prevail with those lords who were not of my acquaintance to come to the house, and stay all the time. A fuller house to hear a private cause had not been seen a long time, and the case was so clear, that after the pleadings were over, it was soon ended by the confirmation of the decree in Chancery for me; and this so unanimously, that there was but one lord that dissented’.<sup>139</sup></p></blockquote><p>Wake was one of those friends who attended the hearing and Nicolson specifies that Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), was the sole peer to offer reasons for a dissent from the petition’s dismissal. He was not seconded, though, and no dissent was entered.<sup>140</sup></p><p>In the summer following the prorogation of 19 Mar. 1706, Patrick was delighted with the news of military success at Ramillies, ‘the most glorious victory that we ever read of obtained over the French’.<sup>141</sup> Despite a desperate need for Whig clerics in the Lords for the ensuing parliamentary session of 1706-7, Patrick remained away from the House for the session’s entirety, even though he appears to have been in London at the time. On 18 Feb. 1707, he registered his proxy for the remainder of the session with Bishop Burnet - a good 11 weeks after the session’s start, and the latest episcopal proxy submitted that session.<sup>142</sup> On 8 Apr., the day that Parliament was prorogued, Patrick left the capital ‘extremely ill and thought to be in a dangerous state’ after taking medication that did not agree with him.<sup>143</sup> He died in Ely on 31 May, having suffered repeatedly with bouts of poor health.<sup>144</sup> His death occurred in the midst of the ‘bishoprics crisis’ and provided the queen with a perfect opportunity to offer a Whig promotion, as the inoffensive Bishop John Moore of Norwich was immediately put forward as Patrick’s successor at Ely, as a sop to defuse Junto anger at the choice of two Tory bishops for the vacant sees of Chester and Exeter. <sup>145</sup> Even this was not satisfactory, as Somers, while congratulating Tenison that he had thus been able to make ‘one good bishop without importunity and tearing’ still took the opportunity to point out that this still left the see of Norwich now open and ‘if time be lost, or if modesty prevails, it will (as in all other cases) be wrong disposed of and the Church and State will be undone’. Somers proceeded to take this occasion roundly and candidly to berate Tenison for his ineffectiveness in arguing the case for consistently Whig episcopal promotions before the queen.<sup>146</sup> Even in his death, Patrick was at the heart of the party struggles within the episcopate.</p><p>Patrick’s will appointed his wife Penelope sole executrix and residuary legatee after confirming his real estate holdings in Glamorgan and Suffolk and leaving modest cash bequests to relatives and to the poor of Ely to the value of £200.<sup>147</sup> He left a son Simon, also a clergyman, on whom he had already settled his ‘considerable’ Dalham estates.<sup>148</sup> On 1 Apr. 1712, Patrick’s widow, together with her widowed daughter-in-law Ann Patrick (née Fountayne), petitioned the Lords on behalf of Patrick’s five grandchildren to bring in a private bill for the sale of Dalham. It was reported on the 28th by John West*, 6th Baron De la Warr, and given the royal assent on 22 May. <sup>149</sup> Patrick was buried on 7 June 1707 in the presbytery of Ely Cathedral where his successor John Moore erected a monument to his memory.<sup>150</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
PAUL, William (1599-1665) |
<p><strong><surname>PAUL</surname></strong> (<strong>PAWLE</strong>), <strong>William</strong> (1599–1665)</p> |
|
|
First sat 21 Apr. 1664; last sat 2 Mar. 1665 |
cons. 20 Dec. 1663 bp. of OXFORD |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 14 Oct. 1599, yr. s. of William Paul, butcher and citizen of London and Joane, da. of John Harrison, beadle of the Butchers’ Co. <em>educ.</em> All Soul’s, Oxf. matric. 1616, BA 1618, fell. 1618, MA 1621, BD 1629, DD 1632. <em>m</em>. (1) 12 Nov. 1632, Mary (<em>d</em>.1633), da. of Sir Henry Glemham<sup>‡</sup> and Anne Sackville; (2) 22 Jan. 1635, Alice (<em>d</em>.1635), da. of Thomas Cutler of Ipswich and Anne Dandy; (3) ?1635, Rachel (<em>d</em>.1691), da. of Sir Christopher Clitherow<sup>‡</sup>, ld. mayor of London, 2s. 4da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d.</em> 24 Aug. 1665; <em>will</em> 14 Sept. 1664, pr. 21 Feb. 1666.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I and II.</p><p>Rect. Patshull, Staffs. 1626-28, Brightwell Baldwin, Oxon. 1632-65, Chinnor, Oxon. 1662-65; vic. Amport, Hants 1662; preb. Chichester 1637-62; dean Lichfield 1661-4.</p> |
|
<p>‘Wealthy and knowing in secular affairs’, William Paul was elevated to the bishopric of Oxford in 1663 through the influence of Gilbert Sheldon*, of Canterbury, who hoped that Paul would use his wealth to rebuild the bishop’s palace at Cuddesdon.<sup>3</sup> Paul, the son of a London citizen, had been a parish clergyman and preacher in Oxford since the 1620s. One of Paul’s contemporaries deemed the bishop an ‘acute scholar’, a ‘shrewd man in business’ and ‘exceedingly well-versed in the laws of the Church and the land’, but the surviving records leave scant evidence of his activity.<sup>4</sup> His brief parliamentary career also leaves only the most sketchy of details.</p><p>His marriages brought him social status and useful connections. Through his first marriage to Mary Glemham, Paul was related to the Sackville earls of Dorset, to the dowager Lady Dorchester (widow of the Dudley Carleton<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Dorchester) and through Henry Glemham*, later bishop of St Asaph, to Charles II’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine. His second wife was the sister-in-law of Matthew Wren*, bishop of Hereford (later translated to Norwich and then to Ely). His third wife was the daughter of a prominent London merchant. Such advantageous marriages may explain his prosperity and ability to secure preferment. By the time of his death he was able to bequeath over £6,000 in money bequests and two Oxfordshire manors.</p><p>At the Restoration, having been sequestered during the late 1640s, Paul resumed his post as a royal chaplain and beneficed clergyman and, in 1661, was appointed dean of Lichfield. Later that year he preached before the king a stern warning against backsliding into sin.<sup>5</sup> In the summer of 1663 he succeeded Robert Skinner*, as bishop of Oxford. The new bishop was permitted to hold <em>in commendam</em> the well-endowed Oxfordshire rectories of Chinnor and Baldwin-Brightwell.<sup>6</sup> Paul was consecrated at Lambeth in December 1663. Having registered his proxy in favour of Gilbert Sheldon on 20 Mar. 1664, he eventually took his seat in the Lords the following month on 21 April.</p><p>Paul attended the House for over half of the sittings in the first (spring) session of 1664. He was not appointed to any committees but supported the episcopal bench throughout the passage of the first Conventicle Act in May 1664. When Parliament reassembled on 24 Nov. 1664 Paul became much more active in the House, attending over 80 per cent of the sittings and being named to numerous committees. He is not recorded as having registered his dissent on any occasion.</p><p>Paul died at Chinnor on 24 Aug. 1665 before Parliament could reassemble. He had made his complex will the previous November, providing generously for his large family, servants, the poor, and for the cathedrals of Lichfield and Chichester. He left £5,800 to provide portions for three of his daughters; when one, Bridget, later married Sir Edmund Warneford<sup>‡</sup> her portion was £1,900.<sup>7</sup> He also bequeathed to his successor all the timber newly acquired for the rebuilding of Cuddesdon. The bishop was buried in the chancel of Baldwin-Brightwell Church where his ‘disconsolate’ widow and executor, Rachel, erected a ‘fair marble’ monument to his memory.<sup>8</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
PEARSON, John (1613-86) |
<p><strong><surname>PEARSON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1613–86)</p> |
|
|
First sat 18 Feb. 1673; last sat 28 Mar. 1681 |
cons. 9 Feb. 1673 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 12 Feb. 1613, elder s. of Robert Pearson (<em>d</em>.1640) of Westmor, clergyman, and Joanna, da. of Richard Vaughan<sup>†</sup>, bp. of London. <em>educ</em>. Eton 1623-31; King’s, Camb. matric. 1632, BA 1635-6, fell. 1635-9, MA, 1639, ord. 1639, DD 1661. <em>m</em>. unknown. <em>d</em>. 16 Jul. 1686; <em>will</em> 2 Jan. 1678-18 June 1685, pr. 25 Sept. 1686.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1660-73.</p><p>Preb. Salisbury 1639-62, Ely 1660-1, 1661-72; rect. Thorington, Suff. 1640-bef. 1646, Terrington St Clement, Norf. 1661-73, St Christopher-le-Stocks, London 1660-2, Wigan, Lancs. 1673-86; chap. to John Finch*, Bar. Finch, 1640, to regt. of George Goring*, Bar. Goring, 1645; preacher, St Clement Eastcheap, London 1654-60; adn. Surr. 1660-86; master Jesus, Camb. 1660-2, Trinity, Camb. 1662-73; Lady Margaret Prof. Divinity 1661-72; commr. Savoy conference 1661.<sup>2</sup></p><p>FRS 1667.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: engraving, by D. Loggan, 1682, NPG 635; line engraving by F.H. Van Hove, 1675, after W. Sonmans, repro. in J. Pearson, <em>An exposition of the creed</em> (1676).</p> |
<p>John Pearson, who became a celebrated patristic scholar of the seventeenth century, came from something of a clerical dynasty. His mother was the daughter of a bishop of London, his father a clergyman who had sympathized with the anti-Calvinist churchmanship of Richard Mountague<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Norwich. One of his cousins was the royalist clergyman Thomas Mallory, son and namesake of the dean of Chester. The family also had useful secular connections: another cousin was Sir Charles Cornwallis<sup>†</sup>, who represented Eye in the Commons from 1662 to 1675, and through this connection Pearson was distantly linked to the Barons Cornwallis. By the Restoration Pearson was a client of George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley.<sup>3</sup></p><p>During the civil wars, Pearson was counted as one of London’s ‘cavalier’ ministers<sup>4</sup> He had formulated a coherent political theology from which he would never deviate: the defence of the established Church against both Rome and nonconformity.<sup>5</sup> His Eastcheap lectures, delivered in the 1650s, went into numerous editions as <em>An Exposition of the Creed</em> and became a core Anglican commentary. He contributed to debates at the Savoy Conference and took part in further discussions aimed at resolving the impasse with nonconformists.<sup>6</sup> On 13 Dec. 1661 he was appointed to assist in the preparation of the revised Book of Common Prayer.<sup>7</sup> Throughout the 1660s he preached at court, continued to write prolifically and was active in the Upper House of Convocation. He was of the same mind as Gilbert Sheldon*, of Canterbury, on religious uniformity, and it is likely that his long-awaited elevation to the episcopate was delayed by the tolerationist agenda of the Cabal and attendant eclipse of Sheldon’s influence. His fortunes changed with Sheldon’s return to favour, and when he learned of his elevation to Chester in December 1672 he readily acknowledged the ‘greatness’ of Sheldon’s ‘undeserved kindness in inclining his majesty to that good opinion of me’.<sup>8</sup> His elevation came at a difficult time for the Church: in the wake of the 1672 Declaration of Indulgence and revelations of the recent conversion to Catholicism of James Stuart*, duke of York.</p><p>Pearson took his seat in the Lords for the 1673 session on 18 Feb., subsequently attending for nearly 60 per cent of sittings. On 1 Mar. 1673 he was added to the committee on the private bill for Berkeley, a committee in which it seems likely, given his personal connection to the family, that he did participate. On 19 Mar. 1673 Pearson was present when the Commons sent up a bill for the ease of Protestant Dissenters and went into a committee of the whole on the bill to prevent dangers from Catholics. He attended on 22 and 25 Mar. for debates on the Dissenters bill. The next session began on 27 Oct. 1673. Pearson was appointed to the sessional committees, but after only eight days Parliament was prorogued. The following day, 5 Nov. 1673, Pearson preached the thanksgiving sermon at Westminster Abbey, reiterating his stand on ‘public and united’ worship. He used the sermon to attack Catholicism and to warn nonconformists that they were weakening the Church’s fight against Rome.<sup>9</sup></p><p>On 1 Dec. 1673, in advance of the spring 1674 session, Pearson received the proxy of Edward Rainbowe*, of Carlisle (who was absent from the House until April 1675). He attended the House for the start of business on 7 Jan. 1674, attending for 85 per cent of sittings. Although present on 10 Feb. when a committee of the whole debated the ‘heads for securing the Protestant religion’, he did not attend on 13 Feb. when George Morley*, of Winchester, introduced a new bill to invite ‘sober and peaceably-minded’ Dissenters into the Church. On 19 Feb. the bill had a second reading, and Pearson was one of several bishops, including John Dolben*, of Rochester, Benjamin Laney*, of Ely, and Seth Ward*, of Salisbury, who voted that no minister should be obliged to wear the surplice or use the cross in baptism. The bill was carried ‘by almost twenty votes’ after a ‘great debate’ when Pearson, Morley, Ward and Dolben were ‘for the commitment and spoke for the thing’, but was eventually lost with the prorogation on 24 Feb. 1674.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Pearson returned to his diocese for the summer months of 1674 to conduct a visitation.<sup>11</sup> Although unwell, he returned to London in the late autumn of 1674, answering a royal summons, together with Richard Sterne*, of York, Walter Blandford*, of Worcester, and George Morley, to discuss ‘the preservation and security of the protestant religion’.<sup>12</sup> In January 1675 the king issued instructions to the bishops to assist in ‘the preserving of the Church’. Pearson was one of the eight bishops who concluded that the penal laws already on the statute book against Catholics and nonconformists were adequate but required a royal proclamation to encourage their implementation. Pearson and five other bishops also joined Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S], and earl of Guilford, to sign the ‘advice’ to the king on Catholicism.<sup>13</sup></p><p>During the early months of 1675 he was involved in further unsuccessful negotiations with Morley, Ward and Baxter about comprehension.<sup>14</sup> He took his place in the Lords at the opening of the new session of Parliament that began on 13 Apr. 1675. He attended the session for 69 per cent of sittings and contributed to debates on the threat of catholicism. On 21 Apr. 1675, as opposition to Danby’s ministry became more vocal, Pearson, with the entire episcopal bench, supported the government motion that the bill imposing the contentious ‘no alteration’ oath on members of both Houses, did not entrench on the Lords’ privileges. On 11 May, after being named to a committee of the House on the ‘heads’, he was named to a subcommittee to prepare a bill for the suppression of atheism and blasphemy. Pearson was present when the House reassembled on 13 Oct. 1675 and on 21 Oct. again received the proxy of Edward Rainbowe for the whole session. He attended the House for 76 per cent of sittings until the prorogation of 22 Nov. 1675.</p><p>After spending the recess in Chester, Pearson was at Westminster for the first day of the session on 15 Feb. 1677 and was promptly named to the committee to enquire into the writer and printer of the contentious <em>Some Considerations upon the Question Whether the Parliament is Dissolved by Prorogation for Fifteen Months</em>. He attended the session for 59 per cent of sittings and was present on 21 Feb. when the House went into committee on the security of the protestant religion. On 30 Mar. 1677 he was one of those nominated ‘to interpose and mediate’ in the marital dispute between Thomas Leigh*, 2nd Baron Leigh, and his wife. On 28 Jan. 1678 Pearson was in the House to hear of the committal of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. The following day he failed to join the protest, led by William Sancroft*, against the earl’s release. After the prorogation Pearson resumed his seat on 23 May 1678 and attended the House regularly until the end of the session on 15 July 1678. On 8 July he was present for the debates on the appeal of Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham. Baron Finch, the lord chancellor who had presided over the original case in chancery, reported in some exasperation that Pearson ‘talked scholastically upon the words “dependent” and “coherent” but understood not at all that sense in which the lawyers used those words’ and thus contributed to what Finch considered to be an erroneous verdict that overturned the original decree.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Pearson did not appear at the start of the next session in October 1678, thus missing the emotive debate on 19 Nov. when the duke of York pleaded for an exemption from the second Test.<sup>16</sup> He entered his proxy on 2 Nov. 1678 in favour of Seth Ward. Perhaps he was genuinely unable to attend, but it is equally possible that his absence was strategic. The death of Ralph Brideoake*, of Chichester, on 5 Oct. had led to much speculation about possible translations, and Henry Compton*, of London, proposed that Pearson take the see.<sup>17</sup> Pearson arrived in the House on 22 November. He then joined his fellow bishops in their support for Danby against impeachment. On 26 Dec. 1678, he voted in the division on the supply bill, insisting on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment on money into the exchequer.</p><p>Pearson appeared on the second day of the first Exclusion Parliament, 7 Mar. 1679. He attended the first day of the main session, on 15 Mar., and thereafter attended 23 per cent of sitting days. and was present on 26 Mar. for the third reading and vote on the banishment of Danby. Although he was not recorded in the printed Journal as attending on 14 Apr. 1679, surviving division lists name him as one of the six bishops who left the chamber rather than vote for the attainder of Danby. Pearson attended the House sporadically throughout May 1679 but was absent for every debate that month on the matter of the bishops’ right to vote in capital cases. On 9 May 1679 Pearson was excused attendance at a call of the House and, with the exception of two days at the end of the month, he stayed away for the rest of the session. In August 1679 he wrote to Sancroft about the necessity of promoting strong-principled churchmen in a region ‘whereon a numerous party of each separation hath acted these many years’.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Throughout the summer and winter of 1679 and for much of 1680 Pearson remained in Chester. He fretted over his enforced absence from London, especially with regard to a case pending in common pleas over the Staffordshire rectory of Bradley (‘sacrilegiously made ... away’ by the first bishop after the Reformation); he asked Sancroft to lobby lord chief justice Charles North*, 5th Baron North, to ‘be careful of the right of the Church’.<sup>19</sup> Pearson attended the second Exclusion Parliament in October 1680 and was then present for 32 per cent of sittings. He was excused attendance on the grounds of illness on 30 Oct. but returned in November, holding Seth Ward’s proxy from 12 Nov. to the end of the session. He was not present for the vote on the Exclusion bill on 15 Nov., although he was back in the House two days later. He went to each sitting of the brief Oxford Parliament in 1681, being named to the committee on the popish plot on 25 March. He attended the House for the final time on 28 Mar. 1681, the day of the abrupt dissolution of Parliament. By 1682 William Lloyd*, of St Asaph, reported that the ageing bishop was ‘so infirm’ that he could not travel to London ‘without hazard of life’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>As the Tory reaction began to bite the diocese of Chester became increasingly polarized. Pearson was caught between political factions when his clergy came under political scrutiny from the gentry and nobility. He was pressurized to suppress certain lectures on the grounds that they encouraged whiggism and hampered the execution of the penal laws. Pearson also found himself at odds with his own dean, James Arderne (an appointee of the ecclesiastical commissioners) who was enthusiastically committed to rooting out political opposition. Pearson himself pointed to the success of the lectures in recovering to the Church wavering nonconformists ‘who otherwise had passed over into the tents of desperation’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>By 1685 Pearson’s health was deteriorating rapidly, and he was unable to attend the opening of James II’s first Parliament. In December 1685 William Lloyd reported that Pearson was deaf and bedridden. When visited by Henry Dodwell, his ‘great friend and fellow labourer’, Pearson’s confusion left Dodwell shocked and ‘ashamed’ at the degeneration of such a great mind.<sup>22</sup> Pearson died on 16 July 1686. William Lloyd wrote of his ‘heartache’ at the death of his ‘most excellent’ friend. Neither his grief nor his respect for Pearson was shared by Thomas Cartwright*, the next bishop of Chester, who complained that the Pearson had mismanaged the diocese by ‘minding his private study more than the public concerns of the Church’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Despite the success of his publications, the bishop was never a wealthy man. His diocesan revenue was an annual £744.<sup>24</sup> The Norfolk landholdings Pearson had inherited from his father were bequeathed to his brother and executor Theophilus, and he left only £100 to his nephew and amanuensis John Thane. Pearson was buried in Chester Cathedral near to the high altar without a surviving monument. His body was rediscovered in 1841 and moved to a new tomb in 1863.</p> |
B.A. |
|
PIERS, William (1580-1670) |
<p><strong><surname>PIERS</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1580–1670)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 27 July 1663 |
cons. 24 Oct. 1630 bp. of PETERBOROUGH; transl. 13 Dec. 1632 bp. of BATH AND WELLS |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 3 Sept. 1580, s. of William Piers, haberdasher. <em>educ</em>. Christ Church, Oxf. BA 1600, MA 1603, BD 1610, DD 1614. <em>m.</em> (1) Anne (<em>d</em>. c.1655), 2s.; (2) Mary.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 30 Apr. 1670; <em>will</em> 24 Dec. 1668, pr. 7 May 1670.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James I bef. 1621.</p><p>Chap. to John King<sup>†</sup>, bp. London; rect. Grafton Regis, Northants. 1609–11, St Christopher-le-Stocks, London 1615–20, Castor, Northants. 1632; vic. Northolt, Mdx. 1611; canon, St Paul’s 1618–30, 5th stall, Oxford 1617, 1st stall, Oxford 1618–32; dean, Peterborough 1622–30.</p><p>V.-chan. Oxf. 1621–4.</p> |
|
<p>William Piers was the son of an Oxford haberdasher and nephew to John Piers<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of York (<em>d.</em> 1594). His relationship to the archbishop was clearly crucial to his early career in the Church. He became chaplain to John King<sup>†</sup>, bishop of London, who had himself once been chaplain to Archbishop Piers. By the 1630s his earlier Calvinist sympathies had been transformed into support for the policies of Archbishop William Laud<sup>†</sup>, of Canterbury. His enthronement as bishop of Bath and Wells in January 1633 heralded the vigorous enforcement of Laud’s controversial altar policy: when the churchwardens of Beckington in Somerset refused to move theirs, he had them excommunicated; when they continued to defy his authority they were imprisoned for a year and forced to do public penance.<sup>3</sup></p><p>On 24 Dec. 1640 Piers was charged by the House of Commons with ‘misdemeanours tending to the subversion of true religion’ and exercising ‘arbitrary power against law’. He then exacerbated the enmity of the Commons by signing the bishops’ declaration against the legality of proceedings in the House during their enforced absence; as a result, on 30 Dec. he and his fellow signatories were impeached and imprisoned.<sup>4</sup> On his release he retired to his ‘considerable’ estate in Cuddesdon, Oxford.<sup>5</sup> ‘Plundered’ to the tune of £10,000 during the civil wars and interregnum, he survived by borrowing at least £1,000, a sum which he later repaid himself out of episcopal revenue with the justification that it was ‘a public debt in respect of public persecution’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>At the Restoration, now aged 80, Piers was restored to his see. He set about repairing the cathedral, rebuilt Wells Palace at a cost of more than £4,000, and conducted a visitation of the diocese.<sup>7</sup> He was supposed to have persuaded the more moderate clergymen to conform to the Act of Uniformity and, in one case, convinced a Presbyterian minister to accept reordination to comply with the Act.<sup>8</sup> He retained his antipathy towards the ‘factious’, informing Edward Hyde* earl of Clarendon, that the father of one Dissenter ‘could not have done the Church a greater injury than in begetting such a son’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Together with the other bishops, Piers resumed his seat in the Lords on 20 Nov. 1661, but he had little interest in returning to a parliamentary career. Although the House assembled for nine sessions during his remaining life, he attended only two (1661–2 for 28 per cent of sittings and 1663 for 18 per cent), making his final visit to Westminster on 27 July 1663 when Parliament was prorogued to the following spring. He registered his proxy in favour of George Morley* bishop of Winchester, on 14 Feb. 1663 and 26 Sept. 1667; in favour of Joseph Henshaw* bishop of Peterborough, on 7 Feb. 1670; and, during the passage of the first Conventicle Act, Five Mile Act, and Irish Act of Uniformity, on four occasions (19 Mar. and 10 Nov. 1664, 6 Oct. 1665, 13 Nov. 1666) in favour of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury.</p><p>Piers’s relationship with Sheldon was occasionally somewhat strained. In December 1665 Sheldon informed Piers that he had received a complaint about an irregular ordination; Piers’s reply suggests that this was not the first time that Sheldon had questioned his conduct. In a somewhat defensive response Piers pointed out that he had been a bishop for 36 years and was surprised that his archbishop should have given the remarks any credibility.<sup>10</sup> Later, in 1666, Piers expressed amazement that he continued to survive old age, but decided that God had intended him ‘to see more evil days’.<sup>11</sup> He also became involved in a jurisdictional dispute over visitation rights with his cathedral chapter (under the leadership of his successor, Robert Creighton*).<sup>12</sup></p><p>There is little information to be gleaned about either of Piers’s wives. According to Anthony Wood, the second wife, Mary, ‘too young and cunning for him’, was guilty of ‘wheedling him’ away from the diocese to his private house in Walthamstow and of taking assets rightly due to the sons of Piers’s first marriage, William and John (both of whom had been appointed by their father to offices in the diocese). Piers’s will, drawn up in 1668, is certainly suggestive of family discord. He made generous bequests, including lands in Somerset and Oxfordshire, to his sons, and left properties in Essex, Middlesex, and Somerset to his widow, but included a provision warning his sons not ‘to sue, molest or trouble’ their stepmother. Yet when his son William was suspended for non-residence by Bishop Creighton in 1671 it was said that he was living with his stepmother.<sup>13</sup> Piers died at his home in Walthamstow in April 1670 and was buried in Walthamstow church.</p> |
B.A. |
|
PRITCHETT, John (c. 1605-81) |
<p><strong><surname>PRITCHETT</surname></strong> (<strong>PRICHARD</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (c. 1605–81)</p> |
|
|
First sat 5 Feb. 1673; last sat 11 Nov. 1680 |
cons. 3 Nov. 1672 bp. of GLOUCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1605, s. Walter Pritchett of Cowley Hall, Hillingdon, Mdx., alderman of London and Margaret, da. of Richard Mills of Bethom, Staffs.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Queen’s Oxf. matric. 1623; St Edmund Hall, Oxf. BA 1627, MA 1629, DD 1664. <em>m</em>. 1632, Katherine Hill of Oxf. 1s. 1da.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 1 Jan. 1681; <em>will</em> 23 Dec. 1680, pr. 14 Feb. 1681.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Vic. Harefield Mdx. c.1630-c.48, 1660-bef. 1674,<sup>4</sup> St Giles Cripplegate, London 1664-81; rect. Bratoft Lincs. 1634, St. Andrew Undershaft 1641-7, 1660-4,<sup>5</sup> Harlington Mdx. bef. 1650-8,<sup>6</sup> 1661-81; preb. St Paul’s 1662-81.</p> |
|
<p>From an ecclesiastical perspective John Pritchett was an obscure figure who made little impact on the history of Gloucester. Yet as the son of Walter Pritchett, a prosperous London alderman and Middlesex landowner (sometimes confused with Sir William Pritchard<sup>‡</sup>, lord mayor of London), Pritchett was linked to both the Middlesex gentry and the City livery companies, enabling him to acquire weighty political connections.<sup>7</sup> He began his ministry in the 1630s at St Mary’s Harefield, his curacy endowed by Alice, countess of Derby (mother-in-law of Gray Brydges<sup>†</sup>, 5th Baron Chandos).<sup>8</sup> By 1650 Pritchett had also acquired the City living of St Andrew Undershaft and the Middlesex rectory of Harlington, where the holder of the advowson, the father of Sir Henry Bennett*, later earl of Arlington, appointed Pritchett as a ‘preaching minister’.<sup>9</sup> Pritchett was restored to his livings at the Restoration and moved in influential circles in and around London. At the same time that alderman Richard Mills (husband to Pritchett’s sister Anne) became treasurer of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Pritchett was appointed to St Paul’s.<sup>10</sup> Two years later he was installed in another prestigious City living, St Giles Cripplegate.</p><p>Since he was not renowned as a theologian, Pritchett’s elevation to the episcopate in 1672 was almost certainly the result of his political connections. He was on close terms with secretary of state Henry Coventry<sup>‡</sup> and must have been known to Arlington. His Middlesex connections also brought him the friendship of Richard Newdigate<sup>‡</sup>, a close friend of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>11</sup> He was also a man of substance: by the time of his death, his ready money, good debts and property alone amounted to over £2,000, his copyhold estate in Harefield was valued at £800 and he was able to leave to his son, also named John, property in London and Gloucestershire.<sup>12</sup> According to Anthony Wood, Pritchett’s wealth was another factor in his elevation; Sheldon recommended him for advancement to the impoverished see of Gloucester because his personal resources would enable him to acquit his responsibilities there.<sup>13</sup> Elevated between the 1672 Declaration of Indulgence and the spring 1673 parliamentary session, Pritchett was presumably also regarded as a politically safe pair of hands to manage a diocese centred on a city regarded as riven by faction and where a new charter had been imposed in 1671.</p><p>Pritchett took his seat in the House on 5 Feb. 1673, his parliamentary career taking precedence over both his local and pastoral duties in Gloucester. There the appointment as dean of a young and enthusiastic Robert Frampton*, who would become his successor, relieved Pritchett of much day-to-day diocesan bureaucracy. Frampton would later claim that pastoral affairs had been much neglected by his predecessor and required urgent attention.<sup>14</sup> Pritchett proved a conscientious member of the House and a solid supporter of the episcopal bench. He regularly appeared at more than 50 per cent of sittings in each session and on six occasions appeared on the first day. He was named to committees on a range of issues (including the Bristol chapter bill).</p><p>In the 1674 session he was present at a committee of the whole on the security of the protestant faith and attended for the first reading of the bill to compose differences in religion. He did not support comprehension or the attempts in February 1674 to soften the Act of Uniformity.<sup>15</sup> Arriving on the third day of the spring 1675 session, Pritchett again attended over one half of the sittings and supported the non-resisting Test put forward by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds). He was named to only one committee (on 4 May); it was of regional significance and concerned the private bill to allow the spendthrift poet Charles Cotton (brother-in-law of the Member for Tewkesbury, Sir Francis Russell<sup>‡</sup>) to raise money through land sales.</p><p>On 20 Nov. 1675 Pritchett supported the government in the debate on the dissolution. He probably returned to Harefield after the prorogation, but nothing is as yet known of his activities during the fifteen-month interval apart from Evelyn’s comment that he preached a moralizing Lenten sermon with wit.<sup>16</sup> He again appeared for the first day of the session in February 1677 and on 29 Jan. 1678 protested against the release of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke. Throughout the session he was named to committees on a range of bills. In the wake of Titus Oates’ revelations, Pritchett’s activity in the House reflected growing political tensions throughout the country. Along with everyone else present in the chamber on 23 Oct. he was named to the committee to examine papers and witnesses in the Popish Plot. He was present on 19 Nov. when the House went into committee on the Test but there is no record of his vote. On 27 Dec. 1678 he voted against Danby’s committal, suggesting that he was a supporter of the lord treasurer and had probably supported the amendment inspired by Danby to exempt York from the provisions of the Test. Pritchett’s name does not appear on Danby’s various canvassing lists drawn up in the spring of 1679, possibly because his health was already in serious decline.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Present at the first Exclusion Parliament in March 1679, Pritchett also preached before the king, but he was now considered rather old-fashioned.<sup>18</sup> After the start of business proper on 15 Mar., he attended 49 per cent of sittings. On 7 Apr. 1679 he was present when the bishops, led by Peter Gunning*, of Ely, complained against John Sidway for making defamatory remarks about the episcopate and successfully secured his commitment to the Gatehouse prison. He was also present throughout the debates on bishops voting in capital cases and on 10 May 1679 joined 12 other bishops in voting against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached Lords. Early in the second Exclusion Parliament, on 30 Oct. 1680, Pritchett was excused attendance. In declining health he attended the session only on 11 Nov. to take the oaths. The following day he entered his proxy in favour of Henry Compton*, of London; the proxy was vacated six weeks later when Pritchett died at his home in Harefield, leaving diocesan affairs ‘in too much disorder’. A campaign to promote Robert Frampton as his successor was already under way with the result that the directive for Frampton’s elevation was issued on the day the old bishop died.<sup>19</sup> Pritchett was buried under the pulpit of his parish church six days later.<sup>20</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
RAINBOWE, Edward (1608-84) |
<p><strong><surname>RAINBOWE</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1608–84)</p> |
|
|
First sat 24 Oct. 1666; last sat 26 Jan. 1680 |
cons. 10 July 1664 bp. of CARLISLE |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 20 Apr. 1608, s. of Thomas Rainbowe, vic. Blyton, Lincs, and Rebecca, da. of David Allen, rect. Ludborough, Lincs. <em>educ</em>. Westminster sch.; Corpus Christi, Oxf. 1623; Magdalene, Camb. BA 1627, MA 1630, fell. 1633-42, BD 1637, DD 1643. <em>m</em>. 1652, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1702), da. of Dr Henry Smith deceased, master of Magdalene, Camb. <em>d.s.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 26 Mar. 1684.</p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1660.</p><p>Master of Kirton school, 1630; cur. Savoy 1632; vic. Childerley Cambs. 1637; chap. to Theophilus Howard<sup>†</sup>, 2nd earl of Suffolk bef. 1640; rect. Gt. Easton, Essex 1648-50, Little Chesterford, Essex 1652-9, Benefield, Northants. 1659-64; dean, Peterborough 1661-4</p><p>Master, Magdalene, Camb. 1642-50, 1660-4; v.-chan. Camb. 1662-3.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by J. Sturt, NPG D29553.</p> |
<p>The son of a Lincolnshire vicar and the daughter of a Lincolnshire rector (his mother was taught Latin, Greek and Hebrew by her father), Rainbowe profited from his father’s friendship with John Williams<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Lincoln, who would help Rainbowe secure a place at Westminster School. He also had an introduction to court circles through the Wray family, based at Wharton, in Blyton parish. Rainbowe’s godfather was Edward Wray<sup>‡</sup>, groom of the bedchamber to James I, and married to Elizabeth, Baroness Norreys of Rycote. It was through the Wray connection – the dowager countess of Warwick, Edward Wray’s aunt and widow of Robert Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Warwick – that he secured a scholarship to Magdalene College, Cambridge. Sir John Wray<sup>‡</sup>, Edward’s older brother, also secured him his first job, schoolteaching in Lincolnshire.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Whilst a fellow at Magdalene Rainbowe proved to be a successful tutor, including amongst his pupils the sons of Theophilus Howard, 2nd earl of Suffolk, and of Francis Leke<sup>†</sup>, Baron Deincourt. The earls of Suffolk would become additional influential patrons: his biographer boasted of how he was linked to four aristocratic families – the earls of Warwick, Suffolk, Northumberland (in 1642 he performed the marriage ceremony of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland to the daughter of the 2nd earl of Suffolk) and Orrery (Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I] then Baron Broghill [I], married another of Suffolk’s daughters in 1641). In 1642 he received the mastership of Magdalene at the hands of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, who also, after Rainbowe’s ejection from Magdalene in 1650, came to his rescue with an Essex living between Cambridge and Audley End. Under the protection of his influential friends, Rainbowe read a modified Anglican liturgy throughout the Interregnum without interference from the authorities. In 1659 Charles Rich*, 4th earl of Warwick, presented him to the living of Benefield, avoiding the requirement for approval of the Triers through the influence of Broghill.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Reinstalled at Magdalene after the Restoration, and vice-chancellor of Cambridge in 1662, in 1664 Rainbowe was elevated to the bishopric of Carlisle, a region where the Howards of Naworth shared political dominance with the Musgraves of Edenhall. He settled in his diocese where his biographer credited him with instituting regimes of strict household piety and liberal charitable giving.<sup>3</sup> His efforts to contain nonconformity were rather less successful; In April 1669 Isaac Basire, archdeacon of Northumberland, complained about the problems of dealing with Nonconformist leaders who ‘by flitting between Newcastle and Carlisle, situated in 2 dioceses, avoids the jurisdiction of the bishops and justices in both places’.<sup>4</sup> The state of the bishop’s palace at Rose Castle, damaged in the civil wars and Interregnum, involved him – reluctantly, according to his biographer – in ‘unbecoming’ litigation with his predecessor, also his diocesan, Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, which dragged on for years.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Rainbowe did not attend the parliamentary sessions in the autumn of 1664 and 1665 and took his seat in the House only on 24 Oct. 1666. Of the 17 sessions in which he was entitled to sit, he was present at only eight, yet for the five sessions between the September 1666 and October 1673, he attended for more than three-quarters of all sittings. In his first session he attended 82 per cent of sittings and was entrusted with the proxy of Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Bristol on 27 Oct. 1666 (vacated at the end of the session). In the course of the session he was named to more than a dozen committees, including the northern borders bill and the lead mines bill involving Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton. On 3 and 16 Jan. 1667 he chaired two sessions of the select committee on Wharton’s leases of Durham lead mines; on the 16th the lords temporal outnumbered the bishops on the committee and had secured advantageous conditions for Wharton when Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury arrived and acted to protect the Church’s interest by threatening to oppose the bill in its entirety.<sup>6</sup></p><p>During the debate on a naturalization bill on 23 Jan. 1667, Rainbowe was outraged by the suggestion that the name of Isaac Basire be left out because he had not prayed for Charles II in his capacity as king of France. James Stuart*, duke of York, leapt to Basire’s defence, supported by George Morley*, bishop of Hereford, Archbishop Sterne and the earl of Carlisle. Sterne insisted that the accusation was grounded in the malice of the Whartons who resented Basire’s opposition to their recent bill and the accusation was withdrawn. Rainbowe himself did not contribute to the debate, believing that as a very new Member of the House, his ‘modesty and reverence of that assembly’ prevented him from speaking unless absolutely necessary.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In May 1667 Rainbowe was being tipped for the vacant bishopric of Lincoln.<sup>8</sup> Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> regarded him as the most worthy candidate, but Rainbowe’s prospects were ruined by falling foul of Lady Castlemaine, whose friendship he had rebuffed when she ‘forfeited his esteem … by the prostitution of her honour’.<sup>9</sup> Castlemaine then angled for the appointment of Henry Glemham*, who became bishop of St Asaph; Sheldon ensured that William Fuller*, was appointed to Lincoln instead, leaving Rainbowe to worry that the king might have formed ‘sinister impressions’ of his own character.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Rainbowe cultivated his allies, often by sending devotional material to female members of noble households. By the 1670s his extensive networks encompassed Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex (linked by marriage to the Howards of Naworth) and Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, for whose wife Anne he preached a funeral sermon in 1676. He had also gained the approbation of Lady Thanet, the wife of Nicholas Tufton*, 3rd earl of Thanet.<sup>11</sup> In his own bishopric, where dynastic feuding informed political life, Rainbowe was concerned to form alliances with the main political players. He appointed as his archdeacon Thomas Musgrave, son of Sir Philip Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> (‘a notorious opponent of all sectaries’).<sup>12</sup> He was also on very close terms with Musgrave’s longstanding enemy, Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, the dominant political magnate in the region, and kept Carlisle informed of affairs in the locality while the earl was adventuring in the Caribbean.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In the parliamentary session that opened on 10 Oct. 1667 (at which Sheldon had compelled attendance), Rainbowe attended over 80 per cent of sittings.<sup>14</sup> He was named to some 16 committees and helped to manage the conferences on the committal of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, on 15 and 19 Nov. 1667. He attended on 20 Nov. 1667 for the final vote on the Clarendon impeachment, and on 10 Dec. 1667 managed the conference on freedom of speech in Parliament. He received the proxy of Francis Davies*, bishop of Llandaff on 6 Feb. 1668 (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Throughout these five sessions of intensive parliamentary attendance, Rainbowd’s dilapidations suit over Rose Castle dragged on.<sup>15</sup> Suing his predecessor, Richard Sterne, who as archbishop of York was now the ultimate authority in the province, Rainbowe petitioned the king for a special commission to decide the issue.<sup>16</sup> His petition, delivered to Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington, was mislaid for over a year, almost certainly a delay of convenience prompted by Sterne’s opposition to the suit.<sup>17</sup> After a period of consultation the petition was granted and a commission established ‘with all powers of coercion used in ecclesiastical causes’. Rainbowe feared that Sterne would claim privilege of parliament to obstruct proceedings, but there is no evidence that he did so. The commission appointed a subcommission of surveyors drawn from regional Commons’ members and magnates (including Sir Daniel Fleming<sup>‡</sup> and Sir George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup>). Fleming supported the repair programme and the subcommission found in Rainbowe’s favour.<sup>18</sup> Sterne paid £400 towards repairs, but Rainbowe spent over £1,100 making the palace fit for episcopal hospitality.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Rainbowe was present in the House on 19 Oct. 1669 for the start of business and attended every sitting of the session. He was again named to several select committees, including that to consider the bill for the charity set up by John Warner*, late bishop of Rochester. Rainbowe’s attitude towards the comprehension projects of 1668 and 1669 is unknown. In an undated letter that probably belongs to circa 1660 he had written of ‘a spirit of moderation and discretion, which has always suited best with my temper’, but moderation in religious matters is unlikely to have been welcome in a region where the ruling families were so hostile to nonconformity; it seems equally unlikely that he would have risked upsetting the Church hierarchy.</p><p>In the session that ran from 14 Feb. 1670 to 22 Apr. 1671, Rainbowe again attended 80 per cent of sittings and was named to 47 committees, including the lead mines bill involving John Cosin*, bishop of Durham. Despite his presence in the House on 17 Mar. 1670, Rainbowe did not join the 12 bishops who dissented from the second reading of the divorce bill for John Manners*, Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland). Perhaps anxious to avoid confrontation he absented himself from the third reading of the bill on 28 Mar., yet attended the following day to be named to the committees on the rebuilding of London and the mansion house for the dean of St Paul’s. On 6 Apr. he managed the conference on the highways bill. On 21 Oct. he again received the proxy of Francis Davies which he held for the remainder of the session.</p><p>In the parliamentary session that assembled on 4 Feb. 1673, Rainbowe attended nearly 79 per cent of sittings and was named to ten select committees. With gout now affecting his health, he was absent from the winter session of 1673. On 1 Dec. 1673 he entered his proxy in favour of John Pearson*, bishop of Chester for the whole of the spring 1674 session. In the spring 1675 session, when he attended for less than one third of the sittings, he arrived on 30 Apr. 1675 (after the contentious vote on the ‘no alteration’ test promoted by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby), and was named to only three committees. On 21 Oct. 1675, he again gave his proxy to Pearson for the whole of the autumn 1675 session. Throughout 1677 and 1678 Rainbowe’s proxy was held by Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter.</p><p>Rainbowe did not attend the opening days of the first Exclusion Parliament in spring 1679, but arrived on 12 Apr. and then attended for 38 per cent of sittings. In the division on the attainder of Danby on 14 Apr., Rainbowe was one of the six bishops (including Nathaniel Crew and his two former proxy-holders Lamplugh and Pearson) who defied the king and left the chamber rather than vote in a matter of blood.<sup>20</sup> Two days later he was in attendance when the bishops asked leave to withdraw from the trials of the five Catholic lords. It is perhaps significant that one of Rainbowe’s patrons, Essex, argued strongly against the bishops’ right to vote.<sup>21</sup> Given the existence of local rivalries and the extent to which these interacted with factionalism at court and in the Church, Rainbowe may have had great difficulty in balancing his loyalties. In 1676 in the course of a patronage dispute, Sir Philip Musgrave quoted the bishop himself as admitting that he dare not oppose the demands of Secretary Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Between April 1679 and the dissolution on 27 May, Rainbowe was named to only one committee: than on the habeas corpus bill on 17 April. He was absent when the House went into committee on the subject of bishops’ votes in capital cases and was excused attendance at a call of the House on 9 May. Yet he appeared the following day to register his protest in favour of the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider a method of proceeding against the impeached lords, the only bishop apart from Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham to do so. Rainbowe’s alliance with his more senior colleagues at Durham now seemed to be something of a settled arrangement.</p><p>Rainbowe attended the House for the formal prorogation on 26 Jan. 1680 but did not return thereafter. In October 1680, receiving daily medical treatment at Rose Castle, he wrote to Sheldon asking for leave of absence from the House. On 30 Oct. 1680 he was duly excused. Hoping to attend the Oxford Parliament in 1681, he solicited the help of university friends for accommodation before suffering a relapse of gout; he asked Sheldon to intervene with the king for leave of absence until the warmer weather.<sup>23</sup> There was no further session of Parliament held in Rainbowe’s lifetime.</p><p>By 1684 Rainbowe had become seriously ill. Determined to survive beyond Lady Day (25 Mar.) so that his wife would receive the quarter-day revenues, he died on the evening of 26 March. At his own request he was buried quietly in the churchyard of Dalston parish church in Cumberland, leaving £200 to the poor of eight parishes and £20 to the relief of French Protestants.<sup>24</sup> He was succeeded as bishop of Carlisle by his dean Thomas Smith*.</p> |
B.A. |
|
REYNOLDS, Edward (1599-1676) |
<p><strong><surname>REYNOLDS</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1599–1676)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 9 May 1668 |
cons. 13 Jan. 1661 bp. of NORWICH |
|
<p><em>b</em>. Nov. 1599, s. of Austin (Augustine) Reynolds, customer of Southampton, and Bridget. <em>educ</em>. Southampton g.s.; Merton, Oxf., matric. 1616, BA 1618, fell. 1619, MA 1624, incorp. Camb. 1626, DD 1648. <em>m</em>. c.1627<sup>1</sup> Mary, da. of John Harding, pres. Magdalen, Oxf. 1s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 28 July 1676; <em>will</em> 7 July 1673–3 Apr. 1676, pr. 30 Aug. 1676.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I c.1628, to Charles II 1660.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Preacher Lincoln’s Inn 1622-31; vic. All Sts Northampton 1628-29, Thrapston Northants. 1630-32, St Lawrence Jewry London 1645-62; rect. Braunston Northants. 1631-60; mbr. Westminster Assembly Divines 1643; canon Worcester 1660; commr. for ministers of the gospel, 1660;<sup>4</sup> mbr. Savoy Conf. <sup>5</sup></p><p>Parliamentary visitor Oxf. 1647-50; dean Christ Church, Oxf. 1648-50, 1660; v.-chan. Oxf. 1648-50; warden Merton Coll. 1660.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by unknown artist, Merton, Oxf.; line engraving by D. Loggan, 1658 and 1660 (NPG D28820 and D5820).</p> |
<p>As the only Presbyterian to accept a bishopric in 1660, Edward Reynolds held a unique place in the Restoration Church. The son of a Southampton customs official whose family came originally from Somerset, Reynolds excelled in Greek at Oxford and became a noted preacher both in the capital and in Northamptonshire.<sup>6</sup> A prolific writer and much cited authority on Reformed Protestantism he was a member of the Westminster Assembly in 1643 and involved in the post-Civil War visitation of Oxford, securing the deanery of Christ Church though he was not long afterwards removed from it and the vice-chancellorship of the university for refusing the engagement to the Commonwealth, despite the efforts of John Crew* later Baron Crew, to avert it.<sup>7</sup> Mrs Reynolds, apparently refusing to be moved, had to be carried out of the deanery in her chair.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Reynolds was much in demand as a preacher in London and in Northamptonshire during the later 1650s, delivering sermons to, amongst others, the House of Commons (9 Jan. 1657 and 4 Feb. 1659), the lord mayor and aldermen of London and the East India Company.<sup>9</sup> Reynolds was close to a number of Northamptonshire gentry familes, including those of Lord Crew, Sir James Langham,<sup>‡<sup>10</sup></sup> and the devout Sir Henry Yelverton,<sup>‡</sup> to whose family Reynolds considered himself a friend.<sup>11</sup> Anthony Wood complained that he ‘flattered Oliver [Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>] and his gang’, and glimpsed a window of opportunity in 1660 by courting George Monck*, the future duke of Abermarle to regain his own position at Oxford.<sup>12</sup> The return of the Long Parliament placed Reynolds in a position of greater influence. Baxter wrote that Edmund Calamy, the leading London Presbyterian, and a man close to Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, recruited Reynolds (because his ‘learning and reputation would be of use’) and Simeon Ash, Manchester’s chaplain, to help to promote Presbyterianism. These three, he wrote, were ‘the leading men that kept correspondence with the Lords, and had most interest ... at court, as having been most serviceable to them’.<sup>13</sup> The Commons restored him to his deanery of Christ Church on 13 Mar., removing John Owen who had replaced him in 1651.</p><p>Reynolds seems to have been more willing than some of his friends to accept the bona fides of the returning king. On 13 Apr. George Morley*, later bishop of Worcester and Winchester informed Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, that Reynolds, unlike Calamy, was satisfied with the king’s assurances of a free synod to discuss the liturgy and church government.<sup>14</sup> On 25 Apr. 1660 Reynolds preached before the Commons, advocating ‘healing’ in the Church and promoting the Ussher proposals on reduced episcopacy.<sup>15</sup> Both Heneage Finch*, later earl of Nottingham, and John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, were pleased with it, Mordaunt judging it ‘excellent, proper and honest’.<sup>16</sup> Five days later, Reynolds returned to the theme of ‘healing’ in a sermon before the peers at Westminster Abbey.<sup>17</sup> Mordaunt reported to the king on 9 May that he had ‘prevailed with’ Reynolds and Calamy as to episcopacy and the liturgy.<sup>18</sup> A few days later they were part of a delegation of Presbyterian divines who accompanied commissioners from Parliament and the City on a mission to the king.<sup>19</sup> Now the royalists’ favourite Presbyterians, Reynolds and Calamy were appointed royal chaplains on the day the king arrived in England, when negotiations began in earnest over the shape of Church government. Involved in the obscure discussions on the subject taking place in June, Reynolds would preach again before the Commons on the 28th, a day after the first reading of a bill for maintenance of the Protestant religion. Forced to make way at Christ Church for George Morley, he was provided with the wardenship of Merton instead in September, but greater preferment was being prepared for him.<sup>20</sup> One of the Presbyterian team appointed to negotiate in October with episcopal divines over the interim statement of ecclesiastical policy that eventually became the Worcester House Declaration, Reynolds had already been approached by Hyde, via Colonel John Birch<sup>‡</sup> in September, about accepting a bishopric, and his acceptance was public by the end of the month.<sup>21</sup> According to Baxter, Reynolds accepted on the basis of a ‘profession’ concerning the status of the bishop and his intention to govern with the consent and assistance of the presbyters, a statement in line with the final form of the Declaration.<sup>22</sup> Reynolds and Calamy, according to Baxter, attempted to moderate Baxter’s responses to the drafts of the Declaration.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In January 1661, Reynolds was consecrated along with Nicholas Monck*, bishop of Hereford, Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Bristol, and William Nicholson*, bishop of Gloucester.<sup>24</sup> When, two months later, he was listed in the royal warrant for the Savoy Conference with the bishops, the arrangements for substitutes in the warrant made it plain that he was to be considered as on the Presbyterian side.<sup>25</sup> In July 1661, around the inconclusive end of the conference, he left London for his diocese.<sup>26</sup> As bishop of Norwich, Reynolds also became abbot of St Bennet, the only remaining abbot in England, ‘a strange preferment’ for a Presbyterian, Anthony Wood chortled.<sup>27</sup> He rebuilt the bishop’s palace and built a new chapel at his own expense.<sup>28</sup> By October 1670, he had received £7,000 in fines for renewed leases, and spent some £12,000, including more than £3,000 on repairs to diocesan property and some £5,000 on abatements of fines and augmentations.<sup>29</sup> The king confirmed Reynolds’ right to double the rents when renewing certain leases, but required Reynolds to forfeit the additional revenue to benefit a gentleman of the privy chamber (George Walsh<sup>‡</sup>, a former royalist soldier) who had remained loyal to the crown throughout.<sup>30</sup></p><p>He began his episcopate with every intention of exercising episcopal authority as if he were a chief presbyter rather than an Anglican prelate. He appended to a sermon he gave at an ordination ceremony on 22 Sept. that he planned to follow ‘the example of the ancient bishops in the primitive and purer ages of the Church, who were wont to sit with their clergy, and preside in an ecclesiastical senate’, entreating their advice and assistance as ‘in matters of weight and difficulty’.<sup>31</sup> He allowed ordinands to make their subscriptions with reference to the Worcester House Declaration, although while he undertook a large number of ordinations in his first year, most of them were local men, and there was little sign of Presbyterians travelling to seek ordination at his hands. <sup>32</sup> He appointed as his diocesan chancellor John Mylles<sup>‡</sup>, a Presbyterian and client of Abermarle who, like Reynolds, had been one of the Oxford commissioners in 1647, been appointed to fill a vacancy at Christ Church, but refused the 1650 Engagement.<sup>33</sup> His son Edward Reynolds became archdeacon of Norfolk in 1661. The appointment of another former Presbyterian, Horatio Townshend*, Baron Townshend, as lord lieutenant suggested a congenial political environment for the new bishop.<sup>34</sup> Norwich corporation, with a reputation for collusion with radical puritans and assertive autonomy, seems to have had a reasonably cordial relationship with Reynolds: in 1666 he lent the corporation money, interest free, when it was suffering from the devastating effects of plague.<sup>35</sup> The town clerk, however, was friendly with under-secretary Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> and with the dean of Norwich, John Crofts (brother of William Crofts*, Baron Crofts), who by the late 1660s was in dispute with his chapter over what they represented as his efforts to engross the revenues and powers of the chapter.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Having spent three months in the diocese, preaching frequently according to his friend, the physician Sir Thomas Browne, Reynolds returned to London in November 1661 to attend Parliament and Convocation.<sup>37</sup> In the revision of the Book of Common Prayer undertaken through Convocation, Reynolds was responsible for composing the general thanksgiving, generally seen as a concession to the Presbyterian wing of the Church.<sup>38</sup> Reynolds was an unenthusiastic parliamentarian. He did not attend for more than half of the 14 sessions held during his episcopate, ceasing to attend altogether after 1667. He took his seat in the House with the re-admitted bishops on 20 Nov., and attended regularly until the prorogation on 19 May 1662. He was named to some 21 select committees, including a bill on Norwich manufactures and the Uniformity bill.<sup>39</sup> During angry exchanges in the House in early February 1662 over the Commons’ amendments to the bill for settling ministers, he was one of the seven bishops organized by Clarendon to resist the amendments aimed at Presbyterians.<sup>40</sup> In late March he was said to have joined Morley, John Gauden*, bishop of Exeter, and ‘the Presbyterian party in the House’ to attempt to ensure that Interregnum ‘intruders’ might keep their livings and have a royal dispensation from wearing the surplice and from using the sign of the cross in baptism.<sup>41</sup></p><p>According to one of the Norwich correspondents of William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, little had been done in the city itself by April 1662 to remove nonconformist ministers.<sup>42</sup> Reynolds approached compliance with the Act of Uniformity with some display of efficiency, recording subscriptions to the declaration in the Act on a printed form.<sup>43</sup> He conducted his first visitation in October 1662 with the warm support of Sir William and Sir Robert Paston*, later earl of Yarmouth, and ‘hundreds of his orthodox clergy ... loyal gentry and other persons of quality’.<sup>44</sup> Unlike those of his episcopal colleagues who issued standard articles, however, Reynolds issued a diluted version, omitting references to episcopal ordination, and requiring clergy only to ‘assent’ but not to ‘consent’ to the Thirty-nine Articles.<sup>45</sup> There is no doubt that he turned a blind eye to issues of conformity amongst his clergy, and he was clearly unwilling to persecute Dissenters.<sup>46</sup> Under Townshend, the lieutenancy was also slow to act, although a communication from the deputy lieutenants in Oct. 1661 concerning a minister certified by Reynolds suggests that even they felt that Reynolds might have been on occasion too indulgent.<sup>47</sup></p><p>His wife ill, Reynolds did not attend the parliamentary session from February to July 1663, registering his proxy in favour of John Earle*, bishop of Worcester, on 13 Feb. 1663. On 23 Feb. he was excused attendance at a call of the House, Townshend speaking on his behalf.<sup>48</sup> In his absence, it was assumed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, that the proxy would be used to oppose Bristol’s impeachment attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol against Clarendon.<sup>49</sup> In August 1663 he was reporting to Clarendon on the efforts he and Townshend had made to reconcile differences in Great Yarmouth over the clergy there, and his success in achieving the appointment as curate in the town of Clarendon’s former chaplain, Lionel Gatford.<sup>50</sup></p><p>For the session that ran from 16 Mar. to 17 May 1664, Reynolds attended for more than 90 per cent of the sittings. He was named to committees on the transportation of felons, and on seamen and navy stores. In May he was present throughout the passage of the conventicle bill.<sup>51</sup> In the following session, from 24 Nov. 1664 to 2 Mar. 1665, Reynolds attended for some 60 per cent of sittings. On 7 Dec. 1664 at a call of the House it was noted that he was travelling to London; he arrived on 12 Dec. and during the session was named to nine committees, five on private bills including legislation for the Norfolk gentleman (and tenant of the Church) Sir Jacob Astley<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>52</sup> Reynolds was also named to the committee on the Medway navigability which he chaired on 28 Jan. 1665.<sup>53</sup> He did not attend the Oxford Parliament in the autumn of 1665, again registering his proxy in favour of John Earle.</p><p>Leniency against Dissent in Norwich increasingly attracted hostility and revealed the gulf between mutually exclusive perceptions of the English church. On 3 Nov. 1665, one newsletter reported that Townshend had discharged a number of conventiclers, including ‘a notorious Presbyterian in Suffolk who has not subscribed to conformity’ and who had been privately ordained by Reynolds.<sup>54</sup> Reynolds inquiries for the census of conventicles in 1669 revealed that the diocese had 81 nonconformist meetings, over half of which were attended by Independents and Quakers. Only nine of the total were of separate Presbyterian meetings.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Reynolds attended the House for the 1666-7 session over 70 per cent of sittings and was named to 15 select committees, including eight on private bills, of which at least three were associated with Presbyterians or their families. Together with Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, he was named to Lady Holles’s naturalization bill.<sup>56</sup> In the aftermath of the Fire of London, he preached a sermon before the Lords in Westminster Abbey on 7 Nov. 1666 calling for moderation, and implicitly, at least, the reversal of the current policy on nonconformity. He was named to the committee on the Wharton lead mines bill (involving the interests of the bishops of Durham) on 17 Dec., and in January 1667 he was named to the committee on a bill involving the earl of Manchester.<sup>57</sup> In the next, long session that ran from October 1667, in which legislation for comprehension was widely anticipated, Reynolds attended on an almost daily basis. He was named to 14 select committees, including the Norfolk land exchange bill involving Lord Townshend and the rector of Raynham.<sup>58</sup> On 5 Nov. 1667, he preached ‘very excellently’ in the chapel royal on the significance of the day for Protestants.<sup>59</sup> Two days later, he was named to the committee on the trial of peers and on 16 Nov. to the committee on the lead mines owned by John Cosin*, bishop of Durham. One of the 22 bishops present on 20 Nov. for the impeachment of Clarendon, he was present for the long debate on the Commons’ charges. Although Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> had the idea that Reynolds voted against Clarendon, he was probably mistaken, and Reynolds voted with most of his episcopal colleagues.<sup>60</sup></p><p>There is no evidence of Reynolds’ direct involvement in the discussions over comprehension in early 1668, although one of those who were, Hezekiah Burton, a Norwich canon, was on close terms with him.<sup>61</sup> One nineteenth century commentator maintains that Reynolds was indeed involved, but there is no other evidence of this.<sup>62</sup> On Easter Day 1668, Reynolds preached at Whitehall on his well-worn theme of national reconciliation.<sup>63</sup> Pepys, finding that ‘the old Presbyterian’ had started ‘a very plain sermon’, left early to hear the Italian singing in the Queen’s chapel instead.<sup>64</sup> Throughout the spring, Reynolds was named to eight more select committees including those on bills for Sir Thomas Hebblethwaite<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Kingsmill Lucy<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>65</sup> He was present on 9 May 1668 when the House was adjourned until August. It was his last day in the House. Thereafter he entered his proxy at the start of each session. </p><p>Reynolds remained a reasonably active diocesan, advancing his family interests—during the summer his brother John was appointed archdeacon of Norwich—and responding to a request from Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington to unite a Suffolk living (of which Arlington was already the patron) with its larger neighbour. <sup>66</sup> In early January 1669 Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury chivvied Reynolds to deal swiftly with an upsurge of Dissent in Ipswich by cooperating with the civil magistrates.<sup>67</sup> In March he was faced with the dispute between the cathedral chapter and the dean.<sup>68</sup> Although he stayed away from Parliament, Reynolds still visited London, preaching at Whitehall on 28 Mar., pleading for a return to traditional piety.<sup>69</sup> On 15 Oct., four days before the start of the next parliamentary session, he entered his proxy in favour of John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester (the proxy vacated at the end of the session) and on 26 Oct. it was noted by the House that he was sick. He again gave his proxy to Wilkins on 21 Feb. 1670 for the duration of the whole session.</p><p>In 1670 the dean of Norwich, John Crofts, died and was replaced by Herbert Astley, son-in-law of the Member of the Commons for Norfolk, Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, and a relative of Jacob Astley*, 3rd Baron Astley.<sup>70</sup> Astley, who apparently enjoyed a closer relationship with Sheldon, Arlington and other courtiers than did Reynolds, may have had an immediate impact on the vigour of ecclesiastical government.<sup>71</sup> In 1670—unlike in 1663—a visitation of the archdeaconry of Norwich recorded the presentation of numerous parishioners for non-attendance at church and for the moral offences that came within the remit of the church courts.<sup>72</sup> In June Reynolds received a command from Arlington to investigate claims by the mayor of Sudbury—a place which would continue to be a problem for some years to come—of the misuse of a local church by ‘fanatics’, where the bishop had failed to present a minister for several years.<sup>73</sup> In October he responded to Sheldon’s inquiries about his outlay on the repair of the cathedral and other charitable gifts since the Restoration.<sup>74</sup> In August 1671 he wrote crossly to Alexander Denton about an attempt from the court to issue a mandamus for a lay position in his own gift, probably the commissary of Norwich archdeaconry.<sup>75</sup> The same month Reynolds wrote an irritated rebuke to Mordaunt Webster, a curate at King’s Lynn after the corporation of King’s Lynn complained about his failure to preach, and his obstruction to the arrangements Reynolds had made to provide for a preacher, though the case ended up in the court of arches and with Sheldon, and by January 1672 Webster was writing to the new dean complaining about how Reynolds had encouraged the factious corporation.<sup>76</sup> A month later the king visited Norwich with James Stuart*, duke of York, James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham. After a service in the cathedral, the king visited Reynolds at the bishop’s palace in the company of York, Buckingham and Henry Howard*, later 6th duke of Norfolk.<sup>77</sup></p><p>Now permanently absent from the House, indeed, said to be dying, in January 1673 he gave his proxy to Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham.<sup>78</sup> The same month, while apparently at death’s door, he received a direct communication from the king ‘reinforcing’ the appointment of the royal candidate as commissary.<sup>79</sup> A few months later, a royal command threatened to upset the arrangements Reynolds had made to make his own grandson joint registrar of the consistory court: Reynolds sought the intervention of Sheldon and Sir John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>80</sup> On 9 Jan. 1674, two days after the start of session, he gave his proxy to John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester. Both proxies were vacated at the end of the session. In May, he was reported ill of the strangury, and his death was still expected in July.<sup>81</sup></p><p>He soldiered on, however, and on 12 Apr. 1675 and again on 8 Oct. 1675 entered his proxy in favour of John Dolben. He might perhaps have become involved in the fiercely contested Norfolk by-election on 10 May 1675 by supporting Townshend’s candidate Sir Robert Kemp<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>82</sup> Reynolds responded to the Compton Census (named after Henry Compton*, bishop of London) in January 1676 by asking whether the census was supposed to cover women and children as well as men in the total number of nonconformists: Williamson’s Yarmouth correspondent thought the corporation there had raised the query, anxious as they were to disguise the high numbers in the town.<sup>83</sup> With Reynolds very ill again at the turn of the year, Astley was already looking forward to the king’s choice of a successor ‘whose sincerity, vigilancy, prudence, and courage may in some measure answer the necessities of this diocese’.<sup>84</sup> The sentiment was echoed after Townshend’s dismissal from the lieutenancy in February by Williamson’s Yarmouth correspondent, who claimed that the ‘the king’s and the Church’s friends’ had been oppressed to the point that they were ‘little less cowed than they were under old Oliver’.<sup>85</sup> The news that Reynolds was planning an episcopal visitation in person at Easter 1676 elicited the comment that the visitation was essential to relieve ‘the great indisposition of his flock’, but after Reynolds’ death, it was noted in King’s Lynn that no visitation had taken place there for many years.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Shortly before his death, Reynolds replaced his deceased brother John as archdeacon with his son-in-law John Conant, a former Oxford vice-chancellor and divinity professor who had initially failed to subscribe under the Act of Uniformity.<sup>87</sup> Reynolds died on 28 July 1676. Forbidding any wine or ‘banqueting provisions’ at his funeral, he died leaving over £1,600 in cash bequests plus an annuity to his widowed daughter, the return to his wife of her own money, and income from his properties in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxford, Northamptonshire.<sup>88</sup> A funeral sermon acknowledged that Reynolds was not a conventional Anglican bishop and that many thought him negligent ‘because he would not drive their pace... not govern by their rules, not execute censures at their heights, nor interpret canons in their sense’.<sup>89</sup> Reynolds was buried in the bishop’s palace chapel he had himself constructed in 1662. He was succeeded by Anthony Sparrow*, a man of a very different type of churchmanship. <sup>90</sup></p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
ROBERTS, William (1585-1665) |
<p><strong><surname>ROBERTS</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1585–1665)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 5 May 1662 |
cons. 3 Sept. 1637 bp. of BANGOR |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1585, s. of Symon Roberts and Sisle, da. of Edward Goodman (1476-1560), mercer, sis. of Gabriel Goodman, dean of Westminster. <em>educ</em>. Queens, Camb. BA 1608-9, fell., 1611-30, MA 1612, jun. proctor, 1619-20, BD 1621, DD 1626; ord. deacon, priest 1616. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 12 Aug. 1665; <em>will</em> 4 May 1665, pr. 10 Aug. 1666.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Preb. Lincoln, 1628-37; sub-dean Bath and Wells, 1629-37; rect. Llanrhaiadr, 1637,<sup>2</sup> Llandyrnog, 1637; adn. Bangor, 1637,<sup>3</sup> Anglesey, 1637; seq. 1649.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: portraits reproduced in <em>Archaeologia Cambrensis</em>.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>William Roberts was believed to be a member of the Roberts family of Llandyrnog, Denbighshire, and claimed his descent from Edwin, king of Tegeingl, the founder of a tribe of Gwynedd. He was elevated to the episcopate through the influence of Archbishop Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury after recovering £1,000 worth of Church patrimony.<sup>5</sup> Together with his new diocese, he was granted <em>in commendam</em> the rectory of his native parish, Llandyrnog, where he would spend much of his life.</p><p>During the civil wars and Interregnum, Roberts retired to his native Denbighshire and kept a low profile, though his lands were included in the November 1652 Act for sale of traitors’ lands.<sup>6</sup> At the Restoration, following orders in the House of Lords of 22 and 23 June 1660, he petitioned successfully for the restoration of his Llandyrnog rectory and the archdeaconry of Anglesey.<sup>7</sup> Despite his advancing years, he threw himself with vigour into the re-establishment of the Restoration Church, becoming the ‘happy instrument in reviving the ancient laudable worship’ in Bangor Cathedral.<sup>8</sup></p><p>By the time of the Restoration, Roberts was 75 years old. His patchy attendance in the restored House of Lords reflected his age as well as the difficulties of communication between north Wales and London. He, nevertheless, took his seat on 20 Nov. 1661, and was present in Convocation to subscribe the revised Book of Common Prayer in December. He attended the House regularly for the six months of the session that oversaw the passage of the Act of Uniformity. At calls of the House in succeeding sessions (on 23 Feb. 1663, 4 Apr. 1664 and 7 Dec. 1664), Roberts was excused attendance. On 7 Feb. 1663 he registered his proxy to George Griffith*, bishop of St Asaph. Since both bishops were loyal supporters of the episcopal bench, it was assumed by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton that Roberts’ proxy would be exercised against the attempt to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol.</p><p>Back in his diocese Roberts had to deal with the legacy of political and religious polarization. In the autumn of 1660 he instituted to the living at Clynnog the nominee of Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke. The new minister displaced Ellis Rowland, a parliamentarian appointee. Rowland refused to go quietly. He continued to officiate at Clynnog church until December 1660 when his parishioners locked him out of the church. In the ensuing legal wrangle before the magistrates at Caernarvon, Rowland protested that he was conformable. Bishop Roberts, to whom the matter was referred by the bench, refused to accept his assurances, and Rowland was forced into active opposition to the Church within the Welsh Nonconformist network.<sup>9</sup> In August 1665 Roberts had to deal with another refractory minister, also surnamed Rowland. Richard Rowland had been appointed by ‘the usurper Oliver’ but had then been confirmed in office at the Restoration. Roberts sought advice from Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, explaining that</p><blockquote><p>He is summoned to answer articles in the consistory which he seems to contemn, and a sequestration upon his tithes for duties unpaid, but could not be put in execution by reason of his threatening of suits at common law, and the timorousness of the parishioners. I humbly beg your Grace’s assistance and direction to the use of the rod of discipline, seeing he will not be reduced by the spirit of meekness, and the rather least that others be encouraged to disobedience by the example of his impunity, the whole sum required is not above £1 4<em>s</em>. and he is possessed of one of the best livings in my diocese, so that it is not imaginable what should now induce him to this unprofitable perverseness, unless he might be one of those that expect a change and therefore would now merit by opposing the hierarchy.<sup>10</sup></p></blockquote><p>Roberts took seriously his responsibilities towards the edification of his flock and the fabric of his cathedral and, committed to the Protestant ideal of a preaching ministry, he instituted an order of preaching in the cathedral church which provided for a system of fines if any clergyman failed in his duty.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In May 1665, now in his eightieth year, Roberts surrounded himself with eight trusted male relatives and colleagues, including his two chaplains, Robert Morgan*, the future bishop of Bangor and Michael Evans, and made his will with a series of bequests to the poor and his surviving sister, nieces and nephews, godchildren and widowed in-laws. Besides properties in Denbighshire, Roberts bequeathed almost £900 in cash and left the residue of his estate to his executors: his nephews, John Gething and Robert Lloyd, both clergymen, and John ab Richard. Individual bequests included £100 towards the ‘beautifying and adorning’ of Bangor Cathedral. He also left £200 for two annual exhibitions for ‘poor scholars’ in the diocese: £100 to his old college at Cambridge where he had his education ‘in the ways of learning and virtue’ and the other £100 to Jesus College, Oxford, ‘a small seminary for the supply of churches in Wales’. Roberts survived for another three months. On 12 Aug. 1665 he died at Llandyrnog rectory; he was buried in the parish chancel.</p> |
B.A. |
|
ROBINSON, John (1650-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>ROBINSON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1650–1723)</p> |
|
|
First sat 25 Nov. 1710; last sat 23 Nov. 1723 |
cons. 19 Nov. 1710 bp. of BRISTOL; transl. 13 Mar. 1714 bp. of LONDON |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 7 Nov. 1650, 2nd s. of John Robinson (<em>d</em>.1651), cooper of Cleasby, Yorks. and Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1688), da. of Christopher Potter of Cleasby, Yorks.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Brasenose, Oxf. matric. 1670, BA 1673; Oriel, Oxf. fell. 1675-86, ord. 1677, MA 1684, DD 1710; Lambeth DD 1696.<sup>2</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 1686, Mary (<em>d</em>.1718), da. of William Langton of Lancs.;<sup>3</sup> (2) 1719,<sup>4</sup> Emma (c.1674-1748), da. of Sir Job Charlton<sup>‡</sup>, bt. (1614-97), c.j. of Chester and Speaker of the House of Commons, and wid. of Thomas Cornwallis of Abermarlais, Carm.; <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 11 Apr. 1723; <em>will</em> 1 Feb.-1 Mar. 1723, pr. 7 May 1723.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. privy seal, 1711-13; PC 1711-23; ld. almoner 1713-14.</p><p>Sec. and chap. Swedish Legation, 1678-9, 1680-3, 1689-92, chargé d’affaires, 1679-80, agent in charge 1683-7, 1694-6, minister-resident 1696-1702; envoy 1702-9; principal adviser and interpreter to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough 1707; envoy plenip. peace negotiations, Utrecht, 1712-13.</p><p>Vic. Lastingham, Yorks. 1694-1709; preb. Canterbury 1697; dean, Wolverhampton 1709, Windsor 1709-14, chapel royal 1713-18.</p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1713;<sup>6</sup> commr. 50 new churches 1711-<em>d</em>.,<sup>7</sup> Q. Anne’s Bounty c.1715;<sup>8</sup> visitor, Balliol, Oxf. 1713.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Oriel, Oxf.; engraving by G. Vertue after Michael Dahl, 1712, British Museum; engraving by M. Vandergucht (NPG 31421).</p> |
<h2><em>Early diplomatic career</em></h2><p>John Robinson unconventionally brought to the episcopate long experience in diplomacy and an unrivalled knowledge of northern European affairs. His father was poor (his daughter later claimed that he had been reduced in circumstances as a consequence of his loyalty to Charles I); there were stories of Robinson himself being put to the plough before being apprenticed to a trade in Darlington. He went up to Oxford as a ‘<em>pauper puer</em>’ through the influence of his paternal aunt Clara Bolton who was married to a wealthy London linen draper. Robinson’s uncle Thomas Robinson, a merchant taylor in London, had been a servant to Charles I.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Robinson was servitor at Brasenose to Sir James Astrey, who was apparently ‘extremely kind to him’.<sup>10</sup> The connection with Astrey was once thought to have launched Robinson’s diplomatic career, but his patrons were instead his sister Clara and her husband Sir Edward Wood, a royalist officer in the Civil War rewarded by Charles II with a series of pensions and offices, including in 1672 the post of envoy to Sweden.<sup>11</sup> In June 1677 Robinson obtained leave of absence from his fellowship at Oriel in order to accompany his sister to Sweden to join her husband. The journey was delayed until September 1678, and soon after their arrival Wood appointed Robinson legation secretary and chaplain. When Wood was recalled in 1679, Robinson was appointed chargé d’affaires pending the arrival of the next ambassador, Sir Philip Warwick, who returned him to the post of legation secretary, from which he was promoted to agent in 1683. His Oxford MA was awarded by special dispensation from the chancellor, James Butler*, duke of Ormond, in 1684. Robinson obtained a series of extensions of leave from his Oriel fellowship until he finally resigned it in 1686. His career at the Swedish court has attracted scholarly attention since at least the mid twentieth century.<sup>12</sup> Charles XI regarded him as ‘a good Swede’, presumably flattering his command of the Swedish language.<sup>13</sup> Robinson returned to England in 1687 and was ordered to compose an account of Sweden for future diplomatic use; this was completed by spring 1688 and dedicated to James II, though it remained in manuscript only until 1694 when it was published anonymously and without Robinson’s permission. Nine further editions were published up to 1735.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Robinson was in England at the Revolution and was unemployed following a dispute with his sister who refused to give him £500 placed in her keeping by the Treasury.<sup>15</sup> He was one of the few diplomats from James’s reign to enter the service of William III early in the reign. He was sent back to Stockholm in June 1689, reduced to his old rank of legation secretary and chaplain, this time under William Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> as envoy.<sup>16</sup> Duncombe’s reliance on Robinson was obvious in his correspondence; he prepared the ground for Robinson’s advancement in the clergy by recommending him (unsuccessfully) for a prebend at Windsor before his own departure in 1692. Robinson was again left in charge of the English mission in Sweden. In 1692 he was paid 20 shillings a day ‘for his ordinary entertainment’ at the Swedish court, but the next year was again pursuing unpaid sums from the Treasury.<sup>17</sup> He proved an effective manager of patronage in the tussle between England and France for influence at the Swedish court during the Nine Years’ War. The publication of the <em>Account of Sweden</em> for a time may have caused him to become ill: Robinson feared the revelation of his authorship for his assessment of Sweden’s expansion of her territory in the seventeenth century had not been phrased in sympathetic language, nor was his description of an incurious and unintelligent population or aggressively autocratic monarchy.<sup>18</sup> Robinson successfully persuaded his Swedish hosts that the work was largely or wholly by Duncombe. His position safe, in August 1694 he was restored to the rank of agent and in addition was made rector of Lastingham, Yorkshire. The use of a clerical distinction to supplement and reward his diplomatic career was repeated when, on a visit to London in 1696, he was made a Lambeth DD by Archbishop Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury; Tenison was instructed to expedite the award since Robinson’s absence from Sweden ‘may be of the greatest prejudice to our affairs and those of our allies’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Robinson served in Sweden from 1696 with the position of minister-resident.<sup>20</sup> He was joined by his wife Mary and five servants. His allowance was now £4 a day with an additional £300 for his ‘equipage’.<sup>21</sup> His advancement in the Church continued with a prebendal stall at Canterbury, which Robinson greeted, in a letter to John Ellis<sup>‡</sup> of 27 Feb. 1697, with the hope that ‘as I suppose a parsonage in that church’s gift will also in time fall to my share, I think it so sufficient a provision, that I verily believe I shall never trouble any of my friends for other preferment.’ However, the commission authorizing the installation of Robinson by proxy was lost in the post, and in August Robinson wrote that he was ‘reduced to the necessity of borrowing upon interest so far as my credit goes.’<sup>22</sup></p><p>During the Nine Years’ War, Robinson had helped to prevent Sweden from entering the conflict on either side and to ensure that its neutrality was as favourable to England as possible. Robinson’s challenge from 1697 was to stop the new king of Sweden, Charles XII, from forming an alliance which could make France a natural ally in any future European war, or else take advantage of the covetousness of Sweden’s neighbours to include Sweden in a defensive alliance with England. He managed the later stages of England’s negotiations for a trade treaty with Sweden in 1699-1700, which took place in Stockholm, while parallel negotiations for a defensive alliance took place at The Hague.<sup>23</sup> London may have paid closer attention to his financial situation in recognition of his importance and proficiency, as in 1701 he was paid £2,800 in a single payment, apparently in addition to his daily allowance.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Robinson was removed from the problem of promoting the defensive alliance in the face of Swedish resentment of the blockade of Swedish exports to France in December 1702 when he was appointed envoy extraordinary to both Charles XII of Sweden and to Augustus II of Poland. This entailed his following the Swedish king into Prussia ‘or such other place … that the king of Sweden is’, encouraging him to conclude his campaign there and either join the alliance against France or at least supply troops to his English and Dutch allies. The king of Poland, in his hereditary role as elector of Saxony, was to be invited to enter into a similar arrangement.<sup>25</sup> In practice, Robinson improvised. Despite Charles XII having said that he would see no foreign envoys, Robinson persuaded him to grant an audience on the grounds that he ‘was sent as a letter carrier rather than as a minister’ and was carrying letters not only from Queen Anne but from the king’s grandmother and sisters. He met Charles two miles from his camp at Lublin, Poland, the audience taking place outdoors with the king bareheaded on horseback and Robinson speaking in Swedish. Robinson chose not to request that Charles join the Grand Alliance or end his war in Poland, but expressed a general aspiration for peace in northern Europe and that Sweden would help her fellow Protestant powers.<sup>26</sup> The tactic was approved by secretary of state Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>Unable to secure a peace in Poland favourable to the allies, Robinson based himself in Danzig from December 1703, as a base from which to monitor the situations in Sweden and Poland and prevent both France from gaining trade concessions from the Danzig authorities and Sweden from sacking the city.<sup>27</sup> His reputation there was such that when Charles Whitworth<sup>‡</sup>, the future Baron Whitworth [I] travelled through Danzig on his way to Russia, the magistrates of the town referred to Robinson as ‘the Father of their City’.<sup>28</sup> Knowledge of the Swedish court and the character of Charles XII led him to brief secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, that Charles had very little interest beyond his own military enterprise and that he considered the allies had betrayed their earlier promises to him. Robinson, nevertheless, emphasized his close contact with Swedish officials and urged patience rather than coercion.<sup>29</sup> His advice was taken by London and his placatory strategy approved.<sup>30</sup> Following Charles’s invasion of Saxony in August 1706, Robinson moved to Leipzig to forestall any further Swedish advance into Germany.</p><p>Harley again wrote to Robinson to let ‘the king of Sweden and his ministers know the great regard the queen has for his Swedish majesty … for her majesty rests assured that as she gratified his Swedish majesty in not meddling in his affairs, so he will not be drawn in to take any part for the gratification of France’s against the allies.’ The queen also agreed to defray Robinson’s expenses in supporting the son of the Swedish chancery official Åkerhielm at Oxford.<sup>31</sup> By this point both Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, and Marlborough, were conscious of the importance of Robinson’s activity. When Thomas Wentworth*, 3rd Baron Raby, ambassador to Brandenburg-Prussia, visited Saxony in February 1707, he introduced himself to Robinson in order to be in turn introduced to the other foreign ministers in attendance.<sup>32</sup></p><p>On 20 Feb. 1707 Godolphin wrote to Harley that Robinson ‘should undeceive the king of Sweden of the false impressions France has endeavoured to give him of the queen’s having contributed to exercise the czar to continue the war in Poland’ and encourage the meeting Charles wanted with the other signatories of the 1700 Treaty of Travendale, by which England and the United Provinces had guaranteed that Denmark would withdraw from the duchy of Holstein-Gottorp held by Charles’s brother-in-law and not ally with Saxony against Sweden.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Marlborough travelled to join Robinson in spring 1707; before he embarked from Margate he requested that Harley and Godolphin consider giving Robinson advance warning of his departure so that he could ‘gain to her Majesty’s interest the Count de Piper and those others by pension he has formerly mentioned in his letters’, to which they agreed.<sup>34</sup> If Marlborough was unable to travel himself, then his representative Brigadier Palms would depend on Robinson to deal with Charles XII, to whom England intended to offer the role of mediator in peace negotiations with France. The meeting with Charles XII showed Robinson to advantage, Marlborough reporting Piper’s confidence in him as an intermediary and also Robinson’s success in proposing that his secretary James Jeffreys accompany the Swedish army as a volunteer.<sup>35</sup> From October 1707 to July 1709 Robinson was in Hamburg negotiating the maintenance of the peace of Travendal between Denmark and Sweden and the continued independence of Hamburg from the king of Denmark as duke of Holstein.</p><p>By 1709 Robinson seems to have been at least open to the possibility of returning from diplomatic service; he had proposed a Mr Wych as his successor as envoy extraordinary with the approval of Marlborough and Godolphin. On 31 May 1709 Henry Boyle*, later Baron Carleton, told Marlborough he was to send the letters recalling Robinson, with Wych succeeding him; Robinson was to become bishop of Chichester.<sup>36</sup> Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup> later bishop of Lincoln and bishop of London, anticipated that Robinson would be back in England before the assembly of the next parliamentary session to take his seat. He thought Robinson ‘has been generally understood to favour the right way both in Church and State’ but that whoever became bishop of Chichester ‘shall understand that he owes it to the ministry, and not to the Junto’. <sup>37</sup> Yet on 8 July 1709 Boyle reported to Marlborough that Robinson had pleaded with the queen against the bishopric in favour of an ‘inferior dignity’, the deanery of Windsor.<sup>38</sup> Robinson thanked Marlborough for the deanery, which was ‘much more to [his] mind than what was first intended’, allowing him to continue in the diplomatic service in Hamburg until he was no longer needed.<sup>39</sup> Although the deanery included the linked appointment as registrar of the knights of the Garter, Gibson commented wryly that Robinson ‘might not be rightly apprized’ that Chichester was worth an annual £1,200. <sup>40</sup> Robinson wrote to Boyle in August, among other matters hoping that he would not lose his prebend of Canterbury by becoming dean of Windsor.<sup>41</sup> He was in London in September and October 1709, hoping to return to Poland or to the court of Augustus II at Dresden, but Marlborough opposed this ‘because of his known partiality to Sweden’ which made him unacceptable to Peter I of Russia.<sup>42</sup> Godolphin observed that Robinson ‘does not now seem to wish for anything to be done in favour of the Swedes’ but instead ‘use all possible endeavours to keep the peace in the north’ – ‘the interest of England, as much as of Sweden’.<sup>43</sup> Robinson was sent to join Marlborough at The Hague, so that Marlborough ‘may find some expedient that his service in the affairs of the North may not be quite lost’.<sup>44</sup> In March 1710 he was anxious that a new minister be sent to Stockholm.<sup>45</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Bristol, 1710</em></h2><p>Within two months the prospect of Robinson’s becoming a bishop was again being discussed. On 25 May 1710 White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Peterborough, wrote that Robinson’s insistence on retaining his prebend of Canterbury would not prevent his elevation.<sup>46</sup> Following the reconstruction of the administration in autumn 1710, Robinson was included in estimates of domestic political support, Harley listing him as a ministerial supporter. Robinson seemed despondent, telling a colleague that he could not ‘expect to avoid the see of Bristol’, which indeed he received; he was particularly concerned about his arrears of £600 without which he would not be able to stand the charges of his ‘change of condition’ without breaking into the provision set aside for his wife.<sup>47</sup> Robinson was consecrated on 19 Nov. 1710 and took his seat in the Lords six days later, the first day of the new Parliament. On 23 Nov., before taking his seat, he had joined other bishops in a meeting concerning Christopher Codrington’s gift of his plantations in Barbados to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Robinson attended his first parliamentary session for 52 per cent of sittings. On 11 Dec. 1710 he entered his proxy in favour of Philip Bisse*, consecrated bishop of St Davids on the same day as Robinson (vacated on the 14th). Adjusting to the new routine of domestic politics and duties, he wrote from Windsor in December 1710, lamenting the pressure of work, looking forward to a ‘some time of less hurry when I may be more of my own master’.<sup>49</sup> A list of ‘Petitioners that have begged the recommendation of the Bishop of Bristol’ and a report from Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich, to William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, that Robinson had tried to resign his Canterbury prebend in favour of a relative is suggestive of the demands family and other dependents placed on a new bishop. In late January 1711 an exchequer case brought by George Fitzroy*, duke of Northumberland, on wine pricing led to all but two of the 12 barons of the Exchequer agreeing that wines on which prisage was charged were liable for tonnage; this shaped debates on the malt bill on 29 Jan., where Robinson supported Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, in voting for the minority opinion.<sup>50</sup></p><p>The queen’s licence to Convocation of 21 Feb. 1711 named Robinson as one of a quorum whose make-up can be straightforwardly characterized as Tory. Placing Robinson alongside Henry Compton*, bishop of London, George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Winchester, Offspring Blackall*, bishop of Exeter, and Philip Bisse, it was widely interpreted as an intrusion into the authority of Thomas Tenison as primate over Convocation.<sup>51</sup> Yet Robinson’s position probably owed much to his background as a diplomat. He was already involved in the exploration of union between the Church of England and the Protestant churches in Prussia, and had written to Lord Raby in Berlin on the subject on 7 February.<sup>52</sup> Nicolson reported that on 23 Feb. White Kennett told a gathering at Edmund Gibson’s on 23 Feb. of Robinson’s tale of a Stockholm clergyman spending nine years in prison for telling an unflattering story about arbitrary government. On 8 Mar. Nicolson approved Robinson’s ‘very honest theologico-political sermon’ for the anniversary of the queen’s accession, preached at the chapel royal, which revealed ‘a just preference to our well-proportioned constitution, before the arbitrary will of a single person, or a popular anarchy in other parts of Christendom.’<sup>53</sup> On 9 Mar. 1711 he was named to a Convocation subcommittee on records of Church property together with William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and Charles Trimnell, all firm political allies of the archbishop.<sup>54</sup> He was ordered to preach before the Lords on 28 Mar. 1711, a fast day. The publication of his accession day sermon led a correspondent of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> to commend Robinson’s ‘strain of political piety’ well suited to ‘such public occasions’.<sup>55</sup> More partisan, perhaps, was his interference in his native parish of Cleasby, where Robinson ‘very meanly tampered with’ the advowson rights of Captain Cleasby, a naval commander, and removed them to the dean and chapter of Ripon, to the prejudice of the principal landlord in Cleasby, William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire.<sup>56</sup></p><p>On 11 May 1711 Robinson attended the House for the last time that session, missing the last four weeks of parliamentary business. On 15 June he arrived in Bristol for his first visitation, to be met by the dean, ‘a great number of clergy’ and more than 1,000 ‘persons of the best quality on horseback who introduced him in handsome regular manner’, proceeding to his palace to the accompaniment of a hundred boys from the charity founded by Edward Colston<sup>‡</sup>, singing psalms.<sup>57</sup> In August he was in Oxford (where it was noted of him, cryptically, that ‘northern men have good noses’).<sup>58</sup></p><p>On 26 Aug. 1711 the lord privy seal-designate, Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, died; the position was offered to Robinson. Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury told Oxford (as Harley had become in May) that Robinson’s ‘abilities and knowledge in foreign affairs make her Majesty’s intentions for him very reasonable,’ but ‘being a man who has passed most of his life abroad,’ and having few relations of influence, ‘bringing him into such a post adds no interest in either House’ and might even stir resentment in the Lords.<sup>59</sup> Oxford justified the appointment to Marlborough on the grounds of ‘his ability and integrity, on 29 Aug. he proposed the health of the new lord privy seal at a London reception and the following day Robinson’s appointment was announced publicly. <sup>60</sup> William Stratford wrote from the city of Oxford that Robinson’s appointment, though ‘very surprising to all’ was ‘very acceptable here’, though he apprehended that ‘the laity will murmur’ and ‘the run in the pamphlets will be that the clergy are grasping at power again’.<sup>61</sup> The appointment was later said to have ‘disgusted some great men’, not least the leading high Tories Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort,<sup>62</sup> who if unable to realistically hope for appointment themselves had lost an opportunity for influence through the death of Jersey. It was welcomed by Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, and by Marlborough who assured Robinson that he took ‘a friendly part’ in the queen’s latest mark of favour.<sup>63</sup> One of Oxford’s correspondents in The Hague commented that the ‘surprising promotion’ would please the clergy.<sup>64</sup> The duchess of Marlborough was more dismissive, remarking that he had ‘some experience in the business of the affairs of the north’, but that time alone would show his other capabilities.<sup>65</sup></p><p>On 3 Sept. 1711 Robinson was sworn in as a privy councillor.<sup>66</sup> His promotion as lord privy seal was taken as an indication of ministerial intentions to negotiate a peace treaty with the French, although some thought it a signal to demonstrate that the Church was in safe hands, to ‘teach over-zealous and pragmatical clergymen, that moderation is the best way to preferment’.<sup>67</sup> The appointment was followed swiftly by Robinson’s nomination as first English plenipotentiary at the Utrecht peace conference, with Strafford (formerly Raby) as second plenipotentiary. The queen wrote to Oxford that she approved ‘very much’ his decision to send Robinson to the peace conference, but Strafford would chafe persistently against Robinson’s status.<sup>68</sup> Strafford later wrote acerbically to William Berkeley*, 4th Baron Berkeley of Stratton, that the ‘meek modest good’ Robinson had trumpeted his precedence over Strafford.<sup>69</sup> On 9 Sept., in an attempt at soothing tensions between high-flying and moderate Tories, Robinson was invited to a celebratory dinner at Windsor with Oxford, Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, and George Smalridge*, who succeeded Robinson as bishop of Bristol, where the toast was to ‘peace and glory’.<sup>70</sup> The following month Robinson, (who was in frequent contact with the court in Hanover, especially with Jean Robethon), wrote to Electoress Dowager Sophia thanking her for her part in his ‘advancement at home’ as further proof of ‘the continuance of that grace and favour’ she extended to him when he was abroad.<sup>71</sup> Robinson was assured from Hanover that Anne could not have ‘a more moderate prelate in her Church, nor a more enlightened minister in her cabinet’.<sup>72</sup></p><p>On 9 and 13 Oct. and 27 Nov. 1711 Robinson attended the House to hear repeated prorogations. He attended on 7 Dec. for the first day of the new session, but attended only seven per cent of sittings as he was absent for most of the session at the peace negotiations. He was named to the committee on the address to the crown, and the committee for privileges, but not to the committee for the Journal. On 8 Dec., following the Queen’s speech informing Parliament of the peace negotiations, Robinson registered his protest after the carrying of the Whig ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, on the grounds that it was an encroachment on the royal prerogative. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as voting against the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the Lords under his British title as duke of Brandon and on the following day duly voted against the motion that Scottish peers would be unable to sit in the Lords by right of a British title created after the Union. On 20 Dec. he attended the House for the last time until March 1714, entering his proxy in favour of Bisse the next day (it was vacated at the end of the session). On 22 Dec. he attended a meeting of the commissioners for building new churches in London where he signed a report that lamented the commissioners’ lack of power to acquire building sites.<sup>73</sup></p><h2><em>Utrecht</em><em>, 1712-13</em></h2><p>Robinson left London on Christmas Eve 1711 knowing that sentiment in the Lords was vehemently antagonistic to any concessions over the Spanish crown.<sup>74</sup> On 2 Jan. 1712 Oxford assured the House that Robinson and Strafford had been given instructions to keep Spain out of Bourbon hands, although it was clear that the creation of 12 new Tory peers and the replacement of Marlborough as captain general by James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, on the previous day, would give a very different character to the peace talks. In the debate on the adjournment, Robinson’s proxy was used to support the ministry and against the majority of bishops.<sup>75</sup> He arrived in Utrecht on 15 Jan. and opened the conference on 29 January. Robinson may have hoped to align with the peace conference a revival of discussions with the Prussian church over ecclesiastical union, but relations with Prussia were overshadowed by the need to secure peace with France.<sup>76</sup> Ensuring the Protestant succession and being seen to do so was an early priority. A joint letter from Robinson and Strafford of 7 Mar. to Dowager Electoress Sophia in Hanover assured her that their demands of the French took ‘the due care we ought of the succession of the crown of Great Britain to your illustrious family’ and they had inserted a clause verbatim as instructed by the Elector’s secretary.<sup>77</sup> Meanwhile his absence from London was regretted by Gloucester clergyman Maurice Wheeler, who hoped that as Robinson was ‘of so high esteem’ in Bristol he would return to overcome local opposition to a bill to reform the maintenance of the diocesan clergy and set a precedent for similar bills for other dioceses.<sup>78</sup></p><p>On 23 Apr./3 May 1712 Robinson sent Oxford his ‘thoughts upon the manner of bringing the contract of Asiento, to perfection’ before it came to cabinet. He also declared that his annual rent at Utrecht was £1,600.<sup>79</sup> Around 17 May, on the basis of a report that Strafford had made, the queen was said to have decided ‘to let all negotiations sleep in Holland, since they have neither sense, nor gratitude, nor spirit enough to make a suitable return to the offers lately sent by the queen… her majesty will look on herself as under no obligation towards them, but proceed to make the peace either with or without them’. At the same time he was given instructions to cease treating with the delegates from the States General on the peace, ‘or on any other subject whatsoever’.<sup>80</sup> He became embroiled in the furore over the ‘restraining orders’ given to Ormond on 21 May to avoid engaging the French.<sup>81</sup> Robinson later denied knowledge of the orders and, unlike Strafford, avoided impeachment over them, but he certainly supported them. On 28 May the House of Lords debated the restraining orders. The defeat of a Whig motion (that Ormond should continue the military offensive against the French) by 28 votes was reported to Robinson together with details of ‘a very vindictive harangue’ against Ormond by Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax and a resolution ‘which has made the queen look young again’. He also received news that it was widely reported both in Holland and in London that he had declared the queen free of her treaty obligations to the Dutch and had fallen out with Strafford.<sup>82</sup> The Lords’ division of 28 May (and its positive signal to the French) was warmly welcomed by Robinson who informed secretary of state St John on 17 June NS that ‘the wise and loyal resolutions of both Houses of Parliament’ had altered perceptions in Utrecht ‘such as will be a good preparation for what is to follow’ but that the allies would now expect specific concessions from France.<sup>83</sup> He confirmed his thoughts in a letter to Ormond, arguing that the refusal of the Dutch to honour the understanding that they ‘came immediately into the queen’s measures’ had led to his announcement that the queen was relieved from her obligations, and his belief that the vote in the Lords was the only explanation for having ‘turned their heads and thoughts another way than they were desirous to go before’.<sup>84</sup> On 26 June NS he responded to St John who had sent an account of the queen’s parliamentary speech of 6 June together with the latest orders given to Ormond and on the next day he told St John he had insisted ceasefire was an essential prerequisite to further talks.<sup>85</sup> On 29 June NS he related the same to Ormond and told him that the ministers of the States were discussing the queen’s speech.<sup>86</sup> Shrewsbury, acting on Robinson’s despatches from Holland, advised Oxford of the necessity ‘to have the Parliament at hand, and ... one adjournment at least will be convenient to give you a little time’.<sup>87</sup> Parliament was adjourned on 21 June and prorogued on 8 July. By September it was being gossiped that Robinson and Strafford could not ‘be in the same town, much less in the same councils together’.<sup>88</sup></p><p>On 24 July NS Robinson wrote to Oxford’s cousin, Thomas Harley<sup>‡</sup>, in Hanover, thanking him for sorting out his salary for the previous quarter and expressed confidence that he would soon have settled matters with the king of Prussia.<sup>89</sup> Poised to start discussions with both the Dutch and the French on the tariff agreement of 1664, he fell ill ‘with a violent bleeding’, but was recovering by 14 Oct.<sup>90</sup> He was ordered on 28 Oct. by Bolingbroke to announce the arrival of Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle and 4th earl of Orrery [I], as minister at The Hague in terms that reminded the States to remedy English commercial grievances.<sup>91</sup> On 15 Nov. NS Robinson wrote on Queen Anne’s behalf to Electoress Dowager Sophia in Hanover requesting that she instruct her ministers to interpose with Augustus II of Poland to deter the ‘imminent danger’ of the conversion to Catholicism of the Polish king’s son, the electoral prince of Saxony.<sup>92</sup> Rejoined at Utrecht by Strafford, he expressed anxiety that Strafford was ‘uneasy’, ascribing this to his having been prohibited from wearing the star of the order of the Garter between his nomination and his installation; Robinson observed that the statutes of the order (of which he was registrar, as dean of Windsor) distinguished between knights at home and those in foreign parts in the sovereign’s service, to the effect that the latter could wear the insignia of the Garter on the understanding they may have been installed by proxy in their absence.<sup>93</sup> Robinson did not forget his ecclesiastical concerns. In December Henry Compton, bishop of London, wrote to Oxford about plans Robinson had communicated to him about the construction of a church in Geneva, and in January 1713 he proposed to Oxford a ‘settled allowance for a minister to serve’ the English Church at Rotterdam to encourage conformity amongst the English expatriate community.<sup>94</sup> It was rumoured in early March that he would soon return from Utrecht, and later in the month he wrote to Compton saying he hoped soon to visit him at Fulham.<sup>95</sup> However, he remained in Europe and did not attend the April 1713 session of parliament, though he was reckoned as a firm adherent of the Oxford ministry and a supporter of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. In a letter of 2 June, the duchess of Marlborough named him as an indirect source for gossip about the supposed declaration of John Sharp*, archbishop of York, to Queen Anne of opposition to the succession of the House of Hanover.<sup>96</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of London and the peace, 1713-14</em></h2><p>Henry Compton died on 7 July, and the day after Robinson was already being rumoured as a possible successor as bishop of London; by 13 July town gossip had supposedly settled on his name as Compton’s successor.<sup>97</sup> On 21 July NS, however, Robinson, still in Utrecht, saw little prospect of a return to Britain in the near future.<sup>98</sup> One day after the prorogation of 16 July he was nominated as dean of the chapel royal in succession to Compton, though it and the London bishopric were not customarily held together as became the practice later in the century.<sup>99</sup> On 1 Aug. NS Robinson told Oxford to discount any suggestions that he sought translation from Bristol.<sup>100</sup> On 26 July James Greenshields assured Arthur Charlett that Robinson’s chaplain Wevill had told him Robinson had accepted the bishopric of London and would soon arrive to be formally translated, though he would then return to Utrecht, a rumour confirmed to Charlett by another correspondent, William Bishop, on 30 July.<sup>101</sup> Nevertheless, on 7 Aug. Ralph Bridges wrote to Sir William Trumbull that ‘my lord privy seal knows of no offer made him’ and that some were now identifying Philip Bisse as the likeliest bishop of London.<sup>102</sup> However, by 12 Aug. it was being confidently reported that Robinson was to be bishop of London with George Smalridge succeeding at Bristol.<sup>103</sup> On 21 Aug. his position as lord privy seal was transferred to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, and on 27 Aug. he was nominated bishop of London.<sup>104</sup> Where the annual diocesan income of £400 at Bristol was paltry in comparison with other bishoprics, London, worth in excess of £3,000 a year, was one of the most lucrative positions in the English Church.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Robinson remained in Europe to sign the treaties, becoming involved in a minor skirmish with Strafford over social and parliamentary etiquette. In response to Bolingbroke’s insistence that Robinson be given pride of place in the signing of the treaty as a privy councillor, Strafford wrote from Utrecht that he had acted as Robinson’s subordinate despite his ‘undoubted right to precedency’ on account of his peerage and that Robinson was unable to sign the treaty until a new commission was issued, since he was no longer lord Privy Seal.<sup>106</sup> Robinson was said to look ‘upon himself under a disgrace in the face of all Europe, by the Lord Strafford’s being exalted above him’. By 2 Oct. it was thought that matters had been arranged so as to give Robinson exclusive management of relations with ‘the northern crowns and Germany’; ‘in the meantime the business of the bishopric lies at sixes and sevens.’ Soon afterwards Strafford was recalled and Robinson left in sole charge of affairs in Utrecht.<sup>107</sup> His return date was still uncertain on 12 Nov. when Gibson wrote to Wake about who should execute the archbishop of Canterbury’s mandate at the next Convocation, if Robinson as bishop of London were still abroad; the delay was not thought critical since Parliament was not anticipated to sit until March.<sup>108</sup> Despite the royal assent to his translation in September, Robinson wrote from Utrecht on 11 Dec. NS expressing his reluctance to decline a mark of royal favour but unwilling to accept the see of London. Perhaps protesting too much, he asked for help to ‘be delivered from that burden’ without incurring the queen’s displeasure and, if forced to take the see, wanted Oxford to ensure that the preferments in the bishop’s gift be left unfilled for the meantime ‘that [he] may have something to give.’ In the meantime he hoped for ‘an estate granted me on the Isle of St Christopher’s upon favourable and gracious terms’ for the use of his nephew Wood and other relations.<sup>109</sup></p><p>By February 1714 he was en route from Utrecht to Amsterdam, finally returning from Holland early in March for an immediate audience with the queen.<sup>110</sup> He attended the House on 19 Mar., four weeks after the start of the new session and attended nearly 60 per cent of sittings. On 20 Mar. he received the proxy of Francis Atterbury (vacated 27 May). He was present on 2 Apr. when the House received copies of letters relating to the peace negotiations, including one to Robinson from the duke of Lorraine’s envoy Baron le Begue the previous November. Robinson voted on 5 Apr. in the division on whether the Protestant succession was in danger. Robinson and Smalridge supported Burnet’s call that a price be set on the head of the Pretender.<sup>111</sup> Consequently, he was named to the committee to prepare an address for the Queen to desire the Emperor and other princes to guarantee the Protestant succession. His support for Burnet is uncharacteristic; the two men rarely agreed on political matters and in Convocation later in 1714 Burnet was so insolent to Robinson during the Clarke heresy debates that he only narrowly averted the need to make a public apology.<sup>112</sup> On 5 Apr. Robinson was named to the committee to prepare an address for the Queen to desire the Emperor and other princes to guarantee the Protestant succession. Generally an unflinching supporter of the court, on 13 Apr. he changed his customary parliamentary behaviour when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to the address on the danger posed by the Pretender. Robinson joined Tories William Dawes*, archbishop of York, George Hooper and George Smalridge to vote against the ministry, but cast Atterbury’s proxy in accordance with the latter’s wishes, with the court.<sup>113</sup> On 14 Apr., in the debate on the peace, Robinson defended his own reputation and honour when he ‘emphatically contested’ Burnet’s contention that the British had not been justified in signing the treaty, having neither reached an <em>ultimus conatus</em> (final understanding), nor been threatened with <em>certa pernicies</em> (definite threat).<sup>114</sup> Three days later Robinson received the proxy of his friend Thomas Manningham*, bishop of Chichester, vacated at the end of the session. On 24 Apr. he reported from a committee of the whole House on the Yarmouth church bill.</p><p>On 5 May 1714 Robinson sent ‘considerations’ to the earl of Oxford on the tobacco trade, presumably in preparation for the passage through parliament of the tobacco bill.<sup>115</sup> On 25 May he entertained Adam Ottley*, bishop of St Davids, Bisse, Smalridge and Nicolson, possibly to discuss the schism bill on which Nicolson was to vote against his usual Whig allegiances.<sup>116</sup> He supported the schism bill and was present when the bill was given its first reading in the House on 4 June. He joined Smalridge, Bisse and Ottley on 11 June in voting for extending the bill to Ireland, using Manningham’s proxy to support the motion which was carried by only one vote. On 15 June the bill passed with Robinson’s support.<sup>117</sup> On 16 June he reported from a committee of the whole house on the bill for Queen Anne’s Bounty, requesting more time to consider the measure. He attended a cabinet meeting at the Cockpit on 4 July.<sup>118</sup> Two days later he reported from committees of the whole house on the Dagenham navigation bill and the reducing interest bill and on 8 July reported back to the House on the Walker estate bill, the latter involving ground in the Strand needed for building new churches. He was present on 9 July for the prorogation.</p><p>Robinson attended cabinet meetings at the Cockpit on 22 and 26 July 1714.<sup>119</sup> He was directed by Bolingbroke to reprimand a London clergyman of French origin, Armand Dubordieu, who had attacked the king of France from the pulpit.<sup>120</sup> On 27 July, he, Oxford, Bolingbroke and John Poulett*, Earl Poulett, dined with John Sheffield*, duke of Buckingham, in St James’s Park.<sup>121</sup> Only days later Oxford was removed from office and it was rumoured that Robinson and Atterbury might be offered places on a new treasury commission to be headed by Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton.<sup>122</sup></p><p>Robinson was reportedly the only bishop to attend Queen Anne in her final days, sitting by her bedside from noon on Friday 30 July, to 11 on the night of Saturday 31 July, though not present at Anne’s death on Sunday 1 August. Robinson’s diplomatic contact with the court of Hanover ensured that he was not immediately alienated from the regime of George I despite his toryism. He attended the first day of the session called on Anne’s death on 1 Aug. and attended 82 per cent of sittings (12 days). He was named to just one select committee (on addressing the king). In September he and Smalridge were named to George I’s Privy Council at the urging of Nottingham on the grounds that ‘putting them out and Burnet in would disoblige three parts in four of the nation’.<sup>123</sup> Robinson’s inclusion in the Privy Council was presented by Lord Berkeley of Stratton on 8 Oct. as an advantage to the earl of Strafford, who apprehended Whig reprisals over his responsibility for the peace treaty, as there was ‘nothing you can be accused of, of which he is not a sharer.’<sup>124</sup> By 22 Oct. there had been ‘some attempts to injure him with the k[ing]’, but George I apparently wanted to retain Robinson in the Council. Although still a part of the establishment, he ruffled royal feathers in December 1714 when he offered to wait on Caroline, princess of Wales, to assist her understanding of the doctrine of the Church of England, an offer which caused her to be a ‘little nettled’ and to bid Henrietta Howard to ‘send him away civilly’; though her reason, that Robinson was ‘very impertinent to suppose that I, who refused to be Empress for the Sake of the Protestant Religion, don’t understand it fully’ was illustrative of the unpromising environment Robinson’s Anglican exceptionalism faced in the new court.<sup>125</sup></p><p>Robinson’s political and parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the next phase of this work. He died on 11 Apr. 1723 at Hampstead.</p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
SANCROFT, William (1617-93) |
<p><strong><surname>SANCROFT</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1617–93)</p> |
|
|
First sat 28 Jan. 1678; last sat 22 Nov. 1686 |
cons. 27 Jan. 1678 archbp. of CANTERBURY; susp. 1 Aug. 1689 ; depr. 1 Feb. 1690 |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 30 Jan. 1617, 2nd s. of Francis Sancroft (<em>d</em>.1649) of Fressingfield, Suff, yeoman farmer and Margaret, da. of Thomas Boucher (Butcher) of Wilby. <em>educ</em>. Bury St Edmunds Sch. bef. 1634; Emmanuel, Camb., matric. 1634, BA 1638, MA 1641, fell. 1642-51, BD 1648, DD 1662; Padua Univ. matric 1660.<sup>1</sup> <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 23 Nov. 1693; admon. to gt.-nephew, William Sancroft of Suff. 1699.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1661-77; PC 1678-89.</p><p>Chap. to John Cosin*, bp. of Durham, 1660; delegate to Savoy Conference 1660; rect. Houghton-le-Spring Durham 1661-4; preb. Durham 1662-5, St Paul’s 1664-78; dean York 1664-5, St Paul’s 1664-78; adn. Canterbury 1668-70; prolocutor, lower house of Convocation of Canterbury 1670; ecclesiastical commr. 1681-4.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Bursar, Emmanuel Camb. 1644, master, 1662-5.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oils on canvas after B. Lens, Lambeth Palace; line engraving by D. Loggan, 1680 NPG 636; chalk drawing by E. Lutterel, c.1688, NPG 301.</p> |
<h2><em>Early career</em></h2><p>William Sancroft was born into a family of Suffolk yeomanry with long connections to Fressingfield. Attending Emmanuel Cambridge, a puritan establishment under the mastership of his uncle and namesake, Sancroft showed an early determination to enter the Church. The date of his ordination is not known, but it seems likely that it was in or about 1641. During the 1640s he avoided taking the covenant but managed to retain his fellowship until he was ejected in 1651 for refusing the engagement. In 1649 he had inherited part of his father’s estate and financially was sufficiently comfortable to be able to provide financial support for both Robert Creighton*, the future bishop of Bath and Wells, and John Cosin, later bishop of Durham, during the Interregnum, as well as able to mobilize gifts from his former pupils, the brothers John and Robert Gayer.<sup>4</sup> After 1651 he retired to Fressingfield until 1657 when he made an extended visit to the continent. Throughout the Interregnum he maintained a close correspondence with senior royalist clergy both at home and in exile, gaining a reputation for being ‘firm and unmoved … in the midst of these great and violent storms that are now raised against the Church of England’.<sup>5</sup> He made no public attempt to exercise his ministry and refused offers of private chaplaincies. At the Restoration he was in Italy; when he returned to England in late 1660 he took up a chaplaincy with Cosin followed swiftly by a Durham cathedral prebend. Cosin also secured him the valuable living at Houghton le Spring.<sup>6</sup> Despite Cosin’s encouragement to marry, Sancroft was determined to remain celibate and set up household with his sister.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Sancroft was asked (albeit as second choice) to deliver the sermon at the first Restoration consecrations in December 1660 when he preached on the beauty of the Church hierarchy.<sup>8</sup> Within months, Gilbert Sheldon*, then bishop of London, brought him to court as a royal chaplain; involved, though informally, in the revision of the Book of Common Prayer at the behest of Convocation in 1661, he was appointed as master of Emmanuel in 1662 at the behest of Sheldon, replacing William Dillingham, who did not conform, his appointment clearly intended to put an end to the college’s reputation as a hotbed of puritanism.<sup>9</sup> He stayed there only a short time, however, being nominated dean of York in early 1664, and not long after that, dean of St Paul’s. There he overhauled the chapter accounts and became closely involved in the post- fire rebuilding programme, working with Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup> and his fellow commissioners to design a cathedral that would marry baroque magnificence and liturgical practicality.<sup>10</sup> Sancroft had become critical to ecclesiastical government in London, involved in a number of legislative projects including the creation of a new parish at Shadwell by Act of Parliament, and a private act for rebuilding the residence of the dean at St Paul’s, both in 1670.<sup>11</sup> Although he had retained his prebend in Durham, he had long been prevented from residence there; the king had dispensed him from residence in 1662 but in 1670 the chapter there decided to withhold the income from his prebend and the king had to intervene on his behalf.<sup>12</sup> He was tipped for a bishopric as early as 1665, although the see in question (Ely) was not vacant, Matthew Wren*, the incumbent bishop, being merely sick, not dead.<sup>13</sup> He declined the sees of Chester in 1668, and Chichester in 1669.<sup>14</sup> He did accept the king’s gift of the archdeaconry of Canterbury in 1668, no doubt because it allowed him to remain in close contact with events in London.</p><h2><em>Archbishop of Canterbury 1677-9</em></h2><p>Within days of Sheldon’s death on 9 Nov. 1677, it was ‘common discourse’ that Sancroft was in the running to replace him despite his lack of previous episcopal (or even pastoral) experience.<sup>15</sup> Some sources suggested that the Irish archbishop Michael Boyle was being considered, others that the contest was between Sancroft and Henry Compton*, bishop of London. Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, may also have been in the running. Even so, when the announcement was made in December, Edward Lake reported that it was not only ‘contrary to the expectations of all the court’ but also ‘to the dissatisfaction of many bishops who resented his leap from the deanery of Paul’s over their heads unto the primacy’. Sancroft appears to have had influential backing at court. He was liked and respected by the king, who perhaps also saw him as an efficient and capable government servant, and his candidacy was backed not only by the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham) but also by the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby. Danby outwardly favoured Compton and assured him that he would be archbishop but, according to Lake, this was a strategy designed to prevent Compton from throwing his weight behind yet another candidate, John Fell*, bishop of Oxford. James Stuart*, duke of York, ‘gladly submitted’ to Sancroft’s appointment since in his eyes any candidate was better than the anti-Catholic Compton. Sancroft’s detractors could now claim that he secured the post with Catholic support.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Sancroft was almost immediately deluged with requests for patronage. As his nephew explained in January 1678, ‘in this change nothing troubles him more than that he is forced to refuse so many petitions made to him both by word and letter, both here in London and from all parts, from Durham and Yorkshire, and especially from Suffolk from so many good friends there’. The king was anxious that he attend Parliament as soon as possible, so his writ of summons was speedily issued in order to allow him to take his seat in Parliament the day after his consecration.<sup>17</sup> In his first parliamentary session, Sancroft attended 36 per cent of sittings, was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions and to ten select committees. On 29 Jan. 1678, he registered his dissent against the resolution to address the king for the release of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, who had been imprisoned on a charge of blasphemy. His support was also sought in the promotion of parliamentary legislation to assist the Church, though the extent of his involvement in such measures is difficult to assess. In April 1678 William Starkey, whose bill for the recovery of small tithes had been rejected by the Lords on 9 Mar. approached Sancroft in an attempt to rally episcopal support. Objectors to the bill had argued that it tended ‘to injure ecclesiastical authority and jurisdiction and to discourage the study of the civil law’.<sup>18</sup> Just how Sancroft reacted to the request is unknown, but it is perhaps significant that he had not been present when the bill was lost and it is tempting to wonder if his absence was a deliberate attempt to avoid controversy. He was similarly absent on 8 Mar. when the bill to augment livings in St Asaph passed its third reading. It received the royal assent on 13 May but just one month later Isaac Barrow*, bishop of St Asaph, sought Sancroft’s assistance to promote further legislation, openly admitting that the additional provisions he now requested had not been included in the earlier act because Sheldon had objected to them.<sup>19</sup> No such legislation was introduced. Among the many other reports that Sancroft received from the bishops of his province were accounts from Guy Carleton*, bishop of Bristol, about his battles with ‘that bawling alderman’ Sir John Knight<sup>‡</sup> and the corporation of Bristol: Carleton appealed for his support and assistance.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Sancroft was present for the prorogation in July 1678 and spent the summer months corresponding with his fellow bishops on the disposal of livings, on jurisdictional disputes between cathedrals and corporations and on recent parliamentary affairs. In October 1678 he and Compton together managed the episcopal nominations for Chichester, Chester and Bristol.<sup>21</sup> A regular attender at meetings of the Privy Council, he was present throughout the council’s investigations of the Popish Plot during September and October 1678.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Present in the House for the first day of the session commencing in October 1678, Sancroft subsequently attended nearly 68 per cent of sittings. He was named to two select committees: to examine the witnesses in the Popish Plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, and to examine constables with a view to uncovering Catholics. On 13 Nov. 1678 Sancroft preached before the Lords, counselling quiet obedience to the king.<sup>23</sup> On 15 Nov., when the bill that would become the second Test Act was under consideration, he voted against placing the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths. One report identified him as an opponent of the bill, and suggested that he put private interest above the public good. It was also noted that his sermon to the Lords on the fast day had omitted all reference to the Plot or Catholics, and that the Lords, contrary to custom, did not vote him thanks.<sup>24</sup> He was reported to have voted against the Test though Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> thought that he opposed the wording of the clause on ‘idolatry’ in the mass rather than the bill itself.<sup>25</sup> On 30 Nov. 1678 the House learned that Sancroft had issued an arrest warrant for a Catholic priest. In December the Privy Council ordered that spies should observe Catholic masses in various ambassadorial residences and report back to Sancroft and Compton.<sup>26</sup> On 18 Dec. 1678 Sancroft brought to the House documents relating to the arrested Catholic, Robert Pugh. Eight days later, in the divisions on the supply bill (disbanding the army), he voted to insist on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer. In January 1679 the government ordered the seizure of all unlicensed books which were to be delivered to Sancroft and Compton.<sup>27</sup> In response to ‘a private intimation from my superior’ – a clear reference to the king – Sancroft undertook an attempt ‘to recover the duke of York out of that foul apostasy into which the busy traitors from Rome have seduced him’, asking for the assistance of George Morley*, bishop of Winchester in the project on 11 Feb. 1679. Ten days later, in York’s closet, he made a long, and fruitless, speech to the duke.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>Exclusion 1679-80</em></h2><p>During elections to the first Exclusion Parliament, Sancroft and Francis Turner*, master of St John’s College, Cambridge, and future bishop of Ely, both hoped that sitting Members of the Commons would be re-elected in the election for Cambridge University. The two men worked closely to secure electoral deals for their favoured candidates, with Turner suggesting burning incriminating evidence of their intervention.<sup>29</sup> Sancroft also encouraged Anthony Sparrow*, bishop of Norwich, in his intervention in Norfolk elections and was kept fully informed of the campaign and results.<sup>30</sup> If Sancroft had indeed voted against the Test Act it might explain why, in February 1679, a piece of anti-Catholic propaganda identified him as one of York’s ‘12 disciples, as he calls them, [who] sit at the helm to steer [the king] as they please’. Some of the 12, such as Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, were genuinely allied to York, but the credibility of the list is undermined by its inclusion of the committed Anglican, Lord Chancellor Finch.<sup>31</sup></p><p>On 6 Mar. 1679 Sancroft attended the House for the first day of the new Parliament. He attended four sittings in the first week's abortive session and was named only to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. He was present for the first day of business in the session proper on 15 Mar., where he attended nearly 90 per cent of sittings and was named to two select committees, one on the habeas corpus legislation. On 5 Apr. Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely, complained to the House that John Sidway or Sedway had libelled the bishops by alleging that he and Sancroft were two of four Anglican bishops who were about to convert to Catholicism. On 7 Apr. the Lords voted to commit Sidway to the Gatehouse prison but the division was carried by only four votes and nine prominent Whig peers made their distrust of the bishops explicit by entering a dissent.</p><p>Throughout April, Sancroft voted consistently against the attainder of Danby and he was present for the debate on 14 Apr. 1679 when Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, moved that bishops were not entitled to sit in capital cases. When the king reconstituted the Privy Council that month, Sancroft and Compton retained their seats there as representatives of the Church interest.<sup>32</sup> On 10 May he voted in the House against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method to proceed against the impeached lords. He attended for the prorogation on 27 May before attending to preparations for parliamentary elections. The role of the bishops in the quarrel between the Houses over Danby’s impeachment explains why, on 14 June 1679, Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter, wrote to inform him that Members of the Commons returning to Exeter had ‘endeavoured to abuse the people with a belief that the bishops were the cause of the late prorogation of this Parliament’ and that Sancroft should publish a ‘vindication’. He also suggested that Sancroft’s ‘excellent’ conversion speech to the duke of York should be circulated to demonstrate the means used to restore him to the Church of England.<sup>33</sup> For Sancroft and other supporters of the royal brothers the focus of the propaganda campaign against the Whigs was the need to emphasize the divine right by which the monarch held office. Sancroft, who collected a number of Filmer manuscripts, may have been involved in the decision to resurrect the writings of Sir Robert Filmer in 1679-80; he was certainly involved in promoting the publication of a new and corrected edition of <em>Patriarcha</em> in 1685. Edmund Bohun recorded that the basis of his edition was Filmer’s original manuscript which Sancroft had obtained from Filmer’s son.<sup>34</sup></p><p>During the summer Sancroft continued to forge political alliances: Oliver St John*, 2nd earl of Bolingbroke, became ‘a true servant’.<sup>35</sup> The archbishop corresponded with Guy Carleton, now translated to Chichester, on the attempt to prevent the election of John Braman<sup>‡</sup> there, and with Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup> about the Cambridge University elections.<sup>36</sup> As in the previous election, Sancroft and Turner tried to manipulate college votes: Turner assured Sancroft that he would reveal only those parts of Sancroft’s letter ‘as might be safely indulged’ about the king’s recommendation of Temple.<sup>37</sup> Sancroft’s political activities over the summer included vetting the apology (written by Laurence Womock*, later bishop of St Davids) for the parliamentary voting rights of bishops.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Sancroft attended the House repeatedly to hear the formal prorogations, whilst keeping his bishops in expectation of a ‘sudden journey’ to Parliament.<sup>39</sup> During the Privy Council debates of October 1679 on the exile of the duke of York, Sancroft was one of 11 who voted for his remaining in England. On the 20th Sancroft received word from the exiled duke that he regarded the archbishop ‘with a most particular esteem and made the most vehement protestations ... of his equity and compassion for the Church of England, without which he declared it impossible for the monarchy to subsist one hour without declining’.<sup>40</sup> Firmly identified with the anti-exclusionists, Sancroft continued to collect intelligence on the government’s religious and political opponents, and in June 1680 Sancroft gave testimony in chancery as to the king’s formal declaration about the legitimacy of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Anticipation of the forthcoming Parliament was mixed: on 16 June 1680 Lamplugh informed Sancroft that ‘if you be ready for a new Parliament ... we are in a condition to send you good Members both in this county and Cornwall’.<sup>42</sup> Sparrow, in contrast, seems to have feared an unwelcome parliamentary initiative on clerical taxation, declaring that the clergy could expect ‘but little kindness till we fall into a better temper’.<sup>43</sup> Even the seemingly innocent matter of the epitaph for Isaac Barrow, the recently deceased bishop of St Asaph, was occasioning ‘a great noise … both by papists and presbyterians’ and required Sancroft’s approval.<sup>44</sup> All the while Sancroft remained convinced of York’s good intentions towards the Church especially as York’s demeanour from his temporary exile in Scotland towards the Scottish Church served to enhance his credentials as a defender of the established Church despite his Catholicism.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Some of Sancroft’s bishops demanded particular attention: William Gulston*, bishop of Bristol, wanted to rid himself of oversight by the lord chancellor on clerical appointments; and Carleton had become so obstreperous in a dispute with his chancellor, Dr Thomas Briggs, that Sancroft’s ‘authority as metropolitan’ was ‘not so effectual as it might have been’.<sup>46</sup> Even the loyal Sparrow started to criticize the king for being too soft on the ‘godly party’.<sup>47</sup> In October 1680, in advance of Parliament, Sancroft was forewarned that a petition was about to be presented to the House about pluralism among the Irish bishops; the archbishop of Armagh wanted Sancroft to investigate while Ormond counselled a ‘watchful’ approach in case the petitioner was acting out of self-interest.<sup>48</sup></p><p>On 21 Oct. 1680 Sancroft was present on the first day of the second Exclusion Parliament and subsequently attended 36 per cent of sittings. On 15 Nov. Sancroft voted to reject the Exclusion bill on its first reading. From Edinburgh the duke of York expressed his thanks to ‘all those in our House, that spake and voted for me’ and asking that Sancroft and the bishops be informed that ‘I never expected other from them than that they would be firm to the crown and put them in mind I have ever stuck to them, whatever my own opinion, and shall continue to do so’.<sup>49</sup> On 24 Nov., together with William Lloyd*, bishop of Peterborough and John Pearson*, bishop of Chester, Sancroft was added to one select committee, on Protestant Dissenters. From this point a number of potentially significant absences started to appear in Sancroft’s attendance record. On 23 Nov. he missed the division on whether to appoint a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the kingdom. He also absented himself on 7 Dec. for the vote on the attainder of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, and on 7 Jan. 1681 for the vote on the committal of lord chief justice, Sir William Scroggs.</p><p>In February 1681 the prospect of a general election again provoked reams of correspondence between Lambeth and the provinces. With the new Parliament scheduled to assemble in Oxford Sancroft had to defuse academic irritation at Lincoln College that access to the university libraries would be hampered by the king’s presence.<sup>50</sup> He was present in Oxford on 21 Mar. for the start of the Parliament and attended each of the sittings in the week long session. On 8 Apr., the Privy Council recorded the text of the king’s declaration on the dissolution explaining why he had dismissed the two last Parliaments which was to be read from all pulpits.<sup>51</sup> Alongside the king’s insistence that he was determined to call frequent Parliaments was a promise ‘to use our utmost endeavours to extirpate popery.’ Sancroft was delighted, and perhaps also relieved. He told Compton that</p><blockquote><p>to the great satisfaction and joy of us all … [the king had declared] … that all Papists and Popish Recusants throughout the realm be forthwith vigorously prosecuted and the laws of the land made against them effectually put in execution, to the end that by such wholesome severity (so seasonable and necessary at this time) they may by God’s blessing upon his Majesty’s pious intentions ... be either reduced into the bosom of the Church or driven out of the kingdom.<sup>52</sup></p></blockquote><p>He added an instruction that Compton forward a copy of this letter to every bishop of the province.</p><h2><em>Tory reaction</em></h2><p>In February 1681 Sancroft and Compton were appointed to the new commission for ecclesiastical promotions, which has been described by one historian as ‘the clerical counterpart of the <em>quo warranto</em> campaign and the revising of the peace commissions in the realm of secular government’.<sup>53</sup> All ecclesiastical preferments were, in theory at least, to be subject to the ‘opinion and attestation’ of Sancroft and/or Compton.<sup>54</sup> Theory and practice did not always match, as was demonstrated in the dispute over the appointment of a new dean of Norwich. Rebecca, countess of Yarmouth, urged Sancroft to press the king for a candidate who would not oppose her husband, Robert Paston*, earl of Yarmouth. She insisted that all the contenders, including John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York, were ‘not lovers of my Lord Yarmouth, nor the Bishop of Norwich, and it will not be for the King’s service nor the Church’s to prefer those that are engaged in parties that’s against both.’<sup>55</sup> Compton and Sancroft also opposed Sharp’s appointment. Sharp was a reliable Tory and was favoured by the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch (now earl of Nottingham) but he was also supported by Yarmouth’s local enemy Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>56</sup> Local politics apart, Sancroft also objected to Sharp because of his unwillingness to give up his living at St Giles.<sup>57</sup> The appointment turned into something of a power struggle, pitting Sancroft and Compton against Nottingham and other powerful courtiers, including Laurence Hyde*, Viscount Hyde (later earl of Rochester). Nottingham refused to compromise, with the result that Sharp was appointed in June. That same month York’s reliance on Sancroft as his ally at court was indicated by Turner who reported that the duke of York now</p><blockquote><p>places his hopes altogether upon that interest we call the Church of England … the episcopal party ... your grace especially, wishing and desiring that your grace will take all opportunities of encouraging the king … to be steady in well-chosen resolutions, and ... how fatal at thing it would be now to trace back again the ground he has gained and how mighty safe to stick to his old friends.<sup>58</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 2 July 1681 Sancroft was one of the privy councillors who signed the arrest warrant for Shaftesbury.<sup>59</sup> In August Sancroft, Charles North*, 5th Baron North, and George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, met at Whitehall to consider the laws in force against Dissenters.<sup>60</sup> Over the summer Sancroft received reports from across his province. Lloyd of Peterborough reported to Sancroft that the dissolution had been a good influence on those ‘lately intoxicated with fear and fancies so that now they begin to return to their wits and their duties’. In contrast, Lamplugh complained that conventiclers were encouraged by the example of London Dissenters.<sup>61</sup> Later that summer the king reiterated the importance of Sancroft and Compton’s role in the commission for ecclesiastical preferments but, perhaps in recognition of the recent dispute over Sharp’s appointment, added ‘referees’: Halifax, Viscount Hyde, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> and John Robartes*, earl of Radnor.</p><p>For the remainder of Charles II’s reign Sancroft maintained constant correspondence with his allies both in the Church and the laity, monitoring preferments, corporation disputes and the state of Dissent. In 1681 he sought information from the bishops of Exeter and Norwich on unsuccessful attempts to unite small parishes in their dioceses, possibly in the hope of achieving success elsewhere.<sup>62</sup> In 1682 he sought information from Bishop Lloyd of Peterborough about the contents of the 1677 Act for better observation of the Lord’s day, and whether it required to be read in Church on Sunday.<sup>63</sup> Such discussions were not always amicable. In 1682 he was involved in a tetchy exchange with Humphrey Lloyd*, bishop of Bangor, over legislation to improve the revenue of the diocese.<sup>64</sup> Lloyd was not the only recalcitrant bishop that he had to deal with; he was also involved in increasingly hostile recriminations against Thomas Wood*, the absentee bishop of Lichfield.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Sancroft’s position at court may still have been a difficult one. In December 1681 he found himself in another dispute with Nottingham, who had asked Sancroft in the king’s presence to bestow a fellowship at All Souls on a relative. Sancroft was deeply upset by the manner of the request and accused Nottingham of lacking ‘either affection or esteem’ for his person and position. For his part Nottingham apologized, but professed an inability to understand Sancroft’s complaint:</p><blockquote><p>your grace for the most allowable reasons in the world refused it. Hath the king ever been moved in it again? Have any inconveniencies happened to your grace by this refusal? Do not all men acquiesce under it, for my part I do so much that if the place were in my donation I would not give it to him. Where then is the disrespect? My lord there is no living at court if we may not be allowed to be importunate for a relation even … when upon better reasons given we are content to be denied.<sup>66</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sancroft was prepared to take advantage of unscrupulous, even criminal, elements in the fight against whiggery, including the notorious London Hilton gang. According to the Quaker, George Whitehead, who visited Sancroft at Lambeth Palace to complain against perjured testimonies against Friends, the archbishop insisted that ‘there must be some crooked timber used in building a ship’.<sup>67</sup></p><p>By 1682 purges of the provincial commissions of the peace were starting to bite and reports from the provinces indicated that Sancroft’s wishes over the persecution of Dissenters were at last being fulfilled.<sup>68</sup> Sancroft was rewarded in March 1682 with a letter from the duke of York commending the Church’s tough actions and assuring him that if he outlived his brother, he would ratify and confirm the established religion.<sup>69</sup> Actions against Dissenters went hand in hand with the <em>quo warranto</em> campaign. In October 1682 Sparrow informed Sancroft with delight that Norwich had been persuaded to surrender its charter to the king.<sup>70</sup> The following month Sancroft ordered Compton to have all clergy return the names of non-attenders and continued to challenge what the Tories perceived as ‘a deep infection of Whiggism’ in the provinces.<sup>71</sup> On 26 July 1683, after the discovery of the Rye House Plot, Sancroft was summoned to council half an hour before the meeting ‘to adjust the conclusion of the declaration’ about the plot so that it would be ready for the king on his arrival.<sup>72</sup> Such was Sancroft’s perceived ‘interest in the king and duke’ at this time that Womock assumed that Sancroft could ‘easily procure a fiat’ for candidates of his own choice.<sup>73</sup> The reality was rather different for in September, in the course of a discussion over filling a vacant deaconry in Norwich, Sancroft wrote that ‘how the votes [in the ecclesiastical commission] will go I know not’ and in any case the commission was disbanded later that month.<sup>74</sup></p><p>By 1684 the need for disciplinary action against Wood of Lichfield became increasingly urgent. Since Wood had obtained his bishopric through the influence of the king’s mistress, Barbara, duchess of Cleveland, Sancroft was wary of acting without royal backing. He used Turner as an intermediary with York to discuss the situation who then followed York’s advice and presented the case to the king who spoke of Wood ‘with the utmost contempt’. Only when he was confident that Wood had been abandoned by the king did Sancroft suspend Wood in July 1684.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Meanwhile the activities of Danby – released from the Tower in February 1684 – and his ambitions for a return to power preoccupied John Dolben*, archbishop of York, who feared the consequences of an alliance between Danby and his Yorkshire neighbour, Halifax, and hoped that Sancroft ‘will have interest enough in him to keep him from falling into any design to the prejudice of the Church’. Sancroft supported the elevation of Turner, who had long been his eyes and ears at court, as bishop of Rochester in November 1683 and then of Ely in July 1684.<sup>76</sup> It was Turner who summoned Sancroft to Charles II’s deathbed on 6 Feb. 1685.<sup>77</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II</em></h2><p>Only a week before Charles II’s death the duke of York had written to William Douglas, 3rd marquess (later duke) of Queensberry [S], denying rumours that there were plans for a fresh indulgence to Dissenters, but confirming the intention to bestow ‘favours’ on loyal Catholics.<sup>78</sup> By April, just two months after his accession as James II, rumours of an indulgence circulated again: ‘the Dissenters’ observed Lloyd of Peterborough ‘are very brisk and active presuming (as I conceive) upon his majesty’s gracious pardon and the hope they have of an indulgence at the next Parliament, some of them not sticking to say that the bishops’ domineering time is over .’ Matters were made still worse by the king’s insistence that excommunicates be bailed (contrary, Lloyd thought, to the relevant statute) and that there should be no process against recusants for fines, a policy that ‘will (at one blow) dash in pieces all that hath been done towards their reformation and amendment for these four years last past’. Lloyd urged Sancroft to move the king that pardons for those ‘that are under the censure of the Church’ be limited to those prepared to submit to the orders of the Church and pay their fees.<sup>79</sup></p><p>The coronation, at which the king refused to take the Anglican communion, was accompanied by Tory successes in the general election.<sup>80</sup> Senior bishops discussed tactics prior to the forthcoming Parliament. Compton initially suggested that the bishops should convene for a briefing from Sancroft. Lloyd of Peterborough persuaded him otherwise and instead both recommended that</p><blockquote><p>your grace should let the bishops of your province (as they come occasionally to wait on you) know singularly as much of your mind in the point as your grace shall think meet to impart unto them … any kind of hint from your grace would make the bishops of your province entirely unanimous.<sup>81</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sancroft had already, on 12 Feb. 1685, been summoned to king’s bench in advance of the trial of Titus Oates on charges of perjury.<sup>82</sup> Sancroft’s correspondence now reflected the disquiet felt by clergy and laity alike. Womock sought Sancroft’s advice about a cleric who, while praying for the king as defender of the faith, added a provocative ‘as yet’.<sup>83</sup> Sancroft found himself under attack from within the Church. Samuel Parker*, then archdeacon of Canterbury but shortly to be bishop of Oxford, implied that Sancroft was responsible for rumours of Parker’s conversion to Catholicism.<sup>84</sup> He also accused Sancroft of having favoured Dissenters and the ‘Whiggish faction’ and went on to make a personal attack on Sancroft’s character:</p><blockquote><p>beside all this, his grace has one unhappy quality, that when once he has taken disgust against any man, he is jealous of whatever he does, and takes all things by the wrong hand, so that it is ever after impossible to fasten any civility upon him. And though I have with all the acts of address and humility courted his favour, I could never receive any thing in requital but frowns and affronts. And then if I forbear unacceptable visits, that is turned into an accusation of neglect.<sup>85</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 19 May 1685 Sancroft attended the House of the first day of the new Parliament. He attended every sitting, was named to three select committees and to the sessional committees for privileges and for petitions. After the adjournment of 2 July 1685, William Lloyd, now bishop of Norwich, complained to Sancroft ‘how heavy and awkward everything moved in the last session, which related to the Church’.<sup>86</sup> Five bills relating to the Church had been under discussion that session, and all had been successful except the perennially unsuccessful attempt to legislate for the easier collection of small tithes and other Church duties, had been successful, but Lloyd’s complaint perhaps referred to the fact that consideration of the bills had been pushed to the end of the session in late June.</p><p>After the collapse of the Monmouth rebellion, Sancroft was asked to produce a form of thanksgiving.<sup>87</sup> Dolben proffered advice on the best course to be taken with the king, writing that ‘I see plainly that on all occasions your grace must do your business with the king privately. He will hear reason when he is not disturbed, and judge of it best alone.’<sup>88</sup> Sancroft’s influence was still perceived to be useful and he was recommended by Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, as an appropriate ‘noble patron at court’ to act on behalf of the university of Cambridge during Albemarle’s absence.<sup>89</sup></p><p>In August 1685 Samuel Parker attempted to resign his Canterbury prebend without first informing Sancroft of his intentions. The lord privy seal, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, was appalled by such rudeness and refused to pass the warrant. Turner passed the news on to Sancroft, remarking on ‘how basely’ Sancroft was being treated by such ‘a worthless fellow’ and pointed out that</p><blockquote><p>Your Grace has gained ground justly of late ... do not lose it all at once by enduring this insult. ’Tis worth your going on purpose to Windsor or Hampton Court. ... If the resignation were to the secretary of state (as I hear it was) I hope ’tis invalid. Or let it be valid and propose some worthy man for it … You are sure enough of the king who hates these insolent treatments of superior, much more of the supreme, who naturally hates a trick ... It will be of excellent use to turn this upon the trickers. Nay with your grace’s dextrous management you may take this opportunity to show your archdeacon in his colours and for ever perhaps spoil his aspiring projects. This would be mightily to our ease.<sup>90</sup></p></blockquote><p>Another cleric unpopular with the bishops was Thomas Cartwright*, dean of Ripon, who was boasting that he was a candidate for the see of Chester. Dolben seems to have doubted Sancroft’s ability to block Cartwright’s promotion altogether but hoped that he would not be appointed to Chester for ‘surely (if he must be a bishop) it were better to place him where he may do less harm’.<sup>91</sup></p><p>In September 1685 Sancroft lost an important political ally when Clarendon was moved to Ireland. By that time, divisions at court and consequent political uncertainties were more and more obvious. An increasingly prickly Sancroft, under attack from Parker, irritated with Jonathan Trelawny*, newly appointed to the see of Bristol, for his delayed thanks for the bishopric, and fielding excuses from bishops who wished to absent themselves from the autumn assembly of Parliament, could not be unaware of the low morale amongst his clergy and the pressure he was under to sustain the Church.<sup>92</sup> Dolben expressed gratitude for Sancroft’s ‘efforts’ with the king and agreed grudgingly to attend Parliament. Lloyd of Norwich also acceded ‘to that which I cannot avoid’ while William Thomas*, bishop of Worcester, commended Church affairs in Parliament to Sancroft’s ‘sage and pious conduct’. John Lake*, bishop of Chichester, another of Sancroft’s allies, declared he would not hurry to Westminster, assuming (mistakenly in the event) that ‘usually little [was] done in the first two or three days of the session’ and promising double diligence thereafter.<sup>93</sup> On 7 Nov., just before Parliament met, Roger Morrice reported a rumour that had swept the town to the effect that Sancroft and Compton had been removed from the Council. The rumour was inaccurate but was nevertheless a telling indicator of Sancroft’s perceived standing at court. The king was already canvassing opinion amongst the bishops on the prospect of securing a repeal of the Test and had been disappointed at the scale of opposition. Even Dolben (who had opposed the 1678 Test Act) was not prepared to agree to repeal.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Parliament assembled on 9 Nov. 1685 when the king’s speech demanded supply and confirmed his intention to retain Catholic officers in the army. The Lords returned its customary thanks, but the Commons postponed consideration of the speech and then entered into heated debates on its content. On 19 Nov. William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, brought the heat into the Lords when he moved the House to consider the speech. Dolben tried unsuccessfully to oppose the motion on the grounds that it was not the order of business for the day.<sup>95</sup> Sancroft was present but the various accounts of the subsequent debate make it clear that Compton was the only bishop to speak, ‘long, calmly and with great respect and deference to his majesty, yet very full and home’. Compton concluded by saying that he ‘spake the sense of the whole bench, at which they all rose up’.<sup>96</sup> The king, who had been present during the debate, prorogued Parliament the following day. Sancroft’s Tory allies at court lost ground as did he. Perhaps as a result of the bishops’ opposition, the king began to treat Sancroft with greater hostility.</p><p>In an outspoken private letter written in January 1686, Gilbert Dolben<sup>‡</sup> (son of Dolben of York) railed against Sancroft’s leadership of the Church. Sancroft, he wrote ‘keeps so close within doors and spends so much time in counting his books and cutting his nails that we of this side of the water scarce think him to be alive, such an insignificant fool certainly never emptied that chair.’<sup>97</sup> It was symptomatic of the declining influence of the leading bishops that in January 1686 William Penn reported that there was talk of <em>quo warranto</em> writs being issued not only against the universities but also against Compton, Dolben, Turner and Sancroft, even though he gave no credence to the rumours.<sup>98</sup> That month Sancroft authorized a metropolitical visitation of Lincoln. Thomas Barlow*, the elderly and infirm bishop of Lincoln, had been warned about his neglect of the diocese the previous year. On that occasion he had responded that the allegations against him had been made ‘not because I am a favourer of non-conformists, but because I am not … a favourer of papists’. When Barlow learned of the metropolitical visitation in March, he was appalled that he had been given no opportunity to defend himself and was being subjected to a measure that could only lead ‘to the scandal of our Church, and gratification of our adversaries’.<sup>99</sup></p><p>Whether or not Barlow was correct in suggesting he had been singled out for political reasons, there was clearly a general unease amongst the clergy about the king’s intentions. Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, who was to conduct the visitation, carefully asked ‘what enquiry should be made about [Roman] Catholics and whether his majesty will suffer them to be presented though the censures of the Church do not pass upon them’.<sup>100</sup> Lloyd of Norwich quickly informed Sancroft (for fear it might be ‘oddly represented above’) of a sermon delivered locally that encouraged the congregation to distrust the king and suggested that England was ‘sailing to Rome’.<sup>101</sup> On 5 Mar. as part of his propaganda offensive in favour of Catholicism the king ordered Sancroft and Dolben to direct their clergy and preachers not to meddle with matters of state but instead, amongst other matters, to ‘faithfully instruct the people in their bounden duty of subjection and obedience to their governors’. Where they found it necessary to assert the doctrine and discipline of the Church against ‘the cavils and objections’ of its opponents, they were to do so ‘without bitterness, railing or jeering or other unnecessary or unseemly provocation’.<sup>102</sup> Robert Frampton*, bishop of Gloucester, cannot have been the only bishop to ask just who was to pay for the distribution of the king’s instructions. His letter on the subject also reveals that Sancroft had been summoned by the king concerning a sermon delivered by Frampton at Whitehall. Frampton claimed to be at a loss to know what offence he had committed but admitted ‘That I spoke much to the honour of my dear mother, the Church of England, is very true and I shall never repent of it’. Further disquiet was caused by attempts to reinvestigate and discredit the Popish Plot.<sup>103</sup> It also became clear that the king intended to create obstacles to the reception and settlement of French Protestant refugees. Sancroft’s letter to the clergy on the refugee crisis was carefully edited by the king and by lord chancellor George Jeffreys*, shortly to be created Baron Jeffreys. The archbishop was castigated for varying from their draft and contributing to certain negative ‘reflections’.<sup>104</sup> In May Compton railed at Sancroft about the king’s ‘insolent demand’ that he require Anglican conformity from refugees, expecting Sancroft to relay his complaints to the court.<sup>105</sup></p><p>On 17 July 1686 the king declared in council that his exhortations for the prevention of indiscreet preaching having proved ineffectual, he had decided to create a commission for inspecting ecclesiastical affairs. That same day four prominent Catholic peers were added to the council.<sup>106</sup> Historians have disagreed about the legality of the commission but a number of contemporary observers clearly had severe reservations.<sup>107</sup> Roger Morrice noted that the commissioners had similar powers to those given by Henry VIII to Thomas Cromwell<sup>†</sup>, earl of Essex and Evelyn thought ‘it was the whole power of vicar general’.<sup>108</sup> Although named to the commission, Sancroft distanced himself from it, without actually refusing to serve. He petitioned the king to be excused from attending on the grounds of his great age, infirmities and the pressure of his archiepiscopal duties. Referring to the involvement of ‘so many great and able persons’ in the business of the commission, he asked that he be left to ‘better mind those things which belong to his single care, and have the more leisure, without distraction, as to bless God for this your royal indulgence, so also to pray continually for all the blessings of heaven to be showered down upon your royal person, family, and government.’<sup>109</sup></p><p>When the commission met for the first time on 3 Aug. Sancroft was absent. He claimed to be indisposed but Cary Gardiner indicated that his absence was more likely to be strategic; ‘’tis believed’ she wrote, ‘he will not act because it infringes on his and the Church’s authority too much’. Roger Morrice also speculated whether his absence was due to ‘deliberate, or accidental reasons’.<sup>110</sup> Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> considered that his absence from the proceedings later that month against Compton for his refusal to suspend John Sharp, the dean of Norwich, gained Sancroft ‘immortal fame’, though he also feared that ‘it may be ill taken’.<sup>111</sup> As Roger Morrice pointed out, Sancroft’s absence may have had unfortunate consequences since, had he appeared, those who scrupled at convicting Compton might have been a majority, though it was possible that at least two of the ‘scruplers’ were more concerned about what sentence should be given rather than about the conviction itself.<sup>112</sup> In September Sancroft was appointed to the commission to officiate in London during Compton’s suspension. By that time he had been further marginalized by the king, who had announced the elevation of Parker to Oxford and Cartwright to Chester despite Sancroft’s opposition to both appointments.</p><p>Permitted a private audience with the king in early October 1686, Sancroft again pleaded for relief from attendance at the ecclesiastical commission ‘by reason of his great age and want of health’.<sup>113</sup> His prevarication was scarcely convincing. It was rumoured that he would be dismissed from the Privy Council and although he was never formally expelled, it was generally believed that Sancroft had received a royal message informing him that he should stay away from court until summoned. Forced to consecrate Cartwright on 17 Oct. 1686, for fear of a <em>praemunire</em> if he failed to do so, Sancroft was so distracted that he tripped and fell during the ceremony, spilling the communion wine.<sup>114</sup> In November he was ordered to release stocks of the Catholic publication, <em>Devotions</em>, which had been seized by the Stationers’ company.<sup>115</sup></p><p>On 22 Nov. 1686 he had attended the House to hear of a further prorogation, giving the lie to his inability to leave Lambeth on health grounds. In mid-November he was replaced on the ecclesiastical commission by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave.<sup>116</sup> Jeffreys explained to the assembled commissioners that the king had excused Sancroft ‘by reason of his age, infirmities, and other business’.<sup>117</sup> Further opposition to the court’s catholicizing tendencies was evident in the disputed Charterhouse election of January 1687 over the nomination of a Catholic unable to take the requisite oaths. Opposition to the nomination was led by James Butler*, duke of Ormond, and despite pressure from Jeffreys, the governors voted to reject the king’s candidate. The role of Sancroft, who was also a governor, is unclear. He was certainly present at the meeting and was anxious to procure a letter from the governors to the king explaining their actions, but Jeffreys and several other governors left immediately after the vote, leaving the assembly inquorate and unable to act.<sup>118</sup> </p><p>Sancroft’s credit with the clergy had risen considerably as a result of his actions relating to the ecclesiastical commission, mealy-mouthed though they were: ‘he lay very low in the opinion of his clergy – before as a very yielding, complying man but this has raised him very high in their esteem’.<sup>119</sup> In what was presumably an attempt to curry favour, Sancroft started to bow to the altar in the king’s chapel, something he had not done during the previous reign.<sup>120</sup> Nevertheless, his opposition to the repeal of the Test and the king’s religious policies remained firm, as all the parliamentary lists of this period confirm.</p><p>By early 1687 the political situation meant that it was becoming difficult to contemplate enforcing normal clerical discipline. Trelawny of Bristol warned Sancroft that he could not eject a clergyman from a living since it was in the gift of the corporation and the town clerk would take advantage of the situation to appoint a nominee of Father Petre ‘to gain popery an interest here’, adding that ‘this is not a time to make gaps for a busy enemy, who is too forward to force breaches where he has no invitation’. <sup>121</sup> The first Declaration of Indulgence of 4 Apr. caused consternation amongst the bishops. Lloyd of Norwich who ‘would not be singular’ cannot have been the only bishop who sought Sancroft’s advice for ‘what shall a country bishop do … who hath no lawyer to consult, the law requires the oaths, the toleration sets them aside’. He similarly sought advice about moves for an address of thanks to the king. Trelawny, too, was upset by the pressure for an address.<sup>122</sup> In May, in accordance with the king’s earlier instructions concerning French refugees, Sancroft submitted to the king a draft parliamentary bill to license the worship in Aldersgate of French Protestants according to the Church of England liturgy, including what to the king might have been a provocative concession that allowed them to continue using their current form of service until a better translation of the Anglican book of common prayer had been approved by the archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>123</sup> Rumours that had first appeared in January to the effect that Sancroft was himself about to be summoned to the ecclesiastical commission surfaced again in June 1687. He told Turner that in this eventuality he would send a proctor with a ready-drawn saving as to his rights as archbishop and peer. Turner, who also feared a summons, informed Sancroft that Nottingham insisted that appearance by a proctor was not possible; the commissioners were all privy councillors so had the right to insist on personal attendance.<sup>124</sup> Sancroft seems still to have been trying to pursue a conciliatory path. In July he was in discussion with Barlow about the latter’s latest publication (probably <em>A few plain reasons why a Protestant of the Church of England should not turn Roman Catholic</em>) as a result of which Barlow offered to remove an argument about idolatry from the text in order to avoid giving offence.<sup>125</sup></p><p>By September 1687, amidst continuing rumours of an impending alliance between England and France designed to defeat the Dutch, the Spanish reported that there was now ‘more tenacity’ than ever against the Catholic religion and that it came ‘from those who display most fidelity and submission to the king’.<sup>126</sup> Perhaps sensing the moment, on 1 Oct. 1687 Princess Mary wrote an introductory letter to Sancroft, offering ‘any occasion to show the esteem and veneration’ she had for the archbishop.<sup>127</sup> Sancroft drafted a reply the following month, claiming that she had ‘put new life into a dying old man’, but in autumn 1688 he apparently told her chaplain that he had never sent the letter: ‘for if I had written to her, they would have said that I had sent to invite them over’.<sup>128</sup> That the chaplain informed him in January 1688 that the prince and princess had received Sancroft’s ‘humblest service’ suggests otherwise.<sup>129</sup> Further communications to Sancroft told of Catholics ‘drinking confusion to all that will not consent to take off the penal laws … publicly and without any remorse’, the intrusion of Dissenters into urban corporations and alterations in commissions of the peace.<sup>130</sup></p><h2><em>The case of the Seven Bishops </em></h2><p>On 4 May 1688 the king ordered the second Declaration of Indulgence to be read during divine service on 20 and 27 May in the London area and on 3 and 10 June in the provinces, and instructed the bishops to distribute copies of the declaration accordingly.<sup>131</sup> The declaration and the order to read it upset clergy and laymen alike. Clarendon, who was on close terms with several of the bishops, particularly William Lloyd*, of St Asaph (later of Lichfield and Coventry and of Worcester), compiled an extensive series of notes on the legality of the dispensing power.<sup>132</sup> Within days of the king’s order, leading members of the London clergy, ‘in great perplexity’ about being forced to read the declaration, were meeting to discuss an address to the king. They were not being led by Sancroft; the only bishop known to have been involved in shaping their discussions was Turner of Ely, who hosted two of the meetings at his London house. On 11 May they resolved ‘that the bishops should be desired to address to the king, but not upon any address of ours to them. For we judged it best that they should lead the way, and we follow them’. Thomas Tenison*, the high-profile vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields and future archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Patrick*, rector of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, and later successively bishop of Chichester and Ely, and others canvassed all the ministers in London; on 17 May when the clergy met at a house in St Paul’s churchyard it became apparent that some 70 clergymen would refuse to read the declaration.<sup>133</sup></p><p>At a meeting at Lambeth Palace on 18 May 1688, Sancroft and six other bishops (Turner, White, Trelawny, Lloyd, Lake and Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells) signed a petition to the king refusing to obey the order because the dispensing power ‘has been oft declared illegal in Parliament … and is a matter of so great moment and consequence to the whole nation both in Church and state that the petitioners cannot in prudence, honour and conscience so far make themselves parties to it’. Sancroft, who had so long tried to avoid any controversial political action, was effectively forced to sign the petition. The anger of the clergy whom he was supposed to lead left him with no choice but to take a course of action that was bound to enrage the king. The king was indeed incensed. He called the petitioners (bar Sancroft who not been at court for two years) before him, insisting that their actions tended to rebellion and that ‘God hath given me this dispensing power, and I will maintain it’.<sup>134</sup> Presumably Sancroft hoped that peaceful opposition of this kind would force James II to re-evaluate his policies; it seems unlikely that he expected the king to carry matters to greater heights. Sancroft’s decision to sign the petition earned him considerable admiration. News of his action soon reached William and Mary and on 31 May William Stanley (Princess Mary’s chaplain, later dean of St Asaph) wrote that this had earned Sancroft their ‘hearty thanks’ for ‘so steadily maintaining the Church’. He was assured that, ‘your refusing to comply with the king is by no means looked on by them as tending to disparage or depress the monarchy; for they reckon the monarchy to be really undervalued and injured by all unreasonable and illegal actions’.<sup>135</sup></p><p>In June 1688 Sancroft and his six colleagues were summoned to the Privy Council to answer a charge of misdemeanour.<sup>136</sup> Compton had forewarned Sancroft that the ‘best intelligence’ suggested that all clerks to the Privy Council were to be made justices of the peace so that they could take the bishops’ recognisances. Preparations for the bishops’ appearance and research into the legal strategy that should be adopted seem to have been led by Turner of Ely, who reported that at a conference between the bishops and legal advisers ‘more instruction than from all the rest’ had been received from the former attorney general, Sir Roger Sawyer<sup>‡</sup>. Sancroft’s own notes of his speech followed Turner’s lead. If the king required it, they would restrict themselves to matters of fact. He was to insist that,</p><blockquote><p>Whatever we did, we did it not out of any factious or seditious design, but out of a sense of our duty, both as prelates of the Church and peers of the realm, to lay before your majesty the obligation that lies upon us to preserve the laws of the land, and our religion according to the Reformation. And we should not have interposed herein, had not your majesty’s order for publishing the declaration in our churches made it necessary for us to apply to your majesty.<sup>137</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 8 June 1688, after prayers at Lambeth and a trip across the river in Sancroft’s barge, the bishops appeared before the Privy Council. As planned, Sancroft refused to incriminate himself, was accused by James of ‘chicanery’ and declined to enter a recognisance since it would ‘betray the privilege of the peerage’.<sup>138</sup> The seven were committed to the Tower on a charge of seditious libel; only one of the privy councillors present, George Berkeley*, earl of Berkeley, refused to sign the warrant for their custody.<sup>139</sup> Even as stalwart a supporter of the king as Jeffreys was appalled at the decision. Jeffreys claimed that the king had decided to let the matter drop but had then changed his mind; he added that ‘some men would hurry the king to his destruction’.<sup>140</sup></p><p>Compton worked to secure bail for each of the seven. Those who would stand for Sancroft were William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, Danby and Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg.<sup>141</sup> On 15 June 1688 all seven bishops were brought to King’s Bench by means of a writ of <em>habeas corpus</em> where they pleaded privilege of peerage. Their plea was rejected, but they were bailed until their trial on 29 June; Sancroft’s surety was set at £200. The bishops’ defence team was led by Sawyer, but Sancroft’s own defence notes were prepared by Charles Hanses<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>142</sup> The trial was (by the standards of the day) a lengthy one, lasting some nine hours, and the verdict was by no means a foregone conclusion. The jury deliberated all night and delivered their verdict for acquittal at 6 a.m. on the following day. The victorious bishops were advised that it would be appropriate to share some 150 to 200 guineas amongst the jury panel. It was apparently also customary to offer the jury a dinner but the bishops were advised against this, ‘lest our watchful enemies interpret our entertainment of the jury for a public exultation and a seditious meeting’.<sup>143</sup> After the Revolution, the attorney general, Sir Thomas Powys<sup>‡</sup>, who led the prosecution, tried to excuse his actions to Sancroft, telling him that ‘acting in that unhappy prosecution was the most uneasy thing to me that ever in my life I was concerned in’.<sup>144</sup></p><h2><em>Revolution and its aftermath, 1688-91</em></h2><p>In the aftermath of the trial, wary of court spies and the possibility of interceptions of his letters, Sancroft compiled lists of those who could be used as intermediaries in order to keep the correspondence between himself and the bishops of his province from the prying eyes of the government. Sancroft also instructed Compton and White to seek advice from the common lawyers as to methods ‘to obviate the invasion of our jurisdiction by the four vicars apostolical’ (the Catholic bishops of Adramite, Madaura, Aureliople and Callipoli, recently appointed to officiate in England).<sup>145</sup> In advance of taking up their new duties they had advised the Catholic laity not only of the importance of passive obedience to the king ‘but also of an active and cheerful concurrence with him’.<sup>146</sup> Sancroft assisted in drafting a response which amounted to a plea for Protestant unity in the face of the common Catholic enemy.<sup>147</sup> In an attempt to entice Dissenters back into the Anglican Church he also constructed articles ‘to be more fully insisted upon by his bishops in their addresses to the clergy and people’. These exhorted the clergy to godly lives and diligence in caring for the spiritual health of their congregations whilst pleading with the gentry to maintain Anglican doctrine and practice, and take heed of all Catholic emissaries ‘lest those evening wolves devour them’. These articles may relate to wider proposals for a very limited comprehension that were under discussion in July 1688.<sup>148</sup> When the articles were distributed Sancroft’s covering letter insisted that ‘the storm in which he is, does not frighten him ... but rather awakens him to do it with so much the more vigour ... both against the corruptions of the church of Rome ... and the unhappy differences that are among protestants on the other’.<sup>149</sup> Promoting Protestant unity did not mean making anything other than the most minor of concessions to nonconformists. As he later informed his fellow nonjuror, William Lloyd (bishop of Norwich), he despised ‘Fifth Monarchy men, Romish priests and Jesuits, and Independent sectaries … three sorts of dangerous crafty knaves’.<sup>150</sup></p><p>Both the clergy and laity began to rally round Sancroft. Even the hitherto politically quiescent Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester now refused to act in the ecclesiastical commission whilst Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford was reduced to abject apologies for his decision to permit the reading of the Declaration and to insist ‘that I had not the least intention of any unkindness to my brethren in what I did’.<sup>151</sup> With the threat of an invasion by William of Orange on the political horizon, on 22 Sept. 1688 Clarendon learned that James II intended to return to ‘his old friends’ including Sancroft and the bishops, Clarendon and Rochester and ‘to discourse with us upon the whole state of his affairs’.<sup>152</sup> The king summoned the seven bishops and others to attend him on 28 Sept. when he made a speech about burying events in the past ‘in perpetual oblivion’ and promised to take off Compton’s suspension, but Sancroft was not there to hear it, claiming to be too ill to attend.<sup>153</sup> On 3 Oct. (the day after he had had a private audience with the king) Sancroft and his bishops presented the king with a set of ten demands. They included wide-ranging reversals of all James’ religious and civil policies.<sup>154</sup></p><p>On 10 Oct. 1688, John Evelyn warned Sancroft that the Jesuits at court had a secret agenda to divide the lords spiritual and temporal, and would attempt to persuade the archbishop to issue prayers terming the prince of Orange an ‘invader’, and were trying to exploit what they saw as an ambiguity in referring to the Church of England ‘as by law established’: Evelyn suggested he should ensure that he referred to the Church as the ‘Protestant’ or ‘Reformed’ Church of England.<sup>155</sup> On 16 Oct. James indeed summoned Sancroft. He began their meeting by telling him of his decision to backtrack on his controversial policies and then demanded that the bishops meet and issue an ‘abhorrence’ of the prince of Orange’s intention to invade. Sancroft parried the request by insisting that the bishops had left town, making a meeting impossible; he was also convinced (or so he said) that no invasion was intended. The bishops had left town; according to one of Sancroft’s correspondents they had done so ‘to study their own security by a private recess’.<sup>156</sup> At audiences with the king on 2 and (after the Dutch landing) on 6 Nov. 1688, Sancroft and several of his colleagues refused to sign a declaration denying that they had invited Orange to invade and insisted that the correct course was for the king to call a Parliament.<sup>157</sup> In mid-November he subscribed the petition for a free Parliament and, in company with Lamplugh, archbishop elect of York, Turner of Ely and Sprat of Rochester, presented it to the king with a personal appeal to the king ‘to call a Parliament for the settling of the nation and preventing the effusion of blood’.<sup>158</sup></p><p>In the confused situation that resulted from the Orange invasion Sancroft refused to attend the prince as long as James II was under restraint.<sup>159</sup> On 11 Dec., after the king’s first flight, he attended the meeting of members of the Lords at Guildhall and signed the declaration calling on William to establish a free Parliament, but he did not reappear until 14 Dec. when news of the king’s capture and return raised hopes of substantive negotiations and the calling of Parliament.</p><p>Sancroft now effectively excluded himself from the political process. On 18 Dec. Lloyd of St Asaph (who had personal connections to the Dutch court) conveyed an invitation to the bishops to wait on the prince; several attended to offer thanks for ‘his great enterprise, for the redeeming of religion, liberty, laws’ but Sancroft was absent, preferring (according to Roger Morrice) to be ‘politically sick’.<sup>160</sup> The same sickness prevented him from attending the Convention. Instead, with Turner’s assistance, he drafted a letter to the prince promising to serve him in attaining the ends of his declaration but beseeching him ‘still to adhere to the rule you have set yourself in it, to maintain our religion and our laws that we may be able to go along with you without any breach upon our oaths of allegiance’.<sup>161</sup> Although the letter is undated, it probably resulted from one written by Turner to Sancroft on 11 Jan. 1689. In that letter Turner acted as the leader of those who would become known as nonjurors. Turner approached Sancroft about</p><blockquote><p>proceeding in the designs of drawing up propositions of our doctrine against deposing, electing, or breaking the succession. And this scheme we humbly and earnestly beg of your grace to form and put into order for us. Without compliment, you grace is better versed than all of us together, in those repertories of canons and statutes whence these propositions should be taken. If you please, my lord, to cast your eye upon the enclosed paper of little hints from our oaths … The common law papers will furnish your grace with arguments of that kind. Could you grace finish this so as we might meet and settle it tomorrow and perfect something of a preface before it, or inferences upon it from my Lord of Bath and Wells’s draft; then we might communicate all this to some few of our ablest advisers, and have it ready if occasion require.<sup>162</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite Turner’s approach, it was by no means clear that Sancroft was going to hold out against the new regime. Individuals still looked to him for patronage and Sir Robert Sawyer even looked to him for support in securing election to the Convention for Cambridge University.<sup>163</sup> Later that January Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, learned that Sancroft had used Compton to assure William that he really was ill ‘and that he did and would in all things concur with what his brethren the bishops acted’ and had given his proxy to Compton.<sup>164</sup> The proxy books do not indicate that such a proxy was ever registered. On 3 Jan. 1689 Clarendon and Tenison dined with Sancroft at Lambeth. Their motives were twofold: firstly, to persuade Sancroft to meet or at least send a message to the prince of Orange of whom Sancroft had ‘yet taken no notice at all’ and secondly to encourage him to take the initiative in preparing ‘something … in behalf of the Dissenters’ for the forthcoming Convention. Tenison made it clear that there was an expectation of such an offering since in their petition against publicizing the Declaration of Indulgence the seven bishops had nevertheless indicated a willingness to accept whatever was decided in Parliament and Convocation. Sancroft responded that</p><blockquote><p>he knew well what was in their petition; and he believed every bishop in England intended to make it good, when there was an opportunity of debating those matters in convocation; but till then, or without a commission from the king, it was highly penal to enter upon church matters; but however he would have it in his mind, and would be willing to discourse any of the bishops or other clergy thereupon, if they came to him; though he believed the Dissenters would never agree among themselves with what concessions they would be satisfied.<sup>165</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 14 Jan. Simon Patrick met with a group of senior clergymen (all of whom would soon find preferment under the new regime) ‘to consult about such concessions as might bring in Dissenters to our communion’. Lloyd of St Asaph assured the gathering that he had Sancroft’s leave for such a meeting. The result was an agreement to prepare a bill ‘to be offered by the bishops’.<sup>166</sup> Sometime during the same week Roger Morrice recorded that Sancroft and the bishops would not agree to altering the prayers (presumably those for the king and royal family) in the Book of Common Prayer. Compton had already directed his clergy to do so. Sancroft had refused the change because ‘there must be unity maintained’, yet when those London clergymen who had already made the change requested guidance, he told them not to ‘relent and recant’. The London clergy were left puzzled and confused, since the only way to maintain unity was either for them to recant or for the archbishop to sanction change.<sup>167</sup></p><p>That Sancroft really had been reluctant to put pen to paper in the politically sensitive period leading up to the Revolution was evident when he received a visit from John Evelyn on 15 Jan. 1689. Only in person did Sancroft thank Evelyn for his warning letter of the previous October: ‘it came very seasonable’ and its warnings had been heeded. Evelyn and Sancroft discussed plans for a regency and the current state of public opinion with Clarendon, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, John Paterson, archbishop of Glasgow, Sir George MacKenzie (who wanted Sancroft’s assistance to persuade William to maintain the episcopal settlement in Scotland) and a number of English bishops. Evelyn wrote that, ‘there was a Tory part ... who were for inviting his majesty again upon conditions, and there were republicarians, who would make the prince of Orange like a state-holder’. Sancroft and his fellow bishops were all for a regency ‘thereby to salve their oaths, and so all public matters to proceed in his majesty’s name, thereby to facilitate the calling of a Parliament according to the laws in being’.<sup>168</sup> Yet Sancroft refused to enter any public discussion and made no attempt to attend the Convention, even after receiving a copy of the decision of the House of 25 Jan. that all absent members be required to attend.<sup>169</sup> He was thus absent and unheard throughout the contentious debates over the use of the word ‘abdicated’ and the decision to declare William and Mary joint monarchs. His lack of support for the new regime did not equate to clandestine support for the old. When the exiled king sent a commission to Sancroft, Philip Stanhope*, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, empowering them to be regents of the kingdom with instructions on how to deal with the City and provinces, all four of them agreed to burn it.<sup>170</sup></p><h2><em>Deprivation </em></h2><p>On 1 Feb. 1689, the Commons resolved unanimously to thank those clergymen who had preached and written against Catholicism and who had opposed the dispensing power. Sancroft’s response (jointly with Lamplugh) reiterated the actions of the previous year as being consistent with duty ‘to God and our country’ as ‘true Englishmen, and true Protestants’.<sup>171</sup> Sprat, now anxious to reinvent himself, contacted Sancroft with a request to return a number of his personal papers, claiming ignorance that Sancroft had judged the 1686 ecclesiastical commission to be illegal.<sup>172</sup> The new king, determined to win Sancroft over, appointed him to the Privy Council; Sancroft did not attend.<sup>173</sup> Instead he began to contemplate the mechanisms by which he might resign. On 26 Feb. 1689, the ecclesiastical lawyer, George Oxenden<sup>‡</sup>, provided a draft resignation letter with the caution that ‘if your Grace is resolved to proceed in this way, it should be first to make a resignation of the exercise of the power and jurisdiction … reserving to yourself the title, and in the same resignation to pray that it may be put into commissioners’ hands. And if that will not satisfy then your Grace may pursue the other way’.<sup>174</sup></p><p>In an undated letter that must have been written in January or February 1689, Compton informed Sancroft of proposals for bills for comprehension and toleration, ‘two great works in which the being of our Church is concerned and I hope you will send to the House for copies’.<sup>175</sup> The toleration bill was introduced to the House on 28 Feb.; the comprehension bill, which had been under discussion amongst the clergy since 11 Jan., was not introduced until 11 March.<sup>176</sup> Sancroft still did not bestir himself to attend the House. On 2 Mar., Sancroft and the other absent lords were again summoned. According to Roger Morrice, Sancroft replied via Lamplugh that he was indisposed and ‘took no notice at all of the assembly as a Parliament, nor of the Speaker’.<sup>177</sup></p><p>Edward Stillingfleet*, the future bishop of Worcester, had hosted the initial meeting to discuss the comprehension bill. He told Nottingham that the bill (which, according to a speech made in 1710 by William Wake*, successively bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of Canterbury, was based on Sancroft’s own proposals from 1688) should be remitted to another Parliament so that it could receive prior sanction by a Convocation ‘without which our clergy will hardly come into it’. In the meantime he advised the creation of a commission to include the two archbishops, several bishops, other senior clergy and some civilian lawyers, which should start work on a new book of canons and reforming the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts.<sup>178</sup> Sancroft was named to the ensuing commission but refused to serve. According to Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, he declined because the court was ‘an umbrage to his jurisdiction’ since he was not made one of the quorum.<sup>179</sup></p><p>As primate it was Sancroft’s duty to crown the new monarchs; accordingly on 21 Mar. 1689 a summons issued for his attendance at the coronation.<sup>180</sup> Sancroft’s continuing absence from the House probably led to increasing fears that he would refuse to perform the ceremony and may explain why on 22 Mar. 1689 the Lords issued a further demand for his immediate attendance. He excused his absence explaining that ‘my great age and the many infirmities attending it, my having been so long confined home, and the more-than-usual inconveniencies which the late winter brought upon me have not left me in a condition to pass the river &c to attend the House’. There was no explicit refusal to acknowledge the authority of the Convention, but it was nevertheless implicit in his failure to fulfil the customary requirement for two witnesses to testify on oath to his illness, ‘indeed I cannot think fit to ask any one’.<sup>181</sup> The Lords reserved consideration of his letter to the following sitting (25 March). The intention appears to have been to censure him, for the manuscript minutes include a note that has been struck through: ‘Let him know that his letter is not satisfactory’. William III then intervened; he told John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, ‘not to be so severe upon the archbishop’ and no further action was taken.<sup>182</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1689, despite cajoling by his fellow bishops and by Nottingham, Sancroft refused to consecrate Gilbert Burnet*, as bishop of Salisbury, and was threatened with a praemunire. Further embarrassment was avoided when Dr George Oxenden wrote the citation, carefully wording it to use Sancroft’s name as little as possible and substituting his own name in the decretal.<sup>183</sup> The actual consecration on 31 Mar. was then performed by Compton assisted by others under a commission, although as Burnet later pointed out the effect of the commission made it ‘as much his own act as if he himself had consecrated me’. When Sancroft learned that his actions in issuing the commission had displeased his nonjuring allies, he withdrew the commission and concealed it, leaving Burnet to face allegations that his consecration was uncanonical. After Sancroft’s death, he took legal action to recover it.<sup>184</sup></p><p>Although summoned to attend the coronation on 11 Apr. 1689, Sancroft did not appear.<sup>185</sup> His absence from the Convention meant that he took no part in the debates over the necessity of formulating new oaths of allegiance though his reluctance to renege on oaths already taken to James II was well known. Throughout the debates it seems that extra-parliamentary discussions were taking place between those sympathetic to the new regime and those, like Sancroft, who would become known as nonjurors. Burnet described one of the solutions proffered by the court and which he promoted: that the bishops who failed to take the oaths could effectively remain in office and delegate their authority to diocesan chancellors.<sup>186</sup> The act as passed required the bishops and all those over the rank of baron to swear allegiance to the new monarchs by 1 Aug. 1689.<sup>187</sup></p><p>Over the coming months Sancroft continued to entertain his fellow bishops, but before 9 May he had ‘left off dining publicly’, resolving to see his ‘sons’ privately.<sup>188</sup> Perhaps this encouraged suspicions of clandestine activity; by June Carmarthen (as Danby had become) seems to have been avoiding Sancroft, though he excused himself on grounds of ‘such multiplicity of business as does scarce give me leisure to get my meals, or rest as I ought to do’.<sup>189</sup> That month Sancroft’s diminishing authority was recognized by George Hickes, dean of Worcester, who lamented that it would not be within Sancroft’s power to appoint a successor to the recently deceased bishop of Worcester.<sup>190</sup></p><p>On 1 Aug. 1689, in accordance with the act of Parliament, Sancroft should have been deprived; instead, like his fellow nonjurors, he was formally suspended and his diocesan authority transferred to the dean and chapter of Canterbury. On 22 Aug. the king sought Sancroft’s dispensation to enable Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, to hold a commendam; that same month the king, presumably still hopeful of winning Sancroft over, told Halifax that he believed the archbishop to be ‘an honest man at the bottom’.<sup>191</sup> During the month (the registered copy is dated 29 Aug.), a mandate empowering them to consecrate bishops during the vacancy was issued to William III’s allies within the Church, Compton and Lloyd of St Asaph, by the dean (John Tillotson*, who would ultimately succeed Sancroft as archbishop) and chapter of Canterbury Cathedral.<sup>192</sup> John Lake was undoubtedly at one with Sancroft when he counselled him to take care and not risk upsetting the authorities.<sup>193</sup></p><p>Throughout the autumn of 1689, the nonjurors benefitted from a general reluctance to risk the negative political consequences of creating a schism in the Anglican Church by enforcing deprivation. John Ince, who had been involved in the defence of the seven bishops, was involved in attempting to broker a compromise. The nonjurors were to give a recognizance for good behaviour and in return would be allowed a portion of their revenues. Lloyd of Norwich was deeply suspicious of the proposal and its possible ‘luring and consequential snares’. He advised Sancroft that the nonjurors should stand apart from the proposal leaving its management to their friends until they knew ‘what temper the gent[lemen] are that meet at St Stephen’s Chapel’. Even if Parliament were to be sympathetic he feared that the definition of just what constituted good and peaceable behaviour depended too much on the mercy of the judges (and by implication, on the goodwill of the king).<sup>194</sup></p><p>Compton now replaced Sancroft as president of Convocation.<sup>195</sup> Pressure on the nonjurors was intensified in October 1689 when Lloyd of St Asaph told Sancroft that it was generally reckoned that deprivation would take place in mid-January 1690.<sup>196</sup> In what seems to have become an elaborate game of bluff and counter bluff, Roger Morrice observed that the nonjurors now intended to hold their temporalities ‘and begin to read prayers and preach again, and not be outed but by trials at law, and conclude they cannot be outed but by an ecclesiastical deprivation, which they think none dare pronounce against them’.<sup>197</sup> Concern about the negative impact of deprivation seems to have been behind Burnet’s involvement in proposals for a fresh act of Parliament that would allow the bishops to be excused from taking the oaths, ‘But they would give no answer; only they said they would live quietly, that is, keep themselves close, till a proper time should encourage them to act more openly’.<sup>198</sup> Early in 1690 Compton, William Lloyd of St Asaph and Nottingham opened fruitless negotiations with the suspended bishops.<sup>199</sup> Sancroft was finally deprived at the start of February 1690.</p><p>Although he became increasingly detached from public affairs, in mid February 1690 it became known that he was again dining ‘publicly’.<sup>200</sup> With the government still reluctant to confront the issue of the nonjuring bishops head on, the now vacant sees went unfilled for a further year, but in January 1691 the discovery of Turner’s involvement in the Preston Plot (named after Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Vicount Preston [S]) and his protestations to the exiled king of the continuing support of his fellow bishops stiffened government resolve to replace them, as well as providing a wave of political support to do so. Bishops Compton and Lloyd of St Asaph together with the Tory leaders Carmarthen and Nottingham ‘vehemently pressed the filling up the vacant bishoprics and other livings’. In February, as the propaganda war identifying the nonjurors with Jacobitism increased in intensity, Sancroft acted on the advice of Lloyd of Norwich and authorized the publication of a vindication of the bishops from accusations of treasonable activity.<sup>201</sup> It was by then a losing battle; in April he learned that the episcopal vacancies were at last to be filled. It was, however, symptomatic of his continuing authority within the Church that one of those nominated, William Beveridge*, who would eventually become bishop of St Asaph, came to him to discuss his proposed elevation and was dissuaded from accepting it.<sup>202</sup> Yet even at this late stage the government was still making conciliatory overtures. This time it was Charles Bertie<sup>‡</sup> (son of Montague Bertie*, 2nd earl of Lindsey) who tried to negotiate in or about the end of April 1691, bringing ‘feigned words’ from his ‘great brother-in-law [Carmarthen] who is so well versed and deeply engaged in the intrigues of the court’. White of Peterborough reported Carmarthen’s demands: ‘The sum was, that the great lord was of opinion, that we might have some part of our revenues allowed us, if we would declare etc. and that he wondered at our obstinacy that we had hitherto refused to do so necessary a thing’. Once again the nonjuring bishops were offered the possibility of receiving part of their revenues if only they would distance themselves from Turner and the Preston Plot. Once again Sancroft refused to respond,</p><blockquote><p>I see no reason why we should declare anything concerning a surmise which is so far from affecting us, that ’tis not as yet legally proved upon the bishop of Ely so that should we fall a declaring, and purging ourselves, before we are charged in form, men and angels will hardly be able to pen anything, that will not be liable to a hundred cavils, and in time prove a snare to us and secondly as to the regaining any of our revenues, ’tis <em>spes improba</em>, to expect it can ever be; and to be sure, not without petitioning which will be another great snare; and at last be peremptorily denied (which nobody I think is in love with) or clogged with some cursed condition which will leave us in worse condition that we were in before we stirred in it; not to conceal, what the bishop told me (I think from the same gent) that our revenues are already issued out of the exchequer into the privy purse.<sup>203</sup></p></blockquote><p>He went on to express his contempt for Compton, who still visited Lambeth: ‘so kind, and debonair, and so obliging, that it would have pleased you to observe it’. In May 1691 he reiterated his belief that a strategy of inaction was the correct course to follow, for ‘in boisterous times moderate and prudent counsels (still keeping innocency, and within our duty) are best’. He continued to be obstructive. Thomas Tanner<sup>†</sup>, bishop of St Asaph and one of Nottingham’s under clerks both asked him to vacate Lambeth Palace ‘in the name of the great woman’ (Queen Mary) in readiness for the consecration of John Tillotson as his replacement, but Sancroft insisted that it was too short notice and ‘that they might, if they thought good turn me into the street by force’.<sup>204</sup> He was still in residence when Tillotson was consecrated at Bow church on 31 May, staging his own rhetorical flourish by celebrating communion at Lambeth Palace where 60 people crammed into the chapel to receive the sacrament.<sup>205</sup> The attorney general was forced to prepare a legal suit to force him to leave. Sancroft did not defend it and vacated Lambeth voluntarily in June, but it was still thought expedient to enforce the judgment against him in order to deter other nonjurors from similar actions. Sancroft’s nephew who was left in possession, ultimately faced a fine of 300 marks for his action.<sup>206</sup></p><p>By August 1691 Sancroft was safely ensconced in Suffolk, where ‘if there be any spies upon me, they shall find that I resolve to live as private, and retired, as they can desire or I contrive; that kind of life being more agreeable to my inclinations and designs, than it can be to theirs. There is nothing I regret the loss of, but Lambeth chapel, and the company of a few friends’. He did, however, resent any sign of compliance from fellow nonjurors. Frampton’s acceptance of a vicarage was interpreted as an example to ‘convince us who have not been so supple, that if we could have persuaded ourselves to have done 100 mean things ... we too might at last have had a feather of our own goose, restored, to stick in our caps’.<sup>207</sup> Within his own household, he was so strict about the issue of the oaths that he would not even allow his chaplain to say grace.<sup>208</sup></p><p>Suspicions of active Jacobitism naturally continued. In 1692 Sancroft was implicated in the fictitious Flowerpot Plot, because his signature appeared on one of the forged documents. According to Sprat, the signature was ‘so well counterfeited, that I believe it would have puzzled your chaplain to distinguish’<sup>209</sup> Despite his long-standing refusal to give the government any assurances of his allegiance, Sancroft was incensed at his treatment,</p><blockquote><p>we are daily oppressed in our consciences, in our property, and in our liberty, contrary to our old laws, and even their own too; while papists, Quakers, Arians and heretics of all sorts are free. When a bloody rabble were (in print) encouraged to tear us to pieces, there was no more notice taken of it than if the country-people had been getting together to despatch a wolf, or a mad dog … and now a new, and a baser project is taken up (and some think encouraged too) of destroying us by forgery, and perjury, and formality of mock-justice; these diabolical artificers … [the forgers] … are so far from being discouraged that ... they may be said to be protected rather than we.<sup>210</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 Aug. 1693 he fell ill. Determined never to communicate with the juring clergy, he received absolution and communion from one nonjuror and appointed another to perform his burial service. He died on 23 Nov.; in his final moments he prayed for the restoration of James II and the Stuart line.<sup>211</sup></p><p>Although he had drafted a will earlier in the year, leaving his personal estate to his nephews, Francis and William Sancroft, Sancroft died intestate, apparently because even in death he did not wish to recognize the authority of his successor.<sup>212</sup> His annual income as archbishop had amounted to more than £6,000 and he had clearly been able to amass considerable wealth.<sup>213</sup> He had already donated his vast library (worth £3,000) to his old college, Emmanuel, and established a trust in 1672 for the maintenance of a vicar, schoolmaster and parish clerk for his native Fressingfield.<sup>214</sup> The bulk of his manuscript collection, now in the Bodleian Library, was purchased by Thomas Tanner<sup>†</sup> from Sancroft’s nephew. Sancroft was buried in the churchyard at Fressingfield; he composed his own monumental inscription which affirmed his ‘great zeal and affection’ for James II.<sup>215</sup></p><p>Shortly after his death a hagiographical account of his life appeared in which he was described as one who had retained ‘integrity of conscience undefiled to the grave’, and elevated to virtual martyr status. An extensive early nineteenth century biography similarly cast him in a heroic mould. Both saw him as an effective leader of a church in crisis, despite leading it into schism.<sup>216</sup> Recently, he has been cast by one biographer in a more political mould and by another as a retiring cleric, an observer and survivor of two political revolutions.<sup>217</sup></p><p>The actions that led to the Seven Bishops’ case gave him a lasting reputation for bravely standing up to tyranny, yet it is clear that those actions were not his own free choice but were forced upon him by others. His motivation – other than to preserve the Church – and his strategies (if indeed he had any) remain opaque, especially as he was so reluctant to explain himself. In the process of rebutting an approach by a Jacobite agent in 1691, he insisted that he had ‘for many years a great aversion from writing of letters’, citing the interception of Turner’s letter to the exiled king as evidence that even the safest of conveyances could not be trusted. In August 1688 Croft of Hereford had described Sancroft as ‘a very close and wary person’. Sancroft had good reason to be close and wary, especially after the Revolution when he believed (almost certainly accurately) that he was dogged by ‘eyes and spies’. <sup>218</sup> It is clear that whilst Sancroft was an excellent administrator and could inspire great devotion from some (though not all) of his clergy, he was, even at the best of times, ill-equipped to deal with politics and politicians. Throughout his career he strove to avoid controversy and confrontation. The result was that he was unable to respond to the challenges that faced the Church and was totally unfitted for a leadership role, and especially for leadership of a beleaguered Church in troubled times.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
SANDERSON, Robert (1587-1663) |
<p><strong><surname>SANDERSON</surname></strong> (<strong>SAUNDERSON</strong>), <strong>Robert</strong> (1587–1663)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 15 May 1662 |
cons. 28 Oct. 1660 bp. of LINCOLN |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 19 Sept. 1587, 2nd s. of Robert Sanderson of Gilthwaite Hall, Yorks. and Elizabeth, da. of Richard Carr of Butterthwaite Hall, Yorks.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Rotherham g.s.; Lincoln, Oxf. matric. 1603, BA 1605, fell. 1606-19, MA 1607, BD 1617, DD 1636; ord. deacon 1611, priest 1612. <em>m</em>. c.1621, Ann, da. of Henry Nelson, rect. Haugham, Lincs.<sup>2</sup> 3s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 29 Jan. 1663; <em>will</em> 6 Jan., pr. 28 Mar. 1663.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I 1631.</p><p>Chap. to George Montaigne<sup>†</sup>, bp. London; to Charles I 1631; rect. Wyberton, Lincs. 1618-19, Boothby Pagnell, Lincs. 1619-60, Muston, Leics. 1633-41; vic. Heckington, Lincs. 1618-25; preb. Lincoln, 1629-60, Christ Church, Oxf. 1642-8; Regius Prof. Divinity, Oxf. 1642-8 (ejected 1648); commr. Savoy conference 1661.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas after J. Riley, Christ Church Oxf.; etching and line engraving by W. Hollar, 1668, NPG D29539.</p> |
<p>Sanderson who was appointed a royal chaplain through the recommendation of William Laud<sup>†</sup>, then bishop of London, had little difficulty in trimming his Calvinism to accommodate himself to the tenor of the Laudian Church.<sup>5</sup> Respected as an academic and also as a hard working parish minister, Charles I is reputed to have said of him that ‘I carry my ears to other preachers, but I carry my conscience to hear Mr Sanderson and to act accordingly’. In 1643 Sanderson refused to serve on the Westminster Assembly. He maintained contacts with fellow Anglicans during the Interregnum, tinkered with the outlawed liturgy just enough to avoid deprivation and advised like-minded clergy to remain in their parishes without ‘any shipwreck of a good conscience’, although he also made it clear that it was necessary for all Anglican clergy to co-operate ‘to protect the honour of our religion and Church in her now despised conditions’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>At the Restoration Robert Sanderson’s career prospects were enhanced still further by his close connection to Sir Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup>, formerly solicitor general to Charles I and attorney general from 1660, and Gilbert Sheldon*, of London, who was in practice, though not yet in name, the spiritual head of the Church of England. Both men were named as his ‘most real and constant friends’ in his will. Sanderson’s father was Sheldon’s godfather, and after he commended Sheldon to Sanderson’s care as a student, the two men formed a lasting friendship. It was Sheldon who recommended that the elderly Sanderson be elevated to the episcopate.<sup>7</sup> Quite apart from any other qualification for preferment that he might possess Sanderson was known to be a wholehearted supporter of uniformity. In the preface to a collection of sermons that he published in the 1650s he wrote concerning Dissenters that,</p><blockquote><p>it is the easiest thing in the world, and nothing more common, than for men to pretend conscience when they are not minded to obey. I do not believe … that the refusal of indifferent ceremonies, enjoined by lawful authority, is any part of their godliness, or any good fruit, evidence, or sign thereof … And as for tenderness of conscience … a most gracious blessed fruit of the holy spirit of god, where it is really, and not in pretence only, nor mistaken … it is with it as with other tender things, very subject to receive harm, and soon put out of order. Through the cunning of Satan it dangerously exposeth men to temptations … and through its own aptitude to entertain and cherish unnecessary scruples; it strongly disposeth them to listen thereunto so long, till at last they are overcome thereof.<sup>8</sup></p></blockquote><p>The ‘sumptuous feast’ which followed Sanderson’s consecration in October 1660 was as much a very public celebration of the renewed strength of episcopacy as of Sanderson’s appointment.<sup>9</sup> Although named as a commissioner to the Savoy conference, he took little part other than to use ‘a few angry words’ in support of arguments advanced by Peter Gunning*, later successively bishop of Chichester and Ely, and to insist that Baxter ‘was a man of contention’ if he sought to respond.<sup>10</sup> He took his seat in the House of Lords on 20 Nov. 1661, the first day that bishops were entitled to sit in Parliament. His parliamentary career lasted for a single session; he attended regularly throughout the winter of 1661 and spring of 1662 (41 per cent of total sittings) and was named to 15 committees. He took his seat the following day in the new Convocation and was charged with revisions to the prayer book. Sanderson composed the new preface.<sup>11</sup> In February 1662 it was reported that Sanderson was one of seven bishops, together with George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and James Stuart*, duke of York, who were successfully encouraged by Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, to oppose the Commons’ alterations to the bill for confirmation of ministers.<sup>12</sup> Sanderson was present when the Uniformity bill was committed on 17 Jan. 1662 and when the bill was passed in its final form on 8 May 1662. He later insisted that the subscription tests demanded by the act were articles not ‘of faith but peace’, but had reservations about the act’s stringency: he is reported to have admitted to one of his clergy that ‘more was imposed on ministers than he wished had been’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In July and August 1662 Sanderson visited his extensive diocese.<sup>14</sup> He rallied clergy of ‘tender consciences who would have to face the implementation of the Act of Uniformity and cautioned them against reading the Presbyterian account of debates at the Savoy in which, he claimed, Richard Baxter had misrepresented his actions.<sup>15</sup> After ‘Black Bartholomew’ day on 24 Aug. 1662, Sanderson reported to Sheldon his disgust at the ‘palpable hypocrisy’ of many Presbyterians in his diocese who were opposed to the settlement but were prepared to conform for financial gain.<sup>16</sup> He offered preferments as an incentive to conformity in those he believed genuinely troubled in conscience, but on the point of episcopal ordination he was intransigent, as Samuel Wilson, who had been a public preacher at Lincoln Cathedral for a decade and who had himself conducted ordinations, found to his cost.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Sanderson died at Buckden on 29 Jan. 1663 at the age of 76. He left his wife of more than 40 years so ‘slenderly provided for’ that she was forced to petition the king for a grant, on account of her husband’s ‘sufferings during the rebellion’, his rebuilding expenses and his short time in the bishopric.<sup>18</sup> In his brief time as bishop of Lincoln he had spent more than £4,000 on augmentations, refurbishments and charitable projects.<sup>19</sup> In April 1663, Humphrey Henchman*, of Salisbury, claimed that Sanderson had been ‘an excellent preacher ... judicious casuist, and a very great glory to the Church of England’.<sup>20</sup> Richard Baxter formed a rather different opinion, describing Sanderson as ‘a very worthy man, but for that great peevishness, which injuries, partiality, temperature and age had caused in him’.<sup>21</sup> Sanderson’s final request was to be buried quietly in Buckden parish church, attended only by his parishioners.</p> |
B.A. |
|
SHARP, John (1645-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>SHARP</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1645–1714)</p> |
|
|
First sat 5 Oct. 1691; last sat 9 May 1713 |
cons. 5 July 1691 abp. of YORK |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Feb. 1645, 1st s. of Thomas Sharp (<em>d</em>.1671), salter, of Bradford and Dorothy, da. of John Weddal, rect. of Widdington, Yorks. <em>educ</em>. Bradford g.s.; Christ’s, Camb. matric. 1660, BA 1663, MA 1667, DD 1679; ord. deacon and priest 1667; incorp. Oxf. 1669. <em>m</em>. April 1676, Elizabeth, da. of William Palmer of Winthorp, Lincs., 7s. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 7da. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 2 Feb. 1714; <em>will</em> 9 Dec. 1713, pr. 30 Mar.-25 June 1714.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1703-<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> chap. to James II, 1686-8, to William III and Mary II, 1689-91.</p><p>Chap. to Heneage Finch*, Bar. Finch (later earl of Nottingham) 1667-76; adn. Berks. 1673-89; preb. Norwich 1675-81; rect. St Bartholomew Exchange 1675, St Giles-in-the-Fields 1675-91; lecturer St Lawrence Jewry, London 1679; dean Norwich 1681-9, Canterbury 1689-91.</p><p>Commr. reform of liturgy 1689,<sup>4</sup> hospitals 1691,<sup>5</sup> rebuilding St Paul’s 1692,<sup>6</sup> 1702,<sup>7</sup> ecclesiastical preferments 1695,<sup>8</sup> 1699,<sup>9</sup> Union 1702,<sup>10</sup> Union 1706,<sup>11</sup> 50 new churches 1711-<em>d</em>.,<sup>12</sup> promoting trade and improving plantations 1713.<sup>13</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: tomb effigy by F. Bird, 1714, York Minster; line engraving by R. White, NPG D21351.</p> |
<p>The son of devoutly Protestant parents, if Sharp was more heavily swayed by his mother’s Anglican royalism than by his father’s support for Parliament during the Civil Wars, he was also said to have imbued from the latter some of his puritan tendencies.<sup>14</sup> At Cambridge, where he studied natural philosophy before seeking ordination, he came to the notice of Platonist Henry More, who later recommended Sharp as domestic chaplain to the future lord chancellor, Heneage Finch, ‘to which removal he owed his future success and advancement in the world’. Sharp forged an enduring personal and political relationship with successive earls of Nottingham and the clergymen with whom he was linked. He also formed a significant and useful friendship with John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, whose acquaintance he made via Tillotson’s brother (Joshua) who was in the same trade as Sharp’s father.<sup>15</sup> Like Tillotson, Sharp was intellectually grounded in philosophical ‘reasonableness’; unlike his friend, he had more ceremonial liturgical instincts (but not to the extent that he approved of sung liturgies, nor of being one of the ‘high churchmen’).<sup>16</sup> Sharp’s belief in Anglican uniformity was grounded less in erastianism and more in pastoral, social and political necessity. Deeply conservative, he became a political (but not a high-flying) Tory. Nevertheless, he maintained close lifelong friendships with those of his acquaintance who gravitated into whiggery. Like another close friend, John Moore*, the future bishop of Ely, he was pragmatic and had no qualms about deserting the Tory ranks if he thought that the issue at hand was dictated merely by ‘intrigues, cabals, and party schemes’.<sup>17</sup></p><p>An examination of his political and parliamentary life challenges the view that he always shied away from partisan politics, but also confirms that he relished the role of mediator. During the reign of Anne he struggled to maintain his political independence, both from the queen and also from his close personal friends Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford).<sup>18</sup></p><p>Sharp enjoyed financial security having inherited from his father property in and around Bradford.<sup>19</sup> He also benefitted financially from his relationship with the Finches, the 1st earl of Nottingham proving a generous benefactor and useful patron. His position was further bolstered by his marriage to a Lincolnshire heiress. Despite his protestations that the Exchequer frequently failed to provide him with his requirements as almoner (particularly Maundy money), in the winter of 1710 alone he was personally reimbursed by the queen over £1,200 from her privy purse to cover his expenses.<sup>20</sup> When Southwell Minster was damaged by fire on the night of 5 Nov. 1711 (costing more than £3,000 to repair), Sharp gave £200 of his own income and raised nearly a third of the remainder.<sup>21</sup> At the time of his death he was able to bequeath at least £5,000 in addition to property in Yorkshire, including Marton Priory and Doncaster.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Sharp’s first parliamentary sermon before the Commons, preached on 11 Apr. 1679, was in circulation the following month and augmented the high profile sermons that he delivered from his prestigious London pulpit at St Giles.<sup>23</sup> In 1681, Nottingham, who had already been instrumental in securing Sharp the archdeaconry of Berkshire, supported by Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, determined to install Sharp in the vacant Norwich deanery, though Hobart was aware that Sharp had both ‘potent friends as well as opposers’. William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry Compton*, bishop of London, were among the latter, Compton thinking it ‘well they were not all of the same opinion in that church’. With Sancroft and Compton outvoted by James Stuart*, duke of York, and Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, Sharp was named dean of Norwich. He made it clear at his reception (where he was ‘courted by both parties’) that he did not intend to linger there.<sup>24</sup> Active during the Tory reaction, Sharp published a volume of Protestant casuistry that attacked Dissenters as schismatics. He continued to impress hearers both in the capital and at court.<sup>25</sup> His pastoral role generated close links with many of the London nobility. Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, was one of those who heard Sharp preach, and Sharp later attended Anglesey on his deathbed.<sup>26</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II and Revolution</em></h2><p>Following the accession of James II, Sharp continued to preach his staunchly Protestant sermons.<sup>27</sup> Such were Sharp’s Protestant credentials that in later life, when he and Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, were on opposite sides of the political divide, Tenison would joke that he, not Sharp, had exhibited the ‘higher’ churchmanship in their early days, ‘to which the archbishop of York ... would never make ... any answer, but would shake me by the hand, and laugh very heartily’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In April 1686 Sharp was made a royal chaplain, but he nevertheless joined the campaign against Catholicism.<sup>29</sup> On 6 June he preached the sermon at St Giles for which he and his diocesan, Henry Compton, would fall foul of the government. Preaching that Roman Catholics were ‘idolaters’, he gave ‘great offence’ to Sir Roger L’Estrange<sup>‡</sup>, who was observed in the congregation taking notes and who went straight to Windsor to inform the king. The lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, summoned Sharp and spoke to him ‘somewhat severely ... but it’s supposed did him what friendly offices he could’. A few days later, Sharp was again summoned but now found Jeffreys seething about one passage in particular in which Sharp had allegedly used ‘a very rude, indecent expression’.<sup>30</sup> On 17 June Compton was instructed to suspend Sharp for having preached ‘unbecoming reflections and ... harsh expressions ... to beget in the minds of his hearers an evil opinion of us and our government … to dispose them to discontent and to lead them into disobedience and rebellion’. Sharp offered to make a general confession of his offence and to throw himself on the king’s mercy. He was advised by Compton to cease preaching; for his part Compton maintained that he must follow correct ecclesiastical protocols when punishing an offender. Sharp waited on the king with Compton’s letter and his own petition but was not admitted to his presence. Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Charles Middleton<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], both declined to help him.<sup>31</sup> Nottingham’s attempts to intervene on Sharp’s behalf were also rebuffed. It became clear that Sharp was merely the first of several clergymen who were to be silenced for their anti-Catholic activities.<sup>32</sup> Early in July Sharp tried again, unsuccessfully, to gain a hearing with the king.<sup>33</sup></p><p>The ecclesiastical commission eventually suspended Compton for his refusal to suspend Sharp. Meanwhile, Sharp ‘voluntarily’ abstained from preaching in Norwich whence he had returned on Jeffreys’ advice. He returned to London in December and petitioned successfully for reinstatement.<sup>34</sup> By 25 Mar. 1687 Sharp was back at court.<sup>35</sup> At the end of the year he was observed by Roger Morrice preaching at Gray’s Inn and defending the Church of England from all adversaries, both Dissenting and Catholic.<sup>36</sup> His sermons were now more carefully crafted, though, and at Easter 1688 he preached at Whitehall without any repercussions.<sup>37</sup></p><p>On 13 May 1688 Sharp was one of the London clergy to discuss their proposed defiance of the second Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>38</sup> Following the trial of the Seven Bishops, he engaged in coded correspondence with other Anglican clerics including Tenison, Tillotson, Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, and Simon Patrick*, later bishop of Chichester and of Ely.<sup>39</sup> Following the invasion by William of Orange, Sharp lost little time in promoting the notion of James’s abdication. His haste to do so attracted the criticism that ‘it will look more like revenge in him than obedience to his diocesan, because he was unjustly persecuted by the king’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>By the end of January 1689, when he preached before the Commons on the text ‘deliver me from blood guiltiness’, he was again embroiled in controversy. His sermon, in which he had (in spite of his earlier involvement in discussion of James’s abdication) prayed for James II as king, evoked strong reactions. A motion to thank him for the speech was rejected and ‘some declared he had highly affronted the proceedings of the House’.<sup>41</sup> Yet on 1 Feb., following further debate, Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> successfully moved that Sharp, ‘one of the first sufferers’ under the previous regime, should be thanked for his sermon.<sup>42</sup></p><p>As one of the 2nd earl of Nottingham’s closest allies, Sharp was rewarded in September 1689 with the deanery of Canterbury which gave him <em>de facto</em> authority over those sees without a functioning bishop. He was involved in the earl’s initiatives to introduce legislation to the House on religious toleration and comprehension, and was one of those named to the new ecclesiastical commission.<sup>43</sup> He backed Tillotson for the post of prolocutor of Convocation although Compton successfully promoted his own hard-line candidate, William Jane.<sup>44</sup></p><p>Against the nonjurors, Sharp deployed <em>de facto</em> arguments in which he argued that ‘the laws of the land ... [are] the only rule of our conscience in this matter ... if William be king in the eye of the law, we must in conscience obey him as such’. Despite this, he refused elevation to any see vacated by the deprivation of a nonjuror, much to the king’s annoyance.<sup>45</sup> Tillotson, who finally became archbishop of Canterbury in May 1691, was determined to secure the archbishopric of York for his friend, and liaised with Nottingham to secure Sharp’s agreement to replace the ageing Thomas Lamplugh*, archbishop of York, on his expected death. Tillotson was said to have succeeded in his aim at a meeting on 24 Apr. 1691 (shortly before Lamplugh’s demise).<sup>46</sup> At the time, Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, applauded Tillotson’s persistence; within five years, Burnet was damning Tillotson’s ‘great error’.<sup>47</sup></p><h2><em>Archbishop of York</em></h2><p>In May 1691 Sharp was at Canterbury Cathedral in his capacity as dean to receive the <em>congé d’élire</em> for Tillotson’s election as archbishop. Rumours of his own elevation were already current.<sup>48</sup> He was shortly after recommended to the dean and chapter of York as their new archbishop.<sup>49</sup> His farewell sermon to his London parishioners elicited an acid response from the nonjurors.<sup>50</sup> Sharp had no qualms about his claim to York, despite the exiled James II’s rival appointment of Denis Granville (former dean of Durham and brother of John Granville*, earl of Bath).<sup>51</sup> Sharp was confirmed in Bow church on 2 July and consecrated three days later.<sup>52</sup> He refused all petitions from London clergy to join his household until he had first provided for his predecessor’s chaplains; finding that Lamplugh had made no such provision himself, Sharp absorbed them into his own household ‘as if they had been chaplains of his own nomination.<sup>53</sup> Popular with the diocesan clergy, he was described in 1694 as ‘very free and open, and much more agreeable’ than Lamplugh had been. He was said to have become a model of pastoral and bureaucratic efficiency, conducting a formal visitation of his ecclesiastical courts.<sup>54</sup> A stickler for moral reform, he was nevertheless unsympathetic to the reform societies if they included nonconformists.<sup>55</sup></p><p>On 5 Oct. 1691, a prorogation day, Sharp received his writ of summons and, with Tillotson, took his seat in the House of Lords. His parliamentary career lasted more than 20 years and in the course of 23 sessions he attended all but three. Throughout his whole time on the episcopal bench, he was named to approximately 116 select committees though he reported back to the House from only three of those. He attended for the start of the new session on 22 Oct. 1691 and was present for 73 per cent of sittings. He was appointed to preach the sermon on 5 Nov. and was duly thanked the following day. He preached before the king and queen on Christmas Day.<sup>56</sup> Two days later he signed the bishops’ petition to the king to suppress vice and order the implementation of the penal laws.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Sharp spoke in the House on the Quaker bill on 12 Feb. 1692 (according to his diary, this was the first occasion on which he ‘took the boldness to speak in the House’); four days later he spoke again on the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, when he restated doctrinal arguments on the lawfulness of divorce for adultery.<sup>58</sup> Following the adjournment on 24 Feb., Sharp remained in London, preaching the Easter Sunday sermon before the queen.<sup>59</sup> On 11 Apr. he attended an episcopal meeting at Lambeth. By July he was back in Yorkshire, where he spent a week ‘rambling’ ‘in the western parts of my diocese’ and carrying out confirmations in remote areas ‘where I do not hear any bishop has been since Toby Matthew<sup>†</sup>’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Attending the House on 4 Nov. 1692 for the start of the next parliamentary session, Sharp attended thereafter for 36 per cent of sittings. On 12 Nov. he went to the House but, on a point of conscience, stayed out of debates on the commitment of the lords who had been imprisoned the previous summer. If he kept his counsel in the chamber, he made detailed notes on the issues raised in his private notes.<sup>61</sup> On 22 Dec. Sharp was given leave of absence by the House to go into the country. Five days later he registered his proxy in favour of Moore and did not return to the House that session. Moore used the proxy on 3 Jan. 1693 in the division on the place bill. It may have been during this period that Sharp requested of Moore copies of any acts passed during this absence (though his letter lacks a year date and may have been written the following year).<sup>62</sup> Following the prorogation on 14 Mar., Sharp travelled into his northern province. On 14 May he preached in Sheffield before returning to Bishopthorpe to devote himself to ecclesiastical matters.<sup>63</sup> He claimed that his greatest pastoral problem was clandestine marriages.<sup>64</sup> Back in London by 26 Oct. (when he attended the House for a prorogation), he returned to the House on 7 Nov. for the start of the new session. He attended 71 per cent of sittings. On the 12th he preached a special thanksgiving sermon at court for the safe return of the king from overseas.<sup>65</sup> On 17 Feb. 1694, he voted to reverse the chancery dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em> and in April took charge of the small tithes bill (which would transfer the recovery of small tithes into the plenary jurisdiction of justices of the peace) for his friend Stillingfleet, with whom he had exchanged familiar correspondence for many years.<sup>66</sup> Sharp’s diary reveals that he co-ordinated closely with Stillingfleet, visiting him at home three times in the first week of April to discuss amendments to the bill.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Sharp’s most significant contribution to the session was his speech in opposition to the bill for frequent Parliaments, which had first been introduced during the previous session when he was absent in his diocese but vetoed by the king. Outlining his reasons for opposing the measure, he complained of the problems that would arise from frequent elections and stressed that he thought the potential impact of the bill ‘a little too hard upon the king’. It would, he claimed, effect a change to the constitution so that Parliament (or a committee of both Houses) could ultimately be in permanent session and compromise the balance between the liberty of the subject and the rights of the crown. Constant Parliaments would prove burdensome to the people who already found privilege of Parliament ‘grievous enough’, and leave little or no time in which to instigate or complete legal proceedings. Further, frequent elections and the inevitable polarization of opinion would divide the people ‘alienating people’s affections one from another, and their being engaged in factions, and piques, and quarrels’, increasing drunkenness, idleness and debauchery amongst the people and ‘feuds and animosities’ amongst the gentry.<sup>68</sup> In spite of Sharp’s efforts (and the king’s continued disapproval) the measure was eventually carried as part of the price of securing the return to office of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury.</p><p>Early in November 1694 – just under a year since Nottingham had been forced from office –Sharp was appealed to by Nottingham’s brother, Henry Finch, who had been offered the bishopric of Man but was anxious to decline it in the hopes of being promised the deanery of York instead. Conscious that he no longer had any claim to royal patronage, Nottingham joined his brother in hoping that Sharp would use his interest with the king and queen to secure it for him. Finch duly obtained a promise that he would be given the desired post.<sup>69</sup> Despite his preference to remain in Yorkshire that winter, Sharp was informed by Tillotson at the beginning of the second week of November that he was ‘greatly’ needed in London and that his absence would not be taken well.<sup>70</sup> Sharp, nevertheless, failed to attend the next session and on 10 Nov. registered his proxy in favour of Moore. Following the death of Queen Mary, Sharp was named to the ecclesiastical commission for Church preferments (comprised largely of Nottingham’s clerical allies), which was to have sweeping authority during the king’s absences abroad and significant powers to recommend when the king was on hand.<sup>71</sup> Opposed in principle to political appointments in the Church, and subject to the king’s preferences, he was generally involved in dispensing livings to men deemed ‘moderate and unexceptional’.<sup>72</sup> One such preferment, however, clearly reflected his personal interests: Sharp promoted Henry Finch to the well-endowed Yorkshire prebend of Wetwang. Finch was distrusted by the government and in March 1696 complained that he was suspected of being ‘a disaffected person’ and that his house had been searched for horses and arms. In an undated letter Sharp reported that despite the promise that had been obtained, ‘the king has positively refused the deanery to Mr Finch’. Finch did not become dean of York until the reign of Anne.<sup>73</sup></p><p>On 25 July 1695 Sharp received word from Tenison (now his fellow primate, after Tillotson’s death in November 1694) that Parliament was to be prorogued to September. Tenison also enclosed a copy of his latest circular, inviting Sharp’s ‘animadversions on it that I may do better next time’.<sup>74</sup> In spite of a request from Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, for Sharp to use his interest in York and Ripon in the elections of October 1695, Sharp refused to intervene in the former, on the grounds that it would ‘render me less capable of doing that service in the city hereafter, which otherwise in my station I might’. The result was the unopposed returns of Tobias Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Thompson<sup>‡</sup>. He proved more willing to intervene in Ripon, where he exercised interest as lord of the manor. His nephew by marriage, John Aislabie<sup>‡</sup>, had acquired an interest in the borough, but required Sharp’s influence to underwrite his return to the Commons. There Sharp followed Leeds’s desires and backed Aislabie together with Jonathan Jennings<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>75</sup> He was less successful in his attempt to employ his interest at Cambridge University on behalf of John Isham, a member of the Finch circle who enjoyed the bi-partisan support of both Nottingham and Charles Montagu*, later earl of Halifax. In spite of such high-level support, Isham was squeezed into third place.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Sharp attended the House on the first day of the new Parliament and thereafter attended the session for 77 per cent of sittings. In the spring of 1696 he signed the Association, but on 27 Feb. he moved the Lords to define more carefully the caveat entered by the episcopate. The following month (on 19 Mar.) he was noted as having introduced a bill to stop excommunication for those who failed to pay small tithes.<sup>77</sup> On 6 Apr. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the privateers bill. Four days later he signed the ‘repugnance’ of the scaffold absolution by two nonjurors of Sir William Parkyns, and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Sharp did not return to Westminster until early December 1696, six weeks after the start of the new session, almost certainly in time for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Having taken his place in the Lords, Sharp attended only 14 per cent of sittings. On 8 Dec. the king gave an audience to both Sharp and Moore, pressing them to support the Fenwick attainder.<sup>79</sup> On 18 Dec. Sharp voted against the second reading of the bill, but was not among those who registered a protest. His opposition seems to have taken some commentators by surprise. On the 23rd he voted against the passage of the bill and this time did register his dissent.<sup>80</sup> As a consequence, Sharp was involved far less frequently in government ecclesiastical decision-making.<sup>81</sup></p><p>In February 1697, Sharp attempted to interpose with Sir George Treby<sup>‡</sup> on behalf of the widowed Lady Abdy (granddaughter of Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>). Treby was presiding over the trial of one of Lady Abdy’s servants, who had set fire to some outhouses on the Abdy estate. Realizing that the girl faced the death penalty if convicted, Lady Abdy had sought to drop the charges but been convinced by Sharp to persevere with the prosecution and then petition the judge for clemency once the trial had been concluded. He now sought Treby’s agreement to meet Lady Abdy to consider her appeal.<sup>82</sup> Soon after the prorogation of April 1697, Sharp found himself embroiled in continuing efforts to secure the recently vacant deanery of York for Nottingham’s brother, Henry, in the face of opposition from the king. His exertions were rendered the more difficult by poor health, suffering ‘a severe fit of the stone’ as well as ‘a touch of gout’ in the arm. Later that summer he celebrated being able to void ‘my great stone’ as well as ‘half a dozen more’ with the aid of Scarborough waters. In better health by the end of July, he continued to deal with diocesan business. He sought advice from Moore whether it would constitute a breach of privilege to draw up a new lease concerning episcopal land and to order an entry to be made of the estates as one of the current tenants was a fellow member of the Lords, John Sheffield*, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), who was engaged in negotiation about extending the lease.<sup>83</sup> Sharp was also increasingly concerned about the growth of the moral reform movement in his province, particularly where societies had mixed denominational allegiances.<sup>84</sup></p><p>After 1697 Sharp found himself caught increasingly in the middle of the Convocation dispute between ‘low’ churchmen and high-fliers. Sharp was now at the heart of the Tory bishops. He took his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1697 after which he was present for just under 39 per cent of sittings. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted with the minority against the bill to punish Sir Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>85</sup> Sharp registered his proxy in favour of Moore on 27 Apr. (vacated at the end of the session), a witness to their friendship and shared connection with Nottingham if not their diverging ecclesiastical politics. He also remained willing to employ his interest, as indicated by a letter to Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, in which he pressed the claims of a Mr Fairfax (possibly Hon. Henry Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, former member for Aldborough) for a place in the excise.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Elections followed the dissolution of 7 July. The poll at York on 20 July resulted in a controverted election, but Sharp resolved not to interfere and ignored the requests for assistance made to him by the defeated Edward Thompson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>87</sup> He was prepared to exercise his influence in Ripon once again to secure the re-election of Jennings and Aislabie, in spite of Jennings’ provocative behaviour about which Sharp received several petitions.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Sharp failed to take his seat in the first session of the new Parliament, choosing to concentrate instead on affairs within his province. He wrote from Bishopthorpe to John Somers*, Baron Somers (with whom he maintained a mutually respectful relationship) for a writ of Convocation for the northern province as soon as Parliament opened.<sup>89</sup> During his absence he was kept abreast of developments at Westminster and beyond, including the Norfolk county petition to Parliament against Quakers and heavy parliamentary lobbying.<sup>90</sup></p><p>Sharp took his seat once more on 23 Nov. 1699, one week after the start of the new parliamentary session. He attended thereafter for just over 60 per cent of sittings. On 11 Jan. 1700 he was ordered by the House to preach the martyrdom sermon on the 30th and duly delivered a moralizing sermon in the Abbey.<sup>91</sup> He was thanked formally on 1 Feb., the same day that he was forecast as being in favour of the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. On 23 Feb. he voted to adjourn during pleasure and allow the House to go into a committee of the whole House on the East India bill. Although Sharp continued to preach at court and was present in the House during February and March for most of the proceedings relating to the Norfolk divorce bill, he absented himself on 12 Mar. when the House divided on the passage of the measure.<sup>92</sup> Sharp’s absence may have been tactical as he was involved with manoeuvres relating to the management of the Shrewsbury hospital in Sheffield, where the duke was lord of the manor. Sharp’s contact in Sheffield, Drake, had written two days before the vote hoping that the duke would prove more pliable in the matter of the hospital, ‘when the House of peers has put his Grace into so good humour’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Sharp did not attend the session after 28 March. Throughout the spring and summer he corresponded with Tenison on ecclesiastical preferments and agreed to support the latest activities of the SPCK. He also seems to have used his interest on behalf of Humphrey Prideaux, who was eager to secure Sharp’s former deanery of Norwich.<sup>94</sup> Sharp was taken ill with suspected smallpox over the summer.<sup>95</sup> By the end of the year he appears to have recovered and in the meantime he was kept informed of political developments by Charles Boyle*, 2nd earl of Burlington.<sup>96</sup></p><p>During the first round of parliamentary elections in 1701 Sharp again exercised his influence as lord of the manor at Ripon; perhaps surprisingly he did not accede to the request of Ripon corporation to sponsor the candidature of his own son John Sharp<sup>‡</sup>, but instead once again backed his ‘good friends’ Jennings and Aislabie.<sup>97</sup> Arriving at Westminster nearly three weeks after the start of the new Parliament, he attended for approximately half of all sittings. Following his return to Bishopthorpe he was involved, among other things, with a prominent Country Tory backbencher, Sir Godfrey Copley<sup>‡</sup>, (Member for Thirsk) about his wine order.<sup>98</sup></p><p>In the second election of that year Sharp now chose to support his son’s candidature at Ripon. After a fierce contest, the younger Sharp was returned with Aislabie. During the summer Sharp had been approached by Arthur Ingram<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd Viscount Irwin [S], who had resolved to stand for Yorkshire. Ingram was successful but it is not clear whether Sharp did give him his support.<sup>99</sup> Sharp also found himself employed as mediator between Sir William Lowther<sup>‡</sup> and his son William Lowther<sup>‡</sup> about the latter’s marriage settlement. He advised the younger William not to ‘intermeddle’ in the Pontefract election after learning that he intended to stand in opposition to his father and his cousin Robert Lowther<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>100</sup> Sharp, who had reason to back the older man as he relied on him for his supply of coal, was unsuccessful in his attempts to persuade the younger Lowther to step aside and the latter was duly elected for Pontefract.<sup>101</sup></p><p>On 5 Jan. 1702 Sharp was noted as missing without excuse at a call of the House. It was not until 20 Apr., after the king’s death, that Sharp finally took his place, after which he was present for just six days in the session. During his absence he had been warned by Moore of the king’s illness.<sup>102</sup> A disconcerted Sharp described his household as being ‘out of our wits’ with worry.<sup>103</sup> At the close of March Sharp excused his continuing absence to Nottingham referring to his own ‘shattered condition of health’, and he professed himself surprised to learn that he was wanted in the House. He would, he claimed, have attended if he thought it necessary, complaining that attending Parliament harmed both his health and his pocket. Sharp responded to Nottingham’s apparent scruples over taking the oath of abjuration, counselling that anyone able to take the oath of allegiance to the new queen should have no problem with that of abjuration. He admitted that the part of the oath against the Pretender’s right to the throne would have troubled his own conscience if the monarchy rested upon principles of ‘the law of nature or the revealed law of God’. Since monarchs held their crowns ‘by the same legal right that your lordship holds your estate, and that they may forfeit their rights as well as you may do yours’, with Parliament as the judge, both he and Nottingham could safely take the oath.<sup>104</sup> Nottingham conceded Sharp’s point.<sup>105</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Anne to 1707</em></h2><p>Anne’s accession improved Sharp’s standing. Nottingham urged that the archbishop attend court promptly since he was almost certainly the most favoured of the bishops. He concluded that Sharp should ‘judge whether something more than the ordinary respect of a subject is not due to her from you’. Sharp, indisposed once more with the stone, was given royal permission to stay away until the following winter, but the queen changed her mind and decided that she wanted Sharp to preach at the coronation. A newsletter of 2 Apr. reported as much, and at the start of April Sharp informed Tenison (who had clearly been snubbed by the new queen in these arrangements) that he had intended to come to London anyway rather than be thought to be guilty of ‘intolerable ill manners’. As far as the matter of the sermon went, he was willing to accede to the queen’s request, though he insisted ‘my health is so broken with colics in my stomach, and stone and strangury, that I am altogether unfit to go about any work, and least of all such a business as this.’ Notwithstanding his indisposition, he assured Tenison that he would set out for London on the 13th.<sup>106</sup></p><p>On 23 Apr. Sharp duly preached the sermon. Subsequently, he had several audiences with the queen about ecclesiastical promotions.<sup>107</sup> Succeeding ‘alone to the royal confidence and counsel in all affairs relating to the Church’, he (in alliance with Nottingham) now fulfilled the function of the previous ecclesiastical commission. One obvious example of their new-found influence was Henry Finch’s swift confirmation in post as dean of York. Sharp’s son, Thomas, claimed that the archbishop was both Anne’s chief confidant and plain-speaking pastor. The archbishop disapproved heartily of the queen’s ‘giving herself up to the conduct of any ministry or set of men whatsoever’ and advised her to hold herself above party politics and not be swayed by changing factions. Despite Sharp’s frequent assertions to the contrary, his disapproval of political partisanship was undoubtedly more active when she made political alliances with the Whigs. It is also quite apparent that a constant theme in the relations of queen and archbishop was the latter’s repeated insistence in the face of royal pressure on his right to pursue an independent course of action when voting in the House.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Sharp continued to furnish the government with ecclesiastical recommendations and in June consecrated his old friend, William Nicolson*, as bishop of Carlisle, at Lambeth.<sup>109</sup> Parliament was dissolved on 2 July 1702 and he was again pressed to intervene in elections, this time by Lady Russell, who asked for his help to support William Cavendish*, then styled marquess of Hartington (later 2nd duke of Devonshire), for one of the county seats in Yorkshire. Hartington was successful without Sharp’s support. The archbishop excused himself from the Cavendish request with his customary excuses against intervention: it was, he claimed,</p><blockquote><p>very improper for me to meddle in Parliament elections, either for the city or county: that I foresaw great inconveniences would come upon it with respect to myself, and yet I should do no great good; and therefore I made it a rule to myself not to be concerned in these matters, unless there was an absolute necessity for it, as in the case of a notorious bad man that should offer himself ... I would promise them, that though I could not serve them by making any votes for them, yet I would never disserve them by espousing any interest against them.<sup>110</sup></p></blockquote><p>Preoccupied by the assizes and the elections, Sharp remained in contact with Nottingham, sending news of the likely outcome in constituencies throughout his diocese; with the exception of Hartington, the majority of Commons’ Members throughout his diocese were expected to remain unchanged. Required by Nottingham on a regular basis to explain his interventions and conversations with the queen, Sharp was nonetheless clearly devoted to the earl and his wife and ‘all the lovely, hopeful branches’ of the Finch family.<sup>111</sup></p><p>The new Parliament assembled on 20 Oct. 1702, but Sharp failed to take his seat until 4 Nov. after which he attended approximately 53 per cent of all sittings. Sharp was now co-operating with Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, who had undertaken to act as mediator between the various Church factions. Working in concert, Sharp and Harley offered inducements in the form of preferments in an attempt to defuse hostilities.<sup>112</sup> Sharp’s relations with Nicolson also remained close: Nicolson wrote to Sharp to discuss the complaint to the Commons by Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> of misconduct at the parliamentary elections involving William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester.<sup>113</sup> Sharp introduced Nicolson to the queen and ‘kindly cautioned’ him about the pronunciation of ‘Jesus’ on his first day of reading prayers in the House. They dined together on 24 Nov., Sharp convinced that the ‘Convocation broils’ would fall out happily.<sup>114</sup></p><p>Sharp supported the occasional conformity bill that was introduced into the Commons in November 1702. He was also instrumental in gaining the queen’s approval for the measure.<sup>115</sup> On 3 Dec. he voted against Somers’ successful wrecking amendment, on the 4th joined with Leeds in opposing a further amendment (that office-bearers receive communion four times a year) as ‘a further prostitution of the sacrament’ and on the 7th voted against rejecting the clause on financial penalties. He then quit the chamber before the debates were finished for the day, opting instead for supper with Nicolson. Two days later, when the bill was given its third reading, Sharp voted with the Tories against the order that tacking to supply bills was unparliamentary. On 17 Dec., following a conference with the Commons on the occasional conformity bill, the House again divided on an adjournment. Sharp was among the minority voting to adjourn.<sup>116</sup></p><p>The new year found Sharp joining a number of his fellow prelates waiting on the queen and Prince George of Denmark*, and duke of Cumberland. He also found time to discuss the prince’s bill with Nicolson, which they agreed ‘was a private one and so could have no-tacking clause’, as well as the affairs of Convocation. Sharp had his own concerns to attend to also, having been pressed by the queen (and by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin) to overcome his reluctance and accept the post of almoner (which had been rejected by Compton).<sup>117</sup> Nottingham attempted, unsuccessfully, to have Sharp released from the office. It proved far more trouble than it was worth to the archbishop, not least in exposing him to petitions for preferment, which he found both tiresome and embarrassing. Despite this, the queen repeatedly refused to accept his resignation. It may have been Sharp to whom she referred when she commented that there was ‘but one of all our bishops that I have any opinion of’.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Sharp was absent from the House between 8 and 24 Jan. 1703, ‘much disordered’, according to Nicolson, with pain from kidney stones. He registered his proxy in favour of Nicolson on the 11th and his vote was used on the 16th to oppose the amendment to the clause relating to the Corporation Act (the votes were even and the motion lost). He resumed his place on 25 Jan. and on 10 Feb. (Ash Wednesday) was sufficiently recovered to preach before the queen. Nicolson found the sermon ‘very moving’. The archbishop was visited by John Aislabie and Nicolson the following day, Aislabie keeping him informed of the day’s debates in the Commons.<sup>119</sup> Parliament was prorogued on 27 Feb. and during March Sharp was sworn in at the Privy Council.<sup>120</sup> Duties at court held him in London. He dealt with petitioners such as the actress who claimed to be the discarded wife of the recently deceased Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, and who sought Sharp’s assistance to pursue her claims.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Sharp developed an important role as a mediator with the queen. On 31 Mar. he reassured Bishop William Lloyd about the latter’s continuing place in her favour, but refused to waste the queen’s time in discussing the vacancy at St Davids (previously held by the suspended Thomas Watson*,); she would undoubtedly ‘do nothing in that affair without the advice of her cabinet counsel. And ... they will never advise her to put in a new bishop, till the case of the archbishop’s power to deprive a suffragan bishop be heard and agreed to by the House of Lords’.<sup>122</sup> By 10 Apr. Sharp was back at Bishopsthorpe, from whence he wrote to Nottingham about ecclesiastical preferments.<sup>123</sup> He also attempted to reassure the Junto that their followers need not be starved of places. In June he sought to assure Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, that he would gladly see Sunderland’s protégé, Charles Trimnell*, later bishop of Norwich, promoted when a vacancy arose, though he could not satisfy their demands that he be given the deanery of Westminster, which had been promised to another man.<sup>124</sup></p><p>In advance of the autumn session of 1703, Sharp convened a meeting of Harley, Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, and George Hooper*, bishop of St Asaph, later bishop of Bath and Wells, the last two being his principal contacts in the Canterbury Convocation, in an abortive effort to persuade Atterbury to desist from lobbying for new legislation to counter occasional conformity.<sup>125</sup> Sharp took his seat in the House on 11 Nov. 1703, the third day of the new Parliamentary session. He attended for approximately 59 per cent of sittings. In spite of Sharp’s efforts to dissuade Atterbury from pressing for such legislation, he was assessed by Sunderland as a supporter of the new bill against occasional conformity and the archbishop was present on 14 Dec. when the bill was reintroduced. The measure again split the episcopal bench with Sharp speaking ‘strenuously’ in favour of the bill. He was one of nine bishops to vote in its favour, but 14 prelates took the opposite view and the bill was again rejected.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Early in the new year, Sharp was informed by Godolphin that the queen was considering Harley’s proposals for the crown’s surrender of ecclesiastical first fruits to provide a fund to augment poor livings (Queen Anne’s Bounty). The move was at least in part intended to assure the high church interest that their concerns had not been abandoned.<sup>127</sup> Sharp was present on 6 Mar. 1704 when the bill came up from the Commons, having ‘turned solicitor’ to leading supporters in both the Lords and Commons. He spoke twice in lengthy debates on the bill in a committee of the whole and joined with the rest of the episopal bench in voting in its favour on 13 March.<sup>128</sup> Prior to this, on 1 Mar. Sharp had seconded the motion proposed by Burnet in favour of Richard Boucher, who was accused of involvement in the ‘Scotch Plot’, the examination of which was purportedly keeping the Lords from dealing with the supply bill and thereby unnecessarily extending the session.<sup>129</sup> On 25 Mar. Sharp dissented from the resolution that the failure to pass a censure of Robert Ferguson encouraged the enemies of the crown. His name was included in a list prepared by Nottingham in 1704 which perhaps indicates support over the plot.</p><p>Sharp’s increasing association with high Tory ecclesiastical politics steadily undermined his friendship with Nicolson. Commenting on the appointment of Atterbury to the deanery of Carlisle, Nicolson confessed that he was ‘extremely troubled’ that Sharp should have had ‘so great a share’ in securing Atterbury the post, not least as Atterbury had been instrumental in snubbing Nicolson at Oxford.<sup>130</sup> Sharp, nevertheless, seems to have been eager to maintain his political independence and extended friendship to those of whom the queen disapproved. Thomas Watson, for one, recounted the extent of Sharp’s ‘charity and kindness’; the queen was dismayed by the connection and could not believe that Sharp ‘would countenance such a man’.<sup>131</sup> Sharp also continued to mediate on behalf of William Lloyd, assuring the latter that Anne would consider Lloyd’s son for a prebend of Worcester when his turn arose.<sup>132</sup> It may have been through Sharp’s intervention that Lloyd had a long audience with the queen at Windsor on 12 Sept., followed by dinner.<sup>133</sup></p><p>By the end of August 1704, Nicolson and Atterbury were mired in a jurisdictional dispute over the latter’s institution to the Carlisle chapter. Sharp attempted, without success, to get Nicolson to climb down, aware that the queen was offended at Nicolson’s tacit challenge to her prerogative. Harley hoped that Sharp would bring his authority, ‘sweetness and candour of ... temper’ to the situation and Sharp offered to defuse the dispute by proposing that he institute Atterbury himself.<sup>134</sup> In a letter of 18 Sept. to Harley he revealed the extent of his frustration:</p><blockquote><p>I can truly say I have done all that was possible for me to do, both towards removing the objections which the Bishop of Carlisle had started … and if that could not be done, then towards persuading his lordship to grant me his authority to admit the Doctor myself.<sup>135</sup></p></blockquote><p>By mid October Sharp had to report that the Carlisle affair had delayed his return to court, but that he would make amends to the queen by preaching for her on 5 November.<sup>136</sup> He did not allow the ongoing dispute to distract from his efforts to employ his interest elsewhere, and on 16 Oct. he wrote to Harley to recommend a successor for the living at Greenwich, his candidate enjoying the support of ‘some of the nobility and chief persons’ in the vicinity. The business of Carlisle, though, did predominate and in November he advised Nicolson against printing his ‘case’ against Atterbury. For all his attempted interventions, the affair rumbled on into the following year.<sup>137</sup></p><p>Despite his stated preference to remain above party politics, Sharp was drawn along in Nottingham’s wake. Elizabeth Burnet, a correspondent of the duchess of Marlborough, described the archbishop as ‘a very good man ... most if not all of his notions were good and he was very far from being a bigot or to have narrow notions, but of late he hears too much of one side’. According to Burnet himself, Nottingham and Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, were ‘indefatigable in some things with him, but of himself he would be much more reasonable’.<sup>138</sup></p><p>Sharp finally returned to the House three weeks into the new session on 13 Nov. 1704. He continued to attend for just over half of all sitting days. Following a request from the queen, he set his interest behind opposition to the approaching tack of the occasional conformity measure to a supply bill. Despite his own support for the legislation, Sharp thought the tack unconstitutional and an ‘irregular way of forcing it upon the House of Lords and the ministry’; consequently he exerted pressure not only on his own son, John, but also on the Members for Boroughbridge and Yorkshire, Sir Bryan Stapylton<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir John Kaye<sup>‡</sup>. Sharp’s efforts failed to persuade Stapylton, who voted for the measure, but Kaye and Sharp’s son both voted against the tack on 28 November.<sup>139</sup> Following the rejection of the tack, Sharp counselled moderation and tried to dissuade Harley from his subsequent purge of tackers from office.<sup>140</sup> He also attempted, without success, to persuade Tenison to give Atterbury an audience. Throughout the session he continued with his social and ecclesiastical round, attending a dinner at Draper’s Hall on 30 Nov. after a sermon before the Sons of the Clergy at St Paul’s. On 14 Dec., with Tenison, he opened the royal commission for Queen Anne’s Bounty.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Although unwilling to countenance the measure as a tack, Sharp continued to support the introduction of legislation against occasional conformity. On 15 Dec. he was among those arguing in favour of giving the latest occasional bill a second reading but the motion was rejected by 21 votes (once proxies had been added to the tally).<sup>142</sup> Sharp then registered his dissent. He preached before the queen on Christmas Day and the next day attended the traditional St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. Both Sharp and Burnet prescribed remedies for Tenison’s gout (Sharp, like his friend Moore, was something of an amateur physician).<sup>143</sup></p><p>Sharp returned to the House following the Christmas recess on 2 Jan. 1705. Two days later, he was called upon by Nicolson, who found him ‘gracious and humble’ in spite of their continuing disagreements over Carlisle. On 27 Feb. Sharp was named to the committee to prepare for a conference with the Commons regarding the Aylesbury men. The queen had clear political expectations of her episcopal appointees and of Sharp’s leadership: when George Bull*, the theological scholar, was nominated to the see of St Davids in March 1705, Anne told Sharp that ‘the bishops she put in should vote on the side that they who call themselves the Church party do vote on’.<sup>144</sup></p><p>Sharp claimed that he asked the queen repeatedly to release him from ‘meddling in any state matters’, hoping to retire from court to conduct his pastoral ministry. This did not stop him from continuing to press her for his own ecclesiastical nominees. Although Sharp did not think either Whigs or Tories meant any harm to the Church of England, his recommendations were overwhelmingly Tory. During the spring of 1705 he ‘struggled hard’, but unsuccessfully, for Sir William Dawes*, his protégé, to be made bishop of Lincoln, grooming Dawes as his eventual successor at York on account of the latter’s ‘inviolable attachment to the interests of the Church of England’.<sup>145</sup></p><p>On 5 Apr. 1705 Parliament was dissolved. Sharp heard from Nicolson of the ‘great confusion’ surrounding parliamentary elections elsewhere, but the borough of Ripon saw the uncontested return of Sharp’s son and his kinsman John Aislabie.<sup>146</sup> At an audience with the queen in early October, Sharp, when asked if affairs were quiet at York, responded ‘pleasantly’: ‘yes, we were there most of us Whigs’. His answer failed to reflect the reality of affairs in York where Robert Benson*, Baron Bingley, a moderate Tory, had been returned (probably on the interest of his uncle, Jenkins) in company with the sitting Member, Sir William Robinson<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>147</sup></p><p>Sharp returned to his own ecclesiastical agenda. The previous year he had asked the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, whether the Act of Toleration permitted Dissenting ministers only to preach and teach or if they were also permitted to conduct rites of passage, despite encroaching on the Church’s traditional function in these areas. Holt replied that nonconformist marriages could certainly be challenged in an ecclesiastical court as having been conducted without licence and the publication of banns, but that the other rites were less clear and required expert opinion from a specialist in canon law.<sup>148</sup> By the end of 1705 Sharp prepared to introduce three bills: to explain the Act of Toleration (‘that ministers might not be insulted by the Dissenters baptizing children, and marrying and burying within their parishes’); to insist on some form of Sunday worship; and, thirdly, against Dissenting schools and academies. Only the third came before the House (as the schism bill) but not until late 1713 and it would not pass onto the statute book in Sharp’s lifetime.</p><p>Sharp returned to the House for the opening of Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705. He attended the session for just under a third of all sittings and was careful to distance himself from the proposal to invite Princess Sophia of Hanover to England. On 15 Nov. he joined the majority in opposing the motion put by John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, to invite Sophia, though he was careful later to communicate to Hanover his respect and good intentions.<sup>149</sup> As he reported, ‘They that moved it and were for it were those that they call the high churchmen’: an epithet with which he clearly did not identify.<sup>150</sup> Sharp subsequently approved the regency bill (despite the opposition of leading Tories), but rejected the clause to make the lord mayor one of the lords justices. He also voted against the clause that the lords justices be restrained from altering the Test Acts.<sup>151</sup></p><p>Sharp and Godolphin failed to agree over the Tory ‘Church in Danger’ crusade, though both seem to have been at pains to maintain friendly relations in spite of their differences.<sup>152</sup> During the debate conducted in a committee of the whole on 6 Dec. Sharp was noted as having risen to his feet after Gilbert Burnet to lay any dangers threatening the Church at the feet of the dissenting academies; he then appealed to the opinion of the judges for their views on the lawfulness of such institutions. When Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, reflected on Sharp’s own sons’ education at the hands of a Jacobite, Sharp responded that his sons’ tutor, Mr Ellis, was ‘a sober, virtuous man, and a man of letters’; that he was not a Dissenter when his sons first went to him but that after Ellis had refused the abjuration oath, Sharp had withdrawn the boys from his tutelage. Sharp’s original motion, appealing to the judges, was seconded by John Moore, but when John Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, proposed that Sharp’s motion should be put to a vote, Godolphin objected that the main question had to be attended to first. Sharp was then one of only four bishops to vote against the successful motion that those who asserted the Church was in danger were enemies to the government, but he was not among those subscribing the subsequent protest. Another source claimed that Sharp and Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, ‘protested after’.<sup>153</sup> The following day Sharp was visited by Atterbury and Nicolson regarding their ongoing disagreements relating to Carlisle. Over the Christmas recess he hosted a large gathering. His continuing preoccupation with the question of nonconformist schools was reflected in his assurance to Nicolson and two others, after the majority of the guests had departed, of lord chief justice Holt’s approval of his comments in the House concerning the Dissenting academies.<sup>154</sup></p><p>Sharp’s health took a turn for the worse in the new year. By 14 Jan. 1706 he was ‘dispirited’ with illness, suffering from the stone and ‘the spleen’. Poor health was not his only concern, and he proved unsuccessful in his efforts to secure the nomination of Tory divine John Wynne<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of St Asaph, for the vacancy at Llandaff.<sup>155</sup> In the Lords’ debate of 31 Jan. on the repeal of the self-denying place clause in the Act of Succession, both Sharp and Compton withdrew before the question. By the beginning of March Sharp was still caught between Nicolson and Atterbury in their dispute. He was also, according to Nicolson, ‘in great wrath’ over the latest news of high-flying activism in the lower house of Convocation.<sup>156</sup></p><p>On 25 Mar., during the recess, Sharp attended the Privy Council at Kensington and was asked by the queen to ‘endeavour, in all my conversation, to discourage’ the expected renewal of the motion to summon the Electress Sophia. Asked whether ‘I had not once expressed myself that I abhorred the thoughts of it’, Sharp obfuscated, claiming not to remember saying so, though allowing, ‘if her majesty said I did use those words, I could not doubt but I did’.<sup>157</sup> In April he was named to the new commission for the Union, an issue on which he was in disagreement with the queen over his concerns for the security of the Church of England. His nomination as one of the commissioners was considered little more than a matter of form ‘out of respect to the dignity of the office he bore’. He was not expected to attend any of the meetings.<sup>158</sup> Despite his distaste for the Whig-dominated ministry, he maintained his own friendships across the political spectrum, his family socializing with that of William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln and later archbishop of Canterbury, entertaining Atterbury and exchanging regular visits with Nicolson.<sup>159</sup></p><p>Sharp took his seat at the opening of the new session on 3 Dec. 1706, of which he attended 52 per cent of sittings. The day before he had exchanged visits with Wake, perhaps in anticipation of the first day’s business.<sup>160</sup> Pressure from the queen left Sharp politically at odds with Nottingham.<sup>161</sup> At an audience on 9 Dec., Anne asked that Sharp ‘would not be governed by ... friends (meaning my Lord Nottingham and that party) in my votes in Parliament’. Sharp and the queen resolved to act as each other’s confessor and discuss parliamentary divisions before Sharp promised his vote to any party. As usual, Sharp was eager to ensure that he was not tied to the queen’s apron-strings and it was agreed that in the event of her not being able to satisfy him, the queen would condescend to allow Sharp to ‘vote as I pleased’.<sup>162</sup></p><p>On 31 Dec. Sharp took part in the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s for the victory at Ramillies. He made space for Nicolson in his coach for the procession to the cathedral. The House then adjourned until 7 Jan. 1707 but Sharpe remained away until 13 Jan., when the Lords prepared to debate the bill for union with Scotland.<sup>163</sup> Sharp, Hooper, Compton and William Beveridge*, bishop of St Asaph, were all opposed to the ‘Scotch Acts’, fearful that Scottish Presbyterianism would taint the Church of England.<sup>164</sup> Sharp had expressed fears to the queen, first, that the union would not include toleration for the Scottish episcopal clergy, and second, that the Scots might insist that the queen and her successors took an oath that they would not consent to the alteration of Church government even if the new Parliament of Great Britain thought it ‘convenient’. The queen denied that any oaths were on the negotiating table and assured him that both the Scottish Kirk and the Church of England would be secured in law. Between the first and second readings of Tenison’s bill to secure the Church of England, the queen summoned Sharp and told him to support the bill; she had heard that Nottingham and Rochester intended to oppose it on principle. Sharp explained his own objection that the bill did not include the Test Act and that a Whig lord, Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, had expressed similar concerns.<sup>165</sup></p><p>On 16 Jan. Sharp entertained Nicolson, Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, and George Smalridge*, the future bishop of Bristol, possibly canvassing support for his amendment to Tenison’s bill to secure the Church. Certainly, on 3 Feb., in a committee of the whole House, Stratford voted in support of Sharp’s unsuccessful amendment that the Test should be an integral part of the Act of Union. Sharp’s amendment was rejected by 60 votes to 33, with 23 lords registering their dissent against its rejection.<sup>166</sup> By 15 Feb. Sharp had shifted his position slightly and he was now prepared to accept a federal union between England and Scotland, notwithstanding Nottingham’s hostility; when the House debated the first article of union in a committee of the whole, Sharp, Sprat and Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, ‘left their friends in this division’ and voted for a federal union. On 24 Feb. the House agreed the last seven articles, dividing on the 22nd article (providing for 16 Scottish representative peers and 45 Members of the Commons); Sharp voted with the majority in its favour.<sup>167</sup> During February Sharp received appeals from the bishops of Scotland regarding the ‘poverty and maltreatment’ of the Scottish episcopal clergy.<sup>168</sup></p><p>In the Commons proceedings of 28 Feb. Sharp’s son was reported to have ‘speeched it against the Union’ and it was understood that when the bill came before the Lords, Sharp himself intended to be ‘so indiscreet as to speak against it’ as well.<sup>169</sup> On 4 Mar. Sharp voted as anticipated with the minority against the bill, but did not register his dissent.<sup>170</sup> In spite of his fierce opposition to the bill, having lost the argument Sharp seems to have resolved to fall back on sangfroid. On 8 Mar. he, Tenison and Beveridge attended chapel. He then entertained Nicolson and Archdeacon Fleming at dinner, when he was described as being ‘very cheerful’.<sup>171</sup> In the remaining days prior to the prorogation on 8 Apr., Sharp reported back from two select committees: on the private bills for Robert Hitch<sup>‡</sup> and the minor William Elson.<sup>172</sup> He avoided the two-week-long session from 14 to 24 Apr. 1707 but within weeks was immersed in the bishoprics crisis.</p><h2><em>From the bishoprics crisis of 1707 to the start of the Tory ministry in 1710</em></h2><p>The crisis brought to the fore simmering resentments that were already well established over Church appointments. Sharp had himself come up against the queen’s opposition in February to his proposal that Smalridge should succeed the terminally ill William Jane as regius professor of Divinity at Oxford, the queen having learned that Smalridge was one of those who ‘flew in the face of the government’ by insisting that the Church was in danger.<sup>173</sup> Sharp expected better success with his latest recommendations. During April the queen had promised to elevate Sharp’s protégé Sir William Dawes and Offspring Blackall*, a prominent Tory, to the vacant bishoprics of Chester and Exeter, almost certainly in retaliation for the appointment of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, to the office of secretary of state. Despite the efforts of both a furious Somers (who claimed that Sharp ‘never suffers her to rest’) and a far more diffident Tenison, the queen stuck doggedly to her choices.<sup>174</sup> In early summer, John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, writing from the campaign on the continent, noted with concern reports that Sharp had returned to his archdiocese ‘in great delight, which I am very sorry for, for it is most certain that whatever pleases him can’t be for the service of [the queen]’. Even so, he blamed Harley rather than Sharp, suspecting the former of wanting to boost Tory votes in the Lords.<sup>175</sup> Matters remained uncertain in late summer, and in August Sharp asked Dawes whether the appointment had been confirmed or if the delay implied Dawes’ rejection of Chester on financial grounds. If the latter, he sought to reassure him that the place was not so poverty-stricken as some believed. Dawes responded that no decision was expected until the queen returned to London in the winter, but if he were appointed he hoped that Sharp would also be in London and would perform the consecration.<sup>176</sup> The queen held firm to her choices and Sharp was eventually joined on the episcopal bench the following spring by Blackall and Dawes.</p><p>On 23 Oct. 1707 Sharp took his seat in the new Parliament of Great Britain, attending thereafter for just over 30 per cent of sittings. In an audience with both the queen and the prince on 3 Nov. Sharp was asked by Anne, whom he supposed to be fearful of ‘ruffles’ in Parliament, to serve her interests during the session. In response, Sharp assured her of his continuing loyalty but craved leave ‘to vote in Parliament according to my sentiments’. Ten days later she asked for his vote in the imminent division on the Admiralty when she feared that George Churchill<sup>‡</sup> would come under attack; Sharp, still struggling to retain his political independence, promised to discuss the matter before engaging himself to any party.<sup>177</sup> He visited Wake on 17 Nov. when he was informed of what had passed between Wake and the queen in relation to the business of the House for the following week.<sup>178</sup> On the 21st he was again pressed by Anne into voting according to her directions and in the middle of the following month was offered advance notice of her intention of making changes to the administration at the expense of the Junto: ‘all the Tories, if they would, should come in … and all the Whigs likewise, that would show themselves to be in her interests, should have her favour’.<sup>179</sup></p><p>In the midst of these manoeuvres, Sharp was approached by Archbishop King of Dublin for his assistance in the matter of the naturalization bill for the children of John King, 3rd Baron Kingston [I] when it came before the Lords.<sup>180</sup> By the opening of 1708 the duumvirs had resolved on co-operation with the Whigs.<sup>181</sup> Sharp also seemed to favour more whiggish appointees and the 6 Jan. 1708 was gratified to note Trimnell’s name on the queen’s list of preferments.<sup>182</sup> Sharp claimed that the new bishop was ‘more obliged to him for this lift than to all the interest that was made by his other friends’.<sup>183</sup> Regularly hosting an eclectic range of academics, clerics, politicians and lawyers, he continued to consult with lord chief justice Holt, now over a bill against libel, the meeting attended by both archbishops and Henry Compton.<sup>184</sup></p><p>Early in February the queen asked for Sharp’s vote against the bill to dissolve the Scottish Privy Council. Sharp was clearly unwilling to lend his support, and asked once more to be allowed to vote according to his own judgment. According to Sharp’s own recollection, Anne permitted him the liberty to attend for the division and vote as he saw fit, even if it opposed her own wishes.<sup>185</sup> On 5 Feb. the bill was committed to a committee of the whole House. Sharp voted in favour of suspending the council in May rather than October, joining most of the bishops, Nottingham, Rochester and the Whig lords against the reprieve.<sup>186</sup></p><p>On 8 Feb. Sharp had the satisfaction of finally consecrating Dawes. Sharp’s friendship with Nicolson, by contrast, remained under strain on account of the ongoing disputes with Atterbury and by the introduction of the partisan cathedrals bill, instigated by Nicolson and Somers.<sup>187</sup> Although Sharp had previously assured Nicolson that he would not ‘intermeddle’ in Nicolson’s ongoing dispute with Atterbury, he proved more determined to stand against the cathedrals bill. Atterbury, happy to provoke Nicolson, bragged that he had secured Sharp’s vote (and that of all the Tory bishops) against the bill. On 17 Feb. 1708 Sharp informed Nicolson ‘more frankly than kindly’, according to Nicolson, that he would oppose the bill in the Lords. Two days later Sharp launched his attack on the bill and ‘passionately insisted on the bill’s touching on the queen’s prerogative … [and was] … cool enough on the sharp replies’ from Somers, Halifax (as Charles Montagu had since become) and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>188</sup> According to Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup>, Sharp acted as Atterbury’s ‘chief advocate, and was joined by all the lords, spiritual and temporal, of that party’.<sup>189</sup> In spite of Sharp’s efforts, the bill passed ‘by such an irresistible majority, that no Lord had the hardiness to call for a division’. Tenison expressed himself ‘much concerned at the odd behaviour of his brother of York’, surprised at Sharp’s departure from his usual studied moderation, though Sharp was considerably more moderate than his ‘spitfire’ son, who continued the fight when the bill was sent down to the Commons. Certainly, Sharp seemed eager to heal the rift with Nicolson. The following month he received Nicolson ‘very kindly, desiring that … [his] warmth in the House of Lords … might be mutually forgotten’. In April he was again ‘very frank in assurances of a steady friendship’ to Nicolson.<sup>190</sup></p><p>On 14 Nov. 1708 Sharp waited on the queen, where they both gave vent to their grief for the death of Prince George.<sup>191</sup> On 16 Nov. he took his seat in the House for the first day of the new Parliament, taking the oaths along with Wake, after which he was present for over 35 per cent of sittings. On 24 Nov. he was given notice that his attendance was required the next day at the Privy Council so that he could be sworn in.<sup>192</sup> On 20 Dec. in a letter to William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>, a concerned Nottingham set out his concerns relating to the Junto’s aims to introduce bills to abrogate the sacramental test and to legislate for a general naturalization. Nottingham queried whether a direct application to the queen explaining how such measures would ‘tend to the destruction of the Church and even the whole Protestant religion’ might not be in order. Such an approach he thought might be made by Rochester, supported by (among others) Sharp.<sup>193</sup> On 28 Dec. Sharp attended Lambeth where 13 members of the bishops’ bench dined together to debate ‘many things of moment’.<sup>194</sup> Sharp was unwell in early January 1709, said to be ‘very much out of order’ suffering from ‘a great cold and dizziness in his head’.<sup>195</sup> He appears to have rallied by the middle of the month and on 21 Jan. joined with Rochester and Godolphin in voting in favour of allowing Scots peers with post-Union British titles to vote in the elections for representative peers. In doing so he may have been influenced by the queen who seems to have made a direct request to him to ‘vote for her prerogative’ over the creation of the dukedom of Dover for James Douglas*, duke of Queensberry [S]. As usual, though, Sharp insisted on his right to ‘act according to my judgment’. Despite this, the Junto were successful in voting the motion down assisted with support from the Jacobite Tories.<sup>196</sup> Three days later Sharp found himself in company with Gilbert Burnet in supporting James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> over his appeal when it came before the Lords.<sup>197</sup> On 3 Feb. Sharp, John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, Sir George Saville<sup>‡</sup>, and William Pennington petitioned the House to bring in a private bill regarding property in Waterby, Nottinghamshire. Leave was granted on the 10th but there is no evidence that the bill was ever passed.</p><p>Sharp’s greater concern in the early months of 1709 was the question of the settlement of the crown and Protestant religion. This appears to have prompted a lengthy discourse with the queen early in February in which he was given assurances that both she and her ministry were completely supportive of the Hanoverian succession. Sharp seems to have welcomed the queen’s professions cautiously, while noting his continuing suspicions of some of the ministers and ‘the little care that was taken at the last invasion for the suppression of it’.<sup>198</sup> The following day (6 Feb.), Nicolson reported him as being ‘kind and pleasant on the Junto and flying squadron’.<sup>199</sup></p><p>Sharp’s concern for the security of the established Church was again reflected the following month over the general naturalization bill. This was the subject of discussion between Sharp, Wake and other bishops on 14 Mar. 1709, and when the bill was committed the following day Sharp voted for the amendment (proposed by Nicolson and Dawes) to insist on worship at a ‘parochial’ church and not merely at any Protestant gathering. The bill’s committal exposed party divisions on the episcopal bench with Sharp ranged alongside nine other Tory bishops against seven Whig prelates led by Tenison. On 23 Mar. he attended the House for the last time that session, ‘tortured’ with gout in the knee. He maintained his social round but remained indisposed for much of April. On Good Friday, the day after the prorogation, Sharp attended the queen and in the evening was called on by Nicolson, with whom he discussed William Whiston’s alleged Arianism.<sup>200</sup> He returned to Bishopthorpe via Buckden, where he was entertained warmly by Wake. Back in his Yorkshire his health once again took a turn for the worse.<sup>201</sup></p><p>Back at Westminster on 15 Nov. 1709 for the first day of the new parliamentary session, Sharp was thereafter present on 59 per cent of sittings. He attended the queen on 3 Feb. 1710 when he was ‘earnestly’ pressed to vote against the bill for limiting the number of officers in the Commons, and warned ‘that it would look strange that [he] should be the only bishop of the bench that voted for that bill, which was so much against her prerogative’. Sharp attempted in vain to persuade her that ‘it was a good bill’ and was once again thrown back on the recourse of insisting on his right to vote according to his conscience.<sup>202</sup> A majority in the Lords subsequently threw the bill out on 9 February. If unsuccessful here, Sharp was more fortunate in his attempts, with Harley, to secure episcopal vacancies for more ‘moderate’ Tories rather than the high-fliers. On 7 Feb. Sunderland learned that Sharp had recommended Philip Bisse*, a Harley client and husband of the widowed countess of Plymouth, for the bishopric of Bristol.<sup>203</sup> In the event Bisse was given St Davids instead with Bristol going to John Robinson*, the diplomat. Sharp and Robinson worked closely in the dispensation of offices and influence.<sup>204</sup></p><p>Alongside his efforts on behalf of the English clergy, Sharp’s involvement in the cause of toleration for Scottish episcopal clergy also began to assume a higher profile as a result of the James Greenshields’ case. Sharp had been informed of the plight of the Scots episcopalian clergy in 1702 by the bishop of Edinburgh, Alexander Rose, and two years later received a plea for help from all the Scottish bishops.<sup>205</sup> In August 1709 Elizabeth, countess of Lauderdale, had asked Sharp to represent to the queen the lack of facilities in Scotland to hear ‘the orderly and stated service of the Church’.<sup>206</sup> The following month Greenshields appealed to Sharp, as ‘a zealous and sincere patron of the Church of England’, from his imprisonment in the Edinburgh Tolbooth, seeking ‘favour and protection’ in his mission to highlight the problem, and claiming that a legal toleration was the best way to clamp down on Scottish Jacobitism and to advance the Church of England. He wanted Sharp to secure the queen’s support for Scottish religious toleration (at least for episcopalians) and to permit ‘the same exercise of their religion here as the Scots Presbyterians have in England, which were very hard to deny us in a United Kingdom’.<sup>207</sup></p><p>On 16 Feb. 1710 Sharp was one of 20 lords (including Nottingham and Rochester) who dissented from the House’s resolution not to summon Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates, before hearing Greenshields’ judicial appeal to the Lords. Greenshields’ case was temporarily overtaken by the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell. Sharp (who described the financial support of Sacheverell by John Radcliffe<sup>‡</sup> as a work of the ‘greatest charity’) was present when the trial opened in Westminster Hall.<sup>208</sup> During the proceedings, Sharp’s own doctrine on non-resistance and passive obedience (in the form of a highly selective section from his sermon to the Lords of 30 Jan. 1700) was produced by the defence while other of his works were called for and appealed to by those prosecuting Sacheverell.<sup>209</sup> Sharp played a major role in opposing the impeachment, dissenting three times on procedural matters on 14 March. On the 16th, along with the duke of Leeds, Sharp was one of those to speak in Sacheverell’s defence, though even the doctor’s supporters conceded that ‘they never read such a piece of madness and nonsense’ as his controversial sermon. After a twelve-hour debate, Sharp registered his protest against putting the question as to whether the Commons had made good the first article of impeachment.<sup>210</sup> The following day he again protested on the second, third and fourth articles. On the 18th he dissented from the resolution limiting peers to a single verdict of guilty or not guilty on all articles of impeachment. On 20 Mar. Sharp voted against Sacheverell’s guilt, registering his dissent from the verdict and on the 21st again dissented from the terms of punishment.</p><p>In the wake of the trial, Sharp’s two sermons preached before the Commons in 1679 (on enemies to Church and state) and his speech to the Lords on the articles of impeachment all appeared in the press.<sup>211</sup> Sharp himself appears to have been eager to avoid controversy when preaching and carefully omitted passages that could have been interpreted as showing sympathy to Sacheverell.<sup>212</sup> Over the summer Sharp was occupied with the marriage of his son, John, to the wealthy heiress of a Northamptonshire gold wiredrawer, Charles Hosier. Despite legal difficulties attending the marriage settlement (some of the property in question being held by the archbishopric of York), Sharp eventually settled on his son estates valued at £6,000.<sup>213</sup></p><h2><em>Harley’s ministry 1710-1714</em></h2><p>At the general election of 1710 Sharp’s son and Aislabie were again returned without contest.<sup>214</sup> Otherwise, Sharp immersed himself in diocesan and ecclesiastical business. He was heavily involved in ecumenical discussions with the Prussian churches and strongly in favour of promoting the English liturgy at the Hanoverian court.<sup>215</sup></p><p>He returned to London before the opening of Parliament to find the queen uneasy at the prospect of internecine quarrelling in the synod. She asked Sharp (despite the Canterbury Convocation being under Tenison’s authority) to chair a meeting comprising Harley, Rochester, Sprat and Hooper to limit the business of Convocation to blasphemous publications, excommunication, and relations with the Prussian Lutherans. The move provoked fury from Atterbury, whom Sharp then attempted to stifle by championing George Smalridge for the deanery of Christ Church but without success. He made no attempt to seek writs for his own provincial Convocation, but concentrated on the southern synod, chairing numerous debates involving both moderate and high-flying Tories.<sup>216</sup></p><p>As well as his efforts with Convocation, Sharp worked closely with Harley, both of them being eager to secure as many ecclesiastical preferments as possible for moderate churchmen.<sup>217</sup> At the start of October Harley was confident that he could rely on Sharp to support the new ministry. Nevertheless, Sharp was able to maintain at least some goodwill across the political spectrum. Francis Hare<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of St Asaph, chaplain to the forces and on the civilian staff of the duke of Marlborough, wrote to the duchess reflecting on Sharp’s inauguration sermon, in which he offered a backhanded compliment on Sharp’s reputation. The sermon, he observed, ‘only proves he is not so good an orator as he should be, but not that he is not a good man, for … he has had so universal and so established a reputation, ever since I can remember, that it is impossible for me to doubt of his goodness’. He then continued: ‘I only say this as to his being a good man, which does not make one a wise man and ’tis so very rare to see much political wisdom, or abilities of that sort, in bishops, that I don’t wonder if he has not more of it’.<sup>218</sup></p><p>Sharp took his seat in the House on 25 Nov. 1710 for the opening of Parliament after which he was present for just over 30 per cent of sittings. On 26 Dec. he visited Lambeth for a very well attended St Stephen’s dinner. He continued to attend meetings of the Queen Anne’s Bounty commissioners and to wait on the queen at court. He gave a lift to Nicolson for a new year gathering at court, which was marked by the return of Marlborough from Flanders. Apparently ‘hesitant’ about the Tory challenge to the previous ministry’s conduct of the war in Spain, he did not attend the House for the lengthy debate on 9 Jan. 1711.<sup>219</sup> He did attend on the 11th and on the 12th (when the queen was also present) for the successful censure motions.</p><p>On 20 Jan. 1711, the House not sitting, he chaired a meeting on proposals to provide bishops for the plantations; the proposals, in which Jonathan Swift had aspirations for his own clerical advancement, were dropped.<sup>220</sup> Sharp advised the queen against Swift’s promotion, thereby earning Swift’s undying enmity.<sup>221</sup> Sharp was present in the Lords on 5 Feb. for the first reading of the bill to repeal the general naturalization act; after a long debate, he voted to commit the bill and subsequently dissented from the resolution to reject it. The following day Sharp received Compton’s proxy (vacated on 13 March).</p><p>Despite appeals to Harley made shortly before Christmas by John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], that either the queen or Sharp should persuade Greenshields to delay his petition until the next parliamentary session, the appeal came before the House in February.<sup>222</sup> Sharp informed Nicolson, who had campaigned tirelessly on behalf of Greenshields and the Scottish episcopal clergy, that he would support the appeal.<sup>223</sup> On 1 Mar. he voted with the other bishops to reverse the judgment of the Edinburgh magistrates. Subsequently, he advised patience before pressing for further measures on behalf of the Scots clergy, suggesting that ‘he did not see any great hazard … in delaying till November next’ to see how matters worked themselves out in Scotland.<sup>224</sup></p><p>Sharp missed the last seven weeks of the parliamentary session and by early June he was back at Bishopthorpe. From there he congratulated Harley on his elevation as earl of Oxford and also took the opportunity of recommending to his new colleague in the Lords the appointment of Henry Dawnay<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Downe [I], as governor of Hull in place of Newcastle (who had died shortly before). It was a post Downe was eager to secure and was, according to Sharp, an appointment that would ‘be of great service for the breaking that interest in the East Riding which has always opposed your lordship’s measures’. Sharp also continued his efforts to develop closer relations with the church in Prussia through his negotiations with Jablonski, to which end he hoped that an agent might be sent ‘under some public character’.<sup>225</sup> Oxford meanwhile strove to sustain their relationship with favours to the archbishop’s son, for which Sharp acknowledged himself ‘extremely obliged’. Even so, towards the end of November Sharp advised Oxford that it would be ‘almost impossible’ for him to attend the opening of the new session. He had, though, ‘taken care that no harm can happen through want of my vote’ and sent his proxy to Dawes who would ‘on all occasions vote honestly’. He undertook, if the queen insisted, to travel to London as fast as possible.<sup>226</sup> The proxy was registered on 1 Dec. and vacated by Sharps’ attendance on 31 Jan. 1712. He was thus (conveniently) absent for the critical vote of 7 Dec. on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion. Sharp’s name appeared on one of Oxford’s lists at the beginning of December, possibly indicating his expected support for the ministry, though elsewhere it was reported that he would follow his old ally Nottingham in voting against the ministry on the peace negotiations.<sup>227</sup> Despite the concerns about Sharp’s allegiance, Dawes used Sharp’s proxy to support the ministry in the adjournment division of 2 January.<sup>228</sup> Nottingham’s friendship with Sharp was the main topic of discussion at a meeting between Swift, Atterbury and James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond; Oxford had delegated to Swift the task of preventing Sharp ‘from being seduced by Lord Nottingham’ since ‘there is but a slender majority in the house of Lords; and we want more’.<sup>229</sup> It is unclear, given the prickly history between Sharp and Swift, how far the latter could have influenced the archbishop.</p><p>Back in London by the close of January 1712, having returned to the chamber Sharp was present for 32 per cent of all sitting days in the session. He resumed his social round with bishops of all political views, including Wake and Compton, and on 20 Feb. he was visited by Nicolson and Greenshields, both anxious to secure the passage of the bill on Scottish episcopal communion.<sup>230</sup> Six days later the House considered the Commons’ pro-episcopal amendments to the bill. The measure was passed as it had come from the Commons, with Sharp voting in its favour.<sup>231</sup></p><p>Alongside of his involvement in the Lords, Sharp also continued to take a close interest in matters in Convocation. On 20 Apr., when the upper house of Convocation sent down a resolution on the validity of lay baptism, Sharp sought Oxford’s help in having the queen forbid contentious discussion.<sup>232</sup> The Easter dinner at Lambeth two days later was marred by the rift between Tory and Whig bishops with Tenison determined that the bishops should issue a definitive pronouncement asserting the validity of lay baptism. Sharp ‘expressed himself heartily’ against and summoned Dawes, Blackall and George Bull to a strategy meeting. A week later Sharp received from Tenison minutes of their Easter meeting and a draft declaration to which he hoped Sharp would make amendments. Debate persisted late into the summer but Sharp remained immoveable.<sup>233</sup></p><p>Despite his stance on this issue, at the start of June 1712, Sharp was thought by Oxford to be an uncertain supporter of the ministry. Impatient to leave London for Bishopthorpe, he hung on ‘in expectation of the Peace’, but on the 7th registered his proxy with William Dawes once more and left London.<sup>234</sup> The proxy was vacated with the prorogation on 8 July. That month he conducted a visitation of the West Riding but returned ‘so spent’ that it was feared he would ‘hardly be able to go on with the remainder of his work’. The same month Sharp again acknowledged his debt to Oxford for the latter’s assistance to his son, who had been appointed to a place on the Irish revenue commission. Oxford presumably hoped thereby to secure Sharp’s support for the peace treaty.<sup>235</sup> Sharp’s health remained poor into the early autumn, but he continued to be active in making recommendations for official postings and pensions.<sup>236</sup></p><p>In the new year of 1713 Sharp obtained from Oxford another appointment for his son as a commissioner of trade at an annual salary of £1,000. The archbishop gave his word to Oxford that his son would ‘behave himself’. He also hoped ‘now that I have appointed so good a proxy as the bishop of Chester is’ to be excused parliamentary attendance in order to conduct a spring visitation.<sup>237</sup> Sharp (who had, as Oxford feared, been converted with Dawes and Guernsey to Nottingham’s opinion on the peace) may have been eager to avoid the House while party feelings ran high over the terms of the treaty.<sup>238</sup> Neither the queen nor Oxford would allow him to sit on the fence. Anne insisted that he ‘hasten … to town’; Oxford reminded Sharp that his previous proxy had been vacated by the prorogation and that ‘for fear of accidents’ he should send another undated to cover any period before he resumed his seat.<sup>239</sup> Writing in response to Oxford on 14 Feb., Sharp conceded the necessity of coming to London and hoped to be in London within a fortnight. He also assured Oxford that the proxy he had sent Dawes had been undated. He was back by the first week of March, fully expected by Oxford and Swift to support the ministry.<sup>240</sup> He attended the House for the start of the new parliamentary session on 9 Apr. but attended only seven sittings, distracted by the death of his favourite, youngest, daughter soon after the opening.<sup>241</sup> A few days later he resumed his duties at court, trying to intervene with the queen about Bishop William Lloyd’s wayward son.<sup>242</sup></p><p>Unwell and depressed, Sharp attended the House for the last time on 9 May 1713. The following day he had his final audience with the queen.<sup>243</sup> By the 22nd he had returned to Yorkshire, fearful of losing another daughter to consumption.<sup>244</sup> He found correspondence burdensome as he was ‘so weak and dispirited’, but maintained contact with Oxford on behalf of the Queen Anne’s Bounty commissioners as well as referring petitions, including one from the archbishop of Thebes, ‘who had lately come out of Egypt upon a good design’ but was now in such distressed circumstances that he was on the point of being turned out of his lodgings.<sup>245</sup> He also continued to seek career advancement for his son John as commissioner of plantations in place of Heneage Finch*, 5th earl of Winchilsea.<sup>246</sup> In his absence Sharp was estimated by Oxford as a supporter of the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>In mid December it was reported that Sharp was en route either to Bath or Bristol ‘being in an ill state of health’ and ‘afflicted with diabetes’.<sup>247</sup> By January 1714 he was ‘in a declining condition’ and refusing food; his physician thought he could not live much longer in that state.<sup>248</sup> He lingered throughout January, frail, ‘his understanding entirely gone, and no hopes of his recovery.’ He died on 2 February.<sup>249</sup> His son John rushed to Bath the following day to pay his last respects ‘to the best of parents’.<sup>250</sup></p><p>Sharp’s death presented the ministry with a troublesome dilemma. Three days afterwards Oxford was assured that Dawes would ‘certainly vote against you if he has not York’, though it was by no means certain he would prove loyal even if he was promoted. The other bishop thought to be in the running was Bisse.<sup>251</sup> News of Sharp’s demise was slower filtering through to Jacobite plotters overseas. At the beginning of March James FitzJames*, duke of Berwick, continued to assure the Pretender that Sharp was ‘daily speaking’ to the queen of the matter of his restoration.<sup>252</sup></p><p>Of Sharp’s 14 children, only four survived him: two sons, John and Thomas, and two daughters, Ann and Dorothy.<sup>253</sup> Sharp’s theological works and sermons were collected and published posthumously as was his work on the coinage of England, a subject on which his colleagues had long considered him an authority. Sharp was buried in York Minster, his epitaph commissioned by Smalridge.<sup>254</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
SHELDON, Gilbert (1598-1677) |
<p><strong><surname>SHELDON</surname></strong>, <strong>Gilbert</strong> (1598–1677)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 27 Oct. 1675 |
cons. 28 Oct. 1660 bp. of LONDON; transl. 31 Aug. 1663 abp. of CANTERBURY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 19 June 1598, yst. s. of Roger Sheldon (d. 1635) of Stanton, Staffs., bailiff to Gilbert Talbot<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Shrewsbury. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Oxf., matric. 1614, BA 1617, MA 1620; incorp. at Camb. 1619; All Souls, Oxf., fell. 1622, BD 1628, DD 1634. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 9 Nov. 1677; <em>will</em> 5-9 Feb. 1673, pr. 1 Dec. 1677.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Clerk of the closet 1646, 1660; chap. to Charles I bef. 1647,<sup>2</sup> Charles II 1660; dean chapel royal 1660-3; PC 1663-77.</p><p>Ord. deacon 1624, priest 1625;<sup>3</sup> Chap. to Thomas Coventry<sup>†</sup>, Bar. Coventry bef. 1634;<sup>4</sup> vic. Hackney 1633-6; canon Gloucester 1633-60; rect. Oddington, Oxon. 1636-39, Ickford, Bucks. 1636-60,<sup>5</sup> Newington cum Broghtwell, Oxon. 1639.</p><p>Warden, All Souls, Oxf. 1635-48, (ejected 1648), 1660-1; master Savoy 1660; chan. Univ. Oxf. 1667-9.</p><p>FRS 1665.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely c.1665 NPG 1837; watercolour, S. Cooper, 1667, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, USA.</p> |
<p>According to Anthony Wood, Sheldon was the youngest son of a ‘menial servant’ in the household of Gilbert Talbot<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Shrewsbury. This almost certainly underestimates Sheldon’s social status; he was the godson of both Shrewsbury and Robert Sanderson, father of Robert Sanderson, the future bishop of Lincoln, and at the time of his sequestration in 1648 he was clearly a gentleman, having inherited personal estate of some £200 a year together with real estate in his native Staffordshire.<sup>6</sup> After his ordination, Sheldon entered the household of the lord keeper, Thomas Coventry<sup>†</sup>, Baron Coventry, who provided an introduction to Charles I. He had a flourishing career at Oxford, culminating in his appointment as warden of All Souls. At Oxford he formed a series of influential connections that included the vice chancellor of the university, William Laud<sup>†</sup>, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and members of the Great Tew intellectual circle. He also formed lasting attachments to the Newdigate family.<sup>7</sup> By November 1640 he was already a political ally of Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, whom he praised for his ‘prudence and temper’.<sup>8</sup> Sheldon deeply impressed Hyde who, in retrospect at least, thought him ‘born and bred’ to be a future primate.<sup>9</sup> Sheldon was a vehement defender of the Church at the Uxbridge negotiations in 1644 and in 1646 was entrusted by Charles I (on whom he was in constant attendance) with a written contract promising the return to the Church of all lay impropriations in royal hands.<sup>10</sup> Under house arrest in Oxford briefly in 1648, he became a focus for underground Anglicanism.<sup>11</sup> He remained in retirement in the midlands, but was clearly in communication with royalists and other leading clergymen.<sup>12</sup> Sheldon did not contribute personally to Anglican apologetics during the Interregnum but he enabled others to do so.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Sheldon’s main role throughout the Interregnum and after the Restoration was political. As much concerned with the institution and function of the Church as with its spiritual life, his primary concern was the need to rebuild the Church of England after its destruction during the Civil War and to protect it from what he (and others) perceived as threats to its rightful dominance in state and society. In January 1659, working covertly ‘to discredit reports to Hyde’s or the king’s prejudice’, he summoned royalists back from Europe when he deemed it expedient.<sup>14</sup> He fretted about the appointment of suitable candidates to political office, worried that the king was making appointments on an <em>ad hoc</em> basis without due regard to political strategy.<sup>15</sup> Roger Morrice, writing in 1687, described how, shortly before the Declaration of Breda in 1660, Sheldon together with Sir Geoffrey Palmer<sup>‡</sup> (the future attorney general) and Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, had met with the Presbyterian leaders, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, Denzil Holles*, later Baron Holles, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, later earl of Shaftesbury) Arthur Annesley*, later earl of Anglesey, and John Crew*, later Baron Crew, ‘very privately in order to the king’s restoration’. At the meeting, Sheldon and the ‘old cavaliers’,</p><blockquote><p>made the greatest acknowledgements that could be to the Presbyterians, and said they had laid the greatest obligation upon the king that it was possible for subjects to do, and that they and their posterity were under the strongest bond of gratitude to them that it was possible for one subject to bring another under, and that it was a kindness so great, for them to restore the king and them poor distressed men that it could not be requited, but it should never be forgotten, and that the Presbyterians should find them both the laity and clergy not only free from revenge and passion, but a generous and a grateful sort of men, in doing them all other favours they could and especially in giving them ample liberty in matters of religion, and perfect freedom from such subscriptions and conformity as was grievous to them before the War.<sup>16</sup></p></blockquote><p>Another hostile source relates a private ‘cabin-council’ meeting between Sheldon and the king on 26 May 1660, very shortly after the king had set foot in England.<sup>17</sup> Sheldon was already being tipped as a potential archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>18</sup> What transpired at the meeting is unclear (although Scottish opinion maintained that it was at this point that the king abandoned a presbyterian religious settlement), but Sheldon did not achieve his own vision of the restored Church of England immediately or without opposition, particularly given the government’s initial determination to create a broad ecclesiastical establishment and to accommodate the moderate presbyterians who had supported the king’s return from exile. </p><p>In 1660, Sheldon’s advancement in the Church was guaranteed. He had figured on Clarendon’s planning lists as a potential bishop of Gloucester and he was a man in whom the royalist clergy (such as Brian Duppa*, about to become bishop of Winchester, and another former member of All Souls) had the utmost confidence.<sup>19</sup> By June 1660 the king (presumably at the instigation of his chancellor with whom such patronage traditionally rested) was deputing part of the crown’s ecclesiastical patronage to Sheldon, George Morley*, bishop elect of Worcester, and John Earle*, who would succeed Morley at Worcester.<sup>20</sup> Nevertheless Sheldon was not directly involved in the negotiations with presbyterians that resulted in the Worcester House declaration on 25 October. A few days later, on 28 Oct. 1660, he was consecrated bishop of London. The consecration alongside him of four of his closest ecclesiastical allies (Humphrey Henchman*, as bishop of Salisbury, George Morley, as bishop of Worcester, Robert Sanderson*, as bishop of Lincoln, and George Griffith*, as bishop of St Asaph) and the feasting that followed provided a powerful indication of the renewed importance of the Church in national life.<sup>21</sup> Some had speculated that he, rather than William Juxon*, would be elevated to Canterbury, but the ageing and frail Juxon was very much a figurehead, and Sheldon rather than Juxon was the leading figure controlling ecclesiastical affairs in both the capital and the province of Canterbury.<sup>22</sup> It was Sheldon who presented the new king to the people at the coronation in April 1661.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Sheldon used his position to ensure that like-minded clerics, including William Sancroft*, his successor at Canterbury, were appointed to key posts within the Church and universities.<sup>24</sup> In Wales, Sheldon had a network of high church allies that originated from his time at Oxford in the 1620s and included the Aubreys, Stradlings and Jenkins of Hensol.<sup>25</sup> He maintained close contact with the Oxford churchmen Francis Davies*, of Llandaff, and George Griffith, of St Asaph.<sup>26</sup> Nevertheless there were limits to his influence. He remained deeply suspicious of John Gauden*, appointed to the see of Exeter in 1660 and promoted to Worcester in 1662. Sheldon was later said to have claimed that Gauden had ‘been a neuter in the time of the war’.<sup>27</sup> Nor could he stop the appointment to the episcopate of those, like the former Presbyterian Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich, who were less fearful than himself of concessions to Dissenters. Sheldon’s influence was not restricted to English and Welsh affairs. He maintained frequent communication with politicians and churchmen in Ireland and Scotland and used his full authority to secure similar religious settlements in the other two kingdoms. In November 1660, Michael Boyle, bishop of Cork, later archbishop of Dublin, had informed Archbishop Bramhall of Armagh that Sheldon had promised his ‘best assistance’ in the matter of impropriations. A successful settlement in Ireland, as Boyle pointed out to Bramhall, was a high priority for Sheldon ‘as very conducible’ to that in England. Sheldon worked closely with James Butler*, earl of Brecknock and duke of Ormond [I], and with the Church of Ireland bishops. He held joint meetings with Michael Boyle and Clarendon and pressured the king against any indulgence to non-conformists in Ireland.<sup>28</sup> Although his episcopal role was theoretically confined to England, it is clear from their correspondence that he not only kept a watchful eye on Irish ecclesiastical affairs but that he treated the Irish archbishops as his inferiors.</p><p>Sheldon was similarly in close contact with the hardline Scottish episcopalian Alexander Burnet, and also with James Sharp, a royalist presbyterian who converted to the episcopalian Church of Scotland after being ‘poisoned’ by Sheldon.<sup>29</sup> The royal commission of 1661 to consecrate new Scottish bishops enabled Sheldon to consecrate Sharp as archbishop of St Andrew’s and primate of Scotland. Sharp initially argued that presbyterian orders should suffice for the Church of Scotland ministry, but Sheldon insisted on re-ordination and when the Scots finally consented he told Sharp that it was ‘the Scottish fashion to scruple at everything, and swallow anything’.<sup>30</sup> Thereafter, Sheldon managed Scottish ecclesiastical affairs through the Church of Scotland and (less consistently) through John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S], later earl of Guilford, who had installed himself in the English court after a similar conversion to episcopal church government. Sheldon and Lauderdale would form an uncomfortable and fragile political relationship.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Sheldon also maintained a network of correspondents throughout the British colonies. Throughout the early years of the Restoration, he was in close communication with civil lawyer John Luke, judge advocate of the Tangier garrison who kept Sheldon informed of civil and military actions there.<sup>32</sup> There were also attempts in or about 1661, and again in 1664 and 1672 to establish a new bishopric in the American colonies under English jurisdiction.<sup>33</sup></p><h2><em>Sheldon, Parliament and Uniformity 1660-63</em></h2><p>Presbyterian efforts to enshrine the Worcester House declaration in law were vigorously resisted in the Commons during the second session of the Convention. Sheldon’s prominence in church policy suggests that he must have played a significant role in the parliamentary politics of the ecclesiastical settlement, yet his involvement in directing or coordinating what was often called ‘the Church party’ in the House of Commons is difficult to pin down. There are similar difficulties in assessing his influence over the House of Lords, from which the bishops were still barred. The election of a new Parliament in early 1661 offered an opportunity to overcome presbyterian influence over a Church settlement. The London election of 19 Mar. 1661, in which a formidable alliance of nonconformist supporters were elected, initially suggested that it would remain strong; but the Westminster election of April 1661 was, from Sheldon’s perspective, more satisfactory. Sir Philip Warwick<sup>‡</sup>, secretary to lord treasurer Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, was returned for one of the Commons’ seats.<sup>34</sup> Sheldon’s own involvement in either of these elections, or any others, is not known.</p><p>Writs for Convocation were issued on 10 Apr. 1661. Sheldon took steps to ensure that the synod reflected his own views. He used a traditional right to select which two of the four elected proctors would attend in order to prevent the attendance of the presbyterians Richard Baxter and Edmund Calamy.<sup>35</sup> On 8 May 1661 Convocation met under Sheldon’s presidency (Juxon being indisposed), working alongside the Savoy Conference which had assembled on 15 Apr. 1661 in Sheldon’s own lodgings. Sheldon insisted that the presbyterians submit in writing their demands for liturgical concessions, hoping, according to Baxter, thereby to encourage dissension.<sup>36</sup> The centrepiece of the religious settlement masterminded by Sheldon and Clarendon was intended to be a uniformity bill. Brought up from the Commons on 10 July 1661 the bill lay dormant for some months probably because the Savoy Conference was still debating the settlement. It was also considered desirable to wait for the readmission of the bishops.</p><p>On 20 Nov. 1661, following the repeal of the act that had disabled bishops from sitting in Parliament, Sheldon took his seat in the Lords. As he would do throughout his remaining life, he took steps to manage episcopal votes through attendance and the careful orchestration of proxies. He himself received that of William Juxon on 21 Nov. 1661.<sup>37</sup> Of the 15 sessions held during his parliamentary career, Sheldon attended all but the last, when his health was in sharp decline. He attended seven of them for more than 70 per cent of sittings, and a further three for more than a half of sittings. He attended regularly for prorogations between sessions and was named to nearly 120 select committees. He was usually named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions but never to the committee for the journal.</p><p>In his first session Sheldon attended 57 per cent of sittings and was named to 41 select committees. The House turned immediately to the religious settlement, several bills having lain dormant until the return of the bishops. On 26 Nov. 1661, the Quaker bill, held over since July, was given a second reading and Sheldon was named to the committee. On 7 Dec. he took part in the conference concerning the Lords’ refusal to swear witnesses at their bar in order for them to be examined in the House of Commons about Sir Edward Powell’s fines. On 9 Dec. the corporation bill (introduced in July) was re-committed with Sheldon named to the committee. On 14 Dec. he helped to manage the conference on the confirmation of private acts. Five days later, possibly as part of a plan to create some form of standing army, Clarendon told the Lords that there was a new republican plot: a committee of 12, including Sheldon, was ordered to meet with a Commons committee over Christmas to consider national security. On 20 Dec. 1661 the corporation bill passed onto the statute book, the first of several bills to enforce the religious, social and political dominance of the Church of England.</p><p>Sheldon was named to the committee on the uniformity bill on 17 Jan. 1662. He was in the House on 3 Feb. when there were ‘great animosities’ in the committee of the whole House discussing the bill confirming the Convention’s Act for settling Ministers, a temporary sorting-out of the complex issue of the right to benefices that had changed hands over the previous 20 years. Clarendon, who was ‘resolved to oblige the Presbyterians by keeping the act from being repealed’, engaged Sheldon’s support together with several other bishops, James Stuart*, duke of York, George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, and ‘all the popish lords’. The Presbyterians were, on this occasion, grateful, presumably unaware that the passage of the bill appears to have been facilitated by a promise to the Commons hardliners to incorporate their amendments to the act in the bill of uniformity instead.<sup>38</sup> In February, Sheldon presented to the king the prayer book as revised by Convocation. On the 21st he opposed, without success, attempts in council to restore the ‘black rubric’ on kneeling at Communion, a concession to Presbyterian sensibilities.<sup>39</sup> On 25 Feb. 1662, the revised book was recommended by the king to the Lords. Presbyterian peers were unimpressed by the cosmetic changes to the prayer book demanded by the council. On 17 Mar. 1662, Clarendon again pressed Sheldon to support the more moderate voices in the form of a proviso which would authorize the king to dispense with the requirements of uniformity in particular cases; a long debate ensued on the scope of the king’s prerogative in ecclesiastical affairs.<sup>40</sup> The proviso survived at first, but a further Clarendon proposal on 5 Apr. (that the king might also dispense individuals from renouncing the Covenant) was defeated. Sheldon was not in the House on 7 or 8 Apr. 1662 when a committee was named to draw up a new proviso for financial provisions to ejected clergy. Nor, perhaps significantly, was he present on 9 Apr. 1662 when the bill, with this amended proviso, passed the House. He reappeared on 10 Apr. when, with Clarendon and John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, he managed the conference with the Commons on the bill. The heat of Commons’ deliberations over the following weeks resulted in the successful rejection of provisos to which Sheldon would have been vehemently opposed. As would be the case throughout his career there is virtually no evidence to establish his precise role behind the scenes. The uniformity bill finally received the royal assent on 19 May.<sup>41</sup> On 2 May 1662 Sheldon was in the House as the Quaker bill, another weapon in the arsenal against non-conformity, passed into law. A few days later, he and the lord chancellor were having a tense conversation with Bulstrode Whitelocke<sup>‡</sup>, who was obstructing Sheldon’s attempts to replace the membership of a select vestry in Coleman Street, in London, a conversation embittered on Whitelocke’s side by what he regarded was Sheldon’s two-faced and uncivil treatment of his family over their eviction from former episcopal property in December 1660.<sup>42</sup> Meanwhile, Sheldon’s own private bill, allowing him to lease the tenements newly built on the site of his palace in London rapidly passed both Houses and that too received the royal assent on 19 May 1662. On 21 May, still deputizing for the archbishop, Sheldon conducted the marriage ceremony of the king to Queen Catherine.<sup>43</sup></p><p>With the approach of 24 Aug., the date of the implementation of the Act of Uniformity, Sheldon held a special ordination at St Paul’s to encourage former Presbyterians to seek episcopal ordination and thus qualify them for a parochial living.<sup>44</sup> Even after the deadline there was a widespread and well founded belief, based on suggestions emanating from Clarendon, that dispensations would be issued. On 28 Aug. at a meeting of the council, Sheldon fought hard to ensure that the act was fully implemented. Sir Henry Yelverton<sup>‡</sup>, who believed that ‘Presbyters are like rattlers, use them gently they will strike you, but crush them and they will not hurt you’ wrote approvingly in September that ‘resolute counsels are taken as to act of uniformity and that through the prudence and wisdom of my Lord [of] London the Presbyterians were totally foiled last Thursday at the privy council’.<sup>45</sup> Sheldon’s arguments before the council and the king’s resolution to enforce the law were approvingly reported by Sir John Berkenhead<sup>‡</sup> (another associate from All Souls who had been close to Laud) in the government’s own newsletter,</p><blockquote><p>his lordship having shewn what a strait he was thrust into, either to observe the law established, and thereby become a mark for all that party, in whose jaws he was to live, and who now were all let loose upon him or else to break the statute, in affront to that Parliament who so lately, solemnly and deliberately made it, and were yet in being to punish the violators and this Act so much the darling of that Parliament, and indeed all the good people of England, his lordship made it evident how the suspension of this law at this conjuncture would not only render the Parliament cheap and have influence on all other laws, but in truth let in a visible confusion upon Church and state.<sup>46</sup></p></blockquote><p>That Sheldon himself was responsible for the report is suggested by the very similar language used in his letter to Clarendon of 30 Aug. 1662. In that letter he complained of the chancellor’s ‘great unkindness … in offering to expose me to certain ruin by the Parliament, or the extreme hatred of that malicious party in whose jaws I must live, and never giving me the least notice of it. You cannot blame me if it be sadly resented.’<sup>47</sup> The plight of the nonconformist ministers was made still worse by what seems to have been Sheldon’s careful preparation for the mass ejection. By the middle of September, when fears of public disorder had subsided, the Irish courtier Daniel O’Neill attributed the peaceful transition ‘to the king’s extraordinary good fortune and the wisdom and courage of the bishop of London, who behaves himself like St Ambrose for all his calm’.<sup>48</sup> That same month, George Morley supplied Sheldon with a list of all crown livings vacated under the terms of the Act of Uniformity in order to facilitate ‘timely replacements.’<sup>49</sup></p><p>By mid-October 1662 Sheldon was even being touted as a possible replacement for the lord treasurer, the earl of Southampton.<sup>50</sup> But Sheldon’s influence at court was tempered by many other voices. In October 1662 Sheldon wrote to John Cosin*, of Durham, to warn him that the latter’s ‘severity’ against the son of Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, would not sit well ‘with the lenity’ of the present government towards Catholics.<sup>51</sup> He was indisposed and absent on 26 Dec. 1662, when a majority in the Privy Council voted to publish the king’s intention to seek ‘a further dispensing power’ from Parliament, on the grounds that his Catholic subjects had remained politically loyal.<sup>52</sup> Initially at least, the proposal does not appear to have alarmed Sheldon who told Cosin that it had been reported to him merely as ‘the king’s desire to give ease to tender consciences both sectaries and papists, as far as Parliament shall think fit.’ At the time he seems to have been far more worried about the possibility of public criticism about episcopal finances and ‘the great store of money’ resulting from the windfall profits that had fallen to the newly appointed bishops.<sup>53</sup> But over the winter of 1662 he became convinced that ‘the church is like to be in great danger the next session’, and urged parliamentary attendance on his fellow bishops. As usual he encouraged the potential absentees to register proxies.<sup>54</sup> He himself held the proxy of Accepted Frewen*, archbishop of York, registered on 17 Jan. 1663 and Juxon’s, registered on 16 Feb. 1663. Juxon’s proxy was vacated by his death on 16 June and was replaced on 15 July by that of Seth Ward*, of Exeter.</p><p>There is no particular evidence that Sheldon orchestrated the Commons’ opposition to the Declaration of Indulgence and the bill to give it effect. The king had issued instructions that the bill was to be presented in his name and had ordered his chancellor and treasurer not to oppose it ‘but either be absent or silent’.<sup>55</sup> For Sheldon to have openly opposed it might have risked serious royal displeasure. But an unknown number of bishops were said to have taken part in what was in effect a letter writing campaign in an attempt to influence Members of the Commons against the measure. The king made it clear that he was indeed offended by their actions, to the extent that they were said to have been placed ‘under a cloud’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>When the session assembled on 18 Feb. 1663, Sheldon was in the House for the start of business. He attended for 86 per cent of sittings and was named to 36 select committees and to two of the sessional committees. He was present on 23 Feb. 1663 when John Robartes*, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor), introduced into the House the bill ‘concerning his majesty’s power in ecclesiastical affairs’ that would allow individual non-conformists and Catholics to be exempt from the penal laws through royal dispensation, and on the 25th when the bill was committed to a committee of the whole House. In Clarendon’s account, several bishops lobbied against the bill and were reprehended and threatened.<sup>57</sup> Whether Sheldon was amongst them is unknown but his appointment to the Privy Council in April suggests that (unlike Clarendon) he had done nothing to incur the king’s displeasure, and/or that the king understood the need to make a conciliatory gesture to the Church and its adherents. The Privy Council registers show that he became a regular attender at its meetings.<sup>58</sup> It was the Commons’ reaction that forced a withdrawal of the dispensing bill in mid-March, when Clarendon was provoked into some unguarded comments on the bill, upsetting the king and setting off a crisis within government over the next three or four months. The row created a backlash against Catholics. On 19 Mar. 1663, the lower House sought the Lords’ agreement for a royal proclamation to secure the departure of ‘Jesuits and popish priests’ out of the kingdom.<sup>59</sup> Four days later, Sheldon was present for the debate on the Commons’ demand and, with Clarendon, Southampton and Morley, was nominated to a sub-committee to prepare a draft petition to the king. On 26, 28 and 30 Mar. 1663, he was one of the managers at conferences on the banishment proclamation. The proposed proclamation was watered down by the king but Sheldon’s reputation with those who regarded themselves as the ‘loyal party’ was enhanced. As Sheldon had predicted at the time of implementation of the Act of Uniformity, his hardline position made him a target for nonconformist criticism. In March it was reported that Sheldon had complained in the Lords ‘of slanders against himself, and asked whether bishops could be considered as peers, and such things prosecuted as <em>scandalum magnatum</em>, but the question was waived’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Remarkably, in May 1663, Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> noted that Sheldon, despite the overt hostility of some courtiers (and despite the Indulgence affair), ‘keeps as great with the king as ever’.<sup>61</sup> That month, a bill was introduced into the Commons that was designed to overcome problems that Sheldon had encountered in securing control over parochial governing bodies in London. The select vestries bill was steered through the lower House by those responsible for much of the religious legislation of the early years of the Cavalier Parliament, including Thomas Fanshaw<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Fanshaw [I], Sir Job Charlton<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir Robert Bolles<sup>‡</sup>, one of Sheldon’s nominees on the Covent Garden select vestry.<sup>62</sup> On 18 June, Sheldon was present when the bill was sent up from the Commons. He was named to the select committee on the bill on 25 June. Humphrey Henchman reported back to the House and the measure passed smoothly to the royal assent by the end of July. Having already issued Sabbath observance orders, Sheldon was named to a Lords’ committee on the Sabbath on 11 June.<sup>63</sup></p><p>The ageing Juxon had died on 4 June 1663. Within days it was known that he would be succeeded by Sheldon, who had been archbishop of Canterbury in all but name during Juxon’s tenure of the office.<sup>64</sup> Although the king’s directive was not issued until 14 July and Sheldon was not formally translated until August, he assumed the authority of an archbishop when he wrote to Benjamin Laney*, bishop of Lincoln, on 23 June about reports that Laney was turning a blind eye to the preaching of nonconformists, something that ‘must tend to the ruin of the Church’s peace’. He directed Laney to ‘hinder the reign and gravity of this spreading evil.’<sup>65</sup> After the Restoration Sheldon’s income had been boosted by the windfall revenue that accompanied the re-establishment of the episcopate and its customary income derived from tithes, fees and fines on the renegotiation of leases. Now as archbishop it was estimated that he would receive a yearly revenue of nearly £2,400; during the course of his 14 years as metropolitan, he derived £19,000 in fines.<sup>66</sup></p><p>On 2 July 1663 Sheldon was present when the Commons sent up a bill ‘to prevent the growth of popery’ and another against conventicles. Both bills were lost with the prorogation on 27 July. On 14 July, in the aftermath of the failed attempt by Bristol to impeach Clarendon, he was said to have been named to a committee to consider the ‘satisfaction’ due to the chancellor, although no such committee is mentioned in the Journal.<sup>67</sup> On 15 July Sheldon announced to the House that Convocation had voted the king a grant of four subsidies and that both Houses of Parliament were required to confirm the grant. On 24 July he was named to the committee on the bill to amend the Act of Uniformity. Committee deliberations, almost certainly under the influence of Southampton and Manchester, resulted in a clause that clarified the ‘assent and consent’ declaration in the original Act. Whether Sheldon attended the committee not known; it was reported to the House on the 25th by Bridgwater, and sent to the Commons, where the additional clause was thrown out by a narrow majority.<sup>68</sup></p><h2><em>The defence of the Church, 1663-7</em></h2><p>On 28 Aug. 1663, discussing Irish ecclesiastical preferments with Ormond, Sheldon confessed that before Parliament had risen, he had wanted ‘some course that none hereafter may hold ecclesiastical preferment in both kingdoms’ and would have promoted a bill to that end, ‘but that I fear to move anything in Parliament which concerns the church, unless of absolute necessity, least they do more than we desire they should’.<sup>69</sup> Whilst it is possible that he was referring to the need to stave off demands for toleration it seems rather more likely that he feared that any bill that dealt with the question of ecclesiastical preferments risked opening up wider issues about the role of the laity and clergy, sparking unwelcome attacks on the clerical establishment. In November he raised concerns about laymen obtaining royal impropriations in Ireland, contrary to what he claimed was the king’s commitment to return them to the Church.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Sheldon was translated on 31 Aug. in a lavish and theatrical ceremony with ‘music extraordinary’; the banquet in Lambeth Palace Great Hall cost £500 and included all of the nobility who were at that time in London.<sup>71</sup> He nagged Clarendon to secure him a ‘quick despatch’ of his temporalities.<sup>72</sup> The strength of nonconformity and the capacity of the government to suppress it continued to be his greatest concerns. He confided to Ormond in September his view that ‘only a resolute execution of the law … must cure this disease, all other remedies have and will increase it; and ’tis necessary that they who will not be governed… by reason and persuasion, should be governed as beasts by power and force’.<sup>73</sup> The same month he wrote to Cosin of Durham in an attempt to encourage him to travel to London where ‘you may do your duty to the Church as well here as in your diocese and perhaps better; I will take care you shall not want work.’<sup>74</sup> Other bishops were less helpful. During the autumn Sheldon was faced with a dispute between the irascible William Lucy*, bishop of St Davids, and William Nicholson*, bishop of Gloucester over the latter’s role as archdeacon of Brecon, not least because episcopal disunity offered a possible propaganda weapon to opponents of the Church.<sup>75</sup> There is some evidence that Sheldon employed spies including John Bradley and William Hill who took part as <em>agents provocateurs</em> in Thomas Tonge’s plot to kill the king (discovered late in 1662).<sup>76</sup></p><p>By the time of the new session, in March 1664, Pepys recorded that he had been told that Sheldon ‘speaks very little nor doth much, being now come to the highest pitch that he can expect’.<sup>77</sup> With the session about to assemble, Sheldon received the proxy of Accepted Frewen of York (vacated at his death on 28 March). He attended the House on 16 Mar. 1664 for the first day of business, taking his seat for the first time as archbishop of Canterbury. Attending 97 per cent of sittings, he was named to only two select committees, one of which was for the bill to break the entail on the property of the dedicated Anglican and former cavalier, Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup>. He received a further two proxies shortly after the start of the session: on 19 Mar. 1664 that of William Piers*, of Bath and Wells, vacated at the end of the session, and on 20 Mar. that of former university colleague William Paul*, bishop of Oxford, which was cancelled on 22 April. On 5 Apr. 1664, a week after Frewen’s death, he instructed Sancroft (one of whose current posts was as dean of York) to prorogue the York Convocation until the appointment of a new northern archbishop.<sup>78</sup> Five days later, letters missive were sent out for the translation of Richard Sterne*, former chaplain to Archbishop Laud.<sup>79</sup></p><p>On 30 Apr. 1664, Sheldon was present (as he was almost every day) when the conventicle bill was brought up from the Commons. The bill was committed to the committee of the whole House on 4 May and was the subject of further debate on 6, 9 and 11 May and there were attempts in committee to insert provisos that would lessen the bill’s impact.<sup>80</sup> While both Houses debated amendments to the bill, the House gave a first reading to a bill ‘to limit plurality of livings, and for increase of maintenance of curates’. It seems likely that Sheldon promoted both bills but firm evidence of this is lacking. This second bill was lost at the prorogation on 17 May 1664, but the conventicle bill was one of several to receive the royal assent that day. </p><p>Following the prorogation on 20 Aug. 1664 Sheldon was involved in negotiations over clerical taxation. Until 1664 this had been a matter for Convocation and it was kept artificially low because the valuations on which it was based were a century out of date. Awareness of the huge windfall profits that fell to the bishops at the Restoration may have fuelled a sense that the clergy was lightly taxed, and the prospect of war with the Dutch and the consequent requirement for supply perhaps encouraged a demand for reform. In October 1664, in response to the archbishop’s attempt to sound out clerical reaction to changes to current fiscal arrangements John Hacket*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, had advised Sheldon that a land tax would be more acceptable than the imposition of clerical subsidies by the exchequer.<sup>81</sup> Sheldon’s correspondence with Hacket reveal that the proposed changes had almost certainly been discussed at the Privy Council. A tradition within the Church also suggests that an agreement on tax changes was reached at a meeting at Lambeth between Sheldon, Clarendon and Southampton.<sup>82</sup> The agreement ensured that two of the previous year’s four subsidies were remitted.<sup>83</sup> The final deal with Clarendon (for which there is apparently no documentary evidence), meant that thereafter the clergy were included in Commons’ money bills and treated on a par with the laity in terms of taxation; the clergy also gained the right to vote in parliamentary elections (though not to sit in the Commons).</p><p>In preparation for the next parliamentary session, on 10 Nov. 1664 Sheldon again received Piers’ proxy (vacated at the end of the session). He attended the House on 24 Nov. 1664 for the first day of parliamentary business and thereafter attended nearly 60 per cent of sittings; he was named to the committee for privileges and to one select committee, on the duchy of Cornwall estates bill. Attending the House on 2 Mar. 1665 for the prorogation, Sheldon remained at his residences in Lambeth and Croydon throughout the plague, encouraging others to follow his example.<sup>84</sup> On two occasions during the summer (21 June 1665 and 1 Aug. 1665), he attended the House for prorogations. The unusual survival of letters between Clarendon and Sheldon in the summer of 1665 reflects the removal of the court from London as a result of the Plague, which meant that the two men had to discuss matters in writing that they would almost certainly normally have discussed in person. There was much discussion in them of clerical appointments. Clarendon’s criticism of Sheldon’s intention to translate Robert Price, bishop of Ferns, to Bangor suggests that he considered that his role in ecclesiastical affairs was as important as Sheldon’s. In response to Sheldon’s ‘despair’ at his failure to persuade Walter Blandford*, warden of Wadham College and Clarendon’s chaplain, to accept the see of Oxford, Clarendon insisted that ‘I will not give it over’ and suggested ways of persuading him too accept the offer.<sup>85</sup></p><p>In advance of the autumn 1665 session, Sheldon received proxies from Richard Sterne and William Piers (both vacated at the end of the session). On 3 Oct. 1665, with only Humphrey Henchman, George Monck*, duke of Albemarle, and William Craven*, earl of Craven, in the House, Sheldon, appointed Speaker for the day, pronounced the prorogation to Oxford on 9 October.<sup>86</sup> Clarendon corresponded with him at some length on arrangements for the meeting of Parliament in Oxford, including accommodation and the proxies of absent bishops.<sup>87</sup> Clarendon also hoped that Sheldon would bring with him sufficient documentary evidence ‘for an act of Parliament to meet with these infections which fall out in the time of a great contagion’.<sup>88</sup> More than one prelate was reluctant to make the journey and Clarendon warned Sheldon that the northern bishops were unlikely to attend.<sup>89</sup> George Hall*, bishop of Chester, trying to wriggle out of the journey, told Sheldon that he understood the coming session to be more ‘of a representative, not a full Parliament, or to make only a short session, as the present exigency may require’ and hoped that he would not be ‘chidden’ as before for having expressed dismay at the prospect of the journey.<sup>90</sup></p><p>The Oxford Parliament assembled on 9 Oct. 1665. Sheldon attended 93 per cent of sittings of the brief session, and was named to four select committees. He was involved in opposition to the Irish cattle bill, which was perceived as something of an oblique attack on Sheldon’s ally, Ormond.<sup>91</sup> By 24 Oct. 1665, the bill having passed the Commons, Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork [I], learned that Sheldon had been engaged (almost certainly by Ormond) to challenge the bill in the Lords.<sup>92</sup> On 26 Oct., Sheldon was named to the committee on the cattle bill but his contribution, if any, to the discussions is unknown; the measure was lost with the prorogation. Strengthening the laws against Dissent remained a priority. Together with Morley and the duke of York he was said (by Baxter) to be one of the ‘chief promoters’ of the five mile bill.<sup>93</sup> The bill had weighty opposition, not least from Southampton and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton. Sheldon was named to the committee on the bill on 27 Oct.; notes of the debate taken by Wharton reveal that Sheldon claimed that nonconformists had direct links with the Dutch, were a danger to the state and must be coerced through a ‘no alteration’ oath to undertake that they would do nothing to change the government. When John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, insisted that he could not himself take an oath that could, in theory, block changes to the law, Sheldon responded that the oath merely signified Parliament’s intention to underwrite the monarchy and the established Church. He was seconded by Morley who argued that any person refusing such an oath must by definition be seditious.<sup>94</sup> Rushed through both Houses, the bill was given the royal assent on 31 October. Clarendon had asked Sheldon to bring with him ‘some good materials for an Act of Parliament’ to combat the spread of plague. A bill was prepared and introduced in the Commons, though it was lost as a result of the Lords’ insistence on specific arrangements for peers. By that time, however, the epidemic had almost run its course.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Sheldon was unwell in the autumn of 1665. He nevertheless continued to deal with regular correspondence about the performance of senior clergymen. He desired a ‘speedy answer’ from William Piers concerning his performing an improper ordination, one with ‘so many irregularities and miscarriages in one act, that though it came from the hands of a person of credit, yet I cannot persuade myself to believe it.’<sup>96</sup> Piers responded in an aggrieved tone about Sheldon’s willingness to entertain complaints against him, ‘having been a bishop six and thirty years, and your grace having known me many years before I was a bishop’, and suggesting that he should ‘leave the complainants to the law, where I will answer them’.<sup> <sup>97</sup></sup> Sheldon was still in Oxford in January 1666, communicating with Ormond about Irish church affairs and his own efforts at court to secure ‘worthy men’ of whom Ormond would approve, ensuring that a Burlington nominee was promoted to the Irish bishopric of Waterford and receiving news from Ormond on the state of the Irish Parliament.<sup>98</sup> When that same month George Morley told the earl of Burlington that ‘the king hath entrusted the sole care of recommending fit persons for all ecclesiastical preferments in the Church’ to Sheldon, he was probably referring to the Irish church and the appointment to Waterford.<sup>99</sup> As they had previously discussed, Sheldon and Ormond were in agreement that individuals should not hold preferments in both kingdoms, and Sheldon therefore welcomed Ormond’s willingness to pilot a bill to that effect through the Irish parliament. Against a background of continuing unrest in Ireland and fears of insurrection, Michael Boyle, archbishop of Dublin and lord chancellor of Ireland, alerted Sheldon to the potential loss of ecclesiastical patrimony because of the inability of the bishops to represent their cases in the Irish court of claims.<sup>100</sup></p><p>On 20 Feb. 1666 and 23 Apr. 1666 Sheldon attended the House for prorogations, sitting as Speaker on the first of those occasions. Throughout the recess, he pressed the bishops to contribute to the royal loan. Henry King*, bishop of Chichester, offered £5,000 ‘half of my yearly income’; William Piers managed £750 which he hoped to make up to £800 ‘for then it would seem to be a pretty handsome loan’. Others were not so generous. Sheldon told Nicholson of Gloucester that £100 was ‘too little for an example to the clergy, you must needs therefore double it, which I hope will be well accepted by the king’ and could not conceal his contempt for Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Bristol, remonstrating that ‘I do not wonder to see the subscriptions so pitifully mean, seeing the clergy had not the encouragement of your lordship’s example to lead them on.’<sup>101</sup> Sheldon himself was said to have given £1,000.<sup>102</sup> On 30 June, the archbishop, having received a visit from the solicitor to Philip Herbert*, 5th earl of Pembroke, concerning a dispute with Cosin, rebuked the bishop of Durham for being quarrelsome, but suspended judgment until he had conducted further enquiries. Cosin was also nagged by the archbishop the following year when Sheldon, who may have taken a close interest in any private bill introduced by a bishop, informed Cosin that the latter’s bill (on moor masters) was in bad shape and that Cosin should consider whether he wished to pursue the matter.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Although much of Sheldon’s correspondence about the difficulties of suppressing conventicles centred on complaints about the reluctance of local magistrates to support the episcopal establishment by enforcing the penal laws, there were also problems in the church courts. Nicholson of Gloucester complained that in the absence of assistance from the secular courts and ‘being very much perplexed at the many impudent conventicles in every part of this country’, he had turned to his own church court. In twelve cases he had begun the process of excommunication only to find that the court of arches had blocked his efforts by issuing absolutions on appeals.<sup>104</sup> Sheldon wrote to the dean of arches, arguing that such proceedings ‘were never intended for obstinate persons and refractory to government’ and suggesting that the dean should enforce the taking of the oath <em>de parendo juri et stando mandatis ecclesiae</em> (of obeying the law and keeping the commands of the Church) as a prerequisite to absolution</p><blockquote><p>which perhaps such a person as this would refuse, and then you have no reason to admit his appeal. I am not for denying appeals, where there is good cause for it, nor for lessening the authority of the arches, which I would rather increase; but if we be not watchful these things will destroy the Church and ruin all, therefore Mr Deane I pray be very careful of such cases.<sup>105</sup></p></blockquote><p>With Parliament due to assemble in September 1666, Sheldon again summoned the bishops and demanded proxies from those unable or unwilling to attend.<sup>106</sup> As usual, Sheldon attended the House for the first day of business on 18 Sept. 1666. He appeared for 71 per cent of sittings and was named to seven select committees. On 11 Oct. 1666, with his customary urgency, he instructed the absent Gilbert Ironside to send his proxy to George Morley ‘for we may suddenly have very earnest occasions for it’.<sup>107</sup> On 17, 23 and 30 Oct. 1666 he helped to manage four conferences with the Commons on the vote to prohibit the import of French commodities. More proxies trickled in: on 10 Nov. 1666 he received that of Blandford and on 13 Nov. that of William Piers. Both proxies were vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>The revival of the Irish cattle bill created acute discomfort for the government and its management of Parliament. Charles II had originally opposed the bill, but at a council meeting in January 1667 was persuaded by Henry Bennet*, later earl of Arlington, to sacrifice the measure to ensure the Commons’ cooperation on the poll bill and bill on public accounts.<sup>108</sup> On 14 Jan., Sheldon came to the House for the first time since late December, having been prevented from travelling to Westminster by the freezing of the Thames. Determined to oppose the bill, Sheldon was forced to back down after the king commanded York and Clarendon that ‘the Lords must yield to the Commons’.<sup>109</sup> The contentious ‘nuisance’ debate ended with York, Sheldon and the majority of bishops retiring before the vote. When asked by Sir Allen Brodrick<sup>‡</sup> about Charles II’s change of heart, Sheldon complained that the king ‘was resolved to ruin himself’ by his reversal and that ‘it would not be in their powers to preserve him’.<sup>110</sup> When Ormond blamed the result on the Commons’ ‘ill humour... fomented there by some who owe the king and their country more duty’, Sheldon defended the lower House, attributing its wilfulness to factional fighting at court: the king ‘never had nor never is like to have persons most wishing to comply with his desires than this House of Commons was, yet would be, were they treated as they might be, for all the disorders have arisen from the king’s family and servants’. As for the cattle bill, the king’s willingness to be coerced by the Commons ‘gave me a sad prospect into the fate of this poor Church, whenever the king shall be in any great necessity to be relieved by such persons.’<sup>111</sup></p><p>Sheldon attended the House for the prorogation of 8 Feb. 1667. His routine round of correspondence on ecclesiastical and political matters in the spring included the war and the possibility of peace with the Dutch.<sup>112</sup> In the midst of the panic caused by the Dutch raid on the Medway, on 20 June it was ‘hotly debated’ in council whether there should be a dissolution of Parliament. According to Nathaniel Hobart’s account of the debate in council, Sheldon, ‘sharply opposed’ demands for a dissolution and was supported ‘more moderately’ by Clarendon.<sup>113</sup> Sheldon and Clarendon prevailed. Two weeks later, Sheldon sent out a circular letter to his province detailing the king’s proclamation to assemble Parliament on St James’ Day, and insisting that the bishops send in their proxies for yet again ‘there is like to be very great occasion to make use of your votes and all the rest of our votes’.<sup>114</sup> On 25 July 1667 Sheldon duly attended for the abortive start of the session in which the king adjourned business on the grounds that both Houses lacked sufficient Members. He attended again on 29 July for the prorogation after the king had announced an imminent peace treaty. On 17 Sept. Sheldon baptized Edgar, the infant son of the duke of York.<sup>115</sup></p><h2><em>The fall of Clarendon and its aftermath, 1667-9</em></h2><p>George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham’s return to favour in July 1667 presented a new threat to Sheldon’s standing at court. Sheldon soon became the butt of defamatory court gossip. On 29 July Pepys expressed amazement when he was told that the archbishop was a great ‘wencher’; his informant was almost certainly reporting tales circulated by Buckingham and Lady Castlemaine.<sup>116</sup> Sheldon’s position was undermined still further when, in late August 1667, Clarendon was removed from office. Summoned by the king to learn of Clarendon’s dismissal, Sheldon was said to have refused to respond, merely chastizing the king for his latest adultery.<sup>117</sup> Given their long relationship Sheldon’s support for the chancellor was decidedly and surprisingly grudging. In August he told Ormond that Clarendon had ‘of a long time’ courted his own downfall by failing to take advice: ‘he that despiseth counsel must perish’. By October, fearful for his own position, Sheldon warned a shocked Ormond that they would both be tainted by their ‘kindness’ for Clarendon, who was facing impeachment, ‘though, God knows, for these divers years, I have had little reason to be fond of him… I wish him innocent, but if he prove guilty, let him suffer… we owe that confusion we are in, to his ill management of our affairs and of himself’.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Before the session, as had become customary, Sheldon commanded all the bishops either to attend the House in person at the start of October or to provide their proxy by the first day.<sup>119</sup> Sheldon’s own ability to defend the interests of a Church was hampered by his loss of influence at court. In October 1667 he was unable to prevent the elevation of Castlemaine’s scandalous kinsman, Henry Glemham*, to the see of St Asaph. As intelligence from the provinces showed, many nonconformists were aware that the first Conventicle Act was about to expire and so were meeting with renewed confidence. New initiatives for some form of comprehension were expected too: early in September a newsletter reported that ‘An Act is said to be preparing, against the meeting of Parliament, dispensing with the Act of Uniformity, and clearly against the bishops’ government’.<sup>120</sup> <em>The inconveniences of toleration</em> by Sheldon’s chaplain, Thomas Tomkyns, was published on 10 Oct., the very day that Parliament was to meet, as a response to a pamphlet written in June, and a contribution to a lively pamphlet debate on religious reform.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Sheldon attended the House promptly on 10 Oct. 1667 for the start of parliamentary business. He attended the session for 73 per cent of sittings and was named to four select committees, including the private lead mines bill for Cosin. Sheldon was in the House on 15 Oct. when an address of thanks for the dismissal of Clarendon was agreed. At a call of the House on 29 Oct. it was noted that he was sick and excused attendance. He was present, though, on 11 Nov. when the Commons sent up accusations of treason against Clarendon and when the Lords retired into committee of the whole to debate the charges. Absent on 7 Dec. when the bill for Clarendon’s banishment was committed, he did, however, attend on 12 Dec. when the House passed the bill.</p><p>In December 1667 Pepys reported that Sheldon was no longer summoned to ministerial meetings,</p><blockquote><p>the bishops differing from the king in the late business in the House of Lords having caused this and what is like to follow, for everybody is encouraged nowadays to speak and even to print (as I have one of them) as bad things against them as ever in the year 1640; which is a strange change.<sup>122</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sheldon was even forbidden by the king from preaching the customary Christmas 1667 sermon at court.<sup>123</sup> He maintained close contact with his political circle, including Burlington who became a frequent dinner guest and he became the toast of the coffee Houses for his apparent disregard for his loss of favour.<sup>124</sup> Sir Hugh Cholmley<sup>‡</sup> declared that Sheldon was a ‘mighty stout man, and a man of a brave high spirit and cares not for this disfavour … knowing that the king could not take away his income’. Such sentiments may have provided an accurate description of Sheldon’s public face but it seems unlikely that they reflect the true feelings of the man who had spent the past seven years strenuously defending the Church from those who, in his perception, sought to annihilate it.<sup>125</sup> In December 1667, on Clarendon’s recommendation, Sheldon was elected to the chancellorship of Oxford. He subsequently refused installation, believing that the university would benefit from a patron not out of favour at court.<sup>126</sup> He delegated much of the bureaucracy and building plans for the Sheldonian theatre to John Fell*, vice-chancellor and future bishop of Oxford.<sup>127</sup></p><p>In early 1668 plans for comprehension were underway in which John Wilkins*, shortly to become bishop of Chester, John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, were involved. As a result of their efforts Sir Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup> had been set to work by Buckingham, Manchester and Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡ </sup>to prepare a bill.<sup>128</sup> Wilkins canvassed support amongst some of the bishops: one, Seth Ward, passed a copy of the bill to Sheldon on 25 Jan., thus enabling him to prepare a detailed attack on it. According to Samuel Parker*, who became chaplain to Sheldon in November 1667 (and bishop of Oxford in 1688), the archbishop ‘prepared’ his allies in the Commons and organized the bishops’ votes in the Lords. (While, however, he frequently dined one member of the Commons, John Milward<sup>‡</sup>, in late 1666, Milward does not mention a personal contact with him after this, particularly not in early 1668.<sup>129</sup>) Sheldon’s ‘indefatigable industry’ included a public attack on Anglicans who supported the comprehension initiative without first seeking direct approval from their primate; he summoned others for private censure.<sup>130</sup> On 10 Feb. 1668, a vociferous group in the Commons voted to address the king to execute the penal laws against nonconformity, pre-empting the introduction of any legislation which would sanction comprehension and indulgence.<sup>131</sup> As far as John Hacket was concerned this was a clear victory for Sheldon’s management. On 15 Feb. he wrote that,</p><blockquote><p>next to the holy providence of God I discern your Grace’s great prudence and indefatigable industry to prepare the votes of the Commons against they meet for so noble and happy a concurrence to discourage non-conformists and sectaries who did openly boast what assurance they had in the undertakings of a great duke to procure them a most factious toleration.<sup>132</sup></p></blockquote><p>Hacket was also convinced that Sheldon was behind the Commons’ further address to the king for enforcing the laws against conventicles on 4 March. That very day he wrote to congratulate Sheldon on his ‘dexterity’ in securing ‘such a godly vote’. On 13 Mar. there was a further victory for Sheldon when the Commons voted to renew the Conventicle Act.<sup>133</sup> Cosin urged Sheldon to take advantage of the Commons’ support and to print their address (with ‘the weighty and unanswerable reasons’ against comprehension) as an appendix to the latest publications licensed ‘in answer to the late proposer and latitudinarian’ (probably John Wilkins).<sup>134</sup> There were several responses from the allies of the duke of Buckingham: an unsuccessful motion for the sale of cathedral lands was introduced in the Commons by Sir Nicholas Carew<sup>‡</sup> and seconded by Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup> on 7 Mar., and on 18 Mar. Buckingham’s ally Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup> initiated a debate on taxing the clergy, falling ‘foully and unmannerly upon the bishops’, and ‘many spoke against the bishops as having raised great sums of money and were wanting in charitable works’, though the solicitor-general, Heneage Finch*, later Baron Finch and earl of Nottingham, and others effectively defended them.<sup>135</sup> On 28 Apr. 1668 the new conventicle bill was sent up to the Lords, but it was blocked because of the amount of parliamentary time expended on inter-House hostilities aroused by the case of <em>Skinner v. The East India Company</em>. Despite a reminder from the Commons on 4 May, the bill was never committed. With two successive adjournments of Parliament, the House did not reassemble until October 1669.</p><p>Sheldon was reported to have been further marginalized during spring 1668 when the king removed his influence over royal advowsons and gave responsibility instead to Arlington and Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford.<sup>136</sup> By October 1668, Buckingham and Arlington had secured the elevation to the episcopate of the comprehensionist John Wilkins despite vehement opposition from the archbishop who (with Croft) had supported a rival candidate, William Sancroft, the man who would eventually succeed him as archbishop. In November he refused to consecrate Wilkins, allegedly lurking with Henchman of London behind a curtain during the ceremony.<sup>137</sup> When Ormond discussed his own shaky position with Arlington a few days later, he was told that one of his faults was that he ‘joined too much in … councils and conversation with men unsatisfied: and… he named the duke [of York], and the archbishop of Canterbury.’<sup>138</sup></p><p>In December 1668 there was some speculation that Sheldon was back in favour but commentators found it difficult to reconcile this information to their knowledge of continuing disputes in council about the future of the current Parliament. That month Sheldon was amongst those who argued against proroguing Parliament. It was widely believed that prorogation was merely a prelude to a dissolution and new elections which might produce a Parliament more sympathetic to Dissent.<sup>139</sup> The fear was not merely of a Commons sympathetic to Presbyterian demands for comprehension or toleration but that a lower House dominated by Dissent would ‘also (to ease the people of taxes) give the king the Church lands to raise money out of the Church’s ruins; and so rob God, and invest the pious donations of their ancestors to the paying of the public debts’.<sup>140</sup> The rumours that Sheldon was to be totally laid aside with Croft of Hereford taking on his duties were circulating again in early January 1669.<sup>141</sup> This was perhaps why Sheldon’s inquiry that month of Edward Reynolds, bishop of Norwich, about the alleged disorders caused by Dissenters in Ipswich was so carefully worded. Sheldon clearly suspected Reynolds of complicity with those who ‘despise government and ask who shall dare to call them to account’ but, unlike his combative remonstrance to Piers in 1665, his tone was deceptively mild,</p><blockquote><p>If these things be so, me thinks your lordship must needs have heard of them, But if you have not, pray enquire into it and if you find it so, do what you can to put a stop, and where your own power will lead you not further, do your endeavour to gain the assistance of the justices and civil magistrates.<sup>142</sup></p></blockquote> <h2><em>A wavering return to influence 1669-74</em></h2><p>Sheldon may have felt more confident as in the course of 1669 the king clearly became alarmed by the conventicling activity unleashed by the expiry of the Conventicle Act. A shift towards repression of Dissent was already discernible in June 1669 when Sheldon wrote to Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>, his commissary at Canterbury, that</p><blockquote><p>all hands [are] alarmed with continued reports of the frequency of open conventicles and unlawful meetings of those who under a pretence of religion... separate from the unity and uniformity of God’s service, to the great offence of all... who love and truly endeavour the peace and prosperity of the Church and state. His majesty in public lately speaking much against these disorderly meetings, and expressing an indignation against all reports of him, as if he either favoured, or connived at them, was pleased (after he had laid some blame on the bishops for want of care in this affair) to declare, that hence forward they should not want the assistance of the civil magistrate to suppress them in so much, that if hereafter any bishop shall complain to any justice, and require his help, if such justice do not his duty therein then let the bishop certify, that his majesty may know, who they are, that neglect his service.<sup>143</sup></p></blockquote><p>A similar letter went to Henchman for transmission to all the bishops of the province as well as to Sterne of York. All were requested to conduct a census of conventicles. On 30 June the council ordered the judges to attend the lord keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, and give their opinions as what laws were in force against conventicles ‘whereby such as meet in them, breach or countenance those meetings may be punished and how far’. By 13 July, the Privy Council was reported to have appointed Sheldon as one of the members of a committee to investigate conventicles. There is no mention of this in the register, although it does record the decision to issue a proclamation against conventicles on 16 July.<sup>144</sup> Hacket of Lichfield and Coventry reported the partial success of the new ‘terror’ against factions and was heartened to learn that Sheldon had ‘drawn nearer to his majesty in his private cabinet council… to do more good to this Church’.<sup>145</sup></p><p>At the end of July, excusing himself on the grounds of ‘years and infirmities too great, to permit him to add to the weight of his present duties’, Sheldon withdrew from Oxford University business, and successfully recommended Ormond for the position as chancellor of the university.<sup>146</sup> Hopeful of securing a new conventicle bill he reminded all bishops in his province that the need for them to be present for the upcoming session of Parliament and to ensure a good attendance from their clergy at Convocation.<sup>147</sup> Hacket chafed against the summons to Parliament but recognized the imperative to attend if there were to be ‘some strict act against nonconformists’.<sup>148</sup> On 19 Oct. 1669 the archbishop attended the House for the start of what proved to be a very brief session. Attending 86 per cent of sittings, he was not named to any select committees but only to the committees for privileges and petitions. Sir Henry Yelverton, a member of the Commons, wrote to him on 11 Nov. 1669 that the Commons had carried the new conventicle bill ‘with such a violence’ despite the opposition of ‘the gang’: the treasurer, Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford, the secretary of state, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup> ‘and all that interest’.<sup>149</sup> But further disruption of parliamentary business caused by the revival of the dispute over <em>Skinner’s case</em> meant that the bill did not reach the Lords before the prorogation of 11 Dec. 1669. </p><p>Sheldon may have been struggling at the same time on a different front. In a narrative published in French in 1682 the duchess of York wrote about her path to being received into the Catholic church, which had begun in November 1669. Subsequently she had discussed the issues of religious controversy that concerned her with two of the most learned Anglican bishops, both of whom, the paper alleged, had told her that the Church of England was over-reformed and that one had confessed that had he been born a Catholic he would not have changed his religion but being baptized an Anglican and convinced that the Anglican Church provided everything necessary for salvation, he could not leave it without great scandal. The two bishops were identified in the version of the narrative published in English in 1686 as Sheldon and Walter Blandford, formerly her father’s chaplain, though it has been suggested that Morley, rather than Sheldon was more likely.<sup>150</sup></p><p>As far as policy towards nonconformity was concerned, however, over the Christmas recess Yelverton dined at Lambeth and reported that ‘things… look better than they did’ with the king’s latest reversal of policy and current support for measures against conventicles.<sup>151</sup> Sheldon was less optimistic. That December he was unable to prevent the dismissal of the staunchly episcopalian Archbishop Burnet from the see of Glasgow.<sup>152</sup> After attending a meeting of the Privy Council on 28 Jan. 1670, Sheldon wrote that religious affairs once again looked gloomy ‘since the king hath cut himself loose from the advice of those that used to counsel him in matters of that nature’; he predicted that ‘many extravagant things have been attempted … and daily will be so yet.’<sup>153</sup> The comment may have referred to plans to smuggle into a new Conventicle Act a provision enabling the king to dispense with religious legislation. In advance of the new session of Parliament called for February 1670, Sheldon rallied the bishops to attend Parliament, although as usual, a combination of the unwell and unwilling depleted the strength of the episcopal votes. He himself only attended for 57 per cent of sittings and was named to 19 select committees. The king’s decision to accept a conventicle bill cheered up Sheldon’s supporters: Yelverton declared that the archbishop was now ‘more in favour than ever’ and Cosin reported that the king was now ‘resolved to stick unto his own party in the Parliament’.<sup>154</sup> This was despite the bishops’ attitude to the bill to divorce John Manners*, then styled Lord Roos, later 9th earl of Rutland, which initially dominated business in the Lords. Sheldon was one of the leading speakers against the bill.<sup>155</sup> He registered a dissent against the second reading on 17 Mar. 1670 and was dismayed by his inability to compel Cosin and Wilkins to vote with the rest of the bishops.<sup>156</sup> He was in the Lords on 10 Mar. 1670 when Sir John Bramston<sup>‡</sup> brought the conventicle bill up from the Commons. He attended the House throughout initial debates, including that of 21 Mar. 1670 when the king attended the House in the middle of the debate on the bill. Yet was not present on subsequent days, registered his proxy in favour of Richard Sterne on 24 Mar. and was absent until 7 Apr. 1670. No evidence has yet been discovered to explain his absence, but it may have been related to the proviso implicitly giving an exceptional right of interference in ecclesiastical affairs to the king, which was inserted into the bill during discussions in committee of the whole House in the Lords. The king had spoken individually to at least one bishop (and probably more) to secure support for the proviso; Sheldon may have wished to avoid coming under pressure to support it himself.<sup>157</sup> The proviso, however, was vigorously opposed in the Commons, and by the time Sheldon returned to the House on 7 Apr. it had been watered down to an inoffensive general statement about the royal power in ecclesiastical affairs. On 23 Apr., shortly after the adjournment, Sheldon was congratulated by Hacket that despite the unwelcome passage of the Roos divorce bill, ‘by your great wisdom and diligence, more than by any ten beside, you have seen a comfortable winding up and recess in this session of Parliament’.<sup>158</sup></p><p>Over the summer Sheldon set to work to ensure the implementation of the new act. On 7 May 1670 he instructed his bishops to tell their clergy to ‘perform their duty towards God, the king, and the Church, by an exemplary conformity in their own persons and practice, to his majesty’s laws, and the rules of the Church’, to follow the book of common prayer to the letter, to wear the surplice and hood when officiating and to attempt to persuade Dissenters to conform. Where the ‘censures of the Church’ failed, ‘wilful offenders’ were to be prosecuted with the aid of the civil authorities. He concluded his letter on a triumphant note:</p><blockquote><p>I have this confidence under god, that if we do our parts now at first seriously, <em>by god’s help, and the assistance of the civil power</em> (considering the abundant care and provision the act contains for <em>our advantage</em>) we shall within a few months see so great an alteration in the distractions of these times, as that the seduced people returning from their <em>seditious</em> and <em>self-seeking teachers</em>, to the unity of the Church, and uniformity of Gods worship, it will be to the glory of god, the welfare of the Church, the praise of his majesty and government, the happiness of the whole kingdom.<sup>159</sup></p></blockquote><p>The letter was subsequently printed, though together with an anonymous critique from a committed Dissenter who clearly feared that that the act would prove to be a persecutors’ charter, as indeed it was intended to be. John Hacket suggested that the bishops help matters along by sending spies into suspect parishes; Anthony Sparrow*, bishop of Exeter, assured Sheldon that corporations throughout his diocese promised cooperation with law enforcement and duly reported that the justices were very active so that conventicles were ‘bound to wither’.<sup>160</sup></p><p>In mid-June 1670 Sheldon was said to be seriously ill.<sup>161</sup> Despite the passage of the new Conventicle Act, and the removal of the offensive proviso, Sheldon was by no means an influential figure at court and with the king. In July, in response to a patronage request on behalf of Dr Herbert Astley he explained that ‘his advice is seldom asked of late in any promotions and that he was discouraged from being very forward to intermeddle’. Astley did secure the post he wanted (as dean of Norwich), but he was also able to call on the good services of Arlington and Sir Orlando Bridgeman as well as James Compton*, 3rd earl of Northampton.<sup>162</sup> Throughout September 1670, Sheldon was in communication with Hacket about the forthcoming by-elections in Shropshire and Derbyshire.<sup>163</sup> Appointed as one of those to treat on the union with the Scots he was ‘said to be none of [the] frankest for it’; Morley’s response to Sheldon’s now lost letter on the proceedings also implies negativity towards the proposals.<sup>164</sup> Sheldon must have been anticipating further attacks on the position of the Church in the session due to begin in October, perhaps in retaliation for the removal of the proviso from the Conventicle Act. In September he requested details of the expenditure of the bishops and other senior clergy on augmentations and beautifying of churches since 1660.<sup>165</sup> For Hacket the continuing threat to the Church was a very real one, and it required a man of Sheldon’s stamp to deflect it. When he sought Sheldon’s permission to continue giving Henchman his proxy, he warned his archbishop that ‘the wolves may enter in after your departure’.<sup>166</sup> In the event, the session passed off without serious trouble for the Church. On 24 Oct. he attended the House for the king’s speech, and he attended regularly for the rest of the session whilst dealing with metropolitan bureaucracy, cases in the Arches and patronage disputes.<sup>167</sup> On 7 Jan. 1671 he hosted a social gathering for the prince of Orange, and was present on 22 Apr. 1671 for the prorogation.<sup>168</sup></p><p>During the spring of 1671, he received regular reports on the political and religious condition of the west country through the assistance of Sparrow who recruited the ‘loyal party’ in the Devonshire by-election and who insisted that the ‘factious corporations’ were now much reformed. Sheldon responded by granting personal favours to the bishop, including an increase to his commendam and support to Sparrow’s extended family.<sup>169</sup> In what was perhaps a deliberate snub to the archbishop, in July 1671 Thomas Wood succeeded Hacket at Lichfield. Although Sheldon insisted that the see was sufficiently well endowed for the bishop to have no need of a commendam, Wood was also appointed to a prebend at Durham which had previously been promised to a Sheldon nominee.<sup>170</sup> Sheldon was soon reprimanding Wood for non-residence ‘without any just cause that you have made appear to me’ and for gross neglect of episcopal duties.<sup>171</sup> Sheldon referred another persistent dispute, between bishop and chapter over repairs to St Asaph, to the mediation of his trusted ally Robert Morgan*, bishop of Bangor in July 1672.<sup>172</sup></p><p>It was surprising that in January 1672, the king named Sheldon, together with Clifford and Bridgeman (both supporters of one or other sort of religious indulgence), to establish a list of men to be named as members of Gloucester corporation under the new city charter.<sup>173</sup> In February there was an even more unlikely report that Sheldon had ‘lately represented to the clergy the necessity of a comprehension or toleration’ and ‘had signified his own inclination to the latter’. Given his consistent opposition to both, the report seems scarcely credible, though it is possible that Sheldon was prepared to entertain some proposals along the lines that his colleague George Morley had been developing for some time.<sup>174</sup> Sheldon was not present in the circle that discussed the Declaration of Indulgence that was published on 15 Mar., following the outbreak of the Anglo-Dutch war, although late that month, the king visited him at Lambeth after which it was rumoured that there would be a further royal statement to clarify the Declaration.<sup>175</sup></p><p>Sheldon could not have remained anything but acutely conscious of the threat to Church lands. In July 1672 Morley wrote to Sheldon about an attempt by Charles Paulet*, styled Lord St John, the future 6th marquess of Winchester, to breach the charter of his diocese over rights in the New Forest, ‘in which attempt if he prevail, he and such as he is may beg and get away from the Church all the temporalities which all the bishops and all the cathedrals in England do hold of the crown.’<sup>176</sup> Sheldon attended the court in August 1672 to conduct the marriage of the king’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy*, earl of Euston (later duke of Grafton), to Arlington’s daughter. Meanwhile he had become suspicious of the uses to which the army raised that summer to contribute to an invasion of the Netherlands might be put. Morley responded to him in September 1672, sharing his suspicions and worrying about the possible effect on his own plans for a negotiation with nonconformists: if the troops</p><blockquote><p>be to be made use of at home, I confess the whole fabric of my scheme is ruined, but so the fabric of the church and state will be also. What will afterwards be formed out of that chaos he that made all out of the first only knows. Yet the darkness which at present covers all that is in design cannot continue much longer.<sup>177</sup></p></blockquote><p>In September 1672 Sheldon informed Morley of the forthcoming prorogation which he attended at the end of October.<sup>178</sup> This prorogation marked a defeat for Sheldon and a victory for Shaftesbury and Clifford. Nevertheless a letter (now lost) from Sheldon to Morley sent late in September or early October appears to have contained encouraging news, probably about the strength of opposition to the Declaration of Indulgence. Morley replied that ‘the close of your Grace’s last gives me hope that there may be an alteration of the present posture’. For Morley a clear indication of Sheldon’s return to favour would have been the elevation of Sheldon’s nephew, John Dolben*, of Rochester, to succeed the recently deceased Cosin at Durham; should that happen, he wrote, he would ‘begin to hope that your grace is or will be shortly restored to the same place you had and ought to have in the king’s trust and favours’.<sup>179</sup></p><p>The see of Durham, however, was for the moment left vacant; Shaftesbury, one of the major proponents of the Declaration, became lord chancellor in November. That same month the appointment of John Tillotson as dean of Canterbury was ascribed to Sheldon’s influence by Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> but it is difficult to be sure that Sheldon really did recommend promotion for a man whose views on toleration and comprehension were so opposed to his own. He did however successfully recommend John Pearson*, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, to the see of Chester in December 1672.<sup>180</sup> At the end of that month, Sheldon, expecting a spring parliamentary session, sent out a letter of summons to the bishops, pre-empting the inevitable excuses on the grounds that he could not dispense with attendance since it was ‘a more than ordinary occasion’ and he had ‘great reason to believe that there is a necessity of raising all the force we can make’. Even Isaac Barrow*, bishop of St Asaph was to attend despite his enervating dispute with his cathedral chapter, ‘for it is likely to be so critical a time... that it admits of no ordinary excuse’.<sup>181</sup> He also directed Henchman to summon all members of Convocation to be ready for ‘a full and entire convention’ at the opening of Parliament since there may be ‘more than ordinary cause for our assistance’.<sup>182</sup> As the excuses trickled in, he insisted on, and received, proxies.<sup>183</sup></p><p>On 4 Feb. 1673, Sheldon attended for the start of the session. He attended 40 per cent of sittings and was named to only one select committee (a private bill on land exchanges in Dorset involving Sir Ralph Bankes<sup>‡</sup>). On the second day of business, when the king insisted in his speech that he would not abandon the Declaration, Sheldon received Morley’s proxy (it was cancelled on 20 October). In January he wrote to his bishops advising them that the king was recommending care in catechizing and on 27 Feb., the Commons voted to bring in a bill to enforce catechism, to be drafted and introduced by the attorney general, Sir Heneage Finch, later Baron Finch.<sup>184</sup> Given Sheldon’s insistence on catechizing as a more useful weapon against Dissent than preaching, these developments may have been stimulated by the archbishop. Though the bill failed, the king’s abandonment of the Declaration of Indulgence, the introduction of a committee to consider the Test bill removing Catholics from office, and the loss of a bill of indulgence to protestant Dissenters indicated a very successful session for the Church. The bill for relief to Protestant nonconformists was introduced into the Commons on 6 March.<sup>185</sup> Sheldon was present when it was sent up to the Lords on 19 Mar. just before the House went into a Committee to consider the Test Bill. He was not named to the sub-committee on the Test, but he attended regularly until the successful passage of the bill on 29 Mar. and the adjournment of Parliament to October.<sup>186</sup> With much relief Sheldon told William Lucy, amongst others, of the withdrawal of the Declaration, and that Parliament had not done anything this session ‘to the prejudice of the Church, nor... will do hereafter, we are therefore left at liberty to proceed as formerly, against such as for the future shall offend.’<sup>187</sup> This was optimistic, for as Morley pointed out in April, no matter what Parliament had achieved, the sectaries were confident of being able to meet and the local justices were almost certainly going to be unwilling to act for ‘they know not what they are to do’ and ‘will not be very forward to put those laws in execution until some public notice be given by way of proclamation or otherwise that they may do so.’<sup>188</sup> Sheldon himself had to admit that those currently under presentment or censure were likely to be protected by the Act of General Pardon.<sup>189</sup> Throughout the spring and summer of 1673, Sheldon was unwell and confined to Lambeth. In June he again lambasted Thomas Wood for bringing the Church into disrepute with his persistent neglect of duty. His illness meant that he was unable to send current intelligence to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex, explaining that he was such ‘a stranger to public business that I am not able to give any… account of it’, though he still attempted to intervene in Irish clerical patronage.<sup>190</sup></p><p>As a new meeting of Parliament in October 1673 drew nearer, Sheldon hurried through the consecration of Humphrey Lloyd*, bishop of Bangor, so that Lloyd could attend Parliament and bolster the episcopal vote. As usual he marshalled the episcopal proxies.<sup>191</sup> On 20 Oct., Sheldon and nine other bishops attended the House for the announcement of a prorogation to 27 Oct., which meant the effective loss of the indulgence bill, left uncompleted at the spring adjournment. Sterne now hoped that the measure was dead and sought Sheldon’s advice about continuing his journey to the capital ‘if there be nothing for us to do at Westminster’ but Sheldon assured him that the session was likely to sit ‘for some time’ with ‘much business and some that nearly concerns us’; Sterne was also told that he should make the journey despite his complaints about the appalling state of the roads.<sup>192</sup> In the House on 27 Oct. 1673, Sheldon attended every sitting of the week-long session. He was named only to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions.</p><p>Sheldon, with good reason, continued to fear attempts to secure some form of religious indulgence. He reluctantly excused William Lucy from attending the session due to assemble on 7 Jan. 1674, despite the need for support for what he described as ‘the now tottering Church’.<sup>193</sup> Present for the start of the session, Sheldon attended thereafter for 31 per cent of sittings but was again not named to any select committees. On 12 Jan. 1674 it was noted at a call of the House that he was unwell and excused. Four weeks later he returned, almost certainly because of the comprehension bill which was read for the first time on 13 Feb. 1674. Sheldon was present on 19 Feb. 1674 for the bill’s second reading. In a ‘great debate’ over the removal of the clerical oath to abjure the covenant and the removal of the contentious words of ‘assent and consent’ from the oath of conformity in order to accommodate Presbyterians, Bishops Morley, Pearson, Ward and Dolben were said to have supported this very moderate re-wording of the declaration: Sheldon’s own attitude is not mentioned.<sup>194</sup> The bill was committed to a committee of the whole House to meet on 25 Feb., but it was lost by the intervening prorogation on 24 February. During the gap before the next session, in July 1674, Sheldon informed Peter Mews*, bishop of Bath and Wells, that he wanted to introduce another bill to enforce catechism; he was now confident of its passage and wanted Mews to draft the bill in time for the next session. In the meantime he began to issue further instructions to the clergy on catechizing.<sup>195</sup></p><h2><em>The alliance with Danby 1674-7</em></h2><p>During the summer of 1674 Sheldon was drawn into Scottish ecclesiastical politics when Archbishop Sharp of St Andrews appealed to him in June to help resist the growing pressure for a national synod in Scotland, although on 28 July Sheldon told Arlington that he had been out of touch with Sharp for several years, and assured Arlington that he would certainly communicate any intelligence worthy of the king’s notice. Sheldon’s recent alliance with a Lauderdale moving towards alignment with a repressive Episcopalian church contributed to the reinstatement of Alexander Burnet as archbishop of Glasgow in September.<sup>196</sup> Sheldon was also bolstered by the ascendancy of Thomas Osborne*, created Viscount Latimer in August 1673, and advanced to earl of Danby in 1674, and the change in royal policy this represented. Over the winter of 1674-5, Sheldon worked on the king’s request for episcopal advice on Catholic recusants and protestant nonconformists.<sup>197</sup> In the new year of 1675, Sheldon and the bishops recommended that the king ‘discountenance libertines’ and execute the penal laws ‘against papists and fanatics’.<sup> <sup>198</sup></sup> On 25 Jan. 1675 Sheldon hosted a conference at Lambeth Palace that brought leading privy councillors together with five bishops to discuss religious policy. It was suspected that Danby and York intended that the meeting to sow dissension among the bishops but Sheldon had clearly packed the episcopal representation, ensuring that any who ‘were mildly inclined’ were not invited to attend. He apparently did not contribute to the discussions himself: Morley and Ward dominated the discussion and Sheldon gave his ‘silent consent’. The result was a decision to ask for the strict enforcement of the penal laws against nonconformists and Catholics.<sup>199</sup> The conclusions of the meeting were in their essentials brought into effect through an order in council of February. On 24 Feb. Sheldon underlined in a message to Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, that the new policy had the complete backing of the king, and that he should ‘speedily and effectually proceed against them [nonconformists] according to law and not longer suffer such a mischief among us which seems to tend to a rebellion’.<sup>200</sup></p><p>On 29 Mar., preparing for the new session with some confidence, Sheldon summoned the bishops claiming that the king declared that ‘religion (as it ought) shall have the priority in their debates, and the settlement thereof (if possible) concluded before anything else either of public or private consequence’. As usual, he claimed that there was ‘a more than ordinary occasion for... attendance this session of Parliament’ and that proxies must be supplied in the event of any absence.<sup>201</sup> Sheldon attended for the start of the session on 13 Apr., but this time attended only 19 per cent of sittings. He was named to just the one select committee, on the bill to prevent frauds. On 15 Apr., Danby’s non resisting test bill was introduced into the Lords. He was present throughout the initial ‘very hot debates’, the bishops’ votes being vital to the success of the bill. The bill was debated, committed, amended and recommitted in the upper House until 2 June before being lost with the prorogation on 9 June. Sheldon did not attend after 26 Apr., registering his proxy in favour of Richard Sterne the following day (vacated at the end of the session). Two days later it was noted at a call the House that he was absent but had registered his proxy.</p><p>Despite the general trajectory of policy, Sheldon’s sway over ecclesiastical appointments had not recovered sufficiently to block the influence of others at court; he had been horrified at the elevation the previous April (through the influence of Secretary Sir Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup>) of Thomas Barlow*, as bishop of Lincoln. In June 1675, Sheldon refused to consecrate Barlow; Morley had to officiate in his place at Ely House.<sup>202</sup> In contrast, Sheldon was one of those who pressured John Fell to accept the see of Oxford some months later, telling Fell that it would be ‘a great mischief’ if he refused since it would appear that he was trying to evade ‘that hazard and suffering which threatens the Church’.<sup>203</sup> Sheldon’s limited ability to control the episcopate was underlined by the publication in June of <em>The Naked Truth</em> by Herbert Croft in support of comprehension: Samuel Parker’s later memories of Sheldon’s resentment of ‘treachery’ among the episcopate may have been related to its publication.<sup>204</sup></p><p>Sheldon attended on the first day of the October 1675 session, but his attendance continued the decline that had been noticeable for some years—he appeared at only 14 per cent of sittings and was named to no select committees—and on 27 Oct., he attended the House for the final time; a call of the House on 10 Nov. 1675 noted that he was excused attendance. Ten days later when the votes of 16 bishops (including proxies) helped to block a motion to address the king to dissolve Parliament. Parliament was prorogued on 22 Nov. and did not reassemble for 15 months. In February 1676 it was rumoured that Sheldon was poised to suspend Croft from office.<sup>205</sup> In order to strengthen the case against comprehension, in January 1676 Sheldon directed Henry Compton*, bishop of London to collect statistics of recusancy and Dissent, the results of which have since come to be known as the Compton census.<sup>206</sup></p><p>By August 1676, Sheldon’s age and infirmity suggested that there would soon be a vacancy at Lambeth. He was delegating more and more to Compton, who, according to the French ambassador, was ‘trying to put in a bid for his position’.<sup>207</sup> At the start of 1677, Compton, now increasingly in control, reminded Sheldon of the approaching session of Parliament and that the king had laid ‘some stress upon a full Parliament at the first meeting’. Sheldon sent his customary reminder for bishops to attend in person or send a proxy in time for the first day of the session, again using the now well-worn formula that ‘there may be more than ordinary occasion for our assistance’.<sup>208</sup> Parliament assembled on 15 Feb. 1677, but Sheldon did not attend. On 9 Mar. he was excused attendance at a call of the House and on 13 Mar. once again registered his proxy in favour of Sterne of York (vacated with Sheldon’s death). On 14 Apr. Sheldon’s baptism and catechizing bill passed its third reading in the Lords but it subsequently failed in the Commons.<sup>209</sup> Sheldon suffered ‘a painful fit’ in September and on 24 Oct. it was said that ‘his recovery is thought impossible’. On 29 Oct. it was reported that ‘very well recovered’ from a ’most severe fit of the strangury’ (bladder retention) but he died 11 days later at Lambeth.<sup>210</sup></p><p>The day after Sheldon’s death, ‘a very scandalous epitaph’ was pasted to the pillars of the Covent Garden piazza.<sup>211</sup> To counter the slurs, an elegy came out in print almost immediately.<sup>212</sup> John Skeffington, Viscount Massereene [I], one of Sheldon’s numerous contacts in Ireland, spoke of his ‘grateful and affectionate resentment’ for Sheldon, ‘whose kindness I want every day in my present distance from court’.<sup>213</sup> Newsletters reported that Sterne of York had refused translation to Canterbury, leaving three contenders for the succession, Compton, John Fell and Sir Leoline Jenkins. Remarkably it was said that Jenkins, who was not even ordained, was the most likely to succeed.<sup>214</sup> Morley had already informed Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, that either Compton or Seth Ward should succeed as archbishop, but in reality Sheldon’s succession was still being debated, not least because the duke of York was blocking the translation of Compton.<sup>215</sup> In the event, Sheldon was succeeded by one his own protégés, William Sancroft. According to his own directions, Sheldon was buried on 16 Nov. at Croydon parish church next to the tomb of archbishop John Whitgift<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury. Sheldon’s nephew (and lord mayor of London) Sir Joseph Sheldon erected a white marble monument, thought by contemporaries to have cost at least £800.<sup>216</sup> Renowned amongst his peers for his generosity towards the Church, Sheldon was reputed to have spent in £72,000 in ‘acts of munificence and charity’ and bequeathed the residue of his personal estate to his brother’s children whom he named as his executors.<sup>217</sup> His will included a deliberate profession of his ‘abhorrence of the sects’ and his faith in the catholicity of the Church of England.</p><p>Sheldon’s most prestigious physical legacy was the Sheldonian theatre in Oxford. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>, it was funded entirely out of personal income, at a cost of over £14,000. His political legacy is far harder to assess. Gilbert Burnet*, historian and (well after Sheldon’s time) bishop of Salisbury, wrote that Sheldon perceived religion as ‘an engine of government and a matter of policy’.<sup>218</sup> Sheldon was clearly a formidable ecclesiastical politician, though the evidence for his political activities is surprisingly difficult to gather. Sheldon’s own surviving correspondence reveals a man who was closely concerned with protecting the institution and function of the Church, who marshalled the attendance of his bishops in the Lords with some determination. Nevertheless, there is less evidence for his direct political interventions in the House of Lords or elsewhere: others, such as George Morley or Henry Compton, acted more overtly, presumably with the approval of Sheldon. Roger Morrice later commented that Compton was used as Sheldon’s ‘tool and monkey to pull the chestnut out of the fire when he himself thought not fit to do it’.<sup>219</sup> Sheldon’s opposition to dispensation with the Act of Uniformity in August 1662 is one of the few occasions on which it is possible to discern Sheldon himself making an open stand on an issue. His declining attendance throughout the 1670s was presumably principally the result of ill-health, though also a sign of increasing difficulty in managing the increasingly complex and bewildering politics of a court deeply divided over religious policy.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
SKINNER, Robert (1591-1670) |
<p><strong><surname>SKINNER</surname></strong>, <strong>Robert</strong> (1591–1670)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 29 July 1667 |
cons. 15 Jan. 1637 bp. of BRISTOL; transl. 16 Dec. 1641 bp. of OXFORD; transl. 4 Nov. 1663 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 12 Feb. 1591, 2nd s. of Edmund Skinner, rect. Pitsford Northants. and Bridget, da. of Humphrey Radcliff of Warws. <em>educ</em>. Brixworth g.s.; Trinity, Oxf. matric. 1606, BA 1610, fell. 1613, MA 1614; incorp. Camb. 1615, BD 1621, DD 1636. <em>m</em>. Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1644), da. of Bernard Banger, esq. beadle of Oxf. 4s. 4da. (10ch. <em>d.v.p.</em>) <em>d</em>. 14 June 1670; <em>will</em> 2 Apr. 1670, pr. 7 July 1670.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I 1629.</p><p>Preacher, St Gregory’s by St Paul’s London 1621-30; rect. Pitsford, Northants. 1628-36, Launton, Oxon. 1631-63, Green’s Norton, Northants. 1636-43, seq. 1643; vic. Cuddesdon Oxon. 1641, seq. 1646, ?restored 1660-3; royal commr. Univ. Oxf. 1660.</p> |
|
<p>A veteran of the Caroline episcopate, Robert Skinner was born in the Northamptonshire parish where his father was rector and holder of the advowson. Skinner’s branch of the family was part of a kinship network with the Rainsfords, a long-established gentry family from Northampton, and he also appears to have been related by marriage to Sir Edward Littleton<sup>‡</sup> of Staffordshire.<sup>2</sup></p><p>A propagandist for Laudian ecclesiastical policies, Skinner had secured elevation to the episcopate in 1637. He was imprisoned in the Tower in 1641 but during the proscription of the Church, continued to write and study, and (according to his own, probably exaggerated, account) secretly ordained between 400 and 500 men including the Robert Frampton*, the future bishop of Gloucester.<sup>3</sup> He, nevertheless, earned the enmity of Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, by his reluctance to become involved in the clandestine consecration of new bishops, thus threatening the integrity of the apostolic succession and hence the very survival of the Church of England.<sup>4</sup> At the Restoration he was therefore left in the impoverished see of Oxford.</p><p>Skinner was not amongst the royal appointees to the Savoy conference but had a significant role in convocation.<sup>5</sup> On 21 June 1661 he was entrusted with framing a series of visitation articles.<sup>6</sup> As one of the visitors of Oxford University he also played an important part in purging both it and his diocese of former parliamentarians, participating in a visitation that treated the surviving members of the university ‘as vigorously … as if papists or heretics’.<sup>7</sup> He resumed his place in the House of Lords at the readmission of the bishops on 20 Nov. 1661, thereafter attending almost every sitting to the end of the session in May 1662 and being named to 12 committees. He was clearly not one of the favoured inner circle of Restoration churchmen and did not attend the Privy Council meeting on 24 Feb. 1662 for the reading of the revised book of common prayer. On 5 Mar. 1662 in convocation, however, Skinner led the deliberations on the parliamentary revisions to the liturgy.<sup>8</sup> He spent his day commuting between the House and convocation.</p><p>Back at Launton rectory in the summer of 1662, he expressed impatience at delays in producing the standard book of visitation articles and asked whether a uniform liturgy for the consecration of churches could be added to the final document, but ‘something amiss’ in the draft led to that provision being laid aside. More than three years later the articles had still not been finalized, and Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London, asked Skinner to prompt him about the matter when they next met at Parliament.<sup>9</sup> Skinner’s failure to gain promotion continued to rankle, and in August 1662 when he learned from William Roberts*, of Bangor that ‘the ancient bishops were not removed because they did not (as they were bound in duty) relieve their mother the Church when she stood in most need in point of ordination’ he was prompted to write at length to Sheldon justifying his conduct in the Civil Wars and Interregnum and excusing his inability to do more by reason of his poverty ‘for I was deep in debt before I was settled at Bristol and came thence near £300 in debt, yet the king had what I could give him, my horses and £30 which was all the money I received till the king’s return’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1663, perhaps intending to arrive after the start of the session, Skinner entered his proxy in favour of George Griffith*, of St Asapah. In the event he arrived for the start of the 1663 session and attended for nearly two-thirds of sittings. A committed conformist in the Sheldon mould, there is no evidence that Skinner supported any of Clarendon’s initiatives to soften the Act of Uniformity.<sup>11</sup> Eventually his excuses bore fruit and the royal directive for his translation to Worcester was despatched on 21 June 1663.<sup>12</sup> Skinner had sat for the last time that session the previous day and so was absent from the House on 23 July when George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, tried to impeach Clarendon. In his forecast of the vote Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, assumed that Skinner’s proxy would be used to support the chancellor, but there is no record of a proxy for this date. It seems likely that Sheldon had been involved in healing the breach between Skinner and the chancellor. In September, responding to a complaint about the lack of a vicar for Chipping Norton, Sheldon explained the difficulty attending the appointment and assured Clarendon that Skinner had ‘behaved himself well in his diocese’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>As the new bishop of Worcester, Skinner’s, attendance in the House for the two sessions between March 1664 and March 1665 was almost constant: in both sessions he appeared for some 90 per cent of sessions. In the first of these sessions (1664), he was appointed only to the sessional committees, but in the 1664-5 session he was named to 13 select committees on a range of public and private bills. In 1664 he was present throughout the passage of the first Conventicle bill.</p><p>Skinner’s parliamentary career was now almost at a close. He did not attend the Oxford Parliament in autumn 1665 and on 17 Oct. 1665 registered his proxy in favour of George Morley*, of Winchester, for the remainder of the brief session. The following session he registered his proxy in favour of Humphrey Henchman*, of London, on 5 Oct. 1666. He made his last appearances in the House on 25 and 29 July to hear the formal prorogations. Thereafter he simply registered proxies: to William Nicholson*, of Gloucester, on 1 Oct. 1667; George Hall*, of Chester, on 15 Feb. 1668 (vacated 20 Apr. 1668), and again to Morley on 19 Oct. 1669 (vacated at the end of the session in December 1669) and on 15 Mar. 1670 (vacated with Skinner’s death in June).</p><p>On 7 June 1670 Thomas Lamplugh*, the future archbishop of York, informed the secretary of state Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> that Skinner’s cathedral city was ‘very loyal and well-affected’ and the mayor effective in suppressing conventicles but that the bishop was ill ‘with an issue’.<sup>14</sup> Leaving provision for his four daughters (including Elizabeth who had married the Member for Worcester, Thomas Hall<sup>‡</sup>) and four sons, Skinner left nearly £1,500 in money bequests in addition to the portions already settled on his daughters. He had appointed his son, William, as rector of Hartlebury, his son, Matthew, became a doctor of medicine and another son, Robert, entered the law.<sup>15</sup> One of the bishop’s great-grandsons, Matthew Skinner<sup>‡</sup>, sat for Oxford in 1734. Bishop Skinner died on 14 June 1670 and was buried in Worcester Cathedral.</p> |
B.A. |
|
SMALRIDGE, George (1662-1719) |
<p><strong><surname>SMALRIDGE</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1662–1719)</p> |
|
|
First sat 5 Apr. 1714; last sat 18 Apr. 1719 |
cons. 4 Apr. 1714 bp. of BRISTOL |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 18 May 1662, s. of Thomas Smalridge, citizen and dyer of Lichfield. <em>educ</em>. Lichfield g.s.; Westminster; Christ Church Oxf. BA 1686, MA 1689, ord. 1693, BD 1698, DD 1701. <em>m</em>. 18 July 1700, Mary (<em>d</em>.1729), da. of Dr Samuel De L’Angelo, preb. of Westminster, 2s. (1s. <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. <em>d</em>. 27 Sept. 1719; <em>will</em> 4 July 1715, pr. 23 Nov. 1719.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. ord. 1710; lord almoner 1714-15.</p><p>Preb. Lichfield 1693-1714; minister, Broadway Chapel, Westminster 1698; lecturer, St Dunstan-in-the-West, London 1708-11; canon, Christ Church, Oxf. 1711-13; dean, Carlisle 1711-13, Christ Church, Oxf. 1713-19.</p><p>Busby trustee, Westminster Sch. 1702; dep. prof. of divinity 1700-6; commr. 50 new churches 1711,<sup>2</sup> Q. Anne’s Bounty, c.1712.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by G. Kneller, c.1714, Christ Church, Oxf.; line engraving by G. Vertue, aft. Kneller, 1724, NPG D27452 ; oil on canvas, by unknown artist, bef. 1714, Christ Church, Oxf.; Oil on canvas, by unknown artist, Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives.</p> |
<p>The son of a Lichfield dyer, Smalridge acknowledged that he owed his ‘present grandeur and future hopes’ to the patronage of another Lichfield Oxfordian, Elias Ashmole, who supported his education and his attendance at Oxford.<sup>4</sup> Despite the grandeur, Smalridge does not appear to have improved his financial situation through his career in the episcopate; at his death, his main bequests were in the form of three modest exchequer orders from the 1711 and 1712 lotteries. Smalridge was one of a talented group of contemporaries at Westminster School who all went on to be students at Christ Church, Oxford, Tory clerics: the others were Francis Gastrell*, who became bishop of Chester, and Francis Atterbury*, who became bishop of Rochester. Smalridge’s political views are evident in his surviving correspondence with the inveterate gossip Dr Arthur Charlett, master of University College from 1692, in which they exchanged parliamentary, political and university news.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Smalridge was vehemently against the religious policies of James II, responsible for one of the pamphlets demolishing the propaganda efforts of Obadiah Walker, the convert head of University College, that emanated from the circle in Christ Church.<sup>6</sup> He took the oaths to William and Mary, but in 1715 it was reported that he claimed always to have condemned the resistance that had brought about the Revolution.<sup>7</sup> Throughout his early career, he showed a keen interest in both university and parliamentary politics (particularly elections to the Commons). After the Commons’ rejection of the bill for preserving their majesties’ person and government in December 1692, Smalridge thanked the Tory Sir Henry Gough<sup>‡</sup> for opposing a new oath for all office-holders that he was convinced would be used to hound ‘scrupulous Tories’ from office. By 1697 Smalridge was reporting on the electoral hopes of Walter Chetwynd<sup>‡</sup>; the following year he was equally concerned about the chances of Sir Edward Bagot<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>8</sup> Smalridge during the 1690s became a well-established figure at Oxford, involved like his companions in Christ Church in the defence of the visitatorial powers of Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, and the controversy over Richard Bentley’s demolition of Charles Boyle’s edition of the epistles of Phalaris.<sup>9</sup> Following his election to a Westminster living in 1698, he became better known also in London. In 1701 he published in support of Atterbury’s defence of the constitutional rights of Convocation; he preached to the Commons in 1702, and before the queen in 1705.<sup>10</sup> Closely following Westminster politics, in December 1704 he complained bitterly about opposition to the tack of the occasional conformity bill: ‘the party which some weeks ago found itself so strong, doth now upon all divisions ... appear so weak, as to be able to carry nothing they contend for’.<sup>11</sup> Highly regarded by the queen, Smalridge had hopes of rapid career advancement during her reign. With influential supporters in John Sharp*, archbishop of York, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, the queen promised him the regius chair of divinity at the next vacancy.<sup>12</sup> His expectations were wrecked by the bishoprics’ crisis when the coveted regius chair went instead to John Potter<sup>†</sup>, the future archbishop of Canterbury. He probably also faced the opposition of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury. In 1708, anticipating a difficult time in Convocation, Tenison feared the damage that Smalridge could do if, as seemed likely, he were to be elected as prolocutor, though it was Atterbury’s likely election that provoked the prorogation of Convocation in November 1709. He was convinced that Smalridge and Atterbury were the authors of a recently published partisan account of proceedings in 1705.<sup>13</sup> Smalridge would blame Tenison’s taciturn response for the failure of Anglican-Prussian ecumenical talks after 1710, a subject in which he had taken much interest as a result of contacts with the scholar John Ernest Grabe in Oxford.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Smalridge and Atterbury were again much in evidence at the trial of Henry Sacheverell provided; relishing the occasion, he described the emotive speech of Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, at the trial as ‘the noblest entertainment that ever audience had’.<sup>15</sup> In the subsequent parliamentary election campaign, Smalridge worked for a Tory victory paying particular attention to the need to counter Whig smears that Harley was unsound on the question of the succession.<sup>16</sup> The Tory victory provided a boost for Smalridge’s career. He was made a royal chaplain and worked closely with Atterbury in promoting the high-flying agenda for Convocation. Yet, despite John Sharp’s best endeavours, further preferment proved elusive. In December 1710 his speech in support of Atterbury’s election as prolocutor of Convocation referred to the frequent prorogations by Archbishop Tenison. Although Smalridge conceded that this was done not out of ‘evil intent ... [but] from a pious fear of differences’, his speech must have sounded a warning to the Whig peers and bishops when he pointed out that the House of Commons and the lower house of Convocation were both under the direction of two men (William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> and Atterbury) who were ‘happily instructed in the same principles’.<sup>17</sup> Yet the close association between Smalridge and Atterbury was broken as Smalridge continued to support Oxford (as Harley had become) while Atterbury gravitated towards Harcourt and Henry St John*, later Viscount Bolingbroke, and, when Atterbury was appointed Dean of Christ Church following the death of their mentor, Henry Aldrich, he alienated many of his colleagues with a determined programme of reform and decanal assertion. The dispute was only resolved when Atterbury was promoted to the episcopate. He was succeeded by Smalridge.</p><p>Smalridge was himself nominated to the see of Bristol on 13 Mar. 1714 (though he was permitted to hold with it in commendam the deanery of Christ Church).<sup>18</sup> He was consecrated at Lambeth on 4 Apr. and received his writ of summons the following day, enabling to take his seat in time for the closely fought division on the danger to the Protestant succession. Despite having missed the first two months of business, he attended a total of 54 per cent of sittings in his first parliamentary session. His parliamentary career up to 1715 unsurprisingly revealed him as a loyal supporter of the Oxford ministry, although it was reported that on 13 Apr. 1714 he voted with the majority of bishops against the ministry over an amendment to the address.<sup>19</sup> In May 1714 Smalridge was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as a supporter of the schism bill. On 7 June 1714 he spoke in favour of adding a clause to the bill to protect foreign Protestant schools.<sup>20</sup> Four days later Smalridge voted in favour of empowering the committee to receive a clause extending the bill to Ireland, and on 15 June he voted with the Tory majority for the passage of the bill. On 22 June he reported from the committee on the Bristol poor bill, one in which as bishop of Bristol he undoubtedly had a strong interest. On 24 June he reported from the committee on the recusants bill. Shortly before the end of the session in July, he became involved in attempts to defuse the theological dispute in Convocation concerning Samuel Clarke’s doubts about the full divinity of Christ.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Smalridge first attended the first parliamentary session called on the demise of Queen Anne on 3 Aug. 1714 and attended 82 per cent of sittings. However, with the arrival of George I he again found himself in danger of being excluded from power. In Bristol, the succession was greeted with a Tory-Jacobite ‘coronation day’ riot.<sup>22</sup> In a foretaste of what was to come, Daniel Defoe’s inflammatory <em>Secret History of the White Staff</em> named Atterbury as the mastermind of a Jacobite conspiracy and Smalridge as a co-conspirator. Nottinghham, however, was said to have kept both Smalridge and John Robinson*, bishop of London, in office by ‘declaring in council that putting them out … would disoblige 3 parts in 4 of the nation’ so that it was ‘not shame or repentance keeps them and others in, but fear.’<sup>23</sup> But Smalridge ruined his chances of a reconciliation to the new regime when in November 1715 he refused to sign the ‘abhorrence’ of the Jacobite rebellion. His reasons were subjected to critical and ‘virulent’ scrutiny which in turn sparked a predictably vehement Tory response.<sup>24</sup> Although Smalridge claimed that he had merely disliked the phrasing of the declaration and wished to add wording of his own, his refusal was ‘much resented by the court’ and was perceived as an attempt to provide the Tories with an opportunity ‘to render the declaration abortive.’<sup>25</sup></p><p>At the end of 1715 Smalridge lost his position as lord almoner. His dismissal was, with good reason, attributed to his alleged Jacobite sympathies.<sup>26</sup> He continued to attend Parliament registering his protest or dissent on numerous occasions.<sup>27</sup> He supported Oxford against impeachment and exchanged proxies almost exclusively with Tory bishops. In 1717 he complained that he was ‘little able to do any the least good in Parliament’ but, nevertheless, promised Oxford that he would attend when necessary.<sup>28</sup> His active parliamentary career as a member of the Tory opposition after 1715 will be examined in detail in the next phase of this work.</p><p>On 27 Sept. 1719, at the age of 57 and having spent the previous day suffering from intermittent chest pains, Smalridge died suddenly at Christ Church.<sup>29</sup> A posthumously published collection of the bishop’s sermons was a literary and financial success. Despite his alleged Jacobitism, in 1732, Queen Caroline remembered Smalridge as ‘one of the greatest honour to the bench but ... timorous’.<sup>30</sup> He was buried on 29 Sept. 1719 in Christ Church Cathedral.</p> |
B.A. |
|
SMITH, Thomas (1614-1702) |
<p><strong><surname>SMITH</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1614–1702)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 19 Aug. 1689 |
cons. 29 June 1684 bp. of CARLISLE |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 21 Dec. 1614, s. John Smith, yeoman farmer of Whitewall, Asby, Westmld. <em>educ</em>. Free sch. Appleby-in-Westmld.;<sup>1</sup> Queen’s, Oxf. BA 1635, MA 1639, BD 1660, DD 1660. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1655, Catherine (1606-76), da. of Sir George Dalston<sup>‡</sup>, bt. of Dalston, Cumb. and wid. of Sir Henry Fletcher, bt. of Hutton Hall, Cumb. <em>s.p</em>. (2) 1676, Anna (c.1631-98), da. of (name unknown) Baddeley and wid. of Richard Wrench, preb. Durham, <em>d.s.p. d</em>. 12 Apr. 1702; <em>will</em> 27 Sept.-8 Oct. 1700.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Fell. Queen’s, Oxf. 1639; praelector in Hebrew, Oxf. 1639.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Chap. to Lady Catherine Fletcher, 1652; preb. Durham 1660-84, Carlisle 1660-1; dean Carlisle 1671.</p><p>Chap. to Charles II 1660.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by J. Smith, 1701, after T. Stephenson.</p> |
<p>Thomas Smith, the son of a yeoman farmer, was first cousin to Thomas Barlow*, later bishop of Lincoln, with whom he shared the same school and Oxford college.<sup>4</sup> As a fellow of Queen’s, Smith would have known Thomas Cartwright*, later bishop of Chester, and John Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, son of Sir Edward Nicholas<sup>‡</sup>, as well as the future secretary of state, Joseph Williamson<sup>‡</sup> (who described Smith as ‘one of the first instruments’ of his fortune).<sup>5</sup> The college connection was probably a significant factor in Smith’s future political network. After the surrender of Oxford in 1646, Smith returned to Cumbria where he became chaplain, and later husband, to the widowed Catherine, Lady Fletcher, at Cockermouth. With the marriage, Smith acquired a stepson in the person of Sir George Fletcher<sup>‡</sup> (whom he had tutored at Queens). Three years later his stepdaughter, Barbara, married Sir Daniel Fleming<sup>‡</sup>, another of Smith’s pupils at Queens.</p><p>Smith’s connections served him well at the Restoration. Granted a royal chaplaincy in 1660, Smith sought Williamson’s assistance for the prebend of Durham, where he shared a high church ethos with John Cosin*, the bishop, and canon Guy Carleton*, later successively bishop of Bristol and Chichester.<sup>6</sup> Smith’s refusal to come south in 1660 to receive his doctorate in person led Anthony Wood to mutter that Smith (despite his scholarly merit) was busying himself with his affairs in the north and had obtained both academic and ecclesiastical promotion ‘clancularly’.<sup>7</sup> By October 1660 Smith was deeply enmeshed in the role he would act out for the rest of his life: that of information conduit, intermediary and patron. He interceded with both Nicholas and Williamson on behalf of Sir George Fletcher, and was particularly anxious for success, ‘having pledged his credit at Whitehall thereon’, and for Sir Daniel Fleming, whilst warning Williamson that the Cumbrian gentry did not favour the appointment of Charles Howard*, soon to be created earl of Carlisle, as governor of Carlisle.<sup>8</sup></p><p>With his first wife averse to his being a residentiary, Smith gave up ‘the idea of obtaining any other benefice, sinecure or not’ and settled for the Durham prebend. In April 1661 he reported that the Cumberland election, had been won by his stepson Sir George Fletcher and Sir Patricius Curwen<sup>‡</sup>, though whether he had been actively engaged in the contest is unclear.<sup>9</sup> Smith, Fletcher and Fleming maintained a solid alliance throughout the decade. Their extensive correspondence attests to the close and friendly relationship between Smith and Fleming, one of whose sons later became Smith’s domestic chaplain.<sup>10</sup> The state papers for the 1660s similarly attest to a mutually informative correspondence with Williamson that included intelligence reports and newsletters, as well as details of legislation, government activity, diplomatic and foreign affairs. Williamson used Smith as a political informant on the ground, a linchpin in the government’s struggle against radical political activism in the north.</p><p>The Appleby by-election of 1668 brought Smith firmly into electoral politics when he campaigned on behalf of Williamson. Smith used ‘all endeavours’ to counter the interest of Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke (on behalf of her grandson Thomas Tufton*, the future 6th earl of Thanet). Smith, Fleming and Fletcher sat up into the small hours writing letters of support for Williamson, including an address from the gentry to Lady Pembroke. Smith confirmed that he would be at the hustings if it came to an electoral fight, but predicted (accurately) that Williamson’s attempt was ‘desperate’, since Lady Pembroke ‘has the power of life and death in the matter’.<sup>11</sup> Smith’s efforts were, nevertheless, acknowledged when the king directed that he should swap his existing prebend at Durham for a better.<sup>12</sup> Smith was fast becoming an important part of the northern establishment. In August 1671 he hosted the commission to view the bishop’s palace (Rose Castle) in a dilapidations suit; its members included the earl of Carlisle and Sir George Fletcher.<sup>13</sup> He was perfectly placed for the vacant deanery of Carlisle, where he was installed on 3 Dec. 1671 to the accompaniment of a boys’ choir at Fleming’s expense.<sup>14</sup> Although Carlisle’s electoral politics had been dominated by the Howards of Naworth and the Musgraves of Edenhall, the cathedral influence was a significant factor. Smith’s appointment as dean strengthened the Fletcher electoral interest in Carlisle at the expense of the Musgraves, and his appointment coincided with a period in which Carlisle’s factional feuding intensified.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The June 1675 by-election in Cockermouth placed Smith in an awkward position given his family relationship with Sir George Fletcher. The Percys of Northumberland, Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, Fletcher, and Fletcher’s own stepson Sir Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup> (later Viscount Preston [S]) were all interest-holders.<sup>16</sup> Fletcher backed Grahme’s candidacy; Williamson sought Smith’s assistance for the Percy client, Orlando Gee<sup>‡</sup>. It is unclear how far Smith obliged Williamson: in the same month Williamson’s sister-in-law paid to Smith monies due from the Bridekirk quarry (in the vicinity of Smith’s Cockermouth residence), though this may have been coincidental.<sup>17</sup> Gee was not elected on that occasion, losing to Grahme.<sup>18</sup> In September 1676 Sir Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> (Fletcher’s political adversary) told Williamson that Smith was about to remarry. Smith’s first wife had died only five months earlier, in April. His prospective bride had been a widow since the death of her husband, Richard Wrench, in October 1675.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Smith’s absence from court for more than seven years was now causing concern; as Williamson informed Fleming in September 1676, ‘I cannot but think it is not well in him, for his own sake, for his friends’ sake, and for the Church’. In November 1677 Fleming wrote to Williamson in an attempt to secure a promotion for Smith either as a bishop or as dean of Durham as part of the ecclesiastical reshuffle that was bound to follow the recent death of Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury. Smith, he pointed out, had the advantage of ‘so kind and real a friend’ as Williamson at court but, nevertheless, ‘so many of his juniors have outgone him in preferment’. <sup>20</sup> In response Williamson wrote that:</p><blockquote><p>I am far from forgetting Mr Dean of Carlisle. I have too great obligations to his ancient kindness and favour, to forget him; and I am extremely troubled that he has pleased to separate himself so wholly and so long from all his friends and servants who had otherwise made themselves sure of expressing long ere this their value and service for him.<sup>21</sup></p></blockquote><p>Fleming had claimed to be expressing ‘my own private wishes’ so whether Smith himself was seeking further preferment is unclear. In July 1680, however, possibly in response to Williamson’s anxieties, Smith left the north to visit Oxford.<sup>22</sup></p><p>On 9 Apr. 1684 Smith was nominated to the bishopric of Carlisle.<sup>23</sup> His elevation was clearly intended to strengthen the forces of Tory reaction in the north and to augment the activities of Fleming and Fletcher, who were both active in <em>quo warranto</em> proceedings against charters in the north west of England.<sup>24</sup> The appointment was not universally welcome. On 16 Apr. John Dolben*, archbishop of York, claimed that he had ‘both kindness and esteem’ for the new bishop but did not want to see him promoted since, he suspected, Smith had been put under family pressure ‘to suffer that advancement which will indeed be a suffering to him’. Following his consecration by Dolben, John Lake*, then bishop of Bristol, and Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, Smith embarked on a costly refurbishment of Rose Castle.<sup>25</sup></p><p>As bishop of Carlisle, Smith continued to enjoy the same breadth of political friendships as before, but he now had to overcome increasing physical frailty and a prickly relationship with his zealous archdeacon William Nicolson*, later bishop of Carlisle. Almost immediately after becoming bishop, Smith left for Westminster, breaking his journey to visit his cousin, Barlow.<sup>26</sup> En route he attempted to intervene in the dispute between Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>27</sup> Smith was back at Rose Castle by December 1684, hosting a large gathering of local dignitaries, including the governor and mayor of Carlisle.<sup>28</sup> With the death of Charles II in February 1685, Smith rightly anticipated that Sir Christopher Musgrave would stand for Carlisle in the elections for a new Parliament.<sup>29</sup> Preston’s brother, James Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, was elected, together with Musgrave. It is not clear whether Smith became involved in the contest. In contrast, Smith showed a personal interest in the Cockermouth election on 27 Mar. when Sir Daniel Fleming beat William Wharton into third place by only eight votes. On 22 Apr. Smith informed Fleming that Lord Wharton was investigating the franchise, suspecting that Wharton might dispute the return.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Three weeks previously Smith had received a command to attend the coronation of James II but protested that his age and ‘great inconvenience’ made the journey difficult at such short notice; he was, nevertheless, in London by the end of April 1685.<sup>31</sup> He took his seat on 19 May, the first day of James II’s Parliament. He attended the session for some 57 per cent of sittings (a period in which Fleming was extremely active in the Commons) and was named to two committees.<sup>32</sup> While in London, he continued to keep close contact with Daniel Fleming, offering him a lift in his coach to Parliament.<sup>33</sup> The session ended on 20 Nov. and by December Smith was back at Rose Castle attending to his social obligations.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Smith dismissed the rumour that a parliamentary session would be held in April 1686, not least because Sir John Lowther*, later Viscount Lonsdale, had paid him a welcome visit and insisted that Parliament would shortly be dissolved. Smith continued to sustain amicable relations with all parties in his diocese, and on 16 Sept. 1686 entertained Fleming, Sir George Fletcher and Sir Christopher Musgrave to defuse yet another factional dispute.<sup>35</sup> He was unsurprisingly listed as an opponent of James II’s catholicizing policies. He read over and approved Fleming’s answer to the three questions ‘as both honest and prudent’, adding that he thought ‘most the gentlemen will agree upon one and the same answer’. Yet he was, nevertheless, ‘most anxious that no one should know that I have seen the proposed answer’.<sup>36</sup> When he learned of the death of Samuel Parker*, bishop of Oxford, in March 1688 he remarked that ‘great pity it is he died not a little sooner’.<sup>37</sup> Smith and Fleming exchanged news of the political purges that were taking place locally, including the change of lord lieutenant and alterations to commissions of the peace for Lancashire and Durham.<sup>38</sup> In June 1688 when the second Declaration of Indulgence was issued, Smith made it clear that he allied himself with the Seven Bishops: ‘I am resolved to concur with my brethren above in the matter of their late petition, and so – it is believed – will all the rest of the bishops except very few’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>At the Revolution, the region was secured for William of Orange by Sir John Lowther. Smith was noted as sick at a call of the House on 25 Jan. 1689. He missed the abdication debates of January and February, not attending the Convention and taking the oaths to William and Mary until 27 March. He attended 45 per cent of sittings and was named to 15 committees. On 31 May he opposed the reversal of the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates, and on 30 July voted for the Lords’ amendments to the bill. On 2 July he also registered his dissent against the impeachment of Sir Adam Blair and others, for conspiracy. Although he had been absent from the House on 11 Mar. when the comprehension bill was introduced into the Lords, he was nevertheless named to the ecclesiastical commission to review the liturgy with a view to comprehension.<sup>40</sup> He did not, however, attend when the commission opened on 10 Oct. in the Jerusalem Chamber.<sup>41</sup> Whether his failure to attend meant that he was unwilling to be involved in discussions about broadening the Church, or was simply too old to make the effort to attend (he was now in his mid 70s, and had avoided travel to London for most of his life) remains unclear. Smith’s attendance at the House on 19 Aug. proved to be his last. He registered his proxy in favour of Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, on 9 Nov. 1689. Thereafter, Smith was consistently noted at calls of the House as being excused and aged. Evidence of his involvement in post-Revolution elections in his diocese is uneven. The Cockermouth elections were still fiercely contested with the Percy interest having been adopted by Charles Seymour*, sixth duke of Somerset. It is perhaps an indication of Smith’s own political preference that in March 1690 Sir George Fletcher supported the court supporter Sir Wilfred Lawson<sup>‡</sup> on the gentry interest, while the Whig, Goodwin Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, was defeated.<sup>42</sup> Smith became directly involved in the Carlisle election of 1695 when the Tory Christopher Musgrave<sup>‡</sup> secured Smith’s support and that of his clergy and allegedly, ‘all the Jacobite interest’.<sup>43</sup> Despite the weight of clerical support, Musgrave lost to the combined Whig alliance of the Howards and Lowthers.</p><p>On 6 Feb. 1696 Fleming remarked that Smith had grown ‘very old and infirm’.<sup>44</sup> On 26 Feb. 1696 Smith was excused from attending the House to sign the Association. He was summoned to attend the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, but on 5 Dec. 1696, after reading a letter in which Smith requested leave of absence, the House was satisfied of his inability to attend. Such was his state of health that Evelyn assumed that Carlisle would need a new bishop in the near future.<sup>45</sup> The death of Smith’s second wife on 6 Oct. 1698 revealed the continuing strength of Smith’s position. Her burial and funeral banquet were attended by most of the Cumbrian gentry and her body was carried by Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle, Sir Daniel Fleming, Sir Christopher Musgrave, Sir George Fletcher, Sir Wilfred Lawson and Sir Richard Musgrave.<sup>46</sup> Smith’s increasing frailty meant that it was his archdeacon and eventual successor, William Nicolson, who was effectively running the diocese.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Smith died on 12 Apr. 1702 at the age of 88 at Rose Castle and was buried on 17 Apr. in Carlisle Cathedral next to his second wife. In 1689 Smith had assessed his personal estate as worth £500.<sup>48</sup> By the time of his death he had acquired sufficient wealth to leave more than £3000 in legacies and to spend over £5000 on benefactions and public projects in the diocese of Carlisle.<sup>49</sup> His largest personal bequests went to his brothers-in-law Richard and Phineas Baddeley, and to his residuary legatee (and executor) his ‘faithful secretary’, John Nicolson, probably the brother of his archdeacon.</p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
SPARROW, Anthony (1612-85) |
<p><strong><surname>SPARROW</surname></strong>, <strong>Anthony</strong> (1612–85)</p> |
|
|
|
cons. 3 Nov. 1667 bp. of EXETER; transl. 27 Aug. 1676 bp. of NORWICH |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 7 May 1612, s. of Samuel Sparrow of Depden, Suff. and ?Bridget Stubbin of Helions Bumpstead, Essex. <em>educ</em>. Queens’, Camb. matric. 1625, BA 1629, MA 1632, fell. 1633-44, ord. 1635, BD 1639, DD 1661. <em>m</em>. 1 Aug. 1645, Susanna Orrell (c.1614-97) of Withersfield, Suff. at least 9 ch. incl. at least 5da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 19 May 1685; <em>will</em> 18 May, pr. 8 June 1685.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. ord. bef. 1662.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Rect. Hawkedon, Suff. 1647, 1660-7, St Breock, Cronwall 1667-72; adn. Sudbury 1660-7, Exeter 1667-76; preb. Ely 1661-7; dean, St Buryan, Cornwall, 1670-6.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Hebrew praelector, Camb. 1638-9, 1642-3; Greek praelector, Camb. 1640-1; bursar, Camb. 1640-2; censor theologicus, Camb. 1641-2, censor philosophicus, Camb. 1642-3; pres. Queens’, Camb. 1662-7; v.-chan. Camb. 1664-5.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by unknown artist, c.1670, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, other versions at Bishop’s Palace, Exeter, and Queen’s, Camb.</p> |
<p>In June 1637 Anthony Sparrow preached a sermon in Cambridge which strongly implied, if it did not explicitly state, a position on free will which placed Sparrow on a spectrum towards Roman Catholic doctrine even beyond the ceremonialist and clerical views of the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury. Nevertheless, Sparrow, protected by Laud and William Juxon*, then bishop of London, kept his place at Queens’ and even progressed further up the university ladder over the succeeding years. However, from 1640 Sparrow and his Laudian colleagues came under suspicion for their Arminian views. On 8 Apr. 1644, on the orders of Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, he was ejected from his college fellowship for, officially, ‘non-residence and for not returning to college’ when summoned. On 30 Sept. 1647 he was instituted as rector of the parish of Hawkedon, near his home of Depden in Suffolk, but he was ejected within five weeks of his appointment for using the proscribed Book of Common Prayer.<sup>5</sup> His movements over the next several years are unknown, but in 1655 he published (anonymously), <em>A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England</em>, a strong defence of the scriptural and theological validity of the proscribed liturgy. The work became a standard Anglican text and went through a subsequent eight editions and multiple reprintings in Sparrow’s lifetime; the earliest extant copies are from its second edition in 1657.</p><p>At the Restoration he was quickly reinstated to his rectory at Hawkedon and was also elected to a preachership at Bury St Edmunds. On 7 Aug. 1660, helped by Gilbert Sheldon*, then bishop of London, he was made archdeacon of Sudbury in Suffolk.<sup>6</sup> Sparrow, with a number of other surviving Anglicans from the Interregnum, graduated Doctor of Divinty from Cambridge on 31 Aug. under a specific order of the king. New honours and responsibilities followed. On 15 Apr. 1661 he was placed in the second prebendal stall in Ely Cathedral and about this time he was also made a chaplain-in-ordinary to the king.<sup>7</sup> Appointed coadjutor for the delegates representing the Church of England at the Savoy Conference, he, Peter Gunning*, later bishop of Ely, and John Pearson*, later bishop of Chester, were appointed to continue the negotiations with the Presbyterians when the conference ended in the summer of 1661.<sup>8</sup> It seems unlikely that Sparrow would have had much sympathy for the nonconformists’ position, for in that year he produced a further resolute defence of the Church of England, its liturgy, government and right to impose conformity, in his <em>A Collection of Articles, Injunctions and Canons, .... published to vindicate the Church of England and to promote Uniformity</em>. This book too went through multiple reprintings and editions during Sparrow’s lifetime and thereafter and became a standard Anglican text.</p><p>In April 1662 the mastership of Sparrow’s old college of Queens’ at Cambridge became vacant by the death of the incumbent. The king sent a <em>mandamus</em> to the fellows of the college insisting on the election of Sparrow as the new president, but the majority of the fellows instead voted for another graduate Simon Patrick*, later bishop of Ely. The court intruded Sparrow in the office and sought to punish with suspension ‘disobedient fellows ... until they promise dutifulness and gratitude’. Patrick went so far as to take the matter before King’s Bench, but so much pressure was put on him by the king and his chief minister Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, that he was eventually forced to withdraw.<sup>9</sup> This matter was a clear indication of the court’s desire to shore up the position of the high churchmen in the previously ‘puritan’ university of Cambridge, and Sparrow followed these wishes himself while vice chancellor of the university in 1664-5.<sup>10</sup></p><p>His reward for his defence of the established Church of England came on 3 Nov. 1667 when he was consecrated bishop of Exeter. In this new role Sparrow first took his seat in the House on 20 Nov. 1667, arriving about a month into the session. Even after this late arrival he came to a little over two-fifths of this session. He was present at only 16 sittings of the first part of the session in the last weeks of 1667, during which he was placed on two committees on legislation, a private bill and the bill against atheism and swearing (established on 10 Dec. 1667). He almost certainly would have supported his patron Clarendon in the impeachment proceedings against him, but Sparrow left the House on 11 Dec. 1667 and thus did not take part in the debates on the bill for Clarendon’s banishment. Sparrow returned to the House on 30 Mar. 1668, almost two months after the session had resumed after the Christmas recess. He was named on 23 Apr. 1668 to a committee of 12 members of the House entrusted to join with a similar group from the Commons to present to the king the recent vote concerning the importance of promoting English manufacture by a prohibition on foreign apparel. That same day he was further appointed to six committees on legislation, all but one on private bills; these were his only committee nominations of this part of the session.</p><p>Sparrow’s real political strengths lay not in the Lords’ chamber in Westminster, which he attended infrequently, but in the local arena of diocesan politics. Sparrow became Archbishop Sheldon’s chief intelligencer and agent in the West Country, keeping up a constant stream of information about what he saw as a disturbing prevalence of nonconformity in the diocese, and especially in the cathedral city of Exeter. After his return from Westminster in the spring of 1668 he conducted his first visitation of the diocese in which he gave the diocesan clergy, who were (as he wrote to Sheldon in June) ‘too much strangers to the excellent litany’, strict instructions about catechizing.<sup>11</sup> The visitation coincided with the choice of a mayor for Exeter who, Sparrow claimed, had pressed Dissenters into supporting his election. Despite the mayor’s obduracy, Sparrow claimed that both the cathedral chapter and the town’s corporation treated him well. In a series of undated letters to Sheldon he boasted of his progress against conventicles, and that he had been able to cajole magistrates into complying with and enforcing the penal laws, although he still found that part of Devonshire was ‘still infested because the justices of the peace love it [nonconformity] too well’ while too many other magistrates were reluctant to take action, feeling it was ‘no acceptable service to disturb our disturbers’. The bishop’s efforts were not helped by rumours circulating in 1668 and 1669 that the king favoured toleration. He insisted to the nonconformist leaders that ‘it was neither safe nor good manners to take the king’s pleasure from common report, but from his laws’ and that ‘if they were not satisfied with the legal assemblies, they should keep their faith to themselves’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Sparrow’s attitude to Church ceremonial may have been disconcerting to some. Even Cosmo, duke of Tuscany, was surprised to observe Sparrow in his cathedral in the spring of 1669 clothed in vestments similar to those worn by Catholic bishops of the previous century, and conducting a liturgy that rang with organ music and Gregorian chant.<sup>13</sup> Sparrow also sought to maintain the dignity and prestige of the office of bishop and continued to seek additional revenue, both for himself and his see. Upon taking up the post he had been concerned that the impoverished diocese would not allow him ‘to support the dignity episcopal’ and had been granted the rectory of St Breock in Cornwall <em>in commendam</em>. This offer quickly involved Sparrow in a protracted dispute over who had the right of presentation to the rectory, which alternated between the Crown and a private patron. The case was not settled until 1672, when the archbishop gave the rectory to Sparrow’s rival, James Rossington, a decision Sparrow did not accept graciously.<sup>14</sup> Fearing he would lose this source of income, in June 1669 he turned towards the Cornish deanery of St Buryan after the death of its incumbent, and with the help of Sir Thomas Clifford*, later Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, then one of the leading commissioners of the treasury, he was able to procure a grant annexing the deanery, and its income, to the bishopric.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Sparrow did not attend the brief parliamentary session of 19 Oct.-11 Dec. 1669, although a call of the House on 26 Oct. had noted that he was sick but would be attending. He arrived on 14 Feb. 1670 for the first day of the 1670-1 session, but attended for slightly less than one fifth of the sittings, all of which occurred in spring 1670. He was named to seven committees on legislation, the majority on private bills, as well as those on the bills for the sale of fee farm rents (established on 18 Mar. 1670) and for preventing the malicious burning of houses (24 March). He was present on 14 and 15 Mar. 1670 for debates on the second conventicle bill and joined the majority of the bishops in entering his dissent on 17 Mar. against the second reading of the bill for the remarriage of the divorced John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland). On 26 Mar. 1670 Sparrow registered his proxy with Seth Ward*, his predecessor at Exeter and now bishop of Salisbury, but this was cancelled on 31 Mar. when Sparrow returned to the House for the brief period before the adjournment. His last sitting in the session was on 11 Apr. 1670, when Parliament was adjourned for the summer.</p><p>He was obviously pleased to leave the capital and return to Exeter, for he wrote to Sheldon on 22 Apr. that ‘as soon as I was dismissed my attendance I hastened home as fast as I could, but by that time I had finished my journey I had almost ended my life’.<sup>16</sup> Before he left he had been able to witness the royal assent to the second Conventicle Act. Back in Exeter he quickly called on the mayors and magistrates of the most ‘factious’ towns to implement its provisions and was happy to report to Sheldon that the churches were beginning to fill and the conventicles ‘bound to wither’. Fearing another ‘tedious’ journey to Westminster, and complaining of faintness and the need for fresh air, in September he asked Sheldon for a further leave of absence from the House.<sup>17</sup> This was granted and he renewed his proxy with Ward on 14 Oct. 1670, ten days before the commencement of the second part of the session which eventually was prorogued on 22 Apr. 1671.</p><p>In April 1671 Sparrow was happy to report that the ‘loyal party’ had been heartened by the failure of the ‘factious’ in the confused Devonshire by-election which saw the election of Sir Coplestone Bampfylde<sup>‡</sup>. The opposition candidate, Thomas Reynell<sup>‡</sup>, whom Sparrow denounced as ‘a cunning busy Fifth Monarchy man’, was forced to withdraw before the poll.<sup>18</sup> That autumn he completed a tour of 400 miles throughout his diocese during which, as he assured the archbishop, the gentry ‘received the poor bishop as if he had been a prince’, and Richard Arundell*, Baron Arundell of Trerice, had extended to him warm hospitality at his castle. The Exeter corporation also delighted him with its vote that its members should regularly attend cathedral worship ‘in their formalities ... as a way of expressing conformity to the Church’. In the first half of the 1670s Sparrow became increasingly concerned in managing appointments to the commission of the peace in order to enforce religious conformity.<sup>19</sup> The problem of uncooperative justices in parts of Devon was now compounded by more explicit opposition, as ‘the factions grow bold and threaten high those who oppose them’, but he was sure that the few factious corporations there would back down if tackled by the lay magistrates.<sup>20</sup> Central to this project were his allies on the magistrates bench in Devon including Thomas Carew<sup>‡</sup> ‘the chief man in this country for skill and courage and diligence, and who is the oracle of the county, by whom this city [Exeter], is kept in good order’ and John Beare<sup>‡</sup>. Beare’s inclusion on the Devon justices’ bench was controversial, as he was deemed ‘unqualified as he was both in regard to personal property, character, or judicial knowledge’, but before his appointment Beare had assured Sparrow that he would use his power as a magistrate to outlaw ‘the enemies of the Church’. By 1675 Sparrow could tell Sheldon that Beare had ‘done service beyond expectation and reduced the worst part of the county. He was much opposed at his coming in and threatened by the factious to be removed; but if he be, I am sure the Church will suffer for it’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>The 1672 Declaration of Indulgence threatened to undermine the situation. Sparrow told Sheldon that by its provisions he had to witness ‘the poor sheep committed to [his] trust snatched out of the fold by cunning wolves’.<sup>22</sup> It was in this context that Sparrow arrived for the first day of the new session of Parliament on 4 Feb. 1673. He attended two-thirds of the session’s sitting days and left the House on 24 Mar., five days before the long adjournment to 20 October. During the session he was named to seven committees on legislation, all of them private estate or naturalization bills. Sparrow did not depart for Exeter immediately after the adjournment; he preached before the king on Easter Day, 30 Mar., but could barely make himself heard above the clamour of a congregation anxious to see whether James Stuart*, duke of York would refuse communion for a second year in succession – and just one day after the king’s assent to the Test Act.<sup>23</sup> He was back in the capital by 30 Oct. 1673 to take his seat in the new session which began on 27 October. He came to three of the four sittings of this abortive session and was named on 30 Oct. to the committee for the bill to encourage English manufactures. He attended 79 per cent of the sittings of the following session and was there on both its opening day, 7 Jan. 1674, and its prorogation on 24 February. He was named to four committees on legislation, including those on the bills to encourage manufactures in England (8 Jan. 1674) and to prevent illegal imprisonment (17 February).</p><p>It is not clear to what extent Sparrow was integrated in the consultations of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), with the bishops to build a court and Church party, but he surely would have approved of the order-in-council which sought to enforce a more vigorous prosecution of nonconformists and recusants. Sparrow attended a little less than two-thirds of the sittings of the session of 13 Apr.-9 June 1675, during which Danby introduced the bill to impose on all office-holders the contentious oath not to seek any alteration in Church or state. During the session Sparrow was named to six committees on legislation. On 15 Apr. 1675 he was placed on the committee for the bill to prevent frauds and perjuries, and then near the end of the session, on 31 May, he was named to five more, mostly private estate bills as well as the bill to preserve fishing. He did not attend the session of autumn 1675, and on 2 Oct. 1675, almost two weeks before the scheduled start of the session, his proxy was registered with his former colleague from the Savoy Conference, Peter Gunning, now bishop of Ely. Gunning was recorded as using this proxy to vote against the proposed address for the dissolution of Parliament.<sup>24</sup></p><p>As early as April 1676 Danby was planning that Sparrow should replace Edward Reynolds*, the ‘Presbyterian’ bishop of Norwich, whose death was expected imminently.<sup>25</sup> Reynolds had frequently turned a blind eye to the widespread nonconformity in his diocese. Reynolds passed away on 28 July 1676 and Sparrow was formally translated on 27 August. Sparrow was clearly indebted to Danby for this appointment and it is impossible to detach it from Danby’s own larger political agenda in Norfolk, and indeed in the country at large. By 1676 Norfolk was descending into bitter political and partisan conflict. In 1675 the lord lieutenant of the county, Horatio Townshend*, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend, had angered Danby in particular by his strenuous opposition to the election of Danby’s son-in-law, Robert Coke<sup>‡</sup> of Holkham, for King’s Lynn in April 1675 and by his heavy-handed (not to say underhanded) support, in tandem with the country Members Sir John Hobart<sup>‡</sup>, and Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>, for Sir Robert Kemp<sup>‡</sup>, in an election the following month to replace a deceased knight of the shire.<sup>26</sup> Danby in turn oversaw the appointment of one his court dependents and a Bertie kinsman, Robert Paston*, Viscount (later earl of) Yarmouth, as lord lieutenant and vice admiral of Norfolk in place of Townshend in the spring of 1676.<sup>27</sup> Townshend’s followers saw Yarmouth as a firm member of the ‘popish’ and clericalist conspiracy, especially as he and his wife had been patrons for several years of the high Anglican churchmen in the county.<sup>28</sup> The rigorously conformist Sparrow was hand-picked by the lord treasurer to act with Yarmouth against the growing influence of the ‘country’ opposition in a county, and diocese, infamous for its strong pockets of nonconformity. Yarmouth thought highly of the new bishop from the start, commenting approvingly to his wife that Sparrow ‘carries himself like a bishop’, while the ‘right’ clergy in Norfolk, who had become increasingly alienated by Reynolds’s eirenic approach towards Dissent, were also delighted with the translation.<sup>29</sup> For his part Sparrow always spoke highly of Yarmouth in his correspondence.<sup>30</sup> Together, the lay and clerical governor of the county spearheaded an increasingly draconian campaign in Norfolk against both Dissent and the ‘country’ opposition, a campaign made all the more vicious by the personal feud between Yarmouth and his former patron, Townshend, who tried to appoint himself leader of the country movement in the county.<sup>31</sup></p><p>The demands of the political context and his worsening health again affected Sparrow’s attendance at the House. He took his seat for the first time as bishop of Norwich on the first day of the 1677-8 session (15 Feb. 1677), but he only attended 30 per cent of the sittings, all of them in 1677. He was reasonably diligent in his attendance throughout February and March, during which period he was named to 13 committees on legislation. He left the House for a period on 28 Mar., returning only on 16 Apr. when the House was adjourned to 21 May. He sat on three further occasions, the last time on 26 May, two days before the adjournment. It was the last time he attended the Lords, although he survived until the reign of James II. He did not neglect his parliamentary duties entirely and throughout 1678 registered his proxy with Peter Mews*, bishop of Bath and Wells, on three occasions: 1 Jan. 1678 (before the resumption of the 1677-8 session on 28 Jan. after its long adjournment); 22 May 1678 (one day before the session of May-July 1678); and 14 Oct. 1678 (one week before the last session of the Cavalier Parliament, of October-December 1678). Sparrow’s absence from the House is primarily explained by worsening health. On 23 Dec. 1678 two of his servants deposed before the bar that ‘the Lord Bishop of Norwich is so afflicted with the strangury, that, upon riding in a coach, he makes bloody water, and so not able to come to London without danger’.</p><p>Sparrow resumed in his new diocese his crusade, so effective in Exeter, for the appointment of justices who would implement the penal laws in the secular courts.<sup>32</sup> The county town of Norwich, however, presented numerous problems, divided between the large Church interest represented by the cathedral and its officials at its heart, and the strong Dissenting tradition in the city. The bishop thought that the town and its corporation were the ‘worst’ he had ever encountered.<sup>33</sup> Yarmouth used the by-election of spring 1678, held to replace the deceased Christopher Jay<sup>‡</sup>, to install his son, William Paston*, later 2nd earl of Yarmouth, as a knight of the shire, and he received Sparrow’s assurances that he would ‘show his power’ in the ecclesiastical courts as soon as the by-election was out of the way.<sup>34</sup> After Paston’s electoral victory, Yarmouth sought Danby’s permission to assist Sparrow in purging the magistrates’ bench of ‘goats’ and removing ‘a most seditious infuser of ill principles’, John Collins, man of business to Townshend’s ally Sir John Hobart and chaplain to Lady Hobart.<sup>35</sup> This affair led to the bishop receiving a death threat: ‘I will kill you ... the day is fixed ... it is not traditions and ceremonies ... will save you ... you are grown a viper not fit to live, you limb of Satan.’<sup>36</sup> The threat gave Yarmouth the perfect excuse to apprehend nonconformists and to begin his campaign to revoke the city charter.<sup>37</sup> Sparrow claimed that the subsequent ‘regulation’ of the city heartened the ‘loyal party’ and that the Church would benefit. By October 1678 he trumpeted that the corporation, directed by the mayor’s court, came as a body to receive communion ‘to express their affections to the Church’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Yarmouth’s purges had their effect. Norwich returned Paston and Augustine Briggs<sup>‡</sup>, both opponents of Exclusion, for all the Exclusion Parliaments, but Yarmouth’s and Sparrow’s actions exacerbated tensions within the county. Throughout 1679-81 uncontested elections were a rarity in the county and boroughs, with the lord lieutenant and bishop at the centre of the court’s efforts to defeat the strong Presbyterian and country electoral interest represented by Townshend, Hobart and Holland. The Norfolk county election for the first Exclusion Parliament, held on 10 Feb. 1679, was particularly contentious with the ‘fanatic party ... a bawling and ... the cry for Hobart ... very rife’.<sup>39</sup> Sparrow boasted that he and Yarmouth had ‘overcome all the crafty attempts of the parties’ and secured the election of two ‘loyal and pious’ candidates, Sir Christopher Calthorpe<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Neveille Catelyn<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>40</sup> Nevertheless, the defeated country candidate Hobart petitioned the elections committee, alleging that the under-sheriff of the county had snatched away the poll-book before all of Hobart’s supporters had been counted, and the matter swiftly became a partisan <em>cause célèbre</em> in the Commons. Townshend marshalled the witnesses for Hobart, while Yarmouth’s letter to the Commons in support of Calthorpe and Catelyn was deemed to be threatening.<sup>41</sup> The Commons ruled that improper pressure and electioneering tactics had been used and fresh elections were ordered, at which Hobart was returned. The result, from Sparrow’s perspective, merely ‘raised the spirits of the disaffected populacy’. He again excused himself from the journey to London to attend Parliament; in May 1679 he provided written proof of his kidney and bladder problems and at a call of the House on 9 May 1679 he was excused attendance.<sup>42</sup></p><p>For the elections of summer 1679, for the second Exclusion Parliament, Yarmouth’s son and the moderate alderman Briggs won without too much trouble at the poll for Norwich. The court interest represented by Yarmouth (now made an earl) and Sparrow was less successful for the county, where the sitting Member Hobart joined with a moderate, Sir Peter Gleane<sup>‡</sup>, to see off another challenge from Catelyn and Calthorpe, neither of whom by this time had much stomach for the fight. This result impelled Sparrow to deliver to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, one of his optimistic assurances that loyalty was standing firm despite the bad result.<sup>43</sup> Sparrow himself did not attend the second Exclusion Parliament. In his absence complaints were made to the Commons that he had not taken the Test, leading Sparrow to ask Sancroft if he could take the Test anywhere but London. The House itself expressed scepticism about Sparrow’s extended absences and on 22 Oct. 1680 physician Peter Parham, Sparrow’s son-in-law, attested to his illness.<sup>44</sup> At a call of the House on 30 Oct. Sparrow was formally excused attendance because he was ‘sick’. He now appeared vulnerable, exposed to the wave of anticlericalism ranged at the episcopate in general, but perhaps suffering as well for his association with Danby and with Yarmouth’s electoral tactics. These were too heavy-handed even for the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), who reprimanded Yarmouth for trying to delay the summer 1679 election for his own advantage by purposely withholding the writ from the sheriff.<sup>45</sup> Finch forwarded a similar rebuke to Sparrow for neglecting his parliamentary duties and summoned him to attend the House, which prompted another letter to Sancroft in late November begging to be excused.<sup>46</sup></p><p>At this point the country opposition was in a strong position throughout Norfolk. The county election of February 1681 was won by Exclusionists, though only, according to Sparrow, through corruption, ‘the favour of an ill undersheriff and some arts of splitting votes and a cunning way of swearing’.<sup>47</sup> Dejected by constant pain, he did not attend the week-long Oxford Parliament in March 1681 but asked Sancroft to intervene with the House and secure a further leave of absence. The archbishop obliged, and Sparrow’s son-in-law and chaplain, Thomas Long, was dispatched to Oxford to wait on Sancroft in person.<sup>48</sup> In June 1681, after the dissolution of Parliament, Sancroft lost patience with Sparrow when the matter of the disposal of the vacant Norwich deanery put the archbishop on a collision course with lord chancellor Finch. Finch succeeded in placing his own chaplain, John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York, in the post.<sup>49</sup> In August 1681 Sparrow was working on a bill for the maintenance of Norwich livings in the hope that it could be prepared for the next session. At the same time he lent his support to Yarmouth as he attacked the validity of the city charters of both Norwich and Great Yarmouth and remodelled the commission of the peace and the militia along Tory lines.<sup>50</sup> Sparrow commended Yarmouth for being ‘heartily true to the king’s and Church’s interest’ and was encouraged by Yarmouth’s ‘great interest in this county’ which eventually enabled him in October 1682 to persuade the corporation of Norwich to surrender its charter.<sup>51</sup></p><p>By 1682 Norfolk political parties were clearly identifiable as ‘violent Tories’, ‘violent Whigs’, and ‘the moderate, who ... go soberly to work’; and although in Norwich, Sparrow’s son-in-law, Peter Parham, joined the ‘chief leaders’ of the Tories, even Sparrow was starting to look restrained and old-fashioned to some of the new breed of ‘violent Tory’.<sup>52</sup> As the bishop complained to Sancroft there were many Whigs ‘clamouring loud against me for prosecuting schismatics’, while on the other hand there were ‘hot and eager’ Tories, ‘some who profess great loyalty and zeal for the church’, who were ‘as loud complaining because we do not proceed [against Dissenters], violently beyond the rule of law’.<sup>53</sup> For denouncing such extremists, he was accused of libel by Philip Stebbing, a high Tory sheriff whose campaign against Dissent, and against Quakers in particular, involved particularly harsh penalties.<sup>54</sup> Little is known of Sparrow’s political activity for these years of Tory reaction in the remainder of Charles II’s reign. He was presumably hampered by deteriorating health and was often confined to the bishop’s palace and cathedral. When Sparrow received a summons to attend the coronation of James II in spring 1685, his son-in-law replied that the bishop was severely ill.<sup>55</sup></p><p>The first Parliament of the new reign assembled on 19 May 1685 but Sparrow died that very evening at the episcopal palace.<sup>56</sup> In his will he left £100 for the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral, £100 to Queens’ College and additional bequests to Norwich Cathedral and the widows and orphans of diocesan clergy. His positions in the Church hierarchy had helped him to secure husbands for at least three of his daughters: Joan married Edward Drewe, archdeacon of Cornwall, and they were the parents of Francis Drewe<sup>‡ </sup>who became Member for Exeter in 1713; Elizabeth married Nicholas Hall, the treasurer of Exeter Cathedral; and Bridget married Thomas Long, prebend of Exeter.<sup>57</sup> Another daughter Susan married the Norwich physician Peter Parham. Sparrow was buried in Norwich Cathedral and was succeeded by William Lloyd*, who was deprived in 1691 as a nonjuror.</p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
SPRAT, Thomas (1635-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>SPRAT</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1635–1713)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 13 June 1712 |
cons. 2 Nov. 1684 bp. of ROCHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 20 Sept. 1635, s. of Thomas Sprat and [?] Strode of Parham, Devon. <em>educ</em>. Tallaton sch., Devon; Wadham, Oxf. BA 1654, MA 1657, fell. 1657–70, BD and DD 1669; incorp. Cambridge 1671. <em>m</em>. Oct. 1676, Helen (1647–1726), da. of Col. Devereux Wolseley of Ravenstone, Staffs. and Elizabeth Zouche; 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 20 May 1713; <em>will</em> 28 Nov. 1711, pr. 20 June 1713.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Royal chap. 1676; clerk of the closet 1685.</p><p>Catechist, Wadham, Oxf. 1659; ord. deacon 28 July 1659, priest 9 Mar. 1661<sup>2</sup> prebend, Westminster Abbey 1669–83; rect. Uffington, Lincs. 1670–84; cur. and lecturer, St Margaret, Westminster 1679–83; canon, chapel royal, Windsor 1681–4; dean, Westminster Abbey 1683–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. ecclesiastical affairs 1686–8, 1689; commr. SPG in America 1701–<em>d.;</em> commr. palatine refugees dwelling in London 1709–<em>d.,</em> building 50 new churches in London, 1711–<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1663; mbr. SPG 1701-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Riley, c.1690, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; oil on canvas (double portrait with his son Thomas), by M. Dahl, 1712, Bodl. Oxf.; oil on canvas by G. Kneller, Christ Church, Oxf.</p> |
<p><em>Early life</em></p><p>Much about Thomas Sprat’s early life and family background is obscure. In his will he referred to his mother and siblings as poor relations in need of occasional relief and assistance. He also marvelled that God had brought him from ‘an obscure birth and education in a far distant country where I was the son of a private minister … to stand before princes and raised me to so eminent a station in the Church’.<sup>3</sup> His father, also named Thomas Sprat, is believed to have been in holy orders and to have been curate at Beaminster in Dorset from 1631 to 1641, where the future bishop was baptized in 1635. The elder Sprat may have been related to the graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, who was ordained by John Bridges<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Oxford, in 1607.<sup>4</sup> He must have had parliamentarian sympathies for he was intruded as minister of Tallaton, Devon, in 1646. Several of the younger Sprat’s sisters were still living in Devon in 1724.<sup>5</sup></p><p>The choice of Wadham, then under the mastership of John Wilkins*, the future bishop of Chester, also suggests parliamentarian sympathies, especially as one of Sprat’s earliest publications was a panegyric on Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>. Wadham provided Sprat with the opportunity of forging acquaintanceship if not friendship with men who would later play significant roles in Church and state. The bursar at the college was his Dorset neighbour and friend Gilbert Ironside*, later bishop of Hereford, while Samuel Parker*, the future bishop of Oxford, and several future Members of the Commons were students during the period of Sprat’s fellowship. It was probably also at Oxford that Sprat got to know the poet Abraham Cowley, for whom he later acted as literary executor. It seems to have been Cowley, a former parliamentarian turned royalist, who introduced Sprat to George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham.</p><p>By the time of the Restoration Sprat had embarked on something of a literary career, publishing his first poem in 1657. Even at this early stage his conscience was sufficiently flexible to permit him to pursue seemingly contradictory political goals for in 1659, the same year that he published his tribute to Cromwell, he also produced a translation of <em>The Plague of Athens</em>, which some interpreted as an allegory for the English revolution and its concomitants: disobedience and irreligion. Sprat was ordained deacon in 1659 by the indefatigable Thomas Fulwar or Fuller, then bishop of Ardfert, and ordained priest in March 1661. He acted as chaplain to Buckingham in the early 1660s. Sprat’s association with Wilkins resulted in his election as a fellow of the Royal Society; this was then followed by a commission to write the history of the society, in which he attempted to justify scientific experimentation as a form of religious exercise and thus a natural ally of rational religion.</p><p>Although his writings provoked much criticism, including the suggestion that the Royal Society’s emphasis on materialist philosophy encouraged the growth of atheism, Sprat’s relationship with Buckingham (and, through Buckingham, with the king) secured his position. Royal patronage ensured his nomination to a prebend in Westminster Abbey in 1669 and doubts over Buckingham’s right to present Sprat to the rectory of Uffington were resolved by securing the king’s presentation instead. Sprat was so close to Buckingham that in 1675, together with Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup> and John Wildman<sup>‡</sup>, he was appointed as a trustee for Buckingham’s debt trust. Since the size of Buckingham’s debts vastly exceeded his means, this meant that Sprat subsequently became involved in a large number of suits brought in chancery by Buckingham’s despairing creditors. Sprat’s relationship with the Buckingham circle was probably cemented by his marriage to Helen Wolseley, who was almost certainly a cousin of Sir Charles Wolseley<sup>‡</sup>, a close friend of Buckingham’s acolyte, Sir Robert Howard<sup>‡</sup>.</p><p>By January 1677 Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> was able to refer to Sprat as ‘a famous man’.<sup>6</sup> His many preferments, resulting from continuing royal favour, make it clear that he was regarded as one of the leading propagandists for the rights of the crown. In December 1680 members of the Commons took umbrage at his sermon to them because he ‘spent much of his powder against fanatics’.<sup>7</sup> His sermon to the Artillery Company in 1682 made his sentiments still more clear. Christians, he declared, had a duty of submission to their monarch; there could never be any moral justification for resistance to the will of the crown.<sup>8</sup> In 1683 he was appointed to the lucrative and prestigious deanery of Westminster, though he was disappointed to learn that in order to accept it he would have to divest himself of almost all of his other benefices, thus (according to his own somewhat unbelievable account) leaving him so poor as to be unable ‘to maintain any tolerable reputation, or even to avoid contempt’. Further reward followed with his nomination as bishop of Rochester and agreement that he keep the deanery of Westminster <em>in commendam</em>.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Sprat’s value as a loyal propagandist was further demonstrated with the publication of his vituperative narrative of the Rye House Plot, <em>A True Account and Declaration of the Horrid Conspiracy</em>, in the spring of 1685. Originally commissioned by Charles II, the order for printing was actually given by James II, who personally ‘corrected’ the manuscript, as had Charles II before him; more corrections were made by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Francis North*, Baron Guilford. It is perhaps an interesting commentary on Sprat’s need for approval from his colleagues in the Church that he also sent copies for comment to William Lloyd*, then bishop of St Asaph (later bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and of Worcester), and to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>10</sup></p><p><em>Bishop of Rochester, 1684–1713</em></p><p>As bishop of Rochester Sprat seems to have had very little direct electoral influence; nevertheless he clearly played a role, however minor, in assisting James II to pack Parliament. For the most part his influence resulted from his moral authority as a leading clergyman and was conveyed through his sermons, but it also took other forms. As dean of Westminster he had considerable power over the nomination of local government officers, including magistrates. In November 1685, for example, Sprat forwarded the names of two loyal Westminster residents for inclusion in the local commission of the peace; it is unlikely that this was a unique occurrence.<sup>11</sup> One of his few surviving pieces of correspondence is a letter written in February 1685 to the retiring member for Yorkshire, Henry Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, 4th Lord Fairfax [S], suggesting that he encourage his son to stand in his place as knight of the shire. Sprat assured Fairfax that the king had a good opinion of his son; significantly, he also found it necessary to remind Fairfax (a Presbyterian exclusionist) of the new king’s promise to maintain the government ‘as it is by law established in church and state’.<sup>12</sup> In the event, Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup> (later 5th Lord Fairfax [S]) was returned as an anti-exclusionist for the Yorkshire borough of Malton.</p><p>Sprat took his seat at the opening of the 1685 Parliament and was present on over 80 per cent of sitting days. He was named to all three sessional committees as well as to two select committees, for preventing the clandestine marriages of minors and for a naturalization bill, but otherwise there is very little information about his activities. In December 1685, after the prorogation of Parliament, he asked Sancroft to support the candidature of his friend Gilbert Ironside for the deanery of Bristol, and in the same month he profited from the king’s dislike of the militant Anglicanism of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, when he replaced Compton as clerk of the closet. The extent to which Sprat had exerted himself on Ironside’s behalf may have been questionable for, according to William Lloyd of St Asaph, preferment of this kind was a matter of royal rather than archiepiscopal favour and he, in his turn, urged Sancroft to seek Sprat’s support for Ironside on the grounds that ‘He has the ear of them that can best speak to his Majesty, and I believe would engage one of them in this cause, if your Grace would be pleased to encourage him in it’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>In the course of 1686 Sprat’s continuing good standing with both the crown and the Church hierarchy was demonstrated by his appointment as one of the visitors to Salisbury cathedral and to the new commission for ecclesiastical affairs. It was even rumoured that he would be translated to York.<sup>14</sup> He was also close to George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, and supported the candidacy of Jeffreys’ brother for the bishopric of Chester.<sup>15</sup> So involved was Sprat with the court that it was whispered that he had turned Catholic.<sup>16</sup> When Compton challenged the authority of the ecclesiastical commission in the summer of 1686 it was noted that Sprat remained silent. It was also reported that he was reluctant to convict Compton and that his role in ensuring that he be suspended rather than deprived had brought him under the king’s displeasure. Sprat himself later insisted that he did not know the terms of the commission until it was opened in Whitehall and (since proceedings against Compton were already mooted) that it was his moral duty to join the commission to protect Compton.<sup>17</sup></p><p>If the king was displeased with Sprat over the Compton affair, his displeasure was short-lived, for in November 1686 Sprat was appointed one of the three commissioners to administer the diocese of London during Compton’s suspension and he assisted at the degradation of Samuel Johnson. Sprat was later to declare that his part in the administration of Compton’s diocese was undertaken carefully and with ‘the greatest respect’ to Compton’s interest.<sup>18</sup> In January 1687 he was firmly identified as a supporter of the repeal of the Test Acts, yet, as the aims of James II’s policies became clearer, his commitment waned. When pressed to sign an address to the king congratulating him on the second Declaration of Indulgence, Sprat initially tried to excuse himself, and a list drawn up in May 1687 seems to indicate that his support for James II’s policies was now regarded as doubtful. By August 1687 it was feared that he wanted to ‘slip out’ of the ecclesiastical commission and in December he voted against further punishments for the dismissed fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford.<sup>19</sup> Nevertheless he did support the Declaration of Indulgence and instructed his clergy to read it, he drew up the form of prayer to be used as part of the public thanksgiving for the birth of the prince of Wales; and when others celebrated the release of the seven bishops he ordered the bells of Westminster church to be silenced.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Perhaps not surprisingly, Sprat’s increasing equivocation seems to have gone largely unnoticed. In June 1688 Thomas Smith*, bishop of Carlisle, who opposed the Declaration, was still convinced that Sprat was a man to ‘despair of’, but in August Sprat, clearly under enormous pressure from his fellow bishops, resigned from the ecclesiastical commission, declaring that he could not punish those whose consciences did not permit them to read the Declaration, while at the same time proclaiming his own loyalty and his readiness ‘to sacrifice whatsoever I have … but my conscience and my religion’ to the service of the king. The survival of multiple copies of his letter suggests that he took considerable care to circulate it as widely as possible. Early in November he was studiously avoiding contact with James II’s devoted acolytes Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, and a few days later, alongside Sancroft, Compton, and Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, he refused to issue an abhorrence of the invasion of the Prince of Orange.<sup>21</sup> He also signed the petition for a free Parliament.</p><p>During the crisis month of December 1688, when ‘Most of the persons that sat in the ecclesiastical commission are gone aside or skulk’, Sprat sat with the peers at Guildhall and helped draw up a draft statement aimed at bringing ‘the king home again with honour and safety’. He sat regularly with the provisional government, and was one of four bishops who headed what Morrice called ‘a powerful faction that labours to narrow and enervate the Prince’s designs’ and who attempted to negotiate with James on his return to London. However, he was also prepared to join a delegation of bishops who waited on William of Orange at St James’s to thank him for his intervention and to help write the prayer of thanksgiving for the deliverance of the church from popish superstition.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Sprat was present on the first day of the first session of the Convention Parliament and attended for nearly 47 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. As might be expected, his attendance was highest during the early months of the session when constitutional issues were under discussion, although even then there were a number of unexplained week-long absences and he was away for almost the whole of March. During the crucial votes of late January and early February Sprat adopted a consistently loyalist approach, voting for a regency, against declaring William and Mary to be king and queen, and against agreeing with the Commons that James had abdicated. He was named as one of the managers of the four conferences to discuss the use of the word ‘abdication’ and to draw up reasons for the Lords’ continued refusal to agree with the Commons thereon. Yet he was also responsible, together with Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells, for drawing up the form of a service of thanksgiving which was held in St Margaret’s, Westminster.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Sprat attended the House on 19 Feb. and then absented himself. His absence may have been devoted to wrestling with his conscience over whether to accept the Revolution. If so, the bout did not last long. He returned to the House on 4 Mar., presumably for the explicit purpose of taking the oaths because he then absented himself again until 19 March. It was perhaps during these absences that he composed his two letters to Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, in which he attempted to vindicate his membership of the ecclesiastical commission and his account of the Rye House Plot. Despite any residual loyalty he may have felt for James II, he was prepared to assist at the coronation of William and Mary.<sup>24</sup> He was again absent for much of May but he was present on 31 May to vote against reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. In July he voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the same bill. Earlier that month, on 2 July, he had protested against the decision to proceed with the impeachment of Sir Adam Blair and his co-defendants. During the session he was also named to four select committees.</p><p>In September 1689 Sprat was appointed to the new ecclesiastical commission.<sup>25</sup> He was present at the opening of the second session of the Convention Parliament but then absented himself until 2 November. A letter written during this period mentions ‘some indisposition of body and some domestic business’ but his time was probably taken up with the work of the ecclesiastical commissioners.<sup>26</sup> He was certainly sufficiently well to cause ‘very great heats’ at one of their meetings when he opposed alterations to the marriage service proposed by Thomas Tenison*, later bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of Canterbury. Tenison was not yet a bishop and Sprat made no secret of his resentment at being ‘bearded’ by an inferior. Unfortunately for Sprat, he was left in no doubt that his fellow commissioners sided with Tenison. He resigned from the commission the following month, causing considerable amusement by questioning its legality. His actions were interpreted by his enemies as a lack of political direction: Roger Morrice reported that Sprat behaved himself ‘very perversely and petulantly in all points’.<sup>27</sup> During this parliamentary session he was named to just four select committees, although his overall attendance was much higher than before: he was present on nearly 74 per cent of sitting days. He held the proxy of Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, from 17 Dec. until the end of the session. Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (and later duke of Leeds) classed him as an opponent of the court on a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690.</p><p>During the elections of 1690, Sprat as dean of Westminster did his best to advance the Tory cause in Westminster.<sup>28</sup> For the first session of the 1690 Parliament his attendance fell back slightly to just over 62 per cent. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to five other committees. His attendance recovered to 70 per cent during the second session, during which it became clear that his apparent political isolation was somewhat exaggerated for he was not only named, as would be expected, to the committees for privileges and petitions but to 20 select committees covering subjects ranging from the disposition of estates (including those of his Tory allies Edward Hyde*, Lord Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon), James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury) to the reform of abuses in the court of chancery, the prevention of false musters at sea, and the organization of the militia. On 6 Oct., however, he voted against the discharge of Salisbury and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough from their imprisonment in the Tower. On 30 Oct. he entered a protest against the passage of the bill establishing a commission of the admiralty, largely because it would have an adverse effect on the forthcoming trial of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington. He held Trelawny’s proxy from the beginning of the second session until 27 Oct. 1690 and Watson’s from 8 Oct. until 9 November.</p><p>During the 1691–2 session Sprat was again appointed to all three sessional committees, to 22 select committees, and to a committee to manage the conference on regulating the East India Company. He was once again entrusted with Trelawny’s proxy, which he held from 27 Oct. until his own proxy was registered on 21 Jan. 1692 in favour of Compton. He registered a dissent on 12 Jan. 1692 at the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. His attendance was high until 20 Jan.; he was absent the following day, when he was given leave to go into the country. He returned to the House on 16 Feb. and was again present on 17 Feb. but then absented himself for the remainder of the session. These absences meant that overall his attendance dipped to just below 45 per cent.</p><p>In May 1692 Sprat was implicated in a Jacobite plot and was questioned by the Privy Council. A report that he was actually imprisoned in the Tower of London appears to be incorrect since his name is not listed among either the commitments or the warrants for commitment.<sup>29</sup> He was cleared in June and his accuser (Robert Young) was convicted of perjury and subornation of perjury the following spring.<sup>30</sup> Sprat returned to Parliament for the beginning of the fourth session in November 1692. He was appointed, as usual, to the committees for privileges and petitions and to five select committees. On 31 Dec. 1692 he was one of only four bishops to vote in favour of the place bill; he entered a dissent on 3 Jan. 1693 when the bill failed. He also opposed the bills for the duke of Norfolk’s divorce and for the prevention of dangers from disaffected persons.<sup>31</sup> He attended for 50 per cent of the sitting days until 27 Jan. 1693 and then absented himself for the remainder of the session, registering his proxy in favour of Trelawny on 17 February. He remained on good terms with Sancroft, despite his role in creating the non-juring schism, and it seems to have been at Sancroft’s instigation that during the year Sprat published one of his sermons.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Sprat was present when Parliament reconvened on 7 Nov. 1693. He was again appointed to the committees for privileges and for the Journal and was present on just over 50 per cent of the sitting days. Although present for at least part of the morning when the triennial bill was debated on 4 Dec. 1693, he was one of a small group of members who left the House early.<sup>33</sup> He was named to only two select committees. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against reversing the verdict in the case of Ralph Montagu*, earl of Montagu, against John Granville*, earl of Bath. On 24 Apr. he entered a protest against the incorporation of the Bank of England. He held Trelawny’s proxy from 31 Mar. 1694 until the end of the session.</p><p>Sprat appears to have been actively involved in attempts to improve relationships between the earl of Rochester and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, in August 1694.<sup>34</sup> During the final session of the 1690 Parliament his attendance was again patchy, averaging just under 40 per cent; it was particularly poor during the spring of 1695. He was, predictably, appointed to the committees for privileges and for the Journal but was named to only five other committees, two of which (for considering the nature of the procession of the queen’s funeral and for the production of Sir Paul Pindar) seem to have included everyone present in the House. In January he entered two dissents to the bill to regulate treason trials.</p><p>Despite the decline in his parliamentary attendance, Sprat was actively involved in the elections of 1695. In October, together with Compton, he canvassed at Oxford on behalf of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> and may have played a role in identifying a seat for him.<sup>35</sup> Compton was also visibly active in Westminster and it is unlikely that he was acting without Sprat’s knowledge and approval. Sprat was present at the opening of the new Parliament on 22 Nov. 1695 and was appointed to the committees for privileges and the Journal but he was named to no other committees during the session, probably because his attendance was so poor. He attended only a further three days that year; his last attendance of 1695 was on 3 Dec. and he did not return until 13 Feb. 1696. His attendance improved slightly thereafter, perhaps because of the furore over revelations of the assassination plot and plans for an Association, but his overall attendance for this session was only just over 30 per cent. He was present in the House on 27 Feb. 1696 when the overwhelming majority of members of the House signed the Association. Sprat’s refusal to do so came as no surprise to his contemporaries but it brought about renewed suspicions of his loyalty.<sup>36</sup> Robert Young revived his accusations against Sprat and it was noted that Sprat’s nephew Richard Knipe, high bailiff of Westminster (and son of the headmaster of Westminster School), had also refused to sign the Association.<sup>37</sup> In April these suspicions were mitigated to some extent by Sprat’s willingness to sign the repugnance at the absolution of the would-be assassins Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Friend<sup>‡</sup> by non-jurors at their execution.<sup>38</sup> It is also possible that Sprat attempted to redeem himself in the eyes of the court by signing the Association roll kept at the Middlesex Sessions in order to avoid publicity about his change of mind.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Despite his poor attendance over the session, Sprat attended the three prorogation days between the adjournment of 27 Apr. 1696 and the opening of the second session. He was absent on the first day of the session and so was not named to the sessional committees. Once again his attendance was patchy, averaging just over 50 per cent of sitting days. However, it was particular high in late November and December 1696 when the impeachment of Sir John Fenwick was under consideration. He entered two dissents during the impeachment proceedings, defied both king and archbishop by voting in Fenwick’s favour, and protested at Fenwick’s conviction. On 23 Jan. 1697 he protested against the failure to read the bill to regulate parliamentary elections. He held Trelawny’s proxy from 17 Mar. 1697 but since Sprat himself was absent for all but four of the remaining days of the session he had little opportunity to exercise it. In November 1697, during the prorogation, he underlined his loyalty to the new regime by composing an address congratulating the king on his safe return.<sup>40</sup></p><p>Sprat was absent when the new session opened on 3 Dec. 1697 and did not arrive at the House until 23 Feb. 1698, when the divorce of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, was under discussion. It does not seem to have been the question of the divorce that attracted him that day for he missed some of the hearings before his next attendance on 28 February. He returned on 4 Mar., clearly determined to play his part in defending Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On that day he entered a protest against the second reading of the bill against Duncombe and on 15 Mar. he voted for its rejection. On 1 July he entered a dissent to the second reading of the bill to settle the East India trade on the grounds that it was harmful to the East India Company. During his limited attendance (he was present on only 15 per cent of sitting days) he was named to eight committees, three of which consisted of everyone present that day, and he held the proxy of Gilbert Ironside, by now bishop of Hereford, from 4 June until the end of the session.</p><p>Sprat attended on the third day of the 1698 Parliament, 13 Dec., but his total attendance for the session was a mere 12 days. Under the circumstances it is perhaps surprising that he was named to as many as two committees. On 8 Feb. he voted against permitting the king to keep the Dutch guards and when the resolution passed he entered his protest against it. Throughout the summer of 1699 he was involved, as one of the assessors sitting with Thomas Tenison, now archbishop of Canterbury, in hearing evidence in the controversial and politically motivated case against Thomas Watson. When the verdict was announced in August, Sprat was conspicuously absent.<sup>41</sup> According to Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, Sprat withdrew from the court because he did not accept the archbishop’s right to pronounce a sentence of deprivation.<sup>42</sup> Others even less charitable than Burnet might reasonably conclude that this was yet another example of Sprat’s preference for comfort over conscience.</p><p>Watson’s attempt to renew his claim to privilege may have influenced Sprat to attend the opening of the new session on 16 Nov. 1699, when he was appointed to the committees for privileges and for the Journal. His next appearances in the House (on 29 Nov. and 4 and 6 Dec. 1699) were on days when business was dominated by discussions of Watson’s case and he was named to the committee to consider whether the attorney general could be heard by the House. Whether Sprat actually voted in Watson’s favour is unclear.<sup>43</sup> Other contentious issues also attracted him to the House in the early months of 1700: the Darien scheme, the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and the duke of Norfolk’s divorce. Sprat supported the bill for the East India Company and predictably opposed the duke of Norfolk’s attempts to divorce his Tory wife. His attendance over the whole session averaged some 45 per cent of sitting days and in addition to the committee on Watson’s case he was named to three others. Shortly after the prorogation in April, Sprat’s old enemy Robert Young was hanged. His gallows speech vindicated Sprat of involvement in the plot of 1692 and may have helped to improve the bishop’s standing with the court.<sup>44</sup> During the interval between Parliaments (and probably earlier), Sprat was clearly involved, even if only peripherally, in the negotiations for a Tory ministry and a new Parliament that centred on Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. In September 1700 he was reported to have entertained Henry Guy<sup>‡</sup> and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin at a dinner at which all three toasted Harley’s health ‘most heartily’.<sup>45</sup></p><p>The revival of Tory fortunes kept Sprat’s renewed interest in party politics alive. In January 1701 he followed the lead set by Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, and Compton by summoning the lower clergy under the <em>praemunientes </em>clause.<sup>46</sup> His attendance during the short-lived 1701 Parliament remained steady at just under 45 per cent. He was appointed to the committees for privileges and for the Journal and during the course of the session was appointed to 13 other committees, including the committee to enquire into the state of the fleet and four committees to consider the procedures to be adopted concerning the impeachment of the Junto peers. He also entered nine protests. Two were entered on 15 Mar. at the passage of the resolutions to reject the second and third heads of the report relating to the Treaty of Partition. On 20 Mar. he protested at the failure of the House to communicate the address on the Treaty of Partition to the Commons for their concurrence. On 11 June he protested at the failure of the House to consult the Commons before resolving that no impeached lord should be without the bar and on 14 June (on an issue also related to the impeachments) he protested at the decision to grant the Commons a second conference before the matter of the first had been determined. On 17 June he protested against the resolution to proceed with the trial of Lord Somers in Westminster Hall and, having voted to convict Somers, protested against his acquittal.</p><p>With the failure of the first 1701 Parliament, Sprat once again lost interest in attending. The second 1701 Parliament sat for 100 days; Sprat was present on just 10 of them. On 24 Feb. 1702 he protested against the passage of the bill for the better securing of his majesty’s person on the grounds that the new oaths infringed the right of peers to sit in the House, were so ambiguous as to be ‘a snare to men’s consciences’, and devalued the solemnity of oath-taking. He was named to two committees although in both cases this seems to have been a formality, as the committee nominations match the presence list. Some of his attendances can be matched to issues in which he might have taken a personal interest, such as bills promoted by fellow bishops, but for the most part it seems to have been the contentious issues that attracted his attention. He was in the House to hear debates on the bill for better securing the king’s person, for the censure of the publishers William Fuller and John Nutt, for the announcement of William III’s death and the succession of Anne, and for discussions on a union with Scotland.</p><p>During the first session of the 1702 Parliament Sprat’s attendance improved somewhat, averaging some 40 per cent. His attendance in December and early January was closely linked to his support for the occasional conformity bill. In January 1703 he voted against the Whigs in the procedural discussions over the bill for Prince George*, of Denmark and duke of Cumberland and on 22 Jan. he protested against the dismission of the petition of Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup> and John Thompson.<sup>47</sup> He was named to the committee to draw an address congratulating the queen on the recovery of her husband and to the committee to prepare an address to the queen on augmenting troops in the Low Countries, as well as to seven select committees on legislation and the committee to consider what further proceedings should be had in the dispute with the Commons over the commissioners’ accounts. It was probably his continuing involvement in the affairs of convocation that led to the ‘cabinet-council’ meeting with the earl of Rochester and the dean of Christ Church that was observed early on 14 Feb. by William Nicolson*, of Carlisle.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Sprat was present on just 17 days during the 1703–4 session of Parliament and was appointed to the committees for privileges and for the Journal. Not surprisingly Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland expected him to vote for the occasional conformity bill and on 14 Dec. 1703 he not only did so but also entered two protests against its failure. Further attendances in December and January may have been connected with the place bill, and the need to defend the right of the House to examine conspirators; they were also prompted by the case of <em>Ashby v White</em>, in which Sprat entered a dissent to the resolution to reverse the judgment.</p><p>During the 1704–5 session Sprat attended on 33 sitting days. He was present on the first day of the session, when he was named to the committees for privileges and for the Journal and to the committee to draw up an address to the crown. Thereafter the issues that appear to have attracted his attendance seem to have been Thomas Watson’s attempt to have his case reheard by writ of error, the case of <em>Falkland v Cheney</em>, and the question of union with Scotland. He held the proxy of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, from 27 Nov. 1704 until the end of the session. Although he attended on only three days in February, on 27 Feb. he was named to the committee to draw up heads of a conference with the Commons over <em>Ashby v White</em>.</p><p>During the first session of the 1705 Parliament Sprat attended 27 times. He was excused attendance on 12 Nov. 1705 but appeared in the House three days later when the topic of the day was the invitation to Princess Sophia and the Protestant succession. Continuing debates on the Protestant succession meant that he continued to attend the House throughout November. His only attendance the following month was on 6 Dec., when the House debated the resolution that the Church of England was in no danger. He was also in the House for debates on the Protestant succession in January and February and for the debates on the prevention of popery on 4 and 5 Mar. 1706.</p><p>Sprat’s 20 attendances in the 1706–7 session were all concentrated in the period between 7 Jan. and 1 Mar. 1707, when the major issues of the day were the security of the Church and union with Scotland. On 3 Feb. he voted in favour of including the Test Act as part of the union and entered a protest when the resolution failed. On 15 Feb. he voted in favour of postponing consideration of the first article of union.<sup>49</sup> He did not attend the brief session in April 1707 at all.</p><p>During the first Parliament of Great Britain Sprat attended just 14 times. He was present at the opening of Parliament on 23 Oct. and again on 19 Nov. when he was named to two committees. Thereafter he attended on a number of days in December 1707 and in January and February 1708 when the main issues for discussion were the state of the fleet and war with Spain. His attendance in February was also linked to the passage of the Church statutes or cathedrals bill. Atterbury had rallied Sprat and the other Tory bishops to oppose the bill but it received the royal assent on 20 Mar. 1708.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Sprat’s attendance followed a similar pattern during the first session of the 1708 Parliament, when he was present on just 16 occasions. His attendance on 16 Dec. may have been prompted by the disputes over the election of Scots representative peers. His attendances in January 1709 also coincided with debates over those elections and on 21 Jan. he voted in favour of the right of a Scots peer with a British title to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. Some (but not all) of his attendances in March and April 1709 can be linked to the debates over the bill to improve the union with Scotland, which aimed to bring Scots treason law into alignment with that of England. On 25 Mar. Sprat voted against resuming the House during discussions of the bill in a committee of the whole and on 14 Apr. he voted in favour of the proposal by Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax that the Commons’ amendments to the bill be postponed. He was also interested in the general naturalization bill and voted in favour of replacing the words ‘some Protestant reformed congregation’ with ‘parochial church’ during a division in a committee of the whole.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Sprat missed the beginning of the 1709–10 session of Parliament, attending for the first time on 25 Feb. 1710 when the main business of the day was the trial of Dr Sacheverell. He then attended virtually every day until the trial was over (20 days in all), during which time he made at least one speech (on 16 Mar. arguing that Sacheverell in speaking nonsense should not be convicted on high crimes and misdemeanours) and entered seven protests and/or dissents against various aspects of the conduct of the trial, culminating in a vote of not guilty on 20 Mar. and a further dissent on 21 Mar. 1710 condemning the decision of the House to censure Sacheverell.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Harley’s analysis of members of the Lords in October 1710 listed Sprat as likely to support the ministry during the 1710 Parliament but Sprat’s poor attendance record meant that his support was of little practical value: he was in Parliament on just 17 occasions during the 1710–11 session. Most of his attendances were concentrated in January and February, when the state of the war in Spain and the defeat at Almanza were the major topics for debate. Not surprisingly he was listed as one of the ‘Tory’ patriots during the session. He was sufficiently disappointed by the failure of an attempt to repeal the General Naturalization Act on 5 Feb. to enter a formal protest. Other subjects that appear to have attracted his attention included Jermyn’s divorce bill, Greenshields’ case, and an appeal by the inhabitants of London against a decree in favour of Compton as bishop of London. His last attendance of the session was on 1 Mar. but that did not stop him from approaching Harley the following month to seek his assistance in a project to petition Parliament for money to repair Westminster Abbey.<sup>53</sup></p><p>The 1711–12 session proved to be Sprat’s final Parliament. For once his reputation attracted favourable (if barbed) comment. In September 1711, in what appears to be a reference to his support for the new ministry, it was remarked that ‘It is a sure indication that his lordship thinks it is set in for fair weather.’<sup>54</sup> He was canvassed before the opening of the session on the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion and possibly as a consequence attended the opening on 7 December. He was also present the following day, when he was named to the committee for privileges, but there is no record of his voting intentions in the abandoned division on the ‘no peace without Spain’ motion. He did not attend again until 17 Dec. when the business of the day was the bill to preserve the Protestant religion. He was also present on 18 and 20 Dec. when the bill to preserve the Protestant religion was joined by the question of the validity of the patent creating James Hamilton*, duke of Hamilton [S], duke of Brandon in the British peerage. Sprat supported Hamilton’s case.</p><p>Further attendances in January and February 1712 may have been associated with the question of the peace treaty but probably also with the Scots peers and more specific issues such as the continuing litigation between Compton and the inhabitants of Hammersmith, attempts to repeal the General Naturalization Act, and the question of granting toleration for Episcopalians in Scotland: the episcopal communion (Scotland) bill. Sprat voted in favour of the episcopal communion bill as amended by the Commons on 26 February.<sup>55</sup> On 29 Feb. he registered his proxy in favour of Compton. The proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 6 June when the queen addressed the House on the question of peace. He was present the following day when the speech was considered and attended for the last time a week later on 13 June, when the twin issues of the queen’s speech and the Lords’ right to protest were debated. The chance survival of a letter from Sprat to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, reveals that Sprat had been reluctant to attend Parliament on that day because he celebrated 13 June ‘as a day of thanksgiving for his deliverance from the villainous plot of Robert Young’. Over and above the insight that the letter provides into Sprat’s personal life, it also suggests that his attendances at times of heightened Tory awareness were linked to the existence of an early whipping mechanism.<sup>56</sup></p><p>In February 1713, Oxford listed Sprat as one of the members of the House to be canvassed before the forthcoming session but the bishop was probably already in his final illness; that same month Atterbury described him as ‘much decayed’ in his understanding and having ‘lost all spirit and firmness of mind’.<sup>57</sup> Sprat died on 20 May, some three weeks after the opening of the session, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 25 May. His will, drawn up in 1711, left all his property to his widow and surviving son, who were both named as executors. It also contained so many statements designed to protect his reputation for posterity that one suspects he intended it for publication. He explained the smallness of his estate by reference to his family’s ‘generosity and liberal way of living’ and his own propensity for private charity, including some £2,000 given over the years to his mother and siblings. He insisted that his ‘poor store’ had been accumulated ‘only by means honest fair and honourable’ and that his elevation to the episcopate had come ‘without my seeking and even contrary almost to my endeavours’, and he was thankful ‘that in an age of so great corruptions, temptations and prevarications I have still kept my integrity’. His personal papers were bequeathed by his widow to Richard Knipe and after Knipe’s death to his brother Thomas Knipe, with the injunction ‘never to let any of them to be seen’. Their present whereabouts – if they survive – is unknown.</p> |
R.P. |
|
STERNE, Richard (1597-1683) |
<p><strong><surname>STERNE</surname></strong>, <strong>Richard</strong> (1597–1683)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 15 July 1678 |
cons. 2 Dec. 1660 bp. of CARLISLE; transl. 10 June 1664 abp. of YORK |
|
<p><em>b</em>. Apr. 1597, s. of Simon Sterne of Mansfield, Notts. and Margery, da. of Gregory Walker of Mansfield, Notts. <em>educ</em>. Mansfield free sch.; Trinity, Camb. matric. 1611, BA 1615, MA 1618, ord. priest 1621; Corpus Christi, Camb. fell. 1623-33, BD 1625; incorp. Oxf. 1627; Jesus, Camb. DD 1635. <em>m</em>. Elizabeth (c.1617-74), da. of Edward Dickinson, of Farnborough, Hants, 13 ch. incl. 2s. <em>d</em>. 18 June 1683.</p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I 1638.</p><p>Chap. to William Laud<sup>†</sup>, abp. of Canterbury 1633; rect. Yeovilton, Som. 1634-45, Harlton, Cambs. 1642-5, 1661.</p><p>Master, Jesus, Camb. 1634-44, 1660; schoolmaster, Stevenage, Herts. 1645-60; delegate, Savoy Conference 1661.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Commr. execution of the Poll Tax Act bef. 1667.<sup>2</sup></p><p>FRS 1665.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by F. Place, after unknown artist, NPG 29521; tomb effigy by Grinling Gibbons, York Minster.</p> |
<h2><em>Early career and entry into the episcopate</em></h2><p>Born in Mansfield in April 1597, Richard Sterne was descended from an armigerous family reportedly originally from Suffolk, but his branch was not socially elevated and one antiquary judged him to have been of ‘little note by birth’.<sup>3</sup> He served as chaplain to both Charles I and William Laud, and was formerly thought to have contributed to the martyrology <em>Eikon Basilike</em>. A number of publications by Richard Allestree, particularly the celebrated <em>The Whole Duty of Man</em>, were wrongly attributed to Sterne. Of his own writings, only a commentary on Psalm 103 and his writing on philosophical logic appear to have survived.<sup>4</sup> Unusually for a bishop, he left no published sermons or tracts after his elevation to the episcopate.</p><p>Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, described Sterne as ‘a sour, ill-tempered man … [who], minded chiefly the enriching his family’; Sterne on the other hand maintained that he had donated £1,800 of his episcopal revenue towards the augmentation of clerical stipends and that by 1663 he had already spent more than £3,000 on public and charitable projects.<sup>5</sup> His annual income at Carlisle was unlikely to have reached the £713 that has been estimated for the diocese in 1688, whereas at York, his income probably approached that of £2,524 estimated for 1692.<sup>6</sup> Following a lengthy dilapidations suit relating to the Carlisle episcopal residence, Rose Castle, it emerged that Sterne had spent only £258 on repairs, whilst having at his disposal at least 70 leases which should have generated between £8,000 and £10,000 worth of revenue.<sup>7</sup> Sterne’s great-grandson Laurence Sterne, author of <em>Tristram Shandy</em>, identified the archbishop’s wife as Elizabeth Dickinson; the couple supposedly had 13 children, though only five are known to have reached adulthood.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Sterne was an anti-Calvinist and, as master of Jesus College, a Cambridge enforcer of Laud’s altar policy. Complaints of his ‘superstitious innovations’ were made in 1642 in the House of Commons.<sup>9</sup> After sending university plate to the king to help fund royalist forces, he was committed to the Tower of London in 1642, and then confined to the London home of William Petre*, 4th Baron Petre, from January to July 1643 before being transferred to a prison ship at Wapping for ten days, and then to more comfortable imprisonment at Ely House.<sup>10</sup> In 1644 he was ejected by Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, from his position as master of Jesus and sequestered from his livings. From 8-10 Jan. 1645 Sterne was granted leave by the Commons to attend Laud in the Tower and on the scaffold.<sup>11</sup> Sterne’s activities in the remainder of the 1640s and 1650s included assisting Brian Walton*, later bishop of Chester, with the <em>Polyglot Bible,</em> and towards the end of the Interregnum he was included in a list of ‘worthy men to be preferred to dignities in the church’ by Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Following the Restoration, in June 1660 Sterne petitioned the House of Lords for reinstatement to his livings in Yeovilton and Harlton, but was successful in only the latter.<sup>13</sup> He was reinstated at Jesus College. On 8 Oct. it was reported that both he and John Barwick had turned down offers of the bishopric of Carlisle.<sup>14</sup> As far as Sterne was concerned, this was an error. By 13 Nov. John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, referred to him in a letter as bishop of Carlisle.<sup>15</sup> Sterne was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on 2 Dec. 1660 along with many other new bishops.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Sterne’s conduct at the Savoy Conference of April to July 1661 was remembered by Richard Baxter with mistrust: ‘he looked so honestly, and gravely, and soberly, that I scarce thought such a face could have deceived me’. His dismissal of Baxter’s use of the term ‘in the Nation’ as the choice of someone who refused to acknowledge that England was a kingdom, and therefore of a traitor, was characteristic of the leadership of an episcopal delegation intent on silencing the pleas of Baxter and others for a broader Church settlement.<sup>17</sup></p><p>On 20 Aug. 1661 Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London, requested that Cosin inform Sterne that the king wanted all bishops in London at the beginning of the next parliamentary session.<sup>18</sup> Following the passage of legislation restoring bishops to the Lords, Sterne took his seat on 20 Nov. 1661. His parliamentary career was marked by nomination to nearly 150 select committees and to the sessional committees for petitions and privileges, though never to the committee for the Journal. In the 20 sessions held during his episcopate, Sterne attended all but seven (the two brief sessions in October 1665 and October 1673 and those of the Exclusion Parliaments in 1679 and 1680). Of those he did attend, his attendance rarely fell below three-quarters of all sittings and for ten sessions was more than 80 per cent of sittings.</p><p>He attended his first session in the Lords for 68 per cent of sittings and was named to 15 select committees. These can be taken as demonstrating the wish to include bishops in both ecclesiastical business and secular matters often with relevance to clerical functions, including that on the bill to prevent vexatious suits on 28 Nov. 1661 and that on the reversal of the attainder of Thomas Wentworth<sup>†</sup>, earl of Strafford on 22 Jan. 1662. He was one of 25 members of the House to register his protest on 6 Feb. 1662 against the passage of the act to restore Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, to the Flintshire manors of Hope, Hopesdale, Mole and Molesdale. On 13 Feb. he was named to the committee on the bankrupts bill, and on 14 Feb. was one of four bishops added to the committee for petitions. On 20 Feb. he was named to the committee on the bill for the better relief and employment of the poor, and on 7 Mar. to that allowing the bishop of London to lease the tenements built on the site of the episcopal palace in the City.</p><p>Convocation and Parliament worked concurrently on the uniformity bill and revisions to the Anglican liturgy. On 13 Dec. 1661 Sterne and his colleagues Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, George Griffith*, bishop of St Asaph, and William Nicholson*, bishop of Gloucester, with (from the lower house of Convocation) Robert Pory and John Pearson*, the future bishop of Chester, and Anthony Sparrow*, the future bishop of Exeter, were appointed by Convocation to prepare the written copy of the revised prayer book. On 5 Mar. 1662 Sheldon on behalf of Convocation appointed Sterne, Griffith, and Henry Ferne*, bishop of Chester, to consider amendments made to the prayer book by Parliament.<sup>19</sup> On 8 May 1662, following debate in a committee of the whole on the uniformity bill, the Lords recommended the alteration of a word in the revised prayer book; Sterne, Cosin and Griffith, on authority from Convocation, corrected the scribal error immediately at the clerk’s table. Sterne attended the session until the prorogation of 19 May 1662.</p><p>In anticipation of the next parliamentary session, Seth Ward*, then of Exeter, registered his proxy on 31 Jan. 1663 in favour of Sterne (vacated on 30 May 1663). On 18 Feb. 1663, Sterne attended the House for the start of the new session and attended nearly 96 per cent of sittings; he was named to 22 select committees. On 23 Feb. 1663 a bill was introduced into the Lords to allow the king to dispense certain individuals – widely understood to be Catholics – from the Act of Uniformity. Sterne interpreted this as a threat to the Church of England, observing that the Catholics had been ‘forward enough to provoke’ the measure and hoped that the episcopal bench would ‘all do according to our own judgments and consciences’. On 24 Feb. he informed Cosin that Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely, was managing Cosin’s proxy; Sterne, sorry that Cosin was unable to come to Parliament, told him that at least he did not have to experience there at first hand ‘men’s ill affections to the church upon all occasions’.<sup>20</sup></p><h2><em>Archbishop of York 1663-83</em></h2><p>Returning to his diocese after the prorogation at the end of July 1663, Sterne conducted a visitation during the summer months.<sup>21</sup> By the following spring, he was back in London and attended the House on 16 Mar. 1664 for the first day of the next session. He attended nearly 98 per cent of sittings and was named to three select committees. At the end of March, Accepted Frewen*, archbishop of York died leaving Gilbert Sheldon without one of his most stalwart political allies in the Lords. By 2 Apr. a newsletter was already able to report that Sterne was Frewen’s successor.<sup>22</sup> The king’s recommendation that the dean and chapter elect Sterne archbishop was made on 10 Apr.; the <em>congé d’élire</em> was formally executed on 12 Apr. and a copy sent by Sterne to William Sancroft*, then dean of York and the future archbishop of Canterbury, on 19 April.<sup>23</sup> On 21 Apr. Thomas Burwell, on behalf of Sheldon, assured Sancroft that it was permissible to elect Sterne even before Frewen’s funeral.<sup>24</sup> Sterne assured Sancroft that he would ‘not press the execution of [his appointment] sooner than shall be fit’, but followed this with two further letters protesting that he had not intended ‘to hasten either [the] election or the return of it further than might stand with your own convenience’ and that his wife had failed to provide their servants with sufficient funds to maintain the archiepiscopal household at Bishopsthorpe having assumed that they would have been able to move to York far more quickly than was proving possible. Sterne hoped to delay his arrival in York until after the assizes and anticipated arriving at Bishopsthorpe at the end of July.<sup>25</sup> Relying on Sancroft to keep him informed of provincial and diocesan affairs while he remained in London, Sterne continued to attend the House until the last day of the session on 17 May.<sup>26</sup> Sterne spent part of the autumn discussing with Sancroft how to determine his legal rights relating to the fees and rents due upon the archbishop’s estate.<sup>27</sup></p><p>On 24 Nov. 1664 Sterne took his seat at the start of the new session as archbishop of York and attended 91 per cent of sittings. He was named to four select committees. On 1 Mar. 1665 he was one of those appointed to attend the king and request a national fast. The following day he attended the House for the prorogation. He returned to Bishopsthorpe where on 5 July he confirmed to Sheldon that he had obeyed the king’s instructions regarding a census of hospitals and catalogue of livings.<sup>28</sup> He also circulated to the bishops of his province the royal directions for a special collection for the support of those places afflicted by the plague.<sup>29</sup> On 8 Aug. he extended hospitality to James Stuart*, duke of York and his duchess during their progress of the north, making the reception ‘the most honourable of the whole journey’ and attending the duke in Tadcaster.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On 9 Sept. 1665 he informed Cosin that he would seek permission to absent himself from the imminent Parliament in Oxford: ‘it is a long journey, dangerous travelling, and I believe there will rather want room than company at Oxford.’<sup>31</sup> On 18 Sept. he again wrote to Cosin with the news that Sheldon intended to obtain leave for ‘remote’ bishops not to attend the Oxford Parliament as long as they sent their proxies; bishops intending to stay away should send blank proxies since there would be insufficient lords spiritual in attendance to receive all the necessary proxies.<sup>32</sup> It is unclear how Sterne and Sheldon intended to employ these episcopal proxies, but on 25 Sept. 1665 Sterne duly registered his own proxy to Gilbert Sheldon (vacated at the end of the October 1665 session). On 19 Oct. 1665 it was noted at a call of the House that Sterne had been excused attendance by the king and had registered his proxy.</p><p>On 19 Mar. 1666 Sterne told Cosin that he had received a letter from Sheldon commanding ‘all of us’ to attend the first day of the new parliamentary session; Sterne, who was required in London to preach on Palm Sunday, intended to set out the following week and hoped the Lords would enjoy a ‘happy meeting’.<sup>33</sup> He attended the House on 23 Apr. for the formal prorogation, but was not present on 18 Sept. for the start of business. On 1 Oct. it was noted that he was excused attendance. He finally resumed his seat on 8 Oct., attended 84 per cent of sittings and was named to 11 select committees. Maintaining frequent correspondence with Cosin, he forwarded the Privy Council order of November for a collection for the City.<sup>34</sup> Sterne chaired the select committee on the Durham lead mines bill on 3 and 16 Jan. 1667 (he did so again in the following session, on 27 Nov.).<sup>35</sup> On 23 Jan., during the debate on naturalization, Sterne defended Dr Isaac Basire, archdeacon of Northumberland, who had been accused of failing to pray for the king in his capacity as king of France. Sterne argued that this was the revenge of Humphrey Wharton<sup>‡</sup>, ‘who contended with [Basire], about tithes, and who … was lately frustrated of his designs at a committee.’<sup>36</sup> He continued to attend the House until the last day of the session on 8 Feb. and returned to York until the end of July.<sup>37</sup> During this time, at some point before 31 May Edward Rainbowe*, Sterne’s successor at Carlisle, petitioned the king concerning his dilapidations suit against Sterne, for his failure to repair Rose Castle during his tenure as bishop of Carlisle, complaining that he was unable to pursue the matter in Sterne’s own episcopal courts.<sup>38</sup></p><p>On 17 July 1667 it was reported that Sterne was about to return to London.<sup>39</sup> He was present in the Lords for the prorogation on 29 July, and then returned north to conduct a visitation. Sterne missed the first six days of the following session, first attending the House on 16 October. He attended 81 per cent of sittings and was named to 15 select committees. He also sat on the committee for privileges from which he reported on 22 October. The committee had debated the matter of whether the serjeant-at-arms could arrest a peer (‘imprisoned by attachment’) outside of privilege of Parliament for contempt of a chancery decree. Sterne informed the House that the committee had examined the parliamentary order of 14 Eliz. (made after advice from the judiciary and queen’s counsel on the arrest of Henry Cromwell<sup>†</sup>, 2nd Baron Cromwell) which had deemed Cromwell’s arrest as</p><blockquote><p>derogatory and prejudicial to the ancient privileges claimed to belong to the said lords of this realm; with this proviso nevertheless ... that if at any time after there shall be shewed sufficient matter, that by the prerogative, or by any statute, or by the common law, or sufficient precedents, the persons of any of the Lords of Parliament ought in such case to be attached, then that to take place which so shall be shewed and warranted.</p></blockquote><p>Having also examined precedents of arrests of peers, he reported that most occurred during the reign of James I, but none of them before the date of the Elizabethan parliamentary order. The committee for privileges concluded that some lords had submitted to arrest unaware of their rights; the House should now make a declaration ‘that the Lords of Parliament ought to enjoy their ancient and due privileges; and their persons to be free from such attachments. … And for that it is necessary to have some settled course in the Chancery, to compel a Lord of Parliament to perform trusts, and the like’. The House accepted the committee’s report.</p><p>On 13 Nov. 1667 Humphrey Henchman (an old friend of Sterne), registered his proxy in Sterne’s favour; it was cancelled on 11 Aug. 1668.<sup>40</sup> Two weeks later, the select committee on the lead mines bill voted by a large majority to pass the bill’s preamble and formed a subcommittee of Sterne, Richard Sackville*, 5th earl of Dorset, Oliver St John*, earl of Bolingbroke, and Seth Ward, to draw up a new clause.<sup>41</sup> On 11 and 17 Mar. 1668 Sterne was added to the select committee on the bill concerning administrators’ accounts and to the sessional committee for petitions. The House was adjourned on 9 May and Sterne attended for the last time that session; he did not return for the repeated adjournments up to the prorogation of 1 Mar. 1669. During the summer Sterne conducted both a metropolitan visitation of the diocese of Chester and a census of Nonconformist meetings throughout the northern province, the latter following a request from the king for information on Nonconformists in every diocese following the expiry of the first Conventicle Act.<sup>42</sup> The summer months were also occupied with the ongoing dilapidations suit between Sterne and Rainbowe. Rainbowe’s petition of 1667was mislaid for more than 12 months, possibly suggesting pressure by or on behalf of Sterne.<sup>43</sup> Sterne considered obtaining a private act to resolve the issue when, after a period of consultation, Rainbowe’s petition for a commission was granted.<sup>44</sup> On 18 July 1669 a royal commission, with ‘all powers of coercion used in ecclesiastical causes’, was named to summon Sterne and Rainbowe before them in the dilapidations case. The 15 commissioners included a number of judges together with William Craven*, earl of Craven, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), John Lucas*, Baron Lucas of Shenfield, Benjamin Laney*, bishop of Ely, John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester, and Henchman.<sup>45</sup> Sterne did not, as Rainbowe had feared, stand on his privilege of Parliament to obstruct the proceedings.<sup>46</sup> The commission worked painfully slowly, appointing a subcommission of Commons members and regional magnates.<sup>47</sup> Meanwhile, on 19 Oct., Sterne attended the House for the first day of the new parliamentary session and attended 97 per cent of sittings. He was named to two select committees in the brief session and attended for the prorogation on 11 December. He was again present on 14 Feb. 1670 for the start of the next session, attended 96 per cent of sittings and was nominated to 32 select committees. Confident that the session would be favourable to the Church, he wrote on 4 Mar. to the dean of York, Robert Hitch, that ecclesiastical affairs would ‘go on well, and be finished before Easter’ when the king intended a prorogation.<sup>48</sup></p><p>Sterne vigorously opposed the private bill which had been introduced into the Lords to enable John Manners*, then styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), to remarry. Even more than the divorce bill itself, Sterne found it ‘yet stranger’ that one of the episcopal bench should speak in favour of it, although another five (all that were permitted to speak in the time available) were firmly against.<sup>49</sup> Indeed not one, but two bishops, Cosin and John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester, spoke for the bill while Sterne and Sheldon led the remaining bishops in opposition.<sup>50</sup> On 17 Mar. 1670 Sterne spoke in the debate on the second reading; his speech is blended with those of others in the record, which uses both arguments from the New Testament and from the councils of the early Church.<sup>51</sup> Following the division, he signed the protest against the resolution that the bill be read a second time. On 24 Mar., perhaps for the final vote on the Roos divorce bill, he received Sheldon’s proxy; it was cancelled on 7 April. Meanwhile, on 28 Mar. Sterne registered his dissent against the final passage of the bill.</p><p>It is unclear how Sterne spent the summer months of 1670 during the adjournment from 11 Apr. to 24 Oct. but it is likely that he returned to Bishopsthorpe. On 3 Sept. he supported the petition of Thomas Ellis of Whitby who sought possession of a nonconformist meeting house in the town as reward for, and to further facilitate, his efforts in suppressing Dissenters under the terms of the second Conventicle Act.<sup>52</sup> After the House resumed in October, Sterne again attended regularly and was active in committee business. In spring 1671, following the petition to the king against the growing strength of Catholicism, a select committee met on 13 Apr. and appointed a subcommittee of 15, including Sterne, to draw up a test which ‘being taken may obtain a mitigation of the penalties of the law following conviction to such recusants’.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Sterne had learned the previous September that Dolben intended to conduct a building survey of Rose Castle.<sup>54</sup> On 16 Sept. 1671 the commissioners’ report largely supported Sterne’s defence of his alterations of the castle. Rainbowe had accused him of delaying tactics and of increasing repair costs by robbing out stonemasonry, which Sterne denied and which a subcommission also rejected, arguing that all the stone Sterne had removed had been used elsewhere in the castle.<sup>55</sup> By 1672, an exasperated Sir Daniel Fleming<sup>‡</sup> advised mediation on political grounds: bishops, as a body, had ‘opposers enough without contending with one another’.<sup>56</sup> Sterne, who had taken over a reconstruction plan from the castle’s lay occupant under the Protectorate, pleaded the 1661 Act of Indemnity in his defence and eventually offered £400 towards further repairs of Rose Castle chapel.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Following John Cosin’s death, Sterne determined to claim jurisdiction over the chapter of Durham during the episcopal vacancy.<sup>58</sup> By January 1673 a jurisdictional dispute with the Durham chapter was well underway, the dean of Durham, Dr John Sudbury, seeking Sancroft’s advice as to whether he could serve Sterne ‘with the rule’ while Parliament was sitting and thus while Sterne enjoyed parliamentary privilege.<sup>59</sup> The dean also wanted to ensure that the subsequent legal hearing did not take place in Cumberland since Sterne’s former authority there as bishop of Carlisle could prejudice the case against Durham.<sup>60</sup> The outcome of the dispute is unclear, but the see of Durham remained vacant until the appointment in 1674 of Nathaniel Crew*, who would also become 3rd Baron Crew in 1697.</p><p>Sterne did not set out for the next session of Parliament until 3 Feb. 1673.<sup>61</sup> On 13 Feb., nine days after the start of the session, it was noted at a call of the House that he was still en route. He arrived at Westminster on 18 Feb., attended 68 per cent of sittings and was named to just one select committee, on Elwaies’ bill on 21 Mar. He attended the House until 29 Mar., when Parliament was adjourned to the following October, and then returned to Bishopsthorpe. The prorogation of 20 Oct. (to the following week) ensured the loss of the bill for the ease of Dissenters. Writing to Sheldon on 25 Oct., Sterne hoped that the bill was now ‘at an end for this time, and that it will never proceed so far again’.<sup>62</sup> He asked Sheldon whether he should return to London if ‘there be nothing for us to do at Westminster’ since he would have to travel with a costly entourage, ‘the greatest part of my family, about thirty’; he was already renting the house of Sir Thomas Ingram<sup>‡</sup> as a London residence at £3 per week if absent and £6 per week if resident.<sup>63</sup> Sheldon demanded that Sterne press on for Parliament, but bad weather presumably led to Sterne’s absence from the autumn session.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, Sterne did travel to London over the winter and on 7 Jan. 1674 was present for the first day of the brief session. He attended nearly three-quarters of all sittings, was named to one select committee (on encouraging manufactures) and was present for the prorogation on 24 February. Following Sterne’s taking of the oaths (on 13 Jan.), news began to circulate of an ‘odd story of [Sterne’s] faltering in the statutory declaration against transubstantiation’, a tale which fanned suspicions that Sterne had Romish sympathies.<sup>65</sup></p><p>On 31 Oct. 1674 Sterne was named to the royal commission to advise the king on the interests of the Church and the security of the Protestant religion.<sup>66</sup> Sterne next appeared in the Lords on 19 Apr. 1675, six days after the start of the session. He attended 81 per cent of sittings and was named to 11 select committees. Sterne had missed the first reading, on 15 Apr., of the bill to prevent the dangers from disaffected persons, but attended throughout the attempt to pass the bill, accepting the proxies of both Sheldon (on 27 Apr.) and Henchman (on 6 May). Both were vacated at the end of the session. On 27 May Sterne was appointed as one of the managers of the conference with the Commons on their privileges. He attended until the last day of the session on 9 June. Sterne was at Westminster on 13 Oct. for the start of the next parliamentary session, during which he attended 95 per cent of sittings and was named to three select committees. On 22 Nov. he attended for the prorogation (to February 1677) and subsequently returned to Bishopsthorpe.</p><p>As archbishop of York, Sterne had inherited an electoral interest in the liberty of Ripon. Since the Restoration, the corporation of Ripon had been attempting to ward off the archbishopric’s attempt to reassert its authority. Led by Sir Edmund Jennings<sup>‡</sup>, the resistance intensified under Sterne’s tenure of York, particularly after Sterne’s attempted (and ultimately unsuccessful) revival of the borough court in 1675, which resulted in lengthy proceedings in the courts of exchequer and chancery.<sup>67</sup> The corporation’s attempt to quash Sterne’s interference through a <em>quo warranto</em> was equally unsuccessful and bad relations were further exacerbated when Sir Jonathan Jennings<sup>‡ </sup>(Edmund’s brother) killed Sterne’s registrar, George Aislabie, in a duel in 1675.<sup>68</sup> Sterne’s determination to dominate Ripon was also evident in his dispute over the presentation and induction to the deanery of Ripon and his insistence on preserving his metropolitan rights against the incumbent dean, John Neile, who argued that the king’s mandate was sent directly to the chapter and not to the archbishop of York.<sup>69</sup> By 29 Jan. 1677, Sterne was preparing to return to Westminster but was preoccupied with his ‘franchises and liberties’ in the new Ripon <em>quo warranto</em>, complaining to Sheldon of the activities of the Jennings brothers, together with the abrasive Thomas Cartwright*, the future bishop of Chester, Neile’s successor but one as dean of Ripon from 1676, who was their ‘great confidant’.<sup>70</sup> Cartwright, also a canon of Durham, had a close and lasting relationship with the Jennings family. In a letter to Thomas Belasyse*, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg of 26 Dec. 1679 he would criticize Sterne’s changes to the commission of the peace as ‘prejudicial both to the king and church’.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Sterne returned to the House on 15 Feb. 1677 for the start of business after the controversially lengthy prorogation. He attended the session for 94 per cent of sittings and was named to 25 select committees. On 13 Mar. he again received Sheldon’s proxy (vacated with Sheldon’s death). For Sterne, as for many members of the upper House concerned to protect their estates from the results of unlawful marriages, especially of minors, one of his most pressing concerns this session was his bill against incestuous marriages.<sup>72</sup> The bill was a response to the ruling in the case <em>Harrison v. Burwell</em>, which had established a precedent for the temporal courts’ prohibition of prosecution by ecclesiastical courts.<sup>73</sup> Sterne’s bill was introduced to the House on 22 Mar. and given its first reading. The following day he was named to the select committee. His draft proved unworkable, and on 27 Mar. the House ordered that the committee proceed only on that part of the bill relating to incestuous, and not to unlawful marriages (the lord chief justice of common pleas, Sir Francis North*, later Baron Guilford, was ordered to prepare a separate bill). Three days later Sterne reported from the committee and the bill, having passed the Lords, was sent down to the Commons on 31 March. By June the Commons had still not committed it. Even its first reading in the lower House, according to Sterne, had been opposed by the Speaker of the Commons, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>. On 7 June the outraged archbishop sought a private conversation with the chief justice of King’s Bench (Sir Richard Rainsford<sup>‡</sup>), informing Rainsford that he thought it,</p><blockquote><p>strange that Westminster Hall should control the law of God, and the laws not only of this but of all other churches and nations of the Christian world ... and that if they did stop our proceedings by prohibitions, and hinder us from correcting what themselves could not correct by divorce or otherwise, the sin must lie at their door. That though here had been many incestuous marriages presented and prosecuted in our courts, yet this was the second that had been taken out of our hands by prohibition since his majesties’ happy return. That the former (viz. Harrison’s case) being carried with so high a hand, and the report thereof set forth in print with so great authority might, if it had had no check, have gone unto a law, and so also might this!<sup>74</sup></p></blockquote><p>Sterne had assumed that, having passed the Lords, his bill would meet with no opposition in the Commons. That it did perhaps reflected both political naivety and the hostility that could be engendered by Sterne’s assertion of his privileges and those of the higher clergy. His bill never reached the statute book, and a new bill against blasphemy and incestuous marriages was ordered in May 1678, but that too failed in the Commons.<sup>75</sup></p><p>As Sheldon’s death approached, a newsletter of 14 Nov. 1677 reported that Sterne had been offered and ‘refused’ the see of Canterbury.<sup>76</sup> Sir Robert Southwell<sup>‡</sup> wrote to James Butler*, duke of Ormond [I], earl of Brecknock, on 20 Nov. that Henry Compton*, bishop of London, supported Sterne’s appointment on the grounds that Sterne, older than Sheldon, would die shortly and provide a clearer field for Compton.<sup>77</sup> However, William Sancroft, dean of St Paul’s, and formerly dean of York, was named to Canterbury instead. Sterne continued to attend Parliament and on 29 Jan. 1678, the day of the adjournment, joined a group of nine including James, duke of York, Sancroft and Compton to dissent from the vote to release from custody of Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke.</p><p>During February Sterne continued to be engaged in the case of incestuous marriages, communicating with the lords chief justice on two specific cases in which he had an interest; uncertain whether he would remain in London until the Easter term, he planned to attend both legal cases, in the hope that ‘with deserved success’ he would put an end to all incestuous marriages thereafter.<sup>78</sup> By 22 Feb. 1678 Sterne boasted to a colleague that his involvement in three ‘controversies’ was vital for the ‘public concerns of the Church’. Besides the two suits concerning incestuous marriages (one in King’s Bench, the other in Common Pleas), he had another suit in the exchequer about the clergy’s tenths. Expending time and money engaging counsel in the two marital causes, Sterne had already decided that he would evade any unfavourable judgment by bringing a writ of error into the House of Lords, ‘who have already in passing the bill which I brought in, judged it to be incestuous and therefore I hope if it come before them in their judiciary capacity they will be of the same mind as they were in their legislative’. Angered by the Commons’ rejection of his bill before committal, he argued he would</p><blockquote><p>never trouble them with the like again, but do it without them, or let both the foul and horrid incestuous marriages which shall be made and the bastards which shall be thereby begotten, and the injustice in defrauding the lawful heirs, and transferring their rights to others, lie at the doors of such as shall be the causes thereof, whosoever they be; whiles we (I hope) shall deliver our own souls, and vindicate the honour of our Church from the scandal which shall thereupon ensue.<sup>79</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 Feb. he repeated his tirade that the Commons should be ashamed of their actions and that he would conduct his business ‘better without them, either in Westminster Hall, or in the House of Lords’. He remained confident that both lords chief justice shared his opinion and that even an unfavourable judgment in the courts would be to his advantage since a writ of error in the Lords would certainly succeed and the case ‘be fixed for ever, and no man will dare ever so move for a prohibition more’.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Despite his 81 years, Sterne sustained a heavy workload both in and out of Parliament. On 9 Mar. 1678 he was appointed to help manage both conferences on the better regulation of fishing and on 14 Mar. was added to the select committee on the bill concerning King’s Bench and the warden of the Fleet. With Parliament disrupted by disputes between the Houses on tacking and foreign affairs, Sterne attended on 13 May for the prorogation and again on 23 May for the start of the new session. The same day he spoke again to both lords chief justice to determine the timescale for the two marital causes, arguing against being ‘put to the charge of a lawyer to plead for that which was foreknown to be incestuous’. Reporting to his diocesan colleague that both the king and lord chancellor (Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham) had spoken to Parliament, he thought the printing of the speeches which would ‘give good satisfaction to all moderate and reasonable men.’<sup>81</sup> Sterne attended the House for the prorogation on 15 July. It would be his final sitting in the Lords. On 12 Oct. Sterne gave his proxy to Compton in anticipation of the new session.<sup>82</sup> Sterne never returned to Parliament.</p><p>Following the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament on 24 Jan. 1679, Sterne deployed his electoral interest in Ripon to secure the election, on 11 Feb., of his eldest son Richard Sterne<sup>‡</sup>. The archbishop did not attend either of the Exclusion Parliaments but was entered as a possible preacher at court for Palm Sunday, 13 Apr., though he did not return to London.<sup>83</sup> On 9 May it was noted in the House that he was excused attendance. Following the dissolution on 12 July, Sterne again secured the election of his son at Ripon.</p><p>On 27 Feb. 1680 he wrote to Sancroft bemoaning his difficulties in raising contributions for the construction of St Paul’s, which he attributed to the fact that bishops were ‘now themselves set up as the mark to be shot at’.<sup>84</sup> He remained at Bishopsthorpe and on 30 Oct. it was noted that he was sick and excused attendance. Following the brief Oxford session of Parliament in March 1681, Sterne received from the king an order that the recent royal declaration dissolving Parliament be read from all pulpits in the province.<sup>85</sup> Sterne supported with vigour the subsequent clampdown on Dissent that marked the Tory reaction.<sup>86</sup></p><p>On 13 Dec. 1682 Henry Bennett*, earl of Arlington informed Sancroft that he or Sterne was expected to preach at court on Palm Sunday 1683, but there can have been no serious intention that Sterne would do so. <sup>87</sup> Sterne was reported as dead on at least one occasion – indeed, on 10 Feb. 1683 Roger Morrice thought it worth noting that ‘The archbishop of York is not dead’ – and by the same month it was anticipated that his death would be accompanied by a major reshuffle in the Church hierarchy.<sup>88</sup> Despite protestations by John Lake*, then bishop of Sodor and Man, that although Sterne may have been ‘buried ... alive’ in London he was ‘very well’, Sterne died four months later on 18 June 1683 at Bishopthorpe.<sup>89</sup> His son Richard communicated the news to Sancroft that Sterne had died ‘of a lethargy which continued three days’.<sup>90</sup> Two weeks after his death, Roger Morrice could state confidently that Sterne would be succeeded by John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester.<sup>91</sup> Sterne was buried in St Stephen’s Chapel of York Minster.</p> |
B.A. |
|
STILLINGFLEET, Edward (1635-99) |
<p><strong><surname>STILLINGFLEET</surname></strong>, <strong>Edward</strong> (1635–99)</p> |
|
|
First sat 21 Oct. 1689; last sat 19 Dec. 1698 |
cons. 13 Oct. 1689 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 17 Apr. 1635, 7th s. of Samuel Stillingfleet of Cranborne, Dorset, and Susanna, da. of Edward Norris of Petworth, Suss. <em>educ.</em> Cranborne sch. (Thomas Garden), Ringwood sch.; St John’s, Camb. matric. 1648, BA 1653, fell. 1653, MA 1656, BD 1663, DD 1668; incorp. Oxf. 1657; adm. G. Inn 1669.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 1659, Andrea (<em>d</em>. bef. 1664), da. of William Dobyns of Dumbleton, bencher, L. Inn, 1s. 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1697), da. of Sir Nicholas Pedley<sup>‡</sup>, sjt.-at-law, 1s. 1da. (5 ch. <em>d.v.p</em>.)<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 27 Mar. 1699;<sup>3</sup> <em>will</em> 4 Apr. 1698, pr. 20 Apr. 1699.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1665-85, to James II 1685-9, to William III and Mary II 1689.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Chap. to Sir Roger Burgoyne<sup>‡</sup>, bt. 1654; tutor, Robert Pierrepoint<sup>‡</sup>; rect. Sutton, Beds. 1658-65, St Andrew’s Holborn 1665-89; preacher Rolls chapel 1665; reader of the Temple c.1665; canon St Paul’s 1667-89, Canterbury 1669-89; adn. London 1677-89; dean St Paul’s 1678-89; prolocutor lower house of Convocation 1678, 1679.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Commr. rebuilding St Paul’s Cathedral 1673, liturgy 1689, Irish church 1690,<sup>7</sup> to visit charitable hospitals in the provinces 1691,<sup>8</sup> to visit London hospitals 1691,<sup>9</sup> works at St Paul’s 1692,<sup>10</sup> eccles. appointments 1695,<sup>11</sup> charitable uses 1695.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Mbr. Soc. Reform. Manners 1691.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Mary Beale, bef. 1689, St Paul’s Cathedral, London; oil on canvas, attrib. to Mary Beale c.1690, NPG 1389.</p> |
<h2><em>‘The famous Stillingfleet’</em></h2><p>Although a devout Anglican Stillingfleet respected the validity of other forms of Protestant worship. As a consequence, he has been labelled a ‘latitudinarian’ (and by implication whiggish), despite his evolving political stance and his parliamentary behaviour as bishop of Worcester.<sup>13</sup> Descended from a Yorkshire family who had settled in Dorset, Stillingfleet was admitted to St John’s, Cambridge in 1649 after being nominated to a scholarship by William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury. During the Interregnum he was covertly ordained by the deprived bishop Ralph Brownrigg<sup>†</sup> of Exeter. In 1654 he entered the household of Sir Roger Burgoyne who then presented him to his first clerical living.<sup>14</sup> He conformed at the Restoration. It is difficult to determine Stillingfleet’s economic status, but in 1689 he assessed his personal estate for taxation purposes at £1,000.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet made his mark as a theologian during the Interregnum with his most famous treatise, <em>Irenicum</em> (first published in 1659), advocating unity between the Church and Presbyterians. Although he later distanced himself from the work, his erastian views on the relationship between Church and state (on the grounds that scripture fails to define absolutely any form of Church government) remained unaltered.<sup>16</sup><em> Irenicum</em> was still a talking point at the Restoration, when Stillingfleet’s diocesan, Robert Sanderson*, bishop of Lincoln, was astonished to discover that its author was still so young.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet’s closest intellectual and ecclesiastical associates in the 1660s were Robert Boyle, Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Reynolds*, bishop of Norwich, Gilbert Burnet*, later bishop of Salisbury, and John Wilkins*, bishop of Chester.<sup>18</sup> Yet his name was invariably linked with that of his friend and ally John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury. Picked as preacher of the Rolls Chapel by master of the Rolls, Sir Harbottle Grimston<sup>‡</sup>, he also established close connections with a number of prominent lawyers, including Sir Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup> (with whom he was involved in drawing up proposals for comprehension in 1668), and Chief Justice John Vaughan<sup>‡</sup>, at whose funeral he later preached.<sup>19</sup> He was also taken up by Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London, who encouraged him in anti-Catholic apologetics, including the massive <em>Origines Sacrae or a Rational Account of the Grounds of the Christian Faith</em> (1662), followed by <em>A Rational Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion</em> (1665), a defence of the position of William Laud<sup>‡</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury, in his controversy with the Jesuit Fisher. According to Burnet, no other controversial tracts ‘were so much read and valued’, although the diarist John Evelyn found his earlier style somewhat ‘perplext’.<sup>20</sup> By 1665 the thirty year old Stillingfleet was preaching at court, where his acquaintance from Cambridge, Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, heard ‘the most plain, honest, good, grave sermon, in the most unconcerned and easy yet substantial manner, that I ever heard in my life’.<sup>21</sup> Already ‘the famous Stillingfleet’, he was reported to be ‘regaled … with monies to a great value’ by the king and Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, and recommended by Henchman to the lord treasurer, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, who owned the advowson of the prestigious rectory of St Andrew’s, Holborn.<sup>22</sup> Stillingfleet was appointed to the parish in 1665 (though he was said initially to have turned down the place ‘disapproving of pluralities’); he preached Southampton’s funeral sermon in 1667.<sup>23</sup> In October 1666 he preached the fast sermon for the Great Fire before the Commons, he was read constantly by Mary Rich, countess of Warwick, and became required reading by the likes of Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton.<sup>24</sup> By 1669 there was standing room only at St Andrew’s, despite criticism from some more ‘sober Christians’ in the parish who complained that Stillingfleet was given to extempore prayer and deviations from the Prayer Book.<sup>25</sup> In 1670 the king directed the chapter of St Paul’s to promote Stillingfleet as soon as a vacancy arose since he had ‘done great service … in defence of Christian truth’. The same year there were reports that Stillingfleet was to succeed as master of Trinity Cambridge.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Despite Stillingfleet’s youth (in 1670 he was only 35 years old), in the autumn of 1672 it was rumoured that he had already been elevated to the episcopate.<sup>27</sup> Although the rumours were premature, his involvement in ecclesiastical politics was already apparent. As well as his involvement in the comprehension scheme of 1668, he was commissioned to try to argue Quaker William Penn out of his blasphemous opinions in the Tower of London in 1669.<sup>28</sup> Burnet claimed that Stillingfleet was privy to the financial arrangements between leading Presbyterians and the court, whereby they were given pensions in return for their quiescence in the wake of the Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>29</sup> By then Stillingfleet had become even more prominent in polemics with Roman Catholics. <em>A Discourse concerning the Idolatry Practised in the Church of Rome</em> published in 1671 was Stillingfleet’s answer to two questions which had been posed for him by an unnamed potential female convert to Catholicism in an attempt to keep her in the Church of England. A response by Hugh Cressy occasioned a reply from the exiled Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon; the woman concerned may have been Clarendon’s daughter, the duchess of York; certainly Stillingfleet was involved in attempts to reconvert James Stuart*, duke of York, to the Church of England. <sup>30</sup> The pamphlet battle with Catholic polemicists occasioned by <em>A Discourse concerning the Idolatry</em> went on for some time.<sup>31</sup> Stillingfleet’s answer, licensed in April 1673, to various of the responses occasioned by his earlier <em>Rational Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion</em> was dedicated to the lord chancellor, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury.<sup>32</sup> Stillingfleet was also actively engaged in the business of Parliament (in the preparation of bills, preaching to the Commons, and as an expert on canon law and the constitution) from the early 1660s. On 21 Sept. 1673 he preached an anti-Catholic sermon at the Guildhall.<sup>33</sup> It was repeated before the Commons on 5 November; the two men deputed to thank him for it, Sir John Monson<sup>‡</sup> and William Stockdale<sup>‡</sup>, were outspoken against the duke of York and popish counsellors. The printed sermon was in circulation almost immediately.<sup>34</sup> In October 1673 the king dispensed with Stillingfleet’s residence in Canterbury on account of ‘public service imposed on him by the House of Commons’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Throughout the 1670s Stillingfleet remained involved in comprehension schemes, although he had become closer to the conservative position taken by Simon Patrick*, later successively bishop of Chichester and Ely, than to the more inclusive position preferred by Wilkins.<sup>36</sup> His reputation as a friend of nonconformity was belied by his evolving arguments for a narrow comprehension that would change the Anglican constitution as little as possible. Between 1673 and 1675, at the instigation of George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, and Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, and with the mediation of Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], Stillingfleet and Tillotson were considered the most likely candidates to broker a deal on comprehension.<sup>37</sup> With Richard Baxter and other prominent nonconformists, they prepared various drafts of a ‘healing’ bill to Morley’s narrow requirements.<sup>38</sup> Introduced into the Lords on 13 Feb. 1674 and committed to a committee of the whole on 19 Feb., the bill ‘for composing differences in religion, and inviting sober and peaceably-minded Dissenters into the service of the Church’ was doomed to failure. There was fierce opposition from within the episcopate and it was lost with the prorogation five days after its committal.</p><h2><em>Dean of St Paul’s, 1678-91</em></h2><p>Stillingfleet’s status did not preclude condemnation of the immorality of the court: on 24 Feb. 1675 he alluded in a sermon to the satirical writings of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, a sermon heard by, among others, Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey.<sup>39</sup> In 1678 he succeeded William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, as dean of St Paul’s. His continuing vehement anti-Catholicism and public debate with Catholic priests led to rumours of a projected attempt at assassination during the Popish Plot. His parishioners even set up a bodyguard for him.<sup>40</sup> His fast sermon to the Commons on 13 Nov. 1678 placed the blame for the Plot squarely on the parlous state of national morality; the sermon sold 4,000 copies on its first day on sale. By this time Stillingfleet (as dean of St Paul’s) was working closely with Henry Compton*, of London, and with Heneage Finch*, earl of Nottingham, to fill London livings with their own candidates.<sup>41</sup> The connection with Nottingham and his son, Daniel Finch*, later 2nd earl of Nottingham, would last for the remainder of Stillingfleet’s life.</p><p>Although it would be another decade before he took his seat in the House, Stillingfleet was closely involved with the dispute in the Lords in 1679 over the rights of bishops to vote in capital cases. Far from being an anticlerical Whig (as high-flying Anglicans would persistently suggest) Stillingfleet was zealous for the rights of the Church; his treatise on the subject augmented the publications of hard-line Anglican Tory Laurence Womock*, bishop of St Davids, in defending the voting rights of bishops.<sup>42</sup> Denzil Holles*, Baron Holles (supported by Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln) led the attack against the bishops.<sup>43</sup> Stillingfleet challenged Holles’s ‘muddled’ assertion that, on the one hand, clerical involvement in secular trials was ‘popish clericalism’ but that, on the other, the canon law prohibiting the shedding of blood by clergy had been subsumed into English common law. For Stillingfleet a bishop’s duty in the Lords could not be evaded by resort to canon law (tainted by its ‘popish’ origins), and the established Church had a right and duty to play a role in civil affairs. Bishops, he affirmed, were members of the Lords in their own right by writ of summons. Tampering with the ‘ancient constitution of … parliaments’, he claimed, would ‘unavoidably bring anarchy and confusion’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>In 1679, when the Exclusion Crisis made Protestant unity an even greater imperative, Stillingfleet was linked to a new attempt to secure a comprehension bill. While he would always maintain his erastian position on the relationship between Church and state, it was clear by 1680 that he had distanced himself from any form of comprehension that altered the status and constitution of the Church. He was encouraged by his diocesan Compton – with whom he was now on very close terms – to preach (and publish) an attack on Richard Baxter’s most recent publications. Stillingfleet’s sermon of 11 May 1680, <em>The Mischief of Separation</em>, preached before the Whig mayor of London Sir Robert Clayton<sup>‡</sup>, argued that nonconformists should join the Church of England out of public duty, and that indulgence for separatist Protestants would be a ‘Trojan horse’, setting a dangerous precedent for toleration for Catholics.<sup>45</sup> Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> was certain that the nonconformists would ‘not be pleased with it’, but it irritated conservative Anglicans as well.<sup>46</sup> Baxter regarded Stillingfleet as a traitor to the cause of comprehension, while Anglican critics such as Samuel Parker*, later bishop of Oxford, still branded him ‘an old knave’ for his erastianism, and other hard-line Anglicans (still annoyed by <em>Irenicum</em>) complained that Stillingfleet’s ‘good will to comprehension, [and] latitudinarian principles’ was ‘notorious’. <sup>47</sup></p><p>In November 1680 Stillingfleet and William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, an ally through Stillingfleet’s support for the Welsh Trust, embarked on a new round of discussions with nonconformists. Several bills were prepared (by Dissenters and sympathetic members of the Commons) and a draft measure introduced into the Commons, possibly prepared by Sir John Maynard<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>48</sup> Stillingfleet’s objections to the bill were published in <em>The Unreasonableness of Separation</em>, which the earl of Anglesey (himself responsible for a bill distinguishing Protestant from Catholic Dissenters introduced into the Lords on 9 Dec.) was reading on 19 December. The current proposals, Stillingfleet argued, would introduce faction into the Church that would ‘more endanger it than external opposition’. He offered a grudging indulgence to Protestant dissenters, as long as they subscribed to the 36 articles of faith, paid a penalty of 12<em>d</em>. per Sunday for their own absence from church and were not eligible for public office. He was prepared to make some concessions for those who wished to remain inside the Church of England, including a revision of the Prayer Book and some changes to church organisation.<sup>49</sup> Parker commented bitterly to Simon Patrick that Stillingfleet enjoyed the support of a hypocritical episcopate merely because he had vindicated the bishops’ right to vote in capital cases: they would ‘value a little prating privilege of parliament … their peerage before their religion, and would be content to be deposed from the apostolic office thereby to preserve their temporal baronies’. Moreover, he claimed, Stillingfleet had always ‘sided and caballed’ with the earl of Shaftesbury’s faction.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet built on his reputation as a controversialist throughout the 1680s, assisting Thomas Tenison*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and William Sancroft in the covert promotion of tracts on Protestant unity, and supporting Lloyd of St Asaph in his dispute with the ‘absolutist’ lord advocate Sir George Mackenzie.<sup>51</sup> On the accession of James II, he preached obedience to the governors of the Church despite ‘changes in state or government’ but, as a vehement opponent of Catholicism, maintained a high political profile throughout the reign.<sup>52</sup> He later claimed he was ‘in continual expectation’ of being censured by the ecclesiastical commission.<sup>53</sup> He denied the commission’s validity and the use of the king’s dispensing powers (but challenged them in print only from a position of safety in 1689).<sup>54</sup> Provocatively, he engaged in a heated pamphlet exchange with John Dryden on the provenance of three ‘royal papers’ (ostensibly written by Charles II justifying his deathbed conversion to Rome, and one written by the duchess of York to a similar purpose).<sup>55</sup> Not all in the Church were impressed with Stillingfleet’s efforts, however. William Lloyd*, bishop of Peterborough, and later a nonjuror, in 1685 complained to Sancroft about how Stillingfleet had taken it upon himself ‘to barter away the rights and discipline of the established church’, and hoped that Convocation would ‘humble him and the trimming tribe’.<sup>56</sup> Stillingfleet remained in close contact with Burnet while the latter was in The Hague and helped to circulate papers sent by Burnet to a circle of trusted correspondents in England, including Robert Boyle.<sup>57</sup> He and Tillotson, who preached regularly in the king’s chapel, were nominated by the lord treasurer Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, to debate with Catholics in a public conference.<sup>58</sup> They were rejected by the king on the grounds that they had deliberately ‘perverted’ Catholic doctrine.<sup>59</sup> In 1687 Stillingfleet was given the chance to leave Holborn for a Hertfordshire parish, but he seems to have decided at the last moment to have ‘altered his intention of retiring in the country’ and to remain at St Andrew’s.<sup>60</sup> He continued to publish works of anti-Catholic polemic, but was overtaken in popularity as a preacher by Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells. He was present at Lambeth on 17 May 1688 to assist in the drawing up the petition from the seven bishops, but, with Tillotson, arranged to be absent from London when the Declaration of Indulgence was to be read; ‘so overwise are some sort of men’ was the observation of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon.<sup>61</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet was one of the London clergy (including his friends Tillotson, Tenison and John Sharp*, soon to become archbishop of York) who had been associated with the patronage of the earls of Nottingham since the 1670s.<sup>62</sup> Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, had orchestrated opposition to the second Declaration of Indulgence, but claimed that Stillingfleet and Tillotson advised him against more direct action in the Revolution (they later denied this).<sup>63</sup> Although Stillingfleet would not go as far as Gilbert Burnet in accepting the new regime as having <em>de facto</em> legitimacy by conquest, Burnet recommended him as the ‘learnedst man of the age … and a man of great prudence’, and he was one of those Burnet thought ought to be elevated once an appropriate see fell vacant.<sup>64</sup> He became a propagandist for the court and began work on a new comprehension scheme in January 1689 – a scheme that reflected the very narrow comprehension advocated by courtly Tories such as Nottingham. Stillingfleet’s proposals were submitted to Nottingham, who introduced a toleration bill into the Lords on 28 February.<sup>65</sup> A comprehension bill followed on 11 Mar., but Stillingfleet warned Nottingham that the draft bill would require prior sanction by Convocation as the only way to bring the clergy to accept the measure.<sup>66</sup> Both bills received a second reading on 14 Mar. but comprehension was once again defeated.</p><p>In the interval between the suspension of Sancroft and Tillotson’s appointment as archbishop, Tillotson and Stillingfleet exercised joint metropolitan jurisdiction over the province.<sup>67</sup> In print Stillingfleet warned nonjurors against committing the sin of schism (and, again in print, in 1691 defended the replacement of nonjuring bishops).<sup>68</sup> He subsequently engaged in a lengthy correspondence with leading nonjurors, publishing a controversial discourse on the nature of oaths. Stillingfleet also continued to work on the court’s programme of legislation and political propaganda, borrowing Parliament rolls to substantiate his arguments. In the autumn he was named to the ecclesiastical commission to produce new comprehension legislation, this time based on proposals written by Tillotson and submitted to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, via Stillingfleet.<sup>69</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Worcester 1689-99</em></h2><p>Stillingfleet was clearly destined for the episcopate: he preached before the queen on 22 Feb. 1689, not much more than a week after the throne had been offered to her and her husband, paying particular attention to the difficulties that stood in the way of salvation for those in ‘particular circumstances of times and persons’.<sup>70</sup> Stillingfleet’s elevation to the bishopric of Worcester was confirmed on 12 Oct. 1689, though news of it had been in circulation for at least a month before.<sup>71</sup> Along with the elevations of Tillotson to Canterbury, Gilbert Ironside*, to Bristol, and Patrick to Chichester, it gave heart to Sir Charles Cottrell<sup>‡</sup> that the Church would ‘stand firm, notwithstanding the standing off of those that refuse to take the oaths’.<sup>72</sup> On 13 Oct. he was consecrated by Compton at Fulham.<sup>73</sup> Remaining in London to sit on the ecclesiastical commission, Stillingfleet, Compton, Tenison, Patrick and Robert Grove*, later bishop of Chichester, pored over possible changes to the liturgy over dinner at Patrick’s lodgings, but by the end of 1689 it was clear that the lower house of Convocation would not compromise and comprehension was abandoned.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On 21 Oct. Stillingfleet was issued with his writ of summons and took his seat in the House the same day, the day of prorogation of the first session of the Convention.<sup>75</sup> His parliamentary career would be circumscribed by recurring episodes of gout (for which he was at one point recommended to drink a pint of cow’s urine each morning).<sup>76</sup> It was conducted as much outside the chamber as within it. Nevertheless, he was present for the first day of the new session of the Convention two days later and attended 52 per cent of sittings. He was named to four select committees in addition to the standing committees for privileges and for petitions. In a list prepared between October 1689 and February 1690, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (and later duke of Leeds), classed him as a supporter of the court. He was present on the first day of the new Parliament the following March, after which he attended nearly 88 per cent of sittings, was named to the standing committees for privileges, the Journal and petitions and to six select committees.</p><p>On 8 Apr. 1690 he followed Nottingham in registering his protest against the wording of the resolution to recognize William and Mary as king and queen. Two days later he again protested against expunging from the Journal the reasons for the previous protest. In April and May, with the House immersed in both the crown and Parliament recognition bill and the security of the crown bill, Stillingfleet received two proxies: on 12 Apr. that of Compton (vacated three days later) and on 28 Apr. that of Humphrey Lloyd*, bishop of Bangor (vacated at the end of the session). He was present for the last day of the session on 23 May, attended the House to hear the commission for prorogation on 7 July, but then went to Worcester for his primary visitation and to oversee diocesan administration.<sup>77</sup> While in Worcester, he preached an assize sermon on public unity and the common good.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet’s life had always been one of energetic scholarly and ecclesiastical activity. He now enjoyed the authority to implement many of his earlier ideals. Faced with a cathedral chapter that both Stillingfleet and his successor claimed was riddled with immorality and intemperance, his circular letters constantly urged his clergy to undertake moral reform, exhorting them to refrain from behaviour that gave ammunition to anticlerical sentiment.<sup>79</sup> Another letter requesting support for French Protestants (as requested by the king) gave him an opportunity to condemn the rise in conspicuous consumption: clergy were to ‘cajole’ prospective donors ‘to discard the profane, sumptuous expenses of luxury, of debauchery, of gaiety of clothes’ and divert their resources into alms.<sup>80</sup> He reformed his consistory court (presiding in person when he was in residence), nurtured the amenities at the bishop’s residence of Hartlebury Castle, especially the deer park, and furthered Nottingham’s political influence by filling diocesan vacancies with candidates of similar churchmanship.<sup>81</sup> He remained an oracle for senior churchmen concerned with appointments and Church law, sat 35 times in the court of delegates between 4 Nov. 1689 and 1699 (more than any other bishop), supported educational and missionary projects in the colonies and was an acknowledged expert in casuistry (having enjoyed many casuistical debates with his friend Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington). He was also in frequent correspondence with John Somers*, later Baron Somers, regarding the commission for charitable uses.<sup>82</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet arrived at the House 16 days after the start of the autumn 1690 session (the eighth sitting day of the session), attended 63 per cent of sittings and was named to at least 19 select committees. He was added to the committee for privileges. He attended the House for the last time that session on 17 Dec., failing to return for the week of parliamentary business in the new year. Spearheading the government’s preoccupation with the nation’s morals, Stillingfleet preached to the queen on 1 Mar. 1691 and was reputedly behind her directives to the justices of the peace on vice and immorality.<sup>83</sup> Stillingfleet was one of three senior clerics spoken of as possible replacements for Sancroft in April, but he and Sharp ‘escaped preferment’. Their disappointment, it was remarked, ‘occasions great discourse’. Whether or not Stillingfleet resented missing out for the archbishopric, the following month he assisted at Tillotson’s consecration.<sup>84</sup> It is unclear how much time Stillingfleet spent in the diocese that summer, since he attended the House on five occasions between 31 Mar. and 5 Oct. (when only he, Tillotson and Sharp – still a close friend – attended). Some of the time he spent writing<em> A Vindication of their Majesties’Authority to Fill the Sees of the Deprived Bishops</em>, following the refusal of William Beveridge*, later bishop of St Asaph, to take the see of Bath and Wells.</p><p>On 17 Oct. 1691, in advance of the new session, he received the proxy of his friend William Lloyd of St Asaph (vacated at the end of the session). He took his seat in the House on 22 Oct. for the first day of the session and attended nearly half of all sittings. In this, his most active parliamentary session, he was named to 29 select committees and to the standing committees for privileges, the Journal and petitions. On 17 Nov. he was named one of the reporters of the conference on the safety of the kingdom and on 27 Dec. was one of 14 bishops to put his name to a petition to the king seeking a royal proclamation against ‘impiety and vice’.<sup>85</sup> He attended the session for the last time on 27 Jan. 1692; on 3 Feb. he registered his proxy with John Moore*, then bishop of Norwich (vacated at the end of the session three weeks later). On 11 Apr. he attended a meeting at Lambeth called by Tillotson to discuss the composition of a circular letter. The following month, on 20 and 21 May, he waited on Princess Anne to convey letters between the princess and her sister. He gave the princess the distinct impression that he was ‘very partial’ to the queen, but ‘promised … to bear witness that [she had] made all the advances that was reasonable’<sup>86</sup></p><p>He did not attend the autumn 1692 session and on 21 Nov., at a call of the House, he was noted as being sick. The same day his proxy was registered in favour of William Lloyd. On 3 Jan. 1693 Lloyd used Stillingfleet’s proxy to vote against the place bill. By the following May Stillingfleet’s health had improved sufficiently for him to inform Sharp that he intended to come to town before winter. No news, Sharp replied, was ‘so acceptable’. Throughout the summer months he conducted a visitation (Sharp hoped that for the public good Stillingfleet would publish his visitation charge) and dealt with diocesan matters such as the request from Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup> (chancellor of the diocese of Rochester and later secretary of state) for help in obtaining an ecclesiastical preferment.<sup>87</sup> As planned, Stillingfleet was in London by October, receiving the proxy on 21 Oct. of William Lloyd (vacated at the end of the session). The following month Tenison assured Lloyd of Stillingfleet’s good health and that he would ‘use your proxy to the content of your lordship’.<sup>88</sup> He was present on 7 Nov. for the first day of parliamentary business, on which day he was named to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal, after which he attended 63 per cent of sittings. He was named to 19 select committees. On 23 Nov. he registered his protest against the resolution that the House would not henceforth receive petitions for protecting servants of the crown.</p><p>Early in December 1693 Stillingfleet spoke in the Lords’ debate on the triennial bill, arguing against the ‘inconveniencies’ of annual sessions and giving ‘a very large account’ of parliamentary rolls and writs.<sup>89</sup> On the 16th, he received the proxy of John Hough*, bishop of Oxford (vacated at the end of the session). Remaining in London for the Christmas period, he preached at the chapel royal on Christmas Day.<sup>90</sup> On 15 Jan. 1694 he was named one of the managers of the conference on the expedition at sea the previous summer; on 17 Feb. he spoke in the debate on the Albemarle inheritance case and on the same day voted against the reversal of chancery’s dismission in the cause.<sup>91</sup> He was named one of the managers of the conference on the mutiny bill on 6 Mar., but missed the last three weeks of business before the end of the session on 25 April. Although resident in London at the time, he was absent for the passage of his own bill on small tithes (which despite his well-known arguments in favour of effective Church courts, sought to transfer the recovery of small tithes into the more efficacious plenary jurisdiction of justices of the peace). The bill was managed in the Lords by Sharp, whose diary reveals that he co-ordinated closely with Stillingfleet, visiting him at home three times in the first week of April to discuss amendments.<sup>92</sup> Poor health may have been behind Stillingfleet’s earlier absences, though he was sufficiently well to attend a meeting at Lambeth on pastoral reform towards the end of the summer. Following the meeting, Tillotson sent Stillingfleet a draft letter of injunctions (to be sent from the king and queen to the bishops) for his corrections and comments.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet was expected to be in town by the middle of October 1694 despite illness and poor eyesight.<sup>94</sup> He was present on 12 Nov., the first day of the session, attended 31 per cent of sittings, was named to the standing committees for privileges and the Journal and to two select committees. Tillotson’s death on 22 Nov. brought to the fore the question of the succession to Canterbury. Queen Mary (and Tillotson himself before his death) wanted Stillingfleet to succeed as archbishop, and pressed both the king and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, to make such a recommendation.<sup>95</sup> It was reported in diplomatic correspondence that Stillingfleet was under consideration for the post, but that he lacked sufficient support in the ecclesiastical establishment.<sup>96</sup> Moreover, Whigs were increasingly opposed to his ‘notions’ and ‘high’ temper as he moved ever further from the ‘latitude’ he had demonstrated in earlier years. Burnet, a former admirer, observed that Stillingfleet had embraced ‘the humours of that high sort of people beyond what became him’ and had become ‘too much conceited of himself, and too much concerned for his family’. The two men experienced a mutually prickly relationship on account of Burnet’s ‘combustible’ temper, and by 1696 Stillingfleet had lost patience with the volatile bishop of Salisbury.<sup>97</sup></p><p>At a call of the House on 26 Nov. 1694 Stillingfleet was excused attendance. Despite a diminishing parliamentary career, he remained very active (and controversial) in ecclesiastical, academic and, especially, legal spheres. He spoke in two appeal cases in the Lords in 1695: one a writ of error (Phillips v. Bury) from King’s Bench regarding the visitation rights of Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, at Exeter College, Oxford, the other relating to a grant <em>ad retinendum</em> for a bishop’s commendam. In the former case, Stillingfleet moved for a reversal of the king’s bench judgment, arguing that if the Lords wished to promote learning, ‘there must be a timely check given to these tedious, expensive and troublesome suits at law … and … although it be possible for a visitor to go beyond his bounds … it is better that one person suffer, than that the discipline, government and peace of the college be in danger’. In the case of commendams, he defended the royal prerogative, even where an act of Parliament created a special case: although the monarch consented to an Act, that consent did not extend to ‘taking away any right belonging to himself in right of his crown’.<sup>98</sup> His influential <em>Discourse Concerning Bonds of Resignation</em> (1695) attacked as simony the practice of pre-appointment agreements with patrons and damned the trafficking of ecclesiastical posts. A bill to prevent simoniacal contracts was introduced into the House in February 1695, but Stillingfleet was not listed as present at any stage of the bill’s progress through the House. In April, on account of his churchmanship and standing as a ‘good legalist’, he was sworn in as ecclesiastical commissioner to consider clerical appointments.<sup>99</sup></p><p>In the 1695 general election Stillingfleet supported the election of Charles Cocks<sup>‡</sup> at Droitwich, in an attempt to avoid further contention at Worcester.<sup>100</sup> He was too sick to attend the new Parliament and in February 1696 was noted as one of the peers who had not signed the Association. Stillingfleet’s failure to sign it locally may suggest that he was following Nottingham’s lead.<sup>101</sup> That winter Tenison (in dispute with Burnet) sought Stillingfleet’s expertise on the extent and legality of his powers as primate in the case of dispensations and bonds of resignation. Stillingfleet maintained that the law left such matters at the discretion of the primate as long as he could ‘assert a just cause’ in chancery if challenged. It was, he continued, no easy matter to deal with a person of Burnet’s temper, ‘for the same heat which runs him into mistakes makes him impatient when he told of them’.<sup>102</sup></p><p>In spite of his poor health, Stillingfleet conducted a visitation in 1696, travelling to the most remote corners of his diocese.<sup>103</sup> It is unclear whether he was involved in the campaign, by Shrewsbury and the deputy lieutenants of Worcestershire, to make a census of Catholics.<sup>104</sup> His charge to the clergy was conservative, denouncing extempore prayer as ‘a base and careless way of talking in the pulpit’.<sup>105</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet was absent from the House between November 1695 and July 1698. On 23 Nov. 1696 when the House was exerting pressure on its members to attend for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, it took into consideration a letter from the ailing bishop requesting leave of absence until he could safely travel to London without endangering his life. The Lords professed themselves satisfied with his excuse and permission was granted. According to Charles Hatton, he was one of only three members of the House excused from attending at that time, ‘for the Lords are very strict in exacting the attendance at this critical time of all their members’.<sup>106</sup></p><p>In January 1697, Stillingfleet’s wife died. He, too, was so ill that his life was thought to be in danger.<sup>107</sup> For the last three years of his life, he immersed himself in theological controversies: the anticlericalism of John Toland, the atheism of Hobbes, the mechanism of Descartes and, most vehemently, the Socinianism of Locke (in an exchange subsequently termed the Stillingfleet-Locke correspondence).<sup>108</sup> Stillingfleet also remained an active diocesan. In the summer of 1697 George Nelson complained that he had been suspended by the bishop ‘against the desire and expectation of the people’ on the grounds that those who had chosen him ‘were fanatics and conventiclers’. Nelson warned that his parishioners were ‘so enraged’ that they were likely to throw in their lots with the local nonconformist congregations.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Stillingfleet was missing from the opening of the new session of December 1697. His health persisted in proving troublesome and in early May 1698 Shrewsbury noted that he had been suffering from ‘a fit of gout in the head’, which had left him incommunicado. The danger was now thought to be over ‘and the disease fallen into his limbs’ but although he was believed to be in better health, he remained at Hartlebury.<sup>110</sup> He continued to be troubled by gout into the summer.<sup>111</sup> He was also increasingly cantankerous (one scholarly exchange was described as ‘the fighting of two cocks on a dung-hill’).<sup>112</sup> In the autumn of 1698 Stillingfleet demanded that his son fill a vacancy on the Worcester chapter and ‘made himself so unpleasant on the subject’ that Tenison feared the dispute would break the commission.<sup>113</sup></p><p>After a gap of more than three years, Stillingfleet finally took his place in the House once more on 27 Oct. 1698, when he was one of only three bishops to be present in the House for the prorogation. He returned to the House for just one day of the new session (9 Dec.) before quitting the House for the last time. Although he was involved in the deliberations against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, Stillingfleet refused to give the case his full attention since he was ‘shortly to give account to God’.<sup>114</sup> On 27 Mar. 1699, at the age of 64, he died at his house in Park Street, Westminster following a stomach illness.<sup>115</sup> Stillingfleet had been an avid book collector; the king showed a keen interest in acquiring the collection (through the mediation of Tenison and Somers).<sup>116</sup> By June negotiations had almost concluded at a cost of £3,000, but in the event his manuscripts were bought by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and his books (numbering nearly 8,000) by Narcissus Marsh, archbishop of Armagh. The total sum raised from the books alone was in excess of £2,500.<sup>117</sup> Stillingfleet, whose descendants included numerous clerics, made his son James (rector of Hartlebury and member of the Worcester chapter) executor and residuary legatee of his will. Much of the estate had already been settled on James and his wife Dorothy Wylde, but the bishop’s will also detailed cash bequests of more than £800. Personal effects were divided between his son Edward (professor of physic at Gresham College and clergyman), daughter Anne Fyshe (married to Humphrey Fyshe of Gray’s Inn), a variety of family members, servants and the poor of Worcester and Hartlebury.<sup>118</sup> Stillingfleet’s works and earliest biography were published by Richard Bentley in 1710. Although it was thought that he would be replaced by William Wake*, then bishop of Lincoln, who considered Stillingfleet a ‘truly great, and wise … prelate’, he was in fact succeeded by his friend William Lloyd. Stillingfleet was buried in Worcester Cathedral.<sup>119</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
STRATFORD, Nicholas (1633-1707) |
<p><strong><surname>STRATFORD</surname></strong>, <strong>Nicholas</strong> (1633–1707)</p> |
|
|
First sat 2 Nov. 1689; last sat 8 Feb. 1707 |
cons. 15 Sept. 1689 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 8 Sept. 1633, s. of Nicholas Stratford, ?draper. <em>educ</em>. Trinity, Oxf. BA 1654, MA 1656, fell. 1656, BD 1664, DD 1673. <em>m</em>. bef. 1667 (forename unknown) da. and coh. (<em>d</em>. 30 July 1689) of Dr Stephen Luddington, adn. of Stow, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da. <em>d</em>. 12 Feb. 1707; <em>will</em> 15 Oct. 1698, pr. 8 Apr. 1707.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1673.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Chap. to John Pearson*, bp. of Chester, bef. 1673;<sup>3</sup> Warden, Collegiate Church, Manchester 1667-84; preb. Lincoln 1670-89; vic. Knighton, Leics. 1670-4; rect. Llansantffraid-yn-Mechain, Mont. 1671, Llanrwst, Denb., St Mary Aldermanbury, London 1683-9, Wigan, Lancs. 1689-1707; dean, St Asaph 1673-89.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Commr. Q. Anne’s Bounty 1704.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Mbr. SPG 1701.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attributed to M. Dahl, c.1705, Bishop’s House, Chester.</p> |
<p>Stratford was a man of contradictions. A Tory churchman and apologist for divine right monarchy, he owed his elevation to the see of Chester to his support for the 1688 Revolution. His father’s occupation was given variously as draper, shoemaker or tailor, but Stratford was later credited with having ‘an estate of his own’. He married an heiress who was niece to John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester and the future archbishop of York, and he was also the residuary legatee of his cousin William Day, through whom he acquired property in Oxford held on lease from Magdalen and Brasenose; yet he seems not to have possessed a great fortune. <sup>7</sup> In 1689, in response to a self-assessment for taxation purposes, he stated that the only estate he possessed was exempt.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Made chaplain by the bishop of Chester, John Pearson, who had been master of Trinity college, Oxford, where he had been a fellow, it was Stratford’s marriage that brought him more tangible career advancement; through Dolben’s interest he obtained the wardenship of the collegiate church of Manchester, which was also the parish church.<sup>9</sup> There he was regarded initially by the ejected warden, Henry Newcome, as ‘a stranger, unthought of, unknown of, unsought for’, but Newcome found him ‘a good man, of a sweet temper, brave scholar and preacher’, who despite the ‘bitter hints against hypocrisy’ in his sermons, established a good relationship with his predecessor. Stratford was given to making political gestures: he voluntarily provided ‘man, horse and arms’ for the king’s service, made the college chapter commit an annual £10 for the same purpose and enforced the celebration of the three political anniversary services in the Church calendar.<sup>10</sup> He kept a close eye on local conventicles, liaising with Richard Legh<sup>‡</sup> and Roger Kenyon<sup>‡</sup> (with whom he maintained a long and close relationship).<sup>11</sup> In 1673 he was appointed dean of St Asaph.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Wary of political disturbance in an area known for its Dissenting and Catholic communities, in 1680 Stratford referred an epitaph written by the recently deceased Isaac Barrow*, bishop of St Asaph, to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, as it had caused ‘a great noise’ among both ‘papists and presbyterians’.<sup>13</sup> Towards the end of February 1683 it was reported that Stratford was to quit Manchester for a London living. In recommending a successor, William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, commented on how Stratford had done ‘very well’ in Manchester, despite not being from the area.<sup>14</sup> By then Stratford appears to have become disenchanted with the polarization of politics in Manchester during the Tory reaction and irritated by his dispute with the Lancashire Trafford family over the tithes of Stretford.<sup>15</sup> He resigned his post in 1684, preaching a farewell sermon that counselled pointedly against vengeance.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Stratford was probably already familiar in London prior to his move there, having preached on at least two occasions in the chapel of Lincoln’s Inn in the winter of 1682.<sup>17</sup> Following James’s accession, he was drafted into the Anglican campaign to counter Roman Catholic apologetics.<sup>18</sup> Roger Morrice reported one incident where Stratford was confronted with a Catholic priest, the brother of one of his parishioners. In the ensuing debate Stratford ‘baffled him utterly’. To unite English Protestants, he advocated coming ‘to a good understanding … with the nonconformist Dissenters … for though they were mistaken, it was a conscientious, not an obstinate mistake.’ To these ends, he brokered a meeting between the senior nonconformist, William Bates, and William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph (and later of Worcester). He nevertheless opposed to the Declaration of Indulgence since it would also allow toleration for Catholics.<sup>19</sup></p><p>In the late summer of 1688 Stratford claimed to be suffering from ill health and overburdened with business. His movements at the time of the Revolution are not clear but there is no reason to doubt his support for the change of regime. In March 1689, by now a victim of gout, he wrote optimistically how people were ‘daily more and more satisfied in their scruples’.<sup>20</sup> On 22 June 1689 he was nominated to replace Thomas Cartwright*, as bishop of Chester.<sup>21</sup> He suffered a personal tragedy the following month with the death of his wife, though this did not prevent him from proceeding with his consecration on 15 September.<sup>22</sup> On 24 Sept. he was enthroned at Chester.<sup>23</sup> As a diocesan, Stratford waged a crusade against the ‘obnoxious’ and the ‘scandalous’.<sup>24</sup> He tackled 13 years of administrative neglect, augmented livings, ordained only graduate clergy and enforced improved pastoral care. Although later portrayed as a mediator, Stratford was dogged in pursuit of his own aims. Despite the opposition of his metropolitan, John Sharp*, who succeeded as archbishop of York in July 1691, he established local societies for the reformation of manners and entered a jurisdictional dispute with the autonomous archdeaconry of Richmond (to which his son was later appointed). Stratford was also heavily involved in the politics of Wigan, where he held the rectory (and lordship of the manor) <em>in commendam</em>. The rectory’s advowson was owned by the Tory Bridgeman family of Castle Bromwich.<sup>25</sup> His overtures to nonconformists during the reign of James II were replaced with a less tolerant approach in his diocese, and he entered a lawsuit against the use of Hindley chapel by Dissenters, a case that rumbled on throughout the decade.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Within two weeks of being enthroned as bishop, Stratford was back in London for the assembling in the Jerusalem Chamber of the ecclesiastical commission on the revision of the liturgy.<sup>27</sup> Stratford also led an active parliamentary career. In the course of 18 years as bishop of Chester, he attended 17 out of 19 sessions and served as an occasional reporter from committees, generally concerning bills for the sale of estates to satisfy debts. There was no obvious pattern to his attendance, apart from his habitual late arrival at each session. His political behaviour in the diocese (where he surrounded himself with ‘a closely knit high church, high Tory circle’ of churchmen and laymen, including the Tory member for Chester, Sir Henry Bunbury<sup>‡</sup>) is far more easily categorized than his behaviour in Parliament.<sup>28</sup> He gave his proxy to bishops on both sides of the political divide and there were divisions in which his vote seems to have been determined more by issue than party.</p><p>Stratford first took his seat in the House on 2 Nov. 1689, one week into the second session of the Convention. He attended the session for 73 per cent of sittings and was named to 11 committees. He returned for the first day of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and attended for 59 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to nine committees, all on private bills except for one on the regulation of coal prices. In early April he was one of only two bishops (the other being Simon Patrick*, bishop of Chichester) to vote in favour of the recognition bill. A few days later he preached before the Lords, while Patrick preached to the king. On 30 Apr. Stratford signed his proxy in favour of Henry Compton*, bishop of London. Despite this, he was in the House the following day (though missing from the attendance list) when he was said to have been the only bishop to support the resolution for a secret rather than a general committee to be established to consider the state of the nation. He was present again on 2 May when he attended a four-hour debate on the abjuration bill. Again he stood out from the majority of the bishops when only he and Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury voted in favour of committing the measure. He had quit the session by the time the Lords returned to the business. Roger Morrice wondered whether, as Stratford had voted throughout the session ‘with the English side’, he was now concerned that he may have ‘committed an error’ and it was for that reason he had returned to Chester and left his proxy in Compton’s hands.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Throughout the summer of 1690 he took pleasure in communicating news to his son’s tutor at Oxford of the routing of James II in Ireland.<sup>30</sup> He arrived at the House two weeks into the October session and attended 41 per cent of sittings. He was named to nine committees in the course of the session but was missing from the last month of business. By 20 Dec. Stratford was back in Chester. In January 1691 he approached Thomas Lamplugh*, archbishop of York, for permission to undertake a visitation in preference to Lamplugh making a metropolitical visitation in Chester, pointing out that the diocese had not been visited by its own bishop for 13 years. On 5 May he issued a charge for his primary visitation in which he emphasized the need for clergy to have a proper vocation. He was also concerned about clandestine marriages.<sup>31</sup> With the visitation complete, he returned to London, arriving at the House on 11 Nov., three weeks after the start of the next session. He attended just under half of all sittings and was named to 26 committees (including one for Albury Manor where he owned land). On 2 Nov. he was excused attendance at a call of the House. Towards the end of December, he joined with Charles Montagu*, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, and Charles Mildmay*, 18th Baron FitzWalter, in pressing ‘very much’ for the playhouses to be closed following an incident when Henry Yelverton*, Viscount Longueville, was insulted at the theatre. He was then also one of the 14 bishops who signed a petition to the king seeking a royal proclamation against ‘impiety and vice’.<sup>32</sup> On 18 Jan. 1692, Stratford was granted leave of absence for three weeks. He entered his proxy in favour of John Tillotson*, of Canterbury, but attended for a further two days before quitting the House for the remainder of the session.</p><p>At the beginning of June Stratford was ‘fully employed in the visitation of my cathedral’; two months later he was still occupied with inspecting the parishes.<sup>33</sup> He returned to the House four weeks after the start of the winter 1692 session, of which he attended 59 per cent of sittings. On 21 Nov. he was excused attendance at a call of the House, but he took his seat a fortnight later on 3 December. Over the next three months he was named to six committees. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of committing the place bill; but on 3 Jan. 1693, in common with all the bishops present, he voted against passing the measure. On 2 Jan. he voted in favour of reading the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.</p><p>Stratford spent at least part of the summer touring the northern extremities of his diocese and beyond into Cumberland. He was also involved with liaising with Roger Kenyon about an ongoing dispute with Hugh Willoughby*, 11th (<em>CP </em>12th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, over the employment of former chapels of ease (as well as Willoughby’s own family chapel) as Dissenting meeting places.<sup>34</sup> He arrived at the House a fortnight into the winter 1693 session and attended for 61 per cent of its sittings. He was named to 19 committees. On 17 Feb. 1694, he voted against reversing the chancery dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>.</p><p>As usual Stratford missed the first two months of business of the 1694-5 session. On 15 Dec. he wrote announcing his intention to set out for London ‘about a fortnight hence’ and on 1 Jan. 1695 he instructed his correspondents to direct letters during his absence from Chester to ‘Mr Clayton’s house in Stable Yard, Westminster’.<sup>35</sup> He arrived at the House on 7 Jan., attended almost 43 per cent of sittings and was named to 23 committees. On 19 Jan. he was the only bishop to join seven peers (both Tory and Whig) in protesting against the resolution not to engross the bill to make wilful perjury a felony.<sup>36</sup> He missed the last six weeks of business, suffering from ill health. In a letter of 7 Mar. he had excused his slow response to an earlier missive ‘occasioned partly by multitude of other business and partly by want of health’. He was, he complained, ‘so tired and indisposed that I can say no more’. In spite of this he remained fully informed of public affairs and was concerned both by the actions of the East India Company and for the sad state of ‘Indians under the English government’ whose conversion to Christianity he considered a moral imperative.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Stratford’s health appears to have continued to trouble him. He did not attend the 1695-6 session and on 26 Feb. 1696 was excused from attending the House to sign the Association.<sup>38</sup> The reason for his absence from the Lords at this point is uncertain but may have been as much to do with pressure of business as with his poor health. Earlier that month he had been in town along with one of Kenyon’s correspondents, Richard Wroe, who was overseeing legal proceedings on the Hindley chapel affair. Stratford was still in Chester at the close of March but well enough to travel back to London to preach at the Temple on 24 May.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Stratford returned to the House on 14 Nov. 1696, nearly one month into the new session. He attended 47 per cent of all sittings and was named to 14 committees. On 23 Dec. he voted to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. <sup>40</sup> On 8 Mar. 1697 he registered his proxy in favour of the Whig Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Cumberland (vacated at the end of the session). Back in the diocese, Stratford continued to support Kenyon’s campaign to frustrate Willoughby’s efforts to create more dissenting chapels when he refused to institute Willoughby’s candidate for Ellenbrook chapel.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Stratford took part in the elaborate reception and procession through London following the king’s return to England in mid-November.<sup>42</sup> He was in the House on 3 Dec., the first day of the new session, and was named to the committees for privileges and the Journal. Attending 38 per cent of sittings, he was named to 17 select committees. On 15 Mar. 1698, again acting with the Whigs, he voted in favour of punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. One week later the House heard the case brought by Stratford and Richard Peirce, in a writ of error against the king regarding presentation to an ecclesiastical living. After hearing the arguments from counsel on 22 Mar., the Lords found in Stratford’s favour, reversing both the judgment of the court of Common Pleas and its affirmation in King’s Bench. Stratford was also active during the session on behalf of Archbishop King of Dublin. He assured King that he was ‘constantly upon the watch’ to ensure that King’s business was received favourably in the House.<sup>43</sup> On 10 June Stratford entered his proxy in favour of Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, which was vacated at the end of the session.</p><p>Stratford was in Cumberland again over the summer.<sup>44</sup> He arrived late for the start of the 1698-9 session, taking his place in the House finally on 24 Jan. 1699, having in effect missed just over a fortnight’s worth of business. He attended 65 per cent of sittings and was named to 18 committees. Three days later he was nominated one of the managers of the conference held on 28 Jan. on amendments to the bill to prohibit exportation of any corn, malt or meal for a year. On 29 Mar. he registered his dissent against the resolution to agree with the address to the king on the case of the <em>London Ulster Society v. the Bishop of Derry</em>. On 26 Apr. Stratford reported from the committee considering the bill for the sale of the estates of Zenobia Hough for payment of her husband’s debts, which was passed with one amendment. On the penultimate day of the session, 3 May, he was added to the committee for the Journal.</p><p>Stratford seems to have spent part of the summer of 1699 in London where he was consulted to assist the brother of John Evelyn with a case of conscience.<sup>45</sup> He missed the first two months of business in the 1699-1700 session, but, having taken his place on 15 Jan. 1700, was present on just under two-thirds of all sitting days and was named to 20 select committees. On 23 Feb. he voted to adjourn the House during the debate on continuing the East India Company as a corporation; he had already voiced concerns about the activities of the company.<sup>46</sup> Four days later he reported from the committee considering the bill for vesting the estates of a Chester man, Thomas Cowper, in trustees for the satisfaction of debts. By this time Stratford seems to have had a change of heart regarding the Norfolk divorce bill. Even though he had been forecast in 1693 as a likely supporter, he protested against the second reading on 8 March. On 12 Mar. he registered his dissent against the passage of the legislation joining a cross-party group of bishops that included Simon Patrick, Compton, and Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, on the grounds that the case had not been brought initially before the Church courts.<sup>47</sup></p><p>On 14 Mar. Stratford was named to the committee for a bill with obvious local interest, which had been brought in by the corporation of Chester for preserving navigation on the river Dee. The House rose on 11 April. Stratford was in Wigan by August and travelled back to Chester at the end of that month.<sup>48</sup> His stay in Wigan may have been connected to the forthcoming election (held on 13 Jan. 1701) in which Stratford’s rectory interest helped prevent the return of Emmanuel Scrope Howe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>49</sup> He took his seat in the new Parliament on 17 Feb. 1701, 11 days after the start of the session. He attended approximately a third of sittings and was named to six committees. He failed to attend the last two months of business up to the end of the session on 24 June.</p><p>Stratford took his place in the House on 28 Jan. 1702, one month after the start of the next parliamentary session. He attended 46 per cent of sittings and was named to 28 committees, including legislation for Bishop Fowler. On 23 Feb. he and Compton were the only bishops to support the addition of a clause for preserving the Church in the bill for the further security of the king and succession.<sup>50</sup> On the 26th he demonstrated his continuing hostility to nonconformists when he registered his dissent against the resolution to continue the Quaker Affirmation Act. Following the death of William III, Stratford was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the accession of Queen Anne.</p><p>Stratford failed to attend the first (1702-3) session of the new Parliament. Before the start of the second session, and again on 26 Nov. 1703, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast that Stratford would support the occasional conformity bill. Stratford took his seat on 16 Nov., one week after the start of business, after which he attended just over 40 per cent of all sitting days. On 14 Dec. he registered his dissent against the resolution not to read the occasional conformity bill for a second time. One month later, on 14 Jan. 1704, Stratford voted with the Tories to register his dissent against the decision in <em>Ashby v. White</em>.</p><p>Stratford arrived at the House six weeks late for the start of the October 1704 session. He attended 40 per cent of sittings. During the session he petitioned the queen to continue the maintenance of four royal preachers in the diocese out of the rent of Furness priory.<sup>51</sup> On 15 Dec. Stratford voted in favour of the unsuccessful occasional conformity bill. On Christmas Day he dined with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, Sprat and George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells. The following day he attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. Although he had not originally been named to the committee for Sir Robert Clayton’s<sup>‡</sup> bill regarding Bletchingley church, he attended the committee meeting on 9 Jan. 1705 with Burnet (who was in the chair), Cumberland, Nicolson and Charles Howard*, 4th Baron Howard of Escrick.<sup>52</sup> Three days later he reported back from the committee considering the bill for the sale of the late Daniel Drake’s estate, which was recommended as fit to pass without amendment. After the end of the session, Stratford returned to his diocese and ordered a census of Roman Catholics in Wigan.<sup>53</sup></p><p>On 12 Nov. 1705, three weeks into the new session of Parliament, Stratford was excused attendance at a call of the House. He did not attend until 11 Feb. 1706, and was present in all for only 23 per cent of sittings. On 28 Feb. Stratford, who ‘rarely troubled the House’, gave what Nicolson described as a ‘cry against popery’ in support of the South Lancashire gentry and clergy who had presented a petition to the Lords. Its content, on the suppression of profaneness and immorality, smacked of Stratford’s own moralism and anti-Catholic prejudices. The following day the judges were ordered to bring in a bill to prevent the growth of Catholicism, but the measure failed.<sup>54</sup> Two weeks later, on 11 Mar., Stratford was (along with the majority of those present) named one of the managers of both conferences regarding the privilege of Parliament (occasioned by the letter from Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford). He missed the last two months of business in that session, and the first six weeks of the next, arriving at the House on 14 Jan. 1707. He attended this session for nearly 20 per cent of sittings. On 16 Jan. he dined at John Sharp’s house together with Nicolson and George Smalridge*, the future bishop of Bristol. It is possible that Stratford was being canvassed by Sharp for his support on the forthcoming vote on the Union. On 3 Feb. Stratford voted in support of Sharp’s unsuccessful amendment (on whether the Test should be an integral part of the Act of Union).<sup>55</sup></p><p>Stratford, who had long suffered from gout, attended the House for the final time on 8 February. Four days later, he died of apoplexy at Westminster. He left his 32 acre farm in Albury and the leases on property in Oxford to his only surviving son and executor William, archdeacon of Richmond, his household goods to his Entwistle granddaughters (his daughter having married Edmund Entwistle, archdeacon of Chester), and his clothes (except for his ‘Parliament robes’) to his head servant. He also made a bequest of £100 to the Blue Coat School, which he had founded. He was buried on 20 Feb. at Chester with elaborate civic pageantry involving both local and regional dignitaries.<sup>56</sup> He was succeeded, contrary to the hopes of the Junto, by the Tory, William Dawes*, who would later become archbishop of York.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
TALBOT, William (1658-1730) |
<p><strong><surname>TALBOT</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1658–1730)</p> |
|
|
First sat 4 Dec. 1699; last sat 24 Apr. 1730 |
cons. 24 Sept. 1699 bp. of OXFORD; transl. 23 Apr. 1715 bp. of SALISBURY; transl. 7 Nov. 1722 bp. of DURHAM |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 22 July 1658, s. of William Talbot esq. (<em>d</em>.1686) of Kinver, Staffs.<sup>1</sup> and Mary (<em>d</em>.1661), da. of Thomas Doughty of Whittington, Worcs. <em>educ</em>. Oriel, Oxf. matric. 1674, BA 1677, MA 1680, DD 1699; DD Lambeth 1691. <em>m</em>. (1) 1682, Katherine (<em>d</em>.1702), da. of Richard King of Upham, Wilts., alderman of London, stepda. of John Crispe, att. of Chipping Norton, Oxon. 8s. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.), 2da.; (2) 3 Sept. 1703, Agnes (<em>d</em>. 24 Nov. 1730), da. of Sir William Hartopp<sup>‡</sup> of Rotherby, Leics. <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 10 Oct. 1730; <em>will</em> 12 Nov. 1723, pr. 6 Mar. 1731.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to William III 1694-9; dean, chapel royal 1718-21.</p><p>Rect. Burghfield Berks. 1682; dean, Worcester 1691-1715.</p><p>Commr. building 50 new churches 1715-<em>d</em>.;<sup>3</sup> gov. Charterhouse 1721.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Ld. lt. co. Dur. 1722, <em>custos</em> <em>rot</em>. 1722.</p><p>Founder mbr. Amicable Soc.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by G. Kneller, 1718, National Trust, Newton House, Dinefwr Park and Castle; engraving by G. Vertue (aft. Kneller) 1720 NPG D13916.</p> |
<h2><em>Whig dean of Worcester</em></h2><p>If his Tory detractors are to be believed, Talbot was a young rake and a gambling addict even after taking holy orders.<sup>5</sup> Youthful indiscretions aside, Talbot’s Whig churchmanship and family connections alone gave his enemies ample political ammunition. A member of a cadet branch of the family of the earls of Shrewsbury, Talbot was closely linked to his cousin and contemporary Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, favourite and confidant of William III. Shrewsbury was instrumental in Talbot’s early career advancement and secured his promotion into the higher clergy in the aftermath of the Revolution. On 22 Apr. 1691 Talbot was nominated by the king to the Worcester deanery to replace the nonjuring George Hickes.<sup>6</sup> The city greeted the arrival of this overtly Whig appointee with horsemen, civic dignitaries, bells and volleys from the militia.<sup>7</sup> Two months later John Tillotson*, archbishop of Canterbury, awarded him a Lambeth doctorate.<sup>8</sup> He preached at court throughout the 1690s on topical ecclesiastical concerns (such as the ‘unreasonableness’ of atheism).<sup>9</sup> Loathed by Worcestershire Tories (together with the whole Worcester chapter), as dean of Worcester Talbot proved a stalwart supporter of the Whig bishops of Worcester, especially of William Lloyd*, who came to the episcopate after Talbot had himself become a bishop but retained the deanery in commendam.<sup>10</sup></p><h2><em>Bishop of Oxford, 1699</em></h2><p>Talbot’s elevation to the episcopate was linked to his kinsman Shrewsbury’s influence, even though Shrewsbury was by then sick and eager to be relieved of office. With the death in March 1699 of Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, Shrewsbury, Somers and the king pushed for his replacement by Talbot, only to be blocked by Thomas Tenison*, Tillotson’s successor as archbishop of Canterbury, who was anxious that the ecclesiastical commission should avoid blatantly whiggish appointments. Tenison resisted Talbot’s elevation for as long as possible and then capitulated to allow him the impoverished see of Oxford.<sup>11</sup> The royal assent of 29 Aug. 1699 was matched by the grant of an Oxford doctorate of divinity.<sup>12</sup> The episcopal revenue at Oxford was relatively modest. Elizabeth Burnet (writing in 1707 when Talbot appears to have been agitating for promotion) thought his income an annual £1,000, less than half that of Salisbury and a fifth of the returns expected by the bishop of Durham. Talbot retained the Worcester deanery <em>in commendam</em> until 1715. Even so he appears on occasion to have struggled to remain afloat. When in the summer of 1712 he was pressed to repay money, at least one of those attempting to recover funds from the impoverished prelate found him ‘not over tender of his honour’ and reluctant to discharge the funds. The debt was satisfied later that year.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Talbot was enthroned in Oxford on 14 Nov. 1699. His elevation as bishop coincided with the death of the dominant local powerbroker, James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon; his enthronement then coincided with the ensuing by-election caused by the new earl’s promotion to the Upper House. There is, though, no available evidence to suggest that Talbot was actively involved in the contest that saw the Tory, Sir Robert Dashwood<sup>‡</sup>, elected to the vacant seat.<sup>14</sup></p><p>On 4 Dec. 1699, a fortnight after the start of the autumn parliamentary session, Talbot took his seat in the House. His parliamentary career would span more than 30 years and, in the period up to 1715, bore little discernible pattern. Although he appeared in the House for each of the 17 sessions up to March 1715, his attendance varied widely from nearly 90 per cent (in 1706 and 1707) to less than ten per cent (in 1704-5 and 1713).</p><p>During his first parliamentary session, he attended nearly 72 per cent of sittings. On 23 Feb. 1700 Talbot voted in favour of the House adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss two amendments to the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. On 9 and 10 Apr. he was nominated one of the managers of two conferences: on amendments to the land tax in England and forfeited estates in Ireland bill. Given the Talbots’ influence in Ireland, it is possible he had a particular interest in this legislation. He attended the House on the last day of the session, 11 Apr., before leaving London for the provinces. From there he undertook some tasks on his kinsman Shrewsbury’s behalf, writing on 15 July to Thomas Coventry*, 2nd earl of Coventry, to enquire whether Coventry and his brother would agree to serve as deputy lieutenants under Shrewsbury in the Worcester lieutenancy. Two days later he wrote again with ‘great satisfaction’ at Coventry’s response.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Talbot’s name was listed, along with that of Shrewsbury and various other Worcestershire grandees, to a letter of January 1701 seeking support for Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Thomas Rous in the forthcoming Worcestershire election. This seems to have been wishful thinking, though, because Talbot appears not to have been willing to offer his backing to Pakington.<sup>16</sup> Talbot returned to the House 11 days after the opening of the new Parliament. He attended nearly 73 per cent of sittings. On 20 Mar. 1701 he registered his dissent against the resolution not to request the Commons’ agreement to the address relating to the Partition Treaty. On 31 Mar. Talbot was named in the Lords as a referee for the dowager Lady Saye and Sele in her dispute with her stepson, Nathaniel Fiennes*, 4th Viscount Saye and Sele. He missed the last week of business before the end of the session on 24 June. Four days later, he assigned the Westminster property of 56 Great Queen Street to Sir John Talbot<sup>‡</sup> before travelling to Oxford to conduct his primary visitation.<sup>17</sup> In the Worcestershire election of the autumn of 1701 Pakington was returned with William Bromley<sup>‡</sup> in spite of efforts made by bishops Lloyd and Talbot to rally the clergy votes against him. Back at Westminster on 30 Dec. 1701 for the start of the new Parliament, he attended 60 per cent of sittings. On 8 Mar. 1702 he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the death of William III and the accession of Anne. He continued to attend until early May, missing the last three weeks of business.</p><h2><em>The Reign of Queen Anne</em></h2><p>In advance of the general election in the summer of 1702, Talbot wrote to Coventry on 21 Apr. emphasizing the ‘unfair usage’ William Walsh<sup>‡</sup> had met with during the last election in Worcestershire (November 1701). He recommended that this time the electors’ second votes should be reserved ‘to be hereafter disposed of as they shall see occasion’. The result was that each candidate stood singly, with Pakington and Walsh proving the eventual winners.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Talbot delayed attending the first Parliament of Anne’s reign, missing the first ten weeks of business. Although he did not take his seat until 7 Jan. 1703 (attending the session for only one quarter of all sittings), he was back in London before Christmas. He preached before the queen at St James’s on Christmas Day and attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth on the 26th. His social and ecclesiastical life in London continued to reflect his politics; he was in the ‘outer’ circle of William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle and, as might be expected of a stalwart Whig, preached to the societies for the reformation of manners.<sup>19</sup> He strengthened ties between Whig churchmen when he married his daughter, Henrietta Maria, to Charles Trimnell*, later successively bishop of Norwich and Winchester.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Talbot’s attendance at the House in early January 1703 was almost certainly linked to the attempt to pass legislation against occasional conformity (framed as amendments to the Corporation Act). In the new year Talbot was estimated by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to oppose a new attempt to pass the legislation. On 16 Jan. 1703 Talbot duly voted for the wrecking amendment to the bill. In the subsequent division on the penalty clause, Talbot changed sides, voting with the contents with the excuse that he could not agree ‘to the tempting an informer with so much money as the Commons had baited him with’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>On 14 Feb. 1703 Talbot again preached before the queen at St James’s.<sup>22</sup> He attended the House on the 17th, but missed the last ten days of the session. Talbot appears to have remained more closely involved with Worcestershire affairs than those of his own diocese possibly because of his shared politics with Bishop Lloyd of Worcester. He was in Worcester on 26 June 1703 when he and Lloyd corresponded about New College and diocesan affairs and seems to have remained in the country until well into the summer, where he was observed to be neglecting business on account of his marriage to Agnes Hartopp, ‘one of the wits of Worcester’.<sup>23</sup></p><p>He arrived at Westminster one month after the start of the next session in November 1703 and subsequently attended 65 per cent of sittings. At the start of the session he was correctly forecast on two occasions by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as an opponent of further attempts to pass occasional conformity legislation. In the division of 14 Dec. 1703 Talbot rejected the bill together with Tenison and 12 other bishops. Two days later he was ordered by the House to preach a fast sermon in the Abbey on 19 Jan. 1704. In it he made a heartfelt plea for divine assistance in the ongoing war with France.<sup>24</sup> The following day the Lords thanked Talbot and ordered the sermon to be published. On 15 Feb. Talbot was one of the lords ordered to attend the queen with an address on the Scottish conspiracy. He attended the House sporadically for the rest of the session and was present on the last day on 3 April.</p><p>While his kinsman, Shrewsbury, was abroad battling ill health, Talbot remained an important point of contact with the duke, not least when it was put about that Shrewsbury may have been contemplating reconversion to Rome. At the suggestion of some of Shrewsbury’s associates, it was to Talbot that he wrote assuring the bishop of his steadfast adherence to Protestantism. Throughout his career, Talbot would be instrumental in keeping the Talbots in the Protestant fold, giving instruction to Shrewsbury’s wife before her naturalization, administering the sacrament to Shrewsbury on his deathbed, refusing sanctuary to Shrewsbury’s Catholic brother-in-law and securing a private bill in 1719 to alienate Talbot estates from Catholic family members.<sup>25</sup></p><p>In the summer months of 1704 Talbot conducted a diocesan visitation; he did not return to Westminster for the start of the session in October 1704.<sup>26</sup> On 20 Nov. he registered his proxy in favour of his predecessor at Oxford, John Hough*, now bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and at a call of the House on 23 Nov. he was registered as being excused. He missed the first four months of business (together with the reintroduction in December of the occasional conformity bill), arriving only on 17 Feb. 1705 when the House considered legislation on sheriffs’ accounts, the poor bill and recruits for land forces. Thereafter he attended the session on only six days.</p><p>Still the focus of Tory hostility in Worcester, Talbot was the butt of a Jacobite lampoon against the cathedral chapter, which suggested that Talbot’s wife was the effective dean.<sup>27</sup> The university authorities in Oxford also seem to have been happy ‘to spite the bishop’ and later that year it was reported that they had refused to grant his son a doctorate.<sup>28</sup> Talbot spent at least some of the summer in Shropshire, but at the end of October it was reported that he was on his way to London.<sup>29</sup> He returned to the House two weeks after the start of the 1705-6 parliamentary session but was present in all on only 16 per cent of sittings. On 15 Nov. Talbot received the proxy of his friend William Lloyd (vacated 27 November). On 21 Nov. he joined William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, and Somers for a meeting at the latter’s lodgings, but on 23 Nov. he registered his own proxy with Hough once more.<sup>30</sup> It was vacated four days later when Talbot returned to the House, but he was then absent for the ‘Church in danger’ debate on 6 Dec. and did not reappear in the House until 10 Jan. 1706. At the end of November he had returned to Worcester to deal with diocesan business. Clearly chafing against his isolation in the provinces, he begged Lloyd for news.<sup>31</sup> He returned to the House for two days in January 1706 but was then absent for the remainder of the session. At the end of April he was in Shropshire, writing to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, about ecclesiastical business: Samuel Dunster, an associate of Banastre Maynard*, 3rd Baron Maynard, having brought a charge of simony against another incumbent called Pocock.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Talbot was far more active in the parliamentary session that assembled on 3 Dec. 1706. It is possible that he had been pressed to return to Westminster promptly since the government needed Whig support in the Lords for the debates on the Union.<sup>33</sup> His prompt appearance was probably also linked to his attempt to secure a private act for his family settlement. Whatever the reason, he was more visible in attendance, speeches and committee work, taking his seat on the first day of the session and attending 86 per cent of sittings. He was also engaged with a case in Doctors’ Commons in December.<sup>34</sup> On 9 Dec. he received Hough’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session). On 8 Jan. 1707 he dined with Wake and Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, at the home of Robert Dormer<sup>‡</sup>,a judge in the court of common pleas, chancellor to the diocese of Durham and Burnet’s brother-in-law. Two days later he seconded Burnet’s motion for a removal of the ‘farce’ of benefit of the clergy: it seems reasonable to surmise this may have been discussed at the earlier meeting. On the 25th Talbot dined at Lambeth with Lloyd of Worcester, Burnet, Nicolson and John Evans*, bishop of Bangor. Four days later he sat on a Whitehall committee with the attorney general, Sir Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup>, John Moore*, then bishop of Norwich, John Williams*, bishop of Chichester and Nicolson, but the subject matter of their meeting is unclear.<sup>35</sup> By this time, it was assumed that Talbot, though dubbed a ‘dreamer’ by Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, would, in time be translated to a better bishopric and that some consideration should be given to his replacement.<sup>36</sup> Early in February 1707 it was rumoured that he would be go to Exeter, but the queen’s ecclesiastical preferences ensured the promotion of Tory prelates, leaving Talbot at Oxford for another eight years.<sup>37</sup></p><p>The principal business before the House that session was the Act of Union; during the debates Talbot argued strongly for the Union, disputing with Anglican hardliners who feared it would give a <em>de facto</em> sanction to the validity of Presbyterianism.<sup>38</sup> Talbot maintained that Union no more legitimized the Scottish church than a treaty with the French monarch legitimized Catholicism.<sup>39</sup> One of his speeches in the House during debates on the Union was said to have ‘brought him into great credit amongst the party, chiefly … for the flattery passed upon the bench of bishops’.<sup>40</sup> On 11 Feb. Talbot reported from the committee considering the publishing of libels with a progress report on the committee’s findings to date. On the same day he petitioned the House to bring in a private bill for the sale of Kemsey rectory and other lands (held on lease from the dean and chapter of Worcester) for the benefit of his children.<sup>41</sup> The petition, which referred to the settlement on his daughter (the wife of Charles Trimnell) was referred for investigation. Subsequently, the Worcester Member, Thomas Wylde<sup>‡</sup>, was named as a trustee in the settlement.<sup>42</sup> On 17 Feb. the justices’ report was delivered to the House and three days later his private bill was read for the first time. It had its second reading on the 21st; the committee included Talbot himself.</p><p>Meanwhile, on 12 Feb. 1707 Talbot again reported from the committee on libels with a recommendation to take into custody three suspects. The following day, he reported from the committee for the bill on compounding Benjamin Nichol’s debts. On 19 Feb. he was petitioned by John Creagh (one of the suspects in the libels case), in the custody of Black Rod; Creagh (or Cree) was discharged after being reprimanded at the bar of the House.<sup>43</sup> On 8 Mar. Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter reported from the committee for Talbot’s bill as fit to pass with only one amendment. The bill was duly engrossed and on 10 Mar. 1707 passed its final reading in the Lords. On 8 Mar. Talbot reported from the committee for William Hide’s bill, on the 15th he reported from the committee on a trust for lands in Leicestershire and on the 18th from the committee on a compounding case involving Nathaniel Rich. On 24 Mar. Henry Ireton<sup>‡</sup> returned Talbot’s estate bill from the Commons without amendment. Two days later Talbot twice reported from committees of the House: on the parish of Tettenhall in his native Staffordshire and on the private estate bill for John Weedon. On 28 Mar. he again reported from the committee on the publishers of libels. He was present on the last day of the session on 8 April. The following session opened six days later and Talbot was present on the first day. He attended eight days of the nine-day session.</p><p>In April 1707 Talbot was pressed by Sir Richard Cocks<sup>‡</sup> for preferment for his brother Robert (Robin), who had been promised advancement by William III, as well as by Burnet and Somers, but had nevertheless been overlooked for some five or six years. Cocks, who looked to Talbot ‘for a good friend’, hoped that he would intervene with Somers on behalf of the family.<sup>44</sup> On 1 May Talbot preached a thanksgiving sermon for the Union before the queen at St Paul’s (deemed ‘very fine’ by Godolphin).<sup>45</sup> Talbot almost certainly went into the country for the summer months. Although he was linked to the Junto, it is not clear whether he was one of the bishops present at the August 1707 Junto conference at Althorp to discuss the war in Europe, Scotland and ecclesiastical affairs, and his name rarely appears in connection with high-level Junto meetings.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Talbot missed the first six weeks of the October 1707 session. In all, he was present for 35 per cent of sittings. On 6 Nov. he preached at a further thanksgiving service for the Union in St Paul’s.<sup>47</sup> Early the following year Talbot was one of only two bishops (the other being Trelawny) to vote with the court in a division held in a committee of the whole over the extension of the life of the Scots privy council to October 1708.<sup>48</sup> Two days later Talbot wrote to Coventry about his preoccupations with parliamentary business and a chancery case (of some three to four years’ duration) that had now entered its most busy phase; he ‘scarce had time for eating and drinking and sleeping’.<sup>49</sup> He missed the last three weeks of the session.</p><p>In May 1708 Talbot was listed as being a ‘probable’ Whig in advance of the June election, and he was more concerned in early summer with family matters and with Convocation than electoral politics. On 5 June Tenison asked Compton to inform Talbot, John Williams, John Evans, and William Beveridge*, bishop of St Asaph, of his concerns over the revised wording in the Convocation writ as a consequence of the Union. Since the Act of Union, the bishops, as lords of Parliament, ‘had power with relation to all Britain’, a situation that required clarification.<sup>50</sup> In the same month Talbot’s son, Charles<sup>†</sup>, later Baron Talbot of Hensol, was reported as having been ‘stolen’ by the daughter (not yet 16 years old) of Charles Matthews of Castley-Menich, Glamorganshire. She was worth some £10,000 and, on that account, Talbot settled on him (in a settlement of dubious legality) a church estate worth an annual £600.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Talbot was one of a number of bishops present for the interment of Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland on 13 Nov. 1708. Along with several of his colleagues he returned to Wake’s lodgings after the proceedings until his carriage was ready.<sup>52</sup> He returned to Westminster for the first day of the next parliamentary session three days later, but thereafter attended only 11 per cent of sittings. He appeared for the last time that session on 14 Dec. and missed the ensuing four months of business, taken up instead with affairs in Worcester. Absorbed with local business in Worcester for much of the year (especially a capital case in which he sought the assistance of Sunderland to secure a royal pardon and another involving Sir Edmund Denton<sup>‡</sup> and Wake over the parish of Middleton Stoney), he missed the first two months of the next parliamentary session, arriving at Westminster in the new year of 1710 (almost certainly for the trial of Dr Sacheverell).<sup>53</sup> He attended 40 per cent of sittings. On 18 Feb. he wrote to William Lloyd from London about new cathedral statutes at Worcester and offered to mediate in a diocesan address to the queen by securing signatures from local clergy.<sup>54</sup> On 11 Mar. he reported from the committee for the Tremayne estate bill.</p><p>The focus of the session was Sacheverell’s trial and Talbot was present on 27 Feb. for the opening of proceedings in Westminster Hall. Talbot was one of four bishops to speak for the guilt of Sacheverell during the long debate held on 16 March.<sup>55</sup> According to one observer, Talbot acquitted himself well on the occasion, making ‘one of the finest discourses … ever heard’.<sup>56</sup> Together with Burnet he challenged the hallowed Anglican doctrine of passive obedience, complaining that its choice as a theme in numerous high-flying sermons was a ‘distemper’ to be stopped. <sup>57</sup> Talbot’s speech, which like Burnet’s lasted an hour, was in two parts: the first, an assault on resistance theory; the second, ‘a panegyrick on the queen’. He maintained that scripture might guide, but not dictate, political behaviour: a bad king could lay no claim to the loyalty of his subjects. His speech, which was published later that summer, evoked a swift and hostile response from the following speaker, George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells. Nottingham was also said to have made comments about Talbot’s ‘excessive and unwelcome flattery of the queen’.<sup>58</sup> On 20 Mar. Talbot voted for Sacheverell’s guilt. The following day he was present for the discussions about the sentence to be imposed.</p><p>While some clearly found the Sacheverell trial a strain, Talbot seems to have relished the activity. As one correspondent of Wake’s put it, ‘he is always the better for an hurry of business’.<sup>59</sup> In April Thomas Wylde, Member for Worcester, presented a ‘whiggish’ address which was promoted by Talbot amongst the Worcestershire gentry.<sup>60</sup> Talbot expressed concern, though, about the partisanship of the press: Wylde’s address, he claimed, was given insufficient media coverage, being omitted by the <em>Post Man</em> and the <em>Courant</em>, whereas addresses by ‘the other side’ were published in their numbers.<sup>61</sup> Over the summer he was the subject of further bitter attacks in the press for his speech in the Lords, Tenison reporting to Wake that Talbot had ‘been rudely treated in two pamphlets already’.<sup>62</sup></p><p>It is unclear whether Talbot had been involved in the Oxfordshire by-election campaign of February 1710, which was fiercely contested by the staunch Whig Sir Thomas Reade<sup>‡</sup>. Reade enjoyed some clerical support as well as that of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, but was unsuccessful.<sup>63</sup> Talbot paid greater attention to the general election that autumn. In September he wrote to the duchess of Marlborough in scathing terms about the Tories: it was ‘a melancholic reflection that after a twenty year war abroad to secure our religious and civil rights, we must now have a struggle for both at home’. Finance, he claimed was being procured abroad for the election of ‘fools and beggars’ who were mere party lackeys.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Although his movements in the country were hampered by a smallpox scare in the same month, Talbot was back at Westminster for the first day of the new parliamentary session on 25 Nov. 1710.<sup>65</sup> Harley, in his estimate of support for the new ministry, reckoned Talbot (in spite of his kinship with Shrewsbury) a certain opponent. Talbot attended the session for only 17 per cent of sittings. He registered his proxy with his son-in-law Charles Trimnell on 4 Dec. perhaps to allow him to concentrate on other business, such as Convocation.<sup>66</sup> The proxy was vacated on the 14th. Present on 1 Mar. 1711 for the debate on the appeal of Scottish episcopalian James Greenshields (whose petition he supported), Talbot did not attend the session after mid March.<sup>67</sup> He registered his proxy with Trimnell again on 28 Apr. (vacated at the end of the session).</p><p>Divisions within Worcester were made apparent that spring after Talbot intervened to prevent a Dr Philips, selected by the high sheriff, from preaching the assize sermon. Talbot objected to Philips for having ‘entertained the criminal Dr Sacheverell in his progress’ but the high sheriff and 50 of his retainers responded by boycotting the sermon preached by Talbot’s replacement.<sup>68</sup> By 12 Nov. 1711 Talbot was back in London where, together with Hough, Trimnell and Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, he waited on Tenison at Lambeth before visiting Wake and arranging to meet up at the House the following day.<sup>69</sup></p><p>The next session did not open until 7 Dec. 1711, but preparations for the session, which it was expected would be stormy, were in hand. Talbot took his seat at the opening of the session and attended nearly 77 per cent of sittings. On 8 Dec. he was seen as a supporter for presenting the Address complete with the amendment in favour of a policy of ‘No Peace without Spain’, and Oxford confirmed in a list of 10 Dec. that he had voted against the ministry over the issue. Talbot’s name subsequently appeared on a list of those who had voted against the ministry with a view to their replacement. On 19 Dec. he was reckoned likely to oppose James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in his effort to secure his place in the House as duke of Brandon, and the following day he voted, as expected, against permitting Scots peers with post-Union titles from sitting. In the 2 Jan. 1712 division on the adjournment and the queen’s request for two weeks’ recess, Talbot voted with the Whigs to oppose the adjournment as a breach of parliamentary privilege.<sup>70</sup></p><p>He continued to socialize with bishops of similar political persuasion. On 5 Jan. 1712 he dined at the Chelsea home of Trelawny; on the 14th he went from Marlborough’s residence to Whitehall in the company of Nicolson, Evans and Trimnell before going on to the House; and on the 26th he dined at Lambeth. On 7 Feb. he met up again with Nicolson and on 1 Mar. dined at Lambeth with Nicolson, Evans, Trimnell and Richard Willis<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Gloucester.<sup>71</sup> On 26 Feb. he voted with the minority against the Commons’ amendments to the episcopal communion (Scotland) bill.<sup>72</sup> The bill (effectively toleration for Scottish episcopalians) passed the Lords without amendment; Talbot was one of nine bishops to oppose it.<sup>73</sup> On 12 Apr. Talbot (with Burnet, Trimnell and William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph – all zealous Whigs) voted against the committal of the ecclesiastical patronage (Scotland) bill as being an infringement of the rights of the Scottish Kirk.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Foreign policy absorbed much of the business of that session. On 28 May 1712 Talbot voted and registered his protest at the resolution not to address the queen requesting an offensive war against France. On 7 June he again registered his protest against the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace. During the session, he exchanged proxies on several occasions: on 12 Mar. he registered his proxy with Trimnell (vacated eight days later). On 22 Apr. he reciprocated by taking Trimnell’s proxy (vacated on 19 June). On both 22 Mar. and 20 May he received the proxy of William Wake (vacated 12 May and at the end of the session respectively). The session also saw concerted partisan activity in Convocation; on 15 May Talbot was visited by Wake and Fleetwood before meeting up with Evans and going on to Sunderland’s house for a meeting on Convocation business. There they joined Somers, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax.<sup>75</sup></p><p>Following the close of the session, Talbot conducted a diocesan visitation.<sup>76</sup> The charge to his clergy proved controversial since it affirmed the validity of lay baptism; to assert that it was unlawful, Talbot claimed, would be to ‘unchristian’ the Protestant churches abroad.<sup>77</sup> He may have been present at the Lambeth meeting in April 1712 when a positive declaration was drawn up on the issue.<sup>78</sup> In about mid-March 1713, on another list composed for Oxford (as Harley had since become) Talbot was forecast as likely to oppose the ministry. The next parliamentary session opened on 9 Apr. but Talbot was still in Worcester.<sup>79</sup> He did not take his seat until 15 May. He attended for only six per cent of the three-month session and did not attend after 28 May. Nevertheless, on 13 June Oxford predicted that Talbot would oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>After the summer recess, it was rumoured that Talbot was in the running to become primate of Ireland (a post for which he had been considered more than three years previously). His candidature was warmly espoused by his kinsman, Shrewsbury (now lord lieutenant of Ireland) but White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, learned that the promotion was ‘contrary to other inclinations and measures’ and was unlikely to take place.<sup>80</sup> Talbot was at Westminster for the first day of the session beginning in February 1714. He attended only 21 per cent of sittings, registering his proxy with Trimnell on the third day of the session. His proxy was vacated on 16 April. He attended the session for the last time on 12 May and on 20 May registered his proxy with John Evans*, bishop of Bangor. In late May or early June Nottingham forecast that Talbot would oppose the schism bill. In the division of 11 June 1714, on extending the bill to Ireland, Talbot’s proxy was used by Evans to vote against the clause.<sup>81</sup> His proxy was again used on 15 June to vote against the passage of the legislation.</p><h2><em>Career after the death of Queen Anne</em></h2><p>Talbot attended nearly half of the sittings of the session that met in the wake of the queen’s death in the first three weeks of August 1714. The accession of George I reinvigorated his fortunes, though he was not translated to Ely as had been expected early in August. The promotion went to William Fleetwood instead.<sup>82</sup> On 20 Oct. Talbot preached a coronation sermon that was said by Hearne to prove Talbot a ‘republican’.<sup>83</sup> In fact, Talbot reiterated the traditional Whig argument that divine providence had directed English Protestant history in their favour since the Revolution.</p><p>Talbot was translated to the prestigious see of Salisbury on 23 Apr. 1715, although it had widely been expected that Salisbury would go Wake. Talbot benefited from the friendship of William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, who was successful in securing the see for Talbot in preference to Nottingham’s nominee.<sup>84</sup> Cowper wrote apologetically to Wake explaining that he intervened in the matter since Talbot had recently ‘been under some disappointment’ (presumably his failure to obtain Ely).<sup>85</sup></p><p>Talbot made the security of the new regime his highest priority. He ensured that his new parish clergy prayed for the new king and used public occasions such as the assizes to preach against Rome.<sup>86</sup> Within a month of translation, though, he suffered a serious illness and at the end of the year he was passed over for further promotion to Canterbury being thought ‘inferior’ to Wake in both ‘ability and experience’.<sup>87</sup></p><p>Talbot maintained his frequent contacts with Nicolson, Evans and the circle surrounding Cowper. Talbot and Trimnell continued to be a parliamentary double act, and were in such good standing with the Hanoverian regime that both were translated in the early 1720s. Talbot was said to have paid somewhere between £5,000 and £6,000 for the bishopric of Durham as a bribe. In Durham (where he was also lord lieutenant and <em>custos</em>) he made enemies, pushing through private legislation on episcopal mining leases and enriching himself with the profits.<sup>88</sup> He continued to sit in the House and registered his proxy with staunch Whigs such as John Evans, Richard Willis, Benjamin Hoadly<sup>†</sup>, John Tyler*, bishop of Llandaff, and, naturally, Trimnell. His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined at length in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Talbot died in Hanover Square London on 10 Oct. 1730. His estate had already been settled in financial agreements and private legislation; his will directed that all residual funds after the payment of debts and expenses were to be invested in public or private securities for the maintenance of his wife (who outlived him by only six weeks). Talbot’s executors were his son Charles and his son-in-law, Exton Sayer<sup>‡</sup>, his son Edward (archdeacon of Berkshire) having died in 1720. Charles Talbot became lord chancellor in 1733. He inherited his father’s patronage of low Church clerics and continued in the ‘old Whig’ political tradition.<sup>89</sup> Talbot’s younger son Sherrington was a career soldier, rising to the rank of major general; his granddaughter, Catherine Talbot, who lived in the household of one of Talbot’s protégés, Thomas Secker<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury, became a poet and essayist. Talbot was buried in St James’s, Piccadilly on 14 Oct. 1730 having left instructions in his will that none should attend the interment apart from close family.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
TENISON, Thomas (1636-1715) |
<p><strong><surname>TENISON</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1636–1715)</p> |
|
|
First sat 1 Feb. 1692; last sat 5 Aug. 1714 |
cons. 10 Jan. 1692 bp. of LINCOLN; transl. 16 Jan. 1695 abp. of CANTERBURY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Sept. 1636, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John Tenison (1599-1671), rect. Topcroft, Norf.,<sup>1</sup> and Mercy, da. of Thomas Dowsing of Cottenham. <em>educ</em>. Norwich Free Sch.; Corpus Christi, Camb. matric. 1653, BA 1657, MA 1660, ord. 1660,<sup>2</sup> fell. 1662, BD 1667, DD 1680; incorp. Oxf. 1664. <em>m</em>. Dec. 1667, Anne (<em>d</em>.1714), da. of Richard Love DD, master of Corpus Christi, Camb. and chap. to Charles I. <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 14 Dec. 1715; <em>will</em> 11 Apr. 1715-2 Dec. 1715, pr. 23 Jan. 1716.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1676-85, to James II 1685-88, to William and Mary 1688-91.</p><p>Chap. to Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, c.1660; rect. Bracon Ash, Norf. 1660-2, Holywell, Hunts. 1667-81, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London 1680-92, St James Piccadilly 1686-92; cur. St Andrew-the-Great, Cambridge 1662-7;<sup>4</sup> minister St Peter Mancroft, Norwich 1671-8; adn. London 1689-91.</p><p>PC 1695-1715; lord justice 1695-1702, 1714.</p><p>Commr. Irish Church 1690,<sup>5</sup> ecclesiastical preferments 1695, 1699,<sup>6</sup> Greenwich Hospital 1695, 1703,<sup>7</sup> completion of St Paul’s 1702,<sup>8</sup> Anglo-Scottish union 1702,<sup>9</sup> 50 new churches 1711-<em>d</em>.;<sup>10</sup> founder mbr. and pres. SPG 1701;<sup>11</sup> gov. Charterhouse 1695.<sup>12</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: engraving by P. Vanderbanck, after M. Beale, 1695, NPG D20240.</p> |
<h2><em>Early career up to the Revolution</em></h2><p>Tenison was born in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, where his father was curate from 1624 to 1640. His father, a royalist, was ejected from his rectory of Mundesley but seems to have remained as rector of Topcroft from 1641 continuously until 1670, and was not mentioned by John Walker in his <em>Sufferings of the Clergy</em>. After obtaining a BA at Cambridge, Tenison himself was ordained in secret by Brian Duppa*, bishop of Winchester, during the Interregnum, although he had initially studied medicine. At around the time of the Restoration, he became a chaplain of the Presbyterian earl of Manchester. As curate of a large Cambridge parish, Tenison earned popularity by continuing his ministry throughout the plague; he was later noted as paying assiduous attention to the pastoral needs of his London flock.<sup>13</sup> In 1667 Manchester secured for him the rectory of a Huntingdonshire parish, but it was his growing reputation (and perhaps a family connection to the prominent Sir Thomas Browne) that earned him the busy and influential parish of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich. Publishing Anglican apologetics and anti-Catholic polemic throughout the 1670s, he enhanced his reputation further with <em>Of Idolatry</em> (1678). He had already become a royal chaplain and preached at court in 1676.<sup>14</sup></p><p>During the Exclusion Crisis, Tenison was recommended to the lord chancellor, Heneage Finch*, Baron Finch by John Tillotson*, dean of Canterbury and future archbishop of Canterbury, as a ‘strong bodied man’ for the demanding parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields.<sup>15</sup> Tenison became one of the group of London clergymen, including John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York, Robert Grove*, the future bishop of Chichester, and Edward Stillingfleet*, the future bishop of Worcester, associated with the patronage and ecclesiastical policy of the Finch family. A scourge of catholicism, he used a sermon on 6 Apr. 1681 on almsgiving to attack Catholic charitable institutions.<sup>16</sup> Indeed, so effective was Tenison that Simon Patrick*, the future bishop of Ely, claimed that the Catholics would harm them both, if granted a suitable opportunity.<sup>17</sup> Tenison ministered to the pastoral needs of the conspirator Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup> in Newgate and attended him at his execution on 20 June 1684.<sup>18</sup> Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, experienced the force of his minister’s strict discipline when he had to defend the wording of a family memorial inscription in St Martin’s.<sup>19</sup> At the forefront of the voluntary philanthropic societies, Tenison augmented his pastoral and propaganda role with public projects. In 1684, he built the first public library in London, designed primarily to keep the burgeoning populace (and especially the clergy) out of London’s coffee houses; it also served as a school and was endowed by Tenison in 1697. An act was passed in June 1685 to divide the parish, creating a new one of St James’s Piccadilly. Tenison acted as rector of both until elevated to Lincoln.<sup>20</sup> In 1687 Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells, wrote that Tenison ‘gives the age so great an example of a good parish priest that I cannot but have a particular reverence for him.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>On 15 July 1685 Tenison attended James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, before his execution and agreed to pray with Monmouth without the use of the prayer book.<sup>22</sup> Nevertheless, he followed his fellow clerics, Bishop Ken, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, and George Hooper*, the future bishop of Bath and Wells, in refusing Monmouth the sacrament.<sup>23</sup> Tenison’s two Westminster parishes of St Martin’s and St James’s became a focus for opposition to the king’s religious policies. Closely allied with Stillingfleet, Tillotson and Patrick. Tenison was listed by Roger Morrice in November 1685 as one of a group of leading London clergy having ‘a very good understanding one with another’ in orchestrating the ideological struggle against Rome.<sup>24</sup> Among other efforts, Tenison opened a school to counteract the Jesuit establishment at the Savoy, and entered into a public debate with the Jesuit, Andrew Pulton, in September 1687, an exchange which continued in print.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Tenison pursued discussions with leading nonconformists about strategies to counter Catholicism, using his new library to host a conference in June 1687 with the Dutch envoy Dijkvelt and Dr William Bates, a leading Presbyterian minister.<sup>26</sup> In January 1688, when William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, was informed that Princess Mary would welcome a letter from him, it was suggested that Tenison would be able to find ‘a private hand’ to facilitate the communication.<sup>27</sup> Tenison was instrumental in the moves to ensure that most of the London clergy did not read the second Declaration of Indulgence, and he was present at Lambeth on 11 May when Sancroft and four bishops composed their petition to the king against reading it. On the 13th Tenison and Patrick undertook a survey of ministers to determine their response. He was again at Lambeth on 17 May, and signed his agreement to the petition which was presented to the king on the 18th.<sup>28</sup> After the first hearing of the trial of the Seven Bishops in king’s bench on 15 June, Tenison dined with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, and Sir Thomas Clarges<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>29</sup> Long afterwards it was remembered by Tories that Tenison had preached on the birth of the prince of Wales that ‘the line of Stuart might last during sun and moon’ (although he was reported by William Nicolson*, the later bishop of Carlisle, as insisting that Queen Mary had miscarried her baby on Easter Monday 1688).<sup>30</sup> In early August Tenison dropped hints to both Simon Patrick and John Evelyn that William of Orange intended to intervene in English affairs.<sup>31</sup></p><p>After the invasion in December 1688 and James II’s flight, Tenison accompanied Clarendon on at least one occasion in an attempt to persuade Sancroft to wait upon the prince, but to no avail; they had little success either in urging him to begin planning concessions to dissenters.<sup>32</sup> On 11 Jan. Tenison was due to attend a meeting at Ely House, where the fate of James II was discussed, and Gilbert Burnet*, soon to be bishop of Salisbury, was ‘to sustain his notion of the forfeiture’.<sup>33</sup> On 17 Jan. 1689 Clarges criticized Tenison for allegedly persuading Henry Compton*, bishop of London, to alter the prayer for the king: the liturgy, he wrote, could only be altered by act of Parliament, which such a ‘wise, pious and honest man’ as Tenison should not sanction.<sup>34</sup> On 14 Jan. Tenison had met Dean Stillingfleet and others at St Paul’s to consider a comprehension bill, and it was agreed that a draft bill should be prepared.<sup>35</sup> Clarendon, walking with Tenison in the Apothecaries’ Garden on 25 Apr. 1689, wondered how ‘so good a man should be fond of’ the ‘designed comprehension’.<sup>36</sup> It is likely that Tenison and Stillingfleet were involved in a number of discussions with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in preparation for the earl’s proposed introduction of legislation on comprehension and toleration.<sup>37</sup> While he retained a close connection with the Finch family, even before the Revolution he had become an adviser to the family of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland; when Sunderland’s wife went abroad in August 1689, she took with her a chaplain selected by Tenison, Charles Trimnell*, the future bishop of Norwich.<sup>38</sup> Tenison and Sunderland seemed to have remained close during the 1690s.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Tenison was marked out for preferment after the Revolution. Shortly after the invasion, Burnet had written to William promoting the virtues of 10 London clergymen, including Tenison, ‘a rare man, and despises wealth, and has done more against popery than any man whatever’.<sup>40</sup> Tenison was included in another list in Burnet’s hand as a man to be promoted to a bishopric as vacancies occurred and in May 1689 it was rumoured that he would be elevated to the see of Chester.<sup>41</sup> On 5 June Tenison preached the fast sermon before the Commons in St Margaret’s Church and in October he was advanced to the archdeaconry of London.<sup>42</sup> Tenison was nominated to the ecclesiastical commission to revise the liturgy, which met between 10 Oct. and 18 Nov. 1689, and attended all but one of the commission’s meetings.<sup>43</sup> In response to its high Church detractors, Tenison defended in print in a pamphlet licensed at the end of October both its legitimacy and its usefulness to Convocation.<sup>44</sup> His proposed alterations to the liturgy and the planned comprehension were bitterly opposed in the Convocation that assembled on 21 Nov. 1689.<sup>45</sup> On 15 Nov. Tenison and Tillotson were examined before a select committee of the Lords as to their knowledge of the suspicious death in the Tower in 1681 of Arthur Capell*, earl of Essex (though Tenison’s appearance is not noted in the committee’s minutes).<sup>46</sup> On 7 Jan. 1690, at dinner with Clarendon, Tenison admitted that there had been ‘irregularities in our settlement’, and ‘it was to be wished things had been otherwise’, but he defended the impending deprivation of the non-juring bishops and the Revolution settlement in general, suggesting that, as Clarendon reported his words, ‘we were now to make the best of it and to join in the support of this government, as it was, for fear of worse’.<sup>47</sup> In February 1690 his name was linked with the bishopric of Ely, but this went to Patrick.<sup>48</sup> During the parliamentary election campaign of March 1690, Tenison supported from the pulpit the candidatures in Westminster of Sir Walter Clarges<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Pulteney<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>49</sup> In November, Tenison, whose kinsman, Richard Tenison, was an Irish bishop, was named to the commission to oversee the Irish church. He continued to minister in London and towards the end of March 1691 was permitted to visit Clarendon, incarcerated in the Tower.<sup>50</sup> It was after dining with Clarendon in the Tower on 23 Apr. that Tenison and Lloyd of St Asaph visited Lambeth to inform Sancroft of the ‘promotions’ which displaced the non-juring bishops.<sup>51</sup> Two days later Nottingham informed Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, that Tenison was designed for Lincoln when the see became vacant.<sup>52</sup> </p><h2><em>Bishop of Lincoln</em></h2><p>Shortly after the death of Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, in October 1691, Tenison was elevated to the see, a <em>congé d’elire</em> being sent on 27 Oct. to the dean and chapter.<sup>53</sup> His only rival seems to have been Dr John Scott, rector of St Giles-in-the-Fields, who was backed by Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers. Tenison was consecrated at Lambeth by Tillotson, attended by Stillingfleet, Patrick and Compton.<sup>54</sup> Tenison took his seat in the House of Lords on 1 Feb. 1692. He attended 11 of the next 12 days, before being granted leave of absence on the 13th. On 11 Apr. Tenison was one of eight bishops in attendance on Tillotson at Lambeth, where a circular letter was discussed ‘very calmly and without the least clashing’.<sup>55</sup> He then left London to undertake his primary visitation.<sup>56</sup> He attended the prorogation on 22 Aug., and was present on 4 Nov. 1692, the first day of the new session. He attended on 81 days, 79 per cent of the total and was named to 41 committees. At the beginning of 1693 he was forecast as a likely supporter of the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, and he was probably the ‘Bp. L’ listed on 2 Jan. 1693 as voting for its first reading. A loyal supporter of the court, on 3 Jan. he voted against the place bill. He was present when Parliament was prorogued on 14 Mar. and remained in London, preaching at court at Easter.<sup>57</sup> He attended the prorogations on 2 May and 26 Oct. 1693.</p><p>Following the death of Francis Marsh, archbishop of Dublin in November 1693, Tenison was offered the chance to succeed him. His wife’s reluctance to travel by sea and the government’s failure to deal with the Irish forfeited estates, which had had a detrimental effect on the Irish Church establishment were obstacles to his acceptance. He made his agreement conditional on the success of a parliamentary bill on forfeited estates in the 1693-4 session, but the king’s wish to grant land to favourites ensured that the legislation failed.<sup>58</sup> As Tenison put in a memorial of 15 Mar. 1694, he had regarded the ‘clause in the bill for restoring the forfeited impropriations to the Church as the main spring of his removal to Ireland, nothing of less force being strong enough to resist the prejudices which would otherwise obstruct all his endeavours there, and render them less useful then they might be here.’<sup>59</sup> The matter continued to exercise Tenison after he became archbishop.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Tenison was in the House on 7 Nov. 1693 for the start of the 1693-4 session and thereafter attended on 97 days, 75 per cent of the total, being named to 27 committees. Tenison was already involved in parliamentary management, reassuring Lloyd, now bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, that Stillingfleet would respect Lloyd’s wishes in the use of his proxy.<sup>61</sup> On 23 Nov. Tenison protested against the resolution that the House would not receive any petition for granting protections to crown servants (six out of the ten protestors being bishops). On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against the reversal of chancery’s dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. On 6 Mar. he was named as a manager of the conference on the mutiny bill. He examined the Journal on 10 Apr. and was present on the last day of the session on 25 April.</p><h2><em>Archbishop of Canterbury under William III, 1695-1702</em></h2><p>Although he attended the prorogation on 6 Nov. 1694, Tenison was not present when the new session began on 12 Nov., nor the second sitting on 20 November. He first attended on the 26th, but was only present until 5 December. Archbishop Tillotson was taken ill on 18 and died on 22 November. On 6 Dec. a warrant was issued for a <em>congé d’élire</em>, which was dispatched on 11 Dec. to the dean and chapter of Canterbury for Tenison’s election as archbishop.<sup>62</sup> Sunderland and Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, supported his candidature against the claims of Stillingfleet (whom the queen preferred) and John Hall*, bishop of Bristol, who had some support among Whigs.<sup>63</sup> Two days later, the appointment was reported in newsletters.<sup>64</sup> Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, welcomed the promotion and noted that Tenison cared little for money, ‘so there’s none more industrious and hearty in any honourable design.’<sup>65</sup> His own sub-dean at Lincoln, James Gardiner*, replaced him as bishop, apparently as a favour to Tenison.<sup>66</sup> The new archbishop was duly elected on 20 Dec., while he was in attendance upon the queen during her fatal illness. Following her death on 28 Dec., he remained at Kensington and two days later he preached a sermon of condolence.<sup>67</sup> On 30 Dec. Tenison was sent by the king to Princess Anne in an attempt to reconcile their differences, and returned with a letter from the princess in response to one from William; he continued in this mediatory role during January 1695.<sup>68</sup> He returned to the House (now as archbishop) on 25 Jan. 1695. In all he was present on 64 days, 53 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. At the end of January, he was appointed by the Privy Council to preach the funeral sermon for the queen, delivered on 5 Mar. in front of a congregation including both Houses.<sup>69</sup> The sermon was published at the request of the Lords made on 7 March.<sup>70</sup> That month Tenison created four doctors of divinity, Richard Willis<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Gloucester, Thomas Green<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Ely, John Knighton, and Edward Gee, a useful corpus of lieutenants.<sup>71</sup></p><p>On 18 Apr. 1695 a conference between the Lords and Commons on the bill for continuing expiring laws discussed the authority of the archbishop in the lapsed printing act. On 20 Apr. Bishop Lloyd wrote that Tenison had been so ill ‘that he has been to wait on his majesty but once this fortnight and then had his whole time of audience filled with such matters as his majesty had then to communicate to him’.<sup>72</sup> He attended for the prorogation on 3 May. That day he was appointed one of the lords justices to govern the country during the king’s absence overseas.<sup>73</sup> He left London on 15 May to be installed in person in Canterbury Cathedral (the first since the Reformation) on the following day; elaborate civic pageantry surrounded his arrival in the city and subsequent enthronement, followed by a ‘noble dinner’ in the deanery.<sup>74</sup></p><p>During February 1695 Tenison had been named to a commission to dispose of ecclesiastical preferments.<sup>75</sup> Tenison also used his authority as a lord justice to intervene in ecclesiastical appointments in Ireland, having to be persuaded not to block the appointment in July of Edward Walkington to the see of Down and Connor, and to bolster episcopal authority, complaining in July that the patent secured by a Dr Pain for the visitation of peculiars had increased the incidence of the abuse of marriage licences, while lessening the bishop of London’s jurisdiction.<sup>76</sup> As one of the lords justices Tenison was closely involved in combating subversion. In the summer of 1695 he summoned a Drury Lane barber to testify against Sir Henry Belasyse<sup>‡</sup>, on a charge of corresponding with the French, although the information received was rejected as ‘improbable’.<sup>77</sup> Shrewsbury remarked to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, in 1696 the archbishop appeared to have many of the ‘tools for that business’, including setting up ‘the engine for imitating hands’.<sup>78</sup></p><p>At the general election of 1695, Tenison was delighted with the return of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> for Oxford University, although he disclaimed any intention to ‘meddle’ in it.<sup>79</sup> He was one of the lords of council who met regarding the king’s speech, to be delivered on the first day of the new Parliament, 22 Nov. 1695.<sup>80</sup> Subsequently he attended on 92 days, 74 per cent of the total and was named to seven committees. When on 23 Nov. the diarist John Evelyn dined at Lambeth, the company included Bishop Lloyd, John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, and William Wake*, the future bishop of Lincoln, perhaps a typical occurrence during a parliamentary session.<sup>81</sup> Tenison seems to have been keenly concerned to protect the Church’s interests in attempts to regulate the press in the wake of the failure to renew the licensing act. Several drafts of the bill for the better regulating of printing and printing presses are to be found in his papers, and John Freke<sup>‡</sup> and Edward Clarke<sup>‡</sup> informed John Locke (another keen observer) on 14 Dec. that the proposal had alarmed the bishops, who by means of Tenison had ‘treated with’ Clarke ‘that more care might be taken of the Church’, describing the archbishop as ‘so reasonable and fair a man that he proposes little but what will I believe be granted him’, although the rest of the clergy would not be contented even after his amendments had been accepted. <sup>82</sup> On 24 Feb. 1696, he was one of a large number named to manage the conference on the king’s speech regarding the assassination plot; three days later he signed the Association. Meanwhile, on 25 Feb., in response to a Lords’ address for a day of thanksgiving, the king informed the House that he would consult with Tenison over the timing. On 4 Apr. 1696 Tenison received Bishop Burnet’s proxy.</p><p>One of the matters that Tenison had inherited from his predecessor was the disciplinary case against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids. On 9 Feb. 1695 he had received Watson’s submission and removed the suspension placed on him.<sup>83</sup> This did not prevent further conflict between Bishop Watson and his chancellor: soon the latter was charging the bishop with simony. In a hearing at Lambeth before the archbishop in October 1695, Watson insisted on his privilege of peerage.<sup>84</sup> On 20 Mar. 1696 the House considered a report from the committee for privileges and a compromise was affected which allowed him his privilege, which he subsequently waived, ‘to have a fair trial’.<sup>85</sup> However, after a hearing at Lambeth in September 1696, Watson complained that he had been ‘denied the assistance all criminals have by law’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>After the prorogation on 27 Apr., Tenison remained at Lambeth and Whitehall on government business. He continued to take part in the routine business of the Privy Council and, during the king’s absence, of the lords justices.<sup>87</sup> Particularly concerned with ecclesiastical matters, he took a leading role when clerical suspects were questioned and in inquiries into the activities of the non-jurors. On 22 Apr. 1696 he examined Robert Frampton*, the non-juring bishop of Gloucester, regarding the collection of money that he suspected would be used to support Jacobite activity, and he was present on 28 Apr. when the council interrogated Thomas Ken*, the deprived bishop of Bath and Wells on the same matter.<sup>88</sup> He took action against the three non-juring clergymen (Jeremy Collier, William Snatt and Shadrach Cook), who gave public absolution to Sir William Parkyns and Sir John Freind<sup>‡</sup> at their execution on 3 April. On 7 Apr. Snatt and Cooke were committed to Newgate, and on 10 Apr. a declaration signed by both archbishops and what was variously reported as 10 or 12 bishops was issued condemning their actions. On 2 July they were convicted of high crimes and misdemeanours, but released on bail in August, probably following an intervention by Tenison, now that the official position of the Church had been vindicated.<sup>89</sup></p><p>In preparation for the new, 1696-7, session of Parliament, on 17 Oct. Bishop Lloyd sent Tenison ‘my instrument of proxy, which is the same that I sent in 1693 only giving your grace the preference which is due to your place,’ although it does not seem to have been registered until the following March, and then in favour of Bishop Moore.<sup>90</sup> Tenison was present on the first day of the new session on 20 Oct.; he attended on 87 days, 76 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. On 23 Dec. Tenison was the only lord justice present to vote for the third reading of the bill to attaint Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, speaking ‘with the eloquence and courage of St Paul’, in answer to opponents who criticized those bishops who supported the bill, and he justified ‘their opinions from scripture, reason, and whatever else was proper to support it’.<sup>91</sup> To leave Fenwick unpunished, he claimed, would send a signal to ‘the secret enemies of the government he has concealed’.<sup>92</sup> On 12 Jan. 1697 Tenison was one of the members of the cabinet who confirmed what James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> said, that Shrewsbury had given the king an account of Matthew Smith’s revelations.<sup>93</sup> On 20 Jan., Tenison heard from Fenwick that he had been refused a prison visit from Thomas White*, the non-juring bishop of Peterborough; Fenwick claimed that his choice of White was intended not to offend the government but was made on merely spiritual grounds.<sup>94</sup> The appeal to Tenison’s compassion was successful; he informed Trumbull that after speaking to Portland, he had agreed to the visit.<sup>95</sup> When Lady Mary Fenwick petitioned the Lords on 22 Jan. for a few days’ reprieve for her husband on the grounds that the bishop had only just been allowed access to him, Tenison informed the House that the king had refused a reprieve the night before, claiming that it was not in his power; Nottingham refuted this, whereupon the archbishop ‘brought it off with a distinction of what might be done by prerogative and what in prudence was fit’. In early February, Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, who had been imprisoned on 16 Jan. as a result of his attempts to encourage Fenwick to incriminate others, was seeking the help of Tenison and John Somers*, Baron Somers, to move the king for his release from the Tower; Vernon noted that Tenison was keen that the Fenwick’s paper detailing his contacts with William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, should be better answered than it had been hitherto.<sup>96</sup> On 19 Feb. Tenison received the proxies of Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Bangor (who did not attend after 10 Feb.), and Bishop Gardiner (who did not attend after 20 February). On 5 Mar. he was named to manage the conference on the prohibition of India silks, and on 10 Apr. to manage the conference on the bill to prevent the buying and selling of offices. He was present for the prorogation on the 16th. </p><p>In the recess, Tenison again played a central role in frequent meetings of the lords justices. On 6 May 1697, he objected that the lords justices of Ireland had sent a representation on the vacant bishopric of Meath directly to the king in Holland, contrary to their instructions; on the 18th, one of the Irish justices, Charles Powlett*, marquess of Winchester, the future 2nd duke of Bolton, submitted via the archbishop information on the likely repercussions of the translation.<sup>97</sup> The bishop who was translated to Meath was Tenison’s distant cousin Richard Tenison, of Clogher.<sup>98</sup> On 20 May Tenison had a difficult meeting with Nottingham’s brother, Henry Finch (who aspired to be dean of York), in which he had to inform him that the king would not approve of Tenison’s recommendation made in Sharp’s name because Finch and his brother Edward Finch<sup>‡</sup> had defended some of those arrested over the Lancashire Plot.<sup>99</sup> It may have been this incident which led to a cooling of Tenison’s friendship with Nottingham, who referred to a patronage matter in 1699 as probably being influenced by the archbishop ‘whom I will not ask’.<sup>100</sup> Libels being distributed through the post office also caught Tenison’s attention.<sup>101</sup> The security of the post for personal letters seems also to have worried Tenison: in the following year Archbishop Narcissus Marsh of Dublin sent letters to him enclosed in letters to the under-secretary, John Ellis<sup>‡</sup>, to avoid the possibility of them being opened.<sup>102</sup></p><p>Tenison attended the Lords for the new session of Parliament on 3 Dec. 1697. He attended on 81 days, 62 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. On 24 Feb. 1698 the Lords read a bill brought in by Tenison ‘for the more effectual suppressing of atheism, blasphemy, and profaneness’, to which one newspaper added ‘and to punish the printing of scandalous books and pamphlets against the protestant religion’.<sup>103</sup> The reference was probably to the order made on the same day to Sir John Powell, then a judge of common pleas, to prepare a bill to restrain the licentiousness of the press (which was presented in the next session). Subsequently the Commons ignored Tenison’s bill and produced one of their own under the management of Sir John Philipps<sup>‡</sup>. The Oxford Tory Thomas Rowney<sup>‡</sup> wrote that the bill left ‘the fundamentals of Christian religion to be tried by a jury of 12 men; so we shall lay aside that bill and send them one of our own to show we have a greater respect for religion than the bishops’.<sup>104</sup> On 15 Mar. Tenison voted to commit the bill punishing the Tory financier Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. His absence between 5 May and 9 June may be explained by ill health, a letter from Somers at the end of May indicating that Tenison was suffering his first fit of the gout.<sup>105</sup> Having returned to the House, he received the proxy of Bishop Hall on 11 June and that of Bishop Patrick on the 18th and attended the prorogation on 5 July 1698.</p><p>In June 1698 Vernon was being asked by Shrewsbury to lobby Tenison in favour of William Talbot*, the future bishop of Oxford, then dean of Worcester, in case the bishopric of Worcester should become vacant; on 28 June he reported back that Tenison would ‘consider the case when it happens’.<sup>106</sup> Tenison was however conscious that the ecclesiastical commissioners were perceived to be ‘giving the king’s preferments to one another’ and that some people were in favour of ‘breaking the commission’.<sup>107</sup> In March 1699 Tenison told Somers that he thought Talbot ‘very young’ and Worcester ‘too good a bishopric to begin with’. Somers deduced that Tenison favoured Bishop Lloyd, who would be replaced by John Hough*, of Oxford, who in turn would be replaced by Wake. Shrewsbury agreed that the archbishop ‘was resolved upon another scheme’, and that ‘without his favour, it is to no purpose to pretend to this preferment, nor any other’.<sup>108</sup> In the event Wake refused Oxford and Talbot was named in his stead. </p><p>Tenison attended the House on 6 Dec. 1698 for the opening of the new Parliament. He was present on 64 days, 79 per cent of the total and was named to five committees. On 6 Mar. 1699, the attorney general Thomas Trevor*, the future Baron Trevor, was instructed by Vernon to prepare a proclamation for a fast-day, the reasons for which would be explained by Tenison ‘whom you will see in the House of Lords’.<sup>109</sup> Tenison was present on 4 May, when the House was prorogued and accompanied Bishops Humphreys and Moore back to the home of the latter.<sup>110</sup> He also attended the further prorogation of 1 June. Tenison was suspicious of the emerging societies for the reformation of manners, regarding them in July 1698 as designed to ‘undermine the Church’.<sup>111</sup> In April 1699 he used the traditional Easter dinner for bishops (to which Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, was not invited) to promulgate a cautious letter to every diocese in favour of the newly formed societies, rather than the more zealous campaign favoured by Fowler.<sup>112</sup></p><p>As early as the end of July that year, Trimnell reported that Tenison ‘begins to look for[ward], with some kind of impatience he seems to expect the king sooner than usually, and to wish to have h[is], best brethren about him before business begins’.<sup>113</sup> The House of Lords, though, did not sit until 16 Nov., when Tenison attended for the first day of the session. He was present on 70 days, 89 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. Meanwhile, the Watson case had dragged on. The long drawn-out proceedings were ascribed to Tenison’s determination to leave Watson ‘no ground of complaint, by hearing all that can possibly be alleged’ on his behalf.<sup>114</sup> Watson, who was deprived on 3 Aug. 1699, always maintained that he had ‘suffered from the archbishop’s assumed power, warranted neither by law nor precedent’. Many years later, in 1730, Hearne was informed that Hooper, then dean of Canterbury, had drawn up ‘a discourse, to prove the archbishops had never exercised that authority in any one instance’.<sup>115</sup> Several tracts were published discussing the question of the archbishop’s authority.<sup>116</sup> The case came before the Lords on 29 Nov. 1699 when the House was informed that Watson had resumed his privilege against his chancellor, and the Lords ordered that counsel be heard, adding that Tenison’s counsel could also be heard, if he thought fit. The archbishop’s counsel was indeed heard on 4 Dec., with a further hearing on 6 Dec. for the attorney-general. The Lords found against Watson that ‘the bishop had no privilege against the archbishop’s judicature’.<sup>117</sup></p><p>On 23 Feb. 1700 Tenison voted against an adjournment of the House during debates on the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. On 9 Apr. he was named to manage the conference on amendments to the land tax bill, which included provision for the forfeited estates in Ireland. A letter to Shrewsbury suggested that John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, and Thomas Wharton*, 5th baron Wharton, had been ‘stirring up the lords’ to amend the bill and that Tenison and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, ‘came blindly in it, as supposing the king had some scheme in reserve for carrying on the public business’. On the 10th, Tenison was named to manage the two subsequent conferences on the bill, and may have been instrumental in breaking the log-jam which saw the bill pass unamended: Jersey (the former Villiers) told Vernon that he had the king’s permission to ‘speak to the archbishop and some of the other Lords to desist from the amendments’, and in the event, it was ‘some of the bishops going away’, which secured a majority for those wishing to retreat from insisting upon their amendments.<sup>118</sup></p><p>Tenison’s political position had become more difficult following the collapse of the Junto ministry in the 1699-1700 session. Under pressure from his more Tory-inclined ministers, William had started to undermine the decisions of the ecclesiastical commission, most notably on 22 May 1700, when Secretary Jersey informed Tenison that William III had filled a vacant prebend at Worcester.<sup>119</sup> It was appointments such as these which may have prompted a letter from Bishop Moore of 27 May about the emasculation of the commission.<sup>120</sup> Further concern was expressed when the bishops realized that the king would allow Convocation to sit with the next Parliament. The persistent activism of Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, in arguing for the sitting of Convocation, had resulted in strident exchanges in the press. Atterbury’s aim was to use the lower house of Convocation to promote a high Church programme of reform of the Church, which Tenison knew would lead it into confrontation with the upper house. As Gibson wrote in February 1716, ‘the Convocation controversy was raised on purpose to render the archbishop, and that part of the bench which has distinguished itself in favour of the Protestant Succession, odious to the nation, as if they were destroying the constitution of the Church and the liberties of the inferior clergy’.<sup>121</sup></p><p>Tenison attended the prorogations of 23 May and 24 Oct. 1700. Although he was reported to be ill in mid-December 1700, he had recovered in time to attend the first day of the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701.<sup>122</sup> He was present on 87 days, 82 per cent of the total, being named to five committees. As he feared, Convocation opened along with the new session; Tenison’s attempts to prorogue it on 25 Feb. 1701 met with a revolt by its lower house, orchestrated by Atterbury.<sup>123</sup> Tenison was caught in the political battle between the new ministry and the Whigs. On 15 May, the ministry carried two questions about the dissolution of the previous Parliament ‘by the help of some unusual friends’, such as Tenison, Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough, Arnold van Keppel*, earl of Albemarle, and Jersey, with Bishops Burnet, Patrick, Gardiner and Hough on the other side.<sup>124</sup> However, this did not presage a betrayal of the previous ministry, and on 17 and 23 June Tenison voted for the acquittal of Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. He was present for the prorogation on 24 June. At the end of the month he was again named a lord justice.<sup>125</sup> Tenison attended the prorogation of 6 Nov. 1701.</p><p>On 17 Dec. 1701 Tenison wrote to Princess Sophia acknowledging receipt of hers and emphasizing the ‘weak’, but ‘honest and hearty’ role he and his ‘brethren’ played in securing the Act of Succession.<sup>126</sup> He attended the House on 30 Dec. for the first day of the Parliament and thereafter attended the session on 56 days, 56 per cent of the total, and was named to 21 committees. On 8 Jan. 1702 Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, wrote to Tenison about a new law regulating the press:</p><blockquote><p>the draft of a bill which I herewith return to you, contains very good methods to have a printer or author answerable for everything which is published. But there must be some severer course taken afterwards with the libellers, which present laws are sufficient for. If your grace will please to have it begun in the House of Lords and if either House are inclined to make it stronger, it is easy for them to make additions.<sup>127</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 22 Jan. Tenison introduced a bill for the better regulating of printers and printing presses, but it was rejected on the 24th after the motion to commit it was lost.<sup>128</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Anne 1702-6</em></h2><p>Tenison attended William III in his final hours.<sup>129</sup> The implications for Tenison of the change of monarch were not lost on that perceptive political operator, Sunderland, who on 11 Mar. 1702 told Trimnell that he could not think of ‘our poor Archb[ishop], without an increase of sorrow for his [affliction]. But he has so much reason and so good a temper that I hope he will continue his usual care’. Sunderland asked him to pass on his own assurance ‘from good hands, and such as I give credit to, that the business abroad shall be carried on with vigour, and that at home with moderation’.<sup>130</sup> Nevertheless, Tenison’s influence was certain to be reduced as the new queen had long used Sharp as a confidant, and the churchmen Nottingham and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, were appointed to office.<sup>131</sup> However, Tenison continued to exercise leadership over at least some of the episcopal bench, confirming to Bishop Lloyd on 24 Mar. that the queen was willing to excuse his absence from Parliament.<sup>132</sup> Tenison last attended the session on 13 May, nearly two weeks before it ended. He was named as commissioner to negotiate union with Scotland on 25 Aug., attending 20 out of 29 meetings.<sup>133</sup> On 15 Dec., when he dined with Bishop Humphreys he was optimistic about the prospects for union but only a week later, he confided in William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, that the negotiations had run into difficulties over the question of English imports into Scotland.<sup>134</sup></p><p>On the eve of the next session Tenison attempted to bolster his position by persuading Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin, ‘how little inclination the Convocation were like to have towards an accommodation’, and asking him to help ‘pacify and allay these differences’. Godolphin felt himself unqualified to the task, although he was receptive to Tenison’s pleas for peace and unity in the Church.<sup>135</sup> Tenison was still organizing the bishops, for with Parliament originally prorogued to 8 Oct., Burnet wrote to him in August hoping to be excused an early attendance, adding that he would ‘follow your directions’, but ‘hope you will not call me up unless you see the service of the queen or of the Church requires it.’<sup>136</sup> Tenison was present in the House on 20 Oct. for the first day of the Parliament and attended the session on 63 days, 73 per cent of the total, being regularly named to committees, as was by then usual, whenever he was in the House. In the division on the bill against occasional conformity on 3 Dec., Tenison and 10 of his episcopal allies supported Somers’ amendment to restrict the remit of the bill to those covered only by the Test Act. The following day, Tenison and 11 bishops opposed a further amendment which provided for more regularly receiving the sacrament and attending Church. On the 7th, Tenison and seven bishops voted in favour of the wrecking amendment to remove the financial penalties. Two days later, he signed the resolution stating that the use of a tack was unparliamentary.<sup>137</sup> Unsurprisingly, in or about January 1703, Nottingham forecast that Tenison would oppose the occasional conformity bill, and on 16 Jan. Tenison voted to retain the Lords’ wrecking amendment to it.</p><p>On 12 Jan. 1703, Sharp revealed that the queen had hinted to Tenison that he should promote the bill for Prince George. However, on the 19th Tenison protested against the rejection by the House of an amendment omitting a clause in the bill relating to grants. On 13 Jan. Tenison supported a bill for the Derwent navigation against ‘Devonshire and other great Lords’, dividing against putting off the second reading for two weeks. On 9 Feb., when a bill for the more easy recovery of monies for repairing churches was sent up from the Commons, Tenison judged it to be ‘a very faulty one in every branch of it; and incapable of being amended’, whereupon a motion for its second reading was lost <em>nem. con.</em> Tenison promised a better one for the next session.<sup>138</sup> He was present when Parliament was prorogued on 27 Feb. 1703.</p><p>Tenison’s determination to maintain the rights of the bishops and the royal supremacy against the claims of the lower house of Convocation had been vindicated on 6 Jan. 1703 when Archbishop Sharp revealed that the queen had admitted that she could not act in the matter of ‘the late petition of the lower house of Convocation’ and that Tenison ‘was in the right’.<sup>139</sup> This related to the demands made by the lower chamber’s firebrands, led by Atterbury, for the right to sit between formal sessions. They had been outmanoeuvred by Tenison and the court, led by Harley.<sup>140</sup> One of the tactics employed by Harley was to wean Hooper, the prolocutor of the lower house, away from the more extreme elements led by Atterbury, with the offer of the bishopric of St Asaph. On 22 June Atterbury reported that the new bishop had been graciously received by Tenison at Canterbury. Hooper’s consecration was then delayed over a dispute over commendams, which Atterbury thought might ‘keep him, perhaps, from appearing one way or the other in some trying bills’ at the beginning of the session.<sup>141</sup></p><p>Tenison attended the House for the prorogations on 22 Apr., 22 June, 3 Aug., 14 Oct. and 4 Nov. 1703. On 9 Nov., he attended for the first day of the 1703-4 session and was present on 41 days, 44 per cent of the total. Twice forecast by Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, as an opponent of a new attempt to secure an occasional conformity act, Tenison and 13 bishops voted against the second reading of the bill on 14 December. Gibson reported on 11 Jan. 1704 that despite the ‘gloom’ brewing between the two Houses, ‘I never knew his grace better’.<sup>142</sup></p><p>On 15 Dec. 1703 Tenison replied in Convocation to a paper of the lower house on ‘impious and heretical books’, which would have been taken into consideration by the bishops but for the ‘new order’ of the Lords for beginning business at 10 o’clock. Such books could not be ‘rooted’ out ‘without restraint of the press’, to which end he had ‘offered several bills in which I have been so unfortunate as to be disappointed in one place or another, not because they were faulty in matter, form or temper, but because they were bills of restraint, for the forming of them I had the advice of one of the judges’. He had another bill ready, which ‘I do not think to offer it, till I see whether there be a disposition to receive it, for I am loath to have it miscarry again.<sup>143</sup> He had given a copy of a draft act ‘for restraining the press’ to William Cowper*, the future Baron Cowper and lord chancellor.<sup>144</sup> This was probably not the bill ordered to be brought in to the Commons on 15 Dec. ‘to restrain the licentiousness of the press’, which was considered and amended in a committee of the whole but never reported. </p><p>Tenison may have been behind an attack in the House by Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, on Bishop Hooper, shortly after he had taken his seat, over a sermon with alleged Catholic sympathies.<sup>145</sup> After the incident, while by the fire in the Lords’ chamber, Tenison was asked about the matter by Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron Ferrers. He responded that ‘he thought plain sermons best for he did not like wit in ’em’.<sup>146</sup> In February 1704 Tenison intervened before a bill ‘to preserve libraries that have or shall be erected by charitable contributions in small parishes’ was introduced into the Commons, writing to its sponsor, Spencer Compton<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Wilmington, that he was concerned about the jurisdictional implications as the bill stood and wished to secure significant changes. The bill seems not to have been introduced, although a similar bill succeeded in 1709.<sup>147</sup> Tenison last attended 30 Mar., a few days before the prorogation of 3 April.</p><p>On 4 July he attended the prorogation and also spent an hour with Vichet Convenent discussing Orangeist refugees.<sup>148</sup> On 20 Sept. he promised Secretary Harley that he would recommend a treasurer for Queen Anne’s Bounty and expected to be able to speak with him at Hampton Court the following day when he waited on the queen.<sup>149</sup> He attended the prorogation of 19 Oct., and the first day of the parliamentary session on 24 October. He attended on 62 days, 63 per cent of the total. On the fast day, 5 Nov., Tenison and Bishops Cumberland and Nicolson were the only members present: after prayers they accompanied Lord Keeper Wright to the Abbey to hear the sermon preached by William Beveridge*, bishop of St Asaph, Tenison moving the thanks of the House for it on the 7th.<sup>150</sup> On 27 Nov. Tenison received the proxies of John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, and Bishop Humphreys. The renewed attempt to pass a bill against occasional conformity was again the most divisive issue of the session. When on 24 Nov. 1704 Bishop Nicolson dined with some of the bill’s proponents, he heard about their mischievous plans to help Tenison’s ‘memory against the bill comes up to the Lords’ by reprinting a pamphlet of his from 1683, <em>An Argument for Union</em> (1683), which had compared an occasional communicant ‘to a wooden leg; which is no sound or essential part of the body, but is taken off and put on occasionally and to serve a turn’. In 1705 there did indeed appear <em>The Occasional Conformist exhorted to Constant Communion with the Church of England: or, an Abstract of his Grace the Arch-bishop of Canterbury’s Treatise entitled an Argument of Union</em>.<sup>151</sup> When the occasional conformity bill was brought up from the Commons on 15 Dec., the motion to give the bill a second reading was defeated and the bill rejected, with Tenison making a speech in which he defended the practice of occasional conformity and commended all those defending ‘our religion and government’ against ‘a party in her bowels, ready upon all occasions to bring in a Popish Pretender’.<sup>152</sup> On the 26th, political hostilities were shelved temporarily when Tenison hosted the traditional St Stephen’s dinner and both Sharp and Burnet proposed remedies for Tenison’s latest attack of gout. Any medication prescribed was unsuccessful and by 4 Jan. 1705, he was confined to bed.<sup>153</sup> He continued to work from his chamber and returned to the House on 2 Feb. On 27 Feb. he was named to the committee to prepare heads for a conference on the Aylesbury men.</p><p>At a Lambeth dinner on 2 Dec. 1704, Tenison had informed Nicolson that he had denied Atterbury permission to wait on him and had received yet another ‘remonstrance’ from the lower house of Convocation about their grievances.<sup>154</sup> On 15 Mar. 1705 Tenison prorogued Convocation with a speech in which he referred to the ‘many complaints’ of the lower house,</p><blockquote><p>which were answered before, and so many motions to proceed to business which we had often told you could neither be legally attempted nor, during the disputes about the methods of acting, be pursued with any measure of success, that we hoped to hear no more of these very improper ways of proceeding.<sup>155</sup></p></blockquote><p>Atterbury interpreted the speech as confrontational, complaining that Tenison had ‘told us, that… if we should… still proceed to take the same irregular steps, he must then and would exert the power which the constitution had lodged in him, and proceed upon us’. This was ‘new language, which during the very heat of dispute, was never before made use of for us’.<sup>156</sup> To Burnet it was ‘a wise, well composed speech’, containing ‘a severe, but grave reprimand, with much good advice’.<sup>157</sup></p><p>Shortly after the death of Bishop Gardiner of Lincoln on 1 Mar. 1705, Godolphin reported that Tenison was ‘very desirous to have the dean of Lincoln’ (Richard Willis), succeed him as the diocese was ‘so large and so dispersed that nobody but a young and a laborious man is capable of performing the duty of it’.<sup>158</sup> However, he may have been using Willis as a back-up in case Wake again refused to be raised to the episcopate; he wrote to Wake on 14 Mar. that ‘your friends hope that you will let them know by me with plainness and without loss of time, whether you would accept of the bishopric of Lincoln’. Tenison was being ‘pressed by them’ and hoped he would not refuse. He did not, and on 29 Mar. Tenison reported to Wake that he expected to hear news shortly about Wake’s promotion.<sup>159</sup> Throughout the summer, Tenison was involved in a variety of government business, attending meetings of the Privy Council and the occasional meeting with Harley at the Cockpit.<sup>160</sup></p><p>The Parliament of 1705 was preceded by the beginning of term pageantry of 23 Oct. when Tenison ‘complimented’ the new lord keeper, William Cowper, at the Temple before a cavalcade of 60 coaches set off for Westminster.<sup>161</sup> Tenison hoped for a close relationship with Cowper, through whose hands much ecclesiastical patronage passed. Cowper recorded in his diary that, before the cabinet meeting on 25 Nov., he told the archbishop that he had promised the queen ‘to present as she directed, in all the valuable ones’. In reply Tenison had revealed his fears that ‘it would be under a worse management than when under the late keeper’s servants, by the importunity of the women and hangers-on at court’. He promised to ‘endeavour with me to get that matter into a proper method’.<sup>162</sup></p><p>Tenison attended the House for the opening day of business on 25 Oct. 1705 and thereafter attended on 46 days, 48 per cent of the total, being named to 18 committees. On 12 Nov. he was excused attendance at a call of the House, but he returned three days later when, in a speech to the Lords on the state of the nation, John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, proposed a motion to invite Sophia to England.<sup>163</sup> The idea of an invitation to the heir to the throne had been under discussion for some time, with the electress not ruling out the idea. In a <em>Vindication</em> of his speech, published in December, Haversham cited a letter from Sophia to Tenison of 3 Nov. 1705 N.S. in which she pronounced herself ready to comply with whatever the Parliament thought best.<sup>164</sup> Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Tenison from Hanover on 6 Nov. N.S. to the effect that Princess Sophia wanted Tenison to discuss their correspondence with Haversham, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, and Sir Richard Onslow<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron Onslow.<sup>165</sup> Tenison’s reply to Sophia disclaimed responsibility for Haversham’s initiative and sought to play down the proposal:</p><blockquote><p>the experiment which some may have offered at this time to your electoral highness out of their abundant zeal, or which others may have insinuated out of ill design, carries with it a great deal of danger. Neither my letter by Dr [John] Hutton<sup>‡</sup> (of which I have a copy) nor my discourse with him (full of respect as it was, and was fit to be) did lead to it. Nor has it yet to me appeared that her majesty has, in this juncture, been consulted about it. And each step… by the most well-meaning of your servants without knowing her mind, is sent in a wrong way.<sup>166</sup></p></blockquote><p>The ministry’s response was defuse the issue by proposing a regency to take effect on Anne’s death. On 20 Nov. the archbishop of Canterbury was nominated by Somers as the first of seven <em>ex officio</em> lords justices in the bill; the archbishop was to be one of three designated holders of a document containing the names of the lord justices nominated by Hanover.<sup>167</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, on 7 Nov. 1705 Tenison had once more prorogued Convocation, after being present to hear the speech of the newly elected prolocutor, Dr William Binkes, and replying ‘with a fatherly admonition to beware suggestions of danger, to serve undutiful purposes’, a prescient warning in view of future events as it foreshadowed the bitter ‘Church in danger’ debate in the Lords on 6 December. Three days before the debate, Tenison was at dinner with Bishops Burnet, Humphreys and Nicolson, where it was decided that ‘every bishop say something of the state of his own diocese on Thursday’.<sup>168</sup> The result was a comprehensive victory, by 61 votes to 30, for the archbishop’s side and their resolution that the Church was in a flourishing condition and that to assert otherwise was to be an enemy to the queen, the Church and the kingdom.<sup>169</sup> Four days later, Tenison received the proxy of Bishop Hall. By Christmas Tenison was again stricken with gout, but was able to host social gatherings at Lambeth; 15 bishops attended the St Stephen’s dinner. Another social engagement on 5 Jan. 1706 included Bishops Nicolson and Evans, and the Whig Members, Sir Francis Masham<sup>‡</sup> and Peter King<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron King.<sup>170</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1706, the House heard the case of <em>Wilson et al v. Townley</em> (an appeal by the parishioners of St Bride’s against an exchequer decree in favour of the dean and chapter of Westminster). The report was ordered for the 22nd to allow the matter to be composed by Somers and Halifax with Tenison as ‘umpire’.<sup>171</sup> A compromise must have been achieved for on 31 Jan. the dean and chapter, Townley and the churchwardens of St Bride’s petitioned the Commons for a bill to sanction the agreement and on 21 Feb. Nicolson noted that ‘by instructions’ from Tenison he had attended the Lords’ committee on the bill, which was then reported and passed later that day.<sup>172</sup> Tenison’s influence in ecclesiastical legislation was also called for on 25 Feb. when Archbishop King of Dublin wrote to him about his bill for the restoration of lands, which had passed a committee of the whole on the 23rd ‘with great difficulty’. King asked for Tenison’s assistance at its third reading, as he was sure that Tenison’s ‘presence and countenance to it’ would help, reminding him that ‘I am not concerned for myself whose profit will be little or none in it, but for my see’, and calling up ‘the memory of King William whose grant this was to give me your grace’s assistance to preserve it’. Although Tenison was not then present, the bill passed on the 25th.<sup>173</sup></p><p>By mid-January 1706, Tenison thought that Atterbury’s holding both a prebend of Exeter and the deanery of Carlisle might facilitate his removal from the latter, thereby freeing Nicolson from much trouble. Tenison used Nicolson for a variety of tasks; while the Lords were debating the amendments of the Commons to the Hanover bill, he was ‘employed (by the archbishop) in reading over’ the inflammatory pamphlet <em>Proceedings in the present Convocation Relating to the Dangers of the Church</em> (1706).<sup>174</sup> In late January 1706 the expected death of William Beaw*, bishop of Llandaff, saw the Whigs allow Tenison a free hand in nominating his successor, John Tyler*, the dean of Hereford.<sup>175</sup> When the regency bill was debated on 31 Jan. 1706, Tenison and 10 bishops supported Somers’ motion to repeal the place clause in the Act of Settlement.<sup>176</sup> According to Wake’s diary for 18 Feb. when the bill to enable Mr Williams to renew the rectory of Buckden was brought up to the Lords, he and Tenison ‘took the opportunity to try whether we could not get some augmentation made to the vicarage of that place’.<sup>177</sup> This was probably related to an amendment in committee relating to the annexation of the prebend of Buckden to the bishopric, which was added to the bill on 11 March. The archbishop was ill and absent (indeed, he last attended that session on 21 Feb.), but his consent to the clause was signified by Wake and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester.<sup>178</sup> Convocation continued to be a vexation. On 25 Feb. 1706, the queen had sent a letter to Tenison, in which she stated her intention ‘to maintain our supremacy and the due subordination of presbyters to bishops as fundamental parts thereof’, and instructed him to prorogue Convocation when it met on 1 Mar., ‘to such further time as shall appear to be convenient’.<sup>179</sup> Tenison was too ill with the gout to do so himself, but on that day Trimnell carried the news to Lambeth of the ‘proceedings in Convocation, in great contempt of the queen’s letter’.<sup>180</sup></p><p>In October 1705, Gwynne had informed Tenison of rumours of an influx of missionary Catholic priests into England.<sup>181</sup> An address from the Lords to the queen on 14 Mar. 1706 resulted in a Privy Council order of 4 Apr., which commanded Tenison to commission a nationwide census of Catholics.<sup>182</sup> Tenison was well enough to attend the prorogation of 17 Sept. 1706, but not that of 21 Nov. being ‘in the gout’.<sup>183</sup></p><h2><em>The bishoprics crisis, the Union and Convocation, 1706-8</em></h2><p>Ill health caused Tenison to be absent when the 1706-7 session began on 3 Dec. 1706.<sup>184</sup> On 2 Dec., Tenison had received the proxy of Bishop Humphreys, but he did not attend until 27 Jan. 1707. He was then present on 43 days, exactly half of the total. Meanwhile, a political crisis was brewing over appointments to the episcopate with the Whigs expecting to be rewarded for their support of the ministry. Unfortunately, the first see to fall vacant (in November 1706) was that of Winchester, which had long been promised by Godolphin to a Tory, his west-country ally, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter.<sup>185</sup> Upon hearing news of Trelawny’s impending promotion, the Whigs felt duped and left no time in telling Tenison of their displeasure. For his part Tenison was clearly embarrassed and displeased by the turn of events.<sup>186</sup> Godolphin’s plan was to propitiate the Whigs by preferring their candidates to the vacancy at Exeter and then to Chester (Nicholas Straford*, bishop of Chester, died on 12 Feb. 1707). Unfortunately, the queen had promised these bishoprics to two Tories: Offspring Blackall*, a vigorous controversialist on behalf of non-resistance was destined for Exeter, and William Dawes*, master of St Catherine’s, Cambridge, for Chester. Tenison would clearly have preferred Whig bishops and did his best to accomplish that end but on 23 Jan. 1707 he told Somers that the matter of Trelawny’s translation had been decided.<sup>187</sup> An impasse followed because the queen was unwilling to break her word to Dawes and Trelawny. A way out of the conundrum was offered by the death of Bishop Patrick of Ely on 31 May, who was replaced immediately by the widely-respected Bishop Moore of Norwich. Somers congratulated Tenison on 3 June with ‘making one good bishop without importunity and tearing’, before adding ‘I hope your grace will allow me also to put you in mind that Norwich becomes void, and that, if time be lost, or if modesty prevails, it will (as in all other cases) be wrong disposed of and the Church and state will be undone’.<sup>188</sup> On 12 June Tenison addressed the queen on this very matter, opining that the ‘good temper of the present bishops and their appearing for the true interest of their country’, could be endangered by such as ‘should come upon that bench as should make it warp (which may God avert) episcopacy itself would be in danger of falling.’<sup>189</sup> The queen remained firm, and told John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, that ‘I think myself obliged to fill the bishops’ bench with those that will be a credit to it, and to the Church, and not always take the recommendations of 29 [?Tenison], who all the world knows is governed by 26 [?Junto]’.<sup>190</sup> The controversy was still raging in December, when Gibson wrote to Bishop Humphreys, ‘I am sure my lord of Canterbury cannot think himself well used in this matter; either by the court; or indeed by his old friends’.<sup>191</sup> Eventually, death created sufficient vacancies for all sides to accept a compromise; Blackall and Dawes got their bishoprics, Trimnell got Norwich and John Potter<sup>†</sup>, a future archbishop of Canterbury, became regius professor of divinity. </p><p>In early 1707, Tenison’s concern for its implications for the Church shaped his approach to the coming parliamentary discussion of the Union. On 4 Jan. 1707, in response to the Scottish Parliament’s act to secure presbyterianism, Tenison had assured Nicolson and Gibson at Lambeth that ‘he would insist on an act of security for episcopacy, previous to the Union’.<sup>192</sup> No doubt the importance of the measures to be discussed prompted Bishop Hall to forward his proxy to Tenison (via Somers) on 21 Jan., asking that Tenison register his proxy as he thought fit, and it was duly taken on by the archbishop.<sup>193</sup> On 23 Jan. Tenison, Wake, and Dean Willis met Bishop Moore at his house ‘towards the drawing up of an Act of Security for the Ch[urch], of E[ngland], against Tuesday next, when the Scotch Act for Union will be proposed by the queen’.<sup>194</sup> Tenison then wrote to Somers enclosing the draft, hoping to discuss it with him in the Lords on the following day.<sup>195</sup> When Nicolson had dinner at Lambeth on the 25th, Tenison showed the assembled company, including Bishops Lloyd, Burnet, Talbot and Evans ‘his design for a bill of security for the Church’.<sup>196</sup> On 27 Jan. Wake, Gibson and Moore joined Tenison at Lambeth, where ‘we settled the act for the security of the Ch[urch], of E[ngland]’.<sup>197</sup> Nicolson then spent some time in the archbishop’s closet in the Lords, correcting the bill before Tenison sent it to Somers.<sup>198</sup> On 28 Jan. after the queen had introduced the Union, and the articles had been read, Tenison was given leave to bring in his bill. In fact, neither Tenison nor Somers was in attendance at the meeting held at Sunderland’s house which finalized the legislation; Wake and Moore took care of the Church interest, with Godolphin, Marlborough, Wharton, Orford, Halifax and Charles Townshend* [1391, 2nd Viscount Townshend.<sup>199</sup> On 31 Jan. Tenison introduced it to the House, after which Wharton noted that ‘perhaps it is fortunate enough that it should be’ in the Lords first, ‘where the bishops (who bring it in) are entirely well-wishers to the Union itself’.<sup>200</sup> After the second reading on 3 Feb. there was a concerted attempt by Sharp and Nottingham to include the Test Act in its provisions. Nottingham also criticized Tenison for not having brought the bill before Convocation. Somers spoke in defence of the archbishop, opposing the Sharp-Nottingham motion on the grounds that the bill was already comprehensive in its wording, and Tenison rather acidly asked the question ‘who was chief minister when presbytery was set up in Scotland’, a dig at Nottingham, and perhaps Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds. As Bishop Evans reported ‘the archbishop’s bill’ passed the committee without amendments. Despite the opposition of Dissenters ‘of all denominations’ and of the Tories in the Commons (who reflected negatively on Tenison’s motives for introducing the bill), it received the royal assent on 13th and was seen as a political triumph for Tenison, who was ‘mightily pleased’ with the outcome.<sup>201</sup> Tenison attended the last day of the session on 8 April. </p><p>Convocation was prorogued for three weeks on 12 Feb. 1707 in order to avoid a possible revival of the ‘Church in danger’ agitation during the deliberations in Parliament on the Union. When it reassembled in March, the lower house complained of what they alleged was the novelty of proroguing Convocation while Parliament remained sitting. Their vote was sent up to the upper house on 19 March.<sup>202</sup> On 22 Mar. Nicolson found Prolocutor Binckes waiting on Tenison at Lambeth ‘bespeaking his grace’s favourable construction of that part which he had in the late remonstrance of the lower house of Convocation’.<sup>203</sup> Tenison did not put a favourable gloss on it, but judged it to be a reflection upon the royal supremacy, which he resolved to lay before the queen. When Convocation met on 10 Apr. Tenison referred back to the letter from the queen that had been read to Convocation on 1 Mar. 1706, in which she had pledged to maintain the royal supremacy and the due subordination of presbyters to bishops, and then threatened to take legal action against his opponents, all of which he backed up in a circular letter. Binckes was absent that day, without securing Tenison’s leave, and he was cited by the archbishop for contumacy, with sentence reserved for the 30th, when Binckes ‘appeared and asked pardon acknowledging his offence by signing a paper sent to him by the archbishop’.<sup>204</sup> This was a significant victory for Tenison; Convocation was not allowed meet again to do business during the remainder of the Parliament.</p><p>Despite a swelling in his foot, which suggested a fresh attack of the gout was imminent, Tenison was in the House on 14 Apr., the first day of the short session of April 1707, and attended three of the nine sittings. He also attended on the prorogation of 30 Apr. for the reading of the royal proclamation of the new Parliament of Great Britain. Shortly afterwards, however, he was laid up with the gout.<sup>205</sup> In both June and August, Tenison had to miss meetings with Harley owing to a variety of ailments, which precluded him travelling across the river from Lambeth.<sup>206</sup> His condition had improved by 29 Aug. when Gibson noted that Tenison was ‘much better within these 10 days than I have known him in many months before’.<sup>207</sup></p><p>Preparing again for the next session, Tenison employed his chaplain, Gibson, an inveterate organizer, to ask Bishop Humphreys in mid-October 1707 whether his ‘indisposition is not such, as will hinder you from appearing and making your proxy’. In the event Humphreys was excused attendance. Tenison was present on the opening day, 23 Oct., and thereafter attended on 35 days, 33 per cent of the total. The traditional St Stephen’s dinner was attended by both archbishops and 14 bishops.<sup>208</sup> On 12 Jan. 1708, the two archbishops, Bishop Compton and the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, held joint discussions about a bill against libels. On 14 Jan. Tenison attended the House, but the next day Nicolson recorded visiting Lambeth, the archbishop being ‘in bed with yesterday’s cold’.<sup>209</sup> The 14th was to be his last attendance that session, and he was indisposed when Dawes and Blackall were consecrated at Lambeth on 8 February.<sup>210</sup> Although confined to bed with the gout, on 2 Feb. Tenison played host to Nicolson and Somers, when he approved a circular letter in favour of Nicolson’s cathedral bill and the bill itself was ‘read and approved’.<sup>211</sup> In the circular letter, Tenison backed the bill unequivocally: ‘I take it to be a common cause, and of great concern to this Church, which will never be quiet so long as that evil generation of men, who make it their business to search into little flaws in ancient charters and statutes, meet with any success’.<sup>212</sup> The bill ‘for the avoiding of doubts and questions touching the statutes of divers cathedral and collegiate churches’ was introduced on 3 February. On 12 Feb. Nicolson noted that Tenison was ‘cheerful on the removes at court’, of Harley and his friends, and on the 15th that he was ‘my hearty well-wisher’ in his bill, which passed the Lords on 24 February. After the bill’s committal in the Commons on 28 Feb., the lower House ordered copies of the charters of the cathedral and collegiate churches founded by Henry VIII to be laid before them. As a result, on 2 Mar. Tenison sent Mr Bradley to Nicolson with ‘his eight copies of cathedral-statutes’, which were examined by Somers and two of the Members involved in managing the bill, Spencer Cowper<sup>‡</sup> and the solicitor-general, Sir James Montagu<sup>‡</sup>, before being delivered to the Commons later that day by ‘a gentleman belonging to the archbishop’. Once the bill had been returned to the Lords and passed, Tenison thanked Nicolson on 18 Mar. for ‘services to the Church, in carrying forward the bill’, which he ‘would not have seen miscarried for £500’. No doubt the bond between Tenison and Nicolson was strengthened by the archbishop’s receipt of information that Harley’s secret service disbursements included payments for a messenger to Atterbury’s home in Chelsea.<sup>213</sup></p><h2><em>Whig ministry 1708-10 </em></h2><p>On 7 May 1708 Tenison presided over a meeting at the Cockpit of Bishops Wake, Moore and Trimnell, and Deans Willis and White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, to discuss Convocation.<sup>214</sup> At a meeting of the council on 17 June, Tenison was in a minority in favour of the immediate execution of the outlawed Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, for his part in the abortive Jacobite invasion earlier in the year.<sup>215</sup> Exasperated by the leniency promoted by some of his colleagues, Tenison commented on such ‘fine work’, which meant that ‘at this rate we shall have none hanged’.<sup>216</sup> On 8 July he was the only bishop present in the House for the prorogation. In August, with the highfliers having ‘declared war again in a sharp book’, he informed Wake that `the spirit of the party begins to appear as hot as ever: and if we had not in view a good Parliament, they would create trouble enough’.<sup>217</sup> He attended the prorogation on 9 Sept., and on 7 Oct. he was reported to be on a short visit to Croydon.<sup>218</sup> On 15 Oct. he wrote to Sunderland having missed the previous council meeting at which the details for the sitting of Parliament were fixed, ‘by reason of a violent pain which had seized me’. As nothing had been decided about Convocation, he hoped it could be done at the next cabinet.<sup>219</sup> In the event, Convocation was opened and was then prorogued continuously. On 25 Feb. 1709 Tenison prorogued Convocation in person, leaving Rev. Ralph Bridges to note that he had again done so ‘without permitting us to choose a prolocutor, so there is an end of Convocations.’<sup>220</sup></p><p>Tenison missed the first four weeks of business of the new Parliament, attending the Lords for the first time on 14 Dec. 1708; he was present on 27 days of the session, 32 per cent of the total. On 28 Dec. he hosted a dinner for 12 of the episcopal bench.<sup>221</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against allowing Scots peers with British titles the right to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. On 24 Feb. Gibson noted that Tenison ‘continues as well as ever I knew him, and goes over to Parliament as oft as there is any business that requires his presence; besides his frequent attendances at the meetings for the Queen’s bounty, and at other places on other occasions’.<sup>222</sup> On 8 Mar. Tenison joined the bishops in attending the queen on her accession day.<sup>223</sup> On 15 Mar. he voted in favour of the second reading of the general naturalization bill; and in committee he voted against an amendment which would have forced the beneficiaries of the act to take communion at an Anglican church.<sup>224</sup> He last attended on 28 Mar., where he had a ‘good deal of discourse’ with Wake.<sup>225</sup> By 6 Apr. he was ‘very lame in the gout’, but although he missed the last three weeks of business, he remained keenly alert across the river at Lambeth, where he received visitors like Nicolson on 12 Apr. with whom he discussed parliamentary matters.<sup>226</sup></p><p>In May 1709 Tenison was one of those opposed to the election of Henry Sacheverell as a. chaplain of St Saviours, Southwark, an event that was thought likely to disturb ‘his grace’s repose’ at Lambeth.<sup>227</sup> The question of the succession to John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, who died in April 1709 was a further test of Tenison’s influence. On 17 May Gibson told Wake that Tenison doubted that the candidacy of Dr Lancaster would be successful because although the queen had hinted that she would not appoint Dean Willis, ‘she had said at the same time, he should be a person acceptable to our friends, and that could not possibly be said of one who has so near a relation to the bishop of London’.<sup>228</sup> In the event Thomas Manningham*, a moderate, was chosen. Gibson complained to Wake on 1 July 1709 about the pressure placed on Tenison by the Junto:</p><blockquote><p>if the Lords think that my Lord of Canterbury can support an interest for the common cause when he is so ill supported in it within his proper sphere, they will find their mistake, and feel the effects of it, and wish, when it is too late and ill humours are grown high, that they had laid the concerns of the church a little more to heart, and not sacrificed my Lord of Canterbury and his dependants to their friends in the state.<sup>229</sup> </p></blockquote><p>Tenison attended the prorogation of 23 June. On 16 Sept. one of Bishop Moore’s correspondents found Tenison in bed with the gout, although by the 22nd Kennett ‘found him able to walk well in his chamber, proposing to dine in public Monday next’, and hoping for Wake’s return ‘to consult about several affairs’, there being ‘no one bishop in town.’<sup>230</sup> Tenison did not attend the parliamentary session that opened on 15 Nov. and was able to secure the continued prorogation of Convocation so that it did not meet to conduct business during the session.<sup>231</sup> On 20 Feb. 1710, Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> noted that Tenison had ‘written a very good letter to the queen upon the subject of the new bishops, which she seems not to dislike, yet has not said that she will make any of those men that he sends her a list of’, a reference to the delicate matter of filling vacancies during the Sacheverell trial, with Bishop Hall of Bristol and George Bull*, bishop of St Davids, both having died in February.<sup>232</sup> On 28 Feb. Tenison was forced to use another hand when writing owing to the gout, and on 2 Mar. a newsletter recorded that he had ‘been kept away from the House by indisposition’.<sup>233</sup> As a result of his illness, he was completely absent from the Sacheverell trial.</p><h2><em>The Tory ministry 1710-14</em></h2><p>On 25 May 1710 Kennett waited on Tenison ‘whom I find in good heart and not ready to believe the common report of changes’. By 24 June Tenison was congratulating Wake on being ‘so quiet in your diocese’, and sanguine that elections ‘may not be so soon as some desire’, although he hoped that the Whig John Pocklington<sup>‡</sup>, ‘who I’m sure is for peace upon a good bottom’, would be returned again for Huntingdonshire.<sup>234</sup> Unsurprisingly, in October 1710, Harley listed Tenison as a sure opponent of his new ministry. The archbishop observed the change of ministry from Lambeth, commenting on 10 Oct. to Wake that ‘we expect still some changes’ with Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, master of the rolls, ‘talked of for lord chancellor’. He urged Wake to hurry up to town as ‘we want persons to confer with in this critical juncture’, there being no bishops in town apart from Hough, Evans and Compton, while the trusted Dean Willis had also not yet arrived.<sup>235</sup> On 6 Nov. Sunderland informed Somers that Tenison wished to see them both at Lambeth that week ‘having something to tell us which he can’t so well write and his lameness not suffering him to come over the water as yet.’<sup>236</sup> A meeting was held at Lambeth on 11 Nov. with most of his key clerical allies, Wake, Hough, Moore, Evans and Burnet plus William Fleetwood*, of St Asaph, Dean Willis and Gibson, in which their approach to Convocation was discussed.<sup>237</sup> Instead of seeking advice from Tenison on the agenda for Convocation, however, the queen consulted Harley, Rochester, Hooper and Sharp, and on the first day it (and Parliament) met, 25 Nov., Atterbury was elected prolocutor despite Tenison’s orchestrated opposition.<sup>238</sup> Tenison attended the Lords on the second day of the session, 27 Nov., but did not attend for the rest of the session, or indeed the Parliament. On 6 Dec. he formally opened Convocation, replying to speeches by Atterbury and George Smalridge*, the future bishop of Bristol, either with ‘peevishness and bad Latin’, or ‘a grave and serious animadversion upon, and exhortation to the clergy’, depending on the observer’s point of view, before it adjourned for a week. Afterwards he met with Bishops Wake, Talbot and Moore.<sup>239</sup> On 12 Dec. the queen instructed Tenison to ensure that Convocation was not marred by ‘unseasonable’ disputes between the two houses.<sup>240</sup> Tenison read this message to Convocation on the 13th.<sup>241</sup> On 14 Dec. Atterbury wrote to Harley that the archbishop had seemed ‘more moderate and in temper than any of the bishops, and seemed prepared to do anything that was fit and reasonable’, but that the bishops would no doubt apply pressure to Tenison to ‘approve the violent measures of his brethren’.<sup>242</sup> Despite party enmities in Parliament and Convocation, the 1710 St Stephen’s dinner had ‘the greatest appearance that had been known’, with 19 in attendance and only two absent.<sup>243</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1711 it was reported by Bridges that ‘the ministry design to move her majesty to play her supremacy against the exorbitant power of the archbishop, I mean his legatine authority. This is to please the lower clergy.’<sup>244</sup> On 22 Jan. Tenison received both Prolocutor Atterbury and Smalridge at Lambeth.<sup>245</sup> When Convocation met two days later, with Tenison present, he was not named as president and had Bishops Compton and Hooper joined with him in the quorum. The intention was that the archbishop would no longer be able to appoint his own presiding officer in his absence, and thus lose control of proceedings. The upper house of Convocation ordered Bishops Wake, Moore and Trimnell to compile a report on royal licenses, and the three men met with Tenison on 26 January.<sup>246</sup> On 19 Feb. Bridges felt that ‘the Whig bishops are so vexed at their not being made presidents of the Convocation in their order, that they have come to an underhand resolution not to suffer any business to be done without the presence of the archbishop, who is now ill and uncertain when he will be able to appear, and much more if he be willing.’<sup>247</sup> With Tenison and Compton both ill and Hooper unwilling to act, on 21 Feb. a new licence was issued restoring Tenison to the presidency and adding other bishops to the quorum.<sup>248</sup></p><p>Tenison was now generally unwilling to leave Lambeth; on 4 Jan. 1711 he entered his proxy in favour of Bishop Hough, and relied upon men such as Nicolson to provide him with accounts of events, such as the proceedings about miscarriages in Spain. With the Scottish Episcopalians emboldened by the new Tory ministry, on 9 Jan. Tenison granted an audience for the following day to James Greenshields, the Episcopalian under attack from the Scottish Presbyterian establishment. On 2 Feb. Tenison was reported to be ‘very lame, but cheerful’. When Nicolson reported to him the debate in the Lords on 5 Feb. on the bill to reverse the general naturalization, Tenison denied the allegation made by Nottingham that he had had ‘a correspondence with the king of Prussia, and letting it cool’, assuring Nicolson that ‘the Palatines were invited by William Penn’.<sup>249</sup> Tenison had corresponded with Frederick of Prussia and with his chaplain Jablonski about the controversial proposal for closer links between the churches, but as Smalridge acknowledged, the archbishop was ‘very much upon the reserve always as to the Foreign-Reform’d [churches], and cares not for giving any opinion either for or against them’.<sup>250</sup> On 7 Feb. nothing was done in Convocation because Tenison was absent.<sup>251</sup> On 29 Mar. he was ‘still in hazard’, and a newsletter of 3 Apr. reported him ‘so dangerously ill from a mortification in the foot ’tis believed his life draws towards a period’, causing deep concern to his political allies for whom Tenison’s death would inevitably result in a Tory replacement.<sup>252</sup> Tenison survived, though, and on 1 May registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Moore (vacated at the end of the session). </p><p>With the summer, Tenison hoped to get about more, but on 25 June 1711 he had to abandon plans to wait on the queen, ‘the gout being got into one of my knees’.<sup>253</sup> On 30 Aug. Nicolson wrote to Wake concerning Tenison’s ‘great indisposition’, and the probability that ‘the removes [their replacements in the event of their deaths] are all fixed’, whether Tenison or Compton ‘happens to make way (first) for the needy.’ Gibson, too, was not optimistic about Tenison’s health: ‘I doubt he is not in a condition to attend much business. His long confinement, and disuse of public days, made me almost despair of ever seeing him abroad again; and, I fear, the best we have to hope for, is, as long a remainder <em>within doors</em> as care and ease will give us’.<sup>254</sup> Tenison did not attend the session of 1711-12 and on 6 Dec. 1711 registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Moore, almost certainly in anticipation of the crucial divisions on the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion expected on the following day. He was still indisposed early in February 1712, but, as usual, he was kept abreast of news by allies such as Nicolson, who, for example, on 16 Feb. collected a copy of the previous day’s address from the Parliament office and sent it over to Lambeth.<sup>255</sup> Tenison was able to host the traditional bishops’ dinner on Easter Tuesday, where he was instrumental in embarrassing some of the Tory bishops over the controversy over lay baptism, which was then put to good use in Convocation.<sup>256</sup> On 20 May Tenison registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Fleetwood. He continued to socialize with like-minded bishops: on 14 June Bishops Moore, Evans, and Fleetwood dined at Lambeth.<sup>257</sup> He was nevertheless still frail and on 16 June Thomas Bateman noted that Tenison had ‘scarce been out of doors since the sessions began.’<sup>258</sup></p><p>With the next session expected to consider the peace, on 30 Nov. 1712, Tenison, via Gibson, expressed the hope that Nicolson would be able to attend in person, stressing the ‘good deal of difference between his person and proxy’.<sup>259</sup> Another St Stephen’s dinner at the close of 1712 was attended by nine bishops.<sup>260</sup> Despite the state of his health Tenison remained closely involved with Church business. On 31 Jan. 1713 he wrote to the queen to remind her of her earlier stance on pluralities, which although necessary, would now lead to her being ‘perpetually troubled with unwelcome importunities and much prejudice will accrue to that good Church of which your majesty is the nursing mother and in which I am placed... as a watchman and shepherd’.<sup>261</sup> He communicated regularly with allies such as Wake.<sup>262</sup> In anticipation of the spring 1713 session, Jonathan Swift and Oxford (as Harley had now become) again listed Tenison as a certain opponent, and assumed that the archbishop would oppose confirmation of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. As the proxy books are not extant for 1713, there is no record of Tenison’s proxy. In March, he was again reported to be ‘dangerously ill’.<sup>263</sup></p><p>Tenison was, however, still very much alive in the autumn, and after the protracted elections of August to October 1713, Gibson began to rally the bishops on his behalf for the session that would begin the following February.<sup>264</sup> Following the queen’s illness in December, Tenison wrote a letter of thanks to Oxford for news of the queen’s health; had he been able he ‘should have, long before this time, and especially in this juncture, travelled to Windsor, in order to the paying my duty.’<sup>265</sup> A flurry of activity preceded the opening of the Parliament, much of it concerning the parallel sitting of Convocation. Thus, on 8 Feb. 1714 Tenison was hopeful that ‘if the weather proves warm and God gives me a little strength, I will venture hard to come to Henry the 7th’s Chapel to confirm the prolocutor, if I fear not apparent hazard of relapse’.<sup>266</sup> In the event, gout prevented his attendance.<sup>267</sup></p><p>Though physically absent Tenison kept a careful eye on proceedings. On 8 Apr. 1714 Nicolson took the ‘woeful’ Lords Journal to Lambeth with its account of recent events relating to the Protestant Succession. On 31 May Nicolson received a message from Tenison ‘to attend the schism bill’, which was introduced into the Lords on 4 June. After the narrow vote on 11 June over extending the bill to Ireland (which Tenison opposed, although he had not registered a proxy, being unable to attend and qualify himself to do so) Nicolson again visited Tenison.<sup>268</sup> Absence from Westminster did not mean inactivity, for on 11 June, Tenison claimed that ‘my house is full of petitioners, and my desk covered with letters’.<sup>269</sup> Indeed, with an important debate expected on 30 June, it was rumoured that he ‘was to be brought into the house yesterday to leave his proxy to vote to-morrow’.<sup>270</sup> On 10 July, the day after the end of the parliamentary session, Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, was able to excuse himself from dining with the beleaguered Oxford, because he was engaged to attend Tenison with the Hanoverian envoy, Christoper Frederick Kreienberg, at four o’clock ‘on matters of great importance’.<sup>271</sup></p><p>The death of the queen on 1 Aug. 1714 propelled Tenison back into politics as he was named <em>ex officio</em> as a lord justice, although he was now too frail to take on an active public role. When Parliament was recalled following the queen’s death, he attended on one day only (5 Aug.), one of the 14 lords justices to be present. Having attended at the Cockpit on 3 Sept. upon a summons from the committee concerning the coronation, Tenison felt ‘disordered’ on his return to Lambeth, and on the 5th he was seized with ‘frequent, sudden and very violent vomitings’. Instead of venturing over the river on the 6th to the lords justices’ meeting at St James’s he thought it necessary to send for his physician.<sup>272</sup> On 11 Oct. Trimnell reported that Tenison was ‘pretty cheerful’, despite being so ill that Trimnell wanted Sir Hans Sloane to visit him weekly.<sup>273</sup> Despite this, Tenison managed to crown George I on 20 Oct. with ‘peculiar joy’ in a ceremony that had more than a few bungled moments.<sup>274</sup></p><p>By the end of August 1714, there were vacant bishoprics to fill at Ely and Gloucester. Tenison secured the translation of Bishop Fleetwood to Ely in November. Presumably a negotiated compromise with Nottingham and Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, saw Richard Willis take Gloucester and the Tory, John Wynne<sup>†</sup>, replace Fleetwood at St Asaph. Tenison continued to make his recommendations for appointments to the Irish episcopate, but he disapproved of the ‘motley’ nature of the appointments to the bench made by new Hanoverian regime, which put Church matters ‘at sixes and sevens’.<sup>275</sup> Tenison did not attend Parliament again and died on 14 Dec. 1715 at Lambeth. </p><p>Immediately after Tenison’s death his nephew and heir, Edward Tenison, a canon of Canterbury and later bishop of Ossory, sent the archbishop’s seals to Townshend for their customary destruction in council, and began the extensive business attendant upon fulfilling his last wishes, and executing his complex will (which inevitably brought with it financial disputes).<sup>276</sup> Tenison was buried in the chancel of Lambeth parish church in the same vault as his wife.<sup>277</sup> Maurice Wheeler condemned the critics who had been ‘so perversely absurd as to imagine there was anything of penuriousness in the late archbishop’s humble funeral’, relaying reports that he left £14,000 to charitable uses.<sup>278</sup> In addition to more than £7,500 in cash bequests, Tenison’s numerous legacies included the swannery near Buckden to the bishops of Lincoln and his fire engine and buckets to future archbishops.<sup>279</sup> Despite (or perhaps in acknowledgement of) the tensions of their political relationship, he bequeathed to Somers his painting of the martyred St Sebastian. Among his benefactions during his lifetime were £3-4,000 on the King Street Chapel in St James’s, as well as £500 for supporting it; the foundation and endowment of what became Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School; and a subscription of £800 to Greenwich Hospital.<sup>280</sup></p><p>Assessments of Tenison’s contribution to the nation’s political and religious life naturally reflected the partisanship of the commentator. Shortly before Tenison’s death, Gibson referred to him as ‘the wisest and best man that I know in the world; many others have more state politics; but he had the true Christian policy; great goodness, and integrity improved by long experience and a natural sedateness and steadiness of temper, and a general knowledge of men and of things’. He argued that ‘had it not pleased God to raise up such an one to steer, in the stormy times that we have had (for these last 20 years) the Church in all human probability must have been shipwrecked over and over’.<sup>281</sup> Tories like Clarendon had once see Tenison as ‘a perfect worthy man’ because of his opposition to James II and Catholicism.<sup>282</sup> By the time of his promotion to Canterbury in 1695 he was perceived as a ‘tool’.<sup>283</sup> Evelyn referred to his ‘learning, piety and prudence’, but Swift damned him as ‘the dullest, good for nothing man I ever knew’ and the Tory William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, considered him to be ‘dull and very covetous’, ‘a zealous party man’, ‘very hot and heavy’.<sup>284</sup> Hearne thought him ‘a man of some learning, but of no principles of honest and conscience’, and moreover, one who ‘loves rascals and block-heads’.<sup>285</sup> After 20 years as archbishop, one observer noted that he was ‘not of that compliant temper of mind which courtiers are apt to wish for in bishops’.<sup>286</sup></p><p>Tenison had a difficult path to follow. For most of William’s reign, he was able to work alongside Whig politicians, such as Somers, and he played a full part in a range of governmental activities as a lord justice.<sup>287</sup> The end of William’s reign and the return of Convocation made running the Church much more of a battle between contested visions of its future and created increasing disaffection from the proponents of a high Church alternative. Opposition to Tenison united around the Convocation controversy, which between 1697 and 1701 created clearly-defined parties in the Church.<sup>288</sup> Tenison was able to defend his position through the use of his clerical allies, and used social gatherings of bishops at Lambeth to organize his supporters. He employed a system of ‘whipping’ to ensure the attendance of his allies and employed sympathetic bishops and clergy to run errands and keep up lines of communication around London.<sup>289</sup> Despite the Tory campaign, which appeared close to success in 1711, Tenison never abandoned his constitutional right to preside over Convocation as a single entity. As he said of the Church in the first page of his will, he aimed at ‘constantly endeavouring to improve but never to injure its constitution’. </p><p>Tenison’s activity tailed off during Anne’s reign as his health became increasingly delicate. During Sunderland’s tenure as secretary, he was recorded as attending the Cabinet on only 18 occasions between December 1706 and May 1710, the last on 21 Feb. 1709. His last attendance during the queen’s reign was on 8 Sept. 1710, although there was evidence that he continued to be summoned.<sup>290</sup> His greatest political achievement may have been his dogged survival into the reign of George I, denying the Tories the prize of Canterbury. As one correspondent told his successor, ‘I think it a wonderful providence and mercy to us in preserving an aged infirm gentleman so long for a proper time to remove him’. Or as Philip Wharton<sup>†</sup>, 2nd marquess of Wharton put it: ‘everyone knows how that see had been filled had not the late archbishop outlived the power of his enemies.’<sup>291</sup></p><p>Tenison’s conduct of affairs influenced Gibson, who was later to suggest that he learnt from Tenison to have no truck with Tories beyond ‘common civility’, and that ‘tho’ he could do no [good], at court, yet he could hinder mischief; which he always [saw] as a reason for keeping fair with those who were not [exa]ctly in his way of thinking.’<sup>292</sup> In 1724 Robert Clavering<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Peterborough, referred to ‘that great prelate, ever wary and vigilant in all manner of business, [who] would not do anything till a thorough enquiry was made into the affair’.<sup>293</sup> Nicolson later recalled Tenison as ‘a rock and the centre of unity in the English Church’.<sup>294</sup> His legacy helped to shape the Church long after his death, for six of Tenison’s chaplains later became bishops: Potter, Gibson, Green, Clavering, Richard Smalbroke<sup>†</sup>, who became bishop of Lichfield and Coventry and Elias Sydall<sup>†</sup>, who would be bishop of Gloucester.</p> |
B.A./S.N.H. |
|
THOMAS, William (1613-89) |
<p><strong><surname>THOMAS</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1613–89)</p> |
|
|
First sat 29 Jan. 1678; last sat 2 July 1685 |
cons. 27 Jan. 1678 bp. of ST DAVIDS; transl. 27 Aug. 1683 bp. of WORCESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 2 Feb. 1613, s. of John Thomas, linen draper and Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Blount of Bristol. <em>educ</em>. Carmarthen g.s.; St John’s Oxf. matric. 1629, BCL, 1635; Jesus Oxf. BA 1632, MA 1635; ord. deacon Christ Church, Oxf. 1637, priest 1638; DD 1660. <em>m</em>. Blanche (c.1612-77), da. of Peter Samyne, Dutch merchant in London, 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 4da. <em>d</em>. 25 Jun. 1689; <em>will</em> 11 Feb. 1686-18 June 1689, pr. 2 Nov. 1689.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James Stuart*, duke of York, 1660.</p><p>Vic. Penbryn, Card. (dates unknown); chap. to Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland;<sup>2</sup> rect. Laugharne, Carm. c.1640-70, Llanbedr Felffre (Lampeter Velfrey), Pemb. 1661, Hampton Lovet, Worcs. 1670-7; precentor, St Davids 1660; dean, Worcester 1665-83.</p> |
|
<p>Grandson and namesake of a prominent citizen of Carmarthen who represented Carmarthen Boroughs in the 1614 Parliament, William Thomas rose to prominence in the Restoration Church largely through the patronage of the duke of York. During the Interregnum he had kept a school at Laugharne to support his growing family.<sup>3</sup> In the summer of 1660 Thomas petitioned the crown for an appointment as precentor of St Davids. He clearly already had influential contacts for his application was supported by Gilbert Sheldon*, of London, and George Morley*, then of Worcester.<sup>4</sup> Support from Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, who commended his ‘exemplary life’, enabled him to receive a doctorate in divinity and a chaplaincy to the duke of York.<sup>5</sup> By 1665, under the patronage of the duke, the future bishop had been promoted to the deanery of Worcester where he enjoyed cordial relations with the local nobility and gentry including Henry Somerset*, later 3rd marquess of Worcester and duke of Beaufort, Thomas Windsor*, later earl of Plymouth, and the fiercely Protestant Sir John Pakington<sup>‡</sup> who, in 1670, presented Thomas to the Worcestershire rectory of Hampton Lovet.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Thomas was passed over for promotion to the see of Bangor in 1665 by Sheldon, much to the disappointment of Clarendon who thought Thomas ‘a very worthy and good man’ whose elevation would have been ‘a very good compliment to the duke of York’.<sup>7</sup> Newsletters tipped him for the vacant see of Chester in 1668, but he had to wait another nine years for elevation to the episcopate.<sup>8</sup> In the rambling diocese of St Davids, where conventicles flourished and Catholicism was perceived as a growing threat, the new bishop directed his energies to the spiritual welfare of Wales, his efforts enhanced by his ability to preach and minister in the Welsh language. As both bishop of St Davids and dean of Worcester it became his settled practice to reside in his diocese during spring and summer and to retire to Worcester, where he was an active dean, for the winter.<sup>9</sup> During the first two years of his episcopate Thomas visited all his deaneries and carried out mass confirmations.<sup>10</sup> In the summer of 1678 he told William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury that the state of his diocese where ‘too many of the churches impropriated, not only destitute of vicarages but of tolerable salaries for curacies ...’ created an ‘anguish of my soul’.<sup>11</sup> He was therefore concerned to ensure that his flock had access to sound protestant teaching and was prepared to compromise with nonconformists who were involved in projects to translate the Bible and other devotional literature into Welsh. One of the leading figures in this movement was the ejected minister Stephen Hughes, who had been previously been pursued avidly by William Lucy, bishop of St Davids. He reflected his gratitude to Thomas in a fulsome book dedication.<sup>12</sup></p><p>During his parliamentary career Thomas attended six of nine possible sessions but of those only two (the brief sessions in spring 1679 and March 1681) for more than half of all sittings. When unable to attend the House in November 1678, he registered his proxy in favour of John Fell*, of Oxford (vacated on 2 Dec.) and, in 1685, it was given by Sancroft, to William Lloyd*, of Norwich (vacated at the end of the session). Thomas took his seat at a time of rising concerns about Catholicism that would soon be exploited by Titus Oates and his revelations of a popish plot. Given his own wholehearted protestantism and his dependence on the patronage of York, this presented him with a considerable political dilemma. In the summer of 1678 he organized the publication of his <em>Apology</em>. The ostensible focus of the work was to establish the error of nonconformist separation from the Church of England, and Thomas was anxious to make it clear that he had not altered the text from that which he had composed in the 1650s. Nevertheless, the timing of publication suggests another purpose and a close reading, suggested a clear anti-Catholic subtext. One of the reasons advanced for condemning nonconformist separation from the Church related to the encouragement it gave to Catholics who belonged to a church ‘disfigured by the scars and gashes of schism’. The whole tenor of the work was to reiterate orthodox Anglican political theology and to establish that the Anglican Church was the true church.<sup>13</sup></p><p>On 15 Nov. 1678, during the final session of the Cavalier Parliament, Thomas voted in favour of the Test. Allegations that the lawyer, Edward Whitaker, had attacked the entire episcopal bench as ‘papists’ prompted him to make an impassioned speech to the House on 14 Dec. 1678. Thomas defended the integrity of the bench against Whitaker’s ‘great service of the Church of Rome’, asserting the bishops’ commitment to protestantism and their willingness to die for their faith. He emphasized the seriousness of such aspersions, pointing out that in ancient Rome,</p><blockquote><p>detraction was capital. Reputation is a civil life, which to all ingenuous spirits, to those of our function especially of our station in the Church is, at least ought to be more tender and precious than a natural. … We cannot possibly discover how far an infamy dispersed multiplies, how swiftly it flies, how indelibly it sticks. I say indelibly having frequently observed in the world that a multitude of men who have been prompt and keen to entertain the unjustest aspersion, have afterwards been regardless of the justest vindication.</p></blockquote><p>The House, he continued, should make an example of the man not out of ‘any fierce vindictive design’ but ‘that others may be deterred from the like calumny’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Thomas took his seat for the first Exclusion Parliament on 24 Mar. 1679 and was thereafter present for all but one of the remaining days in the session, 84 per cent of the whole. On 10 May 1679 he voted against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider a method of proceeding against the impeached lords. He arrived for the second Exclusion Parliament on 22 Oct. 1680 and was then present on all but four days until 20 Nov., opposing the exclusion bill on 15 November. He was then absent until 21 Mar. 1681, thereafter attending every day until the end of the session on 28 March.</p><p>In 1683 Thomas was translated to Worcester as its bishop, where he intended to use his power as visitor to the chapter to tackle irregularities in the cathedral liturgy. Whilst he feared such a step had the potential to upset the corporation, he insisted that he preferred to obey the instructions of his metropolitan than to court popularity in the city.<sup>15</sup> Despite his fears he seems to have enjoyed close relations with both the corporation of Worcester and figures of regional political significance. In 1684, at the height of the ‘Tory reaction’, Beaufort undertook his celebrated ‘progress’ and was ‘very nobly entertained and lodged’ at the bishop’s palace. After Thomas had taken a special cathedral service on 17 July 1684, Beaufort was attended with music and pageantry to the town hall where he was made a freeman together with his second son, Charles.<sup>16</sup></p><p>With the accession of James II to the throne, Thomas was forced to choose between his loyalty and his conscience. He was present on the first day of the new king’s Parliament on 19 May 1685 and attended intermittently until the adjournment on 2 July, approximately half the possible sitting days to that date. On 6 Nov., conscious that Parliament was about to reassemble, he wrote to Sancroft to excuse himself from attendance, his physician having ‘vehemently dissuaded’ him.<sup>17</sup> His concern for the wellbeing of the Church under a Catholic monarch was soon apparent. In October 1686 he wrote to Sancroft wishing ‘that God may vouchsafe his special influence and protection in your grace’s pious steerage of the Church in all storms and difficulties’.<sup>18</sup> In May 1687, just a month after the Declaration of Indulgence, he refused to institute two priests who had been nominated by Catholic peers to livings in his diocese – a decision that it was widely believed rendered him liable to prosecution by the ecclesiastical commission.<sup>19</sup> Predictably, in 1687, Thomas was grouped with those lords thought to oppose both the repeal of the Test Acts and the king’s religious policies. Yet he was anxious to demonstrate his loyalty to his monarch and former patron. When James visited Worcester on 23 Aug. 1687, Thomas greeted the king at the gate of the bishop’s palace with a formal greeting in Latin, after which they processed indoors on a white carpet strewn with flowers.<sup>20</sup> After the second Declaration was issued in April 1688, George Hickes, dean of Worcester, reported that Thomas and all the clergy ‘are very sensible of their duty, and resolved on the practice of it’. Accordingly Thomas approved of Sancroft’s ‘pious conduct’ in the matter of the petition of the Seven Bishops. He refused to distribute the Declaration even though ‘it is a piercing wounding affliction to me to incur his majesty’s displeasure’. It was, however, his duty to protect his clergy ‘from sins and perils’, and he was determined ‘by god’s gracious assistance to suffer the greatest temporal evil of distress rather than to act or promote the least spiritual evil of guilt’.<sup>21</sup> He added his name to the petition on 3 June.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Thomas was already frail. When the Convention assembled on 22 Jan. 1689, he was too sick to attend. He remained in his diocese, absorbed with pastoral business. Two days before his death, he is said to have declared that ‘I think I could burn at a stake before I took this new oath’ to William and Mary.<sup>23</sup> That same strictness of conscience which directed his actions over the Declaration would not allow him to break his oath to James II. On 1 June 1689, in a letter to his clergy about their failure to catechize the young adequately, he reminded them that they should never allow their ‘spiritual interests in any transaction to truckle to temporal’. Notes taken by George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, of his conversations with William III indicate that Thomas had instructed his clergy to remain faithful to James II.<sup>24</sup></p><p>William Thomas died on 25 June 1689. He requested a ‘frugal’ burial, the usual mourning expenses for rings and scarves being exchanged for clothing for the poor of Worcester. He left modest legacies to his family and believing it ‘a more prudential act’ to encourage industry and integrity than to relieve poverty, he left the residue of his estate towards apprenticeships for poor boys from Worcester and south Wales who could repeat the Anglican catechism. At his death an inventory at Hartlebury Castle valued his property at a little over £600.<sup>25</sup> The funeral was not quite as austere as Thomas had intended; he was buried in the cloisters of Worcester Cathedral, his funeral procession led by 76 elderly men clothed in black, one for each year of his life.<sup>26</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
TILLOTSON, John (1630-94) |
<p><strong><surname>TILLOTSON</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1630–94)</p> |
|
|
First sat 5 Oct. 1691; last sat 12 Nov. 1694 |
cons. 31 May 1691 abp. of CANTERBURY |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 10 Oct. 1630, s. of Robert Tillotson (<em>d</em>.1683), clothier of Halifax and Mary (<em>d</em>.1667), da. of Thomas Dobson of Sowerby. <em>educ</em>. Clare, Camb., matric. 1647, BA 1650, fell. 1651-61, MA 1654, ord. c.1661, DD 1666. <em>m</em>. 23 Feb. 1664 Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1702), da. of Peter French and Robina Cromwell and stepda. of John Wilkins*, later bp. of Chester, 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 22 Nov. 1694.</p> |
<p>Chap. to Sir Edmund Prideaux<sup>‡</sup> bef. 1656; cur. Cheshunt, Herts. 1661-2; rect. Kedington, Suff. 1663-4; preacher, L. Inn 1663-91; lecturer, St Laurence Jewry, London 1664-91; preb. Canterbury 1670-2, Ealdland St Paul’s 1675-7, Oxgate St Paul’s 1677-89, Newington St Paul’s 1689-91; dean Canterbury 1672-89, St Paul’s 1689-91.</p><p>Chap. to Charles II, James II, William III and Mary II; clerk of the closet 1689-91;<sup>1</sup> PC 4 June 1691.<sup>2</sup></p><p>FRS 1672; mbr. Gouge Trust to distribute Welsh bibles 1674; commr. ecclesiastical appointments 1689, Irish church 1690,<sup>3</sup> charitable institutions and hospitals 1691.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by M. Beale, 1672, St Paul’s Cathedral; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1691, NPG 94; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1691-4, St Paul's Cathedral; oil on canvas, 1691, Lambeth Palace; oil on canvas, Lambeth Palace; oil on canvas, Lambeth Palace; oil on canvas after Sir G. Kneller, Clare Coll., Camb.</p> |
<p>John Tillotson’s short tenure as archbishop of Canterbury was the final part of an ecclesiastical career in which he had long engaged with political and parliamentary business. A Presbyterian who conformed to the established church following the Act of Uniformity, much of his career was given over to proving the Restoration church to be much more comprehensive of diverse religious opinion than many of his colleagues may have wished. His pursuit of a comprehensive English church found expression in his choice of friends and his wider intellectual circle. His clarity and effectiveness as a preacher won him popularity, the respect of Charles II as well as the admiration and friendship of Mary II and William III; and his ability to reconcile apparently conflicting issues made him trusted across many political divides except by the most dogmatic.</p><h2><em>Early life and career</em></h2><p>Born into a ‘low and obscure’ Yorkshire family, Tillotson was raised as Presbyterian and educated at Cambridge during the Civil Wars and Interregnum.<sup>5</sup> He took the 1650 engagement and became chaplain and tutor in the household of Edmund Prideaux, a Presbyterian elder and attorney general to Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>6</sup> Only with Cromwell’s death did Tillotson appear to question the political settlement of the Commonwealth: the rhetoric of the memorial fast, he later informed his friend Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, evoked his ‘disgust’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>At the Restoration, Tillotson’s career was far from assured. In June 1660, at the request of Peter Gunning*, the future bishop of Ely, he was ejected from the fellowship at Clare, Cambridge, that he had held since 1651. Unlike his more conservative friend Edward Stillingfleet*, the future bishop of Worcester, he was not ordained until after the Restoration and probably not until after the Savoy Conference of 1661, which he attended as a Presbyterian auditor.<sup>8</sup> His decision to be ordained by Thomas Sydserf, bishop of Galloway (who, unlike English bishops, did not require his ordinands to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles), combined with his choice of friends in the Dissenting community, provided his enemies with ample proof that he was insufficiently committed to the Restoration religious settlement.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Tillotson submitted to the Act of Uniformity in 1662. After brief periods as a curate in Cheshunt and then as rector of Kedington.Suffolk (to which he was presented by the Presbyterian Sir Thomas Barnardiston<sup>‡</sup>), he obtained a position in London as preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, on 26 Nov. 1663, resigning his Suffolk living despite the relatively meagre stipend of £100 per term and £24 ‘vacation commons’.<sup>10</sup> Soon afterwards he married Elizabeth French, a niece of Oliver Cromwell and stepdaughter of John Wilkins, then rector of St Lawrence Jewry. He had already preached on occasion for Wilkins, and later in 1664 was elected Tuesday lecturer at St Lawrence Jewry by the trustees of that post.<sup>11</sup> Tillotson also had several contacts with the London mercantile community through his brother Joseph Tillotson and his friendship with the mercer and philanthropist Thomas Firmin, a Socinian whose presence within the established church was an example of the kind of inclusivity Tillotson advocated.<sup>12</sup> His reputation as a preacher was based on presenting the religious establishment as the fulfilment of rational enquiry (as in his 1664 St Paul’s sermon against atheism preached before the lord mayor of London, ‘The wisdom of being religious’), while being able to ‘maul and unravel’ Catholic apologists such as John Sergeant.<sup>13</sup> By February 1666, Tillotson was sufficiently familiar in natural philosophical circles for Robert Hooke to write to Robert Boyle asking him to send some <em>ens veneris</em> (a copper compound used medicinally) to cure Tillotson’s child’s rickets.<sup>14</sup></p><p>According to Burnet, in January and February 1668 Tillotson may have been involved in the preparation of the comprehension bill promoted by Sir Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup>, which was based upon negotiations with the Presbyterians led by his father-in-law Wilkins and supported by Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester.<sup>15</sup> The bill, inspired by the assurances made in the king’s 1660 Declaration of Breda, never came before Parliament.<sup>16</sup> Burnet may, however, have confused this negotiation with the later comprehension scheme of 1675, in which both Tillotson and Stillingfleet were certainly involved.<sup>17</sup></p><h2><em>Prebend and Dean of Canterbury</em></h2><p>On 14 Mar.1670 Tillotson was admitted prebendary of Canterbury following nomination by Charles II. The promotion brought in an additional annual income of £600.<sup>18</sup> In August 1671, he became one of the trustees for the financial affairs of Buckingham (together with Anthony Ashley Cooper*, Baron Ashley, Secretary Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Osborne*, later earl of Danby, marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds, and Sir Robert Moray).<sup>19</sup> Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, was sufficiently impressed by Tillotson’s sermon against Catholics at Whitehall on 21 Apr. 1672, that the next day he undertook ‘a long dispute with the king’ failing to convince Charles II to have it printed.<sup>20</sup> In October 1672, Tillotson was promoted to the deanery of Canterbury. Tillotson’s memorialist John Beardmore recorded that the promotion came at the recommendation of Buckingham, Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, and George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, though at the time Sir Ralph Verney<sup>‡</sup> had heard that the appointment was ‘merely at the request of the archbishop’.<sup>21</sup> John Wilkins died at Tillotson’s house in Chancery Lane on 19 Dec. 1672; Tillotson was bequeathed his papers with discretion over their publication. He embarked on preparing Wilkins’s <em>Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion</em> for the press.<sup>22</sup></p><p>On 21 Jan. 1674, Tillotson was ordered to preach a Commons fast sermon.<sup>23</sup> When Richard Baxter was asked by Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], in late 1673, to draw up a list of proposals that would satisfy Presbyterians, he was deeply sceptical that anything would come of it, though he commented that were he able to negotiate with Tillotson and Stillingfleet ‘or some moderate men’, they would be able to come to an agreement within a week.<sup>24</sup> A bill for composing differences in religion, and inviting sober and peaceably-minded Dissenters into the service of the Church’ was introduced on 13 Feb. 1674 and committed on 19 February. Tillotson reported however to William Sancroft*, dean of St Paul’s and later archbishop of Canterbury, that although the House voted on the 20th to drop the obligation to wear the surplice and use the cross in baptism, there was fierce opposition from within the episcopate.<sup>25</sup> The bill was lost with the prorogation five days after its committal. Tillotson and Stillingfleet, apparently at the instance of George Morley*, bishop of Winchester and Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury did have discussions with Baxter and other prominent nonconformists in late 1674 or early 1675, apparently drawing up heads for a bill that would have removed oaths and subscriptions for the clergy, other than the 39 articles, prevented prosecution under the Conventicle Act for ‘family piety’ and allowed toleration for all those who in conscience could not conform under its terms. Baxter was later said to have been suspicious of the project, believing it to have been intended to favour Catholics, but it was Tillotson who wrote to him on 11 Apr. 1675 to tell him that after consulting Ward he had concluded that the draft bill had no chance of passing in either House without ‘the concurrence of a considerable part of the bishops’ and that he was no longer willing to be associated with it: ‘not but that I do most heartily desire an accommodation… but I am sure it will be a prejudice to me and signify nothing to the effecting of the thing’.<sup>26</sup></p><p>In April 1674, Tillotson recommended the physician John Mapletoft, a relative and sympathizer of Thomas Firmin, to Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, as a tutor for his son.<sup>27</sup> He baptized Anglesey’s grandson James Annesley*, later third earl of Anglesey, on 13 July 1674.<sup>28</sup> Although in September 1675 it was rumoured that Tillotson would replace Guy Carleton*, the current bishop of Bristol (since he would ‘better agree with the temper of the Bristol fanatics’), Tillotson rejected the offer on the grounds that it would be to his financial disadvantage, since there were no commendams available to support the impoverished see of Bristol, and he thought it ‘without example that any one hath been a bishop and dean of a cathedral church.’<sup>29</sup> His emoluments and his place in the London church were strengthened when in 1678, at the same time as Stillingfleet was made dean of St Paul’s, Tillotson was granted the prebend of Oxegate belonging to St Paul’s and the residentiary place at the cathedral vacated by Sancroft on his promotion to the archbishopric of Canterbury.<sup>30</sup></p><p>Tillotson’s relationship with Prince William of Orange and with Hans Willem Bentinck*, later earl of Portland, was said by Laurence Echard to have dated from 1677 when William married Princess Mary; the couple were supposedly left without necessities when staying in Canterbury on their way to the Netherlands, and Tillotson placed the deanery, (which was not taken up) his plate and coin at William’s disposal. Thomas Birch pointed out that Echard’s account differed from those in contemporary sources and that the story was used to justify Tillotson’s later advance to the archbishopric of Canterbury over the heads of other candidates.<sup>31</sup></p><p>On 5 Nov. 1678, Tillotson and Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter, preached on the same text (Luke 9: 55-6) before Parliament, Tillotson to the Commons and Lamplugh before the Lords. Tillotson’s sermon was an attack on popery; but at its heart was an insistence that the punishment of heretics by ‘fire and sword’ was unchristian, inconsistent with the rational persuasion employed by Jesus. Catholics were to be pitied and prevented from doing harm rather than persecuted.<sup>32</sup> A sermon preached a month later to a feast of Yorkshiremen resident in London continued the theme by preaching the imperative of universal goodwill over sectarian discord. To achieve protestant unity, the Church would ‘not insist upon little things… but yield them up’ to ‘plausible exceptions’ maintained by nonconformists.<sup>33</sup> Some of Tillotson’s words were seized on in a pamphlet quoting the will of the Elizabethan archbishop of York, Edwin Sandys<sup>†</sup>, as evidence of the Church’s willingness to embrace dissent. Lawrence Womock*, the future bishop of St Davids, responded in a pamphlet archly claiming that Tillotson had been misunderstood.<sup>34</sup> Tillotson was responsible for the conversion of Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, from Catholicism in 1679, and his letter that October chiding Shrewsbury for taking a mistress was widely distributed in manuscript and printed.<sup>35</sup> Tillotson ‘could not but wish success to the exclusion bill’. He and Burnet took ‘great pains’ to prevent George Savile*, marquess of Halifax from assuming the role of ‘champion’ against it.<sup>36</sup> Tillotson’s Whitehall sermon of 2 Apr. 1680, on Job xxiv.15 asserted the power of the magistrate in matters of religion: though carefully insisting that it did not imply the magistrate’s right to reject the true religion, or oblige his subjects to a false one, he argued that if he did, conscience did not license the individual to combat it actively.<sup>37</sup> Charles having slept through most of the sermon, a peer told him he had missed ‘the rarest piece of Hobbism’, to which Charles reportedly replied ‘Gods fish, he shall print it then.’ Simon Patrick*, later successively bishop of Chichester and Ely, thought Tillotson had called ‘the very existence of God’ into question; the sermon’s emphasis on the role of the civil authority as regulator of religion was attacked from all sides, including by Tillotson’s friend, the nonconformist minister John Howe.<sup>38</sup> Tillotson continued to pursue opportunities for the moral reform of the elite: it was to him that John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, repented of his debauched life, and Tillotson lamented that Rochester died before his changed character could be demonstrated to the wider world.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Tillotson was not involved in preparing the comprehension and toleration bills introduced into the Commons in November and December 1680; he commented that he never saw the bills, and ‘the bishops thought this too much, and the Dissenters too little’.<sup>40</sup> But he does seem to have been involved in a separate discussion of the subject around this time. On 14 Nov. he entertained Howe and William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, at his home to discuss a further possible measure of comprehension, but the failure of exclusion the following day apparently stopped Lloyd from proceeding with the discussions.<sup>41</sup> Tillotson was said to have tried to persuade Halifax to support exclusion, and following Charles II’s answer of 4 Jan. 1681 to the address of the Commons, explaining that he could never accept it, Tillotson refused to sign the address of the London clergy in the king’s support.<sup>42</sup></p><p>On 5 Jan. 1681 Tillotson observed to his friend, the philanthropist and eventual non-juror Robert Nelson that the Commons would ‘give anything for [exclusion], and his majesty anything but that’.<sup>43</sup> Following the dissolution on 18 Jan. and the summons of a new Parliament to meet at Oxford on 21 Mar., he wrote to Halifax on 19 Feb. that the elections in and around London were returning ‘generally… the same members that served in the last Parliament’ who would ‘probably bring the same minds to Oxford which they had at Westminster’ resulting in continued stalemate on the exclusion issue.<sup>44</sup> A further letter to Nelson of 7 March described his relief at seeing parliamentary elections secured ‘almost without any drinking or expense’ and confirmed that ‘generally the same persons are chosen again’. He still hoped for measures to either tolerate or incorporate nonconformists, but had ‘no great hopes of any good issue of this [matter] till the minds of men become more calm.’<sup>45</sup></p><p>After the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament in March 1681, Tillotson contacted Halifax to say their ‘friends’ felt ‘very warm… and not a little dissatisfied’ with Halifax for voting against the proposed impeachment of the Catholic conspirator Edward Fitzharris.<sup>46</sup> Tillotson fretted that the failure of the exclusion bill and the peremptory dissolution of Parliament now exposed the country ‘to that danger which ought some way or other to have been provided against’.<sup>47</sup> In October 1681 Tillotson was pressed by William Wentworth*, 2nd earl of Strafford, to join with ‘the ablest of our Church’ to reconvert James Stuart*, duke of York before the expected autumn Parliament assembled; Strafford sent a copy of the correspondence to Halifax.<sup>48</sup></p><p>During that autumn, Tillotson’s reputation prompted moves to procure for him an Irish bishopric. In October, James Butler*, duke of Ormond, wrote to his son Richard Butler*, earl of Arran [I] and Baron Butler, to suggest that he try to persuade Tillotson to accept the see of Derry (though he was keen to do so discreetly, to avoid upsetting the Irish clergy). Though not personally acquainted with him, Ormond had read ‘all I could get of his preaching and writing’. He expected Tillotson to approve of the see’s annual income of £1,800.<sup>49</sup> Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> informed Tillotson on 26 Nov. that Ormond had requested Tillotson’s appointment to the bishopric of Meath be proposed to the king; but Jenkins expressed his reservations to Tillotson, wishing him well but giving a strong hint that it would be better for the Irish Church if he did not take it, ‘your concern being (strictly speaking) but temporal and transient, that of the Church directly regarding the other world’.<sup>50</sup> The king approved Tillotson’s elevation to Meath, but Tillotson declined on the grounds of advancing age, telling Jenkins of his ‘unpleasant and disagreeable thought of transplanting myself into another country and beginning the world again when I feel myself going out of it.’<sup>51</sup> On 13 Dec. Ormond expressed his disappointment with Tillotson: he had thought to promise him ‘a settled and easy station’ in Ireland.<sup>52</sup></p><h2><em>Tory Reaction to Revolution, 1682-9</em></h2><p>According to Beardmore, Tillotson spent the six years before the Revolution living in his new home in Edmonton, still preaching in London with ‘his usual freedom, or rather with greater zeal and fervency, to confirm his auditors against Popery.’<sup>53</sup> In 1682 he was one of the signatories to the letter circulated to raise money for the publication of the bible in Welsh, with Stillingfleet, William Beaw*, bishop of Llandaff, and Jenkins, and with them was a trustee of the project.<sup>54</sup> On 20 Aug. 1682 he wrote to Lady Henrietta Berkeley in an attempt to dissuade her against the ‘bad course’ of her affair with Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke. On 24 Feb. 1683 he wrote a letter of recommendation for her brother, George Berkeley, the son of George Berkeley*, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, who had lived with Tillotson ‘for some considerable time’.<sup>55</sup> He was one of the delegates in the case of Emerton and Mrs Hyde, voting for Emerton’s marriage on 31 Oct. 1682.<sup>56</sup> In January 1683 it was rumoured that he (among unnamed others) had been expelled from their royal chaplaincies and the list of Lent preachers, or that he and others including Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Stillingfleet, Burnet and John Sharp*, later archbishop of York, would be ‘suspended’ for ‘not being so violent against the Dissenters as other were’.<sup>57</sup> In February, he was said in a report to Sir Leoline Jenkins to have preached that English ‘religion and liberty in all human probability’ would not outlive the king, which was construed as a ‘reflection’ on the duke of York.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Tillotson appeared at the trial of Lord William Russell<sup>‡</sup> as a character witness.<sup>59</sup> On 20 July 1683 Tillotson wrote a letter (a copy of which he left with Halifax) urging Russell’s repentance since the Christian religion forbad resistance to authority.<sup>60</sup> He accompanied Russell to the scaffold.<sup>61</sup> On the day after the execution, Tillotson appeared before the Privy Council (including the king, the duke of York and Halifax) where he denied any involvement in writing Russell’s controversial scaffold speech.<sup>62</sup> He argued that Russell kept company with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, only to prevent the latter being misled by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury; the king commended his letter to Russell, which was passed from Halifax to the king and then to Roger L’Estrange<sup>‡</sup> for publication.<sup>63</sup> He was later said to have influenced Halifax’s attempt to obstruct George Hickes’ promotion to the deanery of Worcester in October 1683, though it was apparently swept aside by the king and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon.<sup>64</sup> Tillotson’s conduct in 1683 suggested to Sir Thomas Stringer<sup>‡</sup> that he must be seeking to ingratiate himself with opponents of the Protestant interest;<sup>65</sup> Lawrence Womock, in a pamphlet of late 1683 suggested that this ‘greatest trimmer’, ‘born of anabaptistical parents’ and not even properly baptized, had achieved such authority that he felt no compunction at vindicating ‘every traitor’.<sup>66</sup></p><p>The reign of James II began inauspiciously for Tillotson when the draft loyal address from the clergy of Canterbury in March 1685 named only the vice-dean and prebendaries, which ‘may possibly give some occasion to suspect it was done in opposition to our dean.’<sup> <sup>67</sup></sup> On 5 Nov. he met with about 20 of his fellow London clergy (including Stillingfleet, John Sharp, Thomas Tenison*, who would succeed him at Canterbury, and Simon Patrick) who ‘hoped sincerely… to continue Protestant’ in writing to the archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Oxford urging their attendance at the session of parliament.<sup>68</sup> On 21 Nov. 1685, Tillotson informed Lady Russell that Parliament had been prorogued until the following February, which he found ‘surprising’.<sup>69</sup></p><p>In September 1686, Tillotson and his fellow canon residentiaries at St Paul’s with their dean Stillingfleet received at St Paul’s the order of the Lords Commissioners suspending Compton as bishop of London and were instructed to display the order on the cathedral door. Tillotson was reportedly the most reluctant of the chapter to comply, ‘but the rest would have carried it against him if he had persisted in his opposition to it.’<sup>70</sup> Three months later, when James II forced Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, to attend a public debate about the merits of the Catholic Church with his priests, he refused to accept Rochester’s nominees, Tillotson and Stillingfleet on the grounds that they had deliberately misrepresented his faith.<sup>71</sup> In January 1687 Roger Morrice wondered whether Tillotson and Stillingfleet would resign from the chapter if Compton were actually deprived and they were forced to elect a replacement.<sup>72</sup> That year, Tillotson’s previously unpublished sermons were published.<sup>73</sup> On 10 Apr. he preached at the king’s chapel against conversion to the king’s faith, by analogy with Moses at the Egyptian court, praising those ‘who in this hour of temptation stick… close to the Church of England [and] choose rather to be God’s favourites than the king’s’.<sup>74</sup> In July Roger Morrice recorded an allegation that Tillotson had circulated information that the king was paying £8,000 to nonconformists (£2,000 in one payment alone to Henry Hurst, an ejected minister) who had addressed thanks to the king for his first Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>75</sup> Tillotson’s reply, if any, was not recorded by Morrice; but the incident may have had some bearing on the insinuations about the bribing of dissenting ministers made by Halifax in <em>A Letter to a Dissenter,</em> probably written the following month.<sup>76</sup></p><p>On 13 May 1688, Tillotson consulted with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, about a coordinated response to the second Declaration of Indulgence, and attended the meeting of clergymen who were ‘all for refusal’.<sup>77</sup> He agreed ‘vigorously’ with Edward Fowler*, later bishop of Gloucester, who produced testimony from Dissenters who denied that they supported the Declaration.<sup>78</sup> In his Sunday sermon on 17 June he gave thanks for the birth of the prince of Wales, but praised the princesses Mary and Anne ‘who did both steadily profess and sincerely practice the true religion’, and referred to the king’s promise to defend the Church.<sup>79</sup> In late summer 1688 Tillotson visited Princess Anne at Tunbridge Wells, where on 2 Sept. he preached on the parable of the ten virgins, emphasizing the folly of being unprepared at the required moment.<sup>80</sup> He returned to Edmonton from Canterbury at the end of September, but told one correspondent that given fears of an invasion, he was considering moving his family back to Canterbury.<sup>81</sup> Birch knew the anecdote that Tillotson drew up the letter sent by George, prince of Denmark*, the future duke of Cumberland to announce his defection to James II on 24 Nov. 1688, and argued for its veracity on stylistic grounds.<sup>82</sup> According to Burnet, Nottingham claimed that both Tillotson and Stillingfleet dissuaded him from taking up arms against James II, although both clerics later denied his version of the conversation.<sup>83</sup></p><h2><em>After the Revolution </em></h2><p>On 14 Jan. 1689 Tillotson joined Lloyd of St Asaph, Patrick, John Sharp and Thomas Tenison at Stillingfleet’s house in London to draw up the heads of a comprehension bill. On the day of thanksgiving for ‘deliverance… from popery and arbitrary power’ on 31 Jan., Tillotson preached at Lincoln’s Inn chapel, recommending that Protestants show clemency towards their former persecutors and not to ‘imitate those patterns, which with so much reason we abhor’.<sup>84</sup> At the prompting of Sarah, Lady Churchill, he visited Princess Anne and persuaded her not to oppose the granting of the crown to William III for life should he survive Mary II.<sup>85</sup></p><p>On 25 Mar. 1689, Tillotson was ordered to attend the House of Lords in his capacity as a trustee under the will of James Cecil*, 3rd earl of Salisbury, following the petition of the countess of Burlington as guardian of the 4th earl’s younger (Protestant) brothers. Salisbury had removed his brothers from school at Eton the previous year and sent them to France.<sup>86</sup> Tillotson’s proximity to the new settlement was shown in the published letter by John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, written to explain his action in having joined James II’s ecclesiastical commission. Dated 27 Mar., the letter was addressed to Tillotson, and referred to the latter’s efforts on his behalf.<sup>87</sup> In April 1689, Tillotson replaced Nathaniel Crew*, of Durham, as clerk of the closet, giving him influence over royal patronage of the clergy.<sup>88</sup> Following the failure of the comprehension bill to be read in the Commons in April, despite passing the Lords, Tillotson recommended to William that a commission of the clergy be appointed to recommend a measure of ecclesiastical reform which would then be passed by Convocation, evading accusations that the Church was being reformed by secular authority.<sup>89</sup> When on 16 Aug., the Commons gave the third reading to the bill to secure the government against ‘papists and disaffected persons’, a rider to the bill was added, directing profits from the 4th earl of Salisbury’s estates to Tillotson and John Fisher of the Middle Temple as trustees for the 3rd earl’s younger children, but the bill was lost at the prorogation shortly afterwards.<sup>90</sup> Tillotson endured ‘ten weeks attendance’ on the king and queen at Hampton Court from July to September 1689.<sup>91</sup> In August, metropolitan jurisdiction was granted temporarily to the dean and chapter of Canterbury; Tillotson then issued a mandate to Compton and to Lloyd of St Asaph authorizing them to perform the consecrations of bishops in the province.<sup>92</sup> As clerk of the closet he already had a share in ecclesiastical appointments, but he met with considerable resistance from a number of clergy who refused to succeed soon-to-be-deprived non-jurors. In vain he pressed the see of Norwich on his friend Sharp and his relationship with William Wake*, later successively bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of Canterbury, suffered for the same reason.<sup>93</sup> On 13 Sept. 1689 Tillotson sent Portland a summary of proposals including the reformation of the church canons and ecclesiastical courts, replacement of subscription to the 39 articles with a general declaration, and a compromise form of episcopal ordination for Presbyterian ministers.<sup>94</sup> Having kissed hands on or before 19 Sep., on 23 Sep. Tillotson was appointed dean of St Paul’s to replace the newly elevated Stillingfleet.<sup>95</sup> He was installed in November 1689 at St Paul’s, and Sharp succeeded him as dean of Canterbury.</p><p>Reviewing the ecclesiastical appointments made by William III in summer 1689, Tillotson thought them ‘as well as could be expected in the midst of the powerful importunities of so many great men in whom I discern too much of court art and contrivance for the preferment of their friends, yea even in my good Lord Nottingham more than I could wish.’ When Tillotson kissed hands for the deanery of St Paul’s in September, the king ‘spoke plainly about a great place, which I dread to think of’. Tillotson’s advancement was the suggestion of Burnet, ‘one of the worst and best friends I know: best for his singular good opinion of me and the worst for directing the king in this method’. Tillotson had not intended ‘running away from a bishopric to catch an archbishopric. This fine device hath thrown me so far into the briars, that without his majesty’s great goodness, I shall never get off without a scratched face.’ William pressed him further on the subject in the following days, Tillotson still resisting, but king and dean ‘parted upon good terms.’<sup>96</sup></p><p>Postponing contemplation of his accepting the primacy, Tillotson concentrated on the ecclesiastical commission and on the reform of the liturgy and canons. The commission opened in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey on 10 Oct. 1689.<sup>97</sup> Its recommendations were passed to Convocation, where comprehension was fatally damaged. Tillotson’s appointment as dean of St Paul’s may have been intended to secure him the preeminent place in Convocation as prolocutor of the lower house, which he claimed by virtue of his office, but instead the lower house elected William Jane, with Compton’s support.<sup>98</sup> Sharp had proposed Tillotson but he was defeated by 20 votes.<sup>99</sup> One Presbyterian relayed dismay: Tillotson, ‘their man’, would have ‘granted… all we could have wished for, both in the alteration of the liturgies, prayers, ceremonies and all’.<sup>100</sup> On 11 Dec. Tillotson was forced to leave a meeting with the committee of the lower house of Convocation on the address thanking William III for preserving the protestant religion, after a particularly protracted dispute in which he was ‘baited… like a bear’. Tillotson was assured by a colleague that, it was ‘in vain… to court the Tory clergy’ to make concessions since they were convinced of his dishonesty.<sup>101</sup> After Tillotson and Richard Kidder*, later bishop of Bath and Wells, became embroiled in a dispute with George Hooper*, later successively bishop of St Asaph and Bath and Wells, over the lower house’s replacement of the bishops’ address to the king with their own, William prorogued Convocation in disgust.<sup>102</sup> In the autumn, Tillotson’s 1683 letter to Russell was resurrected by the Tories in hope of causing him embarrassment. On 15 Nov. 1689 the Lords’ committee to take evidence concerning the executions of Russell, Algernon Sydney<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Thomas Armstrong<sup>‡</sup> and Cornish and other government actions in the 1680s examined Tillotson on oath for three hours about his behaviour at the time of Russell’s death. Tillotson denied that he had approved the publication of his letter to Lord Russell, which had been much against his will: he had shown it to Halifax, who had used it in an attempt to persuade the king to save Russell’s life. A copy had been subsequently shown to him by Roger L’Estrange, from which it had been published.<sup>103</sup></p><h2><em>Archbishop of Canterbury</em></h2><p>Tillotson delivered the martyrdom sermon on 30 Jan. 1690 and a fast sermon on 16 Apr., both before the Commons.<sup>104</sup> On 7 Mar., he caused uproar with a sermon before the queen that diminished the concept of a tormenting eternal hell. It was argued by his political opponents that he was consoling the queen in her dread of eternal damnation for having usurped her father’s throne.<sup>105</sup> When Shrewsbury attempted to resign on 28 Apr. it was Tillotson who was sent on an unsuccessful errand to persuade him to retain office.<sup>106</sup> On 18 June Tillotson preached a fast sermon at St Mary-le-Bow, insisting that though England had been favoured, only moral reformation and the destruction of her Catholic enemies would guarantee the future.<sup>107</sup> On the same day, he was heard by John Evelyn discussing the plight of the protestants of the Vaudois with Stillingfleet, Tenison and Lloyd of St Asaph.<sup>108</sup> On 5 Oct. William III renewed his offer of the archbishopric of Canterbury. Tillotson warned the king that he would face opposition: ‘all the storm which was raised in Convocation the last year was upon my account, and… the bishop of L[ondon] was at the bottom of it out of a jealousy, that I might be a hindrance to him in attaining what he desires’. Lady Russell advised him to ‘put anew in practice that submission, you have so powerfully both tried yourself, and instructed others to; I see no place to escape at; you must take up the cross and bear it.’<sup>109</sup> On 18 Oct. Tillotson finally acceded to William’s wishes; the king suggested that an announcement be delayed until Parliament had risen, and Tillotson asked that it be preceded by a declaration in council that the places of the deprived bishops were to be disposed of, so Tillotson would not appear ‘a wedge to drive out the present archbishop’.<sup>110</sup> The news stayed within a closed circle: the following spring, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, still considered Compton and Stillingfleet to be in the running as well as Tillotson.<sup>111</sup> In November Tillotson was named as a commissioner to settle the church in Ireland.<sup>112</sup> That autumn, Carmarthen noted that Tillotson should be asked to reprimand his son-in-law James Chadwick<sup>‡</sup> over his vote in the Convention for the disabling clause, ‘for he gives a very bad example’.<sup>113</sup> On 20 Nov. Tillotson was again summoned by the Lords to be a sworn witness on behalf of Robert Cecil<sup>‡</sup> in the dispute between Cecil and his brother Salisbury involving the latter’s attempt to resume his privilege (previously waived) in the brothers’ chancery case. </p><p>The royal warrant for Tillotson’s election as archbishop of Canterbury was finally issued on 22 Apr. 1691.<sup>114</sup> Tillotson was determined to secure the archbishopric of York for his friend John Sharp, but Sharp had aroused the king’s antipathy by turning down Norwich among other sees on the grounds that he would not directly replace deprived non-juring friends.<sup>115</sup> On 24 Apr., Sharp and Tillotson met to finalize a plan to overcome the king’s objections. Sharp would inform Nottingham of his agreement to fill the archdiocese of York following Lamplugh’s imminent death, and (if Nottingham approved) Tillotson would broach this with the king.<sup>116</sup> On 12 May the non-juror Henry Dodwell wrote to him to urge him not to be ‘the aggressor in the new designed schism, in erecting another altar against the hitherto acknowledged altar of your deprived fathers and brethren’; Tillotson’s elevation, Dodwell claimed, would fatally undermine the independence of the Church and confirm for posterity its subordination to temporal authority.<sup>117</sup> Nevertheless, the royal assent on 21 May was followed a week later by Tillotson’s formal confirmation at St Mary-le-Bow.<sup>118</sup> On Whit Sunday, 31 May, Tillotson was consecrated before an audience that consisted of ‘all the great officers of state, and most of the nobility in town’ including Carmarthen, Nottingham, William Russell*, 5th earl, later duke, of Bedford and Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk.<sup>119</sup> Sancroft pointedly celebrated communion to a congregation of 60 in a rival service at Lambeth.<sup>120</sup> Tillotson bore the brunt of hostility to the new bishops; Harley commented that ‘the rage is as high and gall overflowing’ as if Richard Baxter had been made archbishop. Sancroft had no intention of moving his family out of Lambeth and made it clear that he would not go quietly.<sup>121</sup> Tillotson issued a subpoena to his predecessor to answer a charge of appropriating diocesan revenue.<sup>122</sup> Nottingham recorded on 5 June that the attorney-general, Sir George Treby<sup>‡</sup>, had already prepared the case for determination.<sup>123</sup> Sancroft was finally ejected at the end of June by the sheriff. The new archbishop forbade the prosecution for libel of those arrested for writing against his appointment, against the wishes of Treby and solicitor-general Sir John Somers*, later Baron Somers.<sup>124</sup> Tillotson recognized that he faced a ‘miserably distracted and divided Church and nation’.<sup>125</sup> In September, the outlawed non-juror George Hickes alleged that Tillotson was engaged in a new comprehension project in preparation for the autumn parliamentary session.<sup>126</sup> However, Tillotson had recently acknowledged to an academic contact in Leiden that comprehension should not ‘be attempted for the present; but that we ought to wait while the times grow more disposed to a peace’.<sup>127</sup> Tillotson preached before the queen at the monthly fast on 16 September.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Having been involved in high politics and with parliamentary business for nearly three decades, Tillotson finally received his writ of summons to the House of Lords on 5 Oct. 1691.<sup>129</sup> He took his seat there, along with Sharp, the same day, when the House met to prorogue. He attended on the first day of each of four sessions held between his elevation and his death in 1694; for the first three sessions he sat between 60 and 70 per cent of sittings. On 22 Oct. 1691, Tillotson was present on the first day of the session. He attended more than 69 per cent of sittings; he was named to the committee for privileges and to 13 select committees, including that on the address to the king, from which he reported on the first day of the session. On 27 Oct. he reported from the committee on the address to the queen. On 1 Dec. he was named as one of the reporters of the conference with the Commons on the oaths in Ireland bill; and on 11 Dec. he was named to the committee on the bill for securing the portions, debts and legacies on the estate of the late earl of Salisbury, a matter within which he had a prior interest as a trustee of the earl’s legacy to his younger sons. Dining with the new archbishop on 28 Dec. 1691, the diarist John Evelyn found Tillotson ‘far politer than the old man’.<sup>130</sup> Tillotson received the proxy of Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, on 18 Jan. 1692, possibly in anticipation of the Lords’ consideration of the divorce bill for the duke of Norfolk.</p><p>Tillotson’s attention in the early part of 1692 was concentrated on the reform of the Church.<sup>131</sup> Tillotson and Mary II encouraged Burnet to write his <em>Discourse of the pastoral care</em>, licensed by Tillotson in May.<sup>132</sup> Having made preparations for a liturgy to be used on the fast day set for 8 Apr. (a date which proved difficult to fix), Tillotson convened a meeting of eight bishops to discuss a new circular letter on 11 Apr.: the meeting proved unexpectedly harmonious, ‘none more cheerfully concurring in everything’ than Tillotson’s old antagonist Compton, and ended with a dinner held ‘with great kindness’.<sup>133</sup></p><p>That month it was reported that Tillotson and Burnet had been named in a printed list issued by James II excluding them from any future pardon should the former king be restored.<sup>134</sup> While the defeat of the French fleet at La Hogue on 19 May made James’s immediate return by force of arms unlikely, William III’s success in Flanders was not certain: in the early hours of 7 June, Tillotson lay awake ‘in great perplexity for the King’ and calmed himself by making eight resolutions including, ‘not to trouble the queen any more with my troubles’ and to keep confidential his conversations with the king and queen. In the same month he noted in a memorandum that William and Mary were ‘two angels, in human shape, sent down to us to pluck a whole nation out of Sodom’.<sup>135</sup> In July he seemed overwhelmed to be chosen by the queen to be a godparent, alongside herself, to the son of Charles Powlett*, 6th marquess of Winchester, remarking to Lady Russell that he hoped that once William III had returned safely from war the king and queen might at last be parents and (alluding to the <em>canard</em> repeated by Hickes and others that he had been born to an Anabaptist family) that ‘I, who am said not to have been baptized myself, may have the honour to baptize a prince of Wales.’<sup>136</sup> In September he gave preliminary judgment in favour of Jonas Proast, a Tory Anglican opponent of the Toleration Act who had been dismissed as chaplain to All Souls, Oxford on an unrelated matter. Tillotson was accused of being ‘dilatory’ in managing the case as Proast was an opponent of his friend John Locke.<sup>137</sup> On 27 Oct., Burnet having declined to do so, Tillotson preached the thanksgiving sermon following a season of victories and the frustration of Grandval’s assassination plot, arguing for the Revolution ‘as the cause of true religion against a false and idolatrous worship, and of the liberties of mankind against tyranny and oppression’.<sup>138</sup> On 4 Nov. 1692, Tillotson was again present for the first day of the new parliamentary session and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. He attended 70 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees. On 3 Jan. 1693, he voted with the court against the place bill and on 25 Jan. 1693, he voted to commit the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On the last day of the session (14 Mar. 1693), Tillotson attended for the king’s veto of two bills deemed impediments to the royal prerogative: the royal mines bill and the bill for the frequent meeting of Parliaments. Tillotson expressed some discomfort with William’s use of the veto to Stillingfleet, writing that it was a ‘great matter of joy to his greatest enemies and much resented by many of his true friends’.<sup>139</sup></p><p>Closely interested in the religious affairs of Scotland and Ireland, Tillotson was concerned about a number of moral horror stories from within the Irish army, and served as the main channel of communication between the Irish episcopate and the crown in the preparation of injunctions and draft bills to introduce to the Irish parliament.<sup>140</sup> One Scottish observer remarked that ‘nothing was done in there [in Scotland] in the change of ecclesiastical government but by Dr Tillotson’s advice’.<sup>141</sup> On 1 Aug. 1693, Tillotson informed Portland (who managed Scottish affairs) of his concern about the draft Scottish comprehension bill shown to him by John Dalrymple, master (later viscount and earl) of Stair [S], which forced Scottish Episcopalians to own Presbyterian government ‘as the only government’; the king, he claimed, would not accept the bill as it was one not of comprehension but of exclusion.<sup>142</sup> Tillotson seconded Burnet’s attempts under directions from the queen to obtain an act whereby the Scots clergy might keep their livings without having to abjure episcopacy.<sup>143</sup></p><p>Constant abuse took its toll on Tillotson’s spirits. On 9 Sept. 1693, he complained to William Lloyd that the ‘Jacobites of the Church of England for lying and calumny have outdone… even the Jesuits’.<sup>144</sup> A month later, he confessed to Lady Russell that he was at his ‘wit’s end concerning the public’, disillusioned ‘that the upper end of the world was so hollow’, and saddened that he could no longer make new friends: he could have no certainty whether they were genuine or merely hanging onto his coat-tails.<sup>145</sup> On 26 Oct. 1693, in advance of the new parliamentary session, Tillotson secured the queen’s permission for Lloyd’s absence, but informed Lloyd that he would still need to obtain the leave of the House. He worried to Lloyd that the mismanagement of naval forces and consequent loss of the Turkey fleet in the summer had ‘caused so universal a discontent as I fear will not easily be allayed’.<sup>146</sup> Present at the House on 7 Nov. 1693 for the first day of business, Tillotson was again named to the committee for privileges. He attended 61 per cent of sittings that session and was named to 10 select committees. On 23 Feb. 1694, Tillotson intervened in the dispute between the king and Irish landlords over forfeited impropriations belonging to Catholic estates.<sup>147</sup> On 16 Apr. he managed a conference on Sharp’s small tithes bill, reporting on 18 April.<sup>148</sup> The lengthy debate on the tonnage bill on 23 Apr. placed him in opposition to the 12 other bishops in the House that day; he voted for the bill, and thus both for the establishment of the Bank of England and in practical terms for the guarantee of supply to allow the departure of the fleet.<sup>149</sup></p><p>Following a petition from Robert Lucy, chancellor of St Davids, Tillotson appointed three commissioners to conduct a metropolitan visitation and suspended Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, on 21 Aug. 1694.<sup>150</sup> Wary of antagonizing fellow churchmen, even on matters of pastoral care, in September he proposed that a measure intended to oblige clergy to spend more time residing in their parishes should be introduced not simply by episcopal initiative, but by royal letters containing injunctions to the archbishops, claiming that it would assure the nation that the king and queen were sincerely attached to the established Church and its welfare.<sup>151</sup> In October he corresponded with John Hough*, bishop of Oxford about a living of which Sir Gervase Clifton, a Catholic recusant, was patron.<sup>152</sup> On 25 Oct. and 6 Nov. Tillotson attended the House for the formal announcements of a further prorogation. On 8 Nov. he told Sharp that his absence from Westminster in the coming session would not be ‘well taken’.<sup>153</sup> On 12 Nov., Tillotson was, as usual, in the House for the first day of parliamentary business, but it was his last ever attendance; 10 days later he was dead. In 1688, Tillotson had already ‘been warned of mortality by a near apoplexy’.<sup>154</sup> On 18 Nov. 1694, during Sunday worship at the chapel royal, Whitehall, he suffered ‘a kind of apoplexy and with it a dead palsy which… seized one side of him all along’.<sup>155</sup> The ‘apoplectic symptoms… were obstinate against all endeavours that could be used’ and he died on 22 Nov. in the arms of his friend Robert Nelson.<sup>156</sup> L’Hermitage considered that Tillotson would be greatly missed by all English protestants since he was a ‘moderate spirit and upholder of union’.<sup>157</sup> Locke claimed that he had lost the only person to whom he could ‘freely consult about theological uncertainties’.<sup>158</sup> Burnet wrote that the king and the queen were ‘much affected’ by his death, and the queen could not speak of him without tears .<sup>159</sup></p><p>The short space of time between Tillotson’s consecration and his death seems to have made Tillotson an exemplar of the extreme burden of the office, but as William Wake was assured in 1715, ‘the reason was because he came unprepared by any previous experience of much business. He made too great a step at once from a deanery to an archbishopric’.<sup>160</sup> The costs of refurbishing Lambeth (which left his son-in-law in financial difficulty) and a lack of inherited wealth meant that the king had to forgive his unpaid first fruits.<sup>161</sup> As William III had promised, Tillotson’s widow was granted an annuity of £400 in May 1695, increased by a further £200 in 1698.<sup>162</sup> Tillotson’s collection of pamphlets, acquired by Edward Maynard (later canon of Lichfield), was presented to Magdalen College, Oxford and the copyright of his manuscript sermons sold for £2,500 after his death.<sup>163</sup> One courtier laid a wager that Tillotson would be replaced by Simon Patrick, and a rumour also circulated of Burnet’s appointment; but within two weeks of his death, Thomas Tenison was named as his successor.<sup>164</sup> Tillotson was buried on 30 Nov. 1694 in his former church of St Lawrence Jewry.</p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
TRELAWNY, Jonathan (Jonathon) (1650-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>TRELAWNY</surname></strong>, <strong>Jonathan (Jonathon)</strong> (1650–1721)</p> |
|
|
First sat 9 Nov. 1685; last sat 10 July 1721 |
cons. 8 Nov. 1685 bp. of BRISTOL; transl. 4 Apr. 1689 bp. of EXETER; transl. 14 June 1707 bp. of WINCHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Mar. 1650, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Jonathan Trelawny<sup>‡</sup> (<em>d</em>.1681), 2nd bt.,<sup>1</sup> gent. of the privy chamber, and Mary, da. of Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt. of Berry Pomeroy, Devon; bro. of Charles Trelawny<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Trelawny<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Westminster Sch. 1663; M. Temple 1669; Christ Church Oxf., BA 1672, MA 1675; DD 1685; ord. priest 1676. <em>m</em>. 31 Mar. 1684, Rebecca (1670-1710),<sup>2</sup> da. of Thomas Hele of Babbacombe, Devon; 6s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 6da. <em>suc</em>. fa. as 3rd bt. bef. 5 Mar. 1681. <em>d</em>. 19 July 1721; <em>admon</em>. 6 Dec. 1721 to s. Sir John Trelawny.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Royal chap. (extraordinary) 13 Nov. 1677.</p><p>Rect. St Ives, Cornw. 1677-89, Southill with Callington, Cornw. 1677-89, Shobrooke, Devon 1689-?1707; dean, St Buryan, Cornw. 1689-1707;<sup>4</sup> chap. to Edward Conway*, earl of Conway;<sup>5</sup> proctor, Convocation 1685;<sup>6</sup> adn. Totnes 1693-4; preb. and adn. Exeter, 1704-7.</p><p>Commr. to revise the liturgy 1689,<sup>7</sup> to build 50 new churches, 1711-<em>d</em>.<sup>8</sup></p><p>V.-adm. South Cornw. 1682; recorder, West Looe 1685;<sup>9</sup> stannator, Truro 1686;<sup>10</sup> dep. lt. Cornw. 1702,<sup>11</sup> 1706,<sup>12</sup> Devon 1704;<sup>13</sup> alderman Lostwithiel 1685;<sup>14</sup> freeman Plymouth 1684,<sup>15</sup> 1713, Saltash 1684, Liskeard, Fowey, Truro 1685,<sup>16</sup> Winchester by 1710.<sup>17</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1708, Christ Church, Oxf.; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1720, NPG 5855.</p> |
<p>Trelawny was one of the youngest ever Anglican bishops, being aged just 35 at the time of his elevation.<sup>18</sup> He might have been thought more likely to follow his father and brothers into the army; the military traditions of his family certainly lent him a decidedly secular, rather bullish edge. For one contemporary observer he was a ‘spiritual dragoon’ who, unable to offer much in the way of religious fare, could wield a sword until ‘glutted with blood’.<sup>19</sup> His temper was famous: Lancelot Blackburne<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Exeter and archbishop of York, in October 1705 referred to ‘the strange quickness and openness of his temper’.<sup>20</sup> From his family seat at Trelawne, Trelawny exercised extensive control over parliamentary elections at East and West Looe and Liskeard and could wield a heavy hand in numerous others. That two-fifths of Cornwall’s 44 Commons’ seats were located within a small radius of the Trelawny estate explains why his interest was so significant in the political control of the south-west. His interest (coupled with that of his immediate kin) was undoubtedly strengthened by his alliances with families such as the Godolphins and assisted by the progressive decline in power of John Granville*, earl of Bath, and he ruthlessly exploited his interest to become the archetypal ‘borough-monger’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Trelawny’s political career up to 1715 has divided historians.<sup>22</sup> He was a defender of passive obedience who rebelled against his king; a high Tory and patron of highflier Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, but also an ally of the duumvirs (and tangentially to the Whig Junto); he finally sought an electoral deal with the ministry of Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford only to turn whimsical and throw in his lot with the Hanoverians. His political flexibility perhaps reflects his relative independence as the wielder of a great interest in his own right. Yet there are underlying consistencies throughout Trelawny’s long political life that lend coherence to his apparently erratic political and parliamentary behaviour: his conservative churchmanship, his fiercely Protestant patriotism and finally his political loyalty to particular individuals, especially to fellow Cornishman Sidney Godolphin*, later earl of Godolphin.</p><p>Trelawny’s royalist father (imprisoned nine times and sentenced to death on three occasions) became a favoured courtier after the Restoration and served James Stuart*, duke of York, in both a household and military capacity.<sup>23</sup> As a younger son, Trelawny had anticipated neither his baronetcy nor responsibility for the family’s shaky finances. The Trelawnys were said to have lost at least £1,200 as a result of their royalism and were still dangerously close to bankruptcy by the time that Trelawny succeeded his father in 1681.<sup>24</sup> Throughout his career, Trelawny’s income bore little relation to his lavish spending on land, refurbishments and socializing (the West Looe custom house liquor account for 1681 is testament to Trelawny’s bacchanalian tastes).<sup>25</sup> By 1688, he claimed that three years’ expenses as bishop of Bristol exceeded his income by £1,500.<sup>26</sup> Trelawny seems to have been in financial difficulties throughout his career. Even the handsome annual revenues at Winchester (at least £4,000) failed to ameliorate a dire financial situation that was exacerbated by the costs of electioneering and providing for 11 children. In 1713 he re-mortgaged all the family estates for £9,000; between 1713 and his death in 1721 he generated as much income as possible by exploiting his episcopal property and alienating many of its tenants.<sup>27</sup></p><h2><em>Early career</em></h2><p>The future bishop went up to Oxford where he became close to William Jane, stalwart Anglican and fellow Cornishman, came under the patronage of John Fell*, the future bishop of Oxford, and alarmed many with his colourful language and swaggering behaviour. Humphrey Prideaux (a future dean of Norwich) found that Trelawny ‘talks so madly that I know not whom to compare him to but Oates’.<sup>28</sup> His behaviour later generated rumours that he had been guilty ‘for doing what was scandalous in one that was his majesty’s chaplain’.<sup>29</sup> Trelawny had made an inauspicious start to his career in the Church; in possession of the rectory of St Ive and the family parish of South Hill, he chafed against what he saw as two inadequate livings and wrongly assumed that the king would supply more attractive preferment to shore up the Trelawny patrimony.<sup>30</sup> At some point after he succeeded to the baronetcy Fell approached Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, on Trelawny’s behalf, suggesting that Trelawny replace George Hooper*, future bishop of Bath and Wells, on the Exeter cathedral chapter; then Trelawny could use his own interest to secure a vacancy in the chapter at Christ Church, Oxford, for Hooper.<sup>31</sup> Nothing came of Fell’s proposal because the expected vacancy at Christ Church did not occur.</p><p>Following the death of his brother in October 1680, Trelawny became heir to the family baronetcy, to which he succeeded early in 1681, five years after being ordained. Henceforth, he based himself at the family seat of Trelawne and immersed himself in Cornish political and military governance. His electoral influence over Liskeard and the twin boroughs of Looe was such that one inhabitant of Looe complained in 1722 that Trelawny ‘kept us in captivity 40 years and kept magistrates over us for taskmasters, who are officers, which art contrary to law and charter’. Even when William III granted control of the duchy manor of East Looe to John Somers*, Baron Somers, Trelawny retained his dominant interest there.<sup>32</sup> The Tory reaction provided Trelawny with an opportunity to consolidate his interest in Cornwall and Devon. With a rash of charter surrenders in 1684 and re-grants in 1685, Trelawny was nominated to many corporations in Devon and Cornwall. He advised one Cornish deputy lieutenant not to weed out unsuitable nominations for the bench in Fowey but to accept all-comers, regardless of merit, and allow the king to take the responsibility for any rejections.<sup>33</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of James II and elevation to Bristol</em></h2><p>With the accession of James II, Trelawny relished the opportunity to prove his loyalty. Asked by Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to use his influence in the coming parliamentary elections, Trelawny replied with extravagant expressions of his personal and dynastic allegiance to the king, ‘where my inclinations as well as my blood do guide me with the most resigned devotion’. He would employ his interest with ‘such full measures as may be of use in those corporations where I have an helping influence, as well as in such where my authority is absolute’. The rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, provided another opportunity for Trelawny to show his mettle. On 8 June 1685, already a well regarded vice-admiral, he was instructed by the king to organize resistance, since the lieutenancy was spread too thinly.<sup>34</sup> Three days later Monmouth landed in Dorset. Trelawny had summoned the available deputy lieutenants to assist him but found them either apathetic or quibbling over the extent of their legal powers; only Jonathan Rashleigh<sup>‡</sup> agreed with Trelawny that the greater imperative was to quash any rebellion against the king. When Rashleigh was put out as a deputy lieutenant after the rebellion, Trelawny drew attention to the fact noting to Sunderland that ‘how far such things conduce to the king’s service your lordship can best judge’.<sup>35</sup> At the same time tensions were growing between Trelawny and the earl of Bath, exacerbated by the latter’s jealousy over Trelawny’s role in crushing the Monmouth Rebellion. By July 1685, Trelawny was forging a political alliance against the earl, using the Godolphins and militia officers to frustrate Bath’s intention to use the Cornish militia as a source of men for a new regiment granted him by the king in the regular army. Trelawny advised his friend Colonel Sidney Godolphin<sup>‡</sup> (another hard-drinker with whom he could share a military joke) to alert his forces to Bath’s plan before they marched for Launceston.<sup>36</sup></p><p>James II, ‘well apprized’ of Trelawny’s ‘great zeal and concern’, wanted to elevate him to the see of Exeter, but Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter, would not accept translation, and Trelawny was appointed to the impoverished bishopric of Bristol instead.<sup>37</sup> With finances always close to his heart, Trelawny begged Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, for a more lucrative bishopric, claiming that Bristol was worth a paltry £300 a year.<sup>38</sup> His lack of gratitude rankled with William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury and Trelawny used one of his contacts at court, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, to grovel to his metropolitan. He continued to grumble that ‘the income of Bristol is too mean to give a man credit for so large a sum as is required before I can be seated there and the condition of my estate will not easily help me to it’, but, he told Turner, he had managed his affairs ‘as to be able shortly after Michaelmas to master the expenses at ... the consecration, so that now the sharpest pain I am under is the sense I have of his grace’s resentments’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>The day after the issue of the <em>congé d’élire</em> to Bristol, Sunderland sent an urgent summons to Trelawny to come to London and complete his consecration before Parliament re-assembled. Trelawny was consecrated on 8 Nov., did homage and received his writ of summons on the same day.<sup>40</sup> On 9 Nov. 1685 he took his seat in the Lords. Careful of his position with a Catholic monarch, he claimed that his ‘only qualification... [was] an honest heart to do the king the best and most faithful service’ and that if he failed to do the king’s bidding ‘in any particular debate and voice’, it would be the fault of his ministers for failing to provide adequate instructions.<sup>41</sup> During his first session in the Lords, he attended on ten of the 11 days before the abrupt prorogation on 20 November. The previous day the king, ‘disposed to gratify’ Trelawny, agreed to the latter’s request to remit his first fruits of nearly £300.<sup>42</sup> Trelawny’s first test of electoral strength outside Cornwall came at the Bristol by-election in December 1685. He joined Henry Somerset*, duke of Beaufort, in backing the town clerk, John Romsey, and circulated the clergy demanding their support. In spite of this Romsey was forced into third place. The seat went to Sir Richard Hart<sup>‡</sup>, who had previously represented Bristol in the Oxford Parliament of 1681 and led the opposition to the surrender of the city charter in 1683.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Trelawny began in his new diocese with a thorough examination of the accounts.<sup>44</sup> During the summer of 1686 he conducted his primary visitation of Dorset in line with royal ecclesiastical policy: at Cerne, in consultation with Sir Winston Churchill<sup>‡</sup>, he released 12 Catholics and chastised the preacher of one anti-Catholic sermon on the grounds that to criticize the king’s religion would ‘insinuate to the ignorant people that the king, being a papist ... ought to be dreaded’, whereas the king was tolerant of those who did not share his own beliefs and supported the establishment of the Church of England. Still complaining to Sunderland of his ‘despicably poor’ bishopric, he promised that if translated to a ‘dignity of larger value and extent’ he would ‘render a proportionable service’.<sup>45</sup> Back at Trelawne by the start of June 1686, he sent Sancroft an account of part of his primary visitation.<sup>46</sup> One observer maintained that he had been ‘very severe’ against Dissenters who were required to produce three testimonials from ‘loyal gentlemen of the county’; if they could not, they were held to have confirmed their disloyalty to Church and state. Trelawny also criticized one clergyman for spending too long over catechizing, but according to Roger Morrice (albeit a biased observer), he made no enquiries about the extent of catholicism.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Hostilities between Trelawny and Bath, then lord warden of the stannaries, deepened further over elections to the stannary parliament, the representative legislature for the tin industry.<sup>48</sup> Around July 1686 Trelawny, Sir John Carew<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. and John Arundell*, later 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, urged the king to summon a convocation of tinners to reform the stannaries.<sup>49</sup> In November Bath suspected that Trelawny was undermining him by promising to secure good tin prices, liberally referring to his connections to Rochester, the lord treasurer, and unrealistically raising tinners’ expectations.<sup>50</sup> As a further provocation to Bath, Trelawny offered himself as a candidate for the stannary parliament. Bath, with (according to Trelawny) ‘a violence of passion’, explored every avenue to block Trelawny’s election, but failed to prevent his return for the district of Truro. As Bath had feared, Trelawny proposed to Godolphin that he could use his new authority to fix tin prices and defeat the power of local merchants. Bath retaliated by ousting from the commission of the peace all who had voted for Trelawny. He was losing the wider battle for Cornwall, however, as the Trelawnys and Godolphins developed an even closer political alliance. In 1688 Godolphin stood godfather to Trelawny’s eldest child, Charlotte. Trelawny later wrote that he had offered his electoral interests to Godolphin long before the latter became a minister because he found in Godolphin ‘a person of great wisdom and integrity and that as to the public, our principles suited though our fortunes and stations did not’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>If Trelawny was indeed a ‘royal watchdog’ during the stannary parliament of 1686, he was also learning the consequences of failing to deliver the correct electoral result.<sup>52</sup> He wrote to Sunderland at length in June 1686 to defend his efforts at Bristol the previous December. He told him how he had publicly ‘slighted’ Sir John Knight <sup>‡</sup> after ‘hearing how busy he was in promoting ill apprehensions of the government’, had set spies onto him and forwarded intelligence to the king through his brother, Charles Trelawny. Knight, who was now accusing Trelawny of being a closet Catholic, assumed that the bishop had been elevated for exactly that reason and complained formally of his charge to his clergy to follow a strictness of life similar to Roman Catholics. Trelawny protested that he had merely followed royal instructions, and had been aware of traps being set to ensnare him. He told Sunderland that he should consult Sir Winston Churchill to discover how leniently he had in fact behaved towards the Catholics in his visitation in Dorsetshire.<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>Opposition to James II</em></h2><p>Boasting to Sancroft of healthier diocesan accounts in January 1687, Trelawny enforced injunctions in his diocesan visitations and an altar policy that would have been worthy of William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>54</sup> He maintained the delicate balancing act between the king’s religion and his own Protestant (if ‘high’) churchmanship until 1687 when he clearly began to struggle with the king’s more aggressive Catholicising, especially the proposed repeal of the Test Act. Trelawny’s name appeared on all four lists of those expected to oppose repeal of the Tests or of James II’s policies more generally, as well as on Danby’s list of the king’s opponents in the Lords. Following a visit to Bristol from his friend, Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells, Trelawny reassured Sancroft that he was praying ‘for the preservation of our threatened church and...for the keeping this city very firm to its establishment’, and was resisting the installation of a Catholic priest in the diocese (at the recommendation of Father Petre) as it was ‘not a time to make gaps for a busy enemy, who is too forward to force breaches where he has no invitation’. He proclaimed his readiness to leave the Church of England only through a baptism of blood.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Despite his notorious hostility towards nonconformists, Trelawny received from Sunderland instructions that the king expected him to issue formal thanks for the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence. Trelawny drafted several replies to Sunderland, one claiming, disingenuously, that he had summoned his clergy to recommend an address of thanks and tried to talk them out of their subsequent refusal. He then suggested that, after careful consideration, he found that he agreed with his clergy that the demanded address of thanks would only dishonour the Church and prejudice the people against the king, a situation which, as the descendant of ‘loyal ancestors’, he could not countenance.<sup>56</sup> Trelawny declared to Sancroft that he would not be forced from the Church ‘by the terrors of displeasure or death itself’ (he hinted that his mentally unstable younger brother, Chichester, who had made several attempts on his life, had been set at liberty deliberately as a threat). He proceeded to defy the ecclesiastical commission by presenting one of the expelled Magdalen College fellows to a living in his diocese.<sup>57</sup></p><p>On 22 Oct. 1687 Trelawny’s chancellor informed Archbishop Sancroft that the bishop had gone to Cornwall, and would not be back in his diocese for at least a month.<sup>58</sup> His visit may have related to his efforts to combat the king’s plans in the south-west. Certainly, in the spring of 1688, Trelawny reported to Sancroft that he had been down to Cornwall as a result of his fears that the lord lieutenant, Bath, would attempt to secure the election of Members from sympathetic to the king’s aims. He reported that</p><blockquote><p>knowing myself to have a good interest in the gentry, I was resolved to see what inclinations they had, and what courage to support them, in case of an attack from the lord lieutenant and I was glad to find the gentry unanimous for the preserving the Test and our laws and what pleased me as much, resolved to appear in their several corporations and not suffer so many foreigners to be put upon them.</p></blockquote><p>He had told them that they should not give a plain answer to the ‘three questions’, ‘for should they say downright they would not take off the laws and the Test, there would be a positive command that all such as had declared themselves of that opinion should not be chosen’.<sup>59</sup></p><p>The parliamentary elections never took place, though, and as the king resorted to a second Declaration of Indulgence to secure his religious aims, Trelawny was drawn into the bishops’ plans to resist it. At a Lambeth meeting on 12 May 1688 it was resolved that Trelawny be summoned to London immediately and after arriving on the evening of the 17th, he signed the petition of the Seven Bishops against the reading of the declaration.<sup>60</sup> He was one of those who attended the king the following day to present the petition.<sup>61</sup> The king called Trelawny the ‘most saucy’ of the bishops for protesting his loyalty on his knees whilst conducting an argument.<sup>62</sup> On 27 May the bishops were summoned to appear before the king in Council on 8 June.<sup>63</sup> Charged with seditious libel they were imprisoned in the Tower. According to Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury, and a hostile witness, Trelawny blustered that the prince of Orange would arrive soon to release him.<sup>64</sup></p><p>On 15 June 1688 the Seven Bishops were brought before king’s bench where they pleaded not guilty to all charges except that of drawing up the original petition. They pleaded that they were ‘peers of Parliament, bishops by their order’ and entered their plea ‘according to the privileges of Parliament’. They were discharged on bail (Trelawny on £100) after Henry Compton*, bishop of London had arranged sureties.<sup>65</sup> Following their acquittal on 30 June Trelawny was removed from his positions as a capital burgess in Lostwithiel and Liskeard.<sup>66</sup> Over the summer, he kept the archbishop in close touch with affairs in the west, hoping to ‘do some good with the gentry of Devonshire and Cornwall’. He complained in no uncertain terms of his colleague, Bishop Lamplugh of Exeter, who, despite Trelawny’s advice, had given orders for the publication of the declaration, and had entertained the king’s judges, ignoring Trelawny’s telling him ‘what a malicious wicked instrument Justice Baldock [Sir Robert Baldock, counsel for the king in the Seven Bishops’ trial, and since appointed a judge in the king’s bench] was in our business’.<sup>67</sup> Trelawny arrived too late in town on 28 Sept. to attend a meeting with the king with a group of bishops to offer him a petition, but he was with the same men when they were received ‘very graciously’ by James on 3 October.<sup>68</sup></p><h2><em>The Revolution and translation to Exeter</em></h2><p>With the king now fearing imminent invasion along the south coast, it was seen as necessary to mend relations with Trelawny. In October 1688 he was included as one of the Cornish justices of the peace to be continued in office and on 15 Nov. he was translated to Exeter in place of Lamplugh (who had been promoted to York).<sup>69</sup> James later commented that he had hoped Trelawny’s translation would have inspired the bishop ‘to a sense of grateful loyalty and dutiful attachment’.<sup>70</sup> There is indeed no evidence that at this point Trelawny intended anything other than loyalty to the king despite the defection of his brothers Charles and Henry to the invading forces, although Burnet wrote that Charles Trelawny had drawn the bishop into the conspiracy.<sup>71</sup> By the third week of November, Trelawny was still in touch with the government, suggesting tactics for the defence of Bristol.<sup>72</sup> On 5 Dec. he received via Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, a message from the prince of Orange. In response he stalled, saying carefully only that he approved of steps being taken to preserve ‘the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of the kingdom’.<sup>73</sup> He was still in Bristol in mid-December, his translation to Exeter having been overtaken by events, but by Christmas Eve had travelled to London to join in the meetings of peers and bishops held in the House of Lords.<sup>74</sup> He also attended on Christmas Day, signing the address to William of Orange to take charge of a temporary government.<sup>75</sup> In the elections to the Convention, East Looe returned the bishop’s brothers, Charles and Henry.</p><p>On 22 Jan. 1689 Trelawny took his seat at the opening of the Convention, which he subsequently attended for 67 per cent of sittings. He was named to the episcopal committee to draw up special prayers of thanksgiving for the ‘great deliverance’ from catholicism and arbitrary power and to oversee those parts of the Book of Common Prayer to be omitted. It was reported that while reading prayers in the Lords the following day, Trelawny ‘skipped...over’ prayers for the king.<sup>76</sup> This may have contributed to an order of the House on 28 Jan. to suspend prayers for the immediate future. Reports of Trelawny’s behaviour in the vote on the regency on 29 Jan. are conflicting: Morrice recorded that he left the chamber before the division, leaving Compton as the only bishop to vote against it, whereas another account maintained that Trelawny and Compton were the only bishops to oppose the regency, which was lost by 51 to 49 votes.<sup>77</sup> However, as division lists from 31 Jan., 4 and 6 Feb. make clear Trelawny was not in favour of agreeing that the crown was vacant or the offer of the crown to William and Mary. Indeed, on 6 Feb. he signed a protest against the resolution that James II had abdicated and that the throne was thereby vacant. That vote taken, Trelawny seems to have accepted the change of regime and <em>de facto</em> monarchy. On the 13th, he, Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, and Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, were the only bishops to attend the House for the proclamation of the new king and queen. It may have been as a result of efforts to secure his support that rumours circulated that he was to be translated to Salisbury.<sup>78</sup> William had apparently promised the see to at least three people including Simon Patrick*, the future bishop of Chichester, Trelawny and Burnet, with the latter prevailing.<sup>79</sup> On 2 Mar. Trelawny took the contentious oaths to the new monarchy.<sup>80</sup> Two weeks later, his <em>congé d’élire</em> for Exeter, originally sent just before the Revolution, was re-issued. On 3 Apr. he took his seat for the first time as bishop of Exeter.<sup>81</sup></p><p>Despite having honoured his delayed translation, the king was deeply wary of Trelawny. This perhaps makes it unlikely that Salisbury had ever been within his grasp; indeed Burnet’s jottings for a post-revolution regime had suggested Trelawny should be demoted to the Welsh see of St Davids.<sup>82</sup> The Trelawny brothers had proven themselves loose cannons in the army and the bishop’s sister had been dismissed in 1685 from Princess Mary’s household in The Hague for transmitting information to James II’s ambassador. Trelawny was never accepted at William’s court. His deeply conservative churchmanship ensured that he opposed all legislation to accommodate Dissent and he never departed from his belief in a strong, exclusive and independent Church of England which could exercise strict discipline over its clergy and members.<sup>83</sup> Trelawny did not attend the coronation on 11 Apr. 1689. On 2 July (with a complement of Tory bishops, including Compton), Trelawny dissented from the resolution to proceed with the impeachment for high treason of Sir Adam Blair and his fellow conspirators. He attended the session for the last time on 20 July, when he was given leave to go into the country. He registered his proxy two days later in favour of Archbishop Lamplugh, which was vacated at the end of the session. The proxy was used on 30 July to vote in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill to reverse the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates.</p><p>Having completed his first visitation of Exeter, in September 1689 Trelawny travelled home to Cornwall. His activities left him unable to provide a full response to the demand for a self-assessment, though he undertook to pay what he owed as soon as he was able.<sup>84</sup> Though appointed to the commission for the revision of the liturgy, he was absent in Cornwall when the commission opened in the Jerusalem chamber on 10 Oct.; Trelawny in any case regarded it as a wrong-headed undertaking.<sup>85</sup> He was still absent when the Convention re-convened on 23 Oct. 1689. On the 28th he was registered at a call of the House as having been excused attendance. He first sat on 8 Nov. and attended only 18 sittings in total. He was added to the select committee on the small tithes bill on 9 Nov. and to the committee on the prevention of clandestine marriages on the 15th, but on 16 Dec. he attended the session for the last time. On 17 Dec. he was given leave to go into the country and registered his proxy in favour of Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, for the rest of the session. He returned to Exeter and spent Christmas at Trelawne.<sup>86</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution of the Convention, Trelawny threw his Cornish electoral interest behind the Tories. He was only partly successful; the county returned Francis Robartes<sup>‡</sup> (uncle of another Cornish magnate, Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor) and Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup> despite Trelawny’s vigorous opposition to the latter. In his circular letter to the clergy he had backed Robartes and John Speccot<sup>‡</sup>, probably on the grounds of their staunch Anglicanism.<sup>87</sup> Trelawny’s efforts at Tregony were also unsuccessful, as he failed to prevent the return of Sir John Tremayne<sup>‡</sup> and Hugh Fortescue<sup>‡</sup>. In his own boroughs of East and West Looe, the Trelawny interest proved more resilient. At East Looe he successfully installed his brothers Charles and Henry Trelawny and three days later at West Looe his kinsmen, Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> (son of the powerful Devon magnate Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt.), and Jonathan Trelawny<sup>‡</sup>, from a cadet branch of the family.<sup>88</sup> In Fowey, Jonathan Rashleigh was returned and within days of the election, a new charter named Rashleigh as recorder and Trelawny as one of the town’s justices.<sup>89</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1690-95</em></h2><p>Trelawny failed to attend the first session of the new Parliament, being excused attendance on 31 Mar. 1690. He did appear at the prorogation of 7 July, when he took the oaths. His absence from Westminster may have been due to his activity in the West Country. The secretary of state, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham thanked him for at least two letters providing intelligence about the locality and alluded to the bishop’s information in another of 11 June. The rivalry between Trelawny and Bath persisted through the summer of 1690. Bath’s influence was eroded by his difficulties with rioting tinners suffering the effects of an economic recession. Trelawny, in contrast, as well as providing anti-Jacobite intelligence, seized every opportunity to criticize the lieutenancy in Devon of Bath’s eldest son Charles Granville*, styled Viscount Lansdown (later 2nd earl of Bath). By 1692, Trelawny was dropping heavy hints about the Granvilles’ own Jacobite leanings.<sup>90</sup></p><p>On 17 Sept. 1690, in anticipation of the new session, Trelawny registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Sprat. It was vacated on 27 Oct. when he arrived at the House. Thereafter he attended 42 per cent of sittings. On 30 Oct. he and Sprat were the only bishops to protest against the passage of the bill to clarify the powers of the Admiralty commissioners, which was related to attempts to court martial Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington. He last attended on 31 Dec., shortly before the end of the session. Trelawny failed to attend the 1691-2 session of Parliament; on 27 Oct. he registered his proxy in favour of Sprat once again. It was vacated on 21 Jan. 1692 when Sprat registered his own proxy in favour of Bishop Compton. From Bishop Sprat’s comments in a letter to Trelawny earlier in January, that on the divorce bill for Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, the ‘old bishops’ voted in complete opposition to the ‘new’, it would seem likely that Sprat assumed that Trelawny would also have opposed the bill.<sup>91</sup></p><p>Trelawny continued to furnish Nottingham with intelligence against Jacobites (and presented a clergyman for the ‘unadvised’ action of baptizing a child ‘James the Just’), but his alliance with Nottingham made him vulnerable to manoeuvring by the Granvilles. On 11 May 1692 Trelawny reported that local Jacobite suspects included Hugh Clifford*, 2nd Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, but that he could do nothing towards making an arrest since Lansdown had been ‘so kind’ as to strike his own name out of the commission. His cathedral city, in contrast, was so fearful of Jacobites and the intentions of the French fleet that it gave him total support; the city fathers had their own grievances against Lansdown for his apparent lack of political will in dealing with suspects.<sup>92</sup> One week later, it was reported that Trelawny had seized Clifford and his papers, though the reporter admitted ‘here are so many lies that I know not what to write of a truth’.<sup>93</sup> Nottingham early the following month promised to arrange payment for services rendered.<sup>94</sup></p><p>Trelawny was absent from the opening of the new session on 4 Nov. 1692, and on 21 Nov. he was excused attendance. He first sat on 29 Dec. and attended thereafter for 47 per cent of all sittings during the session. On 31 Dec. he voted to commit the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted for its passage, joining Sprat and Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, in dissenting from its rejection by the Whig majority.<sup>95</sup> At the turn of the year, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, had forecast that Trelawny would oppose the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill, and on 2 Jan. he indeed voted against reading the bill. On 19 Jan. he dissented from the resolution not to refer to the committee for privileges the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill and on the 25th voted against the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On 1 Feb. Trelawny withdrew from the chamber before the debate on the trial of Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun. During February he reported from two private bills: for Sir Thomas Wroth<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. (10 Feb.) and for Anthony Danby (13 February). On 17 Feb. he received Sprat’s proxy (vacated at the end of the session). The following month he was said to have been responsible for having one of the clerks sent to Newgate for ‘rudely denying’ a paper to Colonel Fitzgerald during the hearings on the state of Ireland, notwithstanding the intervention on the clerk’s behalf of two peers and the colonel himself. This presumably referred to the case of Henry Lord, who was committed to the Gatehouse on the House’s order on 2 Mar. for affronting Fitzgerald. He was released the following day having made submission.<sup>96</sup></p><p>Trelawny missed the first two weeks of the following session, returning to Westminster on 20 Nov. 1693; thereafter he attended for nearly half of all sittings. On 17 Feb. 1694 Trelawny voted not to reverse the Chancery dismission in the cause <em>Montagu v. Bath</em>. In another legal dispute, a writ of error was brought into the House on 22 Feb. 1694 in the case of the <em>Bishop of Exeter v. Sampson Hele</em>, patron of the rectory of South Pool. Three years previously, Trelawny had refused to institute Hele’s clerical candidate on the grounds of ignorance; Hele had successfully obtained a writ of <em>quare impedit</em> in common pleas which was subsequently confirmed in king’s bench.<sup>97</sup> On 15 and 16 Mar. the Lords finally heard Trelawny’s successful petition for a writ of error, 18 bishops attending the House. The concern of the episcopal bench to retain its right of supervision over prospective clergy was almost certainly sufficient to ‘neutralize the Whig lords’.<sup>98</sup> He attended the session for the last time on 29 Mar. and on 31 Mar. registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Sprat; it was vacated with the prorogation on 25 April. </p><p>Trelawny was present in the House on 12 Nov. 1694 for the start of the next session (which he attended for 54 per cent of sittings). Meanwhile, a long-running dispute between Trelawny and Dr Arthur Bury, the rector of Exeter College, Oxford (of which Trelawny was visitor), reached the Lords. Bury had attracted attention for his composition of <em>The Naked Gospel</em>, which was ordered to be burned by the university authorities, but it was his decision to deprive a number of the college fellows that attracted Trelawny’s critical visitation that summer. Bury reacted to Trelawny’s visitation by having the college gates slammed in Trelawny’s face. Trelawny had recourse to the Privy Council, but they advised using the common law. Trelawny returned to Oxford, forced his way into the college, ejected Bury from office and excommunicated him. After numerous legal wrangles, Trelawny’s powers as visitor came before the king’s bench in 1693 in the guise of a suit by Robert Philips, who had rented the rector’s lodgings at Exeter from Bury’s successor, William Paynter, who now sought to take possession of them. The king’s bench found in favour of Bury on 16 June 1694, whereupon the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, brought a writ of error into the Lords on 20 November. On 10 Dec., the Lords reversed the king’s bench ruling in <em>Robert Phillips v. Arthur Bury</em> ‘without coming to a division’, though Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, was one of three to sign a protest. In a coda to the ruling on 31 Jan. 1695 Trelawny petitioned the House to clarify its judgment on the issue of costs. On 5 Feb. the House ordered a search of precedents ‘where the judgment in the court below was for the defendants, hath been reversed by this House’. Two days later, having found no precedent, the Lords ordered that its judgment should include the provision that ‘the plaintiff recover his term, with his costs and damages’.<sup>99</sup> Atterbury was later to laud Trelawny’s victories in the cases of Hele and Bury, the one for fixing ‘the power of visitors (not till then acknowledged final) upon the sure foundation of a judgment in Parliament’, and the other which ‘unalterably confirmed’ the ‘bishop’s sole right to judge of the qualifications of persons applying for institution.’<sup>100</sup> Aside from the case, on 23 Jan. 1695 Trelawny dissented from the resolution to postpone for three years the implementation of the bill to regulate treason trials. On 13 Feb. he reported from the private bill for Thomas Tufton*, 6th earl of Thanet. He attended the session for last time on 11 April.</p><p>Trelawny now prepared to fight a new round of elections on behalf of the Tories. Enjoying a clear run in Cornwall thanks to Bath’s apparent apathy towards the Cornish boroughs, Trelawny’s former candidate Speccot was this time elected for the county together with Boscawen.<sup>101</sup> During the previous summer he had been approached by Sprat on behalf of Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>102</sup> However, even his patronage had limits and he was forced to turn down requests for assistance from from both Rochester, whom he ‘ought on all occasions to serve’ and from ‘our friend’, the late Speaker, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>103</sup> At West Looe, Trelawny secured one seat for his protégé, the Tory John Mountstephen<sup>‡</sup>, but in his cathedral city of Exeter, a violent and effective Whig campaign threw out the sitting Tory Members, including Trelawny’s cousin Sir Edward Seymour. Outbreaks of ‘fisticuffs and sticks’ and the arbitrary creation of freemen resulted in a controverted election, the successful Whigs increasingly convinced that Trelawny regarded Exeter as a mere extension of his Cornish estates. In Penryn, Trelawny was only partly successful. He successfully backed the Tory Alexander Pendarves<sup>‡</sup>, obtaining the mayor’s ‘vote and interest’, but was unsuccessful in his support for Colonel Sidney Godolphin. Godolphin’s opponents circulated an inaccurate report of his death and an ‘interloper’, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, the future secretary of state, took the second seat. Trelawny could do little but write to Godolphin expressing his disappointment at his failure but pleasure to know that he was not in fact dead.<sup>104</sup> East Looe again returned his brothers.</p><h2><em>High Church opposition to the Junto ministry</em></h2><p>Trelawny did not attend the first session of the 1695 Parliament, being excused from attending the House. He therefore avoided signing the Association on 27 Feb. 1696.<sup>105</sup> Trelawny was also absent from the opening of the next session, and was still absent when the House was called on 14 Nov.; he was summoned to attend on 7 December. He duly arrived and attended thereafter for 41 per cent of sittings. On 15 Dec. he protested against the decision that Goodman’s evidence should be read to the Lords. On 18 Dec. he voted against the second reading of the bill for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, and signed the protest against it. On 23 Dec. he voted against the bill’s passage and signed the protest against it. On 17 Mar. 1697, he attended the House for the last time that session, again registering his proxy in favour of Bishop Sprat.</p><p>Trelawny was at the forefront of the continuing struggle for political domination in Plymouth. When Bath lost the governorship in 1697 and was replaced by Charles Trelawny, the latter also sought command of the Plymouth militia. To the local Whigs, led by Sir Francis Drake<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., this threatened to concentrate political power in the wrong hands.<sup>106</sup> Drake’s wife complained bitterly to Somers of Trelawny’s tactics in the city and claimed that her husband would secure the return of Whig candidates at the next election ‘to make a breach in the new establishment at Plymouth’ where the bishop and his two brothers had tried to rig the election of a new mayor with:</p><blockquote><p>a villainous preparatory sermon ... and a threatening letter sent to one of Sir Francis’s most active friends, but Sir Francis did so timely break their measures that there was no room for their appearing and the person was unanimously chosen which they would have opposed. If that violent family have their desires granted there, all will be turned again and we I fear upon so powerful an addition to this neighbourhood of Tories be forced to seek for a more quiet settlement.<sup>107</sup></p></blockquote><p>Somers warned the secretary of state, Shrewsbury, that to appoint Trelawny’s brother as commander of the militia would jeopardize Whig gains throughout the whole county and ‘notwithstanding the diligence and violent temper of the bishop, if a new Parliament be chosen, it will appear to have a great effect’. In the event, Drake formed an alliance with Somers, Shrewsbury and the new lord lieutenant of Devon, Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, in opposition to the formidable Trelawny partnership.<sup>108</sup></p><p>Trelawny missed the first two months of the December 1697 session, not returning to his place in the House until 4 Feb. 1698. Thereafter he was present for 41 per cent of sittings. On 4 Mar. he signed a protest against the second reading of the bill punishing Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> for falsely endorsing exchequer bills. On 15 Mar. he voted against the committal of the bill, which fell at that stage.<sup>109</sup> During this session, Trelawny became more active in parliamentary business: he reported from the committees on bills for the naturalization of Dudley Vesey (21 Feb.), on erecting hospitals, workhouses and houses of correction in Crediton (1 Apr.), on the Whitbourne rectory (7 Apr.) and on the private bill for Sir Edward Turnor<sup>‡</sup> (2 May). On 11 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference on amendments to the bill to erect hospitals and workhouses in Colchester. Committed to reviving the Exeter economy through the protection of its woollen industry, Trelawny attended the House in March 1698 when the Lords heard petitions from the corporations of Exeter, Tiverton and several other Devonshire towns in favour of the bill to encourage English woollen manufacture and to restrict the export of English and Irish wool overseas. He attended on 30 Mar., the day the bill was committed to the whole House. Following the debate, he was named to the committee on the bill which would examine the state of trade between England and Ireland and for establishing a linen manufacture in Ireland. He quit the session on 16 May, six weeks before the prorogation, registering his proxy in favour of Compton on that date.</p><p>The elections following the dissolution of 1698 saw the Trelawnys successfully renew their political assault on Plymouth. On 30 July, Charles Trelawny and a local Whig merchant, John Rogers<sup>‡</sup>, were returned, defeating one of the sitting members, George Parker<sup>‡</sup> and a (probably) Tory challenger, Josias Calmady. The creation of Tory freemen was said to have so ‘displeased Sir Francis Drake ... that he abdicated the town and came not near it in several years’.<sup>110</sup> In Exeter, too, Trelawny was triumphant, his support in Parliament for the city’s woollen industry not going unnoticed; he and the cathedral clergy helped to overturn the Whig sitting Members and secure the comeback of Sir Edward Seymour and Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup>, for whom Trelawny and his clergy were said to be ‘sticklers’, despite Shower’s role as prosecuting counsel at the trial of the Seven Bishops. In his speech at the Exeter Guildhall, Shower praised Trelawny’s ‘utmost endeavours for the promotion of the wool bill’.<sup>111</sup> In his determination to run the city’s economy, Trelawny ousted from the Devon receivership Nicholas Wood<sup>‡</sup>, who had ‘an absolute interest in the chamber of Exeter and…a mighty sway in that city’, but had refused to kowtow ‘tamely’ to the bishop. John Poulett*, 4th Baron Poulett, alarmed by the actions of ‘that positive prelate’ maintained that Exeter was ‘too great a city to be treated at the vile rate of a Cornish borough, which our friend the bishop…through his warmth of temper does not distinguish’.<sup>112</sup> In Liskeard, Trelawny and his henchmen recommended Henry Darell<sup>‡</sup> and William Bridges<sup>‡</sup>, campaigning robustly against John Buller<sup>‡</sup> (the bishop’s own great-grandson). According to Buller free liquor was offered to any freeman who promised to support Darell and Bridges; those who did not were threatened with having to provide quarters for Charles Trelawny’s regiment. Bridges and Darell were returned accordingly in dubious circumstances, but a subsequent appeal by Buller was unsuccessful.<sup>113</sup> Charles and Henry Trelawny were returned for East Looe, although Charles opted to sit for Plymouth.</p><p>Trelawny did not attend the first (1698-9) session of the 1698 Parliament. Nor was he present when the next (1699-1700) session began, first attending on the day Parliament resumed after the Christmas recess, 9 Jan. 1700, when he took the oaths. Thereafter he was present for 46 per cent of sittings. In February he was forecast as being in favour of the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation and on the 23rd he voted to go into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 8 Mar. he was one of six bishops to protest against the second reading of a new divorce bill for the duke of Norfolk, on the grounds that the divorce had not come before the ecclesiastical courts in the first instance.<sup>114</sup> He last attended that session on 23 March. </p><p>During the autumn of 1700 Trelawny took advantage of ministerial alterations and the anticipation that Parliament was shortly to be dissolved to attempt to forge new alliances. While he had not enjoyed good relations with William Russell*, duke of Bedford, patron of the borough of Tavistock, Trelawny sought to build bridges with his young heir, Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford. He wrote in October offering his services within Tavistock in promoting the Russell interest which in Trelawny’s opinion had been damaged by Drake and others.<sup>115</sup> He continued to be active in Cornwall, working in conjunction with his brothers, as well as with Godolphin.<sup>116</sup> The Cornwall county electorate returned the sitting members unopposed, despite Charles Trelawny’s assurances that if Francis Godolphin*, later 2nd earl of Godolphin, appeared, he would be <sup>‘</sup>chosen by the unanimous consent of the gentlemen, a few canting rogues excepted’. Godolphin was accommodated at East Looe. At West Looe and Liskeard the Trelawny interest was maintained without opposition. In Plymouth, Trelawny predicted with confidence that his two brothers, Charles and Henry, would be chosen, despite ‘all the power and tricks of the Dissenters, Whigs and enemies of the Church ... quite broke the neck of the Whig interest’.<sup>117</sup></p><p>In Church matters, Trelawny remained rooted in the high Tory clerical tradition. He introduced Atterbury to the earl of Rochester in November 1700 and installed him in January 1701 as archdeacon of Totnes, a position which gave him a seat in the lower house of Convocation.<sup>118</sup> In January 1701 Atterbury was writing to Trelawny concerning organizing his supporters in Convocation.<sup>119</sup> Trelawny even gave his proctors to London directions to oppose any prolocutor supported by Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury and the Whig clergy.<sup>120</sup></p><p>Trelawny missed the opening weeks of the 1700-1 sessions of both Parliament and Convocation, taking his seat in the Lords on 7 Apr. 1701. Thereafter he attended 37 per cent of sittings. He strongly supported the impeachments of the Junto peers from April to June, signing regular protests against the Lords’ proceedings. On 16 Apr. he registered two: against the resolution to draw up an address asking the king not to punish the four until the completion of the proceedings in Parliament against them, and then against the decision to expunge the reasons given in the previous protest on the grounds that it contravened privilege of peerage. On 3 June he signed two further protests concerning the impeachments, and on the 9th, he signed another against the refusal to agree to a joint committee of both Houses to settle the procedures for the impeachments. On 11 June (with Compton and Sprat) he protested against the resolution to put the question whether a lord being tried on an impeachment for high crimes should, on his trial, be without the bar. Three days later, again with Compton and Sprat, he protested against the resolution to send for a second conference on the impeachments before the first was determined, and then he protested again against the rejection of a committee of both Houses on the impeachments. On 17 June, he protested against the decision to proceed with the trial of Somers, voted against his acquittal, and protested against the verdict. He last attended on the day Parliament was prorogued, 24 June. </p><p>Following the dissolution of Parliament in November 1701, fresh elections were held for the Commons and an increasingly restive Convocation. Exeter (with Trelawny’s ‘very zealous’ clergy) returned the sitting members Seymour and Shower in the December election: the cathedral chapter wholly ‘in the measures’ of the bishop. At the by-election caused by Shower’s death almost immediately afterwards, a local alderman, John Snell<sup>‡</sup>, was returned in his stead. The Trelawny brothers were again returned in their Plymouth stronghold; even Henry Trelawny’s death shortly after the elections became a propaganda coup when the ‘great funeral’ helped the Trelawnys to outmanoeuvre the corporation and replace him with another local Tory, John Woolcombe<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>121</sup> The polls in Cornwall also resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Tories with Trelawny working increasingly closely with Godolphin. At East Looe, he ensured the return of Francis Godolphin and Henry Seymour although he had initially encouraged Godolphin’s son to stand for the county.<sup>122</sup> Following the elections, Godolphin directed Trelawny ‘to muster up his squadron’ and have them at Westminster by the end of the year.<sup>123</sup> When the Parliament opened on 30 Dec. 1701, Trelawny himself, however, was absent at Trelawne. In February 1702, he was said to be indisposed with gout, and while Sprat congratulated him on ‘the greatness of [his] service to the public in the late elections’, he and Compton also thought it ‘scarce worth your while to come up at all this sessions, especially if it shall happen to end, as is likely about Easter’. Sprat further informed Trelawny that the bill of abjuration of James II, designed by the Whigs to cause difficulty for Tories, had come up to the Lords, but had become ‘very severe…not well adjusted among our people in the House of Commons before it came in’; if, however, their ‘friends’ acceded to the oath, it would prove ‘a great defeat to the malice of our enemies’.<sup>124</sup></p><h2><em>The reign of Anne to 1705 </em></h2><p>Trelawny did not take his seat in the House until 18 Apr. 1702, after the death of William and the accession of Anne. He attended the session for only 15 sittings before the prorogation on 25 May. Meanwhile, still closely involved in the high Tory ecclesiastical agenda, he was urged by Atterbury and Compton to support the call for a meeting of Convocation by issuing the controversial writ <em>praemunientes</em> to his clergy. This, Atterbury had argued, had been done regularly since the Reformation, but needed the example of Trelawny and Compton to bring in other bishops. It was, Trelawny was told,</p><blockquote><p>of the utmost importance to the rights of the Church ... that the writ should be executed upon the inferior clergy ... the bishop of London, I believe, will execute it in his diocese ... [Sprat] says if your lordship and the bishop of London do it, he will do it also.<sup>125</sup></p></blockquote><p>The elections to Anne’s first Parliament again revealed the strength of the Trelawnys’ alliance with Lord Treasurer Godolphin. In East Looe, Trelawny oversaw the return of two Tories; at West Looe, following pressure from the duumvirs and Rochester, Trelawny secured the election of Richard Jones<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Ranelagh [I], and Sidney Godolphin<sup>‡</sup> (a relation of Godolphin).<sup>126</sup> As the mayor pointed out, Trelawny’s interest could not easily be challenged in West Looe; he had to be consulted before any corporation decision and without the bishop’s helping hand, the ‘poor corporation [had] little land worth anything’.<sup>127</sup> Trelawny boasted to Nottingham in August that he had secured 11 Members for the Commons. The Trelawny-Godolphin alliance was effective in Cornwall, but Trelawny’s next goal was complete political control of Exeter. He began to court the local mercantile population by ensuring that no bill was introduced into Parliament to make the Exe navigable. He also renewed the attempt to secure his brother’s control over the Plymouth militia. Though Nottingham appeared to approve Trelawny’s scheme ‘for the militia of Plymouth being in the hands of the governor’ despite opposition from Poulett, the bishop complained that he had not, under the present ministry, expected to face the same level of opposition as he had during the previous reign when Stamford had tried to ‘break’ the Trelawny family interest.<sup>128</sup></p><p>Trelawny took his seat on 21 Oct. 1702, the second day of the new Parliament. He subsequently attended 30 per cent of sittings. He was appointed by royal proclamation to preach at the St Paul’s service of thanksgiving on 12 Nov. for the military victories of the campaign.<sup>129</sup> According to one newsletter, Trelawny delivered an ‘excellent’ sermon.<sup>130</sup> Not everyone, perhaps, agreed, for although on the 13th the Commons ordered that he be given the thanks of the House for his sermon, the Lords declined to do so, ‘as thinking it not proper, being appointed to preach by the queen.’<sup>131</sup></p><p>Trelawny’s ecclesiastical behaviour consistently reflected his high Tory churchmanship. In Convocation on the 25 Nov. 1702, together with Compton and Sprat, he dissented from the majority of bishops in the vote which denied the lower house of Convocation to sit as a house between sessions, a key demand of the Tory highfliers. On 15 Dec. ‘sharp repartees’ took place between Trelawny and Burnet in Convocation about the opinion of the attorney general, Sir Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup>, and the two chief justices, Holt and Sir Thomas Trevor*, (later Baron Trevor), over whether the lower house’s recent assertion of divine right episcopacy amounted to <em>praemunire</em>.<sup>132</sup> Trelawny had previously damned Northey upon his appointment in June 1701 as the ‘creature’ of Somers and Stamford, maintaining that it had defied the interests of the Church. With characteristic swagger, Trelawny hoped that the ink used to sign Northey’s patent would fade quickly so ‘that in a few weeks not a syllable will be legible’.<sup>133</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, in the Lords, on 3 Dec. 1702 Trelawny was one of ten bishops opposed to the instruction to the committee proposed by Somers to restrict the bill against occasional conformity to those persons covered by the Test Act. The following day, in committee of the whole, another amendment was proposed that all office-bearers receive the sacrament four times a year; Trelawny agreed with John Sharp*, archbishop of York, that this constituted ‘a further prostitution of the sacrament’ and again voted in opposition. He joined his fellow Tories on the 7th in voting against the amendment removing the bill’s financial penalties, a change which was sure to derail the bill in the Commons. Following the despatch of the bill back to the Commons on the 9th, news of the proposal to ‘tack’ the bill resulted in a resolution against the tack as unparliamentary and tending towards the destruction of the constitution, which Trelawny opposed. On 26 Dec. Trelawny joined 14 bishops at the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. In January 1703, he was assumed by Nottingham as likely to continue in his support of the bill against occasional conformity. During the session, he also voted with his Tory episcopal allies on 11 Jan. against the motion proposed by Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron Wharton, for a resumption of the House from committee, so that a new bill might be ordered to clarify the rights of Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, should he survive the queen. On 22 Jan. he registered his protest against the dismissal of the petition of Robert Squire<sup>‡</sup> and John Thompson (in a case involving Wharton).<sup>134</sup> He attended the session for the last time on 27 Jan. and then left, presumably for Cornwall, as it was to Trelawne that Atterbury directed a letter on 4 Feb. 1703.<sup>135</sup></p><p>A by-election at West Looe on 31 Mar. 1703 saw the election of Trelawny’s cousin, Charles Seymour<sup>‡</sup>, to replace the expelled Ranelagh.<sup>136</sup> The ongoing struggles for dominance in Plymouth, much to the concern of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough continued when John Granville*, later Baron Granville of Potheridge, tried unsuccessfully to wrest the post of governor from Charles Trelawny.<sup>137</sup> Throughout the spring and summer of 1703, Trelawny received a running commentary on parliamentary and Convocation business from Atterbury, whose correspondence also encompassed Oxford politics and his archdeaconry business.<sup>138</sup> Trelawny did not attend the 1703-4 session, despite a new attempt to pass legislation against occasional conformity. Indeed, in November and December, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast twice that Trelawny would be a supporter of the renewed bill. Two division lists record that on 14 Dec. his proxy was used to support the bill, although it is not known with whom Trelawny deposited his proxy during his absence. </p><p>At the end of 1703 Trelawny became embroiled in a dispute with his predecessor (and Atterbury’s <em>bête noire</em>) George Hooper, who had been promoted to be bishop of St Asaph as a reward for his role in managing Convocation (he had been elected prolocutor in February 1701). Hooper had bargained for a number of commendams including the precentorship of Exeter.<sup>139</sup> Eventually, Hooper overcame legal objections to his commendam in Exeter, and in October 1703 he was allowed it for three years from 1 Oct. 1703, until an act could be obtained for annexing to the bishopric of St Asaph, the archdeaconry thereof, and the rectory of Llandrinio or its equivalent.<sup>140</sup> However, when Hooper was then translated to Bath and Wells, he attempted to carry over his commendam to the Exeter precentorship, which Trelawny challenged by entering a caveat at the secretary of state’s office in December 1703.<sup>141</sup> Trelawny successfully lobbied both Nottingham and Godolphin, thanking the former ‘for the regard which has been shown to my caveat in your office, and for your lordship’s not giving way to his unhandsome suggestion against my right to the disposal of that dignity’, and also noting that he was ‘forced by my lord treasurer’s favour to wrest out of his hands the precentorship of my church here, which he would have carried over in commendam to a bishopric that never was thought before this time to need one’. Trelawny then took umbrage at Hooper’s interference in his diocese over a patronage matter. In July 1704 he complained to Robert Harley that Hooper was behaving in an ‘intolerable’ fashion, filling people’s heads ‘with a notion that my lord treasurer and I are to model the elections in our county for the next (to make it a court) Parliament; which if it be so, I hope this foreigner will not be helped to set himself up on any terms in opposition to us’. He said that he would not trouble Godolphin but was confident ‘of his protection when I am driven to call for it; but when I have taken the liberty to put it into your hands, I presume to conclude upon the safety of my honour and interest’.<sup>142</sup> Harley recommended to Godolphin on 17 July that Trelawny be appeased in a patronage dispute as it would have ‘a double advantage…[to] please a man of interest and mortify another who hath made her majesty very ill returns for her ... favours’.<sup>143</sup> At the end of the month Trelawny acknowledged his gratitude to his ‘good patron’ Godolphin.<sup>144</sup></p><p>Trelawny again stayed away from Westminster during the 1704-5 session, his absence perhaps reflecting an increasing tension between the Tory ecclesiastical agenda and the ministry’s desire for domestic peace in order to secure a rapid supply for the war effort: the period 1704-5 has been seen as the point at which Trelawny was ‘weaned from his old high Tory allegiances’.<sup>145</sup> Trelawny was urged by Godolphin via William Lowndes<sup>‡</sup> on 17 Oct. to ‘hasten up’ the west country members in time for the new session, Godolphin fearing that they might be tempted by the fair weather to stay at home.<sup>146</sup> On 28 Oct. 1704 Atterbury informed Trelawny that the Commons would almost certainly attempt to tack the occasional conformity bill to the land tax.<sup>147</sup> On 9 Nov. Trelawny registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Compton. Godolphin betrayed some impatience with Trelawny in November, writing to Harley on some unspecified business, ‘I have burnt the Bishop of Exeter’s letter as you commanded, what art could anybody use to persuade him that was a secret.’<sup>148</sup> At a call of the House on 23 Nov. Trelawny was excused attendance. When the untacked occasional conformity bill reached the Lords, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, recorded that Trelawny had supported it at second reading on 15 Dec. (presumably through Compton exercising his proxy).<sup>149</sup></p><p>The death of James Gardiner*, bishop of Lincoln at the beginning of March 1705, saw Trelawny’s dean, William Wake*, marked out as one of the men for promotion. Trelawny’s chief concern seems to have been to ensure that a new dean would consolidate his control over the chapter. Trelawny’s candidate to succeed Wake, Blackburne, kept up a commentary on the manoeuvring both in Exeter, and on the rumours surrounding the vacancy at Lincoln, his promotion being dependent upon Wake acquiring the bishopric.<sup>150</sup> By May Trelawny had received from Blackburne assurances ‘from the Great Man [Godolphin] without whom we think this affair cannot be well concluded’ that Godolphin would use his interest to Blackburne’s promotion to dean if Wake were indeed elevated, ‘without any other motive than the satisfaction he should have in doing a thing which he perceives would give my Lord [Trelawny] a great deal of ease’.<sup>151</sup> Trelawny rejected Harley’s recommendation of Atterbury to succeed Wake at the deanery. Trelawny continued to cultivate his relationship with Godolphin, hoping in May he hoped to secure a prebend for one John Penneck, son of a steward of Sir William Godolphin<sup>‡</sup>, who was instituted in succession to Wake on 15 Nov. 1705. With the 1705 election seeing a campaign against ‘tackers’, Blackburne joked to Wake that if Trelawny had now become a Whig, they must shoulder the responsibility.<sup>152</sup> On 19 July Trelawny was able to wish Wake well in his new bishopric and also to thank him for securing Blackburne’s appointment as his successor as dean, due acknowledgment being given to Archbishop Tenison ‘for countenancing and moving at your instance my request in behalf of Mr Blackburne.’<sup>153</sup></p><p>During the 1705 election campaign Trelawny secured for his close friend George Clarke<sup>‡</sup> one of the seats at East Looe after Clarke determined not to stand at Oxford. At West Looe, the bishop found a sanctuary for the beleaguered secretary of state Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>154</sup> That Godolphin had now become lord lieutenant of Cornwall and had determined to rid the county of ‘tackers’ forced a growing rift between Trelawny and his former high Tory allies. Divisions amongst the Cornish clergy were ‘hotly fomented by the gentry ... chiefly on the account of [Trelawny’s] very vigorous acting in favour of Mr Boscawen – [Hugh Boscawen<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Falmouth] who is represented by ’em as a bitter Whig’. The Tory clergy even blamed Trelawny for the numerous alterations that had wrecked the bill against occasional conformity. In the event, Boscawen topped the poll, Trelawny having turned the election in Boscawen’s favour, after persuading ‘his friends ... to desist’.<sup>155</sup> The elections in Exeter were, if possible, even more fiercely contested between the sitting members (both tackers) and government candidates, Francis Godolphin and a local merchant. Trelawny again had to choose between his original Tory principles and loyalty to Godolphin, a problem highlighted by his increasing distance from the highfliers on the Exeter chapter (encouraged by Hooper). He now faced opposition not only from Atterbury but also by a sabre-rattling Sir Richard Vyvyan<sup>‡</sup> who threatened to head a delegation of Cornish clergy at the Exeter hustings to oppose the bishop and the government candidates.<sup>156</sup> Godolphin provided the solution by withdrawing his son from the poll, leaving the field clear for Sir Edward Seymour and John Snell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>157</sup> Plymouth proved equally volatile. Trelawny had been warned the previous year that Drake and Stamford would try to ‘turn the election’ there. Despite some corporation meddling by Stamford’s allies, Charles Trelawny managed to hold onto his seat but the other went to the Whig Sir George Byng<sup>‡</sup>, the future Viscount Torrington.<sup>158</sup> The 1705 elections marked a watershed in relations between the majority of Tories and the duumvirs, and Trelawny’s willingness to stick by Godolphin was interpreted as apostasy by many Tories, such as Thomas Hearne, who in February 1708 described it as ‘betraying the interest of old England, and promoting the designs of the lord treasurer and the base corrupt court’, presumably for personal gain.<sup>159</sup></p><h2><em>Translation to Winchester</em></h2><p>Trelawny left for London in mid-October 1705. Though he was initially ‘prevented of waiting on my lord treasurer by a great cold he brought to town with him or caught since he came to it’, he took his seat on 29 Oct. 1705, the fourth day of the new Parliament, attending thereafter for 48 per cent of sittings.<sup>160</sup> By early December, he was said to be ‘losing himself in the opinion of his clergy’, and despite his High Church views, on 6 Dec. he voted for the motion that the Church was not in danger under the queen’s administration.<sup>161</sup> On 30 Jan. 1706, he was present in the abbey for the martyrdom sermon.<sup>162</sup> It was expected that either he or the lord lieutenant would in February 1706 present the mayor to the queen with a petition relating to an unpaid debt due to the corporation.<sup>163</sup> On 28 Feb. he was appointed to the committee for drawing up reasons to be offered at a conference with the Commons for the Lords’ amendments to the bill for Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, and on 11 Mar. he was nominated a manager of both conferences on <em>Sir Rowland Gwynne’s Letter to the Earl of Stamford</em>. He was then named to the committee for drawing an address to the queen concerning the petition of the gentry of Lancashire regarding the growth of popery.<sup>164</sup> The following day he reported from the committee on the Viccary estate bill. He attended the session until the prorogation on 19 March.</p><p>Towards the end of 1706 Trelawny saw the opportunity to satisfy his longstanding ambition for a wealthy bishopric. His ambitions had been centred on Winchester, and it was thought that Godolphin had favoured his pretensions. However, there was growing pressure from the Whigs, upon whom Godolphin was increasingly reliant, for ecclesiastical preferment to be given to allies of the Junto. The death of Bishop Mews of Winchester in November 1706 led to rumours that Trelawny would be promoted, but Godolphin was faced with an awkward dilemma.<sup>165</sup> He fretted on 9 Nov. that Trelawny would ‘never forgive me if anybody has it but himself. I will endeavour to keep the queen from coming to any resolution upon it till we have advised with all our friends’. His instinct was to keep his promise to Trelawny, but not to announce it, at least during the parliamentary session, there being ‘no other expedient but to keep it vacant, at present’.<sup>166</sup> On 4 Dec. Tenison was reported to be ‘disturbed’ by the prospect of Trelawny’s advancement to Winchester, as were many Whigs who thought they had Godolphin’s agreement to promote Whig clerics.<sup>167</sup> However, by 19 Jan. 1707 Tenison must have been resigned to Trelawny’s advancement because he was in discussion with Somers about the choice of his replacement at Exeter, an appointment that would cause even greater trouble for Godolphin.<sup>168</sup> When another vacancy arose at Chester, White Kennett<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Peterborough, on 13 Feb. wrote that ‘we must take it for granted that the Bishop of Exeter [Trelawny] is still in the road to Winchester, tho’ it is possible for some reasons he will not have his translation till the Parliament rises’.<sup>169</sup> According to Burnet, Trelawny’s appointment</p><blockquote><p>gave great disgust to many, he being considerable for nothing but his birth and his interest in Cornwall. The lord treasurer had engaged himself to him, and he was sensible that he was much reflected upon for it; but he, to soften the censure that this brought on him, had promised, that, for the future, preferment should be bestowed on men well principled with relation to the present constitution, and on men of merit.<sup>170</sup></p></blockquote><p>Meanwhile, Parliament had met on 3 Dec. 1706, with Trelawny in attendance. He was present more regularly than usual—at 60 per cent of sittings—and involved himself in broader ecclesiastical business. He attended the court of delegates at Doctors’ Commons on the morning of 14 Dec. and the Lords in the afternoon.<sup>171</sup> On 18 Dec. at a meeting of Queen Anne’s Bounty, Atterbury (who still regarded himself as one of Trelawny’s close friends) opposed Tenison’s motion for a halt to all episcopal promotions until tenths and first fruits had been cleared, ‘affirming that everybody might see at whom ... this was levelled’—meaning Trelawny. He was the only bishop in London not to attend the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth, but on 1 Jan. 1707 attended St James’s with Sharp and Nicolson.<sup>172</sup> During the debate of 3 Feb. 1707 on Archbishop Sharp’s clause to incorporate the Test Act into the bill for the security of the Church of England, Trelawny ‘the knight from Exeter’, did not vote with his usual Tory allies in favour of the amendment, but with the court, a vote interpreted as connected to his imminent translation. On 9 Feb., however, Kennett told Nicolson that he thought Trelawny’s promotion unlikely.<sup>173</sup> On 8 Mar. Trelawny managed to attend the queen’s birthday, loitering in the vestry at St James’s, and the Lords where he reported the private bill for William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford.<sup>174</sup> Two days later, he reported from the private bill for the deceased Henry Darell<sup>‡</sup>, formerly Member for Liskeard. He continued to attend until 7 Apr., the day before the prorogation, and then attended four sittings in the subsequent nine-day session from 14 to 24 Apr. 1707. He was also noted as examining the Journal on 23, 24, 28 and 30 April. </p><p>Despite his efforts, Trelawny failed to avoid controversy. The Rev. Ralph Bridges reported on 21 Apr. that Trelawny had ‘preached a sermon at court lately, which has given offence to several great men. I hope he won’t lose his bishopric of Winton by it, for if he does I don't know what we poor T---ys must do.’ Like the majority of Trelawny’s sermons, it was not printed, but circulated in manuscript form. The duchess of Marlborough thought some of it was directed at her, but ‘what gave most offence and what people seem more generally to agree in his having said was about “drinking” and “whoring”, that the one was the effect of mere nature and the other of good nature.’ Bridges thought this too shocking to be true ‘and so unlikely to come out of the pulpit and out of a bishop’s mouth, that charity would oblige one to think it next to impossible’. Atterbury, though, announced in May that he would make Trelawny ‘the patron of his sermons ... to be published as soon as ever Sir Jonathan is declared bishop of Winton’.<sup>175</sup> On 30 Apr. Trelawny attended the House for the reading of the royal proclamation that continued Parliament as the first of Great Britain. During May, Bishop Crew confided in Sharp that it was still ‘not so easy to guess who shall succeed in Winchester notwithstanding the most ensured expectations a certain brother had. If there should be a retraction of this, the storm, wherever it falls, will be very violent and furious’.<sup>176</sup></p><p>Trelawny’s translation was eventually announced in tandem with that of the translation of John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, to Ely, immediately upon the death of the incumbent there, Simon Patrick*, on 31 May.<sup>177</sup> On 2 June, Trelawny liaised with Harley as Godolphin had commanded him to attend the queen that morning, being ‘vain enough to believe I am so far in your favour that any affair of mine will never find any stop with you’.<sup>178</sup> On 3 June Trelawny wrote to Marlborough that ‘I am this day in full possession of the bishopric of Winchester’, and acknowledged his debt to Marlborough and Godolphin, for which he would ‘breed up [his] whole family in the sense of what we owe to so great protection’.<sup>179</sup> Harley expedited matters; the royal directive to Winchester was finally sent out three days later, the royal assent given on the 10th and the translation confirmed by the archbishop on the 14th despite, as Trelawny later wrote, ‘all the bitterest opposition which envenomed and consecrated lies could thrown my way’.<sup>180</sup> Indeed, on the day of Trelawny’s confirmation, Godolphin urged Harley to hurry to Windsor in case Sunderland refused to introduce Trelawny to the queen; that eventuality would make such ‘a great deal of noise’ that unless Harley intervened, ‘something [would] happen which may be shocking and uneasy to the queen’.<sup>181</sup> Formalities accomplished, the new bishop of Winchester thanked Harley for his help, but was equally interested in how Harley could assist with the prompt restitution of his temporalities.<sup>182</sup> Godolphin recommended that his revenue be backdated to the time of Mews’ death since it was ‘best not to oblige a man by halves’.<sup>183</sup> In July, Marlborough, from his camp in Flanders, told Trelawny of his pleasure that the queen had shown ‘so just a sense of [Trelawny’s] merit’.<sup>184</sup> Trelawny in return willingly ensured that a newly vacant living ‘in the pleasantest part of Wiltshire’, was ‘by the command’ of Marlborough at the service of Dr John Shaw.<sup>185</sup> Delighted with his new post, Trelawny anticipated maintaining a full social round, regarding ‘the visiting of friends to be an episcopal act as well as of visiting churches’.<sup>186</sup></p><p>In September 1707 Atterbury duly published his volume of sermons with a fulsome and politically embarrassing dedication to Trelawny that was little short of a high Church manifesto. Trelawny was furious at being used in the highflier’s political manoeuvrings, and Atterbury was forced to seek assistance from Trelawny’s son to soothe the bishop’s legendary temper.<sup>187</sup> Trelawny continued to put his electoral interest at Godolphin’s service, at the Liskeard by-election on 21 Nov. 1707, he recommended John Dolben<sup>‡</sup>, an ardent supporter of Godolphin, and the son of an archbishop.<sup>188</sup> On 4 Dec., six weeks after the start of the new parliamentary session, Trelawny took his seat for the first time as bishop of Winchester; he attended the session for only 31 per cent of sittings. On 19 Jan. 1708 Trelawny was called by the House to confirm that Dr Richard Kingston, ‘impudent writer’ of <em>Remarks upon Dr Freind’s Account of the Earl of Peterborough’s Conduct in Spain</em>, had not been ordained.<sup>189</sup> On 5 Feb. he and Talbot were the only bishops to vote with the court and against the Junto and the Tories in a division on the date set for the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council in the bill for improving the Union, the court wishing for the later date.<sup>190</sup> On 7 Feb., (with 24 other lords, including Godolphin and Marlborough), he registered his protest against the passage of the bill. Five days later he reported from the committee on the Plymouth workhouse bill.</p><p>Following the dissolution on 15 Apr. 1708, Trelawny was listed as a ‘court Tory’ in a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain. Despite the increasing closeness between Godolphin and the Junto, Trelawny nevertheless retained his personal loyalty to the lord treasurer. During May, he travelled to Cornwall to ‘use his interest that as good men may be chosen in this election as were in the former’. At East Looe, Trelawny was forced to sacrifice George Clarke since the latter had become estranged from the Godolphin ministry, but he returned instead his nephew Harry Trelawny<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>191</sup> The Lostwithiel contest proved more contentious. At the poll in May the Whigs Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> and James Kendall<sup>‡</sup> were returned in preference to two candidates from Radnor’s family. Kendall’s death in July seems to have precipitated both the losers into petitioning against the result before Trelawny or Godolphin could intervene with an alternative of their own. George Granville*, later Baron Lansdown, was also eager to intervene in the election, informing Harley that he was in the process of securing an interest for Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, in anticipation of opposition from Trelawny and Godolphin. Atterbury, despite the attempt to repair his relationship with Trelawny, sided with Granville and St John, using his own interest with the clergy, but feared ‘that way is barred up by the two great men’.<sup>192</sup> The ultimate result was a reversal of the original poll towards the end of 1709.</p><p>Trelawny attended the House on 16 Nov. 1708 for the start of the new Parliament, but attended the session for less than a third of sittings. On 28 Dec. he reported to Sunderland news of a ‘popish seminary’ at Warnford in his diocese, suggesting that ‘if your lordship or the council won’t think fit to be concerned in the dispersing and breaking this pernicious seminary I hope I may have leave to complain of it in Parliament, by myself in the House of Lords, and my friends in the House of Commons that measures may be found for having it effectually done.’ Having laid the matter before the queen, Sunderland forwarded it on 3 Jan. 1709 to the crown’s legal officers to investigate further and to institute a prosecution.<sup>193</sup> On 21 Jan. Trelawny voted in favour of permitting Scots peers with British titles to vote in the elections for Scots representative peers, a pro-ministerial position. On 15 Mar., though, still consistently in favour of economic protectionism and the Tory ecclesiastical agenda, he protested against the committal of the bill for general naturalization. When the House went into committee on the bill later that day, Trelawny supported the amendment of William Dawes*, bishop of Chester that would have insisted that all newcomers worship in the Church of England and not in any other Protestant congregation. He was absent for the debate and division on the bill for improving the Union on 22 Mar., but three days later he voted (in company with Somers, Sunderland and Thomas Sprat, the bishop of Rochester) against a resumption of the House, and therefore against allowing more time for consideration of the impact of the legislation on Scottish marriage settlements.<sup>194</sup> Trelawny was present on 21 Apr., the day of the prorogation. He then remained in London and attended the prorogations of 19 May and 23 June 1709. </p><p>Trelawny was back at Westminster on 22 Nov. 1709, one week after the start of the parliamentary session; he thereafter he attended only on 13 and 16 Jan. and 6 and 9 Feb. 1710. His attention seems to have been initially taken by the Hampshire by-election in December 1709, a vacancy caused by Henry Bentinck*, Viscount Woodstock, succeeding his father as 2nd earl of Portland on 23 November. Trelawny was much courted for his interest for Thomas Jervoise<sup>‡</sup> and both Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton and his brother Lord William Powlett<sup>‡</sup>, sought Godolphin’s assistance in ensuring that Trelawny supported Jervoise.<sup>195</sup> His absence thereafter may have been connected to the prosecution of Dr Henry Sacheverell. The chaplain of St Saviour’s, Southwark, within Trelawny’s diocese, Sacheverell’s inflammatory sermon was preached before the lord mayor, and therefore outside Trelawny’s jurisdiction. Trelawny’s views made it anyway unlikely that Sacheverell would be prosecuted by his diocesan, so a parliamentary impeachment was instituted.<sup>196</sup> Ironically, this was moved for in the Commons by John Dolben, the Member for Liskeard, and as such beholden to a large extent to the bishop for his election. On 21 Dec. 1709 Dr William Stratford reported that Trelawny ‘storms at Jack Dolben’, whom he had asked not to involve himself in the prosecution. Dolben had opened the debate against Sacheverell in the Commons on 13 Dec. and had excused himself to the bishop on account of his obligations to ‘great men’. Trelawny told him that he would not use his interest again to bring Dolben into the Commons.<sup>197</sup> Trelawny did step in to prevent a ‘firebrand’ sermon by one of Sacheverell’s acolytes, threatening to appoint his own preachers if Sacheverell refused to toe the line.<sup>198</sup> Having petitioned the House on 26 Jan. 1710, for a bill to enclose 500 acres of Ropley Commons in the Hampshire manor of Bishop’s Sutton, leave for this measure was granted on 23 Feb., and it received the royal assent at the end of the session. Trelawny missed watching its progression through the House, having taken ‘the excuse of his Lady’s death to withdraw to Farnham’ and left his proxy with Compton, thereby avoiding the Sacheverell trial.<sup>199</sup> His name is recorded on one division list on the guilt of Sacheverell on 20 Mar., as being ‘in the country.’ On 3 Apr. Rev. Ralph Bridges reported that although Trelawny ‘went down to Farnham to bury his wife’, as soon as the trial was over he returned to Chelsea: ‘but the dean of Carlisle [Atterbury] tells us how he caused rejoicings to be made at Farnham for Sacheverell’s escape and how much he is his friend’.<sup>200</sup></p><h2><em>The Harley ministry</em></h2><p>Trelawny attended the House on three occasions on 4 and 18 July and 1 Aug. 1710 for prorogations. Shortly after the last came the dismissal of Godolphin and the institution of a new ministry under Harley’s leadership; Parliament was eventually dissolved on 21 Sept. allowing a long-anticipated election campaign to begin in earnest. During August, Trelawny had been included on the freeman roll in Winchester and ‘strenuously promoted the Whig interest in Surrey and Hampshire’.<sup>201</sup> Agreeing to direct the Surrey clergy in the county election, he produced a notice to be nailed to all church doors to the effect that the Whig Sir Richard Onslow<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt. was ‘a man of great honour, and affection to our happy constitution’ and duly commended Onslow and Sir Francis Vincent<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt. to the electorate. According to Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, the bishop ‘does all he can for Sir Richard Onslow: but I hear he gains but few or none’, and Onslow was duly defeated.<sup>202</sup> Harley was informed that Trelawny intended to set out for Cornwall on 21 Aug., where he was expected to oppose the new ministry’s candidates.<sup>203</sup> The Trelawny interest was compromised, though, by the dismissal of Godolphin as lord lieutenant and his replacement by Rochester during the minority of the earl of Bath.<sup>204</sup> Self-interest might have dictated that Trelawny dispense at this point with the electoral pact with the duumvirs; instead he campaigned in his own boroughs as though Godolphin were still in post, to the dismay of the highfliers.<sup>205</sup> At East Looe, he was already obliged ‘by a very considerable debt’ to find a seat for Sir Henry Seymour, despite their political differences, but he also returned Thomas Smith<sup>‡</sup>, the son of a loyal Godolphin ally. At West Looe, he supported the archetypical Whig and friend of the duchess of Marlborough, Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>206</sup> The county, however, was beyond his influence; in the grip of Sacheverell fever, the electorate returned Granville and John Trevanion<sup>‡</sup> on a ‘queen ... Church and Sacheverell’ ticket.<sup>207</sup> Trelawny does not appear to have made his presence felt at the county hustings but at Liskeard, despite evidence that the town was set to ‘revolt’ against ‘the colonel’ (John Trelawny<sup>‡</sup>) the Trelawny interest prevailed.<sup>208</sup></p><p>Harley in a list compiled on 3 Oct. 1710 classed Trelawny as likely to oppose the ministry, a suspicion confirmed when, early in November, Trelawny duly discouraged his clergy (without success) from presenting a loyal address to the queen.<sup>209</sup> On 27 Nov., he attended the House on the third day of the new Parliament, after which he was present for 36 per cent of sittings. He attended the St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth where he spoke in ‘private’ with Nicolson, Charles Trimnell*, bishop of Norwich and Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London. A meeting of the commissioners for Queen Anne’s Bounty on the 29th ordered that Trelawny’s ‘long arrears’ of tenths were to be paid within 12 months.<sup>210</sup></p><p>By early January 1711, the ministerial campaign against the previous government’s conduct of the war was well underway. As one of the war’s most ardent supporters, Trelawny voted consistently with the opposition during the Lords’ post-mortem on the conduct of the campaign in Spain. On 9 Jan., he was one of nine bishops that voted against the motion that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had given a faithful account of the council of war held before the battle of Almanza. On 11 Jan. he signed two protests in support of Henry de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future Earl Stanhope. On the 12th he protested against the censure of the previous ministry for approving a military offensive in Spain.<sup>211</sup> On 3 Feb. he signed two further protests against resolutions blaming the previous administration for neglecting the campaign, and two more on the 8th, on the retention in the proposed representation to the queen on the war of the heavily loaded statement that ‘vast sums of money’ had been given by Parliament for the war, and then on the vote to present the representation. He was the only person to sign the protests of 3 and 8 Feb. who also signed the protest on 5 Feb. 1711 against rejection of the bill to repeal the Whiggish Naturalization Act.</p><p>On 21 Feb. 1711 Trelawny was named to the Convocation quorum of Tory bishops that overtly undermined the authority of archbishop Tenison, although he was a more senior bishop than some of the other nominees.<sup>212</sup> Far from comfortable at what was in effect a defence of highflying ecclesiastical politics, he absented himself from Convocation on the 23rd, and aware that he would be ‘called on to assert the queen’s power of that nomination’ he resorted to legal precedent and asked Wake to provide examples of an archbishop appointing a president during his absence.<sup>213</sup></p><p>On 1 Mar. 1711, a supporter of toleration for Scottish Episcopalians, Trelawny attended the House for the debate on Greenshields’ appeal. Following a lengthy debate, it seems that he and Talbot were among the minority voting in favour of an adjournment to the following day. However, on the main question of reversing the judgment against Greenshields, he joined all the bishops in favour.<sup>214</sup> Trelawny remained on good terms with Marlborough, asking him in March to ‘receive’ one of his sons who was about to embark on a foreign tour, as he had ‘done the rest of my family’.<sup>215</sup> On 2 Apr. he hosted a dinner at Chelsea for Bishops Trimnell and Nicolson, Dean Blackburne of Exeter, Dean Kennett of Peterborough and Archdeacon Gibson, who were ‘nobly entertained as friends to the old establishment and ministry’.<sup>216</sup> Trelawny attended the House for the prorogation on 12 June 1711 and returned to his diocese.</p><p>During the summer of 1711, Trelawny entered yet another dispute over his rights of visitation, this time with Winchester College. The lord keeper, Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, found in Trelawny’s favour.<sup>217</sup> Trelawny was back in London by 13 Nov. for the brief prorogation two weeks before the opening of the 1711-12 session. His name appears on one of Oxford’s (as Harley had now become) calculations of about December, possibly of supporters for the opening of the session. On 7 Dec. he was present for the first day of the new session, after which he attended 40 per cent of all sittings. He voted for the addition of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause to the Address, and his name appeared on Oxford’s list of 10 Dec. of office-holders and pensioners who did so. He was marked (albeit with a query) on 19 Dec. as an opponent of the ministry in the Hamilton peerage division and on the 20th duly voted that Scottish peers could not sit in the House by virtue of a British title created after the Union. </p><p>Following the creation of 12 new peers over the Christmas recess to help buttress the Oxford ministry, Trelawny voted against the adjournment of 2 Jan. 1712.<sup>218</sup> On the 5th he hosted a party of opposition bishops at his Chelsea home, consisting of Bishops Nicolson, Burnet, Moore, Talbot, Trimnell, William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph, John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and John Evans*, bishop of Bangor.<sup>219</sup> Trelawny’s opposition to the ministry was reflected in his proxy-giving. On 9 May he registered his proxy in favour of Bishop Moore (vacated 20 May). On the 27th he again registered his proxy, this time in favour of Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough (vacated on 2 June) and in turn, received Cumberland’s proxy on 4 June.</p><p>By the time Trelawny attended the adjournment of the session on 21 June 1712 the Tory ministry had weathered the storm in the Lords over the conclusion of peace, and there were signs that with the treaty agreed, Trelawny might be more amenable to the ministry’s blandishments. Dean Atterbury was one point of contact with Oxford (as Harley had now become). On 19 June Atterbury forwarded to Oxford a letter from Trelawny, in which the bishop had asked whether he might approach Oxford directly at the House regarding his application for an ecclesiastical preferment in his diocese. As Atterbury explained, ‘if it be favoured, [Trelawny] will certainly go on, till he is entirely our lordship’s servant. He has ... invited the Speaker [William Bromley<sup>‡</sup>] to dine with him ... and is every day more and more changing both his language and his company’. On the 25th, Atterbury again reported to Oxford that Trelawny was very content with Oxford’s ‘kind manner of treating him’ in the matter of the preferment. It was also clear that Trelawny’s plan to transfer the management of his Cornish estates to his son, John Trelawny<sup>‡</sup> (later 4th bt.), when he returned from abroad, would affect the family’s electoral interest, an even more tempting morsel.<sup>220</sup> Trelawny remained in London, attending the House for the prorogations on 8 and 30 July. The death of Godolphin on 15 Sept. 1712 and the subsequent decision of Marlborough to remove to the continent could only weaken Trelawny’s ties to the opposition led by the Junto.</p><p>Despite Trelawny’s overtures, Oxford knew that he would need to be cultivated. His name appears on Oxford’s list of 26 Feb. 1713 of Lords he intended to contact or canvas before the next session. On Swift’s list of March-April 1713, amended by Oxford, Trelawny was still expected to oppose the ministry. Whilst ensconced in Cornwall at the end of February he wrote to Wake that ‘I can’t stir till the West Looe election is over, unless I resolve to abdicate the town now and on another occasion, which can’t be far off’, that is the general election due later that year. He hoped to be at Westminster at Easter and at Chelsea the week after; until then he hoped that the bishop of Ely would use his proxy to anything offered against the pretender. Exercised by the threat of the pretender and of the Catholics generally, he drew parallels with 1688, when the bishops</p><blockquote><p>addressed in defence of our laws when King James had broke in upon [them] to make the quicker way for Popery which he was (and God be thanked that he was so) in haste to establish. I hope we shan’t address against a mischievous peace for ... that being the sacred prerogative of the crown its royal mount, we can’t touch it without being sure to die as Whigs and not as guardians of our religion.<sup>221</sup></p></blockquote><p>Trelawny continued this theme in another missive to Wake on 3 Mar. 1713, advocating a:</p><blockquote><p>humble and dutiful address to the queen for her authority on such measures as she shall think fit to take for her own safety and the interest of religion, both in such apparent danger by the troops of priests as the vanguard to him whom our laws, our oaths, our Church’s interest and the queen’s safety forbid ... we have of late been thought to be no better than dumb dogs by very good men, afraid to bark least we should unpardonably offend at home as well surely as provoke abroad ... I am now of an opinion ... that the address might meet the opening of the session and awaken those Members who have hitherto slumbered over the nation’s necessary way and means for the better security against popery ... At least ’twill let the nation see at one view that their bishops are not blind or afraid to appear when anything offers of weight enough to challenge their care, courage and integrity. I hope the address has been shown to all the bishops in town, and sent to those who are out of it ... to bear some act of their double, telling us they would have come with heart and hand to subscribe and attend had they known it while at the same time they whisper others they know and rejected it with scorn as pressed only by a parcel of Whiggish bishops to make the queen uneasy and her ministers odious, and on that calumny ’twill rest unless it has the assent and consent of the Church of England bishops ... For my part I have hardly had a quiet night, or a cheerful day, since by the advance of the peace to a certain party’s liking. I can’t but fear the pretender is next oars, if … the coffin is bespoke for the queen. For popery is always in haste to kill when they are sure of taking possession.<sup>222</sup></p></blockquote><p>Several months later, the House would divide (in Trelawny’s presence) on 30 June 1713 on an address in defence of the Protestant religion and the Hanoverian Succession which asked for the removal of the pretender from Lorraine.</p><p>Oxford meanwhile had attempted to secure Trelawny’s support, not least in the West Looe by-election, although Oxford’s employment of Lansdown as a mediator was unlikely to be very effective. Indeed the approach elicited one of Trelawny’s most vociferous rejections of a pact with the ministry if it entailed betrayal of Marlborough and Godolphin, particularly the latter: ‘for whose memory he must ever have all imaginable honour, and thinks himself obliged to express it in the best services he can to his family’. He was grateful, he said, for</p><blockquote><p>the obliging overture of endeavouring to establish a friendship between my lord treasurer and him ... that he knows of nothing personal which he has done ... to make it otherwise, unless the friendship which he owes to the duke of Marlborough and the earl Godolphin be so understood which, if it be so, will in that respect make him very unhappy, since he can never allow himself to depart from it, as thinking the man, who can desert his friend in the day of adversity, not worthy the friendship or regard of any man of honour.<sup>223</sup></p></blockquote><p>He returned his son, John Trelawny, now of age, at the by-election. </p><p>Trelawny first attended the House on 20 May 1713, six weeks after the start of the session. He attended for less than a quarter of all sittings. With the ministry under pressure from the opposition over the malt tax, on 4 June George Clarke promised Oxford that he would wait upon Trelawny ‘tomorrow morning, tho’ I cannot but hope there is no occasion to desire him not to join in so very ill a design.’ As it happened, on the 5th, Trelawny’s presence and vote was crucial in securing a second reading for the bill, which was carried by two votes, Ralph Wingate noting Trelawny’s vote specifically as one of two ‘who never gave them a vote since the change of the ministry’, as did Thomas Rowney<sup>‡</sup> who wrote that Trelawny, George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, and John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret were ‘come into the bill on the malt’.<sup>224</sup> About 13 June Oxford estimated that Trelawny would support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. On 5 July Trelawny went to the ‘bishops’ room by the House of Lords’ with Moore, Trimnell, Atterbury and Adam Ottley*, bishop of St Davids, before travelling on the archbishop’s barge to Lambeth for Atterbury’s consecration as bishop of Rochester.<sup>225</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 16 July.</p><p>On 27 July 1713 Atterbury informed Oxford that Trelawny would ‘be glad of [an] opportunity of waiting on your lordship before he leaves Chelsea’, hinting at the bishop’s expected support in the ensuing elections.<sup>226</sup> Harcourt also informed Oxford that Trelawny ‘expresses daily a great respect for your lordship, and an inclination to wait on you’ but that Oxford alone knew ‘of what use he may be, and whether it be not fit to lay hold on this occasion’.<sup>227</sup> Trelawny, true to form, was eager to ensure that his personal interest in Cornwall was respected and Oxford subsequently directed that Trelawny ‘should meet with no opposition at East Looe’; the Tory John Friend, who had been making an interest, obediently withdrew his challenge.<sup>228</sup> On 11 Sept. Trelawny informed Oxford that he had followed the latter’s instructions and returned the Tory lawyer Edward Jennings<sup>‡</sup>, ‘pleased to have an opportunity to remember to your lordship the great favour of your assisting me in obtaining the see of Winchester’.<sup>229</sup> The West Looe electorate obeyed more traditional local patterns and returned John Trelawny together with a family friend, Sir Charles Wager<sup>‡</sup>, but the county election reflected Trelawny’s deal with Oxford. On 16 Sept. John Trevanion<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Carew<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt. were returned despite Boscawen’s Whig challenge. Trelawny had come full circle in helping to secure an overwhelming victory for the Tories in his native Cornwall.<sup>230</sup></p><p>Trelawny attended the Lords on 16 Feb. 1714 for the opening of Parliament and attended its first session for 48 per cent of sittings. In spite of the electoral arrangement with Oxford he followed a typically independent line. Along with the Hanoverian whimsicals, he voted with the opposition on 5 Apr. in the division over the danger to the Protestant succession and again on the 13th, after the Lords considered the queen’s reply to the address on the pretender.<sup>231</sup> Even Nottingham found it hard to predict Trelawny’s parliamentary behaviour and at the end of May of beginning of June he thought Trelawny ‘doubtful’ over the schism bill. Yet Trelawny was again loyal to his own Tory ecclesiastical values and on 11 June supported an extension of the measure to Ireland.<sup>232</sup> On 15 June, with the Lords set to vote on the third reading, Trelawny registered his proxy in favour of Atterbury, ensuring that it would be used to support the bill. His proxy was vacated on his return on the 23rd and he continued to attend the House until 8 July, the day before the prorogation. On 30 June he hosted a dinner attended by Atterbury and Rev. Henry Brydges.<sup>233</sup> He travelled back to Hampshire and conducted a visitation, but Queen Anne’s death necessitated his return to Westminster for the brief session that met in the wake of her death.<sup>234</sup> He attended nine sittings of the 15-day session.</p><p>Faced with a change of dynasty, it was entirely in keeping with Trelawny’s political pragmatism that he should now support the new ministry.<sup>235</sup> His actions in the campaign for the new Parliament certainly disappointed Tories like Carte, who observed that Trelawny’s</p><blockquote><p>conduct has never been very uniform but now it is more unaccountable than ever. To be so voluntarily warm for the [Tories] in Oxfordshire and yet to choose for [Whigs] ... in Cornwall, to make interest publicly for his son and thereby oppose two very honest gents who now serve for this county, and to set up that very son in opposition to two other [Tories] at Liskeard is what I can’t well reconcile and yet it is undoubtedly fact. <sup>236</sup></p></blockquote><p>Trelawny died suddenly at Chelsea in the early hours of 19 July 1721, from a ‘fast and violent’ abdominal pain that suggested a ‘twisting of the guts’ and a rupture.<sup>237</sup> He was buried on 10 Aug. at Pelynt following his body’s removal from Chelsea with predictable show. According to one newspaper, paraded before his hearse were ‘the trophies and honours belonging to his quality and office… crown and cushion, mitre and crozier, great banner and bannerals’.<sup>238</sup> No will was found in either his Chelsea home or at Farnham palace and the bishop died intestate.<sup>239</sup> Administration of his estate was later granted to his heir, who succeeded as 4th baronet. Trelawny’s notorious spending habits meant that the estate was indebted to the tune of £16,000.<sup>240</sup> The winding up of his estate required a private act of Parliament.<sup>241</sup> Trelawny left a large family. In 1711 he had forbidden a love match between one of his daughters and his nephew ‘Captain’ Harry Trelawny, threatening Trelawny ‘as one pretending boldly and wickedly too to rob me of my daughter, so dear as she has been to me, and must expect to be treated as such with the deepest and justest resentments’. Unusually, Trelawny was forced to back down five years later.<sup>242</sup> He also had no qualms about marrying off his daughters against their wishes (as in the case of his daughter Rebecca to John Francis Buller<sup>‡</sup>) for personal gain.<sup>243</sup> His fourth son Edward Trelawny<sup>‡</sup> became governor of Jamaica.<sup>244</sup></p><p>Even Trelawny’s contemporaries recognized that he was no ordinary bishop; he was satirized in an anticlerical poem as a ‘Fighting Joshua’ who spilled blood for the king in 1685 only to turn rebel himself three years later.<sup>245</sup> An equally jaundiced observer found Trelawny an ‘illiterate, mean, silly, trifling and impertinent fellow’, guilty of ‘a great many more’ bad services to the Church than good ones.<sup>246</sup> One coherent theme to his career was a determined opposition to popery, and it was fear of this that coloured his attitude to such diverse matters as James II’s policies and to the Oxford ministry’s foreign policy. Trelawny’s parliamentary career was not marked by high levels of attendance. In the 30 sessions held between 1685 and 1715, he attended all but six but rarely for more than a half of all sittings; he attended eight for less than a third of the time. Named to some 250 select committees in the course of his parliamentary career up to 1715, he reported from select committees on 14 occasions. Much has been made of Trelawny’s transition from Tory to ‘Church Whig’ after 1710, although the key determinant of his political allegiance in Anne’s reign appears to have been his friendship with Godolphin. Only after Godolphin’s death in 1712 did he begin to lean back towards the Tories, but fear of the Pretender ensured that he remained pro-Hanoverian in 1714-15.</p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
TRIMNELL, Charles (1663-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>TRIMNELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Charles</strong> (1663–1723)</p> |
|
|
First sat 2 Mar. 1708; last sat 20 May 1723 |
cons. 8 Feb. 1708 bp. of NORWICH; transl. 21 July 1721 bp. of WINCHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 1 May 1663, s. of Charles Trimnell (1630-1702) of Bremhill, Wilts., rect. Abbots Ripton, Hunts. <em>educ</em>. Winchester 1674-81; New Coll. Oxf. matric. 1681, BA 1685, MA 1689, BD 1691, DD 1691, incorp. Camb. 1695. <em>m</em>. (1) 1703, Henrietta Maria (<em>d</em>. 22 Feb. 1716),<sup>1</sup> da. of William Talbot*, bp. of Oxford, 2s. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) 1719, Elizabeth, da. of Sir Edmund Wynne, 2nd. bt. of Nostell Priory, Yorks., wid. of Joseph Taylor of the Temple, <em>s.p. d</em>. 15 Aug. 1723; <em>will</em> 30 Apr. 1722, pr. 17 Oct. 1723.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. in ordinary 1699-1708; clerk of the closet 1714-23.</p><p>Preacher, Rolls Chapel 1688; chap. to Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, 1689; canon, Norwich 1691-1708; rect. Boddington, Northants. 1694-6, Brington, Northants. 1696-8, Southmere, Norf. 1705, St James’s, Westminster 1706-8; adn. Norf. 1698-1708.</p><p>Tutor to Charles Spencer*, later 3rd earl of Sunderland 1689-c.1699;<sup>3</sup> mbr. SPCK 1699; pres. Corp. Sons of the Clergy 1721.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. to Michael Dahl c.1715-19, National Trust, Nostell Priory, Yorks. (another version New Coll. Oxf.); mezzotint by J. Faber senior, after M. Dahl?, 1719, BM 1902,1011.1159.</p> |
<p>Charles Trimnell’s career revealed him to be as much statesman as cleric. As tutor to Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, and staunch ally of Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury (a family friend), Trimnell was deemed ‘worthy … in all respects’ by the Whig Gilbert Burnet*, of Salisbury, but ‘deplored’ by high Tories.<sup>5</sup> One of 14 children of a well-connected Anglican clergyman descended from the Trimnells of Ockley Hall, Worcestershire, Trimnell was the eldest son and residuary legatee of his father, inheriting an unspecified amount of real estate.<sup>6</sup> His marriage to the eldest daughter of the Whig bishop, William Talbot, brought with it at least £450 a year; in 1707 Talbot’s petition to the House of Lords for an estate bill revealed that Trimnell’s wife had received that sum over the previous five years.<sup>7</sup> Yet Trimnell’s personal circumstances remain vague; in his will he detailed only £100 in cash bequests, the bulk of his personal estate being tied up in an undefined quantity of securities and South Sea stock. There is no indication in his will that he bequeathed any landed property, nor does he appear to have been of an acquisitive nature, resigning his Brington living in favour of a brother-in-law at a time when his annual income amounted to little more than £200. Yet by 1720 he was in a comfortable financial situation with at least £1,000 in stock.<sup>8</sup></p><p>In 1688 Trimnell was appointed preacher at the Rolls Chapel by the master of the rolls, Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, the first in a stream of promotions to come through the patronage of Tenison, Trevor, and the Sunderland family (to whom he became indispensable, particularly during the political exile of Robert Spencer 2nd earl of Sunderland in the early 1690s).<sup>9</sup> According to Edward Spencer, writing in 1694 concerning a prospective living for Trimnell, Trimnell was ‘a man of great integrity, and not to be influenced by money, but will be readily inclined to gratify his patron upon the least motion’.<sup>10</sup> Indeed, Trimnell would always function more as a personal secretary than a chaplain, communicating with Sir Hans Sloane on family health matters, sending frequent memoranda to Sunderland and keeping a weather eye on political affairs at home and abroad.<sup>11</sup> When the 2nd earl died in 1702, Trimnell assumed a similar role with his former pupil, the 3rd earl.</p><p>Joining the Norwich chapter in 1691 (again through Trevor’s interest), Trimnell began a long association with the diocese, building up networks of political contacts (such as Oliver Le Neve) in both local and central government.<sup>12</sup> He proved an ally of dean Humphrey Prideaux against Prideaux’s <em>bête noir</em>, John Moore*, then bishop of Norwich; he was also heavily involved in the city’s economic life, actively working to procure private legislation for the city in 1701, and for Norwich weavers and combers in 1703. He oversaw building plans in the diocese and was a prominent figure in the founding of the SPCK and SPG.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Trimnell’s contacts and activity in London gave the strongest hint as to his future political direction. By 1700, together with John Tyler*, dean of Hereford and later bishop of Llandaff, and John Evans*, shortly to become bishop of Bangor, he was leading an embattled group of Oxford Whig clerics in the Tory-dominated lower house of Convocation.<sup>14</sup> He published a series of heated erastian tracts, primarily directed against Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, arguing that parliamentary writs should be entered into the rubric of Convocation acts, both before and after Tenison’s prorogation of Convocation in May 1702.<sup>15</sup> He also attended countless meetings (especially with William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln from 1705, and William Nicolson*, elected bishop of Carlisle in May 1702) to co-ordinate their opposition to the Tory ‘high-fliers’. He was a core member of the Whig clerical cabal based in London throughout the 1700s, formed a close working relationship with Wake (with whom he dined frequently) and, as Sunderland’s mouthpiece, was a sound reporter of political intelligence to the government.<sup>16</sup> University politics also flushed out Trimnell’s allies and enemies. Opposed by the ‘whole Tory world’ (including Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, and Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey, later earl of Aylesford), but supported by Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, he was pipped at the post for the wardenship of his former Oxford college following a disputed election result.<sup>17</sup> Yet at this point in his career, Trimnell was fortunate in enjoying the respect of moderate Tories, including John Sharp*, archbishop of York. In 1706, when the 3rd earl of Sunderland entered the cabinet as secretary of state, Trimnell’s career prospects improved further. At Sunderland’s request, the duchess of Marlborough advanced Trimnell’s candidature for the prestigious living of St James’s, Piccadilly (manoeuvrings about which had been current since the early summer of the previous year).<sup>18</sup> The promotion was welcomed by William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, who expressed pleasure that the queen had given the living to ‘so good a man’.<sup>19</sup> The sentiment was mutual. Trimnell had revered Cowper for many years. He had asked Cowper to stand godfather to his son in the summer of 1700, and remained indebted to him for his support.<sup>20</sup> Remaining a dutiful household retainer to Sunderland (and thus close to Junto affairs), Trimnell divided his time between the diocese, Althorp and London, where he appears to have stayed with Sunderland. He also acted as a mediator in a number of requests to Sunderland for preferment.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Even before joining the episcopate, Trimnell had become an influential member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, dining often at Lambeth and, with Wake, acting as Tenison’s man of business in the lower house of Convocation.<sup>22</sup> Following the death of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, on 31 May 1707, Tenison raised with John Somers*, Baron Somers, the possibility of Trimnell’s elevation to the episcopate, though he recognized that it might be controversial.<sup>23</sup> Indeed, over the ‘bishoprics crisis’ of 1707-8, the queen tried to avoid promoting Trimnell while insisting on the advancement of the Tories Offspring Blackall*, and William Dawes*, to the bishoprics of Exeter and Chester respectively. The consequent row rumbled on over the summer, though the queen found it difficult to combat the claims of Trimnell for elevation to Norwich to replace John Moore, who had gone to Ely.<sup>24</sup> Popular with the Norwich chapter, and an ally of Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend (high steward of the cathedral), Trimnell was already enmeshed in Norwich politics.<sup>25</sup> Pressure was brought to bear by the Junto, Godolphin and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. Trimnell was an ardent supporter of the duke, as was clearly demonstrated in his Commons fast sermon of 14 Jan. 1708.<sup>26</sup> Faced with this, the queen overcame ‘her natural bias’.<sup>27</sup> In an audience with Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, on 6 Jan. 1708, Trimnell’s name was third on the queen’s list of preferred candidates for the three available bishoprics.<sup>28</sup> Archbishop Sharp claimed the credit, insisting that the new bishop was ‘more obliged to him for this lift than to all the interest that was made by his other friends’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>On Sunday 8 Feb. 1708, Trimnell was consecrated at Lambeth and duly paid in full his installation fees to the Norwich chapter (eliciting favourable comparisons with his predecessor).<sup>30</sup> On 2 Mar. he took his seat in the Lords; he would attend each of the eight sessions held up to the start of 1715, but with varying levels of regularity. During his first session, he attended 25 per cent of sittings and was named to 12 committees. In April he was at Althorp, taking time also to visit Oxford where he ‘represented’ Le Neve’s case ‘in the common room’. He then returned to Norwich in May where his lavish welcome was described as the most heartfelt in living memory.<sup>31</sup> His initial pastoral letter was uncontroversial but promised his ‘thoughts more at large’ in the future.<sup>32</sup> Exercising his diocesan authority with firmness, he reminded the holders of advowsons that he must approve their nominees and would not sanction pluralism.<sup>33</sup> By the autumn Prideaux reported that Trimnell had ‘set himself … in a very good interest in his diocese, being generally as much in every man’s good opinion as his predecessor was in the contrary’.<sup>34</sup> His time was still divided between his various commitments; back in London in May 1708, he met Tenison, Wake and Moore (against whom he seemed to harbour no animus) at the Cockpit to agree their strategy for the next meeting of Convocation.<sup>35</sup> Trimnell was a natural second-in-command for the archbishop and for the next seven years he deputed for Tenison on at least ten occasions at ordination ceremonies.<sup>36</sup> He continued to be a key element in Tenison’s campaign against Atterbury, challenging in print the latter’s account of Tenison’s prorogation of the 1705 Convocation.<sup>37</sup> In London he kept regular company with Nicolson and Wake, but he was no less involved with Sunderland despite his elevation.<sup>38</sup> The strong relationship, reaching into both secular and ecclesiastical affairs, enabled a two-pronged attack on toryism. In July 1708 Trimnell asked Sunderland to bring before the Privy Council the case of a dispute involving the Chichester dean and chapter (whose problems were exacerbated by their close relationship with Sir Thomas Littleton<sup>‡</sup>, an ‘uncompromising’ Whig).<sup>39</sup></p><p>Trimnell was one of a number of bishops present at the House of Lords on 13 Nov. for the arrival of the coffin of Prince George*, of Denmark and duke of Cumberland, to lie in state; he then also appears to have attended the funeral on 15 November.<sup>40</sup> He returned to the House on 16 Nov. 1708 for the first day of the new session, after which he was present on nearly three-quarters of sittings. He reported from one committee on the bill for the dean of Windsor, on 23 March. In the division on 21 Jan. 1709 on the Scottish peerage, he voted with the majority not-contents, against allowing Scots peers with British titles the right to vote in the election of representative peers. On 30 Jan. he preached a traditionally reverent martyrdom sermon at St James’s Piccadilly at the request of the vestry.<sup>41</sup> The previous day he had been named by the Lords to preach on 17 Feb. at a special thanksgiving service for the most recent military victory. His text, Ps. 20:6 (‘the Lord saveth his anointed’), appropriated providential approval for the war. Trimnell asserted that Marlborough’s military campaign was vital to defend the crown from ‘a foreign pretender … the defence of our liberties against arbitrary and unlimited power and the defence of our religion against a gross and a cruel superstition’. The House ordered its publication. Constantly in the company of senior Junto members (on 8 Feb. he had visited Somers and Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton), he voted consistently with the Whigs. On 15 Mar., during the debate on the general naturalization bill, Trimnell and six other bishops voted against Dawes’ proposal for the phrase ‘parochial church’ to be employed rather than ‘some Protestant Reformation Congregation’. The following week, in the divisions on the bill for improving the Union that took place in a committee of the whole, Trimnell joined John Hough*, and John Evans in voting against the proposal to introduce into English law, the proviso in Scots Law allowing defendants witness lists in advance of their trials. In the division of 25 Mar. on whether to adjourn discussion of the validity of Scottish marriage settlements under the treason law until the following day, Trimnell joined Sunderland on the minority side and was ‘in great warmth at his Lord’s disappointment’.<sup>42</sup></p><p>After an illness that he claimed lasted three weeks, Trimnell set out for Norwich towards the end of April to conduct his primary visitation. He made use of his charge to the clergy to promote his erastian creed ‘with great freedom and judgment against some prevailing opinions’ on the relations between Church and state. He also criticized the revival amongst high churchmen of practices which, he perceived, were flirting dangerously with ceremonialism and were not consistent with a Protestant liturgy. The charge attracted predictable criticism from commentators such as Hearne and was cited with unease early in 1710 as a foretaste of things to come in the recently vacated see of Bristol.<sup>43</sup> His visitation had to be cut when he suffered a recurrence of his illness.<sup>44</sup> He appears to have recovered by the autumn and took his seat at the opening of the next session in November 1709 when he was named to the committee to draw up an address in response to the queen’s speech. He attended more sittings in this session than any during the reign of Queen Anne (81 per cent of sittings), no doubt in response to the Sacheverell impeachment. On 24 Jan. 1710 he attended a meeting at Sunderland’s residence to discuss the trial.<sup>45</sup> He took part in the twelve-hour debate on the first article on 16 Mar. during which his father-in-law (Bishop Talbot) made a speech in favour of the impeachment.<sup>46</sup> The following day Trimnell defended the second article. His speech, variously considered ‘as dull a one God knows as any sermon he ever preached from St James’s pulpit’ (according to Ralph Bridges) or spoken like an ‘apostle’ (according to James Clavering), was published.<sup>47</sup> He pulled no punches in damning Sacheverell’s tendency ‘to thunder out … ecclesiastical anathemas’ against nonconformists who now enjoyed religious toleration and he asserted that a clergyman at ordination promised to minister as directed by both Church ‘and realm’.<sup>48</sup> He seconded the ‘toleration’ article in the impeachment (moved by Wake), and articulated his fears for public safety if the Lords failed to convict; he and Wake were accused of monopolizing the Lords’ time.<sup>49</sup> A hostile review of the debate judged that Trimnell had said nothing more ‘than a rehearsal’ of what had already been said by Wake.<sup>50</sup> On 20 Mar. Trimnell (unsurprisingly) voted Sacheverell guilty.<sup>51</sup> Following the close of the session, Trimnell returned to a hostile political environment in his diocese. The election of Tory Robert Bene as mayor of Norwich in May was celebrated amid cries of ‘the Church and Bene’ and ‘High Church and Sacheverell’. The election proved a particularly divisive affair. At the end of June Trimnell wrote to Wake that ‘people are not quite come to themselves here, but I think they begin to cool and be a little ashamed.’<sup>52</sup></p><p>Following the Tory victory at the general election in October and November 1710, Harley listed Trimnell as a likely opponent of the new administration. As the Whigs turned to Convocation as a forum to counter the Tory dominance of Parliament, Trimnell took a prominent role in opposing Atterbury’s political philosophy.<sup>53</sup> The Lords assembled for the new session on 25 November. Trimnell took his seat on the second day of business (27 November). He attended this session for approximately 72 per cent of sittings. On 4 Dec. he received Talbot’s proxy (vacated three days later) and later in the month attended the annual St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth. He was also frequently in company with Wake and other bishops throughout the course of the session preparing business for both Parliament and Convocation.<sup>54</sup></p><p>With the war in Spain now under critical scrutiny, the House heard petitions from Henry de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], in defence of their military conduct. On 11 Jan. 1711 Trimnell was one of ten bishops to sign the Whig protest at the resolution to reject their petitions. On the same day he protested against the committee resolution blaming the operational decisions made by Galway, Tyrawley and General James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, (later Earl Stanhope) for the defeat at Almanza. On 12 Jan. he again protested against the resolution censuring the conduct of Whig ministers for having approved a military offensive in Spain. Ten days later he was named to the committee to enquire into the provision of materiel at Almanza. He continued his meetings at Lambeth with Wake, Moore and Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford and on 3 Feb. protested against the committee resolution that two regiments in the Spanish establishment suffered inadequate supply. He also protested against the resolution that the Whig ministers had neglected their duty. On 8 Feb. he protested twice against the text of an address to the queen about the war. The following day (and again on the 13th), he met Somers, Cowper and Wake in the Jerusalem Chamber before going to the upper house of Convocation.<sup>55</sup> He also attended the Lords that day, when he was named to the committee on legislation for Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, and protested against the expunging of information from the Lords’ Journal.</p><p>The spring of 1711 saw Trimnell engaged in a constant round of parliamentary and religious politics. There were further meetings at Ely House between the Whig bishops and the Junto on 18 Feb. and 25 Feb. (despite Trimnell’s cold and headache the previous day). There they discussed their latest dissatisfaction with the queen’s new licence to Convocation.<sup>56</sup> Trimnell also worked closely with Tenison to ensure that Convocation addressed high church accusations of heresy against Cambridge academic, William Whiston.<sup>57</sup> The appeal to the House of Lords by the Scottish episcopalian, James Greenshields, in February 1711 required sensitive handling by the Whigs who wanted to avoid antagonising the Scottish Kirk. Trimnell attended a meeting with Nicolson, Somers, Cowper, Wake and Evans to work out a strategy to restrict the Greenshields appeal to the civil, and not the ecclesiastical, aspects of the law.<sup>58</sup> Trimnell also continued to represent the interests of the Norwich local economy and was present on 13 Mar. to hear the petition from Norwich factors opposed to the import of French wine. He received Wake’s proxy on 23 Apr. (vacated on 16 May) and Talbot’s on the 28th (vacated at the end of the session). Involved in the everyday business of the House, he joined the Fast Day procession on 28 Mar. to the Abbey and on 9 May managed the conference on amendments to the Dunstable highways bill.<sup>59</sup> On 30 May Trimnell and William Fleetwood*, then bishop of St Asaph, left the House before the reading of the bill to build 50 new churches to signal their disapproval of a measure they believed would further alienate the Dissenters.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Trimnell seems to have suffered from ill health after the end of the session and sought relief by drinking the waters at Tunbridge. He remained unwell throughout July and was still in Tunbridge on 19 Aug. when he preached in the town chapel.<sup>61</sup> At the end of October he was well enough to attend a meeting with Wake and one other bishop in London, and on 5 Nov., ‘a very blustery day’, he called on Wake to ask whether his colleague ‘durst venture over the water’ with him. On 12 Nov. he was at a Lambeth meeting of Whigs including Talbot and Hough.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Trimnell returned to the House at the opening of the new session in December and was again one of those nominated to draw up the address in reply to the queen’s speech. He attended one half of all sittings. On 8 Dec., in the abortive division on including a clause on ‘No Peace without Spain’ in the Address, Trimnell was listed as a court opponent. On the same day he received the proxy of Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester (vacated at the end of the session). Later in December he voted in favour of disabling James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (duke of Brandon), from sitting as an hereditary British peer.<sup>63</sup> Trimnell spent New Year’s Eve preaching to the societies for the reformation of manners against the ‘works of darkness’ in the same week that his hero Marlborough was dismissed from office and the queen created 12 new Tory peers.<sup>64</sup> On 6 Jan. 1712 he wrote to the duchess of Marlborough sympathising with her ‘melancholy thoughts’ on recent events and hoping that neither of them should have cause to regret that bishops did not vote in capital cases.<sup>65</sup> Four days earlier, in the adjournment debate, he was one of the bishops to vote with the Whig opposition in denouncing as a breach of parliamentary privilege the request (ostensibly from the queen but engineered by Oxford) for a recess.<sup>66</sup></p><p>He continued with the normal business of the House, sitting in committee in Whitehall on 12 Jan. 1712 and passing the Chamberlain’s accounts; on the 17th he was ordered to preach the annual martyrdom sermon on 30 January.<sup>67</sup> He preached a pointed sermon on Prov. 17:14 (‘leave off contention, before it be meddled with’), claiming that resistance to the crown was justified in ‘extraordinary circumstances’. Given prevailing Whig sentiment that Anne had gone beyond her prerogative in the Tory peerage creations, the sermon may well have sounded a threatening note. Swift certainly judged it ‘a terrible Whig sermon’; Nicolson thought it ‘admirable’.<sup>68</sup> Burnet predictably ‘thanked God he was there and professed he never heard a better’. The following day William North*, 6th Baron North, complained about the sermon in the House (even though he confessed he had not heard it). Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, joined in the criticism noting that ‘the drift of the sermon’ had appeared ‘calculated to extenuate the crimes of the rebellion’, though he too was forced to concede that he could not remember the exact words.<sup>69</sup> When the House failed to give the customary thanks and order for publication, Trimnell took it to the press himself and used the preface to defend himself from attack and misrepresentation, drawing attention to one of the more abrasive passages in which he asserted that Charles I had been guilty of provocation.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Back to normal parliamentary business, by 8 Feb. 1712 Trimnell joined the Scots Presbyterians voting against the episcopal communion (Scotland) bill. The same day he visited Wake and went with him (and John Evans) to Convocation. Trimnell continued to liaise with Wake about Convocation business during the next few weeks.<sup>71</sup> On 26 Feb. he voted against the Commons’ amendment to the Scottish episcopal communion bill.<sup>72</sup> During March he received two proxies: Talbot’s on the 12th (vacated on the 20th) and Moore’s on the 19th (vacated 14 April). On 24 Mar. he was present when the House received petitions from the inhabitants of Norwich and from the French and Dutch congregations against the Norwich workhouse bill. Trimnell was present throughout the passage of the legislation including 29 Mar. when the House went into committee of the whole. On 12 Apr. he voted against the committal of the ecclesiastical patronage (Scotland) bill, thinking it ‘a breach upon the Union, and such a one as will cause great uneasiness there’. Writing to Wake about this and business in Convocation, he complained of ‘the difficulty of getting bishops together’, which he lamented had ‘hindered me from doing anything effectually upon the points within ourselves’.<sup>73</sup> The strain appears to have told on him and ten days later, he registered his proxy in favour of his father-in-law. He travelled to Bath to recuperate hoping to be back soon after Easter. On 19 June his brother, David, was able to report on Trimnell’s recovery and return to business, ‘which I dare say will be a greater pleasure to him than all the entertainments of the Bath’. Two days later Trimnell was present in the House, but he failed to attend the final two-and-a-half weeks of the session.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Wake noted a visit from Trimnell in his diary on 16 Mar. 1713. The following day Trimnell was present in the House for the prorogation, and he attended a further prorogation sitting on 26 Mar. when he was one of those to examine the Journal.<sup>75</sup> Swift’s list of March 1713 identified him, obviously, as an opponent of the ministry. He was present once more on the first day of the session beginning in April 1713, and thereafter attended 62 per cent of total sittings. On 30 June he reported the bill on Melton rectories (in his own diocese of Norwich). One of the committees to which he was named was that concerning the estate of his Norfolk neighbour Sir John Holland<sup>‡</sup>, though how active he was in it remains a matter for conjecture. Prior to this, on 14 Apr. he met with Wake as well as Richard Willis<sup>†</sup>, the dean of Lincoln and future bishop of Gloucester and agreed on the text of an address for the following day.<sup>76</sup> On 28 May he attended when the House received papers regarding the commercial treaty with France, including petitions from the Norwich worsted weavers and another from the city regarding its woollen manufactures. Oxford estimated that Trimnell would oppose the eighth and ninth articles of the French commerce bill.</p><p>On Sunday 5 July Trimnell was one of a number of bishops and senior clerics to gather in the bishops’ room next to the Lords and from thence travel by barge to Lambeth for the consecration of Atterbury as bishop of Rochester. He was then present at the end of the session on 16 July when he was one of those to sign off the Journal.<sup>77</sup> He then turned to his pastoral and domestic duties. Trimnell was a subscriber to a local charity that year, pledging £5 to an organization for alleviating the condition of the widows and orphans of deceased clergy within his diocese. He congratulated Townshend on his marriage and asked Somers and Cowper to stand as godfathers to his new son. Lady Sunderland was to be the godmother.<sup>78</sup></p><p>Trimnell was in London at the beginning of 1714, engaged with business relating to Convocation, but he was missing from the opening week of the new session of Parliament in February. It may have been in anticipation of this that he sealed a proxy for Wake’s use at the close of January. By the end of the first week of February he remained uncertain of precisely when the session was due to begin.<sup>79</sup> If the proxy had been intended to cover his absence from the opening days, it may not have been formally registered, as two days after the session’s commencement (18 Feb.) Trimnell was entrusted with Talbot’s proxy. He finally took his place on 23 Feb. and proceeded to attend just under a quarter of sitting days. He continued to juggle his attendance of the House with involvement in Convocation, which perhaps explains why he was named to just one select committee (to draw up the address to the queen on guaranteeing the Protestant succession).<sup>80</sup> On 14 Apr. he entered his own proxy in favour of John Evans, thereby vacating the proxy he held from Talbot. Trimnell’s proxy was vacated on 27 Apr. but 10 May was his last appearance in the House that session; he missed the last two months of the business after registering his proxy, again in Evans’s favour, on 17 May. At the end of May or beginning of June, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast that Trimnell would oppose the schism bill. During the division of 11 June on extending the bill to Ireland, Evans used Trimnell’s proxy to oppose the motion.<sup>81</sup> Trimnell enquired of Wake on the 18th how the bill was faring in the House and, with party dispute in Convocation reaching new levels, discussed with him a possible parliamentary injunction against the discussion of religion as a means to ‘quiet us now as it did once before’.<sup>82</sup> Nonetheless, he actively heightened controversy by publishing against the ‘great unfairness’ of a Tory narrative of the synod’s proceedings.<sup>83</sup></p><p>Trimnell attended only on the last day of the brief session that met in the wake of the queen’s death in August. It is unclear why he was unable to attend earlier, but it is probable that he was engaged on his usual summer visitation. On the last day of 1714, as the new administration’s ‘strongest episcopal ally’, he was appointed clerk of the closet.<sup>84</sup> He claimed that he had not solicited the post through the influence of friends and that he did not intend to use his position to ‘meddle’ in government affairs.<sup>85</sup> Yet throughout the following eight years, he wielded considerable authority, mediating in preferments, as in 1715 when he recommended as chaplain to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, a Whig clergyman who had appeared for Thomas Bird at the controverted Leicestershire election. In the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Trimnell exercised his diocesan power to caution his clergy against ‘the weakening of the Reformation’ which gave ‘life and spirit’ to the Pretender’.<sup>86</sup></p><p>At the close of 1715 Trimnell was believed to be in line to succeed Tenison as archbishop. He lost out, however, to Wake after the intervention of Princess Caroline.<sup>87</sup> The loss of the archbishopric proved academic, though, as Trimnell’s close relations with Sunderland meant that he effectively eclipsed the archbishop’s influence.<sup>88</sup> Along with Tyler and William Fleetwood, Trimnell formed part of a Whig triumvirate bolstering the ecclesiastical policies of the new regime. For the rest of his political career, Trimnell maintained his role within the Sunderland household, spending long hours over the prickly negotiations with the duchess of Marlborough when her widowed son-in-law, Sunderland, decided to remarry.<sup>89</sup> In 1721 he was translated to Winchester. A detailed examination of Trimnell’s career after 1715 will be dealt with in the next phase of this work.</p><p>Physically frail from excessive fasting in his early life, Trimnell died on 15 Aug. 1723 at the age of 60 at the bishop’s residence of Farnham Castle in Surrey.<sup>90</sup> After modest bequests to the poor, he claimed that his circumstances would not allow further charity. The residue of his personal estate (including an unspecified amount of South Sea stock and securities) went to his wife who also executed the will. Trimnell was one of a clerical dynasty, using his own position to further those of his two younger brothers: David, chaplain to Wake and a member of the Lincoln chapter and William, archdeacon of Norwich and later dean of Winchester.<sup>91</sup> His sisters married into the clergy: Elizabeth married Henry Downes, later bishop of Derry, and Catherine married Thomas Green<sup>†</sup>, later bishop of Ely.<sup>92</sup> His niece Jane married Isaac Hawkins Browne<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>93</sup> He was buried in Winchester Cathedral in August 1723 near the tomb of William of Wykeham.<sup>94</sup></p> |
B.A./R.D.E.E. |
|
TURNER, Francis (1637-1700) |
<p><strong><surname>TURNER</surname></strong>, <strong>Francis</strong> (1637–1700)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 28 Feb. 1689 |
cons. 11 Nov. 1683 bp. of ROCHESTER; transl. 16 July 1684 bp. of ELY; depr. 1 Feb. 1690 |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 23 Aug. 1637, s. and h. of Thomas Turner (1592–1672), chap. to Charles I and dean of Canterbury, and Margaret (1608–92), da. of Sir Francis Windebank<sup>‡</sup> (1582–1646), sec. of state to Charles I. <em>educ</em>. Winchester; New, Oxf. fell. 1655, BA 1659, MA 1663, BD 1669, DD 1669; incorp. Camb. 1665; St John’s, Camb. fell. comm. 1666. <em>m</em>. 15 Oct. 1676, Anna (1652–78), da. of Walter Horton of Catton, Derbys. 1 da. <em>d</em>. 2 Nov. 1700; <em>will</em> none found.</p> |
<p>Chap. to James Stuart*, duke of York, and Anne, duchess of York, bef. 1670.</p><p>Rect. Therfield, Herts. 1664–83, Great Haseley, Oxon. 1683–4; canon, St Paul’s 1669–83; dean, Windsor 1683–4; lord high almoner 1684–7.</p><p>Master, St John’s, Camb. 1670–9; v.-chan. Camb. 1678; president, Soc. of the sons of the clergy;<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, attrib. to M. Beale, 1683–8 NPG 573; oil on canvas by unknown artist, c. 1670, St John’s Oxf.</p> |
<p><em>The road to preferment</em></p><p>Immortalized by Andrew Marvell<sup>‡</sup> as ‘Mr Smirke … the divine in mode’, always treading closely on ‘the hem of ecclesiastical preferment’, Francis Turner is more commonly known as one of the seven bishops, a subsequent non-juror and a Jacobite conspirator.<sup>2</sup> With a family pedigree that included courtiers and royalist higher clergy, his life has been chronicled by a range of sympathizers, not least by Agnes Strickland, who revealed Turner’s readiness to take up political (and parliamentary) means for ideological ends.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Because he died intestate, Turner’s wealth is difficult to estimate, although his determination to settle his financial affairs in the 1690s suggests that he had both real estate and investments worth protecting. Indebtedness (he owed £1,000, mostly to his friend, Peter Gunning*, bishop of Ely), together with an awareness of his future wife’s ‘good parts and good nature’, provided the motivation for his marriage in 1676.<sup>4</sup> His rapid preferment after 1683 was lucrative and his favoured position guaranteed additional financial benefits: when elevated to Rochester he held <em>in commendam</em> both his deanery of Windsor and his Oxfordshire rectory.<sup>5</sup> In 1691, from exile, he authorized the liquidation of £2,000 of assets to be placed into an interest-bearing account and to avoid going ‘deeper than needs be into the main stock’.<sup>6</sup> Clearly, his total wealth far exceeded that sum.</p><p>A fellow student at Winchester and New College, Oxford, with his lifelong friend, Thomas Ken*, later bishop of Bath and Wells (another of the seven bishops), Turner almost certainly joined Ken, John Fell*, later bishop of Oxford, and John Dolben*, later bishop of Rochester and archbishop of York, for secret readings of the proscribed Prayer Book liturgy.<sup>7</sup> By the time of the Restoration, already known at court through his family connections, he was well placed to profit from the patronage of his father’s friend William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and of James, duke of York, to whom he had been appointed chaplain. Sancroft recommended Turner to his first parochial living at Therfield and by 1669 Turner had been installed as prebendary of St Paul’s, where Sancroft was dean. He remained grateful to Sancroft for the rest of his life.<sup>8</sup> Ambitious, he changed his loyalties from Oxford to Cambridge, moving to St John’s College where he could enjoy the weighty patronage of Peter Gunning. In a break with tradition (given that he was not a Cambridge graduate), he succeeded Gunning as master of the college.</p><p>By May 1671 Turner was canvassing support (ultimately unsuccessfully) in the Cambridge colleges on behalf of Henry Bennet*, Baron Arlington, against George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, for the chancellorship. He remained close to the secretaries of state (particularly Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup>), to whom he communicated details of university life, exchanged reciprocal favours over appointments, and complained about ‘impudent’ conventiclers.<sup>9</sup></p><p>At the heart of the ecclesiastical establishment, Turner supported the crusade to maintain the political supremacy of the Church of England. In 1674 (at the behest of George Morley*, bishop of Winchester) he wrote to Sancroft with proposals to remove ‘the insupportable clamour of the people against the bishops’ by publishing the speech that Sancroft had made at his admission as prolocutor of Convocation because he had ‘hinted in it many excellent things in order to the restoring our discipline and maintaining our doctrine’. He also kept abreast of parliamentary business, hoping that it would ‘not fly so high as … last session into negative votes against money’. He established contacts in both the Commons and Lords through those members who visited him frequently at St Paul’s to discuss the rebuilding project.<sup>10</sup> As chaplain to the duke of York he was well aware of the possibility that Charles II would be succeeded by a Catholic; in January 1675, in the course of a letter discussing his financial affairs, he wrote that ‘if there should come a time when I should be dispossessed of all my ecclesiastical preferments by a Roman Catholic interest, then I should have thought it no robbery to live upon Abbey land’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In 1676, in the continuing attempt to coerce Dissenters into conformity, he published against Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, whose anonymous <em>Naked Truth</em> was part of a campaign to secure a comprehension bill in the autumn 1675 parliamentary session.<sup>12</sup> Turner, who thought Croft guilty of ‘destructive principles’, evoked a predictably vicious reply from Andrew Marvell, in which Turner (still York’s loyal domestic chaplain) was lampooned as chaplain to ‘Sir Fopling Flutter’ (an iconic comedy character created by Sir George Etherege). Marvell criticized Turner’s arrogance in assuming that both Houses of Parliament would have the publication burned by the hangman. What, wondered Marvell, had Turner ‘to do … with Parliament business … how can so thin a skull comprehend or divine … the wisdom of the nation?’ In April, in private correspondence, Turner elaborated his criticism of Croft’s ‘crooked ways’ and defended at length his arguments that Dissenters must be coerced into ‘faith by … hearing’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>By the time of the Popish Plot, Turner, perpetually concerned with security and instructing his correspondents to burn his letters, recommended to Sancroft the efforts of Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossery [I] (who sat in the House as Butler of Moore Park), for the Church while the latter was in service in the Low Countries.<sup>14</sup> The plot had direct implications for Turner as vice-chancellor of Cambridge in the subsequent parliamentary elections in February 1679. With James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, as Cambridge University chancellor, Turner was active in opposing Monmouth’s attempts to have exclusionists returned for the two university seats in the Commons. Throughout the election campaign he was in touch with Sancroft (again concerned to have his letters burned) to discuss the latter’s ‘wise expedient’ of ensuring the election of the sitting members (Sir Charles Wheler<sup>‡</sup>, bt. and Thomas Crouch<sup>‡</sup>) and the obstacles to such an outcome. Several college heads had already contracted prior electoral engagements on account of various ‘hooked’ benefactions. In the event, Sir Thomas Exton<sup>‡</sup> and Monmouth’s secretary, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup>, were returned for the two university seats.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Parliamentary elections in the summer of 1679 witnessed royal interference (with Turner’s support) for the return of Exton together with the king’s nominee, Sir William Temple<sup>‡</sup>, for Cambridge University. Turner, who claimed that the university was ‘so well affected … that nobody … expresses himself dissatisfied at his majesty’s interposing on this occasion’, secured Sancroft’s support for the king’s candidate despite Gunning’s opposition to a man reputed to be an atheist.<sup>16</sup> Consistently loyal to the duke of York, Turner followed him into his Scottish exile in or about November 1679. Before his departure he told Sancroft of York’s ‘most vehement protestations to me of his equity and compassion for the Church of England, without which he declared it impossible for the monarchy to subsist one hour’.<sup>17</sup> At some point after the rejection of the Exclusion bill in the House of Lords on 15 Nov. 1680, Turner became convinced that the tide of opinion was turning, that</p><blockquote><p>the republican plots and conspiracies to destroy the government were so transparent, that as one nail drives out another they had put the danger of popery out of men’s heads and … scarce left room in our thoughts but how to preserve the monarchy and the Church against their machinations.<sup>18</sup></p></blockquote><p>In January 1681 Turner was back in London, where he preached the martyrdom sermon before the king.<sup>19</sup> A month later, Robert Brady<sup>‡</sup> (master of Caius) and Sir Thomas Exton were returned for Cambridge University, but Turner’s involvement in the elections is unclear. By June he was back in Edinburgh, whence he informed Sancroft that York had placed his hopes on the Church of England and the ‘episcopal party’ (especially the bishops), and looked to Sancroft to advise the king ‘to be steady in well-chosen resolutions … and … to stick to his old friends’.<sup>20</sup> In July 1681 it was reported that York was allowing Turner to ‘officiate personally’ within his household and to say grace at mealtimes. It is difficult to be sure that any credence should be attached to this claim since the same writer reported that York attended Anglican services twice a day and was prepared to take the Test.<sup>21</sup> From Scotland, Turner conveyed news and requests between Sancroft and York;<sup>22</sup> with his close connections to both universities and to the court, Turner emerged as one of Sancroft’s closest allies in the formation of a Yorkist alliance.</p><p><em>Bishop of Rochester and Ely</em></p><p>By June 1682 Turner was back in England. In July 1683 Sancroft told him of the proposal to elevate him to the see of Rochester. The following month Turner insisted that, before kissing hands for the post, he should be presented by Sancroft, ‘that it may be understood to whom I owe my promotion and not to the partiality of my master’.<sup>23</sup> In September, following the foiling of the Rye House Plot, he preached a thanksgiving sermon before the king in Winchester cathedral, leading to a belief that he was also after the post of lord high almoner. Turner denied that he had ever made such a request either directly or indirectly but, despite the worries of the previous holder, John Dolben of York, that ‘coming so suddenly it will bring envy with it’, he was appointed to the post by February 1684.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Turner was now approaching the peak of his political influence. He preached before the king on Easter Day 1684 and on the following day before the lord mayor of London.<sup>25</sup> In April of that year he acted as intermediary between Sancroft and the royal brothers to secure the translation of John Lake*, from Man to Bristol.<sup>26</sup> To the acute (but disguised) disappointment of Laurence Womock*, bishop of St Davids, Turner was translated to Ely in the summer of 1684.<sup>27</sup> This translation allowed Sancroft to develop Turner’s role not only as an agent at court but as his effective deputy. Again acting for Sancroft, Turner lobbied the king for support for action to discipline the royal favourite Thomas Wood*, the recalcitrant bishop of Lichfield, who was notorious for diocesan neglect.<sup>28</sup> Preaching the traditional anti-Catholic sermon at Whitehall on 5 Nov. 1684 and the martyrdom sermon in January 1685, Turner was at Whitehall during the king’s final illness.<sup>29</sup></p><p>On his accession, James II assured both Turner and Sancroft that he would continue to ‘defend and support’ the Church of England.<sup>30</sup> On 23 Apr. 1685 Turner preached the coronation sermon.<sup>31</sup> Almost two years after being elevated to the episcopate, he took his seat in the House on 19 May 1685, the first day of the new Parliament, and attended every available sitting. Given Turner’s propensity for political activism, his future parliamentary career would undoubtedly have been far more active had he not been prevented by subsequent events. During his first parliamentary session he was named to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions and to 12 select committees. No other evidence survives of his involvement in the business of the House but he maintained a high profile in political and ecclesiastical circles in London. He was still in a position of influence at court in respect of ecclesiastical preferments and was sought out by a desperate William Beaw*, in the hope that Turner may be able to secure the petitioner’s translation from Llandaff.<sup>32</sup> On 14 July 1685 he was given the task of informing Monmouth (with whom he had a cordial relationship) that he would be executed the following day. Turner was permitted to escort the duke’s children to and from the Tower and was one of the bishops who attended Monmouth on the scaffold.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In August 1685, when the unpopular Samuel Parker*, (later bishop of Oxford), surrendered his prebend to the secretary of state instead of to his archbishop, Turner encouraged Sancroft to believe that James II would support him against such a ‘worthless fellow’, not least because the king hated insolence to a superior. The prebend was nevertheless filled by Parker’s nominee, John Bradford, in October.<sup>34</sup> Meanwhile, in September 1685, rumour had it that Turner was under consideration for the lord keepership, but he was in competition with rivals Robert Sawyer<sup>‡</sup>, the attorney general, and the ultimately successful candidate, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys.<sup>35</sup> At this point Turner still seemed to be in a position of influence both at court and at Lambeth. He certainly seems to have been regarded as the king’s loyal ally by Henry Compton*, bishop of London. In January 1686 Turner complained of Compton’s ‘affronting me perpetually’ in public.<sup>36</sup> While Compton was facing the ill will of the ecclesiastical commission, Turner continued as usual. He maintained his diocese, circulated a brief to his clergy about the French Protestants, and observed with concern the spate of conversions to Catholicism at Oxford, while acting as a royal appointee to visit and examine the building improvements at Lambeth (together with Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, and Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester).<sup>37</sup> He acted as an intermediary between Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and Sancroft, forwarding the former’s letters on Irish ecclesiastical matters, and was tipped as a contender to succeed the ailing John Dolben as archbishop of York.<sup>38</sup></p><p>As the religious character of the court altered, Turner’s position became less secure. In June 1686, it was rumoured he was facing dismissal from his post as lord high almoner.<sup>39</sup> Clearly feeling under pressure, he forwarded to Sancroft his visitation articles and an accompanying letter to let the dispirited clergy see ‘the more we are cramped in our temporals, the more stress should be laid in the exercise of the spiritual power’.<sup>40</sup> By 1687 the various parliamentary lists show that he was openly opposed to the king’s policies and to the repeal of the Test Act. The king’s attempt to intrude a Catholic master of Sydney Sussex at Cambridge (with a royal dispensation from taking the oaths) was met by the mutinous fellows with a determination to secure Turner’s assistance. They travelled to London for a meeting with Turner, but had to face the reality that the bishop no longer wielded any influence at court.<sup>41</sup></p><p>In June, beginning to fear for his own ecclesiastical future, Turner commiserated with Sancroft on the king’s evolving religious policy. The two men had clearly already discussed the possibility of being summoned before the ecclesiastical commission and whether it would be necessary to appear in person; Turner had even discussed the point with Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. He was also concerned that the bishops would be required to give formal thanks for the king’s first Declaration of Indulgence; the declaration, he claimed, would soon reveal its ‘ugly shape [once] taken out of the palliating dress which has made it the greater snare to many’. So out of touch was he with developments at court that he had to ask Henry Paman whether it was true that Jeffeys was about to be made vicar general. <sup>42</sup> By November 1687, in the king’s personal bad books for undermining his attempt to convert Princess Anne, Turner lost his post as lord high almoner.<sup>43</sup> Yet Sancroft still laboured under the impression that Turner retained influence and was ‘fifty times … more proper’ to achieve a goal than the archbishop himself.<sup>44</sup></p><p>With the issuing of the second Declaration of Indulgence, Turner became actively involved in meetings of the London clergy to resist the king’s attempt to secure religious toleration.<sup>45</sup> Simon Patrick*, who would replace Turner at Ely after the Revolution, recorded that there were many meetings to discuss the declaration, two of them at Ely House with Turner, and Turner was present at the meetings on 12 and 16 May that were held at Lambeth and Clarendon’s house respectively. Turner became one of the seven bishops whose petition against the reading of the Declaration was condemned by the king in words variously reported as ‘a step to rebellion’ or ‘a standard to rebellion’. As one who had benefited from James II’s support and patronage, Turner became the subject of the king’s particular anger. Preparing for their interview by the Privy Council on 6 June 1688, Turner, Ken, William Lloyd*, bishop of St Asaph, and Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, borrowed a selection of parliamentary journals from Clarendon; Turner also took legal advice and told Sancroft that ‘All our wise friends are of the mind that we should give no recognizances’. When the seven bishops appeared at council two days later, all seven refused to provide sureties, arguing that ‘there was no precedent for it, that any member of the House of Peers should be bound in recognizances for misdemeanours’. Turner also refused a special appeal from James to submit. Compton obtained guarantors for each of the seven bishops; those for Turner were Richard Boyle*, earl of Burlington, Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, and Henry Yelverton*, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin. In the interval between their initial appearance in king’s bench and the trial itself, Turner continued to keep company with Clarendon, the two men dining with Burlington on 19 June.<sup>46</sup></p><p>After their acquittal, the bishops’ behaviour became increasingly clandestine. They were all instructed that they should write to Sancroft via a ‘private friend’. Turner was instructed to write ‘in a woman’s hand’ via two women in Ely, one probably the wife of Laurence Womock, the other the widow of John Nalson.<sup>47</sup> Unlike many of the bishops who sought concord with the Protestant Dissenters to strength the Protestant establishment, Turner looked instead to strengthen Anglicanism by promoting the practice of frequent holy communion in the hope that ‘true lovers of devotion and decency’ would outnumber those who ‘would strip this poor church of all her ornaments’; he remained averse to ‘any overture for comprehension … to offer all our ceremonies in sacrifice to the Dissenters kneeling at the sacrament’.<sup>48</sup> As part of the Anglican propaganda campaign, the future non-juring bishop George Hickes told Turner that it was necessary to publicize the part that he and Ken had played in attempting to secure clemency for the Monmouth rebels ‘and that the numerous executions did not move greater compassion among any sort of men, then those of our communion’.<sup>49</sup> With anticipation growing of an imminent parliamentary session, Turner received encouragement from a Protestant prisoner in the Savoy, who called Turner ‘a glorious and shimmering light in his own church’ and proposed to produce an anti-Catholic pamphlet dedicated to Members of Parliament.<sup>50</sup></p><p>On 24 Sept. 1688 Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, summoned Sancroft and several bishops, including Turner, to wait on the king. On 3 Oct. they attended the king and proffered their advice, which essentially demanded a reversal of his Catholicizing ecclesiastical policy.<sup>51</sup> At this point, Turner remained implacably opposed to the government (though not to the king’s person) and advised John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), that to remain neutral in the face of a determined destruction of ‘civil and religious rights’ was to rebel against God.<sup>52</sup> Throughout the autumn of 1688 Turner worked to persuade the king to come to terms. He dined frequently with Clarendon, Clarendon’s brother Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and Sancroft, and on 17 Nov. 1688, in the aftermath of the landing at Torbay by the Prince of Orange, signed the petition for a free Parliament.<sup>53</sup></p><p><em>Revolution and deprivation</em></p><p>On 27 Nov. 1688 Turner attended the meeting of peers and bishops at Whitehall.<sup>54</sup> He and Rochester persuaded Sancroft to summon peers to the Guildhall; Turner prepared the relevant letters with the aim of forming a provisional government or ‘we had otherwise been a state of <em>banditi</em>, and London had certainly been the spoil of the rabble’.<sup>55</sup> When members of the House met at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. 1688 he was nominated (with Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, Rochester, and Sprat) to draw up a declaration to William which would explain the rationale for their assembly. The committee had a clear Tory bias and inserted a clause to affirm James’s right to the throne (although this clause was omitted in response to opposition from four Whig peers). Turner was then named to the delegation to present the declaration to the prince. They left the capital the following day and returned on the 14th with the prince’s kind acknowledgement of their address.<sup>56</sup></p><p>On 17 Dec. Turner led a delegation of bishops to the king ‘and he and they gave one another the most full and reciprocal satisfaction, and parted with great complacency’. Turner believed the king ‘was now ready to make the concessions required by the Prince’ and refused to accept the notion that he cede the crown. Nevertheless when Turner then left London to travel to his former college in Cambridge some thought that it signalled a change of heart and that he intended to go to the prince of Orange. Instead he preached in St Mary’s, Cambridge, on the familiar ‘passive obedience’ text of Romans xiii. 1–2, interpreted by the congregation as a challenge to the invading Orangeist forces. Turner, Thomas Lamplugh*, archbishop of York, Thomas White, and Thomas Sprat were now identified as the head of a ‘powerful faction that labours to narrow and enervate the prince’s designs’. On 18 Dec. and again on 21 Dec. Turner was one of several members of the House who waited on the prince at St James’s to offer general congratulations.<sup>57</sup> On 22 Dec. he dined with Clarendon, Rochester, and Thomas White at Lambeth in an attempt to persuade Sancroft to attend the Lords. The following day both Turner and Clarendon were ‘full of astonishment’ at the news of the king’s second flight.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Turner, clearly aware of the implications, was now even more determined to influence the course of events and he begged Sancroft to attend the lords.<sup>59</sup> On Christmas Eve 1688 Turner and Clarendon again begged Sancroft but he refused. In the subsequent troubled debate at the Guildhall the question of whether the king’s flight had created a demise in law and the possibility that Mary be declared queen were raised for the first time. Turner, clearly unwilling to accept the notion of abdication, asked instead for an enquiry into the king’s departure. Together with Nottingham, Compton, Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, and Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, he was appointed by the lords to request Prince William to take on ‘the administration of affairs’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Over the new year, Turner worked on the best strategy for the bishops to represent to William ‘their sense concerning the king and kingdom’. He and Sancroft wanted to encourage William to accomplish the goals of his declaration: ‘to maintain our religion and our laws that we may be able to go along with you without any breach upon our oaths of allegiance’.<sup>61</sup> He hosted a meeting of bishops on 14 Jan. 1689 at Ely House but declined to speak.<sup>62</sup> At a meeting at Lambeth the following day, Turner, Thomas White, and John Lake discussed with Sancroft proposals for a regency as a way of staving off a declaration that William and Mary become king and queen.<sup>63</sup> From the start of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, it is clear that Turner intended to oppose the seizure of the crown and to support a regency. In the event, he attended only 24 sittings, his political opposition and his refusal of the oaths to the new monarchs ending his role in government.</p><p>On the first day of the session, 22 Jan. 1689, Turner was one of the bishops ordered to draw up prayers of thanksgiving for William having been the ‘instrument of … great deliverance’. A week later, furious at the abdication division in the Commons, he spoke early in the debate of the committee of the whole House. The king, he pointed out, ‘was in being and so was his authority, but by reason of a lunacy he was uncapable of administering the government’; a delegation should be sent to James ‘to constitute a regent or viceroy’. He was seconded by Nottingham and supported by several other speakers, the subsequent division on the regency being defeated by only three votes.<sup>64</sup> On 31 Jan. 1689, in a division of a committee of the whole House, Turner voted against declaring William and Mary king and queen and, throughout the divisions of early February, voted consistently against the argument that the king had abdicated. On 4 and 5 Feb. he helped to manage conferences with the Commons on the abdication and on 6 Feb. registered his dissent against the Lords’ final resolution that the throne was vacant. On 28 Feb. 1689, when the House heard the first reading of the toleration bill, he attended for the last time. The oaths to the new monarchs were due to be taken the following day and he was unable to take them.</p><p>Turner turned his political energies away from Parliament, arguing with his fellow bishops over the dangers of religious schism and thundering his political opposition from the pulpit.<sup>65</sup> Summoned to the House, he fled to Warwickshire whence, on 20 Mar., he sought Sancroft’s advice as to his best course of action if he were to receive a peremptory summons, since attendance brought with it a requirement to take the new oaths and ‘it should not be expected that we should come up on purpose to convict ourselves’.<sup>66</sup> By May 1689 he was back in London dining with Clarendon and concerned that Thomas Ken was ‘warping from us and the true interest of the Church’ and might take the oaths.<sup>67</sup> Absent at a call of the House on 22 May 1689, Turner was suspended from his bishopric on 1 Aug. 1689. Compton and Lloyd of St Asaph administered his diocese, but a sympathetic Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, conducted ordinations on Turner’s behalf, an activity that did not endear him to the establishment.<sup>68</sup></p><p>On 30 Dec. 1689 Turner attended the gathering of bishops at Lambeth, where Compton and Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, offered to use their interest in both Houses to obtain an act in which the non-jurors, on condition of bail for good behaviour, would retain their existing preferments but receive no further promotion in the Church. The non-juring bishops were already aware of such a proposal and were wary of it. As William Lloyd*, bishop of Norwich, had pointed out, there were potential snares since the interpretation of the terms of the bail ‘depends much on the mercy’ of the judges.<sup>69</sup> On 30 Jan. 1690 Turner defied his suspension and read prayers in public. Two days later he was formally deprived, but protested in Ely marketplace against the legality of the act.<sup>70</sup> He continued to officiate in Ely House chapel in Holborn, drawing such a ‘great concourse of people’ that the king took notice of it and used Lloyd of St Asaph as a messenger to warn him to desist.<sup>71</sup></p><p>Turner continued to live in his Putney residence, from where he socialized with other non-juring bishops and with Sancroft, Clarendon, and Weymouth.<sup>72</sup> Both Turner and Clarendon came under the clandestine scrutiny of Burnet, and both kept company with James Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Richard Grahme<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S], and Sir John Assheton, all later implicated in Jacobite plotting.<sup>73</sup> In July 1690 Turner subscribed Sancroft’s printed vindication in the aftermath of the threatened French invasion.<sup>74</sup> He warned his brother, Thomas Turner (a canon at Ely), that he should take care how he worded his letters ‘for all the snares of death compass me’. Nor should his brother protest at the election of Turner’s replacement since it would help neither of them: ‘be absent at your choice, and as stiff in the knees afterwards as you please’.<sup>75</sup> Thomas Turner took the oaths, but maintained an ethos of high Toryism and hostility to the regime, and assisted his brother.</p><p>In January 1691 Turner was implicated in a Jacobite plot; his involvement and his assurances to the exiled king of the bishops’ support sparked a flurry of propaganda pamphlets.<sup>76</sup> He went into hiding to avoid arrest. The existence of a plot and Turner’s role in it has been the subject of historiographical speculation and dispute.<sup>77</sup> His letter to Sancroft written on 19 Jan. 1691 shows that he was in communication with the exiled court at St Germain and that he did hope to see ‘another revolution’. He told Sancroft that, although ‘disabled from doing any service at home’, he would now attempt to do his duty abroad; he had settled his affairs and ‘laid [his] design a little better … than the unfortunate lord [Preston] did to get out of their clutches’.<sup>78</sup> The same day, signing himself ‘Fran. Ex-Elien’ (an acknowledgment of deprivation not shared by his friend Ken), he wrote to his maternal uncle Colonel Windebank that he was forsaking public life and going into hiding only because he feared ‘a close, expensive, odious imprisonment, which would almost certainly have overthrown my crazy, weak constitution’. A week later, writing from an unspecified place in Europe and transformed in appearance, Turner wrote again to Windebank, denying that he was in France and refusing to specify his location in case that in itself might lead to conviction.<sup>79</sup> On 3 Feb. 1691, Thomas Osborne*, the former earl of Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen informed the king that Viscount Preston should be pardoned since he was the only witness against Turner and the other plotters. Preston duly implicated Turner and the others and won his pardon.<sup>80</sup></p><p>By the end of January 1691, as a consequence of the ‘Ely plot’, Carmarthen, Nottingham, and Lloyd of St Asaph were pressing ‘vehemently’ for replacements to the vacant sees.<sup>81</sup> Turner, contacting his steward in England, enquired whether steps had been taken towards outlawry and forwarded complex financial instructions in an attempt to evade the forfeiture of his estate. By April he was fearing a dilapidations suit as a means of extracting more from him: ‘the pretence of dilapidations sweeps all like a Christmas-box’.<sup>82</sup> Rumours proliferated that Turner was with Penn in Flanders, or in Ireland attending meetings of those ‘disaffected’ to the government.<sup>83</sup> That same month Sancroft, pressured to vindicate the non-juring bishops from the suspicions aroused by Turner, insisted that there was no point in making any kind of declaration since nothing had yet been proved against their colleague and ‘should we fall a declaring, and purging ourselves, before we are charged in form, men and angels will hardly be able to pen anything, that will not be liable to a hundred cavils, and in time prove a snare to us’.<sup>84</sup></p><p>On 22 Apr. 1691 Turner was replaced in his bishopric by Simon Patrick.<sup>85</sup> In June orders were given to prosecute Turner and the other plotters with a view to outlawry, but when the bill was presented to a grand jury in October, although ‘pressed … very hard’, Preston refused to testify.<sup>86</sup> On 9 Dec. the Commons heard from William Fuller (a double agent) of various transactions in France in which Turner was named, but Fuller was soon discredited and on 24 Feb. 1692 the Commons declared him to be ‘a notorious impostor, a cheat, and a false accuser’.<sup>87</sup> Turner spent the next few years in hiding, though it would appear that, despite rumours to the contrary, he was in England all along. In February 1694 he helped to consecrate George Hickes. In May 1695 he was pardoned under the Act of Grace; he sought freedom from harassment if he came out of hiding and approached Sunderland, who informed Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, somewhat cryptically, that he would be glad to ‘ease’ Turner, for reasons that Portland would understand.<sup>88</sup> Since Turner had never been indicted for his part in the alleged plot and there was no proof that he had ever broken the law by being in France, it is possible that those reasons related simply to the difficulty of framing any coherent or realistic charge against him.</p><p>In the spring of 1696, the assassination plot prompted fresh enquiries as to Turner’s whereabouts and an arrest warrant was issued.<sup>89</sup> In mid-December in the midst of the controversial trial of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, one of the king’s messengers searching a weaver’s house in Spitalfields ‘missed his man, but found the late bishop of Ely, who went by the name of Harris’. Turner, it seems, was hiding in plain sight, living in lodgings in Lincoln’s Inn. When he was taken into custody, James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> told Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup> that ‘I could do nothing in it’ and his account of the affair implies that Turner was released.<sup>90</sup> If so he must have been re-arrested because he was in custody on 23 Dec. when he wrote to Trumbull in a letter that he signed ‘The bishop of Ely now deprived’. In the course of questioning, Trumbull had asked whether Turner wanted to go overseas. Turner replied that he was reluctant to do so and insisted,</p><blockquote><p>that I have lived for the last five years in such retired inoffensive circumstances that … most of my friends believed me out of the kingdom. Privacy, I thank God, is grown to be no trouble at all to me … If I am freed from this confinement I shall be so far from admitting any concourse to me, I mean to live as obscurely as I can in hopes of being suffered to die quietly. If you procure my discharge that I may celebrate the approaching festival with my own little family, I shall bless God. But if I must keep Christmas in a messenger’s house and in a bleak, noisy, narrow room, I will bear this hardship, considering who it was that for my sake was content at this season with a meaner lodging.<sup>91</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Privy Council ordered his release on 31 Dec. 1696.<sup>92</sup> In June 1698 he acted as a pallbearer to carry the coffin of his fellow non-juror Thomas White to its grave. He had been refused permission to conduct the burial service and when he and some 30 or 40 non-juring clergymen saw that a conforming priest was waiting at the graveside to officiate they left, causing Dr John Mandevile to remark that ‘it seems the party renounce all manner of communion with any person conformable to the Church and government’.<sup>93</sup></p><p>Early in 1700 Turner saw his daughter, Margaret (<em>d.</em> 1724), married to the high Tory Richard Goulston<sup>‡</sup> of Wyddial, Hertfordshire.<sup>94</sup> He died on 2 Nov. 1700 in London, his estate passing to his daughter. Burnet, perhaps surprisingly given their political differences, is said to have described Turner as ‘sincere and good-natured’, though of ‘too quick an imagination, and too defective a judgment’.<sup>95</sup></p> |
B.A. |
|
TYLER, John (1640-1724) |
<p><strong><surname>TYLER</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1640–1724)</p> |
|
|
First sat 3 Dec. 1706; last sat 7 Mar. 1722 |
cons. 30 June 1706 bp. of LLANDAFF |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 16 Aug. 1640, s. of John Tyler of Kington, Herefs. <em>educ</em>. Lady Hawkin’s sch. Kington, Herefs. 1648-50;<sup>1</sup> Magdalen, Oxf. c.1652, BA 1686, MA 1686, BD 1686, DD 1707. <em>m</em>. Sarah (c.1646-1726), da. John Scudamore, gent. of Trecilla, Llangarron, Heref. and Dorothy, da. of Sir William Cooke<sup>‡</sup> of Highnam Court, Glos. <em>s.p. d</em>. 8 July 1724;<sup>2</sup> <em>will</em> 23 May, pr. 28 July 1724.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. in ordinary to William III and Mary II.</p><p>Rect. Kentchurch, Herefs. ?1668-88; vic. Brinsop, Herefs. 1689-91, Hereford St Peter 1690-2 Aug. 1700, Birley, Herefs. ?-1719;<sup>4</sup> preb. Hereford 1688-<em>d</em>.; dean Hereford 1692-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Mbr. SPCK 1700.<sup>5</sup></p> |
|
<p>Tyler was of obscure parentage. Born in West Hide, to the east of Hereford, his marriage brought him into a branch of the Scudamore family associated with moderate Presbyterianism. <sup>6</sup> His wife’s aunt, Elizabeth Cooke, also married a John Scudamore, of Kentchurch, and it seems possible that this provided his first step on the ladder of preferment as rector of Kentchurch from about 1668.<sup>7</sup> Even more important to his career than the Scudamores of Kentchurch was the patronage of their more powerful associates, the Foley-Harley clan. His degrees conferred by Convocation at a relatively late age in 1686 suggest a regularization of an existing career, although the existence of many John Tylers makes his early career in the Church difficult to ascertain with any certainty. Tyler’s appointment as a prebend of Hereford in June 1688 suggests perhaps the patronage of the Foleys and Harleys, and Paul Foley<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Edward Harley<sup>‡</sup> seem to have shared the patronage of St Peter’s, Hereford to which Tyler was collated in 1690. On 15 May 1691 Sir Edward Harley wrote that ‘Mr Tyler of Hereford preached at the funeral [of Colonel John Birch<sup>‡</sup>], very well.’<sup>8</sup> Following his appointment as the dean of Hereford in 1692, Tyler acknowledged Harley’s patronage, noting that it was ‘to your powerful interest that I stand first so much indebted for my present promotion’.<sup>9</sup> According to Foley, the queen had signalled Tyler’s appointment on 1 Sept., and a royal warrant (signed by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham) was then issued.<sup>10</sup> Tyler seems to have been popular at court, for on 8 Sept. Abigail Harley reported that the queen had made Tyler dean because of ‘the extraordinary character she had of his piety and learning and that she could not but have a good opinion of those clergymen that did not crowd after preferment.’<sup>11</sup> Tyler was added to the commission of the peace for Herefordshire in March 1693, retaining his place on the bench until 1720.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Tyler was an active dean (later holding it <em>in commendam</em> with his bishopric), and he attended three out of every four audits held during his tenure of the office.<sup>13</sup> A false rumour circulated in November 1694 that Tyler was being promoted to the deanery of Lincoln, but it did not become vacant until the following May.<sup>14</sup> Around the beginning of June 1699, Paul Foley wrote to Sir Edward Harley that ‘Mr [Thomas] Brome being dead and Ross given to the Dean of Hereford, on supposition of his resigning St Peter’s, there has been application made by Captain Scudamore to give a presentation thereof to a kinsman of his, one Mr [Charles], Hoskins of Balliol’. In answer Foley had replied that Harley had ‘joined with me in the purchase of that advowson and therefore it was your right and not mine this turn to present.’ On 14 June 1699 Foley wrote again to Harley, to inform him that although Tyler had previously said ‘he would accept of Ross if it were offered him’, when Gilbert Ironside*, bishop of Hereford, ‘made him the offer he refused it’, and when forced to reconsider ‘he at last said it was a place too great and could not answer what might be expected from him there whereupon the bishop hath given Ross to Dr Whiting.’<sup>15</sup> On 9 Feb. 1700 James Morgan of Hereford informed Sir Edward Harley that ‘the Dean of Hereford has lately resigned up the cure of St Peter’s.’<sup>16</sup></p><p>The death of William Beaw*, bishop of Llandaff, on 10 Feb. 1706 provided an opportunity for Tyler’s elevation. Tyler was reluctant to accept ‘one of the poorest bishoprics in Christendom’ but Thomas Tenison*, archbishop of Canterbury, ‘would not be denied’.<sup>17</sup> He was duly nominated with the directive for his election being issued on 8 Mar., followed by the royal assent in mid June (signed by Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, Sir Edward’s son) and consecration on 30 June 1706.<sup>18</sup> Tyler seems to have been allowed to hold a couple of benefices <em>in commendam</em>.<sup>19</sup> Once Tyler had taken possession of the episcopal residence, he filed a suit for dilapidations from the widow of Bishop Beaw.<sup>20</sup> The poor condition of the palace gave him a valid reason for continuing to reside in the deanery at Hereford when in the country.<sup>21</sup> On 16 Sept. he wrote to Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford, suggesting that he lodge his proxy with Humphreys. One week later he offered to take Humphreys’ proxy up to London, although he only planned to stay for a few days in London. Humphreys had offered to lend him appropriate robes as well as recommending suitable lodgings. On 5 Oct. he informed Humphreys that he would set out for London at the end of the month, and on the 9th he duly informed the bishop that he would set out in the stagecoach on 24 October.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Tyler took his seat in the Lords on 3 Dec. 1706, the opening day of the parliamentary session. He attended on 80 days, 93 per cent of the total and was named to 37 committees. On 7 Jan. 1707 he was ordered to preach before the Lords on the 30th. On the 31st the House ordered publication of the sermon; it was in print and being circulated by 14 February.<sup>23</sup> He was present on the last day of the session on 8 Apr. but did not attend the short session of April 1707, which began a few days later.</p><p>Tyler was not present when the 1707-8 session began on 23 Oct., first sitting on 6 Nov. 1707 when the House got down to business. He attended on 87 days of the session, 81 per cent of the total. He attended the traditional dinner at Lambeth on 26 Dec. 1707.<sup>24</sup> He was present on the last day of the session, 1 Apr. 1708. In about May 1708 Tyler was marked as a Whig on a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain (a Tory designation having been crossed through). This analysis was in keeping with what we know of his social circle; he was in frequent contact with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, and other Whig bishops whenever he stayed in his London residence at Crutched Friars.<sup>25</sup> In August 1708 Tyler was in Hereford (where he seems to have spent most summers).<sup>26</sup></p><p>Tyler was present on the opening day of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708. He attended on 60 days of the session, 65 per cent of the total. Tyler joined the traditional dinner for bishops at Lambeth on 28 Dec. 1708.<sup>27</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he probably voted against the right of Scottish peers with British titles to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers; although the list includes too many bishops, it was likely he followed the other Whig bishops into the no lobby. However, in the division in the committee of the whole on the general naturalization bill on 15 Mar. 1709, he joined William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln, John Evans*, bishop of Bangor and the Tory bishops in favour of the motion proposed by William Dawes*, of Chester, that subjects wishing to take advantage of the act should take the Anglican sacrament rather than join ‘some Protestant Reformed Congregation’. On 22 Mar. 1709, in a committee of the whole on the bill for improving the Union, Tyler supported the motion that those accused of treason should be given a list of witnesses five days before their trial. Three days later, again in a committee of the whole on the bill, he voted to resume the House the following day to debate the validity of Scottish marriage settlements.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Tyler did not attend the 1709-10 session and was thus listed as out of town at the time of the division on the Sacheverell verdict. In August 1710 he was again in Hereford.<sup>29</sup> On 3 Oct. Robert Harley listed him as a certain opponent of the new ministry. He was missing when the Parliament opened on 25 Nov. 1710, possibly because he was attending a sermon at St Paul’s before the opening of Convocation.<sup>30</sup> He first sat on the second day of the new Parliament on 27 Nov., and was present on 66 days of the session, 58 per cent of the total. Throughout January and February, he supported the Whigs in the various divisions concerned with the war in Spain. On 9 Jan. 1711, after the lengthy debate on the conduct of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, Tyler voted with the minority in a committee of the whole against a resumption of the House (the real issue at stake was described by Bishop Nicolson as whether Peterborough had given a ‘just, faithful and honourable account’ of the council held at Valencia before the battle of Almanza).<sup>31</sup> Two days later Tyler protested against the rejection of petitions from Henry de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and against the resolution that Almanza was lost through the conduct of Galway, Tyrawley, and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future earl Stanhope. On 12 Jan. he protested against the censure of ministers for having approved an offensive campaign in Spain. On 3 Feb. he again protested against the incorporation into an address to the queen of resolutions that two regiments in Spain were inadequately supplied, and that as a result the Whig ministry had neglected the war in Spain. Six days later he protested three times against the decision of the Lords to expunge part of the protest made by the Whigs against the address of 3 February.</p><p>As the political climate polarized even further within Convocation, Tyler was active in the Whig corner, especially in support of the beleaguered Tenison, under pressure from Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, and his allies in the lower house, seeking to use the changed ministerial position to their advantage. Thus, on 23 Feb. 1711, Tyler attended a meeting at the home of Bishop Wake in Dean’s Yard to revise Convocation reports and negotiate with Philip Bisse*, bishop of St Davids on the queen’s controversial new licence to the synod. Tyler was also involved in the committee of Convocation examining the Whiston heresy case.<sup>32</sup> On 1 Mar. Tyler almost certainly voted in favour of the motion that the appeal of James Greenshields had been brought regularly before the Lords, which was carried 68-32 on an adjournment motion, all the bishops (or perhaps all bar William Talbot*, of Oxford and Jonathan Trelawny*, of Winchester) voting against an adjournment and for reversing the decree. Although he had not been named to the committee for the Journal at the start of the session, he signed as one of those examining the Journal up to the end of January on 24 Mar., and up to the end of February on 3 April.<sup>33</sup> On 26 Apr. Tyler received the proxy of William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph. He did not attend the session after 10 May, missing the last month of business. He was in Hereford in July and August 1711.<sup>34</sup></p><p>With the Whigs mobilizing their resources for an attack on the ministry’s peace policy, Tyler’s name appears on a list compiled by Oxford, perhaps of possible supporters. If Oxford was hoping for Tyler’s support he was to be disappointed as Tyler entered his proxy in favour of Bishop Evans on 29 Nov. 1711 and was absent for the whole of the session which began on 7 December. He was in Hereford at the beginning of July 1712.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Tyler attended the St Stephen’s Day dinner at Lambeth at the end of 1712 and attended the prorogations of 13 Jan. and 17 Feb 1713. On 8 Mar. Tyler accompanied Wake to court for the queen’s birthday. He was not recorded as attending the prorogation on 10 Mar., but he dined that evening with Wake and the dean of Lincoln, Richard Willis<sup>†</sup>, the future Bishop of Salisbury.<sup>36</sup> He attended further prorogations on 17 and 26 March. About this date, his name appears on a list compiled by Swift and amended by Oxford, as an opponent of the ministry. He was present when the session opened on 9 Apr., attended on 51 days, 77 per cent of sittings and was named to 12 committees. He last attended on 3 July, two weeks before the end of the session.</p><p>In expectation of the parliamentary session, Tyler was in London by 3 Nov. 1713, being listed by Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London as one of the ‘bishops in town on our side’, along with John Moore*, of Ely, John Hough*, of Lichfield and Coventry, Richard Cumberland*, of Peterborough, Charles Trimnell*, of Norwich and Bishop Fleetwood.<sup>37</sup> Tyler paid a visit to Wake on 15 Feb. 1714, the day before the Parliament opened. He was present on the second day of the session, 18 February. He attended on 63 days, 83 per cent of the total. On 8 Mar. he and Wake waited on the queen on her accession day.<sup>38</sup> When the Lords voted on 5 Apr. on the motion that the Protestant succession was not in danger under the queen’s administration, contemporary comment noted that all the bishops, bar three courtiers, voted against: Tyler was presumably one of those voting against. Likewise, on 13 Apr. when the Lords considered the queen’s reply to the address on the danger from the Pretender, the ministry carried the motion to thank the queen for her answer, rather than presenting a new address setting out the apprehensions of the House about the succession, by only two votes. Tyler joined all the bishops present, with the exception of Atterbury and Nathaniel Crew*, of Durham, in voting against the court.<sup>39</sup> On 29 Apr. Tyler attended both Convocation and Parliament. On 25 May Nottingham forecast that Tyler would oppose the schism bill. On 11 June Tyler duly voted against the clause extending the bill to Ireland, and on 15 June he voted and protested against the passage of the bill itself. Meanwhile, on 2 June, Wake recorded that Tyler and George Smalridge*, bishop of Bristol had a meeting at the dean of the arches’ [Dr John Bettesworth], with ‘Dr Henchman: Dr Pinfold and Dr [blank], about the bill for excommunication’. On 23 June Tyler received the proxy of the ailing Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester. On 2 July Tyler attended Convocation and then Parliament.<sup>40</sup> This session also saw the passage of a bill for taking away mortuaries within the Welsh dioceses, which annexed the treasurership of the cathedral (when next vacant) to Llandaff.<sup>41</sup></p><p>At the accession of George I on 1 Aug. 1714 and the brief three week session that followed, Tyler attended on one day only (18 Aug.) to take the oaths. Clearly Tyler was now more in favour. On 25 Aug. Tyler visited Wake and on 1 Sept. when Wake visited Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, he found Tyler there with Sir Peter King<sup>†</sup>, the future Baron King.<sup>42</sup> This may have been in connection with Tyler’s attempt to succeed Bishop Moore at Ely. His failure to achieve his ambition left him ‘almost ready to quit that party’.<sup>43</sup> The remainder of his career will be considered in the next part of this work. Tyler died on 8 July 1724 and was buried on 11 Aug. in the south transept of Hereford Cathedral.<sup>44</sup> By the time of his death Tyler held landed property in Herefordshire, Monmouthshire and Radnorshire, and an undefined quantity of annuities and stock in the South Sea Company and Bank of England. His cash bequests alone amounted to over £3,000. His main beneficiary was his great-nephew, John Tyler (the son of William Tyler, vicar of Dilwyn in Herefordshire).</p> |
B.A./S.N.H. |
|
WAKE, William (1657-1737) |
<p><strong><surname>WAKE</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1657–1737)</p> |
|
|
First sat 5 Nov. 1705; last sat 25 May 1732 |
cons. 21 Oct. 1705 bp. of LINCOLN; transl. 16 Jan. 1716 abp. of CANTERBURY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 26 Jan. 1657, s. of Col. William Wake (1628-1705), roy. army officer and Amie, da. of Edward Cutler. <em>educ</em>. Blandford Free Sch.; Christ Church, Oxf., matric. 1673, BA 1676, MA 1679, ord. deacon 1681, priest 1682; BD and DD 1689. <em>m</em>. 1 Oct. 1688, Etheldreda (<em>d</em>.1731), 3rd da. and coh. of Sir William Hovell<sup>‡</sup>, of Hillington Hall, Norf.; 3s. <em>d.v.p.</em>, 8da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.).<sup>1</sup> <em>suc</em>. fa. 29 May 1705.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 24 Jan. 1737; <em>will</em> 12 Feb.-18 Dec. 1732, pr. 1 Mar. 1737.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>R. chap. 1689-1706; dep. clerk of the closet 1689; ld. almoner Nov. 1715-Mar. 1716.</p><p>Lecturer, St Martin’s Carfax, Oxf. 1682, St Anne’s Soho, Westminster, 1688; chap., to Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, Visct. Preston [S], Paris 1682-5; preacher, Gray’s Inn 1688-96; canon, Christ Church Oxf. 1689-1702, Exeter 1703; rect. St James Piccadilly, Westminster 1695; dean, Exeter 1701-5.</p><p>Sec. Lambeth commn. on liturgy 1688; commr. building 50 new churches 1715-<em>d</em>.;<sup>4</sup> lord justice 1719, 1720, 1723, 1725.</p><p>Gov. Charterhouse 1716.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by T. Gibson, c.1715–20, Christ Church, Oxford; oil on canvas by T. Hill, c.1720–5, NPG 22.</p> |
<p>Wake’s father was described by Walker as ‘one of the most noted Old Royalists in England’, having been made a prisoner 18 times and condemned to death twice. After his military service he became a clothier and then a farmer of the aulnage.<sup>6</sup> Following his ordination, Wake himself quickly acquired a reputation as (as John Evelyn described him in March 1687) ‘that young, most learned, pious and excellent preacher’.<sup>7</sup> In May 1687 Roger Morrice described him as an only son, whose father had an estate of £600-700 per annum.<sup>8</sup> As the heir to a healthy patrimony, he was able to contract an advantageous marriage, with his wife’s portion reputed by a newsletter to be £10,000.<sup>9</sup> Throughout his adult life he managed the family seat at Shapwick, Dorset, he and his father securing a private act in 1692 to make leases. The death of his father occurred in the same year as his elevation to the episcopacy (the income from Lincoln was probably £1,000-1,200 per annum) and this made him independently wealthy.<sup>10</sup></p><h2><em>Early career, 1682-9</em></h2><p>Early in his career, Wake had come under the patronage of John Fell*, bishop of Oxford, who secured both his first clerical appointment and a chaplaincy in Paris through his recommendation to Richard Graham<sup>‡</sup>, Viscount Preston [S]. Preston told Bishop Fell that no man could ‘give a better example or more content to all’ than Wake, and he recommended him to the favour of Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, as a ‘very good and worthy young man’.<sup>11</sup> He returned to England in 1685, confirmed in his prejudices against Rome and ready to take part in the defence of Anglican doctrine against James II’s promotion of catholicism.<sup>12</sup> It was as a result of his polemical works against catholicism that George Hickes described Wake in April 1687 as ‘the young David, which providence seemeth to have raised up to conquer the giants, which defy our Church’.<sup>13</sup> Wake coordinated his efforts with Thomas Tenison*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, and Thomas Ken*, bishop of Bath and Wells, particularly at the time of the Magdalen College affair.<sup>14</sup> Following the death in March 1688 of William Claggett, the benchers of Gray’s Inn chose Wake as their preacher, despite the fact that (as it was alleged) the lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, had hoped to recommend his own chaplain to them.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Wake was employed as secretary to the discussions set on foot by William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury, for a revision of the liturgy in the summer of 1688 and involving the most prominent Anglican divines including Tenison, John Sharp*, the future archbishop of York, and John Moore*, the future bishop of Ely.<sup>16</sup> Wake referred to this in November 1702, when dining with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, and Charles Trimnell*, later bishop of Norwich, amongst others, he talked about Sancroft’s committee and its proposed alterations to the Book of Common Prayer.<sup>17</sup> On 26 Sept. 1688, Wake met with Tenison, Dr William Sherlock, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon.<sup>18</sup> Following his marriage on 1 Oct., Wake spent the next month at Shapwick before returning to London.<sup>19</sup></p><p>In 1688-9 Wake would become a key apologist for the new regime, and was marked out for preferment. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, proved to be an early champion, suggesting that should John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury, become archbishop of York (which was vacant until mid-November), then Wake should succeed to his stall in St Paul’s.<sup>20</sup> In earmarking Wake for preferment as a royal chaplain, Burnet described him as ‘the wonderfullest young man in the world, and the most popular divine now in England, and it is an amazing thing to see with what force he has writ against popery’. The appointment followed in due course.<sup>21</sup> On 12 Jan. 1689 it was reported that ‘tomorrow the famous Mr Wake of St Anne’s is to preach before the prince at St James’s’.<sup>22</sup> He also preached before the prince at St James’s on 30 Jan., ‘wherein he much extolled the pious undertaking of the prince’.<sup>23</sup> On 21 May, three days before the royal assent to the Act of Toleration, but with the comprehension bill showing no signs of ever becoming law, Wake preached ‘an exhortation to mutual charity and union among Protestants’ at Hampton Court, not only an attempt to mould public opinion towards the king’s inclusive religious policy (and the legislation introduced to the Lords by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham), but also to encourage Dissenters to join the Church.<sup>24</sup> On 5 June he preached the afternoon fast sermon before the Commons at St Margaret’s, Westminster.<sup>25</sup></p><h2>Clerical career and Convocation, 1689-1705</h2><p>By April 1691, he had become so prominent as a royal chaplain and, from 1689, a canon at Oxford, that it was rumoured that the vacancy caused by the refusal of Bishop Ken to take the oaths had been offered to Wake. However, Wake refused all positions vacated by the non-jurors, falling out with Archbishop Tillotson as a consequence and experiencing ‘an entire coldness’ from him, which saw him miss out on the deaneries of St Paul’s and Canterbury.<sup>26</sup> In July 1692 Wake was talked of (inaccurately) as destined for St Asaph. With Tenison’s promotion to Lincoln, the living of St James’s, Westminster, became vacant (though Tenison was initially allowed to hold it in commendam for six months). In July 1692 Henry Compton*, bishop of London, appointed Dr Peter Birch to the vacancy, but this was challenged by the queen who felt that the crown had the right of appointment, and nominated Wake. The case went all the way to the Lords, with the peers on 12 Jan. 1695 confirming a decree of king’s bench against the bishop of London and in favour of Wake.<sup>27</sup> As rector of St James Piccadilly Wake was party to a petition to the Commons on 14 Dec. 1695 for a bill to raise money to pay the debts incurred under the original act for building the parish church. He seems to have taken an active part in securing the bill, which had been amended in committee in the Commons, reported and ordered to be engrossed (31 Dec.), but then stopped on the grounds that insufficient notice had been given to parishioners. On 2 Jan. 1696 Wake attended a vestry meeting to discuss the bill; on 7 Jan. the opponents of the bill came before the vestry, and a committee appointed to examine the costs of the building, which reported on the 29th. The vestry met again on 7 Feb., the objectors appeared to have been satisfied and the manager of the bill in the Commons, Charles Montagu*, later baron Halifax, promised to expedite the bill. It received the royal assent on 7 March.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In 1697 Wake’s talent for polemic was employed by Tenison, who had succeeded Tillotson as archbishop of Canterbury in 1694, to combat the new and more virulent forms of clerical and anti-erastian ideology emerging from the Tory highfliers, chief amongst them Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester. Atterbury opened the debate with <em>A Letter to a Convocation-Man</em>, written in collaboration with Sir Bartholomew Shower<sup>‡</sup>,, a defence of the lower clergy’s rights in Convocation that undermined the royal supremacy.<sup>29</sup> Tenison persuaded Wake to respond with <em>The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods Asserted</em>, a robust defence of the Anglican constitution and the subordination of Church to state, which went so far as to challenge the necessity for Convocation to sit, if the Church was in a settled state.<sup>30</sup> Charles Hatton, the brother of Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, commented on the book that Wake’s ‘character of the temper and discretion of many of the present clergy is suitable to their and his desserts. He would make a rare vice-president for an inquisition; and what books and authors his pen cannot answer, fire and faggot should’.<sup>31</sup> In 1698 Wake published a further tract, an apology for the royal supremacy which suggested to some that ‘he had writ it for a bishopric’.<sup>32</sup> Even his friend, Edmund Gibson<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of London, regretted ‘the provocation given’ to the Tory clergy.<sup>33</sup> Wake continued his controversy with Atterbury with his definitive history of the assemblies of the English Church, <em>The State of the Church and Clergy of England, in their Councils, Synods, Convocations, Conventions, and other Publick Assemblies</em>, published in 1703, and as dean of Exeter Wake would attend the lower House of Convocation in 1702-5, and helped to co-ordinate opposition to the Tory ‘highfliers’ and champion the position of the bishops.</p><p>On the death of Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester on 27 Mar. 1699, Narcissus Luttrell<sup>‡</sup> reported that Wake ‘stands fair for a bishopric’. By 5 Apr. Maurice Wheeler, Wake’s former tutor at Christ Church and now master of the cathedral school at Gloucester, had written to Wake that ‘the public newsletters’ in Gloucester had ‘already placed the mitre on your head’. Wheeler seemed to think that Wake would be made bishop of Oxford, and Wake agreed that this was likely when he wrote to Arthur Charlett, the master of University College, Oxford, on 31 Mar., expecting William Lloyd*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to be translated to Worcester and John Hough*, bishop of Oxford, to be translated to Lichfield and Coventry. Wake, who claimed to have no evidence of his imminent translation to Oxford, wrote that ‘Oxford is the bishopric of all England that I should the least desire to fix upon’, and duly refused it. Tenison wrote to him on 9 Apr. that although ‘no hurt is done, no friendship shall be broken’ by his refusal, it did have implications as ‘this, I think, is a common rule, <em>not to offer a greater thing, after refusal of a less of the same kind, if that be a good subsistence to the person</em>. I speak my whole mind to yourself without any threatening or harsh words’. Although, in September 1701, Wake was mentioned as a possible candidate for the see of Hereford, nothing came of it. <sup>34</sup> A lesser promotion came later in 1701 when the deanery of Exeter, which had been earmarked for Wake as long ago as 1690, became vacant following the death of Richard Annesley, Baron Altham [I] on 16 Nov. 1701. Wake was duly nominated on 27 November. Even then, his desire to hold the deanery in commendam with his Christ Church canonry was thwarted by Queen Anne, who insisted he relinquish the latter in October 1702, despite a ‘remonstrance’ from Wake on the subject. He had done so by December.<sup>35</sup></p><h2>Appointment to Lincoln, 1705</h2><p>Wake’s political sympathies ensured that in the context of 1705 he would be a candidate for the episcopate should the court wish to show favour towards the Whigs. There were, however, other Whig pretenders, possibly encouraged by Wake’s previous tergiversation and demurs over being raised to the episcopal bench. Indeed, on the death of James Gardiner*, bishop of Lincoln, on 1 Mar. 1705, Tenison seemed to favour the elevation of the dean, Richard Willis<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Gloucester. Archbishop Sharp for the Tories backed his protégé Sir William Dawes*, the future archbishop of York.<sup>36</sup> On 14 Mar. 1705 Tenison wrote to Wake that</p><blockquote><p>your friends hope that you will let them know by me with plainness and without loss of time, whether you would accept of the bishopric of Lincoln with the living [St James’s] in commendam for one year if they can procure it. For they will, this day, make some effort relating to that matter. They will not propose the bishopric without commendam for that time. I am in pain till I hear from you, because I [am] pressed by them. I hope you will not say <em>nolo ep[iscopari]</em>.</p></blockquote><p>On 29 Mar. Tenison wrote again to tell Wake that ‘I went over on Sunday [25 Mar.] and was with the good queen. I found nothing declared, but had expectation given that something would be said to me in few days. I have heard nothing since’.<sup>37</sup> Others seemed more sanguine than the archbishop, Wheeler writing on 26 Mar. that ‘the public news today reports your designation for the see of Lincoln’, and it had been confirmed by Edward Fowler*, bishop of Gloucester, ‘who appears very joyful at the certainty (as he seems assured) of your being assumed into the same sacred order’.<sup>38</sup> The delay in the appointment seemed to have been caused by Wake’s desire to retain the living at St James’s, although there may have been an element of political calculation, as a delay would allow Wake to use his influence with the Exeter clergy to support the government’s attempt to unseat Sir Edward Seymour<sup>‡</sup> at the parliamentary election at Exeter at the end of May. On 11 Apr. 1705 Lancelot Blackburne<sup>†</sup>, the future archbishop of York, who, as the current subdean of Exeter, was in line to succeed Wake as dean, told Wake that ‘there are thoughts of Dr [William] Cave instead of you, unless they use it as a feint to bring you not to insist on a two years commendam of St James’s.’ Blackburne thought that Wake was justified in wanting the commendam ‘both from the hardship put on you in your being obliged to part with the canonry of Christ Church, and from your great expenses on the deanery’. Blackburne’s comment on 10 May that Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, had ‘a notion that the Sunderland interest, struggling for a present possession to my cousin Trimnell, gives the great stop to your being declared’, probably refers to Trimnell’s ambitions to be rector of St James’s, rather than to the bishopric.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Wake was offered, and accepted, the bishopric in July 1705, but there was further delay before it was confirmed: the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, informed Tenison on 29 July that ‘I was very sorry to hear yesterday from Lord Halifax that Dr Wake had not then any notice of his being made bishop of Lincoln, though the queen had signed the warrant to the <em>congé d’élire</em> this day fortnight’.<sup>40</sup> Wake was duly elected on 4 September. On 22 Sept. both Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, and Bishop Lloyd wrote to Wake in answer to some queries which show Wake preoccupied with the revenues of his see and how to obtain them without incurring administrative charges.<sup>41</sup> On 27 Sept. Wake wrote back to Bishop Lloyd that</p><blockquote><p>I have some hopes that my lord treasurer will procure me the Michaelmas half year of the bishopric, which made me desirous to known how I must proceed to secure myself of a right to it. A privy seal is a very chargeable way, after the excessive fees... which I shall otherwise pay and I now hope that it may be done without me. The Lady Day rents will I conceive, be given to the last bishop’s children. His Lordship dying within a month of that time, I cannot except against such a favour, tho’ God be praised, as he managed matters, his family is far from being in want of it.’<sup>42</sup></p></blockquote><p>Wake was consecrated on 21 Oct. 1705 at Lambeth with John Williams*, bishop of Chichester, and Bishops Compton, Burnet and Moore attending on the archbishop. After dinner he went with Bishop Burnet to Kensington to pay homage to the queen, noting that Godolphin ‘spoke kindly to me concerning the restitution of my temporalities, which I afterwards discovered to be owing to the kind interposition’ of Halifax and John Somers*, Baron Somers, ‘to whom his Lordship promised to procure me the rents of the bishopric from the death of the late bishop.’ However, on the 23rd Wake recorded that Godolphin ‘(or at least his officers) were so far from granting me the temporalities from the death of the late bishop, that they broke in upon the last half-year, and ordered them to be dated from 1 May’. In response Wake wrote to Halifax and Somers, who ‘both promised me their good offices to my lord treasurer, being very confident that this change did not proceed from him’. On the 25th he informed Tenison of his predicament. On the 28th Godolphin ‘ordered the restitution of my temporalities, dated from Lady Day’, thereby overriding the actions of William Lowndes<sup>‡</sup>, secretary to the treasury, who had altered the date of the restitution to May, having ‘another friend of a different kind to gratify’. ‘That he succeeded not I chiefly owe to my Lord Somers; next to my Lord Halifax and the Bishop of Worcester [Lloyd].’ Even then he met delay, being told that the secretary of state, Sir Charles Hedges<sup>‡</sup>, would not countersign the queen’s warrant for his temporalities without a further order from the lord treasurer. To Wake the ‘very indifferent usage in that office’ could only be explained by ‘no other reason than this, that I was not a man to their mind’.<sup>43</sup> A writ of summons was issued on 31 Oct. and on 5 Nov. 1705 Wake took his seat in the House before processing to Westminster Abbey to preach a ‘hearty sermon against the teachers (of the Roman Church) in sheeps’ clothing, and their dissimulation and treachery’.<sup>44</sup> His sermon was well received by William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, who said that Wake ‘preached honestly and fervently, to convince of this great truth, that we ought to make our security as great as we can against ’em, not lessen it with any dependence on their oaths, &c. This meant to maintain the Protestant Succession, whatever fair promises the pretended K.J. should make, &c’.<sup>45</sup> Wake was thanked by the House the following day.</p><h2>Bishop of Lincoln, 1705-7</h2><p>In his first parliamentary session, Wake was present on 67 days, 71 per cent of the total number of sitting days, and was named to 35 committees. On 12 Nov. 1705 he recorded in his diary ‘a long session’ at the Lords, including ‘a debate about addressing to the queen upon the Scots affairs’, after which he got home between four and five in the evening. Three days later he noted ‘the great debate’ over ‘an address to the queen to invite over the presumptive heir of the crown to come and reside here’, which was ‘argued till about 5 a clock and then carried in the negative.’ He took the oaths and the Test in King’s Bench on 19 November.<sup>46</sup> If he was still in the House on 20 Nov., he would have been one of the bishops voting against the lord mayor of London being named a lord justice and in favour of the lord treasurer being named one in the regency bill.<sup>47</sup> On 23 Nov. he attended both Convocation and the Lords. He recorded on 30 Nov. ‘we sat very late at the House upon the bill for securing the Protestant Succession, which was gone through the next day.’<sup>48</sup></p><p>At the same time Wake was preoccupied with the partisan rivalries in Convocation. On 1 Dec. he was named to a Convocation committee on the differences between the houses of the clergy and the bishops over the proposed address to the queen on ‘the Church in danger’.<sup>49</sup> On 3 Dec., before he went to the Lords, he hosted a meeting at which Dean Willis of Lincoln, White Kennett<sup>†</sup> (archdeacon of Huntingdon and later bishop of Peterborough) and Dr Gibson (at that point chaplain to Tenison and rector of Lambeth) ‘debated about a protestation to be presented to the upper house of Convocation against the irregular proceedings of the majority in the lower’. The following day, after a short visit to the Lords, Wake discoursed with Bishop Williams and Dr Gee at Bishop Hough’s on ‘what was fit to be done to prevent the increase of popery.’ Wake met Gibson on 5 Dec., to prepare ‘some things for the debate in the House of Lords tomorrow’, and then went to see Somers and Halifax, although he found neither of them. Having waited again on Somers on the morning of the 6th, he attended the Lords from noon to 8 o’clock for the ‘Church in danger’ debate in committee of the whole House, noting that ‘a resolution [was] come to against such as shall insinuate the Church of England to be in danger under her Majesty’s administration. The conclusion of it too harsh; I would have got it qualified, but could not.’ His name appeared on the division list among those voting that the Church was not in danger in the queen’s administration.<sup>50</sup> On the following day he recorded ‘I tarried not long at the Parliament’; after dinner that day a committee of bishops met at Wake’s to consider the last paper of the lower house of Convocation, and sat till eight. On 15 Dec. the bishops agreed on a paper of ‘Observations’ in response to the lower house’s paper, with Bishop Trelawny and George Hooper*, bishop of Bath and Wells, dissenting. Wake noted how ‘12 of the lower house brought up a protestation against several irregular proceedings against the majority there’, and were formally thanked in a motion made by Burnet ‘for their duty and care to preserve the ancient constitution of the Convocation of this province, to which we agreed’, Bishops Trelawny and Hooper again dissenting. Wake did not attend the Lords on 19 Dec. having ‘a kind of aguish distemper’.<sup>51</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1706 Wake attended the Lords, where the ‘the cause of St Bride’s parish was heard which kept us till after 4 o’clock,’ a reference to <em>Wilson et al v. Towneley</em>. From thence he went to baptize a child of Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl (later duke) of Bridgwater. The following day Wake attended the appeal brought ‘against the bishop of Ely’ (actually <em>Tooke v. Dolben et al.</em>), before returning home at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Wake recorded a visit from Mr Clavering on 16 Jan. to thank him for attending upon the cause of <em>Clavering v. Clavering</em>, where the Lords affirmed the judgment given below in Chancery. Wake attended the House late on 28 Jan. over the cause of <em>Hamilton v. Mohun</em>.<sup>52</sup> The following day he recorded that the regency bill had been put off until the 31st, when he duly noted that the Lords ‘sat late’ and repealed the clauses in the bill relating to the Privy Council, and the exclusion of all officers out of the House of Commons. On 4 Feb., showing how informal business might often be transacted at the House, Wake recorded that ‘Mr Park was with me about the composition to be made by the enclosers of the common within his parish’, but since John Hervey*, Baron Hervey, was not at the House he could not do anything in relation to the case. On 7 Feb. Wake went to the house of Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, to meet Somers and others ‘about the business of the Convocation’, and the following morning he met with Trimnell to draw up a memorial relating to what was agreed the previous evening, before attending the Lords. He met several other bishops at Archbishop Tenison’s lodgings at the Cockpit on 10 Feb., where they discussed the Bishop of Llandaff’s bill, perhaps because William Beau*, bishop of Llandaff, had died that day. Although there was no reference made in the Journal, on 11 Feb. Wake recorded that ‘Dr Woodroffe’s cause was put off till Wednesday’, when there was a hearing of <em>Marbury et al v. Tarbock</em>. He then noted that the reasons to be offered at a conference with the Commons on the place clause to the regency bill were read to the House by Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset: ‘they were unanswerable’. He then added ‘a conference had, at which I was present,’ presumably as an observer as he was not named as a manager. From the House he went with the Burnet ‘to dine with the Lords, bishops, etc. at Serjeants’ Inn with Justice [Robert], Dormer<sup>‡</sup>’, a celebration of his elevation to the bench as a judge of common pleas. On 13 Feb. he baptized the daughter of Henry Grey*, 12th earl (later duke) of Kent, with the queen and the duchess of Marlborough in attendance as godmothers. Five days later Wake did not ‘tarry long at the Lords’, though he did, along with Tenison, ‘try whether we could not get some augmentation made to the vicarage’ in the bill to enable John Williams, an infant, to renew a lease on the rectory of Buckden, which had been brought up to the Lords that day. On the following day he had further discussion on the bill with Williams and Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford. He noted for 23 Feb. that the bill for William King, archbishop of Dublin, ‘came on’ and that the third reading was adjourned until the 25th. On 27 Feb. Wake recorded giving directions for his house at Buckden and arranging for carriage of goods from London thence. He also went to see the late bishop’s house in Westminster, which he was thinking about buying. The following day he noted that ‘the business of popery and Carolina came on, and was adjourned, the one to Friday [1 Mar.], the other to Saturday [2 Mar.]. I sat out a cause and came home after four a clock’. The cause was probably <em>Kildare v. Shaen</em>.<sup>53</sup></p><p>On 1 Mar. 1706 Wake attended the prorogation of Convocation, which was met with some defiance by the lower house. He then journeyed to Parliament in Bishop Moore’s coach, where ‘we gave in our returns of papists; but a cause [<em>Seagrave v. Eustace</em>] coming in, and lasting long, nothing more was done that day’. That day Dr Benjamin Woodroffe was with Wake three times, pursuing the bishopric of Llandaff; in the evening Wake went with him to the home of another of his backers, Bishop Lloyd. On 2 Mar. Wake ‘was sent for by my Lord Sunderland to the House’, with the coach of John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, being sent to collect him. He ‘found the Lords warm in their debates about the Carolina business’, which concluded with a resolution to hear counsel for John Granville*, Baron Granville, in his own and the proprietors’ behalf the following Wednesday (6 Mar.); ‘it is’, he wrote, ‘a very foul business’. On 4 Mar. Wake recorded attending the House at about 1 o’clock, when the bill against popery was read; about an hour later news came that the Commons had cast out the bill in their House by a great majority on its third reading. Five days later Wake reported ‘a long session, till after 6, chiefly about the business of Carolina’.<sup>54</sup> Wake was ‘early at the House’ on 11 Mar. for the committee on the bill to vest in the bishop of Lincoln the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the parish of Buckden. The amendment envisaged by Wake at the end of February (to augment the vicarage) appears to have been made in committee on 11 Mar., when Wake was present to signify Tenison’s consent.<sup>55</sup> Somers reported from the committee on that day and Wake noted that the bill ‘passed the Lords without any contradiction: in the other House they divided upon it; we carried it by a great majority’: the amendment was carried by 44-30.<sup>56</sup> Because of this it was unlikely that he was present in the chamber to be named as a manager of two conferences that day on Sir Rowland Gwynne’s<sup>‡</sup> <em>Letter</em> to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, although he was probably present later in the day as he recorded that ‘the case of bankrupts was heard’, a reference to the proceedings in the committee of the whole House on the bill against frauds committed by bankrupts, and that he returned late to dinner. Wake noted the royal assent to the Buckden bill on 19 March. On 12 Mar. Wake reported attending the House where the address upon the business of Carolina was reported by Sunderland and carried 28-12 and ‘about 3 o’clock we were with the address upon Sir R. G.’s letter to the queen’, as ordered the previous day.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Wake may have left London after the prorogation on 19 Mar. 1706 for on 8 Apr. Charles Bruce*, the future Baron Bruce of Whorlton (and 3rd earl of Ailesbury), referred to the imminence of Wake’s ‘intended time’ of coming to town. He was in London on 19 Apr., and expected to dine with Tenison on one of the next two days.<sup>58</sup> He was enthroned in person in Lincoln on 18 May, and two days later he began his primary visitation, which continued until 30 June and again from 27 Aug. to 6 September.<sup>59</sup> In between Wake was in London in the period 9-26 August. He returned to London on 7 Sept., and on 12 Sept., after meeting with Tenison, Wake waited on Godolphin and then the queen, thanking her for his commendam of St James’s and, apropos his successor there, asking her ‘for a learned, prudent, religious man; and one well-affected to the administration, as well as to her majesty’s person (since some thought fit to separate those) for that our parish would not easily agree with a high-flyer.’ On the 16th he attended a debate about Queen Anne’s Bounty, ‘but the attorney-general [Sir Edward Northey<sup>‡</sup>] not coming, little was done. Lord Sunderland and Lord Halifax dined there’. Wake attended the prorogation of 17 Sept., where he discussed with Cowper the charges made under the great seal for presentations to poor livings.<sup>60</sup></p><p>On 1 June 1706 Somers wrote to Wake, ‘you may easily apprehend how well your paper was approved when your Lordship considers the <em>Gazette</em> without my making any observation’, a reference to the address from the bishop, dean and chapter, and clergy of Lincoln congratulating the queen on the victory of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, which was presented on 28 May and printed in the <em>London Gazette</em>. Trimnell wrote on 15 June that the reason the address ‘was not verbatim in the Gazette’ was because ‘it happened to be presented together with that from the City [of London], the wording of which was not liked well enough to be put in there, which occasioned the suppression of yours’. Somers wrote to Wake on 2 July about another address arising out of his visitation, that ‘it is thought that to defer what you have so successfully brought to pass, will be to lose the grace of it, and therefore the sooner it is presented the more acceptable it will be’, and assured him that ‘I find all your Lordship has done is as well accepted as you could imagine.’ On 23 July Kennett wrote that the Lincoln address presented in May ‘had the honour to be a copy and a standard to most other dioceses’: elsewhere, including Hereford, several of the bishops had experienced greater opposition. <sup>61</sup></p><p>During the autumn, Wake was consulted on an enclosure scheme. On 26 Oct. 1706 he wrote</p><blockquote><p>to satisfy everybody, I think the right method would be to get a commission from my Lord Bishop of Oxford to some of the neighbouring clergy to take a view of the exchange proposed; and upon their report to obtain his Lordship’s confirmation of it. With this I should readily join my consent. And both those being had, what remains to be done will go more easily on. But I should think the easiest and best way of settling all would be by an act of Parliament, if Sir Edmund Denton<sup>‡</sup> would be at the charge of one.<sup>62</sup></p></blockquote><p>Wake attended the prorogations of 22 Oct. and 21 Nov. 1706, and on 23 Nov., shortly before the commencement of the new parliamentary session, Wheeler wrote about alterations to Wake’s residence in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, congratulating him on having ‘seen an end of the trouble of fitting up your new habitation, which (being your own) affords this satisfaction, that tis done once for all; and being so conveniently situated too in respect to the Church, Parliament-house, and (I think) the best neighbourhood also, will ever be preferable to a change’.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Wake was present when the 1706-7 session commenced on 3 December and attended on 28 days of the session, 33 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. On 4 Dec. he noted that ‘our Address agreed to, [the] Lord Chamberlain [Kent], sent to the queen, who will receive it from the House tomorrow,’ whereupon he duly attended the queen the following day. On 6 Dec. it was the turn of Convocation, with Wake recording that he went to the Jerusalem Chamber, where, ‘our address being agreed, at the desire of the Board (and particularly the Bishop of Norwich [Moore] who presided) I copied it fair.’ He was dubious when the lower house agreed to it without any amendment: ‘what is the meaning of this procedure?’ he worried. On 9 Dec. when Wake joined those attending the queen with the address from Convocation, he noted the presence of the deans of Christ Church (Dr Henry Aldrich), and Carlisle (Atterbury): ‘God forgive either their past perverseness, or their present hypocrisy.’ On 26 Dec. Wake went with Bishop Moore to the Lords (which was not sitting) and thence to Lambeth to dine with Archbishop Tenison. On 30 Dec. Wake noted that ‘we sat long while the new Lords were received into the House’.<sup>64</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1707 Wake dined at Judge Dormer’s with Burnet and William Talbot*, bishop of Oxford. Six days later he noted that ‘the affair the Lord Nottingham summoned the House for was to have the treaty of Union laid before it. After several debates the House adjourned and came to no resolution.’ He noted for 15 Jan. ‘I dined and went to the House. The cause being put off no business done’, a reference to the cause <em>Lewes v. Fielding</em>. On 17 Jan. he heard the cause of <em>Randolph v. Brockman</em> and five days later Wake recorded being at the House to hear ‘Mr Fielding’s cause’.<sup>65</sup> Tenison informed Somers on 23 Jan. that ‘we met, three or four of us, this morning’, at Bishop Moore’s ‘and drew up a rough draft of an act of security which must needs be imperfect, we being helped only by the <em>Flying Post</em> and other unauthentic papers from Edinburgh, not being able... to procure a true copy of the act’ (the Scottish act for the security of the Presbyterian church).<sup>66</sup> Wake’s diary confirms that he was at this meeting, where, he wrote, ‘something was done towards the drawing up of an act of security for the Church of England against Tuesday next, when the Scotch Act for Union will be proposed by the queen’. After dinner, Wake went to the Lords, where he ‘got Mr Lee of Devonshire’s petition presented to the Lords and an order for a bill to renew [leases] with the dean and chapter of Exeter.’ On 27 Jan. he met at Lambeth (with Moore, Gibson and Willis) to settle the bill for the security of the Church. Wake recorded that he was present the following day when the queen passed some bills and communicated the Scots Union to Parliament, whereupon he went to dinner and was sent for back again, presumably because his presence was required when leave was moved for the bill securing the Church. On 29 Jan. Wake attended the House ‘and tarried till the call was over’, then at 5 o’clock Bishop Moore summoned him to Sunderland’s house, where the bill for the security of the English Church was finalized in the presence of Moore, Godolphin, Halifax, Marlborough, Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, and Thomas Wharton*, earl of Wharton.<sup>67</sup> The bill was duly introduced on 31 Jan. and on 3 Feb. Wake recorded that after ‘long and needless debates’, the bill passed its committee stage, a reference to the proceedings in committee when an attempt was made to make certain acts perpetual. The bill received the royal assent on 13 Feb. 1707.</p><p>On 1 Feb. 1707 Wake attended the Lords noting that ‘Mr Ward’s case was heard and carried for him’, the affirmation of the decree in <em>Clerke v. Ward</em>. Ward, a clergyman, thanked Wake in person on the 4th. Later that day in the Lords Wake recorded that he got the judges’ report read in Mr Lee’s case, ‘but it not being full was again referred back to them’. On 5 Feb. he added that he got the judges’ additional report in Mr Lee’s case read, and a bill ordered to be brought in upon it (the Journal states that leave was given for a bill on 4 Feb., and it was introduced on the 7th). Wake attended the House for the last time that session on 7 February. He was indisposed for some considerable time, as after the 12th his diary was silent until 6 Mar. and on 1 Mar. he had been reported as still dangerously ill.<sup>68</sup> On the 13th he signed a proxy in favour of Bishop Moore. In late March Wake was at Buckden, although, as Wheeler observed, even there ‘the bishop of such a diocese’ must not expect to enjoy a quiet retirement from business.<sup>69</sup> In his absence from the House, a private bill for encouraging the rebuilding of Humberstone parish church in Lincolnshire and settling a rent-charge of greater value on the bishop in lieu of the rectory of Humberstone, received the royal assent.<sup>70</sup> He did not attend the brief ten-day session later in April 1707. Wake was back in London in May, for on the 23rd, he did the rounds of Whig grandees, visiting Halifax for a long discussion on the state of the Church, Somers (who was away from home) and Sunderland, who was too unwell for company.<sup>71</sup></p><h2>Whig ministry, 1708-10</h2><p>Wake was not present when the 1707-8 session began on 23 Oct. 1707. He was in the capital on 15 Nov., when he waited on the queen, ‘who spake to me in a very affectionate manner about the prince [Prince George*, duke of Cumberland], and to be tender in the business of the fleet.’ Two days later Wake went to the Lords, took the oaths and ‘spoke with’ Archbishop Tenison, Sunderland and others. Overall he attended 43 days of the session, 47 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. After dinner on his first day Archbishop Sharp paid him a visit, whereupon Wake ‘communicated to him what had passed between the queen and me, and what were my resolutions with relation to the next Wednesday’s [19th] business in the House,’ which was the debate on the state of the fleet. On the 19th he attended, recording that the debate lasted until four: ‘I came home very cold.’ Two days later he noted that ‘the affair of the eldest sons of the Scots Lords came; and it was agreed, that the heirs apparent of the 16 who should sit from time to time in the British Parliament, should have the same privileges, as those of our English peers were wont to have’.<sup>72</sup> On 29 Nov. Nicolson wrote that he was glad of Wake ‘being in so good health as not to dread a return to Westminster and the services of Parliament.’<sup>73</sup> Not that Wake enjoyed perfect health; on 10 Dec. he recorded that ‘it being a fine day I went to the House of Lords, but made little stay, yet enough to increase my cold.’ Two days later he went to the House after dinner, for the debate about the state of the Fleet, and came back late. He repeated his journey after dinner on the 15th, where the House sat on the business of Spain till past four o’clock. He attended the general meeting of the trustees for Queen Anne’s Bounty held on 17 Dec., and afterwards took Bishop Hough to the Lords. The following day he noted that he met the queen at the Lords and talked to the archbishop about several matters. On 19 Dec. he was visited by Dr Josiah Woodward, ‘about prosecuting these late abominable books’, whereupon he went to the Lords ‘and spoke to the Archbishop about them’. On 26 Dec. Wake was present at the Boxing Day dinner at Lambeth.<sup>74</sup></p><p>On 13 Jan. 1708 Wake recorded that the business of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough ‘came on’, and the House sat until nearly seven. On the 27th Wake remarked that the Lords were still reading the papers relating to Peterborough and the war in Spain.<sup>75</sup> Ordered by the House on 20 Dec. to preach on 30 Jan., Wake’s sermon impressed Nicolson with its ‘excellent’ arguments ‘against drawing the sword in defence of religion’. The House thanked Wake on the 31st. If he was still in attendance at the time of the division on 5 Feb. 1708, Wake probably voted against retaining the Scottish Privy Council until October. Wake took Bishop Nicolson with him on 6 Feb. to Kensington for the queen’s birthday, noting that Nicolson ‘had the honour of being very hardly treated in his cause before the court of common pleas this morning; but we hope will find some remedy against the violence of some person’s procedure against him’. On 11 Feb. Wake and Bishop Hough waited on Wriothesley Russell*, 2nd duke of Bedford, but in such ‘a large, cold room without fire’, that his ‘gout is struck in and I have almost totally lost my voice already’. He then went to the committee for Queen Anne’s Bounty, after which he took Bishop Williams and John Tyler*, bishop of Llandaff to the Lords, ‘but soon came home to dinner’. <sup>76</sup></p><p>Wake was supportive of Nicolson in his conflict with his dean, Francis Atterbury, and other members of the chapter. To resolve the dispute a bill for avoiding doubts and questions touching the statutes of cathedral and collegiate churches was introduced to the Lords on 3 Feb. 1708. On the 14th, Nicolson ‘secured’ Wake for the committee on the bill that day, but it was subsequently adjourned.<sup>77</sup> On 18 Feb. Wake was presented with Nicolson’s printed case in favour of the bill and lent him his coach to facilitate the delivery of more of them. He also attended the committee of the whole on the 19th on the bill and was on hand on the 24th when the bill received its third reading. On 1 Mar. Nicolson visited Wake and talked to him about lobbying Members of the Commons over his bill; on the following day he sent Dr Gee to see Wake about the bill.<sup>78</sup> Meanwhile on 2 Mar. Nicolson recorded that he was ‘correcting the Bishop of Lincoln’s Letter’, which was dispersed on the 3rd and may be a reference to <em>A Letter to a Member of the H[ouse] of Commons in Answer to the Reasons against the Church bill</em>.<sup>79</sup> On 15 Mar. Wake attended the session for the last time. He left London on the 17th, and by 30 Mar. he was at Shapwick.<sup>80</sup></p><p>Following the dissolution of Parliament on 15 Apr. 1708, Wake returned to London on 30 April. On 7 May he met Tenison, Bishops Moore and Trimnell, and Deans Willis and Kennett (recently made dean of Peterborough) at the Cockpit to agree ‘several matters’ relating to Convocation.<sup>81</sup> In mid-May 1708 he went to Buckden.<sup>82</sup> Wake became involved in several elections in his diocese. As arranged with Bedford the previous autumn, Wake and Archdeacon Thomas Frank applied discreet ‘pressure’ to the clerical vote, in favour of Lord Edward Russell<sup>‡</sup> and Sir William Gostwick<sup>‡</sup>, who were returned for Bedfordshire on 19 May 1708.<sup>83</sup> In about May 1708 Wake was marked as a Whig on a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain.</p><p>On 30 Aug. 1708 Tenison told Wake that ‘we often wish you here’ and hoped that the bishop would use the ecclesiastical courts to prosecute John Barnard, a Catholic convert of the reign of James II, who had subsequently been reconciled to the Church of England, and was now a Lincolnshire vicar who was threatening to publicly justify the Latin mass and transubstantiation. If he was not prosecuted, Tenison warned, ‘the clamour of our lukewarmness in relation to popery which is now begun, will grow into an insupportable outcry’. By September, Wake had instigated proceedings, but was warned by Tenison that the ‘spirit of the party... appears as hot as ever; and if we had not in view a good Parliament, they would create trouble enough’. On 17 Sept. Tenison sought Wake’s opinion on Atterbury’s latest pamphlet and the likelihood that George Smalridge*, later bishop of Bristol, would be elected prolocutor.<sup>84</sup> The approaching Convocation was much in Wake’s thoughts in November. Wake attended a Junto meeting at Sunderland’s house on 9 Nov., moving ‘that the Convocation might by virtue of the queen’s letter be prorogued, and no prolocutor chosen at all’, while on the 11th he visited Bishop Trimnell, where, with Townshend and Bishop Moore, ‘we had a long talk about the approaching Convocation and many things relating to it.’ On 13 Nov. at the Lords he met William Dawes*, the new (Tory) bishop of Chester, ‘whom I had not seen before’. On the 14th he had further discussions about Convocation with Bishops Evans and Hough, and similarly, four days later, with Dr Gibson and Bishop Tyler in his own house, and then with Bishops Trimnell and Moore in the Lords.<sup>85</sup> On 19 Nov. Convocation assembled and, following Wake’s earlier proposal, it was immediately prorogued to the following spring and never sat to do business.<sup>86</sup></p><p>On 16 Nov. 1708 Wake attended the House for the first day of the new Parliament. He was present on 46 days, 49 per cent of the total, and was named to 17 committees. On 28 Nov. the mayor of Boston wrote to him with a draft bill, and on 30 Nov. he had a visitor about the ‘bill for Boston, which I have agreed to, a clause being added to secure the ecclesiastical jurisdiction’, a reference to the bill for the repair of Boston Church which failed in the Commons. On 1 Dec. ‘Mr Long came to me about a cause he has now depending in the exchequer, and which he supposes will come before the House of Lords’. Wake travelled on 28 Dec. to Lambeth for the traditional dinner with Archbishop Tenison; 13 were in attendance, where ‘many things of moment were proposed and debated before dinner’.<sup>87</sup></p><p>On 21 Jan. 1709 Wake voted against the motion that a Scots peer with a British title had the right to vote in the election of representative peers. As he recorded, in a ‘long session’, this was ‘agreeably to the Scots’ acts [the Act of Union] which say that they shall be chosen by the peers whom they represent: which we are assured were put in purposely to exclude all others’. The main argument used for allowing British peers vote for the representative peers, he wrote, ‘was that this was allowed by the last winter’s Act to such as were peers of Scotland and England’, which was answered that this was done to indulge Marlborough (as Baron Eyemouth in the Scots peerage) and John Campbell*, duke of Agyll (as earl of Greenwich in the English peerage). Nevertheless, Wake thought that this had been ‘plainly against the Scots act: and done only in consideration of the small number of such Lords (but five in all) and with a known intention not to extend it to any who should afterwards be made a peer of Great Britain.’ On 26 Jan., his birthday, Wake ‘was sent from table to the House: and tho’ very unwilling, and out of order with my left shoulder and arm I went thither. The Scots business came on, I tarried till near six; when the point of minors was settled. The House went on to new points, but I durst not stay any longer.’ The following day, ‘the weather still being very sharp’, Wake ‘durst not venture to the Parliament House.’ On 28 Jan. Wake wrote that ‘the Scots business coming on I was at the House; but came away before the debates ended’. On 4 Feb. Wake went to the House, and ‘sat out Sir John Wolstenholme’s<sup>‡</sup> cause, which went unanimously for him’, a reference to the cause of <em>Carteret v. Chapman</em>, Chapman being a lessee of Wolstenholme’s. Two weeks later Wake attended the House, where the Lords ‘tarried late on a cause, and yet did not end it,’ a reference to <em>Lady Falkland and Lady Russell v. Lytton</em>. On 23 Feb. Wake heard the 12 judges ‘upon a plea of q<em>uare impedit</em>: seven were of one opinion, four of another: and one of both sides’. This referred to the cause of <em>Shireburne v. Hitch</em>, the judgment on which was upheld, but it was then ordered that the judges consider the laws of advowsons and prepare heads for a bill for the making it easier to plead in actions brought for recovering of presentations to livings. On 25 Feb. Wake attended Convocation for a further prorogation.<sup>88</sup></p><p>Wake was an investor in the Company of Mine Adventurers and in 1708 he owned sufficient shares to be eligible for election to the general court.<sup>89</sup> This led him to engage in the Company’s affairs to the extent that he was involved in discussions about how to reform it. On 1 Feb. 1709 he recorded a visit from Samuel Trotman<sup>‡</sup>, with whom he had a long discussion about ‘the Mine affair’. On 8 Feb. he noted that John Chamberlayne (also secretary of Queen Anne’s Bounty) had sent him ‘some papers containing what had been done with relation to the payment of the Mine debts’, to which Wake replied and desired that Trotman be invited to their next meeting. On 10 Feb. Wake recorded that Trotman had written to him ‘about the Mine’, whereupon Wake sent Trotman’s servant with a letter to the governor of the Company, Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, ‘where the meeting of both parties was agreed to be this afternoon’. On 14 Feb. Wake wrote again about a meeting of the Mine Adventurers the next day. On 17 Feb. Wake recorded that he had subscribed a letter about the Mine affair, and sent it to Trotman to do likewise. On 28 Feb. Wake recorded that he had drawn up ‘some minutes for the Mine adventurers’, which Chamberlayne had collected, and that he had had a discussion with William Digby<sup>‡</sup>, 5th Baron Digby [I], ‘about the present state of our Mine Affairs’.<sup>90</sup> No legislation was introduced in the 1708-9 session.</p><p>On 1 Mar. 1709 Wake was visited by Mr Fitch and Dr John Waugh<sup>†</sup>, the future bishop of Carlisle, about Mr Hayden’s bill, ‘which I promised to farther all I could’. On 2 Mar. Wake attended the committee on the bill for vesting the Devon estate of Gideon Haydon in trustees. After attending at court on 8 Mar. 1709, Wake’s visitors after dinner included the dean of Windsor, Dr Thomas Manningham*, soon to become bishop of Chichester, with whom he talked about settling the rectory of Hasely on the deanery of Windsor, and Mr Stafford, who discussed a bill ‘he has now lying before the Lords’: Wake promised ‘to give him all the help I can in it.’ Before Wake attended the House on 11 Mar. he was again visited by Manningham, and drew up a bill for settling Hasely on the deanery of Windsor, which was introduced on 16 March, and passed that session. At the House Wake attended the committee on the bill to enable Anthony Stafford to sell or mortgage some part of his lands in Derbyshire and Cheshire, for the payment of his own and his father’s debts.</p><p>Significantly, on 14 Mar. 1709 Wake recorded that when at the House he spoke to the archbishop and bishops about the general naturalization bill.<sup>91</sup> More conservative in his Anglicanism than many of his Whig colleagues, Wake joined mainly Tory bishops the following day in the division on an amendment to the bill proposed by Nicolson and Dawes that those eligible for naturalization be required to take the Anglican sacrament rather than merely join ‘some Protestant Reformed congregation’.<sup>92</sup> His conduct during the passage of the bill gave the Tory clergy in his diocese pause for thought: it ‘has occasioned the frequent mention of the name of the bishop of Lincoln with much respect here among those that would be thought the best friends of the Church’. Wake was reported from private letters ‘for the public news never said a word of it’, to have ‘made a speech for a limitation to the bill, requiring all so naturalized to receive the sacrament in the communion of the Church’. As a result, Wake was ‘publicly extolled here in the news-houses, and in my hearing, as a true bishop of the Church, but at the same time to the disparagement of others on the same bench, who seemed so indifferent’.<sup>93</sup> Wake’s own account was rather laconic: ‘we had a long session about the naturalization bill’, although he did record later in the day a visit from ‘Mr Morris the joiner, who is half crazed at the passing of the naturalization bill.’ He also mentioned a visit from Lady Cooke about her bill for payment of the debts of Sir John Bolles<sup>‡</sup>, which was reported on the 17th, she having been a petitioner for the bill.<sup>94</sup></p><p>On 25 Mar. 1709 in committee of the whole House debating the bill for the improvement of the Union, Wake voted with Cowper, Godolphin, and Bishop Burnet, but against Somers, Sunderland and Bishop Trimnell to postpone consideration of the validity of Scottish marriage settlements under the new treason law to the following day, since the Scots Lords wanted further time to consider it. On 28 Mar. he recorded that the ‘treason bill’ had passed the House, ‘where I had a good deal of discourse with the archbishop’.<sup>95</sup> On 7 Apr. Wake attended his last sitting that session. On 14 Apr. he left London for Buckden and in May he conducted a visitation of Brasenose College, of which he was visitor as bishop of Lincoln. Wake was at Buckden on 12 May, but at the end of the month he commenced a diocesan visitation, which continued with a few breaks until 9 September.<sup>96</sup> Wake’s usefulness to Tenison was underlined on 24 Sept. when Kennett wrote that the archbishop ‘seemed to wish for your Lordship’s return to consult about several affairs... Here is no one bishop in town.’<sup>97</sup> Wake returned to London on 5 Oct. and read prayers and assisted at the prorogation the day after his arrival.<sup>98</sup> Within a week, Wake’s wife was ‘dangerously ill’ following childbirth and he was unavailable for public business.<sup>99</sup></p><h2>The 1709-10 Session and the Trial of Sacheverell</h2><p>The duchess of Marlborough thought Wake ‘an honest bishop’ to preach on Thanksgiving Day [22 Nov.] and Tenison also told him that if a bishop was required to preach on that day before the Lords, ‘you, I’m sure, will be agreeable to all’.<sup>100</sup> Wake did not attend the consecration of Bishop Manningham on 13 Nov. 1709, endorsing a letter ‘Dr Manningham excuses his not inviting me to his consecration.’ He was present in the Lords when the session began on 15 November. He attended on 60 days, 63 per cent of the total and was named to 23 committees. On 17 Nov. Wake was present when the address was presented to the queen. On 18 Nov. William Farrer<sup>‡</sup> waited on Wake ‘on behalf of Mr Stonestreet’, and they discussed the project of an act for toleration in Scotland, and what ‘the Scots committee had done there against episcopal meetings’. In the early months of 1710 Wake was the recipient of much information on attitudes towards episcopalianism in Scotland and the case of James Greenshields, and was in correspondence with Richard Dongworth, Episcopalian chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch, through the bookseller Richard Sare.<sup>101</sup> On 15 Dec. Nicolson wrote to Wake to thank him for accepting his proxy, ‘which could not be more safely lodged than in the hands of one who so generously patronised my late cause in Parliament [the cathedrals bill] and helped to rescue me out of the power of the lion and the bear.’<sup>102</sup> On 2 Jan. 1710 Wake and Bishop Trimnell went to Lambeth, where they met Bishops Hough and Moore and ‘had a long conference about the present state of affairs’; Charles Montagu*, 4th earl of Manchester, Bishop Burnet and ‘a great deal of company’, he noted, were also dining there. On 4 Feb. Wake attended the Lords, where ‘Mrs Pack’s bill’ to enable trustees to raise part of the portions for the younger children of Cliston Packe, was read the first time. Wake noted ‘I doubt it will not pass,’ and it received the royal assent at the end of the session. On 9 Feb. Wake recorded that the place bill was ‘thrown out’. Five days later John Chamberlayne visited Wake about the Mines Adventurers’ petition before the committee of the Commons: this was a petition presented on the previous day from several creditors and proprietors for leave for a bill to transfer the management of the company. A bill was eventually introduced in this session, but did not get beyond a first reading. On 16 Feb. Wake recorded that Dr Thomas Newey came to him from Bishop Trelawny ‘to bring a private bill into the House’, probably the bill relating to the Tremayne estate, leave for which was granted the following day and which also concerned Lancelot Blackburne, now dean of Exeter.<sup>103</sup></p><p>Wake was an active participant in the trial of Dr Sacheverell. On 24 Jan. 1710, he visited Sunderland where, with William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, Wharton, Orford, Somers, and Bishops Hough, Moore and Trimnell, they discussed the following day’s business in the House when Sacheverell was due to answer the impeachment charges.<sup>104</sup> Wake attended the House regularly throughout the proceedings, keeping Nicolson informed of progress and having Nicolson’s sanction to use his proxy ‘wherever there is room for it, your Lordship will give it on the same side of the question with your own’.<sup>105</sup> On 20 Feb. he spent the evening with Somers and six days later Wake confided to his diary, ‘tomorrow comes on the unhappy trial of Dr Sacheverell; I pray God bring it to a good conclusion; and direct me to act with all justice and impartiality in my small part in it.’ Wake had thought the ecclesiastical courts a more appropriate place to prosecute Sacheverell, but neither Bishop Trelawny, Sacheverell’s diocesan, nor Bishop Compton, in whose diocese the offending sermon was preached, were thought likely to deal effectively with the offence.<sup>106</sup></p><p>In the House on 17 Mar. 1710, Wake ‘opened the debate’ by delivering a lengthy speech - the published version, <em>The Bishop of Lincoln his speech in the House of Lords, March the 17th</em>, ran to 20 pages—which dissected Sacheverell’s offending sermon and supported the Commons’ second article of impeachment.<sup>107</sup> Indeed, Wake and Trimnell, who seconded him, were accused of monopolizing the Lords’ time.<sup>108</sup> According to Rev. Ralph Bridges, Wake</p><blockquote><p>made a very long speech and gave us the history of the comprehension, as ’twas designed at the Revolution, told the Lords Archbishop Sancroft and my Lord of London and himself were concerned in it. ’Twas only to alter things in their own nature alterable and to add several very necessary offices to the Common Prayer and he showed how far and to what persons the Toleration Act extended and said all were not heterodox that did not subscribe all our 39 Articles, nor all false brethren who indulged the dissenters in the several articles excepted in the Act; picked out all the passages in the doctor’s sermon, which he could any ways make to reflect upon the toleration and left out the alleviating passages, which made on the doctor’s behalf. In short, he said several things which, in my poor opinion, might have much better have become the mouth of a lay Whig Lord, than one with an episcopal character.<sup>109</sup></p></blockquote><p>Wake’s speech evoked some bitter responses, one claiming that to fall under the ‘resentment’ of ‘our modern bishops’ was worse than falling ‘into the gripping clutches of a Mazarin or a Richelieu’.<sup>110</sup> On the other hand, Lady Anne Clavering, Cowper’s sister-in-law, thought that Bishops Wake and Trimnell ‘spoke to the articles like two apostles. Had we ever heard of two St Pauls I should have believed they had now been with us’.<sup>111</sup> On 20 Mar. Wake voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. Following the verdict he met with Godolphin and Somers in the Prince’s chamber ‘and agreed upon Dr S. censure. I wish I could have made it lighter: I did all I could for him.’<sup>112</sup> In the event, Wake’s view had more support in the House and the sentence was indeed lighter.<sup>113</sup></p><p>On 22 Mar. 1710 Wake was with William Fleetwood*, bishop of St Asaph, when he was sent for to read prayers at the House. While at the House he spoke with Cowper and Sunderland. After attending the Lords on 24 Mar. he dined at Cowper’s along with Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough, Bishops Moore and Trimnell, John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe, Thomas Pelham*, Baron Pelham and lord chief justice Sir Thomas Parker<sup>†</sup>, the future earl of Macclesfield. On 26 Mar. Wake recorded that ‘the governors of the hospital came to desire me to help on their bill’, presumably the bill for vesting the estate of Thomas Arnway, in the Green-coat and Grey-coat hospitals in Westminster, which received its first reading on the 28th. Dr Gee also visited: ‘he wants me at the committee for a private bill tomorrow, but I dare not go to the House,’ presumably for the committee on Emerton’s bill which met that day.<sup>114</sup> On 2 Apr., Wake preached a sermon at St James’s Church which was said to have ‘caused much discourse upon the account of the low and moderate strain of it’.<sup>115</sup> On 4 Apr. he was visited by Bishop Hough, and together they took Bishop Fleetwood to the Lords, where Wake ‘sat upon the booksellers bill’—the bill for vesting copyright of printed books in the authors, which was reported on that day. When Wake attended the prorogation on 5 Apr., he ‘was solicited at the House to print my last sermon’ by Sunderland, Henry D’ Auverquerque*, earl of Grantham, and Lord William Powlett<sup>‡</sup>: it appeared as <em>The Danger and Mischief of a Mis-guided Zeal</em>.<sup>116</sup></p><p>On 8 Apr. 1710 Wheeler, now a prebendary of Lincoln, wrote that Wake had become ill attending the Sacheverell trial.<sup>117</sup> By 12 Apr. Thomas Bateman had picked up that Wake was one of seven bishops ‘for punishment (which are called extinguishers)’, along with Bishops Burnet, Cumberland, Moore, Trimnell, Talbot and Fleetwood—presumably those marked out for retribution for their role in the prosecution.<sup>118</sup> Wake seems to have forgone his usual visit to Dorset, Bishop Nicolson certainly expecting him to be there in May.<sup>119</sup> Wake had attended the prorogation on 16 May, in the company of John Pocklington<sup>‡</sup>. On the 20th he recorded that ‘Mr Sare coming to me, I delivered him sealed the copy of my speech to the House of Lords’, perhaps for publication, which occurred on 9 June. By 25 May he seems to have been back at Buckden, where he still was early in June.<sup>120</sup> On 3 June he wrote to Cowper of his concerns that a published account of the Sacheverell trial must include a definition of what the ‘guilty’ verdict actually meant. He had already encountered widespread misunderstanding and misinformation about it.<sup>121</sup> Cowper reassured Wake that he would ensure that all the Lords’ proceedings would be printed to show ‘the great care and deliberation with which the Lords proceeded’.<sup>122</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1710</em></h2><p>The summer of 1710 was busy in anticipation of the imminent general election in which the Sacheverell trial was a key factor. On 2 Oct. 1710 Wake had two hours of private discussions with Manchester, one of the dominant magnates in Huntingdonshire.<sup>123</sup> Five days later, the Whigs Pocklington and John Proby<sup>‡</sup> were duly returned for the county despite the increased efforts of the Tories. The election at Bedfordshire on 5 Oct. returned its sitting members, Lord Russell and Sir William Gostwick; despite Wake’s commands to Alexander Leith, prebendary of Bedford Minor (and investor in the Mine Adventurers), he voted for the Tory John Harvey<sup>‡</sup>, along with around 20 other clergy, but they were outnumbered by the clergy who voted for Russell and Gostwick.<sup>124</sup> On 11 Oct. Laurence Eachard, prebendary of Louth, informed Wake that he was off to the hustings for the Lincolnshire election, where he would ‘carefully observe’ Wake’s directions.<sup>125</sup> Some 300 clergy turned out in strength for the Tories, while only a handful of ‘Hodlean clergymen’ backed George Whichcot<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>126</sup> The election campaign at Lichfield was equally heated. Bishop Lloyd asked Wake to influence George Newell to stay away from the election, and therefore assist the chancellor, William Walmisley<sup>‡</sup>, but without success.<sup>127</sup></p><p>Wake was reckoned by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as a certain opponent of the Tory ministry in his analysis of 3 Oct. 1710. On 10 Oct. Tenison hoped that Wake would ‘come up before the ways become too bad. We want persons to confer with in this critical juncture’.<sup>128</sup> By 8 Nov., Wake was in London, being visited by Dr Gibson and then Dean Willis, where the topic of conversation was the approaching Convocation. As Wake recorded ‘God grant that things may go better than we fear in it.’ Three days later, he attended a meeting at Lambeth with Bishops Fleetwood, Hough, Moore and Evans, Dean Willis and Gibson, where it was resolved: ‘to set up a prolocutor. To get an address ready that shall meddle with no state affairs. To write to our friends to be up against the opening of the Convocation.’ On 23 Nov. Wake and Bishop Fleetwood went to Doctors’ Commons to meet the archbishop and bishops to discuss Colonel Codrington’s benefaction. He duly met Bishops Compton, Hough, Cumberland, Evans and John Robinson*, bishop of Bristol.<sup>129</sup></p><p>On 25 Nov. 1710, the first day of the parliamentary session, Wake attended Convocation at St Paul’s, rather than the Lords. When Atterbury rather than Willis was elected prolocutor, Wake drew up a formal petition to Tenison asking that he void the election as Atterbury was ‘not only a disturber of the peace of the Church but indeed the principal enemy of our order and authority’.<sup>130</sup> When the chapter house was called over, Wake drew the attention of the archbishop to what he termed a ‘mistake’ in the mandate of the archbishop and the bishop of London, ‘in which the <em>ardua[?] Ecclesiae negotia</em>, were quite left out, and only ‘Regni’ taken notice of’.<sup>131</sup></p><p>Wake attended the Lords for the first time on the third day of the session, 27 Nov. 1710, but soon came out and sat in the lobby, because of the heat and the crowd. He was present on 35 days, 31 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. He attended for only three days before the New Year, because of the importance of his presence in Convocation. On 6 Dec. Wake recorded that he went to the Convocation, where Dr Smalridge presented Prolocutor Atterbury and ‘made a noble panegyric upon him’, though, he wrote, the subject matter was such that it was not clear whether he really intended to ‘praise or abuse him’.<sup>132</sup> A few days later Gibson was extolling Wake’s ‘staunchness’ to Gibson.<sup>133</sup> On 13 Dec. the upper house of Convocation sat late, expecting the concurrence of the lower house to their address to the queen, and Wake hoped for ‘a good issue of these troublesome meetings.’ On the evening of 14 Dec. Bishops Moore, Trimnell and Fleetwood, Dean Willis and Dr Gibson ‘met upon business’ at Wake’s house.<sup>134</sup> On that day Nicolson recorded a visit to Wake who was hard at work answering the queen’s letter to Tenison warning against allowing procedural disputes in Convocation to disrupt its business.<sup>135</sup> Between 19 and 21 Dec. Wake was engaged in visits with Bishops Nicolson, Fleetwood, Hough and Trimnell, Dean Willis and Dr Gibson among the higher clergy and Somers and Cowper among the lay peers. On 26 Dec. Wake attended the traditional dinner at Lambeth, in the company of two archbishops and 16 bishops.<sup>136</sup></p><p>On 8 Jan. 1711 Wake was late at the House as the Lords were occupied with debating the failures of the war in Spain. On 9 Jan. he voted against the ministry in the division on whether Peterborough had given a ‘just’ account of the council of war at Valencia before the battle of Almanza, the House sitting until after 9 o’clock. Two days later, he signed a protest against the Lords’ vote to reject petitions from Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], over their conduct during the campaign and, later in the day, again protested against the committee’s resolution that the defeat at Almanza could be blamed on Galway, Tyrawley and James Stanhope<sup>†</sup>, the future earl Stanhope. On the 12th, the House sitting until 10 o’clock, he signed a protest against the censure of the previous ministry for sanctioning an offensive strategy in Spain. <sup>137</sup> On 3 Feb. he signed two further protests against the resolution that two regiments on the Spanish establishment were not supplied as they should have been and against the resolution that by not supplying the deficiencies in men, the ministers had neglected their service. On 9 Feb. he further entered a protest against the last paragraph of the resolution of 3 Feb. being expunged.</p><p>On 15 Jan. 1711 Wake was at the House, and on that and the following day had encounters with Bishops Fleetwood, Moore, Hough, Evans and Trimnell, Dean Willis and Dr Gibson. Wake went on 17 Jan. to Convocation ‘where I received the Archbishop’s commission, and prorogued the Convocation to this day sevennight’, and then went to the House after dinner.<sup>138</sup> Matters in Convocation came to a head when the queen issued a new royal licence for the sitting of Convocation on 24 Jan.; it omitted to designate Tenison as president of Convocation and it named Bishops Compton and Hooper as part of the quorum, thereby infringing upon Tenison’s rights to commission bishops to preside in his absence and threatening his (and Whig) control. Wake was named to a committee on 24 Jan. to look into this question.<sup>139</sup> On 25 Jan. he was not at the Lords, but went to Lambeth with Bishops Hough, Moore and Trimnell and the following day he went to Convocation, and returned with Bishop Trimnell. He was visited by Bishop Moore and then Archbishop Tenison, and then Wake and Trimnell went to the Lords. On the evening of 28 Jan. Wake and Bishop Hough went to Ely House to meet Bishop Trimnell, Somers and Cowper. On 13 Feb. 1711 Wake and Trimnell visited Somers ‘about the Convocation affairs’, and three days later Wake prorogued Convocation. He then received visits from Bishops Evans and Trimnell, then Hough, and then Dr [William] Lloyd, Dr [William] Worth, Dr [Richard] West ‘all these about the Convocation matters, they being members of the lower house.’ On 19 Feb. ‘Mr Jones in the evening desired me to be at the committee at Paul’s tomorrow’, and he duly attended until after 7 o’clock. Wake attended the Lords on the 20th for the first time for a week. On 21 Feb. Wake went to Convocation, returning with Bishop Trimnell and being joined by Bishop Trelawny, and two days later Wake was visited by Bishops Evans, Moore, Trimnell and Fleetwood, who all went to Convocation together, the two latter dining with Wake.<sup>140</sup> On 24 Feb. Trelawny wrote to Wake that he had stayed away from Convocation the previous day, and wanted to see Wake’s precedents asserting the rights of the archbishop to appoint a president when absent, ‘for I find I will be called on to assert the queen’s power of that nomination.’<sup>141</sup> On 24 Feb. he was visited by Bishops Burnet, Tyler and Fleetwood, ‘to review our Convocation reports’, Philip Bisse*, bishop of St Davids then joining them.<sup>142</sup> Eventually, Wake and Somers negotiated with Bishop Bisse on the new licence, following Bisse’s offer to negotiate ‘expedients’ that might satisfy both sides in the dispute. The resultant proposals proved an acceptable compromise, and the queen agreed to amend the offending licence.<sup>143</sup></p><p>On 26 Feb. 1711 Bishops Nicolson and Evans visited Wake ‘where’, in Nicolson’s account, ‘we hoped to have concerted the matter of the Scotch case with him’, that is, James Greenshield’s appeal against the judgment of the Edinburgh magistrates. The following day Wake attended another meeting with Somers, Cowper and Bishops Nicolson, Evans and Trimnell to discuss how to deal with the Greenshields case, so that it remained a civil cause and did not touch the authority of the Kirk. On 1 Mar. Wake went to the House, where he ‘heard Mr Greenshield’s cause’, and ‘came late back’. <sup>144</sup> A division on the regularity of the appeal was carried, with all the bishops voting to support it; then the sentence of the Edinburgh magistrates and the lords of session was reversed with little debate and without a division.<sup>145</sup> On 10 Mar. Greenshields, together with three other Scottish ministers, came to thank Wake for his support. On 2 Mar. Wake went to Convocation, and after dinner went to the Lords, returning home at about four o’clock. On 5 Mar. he again went to the House, returned home and about four o’clock went to the committee of Convocation at the Jerusalem Chamber. After attending at court to honour the queen’s birthday on 6 Mar., Wake and Bishops Moore and Trimnell ‘went to Mrs Moor’s lodgings’ and finished a short report for the following day’s session of Convocation, presumably a reference to the report on regulating procedures in excommunications.<sup>146</sup></p><p>Wake found time to deal with other matters. As early as 4 Dec. 1710 he had recorded in his diary that he had met ‘Mr Williams’ at the House of Lords, and had given him ‘the act for setting Stepney parish’, the bill for confirming the purchase by Brasenose College of the advowsons of Stepney and other churches. On 26 Jan. 1711 the college principal visited Wake, perhaps in regard to the petition introduced on 12 February. On 20 Feb. he paid Wake another visit in the morning, and later that day the judges reported on the college’s petition for a bill, which was ordered to be introduced. On 9 Mar., when the bill was before the House, Wake went to the Lords ‘where I spoke to Mr Principal of Brasenose, and had before engaged divers Lords to attend their committee tomorrow morning’. The bill was reported from committee on the 10th. On 17 Dec. 1710 Wake had been visited by George Mordaunt, the precursor of another visit on 8 Feb. 1711 ‘about his trial tomorrow’. On 13 Feb. Wake visited Bishop Trimnell ‘about Mr Mordaunt’s cause’ (probably the clandestine marriage case of <em>Mordaunt v. Mordaunt</em>, affecting George Mordaunt). Wake was called from the House of Lords by Mordaunt and his brother: ‘it being the Lord Chief Justice’s opinion that our testimony would be proper, we went into Westminster Hall, and declared what each of us knows of his conduct in the change of his religion.’<sup>147</sup></p><p>After 7 Mar. 1711 Wake did not attend the Lords again until 15 Mar., but in the interim he did attend the committee of Convocation on the 8th and 12th. On 17 Mar. ‘the committee of bishops upon Mr [William] Whiston’s case’—Bishops Hough, Moore, Evans, Hooper, Tyler, Trimnell, and Bisse—met at Wake’s in the morning. Wake was at the committee of Convocation and then the House on 26 March. He did not attend again until 14 May, visiting Dorset between 2 Apr. and 10 May; he registered his proxy in favour of Trimnell on 23 Apr.; it was vacated with his return on 14 May. On 18 May, Wake went with Bishop Evans to the Convocation, and after dinner went to the Lords for his last attendance this session, where he ‘tarried out the bishop of London’s cause’ which ended with a decree confirmed in favour of the bishop against the inhabitants of Hammersmith. He then took his leave of the queen at Kensington. On 19 May Wake was visited by Trotman about the bill for the relief of the creditors and proprietors of the Company of Mine Adventurers, which had been committed to a committee of the whole House two days previously (Wake claimed that he was owed £345 by the Mine Adventurers). On this occasion the bill made it on to the statute book, but Wake was not much help on this occasion as he set off for his diocese on 20 May. <sup>148</sup> By the time of the prorogation on 12 June he was at Buckden.<sup>149</sup></p><p>On 24 Oct. 1711 Wake arrived safely in London. His youngest daughter died on the 26th. On 12 Nov. he received visits from Bishops Talbot, Hough and Trimnell, and from Kennett, who had come from Lambeth ‘and desired me to meet them at the House of Lords tomorrow’. On the following day Wake prorogued Convocation and then went to the Lords for the prorogation, where he also ‘treated’ with Wharton about a Mr Kost’s affair.<sup>150</sup> In response to a letter of 12 Nov. he reflected upon the lessening of ecclesiastical authority caused by</p><blockquote><p>unhappy divisions amongst us, and not only as to the open Dissenters, but with those of our own communion; the controversies between the presbyters and their bishops; the harsh charges brought by many against those who not only entirely communicate with us, but love and support our church as much as any that uncharitably censure them.<sup>151</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 26 Nov. Wake met Bishops Evans, Talbot, Nicolson and Trimnell ‘about the business tomorrow’ and on that day Wake prorogued Convocation again and attended another prorogation of Parliament, where he ‘met many friends’. On 1 Dec. Wake was given an account of the present state of the Episcopal congregations in Scotland by Greenshields.<sup>152</sup></p><p>On 7 Dec. 1711 Wake accompanied Bishops Evans and Trimnell to Convocation, where he was named to a committee to examine the minutes of the previous session. After dinner he went to the House for the first day of the new parliamentary session and the ‘great question about the peace’: he presumably voted for the addition to the address that no peace was safe or honourable while Spain remained in Bourbon hands. On the 8th he was listed as voting for retaining the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause of the address in the abandoned division of that day, in which Oxford (as Robert Harley had become) sought to reverse the vote of the previous day. Wake attended on 32 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. He was forecast on 19 Dec. as likely to oppose the right of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to sit in the House by virtue of his British dukedom of Brandon, and the following day he voted accordingly. On 26 Dec. he took Bishop Cumberland to Lambeth for the Boxing Day dinner.<sup>153</sup></p><p>After attending the adjournment on 2 Jan. 1712, Wake attended the next sitting on the 14th. His diary for January and February generally merely noted attendance at the Lords or Convocation, but provided few details. On 6 Feb., after dinner, Bishops Tyler, Evans, Trimnell and Fleetwood ‘met here upon Convocation business’.<sup>154</sup> Later, Wake and Bishops Nicolson and Fleetwood went to court, it being the queen’s birthday.<sup>155</sup> On 8 Feb. he was visited by Greenshields and ‘Mr Davis from House of Lords’, as well as Bishops Evans and Trimnell: ‘I went with these to the Convocation.’<sup>156</sup> Wake being absent from the Lords on 11 Feb., Nicolson paid him a visit to report on the ‘transactions’ of the day.<sup>157</sup> On 18 Feb. Bishops Trimnell and Fleetwood visited in the afternoon ‘upon a committee of Convocation’, probably that relating to excommunication, which reported to Convocation on 20 February. On that latter day Bishops Moore and Fleetwood visited, and they ‘all went early to Convocation’. On 21 Feb. Bishops Evans, Trimnell, and Fleetwood were ‘here upon the article of marriage from the upper house of Convocation’, which was a committee appointed the previous day. On 25 Feb. Bishops Talbot, Evans, Blackall, Trimnell, Fleetwood were again ‘here upon a committee’, one having been appointed to meet at Wake’s house to consider the proposal of the lower house that ‘whatever head of business was entered upon before the royal prorogation be now begun <em>de novo</em>’, and which reported to Convocation on 27 February.<sup>158</sup></p><p>On 26 Feb. 1712, Wake and Evans appear to have cajoled Nicolson into voting against the Commons’ amendments to the episcopal communion in Scotland bill, contrary to his own convictions.<sup>159</sup> On the same day, a private bill to establish the income of the Buckinghamshire rectory of Gothurst was given a first reading in the Lords. Wake had been asked for his help to sort this matter out in February 1710, and according to the petition for the bill he had indeed facilitated an agreement. His papers contain several copies of the bill and a note that the committee was scheduled for 13 March, although he was not nominated to the select committee following the second reading on 27 February.<sup>160</sup> On 29 Feb. Wake attended Convocation in the morning and then, after dinner, went to the Lords, which sat late, where he received an account of the lower house of Convocation. A committee was appointed to meet at Wake’s on 3 Mar. to consider methods of proceeding there. On 8 Mar. Wake noted that ‘Mr Hill with me about a private bill’, presumably Nathaniel Hill, a clergyman, whose petition for an estate bill was reported upon favourably by the judges and ordered to be brought in on 14 March. Wake went to Convocation on 12 Mar., where the bishops discussed the attorney general Sir Edward Northey’s opinion on whether a prorogation brought business to an end. On 13 Mar. Wake was visited by Bishop Trelawny and ‘went to the committee’, presumably that on Gothurst rectory, where he signalled his consent to the bill. <sup>161</sup> Possibly because he was preparing to leave London, on the morning of 18 Mar. he waited on Archbishop Tenison. On 19 Mar. he was visited by Bishops Tyler, Evans, Talbot and Trimnell before going to Convocation. Wake was absent from Parliament from 20 March. He registered his proxy with Bishop Talbot on 22 Mar. and went into Dorset three days later, returning to London on 10 May.<sup>162</sup> He was in the House again on 12 May, when his proxy was vacated.</p><p>On 11 May 1712 Sir Streynsham Master and his wife came to see Wake about their cause before the Lords: two days later Wake was in the Lords for Master’s appeal, which was dismissed. He attended a meeting on 15 May at Sunderland’s home in the company of Bishops Fleetwood, Evans and Talbot, where they met Somers, Townshend and Halifax, and agreed that nothing had been done in Convocation on 14 May that could fall within the statute of Henry VIII relating to the royal supremacy in the Church, which might have been infringed by the bishops seeking to clarify lay baptism. On 16 May Wake went to Bishop Fleetwood’s and met Bishops Tyler, Burnet and Evans, possibly on the same matter. Wake continued to work on this politically provocative issue and in the autumn presented the results of the latest historical scholarship on baptism. On 19 May he attended the Lords for the last time that session, and on the following day he registered his proxy in favour of Trimnell and took his leave of the queen, departing from London on 22 May. <sup>163</sup></p><p>Wake now embarked on his triennial visitation, beginning with confirmations at Hertford on 22 May 1712 and ending at Spalding on 24 July. In his charge to the clergy Wake made reference to a clause to prevent clandestine marriage which was tacked onto the act to levy duties on soap and paper. He was subsequently involved in correspondence with his ‘official’, John Crawley, over the interpretation of the clause. On 26 Sept., John Chamberlayne wrote to Wake about a bill that was planned to be brought into Parliament as soon as it sat concerning the augmentation of poor livings, though the initiative seems to have lost urgency in the long interval before the session began.<sup>164</sup> Experiencing another bout of illness, on 9 Oct. Wake counselled Moore to care for his own health in the hope that ‘we may disappoint the hopes of our enemies, and not give them the double satisfaction of getting rid of us, and coming themselves into our places’. Although the parliamentary session was delayed by the continuing peace negotiations, Wake was in London in time to attend the traditional St Stephen’s dinner at Lambeth on 26 Dec., with eight other bishops. In January 1713, in preparation for the forthcoming session, Bishop Nicolson sent his proxy to Wake, via Gibson. On 24 Feb. Wake conducted the marriage of James Stanhope to the daughter of ‘Governor’ Thomas Pitt<sup>‡</sup>. <sup>165</sup> Meanwhile, he attended the House on seven occasions between January and March for repeated prorogations; on the latter six occasions he prorogued Convocation first.<sup>166</sup></p><p>Before the 1713 session began, Wake was considered by Swift (on a list amended by Oxford) as expected to oppose the ministry in the forthcoming session. He was present in the House on 9 Apr. for the start of business, reporting ‘I prorogued Convocation till next Wednesday [15 Apr.]. I went to the House’. He attended on only 11 days of the session, 17 per cent of sittings, and was named to three committees. On 14 Apr. Bishop Trimnell and Dean Willis met with Wake in the afternoon, when ‘they agreed upon an address for tomorrow’ in Convocation. On 15 Apr. Wake duly went to Convocation as he did again a week later. After dinner on the latter day, he went on to the Lords (though he was not listed as attending in the Journal). On 28 Apr he was put off by the cold from taking his leave at Lambeth before attending the Lords. On the following day he met Bishops Moore, Hough, Trimnell and Fleetwood, before attending Convocation and on the 30th he left for Dorset, where he remained for part of May.<sup>167</sup> He attended the Lords on only one day in May, the 11th. Wake did not sit in the Lords again until 22 June, but about 13 June it had been estimated by Oxford that Wake would oppose the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He last attended the House for the session on 7 July. Wake was at Buckden when it was suggested to him on 12 Oct. that two parishes in Grantham could now be united, which would require an act of Parliament to accomplish, although no bill was ever introduced in the succeeding Parliament. <sup>168</sup> On 7 Dec John Rogers wrote to Wake hoping that he had arrived safely in London and congratulating him on ‘the happy dispatch’ of his daughters, although Wake appears to have actually arrived in London on 9 December.<sup>169</sup></p><h2>The Parliament of 1713 and after</h2><p>On 26 Jan. 1714 Wake recorded the arrival of his parliamentary writ. On 29 Jan., well before the start of the session, Bishop Trimnell seems to have assigned his proxy to him. On 8 Feb. Archbishop Tenison, who had been seriously ill, thanked Wake for his ‘assistance at this needful time’ regarding Convocation and the important question of the number of commissioners to be named in his absence.<sup>170</sup> Wake was present when Parliament sat to do business on 16 Feb., and attended on 39 days of the session, 51 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. On 19 Feb. Wake went with the other bishops to wait on the queen and after dinner he paid visits to John Manners*, 2nd duke of Rutland, Cowper and Bishop Trimnell. On 24 Feb. Bishop Trimnell ‘came about Convocation business’. After attending on 2 Mar., Wake was, according to the Journal, absent until 9 Apr., but on 3 Mar. he himself recorded that after attending Convocation he dined with Bishop Trimnell and that they then went to the House, and on 4 Mar. that ‘Mr Batteley came from Bishop of Rochester about his demand in Convocation’ and he then went to the House. He attended Convocation on 5 and 6 Mar., and on 8 Mar. he went to court, it being the queen’s accession day. The following day Wake went to St James’s to help with the confirmation of Archbishop Dawes of York, dined with ‘the archbishop’ and received a visit from Wharton in the evening. On 10 Mar. he went to Convocation, signing a proxy in favour of Bishop Evans; on the same day he signed a proxy for the Lords in favour of Bishop Nicolson. On 11 Mar. he left for Shapwick, returning on 8 April. Wake recorded on 9 Apr. that he went to the House (thus vacating his proxy) and returned about five o’clock with Bishop Fleetwood.<sup>171</sup> It is likely that Wake voted against the court in the division on 13 Apr. concerning the queen’s reply to their address against the pretender, as only two of 16 bishops present voted with it. After his return from Dorset, Wake continued to attend Convocation and regularly and was closely involved in its management. On the morning of 29 Apr. he was visited by Bishop Smalridge and the Prolocutor, Dr George Stanhope, and then went to the Jerusalem Chamber to attend. On 30 Apr. he attended Convocation and then the Lords where he heard a cause, probably <em>Roper v. Hewett</em>, which lasted until ‘between six and seven at night’. He then went to Bishop Fleetwood to give him an account of it. On 4 May he went to the House and heard another cause, probably <em>Wasteneys v. Chappel</em>. On 5 and 7 May he went to Convocation, where on the latter day the issue of excommunication was under debate. On 8 May his visitors included ‘two Scots brothers (Gardens)’ whose case, <em>Garden v Anderson</em>, was to be heard in the Lords. On 11 May he went to the House, where the case of <em>Tyrwhit v Trotman</em> was heard, both men having visited Wake about it on 3 May. <sup>172</sup></p><p>On 13 May 1714 he noted that Bishop Smalridge had sent his secretary to him ‘with the act about excommunication’, in other words the schism bill. Wake recorded on 2 June that he was involved in at least one meeting about the bill. On 3 June he was at the House and then at Lambeth with Bishop Fleetwood; the following day he went to Convocation and Parliament. He was forecast by Nottingham at the end of May or beginning of June as an opponent of the schism bill. On 9 June he went to Convocation, dined, and went to the House where he ‘tarried’ till seven o’clock. He voted on 11 June against extending the schism bill to Ireland. The following day he received Nicolson’s proxy and on the 14th that of Bishop Cumberland for use in the Lords. On the same day he received the proxies of Bishops Cumberland and Fowler for use in Convocation.<sup>173</sup> On 15 June he voted in the Lords against the passage of the schism bill and signed the subsequent protest, forwarding to Trimnell an account of the Lords’ proceedings. It is significant that on this issue he used Cumberland’s proxy to oppose the bill, but cast Nicolson’s proxy in support, honouring Nicolson’s wishes.<sup>174</sup> On 16 June Wake ‘went to the Convocation, though in great pain in my side and back’. On 30 June he again recorded going to Convocation, where Dr Samuel Clarke was under attack from the lower house for his views on the Trinity: ‘all confusion, and heat, and clamour: nothing concluded’. He then went on to the Lords where he ‘endeavoured’ with Bishop Trelawny ‘to put an end to this unhappy controversy, such as may neither provoke the L[ower] H[ouse] nor offend the Ch[urch] of God.’ On 2 July Wake and Bishops Trelawny, Evans, Tyler, Fleetwood and Smalridge went to Convocation, where Wake hoped the matter would ‘end peaceably’ following a declaration issued by Clarke to the upper house. After dinner he went to the Lords, ‘which sat very late’, about the Spanish commercial treaty. Two days later he held discussions about Clarke’s ‘explanatory paper’, which clarified his previous declaration; all, he wrote, were troubled at it. Bishops Smalridge and Fleetwood wrote to Clarke to persuade him not to stick to it, and Wake enclosed their missive in another letter to him against it. On 5 July he went to Convocation with Bishop Robinson and discussed Clarke’s papers, then dined and went to the House, recording ‘not many friends there’. On 8 July he was at the Lords until almost nine o’clock. He was present when the House was prorogued on 9 July, and prorogued Convocation on 10 July. On 14 July Wake took his leave of Archbishop Tenison. <sup>175</sup></p><p>Wake set out for his diocese on 16 July 1714, and was thus at Buckden when he heard of the queen’s death. He returned to London on 18 Aug. and so was able to attend the last two days of the session convened upon the queen’s demise, qualifying himself by taking the oaths on the 20th and attending the giving of royal assent to the money bills on the 21st. He attended the queen’s burial on 24 Aug. and six days later went to Lambeth. On 31 Aug. he met Stamford, Manchester and Sir Peter King<sup>†</sup>, later Baron King. He set off for Shapwick on 2 Sept. and then returned to London on 16 Oct., one of his daughters having married on the 6th. On 18 Oct. Bishop Burnet called on him and together they went to court ‘and waited on the King, Prince and Princess of Wales and the young princesses’. Two days later Kennett accompanied Wake to the Lords from where they attended the coronation, Wake returning home at between four and five o’clock. On 26 Oct. Wake waited on Halifax, Somers, and Sunderland, but saw none of them. Wake reportedly then went to Dorset ‘by no means satisfied with the conduct of Lord Townshend’ over the recent appointment of John Wynne<sup>†</sup>, as bishop of St Asaph.<sup>176</sup></p><p>Wake preached before the new king on 30 Jan. 1715, and clearly stood in an ideal position for translation to a more prestigious bishopric. In March, upon the death of Bishop Burnet, he asked Cowper to recommend his translation to Salisbury:</p><blockquote><p>the burden of a large diocese which I have endeavoured to bear as well as I could for almost ten years past; and have more than once endangered my life by the fatigue of it; joined to the great convenience of the bishopric of Sarum to my small estate and family, which is just in the neighbourhood of it; have at last constrained me, contrary to my natural temper, and to the whole conduct of my past life, to become an humble petitioner to your lordship for your favour to procure such a translation for me.<sup>177</sup></p></blockquote><p>Later in the month, the newspapers wrote confidently of his translation, but Cowper had already backed Bishop Talbot, who was translated to Salisbury in April. By May, the coffee houses were equally sure that Wake would succeed Tenison at Lambeth, as he did when Tenison died in December 1715. <sup>178</sup> A full account of his career in the House after 1715 will be provided in the subsequent volumes to this series. Wake died at Lambeth on 24 Jan. 1737 and was buried on 9 Feb. beside his wife in the south chancel of Croydon parish church. His lengthy will provided for his seven surviving daughters; his daughter Mary, married to John Lynch, dean of Canterbury, was his residuary legatee.<sup>179</sup></p><p>Wake, preaching a faith that relied on a fashionable appeal to reason more than religious enthusiasm, engaged Tory highfliers in heated published exchanges and contributed to the polarization of the Church into rival political parties of ‘low’ and ‘high’ churchmen. His elevation to the episcopate in 1705 was a result of growing Whig ascendancy in the queen’s councils. His extensive diary shows his range of social and political contacts: a political ally of Somers, Sunderland and Cowper among the lay peers, he was particularly close with the Whig bishops in the second half of Anne’s reign. After 1710 he rarely socialised with high churchmen except on formal occasions.<sup>180</sup> Wake’s house in Dean’s Yard, close to the palace of Westminster and the court, was such a convenient location for both political and social meetings that it was a very frequent recourse for his fellow bishops attending both the House and Convocation. Another advantage of accepting Wake’s hospitality in London was the access it provided to his extensive library, which Nicolson described in glowing terms.<sup>181</sup> Indeed in August 1710 one of Wake’s correspondents noted that his `writings and learning are known to be so exact’. Burnet summed the bishop up as ‘a man eminently learned, an excellent writer, a good preacher, and, which is above all, a man of an exemplary life’.<sup>182</sup></p> |
B.A./S.N.H. |
|
WALTON, Brian (1600-61) |
<p><strong><surname>WALTON</surname></strong>, <strong>Brian</strong> (1600–61)</p> |
|
|
First sat 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 22 Nov. 1661 |
cons. 2 Dec. 1660 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1600, parents unknown. <em>educ.</em> Magdalene, Camb. matric. 1616; Peterhouse, Camb. BA 1620, ord. 1623, MA, 1623; DD, 1639; incorp. Oxf. 1645. <em>m</em>. (1) Anne Claxton (<em>d</em>.1640), of Suff.; (2) bef. 1657, Jane, da. of William Fuller, dean of Ely, 1s. <em>d.</em> 29 Nov. 1661; <em>will</em> 2 Aug. 1658, pr. 17 Dec. 1661.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to duke of York until 1646;<sup>2</sup> chap. ord. to Charles I, 1660.</p><p>Rect. St Martin Orgars, London 1628-43, Sandon, Essex 1636-40, St Giles-in-the-Fields, Mdx. 1636; preb. St Paul’s, London Aug.-Dec. 1660; commr. Savoy conference 1661.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: line engraving by P. Lombart, NPG D28806; oil on canvas, Peterhouse, Camb.</p> |
<p>A parish minister in London and Essex before the civil wars, Walton’s support for the policies of William Laud<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury, opposition to Puritanism and determination to collect his tithes led to a protracted feud with a significant sector of his parishioners and accusations of ‘popish innovations’. He was summoned before the Commons as a delinquent, compounded and fined.<sup>4</sup> He subsequently attended both Charles I and James Stuart*, duke of York until the royalist surrender of Oxford. Retreating into academic life he embarked on the project for which he is generally remembered, the publication of the <em>Polyglot Bible</em>.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Walton’s name had been included on the ecclesiastical planning lists drawn up before the Restoration.<sup>6</sup> The Chester chapter was instructed to elect him as their bishop on 5 Oct. 1660.<sup>7</sup> Walton embarked on his episcopate with energy, assessing the damage to church property and petitioning the king for a warrant to start building repairs. He also began acquiring additional advowsons since the bishopric was valued at less than its outgoings.<sup>8</sup> He was impatient to re-establish discipline, and although the ecclesiastical courts were not formally reconstituted until July 1661, those in Chester exercised their ‘corrective powers’ from the previous April.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Walton remained in London for the early part of 1661. He was one of 12 Church representatives nominated to attend the Savoy Conference but was there only ‘once or twice’. His lengthy journey from London to Chester began on 3 Sept. and soon turned into a powerful and theatrical affirmation of the role of the newly restored episcopate. On 7 Sept. when he reached the outskirts of Lichfield he was joined by ‘some persons of very good worth’ who had travelled from Chester to greet him; as he drew nearer to Chester, the entourage swelled to include the majority of the county gentry, together with the county and city militias and five troops of horse. ‘Thousands’ cheered as Walton was conducted to his palace and was saluted with ‘several volleys of shot’.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Walton returned to London and took his seat in the Lords at the readmission of the bishops on 20 Nov. 1661. He attended for just three days before succumbing to his final illness. His will, composed in August 1658, contained a strident condemnation of ‘all schismatics, heretics and sacrilegious persons’ with whom ‘no fellowship in worship or discipline’ was possible. He left generous bequests to members of his extended family, his servants and the poor as well as £100 to be divided between 20 clergymen who had ‘suffered … for their loyalty and constancy in the truth’. The residue of his estate went to his son, also named Brian Walton. He was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral after a lavish funeral procession in which his body was accompanied by John Egerton*, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, many of the nobility and the ‘greater part’ of the bishops.</p> |
B.A. |
|
WARD, Seth (1617-89) |
<p><strong><surname>WARD</surname></strong>, <strong>Seth</strong> (1617–89)</p> |
|
|
First sat 30 May 1663; last sat 19 Nov. 1685 |
cons. 20 July 1662 bp. of EXETER; transl. 12 Sept. 1667 bp. of SALISBURY |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 5 Apr. 1617, 2nd s. of John Ward, attorney of Buntingford, Herts. and Martha Dalto; <em>educ</em>. Buntingford g.s., Herts. c.1627-32; Sidney Sussex, Camb. 1632, BA 1636, MA 1640; ord. Sept. 1641; incorp. Oxf. 1649, DD 1654; incorp. Camb. 1659. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 6 Jan. 1689; <em>will</em> 30 Apr. 1687, pr. 12 Jan. 1689.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Ralph Freman<sup>‡</sup> c.1644-9, Thomas Wenman<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Visct. Wenman [I], 1649, Ralph Brownrigg<sup>†</sup>, bp. Exeter, c.1656-9; rect. Garsington, Oxon. 1659-60, Uplowman, Devon 1661-2, St. Breock, Devon 1662-7;<sup>2</sup> proctor, Convocation 1661-2; preb. Exeter 1660-2, Salisbury 1667-<em>d.</em>; precentor, Exeter Cathedral 1660-2; vic. St Lawrence Jewry, London 1661-2, Menheniot, Cornw. 1662-7;<sup>3</sup> dean, Exeter 1661-2.</p><p>Fell. Sidney Sussex, Camb. 1640-4; praelector, mathematics, Sidney Sussex 1642-4;<sup>4</sup> Savilian Prof. of Astronomy, Oxf. 1649-60; fell. Wadham, Oxf. 1650-60; pres. Trinity, Oxf. 1659-60; FRS 1661-<em>d.</em> (council 1666-78); chan. Order of the Garter 1671-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Commr. accounts 1667,<sup>5</sup> union with Scotland 1670.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J. Greenhill, 1673, Royal Society (and versions at Salisbury Guildhall, Trinity, Oxf., Christ’s, Camb. and Wadham, Oxf.); oil on canvas, The Palace, Exeter; monumental portrait bust, Salisbury Cathedral, Wilts.</p> |
<p><em>Civil Wars and Interregnum</em></p><p>Ward was born into the family of a Hertfordshire attorney ‘of good reputation, for his fair practice, but not rich’.<sup>7</sup> At Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge he devoted himself to mathematics but in 1644 contributed to a pamphlet against the imposition of the covenant on university members.<sup>8</sup> For his opposition he was put out of all his college fellowships in August 1644.<sup>9</sup> In the following years he moved in decidedly moderate circles; he was employed as a tutor for the young Ralph Freman and later served in the Oxfordshire household of the peace party supporter, Viscount Wenman, ‘rather as a companion than chaplain’.<sup>10</sup> In 1649 he accepted the position of Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. It is not certain whether at this point he took the Covenant and Engagement. His biographer, Walter Pope, claimed that through the influence of Sir John Trevor<sup>‡</sup>, Ward was dispensed from this requirement while the censorious Anthony Wood was equally positive that Ward threw in his lot with the ‘usurping powers’ by taking the oaths.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In 1650 Ward became a fellow-commoner of Wadham where he became a close friend and colleague of the energetic warden John Wilkins*, later bishop of Chester, and a leading member of the circle of natural philosophers who frequently met in Wilkins’ lodgings during the 1650s.<sup>12</sup> He published prolifically on natural philosophy, theology and astronomy, and his 1652 publication on natural theology, <em>A Philosophical Essay towards an Eviction of the Being and Attributes of God</em>, was continuously reprinted until 1677. In 1656 the noted Calvinist Ralph Brownrigg<sup>†</sup>, ejected bishop of Exeter, offered Ward the post of precentor of Exeter Cathedral. Although at this point there was little hope of the English Church being re-established, Ward nevertheless paid his full fees to take up this office, a wise precaution as it was later to turn out. ‘This’ commented his biographer, ‘was the first fair flower that ever grew in his garden, and the foundation of his future riches and preferment’.<sup>13</sup></p><p><em>Bishop of Exeter</em></p><p>Ward also made an adroit political move early in 1660 by allying himself to George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle. According to one contemporary, Ward promoted Monck’s candidacy as burgess of Oxford University for the Convention in opposition to Thomas Clayton<sup>‡</sup>, by telling the heads of houses that Monck ‘desired the honour of being burgess for the university above any other.’ The story may, however, have become somewhat garbled in transmission, since Monck did not seek the seat for himself but for William Lenthall<sup>‡</sup>, erstwhile Speaker of the Commons.<sup>14</sup> In 1661 Ward obtained a City of London vicarage, a benefice in the king’s gift, which suggests that he did have some favour at court despite Wood’s belief that he had collaborated with the regimes of the 1650s. He served as proctor for the Exeter chapter at Convocation in 1661-2, and on 26 Dec. 1661 he was elected dean of the cathedral.</p><p>In June 1662 John Gauden*, the incumbent bishop of Exeter, was translated to Worcester. According to John Aubrey, Ward was in Devonshire on visitation when the ensuing vacancy became known to the gentry attending him, and hearing this,</p><blockquote><p>with great alacrity the gentlemen [of Devonshire] all cried, <em>uno ore </em>[with one mouth] ‘We will have Mr. Dean to be our bishop’. This was at that critical time when the House of Commons were the king’s darlings. The dean told them that for his part he had no interest or acquaintance at court; but intimated to them how much the king esteemed the Members of Parliament (and a great many Parliament men were then there), and that his majesty would deny them nothing. ‘if ’tis so, gentlemen’ (said Mr. Dean) ‘that you will needs have me to be your bishop, if some of you make your address to his majesty, ’twill be done’.</p></blockquote><p>Ward’s supporters rode immediately to London where they presented their case for the dean and, as Ward predicted, Charles II granted their request. Ward’s rise to the bishopric did not pass without opposition. Aubrey went on to note that the older bishops including Humphrey Henchman*, then bishop of Salisbury, and John Cosin*, of Durham, resented the promotion of ‘a brisk young bishop … but 40 years old, not come in the right door but leap over the pale’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>The most glaring inconsistency in this engaging story is that Ward does not appear to have been in Devon at the time of Gauden’s translation but was still in London wrapping up the affairs of convocation.<sup>16</sup> For his part Pope claimed that Ward owed his promotion to influential west country patrons at court such as Albemarle, Sir Hugh Pollard<sup>‡</sup>, and ‘some of his western friends’ as well as Ward’s Cambridge contemporary Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich. Pope noted Albemarle in particular as one of Ward’s foremost friends and patrons.<sup>17</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury wrote that it was owing to Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, who ‘saw that most of the bishops were men of merit by their sufferings, but of no great capacity for business. He brought Ward in, as a man fit to govern the church’.<sup>18</sup> It is likely that all these important figures at court had an important role to play in Ward’s promotion to the episcopate.</p><p>Ward was consecrated in July 1662 but did not arrive in Exeter until 9 Sept., where he was immediately confronted with the responsibility of enforcing the Act of Uniformity in his diocese. He has earned a reputation as a harsh persecutor of Dissenters, both in the Exeter diocese and later in Salisbury. In Exeter he followed the letter of the law with his customary efficiency and single-mindedness.<sup>19</sup> Burnet claimed that Ward was given the bishopric precisely because he would enforce the law rigorously: ‘to get his former errors to be forgot, [he] went into the high notions of a severe conformity’.<sup>20</sup> Ward’s many letters of this period to Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London (and later archbishop of Canterbury), reveal his attitude to Dissent in his diocese hardening over time. By January 1664 he was supplying Sheldon with lists of justices of the peace, city magistrates and other officials whom he felt were turning a blind eye to conventicles. In the summer of 1665 he conducted his first visitation as bishop of the diocese and was particularly disturbed by what he saw in Cornwall, detailing to Sheldon the powerful men of the county (such as Hugh Boscawen<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Herle<sup>‡</sup> and Thomas Herle<sup>‡</sup>) who were actively encouraging the services of dissenting ministers. <sup>21</sup></p><p>Illness prevented Ward from taking his seat in the House at the start of the session in February 1663, the first session for which he was eligible to sit. He registered his proxy as early as 31 Jan. 1663 with Richard Sterne*, bishop of Carlisle. He was able to travel to the capital in April and vacated his proxy when he first sat on 30 May 1663. He left the House again before the end of the session and on 15 July 1663 gave his proxy to Sheldon, who held it until the end of the session 12 days later.</p><p>Ward returned to Westminster by March 1664 for the next short session of Parliament. He came to all but five of its 36 sittings. In April he was involved in the proceedings over the bill to make the church recently built in Falmouth (dedicated to King Charles the Martyr) parochial, and he gave his consent before the committee considering the bill on 26 Apr. 1664, on the condition that the church’s founder, Sir Peter Killigrew<sup>‡</sup>, provided an adequate maintenance for the minister.<sup>22</sup></p><p>He was back at Westminster in November 1664 to attend three-fifths of the meetings of the 1664-5 session. On 16 Dec. 1664, the committee for privileges upheld his complaint against Gilbert Yard, an attorney at Lyon’s Inn who had been trying to take the bishop to court.<sup>23</sup> Whereas in these previous sessions he had perhaps, as a new and young member of the bishops’ bench, been infrequently appointed to select committees (only three in 1663 and 15 in 1664), in the very short Oxford session of October 1665 he was nominated to nearly every committee. At this session the punitive Five Mile Act was passed, and Richard Baxter believed that its chief episcopal advocates were Sheldon and Ward.<sup>24</sup> Burnet also asserted Ward’s enthusiasm for this measure, but it must be noted that Ward’s name does not appear in the one contemporary account of the debate on this bill to survive.<sup>25</sup> If he did promote it, he would have been assisted by the proxies he held for Gilbert Ironside*, of Bristol, and Henry King*, of Chichester. Ward’s increased participation in this session – he sat in all but four of the sittings – may have brought him to the attention of the king’s ministers, and he became an increasingly prominent member of the episcopal bench from this time.</p><p>He likewise only missed two of the sittings of the session of September 1666-February 1667. This was Ward’s busiest period yet. His abilities as a preacher were becoming increasingly recognized. In early October he gave a celebrated and frequently printed fast sermon to the House of Lords assembled in the Abbey Church for the recent Fire of London. By March 1667 Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup> records that Ward and Herbert Croft*, of Hereford, were ‘the two bishops that the king doth say he cannot have bad sermons from’.<sup>26</sup> In the House he was a constant presence and a co-ordinator of the episcopal vote, holding the proxies of two other bishops, William Nicholson*, of Gloucester, and Hugh Lloyd*, of Llandaff, for the entire session. Throughout October he was closely involved in the discussions between the Houses on the address to the king for the prohibition of French imports. On 12 Oct. he was named to a subcommittee assigned to draw up reasons for the Lords’ disagreement with some points of the address brought up from the lower House; that subcommittee then acted as managers or reporters in four conferences between 17 and 30 Oct. before an address could be agreed upon. In January 1667, during the passage of the bill for Humphrey Wharton<sup>‡</sup> for improving lead mines in Durham, Ward was put on a committee of seven bishops to draft a bill to enable the bishop of Durham to lease lead mines to Wharton and others for three lives.<sup>27</sup> In the period 4 to 7 Feb. he was involved in four conferences concerning the escalating disagreement with the Commons over just where John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, should sit during his impeachment hearing.</p><p><em>Translation to Salisbury</em></p><p>Exeter was not a lucrative diocese, and with the death in April 1667 of Matthew Wren*, the bishop of Ely, Ward immediately began petitioning Sheldon to be translated to that wealthy see. At one point Ward became too presumptuous and had to send a grovelling letter to Sheldon, in which he tried to dissociate himself from his ‘friends’ who were importunately pressing his claims around the archbishop.<sup>28</sup> He failed to obtain Ely, but when Alexander Hyde*, of Salisbury, died in August 1667, Ward was quickly translated to that prestigious see instead.</p><p>Ward did not arrive in Salisbury until May 1668, detained in London as he was by the next session of Parliament (and the council of the Royal Society).<sup>29</sup> He attended 83 per cent of sittings in the House during the 1667-9 session. Here the bill enabling Bishop Cosin of Durham to lease lead mines, which Ward and others had worked on in the previous session, finally got a hearing, and Ward continued to be involved in it, being appointed again to a subcommittee of four assigned to draft an additional clause.<sup>30</sup></p><p>On 14 Dec. 1667 he and Croft were the only two bishops named to the committee to draw up reasons for the Lords’ dissent from the Commons’ vote in favour of Clarendon’s commitment; they were later appointed to report the ensuing conference on this matter. In the weeks after the fall of Clarendon, John Wilkins, with the backing of his patron George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, collaborated with Richard Baxter and Sir Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup> in drawing up a comprehension bill. Wilkins made the mistake of telling his old friend Ward about this, assuming his support of the measure, but Ward relayed the information to Sheldon. The archbishop immediately organized opposition to the measure, and when Parliament met on 10 Feb. 1668 the Commons launched into an attack on the nonconformists and petitioned the king for the full execution of the penal laws against ‘sectaries’.<sup>31</sup> Walter Pope, step-brother of Wilkins (through whom he had become acquainted with Ward) was anxious to emphasize that there was no long-term rupture between the two men owing to this incident: ‘The two bishops continued their old friendship till death, though it is not to be denied, that they … differed in their opinions concerning the bill of comprehension’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>In the House Ward chaired committees on bills on the ordering of the accounts of probate administrations and on the aulnage.<sup>33</sup> On 3 Apr. he was appointed a manager for a conference on taxing ‘adventurers’ in the Great Level and later that month, on 24 Apr., made a reporter for a conference on the Commons’ proposed impeachment of the admiral and Navy commissioner, William Penn<sup>‡</sup>. He was also appointed a manager for a conference on the Commons’ jurisdiction in the case of <em>Skinner v. East India Company</em> on 8 May 1668, the day before Parliament was adjourned.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Ward attended a little over three-quarters of the brief session of October-December 1669, but his principal activity and achievement at that point was his successful petition to have the office of chancellor of the order of the Garter returned to the bishops of Salisbury.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Ward was active in the parliamentary session of 1670-1, being present in the House for 160 of its 165 gatherings and named to 47 committees. He voted against the divorce bill for John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland), entering protests against its second reading on 17 Mar. 1670 and against its passage 11 days later. On both 2 and 6 Apr. he was a reporter for conferences on amendments to the highways bill. His attention was most closely directed towards the passage of the second conventicle bill, and his vigorous advocacy of this bill earned him some notoriety. On 22 Mar. a committee of the whole appointed Ward to a subcommittee to prepare a clause to limit the liability of offenders of the law.<sup>36</sup> The bill passed a committee of the whole on 25 Mar. but without a suggested proviso reaffirming the king’s royal supremacy in religion. Ward reported that at this point he was summoned by the king himself who told him that ‘he desired that proviso might pass, for this reason, that the bishops and all his friends might see that he would take care of them and of the nation in the strict execution of that Act, with which he would not dispense’ and ‘he commanded me to let the bishops understand so much, which I did, and the proviso passed without contradiction’, only to be thrown out in the Commons.<sup>37</sup> Armed with the proxy of Anthony Sparrow*, of Exeter, registered in his favour that day, Ward on 26 Mar. was able to help vote the conventicle bill through. Over the course of the following two weeks Ward was consistently named a manager or reporter for the many conferences the Lords held with the Commons over the disputed amendments to this bill. From 4 Apr. he held Cosin’s proxy which was vacated 9 Apr. 1670, two days before the session was adjourned.</p><p>Many years later Walter Pope praised Ward’s close involvement in the Conventicle Act:</p><blockquote><p>’Tis true, he was for the act against conventicles, and laboured much to get it passed, not without the order and direction of the greatest authority, both civil and ecclesiastical, not out of enmity to the Dissenters’ persons, as they unjustly suggested, but of love to the repose and welfare of the government; for he believed if the growth of them were not timely suppressed, it would either cause a necessity of a standing army to preserve the peace, or a general toleration, which would end in popery, whither all things then had an apparent tendency.<sup>38</sup></p></blockquote><p>Before the session resumed in the autumn, Ward again received Sparrow’s proxy, registered on 14 Oct. 1670. In this session Ward’s name was added to the list of trustees in the bill to vest the late duke of Albemarle’s estates in trust during the minority of his son Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle.<sup>39</sup> Pope considered the first duke of Albemarle, who had died in January 1670, the most important of Ward’s friends and patrons, as ‘he did him many good offices at court, and defended him against the clamours and calumnies of the fanatics’. Ward in his turn had ‘waited upon him frequently while he was in health, and was never absent from him in his sickness; he was with him in the last moments of his life, he gave him the holy sacrament, closed his eyes, and preached his funeral sermon’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>In the House Ward was involved in proceedings on the bill to prevent the illegal export of wool. He and Heneage Finch*, 3rd earl of Winchilsea, lord lieutenant of Kent, were assigned by the select committee to draw up a clause to stipulate that boats caught illegally transporting wool were to be burned.<sup>41</sup> On 10 Dec. 1670 he chaired a meeting of this committee, and two days earlier he had also chaired the committee considering Sir William Smith’s private bill.<sup>42</sup> In the new year he was appointed, on 1 Mar. 1671, to a subcommittee to prepare heads for a conference with the Commons concerning the growth of popery, and it may have been owing to his role with this bill that James Stuart*, duke of York, later reminisced that ‘in the beginning of March’ George Morley*, of Winchester, Ward and Wilkins attempted ‘to introduce comprehensions under another name and pretence, and with so much cunning and art, that it was like to pass the House of Commons … ’.<sup>43</sup> Baxter confirms that the three bishops were in discussions about comprehension but dates the episode to the ‘latter end’ of 1670. On 13 Apr. 1671 Ward was further appointed to a subcommittee to ‘draw up the test and oath according to the debate of the committee this day’.<sup>44</sup> On 22 Apr. 1671 he was named a reporter for a conference on the long-running wool bill, but this business did not proceed very far as the session was prorogued that day.</p><p>Otherwise Ward was involved in committees throughout the session and for two days running chaired the committee on the bill for better settling intestates’ estates, finally reporting its proceedings to the House on 23 Mar. 1671.<sup>45</sup> On 18 Apr. he was the only bishop named as reporter for a conference on the bill for the improved maintenance of the London clergy who had suffered because of the Fire, and that afternoon he reported from the select committee considering the bill on workhouses.</p><p>Ward reached the pinnacle of his prominence in national life in the 1670s, particularly during the ministry of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) with whose pro-Church policies he was closely associated. Richard Baxter records for 1671-2 that Ward was a scourge of nonconformity: ‘Salisbury diocese was more fiercely driven on to conformity by Dr. Seth Ward, their bishop, than any place else, or than all the bishops in England besides did in theirs’.<sup>46</sup> As such he was a valuable asset for the government. Burnet’s comment that Ward ‘became the most considerable man on the bishops’ bench’ would seem to refer to the mid-1670s, as does Pope’s report that John Maitland*, duke of Lauderdale [S] (and earl of Guilford), considered Ward to be the best speaker in the House of Lords.<sup>47</sup></p><p>His preaching was still highly regarded, and on 16 Jan. 1674 he was assigned by the House to preach the martyrdom sermon two weeks later. He was often touted for promotion, both to ecclesiastical and lay posts. In 1672, upon the death of John Cosin, Ward’s name was bandied around as his likely successor at Durham. According to Pope, in 1674 Ward turned the offer down because he ‘did not like the conditions’. Pope also recorded that Ward was ‘spoke of both at court, and in the City, as the fittest person to supply the place of the archbishop of <em>Canterbury</em>, lord keeper, or lord treasurer, if any of them should become vacant’.<sup>48</sup> As late as February 1680 there were rumours that Ward was studying law to prepare himself to take on the office of lord chancellor, and when Sheldon died in 1677 there was certainly talk that Ward would succeed him as archbishop.<sup>49</sup> Ward’s closest episcopal colleague George Morley strongly urged the benefits of Ward’s promotion to Canterbury.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Yet it is significant that Morley in this letter of September 1677 felt it necessary to defend Ward against the ‘unworthy misprisions’ that were frequently made against him. Respected Ward may have been, but there was throughout his career an undercurrent of mistrust; his ‘sincerity was much doubted’, as Burnet would have it.<sup>51</sup> An admittedly hostile, and perhaps apocryphal, anecdote from the papers of the dissenting minister Thomas Woodcock implies that Ward’s star was on the wane from as early as the time of the stop of the exchequer in 1672. Supposedly Ward prevaricated before the king about the amount of money he held in the exchequer for fear that the king’s friendly warning about the impending financial disaster was actually a request for a loan of the bishop’s money: ‘By this he lost his hopes of the archbishop of Canterbury, and £3,000’.<sup>52</sup> Ward’s contemporaries, such as Robert Hooke, often found him ‘false’ and ‘a courtier’, while in 1683 (when Ward was definitely in decline) John Evelyn walked in the park with Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, ‘where we fell into discourse of the bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Seth Ward, his subtlety, etc.’.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Richard Baxter, in particular, had reason to mistrust Ward’s subtlety. He records that as early as 1670 Ward and Morley, who were to form a close and formidable pair during the decade, often spoke of their fear of popery and their desire to amend the oaths and other requirements of conformity to allow the Presbyterians into the national church. Ward, Morley and John Dolben*, of Rochester, ‘spoke ordinarily their desires of it; but after long talk there is nothing done, which make men variously interpret their pretensions, … that they would never have been the grand causes of our present case, if it had been against their wills, and that if they are yet truly willing of any healing, they will show it by more than their discourses’.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Baxter had in mind the various abortive comprehension bills floated in 1673-5. The first of these bills, ‘for the ease of his majesty’s protestant subjects’, was brought to the House on 21 Mar. 1673, when Ward, who had been absent for most of the session up to that point, had begun to sit regularly. On 25 Mar. he and Dolben were two of the five bishops appointed by a committee of the whole to a subcommittee of 12 to draft a number of clauses. Despite his involvement he was not chosen to represent the Lords in the conferences that met from 29 Mar. to discuss this bill.</p><p>Ward was also involved in the anti-Catholic legislation of that session. On 15 Mar. 1673 he was appointed by a committee of the whole considering the Test bill to a subcommittee to draw up a clause that nothing in the act was to prejudice peers.<sup>55</sup> Nine days later he was made a reporter for a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill, and the following day he acted again as a manager for another conference on the same topic. In the session of early 1674 he supported the comprehension bill first moved by Morley which provided for the repeal of the assent and consent clause and the declaration renouncing the Covenant. When on 19 Feb. the motion to commit this bill passed the House, Ward, Morley, Dolben and John Pearson*, of Chester, were singled out for having voted ‘for the commitment and spoke for the thing’. The bill, ‘for the better securing the protestant religion’, passed by a majority of almost 20 but was promptly lost at the prorogation on 24 February.<sup>56</sup></p><p>The Venetian ambassador reported in November 1674 that Presbyterians were once again offering to negotiate with the bishops about comprehension, but that ‘the bishops, headed by Winchester and Salisbury, oppose the measure, not solely from religious zeal but because they know that once the Presbyterians are admitted they will, by their wealth and intelligence obtain the distribution of church preferment’.<sup>57</sup> In January 1675 Ward, with Sheldon, Morley, Dolben, Pearson and three other bishops met with privy councillors and government ministers at Lambeth, under the aegis of Danby to formulate measures ‘to suppress popery and establish the Church of England’.<sup>58</sup> He signed the documents and memoranda arising from these meetings, which argued for increased measures against Catholics and the withdrawal of the licenses granted to nonconformists in 1672. The Venetian ambassador suggests that of the five bishops who signed the proposals ‘the turbulent Salisbury and his follower Winchester’ actively promoted the measures while Sheldon, Dolben and Pearson ‘three good and quiet ones’, only ‘gave their silent consent’.<sup>59</sup></p><p>Baxter recounted that in the early months of 1675 Ward and Morley, with the peers George Savile*, Viscount Halifax, and Charles Howard*, earl of Carlisle, supported the collaboration of John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury, and Baxter to devise another bill for comprehension. On 11 Apr. 1675, in the days before the opening of the spring 1675 session of Parliament, Tillotson had to admit to Baxter that the bishops had withdrawn their support and that the project was bound to fail in Parliament. Baxter claimed that he never expected otherwise and that the trusting Tillotson was quickly disabused of Ward’s true commitment to the project, for as the drafts of the bill were nearing their final stages, Ward made himself increasingly unavailable for consultation: ‘When they had in general told Bishop Ward how far we had gone, and how fair we were for agreement, and told them some of the particular materials, there was a full end of the treaty, the bishops had no further to go; we had already carried it too far’. <sup>60</sup></p><p>The two bishops’ true intent, Baxter suggests, was made manifestly clear in their actions during the session of spring 1675. Ward came to all but one of the sittings and was one of the foremost supporters of Danby’s non-resisting test bill. Baxter listed Danby, the lord keeper, Heneage Finch*, Ward and Morley as ‘the great speakers for it’, but the opponents of the bill,</p><blockquote><p>distinguished themselves in the debate; which set the tongues of men at so much liberty, that the common talk was against the bishops. And they said, that upon trial, there were so few found among all the bishops, that were able to speak to purpose, Bishop Morley of Winchester and Bishop Ward of Salisbury being their chief speakers, that they grew very low also.<sup>61</sup></p></blockquote><p>Anthony Wood thought that the ‘Country’ pamphlet <em>A Letter from a Person of Quality</em> ‘makes Ward, bishop of Salisbury, a very rogue’, even though the text itself actually nowhere mentions Ward by name.<sup>62</sup> Ward was further involved in much of the religious legislation and on 21 Apr. 1675 was named, with Morley and Pearson, to a committee for the bill to explain the act concerning popish recusants. He was also manager or reporter in late May for four conferences about <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em>, including the conference scheduled for 28 May which never took place.</p><p>Danby clearly saw Ward as a key supporter of his ‘Court’ party. In the days before the autumn 1675 session, when he was sending out letters summoning his allies to Westminster, Danby was assured by Roger Boyle<sup>‡</sup>, earl of Orrery [I], that Morley and Ward had contacted him to say they would be in Westminster in a week, ‘and that they have not been idle’.<sup>63</sup> Ward was almost immediately caught up in the controversy still surrounding <em>Sherley v. Fagg</em> at the beginning of the autumn session, which he attended for 71 per cent of sittings. He took part in the debate on the king’s speech about the controversy and suggested that the House should appoint a day to consider what to do upon Sherley’s petition against Fagg rather than go straight to a hearing of the case. He argued that the hearing of causes and appeals was not so important to the House that it should get in the way of more important legislative matters and ‘reasons of state’. He further pointed out that what was at stake was not the House’s judicial role but rather its right to summon Members of the Commons to the bar, a matter of the Commons’ own privilege. In a speech in a committee of the whole on 20 Oct. 1675 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, took issue with, first the claims of Lord Keeper Finch that the Lords did not have the right to summon Members of the Commons to the bar, and then, having excoriated him, turned his attention to the more subtle arguments of Ward. While admitting that Ward was ‘a man of great learning and abilities, and always versed in a stronger and closer way of reasoning than the business of that noble lord I answered before’, he still rejected Ward’s argument that the House’s ‘whole judicature is not in question, but only in the privilege of the House of Commons, of their Members not appearing at your bar’. Shaftesbury disagreed with Ward’s suggestion to appointing a day to consider, for this ‘is no less than declaring yourselves doubtful, upon second and deliberate thoughts, that you put yourselves out of your own hands, into a more than moral probability of having this session made a precedent against you’.<sup>64</sup> According to Pope, Ward and Shaftesbury had once been on close terms. Shaftesbury having been ‘a great friend’ to Ward. The two men had visited each other and ‘often consulted about public affairs’ and even ‘after they went several ways in Parliament, though their intimacy was at end, yet their mutual esteem continued’. There may have been rather more than friendship at stake; according to Pope the bishops relied on Ward to observe Shaftesbury closely and assigned him to reply to the earl ‘if he should move anything to the detriment of the Church, for this earl was a person of great ability, and had a peculiar talent to hinder or promote anything passing the House of Peers’.<sup>65</sup></p><p>Ward came to three-quarters of the sittings of the long, and frequently adjourned, session of 1677-8, but this was one of his busiest yet. He was involved with the committee examining ‘libels’ concerning Shaftesbury’s claim that Parliament had been dissolved by the long prorogation. On 19 Feb. 1677 he submitted to the committee the corrected proof sheets of one of these pamphlets, <em>The Long Parliament Dissolved</em>.<sup>66</sup> Throughout April 1677 he was involved in shaping the various pieces of religious legislation going through the House. On 11 Apr. he reported from a committee of the whole considering the bill to take away the writ <em>de haeretico comburendo</em>. He spent the next two days helping to see the bill for the baptizing and catechizing of children through the House, reporting from a committee of the whole House on 12 Apr. that the bishops’ bench should be constituted into a subcommittee to amend several clauses of the bill. The following day he was able to report from another grand committee that the House approved of the revised clauses. He was added to the number of managers for the free conference on the bill for raising money for warships in the morning of 14 April. That afternoon he reported from the committee for the bill to establish a judicature in Southwark after its devastating fire. When the House met briefly again in May, he was able to report from the committee on the bill against clandestine marriages.</p><p>Ward was present for all but five of the meetings of the session of summer 1678. On 13 July he was named a manager for a conference on the Commons’ ‘undue method in returning bills’. His most prominent role in this session was as a member of the subcommittee for the Journal, and he examined the record of proceedings on the day after the prorogation. He attended some four-fifths of the session in autumn 1678, holding the proxy of Morley from 23 Oct. 1678 until the end of the session. On 2 Nov. 1678 he received the proxy of Pearson, perhaps for use in divisions on the Test bill. The bill was passed by the House, without Ward protesting, on 20 Nov. 1678, two days before Pearson vacated his proxy upon his return to the House. Ward later voted on 26 Dec. 1678 against insisting upon the Lords’ amendment that the supply raised for disbandment should be put in the exchequer and two days later was a reporter for a conference on this dispute with the Commons.</p><p>Although Ward dutifully attended all the meetings of the abortive first week of the Exclusion Parliament in spring 1679, his attendance thereafter was lower than usual as he came to 61 per cent of the days. He once again held the proxy of Morley for the entire session from 13 Mar. 1679 until the dissolution. He took part in the debate on whether the bishops could vote in cases of capital punishment and deemed it ‘not against law for bishops to judge in point of blood’.<sup>67</sup> Towards the end of the session he voted against appointing a joint committee to consider the procedures for the trial of the impeached lords and on 26 May was appointed a reporter for a conference to discuss the disagreement between the two Houses on this matter. He also served on the subcommittee for the Journal and signed his approval to some of the official minutes of the House’s proceedings.</p><p>Ward was scheduled to be a Lent preacher in 1680, but by the end of 1679 William Sancroft*, of Canterbury, was already being informed that he should find a replacement preacher as Ward was ‘out of hopes of recovery of his health to perform that service’.<sup>68</sup> Certainly Ward was not able to come to much of the second Exclusion Parliament that ran from October 1680 to January 1681. He did not attend the session after 30 Oct. 1680. On 12 Nov. 1680 perhaps in preparation for the forthcoming vote on Exclusion, he registered his proxy with Pearson. Neither Pearson nor Ward is listed in the presence list for the crucial debate on 15 Nov., but notes of the debate taken by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, list Ward as one of the speakers.<sup>69</sup> He attended constantly during the March 1681 Parliament in Oxford, staying in his old haunt of Wadham College, to which he donated £100 at this time.<sup>70</sup> He was appointed on 26 Mar. a reporter for a conference on the Commons’ complaints of the Lords’ methods of passing bills.</p><p>Ward was an energetic instrument of the Tory reaction that followed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and continued for the rest of Charles II’s reign.<sup>71</sup> His task ought to have been facilitated by his appointment of his nephew and namesake as diocesan chancellor in November 1681.<sup>72</sup> He nevertheless ran into local difficulties the following year when he decided to conduct a visitation of the cathedral, provoking a bitter jurisdictional dispute with Thomas Pierce, dean of Salisbury. Pierce, already angry over his failure to secure preferment for his son from Ward, refused to accept the episcopal visitation of the chapter, claiming that the cathedral was a royal free chapel and had been under the jurisdiction of the monarch before episcopal authority was established in Salisbury.<sup>73</sup> It was presumably at least in part, the fallout from this very visible local dispute, involving as it did accusations that he had usurped the royal prerogative, that influenced Ward’s complaint in May 1684 that ‘Matters in this place seem to me to be (by the perverseness of some persons whom I need not name) brought to such a crisis that it will be very hard for the number of very wise and good men who are here, to withstand the inundation of atheism and all means of profaneness and debauchery which (by the countenance of some of our grandees) are visibly breaking in upon this Church’.. The conflict rumbled on into the reign of James II, but in July 1686 Sancroft sent an episcopal commission to Salisbury which was able to report that ‘the very day of our coming hither, the dean in chapter yielded up most of the material points that have been so long in dispute’.<sup>74</sup></p><p>There were other problems during this time as well. In March 1684 a commission of knights of the garter investigating the funds of the order found that Ward had mishandled the funds allocated to him as chancellor and ordered him to return £2,169.<sup>75</sup> By 1684 Ward was slipping into senility. Walter Pope commented sadly how his old friend, one of the most brilliant men of his age, now would forget in mid-sentence what he had been speaking of and would ask after long-dead friends such as Wilkins.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Despite this disability he still attended almost all of the sittings of James II’s Parliament, although not surprisingly he was not active in this session. Throughout 1687-8 he was consistently listed as one of the Members of the House of Lords who would be opposed to James II’s attempt to repeal the Test Act and penal laws. By May 1688, when there appears to have been a slight improvement in his health and it was reported that ‘he goes abroad often’, he signed himself as an ‘approver’ of the petition of the Seven Bishops.<sup>77</sup> It is not clear whether his mental state allowed him to understand the full import of what he was signing, for later it was ‘credibly reported’ to Roger Morrice that Ward was one of the few bishops who intended to publish James II’s Declaration of Indulgence throughout his diocese.<sup>78</sup></p><p>On 6 Jan. 1689 Seth Ward died at his London house in Knightsbridge, just as the Convention was gathering to decide the fate of the English Crown; not that Ward, by this time wholly senile, was aware of the important events around him. He had barely been aware of the importance of his visitors when James II stayed at the Bishop’s Palace during the brief encampment of his army at Salisbury, followed shortly thereafter by William of Orange who also stayed in the episcopal residence <em>en route</em> to the capital. Having remained unmarried throughout his life Ward was able to leave his considerable fortune to members of his extended family and to numerous charitable bequests.<sup>79</sup></p><p>Ward’s activities (as an intellectual, an ecclesiastical administrator and as a statesman) and the vigour and pragmatism with which he prosecuted them provoked strong feelings from all sides. What had always been at issue in the career of Ward was his murky record in the 1640s and 1650s. Unlike so many of the other Restoration bishops who had suffered deprivation and poverty for their commitment to the English Church during the mid-century tumults, Ward had prospered, even after being deprived of his academic positions in Cambridge in 1644. His transition from being a ‘complying’ member of Oxford University and supplanter of ousted royalists in the 1650s, to becoming a respected and aggressively rigorous representative of the established Church in the 1660s and 1670s suggested a pliancy that many of his contemporaries found offensive.</p><p>In his manuscript notes and drafts for the <em>Athenae Oxonienses</em> Anthony Wood scathingly characterized Ward’s rehabilitation after the Restoration as having been procured ‘by cringing and money’.<sup>80</sup> His biography of Ward in the 1692 edition of the <em>Athenae</em>, which appeared only three years after the bishop’s death, is more temperate in tone, but here Wood still castigated Ward for his search for preferment and his ‘cowardly wavering for lucre and honour sake, of his putting in and out, and occupying other men’s places for several years’.<sup>81</sup> Ward’s successor at Salisbury, William III’s devoted follower, Gilbert Burnet, castigated Wood for having ‘barbarously attacked’ his illustrious predecessor. Burnet himself, however, was hardly complimentary about Ward, describing him as ‘a very dexterous man, if not too dexterous; for his sincerity was much questioned. He had complied during the late times, and held in by taking the Covenant; so he was hated by the high men as a time-server. … He was a profound statesman, but a very indifferent clergyman’.<sup>82</sup></p><p>In 1697, Ward’s old friend and secretary Walter Pope, who had known Ward since their days in Oxford, published a defence of the bishop, <em>The Life of the Right Reverend Father in God, Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury</em>. Although obviously partisan and anecdotal, Pope’s account of the details of Ward’s life stands up to scrutiny from independent sources, and it still remains the principal source for a biography of the bishop.</p> |
C.G.D.L./B.A. |
|
WARNER, John (1581-1666) |
<p><strong><surname>WARNER</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1581–1666)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 27 July 1663 |
cons. 14 Jan. 1638 bp. of ROCHESTER |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 17 Sept. 1581, St Clement Dane’s, London, s. of Harman Warner of London, merchant taylor. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen Hall, Oxf. matric. 1598; Magdalen, Oxf. demy 1599, BA 1602, fell. 1604–10, MA 1605, lic. to preach 1613, BD 1613, DD 1616; incorp. Camb. 1620. ?<em>unm</em>.; <em>d.s.p</em>. <em>d.</em> 14 Oct. 1666; <em>will</em> 4 Sept. 1666, pr. 7 Feb. 1667.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles I, 1633.</p><p>Rect. St Paul’s Cray, Kent 1609–14, St Michael’s Crooked Lane, London 1614–19, Bishopsbourne, Kent 1619–46, 1660–6, Hollingbourne, Kent 1624–36, St Dionys Backchurch, London 1625–42, Bromley, Kent 1638–45; preb. Canterbury 1616–38; proctor, Canterbury 1620, 1623; dean, Lichfield 1633–8.</p><p>Gov. Sion Coll.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, after J. Taylor, Magdalen, Oxf.</p> |
<p>The son of a wealthy merchant and veteran of the Caroline episcopate, John Warner had been consecrated bishop of Rochester in 1638. By the time of the Restoration he had already held a string of prestigious clerical appointments and acquired a reputation as an uncompromising supporter of the royal prerogative. He had narrowly escaped impeachment in 1641 and in the course of the passage of legislation to expel the bishops from the House in February 1642 spoke in defence of the bishops’ right to vote in Parliament.</p><p>On 4 May 1660, Warner met Matthew Wren*, bishop of Ely, and Brian Duppa*, bishop of Salisbury (soon to be translated to Winchester), to discuss the future establishment of the Church of England. Together they wrote fulsome letters to James Butler*, duke of Ormond, and to Charles II. They thanked Ormond for the ‘great zeal’ he had shown to ‘our poor Church’ at a time of ‘grievous persecution’ and to the king they expressed their ‘most unfeigned joy for your long wished for return to your most just inheritance in your three kingdoms’ and for his ‘especial mercy to your lately despised clergy’ and for retaining ‘the care and ordering of the Church, not referring it … to your houses of Parliament’. They then emphasized the point that the bishops, of all his subjects, were the most ‘ready to perform all loyal service’ to the crown.<sup>2</sup></p><p>On 2 July 1660, Warner petitioned the Lords regarding the resumption of his clerical income; the House ordered that he should have the benefit of a general order of the House for securing the profits of ministers’ livings. The planning lists drawn up by the court in exile suggested that he had been destined for the see of Norwich.<sup>3</sup> That post went instead to Edward Reynolds*, and Warner who had clearly expected to reap the rewards of loyalty felt snubbed and overlooked. On 12 Sept. 1660 – three days after the news of Reynolds’ elevation was made public – he wrote an irritable letter to Gilbert Sheldon*, of London (later archbishop of Canterbury), narrating his recent experiences and complaining that, although he was ‘utterly forgotten in all’, he had not forgotten ‘to discharge the part of a true and loyal subject to my sovereign’ and that ‘there is not a clergyman living who hath done or suffered … more for the king, the Church, and the poor clergy than I have’. The survival of several similar accounts of his sufferings and merits, all compiled at or about the same time, testifies to his anger and disappointment at his failure to secure a translation to a more prestigious see.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The elderly bishop assisted Duppa in the consecration of five new bishops on 28 Oct. 1660.<sup>5</sup> On 25 Mar. 1661 he was one of 12 senior churchmen appointed to the Savoy conference to discuss revisions to the <em>Book of Common Prayer</em>.<sup>6</sup> When Convocation assembled in the summer, it replaced the angry deliberations at the Savoy, but Warner did not play an active role in its work. On 20 Nov. 1661, at the readmission of the bishops, Warner resumed his seat in the Lords. When he was recorded sick at a call of the House four days later, it was clear that age and frailty would interfere with his parliamentary duties; he attended for one-fifth of the sittings in the spring 1662 session and 38 per cent of sittings in the following session. In February 1662 he began the first visitation of Rochester after a lapse of 25 years, telling his clergy that for the past 20 years ‘the bishops’ power hath been utterly taken away, and in the last two years much suspended; no marvel then that the bishop hath work enough to set all in order that is left undone or done amiss’.<sup>7</sup> The cathedral, defaced during the civil wars, was in a bad condition, and, over a year later, it was noted that it was still ‘ruinous’, despite having already consumed £7,000 in repairs.<sup>8</sup></p><p>On 14 Feb. 1663 Warner was entrusted with the proxy of Henry King*, bishop of Chichester (vacated 5 Mar. 1663).Towards the end of the 1663 parliamentary session, on 3 July, he was named to the committee on the bill to prevent duels. Such a nomination was a rare occurrence: perhaps in acknowledgement of his age and state of health, he was rarely named to select committees even when recorded as present in the House. Warner did not return to the Lords after it reassembled in spring 1664. He registered his proxy to Henry King in March 1664, who used it throughout the passage of the first Conventicle Act, a piece of legislation which Warner, given his loathing for puritanism and opposition to a broader Church of England, would undoubtedly have sanctioned.</p><p>Warner died at the age of 86 on 14 Oct. 1666, his epitaph composed by the president of Magdalen College and inscribed on an elaborate marble tomb in Rochester cathedral. He had been a ‘great benefactor’ to his cathedral in his lifetime but still died a wealthy man. His estate ‘came not by, nor was made out of the Church, but chiefly by his narrow manner of life’, and he was able to bequeath over £18,000 to various ecclesiastical, charitable, and academic causes.<sup>9</sup> Perhaps this contradiction between lifestyle and financial legacy explains why Anthony Wood considered him ‘covetous’, whereas to Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, he was one of the most philanthropic of the Caroline bishops.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Although it is possible that Warner was married, his will made no mention of a spouse and Anthony Wood claimed that he had ‘always led a single life’.<sup>11</sup> In the absence of any children, he bequeathed his estate at Swayton to his nephew John Lee, on condition that he adopted the surname of Warner.<sup>12</sup> He also directed the building of a hospital for the widows of poor clergy.<sup>13</sup> The first of its kind in England, the hospital provided an example which was later copied by George Morley*, bishop of Winchester, and Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury.<sup>14</sup> His executors sought private legislation to build it at Bromley. The bill was introduced on 23 Nov. 1669 and given the royal assent on 11 April 1670.<sup>15</sup> It is perhaps a testimony both to his elite status and to the many connections between the clergy and pious royalists that Warner’s executors were named as lord chief justice of common pleas, Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, Thomas Wriothesley*, 4th earl of Southampton, Sir Philip Warwick<sup>‡ </sup>(secretary to Southampton and formerly secretary to Archbishop William Juxon*), Thomas Pierce (the president of Magdalen), and the archdeacon of Rochester, Warner’s nephew John Lee.</p> |
B.A. |
|
WATSON, Thomas (1637-1717) |
<p><strong><surname>WATSON</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1637–1717)</p> |
|
|
First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 22 Feb. 1700 |
cons. 26 June 1687 bp. of ST DAVIDS; depr. 3 Aug. 1699 (by sentence of abp. Canterbury) ; depr. 22 Jan. 1705 of temporalities (by House of Lords) |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Mar. 1637, s. of John Watson, seaman of Hull. <em>educ</em>. Hull g.s. (John Shaw); St John’s, Camb. fell. Apr. 1660, MA 1662, BD 1669, DD 1675. ?<em>m</em>. Johanna (surname unknown); ?1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 3 June 1717; <em>admon</em>. June 1717 to bro. William Watson, 3 Feb. 1722 to Walter Serocold, executor and residuary legatee of William Watson.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, c.1678.</p><p>Rect. Burrough Green, Cambs. 1672–99.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, St John’s, Camb.</p> |
<h2><em>Family and social networks</em></h2><p>Famously damned by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury as ‘one of the worst men, in all respects, that I ever knew in holy orders: passionate, covetous, and false in the blackest instances; without any one virtue or good quality, to balance his many bad ones’, Thomas Watson’s parliamentary career was less important for what he did in the House of Lords than for the means that were taken to remove him from it.<sup>2</sup> His controversial expulsion after a long and bitterly fought series of legal actions raised fundamental and disturbing questions about the right to control membership of the House.</p><p>The combination of a common surname and deliberate attempts by his contemporaries to vilify his reputation makes it particularly difficult to ascertain accurate information about Watson’s early life or the social and economic background of his family. Since in later years he had to borrow the arms of the Watsons of East Hage, it is clear that his was not an armorial family.<sup>3</sup> <em>Alumni Cantabrigienses</em> describes Watson as the son of a seaman and his nephew, John Medley, as the son of a leatherseller, but his kinsman and pupil, William Saltmarsh, is listed as the son of a gentleman. Taken collectively, and interpreted in the context of Hull, one of the most significant trading centres of the day, these entries are suggestive of a social origin poised somewhere between the world of the prosperous tradesman and the lower gentry. Watson’s education at Hull grammar school is indicative of mercantile connections, since the right of presentation to the school was vested in the corporation.<sup>4</sup> The gratitude that he expressed in later life for his early education suggests relatively humble origins, as does the inability of his sister Susannah Medley to sign her own name.<sup>5</sup> Significantly, at his trial for simony he was unable to present testimonials to his character from any influential or aristocratic figure. Details of Watson’s personal life in adulthood are also obscure. There is a single stray reference to a son who was still living in 1698, but there is no indication of either a wife or a family in the extensive documentation generated by Watson’s legal cases until his final petition to the House of Lords on 28 Jan. 1705, which was brought in the name of Thomas and Johanna Watson.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Hull and its corporation were notorious for their puritan and parliamentarian sympathies during the civil wars. Watson’s teacher at the grammar school was the influential preacher John Shaw, one of the leaders of the northern clergy whose ministry placed considerable emphasis on the importance of piety and strict church discipline. Watson’s association with Shaw meant that even as a youth he was more familiar than most with the potentially devastating effect on a clergyman’s career of becoming associated with the wrong political faction at the wrong time. At the Restoration Shaw was appointed a chaplain to Charles II, probably through the influence of the Presbyterian sympathizers Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, and George Monck*, the future duke of Albemarle, but he soon attracted the hostility of Gilbert Sheldon*, bishop of London (later archbishop of Canterbury), who feared that Shaw was ‘no great friend to episcopacy and common prayer’ and who engineered his dismissal from his lectureship.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Although there is little information about Watson’s experiences at St John’s, Cambridge, he must have had a variety of opportunities to make influential contacts. Peter Gunning*, and Francis Turner*, both future bishops of Ely, were successively masters of the college. Among the students attending St John’s during Watson’s time were representatives of a number of aristocratic families, including James Cecil*, the future 3rd earl of Salisbury, and John Cecil*, the future 5th earl of Exeter. Another contemporary was William Gulston*, an undistinguished but politically compliant clergyman who became bishop of Bristol in 1673. Like Gulston, Watson lacked academic distinction but he does seem to have developed a reputation as a teacher and to have been successful in attracting students to his college: William Cole described him as ‘an eminent pupil-monger’, a term that was not intended in a derogatory sense. There is no evidence either to confirm or refute the allegation that Watson kept a shop or sold candles while at St John’s but it is possible that he benefited from the entirely acceptable contemporary practice of taking poundage on goods supplied to his pupils. He was ordained deacon and priest on 22 Dec. 1667 by Benjamin Laney*, bishop of Ely.</p><p>Despite his new contacts, Watson’s subsequent career seems to have been strongly influenced by alliances associated with his Yorkshire origins. In 1672 he was appointed to the rectory of Burrough Green in Cambridgeshire. Worth some £128 a year, this was one of the most valuable rectories in the country. The advowson was owned by the master of the mint, Henry Slingsby of Kippax in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Another branch of the Slingsby family was based further north at Scriven near Knaresborough. Sir Henry Slingsby<sup>‡</sup> of Scriven, although initially sympathetic to Parliament, had been executed as a royalist conspirator in 1658, but his property had been protected by his cousin, the republican sympathizer and sheriff of London, Slingsby Bethell<sup>‡</sup>. Sir Henry’s two sons, Sir Thomas Slingsby<sup>‡</sup> and Henry Slingsby<sup>‡</sup>, and his grandson, also named Henry Slingsby<sup>‡</sup>, all served in Parliament, where they came to be identified closely with the interests of James Stuart*, duke of York. Henry Slingsby, younger son of Sir Henry, was a member of James’s household both before and after his accession to the throne and served as lieutenant governor of Portsmouth under James’s close friend George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth. Their sister married Sir John Talbot<sup>‡</sup> who also became a supporter of James’s policies. It was perhaps from this branch of the family that Watson recruited the Mr Slingsby who accompanied him to St Davids as his secretary. Watson was also well known to Sir John Reresby<sup>‡</sup>, whose younger brother Yarburgh was a student at St John’s; he may even have assisted Yarburgh Reresby to obtain a fellowship there.<sup>8</sup> Watson’s Yorkshire links were still important in the 1690s for even in the midst of his legal problems he took trouble to ensure that a young kinsman of the Whartons of Beverly obtained a good set of chambers at St John’s.<sup>9</sup></p><p>A major influence on Watson’s career was his friendship with Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon. It is difficult to date the start of this alliance. It is possible that it was fostered by Huntingdon’s marriage to the Yorkshire heiress and future member of the household of Princess Anne, Elizabeth Lewis (<em>d</em>. 1689), in 1672. Her home at Ledstone was very close to Kippax. Another possibility is a connection through the duke of Monmouth, who became chancellor of Cambridge University in 1674 and high steward of Hull in 1675. Monmouth had appointed Watson as one of his chaplains as a reward for ‘answering the public Act at my request’. In January 1678, when Monmouth realized that such an appointment was of little benefit to an aspiring clergyman, he went out of his way to recommend Watson as chaplain to William Sancroft*, the newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>10</sup></p><h2><em>Court spy and bishop, 1679–89</em></h2><p>In January 1679, during the elections for the first Exclusion Parliament, Watson intervened in Hull in favour of Lemuel Kingdon<sup>‡</sup>, one of Monmouth’s clients.<sup>11</sup> In 1679 he was appointed as a justice for both the town and county of Cambridge, and was said to have been active in the August election in promoting the interest of Sir Levinius Bennet<sup>&Dagger</sup> and Sir Robert Cotton<sup>&Dagger</sup> for the county, allegedly polling himself twice in favour of the court candidates and ‘riding up and down the country about it and using all sorts of arguments to the freeholders’. In a pamphlet (which may be the one he attributed, together with other material, to Thomas Percival, the associate of Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury and the publisher of anti-Catholic material Benjamin Harris, in a letter to William Alington*, 3rd Baron Alington [I], later Baron Arlington), he was accused, too, of using his powers as a magistrate to support a fiercely controversial local campaign against nonconformists. Although he was said to have told his critics that he feared Dissenters and papists equally, it was alleged that ‘he prosecutes the one with the penal laws, and the other with great kindness and caresses’ and that he had declared ‘that all the Protestant gentlemen that frequented some clubs in London, upon which the papists had their eye, ought to be hanged’. Stephen Perry, the chief informer against Cambridgeshire Dissenters, was employed at St John’s and was presumably thought to have been acting under Watson’s direction.<sup>12</sup> Watson had been sufficiently noticed by October 1679 for the king to recommend him to Peter Gunning, by now bishop of Ely, as a candidate for the next prebendal vacancy.<sup>13</sup></p><p>Political and religious allegiances apart, Watson was well qualified to act as a justice since he was building up a considerable estate in the county: his landholdings there were said, after his death, to be worth some £2,000 a year. He also acquired lands in Yorkshire. Watson’s ability to build up his landholdings may have been one reason why allegations of simony seemed credible to some. He clearly lived frugally: when he first visited St Davids, his secretary was said to have declared that Watson ‘was so base and niggardly on his journey’ that he was ashamed of it.<sup>14</sup> As bishop he seems not even to have maintained his own coach, for he referred on one occasion to the need to book a place on a commercial coach service. After the Revolution of 1688 he was identified politically with the Tories but probably remained isolated socially. None of the Tory aristocrats offered him accommodation during his London sojourns and his few surviving letters indicate that, rather than take a house in London, he preferred to live in what were almost certainly rather cheap lodgings. At a time when both lords spiritual and lords temporal were expected to be hospitable and open-handed and to live up to their status, Watson’s frugality was almost certainly easily interpreted as plain meanness by his contemporaries, even though the money that he accumulated was used to make generous endowments to his old college, to found a hospital in Hull, and to improve the prospects of members of his immediate family.</p><p>Although the link with Monmouth is suggestive, it is not known whether Watson joined Huntingdon’s flirtation with the ‘country’ opposition group led by Shaftesbury. If he did do so, he had returned to an allegiance to the court by the beginning of October 1681, for by that date he was spying on behalf of the court, reporting to Alington, and Secretary of State Sir Leoline Jenkins<sup>‡</sup> on the activities of those intending ‘factious designs in Parliament time’ in general and of Thomas Percival in particular.<sup>15</sup> It may be significant that Huntingdon reneged on his former allies and went over to the duke of York at about the same time.<sup>16</sup> Watson’s accounts of Percival’s conversations formed part of the evidence that was considered by the Privy Council in its investigations into the Rye House Plot two years later.<sup>17</sup> In the aftermath of the plot, Watson was appointed a justice for Cambridge University, with power to administer oaths to the university’s justices; he was also appointed to the bench of the neighbouring county of Suffolk.</p><p>According to Burnet, Watson owed his elevation to a bishopric in the summer of 1687 either to purchase or to the influence of the Catholic Henry Jermyn*, Baron Dover, but Burnet is scarcely an impartial witness. By the time of James II’s accession to the throne Watson, like Huntingdon and the Slingsbys, was clearly committed to the court. There is no evidence that he purchased his see and it is unlikely that he did so, for no such allegation was made at his subsequent trial for simony. Dover, as lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire (and shortly to become high steward of Cambridge and of Hull), almost certainly played some role in the appointment but Watson’s friendships with Huntingdon and the Slingsbys were probably equally important. There were very few clergymen prepared to collaborate so readily with the court. According to Roger Morrice, Watson’s willingness to do so had already led him to be touted as a possible warden of All Souls College, Oxford. It also identified him in the popular mind as a crypto-papist, although his earlier concern about a rumour that Richard Sterne*, archbishop of York, had ‘faltered’ in declaring against transubstantiation suggests otherwise.<sup>18</sup> Despite speculation to the contrary, Watson seems to have been a committed Anglican, who regarded both Catholics and Protestant Dissenters as threats to the Church, and who believed that the road to religious conformity lay in improving the quality of everyday pastoral care.<sup>19</sup></p><p>From the outset of his episcopacy Watson was an isolated figure. There is unlikely to have been much truth in the allegations of one of his later defenders, who suggested that his fellow bishops (including John Tillotson*, and Thomas Tenison*, successive archbishops of Canterbury), were jealous of his generosity, especially concerning the money (over £600) that Watson was prepared to lavish on improvements to his palace, cathedral, and chapel, though it would appear that Tenison was certainly suspicious of the size of his fortune.<sup>20</sup> Rather Watson’s politics meant that even before the Revolution of 1688 most of his fellow bishops regarded him with deep mistrust regarding him as a government agent, along with Nathaniel Crew*, of Durham (later 3rd Baron Crew), and Thomas Cartwright*, of Chester.<sup>21</sup> Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, was also contemptuous, referring to Cartwright and Watson as ‘two scabby sheep’ and ‘very bad men [who], as they have no reputation or interest, so they are despised by those they court’.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Such suspicions were both created and reinforced by Watson’s attitude to James II’s Declarations of Indulgence. He was active in promoting the first Declaration, issued shortly before his own elevation, writing to William Lloyd*, bishop of Norwich, in April 1687 in a vein that suggested that all the bishops in and about London supported it and asking him to secure a supportive address to the king from the clergy of Norfolk and Suffolk. Watson was unequivocal about his own attitude to such an address: ‘I can see no harm or ill consequence in the thing[.] I think it a fair declaration of… confidence in his majesty’s protection, and a better method than fears and jealousies.’<sup>23</sup> As bishop of St Davids he made no secret of the warmth of his feelings for the king. He instructed the clergy of his diocese to read the second Declaration and attempted to force them to sign an address to the crown. To those who refused he was said to have responded with ‘menacing expressions’ and accusations of disloyalty.<sup>24</sup> He also presented a congratulatory address to the crown that had been wrung with considerable difficulty from the corporation of Hull. In a pamphlet calling on the clergy of St Davids to resist the declaration, Watson was described as one of ‘our temporising bishops, who under hand endeavour the ruin and destruction of the best of Churches, like so many weathercocks turning every way with the fickle and inconstant wind’. Suspicions of his papist sympathies were redoubled by his habit of ordaining and confirming with his hands crossed, and according to Roger Morrice he once drank the pope’s health.<sup>25</sup> Not surprisingly, all the relevant parliamentary lists suggested that he would support the repeal of the Test Acts.</p><p>Watson arrived in Wales in the late summer or early autumn of 1687. There he began to uncover two major problems. The first related to the domination of the diocese by the Lucy family. William Lucy*, the first bishop appointed to St Davids after the Restoration, had taken full advantage of his position in order to provide employment for every one of his five sons, at least three of whom were still alive in 1687. Among other appointments he had granted the registrarship of the diocese ‘jointly and severally’ to his sons George and Robert Lucy for life, with rights of survivorship to the longer-lived of the two. Although the grant had then been confirmed by the chapter, its validity had been questioned by Bishop Lucy’s successors. Watson took legal advice on the point and this confirmed him in his belief that neither George nor Robert Lucy would be able to sustain their claim in a court of law. Initially he took no action. The division of responsibilities between the two brothers meant that George Lucy was regarded as the principal registrar and, although Watson regarded his claim to office as dubious, he was prepared to compromise since George Lucy (unlike Robert) was ‘a sober and virtuous man’.</p><p>The second problem related to levels of pastoral care. Neither of Watson’s immediate predecessors, Lawrence Womock*, bishop from 1683 to 1686, and John Lloyd*, from 1686 to 1687, had been active diocesans; Watson’s supporters also criticized the regime of William Lucy. Watson was determined to improve the situation: though his first visit to the diocese lasted just four days, two of them were spent confirming the ‘vast multitudes’ whose spiritual welfare had been neglected by previous bishops.<sup>26</sup> He was particularly concerned about the issue of non-resident clergy. The strength of his belief in the need for resident clergy can be traced throughout his career. It would influence the arrangements that he made for serving the cure of Burrough Green after his elevation to the episcopate, and a requirement for residency would appear as a proviso in the various endowments that he made to St John’s College during the 1690s. In St Davids he was shocked to discover that the canons residentiary were rarely resident and that many of those who held benefices in plurality did not make adequate provision for the spiritual health of their parishioners. Accordingly he embarked on a determined campaign against the absentees. His talent for confrontation was further demonstrated by his involvement in a dispute about the payment of the salary of the local schoolmaster, Jeremiah Griffith or Griffiths, and by his speedy commencement of a suit for dilapidations against the executors of his predecessor.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Watson was in Cambridgeshire at the Revolution of 1688 where, despite his attempts at disguise, he was captured by an Orangeist mob and paraded through Cambridge on a ‘paltry horse’ before being imprisoned in the castle. He may well have been captured in Burrough Green itself, where the principal landowner was now the Whig (and member of the Immortal Seven) Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford.<sup>28</sup> According to Roger Morrice, by mid-December ‘most of the popular petitioning bishops’, concerned by the events of the Revolution and worried about William’s attitude to episcopacy, were part of a conspiracy to call for James II’s return, but Watson was not numbered among them. Morrice also reported that Watson was so unpopular that his picture was used for target practice by a group of William’s English supporters.<sup>29</sup></p><h2><em>Under suspicion, 1689–94</em></h2><p>Watson took his seat in the House of Lords on 22 Jan. 1689 and was present for over 60 per cent of the sitting days of that year. The manuscript minutes of the House (but not the Journal) list him as one of the managers of the conference of 4 Feb. on the use of the term ‘regency’ or ‘abdication’.<sup>30</sup> He seems to have voted consistently for a regency and against declaring William and Mary to be king and queen; a rumour reported by Morrice to the contrary was almost certainly mistaken.<sup>31</sup> On 28 Jan., when it was his turn to read prayers, he refused a whispered suggestion from George Saville*, marquess of Halifax, that prayers for the king be omitted; Halifax informed the House and secured a decision that prayers be suspended for the time being.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Initially Watson refused the oaths. When the pressure to take them intensified in March, he absented himself from Parliament, explaining that he needed to be in Cambridgeshire to deal with the ‘rabble’ who had seized two wagonloads of his goods. The Lords refused to accept his excuse and he was forced to return to London.<sup>33</sup> Sir John Reresby recorded that on 26 Mar. Watson asked him for advice about taking the new oaths; Reresby replied somewhat contemptuously that this was a matter of conscience in which he would expect a bishop to be giving rather than asking for guidance. Watson took the oaths the next day.<sup>34</sup> It was a pragmatic rather than ideological decision. In later years he made no secret of his belief that the ability to keep promises and oaths was subject to changing circumstances: ‘You know we took our oaths to King James, but we could not keep them.’<sup>35</sup> He had considerable sympathy with those who could not adjust their consciences to the new situation and is known to have conducted ordinations on behalf of the non-juring bishop of Ely, Francis Turner, during the period of Turner’s suspension.<sup>36</sup></p><p>In July 1689 Watson voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing Titus Oates’s conviction for perjury and opposed the impeachment of Blair and his fellow conspirators. On 19 Nov. he entered a dissent against the bill to prevent clandestine marriages. At or about this time he was probably active in the elections for Convocation, for there are references early in November 1689 that link the ‘perfidiousness’ of Watson’s enemies and ‘recent heartburnings’ to an election in Brecon. In view of his later alliances, this was almost certainly indicative of support for the campaign of Henry Compton*, bishop of London, against John Tillotson and against proposals for major alterations to the liturgy and canons in order to bring the vast majority of Dissenters into the Anglican church.<sup>37</sup> Watson was also warned that Robert Lucy and his ally Thomas Sandys (an absentee clergyman who was under monition from Watson) would make an attack on him in Convocation.<sup>38</sup> In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen and later duke of Leeds, reckoned him as an opponent of the court.</p><p>Watson may also have been becoming embroiled in local parliamentary politics. In St Davids, as in other Welsh dioceses, a very high proportion of the advowsons were in the hands of the bishop and it was alleged that before the Revolution Watson had promised to use his powers of patronage to reward those who would show themselves loyal to James II.<sup>39</sup> After the Revolution he may either have used – or have been suspected of using – his patronage to influence parliamentary elections in his diocese, many of which were bitterly contested. If so, it was a problem that probably emerged at or after the 1695 election. A pamphlet published in 1703 states that he had incurred the enmity of Sir Rowland Gwynne<sup>‡</sup>, but in the early 1690s he seems to have been able to count on the support of the decidedly Whig lord lieutenant, Charles Gerard*, earl of Macclesfield. <sup>40</sup></p><p>On 8 Apr. 1690 Watson entered a protest against the passage of the act declaring William and Mary to be rightful king and queen and confirming the acts of the Convention. Two days later he entered another protest against the decision of the House to expunge the reasons for the protest of 8 April. In May he was elated by his apparent success in persuading the House (in discussion on the bill for securing the king and the queen) that no member should be barred from his seat for failure to take oaths or subscriptions, but rejoicing soon turned to dismay as he and Huntingdon discovered that they would be left out of the act of pardon passed at the end of the session.<sup>41</sup> Watson attended some 50 per cent of the sitting days in 1690 but his last attendance of the year before heading back to Wales was on 8 September. By 12 Sept. he had reached the Welsh border, whence he wrote to Sancroft asking him to nominate a candidate for the chancellorship of St Davids, made vacant by the recent death of Richard Lucy. Watson emphasized the need for the chancellor to take up permanent residence in the diocese.<sup>42</sup> On 8 Oct. he registered a proxy in favour of Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester. Watson remained absent for the rest of the session. For part of the time he was in Carmarthen, perhaps preparing for his visitation the following year. While in Carmarthen in October he witnessed an earthquake, which he interpreted as one of several ‘strange warnings’ from God.<sup>43</sup> Two months later he received a rather more practical warning from Sancroft, who commended his intention to reform the diocese but emphasized the need to proceed by ‘just and legal methods, and take such sure measures from the beginning as may not fail you in the end’.<sup>44</sup></p><p>In the spring of 1691, a minor argument with William Russell*, 5th earl (later duke) of Bedford, the Whig lord lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, about Watson’s militia assessment showed signs of escalating out of control; it may have been fuelled by political differences, perhaps harking back to resentments over the executions of the Rye House plotters.<sup>45</sup> For much of 1691 Watson was preoccupied with his visitation of St Davids, which resulted in a large number of monitions to absentee clergymen. By August the resentment of those monished had led Robert Lucy and Thomas Sandys, assisted by Henry Faulconberg and Jeremiah Griffith, to start a petition against Watson which they wanted to present to the House of Lords. They hoped for support from Macclesfield, whose own political history had been as a long-term opponent of James II and staunch supporter of William III. They were unsuccessful, probably because national politics had not yet become entangled with diocesan ones. Instead of supporting moves against Watson, Macclesfield sent his secretary to reprimand Sandys.<sup>46</sup> In October Watson threatened to discipline Robert Lucy for extortion, as a result of which Lucy declared that ‘something must be done and I am resolved I will not spare anything to prosecute’.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Watson returned to the House on 9 Nov. 1691 and was present for just over 70 per cent of the sitting days of the 1691-2 session. He was thus able to give Huntingdon full details of the allegations of Jacobitism that had been made against him in the Commons on 10 Dec. 1691.<sup>48</sup> On 12 Jan. 1692 he entered a dissent to the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. It was perhaps significant that Norfolk’s estranged wife was the daughter of Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, one of James II’s longest and closest associates.</p><p>Despite Macclesfield’s reprimand of Sandys, plans to petition the House of Lords against Watson continued. The petition was drawn up and taken to London so that it could be signed by gentlemen of the diocese; those gentlemen who were reluctant to do so were persuaded by copious amounts of ‘good claret’. The petition was presented to John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, and transmitted to the House on 27 Jan. 1692. Signed by a group of prominent Welsh gentlemen (Sir Rice Rudd<sup>‡</sup> of Aberglaseney, John Lewis<sup>‡</sup> of Coedmor, John Vaughan of Plas Gwynne, William Brigstock of Llechdwnny, P. Powell of Castle Madock, and William Williams of the Battle), it informed the House that Watson was under prosecution in Brecknockshire for taking an excessive fee and prayed leave to prosecute him for various other unspecified crimes. The petition also alleged that Watson considered his exception from the Act of Indemnity ‘a great honour’. Watson denied all the allegations, announced his willingness to defend himself without relying on privilege, and stressed his sense of ‘great misfortune’ at being excepted from the Act. He pointed out that, since he did not know the signatories to the petition, it was unlikely that they knew enough about him to substantiate the charges; he also declared his belief that at least some of the supposed signatures were forged. He added that such a ‘method of getting hands to petitions of that nature is of dangerous consequence, and may blast the reputation of the most innocent, without any warrant or colour of law’.<sup>49</sup> When the House learned that some of the signatories denied any involvement in the petition it instructed them all to appear before the House, but there is no record that they ever did so and the matter dropped. At least one of them, William Brigstock, later apologized to Watson, explaining that he had signed under intense pressure at two o’clock in the morning.<sup>50</sup></p><p>An unsigned, undated, and spiteful account of Watson’s ‘irregularities’ survives among the Tanner manuscripts. The irregularities cited include his support for James II’s Declaration of Indulgence, his attempts to bully the clergy into reading it, and his opposition to the stance of the Seven Bishops before the Revolution. Buried among these irregularities are three of the allegations that would surface again at Watson’s trial: his financial relationship with his nephew, John Medley; the taking of double fees during his visitation; and the ordination of a youth who was under age. The list almost certainly relates to the petition to the Lords, and its presence among the Tanner manuscripts suggests that there was a deliberate attempt to involve the Anglican hierarchy in the attack.<sup>51</sup> Perhaps significantly for Watson’s future, the irregularities complained of now included issues of national as well as local interest. Watson was identified as a Jacobite who had publicly justified the legitimacy of the James II’s son, the prince of Wales, while being in possession of evidence that would prove the fraudulence of the birth; as either an atheist or a Catholic; and as one who ‘keeps company with all the malcontents and papists in the country, who in King James his time called him their bishop’.</p><p>Wood reported a rumour that Watson was arrested and sent to the Tower during the invasion scare of May 1692, but this is unlikely to be correct as his name (unlike Huntingdon’s) does not appear on the lists of either proposed or actual commitments to the Tower.<sup>52</sup> Watson was present in the House of Lords for the non-sessional meeting on 14 June 1692 and returned to the bishop’s palace at Abergwelly in mid-August. He told Huntingdon that he intended to confine himself there ‘to prevent what I may suffer by the jealousies of men’ but it is not clear whether those ‘jealousies’ related to his diocesan problems or his relationship with his fellow bishops and the king’s government.<sup>53</sup> Perhaps he hoped to establish a better relationship with the government for in the autumn, at Macclesfield’s request, he appointed William Brookes to the curacy of Burrough Green. Brookes, who was Macclesfield’s chaplain, did not receive a salary but instead leased the profits of the rectory, for which he paid £200. Despite later allegations that this was a simoniacal contract, it is clear both that by the standards of the day it was not and that the arrangement was exceptionally favourable to Brookes.<sup>54</sup></p><p>Watson was back in London for the first day of the 1692-3 session and was present on some 85 per cent of the sitting days. On 2 Jan. 1693 he again opposed the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill. On the following day, he voted in favour of the place bill and entered a dissent at its failure, prompting a newsletter writer to describe him as ‘a strong Jacobite and perhaps a papist in his soul’.<sup>55</sup> He also entered a dissent on 17 Jan. against the failure of Charles Knollys’ claim to the earldom of Banbury. When the land tax bill was debated on 19 Jan. he entered a dissent to the decision not to refer it to the committee for privileges and not to adhere to the Lords’ amendments. On 25 Jan. he voted against the commitment of the bill to prevent dangers from disaffected persons. On 10 Feb. 1693 he reported from the committee considering an estate bill for Thomas Towers (a Cambridgeshire neighbour). In December, during the debates on the bill for triennial parliaments, he voted in favour of the use of the word ‘declare’ against the Tories Carmarthen and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and, to his great surprise, alongside the more Whiggishly inclined John Tillotson, ‘the great man of Lambeth’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, the situation in St Davids had deteriorated still further with the death in February 1693 of George Lucy. Robert Lucy now claimed the office of registrar in his own right, but Watson was determined not to accept him. After Watson’s deprivation, some of his supporters accused Lucy of being an adulterer and having himself taken bribes, but in the early 1690s Watson’s objections to Lucy seem to have centred on allegations that Lucy had taken exorbitant fees and that he had been seen ‘disguised with drink’.<sup>57</sup> Even Robert Lucy’s allies agreed that he drank, though not in a way ‘unbecoming a gentleman’ or ‘that was unhandsome or unbecoming a person of his quality’.<sup>58</sup> Claiming that Lucy was not fit to hold office, Watson appointed a new registrar, William Williams of Brecon. Lucy, who also had substantial arrears of rent to pay for various parcels of diocesan lands and who was in dispute with another local gentleman over the ownership of lands, became even more determined to have Watson removed from office.<sup>59</sup> It was probably at his instigation that Jeremiah Griffith brought an indictment against Watson at the Brecon assizes in 1693 for taking excessive fees. The grand jury found that there was a case to answer but Watson was neither tried nor convicted.</p><p>Watson’s attendance over the 1693-4 session was again in the order of 85 per cent of sitting days. On 22 Dec. 1693 he alone of the bishops joined in a protest at the decision to allow the duchess of Grafton to withdraw her petition, arguing that the underlying compromise should not prevent a censure on the judges for a failure of justice. He also wrote about Sancroft’s death and funeral in terms that suggest considerable admiration for the deposed archbishop and strong sympathies for the exiled royal family.<sup>60</sup> On 2 Feb. 1694 he voted in favour of reversing the verdict in <em>Montagu v Bath</em>, one of the many cases associated with the long-running Albemarle inheritance disputes. In May he was heavily involved in helping Huntingdon over his wayward son who had become entangled with a young and unsuitable woman.<sup>61</sup></p><h2><em>Trial and deprivation, 1694–9</em></h2><p>In June 1694 Watson discovered that Robert Lucy had taken his complaints to John Tillotson of Canterbury. As a result there was to be a special ‘metropolitical’ visitation. Watson feared little from the visitation (apart from trouble and expense), though it must have been somewhat galling that the official notification of the visitation came from one of Robert Lucy’s servants.<sup>62</sup> It resulted in no more than a temporary suspension, and this was not for any irregularity in the governance of the diocese but for contempt of the archbishop’s authority. Watson had granted an institution during the time of the visitation; in his defence he claimed that the documents, although post-dated, had actually been drawn up and sealed before service of the archbishop’s inhibition.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Watson continued to attend the House of Lords during his suspension but in view of his difficulties it is perhaps not surprising that during the 1694-5 session his attendance fell to just over 60 per cent of sitting days. On 23 Jan. 1695 he entered a dissent against the decision to postpone implementation of the treason trials bill until 1698. His suspension was lifted in February 1695 when he made his submission to Thomas Tenison, Tillotson’s successor at Canterbury. This he decided was a wiser course of action than challenging the new archbishop, but it seems that Tenison insisted on much more pointed submission than Watson originally intended to give. An early draft among the case papers merely states that Watson ‘had no intention or thought of any affront[,] contempt or the least disrespect to his grace the archbishop of Canterbury or his authority and jurisdiction in any thing that I did’. In the final version he not only ‘heartily’ apologized for his contempt but also promised not to offend again and ‘to my power to maintain the just rights and authority of the archbishop and see of Canterbury and to submit thereunto’.<sup>64</sup></p><p>Watson’s enemies were not, however, to be conciliated so easily and, as Watson was soon to discover, they now included Tenison himself. Lucy commenced a prosecution against Watson, as a result of which Watson was summoned to appear before Tenison in August 1695. The prosecution was unusual in that it was quite literally before the archbishop, assisted by six of his fellow bishops, rather than in the court of arches or other recognized ecclesiastical court. The charges included simony, failure to administer the oaths of allegiance at ordination, refusing to ordain an individual unless he entered into a penal bond, irregular conduct of church court hearings, refusing to monish a priest for failing to pray for William and Mary, ordaining a priest under age, extortion, and misappropriating fees, diocesan documents, and charitable funds.</p><p>There were sufficient irregularities, both about the mixing of common law and canon law offences and about the procedures adopted, to encourage Watson’s lawyers to apply to the king’s bench for a writ of prohibition. The lord chief justice, Sir John Holt<sup>‡</sup>, granted the prohibition in respect of one minor charge but refused it for the others, arguing that ‘the archbishop of Canterbury has without doubt provincial jurisdiction over all his suffragan bishops, which he may exercise in what place of the province it shall please him’, that offences under the common law were punishable in the Church courts if they could be construed as simony under Church law, and that even an offence created by statute and punishable under the common law (such as the failure to administer the oaths) could be deemed part and parcel of the office of a bishop and was therefore cognizable in the church courts.<sup>65</sup></p><p>The case against Watson had still to be heard when in November 1695 a royal warrant was issued for the appointment of Arnold Bowen as archdeacon of St Davids in place of the current incumbent, Watson’s nephew John Medley. Medley’s appointment to the archdeaconry was one of those that Lucy alleged to be simoniacal. The warrant for the appointment of Bowen (who was probably a client of Sir Hugh Owen<sup>‡</sup>) specifically stated that the archdeaconry was vacant by ‘lapse or simoniacal contract’. It is unlikely that it was issued without Tenison’s approval. The right to the archdeaconry was tried at the ensuing Carmarthen assizes; Medley must have won his case for he was still archdeacon at his death in December 1731.<sup>66</sup></p><p>Watson was present in the House on over 83 per cent of the sitting days of the 1695-6 session. On 24 Jan. 1696 he protested against the passage of the bill to prevent false and double returns of Members of the Commons and entered a dissent to the postponement of the implementation of the bill for regulating treason trials. On 27 Feb. national politics again started to tangle with local issues when Watson refused to sign the Association.<sup>67</sup> A week later the House received a petition from Lucy, complaining that he was unable to prove his charges because Watson refused to waive his privilege. Although Parliament was sitting, the issue was interpreted as one of privilege of peerage, thus raising the question of whether the lords spiritual were entitled to the same privileges as lords temporal. The committee for privileges considered the matter but referred it back to the House, declaring that ‘the thing being of so high a nature that the committee does not think fit to give any opinion in it, there being difficulty in the case’. Secular members of the House were clearly worried that a decision to restrict privilege for a bishop might have far-reaching implications for their own rights. On 20 March 1696 the House agreed to call for the opinions of the judges but a compromise solution was approved when Watson agreed to waive his privilege on condition that Lucy’s petition be dismissed.<sup>68</sup> The compromise seems to have been brokered or at least encouraged by Huntingdon.<sup>69</sup> Later that month, on 31 Mar., Watson entered a protest against the resolution to pass the bill to encourage the bringing in of plate to the Mint. In April his signature was conspicuously absent from the repugnance at the decision of the non-juring clergymen Cook and Snatt to grant absolution to the men who were executed for their part in the assassination plot.<sup>70</sup></p><p>Over the summer two further prosecutions were commenced against Watson, this time in the court of arches. Jeremiah Griffith brought a case about his suspension from teaching and Robert Lucy brought another about his suspension from the registrarship.<sup>71</sup> In July 1696, one of Huntingdon’s correspondents reported on the first steps in the prosecution before the archbishop. He was confident (as was Watson) that the allegations were no more than ‘malevolent random shot’.<sup>72</sup> The depositions and interrogatories in the case, which are extensive, confirm this impression. They show that the questions asked were designed to elicit a wide range of information. Witnesses were asked whether Watson swore, whether he entertained non-jurors and papists, whether he had ever commented unfavourably on the ministry’s foreign policy, and whether he had ever refused to toast William and Mary.<sup>73</sup> Such questions were necessary because there was virtually no evidence against Watson. Testimony about the level of fees charged by Watson, for example, failed to prove that they were of a substantially different order from those charged by Robert Lucy or even by Robert Lucy’s father. The mixture of gossip and innuendo that was used to advance Lucy’s case left Watson convinced that Tenison and George Oxenden<sup>‡</sup>, the dean of arches, were less interested in presiding over a trial than in blackening his name.<sup>74</sup> Evelyn reported that Tenison himself declared that he had little patience with Watson’s attempts to defend himself.<sup>75</sup></p><p>The strength of the bias against him made it extremely difficult for Watson to mount an adequate defence. One of the allegations of simony – and the only one on which Watson would be convicted – concerned the appointment of his nephew John Medley as archdeacon of St Davids. Watson had supported Medley’s mother and sisters, had financed Medley’s passage through university, and had even bought him appropriate clothing when he obtained his first living. After Medley’s arrival in St Davids, Watson lent him further sums of money in order to provide his sisters with enhanced dowries. As a result both girls married well. It is clear that Watson’s motive was as much about providing opportunities to improve the social standing of his wider family as about money. Nevertheless he expected to be repaid and it is clear that Medley thought that it was entirely right and proper that he should be repaid.</p><p>Both Watson and Medley, who was still trying to vindicate his uncle some 20 years later, were prepared to testify that the accounts and bonds between them were of long standing and did not relate to the sale of any ecclesiastical office. Although there was evidence that Watson received the profits of the various offices that he had granted to his nephew, there was no evidence that he kept them or whether, as a more experienced landowner, he had simply administered the estates on his nephew’s behalf. Medley’s mother confirmed that he transmitted money to her through the bishop. Further elucidation of these points is not available since the court declined to hear Medley’s testimony on the grounds that he was party to the crime, even though nothing had been proved against him and Bowen had not succeeded in ousting him from office. Significantly, almost all those questioned in the course of the case, whether on behalf of the prosecution or of the defence, stated that Medley was a pious and conscientious young man who would not entertain a simoniacal contract.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Confirmation of the real reasons for Tenison’s involvement in Lucy’s campaign came with an exchange of words in August 1696 about Watson’s choice of a commissioner to interrogate witnesses. When the prosecution objected that the commissioner, Charles Piers, was a Jacobite, even though he had qualified himself by taking the requisite oaths, Tenison made it all too clear that worries about Watson’s Jacobitism were at the root of the case against him. Evidence that Watson had entertained non-jurors during the period of the assassination plot probably confirmed the suspicions of government and archbishop that Watson was deeply involved in plotting against them.<sup>77</sup> Convinced that the proceedings were being stacked against him and that his letters were being intercepted, Watson lamented that ‘I am denied the assistance all criminals have by law. I doubt not their design is to ruin me, but if I might have equal justice I should not apprehend any danger’. He solved the problem of his letters by having them sent via Sir Edward Williams<sup>‡</sup> and John Tredenham<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>78</sup></p><p>When the parliamentary session resumed in autumn 1696, Watson was present on some 73 per cent of sitting days. Some thought that his experiences with Tenison over the summer had made him ‘very shy of his old friends’. Given the repeated delays in hearing the case it is entirely possible that this was precisely what Tenison had hoped to achieve. Watson, though, was still confident that he could win the case and declared his belief that his persecutors simply wanted ‘to expose him to the displeasure of the government’.<sup>79</sup> He certainly was not scared of attempting to thwart Tenison and the government in the House of Lords, for throughout Dec. 1696 he opposed the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. The case raised fundamental theological questions concerning the right of the bishops to vote in capital cases, and in opposing Fenwick’s conviction, Watson was defying his archbishop’s spiritual as well as secular leadership.</p><p>Watson left London early in April 1697, some two weeks before the end of the session. Although he professed some confidence in the eventual outcome of the case, and had been encouraged by repeated delays to believe that ‘they do not find what they expected’, he was still keen for his allies to attend when the hearings resumed after the summer, declaring that ‘I cannot be apprehensive of danger and yet am not secure’.<sup>80</sup> By the autumn he began to realize that the delays were over and that the archbishop was determined to push the case to a conclusion. Watson sought Huntingdon’s advice on suitable lawyers and asked him to hurry to London for ‘I never desired your assistance more’. Huntingdon’s assistance was rather more limited than Watson expected. He certainly wrote a supportive letter to the lawyer (and future lord keeper) Sir Nathan Wright, whom Watson hoped to secure for his defence, in which he described the prosecution as ‘full of revenge and malice’, but he absented himself from Parliament for the whole of the 1697–8 session and it seems unlikely that he attended any of the hearings. He was also pressurizing Watson to reconcile himself to the archbishop. It may not be entirely coincidental that Huntingdon’s son George Hastings*, the future 8th earl of Huntingdon, was about to join King William’s service. Tenison was also under enormous pressure from the king, who was reported to have asked why the proceedings were taking so long and to have described Watson as ‘the scandal of his coat’. Watson, though, remained obdurate, refusing even to visit the archbishop, let alone seek a reconciliation. The man once thought of as nothing more than a time-server now declared that ‘fear of suffering ought not to make a man forsake his principles’.<sup>81</sup></p><p>During the 1697–8 session Watson was present on just over 50 per cent of sitting days, much of his time being taken up elsewhere with his case. On 23 Jan. 1698 he entered a protest at the failure of the bill to regulate parliamentary elections and on 3 Mar. he entered a dissent to the proceedings against Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup> and voted in his favour. By now Watson’s friends were warning him that deprivation was a very real possibility.<sup>82</sup> Late in the spring of 1698 Robert Lucy pressed home his advantage by commencing yet another suit against Watson, this time in chancery for the restitution of the office of registrar and for the fees pertaining to it.<sup>83</sup> Once again he asked the House of Lords to order Watson to waive his privilege, but on 23 May the House decided that this was unnecessary: Watson was unable to claim privilege since this was a matter in which he acted as trustee rather than as principal. Despite this decision there seem to have been no significant developments in the suit until the spring of 1705. The case was still unresolved at Robert Lucy’s death in 1713, although what progress there was seems to have vindicated Lucy’s claim to office. His widow attempted to revive it as late as 1720.<sup>84</sup> Watson’s last attendance of the session was on 23 May 1698. The following day he entered his proxy in favour of Henry Compton; it was vacated by the end of the session on 5 July.</p><p>Watson returned to Parliament for the 1698-9 session on 6 Dec. 1698 and was present on some 84 per cent of the sitting days. As inflexible in his opposition to the court as ever, on 8 Feb. 1699 he opposed measures to assist the king in retaining Dutch guards. On 3 Aug. he was found guilty of simony, of taking exorbitant fees, and of ordaining two deacons without tendering the necessary oaths of allegiance. His supporters were later to claim that even the conviction for failing to tender the oaths of allegiance was flawed, since both the men concerned were prepared to testify that they had taken the oaths the day before their ordinations.<sup>85</sup> Tenison denied Watson’s accusations of party political bias, exclaiming that ‘God forbid we should try <em>persons</em> instead of <em>causes</em>’. He then went on to dismiss almost all of the evidence presented in Watson’s defence to show that Watson was of strict life and an observer of Church discipline. This, Tenison said, could not be true since Watson’s earlier suspension had been for breaching an inhibition. It was extremely unusual for a court to reject the evidence of a high-ranking individual such as a bishop in favour of the testimony of persons of inferior social status. Vague and nebulous evidence for the prosecution, such as evidence that Medley had seemed melancholy after his preferment to the archdeaconry, was accepted as confirmation of simony. Evidence that Watson had been indicted for taking excessive fees, even though he had not been tried, let alone convicted, was used to support the case against him. Evidence that he had offered to resign the living of Burrough Green was used to prove simoniacal intent, even though he did not own the right of presentation.<sup>86</sup></p><p>The bishops who sat with Tenison as assessors differed in their verdicts. Thomas Sprat refused to give judgment at all and absented himself from the court.<sup>87</sup> Henry Compton found Watson guilty of the lesser crimes but, although he agreed that Watson’s financial relationship with Medley was suspicious, he argued that it had not been proved; he therefore found Watson not guilty on the charges of simony. John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, acquitted Watson of simony over Burrough Green but found him guilty on the other charges. Tenison, together with William Lloyd*, of Worcester, and Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, found him guilty on all charges.<sup>88</sup> Ironically, investigation of the charges against Edward Jones*, of St Asaph, were already beginning to reveal that Lloyd was himself guilty of simony, prompting Watson to remark that ‘I wish others now were as clear of simony as I.’ Burnet made a long and barbed speech in which he insisted that even evidence that Watson had refused bribes for preferment proved the allegations against him – for why otherwise would such offers have been made? Deprivation, he argued, was the only possible sentence: ‘he who has once broke his faith in so sacred a matter, can never be trusted any more’. Tenison agreed, Watson’s offences were ‘aggravated with a long black order of evil practices’ and ‘where there is a gangrene amputation is necessary’. He also placed Watson under monition not to wear episcopal habit under pain of major excommunication.<sup>89</sup> The deprivation was promptly reported to the exchequer.<sup>90</sup></p><h2><em>Fighting on, 1699–1717</em></h2><p>Watson, who had never believed such a sentence to be possible, promptly appealed to the court of delegates. Simon Patrick*, of Ely, John Moore*, of Norwich, John Hall*, of Bristol, James Gardiner*, of Lincoln, John Williams*, of Chichester, Sir George Treby<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Edward Ward, Sir Thomas Powell<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Littleton Powys, and Sir Henry Hatsell, a judge, were named as the delegates.<sup>91</sup> Realizing that there was a built-in bias against him and that the delegates would confirm the verdict, on 29 Nov. 1699 Watson attempted to resume privilege, claiming that he was in need of the protection of the House against the ‘unforeseen oppressions’ to which his earlier waiver had exposed him. During the ensuing discussion on 4 and 6 Dec. the attorney general intervened to inform the House that allowing Watson his privilege might tend ‘to the diminution of the king’s prerogative in ecclesiastical affairs’. Not surprisingly, when the Lords instituted a full debate on the issue they soon found themselves discussing wider questions about the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury.</p><p>Watson’s plight raised anxieties about secular as well as ecclesiastical issues. Watson and his supporters argued that a sentence of deprivation ought only to be pronounced in a synod. Others were uneasily aware that the archbishop was effectively claiming the right to control a significant portion of the membership of the House. The lords temporal could not be removed from the House by the decision of a single individual, even if that individual were the king. The non-juring bishops had been removed by legislation ratified by both Houses. On what authority could the archbishop exercise such a power, which, in the wrong hands could be used to ‘help forward the destruction both of Church and state’. Bishops Compton and Jones spoke in Watson’s favour. Even dissident Whigs such as Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, joined in on Watson’s behalf, but when it was put to a vote on 6 Dec. 1699 the House decided that bishops had no privilege against the archbishop’s jurisdiction.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Watson again sought a prohibition from the king’s bench, arguing that by canon law the archbishop did not have the power of deprivation. At the same time he sought a writ of <em>mandamus</em> to compel the delegates to accept his evidence. Holt refused the <em>mandamus</em>, stating that such a measure could only be used to enforce a temporal right, and not to force an ecclesiastical court to act according to canon law. He also refused the prohibition, remarking that to question the archbishop’s authority in such a way was ‘to question the very foundations of the government’ and that whether or not the archbishop could deprive a bishop of his own authority was in itself a matter for the decision of the delegates.<sup>93</sup> The delegates confirmed the sentence of deprivation on 16 Feb. 1700. Watson challenged it by trying to bring a writ of error in the House of Lords, where he continued to sit until 21 February. He seems still to have been an active member of the House, for earlier that month a pre-division voting list forecast that he would vote against the East India Company bill.</p><p>The reaction of the government’s senior law advisers to Watson’s application for a writ of error suggests that this was indeed a controversial ruling. The lord chancellor, John Somers*, Baron Somers, granted the writ after consultation with the law officers.<sup>94</sup> He then took further legal advice from Sir George Treby, even though he himself admitted that such a request might be considered improper if done in open court.<sup>95</sup> Holt made it known that even if the Lords granted the writ of error he would refuse to obey it, but a clash of jurisdictions was avoided when the House decided not to consider the merits of the application but only the manner in which it had been presented.<sup>96</sup> The application was refused on 2 Mar. 1700. The Journal now referred to Watson as the ‘late bishop of St Davids’. Nevertheless, on 8 Mar. the House was moved to address the crown that the bishopric be left vacant ‘for some convenient time’. No discussion of such a motion is indicated in the Journal but Narcissus Luttrell<sup>&Dagger</sup> records that on the following day the House debated the difficulty of removing Watson from his temporalities.<sup>97</sup> The removal of the temporalities was not simply about Watson’s claim to the income of the diocese but was also about membership of the House, since a bishop’s entitlement to sit in the House did not rest on his ecclesiastical status alone, but also stemmed from the belief that the possession of temporalities created a barony and that it was the possession of the barony that conferred the right to sit as one of the lords spiritual.</p><p>Watson, apparently now determined to embrace martyrdom, refused to obey an order of the archbishop to pay costs. In May 1702 Robert Lucy petitioned the new queen for some recompense for his costs. He claimed to have spent £2,000 in a cause that had been fought ‘only in the interests of the poor clergy… and for the public good’.<sup>98</sup> It was perhaps as a result of this petition that the archbishop issued a further process against Watson, ordering him to pay some £600 in costs. Watson refused and as a result was excommunicated and committed to Newgate.<sup>99</sup> He was still there in November when he learned that Thomas Coke<sup>‡</sup> was taking a sympathetic interest in his case.<sup>100</sup> Once again Watson brought an action in the king’s bench, as a result of which he was released, but on a technicality that enabled the judges to ignore wider issues about the powers of the archbishop. At or about this time Watson petitioned the new queen for a commission of review.<sup>101</sup> He was unsuccessful, probably partly because a powerful coalition of the gentry of the counties of Brecon, Radnor, Carmarthen, and Pembroke, including John Laugharne<sup>‡</sup>, John Meyrick<sup>‡</sup>, Sir Arthur Owen<sup>‡</sup>, and Griffith Rice<sup>‡</sup>, signed a petition to the Crown in which they lambasted Watson and asked for the appointment of a new bishop who could act both as a spiritual leader and as a focus for loyalty to the crown. John Medley, still loyal to his uncle, headed the list of the clergy of St Davids who counter-petitioned for the return of their diocesan. Their petition emphasized Watson’s devotion to the doctrines of the Church of England and assured the new queen that the prosecution against him ‘was begun without our knowledge and carried on against our consent’ but omitted any mention of his loyalty to the current regime.<sup>102</sup></p><p>A year later the government started proceedings in exchequer to deprive Watson of his temporalities.<sup>103</sup> When Watson lost the case he attempted to bring yet another writ of error, which was lodged in the House of Lords on 14 Dec. 1704. Although the Journal does not record an order to assign errors, Watson’s failure to do so on 22 Dec. enabled the attorney general to suggest that the House invoke its standing orders, which required errors to be assigned within eight days. The House was then able to order the writ of error to be discontinued without considering the case on its merits. It is unclear whether this was usual practice but, given the problems the House was already facing in <em>Ashby v White</em>, it may have wished to avoid reopening another controversial case. Watson tried to have the ruling overturned, arguing that he would have acted on 22 Dec. had he known it was necessary to do so, but his petition was rejected on 22 Jan. 1705. In March 1705 the Crown appointed George Bull*, as bishop of St Davids in his stead.</p><p>Watson continued to call himself the bishop of St Davids, as did his allies – one of whom was his ‘worthy friend’ and benefactor John Sharp*, archbishop of York.<sup>104</sup> Clerks dealing with the various actions in chancery tactfully referred to him as ‘Thomas Watson, consecrated bishop of St Davids’.<sup>105</sup> Watson lived out the rest of his life at his house at Great Wilbraham in Cambridgeshire, convinced that the root of his problems had not been ‘the malice of a few ill men’ in the diocese but ‘the envy of greater persons who were glad of any pretence to assault and ruin’. Although only fragments of his correspondence survive, they suggest that he maintained an active interest in Church affairs. He kept in touch with a number of sympathetic churchmen and continued to believe that the spiritual welfare of the people depended on clergymen who were active in catechizing their congregations and beautifying their churches.<sup>106</sup> He gave generously to his old school and college and towards the end of his life he became involved in planning and building the almshouses in Hull that were to become known as Watson’s Hospital.<sup>107</sup> The inscription that he designed for the hospital in 1711 left no doubt of his continuing gratitude to the now dead King James II. Perhaps even he recognized how inflammatory it might be for, using Archbishop Sharp as an intermediary, he gave Queen Anne an opportunity to veto it.<sup>108</sup> Anecdotal evidence suggests that Watson’s nephew Watson Powell was expelled from St Johns for drinking the Pretender’s health and ‘that his uncle had declared he shall be amply recompensed for his loyalty’.<sup>109</sup></p><p>Watson died in 1717, still convinced that he had been victimized for his political beliefs. He was buried in the chancel of the parish church at Great Wilbraham; his estates passed to his brother William Watson of Cherry Hinton. Many churchmen agreed that Watson had been victimized and a belief that he had been deprived for opposing his archbishop in the House of Lords and in convocation became one of the underlying factors in the disputes about the role and function of convocation that marred the early years of Anne’s reign. Watson’s treatment at the hands of the archbishop was regularly compared to that of Edward Jones of St Asaph, who was similarly accused of simony in 1697. The evidence against Jones was far more convincing than that against Watson but he was sentenced to no more than a temporary suspension. Unlike Watson, Jones had not crossed his archbishop, and, unlike Watson, his origins were socially acceptable and he had powerful friends who were prepared to speak up on his behalf.</p> |
R.P. |
|
WHITE, Thomas (1628-98) |
<p><strong><surname>WHITE</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1628–98)</p> |
|
|
First sat 9 Nov. 1685; last sat 27 Feb. 1689 |
cons. 25 Oct. 1685 bp. of PETERBOROUGH; depr. 1 Feb. 1691 |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1628, s. of Peter White of Allington, Kent. <em>educ</em>. Wye sch.; St John’s, Camb. matric. 1642, BA 1646, MA; DD Oxford 1683. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 30 May 1698. <em>will</em> 1690, pr. 19 July 1698.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Princess Anne 1684, to James Stuart*, duke of York 1684.</p><p>Vic. Newark, Notts. 1660-6; rect. All Hallows the Great, London 1666-79, Bottesford Leics. 1679-85, Stepney 1681; adn. Nottingham 1683-5.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, Magdalen, Oxf.; oil on canvas by unknown artist, Corpus Christi, Oxf.; engraving c.1688, published by John Overton, British Museum, 1839,0413.119.</p> |
<p>The nonjuror Thomas White was a native of Allington, Kent. His father’s origins are obscure, but his mother was ‘nearly related’ to the long-established gentry Brockman family of Beachborough, one of whom sat in the Commons for Hythe in 1690.<sup>2</sup> White’s activities after attending St John’s College, Cambridge, are obscure, but shortly after the Restoration he petitioned successfully for the Nottinghamshire vicarage of Newark. The reasons for White’s appointment to All Hallows the Great in London (in the gift of the archbishop of Canterbury), shortly before the church was destroyed in the fire of London are equally unknown. In 1679 he was made a preacher at Stepney, while obtaining a living in Leicestershire in the gift of the earls of Rutland; in 1681 he obtained the rectorship of Stepney as well, in the gift of Philadelphia, the widow of Thomas*, Baron Wentworth.<sup>3</sup> In 1682, he came to the notice of the diarist Evelyn with a sermon on his preferred theme, submission to the will of God. Evelyn commented on his ‘very eloquent style’.<sup>4</sup></p><p>In May 1683, supported by James Butler*, duke of Ormond, White obtained a doctorate and joined the Anglican retinue of the duke of York as chaplain to both the duke and to the Princess Anne. Marked out for preferment, White returned to the Midlands as archdeacon of Nottingham in the diocese of York shortly after the granting of the city’s new charter, and much at the same time as John Dolben*, the new archbishop; there, determined to quash Nottingham’s nonconformists, White proved ‘the terror of recalcitrant churchwardens’. Dolben commented admiringly that ‘I see now with my own eyes how equal he is to great business having done such things in Nottinghamshire as in two years as few else would have attempted and made that province now administrable by a discreet successor though of less courage and activity than himself’.<sup>5</sup> Writing to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury in 1686, White gave some indication of his attention to administrative detail, recalling that though his visitation of Nottinghamshire had been ‘painful’, ‘yet I had this advantage by it that upon one visitation I understood the whole state of the country and every clergyman that was blameable or praiseworthy in it’.<sup>6</sup> After two years in which he was identified clearly with the Yorkist faction, White became one of James II’s personal appointees to the episcopal bench. Dolben seems to have expected him to go to Chichester, writing just after the death of Guy Carleton*, bishop of Chichester, in July 1685 that the ageing Thomas Barlow*, bishop of Lincoln, ‘might have been so kind as to die before old Guy, but it will be an easy remove from Peterborough and certainly no man so fit as White to go thither’.<sup>7</sup> In fact White’s promotion was to Peterborough itself, following the translation of its bishop, William Lloyd*, to Norwich. His consecration took place on 25 Oct. 1685. White was clearly a politically popular choice with the dominant landed interests in Northamptonshire. He was in close, and mutually respectful, contact with the anti-exclusionist Christopher Hatton*, whose loyalty to the court had earned him a promotion from a barony to a viscountcy in 1683.<sup>8</sup></p><p>James II’s Parliament was too brief for White to make a significant contribution to the life of the Lords; he took his seat on 9 Nov. 1685, attending the session for only 29 per cent of sittings. On 14 Nov. he accepted the proxy of Thomas Wood*, bishop of Lichfield (vacated at the end of the session). On 18 Nov. he was named to the committee for Sir George Crooke’s bill, but Parliament was prorogued two days later so the bill was lost.</p><p>In January 1686 Dolben reported that ‘Peterborough says he will do whatever the king commands him in relation to the government but by God he’ll live and die of the Church of England.’<sup>9</sup> Within a few months of his appointment, in the spring of 1686 William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, chose him to conduct a special visitation of Lincoln diocese following reports of neglect by Barlow. White corresponded with Sancroft about the details: whether he should divulge the fact that the visitation resulted from a special royal command or pretend that it resulted from Sancroft’s special care of the province. His devotion to the Church notwithstanding, he was reluctant to offend the king and before setting out on the visitation of Lincoln specifically asked Sancroft ‘what enquiry should be made about Catholics and whether his Majesty will suffer them to be presented though the censures of the Church do not pass upon them’.<sup>10</sup> His articles of visitation concentrated on overdue repairs to Church fabric and barely had he drawn breath from this additional task before starting a visitation of his own diocese, writing in September that he hoped to ‘have some good effect in awakening the clergy, and bringing them to some more sense of their duty then they seem to have had before’.<sup>11</sup> In the autumn, after the suspension of Henry Compton*, he joined with Nathaniel Crew*, of Durham, and Thomas Sprat*, of Rochester, in administering the diocese of London. In October, after noting this, Roger Morrice added that White ‘seems to have as great an interest as any clergyman’. Later that month he described White as ‘the greatest Church of England man now at court’ and reported that White had informed the king that his visitation of Lincoln had revealed that ‘the clergy were very ignorant idle and vicious, excepting some few that were men of learning and virtue, and they were all Whigs’.<sup>12</sup></p><p>On 22 Nov. 1686 White attended the House for the prorogation to the following February. In January 1687 Roger Morrice reported that the king was pressing members of both Houses to repeal the Test and that White was one of the bishops prepared to agree. In April Roger Morrice reported White’s initial response to the first Declaration of Indulgence as ‘that he apprehends there is no danger at all of Popery, but only of the Fanaticks and therefore it concerns them to make themselves as strong as they can against them.’<sup>13</sup> But Morrice also recorded a meeting between five of the bishops and Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on 30 Apr. when White not only refused to sign a congratulatory address to the king for the Declaration but spoke against it ‘in uncourtly language’. When Sunderland told him that a failure to thank the king would ‘justify the reproach that is commonly cast upon the Church of England that they are for persecution’, White replied that the Church had never been for persecution for ‘mere religion’ but had ‘many times been put upon persecution for reasons of state … the persecution always began from the court, but never in the church’. He also exchanged bitter words with Samuel Parker*, bishop of Oxford, who accused him of Erastianism.<sup>14</sup> Contrary to Morrice’s earlier view, White was assessed on four lists as likely to oppose the repeal of the Tests. Not surprisingly he was listed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) as an opponent of the king’s promotion of Catholicism.</p><p>On 18 May, just over three weeks after the second Declaration of Indulgence, he joined Sancroft and five of his fellow bishops to petition the king against his use of the dispensing power. On 27 May 1688 the seven bishops were summoned before the Privy Council; on 8 June they were committed to the Tower after they stood on their privilege and refused to give recognizances for their appearance in King’s Bench. On 24 June, just days before their trial, White wrote that ‘’tis no matter what becomes of seven men if their suffering may prevent that common calamity which we fear. I pray God ... keep the nation steadfast in their true faith’.<sup>15</sup> Compton suggested as White’s sureties Anthony Grey*, 11th earl of Kent, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Charles Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor.<sup>16</sup> All seven bishops were acquitted on 30 June.</p><p>White, shuttling between London and Peterborough, attended the king on several occasions throughout the autumn of 1688 and trying to persuade him to restore the alliance with the Church.<sup>17</sup> In October he assisted the increasingly worried George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys, to settle his estate at Bulstrode on his wife and son.<sup>18</sup> On 2 Nov. 1688 White was absent when the bishops were summoned by the king to declare their abhorrence of the prince of Orange’s declaration that he had been invited to England by the lords spiritual and temporal, but he attended the king on 6 Nov. together with Sancroft, Compton and Sprat when the bishops chose their words with great care in order to refuse the king’s request whilst trying to avoid an appearance of open defiance.<sup>19</sup> On 16 Nov. White subscribed a petition to James II for a free Parliament, joined the lords spiritual and temporal at Whitehall on 27 Nov. and signed the declaration to the prince of Orange at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. 1688.<sup>20</sup></p><p>On 17 Dec. White, Francis Turner*, bishop of Ely, Thomas Lamplugh*, the newly appointed archbishop of York, and Thomas Sprat waited on the king after his return from his first flight. James was in conciliatory mood and the two sides parted ‘with great complacency’. White, Turner and Sprat were now said to be ‘the head of this powerful faction that labours to narrow and innervate the Prince’s designs’.<sup>21</sup> At the king’s second flight White was one of 80 lords temporal and spiritual summoned by the prince of Orange. When the Lords assembled on 22 Dec. White did not attend.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Before the Convention assembled, White joined in negotiations for a regency with Sancroft, John Lake*, bishop of Chichester, Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon.<sup>23</sup> He attended the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689 and was named to a committee to write a suitable form of prayer of thanksgiving, and on 28 Jan. to a committee to consider amendments to the Prayer Book for the thanksgiving service. He attended the session for only 11 per cent of sittings, though he was in the House constantly throughout the debates on the future of the monarchy. He voted for a regency on 29 Jan. 1689 and against the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen on the 31st, asserting that ‘all were rebels and traitors that had drawn their swords against the king and their only way was to return to their Loyalty’.<sup>24</sup> In the abdication debates in early February, he stuck doggedly to his principles, helped to draft reasons why the Lords could not agree with the Commons, took part in the conferences on 5 and 6 Feb. and on 6 Feb. entered a dissent to the final vote. On 8 Feb. when the committee of the whole considered the necessity of composing oaths to be taken to the new monarchs, White was named to the subcommittee to draft them.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Between 10 and 17 Feb. White pointedly stayed away from the House, missing the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen. He attended on the morning of 18 Feb. to hear William’s speech to the House and was present the following day for the passage of the bill on the legality of the Convention. Absenting himself for a further eight days, White went to the House for a last time on 27 Feb. 1689. Having refused the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to the crown, he was suspended from office in August 1689. By November he was being roundly criticized for his ‘stiff adherence … to that highest point of passive obedience’.<sup>26</sup> </p><p>White was considered sufficiently malleable that Carmarthen (as Danby had become) used him as a go-between in the aftermath of the discovery of a Jacobite plot early in 1691. The prospect of a restoration of some part of their revenue was held out as an incentive to persuade Sancroft and the rest of the nonjuring bishops to discredit claims that they were in favour of the return of the exiled king. Although White, William Lloyd, the deprived bishop of Norwich, and Sancroft arranged to meet to discuss the proposal, Sancroft made it clear in advance that he was unwilling to be convinced and the rest of the nonjurors followed his lead.<sup>27</sup> At some point after his deprivation White seems to have made an attempt to speak with Princess Anne. Wary about allowing such contact, even though ‘He has been a servant in the family, and I never heard he meddled with anything’, she sought the advice of Sarah, then countess (later duchess) of Marlborough, who presumably discouraged her.<sup>28</sup> In 1694 White took part in the first consecrations of nonjuring bishops at his lodgings in Southgate.<sup>29</sup> An object of suspicion even though he seems to have little connection with Jacobite plotting, in the aftermath of the discovery of the Assassination plot in the spring of 1696 he was arrested on suspicion of high treason and brought to London where he was kept in custody until the Privy Council ordered his discharge on 23 May.<sup>30</sup> At the request of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>, White attended him several times between his conviction and execution, and ministered to him on the scaffold.<sup>31</sup> In 1698 he appeared before the Privy Council for canvassing support for the deprived nonjuring clergy.<sup>32</sup></p><p>White died on 30 May 1698. In 1689 he had claimed that his personal estate including books, a coach and two horses, one of which was blind, was of little value. He had ‘not one farthing in trade, or at use, upon bond, bill, mortgage, statute or any other ways in my own name or in any other man’s name in trust for me, whereby I make the advantage of one hair of my head’.<sup>33</sup> At the time of his death his estate amounted to over £1,700 and a farm in Kent (left to his heir-at-law, the unnamed grandson of a paternal uncle). Hedging his generous charitable bequests with complex conditions, he left over £1,200 to the poor of six parishes and gave his library to the town of Newark on condition that they build the bookshelves. He also ordered the burning of his manuscripts.<sup>34</sup> White was buried on 4 June in St Gregory’s vault in St Paul’s. Francis Turner helped to carry his coffin to its grave but was refused permission to conduct the burial service. When he and some 30 or 40 nonjuring clergymen saw that a conforming priest was waiting at the graveside to officiate, they left rather than participate in the service.<sup>35</sup></p> |
B.A./R.P. |
|
WILKINS, John (1614-72) |
<p><strong><surname>WILKINS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1614–72)</p> |
|
|
First sat 19 Oct. 1669; last sat 30 Oct. 1672 |
cons. 15 Nov. 1668 bp. of CHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1614, eldest s. of Walter Wilkins, goldsmith of Oxf. and Jane, da. of Dr John Dod. <em>educ</em>. g.s. Oxf.; New Inn Hall, Oxf. matric. 1627; Magdalen Hall, Oxf. BA 1631, MA 1634; ord. deacon 1636, priest 1637; incorp. Camb. 1639, BD 1648, DD 1649. <em>m</em>. (1) bef. 1645, unknown; (2) 1656, Robina (<em>d</em>.1689), da. of Robert Cromwell<sup>‡</sup> of Hunts., wid. of Peter French, canon, Christ Church, Oxf. and sis. of Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>, lord protector. <em>d.s.p. d</em>. 19 Nov. 1672; <em>will</em> 16 Nov. 1672, pr. 16 Jan. 1673.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Charles II 1667.</p><p>Vic. Fawsley, Northants. 1637, St. Laurence Jewry, London 1662-8, Polebrook Northants. 1666-7; chap. to William Fiennes*, Visct. Saye and Sele, 1637-c.40, to George Berkeley<sup>†</sup>, 8th Bar. Berkeley c.1641-4, to Charles Louis, prince elector Palatine of the Rhine c.1644-8; preacher, Gray’s Inn 1645, 1660; preb. York 1660-8, Exeter 1667-8, St. Paul’s 1667-8; rect. Cranford Mdx. 1661-2, Wigan 1668-72; dean, Ripon 1660-8.</p><p>Warden, Wadham, Oxf. 1648-59; master Trinity, Camb. 1659-60.</p><p>FRS 1662, sec. 1663-8.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by M. Beale, c.1668, Wadham, Oxf.; oil on canvas by M. Beale, c.1670-72, The Royal Society.</p> |
<p>As a celebrated natural philosopher who wrote on the possibilities of space travel, John Wilkins was an unconventional churchman. His early background was Puritan: it seems reasonable to assume that he was influenced by his maternal grandfather, ‘Decalogue Dod’, and he almost certainly came within the ambit of the Baptist, John Tombes, whilst at Magdalen Hall. He had little difficulty in accommodating himself to the Interregnum authorities (helped by his marriage to a younger sister of Oliver Cromwell) and developed an influential circle of political connections that no doubt assisted him in adapting to the demands of the Restoration regime. His ‘experimental club’ at Wadham attracted other ‘Christian virtuosi’ such as Seth Ward*, later successively bishop of Exeter and Salisbury, and Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>2</sup> Four future bishops (Gilbert Ironside*, of Bristol and Hereford, Samuel Parker*, of Oxford, Thomas Sprat*, of Rochester, and Seth Ward), one peer, John Lovelace*, 3rd Baron Lovelace, and eight members of the post-1660 Commons studied at Wadham during his mastership. At the Restoration Wilkins grew in popularity as a natural philosopher and innovator. Despite negative observations by Samuel Pepys<sup>‡</sup>, who denigrated Wilkins’ abilities as a preacher, his plain sermons, delivered as moral or philosophical lectures, seem to have appealed to the restive Charles II.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Wilkins’ parliamentary activity predated his elevation to the episcopate. In the late summer of 1667, in the midst of the political crisis over the dismissal of Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, a plan for comprehension was mooted. A bill was drafted, but although it was never presented to either House, it nevertheless led to something of a minor pamphlet war.<sup>4</sup> Wilkins (a protégé of both George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and Sir Orlando Bridgeman<sup>‡</sup>, the lord keeper), was then chosen as the ideal broker between the court and the nonconformists. Together with Bridgeman, Sir Matthew Hale<sup>‡</sup>, Edward Montagu*, 2nd earl of Manchester, Edward Stillingfleet*, later bishop of Worcester, and John Tillotson*, the future archbishop of Canterbury who was married to Wilkins’ stepdaughter, he developed new proposals for comprehension. On 12 Jan. 1668, with royal support, Wilkins and Hezekiah Burton (Bridgeman’s chaplain) met for negotiations with prominent nonconformists. The ensuing bill appalled Gilbert Sheldon*, archbishop of Canterbury, who used his considerable parliamentary influence to secure its failure.<sup>5</sup></p><p>In September when the death of George Hall*, created a vacancy at Chester, Sheldon and Herbert Croft*, of Hereford, lobbied in favour of William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, but were unable to prevail against the influence of Buckingham and Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, who secured Wilkins’ elevation instead.<sup>6</sup> Wilkins was consecrated on 15 Nov. 1668 at Ely House in Holborn. Sheldon did not take part; he and Humphrey Henchman*, of London, signalled their displeasure by remaining behind the curtain for the entire ceremony.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Early in 1669 Pepys described Wilkins as ‘a mighty rising man’ who could count on the support of Buckingham, ‘his great friend’. By the end of February 1669 it was rumoured that Wilkins was to be promoted, some thought to lord privy seal, others that he was to be translated to Winchester and become lord treasurer.<sup>8</sup> Discussions on toleration and comprehension continued; Wilkins own commitment to toleration was evinced in his own diocese where he implemented a ‘soft interpretation’ of the terms of conformity. He encouraged nonconformists to live in hope of comprehension and licensed at least one Presbyterian preacher who failed to conform to the provisions of the Act of Uniformity.<sup>9</sup> His conciliatory skills were also put to use at court where, in October, the king sought his help in smoothing relations between Buckingham and Arlington.<sup>10</sup></p><p>The disruption caused to parliamentary life by the impasse over <em>Skinner’s Case</em> meant that Wilkins was prevented from taking his seat in the Lords until 19 Oct. 1669. He then embarked on a short but active career in the House as an isolated ecclesiastical spokesman for the Cabal. He attended his first session for over 80 per cent of the sittings, was named to four of the session’s five committees, including the subcommittee appointed to consider the report from the commissions of accounts, and held the proxy of former Presbyterian Edward Reynolds*, of Norwich, from 15 Oct. 1669 until the prorogation in December.</p><p>On 14 Feb. 1670, Wilkins attended the start of a new session, was present for 79 per cent of sittings and was appointed to almost 50 select committees on a range of public and private bills. He again held Reynolds’ proxy for the entire session. Such a record of attendance and activity suggests that he was something of a parliamentary ‘workhorse’, yet Wilkins was increasingly marginalized from his colleagues on the episcopal bench. His emphasis on practical piety appealed to the king but not to more dogmatic theologians. John Hacket*, of Lichfield and Coventry, dismissed Wilkins’ Lenten sermon before the king on the whole duty of man as ‘pitiful’; he suggested that it was ordered to be printed only because ‘the court likes no sermons longer than a quarter of an hour’. As far as he was concerned Wilkins was ‘a shallow man both in philosophy and divinity’. John Dolben*, of Rochester, and John Fell*, of Oxford, both disliked Wilkins ‘for his wavering … mind in religion’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>On 5 Mar. 1670 the bill to enable John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later 9th earl and duke of Rutland) to remarry was introduced into the House. At the second reading on 17 Mar. in a debate that lasted from noon to 9 p.m., Wilkins and John Cosin*, of Durham, were the only bishops to support it. During the various debates Wilkins declared that divorce was not only possible in cases of adultery but also of ‘immundicity of the womb’ – a reference to the queen so barbed ‘that she wept day and night’. Significantly when the bill was committed on 19 Mar. they were the only bishops to be named to the committee. Neither Cosin nor Wilkins was listed in the Journal as present on the day of the third reading (28 Mar. 1670), but Wilkins was presumably present as Edward Montagu*, earl of Sandwich, recorded his contribution to the debate that day.<sup>12</sup></p><p>At the same time as the Roos divorce was passing through Parliament there was an attempt to pass a fresh conventicles bill. On 19 Mar. 1670 Wilkins was present in the afternoon when the House went into committee to consider it. When the king tried to rally support for the bill Wilkins refused either to do so or to assist its passage by refraining from attendance. He insisted that the bill was ‘an ill thing both in conscience and policy’ and must be opposed, that he had a right to debate and vote ‘and was neither afraid nor ashamed to own his opinion ... and to act pursuant to it’.<sup>13</sup> Wilkins not only attended the House throughout March but on 30 Mar. was appointed, with Humphrey Henchman and Seth Ward, to manage the conference on the Lords amendments that effectively softened the bill.</p><p>Parliament was adjourned until the autumn of 1670. In the recess Wilkins was one of the commissioners to negotiate union with the Scots.<sup>14</sup> He resumed his seat at the start of business on 24 Oct. 1670, and attended regularly until the prorogation on 22 Apr. 1671. On 1 Mar. 1671, together with Henchman, Ward, Dolben and George Morley*, of Winchester, he was named to a small committee to prepare heads for a conference on the growth of popery. On 13 Apr. a Lords’ committee appointed Wilkins to a subcommittee to prepare a test or oath for Catholics which would mitigate the penalties imposed on convicted recusants.<sup>15</sup> With the session almost at an end the subcommittee seems never to have met. Parliament did not meet again until the following spring; Wilkins was present on 16 Apr. 1672 to hear of a further prorogation to the autumn, and again on 30 Oct. 1672 for a prorogation to the following year.</p><p>At the death of John Cosin in January 1672 Wilkins was rumoured to be one of the candidates to succeed him, but no decision was made before Wilkins’ death later that year.<sup>16</sup> In October 1672 his health deteriorated to such an extent that he composed his will. Having received some £500 a year in episcopal revenue, Wilkins was able to bequeath over £1,800 at the time of his death.<sup>17</sup> He made Tillotson his financial and literary executor. The ‘particular friends’ to whom he left small bequests were an eclectic group from across the political spectrum and included the lawyer, Sir William Jones<sup>‡</sup>, and three future bishops, William Lloyd*, who ended his episcopal career as bishop of Worcester, Edward Stillingfleet, and Thomas Sprat. Wilkins died on 19 Nov. 1672. He was buried on 12 Dec. 1672 in the chancel of St. Laurence Jewry.</p> |
B.A. |
|
WILLIAMS, John (c. 1636-1709) |
<p><strong><surname>WILLIAMS</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1636–1709)</p> |
|
|
First sat 14 Dec. 1696; last sat 19 Apr. 1709 |
cons. 13 Dec. 1696 bp. of CHICHESTER |
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1636, parents unknown. <em>educ</em>. Magdalen Hall, Oxf. matric. 1651 or 1653, BA 1655, MA 1658; Univ. Camb. DD 1690. <em>m</em>. name unknown (<em>d</em>.1690),<sup>1</sup> 1s.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 24 Apr. 1709; <em>admon</em>. 10 Jan. 1710 to sis. Elizabeth Williams.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to William III and Mary II 1691-4.</p><p>Rect. St Peter, Paul’s Wharf, London 1660, St Mildred Poultry, London 1673-1700, St Mary Colechurch, London 1673; canon, St Paul’s 1683, Canterbury 1692-7; Busby catechetical lecturer, Westminster Abbey 1686-9;<sup>4</sup> Boyle lecturer 1695-6.</p><p>Commr. ecclesiastical commn. 1689,<sup>5</sup> Q. Anne’s Bounty 1705;<sup>6</sup> mbr. SPG 1701.<sup>7</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, 1696, Lambeth Palace, London.</p> |
<p>John Williams, a native of Northamptonshire of probably humble parentage, left few details of his personal life, a problem exacerbated by the absence of a will. An ‘ardent advocate’ of religious comprehension, Williams’ clerical livings were all held in London where he was associated with the circle of clergymen identified by G.V. Bennett as clients of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham.<sup>8</sup> Despite his unequivocal Whig affiliations and activity as a parliamentary workhorse after he had been elevated to the episcopate, Williams remains an enigmatic figure whose political career has been overlooked both by his contemporaries and more recent historians.</p><p>Williams was an energetic controversialist who was equally vehement towards both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. In the wake of the Popish Plot, he published at least twice against Catholic apologetics, addressing what he perceived as the political subversion in counter-reformation activism.<sup>9</sup> In a letter of 20 Mar. 1681, he criticized Charles II’s abrupt dissolution of the Exclusion Parliament, maintaining that it did little ‘but exasperate matters, and puts the bellows into the hands of all discontents to blow up and inflame our differences’.<sup>10</sup> It has been claimed that Williams favoured the exclusion bill yet during the Tory reaction he was made a prebendary of St Paul’s. If his Anglican credentials were without doubt, his loyalty towards James II was more suspect. On 26 July 1685 he preached an equivocal thanksgiving sermon for the defeat of the rebellion of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth. Williams later published the sermon with a dedication to Henry Compton*, bishop of London, presenting it as an attempt to defuse criticism that he had preached only a ‘general discourse … not to the purpose of the day and occasion’.<sup>11</sup> As James II’s religious policies evolved, Williams became a leading member of the campaign orchestrated by Thomas Tenison*, the future archbishop of Canterbury to publish anti-Catholic apologetics,<sup>12</sup> and was listed as such by Gilbert Burnet*, the future bishop of Salisbury.<sup>13</sup> Whether he actively opposed the Declaration of Indulgence is unclear, but his polemics and location in London suggest that he was an Anglican activist in the campaign to resist the king’s drift towards religious toleration.</p><p>In 1689 Williams was one of two men recommended to Lady Russell as a candidate for the rectory of Covent Garden by John Tillotson*, later archbishop of Canterbury. Tillotson described him as ‘one of the best men I know, and most unwearied in doing good, and his preaching very weighty and judicious’. He was, however, less suited for the rectory than his rival, the ‘truly pious, and of a winning conversation’ Mr Freeman, who had the added advantage of being remembered fondly by the king.<sup>14</sup> Williams was awarded his Cambridge doctorate after recommendations from both Nottingham and Tillotson to Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, the university’s chancellor.<sup>15</sup> In September 1689 it was rumoured that Williams was to become canon residentiary of St Paul’s.<sup>16</sup> On 4 September 1689 he was appointed ecclesiastical commissioner to review the liturgy and to consider the comprehension proposals sponsored by Nottingham.<sup>17</sup> As secretary to the commission, he left a diary of its proceedings, recording the challenge by Thomas Sprat*, bishop of Rochester, to its legality and terms of reference.<sup>18</sup> After the second meeting of the commission, Williams dined with his London clerical colleagues, Compton, Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, Simon Patrick*, bishop of Chichester, Robert Grove*, who would succeed Patrick at Chichester, and Tenison, the future archbishop. They constituted an informal subcommittee to co-ordinate their ideas before the next meeting.<sup>19</sup> He recorded that liturgical concessions to the Presbyterians were rejected in Convocation only because a voting bloc in the lower house was being managed by ‘a faction’ in the establishment who were resistant to change.<sup>20</sup></p><p>On 1 Apr. 1690 Williams observed that the new Parliament was ‘so much of the mind of the old’. Despite suffering bereavement following the loss of his wife in late February from ‘a dead-palsy’, Williams continued to publish with undiminished zeal, condemning nonjurors as guilty of schism. <sup>21</sup> Whiggish in his political leanings and connections, he was saddened by the death during the siege of Limerick of Adam Loftus, Viscount Lisburne [I], the father-in-law of Thomas Wharton*, the future 5th Baron Wharton.<sup>22</sup> A stalwart defender of the Church against the now-tolerated dissenting congregations, he published an attack in 1694 against the extremely unorthodox Muggletonian sect.<sup>23</sup> In the same year, he defended Tillotson from criticism by nonjurors (in particular Thomas Ken*, the deprived bishop of Bath and Wells) of pastoral neglect following the archbishop’s funeral sermon for Queen Mary.<sup>24</sup></p><p>Williams’ polemics were directed against enemies of the post-revolutionary ecclesiastical and political establishment, but promotion had to wait until nearly two years after the queen’s death. On 11 Dec. 1695 he preached the fast sermon before the Commons, and it was rumoured that he would be elevated to Lincoln.<sup>25</sup> It was not until 13 Oct. 1696 that he was recommended by Tenison to the see of Chichester.<sup>26</sup> He was consecrated two months later, on 13 December. A flustered Williams took his seat in the House the day after his consecration, taking the oaths at the end of the sitting. Williams’ determination to take his seat at the earliest possible opportunity revealed the punctilious approach to parliamentary duty he showed throughout his career in the House. He attended each of the 14 sessions held during his episcopate; 13 of these he attended for more than half of the sittings, nine for more than 60 per cent, and four for more than 70 per cent. He was also in attendance on the first day of 11 sessions. There is no surviving evidence of his making speeches in the House or in chairing select committees, but he did manage conferences with the Commons.</p><p>Williams attended his first parliamentary session for 57 per cent of sittings and was named to 23 select committees. On 23 Dec. 1696, nine days after taking his seat, he voted, as the court desired, for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick<sup>‡</sup>. Throughout the early part of 1697 he continued to preach in London, giving the 30 Jan. martyrdom sermon before the king at Whitehall and the Easter Monday sermon before the mayor and aldermen of London.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Williams made use of his episcopal authority to advance Whig politics and churchmanship. One of his first public acts as bishop was to publish a declaration attacking the ‘scandalous proceedings’ of the nonjuring clergy who absolved Sir John Freind<sup>‡</sup> before his execution.<sup>28</sup> Yet there is little surviving evidence of his involvement in parliamentary elections in his diocese. It is possible that direct involvement would have been superfluous since elections at Chichester and in west Sussex were dominated by the 6th duke of Somerset until at least the Tory victory of 1701; what episcopal influence there was in the county may have remained with Simon Patrick’s candidate, Robert Orme<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>29</sup></p><p>On 3 Dec. 1697 Williams was present for the first day of the new session. He attended some 86 per cent of sittings, his most regular attendance of any session. He was named to 54 select committees, of which 37 were on private bills. Four days before the session opened, Williams received the proxy of Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Bangor (vacated at the end of the session). The session also saw the introduction, on 21 Jan. 1698, of Williams’ own estate bill, in which he sought permission to make leases of certain houses and grounds belonging to the bishopric in Chancery Lane.<sup>30</sup> Following committal of the bill on 4 Feb. and amendments in committee the bill was reported on 21 Feb. by Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford.<sup>31</sup> It was given its third reading on 25 Feb. and sent to the Commons.<sup>32</sup> The bill was returned to the Lords on 26 Mar. and received the royal assent on 2 April.</p><p>Meanwhile, on 15 Mar. 1698, Williams had voted to commit the bill to punish Tory goldsmith Charles Duncombe<sup>‡</sup>. On 25 May 1698 he managed the conference on the suppression of blasphemy and profaneness and on 20 June 1698 the conference on the Alverstoke waterworks bill involving Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester. Williams attended the last day of the session on 5 July and on 18 July examined the Journal. During the session he was described by Arthur Charlett, master of University College, Oxford, as someone of ‘conversation very instructive and beneficial, but all such persons are best company alone, few being so open in mixed company’.<sup>33</sup> The following session again confirmed Williams’ diligence in the Lords. He was present for the first day of business on 6 Dec. 1698 and attended nearly 75 per cent of sittings. He was named to 28 committees including eight on public bills. On 28 Mar. 1699, present for prayers, he joined his fellow bishops (all of whom offered a protestation to be absent) who withdrew before the trial of Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, in Westminster Hall. Attending until the penultimate day end of session, he returned to his diocese at the end of May.<sup>34</sup></p><p>He was back in Westminster in time for the start of the November 1699 session; attending nearly 66 per cent of sittings, he was named to 12 select committees. On 2 Feb. 1700, he sat as one of the delegates in the appeal against deprivation brought by Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids.<sup>35</sup> He arrived for the session that began in February 1701 on the fourth day of business. He attended the session for just over 72 per cent of sittings, and was named to 11 select committees, including the committees on vexatious suits and on the regulation of the King’s Bench and fleet prisons. On 9 May he was named to the committee on the manner of the Commons’ delivery of articles of impeachment after the Lords received the articles sent up against Edward Russell*, earl of Orford. On 22 Apr. Williams again examined the Journal. At the start of June he informed a colleague of his intention to remain in London until the end of the session.<sup>36</sup> His presence in the House was vital to bolster the Whig vote and to counter attempts to impeach both Orford and John Somers*, Baron Somers. Williams voted for Somers’ acquittal on 17 June and for Orford’s acquittal on the 23rd. During the same month, he was one of the five bishops who sat alongside Tenison when the archbishop read his suspension of Edward Jones*, bishop of St Asaph.<sup>37</sup> Williams attended the House until the last sitting on 24 June. He presumably returned to Chichester for the summer months, but on 30 Oct. he was one of the 16 lords present (including Stamford) to hear the formal prorogation; Williams and Richard Cumberland*, bishop of Peterborough, were the only bishops present in the House on that day.</p><p>He again attended on 30 Dec. 1701 for the first day of the new session and was named to the sessional committees. He attended this session for 56 per cent of sittings and was named to 12 select committees (including legislation for land exchange between the queen and the Church in Windsor, and to preserve the rights of the crown and of the House of Lords). On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address to the king protesting the acknowledgement by the French king of the Pretender’s claim to the English throne. Six days later he was ordered to preach on the 30th (and was thanked formally on 4 Feb.). On 1 Feb. a report about the Savoy hospital composed by Williams, Tenison, five fellow bishops and Stamford (with whom Williams’ name was frequently linked in a parliamentary context), was read at the cabinet.<sup>38</sup> With the death of William III on 8 Mar., he was present in the Lords to help manage the conference on the accession of Queen Anne. He examined the Journal on 20 May, and attended until the last day of the session on the 25th.</p><p>Unusually, he arrived two weeks after the start of business for Anne’s first Parliament. Nevertheless, he attended almost 66 per cent of sittings. On 1 Dec. 1702 Williams presented a petition to the Lords for a further estate bill, to extend the time under which he could make leases under his 1698 Act.<sup>39</sup> It was given its first reading the following day and was committed on 3 Dec. On the same day, Williams voted in favour of Somers’ amendment to the occasional conformity bill, which was designed to restrict its scope to those covered only by the Test Act. On 17 Dec. 1702, with the Commons demanding a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill, the House again divided on an adjournment. On the next vote, Williams joined the mainly Tory minority (including Sharp, Compton, Nathaniel Crew*, bishop of Durham, Mews, Sprat, and Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter) to vote for the delay, but the motion was defeated. On 18 Dec. William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle sat on the committee on Williams’ estate bill.<sup>40</sup> The bill was reported from committee by John Hough*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, agreed and engrossed, and passed the Lords the following month.</p><p>At the start of 1703 Nottingham forecast that Williams would oppose the bill to prevent occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. 1703 Williams duly voted to adhere to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause in the bill. Three days later, he protested against the resolution against the clauses relating to grants in the bill concerning Prince George*, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland. The queen’s birthday on 6 Feb. 1703 saw Williams with the assembled court at St James, but not before he and John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, had taught Nicolson and Humphreys how to remove stains or ink from books and to strengthen the leaves afterwards.<sup>41</sup> He continued to attend the House doggedly, and was present on the last day of the session (27 Feb.) to hear his estate bill given the royal assent.</p><p>Williams was again in his seat in the House on the first day of business of the November 1703 session and attended just over 75 per cent of sittings. He was named to the committees for the preparation of addresses to the queen on 18 Dec. 1703 and 22 Mar. 1704, and legislation to prevent irregularities in hearing causes at the bar. On both 1 Nov. and 26 Nov. 1703, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, had forecast that Williams would oppose the renewed attempt to pass legislation against occasional conformity. On 14 Dec., with Tenison and 12 other bishops, Williams voted against the bill. Following an order of the House on 3 Mar. 1704, he preached in the Abbey on the anniversary of Anne’s accession on the ‘psalm of praise’ and was thanked the following day by the House.<sup>42</sup> He was in attendance when the House rose on 3 Apr. and again on the first day of the autumn session, attending 62 per cent of sittings. On 6 Nov. he received the proxy of James Gardiner*, bishop of Lincoln, and, five days later, the proxy of John Hall*, bishop of Bristol (both vacated at the end of the session). He was nominated to the committees appointed to draw up addresses to the queen to congratulate her on the military successes of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough (24 Oct.), and on the state of the nation with regard to Scotland (16 December). That which provoked the most activity from Williams was his appointment on 10 Oct. to the committee on the methods of keeping records in government offices. The committee met on 11 Nov., choosing Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, as chairman, and entrusting Williams and Nicolson with the task of visiting the records at the Tower of London. On 13 and 17 Nov. Williams and Nicolson inspected progress by the recently appointed clerks in classifying and calendaring the records. The 17th proved a full day; the two men arrived at the Tower by 9am, were back in the House by 1pm, and afterwards had a late dinner. On 26 Dec. both men again attended the St Stephen’s dinner.<sup>43</sup> On 27 Feb. 1705 Williams was named to the committee to consider heads for a conference with the Commons concerning <em>Ashby v. White</em>, a case arising from the Aylesbury election. He attended when the House rose on 14 March. The following day he joined Burnet, Hough, Cumberland and Moore in a complaint to the Tory agitators in the lower house of Convocation, bidding them ‘govern themselves by the constitution as it is, and not as they would desire it might be.’<sup>44</sup> His signature in the Journal on four occasions between 19 and 30 Mar. attests to his activity as a member of the Journals committee.</p><p>Williams was again in the House on the first day of business of the 1705-6 session. He attended nearly 66 per cent of sittings, was named to the sessional committees and, on 27 Oct. 1705, to the committee composing an address of thanks to the queen. He continued with the London social and political round, dining on 10 Nov. at Lambeth with Nicolson, Sir Isaac Newton<sup>‡</sup> and William King, archbishop of Dublin.<sup>45</sup> On the evening of 4 Dec., Williams, William Wake*, recently appointed bishop of Lincoln, Hough and ‘Dr Gee’ (presumably the anti-Catholic controversialist Edward Gee) met to discuss a strategy to prevent the growth of Catholicism.<sup>46</sup> Two days later he was present in the House for the ‘Church in danger’ debate, but there is no evidence as to his participation in the debates.</p><p>Williams again dined at Lambeth on 19 Jan. 1706 with Nicolson, Somers and Halifax where discussion was of Union with Scotland.<sup>47</sup> On 28 Jan. (according to Nicolson’s diary), Williams and Nicolson were the only bishops present in the chamber and both voted against the motion for an adjournment put forward by Wharton, after the House voted against following an order of the previous day that they go into a grand committee on a proposal to allow the reimportation of French wines currently at Copenhagen.<sup>48</sup> On the 13th he reported from the committee on William Gomeldon’s estate bill, recommending the bill without amendment. The following day, 14 Mar., was the last day Williams attended that session, uncharacteristically missing the last two months of business. It is unclear whether he was resident in London or in Chichester at this time. Throughout the earlier part of the session, however, he had continued to fulfil his obligations on ecclesiastical bodies including the commission for Queen Anne’s bounty (2 Nov. 1705) and the committee in Whitehall with Tenison, Cumberland, Nicolson and John Evans*, bishop of Bangor, on pension arrears to be paid out of tenths (11 Feb. 1706).<sup>49</sup></p><p>By the start of the following session on 3 Dec. 1706, Williams was back at Westminster. He attended 51 per cent of sittings. He attended for six days in December 1706 and it is probable that during that month he returned to Chichester; the episcopal register records that he conducted an Advent ordination ceremony, admitting four deacons and 17 priests to ordination, only five of which were for his own diocese.<sup>50</sup> By 23 Dec. he was again in London at the Church committee on the payment of tenths. This body resumed its deliberations in Whitehall on 29 Jan. 1707; on the same day Williams was present in the House.<sup>51</sup> He attended throughout the spring, was present on the last day of the session on 8 Apr. 1707, and again on 14 Apr. for the first day of the next session. He attended six days out of the ten day session.</p><p>Williams attended the following session in October 1707 less regularly – nearly 43 per cent of the time – but still arrived on the first day and was named to the sessional committees. On 26 Dec. he attended the traditional Lambeth dinner.<sup>52</sup> Williams, who had been categorized as an unequivocal Whig in a published list of party affiliation the following May, continued his routine pattern of parliamentary activity: he attended the autumn 1708 sessions for nearly 54 per cent of sittings. On 21 Jan. 1709 he took part in the division on the voting rights of Scots peers with British titles. Williams’ voting intentions are unclear from the surviving division list although it suggests that he voted with the non-contents (opposing the proposition that Scots peers with British peerages could vote in the election for representative peers) who also included Somers, Moore, Wake and Tenison.</p><p>At the start of February 1709 Williams again petitioned the House to bring in a private bill to clarify the content of his previous estate bill and to give him more time to perform its requirements. On 14 Feb., according to the Journal, he was named to the select committee on his own bill, but it is unclear whether he attended it. On 15 Mar. the House gave a second reading to the general naturalization bill. In a division of a committee of the whole on an amendment to the bill (whether to retain the words ‘some protestant Reformed Congregation’ rather than to insist on the insertion of ‘parochial church’), the episcopal bench split, according to Nicolson, by ten votes to seven. Nicolson noted that Williams had been amongst the Whig ‘not-contents’ but that his vote had been given by mistake.</p><p>On 22 Mar. 1709 Williams voted with the majority for the motion in a committee of the whole on the treason bill, that those accused of treason should be given a list of witnesses five days before trial, but the clause was thrown out on a second vote. Three days later, in a committee of the whole on the same bill Williams voted to adjourn consideration on the validity of Scottish marriage settlements, until the following day in opposition to a cross-party group that included Sunderland, Trelawny, Sprat, Hough and Evans.<sup>53</sup></p><p>On 7 Apr. 1709 his most recent estate bill (again extending the time for him to make leases of his houses in Chancery Lane) was returned from the Commons without amendment and was given the royal assent on the last day of the session, 21 April. On 8 Apr. he wrote to Wake from his son’s lodgings at Gray’s Inn, concerning the appointment of a vice principal at Brasenose College, Oxford, adding ‘I am not in a condition at present to wait on you.’<sup>54</sup> He attended the House for the final time on 19 April. Two days later Nicolson reported that Williams was dying, and on 24 Apr. he died at his lodgings in Gray’s Inn of ‘a mortification in his foot’.<sup>55</sup> Despite having a surviving son, administration of the bishop’s estate was granted to his unmarried sister. Williams had already made contributions to Chichester Cathedral Library during his lifetime.<sup>56</sup> Williams was buried in his former City church of St Mildred Poultry.<sup>57</sup> Much political jockeying surrounded the appointment of his successor, but by August 1709 Thomas Manningham*, then dean of Windsor, was confidently and accurately predicted to be his successor.<sup>58</sup></p> |
B.A./M.C.K. |
|
WOMOCK, Lawrence (1612-86) |
<p><strong><surname>WOMOCK</surname></strong>, <strong>Lawrence</strong> (1612–86)</p> |
|
|
Never sat. |
cons. 11 Nov. 1683 bp. of ST DAVIDS |
|
<p><em>b.</em> 1612, s. of Laurence Womock, rect. of Lopham 1607-42; <em>educ.</em> Corpus Christi, Camb. matric. 1629, BA 1632, ord. deacon 1634, MA 1639, DD 1661; incorp. Oxf. 1663; ord. priest 1662. <em>m.</em> (1) 18 Nov. 1668, Anne Aylmer, wid., of St. Edmundsbury, Suff. 1da. (<em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 25 Apr. 1670, Katherine Corbett of Norwich, Norf. <em>d.</em> 12 Mar. 1686; <em>will</em> 18 Feb., pr. 15 Mar. 1686.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to William Paget*, 6th Bar. Paget, 1641; rect. Icklingham, Suff. 1654, Horningsheath, Suff. 1662, Boxford, Suff. 1663-83; canon Hereford 1660-73, Ely, 1660-86; adn. Suff. 1660-83.</p> |
|
<p>In his early theological publications and especially in a dispute with the Presbyterian leader, Richard Baxter, Womock identified himself as an uncompromising anti-Calvinist.<sup>2</sup> After the Restoration he became a prolific advocate of the ‘divine institution’ of monarchy, for the ceremonial piety of the established Church, and for enforced religious conformity. He spoke vehemently against comprehension and was active in the elections for the brief 1681 Parliament. His political rhetoric during the ‘exclusion crisis’ of 1679-81 established him as one of the most outspoken propagandists for the ‘Tory reaction’.<sup>3</sup> His loathing for political Whiggery was equally evident when he damned the exclusion bill as ‘absolutely unjust’ towards the future James II.<sup>4</sup></p><p>It was the furore over the impeachment of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds) and the right of bishops to vote in blood cases that brought Womock to the attention of the king in 1679. Enjoying the more liberal publishing environment permitted by the lapse of the Licensing Act, Womock joined with Edward Stillingfleet*, of Worcester, and Thomas Hunt in defending the bishops’ rights.<sup>5</sup> At the prompting of Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, in March 1683 he entered into a pamphlet controversy with the ‘Protestant reconciler’, Daniel Whitby, to justify the enforcement of the penal laws against dissent.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Womock was also ambitious, seeking preferment in the Church as a reward both for his writings and for his suffering in the service of crown and Church during the Civil Wars and Interregnum.<sup>7</sup> By July 1683 his failure to secure any of the preferments for which he had asked made him querulous, and he bemoaned his ‘hard fate’ to William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>8</sup> His appointment to St Davids quickly followed but left him as disgruntled as ever. St Davids, as he pointed out in September 1683, was not a lucrative see: ‘I find the charge I must be at will not amount to less than £7 or 800 before I can be settled and my first fruits will be £457 which sum cannot be speedily raised out of £600 p.a., when a decent house is kept’. He also asked to keep his prebend and archdeaconry <em>in commendam</em>. He repeated his complaints the following month and yet again in December.<sup>9</sup></p><p>It was clear from the complete absence of canons at the episcopal election that Womock’s new cathedral city was far too remote and rugged even for members of the cathedral chapter, let alone for an elderly bishop who was accustomed to a comfortable life in Ely and who was unable to speak Welsh. He repeatedly delayed visiting his new diocese, and when he finally arrived in Brecon in July 1684, complained bitterly that the 300 mile journey was ‘too long for a man of 70 years’ and that the cost of entertaining the Welsh gentry was already proving financially ruinous, ‘to be kept here at this age, for any time, will in all likelihood prove the ruin of myself and mine’.<sup>10</sup> When Sancroft advised patience, Womock appeared contrite, hoping that doing his duty would open the way to translation to a better see. He applied himself to his diocese and, realizing that an inability to preach in Welsh was a serious handicap, tried to ensure that only Welsh-speaking clergymen would be appointed.<sup>11</sup> Womock’s health worsened and in April 1685, having been bedridden for several months, he was excused from attending the imminent convocation and Parliament. In the summer of 1685 he left the bishop’s palace at Abergwli for London where he composed his will in February 1686.<sup>12</sup> He died a month later.</p> |
B.A. |
|
WOOD, Thomas (1607-92) |
<p><strong><surname>WOOD</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (1607–92)</p> |
|
|
First sat 7 Jan. 1674; last sat 10 May 1686 |
cons. 2 July 1671 bp. of LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY; susp. 1684 |
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 22 Jul. 1607, 3rd s. of Thomas Wood of Hackney Mdx., clerk of spicery to James I, and Susanna, da. of Mr. Cranmer, merchant, of London; bro. of Sir Henry Wood,<sup>‡</sup> bt. <em>educ</em>. Westminster sch; Christ Church Oxf. matric. 1627, BA 1631, MA 1634, BD 1641, DD 1642; MA Cantab. (incorp.) 1638; <em>m</em>. 1666, Grace, da. of John Clavering of Axwell Park, Northumb., <em>d.s.p</em>.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 18 Apr. 1692; <em>will</em> 11 Nov. 1690, pr. 7 June 1692.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. in ordinary, Charles I, 1635-42, Charles II, 1660-71.</p><p>Rect. Whickham-on-Tyne, co. Durham 1635-51, 1660-71; preb. Durham 1660-92; dean Lichfield 1664-71. <sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Peter Lely, aft. 1671, Christ Church, Oxf.</p> |
<p>The eccentric Thomas Wood attracted so much negative attention from contemporaries that his political career has been obscured in a mire of invective. Condemned as ‘filthy natured’, ‘slippery’ and ‘a person of no merit’, Wood’s behaviour has nevertheless presented paradoxes to later historians: the ‘schemer and a miser’ who was a great philanthropist, the negligent pastor who was also a hero of Hackney loathe to desert his native parish for his bishopric.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Wood was the third of four sons of Thomas Wood, a household official to James I. His older brother was the ‘odd’ Sir Henry Wood<sup>‡</sup>, treasurer to Queen Henrietta Maria, while his sister-in-law Mary was maid of honour to the queen. Thomas himself enjoyed an illustrious ecclesiastical heritage through his mother, a descendent of Thomas Cranmer<sup>†</sup>, archbishop of Canterbury.<sup>6</sup> Thoroughly integrated into court circles, the family was also at the heart of both the mercantile community in London and provincial society.</p><p>Blessed with heritage and connections, Wood had been appointed chaplain to Charles I at the age of only 28.<sup>7</sup> He spent much of the civil wars and Interregnum in Europe where he formed a close relationship with Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine (later duchess of Cleveland). The express nature of their liaison is unclear, but she came to play a significant role in his career.<sup>8</sup> It is clear that Wood returned to England with expectations of restitution and even of rapid advancement. On 26 May 1660, the day after Charles II’s arrival in England, he petitioned to be reinstated to his rectory of Whickham-on-Tyne on the grounds that he had been ousted by the Long Parliament merely for being a chaplain to Charles I. The House ordered his reinstatement to his former living on 18 June. In that same month he was made a prebend in the Durham chapter.<sup>9</sup> In January 1664 he was further appointed dean of Lichfield, possibly through the influence of his brother, now treasurer and receiver general to the queen mother, although other evidence (almost certainly biased) suggests that Wood paid the king £100 for the position.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Wood and John Hacket*, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, were enemies from the outset. It became clear that Wood had little intention of living in the diocese or fulfilling his duties. As Hacket noted with sarcasm to Gilbert Sheldon*, of Canterbury, in April 1666, he had had no dean at Lichfield for the past six months, but he was aware of a certain Dr. Wood who lodged in Axe Yard near Lambeth, from whom he had not heard since the previous October.<sup>11</sup> Wood much preferred to live in Hackney, a house later known as Clapton House which belonged to his brother, or in his prebendal house in Durham.<sup>12</sup> In November 1666 he married the sister of Sir James Clavering<sup>‡</sup>, of Axwell, co. Durham. Her relative youth – Wood had baptized her himself in 1636 – subjected the couple to much prurient comment; it was said that he had been courting her for the entire 30 years of her life.<sup>13</sup> Wood also disregarded and dismissed Hacket’s fundraising for the rebuilding of the cathedral and may even have actively sought to undermine it.<sup>14</sup> The absent Wood’s worsening relations with his bishop resulted in his excommunication by Hacket at the end of 1667. The action caused a scene in the cathedral: when sentence was pronounced, Wood insisted that divine service was completed in his presence, contrary to Church canons which proscribed worship in the presence of an excommunicate.<sup>15</sup> His provocation led to a suit in the arches where it seems that Wood could rely on influential friends, or on Hacket’s detractors, to aid his cause. The dean of arches, without first alerting Hacket, sent word of Wood’s absolution to a member of the chapter. It was read during a service of worship on 26 Jan. 1668 ‘to the joy and laughter of all Nonconformists, to see a bishop so much affronted before his face’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Wood’s close relations with Nonconformists and the Puritan wing of the Church only worsened his relations with Hacket after this abortive attempt at excommunication. During Wood’s periodic residences in Lichfield, he blatantly kept company with Nonconformists, informing his bishop (in Hacket’s words) that ‘he did so, and he would do so’. Among his close allies in the diocese were the Presbyterian Member for Tamworth, John Swinfen<sup>‡</sup>, who opposed any renewal of the Conventicle Act, and Robert Beake<sup>‡</sup>, an alderman who led an Independent chapel, and was later an Exclusionist.<sup>17</sup> In the summer of 1669 Wood visited Sheldon at Lambeth to defend his behaviour, but Hacket begged the archbishop to be firm since Wood ‘must be cast overboard in all justice’.<sup>18</sup> By this time in 1669, Hacket’s letters to Sheldon were increasingly peppered with invective against his dean, and he sought to sum him up in one letter: ‘I never met in one man with such an ingredient of maliciousness, pride, rudeness, covetousness and ignorance. I must endure him as an affliction sent by God to exercise my meekness and patience’. A prebendary of the cathedral similarly described Wood as ‘the strangest man that ever I have had anything to do with’. Wood further invited ridicule and contempt by his wilful ignorance of the duties and abilities incumbent on a cathedral dean. Hacket wrote to Sheldon in some exasperation that the ‘ridiculousness’ of Wood’s ‘lack-Latin’: ‘First he will keep no chapter, nor suffer any to be called, among the reasons, because the residentaries bring forth the statutes to him in Latin, and he understands not a line ... he told Mr. Archbold he had not read a book these two years. ... Never came to public prayers, nor his wife ... which makes the puritans mightily resort to him, whose patron he is upon all occasions’.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Despite Wood’s turbulent history with the Lichfield chapter, he was perceived as the likely successor to Hacket after the bishop’s death on 28 Oct. 1670.<sup>20</sup> Henry Wharton<sup>‡</sup> later claimed that Wood gained elevation through the influence of the duchess of Cleveland (as Lady Castlemaine had become) ‘obliging her by permitting his niece ... to whom he was guardian, to marry the duke of Southampton’.<sup>21</sup> Wood’s niece was the seven-year-old Mary Wood, only daughter and sole heir to the wealthy Sir Henry Wood; Charles Fitzroy*, later duke of Southampton, was the eldest son, at nine years old, of the king and the duchess. The settlement secured £2,000 from the king for Fitzroy and specified that should he die before the marriage, Mary Wood would marry his younger brother George Fitzroy*, who later became duke of Northumberland.<sup>22</sup> The coincidence of Wood’s elevation and the marriage negotiations is certainly suggestive, but Wood’s existing connections with the establishment and the ecclesiastical policy of the ‘Cabal’ made Wood ideally placed for the vacant bishopric despite a number of ‘potent’ competitors.<sup>23</sup> By 9 May 1671 Wood had been elected bishop and granted the commendam of his Durham prebend, worth £300 a year, for life.<sup>24</sup> Despite clear opposition to Wood’s elevation among the higher clergy and almost certainly from Sheldon himself, there was also a determination at the highest levels to secure Wood’s appointment, and to use the royal prerogative to circumvent Lambeth and secure a commendam.<sup>25</sup> Wood’s elevation was temporarily halted by the death on 15 May of his brother Sir Henry, the unpopular ‘mad dog’ of the royal household whose entailed estate was left in the hands of Thomas Wood and their sister Dame Mary Chester.<sup>26</sup> There seems to have been some objection to Wood’s administration of the estate. On 9 June 1671 he was formally elected bishop. Wood, almost certainly aware of impending difficulties, was anxious for the royal assent to be rushed through; but the following day the king put a stop to the election until further notice.<sup>27</sup> Wood asked the secretary of state Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington, to use his influence but with the royal assent still undeclared, Wood sought out the duchess of Cleveland who declared herself ‘satisfied’ with Wood’s conduct over his brother’s estate and wrote immediately to Arlington instructing his immediate intervention. With such powerful patrons behind him the disagreement was resolved and on 6 July 1671 Wood duly did homage at Berkeley House where the king was at dinner.<sup>28</sup></p><p>As a diocesan administrator, Wood found Hacket an impossible act to follow. His episcopate was no less eventful than his time as dean and he continued to attract hostility. He still had close connections at court and at the death of John Cosin*, of Durham, on 15 Jan. 1672, speculation was rife that he would be translated to that see where he had already established a strong interest. One senior clergyman in that diocese, Dr. Daniel Brevint, wrote to Sheldon in a panic asking him to ‘avert from our dwellings the bishop of Lichfield’.<sup>29</sup> Yet Wood often dined with George Morley*, of Winchester whose 1674 scheme to soften the rigours of the Act of Uniformity he supported.<sup>30</sup> Continuing his quarrel with John Hacket beyond the grave, Wood instigated a dilapidations suit against Hacket’s son, Sir Andrew Hacket<sup>‡</sup>, claiming that his predecessor’s enthusiastic building work on the cathedral had prejudiced the repair of other episcopal residences. Hacket for his part counter-sued Wood for the bishop’s own neglect of episcopal property, prompting Wood to insist on his parliamentary privilege. The dispute rumbled for years on as Wood continued to try to obstruct it through his privilege.<sup>31</sup></p><p>On 4 Feb. 1673, the first day of the parliamentary session that Wood could have attended as the new bishop of Lichfield, he failed to take his seat. Nine days later, no excuse was offered at a call of the House. On 11 Mar. 1673 Wood eventually registered his proxy with Peter Gunning*, of Chichester, which Gunning held to the end of the session. Despite this lacklustre beginning to his parliamentary career, Wood was anxious to stand on his privilege of Parliament as a ‘matter of form’ in a tithes suit brought by Sir Edward Bagot<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>32</sup> By March 1673 Wood was still elusive, having been at Little Chelsea for the previous six weeks ‘for the benefit of the air’, while his wife was lodging in the Haymarket. Sheldon in early June wrote to Wood of ‘the reiterated and continued complaints I receive of your absence from your diocese and the neglect of the charge and care you have undertaken’ and ordered Wood’s immediate amendment of his behaviour.<sup>33</sup> The new bishop, as usual, ignored him.</p><p>Wood did not attend any of the sittings of the brief parliamentary session from 27 Oct. 1673. Only on 7 Jan. 1674 did he finally take his seat in the House to begin a parliamentary career that mirrored his erratic and elusive behaviour as a diocesan. Of the 17 sessions convened during his 21 years as bishop of Lichfield, he attended only six, mostly in the late 1670s. Significantly, throughout the six week session in early 1674, when religious legislation to aid Nonconformists and to punish papists was again before the House, he attended over three-quarters (79 per cent) of the sittings. He appears to have been interested in the petition against papists and its answer, for the clerk of the Parliaments made a note for 14 Jan. 1674 that the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and others, were to receive copies of these papers.<sup>34</sup> On 13 Feb. 1674 Wood was present in the House for the first reading of the bill introduced by Morley of Winchester to compose differences in religion. On 21 Feb. Morley’s motion for the repeal of two clauses in the Act of Uniformity, relating to assent and consent to the liturgy and the renunciation of the covenant, was carried by almost 20 votes with the backing of Wood, Seth Ward*, bishop of Salisbury, John Pearson*, bishop of Chester, and John Dolben*, bishop of Rochester.<sup>35</sup> Wood remained until the penultimate day of the session, but the bill he supported was lost with the prorogation on 24 Feb. 1674.</p><p>On 19 Dec. 1674, now in temporary residence at Chicheley, Buckinghamshire, where his kinsmen the Chesters were based, Wood asked Sheldon to dispense with his attendance in Lambeth until after Christmas. He declined to address the growing charges against him and merely suggested to his archbishop that he listen to no further accusations about his behaviour.<sup>36</sup> In January 1675 he was not invited to join the group of bishops advising Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), on the measures to be taken against Nonconformists and Catholics.<sup>37</sup> On 13 Apr. 1675 Wood arrived in the House on the first day of the new session, attended just under half of the sittings (48 per cent) and remained until 7 June, two days before the prorogation. The main business before Parliament was Danby’s non-resisting test, but Wood was not present when the House went into committee on the measure against disaffected persons, and was not named to a single committee during the entire session. His lack of reliability, together with his clear sympathies for Nonconformists, almost certainly made him an unwelcome member of Danby’s ‘Church’ party. On 7 Oct. 1675 his proxy was registered with James Fleetwood*, bishop of Worcester, for the session scheduled to commence a week later. The proxy was cancelled on 10 Nov. when Wood arrived in the House, but he attended for only a further nine days and was named to only two select committees on legislation. Present in the House on 20 Nov., he voted with his fellow bishops against the address calling for a dissolution. The subsequent lengthy prorogation relieved Wood of the obligation to attend Parliament, and he went to his diocese where his contrariness had now led him into a patronage dispute with Dame Priscilla Littleton, the widow of the chancellor of Lichfield, Sir Walter Littleton. The king insisted that Wood abide by an earlier agreement made between Littleton and Hacket and also directed Wood to abide by an agreement for the augmentation of poor livings.<sup>38</sup></p><p>On 15 Feb. 1677 Wood attended the start of the new parliamentary session. A week later, having attended only three sittings, he registered his proxy with Thomas Lamplugh*, bishop of Exeter. The proxy was vacated on 11 Apr. when Wood returned to the House. He was not named to a single committee except on 12 Apr. when he was marked as present in the Journal and Seth Ward, reporting from the committee on infant baptism, moved that all bishops present in the House help to reword several clauses in the bill. With the several adjournments of this session, Wood was again frequently relieved of parliamentary attendance. He appeared on 5 Feb. 1678, a week into proceedings when the House was reconvened after an adjournment of eight months, but he was not named to a committee until 21 Mar. when he was appointed to that for the bill for burying in wool. In total he was present at just under a third of all the sittings of the frequently interrupted session of 1677-8. He was present for the first day of the following session starting 23 May 1678, at which he was present at 44 per cent of the sittings. He was also named to more committees than usual, including those on the bills: to inspect the statutes depending on a continuation of Parliament (on 25 May 1678); on the heralds’ registration of deaths (17 June); and on the creation of St Anne’s parish in London (1 July).</p><p>Wood attended neither the autumn 1678 session, nor the first Exclusion Parliament. Writing from Eccleshall Castle, an episcopal residence in the diocese, he claimed that ill health prevented his attending.<sup>39</sup> His canons were still complaining of his conduct, claiming that Wood had defaulted on a promised £100 towards cathedral repairs, forcing them into costly interest payments.<sup>40</sup> At a call of the House on 9 May 1679, he was excused attendance. He was sufficiently healthy from spring 1680 to attend two of the prorogations – on 15 Apr. and 17 May 1680 – that delayed the convening of the second Exclusion Parliament and then nine sittings in the last week of October 1680 of that Parliament, although he later told William Sancroft*, archbishop of Canterbury that he had been in attendance for 14 days.<sup>41</sup> In November 1680 his niece Mary, duchess of Southampton, died of smallpox at the age of 17.<sup>42</sup> As she was childless, the bishop inherited a life interest in his late brother Sir Henry’s estate under the entail set out in his will. This ignited a series of prolonged family disputes involving the young duke of Southampton and Wood’s nephew Sir Caesar Cranmer, both of whom felt they had a claim to the estate.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Wood did not attend any sittings of the Parliament held at Oxford in March 1681. With its dissolution he was again relieved of parliamentary duty for the rest of the reign of Charles II. Absent from his diocese, he attempted to exercise his episcopal duties from a distance, seeking permission from Sancroft on 21 May 1681 to ordain a Staffordshire man away from Lichfield.<sup>44</sup> On 31 July 1681 Sancroft wrote to Wood of ‘the universal complaint’ of his absence and neglect of duty, warning Wood that if he neglected his ‘greatest affairs’ in this world, he could not expect any share in the next. It is clear that Wood devoted most of his energies to running his own estates and business affairs; Sancroft pointed out that Wood’s heirs were already well-provided for and that he should turn his thoughts to his episcopal successors by leaving the diocese in good repair. Wood responded that his brother’s estate at Hackney had been ‘much shaken and out of order’ and required his attention but that he would go to his diocese when the weather was cooler.<sup>45</sup></p><p>Tolerance of Wood’s wayward behaviour waned as the Tory reaction gathered pace. Those in the ecclesiastical establishment already hostile to the bishop finally had a sympathetic political environment in which to challenge him. In August 1681 he was still protesting against complaints of neglect on the grounds that the king had personally dispensed with his attendance at the Oxford Parliament and that he had commissioned one of his archdeacons to deal with diocesan business while he remained in Hackney.<sup>46</sup> Yet he clearly neglected diocesan administration, including ordinations. His argument in August 1681 was that the Church was already ordaining too many priests and that he was in addition the victim of a witch-hunt by Sancroft’s advisers. However, a later visitation of the diocese revealed widespread preaching by unordained ministers because of Wood’s neglect of this episcopal duty.<sup>47</sup> Promising the archbishop that he would be in Coventry by Michaelmas 1681, Wood relied on his connections at court to undermine Sancroft’s authority over him.<sup>48</sup> In December 1681 he informed the archbishop that he had visited the king at Newmarket and obtained royal permission to return to his affairs at home. Brandishing his long personal history with the court, he warned that the king would not respond kindly to tales of negligence, but would recall that Wood had been a chaplain to Charles I 46 years previously and was now the most senior of the royal chaplains. The king, he maintained, would hardly indict him for being too ill to undertake his duties.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Yet by January 1682 Charles II himself was also losing patience with Wood. The bishop was in a ‘morose temper’ after being instructed by the king to settle his own estate on his great-nephew, the son of Sir Caesar Cranmer, ‘in consideration of a great match’ to be had by the young man with Mary Tudor, the daughter of former royal mistress Moll Davis. Wood disobeyed, and undoubtedly aware that after this he could no longer rely on favour at court, he attempted at this point to assure Sancroft that he was neither disobedient nor rebellious.<sup>50</sup> A coup, however, was on foot in the diocese. In May 1683 the king instructed Wood to appoint Lancelot Addison, brother-in-law of William Gulston*, bishop of Bristol, to the next vacant prebend.<sup>51</sup> On 3 July 1683 Addison was made dean of Lichfield by the commission established in 1681, and led by Sancroft and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, to oversee ecclesiastical appointments. Addison soon became Sancroft’s agent and informant in the diocese. The archbishop initiated legal proceedings against Wood in the Court of Arches to expedite the still unresolved dilapidations suit with Sir Andrew Hacket and to punish Wood’s intractability. Wood offered to pay £500, without admitting liability, and asked Sancroft to withdraw his suit.<sup>52</sup> Sancroft refused and in May 1684 the case was referred to William Lloyd*, of Peterborough, acting on behalf of Sancroft, and to Henry Compton*, of London, who represented Wood. The two bishops met frequently at Fulham Palace and Wood called in common lawyers for advice. During mediation, Wood offered to rebuild Eccleshall Castle, slighted after its siege in the civil wars, if Hacket built a bishop’s palace at Lichfield, but Lloyd pushed for Wood to make formal submission for ‘neglect of duty and the scandal thereby given’, having judged that the diocese had suffered by Wood’s ‘niggardness’. Meanwhile Dolben, now archbishop of York, wanted Wood to commute his remaining penance into a financial penalty. Wood was still sufficiently influential – he was close to George Savile*, marquess of Halifax – for Sancroft to tread warily. Sancroft’s ally Francis Turner*, of Rochester, secured the king’s agreement that Wood should be disciplined. The king dismissed Wood ‘with the utmost contempt’, and any hope for clemency was blocked by lord keeper Francis North*, Baron Guilford.<sup>53</sup></p><p>On 18 June 1684 the Court of Arches ruled that Lancelot Addison should receive £2,600 from Wood and £1,400 from Sir Andrew Hacket to rebuild the two episcopal residences. It also directed that Wood be suspended for absence from his diocese, neglect of duty and ‘all other crimes’, including the felling of timber belonging to the diocese. An infuriated Hacket called for Sancroft to intervene in what he perceived was an unjust settlement, too harsh on him and too lenient to Wood. Wood was suspended from office on 19 July 1684. The suspension was to remain in force until he had made ‘a full and becoming submission’ to Sancroft and paid the dilapidations fine in full. Wood agreed only to pay the fine at £500 every six months, refused to give security ‘beside his bare word’ or to charge his estate with the amount if he died before payment was complete. The suspension raised a number of legal issues: while William Lloyd pondered whether Wood could appeal at common law, the vicar-general of Canterbury province was brought in to advise on the legal status of the diocese. In his opinion, ecclesiastical jurisdiction reverted to the archbishop and could not be granted to commissioners; the suspension was to be regarded as a vacancy until such time as Wood was restored to his post. <sup>54</sup> Throughout 1684, therefore, Sancroft and Addison administered the diocese jointly and Addison was given the additional post of archdeacon of Coventry to keep a close watch on both ends of the bishopric.<sup>55</sup> In November 1684 Wood agreed to submit to all demands except in the matter of his felling of timber. An arrogant letter to Sancroft undertook to make submission when he was fit to travel to Lambeth. He prevaricated until Christmas 1684 when he paid his portion of the dilapidations, only to apply to common law for an appeal against the requirement that he stop felling timber. Observers in Hackney reported that at this point Wood was skulking ‘in his garrison’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>The accession of James II created a new, potentially more hostile, political climate for Wood and he made the submission required of him on 14 May 1685.<sup>57</sup> Eleven days later he arrived in the House, six days into James II’s Parliament, although his suspension from his diocesan function was still in force. He attended almost half of the sittings of the Parliament and last sat on 2 July 1685. On 15 June he was named to the committee for the post office bill and on 26 June, with 17 fellow bishops, to that for the bill to revive expiring acts. On 14 Nov. 1685 Wood’s proxy with Thomas White*, bishop of Peterborough, was registered for the remainder of the session. Hacket quickly realized that he would not recover any of the debt owed to him because Wood could again claim parliamentary privilege which, given the bishop’s advanced years, ‘in all probability may last beyond the term of his life’.<sup>58</sup> With John Lake*, bishop of Bristol, undertaking confirmations in Stafford, Lichfield, Derbyshire and Shropshire during Wood’s suspension, Wood was also absent from any political activity in the diocese and does not appear to have had any involvement in the grant of the new charter for Lichfield in March 1686, which retained the bishop’s right, while in residence, to nominate the mayor of the corporation.<sup>59</sup> On 7 May 1686 Henry Pollexfen<sup>‡</sup> determined that Wood’s suspension fell within the general royal pardon of May 1685 and Wood was reinstated in his diocesan duties.<sup>60</sup> He made his final visit to the House three days later, on 10 May 1686, on which day Parliament was again prorogued until 23 November.</p><p>In August 1686, wracked with pain from kidney stones, Wood made one of his rare visits to Coventry to oversee his diocese. Here he and Addison resumed their mutual animosity, but Wood’s letters to Sancroft were now more wary and deferential. Wood remained in Coventry, which he preferred to Lichfield, distributing books on clandestine marriages.<sup>61</sup> Wood’s main episcopal ally at this point was the unpopular Thomas Cartwright*, bishop of Chester, and throughout 1687 the two socialized, corresponded and indulged in reciprocal favours, each signing dispensations for the other’s chaplain to be excused diocesan duties. Wood concurred with Cartwright in March 1687 in the address of thanks for James II’s Declaration of Indulgence.<sup>62</sup> As a former comprehensionist, and possibly even a tolerationist, he was firmly associated with support for James II and in May 1687 it was assumed that he would endorse the king’s religious policies. With the promulgation of the second Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, it was ‘credibly reported’ that Wood, together with Ward of Salisbury and Herbert Croft*, bishop of Hereford, would publish the Declaration throughout their dioceses.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Wood played no political role during the Revolution of 1688-9. He did not join Sancroft and a number of his episcopal colleagues in signing the petition for a free Parliament on 17 Nov. 1688, nor was he involved in the provisional government that met at the Guildhall in December during the time of James II’s first flight. He did not attend any sittings of the Convention or of the three sessions of William III’s first Parliament held in his lifetime. He even failed to manage his deceased brother’s estate effectively. On 19 Dec. 1689, the dispute over the estate between Southampton and Sir Caesar Cranmer, <em>alias</em> Wood, in which Bishop Wood was a named party, came before the Lords when Cranmer appealed against a chancery decree that had gone against him. Hearings were continuously postponed through the first months of 1690, and on 3 Apr. Cranmer petitioned that the cause be settled by the House before further hearings could take place in the inferior courts. The ensuing debates raised questions about the extent of the bishop’s privilege of Parliament as the committee for privileges found that Wood had been manipulating his privilege to his own best advantage, waiving it or insisting on it depending on how the case against him was faring. On 12 Apr. the House thus ordered Wood no longer to insist on his privilege in the dispute and two days later it also dismissed Cranmer’s petition and affirmed the chancery decree in Southampton’s favour.</p><p>Elderly and infirm, from about 1690 Wood retired to Astrop Wells in Northamptonshire where he died of the stone and gout on 18 Apr. 1692.<sup>64</sup> Wood’s will reveals him as a churchman who enjoyed considerable wealth. By the time of his death he had acquired property across England, in the counties of Middlesex, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, Warwickshire, county Durham and Northumberland, as well as in the borough of Coventry. He endowed almshouses in his native Hackney, later known as the Bishop Wood Almshouses in Clapton Road, and provided an annuity for his wife in lieu of her jointure. More controversially, he ignored the entail on his older brother’s estate, rejecting a number of closer relatives to make his nephew Henry Webb, son of his sister Elizabeth, legatee of the estate on condition that Webb change his name to Wood. This final act of contrariness ensured continuing quarrels over Sir Henry Wood’s estate and from the time of the bishop’s death both chancery and the House dealt with numerous legal disputes between members of the extended Wood family. On 5 Dec. 1692 the House ruled in favour of Cranmer in another cause between him and Southampton, reversing chancery’s judgment in favour of the duke, but soon the number of protagonists in these disputes increased. On 14 Mar. 1696 the House rejected Cranmer’s appeal against a chancery decree in favour of Thomas Webb regarding the disposition of Sir Henry Wood’s estate. The House was still intervening in this family squabble in 1700 when, on 7 Mar. it dismissed the petition of yet another of Wood’s nephews, Thomas Kirke, son-in-law of the bishop’s brother John, against chancery’s rejection of his petition against the Webb brothers and Sir Caesar Cranmer. The bishop’s reputation, already tarnished by his conspicuous neglect of episcopal duties during his life, was not helped by this further discord he helped to foment in his family, and it was perhaps fitting that Wood was buried as inconspicuously as possible, at Ufford in Suffolk, where his brother had had an estate at Loudham Park, without any memorial inscription.</p> |
B.A./C.G.D.L. |
|
WREN, Matthew (1585-1667) |
<p><strong><surname>WREN</surname></strong>, <strong>Matthew</strong> (1585–1667)</p> |
|
|
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 20 Nov. 1661; last sat 8 Feb. 1667 |
cons. 8 Mar. 1635 bp. of HEREFORD; transl. 5 Dec. 1635 bp. of NORWICH; transl. 24 Apr. 1638 bp. of ELY |
|
<p><em>b</em>. 23 Dec. 1585, 1st s. of Francis Wren, mercer, of London and Susan Widginton.<sup>1</sup> <em>educ</em>. Merchant Taylors’ Sch. 1595-1601; Pembroke, Camb. 23 June 1601; BA 1605; MA 1608 (incorp. Oxf. 1608); BD 1615, DD 1623 (re-incorp. Oxf. 1636), Fell. Pembroke, Camb. 1605-24; ord. 1611; <em>m</em>. 17 Aug. 1628, Elizabeth (<em>d.</em> 8 Dec. 1646), d. of Thomas Cutler, of Sproughton, Ipswich; wid. of Robert Brownrigg, 5s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 7 da. (3 <em>d.v.p.</em>), 2 o. ch. <em>d.v.p</em>.<sup>2</sup> <em>d</em>. 24 Apr. 1667; <em>will</em> 22 Sept. 1665-21 May 1666; pr. 10 June 1667.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Chap. to Prince of Wales 1622; clerk of the closet, 1633-6.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Vic., Harston, Cambs. 1611-14, Barton, Cambs. 1613-15; chap. to Lancelot Andrewes<sup>†</sup>, bishop of Ely 1615-?22; rect. Teversham, Cambs. 1615, Bingham, Notts. 1624; canon, Winchester 1623-35, Westminster 1635-8; dean, Wolverhampton collegiate church, 1628-35, Windsor, 1628-35, chapel royal, 1636-41; registrar, Order of the Garter, 1628-35. <sup>5</sup></p><p>Pres., Pembroke, Camb. 1616-24; master, Peterhouse, Camb. 1625-34; v.-chan., Camb. 1628-9; gov. Charterhouse, 1634-?5, 1660-?<em>d</em>.<sup>6</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, bef. 1628, Pembroke, Camb.</p> |
<p>Matthew Wren set out the progress of his ecclesiastical career in his brief jottings on the notable events of his life, which were later transcribed and reproduced in the compilation of documents on the family of Sir Christopher Wren<sup>‡</sup>, the bishop’s nephew, published in 1750 as <em>Parentalia</em>.<sup>7</sup> These notes show that Matthew Wren was the son of a freeman and mercer of London who belonged to a cadet branch of the Wrens of Durham. He attended Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he quickly came to the notice of the college master, Lancelot Andrewes, who appointed him as his chaplain in 1615 and continued to act as his patron for many years. He held numerous posts at Cambridge from the 1620s, including master of Peterhouse between 1625 and 1634, and vice-chancellor of the university in 1628-9. He remained a devoted alumnus and benefactor to the university and especially to his original college, Pembroke Hall.</p><p>He was also increasingly shown royal favour. Wren was appointed chaplain to the prince of Wales in 1622, and was promoted by him after his accession as Charles I, due probably to the liturgical views that they shared with William Laud<sup>†</sup>, bishop of London. Wren was given a series of prominent ecclesiastical posts in the royal gift: dean of Windsor, and with it the office of registrar of the Order of the Garter, from 1628, and clerk of the closet, from 1633. In March 1635 he was consecrated bishop of Hereford, but at the end of that year was translated to the more troublesome diocese of Norwich where he became infamous for his thoroughgoing, and abrasive, introduction of Laudian reforms in a large diocese heavily populated with nonconformists. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, described Wren as ‘a man of a severe, sour nature, but very learned, and particularly versed in the old liturgies of the Greek and Latin Churches’.<sup>8</sup> In 1638 he was translated to Ely, perhaps because his tenure of the Norwich see had been so controversial and largely unsuccessful. In the anti-episcopal agitation of 1640-1, Wren was probably the most hated churchman in England after the archbishop himself and articles of impeachment were submitted against him on 20 July 1641. Pending his trial, which never took place, he was imprisoned in the Tower in September 1642. He remained there for close to 18 years until he was released on 15 Mar. 1660.<sup>9</sup> Throughout his long imprisonment there were calls for his trial and execution, especially after the archbishop himself went to the scaffold in January 1645.<sup>10</sup> Parliament preferred to keep him incarcerated, and in March 1649 the Council of State ordered that no proceedings would be taken against him, perhaps unwilling to make another martyr for the underground Church of England.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Wren did not remain idle in the Tower. He wrote copiously, maintained a clerical register for his diocese and corresponded with Gilbert Sheldon*, later archbishop of Canterbury, among others.<sup>12</sup> From the early 1650s he was also in steady communication with Dr John Barwick, the royalist agent, who was briefly imprisoned in the Tower with him. Wren rejected the proposals put forward by Sheldon and Barwick in the first months of 1653 to allow a commission of the surviving bishops to dispense former Church of England ministers still remaining in their cures from having to conform exactly to the Prayer Book, in order to ensure the survival of the proscribed ministry. Wren argued against this scheme that ‘it were better to forbear all the public worship of God till such time as by preaching and the want of it men were brought into a hungering desire to accept of it all’.<sup>13</sup> This desire to avoid all compromises in the formal practice and government of the Church arose again in 1659 when he was a central figure in the project to consecrate new bishops to those sees which had fallen vacant. Hyde looked especially to Wren to provide the names of suitable candidates for the episcopate, ‘much preferring the bishop of Ely’s judgment and advice in that point, before any man’s’, but became frustrated by Wren’s reluctance to take any action in rescuing the moribund Church of England. In a series of letters Hyde had to hound Wren, through Barwick, to provide the names of candidates for the empty see of Carlisle, which Wren constantly demurred from doing.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In the early days of the Restoration there were rumours, indeed ‘fears’, that Wren, one of only nine surviving bishops from before 1642, would be promoted to Canterbury despite his unpopularity. This did not happen, though after the death of William Juxon*, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1663 Wren was the most senior member of the episcopal bench.<sup>15</sup> He was not asked to participate in the debates of the Savoy Conference of 1661, perhaps because of his association with Laud and perhaps because Charles II and Clarendon may have preferred not to have such a vociferous and belligerent High Churchman involved. In 1661 the Scots presbyterian Robert Baillie lamented the presence of Wren, ‘the worst bishop of our age after Laud’ at the royal court, and even such a devoted son of the Church as John Evelyn commented disapprovingly upon attending a service at Ely House in February of that year that Wren ‘gave us the blessing very pontifically’.<sup>16</sup> Clarendon however did favour the bishop’s son, also named Matthew Wren<sup>‡</sup>, who had distinguished himself by writing a robust defence of monarchical government in the years before the Restoration. The younger Wren was appointed Hyde’s secretary shortly after the return of the king and was returned to the Commons for Mitchell in 1661.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Bishop Wren was active in Convocation in shaping the liturgy of the re-established Church of England. Sometime during 1660-1, and perhaps even earlier, Wren annotated a 1639 edition of the Prayer Book with notes and suggestions for revision and these formed the basis for discussions between churchmen who met at his London residence of Ely House during the summer of 1661 to discuss the new Book of Common Prayer.<sup>18</sup> When Convocation reassembled on 21 Nov. 1661 Wren was named to a committee of eight bishops appointed to oversee the revision. Owing to the extensive preparation by Wren, John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, and their colleagues of the summer, the committee was able within two days to present to the Lower House the proposed revisions and the new Prayer Book was agreed upon by both houses of Convocation by the end of the year. In the same period Wren was a constant presence in the House of Lords. On 20 Nov. 1661 he was one of the 23 bishops who sat in the House for the first time since the expulsion of the bishops in 1642 on the first day of the reconvened parliamentary session. He went on to attend all but five of the remaining sittings of that session of 1661-2, an attendance level of 92 per cent. However, he was not among the nine bishops who were added on 20 Nov. to the existing standing committees and was named to only 12 committees on legislation over the session. Despite his important work on shaping the liturgy of the re-established Church, he was not one of the bishops placed on the committee established on 17 Jan. 1662 to consider the bill for Uniformity, nor was he added to this committee when the revised Prayer Book was placed before it for consideration on 25 February.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Wren maintained a similar high attendance rate in the following session of 1663 when he missed only five of the sittings (93 per cent attendance). The proxy of his close colleague Bishop Cosin was registered in Wren’s name on 1 Feb. 1663 and he would have exercised it from the first day of the session, 18 February, until Cosin’s return to the House on 29 April. He was nominated to 11 committees on legislation and some of his appointments reveal his involvement with East Anglian matters. He was placed on 12 May 1663 on a committee for the bill to repair highways in Cambridgeshire. On 15 July he was named to the committee for the bill for draining the Bedford Level and the following day he participated in its first meeting (his name as chairman in the committee minutes book is deleted and replaced by that of Robert Sutton*, Baron Lexinton who later reported the bill). At the committee meeting he raised objections to the state of the bill as it presently stood before the committee, complaining that it did not match exactly the version intended by the Commons.<sup>20</sup> Surprisingly, considering his strict insistence on conformity, recently seen in his diocesan visitation of autumn 1662, he was on 24 July named to the committee to provide relief for those ministers who were initially unable to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Wren missed only two of the 36 sitting days of the session of spring 1664, but came to only 57 per cent of those in the 1664-5 session, while he did not attend the Oxford session of Parliament in October 1665 at all. He registered his proxy with Humphrey Henchman*, bishop of London on 2 Oct. 1665 for the session. A correspondent of William Sancroft*, later archbishop of Canterbury, informed him on 9 May 1665 that Wren, despite reports, was not dead, but was very sick.<sup>22</sup> Wren was sufficiently recovered to attend the following 1666-7 session almost in its entirety, missing only one of its 89 sitting days, during which he held the proxy of William Lucy*, bishop of St Davids, from 9 Sept. 1666. Despite this impressive attendance record, throughout his career in the Restoration House he was largely inactive and was nominated to only 36 committees on legislation throughout, the majority of them in the sessions of 1661-2 and 1663. Although he was not named to the committee established on 7 Jan. 1667 to discuss the bill for the unification of two rectories in his own diocese, he did appear before the committee on 9 Jan. to give his consent to the proposed merger.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Wren attended the House for the final time on the day of prorogation of the 1666-7 session, 8 Feb. 1667. He died on 24 Apr., and was buried in the new and only recently-consecrated chapel at Pembroke Hall, in a lavish service which followed the minutely detailed instructions in his will.<sup>24</sup> Wren’s lasting influence was probably felt most strongly here, at Cambridge University. As bishop of Ely he was able to exercise patronage in appointing high churchmen, often his own kinsmen or chaplains, as heads of colleges. The mastership of Jesus College was in the gift of the bishop and in 1660 he choose John Pearson*, later bishop of Chester. When Pearson moved on in April 1662, Wren was able to insert in his place Joseph Beaumont, the husband of his step-daughter Elizabeth Brownrigg. Shortly after, in 1663, Wren overrode the wishes of the fellows of Peterhouse by ‘intruding’ this favoured son-in-law as their master.<sup>25</sup> Other kinsmen who benefited from Wren’s patronage were his younger brother Christopher, who replaced him as dean of Windsor in 1635 (on Matthew’s recommendation), and Christopher’s son and namesake, the architect Christopher Wren. Shortly after his release from the Tower, the bishop commissioned his talented nephew to design a chapel for his old college of Pembroke. This was Christopher Wren’s first architectural assignment and the building was consecrated in 1665, just before the Fire. It was probably through the influence of his uncle that Christopher stood for a seat for Cambridge University in a by-election of March 1667, even though at that point he was already Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. He lost to a fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, by only six votes.<sup>26</sup></p><p>The greatest beneficiaries of the bishop’s enormous wealth were his own children. His long and complicated will detailed some £10,000 in money bequests and provided well for his eight surviving children, bequeathing to them numerous estates in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Buckinghamshire.<sup>27</sup> Most of his children maintained their father’s engagement in ecclesiastical and political life. The eldest son, Matthew, transferred his secretarial services to James Stuart*, duke of York, after the fall of his patron Clarendon in October 1667, but was fatally wounded at the battle of Sole Bay, at which he accompanied the duke, in 1672. A younger son, Thomas, continued in his father’s profession and became an archdeacon and canon of Ely. The youngest, Sir William Wren<sup>‡</sup>, unsuccessfully contested a seat for Cambridgeshire in 1674 and then again in 1679, but eventually was returned for the borough of Cambridge in 1685. The bishop’s daughter Susanna married Robert Wright<sup>‡</sup>, a successful lawyer on the Norfolk circuit (thanks in part to the many cases Bishop Wren was able to direct his way), Member for King’s Lynn from 1668, and recorder of Cambridge, and thus returning officer, at the time of Sir William’s election there and lord chief justice under James II.<sup>28</sup> According to one 18th-century commentator the building of Pembroke Hall chapel was ‘the only public thing as I find that [Wren] did, for he was a great accumulator of wealth for his children; and so let his episcopal house at Ely go to such ruin, that it was uninhabitable, ‘till fitted up by his two most worthy successors’.<sup>29</sup></p> |
C.G.D.L./B.A. |
|
BOYLE, David (1666-1733) |
<p><strong><surname>BOYLE</surname></strong>, <strong>David</strong> (1666–1733)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>31 Mar. 1699 Ld. Boyle of Kelburn [S]; <em>cr. </em>12 Apr. 1703 earl of GLASGOW [S] |
RP [S] 1707–10 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 28 Mar. 1710 |
|
MP [S] Bute 1689-98 |
<p><em>b</em>. 1666, 1st s. of John Boyle of Kelburn, and 1st w. Marion, da. of Sir Walter Steuart of Allanton, Lanark. <em>educ</em>. Glasgow Univ. 1681. <em>m</em>. (1) 19 Apr. 1687 (tocher 9,000 merks), Margaret (<em>d</em>.1695), da. of Hon. Patrick Crawford (formerly Lindsay), of Kilbirnie, Ayr. (2nd s. of John Lindsay, 17th earl of Crawford [S]), 3s.; (2) 16 Jun. 1697, Jean (<em>d</em>.1724), da. and h. of William Mure of Rowallan, Ayr. 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 4da. (at least 2 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 31 Oct. 1733; <em>will</em> (Glasgow) 3 Nov. 1735.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1697-1704, 1705-8; commr. exch. [S] 1697-1703, auditing treasury accts. [S] 1698, trade [S] 1698, union with England 1702-3, 1706, treasury [S] 1703-4, 1705-8; treas. depute [S] 1703-4, 1705-8; ld. clerk reg. [S] 1708-14.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Ld. high commr. gen. assembly Church of Scotland 1706-10.</p><p>Commr. supply Ayr 1686, 1690, 1704; Bute 1689, 1696, 1704; sheriff, Bute 1689-92; burgess, Edinburgh 1704; baillie, regality of Glasgow 1706.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Rector, Glasgow Univ. 1690-1.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by J. Smith, aft. J. Richardson, 1711, NPG D11578.</p> |
<p>Glasgow hitched his political star to that of his kinsman James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], under whose aegis he came into government in 1697, and whose close ally he remained. While Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, considered Glasgow ‘a gentleman of application and character’, the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> was scathing in his judgment of a man he considered a vulgar and grasping careerist.<sup>4</sup> Glasgow, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>had nothing to recommend him ... being upon no account to be reckoned a man of more than ordinary sense. He was esteemed proud, arrogant, greedy, extremely false, and a great speaker at random; was so ridiculously vain, that he affected a great deal of respect and reverence as his due ... There was no man had such a sway with the duke of Queensberry, as he; and I look upon him as the chief of those evil counsellors that persuaded and engaged him [Queensberry] to follow, at least persevere in ... pernicious ways.</p></blockquote><p>Lockhart also affected to despise Glasgow’s social origins: the earl, he wrote, liked to hear praise of</p><blockquote><p>his illustrious and ancient family, tho’ he and all the world knew his predecessors were not long ago boatmen, and since married the heiress of Kelburn, a petty little family in the shire of Ayr, the representatives of which, until his father’s time, were never designed the laird, but always the goodman of Kelburn. However, having, by being concerned in farming the public revenues, scraped together a good estate, he wanted not ambition to be a man of quality, and concerned in the government ... Thus we see to what height ambition and impudence, without any merit will bring a man in this world.<sup>5</sup></p></blockquote><p>Lockhart was not the only observer to regard Glasgow as an upstart. One of Queensberry’s enemies listed it as a grievance against his administration of Scotland that he had recommended peerages for ‘the meanest and most despicable persons’, including Glasgow, whose earldom had ‘extremely irritate[d] the ancient nobility’.<sup>6</sup> In fact, whatever Glasgow’s distant origins may have been, his immediate family background was far from humble: his father had achieved political prominence under Charles II, representing Buteshire in the Scottish parliament and serving as one of the lords of the articles in the Scottish parliament of 1685. This distinction came as a consequence of a strong commitment to the loyalist cause in the south-west of Scotland during the Covenanter disturbances after 1678, which extended to service in James II’s forces against the Argyll rebellion in 1685.<sup>7</sup> However like his patron Queensberry, Glasgow himself quickly accepted the Revolution and refashioned himself as a strong Presbyterian and ‘Revolutioner’. As David Boyle, he sat in the convention parliament in Edinburgh, and advanced into office with Queensberry in 1697, acquiring his first peerage title in 1699 and being nominated as a court party representative on the union commission of 1702.<sup>8</sup></p><p>As well as promotion in the peerage, the new earl of Glasgow also acquired a significant appointment in the spring of 1703 as treasurer depute, part of a package of measures intended to buttress Queensberry’s ascendancy over Scottish government.<sup>9</sup> Writing in November 1703 to William Carstares, the eminent Presbyterian minister and principal of Edinburgh University, Glasgow stated his belief in the necessity of maintaining in office the present ministry, and settling the Scottish succession in the house of Hanover, in order to defeat the schemes of the Jacobites. He was also opposed to enacting any limitations on the monarchy ‘for it is inevitably our own great loss and disadvantage, if the monarchy shall be incapacitated to support itself, and protect us who are subjects’.<sup>10</sup> Yet, in spite of all these professions, he was cautiously manoeuvring himself into a position in which, should a crisis occur, he might be able to survive a mortal injury to the Queensberry interest. After being put out of office with the duke in 1704 he dutifully defended his patron against the attempts of the New Party and others to implicate Queensberry in the ‘Scotch Plot’, but, in the crucial parliamentary vote on the succession in the 1704 Parliament, Glasgow abstained while other Queensberryites joined the opposition.<sup>11</sup> Glasgow returned to office on Queensberry’s resumption of power in 1705 and rejoined the duke’s inner circle as though nothing had happened: Queensberry entrusted him to take messages to James Graham*, duke of Montrose, for example.<sup>12</sup> Some of his friends were pushing for him to be made secretary of state, but the post of treasurer depute, to which he returned, provided opportunities to advance his own family and dependants.<sup>13</sup> At the same time he was developing personal connections with other influential government figures, including James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), and Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, with whom he opened a direct correspondence on the basis of his administrative role in the Scottish treasury, offering political advice and making requests for patronage. He urged Godolphin to remove the New Party entirely from office and make the Scottish administration ‘all of a piece, thoroughly upon the Revolution bottom’, that is to say the Queensberry faction; this would be the only way to settle the succession.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Glasgow played a key role in the preparations for Union. In December 1705 he urged Queensberry to create a Scottish commission entirely composed of the ‘old party’ (that is to say the court), but when the duke wished to broaden the basis of support for his policy it was Glasgow whom he sent to try to detach John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], from the Squadrone Volante (as the former New Party were now called).<sup>15</sup> As well as being named a Union commissioner, Glasgow was given a particular role in managing Presbyterian opinion. He had close links with ministers and with the church establishment in general, dating back to his election as rector of Glasgow University in 1690. He was appointed in 1706 as lord high commissioner to the general assembly of the Kirk (with an allowance of £700 per session), and completed business satisfactorily in April 1706 before rushing down to London for the joint meetings of the union commissioners.<sup>16</sup> During the following summer it was reported that he had become estranged from Queensberry, and had been seen in the company of members of the Squadrone, but this may well have been a ploy to gain the trust of the Squadrone lords, for we have no other evidence of tensions within the court party, and in August 1706 Glasgow was again dispatched on Queensberry’s behalf with messages to Montrose.<sup>17</sup> Once the Union treaty had been agreed, he resumed his role in managing Presbyterian opinion. As a representative elder in the commission of the general assembly (the executive body governing the Kirk between assembly sessions) he was chosen to assist in drafting an address to the Scottish parliament in October.<sup>18</sup> Locally, he and other court party peers managed to suppress an anti-Union address in Ayrshire.<sup>19</sup> But although he felt able to reassure Godolphin of the likely success of the treaty, his optimism about the clergy in particular proved misplaced, and he himself suffered rough handling by the Edinburgh mob.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Predictably, Glasgow voted a solid pro-Union line in the parliamentary debates on the treaty.<sup>21</sup> Outside Parliament, he continued to work to reassure the Presbyterian clergy of the security guaranteed to the Kirk, serving as high commissioner to the general assembly again in April 1707 (when he was described by one observer as ‘a modest, good man’). In his capacity as treasurer depute he also played a crucial role in mollifying potential grievances among the political classes in Scotland by distributing the £20,000 sent from England to the Scottish treasury to satisfy various demands for arrears.<sup>22</sup> His reward was to be continued on the Scottish Privy Council, and to be included as one of the court party nominees in the first cohort of representative peers to sit in the united Parliament.<sup>23</sup> On the 1707 analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘for Revolution but influenced by Queensberry’.</p><p>Glasgow took his place in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707. He attended on 88 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He was present on 18 Dec. 1707 when the queen urged Parliament to consider ways of improving the Union. By this time the Commons were already debating the future of the Scottish Privy Council, which the Squadrone were determined should be abolished. When news of this reached Scotland, complaints were raised by the Presbyterian clergy, whose concerns were transmitted to Glasgow by Carstares. This presented an opportunity to stir up opposition to abolition, and Glasgow advised Carstares that, while it would be unwise for the general assembly to object openly, there would be no objection to protests from individual ministers. He added the information that the queen herself entertained reservations about the proposal.<sup>24</sup> Glasgow attended the House regularly during January and early February 1708, when the bill ‘for rendering the Union ... more entire and complete’ was under consideration. When it was considered by a committee of the whole on 5 Feb., he was present and must have supported an unsuccessful attempt to keep the Privy Council in being until October 1708, as he was not named by James Vernon<sup>‡</sup> as one of the three ‘Scotch Lords’ for continuing it.<sup>25</sup> Two days later, when the bill passed its third reading, he signed the protest against it as a violation of the treaty of Union. He also attended regularly during the proceedings on bills to establish the method of electing Scottish peers to sit in the Lords and to settle the militia in Scotland. He last attended on 25 Mar., whereupon he went to Edinburgh in order to preside again over the general assembly in April.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Glasgow himself was still owed considerable sums in arrears of salary: £1,500 for his part in the union negotiations in 1702-3, and £1,000 as treasurer depute. Moreover, as a result of the Union his office in the Scottish treasury was extinguished. These losses would have tested his loyalty, both to his patron Queensberry and to the Union, but he was paid his allowance as commissioner to the general assembly, and his treasurer’s salary for a year from May 1707, and in May 1708 he was compensated for the loss of his other offices by appointment as lord clerk register, a post he had personally solicited from Godolphin. <sup>27</sup> Although he subsequently complained that the exchange of offices cost him £400 a year he was not sufficiently discommoded to abandon the ministry.<sup>28</sup> He was also able to secure posts in the Scottish customs service for his brother and other members of his family.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Glasgow was at the centre of Queensberry’s election strategy in 1708, seeking to be all things to all men in Scotland. On the one hand, he expressed his sympathy with the Presbyterian clergy in their anxieties over the reported Jacobite invasion; on the other, he made contacts with those cavaliers who had been taken into custody on suspicion of Jacobitism, and recommended to Queensberry their release in order to enable them to assist court party candidates in the elections for Commons and Lords.<sup>30</sup> In Lanarkshire, where his appointment as baillie of the regality of Glasgow had afforded him electoral influence, he sought to reassure James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], of his goodwill, telling Hamilton’s brother Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], that he would support the family interest, and informing another brother, Lord John Hamilton, that Queensberry and Godolphin were ready to extend their favour to the duke.<sup>31</sup> At the same time he was working in various constituencies against Hamilton’s allies the Squadrone.<sup>32</sup> He reported the reaction of the Squadrone almost with glee: ‘my dear pupils, the duke of Montrose, earl of Rothes and [Thomas Hamilton*, 6th] earl of Haddington, are mightily enraged’.<sup>33</sup> He himself was included on Queensberry’s court list for the election of representative peers and secured his election with ease, having attended in person.<sup>34</sup> On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain compiled about May 1708, he was classed as a Whig.</p><p>Glasgow returned to the Lords for the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708. On 18 Nov. a petition was presented against his election and that of three other court party men. The petitioners also claimed that Glasgow, as lord register, had denied them access to the papers necessary to sustain the appeal.<sup>35</sup> It was only after the arrival of the relevant papers from Scotland that the Lords were able to consider the petition and Glasgow was named to the relevant committee on 10 Jan. 1709 (one of only two committee appointments). <sup>36</sup> A week later the report was made, and in the ensuing debate Queensberry’s enemies raised the question of whether, as the holder of a British peerage (the dukedom of Dover), Queensberry had been eligible to participate in the peers’ election. When this question was put, on 21 Jan., Glasgow voted in the minority in support of his chief. On 29 Jan. the committee was ordered to recalculate the votes cast, reporting on 1 Feb. amongst other things that although Glasgow’s total had gone down by six, he had retained his seat.<sup>37</sup> On 18 Mar. he was probably one of the Scots who joined in an unsuccessful attempt in the committee of the whole House to prevent the inclusion in the bill for improving the Union of a clause to extend the English treason laws to Scotland.<sup>38</sup> He last attended on 22 Mar., a month before the end of the session, having been present on 43 days, 47 per cent of the total.</p><p>Glasgow missed the opening month of the 1709-10 session, first attending on 15 Dec. 1709. He voted with the Whigs on 20 Mar. 1710 that Sacheverell was guilty of the charges brought against him by the Commons, and the following day (along with the Squadrone) that Sacheverell should not be eligible for preferment during the three years in which he was banned from preaching. He last attended on 28 Mar. having sat on 50 days, 54 per cent of the total.</p><p>In the 1710 election of representative peers Glasgow was dropped from the court list which had been agreed in advance by Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (and earl of Greenwich), and Hamilton. The Tories’ aversion to ‘what they call the duke of Queensberry’s creatures’ was given as the reason. Glasgow did not take this well and threatened to oppose Argyll’s interest in the election until warned off.<sup>39</sup> Nonetheless, he attended the election and voted a court line.<sup>40</sup> Mar privately advised Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, that no action should be taken against Glasgow other than to ‘drop him at this election’, so that, ‘when he is once rid of his old master, the queen may have him when she pleases’.<sup>41</sup> After Queensberry’s unexpected death in July 1711, Glasgow was appointed one of the tutors (guardians) to the 14-year-old heir.<sup>42</sup> Politically, he now pledged his allegiance to Mar and to Harley, who had by now become lord treasurer and earl of Oxford, expressing his devotion through a succession of obsequious letters. He was thus able to retain the place of lord clerk register.<sup>43</sup> In one letter to Mar in October 1711 he made a particular appeal to keep his office, asserting that ‘I never had the least favour or countenance from the Junto ministry, having opposed them in every measure wherein the interest of the monarchy was concerned, for which they mortally hate me.’ On another occasion he even claimed that he had supported the Union solely out of ‘duty and personal affection’ to the queen, despite ‘scruples’.<sup>44</sup> He was spoken of as a possible commissioner to the general assembly in 1712 but was not appointed, and, despite continued professions of support for the ministry, and bitter denunciations of the Squadrone, was not included in the court list in the peers’ election in 1713.<sup>45</sup> In Lanarkshire he used his influence as baillie of Glasgow in 1713 to support the Glasgow merchant Daniel Campbell<sup>‡</sup> who was standing for election with the backing of local Presbyterian interests against the Hamiltons.<sup>46</sup></p><p>After the accession of George I, Glasgow warned William Cowper*, Baron Cowper, that the Scots would rally to the Jacobite cause in large numbers if the Pretender set foot in Scotland.<sup>47</sup> He himself raised and equipped 500 fencibles to oppose the rebellion.<sup>48</sup> A member of the Scottish SPCK, he strongly endorsed the society’s work in the Highlands as advancing the cause of political as well as religious enlightenment: ignorance, he wrote, was what made the inhabitants ‘slavishly subject to the will and command of their popish and disaffected chieftains and landlords’.<sup>49</sup> Otherwise little is known of his politics after 1714, but like many ex-Queensberryites he seems to have been alienated from government in Scotland by the loss of office: he signed a petition to the Lords against the peerage bill in 1719, and in 1722 gave his backing to Tory candidates in the peers’ election.<sup>50</sup> </p><p>Glasgow died at Kelburn on 31 Oct. 1733.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
CAMPBELL, Archibald (1682-1761) |
<p><strong><surname>CAMPBELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Archibald</strong> (1682–1761)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1682-1706 Ld. Archibald Campbell; <em>cr. </em>19 Oct. 1706 earl of ILAY [ISLAY] [S]; <em>suc. </em>bro. 15 Oct. 1743 as 3rd duke of ARGYLL [S] |
RP [S] 1707–13, 1715–<em>d</em>. |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 19 Mar. 1761 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. June 1682, 2nd s. of Archibald Campbell, duke of Argyll [S], and Elizabeth, da. of Sir Lionel Tollemache, 3rd bt., of Helmingham, Suff., sis. of Lionel Tollemache<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd earl of Dysart [S]; bro. of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (and earl of Greenwich). <em>educ</em>. privately (Alexander Cunningham); Eton 1698; Glasgow Univ. 1699. <em>m</em>. lic. 19 Jan. 1713 (with £30,000), Anne (<em>d</em>.1723), o. surv. da. and h. of Walter Whitfield<sup>‡</sup> of Queen Street, St Margaret’s, Westminster, Mdx., <em>s.p</em>.; 1s. 1da. illegit. with Mrs. Anne Williams (otherwise Shireburn). <em>d</em>. 15 Apr. 1761; <em>will</em> 14 Aug. 1760, pr. May 1761.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. treas. [S] 1705–6; PC [S] 1705–8; commr. union with England 1706; extraordinary ld. of session [S] 1708–d.; ld. justice gen. [S] (for life) 1710; PC 1711–<em>d</em>.; ld. clerk reg.[S] 1714–16; ld. privy seal [S] 1721–33; kpr. gt. seal [S] 1733–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Gov. Dumbarton castle 1705–14; 2nd col. Maccartney’s ft. Mar. 1708–Mar. 1709, col. 36 Ft. Mar. 1709–Oct. 1710.</p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1704;<sup>2</sup> ld. lt. Midlothian 1715, Haddington 1737–<em>d</em>.; hered. sheriff, Argyll 1743–7; hered. justiciar, Argyll and the Isles 1743–7.</p><p>Chan. Aberdeen Univ. 1718;<sup>3</sup> trustee, British Museum 1753–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by W. Aikman, c.1715, Royal Collection; oil on canvas by A. Ramsay, 1744, National Galleries of Scotland PG 1293; oil on canvas by A. Ramsay, 1748, sold at Bonhams 19 Apr. 2012.</p> |
<p>Through his education Campbell acquired some legal expertise, which complemented his natural talents as a politician and made him an ideal right-hand man to his brother, the duke of Argyll, at the head of the powerful Campbell interest. Indeed, alongside their formidable mother, he was said to exercise a dominating influence over Argyll.<sup>5</sup> He was every bit as ambitious as his brother, and as greedy for places and preferments (for himself, his family, and their dependants), all of which made him a prickly and unreliable subordinate, and although in later years he would acquire a reputation for deep cunning and inscrutability, as a young man he also shared Argyll’s impetuousness and bad temper, surpassing him in the virulence of his reaction to any slight, real or imagined. According to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, he had all his brother’s ‘bad qualities, without one of his good’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Campbell came into government in April 1705 on Argyll’s appointment as commissioner to the Scottish parliament. Although barely out of his minority, he was given the titular office of lord treasurer (the duties of which were carried out by a commission), in order that he would be able to sit and vote in parliament, and was also named to the Scottish Privy Council. <sup>7</sup> Argyll then obtained for him the governorship of Dumbarton castle.<sup>8</sup> He was included in the commission to negotiate the Union, but he had already set his sights on following his brother into the army, and in March 1706 there was an unfounded report that he had secured a colonelcy of dragoons.<sup>9</sup> Feeling neglected, he then pressed hard for a peerage in his own right, as a reward for his work on the Union commission. As the next session of the Scottish parliament approached, he deliberately absented himself from Edinburgh ‘in very ill humour’, and tried to incense his brother against the ministry.<sup>10</sup> The peerage was eventually granted in October, after the parliament opened, as a means of fixing Argyll’s support for the treaty.<sup>11</sup> Even then, the choice of title proved controversial: Campbell wanted Dundee, a title formerly held by the Graham family, which thereby offended the Squadrone peer James Graham*, 4th marquess (later duke) of Montrose [S]. Because the Squadrone’s support was vital to ratification, the head of the court party James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], appealed to Argyll to intercede, and Archibald was prevailed on to take the earldom of Ilay instead. <sup>12</sup></p><p>Both brothers voted in the Scottish parliament for ratification, and afterwards Ilay was selected, at Argyll’s express request, to serve as one of the representative peers in the first Parliament of Great Britain.<sup>13</sup> He was still restless, however, and pressing his claim for military preferment: either a regiment or a lieutenancy in his own troop of the Royal Scots Guards.<sup>14</sup> In the analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], in 1707 he was described as ‘sicut [i.e., just as] Argyll’. He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, and was immediately in high demand as a man of business. During his first session in the chamber he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days. In November he was named to the select committee on ‘the customs and orders of the House, and the privileges of Parliament,’ and to three further committees: on petitions from the countess dowager of Radnor and from some London merchants, and to consider proposals to encourage privateers in the Caribbean. The following month he was included in the drafting committee for the bill to establish an exchequer court in Scotland; a committee to consider the coal trade and the manning of the fleet; another on ship-building and naval victualling; and committees on two private naturalization bills. </p><p>Ilay was present in the House on 29 Jan. 1708 for the first reading of the bill ‘for rendering the Union ... more entire and complete’, and followed Argyll, sitting in the House as earl of Greenwich, in opposing the Squadrone’s scheme for the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council.<sup>15</sup> In committee he backed an unsuccessful attempt to delay abolition until 1 Oct. 1708, and when the bill passed signed a protest denouncing it as a violation of the Act of Union.<sup>16</sup> As well as serving on nine more private bill committees, he was appointed on 2 Mar. to the committee considering the examinations of William Greg and Alexander Clerk, relating to breaches of security in the secretary of state’s office, and on 13 Mar. to the committee to prepare an address to the queen on this subject. His last recorded attendance in the session was on 16 March. In May he was noted as a Whig (possibly a Court Whig) in a printed list of party classifications.</p><p>Before the representative peers’ election of 1708 Ilay was at last given an army commission, as second colonel in a foot regiment. He was also made an extraordinary lord of session. Thus bound to the court, he attended the election with his brother’s proxy, having been included in the court list. He voted a straight court line, and was safely elected, in spite of reports in July that suggested he might be one of those to have a number of his votes discounted.<sup>17</sup> Typically, however, he wanted more from the ministry, and was reportedly ‘very forward’ in demands for a regiment of his own.<sup>18</sup> Possibly for this reason, he delayed taking his seat until 10 Jan. 1709, the day on which the House considered petitions against the peers’ election, and was named to the ensuing committee of inquiry, (although he may still have been on military duty in Flanders and unable to come to Parliament).<sup>19</sup> Even so, he managed to attend almost 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 21 Jan., in the division on whether Queensberry should have participated in the election after receiving a British peerage as duke of Dover, he voted with the minority in favour.<sup>20</sup> When the committee examining the peers’ election reported, and votes were recalculated in accordance with resolutions passed by the Lords, Ilay’s total fell, but not far enough for him to lose his seat. On this occasion, loyal support for the ministry in Parliament secured him the colonelcy he wanted.<sup>21</sup> He was then named on 16 private bill committees in February and March, and on 1 Mar. to the committee to prepare an address to the queen to ensure that, when the war with France came to an end, the French king ‘may be obliged to remove the Pretender ... out of his dominions, and to own her Majesty’s title, and the Protestant succession’. He also opposed the bill extending English treason laws to Scotland, acting as a teller on 18 Mar. in the majority against including a list of all the relevant statutes.<sup>22</sup> Ten days later he signed two protests over the bill, the first objecting to the refusal of the House to add a rider which would have allowed prisoners to have a copy of their indictment and a list of witnesses at least five days before their trial, the second against the passage of the bill itself, as another violation of the Union.<sup>23</sup> He continued to attend until the prorogation on 20 April.</p><p>Although the new session began in November 1709, Ilay did not return to the House until 1 December. He was then present on 78 per cent of all sitting days. Amenability was a thing of the past: he wanted to exchange his regiment for another and was outraged when John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, would not permit it, so much so that by April 1710 lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, was describing him as ‘one of the most inveterate’ of his enemies.<sup>24</sup> He was named to a committee to review the method of keeping records and public papers in offices, and more importantly, on 14 Dec., to the committee to consider the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell. As usual, he also served on a number of committees on private bills and on the committee which decided on the allocation of tickets to peers for the Sacheverell trial. Once these proceedings began, he was included on 28 Feb. in the committee inquiring into the Sacheverell riots. On 17 Mar. he spoke in the House in answer to a speech in Sacheverell’s favour given by Robert Shirley*, Baron (later Earl) Ferrers. The following day he spoke again, voicing his discontent with the ‘very improper and ungrammatical’ manner of expressing the peers’ votes on the question of Sacheverell’s guilt as ‘content or not content’ rather than ‘guilty or not guilty’.<sup>25</sup> He voted Sacheverell guilty on 20 Mar., but (in common with his brother Argyll) opposed the proposal that he ‘be made incapable of receiving any further ecclesiastical benefice’ for three years. Godolphin concluded that the ministry’s failure to secure more from the trial was owing to the ‘conjunction’ of Ilay and Argyll with Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset, and Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers.<sup>26</sup> Ilay’s behaviour was potentially awkward, since he was simultaneously taking pains to position himself in Scotland as a staunch defender of the Kirk; however, for the time being the inconsistencies did not seem to trouble him.<sup>27</sup> After the trial he continued to attend regularly and on 5 Apr. was appointed a manager at a conference with the Commons on the Lords’ amendments to the copyright bill. He was then one of the tellers on the division on whether to insist on the amendments, which was rejected by 12 votes. He continued to attend on four prorogation days. His last recorded appearance in this session was on 18 July.</p><p>By June 1710 Ilay was co-operating very closely with Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], who was in turn aligning himself with the Tory opposition led by Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.<sup>28</sup> Ilay and Argyll had already held a meeting with Harley, probably during mid-March.<sup>29</sup> In consequence, Ilay felt it necessary to defend himself to his principal contact in the Church of Scotland, William Carstares, against the charge that he was ‘taking measures against the interest of our church and Revolution-establishment’. His arguments were interesting in the light of his future political strategy. He had, he said, always been of the opinion that:</p><blockquote><p>it was very obviously our interest not to mingle ourselves too much with the factions here, I mean as Scotchmen; for, it being very plain that no party here has our country much at heart; the exasperating any side here, might, at some conjuncture or other, draw both upon us and crush us at once.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>The following month (July) he wrote to a kinsman, John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane [S], to explain the position he and his brother had taken in the political crisis that resulted in the fall of Godolphin’s administration:</p><blockquote><p>the most compendious description I can make of the present state of affairs is a dispute whether the queen or some of her subjects shall govern… having taken the queen’s side, we are resolved to protect her as far as we have any interest, and I believe her party will easily maintain their ground.</p></blockquote><p>The real purpose of the letter, however, was to secure Breadalbane’s support in the forthcoming peers’ election. Ilay advised him not to ‘engage yourself at all till the very time comes, for it is very hard yet to tell precisely who will be on the right side (as we call it)’. After the dismissal of Godolphin, he wrote again on 25 Aug. explaining that he would have to go to London: the ‘great change lately made ... shows now plainly her Majesty will support herself and her own administration. As for ... the new Parliament, nobody whatsoever doubts of it, and therefore we are busy endeavouring to make the elections as much of a piece as possible’.<sup>31</sup> This involved working closely with Mar and the Queensberryites. With things now going well, Ilay seemed ‘mighty uppish’, declaring that he could carry any election in Scotland as he pleased.<sup>32</sup> By this time he had resigned his regiment and been appointed lord justice general for life; it was even rumoured that he might replace Queensberry as Scottish secretary.<sup>33</sup> Briefly he was given cause for concern by a delay in settling the arrangements for the Scottish elections, and suspected an attempt to include the Squadrone in the proposed court coalition. Harley was, however, warned that this would not work, more particularly because Ilay was ‘the greatest enemy [the] Squadrone hath’.<sup>34</sup> With Mar, he successfully organized both Commons and Lords elections, making a particular use of his high personal standing with Presbyterian ministers.<sup>35</sup> He attended the peers’ election, where, in the absence of the Squadrone, the court list (agreed between Ilay, Queensberry, James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S]) which included Ilay, was elected without opposition.<sup>36</sup> From a different political perspective, Daniel Defoe sent Harley a highly critical account of Ilay’s conduct, alleging that he, Argyll and Mar had used ‘menaces and contempt on the one hand, and declared openly the qualification of those to be chosen, which is now called the test upon which the peers were closeted ... viz. their agreeing to impeach Godolphin and Marlborough.’ <sup>37</sup></p><p>An analysis of the new representative peers, prepared by the Episcopalian chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch, described Ilay as a ‘court Tory’.<sup>38</sup> Another analysis drawn up shortly after the election said that he ‘will go as his brother wants’. Privately, at this time, he was pressing Harley to get rid of Queensberry, and put his trust in Mar and Argyll.<sup>39</sup> He took his seat as soon as the session opened on 25 Nov. 1710, after which he proceeded to attend on 90 per cent of all sitting days, and was named to the committee of privileges and its sub-committee for the Journal. On 9 Jan. 1711 he was one of the Scots peers whose votes helped defeat a Whig motion to adjourn the committee of the whole House inquiring into the conduct of the war in Spain, and especially the allied defeat at Almanza in 1707.<sup>40</sup> Three days later, in the same committee, he intervened in a debate over a Tory resolution that the disastrous offensive had been approved by the then government. His contribution was on a technicality, objecting to the use of the terms ‘cabinet council’ and ‘ministry’, since neither was ‘commonly known in the law ... and therefore they ought to use a plain English word’. When the phrasing was changed to ‘the ministers’, he acted as a teller in favour of the motion.<sup>41</sup> He again acted as one of the tellers for the subsequent division of 8 Feb. over the retaining of certain words within the representation to the queen on this matter. He was himself rumoured to be preparing a motion for an enquiry into the orders given in the spring of 1708 to bring to London those Scottish peers arrested on suspicion of involvement in the unsuccessful Jacobite rising, including leading cavaliers, his intention being to weaken the Queensberryites.<sup>42</sup></p><p>In matters of religion Ilay showed no sympathy for the cavalier position, having declared himself against the introduction of any legislation to provide relief for Episcopalians, and had ‘a little engaged his brother that way’. When taxed with this, Argyll was said to have laughed, and said ‘he knows not what his brother means except it be to be head of the Kirk’.<sup>43</sup> Both men were against hearing the petition of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against conviction by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Ilay was present on 19 Feb. when the petition was introduced, and spoke on behalf of the magistrates when the case was heard on 1 Mar., walking out of the House after an adjournment motion was defeated. Afterwards it was reported that he had told the Episcopalian representative peer Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton [S], that when ‘he went to Scotland he would put the oaths to all the Episcopal ministers’. The story was that Eglinton replied ‘that he never expected better of his hand at which Ilay blushed’. <sup>44</sup> In a letter to Carstares Ilay tried to account for his failure in the Greenshields case. Before the session, when Presbyterian ministers in Scotland had requested his help over Greenshields’ petition, and in obstructing a toleration bill, ‘I without any hesitation assured them faithfully of it’. Yet he knew ‘very well that our English friends would never be our champions but when at the same time they were their own and promoted their own interest as well as ours’. Few Whigs had spoken during the debate on 1 Mar.: ‘their bishops left us and the rest declared it was none of their business, and when I moved a delay which might possibly have been of some use to us, they all left my brother and me to debate against the whole House’.<sup>45</sup> He was also frustrated that some Presbyterian ministers in Scotland still refused the abjuration, which he felt put their spokesmen at a disadvantage, and in particular had deterred him from bringing forward proposals for toleration.<sup>46</sup> He did, however, vote with Mar and a Campbell kinsman Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], against a favourite bill of English high churchmen, to repeal the General Naturalization Act of 1709.<sup>47</sup></p><p>Ilay attended regularly until Parliament was prorogued on 12 June, but was very careful to avoid controversy. When the bill to prohibit the export of flax and linen from Scotland arrived from the Commons, the House went into a committee of the whole on 1 June to consider it. In an account of the debate, John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerino [S], observed with surprise that Ilay, ‘who can speak so well’ made little impact: ‘he never meddled till near the end’, when he ‘spoke a little’. On being asked ‘why he was so silent, he answered, because he was astonished.’<sup>48</sup> An important factor was his own ambition. When Queensberry died in July, Ilay was said to be one of several ‘pretenders’ to the vacant Scottish secretaryship.<sup>49</sup></p><p>Ilay took his seat again on 7 Dec. 1711, after which he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days. In advance of the session he was entrusted with the proxy of Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], which was vacated by Rosebery’s appearance in the House later that month. On 10 Dec. Ilay was noted among those who had voted with the ministry on the ‘No peace without Spain’ motion. Ten days later the House refused Hamilton’s request to be allowed to sit and vote by virtue of his British peerage. Ilay acted as one of the tellers in the division over whether to refer the question to the judges. He then voted in Hamilton’s favour (as had been predicted the day before) and protested against the decision to bar the duke, having, in a ‘very moving speech’, defended the queen’s right to create British peers and argued that to deny Hamilton his seat ‘would be deemed a breach of the Union’.<sup>50</sup> He also helped to draft, and then signed, the ‘representation of the peers of Scotland’, presented to the queen on 1 Jan. 1712.<sup>51</sup> Later that month, he was reported to be ‘fond of the notion’, suggested by Balmerino, that the proper response would be to call a meeting of the Estates of Scotland, ‘only they apprehend it will neither do here [Westminster] nor in Scotland’.<sup>52</sup> The queen sent a message to the Lords expressing unease about her Scottish subjects’ concern at the Hamilton vote and seeking the assistance of the House to find a settlement. This was referred to a committee of the whole, to which the pessimistic Scots made little contribution. In committee on 4 Feb. Ilay ‘declared for himself and his country that he wished rather than hoped that anything can come from it’. <sup>53</sup> Nothing did, so three days later he joined his fellow representative peers in boycotting Parliament. </p><p>Most of the boycotters were brought back to the House by the arrival there of the toleration (episcopal communion) bill. Although Ilay had argued against ending the boycott (presumably because he was opposed to this bill, and hoped that the absence of the Scottish peers would ensure its rejection), he was present with other Scots for the second reading on 13 Feb. 1712 and attended the committee of the whole to which it was referred.<sup>54</sup> Both he and Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, were noted as having spoken ‘against the body of the bill’. He attempted to modify the oath prescribed in the bill, so as to make it more acceptable to Presbyterians who might ‘scruple’ against it, but was overruled by the Tory majority.<sup>55</sup> After the passage of the bill he resumed his boycott and his attendance was not recorded again until 27 February. The following day he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to give a second reading to the officers in the House of Commons bill. He again acted as a teller on 13 Mar. for the division over reversing the decree in the cause <em>Conway v. Buckingham</em>. Later, he also made sure that he attended proceedings on the Scottish patronages bill, speaking and acting as a teller on 12 Apr. against the motion to commit. He was noted as one of only four Scots peers to oppose the measure, three of them being Campbells. <sup>56</sup> Such attacks on the Presbyterian establishment alienated him from English and Scottish Tories. On 19 May he was present in the committee of the whole on the land grants resumption bill, acting as a teller on the question of whether to include a new clause, and the next day he and his brother, unlike most of the representative peers, spoke and voted against the measure.<sup>57</sup> However, on the 27th he voted with the majority against a Whig-inspired motion for an address asking the queen to order her troops to act offensively against France.<sup>58</sup> He continued to attend the House until the end of the session. He attended seven prorogation days between 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713. </p><p>Concern over the embarrassing position in which he felt he had been placed by the ministry’s unwillingness to support the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, combined with resentment that the Scottish secretaryship had not been filled, provoked an extraordinarily histrionic letter from Ilay to lord treasurer Oxford (as Harley had become) in November 1712. He complained bitterly that he had lost Oxford’s favour, and had in effect been ‘disgraced’ by the very person under whose protection he and his brother had abandoned the Whig ministry in 1710. A bemused Oxford added the comment ‘I do not understand this, it having no foundation’. Another outburst followed in January 1713, when Ilay’s unrealistic ambition of being appointed ambassador to Constantinople was dashed. Now, however, he had to deny accusations that he had been scheming against Oxford, and protested his continuing support.<sup>59</sup> Ilay’s increasing desperation may also have been exacerbated by a growing realization that his recent marriage to Anne Whitfield was not as lucrative as he had hoped, the new Lady Ilay’s father’s affairs being in a state of confusion.<sup>60</sup> In a list drawn up in mid-March he was listed by Swift among those expected to oppose the ministry.</p><p>Ilay took his seat in the new session on 9 Apr. 1713. In all he was present for 55 per cent of all sitting days but, having attended for just six days, he absented himself for just over a month. In advance of the session he had warned Oxford that he needed to be in Scotland for some days during April and took the opportunity to request appointment as commissioner of the assembly of the Kirk in place of Atholl. His request was not heeded.<sup>61</sup> He was in Scotland in early May, when the political crisis blew up over the extension of the malt tax to Scotland. Some outraged Scots peers considered that the only appropriate response was a bill to dissolve the Union; one, Balmerino, expressed the hope that Ilay ‘is and will be more alert on this head than many of our lords ... because he is discontented’. On the morning of the 26th, the day after Ilay returned to London, a meeting of Scottish lords and commoners was held at his lodgings, where he ‘insisted very violently upon the necessity of prosecuting the dissolution, be the consequences what they will’.<sup>62</sup> At another meeting the next day he and Argyll were among those who ‘were for beginning instantly to let the court see they could and dared to oppose them, because the Court were the persons who kept the Scots under the Union and would do so until the end of the world whilst they gained by it’.<sup>63</sup> George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> reported that Ilay and Argyll:</p><blockquote><p>roar and exclaim bloodily against the Union, and seem very positive that the Whig lords would join to dissolve if our peers would help in the meantime to stop the ministry. There are [those] here [say] that the two brothers, finding that their court decays, are making this noise and opposition to force the ministry into their ways.<sup>64</sup></p></blockquote><p>Ilay was also said to have drunk ‘a new kind of health’ at a public entertainment, toasting ‘the speedy and legal dissolution of the Union’.<sup>65</sup> On 1 June James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], formally moved in the Lords for leave for a bill to dissolve the Union. During the debate, in which he ‘spoke well’, Ilay responded to a comment from William North*, 6th Baron North and Grey, that imposing the malt tax on Scotland was perfectly consistent with the 14th article of the Union treaty which only prohibited such a step during wartime. Ilay recalled that, during the negotiations, since it could not be supposed ‘that the Parliament of Great Britain would ever lay on any sorts of burdens upon the united kingdom, but what they should find of necessity, at that time, for the preservation and good of the whole, and with due regard to circumstances, and abilities of every part of the united kingdom’, the commissioners had agreed ‘that there should be no further exemption insisted on for any part of the united kingdom, but that the consideration of any exemptions beyond what was already agreed on in this treaty, should be left to the determination of the Parliament of Great Britain’. Thus, ‘when this treaty was made, the Scots concluded, the Parliament of Great Britain would never go about to lay on any imposition that they had reason to believe was burdensome’. Finally, ‘having set forth their inability to pay the malt tax’, he concluded by declaring his support for the motion. Later in the debate, when an English peer ‘endeavoured to show the impossibility of dissolving the Union’, Ilay answered, ‘that if the Union had the same sanction as marriage, which was an ordinance of God, he should be for observing it as religiously as that, but that he thought there was a great difference’. <sup>66</sup> Eventually the motion was lost on a division. The malt bill then passed its first reading in the Lords, and in an attempt to co-ordinate opposition the Whig Junto suggested that either Ilay or Balmerino propose that its second reading be delayed. Ilay said ‘he would do it with all his heart but that would look Whiggish from him, that it would do far better from one that was a known Tory’, so Balmerino made the motion, only for it to be lost by one vote . Ilay acted as one of the tellers for the division. Although Ilay again ‘spoke very well’ in committee on 8 June the bill was approved and passed without amendment.<sup>67</sup> He signed the protest which condemned it as an unjust imposition and a violation of the Treaty of Union.<sup>68</sup> His disgruntlement was then further demonstrated later that month when he was listed among a clutch of court supporters expected to desert over the French commerce bill.</p><p>Ilay continued to attend the House until the end of the session. Despite his and his brother’s obvious alienation from the ministry, he attempted to preserve his own personal relationship with Oxford, sending letters in which he combined obsequious professions of friendship with fabricated protests against the supposed malicious insinuations of others, and larded his prose with a sanctimonious (and somewhat callow) self-righteousness:</p><blockquote><p>Were it not that I have a private satisfaction in doing what I think right, of what use is it to be innocent? When first I was engaged in your service, and when you were pleased to think well of me, it was when you were unjustly oppressed by a prevailing party, and when I had more of the countenance of the Court than I have at present; if now, when you are at the head of the administration, I have the less art to please, I must rest contented. If when worldly interest might have led me to betray you, I durst be honest, and when it leads me to serve you, I prove otherwise, sure my enemies who think so must in charity add fool to the character they are pleased to give of me.<sup>69</sup></p></blockquote><p>At the same time, Oxford was being urged by one of his Scottish advisers to turn out both brothers ‘of all they can be turned out of’.<sup>70</sup> Islay was aware of the talk against him and confided to William Cowper*, Baron (later Earl) Cowper, that he knew he was ‘taken to be a very dangerous person’ and that Mar had announced he ‘won’t sit in that House [the Lords] if I do’.<sup>71</sup> Even without being dismissed, the Campbells made an alliance with the Squadrone against the ministry before the 1713 peers’ election.<sup>72</sup> This proved inadequate, however, and, ‘having found himself too weak to appear’ Ilay absented himself from the election, with the result that he lost his seat. Even when Argyll was finally cashiered in March 1714, Ilay retained the governorship of Dumbarton castle until after Oxford’s removal, but his mood was still sour. He observed ‘how heavily everything concerning Scotland goes on’, and complained of English misrule.<sup>73</sup> Once he recovered his seat in 1715 he retained it until his death. The remainder of his long parliamentary career will be dealt with in the second part of this work.</p><p>Having succeeded his brother in 1743 to the dukedom of Argyll, Ilay died suddenly in London on 15 Apr. 1761 and was buried at Inverarary. While the dukedom was inherited by a cousin, his own earldom became extinct.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
CAMPBELL, Hugh (c. 1673-1731) |
<p><strong><surname>CAMPBELL</surname></strong>, <strong>Hugh</strong> (c. 1673–1731)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1684 Ld. Mauchline; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1684 (a minor) as 3rd earl of LOUDOUN [S] |
RP [S] 1707-<em>d</em>. |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 31 Mar. 1731 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1673, 1st s. of James Campbell, 2nd earl of Loudoun [S], and Margaret, da. of Hugh Montgomerie, 7th earl of Eglinton [S]; bro. of Hon. James Campbell<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Glasgow Univ. by 1688. <em>m</em>. 6 Apr. 1700, his cos. Margaret (<em>d</em>.1777) da. of John Dalrymple, earl of Stair [S], sis. of John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair, 1s. 2da. KT 10 Aug. 1706. <em>d</em>. 20 Nov. 1731; <em>will</em> pr. 7 Feb. 1732.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1697-1708; commr. auditing accts. Treasury [S] 1697-8, auditing accts. admiralty [S] 1698–9, communication of trade [S] 1698-9, exchequer [S] 1698-9, treasury [S] 1702-4, union with England 1706; extraordinary ld. of session [S] 1699-1731; jt. sec. of state [S] 1705-8; PC 1707-<em>d</em>.; ld. kpr. [S] 1708-13; high commr. gen. assembly Ch. of Scotland 1722, 1725-6, 1728, 1730-1.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1704, Glasgow 1713; sheriff, Ayr and principal baillie, Kyle Stewart 1703; ld. lt. Ayr 1715-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>Loudoun’s marriage in 1700 drew him firmly under the wing of his uncle and father-in-law, the earl of Stair, and through Stair into the orbit of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], whose close political ally he became.<sup>4</sup> He had already been brought into government in Queensberry’s administration in 1697-9, being appointed, <em>inter alia</em>, a privy councillor and an extraordinary lord of session, which would suggest that he had received some legal education. He was certainly reputed a good speaker in parliamentary debates, and after the Union distinguished himself particularly in contributions on Scottish appeal cases.<sup>5</sup> The Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> had more good to say of him than of anyone else in the ‘old party’ (as Queensberry’s faction was known): Loudon was</p><blockquote><p>of all the persons concerned in the government, without doubt, among the best. He had nothing in his nature that was cruel or revengeful; was affable, courteous, and just ’twixt man and man: and tho’ he pursued his own maxims and designs, yet it was in a moderate gentlemanly way. Being descended of a family enemies to monarchy, and educated after that way, and his fortune in bad circumstances, he easily dropped into the court measures, was soon taken notice of, and ... behaved to all men’s satisfaction, studying to understand the laws and constitution of the kingdom … he was endowed with good natural parts, and had much improven them in his younger years by reading; and tho’ he did not much affect to show them in public, yet there were few exceeded him in contriving and carrying on a design, having a clear judgment and ready apprehension.<sup>6</sup></p></blockquote><p>Loudoun stuck close to Queensberry during the changes that occurred in Scottish politics following Queen Anne’s accession. Appointed as a treasury commissioner in 1702, he then went out with his chief in 1704, and was one of the Queensberryites who in the Scottish parliamentary session of that year supported for tactical reasons the motion on the succession made by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S].<sup>7</sup> When the ‘new party’ experiment failed, Loudoun was immediately spoken of as a likely candidate for the Scottish secretaryship in a restored ‘old party’ government, and, eventually, after some tortuous negotiations, came in jointly with another of Queensberry’s cronies, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], in September 1705.<sup>8</sup></p><p>One of the most important of the court party nominees to the union commission in 1706, Loudoun made an impressive contribution at the opening of the negotiations, according to his fellow commissioner John Clerk<sup>‡</sup>, speaking ‘in a vigorous, manly style’ and displaying ‘no mean knowledge of his country’s laws and customs’.<sup>9</sup> Thereafter he was indefatigable in discharging his duties, missing only one of the joint meetings of the Scottish and English commissioners.<sup>10</sup> In recognition of his efforts he was invested in August 1706 with the Order of the Thistle.<sup>11</sup> In preparation for the session of the Scottish Parliament that would ratify the treaty, he was active in reassuring Presbyterian opinion, and trying to win over waverers with offers of patronage, including his kinsman John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and the cavalier, John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], with whom he was on good terms despite their religious and political differences.<sup>12</sup> He also played a part in managing local opinion, being involved in the successful suppression of an anti-union address from his county of Ayrshire.<sup>13</sup> He went on to give his own vote for the Treaty, and was selected in the first cohort of representative peers in the united parliament.<sup>14</sup> According to Mar, there was general agreement among the court party that Loudoun had to be chosen. He was also among the small band of Queensberry’s followers admitted to the British Privy Council in May 1707.<sup>15</sup> A rumour of advancement in the peerage came to nought, but he was permitted to surrender his titles to the crown and receive a new grant on more favourable terms.<sup>16</sup> More important to him was the continuance of crown emolument. He kept his place as joint secretary until May 1708, when he was made lord keeper of Scotland, with the same salary of £2,000 p.a.<sup>17</sup> The 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], described him as ‘for Revolution but influenced by Queensberry or Argyll’.</p><p>Loudoun took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, and was present on 85 days of the session, 79 per cent of the total. He was named to 24 committees, including the drafting committee for a bill to establish a court of exchequer in North Britain (20 Dec.), and a committee to prepare an address of thanks to the queen for laying information before the House concerning the attempted Jacobite invasion (4 Mar. 1708). At the end of November 1707 the Commons began discussing the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, a prospect that raised considerable alarm in Scotland, particularly among ministers of the established Church. On 16 Dec. William Carstares, principal of Edinburgh University, informed Loudoun ‘that many … ministers seem to think that the redressing of such grievances as the Church may have will be render’d the more difficult by the want of a council’. Before replying, Loudoun consulted Queensberry, Mar, and Argyll’s brother, Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], and was able to forward a considered opinion against interference by the commission of the general assembly, which was ‘a road so dangerous for the church judicatures that any probability that there may be of good consequences from an address … is not enough to answer the hazardous, if not pernicious, consequences that the meddling in things of that kind may in course of time have’. He was hopeful, however, that ‘the slow forms of passing bills here’ would allow time for serious reflection, so ‘that the council may be continued for one year, which will leave room for the next parliament to reconsider.’ In his view it was unclear ‘that anything can be substitute in its place which in the least can supply the loss of it; in short anything of that kind will in the present circumstances have all the bad effects that are objected to it and none of the good.’<sup>18</sup> As a result of his intervention the commission did not send up any objections. When the bill for rendering the Union more complete reached the upper House, Loudoun acted as a teller in the committee of the whole on 5 Feb. 1708 against retaining 1 Mar. as the date for the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, being in favour of delaying it until October.<sup>19</sup> After the third reading on 7 Feb. he signed the protest against the passage of the bill as a violation of the terms of the Union. He left the House the day before the prorogation on 1 April. On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain dating from early May 1708, he was classed as a Whig.</p><p>Loudoun was active in the 1708 election in Ayrshire and other constituencies, and was accused by the Squadrone of indulging in ‘great threatening and other violent means’ to procure seats for court party candidates.<sup>20</sup> He was naturally nominated as a court candidate for the peers’ election and was in Edinburgh beforehand, ‘very busy’ in organizing support for the court list.<sup>21</sup> As Hamilton put it to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, on 27 May, Mar and Loudoun ‘are both here and very busy. They have great advantages for all the smiles and power is lodged with them’ together with James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]).<sup>22</sup> Loudoun was easily chosen, and after spending the summer on official business in Edinburgh, arrived in London in time for the opening of Parliament on 16 Nov., prepared to do battle against the Whig Junto and their Scottish allies, the Squadrone.<sup>23</sup> Loudoun attended on 81 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total. On 18 Nov. a petition was presented on behalf of William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S] and others against his return and that of other Queensberryites. Loudoun voted on 21 Jan.1709 to support Queensberry’s right to participate in the election even though he now held a British title (as duke of Dover).<sup>24</sup> The enquiry into the peers’ election came to an end with a report on 1 Feb. which showed that despite a reduction in the number of his votes Loudoun had retained his seat. On 18 Mar., in a committee of the whole on the bill ‘for improving the Union’ by extending the English treason laws to Scotland, he joined other Scots in unsuccessfully proposing an amendment to specify the laws in question.<sup>25</sup> Eight days later he was again present in the committee where ‘all the Scots’ were against the bill, and on 28 Mar., at the third reading, he signed protests, against the bill in general, and against the particular provision denying a prisoner advance notice of the indictment and list of witnesses.<sup>26</sup> During the session he was named to 25 committees, including a conference on the bill to continue the acts against coining (21 Apr. 1709). </p><p>Loudoun attended on the opening day of the 1709-10 session, 25 Nov. 1709, and was present on 78 days of the session, 84 per cent of the total, and was named to 19 committees. On 20 Mar. 1710 he voted in favour of the impeachment against Dr Sacheverell, but on the following day opposed denying the doctor ecclesiastical preferment during the period in which he was to be banned from preaching. Thereafter he attended regularly until the prorogation on 5 Apr. and he also attended the prorogations of 18 Apr., 2, 16 May and 1 August. Interestingly, Mar on 6 June felt able to tell his brother, ‘Argyll, Ilay and I are more of a piece than ever and will be so if a new Parliament come especially. The duke of Queensberry and Loudoun are very well with us too’, suggesting that Loudoun had positioned himself astutely in case of ministerial changes.<sup>27</sup> Charles Hay<sup>†</sup> styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweedale [S]) may have correctly observed the source of Loudoun’s attractiveness to the new administration when he noted on 26 Aug. that Loudoun was likely to continue in employment to allay any apprehensions within the Kirk.<sup>28</sup></p><p>In preparation for the new Parliament, Loudoun assisted Mar in settling, with Hamilton and Argyll, the court list for the peers’ election.<sup>29</sup> Included among the agreed candidates, he left London on 7 Oct. and attended the election on 10 Nov., being duly returned.<sup>30</sup> His unusual political position was reflected in the classification given him by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Richard Dongworth, as a ‘Presb[yterian] Court Tory’. Dongworth also estimated his income at about £2,000 p.a., but added that it was ‘encumbered’.<sup>31</sup> The need to maintain an income from office explains why Loudoun joined Mar and other former colleagues in giving their allegiance to the Tory administration of Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford.<sup>32</sup> He had already been allowed £1,000 as ‘royal bounty’ before the election, in response to a memorial to the treasury complaining of arrears of salary, and this additional grant was continued in subsequent years and eventually translated into a pension on the civil list.<sup>33</sup> In another analysis of the Scottish representative peers drawn up shortly after the election he was said to be ‘for the succession and the Union’.</p><p>On 27 Nov. 1710 Loudoun resumed his seat and was named to the Address committee. In all, he attended on 94 days of the session, 83 per cent of the total and was named to a further 23 committees, including a conference on the safety of the queen’s person (9 Mar. 1711) and a committee to draw up an address following the death of the Emperor (20 April). On 9 Jan. 1711, whilst the Lords were in committee of the whole on the conduct of the war in Spain, Loudoun was probably one of the Scots who ‘did the business’ in giving the ministry a majority of 59-45 in thwarting an attempt to resume the House rather than endorse the testimony of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough. Three days later he was probably present to vote in favour of a resolution which blamed the former Whig ministers for the military setbacks in 1707, as ‘all the Scots went one way’.<sup>34</sup> Also on 5 Feb. he voted against the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act.<sup>35</sup> When the appeal of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields was heard on 1 Mar. against a sentence passed against him by the magistrates of Edinburgh for using the liturgy of the Church of England, a number of Scottish peers absented themselves, and it was left to Loudoun alone to champion the magistrates, especially on the question of the regularity of the appeal, which was lost by 68-32, Loudoun being one of ‘only five of the Scots Lords for the delay’ in hearing counsel. Balmerinoch, his opponent on this occasion, observed that Loudoun, ‘to do him justice spoke very modestly, insisting chiefly that the council had so decided often (which was the thing complained of)’.<sup>36</sup> The appeal itself was upheld without a division. After the vote Loudoun wrote to Carstares to reassure him of the unlikelihood of any bills coming forward to advantage the Episcopalian cause.<sup>37</sup> He clearly found it awkward to balance Presbyterian loyalties with allegiance to the ministry: as Defoe commented, when advising Harley on the appointment of a commissioner to the general assembly (for which Loudoun was putting himself forward), Loudoun had ‘a true view of her majesty’s interest’, which tempered his devotion to the Kirk, although he still retained the goodwill of the Presbyterian clergy.<sup>38</sup> On 21 May Queensberry registered a proxy in Loudoun’s favour. </p><p>Loudoun attended the prorogation on 13 Nov. 1711. Later that month he told his kinsman Sir David Dalrymple, 1st bt.<sup>‡</sup> that ‘our first bat of the opening of the Parliament will in all probability be concerning the admission of the duke of Hamilton; folks here talk as if they’d oppose it resolutely.’ But Loudoun did not think Hamilton’s enemies would carry the day: ‘the king of France had never so little to say for the breach of any of his treaties as is to be said in this article concerning the queen’s power of giving and ours of receiving patents’. He admitted that ‘so many of these who are to oppose it have been engaged to procure patents for several Scots peers that they’re resolved, as I’m told, at this time only to insist that none of the sixteen is capable during his being so to be made a peer of Britain’. Loudoun was apprehensive, however, that ‘if once they can find a way to take away the queen’s prerogative, and privilege of the subject, by pretended innuendos and without any foundation in the articles of Union, the consequence of the whole, will but too probably be made to follow upon another occasion’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Loudoun was heavily involved in the management of Scottish proxies before the opening of the session opened on 7 Dec. 1711 and the expected Whig attack on the peace. On 3 Dec. Balmerinoch signed a proxy in his favour, as did David Carnegie*, 4th earl of Northesk [S], on the 7th and William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], on the 8th. Loudoun was present on the 7th, attending on 83 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total, and being named to 11 committees. On 19 Dec. Oxford forecast that Loudoun would support Hamilton’s pretensions to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, and on the 20th Loudoun opposed the resolution that ‘no patent of honour, granted to any peer of Great Britain, who was a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union, can entitle such peer to sit and vote in Parliament’. According to Balmerinoch, Loudoun and Ilay had waited until near the end of the debate when they ‘exerted themselves to the utmost and very handsomely both’.<sup>40</sup> Loudoun then signed the protest against the resolution as a violation of the royal prerogative, interference in the rights of the subject, and an infringement of the Union. He wrote to Dalrymple that ‘till of late I never expected to have seen this happen, and much less that those who have been the principal managers of it against us would have had any hand in it. I wish they mayn’t have laid the foundation of many misfortunes to this island.’<sup>41</sup> This concern was taken up in a ‘representation of the peers of Scotland’ presented to the queen on New Year’s Day, to which Loudoun added his name.<sup>42</sup> He was present in the Lords two days later when ‘Harley’s dozen’ new peers were introduced and the House adjourned after a debate of more than two hours. The Squadrone Member George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> reported that ‘the Scots peers were with the majority but will be no more so unless redressed’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>A hardening of Scottish dissatisfaction was also evident in a proposal from Balmerinoch for a meeting of the Estates of Scotland, which would signal a wish to dissolve the Union. Balmerinoch noted on 17 Jan. 1712 that although Loudoun and other Scots peers ‘seem[ed] fond of the notion ... they apprehend it will neither do here nor in Scotland’. Loudoun was probably in attendance at a meeting at Hamilton’s on the 17th, wherein various responses were canvassed, but it was resolved to await the queen’s speech later in the day, which, as promised, mentioned her concern at her Scottish subjects’ dissatisfaction because of ‘the distinction such of them who were peers of Scotland before the Union must lie under, if the prerogative of the crown is strictly barred against them alone’. In response a committee of the whole was ordered for 18 Jan., which also sat on the 21st and 25th. On the morning of 25 Jan. he attended a meeting of Scottish peers at Hamilton’s house.<sup>44</sup> He then went to the Lords, where the committee of the whole produced a resolution, to which the House agreed, confirming that ‘the sitting of the peers of Great Britain, who were peers of Scotland before the Union, in this House, by election, is alterable by Parliament, at the request of the peers of Great Britain who were peers of Scotland before the Union, without any violation of the Union.’ This was a tame end to hopes of concerted ministerial action on their behalf, so after another sitting of the committee of the whole on 4 Feb. Loudoun and his compatriots began a boycott on 7 February. In Loudoun’s case the boycott lasted just two days, as he was present on 9 Feb., allegedly out of respect for the queen, who passed some bills that day,<sup>45</sup> and on 11, 13 and 15 Feb. when the Scottish toleration bill was under discussion (he was absent for the sitting of 14 Feb. when it was not under consideration). He missed five more days, before resuming regular attendance on 27 Feb., the bill having been sent back to the Commons on the 26th, on which day Greenshields confirmed his absence.<sup>46</sup> On 10 Apr. George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney, registered a proxy in favour of Loudoun. This may have been related to a bill ‘to restore the patrons to their ancient rights of presenting ministers to the churches vacant in ... Scotland’, which was brought up from the Commons early in April. Loudoun delivered in a petition on this bill from the commission of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, which was heard on 12 Apr. before the second reading. <sup>47</sup> A debate took place at the committal, as to whether the bill ‘was not contrary to the Kirk establishment by the Union’, a proposition which Loudoun ‘most manfully asserted’.<sup>48</sup> In the division he voted in the minority against committal, earning the thanks of the synod of Glasgow.<sup>49</sup> On 14 May he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill to prevent abuses in making linen cloth, and regulating the lengths and breadths, and equal sorting of yarn, for each piece made in Scotland, which he reported without amendment.</p><p>In April Loudoun had supported the bill to resume grants of land made by the crown since 1688.<sup>50</sup> At the third reading on 20 May all the Scots lords were in favour except Argyll, Ilay, and Walter Stuart*, 6th Lord Blantyre [S], and Loudoun cast Orkney’s proxy against the bill ‘though he [Loudoun] was for it himself.’<sup>51</sup> On 28 May he opposed a proposal for an address to the queen requesting an order for her forces to take offensive action against the French. He attended the Lords until the adjournment of 21 June, and the prorogations of 8 and 31 July. He then travelled to Edinburgh for the election on 14 Aug. of a peer to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Earl Marischal, being one of only four Scottish peers to make the journey.<sup>52</sup> He was also at Holyrood on 13 Jan. 1713 for a second by-election, this time caused by Hamilton’s death.</p><p>Loudoun had returned to London by 17 Feb. 1713, when he attended the prorogation, as he did also on 3, 10, 17 and 26 March. On a calculation of around this date, in the hand of Swift, but amended by Oxford, Loudoun was noted as likely to support the ministry. He was present when the session began on 9 April. By the end of April Scots in both Houses were becoming increasingly concerned at the introduction into the Commons of a bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland. Judging that this was yet another infringement of the Union, they decided on drastic action. Like other Scottish ministers, Loudoun found himself in a difficulty. He could not avoid attending meetings that were called by opponents of the tax, but to begin with acted cautiously and reserved his position.<sup>53</sup> When, on 1 June, the fourth earl of Findlater, as Seafield had become, moved for leave to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union, Loudoun ‘spoke well’ in support of the motion, but then argued for postponing a decision.<sup>54</sup> Given Whig reluctance to support the substantive proposal, this was the only way forward, but the ministry forced a vote with the result that Findlater’s original motion was defeated. The malt bill was then delivered to the Lords on 3 June. Two days later the Scots proposed unsuccessfully to delay consideration of a second reading, Loudoun voting with the minority. Although Loudoun signed a protest on 8 June against the bill, Balmerinoch was unimpressed by his contribution: in the debates on 5 and 8 June Loudoun did not ‘open his mouth (that I remember) yet was very cordial in the thing, but he said the subject was exhausted.’<sup>55</sup> Around 13 June, Oxford was thinking that Loudoun would support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Loudoun continued to attend until the prorogation on 16 July, having been present on 60 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and named to ten committees. In the summer he lost his place as lord keeper when the lord chancellorship of Scotland was revived for Findlater, but he was ‘made easy’ by payment of his arrears and the continuance of his pension on the civil list.<sup>56</sup></p><p>At the election of the representative peers on 8 Oct. 1713 Loudoun voted in person for the court list, in which he had secured a place despite rumours that he would be displaced by more strongly Tory candidates.<sup>57</sup> The choice was unanimous, with Argyll and the Squadrone absenting themselves.<sup>58</sup> On a list analysing the election returns sent to Hanover on 9 Feb. 1714, Loudoun was classed as a Hanoverian. He left Edinburgh before 9 Feb., but did not attend the first two days of the session on 16 and 18 February.<sup>59</sup> He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Feb., but on 17 Mar. registered a proxy in favour of Orkney (being absent on 15, 17, 19 Mar., when the House adjourned for Easter). When the House resumed on 31 Mar., Loudoun was in attendance. He was present on 5 Apr. when the House considered the motion that the succession was not in danger, and a proposal to add the words ‘under her Majesty’s government’ was carried, with all the Scots present voting in favour.<sup>60</sup> Even though Loudoun was still seeking payment of arrears of salary, it was now being rumoured that he had ‘left the court’.<sup>61</sup> This comment may well have been prompted by Loudoun’s vote on 13 Apr. on the losing side along with other pro-Hanoverians such as Montagu Venables Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, Arthur Annesley*, 4th earl of Anglesey, and William Dawes*, archbishop of York, against the insertion of the words ‘and industriously’ to the phrase about fears for the succession being spread throughout the kingdom.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to oppose the schism bill, Loudoun voted on 4 June in favour of an unsuccessful attempt to allow counsel for Protestant Dissenters to be heard against the bill. On 9 June he supported a proposed amendment to omit some words and thereby allow Dissenting academies to continue teaching Latin, but this was rejected.<sup>63</sup> According to Baillie, Loudoun supported two amendments in the committee of the whole, also on 9 June, ‘one allowing school mistresses without the qualification of the act and the other for allowing of appeals from the justices of the peace’, both of which were carried.<sup>64</sup> Loudoun was present when the Parliament was prorogued on 9 July, having attended on 67 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and been named to seven committees.</p><p>Following the queen’s death on 1 Aug. 1714, Loudoun took the oaths promptly, and on 9 Aug. received a proxy from Mar. He was present on 13 Aug. when the lord justices’ speech was read, and in all attended on nine days of the short session, 60 per cent of the total. He also attended the prorogation of 21 October. A month later he presented a loyal address from the burgh of Ayr to George I.<sup>65</sup> He was elected again in 1715 and henceforth attached himself to his clan chief, Argyll, with whom he served as a volunteer at the battle of Sheriffmuir and with whom he acted in the Lords.<sup>66</sup> His parliamentary and official career after 1715 will be examined in the second part of this work.</p><p>Loudon died on 20 Nov. 1731.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
CAMPBELL, John (1634-1717) |
<p><strong><surname>CAMPBELL</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1634–1717)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>28 June 1677 earl of Caithness [S] (patent annulled 1681); <em>cr. </em>13 Aug. 1681 earl of BREADALBANE [S] |
RP [S] 1713-14 |
First sat 31 Mar. 1714; last sat 12 May 1714 |
|
MP [S] Argyll 1661-3, 1669-74 |
<p><em>b</em>. 29 May 1634, 1st s. of Sir John Campbell, 4th bt., of Glenorchy, and 1st w. Mary, da. of William Graham, 7th earl of Menteith [S]. <em>m</em>. (1) 17 Dec. 1657 (with £5,000), Mary (<em>d</em>. 8 Feb. 1666), da. of Henry Rich<sup>†</sup>, earl of Holland, 2s.; (2) 7 Apr. 1678, Mary (<em>d</em>. 4 Feb. 1691), da. of Archibald Campbell, mq. of Argyll [S], wid. of George Sinclair, 6th earl of Caithness [S], 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em>; ?(3) Mildred Littler (<em>d</em>.1746), 1da. (?illegit.). <em>suc</em>. fa. as 5th bt. June 1686. <em>d</em>. 19 Mar. 1717.</p> |
<p>PC [S] 1685-8, 1692-6, 1703-8; commr. treasury [S] 1692–6, auditing accts. of treasury [S] 1694, 1695, justiciary, Highlands [S] 1702.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Lt.-col. of ft. Perth 1689.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. supply Argyll 1667.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J.B. de Medina, 1696, National Galleries of Scotland, PG995.</p> |
<p>As a Highland magnate, able to put a force of clansmen into the field, Breadalbane possessed an obvious attraction to governments in Edinburgh and London, but his position was by no means as formidable as some observers thought.<sup>3</sup> Governments were just as likely to regard him with suspicion, while his influence over his followers was dependent on leading them in a direction in which they wanted to go. He was also subordinate to the duke of Argyll, his clan chieftain; he faced competing magnate interests in the counties in which he enjoyed influence, Perthshire and Caithness; and he was chronically short of money. Throughout his career he sought to accommodate these varying pressures and steer a course that would advance his own interests. Hence he appeared devious and slippery. Those who had dealings with him rarely knew what to make of him; they thought him ‘mighty cunning’, amoral, and self-interested, and in one striking phrase, a man who ‘walks in the clouds’.<sup>4</sup></p><p>During the prince of Orange’s invasion in 1688 Breadalbane [S] at first acted as a loyal supporter of King James, but when sent to London to explain to James the actions of the Scottish Privy Council (of which he was a a member) he arrived to find the Orangists in control. He made the best of it and signed the address of the Scottish nobles asking William to rule Scotland until a convention met, then returned north and retired to his stronghold at Kilchurn in Perthshire. There he made favourable noises to King James and the local Jacobite commanders, but once James’s armies were defeated, took the oaths to the new king and queen. His position remained difficult: he was suspected by both sides and his estates were, he claimed, ravaged by Jacobite forces.<sup>5</sup> In response, he pursued a double game: on the one hand involving himself on the Jacobite fringes of the ‘Montgomerie Plot’, and on the other making promises to ministers in England through his friend Sir George Mackenzie, Viscount Tarbat [S], to deploy his influence to promote the pacification of the Highlands.<sup>6</sup> In the spring of 1691, assisted by £12,000 from the English treasury, he concluded secret agreements with Jacobite commanders, which were then ratified by the king.<sup>7</sup> The settlement was by no means watertight, and soon broke down. Moreover, not everyone in the Scottish ministry was happy to trust Breadalbane.<sup>8</sup> Nonetheless, he pocketed £2,000 in expenses, and in the following year, with the support of Tarbat and the Dalrymples, was restored to the Scottish Privy Council and made a treasury commissioner.</p><p>The Scottish parliamentary inquiry of 1695 into the Glencoe massacre upset Breadalbane’s applecart: his previous negotiations with the Highlanders were exposed, he was indicted for treason and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. The hue and cry was led by the secretary of state, James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> and his allies, Breadalbane’s opponents in recent ministerial infighting.<sup>9</sup> Breadalbane was in fear of his life, but was supported by the Argylls, and eventually released under royal warrant.<sup>10</sup> However, he lost office, and retired to the Highlands, fearing arrest for debt, and leaving his second son, John Campbell<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Glenorchy, the future 2nd earl of Breadalbane, to take charge of the family’s affairs as the designated heir to the peerage (Breadalbane’s right to nominate an heir having been specifically provided for in his patent). </p><p>Breadalbane’s political fortunes improved at the start of Queen Anne’s reign, especially in 1705 when John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], became parliamentary commissioner. He was more than once considered for high office, Argyll proposing him for the treasury commission, only to be vetoed by the ‘old court party’ headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].<sup>11</sup> At the same time Breadalbane was in contact with Jacobite agents, although he prudently avoided signing a letter to Louis XIV in 1707.<sup>12</sup> During the Union debates he absented himself from the Scottish parliament.</p><p>In April 1708 Breadalbane learned from the master of the ordnance, David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S], one of Queensberry’s associates, that he was to be arrested and taken to London on suspicion of involvement in Jacobite conspiracy. He answered that he had</p><blockquote><p>made it my work all my life to preserve the peace of my country, and for my actings pursuant thereto I was made your lordship’s prisoner in the castle of Edinburgh in the year [16]95, by amiss representation as your Lordship knows … I am 73 years of age, it may be thought very strange, that I who at that time did concern myself so much to bring and recover the peace of the country should now at this age be any instrument to disturb it, when I am not able to go over the door to prosecute or to prevent it, on the one hand or the other.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>Breadalbane forwarded to Leven a certificate testifying to his inability to travel, together with suggestions that he might be able to assist the court in the forthcoming election of representative peers. He was told to qualify himself, sign a proxy and ‘send it blank’.<sup>14</sup> But his votes were also being solicited by others; in fact, a flurry of letters was descending on Taymouth from peers across the political spectrum.<sup>15</sup> The most insistent voice came from the leading opponent of the court party, James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], who expected that Breadalbane would assist the cavalier interest and claimed that ‘we want an old wily fox like you … to give good advice and help put it in execution’.<sup>16</sup> However, Hamilton knew that he would have to overcome strong complaints about his own opportunistic alliance with the Squadrone, the political heirs of the very politicians who had contrived Breadalbane’s arrest in 1695. To Leven, Breadalbane confessed that this ‘sudden change’ had left him thunderstruck: ‘to find ... [Hamilton] among the republican Squadrone ... is the world turned round’.<sup>17</sup> Nevertheless, Hamilton was confident that he could explain himself satisfactorily, and he suggested that Breadalbane would be released if he joined forces with the Squadrone.<sup>18</sup> Leven was soon writing to express his concern that Breadalbane had included Hamilton and his two brothers in his list. He warned Breadalbane that he was making a mistake:</p><blockquote><p>I dare say if you bring in some folk you will see the error of it when out of time for they are so engaged with a certain set of men in England that they must go throw stick with them and I am sure your principles and theirs can never agree.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>More immediately, there was the prospect that Breadalbane would not in fact be released from custody. Eventually Breadalbane bowed to pressure: at the election he voted by proxy, and although he still included the three Hamiltons, ten of his votes went to court nominees.<sup>20</sup> On 21 June he heard that the queen had ordered his release.<sup>21</sup> Leven subsequently wrote that there would be a parliamentary enquiry to discover who had given the order that Scots suspected of Jacobite sympathies should be arrested. Allegations had been made by Hamilton and the Squadrone that the decision had been Queensberry’s. Leven tried to placate Breadalbane by insisting on his own innocence.<sup>22</sup> In the end, the responsibility for the instructions was never firmly established.</p><p>When Parliament met the Lords enquired into the conduct of the 1708 election of representative peers. Objections had been made to Breadalbane’s list because it did ‘not bear the designation of writer and witnesses nor are there witnesses signing’.<sup>23</sup> The House was informed of these omissions on 17 Jan. 1709, and after counsel had been heard Breadalbane’s list was declared null and void on the 29th. Before the 1710 general election Leven counselled him to oppose any ‘Squadrone man’ in the next election to the Commons; and as in 1708 the earl duly supported the interest of his friend John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], in Perthshire.<sup>24</sup> Once more he received numerous appeals for support in the election of representative peers, including a heartfelt appeal from the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, that it was ‘necessary … for honest men to stand to one another’.<sup>25</sup> Atholl was going to insist that Breadalbane himself might be put on the court list but was dissuaded.<sup>26</sup> This time Breadalbane went to Edinburgh to cast his vote in person. ‘I am come to this place’, he wrote to Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, on 31 Oct., ‘to serve the queen in voting and influencing others to vote such peers as will be of a piece (if possible) to support her majesty, her crown and the Church’.<sup>27</sup> As a cavalier, he was fully in sympathy with the Tory ministry, and contributed to the unopposed return of the court list.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Over the next few years, and using Glenorchy as an intermediary, Breadalbane cemented his allegiance to the chief minister, Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford.<sup>29</sup> The good relations he established with Oxford survived even Breadalbane’s expressions of support in the early summer of 1713 for the attempt to dissolve the Union. He informed Atholl in the summer that, after consultation, the Scottish Jacobite peers had agreed to vote only for hard-line anti-Unionists in the next election of peers, but as the election approached, he contacted Oxford to argue that the best course that could be taken in Scotland was ‘to use our best endeavours for returning a nomination of peers to the ensuing Parliament who may be most forward to serve her Majesty’.<sup>30</sup> He also raised the issue of the government of the Highlands: ‘knowing how much your lordship is inclined to oblige the Highlanders for her majesty’s service’, he sent Oxford ‘my thoughts of a scheme to answer your design in that affair’.<sup>31</sup> An agent of Oxford’s reported in July 1713 that ‘my Lord Breadalbane ... has dependence upon no party, nor upon any great families, and let the world go as it shall please God he is much indifferent, for he is in a condition to defend himself and his own interest from the oppression of any whatsoever’. If the treasurer had ‘a mind to take him by the hand and your interest be the monarchy and church he is willing to come up on that lay’. On the other hand it was clear that the Scottish secretary, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], did not want to see Breadalbane at Westminster: it was suspected that ‘my Lord Mar may be for some pleasing of him other ways by giving him some compliment, but they had best beware that they do not sour him which if they do they may come to repent it, for he is too old a cat to draw a straw before his nose’.<sup>32</sup> But thanks to Oxford’s support, Breadalbane’s name appeared on the court list.<sup>33</sup> His new enthusiasm for parliamentary politics had in fact stretched to devising a list of his own preferred candidates. Mar reported that Breadalbane was ‘resolved to have the honour of seeing the queen before he die, and there is no pleasing of him, nor indeed of several others who are concerned for him, if he be not one of the 16’, and added that he ‘was so youthful to-day at the election that he would not so much as read his list with his glasses, and his eyes alone served him very well’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, once elected, Breadalbane was in no hurry to make the long journey to London from his Highland lair. He had been proposed, with other Scottish ‘poor lords’, for a pension but Oxford had not acted on this suggestion.<sup>35</sup> On 23 Jan. 1714 James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], wrote to urge him to come up.<sup>36</sup> Breadalbane admitted that this ‘was indeed my first alarm of having thoughts of going to London I have had since an advertisement from the earl of Mar to make all haste’. Now aged 80, he was determined to obey the queen’s summons. He told Mar’s brother, James Erskine<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Grange, that he hoped to reach Edinburgh by 18 Feb., ‘which is the soonest I can promise’, though while he remained in Scotland he was co-ordinating measures with other Jacobite sympathizers and passing advice across to St Germain.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Breadalbane’s parliamentary career at Westminster proved to be brief but, despite his advanced age, not uneventful. He did not take his seat in the Lords until 31 Mar. and attended only for a further 13 days, being named to no select committees and appearing for the last time on 12 May. Soon after his arrival he had caused a stir by appearing to admit to a Jacobite allegiance in conversations with other peers, but although there was talk of his being ‘attacked’, nothing transpired.<sup>38</sup> His last recorded contribution came in a debate on the address to the queen for a proclamation to put a price on the head of the Pretender, when he joined other High Tories in objecting to the provision that the reward should be paid dead or alive.<sup>39</sup> He registered his proxy in favour of Mar on 6 and 9 Apr. 1714 (vacated on the 8th and 20th respectively) and again on 14 May. Having thanked Oxford ‘for all the honours and favours you were pleased to confer on me’, Breadalbane ‘with all his Highland crew’ returned to Scotland, reaching Edinburgh on 4 June.<sup>40</sup> After arrival at Taymouth he immediately called together ‘several of the chieftains of the clans’ and reported to Oxford what would be necessary to secure their support, placing particular emphasis on the secure passage of the militia bill and the bill to resume bishops’ rents for the benefit of the Episcopalian clergy.<sup>41</sup> He had been forecast as being in favour of the schism bill and it is probable that Mar exercised his proxy in support of the bill.</p><p>Breadalbane’s presence amongst the Jacobites brought only confusion and uncertainty into their schemes the following year. He took up arms for the Pretender but, once the rebellion collapsed gave himself up and spent the last year of his life under house arrest.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Breadalbane died on 19 Mar. 1717.</p> |
G.M.T./B.A./D.W.H. |
|
CARNEGIE, David (1675-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>CARNEGIE</surname></strong>, <strong>David</strong> (1675–1729)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 3 Oct. 1688 (a minor) as 4th earl of NORTHESK [S] |
RP [S] 1708, 1710, 1713 |
First sat 3 Dec. 1708; last sat 9 July 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. Sept. 1675, 1st s. of David Carnegie, 3rd earl of Northesk [S], and Elizabeth, da. of John Lindsay, 17th earl of Crawford [S]. <em>m</em>. 29 Jan. 1697, Margaret (<em>d</em>.1763), da. of Sir James Wemyss, Ld. Burntisland [S], sis. of David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 6da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 14 Jan. 1729.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1698–1708; commr. exch. [S] 1698–?1704, chamberlain’s ct. 1702, treasury [S] 1705-8, chamberlainry and trade [S] 1711–14, police [S] 1714; adm. depute, North Britain by 1709.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. supply, Perth. 1696, justiciary for Highlands 1702; sheriff, Forfar 1702–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1700, National Trust for Scotland, House of Dun, Angus; oil on canvas by circle of Sir G. Kneller, 1700, sold 2010.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>As a political figure Northesk was cautious and calculating, very much the prisoner of his straitened financial circumstances, which required him to seek, and to hold, office. He enjoyed a range of influential political connections in Scotland, including his wife’s stepfather George Mackenzie, earl of Cromarty [S], and his own brother-in-law James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S]. For much of his career he was a follower and political client of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], under whose wing he settled when he came of age and took his seat in the Scottish parliament in 1698. As a stalwart of Queensberry’s court party he received a sheaf of remunerative offices and appointments – privy councillor, commissioner of the Scottish exchequer and of the chamberlain’s court and justiciary of the Highlands. Although he followed Queensberry into opposition during the ‘New Party’ experiment in 1704, he was by temperament a natural supporter of administration, ‘always adhering on all occasions firmly to the interest of the crown without cash’. He was one of the few Queensberryites to retain his place on the Scottish privy council during their leader’s brief period in the wilderness.<sup>5</sup> He returned to government with Queensberry in 1705 and in the words of a pro-Union peer ‘behaved very well’ in the parliamentary session which saw the ratification of the treaty. He had previously expressed reservations over the idea of an Union, predicting that the difficulties which ‘may arise on a national account, the jealousies of Church and Kirk, the numberless needless divisions amongst ourselves, joined with the fears of some places being hewed ... will ... prove no small impediments’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Northesk expected to be rewarded for his support for the Union, but although his salary of £700 a year as a treasury commissioner was continued until August 1708 he did not receive the ‘gift for life’ that he requested, because the queen herself was reluctant to confirm the grant.<sup>7</sup> Nor was he among those selected in the first cohort of representative peers in February 1707. Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], informed a correspondent that ‘three others who had been very serviceable in the Union pretended to be of the number’ of court candidates, including Northesk and Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S]. Mar continued: ‘there was but room for one, so two of them behoved to be left out. It was thought my Lord Roseberry had the most favourable pretensions.’<sup>8</sup> Any lingering reservations about Northesk were challenged, however, by an appreciation of his grasp of the problems confronting government in the new state of Great Britain. His concern at Scottish financial management was particularly evident: in February 1708 he told his brother-in-law Montrose that in any enquiry the treasury would ‘make a very odd figure, and I’m sure it will be thought they have been strange sort of people for some while in it’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Just as Mar was coming to believe that it would be as well to have Northesk in Parliament, Northesk was convincing himself that he ought to secure a place as a representative peer. He wrote to Montrose: ‘we hear the old humour of disagreeing reigns amongst you; I did not believe … it would have begun to appear so soon’.<sup>10</sup> Irritation at the disputes amongst his countrymen in Parliament may go a long way towards explaining his willingness to stand as a court candidate in 1708. Because Mar was ready to support him he was added to the court list laid before the peers of Scotland at Holyrood Abbey on 17 June. He himself voted for the court ticket and in turn received the votes of his fellow Queenberryites, followers of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and some cavaliers, altogether enough to ensure his election.<sup>11</sup> The court could look upon his election as a victory, but once elected Northesk did not do much to dispel the impression that he regarded parliamentary politics as an unfortunate necessity. Although the new Parliament began on 16 Nov. 1708, it was not until 3 Dec. that he first took his seat.</p><p>Northesk attended 57 per cent of the sitting days of the session of 1708-9. He was in the House throughout early January 1709 when it considered the petitions submitted by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and members of the Squadrone against the returns in the representative peers’ election. He was himself involved in these as a consequence of having held the proxy of John Lyon, earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne [S], and because of doubts raised about the list of votes he submitted from the earl of Cromarty.<sup>12</sup> As the committee entrusted to consider the petitions reported on 17 Jan., Strathmore’s proxy to Northesk was objected to because it was ‘signed, but not sealed’, while Cromarty’s list was alleged to be defective because he only cast four votes, for those whom he called his ‘children’ (including Northesk).<sup>13</sup> Another complaint raised by the petitioners was that Queensberry should not have been able to vote in the elections as he had recently (in May 1708) been created a peer of Great Britain, as duke of Dover. On 21 Jan. Northesk fought against the coalition of English Whigs, the Squadrone and Hamilton by voting in favour of Queensberry’s eligibility to vote for Scottish representative peers. Regarding Northesk’s own case, on 29 Jan. the House upheld the validity both of Cromarty’s list of four names and of Strathmore’s signed, but unsealed, proxy. The committee on the petitions was ordered to recalculate the votes cast in the election based upon the resolutions of the House, and when the amended totals were reported on 1 Feb. Northesk was still secure in his place despite having lost nine votes.</p><p>Northesk was again present on 11 and 16 Mar. 1709 for the first two readings of the bill ‘for improving the union of the two kingdoms’. When it was moved in the committee of the whole House on 19 Mar. that the bill should extend to Scotland the English laws against treason, Northesk, with the other Scots in the House, voted in the minority against this perceived infringement of Scottish judicial independence.<sup>14</sup> Northesk last sat in the House for the session on 23 Mar., while the heated debates on this bill were still ensuing, and his departure did have a negative effect for the Scottish voting bloc. On 26 Mar. there was a division in the committee of the whole on a further clause to allow the accused in treason trials to be given prior to the trial a list of the witnesses against him. Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), attributed the defeat of this clause to the departure from the capital of both Northesk and David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], for the clause was only lost through the negative presumed by an equal vote.<sup>15</sup></p><p align="left">Northesk did not sit in the 1709-10 session until 17 Jan. 1710 and with this late start (the session had begun on 15 Nov. 1709), he attended only just over half of the sitting days. His only significantly notable contribution was during the trial of Henry Sacheverell. From 14 to 18 Mar. 1710 Northesk, with most of the Tories in the House, subscribed to five protests against resolutions which furthered the proceedings against Sacheverell. Lord Yester singled him out as one of six Scottish peers opposed to the motions of 14 Mar. to proceed in the consideration of precedents in the trial.<sup>16</sup> On 20 Mar. he was one of only four Scots peers, with Hamilton, Mar, and his brother-in-law Wemyss, to vote for the doctor’s acquittal and he added his name to the protest against the guilty sentence. John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, was left baffled and nonplussed by this decision by one whom he was sure would have voted with the court. He would have thought, as he wrote to his duchess, that among the Scots peers, Northesk, Hamilton and Wemyss, ‘would have been on the other side’.<sup>17</sup> </p><p>Northesk attended the peers’ election on 10 Nov. 1710, and was easily re-elected, having been included on the court list agreed in advance by Mar with Hamilton and Argyll.<sup>18</sup> By this time he seems to have attached himself to Mar, who had sought preferment for him before the election as ‘a pretty fellow, and of a good spirit, can be very useful in the elections of both peers and commoners, and has been very ill used’.<sup>19</sup> Richard Dongworth, the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, in his analysis of the Scottish representation in the new Parliament, classed Northesk under the ambiguous category of ‘Episcopal Tory, rather court’, while estimating his annual income at ‘not £2,000’.<sup>20</sup> In the other analysis of the representative peers drawn up shortly after the election he was classed as being ‘for the Union’. Northesk took his seat in the House on 11 Dec. 1710, a little more than two weeks into the new Parliament. In this first session of 1710-11 he corroborated Dongworth’s opinion, acting as a diligent–he was present on 80 per cent of the sitting days of the session–and loyal, if unobtrusive, supporter of the new Tory administration. He joined with the Tories in condemning the conduct of the previous Whig ministers and their favoured generals in the conduct of the war in Spain. On 9 Jan. 1711 Northesk and the other Scottish representative peers voted against a Whig motion aiming to forestall a resolution extolling the account of Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, which condemned the actions of the Whig generals before and during the Allied defeat at Almanza.<sup>21</sup> Three days later he voted to censure the conduct of the previous secretary of state, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, in relation to the campaign in the Peninsula and the failed assault on the French naval base at Toulon.<sup>22</sup> On 1 Mar. Northesk cast his vote with other Scottish Tories against adjourning consideration of the appeal of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against the sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates; after this vote the House agreed without a division to reverse the sentence.<sup>23</sup></p><p align="left">A list of those Tory ‘patriots’ who had distinguished themselves in the session, printed in the summer following the prorogation of 12 June 1711, included Northesk’s name. However, to political insiders Northesk’s allegiances were not so clear-cut. Mar still entertained doubts about him, not least because the earl’s poverty made him restive, a condition exacerbated by the belief that he was owed compensation from government for loss of office at the Union, something that could easily fester into a grievance. Mar had repeatedly asked the lord treasurer Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, to do something for him.<sup>24</sup> The connection with Montrose was also a cause for concern. In early June, as the session was drawing to a close, Mar proposed to Oxford that he might use Northesk to approach the veteran Squadrone Member George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, with a scheme for putting the lord chamberlain’s office into commission.<sup>25</sup> As well as a temptation to Baillie, this would be a means of satisfying Northesk’s pretensions. In due course Northesk made contact with Baillie, who, when introduced to Oxford by Mar, revealed that Northesk had also spoken on this matter to Montrose. Montrose, in a letter to Baillie of 26 Oct., made light of this approach from the court, doubtless fearing that it compromised him in the eyes of Baillie and other party colleagues, and felt ‘he need not trouble himself to make any return’.<sup>26</sup> Because he was uncertain how far he had successfully allayed the suspicions raised by the discovery of their correspondence, Montrose urged his brother-in-law to act cautiously. Northesk was appointed to the commission of chamberlainry established by the ministry in November 1711, at a salary of £1,000 a year.<sup>27</sup></p><p align="left">He nevertheless refused to come up to town when summoned by the ministry for the first days of the session of 1711-12 ‘till he get a letter telling him that, notwithstanding the office he lately got, his past services shall be considered’.<sup>28</sup> His proxy with Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], was registered from 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the session. After the vote of 20 Dec. denying Hamilton the right to sit in the House by virtue of his British peerage as duke of Brandon, George Baillie observed to his wife that ‘there were six of the Scots peers not come up which lost the point’, which number included Northesk.<sup>29</sup> Presumably his proxy with Loudoun, one of those Scots present that day, was not counted because proxies do not appear, surprisingly, to have been called for in the final decision in the House which saw the defeat of Hamilton’s claims. Northesk did not sit in the House to vacate his proxy until 9 Feb. 1712 and after this late start he attended only 56 per cent of the session’s sitting days. Shortly after his arrival in the capital in February, Northesk presented a letter to Oxford about arrears of money owing to Montrose. He reported to his brother-in-law the duke that ‘we being in the House, I took occasion to do it there; he [Oxford] did not open it, but said he would give me the answer.’ The exchange had been witnessed by Mar, who lost no time in cross-examining Northesk. ‘He asked me if the treasurer had been speaking of a former affair’, Northesk wrote to Montrose. He continued, ‘I told him not, but that I was giving a letter from you, and I thought best to tell him about what it was, for I know he would otherwise, and perhaps he might have other thoughts’.<sup>30</sup> Northesk judged it prudent not to be seen in Oxford’s company too often and for the rest of February and early March only discussed this matter once with the treasurer, preferring to negotiate instead with an under-secretary.<sup>31</sup></p><p align="left">On 17 Mar. 1712 the commissioners of public accounts presented a report to the Commons alleging financial mismanagement in Scotland arising from the failure to appoint new treasury commissioners after the death of William III. According to the report, between the death of William III and the Union there were no acting commissioners of the Scottish treasury and ‘the whole public revenue of Scotland was … left without any legal direction or government’.<sup>32</sup> One of the most serious incidents concerned a loan of £20,000 from the English to the Scottish treasury at the end of 1706, to cover deficiencies on the civil list. The problem was that no terms had been settled for repayment of the loan and the report questioned whether any of the money had even been applied to the civil list. Though the Scots in Parliament were preoccupied at this time with the Episcopal communion toleration bill, Northesk realized the dangerous implications of this report, and warned Montrose that it could be used maliciously against outstanding Scottish claims such as Montrose’s. ‘What sort of a reel would it make? The very starting the question, makes a great grudging, there being hardly one in Scotland, it would not effect one way or other, and subjecting men’s private rights to a review, as well as public grants ’twould be a very odd thing.’ Northesk now felt it necessary to approach Oxford directly about Montrose’s arrears. He told Montrose on 25 Mar. that ‘I made bold on Sunday at court to mind the treasurer, whose answer was much as formerly but every kind of thing is so put off, that I’m more afraid of delays in your concern as before’.<sup>33</sup> Oxford, Northesk and Montrose continued to negotiate the details of the claim for arrears in the context of their moves to stifle the potential controversy surrounding the commissioners’ report on the Scottish treasury.<sup>34</sup> As the danger began to subside in the spring of 1712 Northesk resumed a more active parliamentary role and on 20 May voted in favour of the bill, ultimately rejected, for the parliamentary resumption of William III’s land grants.<sup>35</sup> Eight days later he sided, with Mar and Hamilton, against Oxford’s ministry by voting in favour of the Whig motion to address the queen against the ‘restraining orders’ issued to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, ordering him not to engage in offensive military actions against the French. Perhaps this was done to force Oxford’s hand regarding his constant importunities, for during this time, Northesk expressed increasing anxiety to return to Scotland as soon as he could, because of the ruinous expense of his living in London.<sup>36</sup> He last sat in the House on 21 June, a little more than two weeks before the end of the session.</p><p align="left">In the autumn of 1712 Northesk was promised a payment of £1,000 besides his salary as a commissioner of chamberlainry. The money was never paid, but the prospect, and his evident necessities, were enough to sustain his discreet support for government.<sup>37</sup> Certainly in the spring of 1713 Jonathan Swift considered Northesk a certain supporter of the ministry for the forthcoming session. Northesk was present at two of the prorogations in March of the long-postponed session to discuss the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht and was again present when that session finally met for business on 9 Apr. 1713. He attended on all but eight of the days of this session – 88 per cent. Following Swift’s forecast, Oxford himself predicted that Northesk would support the ministry by voting for the bill to confirm the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty; this bill, however, never even made it as far as appearing before the House. Once again, though, Northesk showed that he was not entirely the ministry’s servant, especially when specifically Scottish matters were concerned. On 1 June, when James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], moved for leave to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union, Northesk voted with the other Scottish peers and their temporary Whig allies to adjourn the debate. This attempt to delay consideration of the bill so that more votes in its favour could be mustered was unsuccessful and the ministry was able to defeat the motion for such a bill that very day. Northesk later voted on 8 June with the minority against the third reading of the bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland and subscribed to the protest that declared the bill a violation of the Treaty of Union.<sup>38</sup> He continued to attend until the end of the session on 16 July and throughout the summer bombarded Oxford with further requests for financial assistance, especially the £1,000 the lord treasurer had promised to pay him the previous year and his salary as a commissioner for the chamberlainry. To buttress his case, Northesk claimed that continuing residence in London was expensive and at the same time prevented him from taking care of important personal business in Scotland.<sup>39</sup> </p><p>Northesk was re-elected as a representative peer in October 1713 but was again slow to take his seat, appearing in Parliament only on 31 Mar. 1714, well over a month into the session.<sup>40</sup> He still managed to attend close to three-quarters of the sittings of this session. He was still awaiting the £1,000 he had been promised, and reappointment to the commission of chamberlainry in the autumn of 1713 was inadequate to purchase his active support for government in this session. Nevertheless, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, considered him a supporter of the schism bill, and he was certainly present in the House during the proceedings on this bill, while his name does not appear in the protest against its passage on 15 June. He remained in the House until the prorogation on 9 July. That was his last ever attendance on the House, for Northesk did not sit for the session following the death of Anne which convened to proclaim the Hanoverian Succession and he was not elected a representative for any of the Hanoverians’ Parliaments. He certainly showed no enthusiasm for welcoming the new dynasty, writing to Montrose on 21 Aug. 1714 that he preferred to stay at home rather than endure a troublesome and costly journey to London. Although, as he conceded, it would have been advisable ‘to have made my compliments to the king at his first coming, and however insignificant one is, there may be somebody ready enough to misconstruct what they do, however I’m less concerned since your Grace knows my reasons.’<sup>41</sup> He showed no sympathy for the exiled Stuarts either, steering well clear of active Jacobite involvement despite his former closeness to Mar, and during the ’Fifteen his house, including the wine cellar, and estates were pillaged at a cost of over £2,500.<sup>42</sup> The ensuing debts lay heavily on him in his last years and ill health also contributed to his deteriorating circumstances. By 1722 he was associated with the Tories in Scottish politics but played only a minor role in the elections of that year.<sup>43</sup> Northesk died at Ethie Castle 14 Jan. 1729.<sup>44</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
COCHRANE, John (1687-1720) |
<p><strong><surname>COCHRANE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1687–1720)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 22 Nov. 1705 (a minor) as 4th earl of DUNDONALD [S] |
RP [S] 1713–15. |
First sat 16 Feb. 1714; last sat 25 Aug. 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 4 July 1687, 2nd s. of John Cochrane, 2nd earl of Dundonald [S], and Susannah, da. of William Hamilton (formerly Douglas), 3rd duke of Hamilton [S] and earl of Selkirk [S]. <em>educ</em>. Glasgow Univ. 1701. <em>m</em>. (1) 4 Apr. 1706, Anne (<em>d</em>.1710), da. of Charles Murray, earl of Dunmore [S], sis. of John Murray*, 2nd earl of Dunmore [S], 1s. 3da.; (2) 15 Oct. 1715, Mary (<em>d</em>.1722), da. of Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds, and wid. of Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort, <em>s.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 5 June 1720.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld.-in-waiting to George Augustus*, prince of Wales, c.1715–c.1718.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Col. 4th tp. Horse Gds. 1714–19.</p> |
|
<p>Dsundonald was only 16 years old when he succeeded his elder brother William, who according to his uncle Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], was ‘one of the hopefullest youths I ever saw’. The new earl’s situation was not happy: a sickly child, caught in the crossfire of competing family interests. His widowed mother, who had married Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), fretted over him and would not let him live on his own in the ancestral home at Paisley, as his brother had done. She called in the head of her family, her brother James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon), to bolster her demand that Dundonald live in her household.<sup>3</sup> The young man’s frustration found expression in February 1706 when he complained to his mother that her cosseting was causing him public embarrassment. Lady Yester reminded him that when his brother died she had determined that he should stay with her until he was married. Although recounting her pleasure at the accounts she had received of his conduct, she insisted that she could not yield on this point because ‘my concern is so great for you’.<sup>4</sup> Nonetheless, she took his complaints as a warning and tried to find him a suitable bride. For his part, Dundonald himself promised to do whatever the duke of Hamilton should advise him.<sup>5</sup> But at the same time, his paternal uncle William Cochrane<sup>‡</sup>, who had been appointed his tutor (guardian), and who was also, by a further complication, Hamilton’s man-of-business, was intriguing to marry Dundonald off. In April Cochrane completed the negotiations which brought his nephew the hand of Lady Anne Murray, the pious daughter of the earl of Dunmore.<sup>6</sup> Lord and Lady Yester were piqued, but could do nothing, and as the marriage was happy, cordial family relations resumed.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Guided by Hamilton, Dundonald took part in the election of the Scottish representative peers at Holyrood Abbey on 17 June 1708. He voted for the list agreed by Hamilton with Lord Yester’s friends in the Squadrone, but because he was himself still a minor — 17 days short of his 21st birthday — two members of the court party protested that his votes were invalid.<sup>8</sup> Their objection was considered in the Lords on 29 Nov., when Dundonald’s baptismal record was called for. Shortly afterwards a further order was issued that his mother should attend, to be questioned about her son’s age at the election. Finally, on 26 Jan. 1709, the House decided against him and his votes were annulled.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Dundonald was present again at the peers’ election in 1710, supporting the candidates agreed by the new Tory administration of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, with Hamilton, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich), a list which included his brother-in-law, Dunmore.<sup>10</sup> The following year Dundonald raised the possibility of standing for the vacancy that would be created in the House of Lords if Hamilton received, as expected, a British peerage as duke of Brandon. When he wrote to Hamilton about it, ‘begging’ the duke to ‘procure the queen’s consent ‘ and explaining that ‘the reason I am so pressing to be chosen is because I design to be at London all winter’, he was disappointed by the relatively cool response.<sup>11</sup> Hamilton, who may have given his interest in the meantime to James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S], merely advised him to write to Harley (now earl of Oxford) to lay before the queen his request to serve as a representative peer, which he did in September 1711.<sup>12</sup> Two months later Dundonald set out for London, writing to his mother on 1 Dec. that ‘I kissed the queen’s hand on Monday last, my lord treasurer was not then to be seen, so I went with Duke Hamilton, her Maj[esty] was very civil and obliging’. Dundonald now had doubts about the success of his uncle’s attempt to take his seat in the Lords as duke of Brandon; despite Hamilton’s own confidence, ‘many other people think there will be a great struggle’.<sup>13</sup> His fears were borne out later that month when the Lords resolved that no Scottish peer could sit in the House by virtue of a British peerage conferred after the Union. Disappointed, and resentful enough at the Lords’ decision to sign the petition of Scottish peers protesting against it, Dundonald then decided that he would visit Holland.<sup>14</sup> His absence meant that he was overlooked when the death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], produced a vacancy amongst the representative peers. As Mar commented, he was ‘abroad and so in a manner off the field’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>When Dundonald heard that Hamilton had been appointed ambassador to France, he was eager to accompany him, and in late August 1712 wrote to his uncle from Ghent asking him to obtain the necessary permission from the queen.<sup>16</sup> He reached Paris early in November, and wrote to tell his mother that ‘everybody in France in the town and upon the road longs mightily to see Duke Hamilton and all expects to see magnificent doings when he comes’. It was thus a cruel disappointment when he received the tragic news of his uncle’s death, in a duel fought in London on 15 November.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Dundonald stayed on in Paris, however, until the autumn of 1713, returning to Edinburgh on 6 Oct. 1713 just two days before the election of representative peers. He had sought Oxford’s assistance in advance, as well as that of George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S]. This, combined with the approval of Argyll, ensured his successful candidacy.<sup>18</sup> He was believed to be still in Scotland at the end of the third week in January 1714 but appears to have journeyed south shortly after, arriving in London in time to take his seat at the opening on 16 February.<sup>19</sup> He took the oaths and attended the session for 89 per cent of sittings. Until he could find a house of his own he lodged with Dunmore. On 20 Feb. he informed his mother that ‘I had the honour of kissing her Majesty’s hands yesternight, and I bless God her Maj[esty] looked extremely well, a quickness in her eyes and a cheerfulness in her countenance; she comes on Tuesday next to the parliament’.<sup>20</sup> He was present in the Lords on 2 Mar., the day of the Queen’s speech, when he was named as one of the triers of petitions and on the standing committees for privileges and the Journal. Thereafter, he attended the House with special regularity during March and April, missing only five sittings during these months. On 9 Mar. he was named to the select committee to prepare an address to the queen to order enquiries into the publisher of <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>. In April he was named on the committee to draw up the address of thanks to the queen for her speech about the peace, and in May was forecast as likely to support the schism bill. He was subsequently included on four committees considering private bills before the end of the session on 9 July.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Midway through the session Dundonald was permitted to purchase from the now disgraced Argyll (for the sum of £10,000) the colonelcy of the 4th troop of Horse Guards.<sup>22</sup> At the time Dundonald was reputed to be a Jacobite Tory and a ‘professed Episcopalian’. This was presumably on the strength of his past connection with Hamilton and his present closeness to Dunmore, but his real political principles and preferences are not easy to discover.<sup>23</sup> As a young man he had been described by Scottish Jacobites as ‘loyal’, on the testimony of his ‘nearest relations’; while in Paris he had been approached by a Jacobite agent but seems not to have committed himself.<sup>24</sup> Such Jacobite sympathies may have been further underscored by a report of April 1714 that he was likely to marry again (his first wife having died four years previously), this time to the daughter of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>25</sup></p><p>When the Lords met following the queen’s death, on 1 Aug., he was again present, and he attended 80 per cent of sittings until Parliament was prorogued on 25 August. In spite of his reputed Jacobite sympathies, Dundonald remained in office after the accession of George I, not least because his financial health may not have been sound enough to sustain the loss of what was a very substantial investment in his army commission.<sup>26</sup> He seems to have considered that re-election to the Lords was a possibility, writing from London on 22 Jan. 1715 to his stepfather, now marquess of Tweeddale, that ‘I am sure it is not the king’s fault if I be not of the sixteen’.<sup>27</sup> At the same time he promised a vote in the election to Tweeddale’s Squadrone colleague, James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S].<sup>28</sup> Dundonald was not, in fact, chosen. However, he remained in London, where he remarried, and attended court as a lord-in-waiting to the prince of Wales.<sup>29</sup> Membership of the prince’s household brought political difficulties. In 1717 there was an unfounded report that he was to lose his regiment; and two years later, in the spring of 1719, he helped to organize the petition of Scottish peers against the peerage bill, for which he suffered the punishment of being ordered to dispose of his company.<sup>30</sup> He may well have felt strongly on this particular issue from a patriotic viewpoint, since his involvement was at odds with the position being taken by both Argyll and the Squadrone, though Argyll pinned the blame on his political opponents for Dundonald’s disgrace.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Dundonald died suddenly on 5 June 1720, leaving behind a reputation for piety and philanthropy, which he may have taken from his beloved first wife.<sup>32</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
COLYEAR, David (1657-1730) |
<p><strong><surname>COLYEAR</surname></strong>, <strong>David</strong> (1657–1730)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 June 1699 Ld. Portmore [S]; <em>cr. </em>13 Apr. 1703 earl of PORTMORE [S] |
RP [S] 1713 |
First sat 16 Feb. 1714; last sat 25 Aug. 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 1 Apr. 1657, 1st s. of Sir Alexander Colyear, bt., of Brabant, and Jean, da. of lt.-col. Walter Murray. <em>m</em>. (1) Arnolda de Beyer (<em>d</em>. bef. 1696) of Nijmegen, <em>s.p</em>.; (2) Aug. 1696, Catherine (<em>d</em>.1717), <em>suo jure</em> countess of Dorchester, da. of Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup>, 5th bt., of Southfleet, Kent, and Bloomsbury Sq., Westminster, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>suc</em>. fa. as 2nd bt. 1680; KT 1713. <em>d</em>. 2 Jan. 1730; <em>will</em> 4 Oct. 1728, pr. 26 Jan. 1730.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 20 Oct. 1712–1 Aug. 1714, 11 Nov. 1721–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Lt. 1675, maj. 1683, 3rd regt. in Scots brig. (59th in Dutch Army); lt.-col. 2nd regt. in Scots brig. (58th in Dutch Army) 1683; col. 6th regt. in Scots brig. (62nd regt. in Dutch Army) 1688-1703; 2nd Ft. 1703-10, R. North British Drags 1714-17; gov. Limerick 1691-2; brig.-gen. 1693, maj.-gen. 1696, lt.-gen. 1703; col., 2nd Ft. 1703-10; c.-in-c. Portugal 1710–12; gen. 1712; gov. Gibraltar 1713-?<em>d</em>.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir John Baptiste de Medina, c.1695, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 2842; oil on canvas by Sir Godfrey Kneller, formerly in collection of Francis Howard. <sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Colyear’s father and grandfather had both served in the Scots Brigade in the United Provinces, and he naturally followed in their footsteps into the Dutch service, serving as a lieutenant in his father’s regiment upon its foundation in 1675. He later became lieutenant-colonel for another Scots regiment in the United Provinces, seeing action on the continent throughout the Dutch wars against Louis XIV. The loss of his right eye, which was visible in contemporary portraits, occurred however as a result of a duel in 1687. He sailed for England with the prince of Orange and on the last day of 1688 was given command of one of the regiments that James II had previously raised in the early part of that year with officers from the regiments of the Scots Brigade. This regiment took a prominent part in the Irish campaigns, and after the conclusion of the siege of Limerick in 1691 Portmore in April 1703 was appointed as military governor of the city. Colyear’s regimental record during the remainder of the Nine Years’ War is not entirely clear, but it included active service, and in May 1696 he was promoted major-general. Later that year he married James II’s former mistress, Catherine Sedley, <em>suo jure</em> countess of Dorchester. Far from respectable, and sometimes perilously indiscreet, Lady Dorchester had come under suspicion of disloyalty in the early years of William’s reign, but enjoyed a substantial pension and property in Ireland by virtue of her relationship with the late king. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, for one, viewed Colyear’s choice of wife cynically. While allowing that Colyear ‘is one of the best foot officers in the world, is very brave and bold, hath a great deal of wit, [is] very much a man of honour and nice that way’, he noted that ‘yet [he] married the countess of Dorchester, and had by her a good estate’.<sup>5</sup> As Burnet suggested, Colyear’s matrimonial decision paid off for both parties: his loyalty to William III shielded his wife from criticism, and the estate he had acquired through her permitted social advancement. He was promoted major-general, was naturalized by an act of Parliament on 4 May 1699, and the following month was given a Scottish peerage and instructed by the king to take his seat in the Scottish Parliament, ‘where [his majesty] thinks you may do him service in this juncture’.<sup>6</sup> In the general election of November 1701 he stood for New Romney, previously the constituency of his late father-in-law Sir Charles Sedley<sup>‡</sup>. He campaigned on the Whig interest, or at least as a court supporter, but was beaten into third place by two Tories.<sup>7</sup></p><p>Following the death of William III, Portmore was re-commissioned as major-general, and after the outbreak of war in 1702 his regiment was involved in heavy fighting in Flanders, with considerable losses, and, more successfully, in the attack on Vigo Bay.<sup>8</sup> John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, proposed that he be sent as governor of Jamaica but the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, advised against this: ‘My Lord Portmore is an officer that the more he is known, the better he will be liked, so that the only apprehension I have against your thought of sending him to Jamaica, is that he may not like it. For I know he has set his heart upon being left governor of Cadiz’.<sup>9</sup> In the event, Portmore received neither post: instead, his reward was promotion both in his military rank, to lieutenant-general, and in his rank in the Scottish peerage, where he became earl of Portmore. It is possible that Marlborough’s proposal of the Jamaica governorship was partly motivated by malice, deriving from jealousy of his own position in the light of the success of the Vigo operation, for it soon became apparent that Portmore would have difficulties put in his way. Although stating his own preference to keep his regiment in England, he was first sent to Flanders, where his troops were again involved in action, and was then dispatched to Portugal to serve under Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg. <sup>10</sup> His concern was that in his absence there might be moves in Parliament against the royal grants previously bestowed on his wife. As he wrote to secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, ‘whilst I am forward to do the best I can abroad for the service of the nation, I am distracted with the apprehension of having my family ruined by a bill of resumption at home’.<sup>11</sup> Although these fears proved unfounded, Portmore continued to encounter frustrations. When Schomberg fell ill in 1704, the queen first considered Portmore as a replacement.<sup>12</sup> But, seemingly through Marlborough’s intervention, Portmore lost the Portuguese command to Henry de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I].<sup>13</sup> When he returned to England in August 1704 and waited on the queen to press his claims for promotion, he made no progress. <sup>14</sup> Besides Marlborough’s ill-will, there was hostility from James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S], who advised Godolphin ‘to think well of it’ before rushing to give Portmore a colonelcy in the Guards following the death of lieutenant-general George Ramsay.<sup>15</sup> Portmore remained an infantry colonel, and his regiment remained under Galway’s command in the Peninsula.</p><p>Three years later there was again evidence of friction between Portmore and Seafield in the aftermath of the first election of Scottish representative peers. Portmore was not present at the election at Edinburgh on 17 June 1708, but completed a proxy vote at Westminster which he sent to Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], to present on his behalf.<sup>16</sup> He favoured the candidates being put forward by Marchmont and the Squadrone in their tactical alliance with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], against the Scottish court interest of which Seafield was a member.<sup>17</sup> The regularity of the proxy was later challenged by Seafield, on the grounds that it ‘was informal, signed in England, not sealed or on stamped vellum’.<sup>18</sup> Marchmont dismissed this argument, observing that ‘there is no such things required by the acts of Parliament’.<sup>19</sup> Nonetheless, the matter was referred to the House by the coalition of Hamilton and the Squadrone who were challenging the election. The committee examining complaints decided on 29 Jan. in Portmore’s favour, resolving ‘that a proxy signed at Westminster before witnesses, but not sealed, nor on stamped parchment, was a good proxy’.</p><p>It is unadvisable to read too much into this temporary alliance between Portmore and the Squadrone (and through the Squadrone to the Whig Junto). The consistent element in his political position from 1702 onwards was his alienation from Marlborough, and by 1710 this had developed so far as to encompass Godolphin as well, who had previously spoken well of Portmore. In the summer of that year, when a replacement for Galway as commander of the army in Portugal had to be found, Godolphin, who now dismissed Portmore as ‘a fop’, tried to block his promotion by suggesting Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, for the post instead. Rivers, though, refused, leaving the way open for the queen to propose Portmore.<sup>20</sup> His appointment as commander-in-chief in Portugal was thus confirmed on 27 June 1710. Godolphin, who suspected that Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, had recommended Portmore, disapproved of the appointment, although he put on a brave face to Portmore himself. ‘I hope it is only in the command of the troops’, he wrote to Marlborough, ‘in which I hope he may do very well, because there is nothing to do. But as to any other matters, I look upon him to be entirely well finished.’<sup>21</sup> The political significance of this announcement was clear. Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), told his father on 8 July 1710 that ‘there will certainly be a new ministry and a new Parliament … Portmore goes for Portugal immediately which is all of a piece’.<sup>22</sup> In fact, Portmore’s departure was delayed by the ongoing political crisis and it was only on 20 Sept. that he took his leave.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Portmore completed a proxy vote for the ensuing election of Scottish representative peers, entrusting it to Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S].<sup>24</sup> Meanwhile he was pressing the court at Lisbon ‘to act with vigour against Spain’ to which end he would ‘view the condition and numbers of the troops in their quarters, and to get all things ready for their early taking the field in the spring’.<sup>25</sup> Whilst Portmore busied himself in animating the Portuguese army, the House began its enquiry into the conduct of the war in Spain, prompted by the recent defeat at Brihuega. It was well for him that papers presented to the House in the winter of 1710-11 made it clear that he had not been present at the disastrous allied defeat at Almanza in 1707.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Portmore’s wife continued to solicit further favours on his behalf. Hearing that George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], was to be made a general of foot, she wrote to Harley on 30 Apr. 1711, asking him to</p><blockquote><p>take the first opportunity to represent to her majesty that this would be giving away my lord’s rank, who is an older lieutenant general than Lord Orkney. A thing of that nature is seldom done to the meanest officer, much less to one of my lord’s post actually in the queen’s service. </p></blockquote><p>Harley was obviously keen to help, for he marked this letter as having been answered ‘immediately’. <sup>27</sup> Significantly, though, it was only after Marlborough’s replacement as captain-general in 1712 that Portmore was transferred to Flanders, to serve under Marlborough’s successor, James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond.<sup>28</sup> Further distinctions followed for Portmore: nomination to the Privy Council, admission into the Order of the Thistle, and in 1713 the governorship of Gibraltar.</p><p>Portmore’s connection with Oxford (as Harley became in May 1711) also opened the way for his entry into the House of Lords. In July 1713 Oxford’s son-in-law, George Hay*, styled Lord Dupplin (later Baron Hay [S]), included Portmore’s name in a list headed ‘peers pretending next elections’.<sup>29</sup> Many Scots peers were opposed to his candidacy, as they thought he was ‘not of their ancient race, and that he was born in Holland and never naturalized’, the latter of which was true as his act of naturalization had been passed by the English Parliament before the Union.<sup>30</sup> Nevertheless, probably because of his backing from Oxford and the court, he was successfully returned as a representative peer on 8 Oct. 1713, and a contemporary analysis of the views towards the succession of the incoming 16 marked him as a Hanoverian.</p><p>He first sat on 16 Feb. 1714, the first day of the new Parliament, and he went on to attend 72 per cent of the sitting days of this first session of Feb.-July 1714. His proxy with John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], was registered on 17 Apr. 1714, only for Portmore to resume attendance, thus vacating the proxy, three days later. Although he was absent on only three occasions between the first meeting of Parliament and the end of April 1714, Portmore was during this time more concerned with negotiating the purchase of the regiment of John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S]. The agent and middleman involved in these transactions assured Oxford that he should ‘applaud the earl of Portmore’s forwardness to part with such a sum in this juncture to show his zeal to her majesty’.<sup>31</sup> Portmore eventually secured command of the Royal North British Dragoons at a cost of £6,000 in early April 1714. This provoked an outcry but Oxford observed, regarding this and other changes in the military officer corps of the time, that ‘no one is put in but who is undoubtedly zealous for the House of Hanover’. <sup>32</sup></p><p>Once the purchase had been concluded Portmore continued to attend diligently and missed only five sittings in May. In early June Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast that Portmore would support the schism bill brought up from the Commons on 2 June 1714. The Journal’s attendance register suggests that he attended throughout proceedings on this bill. In a committee of the whole on 9 June two amendments were proposed to the bill, one in favour of exempting schoolmistresses from the scope of the bill and the other of allowing appeals to the justices of the peace. Reporting on these debates, George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> told his wife that Portmore was in favour of both of these amendments, against the wishes of Oxford and the ministry. Baillie further suggested that yet again there was a difference between Portmore and the 4th earl of Findlater [S] (as Seafield had become), as the latter ‘left’ Portmore and two other Scots peers by voting against the second amendment, after having voted with them on the first. <sup>33</sup> On about 11 June a petition from Dissenting ministers to be heard against the bill was brought before the House, but was ultimately rejected by a majority of 14. Robert Wodrow noted that Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, had been able to convince ten of the 16 representative peers to vote against the petition, while Portmore and his fellow military commander Orkney left the House before the division.<sup>34</sup> In the latter stages of the bill the Whigs tried to alter a clause in order to allow the Dissenting academies to teach Latin and Greek and Portmore was one of four Scots peers – again joined by Orkney - who voted, ultimately fruitlessly, in favour of this amendment.<sup>35</sup> Despite these indications of opposition to aspects of the bill, Portmore apparently did not feel the need to subscribe to the protest against the eventual passage of the schism bill on 15 June. After the death of the queen on 1 Aug. Portmore attended the House for its hurriedly convened session to oversee the accession of the elector of Hanover. He attended only five more sittings during the rest of the session of August 1714 – 40 per cent of the total sitting days – and sat in the House for the last time on 25 August. He was not elected as a representative peer in 1715 or subsequently.</p><p>As early as May 1711 Oxford had been made aware that Portmore had Jacobite connections, when it was reported that he had secured the rehabilitation of the exiled Jacobite laird of Strowan.<sup>36</sup> During the summer of 1715 Bolingbroke was emboldened to write to Portmore directly on the Pretender’s behalf and observed to James Francis Edward that Portmore ‘is an officer and worth securing’.<sup>37</sup> Portmore took no part in the 1715 Rebellion, yet he continued to flirt with Jacobitism, letting it be known to the Jacobite court (through third parties) that he was sympathetic, though without any firm commitment. In the spring of 1716 Mar was told that</p><blockquote><p>Lord Portmore has at several times declared his resolution … that, if any attempt be made in England, he will cheerfully come into it and bring a considerable sum into the field with him, and he maintained his having 30,000 l. ready for that purpose … Lord Portmore’s opinion was that 10,000 men in England would effectually do the work.<sup>38</sup></p></blockquote><p>Despite these assurances Portmore continued to avoid a decisive commitment, a reluctance which Mar attributed to the influence of Lady Dorchester, who ‘was consulted in all such matters by him’.<sup>39</sup> After her death in 1717 Portmore was reported as having decided to ‘come abroad to try his fortune’, possibly fearing that his dealings with the Jacobites would come to light.<sup>40</sup> The following year he did travel to Holland, where he made direct contact with a Jacobite emissary, to whom he spoke of his ‘discontents’, expressing ‘great contempt of both the Elector [George I] and his son’.<sup>41</sup> By 1721, when he was reappointed to the Privy Council, he was clearly back in favour with the Hanoverians and he remained as governor of Gibraltar until his death, although from 1720 his duties there were largely exercised by the able lieutenant-governor Richard Kane. Portmore did return to Gibraltar himself for a time in 1727–8, to assume command of the garrison in order to resist a threatened Spanish siege.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Portmore died at his house in Weybridge on 2 Jan. 1730, and was buried in St James’s church beside his wife, whose remains had been removed there the previous September from Bath, where she had died in 1717.<sup>43</sup> He reportedly left an estate of £50,000.<sup>44</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
DALRYMPLE, John (1673-1747) |
<p><strong><surname>DALRYMPLE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1673–1747)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1695-1703 Master of Stair; <em>styled </em>1703-07 Visct. Dalrymple; <em>suc. </em>fa. 8 Jan. 1707 as 2nd earl of STAIR [S] |
RP [S] 1707-8, 1715-34, 1744-<em>d</em>. |
First sat 10 Nov. 1707; last sat 6 Aug. 1746 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 20 July 1673, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John Dalrymple, earl of Stair [S], of Carscreugh Castle, Old Luce, Wigtown, Stair House, Stair, Ayr and Castle Kennedy and Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir John Dundas of Newliston, Linlithgow; bro. of Hon. William Dalrymple<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. private tutor 1682-5; Leiden Univ. 1685, 1692; Edinburgh Univ. 1688/90; travelled abroad 1701-2. <em>m</em>. 1 Mar. 1708, Eleanor, da. of James Campbell, 2nd earl of Loudoun [S], sis. of Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun, and wid. of James, 1st Visct. Primrose [S], bro. of Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], <em>s.p</em>. KT 25 Mar. 1710; kt. banneret 1743. <em>d.</em> 9 May 1747; <em>will</em> pr. 1747.</p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber to Geo. I, 1714-27; PC 1714.</p><p>Commr. supply, Ayr and Wigtown 1695, 1704; burgess, Edinburgh 1710.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Vol., 26 Ft. (Cameronians) 1692; lt.-col. Scots Ft. Gds. 1702; a.d.c. to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, 1703; col. Scots coy. Ft. (Dutch service) 1703-6,<sup>2</sup> 26 Ft. 1706, 2 Drags. (Scots Greys) 1706-14, 1745-<em>d</em>., 6 Drags. (Inniskilling) 1715-34, 1743-5; brig.-gen. 1706, maj.-gen. 1709, lt.-gen. 1710, gen. 1712, field marshal 1742; lt.-gen. ft. [S], 1714, v. adm. [S] 1729-33; c.-in-c. Flanders 1742, S. Britain 1744-5; gov. Minorca 1742; gen. Marines 1746-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Envoy extraordinary Poland 1709-10, France 1714-1715; amb. extraordinary, France 1715-20, United Provinces 1742-3.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, by school of G. Kneller, Govt. Art. Coll.; oil on canvas, by W. Aikman, c.1727, Glasgow Museums; oil on canvas by A. Ramsay, oils, c.1742 Newhailes, National Trust for Scotland.</p> |
<p>At the age of nine Dalrymple killed his elder brother in a shooting accident at the family home. He was pardoned under the Great Seal but his broken-hearted parents sent him away, first to a private tutor, and then to his grandfather Sir James Dalrymple, living in exile in the Low Countries, where Dalrymple studied for a time at the University of Leiden and came to the attention of the prince of Orange. He returned to Scotland after the Revolution, when his father and grandfather were appointed to high office in the Williamite government in Scotland. While there may have been some pressure to follow in the family tradition of the law, his own inclinations were more adventurous. After enrolling for the second time at Leiden in January 1692, he abandoned his studies, and instead served an unofficial apprenticeship in the army and in the diplomatic service.<sup>3</sup> He was at Steenkirk in 1692 as a volunteer with the Cameronian regiment and later travelled to Vienna with the embassy (1694-7) of Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton.<sup>4</sup> In 1702 he was given a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the Scots Foot Guards and again went on campaign in the Netherlands as a volunteer.<sup>5</sup> He was present at the storming of Venlo (where he is said to have saved the life of Prince Friedrich of Hessen-Kassel, the future King Fredrik 1 of Sweden). His exploits caught the eye of the duke of Marlborough, who, having chosen Dalrymple, now styled Viscount Dalrymple, as his aide-de-camp in 1703, used his influence with Grand Pensionary Heinsius to secure him command of a regiment in the Dutch service.<sup>6</sup></p><p>Under Marlborough’s careful guidance, Dalrymple enjoyed a distinguished military career. He was present at all Marlborough’s great victories, from Blenheim onwards. Early in 1706 Marlborough helped him exchange his command in the Dutch service for the colonelcy of the Cameronians, and in the summer of 1706, after Dalrymple had commanded an infantry brigade at Ramillies, he moved to become colonel of the Scots Greys and was advanced to the rank of brigadier-general, preferments which also had the advantage of cementing the earl of Stair’s loyalty in the ongoing union negotiations.<sup>7</sup></p><p>After his father’s sudden and unexpected death, Dalrymple took his seat in the Scottish Parliament on 21 Jan. 1707, and joined the rest of his family in the ranks of the Scottish court party headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. He certainly shared his father’s enthusiasm for Union, and had even now conceived the idea that he ought to be rewarded for his family’s several generations of service to the crown with the grant of a British peerage.<sup>8</sup> Through Queensberry’s influence he was chosen in February as one of the first cohort of representative peers sent to the united Parliament, ‘both upon his own account and his father’s’. In an assessment of 1707 by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘sicut [i.e. just as] Queensberry or Argyll [John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] and earl of Greenwich]’, and it was noted that of members of the Commons, William Dalrymple<sup>‡</sup> ‘will be much influenced by’ him, and that Alexander Abercrombie<sup>‡</sup> might be influenced by him or by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]. He took his place in the Lords on 10 Nov. 1707 on the same day that Marlborough also resumed his seat.<sup>9</sup> On 7 Feb. 1708 he signed a protest against the passage of the bill improving the Union, which disapproving of the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council in May rather than October and the introduction into Scotland of the English system of justices of the peace, which was seen as a violation of the Treaty of Union. In all, he attended on 65 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total. On a printed list from about May 1708 of the first Parliament of Great Britain, he was classed as a Whig.</p><p>Stair remained in the House a week longer than Marlborough, until the last day of the session on 1 Apr. 1708, after which he went immediately to rejoin the army and in consequence was unable to attend the peers’ election in Edinburgh, for which he was included again on the court list. He entrusted his proxy to his brother-in-law, Loudoun, who duly cast it for the court candidates.<sup>10</sup> Since Marlborough was eligible to vote, by virtue of his Scottish barony of Eyemouth, Stair also forwarded the duke’s proxy (naming Stair as one of his preferred candidates) to Queensberry’s close ally John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S].<sup>11</sup> Despite all this influential support, Stair was not elected, being one of several Queensberryites ousted by the electoral alliance of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and the Squadrone Volante, which was supported by the Whig Junto in London, and especially by the Whig secretary of state, Marlborough’s son-in-law, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland. It was reported that ‘many are very angry at young Lord Stair being out’: some criticized his own family; others pointed a finger at those court party candidates who had been returned, like Lord Rosebery. In fact, what seems to have happened is that Stair lost because he could not obtain a sufficient number of court proxies, which were allocated by the candidates throwing dice for them at Queensberry House in Edinburgh. In Stair’s case the dice were thrown for him by another member of his family, whose luck was out while Rosebery’s was in.<sup>12</sup> In giving Marlborough news of the election, Mar was apologetic, blaming Sunderland: ‘Though we have the greatest part, yet I am sorry more of them did not carry, and particularly my Lord Stair.’<sup>13</sup></p><p>After the victory at Oudenarde in July 1708, Marlborough sent Stair to carry an account of the battle to the queen (a task for which he subsequently received a gratuity of £1,000).<sup>14</sup> He arrived at Windsor on 5 July, taking the opportunity to renew his request for an English peerage as compensation for his failure to secure a place as one of the representative peers. This request was strongly supported by Marlborough, who was also determined to make amends for Stair’s disappointment (his own annoyance aggravated by Sunderland’s involvement). However the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, did not share Marlborough’s urgency. He was more concerned at the threatened opposition to Queensberry’s British peerage, and ‘endeavoured to satisfy my Lord Stair that it would not be advisable for himself, nor for the queen, to press it at this time.’<sup>15</sup> Stair had to be content with an assurance from the queen ‘that as soon as it is convenient for my affairs, I will do for him what he desires’.<sup>16</sup> This, and a promise that he would be promoted to major-general, was evidently enough to make Stair ‘happy’.<sup>17</sup> It did not satisfy Marlborough, who wrote from The Hague in January 1709 to remind Godolphin</p><blockquote><p>of the good opinion and friendship I have for Lord Stair, so that I do make it my request to her Majesty, that if her affairs can permit it, that she would be pleased, as she promised, to make him an English peer; and I will be answerable the queen shall always find him a grateful and dutiful subject. I beg you will make this easy, so that he may have the pleasure of serving this session.<sup>18</sup></p></blockquote><p>On 21 Jan., however, the Lords made a ruling that Queensbury, having been made the British duke of Dover in May 1708, was ineligible to cast his vote in the election of Scottish representative peers, a decision which for the time being put an end to Stair’s pretensions. </p><p>Stair was compensated at the end of the year when he was named as the queen’s envoy extraordinary to the king of Poland. He conferred in advance with the Dutch, who were also sending an envoy of their own, and he and his Dutch colleague were able to ensure that the Polish king did nothing to encourage Sweden to attack the Emperor’s German territories, and thus create a strategic diversion in order to assist the French. Stair was also successful in persuading the Polish king, who was also elector of Saxony, to allow two battalions of Saxon troops to join the allied forces.<sup>19</sup> His immediate reward, obtained through Marlborough’s influence, was nomination to the vacancy in the Order of the Thistle in March 1710, though he seems to have been kept waiting to be reimbursed for his expenses in Poland.<sup>20</sup> Impressed with his intelligence and diplomatic skills, Marlborough decided that Stair should be sent to England to find out whether it was likely that Parliament would be dissolved. When the dissolution occurred, on 21 Sept., Stair immediately advised Marlborough that ‘your Grace’s presence here will be very necessary to calm things before the sitting down of Parliament. The delay of dissolving Parliament has been a great disadvantage to the new party. The Whigs have recovered themselves and are united and bold.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>Before the election of 10 Nov. 1710 Mar urged Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to do something to gratify Stair, but nothing was forthcoming, and it was assumed that, with the rest of his family, he would use his influence against the new Tory ministry. Stair made strenuous efforts to secure his own return as a representative peer but, despite reaching a private agreement with the Squadrone Volante, was unable to secure a seat.<sup>22</sup> In the event he neither attended the election in person nor left a proxy.<sup>23</sup> Evidently he was one of a number of friends of the late ministry whom the Tories insisted on black-listing, and Mar could not get Stair included on the list he had agreed with Hamilton and Argyll.<sup>24</sup> Nonetheless, Daniel Defoe considered that Stair was one of the few men whom all sides in Scotland might still trust: there was only one possible objection against him, ‘his late engagement with the Squadrone.’<sup>25</sup> Electoral disappointment was followed by a further revival of his request for a British peerage. On 17 May 1711 he wrote to Mar to remind him of the queen’s promise, adding,</p><blockquote><p>I think I can never apply myself to a man who can better judge of the service my father and his friends did in the matter of the Union than to yourself. I hope the friendship which was between you and him won’t make you averse to the having this mark of honour and distinction put upon his family. In my profession and as far as it lay in my way I have ever been zealous for the queen’s service, without running at any time into the violence of parties. If the queen makes any peers at this time I shall think myself very happy to have your favour and protection. You shall find me more sensible of an obligation than people that are apter to make great professions.<sup>26</sup></p></blockquote><p>In a second letter he tried to explain his political stance. </p><blockquote><p>Now my lord, I must beg your good offices with this great man, if he thinks fit to do me any good, I have nothing that hinders me to be his humble servant and to make him the best returns I can. Last year I thought myself obliged not to meddle in the change, though I had no connection of any kind with the Junto, yet I was in friendship and had obligations to people who opposed the alterations. I was not clear-sighted enough to see that they could be made without some danger to the public, but <em>sic stantibus</em>, for the very same goodwill I have to my country, I should be sorry to see any considerable alteration in the ministry now, and if I can be protected I shall be very glad to give my small assistance to the supporting of it.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>Mar passed the letter to Harley, but nothing transpired. Stair was then able to speak directly to Harley (now lord treasurer and earl of Oxford), when he was sent to England in the summer by Marlborough to try to improve relations with Oxford. Stair brought ‘a project relating to the public service and the carrying on of the war, which cannot be concerted in writing, there being often things which may be found necessary to be altered and many points require to be explained.’<sup>28</sup> He had three meetings with Oxford in July but he had nothing to tell Marlborough when he wrote on 24 July because, he said, Oxford ‘intends to write himself’.<sup>29</sup> Stair remained in England until September while Oxford and Marlborough exchanged letters. He used the opportunity to make the case for a new diplomatic posting, alleging that he was still out of pocket from his Polish embassy.<sup>30</sup> His return to the continent was delayed, but he finally reached Marlborough’s camp by mid-September carrying Oxford’s response.<sup>31</sup> Although Oxford had expressed approval of Marlborough’s project, the French had opened peace negotiations, and the project had therefore come to nothing.<sup>32</sup> Stair told Oxford that he had believed that together Oxford and Marlborough could have saved the country, but now he was convinced ‘that you will find it a very hard task. I wish you good success with all my heart. I shall think myself happy enough in my share in the public good fortune, without proposing or pretending any other advantage to myself.’<sup>33</sup> In later years he would claim that after all his attempts to negotiate with Oxford, ‘in the end, I was allowed to go back to the siege of Bouchain with a bamboozling letter ... to the duke of Marlborough’.<sup>34</sup> After Marlborough’s dismissal in December 1711 Stair kept a healthy distance between himself and Oxford, and did not renew his requests. Little is known of his political position in these years, except that in 1713 he seems to have supported Scottish resistance to the malt tax, publicly endorsing the motion in June 1713 for the dissolution of the Union.<sup>35</sup> At the same time he continued to petition the treasury for arrears of army pay.<sup>36</sup> Eventually, in 1714 he was forced to sell his regiment to David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S], but at least received £6,000 for it, a sum of money of which he was said to have great need.<sup>37</sup> Indeed, he was said to have ‘played and lived at such a rate that he will be quite undone if he is turned out’.<sup>38</sup></p><p>It was not until after the Hanoverian Succession that Stair’s talents would be put to use again by government. In October 1714 he was named to the Privy Council and given a post in the new king’s household, and after re-election as a representative peer in 1715 returned to the diplomatic service with a plum posting to Paris. His parliamentary and official career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the second part of this work.</p><p>He died at Queensberry House on 9 May 1747.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
DOUGLAS, Charles (1663-1739) |
<p><strong><surname>DOUGLAS</surname></strong> (<em>formerly</em> <strong>HAMILTON</strong>), <strong>Charles</strong> (1663–1739)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 6 Oct. 1688 as 2nd earl of SELKIRK [S] (title regranted by charter of novodamus) |
RP [S] 1713, 1722, 1727, 1734 |
First sat 12 Jan. 1714; last sat 9 Feb. 1739 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 3 Feb. 1663, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of William Hamilton (formerly Douglas) (<em>d</em>.1694), 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], and Anne (<em>d</em>.1716), da. of James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton [S] and <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Hamilton [S]; bro. of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], and Ld. Archibald Hamilton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad, France 1682-4. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 13 Mar. 1739; <em>will</em> 4 May 1734, pr. 27 June 1739.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1689-1702, 1714-<em>d</em>.; PC [S] 1696-1702, 1704-?5;<sup>2</sup> ld. clerk reg. [S] 1696-1702, 1733-<em>d</em>.; ld. of treasury [S] 1704-5; PC 1 Nov. 1733-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Amb. extraordinary Denmark 1691, 1699.</p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1693; sheriff principal, Lanark 1694-<em>d</em>.; gov. Edinburgh castle 1737–8.</p><p>Col. 6th regt. of horse Nov.-Dec. 1688.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1700, Lennoxlove, Haddington, E. Lothian.</p> |
<p>Like his siblings, Lord Charles Hamilton was initially given the surname of his mother, Anne Hamilton, <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Hamilton, rather than that of his father, William Douglas, earl of Selkirk, who changed his surname to Hamilton as part of the marriage settlement of 1656. On 20 Sept. 1660, upon the request of the duchess, Charles II created Selkirk duke of Hamilton for life, the title to be held coterminously with his wife. On 6 Oct. 1688, when their second surviving son, Lord Charles Hamilton, was 25 years old, his father resigned to him, by charter of <em>novodamus</em>, his own earldom of Selkirk, and Charles then adopted his father’s old surname of Douglas for himself.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Selkirk had connections with James II’s court, and had received a grant of money from the royal purse in 1687. At the time of William of Orange’s invasion, only a few weeks after receiving his title, Selkirk briefly served as colonel of the regiment of horse raised in 1685 by his elder brother James then styled earl of Arran [S], as Arran himself was moved on to command the Royal Horse Guards. Yet unlike his brother, Selkirk quickly proved himself a firm supporter of the Revolution.<sup>5</sup> He was appointed a gentleman of the bedchamber to William III in 1689, at a salary of £1,000.<sup>6</sup> Over the following few years he sedulously attended William at court in England, on campaign in Ireland, and in his journeys to the continent. <sup>7</sup> In 1691 he was employed by William as his envoy to take a message of condolence to Christian V of Denmark.<sup>8</sup> In about 1693 his father Hamilton made his future more secure by settling on him the lands of Crawford Douglas and Crawford John in Lanarkshire.<sup>9</sup> However, through all his travels with his royal master on the battlefield, Selkirk never enjoyed a military appointment and Hamilton, then acting as William III’s principal agent in Scotland, felt the need to ask the king that his favoured son be given command of a troop of guards.<sup>10</sup> Instead, in 1696 Selkirk was appointed lord clerk register in Scotland, as part of the reconstruction of the Scottish ministry which brought into power the triumvirate of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], Archibald Campbell, duke of Argyll [S], and John Murray, marquess of Atholl [S]. Fortunately Selkirk was able to employ a deputy to discharge his duties, so that he was able to remain in the king’s entourage.<sup>11</sup> In 1699 he was sent to Denmark again on another mission. This prompted a correspondent of William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], to observe maliciously that the king, having</p><blockquote><p>tried to make Earl Selkirk, your cousin, a soldier, and a courtier, and a comrade, and a statesman, and that he finds omnipotency was only able to do these things, he now is to try how he is qualified to be an ambassador. He is to go to Denmark and Sweden. The jests that pass on this occasion cannot be written; they lose their edge in writing. But the misery is there is not so much as one to his advantage.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>With one short-lived deviation, Selkirk followed the political line set by his elder brother Arran, who became 4th duke of Hamilton, upon their mother’s resignation of the title, in 1698.<sup>13</sup> Although he was identified in 1702 as a member of the Scottish court party, Selkirk seceded from Parliament in that year with Hamilton and other members of the country party in protest at the failure to call a new election. In this he gambled his office of lord clerk register, and lost. He was quickly removed, and lost his place on the Scottish Privy Council at the same time, by the queen’s direct order.<sup>14</sup> Selkirk responded by taking an active part in the Scottish general election of that year on behalf of the country party alliance headed by his brother, and made it his particular concern to try and enlist ministers and other representatives of the Presbyterian interest.<sup>15</sup> For some time he remained bitterly opposed to the ministry.<sup>16</sup> Two years in the wilderness were sufficient, however. In 1704, having deserted Hamilton in the vote in July on the Act of Security, an action which caused a temporary rift between the brothers, Selkirk joined the ‘New Party’ administration as a lord of the treasury.<sup>17</sup> None the less, family loyalties remained potent, and he was reported in December as resisting any attempt by his ministerial colleagues to come to terms with Queensberry, whose hostility to the Hamilton family he feared, alleging that Queensberry ‘desired nothing so much as to brue his hands in their blood’.<sup>18</sup> By the time the New Party experiment came to an end, in 1705, Selkirk had already rebuilt bridges with Hamilton, who welcomed him back as a ‘returning prodigal’.<sup>19</sup> He was turned out of office again when the Parliament met in June 1705, having been specified by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll as one of those to whom particular exception was to be taken, and was left feeling highly dissatisfied.<sup>20</sup> In consequence he reverted to opposition, and in the Union Parliament voted against the treaty, having solicited Presbyterian interests to oppose it.<sup>21</sup> For some reason George Lockhart<sup>‡ </sup>of Carnwath later condemned him for voting in favour of the Union, as an ‘impudent wretch’ who had betrayed his country. <sup>22</sup> At the time of the Union he was owed over £900 in arrears from the Scottish treasury; it is not clear that this was ever paid.<sup>23</sup></p><p>In the 1708 general election Selkirk made efforts to assist his younger brother, Lord Archibald Hamilton, to be returned for Lanarkshire against the rival candidate George Lockhart.<sup>24</sup> He was also active among the peers who, on Hamilton’s behalf, lobbied for the Squadrone slate of candidates for Scottish representative peers, which had been promoted by the Whig Junto. Hamilton sent Selkirk and their other brother Orkney, to visit their brother-in-law John Murray*, duke of Atholl, and John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane [S], both under arrest for their alleged involvement in that spring’s Jacobite uprising, in order to persuade them to turn to the Whigs for their release. After the Hamilton brothers’ return to Edinburgh on 12 June, Selkirk was able to write to Breadalbane that Atholl had promised Orkney his proxy.<sup>25</sup> Selkirk himself was not on the Hamilton-Squadrone ticket, sacrificing his place to ensure success for the other candidates. James Graham*, duke of Montrose, commented to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, that Selkirk and three others were among ‘some of our best friends [who] did most generously drop themselves for the public interest’. Selkirk was however at Edinburgh for the election on 17 June, when he voted for the complete slate of other Squadrone members.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Selkirk was himself in the English capital for most of the session of 1708-9 and kept in close contact with his brothers in Parliament: Lord Archibald in the Commons and Hamilton and Orkney in the House.<sup>27</sup> By the winter of 1709 Selkirk, now back in Scotland, had become disillusioned with the Junto, as his brothers Orkney and Archibald failed to receive the military patronage and preferment they had expected and he felt they deserved.<sup>28</sup> Perhaps as a result he did not attend the peers’ election on 16 Nov. 1710, despite his vote having been earnestly solicited by the unsuccessful Squadrone candidate Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] and the government slate having been organized in large part by his brother Hamilton.<sup>29</sup> He was even reluctant to ‘meddle’ in the election of James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], to replace the deceased William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal, in August 1712. <sup>30</sup> Likewise he was absent later in November of that year when James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S], was chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Hamilton during a duel with Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.</p><p>With his eight-year-old nephew succeeding to the Hamilton dukedom, Selkirk was obliged to take more responsibility for the family’s business. In February 1713 he went to France to press their claim to the pension granted in 1549 to their ancestor James, 2nd earl of Arran [S], when he was created duke of Châtelherault in the French peerage.<sup>31</sup> He was encouraged in this by the 22nd article of the Treaty of Utrecht which promised ‘justice to be done to the family of Hamilton, concerning the dukedom of Châtelherault’. To pursue this claim, Selkirk stayed in Paris for eight months, and in June was part of the retinue accompanying Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, to present his credentials to Louis XIV as Anne’s ambassador extraordinary.<sup>32</sup> In his struggles with the French administration Selkirk evidently received some help from the lord treasurer, Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, who furnished him with a letter of recommendation to the French court, full of praise for Selkirk’s illustrious family. On 22 July, however, Selkirk wrote at length to the lord treasurer with a long tale of the obstructions he was finding at Versailles, and asked Oxford ‘to finish what your Lordship has brought to so great a length as the affair of Chastelherault’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In preparation for the autumn elections in Scotland Selkirk wrote from Paris with detailed instructions, doing all he could to advance the interests of his family and to heal potential rifts between Orkney and their sister-in-law, Hamilton’s widow, who were backing rival candidates.<sup>34</sup> The protracted negotiations at the French court meant there was some doubt whether he would attend the representative peers’ election at Edinburgh. He arrived in London at the end of September 1713, and having waited on the queen, set out immediately for Scotland.<sup>35</sup> On 6 Oct. John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], informed Oxford that ‘Lord Selkirk has made more haste than people thought he could possibly have done; he arrived here two nights ago’.<sup>36</sup> Two days later Selkirk was chosen a representative peer. <sup>37</sup> His election was confirmed in the House on 12 Nov. 1713, the first sitting after the elections, before Parliament was prorogued that day. Alexander Hume-Campbell<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Polwarth (later 2nd earl of Marchmont), informed his contacts in Hanover in early 1714 that Selkirk was a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. Selkirk, however, attended for only one day of the 1713 Parliament, on 12 Jan. 1714, when Parliament was quickly prorogued. By the time it reassembled in February he had returned to France to continue his pursuit of the family’s debt, and he did not attend again in this Parliament. In June 1714 Orkney was informed that Selkirk would shortly be returning from France.<sup>38</sup> The following month Selkirk agreed to compensation from the French of 500,000 livres, but this sum was never paid.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Despite his scant attendance in the House during Anne’s last parliament, Selkirk remained involved in parliamentary politics after the accession of George I. As early as September 1714 he was discussing with his mother, the old duchess of Hamilton, prospects for the elections in Lanarkshire.<sup>40</sup> He himself was not, however, re-elected in 1715. Under the new king Selkirk was reappointed to a post in the household, as a gentleman of the bedchamber, and eventually resumed his place as a representative peer in 1722.<sup>41</sup> His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next volumes of this work. Selkirk died in London on 13 Mar. 1739, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. At the time of his death his very considerable estate was valued at £100,000.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
ELPHINSTONE, John (1652-1736) |
<p><strong><surname>ELPHINSTONE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1652–1736)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1652-1704 Master of Balmerino (Balmerinoch); <em>suc. </em>fa. 10 June 1704 as 4th Ld. BALMERINO [S] and 3rd Ld. Coupar [S] |
RP [S] 1710, 1713 |
First sat 27 Nov. 1710; last sat 25 Aug. 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 26 Dec. 1652, o. s. of John Elphinstone, 3rd Ld. Balmerino [S], and Margaret, da. of John Campbell, earl of Loudoun [S]. <em>m</em>. (1) 16 Feb. 1672, Christian (<em>d</em>. bef. 7 June 1687), da. of Hugh Montgomerie, 7th earl of Eglinton [S], 3s. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da.; (2) 12 June 1687,<sup>1</sup> Ann (<em>d</em>.1712), da. of Arthur Ross, abp. of St Andrews, 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 1da. <em>d</em>. 13 May 1736.</p> |
<p>PC [S] 1687-9; gen. of the Mint [S] 1710–12; commr. chamberlainry and trade [S] 1711–14.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Sheriff, Midlothian 1710-14.<sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>From the the late sixteenth century the Elphinstones were a family of prominent lawyers and government officials, with a strong Presbyterian background and a penchant for getting themselves into trouble. The first holder of the title, James Elphinstone, was sentenced to be executed–the sentence was not carried out–for (reputedly) forging a letter from James VI of Scotland to the Pope. His son the 2nd Lord Balmerino was likewise sentenced to death (again not carried out) in 1634 as a result of his opposition to the religious policies of Charles I. He later served as lord high commissioner of the Scottish parliament in 1641 and an extraordinary lord of session from 1641 to 1649. This ancestor’s political activities on behalf of the Covenanters had run the family so far into debt that his son the 3rd Lord Balmerino was forced to sell most of the estate. In these embarrassed circumstances the young Master of Balmerino, as the 3rd Lord’s heir John was styled, continued in the traditional family profession of the law, although unfortunately for a man who was so revered by his contemporaries for his legal knowledge, it has been impossible to determine exactly where he acquired his education. He was briefly a Scottish privy councillor under James VII, but his opposition to the claim of William of Orange to the throne quickly ensured his dismissal from that post and marked his break from family tradition, for he was consistently throughout his career to act as a committed Episcopalian and Stuart loyalist.</p><p>Elphinstone inherited his title as 4th Lord upon his father’s death on 10 June 1704 and shortly afterwards took his seat in the Scottish parliament, having, according to George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> of Carnwath, been ‘persuaded to it, merely to give his assistance to prevent the court’s designs of settling the succession of the crown in the family of Hanover’. Indeed, he was one of the few Scottish politicians to win the unalloyed admiration of Lockhart, who praised the constancy of his patriotism and his loyalty to the exiled Stuarts. According to Lockhart, he was ‘a man of excellent parts, improved by great reading, being perhaps one of the best lawyers in the kingdom and very expert in the knowledge of the Scots constitution’. <sup>4</sup></p><h2><em>The Union and its aftermath, 1704-10</em></h2><p>From his first appearance in the Scottish parliament Balmerino was opposed both to the Hanoverian succession and to a union with England. He was in regular contact with Jacobite agents, who regarded him as one of the Pretender’s ‘principal friends in Scotland’ and as ‘a very bold, loyal man, and of good parts, is very significant in Parliament, and always with the country party’.<sup>5</sup> Despite the fervent entreaties of his cousin, Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], on behalf of the Scottish court party, he could not be persuaded to support the Union. When the Scottish parliament was considering the treaty, he maintained a dogged opposition, often acting with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to disrupt proceedings.<sup>6</sup> Resistance to the increasing pressure for union brought him some diverse colleagues, not only Hamilton himself, with whom the cavaliers co-operated warily, but also Episcopalians such as John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], and William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], as well as the ardent Presbyterian patriot Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, whom Balmerino joined in defending Scottish constitutional rights. <sup>7</sup> He joined Atholl, Hamilton, Fletcher of Saltoun and William Livingston*, 3rd Viscount Kilsyth [S], in justifying the anti-union disturbances in Edinburgh in October 1706 as representing the ‘true spirit of the country’.<sup>8</sup> In late December 1706 he attended a meeting convened by Hamilton which agreed ‘to proceed to a national address to her majesty against an incorporating union’, and took up the cause of Presbyterians who, it was feared, would be forced after the Union to take a sacramental test to qualify for office. <sup>9</sup> The irony of Balmerino’s stance was acknowledged as ‘a perfect comedy to see … Balmerino etc. whose hearts loathe at the sight of a Presbyterian, using all their rhetoric in favour of … true blue Presbyterians’.<sup>10</sup> But he also argued unsuccessfully that the test ‘should be taken off all Scotsmen and they have free access to places of trust in Britain without prostituting their consciences and acting contrary to their religion’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>In March 1708 Balmerino was arrested and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle on suspicion of complicity in the unsuccessful attempt to raise a rebellion in Scotland, after a footman belonging to Atholl had been intercepted with a packet of incriminating letters addressed to Balmerino and others.<sup>12</sup> However, owing to his willingness to assist the Scottish court party in the forthcoming peers’ election, he was not conveyed to London as a prisoner. David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], assured John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], that Balmerino and George Gordon, earl of Aberdeen [S], ‘have been very friendly and have acted a good part … every person is convinced that neither of those lords is in the least … guilty of any bad practices against the government.’ He successfully urged Mar to effect Balmerino’s bail and release from confinement, for ‘if we cannot serve them they have no great reason to serve us’. <sup>13</sup> Balmerino was also contacted by Hamilton and his new allies the Squadrone, who offered to put him in their combined election list, but he would have nothing to do with the Squadrone and turned the offer down, expressing surprise that Hamilton had stooped to such opportunism as allying himself with that group.<sup>14</sup> He qualified himself and attended the election of 17 June 1708 in person, where he was included among the court nominations, but did not secure a seat, receiving only 42 votes. His own choice of representative peers contained all the court’s principal candidates.<sup>15</sup></p><p>In the run-up to the election of November 1710, after considering ‘some of the particulars to be adjusted in relation to the elections in Scotland’, Mar recommended to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, that Balmerino be appointed general of the Scottish Mint, with an annual salary of £300, ‘and the sooner he now get it the better. He is a man can be very useful in the elections and will be chosen himself, and his getting this will save a pretty considerable pension the queen designed him’.<sup>16</sup> Balmerino’s support was also sought by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), who had not yet shrugged off his allegiance to the outgoing ministry, and hoped to secure an army commission for one of Balmerino’s sons to bring him over.<sup>17</sup> Hamilton too was courting him. Balmerino recounted that the duke ‘swore if I would come into his list he should answer for it upon his life that I should carry it’. However, office in the Mint carried more weight, and Balmerino was included in the court list at the election and comfortably elected.<sup>18</sup> In the list of the new representative peers annotated by Richard Dongworth, the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Balmerino was described as an ‘Episcopal Tory’, with an income estimated of only £1,000 p.a., making him the poorest of the peers elected to that Parliament. <sup>19</sup></p><h2><em>Representative peer, 1710-13</em></h2><p>Balmerino’s parliamentary career over the two Parliaments of 1710 and 1713 is documented in copious detail in his frequent letters to his friend in Scotland, the Jacobite scholar Henry Maule.<sup>20</sup> He first took his seat in the House on 27 Nov. 1710, the second day of the new Parliament. In his first session of 1710-11, of whose sittings he attended 84 per cent, he made important new acquaintances and alliances. Prominent among his English colleagues were William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, to whom he had been recommended (by James Greenshields) as ‘truly Episcopal’, and the Tory grandee Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, for whom he quickly conceived an exaggerated admiration–‘in my opinion the finest gentleman that ever I knew; so much probity and firmness’.<sup>21</sup> Less exalted among his English acquaintances were William Ferdinand Carey*, 8th Baron Hunsdon (by origins a Dutchman), and Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville). Ossulston’s social diary and Balmerino’s own letters to Maule suggest that Balmerino’s most frequent social and convivial companions were fellow Scots, largely Episcopal Tories, and many with strong Jacobite leanings, such as Marischal, Kilsyth, and William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S].<sup>22</sup> On 12 Apr. 1711 Balmerino ended a letter to Henry Maule by adding, ‘When this is sealed I am going to take a turn in the Mall and after that to meet Annandale and Marischal at the British Coffee House; the truth is I have been too long sober’. He was able to report on 19 May 1711 that the previous evening he had dined in a tavern with his friends Hamilton, Kilsyth and Marischal, while on 26 Jan. 1712 he wrote how he dined at Pontack’s with Annandale, Ossulston, Hunsdon, Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], and Henry Herbert*, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Balmerino certainly acted as an Episcopal Tory in the House. Warned in late 1710 that there would soon be ‘warm work on the affairs of Spain’, on 9 and 12 Jan. 1711 he voted to censure the previous Whig ministers over the conduct of the war in Spain, and to vindicate the damning account of the councils of war held there submitted by Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough.<sup>24</sup> On 5 Feb. 1711 he and his friends Annandale, Marischal and Kilsyth, along with his nephew (by his first wife) Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton, were the five Scottish peers who subscribed to the dissent from the House’s rejection of the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act. Most notably Balmerino threw himself whole-heartedly into the cause of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields who had been sentenced by the Edinburgh magistrates to imprisonment for using the liturgy of the Church of England. From early December 1710 Balmerino and Eglinton (both dubbed ‘truly Episcopal’ by Greenshields) were consulting with bishop Nicolson of Carlisle and Arthur Annesley*, 5th earl of Anglesey, among others, about preparing Greenshield’s case.<sup>25</sup> Greenshield’s appeal came before the House on 1 Mar. 1711, when Balmerino argued</p><blockquote><p>violently against the sentence of the magistrates and lords of session, and said that learned bench had suffered in this case their affection to overcome their reason, and asserted that the supremacy was not taken away in Scotland, and that he knew that since the Revolution things ecclesiastical had been cognised by the Privy Council. <sup>26</sup></p></blockquote><p>The House rejected a delaying motion to adjourn and voted to reverse the sentence. Triumphant, Balmerino then wrote to the bishop of Edinburgh Alexander Rose, the most senior bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church at that time (after the earlier death of Balmerino’s own father-in-law archbishop Arthur Rose in 1704) to tell him that leading English Tories were intent on sending Greenshields back to Edinburgh. This was the last thing Rose wanted, fearing that the minister’s presence would prejudice the Episcopal Church by stirring up public hostility.<sup>27</sup> Balmerino conveyed to Harley the archbishop’s view that the arrival of Greenshields in Edinburgh would not be for the benefit of the Episcopal clergy, for ‘they are living very quietly and I am sure they do not want him here, and on the other hand the Presbyterians would look upon it as insulting them if he should settle here.’ Instead he recommended that Greenshields be given a benefice in England, ‘which is both just in itself and will effectually put an end to his projects’.<sup>28</sup> Balmerino took a similar view when Scottish high-flyers such as George Lockhart proposed the introduction of bills to provide a legal toleration for Episcopalians and to restore lay patronages in Scotland. Balmerino was sympathetic to the measures in principle but warned that, after the success of the Greenshields case, ‘our courtiers are for no more at this time, and I am heartily of that mind’. He preferred ‘to have patience and wait till they should see how matters was [<em>sic</em>] carried in Scotland after the case of Greenshields’. He knew Maule would disagree with this caution, but refused to commit to paper his reasons for deferring, preferring instead to discuss the matter with Maule and the bishop of Edinburgh when he was next in Scotland. Balmerino was sanguine about the eventual success of such Episcopalian measures: ‘I have no doubt but next session we will have things in our hands as much as now. Nay, a Whig parliament (which I hope never to see) would not refuse us them’.<sup>29</sup></p><p>Balmerino also took a prominent part in the deliberations on the bill to prevent the export of flax and linen yarn from Scotland to ‘foreign parts’. In the debate in the committee of the whole House on 1 June 1711 he spoke ‘at some length’ on three different occasions, answering the arguments of both Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), and John Somers*, Baron Somers, and, as he felt, served ‘to put them all by the ears’. He also acted as a teller for the not contents, against Francis Seymour Conway*, Baron Conway, on the question whether a clause exempting Irish (but not Scottish) linen from export duties should be made part of the bill. During the debate Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, had made provocative and insulting remarks stating his preference for the Irish over the Scots, and when Balmerino, acting as teller, held the staff above Sunderland’s head to record his vote, he told him ‘that he deserved that I should lay it on’.<sup>30</sup> The proceedings on the linen bill raised broader issues of governance, and when a Jacobite acquaintance suggested a motion to dissolve the Union, Balmerino provided Maule with a lengthy statement of his own views:</p><blockquote><p>I who was always against the Union would never be for a dissolution of it, except the queen and her ministers were first for it, and especially the Whig lords who made it. But for the Protestant succession he would easily get the word of honour of the Scots sixteen to go into it (if it were to come to that); nay, the Union might be dissolved on that condition and no otherwise. Only I said we must have some abatement of the equivalent with which the Whigs ... had bribed us. Also we must have freedom of trade to America ... But for me, except the present ministry agree to this I will hold by the Union to continue. But if the queen and they agree to it I assure him that all Scotland will put on bonfires and dance about them.<sup>31</sup></p></blockquote><p>With such evident loyalty to the ministry of Harley, created earl of Oxford in May 1711, the impoverished Balmerino felt he could expect some tokens of gratitude after the prorogation of 12 June. In November, in the days preceding the following session, Balmerino exchanged his office in the Mint for a more lucrative position in the newly constituted commission of chamberlainry and trade, although he was not formally replaced as general of the Mint until November 1712. At this time he was also pressing for his younger son to be made a lord of session, against the pretensions of a rival candidate put forward by Hamilton, and signed an address to the queen calling for the law prohibiting the import of Irish goods to be enforced.<sup>32</sup> Oxford’s colleague and kinsman Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], assured him that Balmerino was unlikely to give trouble when Parliament reassembled, as he ‘is an honest man and always pleased’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>This assessment was quickly belied by Balmerino’s reaction to the the great crisis in Anglo-Scottish relations that marked the session of 1711-12, the decision of the House that the duke of Hamilton could not sit in the House of Lords by virtue of his British title of duke of Brandon. As early as June 1711 Balmerino had relayed to Maule, with some alarm, the news of the growing opposition among English peers of both parties to Hamilton’s claim, at a time when it appeared to have been common knowledge that Hamilton would be created duke of Brandon, although the patent did not actually pass the seals until 10 September.<sup>34</sup> On 3 Dec., four days before the new session opened, Balmerino entrusted his proxy with Loudoun, most likely in preparation for this looming confrontation. He managed to arrive in the House for the first time that session (thus vacating his proxy) on 20 Dec., the day when the Hamilton case came to a head. In the debate he declared that sitting and voting in Parliament was a fundamental right of the peers of Scotland, but had been denied as a result of the 23rd article of the Treaty of Union, which allowed only the 16 representative peers to sit. The article not only entrenched upon the rights of the Scottish peers, but also the royal prerogative, something that had neither been intended by the Scots commissioners who negotiated the treaty, nor by the queen. He voted with the rest of the Scottish representative peers in the minority against the motion to bar Hamilton from sitting and signed the protest against the resolution.<sup>35</sup> The memorial drawn up by Scottish peers on 1 Jan. 1712 requesting the queen to redress the injustice reiterated many of Balmerino’s arguments and he duly subscribed it. Unlike many of his fellow Scottish peers he appears to have been prepared to give the queen an opportunity to honour the pledge given in her answer, that she was ‘firmly resolved to support the Union of the two kingdoms and ... I will consider of the most reasonable way to procure you satisfaction’.<sup>36</sup> At a meeting at Hamilton’s house on 17 Jan. Balmerino did not endorse Annandale’s demand for an immediate Scottish boycott of the House, ‘because I wish sincerely good success to the queen’s designs of peace for the happiness of her people’, though he admitted that he did not expect ‘any redress from the court’.<sup>37</sup> He did not accept the court’s proposed remedy when it was announced – to replace the 16 representative peers with 32 peers sitting by hereditary right – and at another meeting of Scottish peers refused to listen to arguments in its favour: ‘I cut them short and said I looked upon the whole project as most unjust’. Instead, he urged the Scots to declare their determination to uphold their prerogative and, if necessary, summon the Estates of Scotland, because only there could the Union be amended. But the others did not agree with him, and, realizing ‘that no good was to be done’, he announced that ‘I should go no more to the House, which they took very well’.<sup>38</sup> He informed Oxford that:</p><blockquote><p>My absenting from the House is with the consent of my countrymen, for it is impossible for me to agree with them who think that any contract can justly be altered without the consent of the contractors, who, in the Treaty of Union, were on our part the Estates of Scotland, and not the nobility; nor can our peers dispose of their peerage as of their property; the public is too much concerned in it to permit this.<sup>39</sup></p></blockquote><p>Balmerino did not attend the House between 25 Jan. and 9 February. The reason for his eventual abandonment of his boycott was the arrival in the House of the Episcopal communion bill from the Commons on 8 February. Bishop Rose, forever timorous, was opposed to the bill, fearing that it would antagonize the Presbyterians.<sup>40</sup> Balmerino appears to have agreed initially, but soon found himself conflicted as he watched the bill make its way through the Commons: ‘I was against bringing of it in but now if it fail the Presbyterians would be rampant’. He at first reaffirmed his intention not to return to the House, but his resolve steadily weakened as he felt he needed to support the bill.<sup>41</sup> Even though the Scots had obtained no redress over Hamilton, he attended the House again on 9 Feb., the day after the Episcopal communion bill received its first reading. He was then absent on only ten occasions between 9 Feb. and 8 May 1712, and chaired the second-reading committee on another bill promoted by the Episcopalian lobby, to repeal the Act for Discharging the Yule Vacance. On 9 May he gave his proxy to Kilsyth, and did not sit again until the day of prorogation on 8 July. With this disrupted attendance he came to only 44 per cent of the session’s sitting days. On leaving Westminster that summer he took the trouble to send friendly letters to both Oxford and Mar, expressing his loyalty to the queen and the ministry, and his dependence on Mar. He also reiterated his pretensions for his son to receive a place as a lord of session, although assuring Oxford that he was nevertheless ‘easy under the disappointment I have met with’ in this regard and would still remain loyal to the ministry.<sup>42</sup></p><p>On 14 Aug. 1712 Balmerino attended the election of a representative peer to fill the vacancy created by the death of Marischal, casting his vote in favour of the 4th earl of Findlater [S] (as the earl of Seafield had become). He was also present on 13 Jan. 1713 when the Scottish peers elected a replacement for Hamilton, who had died the previous November after being fatally wounded in a duel. This time he voted for James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S].<sup>43</sup></p><p>Balmerino, having attended two of the prorogations in March 1713, resumed his seat in the House when the next session finally met for business on 9 Apr. 1713. He was present at all but seven of its meetings, 89 per cent of its sitting days. He had been included, by Jonathan Swift, in a list of those from whom the ministry could expect support in this session, but any such prospect evaporated after 2 May when Parliament began to debate the bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland. At the request of Scots in the Commons Balmerino agreed to write to all Scottish peers summoning them to a meeting on 12 May in order to come to a unanimous decision on what action to take. There it was agreed that the bill could not be blocked in the lower House and, sure enough, the malt tax bill passed the Commons on 22 May, much to the fury of the Scots in both houses. On 26 May the Scottish peers met again with Scottish Members of the Commons. According to Balmerino, ‘we were all very unanimous and zealous to agree to the Commons’ proposal for leave to bring in a bill for dissolving the Union. Thence we went and met with the Commons where the thing was resolved without one contrary vote’. Lockhart reported to Sir David Dalrymple that Balmerino was among those who ‘were for beginning instantly to let the court see they could and dared to oppose them, because the court were the persons who kept the Scots under the Union and would do so till the end of the world whilst they gained by it, and therefore it was fit to let them see what we durst do.’<sup>44</sup> Once the decision had been taken a deputation was sent to inform the queen, ‘not to ask leave but to tell her majesty that we are unanimously resolved to insist upon a dissolution of the Union’.<sup>45</sup> A third meeting took place on 1 June to settle the wording of the motion to dissolve the Union, which Findlater was to propose later that day.</p><p>During the debate in the House on 1 June Balmerino supported the motion and spoke ‘very well’. He highlighted the indignities suffered by the Scots since 1707–the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council; the extension of the Treason Act to Scottish law; the Hamilton peerage case–and argued that these far outweighed any of the benefits derived from the Union. He appears, admittedly by his own account, to have been one of the principal speakers for the dissolution, at one point directly opposing his patron Oxford. The long debate culminated in a division on whether to put the question to delay further consideration of the proposed bill. This motion for a delay was defeated by the ministry by a scant majority of four, after which it was able to defeat the motion to bring in a bill for the dissolution of the Union. After this defeat the Scots met again and decided not to pursue the point by bringing into the Commons a dissolution bill, as they were likely to be defeated even more ignominiously there, whereas the Scottish peers ‘had by the help of the Whigs made a noble appearance’ in their House. ‘But’, Balmerino continued in his account to Maule, ‘we all declared that next session we would insist in it and join with any that would help us’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>The Scots peers then considered how to oppose the malt tax bill. On 4 June 1713 Sunderland visited Balmerino and promised him the assistance of the Whigs if he would propose delaying the commitment, so that the House could consider all the articles relating to the malt tax in the Union treaty, as it applied to England as well. Balmerino replied that he ‘would agree to any motion that might retard the ruin of my country, but that amending it would throw it out, for the Commons will not pass a money bill that we amend’. Sunderland conceded this point but insisted on the logic of his proposal, upon which Balmerino promised to ‘talk to my Scots friends’.<sup>47</sup> On 5 June, following urgent pressure from the Whigs, who wanted a known Tory to open the debate, Balmerino moved to adjourn the second reading of the malt tax bill and appoint a day to consider the state of the nation with regard to the Union, but this motion was defeated – by only one vote. Having received further encouragement from the Whigs, Balmerino then argued against the bill itself, on the basis that, according to the terms of the Union, the malt tax could not be extended to Scotland while the country was still formally at war with Spain, with no peace treaties between the countries having been ratified. This argument persuaded a number of lords to express support for delaying the committal and ‘it ended in a consent to commit it presently, but not to proceed in the committee till Monday and then we are to have a battle royal’.<sup>48</sup> Balmerino reported to Maule that the committee of the whole House held on 8 June was ‘the fullest that ever I saw, for we were 120’ and his fellow Scots desired that he open the debate on the motion to reject the bill. He made much the same point as previously, that the war was not officially over at that point, but the motion was lost at division.<sup>49</sup> The bill passed its third reading the same day and Balmerino helped to draft, with the concurrence of Sunderland, Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, and Daniel Finch* 2nd earl of Nottingham, the protest condemning the bill as a violation of the Union and an unjust imposition which Scotland could not pay. He of course put his name to this protest as well, along with 13 Scottish peers and four Whigs.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Balmerino was forecast as a probable opponent of the ministry over the bill to confirm the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty. He attended until Parliament was prorogued on 16 July and remained in London thereafter, when it was noted that he still ‘pretended to’ his salary as a commissioner of chamberlainry and a space for his son in the court of session when one fell vacant.<sup>51</sup> On 21 Sept. he informed Oxford that he was ‘going for Scotland where I will endeavour to advance the queen’s service what I am able and I hope things shall succeed well now that you have put our business in so good hands’.<sup>52</sup> In fact, once he reached Scotland he attended a meeting with Harry Maule, the bishop of Edinburgh and David Murray, 5th Viscount Stormont [S] and James Maule, 4th earl of Panmure [S] to discuss prospects for a Jacobite restoration. In Jacobite circles he was now regarded as one of the Pretender’s leading supporters in Scotland.<sup>53</sup></p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1713</em></h2><p>Balmerino was present at the election of the representative peers on 8 Oct. 1713. He himself was returned on the successful court list.<sup>54</sup> Illness delayed his return to London for the new session, and on 13 Jan. 1714 Atholl dispatched to Oxford Balmerino’s proxy as well as his own for the forthcoming session. They were probably blank proxies, perhaps intended for Oxford’s own use, but in any case Balmerino’s proxy never appears to have been formally registered by the clerk.<sup>55</sup> He first took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Mar. 1714, and came to 80 per cent of the sitting days of the session. He was particularly assiduous in its early stages, being recorded as absent only five times between the first day of the session and 9 July.<sup>56</sup> His support for the ministry was rewarded by the long-awaited payment of arrears of salary as a trade commissioner, amounting to £1,000, and the appointment of his son to the court of session.<sup>57</sup> He was forecast as likely to vote for the schism bill, but his only significant contribution to the business of the House came when the House considered the question of the Scottish title of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. There was some dispute about Ormond’s right to vote in the election of representative peers as Lord Dingwall, and papers were presented to the House relating to his precedence in the Scottish peerage. The matter was referred to the committee of privileges and on 8 July Balmerino reported that the committee ‘are of opinion that the Lord Dingwall should be inserted in the roll of the nobility in Scotland’. The report was agreed to by the House, and Parliament was prorogued the same day.<sup>58</sup></p><p>On 14 July 1714 Mar informed Oxford that Balemrinoch and Kilsyth were among those Scottish peers urgently pressing to be allowed to return home.<sup>59</sup> Balmerino may have returned momentarily to Scotland, for when Parliament reassembled on 1 Aug., after the queen’s death, he did not resume his seat until 16 Aug. and came to only a further five sittings until the prorogation on 25 Aug.; in total he was present on 40 per cent of the sitting days. He was waiting for a further instalment of his salary as trade commissioner and, when he was told that none of the other commissioners had received more than £1,000 for their services, protested to Oxford. Convinced that ‘somebody must have misrepresented him or he would have had his warrant as well as other folks’, he raised the matter again on 6 Sept., this time successfully, although it is unclear whether the warrant was issued before he set out for Scotland. <sup>60</sup></p><p>With the accession of George I Balmerino lost all his offices. Although he took no part himself in the 1715 Rebellion, he maintained his Jacobite contacts, and in 1718 the Pretender assured him that ‘amidst all our past and present misfortunes I retain a most grateful sense of your constant friendship, which you cannot now show me better than by helping me with your advice in my law suit’.<sup>61</sup> He did little in 1719 to raise opposition among Scots peers to the peerage bill, and although he became more active after complaints were made about his inertia, he reminded Oxford that he had previously expressed his aversion to giving Scottish peers hereditary seats in the House of Lords. In general he had now ‘given over the world; I neither meddle with public nor private affairs’. <sup>62</sup> Balmerino died at his house in Leith on 13 May 1736, aged 84, and was buried at Restalrig. He was succeeded by his elder surviving son and namesake, John Elphinstone, as 5th Lord Balmerino [S]. Meanwhile his younger surviving son, Arthur Elphinstone, distinguished himself as a Jacobite leader. He had fought in the ’Fifteen and escaped to France. He then came out again in the ’Forty-Five, was captured at Culloden, and found guilty of treason in a trial before the Lords. He succeeded his elder brother on 5 Jan. 1746 as 6th Lord Balmerino [S], while still in confinement, and upon his execution on 18 Aug. 1746 the title was attainted.</p> |
G.M.T./B.A./D.W.H. |
|
ERSKINE, John (1675-1732) |
<p><strong><surname>ERSKINE</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1675–1732)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1675-89 Ld. Erskine; <em>suc. </em>fa. 23 May 1689 (a minor) as 22nd (and <em>de jure</em> 6th) earl of MAR [S] |
RP [S] 1707–15 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 25 Aug. 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 21 Jan. 1675, 1st s. of Charles Erskine, 21st (and <em>de jure</em> 5th) earl of Mar [S], and Mary, da. of George Maule, 2nd earl of Panmure [S]; bro. of Hon. James Erskine<sup>‡</sup>, Ld. Grange, s.c.j. <em>m</em>. (1) 6 Apr. 1703, Margaret (<em>d.</em> 25 Apr. 1707), da. of Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], sis. of George Hay*, <em>styled</em> Visct. Dupplin [S], later 8th earl of Kinnoull [S], 2s. (1 d.v.p.) 1da.; (2) 20 July 1714, Frances (<em>d.</em>1761), da. of Evelyn Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston), 1da. KT 10 Aug. 1706. <em>d</em>. May 1732.</p> |
<p>Commr. justiciary Highlands [S] 1697– aft. 1702, exch. [S] 1698, auditing treasury accts. [S] 1698, trade [S] 1698, plantation of kirks [S] 1698, union with England 1706; PC [S] 1697–1708; jt. sec. of state [S] 1705–8; PC 1707–14; kpr. of signet [S] 1708–9; sec. of state 1713–14.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Gov. and capt. coy. of ft. Stirling castle 1699–1714.<sup>2</sup>; col. regt. of ft. [S] 1702–6.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, National Trust for Scotland, Alloa Tower; oil on canvas (double portrait with son) by Sir G. Kneller, c.1715, National Trust for Scotland, Alloa Tower; oil on canvas, school of Sir G. Kneller, Historic Scotland, Edinburgh; oil on canvas, studio of Sir G. Kneller, Government. Art Coll.</p> |
<p>Mar wished to present himself to posterity as a patriot. In the testament he wrote for his son, he stated that ‘to be of some use to my native country, and be assisting to the release of it from the low and declining condition in which I found it, has been my great passion, and much at my heart, ever almost since I can remember anything’.<sup>5</sup> He did indeed show a profound interest in the material development of his own estates, and of the localities in which they sat. This was a natural response to the ‘disorder’ in which his father had left the family’s affairs, but he also developed a broader interest in architecture and gardening, and in fostering ‘improvements’ in agriculture, manufacture and commerce.<sup>6</sup> It might be argued that his support for union in 1705–7 reflected this concern for economic progress. However, to an anti-unionist like George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, such explanations would have carried little weight. He saw Mar as driven by mercenary self-aggrandizement: ‘not a man of good <em>coram vobis</em>, and ... a very bad, though very frequent, speaker in parliament. But his great talent lay in the cunning management of his designs and projects, in which it was hard to find him out when he aimed to be incognito’.<sup>7</sup> </p><p>Mar was moved to enter politics because of his debts.<sup>8</sup> After his appointment to the Scottish Privy Council in 1697 he became a loyal supporter of government, and by the end of William’s reign had tied himself to James Douglas*, 2nd duke Queensberry [S], the head of the ‘court party’.<sup>9</sup> In turn he was a valuable asset to Queensberry, not only because of his political skill and parliamentary ability, but because of his influence in the Highlands. Having secured command of a regiment at Queen Anne’s accession, he supported Queensberry in the Scottish parliamentary sessions of 1702 and 1703, and after Queensberry’s fall in 1704 followed instructions in leading the duke’s faction in opposition to the ministry of the ‘new party’ (later Squadrone Volante).<sup>10</sup> This extended to voting against proposals for settling the succession that he had supported the previous year when Queensberry had put them forward. As the Squadrone were in turn replaced and Queensberry recovered his position in government, Mar, in Lockhart’s words, ‘returned as the dog to the vomit and promoted all the court of England’s measures with the greatest zeal imaginable’.<sup>11</sup> In the 1705 parliamentary session he was given the task of proposing the consideration of a treaty of union, and introducing the requisite bill, though in the event his draft was snubbed by members in favour of an identical version proposed by William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S].<sup>12</sup> According to Lockhart, Mar bamboozled the ‘country party’ leader James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to agree to leave the nomination of commissioners to the queen.<sup>13</sup> James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]) sent the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, a glowing testimonial of Mar’s conduct in working ‘cheerfully and zealously’ for ‘the queen’s measures’ and recommended him to be one of the Scottish secretaries of state, an appointment which was made in September (after which he relinquished his regiment).<sup>14</sup> Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], who would prove to be a close colleague of Mar’s, wrote similarly. He commended Mar to Godolphin as being ‘of an old honourable family and [has] done the queen very good service’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>During the winter of 1705–6 Mar stayed in London and was often in contact with the queen. He claimed credit for obtaining the post of commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland for another Queensberryite, David Leslie*, 5th earl of Leven [S], telling Leven that he had spoken to the queen on the subject ‘often’, as well as to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and the treasurer.<sup>16</sup> He also advised on the choice of the Scottish treaty commissioners, which enabled him to build up political capital with the various appointees.<sup>17</sup> Heavily committed to the idea of union, he played a leading part in the negotiations, and ‘most of ... the private meetings of the Scotch commissioners ... were at his house’.<sup>18</sup> As far as he was concerned, the negotiations produced a highly satisfactory outcome and when the business was concluded he wrote triumphantly to his brother, ‘you cannot imagine how agreeable it was to everybody here our concluding the treaty and delivering it to the queen, which was done very solemnly’.<sup>19</sup> A first reward for his efforts came in August 1706, when he was admitted to the Order of the Thistle. Back in Edinburgh, he kept up a correspondence with Marlborough, Godolphin, and with the queen, reporting on Scottish opinion, and when the Parliament met he was at the forefront of the court party’s efforts to secure ratification of the treaty, receiving the personal thanks of the queen for his efforts.<sup>20</sup> In the 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘sicut’ [i.e., just as] Queensberry, and as able to influence Col. John Areskine (Erskine)<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons.</p><h2><em>The first Parliaments of Great Britain, 1707-10</em></h2><p>Mar was an obvious choice as one of the representative peers in the first Parliament of Great Britain.<sup>21</sup> Having travelled south to witness the English Parliament ratify the treaty, he remained in London throughout the summer and autumn of 1707. At the beginning of May rumours circulated that both he and Loudoun were to be made marquesses along with various other appointments, though Mar’s informant, Harry Maule, confessed ‘What has given rise to these I do not know’. Shortly after, Mar learned of the death of his wife, which, although it had been long anticipated, clearly shook him and he professed to have been left ‘not very fit for business’. Within days, though, he was sworn a member of the Privy Council and was forced to return his attention to his duties. His administrative responsibilities were extremely burdensome and the preparations for the parliamentary session kept him and his fellow secretary ‘in a hurry.’<sup>22</sup> He was quite open about his need for employment, his estates not being ‘yet in such a condition that I can live well without the queen’s favour and assistance’, and when the office of Scottish secretary ceased to exist in 1708, he was compensated by being appointed keeper of the signet (at the same salary), an office which in practice did much of the work of the secretary. On 23 Oct. 1707 he took his seat in the Lords, after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days. He does not seem to have been particularly active, but with other Queensberryites opposed the Squadrone’s bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council, signing the protest against it as a violation of the Union treaty (and privately expressing his concern at its likely impact on the heritable jurisdictions of magnates like himself).<sup>23</sup></p><p>After the dissolution he hastened back to Scotland to engage with the elections both of Scottish Members of the Commons and of representative peers. A printed list of the time noted him as a Whig. At the end of May 1708 he wrote to Marlborough conveying news of the elections for the burghs and thanking him for sending up his proxy (Marlborough holding the Scottish peerage of Churchill of Eyemouth). Marlborough’s decision to entrust the proxy to Mar caused some consternation among Hamilton’s grouping and prompted Hamilton to appeal to secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, for assistance. Hamilton also complained of Mar’s demeanour. He found Mar ‘to the greatest degree lofty and pretends to mighty favour’. For all Mar’s outward confidence, the outcome of the peers’ election was compromised by Sunderland’s intervention in support of the anti-court alliance of the Squadrone and Hamilton.<sup>24</sup> Mar found himself blamed for the arrest of various cavalier lords in Scotland on suspicion of involvement in the planned Jacobite rising; Hamilton took the credit for obtaining their release, and thus secured their votes.<sup>25</sup> After the election, which he attended, Mar informed Marlborough that, though ‘we have the greatest part … there has been such influence used against us by great folks at London, that a great many of our old friends, and who are in the queen’s service, were frightened from us, so that it is a wonder we carried so many.’ He then went so far as to complain directly to the queen about Sunderland’s behaviour.<sup>26</sup> For the Commons, Mar’s nominee in Stirlingshire, his kinsman, Henry Cunningham<sup>‡</sup>, was eventually seated in January 1709 following a double return, but it is not clear to what extent Mar could claim much credit for Cunningham’s election. According to Daniel Defoe Mar and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich in the English peerage), played ‘a game at elections in Kinross and Clackmannan’, which resulted in an indecorous contest between the candidates, Hon. Charles Rosse and Hon. William Dalrymple<sup>‡</sup>. Mar supported the latter, who was elected apparently on the strength of some spurious votes manufactured by his sponsor.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Mar took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he was present on 83 per cent of all sitting days. He was very uneasy over the increasing influence in the ministry of the Junto, and the Squadrone, who made their hostility to the court party clear by the vigour with which they pursued petitions against Queensberryites chosen in the Scottish peers’ election.<sup>28</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he supported Queensberry’s unsuccessful attempt to retain his right to vote for representative peers after having been granted a British title as duke of Dover. As with the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council the previous year, when the Lords received the bill to extend the English treason laws to Scotland Mar made some ‘faint opposition’ to the Commons’ amendments presented in April but otherwise did little but sign a protest that it violated the Union.<sup>29</sup> The alliance between Hamilton and the Squadrone had forced him to reconsider his position. This process was accelerated when the Scottish secretaryship was revived for Queensberry in February 1709. Although Mar received a pension of £3,000 p.a. for life in compensation for losing his salary as keeper of the signet, he was not compensated for the loss of power and influence that went with it.<sup>30</sup> By June there were reports of tensions within Queensberry’s grouping and that, if the duke were to be laid aside and Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, allowed to have his way, Mar would be the most likely to succeed.<sup>31</sup> When Mar went to the continent in August 1709, ostensibly to take the waters at Aix-La-Chapelle, but also with the intention of waiting on Marlborough, Godolphin wrote to warn the captain-general (correctly) that Mar was now closely associated with Harley. Godolphin considered that although Mar was superficially ‘a man of honour’ who could prove a useful ally, ‘he is likely enough to make you a great many professions, and if they were sincere I should think them as valuable as from most men of his country’. Surprisingly, Marlborough did not agree: ‘I must own to you that his temper has always pleased me’. He was, he wrote, assured by John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair [S], that Mar was a faithful friend to Godolphin and himself. Having waited on Marlborough, and been encouraged by him to pursue a request to remain abroad over the following winter in order to travel to Italy, Mar was disappointed at Godolphin’s refusal to sanction his absence. When he returned to England he moved even closer to Harley.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Having failed to secure leave to miss the new session, Mar took his seat once more on 16 Nov. 1709, after which he was present on 71 per cent of sitting days. Discontented with the progress of affairs, he and Queensberry were reported to be in talks with Hamilton. In February 1710 Mar reported back to his brother on the progress of the Greenshields affair, outlining the reasons for putting the matter off for the time being. The following month he proved a prominent contributor to the debates during the Sacheverell trial. According to one report he was one of a handful of Scottish peers responsible for hindering the Junto in some of their designs.<sup>33</sup> On 14 Mar. he was one of those to register his dissent from the resolution not to insist on the inclusion of the particular words deemed criminal in the phrasing of the impeachment. On 16 Mar. he insisted that he did not believe that Sacheverell ‘had said anything of passive obedience which was not the doctrine of the Church of England’ and divided with the minority in rejecting the motion that the Commons had made good their charge in the first article. Two days later, in the debate over whether or not the Lords might cast their votes article by article, Mar was one of those to the fore in arguing for this manner of proceeding on the grounds that to do otherwise was ‘inconsistent with the usual method of justice in that House’. He subsequently found Sacheverell not guilty and registered his protest at the guilty verdict.<sup>34</sup> With the Sacheverell trial completed, Mar featured once more in the session, acting as a teller on the division whether to adjourn the House during discussion of the Eddystone lighthouse bill.</p><h2><em>The 1710 Parliament</em></h2><p>According to several reports, in the aftermath of the Sacheverell trial Mar was increasingly looked to by the Tories as their preferred candidate to succeed Queensberry as secretary of state.<sup>35</sup> Throughout July he was engaged in canvassing for the forthcoming elections and by August his involvement with Harley was close and undeniable. Mar’s brother-in-law (and Harley’s son-in-law), Viscount Dupplin may have been a significant factor in helping draw the two together.<sup>36</sup> At the same time, Mar was at pains to reassure his Presbyterian contacts in Scotland, on Harley’s behalf, that the fall of Godolphin presaged no alteration in Scottish affairs, and that the Kirk would be entirely safe under the new ministry.<sup>37</sup> In tacking towards the Tories he had moved in advance of his chief, Queensberry, whose failing health rendered him for once ineffectual. This did not mean a renunciation of his allegiance to Queensberry (whose death in 1711 he genuinely mourned), although he did consciously separate himself from other colleagues in the ‘old court party’ in Scotland whose political predilections were Whiggish. He returned to Scotland in October 1710 for the general election. On Harley’s behalf he organized the election of the representative peers, breaking the alliance between Hamilton and the Squadrone and brokering a deal with, Argyll, Hamilton and John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], which left the Squadrone out in the cold and reduced to boycotting the poll.<sup>38</sup></p><p>On one analysis of the Scottish representative peers drawn up shortly after the election Mar was said to be ‘against the succession, but for the Union’. In a list of the new representative peers drawn up by the duchess of Buccleuch’s episcopalian chaplain, Mar was described as a ‘Court Tory’, with an annual income of less than £3,000 (the amount of his annual pension, which the new administration had confirmed).<sup>39</sup> Even though he held no office, his informal role in government meant that ‘the eyes of all’ in Scotland were upon him. With Queensberry’s health in fatal decline he pushed himself forward as Harley’s Scottish minister, which brought about a rupture with Hamilton and Argyll.<sup>40</sup> He was certainly regarded as the most likely successor to Queensberry and there were even rumours that, having been widowed in 1707, he was planning to marry Mrs Masham’s sister.<sup>41</sup> But at the same time he had made himself dependent on Harley’s favour, since his personal following was less substantial than Queensberry’s party had been.</p><p>Mar took his seat in the new Parliament on 25 Nov. 1710 after which he was present on 71 per cent of all sitting days. In the new Parliament he achieved a greater prominence. Towards the end of December he again recommended to Harley postponing consideration of the Greenshields appeal to the next session.<sup>42</sup> In January 1711, he enthusiastically joined the attack on the conduct of the war in Spain under the old ministry. On the 11th petitions were delivered into the House on behalf of two of the generals who had presided over the disasters in 1707, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I]. Mar spoke against reading their petitions, which were then rejected on a division. On the other hand, on 5 Feb. he voted against the Tory-inspired bill to repeal the 1709 General Naturalization Act.<sup>43</sup> Just as he was unwilling to deal with the Greenshields case, he was equally nervous of any attempt by Scottish Tories to bring in a bill to restore lay patronages.<sup>44</sup> Mar was absent for just under a month mid-session from late April to the beginning of the last week of May, apparently to take the cure at Bath.<sup>45</sup> His last significant intervention this session came on 1 June, a week after his return, on the bill to prevent the export of Scottish flax to Ireland. Concern had been expressed that Irish linen manufacture should take precedence over that of Scotland, when Sunderland observed provocatively that he would always ‘prefer the interest of Ireland to that of any one county in England’, to which Mar replied that: ‘it was true we had a legal union but it were fit that we had an union of interests and of affection, that this did not seem the way to it for he believed the account of this day’s proceedings would appear very strange to the people of Scotland’.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Shortly before the close of the session, Mar was one of four Scottish peers rumoured to be granted British peerages, though nothing came of it.<sup>47</sup> In spite of this, the vote over the linen bill, rumours of English opposition to Hamilton’s claim to sit in the Lords by virtue of a newly acquired British title, and discontent at the delays in dealing with Scottish business, made Mar very uneasy about the state of Anglo-Scottish relations.<sup>48</sup> In June he wrote to Harley (now earl of Oxford and lord treasurer) to put the case for action to meet Scottish grievances:</p><blockquote><p>If that affair of the peerage then go against us, I dread the consequence it will infallibly have. The Union depends on it, and on the Union, with submission, depends the peace of the Queen’s reign, and that really gives me more concern in it than any private hardship it would be to me, tho’ I value that a great deal.</p></blockquote><p>He was himself not weary of the Union, as befitted a man who had done all in his power to bring it about, because ‘it is the only thing which can preserve Scotland, and England too, from blood and confusion; so I do not at all repent any hand I had in it, tho’ I’m afraid I have few of either side of my opinion’. But if Hamilton was not allowed to take his seat as a British peer and Scottish trade continued to be neglected, ‘how is it possible that flesh and blood can bear it? and what Scotsman will not be weary of the Union, and do all he can to get quit of it’.<sup>49</sup> From a personal perspective, he was also frustrated at Oxford’s failure to nominate a successor to Queensberry, and was pressing his own claims to a British peerage, reminding Oxford of ‘the promise her Majesty was pleased to give me that I should be made at the same time with any she made after the duke of Queensberry, was three days after I came from Scotland from the Union parliament before the Union commenced’. Mar had no objection to Hamilton’s grant, but thought it would look very strange if Hamilton received a British title while:</p><blockquote><p>I, who have had the honour to serve the queen ever since she came to the crown, and I hope to her satisfaction, and who had her promise three years before him and when he has been mostly against her measures, shall be postponed or indeed I may say left out.<sup>50</sup></p></blockquote><p>Mar knew that whatever the outcome of Hamilton’s appeal either the English or Scots would claim a violation of the Union. He may even have believed that pressing his own claim to a British title would give him an opportunity to play the role of Scottish patriot.</p><p>By October 1711 Mar was being looked to by some Scottish peers as a clear successor to Queensberry.<sup>51</sup> He was concerned that the Scottish representatives had not been given earlier notice of the new session and that Oxford expected them to take their seats in quick order. Despite this, Mar did what he could to organize Scottish attendance at the start of the session in December 1711, and the gathering of proxies. He waited on the queen on 27 Nov. who was, he reported, ‘very anxious, as all her servants are, to have all our peers of the Parliament up here immediately’, largely to tackle the issue of Hamilton’s British dukedom.<sup>52</sup> He took his own place on the opening day (7 Dec.) and was thereafter present on 78 per cent of all sitting days. During the debate on Hamilton’s case in the Lords in December he made a spirited defence of the royal prerogative, and the queen’s right to bestow a British title on a Scottish peer, and voted in the minority in favour of allowing Hamilton to sit as the British duke of Brandon. He also, along with Hamilton and Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S] (later 3rd duke of Argyll [S]), helped draft and then subscribed the Scottish memorial delivered to the queen on New Year’s Day 1712, complaining that the Lords’ decision constituted ‘a breach of the Union, and a mark of disgrace put on the whole peers of Scotland’.<sup>53</sup> According to John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], Mar seemed to favour the extreme response of recalling the Scottish estates, but this came to nothing. On 13 Jan. he and other Scottish peers met ministers in a fruitless attempt to discuss a way out.<sup>54</sup> In reality, as he confided to his brother in letters written at the end of December 1711 and in mid-January 1712, he despaired of breaking the Union ‘in a parliamentary way’, which he thought the English would not permit. He was, though, heartened by the decision to make Dupplin a peer, which he considered ‘makes a jest of the argument against us’. Left to himself, he would have accepted a compromise, but with Scottish feelings running so high he was well aware that he could not afford to.<sup>55</sup> At the end of January, during the debates on the issue, he responded to Sunderland’s proposal that the Scots should ‘propose some remedy for themselves’ that ‘they were suffering patients and it was not proper for patients to prescribe remedies for themselves’.<sup>56</sup> He joined the other representative peers in their parliamentary boycott the following month, but broke this to attend the queen when she gave her assent to a selection of bills.<sup>57</sup> Rather than avoid the House entirely, Mar’s attitude appears to have been to attend on carefully selected occasions, such that in all he was present on nine days during the month. He returned to the House at the end of February when the toleration (Episcopal communion) bill arrived from the Commons, and voted for it, even though he was concerned for the effect its passage would have on Presbyterian opinion in Scotland.<sup>58</sup> But it was important for him to maintain the support of Scottish Tories, and he was also trying to ingratiate himself with St Germain, possibly as a means of bringing the Scottish Jacobite element in Lords and Commons under his wing.<sup>59</sup> The various events of the session had undermined his position. Beyond the immediate difficulties over the Hamilton peerage case was the long-term problem that Scottish business remained at a standstill. (This affected him personally, since in 1712 only £750 of his annual pension was issued.) The best way forward, he thought, would be to recreate the post of Scottish secretary, for himself. It may have been an expression of his frustration that on 28 May he voted with the opposition in favour of overturning the ‘restraining orders’ preventing James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging in an active campaign against the French.<sup>60</sup></p><p>The death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], in late May 1712, creating a vacancy for a representative peer, put Mar in an awkward position. At first he recommended his client David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], a strong Episcopalian who had previously sat in the Lords but had lost his seat in 1710.<sup>61</sup> Then it became clear that the ministry wanted to bring back Seafield (now 4th earl of Findlater). Mar was suspicious of Findlater and fearful of him as an alternative Scottish secretary, but had no option but to support his election. This also had the advantage of discommoding his other great rival, Argyll’s brother, Ilay, who supported another candidate against Findlater, and marked an important stage in the Campbell brothers’ alienation from the ministry.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Mar was in Scotland over the summer of 1712 for Findlater’s election (one of only a handful of peers to make the journey from London). In September he riled members of the Kirk by attending a Church of England service. It was said he intended to establish the practice in his own locality.<sup>63</sup> Hamilton’s death in a duel in November took one grievance off the political agenda, but Oxford’s willingness to let Scottish problems slide intensified discontent. Mar reminded the treasurer in December that two years before he had been empowered to make promises to Scottish peers in advance of the new Parliament, which had still not been performed. By February 1713 nothing had been done and disaster was looming. Mar also complained bitterly of his own condition. He had given up all hopes of employment as secretary of state, and asked instead for the post of master-general of the ordnance, granted to Hamilton shortly before his death.<sup>64</sup> Neither he nor other Scots received anything. For all his disgruntlement, Mar was still assessed as a likely supporter of the ministry in an assessment compiled in mid-March.</p><p>Mar took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on 88 per cent of all sitting days. The introduction into the Commons in the spring of 1713 of a bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland, another apparent violation of the Union treaty, provided the spark to this tinder. On 26 May Mar attended a meeting of Scottish representative peers and Members of the House of Commons, which (counting on a promise of Whig support) resolved on requesting leave for a bill to dissolve the Union, an initiative Mar himself declared was ‘absolutely necessary’. He was then made part of a delegation sent to inform the queen of the decision. In a subsequent meeting he was careful to oppose Argyll’s suggestion that the Scots as a body should join the Whigs in opposition.<sup>65</sup> On 1 June, following a meeting convened at Mar’s lodgings to settle the wording, the motion for dissolving the Union was introduced into the Lords by Findlater and seconded by Mar.<sup>66</sup> In the debate that followed, the Junto lord Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, declared that he would not be averse to dissolving the Union, so long as the succession was secured, and desired a further day be appointed to consider the matter. This unexpected intervention caught Mar off balance. He had not anticipated having to provide for the succession in the event of dissolving the Union, and rather than face this prospect ‘stood up and said, that no man was more sincere and hearty than he was for the dissolution, and that he thought the question ... very proper, yet since he found it was misconstrued he retracted and was for a delay’.<sup>67</sup> This retreat, following his earlier opposition to breaking with the court, encouraged some to suspect that he had been ‘taken off by the treasurer and ... only makes an outward show to keep his interest in Scotland’. Indeed, he was forecast in June as likely to support the ministry over the French commercial treaty. <sup>68</sup> But behind the scenes he kept up pressure, warning Oxford that:</p><blockquote><p>If you do not now contrive some relief as to the malt tax in Scotland and some redress for that of the peerage, it will not be in the power of man to prevent addresses from all in Scotland who are able to hold a pen, against the Union by the meeting of the new Parliament.<sup>69</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the subsequent debates of 6 June over giving the malt tax bill a second reading, Mar was again for delay so that a broader debate on the state of the nation could be held. Although this was defeated, in the committee of the whole of 8 June concerning the malt tax Mar was once more one of those to speak alongside his compatriots Findlater, Ilay and Argyll.<sup>70</sup></p><h2><em>From secretary of state to the ’Fifteen</em></h2><p>In September 1713 Oxford finally took action. Mar was appointed as a secretary of state with special responsibility for Scottish business (Findlater returning to the lord chancellorship alongside him) as part of the ministerial reconstruction by which Oxford re-established his ascendancy over the ministry. Oxford also announced the formation of a commission of chamberlainry and trade in Scotland, which offered a raft of new places. Mar managed the 1713 peers’ election for the Court: with the Squadrone again boycotting, his list was chosen unanimously. He made plain his aversion to Ilay being one of the 16, insisting during the summer that he would not sit in the Lords if Ilay was elected. Ilay was accordingly one of those omitted.<sup>71</sup></p><p>In the winter of 1713–14 Mar renewed his contacts with Jacobite agents.<sup>72</sup> This was reflected in an assessment of the Scottish peers returned at the election which noted Mar as a Jacobite. As the 1714 Parliament approached he complained to Oxford that Scottish appointments, though announced, had not been confirmed, and payments of salaries and pensions had not been made, connecting this directly with the delay in the arrival of Scottish representatives at Westminster. He also took the opportunity to rehearse grievances of his own: his pension had not been paid; he had not been provided with accommodation as secretary of state; and the other secretaries, especially Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, were snubbing him.<sup>73</sup> Presumably in consequence, a treasury warrant was ordered in January 1714 for him to be paid £3,000 for ‘secret service’.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Mar took his seat in the new session on 16 Feb. 1714 and was thereafter present on over 90 per cent of all sitting days. In his capacity as secretary, he informed the Lords on 6 Mar. that he had ordered the prosecution of John Barber for publishing Swift’s anonymously authored pamphlet <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>. The Scots were said to be ‘highly incensed at some paragraphs’ in it, but from a ministerial point of view, Mar had no desire to see too extensive an investigation. His intervention ‘put a sudden stop to all further enquiries about that matter, in a parliamentary way’.<sup>75</sup> In the debate on 5 Apr. on the motion that the succession was not in danger, Mar successfully moved to add the words, ‘under the queen’s administration’.<sup>76</sup> He was forecast as likely to support the schism bill, but when Scottish Tory members of the Commons proposed the introduction of a bill for the resumption of alienated bishops’ revenues in Scotland, and their application for the benefit of Episcopal clergy, he vacillated. At first he encouraged the belief that he supported the idea, but criticized the draft bill as too wide-ranging, since it included revenues appropriated by universities. Lockhart attributed this concern to the fact that one of Mar’s brothers held a chair at St Andrews, which might have been affected. On his way to the Commons to introduce the bill Lockhart was summoned to a meeting at which Mar, while reasserting his own support for the measure, communicated the queen’s desire that it be dropped. Lockhart was disgusted, and attributed what he saw as double-dealing to a variety of motives, including fear of setting a precedent for a resumption of grants in England.<sup>77</sup></p><p>In July 1714 Mar took as his second wife the daughter of the marquess of Dorchester (‘a notorious Whig’ according to Lockhart), with a portion reputed to be £8,000. At the same time he was still pursuing unpaid arrears of pension and salary.<sup>78</sup> Mar attended just five days of the brief session that met in August in the wake of the queen’s death. Following Anne’s demise Mar, facing financial ruin and unable to secure office from the new regime, ‘entered into measures’ with the Jacobites (he may have been secretly in touch as early as 1710). At first he encouraged the Scots to press for the dissolution of the Union, which involved himself in some awkward explanation to friends and family, and after the general election of 1715 he raised the Pretender’s standard in the Highlands at the head of an armed force. The rebellion initially met with some success. Mar was able to play on fears of further encroachments on Scots’ finances such as the malt tax to secure backing for the rising. Some Scots peers were also susceptible on account of fears that the system of representative peers was to be scrapped and replaced with a small hereditary Scots contingent at Westminster. Despite being able to draw on these areas of discontent the rebellion gradually lost momentum.<sup>79</sup> After the indecisive engagement at Sheriffmuir on 13 Nov. the Pretender landed in Scotland, at Mar’s urging, but although ‘he was amused for some days by Mar and his friends’, he quickly recognized the danger he was in and embarked again for France, with Mar in his train. Observing these events, Sir John Clerk<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd bt., who counted Mar not only as ‘my acquaintance but my particular friend’, wrote suspiciously that:</p><blockquote><p>it was much admired that the Pretender did not leave Lord Mar in Scotland to take his fortune with the rest of his friends whom he had spirited up to their ruin and the manifest hazard of their master, for since … Sheriffmuir … there was nothing to be expected for the poor unfortunate prince, yet Mar and his party brought him to Scotland when his affairs were in a most desperate condition.<sup>80</sup></p></blockquote><p>Mar was attainted in 1716 and his estates and honours declared forfeit. Enduring frustration and poverty, he remained in the Pretender’s service for most of the rest of his life and never returned to Britain, being created duke of Mar [S] and earl of Mar [E] in the Jacobite peerage. <sup>81</sup> He died in May 1732 at Aix-la-Chapelle.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
GORDON, John (1661-1733) |
<p><strong><surname>GORDON</surname></strong> (<em>afterwards</em> <strong>SUTHERLAND</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1661–1733)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1679-1703 Ld. Strathnaver; <em>suc. </em>fa. 4 Mar. 1703 as 16th earl of SUTHERLAND [S] |
RP [S] 13 Feb. 1707, 1715, 1722, 1727 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 4 June 1733 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 2 Mar. 1661, 1st s. of George Gordon, 15th earl of Sutherland [S], and Jean, da. of David Wemyss, 2nd earl of Wemyss [S]. <em>m</em>. (1) 28 Apr. 1680 (with £30,000 Scots), Helen (<em>d</em>.1690), da. of William, Ld. Cochrane [S], 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) Catherine (<em>d</em>.1705), da. of Sir Lionel Tollemache, 3rd bt., of Helmingham, Suff., wid. of James Stuart, Ld. Doune [S] (1st s. <em>d.v.p</em>. of Alexander Stuart, 5th earl of Moray [S]), <em>s.p</em>.; (3) contr. 11 Aug. 1727, Frances (<em>d</em>.1732), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Hodgson of Bramwith, Yorks., and wid. of Sir Thomas Travell<sup>‡</sup> of Milborne Wick, Som., <em>s.p</em>. KT 1716. <em>d</em>. 27 June 1733; <sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> intestate, admon. 3 Oct. 1733 to grandson William Sutherland<sup>†</sup>, 17th earl of Sutherland [S].<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1687–8, 1690–1708; commr. union [S] 1706, justiciary, Highlands [S] 1697, 1701, police [S] 1714; pres. bd. of trade [S] 1715;<sup>3</sup> PC 3 Jan. 1721-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Sheriff, Sutherland 1681–<em>d</em>.; commr. supply, Sutherland 1685, 1689, 1690, 1704, Inverness 1704; ld. lt. Caithness, Cromarty, Moray, Nairn, Ross and Sutherland 1715-25, stewartry of Orkney 1716-25; chamberlain, Ross 1721.</p><p>Col. regt. of ft. 1689-90, 1693-c.1701; lt.-gen. 1715.</p> |
|
<p>According to Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, in the biographical sketches included in Spring Macky’s edition of his father’s memoirs, Sutherland was a rough-hewn soldier, and an uncomplicated Whig: ‘a very honest man, a great asserter of the liberties of the people; hath a rough, good, sense; is open and free; a great lover of his bottle and his friend; brave in his person ... too familiar for his quality, and often keeps company below it’.<sup>4</sup> In fact, Sutherland’s early connections were far from Whiggish. After he took over the management of the family estates in June 1681, his father resigning them to him by a crown charter, he attached himself to the arch-loyalist George Gordon, marquess of Huntly (later duke of Gordon [S]). Sutherland himself raised a troop of men in his own county to oppose Argyll’s rebellion in 1685.<sup>5</sup> But after the Revolution, and Huntly’s departure for the continent, Sutherland judged it politic to raise forces for William and Mary.<sup>6</sup> His past was not quickly forgotten, and his regiment was disbanded the following year, but in 1693 he was given a new commission, and after a period stationed in Scotland was sent to Flanders in 1694.<sup>7</sup> Following the peace of Ryswick the regiment returned to the continent and in 1698 was in the service of the United Provinces, where it remained until at least the summer of 1701.<sup>8</sup> Thereafter Sutherland left active soldiering to his son, William Sutherland<sup>‡</sup>, styled Lord Strathnaver, who was given a colonel’s commission for a foot regiment in May 1702. Sutherland himself concentrated on trying to secure promotion in his own military rank, and on pursuing his regimental arrears, which by 1716, with interest, amounted to over £24,000.<sup>9</sup> </p><p>Sutherland took his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1704, on the encouragement of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]. After the death of his second wife in the following year he considered withdrawal from public life, informing Argyll that ‘my late unexpressably great loss has made me very indifferent to the world’. He added, ‘I have, I thank God, a competency to live a retired life, though the soldier trade by not being justly paid ... and being too much at court … has impaired my fortune not a little, so that now, unless to serve my queen, country or friend, I resolve never to stir out of Sutherland’. He was, however, concerned for his son’s commission, having heard rumours that the ruling ‘juncto’ in Scotland intended the regiment for another, and allowed himself expressions of bile against those who ‘cover their Jacobitish and self-interested designs’ with pretences of patriotism.<sup>10</sup> In consequence he seems not to have fully carried out his threat to shun public affairs. He was certainly present in Edinburgh in April 1705 where – either from patriotism or pragmatism – he did nothing at the Privy Council to assist the court party to secure a reprieve from execution for the English merchantman Captain Thomas Green.<sup>11</sup></p><p>By 1706, however, Sutherland was prepared to accept appointment to the Union commission as a duty he should not shirk.<sup>12</sup> In January of that year the court of session had finally ruled against him in a lawsuit that he had inherited from his father, against John Lindsay*, 19th earl of Crawford [S], over precedence in the Scottish peerage.<sup>13</sup> He attended nearly all the joint meetings of the Union commissioners in London, and during the negotiations forged friendships with the Junto Whig lords John Somers*, Baron Somers, and Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland.<sup>14</sup> In October, with the Scottish parliament about to meet, Sunderland wrote to say that he was ‘overjoyed to find things have begun with so good a face in your Parliament, and that there is so much reason to hope for success in this great affair of the Union. I assure you our great dependence is upon your lordship and your friends’.<sup>15</sup> Privately, Sutherland wrote to James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], that in his opinion a federal arrangement would be easier to secure than an incorporating union, and for that reason preferable.<sup>16</sup> In public, however, he supported the treaty throughout the ratification debates, voting for every clause, generally alongside Argyll, the Squadrone and the court. He was also in close touch with Daniel Defoe, the pro-Union agent in Edinburgh of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford.<sup>17</sup> His conduct so impressed the leader of the court party, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], that he was happy to recommend Sutherland on this basis to John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, for promotion to lieutenant-general.<sup>18</sup></p><p>By the time of Union Sutherland was owed some £1,650 in arrears on pension and salary from the Scottish government.<sup>19</sup> In November 1706 he had reminded Marlborough of his request for a colonelcy in the Guards despite having been told that none would be disposed of until the Parliament in Edinburgh was over.<sup>20</sup> Rebuffed, he turned for help to Sunderland, who was not only secretary of state but also Marlborough’s son-in-law. Sunderland reported that he had delivered a letter to Marlborough, ‘who expressed all the respect imaginable, for your lordship’, but repeated that the queen ‘was resolved to declare nothing of this kind, till everything was over in Scotland’.<sup>21</sup> This answer did not satisfy Sutherland, who wrote to Marlborough’s secretary, Adam de Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup>, only to receive the same reply.<sup>22</sup> Thus, unusually for a Union commissioner, he seems to have received no material benefit from the passage of the treaty, a point he was later to include among his grievances.<sup>23</sup> More successful was his claim on 13 Feb. 1707 to a seat as one of the first representative peers.<sup>24</sup> His contribution to the ratification of the Union was itself a strong recommendation, but his prospects were enhanced by support from Argyll. When Queensberry was drawing up a list of approved candidates his political lieutenant John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], noted that Argyll was very ‘desirous of Sutherland ... and he being one of the treaters and representing a very old family, we could not leave him out’.<sup>25</sup> In the 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], he was described as ‘for Revolution by principle, influenced by Argyll’, and said to be able to influence William Morison<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons.</p><p>Sutherland first took his seat on 23 Oct. 1707 and was again present for the queen’s speech to the new Parliament of Great Britain on 6 November. His parliamentary career before 1715 comprised this one session of 1707-8, in which he attended 66 per cent of the sitting days and was named to 15 select committees, mostly on private bills. He did not attend after 1 Apr. 1708. His principal intervention in the session occurred during a debate on the bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council. The House was in a committee of the whole on 5 Feb. when Sutherland spoke in favour of the bill, an intervention which went against the wishes of his former patron Argyll, and signalled alignment with the Squadrone. It was reported that James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], and John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], had joined Sutherland ‘for passing the bill, and that the duke of Argyll appeared the warmest against it’.<sup>26</sup> On 4 Mar. 1708 Sutherland was named to the committee to prepare an address to the queen on the attempted French invasion.</p><p>Although he was still on good terms with Argyll, Sutherland’s new connection with the Squadrone tightened after Parliament was dissolved.<sup>27</sup> He enjoyed an overpowering territorial influence in his namesake county (where the voters were his vassals), and deployed this in favour of the Squadrone in the 1708 general election, when he returned a distant kinsman, Sir William Gordon<sup>‡</sup>, bt.<sup>28</sup> At the same time, his son and heir Strathnaver, was chosen for the local burgh district. Sutherland was delighted to be able to report to Sunderland that, in regard to the Commons, ‘our elections go pretty well’.<sup>29</sup> His late arrival in Edinburgh for the election of the representative peers on 17 June caused anxiety for both Hamilton and Montrose, as Sutherland held the proxies of James Hamilton, 6th earl of Abercorn [S], Thomas Fairfax<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S] and Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds). Sutherland was himself included in the list agreed between the Squadrone and Hamilton, but he was not elected. He received only 47 votes, only slightly more than Marchmont, William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S] and William Ross<sup>†</sup>, 12th Lord Ross [S]. Writing to Sunderland he attributed his defeat to his votes against the Scottish Privy Council, which made him ‘obnoxious’ to the Scottish court interest, and concluded that ‘I should never have made a struggle but to serve the queen, my family and friends. I am not afraid of being now dropped’. <sup>30</sup> In July, though, he received an encouraging letter from Roxburghe: considering the protests that had been lodged against the election, ‘I believe there will be no difficulty of your Lordship’s and some more of our friends getting into Parliament’.<sup>31</sup> Somers gave similar assurances.<sup>32</sup> Taking encouragement, he joined Marchmont, Annandale and Ross in requesting information from the clerks on proper election procedures.<sup>33</sup> This was followed by a paper in which they insisted that they had good ground to believe that ‘we and several others of the peers not returned by the clerks were legally chosen to be of the number of the 16 peers to represent the peers of … Scotland in the ensuing Parliament of Great Britain by a plurality of the most legal … votes’.<sup>34</sup> This was the foundation of a petition which was to be presented at the beginning of the new Parliament.</p><p>In the meantime, Sutherland continued to solicit Marlborough for preferment, on his own behalf and his son’s. On 26 Oct. 1708 he was informed by Sunderland that ‘you may depend always upon everything I can do towards serving your lordship or anybody that belongs to you, and shall write to my Lord Marlborough, in relation to my Lord Strathnaver’s pretentions’. As the parliamentary session was imminent, Sunderland hoped that he would ‘lose no time in coming up, and you may depend upon all the assistance we can give, towards doing you justice, and bringing you into the House’.<sup>35</sup> Sutherland replied from Edinburgh on 9 Nov., explaining that, although hitherto prevented from travelling south by a cold, he intended to be in London as soon as possible and sent his service to ‘all your lordship’s … friends’.<sup>36</sup></p><p>The days preceding the opening of the Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708 were filled with frantic lobbying by the Scottish peers Sutherland, Annandale and Ross (Marchmont was absent in Scotland) and their ‘friends’ among the English Junto lords such as Sunderland, Somers and Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton.<sup>37</sup> Their petition claiming that the election of William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], and David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], was invalid was presented on 18 November. It was not considered until 10 Jan. 1709, after the relevant papers had been brought from Edinburgh. A committee was appointed to investigate the peers’ election, which first reported on 17 Jan. and completed its proceedings at the end of the month. The votes were recalculated, according to resolutions already passed, and Sutherland’s total fell from 47 to 43, still insufficient to secure election. </p><p>Following the ministerial revolution of 1710, Sutherland was among the allies of the Squadrone who boycotted the peers’ election on 10 Nov., although he did receive a vote from Glasgow holding the proxy of Osborne of Dunblane.<sup>38</sup> Nor was Sutherland a candidate at the election of 8 Oct. 1713, although again at least one peer, George Mackay, 3rd Lord Reay [S], thought he was and entrusted his proxy to James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], with special instructions to vote for him. The family remained active in Commons’ elections, however, as both Sutherland and, increasingly, Lord Strathnaver continued to be the dominant, indeed the only, electoral force for the county of Sutherland.<sup>39</sup> The earl was present in London in September 1714 at George I’s arrival, and according to the Whig <em>Flying Post </em>was insulted by some disaffected elements for ‘celebrating King William’s birthday’ with other gentlemen.<sup>40</sup> He had an important ceremonial part in the coronation of the new king the following month.<sup>41</sup> A contemporary Jacobite satire on the Scottish Whigs called him ‘the bravo of the party’ and suggested that his hard drinking had left him ‘much decayed in grace’.<sup>42</sup> Although his regimental arrears remained unpaid, he was rewarded with several local appointments, including the lord lieutenancy of the six northern counties of Scotland, and, at last, promotion to lieutenant-general.<sup>43</sup> When Mar raised the Pretender’s standard in Scotland Sutherland proceeded to his own county. He arrived at Dunrobin Castle in late September 1715 and immediately raised troops (partly at his own expense) which were then equipped by the government. His forces played a significant part in the containment and defeat of the Jacobite forces, including taking the important post of Inverness and overseeing the surrender of the Alexander Gordon, styled marquess of Huntly [S], son of his former patron.<sup>44</sup> By that time he had already resumed his place as a representative peer following the election of 3 Mar. 1715. His later political and parliamentary career under the Hanoverian kings will be examined in the second part of this work. Sutherland died at Chelsea on 27 June 1733 and was buried at Dornoch in Sutherland.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
GRAHAM, James (1682-1742) |
<p><strong><surname>GRAHAM</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1682–1742)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1682-84 earl of Kincardine [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 25 Apr. 1684 (a minor) as 4th mq. of Montrose [S]; <em>cr. </em>24 Apr. 1707 duke of MONTROSE [S] |
RP [S] 1707–10, 1715–34 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 16 Apr. 1734 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c. Apr. 1682 o. s. of James Graham, 3rd marquess of Montrose [S] and Christian, da. and coh. of John Leslie, 7th earl of Rothes [S]. <em>educ</em>. privately; travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1698–1700. <em>m</em>. contr. 31 Mar. 1702, Christian (<em>d</em>.1744), da. of David Carnegie, 3rd earl of Northesk [S], sis of David Carnegie*, 4th earl of Northesk [S], 7s. (5 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 3da. <em>d.v.p.</em> <em>d</em>. 7 Jan. 1742.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. treasury [S] 1705-8; ld. high adm. [S] 1705-6; pres. of council [S] 1706-8; PC 1707-14, 1717-27; ld. privy seal [S] 1709-13; regent Aug.-Sept. 1714; sec. of state and kpr. of the signet [S] 1714-15; ld. clerk register [S] July-Sept. 1716; kpr. of gt. seal [S] 1716-33.</p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1696, Glasgow 1722; baillie and justiciar, Glasgow 1714-<em>d</em>.; sheriff principal, Stirling 1716-<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Dumbarton 1717-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Chan. Glasgow Univ. 1714.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J.B. Medina (sold at Christie’s 26 May 2005); oil on canvas aft. G. Kneller, c.1727 Govt. Art Coll.</p> |
<p>Montrose combined in his person two very different Scottish political traditions: the exemplary Stuart loyalism of his paternal great-grandfather, the James Graham, marquess of Montrose [S], and the Covenanting sympathies of his maternal ancestors, the Leslies, earls of Rothes. At first, the Graham inheritance appeared paramount. His conduct while travelling abroad as a young man alarmed his redoubtable Presbyterian mother, who heard rumours that he had kissed the hand of the exiled James II in France, and feared that a request to visit Rome might betoken a change of religion.<sup>2</sup> Although no other evidence survives to suggest youthful enthusiasm for the Stuart cause, Montrose’s ancestry commended him to those of a Jacobite cast of mind, like George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, who observed that when he ‘first appeared in the world he had enough to recommend him to the love and affection of the nation ... by being the representative of that noble, loyal and worthy family. And his interest increased to so great a degree by his good behaviour after he came from his travels’.<sup>3</sup> Time spent in foreign courts had indeed led to ‘improvements’ in his accomplishments, and other observers detected ‘a sweetness of behaviour, which charms all those who know him’.<sup>4</sup> Moreover, at his debut in Scottish politics Montrose was sufficiently in tune with cavalier opinion to be outraged by the introduction into the Scottish Parliament in June 1702 of an oath of abjuration, and by threatening opposition forced the hand of the queen’s commissioner (and the leader of the Scottish court party), James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], who adjourned Parliament to frustrate the abjuration project.<sup>5</sup></p><p>Over the following winter Queensberry sought to recruit Montrose with offers of patronage and an invitation to present himself at court in London, but at the same time James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], was also urging him to enlist with the ‘country party’.<sup>6</sup> Beset by the blandishments of Queensberry and his followers, Montrose played for time, acknowledging Queensberry’s ‘kindness’ but declining to travel to England and stating his determination not to ‘engage in anything till I find how my behaviour be approved in the next parliament’. He added, somewhat enigmatically, that while he would ‘ever make it my study to serve the queen ... I can’t promise how that word service may be constructed, for I have frequently known very different sense put upon it’.<sup>7</sup> In fact, he was ‘very hearty’ in support of the country party in the election, and as the new Parliament approached, he joined some of Hamilton’s followers, including the cavalier William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], in concerting measures with whiggish oppositionists like John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], the very men who had supported the abjuration in the previous summer.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Montrose took his seat in May 1703 and promptly aligned himself ‘in the duke of Hamilton’s interest’.<sup>9</sup> In one speech he made a vehement plea to his fellow countrymen to defend their traditional ‘liberties’, and went so far as to denounce the court party as ‘wholly determined by English councils’.<sup>10</sup> When the discovery of the ‘Scotch Plot’ in the following winter encouraged the lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin to seek a settlement of the succession in Scotland, Queensberry was told that neither Hamilton nor Montrose would comply.<sup>11</sup> These comments were consistent with the account of a Jacobite agent that Hamilton and Montrose were among ‘les principaux amis du roi en Écosse’.<sup>12</sup> In the spring of 1704 Montrose was still on good terms with the likes of Lockhart, although at the same time he was being approached by the English ministers, as part of a campaign to detach elements of the opposition in Scotland.<sup>13</sup> His kinsman and factor, Mungo Graham<sup>‡</sup>, journeyed to London in the spring of 1704, ostensibly on business relating to the purchase of property, but was introduced to the queen by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), and given assurances of the high regard in which his master’s family was held.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The result of these various negotiations was the displacement of Queensberry by the whiggish elements of the country opposition, a faction known first as the ‘New Party’, and later as the Squadrone Volante, with Tweeddale appointed parliamentary commissioner. The attempts of the New Party to settle the succession were undermined by Hamilton, who remained in opposition, and who insisted that a treaty with England be agreed before the succession was considered. Tweeddale, on the defensive, sought to buy time by obtaining a six months’ cess, but Hamilton proposed two months instead, and then only after the passage of measures ‘to secure the religion, liberty and independence of this nation’, and the nomination of treaty commissioners.<sup>15</sup> Montrose intervened in the debate to move successfully that, ‘seeing some time was necessary for concerting measures with her Majesty we should not dispute for two months supply’; in addition, it was said, he ‘more or less declared his willingness to grant the six months’.<sup>16</sup> In writing to Tweeddale, Godolphin noted that ‘the queen is very well pleased ... that my Lord Montrose has carried himself so well, and will be very willing to let him see, that to begin with serving her Majesty is the right way to her favour’.<sup>17</sup> As far as Lockhart was concerned, though, Montrose had sold out his old friends. He found it hard to understand how a young man with such a proud heritage could make common cause with descendants of those who had persecuted ‘his glorious great-grandfather’: had Montrose continued in Parliament as he had begun, ‘he would have been acknowledged and followed as the head and leader of the cavaliers. But being of an easy, mean-spirited temper, governed by his mother and her relations (the family of Rothes) and extremely covetous, he could not resist the first temptation the court threw in his way.’<sup>18</sup></p><p>Once the session ended Montrose was subject to further pressure to accept the office of lord high admiral of Scotland, along with a pension of £1,000 p.a. John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], told Tweeddale that ‘however he may be looked upon in England he is as ill looked upon by the Jacobites here as either your Lordship or I’, and John Ker*, 5th earl of Roxburghe [S], told Tweeddale that ‘if he is not employed we shall look very simple’. Montrose initially declined but gave way when Roxburghe joined Tweeddale in pressing him, though he declined the pension and accepted the office only ‘as a mark of her Majesty’s favour’.<sup>19</sup> From the Squadrone’s point of view, Montrose was a vital ally. They considered it likely that he would oppose the government unless provided for, and that he ‘wants not interest of his own’.<sup>20</sup> However, when news of the appointment reached the new parliamentary commissioner, John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], it was blocked.<sup>21</sup> An angry Montrose wrote to the queen that Argyll ‘has been pleased to stop my commission at the seals. I make no doubt he has informed your majesty of his reasons for so doing. I thought it was my duty not to insist in that matter till such time as your majesty shall please to signify your further orders to me.’<sup>22</sup> Argyll’s antagonism seems to have been rooted in a traditional animosity between the two families, to which was now added a sense of personal grievance on the part of Montrose.<sup>23</sup> Although his nomination as admiral was eventually confirmed, Montrose and his followers lined up alongside the New Party in opposition in 1705.<sup>24</sup> But he found himself embarrassed by what was seen as evidence of ‘unsteady principles’ and on one occasion was twitted by Hamilton for abandoning his former allies.<sup>25</sup> At this point Argyll changed tack and attempted to separate Montrose from the Squadrone by offering him the place of president of the council. Some of Queensberry’s supporters joined in trying to persuade him, but the Squadrone Member George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> stated his confidence that Montrose would never be won over by Argyll.<sup>26</sup> Eventually, after several refusals, Montrose did exchange the admiral’s place for that of president of the council in Scotland in March 1706, at a salary of £2,000 p.a., but not to gratify Argyll.<sup>27</sup> It was reported that his acceptance was entirely Queensberry’s doing, and that while he gave Queensberry’s party assurances ‘of his being in the same interest with us’, he had made it clear that ‘he would not accept upon terms, so he is at liberty’. Proof came when he refused to serve as one of the Scottish union commissioners; indeed, he hesitated to support the treaty even after Roxburghe and others of the Squadrone declared their approval of it.<sup>28</sup> His preciosity, tending sometimes to equivocation, could be trying for his friends: on 19 Sept. Roxburghe wrote that Montrose ‘was plainer than usual; that is so as to make one guess what he inclines to, but said nothing that looked like being determined, save that matters were now come to that pass that things were to be minded, and not persons’. Roxburghe also noted that Montrose ‘spoke too of the uncertainty of the court’s being in earnest, which was more than ever past betwixt him and me before.’<sup>29</sup> When the treaty came before Parliament Montrose supported ratification. Queensberry’s cronies reported in October that Montrose had ‘fully declared himself’ in favour of Union, and had ‘acted a fair and handsome part’ in the preparations for the session, persuading his friends to follow his lead, and also helping to bring the Squadrone on board.<sup>30</sup> Although on one occasion, in November 1706, he sided with the court party against the Squadrone and Argyll in a skirmish over procedure, he did not deviate from commitment to ratification, despite the intimidation of the Edinburgh mob.<sup>31</sup> In response to favourable reports of his conduct the queen wrote to express her gratification that the ‘account which I have received ... of the zeal and industry which you have shown for my service, with so good success, has given me such satisfaction that I cannot but take notice of it to you myself’.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Montrose’s contribution to the passage of the Union was rewarded by promotion in the peerage, while two of his followers (Mungo Graham and John Haldane<sup>‡</sup>) received preferment in his wake.<sup>33</sup> At a more mundane level, he shared in the allocation of funds provided for ‘arrears’ to Scottish officials, receiving £200 for a non-existent claim.<sup>34</sup> He had also guaranteed himself a place as one of the representative peers sent to the first Parliament of Great Britain. Queensberry’s political lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], reported that ‘we brought everybody who had been for the Union to be content to name three of the New Party beside my Lord Montrose, who is very intimate with them’.<sup>35</sup> In an analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] in 1707 he was noted as ‘for the Revolution a good countryman will not be led off’. He was expected to be able to influence Roxburghe and Tweeddale, as well as their friends in the Commons James Halyburton<sup>‡</sup>, John Bruce<sup>‡</sup> and Sir Peter Halket<sup>‡</sup>, and his own associates, Graham and Haldane.</p><p>In April 1707 Montrose was in London, arranging to wait upon Godolphin on 26 Apr. and on 19 May was summoned to attend the queen on the following day, whereupon he was added to the British Privy Council alongside Queensberry and three other courtiers.<sup>36</sup> He was back in Glasgow by 2 July, reporting to Mar with some gratification that opposition to Union had subsided, especially among the trading classes: ‘It is very easy for England to gain our people’, he wrote, ‘let them but do us justice and make us a good continuance and they certainly have us.’<sup>37</sup> He was still in Scotland on 10 Oct., less than a fortnight before Parliament assembled, but had reached London by the 23rd when he was present in the Lords when the names of the representative peers were read out. In all, Montrose attended on 97 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total. The Queensberryites in turn had now become suspicious that Montrose was too close to the Squadrone, and when the session began their fears were justified.<sup>38</sup> With the help of the Whig Junto, the Squadrone mounted a campaign to weaken the Scottish court party by introducing changes to the government of Scotland, most notably the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council. A bill to this effect was introduced into the Commons on 29 Nov. and in the ensuing debate Montrose and Roxburghe, ‘who are of a side, were waiting the event in the gallery’.<sup>39</sup> On 5 Feb. 1708 the bill received its second reading in the Lords, and was referred to a committee of the whole, where an unsuccessful attempt was made to delay the abolition until 1 Oct. 1708. Only four Scots opposed the amendment – three Squadrone lords and Montrose – and at the third reading two days later all the Scots peers present protested against it except the same quartet.<sup>40</sup> Montrose was named to 13 committees including that on the bill to establish a court of exchequer in Scotland, where on 5 Mar. he was deputed to prepare a clause on the bill and the committee of 31 Mar. to manage a conference on the bill encouraging trade with America.<sup>41</sup> On a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain he was marked as a Whig.</p><p>Although anxiety about the French invasion attempt made Montrose eager to return home once the session ended, he delayed his journey until negotiations were well under way for a pre-election pact between the Squadrone and Hamilton, brokered by the Junto, a reversal of alliances which Montrose, because of his former association with Hamilton, may well have played a part in bringing about.<sup>42</sup> According to Lockhart, Montrose was one of those to whom the Pretender had originally addressed letters of appeal to accompany the invasion.<sup>43</sup> Concern for the success of the electoral scheme prompted Montrose in April to denounce the arbitrary arrest of Hamilton and other Scottish peers suspected of involvement in the projected rising, and to try to fix the blame on Queensberry.<sup>44</sup> But on 7 May the Whig secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, was able to confirm that Hamilton’s release had ‘produced such an union, as will in all probability carry the election of the 16 peers, in the manner ... all of us wish’, and that ‘the whole Squadrone is in the list agreed on’.<sup>45</sup> Montrose arrived in Edinburgh on 29 May for the forthcoming election.<sup>46</sup> In reporting to Sunderland the progress of elections in Scotland to both Houses, he identified himself with Squadrone and Whig interests, though it was still to be some time before outside observers would regard him as a full member of the Squadrone.<sup>47</sup> At the same time Richard Dowdeswell, in reporting to George Tilson in Whitehall, explicitly excluded Montrose from the ranks of the court party.<sup>48</sup> In the peers’ election on 17 June he voted in person for the list agreed on with Hamilton, and on behalf of William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup>, 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], by proxy for the same list with one exception. He was also vocal in protesting against Queensberry being allowed to vote and against several court proxies, namely George Forester, 5th Lord Forester [S] for being underage and David Ogilvy, 3rd earl of Airlie [S], for not having a properly sealed proxy.<sup>49</sup> He received sufficient votes himself (48) to secure election, although the Squadrone as a whole did much less well than they had hoped and were obliged to put their faith in the assistance of their Whig friends in adjusting the results through parliamentary inquiry.<sup>50</sup></p><p>Pressing letters from Sunderland and John Somers*, Baron Somers, hastened Montrose’s departure for London, Sunderland requesting his presence urgently ‘for the right interest of Britain, and for everything that may contribute towards making the Union entire and complete’.<sup>51</sup> Although the Journal records Montrose as attending on 18 Nov. 1708, correspondence shows that he arrived in London on 24 Nov., and took the oaths at the next available sitting on 26 November.<sup>52</sup> He attended regularly in December as the election inquiry gathered momentum. Tension was growing between the Squadrone and the Junto over the Whigs’ failure to secure Queensberry’s dismissal, and Montrose was present at a meeting of party leaders on 11 Dec. at which these issues were brought into the open.<sup>53</sup> On 21 Jan. 1709 he supported Hamilton’s successful petition against Queensberry’s right to participate in the peers’ election after having acquired a British title as duke of Dover, but a week later saw his own objection to one of the court proxies rendered invalid by a resolution of the House which allowed the vote of any peer who had taken the oaths in Edinburgh Castle. When the votes were recalculated in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Lords’ committee of inquiry, his own total fell by three, not enough for him to lose his seat. As part of the agreement between Godolphin and the Junto which had brought the election inquiry to an end, Montrose was appointed lord privy seal in Scotland in place of Queensberry, who became the third secretary of state, a place the Squadrone had previously hoped, and the Junto had promised, would go to Montrose.<sup>54</sup> The new appointment did at least restore the £2,000 a year that he had lost with the extinction of the lord keepership, but he was evidently piqued, and his failure to attend the Privy Council at which Queensberry was declared secretary did not go unnoticed.<sup>55</sup> Although the reshuffle, in which Hamilton was ignored, broke the alliance between Hamilton and the Squadrone, Rothes was of the opinion that Montrose had been ‘in the hardest circumstances in the world’, since had he refused the appointment, Godolphin would have exploited it to weaken the Squadrone and strengthen Queensberry. Montrose seems to have accepted the Junto’s assurances of continued co-operation, albeit without enthusiasm.<sup>56</sup> He attended the Lords throughout the proceedings on the Junto-inspired bill to extend the English treason laws to Scotland and protested twice against it on 28 Mar., the day it passed its 3rd reading. According to Baillie he left London on 28 Mar., although the Journal records his presence on 5 April. He attended on 67 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total and was named to 18 committees.</p><p>Montrose was in no hurry to return to London for the next session and on 24 Oct. 1709 informed Sunderland that since Parliament had been adjourned until 15 Nov. ‘and ... I reckon there will be little or no business done for the first ten days or a fortnight, I don’t think of being at London before the end of the month’.<sup>57</sup> He arrived on 29 Nov. and first attended on 1 December.<sup>58</sup> In all, he was present on 68 days of the session, 73 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He supported the impeachment of Sacheverell, voting the doctor guilty on 20 Mar. 1710 of high crimes and misdemeanours. He last attended on 5 Apr., the day Parliament was prorogued. </p><p>Montrose was in a difficult position in 1710. Mar wrote on 6 June that he was ‘extremely sorry’ that ‘Montrose and I are not yet like to be of one side … but if our friends serve him I hope he will not think of taking measures with anybody else’.<sup>59</sup> Montrose certainly seemed to identify with the Whigs when he wrote on 17 Aug., ‘I hear the moment the dissolution is all the Whigs give up. Duke Hamilton and Duke Queensberry are fixed upon the same bottom against us’.<sup>60</sup> By 26 Aug. Charles Hay<sup>†</sup> styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S])thought that Mar had ‘the secret of the list and will offer to 112 [Montrose] and another of 28 [the Squadrone] to make them of the numbers if they will join in the measure’.<sup>61</sup> In the event, Montrose did not succumb to the blandishments of Mar and Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, but joined the Squadrone in ostentatiously dining together while the election took place without them.<sup>62</sup></p><p>Nevertheless, Montrose did not resign his place, nor was he dismissed. He wrote to Harley (now lord treasurer Oxford) from Edinburgh in June 1711 to pledge ‘real and entire affection’ to the queen’s person and her government, but in the following winter was expressing to his friends his hope that the flames of Scottish resentment over the Hamilton peerage case could be fanned into a full-scale revolt against Oxford’s ministry.<sup>63</sup> In June 1712 he was present at a ‘great confluence of the Squadro[ne]’ in Edinburgh to discuss political strategy, possibly relating to the vacancy attendant upon the death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal.<sup>64</sup> Despite Tory pressure, Oxford remained loath to remove Montrose from office, presumably sensing some chance of securing his support, even though he himself gave little grounds for this belief, and Montrose held on to his place as lord privy seal until dismissed in April 1713 to make way for John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S].<sup>65</sup> During the parliamentary crisis in May-June 1713 he was in London encouraging opposition to the proposed extension of the malt tax to Scotland, though John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], one of the Scottish Tories with whom he maintained friendly relations, confessed himself unsure as to whether Montrose would be willing to go so far as to endorse a repeal of the Union.<sup>66</sup> Oxford still seems to have entertained hopes of him, however slim, but on 12 June Mar wrote to Oxford of Montrose that ‘by what I can perceive he is further from us now than before he went to the Bath’, and at the beginning of July was informed by Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], that ‘the duke of Montrose [is] gone for Scotland, from whence I conclude he is not to forsake his old evil ways and come into the queen’s service.’<sup>67</sup></p><p>Montrose again joined the boycott of the Scottish peerage election in 1713. He did travel to London in February 1714 and remained in the capital until late May.<sup>68</sup> On the death of Queen Anne, Montrose participated in the proclamation of George I in Edinburgh and promptly set off for London to take his place on the council of regency, as a nominee of the Hanoverian court, arriving on the 9 Aug. and taking his place as a lord justice on the following day.<sup>69</sup> After the arrival of George I he was named secretary of state for Scotland, and by November 1714 was challenging Argyll for royal favour, launching what was to be a long-drawn out political struggle between the Campbell family and the Squadrone, of which Montrose, along with Roxburghe was now the recognized leader.<sup>70</sup> This and other aspects of his subsequent parliamentary and political career will be covered in the second part of this work. </p><p>He died in London on 7 Jan. 1742 and was buried at Aberuthven.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
HAMILTON, George (1666-1737) |
<p><strong><surname>HAMILTON</surname></strong>, <strong>George</strong> (1666–1737)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>3 Jan. 1696 earl of ORKNEY [S] |
RP [S] 12 Feb. 1707, 1708, 1710, 1713, 1715, 1722, 1727, 1734 |
First sat 10 Jan. 1709; last sat 20 May 1736 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 9 Feb. 1666, 5th but 4th surv. s. of William Hamilton (formerly Douglas) (<em>d</em>.1694), 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], and Anne (<em>d</em>.1716), da. of James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton [S], and <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Hamilton [S]; bro. of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], and Ld. Archibald Hamilton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>m</em>. 25 Nov. 1695, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1733), da. of Sir Edward Villiers of Richmond, Surr. and sis. of Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, 3da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). KT 7 Feb. 1704. <em>d</em>. 29 Jan. 1737; <em>will</em> 29 June 1733-23 Jan. 1737, pr. 5 Mar. 1737.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC 1 Mar. 1711-1 Aug. 1714; gent. of bedchamber 1714-16 (extra), 1716–27.</p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1687;<sup>2</sup> ld. lt, Lanark 1711-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Capt., R. Scots (later 1st Ft.) by 1671; lt. col., Inniskilling Ft. (later 27th Ft.) June 1689-by July 1690; col., Inniskilling Ft. by July 1690-Jan. 1692, R. Fusiliers (later 7th Ft.) Jan.-Aug. 1692, R. Scots Aug. 1692–<em>d</em>.; brig.-gen. 1695, maj.-gen. 1702, lt.-gen. 1704, gen. of ft. 1711, gov. and capt. coy. of ft., Edinburgh castle 1714–<em>d</em>.; field marshal 1736. <sup>3</sup></p><p>Gov.-gen. Virginia 1697–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1704, Lennoxlove, Haddington, E. Lothian; oil on canvas by unknown artist, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 1017; oil on canvas by unknown artist, c.1710, National Trust, Cliveden; oil on canvas by M. Maingaud, 1724, Gov. Art Coll.</p> |
<p>Lord George Hamilton was destined for a life as a soldier from a very young age, being nominally appointed when still only five years old a captain of a troop in the regiment commanded by his uncle George Douglas, earl of Dumbarton [S], shortly to be known as the Royal Scots. With this education on the battlefield he was by all accounts a brave soldier, though apparently no strategist, and was best suited to a subordinate role in battle. <sup>4</sup> He gave distinguished military service to William III after the Revolution. In Ireland, as colonel of the Inniskilling Regiment of Foot, he fought at the Boyne, at Aughrim (where he was wounded), and at the siege of Limerick. On the continent, where he served as colonel of the Royal Scots, he saw action at Steenkirk, Landen, and at the siege of Namur in 1695, when he was wounded again. In that same year he was promoted to brigadier-general for his services. Even Swift found little to condemn in him, annotating the character sketch of him drawn by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, with the comment, 'An honest, good-natured gentleman that hath much distinguished himself as a soldier'.<sup>5</sup></p><p>It was, however, his marriage in November 1695 to the king’s former mistress which brought him the greatest material rewards. Not only was ‘Betty’ Villiers a fortune in her own right, her connections at court, such as her brother Jersey, were of inestimable value. Within a year of their marriage Hamilton had been able to purchase the Villiers estate at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, formerly owned by George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, which he set about improving until Cliveden could be described by John Macky in 1714 as ‘a noble building, <em>à la moderne’</em>.<sup>6</sup> In 1696 he was created earl of Orkney, officially as a reward for his ‘fidelity and zeal’ and the many proofs he had given of his courage, but presumably as much to gratify his wife.<sup>7</sup> In 1697 he received the sinecure of governor of Virginia, a colony he never visited, entrusting the government to a series of deputies. His political preferences at this time were with the Whig ministry. Certainly he could not be expected to sympathize with an opposition party in England which after the Treaty of Ryswick was pressing for the disbandment of the Army, and which was also pursuing a determined campaign to resume the grants of forfeitures in Ireland, including his wife’s extensive holdings in co. Cork. His correspondence from London to his brother, Hamilton, during the political crisis of 1700-1 shows a pronounced aversion to the Tories.<sup>8</sup> He was unhappy at Hamilton’s alliance with the Scottish cavalier interest, asking him pointedly whether he could really be ‘a Tory in England, and a Whig in Scotland’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Nonetheless, Orkney’s military career continued to flourish after 1702, thanks to his own qualities in the field and to the fact that Lady Orkney possessed the ear of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. He fought in all of Marlborough’s great victories as colonel of the Royal Scots. Although Marlborough considered him unadventurous, Orkney turned down the chance to become commander-in-chief in Scotland in 1705 (as he also seems to have done in 1696), preferring to remain at the heart of the continental campaign, where the risks, and the potential rewards, were greater.<sup>10</sup> But it was not long before he began to make demands for the further preferment that he considered his due. In 1704 he asked to be allowed to reside as governor of Virginia, and thus enjoy all the perquisites of the office.<sup>11</sup> By late March 1705 it was rumoured that he was on the verge of taking up this assignment, but instead he received the promotion to lieutenant-general that had been rumoured for some time.<sup>12</sup> By 1708 his tone had become querulous. He received a share of the Equivalent, following the Union, but spent it on the house and gardens at Cliveden. Money owing him from the Virginia governorship had not been paid, and he now declared himself to be weary of the war. Inwardly he was resentful at what he saw as the ministry’s tendency to take him for granted. Marlborough was at a loss to understand his attitude and was anxious to help, although his duchess was scathing: Orkney, she stated, was ‘the most covetous wretch in nature’.<sup>13</sup></p><p>It was at this point that Orkney made his <em>entrée</em> into politics. He may have been held back previously by a diffidence in public speaking–‘by reason of a hesitation in his speech [he] wants expression’.<sup>14</sup> In the spring of 1708 Marlborough and Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, had agreed, apparently with reluctance, to acquiesce to Orkney's request, made in part through his wife, to stand as one of the 16 representative peers in the elections for the forthcoming Parliament. The duchess of Marlborough appears to have disapproved, but her husband explained that it was far safer to keep Orkney on-side, considering him among those who ‘may be had by those that think it worth their while to buy them’. Besides, Orkney had ‘already told me that he will do whatever I shall think for the service’. Godolphin too was wary of inflaming Orkney’s 'ill humour', although he was sure that Orkney would not be chosen.<sup>15</sup> In a letter of 31 May 1708 Marlborough recommended Orkney's candidacy to John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], who was managing the peers’ elections for the Scottish court party headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].<sup>16</sup></p><p>Unbeknownst to these members of the court party, Orkney was deeply involved in the secret negotiations carried on by Hamilton with the Whig Junto and their Scottish allies, the Squadrone, to oppose Queensberry at the election. It was indeed Orkney himself, on behalf of his eldest brother, who made the first approach to the Squadrone through John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe.<sup>17</sup> In Edinburgh by early June 1708, Orkney assisted in efforts to persuade ‘cavalier’ peers to follow his brother’s line in the election. He spread the idea that his candidacy had the queen’s personal approval and further made use of her name to secure votes for the Squadrone candidates, further claiming that Queensberry and the Scottish court had been responsible for the arrest and transportation of the 'cavalier' peers suspected of complicity in the projected Jacobite uprising of March 1708.<sup>18</sup> He petitioned the government to release his brother-in-law, John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], under house arrest since the abortive invasion, and the other peers who were being transported to London for questioning about their suspected involvement. In a letter to the Whig secretary of state, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, who, against the queen's wishes, was supporting the Squadrone in this election, he made the point that these prisoners ‘could have served us much in both the elections of peers and commons’.<sup>19</sup> As the election drew closer, Hamilton sent Orkney and their brother Selkirk to visit both Atholl and John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane [S], to persuade them to look to the Squadrone and the Whigs for their release and future favour.<sup>20</sup></p><p>This embassy initially seemed successful, for at the election of 17 June 1708 Orkney presented himself and revealed that he had been entrusted with Atholl’s proxy as well as that of Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount Falkland [S]. He used these, as well as his own vote, to select the Squadrone list of candidates.<sup>21</sup> Later events suggest that Orkney and Atholl had differing views on how this proxy was to be used. During his later campaign to reverse some of the results of the election, Hamilton protested against Orkney's use of Atholl’s proxy, arguing that it was invalid because the proxy was ‘not sealed’.<sup>22</sup> Orkney partly explained this strange turn of events to Sunderland: Atholl had ‘not done so much as I expected or wished’ in his selection of candidates and the Hamilton brothers may therefore have wished to have had his proxy cancelled. Orkney added, however, in his own defence that ‘I am sure … he [Atholl] had been entire against us’ if he and Selkirk had not paid their visit to extract the proxy from him.<sup>23</sup> Hamilton’s protest against the proxy prompted some to think that Orkney ‘stands on his own feet’, independent of his brother. The Queensberryite David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S], however, noted that Orkney had made use of the proxy contrary to Atholl’s directions in voting for the Squadrone candidates.<sup>24</sup> On 24 June Atholl revealed to Breadalbane that he had ‘now got from the earl of Orkney the reasons of his altering my list … he says he only altered three of his party but did not change any of the other’.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Orkney had brought himself close to the Whigs on his own account as well as on his brother’s. In the general election he had used his interest in the Buckinghamshire constituency of Great Marlow to promote his brother Lord Archibald Hamilton as a candidate against two Tories.<sup>26</sup> On 22 June 1708, five days after his own election as a representative peer he wrote to inform Sunderland of his imminent departure to join the army in Flanders, and to ask how he ‘would have me talk in the army’.<sup>27</sup> He was present at Oudenarde in July, after which he found himself at odds with Marlborough. Orkney had pressed for an immediate invasion of France, and although deferring to Marlborough’s decision to besiege Lille instead, remained disappointed and discontented. At the end of the campaign he returned to London, arriving on 3 Jan. 1709. His brother-in-law, Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), reported that Orkney looked ‘very well’ but was ‘no favourite’.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Orkney took his seat in the Lords on 10 Jan. 1709, a good two months into the proceedings of the new Parliament, but was still able to attend 63 per cent of the sitting days of its first session of 1708-9. At the time of the election the Scottish lord chancellor James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), opined that Orkney and John Lindsay*, 19th earl of Crawford [S], both of them returned from the Squadrone's list, 'will certainly do well' by supporting the court in the Parliament.<sup>29</sup> Orkney's actions in his first session did not bear out Seafield's confidence, however. On his first day in the House Orkney was named to the committee to examine the papers relating to the petitions against the representative peers’ election, including the inventory of proxies. On 17 Jan. 1709 Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, delivered the committee’s report, which outlined the objections made against Orkney’s use of the proxies of Atholl, which, it was pointed out, had been ‘signed, but not sealed’, and Falkland, which had been left undated. Four days later Orkney joined with Hamilton, the Squadrone and the English Whigs in voting in favour of the motion that Queensberry could not participate in the election of the representative peers because of the British title he had recently been granted, as duke of Dover. After counsel was heard on 29 Jan., the House resolved that the proxies held by Orkney at the election were still valid despite their irregularities.</p><p>During February and early March Orkney continued to attend the House regularly. On 11 Mar. 1709 he was present at the first reading of the bill ‘for improving the Union of the two kingdoms’ and on 18 Mar. was one of the Scottish peers who voted unsuccessfully against the amendment extending to Scotland the English treason laws.<sup>30</sup> When the bill received its third reading on 28 Mar. he subscribed two protests, first against the refusal to allow the addition of a rider safeguarding a defendant’s right to receive a copy of the indictment and list of witnesses before his trial, and second against the bill’s passage. He was present at the House’s consideration of the Commons’ amendments on 14 Apr. and when Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, proposed that these alterations should not take effect until the Pretender’s death, ‘all the Scots’ in the House were in the minority against the motion.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Once Parliament was prorogued on 21 Apr. 1709 Orkney joined the army in Flanders and on 11 Sept. fought at Malplaquet, where he again distinguished himself.<sup>32</sup> He sent his brother a long account of the battle, in which he revealed a profound disillusionment with the course of the war: he hoped ‘in God it will be the last battle I may ever see. A very few of such would make both parties end the war very soon ... none alive ever saw such a battle. God send us a good peace’.<sup>33</sup> Orkney attributed much of the responsibility for the slaughter to Marlborough; the tension between the two men, possibly exacerbated by Orkney’s dislike of Marlborough’s favourite William Cadogan<sup>†</sup> later earl of Cadogan, was evident when they returned to England in November.<sup>34</sup> Orkney now seemed poised to change his political allegiance.<sup>35</sup> He failed to wait on Marlborough before the latter went up to London on 10 November. Lady Orkney wrote to the duchess of Marlborough on 14 Nov. to explain that her husband had not wished to be troublesome and that ‘he was going this day to town for no other end’. The duchess was unimpressed by this explanation. Having already been advised by Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup> of Lady Orkney’s ‘awkward squinting schemes’, she believed that Lady Orkney was ‘working in all things in their power’ to serve Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, and with good reason, for Lady Orkney had been in close, and conspirational, contact with Harley since at least July.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Orkney resumed his seat in the Lords on 21 Nov. 1709 and attended the session of 1709-10 for more than two-thirds of the sittings. Despite his personal misgivings about Marlborough he did not waver in his support for the Whig ministry in the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell. He was one of those named on 18 Feb. 1710 to the select committee to allocate tickets for the trial, and when it came to the division on 20 Mar. Orkney voted Sacheverell guilty. At the same time, his half-brother and aide-de-camp Sir James Abercromby<sup>‡</sup>, bt., who had recently been returned at a by-election for Dysart Burghs, was listed as supporting the impeachment in the Commons.<sup>37</sup> Orkney continued to attend until the end of the session on 5 Apr. 1710, before returning to military duties at the siege of Douai. </p><p>It soon became clear that Orkney was a pawn in the Whig ministry’s attempts to prevent the military advancement of his fellow Scot John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S].<sup>38</sup> Sunderland expressed the hope that Orkney rather than Argyll would be made a general of foot, in the belief that disappointment would force Argyll to ‘shoot himself through the head’. Although Sunderland considered Orkney ‘a very weak man’, he argued that it was undeniable that he ‘had behaved himself well in the impeachment’.<sup>39</sup> Marlborough also favoured Orkney’s advancement as a means of mortifying Argyll, pressing Godolphin to enable him to assure Orkney that ‘when any of his countrymen are made peers he shall be made an English baron’, a promotion on which Orkney had set his heart. <sup>40</sup> But the duchess was implacably opposed: ‘though it is hard for one in Marlborough’s station to know who are his true friends’, she wrote, ‘he ought never to forgive so false and apparent an enemy’. It was exceedingly unpleasant for Marlborough to have to ‘gratify a fool to mortify a knave’. For his part, the duke insisted that he had only recommended Orkney because ‘I promised his lady’.<sup>41</sup> However, Argyll was promoted instead in August 1710, while a furious Orkney had to wait until the following May.<sup>42</sup></p><p>In the summer of 1710 it was still thought that Orkney and Hamilton would support the Whigs and oppose the dissolution of Parliament.<sup>43</sup> By the end of the summer Orkney’s thoughts had turned to the prospect of the approaching election. On 28 Aug. 1710 he wrote to Breadalbane that the</p><blockquote><p>great talk of a new Parliament and the uncertainty of my being able to attend the elections of peers, having the honour to command the British foot, obliges me to give your lordship this trouble, not only to beg the favour of your vote, but that you will use your interest with your friends for me.<sup>44</sup></p></blockquote><p>Charles Boyle*, 4th earl of Orrery [I] (later Baron Boyle), advised Harley, then in negotiations with the unsettled Hamilton, that he should be wary of Orkney’s loyalty:</p><blockquote><p>When the agreement is made with Duke Hamilton I hope he will be made to engage for his brother's behaviour as well as his own; my Lord Orkney’s conduct in the last Parliament is a sufficient pretence to require security for him in the next, and there is the more reason to insist upon this because he has expressed more regard this year than he used to do to my lord Marlborough.<sup>45</sup></p></blockquote><p>Orkney, however, continued to make overtures to Harley, who backed his return as a representative peer. During September 1710 Orkney returned from Flanders to London, where he failed in his attempts to see Harley.<sup>46</sup> He then made his way to Edinburgh, from where he reassured Harley that he was ‘extremely obliged for the favour you have done me in procuring me a vote from my Lord Stirling [Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S]]. I am sorry I had not the happiness to see you at your own house to assure you how much I am your humble servant.’<sup>47</sup> On 10 Nov. he attended the peers’election where he was safely re-elected on the list agreed upon by Harley with Hamilton, Argyll, and Mar.<sup>48</sup> He was afterwards listed by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Richard Dongworth, as a ‘court Tory’.<sup>49</sup> In another analysis of the Scottish representative peers shortly after the election he was said to be ‘well intentioned’ in relation to the succession and the Union.</p><p>Orkney returned to London immediately and on 25 Nov. resumed his seat in the House. On 2 Jan. 1711, the day he was sworn to the Privy Council, he wrote to tell Selkirk about the queen’s message to the House informing them of the defeat suffered by the Allies at Brihuega and the assistance she intended to offer, with the help of Parliament, to the Austrian claimant ‘King Charles’. He further informed Selkirk that a committee had been appointed to draw up ‘an humble address to thank her majesty which will be reported tomorrow, and likely there may be some debate upon the wording of it, since some say they will be the beginning of our looking into the mismanagements of Spain’.<sup>50</sup> As Orkney predicted, the next day the House ordered an inquiry into the war in Spain. On 9 Jan., when the House was in committee of the whole on this subject, Orkney voted against the Whig attempt to adjourn the committee, after which it was resolved that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had given an honourable and just account of the council of war in Valencia before the allied defeat at Almanza in April 1707. Three days later Orkney’s vote also helped to secure the acceptance by the House of two further resolutions, one blaming the previous ministry for the defeat at Almanza and the failure of the expedition against Toulon, and the other stating that, had advice given by Peterborough been followed, the setbacks in Spain would have been avoided.<sup>51</sup> Orkney was then named to two select committees on the Spanish campaign. </p><p>On 1 Mar. 1711 Orkney was one of the Scots peers who voted in favour of the immediate consideration of the appeal submitted to the House by the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields which sought to reverse a sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy.<sup>52</sup> On 9 Mar. he was named as one of the conference managers on an address to the queen about the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Harley. Ill-health prevented his regular attendance during much of May and he donated his proxy on 2 May to Henry Bentinck*, 2nd earl of Portland, (vacated on 9 May) and on 14 May to his brother Hamilton. That was his last sitting in the House for the session, and in June he left to rejoin the army in Flanders, having been in early May made a general of foot. <sup>53</sup> Lady Orkney was now wholly integrated into the network of the earl of Oxford, as Harley had become in May 1711. With some spite the duchess of Marlborough thought her ‘one of the greatest politicians of our times’.<sup>54</sup> Orkney himself sought to capitalize on his recent military promotion by renewing his request for a British peerage, having been ‘made to hope’ for this some years before, ‘by some who pretended to be my friends’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Orkney resumed his seat in the Lords on 7 Dec. 1711, the first day of the session of 1711-12, and on that day was named to the committee to draw up the loyal address. On 20 Dec. he voted, with the other Scots peers present, in the minority in favour of Hamilton’s right to sit in the House of Lords as duke of Brandon; he subsequently subscribed the protest against the House’s resolution excluding Hamilton. He also signed a representation of Scottish peers to the queen appealing to her to redress the injury done thereby to her Scottish subjects.<sup>56</sup> He continued to attend the House intermittently in January 1712 but as it became clear that Scottish grievances would not be redressed, his attendance declined to the point that he was present at only 13 sittings after 29 January. In total he came to only just over a quarter (27 per cent) of the sittings and last sat in the House for the session on 8 Apr. 1712. Two days later his proxy was registered with Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], for the three months remaining of the session. Back with his regiment in the summer, he once more reminded Oxford of his pretensions, declaring with some exaggeration that he had ‘now served both wars without bettering my fortune in any manner’.<sup>57</sup></p><p>Orkney was in the House for four of the prorogations of the spring of 1713 by which the eagerly anticipated session to discuss the Peace of Utrecht was continually postponed, and he was in the House again on 9 Apr. 1713 when the terms were finally ready for presentation. He attended a full three-quarters of the sittings of this session, concerned as he was both by the peace and the possibility that the malt tax would now be extended to Scotland consequent, as the Treaty of Union stipulated, to the ending of the war. Although Orkney had been forecast by Jonathan Swift in the spring of 1713 as likely to support the ministry, he had already complained to Oxford in January of the lord treasurer’s ‘coolness’ in failing to secure him the promotion to which his ‘rank in the army and continued service without intermission entitles me’.<sup>58</sup> On 26 May Orkney was ‘out of town’ when the general meeting was held of Scottish parliamentarians which agreed unanimously to address the queen to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union in the face of the attempts to extend the malt tax to the northern kingdom. His absence was regarded as surprising, if not suspicious.<sup>59</sup> He had, though, returned to the House by 1 June when the 4th earl of Findlater (as Seafield had become), ‘at the head of all the Scotch lords brought in a proposal, praying that leave might be given to bring in a bill for dissolving the Union betwixt the two kingdoms’. Presumably he joined the alliance of Scots and Whigs who voted, unsuccessfully, to adjourn debate on the motion in order to muster more support for it. The ministry was able to defeat that motion for adjournment and then the motion to bring in such a bill. Orkney also attended on 5 June for the second reading of the malt tax bill when the ‘Whigs and the Scots joined against it’, but their combined votes were not sufficient to defeat it at the third reading on 8 June. Orkney signed the protest against the passage of the bill, as a violation of the Treaty of Union. <sup>60</sup> Nevertheless, Oxford predicted that Orkney would side with the ministry in favour of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty, which, however, was defeated in the Commons before it could even appear before the House. For the remainder of the session there is little evidence of his activity in the House beyond the bare record of his attendance, which he maintained intermittently until the prorogation on 16 July 1713.</p><p>At the election of representative peers in October 1713 Orkney was re-elected after soliciting Oxford’s support, ‘since I believe nobody has more zeal for her Majesty's service, or is more attached to your interest than I’.<sup>61</sup> His sister-in-law Elizabeth, dowager duchess of Hamilton, nevertheless claimed that Orkney’s politics were turning away from those of the ministry.<sup>62</sup> Orkney resumed his seat on 16 Feb. 1714, the first day of the new Parliament, and diligently attended 82 per cent of the meetings of its first session in spring 1714. Perhaps because Orkney was now attending more regularly than previously he received Loudoun’s proxy on 17 Mar., which was eventually vacated by Loudoun’s attendance on 31 March. Orkney was now being actively courted by Oxford and at the end of March was made governor of Edinburgh Castle in place of Argyll.<sup>63</sup> He was present in the House on 4 Apr. for a debate on ‘the state of the nation’, at which a ‘question was moved that the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover is in danger’. It was then suggested to add the words ‘under her Majesty’s government’; this was carried with all the Scottish peers present voting in favour.<sup>64</sup> After the Whigs had moved an address to the queen on this motion, Orkney was named to the drafting committee. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, also considered Orkney a likely supporter of the schism bill in June 1714. However when a petition was presented to the House by Thomas Wharton*, earl (later marquess) of Wharton, asking that Dissenters’ representatives be heard against the bill, Orkney left the chamber before the vote, together with his fellow representative peer and army general David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S].<sup>65</sup> George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> singled Orkney out as one of three representative peers who on 9 June supported amendments to the bill which would allow schoolmistresses to continue teaching even if they did not meet the qualifications in the bill and which would permit appeals to justices of the peace. He also voted for a motion to omit from the bill the words ‘and other literature’ so that the Dissenters could teach Latin and other subjects.<sup>66</sup> Thereafter Orkney continued to attend the House until Parliament was prorogued on 9 July. He sat in only five of the meetings of the House during the brief session of August following the death of Anne, which sought to ensure the smooth succession of the Hanoverian monarch George I. </p><p>Orkney was elected a representative peer again in 1715 and continued to sit well into the reign of George II. His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in detail in the subsequent volumes of this work. In January 1736 he and Argyll were appointed the first ever field marshals of the British army. Orkney, though, died at his house in Albemarle Street a little over a year later, on 29 Jan. 1737, and was buried at Taplow near his house of Cliveden. The title passed to his eldest daughter Anne, <em>suo jure</em> countess of Orkney, who married William O'Brien<sup>‡</sup>, 4th earl of Inchiquin [I].</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
HAMILTON, James (1658-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>HAMILTON</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1658–1712)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1658-98 earl of Arran [S]; <em>cr. </em>9 July 1698 4th duke of HAMILTON [S] on mother’s resignation of title; <em>cr. </em>10 Sept. 1711 duke of BRANDON |
RP [S] 1708, 1710 |
First sat 16 Nov. 1708; last sat 21 Aug. 1711 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 11 Apr. 1658, 1st s. of William Hamilton (formerly Douglas) (<em>d</em>.1694), 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], and Anne (<em>d</em>.1716), da. of James Hamilton, duke of Hamilton [S] and <em>suo jure</em> duchess of Hamilton [S]; bro. of Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], and Ld. Archibald Hamilton<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. Hamilton sch.; Glasgow g.s.; Glasgow Univ. 1671-5; travelled abroad (France, Italy; John Bannantyne and James Forbes, governors) 1675–8; Mr Foubert’s acad. Paris 1676-7.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. (1) 10 Jan. 1688 (with £10,000),<sup>2</sup> Anne (<em>d</em>. 2 July 1690), da. of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, 2da. <em>d.v.p</em>.; (2) 17 July 1698, Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1744), da. and h. of Digby Gerard*, 5th Bar. Gerard of Gerards Bromley, 3s. 4da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); 1s. 2da. illegit. (bef. 1683) with mother(s) unknown; 1s. illegit. (1691) with Lady Barbara Fitzroy, da. of Charles II and Barbara Palmer, duchess of Cleveland. KT 29 May 1687; nom. KG 25 Oct. 1712, never installed. <em>d</em>. 15 Nov. 1712; <em>will </em>6 Apr. 1702; pr. 24 Sept. 1716.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber 1679-85 (extra), 1685-88;<sup>4</sup> PC 13 Dec. 1710–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1682;<sup>5</sup> kpr. (hered.), Holyroodhouse Palace 1698-<em>d</em>.; commr. supply, Lanark 1704; ld. lt. and <em>custos rot</em>., Lancs. 1710-<em>d</em>.; master forester and steward, Lancs. Forests (Quernmore, Myerscough, Amounderness, Bleasdale) 1710-<em>d</em>.,<sup>6</sup> v.-adm., Lancs. and Cheshire Sept. 1712-<em>d</em>.</p><p>A.d.c. to Louis XIV of France 1684; col., 6th Regt. of Horse (cuirassiers) 1685-8,<sup>7</sup> R. Horse Gds. Nov.-Dec. 1688;<sup>8</sup> brig.-gen. of horse Nov.-Dec. 1688;<sup>9</sup> master-gen. of ordnance Sept. 1712-<em>d</em>.</p><p>Amb. extraordinary France 1683-5, Sept. 1686;<sup>10</sup> amb. France Sept. 1712-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1700, Lennoxlove, Haddington, E. Lothian; oil on canvas, copy of preceding, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 840; oil on canvas by J.B. de Medina, 1703, R. Coll. Surgeons, Edinburgh.</p> |
<h2><em>Earl of Arran, 1678-98</em></h2><p>Hamilton came from the premier noble family of Scotland, the dukedom of Hamilton being the senior dukedom in the kingdom’s peerage. The family enjoyed great prestige as hereditary keepers of the royal palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, the ducal chambers in the complex occupying more space than the royal ones, and vast estates in Lanarkshire, centred on the grandiose Hamilton Palace. Through his mother Hamilton could claim descent from the Scottish house of Stewart and thus nursed pretensions to the Scottish throne, which always added another level of ambiguity and suspicion to his unpredictable political actions. To his protégé George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> of Carnwath, however, he seemed to display every signal virtue: ‘a heroic and undaunted courage, a clear, ready, and penetrating conception’, plus a necessary degree of political cunning, and an oratorical style that was powerful, if not necessarily eloquent, for:</p><blockquote><p>he had so nervous, majestic, and pathetic a method of speaking, and applying what he spoke, that it was always valued and regarded. Never was a man so well qualified to be the head of a party; for he could, with the greatest dexterity, apply himself to and sift through the inclinations of different parties, and so cunningly manage them, that he gained some of all to his.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>But even Lockhart found Hamilton’s political opportunism hard to excuse, while others ironically termed him ‘the hero’ for his flair for dramatic flamboyance, and were alienated by the exalted sense of entitlement that fuelled his restless ambition.<sup>13</sup> However, such was the force of his personality that, with the exception of his parents and his most bitter political enemies, those with whom he had dealings were prepared either to overlook his defects of character or put them down to external influences. Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, observed that Hamilton had ‘a fine natural disposition, but [was] apt to be influenced by people about him; hath a genteel address, much the manner of a man of quality’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>The young Lord Arran, as he was styled, returned from his travels abroad in France in November 1678 and despite the fears of his censorious father that ‘he retains too much of the way he had when he was a child’, he made a good impression on Charles II, who became his protector. To ensure that he would have to stay in the English capital and not be forced to return to Scotland, Arran in the first weeks of January 1679 was able to procure from the king an appointment as an extra gentleman of the bedchamber.<sup>15</sup> Through the influence of Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, he was able from 1683 to spend two years at the French court, where he was distinguished by being appointed an aide-de-camp to Louis XIV, ‘an honour’, as he assured George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, ‘that no stranger ever had but myself’.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Arran was forced to return to England upon Charles II’s death. The new king James VII and II continued to extend royal favour to him. He was made a full gentleman of the bedchamber ‘in ordinary’ in May 1685 and in July received a commission as colonel of a newly established regiment of horse in order to help suppress the revolt of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.<sup>17</sup> He was able to reinforce his connections with the court at Versailles when in September 1686 he was chosen as ambassador extraordinary to congratulate Louis XIV on the birth of the duc de Berry.<sup>18</sup> In May 1687, he was one of the first members of the revived Order of the Thistle. By the end of that year his debts, amounting to about £10,000, forced him to consider the unpalatable path of marriage to an heiress, and negotiations were soon underway for a match with Lady Anne Spencer, a daughter of his patron Sunderland. The marriage was celebrated lavishly at court on 10 Jan. 1688, a union which Arran’s father considered politically advantageous but financially ruinous, despite the hefty portion of £10,000 Lady Anne was to bring to the marriage.<sup>19</sup> On the invasion of William of Orange, Arran was further promoted to be colonel of the Royal Horse Guards and a brigadier-general.<sup>20</sup> He was with the king at Salisbury and on 18 Dec., as a gentleman of the bedchamber, accompanied him part of the way on his journey to Rochester.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Arran showed his continuing adherence to James’s cause when, at a gathering of Scottish magnates in London in early January 1689, he proposed that the king be recalled from France. For this and other ‘treasonable practices’ he was committed to the Tower in the first days of March. <sup>22</sup> His father, who served William as the president of the convention of estates in Edinburgh, thought his son ‘as foolish as ever as to his politics, and they say his wife is little better’ – but he still secured his son’s liberty on £10,000 bail and Arran left the Tower on 10 Nov. 1689 to return to Scotland, despite William III’s misgivings.<sup>23</sup></p><p>During the first half of the 1690s Arran continued to involve himself in Jacobite conspiracy in Scotland, including the abortive ‘Montgomerie’s plot’, and conducted a furtive correspondence with James II concerning a proposed invasion.<sup>24</sup> Lockhart later claimed that during these early years of William III’s reign Arran was ‘several times imprisoned and much harassed upon account of his loyalty’ to James.<sup>25</sup> Arran did not succeed immediately as duke of Hamilton on his father’s death on 18 Apr. 1694 because the duke had only held the title for his lifetime. The title remained with his mother <em>suo jure</em>, as her father’s heiress, and she was by no means convinced that Arran would be the most appropriate heir. Evidently she considered passing over her eldest son and bestowing the dukedom on his younger brother Charles, 2nd earl of Selkirk. Added to this, in January 1696 another younger brother, the army officer George Hamilton*, was created earl of Orkney [S]. The success of his younger brothers may have spurred Arran to try more seriously to placate his mother so that she would pass on her titles to him. Widowed in July 1690, he began to look seriously for a new wife. In April 1696 he gave his mother the first account of his negotiations for the hand of Elizabeth Gerard, a wealthy 13-year-old heiress, the daughter of the late 5th Baron Gerard, with extensive property in Staffordshire.<sup>26</sup> It took over two years for the details of the marriage settlement to be ironed out and as the date of marriage finally approached, Arran was able to persuade his mother to resign her titles to him. On 9 July 1698 William III issued a patent creating Arran 4th duke of Hamilton and his marriage to the Gerard heiress was celebrated only a week later, on 17 July.<sup>27</sup> However, while his mother lived he could not inherit the family estate that would have given him an annual income of £9,000, and so he depended on securing his wife’s disputed inheritance.<sup>28</sup></p><h2><em>‘Country’ opposition, 1699-1707</em></h2><p>The new duke of Hamilton did not take his place in the Scottish Parliament until the session which met on 21 May 1700, where he quickly showed himself as a Scottish ‘patriot’, agitating for the rights of the Company of Scotland and its abortive colony at Darien against what he saw as the attempts of the English government to thwart Scottish trade and its ‘national interest’. The commissioner of the Scottish Parliament, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], was forced to adjourn parliament prematurely in the face of Hamilton’s obstructionism. Queensberry had long nurtured a deep enmity towards Hamilton, derived from his and his father’s bitter political rivalry with the 3rd duke. The animosity was mutual, and was to colour much of Hamilton’s political career. <sup>29</sup></p><p>After William III’s death Hamilton made his way to London to profess loyalty to Queen Anne and also argued to all who would listen the case for an immediate general election in Scotland, made legally necessary by the accession of the new monarch.<sup>30</sup> When the old Scottish Parliament, which had been sitting since June 1689, met again on 9 June 1702, Hamilton rose even before Queensberry’s commission could be read to protest against the illegality of the present assembly and formally withdrew from the chamber, accompanied by 73 other members, including his brother Selkirk.<sup>31</sup> A deputation representing Hamilton and the ‘country party’ was sent to London to address the queen on this objection, and eventually succeeded in persuading her, or more to the point her minister Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, to proclaim a dissolution.</p><p>From 1702 Hamilton was also preoccupied with lawsuits against Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, the executor and chief beneficiary of the will of Charles Gerard*, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, his wife’s maternal uncle. The dispute, which was to rumble on for the next several years and to lead indirectly to Hamilton’s death in 1712, arose from Macclesfield’s controversial decision to bequeath the entirety of his estate to his brother-in-law and military colleague Mohun, thereby disinheriting his heirs-at-law, among whom was his niece. As Hamilton had married principally for the prospect of this inheritance, this was a serious blow and recovering his wife’s legal right to the estate became an obsession.<sup>32</sup> When it was rumoured in the autumn of 1702 that Hamilton would receive an English title, it was thought that he would chose the earldom of Macclesfield, to cement his claim to the late earl’s estate.<sup>33</sup></p><p>By the autumn of 1702 there was also talk that Hamilton’s ‘country party’ was to be brought into the new Scottish ministry.<sup>34</sup> But at the same time the duke damaged his position at court by making clear his opposition to an Anglo-Scottish union, which at that point was under negotiation by commissioners from both kingdoms. While some admired his ‘patriotism’ on this point, the leader of the court party, Queensberry, regarded him as an unscrupulous intriguer, who, lacking enough ‘interest’ of his own, was trying to take over leadership of one of the two principal opposition factions, Presbyterian ‘Revolutioners’ or Jacobite ‘cavaliers’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>As none of the promises of favour made to him were realized, either in 1702 or subsequently, Hamilton became the leader of the opposition against the insistence of the court party that the Scottish parliament vest the succession to the throne in the Hanoverians. There was undoubtedly a strong element of self-interest in this position for, upon the queen’s death, Hamilton would (after the Pretender himself) have the strongest claim to the Scottish throne through his descent, via his mother, from the house of Stewart. In the first session of the new Scottish parliament beginning in 1703 he argued for limitations to be placed on any future monarch before the succession to the Scottish throne was determined.<sup>36</sup> A result of the opposition’s activities in this session was the Act of Security, which was denied the royal assent. His relations with the court were further complicated by his role in the ‘Scotch Plot’ furore in the winter of 1703-4. He supported the objections of his brother-in-law John Murray*, duke of Atholl, against the spurious allegations of Queensberry and agitated for an examination of the Plot to be conducted in Scotland. At a meeting of the country party leaders in Edinburgh Hamilton nominated three prominent members to act as a deputation to present to the queen their long list of grievances against Queensberry, but did not himself travel to London, despite the urgings of his wife as well as Atholl himself. <sup>37</sup> Hamilton was himself caught up in the English investigation of the Plot. On 20 Mar. 1704 the seven English peers, most of them Whig, assigned by the Lords to examine the Plot submitted their report, in which Hamilton was ‘often mentioned as much concerned’, although usually as the subject of criticism from Mary of Modena, who complained that he never responded to her letters.<sup>38</sup></p><p>Hamilton’s own actions, and their motivations, in the two sessions of 1704 and 1705 (as in much the rest of his career) are difficult to fathom, but much depended on his expectations of reward from the English ministers. When the Scottish ministry was being reconstructed in the spring of 1704, he was again passed over while his country colleague John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], replaced Queensberry as commissioner. Godolphin may have tried a direct approach to placate Hamilton, with promises of future favour for present good behaviour, but this also came to naught. Thus at the start of the session of the Scottish parliament beginning in July 1704 Hamilton was furious at his continued exclusion and determined once again to oppose any attempt to name a successor to the Scottish throne. Yet, for whatever reason or calculation, on 13 July he performed a stunning <em>volte-face</em>, the first of many, by proposing that the parliament ‘not proceed to the nomination of a successor until we have had a previous treaty with England in relation to our commerce and other concerns’, even though he had previously condemned any thought of a treaty of union as ‘damnation’. This proposal effectively blocked the immediate nomination of a Scottish successor, but did bring union that much closer. Hamilton then moved that the parliament refuse to consider granting a supply before it had confirmed conditions ‘for securing the independency and sovereignty of this kingdom’ through the passage of the Act of Security. This forced Godolphin to agree, highly reluctantly, to give the act the royal assent in August, in order to procure the necessary supply for continuing the war. <sup>39</sup></p><p>In the following session of 1705, Tweeddale was replaced as commissioner by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (and earl of Greenwich). At first Hamilton and Atholl led a strong parliamentary campaign against the nomination of a successor or a treaty of union, but their obstructionist motions and proposals were defeated by the court with the assistance of members of the ‘Squadrone Volante’. With an act for a treaty now almost inevitable Hamilton performed perhaps his most astounding change of course when on 1 Sept. he moved that the nomination of commissioners ‘should be left wholly to the queen’. The vote on his motion was taken late in the day, in a thinly attended chamber, and won by a mere eight votes, including his own. This sudden and unexpected concession to the court enraged many of his followers and ‘made his whole party stare and look aghast’.<sup>40</sup></p><p>In writing to his own mother and to George Lockhart Hamilton blamed his opposition colleagues for abandoning him on positions he had originally set out and gave further specious explanations for his actions. He was adamant that ‘I can hold up my face and will value myself upon my conduct and show that if I had been followed and seconded, as I should have been, the country would have reaped more benefit from my endeavours than in any Parliament wherein I have yet appeared’. The Presbyterians under Tweeddale had deserted the cause first, while on many occasions the cavaliers had been content to sit silent. Lockhart probably came closer to the truth when he suggested that Hamilton had long been negotiating with Argyll and the Scottish secretary of state John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar, who had promised him a place on the treaty commission. When the prospect of a treaty appeared inevitable, Hamilton may well have calculated that, as a local grandee in receipt of promises from the court, he had a better chance of being chosen a commissioner by the queen than by Parliament.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Hamilton was, however, again disappointed, for he was not named to the commission. In the following session of 1706-7, despite having been heavily wooed by Mar and the English secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, Hamilton reverted to his former anti-unionism. He and Atholl led the opposition to any treaty through a variety of sometimes suspect parliamentary techniques. He also took delight in being lionized by the Edinburgh populace as a ‘patriot’ and saviour of the nation. <sup>42</sup> Yet his own financial health depended on the success of union, or the avoidance of a breakdown of relations with England, for, with huge debts to repay, he relied on the income from the large estates in Staffordshire and Lancashire he controlled through his wife and from the export of black cattle to England from his Scottish estates. <sup>43</sup> Lockhart suspected that ‘his too great concern for his estate in England occasioned a great deal of lukewarmness in his opposition to the Union and unwillingness to enter into several measures that were proposed to prevent the same’.<sup>44</sup> Such considerations, as well as his own half-hearted claim to the Scottish throne, ultimately immobilized him with indecision, and in crucial votes he was absent from the Parliament, at one point claiming toothache, or gave obscure and ambiguous directions to his followers. His last defeat came shortly after the ratification of the treaty on 16 Jan. 1707, when he objected unsuccessfully to the proposal that the Scottish representative peers to the first Parliament of Great Britain be chosen by the existing Scottish Parliament.<sup>45</sup> Naturally, he found himself out in the cold. Although Mar had thought it politically advisable that he be included among the first batch of representative peers, Queensberry had personally vetoed his nomination, alleging, as Hamilton reported, that ‘the queen had sent positive orders that none concerned in the government or in her service should vote for me’.<sup>46</sup></p><h2><em>With the Squadrone and the Whigs, 1708-10</em></h2><p>From 1704 at least Hamilton had been enmeshed in Jacobite plotting. As this was well known to the English government, Hamilton immediately fell under suspicion in March 1708 when a French fleet with the Pretender and a body of troops on board approached Scotland.<sup>47</sup> The duke was, however, in Staffordshire at the time and, protesting his innocence, hurried to London while application was made for assistance to his brother-in-law (by his first wife), Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, the secretary of state for the northern department. Hamilton now performed a tactical coup which bewildered friends and enemies alike: through his brother, Orkney, he proposed to the Squadrone and their allies in the Whig Junto (including Sunderland), a compact of mutual assistance in the forthcoming general election, in effect a revival of the old ‘country party’ alliance in Scotland. This was accompanied by a threat that if the offer was declined he was ready to join Queensberry. The bluff was successful, and in return for a promise of electoral support he secured his bail for £10,000.<sup>48</sup> It was Hamilton’s task then to persuade the cavalier and Jacobite peers that the Scottish court party was to be blamed for their original arrests and that they should support his and the Squadrone’s slate of candidates for the election in return for their release from custody.<sup>49</sup></p><p>By 21 May 1708 Hamilton was back at Holyroodhouse to oversee on behalf of the Squadrone the peers’ election scheduled to take place there on 17 June.<sup>50</sup> He held the proxy of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], one of the arrested peers whom he had convinced to switch sides. Hamilton and the Squadrone carried four seats, including Hamilton himself and his brother Orkney.<sup>51</sup> Hamilton also raised a number of objections against the right to vote of some of those supporting court candidates, and particularly targeted his rival Queensberry, claiming that Queensberry’s elevation into the British peerage as duke of Dover on 26 May 1708 invalidated his right to vote as a Scottish peer.<sup>52</sup> Throughout the summer Hamilton was at the heart of the effort to compile the various complaints and petitions of the Squadrone against the election of a number of the court peers, co-ordinating his efforts on this with Sunderland. <sup>53</sup></p><p>Discharged from his bail, Hamilton took his seat in the House on the first day of the new Parliament, 16 Nov. 1708, and proceeded to attend 83 per cent of the sitting days of its first session. On the following sitting day, 18 Nov., he was placed on the committee to draw an address to the queen condoling with her on the recent death of the prince consort and also submitted to the House the petitions he and his colleagues had prepared against the election of the court members among the Scottish representative peers.<sup>54</sup> Hamilton himself submitted the protestation against the votes cast by Queensberry, on the basis that as a peer of Great Britain, he could no longer act as a peer of Scotland at the election. Hamilton had long bitterly resented the British peerage conferred on Queensberry, an honour he expected for himself. Hamilton also submitted a protest against the proxy registered by George Forrester, 5th Lord Forester [S], who had not yet reached his majority.</p><p>The necessary papers relevant to these petitions were not laid before the House until 23 Dec., and on 10 Jan. 1709 the House appointed a large select committee to consider them, including Hamilton himself. On 17 Jan. the committee submitted its report, in which Hamilton’s objection against Queensberry’s voting was prominent, and four days later Hamilton joined his Junto and Squadrone allies in voting that Queensberry could not participate in elections of the Scottish representative peers under his new British title. Hamilton was present the following day, when it was further determined that the proxy votes cast by Queensberry at the elections should also be invalidated. On 26 Jan. Hamilton gave evidence on the minority of Lord Forrester, in order to invalidate his proxy. The final result of these protracted hearings was minimal: after the votes cast in the election were recalculated on 1 Feb. according to the various resolutions of the House regarding the petitions, Hamilton himself was deducted a mere five votes and retained his seat while only one representative peer lost his place, William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], who was replaced by the principal petitioner William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S].<sup>55</sup> Hamilton was at this time ‘reckoned as a very staunch Whig’ and no longer a ‘friend’ of the Pretender and there were rumours that he was to be appointed to some position at court or in the army.<sup>56</sup> Like all the other Scottish peers Hamilton was also opposed to the bill to ‘improve’ the Union by extending the English treason laws to Scotland and was active in the proceedings surrounding this bill. On 22 Mar. he was a teller in a division in the committee of the whole House on whether to add an amendment to the bill.<sup>57</sup> Six days later he joined 13 of his fellow Scottish representative peers in signing two protests against it: one against the rejection of a rider giving those accused of treason the right to receive and consider the indictment before trial; and another against the passage of the bill itself. On a more personal matter on 10 Mar. the House agreed to the appeal of Sir James Grey, bt., against a decree of the Council of Session which had exempted Hamilton and Selkirk from reimbursing Gray £1,000.<sup>58</sup></p><p>Hamilton was again present for the opening day of the 1709-10 session, on 15 Nov. 1709, and on that day was named to the committee to draw up the address of thanks to the queen. There is little evidence of his activities in the House in the first part of the session, even though he attended 86 per cent of its sitting days. Throughout the winter of 1709-10 there were fears that Hamilton was becoming disaffected with the Squadrone-Whig alliance, most likely, as usual, because of a perceived lack of sufficient reward to him and other members of his family.<sup>59</sup> Hamilton’s attitude towards the Whig ministry was undoubtedly affected by the favour it seemed to show Argyll in March 1710: first Argyll received the Garter, which Hamilton had long expected for himself, then he apparently persuaded ministers to reject Hamilton’s request for a British dukedom in recompense. <sup>60</sup> Such slights probably helped to determine Hamilton to oppose the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell: and it was reported in early March that Hamilton was among those who ‘hindered the pushing of several things the Junto designed in the House of Peers’.<sup>61</sup> Between 14 and 18 Mar. Hamilton subscribed to five protests against resolutions which furthered the prosecution of Sacheverell, and on 20 Mar. voted Sacheverell not guilty and signed the protest against the guilty verdict. The following day he followed this up with a second vote in Sacheverell’s favour over the question of his future preferment. These votes surprised and angered John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, who included Hamilton among the nine court peers whom he thought and expected would have voted ‘on the other side’.<sup>62</sup> Sunderland sought to explain Hamilton’s defection: ‘he was convinced that what he [Hamilton] did in that matter was to keep up his interest in Scotland, which was all Jacobite; and if he had lost that by voting on the other side, he would have been insignificant; and this he had often said to him, in such a manner as he could not well contradict’.<sup>63</sup></p><p>In the months following the prorogation of 5 Apr. 1710 Hamilton continued to feel aggrieved about Argyll’s Garter, as well as a host of other perceived snubs, as he and his brothers failed to receive the honours and offices he felt were due to them.<sup>64</sup> Thus the uncertain months during which the Whig ministry was dismantled and a new one constituted under Robert Harley were filled with discussions and speculation about which way the disgruntled Hamilton would turn, ‘trusted entirely by no side’, but courted by all because of his important electoral influence.<sup>65</sup> By mid-August there was speculation that he might insist on taking over from the Whig James Stanley*, 10th earl of Derby, as lord lieutenant of Lancashire and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.<sup>66</sup> Harley appeared to comply, as in early September he included Hamilton in a working list of peers to be given office with a view to bringing them over to the ministry.<sup>67</sup> Hamilton, and even more urgently and persistently his wife, pressed Harley to hasten these appointments so that he could manage the elections in Lancashire following the dissolution of Parliament. Harley, however, hesitated to make the change and Derby remained in office throughout the autumn elections. <sup>68</sup> Hamilton’s electoral influence was felt more immediately in Scotland. Before he left London on 7 Oct. to go north, ‘Mr Harley was two nights with him’, and it was reported that renewed promises had been made of a British peerage, so that he promised to use his electoral interest in Scotland for the new ministry.<sup>69</sup> Hamilton was one of the peers entrusted with managing the Scottish elections for the court and, with Mar and Argyll, drew up a slate of representative peers suitable to Harley. With the Squadrone boycotting the peers’ election, Hamilton himself was chosen a representative peer once again at the election on 10 Nov. 1710 and was categorized as a ‘court Tory’ by Richard Dongworth, chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch. <sup>70</sup> In another analysis drawn up shortly after the election he was classed as a ‘Jacobite’.</p><h2><em>With the Tories, 1710-1712</em></h2><p>Hamilton was present in the House when the new Parliament met on 25 Nov. 1710 and attended 71 per cent of sittings in its first session. On 13 Dec. he was rewarded for his efforts in the election by being sworn a privy councillor and made lord lieutenant of Lancashire and ranger of the five forests of Lancashire. Yet despite his services and his continuing importunities, he was not made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and the queen still refused to grant him a British peerage.<sup>71</sup> There is little evidence of Hamilton’s activity in the first weeks of the session. He was absent the day following his swearing-in on the council, 14 Dec. 1710, and on 2 Jan. registered his proxy with Annandale, which was vacated upon Hamilton’s return to the House on 12 January. John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerino [S], complained in May of Hamilton’s ‘odd conduct this winter’, suggesting that the snobbish duke only socialized with him when he was in the company of Annandale, the true object of Hamilton’s attention. When, on one occasion of conviviality, Hamilton actively sought Balmerino’s approval for his conduct in the debate on the appeal of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields on 1 Mar. 1711, Balmerino could only reply that Hamilton had acted better than Atholl.<sup>72</sup> Since May, Balmerino had found Hamilton surprisingly solicitous of him, but was also perturbed that Hamilton was associating with known Squadrone Members of the Commons, which made him fear that the duke would consequently ‘fall through betwixt stools’. This wooing probably arose from the duke’s continuing campaign to gain either his long-sought British dukedom or, his new target, Queensberry’s office of secretary of state for Scotland.<sup>73</sup></p><p>From 12 to 31 May 1711 Hamilton was one of the 15 peers who managed four conferences on the amendments to the bill for the preservation of game and on 14 May he received the proxy of his brother Orkney, which he maintained for the remainder of the session. Balmerino also recorded Hamilton’s surprising opposition to the Tory bill to establish a commission to consider the resumption of William III’s land grants, which was narrowly rejected by a tied vote on 20 May.<sup>74</sup> On 1 June, at the third reading of the Scottish linen bill, Hamilton spoke against the amendment banning exports of unmanufactured linen yarn from Scotland, insisting</p><blockquote><p>that whatever they had promised to Ireland [regarding the export of linen yarn] yet now that we were all one with England charity must begin at home, and that he hoped they would be as careful of our linen manufacture as they were of their own woollen manufacture, especially since our woollen manufacture was destroyed.</p></blockquote><p>This prompted Sunderland to answer that ‘he did own that he would as soon prefer the interest of Ireland to that of any one county in England’.<sup>75</sup> By the time of the prorogation on 12 June, Hamilton was seen as a firm Tory. On 8 June he was admitted to the high Tory drinking club the Board of Brothers as its only Scottish member and he was listed as a ‘Tory patriot’ that is to say one of those intent on ‘easing the nation of the heavy burden and taxes, by putting an end to the expensive and bloody war’.<sup>76</sup></p><p>By at least 6 June 1711 a warrant had been prepared to make Hamilton a British peer, and by 9 June Balmerino was referring to him as duke of Brandon, even though the patent had not yet passed the seals.<sup>77</sup> The delay in passing the patent arose from ministerial awareness that both Whigs and Tories were firmly opposed to Hamilton’s right to sit in the House independent of his status as one of the sixteen representative peers, which English peers considered would set a dangerous precedent and threaten a Scottish invasion of the House. Hamilton did have a precedent on his side, since Queensberry had been sitting in the House as the British duke of Dover, and not as a representative peer, since the 1708 Parliament. Even on this point Hamilton’s erstwhile brother-in-law Sunderland warned him that both Tories and Whigs were intending in the next session to question Queensberry’s right to sit under that title. <sup>78</sup> Queensberry’s death on 6 July 1711 presented Hamilton with unexpected opportunities, for now Queensberry’s presence for two years in the House as a British duke was an established fact, and it was beyond the English lords to rescind it retrospectively. Hamilton could also now petition for the late duke’s office as Scottish secretary of state, but was again disappointed, as the queen did not immediately appoint a successor.<sup>79</sup></p><p>The patent creating Hamilton duke of Brandon was passed on 10 Sept. 1711, but the political battle was far from over, and became even more partisan after the Tory ministry signed peace preliminaries with France on 28 September. The Whigs saw the Brandon peerage as an easy way to attack the ministry, but were genuinely fearful that it was the thin edge of the wedge, the first of many such creations which would swamp the House with a corps of Scottish peers compliant with the ministry.<sup>80</sup> Both Hamilton and Mar were anxious and strongly urged Harley, now earl of Oxford, to ensure that the full complement of the Scottish peers be present for the beginning of the session, while the queen considered other measures to be taken to avoid the inevitable confrontation.<sup>81</sup></p><p>When the session opened on 7 Dec. 1711, Hamilton did not take his seat, awaiting the issue of his controverted patent. He was thus not present for the votes on the first two days of the session regarding the addition of the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause in the Address, and could not bring his own vote, or his proxies, to help Oxford avoid defeat.<sup>82</sup> Nevertheless, the lord treasurer still included him on a list of ‘loyal peers’ who were to be gratified for their service. Hamilton did what he could to help in bringing the representative peers up to Westminster to assist his claim, but only nine were present in the otherwise well-attended House of 114 members on 20 Dec. when the Lords took his case into consideration, with the queen attending, <em>incognita</em>, and hoping that her prerogative would be upheld.<sup>83</sup> The ensuing debate was long, lasting until 8 o’clock, and the queen was said to have remained for its entirety. The case against the patent was opened (with what Balmerino termed ‘sophistical trifling reasons’) by Heneage Finch*, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), and followed by his brother Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham. The Whigs, though, were at the vanguard of the campaign against Hamilton’s right to sit, seeking to prove that that 22nd article of the Act of Union, that which determined the election of representative peers, restricted the rights of the Scottish peerage and limited to 16 the number of Scots who could sit in the House. Hamilton’s opponents avoided as much as possible the ministry’s most powerful argument, advanced by Montagu Bertie*, 2nd earl of Abingdon, which was the example of Queensberry. The Whigs were aware that the judges would most likely support Hamilton’s right to sit and they and Hamilton’s opponents among the Tories were able to defeat a motion that the judges’ legal opinion should be heard. Shortly afterwards the House divided again to resolve, by a majority of five, that no Scottish peer had the right to sit in the House by virtue of a British title created after the Union. Some attributed the outcome to the fact that six representative peers had still not come up to Parliament, and certainly the nine Scottish representative peers present in the House took the resolution as a national insult, all signing a protest against the vote.<sup>84</sup></p><p>The Scottish peers met on 28 Dec. 1711 to discuss their response and on 1 Jan. 1712 presented the queen with a memorial of their grievances, drawn up by Hamilton, Mar and Argyll’s brother, Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], and signed by all the representative peers and Members, against what they saw ‘as a breach of the Union, and a mark of disgrace put upon the whole peers of Scotland’.<sup>85</sup> The mood among the Scots was hardening and there was even talk of the dissolution of the Union or their defection from the ministry to join with the Whigs.<sup>86</sup> Oxford called a meeting of Scottish peers on 13 Jan. and was able to persuade them for the moment to continue to support the ministry pending an address from the queen, delivered four days later, asking the House to reconsider its ruling. The same day Hamilton convened a meeting of Scottish peers at his house, where Annandale alone insisted that there should be a general boycott, while the rest agreed to wait to observe the outcome of the queen’s request. One of the ministry’s suggestions was to replace the current system of 16 elected representative peers with a set number of permanent hereditary peers, chosen by an extraordinary convention of the Scottish nobility. Hamilton supported this proposal, sure that he was bound to be one of those placed permanently in the House. The project foundered over disagreement over the precise number of hereditary peers who were to sit, and the objection, forcefully put by Balmerino, that the project would entail a reconvening of all the estates of the Scottish parliament to obtain approval of this fundamental change in the Treaty of Union.<sup>87</sup> On 25 Jan. the committee of the whole House resolved that the House could alter the elected status of the representative peers of Scotland, at the ‘request’ of the Scottish nobility, ‘without any violation of the Union’. Mar had originally sought to use the words ‘at the desire and with the consent of the Scots peers’, and Balmerino immediately saw that the revised wording spelled the effective end of this proposal, since it was impossible that the whole body of the Scottish peerage would ever actively ‘request’ such a change.<sup>88</sup></p><p>From the time of the last, inconclusive, meeting of the committee of the whole on 4 Feb. 1712, almost all the Scottish peers joined Balmerino, Annandale, and of course Hamilton himself, in a general boycott of the House. This broke down almost immediately, however, as at another meeting in Hamilton’s house on 8 Feb. seven representative peers resolved to return to Parliament to assist the passage of the Episcopal communion toleration bill.<sup>89</sup> The following day ten Scottish peers were present in the House, much to Hamilton’s disgust, and by the end of February only Hamilton and Annandale still stood out in their refusal to attend.<sup>90</sup> Indeed Hamilton, whose case so preoccupied the House, was never recorded as present during the entire session, determined as he was to sit as duke of Brandon, or not at all.</p><p>At almost exactly the same time Hamilton brought his long-running dispute with Mohun to the attention of the House. In October 1711 chancery had issued a decree ordering Mohun to pay Hamilton’s wife £15,000, but from November Mohun had sought to obstruct and delay its enactment by convincing the lord keeper to establish a commission to examine witnesses. None were produced and Hamilton decided to proceed upon the report. Mohun, though, warned him through his counsel on 24 Jan. 1712 that he would insist on his privilege. Five days later a petition was presented to the House on Hamilton’s behalf insisting that in his initial proceedings in this matter Mohun had waived his privilege and requesting liberty to proceed with the suit.<sup>91</sup> Mohun gave in his answer on 2 Feb. and six days later counsel was heard before the committee of privileges, which decided on a division that Mohun still enjoyed privilege. On 8 Feb. the House agreed with the committee, the Whigs perhaps enjoying their opportunity to injure Hamilton’s interests on two fronts simultaneously. It was suggested that Hamilton’s cause was not helped by the Scottish boycott, which he himself was encouraging, as Mohun prevailed in the final division by only 3 votes, and those were proxies.<sup>92</sup></p><p>Despite the frustration of the failure of his patent, Hamilton, true to form, continued to press for further honours and offices. Throughout January 1712 there were rumours that he would be given the office of master of horse, to replace the disobedient court Whig Charles Seymour*, 6th duke of Somerset.<sup>93</sup> In September he was made vice-admiral of Lancashire, as the ministry eased Derby out of his last remaining local role in the county. Hamilton was also unexpectedly given the post of master-general of the ordnance, at which he was reported to be happy, even though he had not asked for it; one observer commented ‘I wonder how he forgot it, for it is the first he has missed asking for these four years’. <sup>94</sup> Most prominently, though, he was nominated a Knight of the Garter on 25 Oct. and at about the same time was appointed, with the approval of the Jacobite court at St Germain, ambassador to France, now that peace between the two countries seemed imminent.<sup>95</sup></p><p>Before he could fully enter into any of these posts, or even be installed at Windsor, Hamilton was challenged to a duel by a drunken Mohun after ‘brutal’ words were exchanged between them during a meeting in the rooms of a master in chancery. <sup>96</sup> On the morning of 15 Nov. 1712 the two men fought in Hyde Park and both were killed, Hamilton allegedly by Mohun’s second, General George MacCartney, when already wounded and on the ground. A contemporary verse eulogy saw Hamilton as ‘a hero murdered, by a saucy fool’, while others saw this incident as evidence of a Whig plot to dispose of a leading Tory grandee on the eve of his embarking on an important diplomatic mission to seal the peace between Britain and France. <sup>97</sup> MacCartney fled into hiding in the Netherlands, but returned in 1716, after the Whigs had come to power, when he was tried for murder and acquitted.</p><p>While his widow and sister-in-law Lady Orkney wrangled over where in England he should be buried, Hamilton’s body, after a temporary burial in Westminster Abbey, was transported back to Scotland in 1718 for interment with his ancestors at Hamilton.<sup>98</sup> He was succeeded in his titles by his nine-year-old son James Hamilton, 5th duke of Hamilton [S] and 2nd duke of Brandon. During her son’s long minority the dowager duchess of Hamilton, joined by her maternal aunt Lady Charlotte Orby and her first cousin John Elrington, continued the legal case against Mohun’s heirs and executors, thus perpetuating the dispute between the two men well beyond their untimely deaths.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
HAY, John (1645-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>HAY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1645–1713)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1653-94 Ld. (Hay of) Yester; <em>styled </em>1694-97 earl of Gifford; <em>suc. </em>fa. 11 Aug. 1697 as 2nd mq. of TWEEDDALE [S] |
RP [S] 1707–8 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 1 Apr. 1708 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1645, 1st s. of John Hay, 1st mq. of Tweeddale [S], and Jean (Jane), da. of Walter Scott, 1st earl of Buccleuch [S]. <em>m</em>. 11 Dec. 1666, Mary (<em>d</em>.1702), da. and coh. of John Maitland*, 1st duke of Lauderdale [S] and 1st earl of Guilford, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 2da. <em>d</em>. 20 May 1713; <em>will</em>; pr. 12 Aug. 1713.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1670–88, 1689–1702–5; commr. borders [S] 1672, 1673, adm. [S] 1695, auditing treasury accts. [S] 1695–7, adm. accts. [S] 1698; ld. treas. [S] 1695; ld. high commr. to parl. [S] 1704; ld. chan. [S] 1704–5.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Col. militia regt. (ft.) Haddington 1668–75, 1685, Linlithgow and Peebles 1682, capt. militia (horse) Haddington and Berwickshire 1689, ind. troop 1689;<sup>3</sup> commr. supply, Haddington, 1678, 1685, 1690, 1704, Peebles 1678, 1685, Midlothian 1690, 1704, Fifes. 1695, 1704, Berwickshire 1704; sheriff, Haddington 1694–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1668.</p><p>FRS 23 May 1666; dir. Co. of Scotland 1694.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by G. Soest, Glasgow Museums Resource Centre; oil on canvas by J. F. Voet, Scot. NPG.</p> |
<p>Although in some respects unsuited to the responsibility, Tweeddale was acknowledged as the leader of the Squadrone Volante (or Squadrone for short). By the time of the Union, however, he had become an armchair general, and in the Parliament of Great Britain he tended to watch from a distance while the next generation did the hard political work. His greatest strength was the reputation he cultivated as a man of principle, who took office reluctantly and only for the public good (even if this was not always strictly true); but he lacked an instinctive understanding of the political scene, could be indecisive, and was sometimes liable to ‘pets’ if he did not get his way.<sup>4</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, in a character sketch published by Spring Macky, was highly complimentary: Tweeddale was, he wrote, ‘a great encourager and promoter of trade, and the welfare of his country. He hath good sense, is very modest, much a man of honour, and hot when piqued; is highly esteemed in the country’.<sup>5</sup> At the other end of the political spectrum, the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> was predictably hostile, but in a patronizing way. In his view, Tweeddale</p><blockquote><p>never obtained any other character than that he was a well-meaning but simple man; and I have the charity to believe, he was forced against his will by his friends and those he trusted (who made a mere tool of him) to enter into many of the bad measures he pursued: so I may safely say, he was the least ill-meaning man of his party, wither thro’ inclination or capacity.<sup>6</sup></p></blockquote><p>Tweeddale’s family background was Presbyterian, of a moderate stripe. His grandfather was an ‘Engager’, while he and his father were both active in local government under Charles II. As Lord Yester, he commanded a militia regiment against Argyll’s uprising in 1685, and supported James II’s government on the Scottish Privy Council. Having adapted to the Revolution, he and his father reinvented themselves as Williamites: the family, however, had relatively little political interest and so Yester was sent to London by his father in December 1688 to wait on the prince of Orange and cultivate contacts with English politicians. <sup>7</sup> He was also expected to promote an Anglo-Scottish union, a project which the 1st marquess of Tweeddale had long advocated.<sup>8</sup> But he seems to have been out of his depth at the English court, and was soon advising his father to join him in London.<sup>9</sup> It was not easy to secure an audience with the new king, and concerning union, Yester warned his father that ‘the changes and steps ... made here must give a quite different prospect of affairs’. He had been told ‘by several’, including William Hamilton 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], that ‘it will be expected we should follow the example of England, beginning at settling of the government in his person and, thereafter, to come to the union, relying upon his care for the effectuating thereof’. <sup>10</sup> Eventually, Yester admitted that, while he had initially been of the opinion that the union ‘should be the first step’, now, ‘as matters are like to go, I see no possibility for it till after there be some settlement or other, and therefore hardly know how to carry when I speak to any about it.’<sup>11</sup> His reading of the situation was correct: William did not intend proposals for union to interfere with the settlement of Scotland, and the scheme quickly foundered. <sup>12</sup> When Yester left London it seemed that the family were not in particularly good odour at court, for Hamilton told his wife that the king ‘has no mind for Tweeddale, who is in great dissatisfaction, for it seems he has spoken very freely to him, but it has not taken.’<sup>13</sup></p><p>Two years passed before there was a revival in Tweeddale’s fortunes, during which time father and son intrigued against the administration of the Melvilles and flirted with radical Presbyterian critics of government.<sup>14</sup> In December 1691 Tweeddale was appointed lord chancellor of Scotland. Three years later he was promoted in the Scottish peerage and named commissioner to the Scottish parliament. His father’s role in government enabled Yester to make important contacts with Presbyterian and Whig politicians like Secretary James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>, whose friendship would count for much later in his career.<sup>15</sup> Unfortunately, Tweeddale incurred William’s displeasure by his management of Parliament–mishandling the enquiry into the massacre at Glencoe, prolonging the session beyond the time set in his instructions and allowing the passage of acts to establish the Company of Scotland–and was replaced in 1695. Tweeddale sent Yester south again to present his case to the king, but to no avail, as his son still floundered in the treacherous waters of court politics.<sup>16</sup></p><p>On his return to Scotland Yester was chosen as one of the directors of the Company of Scotland, and in that capacity was closely involved in the ill-fated attempt to establish a Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Panama at Darien, which brought the Company into direct conflict with the interests of English chartered companies and heightened his own estrangement from William’s government.<sup>17</sup> He succeeded as second marquess in 1697, and the following year married his own son to the widowed sister of the James Hamiliton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], with whom he was co-operating in opposition.<sup>18</sup> When the Scottish Parliament met in 1700, Tweeddale and Hamilton strove to pressurize the king to assist the colony at Darien, and did much to consolidate the strength of the ‘country party’, as the opposition came to be called.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Presumably because of his recent history of opposition, Tweeddale was not named as one of the Scottish commissioners to treat for a union with England in 1702. He continued in opposition, and was one of the more obdurate of the country party leaders in refusing to have any dealings with the head of the court party, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].<sup>20</sup> But in the spring of 1704 his political allies George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], and John Ker*, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe [S], were involved in discussions with the queen and her English ministers about setting up a new ministry in Scotland. On 4 Apr. John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, wrote to Tweeddale expressing the hope that the recent promotion in the army of his younger son, Lord John Hay, would ‘be a step to incline your Lordship to come yourself into her Majesty’s service and concur in the measures she has declared for settling the Protestant succession in Scotland.’<sup>21</sup> A month later the ministerial reconstruction was complete and Tweeddale was named commissioner to the Scottish parliament in the administration of the ‘New Party’ (later the Squadrone).<sup>22</sup> He was said to have taken with him some 35 members of the ‘country party’, ostensibly out of a principled commitment to the Hanoverian succession.<sup>23</sup></p><p>The experiment, though, proved a disaster. During the session which began 11 July 1704, with Queensberry standing aloof, Tweeddale was comprehensively outmanoeuvred by his former country party allies.<sup>24</sup> His principal instruction was ‘the settling of the succession to the crown of Scotland in the Protestant line’, but he faced strong opposition, led by Hamilton.<sup>25</sup> When he not only failed in this task but seemed unlikely to secure a vote of supply, he first blamed ‘the ferment the nation is in’ and pleaded with the English ministers to be allowed to make concessions, ‘particularly that of regulating the constitutions of parliaments’, and then asked leave to resign.<sup>26</sup> Encouraged by the queen’s approval he tried again for a supply, abandoning conciliation and adopting a high-handed approach, characteristic of his lack of political skill, which provoked Hamilton into offering a motion to ‘nominate commissioners for a treaty and … make conditions and regulations of government for securing the independency and sovereignty of this kingdom previous to all other issues of business except a supply of two months’ cess’. The court responded with a recommendation for seven months, upon which Hamilton proposed to re-enact ‘the Act of Security as it passed the last Parliament only with the alteration of that clause about the communication of trade’.<sup>27</sup> Tweeddale’s answer was that ‘if they would proceed to the supply he would write for powers to her Majesty concerning an act of security’. In return he managed to get a six months’ cess.<sup>28</sup> He was then faced with the prospect of persuading the queen and lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, to make good the bargain. In relation to the Act of Security, he assured Godolphin that he would ‘be very cautious that there be nothing in it prejudicial to her interest.’<sup>29</sup> The queen agreed, but, as Godolphin reported, ‘hopes you will think it reasonable and necessary either to leave out the clause preceding that for the communication of trade in … the last Act, or at least soften [it] … that it may give no offence in England.’ (The Act of Security, as it had passed in the previous session, included a declaration that it would not be in the power of the estates ‘to name the successor of the crown of England to be the successor to the imperial crown of this realm’ without ‘a free communication of trade, the freedom of navigation, and the liberty of the plantations be fully agreed to, and established by the parliament of the kingdom of England, to the kingdom and subjects of Scotland’. <sup>30</sup>) Tweeddale declined to follow this instruction, on the grounds that ‘if we had endeavoured to have altered [the act] in the least they would have taken that occasion to have added clauses which would have marred all’, telling Godolphin he hoped ‘her Majesty will not think I have gone too far without a positive instruction for it, which, indeed I ought to have had, but have ventured it thinking it fit for her service, as did all I advised with, and therefore that she will approve and allow of what I have done’.<sup>31</sup> Instead, Godolphin transmitted the queen’s order to end the session as soon as possible, ‘since there is no reason to expect the Parliament will in this session make any step that is real and sincere towards the settling of the Protestant succession.’<sup>32</sup> Nevertheless, under threat of not receiving Scottish revenue, Godolphin in August persuaded the reluctant queen to give her assent to the act of security.</p><p>Despite their failure in managing parliament, Tweeddale’s followers were given a sheaf of places in government, he himself becoming lord chancellor. The following year he asserted that he had taken office reluctantly and only to serve the queen.<sup>33</sup> Meanwhile Tories in the English House of Lords announced their intention to enquire into his management of the Scottish Parliament, and on 23 Nov. 1704 John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, drew the attention of the House to the Scottish act of security, and questioned how the Scottish parliament had come to agree to it, given the instructions Tweeddale had received. He suggested that the rejection of the Hanoverian succession and passage of the act of security were partly owing to Tweeddale’s weakness and partly to the fact ‘that the succession itself was never sincerely and cordially intended, either by the ministry there, or by those that managed the Scots affairs here’.<sup>34</sup> The Lords then ordered an inquiry by a committee of the whole House. The queen was present incognito when the committee sat for the first time on 29 Nov. and Godolphin spoke in Tweeddale’s defence.<sup>35</sup> The behaviour of the Whig Junto during the debate appeared to show that they were seeking to use the episode as a means of putting pressure on Godolphin, and at the next meeting of the committee, on 6 Dec., John Somers*, Baron Somers, accused the Scots of unreasonably objecting that their fortunes had declined since the union of the crowns and proposed ‘that for the bringing them to an understanding of their true interest some laws might pass here for the cutting off all their trade with England.’ Godolphin supported this proposal, to which committee and House agreed.<sup>36</sup> Five days later, Junto lords moved that the queen issue a new commission for union, the previous attempt having been managed by ‘the … wrong hands’.<sup>37</sup> A package of measures was agreed to force the Scots towards union by tightening up trading restrictions and denying them the privileges enjoyed by subjects in England, Ireland and the plantations, until a treaty was concluded.<sup>38</sup></p><p>To make sure that the Scots responded by appointing commissioners to negotiate a union, John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], was chosen as commissioner to the Scottish parliament that was to meet in 1705. Tweeddale, who was already disconcerted by attempts to reconstruct the ministry and had refused to switch offices to become president of the council, at first refused to pass Argyll’s patent.<sup>39</sup> Not surprisingly, when Argyll reached Edinburgh in April he insisted that the Squadrone be turned out <em>en masse</em>, which was done in June, Tweeddale losing his office and his seat on the council.<sup>40</sup> The Squadrone did not, however, go into full-scale opposition, and seem to have adjusted to the likelihood of union.</p><p>For his part, in the parliamentary session of 1705, Tweeddale was a relatively unobtrusive, though not entirely silent, presence. He was not appointed to the union commission the following year even though his support for the project had been made explicit by January 1706.<sup>41</sup> Thereafter he became less enthusiastic about the Union as negotiated, and was in fact the last member of the Squadrone to agree to vote for the treaty in parliament.<sup>42</sup> Possibly he was thrown off balance by the death of Lord John Hay, who perished of a fever in August 1706 while serving with his regiment in Flanders. The Squadrone were still ‘the marquess of Tweeddale’s party’, however, and as part of the political bargaining over the Union, he was chosen on 13 Feb. 1707 to be one of the 16 representative peers in the first Parliament of Great Britain.<sup>43</sup> On a personal level, he was actively pursuing arrears of salary, and undoubtedly using his party’s support for the Union to advance his case: he was paid £1,000 in 1707 but a year later was still owed £2,500.<sup>44</sup> In the analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], of 1707 he was listed as ‘sicut’ [as] James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S].</p><p>Tweeddale did not join his Squadrone colleagues Roxburghe and Marchmont on their journey to London in April 1707, and was still in Scotland at the beginning of August, when Roxburghe informed him that the queen had ‘asked me twice about your Lordship’s coming up.’s<sup>45</sup> In response he travelled south, and took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707 where he attended 91 per cent of the session’s sittings.<sup>46</sup> His only noteworthy contribution to proceedings came on 5 Feb. 1708, when he and three other Squadrone peers voted for the bill abolishing the Scottish Privy Council, although it may be an indication of his failure to make an impact at Westminster that in an account of the debate Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> was unable to identify Tweeddale. ‘I am informed’, wrote Addison, ‘that the dukes of Montrose and Roxburghe with my Lord Sutherland [John Gordon*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S]], and another Scotch peer whom I have forgotten were for passing the bill.’<sup>47</sup></p><p>Tweeddale did not stand in the 1708 election, though he attended and voted his party’s line.<sup>48</sup> Later that year he sent his eldest son Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]) to London and over the next two years was kept informed of events by Yester and other members of the Squadrone. During the 1708–9 session his friends in the Commons were mobilized to support his interest against a private bill brought in by William Morison<sup>‡</sup> for improving the harbour at Prestonpans in Haddingtonshire.<sup>49</sup> Yester suggested on 20 Apr. 1710 that Tweeddale should press for the inclusion of ‘your Lordship’s family’ in a rumoured creation of British peerages for Scots. Whether Yester intended the peerage for his father or (more usefully) himself is unclear, but in any case nothing came of it.<sup>50</sup> Along with the rest of the Squadrone he boycotted the peers’ election in November of that year, though he remained a force in elections to the Commons for his own county.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Tweeddale died on 20 Apr. 1713 at Yester House, reportedly ‘of a fall’, and was buried at Yester.<sup>52</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
HAY, Thomas (c. 1660-1719) |
<p><strong><surname>HAY</surname></strong>, <strong>Thomas</strong> (c. 1660–1719)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>31 Dec. 1697 Visct. Dupplin [S]; <em>suc. </em>3rd cos. William Hay 10 May 1709 as 7th earl of KINNOULL [S] |
RP [S] 1710-15 |
First sat 27 Nov. 1710; last sat 8 Aug. 1714 |
|
MP [S] Perth 1693-6 |
<p><em>b</em>. c.1660, 2nd s. of George Hay (<em>d</em>.1672) of Balhousie Castle, Perth, and Margaret, da. of Sir Thomas Nicolson, ld. advocate [S]. <em>m</em>. contr. 20 Dec. 1683, Margaret (<em>d</em>. 21 Mar. 1696), da. of William Drummond, 1st Visct. Strathallan [S], 3s. (1 <em>d</em><em>.v.p</em>.) 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 5 Jan. 1719.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1696-1704; commr. exchequer [S] 1696, justiciary for Highlands [S] 1697–aft. 1702; Union with England 1706.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. supply Perth 1685, 1689, 1690, 1702, 1704; militia 1689. <sup>3</sup></p> |
|
<p>A Perthshire laird, hailing from a cadet branch of the staunchly Royalist earls of Kinnoull, Hay came of age politically under the protection of the Murrays of Atholl, entering the Scottish administration in 1696 with John Murray*, earl of Tullibardine [S], later duke of Atholl [S]. But although he remained close to Tullibardine he soon found alternative patrons, first Tullibardine’s great rival James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and much later the English Tory politician Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, to whom he became connected by marriage. Hay retained residual ‘cavalier’ sympathies throughout his political life but the traces of these loyalties became fainter the more he engaged with government. The turning point in his career was the return from Jacobite exile of his distant cousin, William Hay, 6th earl of Kinnoull [S], in about 1699.<sup>4</sup> Hay, who had been raised to the Scottish peerage as Viscount Dupplin in 1697, probably through Tullibardine’s influence, petitioned the English treasury in 1699 for recognition of his own claim to a right of inheritance in an annuity of £1,000 (derived from the profits of the customs in Barbados) which had been granted by Charles II in perpetuity to the earls of Kinnoull in recognition of their loyalty to his father and himself.<sup>5</sup> Although Tullibardine was now out of office, and in opposition to Queensberry’s court party, the petition was accepted. The following year Dupplin went one step further, and requested payment of the not inconsiderable amount of arrears which had accumulated since the 1680s.<sup>6</sup> This too seems to have been accepted, although instalments of these arrears were paid only occasionally. The annual payments, however, were made on a regular basis.<sup>7</sup> In 1704 the earl of Kinnoull, having surrendered his titles, received a regrant of the earldom for life, with a reversion to Dupplin.</p><p>When Tullibardine returned to office in 1702 Dupplin may have re-established their former close relationship, for he certainly received an expensive present from Atholl (as Tullibardine had since become) in May 1704 and he did not suffer as a consequence of the ministerial experiment of 1704, which saw Queensberry replaced as commissioner, and responsibility for managing the Scottish parliament entrusted to the ‘New Party’ (or ‘Squadrone Volante’).<sup>8</sup> But during the session he sided with the Queensberryites, alongside his new son-in-law, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar, who had married Dupplin’s daughter in 1703. Although he lost his place on the Scottish Privy Council in December 1704 with other cavaliers, he was now regarded as a member of Queensberry’s ‘old court party’.<sup>9</sup> As such, he gave his full support to the Union and was named a commissioner to the treaty negotiations, during which he was one of the very few Scottish commissioners who never wavered in their support for a fully incorporating Union.<sup>10</sup> As the parliamentary session of October 1706 approached, he was asked by the court to use his influence with Atholl to bring him to support the treaty, but in vain.<sup>11</sup> Having been prevented from attending parliament during the early stages of the ratification process because of an illness to his second son and then his own illness, he arrived in Edinburgh before the end of the year and thereafter voted consistently for the treaty.<sup>12</sup> He hoped that this loyal service would result in his being named as a representative peer in the first Parliament of Great Britain, but Mar could not persuade Queensberry to allocate Dupplin one of the court party’s places, even when volunteering himself to stand aside for his father-in-law.<sup>13</sup> </p><p>In the preparations for the 1708 elections Dupplin was again used by Mar and Queensberry as an intermediary with Atholl, with mixed results.<sup>14</sup> He was also one of the peers who stood bail for Atholl in the following summer, following the duke’s arrest on suspicion of involvement in the unsuccessful Jacobite rising.<sup>15</sup> Included on the court slate for representative peers, he attended the election, voting a straight court line, but was disappointed in his hopes of a seat, gaining 42 votes.<sup>16</sup> This was a particular blow to the court, as James Douglas*, 4th duke of Hamilton was quick to point out.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Dupplin had already established a correspondence with English political figures such as the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, and his personal affairs (including, presumably, ongoing solicitations for the payment of his pension) ‘obliged him to be in London almost every winter’.<sup>18</sup> These Westminster connections increased considerably in weight and significance after Dupplin’s cousin died in May 1709 and he succeeded to the earldom of Kinnoull and after August when his son and heir George Hay*, now styled Viscount Dupplin [S] (later Baron Hay), married Robert Harley’s daughter Abigail. The match had been some time in the making, and the Hays were already integrated into Harley’s social circle.<sup>19</sup> But for the time being it was also important to keep on good terms with Queensberry and Godolphin, especially as it was necessary to secure the continuance of the customs annuity, which the treasury duly recognized in September 1709 as vested in him as 7th earl.<sup>20</sup> During the early months of 1710 the new earl used his son (who himself now took the courtesy title of Dupplin) as a conduit for much of his correspondence with Harley: thus in February Harley was told that Kinnoull was ‘perfectly recovered of his gout, very earnest to hear the event of what you’re all doing at London, and he’s as desirous of a peace as ever’.<sup>21</sup></p><p>After the fall of Godolphin Kinnoull openly identified with Harley’s new ministry, on whose behalf he worked, with Mar, in preparations for the 1710 elections. His friendship with Atholl was again important, in brokering a deal between Atholl, Hamilton, and Queensberry’s interest. <sup>22</sup> He was himself included in their joint list and attended the election on 10 Nov. 1710 to cast his vote and two proxies (for two men with extensive English interests, Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S], whose sister was married to Sir William Trumbull<sup>‡</sup>, and William Cheyne<sup>‡</sup> 2nd Viscount Newhaven [S], the latter having sat in the Commons until the Union). He was easily returned.<sup>23</sup> He was then listed by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain as a ‘court Tory’ with an income of ‘near £4,000’ a year.<sup>24</sup> Another analysis of the representative peers drawn up soon after the election classed him as a ‘Jacobite’.</p><p>Kinnoull’s career in the British Parliament was distinctly lacklustre, constrained by poor health and his reluctance to leave Scotland. After the peerage election, Kinnoull wrote to Harley of his intention to leave Edinburgh on 13 Nov., so as to ‘be with you against the Parliament sit down’.<sup>25</sup> Although not recorded in the Journal as present, he took the oaths on 27 Nov. 1710 and was appointed to the committee on the Address. On the following day, although again not noted as present, he was named to the committee of privileges. His first listed attendance was on 4 Dec., when he signed a proxy in favour of the earl of Mar, as he did again on 7 and 12 Jan. 1711. He was listed as present on 12 Jan., and thus probably voted in favour of a resolution which blamed the former Whig ministers for the military setbacks in Spain in 1707, as it was reported that in this division ‘all the Scots went one way’.<sup>26</sup> On 3 Feb. he was named to the committee to draft the representation on the war in Spain. His most consistent period of attendance was in the second half of May when he was present for 12 sittings, but thereafter he did not appear until 12 June, the day of the prorogation. In all, he was present on 36 days, 32 per cent of the total.</p><p>Dupplin wrote to Harley (now earl of Oxford and lord treasurer) on his father’s behalf on 10 July 1711, explaining that Kinnoull was disappointed that he had not been accorded a central place in the management of Scottish affairs. He had hoped to be made lord clerk register, and to be able to influence the direction of Scottish policy:</p><blockquote><p>he would not at all meddle in Scotch affairs by halves, if a thorough measure for the interest of the crown (which by his notion is the only way Scotland can reap advantage by the Union) were not gone into, and pursued without respect to private recommendations, without fear of disobliging or desire of obliging anybody or any party.</p></blockquote><p>However,</p><blockquote><p>at some certain times I have found him in quite another humour, that he desired nothing in the world so much as to go home and plant his trees and live easily in the country. What had he to do to be chosen one of the 16 to come to London and make himself a show with his gout? And a world of such splenetic fancies, which I took not at all to be what he really desired, but only to proceed from the delay he found was like to be in doing anything in Scotch business.</p></blockquote><p>At the same time, if Oxford called his bluff,</p><blockquote><p>He’ll be very dissatisfied, and will never make good what he so often declares, that no man desires more to live a private life at home at his ploughs than he does. He’ll be worse than he was winter was a twelvemonth, when I assure you there was no bearing of him, not by his children or servants, even though he was in this pleasant country way of living he talks of.<sup>27</sup></p></blockquote><p>No office was forthcoming, nor did Kinnoull’s renewed petition to the treasury about February 1711 for arrears of his annuity (which he estimated at over £17,000) elicit a concrete response, but he seems to have been mollified by encouraging letters from Oxford, and as the next session approached he was making professions of loyalty and offering Oxford advice on the management of Scotland.<sup>28</sup> He was also taking it upon himself once more to act as a go-between with Atholl.<sup>29</sup> Oxford was also using him as a general political agent in Scotland, to manage various cavalier interests and to distribute government pensions to clan chieftains.<sup>30</sup></p><p>As late as 27 Nov. 1711 Mar was vexed about the non-appearance of the Scottish peers in London for the session prorogued on that day to 7 December. Mar wrote to his brother Hon. James Erskine<sup>‡</sup> Lord Grange SCJ, to hurry the peers along: he had himself written to Kinnoull ‘in case he be not come off, but if he be, send it to him by the post to be left at some stage so that he may get it and send you with the draught of a proxy’.<sup>31</sup> On 3 Dec. Kinnoull wrote from Edinburgh to both Oxford and his son, Dupplin, sending ‘as many proxies as could be got ready’, many peers being delayed by the need to settle the commission of trade. Kinnoull sent his own proxy, signed on 3 Dec. in favour of Mar, but it did not arrive in time.<sup>32</sup> In consequence he missed the debates of 7 Dec. on ‘No Peace without Spain’ and of 20 Dec. on Hamilton’s right to sit in the Lords by virtue of his British peerage as duke of Brandon. Sloth was the explanation given by a political enemy, James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], for the absence of the Scots in general, but Montrose’s correspondent testified on 31 Dec., that Kinnoull had been ‘very bad of the gout’.<sup>33</sup> Another factor delaying his arrival may have been resentment at the non-payment of his pension arrears, for Oxford’s papers contain a ‘case’ endorsed with the date 12 Jan. 1711[-12] outlining Kinnoull’s pretensions. Subsequently, in June 1712, the treasury ordered an instalment to be paid (covering 1689-90).<sup>34</sup> But although Kinnoull failed to attend Parliament throughout January 1712 a group of Scots peers did meet at his London residence to consider how to respond to the Lords’ vote in the Hamilton case.<sup>35</sup> Whatever his views on the Scottish boycott of the House, he was present on 23 Feb., and, although he registered his proxy with Mar two days later, he attended on the 26th and again on the 28th for debates on the Scottish toleration (Episcopal communion) bill, to support the Commons’ amendments (although he was not listed in the Journal as having been present).<sup>36</sup> On 29 Feb. he was added to the committee for privileges. He also voted on 28 May in support of the ministry on the ‘restraining orders’ ‘given to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. After attending on 6 and 7 June, he registered a proxy on the 12th in favour of his fellow Episcopalian William Livingston*, 2nd Viscount Kilsyth [S]. Then after attending again on 13 June, he registered another proxy two days later once more in favour of Kilsyth. In all, the Journals provide evidence of him attending on only five days of the session, though this must surely have been an under-estimate, when placed against the evidence of contemporary accounts of debates.</p><p>In June 1712 it looked as if Kinnoull’s ambition to be lord clerk register was about to be fulfilled, but by the beginning of July William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], had emerged as the favourite to replace David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], who, in the event, retained the post.<sup>37</sup> By 14 Aug. Kinnoull had returned to Scotland to assist the election of James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], as a representative peer, and also to smooth ruffled feathers over the ‘hard treatment of the peers’.<sup>38</sup> Peace-making was easier said than done, however, and at the end of December he felt obliged to send Oxford a lengthy letter of advice about Scottish affairs, drawing attention to the ‘abundance of discontents ... both in matters of Kirk and state’, because of a lack of ‘government and order’.<sup>39</sup> On 9 Feb. 1713 Oxford wrote to Kinnoull to sympathize over the return of his gout, and to hope that he would soon begin his journey to London for the new session.<sup>40</sup> Kinnoull was duly present when the session began on 9 April. Around this time he was listed, in a document drawn up by Swift and amended by Oxford, as a likely supporter of the court. In the crisis provoked by the attempt to extend the malt tax to Scotland he found himself in a difficult position, and while his son sided with the ministry, Kinnoull (who had recently received further payments of pension arrears) seems at first to have regarded discretion as the greater part of valour, and to the surprise and dismay of those pressing hardest for Scottish resistance was absent from London when the crucial meeting was held (on 26 May) which resulted in a motion to dissolve the Union.<sup>41</sup> Upon his return, however, he was present on 1 June to support the motion, and subsequently he voted against the ministry over the malt bill, signing the protest against the passage of the bill on 8 June. He was nonetheless forecast as a supporter of the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. Overall, he was present on 14 days of the session, 21 per cent of the total.</p><p>Once the session was over Kinnoull wrote to Oxford on 2 July 1713 to recommend not only that ‘the malt tax be set to rights’, but also that the Campbell brothers, John, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and Archibald*, earl of Ilay [S], prime movers in the attack on the Union, be ‘turn[ed] out of all they can be turned out of’.<sup>42</sup> Re-elected unopposed with the other peers on the court list in 1713, on a list of the returns, Kinnoull was classed as a Jacobite. </p><p>On 30 Jan. 1714 Findlater in Edinburgh informed Oxford that both he and Kinnoull would be ‘detained all the next week’ because of the marriage scheduled for 4 Feb. between Kinnoull’s daughter and his heir, James Ogilvy<sup>†</sup>, the future 5th earl of Findlater.<sup>43</sup> Kinnoull did not resume his seat in the Lords until 15 Mar., his one and only appearance in that session, even though in May he received two years’ payment of his arrears, amounting to £2,000.<sup>44</sup> On 17 Mar. he entered his proxy in favour of Findlater. In May he was included in a forecast as likely to support the schism bill. On 1 June Findlater noted from London that both he and Kinnoull were ‘very well and extraordinary good friends and both wearied of this place’.<sup>45</sup> Kinnoull sat for one day (4 Aug.) when Parliament reconvened after the queen’s death, but on 5 Aug. registered his proxy, again with Findlater. </p><p>Kinnoull was not elected to Parliament in 1715. In late August of that year he was arrested on rumours of Jacobite military preparations in Scotland and confined to Edinburgh castle. Agitation by his friends on the grounds of his poor health and his loyalty to the Hanoverian regime eventually resulted in his release in March of the following year.<sup>46</sup> While Lord Dupplin (also Baron Hay in the British peerage) stood by George I and inherited in due course both the earldom and the customs annuity, two other sons of Kinnoull fought for the Pretender. The youngest escaped to France, and was eventually created earl of Inverness [S] in the Jacobite peerage. In 1716, in financial difficulties in Dunkirk, he had appealed to Mar for help, noting that ‘to apply to my father is altogether vain. You know his humour too well to think that, considering the part I acted with relation to his estate, he won’t be extremely piqued at me, which must have some time before he get over it.’<sup>47</sup></p><p>Kinnoull died (perhaps inevitably of gout) at Dupplin House on 5 Jan. 1719.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
HOME, Alexander (1689-1720) |
<p><strong><surname>HOME</surname></strong>, <strong>Alexander</strong> (1689–1720)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 22 July 1706 (a minor) as 7th earl of HOME [S] |
RP [S] 1710-13 |
First sat 28 Nov. 1710; last sat 16 July 1713 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1689, 1st s. of Charles Home, 6th earl of Home [S], and Anne, da. of Sir William Purves, 1st bt., of Purves Hall, Berwickshire, <em>m</em>. by Oct. 1710, Anne (<em>d</em>.1727), da. of William Kerr*, 2nd mq. of Lothian [S] 6s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 1720.</p> |
<p>Gen. of Mint [S] 1712–14.</p><p>Sheriff, Berwickshire 1710.</p> |
|
<p>Home inherited his father’s religious and political sympathies, and also his debts. The leader of the ‘cavalier’ faction in the Scottish Parliament, the 6th earl of Home had been Episcopalian in his religion and uncompromisingly Jacobite in his politics.<sup>1</sup> He had been vehemently opposed to settling the succession to the Scottish crown in the house of Hanover, and to a union which would have made the Scots ‘slaves to the English nation’, and from 1703 onwards had worked closely in the Scottish Parliament with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], keeping the cavaliers together behind Hamilton’s opportunistic leadership.<sup>2</sup> The Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> observed much later that his death in 1706 had been a great loss to ‘the royal family’ and ‘the country party’.<sup>3</sup></p><p>The 7th earl reached his majority shortly before the 1710 election. Some indication of his political leanings was given in a letter of 19 Sept. to John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], which noted that ‘he seems very right as to the queen’s measures. I know Duke Hamilton’s people reckon him theirs, but it is likely they are mistaken, and he would never be his (as I think) if he knew Duke Hamilton’s carriage about Mr [George] Baillie<sup>‡</sup>’.<sup>4</sup> This was a reference to Home’s attempt to run a candidate for Berwickshire in the general election, to upset the interest of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], and unseat Baillie, a Squadrone Whig. However, not only did his candidate, George Winram, later described as ‘manager’ of Home’s affairs, appear too late, Marchmont having already secured promises in advance from a majority of voters, but there was also some confusion over the extent to which Home’s campaign enjoyed the backing of government. In a mysterious episode, which has not been satisfactorily elucidated, Hamilton gave voters the impression that he had been requested by ministers to secure Baillie’s election.<sup>5</sup> On 9 Oct. Home was recommended by his father-in-law, Lothian, to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, as ‘a faithful servant to her majesty’, and his name was also suggested to Harley by Mar, for inclusion on the court slate for the representative peers.<sup>6</sup> Home was present at Holyroodhouse for the representative peers’ election on 10 Nov. 1710, where he was chosen with the rest of the court contingent.<sup>7</sup> It has been suggested that he owed his inclusion on the court list at least in part to Hamilton’s influence, but in view of the evidence from the Berwickshire election this must remain an open question.<sup>8</sup> Notes on the list of successful candidates made by the Episcopalian clergyman Richard Dongworth described Home as an ‘Episcopal Tory’ with an annual income of ‘not £1,500’, making him the second poorest of the newly chosen representative peers.<sup>9</sup> The unvarnished view of Daniel Defoe was that he was a professed Jacobite.<sup>10</sup> An analysis of the representative peers drawn up shortly after the election was in agreement with him.</p><p>Prior to the election in Scotland, Home had been granted a patent as sheriff of Berwickshire in place of Marchmont. He had a hereditary claim to the office, and had allegedly importuned the queen for it, but the appointment was part of Mar’s electoral management in Scotland.<sup>11</sup> Restoration to the shrievalty added significantly to Home’s local influence and prestige, and during the following parliamentary session he sought to capitalize by securing the removal of the Berwickshire sheriff’s court from Greenlaw, Marchmont’s town, to Duns. Legislation was required to repeal an act of the Scottish Parliament, and Home sought a private bill in the Lords to that end. At length, after considerable lobbying on each side, Home was prevailed upon to abandon the attempt before any legislation was introduced, possibly on financial grounds, and the next parliamentary election for the county was again held at Greenlaw.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Home was absent when the Parliament began on 25 Nov. 1710, taking his seat on the 28th, the day after the queen’s speech. He attended on 69 days of the session, 61 per cent of the total and was named to 11 committees. According to John Bridges, at the turn of the year he had arranged to purchase for £3,000 the Scottish Fusiliers, a regiment which Thomas Meredith<sup>‡</sup> had been forced to sell, but the regiment went instead to Charles Boyle*, 4th earl of Orrery [I] (later Baron Boyle).<sup>13</sup> From Home’s attendance record and the comments of political observers, some of his activities in the House can be discovered. It seems likely, given his attendance on 9 Jan. 1711, when ‘the Scots did the business’, that he helped to provide the ministry’s majority (59-45) in the committee of the whole when the Whigs sought to resume the House rather than vote on the resolution (subsequently passed) that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had given a ‘a faithful, just and honourable account’ of the councils of war in Valencia. Similarly, in the committee of the whole on the 12th, Baillie noted that ‘all the Scots went one way’ when the committee voted 68-48 to agree that the previous ministry had been responsible for ordering an offensive war in Spain and thus for the failures of the campaign, again suggesting that Home, who was listed as present that day, had supported the ministry. <sup>14</sup></p><p>Until the end of January 1711 Home had missed only 11 sittings of the House; henceforth his attendance became more sporadic. He was absent seven times in February, but did attend on 1 Mar., when the Lords considered the appeal of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against a sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Once Greenshields’s counsel had been heard, a motion to adjourn was defeated, with Home likely to have been one of the Scots voting in the majority, as he was not one of the five ‘Scots Lords for the delay.’<sup>15</sup> The House then resolved that the sentence be reversed. This was an issue on which Home felt strongly: not only did he hail from an Episcopalian family; he was evidently a man with a deep personal interest in matters theological.<sup>16</sup> He missed seven sittings in March, was absent on five out of nine occasions in April, which increased to nine out of 22 in May, and attended only two of the seven sittings in June. </p><p>The expenses of attending Parliament placed a great financial strain on the already hard-pressed Home.<sup>17</sup> On 19 Oct. 1711, well before the session, Mar wrote to his brother Hon. James Erskine<sup>‡</sup>), Lord Grange SCJ, to urge Home to attend the House in time for the Hamilton peerage vote.<sup>18</sup> On 29 Nov. Grange reported that Home was expected to depart for London on 1 Dec., commenting ‘how he has got credit I do not know, but he has borrowed 100l. sterling for his journey. You know the narrowness of his circumstances, and it will be extremely hard if the ruin of his family be hastened by his serving the queen.’ Grange reassured Mar that Home had ‘a great inclination … to be much in your interest, and I doubt not but you will improve it.’<sup>19</sup> Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], wrote to the lord treasurer Oxford (as Harley had become), on 3 Dec. suggesting that Home should be in London ‘before the Parliament sit down’ and noted that, according to his son George Hay*, styled Viscount Dupplin [S], the future Baron Hay, Home</p><blockquote><p>is as discreet as any. He says, the devil take him if it were not his circumstances that he has an old family to preserve, if he had but as much money as to maintain him in London he would serve the queen without asking a farthing, he has so good will to the work. He spent a great deal last time and I believe some taken on upon tick, and I am told it was with the greatest difficulty imaginable that he could get credit for one hundred pounds or two; and I believe really that he has but one along with him.<sup>20</sup></p></blockquote><p>A proxy exists signed by Home on 1 Dec. 1711 in favour of Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S]. Tantalizingly, an undated letter to Oxford, marked only as ‘Thursday at 3’, and possibly written on 6 or 13 Dec., stated that Home was expected in town that night. <sup>21</sup> However, he missed the crucial vote on the peace on 7 Dec., eventually taking his seat on 17 December. His pattern of attendance was much the same as in the previous session. On 19 Dec. he was forecast as likely to support Hamilton’s claims to sit as a British peer and on the 20th, on the question of permitting Hamilton to sit in the House as duke of Brandon, he voted in the minority against the motion disenabling the duke. He also signed the protest that this resolution not only violated the royal prerogative and the Treaty of Union, but also infringed the rights of the peers of Scotland and was inconsistent with the liberty previously granted to James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], to sit in the Lords as duke of Dover. On New Year’s Day 1712 Home was one of 20 Scottish peers who submitted a ‘memorial’ to the queen against the Lords’ ruling.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Home was present on 2 Jan. 1712 when the ministry secured a further adjournment. Writing to James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], Baillie warned: ‘I’m told the Scots peers were with the majority but will be no more so unless redressed’, a reference to the sense of grievance over the Hamilton case.<sup>23</sup> When no progress was made, the Scots peers boycotted the House. Thus Home, along with all his fellow representative peers, was absent on 8 Feb., the day on which the Lords gave a first reading to the Episcopal communion (Scottish toleration) bill, which otherwise he would certainly have supported. He did, however, attend the following day, and was among the ten representative peers present on 11 Feb. to hear a petition requesting permission to the commissioners of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to lay before the Lords their opinion of the bill. The same ten peers also attended on 13 and 15 Feb. for the second reading, the proceedings in the committee of the whole on the bill, and the third reading. On 26 Feb. the Lords considered further amendments to the bill from the Commons, in the presence of only six representative peers. Baillie told Montrose that Home and his fellow Scots ‘were for agreeing with the Commons’; this was confirmed by a correspondent of the Presbyterian minister Robert Wodrow, who noted that ‘all present voted for it’.<sup>24</sup></p><p>On 8 Apr. 1712 Home attended, along with 11 other representative peers, for the first reading of the bill restoring to patrons their ancient rights of presenting ministers to churches vacant in Scotland. Home had a personal interest, since he was involved in a tussle with a local presbytery over his right to patronage in a parish.<sup>25</sup> On 20 May he was present when the bill to examine the grants made by the crown since 1689 was rejected on third reading; it was reported that ‘all our Scots Lords except Argyll [John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]] and Ilay were for the bill.’<sup>26</sup> On 28 May he backed the ministry against a Whig attempt to overturn the ‘restraining orders’ given to James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. All in all he was present on 63 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees.</p><p>On 20 Nov. 1712 Mar requested Lord Grange to press upon Home that he was expected to attend the opening of the parliamentary session, noting that ‘I’m sure it is for his interest to come up immediately tho’ his stay should be short.’<sup>27</sup> Significantly, perhaps, the day before a warrant had been signed to appoint Home general of the Mint in Scotland: the emoluments were a modest £300 p.a., but for someone in Home’s financial straits they were a lifeline.<sup>28</sup> He was present for further prorogations of Parliament on 13 Jan. and 17 and 26 Mar. 1713, but was absent when the session started on 9 Apr. 1713. He resumed his seat on 4 May and was expected to support the Tory ministry (according to a list drawn up by Swift shortly before the session began), and in particular to vote for the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty. His possession of office meant that the events of the session would prove acutely embarrassing for him. On 5 June the House debated whether to give a second reading to the bill extending the malt tax to Scotland. John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], acting on behalf of the Scottish peers and in concert with the Whigs, moved that the second reading be delayed and that instead, on 8 June, the Lords should consider the state of the nation with regard to the Union. After three hours of debate the ministry carried its point by a whisker on a division. Supporters of the motion blamed their defeat on Dupplin (voting in the House as Baron Hay) having given his vote ‘for the court’. Despite being sent for, Home had arrived at the House too late for the division. Balmerinoch charitably accepted his explanation that he ‘meant no ill’ and had in fact been delayed by a bad hangover: he ‘had got his bottle overnight’. <sup>29</sup> On 8 June Home signed the protest after the passage of the third reading of the malt bill. He was present on the last day of the session, 16 July, having been present on 36 days, 54.5 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees.</p><p>An undated letter from Home to Oxford laid out the claims Home felt he had upon royal bounty. No family in Scotland had ‘suffered in the service and support of the crown’ more than his, he wrote, rehearsing a long tradition of unrequited loyalty. During the civil wars the Homes had sold land in order to advance money to the crown, and although repayment had been promised at the Restoration it had not been made. Home thought it reasonable that the queen should grant him compensation, and though he admitted ‘that it is not incumbent on her to pay her grandfather’s or uncle’s debt’, he did believe ‘that if rightly informed of this matter, she would show such regard to their memory as in some measure to reward the services of a family who have suffered so much in defending and supporting her royal progenitors’.<sup>30</sup></p><p>By the end of the session Home was so impoverished that, according to a paper drawn up by Dupplin for the lord treasurer in preparation for the next election of representative peers, he needed some ‘money to carry him away [to the election at Edinburgh], he having a place of but £300.’<sup>31</sup> Oxford agreed to meet the cost of his journey, and a warrant for the payment of £300 ‘royal bounty’ was issued on 18 Sept. 1713.<sup>32</sup> However, it seems likely that Home cast his vote by proxy in the peerage election of October 1713, for on 5 Nov. he wrote to Oxford of his ‘very pressing’ affairs in Scotland ‘having three lawsuits on which the welfare of my family depends’, and on the following day referred to his ‘sudden resolution’ to go for Scotland on 11 November. That very day, the countess of Home sent Oxford a letter, telling him that she could not afford to accompany her husband and feared falling ill on the road (she was heavily pregnant). She presented a history of Home’s financial mismanagement, noting that as he had only just turned 21 when first chosen as a representative peer, he had not had time to regulate his finances before coming to London, ‘and not knowing the way of living here both spent his own money and what you were pleased to bestow upon him: not one farthing came to me but a trifle of some clothes that it is not worth the naming’. As to Oxford’s most recent gift, ‘I only got five guineas of it, he having so many necessary affairs of his own which I know nothing about. Therefore, if your Lordship will be infinitely good to assist me’. She ended her appeal with one final request, ‘for God’s sake the concealment of this trouble’.<sup>33</sup></p><p>Home’s financial difficulties ensured that he was not even a candidate in the 1713 election of representative peers. He received further payments of royal bounty in December 1713 (£150) and May 1714 (£300).<sup>34</sup> He lost his post in the Scottish Mint with the death of the queen, and the Berwickshire shrievalty was returned to Marchmont after the Hanoverian succession. This brought his affairs into a truly desperate condition.<sup>35</sup> In May and June 1715 he sought to organize a shire meeting to address the king against the hardships Scotland had suffered on account of the Union, against the opposition of Marchmont.<sup>36</sup> By the end of August he was confined in Edinburgh Castle, while his brother John joined the rebels and was taken prisoner at Preston.<sup>37</sup> Home was released on 24 June 1716, but his health and spirit had been broken by imprisonment, and, although his Jacobite kinsman George Home of Whitfield tried to persuade the exiled Jacobite court of his ‘chief’s’ continuing loyalty, Home does not seem to have given any indication of this himself.<sup>38</sup> Home died in 1720.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
JOHNSTON, William (1664-1721) |
<p><strong><surname>JOHNSTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1664–1721)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 17 July 1672 (a minor) as 2nd earl of Annandale and Hartfell [S]; <em>cr. </em>24 June 1701 mq. of ANNANDALE [S] |
RP [S] 1709–13, 1715–<em>d</em>. |
First sat 3 Feb. 1709; last sat 22 Dec. 1720 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 17 Feb. 1664, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of James Johnston, 2nd earl of Hartfell [S] and 1st earl of Annandale and Hartfell, and Henrietta, da. of William Douglas, 1st mq. of Douglas [S]. <em>educ</em>. Glasgow g.s. 1674; Glasgow Univ. 1677; <em>m</em>. (1) 2 Jan. 1682, Sophia (<em>d</em>.1716), da. and h. of John Fairholm of Craigiehall, Linlithgow, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) 20 Nov. 1718, Charlotte van Lore (<em>d</em>.1762), da. of John Vanden Bempde of Hackness Hall, nr. Scarborough, Yorks. and Pall Mall, Westminster, 2s. KT 1704. <em>d</em>. 14 Jan. 1721;<sup>1</sup> <em>will</em> pr. 21 Aug. 1721.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. conventicles [S] 1684, auditing treasury accts. [S] 1695, 1696; treasury [S] 1696–aft. Feb. 1705, visitation of univs. [S] 1697, trade [S] 1698, auditing adm. accts. [S] 1698, union with Eng. 1702; PC [S] 1688, 1689–July 1690, aft. Dec. 1690–1708. extraordinary ld. of session 1693–<em>d</em>.; ld. pres. of council [S] 1693–5, 1702–4, 1705–6; pres. of parl. [S] 1695; ld. high commr. Gen. Assembly Ch. of Scotland 1701, 1705, 1711; kpr. privy seal [S] May–Dec. 1702, 1715–<em>d</em>.; jt. sec. of state [S] Mar.–Sept. 1705; PC 1711–<em>d</em>.; kpr. great seal [S] 1714–16.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Capt., Visct. Dundee’s horse Oct.–Nov. 1688, indep. tp. of horse [S], 1689.</p><p>Stewart (hered.) Annandale 1672-<em>d</em>.; burgess, Edinburgh 1693; constable and gov. Lochmaben castle by 1701; provost, Annan by 1701; ld. lt. Dumfries, Kirkcudbright and Peebles. 1715.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: mezzotint by J. Smith, aft. Sir G. Kneller, 1703, British Museum P,8.71.</p> |
<h2><em>‘Faction and division’: Annandale before 1705</em></h2><p>Although Annandale never tired of asserting that devotion to the Presbyterian Church, the Glorious Revolution and the Protestant succession were his guiding stars, these protestations were belied by the switchback course he followed in politics, which often seemed to privilege egotism over principle. Intense ambition, shading into a self-righteous sense of entitlement, gave rise to fits of ill temper and long-sustained grudges. It was by no means uncommon for him, in pursuit of advantage or of a vendetta, to reverse his position on major issues. In consequence, contemporaries as diverse as Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, and the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> regarded him as not only untrustworthy but dangerous. Burnet observed that Annandale was ‘extremely carried away by his private interest’, and although making ‘a fine figure in the Parliament house’, was ‘not much to be trusted’.<sup>5</sup> According to Lockhart, he was ‘a man ... framed for business, extremely capable and assiduous’ but possessed of ‘a proud, aspiring temper, and, when his affairs and politics went right, haughty to a great degree’. Annandale ‘had gone backwards and forwards so often, and been guilty of such mean, ungentlemanly compliances to procure the favour of that party which he designed to engage, that no man whatsoever placed any trust in him. Even those of the Revolution party only employed him as the Indians worship the devil, out of fear.’<sup>6</sup></p><p>Annandale’s mercurial character was well illustrated by the political gymnastics he perpetrated before, during and after the Revolution. According to the Jacobite Colin Lindsay, 3rd earl of Balcarres [S], ‘When the Presbyterians got their indulgence, he declared himself of their party, but soon tired of them’ and approached King James’s administration in Edinburgh in 1688, saying that ‘it was his youth only had misled him’.<sup>7</sup> He was named to James II’s Scottish Privy Council, and in October 1688 was commissioned in the cavalry regiment commanded by James Graham of Claverhouse. However, he then left Scotland for London, where, according to Balcarres, he pledged loyalty to both sides.<sup>8</sup> Once William’s invasion had succeeded, he became a staunch Williamite, took a military commission from the new regime and was named to William’s Scottish Privy Council. But he did not consider himself to have been sufficiently rewarded, complaining of ‘the usage [he] had met with from the prince of Orange’, and joined the radical Whig ‘Club’ in the Scottish Parliament headed by his brother-in-law, Sir James Montgomerie. James Douglas*, styled earl of Drumlanrig, and later 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], whose family were Annandale’s principal local rivals, and who knew him well, was exasperated: Annandale, he wrote on 14 Apr. 1690, ‘is now arrived to that height, that it’s impossible to be in any judicature or society with him. He is absolutely given up to faction and division; and, I believe, by his hot humour, he must think to atone for his other faults.’<sup>9</sup> In December 1689, after the king had given short shrift to the Club’s proposals for constitutional reform, Annandale followed Montgomerie into Jacobite conspiracy. Balcarres considered that Annandale himself had been the prime mover in the Montgomerie plot, ‘as he was always the most forward in whatever party he took himself to’<sup>10</sup>. When the plot was exposed, Annandale at first ‘hid himself, distrusting his own courage’, until fellow-conspirators surrendered, upon which he made a full confession in return for a pardon.<sup>11</sup> He was then restored to the Privy Council, and with surprising speed completed his political rehabilitation in 1693 when after urgent solicitation on his part he was made an extraordinary lord of session, and then, through his friendship with James ‘Secretary’ Johnston<sup>‡</sup> (another survivor of the Montgomerie plot), secured high office in the Scottish ministerial reconstruction of 1693–5 which advanced Whiggish interests. <sup>12</sup></p><p>The replacement of Johnston’s party by a succession of magnates in the mid-1690s frustrated Annandale’s advancement. His splenetic mood was deepened by the rise of the 2nd duke of Queensberry (as Drumlanrig had become in 1695) to leadership of the ‘court party’. His relationship with Queensberry had always been uneasy; now they became bitter rivals, both locally and nationally, even when ostensibly co-operating in government. <sup>13</sup> For a time Annandale flirted with the ‘country party’ headed by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. However, even after he had returned to his responsibilities he remained a disturbing presence in the ministry. The loss of the £1,000 he had invested in the Darien scheme added to his discontents, although throughout his career he was never short of money, unlike almost all his contemporaries in the Scottish peerage.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Despite Lockhart’s opinion that, as long as he was ‘kindly dealt with’ Annandale would ‘go along with the prevailing party’, his behaviour in Parliament after 1702 was marked by a degree of unpredictability, as far as the court (and in particular Queensberry) was concerned, and a tendency to play to the gallery on popular issues relating to the security of the Presbyterian Church or the rights of the subject.<sup>15</sup> When John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], and his allies, the so-called ‘New Party’, replaced Queensberry in 1704 they at first pushed for the removal of Annandale as a potential trouble-maker, but their wish was not granted and he does seem to have been prepared to work with them, while at the same time anxious to preserve his reputation as an advocate of constitutional liberty and the Protestant succession, which prompted him to protest against a clause in the act of security which he claimed would prove an obstacle to settling the succession.<sup>16</sup> This was not particularly helpful to Tweeddale, but lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin reassured Annandale that the queen was ‘entirely satisfied of your Lordship’s conduct in relation to her measure, tho’ it has not had the success she hoped and desired, and which she believes it might have had if her other servants would have all concurred in it as your lordship has done’.<sup>17</sup> This was probably the zenith of Annandale’s career: he was said to exercise a dominating influence in government, ‘hectoring’ Tweeddale, the nominal chief minister, and was freely tipped for promotion to lord chancellor.<sup>18</sup> He was so full of self-confidence that he boasted to the lords of session that the next meeting of Parliament would last no more than eight days, since all that would be proposed would be a treaty of union and the grant of taxes, both requests which ‘he was sure no Scotsman would refuse’.<sup>19</sup> He was admitted to the Order of the Thistle; and in March 1705, in the ministerial reconstruction which brought in John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] as parliamentary commissioner, secured the post once held by his mentor James Johnston as secretary. At Argyll’s insistence, he was also named as commissioner to the General Assembly of the Kirk, having previously occupied that position in 1701.<sup>20</sup></p><h2><em>Against the Union, 1705-7</em></h2><p>Under this new dispensation things did not work out as well for Annandale as he might have expected, partly through his own fault. Behind the scenes, he tried to use his influence with Godolphin to push through more changes, entirely eliminating the New Party (soon to be known as the Squadrone) from government, but without success.<sup>21</sup> He also turned on Argyll, who, he told Godolphin, ‘is so much in people’s hands that are for measures which I do not understand to be the queen’s, that what may be the consequence I hope shall not be imputed to me’.<sup>22</sup> Annandale was opposed to the policy of prioritizing a union treaty, and was determined that the succession should be settled without compromising Scottish sovereignty. He put this point of view to Godolphin, and persuaded the English ministry to recommend a two-pronged strategy involving both union and provision for the succession.<sup>23</sup> However, when the queen’s letter to this effect was read to the Parliament, Annandale (on 6 July 1705) proposed that members consider ‘such limitations and conditions of government, as shall be judged proper for the next successor in the Protestant line’. No mention having been made of a union it was left to others to propose it.<sup>24</sup> During the ensuing debate Annandale (or so he told Godolphin) ‘used my best endeavours to advance the treaty’, but he also felt himself obliged, in order to preserve his character as a patriot, to indulge in rhetorical flourishes, on one occasion declaring that, ‘if England could not be brought to reasonable terms, he would go sword in hand into the field and force them to it’.<sup>25</sup></p><p>After the passage of the act naming treaty commissioners, it was announced in September 1705 that John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], was to replace Annandale as secretary of state as part of arrangements made for the re-entry into government of Queensberry and his ‘old court party’. In compensation, Annandale was offered the presidency of the council. The explanation was that the queen ‘feared the misunderstanding between the commissioner [Argyll] and your lordship might obstruct business and occasion divisions amongst her servants’.<sup>26</sup> He at first declared that he would not accept the presidency until he had seen the queen himself. He was reported to be ‘very angry’, and intent on ‘vindicat[ing] himself, and to know of the queen a reason why he was so summarily transported’. <sup>27</sup> On 6 Oct., not long before his departure, Annandale made a preliminary approach to George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, one of the leaders of the Squadrone, explaining that ‘I am as much my own master now, and at my own disposal, as you are, which I assure is not a little agreeable to me, considering the set I was yoked with, and the measures they were prosecuting.’<sup>28</sup> After his royal audience in October Annandale told Baillie that ‘I have seen the queen ... and gave up fairly’. He also suggested the possibility of co-operation with the Squadrone, but understanding that his motives might be questioned, pledged that whatever ‘condition or capacity I am in, I shall be true to the Revolution interest, the Protestant succession, and a faithful friend and servant to yourself’.<sup>29</sup> Baillie was sceptical, telling John Ker, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe [S] on 24 Jan. 1706: ‘I ... could guess that he designs to be in again, and is not without hopes of succeeding. This must be done by Queensberry’s assistance’.<sup>30</sup> These suspicions had some foundation, for Annandale was still in contact with Queensberry’s lieutenants, though he made it clear that he would not ‘give my concurrence and assistance to a set of men who have treated both the queen’s interest and me as they have done, unless I have as good a share in the government, and upon as honourable terms as I had formerly’.<sup>31</sup> Queensberry, however, was adamant that he would have to accept the presidency or nothing. When the protracted negotiations threatened to put a stop to all public business, the queen sent a messenger to Annandale in March to ‘tell him she had kept the place she had offered him all this time vacant to give him time to consider of it, but now she thought it fit that that place should be filled, therefore had sent him to get his last and positive answer’. Annandale demurred, leaving Mar to comment, ‘so there’s an end of the affair, and my lord says he is now going home’.<sup>32</sup> Annandale did not return to Scotland, however. Instead he went to Bath, visiting James Johnston on the way and fuelling rumours of more conspiracies.<sup>33</sup> By July, with the treaty negotiations well under way, there was talk in Edinburgh that ‘the queen had sent for Annandale ... and told him she would have him and her servants good friends before they went to the Parliament’.<sup>34</sup> There was some truth in this, as Mar reported ‘secret negotiations’ on the part of the lord justice clerk (Adam Cockburn, Lord Ormiston). Annandale’s ‘pretensions’ were evidently ‘to the Guards, which he is not likely to succeed in’. He finally returned to Scotland in Sept., in the process causing considerable commotion in unionist circles by visits to English Tories, who were hostile to the idea of a union.<sup>35</sup></p><p>He may also have met the Junto lord Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, the secretary of state with responsibility for Scottish affairs, but his prime purpose seems to have been to stir up opposition to union among English politicians, and by the time he reached Scotland there was little prospect that he would be able to work with the Squadrone, though he continued to make them promises of goodwill.<sup>36</sup></p><p>Annandale had still not publicly announced his view of the treaty, and had supposedly been making ‘great court’ to the Squadrone, who supported it, but when the Scottish Parliament met in October 1706 the signs were not encouraging. <sup>37</sup> He was one of the three lords who refused to sup with the commissioner, Queensberry, as was customary at the beginning of the session, prompting Mar to observe that he ‘appears yet to be very cross, and unless he see us very strong will, I believe, be against us’.<sup>38</sup> When the treaty was laid before parliament for the first time, Annandale ‘laughed at every article ... as it was read’.<sup>39</sup> Some were still prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, and Mar wrote on 13 Oct. that Annandale, ‘has not yet declar’d his opinion as to the grand affair, tho’ he has spoke against it to several in private’.<sup>40</sup> In fact, he had sent Sunderland a message promising to support the Union, giving an assurance that he ‘acted from a principle, and ... would continue to be for the measure whether he was obliged by the court or not’.<sup>41</sup> When the 15th article was read on 23 Oct., relating to the compensation to be paid to the Company of Scotland, he ‘said that it was not then a very proper time to insist on it, but he thought that company should not be dissolved at the passing of the act in the Parliament of England for the money of the equivalent as is agreed in the treaty, and that we could not forfeit that company without citing every member’. This was precisely the type of delaying tactic that opponents of the treaty were employing.<sup>42</sup> Then, at the reading of the 18th article on 28 Oct. he ‘averr’d very strenuously’ that an incorporating union was inconsistent with the Claim of Right, an intervention which convinced Mar that Annandale had committed himself against the treaty.<sup>43</sup> When it came to approving the first article, he made a long speech against on 2 November.<sup>44</sup> He did vote for the second article on 15 Nov., concerning the succession, although with the reservation that including the nomination of the house of Hanover in a clause of the act was in effect to ‘put a slur on’ the successor.<sup>45</sup> And over the third article he entered a protest on 18 Nov. that an ‘incorporating union is contrary to the honour, interest, fundamental laws and constitution of this kingdom’, as opposed to a federal arrangement or ‘the succession with limitations’.<sup>46</sup> He was now joining the opposition to the Union on every vote, though protesting his determination to see the succession safeguarded, and grounding his arguments, wherever possible, on his concern for the Kirk, and the rights of the subject.<sup>47</sup> Mar was of opinion that Annandale had ‘now pulled off the mask entirely ... His only company is the Jacobites of the opposing party’.<sup>48</sup></p><h2><em>After the Union, 1707-8</em></h2><p>Not surprisingly, given his unqualified opposition to the Union, Annandale was not chosen to sit in the first Parliament of Great Britain, and during the 1707–8 session he continued to snipe at the Union, deploring the measures promoted by the Squadrone in relation to the Scottish Privy Council and the militia, which he publicly declared, with heavy irony, to be the inevitable consequences of ‘the happy Union’.<sup>49</sup> In the peers’ election of 1708, however, his candidacy was much stronger, thanks to the alliance which had been conjured up in the meantime between Hamilton and the Squadrone. He was, it seems, happy to forget the Squadrone’s recent transgressions for the greater good of a combined front against Queensberry. Annandale was present at the election on 17 June, where he polled for his confederates on the Hamilton-Squadrone list but did not receive enough votes himself to secure election.<sup>50</sup> He entered protestations against proxies presented by George Gordon, earl of Aberdeen [S], and the Queensberryite David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S]. The Squadrone drew up a memorial of the various protests arising from the election, including Annandale’s, which was sent for comment to the Junto. <sup>51</sup> On 3 July Sunderland wrote to Annandale to congratulate him on the part he had acted ‘in this late struggle ... in Scotland’. Sunderland acknowledged that he and Annandale had differed over the Union, but was sure ‘we shall agree in making it as complete as possible, and as happy to the whole united kingdom. And tho’ your lordship is not return’d one of the 16 I don’t doubt but upon the protestations we shall do you right by bringing you into the House.’ He hoped that Annandale and his friends would come to London ‘that we may be appris’d of the whole state of this affair ... among you, and of the irregularities committed by the subaltern ministry there and their dependants, which if made out, as I hope they will be, will effectually rid you of that tyranny’.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Annandale responded enthusiastically, assuring Sunderland that ‘no man living will make it more his business to make this present union and settlement happy to this nation then I shall’. He added, ‘when we were in a separate state I was very well satisfied our happiness depended entirely upon your lordship and our other friends in conjunction with you, and then you had all my assistance’. Now, he was certain ‘we have no other resource, and whatever I am able to do in this part of the nation shall be directed that way ... when I have the honour to be in the House of peers, you shall find me entirely and heartily in your measures’.<sup>53</sup> Annandale felt that the Squadrone, and Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] in particular, were not acting with sufficient urgency in preparing their case, and took matters into his own hands in late July 1708 when he tried to obtain the necessary supporting documents from the office of the lord clerk register (Glasgow), only to encounter prevarication and delay.<sup>54</sup> Eventually, Marchmont reported the Junto’s views on the protestations, which were a mixture of encouragement and caution.<sup>55</sup> In particular it was noted that a ‘dispute touching the validity of elections being entirely a new thing in the House of Lords, it is hard to say what will be the method taken’, so it was important that ‘everything that relates to the question of elections ought to be ready’ by the opening of the Parliament. The best way to proceed would be that the ‘lords who suppose themselves concerned immediately upon the consequence of the judgment of the peers touching the protestations, may petition the House’, because ‘every petitioner might have authentic copies of the whole proceedings annexed to his petition’. It was also essential ‘to the honour of the House of peers, and the public good’, that measures be taken to prevent similar action in future by providing ‘proof of any endeavours by threats, promises, force or other undue contrivances, to take away or elude the freedom of elections’.<sup>56</sup></p><p>On 18 Nov. 1708 two days after Parliament assembled, Hamilton presented to the Lords a petition from Annandale, John Sutherland*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S], Marchmont and William Ross<sup>†</sup>, 12th Lord Ross [S], arguing that ‘at the election of the sixteen peers ... your petitioners were duly elected, by a greater number of legal votes than’ William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], and Glasgow. They had protested against these irregularities at the election but were unable to secure redress, and, furthermore, had been refused copies of the documents necessary to prove their charges, ‘contrary to the known laws and usage of all the courts and public assemblies in Scotland; which laws are, by the Treaty of Union, reserved’. It was also objected that Queensberry himself had not been eligible to vote in the election, because by that time he had been made a British peer (as duke of Dover).<sup>57</sup> Successive delays in the proceedings culminated in an adjournment until after the Christmas recess, so that the examination of the case only began on 10 Jan. 1709 when a committee was appointed to consider the petition. The report was delivered on 17 Jan. and considered five days later. On 28 Jan. Annandale’s objection against Aberdeen’s proxy was dismissed, a decision which surprised Roxburghe, who noted that the petitioners had ‘both Whig and Tories ... of their side.’<sup>58</sup> In a subsequent debate, on a related issue, the Whig Junto appeared to resurrect the arguments Annandale had made. The Queensberryites were nonplussed that Whigs should have opened the door to such a man: as Mar wrote, ‘Anna[ndale] having promised to both parties but deepest to the Tories they went all into it, even those who had formerly been with us and the Junto Whigs would not seem to differ amongst themselves, tho’ several of them were sorry for it’; indeed the Junto were, he thought, ‘ashamed of the end of this great struggle they had occasioned and at the end only to turn out a man that had always been firm to the Revolution interest and bring in a man [Annandale] of whose uncertainty everybody is apprised of’. Queensberry’s followers tried to pull back the lost ground when the House went into committee on 1 Feb., but though the Junto still ‘pretended to be sorry for Annandale’s coming in ... they would not join with us in this, all the Tories would have been for Annan[dale] and none of our Whigs would join us either so we were forced to let it alone’. The committee had been instructed to recalculate the votes in the election in accordance with the Lords’ resolutions of 29 Jan., so although Annandale’s total fell by two to 44 it was now one vote higher than Lothian’s. Mar concluded that ‘the Junto have done themselves a world of disreputation’, and predicted that both Whigs and Tories ‘will be disappointed of their new man, else I’m deceived, for he will make his first offers to the court, if he has not done it already’. <sup>59</sup></p><h2><em>In the Lords, 1709-13</em></h2><p>Annandale took his seat on 3 Feb. 1709. He only missed two sittings of the House before Parliament was prorogued on 21 Apr. (attending 61 per cent of the total number of sittings in the session, 97 per cent of sittings after his arrival). Together with other Scots, he opposed the bill which changed the law of treason in Scotland to bring it in line with that of England, acting as a teller in one division and entering a protest on 28 March.<sup>60</sup> Surprisingly, he was not recorded as having attended the House during the following session, though a letter to Hamilton suggests that he may have been dealing with family problems, as he referred to his ‘mad wife and a rebellious, obstinate and disobedient son prompted by his mother to the last degree of foolery and madness’.<sup>61</sup> Annandale and his eldest son had been at daggers drawn for some time, for in 1708 James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>, styled lord Johnston (later 2nd marquess of Annandale [S]) had appealed to Argyll to intercede on his behalf, on the grounds that his father’s ‘humour increases to such a degree against me as makes it worse than death to think of living any longer with him’.<sup>62</sup> In addition, the absence of any tangible reward from either the Junto or the Squadrone had alienated Annandale from both groups, and so he shifted his political alliances once again.<sup>63</sup></p><p>Re-elected in 1710 on a ministerial ticket (through his connection with Hamilton), he was described as ‘Episc[opal] Tory, rather court’ in the list of peers and Members prepared by the duchess of Buccleuch’s Episcopalian chaplain.<sup>64</sup> This was a reference to his current political rather than religious persuasion. He had spent a good deal of time in canvassing peers of a ‘cavalier’ persuasion, and during the election campaign he was described by one Scottish Tory as ‘as right as one could wish’.<sup>65</sup> Another analsysis drawn up after the election had him as ‘for the succession, against the Union’. He first attended on 27 Nov. 1710 for the queen’s address from the throne. In the Lords he aligned himself with Scottish Tories and in January 1711 joined the attack on the previous ministry over the conduct of the war in Spain.<sup>66</sup> He also helped to prevent delay in considering the petition of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields. He was nevertheless appointed again as commissioner to the General Assembly, a responsibility which meant that he did not attend the House after 20 Apr., having until then only missed two sittings. Despite his absence, he still managed to have attended 68 per cent of the whole session. He reassured William Carstares, the influential Presbyterian minister and principal of Edinburgh University, that he would not have undertaken this responsibility had he not been convinced of the ministry’s goodwill towards the Kirk, and in his correspondence with the queen and her chief minister, Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, he emphasized both the loyalty of Presbyterians, and, of course, his own contribution to maintaining that loyalty and dispelling anxieties that political enemies had ‘industriously dispersed’ among the ministers and elders. This was also an argument for preferment, if only to ‘fortify his authority’. <sup>67</sup></p><p>In July 1711 Annandale was reported to be ‘out of humour with the ... ministry’, a state of affairs that continued into the autumn: Oxford was informed in October that ‘there are three things, any one of them will coop [sic] his distemper ... either the castle [the constableship of Edinburgh Castle] or register [lord clerk register] will do, but he does not like the privy seal so well’.<sup>68</sup> There was also the vacant stewartry of Kirkcudbright, which he had requested during the summer.<sup>69</sup> Instead, all he was offered was a place on the new commission of chamberlainry and trade (albeit first place in the commission), but he considered this to be below his dignity. <sup>70</sup> He reminded Oxford that</p><blockquote><p>I had the misfortune the very year before the Union to be so summarily turned out from being secretary for Scotland, and of being ill used by the late ministry, that I was put under a necessity of refusing to accept of the president of the council’s post, because then I could not be serviceable, and therefore, I must beg leave to say that unless the queen have commands for me in some settled and fixed post in her service, I cannot see how I can propose to be useful to her interest and service.<sup>71</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nonetheless, he continued to collect the salary till a replacement was found and even petitioned in May 1712 for it to be increased.<sup>72</sup></p><p>Annandale was included by Oxford on a list of probable supporters in December 1711, but still did not come to Parliament until 14 Jan. 1712 despite the ministry’s best efforts. On his arrival, he reacted with particular vehemence against the Lords’ ruling that Hamilton did not have the right to sit by virtue of his British peerage as duke of Brandon. <sup>73</sup> At a meeting of Scottish peers on 17 Jan. Annandale was ‘very warm and singular in his opinion’. In respect of the proposed Scottish boycott of the House of Lords he said that he himself ‘did not incline to go the House till he saw some things effectually done to repair us by the ministry’, but since there had been ‘very earnest and positive assurances from them’ he thought ‘we were bound to assist in the meantime and enable those from whom only we could expect relief both to perfect our redress and the queen’s just measures about the peace’.<sup>74</sup> A week later, however, he announced that ‘he sees no good is to be done and therefore he will not return’, a position to which he adhered when the other Scottish peers gave way, stating his view that ‘the court was trifling with us’.<sup>75</sup> He maintained resistance single-handed, staying away from the House for the rest of the session, and attending less than five per cent of sittings.<sup>76</sup> In addition to the national grievance over the Hamilton case, and what must have been acute disappointment at not receiving high office while enemies like Mar prospered, he may also have felt that the legislative measures taken that winter to benefit Scottish Episcopalians had betrayed promises he had given to the General Assembly the previous year. So when Oxford optimistically proposed that he might return as commissioner in 1712, he</p><blockquote><p>used the freedom to tell the queen, that he would very willingly serve her majesty in that capacity, but when he had the honour to represent her majesty last year, by her allowance, he had given such assurances to the ministers of their absolute security as to their constitution, that he was ashamed to look them again in the face, considering what encroachments had since fallen out upon them.<sup>77</sup></p></blockquote><p>Not only did Annandale stay away from Parliament for the remainder of this session, he embarked upon an extensive European tour, which in April 1712 took him to visit the peace negotiators at Utrecht, and thence to Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland, and kept him away from Parliament for the next session as well.<sup>78</sup> He did not stand for re-election in 1713, still being abroad; indeed, he only returned to Britain in September 1714, when he reaped the benefit of his recent cultivation of the favour of the Hanoverian court with appointment to national and local office. <sup>79</sup> He was then re-elected as a representative peer. The remainder of his parliamentary career will be dealt with in the second part of this work.</p><p>Annandale died at Bath on14 Jan. 1721, after a short illness, leaving his second wife six months’ pregnant, and was buried at Johnstone, Dumfriesshire.<sup>80</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
KEITH, William (c. 1664-1712) |
<p><strong><surname>KEITH</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (c. 1664–1712)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. Mar. 1694 as 8th Earl MARISCHAL [S] |
RP [S] 1710-27 May 1712 |
First sat 18 Dec. 1710; last sat 15 May 1712 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1664, o.s. of George Keith, 7th Earl Marischal [S], and Mary, da. of George Hay, 2nd earl of Kinnoull [S]. <em>m</em>. c.1690, Mary (<em>d</em>.1729), da. of James Drummond, 4th earl of Perth [S], 2s. 2da.<sup>1</sup> <em>d</em>. 27 May 1712.</p> |
<p>Earl Marischal [S] (hered.) 1694-<em>d</em>.; PC [S] 1701–2.</p><p>Sheriff, Kincardine; commr. justiciary, Highlands, 1702.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Chan., Marischal Coll. and Univ. Aberdeen 1694-<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by John Closterman, bef. 1711, sold at Christie’s 7-8 July 2010.</p> |
<p>Enemies and friends alike paid tribute to Marischal’s vigour, his abilities as an orator, and his fidelity to principle, but at the same time acknowledged the waywardness of character and addiction to pleasure which impaired his capacity for decisive action and ultimately destroyed his health. To Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, (in a character sketch incorporated by Spring Macky into the published edition of John Macky’s ‘Characters’) he was</p><blockquote><p>very wild, inconstant and passionate; does everything by starts, hath abundance of flashy wit; and by reason of his quality, hath good interest in the country; all courts endeavour to have him on their side, for he gives himself liberty of talking, when he is not pleased with the government. .... he is a thorough libertine, yet sets up mightily for episcopacy; a hard drinker.’<sup>4</sup></p></blockquote><p>A similarly mixed assessment came from the more sympathetic pen of George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, for whom Marischal was a ‘worthy Scots patriot’ who had shown ‘zeal for [his] country’s service’ by opposing the Union. He</p><blockquote><p>was master of a quick and lively spirit, a great vivacity of wit, an undaunted courage, and, in short, a soul capable of doing great things; but his misfortune was, he could not seriously apply himself to business, being loose and irregular in his measures, and too bent upon pleasures.<sup>5</sup></p></blockquote><p>Even his wife complained that she could not get him to concentrate on either public or private affairs, to the detriment of his family’s interests.<sup>6</sup></p><p>The Keith family had a long tradition of loyal service to the crown. Hereditary Earl Marischals (marshals) of Scotland since the twelfth century, they had been raised to the peerage in the mid-fifteenth century. Keith’s uncle and father, in turn the 6th and 7th earls, had both fought for the Stuarts in the wars of the 1640s and 1650s. His father had taken the Covenant in 1637, but was later an Engager, fighting for Charles II at Worcester in 1651. After the Restoration he had enhanced his royalist credentials by marrying the daughter of 2nd earl of Kinnoull. She was later present at the birth of the prince of Wales in 1688 and gave a deposition that the birth was genuine. However, the earl himself, despite having commanded a regiment in Scotland under James II, readily accepted the Revolution. He was given a commission by William III to garrison one of his castles, and was named to the Scottish Privy Council in May 1689.<sup>7</sup> A year later, however, William dismissed him from the council and further stopped the valuable pension of £500 p.a. which the family had enjoyed since the time of King James VI and I.<sup>8</sup></p><p>The ill treatment meted out to his father did nothing to improve the disposition of the 8th earl towards the Williamite regime once he inherited the title in March 1694. He grew up to be a strong Episcopalian and Jacobite, predilections which were intensified by his marriage in about 1690 to Lady Mary Drummond, the wedding taking place during her father’s imprisonment by William III and before he joined James II in exile. From the time Marischal took his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1698, he was a consistent opponent of government. His kinsman James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], laboured for some years under the mistaken impression that he could bring Marischal over to administration, even obtaining for him in 1701 a place on the Scottish Privy Council and in 1702 the temporary restoration of his father’s pension.<sup>9</sup> Following Queen Anne’s accession Marischal was one of the ‘cavalier’ lords who followed James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in seceding from the Scottish Parliament in protest at the failure to call a new election. He later accompanied Hamilton in May 1702 to London to request a dissolution.<sup>10</sup> Upon his return to Edinburgh at the end of the month a newsletter reckoned him as one of ‘our great men that were in the last reign reckoned of the country party’, along with Hamilton and John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S].<sup>11</sup> In the following year, remaining ‘in Hamilton’s interest’, he found himself approached by James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], who was seeking to broker a coalition between Hamilton and Queensberry. Marischal declared himself willing to do whatever the queen might ask of him, but was reluctant to ask for any particular office.<sup>12</sup> It was proposed that his father’s pension be restored, ‘on positive assurance … of adherence to her Majesty’s measures’, but this did not materialize.<sup>13</sup> He remained a vocal member of the country opposition, and was described in 1705 as one of the ‘chief heads of the discontented party in Scotland’, ‘the mouth of the country party’, and ‘next to Hamilton the Hector of the House’. He spoke frequently against the Presbyterian Kirk, against settling the succession in the house of Hanover, and against truckling to the English over matters of trade and commerce.<sup>14</sup></p><p>Marischal had been in direct contact with the Jacobite court in 1704, writing to James II’s widowed queen to pledge his ‘inviolable services’. But although he insisted that her son’s supporters in Scotland ‘augment in number daily, and desire, with impatience, to have an opportunity to give proofs of their loyalty’, he noted the lack of arms and money at their disposal. These necessities, and foreign troops, he argued, would be required to do the exiled king’s business.<sup>15</sup> In the meantime, he believed that the Scottish parliament could be kept from settling the succession in the house of Hanover, and he for his own part worked to prevent it.<sup>16</sup> When the Jacobite agent, Colonel Nathaniel Hooke, came to Scotland in the summer of 1705 he naturally turned to Marischal for help, presenting a warrant from James which admitted Marischal to the Order of the Thistle.<sup>17</sup> Marischal claimed to have six hundred armed followers ready to rise, and according to Hooke, Marischal and his nephew, Charles Hay, 13th earl of Erroll [S], had presented Hamilton with an ultimatum, that they would abandon him if he did not grasp the opportunity for restoring the Stuart line. At the same time, when asked by Hooke to travel back to France, Marischal would not give a direct answer, but played for time.<sup>18</sup></p><p>Marischal was a staunch opponent of the Union in the Scottish parliamentary session of 1706-7. He led the opposition to the second article, which settled the succession, and strongly protested against the 22nd article, trying in vain to preserve the rights and privileges of his own hereditary office of marshal. During the proceedings he and other Jacobites argued consistently for the imposition of limitations on the monarchy, presumably for tactical reasons to ‘clog’ the bill ratifying the treaty.<sup>19</sup></p><p>Hooke’s second embassy in 1707 involved further meetings with Marischal, some at Inverugie Castle and some in London, at which the earl again professed loyalty. It is at this point that we hear for the first time of Marischal falling seriously ill, possibly a consequence of his penchant for heavy drinking. <sup>20</sup> According to Lockhart, Marischal and others who dealt with Hooke (including Hamilton and Erroll) found themselves denounced as ‘cowards and lukewarm’ by those more impatient for action.<sup>21</sup> Despite his promises to Hooke, Marischal failed the Jacobite cause in 1708, when a French naval squadron attempted to land 6,000 troops on the north-east coast of Scotland. He had been busy making preparations for a rising in support of the invasion, but, as Lockhart reported, he ‘omitted to answer the signal of a ship which was sent by agreement to the coast near his house’, and as a result the landing was aborted. <sup>22</sup> Marischal then surrendered himself to government, and after a period of confinement in Edinburgh Castle, where he suffered a head wound when Erroll threw a bottle at him during a quarrel, was conveyed under guard to London to be tried for taking part in the failed rebellion.<sup>23</sup></p><p>While Marischal was <em>en route</em> to the English capital, Hamilton, in order to procure his own release, made his unlikely alliance with the Junto and Squadrone for the forthcoming election of the representative peers. Hamilton and his brother George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], on their journey back to Scotland in order to muster support for their new allies, were able to meet Marischal and several other prisoners on the road to London. Orkney found Marischal ‘extremely surprised’ at Hamilton’s new alliance. Orkney was also ‘extremely vexed’ that before leaving Scotland Marischal had assigned his proxy to the official who had supervised his arrest and confinement in Edinburgh Castle, the commander-in-chief in Scotland, David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S]. On the Hamilton brothers’ strenuous urging, Marischal agreed to cancel that proxy and reassign it to the duke. Hamilton, writing to his Junto ally Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, attributed this misdirected proxy to the fact that Marischal and his colleagues had been ‘most grossly imposed upon and have had a thousand lies told them’ by the court party. He was insistent that Marischal and other prisoners be released so they could travel back to Edinburgh in time to vote for the Hamilton-Squadrone ticket.<sup>24</sup> Marischal himself did not get back in time to take part in the elections of 17 June 1708, but Hamilton used his proxy to vote for the Squadrone slate of candidates. Acknowledging the importance of Marischal’s contribution, Hamilton requested Sunderland’s protection for the earl, since ‘he allowed me to make use of his proxy notwithstanding of his not being of our sixteen, though I had promised it’<sup>25</sup> At the same time, Marischal exploited his territorial influence and his office as hereditary sheriff of Kincardineshire to secure the return to the Commons of the Episcopalian crypto-Jacobite Sir David Ramsay<sup>‡</sup>, 4th bt.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Two years later, on 10 Nov. 1710, Marischal was himself elected a representative peer in the elections at Edinburgh, at which he was this time present. His inclusion on the government list for that election had been agreed in advance by Hamilton (his principal sponsor), together with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S].<sup>27</sup> Richard Dongworth, chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch, listed him as an ‘Episcopal Tory’ and gave the annual value of his estate at ‘not £2,000 and encumbered’. <sup>28</sup> To Daniel Defoe, moreover, Marischal was one of several elected peers who were all ‘professed Jacobites ... known to aim in all they do at the Pretender’.<sup>29</sup> Another analysis of the representative peers drawn up shortly after the election also classed him as a ‘Jacobite’. Marischal first took his seat in the new Parliament on 18 Dec. 1710, almost a month into proceedings. He swore the requisite oaths that day, at the same time as John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], and these two Scottish peers in January 1711 ‘were very earnest to complain of the hard usage of themselves and other prisoners’ arrested in 1708. They went to the queen and ‘proposed that there might be enquiry made by Parliament who were informers against the lords and others who were carried prisoners from Scotland to London on pretence of a plot against the government’, but were dissuaded from taking the matter further.<sup>30</sup> Marischal attended a committee of the whole on 9 Jan. 1711 on the conduct of the war in Spain in 1707, at which the successful passage of a motion that Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had ‘given a very faithful, just and honourable account of the Councils of War in Valencia’ was attributed to the votes of the Scottish peers.<sup>31</sup> Three days later he was present again when the committee resolved that the defeats at Almanza and Toulon in 1707 had been caused by the actions of the Whig ministry, and that advice given at the time by Peterborough would have prevented these setbacks had it been followed. Both resolutions were accepted, again with ‘all the Scots’ voting in favour.<sup>32</sup></p><p>Marischal’s relatively low attendance – he came to just under a half of the sitting days of the 1710-11 session – and infrequent committee appointments may possibly be attributed to bouts of ill health induced by heavy drinking. For from the winter of 1710-11 he associated regularly with William Johnstone*, marquess of Annandale [S], William Livingston*, 3rd Viscount Kilsyth [S], John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], and others in convivial gatherings recorded in the diary of the English Whig peer Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>33</sup> On 5 Feb. 1711 Marischal, Annandale, Kilsyth, and Balmerinoch, along with Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton, were the five Scottish representative peers (out of 13 recorded as present that day) who registered their dissent from the rejection of the bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act. George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> reported to his wife that when the appeal of the Episcopal minister James Greenshields against the judgment of the Edinburgh magistrates was considered on 1 Mar., 12 of the 16 Scottish representative peers present that day, including Marischal and the other protesters of 5 Feb., voted to defeat a motion to delay proceedings through an adjournment.<sup>34</sup> Within a year one of Marischal’s own chaplains, an Episcopalian clergyman named Patrick Dumbreck, sought to take advantage of that judgment to set up a ‘meeting house’ in Marischal’s mansion in the city of Aberdeen, in which he ‘reads the English prayer book’, a provocation which brought Dumbreck and his patron into direct conflict with the synod of Angus and attracted the attention of the town magistrates.<sup>35</sup> On 9 Mar., in the aftermath of the attempt on the life of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, Marischal was named as one of the managers for a conference dealing with the safety of the queen’s person. He received the proxy of Other Windsor*, 2nd earl of Plymouth, on 17 May, which he retained until his last day in the session, 12 June, the day of prorogation. </p><p>Marischal took the opportunity in 1711 to approach Oxford (as Harley became in May), with whom his mother’s family were closely connected, to request a troop of dragoons for one of his sons. ‘As to my own circumstances’, he added,</p><blockquote><p>I came with great pleasure to serve the queen’s interest in Parliament notwithstanding difficulties from my health and my affairs. The session has been long and my expense much greater than I expected. If your lordship’s kindness represent the difficulty of this case to the queen, I doubt not her goodness will make it as easy to me as possible. As to serving the queen in any post or capacity, I leave that to the queen’s goodness and wisdom and your lordship’s friendship. I doubt not that the losses of my family by the Union will be considered. The most essential parts of my office of Earl Marischal rendered impracticable; its dignity, power and figure as well as profits in effect extinguished. I cannot but hope to receive some proportionable equivalent.<sup>36</sup></p></blockquote><p>Marischal was forecast as a supporter of the Oxford ministry for the following session of 1711-12, but his arrival in time for the opening of the session was delayed by illness.<sup>37</sup> His proxy with Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], was registered on 8 Dec. 1711, but Loudoun does not appear to have used this at the time of the vote on Hamilton’s right to sit under his British title of duke of Brandon, for Baillie later placed Marischal among the six representative peers whose absence on 20 Dec. ensured the failure of Hamilton’s claim.<sup>38</sup> Marischal first appeared on 15 Feb. 1712, but it was not long before he fell ill once again, and his presence was recorded only 15 more times before his last sitting on 15 May. Two days later his proxy was registered with his friend Kilsyth, on 21 May he was said to be ‘so ill that he cannot live many days’, and on the 27th he died in London. <sup>39</sup> His place among the Scottish representative peers was taken by the 4th earl of Findlater (as Seafield had become), who resumed his seat, having first sat there as a representative peer throughout 1707-10, at the prorogation of 13 Jan. 1713.</p><p>After Marischal’s death, his widowed countess sought help from Harley for her two sons.<sup>40</sup> The elder, George Keith, 9th Earl Marischal [S], had seen considerable military service and in 1714 was finally given a guards troop. Both he and his brother participated in the ’Fifteen, the earl commanding a wing of the Jacobite army at Sheriffmuir. Both were attainted, and what was left of the family estates forfeited.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
KER, John (c. 1680-1741) |
<p><strong><surname>KER</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (c. 1680–1741)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 22 Oct. 1696 (a minor) as 5th earl of Roxburghe [S]; <em>cr. </em>25 Apr. 1707 duke of ROXBURGHE [S] |
RP [S] 1707–10, 1715–27 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 11 July 1727 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1680 2nd s. of Robert Ker (Kerr), 3rd earl of Roxburghe [S] (<em>d</em>.1682), and Margaret, da. of John Hay, mq. of Tweeddale [S], sis. of John Hay*, 2nd mq. of Tweeddale [S]; bro. of Hon William Ker<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1701–2.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. 1 Jan. 1708, Mary (<em>d.</em>1718), da. of Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, wid. of William Savile*, 2nd mq. of Halifax, 1s. KG 10 Oct. 1722. <em>d</em>. 27 Feb 1741.</p> |
<p>Sec. of state [S] 1704–5 (jt.), 1716–25; PC [S] 1704–8,<sup>2</sup> PC 1709–<em>d.</em>; regent Aug.–Sept. 1714; kpr. privy seal [S] 1714–16; kpr. signet [S] 1716–?;<sup>3</sup> ld. justice 1716, 1720, 1723, 1725; dep. high constable [S] 1727.</p><p>Commr. supply, Roxburgh, Stirling 1703; burgess, Edinburgh, 1703;<sup>4</sup> ld. lt. Roxburgh and Selkirk 1715–<em>d</em>.</p><p>FRS 1717; gov. Foundling Hosp. 1739–<em>d</em>.<sup>5</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, National Galleries of Scotland, PG 1021; mezzotint by J. Faber, aft. J. Richardson, 1741, NPG D21534.</p> |
<p>Intelligent, urbane and cosmopolitan, Roxburghe was showered with compliments by his contemporaries.<sup>7</sup> Even a political enemy, George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, praised him as ‘perhaps ... the best accomplished young man of quality in Europe, and had so charming a way of expressing his thoughts that he pleased even those against whom he spoke’.<sup>8</sup> In Scotland, he was ‘esteemed by all one of the finest speakers in our parliament’.<sup>9</sup> He was also a noted bibliophile.<sup>10</sup> It was largely because of his presence and intellect that he was able to rise quickly to leadership of the Scottish political faction known as the Squadrone Volante, or Squadrone for short, ahead of others of his own generation like John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], his brother Thomas Hamilton<sup>†</sup> 6th earl of Haddington [S], and James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S]; and superseding elder statesmen like Tweeddale, Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], and George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> of Jerviswood. At the same time, there were significant weaknesses of character—principally a high degree of self-regard, issuing in affectation and complacency— which in someone of Roxburghe’s inexperience made him prey to the wiles of more established political figures, by whom he could be outmanoeuvred in times of crisis.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Doted on by his mother, Roxburghe was indulged in his upbringing, and lacked neither confidence nor a sense of entitlement. When he took his seat in the Scottish parliament (in 1703), he joined Tweeddale in the ranks of the ‘country party’ opposition, but quickly stepped from his uncle’s shadow, with some powerful (if occasionally overcooked) oratorical performances, and played a prominent role in the ‘New Party’ (as the Squadrone were first called), which took over parliamentary management in 1704 from the court party headed by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. According to a Queensberryite, the Squadrone were ‘Whigs in their principles ... keeping firmly in their view the succession of the crown in the house of Hanover’, but at the same time ‘in their hearts they were known to have ... preferments and places in the chiefest degree of veneration’.<sup>12</sup> Queensberry’s dismissal had followed a denunciation of him to the queen by a deputation from the opposition, including Roxburghe, for alleged involvement in the ‘Scotch Plot’. However, when pressed by the queen at the same interview on the settlement of the succession, Roxburghe had prevaricated and requested time to consult the Scottish electorate, his party ‘having no instructions about this from their constituents’. <sup>13</sup> This response was of a piece with earlier statements of Whiggish principle: the previous year he had proposed that the Scottish Parliament should not adopt the successor designated in the English Act of Settlement, ‘unless ... there be such condition of government settled and enacted as may secure the honour and independency of the crown of this kingdom, the freedom, frequency, and power of Parliament, and the religion, liberty, and trade of the nation from the English or any foreign influence’.<sup>14</sup> When the Squadrone took over responsibility for managing Parliament in Edinburgh, with promises of office (in Roxburghe’s case that of secretary of state) it was on the tacit understanding that the succession would be settled.<sup>15</sup> But Roxburghe stuck to his guns and voted on 13 July 1704 for the proposal made by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], not to ‘proceed to the nomination of a successor, until we have a previous treaty with England, in relation to our commerce, and other concerns’.<sup>16</sup> Hamilton was impressed, but more jaundiced observers such as Lockhart and the arch-patriot Andrew Fletcher were prominent in voicing their irritation with Roxburghe’s behaviour. Roxburghe and Rothes subsequently confronted Fletcher over his denunciation of them as ‘the greatest rogues’ and who ‘ought to be despised of all men that in the last parliament stood up for the good of their country now deserted it’.<sup>17</sup> Eventually Hamilton too came to the conclusion that he could not trust Roxburghe, who after the session was duly appointed secretary, albeit jointly, with James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]).</p><p>Over the winter of 1704–5 Roxburghe found himself at the centre of discussions with the English ministers, lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron ( later earl of) Godolphin, and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, over proposals to be made to the Scottish Parliament at its next meeting. It proved to be a rapid political education. He was at first alarmed by the evident English preference for union over a separate settlement of the succession: ‘I am persuaded that an union will be impossible, and that if the succession be brought about, it will be out of fear of an union’. But by March 1705 he was prepared to countenance the idea, pushed towards a greater willingness to accommodate the English ministry by the knowledge that John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (later earl of Greenwich in the English peerage), who was to serve as commissioner to the parliament, was ‘doing all he can to get the New Party laid aside’. <sup>18</sup> At this stage Roxburghe was working with Seafield in efforts to sustain the Scottish administration (and according to Seafield, was ‘very ready to follow my advice’), while others of the Squadrone were becoming suspicious that what was intended was the restoration of Queensberry’s ‘old party’. Roxburghe became increasingly perplexed, complaining at a lack of communication from Godolphin, and at times considering himself to be no more than a ‘cipher’.<sup>19</sup> Gradually he realized that union would be proposed in spite of his colleagues’ reluctance. He told Baillie that he had been ‘truly confounded, for a treaty is destruction for Scotland, and the New Party knows it, and yet may be forced to go along’.<sup>20</sup></p><p>Roxburghe was considering how the Squadrone could be persuaded to back union in the forthcoming parliament when he received the unexpected news that he and his colleagues had been dismissed. Frustrated and angry, he temporarily lost his equilibrium, and during the 1705 session fell into another altercation with Andrew Fletcher which resulted in a challenge and would have ended in a duel had it not been interrupted by the arrival of a cavalry detachment (following last-minute efforts by Roxburghe’s second to put the bout off on the grounds that Roxburghe had a bad leg).<sup>21</sup> He now decided that he could not stand out against his colleagues and joined the opposition to union.<sup>22</sup> On 31 July, following private discussions with Hamilton, he voted for the motion ‘to proceed ... to trade, limitations, and regulations’, rather than going immediately to a discussion of a union treaty, as the court had proposed.<sup>23</sup> Godolphin responded with soothing words and vague promises in an attempt to win back Squadrone support, stating how much the queen’s service would depend on Roxburghe and his friends, and requiring them only to support the treaty, not to join with Queensberry.<sup>24</sup> He was not entirely successful, but in Roxburghe’s case there is evidence that his words had some effect, notably in the division over the selection of commissioners, in which Roxburghe abstained, dividing from some in the Squadrone and enabling the court view to prevail to leave nomination to the queen.<sup>25</sup></p><p>On 2 Sept. 1705 Seafield reported a conversation with Roxburghe, who was about to go to Bath for his health. ‘He satisfied me that he had done all he could in his present circumstances with regard to the treaty, for some of the party did not vote, and earl of Marchmont and some others joined with us, whom he thought he could have influenced.’ According to Seafield, Roxburghe promised further assistance, and let slip that he had ‘a desire to be employed’.<sup>26</sup> At the same time, in a letter to Baillie, Roxburghe seemed to indicate a reluctance to commit to union. He also said that he was unwilling to meet Godolphin: ‘I have had no word from the lord treasurer, nor do I think it our business to concern ourselves with the lord treasurer, the Whigs, or the Tories’. He gave the impression of a man wrestling with his conscience. Eventually he announced to Baillie his conclusion (presumably couched in terms that were likely to persuade). Irrespective of the Squadrone, union would be approved by parliament: ‘the motives will be trade with most, Hanover with some, ease and security with others, together with a general aversion at civil discords, intolerable poverty, and the constant oppression of a bad ministry, from generation to generation, without the least regard to the good of the country.’ The choice was either union or a Jacobite restoration and ‘there is this to be considered, too, that after an union is fixed, Scotland may probably get the balance in their hands in the English parliament’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Although Roxburghe was ready to support the Union he believed it was better for the Squadrone to avoid public commitment, telling Baillie that it was ‘the New Party’s interest to follow rather than lead in this affair’.<sup>28</sup> Soon afterwards he left Bath for London, where he saw the queen and Godolphin, who ‘pressed much my Lord Roxb[urghe] to be for the Union and pressed him to say so much’. His answer was that ‘he would know it when it came to be proposed… and would then declare himself for what he should think for the good of the country’. It is possible that his lukewarm response contributed to the decision that the Squadrone would not be represented amongst the Scottish commissioners to the union negotiations. Advised by Baillie of the disadvantages of this course of action—the Squadrone would be left with a choice of opposing the Union or assisting ‘the establishment of the old party’—Roxburghe and the former Scottish secretary, James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> (with whom he was working closely) decided to enlist the help of the journalist George Ridpath, an outspoken critic of union, to undermine the reputations of the Scottish commissioners during the treaty negotiations.<sup>29</sup> According to Lockhart, Roxburghe admitted his prime concern was to ‘be revenged of the duke of Queensberry’, which he believed could be more easily accomplished with a union.<sup>30</sup> Once this smear campaign was under way Roxburghe’s main concern was that the Squadrone should appear unanimously in favour of ratification when the Scottish Parliament met, which in certain individual cases required much effort.<sup>31</sup> All doubts were resolved on 15 Oct. 1706 when an attempt was made to delay consideration of the treaty until the Parliament had received the opinions of the shires and burghs. Roxburghe argued boldly that the articles must be dealt with first and to his relief was supported by party colleagues.<sup>32</sup> Throughout the debates he gave the court ‘all the assistance they could desire’, speaking and voting a solid unionist line, and doing what he could in the counties in which he had influence to prevent the preparation of local anti-treaty addresses.<sup>33</sup></p><p>In particular, the debate on 2 Nov. 1706 on the first article was a personal triumph. John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven [S], in a celebrated speech prophesying the disasters that would afflict Scotland if the treaty were passed, included a pointed reference to the Squadrone: ‘methinks I see Caledonia, like Caesar, slaughtered in the senate house, saying, “<em>Vos mei filii Squadrone Volante</em>”’. In the course of ‘a noble and elegant speech for an incorporating union’, Roxburghe told Belhaven that what he had foretold was fact</p><blockquote><p>but the only reason was the want of an union, seeing by it all these grievances would be redressed, and all these distempers remedied; all our differences and animosities cemented; our trade set upon a right foot; our liberties and privileges, which are now so precarious, secured, and our wealth and strength increased.</p></blockquote><p>Roxburghe then questioned Belhaven’s sincerity. He ‘had entertained the House with his visions and dreams but if he would ingenuously tell his real reasons why he was against an union … he would by that make more proselytes to the cause than his speech could enemies’.<sup>34</sup> Two days later Roxburghe wrote to Godolphin to:</p><blockquote><p>beg leave to acknowledge the honour your lordship has been pleased to do me in taking notice of any small assistance I have been able to give in the affair of the Union, and that her Majesty should be pleased to take notice on it is what I can make no suitable acknowledgement of ... Indeed, I am fully satisfied that this Union will not only save her Majesty from a great deal of trouble, but will even add to her glorious reign.<sup>35</sup></p></blockquote><p>The Squadrone expected that their leaders would be suitably rewarded, and there was talk of promotions in the peerage.<sup>36</sup> Roxburghe himself was said to have requested a place for himself as a lord of session.<sup>37</sup> On 25 Apr. 1707 he was raised to a dukedom (three and a half years after it had been rumoured that he was to be made duke of Beaumont), and subsequently was paid £500 in respect of non-existent arrears of salary.<sup>38</sup> But by this time the Squadrone had fallen out with Queensberry over the choice of the first 16 representative peers to sit in the united Parliament. Queensberry was understood to have promised that ‘all the lords of the New Party should be chosen’, but Marchmont and Haddington were omitted. The Queensberryite, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], explained that the electoral arithmetic meant that only three of the five Squadrone lords could have been returned, and, even though he was chosen, Roxburghe ‘carried but very scrimply’, so that if the duke had ‘put more of the New Party in his list … it had disobliged more of our people and consequently made them against the … whole list, by which the whole New Party had been excluded’.<sup>39</sup> Such logic did nothing to mollify the Squadrone, who were henceforth at daggers drawn with Queensberry. Roxburghe, in London for the summer, could see no point in showing resentment openly, since the ‘old party’ still enjoyed the backing of Godolphin and Marlborough, and the Junto were offering no more than ‘civilities’.<sup>40</sup> But he hoped that the Squadrone, if they acted ‘upon their principles … may be able to make a much greater figure in [the] Eng[lish] Parliament’.<sup>41</sup> In an analysis by Marchmont of 1707 he was listed as ‘sicut’ [as] Montrose.</p><h2><em>The Union and 1708 Parliaments</em></h2><p>Roxburghe took his seat in the Lords on the first day of the Parliament, on 23 Oct. 1707. He was gratified to be at the centre of affairs in England, where he had always cultivated a wide circle of friends.<sup>42</sup> Among the Squadrone lords he was always the strongest advocate of close association with the English Whigs, and in his personal life had looked to wed an English heiress.<sup>43</sup> This project too he brought to fruition later that winter, when he married the well-connected daughter of the Tory earl of Nottingham, whose hand he had been seeking since at least 1705, when he first entered into marriage negotiations, presumably without disclosing that he was receiving mercury treatment for syphilis.<sup>44</sup> Nottingham had been reluctant initially to countenance the match but later came to revise his opinion.<sup>45</sup> Roxburghe affected to be wearied by ‘bustling at court’, but the reality was otherwise.<sup>46</sup> He attended regularly throughout his first session, being present on approximately 70 per cent of all sitting days. He also frequented the Commons gallery when Scottish disputes spilled over into the lower House; for example on 29 Nov., during the debate on a proposal by Baillie and other Squadrone Members of the lower house to abolish the Scottish privy council, in the teeth of opposition from Queensberry’s followers.<sup>47</sup> Roxburghe then organized support for the bill in the Lords.<sup>48</sup></p><p>The conflict over the council marked the beginning of open warfare against the ‘old party’ and by the time Parliament was dissolved Roxburghe was seeking to forge an electoral pact with Hamilton, who was in custody on suspicion of involvement in the abortive Jacobite invasion. On 25 Apr. 1708 Roxburghe was visited by Hamilton’s brother George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], with a message that Hamilton would join with the Squadrone in the forthcoming election if the Junto ‘will bid him’ but would otherwise close with Queensberry. Roxburghe promptly visited John Somers*, Baron Somers, who consulted his friends and sent to Hamilton to inform him ‘what are the proper means for him to take in order to be liberated, which the Whig lords are to connive at, but dare not appear openly in, because of appearances’.<sup>49</sup> The Junto were convinced that this coup would ‘carry the election of the 16 peers’, and ensured that all the Squadrone lords were in the list agreed with Hamilton. The Junto lord Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, the secretary of state with responsibility for Scottish affairs, went further and dispatched letters north, intended to be ‘shown publicly’, as proof that this alliance enjoyed ministerial, and by extension royal, favour. The recipients were Hamilton and Roxburghe, to whom other Squadrone lords were referred.<sup>50</sup> Roxburghe attended the peers’ election personally.<sup>51</sup> He was also actively involved in campaigning for his brother’s election to the Commons, though ‘Billy Ker’ proved unsuccessful on this occasion.<sup>52</sup> When the result of the peers’ election seemed clear, Roxburghe sent Sunderland a list of those who had been chosen, including himself, and departed for London to confer with the Junto. Roxburghe’s return, and that of his associates, was a hard-fought affair. At least one of his own votes seems to have been owing to the importunity of his father-in-law, Nottingham, who used his interest with Thomas Osborne*, duke of Leeds, to secure the vote of Peregrine Osborne*, styled marquess of Carmarthen (Viscount Osborne of Dunblane in the Scots peerage).<sup>53</sup> On his arrival in London Roxburghe found Somers absent but he wrote to his disappointed brother to assure him that he would ensure the treasurer (Godolphin) and the Whigs would ‘do what they can to have justice done else some will repent it when the Parliament sits down’.<sup>54</sup> The subsequent discussions in London were encouraging, and he told Baillie that there was nothing ‘that the New Party can propose for the good of Scotland that the Whig lords will not, I believe, go into’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Roxburghe was present in the Lords at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708, after which he continued to attend on 73 per cent of all days as he and his friends (abetted by Hamilton) pushed to increase their numbers by challenging the elections of four court party peers. Shortly after the opening of the session, Roxburghe’s wife gave birth to an heir. William Legge*, 2nd Baron (later earl of) Dartmouth, stood proxy for Nottingham as godfather, with William Ker standing as the other.<sup>56</sup> Any pleasure resulting from the birth of a son, however, was put into the shade by political problems. The Junto’s failure to secure changes in the Scottish government gave rise to tension, and on 14 Dec. Roxburghe and other members of the Squadrone, together with Hamilton, had a lengthy conference with representatives of the Junto, to whom they complained, ‘that since the Union everything was done to make Scotland uneasy, and laid down that general that if the same spirit ruled in the administration of the government that had done formerly there was no good to be expected’. The Whigs seemed to agree, but without firm commitments, and suspicion remained. On 21 Jan. 1709 Roxburghe supported Hamilton’s successful objection against Queensberry’s participation in the peers’ election after he had received a British title (as duke of Dover). There followed a scare over the election of Roxburghe and other Squadrone lords, when on the 28th the House resolved that ‘a peer of Scotland, who took the oaths within the castle of Edinburgh, was thereby qualified to give his vote at the election of the sixteen peers’, thus validating a number of court proxies.<sup>57</sup> However, ‘the matter was compromised betwixt the Junto and treasurer [Godolphin]’, and the next day the Junto, supported by Godolphin, successfully proposed that ‘all proxies on both sides should be sustained where the nullities were not already determined by the House’.<sup>58</sup> When the votes were recalculated Roxburghe’s total was reduced by four, but was still enough for him to retain his seat. </p><p>Queensberry’s appointment as third secretary of state on 3 Feb. 1709 was a further disappointment. Roxburghe, writing to Tweeddale, recounted that, at the turn of the year, ‘the Whig lords was very pressing to have Queensberry’s post taken away’ but that their failure to ‘name a person’ had permitted Godolphin to stall, and eventually to persuade the queen to agree to Queensberry. Whig demands for preferments for the Squadrone to counterbalance his influence in Scotland were answered by the nomination of Montrose to replace him as lord privy seal while Roxburghe and Argyll were sworn as British Privy Councillors. It was also rumoured that Roxburghe might be granted an English office, such as the lord chamberlainship.<sup>59</sup> The omission of Hamilton threatened a rupture between the allies, but Godolphin would not hear of Hamilton’s advancement. Neither Roxburghe nor Montrose, perhaps pointedly, answered the summons to appear at council on the day that Queensberry was given the seals. Roxburghe reported that he ‘did all that was possible to prevent the New Party’s being distinguished from Hamilton, but there was no help for it. [The] treasurer knew the consequences of such a division, and so managed it very dexterously’. Despite this Roxburghe was hopeful that Godolphin’s scheme would fail, since ‘Hamilton is still in good terms with the New Party, but enraged at the Whig lords and treasurer’.<sup>60</sup></p><p>The tension between the Squadrone and the Junto did not subside immediately and there was considerable unease amongst the Scots in March 1709 when English Whigs brought in a bill ‘for improving the union of the two kingdoms’, by extending the English treason laws’ to Scotland. The Squadrone expressed objections privately, and when the bill came to the Lords Roxburghe supported an unsuccessful attempt, in a committee of the whole on 19 Mar., to prevent the insertion of ‘the titles of the English laws. A week later he protested against the rejection of an amendment that the accused be given list of witnesses five days before the trial, and signed another protest when the bill passed its third reading.<sup>61</sup> One of his concerns was that Scottish judges would be unfamiliar with English laws ‘which if people are to rebel this summer may prove very heavy to them ... in my humble opinion the doing of this thing in such a hurry is the most vexatious of the whole’.<sup>62</sup> The Commons then added two clauses, that forfeitures should not apply to heirs, and that those accused should receive a list of witnesses ten days in advance.<sup>63</sup> These were considered by the Lords on 14 Apr. and rather than oppose outright the Junto offered an amendment that the clauses should not take effect till after the death of the Pretender. Roxburghe voted against, but the addition was accepted and the bill returned to the Commons, which altered the date of implementation until three years after the Hanoverian succession, a change that was in turn accepted by the Lords. <sup>64</sup></p><p>The effects of the recent tension between the Squadrone and the Junto lingered into the summer and relations between Roxburghe and Baillie were compromised by Baillie’s earlier criticism of the Junto for failing to oust Queensberry. Baillie was alarmed when Roxburghe and Montrose began ‘to take umbrage at my way, and to think it does them hurt’.<sup>65</sup> On 30 July 1709 Roxburghe wrote to Montrose from Edinburgh that he ‘had a letter from my lord president [Somers], and another from my Lord Sunderland desiring to know if Mr. Baillie would freely and heartily enter into measures and that if he was disposed, that care should be taken to show that greater equality was meant for the future by doing somewhat to distinguish him.’ Eventually an insistent Roxburghe managed to bring Baillie round. But there were further problems, and Roxburghe became intimately involved on behalf of the Squadrone in negotiations between the Junto and Godolphin. The treasurer was willing to sacrifice Queensberry and replace him with Seafield, a step Roxburghe welcomed since it accomplished his main aim—to dish Queensberry—and would leave the duke’s successor, Seafield, dependent on the Squadrone. With Queensberry out of office, the next election in Scotland would be wide open.<sup>66</sup> It required great efforts to convince the Whigs but in the 1709-10 session of Parliament (of which Roxburghe attended three quarters of all sitting days) there was no repeat of the antagonism between the Squadrone and the Junto. However, apart from supporting Sacheverell’s impeachment, Roxburghe did not contribute significantly to proceedings.</p><p>In June 1710 Roxburghe advised that his colleagues should write ‘five or six lines of a compliment’ to the new secretary of state, Dartmouth, whom he considered to be ‘an honest and moderate man’.<sup>67</sup> Despite this cautious welcoming of one of the new appointments, the extent of the changes clearly worried the Squadrone. Fearing the worst after the ministerial revolution of 1710, the Squadrone decided to boycott the peers’ election in October, though only after Roxburghe and Montrose had been sent on a futile ‘embassy’ to Mar, who was managing the election for the court party, with a proposal to join interests that they did not even take seriously themselves.<sup>68</sup> Out of Parliament, Roxburghe remained politically active. While his brother William, who had been returned for Berwick, tacked towards the Tory administration, Roxburghe remained ‘obstinately honest’; loyal to his Whig principles and his Whig allies.<sup>69</sup> Much of his energy was expended in a family dispute with the burgh of Dunbar, and in trying to assist William’s army career. But his marital connections ensured his continuing participation in high-political intrigues, and in the autumn of 1711 he was used by the Junto as an emissary to Nottingham (with whom he always got on well in spite of political differences) in the lead-up to the campaign in the Lords against the peace.<sup>70</sup> Roxburghe was in London himself in December 1711 and January 1712, endeavouring to stir up Scottish parliamentary opinion over the Hamilton peerage case, and signed the petition presented to the queen on New Year’s Day from Scottish peers protesting their rights.<sup>71</sup> In the summer of 1712 the Squadrone were engaged in ‘frequent meetings’ in Edinburgh. Roxburghe hosted ‘a great confluence of the Squadrone’ at his lodgings there, and throughout 1712 and 1713 was busy preparing for elections in Scotland, though in the event the Squadrone decided to repeat their abstention from the peers’ election.<sup>72</sup> During the 1714 session Roxburghe and the other Squadrone leaders sent a confidential letter to their followers, acknowledging the need to broaden their ‘bottom’ in Scotland, by working with other opponents of the Tory ministry, including disgruntled ex-Queensberryites, and with Argyll, while emphasising the importance of maintaining a ‘distinction’ from Argyll and avoiding ‘too intimate a concert’.<sup>73</sup></p><p>Roxburghe’s fidelity to the Hanoverian succession was rewarded by George I, one of whose first actions as king was to appoint him keeper of the great seal of Scotland. Roxburghe thus began a lengthy career in government, which will be dealt with in the second part of this work. He also showed his commitment to the Hanoverians in the field, raising and arming a contingent of troops to counter the Jacobites in 1715 and serving himself as a volunteer at Sheriffmuir.<sup>74</sup></p><p>Roxburghe died at Floors Castle on 27 Feb. 1741, just over a month after the death of his brother William, and was buried with his ancestors in the church at Bowden, Roxburghshire.<sup>75</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
KERR, William (1661-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>KERR</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1661–1722)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1675-92 Ld. Newbattle; <em>suc. </em>cos. 4 Aug. 1692 as 5th Ld. Jedburgh [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 15 Feb. 1703 as 2nd mq. of LOTHIAN [S] |
RP [S] 1707–9, 1715–22 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 11 Nov. 1718 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 27 Mar. 1661, 1st s. of Robert Kerr, mq. of Lothian [S], and Jean, da. of Archibald Campbell, mq. of Argyll [S]. <em>m</em>. contract 30 June 1685, 1st cos. Jean (<em>d</em>. 31 July 1712), da. of Archibald Campbell, 9th earl of Argyll [S], 1s. 4da. KT 30 Oct. 1705. <em>d</em>. 28 Feb. 1722; <em>will</em> 14 Oct. 1719, pr. 29 Mar. 1722.</p> |
<p>PC [S] 1698–1702.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Commr. supply, 1685, 1686, 1702, 1704; burgess, Edinburgh 1694.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Capt. ind. tp. horse [S] 1689–91; lt.-col. drags. 1691–6; col. 7 Drags. 1696–1707, 3 Ft. Gds. 1707–13; brig.-gen. 1702, maj.-gen. 1704, lt.-gen. 1708, maj.-gen. [S] 1715.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: wash drawing by W.N. Gardiner (after J.B. Medina), Ashmolean Mus. Oxf.; oil on canvas by J. Scougal?, Newbattle Abbey, Midlothian.</p> |
<p>According to the character sketch by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, inserted into Spring Macky’s published edition of his father’s memoirs, Lothian was a Presbyterian by family tradition and political preference rather than by religious belief: ‘laughs at all revealed religion, yet sets up for a pillar of Presbytery, and proves the surest card in their pack; being very zealous, though not devout’.<sup>4</sup> Certainly his wife was notably pious, and between 1704 and 1712 he served regularly on the commission of the General Assembly (the executive body appointed to govern the Kirk between sessions) and was a member of the Scottish SPCK. Whatever religious enthusiasm may have been evident in his early life, though, did not last: The eminent Presbyterian minister Robert Wodrow, noted in 1725 that Lothian’s son and heir ‘is reckoned religious; may it hold, as, alas, his father’s did not’.<sup>5</sup> </p><p>Lothian’s commitment to the Revolution could not be impugned, however. He had been ‘active … against King James’, and subsequently raised a troop of horse for William, serving in the army in Scotland throughout the king’s reign. The family were closely allied to the Argylls: Lothian had contracted to marry his first cousin, Lady Jean Campbell (out of a sense of duty, it was said), at the very time that her father was in prison in Edinburgh awaiting execution.<sup>6</sup> After 1689 he attached himself to the political interest of his brother-in-law, Archibald Campbell, duke of Argyll [S], and then to his nephew John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll, who succeeded as head of the family in 1703.<sup>7</sup> By the spring of that year he was identified with those members of the Scottish Parliament who were determined to uphold ‘the Revolution settlement and the Presbyterian government’, and was happy to push for the enactment of limitations on the powers exercised by the crown.<sup>8</sup> But the following year he followed Argyll in the vote on the succession, and Lieutenant-General Ramsey, commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland, advised the English lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, that Lothian was ‘entirely for her majesty’s interest and service’.<sup>9</sup> He was accorded the distinction by the court party in 1705 of introducing into the Scottish Parliament the proposal for a treaty of union, and immediately sought to capitalize by beginning what turned out to be a lengthy campaign of solicitation for a vacant command in the Scots Guards.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Lothian was invested with the Order of the Thistle at Edinburgh in November 1705, but this honour was clearly insufficient to assuage his strong sense of entitlement while the Guards colonelcy remained unfilled.<sup>11</sup> Worse still, he was omitted from the union commission agreed in 1706, a decision he interpreted as a deliberate personal insult: he wrote in high dudgeon to John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], on 14 Mar., announcing that he would be resigning his commission as colonel of dragoons (which he had temporarily entrusted into Argyll’s hands) and would only be prepared to return if given the Guards regiment. He would not, he said, waste time by:</p><blockquote><p>enumerating the affronts I have met with at this time which I never could have imagined. As I had the honour to be among the first that offered my service at the late happy Revolution, so, my lord, I have the misfortune to be the first who after 17 years’ service is obliged to quit the service, being so publicly disgraced in the way of my treatment; and I must say to your lordship, I cannot see wherein I have deserved it. For I can say I did my endeavour to serve the queen to my power faithfully and honestly.<sup>12</sup></p></blockquote><p>This was immediately perceived by his friends as a false move. The principal of Edinburgh University, William Carstares, tried to smooth things over with Mar, who wrote to Carstares on 25 Mar.:</p><blockquote><p>You are very justly concerned for what my Lord Lothian has done, as you may be sure we are all. He has done himself a vast deal of harm by it; and I’m afraid the queen will not easily pass it over. It does harm also to others of his friends in their affairs. His commission is not yet given up to the queen, though this day we were forced to tell her of it, it became so public. I fancy the duke of Argyll will give it up one of these days; for he sees not how Lothian can retreat … I am afraid Lothian has lost himself and his pretensions, which were very good: but I hope he will still continue of the principles he professed, and by good and faithful service, regain this step.<sup>13</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the event, Argyll, together with Mar’s political chief, James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], were able to calm the situation, and prevent the ultimatum from being delivered to the queen. By the time the Scottish Parliament met in the winter of 1706–7 to debate the treaty, Lothian had been brought round by Argyll to vote a strongly court line in favour of union. As a reward, he finally received his Guards commission, and, at Argyll’s earnest request, was included in the first cohort of representative peers to sit in the united Parliament.<sup>14</sup> In the following year he was promoted from major- to lieutenant-general. In an analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], of 1707 he was described as ‘for the Revolution but may be influenced by the court and Argyll’.</p><p>He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, alongside Argyll’s brother, Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S]. He attended for 71 per cent of sittings in this Parliament and 25 per cent in the following session 1708-9 (in which his participation was foreshortened), and in total was named to fewer than 10 committees. There is no evidence that he registered his proxy. His only distinctive contribution in the 1707–8 Parliament occurred on 7 Feb. 1708, when he signed a protest against the Squadrone-inspired bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council. He was also present on 11 Mar., when the queen refused the royal assent to the Scottish militia bill. The announcement that day of a French fleet having set sail for Scotland prompted his departure to join his regiment, and the following month he was present at a meeting at Edinburgh where an address was drawn up ‘asserting her majesty’s right against the prince of Wales and all pretenders whatsoever’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Lothian attended the first election of representative peers on 17 June 1708, where he was one of the successful candidates on the court slate.<sup>16</sup> Although his name was included on the certified list of 16 peers presented to the Lords on 8 July there were already indications that he might lose his seat once protests were considered.<sup>17</sup> Five days previously a ‘scheme showing who will be concerned in the votes protested against’ was sent to John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], making it clear that if the various objections were upheld Lothian’s votes would be significantly reduced.<sup>18</sup> Two days after Lothian had taken his seat, on 18 Nov. 1708, a petition was presented by William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], John Gordon*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S], Marchmont, and William Ross<sup>†</sup>, 12th Lord Roos [S] against the election of Lothian and three other court peers. While the petition was being considered Lothian voted on 21 Jan. 1709 in the minority in support of Queensberry’s right to participate in the peers’ election even though sitting in the Lords by virtue of an British title (duke of Dover).<sup>19</sup> His own fate was decided a week later. The outcome was something of a shock, resulting from of an unexpected agreement between Godolphin and the Whig Junto, by which it was decided that ‘all proxies on both sides should be sustained where the nullities were not already determined by the House’.<sup>20</sup> The consequent recalculation of votes cost Lothian his seat, and prompted Mar to complain that the Junto were now content ‘only to turn out a man that had always been firm to the Revolution interest’.<sup>21</sup> According to Godolphin’s confidant, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), the treasurer had been prepared to help Lothian until convinced that this would be impracticable.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In 1710 Lothian followed Argyll in switching his political allegiance to the Tories. By October he was writing to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, for help in getting a Guards company for his son-in-law (a request which he had previously made of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough) and asking for Harley’s instructions on how to proceed in the election for representative peers.<sup>23</sup> He was present at the election on 10 Nov. 1710, but was not included on the list agreed in advance by Mar with Argyll and James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon).<sup>24</sup> In June 1711 he again approached Harley (now earl of Oxford) for an opportunity to serve the queen. He claimed to have heard that more British titles were to be given to Scottish peers and asked to be one of the number, basing his request on the ‘gracious answer’ which the queen had made to him in 1709 when he had complained to her of the ‘hardships’ he had suffered by being unjustly turned out of the Lords.<sup>25</sup> He was still rehearsing his grievances a year later.<sup>26</sup> In August 1713 he again asked for Oxford’s directions for the peers’ election, but the treasurer was forewarned about Lothian’s ‘ill principles’, and instead he was ordered to sell his regiment to David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S].<sup>27</sup> The sum of £6,000 purchase money may have sweetened the pill, for he was writing to Oxford in amicable terms as late as November 1713, but it is likely that he followed Argyll into opposition.<sup>28</sup></p><p>Lothian was elected again as a representative peer in 1715 (on the court list agreed by Argyll and the Squadrone).<sup>29</sup> His later career will be examined in the second part of this work. He died on 22 Feb. 1722 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
LESLIE, David (1660-1728) |
<p><strong><surname>LESLIE</surname></strong> (<em>formerly</em> <strong>MELVILLE</strong>), <strong>David</strong> (1660–1728)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>cos. 27 July 1681 as 5th earl of LEVEN [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 20 May 1707 as 2nd earl of Melville [S] |
RP [S] 1707-10 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 4 Apr. 1710 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 5 May 1660, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of George Melville, earl of Melville [S], and Catherine, da. of Alexander Leslie (<em>d.</em>1644), <em>styled</em> Ld. Balgonie [S], o. surv. s. <em>d.v.p.</em> of Alexander Leslie, earl of Leven [S]. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1684-6. <em>m</em>. contract 3 Sept. 1691, Anna (<em>d</em>. 9 Jan. 1702) , da. of Sir James Wemyss of Burntisland, Fife, Ld. Burntisland [S], sis. of David Wemyss*, 4th earl of Wemyss [S], 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 2da. <em>d</em><em><em>.</em>v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 6 June 1728.</p> |
<p>PC [S] 1689-1708; commr. exchequer [S] 1689-aft. 1696, remodelling of forces [S]1689-90, pacification of Highlands [S] 1689, auditing treasury accts. [S] 1697-aft. 1698, visitation univs. [S] 1697, auditing adm. accts. [S] 1698, auditing exchequer accts. [S] 1698, justiciary for highlands [S] 1702, union with England [S] 1702-3, 1706.<sup>1</sup></p><p>Col. of horse (service of Elector of Brandenburg) 1687; col. of 25 Ft. 1689–94; constable and capt. coy. of ft., Edinburgh Castle 1689-1702, 1704-12; brig.-gen. 1702, maj.-gen. 1704, lt.-gen. 1707; master of ordnance [S] 1705-12; c.-in-c. [S] 1706-12.</p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1689; commr. supply, Fife, Perth 1704; dep. steward, Strathearn 1707-aft. 1711.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Gov. Bank of Scotland 1697-<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J.B. de Medina, 1691, National Galleries of Scotland; ivory relief by D. Le Marchand, c.1696-1700 (Victoria and Albert Museum).</p> |
<p>The Melville family were strongly identified with ‘Revolution principles’ and a Protestant succession, but in the long run family and local rivalries proved just as important in determining Leven’s political allegiances and parliamentary conduct. With the benefit of hindsight, the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> expressed mixed feelings about him: Leven, he wrote,</p><blockquote><p>in the beginning of his life was so vain and conceity [sic], that he became the jest of all sober men; but as he grew older, he overcame that folly in part, and from the proudest became the civilest man alive. He was a man of good parts and sound judgment, but master of no kind of learning… He was born and bred an enemy to the royal family, and therefore cheerfully embraced, and significantly promoted, everything against its interest. However, he was no ways severe, but very civil to all the cavaliers.<sup>4</sup></p></blockquote><p>Leven, who had inherited the title from his cousin, Catherine Leslie, <em>suo jure</em> countess of Leven, and taken her surname of Leslie, had accompanied his father into exile in the United Provinces, where Melville had gone to avoid arrest after the exposure of the Rye House Plot. Leven then travelled in Germany and, through the favourable recommendation of the Hanoverian court, secured a commission in the army of the Elector of Brandenburg. In this capacity he was able to assist the prince of Orange in diplomatic negotiations with the Elector.<sup>5</sup> He raised a regiment of Scots in Germany and the United Provinces to accompany William’s expedition to England in 1688, sailing over with the prince and commanding the Orangist garrison at Plymouth, and in the following March was sent as the new king’s envoy to the Scottish convention. In Edinburgh he raised another force of troops and played a crucial role, first in pacifying the capital, and then in the campaigns against the Jacobite army, distinguishing himself at Killiecrankie. After the surrender of Edinburgh Castle he was appointed its constable.<sup>6</sup> His father’s position in the Scottish government gave him the opportunity to advance his own military career, which he did with a single-minded egotism, manifest in the pursuit of petty quarrels with those he considered competitors.<sup>7</sup> He was active in the Highland War and took his regiment to Flanders in 1692-3, seeing action at Steenkirk and Landen.<sup>8</sup></p><p>The two Melvilles continued in office throughout William’s reign, Leven following in his father’s wake, although by 1700 their relations with James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], the head of the court party, were ambivalent, poisoned in part, perhaps, by the presence in Queensberry’s counsels of their enemies the Dalrymples, and also by Leven’s personal losses in the Darien fiasco (he had subscribed £2,000 to the Company of Scotland, which he could ill afford).<sup>9</sup> Melville sniffily declared in 1700 that he and his son had been ‘so long out of the king’s service’ that they were unqualified to give advice on policy.<sup>10</sup> After the death of the king, Leven and Melville were among those representatives of the Presbyterian and ‘Revolution’ interest dismissed from office at the behest of George Mackenzie, Viscount Tarbat [S] (later earl of Cromarty [S]) in order to accommodate the Episcopalian interest. Queensberry did nothing to keep them in, although Leven was appointed to the union commission of December 1702.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Leven did not immediately benefit from the return to power of his erstwhile friends in the ‘Revolution interest’, Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] and John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), as part of the ‘New Party’ administration of 1704, for another key member of the New Party (or Squadrone Volante, as it became known) was John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], his deadly enemy in both family affairs and Fife politics. Rothes insisted that Leven be excluded.<sup>12</sup> Indeed, Leven seemed to think that he was a particular target of the Squadrone during the alarms over the so-called ‘Scotch Plot’, an experience which drew him closer to Queensberry.<sup>13</sup> He did, however, continue to give his support to a settlement of the succession in the house of Hanover, and the securing of an Anglo-Scottish union.<sup>14</sup> Political reliability on these crucial issues, together with the personal connections he was forging with leading figures in the English ministry, resulted in his being promoted to the rank of major-general, and subsequently reinstated as constable of Edinburgh Castle in October 1704, through the intervention of the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of )Godolphin.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Queensberry’s friendship proved of further benefit to Leven after the duke recaptured control of the Scottish administration.<sup>16</sup> In February 1705 James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> had noted that Leven was ‘not satisfied, but will needs have more than he has, and he’ll get it’.<sup>17</sup> Leven became master of the ordnance in Scotland in May 1705, and when the commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland, Lieutenant-General George Ramsay, died in September 1705, Leven quickly put in for the vacancy, as ‘the eldest major-general’.<sup>18</sup> He pledged to serve Godolphin and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, though it was observed that at the same time he ‘makes a great interest with the Whigs’, and was quick to acknowledge the role of both Godolphin and Marlborough in procuring him the post.<sup>19</sup> Against Queensberry’s advice, who feared that concentrating three important (and lucrative) military posts in a single person would unduly restrict opportunities for patronage, Leven (who had insisted on retaining his existing posts) was confirmed early in 1706 as commander-in-chief as well as constable of Edinburgh Castle and master-general of the ordnance.<sup>20</sup></p><p align="left">As a Scottish commissioner Leven took part in the negotiations to unite Scotland and England, despite military commitments, his contribution reflecting a genuine zeal for the idea of union. He also lost no opportunity to explain to English listeners that Scots Presbyterians, contrary to rumour, were equally enthusiastic, while Episcopalians were to a man against union and against providing for a Hanoverian succession.<sup>21</sup> Leven’s links with the Kirk establishment proved helpful to the unionist cause, as he did what he could to reassure Presbyterian interests in Scotland.<sup>22</sup> When the Scottish parliament met he duly voted to ratify the treaty, and during the session acted in his military capacity to calm the Edinburgh streets.<sup>23</sup> During the debates he wrote often to the English secretary of state Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, from whom he received lavish praise for ‘your lordship’s conduct, [and] the true sense your lordship has shown for the interest of your country’.<sup>24</sup> Similarly, Leven was also cultivating, or being cultivated by, English politicians of a different stripe. The Junto lord John Somers*, Baron Somers, wrote in October 1706 to thank him ‘for the honour of your letter… and yet more, for your promise to let me know, from time to time, what passes’.<sup>25</sup> According to Johnston around the same time, Leven ‘whom they incline to is quite out of favour with them: he smelt a rat and would not meddle’.<sup>26</sup> In January 1707 Marlborough also acknowledged the value of Leven’s correspondence, through ‘which I am heartily glad to find you have made so good a progress in the Union’.<sup>27</sup></p><p align="left">Leven was now firmly anchored in Queensberry’s inner circle, and the duke’s political lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], observed in relation to the selection of the first cohort of representative peers in the united Parliament, that Leven ‘could not be left out’. Similarly, he was among those members of the Scottish administration whose presence was judged to be necessary at London once the Union had been approved in Edinburgh, but he was soon obliged to return to Scotland to help maintain order there.<sup>28</sup> Marchmont described him in 1707 as ‘for Revolution by principle’ and as able to influence Patrick Moncrieff<sup>‡</sup> in the Commons.</p><p align="left">In May 1707 Leven succeeded his father in the earldom of Melville but it was as earl of Leven that he took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707. He was present on 74 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. He acted as a teller on 29 Jan. 1708, on the question of whether to agree to the resolution that the complaints had been duly proved against Captain William Kerr. On 5 Feb., in a debate on the bill to complete the Union, he supported an unsuccessful attempt to delay until October the proposed abolition of the Scottish Privy Council.<sup>29</sup> He acted as a teller again on 7 Feb. in the committee of the whole on whether to add a proviso to the bill and following the passage of the bill later that day, he signed the protest against it as a violation of the Union. He last attended on 4 Mar., his departure from London being prompted by news of an impending French invasion of Scotland. As Adam de Cardonnel<sup>‡</sup> wrote on 5 Mar. ‘Leven, who commands the forces in North Britain, is sent down post’.<sup>30</sup> Though this scare quickly petered out, his handling of the crisis gave rise to some controversy. Wemyss had to step in to defend Leven’s supposed ‘lingering upon the road’ to Scotland, and then Leven was seemingly attacked for his public criticism of the failure of Admiral Sir George Byng<sup>†</sup>, the future Viscount Torrington, to pursue the French squadron.<sup>31</sup> On 15 Apr. Leven was sent a warrant to dispatch to London those Scots suspected of involvement in the invasion plot.<sup>32</sup> Although he treated his prisoners well, the arrests antagonized some cavaliers, who suggested, incorrectly, that Leven had been partly to blame for the order, and were encouraged to do so by malicious insinuations from the Squadrone and the English Whigs.<sup>33</sup> Nevertheless, on a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain compiled in about May 1708 he was classed as a Whig.</p><p>Leven was active in the general election of June 1708, on behalf of the court party against the combined interest of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and the Squadrone, against whom he was especially bitter: he opposed Squadrone candidates in Buteshire and Perthshire, as well as Fife, and worked to bring some cavalier lords to support the court list of representative peers.<sup>34</sup> He attended the peers’ election, voting for all the candidates on the court list.<sup>35</sup> Immediately afterwards, an objection was raised against his presenting the proxy of William Fraser, 12th Lord Saltoun [S], and in relation to Commons elections he was also accused of corrupt practices, principally intimidation.<sup>36</sup> On 8 July 1708 he was included on the list of duly elected peers presented to the Lords. On 27 Aug. he received another warning about the Junto: ‘their spleen at you is particular, and they continue in assuring their party of their strict enquiry into our election with a very particular manner’.<sup>37</sup></p><p>Leven was in Edinburgh on 14 Oct. 1708 when he wrote to Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland about troop movements, but by the 29th he was at Stamford en route to London, having left Newcastle on the 25th.<sup>38</sup> Thus, he was in London for the start of the new session on 16 November. He was present on 58 days of the session, 63 per cent of the total and was named to 12 committees. Once the Lords began their inquiry into the peers’ election in January 1709 it was rumoured that ‘Leven is to be turned off’. Undeterred, he stood out against the Junto, supporting on 21 Jan. Queensberry’s right to vote in the peers’ election despite having received a British title (as duke of Dover) after the Union. When counsel was heard on the question of whether a peer of Scotland who took the oaths within Edinburgh Castle was qualified to vote in the peerage election, those appearing for the petitioners alleged that the sheriff had right to hold a court there, and therefore the votes of peers so sworn were invalid, whereas Leven intervened to say that as constable he always thought that the sheriff had jurisdiction. The House voted 56-52 on Leven’s side.<sup>39</sup> Leven’s own return was never in danger, even after the recalculation of votes reported on 1 Feb. reduced his vote from 54 to 46. George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> wrote on 26 Mar. that ‘all the Scots were against’ the bill for improving the Union, which extended the English treason laws into Scotland, and Leven was present that day.<sup>40</sup> On his last day of attendance of that day. he was said to have opposed the bill, but neither of the two protests against the bill on 28 Mar. bore his signature. By 13 Apr. he was back in Edinburgh.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Leven resumed his seat at the start of business on 15 Nov. 1709, attending on 74 days, almost two-thirds of the total and being named to 15 committees. Both Rothes and Hamilton courted his interest in the by-election for Dysart Burghs, the writ for which was issued after a long delay on 17 December. Hamilton eventually secured Leven’s interest and his candidate was returned in January 1710.<sup>42</sup> On 20 Mar. Leven voted Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanour. He was present for the last time on 4 April. Soon after his return to Scotland he wrote to inform Godolphin that ‘all the Jacobites in Scotland expect the Pretender in the month of May’.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Leven’s candidate had defeated Rothes’s nominee in Fifeshire in 1708, but in the changed circumstances of 1710, both men sought agreement. However, George Hay*, styled Viscount Dupplin (later Baron Hay and 8th earl of Kinnoull [S]) confidently asserted to Harley that ‘both of them will be disappointed for the [Lord] Lyon [Sir Alexander Areskine<sup>‡, 2nd bt.</sup>] will carry it’, and he proved correct.<sup>44</sup> In the peerage elections, there were again rumours that devotees of the old court party, like Leven, would combine with the Squadrone, but in the event Leven joined the new ministry.<sup>45</sup> Certainly, Baillie on 28 Oct. 1710 seems to have suspected that Leven was making court to the new ministry.<sup>46</sup> If this was a ploy to secure a place on the court list, Leven was disappointed; as Mar wrote on 7 Nov. it was ‘impracticable’ to place Leven, John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of] Stair [S], David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], or Henry Scott<sup>†</sup>, earl of Deloraine on the court list list ‘without eminently hazarding some of those coming in upon us’, and so he was excluded from the pro-government slate for the peers’ election in November, which was settled by Mar with Hamilton and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S]. Evidently Leven was one of several ‘old party’ men whom neither the Scottish Tories nor Argyll could stomach, as it was rumoured that ‘orders’ had been ‘sent down’ to include Leven, Glasgow, Stair and James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), but that Argyll and Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], ‘would not hear of it’.<sup>47</sup> Nevertheless, Mar had predicted on 9 Nov. that Leven, like most of the disappointed, ‘will come into our voting list’, and indeed he duly attended the election on 10 Nov. and voted a court line.<sup>48</sup> Richard Dongworth noted that ‘it was wondered that’ Leven ‘deserted’ his ‘old friends and appeared and personally voted for’ the court slate, while Defoe, writing to Harley on 18 Nov., attributed the success of the election to the ‘cowardice not goodwill’ of Leven and others in not closing with a proposal from Stair.<sup>49</sup> </p><p>Leven was still in office, but a target for Tory place-hunters. On 14 Dec. 1710 Ilay noted to Harley that Leven, Glasgow and Seafield were ‘all in town, making their court; the first two are supported by Queensberry’.<sup>50</sup> Leven remained in London, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, paying him a visit on 27 Dec. to discuss the case of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields, who had appealed to the Lords against the judgment against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Leven also visited Nicolson on 10 Jan. 1711, with Nicolson returning the visit on the 17th, again probably with reference to Greenshields’s’ case. On 16 Mar. Nicolson recorded that, while walking in St James’s Park, ‘Lord Leven seized me and told me of prayers in the Jacobite meeting-houses at Edinburgh on Sunday sennight “for a person going on a dangerous voyage”’, which was understood to be a reference to the Pretender.<sup>51</sup></p><p>Leven remained useful to the ministry because of his contacts with the Presbyterian clergy, and was praised by John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], for his contribution, as an elder, in the General Assembly in April 1712.<sup>52</sup> In June 1712 William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S] noted that ‘the duke of Argyll is to succeed the earl of Leven in his command here’, and in due course he was dismissed from his posts, although not long after he had voted, at the request of the lord treasurer Oxford as Harley had become, for the 4th earl of Findlater (the former Seafield) in a by-election for a vacancy in the representative peers.<sup>53</sup> Leven appealed to the treasurer for protection from further indignities, such as the loss of his command of Edinburgh Castle, but received only vague promises. At the same time his financial troubles multiplied: in July 1713 he was pleading privately to Oxford for assistance in staving off creditors, and he formally petitioned for reimbursement for money he had been obliged to spend as governor of Edinburgh Castle, including £2,000 for ‘procuring intelligence’, and for a further £1,500, as an ‘allowance’ of £300 previously promised by the queen to be added to his salary as master of the ordnance.<sup>54</sup> He was also one of the creditors on the Equivalent, and in January 1714 was pressing his claims there as well.<sup>55</sup> Perception of his vulnerability encouraged Presbyterian suspicions that he might be adopted again as a court candidate in the peers’ election of 1713, he ‘being entirely brought over to the Court’, but this was never a plausible prospect.<sup>56</sup></p><p>After the death of Queen Anne Leven was anxious to re-emphasize his Hanoverian credentials: he participated in the proclamation of George I in Edinburgh and hurried south to greet the new king. He was favourably received as the king remembered encountering him at the Brandenburg Court.<sup>57</sup> But he was not elected again. In 1715 he unsuccessfully sought ‘a mark of royal favour’, and without such financial help faced such severe hardship, with debts of over £400,000 Scots, that in 1716 he made all his estates over to his elder son.<sup>58</sup> In 1717 he came under suspicion of Jacobitism, which he vigorously denied, although his material needs were so acute that he may occasionally have been tempted to dabble in correspondence with Jacobite agents.<sup>59</sup> In 1722 he was canvassed by Scottish Tories in advance of the peerage election.<sup>60</sup></p><p>Leven died on 6 June 1728.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
LESLIE, John (1679-1722) |
<p><strong><surname>LESLIE</surname></strong> (<em>formerly</em> <strong>HAMILTON</strong>), <strong>John</strong> (1679–1722)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1681-1700 Ld. Leslie; <em>suc. </em>mo. 20 Aug. 1700 as 9th earl of ROTHES [S] |
RP [S] 1708–10, 1715–22 |
First sat 16 Nov. 1708; last sat 28 Apr. 1721 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 21 Aug. 1679, 1st s. of Charles Hamilton, 5th earl of Haddington [S], and Margaret, <em>suo jure</em> countess of Rothes [S]; bro. of Thomas Hamilton<sup>&dagger;</sup>, 6th earl of Haddington [S]. <em>m</em>. 29 Apr. 1697, Jean (<em>d</em>.1731), da. of John Hay*, 2nd mq. of Tweeddale [S], 8s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 4da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>). <em>d</em>. 9 May 1722; <em>admon</em>. 26 Mar. 1735 to Alexander Garden esq., principal creditor.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Ld. privy seal [S] 1704–5; PC [S] 1704–5; v.-adm. [S] 1715–?<em>d</em>.; ld. high. commr. to Gen. Assembly, Church of Scotland 1715–21; chamberlain, Fife and Strathearn 1716–<em>d</em>.; commr. planting schools in Highlands 1716.</p><p>Hered. sheriff principal, Aberdeen and Fife 1700–<em>d</em>.; ld. lt. Aberdeenshire, Fife, and Kinross 1715, Aberdeen by 1716.<sup>2</sup></p><p>capt. and gov. Stirling Castle Feb 1718–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Burgess, Edinburgh 1696; provost, Cupar–<em>d</em>.<sup>4</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J.B. De Medina, 1694, Clan Leslie Charitable Trust; oil on canvas by J. Scougall, Clan Leslie Charitable Trust; oil on canvas by unknown artist, National Galleries of Scotland.</p> |
<p>Not only did Rothes possess a famous Covenanting lineage, he was himself a staunch Presbyterian, regularly attending the General Assembly of the Kirk as an elder (and twice in Anne’s reign being mooted as a possible commissioner to the assembly).<sup>5</sup> But it seems that when he entered politics in 1700 his enthusiastic involvement with the ‘country party’ headed by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon), induced some Jacobite observers to infer that he was sympathetic to their cause.<sup>6</sup> Thus his decision in 1704 to follow his father-in-law (and former guardian) the marquess of Tweeddale into the ‘New Party’ administration was a particular blow to a Jacobite like George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, who could not contain his contempt for a man that did profess ‘great regard for the [Stuart] royal family ... with repeated oaths and asseverations, but, alas ... had neither enough of sense nor honesty to resist the first temptations’: he wrote that Rothes was ‘false to a great degree, a condemner of honour and engagements, extremely ambitious, vain and conceited (though of very ordinary parts and accomplishments), extravagantly proud and scandalously mercenary’.<sup>7</sup> The facts of Rothes’s political career, however, paint a rather different picture: he seems to have been a man with a strong religious faith and a firm attachment to constitutional principles (somewhat affectedly so in his youth), although at the same time he was subject to the gravitational influence of family loyalties, which determined both his uncritical adherence to the Squadrone faction presided over by his father-in-law, and his dogged pursuit of ancestral family rivalries in local politics, notably with the Melvilles in Fife.<sup>8</sup></p><p>Through an entail executed by his mother, who had inherited as countess of Rothes in her own right, John Leslie, barely of age, succeeded to her title on her death in 1700, while his younger brother Thomas took their father’s earldom of Haddington. But in political terms the more significant family connection had been cemented by his marriage three years earlier. It was under the umbrella of the Tweeddale interest that he enlisted in the opposition to the Scottish administration presided over by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. He joined Hamilton, Tweeddale and their adherents in seceding from the Scottish Parliament in 1702 in protest at the failure to call fresh elections on the king’s death.<sup>9</sup> When a new Parliament met in May 1703 he was a vocal proponent of measures to restrict the power of the crown and preserve the independence of Parliament, first proposing an act to deny Queen Anne’s successor the right to declare ‘peace and war without consent of Parliament’, and later in the session following his cousin James Graham*, 4th marquess (later duke) of Montrose [S], in speaking out in favour of an assertion of Scotland’s traditional liberties.<sup>10</sup></p><p>Following the revelations at the end of 1703 about the so-called ‘Scotch Plot’, Rothes was sent with his close allies John Ker*, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe [S], and George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> to ask the queen for a recall of Parliament in Scotland.<sup>11</sup> In a lengthy audience on 8 Mar. 1704 he defended the loyalty of the Scottish people, and implored the queen to ignore advice to maintain an army in Scotland upon English pay. In reply, Anne affirmed her intention that ‘Parliament should sit very soon’ in order to settle the succession, and that evidence would be presented relating to the Scotch Plot.<sup>12</sup> The nature of the response helped persuade Rothes to support the settlement of the succession, but more important was the appointment of Tweeddale as commissioner to the Parliament. Some 35 members of the country party, including Rothes, crossed over with Tweeddale, earning themselves the title of the ‘New Party’, or more pejoratively, and more permanently, the ‘Squadrone Volante’ (subsequently shortened to Squadrone). Their agreement to vote for succession in 1704, having opposed Queensberry’s efforts to do so the previous year, was viewed by some as opportunistic, and the uncompromising patriot Andrew Fletcher was quick to condemn Rothes and his colleagues for deserting the country party: they were ‘the greatest rogues and ought to be despised of all men that in the last parliament stood up for the good of their country’.<sup>13</sup> As well as prompting a confrontation between Fletcher, Rothes and Roxburghe in an Edinburgh coffee-house, this accusation may have influenced Rothes’s conduct in Parliament, to the extent that, while supporting his father-in-law’s interest, he also found opportunities to reassert his principles. In proposing a settlement of the succession he again did so on the basis of imposing limitations on the monarchy, and later he intervened in the debate on Hamilton’s proposal for a commercial treaty with England to secure the avoidance of a vote that the administration considered disadvantageous by arguing that the Scots should first ‘secure the sovereignty and independence of the kingdom’.<sup>14</sup> The upshot was effectively to postpone discussion of the succession. Informing the English lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, of this setback, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later earl of Findlater [S]), made the best of it, and emphasized that Rothes and the other ‘Revolution men’ who had opposed Hamilton’s projected treaty, had ‘acted their parts very fair’.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Rothes’s attachment to the Squadrone secured him the prestigious post of lord privy seal (at a salary of £1,000 a year) and a seat on the Scottish Privy Council in the ministerial reconstruction that followed the 1704 session, although at the same time lessening his reputation for integrity and thus weakening his power-base in Fife where he ‘very much lost his esteem and interest amongst the gentry’.<sup>16</sup> However, the Squadrone’s success was short-lived, and the replacement of Tweeddale as commissioner early in 1705 by John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], caused serious problems for the party. Tweeddale had alienated Argyll by refusing (in his capacity as lord chancellor) to pass Argyll’s commission, so his removal from the lord chancellorship was soon determined; he was offered Rothes’s post, which angered both men, to the extent that Lockhart believed Rothes likely to abandon his recent ‘apostasy’ and return to his ‘primitive faith’.<sup>17</sup> Roxburghe was not so sure, however, fearing that Rothes would be persuaded to stay with the ministry by the blandishments of Argyll, Seafield, and another of Rothes’s cousins, the presumptuous Commons Member John Cockburn<sup>‡</sup>, an outcome that would fatally divide the Squadrone.<sup>18</sup> Rothes’s dismissal as lord privy seal in June thus came as relief to his friends, but his subsequent actions showed that Roxburghe was mistaken about his malleability.<sup>19</sup> Although Rothes was required to subordinate his personal political agenda to the outcome of negotiations between the Squadrone and Seafield (acting for the court) over supporting union, he made his own priorities clear. Sent as an emissary to Montrose to persuade him to join with the Squadrone, he argued that the only way for Scotland to be ‘saved’ was the settlement of the succession accompanied by limitations on the powers of the new monarch, and gave some idea of what he had in mind when he proposed to Parliament that under a new reign the officers of state and judges should be nominated by it and not by the crown.<sup>20</sup> Nevertheless, despite occasional wobbles, he followed his party colleagues in supporting a treaty of union, and presumably was particularly gratified when they voted as a party in favour of according Parliament rather than the queen the nomination of commissioners.<sup>21</sup> In January 1706 it was reported that he was not personally convinced of the wisdom of union, but would allow his decision to be ‘determined by the new party’.<sup>22</sup> The delicate position that the Squadrone now found itself in was underlined by the fact that in May 1706 Rothes thought it best to resist an offer, originating from Queensberry, of a place as lord of the treasury, even though this risked him being depicted as difficult; but a little while later he welcomed payment of his arrears of salary as lord privy seal.<sup>23</sup></p><p>Symbolically, Rothes and his father-in-law travelled to the first session of the Union Parliament in Queensberry’s coach, and once there they duly voted for the ratification of the treaty.<sup>24</sup> In fact, Rothes voted consistently in favour of the Union, to the extent of seeking to prevent the acceptance of anti-treaty petitions to Parliament once the first article had passed.<sup>25</sup> He also used his position as a member of the commission of the General Assembly of the Kirk to push through a moderate address on the treaty, although he ran into difficulties when opposing the attempts of radical Presbyterians entirely to separate church and state and at one stage walked out when subjected to personal attacks.<sup>26</sup></p><p>Once the Union had been approved tensions between the Squadrone and the court resurfaced. The first issue concerned the choice of representative peers to the Parliament of Great Britain, which was the subject of negotiations with Queensberry. It was agreed that Rothes was to be included, yet John Lindsay*, 19th earl of Crawford [S], was elected in his place, ‘the only difference between the commissioner’s [Queensberry’s] list and that which was carried’. Baillie thought the court guilty of not making ‘their people vote for such of the Squadrone as were in their own list … several of them were suffered to be absent, which made Rothes lose it’. In fact, so convoluted were the voting strategies that Rothes was excluded by accident. <sup>27</sup> Rothes also blamed the court, however, and was reportedly ‘in great wrath’.<sup>28</sup> Although noting that the ‘New Party is very angry’, Queensberry’s political ally John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], had no sympathy for them:</p><blockquote><p>it is entirely their own fault, for none of us failed them but stuck close to the commissioner’s list (where three of them were) except such who were in the list whom they first left out in their nomination … So upon the whole I’m sure the New Party have no reason to blame the commissioner nor the queen’s servants for my Lord Rothes’s disappointment; for not one of them failed them but those whom they failed first.<sup>29</sup></p></blockquote><p>Rothes had to wait over a year for another opportunity to secure a seat in the Lords. In the meantime he remained in Scotland, pursuing his own and the Squadrone’s political interests there.<sup>30</sup> In February 1708 he was involved in the general election campaign in Fife. His personal enmity towards David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S], was complicated by local opposition to the Union and, of the two magnates, Rothes had been more overt in his support for the Treaty; as a result his candidate lost the seat.<sup>31</sup></p><p>Rothes’s next chance to be elected a representative peer came in June 1708. He attended the election and was one of the candidates in the list drawn up jointly by Hamilton and the Squadrone in opposition to Queensberry. Rothes received 50 votes, enough to guarantee his election. At the same time he registered his protest against proxies presented by Queensberry and Seafield in favour of court candidates, on the grounds that neither was eligible to vote, Queensberry because of his recent British peerage (as duke of Dover), and Seafield as a judge of the exchequer.<sup>32</sup> Rothes reached London in October 1708, and by the middle of November was in discussion with Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, about the controverted Commons election for Dysart Burghs, where he had neither sponsored a candidate of his own, nor supported Hamilton’s interest, much to Hamilton’s disgust.<sup>33</sup> On 16 Nov. he took his seat in the Lords, where he attended for 72 per cent of sittings during this first session, but was not particularly active, being named only to nine select committees. </p><p>During his first weeks in the House Rothes watched with interest the first steps taken towards enquiring into the peers’ election. On 20 Nov. 1708 he told Tweeddale that Seafield ‘has found it convenient to lay down the chief baron’s place’, which had been the basis of his protest against Seafield’s right to participate in the election. He also noted with irritation the objections that were being raised by Scottish Members of the Commons against the eldest sons of Scottish peers sitting in the lower House, complaints which he considered ‘very unreasonable’ and the work of ‘the fools of the Parl[iament]’ such as George Lockhart. A fortnight later he wrote that the Commons had ‘incapacitated our sons to be their members which I think is pretty hard upon us, but we are obliged to the 45 Scots for it, for the English would never have made any scruple about it’. His correspondence with Tweeddale also mentioned difficulties between the Squadrone and the Junto. In his view, the Squadrone were ‘not persons that will be led by the nose, and that [the Junto] know, but taking the argument the ordinary way of this world, which is from interest, it would appear that [the Squadrone] and [the Junto] will quickly be at one’. He was present on 11 Dec. at the London home of William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire, where a meeting was held to resolve differences. Sometime later, on 20 Jan. 1709, he explained to Tweeddale that ‘I think the appearance is better than I have seen it since I came here for there is the greatest probability that we’ll carry our elections and I hope other things shall go well also, but all these things are uncertain till they be done’.<sup>34</sup></p><p>The enquiry into the peers’ election had finally started in earnest and on 10 Jan. 1709. Rothes was named to the Lords’ committee to consider a petition from a number of defeated candidates from the Squadrone’s list. A week later came the report, confirming the number of votes cast for each peer in the election, together with a list of the protests, amongst which were Rothes’s objections against the proxies presented by Queensberry and Seafield. By the 18th Rothes was hopeful that both protests would go ‘very right’.<sup>35</sup> On 21 Jan. he voted against Queensberry’s right to participate in the election as a British peer created since the Union, but when the House considered his protest against Seafield’s proxy, the question was ‘passed over’.</p><p>The recalculation of votes cast in the peers’ election, according to the resolutions of the House, reduced Rothes’s total from 50 to 47, enough for him to retain his seat. He was, however, dissatisfied with other aspects of the proceedings, and suspicious of Godolphin’s intentions.<sup>36</sup> Queensberry’s appointment as the third secretary of state two days later reinforced his belief that Godolphin had duped the Junto, even though he was far from happy at the Junto’s recent behaviour. He was especially resentful that he himself had received no ‘marks of favour’.<sup>37</sup> On 15 Mar. 1709 he wrote to Tweeddale that ‘our affairs ... are worse and worse; all the good things that we are to get is a bill making the laws relating to treason the same in Scotland as they are now in England without so much as enumerating them’. Moreover, when the Squadrone opposed the treason bill and the militia bill (the purpose of which, in Rothes’s view, was ‘to establish the d[uke] of Q[ueensber]ry and his creatures lieutenants’) they were told by the Junto that this course of conduct was difficult to understand, and another example of the Squadrone’s criticising ‘all the good things that are done to make the Union entire and complete’. At the third reading of the treason bill in the Lords on 28 Mar. Rothes protested against the refusal to add a rider allowing defendants to receive five days before their trial a copy of the indictment against them and a list of witnesses. He also protested against passing the bill. His annoyance was so great that, uncharacteristically, he was recorded as attending only seven times between 30 Mar. and 21 April.<sup>38</sup> He left London shortly after Parliament was prorogued and was absent throughout the following session of 1709-10, without registering his proxy. </p><p>Having boycotted the peers’ elections in 1710 and 1713, the Squadrone were obliged to oppose the Tory ministry from the sidelines. Rothes kept in close touch with his party colleagues, visiting Roxburghe at Floors Castle in June 1712, from where they went on to a ‘great confluence’ of the Squadrone in Edinburgh.<sup>39</sup> He also continued active in the General Assembly of the Kirk, and in electoral politics in Fife and its boroughs, where the real enemy was now the Tory, or as he termed it, the Jacobite interest. In order to stop Tory advances in Fife he was desperate enough to come to terms with his old enemy Leven, ‘to lay aside private quarrels and to unite at this juncture against the common enemy’, but even working together the two magnates could not prevail.<sup>40</sup></p><p>With the accession of George I the Squadrone (now led by Roxburghe and Montrose) came into their own. In the early days of the new regime Rothes was tipped to become lord clerk register, but in fact his reward was more modest: vice-admiral for Scotland, and commissioner to the General Assembly of the Kirk, a position for which he had been touted previously, and in which he was able to exploit his reputation for personal piety to the government’s advantage.<sup>41</sup> He also took a leading part in military actions in Fife in the Fifteeen, and was given a raft of local offices, including the governorship of Stirling castle.<sup>42</sup> The remainder of his political and parliamentary career will be examined in the second part of this work. </p><p>Rothes died at Leslie House on 9 May 1722, after an illness prolonged enough to enable him to prepare what his deputy-governor at Stirling described as ‘a Christian, sedate and courageous death’. Having ‘recommended religion’ to his children, he summoned his two chaplains and ‘declared the grounds of his faith and hope of salvation’. After a prayer he then died ‘in the greatest serenity and peace’.<sup>43</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
LINDSAY, John (1671-1714) |
<p><strong><surname>LINDSAY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1671–1714)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1678-98 Ld. Lindsay; <em>suc. </em>fa. 6 Mar. 1698 as 19th earl of CRAWFORD [S] |
RP [S] 13 Feb. 1707, 1708 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 1 Aug. 1710 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 27 Dec. 1671, 1st s. of William Lindsay, 18th earl of Crawford [S], and 1st w. Mary, da. of James Johnston, earl of Annandale [S]. <em>m</em>. bef. 1702, Emilia (<em>d</em>. 18 Feb. 1711), da. and coh. of Hon. James Stewart, <em>styled</em> Ld. Doune [S] (1st s. <em>d.v.p</em>. of Alexander Stewart, 5th earl of Moray [S]), and wid. of Alexander Fraser of Strichen, Aberdeen, 2s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 4 Jan. 1714; <em>admon</em>. 28 June 1714 to John Price, gent., of Tiptree House, Essex.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1698-1708.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Col. regt. of ft. 1694–7, 2nd tp. of horse, Gren. Gds. 1704-<em>d</em>.; lt. col. Scots tp., Life Gds. 1698–1704; brig.-gen. 1703; maj.-gen. 1707; lt.-gen. 1710.</p> |
|
<p>The heir to an ancient title Crawford was well connected with the ‘Revolutioners’ in Scottish politics, but was not by nature assertive—except in the matter of his right of precedence as the premier earl of Scotland.<sup>3</sup> His family’s finances were never sufficiently robust to enable him to stand independent of office. His father earl, was a staunch Presbyterian noted for ‘fervour and warmth of zeal’.<sup>4</sup> He had enjoyed a brief eminence in the early years of William III’s reign, serving as president of the council and a treasury commissioner in the king’s first Scottish administration, before slipping into the political background and devoting himself to his garden.<sup>5</sup> Evidently the family’s indebtedness was not entirely relieved by his receipt of a pension of £300 on the Scottish civil list, paid out of the revenues of the bishopric of St Andrews, for in 1698 his testament was confirmed in the local commissariat court as ‘to a creditor’.<sup>6</sup></p><p>His heir John was thus still obliged to make his career in the army. While still a young man, and styled Lord Lindsay, he had been given a foot regiment through the intercession of William Hamilton, 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], which he commanded in William III’s campaigns in Flanders.<sup>7</sup> His regiment was disbanded in October 1697, but the following February he was made a lieutenant-colonel in the Scots troop of Life Guards commanded by Archibald Campbell, duke of Argyll [S]. After his father’s death in March 1698 the new earl of Crawford inherited the civil list pension, was named to the Scottish Privy Council and took his seat in the Scottish parliament the following July. <sup>8</sup> As a soldier Lindsay enjoyed the approval and favour of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, and rose steadily in rank during the War of Spanish Succession, to brigadier-general in 1703, and eventually to lieutenant-general in 1710.<sup>9</sup> He also secured the command of a troop in the Grenadier Guards in 1704, though this promotion may have owed as much to his political connections in Scotland.</p><p>In the 1703 session of the Scottish Parliament he followed his uncle, William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], into opposition.<sup>10</sup> The following year he was still running with Annandale, alongside members of the ‘New Party’ (later known as the Squadrone Volante) with whom his father had once been associated.<sup>11</sup> Although he supported the Treaty of Union he seems to have found the Union Parliament in Edinburgh a somewhat unnerving experience. In December 1706 he fought a duel with John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], occasioned by a drunken quarrel.<sup>12</sup> The following month, having voted with the court in the division on the first article of the bill, he was one of several peers who requested permission to take back their votes when it was resolved that the details of the vote be included in the formal record of proceedings.<sup>13</sup> Although he generally voted with the court party, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], noted several occasions in which Crawford broke ranks, either abstaining or voting on the other side, always when Presbyterian interests were at stake.<sup>14</sup></p><p>One contemporary summed up Crawford as ‘a good natured man … [with] … little or no estate’.<sup>15</sup> He displayed his insecurity by pestering Mar to ensure that he received his due from the Equivalent.<sup>16</sup> Character and circumstances disposed him to seek to maintain a wide circle of political friends, and this paid off when he was chosen as one of the 16 Scottish representative peers to sit in the first Parliament of Great Britain on 13 Feb. 1707. His election was a surprise to everybody, and was an accidental consequence of a disagreement between the court party and the Squadrone. In an attempt to secure the election of John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], the Squadrone gave their votes to Crawford in the hope of thereby eliminating either William Kerr*, 2nd marquess of Lothian [S], or Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], both court nominees. This devious strategy however went awry. As Mar explained to a correspondent, the block votes of the Squadrone for Crawford, combined with ‘others voting for him by chance, who did not dream of his carrying it’ resulted in his being elected ahead of Rothes. The Squadrone were outraged but had only themselves to blame, while the court interest briefly considered finding a way to exclude Crawford from the Scottish delegation to Westminster. <sup>17</sup> In the 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] he was described as ‘for the Revolution by principle, but fortune low’.</p><p>Crawford first took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707 and then was again present on 6 Nov. when the queen made her first speech to the new Parliament of Great Britain. He was present at 43 per cent of the sitting days of this session and was named to ten select committees. On 29 Jan. 1708 he was present when the Lords gave a first reading to the bill promoted by the Squadrone to abolish the Scottish Privy Council. Although Crawford had been elected by the votes of the Squadrone, he did not support them on this matter. In committee of the whole on 5 Feb. he voted with the minority to amend the bill by delaying the abolition of the council until 1 Oct. 1708.<sup>18</sup> Two days later Crawford was among the 12 Scots (among 25 members of the House) who protested against the passage of the bill. He had been present every day during the proceedings of the bill, but thereafter his attendance reverted to an erratic pattern, and he did not attend at all after 11 March. </p><p>In April 1708 Crawford was recommended by Marlborough for promotion from brigadier to major-general.<sup>19</sup> In addition he obtained the continuation of the pension that had been granted to his father, and an <em>ex gratia</em> payment of £500 from the English treasury.<sup>20</sup> His behaviour during the 1707-8 session had suggested that he should be counted among members of the court party, but the peers’ election in June 1708 once again revealed a fluidity in his political loyalties. Originally intended for the court slate, he deserted at the last minute, three days before the election of 17 June 1708, and instead was named in the list put forward by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamiltion [S], and the Squadrone in their alliance with the Whig Junto. He cast all his own votes for their anti-court ticket, and in turn received votes from Hamilton’s and the Squadrone’s supporters.<sup>21</sup> According to Mar, Crawford ‘jockeyed himself in, for he knew if he were in their list … he would have more scattered votes from our people then he would have from theirs if he had been of our number.’<sup>22</sup> To another correspondent, Mar commented wryly, ‘Newmarket breeding serves for some things.’<sup>23</sup> Yet at the same time he and other court managers were confident that, as Mar put it to Sir David Nairne, Crawford would ‘still be with us in business as formerly, for as he says himself their principles and measures do not agree with him’.<sup>24</sup> James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), was also confident that both Crawford and George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], would vote with the government, despite having both been elected on the Squadrone ticket. <sup>25</sup></p><p>Among the Squadrone lords it was noted that Crawford was one of the more quiescent of the Scots peers, because of his ‘present circumstances of dependence’.<sup>26</sup> As things developed this worked in their favour, for the shifting balance of power within the ministry kept him close to those who had been responsible for his re-election. His attendance dropped to just 25 per cent in the first, 1708-9, session of the new Parliament. On 21 Jan. 1709 he sided with the Whigs and the Squadrone in voting that James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], did not have a right to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers after having been given the British dukedom of Dover. He was more fortunate than Lothian, when, following the many petitions and complaints from the Squadrone, the House recalculated the number of votes cast in the recent election of representative peers. Although Crawford’s total number of votes was reduced he was able to retain his seat, unlike Lothian.<sup>27</sup> Crawford was also in attendance on 11 Mar. when the House considered the bill to extend to Scotland the English treason law, but skipped the other debates on the bill (apart from one sitting on 25 Mar.). At the third reading on 28 Mar. he signed two protests, against the rejection of a rider requiring that those accused of treason should be given a copy of the indictment in advance of their trial, and against the eventual passage of the bill. His last attendance this session was on 11 Apr., which meant that he missed the consideration of Commons’ amendments to the bill.</p><p>At the time of the 1709-10 session, a contemporary commentator considered Crawford a Whig, and this was borne out by his increased attendance, 53 per cent of the sitting days in this session, especially during the trial of Henry Sacheverell in February and March 1710. With members of the Squadrone he voted on 20 Mar. that Sacheverell was guilty, and the very next day that he should also be denied preferment.<sup>28</sup> He was present for the last time at the prorogation on 1 Aug. 1710. Having solicited support in September for the forthcoming election of representative peers, he joined the Squadrone in boycotting the election and consequently did not regain his seat.<sup>29</sup> He also seems to have lost his pension of £300 p.a. under the new Tory administration, and to have been disappointed of further military promotion. Although at first he was allowed £1.10<em>s</em>. a day from the contingencies fund as compensation, this too was discontinued after December 1710.<sup>30</sup> He did not sit in the House again and died in London on 4 Jan. 1714. Dying intestate, his estate was put under the administration of a John Price of Essex, probably a creditor, by decree. His son and heir John Lindsay<sup>†</sup>, who became 20th earl of Crawford, was a minor, but later sat as a representative peers of Scotland from 1732 to 1749.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
LIVINGSTON, James (c. 1688-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>LIVINGSTON</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (c. 1688–1723)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1688-92 Ld. Livingston; <em>suc. </em>fa. Dec. 1692 (a minor) as 4th earl of Callendar [S]; <em>suc. </em>uncle 7 Aug. 1695 (a minor) as 5th earl of LINLITHGOW [S] |
RP [S] 1713 |
First sat 17 Feb. 1713; last sat 16 July 1713 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1688, o. s. of Alexander Livingston, 3rd earl of Callendar [S] (2nd s. of George Livingston, 3rd earl of Linlithgow [S]), and Anne, da. of James Graham, 2nd mq. of Montrose [S]. <em>educ</em>. travelled in Holland 1706.<sup>1</sup> <em>m</em>. c. May 1707 (contr. 26 July–7 Sept. 1707), Margaret, da. of John Hay, 12th earl of Erroll [S], 1s. <em>d.v.p.</em> 1da. <em>d</em>. 25 Apr. 1723.</p> |
<p>Hereditary sheriff, Stirling.</p><p>Capt. and constable, Blackness Castle Aug. 1712–c.1715.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas, circle of Alexis Simon-Belle, National Trust for Scotland, Gladstone’s Land, Edinburgh; oil on canvas by unknown painter from original at Woodstock House, Oxon.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Family influences predisposed Livingston to Jacobitism: his father and his uncle, George Livingston, 4th earl of Linlithgow [S], had both been imprisoned by the Williamite regime in 1689–90, and his mother was described by Colonel Nathaniel Hooke in 1704 as a ‘grande Jacobite, femme de grand esprit et de grand crédit’, who brought up her son, by now the 5th earl of Linlithgow, in the principles of loyalism.<sup>3</sup> Linlithgow’s marriage in 1707 to the sister of the Jacobite Charles Hay, 13th earl of Erroll [S], reinforced this commitment. When Hooke visited Scotland soon afterwards to assess the feasibility of raising a rebellion, he reported that Linlithgow and his kinsman William Livingston*, 3rd Viscount Kilsyth [S], were among those noblemen eager to take part.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Linlithgow had not reached his majority by the time of the 1708 election of representative peers and so did not participate, but despite his youth, he seems to have taken over direction of the family interest in Stirlingshire in the general election of that year, assisting the cavalier (and also future Jacobite exile) Sir Hugh Paterson<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt, who had been recommended by Linlithgow’s ‘cousin’ James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] (later duke of Brandon).<sup>5</sup> By 1710 he was qualified to vote in the peers’ election, and supported the list agreed in advance by the incoming Tory ministry with Hamilton, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich).<sup>6</sup> In an analysis of the Scottish peerage Linlithgow was described as a ‘professed Episcopalian’.<sup>7</sup></p><p>In 1709 Linlithgow had drawn to the attention of the Whig administration what he asserted was his hereditary right to the captaincy of Blackness Castle, on the south coast of the Firth of Forth, a post which after the Union had been granted to Charles Murray, earl of Dunmore [S].<sup>8</sup> When Dunmore died in April 1710 Linlithgow renewed his application. Although he was not immediately successful, his claim was regarded by lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, as sufficiently weighty to prevent the office from passing directly to Dunmore’s son, John Murray*, 2nd earl of Dunmore [S].<sup>9</sup> During the summer of 1710 the dowager countess of Dunmore reported hearing that Linlithgow ‘intends a suit against any that gets that government [Blackness], but I have not such an opinion of his right as to fear anything’.<sup>10</sup> With the change of government in London Linlithgow drew up a petition explaining his entitlement to the captaincy and submitted it to Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], for onward transmission to the new chief minister, Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford. Kinnoull later confessed to having kept it back, taking the view that, as he later explained, there was nothing to be done in this matter until more pressing issues of Scottish business had been settled. However, others were prepared to make the case, expecting that Linlithgow might be found a place among the representative peers. As the election approached, Mar informed Harley that, contrary to Hamilton’s advice, Linlithgow was ‘fond of being elected’. When told that the queen had refused to grant Linlithgow’s claim to Blackness, Mar was convinced that this would be ‘a loss to her service’. Linlithgow had ‘positively expected’ to get the appointment ‘and if disappointed will be very angry and can do mischief, whereas otherwise he would be of use’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>Mar continued to have hopes of Linlithgow, however, pushing his credentials to succeed Hamilton as a representative peer in the event that Hamilton should succeed in securing his right to sit in the Lords by virtue of his British title as duke of Brandon.<sup>12</sup> In September 1711 Kinnoull was also advising Harley, now earl of Oxford and lord treasurer, to send Linlithgow a commission for Blackness Castle as soon as possible.<sup>13</sup> Still nothing happened, to Linlithgow’s intense frustration.<sup>14</sup> Mar advised Oxford that unless his aspirations were satisfied ‘he will think that he has no friends here, and will probably take measures and join with the other side’.<sup>15</sup> Although the grant itself was not finally passed until November 1712, it is evident that Linlithgow accepted as conclusive a promise made him in a letter from Oxford in the preceding June, written in connection with his pretensions to the vacancy amongst the representative peers caused by the death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S]. The ministry had first considered promoting Linlithgow’s candidature before deciding instead to support James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S]. Informed by Oxford and Mar that the queen had recommended Findlater, Linlithgow ‘cheerfully submitted’ to her pleasure and not only voted for Findlater himself but cast a proxy in his favour. The real prospect of the grant of the captaincy of Blackness was, he wrote to Oxford, sufficient ‘not only to quash all my pretensions to succeed Earl Marischal, but heartily to go into any the queen shall think more capable to serve her’.<sup>16</sup> His ambition to enter Parliament had been based ‘on the supposition I should be acceptable, for which I thought I had some encouragement from her servants, but since it appears otherwise the same principle moved me to set up prevails with me to resign my pretensions with all cheerfulness’. ‘That which I only regret’, he added, ‘is that when I have engaged so many of my friends as without vanity I may say might have secured the representation for me, I should now be obliged to retract and use my endeavours another way.’<sup>17</sup></p><p>When at last he received confirmation of the captaincy, Linlithgow wrote to Oxford again, professing that ‘the queen can employ nobody who will be more zealous for her service, nor will obey her commands more strictly with regard to her pleasure’.<sup>18</sup> Almost immediately there arose another opportunity for him to join the Scottish representative peers at Westminster, when Hamilton was killed in a duel on 15 Nov. 1712. There were soon reports that Linlithgow would succeed to the vacancy, as ‘a staunch churchman’, and on 13 Jan. 1713 he was elected unanimously (as Robert Wodrow was informed, ‘by 25 voters and 22 proxies and certificates’).<sup>19</sup> He took his seat on 17 February. It was assumed that he would be a firm supporter of the ministry, but he was also committed to advancing the interests of Scottish Episcopalians, adding his signature to a letter urging an address from the Scottish Episcopal clergy to the queen against those who had misrepresented Episcopalians, ‘both clergy and laity, as enemies to the present government’.<sup>20</sup> Although Parliament did not meet to hear the queen’s speech for another seven weeks, Linlithgow showed his dedication by attending the House each of the four times it was prorogued in March, an indication of the assiduity with which he would apply himself to his parliamentary duties during his short tenure as a representative peer. He was present for the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. and was named to the standing committees for privileges and for the journal. During the session he was recorded as present for 95 per cent of sittings and was named to two select committees.<sup>21</sup></p><p>Inevitably Linlithgow was drawn into the attempt by the Scottish representatives at Westminster to prevent the extension of the malt tax to Scotland. Angered by what they saw as a direct violation of the terms of the Union, Scots in both Houses gathered on the evening of 25 May 1713 to consider how to respond when the bill imposing the tax came up to the Lords, and agreed to press for a bill to dissolve the Union.<sup>22</sup> After a second conference of lords and commoners, the peers met by themselves on 28 May. At this meeting, according to George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>, Kilsyth and Linlithgow ‘declared against opposing the court’ but were overruled.<sup>23</sup> Linlithgow may possibly have been influenced by the fact that the treasury was still considering his request to be paid the captain’s salary for Blackness from the date of the death of Lord Dunmore rather than from the date of his own patent.<sup>24</sup> Nonetheless, he attended on 1 June to vote for the motion for leave to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union. He is not recorded as having spoken in the debate. A week later he signed a protest when the malt bill passed its third reading in the Lords. Thereafter he attended every day until the prorogation on 16 July, with two exceptions: 19 and 20 June. </p><p>Linlithgow was not re-elected in 1713. He was still pursuing unpaid arrears of salary in the following February, when Mar reminded Oxford about the plight of ‘poor Lithgow’.<sup>25</sup> Rallying to the Jacobite cause in September 1715, and mustering 300 of his own retainers, he commanded a squadron of horse at the battle of Sheriffmuir with the rank of brigadier-general, as well as having command of the royal standard. After the defeat of the Jacobite forces he escaped to France and joined the exiled court. He was attainted on 17 Feb. 1716 and his landed property, comprising 8,000 acres, with an annual rental of about £1,300, was made forfeit. When he died in Rome on 23 Apr. 1725 the male line of the family came to an end. The forfeited estate had been purchased by the York Buildings Company, which granted a lease for 29 years in 1721 to trustees acting for Linlithgow’s daughter, Lady Anne. She subsequently married William Boyd, 4th earl of Kilmarnock [S], who joined the Jacobite army in the ’Forty-Five, was captured at Culloden, and ended his life on the scaffold.<sup>26</sup></p> |
G.M.T./B.A./D.W.H. |
|
LIVINGSTON, William (1650-1733) |
<p><strong><surname>LIVINGSTON</surname></strong>, <strong>William</strong> (1650–1733)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>bro. 1706 as 3rd Visct. KILSYTH [S]; attainted 1716 |
RP [S] 1710, 1713 |
First sat 27 Nov. 1710; last sat 25 Aug. 1714 |
|
MP [S] Stirlingshire 1685, 1702-3 Oct. 1706 |
<p><em>b</em>. 29 Mar. 1650, 2nd s. of James Livingston, Visct. Kilsyth [S] (<em>d</em>.1661), and Eupheme, da. of Sir David Cunningham, bt., of Robertland, Ayr. <em>educ</em>. Glasgow Univ. <em>m</em>. (1) c.1692, Jean (<em>d</em>. 16 Oct.1695), da. of William Cochrane, <em>styled</em> Ld. Cochrane (1st s. <em>d.v.p</em>. of William Cochrane, earl of Dundonald [S]), wid. of John Graham, Visct. Dundee [S], 1s. <em>d.v.p</em>., 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) Barbara, da. of Henry Macdougall of Makerstoun, Roxburgh, 1da. <em>d.v.p</em>. <em>d</em>. 12 Jan. 1733.</p> |
<p>Lt.-col., Roy. Regt. of Scots Drag. 1688.<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
<p>Livingston’s family had long been distinguished for their loyalty to the house of Stuart. His father had suffered heavy financial losses for his royalism in the civil wars and Interregnum, including the destruction of the family seat of Kilsyth Castle. In recognition of his services he was raised to the Scottish peerage as Viscount Kilsyth on 17 Aug. 1661. His second son William, an officer in James II’s Scottish army, was seized and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle in 1688. Released in 1690, he was arrested again two years later on suspicion of treason and held until 1694, when he was again freed, this time on condition that he live abroad. He was in Holland in 1695, when his first wife, the widow of the Jacobite commander Viscount Dundee, and son were accidentally killed by the collapse of the house in which they were living. Eventually he was permitted to return to Scotland, though evidently without changing his allegiance, and was elected to the Scottish parliament in 1702, where he appears to have sat as a ‘cavalier’, and a follower of the ‘country’ opposition headed by James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S]. He was connected to Hamilton through his brother-in-law William Cochrane<sup>‡</sup>, one of the duke’s principal political managers. On the death of his elder brother, unmarried, in 1706, Livingston became the 3rd Viscount and took his seat in the Union Parliament on 3 October. As a committed Jacobite, he was a vigorous opponent of the Union Treaty, protesting at one point that only one in a thousand of his countrymen supported it, and acting in concert with Hamilton, to disrupt proceedings in Parliament.<sup>2</sup> When the Jacobite agent, Colonel Nathaniel Hooke, visited Scotland in 1707 to assess the feasibility of raising a rebellion, he reported that Kilsyth and his kinsman James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow, were among those noblemen eager to take part.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Not surprisingly, Kilsyth was one of the Jacobite suspects taken into custody during the invasion scare in March 1708 and subsequently sent to London for trial.<sup>4</sup> Hamilton, having made his tactical pact with the Squadrone and the English Whigs to effect his own release, met Kilsyth <em>en route</em> to London. He strongly urged the Junto secretary of state Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, to effect Kilsyth’s immediate release once he reached the English capital so he could return to Edinburgh to take part in the elections of the Scottish representative peers. Hamilton lamented that Kilsyth, ‘a man of honour and sense’, had been persuaded by the Scottish court party before his departure to give his proxy to the official who supervised his arrest and confinement, the commander-in-chief in Scotland and governor of Edinburgh Castle, David Melville*, 5th earl of Leven [S]. ‘I can depend upon him’, Hamilton reassured Sunderland, ‘though he has given his proxy to Leven, if he can be dispatched to the election, he’ll be thoroughly with the Whigs and I will answer for him ... [he] is really a man of weight and merit with us and one who I can answer will adhere firm to what he promises’.<sup>5</sup> The Squadrone leader James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], readily chimed in with Hamilton’s views, equally emphasizing to Sunderland that Kilsyth’s presence in Edinburgh was key to their electoral success.<sup>6</sup> They were glad, just as John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], was irked, to hear in the week preceding the election of 17 June 1708 that Kilsyth had been admitted to bail and could be expected back in Scotland in time to take part in it. <sup>7</sup> Kilsyth was indeed present at the election and even brought with him the proxy of his fellow prisoner David Murray, 5th Viscount Stormont [S].<sup>8</sup> After the election Hamilton wrote to Sunderland that ‘Lord Kilsyth did give us most considerable assistance by the good accounts he brought us of the good treatment he and the other prisoners had met with’ from the Whigs. He had duly revoked his proxy with Leven and had not held Hamilton to his initial promise that he, Kilsyth, would be one of the 16 peers on the Hamilton-Squadrone list, but voluntarily resigned his pretensions in order to avoid dissension. Furthermore, he had exercised Stormont’s proxy and ‘did not part with us in one vote, but applied all to the sixteen we appeared upon’.<sup>9</sup></p><p>Perhaps in recompense for Kilsyth’s services in 1708, Hamilton was the principal agent driving forward Kilsyth’s inclusion in the list of court candidates in the peers’ election of 10 Nov. 1710.<sup>10</sup> Mar wrote to Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, a week before the election warning him that Hamilton ‘seems resolved to set up Lord Kilsyth … I apprehend he is not one who would be agreeable to you, and if so I wish you may fall on some way to let duke Hamilton know it’. Mar reported to Harley that he had told Hamilton that ‘I was afraid the noise some people above would make at his being chosen would do more hurt than anybody else whom he could propose, but he seemed still to persist, and I fear will do so unless he know the same to be your opinions above’. Harley does not appear to have intervened, for Kilsyth’s name was included in the list of peers sent to him by Mar on 9 November. Mar persisted in his objections but found Kilsyth’s election unavoidable since ‘he had all the Tories for him, is the duke of Hamilton’s particular friend and favourite who was extreme earnest for his being one, and that duke has acted so fair a part and been so easy in everything else that we could not get him refused’.<sup>11</sup> So despite Mar’s opposition, Kilsyth was safely elected on 10 November.<sup>12</sup> In an analysis of the Scottish representation in the new Parliament the Episcopalian chaplain to the duchess of Buccleuch, Richard Dongworth, classed Kilsyth as an ‘Episcopal Tory’ and estimated his annual income at about £1,500.<sup>13</sup> To Daniel Defoe Kilsyth was one of several newly elected peers who were all ‘professed Jacobites ... known to aim in all they do at the Pretender and whose being now chosen has many ill effects here ... I mean as to increasing the insolence of Jacobitism in the north’.<sup>14</sup> Another analysis of the representative peers drawn up shortly after the election similarly classed him as a Jacobite.</p><p>On 27 Nov. 1710 Kilsyth first took his seat, on the new Parliament’s second day of business, and was promptly named that day to the committee to draft the loyal address. He came to 72 per cent of the sittings of the first session of 1710-11 and was particularly diligent in its early weeks, missing only one sitting throughout December 1710. He was present on 2 Jan. 1711 to hear the queen’s message about the recent Allied defeat at Brihuega and continued to be present throughout the following enquiry into the conduct of the war. On 9 Jan. he voted, in committee of the whole House, on the question whether Charles Mordaunt*, 3rd earl of Peterborough, had given a faithful account of the council of war held before the defeat at Almanza in 1707. A Whig attempt to defeat this resolution by a pre-emptive motion to resume was easily defeated, and according to the Scottish Member, the Squadrone leader George Baillie<sup>‡</sup>, ‘the Scots did the business’. On 12 Jan. when two resolutions were passed censuring the previous ministry for military defeats in Spain, Kilsyth was again present; Baillie noted that ‘all the Scots went one way’, in support of the resolutions.<sup>15</sup> At the end of January the Scottish representative peer John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerino [S], conveyed to his friend Henry Maule in Scotland the rumour that Kilsyth was to have a new infantry regiment, perhaps as a reward for services in the House, though this advancement never materialized.<sup>16</sup></p><p>Balmerino was probably able to relay this information because from the winter of 1710-11 both he and Kilsyth associated regularly with each other and with William Johnstone*, marquess of Annandale [S], and William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S], in convivial gatherings recorded in the diary of the English peer Charles Bennet*, 2nd Baron Ossulston (later earl of Tankerville).<sup>17</sup> On 5 Feb. 1711 Kilsyth, Annandale, Marischal, and Balmerino, along with Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton [S], were the five Scottish representative peers (out of 13 recorded as present that day) who registered their dissent from the rejection of the Tory bill to repeal the General Naturalization Act. Baillie reported to his wife that when the House on 1 Mar. considered the appeal of the Episcopal minister James Greenshields against the judgment of the Edinburgh magistrates, 12 of the 16 Scottish representative peers present that day, including Kilsyth and the other protesters of 5 Feb., voted to defeat a motion to delay proceedings through an adjournment.<sup>18</sup> Kilsyth did not attend between 26 Mar. and 9 May, and does not appear to have registered his proxy, despite his closeness to his Episcopal Tory colleagues. After his return he attended on most days until the prorogation on 12 June.</p><p>At some point in 1711 Kilsyth received a grant of royal bounty of £500, which cemented his loyalty to the court.<sup>19</sup> He seems to have been entrusted by the court with the management of a part of the representative peers, almost as a regional ‘whip’. Certainly in early November 1711 Hamilton could inform the lord treasurer, the earl of Oxford (as Harley had become), that he expected Kilsyth’s imminent arrival in London, soon after which Hamilton would ‘be capable of giving you a fuller account of our side’s affairs’. Kilsyth was in the capital by 13 Nov. and about this time was seeking a meeting with Oxford. As George Hay*, styled Viscount Dupplin [S] (later Baron Hay), warned the lord treasurer, ‘my Lord Kilsyth is very earnest to wait upon your Lordship; he must be pleased soon, otherwise will turn very uneasy’.<sup>20</sup> In the days preceding the start of the new session, Kilsyth received the proxies of Annandale (3 Dec.) and Walter Stuart*, 6th Lord Blantyre [S] (6 Dec.). Armed with these proxies, he was one of only five Scots present when the 1711-12 session, (of whose sittings he attended 77 per cent), opened for business on 7 December. By the time the matter of Hamilton’s right to sit under his British title of duke of Brandon came before the House on 20 Dec. the number of Scots there had increased to only nine, including Kilsyth’s two proxy donors Annandale and Blantyre, the latter of whom had arrived that very day. Kilsyth joined his compatriots in voting in the minority in favour of Hamilton’s right to sit.<sup>21</sup> He also signed the protest against the majority decision and on 1 Jan. 1712 further subscribed to the memorial submitted to the queen imploring her to find some remedy for this perceived injustice to her Scottish subjects.<sup>22</sup></p><p>Kilsyth attended on 2 Jan. 1712 at the critical moment of the introduction of the twelve new British peers. He supported the motion to comply with the queen’s message to adjourn, one of nine representative peers who decided that, despite disappointment over the Hamilton case, they were still prepared to assist Oxford’s ministry. Had they voted differently the question would have been lost. According to Baillie the Scottish peers were with the majority for the moment, but were planning to desert the ministry unless their complaints in the Hamilton matter were addressed.<sup>23</sup> The possibility that an attempt would be made at conciliation seemed likely when on 17 Jan. the queen sent a message to the House lamenting what she saw as a limitation of her prerogative and urging the House to devise some method to resolve the matter. Kilsyth was present the following day when the House went into a committee of the whole to consider this message. He also attended further debates on 21 and 25 Jan., when it was resolved that the House could, without violating the Act of Union, permit ‘peers of Great Britain, who were peers of Scotland before the Union’ to sit by virtue of their British titles, but only at the request of the entire Scottish peerage. However, by the time the subject came to be discussed again, on 4 Feb., Kilsyth and the rest of the Scots peers were, in the words of Balmerino, resolved to ‘desert and abandon the House … for our present condition is intolerable’.<sup>24</sup> At the next sitting, on 7 Feb., all the Scottish peers were absent.</p><p>Scottish Tories were careful to ensure that the boycott did not extend to measures affecting their own priorities. On 11 Feb. 1712 Kilsyth and ten other representative peers, including Blantyre and Balmerino, broke the boycott to be in the House for the second reading of the Episcopal communion bill, which in the event was postponed for two days to allow the commissioners of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to make representations. Kilsyth and his colleagues were present again for the second reading, and Kilsyth further attended on 15 Feb. to hear the committee of the whole’s amendments and the third reading of the bill. The following day he resumed the boycott and he absented himself until 26 Feb., when the Episcopal communion bill came back from the Commons with amendments. Baillie and another commentator reported that that day Kilsyth and the four other Scottish peers present voted with the majority to agree with the Commons in their amendments which favoured Scottish Episcopalians and successfully saw the bill through.<sup>25</sup></p><p>By the end of February 1712 all the Scots except for Hamilton and Annandale had returned to the House, ‘it’s said upon promise of redress’.<sup>26</sup> Kilsyth was one of the 12 representative peers present on 8 Apr. when the Commons brought up the bill to restore the presentation rights of lay patrons in Scotland. He attended throughout the bill’s progress and on 12 Apr. voted with the majority in favour of the bill’s passage.<sup>27</sup> Kilsyth received Balmerino’s proxy on 12 May, which he held for the remainder of the session, and Marischal’s on the 17 May, which was vacated by that earl’s early death only ten days later. With these proxies, Kilsyth was present on 20 May, when he voted for the bill to appoint commissioners to examine all royal grants of land made since 1689, with a view towards their resumption by Parliament.<sup>28</sup> On 28 May he and the other nine Scots peers present helped defeat a Whig motion to address the queen against the ‘restraining orders’ given to the captain-general Thomas Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, ordering him to desist from taking offensive action against the French.<sup>29</sup> On 12 June he accepted the proxy of Thomas Hay*, 7th earl of Kinnoull [S], to replace that of the deceased Marischal. This was longer-lasting and was not vacated until the prorogation on 8 July, on which day Kilsyth was again present in the House.</p><p>Throughout his first two sessions in the House Kilsyth had been watched closely by Mar. In a revision of his earlier opinion, Mar conceded that he could find little to fault with Kilsyth’s recent conduct. Towards the end of the 1711-12 session Mar noted to Oxford that ‘if being firm and steady in business these two sessions deserve any consideration, sure the Viscount of Kilsyth’s behaviour does’, especially as he had been solicited to desert the ministry by ‘no small temptation, even above what he can probably expect any other way’. Thus Mar thought it was imperative to reward him. Kilsyth, Mar continued:</p><blockquote><p>was the first of them who came up here this sessions and when others declined it; he will now stay as long as there is occasion for him, but if he go home, and nothing done for him, others will not be forward in following the ways he has done. He trusts entirely to your Lordship.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>As Mar expected, Kilsyth loyally continued to attend the House, even coming to the prorogation of 31 July 1712. In August he joined Mar in presenting the Stirlingshire address thanking the queen for relieving them of ‘a long, bloody and expensive war, under which they have so long groaned’.<sup>31</sup> Having sedulously attended six prorogation days throughout the winter and spring of 1713, he was again present for the start of the long-delayed session on 9 Apr. 1713, when the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht were to be discussed. He attended 85 per cent of its sitting days and was now considered a reliable supporter of the ministry. This extended to his conduct during the crisis over the attempt to repeal the Union. In early May a bill was introduced in the Commons to extend the malt tax to Scotland. Scottish representatives from both Houses met together on 25 May and decided that after this and so many other violations of the Treaty of Union—such as the abolition of the Scottish privy council, the extension to Scotland of the Treason Act and the Hamilton peerage case—they had no alternative but to seek its dissolution.<sup>32</sup> Kilsyth and his kinsman Linlithgow did not agree, however, and at a further meeting of representative peers ‘declared against opposing the Court’.<sup>33</sup> Kilsyth was present in the House on 1 June when James Ogilvy*, 4th earl of Findlater [S], moved to bring in a bill to dissolve the Union. Most of the Scots peers who spoke in the debate mentioned that although they had originally supported the Union they now considered it to be too burdensome upon Scotland; all that is, as Balmerino caustically noted, ‘except honest Kilsyth’. The House divided on whether to put the question for an adjournment on discussion of this bill and the court narrowly defeated the motion after proxies were called. Following the failure of this attempt by the Scots and their temporary allies the Whigs to muster strength by delaying consideration of the bill, Findlater’s original motion to introduce it was thrown out of the House without a division. <sup>34</sup></p><p>Kilsyth missed the first reading of the malt tax bill on 3 June 1713, but was present two days later for the second reading when the Scots, together with the Whigs, tried unsuccessfully to delay further proceedings. Kilsyth spoke on 8 June in a very full committee of the whole House of 120 lords on Balmerino’s motion that words setting the tax at 6d. a bushel for malt produced in Scotland should be removed from the bill, as it was a violation of the 14th article of the Treaty of Union. According to Balmerino this was the first time Kilsyth had ever spoken in the House, despite his assiduous attendance. Kilsyth guardedly admitted, ‘My Lords I do approve this motion because it is most reasonable, and it would free us of a great burden, and yet it is with regret I do it because the laying on this tax will tend to the dissolution of the Union’. Balmerino was impressed—‘All the fine speeches that I heard did not please me so well as the honesty and good sense of this’.<sup>35</sup> Unfortunately for the Scots, the motion to retain the words setting the rate of tax was upheld by the government. The bill was passed at its third reading that day in the House and Kilsyth was one of the 15 Scots peers who signed the protest against it.</p><p>Despite his opposition to the malt tax Kilsyth maintained his support of the ministry, presumably in hope of preferment. His financial position cannot have been other than strained by the need to attend Parliament, and there is evidence that he was selling land at this time.<sup>36</sup> He continued to attend regularly until the prorogation of Parliament on 16 July 1713 and was forecast as likely to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty. At the end of the session, Baron Hay (as Dupplin had been created on 1 Jan. 1712) drew up for Oxford a list of the pretensions of the representative peers that should be addressed before the forthcoming election. Next to Kilsyth’s name he wrote: ‘he proposes no particular thing for himself, so [the] lord treasurer is best judge how to satisfy him for his past services, and how to provide him in time coming; might not he be of the commission of chamberlainrie?’<sup>37</sup></p><p>Kilsyth did not receive this preferment, or any other, at this time, but was again elected as a representative peer at the elections of October 1713.<sup>38</sup> With the blessing of the widowed duchess of Hamilton, who recommended Kilsyth to Oxford as ‘a very worthy man’, he continued to support the Tory ministry, in the hope, it was said, of becoming governor of Edinburgh Castle.<sup>39</sup> He was not present at the beginning of the Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, as he was still in the country, but resumed his seat on 6 Mar. and attended 73 per cent of the sitting days of the spring session.<sup>40</sup> On 5 Apr. a resolution was moved that the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover was not in danger, to which it was proposed to add the words ‘under her majesty’s government’. After this addition had been carried it was observed that ‘our 15 Scots Lords went plumb into the affirmative’.<sup>41</sup> Kilsyth was also forecast to support the schism bill and his name does not appear on the protest against its passage. On 14 July, five days after the prorogation, Mar wrote to Oxford that Kilsyth was eager to leave for Scotland.<sup>42</sup> Nevertheless, he was present in the House for the session convened on 1 Aug. upon the death of the queen. He attended eight meetings of this session—53 per cent—and was last present in the House on 25 Aug. 1714 when Parliament was prorogued. The Hanoverian succession effectively ended Kilsyth’s parliamentary career. After taking part in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion he fled to the continent before capture and was subsequently attainted. He died in exile in Rome on 12 Jan. 1733, his estates and title having been forfeited.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
MONTGOMERIE, Alexander (c. 1660-1729) |
<p><strong><surname>MONTGOMERIE</surname></strong>, <strong>Alexander</strong> (c. 1660–1729)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1669-1701 Ld. Montgomerie; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1701 as 9th earl of EGLINTON (EGLINTOUN) [S] |
RP [S] 1710–15 |
First sat 4 Dec. 1710; last sat 15 June 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. c.1660, 1st. s. of Alexander Montgomerie, 8th earl of Eglinton [S], and 1st w. Elizabeth, da. of William Crichton, 2nd earl of Dumfries [S]. <em>educ</em>. Culross sch. 1669–73; St Andrews Univ. 1673–6. <em>m</em>. (1) contr. 7–16 Dec. 1676, Margaret (<em>d</em>. by 1704), da. of William Cochrane, <em>styled</em> Ld. Cochrane (s. <em>d.v.p</em>. of William Cochrane, earl of Dundonald [S]), sis. of William Cochrane<sup>‡</sup> of Kilmaronock, Dunbarton, 3s. <em>d.v.p</em>. 5da. (2 <em>d.v.p.</em>); (2) by 1704, Anne (<em>bur</em>. 16 Dec. 1708), da. of George Gordon, earl of Aberdeen [S], 1da. surv. (3) bef. May 1709, Susanna (<em>d</em>. 18 Mar. 1780), da. of Sir Archibald Kennedy, bt. of Culzean, Ayrshire, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 8da. <em>d</em>. 18 Feb. 1729.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] Mar.–July 1692, 1696–1704; commr. auditing treasury accts. [S] 1698, treasury [S] 1702 –4, commr. of chamberlainry [S] 1711–14.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Sheriff, Renfrew; commr. supply, Lanark 1704.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by unknown artist, sold by Doyle, New York, 19 May 2010.</p> |
<p>Although Eglinton came from staunch Presbyterian stock he was himself of a very different religious and political persuasion: an ardent Episcopalian, with pronounced Jacobite sympathies. A good speaker, with strong views, he was one of the leading lights on the Tory side in Scottish politics after 1710, but his passionate nature was restrained by the family responsibilities which weighed heavily on him and which could on occasion cause him to lose his nerve. His grandfather had taken up arms for the covenant in 1639 and after association with the Engagers suffered a heavy fine under the Protectorate. Eglinton’s father did nothing to relieve his estate from debt, and it took Eglinton himself years of ‘prudent and judicious management’ to recover stability, and even extend his holdings by purchase.<sup>3</sup> The 8th earl had maintained his own father’s devotion to the Kirk and had gained political capital at the Revolution through fighting on the Williamite side, and a tangible reward in 1692 with appointment to the Scottish Privy Council and the exchequer commission, and later a pension of £200 p.a.<sup>4</sup> This brought his son some benefit: Lord Montgomerie (as he was then styled) was appointed to the Privy Council at the same time. However, he only lasted a few months before being removed for non-attendance.</p><p>Mongomerie had a difficult relationship with his father, who had made over the family property to him after his first marriage: there were disputes over money, and in consequence, other family influences predominated.<sup>5</sup> Montgomerie’s reinstatement as a privy councillor in 1696, his appointment to the commission for auditing the treasury accounts, and then to the treasury itself, may well have been owing to the influence of his uncle, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]). By the time Montgomerie succeeded his father in 1701 he was, together with Seafield, firmly attached to the court party led by James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S]. Not only did he hold office; his father’s pension was also continued to him.<sup>6</sup> But he was on the Episcopalian wing of the court party, and when dismissed from office with Queensberry in 1704 he seems to have aligned himself more closely with the ‘cavaliers’, or, as Seafield called them, ‘our Tory party’. According to a Jacobite agent, Eglinton made frequent professions of loyalty to the Pretender’s cause.<sup>7</sup> He was particularly bitter at the ‘New Party’ (or Squadrone Volante), his resentment only partially assuaged by the ongoing payment of his pension, so that for a time he joined James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], later duke of Brandon, in refusing to settle the succession.<sup>8</sup> But gradually Seafield was able to bring him and other ‘moderate Tories’ round to supporting the Union, presumably by holding out the prospect of restoration to the treasury commission.<sup>9</sup> The fact that Eglinton’s uncle Francis Montgomerie<sup>‡</sup> was a treaty commissioner was irrelevant, for although the two men were on cordial terms, their political views were different. Eglinton voted for Union in the crucial division on the first article, but otherwise split his votes and joined his great-uncle by marriage John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerino [S], in protesting against the method of selecting Scottish representatives to the first Parliament of Great Britain.<sup>10</sup> He benefited financially from the Union, but not as much as he thought he deserved. The queen had signed a letter in 1706 for his reappointment as a treasury commissioner, but it was never officially recorded, and when the Union extinguished the commission, the salary of £500 that he should have been paid was lost. It was a sore point ever after, even though he accepted £200 in the infamous ‘bygones’ settlement (a fact noted without comment by his son-in-law, the Jacobite anti-Unionist George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup>), and in 1708 received an increase to his pension (to £700 p.a.).<sup>11</sup></p><p>Eglinton was not included on the court list of peers to sit in the first Parliament of Great Britain and seems to have felt neglected.<sup>12</sup> He became unhappy at the increasing dependence of the ministry in London on the Whig Junto, and his correspondence to his uncle Francis also indicated a growing disenchantment with the Union.<sup>13</sup> In a letter of 19 Feb. 1708 he deplored the measures promoted by the Whigs and the Squadrone in the winter of 1707–8:</p><blockquote><p>I never doubted our government here would be demolished, and our heritable jurisdictions, and that the power of the justices of [the] peace and in everything also, in process of time, will be the same with England; but I think since they have enlarged the powers of the justices, they will appoint new ones, and not allow us to be maltreated by the canaille of the country, for you know in the last nomination the most considerable of the gentry were kept out, for being against the Union.</p></blockquote><p>His view of the Scottish court party was now astringent:</p><blockquote><p>those who used to dictate here will think it a great change from threatening to take away or give places, and pensions, to be reduced to a humble entreaty at the next elections, and perhaps be less regarded than those who never had their powers, for nothing is so despicable as a cassen [thrown over] courtier.<sup>14</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the elections of 1708, although he had been counted on by the Scottish court party, he shifted his position late in the day: in Ayrshire he abandoned his uncle Francis, who was supported by the Queensberryites, in favour of an anti-Union candidate, and in the representative peers’ election he voted with Hamilton, even though this meant also voting for the Squadrone. Hamilton credited William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], for bringing over Eglinton (and two others) to ‘our interest’. Eglinton held the proxy of one of these, his brother-in-law, James Stewart, 5th earl of Galloway [S], and was also entrusted by his father-in-law Aberdeen, to present the latter’s list for him. <sup>15</sup> Eglinton had been thought of as a possible candidate himself but seems to have been dropped from the Hamilton-Squadrone list because of uncertainty over the line he would take in his own county.<sup>16</sup> So his final decision to go against the court party was hard to fathom: the view of Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], was that Eglinton panicked, having been desperate to appear on the winning side.<sup>17</sup> Nevertheless, having polled 42 or 43 votes (subject to protests), there seems to have been some expectation that if several other peers were excepted against, Eglinton might come in by default. If so, William Ross<sup>†</sup> 12th Lord Ross [S], expected him to be ‘hearty with us’.<sup>18</sup> In the event he was not so fortunate.</p><p>The disintegration of the Whig administration during 1710 reawakened his active interest in public affairs. Eglinton wrote to Colin Lindsay, 3rd earl of Balcarres [S], on 28 Aug.:</p><blockquote><p>Though I was resolved never to have troubled myself about politics, yet the change of the ministry and the noise of a new Parliament has made me alter my resolutions, for I think something may chance to occur wherein I may be serviceable either to church or state and could I contribute to the good of either I would judge my time and money well bestowed, wherefore intend to use my interest that I may be elected one of the sixteen.<sup>19</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the Ayrshire election he found it easy this time to revert to family loyalty and give his interest to his cousin John Montgomerie<sup>‡</sup>, Francis’s son, who was standing with the support of Queensberry’s court party and when elected showed himself at first to be a Tory, albeit a moderate one.<sup>20</sup> He himself was included on the slate of candidates agreed by the new Tory administration of Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford) with Mar, Hamilton, and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich), and elected unanimously. <sup>21</sup> He was classified by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain Richard Dongworth as a ‘Court Tory’, with an income of about £5,000 a year.<sup>22</sup> In another analysis of Scots representative peers drawn up shortly after the election he was classed as a ‘Jacobite’.</p><p>It was not until 4 Dec. 1710 that Eglinton took his seat, having registered his proxy with Mar the day before. He was thereafter present on 52 per cent of all sitting days in the session. Though not recorded as attending again until 11 Dec., he was working on behalf of the Scottish Episcopalian minister James Greenshields, who was appealing to the Lords against a sentence passed against him by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Stirred by Eglinton’s enthusiasm, Greenshields praised him as ‘truly Episcopal’. Together with Greenshields’s principal supporter, William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, Eglinton canvassed various Scottish peers, not only strong Episcopalians but former Queensberryites like Seafield and David Leslie*, 5th earl of Leven [S]. Meanwhile he joined English High Churchmen in pressing for the repeal of the General Naturalization Act of 1709: when the repeal bill was rejected in the Lords on 5 Feb. 1711 Eglinton and Balmerino subscribed the Tory protest. Evidently encouraged rather than discouraged by this outcome, Eglinton informed Nicolson the next day that in his opinion ‘Mr. Greenshields’s bill may be seasonably moved’.<sup>23</sup> Eglinton then sounded out his fellow representative peers on the extent to which the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland could be challenged. He made known his own opinion that the Union should be extended to matters ecclesiastical—‘that as we are one in civils, we should be one in church matters, and the liturgy and ceremonies brought into Scotland’—but was ‘laughed at’, a response which led him to counsel caution, advising Nicolson that it would be wise not to question the authority of the Kirk. <sup>24</sup> Under Eglinton’s guidance, Nicolson spent the next three weeks rallying support amongst English peers, while ensuring that Greenshields did not provoke Presbyterians unduly in his published writings. The appeal came before the Lords on 29 February. All the Scots were present, the representative peers, the duke of Dover (Queensberry’s British title), and earl of Greenwich (Argyll’s English title), and with one exception they gave the petition their support. After a pre-emptive adjournment motion had been decisively defeated, there was little debate on the appeal itself and the House ruled unanimously that the sentence be reversed.<sup>25</sup> Eglinton was elated. According to Nicolson, he saw the way open for far-reaching changes in Scotland: ‘a toleration … of the very frame of ours, and … resumption of patronages’.<sup>26</sup> Before the end of the session he was also involved in the repercussions of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Harley, being named on 9 Mar. as one of the Lords’ managers at the conference requested by the Commons over the safety of the Queen’s person and government. He quit the session on 27 March. By 27 Apr., he was back in Scotland.<sup>27</sup></p><p>During the recess, Eglinton pursued his demands for office. In August he asked for the vacant seat on the court of session. The rationale was that he had been turned out by the Squadrone in 1704 ‘for being against their act of security and not concurring with their limitations of the crown’, and while others who ‘left their places at that juncture, have either got others, or an equivalent’, he had received nothing.<sup>28</sup> There was no response until November, when Harley, now earl of Oxford and lord treasurer, became sufficiently worried about the management of the Lords to do something about Scotland. He put the office of lord high chamberlain into commission, and used the places to gratify a gaggle of importunate Scots, including Eglinton.<sup>29</sup></p><p>In spite of his new appointment, when the session began on 13 Nov. 1711, Eglinton was still in Scotland. He might have hoped by his absence to remind Oxford of his value, but by 3 Dec. Mar had possession of his proxy. On 15 Dec. Eglinton wrote to Oxford both to emphasize his gratitude for his post but also to excuse his continuing absence. His preferment, he insisted, ‘puts me to the greater difficulty of expressing my sense of the favour, but without compliment, if your Lordship will admit me to the number of those you confide in, and look upon me as your firm friend, you shall never have reason to repent it’. He went on to express dislike of the continuing war and irritation at the allies’ interference in attempts to conclude a peace: ‘It makes my heart to bleed, that the Queen cannot change her ministry, nor offer to extricate her people from a bloody and expensive war, but every little neighbouring state and prince not privately, but openly in the face of the sun, intermeddle and prescribe the laws and rules.’ There was nothing he would not do:</p><blockquote><p>to serve her Majesty in this juncture, and therefore, though my wife is extremely ill in her health and within few weeks of her time, and to leave her in that condition will be most uneasy to me, yet if I can add to strengthen the Queen’s friends by my coming to London, I will immediately upon a line from your Lordship take post, but upon the other hand, if there be no immediate service for me, pray you be so charitable to allow me to stay till my wife be brought to bed.<sup>30</sup></p></blockquote><p>Later that month, he was assessed as in favour of allowing Hamilton to sit as duke of Brandon, but before his arrival the Lords had already decided against Hamilton. Eglinton eventually appeared in the House on 14 Jan. 1712 (following which he was present on almost 63 per cent of all sitting days) and three days later, at a meeting of Scots peers at Hamilton’s London home, gave vent to his outrage at this ruling. He argued that if an act were to be passed asserting the queen’s prerogative to dispense British peerages, and the right of the Scots nobility to receive them, ‘then all is right again’. If not, he warned, ‘it is better for the Union to be dissolved’. At the same time, his fear of the Whigs made him doubtful of the utility of a parliamentary boycott, for all its likely impact on the ministry: ‘if we please he shall be absent’, he was reported as saying, ‘but if he be present by God he will never let the Whigs gain a vote of the Tories if he can help it’.<sup>31</sup> When his fellow countrymen agreed a boycott he was quick to reserve his own position, telling the Whigs publicly that</p><blockquote><p>he hoped our folks would quit, but that they should gain nothing by it for we would all be at hand to establish the peace, and if it was an ill peace, by God he cared not, for he was resolved like Samson to pull down the house upon his enemies and himself.’<sup>32</sup></p></blockquote><p>Eglinton also saw it as necessary to be present in the House to pursue measures to benefit Scottish Episcopalians. Having taken advice from Greenshields and Nicolson, he liked the idea of securing the ‘exemption of Episcopal clergy from Presbyterian discipline’, and worked with Nicolson to prepare for the arrival of the toleration bill from the Commons.<sup>33</sup> Although absent at the bill’s first reading in the Lords on 8 Feb., he attended five days later for the second reading and committal. After the House had approved the committee report, the bill was sent back to the Commons, who accepted the first three of the Lords’ amendments but inserted a further amendment imposing the Abjuration on all ministers of the Church of Scotland. This was intended to wreck the bill, since it was thought likely to catch over-scrupulous Presbyterians, but on 26 Feb. Eglinton and Mar both denied that Presbyterians would be incommoded, and the alteration was approved.<sup>34</sup> Once the bill was passed Eglinton abandoned the boycott completely.<sup>35</sup></p><p>While Eglinton’s contribution to the proceedings of the House was much more subdued in March and April 1712, in May he supported the bill to appoint commissioners to establish the value of all grants made by the crown since 1688 and on the 28th of that month voted against the proposal for an address to the queen to order her army to take the offensive against the French.<sup>36</sup> His attendance lasted just over a fortnight more in that session. But before departing for Scotland he took it upon himself to remind Oxford once again of the £500 owing to him as arrears from 1706–7, and received an assurance from Mar which he accepted but which was then not acted upon.<sup>37</sup></p><p>On 9 Feb.1713 Oxford wrote to inform Eglinton that his presence would soon be required in London. Mar had expressed his confidence some time before that Eglinton would be one of those likely to take his place on time. Oxford hoped that ‘your Lordship’s zeal for your country will bring you up to perfect that good work you have been so instrumental in. I do assure you everything shall be made good to you.’<sup>38</sup> However, Eglinton was anxious about his arrears of salary as commissioner of chamberlainry, and about the earlier £500; unless he received some payment, it would be impossible for him to subsist in London.<sup>39</sup> He took his seat on 3 Mar. for the prorogation day and was again present on 17 March. In the meantime he was assessed as a likely supporter of the ministry. He took his place at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. (attending 88 per cent of all sitting days), but it was not until the end of May that he stirred himself to action, after the Commons had brought in a bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland. His patriotism now began to run away with him. On the evening of 27 May, after dining with Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S], and Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, he went to a meeting of representative peers to consider their response to the bill. Balmerino was delighted to see his great-nephew there, who ‘was rare company being a little drunk’. Eglinton was one of those who argued in favour of the Scots expressing their anger formally. It was decided that on the following day Findlater (as Seafield had become) would move the Lords to consider the state of the nation, which he did; Eglinton seconded the motion.<sup>40</sup> Then on the morning of 1 June, the day appointed for the debate, Scots in both Houses met and agreed that Findlater should move for a bill to dissolve the Union. When he had done so, Eglinton, briefed to support the motion, intervened to answer the English Tory William North*, 6th Baron North and 2nd Baron Grey, who had declared the Scots’ complaints unjustified and dissolving the Union impracticable. North had dropped a snide comment about Scottish poverty, which Eglinton took up; he ‘allowed the Scottish nation to be poor, and therefore unable to pay the malt tax’.<sup>41</sup> After a long debate in which Scottish arguments were countered by speakers on behalf of the administration, the motion was lost. When the malt bill was given its second reading in the Lords Eglinton divided in the minority against the motion. He also voted on 8 June, again on the losing side, to deny a third reading, and signed the protest which said that extending the tax to Scotland in wartime was a violation of the Treaty of Union.<sup>42</sup> Despite this he was estimated by Oxford a likely supporter of the French treaty of commerce in mid-June.</p><p>Eglinton remained in the House until 16 July 1713, but with a general election looming, and his wife’s health requiring a change of air, he was eager to return to Scotland.<sup>43</sup> On 1 Aug. Balmerino told a Jacobite correspondent that ‘Eglinton is this evening taking leave of the queen. He goes off on Monday and is very keen for a high Tory election to enable the queen to reduce faction at home (these are the words of the queen’s speech). He said he longs to talk with you on this subject’.<sup>44</sup> He was unable to do much in Ayrshire, where his cousin John Montgomerie, who had become an Argyllite, was returned again without any attention being paid to Eglinton’s opinion; nor did he prevent the re-election of a Whig in Renfrewshire, where he was hereditary sheriff. <sup>45</sup> He was, however, re-elected himself without opposition as a representative peer.<sup>46</sup> An analysis of the election returns assessed Eglinton as a Jacobite.</p><p>Oxford’s failure to pay the salaries of the commissioners of chamberlainry resulted in several representative peers on the commission, including Eglinton, delaying their journey to Parliament until after the session had begun.<sup>47</sup> The ministry was well aware that Eglinton had other financial ‘pretensions’, namely ‘the old £500’, and that without gratification his support could not be counted on. Mar had indeed warned Oxford the previous autumn that Eglinton was ‘peevish’, though only requiring ‘a few fair words and the performance of that thing you promised him’ to restore his good humour.<sup>48</sup> For whatever reason, Eglinton’s parliamentary activity diminished sharply in this session. He failed to take his place until 15 Mar. 1714, a month into the session, and was in all present on 58 per cent of sitting days. He was forecast as likely to support the schism bill, and solicited for the bill to resume bishops’ rents in Scotland (designed to provide relief for Episcopalian ministers who could not avail themselves of the provisions of the toleration). Unhappy that ministers were seeking to frustrate the bill, and had persuaded Queen Anne against it, he went to court to press the case, though without success. Lockhart recorded how Eglinton told the queen that:</p><blockquote><p>he was sorry to hear her majesty gave any credit to representations which had been made of the power and inclination of the Scots Presbyterians; that they wished destruction to her and her family was true enough, but, God be thanked, they could not effectuate it, and he could assure her Majesty, she had no reason to be the least apprehensive of them. The queen answered, she was told his lordship was violently bent against them, and had a great aversion to them. He replied, if zeal for the crown deserved such a construction, he owned it, but at the same time he did not doubt but perhaps her majesty might have heard another part of his character, viz. that he loved his money very well, and if that was true, nobody would imagine he would press a measure which would probably raise a rebellion, and consequently lay his estate waste, as it was situated in the most Presbyterian country of Scotland; but as that gave him an opportunity to know these people better than others did he would pawn his life and honour that they could not and dare not give her majesty the smallest disturbance on account of any measure she was pleased to set on foot.<sup>49</sup></p></blockquote><p>In general, however, he seems to have been more concerned to secure some further preferment, possibly as governor of Edinburgh castle.<sup>50</sup> Findlater simply noted that Eglinton ‘expects what was promised’.<sup>51</sup> By the time he left London in June he had received a warrant for the payment of £1,000 from the Scottish treasury, as a result of which his manner was said to be ‘dry, submissive and patient’.<sup>52</sup></p><p>Eglinton was not re-elected as a representative peer under the Hanoverians and remained a strong Tory. He had long been targeted by Scottish Jacobites as a potential recruit, and in January 1715 was suspected of having influenced other peers into supporting anti-Union addresses, but when it came to armed rebellion he proved a broken reed. <sup>53</sup> Against Lockhart’s claim that Eglinton gave 3,000 guineas to help effect a Stuart restoration, and evidence that he ‘was at a meeting of the Jacobites where the rebellion, as to the manner of carrying it out, was concerted, and heard all their proposals’, has to be set the fact that when the fighting started he helped raise the Ayrshire fencibles for the government. By 1717, ‘melancholy and chagrined in his temper’, he was once again promising money for the Jacobite cause, and soon afterwards was approached by the Pretender. While making coded professions of loyalty, he stopped short of commitment, arguing that circumstances were unfavourable for an invasion.<sup>54</sup> Thereafter it seems to have been accepted by Scottish Jacobites that, although sympathetic, he was too cautious to be an active conspirator.</p><p>He died at Eglinton on 18 Feb.1729, ‘to the great surprise’ and grief of his family. The necessity of providing for a quiver of daughters, and the irrevocable loss of government favour, meant that he left his estate indebted to the tune of £18,000.<sup>55</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
MURRAY, John (1660-1724) |
<p><strong><surname>MURRAY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1660–1724)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1676-96 Ld. Murray; <em>cr. </em>27 July 1696 earl of Tullibardine [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 6 May 1703 as 2nd mq. of Atholl [S]; <em>cr. </em>30 June 1703 duke of ATHOLL [S] |
RP [S] 1710–15 |
First sat 18 Dec. 1710; last sat 21 Oct. 1714 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 24 Feb. 1660, 1st s. of John Murray, mq. of Atholl [S], and Amelia, da. of James Stanley<sup>†</sup>, 7th earl of Derby; bro. of Ld. Charles Murray<sup>‡</sup> and Ld. James Murray<sup>‡</sup>. <em>m</em>. (1) 24 May 1683, Katherine (<em>d</em>. 9 or 10 Jan. 1707),<sup>1</sup> da. of William Hamilton (formerly Douglas), 3rd duke of Hamilton [S] and earl of Selkirk [S], and sis. of Charles Douglas*, (formerly Hamilton) 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], and James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] and duke of Brandon, 7s. (4 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 6da. (<em>5 d.v.p</em>.); (2) contract 26 June 1710 (with 25,000 merks), Mary (<em>d</em>. 1767), da. of William Ross<sup>†</sup>, 12th Ld. Ross [S], 4s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.) 3da. (2 <em>d.v.p</em>.). KT 7 Feb. 1704. <em>d</em>. 14 Nov. 1724.<sup>2</sup></p> |
<p>Commr. inquiry into Glencoe massacre [S] 1693, auditing accts. of treasury [S] 1695, exch. [S] 1696–8, justiciary, Highlands [S], 1697–aft. 1702, visitation of univs. [S] 1697; jt. sec. of state [S] 1696–8; PC [S] 1696–8, 1702–4, PC 1712–14; ld. high commr. to parl. [S] 1696–8, to gen. assembly Ch. of Scotland 1712, 1713, 1714; ld. privy seal [S] 1703–4, 1713–14; extraordinary ld. of session 1712–<em>d</em>.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Capt. of ft. Perth militia 1682; commr. supply, Perths. and Fife 1690; sheriff Perth 1695–<em>d.</em>; ld. lt. Perth 1715–<em>d</em>.; stewart principal, Fife by 1709.<sup>4</sup></p><p>Col. of ft. [S] 1694-97.</p><p>Chan. St Andrews Univ. 1697–<em>d</em>.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by T. Murray, Blair Castle, Blair Atholl; oil on canvas, circle of John Medina, National Trust for Scotland, Haddo House.</p> |
<p align="left">Throughout his political career Atholl sat astride two horses: on the one hand he was a clan chieftain (known as ‘Ian Cam’ because blind in one eye), who lived ‘like a sovereign prince’ in his Highland castles, surrounded by ‘his degrees of gentlemen’, Catholic and Episcopalian followers whose loyalties were strongly Jacobite; on the other (impelled by acute financial need), he pursued ministerial ambitions in post-Revolution Edinburgh, which necessitated presenting himself as a Presbyterian and a Williamite.<sup>5</sup> While his father harboured Episcopalian sympathies, Murray’s first wife was a devout Presbyterian, and her powerful influence seems to have brought him over to the Kirk, though he retained his family’s links with Episcopalian clergy.<sup>6</sup> By January 1710 (after his first wife’s death) he was assessed by at least one observer as a ‘professed’ Episcopalian.<sup>7</sup> In the great crises over the succession the Murrays were divided, taking opposite sides at the Revolution and during the Fifteen, either because of genuine differences of principle, or, as some historians have argued, as a calculated policy designed to preserve family power. Atholl, then styled Lord Murray supported the prince of Orange in 1688 while his brother Dunmore stood by James II; later he remained loyal to the Hanoverians while his son fought for the Pretender. To maintain this difficult course required a combination of talents, and Atholl possessed a capacity for leadership, a forceful parliamentary presence, and the requisite levels of cunning and deviousness, which seemed to coexist comfortably with a stern moralistic streak. But he was also hot-tempered, and prone to allow his emotions to govern his conduct. As Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, put it, ‘he is of a very proud, fiery, partial disposition; does not want sense, but chokes himself with passion; which he is easily wound up to, when he speaks in public assemblies, where his quality always makes him heard’.<sup>8</sup> From the other end of the political spectrum, the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> offered a similar opinion: Atholl ‘was endow’d with good natural parts, tho’ by reason of his proud, imperious, haughty, passionate temper, he was no ways capable to be the leading man of a party, which he aimed at’.<sup>9</sup></p><p align="left">Having stood by King William in 1689, while many of his clansmen fought on the Jacobite side, Lord Murray was rewarded with local office and in 1694 with his own regiment. This was not commensurate with his own opinion of his merits. However, after extensive lobbying, and with the assistance of his brother-in-law, Hamilton, he was made one of the secretaries of state in Scotland in 1696, with a pension of £1,000 a year, and commissioner to the Scottish Parliament. He was also named to the Scottish Privy Council by virtue of his office and raised to the peerage as earl of Tullibardine in his own right. After two years, friction with the other magnates in the Scottish administration, in particular James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], cost him his offices (his regiment had already been disbanded in 1697), and he joined Hamilton in opposition. His alienation from government was increased by disgust at the failure of the Darien scheme, of which he was an enthusiastic supporter, so that by the end of William’s reign he was one of the most prominent figures in the ‘country party’ opposition headed by Hamilton.<sup>10</sup> When the existing Scottish parliament was continued after Queen Anne’s accession, without a new election, he joined Hamilton’s boycott of the short session of June 1702. The English ministers then sought to buy him off with nomination as lord privy seal in April 1703, and reappointment to the Privy Council. Rumours of his appointment as privy seal and of his brother being made governor of Edinburgh Castle had circulated since the close of the previous year. This was partially successful, inducing him to break with Hamilton, but without similar advancement for his ‘friends’ he remained dissatisfied.<sup>11</sup></p><p align="left">The root of the problem was his relationship with Queensberry, now the dominant influence in the court party: a natural rivalry between magnates, exacerbated by mistrust and personal dislike, which put Atholl constantly on the watch for a slight. Just before the new Parliament met on 6 May 1703 his father died and he became 2nd marquess. Queensberry informed him that the queen had signed a patent to raise the marquessate of Atholl to a dukedom. Atholl expected this to proceed, but was suspicious, and having asked Queensberry directly if there were any other such patents pending, he was told that there was also a patent for the marquessate of Douglas, which Queensberry believed should have priority. Atholl complained of ill treatment, even though his own patent for the dukedom passed on 30 June. <sup>12</sup> While the lord chancellor, James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], later 4th earl of Findlater [S], tried to reassure the English lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, that Atholl could still be brought to ‘do the queen service’, Queensberry disagreed: ‘I am still afraid that he has an eye to his old friends and inclines to keep a door open there’. <sup>13</sup></p><p align="left">It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and Atholl proved a thorn in Queensberry’s side. He created problems in the preparations for the Parliament and when the session began moved for the establishment of a committee of accounts, against Queensberry’s wishes. In the debate over supply, he seconded Seafield’s attempts to divert the thrust of the country party’s demand that priority be given to laws for securing Scotland’s religion, laws, liberties and trade. This too aroused Queensberry’s anger, as it did not fit with his plans, but Seafield once more came to Atholl’s defence. On 7 July 1703 Atholl supported his colleagues in rejecting a resolution proposed by Hamilton, that the act of security should include limitations on the power of the crown. But he ran into problems when he proposed amending a similar clause presented by John Ker*, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe. Atholl’s proposal was that ‘the limitations should not be confined to this session of Parliament, but to any other Parliament ... by which means ... we had the best handle whenever they were insisted on this session of parliament to put them off to another.’ However, Queensberry wanted to bring in a clause for a communication of trade with England, which he thought would be so popular that the question of limitations would be forgotten. Atholl at first acquiesced, but when it was suggested that he present this clause himself he drew back, suspecting that he would be blamed if it failed. He still spoke for it, and went with Seafield to the cavaliers, ‘to persuade them to go along with us’, but in the end the new clause was combined with Roxburghe’s resolution and Atholl had to vote for limitations after all. This he felt was a personal embarrassment, for which he blamed Queensberry.<sup>14</sup> The remainder of the session saw the court lurching from one failure to another. When Queensberry refused the royal assent to the act of security, any prospect of a supply vanished, and he adjourned the Parliament.<sup>15</sup> Hamilton was delighted, believing that Atholl had played a decisive part in forcing this decision, while Queensberry was furious.<sup>16</sup> That same month (October 1703) Atholl journeyed to London to make political capital from Queensberry’s failure.<sup>17</sup> He gave the queen an account of the session and suggested a restructuring of the Scottish ministry. Queensberry was his prime target, since he felt that the duke ‘had most malicious designs not only against me, but several of my friends in Scotland’.<sup>18</sup></p><p align="left">Suspicions focused on Queensberry’s dealings with the notorious Jacobite Simon Fraser,11th Lord Lovat [S] in the so-called ‘Scotch Plot’. Atholl not only complained to the queen that Queensberry was intriguing against him, but set about ‘publishing ... it to the world’.<sup>19</sup> His sense of grievance against Queensberry was to prove almost ineradicable. In a parliamentary debate in 1705 he returned to the Plot, and ‘very handsomely narrated the beginning, progress and conclusion of the whole affair, illustrated the design of it, whence it had its rise, and who were the promoters of it, and accused the duke of Queensberry of endeavouring to give the queen bad impressions of her good subjects’. Queensberry’s conduct was ‘villainous, false and scandalous and not to be tolerated in a well-governed kingdom’.<sup>20</sup></p><p align="left">Atholl was back in Edinburgh at the beginning of May 1704 when he and Seafield were involved in the establishment of the ‘New Party’ administration. Although he wrote to John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], to express his satisfaction at this turn of events and the hope that ‘your lordship has secured honest men being in the government, and that the enemies to our country and all good men be laid aside, particularly the duke of Queensberry’, his relationship with the ‘New Party’ (or Squadrone Volante, as it became known) was fraught.<sup>21</sup> When Atholl was sent by them to solicit Hamilton’s support, his brother-in-law commented: ‘I see it’s with a design to ensnare him. If he does not they will press him to break with me or turn him out’.<sup>22</sup> Indeed, the possibility of Atholl’s dismissal was seriously considered during the summer. This was largely owing to Atholl himself, who complained that he was kept in the dark about policy-making, and joined with Hamilton to frustrate Tweeddale’s schemes.<sup>23</sup> According to Godolphin, who described Atholl as being ‘at the head of all oppositions’, the queen now saw him as an obstacle to her Scottish policy. As soon as the session was over he was dismissed.<sup>24</sup></p><p align="left">Henceforth Atholl was in declared opposition alongside Hamilton. This extended to a vigorous, though unsuccessful, campaign in the 1705 parliamentary session to prevent Parliament from agreeing to negotiations for a union treaty, despite the blandishments of the court party, and despite the fact that Atholl himself stood to gain financially from a union, through the economic opportunities that would become available to the linen manufacture in his locality. Some historians have attributed his resolution in part to the influence of his wife, herself a determined anti-unionist.<sup>25</sup> But his strategy was not one she would have endorsed, for exploiting his Jacobite connections he had assumed leadership of the cavalier faction.<sup>26</sup> According to Lockhart, Atholl was trying his best to identify himself with the Jacobite interest in the kingdom at large, expressing a willingness to ‘enter into... the most desperate measures’ to obstruct the Union and the Hanoverian succession’.<sup>27</sup> Lockhart found it impossible to trust him, however. There was much sabre-rattling but little action. When the news reached Scotland in the summer of 1706 of the conclusion of the Union treaty Atholl mustered his ‘fencibles’ at Huntingtower, a manoeuvre he repeated over the winter.<sup>28</sup> The following year, the Jacobite agent Colonel Hooke was assured by Jacobite sympathizers of Atholl’s good intentions, though without being vouchsafed a personal audience. Moreover, communications from the duke always counselled caution.<sup>29</sup></p><p align="left">Atholl’s opposition to the ratification of the Union was uncompromising, both inside and outside Parliament. He mobilized protests from Perthshire and Fife, and backed the campaign for a national address.<sup>30</sup> Before parliament opened he refused Queensberry the usual courtesy of dining with him (as the queen’s commissioner), and at the outset of the autumn 1706 session he tried various delaying tactics. First, he demanded that the English Parliament pay compensation for the losses of the Company of Scotland; then he turned his attention to the danger to the Kirk establishment.<sup>31</sup> This was indicative of the double game he was playing in ecclesiastical affairs, seeking good relations with Presbyterians by patronizing their ministers, while at the same time transmitting to government complaints ‘of the severities of the Presbyterians in several shires against the Episcopal clergy’.<sup>32</sup> Finally, when the articles came under discussion he opposed them all, indulging in extravagant rhetoric: the treaty was ‘contrary to the honour, interest, fundamental laws and constitution of the kingdom’, and while there were a hundred Scotsmen left alive they would resist it. In the debates of 18 Nov. he proposed an amendment to the third article, whereby it would be a requirement of the treaty that once every three years Parliament would meet in Scotland. The proposal was let fall after brief discussion.<sup>33</sup> Hamilton’s occasional flinching from the same course of adamantine resistance revived tensions between the brothers-in-law. Atholl himself, though, was not above making secret advances to the Squadrone, or, once the Union had passed, securing out of the Equivalent the arrears of salary he had been pursuing since his dismissal. These amounted to £1,500, though most of this money might have been used to settle a debt to his brother Dunmore, who had voted for ratification.<sup>34</sup></p><p align="left">Atholl reacted badly to the death of his first wife in January 1707, and retired from public life, spending much of the next 18 months at Blair Castle preoccupied with his own health.<sup>35</sup> Further tragedy was to strike the family in September 1709, when his eldest son, an army officer, was killed at Malplaquet. Before that, in March 1708, he was implicated in the unsuccessful attempt to raise a Jacobite rebellion in Scotland when one of his footmen was arrested with incriminating correspondence. Atholl was cited to appear before the Privy Council at Edinburgh, but, arguing that he was too ill to travel, he was able to reach an agreement to be held under guard at Blair Castle in return for helping the court party in the forthcoming election.<sup>36</sup> Hamilton complained that Atholl was ‘quite wrong and working with all his might for... Queensberry’s interest’ in parliamentary elections.<sup>37</sup> Atholl’s deputy in Perthshire was accused by one of the opposing candidates of ‘bringing in a great many people to vote who were never understood to have right to do so before’.<sup>38</sup> But he was still resentful at being treated worse than others in custody; in particular, that troops were billeted in his house and he was kept a prisoner there, not allowed bail. The Hamiltons tried to take advantage, and made several approaches to him, promising his early release through the duke’s influence with the government if he would vote in the peers’ election for the joint list that Hamilton had agreed with the Squadrone.<sup>39</sup> Atholl was left trying to accomplish another of the balancing acts which characterized his political conduct. Eventually he sent Hamilton his proxy for the election which was delivered in by Orkney. He divided his list between Hamilton and the court, explaining to his brother-in-law that he had felt obliged to vote for ‘persons who have done me particular favours.’<sup>40</sup> At the same time, writing to Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], he deplored Hamilton’s alliance with the Squadrone, which Atholl deemed another example of his ‘unaccountable’ behaviour, and acknowledged a debt to Queensberry.<sup>41</sup> The balancing act worked: his mixed list in the peers’ election was thought by Mar to be ‘pretty odd’, but was not construed as a violation of their agreement, and early in July his appeal for bail was granted. <sup>42</sup></p><p align="left">Although Atholl privately pressed a claim for monetary compensation for his ill-treatment in 1708 (a grievance he nursed for many years), it was only after his second marriage in the summer of 1710 that he once more took an active part in public affairs.<sup>43</sup> The breach with Hamilton was evidently still unbridged, and late in September he was still not committing himself to stand as a representative peer.<sup>44</sup> Arriving in Edinburgh for the election he informed the dowager duchess of Hamilton that ‘I wrote a letter to the queen, which some other peers near signed with me, in which we gave her Majesty assurances to support her and the monarchy and that we would show such peers as would do so’.<sup>45</sup> This seems to have been a tactic to push the new ministry towards backing distinctively Tory candidates in Scotland. For a time his own prospects seemed to be deteriorating as his support amongst the cavaliers waned and he struggled to secure the co-operation of Hamilton and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (earl of Greenwich). But suddenly an agreement was reached and Hamilton’s brother, Orkney, wrote that ‘Atholl... is now very easy and goes along entirely in the measures the duke of Argyll and brother Hamilton has laid down.’<sup>46</sup> Atholl’s account was rather different, namely that Hamilton ‘gave me all the satisfaction I could desire as to the mistakes had happened betwixt us, and owned at the meeting of peers that he had been in the wrong to me’.<sup>47</sup> Atholl attended the election and was duly elected as a representative peer, being classified by the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain as an ‘Episc[opal] Tory’, with an estate valued at £2,000 a year.<sup>48</sup> Another analysis drawn up soon after the election classed him as a Jacobite.</p><p align="left">Atholl did not take his seat in the Lords until 18 Dec. 1710 (just over a month after the opening). He was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days in the session and it was only in the new year that there is any evidence of his activity. As soon as he came to London he sought to raise the issue of the 1708 arrests, complaining in particular about his own ‘hard usage’, but was advised by the queen that ‘it was very unfit at this time, so that it was laid aside’.<sup>49</sup> On 2 Jan. 1711 he was named to the committee for the address and during the next two months he was named to the committees considering the war in Spain. He also worked to delay consideration of the appeal of the Episcopalian minister, James Greenshields, against his conviction by the Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy. Canvassing by Scottish members of the Commons for Greenshields made little impact on Atholl, who ‘showed himself very friendly this session to the Church of Scotland’. He abstained from the crucial division on 1 Mar. but his decision to remain in his seat meant that in effect he voted against Greenshields.<sup>50</sup> Despite that, on 20 Mar. he was said to have been one of two peers to make a point of expressing ‘themselves much grieved with the behaviour of their countryman’ towards William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle (one of Greenshields’s principal supporters), over his (Nicolson’s) case then before the Commons.<sup>51</sup> On 9 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the safety of the queen’s person. Atholl was then named a manager of several conferences in May, first on the bill for repairing the highway between Dunstable and Hockley and then for the series of four conferences concerning the bill for preservation of game. Towards the end of the month he conveyed to Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford, the Commons’ votes relating to Colonel Charteris and took the opportunity at the same time to remind Oxford that he hoped to secure a place for his son in the Guards.<sup>52</sup> His final intervention in this session came on 1 June when he opposed extending the bill which prohibited the export of Scottish linen and flax, to include Ireland.<sup>53</sup></p><p align="left">By the close of the session Atholl was thoroughly discontented with the unsatisfactory level of reward he had received for backing the ministry. In April the queen had agreed to act as godmother to the first child of his second marriage, and he afterwards received a gift of gilt plate worth £100. <sup>54</sup> But he remained dissatisfied with ministers’ failure to reward him as promised. He complained at being kept in town after Parliament had risen for longer than he thought necessary and reminded Oxford pointedly of his ‘constant... support’ in the Lords as well as of his offer ‘in conjunction with the clans, of so considerable a body of our men, to serve the queen’.<sup>55</sup> The duchess of Marlborough’s confidant, Arthur Maynwaring<sup>‡</sup>, noted four Scots peers ‘pretenders to be Scotch secretaries’, one of them being Atholl, and remarked on each candidate’s hunger to be satisfied.<sup>56</sup></p><p align="left">In November 1711 Atholl refused to come to London ‘unless he be employed in the queen’s service’, pleading poverty: ‘he has not money of his own to spend there’.<sup>57</sup> The following month his name appeared on one of Oxford’s lists, which may have been an indication of his expected support for the ministry. He missed the beginning of the following session, arriving in London at the end of January 1712.<sup>58</sup> Even then he did not take his seat until 27 February. He was present thereafter on just 15 per cent of all sitting days. Probably for personal reasons, he did not participate in the Scottish peers’ agitation against the Lords’ ruling that Hamilton was ineligible to sit in the House by virtue of his British peerage title as duke of Brandon. When Hamilton demanded that the queen dismiss her secretary of state, William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, for voting against him, Atholl visited Dartmouth with reassurances of his own goodwill.<sup>59</sup> Naturally, he took care to appear more sympathetic to Hamilton when writing to the dowager duchess, but merely advised her to trust in Providence: He ‘that brought light out of darkness that covers the whole earth can yet bring light out of the dark and confusion that Scot[land] is now trusted with’.<sup>60</sup> Atholl quit the session after 12 Apr. and on 19 Apr, registered his proxy with Mar. That month he was appointed commissioner to the general assembly of the Kirk. Although there had been rumours the preceding year that he was actively soliciting the appointment, it seems he was not enthusiastic about accepting it on this occasion. This was presumably because of Presbyterian resentment at the pro-Episcopalian legislation introduced at Westminster, which prompted instructions from the queen that he should if possible ‘divert’, but on no account attempt directly to suppress, protests.<sup>61</sup> As a sweetener, he was promised appointment as an extraordinary lord of session, and when it was clear that he had carried out his duties to satisfaction he immediately sought to capitalize on royal and ministerial goodwill, calling in the promised preferment, which was accompanied by nomination to the British privy council, and adding a claim for extra expenses beyond the £700 allowance.<sup>62</sup> He was, however, concerned at the drift of Oxford’s policy more generally, and drew up a memorandum of ‘some things concerning Scotland to be represented to the lord treasurer’, drawing on his particular local knowledge. He feared that the Scottish people were still not reconciled to the Union, and drew attention not only to the grievance over the Hamilton peerage case, but also the failure to protect Scottish trade, both legislatively and practically, and the general neglect of Scottish business: what was wanted, above all, was ‘some face of a government in Scotland’.<sup>63</sup> He may also have been concerned by the conduct of the war as he appeared on a list of those thought to have voted on 28 May in favour of requesting an address to the queen seeking to overturn the orders restraining James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, from engaging in an offensive war against the French. Atholl was absent from the chamber so cannot have voted in person. His proxy-holder, Mar was also one of those thought to have voted that way, though on that occasion proxies were not called for.<sup>64</sup></p><p align="left">Hamilton’s death in November 1712 offered Atholl an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership among the other Scots peers. Following the election of James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S], in Hamilton’s place in January 1713, Atholl called a series of meetings in Edinburgh to draw up a list of the Scots peers’ grievances. His first draft met with little support, though, and he undertook to produce another in time for the next meeting.<sup>65</sup> Atholl travelled to London the following month and was present on two prorogation days in March but having taken his seat on the opening day of the new session attended on just four more days before returning to Edinburgh in April as commissioner to the General Assembly. There, using his political skill, he once again managed to head off trouble in the Kirk.<sup>66</sup> Atholl appears to have been disinclined to serve in the assembly again, so to persuade him to accept the post, he was paid £600 above the standard allowance. In addition, in April he was restored to his former office as lord privy seal.<sup>67</sup> Thus he absented himself from the debates over the motion to repeal the Union, despite being pressed to attend by Scottish friends.<sup>68</sup> He had been listed after the election as a likely supporter of the ministry, and was later forecast as likely to vote for the French commerce bill, but was probably not in the House to vote. During the summer he received his first payment as lord privy seal, amounting to a full year’s salary.<sup>69</sup></p><p align="left">Having been re-elected a representative peer, Atholl sent Oxford his proxy in January 1714 (though it does not appear to have been registered at that time) and on 15 Feb. told his mother-in-law that he was on his way to London.<sup>70</sup> An analysis of the Scots peers returned at the election listed Atholl, perhaps misleadingly, as a Jacobite, though Sarah duchess of Marlborough had certainly noted her conviction in the summer of 1713 that Atholl was ‘for the p[rince] of W[ales]’.<sup>71</sup> He took his seat a week into the new Parliament on 23 Feb. after which he attended on a quarter of all sitting days. He received the proxy of his nephew, John Murray*, 2nd earl of Dunmore [S], on 17 March. He quit the session a month later on 14 Apr. and registered his own proxy with Dunmore two days later. He was once again in Edinburgh for the assembly in April and early May, and does not seem to have returned, though forecast as likely to vote for the schism bill. By August he was at Blair Castle, writing to the dowager duchess of Hamilton that ‘the queen’s sudden death is a great loss to these nations ... It is a mercy that we have a Protestant king to succeed her’.<sup>72</sup> He then appeared in the House on 21 Oct. as Parliament was prorogued for the last time before the dissolution.</p><p align="left">Atholl lost his major offices with the Hanoverian succession, even if his loyalty to the new dynasty kept him in power locally. His political career was over, however, and he did not sit in Parliament again, devoting himself to improving his estates.<sup>73</sup> His eldest surviving son, heir apparent to the dukedom, having fled to France after being out in the ’Fifteen, Atholl obtained an act of Parliament in 1715 to vest his titles and estates in his second surviving son, James Murray<sup>†</sup>, later 2nd duke of Atholl [S], who went on to be returned to Parliament first as a member of the Commons and latterly as a representative peer.</p><p>Atholl died at Huntingtower 14 Nov. 1724 and was buried at Dunkeld. A broadsheet mourned the ‘Highland hero’, presenting a stereotypical scene with his vassals dropping their claymores to howl wildly on hearing the melancholy news.<sup>74</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
MURRAY, John (1685-1752) |
<p><strong><surname>MURRAY</surname></strong>, <strong>John</strong> (1685–1752)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1704-10 Visct. Fincastle; <em>suc. </em>fa. 19 Apr. 1710 as 2nd earl of DUNMORE [S] |
RP [S] 1713–15, 1727–52 |
First sat 16 Feb. 1714; last sat 10 Nov. 1747 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 31 Oct. 1685, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Charles Murray, earl of Dunmore [S] (2nd s. of John Murray, mq. of Atholl [S]), and Catherine, da. of Richard Watts of Great Munden, Herts.; bro. of Robert Murray<sup>‡</sup>. <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 18 Apr. 1752; <em>will</em> 6 Sept.–10 Oct. 1751; pr. 23 Apr.–4 June 1752.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of bedchamber, 1731–<em>d</em>.</p><p>Ens. 1704, capt. 1705-13 R. regt. of ft.; col. 3rd Ft. 1713; maj.-gen. 1735; lt.-gen. 1739; gen. of ft. and c.-in-c. allied armies in Austrian Netherlands 1745; kt. banneret 1743; gov. Plymouth and St Nicholas Island, Devon 1745.</p> |
|
<p>Murray’s father, an army officer and master of horse to Mary of Modena, lost his regiment at the Revolution and during the 1690s suffered several terms of imprisonment on strong suspicion of Jacobitism. However, he turned his coat in 1703, abandoning the ‘cavaliers’ for the Scottish court party, an act of apostasy which earned him condemnation by the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>‡</sup> as a ‘wretch of the greatest ingratitude’. Lockhart considered the first earl’s desertion ‘inexcusable, [he] having about £500 a year of his own, and yet sold his honour for a present which the queen had yearly given his lady since the Revolution’.<sup>3</sup> Support for the Union earned Dunmore the immediate sum of £200 in payment of non-existent arrears, and appointment to the captaincy of Blackness castle.<sup>4</sup> Meanwhile, he secured a commission for John, his younger son (the subject of this piece), in the regiment of Scots Guards commanded by George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], under whom John (styled Lord Fincastle after the death of his elder brother) saw action at Blenheim and served subsequently in successive campaigns in Flanders. Over the next few years the earl of Dunmore repeatedly pressed John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, for promotion for his son, ‘at least’ to a lieutenant colonelcy and ideally as ‘one of your grace’s aide-de-camps’.<sup>5</sup> Since direct application to Marlborough failed to produce the desired result, Dunmore sought the intercession of the lord treasurer, Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, while his wife appealed to the duchess of Marlborough.<sup>6</sup> Marlborough repeatedly found reasons why acceding to these supplications was impossible, while professing the highest regard for Fincastle.<sup>7</sup> </p><p>Murray succeeded his father as 2nd earl of Dunmore in April 1710, and immediately asked for the vacant governorship of Blackness castle. This time Marlborough supported his pretensions, describing him as ‘a very sober, discreet young man’ and noting the family’s poor financial circumstances: ‘he is certainly left very ill’. It was Godolphin who, regretfully, raised difficulties: there were others with stronger claims, notably James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S].<sup>8</sup> Dunmore’s mother approached the duchess of Marlborough again but without success, and tried to counter one of Godolphin’s arguments that any governor would be expected to reside in Scotland. She insisted ‘there is no example of any governor in Scotland that does or ever did reside upon the place’.<sup>9</sup> Further disappointment followed: Dunmore’s uncle, John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], pushed for his inclusion on the court list for the election of representative peers but, according to John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar [S], ‘the queen did not seem to relish it’.<sup>10</sup> Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale), in soliciting votes for Dunmore paid him the backhanded compliment that he was ‘a very discreet youth and there will be many worse upon the list’.<sup>11</sup> Without sufficient backing Dunmore was overlooked, but he attended the peers’ election and voted for the court candidates.<sup>12</sup> Presumably because of his family, he was listed as a ‘professed Episcopalian’ and as attached to the interest of the duke of Hamilton (James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S] later duke of Brandon).<sup>13</sup> In 1712 he subscribed to a petition from Scottish peers on behalf of Hamilton’s claims to sit in the House of Lords by virtue of his British peerage.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In the autumn of 1711, presumably in response to an enquiry from Marlborough, Dunmore informed the duke coolly that ‘it is by the queen’s permission I have been absent from my company this summer, which I would not have been if the ill condition of my little private affairs had not obliged me to it. The queen has since prolonged my leave of absence’. This was a sign that all was not well between the two men, and helps explain a later comment by the duchess of Marlborough that ‘after I was out of my place it is tedious and monstrous to repeat what… Lord Dunmore did to me after having advanced him by the Duke of Marlborough’s interest’. He never visited her, and ‘would meet me without so much as making me a bow, but in a very rude way looked at me without taking any notice of me’.<sup>15</sup> By 1713 Dunmore had hitched his wagon to a different military star, John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] (who sat in the Lords as earl of Greenwich), a move which finally brought him command of his regiment.<sup>16</sup></p><p>On 8 Oct. 1713 Dunmore was unanimously elected as one of the representative peers.<sup>17</sup> He took his seat on 16 Feb. 1714 and attended the two sessions of this Parliament, for 70 per cent and 60 per cent of sittings respectively. In an analysis of the new intake, he was listed as a Jacobite. This was almost certainly in reference to his family background rather than his present convictions; however, it should be noted that he exchanged proxies with Atholl, registering his own with his uncle on 17 Mar. (vacated two days later) and receiving Atholl’s on 16 Apr. (which was vacated by the end of the session). He hosted his compatriot and fellow representative peer, John Cochrane*, 4th earl of Dundonald [S], who was as yet ‘not fixed in a house’.<sup>18</sup> In May he was forecast by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as likely to support the schism bill. After Queen Anne’s death, he took the oaths again on 4 Aug. 1714. He attended nine days of the brief 15 day session, sitting for the last time in this Parliament on 21 Aug., but later served as a representative peer under George II. A loyal Argathelian, contrary to earlier estimates of his convictions, he opposed the Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745. His career after 1715 will be examined in the next volume of this work.</p><p>Dunmore died in London on 18 Apr. 1752 and was buried in Stanwell, Middlesex, an estate he purchased in 1720. He never married, although Lady Mary Wortley Montagu alleged that he cohabited for many years with Mary, Lady Lansdown (<em>d</em>. 1735). He was succeeded in the peerage by his next brother, William Murray, an active Jacobite, as 3rd earl of Dunmore [S]. His younger brother Robert<sup>‡</sup> was elected to the Commons in 1722 and sat until 1738 as a government supporter.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
OGILVY, James (1663-1730) |
<p><strong><surname>OGILVY</surname></strong>, <strong>James</strong> (1663–1730)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>24 June 1698 Visct. Seafield [S]; <em>cr. </em>24 June 1701 earl of SEAFIELD [S]; <em>suc. </em>fa. 1711 as 4th earl of FINDLATER [S] |
RP [S] 1707–10, 1712–15, 1722–<em>d</em> |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 12 May 1730 |
|
MP [S], Cullen 1689–95 |
<p><em>b</em>. 11 July 1663, 2nd s. of James Ogilvy, 3rd earl of Findlater [S], and Anna, da. of Hugh Montgomerie, 7th earl of Eglinton [S]; bro. of Hon. Patrick Ogilvy<sup>‡</sup>. <em>educ</em>. privately (Patrick Innes); Aberdeen Univ. (Marischal Coll.) 1675, MA 1681; travelled abroad (Holland) 1682–3; adv. 16 Jan. 1685. <em>m</em>. June 1688, Anne (<em>d</em>. 14 Aug. 1708), da. of Sir William Dunbar, of Durn House, Portsoy, Banff, 3s. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 2da. (1 <em>d.v.p.</em>). Kntd. 1689; KT 17 Feb.1704. <em>d</em>. 15 Aug. 1730.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>King’s solicitor [S] 1693–6; commr. auditing accts. of treasury [S] 1695, exch. [S] 1696, 1698, justiciary for Highlands [S] 1697, visitation univs. [S] 1697, treasury [S] 1702–7, union with England 1702–3, 1706, equivalent 1707; jt. sec. of state [S] 1696–1702, 1704–5; PC [S] 1696–1708; pres. of parl. [S] 1698; ld. high commr. gen. assembly Ch. of Scotland 1700, 1703, 1724, 1727; ld. chan. [S] 1702–4, 1705–8; ld. treas. [S] 1705–7; PC 1707–14; ld. chief baron of exch. [S] Mar.–Dec. 1708; kpr. gt. seal [S] 1713–14.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commissary, Edinburgh, 1689–91; burgess, Edinburgh 1698; sheriff, Banff 1692–?1714.<sup>3</sup></p><p>FRS 1698.</p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J.B. De Medina, 1695, National Galleries of Scotland, PG1064; oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, c.1700, R. Coll. of Surgeons, Edinburgh.</p> |
<p>A pragmatist who naturally gravitated to government, James Ogilvy, 4th earl of Findlater and 1st earl of Seafield, was a shrewd and subtle politician and also a capable man of business, qualities which made him perennially attractive to English ministers and thus a permanent feature of Scottish administrations in the reigns of William III and Anne. In the words of the Jacobite George Lockhart<sup>†</sup>, ‘he was finely accomplished ... but withal so entirely abandoned to serve the court measures, be they what they will, that he seldom or never consulted his own inclinations, but was a blank sheet of paper, which the court might fill up with what they pleased’.<sup>5</sup> Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, characterized him as one who ‘affects plainness, and sincerity in his conversation, but is not sincere; is very beautiful in his person, with a graceful behaviour, smiling countenance, and a soft tongue’.<sup>6</sup> Several Williamites shared this view; but there were others of a similar political kidney, including the influential Presbyterian divine William Carstares, with whom Ogilvy was able to forge an enduring personal friendship, and during his rise to prominence under King William he was unusual in being ‘well spoken of’ by all factions.<sup>7</sup></p><p>James Ogilvy did not become the heir to the earldom of Findlater until the death of his elder brother Walter in 1699.<sup>8</sup> As the younger son of an earl with limited resources, Ogilvy was ‘bred a lawyer’.<sup>9</sup> His material prospects improved following Walter’s conversion to Catholicism in 1688, when their father excluded Walter from the succession to the family estates.<sup>10</sup> During the 1689 convention, Ogilvy ‘said most about the crown being declared vacant’ and voted against the resolution that James VII had forfeited the crown.<sup>11</sup> Ogilvy does not seem to have especially marked himself out as part of the opposition, and his inclusion in a list of lords of session submitted by Sir James Montgomerie of Skelmorlie to James VII, to take office should the Montgomerie plot succeed, was a reflection of the broad base of the coalition Montgomerie sought to form rather than a sign of Ogilvy’s commitment to Jacobitism. Ogilvy reinvented himself as a ‘Revolutioner’, became sheriff of Banffshire in 1692, and was brought into government in 1693 by secretary of state James Johnston<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>12</sup> He explained to his father in a letter of 28 Feb. that he and his neighbours in Banffshire must understand that he would ‘look to the king’s interest so long as I am sheriff’ and in another of 29 Mar. that his father could not expect money from his son to support his journey to Parliament unless he promised to ‘comply with the Presbyterian interest, and to concur with the circumstances of the times’.<sup>13</sup> At the end of 1695 he could write to the Presbyterian divine William Carstares asking him to express his ‘humble duty’ to Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, whom Carstares advised on political affairs, and that he was ‘entirely his lordship’s servant’.<sup>14</sup></p><p>In 1698, Ogilvy was appointed president of Parliament; in anticipation of his taking up this role he was created Viscount Seafield [S].<sup>15</sup> He pursued a policy of tolerating the opposition rather than always indulging the interests of his magnate allies James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], and Archibald Campbell, 10th earl (later duke) of Argyll [S], refusing to join them in submitting a list of opponents in Parliament of whom the king should make ‘examples’ because ‘I being his Majesty’s immediate servant, am unwilling to enter into any concert without his direction.’ He was anxious to assure the court that he knew his authority depended on royal patronage above the goodwill of his territorially powerful colleagues.<sup>16</sup> During 1699 he persuaded the chancellor, Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], of the merits of a union of Scotland and England, arguing for the benefits of efficient government and independence from magnate factions.<sup>17</sup> He distanced himself from the enthusiasm shown for the Darien scheme, for which he was remembered as ‘visibly against the interest of his country’.<sup>18</sup> On 12 July 1700, however, he intervened with William to secure the king’s good offices to help the returning Darien colonists led by Captain Robert Pincarton, who had been captured at sea, transported to Andalusia, tried and sentenced to death.<sup>19</sup> He subsequently emphasized the support of William for the development of Scottish trade in a letter to Carstares.<sup>20</sup> Seafield shared in the peerage promotions given to leading Scottish ministers in June 1701. His advancement to an earldom was justified to his father on the grounds that ‘Carmichael would needs be an earl, and my Lord Seafield was forced to take on too to keep his rank with him, being already a step before him.’<sup>21</sup></p><p>Seafield continued to prosper under Queen Anne: his management of the 1702 parliamentary session was rewarded in November by promotion to the lord chancellorship, followed by his appointment in 1703 as the queen’s commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland despite being ‘a person not very grateful to that [Presbyterian] party’.<sup>22</sup> Seafield distanced himself from the Presbyterian interest by forming a coalition between the court party and the cavaliers, traditional supporters of the Stuarts, which saw cavaliers replace Presbyterians on the Privy Council.<sup>23</sup> The strategy succeeded in removing doubts which lingered in Scotland over Parliaments beginning with the 1689 convention and the legality of Anne’s succession to the crown. However, it was seen as a failure in London, partly because Queensberry as lord high commissioner was unable to credibly reinvent himself as a patron of the court-cavalier alliance and fell back on Presbyterian support. Seafield’s relationship with the English ministry, headed by Sidney Godolphin*, Baron Godolphin (later earl of Godolphin), lord treasurer, and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, relied on his ability to deliver the political union of the two kingdoms.<sup>24</sup> Seafield subsequently distanced himself from Queensberry, along with other senior office holders including John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S], and George Mackenzie, earl of Cromarty [S] the three (amongst others) were made Knights of the Thistle following the end of the session, a sign of Anne’s continued support and of the isolation of Queensberry.<sup>25</sup> Also after the end of the session, Seafield pointed out in a memorandum the opportunities a fractured Scottish situation offered for a lasting settlement, by awarding places more broadly and (on more doubtful ground) reducing salaries as new appointments were made. Godolphin’s sense of the superiority of England’s wealth and governance was flattered at the same time as Seafield argued that the majority of Scottish opinion was ‘firm in [Revolution] principles’ on which ‘the security of the British government does now stand.’<sup>26</sup> By 2 Nov. 1703, Seafield was reputedly ‘more in favour at court than ever he was’.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Seafield’s frustration at the inability of the court party to win a majority in Parliament led him to see an opportunity in the visit of an opposition delegation to London in March 1704 drawn from the Presbyterian wing of the country party. This included John Ker*, 5th earl (later duke) of Roxburghe, John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes, and George Baillie<sup>‡</sup> of Jerviswood.<sup>28</sup> Seafield negotiated with Roxburghe and Baillie, while maintaining Queensberry in office until he was sure that a new administration could be formed. The strategy was documented in two sets of formal instructions to Seafield from the queen, both dated 5 Apr. 1704: one short and public urging the settlement of the succession on Sophia of Hanover and the employment of ‘men of quality and interest’; and another, longer, secret, set which authorized the reconstruction of the Scottish ministry under his correspondents’ candidate, John Hay*, 2nd marquess of Tweeddale [S], as commissioner, on the understanding that Tweeddale would carry the Protestant succession through Parliament and in exchange be allowed to impose limitations on the crown. <sup>29</sup></p><p>On 23 Apr. 1704, Seafield arrived in Edinburgh as chancellor making ‘the most splendid entry that has been seen here since the duke of York came down commissioner.’<sup>30</sup> Queensberry was dismissed at the end of May and Tweeddale appointed. Roxburghe and Rothes were incorporated into the ministry in October, Seafield at this point ceding the chancellor’s office to Tweeddale.<sup>31</sup> However, impasses over the Protestant succession and trade arrangements between the two kingdoms meant that this ministry would never meet Parliament. A solution emerged between Roxburghe, Seafield and Godolphin, to rearrange the Scottish ministry to include another faction alongside the ‘New Party’ of Roxburghe and his colleagues. By 11 Jan. 1705 Seafield had met Godolphin and Marlborough to explain a proposal developed with Roxburghe to make John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], commissioner. On 30 Jan. Roxburghe claimed to Baillie that Seafield was ‘prodigiously out of humour’, determined to resume the position of chancellor, and in danger of coalescing with Queensberry, but this may have been a ruse to ensure Baillie’s continued support for the project.<sup>32</sup> Godolphin supported Seafield’s return as chancellor and requested that he offer the commission to Argyll first ‘that you may have the government of him, as far as he is capable of being managed.’<sup>33</sup> Godolphin’s ominous caveat concerning Argyll proved well-judged; though for the time being Roxburghe’s description of Seafield as ‘the greatest villain in the world’ on 1 Feb. recognized that the new settlement was designed to give Seafield more political freedom and that he might shortly cast his New Party allies aside.<sup>34</sup></p><p>Seafield resumed the chancellorship on 9 Mar. 1705. Baillie recognized that the reconstruction was ‘wholly projected’ by Seafield. Seafield’s ambiguity and the selective information that he provided about both parties in correspondence allowed him to manipulate the situation in what he saw as the best interests of the administration as well as giving him the opportunity of distancing himself, if the arrangements collapsed.<sup>35</sup> On 24 Mar. he wrote to Godolphin that he found the New Party’s attitude to continuing in government ‘diffident’ as while they continued to express ‘a great deal of regard’ towards the queen, they were unwilling to act with the current lord high commissioner; yet failure to make terms with them would leave the government’s Scottish policy at the mercy of the opposition.<sup>36</sup> The same day, James Johnston<sup>‡</sup> wrote to Baillie that Seafield had realized too late that he could have exploited the stand-off between parties to allow for his own elevation as commissioner.<sup>37</sup> Seafield was quickly disillusioned by what he saw as Argyll’s excessive encouragement of aggrieved members of the old party and warned Godolphin that Argyll would not take his advice.<sup>38</sup> Roxburghe meanwhile wrote to Baillie that he should ensure that Seafield was ‘so dipped with us as that he may not be able to get off again’.<sup>39</sup></p><p>Seafield’s letters to Godolphin in April 1705 took the character of a primer on the dangers of government by party in Scotland as he sought to secure those in the old party who might ‘bring this kingdom to some settlement’ without also losing all of those who ‘push to have all the employments in their own hands’. His position on the continued service of the New Party was that he would ‘speak plainly’ to Argyll, and (in May) that he ‘heartily wish[ed] success whoever be employed, and my endeavour shall not be wanting to serve the queen.’<sup>40</sup> On 5 May Godolphin told Seafield that he should persuade the New Party to state their concurrence with government measures so that Argyll could not remove them as he intended.<sup>41</sup> Seafield was left balancing the need for a stable and inclusive ministry with the possibility that Argyll might resign if he did not get his own way, which would have left Seafield’s goal of a rapprochement with England, even if one short of union, more remote.<sup>42</sup> Seafield opted for Argyll, and the New Party was turned out of office in June despite the queen’s reported unhappiness both with the decision and with her own reliance on Argyll. Seafield’s reputation and freedom of manoeuvre were damaged and he recognized the need for Queensberry’s return from London to act as a more efficient limit on Argyll’s authority.<sup>43</sup></p><p>Seafield lauded his own limited successes such as the votes of 6 July 1705 concerning the settlement of the crown in the Protestant line: the servants of the crown and their supporters were not able to win the vote on limitations to be placed on a Protestant successor, but won that on proceeding by overtures rather than by resolves with the support of the New Party (now out of office and dubbed the Squadrone Volante) and Queensberry. Even so, Seafield told Godolphin that the crown was left weak in Parliament, the cavaliers were likely to succeed in reducing the crown’s income from customs, and that any treaty on the succession with England was likely to be hedged with preconditions.<sup>44</sup> By 18 July, Argyll had given up on any measure relating to the succession succeeding in that session of parliament; Seafield conceded to Godolphin that his management had been confounded.<sup>45</sup></p><h2><em>The Union, 1705-7</em></h2><p>Godolphin’s request that Seafield obtain any act that Parliament might agree to authorizing the negotiation of a treaty with England left Seafield dependent on Queensberry. On 31 July 1705 he summarized in Parliament his belief in a union with England based on four points: security of the Protestant religion; ‘trade and other advantages… which no other kingdom could afford’; and ‘freedom and liberty’. ‘I saw no other method for securing our peace, the two kingdoms being in the same island, and foreign assistance was both dangerous to ourselves and England.’<sup>46</sup> In the debates on the treaty, the rights of Parliament and the condition of the crown Seafield spoke of the chaos across Great Britain which would ensue if Parliament limited the royal prerogative, recalling the civil wars of the 1640s and the conquest of Scotland by Oliver Cromwell<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>47</sup> Seafield lost that argument, nomination of the Privy Council and officers of state being placed in the estates by a majority of 16.<sup>48</sup> More than ever, Seafield was dependent upon support from London, though on 28 Aug. the act for the treaty with England passed its first reading in part because of Squadrone abstentions gained through conversations with Roxburghe.<sup>49</sup> A vote on 31 Aug. was regarded by Seafield as a success not just because it saw off a joint cavalier and Squadrone attempt to hinder the treaty commissioners from accepting an incorporating union, but because it detached Marchmont from the Squadrone, though Seafield’s need to remark upon it perhaps indicated how glad he could be of even the smallest victory.<sup>50</sup> Seafield naturally supported vesting the nomination of the commissioners for the treaty in the queen: it was carried, to his surprise, with the help of a speech from James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S].<sup>51</sup> Roxburghe told Baillie (12 Sept.) he thought Godolphin would prevent Seafield from too close an alliance with Queensberry and keep open a relationship with the Squadrone.<sup>52</sup> However, Seafield’s correspondence of late September suggests his priority was balancing the interests of Argyll and Queensberry and bringing more of their allies into office to ensure the smooth passage of the treaty with England.<sup>53</sup></p><p>Following the repeal of the clauses hostile to Scots and Scottish interest in the English Aliens Act of 1705 in November, Seafield seems to have genuinely believed that there was now a fair chance that the Scots could strike a good bargain over a union.<sup>54</sup> Lockhart claimed to Hamilton on 1 Jan. 1706 that he thought Seafield naïve and that his ‘passive obedience’ would not be enough to manage hostility to the union from ‘the high-flown Whigs’.<sup>55</sup></p><p>Seafield led the Scottish delegation in the treaty negotiations, and then as chancellor, he presided over the 1706-7 Parliament, in which his personal diplomacy helped to persuade waverers to support the treaty of union.<sup>56</sup> John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar, though, thought him indecisive, and led an intervention by supporters of the court on 4 Nov. 1706 to force Seafield to assert himself against long opposition speeches.<sup>57</sup> With the Whig Junto now the principal London influence on Scottish affairs, Seafield’s longstanding relationship with Godolphin was of limited use and somewhat restrictive; on 11 Nov. he appealed to his ‘best friend’ to allow him to write to the Junto lords Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, and John Somers*, Baron Somers, in order to ‘prevent differences among all friends of the Union’.<sup>58</sup> Although conventionally the chancellor only voted when a casting vote was necessary, Seafield requested specifically that his name appear in the printed lists of those who divided on 4 Nov. in agreement with the first article, and on 16 Jan. 1707 for ratification of the treaty.<sup>59</sup></p><h2><em>The first Parliament of Great Britain</em></h2><p>Queen Anne told Seafield by letter on 28 Jan. 1707 that ‘the great share you have had in bringing this great affair about, deserves more thanks then I can express’ and assured him of her continuing friendship.<sup>60</sup> ‘Everybody’ consented to Seafield’s inclusion among the representative peers chosen to sit in the first Parliament of Great Britain.<sup>61</sup> In May, Seafield was also appointed to the British Privy Council, along with other senior office-holders of the court party. In the 1707 analysis by Marchmont, he was described as ‘sicut [i.e., just as] Queensberry’, and it was said that, among Members of the Commons, Francis Montgomerie<sup>‡</sup> ‘may be apt to follow’ him, his brother, Patrick Oglivy<sup>‡</sup> and Sir George Allardice<sup>‡</sup> ‘will be influenced’ by him, and that Alexander Abercrombie<sup>‡</sup> would be influenced by him or John Dalrymple*, 2nd earl of Stair. He took his seat in the Lords on 23 Oct. 1707, and attended 93 per cent of sittings. On 6 Nov. he was named to the committee of privileges. Early in the session he was included in the committees to examine a petition from London merchants on trade and shipping and to receive proposals for encouraging privateers in the Caribbean (both 19 Nov.), to prepare the loyal address in response to the queen’s speech (18 Dec.) and to draft an address on the state of the fleet and the war in Spain (19 Dec.). He was a natural choice for the committee named on 20 Dec. to prepare a bill to establish a court of exchequer in Scotland, and when on 22 Dec. ‘a scheme of the constitution’ of each of the existing exchequer courts was required, Seafield was asked to prepare the Scottish version. Seafield delivered his statement on 30 Dec. but it was not ‘so full (particularly as to the revenue)’ as that delivered by the lord chief baron of the exchequer relating to England. Seafield was requested to provide a new draft using the lord chief baron’s model, which he delivered on 6 Jan. 1708.<sup>62</sup></p><p>On 28 Jan. 1708 the Lords received from the lower House a Squadrone-sponsored bill to abolish the Scottish Privy Council. Seafield had been warned in a letter the previous month from George Meldrum, minister of the Church of Scotland at Aberdeen, that such a measure might ‘occasion both confusion and discontent… by intrusions’ without the opportunity for redress.<sup>63</sup> It also endangered the position of the court party in Scotland. Seafield was present for all stages of the bill: in committee of the whole on 5 Feb. he was among 45 who favoured postponing abolition until 1 Oct. 1708, against the 50 who voted for abolition on 1 May, and on 7 Feb. he signed the protest against the passage of the bill as a violation of the Act of Union.</p><p>Seafield was nominated to seven private bill committees during February 1708. On 4 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw up a loyal address at the time of the threatened invasion by France. On 5 Mar. his assistance was again required by the committee preparing the Scottish exchequer court bill: with James Graham*, duke of Montrose [S], and Tweeddale, he was asked to draft a clause to facilitate the continuance of some of the existing functions of the Scottish exchequer and assume some of the powers of the former Scottish lords of the treasury, which he presented to the committee on 8 March.<sup>64</sup> He was present for all the stages of the bill, except its second reading on 13 Mar., the Lords making their final amendments on 1 Apr., the day the bill received the royal assent. Following the decision that the post of lord chancellor of Scotland was redundant following the Union, he was made lord chief baron of the Scottish exchequer instead on 13 May.<sup>65</sup></p><h2><em>The second Parliament of Great Britain, 1708-10</em></h2><p>Seafield attended the representative peers’ election at Holyroodhouse on 17 June 1708, where he stood successfully on the court list, and himself voted for other court candidates. He also cast two proxies, for his kinsman David Ogilvy, 3rd earl of Airlie [S], and for Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S].<sup>66</sup> The court were unable to prevent Hamilton and the Squadrone gaining four seats: Seafield explained in a letter to Godolphin that the ‘high Tories’ had blamed Seafield, Queensberry, Mar and Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun, for the transportation of prisoners to London, alienating them from the court; army officers allegedly thought that the queen favoured the opposition; and the ‘other party had assurance of a majority in the House of Lords that would support them in any protestations or objections that they would make’. He also credited the opposition as having been better organized than the court (and in particular Godolphin) in gathering the proxies of Scottish peers resident in England, and that it was believed that ‘the prisoners’ would only win favour through ‘some certain lords’, suggesting an alliance between the squadron and the junto.<sup>67</sup></p><p>Seafield was confident that the election would not be invalidated, but Roxburghe and Rothes protested that as chief baron of the exchequer Seafield was ineligible to vote or stand in the election, just as judges of the English exchequer, on which the new Scottish exchequer was modelled, could not sit in the Lords. Rothes and Montrose also queried the eligibility of his proxies on technicalities.<sup>68</sup> Seafield himself protested against Marchmont’s proxy on behalf of David Colyear*, earl of Portmore [S].<sup>69</sup> The several objections were collected into a memorial for consideration by the ministers in London; on 22 July 1708 they decided that Seafield could not be an elected peer and lord chief baron of the exchequer.<sup>70</sup> This verdict was repeated in a formal memorial, drawn up in August by Marchmont, which reiterated that because Seafield was both a baron of the court of exchequer and a judge ‘assistant to the House of Lords... he cannot elect or be elected himself he cannot vote as proxy’.<sup>71</sup> Seafield’s objection to Portmore’s proxy was dismissed as there was no requirement for the paper used to be stamped or sealed. <sup>72</sup></p><p>Seafield took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Nov. 1708. He attended 96 per cent of sittings, a proportion reached by overcoming opposition. On 18 Nov. a petition was presented against his election by Marchmont, William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale, John Sutherland*, 16th earl of Sutherland [S] and William Ross<sup>†</sup>, 12th Lord Ross [S], arguing again that Seafield’s being chief baron prevented him sitting as a representative peer in the Lords. As there were a number of other petitions, they were all considered together in a single enquiry. The papers relating to the peers’ election did not arrive from Scotland until 23 Dec. The day after the petition against Seafield was presented it was reported that he was ‘laying down his chief baronship’, and would be granted instead a pension of £3,000 out of the revenues of the Post Office. Proceedings nevertheless continued, and on 10 Jan. 1709 the petition was read, Seafield being then included in the committee to which the papers were referred.<sup>73</sup> When his case came to be considered in committee on 22 Jan. his resignation as chief baron was taken to answer the objection and the protest was noted but without any action taken. Seafield also defended Queensberry’s right to take part in the election after being created a British peer as duke of Dover. In the division of 21 Jan. 1709, he voted in favour of the right of peers of Scotland who had been created peers of Great Britain following the Union to participate in the election of representative peers, but was in a minority.<sup>74</sup> On 28 Jan., when the Lords considered whether a peer of Scotland who had taken the oaths within Edinburgh Castle was qualified to vote in the election, Seafield spoke on the question of whether the sheriff of Midlothian had any jurisdiction within Edinburgh Castle. He said that the ‘ancientest jurisdiction is a sheriff’s. The sheriff has a concurrent jurisdiction with others. Where kings had castles, they kept them in a constable, but it gives him no jurisdiction in civil matters… I have a constabulary, I have no power to judge—of rights.’<sup>75</sup> The House resolved by 56 votes to 52 that a ‘peer of Scotland, who took the oaths within the castle of Edinburgh, was thereby qualified to give his vote at the election of the sixteen peers who are to represent the peers of Scotland in parliament.’ On 29 Jan. the committee inquiry into the election of Scottish representative peers was instructed to re-calculate the votes cast in accordance with the resolutions of the Lords on the several petitions brought against the original ballot, and on 1 Feb. the result was reported, leaving Seafield with 49 rather than 56 votes but enough to keep his seat. At this time the appointment of a Scottish secretary of state was in the balance, Godolphin wishing to appoint Queensberry against opposition from the Squadrone and their allies the Junto. The Marlboroughs, who detested Queensberry, were agreed that Seafield was a more attractive proposition: but as he would have been dependent on the Squadrone, he was unacceptable to Godolphin.<sup>76</sup></p><p>Seafield was present in the Lords on 1 Mar. 1709 when the judges were ordered to prepare a bill to extend the English law of treason to Scotland. On 11 Mar. the bill was read the first time. Mar reported that Seafield spoke alongside Loudoun and himself against a proposal concerning appeals, but Annandale and other Scots joined with the majority in supporting it.<sup>77</sup> In a debate on 18 Mar. Seafield joined other Scots peers in arguing that the English statutes should be enumerated in the bill, the first of several interventions in committee, culminating on 25 Mar. in his support for an amendment to provide that, in a modified version of existing Scottish practice, those accused of treason should be given a list of witnesses five days before the trial.<sup>78</sup> After the amendment was rejected in committee there was an attempt to revive it on 28 Mar. in the form of a rider to the bill, and when this too was lost by 40 votes to 25, Seafield was one of the 24 who signed the protest complaining that the decision was prejudicial to the safety of the subject. He also supported the protest against the passage of the bill, as detrimental to the Union. The Commons then made additions to the bill, including a clause requiring a list of witnesses to be provided ten days before the trial. On 13 Apr., the day before these additions were to be considered by the Lords, a meeting was held at Seafield’s house to prepare a response, attended by Godolphin and some of Queensberry’s followers. In the debate on 14 Apr., Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, spoke against the new clauses and proposed amending them so as not to come into effect until after the death of the Pretender. Tweeddale’s heir Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester, later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S], observed ‘Seafield whisper to Queensberry ... and then Seafield spoke backward and forward but concluded that though he was not for delaying the effect of the clauses till the P[retender’s] death yet he was for doing it till a peace, so certainly he and treasurer understood other’.<sup>79</sup> Against the opposition of ‘all the Scots’, Halifax’s proposal was accepted. <sup>80</sup></p><p>Seafield went to London in Nov. 1709 in full expectation, it was said, of replacing Queensberry as Scottish secretary. Not only were the Junto still deeply hostile to Queensberry, Godolphin was also beginning to doubt him.<sup>81</sup> However, while Seafield was reportedly ‘most in favour’ with Marlborough and Godolphin and ‘appear[ed] very well’ with the Junto, he lacked sufficient personal interest to overcome Queensberry’s advantages and needed the support of the Squadrone.<sup>82</sup> A scheme to manipulate Seafield into becoming the Squadrone’s intermediary with Godolphin and thereby enabling the removal of Queensberry was considered, but postponed. <sup>83</sup></p><p>Meanwhile, Seafield was present when the next session opened on 15 Nov. 1709. He attended 94 per cent of sittings. He was included in the committee for the preparation of the address. He was also a member of the committee of privileges and the sub-committee for the orders and customs of the House and the Journal. In November he was named to two private bill committees and on 13 Dec. to the committee to inquire into ‘the method of keeping records and public papers in offices. On 15 Dec. he was appointed to the committee to consider the impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell. He spoke in the debate of 16 Feb. 1710 on James Greenshields’s case, arguing (in the words of Mar) that it was ‘an ecclesiastical matter but did not dip far in the cause.’<sup>84</sup> On 18 Feb. he was appointed to the committee responsible for the allocation of tickets for Sacheverell’s trial, and on 28 Feb. to the committee of inquiry into the riots in London. He attended throughout the trial, voting Sacheverell guilty on 20 Mar., and also that he should not receive any ecclesiastical preferment during his three years’ suspension. Seafield was named on a further five private bill committees before the end of the session.</p><p>During the political crisis of 1710 Seafield stuck closely to Godolphin. On 30 June Godolphin characterized the appeal he wanted Marlborough to make to ‘all your North Britons in the army’ as ‘joining with my Lord Seafield’ at elections either to the Lords or Commons. Godolphin forwarded reports on the electoral situation in Scotland and in England from Seafield to Marlborough through the summer.<sup>85</sup> This contributed to a distancing from Queensberry, who reportedly thought Seafield ‘the greatest rogue alive’; Queensberry, led by his crony Mar, was realigning himself with the Tories, and especially with Robert Harley*, afterwards earl of Oxford.<sup>86</sup> Seafield was expected by Lord Yester to join with the Squadrone in supporting Marlborough, Godolphin and the Junto.<sup>87</sup> In June Seafield returned to Edinburgh and despite the absence of a date for a general election began soliciting for votes. On 24 July he wrote to John Campbell*, earl of Breadalbane, that ‘I find myself obliged in duty both to the queen and my country to endeavour to be elected, and I having the honour to be your lordship’s relation and come of your family do presume to take the freedom to apply to your lordship among the first and to desire your vote for me as one of the sixteen’, receiving a cautiously favourable response.<sup>88</sup> He corresponded with Godolphin and Marlborough over the management of the election in their interest.<sup>89</sup> By this time, however, it was clear that Seafield was increasingly isolated amongst the Scots peers. He was excluded from the discussions between Hamilton, Mar, Loudoun, Argyll and Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], in London where the list of court candidates was drawn up. During the early summer Seafield corresponded with Godolphin over the possibility that he would receive a British peerage.<sup>90</sup> Promises of support for Seafield, and for Marlborough and Godolphin, could be conditional. Atholl on 16 Aug. said that he would ‘do what kindness’ he could if Seafield could secure his arrears of salary from Godolphin. Elsewhere he advertized his availability to Mar.<sup>91</sup></p><p>There was suspicion and expectation that Seafield would join with the Squadrone. On 8 Aug. 1710 George Hay*, styled Viscount Dupplin [S] (later Baron Hay and 8th earl of Kinnoull [S]), reported to his father-in-law Harley that Seafield was ‘very busy caballing at Edinburgh with the Squadrone’.<sup>92</sup> On 7 Oct. Lord Yester advised his father that ‘the old Scots ministry is for a mixed list excluding all Squadrone but one or two and Seafield in particular’.<sup>93</sup> Yester wrote again on 19 Oct. warning that ‘Seafield is not to be trusted too much’.<sup>94</sup> On 25 Oct. Seafield’s kinsman and ally Airlie informed him that as he was ‘informed by persons of credit and honour, that your lordship is engaged with those, who are very much suspected to have designs opposite to her majesty’s interest’ he could not give him his proxy.<sup>95</sup> Outmanaged and seemingly unwilling to make an arrangement with the Squadrone, Seafield bowed to the inevitable. He attended the peers’ election on 10 Nov., unlike the Squadrone who boycotted it, and voted for the court list from which he himself had been omitted.<sup>96</sup></p><h2><em>The 1710 Parliament</em></h2><p>By 14 Dec. 1710 Seafield was in London to pay his court to the new ministry.<sup>97</sup> On 1 Jan. 1711 he was reportedly ‘very well received’ but ‘vilified by all the ministry… there is no appearance of his getting in amongst them which he would gladly be at if possible.’<sup>98</sup> In the first half of January Seafield made three visits to Harley’s house; at only the first was Harley present, but after the third Seafield wrote to express his gratitude for being seen by the first lord of the treasury and that he was ‘most ready to serve’ him.<sup>99</sup> It was believed at this time that Seafield was to ally with the English Tory elite by marrying Rebecca, daughter of Sir Josiah Child<sup>†</sup>, bt., and widow successively of Charles Somerset<sup>†</sup>, marquess of Worcester, and John Granville*, Baron Granville of Potheridge, but the marriage did not take place.<sup>100</sup> Though out of Parliament, Seafield retained his involvement in politics, assuring John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerino [S], that he had diverted Ilay from introducing a Scottish toleration act, though Balmerino preferred to think his own influence had been more powerful.<sup>101</sup> He was still counted with ‘my Lord Godolphin’s friends’ on 1 May, and it was thought he had failed to negotiate a marriage with Harley’s daughter for his eldest son James Ogilvy<sup>†</sup>, Viscount Reidhaven (later 5th earl of Findlater [S] and 2nd earl of Seafield [S]).<sup>102</sup> That month, however, it was again rumoured that he would receive a British peerage, marking Harley’s elevation to the lord treasurership and the earldom of Oxford.<sup>103</sup> This did not come to pass, but Seafield had established friendly relations with Oxford who secured him the continued payment of his pension when that was called into question. On 24 Jan. 1712 Seafield (who still signed by this title despite having succeeded the previous year to his father’s earldom of Findlater, by which he was usually addressed) acknowledged that the vote excluding Scottish peers from sitting in the Lords under British titles—‘a fatal stroke and sentence of perpetual incapacity’—left the Scottish peers dependent on the queen and on ‘supporting your lordship’s administration’.<sup>104</sup> Oxford was now keen to bring him back into government.<sup>105</sup></p><p>The first opportunity for Findlater to recover his seat came in spring 1712, after the death of William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S]. He wrote to Oxford, promising to serve ‘faithfully’ if elected, and also to the queen, expressing his desire to serve her as a representative peer or to vote for ‘any other you please to name’.<sup>106</sup> Hamilton wrote to Findlater on 26 June pledging his support; Mar followed on 28 June promising to support Findlater and make ‘easy’ James Livingstone, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S], who had earlier expected Mar’s support for the place.<sup>107</sup> Mar assured his brother Hon. James Erskine<sup>‡</sup>, Lord Grange SCJ that ‘the queen is to be obeyed & I can live very well with Seafield’.<sup>108</sup> The Squadrone reacted with some bafflement but Baillie saw Findlater’s election as a compromise between Mar and Argyll and noted that he ‘pretends fair to the Squadrone’ and ‘it must work a change that may turn to account’.<sup>109</sup> The unity of the Scots peers behind a court candidate was almost assured, but Findlater’s correspondence with Hamilton and his brothers Charles Douglas*, 2nd earl of Selkirk [S], John Hamilton, earl of Ruglen [S], and George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], shows that he was careful enough not to be seen taking the support of former adversaries for granted.<sup>110</sup> He was elected on 14 Aug. by ‘a unanimous concurrence of 32 peers present and 23 proxies’.<sup>111</sup> However, ‘none of the Squadrone were present or sent proxies’.<sup>112</sup> In the following October he procured addresses from Banffshire, and from the burghs of Banff and Cullen, praising the ‘wise and diligent ministry’ for achieving a ‘safe and honourable peace’.<sup>113</sup> Mar wrote to him in November, hoping ‘we are on the same bottom and that we shall both go the same way in the queen’s service.’<sup>114</sup></p><p>Findlater took his seat in the House on prorogation day of 13 Jan. 1713 and that same day his son-in-law Charles Maitland<sup>†</sup>, 6th earl of Lauderdale [S], presented his vote by proxy in the election in Edinburgh of a new Scottish representative peer James Livingston*, 5th earl of Linlithgow [S], following Hamilton’s death the previous November. Findlater continued to sit in a further six prorogations throughout February and March and in that latter month presented the loyal addresses to the queen from the burghs of Inverurie and Kintore.<sup>115</sup> The session met for business on 9 Apr. when Findlater was named once more to the committee of privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal; he attended 90 per cent of the session’s sitting days. He was also included in five private bill committees during the session. However, his involvement in routine parliamentary business was soon to be overshadowed by the crisis arising from the attempt to extend the malt tax to Scotland, which provoked immense anger among Scots in both houses. At a meeting with Scots members of the Commons on 11 May, Findlater was proposed by Balmerino as ‘the man to call us together about the malt tax’.<sup>116</sup> The meeting took place within two days and the peers and commoners, with Findlater as their presiding officer, agreed to petition the queen and Parliament for redress. The Scots lords and Members met again on 26 May and agreed to inform the queen of their intention to move in the Lords for a dissolution of the Union. The queen told her physician Sir David Hamilton that despite her ‘uneasiness’ she was at least relieved to find that Findlater was to make the motion, considering him ‘fitter than anyone’ to do it.<sup>117</sup> At a meeting of the Scots peers at the lodgings of Archibald Primrose*, earl of Rosebery [S] on 28 May, Findlater was reportedly asked to drink his own health; perhaps struck by being the head of a consensus of a kind which had eluded his own management of the Scottish parliament, he proposed as a toast ‘the earl of Findlater’s a much honester man than the earl of Seafield.’<sup>118</sup> At the same time he declared himself unwilling to follow Argyll’s recommendation, that the Scots should join the Whigs in opposition on a permanent basis, arguing with Mar and Loudoun that ‘the Whigs would be as much against us as the Court’.<sup>119</sup> Following the meeting Findlater and the Scots peers moved to the Lords where he offered a motion to set a day to take into consideration the ‘state of the nation’, which was approved.<sup>120</sup> On the morning of the appointed day, 1 June, all the Scots peers gathered at Mar’s house to agree the wording of the motion which Findlater was to present, ‘for bringing in a bill for dissolving the Union’. Findlater then read out ‘the heads of his speech which were our grievances which induced us to make this motion’. In the afternoon he opened the debate with a long and ‘handsome discourse’, as one observer remembered it, ‘represent[ing] the grievances of the Scottish nation, which he reduced to four heads’: the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council; the extension of the English treason laws to Scotland; the decision on the Hamilton case which prevented Scottish peers who were given British peerages from sitting in the Lords; and, finally, the malt tax, ‘which would be the more insupportable to them now, in that they never bore it during the war, and had reason to reap and enjoy the benefits of peace’.<sup>121</sup> Findlater omitted the motion itself from the end of his speech, an omission apparently arranged at the meeting at Mar’s house, and had to be prompted to read it.<sup>122</sup> His hesitancy might have been an indirect way of acknowledging the administrative and legal difficulties of repeal, a situation acknowledged in Oxford’s reply to the motion. After a long debate the question was put on whether to allow further time for discussion, which was rejected. One Scot in London hoped the episode ‘will have the effect to make Scotland get an ease of the malt tax.’<sup>123</sup> The malt bill was then given its first and second readings on 3 and 5 June. Findlater joined those who on 5 June supported a proposal to postpone the second reading. It was referred to a committee of the whole House which met on 8 June.<sup>124</sup> Findlater was said to have spoken ‘very well’ against the bill but to no avail as Balmerino’s amendment removing the imposition in Scotland of a duty of 6d per bushel of wheat from the bill was rejected by 64 votes to 56. Findlater signed the protest arguing that the bill was an unjust imposition on Scotland and violation of the Union treaty. After the debate Balmerino recorded that he and Findlater had been told by Peregrine Osborne*, 2nd duke of Leeds 9and Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S]), ‘that we must be pleased and for that purpose that an act of parliament must be made to rectify that affair of our peerage. Seafield said that would do well.’<sup>125</sup> No such bill, though, was forthcoming. In late June Balmerino’s letter to Henry Maule referring either to the debates in the House on the Union or later conversations, said that Findlater ‘and all that spoke’ said that despite their support for the Union in 1706-7, since then ‘it had been so managed’ that they wished only to dissolve it.<sup>126</sup></p><p>Findlater continued to attend the House until the end of the session. On 25 June 1713 he was named to the committees on the queen’s remembrancer’s books and the port books relating to trade and commerce with France since 1660, and the African trade. On 27 June he was appointed to the committee on the Melton rectories bill, and on 30 June to consider the ‘method ... of demanding supplies by the Crown’. He was also included in two private bill committees in July.</p><h2><em>The Parliament of 1713</em></h2><p>In September 1713, as part of the reconstruction of his ministry by which Oxford hoped to recover his political ascendancy, Findlater was reappointed lord chancellor of Scotland, despite the post having earlier been deemed to have lapsed and the lord chancellor of Great Britain, Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, being opposed to its revival.<sup>127</sup> While James Stewart, 5th earl of Galloway [S], hailed Findlater’s appointment to it as ‘a good antecedent to the dissolution of our present bondage’, Findlater’s appointment was intended to tighten Oxford’s management of Scotland.<sup>128</sup> The lord president of the court of session, Sir Hew Dalrymple, was also opposed and objected to Findlater signing the appointment of interlocutors when Dalrymple was ill and unable to exercise his office, disputing that Findlater was in fact the chancellor of Scotland.<sup>129</sup> Findlater’s Post Office pension (which had not always been paid regularly since 1710) was reduced to £1,000, but the lord chancellor’s salary of £2,000 made up the difference, and Oxford promised to pay his arrears.<sup>130</sup></p><p>Findlater assisted Mar in the management of the peers’ election on 8 Oct. 1713, at which he cast his own vote and the proxies of Airlie and David Murray, 5th Viscount Stormont [S], and was chosen unanimously with the rest of the court list. The Squadrone again boycotted the election.<sup>131</sup> Findlater took his seat on 2 Mar. 1714, attending 92 per cent of sittings, and was again named to the committee of privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal. Four days later he was appointed to the committee to prepare an address for a proclamation of a reward for the discovery of the author of <em>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</em>. On 2 Apr. he was named to another drafting committee for an address, this time to thank the queen for her ‘endeavours, that the Catalans might have the full enjoyment of all their just and ancient liberties secured to them’. Three days later came the motion that ‘the Protestant succession is not in danger’, and Findlater acted as a teller in favour of adding the words ‘under her Majesty’s government’. He was appointed to the committee preparing addresses for a proclamation for a reward for the apprehension of the Pretender, and to thank the queen for the peace. He also was named to five private bill committees during the session. Although listed as a likely supporter of the schism bill, Findlater was one of four Scottish peers who voted on 7 June for an amendment that ‘the Dissenters’ allowance to teach Latin and other academic learning’ would continue, and two days later voted for another Whig amendment, to exempt schoolmistresses, though he did not support a further proposal to permit appeals from justices of the peace.<sup>132</sup> On 17 June he was appointed to the committee examining the petition of Sir Andrew Kennedy and his son John, conservators of the Scottish staple at Campvere (Veere) in the Netherlands, for damages previously awarded by the House against the Argathelian member, Sir Alexander Cumming<sup>‡</sup>, bt. He chaired the committee and reported from it on 7 July, the Lords agreeing that the Kennedys should receive a new commission. On 8 July he was a teller against an unsuccessful opposition motion for an address denouncing ‘unwarrantable endeavours to gain private advantages to particular persons’ over the <em>Asiento</em>.<sup>133</sup> Seafield’s pension arrears remained unpaid, and although he still professed loyalty to Oxford, on 10 July he expressed anxiety that without some payment he could not support the expense of living in London.<sup>134</sup></p><p>Findlater returned to the Lords when it met on 1 Aug. 1714, following Queen Anne’s death, and five days later was named to the committee to draw up an address of condolence on the queen’s death and congratulation on George I’s accession. He was also chosen on 9 Aug. to serve on the committee of privileges and the sub-committee for the Journal and, though absent at the next meeting three days later, he attended every day thereafter until the prorogation on 25 Aug., sitting in 73 per cent of the sittings of the short session.</p><p>Findlater wrote to a friend in Oct. 1714, ‘I have fallen with the queen’s whole administration both in England and Scotland’, but even though he had lost all his offices he was determined that ‘I shall ever continue firm to the established government’, and he remained loyal to the Hanoverians.<sup>135</sup> He was not chosen as a representative peer again until 1722. The remainder of his parliamentary career will be dealt with in the second part of this work. He died at Cullen on 15 August 1730, and was buried there.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
PRIMROSE, Archibald (1664-1723) |
<p><strong><surname>PRIMROSE</surname></strong>, <strong>Archibald</strong> (1664–1723)</p> |
<em>cr. </em>1 Apr. 1700 Visct. of Rosebery [S]; <em>cr. </em>10 Apr. 1703 earl of ROSEBERY [S] |
RP [S] 1707–15 |
First sat 1 Dec. 1707; last sat 7 July 1714 |
|
MP [S] Edinburgh 1696–1700 |
<p><em>b</em>. 18 Dec. 1664, 5th but 3rd surv. s. of Sir Archibald Primrose, bt. (<em>d</em>.1679) of Carrington, Midlothian (Ld. Carrington s.c.j.), being o. s. by 2nd w. Agnes, da. of Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, Sandhaven, Aberdeen., and wid. of Sir John Dundas of Newliston, Linlithgow. <em>educ</em>. travelled abroad 1680–7. <em>m</em>. lic. 3 Feb. 1691, Dorothea (<em>d</em>. aft. 1724), da. and h. of Everingham Cressy (<em>d</em>.1679) of Birkin, Yorks., 6s. (4 <em>d.v.p.</em>) 6da. (3 <em>d.v.p</em>.). <em>d</em>. 20 Oct. 1723; <em>admon</em>. 3 June 1724 to John Campbell, guardian of James Primrose, 2nd earl of Rosebery [S].<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>Gent. of the bedchamber to George*, of Denmark, 1688–1708; PC [S] 1701–8; commr. treasury [S] 1701–2, exch. [S] 1703–?8, union with England 1702–3, 1706.<sup>2</sup></p><p>Commr. supply Midlothian 1690; chamberlain, Fife and Strathearn 1703-9, Fife 1709–14; provost, Inverkeithing, by 1708–1720.<sup>3</sup></p> |
<p>Likenesses: oil on canvas by J.B. Medina, National Galleries of Scotland; line engraving by P. Vanderbank, after J. Riley, c.1680-8, BM.</p> |
<p>Although a younger son, Primrose was evidently a favourite of his distinguished father and was left a substantial part of Lord Carrington’s fortune, including the estate at Dalmeny. He also inherited some of his father’s political skills, if not his intellectual brilliance, and was able to make a career at court and in government. After a period of foreign travel which culminated in active service in the Austrian Imperial army against the Turks in Hungary, he came home in 1687. The following year he found himself summoned before the Scottish Privy Council for opposing the religious policies of James II; proceedings were halted by the intervention of James Fitzjames*, duke of Berwick, and it is said that to save himself Primrose ‘declared Popish’.<sup>4</sup></p><p>After the 1688 Revolution Primrose received a position in the royal household (at a salary of £600 p.a.) and from 1696 served as a commissioner for Edinburghshire (Midlothian) in the Scottish Parliament.<sup>5</sup> He attached himself to the interest of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], who eventually obtained a peerage for him in 1700 and appointment to the Scottish Privy Council in the following year.<sup>6</sup> In 1702 he was one of the Queensberryites appointed to the Scottish commission to negotiate a treaty of union with England. He attended all but three of the 28 joint sessions of commissioners between 10 Nov. 1702 and 3 Feb. 1703, and although evidently disgusted by the attitudes displayed on these occasions by some of his English counterparts he remained a believer in the necessity of union. When included among the treaty commissioners in 1706 he wrote privately to Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], one of the two Scottish secretaries of state, that, ‘I do believe nothing will ever make this country easy but an entire, complete union with England, which since they now seem willing to agree to, we were the most unhappy people in the world if it should fail on our side.’<sup>7</sup></p><p>He remained loyal to Queensberry throughout the shifts in Scottish politics after the accession of Anne. In 1703 he was reappointed to the Scottish Privy Council, promoted in the peerage, and granted the post of chamberlain of Fife and Strathearn (at a combined salary and pension worth £300 p.a. in total), as part of a package of preferments designed to buttress Queensberry’s position.<sup>8</sup> Although he was one of only a handful of members of the former court party to retain office under the ‘New Party’ in 1704, he worked with Queensberry’s men to harass the administration in the Scottish parliament, and when Queensberry came back into favour he was promised the governorship of Edinburgh castle, though this never materialized.<sup>9</sup> He voted a solid pro-Union line in the proceedings on ratification in the Scottish parliament, and was rewarded by nomination as one of the first cohort of representative peers to be sent to the united Parliament.<sup>10</sup> According to Mar, when Queensberry and his friends were weighing up the candidates for the final place, ‘it was thought my Lord Rosebery had the most favourable pretensions ... for he had been on both treaties and ever firm to the present servants, both before and since being a peer, and was extraordinary desirous to be one of the sixteen’.<sup>11</sup></p><p>For Rosebery this was not enough. He was owed nearly £3,000 in arrears on his pension for the chamberlainry of Fife and Strathearn; a further £1,500 from his salary as a union commissioner in 1702–3; and in all probability another substantial sum from unpaid salary as a gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince George (the arrears of which amounted to £750 at the prince’s death in 1708).<sup>12</sup> He had previously taken advantage of his attendance in London at joint meetings of the union commissioners to request the queen to change the terms under which he held the chamberlainry. The grant had been ‘during pleasure’, and he at first proposed that this be converted to a grant for life with an annual pension of £300. When the queen ‘scrupled’, he suggested that the grant could be for her life only, with a reduced pension of £100. She would not grant this either, but said she would think about it again when the Scottish parliamentary session had come to an end. Rosebery himself was unwilling to take the initiative and instead asked Queensberry to speak for him. The duke and Mar then made a further offer: the chamberlainry of Fife and a pension of £1,000 p.a. to be granted for life, while the other elements of the appointment would remain at pleasure. As Mar put it, ‘Rosebery has indeed served very honestly and firmly, therefore the commissioners would be very glad that the queen showed him a mark of her favour’.<sup>13</sup> When nothing happened, Rosebery continued to press. As he told Mar, he thought he might:</p><blockquote><p>reasonably now expect some other post in the government than that only of being a commissioner, for your lordship knows I ever firmly served her majesty, and her interest, in all the sessions of Parliament I have been in and have been obliged to be at some expense in attending her service, but whatever her majesty may be pleased to do in this it shall never in the least alter the zeal I have always had for her service.<sup>14</sup></p></blockquote><p>In the 1707 analysis of Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S] he was described as ‘sicut [i.e. just as] Queensberry’. Although Parliament met on 23 Oct. 1707, Rosebery was the last Scottish representative peer to take his seat. He swore the oaths on 1 Dec., beginning a parliamentary career that covered seven sessions. He attended all but one of those sessions for more than half of all sittings and four sessions for more than 60 per cent. The timing of his initial attendance coincided with heated debate in the Commons on how to strengthen the Union. Two bills were sent up to the Lords during January and February 1708: the first, to abolish the Scottish Privy Council and introduce into Scotland the English system of justices of the peace; the second to settle the militia in Scotland.<sup>15</sup> When the House went into committee of the whole on 5 Feb. on the Privy Council bill, Rosebery supported an unsuccessful attempt to delay abolition until October.<sup>16</sup> The bill passed its third reading on 7 Feb. and Rosebery signed the protest against it as a violation of the Union. At the same time he was seeking to take advantage of the terms of the Union in a very personal matter, reviving an appeal first made in Scotland in 1695 against a legal decision given against him by the court of session, relating to fishing rights in the water of Cramond. He took his case to the Lords, the first Scot to exploit the newly acquired appellate jurisdiction of the united Parliament. The Lords considered the appeal on 6, 24 and 27 Mar. but the process was overtaken by the end of the session in April. The case did, however, give rise to the first reported instance of Rosebery’s tendency to fits of temper, when a street quarrel over the lawsuit ended in an exchange of blows.<sup>17</sup></p><p>Rosebery had attended the session for the last time on 12 Mar. 1708, eight days after the House had received papers relating to an invasion attempt from France on behalf of the Pretender. He was in Edinburgh by the end of the month but was not present at a shire meeting on 5 Apr. when an address was agreed ‘asserting her Majesty’s right against the prince of Wales and all pretenders whatsoever’. His absence was hard to explain: Sir John Clerk, bt., of Penicuik, an austere Presbyterian and ‘Revolutioner’, accused those Midlothian lairds who had failed to attend of being ‘against the union either within or without doors’.<sup>18</sup> Rosebery also refused to sign a similar address from Fife drawn up by the Squadrone lord John Leslie*, 9th earl of Rothes [S], while supporting a counter-address, which was allegedly an attempt to undermine Rothes’ interest in the county. At the same time, he used his own electoral influence as provost of Inverkeithing to help one of Rothes’s party colleagues, Charles Hay<sup>†</sup>, styled Lord Yester (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), to be returned to the Commons for Stirling Burghs.<sup>19</sup> In the peers’ election, however, he was included on the court slate, and voted a straight court line.<sup>20</sup> In the end he seems to have owed his election to securing enough proxy votes from the court list after these had been ‘thrown for at dice at Queensberry House’, and he had enjoyed ‘great luck’.<sup>21</sup> In consequence, he secured the highest number of votes cast in the election, a position he retained even after investigations by the House of Lords into protests had resulted in a recalculation of votes.<sup>22</sup></p><p>In the opinion of the Scottish customs commissioner Sir Alexander Rigby<sup>‡</sup>, writing shortly after the election to James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S] (later 4th earl of Findlater [S]), Rosebery ‘hath too long neglected himself and therefore I doubt he’ll find it hard to shake off some habits; otherwise he is well worth caressing as most lords of this country, being a sensible, reserved, well bred and indefatigable gentleman’.<sup>23</sup> In the first session of the new Parliament he supported his patron Queensberry (now duke of Dover in the British peerage) against attempts to make void Queensberry’s participation in the representative peers’ election on account of his acquisition of a Brtish title. Rosebery supported the principle of allowing the votes of Scottish peers who were also British peers, when this was put to the test on 21 Jan. 1709, and divided in the minority against a resolution declaring that no one who had been a peer of Scotland at the time of the Union could take part in the election after accepting a British peerage.<sup>24</sup> He attended in March throughout the proceedings on the bill to extend to Scotland the English law of treason, which Scottish peers were unanimous in opposing. When the House went into committee on 18 Mar. he voted against inserting into the act the titles of the English treason laws, and ten days later, after protesting at the rejection of a rider guaranteeing that the accused be given a copy of the indictment and the names of witnesses five days before the trial, he also subscribed to a protest against the passage of the bill. <sup>25</sup></p><p>Before the next session Rosebery finally obtained some reward for his patient pursuit of preferment, when his grant of the chamberlainry of Fife was converted to a patent for the life of the queen, with a salary of £300. It would seem that he was no longer chamberlain of Strathearn under the new dispensation, though he did continue to collect the rents and keep back the proportion which had previously been allowed him as a pension.<sup>26</sup> He resumed his seat in the Lords on 1 Dec. 1709, more than two weeks into the session, and attended sporadically until 1 Feb. 1710, when the Sacheverell trial engaged his attention. In common with some other Queensberryites, Rosebery was beginning to inch closer towards the Tories. When the Lords divided on the main question of the impeachment on 20 Mar., he voted Sacheverell guilty, but the next day divided against making Sacheverell ineligible for preferment while banned from preaching.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Rosebery was re-elected a representative peer in November 1710, having been included on the list agreed in advance between Mar, James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S].<sup>28</sup> Richard Dongworth, the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, estimated his annual income at ‘not £3,500’ and classed him as a ‘court Tory’, which presumably indicated that he was expected to follow Queensberry and Mar in supporting the ministry. However, the two leaders of the old court interest were no longer entirely seeing eye to eye. Whether because of a residual primary loyalty to Queensberry, or because of his own local interests, Rosebery proved unwilling to co-operate with Mar over the general election contest for Stirling Burghs (in which he was involved as provost of Inverkeithing).<sup>29</sup> Mar sought to renew their electoral alliance in favour of the sitting Member, John Erskine<sup>‡</sup>, but privately suspected that Rosebery had other plans. In fact, there were reports that Rosebery was setting up a candidate of his own, and at the poll the Squadrone supporter Henry Cunningham<sup>‡</sup> was able to take advantage of his opponents’ disorganisation to secure election ahead of Erskine.<sup>30</sup> In an analysis of the Scottish representative peers drawn up shortly after the 1710 election he was said to be ‘also good’ in relation to the succession and the Union.</p><p>By the time he came down to London in November 1710, Rosebery was back on good terms with Mar, sharing his coach on the journey: Mar found his company ‘diverting’.<sup>31</sup> When Parliament met, Rosebery followed Mar and the remainder of Queenberry’s former court party in supporting the new Tory administration.<sup>32</sup> He resumed his seat on 11 Dec. (two weeks after the start of the session) and was present only five times before Christmas. On Christmas Day he dined at Pontack’s, with what has been identified as an informal political ‘dining club’ that met frequently during the parliamentary sessions of 1710–12. Although it included different shades of opinion, the leading Scottish members were all peers of a strongly Tory, and in some cases Jacobite, persuasion: William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S]; William Livingston*, 3rd Viscount Kilsyth [S]; William Keith*, 8th Earl Marischal [S]; and John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S].<sup>33</sup> Rosebery attended the House for only 40 per cent of sittings in this session but was present for three consecutive days in January 1711 when the Lords were in a committee of the whole on the war in Spain, voting with the majority on 9 Jan. on an adjournment motion, and subsequently to agree to the resolutions reported from the committee which condemned the conduct of the Peninsula campaign by the previous Whig ministry. In February he supported the appeal of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields against a sentence passed against him by the magistrates of Edinburgh for using the liturgy of the Church of England.<sup>34</sup> Thereafter, Rosebery attended intermittently until 21 Apr., missing the last six weeks of the session entirely. He registered his proxy on 24 Apr. in favour of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury.</p><p>Despite the renewal of his appointment as chamberlain of Fife, Rosebery still harboured insecurities about his position, principally because of a prior claim to the office being advanced by Sir John Malcolm<sup>‡</sup>, bt. the recently elected Tory member for Kinross-shire. Rosebery proposed to the lord treasurer (Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford) that his remuneration be altered from a combination of salary and pension to salary only, in order to facilitate a compromise agreement with Malcolm, but the barons of the Scottish exchequer would not approve the arrangement.<sup>35</sup> In consequence a certain edginess was visible in Rosebery as Parliament reopened. Having entered his proxy before the start of the new session with Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S] (later 3rd earl of Argyll), he travelled down to London with Balmerinoch and the high-flying Scottish Tory member, Sir Hugh Paterson<sup>‡</sup>, 3rd bt., resuming his seat on 20 Dec. 1711, the very day that the Lords rejected Hamilton’s attempt to take his seat in the Lords as duke of Brandon, and thereby provoked a serious crisis in Anglo-Scottish relations. <sup>36</sup> Rosebery voted and protested against the decision of the House that no peer of Scotland at the time of the Union could sit by right of a subsequently conferred British peerage, and subsequently subscribed to a memorial to the queen from the Scottish peerage at large, asking her to remedy this violation not only of their own rights but of the royal prerogative.<sup>37</sup> The creation of Oxford’s ‘dozen’ new peers over the Christmas recess took some of the wind out of Scottish sails, but although the Scots appeared in support of the Tory ministry when the Lords resumed in early January 1712, their discontents were still simmering.<sup>38</sup> Rosebery was one of the most outspoken; surprisingly so, perhaps, given his previous commitment to the principle of union, and readiness to avail himself of its constitutional advantages in his own personal interest. At a meeting of Scottish peers at Hamilton’s house on 17 Jan. there was talk that ‘all things tend to a dissolution of the Union’, and Rosebery declared that ‘the Whigs, Tories and Scots all desire it, and yet no man will speak out and that nothing stops it but the court’. At a further meeting on 25 Jan. he ‘moved … that they should call all the Scots peers in town though not members to advise with’, only for Hamilton to cast a veto. In private Rosebery was reported as speaking ‘very freely … that there remained nothing for us but to dissolution’, yet he did not translate these bold statements into action: ‘when at our meetings he saw some folk’s faces he was very tame’.<sup>39</sup> In the event, the Scots peers decided merely to boycott the House of Lords and on 7 and 8 Feb. Rosebery absented himself accordingly.<sup>40</sup> Three days later, however, he was back in the House when a petition was received from Scottish Presbyterian ministers against the toleration (Episcopal communion) bill which had been read for the first time on 8 February. Rosebery’s interest in the passage of this bill was an important indicator of his evolving political allegiance. Once the bill passed its third reading on 15 Feb. he resumed his abstention, but returned on the 23rd when the bill was returned to the Lords, and gave his backing to the Commons’ amendments. He continued to attend during proceedings on the patronage bill in April, and in May supported the bill to resume grants made by William III. He also voted against a Whig proposal to address the queen to order her army to act offensively against the French.<sup>41</sup></p><p>Rosebery sought to capitalize on his value to the ministry in the summer of 1712 by urging again a resolution of his insecurities over the Fife chamberlainry and the payment of the arrears due to him. He renewed the request that his existing pension be converted into a salary, and secured for a period of 32 years, and also for the payment of £1,000 arrears.<sup>42</sup> Mar gave the petition his strong endorsement, and Oxford responded by directing a warrant for the immediate payment of £1,500, the equivalent of two and a half years’ of his annual salary of £600, to be paid at £300 a week.<sup>43</sup> This was enough to fix Rosebery’s support for the ministry and in the following session he was forecast as likely to support the court over the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.</p><p>Naturally, the crisis over the extension of the malt tax to Scotland put him into a difficult position. Just before the Scots peers were to meet on 27 May 1713 to discuss their response to the malt bill, Rosebery dined at his lodgings with Henry St John*, Viscount Bolingbroke, and Alexander Montgomerie*, 9th earl of Eglinton [S].<sup>44</sup> He and Eglinton then went on to meet their compatriots, where it was agreed that next day a motion would be made in the Lords for a bill to dissolve the Union. Rosebery is not known to have spoken in the debate on the 28th but voted with his compatriots in the minority in the division that effectively terminated the motion. He attended when the malt bill came up to the Lords and on 5 June voted in favour of an unsuccessful attempt to delay the second reading. When the Lords went into committee on 8 June, Rosebery joined the other Scots present in claiming that 6<em>d</em>. a bushel on malt was too heavy a burden, and that imposing this tax when the country was still at war violated the Union treaty, but the committee agreed to accept the bill as sent up from the Commons.<sup>45</sup> When it passed its third reading Rosebery signed the protest which reiterated that the tax was a violation of the Union, and that Scotland was being obliged to help make up a deficiency for which she was not responsible. </p><p>Before the 1713 election Oxford was reminded yet again of Rosebery’s ongoing ‘pretensions’: the monetary arrangements of the chamberlainry were still not adjusted to his satisfaction, and arrears of salary from his household office were still outstanding.<sup>46</sup> This time nothing was done before the election, and he travelled up to London in February 1714 in a dark mood, and in the company of avowed Jacobites: Balmerinoch, Kilsyth, and Lord James Murray<sup>‡</sup>.<sup>47</sup> In March he attended at the treasury in person to make the case over his various ‘cravings’, and obtained £450 of his household arrears. He was present in the Lords in the 1714 session for 63 per cent of sittings and was considered as a probable supporter of the Tory schism bill. In June a warrant was issued to pay him a further £1,500 as royal bounty, in lieu of all his financial claims arising from the chamberlainry.<sup>48</sup> He attended the House for the last time on 7 July and registered his proxy the same day in favour of Samuel Masham*, Baron Masham. </p><p>Rosebery did not sit in the Lords again after 1714. He steered well clear of Jacobite intrigues, but remained a Tory in his political leanings. He signed the petition against the peerage bill in 1719 and supported Tory candidates in the 1722 peerage election.<sup>49</sup> He died on 20 Oct. 1723.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
STUART, Walter (1683-1713) |
<p><strong><surname>STUART</surname></strong> (<strong>STEWART</strong>), <strong>Walter</strong> (1683–1713)</p> |
<em>suc. </em>fa. 20 June 1704 as 6th Ld. BLANTYRE [S] |
RP [S] 1710 |
First sat 25 Nov. 1710; last sat 17 June 1713 |
|
|
<p><em>b</em>. 1 Feb. 1683, o. s. of Alexander Stuart, 5th Ld. Blantyre [S], and 2nd w. Anne, da. of Sir Robert Hamilton of Pressmennan, E. Lothian (Ld. Pressmennan SCJ). <em>unm</em>. <em>d</em>. 23 June 1713; <em>admon</em>. 30 Sept. 1713 to bro. John Stuart (mother first renouncing).<sup>1</sup></p> |
|
|
<p>Blantyre’s father had been a strong supporter of the Revolution, raising a regiment for the prince of Orange and acting as a commissioner of supply for the shires of Lanark and Renfrew. In 1696 he endorsed the Association. By 1702, however, he had come to be associated with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], in the ‘country’ opposition. He was among those who seceded from the Scottish Parliament after the accession of Queen Anne and was their representative sent to her to present their case against the continuation of the Convention Parliament. <sup>2</sup> In the following year, however, he returned to government as treasurer depute, being described by George Lockhart<sup>‡ </sup>of Carnwath on that occasion as a ‘dependant’ of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S].<sup>3</sup></p><p>In October 1702 the 5th Lord Blantyre’s cousin, the dowager duchess of Richmond, had died in possession of a vast fortune which contemporaries estimated at £60,000. She bequeathed to his son and heir Walter an annual pension of £4,000 p.a. for 20 years. She also purchased for his benefit Lethington Castle in East Lothian, which she insisted be renamed ‘Lennox’s Love to Blantyre’; this was quickly shortened merely to Lennoxlove, which soon became Walter Stuart’s residence. However, when the 5th Lord Blantyre died in late April 1704 he left his estate heavily burdened by debt, a state of affairs that Walter, the new Lord Blantyre, himself did very little to put right, apart from pestering the treasury in London for payment of the very considerable arrears of the duchess of Richmond’s pension.<sup>4</sup></p><p>The 6th Lord Blantyre’s politics were complicated by conflicting loyalties. On the one hand, his religious preferences were Episcopalian, which drew him close to the ‘cavalier’, Jacobite faction.<sup>5</sup> On the other hand, and possibly for opportunistic reasons given his family’s financial predicament, he was a political client of John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and Argyll’s brother Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S]. In May 1706 Blantyre’s first request for the payment of the arrears owed to the duchess of Richmond’s estate was rejected, because ‘the condition of the queen’s revenue is such as will not permit her at present to consider this arrears’.<sup>6</sup> This may have influenced his vote in the Union Parliament with the cavaliers and against Argyll, in opposing the ratification of the treaty with England.<sup>7</sup> This ensured that he would be excluded from the cohort of 16 representative peers in the first Parliament of Great Britain, but he rebuilt bridges with Argyll sufficiently to be included on the court list drawn up by Queensberry in 1708.<sup>8</sup> Unfortunately, although he received votes on that occasion from Argyll, some members of Queensberry’s court party, and some Episcopalians, he could not summon up enough to secure election, finishing well down the field.<sup>9</sup></p><p>On 10 Nov. 1710, however, Blantyre was elected as a representative peer.<sup>10</sup> This time he had a place on the list of candidates agreed by the incoming administration of Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, with Argyll, Hamilton, and Queensberry’s lieutenant, John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar [S]. At this point Blantyre seems to have been working closely with Mar and the ministry: he was sent £200 of secret service money to secure the vote of his friend Robert Rutherford, 4th Lord Rutherford [S].<sup>11</sup> Before the election, Daniel Defoe had lumped Blantyre with other Episcopalian lords as ‘declared professed Jacobites’. <sup>12</sup> Shortly afterwards, the duchess of Buccleuch’s chaplain, Richard Dongworth, identified him as a ‘court Tory’, and estimated his income at ‘near £4,000’ a year.</p><p>Blantyre took his seat on the opening day of the new Parliament, 25 Nov. 1710, and two days later he was appointed to the committee for the address on the queen’s speech. He was present for 76 per cent of the sitting days of this first session of the Parliament in 1710-11. In the first two weeks of January 1711 Blantrye, with other representative peers, supported the attack on the previous Whig ministry’s conduct of the war in Spain.<sup>13</sup> At about this time it was reported that he would be given command of a new regiment, but this did not materialize.<sup>14</sup> On the <em>cause célèbre</em> of the petition of the Episcopalian minister James Greenshields, requesting reversal of a judgment against him by Edinburgh magistrates for using the Church of England liturgy, Blantyre followed Argyll rather than other Scottish Tories. On 1 Mar., on the question whether to adjourn consideration of the case, only five Scottish lords were said to have voted in the minority for delay, and thus against Greenshields: Blantyre, Argyll and Ilay, their kinsman Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudoun [S], and John Murray*, duke of Atholl [S].<sup>15</sup> Blantyre was also named a manager for the two conferences held on 9 Mar. concerning the address to the queen condemning Guiscard’s assassination attempt on Harley.</p><p>Blantyre’s proxy with William Livingston*, 2nd Viscount Kilsyth [S], was registered on 6 Dec. 1711, one day before the session of 1711-12 commenced, and he was not expected to arrive in the English capital until 15 December. <sup>16</sup> He first attended on 20 Dec., in order to vote in the critical division on whether the duke of Hamilton could sit in the House by virtue of his British peerage as duke of Brandon. With the other representative peers Blantrye gave his vote, unavailingly, in favour of Hamilton’s right to sit, then signed the protest against the resolution excluding the Scottish peer, and later added his name to a representation submitted to the queen against the decision. <sup>17</sup> Overall he was present for 64 per cent of that session’s sitting days. Although he separated from Argyll and Ilay in the spring of 1712 in his support for the bill on lay patronages in Scotland, he voted with them on 20 May against the bill to resume the land grants made by William III.<sup>18</sup> He, with Argyll, supported the ministry on 28 May in resisting a Whig attempt to address the queen against the ‘restraining orders’ given to the captain-general James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. <sup>19</sup> On 17 June he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole considering the private bill of Sir William Douglas, a lieutenant-general of the armed forces, and he continued to attend sittings regularly until the prorogation on 8 July. Shortly afterwards he at last, after continued petitioning, received an instalment of the arrears of the duchess of Richmond’s pension.<sup>20</sup></p><p>After attending two of the many prorogations of Parliament in March 1713, Blantyre resumed his seat when the next session convened for business on 9 Apr. and attended 48 per cent of the sitting days of this, his last session. On 24 Apr. he and George Seaton petitioned the House for the reversal of judgments made by the lords of session, in their capacity as commissioners for planting churches, in favour of John Currie, the minister of Haddington. At the beginning of June Oxford (as Harley had become) thought him likely to support the bill to confirm the eighth and ninth articles of the French Commercial Treaty; the bill, though, never came up from the Commons. With all the Scots peers, including Argyll and Ilay, Blantyre backed the unsuccessful motion on 1 June for leave to introduce a bill to dissolve the Union.<sup>21</sup> A week later he made his last contribution as a representative peer, participating in the unsuccessful opposition to the bill to extend the malt tax to Scotland, against whose passage he signed the protest.</p><p>He attended for the last time on 17 June 1713. Six days later, on 23 June, a petition was read from Blantyre stating that he was too ill to attend for the hearing of his appeal against John Currie scheduled for the following day and requesting a postponement. He was not exaggerating in this claim for that same day John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], a fellow Episcopalian, reported that ‘this day about two o’clock poor Blantyre died of a fever. He was much a servant to two noble brothers but they nor any mortal could not influence him to favour presbytery nor the Union, both which he detested’.<sup>22</sup> Blantyre was buried on 24 June in Westminster Abbey, in the Richmond vault in the Henry VII Chapel.<sup>23</sup> He was succeeded in his title by his younger brother Robert Stuart, 7th Lord Blantyre, who did not serve as a representative peer. Blantyre’s estate was administered, as he died intestate, by his next eldest brother John Stuart, a member of the Faculty of Advocates.</p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
|
WEMYSS, David (1678-1720) |
<p><strong><surname>WEMYSS</surname></strong>, <strong>David</strong> (1678–1720)</p> |
<em>styled </em>1678-1705 Ld. Elcho; <em>suc. </em>mo. 11 Mar. 1705 as 4th earl of WEMYSS [S] |
RP [S] 1707–10 |
First sat 23 Oct. 1707; last sat 18 July 1710 |
|
|
<p><em>bap</em>. 29 Apr 1678, 1st s. of Sir James Wemyss, Ld. Burntisland [S] (<em>d</em>.1682) of Burntisland, Fife, and Margaret Wemyss, da. and h. of David Wemyss, 2nd earl of Wemyss [S], and <em>suo jure</em> Countess of Wemyss [S]. <em>educ</em>. privately in England. <em>m</em>. (1) contr. 13 Aug. 1697 (with 100,000 merks), Anne (<em>d</em>.1700), da. of William Douglas, duke of Queensberry [S], 2s. (1 <em>d.v.p</em>.); (2) 5 Jan. 1709, Mary (<em>d</em>. bef. 8 Sept. 1712), da. and coh. of Sir John Robinson, 2nd bt., of Farming Woods, Northants.; (3) contr. 5 July 1716 (with 9,000 merks), Elizabeth (<em>d</em>.1721), da. of Henry Sinclair (St. Clair), 10th Ld. Sinclair [S], sis. of John Sinclair (St. Clair)<sup>‡</sup>, Master of Sinclair, 1s. 2da. <em>d</em>. 13 Mar. 1720.<sup>1</sup></p> |
<p>PC [S] 1705.</p><p>Commr. supply Perth 1698, Fife 1704, union with England 1706-7.</p><p>Ensign, R. coy. archers 1703, lt.-gen. 1713, capt.-gen. 1715-<em>d</em>.; ld. high adm. [S] 1706-7; v.-adm. [S] 1707-14; council of ld. high adm. Apr.-Oct.1708.</p><p>Fell. Coll. of Physicians, Edinburgh 1705.</p> |
|
<p align="left">Wemyss was ‘a very fine gentleman’, according to the characterization by Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, included in John Macky’s <em>Memoirs</em>: ‘very beautiful, hath good sense, and a man of honour’. Burnet also paid tribute to his ‘Revolution principles’: ‘he, as his family hath ever been, is zealous for the liberty of the people, and for bringing down the power of the crown.’<sup>3</sup> However, Wemyss’s parliamentary career seems to have been influenced primarily by family connections, and by ongoing financial difficulties which were not dispelled by a succession of marriages and necessitated his acquiring the emoluments of office.</p><p>After the death of his maternal grandfather in 1679 Wemyss was accorded the courtesy title of Lord Elcho, since, in accordance with a <em>novodamus </em>of 1672, the earldom of Wemyss and the family estates passed to his mother (his father’s barony of Burntisland had been granted only for life). Little is known of his early education, but from the age of 17 he was in England, where he acquired the gentlemanly accomplishments of riding, fencing and dancing, enabling his admission in due course to the Royal Company of Archers, the monarch’s ceremonial bodyguard in Scotland.<sup>4</sup> He briefly showed an interest in English politics, attending the opening of the English Parliament in November 1695, and some of the ensuing debates, and going to Court in May 1696, when he found the rooms ‘so thronged, that it was difficult to kiss his majesty’s hand’.<sup>5</sup> After he had returned to Scotland and had made an advantageous match with the sister of James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], his mother resigned to him her interest in the bulk of the Wemyss estates. He worked hard to develop the natural resources on the property, which included coal deposits and salt pans, and attempted to establish a glass manufacture.<sup>6</sup> But things did not go well: he confessed to his mother in January 1705 that ‘my circumstances run very parallel with the country’s, both very low at present’, so much so that he could not afford to go to court. Despite his brother-in-law’s prominence in the Edinburgh administration, he was not as yet active in Scottish politics; and as late as the spring of 1705 he was writing to his stepfather, George Mackenzie, earl of Cromartie [S] (who had married Lady Wemyss in 1700), that</p><blockquote><p>folks here are gaping to know how they are to be disposed of, and all sides knowing nothing of the matter … only poor I live here close in the country in the same morose solitude and unconcern as ever. The greatest satisfaction proceeds from a view of not being an actor where there’s danger, but one may come to suffer by others’ procurement, though we are in most profound tranquillity hitherto.<sup>7</sup></p></blockquote><p>Nonetheless, when his mother died, Wemyss took his seat in the Scottish parliament, and in December 1705, while still declaring himself ‘a stranger to politics’, he was recommended by Queensberry as one of the Scots commissioners for the union negotiations.<sup>8</sup> According to David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], Queensberry was concerned ‘that the earl of Wemyss should be named, he having made good advances to his grace’.<sup>9</sup> Wemyss regularly attended the commissioners’ meetings, travelling down to London with Queensberry, and though he made no identifiable contribution to proceedings, he was rewarded in March 1706 with appointment as lord high admiral for Scotland, at a salary of £1,000 p.a.<sup>10</sup> When the Scottish Parliament met in the autumn of 1706 Wemyss supported the Union in the two most important votes, but was absent for more than half the divisions, and on 21 Jan. 1707 joined in asserting the right of the Scottish parliament to decide for itself the manner of selecting Scotland’s representatives in the Parliament of Great Britain.<sup>11</sup> At this time, together with Queensberry’s ally John Erskine*, 22nd earl of Mar [S], he was engaged in meetings with James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], intended to bring Hamilton into support for the Union.<sup>12</sup></p><p>Wemyss was returned on the court slate in 1707 as one of the first batch of Scottish representative peers in the British Parliament. Mar accounted for his inclusion through the Queensberry connection: ‘Lord Wemyss is in the queen’s service in a considerable post, was a treater, of a good family and of interest in the country, and he’s the only relation the commissioner has amongst them, upon all which reasons he could not be left out’.<sup>13</sup> The 1707 analysis by Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], described him as ‘for Revolution but influenced by Queensberry’. At the same time, adverse popular reaction to the Union made Wemyss uncomfortable. In July he complained that</p><blockquote><p>Our people grumble damnably at the coming of exchequer notes, and are mad at the thought of our wines being seized at London, or the necessity of giving bail … they are very angry with me too, because there’s privateers on the coast … my natural inclination is to be easy, and the surest way to purchase that is to hasten away so soon as ever I can, which I’m determined to do.<sup>14</sup></p></blockquote><p>Wemyss took his seat in the Lords on 23 October. He was present on 82 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total, and was named to 17 committees, including an address committee of 13 on 18 December. Otherwise, his only contribution of note was to sign the protest of 7 Feb. 1708 against passing the Squadrone-inspired bill to abolish the Scottish privy council. In May he was classed as a Whig on a printed list of the first Parliament of Great Britain.</p><p>While the Union may have adversely affected his own commercial activities (disrupting the established pattern of trade whereby coal from his estates had been exported to the United Provinces and Dutch goods imported in exchange) Wemyss drew some personal benefits.<sup>15</sup> In compensation for the extinction of the office of lord high admiral of Scotland he was first awarded an annual pension of £1,000 p.a. and subsequently given a new office as vice-admiral for Scotland, at the same salary.<sup>16</sup> On 9 Apr. 1708 Joseph Addison<sup>‡</sup> thought ‘the late intended invasion we hope may have a good influence on elections and recommend such as are entirely in the Revolution principles’ and linked this with the possibility that Wemyss would be appointed to the admiralty Council.<sup>17</sup> Ten days later a commission was issued adding Wemyss to the council, although it lapsed in the following October with the death of Prince George*, duke of Cumberland.</p><p>At the representative peers’ election on 17 June 1708 Wemyss appeared again as a court party candidate. His 51 votes were confined to the court list.<sup>18</sup> The election, however, was hard fought, and several protests were made by defeated candidates. One derived from the fact that Cromartie had only voted for Wemyss and three other court peers; this gave rise to a petition to the Lords, backed by the Squadrone, alleging that the failure to cast all votes invalidated Cromartie’s participation.<sup>19</sup> According to Marchmont, Wemyss only received 40 valid votes.<sup>20</sup> On 21 June Wemyss dined with Sir Alexander Rigby<sup>‡</sup>, Mar, Glasgow, and Peregrine Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later 2nd duke of Leeds), who was also a Scottish peer (as Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S]).<sup>21</sup></p><p>Wemyss arrived in London on 26 Aug. 1708 and thus was in good time for the new Parliament which met on 16 Nov., although there is some confusion as to whether he was actually present that day as he was not marked as having attended, only as having taken the oaths. Upon arrival he wrote to David Leslie*, 5th earl of Leven [S] of ‘the extravagant heart of the Junto’, who would have to ‘spare sail else their party will never keep up with them’, and of their determination to enter a ‘strict enquiry into our elections.’<sup>22</sup> He was present on 58 days of the session, 63 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. Although Wemyss was named in the petition of 18 Nov. complaining of the undue return of four representative peers, on the basis that he had received only 40 valid votes, when the inquiry into the election reported on 1 Feb. 1709, his vote was reduced by only seven and he retained his seat.<sup>23</sup> He had been present on 19 Nov. 1708 when Queensberry was introduced into the House as duke of Dover, and when Queensberry’s right to participate in the election of representative peers was questioned by Hamilton on 21 Jan. 1709, Wemyss rallied to his brother-in-law’s defence and voted in his favour.<sup>24</sup></p><p>The last weeks of the session saw Wemyss active on a matter of acute concern to all Scottish peers: the bill extending English treason laws to Scotland. He was present on 23 Mar. 1709 when the bill passed its third reading and on the 28th signed two protests against it. He was also in the House on 11 Apr. when the bill came back from the Commons and almost certainly attended a meeting two days later of members of the Scottish court interest with lord treasurer Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin, to consider how to respond to the Commons’ amendments. On 14 Apr. he was again present when Charles Montagu*, Baron Halifax, moved a further amendment, that the first clause should come into effect after the death of the Pretender rather than on 1 July 1709. Although ‘all the Scots went one way’ they could not prevent this alteration and were equally powerless to stop the second clause from being similarly amended.<sup>25</sup></p><p>Wemyss remained in London after Parliament was prorogued on 21 Apr. 1709. When Cromartie urged him to reduce his expenditure by returning to live in Scotland he detailed his frugal lifestyle, which, he argued, was less burdensome to his estate than living directly upon it. </p><blockquote><p>I have reduced my family to as narrow a compass as is possible, and I’m sure nobody lives more private. My cook has no occasion to show his skill, and my equipage cannot be plainer then it is. I keep no table, nor no company eats with me but very rarely, when I desire it, and these only the admirals and gentlemen that are concerned in the sea and Admiralty Office, and with this design only—not to lose my friendship and interest with them, so as I may still be as serviceable as I can to serve my country or countrymen … As for the rattle and pleasures of London, nobody is or can be less affected with these then I am, and my wife has as little taste of them as one could wish. Plays and operas and park are places either of us are very seldom seen in, and, baiting visits, which we have no fondness for, but must just keep up mannerly with the world, we live as retired as if we were in the Highlands of Scotland. But the main thing of all is, how could I pretend to retire from the Parliament so long as I am in the queen’s service, and favour too, I hope. That would indeed be an effectual way to lose both; and then, I doubt, my estate would suffer more by my being thrown upon it, then all the advantage my overseeing of it could amount to … no earl of Wemyss ever was, that spent so little out of his own estate by a half and more than I’ve done these four year past, which I reckon very good service done the family. And should I now retire, when, suppose I’m not very young, yet but in a manner entering into the world, I know and you know, both that one is pretty much forgot, and often more neglected. This is not [to] say I’ve turned my back upon Scotland, for I do resolve to be as much and as often there as I can.<sup>26</sup></p></blockquote><p>His obvious need for further preferment presumably explains why in January 1709 he was thought likely to be given a vacancy on the Board of Trade; and why in the summer he was paid £250 as ‘royal bounty’ and granted a civil list pension of £500 p.a. in addition to his salary as vice-admiral.<sup>27</sup></p><p>Wemyss attended the prorogation of 6 Oct. 1709. During the winter session of 1709-10, perhaps aware of his need to be visible, Wemyss attended 74 per cent of the sittings and was named to 22 committees. However, by this time Queensberry’s party was disintegrating. Queensberry himself was being sidelined while his former lieutenant, Mar, was moving into alignment with Robert Harley*, (later earl of Oxford). Wemyss had always been on close terms with Mar, and seems to have sensed a shift in the political wind. In mid-January 1710 Richard Dongworth informed William Wake*, bishop of Lincoln that Wemyss was one of those Scottish peers ‘not disaffected’ to Episcopalianism.<sup>28</sup> Sacheverell’s impeachment trial indicated some movement. On 14 Mar. 1710, Wemyss joined Hamilton, Mar, David Carnegie*, 4th earl of Northesk (Wemyss’s brother-in-law), John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S], and Archibald Campbell*, earl of Ilay [S], in voting and protesting against the decision not to adjourn the House following the report of the committee charged with investigating precedents that in impeachments for high crimes and misdemeanors, it was necessary to specify expressly the particular words supposed to be criminal. However, when the substantive question was put, Wemyss and the Campbell brothers voted the other way.<sup>29</sup> On 16 Mar. Wemyss voted along with Hamilton, Mar, and Northesk against putting the question that the Commons had made good the first article of the impeachment, on the grounds that ‘there are no reflections therein contained on the memory of the late King William, nor the Revolution; and that there is no offence charged therein upon Doctor Sacheverell against any known law of the land’. He signed the subsequent protest.<sup>30</sup> However, he did not subscribe the protest after the question had been put and resolved in the affirmative. On 20 Mar., to the surprise of John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, Wemyss voted Sacheverell not guilty.<sup>31</sup> The next day Wemyss again divided in favour of Sacheverell, on the question of denying him future preferment.<sup>32</sup> On 30 Mar. 1710 he was named as one of the conference managers on the Eddystone Lighthouse Bill.</p><p>However the most important piece of legislation for Wemyss in this session related to his second marriage, in January 1709. This was a very favourable match, since his new wife, one of two daughters and coheiresses of a Northamptonshire baronet who had died in the early 1690s, was reputedly worth £15,000, and as Lady Pye put it, Wemyss ‘hath two sons and all his land tied.'<sup>33</sup> The bill gave legal force to articles of partition between the earl and countess of Wemyss and the countess’s sister, Anne Robinson, of estates in Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Kent and for vesting their respective moieties in trustees to be sold. It was given a first reading on 24 Feb. 1710, was reported from committee on 13 Mar. by Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and passed the following day. In the Commons the bill was managed by Rochester’s associate, Francis Gwyn<sup>‡</sup>, and after minor amendments, it received the royal assent at the end of the session.<sup>34</sup> In November 1712, shortly after his wife’s death, Wemyss sold one of the estates, Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire, to the lord keeper, Simon Harcourt*, Baron Harcourt, but was forced to take a low offer: even at £17,000 the property was ‘the cheapest pennyworth that ever was bought in Oxfordshire’.<sup>35</sup></p><p>Following the prorogation of 5 Apr., Wemyss attended a further seven prorogations between 18 Apr. and 18 July 1710. By this time he had become firmly attached to Mar’s interest, and, through Mar, to Harley, who in October 1710 obtained from him a detailed report on the administration of the Scottish customs. Wemyss co-operated with Mar in preparing for the peers’ election on 10 Nov. and was present at it (holding the proxies of William Forbes, 12th Lord Forbes [S] and Kenneth Sutherland, 3rd Lord Duffus [S]), but was not re-elected himself, and remained in Scotland.<sup>36</sup> On 9 Jan. 1711 he wrote disconsolately to Harley, ‘the earl of Mar tells me you do me the honour to remember me, and it’s almost the only pleasure I have in this place to think I’m not forgot by those whom I honour and esteem’.<sup>37</sup> In February Harley received a report from Daniel Defoe on the political attitudes of various Scottish peers which in reference to Wemyss read, ‘I cannot say for his steadiness so much, but he stands well enough with the ministers and is generally beloved.’<sup>38</sup> Wemyss continued to cultivate Harley’s goodwill from afar. He was rewarded in 1713 when Harley, now earl of Oxford, afforded him ‘protection’ from inquiries in the Commons into his vice-admiral’s salary.<sup>39</sup></p><p>On <em>An Exact List</em> Wemyss was noted as a ‘Tory patriot’, even though he was no longer in Parliament. Indeed, in Scottish politics he was now strongly identified with the Tory and Episcopalian interest.<sup>40</sup> In the summer of 1712 he signed an address to the queen from the nobility and gentry of Fife, thanking her for communicating the peace terms, in the face of ‘factious and seditious practices at home, and ingratitude abroad’.<sup>41</sup> Then in the following September it was reported that he and a group of Scots peers had gone from Mar’s house ‘in two coaches with six through Stirling to Mr Hunt’s meeting house, to the no small mortification of the Kirk there, where they joined with the most excellent service of the Church of England to their great satisfaction and pleasure, both forenoon and afternoon and heard two sermons’.<sup>42</sup></p><p>Although Wemyss entertained thoughts of standing for election again in 1713, the political situation was unfavourable.<sup>43</sup> At the Hanoverian succession he lost his office and his pension.<sup>44</sup> Despite his closeness to Mar he did not turn to Jacobitism; he was to be found in Edinburgh in December 1715 with other pro-Hanoverian peers, while in his absence Wemyss Castle ‘held out’ against the Pretender’s forces.<sup>45</sup> He signed a petition against the peerage bill in March 1719.<sup>46</sup></p><p>Wemyss died at Wemyss Castle, 13 Mar. 1721, after a short illness.<sup>47</sup> The family remained strongly Episcopalian, and in the ’Forty-Five his grandson David, Lord Elcho, heir apparent to the earldom, held a high command in the forces of Prince Charles Edward, and was subsequently attainted.<sup>48</sup></p> |
G.M.T./D.W.H. |
